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        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 34: 1888
   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
     __________________________________________________________________

                               A Little Sanctuary

   A Sermon

   (No. 2001)

   Intended for Reading on Lord's-day, January 8th, 1888, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At [1]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord God; Although I have cast them far
   off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the
   countries, yet will I be to them, as a little sanctuary in the
   countries where they shall come."Ezekiel 11:16.

   THE TEXT BEGINS WITH "therefore." There was a reason for God's speaking
   in this way. It is profitable to trace the why and the wherefore of the
   gracious words of the Lord. The way by which a promise comes usually
   shines with a trail of light. Upon reading the connection we observe
   that those who had been carried captive were insulted by those who
   tarried at Jerusalem. They spoke in a very cruel manner to those with
   whom they should have sympathized. How often do prosperous brothers
   look with scorn on the unfortunate! Did not Job of old complain, "He
   that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the
   thought of him that is at ease"?

   The Lord hears the unkind speeches of the prosperous when they speak
   bitterly of those who are plunged in adversity. Read the context'"Son
   of man, thy brethren, even thy brethren, the men of thy kindred, and
   all the house of Israel wholly, are they unto whom the inhabitants of
   Jerusalem have said, Get you far from the Lord: unto us is this land
   given in possession." This unbrotherly language moved the Lord to send
   the prophet Ezekiel with good and profitable words to the children of
   the captivity. Many a time the cruel word of man has been the cause of
   a tender word from God. Because of the unkindness of these people,
   therefore God, in lovingkindness, addressed in words of tender grace
   those whom they despised. As, in our Saviour's days, the opposition of
   the Pharisees acted upon the Saviour like a steel to the flint, and
   fetched bright sparks of truth out of him, so the wickedness of man has
   often been the cause why the grace of God has been more fully revealed.
   This is some solace when under the severe chastisement of human
   tongues.

   Personally, I am glad of this comfort. I would gladly be at peace with
   all men: I would not unnecessarily utter a word of provocation; but it
   is a world in which you cannot live at peace unless you are willing to
   be unfaithful to your conscience. Offences, therefore, will come. But
   why should we fret unduly under this trial when we perceive that out of
   opposition to the cause of God occasions arise for the grandest
   displays of God's love and power? If from the showers we gain our
   harvests, we will not mourn when the heavens gather blackness, and the
   rain pours down. If the wrath of man is made to praise the Lord, then
   let man be wrathful if he wills. Brethren, let us brace ourselves to
   bear the bruises of slanderous tongues! Let us take all sharp speeches
   and cutting criticisms to God. It may be that he will hear what the
   enemy has said, and that he will be very pitiful to us. Because of the
   bitterness of the oppressor he will bring home to our heart by the
   Spirit, with greater tenderness and power, some sweet word of his which
   has lain hidden from us in his Book. Be not dismayed, but go to him who
   is the God of all comfort, who comforteth all those that are bowed
   down, and he will give you a word which shall heal your wounds, and
   breathe peace into your spirit.

   Now to proceed at once to our text, seeing that the occasion of it is a
   sufficient preface. Let us notice, first, where God's people may be,
   and yet be God's people. They may be by God's own hand "scattered among
   the countries, and cast far off among the heathen." And, secondly, what
   God will be to them when they are is such circumstances. "Yet will I be
   to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come."
   May the Holy Spirit, who spake by Ezekiel, speak through these words to
   our hearts!

   I. First, then, WHERE GOD'S PEOPLE MAY BE.

   If you ask where they may be, the answer to the question is, first,
   they may be under chastisment.

   If you will remember, in the Book of Deuteronomy, God threatened Israel
   that if they, as a nation, sinned against him, they should be scattered
   among the nations, and cast far off among the heathen. Many a time they
   so sinned. I need not recapitulate the story of their continued
   transgressions and multiplied backslidings. The Lord was slow to fulfil
   his utmost threatenings, but put forth his utmost patience, till there
   was no more room for long-suffering. At last the threatened
   chastisement fell upon them, and fierce nations carried them away in
   bonds to the far-off lands of their dread. They were not utterly
   destroyed: their being scattered among the people showed that they
   still existed. Though they were a people scattered and peeled, yet they
   were a people, even as Israel is to this day. For all that tyrants and
   persecutors have ever done, yet the Jew is still extant among us, even
   as the bush burned with fire, but was not consumed. Israel is still to
   the front, and will be to the world's end. The Lord hath not cast away
   his people, even though he has cast them far off among the heathen. He
   has scattered them among the countries, but they are not absorbed into
   those countries; they still remain a people separated unto the living
   God, in whom he will yet be glorified.

   But, assuredly, the chosen seed came under chastisement. When, by the
   rivers of Babylon, they sat down and wept, yea, they wept when they
   remembered Zion, then were they under the Lord's heavy hand. The
   instructed among them knew that their being in exile was the fruit of
   the transgressions of their fathers, and the result of their own
   offences against God. And yet, though they were under chastisement, God
   loved them, and had a choice word for them, which I will by-and-by
   endeavour to explain to you; for the Lord said, "Although I have cast
   them far off among the heathen, yet will I be to them as a little
   sanctuary." Beloved, you and I may lie under the rod of God, and we may
   smart sorely because of our iniquities, even as David did; and yet we
   may be the children of God towards whom he has thoughts of grace. Our
   moisture may be turned into the drought of summer, while day and night
   the Lord's hand is heavy upon us; we may be in sore temporal trouble,
   and may be compelled by an enlightened conscience to trace our sorrow
   to our own folly. We may be in great spiritual darkness, and may be
   compelled to confess that our own sins have procured this unto
   ourselves. And yet, for all that, the Lord may have sent the
   chastisement in love, and in nothing else but love; and he may intend
   by it, not our destruction, but the destruction of the flesh; not our
   rejection, but our refining, not our curse, but our cleansing. Let us
   take comfort, seeing that God has a word to say to his mourners and to
   his afflicted, and that word in the text is a "yet" which serves to
   show that there is a clear limit to his anger. He smites, but it is
   with an "although" and a "yet": he scatters them to a distance, but he
   sends a promise after them, and says, "I will be to them as a little
   sanctuary." In the Lord's hand towards his chosen there may be a rod,
   but not a sword. It is a heavy rod, but it is not a rod of iron. It is
   a rod that bruises, but it is not a rod that batters to pieces. God
   tempers our afflictions, severe though they may seem to be; and though,
   apparently, he strikes us with the blows of a cruel one, yet there is a
   depth unutterable of infinite love in every stroke of his hand. His
   anger endureth but for a night: he hastens to display his favour.
   Listen to his own words of overflowing faithfulness: "For a small
   moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.
   In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with
   everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy
   Redeemer." However, it is clear that God's own people may be under
   chastisement.

   But, secondly, wherever they are, whether they are under chastisement
   or not, they are where the Lord has put them. Read the text carefully:
   "Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I
   have scattered them among the countries." The Lord's hand was in their
   banishment and dispersion: Jehovah himself inflicted the chastisement
   for sin. You say to me, "Why, it was Nebuchadnezzar who carried them
   away: the Babylonians and the Chaldeans took them captive." Yes, I know
   it was so; but the Lord regards these as instruments in his hand, and
   he says, "I have done it," just as Job, when the Chaldeans and the
   Sabeans had swept away his property, and his children had been
   destroyed through the agency of Satan, yet said, "The Lord gave, and
   the Lord hath taken away." The Lord was as truly in the taking away as
   he was in the giving. It is well to look beyond all second causes and
   instrumentalities. Do not get angry with those who are the nearer
   agents, but look to the First Cause. Do not get fretting about the
   Chaldeans and Sabeans. Let them alone, and Satan too. What have you to
   do with them? Your business is with God. See his hand, and bow before
   it. Say, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away." Come to that,
   for then you will be able to say, "Blessed be the name of the Lord."
   Though your trials be peculiar, and your way be hedged up, yet the hand
   of the Lord is still in everything; and it behoves you to recognize it
   for your strengthening and consolation.

   Note, next, that the people of God may dwell in places of great
   discomfort. The Jews were not in those days like the English, who
   colonize and find a home in the Far West, or even dwell at ease beneath
   sultry skies. An ancient Hebrew out of his own country was a fish out
   of water: out of his proper element. He was not like the Tyrian, whose
   ship went to Tarshish, and passed the Gates of Hercules, seeking the
   Ultima Thule. The Jew tarried at home. " I dwell among mine own
   people," said a noble woman of that nation; and she did but speak the
   mind of a home-loving people who settled each one upon his own patch of
   ground, and sat down under his vine and fig-tree, none making him
   afraid. Their Lord had driven them into a distant land, to rivers whose
   waters were bitter to their lips, even to the Tigris and the Euphrates.
   They were in a foreign country, where everything was different from
   their ways'where all the customs of the people were strange and
   singular. They would be a marked and despised people, nobody would
   fraternize with them, but all would pass them by in scorn. The Jews
   excited much prejudice, for, as their great adversary, the wicked
   Haman, said, "their laws were diverse from all people," and their
   customs had a peculiarity about them which kept them a distinct race.
   It must have been a great discomfort to God's people to dwell among
   idolaters, and to be forced to witness obscene rites and revolting
   practices. God's own favoured ones in these days may be living where
   they are as much out of place as lambs among wolves, or doves among
   hawks. Do not imagine that God makes a nest of down for all his
   eaglets. Why, they would never take to flying if he did not put thorns
   under them, and stir up their nest that they may take to their wings,
   and learn the heavenward flight to which they are predestinated!
   Perfect comfort on earth is no more to be expected than constant calm
   on the sea. Sleep in the midst of a battle, and ease when on the march,
   would be more in place than absolute rest in this present state. God
   meaneth not his children to take up their inheritance on this side
   Jordan. "This is not your rest: because it is polluted." And so he
   often puts us where we are very uncomfortable. Is there any Christian
   man who can say that he would, if he might, take up his lot for ever in
   this life? No, no. There is an irksomeness about our condition,
   disguise it as we may. In one way or another we are made to remember
   that we are in banishment. We have not yet come unto our rest. That
   rest "remaineth for the people of God," but as yet we have not come
   into the land which the Lord our God has given to us to be our place of
   rest. Some of God's servants feel this in a very peculiar manner, for
   their soul is among lions, and they dwell among those whose tongues are
   set on fire of hell. Abel was hated by Cain, Isaac was mocked by
   Ishmael, Joseph was among envious brethren, Moses was at first rejected
   by Israel, David was pursued by Saul, Elijah was hunted by Jezebel,
   Mordecai was hated by Haman; and yet these men were wisely placed, and
   the Lord was eminently with them. I mention this in order that tried
   believers may still know that, however uncomfortable their position, it
   is nevertheless true that God has put them there for some good end.

   The beloved of God may yet be in a place of great barrenness as to all
   spiritual good. "I have cast them far off among the heathen"'far off
   from my temple'far off from the place of my worship'far off from the
   shrine of my glory. "I have scattered them among the countries," where
   they will learn no good'where, on the contrary, they will see every
   abominable thing, and often feel like Lot, who was vexed with the
   filthy conversation of the people among whom he dwelt. We are not kept
   apart from the wicked by high walls, or guards of heavenly soldiery.
   Even our Lord did not pray that we should be taken out of the world.
   Grace builds neither monasteries nor nunneries. "Woe is me," is
   frequently the cry of God's chosen, "that I sojourn in Mesech, that I
   dwell in the tents of Kedar!" David knew what it was to be cut off from
   the assemblies of the Lord's house, and to be in the cave or in the
   wilderness. It may be so with you, and yet you may be a child of God.
   You may not be out of your place, for the dear path to his abode may go
   straight through this barren land. You may have to pass for many a day
   through this great and terrible wilderness, this land of fiery
   serpents, and of great drought, on your way to the land that floweth
   with milk and honey. To make heaven the sweeter we may find our exile
   made bitter. Our education for eternity may necessitate spiritual
   tribulation, and bereavement from visible comforts. To be weaned from
   all reliance on outward means may be for our good, that we may be
   driven in upon the Lord, and made to know that he is all in all.
   Doubtless the jeers of Babylon endeared the quiet of Zion to the
   banished: they loved the courts of the Lord's house all the more for
   having sighed in the halls of the proud monarch.

   Worse still, the Lord's chosen may be under oppression through
   surrounding ungodliness and sin. The captive Israelites found Babylonia
   and Chaldea to be a land of grievous oppression. They ridiculed them,
   and bade them sing them one of the songs of Zion. They required of them
   mirth when their hearts were heavy. On the festivals of their false
   gods they demanded that the worshippers of the Eternal One should help
   in their choirs, and tune their harps to heathenish minstrelsy. Even
   Daniel, in his high position under the Persian monarch, found that he
   was not without adversaries, who rested not till they had cast him into
   a den of lions. Those who were far away, whether in Babylonia or in
   Persia, found themselves the constant subjects of assault from the
   triumphant foe. They were crushed down, until they cried by reason of
   their oppression. It was not the first time that the people of God had
   been in the iron furnace. Did they not come forth from the house of
   bondage at the first, even from Egypt? Neither was Babylon the last
   place of trial for saints; for until the end of time the seed of the
   serpent will war with the seed of the woman. Is it not still true of
   us, as well as of our Saviour, "Out of Egypt have I called my Son"?
   Expect still to meet with opposition and oppression while you are
   passing to the land where the seed shall possess the heritage. Those of
   us who bear public testimony may have to bear the brunt of the battle,
   and suffer much from angry tongues. Nevertheless, to us it shall be an
   evident token of the Lord's favour, inasmuch as he counts us worthy to
   suffer for his name's sake.

   But enough of that. I am making a very long story about the grievous
   routes through which we wend our way to the Celestial City. We climb on
   hands and knees up the Hill Difficulty; we tremblingly descend the
   steep of Humiliation. We feel our way through the tremendous pass of
   the Shadow of Death, and hasten through Vanity Fair, and walk warily
   across the Enchanted Ground. Not much of the way could one fall in love
   with. Perhaps the only part of it is that Valley of Humiliation, where
   the shepherd boy sat down and sang his ditty among the wild flowers and
   the lambs. One might wish to be always there; but fierce adversaries
   invade even these tranquil meadows, for hard-by where the shepherd sang
   his happy pastoral Christian met Apollyon, and had to struggle hard for
   his life. Do you not remember the spot where

   "The man so bravely played the man,

   He made the fiend to fly"?

   You see where God's people may be, and yet may be none the less, but
   all the more, under the divine protection. Are you in difficult places?
   Be not dismayed, for this way runs the road to glory. Sigh not for the
   dove's wing to hurry to your rest, but take the appointed path: the
   footsteps of your Lord are there.

   II. So, now, I hasten at once into the sweet part of the subject, which
   consists of this: WHAT GOD WILL BE TO HIS PEOPLE WHEN THEY GET INTO
   THESE CIRCUMSTANCES. "Yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in
   the countries where they shall come."

   Brethren, the great sanctuary stood on Mount Sion, "beautiful for
   situation, the joy of the whole earth." That glorious place which
   Solomon had builded was the shrine to which the Hebrew turned his eye:
   he prayed with his window open toward Jerusalem. Alas! when the tribes
   were carried away captive, they could not carry the holy and beautiful
   house with them, neither could they set up its like within the brazen
   gates of the haughty city. "Now," says the Lord God in infinite
   condescension, "I will be a travelling temple to them. I will be as a
   little sanctuary to each one of them. They shall carry my temple about
   with them. Wherever they are, I will be, as it were a holy place to
   them." In using the word "little," the gracious God would seem to say,
   "I will condescend to them, and I will be as they are. I will bow down
   to their littleness, and I will be to each little one of them a little
   sanctuary." Even the temple which Solomon builded was not a fit
   habitation for the infinite Jehovah, and so the Lord will stoop a
   little further, and be unto his people, not as the sanctuary
   "exceedingly magnifical," but as a little temple suitable for the most
   humble individual, rather than as a great temple in which vast
   multitudes could gather. "I will be to them as a little sanctuary" is a
   greatly condescending promise, implying an infinite stoop of love.
   There is a good deal more in my text than I shall be able to bring out,
   and I may seem, in making the attempt, to give you the same thought
   twice over. Please bear with me. Let me begin at the beginning.

   A sanctuary was a place of refuge. You know how Joab fled to the horns
   of the altar to escape from Solomon's armed men: he ran to the temple
   hoping to find sanctuary there. In past ages, churches and abbeys and
   altars have been used as places of sanctuary to which men have fled
   when in danger of their lives. Take that sense, and couple it with the
   cities of refuge which were set up throughout all Israel, to which the
   man who killed another by misadventure might flee to hide himself from
   the manslayer. Now, beloved fellow-believer, wherever you are, wherever
   you dwell, God will be to you a constant place of refuge. You shall
   flee from sin to God in Christ Jesus. You shall flee from an accusing
   conscience to his pardoning love. You shall flee from daily cares to
   him who careth for you. You shall flee from the accusations of Satan to
   the advocacy of Jesus. You shall flee even from yourselves to your
   Lord, and he will be to you in all senses a place of refuge. This is
   the happy harbour of all saints in all weathers. Hither come all
   weather-beaten barques, and cast anchor in placid waters.

   "God is our refuge, tried and proved,

   Amid a stormy world:

   We will not fear though earth be moved,

   And hills in ocean hurled,"

   O my hearer, make the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy
   habitation, and then shalt thou know the truth of this text: "God is
   our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Wherever thou
   art cast, God will be to thee a suitable refuge, a little haven for thy
   little boat: not little in the sense that he cannot well protect thee;
   not little in the sense that his word is a small truth, or a small
   comfort, or a small protection, but little in this respect'that it
   shall be near thee, accessible to thee, adapted to thee. It is as
   though the refuge were portable in all our wanderings, a protection to
   be carried and kept in hand in all weathers. Thou shalt carry it about
   with thee wherever thou art, this "little sanctuary." Thy God, and thy
   thoughts of thy God, and thy faith in thy God, shall be to thee a
   daily, perpetual, available, present refuge. Oh, it is a delightful
   thought to my mind, that from every danger and every storm God will be
   to us an immediate refuge, which we carry about with us, so that we
   abide under the shadow of the Almighty!

   Next, a sanctuary signifies also a place of worship. It is a place
   where the divine presence is peculiarly manifested'a holy place. It
   usually means a place where God dwells, a place where God has promised
   to meet with his people, a place of acceptance where prayers, and
   praises, and offerings come up with acceptance on his altar. Now,
   notice, God says to his people, when they are far away from the temple
   and Jerusalem, "I will be to them as a little sanctuary." Not, "I have
   loved the people, and I will build them a synagogue, or I will lead
   others to build for them a meeting-place; but I myself will be to them
   as a little sanctuary." The Lord Jesus Christ himself is the true place
   of worship for saved souls. "There is no chapel in the place where I
   live," says one. I am sorry to hear it, but chapels are not absolutely
   essential to worship, surely. Another cries, "There is no place of
   public worship of any sort where the gospel is fully and faithfully
   preached." This is a great want, certainly, but still, do not say, "I
   am far away from a place of worship." That is a mistake. No godly man
   is far away from a holy place. What is a place of worship? I hope that
   our bed-chambers are constantly places of worship. Place of worship?
   Why, it is one's garden where he walks and meditates. A place of
   worship? It is the field, the barn, the street, when one has the heart
   to pray. God will meet us by a well, a stone, a bush, a brook, a tree.
   He has great range of trysting-places when men's hearts are right.

   "Where'er we seek him he is found,

   And every place is hallowed ground."

   When a man lives near to God, and abides in him, he should shake off
   the folly of superstition, and talk no more of holy places. God
   himself, his own presence makes a place of worship. Do you not catch
   the fulness of the thought? Yonder is Jacob. He lies down to sleep in a
   desert place with a stone for his pillow. No bishop had ever been upon
   the spot to consecrate it, no service had been held in the place by way
   of dedication, and yet when he awoke in the morning, he said, "How
   dreadful is this place! This is none other but the house of God, and
   this is the gate of heaven." God had been to his servant a little
   sanctuary in that instance, as he has been oftentimes since. Whenever
   you go to sea, God in your cabin shall be to you a little sanctuary.
   When you travel by railway, the carriage shall, through the Lord's
   presence, be a little sanctuary. God's presence, seen in a bit of moss,
   made in the desert for Mungo Park a little sanctuary. How often have
   the streets of London been to some of us as the golden pavements of the
   New Jerusalem, for God has been there! The Lord himself is the temple
   of saints in heaven, and he is their temple on earth. When God draws
   near to us, we worship and rejoice. Whenever we are abroad, and cannot
   come to the visible sanctuary where multitudes worship, let us ask the
   Lord to be to us as "a little sanctuary." Have not your hearts cried
   out as you have thought of this house when you have been far
   away'"Ziona, Ziona, the place of our solemn assemblies, when shall we
   return to thee? O sacred spot, where we have worshipped God, and God
   has met with us, and made the place of his feet glorious, when shall we
   again behold thee"? I shall not contend with the feeling; but I would
   supplant it with this higher thought: the Lord himself is our
   dwelling-place, and our holy temple. Hath he not said, "I will be to
   them as a little sanctuary"?

   Now, go a little farther. Our God is to us a place of stillness. What
   was the sanctuary of old? The sanctuary was the most holy place, the
   third court, the innermost of all within the veil. It was the stillest
   place that ever was on earth: a closet of absolute silence. You must
   not think of the tabernacle in the wilderness as being a huge building.
   It was a small affair, and the innermost room of all was of narrow
   dimensions. The Holy of Holies was great for holiness, but not for
   space. There was this peculiarity about it, that it was the shrine of
   unbroken quiet. Was ever a voice heard in it? Once in the year the
   high-priest went in, and filled it full of the smoke of incense as he
   waved his censor in the mystic presence; but otherwise it was a chamber
   in which there was no footfall of living thing, or voice of mortal man.
   Here was the home of absolute quiet and silence. The stillness within
   the Holy of Holies of the temple must have reached the intensity of
   awe. What repose one might enjoy who could dwell in the secret place of
   the Most High! How one sighs for stillness! We cannot get it to the
   full anywhere in this country: even to the loneliest hill-top the
   scream of the railway-engine rises to the ear. Utter and entire
   stillness, one of the richest joys on this side heaven, one cannot
   readily obtain. Those who live in the wear and tear of this city
   life'and it is an awful wear and tear'might well pay down untold gold
   to be still for a while. What would we not give for quiet, absolute
   quiet, when everything should be still, and the whirring wheels of care
   should cease to revolve for at least a little while?

   I sometimes propose to myself to wait upon God and be still. Alas!
   There is the bell! Who is this? Somebody that will chatter for a
   quarter of an hour about nothing! Well, that intruder has gone; let us
   pray. We are on our knees. What is this? A telegram! One is half
   frightened at the very sight of it: it is opened, and it calls you away
   to matters which are the reverse of quieting. Where is stillness to be
   had? The only prescription I can give is this promise: "I will be to
   them as a little sanctuary." If you can get with God, you will then
   escape from men, even though you have to live among them. If you can
   baptize your spirit into the great deeps of Godhead, if you can take a
   plunge into the fathomless love of the covenant, if you can rise to
   commune with God, and speak with him as a man speaketh with his friend,
   then will he be unto you as a little sanctuary, and you shall enjoy
   that solemn silence of the soul which hath music in it like the eternal
   harmonies. The presence of the Lord will be as a calm hand for that
   fevered brow, and a pillow for that burdened head. Use your God in this
   way, for so he presents himself to you.

   The sanctuary was a place of mercy. When the high-priest entered within
   the veil, he passed into the throne-room of mercy. The blood had been
   sprinkled there, and man might draw near to the God of mercy. A light
   was shining'a light of love and mercy, between the wings of the
   cherubim. Those angelic forms were ministers of mercy, attendants upon
   the Lord of grace. Before the high-priest stood the mercy-seat. That
   was the name of the cover of the sacred ark of the covenant. On that
   mercy-seat there was the shechinah, which symbolized the presence of a
   merciful God. Of that mercy-seat the Lord had said, "There will I meet
   with you." The holy place was a house of mercy. God was not there in
   power to destroy, nor in subtle wisdom to discover folly: he was there
   in mercy, waiting to forgive. Now, dear friends, God says, "I will be
   to them as a little sanctuary," that is to say, an accessible throne of
   mercy, an accessible place of mercy. When men have no mercy on you, go
   to God. When you have no mercy on yourself'and sometimes you have
   not'run away to God. Draw near to him, and he will be to you as a
   little sanctuary.

   The sanctuary was the house of mercy, and hence, a place of
   condescension"a little sanctuary." Brethren, to suit our needs the
   blessings of grace must be given in little forms. What are we great in
   at all except in sin? We hear of "great men." O friends, a great man!
   Does not the term make you laugh? Did you ever hear of a great ant, or
   a great emmet, or a great nothing? And that is all that the greatest of
   us can ever be. Our degrees and ranks are only shades of littleness;
   that is all. When the Lord communes with the greatest of men, he must
   become little to speak with him.

   I cannot convey to you quite what I see to be the meaning of this
   little sanctuary, laying the stress upon the adjective "little." If you
   are talking of anything that is very dear, the tendency is always to
   call it "little." The affectionate terms of language are frequently
   diminutives. One never says, "My dear great wife," but we are apt to
   say, "My dear little wife." We speak thus of things which are not
   "little" really, but we use the word as a term of affection. To speak
   very simply, there is a cosiness about a little thing which we miss in
   that which is on a large scale. We say, "Well, I did so enjoy that
   little prayer-meeting; but when it grew so much in numbers I seemed
   lost in it." It is to me so marvellous that I hardly dare to say what I
   mean; but when the Lord brings himself down to our capacity he is
   greatly dear to us, and he would have us feel at home with him,
   comfortable with him. When he becomes to us "as a little sanctuary,"
   and we are able to compass his mercy to ourselves, and perceive its
   adaptation to our little trials and little difficulties, then we feel
   ourselves at home with him, and he is most dear to us. O thou blessed
   God, thou art so great, that thou must, as it were, belittle thyself to
   manifest thyself to me; how I love and adore thee that thou wilt deign
   to do this! Glory be to thy great name, though the heaven of heavens
   cannot contain thee, yet thou dwellest in the temple of my poor heart!

   Dear brethren, the sanctuary was only a little place. But then, if it
   had been ever so great'if it had been as spacious as this whole island,
   and had been shut in to be the house of God'would it have been a house
   fitted to contain the infinite God? If you take the arch of heaven as a
   roof, and floor it with the sea, or if you soar into still more
   boundless space, is that a house fit for him who filleth all immensity?
   When Jehovah makes himself little enough to be in the least
   comprehended by us, the descent is immeasurable. It is nothing more to
   him to come down to count the hairs of our head than to bow in the
   infinity of his mercy to take an interest in our littlenesses.

   Go a stage further. That sanctuary, of which we read in the Old
   Testament, was not only a place of great stillness, great mercy, and
   great condescension but it was a place of great holiness. "Holiness
   becometh thy house." This applied to the whole temple, but the inner
   shrine was called "sanctum sanctorum"'the Holy of Holies, for so the
   Hebrews make a superlative. It was the holiest place that could be. The
   world is an unholy place, and at times it is most grievously so. You
   mix up with people who defile you; how can you help it? Your daily
   business calls you to see and hear many things which are defiling. When
   these things are more than ordinarily glaring, you say to yourself,
   "Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness, that I might get away from
   the very sight of men!" I was with a mountain-climbing friend some time
   ago, and being thirsty, I drank some water from a fountain by the
   roadside. when I held the cup to my companion, he refused it, saying,
   "I don't drink that." I said, "Why don't you drink it?" He answered, "I
   wait till I have climbed up into the mountains, where mortal men never
   pollute the streams, and then I drink. I like drinking of fountains at
   which none but birds sip: where the stream pours forth from God's hand
   pure as crystal." Alas! I cannot climb with my Alpine friend as to
   material things; but what a blessed thing it is to get right away from
   man, and drink of the river of God which is full of water, and know the
   joys of his own right hand, which are for evermore! What bliss to enter
   into the Holy of Holies! Now, you cannot do that by getting into a
   cell, or by shutting yourselves up in your room; but you can enter the
   most holy place by communion with God. Here is the promise; the text
   means this'" I will be to them as a little sanctuary'a little Holy of
   Holies. I will put them into myself as into the most holy place, and
   there will I hide them. In the secret of my tabernacle will I hide
   them. I will set them up upon a rock." Away from the unholiness of your
   own hearts, and the unholiness of those about you, get to your God, and
   hide yourselves in him.

   Again, we may regard the sanctuary as a place of cleansing. That may be
   gathered from the other rendering of my text. "I will be unto them a
   little sanctification." God is the sanctification of his people he
   cleanses them from daily defilements, and is himself their
   righteousness. Those that come to God shall find in him sanctification
   for the daily acts of life, cleansing from ordinary as well as
   extraordinary transgression. We want not only the great blood-washing,
   but also the lesser washing of the feet with water; and the Lord
   himself will give us this blessing. Did not Jesus take a towel, and
   gird himself for this very purpose?

   Lastly, God will be to us a place of communion and of revelation. In
   the Holy of Holies God spoke with man, on that one day in the year, in
   a wondrous manner; and he that had been there, and came forth alive,
   came out to bless the congregation. Every day of the year the teaching
   of the sanctuary was that in God there was everything his people
   wanted. In the holy place was the shechinah light, and "God is light,
   and in him is no darkness at all." "The Lord is my light and my
   salvation." In the holy place were the cherubim: God has legions of
   angels at his bidding, waiting to bless his people. In the holy place
   was the ark: God is to us the ark of the covenant. He has entered into
   covenant with men, towards us he has a throne of grace, and there he
   meets us, even in Christ Jesus, who is our propitiation.

   Within that ark there were three things: the rod of Aaron, that divine
   work of Christ which always buds; the pot of manna, the emblem and
   token of the living bread whereon his people feed; and the tablets of
   the law unbroken, in all their splendour, whereby the saints are
   justified. O brethren, if you want anything, if you want everything, go
   to God for it! He will be to you as a little sanctuary; that is to say,
   he will bring to you everything which was inside that holy place.
   Though but one piece of furniture, yet that ark of the covenant did
   really contain in itself, and round about it, all that the heirs of God
   can ever need while in this wilderness. Let this be a joy to you this
   day. Do not rely upon the creature. "All men are liars," said David;
   and he was not far out. Broken cisterns abound on all sides; why waste
   your time on them? Get you straight away to your Creator, and find your
   all in him. If this day you are wrapped up in the things that are seen
   and temporal, may God deliver you therefrom, for all these things will
   melt as you hold them in your hand! The joys of this life are like the
   ice palace of Montreal, which is fair to look upon while the winter
   lasts, but it all dissolves as the spring comes on. All things round
   about us here are myths and dreams. This is the land of fancies and of
   shadows. Pray God to get you our of them, and that you may find in him
   your sanctuary, and indeed all that you want.

   If at this time you have lost many of the comforts of this life, and
   seem bereaved of friends, then find in God your "little sanctuary." Go
   home to your chamber with holy faith and humble love, and take him to
   be your all in all, and he will be all in all to you. Pray after this
   fashion'"O Lord, so work in me by thy Spirit that I may find thee in
   all things, and all things in thee!"

   The Lord has ways of weaning us from the visible and the tangible, and
   bringing us to live upon the invisible and the real, in order to
   prepare us for that next stage, that better life, that higher place,
   where we shall really deal with eternal things only. God blows out our
   candles, and makes us find our light in him, to prepare us for that
   place in which they need no candle, for the glory of God is their
   light; and where, strange to tell, they have no temple, for the Lord
   God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple thereof. The holy leads to the
   holiest: living upon God here leads to living with God hereafter. Oh,
   that God would gradually lift us up above all the outward, above all
   the visible, and bring as more and more into the inward and unseen! If
   you do not know anything about this, ask the Lord to teach you this
   riddle; and if you do know it, ask him to keep you to the life and walk
   of faith, and never may you be tempted to quit it for the way of sight
   and feeling. For Christ's sake we ask it. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'Ezekiel 11.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"'196, 198, 708.
     __________________________________________________________________

Young Man, Is This For You?

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, JANUARY 15, 1888,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And it came to pass the day after, that He went into a city called
   Nain; and many of His disciples went with Him and much people. Now when
   He came near to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man
   carried out, the only son of his mother and she was a widow: and much
   people of the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, He had
   compassion on her and said unto her, Weep not. And He came and touched
   the bier: and they that bare him stood stiil. And He said, Young man I
   say unto you, Arise. And he that was dead sat up and began to speak.
   And He delivered him to his mother. And there came a fear on all: and
   they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up among us;
   and, That God has visited His people. And this rumor of Him went forth
   throughout all Judea and throughout all the region round about." Luke
   7:11-17.

   BEHOLD, dear Brethren, the overflowing, ever-flowing power of our Lord
   Jesus Christ! He had worked a great work upon the centurion's servant,
   and now, only a day after, he raises the dead. "It came to pass the day
   after, that He went into a city called Nain." Day unto day utters
   speech concerning His deeds of goodness. Did He save your friend
   yesterday? His fullness is the same. If you seek Him, His love and
   grace will flow to you today. He blesses this day and He blesses the
   day after. Never is our Divine Lord compelled to pause until He has
   recruited His resources. Virtue goes out of Him forever. These
   thousands of years have not diminished the greatness of His power to
   bless.

   Behold, also, the readiness and naturalness of the outgoings of His
   life-giving power. Our Savior was journeying and He works miracles
   while on the road--"He went into a city called Nain." It was
   incidentally, (some would say accidentally), that He met the funeral
   procession. But at once He restored to life this dead young man. Our
   blessed Lord was not standing still, as one professionally called
   in--He does not seem to have come to Nain at anyone's request for the
   display of His love. But He was passing through the gate into the city
   for some reason which is not recorded.

   See, my Brethren, how the Lord Jesus is always ready to save! He healed
   the woman who touched him in the throng when He was on the road to
   quite another person's house. The mere spilling and droppings of the
   Lord's cup of grace are marvelous. Here He gives life to the dead when
   He is en route. He scatters His mercy by the roadside and anywhere and
   everywhere His paths drop fatness. No time, no place can find Jesus
   unwilling or unable. When Baal is on a journey, or sleeps, his deluded
   worshippers cannot hope for his help. But when Jesus journeys or
   sleeps, a word will find Him ready to conquer death, or quell the
   tempest.

   It was a remarkable incident, this meeting of the two processions at
   the gates of Nain. If someone with a fine imagination could picture it,
   what an opportunity he would have for developing his poetical genius! I
   venture on no such effort. Yonder a procession descends from the city.
   Our spiritual eyes see death upon the pale horse coming forth from the
   city gate with great exultation. He has taken another captive. Upon
   that bier behold the spoils of the dread conqueror! Mourners, by their
   tears, confess the victory of death. Like a general riding in triumph
   to the Roman capitol, death bears his spoils to the tomb. What shall
   hinder him?

   Suddenly the procession is arrested by another--a company of disciples
   and much people are coming up the hill. We need not look at the company
   but we may fix our eyes upon One who stands in the center, a Man in
   whom lowliness was always evident and yet majesty was never wanting. It
   is the living Lord, even He who only has immortality and in Him death
   has now met his destroyer. The battle is short and decisive--no blows
   are struck--for death has already done his

   utmost. With a linger the chariot of death is arrested--with a word the
   spoil is taken from the mighty and the lawful captive is delivered.

   Death flies defeated from the gates of the city, while Tabor and
   Hermon, which both looked down upon the scene, rejoice in the name of
   the Lord. This was a rehearsal upon a small scale of that which shall
   happen by-and-by, when those who are in their graves shall hear the
   voice of the Son of God and live--then shall the last enemy be
   destroyed. Only let death come into contact with Him who is our life
   and it is compelled to relax its hold. Whatever may be the spoil which
   it has captured, soon shall our Lord come in His glory and then before
   the gates of the New Jerusalem we shall see the miracle at the gates of
   Nain multiplied a myriad times.

   Thus, you see, our subject would naturally conduct us to the doctrine
   of the resurrection of the dead, which is one of the foundation stones
   of our most holy faith. That grand Truth of God I have often declared
   to you and will do so again and again. But at this time I have selected
   my text for a very practical purpose. It concerns the souls of some for
   whom I am greatly anxious. The narrative before us records a fact, a
   literal fact--but the record may be used for spiritual instruction. All
   our Lord's miracles were intended to be parables--they were intended to
   instruct as well as to impress-- they are sermons to the eyes, just as
   His spoken discourses were sermons to the ears. We see here how Jesus
   can deal with spiritual death. And how He can impart spiritual life at
   His pleasure. Oh, that we may see this done this morning in the midst
   of this great assembly!

   I. I shall ask you first, dear Friends, to reflect that THE SPIRITUALLY
   DEAD CAUSE GREAT GRIEF TO THEIR GRACIOUS FRIENDS. If an ungodly man is
   favored to have Christian relatives, he causes them much anxiety. As a
   natural fact, this dead young man, who was being carried out to his
   burial, caused his mother's heart to burst with grief. She showed by
   her tears that her heart was overflowing with sorrow. The Savior said
   to her, "Weep not," because He saw how deeply she was troubled. Many of
   my dear young friends may be deeply thankful that they have friends who
   are grieving over them. It is a sad thing that your conduct should
   grieve them--but it is a hopeful circumstance for you that you have
   those around you who do thus grieve.

   If all approved of your evil ways, you would, no doubt, continue in
   them and go speedily to destruction. But it is a blessing that
   arresting voices do at least a little hinder you. Besides, it may yet
   be that our Lord will listen to the silent oratory of your mother's
   tears and that this morning He may bless you for her sake. See how the
   Evangelist puts it-- "When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her
   and said unto her, Weep not." And then He said to the young man,

   "Arise."

   Many young persons who are in some respects amiable and hopeful,
   nevertheless, being spiritually dead, are causing great sorrow to those
   who love them most. It would perhaps be honest to say that they do not
   intend to inflict all this sorrow. Indeed, they think it quite
   unnecessary. Yet they are a daily burden to those whom they love. Their
   conduct is such that when it is thought over in the silence of their
   mother's chamber, she cannot help but weep. Her son went with her to
   the House of God when he was a boy, but now he finds his pleasure in a
   very different quarter.

   Being beyond all control now, the young man does not choose to go with
   his mother. She would not wish to deprive him of his liberty, but she
   laments that he exercises that liberty so unwisely. She mourns that he
   has not the inclination to hear the Word of the Lord and become a
   servant of his mother's God. She had hoped that he would follow in his
   father's footsteps and unite with the people of God. But he takes quite
   the opposite course. She has seen a good deal about him lately which
   has deepened her anxiety--he is forming companionships and other
   connections which are sadly harmful to him. He has a distaste for the
   quietude of home and he has been exhibiting to his mother a spirit
   which wounds her.

   It may be that what he has said and done is not meant to be unkind. But
   it is very grievous to the heart which watches over him so tenderly.
   She sees a growing indifference to everything that is good and an
   unconcealed intention to see the vicious side of life. She knows a
   little and fears more as to his present state and she dreads that he
   will go from one sin to another till he ruins himself for this life and
   the next. O Friends, it is to a gracious heart a very great grief to
   have an unconverted child. And yet more so if that child is a mother's
   boy, her only boy, and she a desolate woman, from whom her husband has
   been snatched away.

   To see spiritual death rampant in one so dear is a sore sorrow which
   causes many a mother to mourn in secret and pour out her soul before
   God. Many a Hannah has become a woman of a sorrowful spirit through her
   own child. How sad that he who should have made her the most glad among
   women has filled her life with bitterness! Many a mother has

   had to grieve over her son as almost to cry, "Would God he had never
   been born!" It is so in thousands of cases. If it is so in your case,
   dear Friend, take home my words to yourself and reflect upon them.

   The cause of grief lies here--we mourn that they should be in such a
   case. In the story before us the mother wept because her son was dead.
   And we sorrow because our young friends are spiritually dead. There is
   a life infinitely higher than the life which quickens our material
   bodies. And oh, that all of you knew it! You who are unrenewed do not
   know anything about this true life. Oh, how we wish you did! It seems
   to us a dreadful thing that you should be dead to God, dead to Christ,
   dead to the Holy Spirit. It is sad, indeed, that you should be dead to
   those Divine Truths which are the delight and strength of our
   souls--dead to those holy motives which keep us back from evil and spur
   us on to virtue.

   Dead to those sacred joys which often bring us very near the gates of
   Heaven. We cannot look at a dead man and feel joy in him, whoever he
   may be--a corpse, however delicately dressed, is a sad sight. We cannot
   look upon you, you poor dead souls, without crying out, "O God, shall
   it always be so? Shall not these dry bones live? Will You not quicken
   them?" The Apostle speaks of one who lived in pleasure and he said of
   her, "She is dead while she lives." Numbers of persons are dead in
   reference to all that is true and noble and most Divine. And yet in
   other respects they are full of life and activity. Oh, to think that
   they should be dead to God and yet so full of happiness and energy!
   Marvel not that we grieve about them.

   We also mourn because we lose the help and comfort which they ought to
   bring us. This widowed mother no doubt mourned her boy not only because
   he was dead but because in him she had lost her earthly stay. She must
   have regarded him as the staff of her age and the comfort of her
   loneliness. "She was a widow"--I question if anybody but a widow
   understands the full sorrow of that word. We may put ourselves by
   sympathy into the position of one who has lost her other self, the
   partner of her life. But the most tender sympathy cannot fully realize
   the actual cleavage of bereavement and the desolation of love's loss.
   "She was a widow"--the sentence sounds like a knell.

   Still, if the sun of her life was gone, there was a star shining. She
   had a boy, a dear boy, who promised her great comfort. He would, no
   doubt, supply her necessities and cheer her loneliness and in him her
   husband would live again and his name would remain among the living in
   Israel. She could lean on him as she went to the synagogue. She would
   have him to come home from his work at evening and keep the little home
   together and cheer her hearth. Alas, that star is swallowed up in the
   darkness. He is dead and today he is carried to the cemetery.

   It is the same spiritually with us in reference to our unconverted
   friends. With regard to you that are dead in sin we feel that we miss
   the aid and comfort which we ought to receive from you in our service
   of the living God. We want fresh laborers in all sorts of places--in
   our Sunday school work, our mission among the masses and in all manner
   of service for the Lord we love! Ours is a gigantic burden and we long
   for our sons to put their shoulders to it. We looked forward to seeing
   you grow up in the fear of God and stand side by side with us in the
   great warfare against evil and in holy labor for the Lord Jesus.

   But you cannot help us, for you are yourselves on the wrong side. Alas,
   alas, you hinder us by causing the world to say, "See how those young
   men are acting!" We have to spend thought and prayer and effort over
   you which might usefully have gone forth for others. Our care for
   yonder great dark world which lies all around us is very pressing but
   you do not share it with us--men are perishing from lack of knowledge
   and you do not help us in endeavoring to enlighten them.

   A further grief is that we can have no fellowship with them. The mother
   at Nain could have no communion with her dear son now that he was dead,
   for the dead know not anything. He can never speak to her, nor she to
   him, for he is on the bier, "a dead man carried out." O my Friends,
   certain of you have dear ones whom you love and they love you. But they
   cannot hold any spiritual communion with you, nor you with them. You
   never bow the knee together in private prayer, nor mingle heart with
   heart in the appeal of faith to God as to the cares which prowl around
   your home. O young man, when your mother's heart leaps for joy because
   of the love of Christ shed abroad in her soul, you cannot understand
   her joy. Her feelings are a mystery to you.

   If you are a dutiful son, you do not say anything disrespectful about
   her religion. But yet you cannot sympathize in its sorrows or its joys.
   Between your mother and you there is upon the best things a gulf as
   wide as if you were actually dead on the bier and she stood weeping
   over your corpse. I remember, in the hour of overwhelming anguish when
   I feared that my beloved wife was about to be taken from me, how I was
   comforted by the loving prayers of my two dear sons--we had commun-

   ion not only in our grief but in our confidence in the living God. We
   knelt together and poured out our hearts unto God and we were
   comforted.

   How I blessed God that I had in my children such sweet support! But
   suppose they had been ungodly young men? I should have looked in vain
   for holy fellowship and for aid at the Throne of Grace. Alas, in many a
   household the mother cannot have communion with her own son or daughter
   on that point which is most vital and enduring because they are
   spiritually dead-- while she has been quickened into newness of life by
   the Holy Spirit.

   Moreover, spiritual death soon produces manifest causes for sorrow. In
   the narrative before us the time had come when her son's body must be
   buried. She could not wish to have that dead form longer in the home
   with her. It is a token to us of the terrible power of death that it
   conquers love with regard to the body. Abraham loved his Sarah. But
   after a while he had to say to the sons of Heth, "Give me a possession
   of a burying place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight."
   It happens in some mournful cases that character becomes so bad that no
   comfort in life can be enjoyed while the erring one is within the home
   circle.

   We have known parents who have felt that they could not have their son
   at home so drunken, so debauched had he become. Not always wisely, yet
   sometimes almost of necessity, the plan has been tried of sending the
   incorrigible youth to a distant colony in the hope that when removed
   from pernicious influences he might do better. How seldom so deplorable
   an experiment succeeds! I have known mothers who could not think of
   their sons without feeling pangs far more bitter than those they
   endured at their birth. Woe, woe to him who causes such heartbreak!
   What an awful thing it is when love's best hopes gradually die down
   into despair and loving desires at last put on mourning and turn from
   prayers of hope to tears of regret!

   Words of admonition call forth such passion and blasphemy that prudence
   almost silences them. Then have we before us the dead young man carried
   out to his grave. A sorrowful voice sobs out, "He is given unto idols,
   let him alone." Am I addressing one whose life is now preying upon the
   tender heart of her that brought him forth? Do I speak to one whose
   outward conduct has at last become so avowedly wicked that he is a
   daily death to those who gave him life? O young man, can you bear to
   think of this? Are you turned to stone? I cannot yet believe that you
   contemplate your parents' heartbreak without bitter feelings. God
   forbid that you should!

   We also mourn because of the future of men dead in sin. This mother,
   whose son had already gone so far in death that he must be buried out
   of sight, had the further knowledge that something worse would befall
   him in the sepulcher to which he was being carried. It was impossible
   for her to think calmly of the corruption which surely follows at the
   heels of death. When we think of what will become of you who refuse the
   Lord Christ we are appalled. "After death the judgment." We could more
   readily go into details as to a putrid corpse than we could survey the
   state of a soul lost forever. We dare not linger at the mouth of Hell.
   But we are forced to remind you that there is a place, "where their
   worm dies not and the fire is not quenched."

   There is a place where those must abide who are driven from the
   presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power. It is an
   unendurable thought that you should be, "cast into the lake of fire,
   which is the second death." I do not wonder that those who are not
   honest with you are afraid to tell you so and that you try yourself to
   doubt it. But with the Bible in your hand and a conscience in your
   bosom you cannot but fear the worst if you remain apart from Jesus and
   the life He freely gives. If you continue as you are and persevere in
   your sin and unbelief to the end of life, there is no help for you but
   that you must be condemned in the Day of Judgment.

   The most solemn declarations of the Word of God assure you that, "he
   that believes not shall be damned." It is heartbreaking work to think
   that this should be the case with any of you. You prattled at your
   mother's knee and kissed her cheek with rapturous love--why, then, will
   you be divided from her forever? Your father hoped that you would take
   his place in the Church of God--how is it that you do not even care to
   follow him to Heaven? Remember, the day comes when, "one shall be
   taken, and the other left." Do you renounce all hope of being with your
   wife, your sister, your mother at the right hand of God? You cannot
   wish them to go down to Hell with you--have you no desire to go to
   Heaven with them?

   "Come, you blessed," will be the voice of Jesus to those who imitated
   their gracious Savior. And "Depart from Me, you cursed, into
   everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels," must be the
   sentence upon all who refuse to be made like the Lord. Why will you
   take your part and lot with accursed ones? I do not know whether you
   find it easy to hear me this morning. I find it very hard to speak to
   you because my lips are not able to express my heart's feelings. Oh
   that I had the forceful utterance of an Isaiah, or the passionate
   lamentations of a Jeremiah with which to arouse your affections and
   your fears! Still, the Holy Spirit can use even me, and I beseech Him
   so to do. But I have said enough on this point. I am sure you see that
   the spiritually dead cause great grief to those of their family who are
   spiritually alive.

   II. Now let me cheer you while I introduce the second head of my
   discourse, which is this--FOR SUCH GRIEF THERE IS ONLY ONE HELPER--BUT
   THERE IS A HELPER.

   This young man is taken out to be buried. But our Lord Jesus Christ met
   the funeral procession. Carefully note the "coincidences," as skeptics
   call them but as we call them--"Providences"--of Scripture. This is a
   fine subject for another time. Take this one case. How came it that the
   young man died just then? How came it that this exact hour was selected
   for his burial? Perhaps because it was evening. But even that might not
   fix the precise moment. Why did the Savior that day arrange to travel
   five-and-twenty miles, so as to arrive at Nain in the evening? How came
   it to pass that He happened just then to be coming from a quarter which
   naturally led Him to enter at that particular gate from which the dead
   would be carried?

   See, He ascends the hill to the little city at the same moment when the
   head of the procession is coming out of the gate! He meets the dead man
   before the place of sepulture is reached. A little later and he would
   have been buried. A little earlier and he would have been at home lying
   in the darkened room and no one might have called the Lord's attention
   to him. The Lord knows how to arrange all things--His forecasts are
   true to the tick of the clock. I hope some great purpose is to be
   fulfilled this morning. I do not know why you, my Friend, came in here
   on a day when I am discoursing on this particular subject. You did not
   think to come, perhaps, but here you are. And Jesus has come here, too.
   He has come here on purpose to meet you and quicken you to newness of
   life. There is no chance about it--eternal decrees have arranged it all
   and we shall soon see that it is so. You spiritually dead are being met
   by Him in whom is life eternal.

   The blessed Savior saw all at a glance. Out of that procession He
   singled out the chief mourner and read her inmost heart. He was always
   tender to mothers. He fixed His eye on that widow. For He knew that she
   was such, without being informed of the fact. The dead man is her only
   son--He perceives all the details and nothing is hid from His infinite
   mind. O young man, Jesus knows all about you. Jesus, who is invisibly
   present this morning, fixes His eyes on you at this moment. He has seen
   the tears of those who have wept for you. He sees that some of them
   despair of you, and are in their great grief acting like mourners at
   your funeral.

   Jesus saw it all and, what was more, entered into it all. Oh, how we
   ought to love our Lord that He takes such notice of our griefs and
   especially our spiritual griefs about the souls of others! You, dear
   Teacher, want your class saved--Jesus sympathizes with you. You, dear
   Friend, have been very earnest to win souls, Know that in all this you
   are workers together with God. Jesus knows all about our travail of
   soul and He is at one with us therein. Our travail is only His own
   travail rehearsed in us, according to our humble measure. When Jesus
   enters into our work it cannot fail. Enter, O Lord, into my work at
   this hour, I pray You, and bless this feeble word to my hearers! I know
   that hundreds of Believers are saying, "Amen." How this cheers me!

   Our Lord proved how He entered into the sorrowful state of things by
   first saying to the widow, "Weep not." At this moment He says to you
   who are praying and agonizing for souls, "Do not despair! Sorrow not as
   those who are without hope! I mean to bless you. You shall yet rejoice
   over life given to the dead." Let us take heart and dismiss all
   unbelieving fear. Our Lord then went to the bier and just laid His
   finger upon it and they that carried it stood still of their own
   accord. Our Lord has a way of making bearers stand still without a
   word. Perhaps, today, yonder young man is being carried further into
   sin by the four bearers of his natural passions, his infidelity, his
   bad company, and his love of strong drink. It may be that pleasure and
   pride, willfulness and wickedness are bearing the four corners of the
   bier. But our Lord can, by His mysterious power, make the bearers stand
   still. Evil influences have become powerless, the man knows not how.

   When they stood quite still, there was a hush. The disciples stood
   around the Lord, the mourners surrounded the widow and the two crowds
   faced each other. There was a little space and Jesus and the dead man
   were in the center. The widow pushed away her veil and gazing through
   her tears wondered what was going on. The Jews who came out of the city
   halted as the bearers had done. Hush! Hush! What will HE do? In that
   deep silence the Lord heard the unspoken prayers of that widow woman. I
   doubt not that her soul began to whisper, half in hope and half in
   fear--"Oh, that He would raise my son!"

   At any rate, Jesus heard the flutter of the wings of desire if not of
   faith. Surely her eyes were speaking as she gazed on Jesus, who had so
   suddenly appeared. Here let us be as quiet as the scene before us. Let
   us be hushed for a minute and pray God to raise dead souls at this
   time. [Here followed a pause, much silent prayer and many tears.]

   III. That hush was not long, for speedily the Great Quickener entered
   upon His gracious work. This is our third point-- JESUS IS ABLE TO WORK
   THE MIRACLE OF LIFE-GIVING.

   Jesus Christ has life in Himself and He quickens whom He will (John
   5:21). Such life is there in Him that "he that lives and believes in
   Him, though he were dead, yet shall he live." Our blessed Lord
   immediately went up to the bier. What lay before Him? It was a corpse.
   He could derive no aid from that lifeless form. The spectators were
   sure that he was dead, for they were

   carrying him out to bury him. No deception was possible, for his own
   mother believed him dead and you may be sure that if there had been a
   spark of life in him she would not have given him up to the jaws of the
   grave. There was then no hope--no hope from the dead man, no hope from
   anyone in the crowd either of bearers or of disciples. They were all
   powerless alike.

   Even so, you, O Sinner, cannot save yourself--neither can any of us--or
   can any of us save you. There is no help for you, dead Sinner, beneath
   yon skies. No help in yourself or in those who love you most. But, lo,
   the Lord has laid help on One that is mighty. If Jesus wants the least
   help, you cannot render it, for you are dead in sins. There you lie,
   dead on the bier and nothing but the sovereign power of Divine
   omnipotence can put heavenly life into you. Your help must come from
   above.

   While the bier stood still, Jesus spoke to the dead young man, spoke to
   him personally--"Young man, I say unto you, Arise." O Master,
   personally speak to some young man this morning. Or, if You will, speak
   to the old, or speak to a woman. But speak the Word home to them. We
   mind not where the Lord's voice may fall. Oh that it would now call
   those around me, for I feel that there are dead ones all over the
   building! I stand with biers all about me and dead ones on them. Lord
   Jesus, are You not here? What is wanted is Your personal call. Speak,
   Lord, we beseech You!

   "Young man," said He, "Arise." And He spoke as if the man had been
   alive. This is the Gospel way. He did not wait till He saw signs of
   life before He bade him rise. But to the dead man He said, "Arise."
   This is the model of Gospel preaching--in the name of the Lord Jesus,
   His commissioned servants speak to the dead as if they were alive. Some
   of my Brethren laugh at this and say that it is inconsistent and
   foolish. But all through the New Testament it is even so. There we
   read, "Arise from the dead and Christ shall give you light." I do not
   attempt to justify it. It is more than enough for me that so I read the
   Word of God. We are to bid men believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, even
   though we know that they are dead in sin and that faith is the work of
   the Spirit of God.

   Our faith enables us, in God's name, to command dead men to live and
   they do live. We bid unbelieving man believe in Jesus and power goes
   with the Word and God's elect do believe. It is by this Word of faith
   which we preach that the voice of Jesus sounds out to men. The young
   man who could not rise, for he was dead, nevertheless did rise when
   Jesus bade him. Even so, when the Lord speaks by His servants the
   Gospel command, "Believe and live," it is obeyed and men live.

   But the Savior, you observe, spoke with His own authority--"Young man,
   I say unto you, Arise." Neither Elijah nor El-isha could thus have
   spoken. But He who spoke thus was very God of very God. Though veiled
   in human flesh and clothed in lowliness, He was that same God who said,
   "Let there be light" and there was light. If any of us are able by
   faith to say, "Young man, Arise," we can only say it in His name--we
   have no authority but what we derive from Him. Young man, the voice of
   Jesus can do what your mother cannot. How often has her sweet voice
   wooed you to come to Jesus but wooed in vain? Oh, that the Lord Jesus
   would inwardly speak to you! Oh, that He would say, "Young man, Arise."

   I trust that while I am speaking, the Lord is silently speaking in your
   hearts by His Holy Spirit. I feel sure that it is even so. If so,
   within you a gentle movement of the Spirit is inclining you to repent
   and yield your heart to Jesus. This shall be a blessed day to the
   spiritually dead young man, if now he accepts his Savior, and yields
   himself up to be renewed by Divine Grace! No, my poor Brother, they
   shall not bury you! I know you have been very bad and they may well
   despair of you. But while Jesus lives we cannot give you up.

   The miracle was worked straightway--for this young man, to the
   astonishment of all about him, sat up. His was a desperate case but
   death was conquered, for he sat up. He had been called back from the
   innermost dungeon of death, even from the grave's mouth. But he sat up
   when Jesus called him. It did not take a month, nor a week, nor an
   hour--no, not even five minutes. Jesus said, "Young man, Arise. And he
   that was dead sat up, and began to speak." In an instant the Lord can
   save a sinner. Before the words I speak can have more than entered your
   ear, the Divine flash which gives you eternal life can have penetrated
   your breast and you shall be a new creature in Jesus Christ, beginning
   to live in newness of life from this hour--no more to feel spiritually
   dead--or to return to your old corruption.

   New life, new feeling, new love, new hopes, new company shall be yours,
   because you have passed from death unto life. Pray God that it may be
   so, for He will hear us.

   IV. Our time has gone and although we have a wide subject we may not
   linger. I must close by noticing that THIS WILL PRODUCE VERY GREAT
   RESULTS. To give life to the dead is no little matter.

   The great result was manifest, first, in the young man. Would you like
   to see him as he was? Might I venture to draw back the sheet from his
   face? See there what death has done? He was a fine young man. To his
   mother's eye he was the mirror of manhood! What a pallor is on that
   face! How sunken are the eyes! You are feeling sad. I see you cannot
   bear the sight. Come, look into this grave where corruption has gone
   further in its work. Cover him up! We cannot bear to look at the
   decaying body! But when Jesus Christ has said, "Arise," what a change
   takes place!

   Now you may look at him. His blue eyes have the light of Heaven in
   them. His lips are coral red with life. His brow is fair and full of
   thought. Look at his healthy complexion, in which the rose and the lily
   sweetly contend for mastery! What a fresh look there is about him, as
   of the dew of the morning! He has been dead but he lives, and no trace
   of death is on him. While you are looking at him he begins to speak.
   What music for his mother's ear! What did he say? Why, that I cannot
   tell you. Speak yourself as a newly-quickened one and then I shall hear
   what you say.

   I know what I said. I think the first word I said when I was quickened
   was, "Hallelujah." Afterwards, I went home to my mother and told her
   that the Lord had met with me. No words are given here. It does not
   quite matter what those words are, for any words proved him to be
   alive. If you know the Lord, I believe you will speak of heavenly
   things. I do not believe that our Lord Jesus has a dumb child in His
   house--they all speak to Him and most of them speak of Him. The new
   birth reveals itself in confession of Christ and praise of Christ. I
   warrant you that his mother, when she heard him speak, did not
   criticize what he said. She did not say, "That sentence is
   ungrammatical."

   She was too glad to hear him speak at all, that she did not examine all
   the expressions which he used. Newly-saved souls often talk in a way
   which after years and experience will not justify. You often hear it
   said of a revival meeting that there was a good deal of excitement and
   certain young converts talked absurdly. That is very likely--but if
   genuine grace was in their souls and they bore witness to the Lord
   Jesus, I, for one, would not criticize them very severely. Be glad if
   you can see any proof that they are born again and mark well their
   future lives. To the young man himself a new life had begun--life from
   among the dead.

   A new life also had begun in reference to his mother. What a great
   result for her was the raising of her dead son! Henceforth he would be
   doubly dear. Jesus helped him down from the bier and delivered him to
   his mother. We have not the words He used. But we are sure that He made
   the presentation most gracefully, giving back the son to the mother as
   one presents a choice gift. With a majestic delight which always goes
   with His condescending benevolence, He looked on that happy woman and
   His glance was brighter to her than the light of the morning, as He
   said to her, "Receive your son."

   The thrill of her heart was such as she would never forget. Observe
   carefully that our Lord, when He puts the new life into young men, does
   not want to take them away with Him from the home where their first
   duty lies. Here and there one is called away to be an Apostle or a
   missionary--but usually He wants them to go home to their friends and
   bless their parents and make their families happy and holy. He does not
   present the young man to the priest but He delivers him to his mother.
   Do not say, "I am converted and therefore I cannot go to business any
   more, or try to support my mother by my trade." That would prove that
   you were not converted at all.

   You may go for a missionary in a year or two's time if you are fitted
   for it. But you must not make a dash at a matter for which you are not
   prepared. For the present, go home to your mother and make your home
   happy and charm your father's heart and be a blessing to your brothers
   and sisters and let them rejoice because, "he was dead and is alive
   again. He was lost and is found."

   What was the next result? Well, all the neighbors feared and glorified
   God. If yonder young man who last night was at the music-hall and a few
   nights ago came home very nearly drunk. If that young man is born
   again, all around him will wonder at it. If that young man who has got
   himself out of a situation by gambling, or some other wrong-doing, is
   saved, we shall all feel that God is very near us. If that young man
   who has begun to associate with evil women and to fall into other
   evils, is brought to be pure-minded and gracious, it will strike awe
   into those round about him. He has led many others astray and if the
   Lord now leads him back it will make a great hubbub and men will
   enquire as to the reason of the change and will see that there is a
   power in religion alter all.

   Conversions are miracles which never cease. These prodigies of power in
   the moral world are quite as remarkable as prodigies in the material
   world. We want conversion, so practical, so real, so Divine--that those
   who doubt will not be able to doubt--because they see in them the hand
   of God.

   Finally, note that it not only surprised the neighbors and impressed
   them but the rumor of it went everywhere. Who can tell? If a convert is
   made this morning, the result of that conversion may be felt for
   thousands of years, if the world stands so long. Yes, it shall be felt
   when a thousand, thousand years have passed away, even throughout
   eternity. Tremblingly have I dropped a smooth stone into the lake this
   morning. It has fallen from a feeble hand and from an earnest heart.
   Your tears have shown that the waters are stirred. I perceive the first
   circlet upon the surface.

   Other and wider circles will follow as the sermon is spoken of and
   read. When you go home and tell what God has done for your soul, there
   will be a wider ring. And if it should happen that the Lord should open
   the mouth of one of this morning's converts to preach His Word, then no
   one can tell how wide the circle will become. Ring upon ring will the
   Word spread itself,

   until the shoreless ocean of eternity shall feel the influence of this
   morning's Word. No, I am not dreaming. According to our faith so shall
   it be. Grace this day bestowed by the Lord upon one single soul may
   affect the whole mass of humanity.

   God grant His blessing, even life forevermore. Pray much for a
   Blessing, my dear Friends, I beseech you, for Jesus Christ's sake. And
   pray much for me. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Lover of God's Law Filled With Peace

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, JANUARY 22, 1888,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Great peace have they which love Your Law: and nothing shall offend
   them." Psalm 119:165.

   THIS forms part of a devotional passage. It is not merely a statement
   that great peace comes to those who love the Law of God, but it is
   uttered as part of a hymn of praise unto the Lord. We cannot praise God
   better than by stating facts concerning Him and His Word. If you desire
   to praise God, you must speak of Him as He is. If you would pour out an
   acceptable libation before Him, you must fill the vessel from Himself,
   as the wellhead of all excellence. Our Te Deums are simply declarations
   of what God is--there can be no higher praise. His praises can only be
   the reflection of His own light. All glory is already in Him, none can
   be added to Him.

   And so, when we are adoring Him for His Law and blessing Him for giving
   us His Word, we cannot do better than observe how that Law operates
   upon the heart and praise Him because it so works. We have no need to
   heap up flattering titles as men do with their kings. We have no need
   to invent exaggerated expressions. We have but to speak the simple
   Truth concerning our God and we have praised Him. By the word, "Law,"
   here is intended, not only the Law of the Ten Commandments but the
   whole of Divine Revelation, as it was in David's time and as it is now.
   Whatever God has revealed is loved by saintly men.

   This sacred Book, which we commonly call the Bible, contains the mind
   of God so far as He has seen fit to reveal it to men. It is the Law of
   holiness as the guide of our actions and the Law of faith by which we
   receive of His Divine Grace. Here we have the Law of the kingdom of
   Heaven, the Law of life in Christ Jesus. As a Law of works, this holy
   Book convicts us of sin. As a Law of love it leads us to Jesus, to find
   forgiveness through His blood. In David's day the Law was a smaller
   Book than ours but he found great peace in the reading of it--it was
   even then competent for the highest spiritual ends. We have that Book
   at greater length but it is one and the same.

   The same Gospel is in Genesis as in Matthew. The Old Testament was
   perfect in itself as the Law of the Lord and the New Testament is but
   an expansion of the same Truth which the Old contains. We rejoice to
   find that our larger edition of the Word of God contains nothing which
   lessens that great peace which the earlier Scriptures were able to
   produce. As the light is clearer, the joy is brighter and the reasons
   for great peace are more clearly seen.

   God's Law comprises all His precepts and in keeping these we have peace
   of conscience. It contains all His promises and these are our great
   peace in the hour of need. And it comprehends all those great doctrines
   which surround the Cross of Christ and the Covenant of Grace and each
   one of these is a fountain of peace to our hearts. We take this Book as
   a whole and in this way we have peace. We dare not rend it, we would
   not leave out any part of it lest we miss the blessed effect which, as
   a whole, it is calculated to produce. Sitting as learners at the feet
   of Jesus our Master, submitting our hearts and minds to the infallible
   teaching of the Holy Spirit who leads us into all Truth, we find that
   the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keeps our hearts and
   minds by Christ Jesus.

   Three things in the text are worthy of earnest attention. May the
   Spirit of God bless all we say! First, here is a spiritual
   character--"they which love Your Law." Secondly, here is a special
   possession--"great peace have they." And thirdly, here is a singular
   preservation--"nothing shall offend them"--or nothing shall be a
   stumbling block to them. Oh, that we may know our text experimentally!

   I. First, here is A SPIRITUAL CHARACTER--"they which love Your Law."
   Love lies deep--it is in the heart--it is not a thing of the surface,
   it is of the man's own self. As a man loves so is he. To love God's Law
   is to have the very nature and essence of our manhood in a right
   condition. To love the Word is something more than to read it, even
   though we should study it day and night. It is more even than to
   understand it. For the cold light of the intellect is of little worth

   compared with the warm sunlight of love. Many, no doubt, perceive the
   Truths which are taught in God's Word and so become orthodox in their
   professed creed.

   But without love their faith is dead. You cannot learn the Law of God
   as you learn the laws of nature. Your heart must be affected by it and
   you must obey it in your life or you do not truly know it. Only he who
   does the will of God can know of the doctrine. Mere knowledge brings no
   peace to the man. The Truth must go from the head to the heart before
   its power is known. Some even try to keep the Law of the Lord so far as
   to make the outward life conformable to morality and religion. But this
   falls far short of the love of the heart. To stand in slavish fear and
   dread of God is better than to be utterly indifferent but it is a poor
   thing compared with love.

   Slaves obey their masters because of the lash and so do many outwardly
   follow the Word because of the spirit of bondage which will not permit
   them to rebel. But there is something lacking--nothing in religion is
   sound till the heart goes with it. God says, "My son, give Me your
   heart," and He cannot be satisfied with anything short of it. Search,
   then, my Hearers and see if you really love the Law of the Lord.

   He who loves the Word would not wish to have it altered, enlarged, or
   diminished--it reveals enough for him and no more. For he is content
   with what God chooses to teach him. If he finds any want of conformity
   in his own thoughts to God's thoughts, he throws his own thoughts away
   and sets up the Divine thoughts in their place. As he is reconciled to
   God in Christ Jesus, so is his mind reconciled to the teaching against
   which he at first rebelled. He loves the Law of the Lord just as he
   finds it. And instead of judging it and daring to set himself up as a
   dictator of what it ought to be, he is humble and docile and cries,
   "Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears."

   He loves every Truth which the Lord declares--yes, and the very style
   and method of the declaration. Every word of God's Book has in it music
   for his ears, beauty for his eyes, honey for his mouth and food for his
   soul. The teachings of God's Word are to the instructed Believer not
   only articles of faith but matters of life. Our faith has imbibed them
   and our experience has assimilated them. We could part with everything
   except what we have learned out of the Sacred Book by the teaching of
   the Holy Spirit. For that flows through our souls like the blood
   through our body and it is intermixed with every vital part of our
   being.

   Like wool which has been made to lie long in scarlet we are dyed
   ingrain. As certain insects take their color from the leaves they feed
   upon, so have we become tinctured to the core of our nature with the
   living and incorruptible Word. It has proved its own inspiration by
   inspiring us with its Spirit. Now we live in the Word as the fish in
   the stream. It is the element of our spiritual life. This may suffice
   to set before you the sort of people who obtain great peace from the
   Law of the Lord, because, in the truest sense, they love it.

   This inward and spiritual love to God's Word includes many other good
   things. Permit me to use the connection in order to help myself as to
   order and to help you as to memory. Read the first verse of this
   octave--the 161st verse-- "Princes have persecuted me without a cause:
   but my heart stands in awe of Your Word." The love of God's Law
   includes a deep reverence for it. That man is blessed who trembles at
   God's Word. This Book is not to be compared with other books. It is not
   of the same class and order. It is inspired in a sense in which they
   are not.

   It stands alone and is not one among other books. As towers an Alp
   above the molehills of the meadow, so Holy Scripture rises above the
   purest, truest and holiest literature of man's composing. Even if all
   those other books are purged of error and are corrected to the highest
   degree of human knowledge, yet would they no more reach to the degree
   of the Book of God than man can become God. It is supreme and of
   another quality from all the rest of them. Other writings we feel free
   to criticize but, "My heart stands in awe of Your Word." The man who
   loves God's Word does not trifle with it. It is far too sacred to be
   toyed with. He does not mock it. For he believes it to be God's Word.

   With a docility which comes of true sonship, it is enough for him that
   his Father says so. His one anxiety is, as far as possible, to know the
   meaning of his Father's Words--and, that known, all debate is out of
   the question. "Thus says the Lord," is to every true child of God the
   end of the matter. I have often told you, my dear Friends, that I view
   the difficulties of Holy Scriptures as so many prayer-stools upon which
   I kneel and worship the glorious Lord. What we cannot comprehend by our
   understanding, we apprehend by our affections. Awe of God's Word is a
   main element in that love of God's Law which brings great peace.

   This advances to rejoicing in it. Read verse 162--"I rejoice at Your
   Word, as one that finds great spoil." As a conqueror in the glad hour
   of victory shouts over the dividing of the prey, so do Believers
   rejoice in God's Word. I can recollect as a youth the great joy I had
   when the doctrines of Divine Grace were gradually opened up to me by
   the Spirit of Truth. I did not

   at first perceive the whole chain of precious Truth. I knew that Jesus
   had suffered in my place and that by believing in Him I had found
   peace. But the deep things of the Covenant of Grace came to me one by
   one, even as at night you first see one star and then another and
   by-and-by the whole heavens are studded with them.

   When it first became clear to me that salvation was all of grace, what
   a revelation it was! I saw that God had made me to differ from
   others--I ascribed my salvation wholly to His free favor. I perceived
   that, at the back of the grace which I had received, there must have
   been a purpose to give that grace and then the glorious fact of an
   election of grace flowed in upon my soul in a torrent of delight. I saw
   that the love of God to His own was without beginning--a boundless,
   fathomless, infinite, endless love--which carries every chosen vessel
   ofmercy from grace to glory. What a God is the God of Sovereign Grace!
   How did my soul rejoice as I saw the God of love in His sovereignty,
   immutability, faithfulness and omnipotence!

   "Among the gods there is none like unto You." So will any young convert
   here rejoice if he so loves the Law of the Lord as to continue studying
   it and receiving the illumination of the Holy Spirit concerning it. As
   the child of God sees into the deep things of God he will be ready to
   clap his hands for joy. It is a delightful sensation to feel that you
   are growing. Trees, I suppose, do not know when they grow, but men and
   women do--when the growth is spiritual. We seem to pass into a new
   Heaven and a new earth as we discover God's Truth. A new guest has come
   to live within our mind and He has brought with Him banquets such as we
   never tasted before.

   Oh how happy is that man to whose loving mind Holy Scripture is opening
   up its priceless treasures! We know that we love God's Word when we can
   rejoice in it. We wish that we could gather up every crumb of Scripture
   and find food in its smallest fragments. Even its bitter rebukes are
   sweet to us. I would kiss the very feet of Scripture and wash them with
   my tears! Alas, that I should sin against it by a thought, much more by
   a word! If it is but God's Word, though some may call it non-essential,
   we dare not think it so. The little things of God are more precious
   than the great things of man. The Truth of God is no trifle to one who
   has fought his way to it and learned it in the school of affliction. "O
   my Soul, you have trod down strength!" And that which you have gained
   in the battle is your joyful spoil.

   Further than this, we receive Holy Scripture with emotion. David says,
   "I hate and abhor lying: but Your Law do I love." He regards all that
   is opposed to the Law of the Lord as hateful lying. Those are hard
   words, David! Surely you are sinning against the charity of our
   cultured age! Yes, but when a man feels strongly, he cannot help
   speaking strongly. "I hate," says he and that is not enough. He says,
   "I hate and abhor lying." His whole being revolts at it. He means not
   only that lying with which in common life men would deceive their
   fellows--that is hateful enough. But he refers especially to that kind
   of teaching which gives the lie to the Law of the Lord. For he adds,
   "But your Law do I love."

   A good man's hate of falsehood is as intense as his love of the Truth
   of God. It must necessarily be so. He who worships the true God detests
   and loathes idols. In these days there are many men to whom the Truths
   of Scripture are like a pack of cards to be shuffled as occasion suits.
   To them peace and quietness are jewels and the Truth of God is as the
   mire of the streets. It does not matter to them what this man preaches
   and what that man writes. Hold your tongue--it will be all the same a
   hundred years from now--and really, nobody can be quite sure of
   anything!

   To the man that is loyal to his Lord and faithful to his convictions,
   it can never be so. He hates the teaching which belies his God. He that
   has never felt his blood boil against an error which robs God of His
   glory does not love the Law, nor will he know that great peace which
   comes by having the Law enshrined in the heart.

   One other virtue is included in the love of the Word. According to the
   context, great gratitude to God for His Word is formed in the believing
   heart. "Seven times a day do I praise You because of Your righteous
   judgments." God's judgments written in His Word are matters of praise--

   "This is the judge that ends the strife Where wit and reason fail."

   God's judgments actively going on in the world which tally with those
   predicted in His Word are also matters for adoring praise. The God of
   the Word is the God of the deed. What He says He does and every day and
   all the day we praise Him for it.

   Beloved, God may do what He wills and we will praise Him. He may say
   what He wills and we will praise Him. We read in His Word stern things,
   words of wrath and deeds of vengeance. Shall we try to soften them, or
   invent apologies for them? By no means. Jehovah our God is a consuming
   fire. We love Him, not as He is improved upon by "modern thought," but
   as He reveals Himself in Scripture. The God of Abraham, of Isaac and of
   Jacob--"this God is our God forever and ever--He will be our Guide,
   even unto death." Even when He is robed in the terror of His judgments,
   we sing praises unto His name. Even as they did at the Red Sea, when
   they saw Pharaoh and his host swallowed up in the mighty waters--"Sing
   unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider
   has He thrown into the sea."

   Our hallelujahs are "to Him that slew mighty kings; for His mercy
   endures forever." It is not mine to improve upon the character of
   Jehovah but to reverence and adore Him as He manifests Himself, either
   in judgment or in Divine Grace. I, who am less than nothing, and
   vanity, dare not scan His work, nor bring Him to my bar, lest I hear a
   voice saying, "No, but O man, who are you that replies against God?"
   What am I that I should be the ultimate judge of truth, or of justice,
   or of wisdom? Whatever God may be, or speak, or do--that is right--it
   is not mine to arraign my Maker but to adore Him.

   Extenuations, explanations and apologies may be produced from the best
   of motives. But too often they suggest to oppos-ers that it is admitted
   that God's most Holy Word contains something in it which is doubtful,
   or weak, or antiquated. It looks as though it needed to be defended by
   human wisdom. Brethren, the Word of the Lord can stand alone, without
   the propping which many are giving it. These props come down and then
   our adversaries think that the Book is down, too. The Word of God can
   take care of itself and will do so if we preach it and cease defending
   it. See that lion? They have caged him for his preservation--shut him
   up behind iron bars to secure him from his foes!

   See how a band of armed men have gathered together to protect the lion.
   What a clatter they make with their swords and spears! These mighty men
   are intent upon defending a lion. O fools and slow of heart! Open that
   door! Let the lord of the forest come forth free. Who will dare to
   encounter him? What does he want with your guardian care? Let the pure
   Gospel go forth in all its lion-like majesty and it will soon clear its
   own way and ease itself of its adversaries. Yes, without attempting to
   apologize even for the severer Truths of Revelation, seven times a day
   do we praise the Lord for giving us His judgments, so righteous and so
   sure.

   I have shown you now, dear Friends, how this love lies deep in the
   heart and how it includes much of honor and reverence. Let me further
   remark that this love is productive of many good things. They that love
   God's Word will meditate on it and make it the man of their right hand.
   What a companion the Bible is! It talks with us by the way, it communes
   with us upon our beds--it knows us altogether and has a suitable word
   for every condition of life. Hence we cannot be long without listening
   to our Beloved's voice in this Book of books. I hope we realize the
   character described in the first Psalm--"His delight is in the Law of
   the Lord. And in His Law does he meditate day and night. And he shall
   be like a tree planted by the rivers of water."

   Love to the Word of God creates great courage in the defense of it. It
   is wonderful how the most timid creatures will defend their young, how
   even a hen becomes a terrible bird when she has to take care of her
   chicks--even so, quiet men and women contend earnestly for the faith
   once delivered to the saints and will not tamely submit to see the
   Truth of God torn in pieces by the hounds of error and hypocrisy.

   The love of the Law of God breeds penitence for having sinned against
   it and perseverance in obedience to it. It also begets patience under
   suffering, for it leads the man to submit himself to the will of God
   whom he loves so much. He says, "It is the Lord. Let Him do what seems
   good to Him." The Word of God begets and fosters holiness. Jesus said,
   "Sanctify them through Your Truth; Your Word is Truth." You cannot
   study the Scriptures diligently and love them heartily without having
   your thoughts and acts savored and sweetened by them. A gentleness and
   kindness will be infused into your spirit by the very tone of the Word.
   A sacred delicacy and carefulness of conduct will surround your daily
   life in proportion as you steep your mind in Scripture.

   Let me commend to you, my beloved Friends, that you live with the Law
   of the Lord till even men of the world perceive that you keep choice
   company. The trashy lives of most people are the fit outcome of the
   trash which they read. A life fed on fiction is a life of fiction. A
   life fed on Divine fact will become a life of Divine fact. I have no
   time in which to show you all the sweet uses of the Law of the Lord--it
   does much for the formation of a perfect character. No molding force is
   so much to be desired as that of the Word of the Lord in the love of
   it.

   This much, however, I must add--if in any of us there is a love of the
   Law of the Lord, this is a work of the Holy Spirit. Nature does not
   love God and hence it does not love God's Law. Human nature is in open
   and active rebellion to everything that is commanded or commended by
   the thrice-holy God. If, then, you love God and His holy Law, the Holy
   Spirit has been at work in you. And by this new love it is proven that
   you are a new creature. The old nature delights itself in everything
   which is of the earth earthy. It is only the new and heavenly life
   which can appreciate and love heavenly things. My Brothers and Sisters,
   let your love of the Law be to you a proof of your regeneration--you
   have passed from darkness into marvelous light--for you love light. Let
   this be to you the evidence of your election--you had never loved God
   and His Law if He had not loved you first.

   What can your love to God be but a reflection of His love to you? Hear
   Him say, "I have loved you with an everlasting love." See, also, in
   this love of God's Law the prophecy of your ultimate perfection. We do
   not keep the Law as we would. But if we desire to keep it, that which
   holds the will is the real Law of our life. If there is in us a strong
   and passionate desire to

   accept and obey God's Word in everything and to be conformed to it in
   thought and life, that desire will ultimately get the victory. Use well
   the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God--and by the force of
   your love give sin sharp and heavy thrusts and you shall conquer until
   every thought is brought into captivity to the Law of Christ.

   II. We have spent too long a time upon our first point and shall have
   to be brief upon the other heads. Our second division is a very sweet
   part of the text. Here is A SPECIAL POSSESSION, "great peace have they
   which love Your Law."

   When Orientals meet each other their usual salutation is
   "Shalom"--"Peace be to you." The word does not mean merely quiet and
   rest but happiness or prosperity. Great peace means great prosperity.
   Those who love God's Law have great blessedness in this life as well as
   in that which is to come. In loving the Law of God we have intense
   enjoyment and real success in

   life.

   Let us, however, take the text as we have it in our Bibles. By peace
   here is not meant that a man who loves God's Law will have great peace
   with everybody, for that is not at all true. If David penned this
   sentence, he certainly was not an instance of great peace with men
   flowing out of his love to the Lord's Law. He was a man of war from his
   youth. He had peace as a shepherd boy but even then he had to kill
   lions and bears and soon after he had to meet a giant in single combat.
   Neither in his family nor in Saul's court was he at peace. He was
   hunted like a partridge upon the mountains and had to run for it from
   day to day. He had not much earthly peace.

   When he had done with Saul, the Philistines invaded the land. If it is
   possible, we are to live peaceably with all men. But He who has put
   enmity between the serpent and the woman never meant that we should
   enjoy the friendship of the world. The great peace which they have who
   love God's Law refers to a peace which can exist when strife rages all
   around us. Does not it mean this--first, great restfulness of the
   intellect? If we love God's Law in the sense in which we have explained
   it, so as to stand in awe of it and rejoice over it, the result will be
   great peace of mind.

   Everybody must find infallibility somewhere. Some think it is with the
   Pope at Rome, others dream that it is in themselves--the second theory
   is no more true than the first. Others of us believe that infallibility
   lies in the Word of God--this Book is to us the final court of appeal.
   When God's Holy Spirit leads us into the Truth which He has revealed in
   this Book, we feel a full assurance that we know the Truth of God and
   we speak from experience when we say that the loving belief of the Word
   brings us great intellectual repose. I care nothing what supposed
   philosophers may discover--they cannot discover anything true which is
   contrary to God's Word. I know that I am speaking that which is best
   for my fellow men in the highest and best sense, when I am not venting
   a theory but setting forth a Revelation from Heaven.

   He who gave us the infallible Book has all the responsibility for its
   contents. If I believe what God tells me and do what He bids me, the
   results are with Him and not with me. He is the ruler of the universe
   and not I. And if there are any terrible mysteries, He must explain
   them--not I--if they ought to be explained. I am like a servant who is
   sent to the door with a message. If I deliver the message which my
   Master gives me as I receive it, you must not be angry with me, for I
   did not invent the message, I only repeated it to you. Be angry with my
   Master, not with me.

   That is how I feel when I have done preaching. If I have honestly
   preached what I believe to be in God's Word, I am free from all
   responsibility for my ministry. My responsibility lies in endeavoring
   to interpret the Word as clearly as I can. I am not accountable for its
   teaching. I have not before me the unbearable burden of composing a
   Gospel. I remember well a minister, whom I much respect, saying to me,
   "I wish I could feel as you do. You have certain fixed principles about
   which you are sure and you have only to state them and enforce them.
   But I am in a formative state. I make my theology fresh every week."

   Dear me, I thought, what a hopeless state for progress and
   establishment! If the student of mathematics had no fixed law as to the
   value of numbers but made a new multiplication table every week, he
   would not make many calculations. If a baker were to say to me, "Sir, I
   am always altering the ingredients of my bread--I make a different
   bread every week," I should be afraid the fellow would poison me one of
   these days. I would rather go to a man whose bread I had found good and
   nourishing. I cannot afford to experiment in the Bread of Life.
   Besides, there is an intellectual unrest in all this kind of thing
   which is escaped from when we come to love the Word of the Lord as we
   love our lives. Oh, the rest of knowing within your very soul that the
   Truth of God you rest upon is a sure foundation!

   Those who love God's Word have also a great peace which comes of a
   pacified conscience. Conscience is as a terrible wild beast when
   aroused and irritated by a sense of sin. Nothing will quiet conscience
   effectually and properly but the great doctrine of the Substitutionary
   sacrifice of Christ. When we see that God has laid on His only begotten
   Son all our iniquities and that the chastisement of our peace was
   exacted of Him as our Substitute, then conscience smiles upon us. If
   God is satisfied with regard to our sins, we are satisfied, too. We see
   in the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ that which must satisfy
   Divine

   justice and therefore our conscience receives a safe and holy quiet and
   we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we
   have received the atonement.

   And the same conscience also brings great peace when it bears testimony
   to renewal of heart and life. When a man knows in his own soul that he
   seeks to do that which is right in the sight of God, and that he is
   aspiring after a pure, gracious, useful life, he has great peace even
   when others ridicule him. If you have taken your own way and acted
   dishonestly for gain, peace will not visit your heart. But if you have
   loved God's Law and kept to the way of strict integrity, you will have
   within your own bosom an angel of peace to strengthen you in the hour
   of sorrow. "The testimony of a good conscience is like the song of the
   angels to the shepherds at Bethlehem."

   Beloved, what a peace the love of the Word brings to the heart! All
   hearts require an object of love. How many hearts have been broken
   because the thing beloved has disappointed them and proved false to
   their hopes? But when you love God's Word, your love is not wasted upon
   an unworthy object. It introduces you to Christ and you love Him
   intensely, and however much you yield your heart to Him, you are always
   safe. Jesus is never a Judas to His friends. Jesus cannot be loved too
   well and hence the heart has great peace when it comes to Him.

   To love God's Word gives great peace as to our desires. You will not be
   grasping after wealth when the Word is better to you than the most fine
   gold. You will not be ambitious to shine among men when to you the Word
   of the Lord is a kingdom large enough. Your desires will be regulated
   by true wisdom when your heart is garrisoned by the Word of the Lord
   which dwells in you richly. When Christ Himself is our All in All, we
   are harbored in the haven of peace. When our desires find their
   pasturage around the Great Shepherd's feet, our ambitions cease to roam
   and we abide at home in peace. Content with a dinner of herbs in our
   Lord's company, we no longer pine for the stalled ox of the wicked who
   prospers in his way. To love the Law is to cease from covetousness and
   to cease from covetousness is great peace.

   When we love God's Law, we reach forward to the peace of resignation to
   God, acquiescence in His will and conformity to it. It is of no use to
   quarrel with God. Let me say more--it is disgraceful, ungrateful and
   wicked--for a child of God to do so. When we perfectly yield to God our
   heart's sorrow is at an end. The sting of affliction lies in the tail
   of our rebellion against the Divine will. When we love God's Word
   intensely, we take pleasure in persecutions, tribulations and
   infirmities, since they instruct us in the Divine promises and open up
   to us the hidden meanings of the Spirit. Our mind is so near to God and
   so pleased with all that pleases Him, that we do not desire to suffer
   less, or to be less weak, or less tried, than the will of God ordains.
   To love the Law and the Lawgiver goes a great way towards loving all
   that He appoints and decrees. And this is a garden of peace to all who
   know it.

   Besides, the love of the Word breeds a happy confidence in God as to
   all things in the past, the present and the future. Whatsoever the Lord
   does or permits must be right, or works right. "We know that all things
   work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the
   called according to His purpose." This is a very peace-breathing
   belief. When we love God's Word, we see God at the beginning of
   everything, God at the end of everything and God in the middle of
   everything. And as we see Him present whom we love, we cease from
   anxious thought. "My soul is even as a weaned child." Of such a man is
   it written, "His soul shall dwell at ease." The Lord whom he takes to
   be his Shepherd makes him to lie down in green pastures and he asks no
   more.

   III. I am cramped by want of time. I must, therefore, in a very few
   words sum up what deserves to be spoken at length upon the third point.
   Here is A SINGULAR PRESERVATION--"Nothing shall offend them." There
   shall be no stumbling block in their way.

   Intellectual stumbling blocks are gone. One asks me, "Do you mean to
   say that you read the Bible and do not find difficulties in it?" I
   regard the Word of God as being infallibly inspired and therefore if I
   find difficulties in it, which I must do from the very nature of
   things, I accept what God says about those difficulties and pass on.
   The Word of God does not profess to explain all mysteries--it leaves
   them mysteries and my faith accepts them as such. When out in a yacht
   in the Clyde we came opposite the great rock called the Rock of Arran.
   Our captain did not steam right ahead and rush at the rock--no, he did
   what was much wiser--he cast anchor for the night in the bay at the
   foot of it, so that we were sheltered from the wind by the vast
   headland.

   I remember looking up through the darkness of the night and admiring
   its great sheltering wing. A difficulty it was--it became a shelter.
   Every now and then in Scripture you come before a vast Truth. Will you
   steam against it and wreck your soul? Will you not, with truer wisdom,
   cast anchor under the lee of it? Do we need to understand everything?
   Are we to be all brain and no heart? What should we be the better if we
   understood all mysteries? I believe God. I bow before His Word. Is not
   this better for us than the conceit of knowing and understanding? We
   are as yet mere children. We know in part.

   Of course, we are blessed, in this enlightened age, with some
   wonderfully great men who understand more than the ancients and either
   know the unknowable, or think they do. In a sentence I will give you
   the result of my observation upon men and things--"No man knows
   everything except a fool and he knows nothing." I have not yet met with
   any exception to this rule--no, not even among the superior persons who
   prefer culture to Scripture. If you love the Word of God, you will see
   no difficulties which will in the least cause you to stumble. Love to
   the Word is the abolition of difficulties. Things hard to be understood
   become steppingstones on which to rise and not stumbling blocks over
   which to fall.

   "Nothing shall offend them." Does not this also mean that no moral duty
   shall be a cross to them which shall cause them to turn aside? They
   will not turn away from Jesus because a sin has to be abandoned, a lust
   denied, or a pleasure given up. The man who has counted the cost will
   not be offended by his Lord's requirements. Does Jesus say, "Do this"?
   He does it without demur. Does Jesus say, "Cease from that"? He
   withdraws his hand at once. When a man once loves the Law of God,
   albeit it involves self-denial, humiliation, loss--he shrinks not at
   the cost. Self-denial ceases to be self-denial when love commands it.
   The Cross of Christ is an easy yoke and soon ceases to be a burden. A
   duty which for a little season is irksome, becomes pleasurable before
   long to a lover of the Law of the Lord.

   Moreover, the man who loves God's Law is not offended if he has to
   stand alone. To some persons it is impossible to traverse a lonesome
   way but he that truly loves God's Law resolves that if all men forsake
   him he will cleave to the Lord and His Truth. Can you not stand alone?
   Does solitude offend you? As for me, I am resolved, by God's grace, not
   to follow a multitude to do evil. I will keep to the old faith and the
   old way if I never find a comrade between here and the celestial gates.
   I do not think a man loves God's Word thoroughly till it breeds in him
   a self-contained peace so that he is satisfied from himself and drinks
   water out of the cistern of his own experience.

   Paul was not offended though at his first answer no man stood by him.
   What have we to do with other men as supporters of our faith? To their
   own master they stand or fall. As for our Master in Heaven, let us
   follow Him through life and unto death. For to whom else could we go?
   He only has the words of Eternal Life.

   Neither will such persons ever be so offended as to despair of God's
   great cause. The night grows darker and darker but the man who loves
   the Divine Law expects the sun to rise at its appointed hour. Oh, that
   the Lord would hasten it in His own time! If He delays we will not,
   therefore, doubt. Divine Grace has produced, in past ages, men who were
   confident as to the triumph of the Truth of God when others feared for
   it. Look at the dauntless courage of Luther, who, when everybody else
   despaired of the Gospel, trusted his God and cheered his people and
   would not hear of drawing back. He could not pronounce the word
   "despair." "Luther, can you shake Rome? The harlot sits enthroned upon
   her seven hills, can you hope to dislodge her, or loose the captive
   nations from her bonds? Can you do this?"

   "No," said Luther, "but God can." Luther brought his God into the
   quarrel and you know which way the conflict turned. Not today, nor
   tomorrow, nor in twenty years, may God's Truth win--but the Lord can
   afford to wait--His lifetime is eternity. O Struggler for the Truth,
   make sure that you are with God and with the Truth and then be sure
   that God is with you in Truth and will deliver you. "Nothing shall
   offend them."

   It is wonderful, if you love God's Word, how things which are stumbling
   blocks to others cease to be injurious to you. Suppose you enjoy
   prosperity--if you love God's Law you will not be puffed up by
   deceitful riches or honors. You will be humble when all men admire you
   and all comforts flow in upon you. The Lord's Word in your heart will
   be as a salt to your estate so that it breeds in you neither
   worldliness, nor forgetfulness of God, nor pride. Your goods shall be
   your good, if you learn to use them for God's glory.

   The same will be true of adversity. He that can stand on the hilltop
   can stand in the valley. If you love God's Law you are the man to be
   poor, to be sickly, to be slandered. For you can bear it all because
   you have meat to eat that the world knows not of. Your love to God's
   Law will furnish you with a ceaseless stream of consolation. Nothing
   will dampen the flame of your spirit because the Lord feeds it secretly
   with a golden oil. O Servants of God, let us be glad together in this
   day of rebuke! The thunder is heard but it is mere noise. The sea roars
   but it is only roaring. Let us laugh at those who would silence
   faithful testimony. For the Lord God omnipotent reigns and great is the
   peace which He gives to the lovers of His Law.

   As for you who love not God's Law, who know nothing of Jesus, because
   you have never submitted to the Law of faith-- there is no "great
   peace" for you. There may be the deceptive cry of, "Peace, peace, when
   there is no peace." But may the Lord save you from it! Soul, there is
   no hope for you, you can not rest till you are at one with God. As
   surely as God made you, you must yield to your Maker and accept your
   Redeemer and be renewed by His Holy Spirit, or you are lost forever.

   I pray God the Holy Spirit lead you to accept what God has revealed and
   bow yourself to the supreme majesty of His Word--especially to the
   power and grace of the Incarnate Word, the Lord Christ Jesus. Then will
   you have great peace for this world and the next. God bless you,
   Beloved, for Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Hairs of Your Head Numbered

   PREACHED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered." Matthew 10:30.

   IT is most delightful to see how familiarly our Lord Jesus talked with
   His disciples. He was very great and yet He was among them as one that
   serves. He was very wise but He was gentle as a nurse with her
   children. He was very holy and far above their sinful infirmities but
   He condescended to men of low estate. He was their Master and Lord and
   yet their friend and servant. He talked with them, not as a superior
   who domineers but as a brother full of tenderness and sympathy.

   You know how sweetly He once said to them, "If it were not so, I would
   have told you." And thus He proved that He had hidden nothing from them
   that was profitable to them. He laid bare His very heart to them--His
   secret was with them. He loved them to the uttermost and caused the
   full river of His life to flow for their behalf.

   Now, in this chapter, if you read it at home, you will see how wisely
   the Lord Jesus deals with their fears. He is afraid lest they should be
   afraid, anxious that they should not be anxious--so He talks to them as
   a very tender friend would talk to some very nervous person--some
   weak-minded brother or sister. And He speaks in such a way that if they
   were not comforted, surely they must have willfully resolved to put
   comfort from them. He says to them, "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. Are not two sparrows sold for a
   farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your
   Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear you not,
   therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows."

   Brethren, admire the tenderness of our Lord Jesus and imitate it. Let
   us try to be equally kind to our fellow-Christians. Let us never
   attempt to show off, or to make ourselves somebody, or to exhibit our
   strength of faith--for that will grieve the tender little ones and make
   them shrink into self-doubts. Let us consider their weakness and the
   help that we can render them, their sorrow and the comfort that we can
   afford them. Jesus was Himself a Comforter, or He could not have spoken
   of "another Comforter." And so let us be comforters in our measure,
   treading in His steps.

   This reminds me, also, to say how very homely the Savior's talk became
   with His disciples in consequence of this desire to cheer their hearts.
   Why, He talks, I have often thought, just in the way in which anyone of
   us would have talked to our children when desirous to encourage them!
   There is nothing about the Savior's language which makes you say to
   yourself, "What a grand speech! What a rhetorician! What an orator He
   is!" If any man makes you say that of him, suspect that he is off the
   lines a little. He is forgetting the true object of a loving mind and
   is seeking to be a fine speaker and to impress people with the idea
   that he is saying something very wonderful and saying it very grandly.

   The Savior quite ignores all idea of beautiful expression in just
   trying to bring forth His meaning in the plainest possible manner. He
   sought the shortest way to the hearts of those whom He addressed and He
   cared nothing whether flowers grew or did not grow by the roadside.
   Hence there is no eloquence like the eloquence of Jesus--there is a
   style of majestic simplicity about Him that is altogether His own and
   in this lies unsurpassed sublimity. I now and then see in books
   quotations and the names of the authors are put at the foot of the
   extracts. But when ever I observe that the name of Christ is put below
   a quotation I regard it as a superfluity which ought to be struck out.
   For there is never any fear of mistaking the language of the Son of God
   for that of any of the sons of men.

   He has a style all His own. This, however, is incidental to the design
   aimed at. For He does not study style of rhetoric in any degree but
   simply aims at conveying His thought. Hence He speaks in homely words,
   such as those of our text-- "The very hairs of your head are all
   numbered." Your great and learned men will not talk about the hairs of
   your head. All their discourse is upon the nebulae and the stars,
   geological periods and organic remains, evolution and the solidarity of
   the race, and I know not what besides. They will not stoop to common
   things.

   They must say something great, sublime, dazzling, brilliant, full of
   fireworks. The Master is as far removed from all this as the heavens
   are from the gaudiest canopy that ever bedecked a mortal's throne. He
   talks in homely language because He is at home. He speaks the language
   of the heart because He is all heart, and wants to reach the hearts of
   those to whom He speaks. I commend the text to you for that reason,
   though for many others besides. "The very hairs of your head are all
   numbered."

   Thinking over these words, they seem to have in them four things at
   least, and we may take four views of their mean-ing--and the first is,
   foreordination--"The very hairs of your head have been all numbered."
   You will find that to be a more accurate version of the text than that
   which is before us. The verb is not in the present but in the perfect
   tense. The very hairs of your head have been all numbered before worlds
   were made.

   Secondly, I see in the text, knowledge. This is very clear--God so
   knows His people that the very hairs of their head are all numbered by
   Him. Thirdly, there is here valuation--He sets such a high estimate
   upon His own servants, that of them it is said, "The very hairs of your
   head are all numbered." You are so precious that the least portion of
   you is precious. The King keeps a register of every part of you, "The
   very hairs of your head are all numbered."

   And, lastly, here is most evidently preservation. The Savior has been
   telling them not to fear those that can kill the body and are not able
   to kill the soul. He speaks of God's preserving them. In another place
   He told His disciples, "There shall not a hair of your head perish,"
   and He intends the same sense in this case. There shall be a perfect
   preservation of His people. "The very hairs of your head are all
   numbered."

   I. Come, then, to the first thought. Here is FOREORDINATION. "The very
   hairs of your head are all numbered." Most Christian people believe in
   the Providence of God but all Christian people are not prepared to
   follow out the Truth of God which that involves. They appear to believe
   that there is a Providence overruling but they seem to have forgotten
   that there always was such a Providence and that Providence must be,
   after all, a matter of Divine foresight. God must have foreseen, or He
   could not have provided, for "Providence" is, after all, but the Latin
   for foresight. And the provision which God makes is but the result of
   His vision beforehand of such-and-such a thing as needful to us.
   Foresight must essentially belong to any true and real Providence.

   How far does God's foresight extend? It extends, we believe, to the
   entire man and all about him. God ordained of old when we should be
   born and where and who our parents should be and what our lot in
   infancy and what our path in youth and what our position in manhood.
   From the first to the last it has all happened according to the Divine
   purpose, even as it was ordained by the Divine will. Not only the man
   but all that concerns the man, is foreordained of the Lord-- "The very
   hairs of your head," that is to say, all that which has anything to do
   with you, which comes into any kind of contact with you and is in any
   sense part and parcel of yourself, is under the Divine foresight and
   predestination.

   Everything is in the Divine purpose, and has been ordered by the Divine
   wisdom--all the events of your life--the greater, certainly--the
   smaller, with equal certainty. It is impossible to draw a line in
   Providence and say this is arranged by Providence and that is not. It
   must take everything in its sweep, all that happens. It determines not
   only the movement of a star but the blowing of a grain of dust along
   the public road. All this, from the very nature of the thing, is clear.
   God's Providence knows nothing of things so little as to be beneath its
   notice, nothing of things so great as to be beyond its control. Nothing
   is too little or too great for God to rule and overrule.

   All that a man undergoes is also ordained of Heaven. The hairs of your
   head, should they turn white in a single night by grief, will not do so
   without Divine permission. Should you be spared till every hair
   constitutes a part of the crown of glory of your old age, you shall not
   be older than God wills. You shall neither die before your time, nor
   live beyond it. All that concerns you, I say, from first to last, all
   that is of you and in you and around you--

   "All shall come and last and end, As shall please your heavenly
   Friend." "The very hairs of your head are all numbered."

   And this is what I call your attention to--what is the source of this
   numbering? It is not that they are all numbered by some recording angel
   who is set to do the work. It may be so but that is not the thing we
   have to consider tonight. This numbering is done by your Father, who is
   in Heaven. The ordinances that rule your life are in His hands. Unto
   Him belong the issues from death. And this makes it to be such a happy
   fact. Fate is hard and cruel. But predestination is fatherly and wise
   and kind. The wheels of Providence are always high and terrible. But
   they are full of eyes, and those eyes look with the clear sight

   of wisdom and righteousness and love--and they look towards the good of
   them that love God and are the called according to His purpose.

   Terrible, indeed, it is to think of things as fixed by an eternal plan.
   But the terror is taken from it when we feel that we are children of
   this great Father and that He wills nothing but what shall, in the end,
   work out our conformity to the image of His Son and display the glory
   of His own righteousness and Divine Grace and Truth. Dear Friend,
   perhaps you are blind! You will feel sweet content in the dark when you
   can say, "This blindness was determined of my tender and loving Father.
   I know it was so, since the very hairs of my head are all numbered."

   Or it may be that you have from childhood been the subject of another
   physical infirmity, which has caused you great loss and pain and even
   now it is a threat to bring you suddenly to the grave. Had this cross
   been laid upon you by an enemy, you might have complained but it has
   been ordained for you by Him who cannot be unkind or unjust. Therefore
   say, "It is the Lord, let Him do what seems Him good." We are taught to
   pray, "Your will be done." Dare we contradict our own prayers by
   kicking against that will? Job glorified God and yet he spoke no more
   than he should have done when he said, "The Lord gave and the Lord has
   taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

   I always admire in Job his ascribing all his afflictions to the Lord,
   because apparently it was the Sabeans that took away his oxen and
   asses. It was the Chaldeans that took away his camels. It was the wind
   from the wilderness, raised by the devil, that took away his children.
   Job does not care so much for Sabeans and Chaldeans and devils, as to
   mention them. But he cries, looking to the First Cause of all events,
   "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the
   Lord." When we can get at the back of visible things and see, not
   merely the puppets, but the strings that move them, then we come near
   to wisdom.

   Wicked beings act according to their own free will and therefore the
   whole of the moral evil of their doings rests wholly and solely with
   themselves. But the great God, somehow, mysteriously, quite clear of
   all complicity with human sin, effects His own purposes, which are
   always good and right. He it is who from evil, either real or seeming,
   still produces good and better still, in infinite progression. When, I
   say, we get to this First Force and real source of power, then we get
   where we learn wisdom and we are helped in the struggle of life. When
   we see that all things are arranged by Him who orders all things
   according to the counsel of His own will, then we bow our heads and
   worship.

   The practical outcome of all this, to every Christian, should be just
   this, "If it is so, that all things in my life are ordered of God, even
   to the hairs of my head, then let me learn submission. Let me bow
   before the Supreme will which ought to have its way. Though it cost me
   many a tear and many a pang, yet will I never be content until I can
   say, 'Father, Your will be done.' " Human nature prompts us to ask
   that, if it is possible, the bitter cup may pass away from us. But the
   Divine nature, which God has put into His true children, helps them
   still to struggle after full submission, till at last they are
   conquerors over themselves and God is glorified in the temple of their
   being. I am sure, my Brothers, our happiness lies very much in our
   complete submission to the Lord our God.

   If you cannot bring your estate to your mind, bring your mind to your
   estate. The old Proverb bids us cut our coat according to our lot and
   he that can clothe his mind with the garments which Providence allots
   him needs not to envy my Lord Mayor in his robes. Joy lies more in the
   mind than in the place or the possession. He that has enough, though he
   has but a few shillings a week, has more than the possessor of
   millions. He that is content is the truly rich man. Your money-grubber
   is always poor, how can he be otherwise but poor in the worst sense of
   the word? Oh, it is a blessed thing when one can think of all the
   events of Providence. That God is ordering them all--then we dissolve
   our own will into the sweetness of God's will and our sorrow is at an
   end!

   This, I think, should, in addition to teaching us submission, always
   give us such a degree of consolation in the time of trouble that we
   even rise into something like joy. I was reading today of old Mr. Dodd,
   who is a person the Puritans are always quoting--a man who did not
   write books but he seems to have said things with which other people
   made their books attractive. This old Mr. Dodd, it is said, had a great
   trouble, a bodily complaint I will not mention but it is one of the
   most painful a man can suffer from. And when he was told that this had
   come upon him and that it was incurable, the old man shed a few natural
   tears at the great and excruciating pain.

   But at last he said, "This is evidently from God and God never sent me
   anything but it was for my good, therefore let us kneel down together
   and thank God for this." It was well said of the old man and it was
   well done of him that he thanked God most heartily. Oh yes, let us
   kneel down together and thank God for our trouble! Is it consumption? A
   dying child? A farm that does not pay? A business that is gradually
   leaking away?--Let us firmly believe that our God has never sent us
   anything but what He meant good by it. Therefore, let us kneel down and
   thank God with all our hearts. If your child should come to

   you and say, "Father, I thank you for the rod. I know it has been for
   my good," you would feel it was time to have done correcting him.

   Evidently he is not so dull and foolish as to need a sharp awakening by
   chastisement. He sees the evil of his disobedience and the necessity of
   chastisement and now he can be left to follow out the lessons he has
   learned. When you and I begin to be familiar with affliction and to
   thank God for it, we are pretty nearly getting through it. I believe,
   myself, that there is a period often set to the sorrows of saints and
   that the period is usually coincident with their perfect acquiescence
   in them. When they are content to have all things as God wills, God
   will be content to let them have it as much as they will. When two
   wills run together, our will and God's will, then we shall find a sweet
   double stream of silver peace flowing throughout the rest of our lives.

   Therefore, let us come to this--if even the very hairs of our head are
   all numbered, if everything is really ordained of the Most High
   concerning His people--let us rejoice in the Divine appointment and
   take it as it comes and praise His name, whether our allotment is rough
   or smooth, bitter or sweet. Let us cheerfully say, "If the Lord wills
   it then we will it, too. If He has purposed it, even so let it be,
   since all things work together for good to them that love God, even to
   them that are called according to His purpose."

   I shall not plunge into the slough of difficulties which some of you
   are sure to see lying in the way. I trip over the mire with the nimble
   feet of faith. I shall not discuss how foreordination can be shown to
   be consistent with the responsibility of man and the free will of man
   and all that. I believe in the responsibility of man and the free will
   of man as much as I believe in predestination. I believe in the
   responsibility of man as much as you do, and I believe in the free
   agency of man as much as anybody living. How can I believe both
   doctrines? I evidently can believe them both, for I do believe them.

   I have learned this--that the man whose creed is consistent in the
   judgment of others usually has a very scanty, poverty-stricken creed.
   And a good deal of it is rather theory than Revelation. When you come
   to make up your theology into a system, you are very apt to act like a
   builder, who fills in between the great stones mortar of his own
   mixing. I am content to pile up the unhewn stones and put in no cement
   of my own. I will not shape the Truth of God, much less add to it. "If
   you lift up your tool upon it, you have polluted it." He who takes the
   Truth of God as he finds it in the inspired Book has enough material
   and it is all sound.

   I believe that all the so-called "contradictions" in Scripture are only
   apparent ones. I cannot expect to understand the mysteries of God,
   neither do I wish to do so. If I understood God, He could not be the
   true God. A doctrine which I cannot fully grasp is a Truth of God which
   is intended to grasp me. When I cannot climb, I kneel. Where I cannot
   build an observatory, I set up an altar. A great stone which I cannot
   lift serves me for a pillar, upon which I pour the oil of gratitude and
   adore the Lord my God. How idle it is to dream of our ever running
   parallel in understanding with the infinite God! His knowledge is too
   wonderful for us. It is so high--we cannot attain to it.

   Have you never heard of the inquisitive boy who had been forbidden to
   go into his father's study. He tried the door but it was fastened--all
   proper and safe entrance was out of the question. But he could not be
   content till he had satisfied his curiosity and therefore he climbed up
   to the window. To his father's horror, up two stories high, stood his
   little boy, looking in upon him and crying with childish pride,
   "Father, I can see you." What a position of danger for the child! He
   must be gotten down and taught not to climb there again. Shall we
   imitate this childish folly? Brethren, I will not attempt it. I do not
   want to endanger my soul and perhaps even my reasoning powers, by
   straining after the unknowable.

   Poor child that I am, I would rather love God and wonder at Him, than
   regard Him with cold, intellectual apprehensions and dream that I know
   Him altogether. I pray to grow in the knowledge of that which the Lord
   reveals--and I pray for grace to limit my curiosity by the boundaries
   of His revelation. Surely these are far enough apart for the largest
   researches. As for the difficulty before us, I do not understand it.
   And what good would it be to me if I did understand it? I know that
   whatever a man does that is wrong, he does it of his own free will. And
   all the sin in the world I believe to be caused by the willful and
   censurable choice of the transgressor.

   But I know that, at the same time, there is a grasp of foresight and
   predestination so comprehensive that everything accords with the Divine
   foreknowledge and predestination. Let our hair grow as it will, or let
   us pluck out what hairs we please, let nothing interfere with our
   absolute liberty in that matter. And yet the hairs of our head are all
   numbered. So much for foresight.

   II. Now, secondly, here is KNOWLEDGE--God's intimate knowledge of His
   people. "The very hairs of your head are all numbered." Observe what a
   full knowledge God has of each one of His children. If there were
   nobody else in the world except you--and God had nothing else to do but
   to think of you. If there were no objects of His attention beyond
   yourself and His

   eternal mind had no object of consideration but you, only, the Lord
   would not then know more about you than He does now. The omniscience of
   God is concentrated upon every single being and yet it is not divided
   by the multiplicity of its objects. It is not the less upon any single
   one because there are so many.

   How it should astonish us that the Lord knows us at this moment so
   intimately as to count every hair of our heads! The knowledge which the
   Lord has concerning His people is most minute and takes in those small
   matters which men set down as unconsidered trifles. He knows what you
   and I hardly wish to know--He knows that which we may be content to
   leave unknown--"The very hairs of your head are all numbered."

   He knows us better than our friends know us. Many a man has a kind
   friend who knows his affairs most accurately, but even such a familiar
   acquaintance has never counted the hairs of his head. No man's wife has
   done that, nor even the doctor who has, by his long attendance upon us,
   become aware of the condition and health of every part of our body. God
   knows us better than we know ourselves. Nobody knows how many hairs he
   has upon his own head. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered
   by One who knows us better than we know ourselves. God knows matters
   about us that we could not of ourselves discover. There are secrets of
   the heart which are unknown even to ourselves but they are not secrets
   to Him. His penetrating knowledge reaches to the most hidden things of
   life and spirit.

   Do you not think that a charmingly tender knowledge is intended when we
   are told that the Lord counts the very hairs of our heads? Does it not
   intimate how much He thinks of them? There are some who love us very
   much and they are always aiming at our good--God goes beyond them all
   in a more than motherly care of us, strikingly minute in its
   thoughtfulness. We see that His love passes the love of women, for the
   very hairs of our head are numbered--and that at every period of our
   lives. Does it not imply a very sympathetic care? When one has a sick
   child and watches over it night and day, every little fact about it is
   known and noted.

   The darling looks a little pale today, or he fails a little in his
   appetite. The symptom is anxiously noted. You know how easily love can
   degenerate into foolishness in that direction. But, without any folly,
   God is infinitely careful and kind towards us, for He knows when we
   have lost a hair from our head. We cannot make one hair white or black
   but He knows when they turn white with grief or age. He understands all
   about our fading and our growing gray, the little details concerning
   our body as well as the minute circumstances that try our souls. It
   seems to me--I do not know how it strikes you--as meaning a very, very,
   very intimate, tender, and affectionate knowledge of us. And the fact
   that the Lord thus graciously looks upon us should fill us with joy.

   This careful, tender knowledge on God's part is constant. He knows the
   number of the hairs of our head today, tomorrow and all the days--He
   without ceasing watches all the processes which even in the least
   manner affect our lives. So intimate is His knowledge of us that our
   lying down and our rising up, our thoughts and our ways, are all
   continually before Him. And what are we to learn from this? Does it not
   make life a solemn business? Who will dare to trifle with the Lord God
   so near? Do you keep bees? Have you ever taken out one of the frames
   from their hive and held it up to observe what they are doing on both
   sides of the comb?

   Or have you looked at them through one of those interesting hives,
   furnished with a glass, through which the whole business is visible?
   The bees scarcely notice that you watch them, certainly they are not
   eye-servers, for they are so industrious that they could not do more
   even if all eyes in the universe were fixed on them. What manner of
   persons ought we to be when we know that God is observing us and noting
   every movement of our being! What care there should be as to our
   feeling, our thinking, our resolving, our desiring, our doing and our
   speaking, when everything is minutely known to God, even to the
   counting of the very hairs of our head!

   What perfect consecration we ought to maintain! If God so values me, so
   knows me, that He counts the very hairs of my head, ought I not to give
   to God my whole self even to the minutest detail? Should I not give Him
   not merely my head but my hair, as that penitent woman did, who unbound
   her tresses that she might make a towel of them, to wipe the feet that
   she had washed with her tears? Ought we not to consecrate to God the
   very least things as well as the greater things? Is it not written,
   "Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to
   the glory of God"? "You are not your own, you are bought with a
   price"--and when the inventory was taken, the Lord did not leave a hair
   of your head out of the catalog.

   Certainly He has not left your hair to any of you Christian women to
   indulge your vanity and pride. It is every tress of it your Lord's. He
   does not leave to you men even a part of your talent, of your mind, or
   of your body. Your whole self is altogether His and He takes stock of
   it and expects you to include it in your practical consecration. He
   observes what you do with little things--He notes even those minor
   matters which seem too inconsiderable to come under rule at all. We are
   under Law

   to Christ and that Law covers the whole man. Should not our belief in
   this knowledge of us by the Lord, help us in prayer? Do not some
   Brethren pray as if they were informing God about themselves?

   I think I have heard remarks in prayer which seemed to imply that God
   was not acquainted with the Shorter Catechism-- friends have even gone
   over the doctrines of grace as if the Lord was not aware of them. I
   have heard others pray as if God did not know the experience of
   Christians--as if they have had to explain to Him some of their doubts
   and fears. When we pray we do not need to explain anything, for the
   Lord knows all about us, even to the hairs of our head. Dear friends,
   we have no need to explain our difficulties and perplexities to our
   God. "Your heavenly Father knows"--let this be your comfort.

   He knows what things we have need of before we ask Him. This is a great
   help in prayer. It may shorten your prayer a good deal if you go to God
   with the expression of your desire and plead His promise and submit
   your spirit to His Divine discretion. Such a shortening of its length
   will be an addition to the strength of prayer. You need not be afraid,
   as if God did not know, but come sweetly to Him who knows all about you
   and will not act upon your faulty information but upon His own certain
   knowledge.

   This persuasion will help us to feel that the Lord will deliver us out
   of all difficulties for He knows the way out of every labyrinth--He
   perceives the answer of every enigma. If He counts the very hairs of
   your head, depend upon it, He has a high discretion for greater things
   and He is a matchless Pilot whereby, through waves and rocks and quick
   sands, He will gently steer your way and bring you to the desired
   haven. There is so much of comfort in this doctrine of the infinite
   knowledge of God that I wish every poor sinner here would remember that
   God knows all about him and consequently can deal with all his sins and
   fears.

   If you want mercy, come to the Lord at once. He knows your way, He
   knows your position, He knows your broken heart, He knows your weary
   struggles, He knows what you cannot express. The whole of the wrong you
   have worked and the whole of the right you desire, He perceives. For
   "the very hairs of your head are all numbered."

   III. Now, thirdly and very briefly--Does not this text express
   VALUATION? "The very hairs of your head are all numbered." It seems,
   then, that lowly saints are exceedingly precious to their Lord. The
   whole of Christ's flock on earth were very poor people. If they had a
   boat and a few nets, it was all they were worth. If anybody had seen
   Christ in His little Church on earth, he would have said, "There is not
   a respectable person among them." That is how we talk nowadays. As if
   it were respectable to have money. As if respect did not belong to
   character but only to possessions. Yet those twelve poor men He picked
   out and He thought so much of them that He numbered the hairs of their
   heads.

   Yonder is a poor old man in the aisle and he has a fustian jacket on.
   Never mind his fustian jacket--the very hairs of his head are all
   numbered. Yonder is a poor old woman just come out of the workhouse and
   she loves to hear the Gospel. She is such a very poor old woman that
   nobody likes to invite her into a pew. I speak to the shame of such
   pride. She is one of Christ's saints and saintship is a patent of
   nobility. If you sold a farm you might count the trees but not the
   boughs and the leaves. But if you sold a jeweler's shop, you would
   count all the pins and all the diamond rings, because everything is
   precious there. Now God reckons everything about His people to be so
   precious that He even takes stock of the hairs of their heads.

   How precious in the sight of the Master His saints are! I have been
   trying to work out a calculation--if the hairs of their heads are worth
   so much that God registers them, what are their heads worth? Who shall
   tell me that? If their heads are worth so much that the Lord Jesus
   Christ died to redeem them, who can tell what their souls are worth, or
   rather what they are not worth? They are worth more than all the worlds
   put together. Ask a mother what her child is worth. "What will you take
   for your boy, Mistress?" My Friends, if she sold him at the price she
   would consider a fair compensation, we could not all of us make up the
   money if we put all that we have into one common fund.

   The Lord set such a value on His children that He gave His Son Jesus
   Christ to die rather than He would lose one of them. And Jesus Himself
   chose to die on the Cross that none of His little ones should perish.
   Oh, the value and the preciousness of a child of God! Worlds would not
   serve for pence to be the basis of the valuation. Let us prize the
   people of God very highly, feeling as the Psalmist did when he said, "O
   God, You are my God--my goodness extends not to You. But to the saints
   that are in the earth, and to the excellent in whom is all my delight."

   You please Jesus when you do good unto one of the least of these, His
   children. He reckons that you have done it unto Him. If they are so
   dear to Him, let them be dear to you. And as some of those whom Christ
   has purchased with His blood are still lost--

   "O come, let us go and find them! In the paths of death they roam."

   If the hairs of their head are counted, what must their souls be worth?
   Let us feel that all we can do to save a soul from death is but cheap
   work compared with the priceless gem we seek.

   O come, you Divers, plunge into the sea--the pearls you bring up shall
   well repay your utmost risk and toil! Come, you Hunters after souls,
   there is no such chase as this! Hunt after souls as the brave Switzer
   chases the chamois upon the mountains and let no difficulties daunt
   you, for "he that wins souls is wise." There is no more profitable
   purchase than this, though you should lay down your lives to bring men
   to Christ. How very much does God value the souls of His people!

   IV. Lastly, here is PRESERVATION. See how carefully God intends to
   preserve His own people, since He begins by counting the hairs of their
   heads. I say it, for there is Scripture at the back of my assertion,
   that none of the people of God shall suffer in the long run the
   smallest loss. "There shall not a hair of your head perish," said
   Christ to His believing people. If I were to lose a hair from my head,
   I should not know it--should you? But God would know if His servants
   lost a hair of their heads and He makes the promise to them of such
   complete protection that there shall not a hair of their head perish.
   Remember that other text, "The Lord keeps all His bones, not one of
   them is broken."

   Now, a Christian man may break the bones of his body but in a real and
   spiritual sense he is free from such danger, God will keep him--yes,
   keep him to all eternity! "There shall not a hoof be left behind," said
   Moses to Pharaoh and there shall not a bone, nor a piece of a bone of
   the ransomed, be left in the dominion of death and the grave. When the
   trumpet shall sound, the whole of redeemed manhood shall start into
   life. When Peter came out of prison, the angel smote him, and his
   chains fell off and he came out of prison but he did not quit till he
   had put on his sandals. He did not leave even a pair of old shoes for
   Herod and his jailers.

   So shall it be with the children of God at last--"from beds of dust and
   silent clay," when the angel's trumpet shall ring out, they shall arise
   and they shall leave nothing behind. They shall not leave an essential
   particle in the tomb. They shall rise, body, soul and spirit completely
   redeemed of the Lord. "The very hairs of your head are all numbered."
   Christ knows what He has bought and He will have it. Even to the last
   atom He will have that which He has purchased. We shall not enter into
   our new life maimed or having one eye. He will preserve His people in
   their entirety, and present them, "without spot, or wrinkle, or any
   such thing."

   Observe that in the close neighborhood of the text, we read of
   persecution. Beloved, if persecution should come, it cannot really harm
   you. The three Hebrew children, when they came out of the fire, were
   not scorched or singed. There was not the smell of fire upon their
   hats, their hose, or their hair. When God's people pass through the
   fires of persecution, they shall not be losers. They shall go through
   the fires altogether unharmed--no--they shall win the martyr's palm and
   crown, which shall make them glorious forever, even if they die in the
   flames. Therefore, fear nothing. Nothing shall by any means harm you.
   In the end your sufferings shall be your enrichment. Though you count
   not your lives dear unto you, precious shall your blood be in His
   sight.

   Besides persecution, there may come to you an accident or sudden
   calamity. Never be afraid. It is half the battle, in an accident, to
   exhibit presence of mind--therefore let the child of God be calm and
   self-possessed. For although you should suffer in body, your true self
   will be safe. Though in the tornado, or in the shipwreck, or in
   cholera, or in fire--you shall be placed in outward peril even as
   others are--yet your real life is insured by the Covenant of Grace from
   all injury. Therefore rest in the Lord, for you shall be safe though a
   thousand should fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand.
   If you lose, your loss shall be transmuted into a real gain.

   Sickness, if sickness comes, shall work your health. God's children
   have often been ripened by sickness. They are like the sycamore fig,
   which never gets sweet until it is bruised. Amos was a bruiser of
   sycamore figs and affliction is God's Amos to bruise us into sweetness.
   Maturity comes by affliction. Alas, you say, "I have lost a dear
   friend." Trust in God and by Divine friendship the void in your heart
   shall be more than filled. Have you lost a child? The Lord will be
   better to you than ten sons. Should your father and your mother be
   taken from you, you shall find them both in Christ and be no orphan.
   Thus does the promise stand--"No good thing will he withhold from them
   that walk uprightly." "I will never leave you, nor forsake you."

   Trust, then, in the Lord at all hazards. Trust in Him in deep waters as
   well as on the shore. When the waves are raging, trust your God as well
   as when the sea is as glass. When the sea roars and the mountains shake
   with the swelling thereof, trust in Jehovah without the shade of a
   doubt, for "the very hairs of your head are all numbered." Why should
   you fear? Your vessel carries Jesus and all His fortune. If you are
   drowned He cannot swim, He sinks or swims with you. For thus has He put
   it, "Because I live, you shall live, also." If your Lord lives, you
   must live. Therefore, comfort one another with these words and go
   quietly, patiently, happily, joyfully through the world, under Divine
   preservation, since "the very hairs of your head are all numbered."

   As for you who are not in Christ, I feel a great sorrow for you because
   you cannot partake in the joy of this preservation. As for the
   righteous, the stars in their courses fight for them and the beasts of
   the field are in league with them. But as for you, earth groans to bear
   the weight of such a sinner, and the elements are impatient to avenge
   the quarrel of God's covenant by destroying you. All things work
   together to bring upon you the justice which you provoke. Flee! Flee!
   Flee! You have but one friend left--flee to Him! That Friend, "the
   Friend of Sinners," entreats you to come to Him. Hear Him as He cries
   in most tender accents, "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are
   heavy-laden and I will give you rest."

   Come to Jesus--come at once, for His dear love's sake! O, may His
   Father draw you to Him now! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Knowing the Lord Through Pardoned Sin

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, JANUARY 29, 1888,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON

   "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, from the
   least of them unto the greatest of them, says the Lord; for I will
   forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more." Jeremiah
   31:34.

   TRUE knowledge of God is a Covenant blessing. To know Jehovah as the
   only living and true God, to know Him personally and intimately, so as
   to say with David, "You are my God"--this is one of the choice
   blessings of the Covenant of Grace which grace bestows upon all the
   chosen. In this prophecy Jehovah declares that He will yet give this
   knowledge to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. And this is
   our hope for the long-wandering seed of Abraham, whom He will yet
   restore and save.

   If we regard the passage before us as instructive in its order, the
   knowledge of God follows closely upon the application of the Law to the
   heart. Read, "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 . . . and they shall all know Me, from the
   least of them unto the greatest of them, says the Lord." The work of
   grace usually begins, so far as we can perceive it, by the Holy
   Spirit's bringing the Law into contact with the inner man. The Law
   outside of a man is forgotten. He may profess a reverence for it but it
   does not affect his desires and thoughts.

   But when the Holy Spirit begins to put the Law into the inward parts,
   the immediate result is the discovery of our shortcomings and
   transgressions. The more the man's heart sees the perfect holiness of
   the Law of God the more he perceives his own unholiness and impurity.
   He sets his own conduct in contrast with the Divine righteousness and
   he is overwhelmed with shame, sorrow and dismay. He feels that if God
   should mark iniquities he could not stand in His presence--more--that
   if the Lord at once condemned him, He would be just. Law-work is
   grace-work in its darker dress. It is the axe which rough-hews the
   timber which grace goes on to fashion and smooth.

   By the operation of the Law upon the conscience, convincing the man of
   sin, of righteousness and of judgment, the Holy Spirit works towards
   the transforming of the heart. He takes away the stone out of it and
   makes it to be a fleshy, tender, sensitive thing. Then with His own
   finger He writes the Divine Law upon the mind and the affections so
   that the Divine commands become the center of the man's life and the
   governing force of his action. The man now loves that Law which before
   he, at his very best, only feared--it becomes his will to do the will
   of God. By a miracle of Divine Grace his nature is changed so that its
   tendencies, which were all towards evil are corrected by new tendencies
   which are all towards good.

   Now is the Law of God indeed glorious, for it rules by love. It was
   terrible when written on those tablets of stone which Moses dashed to
   pieces. But its radiance is like that of a pearl most precious when it
   gently influences our manhood from the central throne of the heart. It
   is now written on a tablet which will endure throughout eternity, for
   it is engraved upon an immortal spirit. As the Law is written on the
   heart, a manifestation is made of God Himself. The man is made to know
   himself, to know God's Law and thus he is led to know the Lord. Now he
   acquaints himself with God and is at peace.

   Of this gracious knowledge of the Lord I am going to speak this
   morning. This is to be our first head--the one essential
   knowledge--"They all shall know Me, from the least of them unto the
   greatest of them, says the Lord." The second head equally arises out of
   the text--it is the one grand means of obtaining this essential
   knowledge. The text tells us how this knowledge is imparted by the
   Lord--"For I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin
   no more." When we receive pardon from the hands of God, then we know
   Him, indeed. For, as Zacharias said in his song, our Lord Jesus has
   come "to give knowledge of salvation unto His people by the remission
   of their sins."

   I. To begin with, then, we have here, first of all, THE ONE ESSENTIAL
   KNOWLEDGE. It is a great Truth of God that, "This is life eternal, to
   know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent." To
   know God is to live in the light. This knowledge brings with it trust,
   peace, love, holiness and acceptance. Do not read this passage as some
   do and tear it up by its roots and then use it as if it were a prophecy
   of the universal spread of religion. Do not dream of a day when we
   shall not need to teach our brother and our neighbor the great Truths
   of our holy faith--at any rate, the text before us says nothing of the
   kind.

   This prophecy is to be read as it stands and in its own connection. In
   the first place, as we have already said, it relates to the house of
   Israel and the house of Judah. At the present time these have forgotten
   the Lord as to a true spiritual worship of Him. For they have rejected
   the Messiah, in whose face God's glory is seen--this nation is to be
   brought back to its best estate. Both portions of it shall be converted
   and shall come under a new Covenant of a very different tenor from that
   which their fathers so wantonly broke. The Lord will gather the remnant
   of Israel under a Covenant of Grace by which He will work in them those
   things which under the old Covenant He justly required of them.

   Under this Covenant of Grace they are to have their hearts inscribed
   with His Law. Jehovah is to be their God and they are to be His people.
   Then shall they in very deed know the Lord as their fathers knew Him in
   the days of Elijah when the fire fell from Heaven and they cried,
   "Jehovah, He is the God. Jehovah, He is the God." Whatever else these
   converts shall not know, they shall know Jehovah, "from the least of
   them unto the greatest of them."

   Refer the passage to the spiritual Israel, as you justly may and you
   learn that when God deals with men in a way of Divine Grace and
   impresses obedience upon their nature, then they all know Him--from the
   least of them unto the greatest of them. The universality of the text
   extends to all those who come under the New Covenant and are renewed in
   heart. These, without exception, know the Lord and there is no need
   that they be instructed upon that important point. These people know
   the Lord and never can forget Him--henceforth they are no more
   strangers to Him but sojourners with Him.

   Let us consider this knowledge, that we may see what it is. And to
   begin with, it is emphatically the knowledge of God--"They shall all
   know Me." They may not know everything about God. Who could? Who knows
   the Lord in that sense but the Lord Himself? Only the infinite can
   comprehend the infinite. The intellectual comprehension of the
   attributes of God is beyond us. How, then, could we grasp His essence?
   The regenerate, however, know the Lord, though they do not and cannot
   understand His incomprehensible glories. They may not know a great many
   things which they would like to know--critical, scientific, historical,
   theological, spiritual and eternal--but these matters are not spoken of
   in this place. One form of knowledge is mentioned, and only one--"They
   shall all know Me, says Jehovah."

   Observe that the Prophet speaks not of knowing facts about God, nor
   truths as to what God is, or has done, or will do--it is knowing God
   Himself. Do you not perceive the difference? I may know and I do know a
   great deal about a certain renowned person--say, if you please, Prince
   Bismarck. I have read his biography and I think I have some sort of an
   idea of his personal character--thus I know something about him. But if
   you were to ask me, "Do you know him?" I should at once answer, "No, I
   have not even seen him, I have never spoken with him, nor written to
   him, nor held any other communication with him. And therefore I cannot
   say that I know him."

   Now, if this solemn question were passed round these pews--"Do you know
   God?"--how would you answer it? Many would reply, "We have read the
   Scriptures and so we know the attributes of God and we remember with
   great reverence all that God has done and promised to do--but still we
   cannot say that we know Him. Can anyone say as much as that?" Let me
   break up the question--Have you ever spoken with God? Did He ever speak
   with you? Believers can say, "Truly our fellowship is with the Father."
   Can you say that? Were you ever conscious of the Presence of God? Has
   He ever manifested Himself to you in any special way?

   Alas, many a very knowing man must honestly confess that he does not
   know the Lord in the sense contained in my questions. Even among
   professing Christians this may be sadly true. Even as Paul said to the
   Corinthians--"Awake to righteousness and sin not. For some have not the
   knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame." The knowledge here
   spoken of is to know the Lord Himself--not to know that there is a God
   and that Jehovah, alone, is God and that He is to be had in reverence
   of them that are round about Him. But to know Him. We have such a
   tendency to run away from the Personality of God. Take an
   instance--godly people say, "I know in whom I have believed." But this
   is not what

   Paul said. He declared, "I know whom I have believed." He knew the
   Person He trusted. He was personally acquainted with Jesus Christ.

   This is true godliness--personal acquaintance with a personal God. This
   is a grand support of faith. One said to a Christian lady that he did
   not believe in the Scriptures and she replied that she believed in them
   and delighted to read them. When asked her reason, she replied,
   "Perhaps it is because I know the Author." Personal acquaintance with
   God turns faith into assurance. The knowledge of God is the basis of a
   faith of the surest and sweetest kind--we know and have believed the
   love which God has towards us. Knowing God, we believe in the Truth of
   His Words, the justice of His sentences, the goodness of His acts, the
   wisdom of His purposes--yes--and the love of His chastisements.

   When a renewed heart truly knows God, it has no further quarrel with
   Him, or with anything that He does or says. The cry is, "It is the
   Lord, let Him do what seems Him good." Thus to know God is eternal
   life. Let us return to the question--Do we know the Lord? Hearken, my
   Hearers. Has the Lord ever been so near you as to make you say, "How
   dreadful is this place"? Did your flesh ever tremble and your lips
   quiver at His voice? Do you know the feeling which overcame the Prophet
   Habakkuk when he trembled in himself? Then I know that you are sure,
   beyond all other certainty of your previous life, that God is and that
   He deals with men. Do you know the Lord in this way? I put this
   question to each one.

   Have you ever spoken to Him? Is it your habit to open your heart to
   Him? Do you tell Him all your secrets? I mean by this nothing bordering
   on fanaticism or superstition. But in sober earnestness, I ask--Is God
   real to you? Is He as real to you as she that lies in your bosom, or as
   the friend who walks with you by the way? Is the invisible God as real
   to you as any person that you can see, as much an actual fact as any
   substance which you can feel? Has the Lord ever spoken to your soul? I
   will not put any special question about the medium of that speech. It
   may be He has spoken through this Book, or through His minister, or by
   "a still small voice" within your soul--but has the Eternal One ever
   spoken with you?

   O my Hearers, are you on speaking terms with your God? If not, you
   cannot be said to know Him. And if you do not know Him, you are not
   among the renewed in heart. For of them the Lord says in this
   Scripture, "They shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the
   greatest of them."

   Note, dear Friends, in the next place, that it is a personal knowledge.
   Each renewed person knows the Lord for himself. You cannot know God
   except for yourself. If I am asked whether I know such a person, it
   would be idle to answer, "Well, my brother knows him." That would be an
   admission that I did not myself know him. If the question were
   repeated, "Do you know him?" it would be folly to reply, "Well, I have
   a cousin who sometimes dines with him." That is not the question. So
   with regard to God. No second-hand knowledge can be admitted here. You
   cannot know God through other people.

   And why should you wish to do so? Is not personal knowledge the most to
   be desired? Did not Job rejoice that when he should rise from the dead
   he should behold his Redeemer? And this was the essence of his
   joy--"Whom I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold and not
   another." He would not have wished to see his Redeemer with another's
   eyes, nor that the vision should be his only by proxy. It is for our
   own lips to drink at the fountainhead of love and for our own eyes to
   look unto the Lord. No imaginary reception of grace by a sponsor can
   save, or even satisfy. You cannot see God with another man's eyes. You
   cannot know God through another man's knowledge. O my Hearers, you must
   yourselves be born again! You must yourselves be made pure in heart, or
   you cannot see God. Personal religion and individual knowledge of God
   are indispensable. Come, my Hearer, what have you to say to this?

   Next, this knowledge is one which is worked in us by the Spirit of the
   Lord. It is the duty of every Christian man to say to his neighbor and
   to his brother, "Know the Lord." It is the instinct of a new-born child
   of God to try and convey what he knows. God uses this effort as His
   instrumentality for saving men. But the man who really knows the Lord
   does not know Him solely by such instruction. This may be the means
   used but the knowledge obtained comes from a higher source than brother
   or neighbor.

   All Zion's children are taught of the Lord. They know God by His
   revealing Himself to them. You may know what the preacher can tell you
   and yet you may know nothing aright. You may know what this Book can
   tell you and yet if the Holy Spirit has not quickened you to perceive
   the living Truth within the Book, you know nothing truly. We may stand
   and preach, dear Friends, until our tongues are worn away and this
   inspired page may lie open before you until the ink is

   blanched and yet you, Hearers and Readers, may never know the Lord.
   Yes, I am sure you never will unless the Spirit shall show Him unto
   you.

   You cannot know a man by hearing and reading of him--you must deal with
   himself. God, through Himself, must each one of you know. There is no
   other way of truly knowing Him. When Peter confessed Christ, you
   remember how the Lord Jesus said, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for
   flesh and blood have not revealed it unto you." You may know a great
   deal intellectually by the teaching of men. But heart-knowledge--the
   knowledge which is peculiar to God's elect--you can never receive
   except by the teaching of the Lord. Jesus said of the Holy Spirit, "He
   shall teach you all things." Is not that a fulfillment of the old
   promise, "All your children shall be taught of the Lord"? Those whom
   God teaches are taught, indeed. But neither nature, nor art, nor the
   will of man can supply the place of this heavenly instruction.

   Beloved, true Believers know God because God has revealed Himself to
   them. Let me assure you the receivers of this personal teaching cannot
   be bamboozled by the doubts and denials of men. False prophets would,
   if it were possible, deceive the very elect. But it is not possible
   that the elect should be deceived. For they have internal evidence
   which carnal reason cannot shake. They commune with the Most High God
   and the secret of the Lord is with them and consequently their hearts
   are fixed. What we have heard and seen, we testify--and if men receive
   not our witness it is none the less sure to our own hearts.

   It is not possible for our faith to be destroyed, if it is indeed the
   work of the Holy Spirit. For that which God does shall be forever. The
   faith your mother gave you, your stepmother may take away from you. The
   religion which you inherited from your father may be sold off with the
   old furniture of the house--that which man gives, man may take away.
   But that which the Holy Spirit implants in us, all the devils in Hell
   cannot pluck up. It is not possible for all the powers of darkness to
   erase the inscription of the Spirit of God upon that heart which He has
   turned into flesh. Knowledge given by the Spirit is clear, definite,
   personal, assured, positive, and therefore, precious. We grow more and
   more persuaded as our experience ripens.

   The Truth of God which has been burned into us as with a red hot iron
   by the operations of the Spirit of God becomes a vital portion of
   ourselves. Note carefully that this knowledge of God becomes manifest
   knowledge. It is so manifest that the most earnest workers who desire
   the conversion of their fellowmen no longer say to such a man, "Know
   the Lord"--for they perceive most clearly that he already possesses
   that knowledge--so as to be beyond the need of instruction upon that
   point.

   There are many Truths of God, beloved Brethren, which I feel always
   bound to teach to you so long as I am the pastor of this flock. But if
   I had a company gathered here only of regenerated men and women, I
   should not think of saying to you, "Know the Lord." For I should be
   sure that you all knew Him, from the least even to the greatest. We
   assume the presence of this knowledge when we preach to God's
   people--we take it for granted that they know the Lord, and therefore,
   we do not again lay this foundation. A godly man's life is such that we
   perceive that he knows the Lord.

   The absence of this becomes equally clear in many of the ungodly. When
   men commit a crime, the indictment often runs, "not having the fear of
   God before his eyes." You can tell when a man has not the fear of God
   before his eyes and you can tell when a man has that fear of God.
   Brethren, if you watch him and especially if you live with him, you
   will perceive when a person has a knowledge of God. A mighty something
   operates upon him, checking or stimulating, cheering or calming him.
   Hear him as he wrestles in prayer. Stand outside the door and you will
   soon perceive that an invisible One is with him. This unseen Somebody
   is Everybody to this man and you can see it.

   Mark him when he gets into trade. He might take an unfair advantage.
   But he scorns it. Does he not want money? Yes, badly. But he has
   respect to One whom others cannot see. By a word of falsehood he might
   profit largely. He will not speak it. Why? "So did not I, because of
   the fear of the Lord." All who have been renewed in spirit and have had
   God's Law written upon the fleshy tablets of their heart manifest to a
   greater or less degree that they know the Lord-- and therefore their
   Brethren perceive it and cease to teach them what they are sure they
   know.

   Next, this knowledge of God is universal among the regenerate. It is
   not universal among the sons of Adam, for multitudes know not God and
   have no dealings with Him! But all those who are under the Covenant of
   Grace know the Lord. Brethren, it would be a doubtful child that did
   not know its own father. All the boys and girls at home differ in

   knowledge. The big boy is going to the university soon and the eldest
   girl has taken a degree at the Oxford Examination. But yonder little
   child who does not know his letters yet, still knows his father, does
   he not?

   Oh, how glad he is when Father comes home in the evening! Yes and God's
   children know their Father. Moreover, we all know the Lord Jesus, the
   Son of God. Whatever else I do not know, I can say--

   "Jesus, my God, I know His name; His name is all my trust"

   We know Jesus Himself and dwell in Him! We also know the Spirit of God.
   He has opened our eyes. He is our Comforter. He it is that brings us
   near to God. Thus we know, personally, the Father, the Son, and the
   Holy Spirit. There is no exception to this rule in all the family of
   love. The Prophet says they shall all know Him, from the least to the
   greatest. That is to say, from the new-born Believer up to the
   full-grown saint--they all know the Lord.

   The descriptions given may relate to their littleness or greatness in
   grace. Or they may refer to their littleness or greatness in ability,
   position, or usefulness. But they all know the Lord. The regenerate man
   with one talent knows the Lord. The man with ten talents boasts not of
   them but rejoices that he knows the Lord. This is the distinguishing
   mark of the regenerate--that they know the Lord. Every grace that the
   Spirit has worked in them shows this. Faith is the special mark of
   God's people. But how shall they believe in Him whom they do not know?
   "They that know Your name will put their trust in You"--thus their
   knowledge of God is the basis of their faith in Him.

   All God's people love Him supremely. But we cannot love a God whom we
   do not know. In proportion as our knowledge increases towards God, our
   love to Him burns more and more brightly. God is our hope, our
   confidence, our expectation--but we can have no hope in an unknown God.
   The knowledge of God lies at the bottom of every virtue and grace. The
   Lord God is our Friend. We hold high conversation with Him every day.
   We walk with Him. We delight in Him. He is our exceeding joy. This, in
   a large degree, is true of all those with whom the grace of God has
   dealt to bring them under His Covenant and to give them new hearts and
   right spirits--they all know the Lord from the least even unto the
   greatest.

   II. And this leads me to the second point, whereon I ask your earnest
   attention--THE ONE GRAND MEANS OF

   OBTAINING THIS KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. Here it is--"For I will forgive their
   iniquity and I will remember their

   sin no more." Do you get the idea? The clearest knowledge of God comes
   out of pardoned sin. The most distinct, vivid, assured knowledge of
   Jehovah comes to us when our iniquity is blotted out and our sin is
   covered.

   Just think a little. Without the pardon of sin it is not possible for
   us to know the Lord. We run away from Him. We do not want to know Him.
   Like father Adam we hide away among the trees of the garden. We do not
   desire to see our Maker, for we have offended Him. The thought of God
   is distasteful to every guilty man. It would be good news to him if he
   could be informed, on sure authority, that there was no God at all. He
   cannot know God, because his whole heart and mind and spirit are in
   such a state that he is incapable of knowing and appreciating the Holy
   One of Israel. Darkness covers the mind because sin has blinded the
   soul to all that is best and holy. The lover of sin does not know God
   and does not want to know Him.

   While sin lies at the door, there is a difficulty on God's part, too.
   How can He admit into an intimate knowledge of Himself the guilty man,
   as long as he is enamored of evil? Shall the great king entertain
   rebels? Shall two walk together, except they be agreed? "God is angry
   with the wicked every day." He is of purer eyes than to behold
   iniquity. Hence the guilty man is--by reason of his own impurity of
   nature and by reason of the holy nature of God--shut out from all
   knowledge of God.

   Beyond this, an awful dread comes over the guilty mind, even when it
   begins to be awakened. Conscience testifies that God must punish sin.
   It matters not what controversy may be raised over that
   question--conscience, which makes cowards of us all--assures us that
   sin cannot go unpunished. I have heard a great many arguments about the
   future of the impenitent but I am sure of this--that God has ingrained
   it in our nature to believe that He will not spare the guilty. Down
   deep in the soul of the most hardened unbeliever there is that
   conviction. You have only to let him lie long enough on a sickbed and
   gaze into eternity and he is forced to confess it--whether he likes to
   do so or not.

   Now, while that dread is on a man he does not want to know God and he
   even becomes incapable of knowing Him. But as the prodigal best knew
   his father when he had been received in love, so does man best know God
   when his sin is put away. When sin is forgiven, communion is
   commenced--sin is the great stone which lies at the door, and when this
   is rolled away, we enter in and see God. Beloved, we now speak of a
   matter which we have proved by experience--in the pardon of sin there
   is made to the pardoned man a clear and unmistakable revelation of God
   to his own soul. I venture to say that there is a clearer revelation of
   God to the individual in the forgiveness of his sin than can be found
   anywhere else.

   God is to be seen in nature. Who among us would wish to question it?
   Walk abroad and look around you and above you and behold your God! But
   while men are under the dominion of sin, nature does not reveal God to
   them. Their eyes are blinded and they will not perceive Him. The most
   eminent students of nature have some of them remained without the
   discovery of a God. The same is true of Providence. God comes very
   close to many men by preserving their lives from imminent peril, or by
   providing them with things necessary in the moment of great need.

   And yet we have known men living in the center of wondrous Providences
   and they have only thought themselves lucky fellows--or clever persons
   and so have traced God's mercy to chance or self. And let me go a
   little further. The revelation which God has made in this Holy
   Book--though it is an eminently clear and heavenly revelation--does not
   bring the personal assurance to men which comes by pardon of sin. Many
   have read the Book from their childhood and know large portions of it
   by heart and yet they have never seen God in His own Word.

   But let me tell you--if you have ever felt the guilt and burden of sin
   and God has come to you and brought you to the Savior's feet--and you
   have looked up and seen the great Sacrifice and put your trust in Him
   and the Spirit has borne witness with your spirit that your sins and
   your iniquities have been forgiven you--then you know the Lord with
   emphasis and beyond all doubt. In such a discovery of the Godhead there
   is a joyful conviction, an absolute certainty, a more than mathematical
   demonstration. The knowledge of God received by a distinct sense of
   pardoned sin is more certain than knowledge derived by the use of the
   senses in things pertaining to this life.

   This personal manifestation has about it a singular glory of
   overwhelming self-evidence. Did you ever notice, when reading the
   Scripture, how sometimes God makes the pardon of sin the proof of His
   Deity? In the forty-fourth chapter of Isaiah you will see how God,
   through the Prophet, laughs at the false gods. He makes sport of the
   wooden deities. "The smith with the tongs both works in the coals and
   fashions it with hammers and works it with the strength of his arms.
   The carpenter stretches out his rule--he marks it out with a line." All
   this is sacred sarcasm against the false gods. But when Jehovah comes
   to prove that He is the true God, what does He say?

   Read verse 22 of that same chapter--"I have blotted out, as a thick
   cloud, your transgressions and as a cloud your sins-- return unto Me;
   for I have redeemed you." Here He does not quote the creation of the
   heavens and the earth, nor the working of miracles of power. But to a
   sinful people He makes this the master proof--"/ have blotted out your
   sins." Did any of the gods of the heathen forgive sins? These things
   that are made of carved work and gilt by the carpenter and the
   goldsmith--did they ever blot out iniquity? Did they ever pretend to do
   so? Jehovah's Godhead is proved by His forgiveness of sin. And it is so
   proved to all who receive that pardon.

   Look again and see how God calls men to Himself to receive salvation
   because He is God. See Isaiah 45:22--"Look unto Me and be you saved,
   all the ends of the earth: for I am God and there is none else." He
   alone is God, and therefore they are bid to look to Him for salvation.
   As He proved His Godhead by salvation, so now He proves salvation by
   His Godhead. The two are bound up in one bundle. Let the burdened
   sinner see how they are joined together.

   In the thirty-third chapter of the Second Book of Chronicles, beginning
   in verse 11, let me read to you concerning Manas-seh, who had shed
   innocent blood very much--"Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the
   captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among
   the thorns and bound him with fetters and carried him to Babylon. And
   when he was in affliction he besought the Lord his God and humbled
   himself greatly before the God of his fathers and prayed unto Him: and
   He was entreated of him and heard his supplication and brought him
   again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord
   He was God." When Jehovah pardoned him, then the great sinner knew that
   Jehovah was God. There is no evidence like it. Infinite mercy
   personally received is a demonstration of the Godhead.

   The Church of God, when she was in her praiseful frame of mind and full
   of joy--what do you think was her song? Micah 7:18-19 gives it to
   us--"Who is a God like unto You, that pardons iniquity and passes by
   the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retains not His
   anger forever, because He delights in mercy. He will turn again, He
   will have compassion upon us. He will subdue our iniquities. And You
   will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." Hallelujah! Who
   is a God like unto You? We wonder more at the God of pardons than at
   the God of thunders. There is a more vivid apprehension of the Godhead
   in obtaining mercy than in beholding works of power.

   Beloved, you must bear with me a minute or two while I speak upon this
   delightful theme. I should just like a week in which to preach from
   this text and then I should need another month. How a man sees God when
   he comes to know in his own soul the fullness of pardon intended by
   this matchless Word, "Their sins and their iniquities will I remember
   no more"! Can this be so? Does the Lord make a clean sweep of all my
   sins? Can it be that the Lord has cast them all behind His back? Has He
   blotted out the record which accused me? Has He cast my sin into the
   depths of the sea?

   Hallelujah! He is a God indeed. This is a God-like act. O Jehovah! Who
   is like unto You? When I know my sins to be forgiven, I need no one to
   say to me, "Know the Lord"--the fullness of His pardon has made Him
   known. Mark, also, how freely out of His mere love, the Lord forgives
   and herein displays His Godhead! No payment on our part, of suffering
   or service, is required. The Lord pardons for His own name's sake. He
   blots out sin because He delights in mercy. This is like a God. I know
   Him, I rejoice in Him, since He has so freely pardoned me.

   When the soul comes to think of the method of mercy, it has a further
   knowledge of God. There is a great point in this. Conscience
   inquires--"If God forgives me, can He do it justly? Can He forgive
   consistently with His Character and His position as the great moral
   Governor?" We see that He has set forth a Propitiation--that He has
   provided a great Sacrifice by which He can be just and yet the
   Justifier of him that believes. Herein is wisdom. We spell over the
   Revelation, even the word Substitution--Jesus was made a curse for us.
   Then we cry out, "Oh, the wisdom of God!"

   In the extraordinary plan of salvation by grace through Christ Jesus
   all the Divine attributes are set in a glorious light and God is made
   known as never before. Oh, the splendor of redeeming love! Does not
   every soul that knows the mystery of the Cross know the Lord? Jesus
   says, "He that has seen Me has seen the Father."

   Brethren, do not forget the great love which, when the plan was struck
   out, provided the august Person for the working out of that plan! "He
   spared not His own Son but freely delivered Him up for us all." When I
   think that the God who was offended by sin was Himself the Sufferer on
   its account, my thoughts of God are raised far above any height to
   which the interesting facts of science have elevated them. As I see God
   in nature, I reverence Him. As I see him in Providence, I adore Him. As
   I see Him in Christ Jesus, pardoning my sin, I know Him.

   If you just turn my text over a little, you will perceive another
   Truth--"I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no
   more." To my mind, the immutability of Divine pardon is one of the most
   brilliant facets of the diamond. Some think that God forgives but
   afterwards punishes--that you may be justified today but condemned
   tomorrow. Such is not the teaching of our text. God does not play fast
   and loose with pardon in that fashion. "Their sins and their iniquities
   will I remember no more." He will not recollect one of them. They are
   gone clean out of the Divine memory.

   Of course it is a figure of speech--since in a certain sense God cannot
   forget. But as He says that He will not remember, I am content to
   believe Him. The Lord looks upon the forgiven one as if he had never
   sinned. Our debts are so fully paid by our Lord Jesus that there is not
   an account upon the file of omniscience against any pardoned one. God
   Himself cannot recall His people's sin. He vows that He will remember
   it no more. Remember how the Lord has said, "In those days and in that
   time, says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for and
   there shall be none. And the sins of Judah and they shall not be
   found--for I will pardon them whom I reserve."

   If you know this irreversible pardon, my Brethren, you know the Lord
   better than you will ever know Him through gazing at the stars, or
   cutting through the rocks to the center of the globe. This, to you, is
   a manifestation of God of a more powerful and effectual sort than all
   that you will ever read of or hear of from your fellowmen. If the Lord
   God this morning not only permits me to speak to you but if He Himself
   by His own Spirit applies the pardoning blood of Jesus to you so that
   you enjoy a sense of reconciliation--this will put all Gospel matters
   beyond the shadow of a doubt.

   If you are made by the Spirit to know that you are accepted in the
   Beloved--if a sense of that acceptance comes streaming into your soul
   just as yonder sunshine pours through that window, you will say to
   yourself, I do indeed know the Lord. That heavenly joy, that "peace of
   God" will bring to you a full assurance which nothing can disturb.
   Arguments, words, reasons-- these are all the froth of the pot. But
   real contact with God and conscious enjoyment of the peace-giving power
   of the Holy Spirit--these are solid food for souls. If God deals with
   you, my Brother and you know Him, this is sure knowledge.

   Neither time with its lapse, nor suffering with its fret, nor doubt
   with its venom, nor death with its terrors can take from you that
   certainty of faith which comes with the pardon of sin. If you do not
   know the Lord by His personal manifestation of Himself in pardoning
   your sin, I do not wonder that you are easily turned about by every
   wind of doctrine. But if you do know the Lord by His appearing to you
   in Divine Grace, you are beyond the short-range guns of the enemy. Our
   memories must fail us and our senses must leave us before we can doubt
   the glorious Godhead of our Jehovah.

   We may be beaten in argument by the sophistries of the new theologians.
   But we cling to the facts of our experience and cannot be parted from
   them. When the God of the Old Testament is decried, we glory in Him,
   saying, "He has pardoned my sin and thus He has proved Himself to be
   God, indeed." Our opponents may turn round and say, "That is no
   argument to us." We only reply, "We dare say it is not. But it is
   argument enough for us and we must leave you to judge for yourselves.
   If you will not believe our testimony, we are clear."

   May the Lord renew to our souls, from day to day, our sense of pardoned
   sin and we shall be happily established in His faith and fear, whatever
   others may have to say. Oh, how I desire that all my hearers may seek
   and find this sin-pardoning God in Christ Jesus! Look to your Savior
   hanging on the tree, bearing the curse that you might be blessed. Look,
   I say and you also shall know the Lord. The Lord help you--Amen and
   amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Holding Fast the Faith

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 5, 1888,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON

   "And to the angel of the Church in Pergamos write: These things says He
   which has the sharp sword with two edges. I know your works and where
   you dwell, even where Satan's seat is: and you holdfast My name and ha
   ve not denied My faith." Revelation 2:12,13.

   YOUR attention will be principally asked to these words--"You hold fast
   My name and have not denied My faith."

   Specially note, dear Friends, at the opening of this morning's
   meditation the character under which the Lord Jesus Christ presents
   Himself to the Church at Pergamos. "These things says He which has the
   sharp sword with two edges." Does the Lord Jesus come to His Church in
   that way? Does He, at the door of the Church, bear a sword? A sword
   unsheathed? A sharp sword? A sharp sword with two edges? Yes, even to
   His visible Church this is how our Lord Jesus Christ appears. To His
   own spiritual and faithful ones He is to each one a husband full of
   unutterable tenderness and love.

   But to the visible Church, which at its best estate is never altogether
   pure, He appears in severer form. To a Church He comes as Captain of
   the Lord's host and He wields a sharp sword with two edges. It is the
   parallel of that passage where John the Baptist says of Him--"His fan
   is in His hand and He will thoroughly purge His floor and He will
   gather His wheat into His garner. But He will burn up the chaff with
   unquenchable fire." That winnowing fan is never out of His hand for it
   is always needed. Even though our Lord is full of Divine Grace, He is
   also full of Truth. His love to His servants manifests itself in a
   burning jealousy which will not endure evil.

   "He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and He shall purify
   the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver." We think of the
   coming of our Lord as a joy and a blessing. But, oh, remember that
   question, "But who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand
   when He appears?" The Lord bears the sword and He bears it not in vain.
   Time has not blunted its edge, it is "sharp." And it has two edges, as
   of old. But what will He do with that sword in reference to a Church?
   We are not left in any doubt upon that point. Having mentioned some
   whose doctrines and lives were unclean, the Lord says, "Repent. Or else
   I will come unto you quickly and will fight against them with the sword
   of My mouth."

   He turns the sword against those within the Church who have no right to
   be there. It is no trifling thing to be a Church member. I could
   earnestly wish that certain professors had never been members of a
   Church at all. For if they had been outside the Church, they might have
   been in far less peril than they are within its bounds. Outside, their
   conduct might have been tolerated. But it is not consistent with an
   avowal of discipleship towards Jesus. I say this with deep sorrow. O
   false Professors, you may go down to Hell readily enough without
   increasing your damnation by coming into Christ's Church with a lie in
   your right hand. Alas for those who are not Christians in heart and yet
   profess to be so!

   Such ought to be startled by the vision of the Lord Himself drawing
   near to a Church with a sharp sword in His hand. Surely, "The sinners
   in Zion are afraid; fearfulness has surprised the hypocrites." Yet is
   there comfort to the sincere in this glorious Man of War? He will smite
   those who are the enemies of His holy cause but He will also beat off
   those who attack His people from without. His sword is for the defense
   of the faithful. It is drawn from its sheath to protect the timid and
   the trembling. Jesus is come as our Joshua, to chase the enemy before
   us and lead us onward, conquering and to conquer. The sword with two
   edges is the defender of the least of those whose hearts are right
   before the Lord.

   I introduce the subject as the Spirit Himself introduces it. I would
   make the sermon sweet to the saints but the preface needs to be sharp
   lest any seize upon comforts to which they have no right. The Paschal
   Lamb is always to be eaten with bitter herbs--those bitter herbs I have
   set upon the table. The name of Jesus, which is the song of angels and
   the treasure of saints, has terror in it to those who refuse Him. For
   He who bears that name shall judge the quick and dead

   and pronounce condemnation on the unrighteous. Notice that this blessed
   Savior watches His Church with an observant eye. He looks at the Church
   in Pergamos and He says, "I know your works and where you dwell, even
   where Satan's seat

   is."

   The Lord sees the position and the peril of the Church at Pergamos,
   "where Satan dwells." Probably there were horrible idolatries with
   obscene orgies in the city or it may have been a place of peculiar
   licentiousness--or of special persecution. We cannot, at this distance,
   of time tell exactly what it was. But the Lord regarded it as the
   citadel of Satan. There are places in the world at this day where sin
   has so much the upper hand or where error and unbelief reign so supreme
   that the devil would seem to have there taken up his residence and to
   have made it his capital city. This is a trying neighborhood for a
   Church of Christ and yet it is the place where it is most wanted.

   You, dear Friend, may be living in society where the Evil One rules
   with undisputed sway. You are not favored to dwell with your fellow
   Christians but you go home to be met with blasphemies at the door. And
   all the week fights and sounds assail your eyes and ears which make you
   feel like Lot in Sodom. I am sorry for you. But let it comfort you that
   your Lord knows all about it and He can either remove you from the
   trying position or else He can still more glorify His Divine Grace by
   supporting you in it and enabling you to overcome the enemy. He knows
   that "Satan desires to have you, that he may sift you as wheat." And
   Jesus Christ prays for you that your faith fail not.

   He knows your perils and He considers your trials. Right well He
   perceives the way in which Satan would first mislead you and then
   accuse you. The subtlety of the old serpent He understands. He sees
   your struggles, your failures and your desperate endeavors to hold fast
   the faith. He knows how at night you are grieved as you make confession
   before Him of your shortcomings. But He knows, also, the peculiar
   circumstances in which you are placed and He judges you in great mercy.
   If you are holding fast His name and have not denied the faith--even
   that may be to Him a surer proof of your truthfulness of heart than
   works of labor and patience might be in other instances.

   You have borne fewer clusters than another vine but Jesus knows that
   you grow in a very barren bit of ground and He thinks well of your
   little fruit. Your day's work does not look like much when it is done
   but when horses plow a rock so hard that it breaks the plowshare, no
   farmer expects so much to be done as when a light loam has to be gently
   turned over. The Lord Jesus takes all our surroundings into
   consideration. He loves us too well to make excuse for our sins, yet He
   Himself mentions the circumstances which make our act to be rather
   failure than fault, even as He did for the first disciples when He
   found them asleep and He said, "The spirit truly is willing but the
   flesh is weak."

   O dear Children of God, if you are placed in positions of peculiar
   trial and difficulty, and if your hindrances are so many that you
   cannot accomplish one-tenth as much as you desire--then hear how Jesus
   puts it--"I know where you dwell, even where Satan's seat is." If you
   are faithful to your Lord and firm in His Truth, He will commend you
   and say, "Yet you hold fast My name and have not denied My faith." I
   wonder whether this word of comfort is meant for somebody here, or for
   some friend who will read the sermon. I feel that it must be so.

   Many of our Lord's beloved ones are, in God's sight, now doing much
   more, under distressing circumstances, than they used to do in happier
   days. When they had ten pounds entrusted to them, they brought in two
   by way of interest. And now that they have only one pound, they bring
   in one pound of interest--thus you see that they produce a far larger
   percentage than they used to do. And this is the Lord's way of
   calculating--for it is according to righteousness. When we have little
   strength and are placed in positions of great difficulty, then the Lord
   thinks all the more of what we produce and regards it as all the surer
   proof of fidelity.

   In the text it is commendation enough for Pergamos, under the
   circumstances that dwelling so close to Beelzebub's own capital, close
   under the shadow of the throne of Hell--that Church could earn this
   praise--"You hold fast My name and have not denied My faith." Let us
   give earnest attention to this commendation. Oh, that we may earn it
   ourselves. And if we have already earned it, may we be helped by the
   Holy Spirit to hold it fast, so that no man take our crown!

   I. The first head will be, LET US CONSIDER THIS FACT. I hope it is a
   fact with many here present as surely as it was a fact with Pergamos. I
   trust it can be said of this Church and of its members--"You hold fast
   My name and have not denied My

   faith."

   Notice, dear Friends, that the name of Christ is here made to be
   identical with the faith of Christ. "You hold fast My name and have not
   denied My faith." The faith of Scripture has Christ for its center,
   Christ for its circumference and Christ for its substance. The
   name--that is, the Person, the Character, the work, the teaching of
   Christ--this is the faith of Christians. The great doctrines of the
   Gospel are all intimately connected with the Lord Jesus Christ
   Himself--they are the rays and He is the

   sun. We never hold the faith correctly except as we see the Lord Jesus
   to be the center of it. From our election onward to our
   glorification--Christ is All and in all.

   To the Jews the Law was never in its proper place until it was laid in
   the ark and covered with the Mercy Seat. And I am sure Believers never
   see the Law aright till they see it fulfilled in Christ Jesus. If it is
   so with the Law, how much more is it so with the Gospel? The Gospel is
   the gold ring, but Christ Jesus is the diamond which is set in it.
   Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our faith--He is the Sum and
   Substance, the top and bottom of it. When we hold fast the name of our
   Lord then we have not denied the faith.

   But how may the faith be denied? In several ways this may be done. Let
   me say it very tenderly but very solemnly--some deny the faith and let
   go the name of Jesus by never confessing it. Remember how the Lord puts
   this matter in the gospels-- "Whosoever shall confess Me before men,
   him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God. But he
   that denies Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God."
   Here it is clear that to deny is the same thing as not confessing. I
   know people who almost boast of their neutrality. They say, "I hold my
   tongue. Though the conflict should lie between Christ and Belial, yet I
   would go quietly on and never involve myself."

   Is that what you say? Then permit me to remind you of our Lord's own
   words. "He that is not with Me is against Me. And he that gathers not
   with Me scatters abroad." Again He says, "Whosoever does not bear his
   cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple." This text must bear
   hard upon those who have tried not exactly to hold with the hare and
   run with the hounds but neither to hold with the hare nor yet to run
   with the hounds. These have hoped to find in their discretion the
   better part of valor. But, believe me, it is a valor which will be
   rewarded with everlasting contempt. This way you hope to lead an easy
   life. An easy life of such a kind will end in a very uneasy death. A
   life in which we have shunned the Cross of Christ will lead to a state
   in which we shall miss the crown of glory.

   Christ is also denied by false doctrine. If we espouse error as to His
   Person, work, or doctrine and believe what Jesus did not teach and
   refuse to believe what Jesus did teach, then we have denied His name
   and His faith. One of the main points of a Christian--without which the
   rest of his life will not be acceptable with God--is that Jesus shall
   be to him "the Way, the Truth and the Life." The practical, the
   doctrinal, the experimental must all be found by us in Jesus Christ our
   Lord or else we have not placed Him in His right position. And we
   cannot be right anywhere unless the center is right and unless Jesus is
   that center. God grant that we may never turn aside from the faith once
   for all delivered to the saints. But may we resist all false
   philosophies--steadfast and immovable!

   But then it is very possible to deny the name and the faith by unholy
   living. Let none of us imagine that an orthodox creed can be of any use
   to us if we lead a heterodox life. No, Christ Jesus is to be obeyed as
   a Master as well as to be believed as a Teacher. The disciple is to be
   practically obedient, as well as attentively teachable. "Without
   holiness no man shall see the Lord." The Apostle Paul somewhere says,
   "He that cares not for his own household has denied the faith and is
   worse than an infidel (or unbeliever)." So a moral fault may be a
   denial of the faith and may make a man worse than if he had never
   professed to believe at all. God save us from an unholy life!

   Alas, we can deny the faith by actually forsaking it and quitting the
   people of God. Some do so deliberately and others because the charms of
   the world overcome them. We are told of some who went away from our
   Lord because of what He had taught. They cried, "This is a hard saying;
   who can bear it?" My Friends, if you are not prepared to accept hard
   sayings, you need not profess to be disciples of Jesus. "Horrible
   doctrine!" cried one the other day. Granted that it is horrible, may it
   not also be true? Many horrible things take place around us and yet
   none can deny the facts. You cannot exclude from your knowledge many
   things which are true by merely crying, "Horrible!"

   It is not ours to judge of our Lord's teaching by our sentiment--we are
   to receive it by faith. He speaks terribly of the doom of the wicked
   and He is not capable of exaggeration. What the Lord Jesus says is
   certain, for "He is the faithful and true witness," and therefore we
   will not turn from Him, whatever His teaching may be. Oh for grace to
   persevere to the end! Oh for fidelity and constancy so that neither
   gain nor loss, exaltation nor depression may induce us to quit our
   Savior! Let us hold fast His sacred name and never deny the faith, come
   what may. May the Holy Spirit hold us fast that we may hold fast the
   name of Jesus!

   In what way may we be said to hold fast the name of Christ and the
   faith of Christ? I answer, by the full consent of our intellect,
   yielding up our mind to consider and accept the things which are
   assuredly believed among us. We hold fast the form of sound words and
   accept whatsoever God has revealed because He has revealed it. Our
   motto is, "Let God be true but every man a liar." When Christ speaks,
   we assent with our minds and consent with our hearts to all He
   declares.

   If we hold fast the name of Jesus, we must hold the faith in the love
   of it. We must store up in our affections all that our Lord teaches.
   His Words are found and we do eat them--they are as honey to the taste.
   Let Jesus speak and I will reply, "Yes, Lord, You say it is so and I
   know it is so. I consent to Your teaching and from my soul I love You
   and accept all that You do reveal." For the doctrines revealed in Holy
   Scripture the true Believer would live or die. This love of the heart
   is that which causes us to hold fast the name of Christ.

   We also hold it fast by holding it forth in the teeth of all
   opposition. We must confess the faith at all proper times and seasons
   and we must never hide our colors. There are times when we must dash to
   the front and court the encounter when we see that our Captain's honor
   demands it. Let us never be either ashamed or afraid. Our Lord Jesus
   deserves that we should yield ourselves as willing sacrifices in
   defense of His faith. Ease, reputation, life itself, must go for the
   name and faith of Jesus. If in the heat of the battle our good name or
   our life must be risked to win the victory, then let us say, "In this
   battle some of us must fall--why should not I? I will take part and lot
   with my Master and bear reproach for His sake."

   Only brave soldiers are worthy of our great Lord. Those who sneak into
   the rear, that they may be comfortable, are not worthy of the kingdom.
   What will our Captain say of cowards in that day when He distributes
   rewards to all faithful ones? Brethren, we must be willing to bear
   ridicule for Christ's sake, even that peculiarly envenomed ridicule
   which "the cultured" are so apt to pour upon us. We must be willing to
   be thought great fools for Jesus' sake. Some of us have forgotten more
   than many of our opponents ever knew, and yet they style us ignorant.
   We are bearing shame because we have the courage of our convictions and
   yet they call us cowards.

   For my part, I am willing to be ten thousand fools in one for my dear
   Lord and Master and count it to be the highest honor that can be put
   upon me to be stripped of every honor and loaded with every censure for
   the sake of the grand old Truth of God which is written on my very
   heart. Those ships which sail with Jesus as their Lord High Admiral
   must look for tempests. For His boat was filled with the waves and
   began to sink.

   Does that man love his Lord who would be willing to see Jesus wearing a
   crown of thorns, while for himself he craves a chaplet of laurel? Shall
   Jesus ascend to His Throne by the Cross, and do we expect to be carried
   there on the shoulders of applauding crowds? Be not so vain in your
   imagination. Count the cost and if you are not willing to bear Christ's
   Cross, go away to your farm and to your merchandise and make the most
   of them--only let me whisper this in your ear--"What shall it profit a
   man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

   II. In the second place, having considered the fact, LET US FURTHER
   ENLARGE UPON IT. What do we mean by holding fast the name of Christ? I
   reply, first, we mean holding fast the Deity of that name. We believe
   in our Lord's real Godhead. "His name shall be called Wonderful,
   Counselor, the Mighty God." One of the names by which He is revealed to
   us is Immanuel. The word "El" is one of the great Oriental names of
   God. You get in Hebrew Elohim and in Arabic "Allah." Our Lord Jesus is
   Immanuel, that is, God With Us. And we believe Him to be so. He is as
   truly man as anyone among us--born of a virgin without taint of
   original sin. But He is also most surely God without the least
   diminishing of the perfections and glories of Godhead.

   We put our finger into the print of the nails, but as we do so we cry,
   "My Lord and my God." "Let all the angels of God worship Him." "At the
   name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in Heaven and things in
   earth and things under the earth. And every tongue shall confess that
   Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." We can never
   give up our belief in the Godhead of our Lord Jesus--we must, and will,
   hold fast the faith of the Deity of Christ.

   We also hold fast the name of Jesus and the faith of Jesus, as to the
   royalty of His name. He was born King of the Jews and He is also "King
   of kings and Lord of lords." That which Pilate wrote over His Cross is
   true--"Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." But God also has
   highly exalted Him and made Him to have dominion over all the works of
   His hands. The Father has committed all judgment unto the Son. He shall
   put down all rule and all authority and power, for He must reign till
   He has put all enemies under His feet. "The Lord shall reign forever
   and ever--Hallelujah"! When we bow the knee in prayer and say, "Your
   kingdom come," we mean the kingdom of God and we mean also the kingdom
   of Christ Jesus.

   He it is that as a Lamb is seen in the midst of the Throne where saints
   and angels pay adoring homage. Soon shall the seventh angel sound his
   trumpet and great voices shall be heard in Heaven saying, "The kingdoms
   of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.
   And He shall reign forever and ever." O Jesus, we bow before You! "Just
   and true are Your ways, You King of saints." He reigns in our hearts
   over the triple kingdom of our nature. He is King in our families. We
   desire to see him King in this city, King in this nation, King over all
   the earth. And we shall never be satisfied till, with all the redeemed
   of our race, we crown Him Lord of all. We hold fast the royalty of the
   name of Jesus Christ.

   Moreover, we believe in the grandeur of that name as being the first
   and the last. Open the New Testament and read the first verse of
   Matthew. How does it begin? "The book of the generation of Jesus
   Christ, the Son of David." The book of the New Covenant begins with
   Jesus. Now look at the last verse, see how the Testament ends--"The
   grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen." Jesus Christ
   appears in the first verse and He appears in the last verse. Did He not
   say, "I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End"?

   The first line of the Covenant of Grace is Jesus Christ. The last line
   of the Covenant of Grace is Jesus Christ. And all in between is the
   Lord Jesus Christ. Begin with him as A, go right through to B, C, D, E,
   F, and so on, till you end with Z and it is all Christ Jesus. He is
   All--yes, He is All in All. Oh what blessings have come to us through
   Jesus Christ! Through His name we have received remission of sins. In
   His name we are justified. In His name we are sanctified. In His name
   we shall be glorified even as in Him we were chosen from before the
   foundation of the world. My tongue can never tell you even the
   commencement of His greatness. Who shall declare His generation? The
   fringe, the hem of His infinite glories, who can touch?

   He is unspeakable. As for His glory, I may say, "O Lord, our Lord, how
   excellent is Your name in all the earth! Who has set Your glory above
   the heavens?" All glory and honor be unto Him in whom are comprehended
   all the blessings whereby God has enriched His people in time and in
   eternity.

   We hold fast the name of Christ as we believe in its saving power. "You
   shall call His name Jesus--for He shall save His people from their
   sins." We hold fast the belief that Jesus saves us from the guilt of
   sin by having borne it in His own body on the tree. We are assured that
   He makes us just before God by that righteousness of His, which is
   ours, because we are one with Him. He saves us from the punishment of
   sin because "the chastisement of our peace was upon Him." He died as a
   victim in our place. He saves us from the power of sin by His Spirit
   and by faith in His death--we overcome sin by the blood of the Lamb.
   Salvation in every department--salvation from its hopeful dawning to
   its glorious perfection--is all of Christ Jesus.

   He is Savior and He alone. "There is none other name under Heaven given
   among men, whereby we must be saved." He is the unique Savior, there is
   no other possible salvation now or in the world to come. Do you believe
   Christ? Then you have salvation. "But he that believes not shall be
   damned." Pronounce the word hard or soft as you will, it will come to
   the same thing in the end--you shall be condemned and condemned
   hopelessly if you believe not in Jesus Christ, the one sole
   Propitiation for the sins of men. This we hold fast. I know you are
   established in these Truths of God, my Beloved, and you mean to hold
   them as long as you breathe and not to deny the faith which the Lord
   Himself has delivered to you.

   Once more, we hold fast this name in its immutability. We are told
   today that this is an age of progress and therefore we must accept an
   improved Gospel. Every man is to be his own lawyer and every man his
   own savior. We are getting on in the direction of every man putting
   away his own sin, just as every chimney should consume its own smoke.
   But, dear Friends, we do not believe these idle dreams. We want no new
   Gospel, no modern salvation. Our conviction is that Jesus Christ is,
   "the same yesterday, today and forever." The way that Paul went to
   Heaven is good enough for me--

   "The way the holy Prophets went, The road that leads from banishment,"
   is broad enough and safe enough for me. When I remember my dear
   Brethren in Christ who have fallen asleep--whom I saw die with triumph
   lighting up their faces--I feel quite content with the salvation which
   saved them and I am not going to try experiments or speculations.

   To talk of improving upon our perfect Savior is to insult Him. He is
   God's Propitiation. Would you want more? My blood boils with
   indignation at the idea of improving the Gospel. There is but one
   Savior and that one Savior is the same forever. His doctrine is the
   same in every age, and is not, "yes and no." What a strange result we
   should obtain in the general assembly of Heaven if some were saved by
   the Gospel of the first century and others by the Gospel of the second
   and others by the Gospel of the seventeenth and others by the Gospel of
   the nineteenth century!

   We should need a different song of praise for the clients of these
   various periods and the mingled chorus would be rather to the glory of
   man's culture than to the praise of the one Lord. No such spotted
   Heaven and no such discordant song shall ever be produced. There is one
   Church and one Savior. We believe in one Lord, one faith and one
   Baptism. To eternal glory there is but one way. To walk therein we must
   hold fast one Truth and be quickened by one life. We stand fast by the
   unaltered, unalterable, eternal name of Jesus Christ our Lord. This is
   what we mean by holding fast the name and the faith of Jesus.

   III. Thirdly, dear Friends, to lead you a step further in the same
   road, LET ME SHOW THE PRACTICAL PLACE OF THE NAME AND OF THE FAITH WITH
   US.

   The practical place of it is this--first of all, it is our personal
   comfort--

   "Jesus, the name that charms our fears,

   That bids our sorrows cease; It is music in the sinner's ears, It is
   life and health and peace."

   The faith which we hold is our daily and hourly joy and hope. The
   doctrines which I believe in connection with the Divine Person in whom
   I trust are the pillow of my weariness, the relaxation of my care, the
   rest of my spirit. Jesus gives me a lookout for years to come which is
   celestial and at the same time I can look back with thankfulness on the
   years which are past. For all time the Lord Jesus is our heart's
   content.

   Nothing can separate us from His love and therefore nothing can deprive
   us of our confident hope. Through this blessed name and this blessed
   faith Believers are themselves made glad and strong. On the name of
   Jesus we feed and in that name we wrap ourselves. It is strength for
   our weakness, yes, life for our death.

   And then, dear Friends, this name, this faith--these are our message.
   Our only business here below is to cry, "Behold the Lamb." Are any of
   you sent of God with any other message? It cannot be. The one message
   which God has given to His people to proclaim is salvation through the
   Lamb--salvation by the blood of Jesus. It is by His blood that
   cleansing comes to the polluted. He is the one great Propitiation. To
   tell of Jesus is our occupation--we have nothing to say which is not
   comprised in the revelation made to us by God in Christ Jesus. He who
   is our one comfort is also our one theme.

   He also is our Divine authority for holy work. We preach the Gospel in
   the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. If we preached it in any other name
   men would have a right to reject it. If the spiritually sick are
   healed, it is His name which makes them strong. If devils flee before
   us, we cast them out in His name. Oh, that we did more often remember
   that all our teaching and preaching must be done in the name of Jesus!
   In His name we gather for worship. In His name we go forth to service.
   If we go in our own name we go in vain. But if we are ambassadors for
   God, as though He did beseech men by us, then we pray them in Christ's
   stead to be reconciled to God and we are hopeful that our labor will
   not be in vain in the Lord.

   This also is our power in preaching. Indeed, it is our power, our only
   power, in living before God. Brethren, the devil will never be cast out
   by any other name--let us hold it fast. If we conjure by eloquence,
   talent, music, or what not, the Evil One will say, "Jesus I know, and
   Paul I know--but who are you?" It is only His name that makes the
   legions of Hell quit the bosoms of the possessed and fly howling down
   into the deep. This is the name high over all--there is none other
   which has such power in it. Spiritual diseases, yes, death itself, will
   yield to this name. It is His name that makes Lazarus come forth from
   the grave and the young man sit upright on the bier.

   Use this name and nothing can stand before you. I said that it is our
   power in life and so, indeed, it is. When we draw near to God, what is
   our strength wherewith to prevail in prayer? Is it not that we ask in
   the name of Jesus? If you leave out the name of Jesus, what are your
   prayers but a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal? Prayer without the
   name of Jesus has no wings with which to fly up to God. This is that
   golden ladder whereby we climb up to the Throne of God and take
   unspeakably precious things out of the hand of the Eternal. That name
   prevails with God concerning everything and so enables us to prevail
   with man. Therefore, hold it fast and deny not the faith. For what can
   you do if the Truth and the name of Jesus are given up?

   This name is our one hope of victory. As Constantine, in his dream, saw
   the Cross and took it for his emblem, with the motto, "By this sign I
   conquer," so today our only hope of victory for the Gospel is that the
   Cross of Christ displays it and the name of Jesus is in it. His name is
   named on us and in His name we will cast out devils and do many mighty
   works till His name shall be known and honored wherever the sun pursues
   its course, or the moon cheers the watches of the night.

   III. Now, in closing, I will URGE REASONS FOR HOLDING FAST THE NAME AND
   FAITH OF JESUS. I hope we

   hold it so fast that we can never give it up while reason holds its
   throne. There is an old Christian legend concerning Igna-tius--that he
   never spoke without mentioning the name of Jesus whom he loved. His
   speech seemed saturated with love to his Lord, and when he died, the
   name of Jesus was found to be stamped on his heart. It may not have
   been so literally but no doubt it was true spiritually.

   The name of Jesus is, I hope, written in our hearts so as to be
   inseparable from our lives. Whatever else may go, the name of Jesus can
   never depart from our thoughts. Dying men have been known to forget
   everything but this. The man has forgotten his wife, his children, his
   bosom friend and has turned away oblivious from them all as if they
   were strangers. And yet when the name of Jesus has been whispered in
   his ear, his eyes have brightened and his countenance has responded to
   that precious name. O memory, leave no other name than His recorded
   upon your tablets! Happy forgetfulness which clears all else away but
   leaves that name in solitary glory!

   That it may be so I will put the question thus--Why should we give up
   the faith? I fail to see a reason. Why should I change my belief, or
   cease to hold fast the name of Christ Jesus, my Lord? It is an
   irrational suggestion. "I am open to conviction," said a man who knew
   his ground, "I am open to conviction, but I should like to see the man
   that could convince me." I am in very much the same condition with
   regard to the Gospel of my Lord Jesus--I am open to conviction--but I
   shall never see the man that can convince me out of my experience, my
   conviction, my consciousness, my hope, my all.

   Before I could quit my faith in the substitutionary work of the Lord
   Jesus Christ and my confidence in the Everlasting Covenant ordered in
   all things and sure, I should have to be ground to powder and every
   separate atom transformed. What would they give us in exchange for the
   faith? That is a question which it is easy to ask but impossible to
   answer. Suppose the Doctrines of Grace could be obliterated and our
   hope could be taken away--what would they give us in the place of
   them-- either for this life or the next? I have never seen anything
   proposed in the place of the Gospel that was worth considering for a
   second. Have you? Uncertainty, doubt, glitter, mockery, darkness--all
   these have been offered--but who wants them? They offer us either
   bubbles or filth according to the different shade of the speculator's
   character. But we are not enamored of either. We prefer gold to dross.

   We must defend the faith. For what would have become of us if our
   fathers had not maintained it? If confessors, Reformers, martyrs and
   Covenanters had been indifferent to the name and faith of Jesus, where
   would have been the Churches of today? Must we not play the man as they
   did? If we do not, are we not censuring our fathers? It is very pretty,
   is it not, to read of Luther and his brave deeds? Of course, everybody
   admires Luther! Yes, yes. But you do not want anyone else to do the
   same today. When you go to the Zoological Gardens you all admire the
   bear. But how would you like a bear at home, or a bear wandering loose
   about the street?

   You tell me that it would be unbearable and no doubt you are right. So,
   we admire a man who was firm in the faith, say four hundred years ago.
   The past ages are a sort of bear-pit or iron cage for him. But such a
   man today is a nuisance and must be put down. Call him a narrow-minded
   bigot, or give him a worse name if you can think of one. Yet imagine
   that in those ages past, Luther, Zwingle, Calvin and their compeers had
   said, "The world is out of order. But if we try to set it right we
   shall only make a great row and get ourselves into disgrace. Let us go
   to our chambers, put on our night-caps and sleep over the bad times and
   perhaps when we wake up things will have grown better."

   Such conduct on their part would have entailed upon us a heritage of
   error. Age after age would have gone down into the infernal deeps and
   the infectious bogs of error would have swallowed all. These men loved
   the faith and the name of Jesus too well to see them trampled on. Note
   what we owe them and let us pay to our sons the debt we owe our
   fathers. It is today as it was in the Reformers' days. Decision is
   needed. Here is the day for the man--where is the man for the day? We
   who have had the Gospel passed to us by martyr's hands dare not trifle
   with it--nor sit by and hear it denied by traitors who pretend to love
   it but inwardly abhor every line of it.

   The faith I hold bears upon it marks of the blood of my ancestors.
   Shall I deny their faith, for which they left their native land to
   sojourn here? Shall we cast away the treasure which was handed to us
   through the bars of prisons, or came to us charred with the flames of
   Smithfield? Personally, when my bones have been tortured with
   rheumatism, I have remembered Job Spurgeon, doubtless of my own stock,
   who in Chelmsford Jail was allowed a chair because he could not lie
   down by reason of rheumatic pain. That Quaker's broad-brim overshadows
   my brow. Perhaps I inherited his rheumatism. But that I do not regret
   if I have his stubborn faith which will not let me yield a syllable of
   the Truth of God.

   When I think of how others have suffered for the faith, a little scorn
   or unkindness seems a mere trifle, not worthy of mention. An ancestry
   of lovers of the faith ought to be a great plea with us to abide by the
   Lord God of our fathers and the faith in which they lived. As for me, I
   must hold the old Gospel--I can do no other. God helping me, I will
   endure the consequences of what men think my obstinacy.

   Look you, Sirs, there are ages yet to come. If the Lord does not
   speedily appear, there will come another generation and another and all
   these generations will be tainted and injured if we are not faithful to
   God and to His Truth today. We have come to a turning point in the
   road. If we turn to the right, maybe our children and our children's
   children will go that way. But if we turn to the left, generations yet
   unborn will curse our names for having been unfaithful to God and to
   His Word. I charge you, not only by your ancestry but by your
   posterity, that you seek to win the commendation of your Master--that
   though you dwell where Satan's seat is--you hold fast His name and do
   not deny His faith.

   God grant us faithfulness for the sake of the souls around us! How is
   the world to be saved if the Church is false to her Lord? How are we to
   lift the masses if our fulcrum is removed? If our Gospel is uncertain,
   what remains but increasing misery

   and despair? Stand fast, my Beloved, in the name of God! I, your
   Brother in Christ, entreat you to abide in the Truth of God. Conduct
   yourselves like men, be strong. The Lord sustain you for Jesus' sake.
   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                             The Lord And The Leper

   A Sermon

   (No. 2008)

   Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, February 12th, 1888, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the [2]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to
   him, and saying unto him, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. and
   Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and
   saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken,
   immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed."'Mark
   1:40-42.

   Beloved, we saw in the reading, that our Lord had been engaged in
   special prayer. He had gone alone on the mountain-side to have
   communion with God. Simon and the rest search for him, and he comes
   away in the early morning with the burrs from the hill-side upon his
   garments, the smell of the field upon him, even of a field that the
   Lord God had blessed; he comes forth among the people, charged with
   power which he had received in communion with the Father; and now we
   may expect to see wonders. And we do see them; for devils fear and fly
   when he speaks the word; and by-and-by, there comes to him one, an
   extraordinary being, condemned to live apart from the rest of men, lest
   he should spread defilement all around. A leper comes to him, and
   kneels before him, and expresses his confident faith in him, that he
   can make him whole. Now is the Son of Man glorious in his power to
   save.

   The Lord Jesus Christ at this day has all power in heaven and in earth.
   He is charged with a divine energy to bless all who come to him for
   healing. Oh, that we may see today some great wonder of his power and
   grace! Oh, for one of the days of the Son of Man here and now! To that
   end it is absolutely needful that we should find a case for his
   spiritual power to work upon. Is there not one here in whom his grace
   may prove its omnipotence? Not you, ye good, ye self-righteous! You
   yield him no space to work in. You that are whole have no need of a
   physician: in you there is no opportunity for him to display his
   miraculous force. But yonder are the men we seek for. Forlorn, and
   lost, full of evil, and self-condemned, you are the characters we seek.
   You that feel as if you were possessed with evil spirits, and you that
   are leprous with sin, you are the persons in whom Jesus will find ample
   room and verge enough for the display of his holy skill. Of you I might
   say, as he once said of the man born blind: you are here that the works
   of God may be manifest in you. You, with your guilt and your depravity,
   you furnish the empty vessels into which his grace may be poured, the
   sick souls upon whom he may display his matchless power to bless and
   save. Be hopeful, then, ye sinful ones! Look up this morning for the
   Lord's approach, and expect that even in you he will work great
   marvels. This leper shall be a picture-yea, I hope a mirror- in whom
   you will see yourselves. I do pray that as I go over the details of
   this miracle many here may put themselves in the leper's place, and do
   just as the leper did, and receive, just as the leper received,
   cleansing from the hand of Christ. O Spirit of the living God, the
   thousands of our Israel now entreat thee to work, that Jesus, the Son
   of God, may be glorified here and now!

   I. I will begin my rehearsal of the gospel narrative by remarking,
   first, that THIS LEPER'S FAITH MADE HIM EAGER TO BE HEALED. He was a
   leper; I will not stay just now to describe what horrors are compacted
   into that single word; but he believed that Jesus could cleanse him,
   and his belief stirred him to an anxious desire to be healed at once.

   Alas! we have to deal with spiritual lepers eaten up with the foul
   disease of sin; but some of them do not believe that they ever can be
   healed, and the consequence is that despair makes them sin most
   greedily. "I may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb," is the
   inward impression of many a sinner when he fears that there is no mercy
   and no help for him. Because there is no hope, therefore they plunge
   deeper and yet deeper into the slough of iniquity. Oh, that you might
   be delivered from that false idea! Mercy still rules the hour. There is
   hope while Jesus sends his gospel to you, and bids you repent. "I
   believe in the forgiveness of sins": this is a sweet sentence of a true
   creed. I believe also in the renewal of men's hearts; for the Lord can
   give new hearts and right spirits to the evil and unthankful. I would
   that you believed it; for if you did, I trust it would quicken you into
   seeking that your sins might be forgiven and your minds might be
   renewed. Do you believe it? Then come to Jesus and receive the
   blessings of free grace.

   We have a number of lepers who come in among us whose disease is white
   upon their brows, and visible to all beholders, and yet they are
   indifferent: they do not mourn their wickedness, nor wish to be
   cleansed from it. They sit among God's people, and they listen to the
   doctrine of a new birth, and the news of pardon, and they hear the
   teaching as though it had nothing to do with them. If now and then they
   half wish that salvation would come to them, it is too languid a wish
   to last. They have not yet so perceived their disease and their danger
   as to pray to be delivered from them. They sleep on upon the bed of
   sloth, and care neither for heaven nor hell. Indifference to spiritual
   things is the sin of the age. Men are stolid of heart about eternal
   realities. An awful apathy is upon the multitude. The leper in our text
   was not so foolish as this. He eagerly desired to be delivered from his
   dreadful malady: with heart and soul he pined to be cleansed from its
   terrible defilement. Oh that it were so with you! May the Lord make you
   feel how depraved your heart is, and how diseased with sin are all the
   faculties of your soul! Alas, dear friends,'there are some that even
   love their leprosy! Is it not a sad thing to have to speak thus?
   Surely, madness is in men's hearts. Men do not wish to be saved from
   doing evil. They love the ways and wages of iniquity. They would like
   to go to heaven, but they must have their drunken frolics on the road;
   they would very well like to be saved from hell, but not from the sin
   which is the cause of it. Their notion of salvation is not to be saved
   from the love of evil, and to be made pure and clean; but that is God's
   meaning when he speaks of salvation. How can they hope to be the slaves
   of sin, and yet at the same time be free? Our first necessity is to be
   saved from sinning. The very name of Jesus tells us that: he is called
   Jesus because "he shall save his people from their sins." These persons
   do not care for a salvation which would mean self- denial and the
   giving up of ungodly lusts. O wretched lepers, that count their leprosy
   to be a beauty, and take pleasure in sin which in the sight of God is
   far more loathsome than the worst disease of the body! Oh, that Christ
   Jesus would come and change their views of things until they were of
   the same mind as God towards sin; and you know he calls it "that
   abominable thing which I hate." Oh, if men could see their love to
   wrong things to be a disease more sickening than leprosy, they would
   fain be saved, and saved at once! Holy Spirit, convince of sin, that
   sinners may be eager to be cleansed!

   Lepers were obliged to consort together: lepers associated with lepers,
   and they must have made up a dreadful confraternity. How glad they
   would have been to escape from it! But I know spiritual lepers who love
   the company of their fellow lepers. Yes, and the more leprous a man
   becomes, the more do they admire him. A bold sinner is often the idol
   of his comrades. Though foul is his life, others cling to him for that
   very reason. Such persons like to learn some new bit of wickedness,
   they are eager to be initiated into a yet darker form of impure
   pleasure. Oh, how they long to hear that last lascivious song, to read
   that last impure novel! It seems to be the desire of many to know as
   much evil as they can. They flock together, and take a dreadful
   pleasure in talk and action which is the horror of all pure minds.
   Strange lepers, that heap up leprosy as a treasure! Even those who do
   not go into gross open sin, yet are pleased with infidel notions and
   skeptical opinions, which are a wretched form of mental leprosy. O
   horrible malady, which makes men doubt the word of the living God!

   Lepers were not allowed to associate with healthy persons except under
   severe restrictions. Thus were they separated from their nearest and
   dearest friends. What a sorrow! Alas! I know persons thus separated,
   who do not wish to associate with the godly: to them holy company is
   dull and wearisome; they do not feel free and easy in such society, and
   therefore they avoid it as much as decency allows. How can they hope to
   live with saints for ever, when they shun them now as dull and moping
   acquaintances?

   O my hearers, I have come hither this morning in the hope that God
   would bless the word to some poor sinner who feels he is a sinner, and
   would fain be cleansed: such is the leper I am seeking with my whole
   heart. I pray God to bless the word to those who wish to escape from
   evil company, who would no longer sit in the assembly of the mockers,
   nor run in the paths of the unholy. To those who have grown weary of
   their sinful companions, and would escape from them, lest they should
   be bound up in bundles with them to burn at the last great day'to such
   I speak at this time with a loving desire for their salvation. I hope
   my word will come with divine application to some poor heart here that
   is crying, "I wish I might be numbered with the people of God. I wish I
   were fit to be a door-keeper in the house of the Lord. Oh, that my
   dreadful sinfulness were conquered, so that I could have fellowship
   with the godly, and be myself one of them!" I hope my Lord has brought
   to this place just such lost ones, that he may find them. I am looking
   out for them with tearful eyes. But my feeble eyes cannot read inward
   character; and it is well that the loving Saviour, who discerns the
   secrets of all hearts, and reads all inward desire, is looking from the
   watch-towers of heaven, that he may discover those who are coming to
   him, even though as yet they are a great way off. Oh that sinners may
   now beg and pray to be rescued from their sins! May those who have
   become habituated to evil long to break off their evil habits! Happy
   will the preacher be if he finds himself surrounded with penitents who
   hate their sins, and guilty ones who cry to be forgiven, and to be so
   changed that they shall go and sin no more.

   II. In the second place, let us remark that THIS LEPER'S FAITH WAS
   STRONG ENOUGH TO MAKE HIM BELIEVE THAT HE COULD BE HEALED OF HIS
   HIDEOUS DISEASE. Leprosy was an unutterably loathsome disease. As it
   exists even now, it is described by those who have seen it in such a
   way that I will not harrow your feelings by repeating all the sickening
   details. The following quotation may be more than sufficient. Dr.
   Thomson in his famous work, "The Land and the Book," speaks of lepers
   in the East, and says, "The hair falls from the head and eye-brows; the
   nails loosen, decay and drop off; joint after joint of the fingers and
   toes shrink up and slowly fall away. The gums are absorbed, and the
   teeth disappear. The nose, the eyes, the tongue and the palate are
   slowly consumed." This disease turns a man into a mass of
   loathsomeness, a walking pile of pests. Leprosy is nothing better than
   a horrible and lingering death. The leper in the narrative before us
   had sad personal experience of this, and yet he believed that Jesus
   could cleanse him. Splendid faith! Oh that you who are afflicted with
   moral and spiritual leprosy could believe in this fashion! Jesus Christ
   of Nazareth can heal even you. Over the horror of leprosy faith
   triumphed. Oh that in your case it would overcome the terribleness of
   sin!

   Leprosy was known to be incurable. There was no case of a man being
   cured of real leprosy by any medical or surgical treatment. This made
   the cure of Naaman in former ages so noteworthy. Observe, moreover,
   that our Saviour himself, so far as I can see, had never healed a leper
   up to the moment when this poor wretch appeared upon the scene. He had
   cured fever, and had cast out devils, but the cure of leprosy was in
   the Saviour's life as yet an unexampled thing. Yet this man, putting
   this and that together, and understanding something of the nature and
   character of the Lord Jesus Christ, believed that he could cure him of
   his incurable disease. He felt that even if the great Lord had not yet
   healed leprosy, he was assuredly capable of doing so great a deed, and
   he determined to apply to him. Was not this grand faith? Oh that such
   faith could be found among my hearers at this hour! Here me, O
   trembling sinner: if thou be as full of sin this morning as an egg is
   full of meat, Jesus can remove it all. If thy propensities to sin be as
   untamable as the wild boar of the wood, yet Jesus Christ, the Lord of
   all, can subdue thine iniquities, and make thee the obedient servant of
   his love. Jesus can turn the lion into a lamb, and he can do it now. He
   can transform thee where thou art sitting, saving thee in yonder pew
   while I am speaking the word. All things are possible to the Saviour
   God; and all things are possible to him that believeth. I would thou
   hadst such a faith as this leper had, although if it were even less it
   might serve thy turn, since thou hast not all his difficulties to
   contend with, since Jesus has already saved many sinners like thyself,
   and changed many hearts as hard as thine. If he shall regenerate thee,
   he will be doing for thee no strange thing, but only one of the daily
   miracles of his grace. He has now healed thousands of thy fellow
   lepers: canst thou not believe that he can heal the leprosy in thee?

   This man had a marvelous faith, thus to believe while he was personally
   the victim of the mortal malady. It is one thing to trust a doctor when
   you are well, but quite another to confide in him when your body is
   rotting away. For a real, conscious sinner to trust the Saviour is no
   mean thing. When you hope that there is some good thing in you, it is
   easy to be confident; but to be conscious of total ruin and yet to
   believe in the divine remedy'this is real faith. To see in the sunshine
   is mere natural vision; but to see in the dark needs the eye of faith:
   to believe that Jesus has saved you when you see the signs of it, is
   the result of reason; but to trust him to cleanse you while you are
   still defiled with sin'this is the essence of saving faith.

   The leprosy was firmly seated and fully developed in this man. Luke
   says that he was "full of leprosy": he had as much of the poison in him
   as one poor body could contain, it had come to its worst stage in him;
   and yet he believed that Jesus of Nazareth could make him clean.
   Glorious confidence! O my hearer, if thou art full of sin, if thy
   propensities and habits have become as bad as bad can be, I pray the
   Holy spirit to give thee and renew thee, and do it at once. With one
   word of his mouth Jesus can turn your death into life, your corruption
   into comeliness. Changes which we cannot work in others, much less in
   ourselves, Jesus, by his invincible Spirit, can work in the hearts of
   the ungodly. Of these stones he can raise up children unto Abraham. His
   moral and spiritual miracles are often wrought upon cases which seem
   beyond all hope, cases which pity itself endeavours to forget because
   her efforts have been so long in vain.

   I like best about this man's faith the fact that he did not merely
   believe that Jesus Christ could cleanse a leper, but that he could
   cleanse him! He said, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean."
   It is very easy to believe for other people. There is really no faith
   in such impersonal, proxy confidence. The true faith believes for
   itself first, and then for others. Oh, I know some of you are saying,
   "I believe that Jesus can save my brother. I believe that he can save
   the vilest of the vile. If I heard that he had saved the biggest
   drunkard in Southward I should not wonder." Canst thou believe all
   this, and yet fear that he cannot save thee? This is strange
   inconsistency. If he heals another man's leprosy, can he not heal thy
   leprosy? If one drunkard is saved, why not another? If in one man a
   passionate temper is subdued, why not in another? If lust, and
   covetousness, and lying, and pride have been cured in many men, why not
   in thee? Even if thou art a blasphemer, blasphemy has been cured; why
   should it not be so in thy case? He can heal thee of that particular
   form of sin which possesses thee, however high a degree its power may
   have reached; for nothing is too hard for the Lord. Jesus can change
   and cleanse thee now. In a moment he can impart a new life and commence
   a new character. Canst thou believe this? This is the faith which
   glorified Jesus, and brought healing to this leper; and it is the faith
   which will save you at once if you now exercise it. O Spirit of the
   living God, work this faith in the minds of my dear hearers, that they
   may thus win their suit with the Lord Jesus, and go their way healed of
   the plague of sin!

   III. Now, notice, thirdly, that this man's faith WAS FIXED ON JESUS
   CHRIST ALONE. Let me read the man's words again. He said unto Jesus,
   "If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." Throw the emphasis upon the
   pronouns. See him kneeling before the Lord Jesus and hear him say, "If
   thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." He has no idea of looking to the
   disciples; no, not to one of them or to all of them. He had no notion
   of trusting in a measure to the medicine which physicians would
   prescribe for him. All that is gone. No dream of other hope remains;
   but with his eye fully fixed on the blessed Miracle-worker of Nazareth,
   he cries, "If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." In himself he had
   no shade of confidence; every delusion of that kind had been banished
   by a fierce experience of his disease. He knew that none on earth could
   deliver him, and that by no innate power of constitution could he throw
   out the poison; but he confidently believed that the Son of God could
   by himself effect the cure. This was God-given faith'the faith of God's
   elect, and Jesus was its sole object.

   How came this man to have such faith? I cannot tell you the outward
   means, but I think we may guess without presumption. Had he not heard
   our Lord preach? Matthew puts this story immediately after the Sermon
   on the Mount, and says, "When he was come down from the mountain, great
   multitudes followed him. And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped
   him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." Had this
   man managed to stand at the edge of the crowd and hear Jesus speak, and
   did those wondrous words convince him that the great Teacher was
   something more than man? As he noted the style, and manner, and matter
   of that marvelous sermon, did he say within himself, "never man spake
   like this man. Truly he is the Son of God. I believe in him. I trust
   him. he can cleanse me"? May God bless the preaching of Christ
   crucified to you who hear me this day! Is not this used of the Lord,
   and made to be the power of God unto salvation to every one that
   believeth?

   Perhaps this man had seen our Lord's miracles. I feel sure he had. He
   had seen the devils cast out, and had heard of Peter's wife's mother,
   who had lain sick of a fever, and had been instantaneously recovered.
   The leper might very properly argue'To do this requires omnipotence;
   and once granted that omnipotence is at work, then omnipotence can as
   well deal with leprosy as with fever. Did he not reason well if he
   argued thus'What the Lord has done, he can do again: if in one case he
   has displayed almighty power, he can display that same power in another
   case? Thus would the acts of the Lord corroborate his words, and
   furnish a sure foundation for the leper's hope. My hearer, have you not
   seen Jesus save others? Have you not at least read of his miracles of
   grace? Believe him, then, for his works' sake, and say to him, "Lord,
   if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean."

   Besides, I think this man may have heard something of the story of
   Christ, and may have been familiar with the Old Testament prophecies
   concerning the Messiah. We cannot tell but some disciple may have
   informed him of John's witness concerning the Christ, and of the signs
   and tokens which supported John's testimony. He may thus have discerned
   in the Son of Man the Messiah of God, the Incarnate Deity. At any rate,
   as knowledge must come before faith, he had received knowledge enough
   to feel that he could trust this glorious personage, and to believe
   that, if he willed it, Jesus could make him clean. O my dear hearers,
   cannot you trust the Lord Jesus Christ in this way? Do you not
   believe'I hope you do'that he is the Son of God; and if so, why not
   trust him? He that was born of Mary at Bethlehem was God over all,
   blessed forever! Do you not believe this? Why, then, do you not rely
   upon God in our nature? You believe in his consecrated life, his
   suffering death, his resurrection, his ascension, his sitting in power
   at the right hand of the Father; why do you not trust him? God hath
   highly exalted him, and caused all fullness to dwell in him: he is able
   to save unto the uttermost, why do you not come to him? Believe that he
   is able, and then with all thy sins before thee, red like scarlet'and
   with all thy sinful habits, and thy evil propensities before thee,
   ingrained like the leopard's spots'believe that the Saviour of men can
   at once make thee whiter than snow as to past guilt, and free from the
   present and future tyranny of evil. A divine Saviour must be able to
   cleanse thee from all sin. Only Jesus can do it, but he can do it'do it
   himself alone, do it now, do it in thee, do it with a word. If Jesus
   wills to do it, it is all that is wanted; for his will is the will of
   the Almighty Lord. Say, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean."
   Faith must be fixed alone on Jesus. None other name is given among men
   whereby we must be saved. I do pray the Lord to give that faith to all
   my dear friends present this morning who as yet have not received
   cleansing at the Lord's hands. Jesus is God's ultimatum of salvation:
   the unique hope of guilty men both as to pardon and renewal. Accept him
   even now.

   IV. Now let me go a step further: THIS MAN'S FAITH HAD RESPECT TO A
   REAL MATTER-OF-FACT CURE. He did not think of the Lord Jesus Christ as
   a priest who would perform certain ceremonies over him, and formally
   say, "Thou art clean"; for that would not have been true. He wanted
   really to be delivered from the leprosy; to have those dry scales, into
   which his skin kept turning, taken all away, that his flesh might
   become as the flesh of a little child; he wanted that the rottenness,
   which was eating up his body, should be stayed, and that health should
   be actually restored. Friends, it is easy enough to believe in a mere
   priestly absolution if you have enough credulity; but we need more than
   this. It is very easy to believe in Baptismal Regeneration, but what is
   the good of it? What practical result does it produce? A child remains
   the same after it has been baptismally regenerated as it was before,
   and it grows up to prove it. It is easy to believe in Sacramentarianism
   if you are foolish enough; but there is nothing in it when you believe
   in it. No sanctifying power comes with outward ceremonials in and of
   themselves. To believe that the Lord Jesus Christ can make us love the
   good things which once we despised, and shun those evil things in which
   we once took pleasure'this is to believe in him indeed and of a truth.
   Jesus can totally change the nature, and make a sinner into a saint.
   This is faith of a practical kind; this is a faith worth having.

   None of us would imagine that this leper meant that the Lord Jesus
   could make him feel comfortable in remaining a leper. Some seem to
   fancy that Jesus came to let us go on in our sins with a quiet
   conscience; but he did nothing of the kind. His salvation is cleansing
   from sin, and if we love sin we are not saved from it. We cannot have
   justification without sanctification. There is no use in quibbling
   about it; there must be a change, a radical change, a change of heart,
   or else we are not saved. I put it now to you, Do you desire a moral
   and a spiritual change, a change of life, thought and motive? This is
   what Jesus gives. Just as this leper needed a thorough physical change,
   so do you need an entire renewal of your spiritual nature, so as to
   become a new creature in Jesus Christ. Oh that many here would desire
   this, for it would be a cheering sign. The man who desires to be pure
   is beginning to be pure; the man who sincerely longs to conquer sin has
   struck the first blow already. The power of sin is shaken in that man
   who looks to Jesus for deliverance from it. The man who frets under the
   yoke of sin will not long be a slave to it; if he can believe that
   Jesus Christ is able to set him free, he shall soon quit his bondage.
   Some sins which have hardened down into habits, will yet disappear in a
   moment when Jesus Christ looks upon a man in love. I have known many
   instances of persons who, for many years, had never spoken without an
   oath, or a filthy expression, who, being converted, have never been
   known to use such language again, and have scarcely ever been tempted
   in that direction. This is one of the sins which seem to die at the
   first shot, and it is a very wonderful thing it should be so. Others I
   have known so altered at once that the very propensity which was
   strongest in them has been the last to annoy them afterwards: they have
   had such a reversion of the mind's action that, while other sins have
   worried them for years, and they have had to set a strict watch against
   them, yet their favourite and dominant sin has never again had the
   slightest influence over them, except to excite an outburst of horror
   and deep repentance. Oh, that you had faith in Jesus that he could thus
   cast down and cast out your reigning sins! Believe in the conquering
   arm of the Lord Jesus, and he will do it. Conversion is the standing
   miracle of the church. Where it is genuine, it is as clear a proof of
   divine power going with the gospel, as was the casting out of devils,
   or even the raising of the dead in our Lord's day. We see these
   conversions still; and have proof that Jesus is able to work great
   moral marvels still. O my hearer, where art thou? Canst thou not
   believe that Jesus is able to make a new man of thee? O brethren, who
   have been saved, I entreat you to breathe a prayer at this time for
   those who are not yet cleansed from the foul disease of sin. Pray that
   they may have grace to believe in the Lord Jesus for purification of
   heart, pardon of sin, and the implantation of eternal life. Then when
   faith is given, the Lord Jesus will work their sanctification, and none
   shall effectually hinder. In silence let us pray for a moment. (Here
   there was a pause, and silent prayer went up to heaven.)

   V. And now we will go another step: THIS MAN'S FAITH WAS ATTENDED WITH
   WHAT APPEARS TO BE A HESITANCY. But after thinking it over a good deal,
   I am hardly inclined to think it such a hesitancy as many have judged
   it to be. He said, "If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." There was
   an "if" in this speech, and that "if" has aroused the suspicions of
   many preachers. Some think it supposes that he doubted our Lord's
   willingness. I hardly think that the language justly bears so harsh a
   construction. What he meant may have been this'"Lord, I do not know yet
   that thou art sent to heal lepers; I have not seen that thou hast ever
   done so; but, still, if it be within the compass of thy commission, I
   believe thou wilt do it, and assuredly thou canst if thou wilt. Thou
   canst heal not only some lepers, but me in particular; thou canst make
   me clean." Now, I think this was a legitimate thing for him to say, as
   he had not seen a leper healed'"If it be within the compass of thy
   commission, I believe thou canst make me whole."

   Moreover, I admire in this text the deference which the leper pays to
   the sovereignty of Christ's will as to the bestowal of his gifts. "If
   thou wilt, thou canst make me clean";'as much as to say, "I know thou
   hast a right to distribute these great favours exactly as thou
   pleasest. I have no claim upon thee; I cannot say that thou art bound
   to make me clean; I appeal to thy pity and free favour. The matter
   remains with thy will." The man had never read the text which saith,
   "It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God
   that showeth mercy," for it was not yet written; but he had in his mind
   the humble spirit suggested by that grand truth. He owned that grace
   must come as a free gift of God's good pleasure when he said "Lord, if
   thou wilt." Beloved, we need never raise a question as to the Lord's
   will to give grace when we have the will to receive it; but still, I
   would have every sinner feel that he has no claim upon God for
   anything. O sinner, if the Lord should give thee up, as he did the
   heathen described in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans,
   thou deservest it. If he should never look upon thee with an eye of
   love, what couldst thou say against his righteous sentence? Thou hast
   wilfully sinned, and thou deservest to be left in thy sin. Confessing
   all this, we still cling to our firm belief in the power of grace, and
   cry, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst." We appeal to our Saviour's
   pitying love, relying upon his boundless power.

   See, also, how the leper, to my mind, really speaks without any
   hesitancy, if you understand him. He does not say, "Lord, if thou
   puttest out thy hand, thou canst make me clean"; nor, "Lord, if thou
   speakest, thou canst make me clean"; but only, "Lord, if thou wilt,
   thou canst make me clean": thy mere will can do it. Oh, splendid faith!
   If you are inclined to spy a little halting in it, I would have you
   admire it for running so well with a lame foot. If there was a weakness
   anywhere in his faith, still it was so strong that the weakness only
   manifests its strength. Sinner, it is so; and I pray God that thy heart
   may grasp it'if the Lord wills it he can make thee clean. Believest
   thou this? If so, carry out practically what thy faith will suggest to
   thee'namely, that thou come to Jesus and plead with him, and get from
   him the cleansing which thou needest. To that end I am hoping to lead
   thee, as the Holy Spirit shall enable me.

   VI. In the sixth place, notice that THIS MAN'S FAITH HAD EARNEST ACTION
   FLOWING OUT OF IT. Believing that, if Jesus willed, he could make him
   clean, what did the leper do? At once he came to Jesus. I know not from
   what distance, but he came as near to Jesus as he could. Then we read
   that he besought him; that is to say, he pleaded, and pleaded, and
   pleaded again. He cried, "Lord, cleanse me! Lord heal my leprosy!" Nor
   was this all; he fell on his knees and worshipped; for we read,
   "Kneeling down to him." He not only knelt, but knelt to Jesus. He had
   no difficulty as to paying him divine honour. He worshipped the Lord
   Christ, paying him reverent homage. He then went on to honour him by an
   open acknowledgment of his power, his marvelous power, his infinite
   power, by saying, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." I
   should not wonder if some that stood by began to smile at what they
   thought the poor man's fanatical credulity. They murmured, "What a poor
   fool as this leper is, to think that Jesus of Nazareth can cure him of
   his leprosy!" Such a confession of faith had seldom been heard. But
   whatever critics and skeptics might think, this brave man boldly
   declared, "Lord, this is my confession of faith: I believe that if thou
   wilt, thou canst make me clean." Now, poor soul, thou that art full of
   guilt, and hardened in sin, and yet anxious to be healed, look straight
   away to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is here now. In the preaching of the
   gospel he is with us alway. With the eyes of thy mind behold him, for
   he beholdeth thee. Thou knowest that he lives, even though thou seest
   him not. Believe in this living Jesus; believe for perfect cleansing.
   Cry to him, worship him, adore him, trust him. He is very God of very
   God; bow before him, and cast thyself upon his mercy. Go home, and on
   thy knees say, "Lord, I believe that thou canst make me clean." He will
   hear your cry, and will save you. There will be no interval between
   your prayer and the gracious reward of faith, of which I am now to
   speak.

   VII. Lastly, HIS FAITH HAD ITS REWARD. Have patience with me just a
   minute. The reward of this man's faith was, first, that his very words
   were treasured up. Matthew, Mark, Luke, all three of them record the
   precise words which this man used: "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make
   me clean." They evidently did not see so much to find fault with in
   them as some have done; on the contrary, they thought them gems to be
   placed in the setting of their gospels. Three times over are they
   recorded, because they are such a splendid confession of faith for a
   poor diseased leper to have made. I believe that God is as much
   glorified by that one sentence of the leper as by the song of Cherubim
   and Seraphim, when they continually do cry, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God
   of Sabaoth." A sinner's lips declaring his confident faith in God's own
   Son can breathe sonnets unto God more sweet than those of the angelic
   choirs. This man's first faith- words are folded up in the fair linen
   of three evangels, and laid up in the treasury of the house of the
   Lord. God values the language of humble confidence.

   His next reward was, that Jesus echoed his words. He said, "Lord, if
   thou wilt, thou canst make me clean"; and Jesus said, "I will; be thou
   clean." As an echo answers to the voice, so did Jesus to his
   supplicant. The Lord Jesus was so pleased with this man's words that he
   caught them as they leaped out of his mouth, and used them himself,
   saying, "I will; be thou clean." If you can only get, then, as far as
   this leper's confession, I believe that our Lord Jesus from his throne
   above will answer to your prayer.

   So potent were the words of this leper that they moved our Lord very
   wonderfully. Read the forty-first verse: "And Jesus, moved with
   compassion." The Greek word here used, if I were to pronounce it in
   your hearing, would half suggest its own meaning. It expresses a
   stirring of the entire manhood, a commotion in all the inward parts.
   The heart and all the vitals of the man are in active movement. The
   Saviour was greatly moved. You have seen a man moved, have you not?
   When a strong man is unable any longer to restrain himself, and is
   forced to give way to his feelings, you have seen him tremble all over,
   and at last burst out into an evident break-down. It was just so with
   the Saviour: his pity moved him, his delight in the leper's faith
   mastered him. When he heard the man speak with such confidence in him,
   the Saviour was moved with a sacred passion, which, as it was in
   sympathy with the leper, is called "compassion." Oh, to think that a
   poor leper should have such power over the divine Son of God! Yet, my
   hearer, in all thy sin and misery, if thou canst believe in Jesus, thou
   canst move the heart of thy blessed Saviour. Yea, even now his bowels
   yearn towards thee.

   No sooner was our Lord Jesus thus moved than out went his hand, and he
   touched the man and healed him immediately. It did not require a long
   time for the working of the cure; but the leper's blood was cooled and
   cleansed in a single second. Our Lord could work this miracle, and make
   all things new in the man; for "all things were made by him; and
   without him was not anything made that was made." He restored the poor,
   decaying, putrefying body of this man, and he was cleansed at once. To
   make him quite sure that he was cleansed, the Lord Jesus bade him go to
   the priest, and seek a certificate of health. He was so clean that he
   might be examined by the appointed sanitary authority, and come off
   without suspicion. The cure which he had received was a real and
   radical one, and therefore he might go away at once, and get the
   certificate of it. If our converts will not bear practical tests, they
   are worth nothing; let even our enemies judge whether they are not
   better men and women when Jesus has renewed them. If Jesus saves a
   sinner, he does not mind all men testing the change. Jesus does not
   seek display, but he seeks examination from those able to judge. Our
   converts will bear the test. Come hither, angels! Come hither, pure
   intelligences, able to observe men in secret! Here is a wretch of a
   sinner who came hither this morning. He seemed first cousin to the
   devil; but the Lord Jesus Christ has converted him and changed him. Now
   look at him, ye angels; look at him at home in his chamber! Watch him
   in private life. We can read your verdict. "There is joy in presence of
   the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth"; and this proves what
   you think. It is such a wonderful change, and angels are so sure of it,
   that they give their certificates at once. How do they give their
   certificates? Why, each one manifests his joy as he sees the sinner
   turning from his sinful ways. Oh, that the angels might have work of
   this kind to do this morning! Dear hearer, may you be one over whom
   they rejoice! If thou believest on Jesus Christ, and if thou wilt trust
   him, as the sent One of God, fully and entirely with thy soul, he will
   make thee clean. Behold him on the cross, and see sin put away. Behold
   him risen from the dead, and see new life bestowed. Behold him
   enthroned in power, and see evil conquered. I am ready to be bound for
   my Lord, to be his surety, that if thou, my hearer, wilt come to him,
   he will make thee clean. Believe thy Saviour, and thy cure is wrought.
   God help thee, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'Mark 1:16-45.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"'428, 602, 546.
     __________________________________________________________________

Job Among the Ashes

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 19, 1888,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye sees
   You. Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." Job 42:5,
   6.

   JEHOVAH had spoken, Job had trembled. The Lord had revealed Himself,
   Job had seen Him. Truly, God did but display the skirts of His robe and
   unveil a part of His ways. But therein was so much of ineffable glory
   that Job laid his hand upon his mouth in token of his silent consent to
   the claims of the Everlasting One. God spoke to Job out of the
   whirlwind concerning the greatness of His power, the wonders of His
   workings, the splendor of His skill, the infinity of His wisdom.
   Carefully read that wonderful speech of the Most High to the trembling
   Patriarch. I dare not call it poetry. For it rises as much above human
   poetry as the most sublime poetry stands above the poorest prose.

   It is simply a statement of facts and these are mentioned in language
   of the simplest kind. But the overpowering glory of the utterance lies
   in the facts themselves. These sublime stanzas are spoken in the idiom
   of God. Those only know the peculiar style of the living God who have
   become familiar with the sacred Word in Spirit and in Truth and such
   persons can at once distinguish the speech of Jehovah from that of men.
   Read the Divine address, that you may see how Jehovah caused the
   afflicted Patriarch to feel Him near.

   In the confession which now lies before us, Job acknowledges God's
   boundless power. For he exclaims, "I know that You can do everything,
   and that no thought can be withheld from You." He felt that whatever
   the Lord chose to think or desire He could at once accomplish. Job had
   a glimpse of that omnipotence of which the height and depth no mind can
   ever measure.

   Job sees his own folly. He speaks like a man in a maze or a muse and he
   says, "Who is He that hides counsel without knowledge?" Look at the
   second verse of chapter thirty-eight and you will see that he is
   quoting what God had said to him. The Lord's words are ringing in his
   ears and in his anguish he repeats them, accepting them as justly
   applicable to himself. It is not far from being right with us when the
   Words of God can fitly become our words. "The Lord answered Job out of
   the whirlwind and said, Who is this that darkens counsel by words
   without knowledge?"

   And now Job replies, "I am that foolish one--I uttered what I
   understood not--things too wonderful for me, which I knew not." Job
   felt that what he had spoken concerning the Lord was, in the main,
   true. And the Lord Himself said to Job's three friends, "You have not
   spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job has." But under
   a sense of the Divine Presence Job felt that even when he had spoken
   aright, he had spoken beyond his own proper knowledge, uttering speech
   whose depths of meaning he could not himself fathom. Many a holy
   Prophet has done this, for inspired men are described as those who
   "enquired and searched diligently; searching what, or what manner of
   time the Spirit which was in them did signify, when it testified
   beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow."

   It is not the thoughts of the Prophet which have been inspired of God
   so much as their words. For frequently they were moved to speak
   prophecies which were quite beyond their own understanding--in fact, my
   Brethren, are not all the great mysteries of the faith above human
   thought? And may we not fearlessly assert that no inspired man has ever
   known all the depth of God's meaning treasured up in the words which he
   himself has been led by the Spirit of God to write? Hence I assert that
   there is a verbal inspiration, or no inspiration at all worthy of the
   name. Job, as he comes before us in the text, is impressed with his own
   folly. He had, to a large degree, spoken what he felt sure was true but
   he now feels that he did not understand what he said.

   And he at the same time tacitly confesses that he may have said in his
   bitterness many an unwise and unseemly thing, and therefore he bows his
   head before the Lord his God and confesses that he has darkened counsel
   by words without knowledge and uttered things that he understood not.

   Notwithstanding, the man of God proceeds to draw near unto the Lord,
   before whom he bows himself. Foolish as he confesses himself to be, he
   does not, therefore, fly from the supreme wisdom. Although he knows
   that he has babbled ig-norantly, he does not seek to hide from the Lord
   as Adam did when he sought the shade of the trees of the garden. No, he
   takes up the Lord's Words again and is emboldened by them to approach.
   Read the thirty-eighth chapter, third verse. The Lord there says, "Gird
   up now your loins like a man--for I will demand of you and you shall
   answer Me."

   Like a man in a dream, Job accepts the invitation and answers, "Behold
   I am vile, what shall I answer You? I will lay my hand upon my mouth.
   Once have I spoken. But I will not answer--yes, twice. But I will
   proceed no further." This was brave and wise action. Whatever Job might
   be or might not be, he was a firm believer in his God and in every Word
   which the Lord was pleased to speak. He held even to discouraging words
   with desperate tenacity and even learned to find honey in Words which
   roared like lions upon him. Hence, when he is humbled in the dust, he
   recollects that God had bid him draw near to Him. And albeit to his
   fears that bidding may have sounded like a challenge, yet to his faith
   it becomes an encouragement and he, in effect, replies, "My God, I will
   venture to take You at Your Word. You bid me come and come I will. Dust
   and ashes though I am, I will do as You allow me and make my humble
   appeal to You."

   Dear Friends, it is altogether wrong to allow our sense of folly or of
   sin to drive us away from God. But it is altogether right when our
   humiliation draws us to the Lord and our conscious need drives us to
   the Throne of Grace. The more foolish and sinful we are, the more
   urgent is our need to come to God, who alone can make us clean and
   instruct us in the way of heavenly wisdom. I commend to you, therefore,
   God's servant Job, of whom we may say, whatever fault we may perceive
   in him, none of us could have behaved so gloriously as he did--unless,
   indeed, the Lord should give us like Divine Grace.

   The Lord led Job to find fault with Him, yet God does not complain but
   even commends him. The three carping friends are commanded to bring a
   costly sacrifice but this was not demanded from Job. And even when they
   brought their seven bullocks the Lord did not accept them till Job,
   whom they had condemned, had made intercession for them. Job bore away
   the palm from the conflict. So let us do as Job did and make our
   approach unto the Lord in childlike confidence even when He seems to
   frown. Let us get where Job was when he said, "Though He slay me, yet
   will I trust in

   Him."

   When we bow lowest before His Throne, let not our humble bending have
   anything of distance in it. Lower before You, O Lord, would we be. But
   at the same time our cry is, "Nearer to You."

   Thus we come to the text, having used the connection as a step to its
   door. On the text I make three observations-- first, we have sometimes
   very vivid impressions of God. Job said, "I have heard of You by the
   hearing of the ear: but now my eye sees You." In the second place, when
   we are favored with these clearer views of God, we have lower thoughts
   of ourselves--"wherefore I abhor myself." And thirdly, whenever we are
   thus made low, our heart is filled with repentance--"I abhor myself and
   repent in dust and ashes." May the Holy Spirit aid us in this
   experimental meditation!

   I. First, then, WE HAVE SOMETIMES VERY VIVID IMPRESSIONS OF GOD. Job
   had long before heard of God

   and that is a great matter. I do not think he meant merely that he had
   heard men speak of God but that he had really, for himself, heard God's
   voice. He had been a reverent Believer in the teachings of God and an
   obedient servant to His commands--thus he had really heard God. The man
   who can say this can say a great deal. If God has ever been on speaking
   terms with you, you have much cause for gratitude. It is clear that you
   are not dead in sin, or if you were so when the Lord spoke to you, you
   are now alive. For His voice causes the dead to live.

   If you have heard God in the secret of your soul, you are a spiritual
   man--only a spirit can hear the Spirit of God-- none can discern the
   Lord but the man to whom He has given spiritual life. Job had heard
   God, but now he has a more vivid apprehension of Him. It is sometimes
   said that one eyewitness is better than ten ear-witnesses and there is
   much truth in the saying--certainly, facts perceived by the eye make a
   far more vivid impression upon the mind than the same facts heard by
   the ear. If we witness a sad scene of poverty, it has far more effect
   upon our heart than the most graphic description. Word paintings can
   never bring out the reality of a thing so well as the actual sight of
   it.

   Of course, Job could not literally see God--he does not mean to assert
   that he did. For "no man has seen God at any time." But Job means that
   he now had a view of God very much more clearly than any which he had
   obtained before. In fact, as much clearer as eyesight is more clear
   than hearing.

   Notice that in order to this close vision of God, affliction had
   overtaken him. It was not till after he had scraped himself with the
   potsherd, nor till his friends had scraped him with something worse
   than potsherds, that Job could say, "My eye sees You." Not till every
   camel and every sheep had been stolen and every child was dead could
   the afflicted Patriarch cry, "Now my eye sees You." Happy is that man
   who in prosperity can hear the voice of God in the tinkling of the
   sheep-bells of his abundant flocks, can hear Him in the lowing of the
   oxen which cover his fields and in the loving voices of dear children
   around him.

   But, mark--prosperity is a painted window which shuts out much of the
   clear light of God and only when the blue and the crimson and the
   golden tinge are removed is the glass restored to its full
   transparency. Adversity thus takes away tinge and color and dimness and
   we see our God far better than before--if our eyes are prepared for the
   light. The Lord had taken everything away from Job, and this paved the
   way to His giving him more of Himself. In the absence of other goods
   the good God is the better seen. In prosperity God is heard and that is
   a blessing. But in adversity God is seen and that is a greater
   blessing.

   Sanctified adversity quickens our spiritual sensitiveness. Sorrow after
   sorrow will wake up the spirit and it will infuse into it a delicacy of
   perception which, perhaps, does not often come to us in any other way.
   I purposely say, "perhaps," for I believe that some choice saints are
   favored to reach it by smoother ways. But I think they are very few.
   The most of us are of such coarse material that we need melting before
   we attain to that sacred softness by which the Lord God is joyfully
   perceived. O child of God, if you are to suffer as much as Job
   suffered, if you get to see the Lord with a spiritually enlightened
   eye, you may be thankful for the sorrowful process! Who would not go to
   Patmos if he might see the visions of John and who would not sit on the
   dunghill with Job to cry with him, "Now my eye sees You"?

   Possibly, Job's desertion by his friends was also helpful. Job's three
   friends! Ah me, I know their kind! They were most devotedly attached to
   him, no doubt. And how warmly they proved it! They had met together
   with him and said soft and sweet things to him in those days when he
   moved like a prince among the nobles of his people and every eye that
   saw him blessed him. But when they found him sitting "down among the
   ashes," they had altered thoughts of him. They suspected him. And
   though they knew nothing against him, yet they perceived that he was
   not in the same honor as before.

   Between a prince in ermine and the same man in sackcloth there is, to
   some minds, a great difference. Besides, the instinct of
   self-preservation leads men to hold off from one who is sinking, lest
   they sink with him. After sitting in silence for a week, these
   excellent men found it in their hearts to assail him with their
   judicious observations. Here and there they inserted nice little bits
   of cruelty, all meant for his good. Was he not covered with sores? Was
   there not a cause for all this? By this torture God delivered Job from
   men--he was not likely after that to incur the curse which comes
   through making flesh your arm. He was also strengthened in personal
   independence of mind. He could clearly see that his breath was in his
   own nostrils and not in other people's, and that he could stand alone
   by God's help, yes, even stand against those eminent men who had
   contended with him.

   Friends are all too apt to block out our view of our best Friend. When
   gracious minds are driven from men, they are drawn to God and learn to
   sing with David, "My Soul, wait you only upon God. For my expectation
   is from Him." I do not doubt, therefore, that the desertion and
   upbraiding endured by Job from his friends were a great help towards
   his being able to say to the Lord his God, "Now my eye sees You."
   Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar might have interposed between Job and God
   and their kindly help might have placed Job under lasting obligations
   to them--but now he looks alone to God and honors Him only.

   Still, before Job could see the Lord, there was a special manifestation
   on God's part to him. "Then the Lord answered Job out of the
   whirlwind." God must really come, and in a gracious way make a display
   of Himself to His servants, or else they will not see Him. Your
   afflictions will not of themselves reveal God to you. If the Lord
   Himself does not unveil His face, your sorrow may even blind and harden
   you and make you rebellious. The desertion and unkindness of friends
   is, also, no help to Divine Grace--its tendency is to sour and imperil
   your piety if it acts out its natural influence--there must be a
   special revealing of the Lord to our own souls before we shall get such
   a clear apprehension of Him as Job intended by the words, "Now my eye
   sees You."

   Read through the thirty-eighth chapter and see how Jehovah declares His
   wisdom and His power--"Where were you when I laid the foundations of
   the earth? Declare, if you have understanding. Who has laid the
   measures thereof, if

   you know? Or who has stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the
   foundations thereof fastened? Or who laid the cornerstone thereof when
   the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for
   joy? Have you entered into the treasures of the snow? Or have you seen
   the treasures of the hail? Can you bind the sweet influences of
   Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Can you bring forth Mazzaroth in
   his season? Or can you guide Arcturus with his sons?"

   Here was a marvelous field for thought. The Lord speaks in nature and
   it is done. His glory is seen in Heaven and earth, in the sea and all
   deep places. God is and there is none beside Him. Yes, Jehovah is God
   alone. Nor did the Lord fail to show to Job His justice, defying him to
   emulate it. See the fortieth chapter, eleventh and twelfth
   verses--"Cast abroad the rage of your wrath. And behold everyone that
   is proud and abase him. Look on everyone that is proud and bring him
   low. And tread down the wicked in their place." God is the supreme
   governor and He bears not the sword in vain. He is impartial and
   infallible and none can disannul His judgment, or condemn His acts.

   I need not tarry to say to you that all through that wonderful address
   of the Lord to His servant, He is saying, in so many words, "I am God.
   But who are you?" The Lord is proving that nothing is impossible to His
   power and His wisdom. He had, after all, not allowed His servant to
   sink out of His reach. He was always able to rescue him. You learn
   here, also, that God is not amenable to our judgment. He gives no
   account of His matters. He makes Job feel that He is God, and that is
   the end of the matter. No apology is made to Job and no explanation is
   given him--he must bow in unreserved submission and surrender
   unconditionally. And he does so.

   Notice how by the Lord's first words Job was silenced and could only
   whisper," Behold I am vile, what shall I answer You? I will lay my hand
   upon my mouth. Once have I spoken. But I will not answer: yes, twice.
   But I will proceed no further." Thus far he worshipped. But he must yet
   go further, until he cries, "I abhor myself and repent in dust and
   ashes."

   II. We have now reached our second point--WHEN WE HAVE THESE VIVID
   APPREHENSIONS OF GOD, WE HAVE LOWER VIEWS OF OURSELVES.

   Why are the wicked so proud? It is because they forget God. Why did
   Pharaoh dare to say, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice?"
   It was because he did not know Jehovah. But after those ten plagues, he
   altered his tone and cried out, "Entreat the Lord" (for it is enough).
   Even his great pride was forced to bow before Jehovah when judgments
   were let loose upon him. If men knew God, how it would change their
   thoughts and talk! If they could have even an indistinct idea, "by the
   hearing of the ear," many of them would never be so irreverent as they
   now are, nor so lofty in their ideas of their own wisdom. If they could
   "see" Him as Job did and behold His inexpressible glory, they would
   become far more meek and lowly.

   Here let me observe that God Himself is the measure of rectitude, and
   hence, when we come to think of God, we soon discover our own
   shortcomings and transgressions. Too often we compare ourselves among
   ourselves and are not wise. A man says, "I am not so bad as many and I
   am quite as good as such a one, who is in high repute." What if it is
   so? Do you judge yourself by other erring ones? Your measuring line is
   false. It is not the standard of the sanctuary. If you would be right,
   you must measure yourself with the holiness of God--God Himself is the
   standard of perfect holiness, Truth, love and justice. And if you fall
   short of His glory, you have fallen short of what you ought to be.

   When I think of this, self-righteousness seems to me to be a wretched
   insanity. If you want to know what God is, He sets Himself before us in
   the Person of His dear Son. In every respect in which we fall short of
   the perfect character of Jesus, in that respect we sin. There is no
   better description of sin that I know of than this--"Sin is any want of
   conformity to the Law of God," and God's Law is the transcript of His
   own mind. Wherein in any moral or spiritual respect we fall short of
   the Divine Character, we to that extent fall into sin. No, my Brethren,
   we cannot hear the ceaseless cry of the cherubim, "Holy, holy, holy,
   Lord God of Sabaoth," without at once sinking, sinking, sinking, till
   we abhor ourselves and repent in dust and ashes.

   Permit me to suggest to each one here who has a high idea of himself
   and has no sense of self-abhorrence that such self-honor must arise
   from ignorance of God. For there is such an immeasurable distance
   between the perfection of God and our faultiness that our true position
   is that of penitent humility.

   Our next reflection is this--God Himself is the object of every
   transgression--and this sets sin in a terrible light. Sin frequently
   has our fellow men as its object. But even then I am not incorrect in
   what I have said, for sins against our fellow men are still sins
   against God. It would be well if we felt with David--"Against You, You
   only, have I sinned and done this evil in Your sight." Think, then, of
   sin as an offense against God, committed in God's Presence, committed

   while He is looking on. My beloved Friends, in this light observe the
   wantonness of sin. For who could wish to offend against a perfectly
   holy and entirely loving God? If God is all He should be, why do we not
   agree with Him?

   If in God we see every possible and conceivable good, why do we set up
   ourselves, our wills, our desires in opposition to Him? He is so
   gracious towards man that He may be described by that one Word, "love."
   And if it is so, why do we not love Him with all our heart and all our
   soul and all our strength? Every shortcoming and every transgression,
   therefore, is a wanton offense against infinite goodness. If Jehovah
   were a tyrant, there might be some excuse for rebellion. But since He
   is infinitely just and loving, it is atrocious that His own creatures,
   yes, His own children, should offend Him.

   Note, next, the impertinence of sin. How dare we transgress against
   God? O Man, who are you that rebels against God? How dare you to do to
   His face that which He forbids you? How dare you to leave undone in His
   very presence that which your Lord commands you to do? This makes sin a
   piece of presumption, a daring and glaring provocation of the Lord God.
   Thus it is evident that in the immediate Presence of God sin does like
   itself appear.

   The fact that sin is leveled at God makes us bow in lowliness. Although
   some of us can hold our heads high among our fellow men and we can say,
   "I am neither a drunkard, nor a thief, nor a liar, neither have I
   offended against the laws of integrity and charity," yet when we come
   before God, we perceive that we have not dealt towards Him as we ought
   to have done. To Him we have been thieves, robbing Him of His glory.
   "Will a man rob God?" To Him we have been li-ars--we have dealt
   treacherously and have broken our promises. To Him we have been
   ingrates. To Him we have been worse than brutes. Instead of equity, we
   have dealt towards God iniquity. Instead of love, we have dealt out
   enmity.

   The Lord has nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled
   against Him. Even our holy things have been defiled. Our best tears
   need to be wept over and our truest faith is spoiled with unbelief. Oh,
   when we think of this, we can understand why Job says, "Now my eye sees
   You. Wherefore I abhor myself."

   Once more--when God is seen with admiration, then of necessity we are
   filled with self-loathing. The more you appreciate God, the more you
   will depreciate yourself. While the thought of God rises higher and
   higher and higher, you also will sink lower and lower in your own
   esteem. The word used by Job, "I abhor myself," is a strong one. It
   might be paraphrased thus, "I nauseate myself. I am disgusted with
   myself. I cast forth from my soul every proud thought of my-self--cast
   it out from me as a sickening and intolerable thing."

   Ah, dear Friends, you have not seen God aright if your abhorrence turns
   upon your fellow men. But if the one man you abhor is yourself, you are
   not mistaken! A sight of God will make us regard our fellow creatures
   with sympathy, as involved in the same sin and misery as ourselves. As
   a common danger in a sinking ship makes every man a brother to his
   fellow, so a clear sense of our common guilt and ruin will make us feel
   the brotherhood of man--but, on the other hand, a sight of God will
   prevent our dreaming of personal excellence and will compel us to take
   the lowest place. Since God is glorious in our eyes, we become ashamed.
   We adore God and in contrast, we abhor self.

   Do you know what self-loathing means? Some of you do, I know. And I am
   sure that in proportion as you truly love, reverence and worship God,
   in that proportion you are full of abhorrence of self. You fine
   gentlemen, who hold your heads so high that you can scarcely get
   through common doorways, you know nothing of this! You high and mighty
   ladies, who cannot condescend to associate with any who are not of your
   superior rank. And you purse proud men, who expect all to worship the
   golden calf which you have set up, you know nothing about this.

   O you wonderfully wise men, you intellectual persons, who so modestly
   dub yourselves "thoughtful and cultured," you snuff out a poor
   evangelical Believer as if he were an idiot. May the Lord give you an
   hour of Job's, "I abhor myself," and then you will be bearable. But as
   you now are, you are a thief! While the dunghill is your proper place,
   you covet the Throne of the Almighty. But He will not yield it to
   you--you would improve upon Divine Revelation and revise infallible
   inspiration. But your boasting is vain. Oh that you had a manifestation
   of God and then you would know yourselves! God grant it to you for His
   mercy's sake!

   III. Thirdly, I have to show you that SUCH A SIGHT FILLS THE HEART WITH
   TRUE REPENTANCE. Job

   says, "I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." The word "myself
   has been added by the translators. And they could hardly have done
   otherwise. Job's expression, however, refers to all that had come out
   of himself or had lurked within himself. He abhorred all that he had
   been doing and saying. He says, "I abhor and repent in dust and ashes."
   What did he repent of? I think Job repented, first, of that tremendous
   curse which he had pronounced upon the day of his birth. It was
   terrible. See the third chapter.

   "Let the day perish wherein I was born and the night in which it was
   said, There is a man-child conceived. Let that day be darkness. Let not
   God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. Let it
   not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the
   number of the months." He wished he had perished from the womb, that
   his birth cry had been his first and his last. "For now should I have
   lain still and been quiet." Before God Job has to eat his bitter words.
   It is always a pity to say too much in moments of agony, because we may
   have to unsay that which escapes us. He would not curse God but he did
   curse the day of his birth and it was unseemly. Of this he unfeignedly
   repents.

   Next, Job heartily repented of his desire to die. In the sixth chapter
   he expresses it as he did several times--he says, "Oh, that I might
   have my request. And that God would grant me the thing that I long for!
   Even that it would please God to destroy me. That He would let loose
   His hand and cut me off!" Do you wonder that he said this? Was ever man
   so tried? I do not wonder at all, even at his cursing the day of his
   birth considering all the bodily pain and mental irritation which he
   was enduring at the time. I wonder that he played the man as well as he
   did.

   But still he must have looked back with deep regret upon his
   impatience. The last verses of the book run thus--"After this lived Job
   an hundred and forty years and saw his sons and his sons' sons, even
   four generations. So Job died, being old and full of days." This is the
   same man who begged to die. Elijah also said, "Let me die, I am not
   better than my fathers," and yet he never died at all. What poor
   creatures we are! What haste impatience breeds!

   Job had to repent, next, of all his complaints against God. These had
   been very many. In the seventh chapter he turns to God and says, "I
   will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the
   bitterness of my soul. Am I a sea, or a whale, that You set a watch
   over me? When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my
   complaint. Then You scare me with dreams and terrify me through
   visions--so that my soul chooses strangling and death rather than my
   life. I loathe it. I would not live always--let me alone. For my days
   are vanity. How long will You not depart from me, nor let me alone till
   I swallow down my spittle?"

   Ah! poor Job had to swallow his murmuring as well as his spittle, for
   he repents of every rebellious thought. He complains of his having
   complained and with self-abhorrence he repents in dust and ashes. I do
   not doubt but what Job repented of his despair. The ninth and tenth
   chapters and many other passages wherein Job speaks are tinged with
   hopelessness. He felt as if God had left him a prey to the enemy. But
   this was not true. The Lord has never deserted any of His people. There
   is not on record in all the history of the ages a case in which God has
   failed them that trust Him.

   Has He not said, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you"? And He
   never has left nor forsaken any Believer. Yet Job evidently thought
   that He had done so, and he was greatly troubled. Job had uttered rash
   challenges of God--in the ninth chapter, at the thirty-third verse, he
   says that there is no mediator between him and God, or else he would
   plead his cause--"Let Him take His rod away from me and let not His
   fear terrify me--then would I speak and not fear Him--but it is not so
   with me." This was wrong and Job abhorred himself for having fallen
   into so ill a temper and so little becoming in a man of God.

   His critics goaded him by cruelly charging him with hypocrisy and
   wickedness and Job vindicated himself with great earnestness, appealing
   to God and saying, "You know that I am not wicked." This was true. The
   indignation of an honest heart cannot be blamed for speaking thus to
   men. But Job felt that he could not speak thus before the Lord. He
   could plead his innocence in the common courts of men and there he
   could well enough defend himself. But when the matter came into the
   King's own court, he could not answer in the same strain but felt
   compelled to plead guilty. Job has to retract all his pleadings and
   challenges. If the case is to be heard as "Jehovah versus Job," then
   Job yields the point unreservedly. Who is he that can contend with his
   Maker over a matter of holiness? We are wrong, God must be right!

   Job had also to confess that his statements had been a darkening of
   wisdom by words without knowledge. Sometimes we say, "I perfectly
   understand that. I could clear up that mystery." We define this and
   define that to our Brethren. But when we get into the Presence of God
   we find that our definitions are the proofs of our ignorance. "Vain man
   would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass's colt." Job drops
   his wisdom as well as his righteousness, although he was one of the
   wisest and holiest of men. While we see not God, we fancy that we can
   read all the riddles of His Word. But when we behold Him more clearly,
   we say with David, "So foolish was I and ignorant--I was as a beast
   before You."

   We are apt to judge the Lord by feeble sense instead of trusting Him
   for His Divine Grace. This comes of evil. In the Presence of God, Job
   bowed his head and repented of all his suspicions and mistrusts. And
   this is what we must do if, in the day of our sorrow, we have been
   petulant and unbelieving.

   Let me pass on. According to our text, repentance puts man into the
   lowest place. He says, "I repent in dust and ashes." "Dust and
   ashes"--that signifies the dust heap, or what in Scotland they call the
   "midden." Job had made dust and ashes his headquarters. The dunghill,
   the refuse place, was now the spot which he felt to be fitted for him.
   Repentance puts us in a lowly

   seat. You have heard sometimes, I dare say, among the beautiful
   nothings of the modern school, the mention of, "the dignity of human
   nature." Behold a throne for the "dignity of human nature." Yonder dust
   and ashes are for this proud royalty. The dust heap is for human nature
   in its glory, when it has on its richest robes.

   When it takes its worst place, where is it? The lowest pit of Hell,
   prepared for the devil and his angels, is the fit place for man when he
   has at last come to his true estate. I say that when man wears his best
   Sunday righteousness he is even then only fit for the midden. And every
   man of God that has been brought to true repentance, owns that it is
   so. Alas, says the man that sees his sinfulness, I should be a disgrace
   to any dust shoot. If I were cast away with the rotten refuse of the
   house, it might creep away from me because my sin is a worse corruption
   than physical nature knows--an insult even to the worm of decay-- since
   in common putridity there is not the foul offense of moral evil.
   Repentance, you see, makes a man take the lowest place.

   Next, note that all real repentance is joined with holy sorrow and
   self-loathing. I have read in the sermons of certain teachers that,
   "Repentance is only a change of mind." That may be true. But what a
   change of mind it is! It is not such a change of mind as some of you
   underwent this morning when you said, "It is really too cold to go
   out," but afterwards you braved the snow and came to the Tabernacle.
   Oh, no! Repentance is a thorough and radical change of mind and it is
   accompanied with real sorrow for sin, and self-loathing. A repentance
   in which there is no sorrow for sin will ruin the soul. Repentance
   without sorrow for sin is not the repentance of God's elect. If you can
   look upon sin without sorrow, then you have never looked on Christ. A
   faith-look at Jesus breaks the heart, both for sin and from sin. Try
   yourself by this test.

   But, next, repentance has comfort in it. It is to my mind rather
   extraordinary that the Hebrew word which is justly translated "repent,"
   is also used in two or three places, at least in the Old Testament, to
   express comfort. Isaac, it is said, took Re-bekah to his mother's tent
   and was "comforted after his mother's death." Here the word is the same
   as that which is here rendered "repent." Isaac's mind was changed as to
   the death of his mother. As, then, there is in the Hebrew word just a
   tinge of comfort. So in repentance itself, with all its sorrow, there
   are traces of joy. Repentance is a bitter-sweet or a sweet-bitter.
   After you have tasted it in your mouth as gall, it will go down into
   your belly and be sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.

   The door of repentance opens into the halls of joy. Job's repentance in
   dust and ashes was the sign of his deliverance. God turned His wrath
   upon the three critics but justified Job and gave him the honorable
   office of intercessor on their behalf. Then "the Lord turned the
   captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends." "The Lord blessed the
   latter end of Job more than the beginning," and the turning point was
   that sitting down in the dust and ashes. When you are brought as low as
   you can be, the next turn must be upward. Down with you, then! Off with
   the feathers of your pride and the finery of your self-righteousness!
   Down with you among the useless and worthless things! From that point
   you will ascend. The more crushed, humbled, exhausted and near to death
   you are, the more prepared you are for God to raise you up.

   Job was an unrivalled saint--none of us can compare with him. And if
   that perfect and upright man had to say, "I abhor myself," what will
   you and I say when we see God? We shall by-and-by behold Him on the
   Judgment Seat--how shall we endure it? If you have no righteousness but
   your own, you will stand naked to your shame in the day when the Lord
   appears. You self-righteous men--dare you go before God in your own
   righteousness? If you dare, I marvel at your presumption. Job dared
   not. He could stand up boldly before his accusers but when before God
   he was in another attitude.

   When it comes to dying and appearing before the Most High, you that
   have no righteousness but one of your own spinning, what will you do?
   If God should take away your soul at once, could you dare to go before
   Him in that fine character of yours, that wonderful morality, that
   large generosity? If you have any sense left, you dare not attempt such
   a thing. What shall you and I do?

   Brethren, we are not afraid. For there is a righteousness of God which
   is given to us by faith through Jesus Christ. God Himself cannot find
   any fault with His own righteousness. And if He gives me His own
   righteousness, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith in
   Jesus Christ--which is to all and upon all them that believe--then I
   may hope to sit at last, not on the midden but on the Throne!

   Then I will find myself rejoicing in Christ Jesus, crowned with a crown
   which I shall delight to cast at His feet. How happy are we if we can
   sing--

   "Jesus, Your blood and righteousness My beauty are, my glorious dress;
   Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,

   With joy shall Ilift up my head"!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Word a Sword

   DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 17, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For the Word of God is quick and powerful and 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." Hebrews 4:12.

   THOSE who are fond of a labyrinth of exposition will find a maze
   perplexing to the last degree if they will read the various
   commentators and expositors upon this verse. This is the question--By
   the Word of God, are we here to understand the Incarnate Word, the
   Divine Logos, who was in the beginning with God? Or does the passage
   relate to this inspired Book, and to the Gospel, which is the kernel of
   it, as it is set forth in the preaching of the Truth in the power of

   the Holy Spirit?

   You shall find Dr. John Owen, with a very large number of eminent
   servants of God, defending the first theory, that the Son of God is
   doubtless here spoken of. And I confess that they seem to me to defend
   it with arguments which I should not like to controvert. Much more is
   to be said on this side of the question than I can here bring before
   you. On the other side, we find John Calvin, with an equally grand
   array of divines, all declaring that it must be the Book that is meant,
   the Gospel, the Revelation of God in the Book. Their interpretation of
   the passage is not to be set aside and I feel convinced that they all
   give as good reasons for their interpretation as those who come to the
   other conclusion.

   Where such Doctors differ, I am not inclined to present any
   interpretation of my own which can be set in competition with theirs
   though I may venture to propound one which comprehends them all and so
   comes into conflict with none. It is a happy circumstance if we can see
   a way to agree with all those who did not themselves agree. But I have
   been greatly instructed by the mere fact that it should be difficult to
   know whether in this passage the Holy Spirit is speaking of the Christ
   of God, or the Book of God.

   This shows us a great Truth of God which we might not otherwise have so
   clearly noted. How much that can be said of the Lord Jesus may be also
   said of the inspired volume! How closely are these two allied! How
   certainly do those who despise the one reject the other! How intimately
   are the Word made flesh and the Word uttered by inspired men, joined
   together!

   It may be most accurate to interpret this passage as relating both to
   the Word of God Incarnate and the Word of God Inspired. Weave the two
   into one thought, for God has joined them together, and you will then
   see fresh lights and new meanings in the text. The Word of God, namely,
   this Revelation of Himself in Holy Scripture, is all it is here
   described to be, because Jesus, the Incarnate Word of God, is in it. He
   does, as it were, incarnate Himself as the Divine Truth in this visible
   and manifest Revelation. And thus it becomes living and powerful,
   dividing and discerning.

   As the Christ reveals God, so this Book reveals Christ, and therefore
   it partakes, as the Word of God, in all the attributes of the Incarnate
   Word. And we may say many of the same things of the written Word as of
   the embodied Word. In fact, they are now so linked together that it
   would be impossible to divide them. This I like to think of, because
   there are some nowadays who deny every doctrine of Revelation and yet,
   indeed, they praise the Christ. The Teacher is spoken of in the most
   flattering style and then His teaching is rejected, except so far as it
   may coincide with the philosophy of the moment.

   They talk much about Jesus, while that which is the real Jesus, namely,
   His Gospel and His inspired Word, they cast away. I believe I do but
   correctly describe them when I say that, like Judas, they betray the
   Son of Man with a kiss. They even go so far as to cry up the names of
   the doctrines, though they use them in a different sense that they may
   deceive. They talk of loyalty to Christ and reverence for the Sermon on
   the Mount--but they use vain words. I am charged with

   sowing suspicion. I do sow it and desire to sow it. Too many Christian
   people are content to hear anything so long as it is put forth by a
   clever man, in a taking manner.

   I want them to try the spirits, whether they are of God, for many false
   prophets have gone forth into the world. What God has joined together,
   these modern thinkers willfully put asunder and separate the Revealer
   from His own Revelation. I believe the Savior thinks their homage to be
   more insulting than their scorn would be. Well may He do so, for they
   bow before Him and say, "Hail, Master!" while their foot is on the
   blood of His Covenant and their souls abhor the doctrine of His
   substi-tutionary sacrifice.

   They are crucifying the Lord afresh and putting Him to an open shame by
   denying the Lord that bought them, by daring to deride His purchase of
   His people as a "mercantile transaction," and I know not what of
   blasphemy beside. Christ and His Word must go together. What is true of
   the Christ is here predicated both of Him and of His Word. Behold this
   day the everlasting Gospel has Christ within it. He rides in it as in a
   chariot. He rides in it as, of old, Jehovah "did ride upon a cherub and
   did fly--yes, He did fly upon the wings of the wind." It is only
   because Jesus is not dead that the Word becomes living and effectual,
   "and sharper than any two-edged sword."

   If you leave Christ out of it, you have left out its vitality and
   power. As I have told you that we will not have Christ without the
   Word, so neither will we have the Word without Christ. If you leave
   Christ out of Scripture, you have left out the essential Truth of God
   which it is written to declare. Yes, if you leave out of it Christ as a
   Substitute, Christ in His death, Christ in His garments dyed in blood,
   you have left out of it all that is living and powerful. How often have
   we reminded you that as concerning the Gospel, even as concerning every
   man, "the blood is the life thereof"--a bloodless Gospel is a lifeless
   Gospel!

   A famous picture has been lately produced, which represents our Lord
   before Pilate. It has deservedly won great attention. A certain
   excellent newspaper which brings out for a very cheap price a large
   number of engravings, has given an engraving of this picture. But,
   inasmuch as the painting was too large for the paper to print it all,
   they have copied a portion of it. It is interesting to note that they
   have given us Pilate here and Caiaphas there but since there was no
   room for Jesus upon the sheet, they have left out that part of the
   design. When I saw the picture, I thought that it was wonderfully
   characteristic of a great deal of modern preaching.

   See Pilate here, Caiaphas there, and the Jews yonder--but the Victim,
   bound and scourged for human sin--is omitted. Possibly, in the case of
   the publication, the figure of the Christ will appear in the next
   issue. But even if He should appear in the next sermon of our preachers
   of the new theology, it will be as a moral example and not as the
   Substitute for the guilty, the Sin-bearer by whose death we are
   redeemed. When we hear a sermon with no Christ in it, we hope that He
   will come out next Sunday. At the same time, the preaching is, so far,
   spoilt and the presentation of the Gospel is entirely erroneous so long
   as the principal Figure is left out.

   Oh, it is a sad thing to have to stand in any house of prayer and
   listen to the preaching and then have to cry, "They have taken away my
   Lord and I know not where they have laid Him"! Rest assured that they
   have laid Him in a tomb. You may be quite certain of that. They have
   put Him away as a dead thing and to them He is as good as dead. True
   Believer, you may comfort your heart with this recollection--He will
   rise again. He cannot be held by the bonds of death in any sense. And,
   though His own Church should bury Him and lay the huge lid of the most
   enormous sarcophagus of heresy upon Him, the Redeemer will rise again
   and His Truth with Him and He and His Word will live and reign together
   forever and ever.

   Brethren, you will understand I am going to speak about the Word of God
   as being like the Lord Jesus, the Revelation of God. This inspired
   volume is that Gospel whereby you have received life unless you have
   heard it in vain. It is this Gospel, with Jesus within it, Jesus
   working by it--which is said to be living and effectual and "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." I shall only talk with you in very
   simple style. First, concerning the qualities of the Word of God. And,
   secondly, concerning certain practical lessons which these qualities
   suggest to us.

   I. First let me speak CONCERNING THE QUALITIES OF THE WORD OF GOD. It
   is "quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword." The Word
   of God is said to be "quick." I am sorry the translators have used that
   word because it is apt to be mistaken as meaning speedy and that is not
   the meaning at all. It means alive, or living. "Quick" is the old
   English word for alive and so we read of the "quick and the dead." The
   Word of God is alive. This is a living Book. This is a mystery which
   only living men, quickened by the Spirit of God, will fully comprehend.
   Take up any other book except the Bible and there may be a measure of
   power in it, but there is not that indescribable vitality in it which
   breathes and speaks--and pleads and conquers in the case of this sacred
   volume.

   We have in the book market many excellent selections of choice passages
   from great authors and in a few instances the persons who have made the
   extracts have been at the pains to place under their quotations from
   Scripture the name "David," or "Jesus," but this is worse than
   needless. There is a style of majesty about God's Word and with this
   majesty a vividness never found elsewhere. No other writing has within
   it a heavenly life whereby it works miracles and even imparts life to
   its reader. It is a living and incorruptible seed. It moves, it stirs
   itself, it lives, it communes with living men as a living Word. Solomon
   says concerning it, "When you go, it shall lead you. When you sleep, it
   shall keep you. And when you awake, it shall talk with

   you."

   Have you ever known what that means? Why, the Book has wrestled with
   me. The Book has smitten me. The Book has comforted me. The Book has
   smiled on me. The Book has frowned on me. The Book has clasped my hand.
   The Book has warmed my heart. The Book weeps with me and sings with me.
   It whispers to me and it preaches to me. It maps my way and holds up my
   goings. It was to me the Young Man's Best Companion and it is still my
   Morning and Evening Chaplain. It is a living Book--all over alive--from
   its first chapter to its last word it is full of a strange, mystic
   vitality which makes it have pre-eminence over every other writing for
   every living child of God.

   See, my Brothers and Sisters, our words, our books, our spoken or our
   printed words by-and-by die out. How many books there are which nobody
   will ever read now because they are out of date? There are many books
   that I could read profitably when I was a youth but they would teach me
   nothing now. There are also certain religious works which I could read
   with pleasure during the first ten years of my spiritual life. But I
   should never think of reading them now, any more than I should think of
   reading the "a-b ab," and the "b-a ba," of my childhood. Christian
   experience causes us to outgrow the works which were the textbooks of
   our youth.

   We may outgrow teachers and pastors but not Apostles and Prophets. That
   human system which was once vigorous and influential may grow old, and
   at length lose all vitality. But the Word of God is always fresh and
   new and full of force. No wrinkle mars its brow--no trembling is in its
   foot. Here, in the Old and New Testaments, we have at once the oldest
   and the newest of books. Homer and Hesiod are infants to the more
   ancient parts of this venerable volume, and yet the Gospel which it
   contains is as truly new as this morning's newspaper. I say again that
   our words come and go--as the trees of the forest multiply their leaves
   only to cast them off as withered things--so the thoughts and theories
   of men are but for the season and then they fade and rot into
   nothingness.

   "The grass withers and the flower thereof falls away--but the Word of
   the Lord endures forever." Its vitality is such as it can impart to its
   readers. Hence, you will often find, when you converse with Revelation,
   that if you yourself are dead when you begin to read, it does not
   matter--you will be quickened as you peruse it. You need not bring life
   to the Scripture. You shall draw life from the Scripture. Oftentimes a
   single verse has made us start up--as Lazarus came forth at the call of
   the Lord Jesus. When our soul has been faint and ready to die, a single
   word, applied to the heart by the Spirit of God, has aroused us.

   It is a quickening as well as a living Word. I am so glad of this
   because at times I feel altogether dead. But the Word of God is not
   dead. And coming to it we are like the dead man, who, when he was put
   into the grave of the Prophet, rose again as soon as he touched his
   bones. Even these bones of the Prophets, these words of theirs spoken
   and written thousands of years ago, will impart life to those who come
   into contact with them. The Word of God is thus exceedingly alive. I
   may add it is so alive that you need never be afraid that it will
   become extinct.

   They dream--they dream that they have put us among the
   antiquities--those of us who preach the old Gospel that our fathers
   loved! They sneer at the doctrines of the Apostles and of the Reformers
   and declare that Believers in them are left high and dry--the relics of
   an age which has long since ebbed away. Yes, so they say! But what they
   say may not after all be true. For the Gospel is such a living Gospel
   that if it were cut into a thousand shreds every particle of it would
   live and grow. If it were buried beneath a thousand avalanches of
   error, it would shake off the incubus and rise from its grave, If it
   were cast into the midst of fire it would walk through the flame as it
   has done many a time, as though it were in its natural element.

   The Reformation was largely due to a copy of the Scriptures left in the
   seclusion of a monastery and there hidden till Luther came under its
   influence and his heart furnished soil for the living seed to grow in.
   Leave but a single New Testament in a Popish community and the
   evangelical faith may at any moment come to the front--even though no
   preacher of it may ever have come that way. Plants unknown in certain
   regions have suddenly sprung from the soil--the seeds have been wafted
   on the winds, carried by birds, or washed ashore by the waves of the
   sea. So vital are seeds that they live and grow wherever they are
   borne.

   And even after lying deep in the soil for centuries, when the upturning
   spade has brought them to the surface, they have germinated at once.
   Thus is it with the Word of God--it lives and abides forever and in
   every soil and under all circumstances

   it is prepared to prove its own life by the energy with which it grows
   and produces fruit to the glory of God. How vain, as well as wicked,
   are all attempts to kill the Gospel. Those who attempt the crime, in
   any fashion, will be forever still beginning and never coming near
   their end. They will be disappointed in all cases, whether they would
   slay it with persecution, smother it with worldliness, crush it with
   error, starve it with neglect, poison it with misrepresentation, or
   drown it with infidelity. While God lives His Word shall live. Let us
   praise God for that. We have an immortal Gospel incapable of being
   destroyed which shall live and shine when the lamp of the sun has
   consumed its scant supply of oil.

   In our text the Word is said to be "powerful" or "active." Perhaps
   "energetic" is the best rendering, or almost as well, "effectual." Holy
   Scripture is full of power and energy. Oh, the majesty of the Word of
   God! They charge us with Bibliolatry. It is a crime of their own
   inventing, of which few are guilty. If there are such things as venial
   sins, surely an undue reverence of Holy Scripture is one of them. To me
   the Bible is not God, but it is God's voice--and I do not hear it
   without awe. What an honor to have as one's calling to study, to
   expound and to publish this sacred Word! I cannot help feeling that the
   man who preaches the Word of God is standing, not upon a mere platform,
   but upon a throne.

   You may study your sermon, my Brother, and you may be a great
   rhetorician and be able to deliver it with wonderful fluency and force.
   But the only power that is effectual for the highest design of
   preaching is the power which does not lie in your word nor in my word
   but in the Word of God. Have you ever noticed, when persons are
   converted, that they almost always attribute it to some text that was
   quoted in the sermon? It is God's Word, not our comment on God's Word,
   which saves souls. The Word of God is powerful for all sacred ends. How
   powerful it is to convince men of sin!

   We have seen the self-righteous turned inside out by the revealed Truth
   of God. Nothing else could have brought home to them such unpleasant
   Truths and compelled them to see themselves as in a clear mirror but
   the searching Word of God. How powerful it is for conversion! It comes
   on board a man and without asking any leave from him, it just puts its
   hand on the helm and turns him round in the opposite direction from
   that in which he was going before. And the man gladly yields to the
   irresistible force which influences his understanding and rules his
   will. The Word of God is that by which sin is slain and Divine Grace is
   born in the heart. It is the light which brings life with it.

   How active and energetic it is, when the soul is convicted of sin, in
   bringing it forth into Gospel liberty! We have seen men shut up as in
   the devil's own dungeon and we have tried to get them free. We have
   shaken the bars of iron but we could not tear them out so as to set the
   captives at liberty. But the Word of the Lord is a great breaker of
   bolts and bars. It not only casts down the strongholds of doubt but it
   cuts off the head of Giant Despair. No cell or cellar in Doubting
   Castle can hold a soul in bondage when the Word of God, which is the
   master key, is once put to its true use and made to throw back bolts of
   despondency.

   It is living and energetic for encouragement and enlargement. O
   Beloved, what a wonderful power the Gospel has to bring us comfort! It
   brought us to Christ at first and it still leads us to look to Christ
   till we grow like He. God's children are not sanctified by legal
   methods but by gracious ones. The Word of God, the Gospel of Christ, is
   exceedingly powerful in promoting sanctification and bringing about
   that whole-hearted consecration which is both our duty and our
   privilege. May the Lord cause His Word to prove its power in us by
   making us fruitful unto every good work to do His will! Through the
   "washing of water by the Word"--that is, through the washing by the
   Word--may we be cleansed every day and made to walk in white before the
   Lord, adorning the doctrine of God our Savior in all things!

   The Word of God, then, is quick and powerful in our own personal
   experience and we shall find it to be so if we use it in laboring to
   bless our fellow men. Dear Brethren, if you seek to do good in this sad
   world, and want a powerful weapon to work with, stick to the Gospel,
   the living Gospel, the old, old Gospel. There is a power in it
   sufficient to meet the sin and death of human nature. All the thoughts
   of men, use them as earnestly as you may, will be like tickling
   Leviathan with a straw. Nothing can get through the scales of this
   monster but the Word of God. This is a weapon made of sterner stuff
   than steel and it will cut through coats of mail.

   Nothing can resist it. "Where the word of a king is, there is power."
   About the Gospel, when spoken with the Holy Spirit sent down from
   Heaven, there is the same omnipotence as there was in the Word of God
   when in the beginning He spoke to the primeval darkness saying, "Let
   there be light," and there was light. Oh how we ought to prize and love
   the Revelation of God. Not only because it is full of life but because
   that life is exceedingly energetic and effectual and operates so
   powerfully upon the lives and hearts of men.

   Next, the Apostle tells us that His Word is cutting. "Cutting" would be
   as correct a translation as that of our own version--it is "more
   cutting than any two-edged sword." I suppose the Apostle means by the
   description "two-edged" that it is all edge. A sword with two edges has
   no blunt side--it cuts both this way and that. The Revelation of God
   given us in Holy

   Scripture is edge all over. It is alive in every part and in every part
   keen to cut the conscience and wound the heart. Depend upon it, there
   is not a superfluous verse in the Bible nor a chapter which is useless.
   Doctors say of certain drugs that they are inert--they have no effect
   upon the system one way or the other.

   Now, there is not an inert passage in the Scriptures--every line has
   its virtues. Have you ever heard of one who read, as the lesson for the
   Sabbath Day, that long chapter of names wherein it is written that each
   Patriarch lived so many hundred years, "and he died"? Thus it ends the
   notice of the long life of Methuselah with "and he died." The
   repetition of the words, "and he died," woke the thoughtless hearer to
   a sense of his mortality and led to his coming to the Savior. I should
   not wonder that, away there in the Chronicles, among those tough Hebrew
   names, there have been conversions worked in cases unknown to us as
   yet.

   Anyhow, any bit of Holy Writ is very dangerous to play with and many a
   man has been wounded by the Scriptures when he has been idly, or even
   profanely reading them. Doubters have meant to break the Word to pieces
   and it has broken them. Yes, fools have taken up portions and studied
   them on purpose to ridicule them and they have been sobered and
   vanquished by that which they repeated in sport. There was one who went
   to hear Mr. Whitefield--a member of the "Hell-fire Club," a desperate
   fellow. He stood up at the next meeting of his abominable associates
   and he delivered Mr. Whitefield's sermon with wonderful accuracy,
   imitating his very tone and manner.

   In the middle of his exhortation the Lord converted him and he came to
   a sudden pause, sat down broken-hearted and confessed the power of the
   Gospel. That club was dissolved. That remarkable convert was Mr.
   Thorpe, of Bristol, whom God so greatly used afterwards in the
   salvation of others. I would rather have you read the Bible, to mock at
   it, than not read it at all. I would rather that you came to hear the
   Word of God, out of hatred to it, than that you never came at all.

   The Word of God is so sharp a thing, so full of cutting power, that you
   may be bleeding under its wounds before you have seriously suspected
   the possibility of such a thing. You cannot come near the Gospel
   without its having a measure of influence over you. And, God blessing
   you, it may cut down and kill your sins when you have no idea that such
   a work is being done. Dear Friends, have you not found the Word of God
   to be very cutting, more cutting than a two-edged sword, so that your
   heart has bled inwardly and you have been unable to resist the heavenly
   stroke?

   I trust you and I may go on to know more and more of its edge till it
   has killed us outright, so far as the life of sin is concerned. Oh, to
   be sacrificed unto God and His Word to be the sacrificial knife! Oh,
   that His Word were put to the throat of every sinful tendency, every
   sinful habit and every sinful thought! There is no sin-killer like the
   Word of God. Wherever it comes, it comes as a sword and inflicts death
   upon evil.

   Sometimes when we are praying that we may feel the power of the Word we
   hardly know what we are praying for. I saw a venerable brother the
   other day and he said to me, "I remember speaking with you when you
   were nineteen or twenty years of age and I never forgot what you said
   to me. I had been praying with you in the Prayer Meeting, that God
   would give us the Holy Spirit to the full, and you said to me
   afterwards, 'My dear Brother, do you know what you asked God for?' I
   answered, 'Yes.' But you very solemnly said to me, 'The Holy Spirit is
   the Spirit ofjudgment and the Spirit of burning and few are prepared
   for the inward conflict which is meant by these two words.' " My good
   old friend told me that at the time he did not understand what I meant
   but thought me a singular youth.

   "Ah," said he, "I see it now but it is only by a painful experience
   that I have come to the full comprehension of it." Yes, when Christ
   comes, He comes not to send peace on the earth, but a sword. And that
   sword begins at home, in our own souls, killing, cutting, hacking,
   breaking in pieces. Blessed is that man who knows the Word of the Lord
   by its exceeding sharpness, for it kills nothing but that which ought
   to be killed. It quickens and gives new life to all that is of God. But
   the old depraved life which ought to die, it hews in pieces, as Samuel
   destroyed Agag before the Lord. "For the Word of God is quick, and
   powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword."

   But I want you to notice next, that it has a further quality--it is
   piercing. While it has an edge like a sword, it has also a point like a
   rapier, "Piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit." The
   difficulty with some men's hearts is to get at them. In fact, there is
   no spiritually penetrating the heart of any natural man except by this
   piercing instrument, the Word of God. But the rapier of Revelation will
   go through anything. Even when the "heart is as fat as grease," as the
   Psalmist says, yet His Word will pierce it.

   Into the very marrow of the man, sacred Truth will pass and find him
   out in a way in which he cannot even find himself out. As it is with
   our own hearts, so it is with the hearts of other men. Dear Friends,
   the Gospel can find its way anywhere. Men may wrap themselves up in
   prejudice but this rapier can find out the joints of their harness.
   They may resolve not to believe and may feel content in their
   self-righteousness but this piercing weapon will find its way. The
   arrows of the Word of

   God are sharp in the hearts of the King's enemies, whereby the people
   fall under him. Let us not be afraid to trust this weapon whenever we
   are called up to face the adversaries of the Lord Jesus. We can pin
   them and pierce them and finish them with this.

   And next, the Word of God is said to be discriminating. It divides
   asunder soul and spirit. Nothing else could do that for the division is
   difficult. In a great many ways writers have tried to describe the
   difference between soul and spirit. But I question whether they have
   succeeded. No doubt it is a very admirable definition to say, "The soul
   is the life of the natural man, and the spirit the life of the
   regenerate or spiritual man." But it is one thing to define and quite
   another thing to divide.

   We will not attempt to solve this metaphysical problem. God's Word
   comes in and it shows man the difference between that which is of the
   soul and that which is of the spirit. That which is of man and that
   which is of God. That which is of Divine Grace and that which is of
   nature. The Word of God is wonderfully decisive about this. Oh, how
   much there is of our religion which is--to quote a spiritual poet--"The
   child of nature finely-dressed, but not the living child"--it is of the
   soul and not of the spirit!

   The Word of God lays down very straight lines and separates between the
   natural and the spiritual, the carnal and the Divine. You would think
   sometimes, from the public prayers and preaching of clergymen, that we
   were all Christian people. But Holy Scripture does not sanction this
   flattering estimate of our condition. When we are gathered together the
   prayers are for us all and the preaching is for us all, as being all
   God's people--all born so, or made so by Baptism, no question about
   that! Yet the way the Word of God talks is of quite another sort.

   It talks about the dead and the living--about the repentant and the
   impenitent. It talks about the believing and the unbe-lieving--about
   the blind and the seeing--about those called of God and those who still
   lie in the arms of the Wicked One. It speaks with keen discrimination
   and separates the precious from the vile. I believe there is nothing in
   the world that divides congregations, as they ought to be divided, like
   the plain preaching of the Word of God. This it is that makes our
   places of worship to be solemn spots, even as Dr. Watts sings--

   "Up to her courts with joys unknown

   The holy tribes repair;

   The Son of David holds the throne,

   And sits in judgment there.

   He hears our praises and complaints;

   And, while His awful voice

   Divides the sinners from the saints,

   We tremble and rejoice." The Word of God is discriminating.

   Once more, the Word of God is marvelously revealing to the inner self.
   It pierces between the joints and marrow-- and marrow is a thing not to
   be got at very readily. The Word of God gets at the very marrow of our
   manhood--it lays bare the secret thoughts of the soul. It is "a
   discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Have you not
   often, in hearing the Word, wondered how the preacher could so unveil
   that which you had concealed? He says the very things in the pulpit
   which you had uttered in your bed-chamber. Yes, that is one of the
   marks of the Word of God--that it lays bare a man's inmost secrets. It
   shows him that which he had not even himself perceived. The Christ that
   is in the Word sees everything. Read the next verse--"All things are
   naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do."

   The Word not only lets you see what your thoughts are, but it
   criticizes your thoughts. The Word of God says of this thought, "it is
   vain," and of that thought, "it is acceptable." Of this thought, "it is
   selfish," and of that thought, "it is Christ-like." It is a Judge of
   the thoughts of men. And the Word of God is such a discerner of the
   thoughts and intents of the heart that when men twist about and wind
   and wander, yet it tracks them. There is nothing so difficult to get at
   as a man. You may hunt a badger and run down a fox but you cannot get
   at a man--he has so many doublings and hiding places. Yet the Word of
   God will dig him out and seize on him. When the Spirit of God works
   with the Gospel, the man may dodge and twist but the preaching goes to
   his heart and conscience and he is made to feel it and to yield to its
   force.

   Many times, I do not doubt, dear Brothers and Sisters, you have found
   comfort in the discerning power of the Word. Unkind lips have found
   great fault with you. You have been trying to do what you could for the
   Lord and an enemy has slandered you and then it has been a delight to
   remember that the Master discerns your motive. Holy Scripture has made
   you sure of this by the way in which it understood and commended you.
   He discerns the true object of your heart and never misinterprets you.
   And this has inspired you with a firm resolve to be the faithful
   servant of so just a Lord. No

   slander will survive the Judgment Seat of Christ. We are not to be
   tried by the opinions of men but by the impartial Word of the Lord. And
   therefore, we rest in peace.

   II. I have been all this while over the first part of the discourse. I
   have only a minute or two just to show ONE OR TWO LESSONS WE OUGHT TO
   GATHER FROM THE QUALITIES OF THE WORD OF GOD that I have described.

   The first is this--Brothers and Sisters, let us greatly reverence the
   Word of God. If it is all this, let us read it, study it, prize it and
   make it the man of our right hand. And you that are not converted, I do
   pray you treat the Bible with a holy love and reverence and read it
   with the view of finding Christ and His salvation in it. Augustine used
   to say that the Scriptures are the swaddling-bands of the child Christ
   Jesus--while you are unrolling the bands, I trust you will meet with
   Him.

   Next, dear Friends, let us, whenever we feel ourselves dead and
   especially in prayer, get close to the Word, for the Word of God is
   alive. I do not find that gracious men always pray alike. Who could?
   When you have nothing to say to your God, let Him say something to you.
   The best private devotion is made up half of searching Scripture in
   which God speaks to us and the other half of prayer and praise in which
   we speak to God. When you are dead, turn from your death to that which
   still lives.

   Next, whenever we feel weak in our duties let us go to the Word of God
   and the Christ in the Word, for power. And this will be the best of
   power. The power of our natural abilities, the power of our acquired
   knowledge, the power of our gathered experience--all these may be
   vanity--but the power which is in the Word will prove effectual. Get up
   from the cistern of your failing strength to the fountain of
   omnipotence. For they that drink here, while the youths shall faint and
   are weary and the young men shall utterly fall, shall run and not be
   weary and shall walk and not faint.

   Next, if you need, as a minister, or a worker, anything that will cut
   your hearers to the heart, go to this Book for it. I say this because I
   have known preachers try to use very cutting words of their own. God
   save us from that! When our hearts grow hot and our words are apt to be
   sharp as a razor, let us remember that the wrath of man works not the
   righteousness of God. Let us not attempt to carry on Christ's war with
   the weapons of Satan. There is nothing so cutting as the Word of God.
   Keep to that.

   I believe, also, that one of the best ways of convincing men of error
   is not so much to denounce the error as to proclaim the Truth more
   clearly. If a stick is very crooked and you wish to prove that it is
   so, get a straight one and quietly lay it down by its side. When men
   look they will surely see the difference. The Word of God has a very
   keen edge about it and all the cutting words you want you had better
   borrow therefrom.

   And next, the Word of God is very piercing. When we cannot get at
   people by God's Truth, we cannot get at them at all. I have heard of
   preachers who have thought they ought to adapt themselves a little to
   certain people and leave out portions of the Truth of God which might
   be disagreeable. Brothers, if the Word of God will not pierce, our
   words will not--you may depend upon that. The Word of God is like the
   sword of Goliath which had been laid up in the sanctuary, of which
   David said, "There is none like it, give it to me."

   Why did he like it so well? I think he liked it all the better because
   it had been laid up in the Holy Place by the priests. That is one
   thing. But I think he liked it best of all because it had stains of
   blood upon it--the blood of Goliath. I like my own sword because it is
   covered with blood right up to the hilt--the blood of slaughtered sins
   and errors and prejudices has made it like the sword of Don Rodrigo,
   "of a dark and purple tint." The slain of the Lord have been many by
   the old Gospel. We point to many vanquished by this true Jerusalem
   blade.

   They desire me to use a new one. I have not tried it. What have I to do
   with a weapon which has seen no service? I have proved the Sword of the
   Lord and of Gideon and I mean to keep to it. My dear Comrades in Arms,
   gird this sword about you and disdain the wooden weapons with which
   enemies would delude you! Let us use this blade of steel, well tempered
   in the fire, against the most obstinate, for they cannot stand against
   it. They may resist it for a time but they will have to yield. They had
   better make preparations for surrender. For if the Lord comes out
   against them with His own Word, they will have to give in and cry to
   Him for mercy.

   Next, if we want to discriminate at any time between the soul and the
   Spirit and the joints and marrow, let us go to the Word of God for
   discrimination. We need to use the Word of God just now upon several
   subjects. There is that matter of holiness, upon which one says one
   thing, and another says something else. Never mind what they all
   say--go to the

   Book--for this is the umpire on all questions. Amidst the controversies
   of the day about a thousand subjects, keep to this infallible Book and
   it will guide you unerringly.

   And lastly, since this Book is meant to be a discerner, or critic, of
   the thoughts and intents of the heart, let the Book criticize us. When
   you have issued a new volume from the press--which you do every day,
   for every day is a new treatise from the press of life--take it to this
   great critic and let the Word of God judge it. If the Word of God
   approves you, you are approved. If the Word of God disapproves you, you
   are disapproved. Have friends praised you? They may be your enemies in
   so doing. Have other observers abused you? They may be wrong or right,
   let the Book decide.

   A man of one Book--if that Book is the Bible--is a man, for he is a man
   of God. Cling to the living Word and let the Gospel of your fathers,
   let the Gospel of the martyrs, let the Gospel of the Reformers, let the
   Gospel of the blood-washed multitude before the Throne of God, the
   Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ--be your Gospel and none but that-- and
   it will save you and make you the means of saving others to the praise
   of God. Adapted from The c.h. Spurgeon Collection, Version 1.0,
     __________________________________________________________________

Abram's Call--or, Half-Way--and All the Way

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 26, 1888,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran his son's son
   and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went
   forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan.
   And they came unto Haran and dwelt there." Genesis 11:31.

   "And Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother's son and all their
   substance that they had gathered and the souls that they had gotten in
   Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the
   land of Canaan they came." Genesis 12:5.

   AFTER the Flood, when men began to multiply and increase in the earth,
   it was not very long before they began to turn aside from the living
   and true God. At first the sons of Noah walked in the light of Divine
   knowledge, though even among them was found an evil seed. When
   scattered over the earth after the confusion of tongues at Babel, the
   earth's hoary fathers carried with them a measure of the knowledge of
   God which they had received from their sires. But after a while, the
   light grew dim, men began to worship the sun and the moon and they
   adored fire as the mystic symbol of the mysterious and spiritual Lord.

   They sought out many inventions. And having once begun to quit their
   allegiance to the one God they very rapidly traveled along the downward
   road till they worshipped strange gods. It was sad that although the
   earth produced its mighty hunters and men built city after city, yet
   few among them sought after God, or built altars to His name. Well
   might the Lord God cry out, "Hear Me heavens and give ear, O earth--I
   have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against
   Me."

   A long period passed without a voice from God. Man seemed left to
   himself and in danger of being given up to idols. The nations wandered
   each a different way but all the downward road. Yet Divine Grace had
   not ended its reign. And therefore before the lamp of God had wholly
   gone out, the Lord determined to reveal Himself and establish His
   worship in the world. He would select a family to be His peculiar
   servants. He would manifest Himself to the father of that family and
   would make with him a Covenant. He would reveal to him the great things
   which He intended to do in the fullness of time and He would bid him
   hand down the Revelation to his children from generation to generation.

   This family should grow into a nation and to that nation should be
   committed the oracles of God. Out of that nation should come Prophets
   and priests and heroes who should believe in God and maintain the true
   faith against all comers, even until the Son of God Himself should come
   to manifest the glory of God in a preeminent degree. In the midst of
   that nation the Lord resolved to set up ordinances and a settled
   organization by which Truth should be taught through type and symbol
   and by the hallowed speech of godly men. This, in His wisdom, He judged
   to be best for the future of the race.

   In the wise sovereignty of His choice, the Lord chose Abram and his
   house. He gives no account of his matters and we cannot, therefore,
   tell why he took out of Ur of the Chaldees those of whom Joshua says,
   "Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even
   Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nachor--and they served
   other gods." The Lord called Abram alone and blessed him. He set apart
   the Patriarch and his seed and put them in trust with the priceless
   treasure of Divine Revelation--this they kept for themselves and for
   the rest of mankind.

   It was needful that the elect family should be led apart and kept from
   the contamination of surrounding evil. Abram must come out from Ur of
   the Chaldees and all its associations of idolatry and he must even
   leave his kindred and his father's house and walk before the Lord in
   separation unto prompt obedience and complete consecration. Thus his
   separation unto God

   would fulfill the gracious purpose of the Most High. The Lord's end and
   aim was to keep His Truth alive in the world by means of a people who
   should be set apart for that service.

   It was therefore essential that the person chosen to be the head of
   that family, the founder of that nation, should come right away from
   all connection with the corrupt world and walk apart with God. The
   chosen nation was to dwell alone and not to be numbered among the
   peoples. Hence came that call which said to Abram, "Get you out of your
   country and from your kindred and from your father's house unto a land
   that I will show you: and I will make of you a great nation and I will
   bless you and make your name great. And you shall be a blessing."

   At this moment God is working in much the same manner in the midst of
   the world by His Church. A Church is an assembly called out. An
   ecclesia is not any and every "assembly"--a mixed crowd of unauthorized
   persons having no special right to come together would not be an
   ecclesia, or Church. In a real ecclesia the herald summoned the
   citizens by trumpet or by name and it consisted of certain persons
   called out from among the common multitude. The true Church consists of
   men who are called and faithful and chosen. They are redeemed from
   among men and called out from among their fellows by effectual grace.

   God the Holy Spirit continues to call out and bring to the Lord Jesus
   those who are chosen of God according to the good pleasure of His will.
   Practically, conversion is the result of the call--"Get you out from
   your country." It is a repetition of that searching word, "Come you out
   from among them and be you separate, says the Lord, and touch not the
   unclean thing." The Church is a repetition of the camp of Abram in the
   midst of Canaan. It is the Lord's portion among men and it keeps His
   oracles. The Church of the living God is the pillar and ground of the
   Truth of God. And it is the design of God to find a home for His Gospel
   in His Church till the dispensation of Divine Grace shall close and the
   Judge shall ascend the throne.

   In gathering instruction from the call of Abram, I shall handle the
   matter by making three remarks. First, this call is often only half
   obeyed. In our first text we find the command of God very partially
   carried out. Secondly, this call is of a very special character and I
   shall endeavor to show the manner in which it comes to us at this time.
   Thirdly, this call, when it is really obeyed, puts the obedient upon a
   special footing--they are henceforth peculiarly the Lord's. May the
   Holy Spirit bless our meditation!

   I. In the first place, THIS CALL IS OFTEN ONLY HALF OBEYED. It came to
   Abram when he dwelt in Ur of the Chal-dees. But though he so far
   hearkened to it as to set out for Canaan, yet we read that "they came
   to Haran and dwelt there."

   We do not know how the call came to Abram, whether by a voice which he
   heard with his ears, or by a mysterious impulse upon his mind, or by a
   dream or vision. But Stephen tells us, in the seventh of Acts--"The God
   of glory appeared unto our father Abraham." There may have been given
   to Abram some such sight of the glory of God as Job had when he cried,
   "Now my eye sees You." The Lord appeared to Abram and made him to
   understand that he must emigrate from his country and quit his tribe.
   Somehow or other, it was laid home to Abram's heart and conscience that
   he must go forth upon a journey he knew not where. He must journey into
   another land and no more dwell in city, or town, or village but become
   a sojourner with his God, a tent-dweller, a stranger in a strange land.

   His first step would naturally be to tell his friends that he must
   leave them, for the living God had called him to go to the land of
   Canaan. At once his difficulties began. His kindred could not bear to
   part with him. If they had distinctly opposed him and said, "It is
   absurd. Your talk is insanity. Yet if you must be gone, go your way and
   welcome"--then he would have gone in sadness but assuredly he would not
   have hesitated. A man possessed of Abram's wondrous faith would have
   torn himself away with great firmness, although with deep regret at the
   sorrow which he caused. Had they opposed him, his course would have
   been plain.

   But he had to meet with a much more insidious evil. His friends
   consented to his zeal. Whether they agreed in his reverence for Jehovah
   or not, they felt that they could not cut themselves off from Abram and
   therefore they resolved to go with him. The word to Abram was express,
   "Get you out from your kindred and from your father's house." But how
   was this to be done when his kindred and his father's house clung to
   him and yielded to him? Very naturally his loving spirit could see no
   other way but to bid them all come with him and yield themselves to
   God.

   Possibly Abram looked for great things from this and rejoiced in it. It
   would seem as if his aged father Terah, with that wisdom which is a
   near to subtlety, himself led the way in the migration. For we
   read--"And Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran his son's
   son and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went
   forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees to go into the land of Canaan."
   The father of the clan leads the way and it is rather his migration
   than that of Abram. What was Abram to do? Instead of meeting opposition
   from his family, his own father is leading the way in the journey to
   Canaan. Did not this make his obedience easier?

   We shall see. Was not this happy union of the household, this undivided
   assent to the Lord's bidding, a great cause for rejoicing? It certainly
   appeared so. But all is not gold that glitters. What we think will help
   may at length hinder. What looks like a work of grace may turn out to
   be only the movements of unrenewed nature. Like the mixed multitude
   which came out of Egypt with Israel, we may have about us professed
   friends who may become our worst foes in the secret of God's Truth and
   Divine Grace.

   In Abram's case the dreaded separation is spared--they start together
   for Canaan. So far so good--at least, it looks so. The traveling is
   wearisome and many are the murmurings. The huge caravan has not gone
   very far before the proposal is made that they should be satisfied with
   the move which they had made and remain at Haran. True, it was not
   Canaan but it might do as well. Did not the family reason, "We shall
   stay here. We have yielded a great many points to Abram in coming away
   from Ur. But we cannot yield to all his demands. We have proved our
   love to him and our reverence for the Lord by coming thus far and now
   we ask for a fair compromise.

   "Abram is very sincere but he must not be bigoted. Surely he will not
   be so foolish as to believe in verbal inspiration and insist upon
   Canaan, when Haran quite meets the spirit of the command. There is no
   doubt that Haran answers every purpose and we mean to stay here and
   Abram must stay with us." His father pleads that he is very old. To be
   moving continually is hard for aged people. And there is that broad
   Euphrates, how can the old man cross that dreaded flood? "Spare your
   venerable parent this last bitterness--I have come thus far to please
   you--do not press me further."

   I think I am not wildly imagining if I suppose that some such pleas
   induced the Patriarch to tarry with his kindred at Ha-ran. A loving and
   tender heart worked against prompt literal obedience and for a while
   the man of faith delayed, the heir of the promises hesitated. Do you
   blame him? It will be wiser to look at home. Holy Scripture describes
   his conduct and appends no absolute word of censure. But it does what
   is quite as significant--it keeps silent as to anything like a record
   of blessing, or of communion with God--while Abram was at the half-way
   house at Haran.

   To a friend of God His silence is quite enough of a rebuke. Ifmy friend
   does not smile, I do not require him to frown to let me know
   whereabouts I am in his esteem. If my friend no longer speaks to me, I
   do not need him to upbraid me--his silence is sadly eloquent to my
   heart. Abram and the rest settled down at Haran. He was conquered, not
   by open foes but by compromising friends. My Brethren, take good heed
   unto yourselves that you suffer not your feet to be entangled by the
   men of your own household. He that would follow the Lamb wherever he
   goes, must not know his own kindred when he comes to the parting of the
   ways.

   Honest wolves will not harm us one half so much as those who look like
   sheep but inwardly are not so. Our first father, Adam, fell by the
   temptation of her whom he loved and the old serpent still knows how to
   seduce through our affections and lead into ruin by the suggestion of
   friendship. O Man of God, beware! Read my parable with open eye and
   practice the lesson thereof.

   Let me describe the consequences of tarrying at any half-way house. To
   obey the Lord partially is to disobey Him. If the Lord bids Abram go to
   Canaan, he cannot fulfill that command by going to Haran. Haran was not
   mentioned in the call. You cannot keep God's command by doing something
   else which pleases you better. The essence of obedience lies in its
   exactness. Although something else may seem to you to be quite as good
   as the thing commanded, what has that to do with it?

   This is what God bids you and to refuse the thing commanded, professing
   to substitute a better thing, is gross presumption. You may not think
   it so but so it is, that half obedience is whole disobedience. We can
   only obey the Lord's command as it stands. To alter it is as great a
   treason as to make erasures in a king's statute-book. It is
   will-worship and not God worship, if I do what I choose of the Lord's
   work and leave a part undone which does not please me quite so well.

   Moreover, half-way obedience increases our responsibility, because it
   is a plain confession that we know the Lord's will, though we do it
   not. Abram had received the call and knew that he had done so, else why
   had he come to Haran? He admitted, by going as far as Haran, that he
   ought to go the whole way to Canaan. And so, by his own action he left
   himself without excuse. And any of you who are doing in a measure what
   is right because of the fear of God and yet are acting in other matters
   contrary to what you know to be the Lord's will, you are left without
   apology for such neglect.

   By the service which you do render to God you admit that He a has right
   to your obedience--why, then do you not obey Him in all things? You
   call Jesus your Lord and do some of the things which He says but why
   not the rest? Is it not clear that you know your Master's will and do
   it not? Thus, you see, there was failure in obedience and increase of
   responsibility. The result of this to Abram was the absence of
   privilege. God spoke not to His servant in Haran--neither dream, nor
   vision, nor voice came to him in the place of hesitancy. The Lord loved
   him but hid His face from him and denied him the visits of His Divine
   Grace.

   If we walk contrary to the Lord, He will walk contrary to us. Abram
   lived with his father Terah. But he was not living near his heavenly
   Father, and therefore he did not hear His voice. How greatly the true
   heart dreads this! How earnestly it sighs, "O Lord, be not silent to
   me, lest if You be silent to me, I become like them that go down into
   the pit"! O my Brothers, let us not, by wavering and half-heartedness,
   lose our communion with the Lord our God.

   Meanwhile, Abram was rendering an affliction needful. His father Terah
   must die that the cord which held Abram might be broken. If the called
   one will not come out while the old man lives, death must do his work
   and remove the cause of disobedience. If Abram fears to weep at parting
   with a living father, he must weep over his grave. One way or another
   the Lord will cause His chosen to obey Him. Oh, that we would be tender
   of heart and not be as the horse or as the mule which have no
   understanding! Whips and rods would seldom be heard of if we were more
   promptly obedient.

   While tarrying at Haran, Abram was creating cause of future disquietude
   by his attachment to Lot. He was told to come out from his kindred but
   he clung to his orphan nephew and must needs accept his company. Lot
   caused him a great deal of trouble. His herdsmen created discontent and
   strife and afterwards Lot himself was carried away captive and peaceful
   Abram was compelled to gird on the warrior's sword and go forth to
   battle, to rescue his nephew. Had Abram acted decidedly from the very
   first, he might have saved himself many a hardship.

   My Brethren, learn well these lessons. I merely hint them--will you not
   enlarge upon them? All this while Abram was delaying the great blessing
   which God was prepared to give him, he was keeping out of the promised
   land and away from the place where Jehovah would manifest Himself to
   him and enter into covenant with him. I fear that some true Believers
   are depriving themselves of the richest joy and the most heavenly
   experience by their undecided conduct. Some of you have come away from
   your old sins but you have not yet entered upon the new life in its
   fullness. You have left Ur of the Chaldees--the place of open sin--but
   you have not come to Canaan the holy.

   You are tarrying in the Haran of a partial obedience, which is neither
   here nor there--a sort of death in life, rebellion in obedience,
   unbelief in faith. I know many professors who have left their vicious
   habits but they are not yet consecrated to the Lord Jesus--they are not
   absolutely in the world and yet they are not abiding in the Lord. Their
   speech is half of Ashdod and half of the Jews' language. They dare not
   be Philistines and yet they will not be Israelites. They are willing to
   be saved by the Cross of Christ but they are not willing to take up
   Christ's Cross and come right out decidedly upon His side at all times.
   This is a perilous state to be in.

   They have enough religion to make them miserable, but, I fear, not
   enough to fit them for joys eternal. They may ultimately get into
   Heaven by the skin of their teeth--at least, I hope so. But they have
   no present joy, no immediate peace, no conscious fellowship with God.
   Half-way house godliness is wretched stuff--beware of it! Remember what
   we read of the mongrels who dwelt in Israel's land, who had been
   brought there by the Assyrian conqueror. They feared the Lord and
   served other gods and, therefore, Jehovah sent lions among them. Let
   all who are of that race remember the lions. For the Lord will not
   suffer such double-minded ones to live in peace before Him.

   Thus much, then, upon my first point--the Divine call is too often only
   half obeyed. II. Secondly, THIS CALL, ESPECIALLY AS IT COMES TO US, IS
   OF A VERY PECULIAR CHARACTER. To us, of course, it is wholly spiritual.
   We are not called today to leave our country and our kindred so far as
   our residence is concerned. But it seems to me that we are called to a
   much more difficult position than that, namely, to stay on the old
   spot, among old friends and yet to lead a wholly new life. Of course,
   we are to quit all evil company. But we are not to leave the society of
   our fellow men, nor to go out of the world. Even Abram was not called
   to be an ascetic, nor to live in a cave, nor to retire into the desert
   like a hermit.

   Within the borders of his own encampment Abram was a man among men and
   pursued his daily calling as the keeper of great flocks of sheep and
   herds of oxen and camels and so forth. Towards his neighbors he behaved
   himself with noble-minded independence and integrity. He was a pattern
   of what Divine Grace can make of a really noble man when he moves among
   those who are strangers to his God. But yet, Beloved, Abram did, to a
   great extent, dwell in a favorable condition. He lived apart from the
   grosser sort. He was not wearied with the voices of a city, as Lot
   was--his own tents and the many tents of his servants, made up quite a
   settlement, where God's name was reverenced and the fear of the Lord
   was felt.

   That canvas town had one over it of whom the Lord said, "I know him,
   that he will command his children and his household after him and they
   shall keep the way of the Lord." Some of us can almost seclude our
   families but many others have a far harder task. They have to live in
   the city amid its sins and yet not to be of it. They have in their
   earthly callings to come into daily contact with the ungodly and yet
   they have to be holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners. As
   Abram was no

   Canaanite, though he sojourned in Canaan, so are we to prove ourselves
   to be of a totally distinct race. This is a very difficult piece
   ofbusiness.

   How great a wonder was asked by our Savior's prayer--"I pray not that
   You should take them out of the world but that You should keep them
   from the Evil One"! Not by difference in brogue, nor by peculiarity in
   dress are we to be marked out as the servants of God. But our lives
   must be so Christ-like and pure that men shall say of us, "You also
   were with Jesus of Nazareth, for your life betrays you." This call,
   then, is of a deeply spiritual and peculiar character. My Brother, have
   you heard it? My Sister, have you heard it? Have you endeavored to obey
   it to the full? It means just this--that we are to flee all sin,
   without exception and follow after everything that is pure and holy.

   Others wallow in what they call the pleasures of sin--abhor such things
   and protest against them. Shun, also, everything that is doubtful. For,
   "whatsoever is not of faith is sin." If you are not sure it is right,
   it is sin to you. Avoid the appearance of evil. Separate yourself from
   all that which Christ would have disapproved. Be so decided, also, as
   to leave everything that is hesitating. Be out-and-out for Jesus. While
   many will try to run both with the hare and the hounds, make it your
   object to abhor that which is evil and to cleave to that which is good.
   Make a point of wearing your regimentals. Be dead and buried to this
   present evil world with its frivolities, philosophies and grandeurs.

   Regard the world as crucified to you and be yourself crucified to it.
   The friendship of the world is enmity with God. Go without the camp
   bearing Christ's reproach. In matters of religion follow the Lord
   fully, let the Word of God be your sole and sure rule and nothing else.
   That religion which is not according to God's Word is a false religion.
   Accept neither doctrine nor ceremony for which there is no Scriptural
   warrant. Search the Word about it all--"to the Law and to the
   testimony--if they speak not according to this Word, it is because
   there is no light in them." Follow your conscience, as your conscience
   is enlightened by the Spirit of God concerning His Word.

   Follow the Word even in its jots and tittles. Make not too much of
   peculiarities in comparison with vital and fundamental Truths of God.
   But, still, even with these less weighty matters, take heed that you do
   not trifle, lest in neglecting the less you learn to neglect the
   greater and so become guilty of the great transgression. Avoid the
   world's religion. For if there is one world worse than another, it is
   the Christian world. No enemies of Israel were so bitter as their
   Brethren the Edomites-- Brethren in name only become the fiercest of
   foes. Be distinctly removed from the religion which is based upon
   self-will, pride of intellect and worldly conformity.

   The world's religion is as evil as the world's irreligion. Surrender to
   the plain teaching of the Spirit of God and resolve in all things to
   follow your Lord wherever He may lead you. Stand alone, if others will
   not obey. In your house let there be an altar for God, if there is not
   another in the land. Make a Covenant with God through the one great
   Sacrifice, even if all others forget the Savior.

   See, dear Friends, what the call is, and then remember that it comes to
   the Believer from God Himself. The Lord calls His servants unto the
   separated life and because of His authority they are bound to obey. He
   calls by His Word, either preached or read--it comes to the individual
   by an application of the Spirit of God so that the man yields cheerful
   assent. He is drawn and therefore he runs. Such a person feels it a
   pleasure to take Christ for his example and to put his feet down in the
   very tracks of the Lord Jesus. It is ours to follow the Lord's precept
   and example with great care and solemn determination, turning neither
   to the right hand nor to the left. It was so with Abram--is it so with
   you?

   Because this call comes from God, it has for us a supreme authority. We
   follow our Lord even when darkness is round about Him--though we know
   not the way, we know the Lord, and therefore we follow Him implicitly.
   To us the Word of God is more than the decrees of emperors, or the
   statutes of senators. If this thing were of men, if this thing were
   ordained by a learned council, or a reverend bench, it would be of
   small account in our eyes. But when He that made us and redeemed us
   speaks to us, we can only reply, "Help Your servants to do Your
   will--for Your will is our delight."

   My Brethren, if we thus separate ourselves unto obedience, we must
   expect violent opposition. Severe criticism will not be spared us. Of
   course, some will say, "The man is mad"--others more gently will
   murmur, "He is sadly misled." Many will accuse you of a liking to be
   singular, or a weakness for going to extremes, or a self-righteous wish
   to excel others, or of having "a bee in your bonnet." Accusers will
   hint that you are seeking your own in some form or other. And if they
   cannot quite see a motive, they will imagine one. What is the use of
   imagination if it will not help a man out when his facts run short?
   Having once made up their mind that you are foolish and contemptible
   they will view all your conduct through colored glasses and condemn you
   up and down. Be not dismayed but endure hardness for the love of Jesus.

   To go forth and lead a separated life will need faith and to have faith
   you will need the Divine Grace of God. Believe that God's command is
   right and believe that He will justify you in fulfilling it. Believe
   that God's promise is true and that He will

   prove it so. Abram was bid to go and he went. Look at Abram's case and
   see how impossible it was for him to obey apart from faith in God. He
   was to go away from all that was dear, from all that was comfortable
   and settled. He was to go, he knew not where, and he was to go to
   obtain an inheritance for a son that was not born and that was not
   likely ever to be born. For he was old and Sarai was well stricken in
   years.

   Only faith could enable him to obey a call which looked so like a
   delusion. We need faith in every step of a holy life. Oh for more
   looking unto Jesus, more child-like dependence upon God! If you
   believe, you will do the Lord's will. But if you do not believe, you
   will refuse to obey and miss the blessing.

   Suppose we do obey the Divine call, what then? Will our course be
   smooth ever afterwards? Far from it. The walk of the separated Believer
   involves trial. The trial of Abram in leaving his country was but one
   out of ten which are recorded. It is written, "In the world you shall
   have tribulation." In the Lord's vineyard the knife is used if nowhere
   else. The Lord tried Abram and He will try us--it is a part of the
   process of love by which He prepares us for the eternal rest. The
   course of true faith never does run smooth. If you will obey the Divine
   call you shall be favored with more trials, you shall be honored with
   still greater tests of your fidelity. But then you shall be known as
   the friend of God and God, by His Divine Grace, shall make you to be a
   blessing to others even to the end of time.

   Mark well what is proposed to you--that God shall take you and give you
   His light and His Truth and His salvation-- that you may preserve it
   for all the ages, until Christ shall come. Are you willing to accept so
   high an honor? Will you count the cost and make your calling and
   election sure? Will you cry with Esaias, "Here am I! Send me"? As the
   Roman consul devoted himself to death in battle for the sake of the
   beloved city, will you devote yourself to God and His cause, and Truth?

   In very deed such is my spirit. I wish there were ten thousand who
   would say the same. O my Brother, blessed are you among men if you are
   set apart for God and Truth. Yes, my Sister, blessed are you among
   women, if you are following the Lord fully in the way of His will.

   III. This brings me to my third and last point. THIS CALL, WHEN IT IS
   OBEYED, PUTS US ON SPECIAL GROUND.

   For, first, God is bound to justify the course which He Himself
   commands. When Abram went to Canaan at the Lord's bidding and remained
   there, the responsibility was with the Lord. If any evil had come of
   Abram's conduct he could not have blamed himself. It was neither his
   own wisdom nor his own folly which led him--God alone was his director.
   It is mine to obey, it is God's to prove that my obedience is wise.
   What peace this brings! O my Hearer, if you believe in Christ with all
   your heart and if you become a sincere follower of Jesus in all things,
   God will justify you in so doing, for you do it at His bidding.

   If there is any folly in holiness, the folly is not with you but with
   Him that bade you be holy. The servant is accountable for any action he
   does of his own head but not for that which he does by the command of
   his principal. So you, in keeping close to God's will, are not
   accountable for consequences. The consequences must lie with God. As
   surely as wisdom is justified of her children, so is God justified of
   all Believers. Yes, and He justifies Believers, and their faith is
   counted unto them for righteousness. Therefore, Beloved, we stand on
   the ground ofjustification when we obey the call of God.

   We cease, also, from that moment to be of the world. God deals with the
   world one way but with His separated ones in another way. "Them that
   are without, God judges." But those who are within are not under Law
   but under Grace. It is the joy of faith that there is no condemnation
   to them that are in Christ Jesus. There is discipline now within the
   House of God-- but it is not that of a court ofjustice but of the abode
   of love. The Lord chastens His children that they may not be condemned
   with the world. The separated ones are not numbered among the people of
   the earth.

   When you read of the seven trumpets and vials and plagues, fear not,
   for nothing shall by any means hurt you. When the blood shall flow in
   the day of vengeance up to the horses' bridles, then shall not a hair
   of your head perish, for the Lord secures those who are sealed to Him.
   Babylon must fall, that lies hard by Ur of the Chaldees, from where you
   came. And all that bear the mark of the beast shall die, even as Terah
   died in Haran. But as for you, "at destruction and famine you shall
   laugh." No evil shall touch you, for the Lord is your keeper.

   If you are walking in the separated path with God and are setting Him
   always before you, you shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
   What a condition to be in! First justified, and then secured from the
   doom which will surely fall upon the guilty world. Now, as free Divine
   Grace has separated you unto God, you come into an honored fellowship
   with Him. Abram, in his tent, had God for his companion. He had near
   and clear manifestations of God. He entertained angels unawares, and
   with those angels was the Son of God Himself.

   If you quit the world to abide with God, God Himself will abide with
   you. If you come out from the unclean world, the Lord has said, "I will
   dwell in them and walk in them. I will be a father unto them and they
   shall be My sons and daughters,

   says the Lord God Almighty." Oh, rest you in this sweet fact, that the
   Triune God will manifest Himself to His chosen as He does not to the
   world. You shall be one of the people near unto Him.

   By coming out from the world and following the Lord closely, we come
   under His Divine care and protection. How wonderfully Abram was
   screened from evil! Jehovah was his shield. He was a stranger in the
   midst of enemies but they did not molest him--an awe was upon them, for
   Jehovah had said, "Touch not My anointed and do my Prophets no harm."
   Wherever a true saint goes, the Lord lays His commands on all the
   powers of nature and all the angels of Heaven to take care of him. When
   Abram was at peace, God blessed him in all things. And if he went to
   war, God gave his enemies as driven stubble to his bow.

   If we are with God, God is with us. When God's will is our delight,
   God's Providence is our inheritance. It is not so with you all--no, not
   even with all of you who profess to be Christians. But it is so with
   those of you who keep close to God's Word and follow in will, in
   spirit, in belief and in act the example of His dear Son. O Beloved,
   let us strive after this! Let us aim at perfect conformity to the will
   of God, for this will place us in quiet nearness to God.

   Henceforth Abram was for God's use only. God treated him as His
   confidant, as the receiver of heavenly Revelations and as the founder
   of a race. God will also use us if we will come where He can use us.
   Vessels set apart for the Master's use must not be used by the
   servants. God is a great King. And when He selects a cup for His own
   table, He will not have it used by others. If other lips drink out of
   the chalice of your life, the Lord disdains you. You must be for Him
   only, or you are not His spouse. If you are His from the crown of your
   head to the sole of your foot by solemn consecration, He will honor you
   yet more and more. Yes, you know not to what high ends He has ordained
   you, both in this life and in the ages to come. But look you well to
   this, that you be holiness unto the Lord.

   One more thought presses itself upon my heart--the man who for Christ's
   sake has cut all his moorings and separated himself from the world to
   follow the Lamb--has learned how to live but he has also learned how to
   die. We die unto the world and thereby learn to die. When we cease to
   trust in riches, when we resign our comforts, when we no longer lean on
   friends, when all things visible become as shadows to us, then we make
   a rehearsal of death. Unless the Lord Himself shall soon descend from
   Heaven with a shout, we shall all die. Yes, the hour of our departure
   hastens on. Then we shall have to cut ourselves loose from our
   moorings, be they what they may.

   Soon shall we hear this word from Heaven, "Get you out of your country
   and from your kindred and from your father's house, unto a land that I
   will show you." This will be our summons to the better Canaan, the land
   that flows with milk and honey. We shall depart out of this world to
   face an unknown eternity. But we shall by no means dread the migration.
   He that has crossed the great river, the river Euphrates, will not fear
   the Jordan. To give up the world will be no new thing for you or for
   me--we have given it up many times already. We have frequently given up
   everything into the Lord's hands in real earnest and we can readily do
   it once more.

   We live here as strangers and sojourners and we find little to charm us
   in this foreign land. Our treasure is above and it will be a joy for
   our souls to rise to the place where our hearts already dwell. We
   cannot be sorry to quit a dead world. Who loves to sit in a morgue? If
   we tremble to leave kindred and friends, yet let us remember that we
   have already quit them in spirit. Let us journey, as Abram did, towards
   the south. That is to say, let us get still further away from the old
   abode. Let us make for the heart of Immanuel's land. Let us press
   towards the New Jerusalem, the heavenly city and rest not till we stand
   in our lot and behold Him whom Abram saw with gladness.

   The one question I finish with is--Do you know anything about this?
   Have you ever felt this Divine call? If so, make your calling and
   election sure. Carry out the separating ordinance to the full. Some of
   us had to take very decided steps at our first starting but we began
   aright. We have been called since to equally painful courses but we
   hope to keep right. Anything is better than a wound in the conscience.
   If we keep close to Christ we shall find rest unto our souls. We look
   back without regret to what we may have suffered by decision--counting
   it less than nothing for the joy that was set before us.

   We wish that all our converts would be out-and-out in their course of
   life. O you, who by Divine Grace are beginners in the heavenly life,
   make a strong resolve--"We will be the servants of God and endeavor in
   all things to obey Him." Since God made you and by the blood of His
   dear Son redeemed you, it is yours to be doubly the Lord's. There are
   the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ--are these yours? Make sure
   on that point. And if they are yours, yield yourself to Jesus and from
   this day forward do His bidding without question or delay.

   Quit everything contrary to the Lord's mind and will. At all cost be
   true--then shall the Lord be your delight and His service shall be your
   Heaven below. If you are now separated unto Him, you shall find your
   reward in that day when He shall divide the sheep from the goats--for
   then you shall be placed at His right hand to hear Him say, "Come, you
   blessed of My

   Father."
     __________________________________________________________________

Grace Abounding Over Abounding Sin

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, MARCH 4, 1888,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Moreover the Law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin
   abounded, grace did much more abound." Romans 5:20.

   THE first sentence will serve as a preface. The second sentence will be
   the actual text. "Moreover the Law entered, that the offense might
   abound." Man was a sinner before the Law of Ten Commandments had been
   given. He was a sinner through the offense of his first father, Adam.
   And he was, also, practically a sinner by his own personal offenses.
   For he rebelled against the light of nature and the inner light of
   conscience. Men, from Adam downward, transgressed against that memory
   of better days which had been handed down from father to son and had
   never been quite forgotten.

   Man everywhere, whether he knew anything about the Law of Moses or not,
   was alienated from his God. The Word of God contains this truthful
   estimate of our race--"They are all gone out of the way, they are
   together become unprofitable. There is none that does good, no, not
   one." The Law was given, however, according to the text, "that the
   offense might abound." Such was the effect of the Law. It did not
   hinder sin, nor provide a remedy for it. But its actual effect was that
   the offense abounded. How so?

   It was so, first, because it revealed the offense. Men did not in every
   instance clearly discern what was sin. But when the Law came, it
   pointed out to man that this evil, which he thought little of, was an
   abomination in the sight of God. Man's nature and character was like a
   dark dungeon which knew no ray of light. Yonder prisoner does not
   perceive the horrible filthiness and corruption of the place wherein he
   is immured, so long as he is in darkness. When a lamp is brought, or a
   window is opened and the light of day comes in, he finds out to his
   dismay the hideous condition of his den.

   He spies loathsome creatures upon the walls and marks how others burrow
   out of sight because the light annoys them. He may, perhaps, have
   guessed that all was not as it should be but he had not imagined the
   abundance of the evils. The light has entered and the offense abounds.
   Law does not make us sinful but it displays our sinfulness. In the
   presence of the perfect standard we see our shortcomings. The Law of
   God is the mirror in which a man sees the spots upon his face. It does
   not wash you--you cannot wash in a mirror. But it prompts you to seek
   the cleansing water. The design of the Law is the revealing of our many
   offenses, that thereby, we may be driven out of self-righteousness unto
   the Lord Jesus, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the
   forgiveness of sins.

   The Law causes the offense to abound by making an offender to stand
   without excuse. Before he knew the Law perfectly, his sin was not so
   willful. While he did but faintly know the commands, he could, as it
   were, but faintly break them. But as soon as he distinctly knows what
   is right and what is wrong, then every cloak is taken away from him.
   Sin becomes exceedingly sinful when it is committed against light and
   knowledge. Is it not so with some of you? Are you not forced to admit
   that you commit many sins, now that you have been made to know the Law
   and yet willfully offend against it, by omission or commission? He who
   knows his Master's will and does it not, will be beaten with many
   stripes--because he is guilty of abounding offenses. The Law enters to
   strip us of every cloak of justification and so to drive us to seek the
   robe of Christ's righteousness.

   Next, I think the Law makes the offense to abound by causing sin to be
   more evidently a presumptuous rebellion against the great Lawgiver. To
   sin in the front of Sinai, with its wonderful display of Divine
   majesty, is to sin, indeed. To rebel against a Law promulgated with
   sound of trumpet and thunders and pomp of God is to sin with a high
   hand and a defiant heart. When you have heard the Ten Commands, when
   you know the Law of the kingdom, when your Maker's will is plainly set
   before you, then to transgress is to transgress with an insolence of
   pride which will admit of no excuse.

   Once more--the entrance of the Law makes the offense to abound in this
   sense, that the rebellious will of man rises up in opposition to it.
   Because God commands, man refuses. And because He forbids, man desires.
   There are some men

   who might not have sinned in a particular direction if the commandment
   had not forbidden it. The light of the Law, instead of being a warning
   to them to avoid evil, seems to point out to them the way in which they
   can most offend. Oh, how deep is the depravity of human nature! The Law
   itself provokes it to rebel. Men long to enter because trespassers are
   warned to keep away. Their minds are so at enmity against God that they
   delight in that which is forbidden--not so much because they find any
   particular pleasure in the thing itself but because it shows their
   independence and their freedom from the restraints of God.

   This vicious self-will is in all of us by nature. For the carnal mind
   is enmity against God--and therefore the Law, though in itself holy and
   just and good, provokes us to do evil. We are like lime and the Law is
   as cold water, which is in itself of a cooling nature. Yet, no sooner
   does the water of the Law get at the lime of our nature than a heat of
   sin is generated--thus, "the Law entered, that the offense might
   abound."

   Why, then, did God send the Law? Is it not an evil thing that the
   offense should abound? In itself it may seem to be so. But God deals
   with us as physicians sometimes deal with their patients. A disease
   which will be fatal if it spends itself within the patient must be
   brought to the surface--the physician, therefore, prescribes a medicine
   which displays the evil. The evil was all within but it did not abound
   as to its visible effects. It is needful that it should do so, that it
   may be cured. The Law is the medicine which throws out the depravity of
   man, makes him see it in his actions and even provokes him to display
   it. The evil is in man, like rabbits in yonder brushwood--the Law sets
   a light to the cover and the hidden creatures are seen.

   The Law stirs the mud at the bottom of the pool and proves how foul the
   waters are. The Law compels the man to see that sin dwells in him and
   that it is a powerful tyrant over his nature. All this is with a view
   to his cure. God be thanked when the Law so works as to take off the
   sinner from all confidence in himself! To make the leper confess that
   he is incurable is going a great way towards compelling him to go to
   that Divine Savior who alone is able to heal him. This is the object
   and end of the Law towards men whom God will save.

   Consider for a moment--you may take it as an axiom, a thing
   self-evident, that there can be no Divine Grace where there is no
   guilt--there can be no mercy where there is no sin. There can be
   justice, there can be benevolence--but there cannot be mercy unless
   there is criminality. If you are not a sinner, God cannot have mercy
   upon you. If you have never sinned, God cannot display pardoning Grace
   towards you for there is nothing to pardon. It were a misuse of words
   to talk of forgiving a man who has done no wrong, or to speak of
   bestowing undeserved favor upon a person who deserves reward. It would
   be an insult to innocence to offer it mercy. You must, therefore, have
   sin or you cannot have Divine Grace--that is clear.

   Next, consider that there will be no seeking after Divine Grace where
   there is no sense of sin. We may preach till we are hoarse, but you
   good people who have never broken the Law and are not guilty of
   anything wrong, will never care for our message of mercy. You are such
   kind people that, out of compliment to religion, you say, "Yes, we are
   sinners. We are all sinners." But you know in your heart of hearts you
   do not mean it. You will never ask for Divine Grace. For you have no
   sense of shame or guilt. None of you will seek mercy till first you
   have pleaded guilty to the indictment which the Law of God presents
   against you. Oh, that you felt your sins! Oh, that you knew your need
   of forgiveness! Then you would see yourselves to be in such a condition
   that only the free, rich, Sovereign Grace of God can save you.

   Furthermore, I am sure that there will be no reception and acceptance
   of Divine Grace by any man till there is a full confession of sin and a
   burdensome sense of its weight. Why should you receive Divine Grace
   when you do not want it? What is the use of it to you? Why should you
   bow your knee to God and receive, as the free gift of His charity, that
   which you feel you do not need? Have you not already earned eternal
   life? Are you not as good as other people? Have you not some
   considerable claim upon God? Do I startle you with these plain
   questions? Have I not heard you say much the same? The other day when
   we preached the electing love of God you grumbled and muttered that God
   was unjust to choose one rather than another.

   What did this mean? Did it not mean that you felt you had some claim
   upon God? O Sir, if this is your spirit I must deal plainly with you!
   If you have any claim upon your Maker, plead it and be sure that He
   will not deny you your just rights. But I would advise you to change
   your method of dealing with your Judge--you will never prevail in this
   fashion. In Truth, you have no claim upon Him. You must appeal to His
   pure mercy. You are not in a position for Him to display free Divine
   Grace to you till your mouth is shut and you sit down in dust and
   ashes, silently owning that you de-

   serve nothing at His hands but infinite displeasure. Confess that
   whatever He gives you that is good and gracious must be given freely to
   one who deserves nothing.

   Hell gapes at your feet--cease from pride and humbly sue out a pardon.
   You see, then, the use of the Law--it is to bring you where Divine
   Grace can be fitly shown you. It shuts you up that you may cry to Jesus
   to set you free. It is a storm which wrecks your hopes of
   self-salvation and washes you upon the Rock of Ages. The condemning
   sentence of the Law is meant to prepare you for the absolution of the
   Gospel. If you condemn yourself and plead guilty before God, the royal
   pardon can then be extended towards you. The self-condemned shall be
   forgiven through the precious blood of Jesus and the Sovereign Grace of
   God.

   Oh, my Hearer, you must sit down there in the dust, or else God will
   not look at you! You must yield yourself to Him, owning His justice,
   honoring His Law--this is the first condition of His mercy. And to
   this, His Grace brings all who feel its power. The Lord will have you
   bow before Him in self-abhorrence and confess His right to punish you.
   Remember, "He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy and He will
   have compassion on whom He will have compassion." And He will have you
   know this and agree to it. His Grace must reign triumphantly and you
   must kiss its silver scepter. Thus has the first sentence served us for
   a preface--God bless it to us!

   I. The doctrine of the text itself is this, that "where sin abounded,
   grace did much more abound." And I shall try to bring out that Truth of
   God, first, by saying that THIS IS SEEN IN THE WHOLE WORK OF GRACE,
   from beginning to end.

   I would direct your attention to the context. The safest way to preach
   upon a text is to follow out the idea which the inspired writer was
   endeavoring to convey. Paul has, in this place, been speaking of the
   abounding result for evil of one sin in the case of Adam, the federal
   head of the race. That one sin of Adam's abounded terribly. Look at the
   multitudinous generations of our race which have gone down to death.
   Who slew all these? Sin is the wolf which has devoured the flocks of
   men. Sin has poisoned the streams of manhood at their fountainhead and
   everywhere they run with poisoned waters. Concerning this, Paul says,
   "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound."

   First, then, sin abounded in its effect upon the whole human race--one
   sin overthrew all humanity--one fatal fault, the breach of a plain and
   easy Law, made sinners of us all. "By one man's disobedience many were
   made sinners." Simple as was the command which Adam broke, it involved
   obedience or disobedience to the sovereignty of God. All the trees of
   the garden were generously given to happy Adam in Paradise--"Of every
   tree of the garden you may freely eat." There was but one tree reserved
   for God by the prohibition, "You shall not eat of it--for in the day
   that you eat thereof you shall surely die."

   Adam had no need to touch that fruit--there were all the other trees
   for him. Nothing was denied him which was really for his good. He was
   only forbidden that which would ruin him. We all look back to that
   Paradisiacal state and wish we could have been put in some such a
   position as he--yet he dared to trespass on God's reserves and thus to
   set himself up above his Maker. He judged it wise to do what God
   forbade--he ran the risk of death in the foolish hope of rising into a
   still higher state.

   See the consequences of that sin on all sides, the world is full of
   them. Yet, says Paul, "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound,"
   and he gives us this as a proof of it--"And not as it was by one that
   sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation but
   the free gift is of many offenses unto justification" (Rom. 5:16). The
   Lord Jesus came into the world, not to put away only Adam's sin but all
   the sins which have followed upon it. The second Adam has repaired the
   desperate ruin of the first and much more. By His death upon the Cross,
   our Divine Substitute has put away those myriads of sins which have
   been committed by men since the first offense in Eden.

   Think of this! Take the whole aggregate of Believers and let each one
   disburden his conscience of its load of sin. What a mountain! Pile it
   up! Pile it up! It rises huge as high Olympus! Age after age Believers
   come and lay their enormous loads in this place. "The Lord has made to
   meet on Him the iniquities of us all." What Alps! What Himalayas of
   sin! If there were only mine and yours, my Brothers and Sisters, what
   mountains of division would our sins make! But the great Christ, the
   free gift of God to us, when He bare our sins in His own body on the
   tree, took all those countless sins away.

   "Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world"! Here
   is infinite grace to pardon immeasurable sin! Truly the "one man's
   offense" abounded horribly. But the "one man's obedience," the
   obedience of the Son of God,

   has superabounded. As the arch of Heaven far exceeds in its span the
   whole round globe of the earth, so does Divine Grace much more abound
   over human sin.

   Follow me further, when I notice, secondly, that sin abounded in its
   ruinous effects. It utterly destroyed humanity. In the third chapter of
   Romans you see how, in every part of his nature, man is depraved by
   sin. Think of the havoc which the tyrant, sin, has made of our natural
   estate and heritage. Eden is withered--its very site is forgotten. Our
   restfulness among the trees of the field freely yielding their fruit,
   is gone and God has said, "In the sweat of your face shall you eat
   bread." The field we till has lost its spontaneous yield of
   corn--"Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to you." Our life
   has lost its glory and immortality--"Dust you are and unto dust shall
   you return." Every woman in her pangs of travail, every man in his
   weariness of labor and all of us together in the griefs of death--see
   what sin has done for us as to our mortal bodies.

   Alas, it has gone deeper--it has ruined our souls. Sin has unmanned
   man. The crown and glory of his manhood, it has thrown to the ground.
   All our faculties are out of gear. All our tendencies are perverted.
   Beloved, let us rejoice that the Lord Jesus Christ has come to redeem
   us from the curse of sin and He will undo the evil of evil. Even this
   poor world He will deliver from the bondage of corruption. And He will
   create new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness. The
   groans and painful travail of the whole creation shall result in a full
   deliverance, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

   As for ourselves, we are lifted up to a position far higher than that
   which we should have occupied had the race continued in its innocence.
   The Lord Jesus Christ found us in a horrible pit and in the miry clay
   and He not only lifted us up out of it but He set our feet upon a rock
   and established our goings. Raised from Hell, we are lifted not to the
   bowers of Eden but to the Throne of God. Redeemed human nature has
   greater capacities than unfallen human nature. To Adam the Lord did not
   say, "You are a son of God, joint-heir with the only Begotten." But He
   has said that to each Believer redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus.
   Beloved, such a thing as fellowship with Christ in His sufferings could
   not have been known to Adam in Paradise.

   He could not have known what it is to be dead and to have his life hid
   with Christ in God. Blessed be His name, our Lord Jesus Christ can say,
   "I restored that which I took not away"! He restored more than ever was
   taken away from us. For He has made us to be partakers of the Divine
   nature and in His own Person He has placed us at God's right hand in
   the heavenly places. Inasmuch as the dominion of the Lord Jesus is more
   glorious than that of unfallen Adam, manhood is now more great and
   glorious than before the Fall. Grace has so much more abounded, that in
   Jesus we have gained more than in Adam we lost. Our Paradise Regained
   is far more glorious than our Paradise Lost.

   Again--sin abounded to the dishonor of God. I was trying the other day
   to put myself into the position of Satan at the gates of Eden, that I
   might understand his diabolical policy. He had become the archenemy of
   God and when he saw this newly-made world and perceived two perfectly
   pure and happy creatures placed in it. He looked on with envy and
   plotted mischief. He heard the Creator say, "In the day that you eat
   thereof you shall surely die," and he hoped here to find an opportunity
   for an assault upon God. If he could induce those new-made creatures to
   eat of the forbidden fruit, he would place their Maker upon the horns
   of a dilemma--either He must destroy the creatures which He had made,
   or else He must be untrue.

   The Lord had said, "You shall surely die," and He must thus undo His
   own work and destroy a creature which He had made in His own image,
   after His own likeness. Satan probably perceived that man was an
   extraordinary being with a wonderful mystery of glory hanging about his
   destiny. And if he could make him sin, he would cause God to destroy
   him and so far defeat the eternal purpose. On the other hand, if the
   Lord did not execute the sentence, then He would not be truthful and
   throughout all His great universe it would be reported that the Lord's
   Word had been broken--either He had changed His mind, or He had spoken
   in jest, or He had been proven to have threatened too severe a
   penalty--in either case, the Evil Spirit hoped to triumph. It was a
   deep, far-reaching scheme to dim the splendor of the King of kings.

   Beloved, did it not seem as if sin had abounded beyond measure when
   first the woman, and then the man, had been deceived and had done
   despite to God? Behold how Divine Grace, through our Lord Jesus Christ,
   did much more abound! God is more honored in the redemption of man than
   if there had never been a Fall. The Lord has displayed the majesty of
   His justice and the glory of His grace in the great sacrifice of His
   dear Son in such a manner that angels and principalities and powers
   will wonder throughout all ages. More of God is to be seen in the great
   work of redeeming love than could have been reflected in the creation
   of myriads of worlds--had each one of them been replete with marvels of
   Divine skill and goodness and power.

   In Jesus crucified, Jehovah is glorified as never before. Where sin
   abounded to the apparent dishonor of God, grace does much more abound
   to the infinite glory of His ever-blessed name.

   Again--sin abounded by degrading human character. What a wretched being
   man is as a sinner against God! Unchecked by Law and allowed to do as
   he pleases, what will not man become? See how Paul describes men in
   these progressive times--in these enlightened centuries--"This know
   also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be
   lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers,
   disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection,
   trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those
   that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more
   than lovers of God; having a form of godliness but denying the power
   thereof."

   Human nature was not at all slandered by Whitefield when he said that,
   "left to himself, man is half beast and half devil." I do not mean
   merely men in savage countries. I am thinking of men in London. Only
   the other day a certain newspaper gave us plenty of proof of the sin of
   this city--I will say no more--could brutes or demons be worse? Read
   human history-- Assyrian, Roman, Greek, Spanish, English. And if you
   are a lover of holiness, you will be sick of man. Has any other
   creature, except the fallen angels, ever become so cruel, so mean, so
   false? Behold what villains, what tyrants, what monsters sin has made!

   But now look on the other side and see what the Divine Grace of God has
   done. Under the molding hand of the Holy Spirit a gracious man becomes
   the noblest work of God. Man, born again and rescued from the Fall is
   now capable of virtues to which he never could have reached before he
   sinned. An unfallen being could not hate sin with the intensity of
   abhorrence which is found in the renewed heart. We now know by personal
   experience the horror of sin and there is now within us an instinctive
   shuddering at it. An unfallen being could not exhibit patience, for it
   could not suffer, and patience has its perfect work to do.

   When I have read the stories of the martyrs in the first ages of the
   Christian Church and during the Marian persecution in England, I have
   adored the Lord who could enable poor feeble men and women thus to
   prove their love to their God and Savior. What great things they
   suffered out of love to God! And how grandly did they thus honor Him! O
   God, what a noble being Your grace has made man to be! I have felt
   great reverence for sanctified humanity when I have seen how men could
   sing God's praises in the fires. What noble deeds men have been capable
   of when the love of God has been shed abroad in their hearts! I do not
   think angels, or archangels have ever been able to exhibit so admirable
   an all-round character as the Divine Grace of God has worked in
   once-fallen men whom He has, by His grace, inspired with the Divine
   life.

   In human character, "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." I
   believe God looks out of Heaven today and sees in many of His poor,
   hidden people such beauties of virtue, such charms of holiness that He
   Himself is delighted with them. "The Lord takes pleasure in them that
   fear Him." These are such true jewels that the Lord has a high estimate
   of them and sets them apart for Himself--"They shall be Mine, says the
   Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels."

   Again--dear Friends, sin abounded to the causing of great sorrow. It
   brought with it a long train of woes. The children of sin are many and
   each one causes lamentation. We cannot attempt to fathom the dark
   abysses of sorrow which have opened in this world since the advent of
   sin. Is it not a place of tears--yes, a field of blood? Yet by a
   wonderful alchemy, through the existence of sin, Divine Grace has
   produced a new joy, yes, more than one new joy. The calm deep joy of
   repentance must have been unknown to perfect innocence. This right
   orient pearl is not found in the rivers of Eden.

   Yes, and that joy which is in Heaven in the presence of the angels of
   God over sinners that repent is a new thing, whose birth is since the
   Fall. God Himself knows a joy which He could not have known had there
   been no sin. Behold, with tearful wonder the great Father as He
   receives His returning prodigal and cries to all about Him, "Let us eat
   and be merry--for this My son was dead and is alive again. He was lost
   and is found." O Brethren, how could almighty love have been victorious
   in Divine Grace had there been no sin to battle with? Heaven is the
   more Heaven for us since there we shall sing of robes washed white in
   the blood of the Lamb. God has greater joy in man and man has greater
   joy in God because Divine Grace abounded over sin. We are getting into
   deep waters now! How true our text is!

   Once more, sin abounded to hinder the reign of Christ. I believe that
   Satan's design in leading men into sin at first was to prevent the
   supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ as man and God in one Person. I do
   not lay it down as a doctrine, specifically taught in Scripture, but
   still it seems to me a probable Truth of God that Satan foresaw that
   the gap which was made in Heaven by the fall of the angels was to be
   filled up by human beings, whom God would place near His Throne. Satan
   thought that he saw before him the beings who would take the places of
   the fallen spirits and he envied them. He knew that they were made in
   the image of the Only-Begotten, the Christ of God and he hated Him
   because he saw united in His Person God whom he abhorred and man whom
   he envied.

   Satan shot at the second Adam through the breast of the first Adam. He
   meant to overthrow the Coming One. But, fool that Satan is, the Lord
   Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, is now exalted higher than ever we
   could conceive Him to have been had there been no sin to bear, no
   redemption to work out. Jesus, wounded and slain, has about Him higher
   splendor than before. O King of kings and Lord of lords, Man of
   Sorrows, we sing hallelujahs unto You! All our hearts beat true to You!
   We love You beyond all else! You are He whom we will praise forever and
   ever! Jesus sits on no precarious throne in the empire of love. We
   would each one maintain His right with the last pulse of our hearts.
   King of kings and Lord of lords! Hallelujah, Where sin abounded, Divine
   Grace has much more abounded to the glory of the Only-Begotten Son of
   God.

   II. I find time always flies fastest when our subject is most precious.
   I have a second head, which deserves a lengthy consideration. But we
   must be content with mere hints. This great fact--that where sin
   abounded, grace did much more abound-- crops up everywhere. THIS IS TO
   BE SEEN IN SPECIAL CASES.

   The first special case is the introduction of the Law. When the Law of
   Ten Commands was given, through man's sin, it ministered to the
   abounding of the offense. But it also ministered to the abounding of
   Divine Grace. It is true there were ten commands. But there was more
   than tenfold Grace. With the Law there came forward a High Priest. The
   world had never seen a High Priest before, arrayed in jeweled
   breastplate and garments of glory and beauty. There was the Law. But at
   the same time there was the holy place of the Tabernacle of the Most
   High with its altar, its laver, its candlestick and its table of
   show-bread. There was, also, the secret shrine where the majesty of God
   dwelt. God had, by those symbols and types, come to dwell among men.

   It is true, sin abounded through the Law. But, then, sacrifices for sin
   also abounded. Up to then there had been no morning and evening lambs.
   There had been no day of atonement; no sprinkling of blood; no
   benediction from the Lord's High Priest. For every sin that the Law
   revealed, a sacrifice was provided. Sins of ignorance, sins of their
   holy things, sins of all sorts were met by special sacrifices--so that
   the sins uncovered to the conscience were also covered by the
   sacrifice.

   The story of Israel is another case in point. How often the nation
   rebelled. But how often did mercy rejoice over judgment! Truly, the
   history of the chosen people shows how sin abounded and grace did much
   more abound. Run your eye down history and pause at the crucifixion of
   our Lord Jesus. This is the highest peak of the mountains of sin. They
   crucified the Lord of Glory. Here sin abounded. But do I need to tell
   you that Divine Grace did here much more abound? You can look at the
   death of Christ till Pilate vanishes and Caiaphas fades away and all
   the clamor of the priests and Jews is hushed and you see nothing and
   hear nothing but free grace and dying love.

   There followed upon the crucifixion of our Lord, the casting away of
   the Jewish people for a while. Sin abounded when the Lord thus came to
   His own and His own received Him not. Yes. But the casting away of them
   was the saving of the nations. "We turn to the Gentiles," said the
   Apostle. And that was a blessed turning for you and for me, was it not?
   They that were bid to the feast were not worthy and the Master of the
   house, being angry, invited other guests. Mark, "being angry"! What did
   He do when He was angry? Why, He did the most gracious thing of all. He
   said, "Go you out into the highways and hedges and as many as you shall
   find bid to the supper." Sin abounded, for Israel would not enter the
   feast of love. But Divine Grace did much more abound, for the heathen
   entered the kingdom.

   The heathen world at that time was sunk in the blackest darkness and
   sin abounded. You have only to study ancient history and you will fetch
   a heavy sigh to think that men could be so vile. A poor and unlettered
   people were chosen of God to receive the Gospel of Jesus and they went
   about telling of an atoning Savior in their own simple way, until the
   Roman empire was entirely changed. Light and peace and the Truth of God
   came into the world and drove away slavery and tyranny and bestial
   lust. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. What wonderful
   characters were produced in the terrible reign of Diocletian! What
   consecration to God was seen in the confessors! What fearlessness in
   common Christians! What invincible loyalty to Christ in the martyrs!
   Out of barbarians the Lord made saints and the degraded rose to
   holiness sublime.

   If I were to ask you, now, to give the best illustrations of grace
   abounding in individuals, I think your impulse would be to choose men
   in whom sin once abounded. What characters do we preach of most when we
   would magnify the grace of God? We talk of David and Manasseh and
   swearing Peter and the dying thief and Saul of Tarsus and the woman
   that was a sinner. If we want to show where grace abounded we naturally
   turn our eyes to the place where sin abounded. Is it not so? Therefore,
   I need not give you any more cases--it is proven that where sin
   abounded, grace did much more abound.

   III. Lastly. And this is what I want to hold you to, dear Friends, at
   this time--THIS HOLDS TRUE TO EACH ONE OF

   US.

   Let me take the case of the open sinner. What have you been? Have you
   grossly sinned? Have you defiled your body with unhallowed passions?
   Have you been dishonest to your fellow men? Does some scarlet sin stain
   your conscience even as you sit

   in the pew? Have you grown hardened in sin by long perseverance in it?
   Are you conscious that you have frequently, willfully and resolutely
   sinned? Are you getting old and have you been soaking these seventy
   years in the crimson dye of sin till you are saturated through and
   through with its color? Have you even been an implacable opponent of
   the Gospel? Have you persecuted the saints of God? Have you tried by
   argument to batter down the Gospel or by ridicule to put it to
   reproach?

   Then hear this text--"Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound."
   And as it was in the beginning it is now and ever shall be till this
   world shall end. The Grace of God, if you believe in the Lord Jesus
   Christ, will triumph over the greatness of your wickedness. "All manner
   of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." Throw down your
   weapons of rebellion-- surrender at discretion--kiss the pierced hand
   of Jesus which is now held out to you and this very moment you shall be
   forgiven and you shall go your way a pardoned man, to begin a new life
   and to bear witness that "where sin abounded, grace did much more
   abound."

   Perhaps this does not touch you, my Friend. Listen to my next word
   which is addressed to the instructed sinner. You are a person whose
   religious education has made you aware of the guilt of sin. You have
   read your Bible and you have heard truthful preaching. And although you
   have never been a gross open sinner, yet you know that your life teems
   with sins of omission and commission. You know that you have sinned
   against light and knowledge. You have done despite to a tender
   conscience very often--and therefore you rightly judge that you are
   even a greater sinner than the more openly profane.

   Be it so. I take you at that. Do not run back from it. Let it be so.
   For "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." Oh, that you may
   be as much instructed in the remedy as you are instructed in the
   disease! Oh, that you may have as clear a view of the righteousness of
   Christ as you have of your own unrighteousness! Christ's work is a
   Divine work, broad enough to cover all your iniquity and to conquer all
   your sin. Believe this! Give glory to God by believing it. And
   according to your faith, so be it unto you.

   I address another, who does not answer either of these two descriptions
   exactly. But he has lately begun to seek mercy and the more he prays
   the more he is tempted. Horrible suggestions rush into his mind.
   Damnable thoughts beset and bewilder him. Ah, my Friend, I know what
   this means--the nearer you are to Divine mercy, the nearer you seem to
   get to Hell's gate! When you most solemnly mean to do good you feel
   another Law in your members bringing you into captivity. You grow worse
   where you hoped you would have grown better.

   Very well, then--grip my text firmly as for your life--"Where sin
   abounded, grace did much more abound." If a whole legion of devils
   should be let loose upon you, Christ will glorify Himself by mastering
   them all. If now you cannot repent, nor pray, nor do anything--remember
   that text, "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died
   for the ungodly." Look over the heads of all these doubts and devils
   and inabilities and see Jesus lifted on the Cross, like the brazen
   serpent upon the pole. And look to Him and the fiery serpents shall
   flee away from you and you shall live. Believe this text to be true,
   for true it is--"Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound."

   "Ah," says another, "my case is still worse, Sir. I am of a despondent
   turn of mind. I always look upon the black side of everything and now
   if I read a promise I am sure it is not for me. If I see a threat in
   God's Word I am sure it is for me. I have no hope. I do not seem as if
   I should ever have any. I am in a dungeon into which no light can
   enter--it is dark, dark, dark, and worse darkness is coming. While you
   are trying to comfort me, I put the comfort away."

   I know you. You are like the poor creature in the Psalm, of whom we
   read--"His soul abhors all manner of meat." Even the Gospel itself he
   cannot relish. Yes. I know you. You are writing bitter things against
   yourself. And your writing is that of a poor bewildered creature. It is
   not to be taken notice of. I see you writing in text hand, great black
   words of condemnation. But there is nothing in them all. Verily,
   verily, I say unto you, your handwriting shall be blotted out and the
   curse, causeless, shall not come. Thus says the Lord, "Your covenant
   with death shall be disannulled and your agreement with Hell shall not
   stand, for the Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed you and where sin
   abounded, grace shall much more abound."

   Broken in pieces, all asunder, ground between the millstones, reduced
   to nothing, yet believe this Revelation of God, "that where sin
   abounded, grace did much more abound." Notice that "much more"--"much
   more abound." If you can grip it and know it to be of a certainty the
   great principle upon which God acts--that grace shall outstrip
   sin--then there is hope of you. No, more than hope--there is salvation
   for you on the spot. If you believe in Jesus, whom God has set forth to
   be a propitiation for sin, you are forgiven.

   Oh, my Hearers, do not despise this Divine Grace! Come and partake of
   it. Does anyone say, as Paul foresaw that some would say, "Let us sin,
   that grace may abound"? Ah, then, such an infamous inference is the
   mark of the reprobate and your damnation is just. He that turns God's
   mercy into a reason for sin has within him something worse than a heart
   of stone-- surely his conscience is seared with a hot iron.

   Beloved, I hope better things of you--for I trust that, on the
   contrary, the sound of the silver bells of infinite love, free pardon,
   abounding grace--will make you hasten to the hospital of mercy that you
   may receive healing for your sinfulness, strength for your feebleness
   and joy for your sorrow. Lord, grant that in this house, in every case
   wherein sin has abounded, Your Grace may yet more abound, for Jesus'
   sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Infallibility of Scripture

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, MARCH 11, 1888,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The mouth of the Lord has spoken it." Isaiah 1:20.

   WHAT Isaiah said was therefore spoken by Jehovah. It was audibly the
   utterance of a man. But, really, it was the utterance of the Lord
   Himself. The lips which delivered the words were those of Isaiah but
   yet it was the very Truth of God that, "The mouth of the Lord has
   spoken it." All Scripture, being inspired of the Spirit, is spoken by
   the mouth of God. How ever this sacred Book may be treated nowadays, it
   was not treated contemptuously, nor negligently, nor questioningly by
   the Lord Jesus Christ, our Master and Lord. It is noteworthy how He
   reverenced the written Word. The Spirit of God rested upon Him
   personally, without measure and He could speak out of His own mind the
   Revelation of God and yet He continually quoted the Law and the
   Prophets and the Psalms.

   And always He treated the Sacred Writings with intense reverence,
   strongly in contrast with the irreverence of "modern thought." I am
   sure, Brethren, we cannot be wrong in imitating the example of our
   Divine Lord in our reverence for that Scripture which cannot be broken.
   I say, if He, the Anointed of the Spirit and able to speak Himself as
   God's mouth, quoted the Sacred Writings and used the holy Book in His
   teachings, how much more should we. We who have no spirit of prophecy
   resting upon us and are not able to speak new revelations must come
   back to the Law and to the Testimony and value every single Word which
   "The mouth of the Lord has spoken."

   The like valuation of the Word of the Lord is seen in our Lord's
   Apostles. They treated the ancient Scriptures as supreme in authority
   and supported their statements with passages from Holy Writ. The utmost
   degree of deference and homage is paid to the Old Testament by the
   writers of the New. We never find an Apostle raising a question about
   the degree of inspiration in this book or that. No disciple of Jesus
   questions the authority of the books of Moses, or of the Prophets. If
   you want to cavil or suspect, you find no sympathy in the teaching of
   Jesus, or anyone of His Apostles. The New Testament writers sit
   reverently down before the Old Testament and receive God's Words as
   such, without any question whatever.

   You and I belong to a school which will continue to do the same--let
   others adopt what behavior they please. As for us and for our house,
   this priceless Book shall remain the standard of our faith and the
   ground of our hope so long as we live. Others may choose what gods they
   will and follow what authorities they prefer. But, as for us, the
   glorious Jehovah is our God and we believe concerning each doctrine of
   the entire Bible, that "The mouth of the Lord has spoken it."

   Coming closely, then, to our text, "The mouth of the Lord has spoken
   it," our first head shall be--THIS IS OUR WARRANT FOR TEACHING
   SCRIPTURAL TRUTH. We preach because, "The mouth of the Lord has spoken
   it." It would not be worth our while to speak what Isaiah had spoken,
   if in it there were nothing more than Isaiah's thoughts-- neither
   should we care to meditate hour after hour upon the writings of Paul,
   if there were nothing more than Paul in them. We feel no imperative
   call to expound and to enforce what has been spoken by men. But, since
   "The mouth of the Lord has spoken it, "it is woe unto us if we preach
   not the Gospel! We come to you with, "Thus says the Lord," and we
   should have no justifiable motive for preaching our lives away, if we
   have not this message.

   The true preacher, the man whom God has commissioned, delivers his
   message with awe and trembling because, "The mouth of the Lord has
   spoken it." He bears the burden of the Lord and bows under it. Ours is
   no trifling theme but one which moves our whole soul. They called
   George Fox a Quaker, because when he spoke he would quake exceedingly
   through the force of the Truth of God which he so thoroughly
   apprehended. Perhaps if you and I had a clearer sight and a closer grip
   of God's Word, and felt more of its majesty, we should quake also.
   Martin Luther, who never feared the face of man, yet declared that when
   he stood up to preach he often felt his knees knock together under a
   sense of his great responsibility.

   Woe unto us if we dare to speak the Word of the Lord with less than our
   whole heart and soul and strength! Woe unto us if we handle the Word as
   if it were an occasion for display! If it were our own word, we might
   be studious of the graces of oratory. But if it is God's Word, we
   cannot afford to think of ourselves--we are bound to speak it, "not
   with wisdom of words, lest the Cross of Christ should be made of no
   effect." If we reverence the Word, it will not occur to us that we can
   improve

   upon it by our own skill in language. Oh, it were far better to break
   stones on the road than to be a preacher, unless one had God's Holy
   Spirit to sustain him--our charge is solemn and our burden is heavy.

   The heart and soul of the man who speaks for God will know no ease, for
   he hears in his ears that warning admonition-- "If the watchman warn
   them not they shall perish. But their blood will I require at the
   watchman's hands." If we were commissioned to repeat the language of a
   king we should be bound to do it decorously lest the king suffer
   damage. But if we rehearse the Revelation of God, a profound awe should
   take hold upon us and a godly fear lest we mar the message of God in
   the telling of it. No work is so important or honorable as the
   proclamation of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus--and for that very reason
   it is weighted with a responsibility so solemn that none may venture
   upon it lightly, nor proceed in it without an overwhelming sense of his
   need of great Divine Grace to perform his office aright.

   We live under intense pressure, who preach a Gospel, of which we can
   assuredly say, "The mouth of the Lord has spoken it." We live rather in
   eternity than in time--we speak to you as though we saw the Great White
   Throne and the Divine Judge before whom we must give an account of not
   only what we say but how we say it.

   Dear Brethren, because the mouth of the Lord has spoken the Truth of
   God, we therefore endeavor to preach it with absolute fidelity. We
   repeat the Word as a child repeats his lesson. It is not ours to
   correct the Divine Revelation but simply to echo it. I do not take it
   to be my office to bring you new and original thoughts of my own. But
   rather to say, "The Word which you hear is not mine but the Father's
   which sent me." Believing that, "The mouth of the Lord has spoken it,"
   it is my duty to repeat it to you as correctly as I can after having
   heard it and felt it in my own soul. It is not mine to amend or adapt
   the Gospel. What? Shall we attempt to improve upon what God has
   revealed? The Infinitely Wise--is He to be corrected by creatures of a
   day?

   Is the infallible Revelation of the infallible Jehovah to be shaped,
   moderated and toned down to the fashions and fancies of the hour? God
   forgive us if we have ever altered His Word unwittingly--wittingly we
   have not done so, nor will we, by His grace. His children sit at His
   feet and receive His Words and then they rise up in the power of His
   Spirit to publish far and near the Word which the Lord has given. "He
   that has My Word, let him speak My Word faithfully," is the Lord's
   injunction to us. If we could abide with the Father according to our
   measure, after the manner of the Lord Jesus and then come forth from
   communion with Him to tell what He has taught us in His Word, we should
   be accepted of the Lord as preachers and accepted also of His living
   people far more than if we were to dive into the profound depths of
   science, or rise to the loftiest flights of rhetoric.

   What is the chaff to the wheat! What are man's discoveries to the
   teachings of the Lord! "The mouth of the Lord has spoken it."
   Therefore, O man of God, add not to His Words lest He add to you the
   plagues which are written in His Book and take not from them, lest He
   take your name out of the Book of Life!

   Again, dear Friends, as, "The mouth of the Lord has spoken it," we
   speak the Divine Truth with courage and full assurance. Modesty is a
   virtue. But hesitancy when we are speaking for the Lord is a great
   fault. If an ambassador sent by a great king to represent his majesty
   at a foreign court should forget his office and only think of himself,
   he might be so humble as to lower the dignity of his prince, so timid
   as to betray his country's honor. He is bound to remember not so much
   what he is in himself but whom he represents. Therefore he must speak
   boldly and with the dignity which beseems his office and the court he
   represents. It was the custom with certain Oriental despots to require
   ambassadors of foreign powers to lie in the dust before them.

   Some Europeans, for the sake of trade interests, submitted to the
   degrading ceremony. But when it was demanded of the representative of
   England, he scorned thus to lower his country. God forbid that he who
   speaks for God should dishonor the King of kings by a pliant
   subservience. We preach not the Gospel by your leave. We do not ask
   tolerance, nor court applause. We preach Christ Crucified and we speak
   boldly as we ought to speak--because it is God's Word and not our own.
   We are accused of dogmatism. But we are bound to dogmatize when we
   repeat that which the mouth of the Lord has spoken. We cannot use "ifs"
   for we are dealing with God's "shalls" and "wills." If He says it is
   so, it is so. And there is the end of it. Controversy ceases when
   Jehovah speaks.

   Those who fling aside our Master's authority may very well reject our
   testimony--we are content they should do so. But if we speak that which
   the mouth of the Lord has spoken, those who hear His Word and refuse
   it, do so at their own peril. The wrong is done not to the ambassador
   but to the King. Not to our mouth but to the mouth of God, from whom
   the Truth has proceeded.

   We are urged to be charitable. We are charitable. But it is with our
   own money. We have no right to give away what is put into our trust and
   is not at our disposal. When we have to do with the Truth of God we are
   stewards and must deal with

   our Lord's treasury, not on the lines of charity to human opinions but
   by the rule of fidelity to the God of Truth. We are bold to declare
   with full assurance that which the Lord reveals. That memorable Word of
   the Lord to Jeremiah is needed by the servants of the Lord in these
   days--"You therefore gird up your loins and arise and speak unto them
   all that I command you: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound
   you before them. For, behold, I have made you this day a fortified city
   and an iron pillar and bronze walls against the whole land, against the
   kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests
   thereof and against the people of the land. And they shall fight
   against you. But they shall not prevail against you. For I am with you,
   says the Lord, to deliver you."

   When we speak for the Lord against error, we do not soften our tones.
   But we speak thunderbolts. When we come across false science, we do not
   lower our flag--we give place by subjection--no, not for an hour. One
   Word of God is worth more than libraries of human lore. "It is
   written," is the great gun which silences all the batteries of man's
   thought. They should speak courageously who speak in the name of
   Jehovah, the God of Israel.

   I will also add under this head, that because, "The mouth of the Lord
   has spoken it," therefore we feel bound to speak His Word with
   diligence--as often as ever we can and with perseverance--as long as
   ever we live. Surely it would be a blessed thing to die in the
   pulpit--spending one's last breath in acting as the Lord's mouth. Dumb
   Sabbaths are fierce trials to true preachers. Remember how John Newton,
   when he was quite unfit to preach and even wandered a bit by reason of
   his infirmities and age, yet persisted in preaching. And when they
   dissuaded him, he answered with warmth, "What? Shall the old African
   blasphemer leave off preaching Jesus Christ while there is breath in
   his body?"

   So they helped the old man into the pulpit again, that he might once
   more speak of free grace and dying love. If we had common themes to
   speak about, we might leave the pulpit as a weary pleader quits the
   forum. But as, "The mouth of the Lord has spoken it," we feel His Word
   to be as fire in our bones and we grow more weary with refraining than
   with testifying. O my Brethren, the Word of the Lord is so precious
   that we must in the morning sow this blessed Seed and in the evening we
   must not withheld our hands. It is a Living Seed and the Seed of Life
   and therefore we must diligently scatter it. Brethren, if we get a
   right apprehension concerning Gospel Truth--that, "The mouth of the
   Lord has spoken it"--it will move us to proclaim with great ardor and
   seal.

   We shall not drone the Gospel to a slumbering handful. Many of you are
   not preachers but you are teachers of the young, or in some other way
   you try to publish the Word of the Lord--do it, I pray you, with much
   fervor of Spirit. Enthusiasm should be conspicuous in every servant of
   the Lord. Let those who hear you know that you are all there--that you
   are not merely speaking from the lips outwardly--but that from the
   depths of your soul your very heart is welling up with a good matter
   when you speak of things which you have made, touching the King.

   The everlasting Gospel is worth preaching even if one stood on a
   burning pyre and addressed the crowd from a pulpit of flames. The
   Truths of God revealed in Scripture are worth living for and dying for.
   I count myself thrice happy to bear reproach for the sake of the old
   faith. It is an honor of which I feel myself to be unworthy. And yet
   most truly can I use the words of our hymn--

   "Shall I, to soothe the unholy throng,

   Soften Your Truths and smooth my tongue?

   To gain earth's gilded toys, or flee

   The Cross endured, my God, by You?

   The love of Christ does me constrain

   To seek the wandering souls of men;

   With cries, entreaties, tears, to save,

   To snatch them from the fiery wave.

   My life, my blood I here present,

   If for Your Truth they may be spent--

   Fulfill Your sovereign counsel, Lord!

   Your will be done, Your name adored!" I cannot speak out my whole heart
   upon this theme which is so dear to me but I would stir you all up to
   be instant in season and out of season in telling out the Gospel
   message. Specially repeat such a word as this--"God so loved the world,
   that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him
   should not perish but have everlasting life." And this--"Him that comes
   to Me I will in no wise cast out." Proclaim boldly, proclaim in every
   place, proclaim to every creature, "For the mouth of the Lord has
   spoken it." How can you keep back the heavenly news? "The mouth of the
   Lord has spoken it"--shall not your mouth rejoice to repeat it?

   Whisper it in the ear of the sick. Shout it in the corner of the
   streets. Write it on your stationery. Send it forth from the press--but
   everywhere let this be your great motive and warrant--preach the Gospel
   because, "The mouth of the Lord has spoken it." Let nothing be silent
   that has a voice when the Lord has given the Word by His own dear Son--

   "Float, float, you winds His story,

   And you, you waters, roll,

   Till like a sea of glory

   It spreads from pole to pole."

   II. Let us now row in another direction for a moment or two. In the
   second place, "The mouth of the Lord has spoken it." THIS IS THE CLAIM
   OF GOD'S WORD UPON YOUR ATTENTION.

   Every Word which God has given us in this Book claims our attention
   because of the infinite majesty of Him that spoke it. I see before me a
   Parliament of kings and princes, sages and senators. I hear one after
   another of the gifted Chrysostoms pour forth eloquence like the
   "Golden-mouthed." They speak and they speak well. Suddenly, there is a
   solemn hush. What a stillness! Who is now to speak? They are silent
   because God the Lord is about to lift up His voice. Is it not right
   that they should be so? Does He not say, "Keep silence before Me, O
   islands"? What voice is like His voice? "The voice of the Lord is
   powerful.

   The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks
   the cedars--yes, the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. The voice of
   the Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness of
   Kadesh. See that you refuse not Him that speaks. O my Hearer, let it
   not be said of you that you went though this life, God speaking to you
   in His Book and you refusing to hear! It matters very little whether
   you listen to me or not. But it matters a very great deal whether you
   listen to God or not. It is He that made you. In His hands is your
   breath. And if He speaks, I implore you, open your ears and be not
   rebellious. There is an infinite majesty about every line of Scripture,
   but especially about that part of Scripture in which the Lord reveals
   Himself and His glorious plan of saving Grace in the Person of His dear
   Son Jesus Christ. The Cross of Christ has a great claim upon you. Hear
   what Jesus preaches from the tree. He says, "Incline your ear and come
   unto Me: hear and your soul shall

   live."

   God's claim to be heard lies, also, in the condescension which has led
   Him to speak to us. It was something for God to have made the world and
   bid us look at the work of His hands. Creation is a picture-book for
   children. But for God to speak in the language of mortal men is still
   more marvelous, if you think about it. I wonder that God spoke by the
   Prophets. But I admire still more that He should have written down His
   Word in black and white, in unmistakable language which can be
   translated into all tongues, so that we may all see and read for
   ourselves what God the Lord has spoken to us. And what, indeed, He
   continues to speak.

   For what He has spoken He still speaks to us, as freshly as if He spoke
   it for the first time. O glorious Jehovah, Do You speak to mortal man?
   Can there be any that neglect to hear You? If You are so full of loving
   kindness and tenderness that You will stoop out of Heaven to converse
   with Your sinful creatures, none but those who are more brutal than the
   ox and the ass will turn a deaf ear to You!

   God's Word has a claim, then, upon your attention because of its
   majesty and its condescension. But, further, it should win your ear
   because of its intrinsic importance. "The mouth of the Lord has spoken
   it"--then it is no trifle. God never speaks vanity. No line of His
   writing treats of the frivolous themes of a day. That which may be
   forgotten in an hour is for mortal man and not for the eternal God.
   When the Lord speaks, His speech is God-like and its themes are worthy
   of one whose dwelling is infinity and eternity. God does not play with
   you, Man--will you trifle with Him? Will you treat Him as if He were
   altogether such a one as yourself? God is in earnest when He speaks to
   you--will you not in earnest listen?

   He speaks to you of great things which have to do with your soul and
   its destiny. "It is not a vain thing for you. Because it is your life."
   Your eternal existence, your happiness or your misery, hang on your
   treatment of that which the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Concerning
   eternal realities He speaks to you. I pray you, be not so unwise as to
   turn away your ear. Act not as if the Lord and His Truth were nothing
   to you. Treat not the Word of the Lord as a secondary thing, which
   might wait your leisure and receive attention when no other work was
   before you--put all else aside--and hearken to your God.

   Depend upon it--if "The mouth of the Lord has spoken it," there is an
   urgent, pressing necessity. God breaks not silence to say that which
   might as well have remained unsaid--His voice indicates great urgency.
   Today, if you will hear His voice, hear it. For He demands immediate
   attention. God does not speak without abundant reason. And, O my
   Hearer, if He speaks to you by His Word, I beseech you, believe that
   there must be overwhelming cause for it! I know what Satan says--he
   tells you that you can do very well without listening to God's Word. I
   know what your carnal heart whispers--it says, "Listen to the voice of
   business and of pleasure. But listen not to God." But, oh, if the Holy
   Spirit shall teach your reason to be reasonable and put your mind in
   mind of true wisdom, you will acknowledge that the first thing you have
   to do is to heed your Maker!

   You can hear the voices of others another time. But your ear must hear
   God first since He is first, and that which He speaks must be of first
   importance. Without delay do you make haste to keep His Commandments.
   Without reserve answer to His call and say, "Speak, Lord, for Your
   servant hears." When I stand in this pulpit to preach the Gospel, I
   never feel that I may calmly invite you to attend to a subject which is
   one among many and may very properly be let alone for a time should
   your minds be already occupied. No. You may be dead before I again
   speak with you and so I beg for immediate attention. I do not fear that
   I may be taking you off from other important business by entreating you
   to attend to that which the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

   No business has any importance in it compared with this--this is the
   master theme of all. It is your soul, your own soul, your ever-existing
   soul which is concerned, and it is your God that is speaking to you. Do
   hear Him, I beseech you. I am not asking a favor of you when I request
   you to hear the Word of the Lord--it is a debt to your Maker which you
   are bound to pay. Yes, it is, moreover, kindness to your own self. Even
   from a selfish point of view I urge you to hear what the mouth of the
   Lord has spoken, for in His Word lies salvation. Hearken diligently to
   what your Maker, your Savior, your best Friend, has to say to
   you--"Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation," but "incline your
   ear and come unto Me--hear and your soul shall live." "Faith comes by
   hearing and hearing by the Word of God."

   Thus I have handled my text in two ways--it is warrant and motive for
   the preacher. It is a demand upon the attention of the hearer.

   III. And now, thirdly, THIS GIVES TO GOD'S WORD A VERY SPECIAL
   CHARACTER. When we open this sacred

   Book and say of that which is here recorded, "The mouth of the Lord has
   spoken it," then it gives to the teaching a special character.

   In the Word of God the teaching has unique dignity. This Book is
   inspired as no other book is inspired and it is time that all
   Christians avowed this conviction. I do not know whether you have read
   Mr. Smiles' life of our late friend, George Moore. But in it we read
   that at a certain dinner party, a learned man remarked that it would
   not be easy to find a person of intelligence who believed in the
   inspiration of the Bible. In an instant George Moore's voice was heard
   across the table, saying boldly, "I do, for one."

   Nothing more was said. My dear Friend had a strong way of speaking, as
   I well remember. For we have upon occasions vied with each other in
   shouting when we were together at his Cumberland home. I think I can
   hear his emphatic way of putting it--"I do, for one." Let us not be
   backward to take the old-fashioned and unpopular side and say outright,
   "I do, for one." Where are we if our Bibles are gone? Where are we if
   we are taught to distrust them? If we are left in doubt as to which
   part is inspired and which is not, we are as badly off as if we had no
   Bible at all. I hold no theory of inspiration. I accept the inspiration
   of the Scriptures as a fact.

   Those who thus view the Scriptures need not be ashamed of their
   company. For some of the best and most learned of men have been of the
   same mind. Locke, the great philosopher, spent the last fourteen years
   of his life in the study of the Bible and when asked what was the
   shortest way for a young gentleman to understand the Christian
   religion, he bade him read the Bible, remarking--"Therein are contained
   the words of eternal life. It has God for its Author, salvation for its
   end and Truth, without any admixture of error, for its matter." There
   are those on the side of God's Word whom you need not be ashamed of in
   the matter of intelligence and learning.

   And if it were not so, it should not discourage you when you remember
   that the Lord has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has
   revealed them unto babes. We believe with the Apostle that, "the
   foolishness of God is wiser than men." It is better to believe what
   comes out of God's mouth and be called a fool than to believe what
   comes out of the mouth of philosophers and be, therefore, esteemed a
   wise man. There is also about that which the mouth of the Lord has
   spoken an absolute certainty. What man has said is unsubstantial--even
   when true, is like grasping fog--there is nothing of it. But with God's
   Word you have something to grip, something to have and to hold. This is
   substance and reality.

   But of human opinions we may say, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."
   Though Heaven and earth should pass away, yet not one jot or tittle of
   what God has spoken shall fail. We know that and feel at rest. God
   cannot be mistaken. God cannot lie. These are postulates which no one
   can dispute. If "The mouth of God has spoken it," this is the Judge
   that ends the strife where wit and reason fail. And henceforth we
   question no more.

   Again--if, "The mouth of the Lord has spoken it," we have in this
   utterance the special character of immutable fixedness. Once spoken by
   God, not only is it so now but it always must be so. The Lord of Hosts
   has spoken and who shall disannul it? The rock of God's Word does not
   shift, like the quicksand of modern scientific theology. One said to
   his minister, "My dear Sir, surely you ought to adjust your beliefs to
   the progress of science." "Yes," said he, "but I have not had time to
   do it today,

   for I have not yet read the morning papers." One would have need to
   read the morning papers and take in every new edition to know where
   scientific theology now stands. For it is always chopping and changing.
   The only thing that is certain about the false science of this age is
   that it will be soon disproved. Theories, vaunted today, will be
   scrapped tomorrow.

   The great scientists live by killing those who went before them. They
   know nothing for certain except that their predecessors were wrong.
   Even in one short life we have seen system after system--the mushrooms,
   or rather the toadstools, of thought--rise and perish. We cannot adapt
   our religious belief to that which is more changeful than the moon. Try
   it who will--as for me, if "The mouth of the Lord has spoken it," it is
   the Truth of God to me in this year of Divine Grace, 1888. And if I
   stand among you a gray-headed old man, Lord willing, somewhere in 1908,
   you will find me making no advance upon the Divine ultimatum. If "The
   mouth of the Lord has spoken it," we behold in His Revelation a Gospel
   which is without variableness, revealing "Jesus Christ, the same
   yesterday, today and forever."

   Brothers and Sisters, we hope to be together forever before the eternal
   Throne where bow the blazing Seraphim and even then we shall not be
   ashamed to avow that same Truth of God which this day we feed upon from
   the hand of our God--

   "For He's the Lord, supremely good, His mercy is forever sure; His
   Truth, which always firmly stood, To endless ages shall endure."

   Here let me add that there is something unique about God's Word because
   of the almighty power which attends it. "Where the word of a king is,
   there is power." Where the Word of a God is, there is omnipotence. If
   we dealt more largely in God's own Word as, "The mouth of the Lord has
   spoken it," we should see far greater results from our preaching. It is
   God's Word, not our comment on God's Word, that saves souls. Souls are
   slain by the sword--not by the scabbard--nor by the tassels which adorn
   the hilt of it.

   If God's Word is brought forward in its native simplicity, no one can
   stand against it. The adversaries of God must fail before the Word as
   chaff perishes in the fire. Oh, for wisdom to keep closer and closer to
   that which the mouth of the Lord has spoken! I will say no more on this
   point, although the theme is a very large and tempting one--especially
   if I were to dwell upon the depth, the height, the adaptation, the
   insight and the self-proving power of that which, "The mouth of the
   Lord has spoken."

   IV. Fourthly and very briefly, THIS MAKES GOD'S WORD A GROUND OF GREAT
   ALARM TO MANY. Shall I read you the whole verse? "But if you refuse and
   rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord
   has spoken it." Every threat that God has spoken, because He has spoken
   it, has a tremendous dread about it. Whether God threatens a man or a
   nation, or the whole class of the ungodly, if they are wise they will
   feel a trembling take hold upon them, because, "The mouth of the Lord
   has spoken it."

   God has never yet spoken a threat that has fallen to the ground. When
   He told Pharaoh what He would do, He did it. The plagues came thick and
   heavy upon him. When the Lord at any time sent His Prophets to denounce
   judgments on the nations, He carried out those judgments. Ask travelers
   concerning Babylon and Nineveh and Edom and Moab and Bashan. And they
   will tell you of the heaps of ruins which prove how the Lord carried
   out His warnings to the letter. One of the most awful things recorded
   in history is the siege of Jerusalem. You have read it, I do not doubt,
   in Josephus, or elsewhere. It makes one's blood run cold to think of
   it. Yet it was all foretold by the Prophets and their prophecies were
   fulfilled to the bitter end.

   You talk about God as being "love," and, if you mean by this that He is
   not severe in the punishment of sin, I ask you what you make of the
   destruction of Jerusalem? Remember that the Jews were His chosen nation
   and that the city of Jerusalem was the place where His temple had been
   glorified with His Presence. Brethren, if you roam from Edom to Zion
   and from Zion to Sidon and from Sidon to Moab, you will find, amid
   ruined cities, the tokens that God's Words of judgment are sure. Depend
   on it, then, that when Jesus says, "These shall go away into
   everlasting punishment," it will be so. When He says, "If you believe
   not that I am He, you shall die in your sins," it will be so.

   The Lord never plays at frightening men. His Word is not an
   exaggeration to scare men with imaginary bugbears. There is emphatic
   Truth in what the Lord says. He has always carried out His threats to
   the letter and to the moment. And, depend upon it, He will continue to
   do so, "For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it."

   It is of no avail to sit down and draw inferences from the nature of
   God and to argue, "God is Love and therefore He will not execute the
   sentence upon the impenitent." He knows what He will do better than you
   can infer--He has not left us to inferences for He has spoken pointedly
   and plainly. He says, "He that believes not shall be damned," and it
   will be so, "For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it." Infer what you
   like from His nature. But if you draw an inference contrary to what He
   has spoken, you have inferred a lie and you will find it so.

   "Alas," says one, "I shudder at the severity of the Divine sentence."
   Do you? It is well! I can heartily sympathize with you. What must he be
   that does not tremble when he sees the great Jehovah taking vengeance
   upon iniquity! The terrors of the Lord might well turn steel to wax.
   Let us remember that the gauge of the Truth of God is not our pleasure
   nor our terror. It is not my shuddering which can disprove what the
   mouth of the Lord has spoken. It may even be a proof of its truth. Did
   not all the Prophets tremble at manifestations of God? Remember how one
   of them cried. "When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at
   the voice; rottenness entered into my bones."

   One of the last of the anointed Seers fell at the Lord's feet as dead.
   Yet all the shrinking of their nature was not used by them as an
   argument for doubt. O my unconverted and unbelieving Hearers, do
   remember that if you refuse Christ and rush upon the keen edge of
   Jehovah's sword, your unbelief of eternal judgment will not alter it,
   nor save you from it. I know why you do not believe in the terrible
   threats. It is because you want to be easy in your sins. A certain
   skeptical writer, when in prison, was visited by a Christian man who
   wished him well but he refused to hear a word about religion.

   Seeing a Bible in the hand of his visitor, he made this remark, "You do
   not expect me to believe in that Book, do you? Why, if that Book is
   true, I am lost forever." Just so. Therein lies the reason for half the
   infidelity in the world and all the infidelity in our congregations.
   How can you believe that which condemns you? Ah, my Friends, if you
   would believe it to be true and act accordingly you would also find in
   that which the mouth of the Lord has spoken a way of escape from the
   wrath to come! For the Book is far more full of hope than of dread.
   This inspired volume flows with the milk of mercy and the honey of
   Divine Grace. It is not a Doomsday Book of wrath but a Testament of
   Grace.

   Yet, if you do not believe its loving warnings, nor regard its just
   sentences, they are true all the same. If you dare its thunders, if you
   trample on its promises and even if you burn it in your rage, the holy
   Book still stands unaltered and unalterable. "The mouth of the Lord has
   spoken it." Therefore, I pray you, treat the sacred Scriptures with
   respect and remember that, "These are written, that you might believe
   that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And that believing you might
   have life through His name."

   V. And so I must finish, for time fails, when I notice, in the fifth
   place, that THIS MAKES THE WORD OF THE LORD

   THE REASON AND REST OF OUR FAITH. "The mouth of the Lord has spoken
   it," is the foundation of our confidence. There is forgiveness. For God
   has said it. Look, Friend, you are saying, "I cannot believe that my
   sins can be washed away, I feel so unworthy." Yes but, "The mouth of
   the Lord has spoken it." Believe over the head of your unworthiness.
   "Ah," says one, "I feel so weak I can neither think, nor pray, nor
   anything else, as I should." Is it not written, "When we were yet
   without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly"? "The mouth
   of the Lord has spoken it." Therefore, over the head of your inability
   still believe it, for it must be so.

   I think I hear some child of God saying, "God has said, 'I will never
   leave you, nor forsake you,' but I am in great trouble. All the
   circumstances of my life seem to contradict the promise"--yet, "The
   mouth of the Lord has spoken it," and the promise must stand. "Trust in
   the Lord and do good. So shall you dwell in the land and verily you
   shall be fed." Believe God in the teeth of circumstances. If you cannot
   see a way of escape or a means of help, yet still believe in the unseen
   God and in the Truth of His Presence--"For the mouth of the Lord has
   spoken it."

   I think I have come to this pass with myself, at any rate for the time
   present, that when circumstances deny the promise, I believe it none
   the less. When friends forsake me and foes belie me and my own spirit
   goes down below zero and I am depressed almost to despair, I am
   resolved to hang to the bare Word of the Lord and prove it to be in
   itself an all-sufficient stay and support. I will believe God against
   all the devils in Hell, God against Ahithophel and Judas and Demas and
   all the rest of the turncoats. Yes, and God against my own evil heart.
   His purpose shall stand, "For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it."
   Away, you that contradict it--ours is a well-grounded confidence, "For
   the mouth of the Lord has spoken it."

   By-and-by we shall come to die. The death-sweat shall gather on our
   brow and perhaps our tongue will scarcely serve us. Oh that then, like
   the grand old German Emperor, we may say, "My eyes have seen Your
   salvation," and, "He has helped me with His name." When we pass through
   the rivers He will be with us, the floods shall not overflow us--"For
   the mouth of the Lord has spoken it." When we walk through the valley
   of the shadow of death we shall fear no evil, for He will be with us--
   His rod and His staff shall comfort us--"The mouth of the Lord has
   spoken it." Ah, what will it be to break loose from these bonds and
   rise into the glory? We shall soon see the King in His beauty and be
   ourselves glorified in His glory. For "the mouth of the Lord has spoken
   it." "He that believes has everlasting life." Therefore a glad eternity
   is ours.

   Brethren, we have not followed cunningly devised fables. We are not
   "wanton boys that swim on floats," which will soon burst under us. But
   we are resting on firm ground. We abide where Heaven and earth are
   resting--where the whole universe depends--where even eternal things
   have their foundation--we rest on God Himself. If God shall fail us, we
   gloriously fail

   with the whole universe. But there is no fear. Therefore let us trust
   and not be afraid. His promise must stand--"The mouth of the Lord has
   spoken it." O Lord, it is enough! Glory be to Your name, through Christ
   Jesus! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

"As We Have Heard, So Have We Seen"

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, MARCH 18, 1888,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "As we ha ve heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of Hosts,
   in the city of our God: God will establish it forever." Psalm 48:8.

   "As we have heard, so have we seen"--this is seldom true. In many
   places we see what we have not heard and what we have heard we do not
   see. Time was when many simpletons believed that the streets of London
   were paved with gold. I am sure I do not know any part of London in
   which a single lump of that metal can be found in the footway. Ten
   thousand idle tales there are in every country of mines where fortunes
   may be dug out of the earth and plains where wealth forces itself on
   the immigrant. But how seldom do we hear the good news, "As we have
   heard, so have we seen."

   But when you come into the "City of the Lord of Hosts, in the city of
   our God," the reports about it are true and the truth exceeds the
   report. For, like the Queen of Sheba, we cry, "The half was not told
   me." When we speak of the privileges of the Church of God on earth it
   is impossible to exaggerate. "Behold, what manner of love the Father
   has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God."
   Behold, what blessings, what riches, what royalties the Lord Jesus
   bestows upon His chosen! How cleansed they are by His blood! How
   quickened by His life! How honored by His glorious enthronement at the
   right hand of the Father!

   You cannot speak of Zion and her prosperity in too exulting a style.
   Happy are you, O Israel! And if we speak of the city of God as it
   shines in full splendor above, words fail us to set it forth. I doubt
   not when we arrive at its blessed abodes and tread its golden streets
   and wear our crowns of immortality, we shall not only say, "As we have
   heard, so have we seen," but we shall be lost in wonder and surprise at
   the overwhelming revelations of Divine love.

   It is always true of the things of God and of the Church of God--"As we
   have heard, so have we seen." What His Word promises His work performs.
   This thought will be the clue of my sermon and my line of discourse
   will be guided by the text. May the Holy Spirit make it useful to us
   all!

   I. Our first observation upon the text is this--IT IS MOST IMPORTANT
   THAT WE LISTEN TO TRUE WITNESSES. Otherwise we shall not be able to
   say, "As we have heard, so have we seen." If we listen to false
   witnesses, the more we believe them the worse for us--it will not be
   faith but credulity and in due time there will be a sad awakening from
   idle dreams. It is of the first importance to you all that you should
   hear the Word of God and receive the Truth of God as it is in Jesus. So
   that both in the throng of life, and when you stand upon the borders of
   death and in the changeless state of eternity, you may be able to say,
   "We thank God for the Gospel which we heard. For what we heard with our
   ears has been verified in our lives."

   The Israelites who sang this forty-eighth Psalm had heard of Jerusalem
   and its Temple, of Jehovah and of His sure defense of His chosen
   city--how had they heard of it? They had heard of it by reading for
   themselves, or listening to the reading of the Word of God. They had
   five books of Moses and other writings. In these books they read
   marvelous stories of what Jehovah had done for His people. They would
   remember well how the Lord worked for His chosen in Egypt and how He
   brought them out of the house of bondage with a high hand and an
   outstretched arm. They would read the record of God's merciful
   provision for the tribes in the wilderness, of His victories over their
   enemies, such as Og, king of Bashan and Sihon, king of the Amorites.

   They would read with wonder the conquest of Canaan by Joshua and the
   overthrow of tyrants by Gideon and Barak and Jephthah. They would see
   what the Lord worked by His servant, David, and by others who trusted
   Him in the old times. All this would raise high their confidence in
   Jehovah--and now it had come to pass that while Jehoshaphat was king,
   the holy city had been beleaguered by confederate Moabites and Edomites
   and Ammonites. And once more the Lord had made bare His holy arm and
   given a glorious triumph to Judah--without it being necessary for His
   people to

   strike a single blow. The adversaries, moved with mutual jealousy, had
   fallen upon one another and become their own executioners. When the men
   of Judah saw this, they cried, "The old Book is true. Jehovah has
   worked wonders before our eyes. As we have heard, so have we seen in
   the city of the Lord of Hosts."

   My Brethren, attend carefully to what this Book records and reveals. It
   is now enlarged for your greater edification. Let this record be the
   report which you hear concerning the Lord our God and His ways of
   Divine Grace. Let us give earnest heed to Prophets and Apostles and
   Evangelists who wrote in the name of the Lord. For in that case we
   shall hear the Truths of God which shall be so verified by experience
   as to make us joyfully exclaim, "As we have heard, so have we seen."

   These good people had also listened to the ministers of God. The
   priests, when they were not engaged in actual attendance at the Temple,
   were expected to teach the people. It is said of the tribe of Levi,
   "They shall teach Jacob Your judgments and Israel Your Law." Prophets
   also went through the land declaring the mind of God and when the
   people heard these messengers whom the Lord had sent to speak in His
   name, they heard that which the Lord fulfilled. For none of the words
   of His servants were suffered to fall to the ground. How necessary it
   is that you should hear the Truth of God spoken by those that are sent
   of God.

   Many false Prophets have gone forth into the world. That which a man
   fetches out of his own mind may or may not be true. In any case you
   have a right to criticize and discuss it. But he that speaks with,
   "Thus says the Lord," at the back of his words stands on another
   platform. God's Word demands our reverent faith and he that speaks it
   faithfully speaks with authority and not as the scribes. Conscience
   within the breast of man echoes to the voice of Divine Truth and owns
   its power, even when the will refuses to obey. Oh, that you may not,
   because of itching ears, heap to yourselves teachers. But may you hear
   the faithful messenger of God so that you may say at the end, "As we
   have heard, so have we seen in the city of our God"!

   No doubt, also, these good people had listened to their fathers. In
   these days the proud notion is abroad that our fathers cannot have been
   so wise as their highly cultured sons. Yet in the long run, these same
   youths will alter their opinions as their years increase. Wisdom is
   neither in age nor in youth but in God alone. I love to hear what
   gray-headed men have to say who are further advanced in the journey of
   life than I am. For there is weight in their testimony. They may not
   speak with all the brilliance and fire of youth, but their speech has
   salt in it, derived from the certainty of actual experience. I love to
   think of those things which we have heard with our ears and our fathers
   have told us. Even the wondrous things which the Lord did in their day
   and in the old time before them.

   The singers of our Psalm had listened to their gracious fathers and
   when they saw the adversary round about the City of God and afterwards
   marched forth to that strange battle in which there was no clash of
   arms but only a joyful division of the spoil--then, I say they knew
   that what their fathers had told them was really true and they cried
   out in wonder, "As we have heard, so have we seen."--

   "In Zion God is known,

   A refuge in distress.

   How bright has His salvation shone

   Through all her palaces!

   Often have our fathers told,

   Our eyes ha ve often seen,

   How well our God secures the fold

   Where His own sheep ha ve been." Those who were not actually in
   Jerusalem would hear the descriptions of those who had been there. They
   had heard of the Temple which was so "exceedingly magnificent." They
   had heard of Jachin and Boaz, the two famous pillars--of the great
   altar and the smoking sacrifices of the morning and the evening lamb,
   and the priests in their white attire ministering at the altar. They
   had heard of the high priest himself, when he came forth in his
   garments of glory and of beauty and of the blessing which he blessed
   the assembled people. In the cottage homes on the far-off hills they
   had heard of all these things and heard a truthful report, so that when
   they came to the holy city and their feet stood within the gates of
   Jerusalem, their hearts beat high and they said within themselves, "We
   have not listened to cunningly devised fables. But as we have heard, so
   have we seen in the city of the Lord of Hosts."

   It is well, dear Friends, for us to form our associations with a view
   to lasting benefit. Let the friends of God be your friends. Speak to
   those who speak well of God and of His holy name. Cultivate the
   acquaintance of those who, by experience, are able to inform you
   whether these things are so. "He that walks with wise men shall be
   wise." He that talks much with experienced Christians will acquire much
   assurance in the things of God. It is most important for us that we
   receive the recorded witness of ancient saints and the hearty testimony
   of living worthies--that afterwards we may be able to say--"As we have
   heard, so have we seen."

   Some, nowadays, are inclined to hear everything, bad, good and
   indifferent. I believe that hearing everything will end in hearing
   nothing. That text is often quoted and misunderstood, which says,
   "Prove all things." If men really mean what they say and are going to
   prove all things, I would persuade them to begin with their bodies and
   not at first to run great risks with their souls. Gentlemen, I invite
   you to begin with more common things than the Gospel. For
   instance--commence with proving all the patent medicines and next prove
   all the drugs of the chemist. If you survive the process, it will then
   be time to go round and prove all the ministers and all the different
   doctrines of this wretched period.

   If you survive the drugs and poisons, you will not survive the false
   doctrines. False doctrines cannot be proved and you need not make the
   attempt. It is only the Truth of God which is capable of proof. The
   text does not mean "experiment upon everything"--but receive nothing
   until it has been proved to be true and good. The most of us are not
   appointed to the office of Universal Taster--we are not commissioned to
   taste all deadly things that we may know their precise effect--we are
   far better employed in holding fast that which is good. The truths
   which we have already proved to be the Truths of God, we hold as with a
   death grip. And, as we hold them fast, we also hold them forth.

   That which we accept for ourselves we commend to others--this is a far
   safer and healthier exercise than imitating the Athenians in their
   desire to be forever hearing some new thing. Take heed what you hear,
   lest you be not able to say, "As we have heard, so have we seen."

   II. Secondly, GOOD HEARING LEADS ON TO SEEING--"As we have heard, so
   have we seen." You cannot all use those words. Some of you have heard
   and heard but have never yet seen. The man who is content with one
   inlet to his mind, namely, his ears--but never uses his eyes, must
   imagine that God has made a mistake and has given him more senses than
   he needs. Surely this argues a want of sense. Dear Friends, you are not
   only invited to hear the Gospel, but the Lord Jesus says to you, as He
   said to His first disciples, "Come and see." "O taste and see that the
   Lord is good." You are invited to see for yourselves whether these
   things are so. You will ask how can a hearer of the Gospel become a
   seer of it?

   Note first, that he can do this by examining the facts which he hears
   stated, and judging whether they are really so. The Scripture tells you
   that your heart is deceitful--see whether it is not so. It tells you
   that there is a natural inclination in man towards evil--study yourself
   and see whether this is not the case. It tells you that there is in
   human nature an impotence towards that which is truly good and an
   aversion to God. Seriously consider whether your own life, as a natural
   man, does not prove the truth of these charges. There are some things
   about yourself, while as yet you are unconverted, which you have heard
   of in the Scriptures and I would urge you to see whether they are not
   true in your own case. It will be a great help to you if you will
   examine these things in reference to your own self. The subject for
   consideration is near at hand and it will be, in many ways, useful to
   yourself to know whether Holy Scripture gives a true description of
   human nature, as you find it in yourself.

   We further see what we hear when we obey the commands and receive the
   blessings promised upon obedience. For instance, you are bid to confess
   your sins. Now see whether this is true--"If we confess our sins, He is
   faithful and just to forgive us our sins"--not only hear the precept
   but see whether the promise is true. Here is another test--"Come unto
   Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest."
   You have heard it hundreds of times--come and see for yourself whether
   such a rest is given. Obey the precept so that you may receive the
   promise which hangs upon the precept.

   We also turn hearing into sight when, receiving the blessings which are
   promised to faith, we enter into a new life. Some of us can bear
   witness that we have entered into a new world. That things which are
   now everything to us were nothing to us a little while ago. As to a
   deaf man there is no sound, as to a blind man there is no light, so to
   us a few years ago there were no spiritual things. We were devoid of
   those spiritual faculties by which spiritual things are discerned. But
   now that we have believed in Jesus we have passed into another
   universe. And we now possess a life as much above the life of our
   former state as the mental life is above that of the brute which
   perishes. We know that there is a heavenly life, for we possess it. And
   in the power of it we see a thousand things not dreamed of in the
   common man's philosophy. We heartily wish that all of you who hear the
   Gospel would see its Truths, so that you might say with the singers in
   this Psalm, "As we have heard, so have we seen."

   The promises of God are of little service to a man if he merely hears
   them or reads them and has no further dealing with them. They are like
   a check which is kept for months and years in a drawer and never
   presented at the bank. The promises of

   God must be presented by prayerful faith to the Lord Himself. The
   sacred promises, though in themselves most sure and precious, are of no
   avail for the comfort and sustenance of the soul unless you grasp them
   by faith, plead them in prayer, expect them by hope and receive them
   with gratitude. Oh, that you might say of every promise of God, "As we
   have heard, so have we seen."

   The best hearing is that which leads to seeing. When a man says, "The
   Word of God tells me so and I will test it for my-self"--that man is in
   a very hopeful state. To this we invite our hearers. The banquet is
   spread and rich are the provisions. But do not so trust our testimony
   as to stay away. Come and see for yourselves. We tell you that there is
   a great atonement made by the blood of Jesus which will at once wash
   out the most scarlet sins. Believe our message so far as to come and
   try it for yourselves and you will soon exclaim, "As we have heard, so
   have we seen."

   III. I beg your attention to the third point, which is this--that
   SEEING WONDERFULLY CONFIRMS THE TRUTH

   OF WHAT WE HEAR. We are bound to believe God, even when we cannot see.
   That the Lord has said it would be quite enough for us if we reverenced
   Him as we ought. But it does help us very much when, having implicitly
   believed in God's testimony, He grants us grace to see that what we
   have believed is most surely true. Let me show how the experience of a
   believing man confirms the truth of what he has heard.

   To go back to where I was just now, all that Holy Scripture says about
   our ruin may be seen to be true. Many of us have not only heard but we
   have felt the evil result of sin upon our minds and hearts. We know
   that sin dwells in us and strives for the mastery. We can never doubt
   that our natural tendencies are faulty and that our best desires are
   imperfect. Since the Holy Spirit convinced us of sin the existence of a
   foul fountain within our nature is a fact which we cannot doubt. Sin's
   infinite demerit is, also, a Truth of God to which our conscience gives
   solemn assent. I remember when I learned this lesson, with the Law as
   my schoolmaster. If anyone had asked me whether I deserved to be sent
   to the lowest Hell my tears would have owned that no punishment could
   be too severe for sin like mine.

   Whenever I read a terrible threat in Scripture, I gave an inward assent
   to it in my quickened conscience--yes--and I do so now. Apart from my
   Lord on the Cross, a deep damnation would be mine. It does not matter
   what modern deceivers preach--you may depend upon it--that men when
   they come to die, if their consciences are at all awake, are persuaded
   that the threats of Holy Scripture are true. Sentiment kicks against
   eternal punishment. But conscience cries, "Amen" to the righteous
   sentence of the Law. When the Spirit of God awakens conscience, it
   ceases to trifle with sin and no longer denies that an awful penalty
   must surely be its consequence.

   I am sure I can appeal to those of you who have seen the Lord in His
   glory, so as to abhor yourselves in dust and ashes and to those of you
   who have seen yourselves, so that you have been ashamed and confounded
   at your own ways. I say I can appeal to you to confirm the most solemn
   statements of Holy Scripture. However much its denunciations may make
   you shudder, your inmost soul consents to the truth of them. When the
   Holy Spirit opens up before us the bottomless pit of our natural
   depravity, we admit that, "The heart is deceitful above all things and
   desperately wicked." We believe in the Fall, for we are fallen. We are
   sure we are not as the Lord made us. We believe in the hereditary taint
   of natural depravity--for we mourn it in ourselves. We believe in the
   impotence of fallen humanity--for we are ourselves without strength.

   We believe in our personal desert of the wrath of God, for we are sure
   it is so and our only comfort is that the sentence of death has been
   fulfilled in us in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Substitute.
   All that the Holy Scripture says about sin and its results we do from
   our heart of hearts confirm, for, "As we have heard, so have we seen."

   Brighter things, however, have we heard and seen. Brethren, we heard
   that there is a calling of God whereby He separates His chosen from the
   rest of mankind. And we know that there is such an effectual calling by
   the Spirit of God for we have been so called. We heard the general call
   by which men were invited to come to Christ. But we refused that call.
   We learned that there was a special effectual call of the Holy Spirit
   by which men are sweetly drawn to Jesus and we found this report to be
   true for we have been so drawn. The Spirit of God did not drag us to
   Christ by our ears but He drew us with bands of love. We came to Jesus
   with the full consent of our renewed wills and yet against our old
   wills. Without violating one single delicate Law of our mind, the Lord
   constrained us to run in the way of salvation. As we have heard
   concerning the effectual calling of the Spirit of God so have we seen
   and we cannot but bear witness of it this day.

   We heard, too, that if we came to Jesus as we were, He would receive
   us--and He did receive us. We heard that He would graciously forgive.
   And He did forgive. We heard that in forgiveness He would give us peace
   and we have found it so. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with
   God through our Lord Jesus Christ." We heard that poor sinners,
   justified by faith, received a joy unspeakable and we have received
   that joy. We bear our testimony that, "This Man receives sinners"--we
   bear witness that He casts out none that come to Him. We declare to you
   that in the fullness of His grace He puts rebels in the chil-

   dren's place. Yes, "As we have heard, so have we seen." The bravest
   preacher of the Gospel has never preached more Gospel than is true. The
   boldest testifier to the free grace of God has never said more for the
   freedom and fullness of Divine Grace than he ought to have said.
   Exaggeration is impossible. When you would describe Divine Grace you
   may lay the reins upon the neck of thought.

   Then we heard that there was such a thing as regeneration. We used to
   hear with wonder that declaration, "You must be born again." We were
   told that we must pass from death unto life--that old things must pass
   away and all things must become new. We heard it attentively and
   believingly. But now we have gone further--we have seen it. Many of you
   know the great and radical change because you have experienced it. You
   can say, "One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." We
   have passed out of a dead world into a living world. Having been buried
   with Christ we have also risen with Him and our life dwells and
   flourishes in a new world. We are conscious that a new heart beats
   within us. A new life looks out of our eyes and moves in our members.
   The new birth is a fact--"As we have heard, so have we seen."

   We used to hear of the Holy Spirit and it seemed to us when we heard it
   that His operations and indwelling were mysteries incomprehensible. How
   could God the Holy Spirit dwell in men and make their bodies His
   temples? We marveled as we heard of His convincing men of sin,
   withering their self-righteousness, enkindling hope in their bosoms,
   leading them to Jesus, renewing them, comforting them, sanctifying
   them, illuminating them, preserving them. We used to hear of all this.
   But now with delight we can stand before you and say, "As we have
   heard, so have we seen in the city of our God."

   The Holy Spirit has convinced us of sin. What a "spirit of bondage" He
   was to us for a time! He seemed to fetter hand and foot and shut us up
   under the Law! Then He broke our chains asunder and taught us that
   where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. What a liberty it
   is! How joyfully did we leap when we were set free from the tyranny of
   sin. Since then the blessed Spirit has continually quickened, guided
   and strengthened us. Speak, sons and daughters of mourning, and tell
   how the Comforter has graciously consoled you! He has also taught us
   and led us into all Truth. He has been in us life and light and fire.
   He has moved upon our minds and He has ever given us in the same hour
   what we should speak!

   What a permeating influence is that of the Holy Spirit! How He makes us
   mourn for sin! How He constrains us to follow after holiness! How He
   uplifts and elevates the heart, causing our conversation to be in
   Heaven while our body is still on earth. "As we have heard, so have we
   seen." And we have never heard more of the glorious power of the Holy
   Spirit than is absolutely true--our own joyful experience leads us to
   believe that He can work all gracious things in us.

   Further, to show you how experience supports the Word of God, we were
   told many times over that God hears prayer. We were reminded of the
   Savior's words, "Ask and it shall be given you; seek and you shall
   find; knock and it shall be opened unto you." Brothers and Sisters, how
   have you found it? Has prayer been a mere pious amusement? Have you
   found it to be a reality? Have you not prayed yourselves out of the
   dark into the sunlight? Prayed yourselves out of the low dungeon of
   despondency to the mountaintop of communion? Prayed yourselves out of
   the depths of despair up to the Throne of God? "Out of the belly of
   Hell, cried I," said one, "and You heard my voice." Oh, the omnipotence
   of prayer! The facts which prove the prevalence of prayer would
   convince anybody unless he is determined not to be convinced.

   There are numbers of persons here whom any lawyer would be glad to put
   in the witness box on any matter of fact. For their statements would be
   questioned by nobody, since they are well known for integrity and
   truth. These persons are prepared to bear solemn witness, as in the
   Presence of God, that many a time God has as distinctly heard their
   prayers as if He had thrust His hand through yonder skies. As we have
   heard about prayer, so have we seen. And none can drive this faith out
   of us since it is confirmed by what we have seen over and over again in
   actual experience. So long as reason holds her seat we must, and will,
   believe in prayer.

   Yes, let me remind you, also, that we heard with our ears, that there
   is a God of Providence who rules and overrules all things. We were glad
   to sing, "The Lord will provide." We used joyfully to hear the
   congregation say--

   "Though cisterns are broken and creatures all fail, The Word He has
   spoken will surely prevail." We believe in a gracious Providence and we
   have also seen it! Time does not suffice this morning for us to narrate
   personal incidents but assuredly my own experience teems with them. In
   times of need the Lord has showed Himself quite as able and willing to
   supply the needs of His servant in these days as He was to feed the
   nation in the wilderness when He rained manna from Heaven for them
   daily.

   All things have worked together for good to them that love God, even
   until now. We can look back upon experiences which, at the time, were
   especially bewildering and perplexing. And of those very experiences we
   can now say, "Blessed be God for them!" If I were to ask those to stand
   up who have seen undoubted proofs of Providential care, I believe
   thousands of you

   would rise from your seats and bear witness that the hand of the Lord
   still works wisely and powerfully for those who trust in Him. We heard
   that it was so and we have seen that the report was true to the letter.
   Even as to temporal things, the Lord is gracious. And as to eternal
   things, He is beyond conception kind.

   One thing more I will notice and have done with these verifications
   which sight gives to hearing. We have often heard that those who
   believe in God have hope in their deaths. We have been told over and
   over again, that--

   "Jesus can make a dying bed Feel soft as downy pillows."

   Now, we have not seen this for ourselves, for we have not yet forded
   the last river. But we have seen it in others. I suppose that the most
   of you have distinctly seen that the end of the righteous man is peace.
   I, from my calling, have many scores of times seen saints in their last
   hours. This is the witness I put on record--the very happiest persons I
   have ever met with have been departing Believers.

   I have not met at weddings, nor at jubilee feasts, nor in moments of
   singular prosperity such joyful persons as I have seen amid weakness
   and pain upon their dying beds. The only sons of men for whom I have
   felt any envy have been dying members of this very Church whose hands I
   have grasped in their passing away. Almost without any exception I have
   seen in them holy delight and triumph. And in the exceptions to this
   exceeding joy I have seen deep peace exhibited in a calm and deliberate
   readiness to enter into the presence of their God. They have been as
   ready for the eternal world as they would have been to rise from their
   beds and return to their daily callings on the Monday morning. "The
   peace of God, which passes all understanding" has kept their hearts and
   minds even when the joy of the Lord has not lifted them into transports
   or ecstasies.

   Saintly deathbeds are grand evidences of Christianity. It is something
   to say in our last hours, "As we have heard, so have we seen." I can
   truly say that up to now my own experience and observation have
   confirmed the teachings of the Word of God. I have not yet met with
   anything which could shake my confidence in the Divine Revelation. I
   trust I am neither an absolute fool nor a blind bigot who would shut
   his eyes to reason--I would not ignore a certified fact, either in
   science, or history, or in the world of mental life. And yet I know of
   no fact which can disprove so much as one of the solemn declarations of
   God-- nor even cast a shadow of suspicion upon a doctrine of Holy
   Scripture. I have heard much but I have seen nothing of the science
   which disproves the Scriptures--there is no such science--it is an
   impostor which has stolen the name.

   Our knowing is far better than our theorizing. And whatever our
   theorizing may have done, our actual knowledge has never been on the
   side of the baptized infidelity of the advanced school. All our
   experience makes us say, "As we have heard, so have we seen in the city
   of the Lord of Hosts." On this point I have spent the strength of my
   discourse. The remaining two heads shall be treated briefly, although
   they are of great practical value.

   IV. WHEN HEARING TURNS TO SEEING AND IS CONFIRMED BY IT, THEN IT LEADS
   TO WITNESSING.

   The text, you see, is itself a testimony--"As we have heard, so have we
   seen." In these days every man that can witness for the Truth of God
   ought to do so--even if he stammers, he must not be silent. So many are
   decrying the Truth of God that, if in your heart and conscience you
   have proved it true, you are bound to give to the Lord the testimony of
   even a stammerer. I suppose Moses could do no more than that for he was
   a man slow in speech. But when he would have preferred to be quiet the
   Lord said to him, "Who has made man's mouth?" Your mouth is as God made
   it--use it as best you can, and speak up for His name and cause.

   Such testimony as that of our text is sometimes involuntary and is none
   the less precious on that account. When these good people had seen the
   Moabites and Ammonites and Edomites marching round Jerusalem in their
   pride and a few days afterwards had beheld them cold in death, they
   could not help crying, "As we have heard, so have we seen." You could
   not have kept them quiet in the presence of such a marvel. You could
   not have muzzled them into silence. They were so taken aback, so
   astounded at what God had done, that they cried aloud, "As we have
   heard, so have we seen." So when you have tasted and handled of the
   good things of God, I am sure you will have to tell others of your
   glorious discoveries! Your mouth will be filled with laughter and your
   tongue with singing till those who are round about you will be
   compelled to say, "The Lord has done great things for them," and you
   will answer, "Yes, the Lord has done great things for us; whereof we
   are glad."

   Jesus said, "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings have You ordained
   strength," when the children were shouting in the Temple. Young
   converts, if they have newly tasted that the Lord is gracious, must
   sound out their joys. Who would stop them? If these should hold their
   peace, the stones would cry out. But your involuntary witnessing must
   lead up to constant voluntary witnessing for your Lord and His holy
   cause. O you who are on the Lord's side, awake, arise, or be condemned
   as traitors!

   Our testimony should be very frequent. Believers would do a thousand
   times more good if they were not so particularly careful to avoid
   offending men of the world. If Christ Jesus offends people, they ought
   to be offended. For he is sure to be a "stumbling stone and rock of
   offense" to those who stumble at the Word, being disobedient. We have
   heard of a great warrior who was more at home on the field of battle
   than amid the ceremonies of courts. His sword nearly tripped him up
   when walking backwards from the throne and his majesty remarked that
   his sword seemed very much in the way. "Yes," said the brave man, "and
   your majesty's enemies find it so."

   If we give offense by the Gospel to those who take no active part in
   holy warfare, let us not be put out of countenance-- we are soldiers of
   the Cross and we do not regret that our religion does trouble certain
   people, for they ought to be troubled. The man who has never offended
   anybody by his religion has none worth having--rest assured of that.
   There are times and places when it must be seen that we are the friends
   of God and, consequently, cannot be in league with His enemies. Silence
   when the Truth of God is questioned will prove us to be recreant to
   Christ and false to our profession. Let us speak when it may bring upon
   us sneers and slanders. Why, what matters if they sneer? We shall
   survive that. We do not live on the breath of other men's nostrils. We
   ask not leave of mortal man to be true to our convictions. But we will
   often and far more often than we have done, bear witness that, "As we
   have heard, so have we seen."

   This we should be sure to do more earnestly if we were more thoughtful.
   Read the ninth verse--"We have thought of Your loving kindness, O God,
   in the midst of Your temple." As a true man thinks in his heart, he
   will speak with his lips. That which lies in the well of your thought,
   will come up in the bucket of your speech. Think much of what the Lord
   has done for you and then you will bear witness for Him. This needs to
   be done on a far larger scale than at present. Read the rest of the
   Psalm and see how the Psalmist puts it--"According to Your name, O God,
   so is Your praise unto the ends of the earth." Oh, for more of the
   missionary spirit, more telling out to the ends of the earth of what
   the Lord has done! What were the stars if they did not shine? What were
   the sun if it did not make our day? What were the rivers if they did
   not water the lands? What were the sea itself if it did not act as the
   pulsing heart of the world?

   What are Christians, if they do not shine as lights? Piety bottled up
   is dead. Religion put into a tin and hermetically sealed is useless.
   Why not go to Heaven at once if you do no good on earth? No, but would
   they have you among the angels? He that is of no use in the world is
   not fit for Heaven. He who does not glorify God on earth would not
   glorify Him in Heaven. Where shall we put useless people? What shall be
   done with salt that has lost its savor? I know not where it can be put,
   for Jesus says it is not fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill.
   And, if men cast it out, what will God do with it? If even men cannot
   use dead religionists, what will God do with them? If a vine does not
   bear fruit it is good for nothing--you cannot boil a pot with it nor
   even make out of its wood a hook by which to hang the pot over the
   fire.

   Without fruitfulness the vine becomes the most worthless of all trees.
   And without testimony for the Truth of God, the professing Christian is
   of no use whatever. Creation's blot, creation's blank, is the best
   description of a dead professor. Think what you will of yourselves, O
   you savorless Professors--your religion is mere emptiness, a vain
   pretense. O children of God, stand up and bear your witness--

   "Stand up, stand up for Jesus!" in this day of blasphemy and rebuke.

   V. AND LASTLY, HEARING, SEEING, WITNESSING--GOD WILL GIVE YOU A FULLER
   ASSURANCE

   THAN YOU HAVE AS YET. Permit me to read the text again--"As we have
   heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of Hosts, in the city of
   our God: God will establish it forever." That is the conclusion which
   the saint comes to when he has tried the Truth of God for himself and
   borne witness to the result of his trial. God will never leave His
   Church. God will never forfeit His Word. God will never desert His
   Gospel. He is Jehovah of Hosts and changes not and has all power at His
   disposal. He is our Lord, our God in Covenant. He cannot desert the
   work of His own hands, nor leave the people of His love.

   Because His honor is bound up in the whole enterprise that Christ
   undertook, He must go through with it and He must arrive at a glorious
   conclusion. God will establish it forever. Come, my Brethren, let us
   cast aside all doubts about what the future is to be. The battle rages,
   the foe is as furious as he is subtle--while we are weak as water and
   can do nothing by ourselves. But let us not despair. If the Gospel is
   God's Gospel, He will take care of it. If the Church is Christ's
   Church, the gates of Hell cannot prevail against her. The battle is not
   ours but the Lord's--in His name let us set up our banners and cry with
   full confidence of victory, "The Lord of Hosts is with us. The God of
   Jacob is our refuge." Hallelujah, hallelujah. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                 The Rent Veil

   A Sermon

   (No. 2015)

   Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, March 25th, 1888, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At [3]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.
   And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to
   the bottom'Matthew 27:50-51.

   Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the
   blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which be hath consecrated for
   us, through the, veil, that is to say, his flesh'Hebrews 10:19-20.

   THE DEATH of our Lord Jesus Christ was fitly surrounded by miracles;
   yet it is itself so much greater a wonder than all besides, that it as
   far exceeds them as the sun outshines the planets which surround it. It
   seems natural enough that the earth should quake, that tombs should be
   opened, and that the veil of the temple should be rent, when He who
   only hath immortality gives up the ghost. The more you think of the
   death of the Son of God, the more will you be amazed at it. As much as
   a miracle excels a common fact, so doth this wonders of wonders rise
   above all miracles of power. That the divine Lord, even though veiled
   in mortal flesh, should condescend to be subject to the power of death,
   so as to bow His head on the cross, and submit to be laid in the tomb,
   is among mysteries the greatest. The death of Jesus is the marvel of
   time and eternity, which, as Aaron's rod swallowed up all the rest,
   takes up into itself all lesser marvels.

   Yet the rending of the veil of the temple is not a miracle to be
   lightly passed over. It was made of "fine twined linen, with Cherubims
   of cunning work." This gives the idea of a substantial fabric, a piece
   of lasting tapestry, which would have endured the severest strain. No
   human hands could have torn that sacred covering; and it could not have
   been divided in the midst by any accidental cause; yet, strange to say,
   on the instant when the holy person of Jesus was rent by death, the
   great veil which concealed the holiest of all was "rent in twain from
   the top to the bottom." What did it mean? It meant much more than I can
   tell you now.

   It is not fanciful to regard it as a solemn act of mourning on the part
   of the house of the Lord. In the East men express their sorrow by
   rending their garments; and the temple, when it beheld its Master die,
   seemed struck with horror, and rent its veil. Shocked at the sin of
   man, indignant at the murder of its Lord, in its sympathy with Him who
   is the true temple of God, the outward symbol tore its holy vestment
   from the top to the bottom. Did not the miracle also mean that from
   that hour the whole system of types, and shadows, and ceremonies had
   come to an end? The ordinances of an earthly priesthood were rent with
   that veil. In token of the death of the ceremonial law, the soul of it
   quitted its sacred shrine, and left its bodily tabernacle as a dead
   thing. The legal dispensation is over. The rent of the veil seemed to
   say'"Henceforth God dwells no longer in the thick darkness of the Holy
   of Holies, and shines forth no longer from between the cherubim. The
   special enclosure is broken up, and there is no inner sanctuary for the
   earthly high priest to enter: typical atonements and sacrifices are at
   an end."

   According to the explanation given in our second text, the rending of
   the veil chiefly meant that the way into the holiest, which was not
   before made manifest, was now laid open to all believers. Once in the
   year the high priest solemnly lifted a corner of this veil with fear
   and trembling, and with blood and holy incense he passed into the
   immediate presence of Jehovah; but the tearing of the veil laid open
   the secret place. The rent front top to bottom gives ample space for
   all to enter who are called of God's grace, to approach the throne, and
   to commune with the Eternal One. Upon that subject I shall try to speak
   this morning, praying in my inmost soul that you and 1, with all other
   believers, may have boldness actually to enter into that which is
   within the veil at this time of our assembling for worship. Oh, that
   the Spirit of God would lead us into the nearest fellowship which
   mortal men can have with the Infinite Jehovah!

   First, this morning, I shall ask you to consider what has been done.
   The veil has been rent. Secondly, we will remember what we therefore
   have: we have "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood Jesus."
   Then, thirdly, we will consider how we exercise this grace: we "enter
   by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath
   consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh."

   I. First, think of WHAT HAS BEEN DONE. In actual historical fact the
   glorious veil of the temple has been rent in twain from the top to the
   bottom: as a matter of spiritual fact, which is far more important to
   us, the separating legal ordinance is abolished. There was under the
   law this ordinance'that no man should ever go into the holiest of all,
   with the one exception of the high priest, and he but once in the year,
   and not without blood. If any man had attempted to enter there he must
   have died, as guilty of great presumption and of profane intrusion into
   the secret place of the Most High. Who could stand in the presence of
   Him who is a consuming fire? This ordinance of distance runs all
   through the law; for even the holy place, which was the vestibule of
   the Holy of Holies, was for the priests alone. The place of the people
   was one of distance. At the very first institution of the law when God
   descended upon Sinai, the ordinance was, "Thou shalt set bounds unto
   the people round about," There was no invitation to draw near. Not chat
   they desired to do so, for the mountain was together on a smoke, and
   "even Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake." "The Lord said unto
   Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the
   Lord to gaze, and many of them perish." If so much as a beast touch the
   mountain it must be stoned, or thrust through with a dart. The spirit
   of the old law was reverent distance. Moses and here and there a man
   chosen by God, might come near to Jehovah; but as for the bulk of
   people, the command was, "Draw not nigh hither." When the Lord revealed
   His glory at the giving of the law, we read'"When the people saw it,
   they removed, and stood afar off." All this is ended. The precept to
   keep back is abrogated, and the invitation is, "Come unto me, all ye
   that labor and are heavy laden." "Let its draw near" is now the filial
   spirit of the gospel. How thankful I am for this! What a joy it is to
   my soul! Some of God's people have not yet realized this gracious fact,
   for still they worship afar off. Very much of prayer is to be highly
   commended for its reverence; but it has in it a lack of childlike
   confidence. I can admire the solemn and stately language of worship
   which recognizes the greatness of God; but it will not warm my heart
   nor express my soul until it has also blended therewith the joyful
   nearness of that perfect love which casteth out fear, and ventures to
   speak with our Father in heaven as a child speaketh with its father on
   earth. My brother, no veil remains. Why dost thou stand afar off, and
   tremble like a slave? Draw near with full assurance of faith. The veil
   is rent: access is free. Come boldly to the throne of grace. Jesus has
   made thee nigh, as nigh to God as even He Himself is. Though we speak
   of the holiest of all, even the secret place of the Most High, yet it
   is of this place of awe, even of this sanctuary of Jehovah, that the
   veil is rent; therefore, let nothing hinder thine entrance. Assuredly
   no law forbids thee; but infinite love invites thee to draw nigh to
   God.

   This rending of the veil signified, also, the removal of the separating
   sin. Sin is, after all, the great divider between God and man. That
   veil of blue and purple and fine twined linen could not really separate
   man from God: for He is, as to His omnipresence, not far from any one
   of us. Sin is a far more effectual wall of separation: it opens in
   abyss between the sinner and his Judge. Sin shuts out prayer, and
   praise, and every form of religious exercise. Sin makes God walk
   contrary to us, because we walk contrary to Him. Sin, by separating the
   soul from God, causes spiritual death, which is both the effect and the
   penalty of transgression. How can two walk together except they be
   agreed? How can a holy God have fellowship with unholy creatures? Shall
   justice dwell with injustice? Shall perfect purity abide with the
   abominations of evil? No, it cannot be. Our Lord Jesus Christ put away
   sin by the sacrifice of Himself. He taketh away the sin of the world,
   and so the veil is rent. By the shedding of His most precious blood we
   are cleansed from all sin, and that most gracious promise of the new
   covenant is fulfilled'"Their sins and their iniquities will I remember
   no more." When sin is gone, the barrier is broken down, the
   unfathomable gulf is filled. Pardon, which removes sin, and
   justification, which brings righteousness, make up a deed of clearance
   so real and so complete that nothing now divides the sinner from his
   reconciled God. 'The Judge is now the Father: He, who once must
   necessarily have condemned, is found justly absolving and accepting. In
   this double sense the veil is rent: the separating ordinance is
   abrogated, and the separating sin is forgiven.

   Next, be it remembered that the separating sinfulness is also taken
   away through our Lord Jesus. It is not only what we have done, but what
   we are that keeps us apart from God. We have sin engrained in us: even
   those who have grace dwelling them have to complain, "When I would do
   good, evil is present with me." How can we commune with God with our
   eyes blinded, our ears stopped, our hearts hardened, and our senses
   deadened by sin? Our whole nature is tainted, poisoned, perverted by
   evil; how can we know the Lord? Beloved, through the death of our Lord
   Jesus the covenant of grace is established with us, and its gracious
   provisions are on this wise: "This is the covenant that I will make
   with them after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into
   their mind, and write them in their hearts." When this is the case,
   when the will of God is inscribed on the heart, and the nature is
   entirely changed, then is the dividing veil which hides us from God
   taken away: "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God."
   Blessed are all they that love righteousness and follow after it, for
   they are in a way in which the Righteous One can walk in fellowship
   with them. Spirits that are like God are not divided from God.
   Difference of nature hangs up a veil; but the new birth, and the
   sanctification which follows upon it, through the precious death of
   Jesus, remove that veil. He that hates sin, strives after holiness, and
   labors to perfect it in the fear of God, is in fellowship with God. It
   is a blessed thing when we love what God loves, when we seek what God
   seeks, when we are in sympathy with divine aims, and are obedient to
   divine commands: for with such persons will the Lord dwell. When grace
   makes us partakers of the divine nature; then are we at one with the
   Lord, and the veil is taken away.

   "Yes," saith one, "I see now how the veil is taken away in three
   different fashions; but still God is God, and we are but poor puny men:
   between God and man there must of necessity be a separating veil,
   caused by the great disparity between the Creator and the creature. How
   can the finite and the infinite commune? God is all in all, and more
   than all; we are nothing, and less than nothing; how can we meet?" When
   the Lord does come near to I His favored ones, they own how incapable
   they are of enduring the excessive glory. Even the beloved John said,
   "When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead." When we have been
   especially conscious of the presence and working of our Lord, we have
   felt our flesh creep, and our blood chill; and then we have understood
   what Jacob meant when he said, "How dreadful is this place! this is
   none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." All
   this is true; for the Lord saith, "Thou canst not see my face and
   live." Although this is a much thinner veil than those I have already
   mentioned, yet it is a veil; and it is hard for man to be at home with
   God. But the Lord Jesus bridges the separating distance. Behold the
   blessed Son of God has come into the world, and taken upon Himself our
   nature! "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of the flesh and
   blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same." Though He is
   God as God is God, yet is He as surely man as man is man. Mark well how
   in the, person of the Lord Jesus we see God and man in the closest
   conceivable alliance; for they are united in one person forever. The
   gulf is completely filled by the fact that Jesus has gone through with
   us even to the bitter end, to death, even to the death of the cross. He
   has followed out the career of manhood even to the tomb; and thus we
   see that the veil, which hung between the nature of God and the nature
   of man, is rent in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. We enter into
   the holiest of all through His flesh, which links manhood to Godhead.

   Now, you see what it is to have the veil taken away. Solemnly note that
   this avails only for believers: those who refuse Jesus refuse the only
   way of access to God. God is not approachable, except through the
   rending of the veil by the death of Jesus. There was one typical way to
   the mercy-seat of old, and that was through the turning aside of the
   veil; there was no other. And there is now no other way for any of you
   to come into fellowship with God, except through the rent veil, even
   the death of Jesus Christ, whom God has set forth to be the
   propitiation for sin. Come this way, and you may come freely. Refuse to
   come this way, and there hangs between you and God an impassable veil.
   Without Christ you are without God, and without hope. Jesus Himself
   assures you, "If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your
   sins." God grant that this may not happen to any of you!

   For believers the veil is not rolled up, but rent. The veil was not
   unhooked, and carefully folded up, and put away, so that it might be
   put in its place at some future time. Oh, no! But the divine hand took
   it and rent it front top to bottom. It can never be hung up again; that
   is impossible. Between those who are in Christ Jesus and the great God,
   there will never be another separation. "Who shall separate us from the
   love of God?" Only one veil was made, and as that is rent, the one and
   only separator is destroyed. I delight to think of this. The devil
   himself can never divide me from God now. He may and will attempt to
   shut me out from God; but the worst he could do would be to hang up a
   rent veil. What would that avail but to exhibit his impotence? God has
   rent the veil, and the devil cannot mend it. There is access between a
   believer and his God; and there must be such free access forever, since
   the veil is not rolled up, and put on one side to be hung up again in
   days to come; but it is rent, and rendered useless.

   The rent is not in one corner, but in the midst, as Luke tells us. It
   is not a slight rent through which we may see a little; but it is rent
   from the top to the bottom. There is an entrance made for the greatest
   sinners. If there had only been a small hole cut through it, the lesser
   offenders might have crept through; but what an act of abounding mercy
   is this, that the veil is rent in the midst, and rent from top to
   bottom, so that the chief of sinners may find ample passage! This also
   shows that for believers there is no hindrance to the fullest and
   freest access to God. Oh, for much boldness, this morning, to come
   where God has not only set open the door, but has lifted the door from
   its hinges; yea, removed it, post, and bar, and all!

   I want you to notice that this veil, when it was rent, was rent by God,
   not by man. It was not the act of an irreverent mob; it was not the
   midnight outrage of a set of profane priests: it was the act of God
   alone. Nobody stood within the veil; and on the outer side of it stood
   the priests only fulfilling their ordinary vocation of offering
   sacrifice. It must have astounded them when they saw that holy place
   laid bare in a moment. How they fled, as they saw that massive veil
   divided without human hand in a second of time! Who rent it? Who but
   God Himself? If another had done it, there might have been a mistake
   about it, and the mistake might need to be remedied by replacing the
   curtain; but if the Lord has done it, it is done rightly, it is done
   finally, it is done irreversibly. It is God Himself who has laid sin on
   Christ, and in Christ has put that sin away. God Himself has opened the
   gate of heaven to believers, and cast up a highway along which the
   souls of men may travel to Himself. God Himself has set the ladder
   between earth and heaven. Come to Him now, ye humble ones. Behold, He
   sets before you an open door!

   II. And now I ask you to follow me, dear friends, in the second place,
   to an experimental realization of my subject. We now notice WHAT WE
   HAVE: "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest,"
   Observe the threefold "having" in the paragraph now before us, and be
   not content without the whole three. We have "boldness to enter in."
   There are degrees in boldness; but this is one of the highest. When the
   veil was rent it required some boldness to look within. I wonder
   whether the priests at the altar did have the courage to gaze upon the
   mercy-seat. I suspect that they were so struck with amazement that they
   fled from the altar, fearing sudden death. It requires a measure of
   boldness steadily to look upon the mystery of God: "Which things the
   angels desire to look into." It is well not to look with a merely
   curious eye into the deep things of God. I question whether any man is
   able to pry into the mystery of the Trinity without great risk. Some,
   thinking to look there with the eyes of their natural intellect, have
   been blinded by the light of that sun, and have henceforth wandered in
   darkness. It needs boldness to look into the splendors of redeeming and
   electing love. If any did look into the holiest when the veil was rent,
   they were among the boldest of men; for others must have feared lest
   the fate of the men of Bethshemesh would be theirs. Beloved, the Holy
   Spirit invites you to took into the holy place, and view it all with
   reverent eye for it is full of teaching to you. Understand the mystery
   of the mercy-seat, and of the ark of the covenant overlaid with gold,
   and of the pot of manna, and of the tables of stone, and of Aaron's rod
   that budded. Look, look boldly through Jesus Christ: but do not content
   yourself with looking! Hear what the text says: "Having boldness to
   enter in." Blessed be God if He has taught us this sweet way of no
   longer looking from afar, but of entering into the inmost shrine with
   confidence! "Boldness to enter in" is what we ought to have.

   Let us follow the example of the high priest, and, having entered, let
   us perform the functions of one who enters in. "Boldness to enter in"
   suggests that we act as men who are in their proper places. To stand
   within the veil filled the servant of God with an overpowering sense of
   the divine presence. If ever in his life he was near to God, he was
   certainly near to God then, when quite alone, shut in, and excluded
   from all the world, he had no one with him, except the glorious
   Jehovah. O my beloved, may we this morning enter into the holiest in
   this sense! Shut out front the world, both wicked and Christian, let us
   know that the Lord is here, most near and manifest. Oh that we may now
   cry out with Hagar, "Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?"
   Oh, how sweet to realize by personal enjoyment the presence of Jehovah!
   How cheering to feel that the Lord of hosts is with us! We know our God
   to be a very present help in trouble. It is one of the greatest joys
   out of heaven to be able to sing'Jehovah Shammah'the Lord is here. At
   first we tremble in the divine presence; but as we feel more of the
   spirit of adoption we draw near with sacred delight, and feel so fully
   at home with our God that we sing with Moses, "Lord, thou hast been our
   dwelling place in all generations." Do not live as if God were as far
   off from you as the east is from the west. Live not far below on the
   earth; but live on high, as if you were in heaven. In heaven You Will
   be with God; but on earth He will be with you: is there much
   difference? He hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in
   heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Jesus hath made us nigh by His
   precious blood. Try day by day to live in as great nearness to God, as
   the high priest felt when he stood for awhile within the secret of
   Jehovah's tabernacle.

   The high priest had a sense of communion with God; he was not only
   near, but he spoke with God. I cannot tell what he said, but I should
   think that on the special day the high priest unburdened himself of the
   load of Israel's sin and sorrow, and made known his requests unto the
   Lord. Aaron, standing there alone, must have been filled with memories
   of his own faultiness, and of the idolatries and backslidings of the
   people. God shone upon him, and he bowed before God. He may have heard
   things which it was not lawful for him to utter, and other things which
   he could not have uttered if they had been lawful. Beloved, do you know
   what it is to commune with God? Words are poor vehicles for this
   fellowship; but what a blessed thing it is! Proofs of the existence of
   God are altogether her superfluous to those of us who are in the habit
   of conversing with the Eternal One. If anybody were to write an essay
   to prove the existence of my wife, or my son, I certainly should not
   read it, except for the amusement of the thing; and proofs of the
   existence of God to the man who communes with God are much the same.
   Many of you walk with God: what bliss! Fellowship with the Most High is
   elevating, purifying, strengthening. Enter into it boldly. Enter into
   His revealed thoughts, even as He graciously enters into yours: rise to
   His plans, as He condescends to yours; ask to be uplifted to Him, even
   as He deigns to dwell with you.

   This is what the rent of the veil brings us when we have boldness to
   enter in; but, mark you, the rent veil brings us nothing until we have
   boldness to enter in. Why stand we without? Jesus brings us near, and
   truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
   Let us not be slow to take up our freedom, and come boldly to the
   throne. The high priest entered within the veil of blue, and purple,
   and scarlet, and fine twined linen, with blood, and with incense, that
   he might pray for Israel; and there he stood before the Most High,
   pleading with Him to bless the people. O beloved, prayer is ai divine
   institution, and it belongs to us. But there are many sorts of prayers.
   There is the prayer of one who seems shut out from God's holy temple;
   there is the prayer of another who stands in the court of the Gentiles
   afar off, looking towards the temple; there is the prayer of one who
   gets where Israel stands and pleads with the God of the chosen; there
   is the prayer in the court of the priests, when the sanctified man of
   God makes intercession; but the best prayer of all is offered in the
   holiest of all. There is no fear about prayer being heard when it is
   offered in the holiest. The very position of the man proves that he is
   accepted with God. He is standing on the surest ground of acceptance,
   and he is so near to God that his every desire is heard. There the man
   is seen through and through; for he is very near to God. His thoughts
   are read, his tears are seen, his sighs are heard; for he has boldness
   to enter in. He may ask what he will, and it shall be done unto him. As
   the altar sanctifieth the gift, so the most holy place, entered by the
   blood of Jesus, secures a certain answer to the prayer that is offered
   therein. God give us such power in prayer! It is a wonderful thing that
   the Lord should hearken to the voice of a man; yet are there such men.
   Luther came out of his closet, and cried, Vici"I have conquered." He
   had not yet met his adversaries; but as he had prevailed with God for
   men, he felt that he should prevail with men for God.

   But the high priest, if you recollect, after he had communed and prayed
   with God, came out and blessed the people. He put on his garments of
   glory and beauty, which he had laid aside when be went into the holy
   place, for there he stood in simple white, and nothing else; and now he
   came out wearing the breast-plate and all his precious ornaments, and
   he blessed the people. That is what you will do if you have the
   boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus: you will
   bless the people that surround you. The Lord has blessed you, and He
   will make you a blessing. Your ordinary conduct and conversation will
   be a blessed example; the words you speak for Jesus will be like a dew
   from the Lord: the sick will be comforted by your words; the despondent
   will he encouraged by your faith; the lukewarm will be recovered by
   your love. You will be, practically, saying to each one who knows you,
   "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord make his face shine upon
   thee, and give thee peace." You will become a channel of blessing: "Out
   of your belly shall flow rivers of living water." May we each one have
   boldness to enter in, that we may come forth laden with benedictions!

   If you will kindly look at the text, you will notice, what I shall
   merely hint at, that this boldness is well grounded. I always like to
   see the apostle using a "therefore": "Having therefore boldness." Paul
   is often a true poet, but he is always a correct logician; he is as
   logical as if he were dealing with mathematics rather than theology.
   Here he writes one of his therefores.

   Why is it that we have boldness? Is it not because of our relationship
   to Christ which makes us "brethren?" "Having therefore, brethren,
   boldness." The feeblest believer has as much right to enter into the
   holy places as Paul had; because he is one of the brotherhood. I
   remember a rhyme by John Ryland, in which he says of heaven'

   "They shall all be there, the great and the small;

   Poor I shall shake hands with the blessed St. Paul."

   I have no doubt we shall have such a position, and such fellowship.
   Meanwhile, we do shake hands with I Him this morning as he calls us
   brethren. We are brethren to one another, because we are brethren to
   Jesus. Where we see the apostle go, we will go; yea, rather, where we
   see the Great Apostle and High Priest of our profession enter, we will
   follow. "Having therefore, boldness."

   Beloved, we have now no fear of death in the most holy place. The high
   priest, whoever he might be, must always have dreaded that solemn day
   of atonement, when he had to pass into the silent and secluded place. I
   cannot tell whether it is true, but I have read that there is at
   tradition among the Jews, that a rope was fastened to the high priest's
   foot that they might draw out his corpse in case he died before the
   Lord. I should not wonder if their superstition devised such a thing,
   for it is an awful position for a man to enter into the secret dwelling
   of Jehovah. But we cannot die in the holy place now, since Jesus has
   died for us. The death of Jesus is the guarantee of the eternal life of
   all for whom He died. We have boldness to enter, for we shall not
   perish.

   Our boldness arises from the perfection of His sacrifice. Read the
   fourteenth verse: "He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified."
   We rely upon the sacrifice of Christ, believing that He was such a
   perfect Substitute for us, that it is not possible for us to die after
   our Substitute has died; and we must be accepted, because He is
   accepted. We believe that the precious blood has so effectually and
   eternally put away sin from us, that we are no longer obnoxious to the
   wrath of God. We may safely stand where sin must be smitten, if there
   be any sin upon us; for we are so washed, so cleaned, and so fully
   justified that we are accepted in the Beloved. Sin is so completely
   lifted from us by the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, that we have
   boldness to enter where Jehovah Himself dwells.

   Moreover, we have his for certain, that as a priest had a right to
   dwell near to God, we have that privilege; for Jesus hath made us kings
   and priests unto God, and all the privileges of the office come to us
   with the office itself We have a mission within the holy place; we are
   called to enter there upon holy business, and so we have no fear of
   being intruders. A burglar may enter a house, but he does not enter
   with boldness; he is always afraid lest he should be surprised. You
   might enter a stranger's house, without an invitation, but You Would
   feel no boldness there. We do not enter the holiest as housebreakers,
   nor as strangers; we come in obedience to a call, to fulfill our
   office. When once we accept the sacrifice of Christ, we are at home
   with God. Where should a child be bold but in his father's house? Where
   should a priest stand but in the temple of his God, for whose service
   he is set apart? Where should a blood-washed sinner live but with his
   God, to whom he is reconciled?

   It is a heavenly joy to feel this boldness! We have now such a love for
   God, and such a delight in Him, that it never crosses our minds that we
   are trespassers when we draw near to Him. We never say, "God, my
   dread," but "God, my exceeding joy." His name is the music to which our
   lives are set: though God be a consuming fire we love Him as such, for
   He will only consume our dross, and that we desire to lose. Under no
   aspect is God now distasteful to its. We delight in Him, be He what He
   may. So you see, beloved, we have good grounds for boldness when we
   enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.

   I cannot leave this point until I have reminded you that we may have
   this boldness of entering in at all times, because the veil is always
   rent, and is never restored to its old place. "The Lord said until
   Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into
   the holy Place within the veil before the mercy-seat, which is upon the
   ark; that he die not"; but the Lord saith not so to us. Dear child of
   God, you may at all times have "boldness to enter in." The veil is rent
   both day and night. Yea, let me say it, even when thine eye of faith is
   dim, still enter in; when evidences are dark, still have "boldness to
   enter in"; and even if thou hast unhappily sinned, remember that access
   is open to thy penitent prayer. Come still through the rent veil,
   sinner as thou art. What though thou hast backslidden, what though thou
   art grieved with the sense of thy wanderings, come even now! "Today, if
   ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart," but enter at once; for
   the veil is not there to exclude thee, though doubt and unbelief may
   make you think it is so. The veil cannot be there, for it was rent in
   twain from the top to the bottom.

   III. My time has fled, and I shall not have space to speak as I meant
   to do upon the last point'HOW WE EXERCISE THIS GRACE. Let me give you
   the notes of what I would have said.

   Let us at this hour enter into the holiest. Behold the way! We come by
   the way of atonement: "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter
   into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." I have been made to feel
   really ill through the fierce and blasphemous words that have been used
   of late by gentlemen of the modern school concerning the precious
   blood. I will not defile my lips by a repetition of the thrice-accursed
   things which they have dared to utter while trampling on the blood of
   Jesus. Everywhere throughout this divine Book you meet with the
   precious blood. How can he call himself a Christian who speaks in
   flippant and profane language of the blood of atonement? My brothers,
   there is no way into the holiest, even though the veil be rent, without
   blood. You might suppose that the high priest of old brought the blood
   because the veil was there; but you have to bring it with you though
   the veil is gone. The way is open, and you have boldness to enter; but
   not without the blood of Jesus. It would be an unholy boldness which
   would think of drawing near to God without the blood of the great
   Sacrifice. We have always to plead the atonement. As without shedding
   of blood there is no remission of sin, so without that blood there is
   no access to God.

   Next, the way by which we come is an unfailing way. Please notice that
   word'"by a new way"; this means by a way which is always fresh. The
   original Greek suggests the idea of "newly slain." Jesus died long ago,
   but His death is the same now as at the moment of its occurrence. We
   come to God, dear friends, by a way which is always effectual with God.
   It never, never loses one whit of its power freshness.

   Dear dying lamb, thy precious blood

   Shall never lose its power.

   The way is not worn away by long traffic: it is always new. If Jesus
   Christ had died yesterday, would you not feel that you could plead His
   merit today? Very well, you can plead that merit after these 19'
   centuries with as much confidence as at the first hour. The way to God
   is always newly laid. In effect, the wounds of Jesus incessantly bleed
   our expiation. The cross is as glorious as though He were still upon
   it. So far as the freshness, vigor, and force of the atoning death is
   concerned, we come by a new way. Let it be always new to our hearts.
   Let the doctrine of atonement never grow stale, but let it have dew
   upon your souls.

   Then the apostle adds, it is a "living way." A wonderful word! The way
   by which the high priest went into the holy place was of course a
   material way, and so a dead way. We come by a spiritual way, suitable
   to our spirits. The way could not help the high priest, but our way
   helps us abundantly. Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the
   life." When we come to God by this way, the way itself leads, guides,
   bears, brings us near. This way gives its life with which to come.

   It is a dedicated way. "which he hath consecrated for us." When a new
   road is opened, it is set apart and dedicated for the public use.
   Sometimes a public building is opened by a king or a prince, and so is
   dedicated to its purpose. Beloved, the way to God through Jesus Christ
   is dedicated by Christ, and ordained by Christ for the use of poor
   believing sinners, such as we are. He has consecrated the way towards
   God, and dedicated it for us, that we may freely use it. Surely, if
   there is a road set apart for me, I may use it without fear; and the
   way to God and heaven through Jesus Christ is dedicated by the Saviour
   for sinners; it is the King's highway for wayfaring men, who are bound
   for the City of God; therefore, let us use it. "Consecrated for us!"
   Blessed word!

   Lastly, it is a Christly way; for when we come to God, we still come
   through His flesh. There is no coming to Jehovah, except by the
   incarnate God. God in human flesh is our way to God; the
   substitutionary death of the Word made flesh is also the way to the
   Father. There is no coming to God, except by representation. Jesus
   represents us before God, and we come to God through Him who is our
   covenant head, our representative and forerunner before the throne of
   the Most High. Let us never try to pray without Christ; never try to
   sing without Christ; never try to preach without Christ. Let us perform
   no holy function, nor attempt to have fellowship with God in any shape
   or way, except through that rent which He has made in the veil by His
   flesh, sanctified for us, and offered upon the cross on our behalf.

   Beloved, I have done when I have just remarked upon the next two
   verses, which are necessary to complete the sense, but which I was
   obliged to omit this morning, since there would be no time to handle
   them. We are called to take holy freedoms with God. "Let us draw near,"
   at once, "with a true heart in full assurance of faith." Let us do so
   boldly, for we have a great high priest. The twenty-first verse reminds
   us of this. Jesus is the great Priest, and we are the sub-priests under
   Him, and since He bids us come near to God, and Himself leads the way,
   let follow Him into the inner sanctuary. Because He lives, we shall
   live also. We shall nor die in the holy place, unless He dies. God will
   not smite us unless He smites Him. So, "having a high priest over the
   house of God, let its draw near with a true heart in full assurance of
   faith."

   And then the apostle tells its that we may not only come with boldness,
   because our high priest leads the way, but because we ourselves are
   prepared for entrance. Two things the high priest had to do before he
   might enter: one was, to be sprinkled with blood, and this we have; for
   "our hearts are sprinkled from an evil conscience."

   The other requisite for the priests was to have their "bodies washed
   with pure water." This we have received in symbol in our baptism, and
   in reality in the spiritual cleansing of regeneration. To us has been
   fulfilled the prayer'

   "Let the water and the blood,

   From thy riven side which flowed,

   Be of sin the double cure,

   Cleanse me from its guilt and power.

   We have known the washing of water by the Word, and we have been
   sanctified by the Spirit of His grace; therefore let us enter into the
   holiest. Why should we stay away? Hearts sprinkled with blood, bodies
   washed with pure water'these are the ordained preparations for
   acceptable entrance. Come near, beloved! May the Holy Spirit be the
   spirit of access to you now. Come to your God, and then abide with Him!
   He is your Father, your all in all. Sit down and rejoice in Him; take
   your fill of love; and let not your communion be broken between here
   and heaven. Why should it be? Why not begin today that sweet enjoyment
   of perfect reconciliation and delight in God which shall go on
   increasing in intensity until you behold the Lord in open vision, and
   go no more out? Heaven will bring a great change in condition, but not
   in our standing, if even now we stand within the veil. It will be only
   such a change as there is between the perfect day and the daybreak; for
   we have the same sun, and the same light from the sun, and the same
   privilege of walking in the light. "Until the day break, and the
   shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young
   hart upon the mountains of Division." Amen, and Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'HEBREWS 10.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"'318, 296, 395.
     __________________________________________________________________

Jesus Affirmed To Be Alive

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, APRIL 1, 1888,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Against whom when the accusers stood up, they brought none accusation
   of such things as I supposed: but had certain questions against him of
   their own superstition and of one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul
   affirmed to be alive." Acts 25:18,19.

   FESTUS is giving to King Agrippa a brief account of the matter between
   Paul and the Jews. It may not be a very accurate account. For Festus
   did not profess to understand the business. He was a Roman governor
   newly come to Judea. He had no acquaintance whatever with Jewish
   Scriptures nor with Jewish laws. He is, therefore, merely giving to
   King Agrippa a rough and ready outline of the affair as it struck him.
   He had never thought it worth his special attention but he was a little
   puzzled how he should represent the matter to Caesar, to whom Paul had
   appealed.

   Festus is represented by our translators as calling the Jewish religion
   a "superstition." I hardly think he would have used so harsh a term
   before Agrippa who professed to be of the Jewish faith. But yet, as he
   probably knew that Agrippa's religion did not lie very deep and was the
   mere appendage of a man of fashion, Festus was not very particular
   about the word which he used. And he lighted upon one which may mean
   "superstition" as the Authorized Version has it, or "religion" as the
   Revised Version has it.

   "Well, well," he seems to say to Agrippa, "I do not know much about it.
   I supposed, when the Jews brought this man before me, that he would be
   charged with a breach of the Roman Law and I was prepared, of course,
   to deal with the prisoner. But when I listened to their accusation and
   found that there was nothing in it but some disputes about their
   religion, I hardly knew what to say. Their controversy is important to
   them, I dare say. But it can be of no consequence either to you or to
   me, for it turned very much upon a person of the name of Jesus, which
   was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive."

   I want you to notice that, rough and ready as this description is, and
   neither full nor deep, yet on the surface we see that in the
   controversy we have the same condition of things as we usually see in
   such conflicts. On the one side Paul's opponents fought with the
   weapons of "certain questions," and on the other hand he defended
   himself with a bold affirmation. This is the old story of speculation
   against dogmatism. It is always the way--the adversaries of the Cross
   of Christ assert nothing but they question everything. They will not
   lay down a basis nor define their opinions. If they would do this, we
   might soon demolish their fabrics of falsehood. But all that they
   propound is "certain questions."

   On the other hand, those who are witnesses for the Lord Jesus have
   little care about questions, speculations and the boasted outcome of
   cultured thought. They affirm certain definite facts--they affirm these
   to be a Revelation from God and there they stand. Brethren, it is, at
   least, a hopeful token when we are on the side of the affirmation. As
   to that side which is abundant only in questions, what can be the
   practical value of its contentions? Can ten thousand questions ease a
   guilty conscience? Can a myriad of speculations yield comfort for the
   dying hour? Are we helped forward in true holiness or even converted to
   the way of life by questions?

   Let us take hold upon the Truths of God which are surely revealed, the
   things which we have tasted and handled and verified. And, holding
   these intelligently and heartily, let us resolve to hold them to the
   end. Let us accept that which has come to us by Revelation of the Holy
   Spirit and let us stand firmly there, as Paul did when he affirmed that
   Jesus was alive. Let us plainly declare definite Truths of God of which
   we are not ashamed--Truths which are often disputed but can never be
   disproved.

   Another thing is very noticeable in this somewhat flippant account of
   the whole affair by Festus--namely that he noticed that the Jews raised
   certain questions about opinions, superstitious or religious. But Paul
   made a statement concerning a Person. Paul was seen with half an eye to
   be the more conscientious and the more religious of the two. But still
   his religion resolved itself into attachment to a Person--"one Jesus,
   which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive." Brethren, the hinge

   of the controversy must ever turn upon our Lord, His Divine nature, the
   authority of His teaching and especially the meaning of His death and
   resurrection.

   Did He die as a sacrifice for sin according to Old Testament prophecy?
   Did He justify many by bearing their iniquities? Did He, or did He not?
   The side which Paul takes is that which magnifies Jesus. He finds his
   chief treasure in the Person of the Savior. May the Spirit of God lead
   us more and more to contend for Jesus who is not only the Author and
   Finisher of our faith but the sum and substance of it! Son of God and
   yet Son of Man. Eternal, yet born into this world. Our Sacrifice and
   yet our Prophet, Priest and King. Bearer of our sorrow and fountain of
   our joy. Sacrifice for our transgression and yet source of our
   righteousness. Jesus Christ is our All in All!

   God forbid that we should glory, save in His Cross, for we preach
   Christ crucified. God forbid that we should ever despair of His
   triumph, for we affirm that He is alive, able to save unto the
   uttermost those that come unto God by Him. Oh, for a deeper love to our
   Lord, Himself, loving doctrine, precept and ordinance for His dear
   sake--rejoicing most of all that He lives--since because He lives we
   shall live, also. May even the blindest observer of our lives be forced
   to see that Jesus holds the most prominent place in them and that the
   battle of our existence is for Jesus, our living Lord!

   We will give more consideration this morning to the words of Festus
   than he gave to them himself. May the Spirit of God give us a blessing
   while we review this superficial utterance of an utterly worldly man!
   Seen in its true light, it may be instructive to us.

   First, let us observe that true Gospel preaching is full of Jesus. Paul
   spoke so much of Him that an irreligious heathen magistrate perceived
   that he spoke of "one Jesus." Secondly, note that Gospel preaching
   makes much of the resurrection. For this is implied in what Festus says
   of Paul's affirmation. And, thirdly, Gospel preaching affirms that
   Jesus who died is alive. The great contention was concerning "one
   Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive."

   I. To begin with--TRUE GOSPEL PREACHING IS FULL OF JESUS. Jesus is the
   most notable figure in Christian testimony. The Apostle Paul, whom we
   may regard as a model in preaching, exercised a ministry which was
   always full of our Lord Jesus Christ.

   Following the historical connection of the verse before us, we note
   that he preached "Jesus to multitudes unknown." Fes-tus evidently knew
   not Jesus, for he speaks of Him as "one Jesus." He mentions the name as
   belonging to some obscure individual of whom he knew nothing and cared
   less. The great ones of the earth know nothing of the King of kings.
   Beloved, to this day this is the wonder of wonders, that the incarnate
   God is not known. The world which He made knows Him not. He came at
   first to His own nation, who had been studying the prophecies
   concerning Him. Even to the jots and tittles had they studied those
   prophecies and yet, when He came, who was the clear fulfillment of them
   all, they knew Him not. For had they known Him, they would not have
   crucified the Lord of Glory.

   When He was born into the world, there was no room for Him in the inn,
   where there is room for everybody. No palace gave welcome to the more
   than royal child. He was of the house and lineage of David but they did
   not perceive in Him the answer to their question, "Where is He that is
   born King of the Jews?" His birth is the starting point of the age. And
   yet it was almost unanimously ignored by those who wielded the
   recording pen of history. His was the most extraordinary life that ever
   passed before mortal eyes. And yet how little notice was taken of it!
   Beyond Palestine it seems not even to have awakened curiosity. He died
   and then to the people most concerned in Him He became "one Jesus,
   which was dead."

   The new Roman procurator and myriads like he, well informed upon other
   matters, hardly knew His name, and only mentioned half of it when they
   spoke of "one Jesus, which was dead." Brethren, this is why we must
   keep on preaching Jesus Christ--because He is still so little known.
   The masses of this city are as ignorant of Jesus as Festus was. You can
   never have a congregation in any of our places of worship and feel sure
   that they all know Jesus. If you gather in the outsiders from the
   street you may be sure that the story of Jesus will be news to them. We
   call this a Christian country. But it would be very difficult to prove
   that it is so. If we took certain lines of observation as to the moral
   and religious conduct of our fellow men, we should logically arrive at
   the conclusion that we live in a heathen, rather than in a Christian,
   city.

   Still the world knows Him not. As a sun He shines on all eyes and yet
   men do not see Him. As an atmosphere He surrounds all life and yet men
   do not perceive Him. Let this sad fact constrain us to fill our
   teaching with Christ. As Gideon's fleece dripped with dew, so let us
   saturate our ministry with Christ. Be it ours truthfully to say, "We
   preach Christ crucified." We do this always and evermore. Not by
   accident but by continual design. Paul preached Jesus, who was despised
   by many. The language of Festus is not only that of ignorance but in a
   measure that of contempt. He speaks of "one Jesus, which was dead."
   Jesus is evidently nothing to Festus and Festus does not imagine that
   Jesus is very much to King Agrippa. Probably he was quite right--Jesus
   was nobody among the rank and fashion and culture of the period.

   Behold the unlearned of the day, if you speak to them of the great
   Sacrifice and the wondrous atonement made by blood, they scarcely
   hearken to you, for such high things are not for them--they are so
   hardly pressed with daily labor and slender pay that they cannot think
   of sin and sacrifice and salvation. But they ask, "What has the poor
   working man to do with religion?" Alas, that this folly should be so
   prevalent! Then you turn to the learned and hope that here, at any
   rate, due attention will be given to the great marvel of reconciling
   love. Alas, it is not so. To these more educated ones the doctrine of
   the Cross is foolishness. They ask for something new. Something more
   philosophical. Substitution and sacrifice?--they will have none of
   them.

   The story of the league ofjustice with Divine Grace--the reconcilement
   of holiness with mercy--is beneath their notice. They are too cultured
   to believe the common faith, too wise to accept that which God has
   revealed unto babes. Beloved Brethren, it should never cause us doubt
   when we see many despising our Lord, for this is nothing new, and
   nothing unexpected. Did He tell us that if we preached in His name all
   men would receive us? No, He warned us that the contrary result would
   follow.

   Did not His Apostles assure us that the offense of the Cross had not
   ceased? Is not Christ crucified a stumbling block and foolishness to
   carnal men? If all men had received our message with a ready gratitude,
   we might have questioned the Truth of Scripture. But inasmuch as they
   fight against it, we may see in this an argument for its truth since we
   were told of old that "the natural man receives not the things of the
   Spirit of God--for they are foolishness unto him."

   Gospel preaching is also full of Jesus Christ in this respect--we do
   not conceal His death. Festus notes that the conflict was concerning
   "one Jesus, which was dead." The Jews said He was dead and Paul also
   confessed that He was dead--there was no disagreement between them over
   that matter. Hear, then, the debate. "What? Did your Leader die?"
   "Yes--He was crucified." "Did you not say He was Divine?" "Yes." "Yet
   is He dead?" "It is even so." "Yet you spoke of His leading you on to
   victory?" "So we did." "Yet He is dead?" "Yes, He died at Calvary."
   "How, then, can your boasting stand?" "We believe that by His death He
   has gained the victory and accomplished His great purpose."

   "But how did He die?" He died the death of a felon upon a gibbet. His
   enemies nailed Him to a Cross and put Him to a death which was reserved
   for slaves. We confess this. Yes, we glory in it! We tell you, too,
   that He not only died that which was a penal death externally but He
   actually and truly died such a death. "He was made a curse for us: for
   it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree." Isaiah said of
   Him, "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all," and again, "He
   was numbered with the transgressors and He bare the sin of many." His
   death was the equivalent to that penal death which was our just desert.

   Hear how He cries--"Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? Behold,
   and see if there is any sorrow like unto My sorrow, which is done unto
   Me, wherewith the Lord has afflicted Me in the day of His fierce
   anger." We glory that our Lord Jesus was put to death as bearing the
   sin of many. This we hold and teach. Not defending it, nor apologizing
   for it. But affirming it with all boldness, with the desire that we may
   be understood. If any object to this teaching, we do not therefore
   conceal it. We expected that it would be objectionable. We desire more
   and more to obtrude this Truth of Substitution whenever we preach and
   to make it the head and front of our Gospel.

   As the brazen serpent was lifted up upon the pole and was by no means
   concealed, even so would we set forth plainly the sufferings and death
   of our Lord Jesus, that sinners may look to Him and live. This is the
   hope of men--the sacrifice of Jesus proclaimed with great plainness of
   speech. Jesus is to be believed in as the sin-bearing Lamb of God.
   Believed in as dying the death of the Cross, that we might live through
   Him. That only is Gospel preaching which has this for its subject and
   spirit. A Christless Gospel is a useless Gospel. Our sermons should be
   so perfumed with Jesus that never should a congregation gather and
   separate without perceiving a savor of Christ.

   Even people who are not saved by it should yet be made to know that we
   preach Christ crucified. In such a case, we have done our work
   successfully, even if souls are not saved. For we are unto God a sweet
   savor of Christ as well in them that perish as in them that are saved,
   if we have exalted the Lord Jesus and borne witness to His power to
   save.

   Beloved, I would have you further note that true Gospel preaching will
   be full of Jesus as He is revealed in the Old Testament. Our Apostle,
   when he spoke before King Agrippa, went on to declare that he had said
   "none other things than those which the Prophets and Moses did say
   should come: that Christ should suffer and that He should be the first
   that should rise from the dead and should show light unto the people
   and to the Gentiles." Evidently it was this astounding statement about
   Jesus having risen from the dead and being yet alive that was uppermost
   in the mind of Festus, so that when Paul re-asserted it, he cried with
   a loud voice, "Paul, you are beside yourself; much learning does make
   you mad."

   The learning he referred to was his study of the ancient books of the
   Jews, the writings of Moses and the Prophets. Paul's teaching paid as
   much deference to the ancient Scriptures as did that of the Jewish
   rabbis who were opposed to him--no, in very truth--Paul paid a far more
   real homage to the Bible than they did. As for us, the Old Testament is
   prized by us as much as the New. We do not preach Jesus as a fresh
   arrival, the inventor of a new religion, the founder of a novel way of
   salvation. No. We preach the Messiah of the Old Testament, whose Gospel
   is set forth in the types and in the teachings of Moses and the
   Prophets--"Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today, and forever."

   Do not imagine that the religion of Abraham was one thing and ours
   another--ours is but the continuation of that Gospel which was revealed
   to all the faithful from the days of righteous Abel until now. All who
   have spoken in the name of God have borne witness to the same Truth. If
   you would see a suffering Savior I need not refer you to the Gospels
   but in the twenty-second Psalm behold the full-length portrait of
   Messiah in His agony. Hear him cry, "My God, My God, why have You
   forsaken Me?" Mark how they part His garments among them and cast lots
   upon His vesture after they have pierced His hands and His feet!

   No Evangelist, even though he were an eyewitness, could have drawn the
   picture more accurately. Read also the fifty-third of Isaiah. Where can
   you find a better description of the Messiah's sufferings than when you
   see Him cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the
   transgression of His people? Beloved, the New Testament is the key to
   the Old, but the lock is not superseded by the key--no, it is made more
   useful. We have not received a new religion--we worship the God of
   Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob--for He is the God and Father of our
   Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

   Our Gospel has threads of many colors in it--both the Old and New
   Testaments are set forth in it to the glory of the one Christ who is
   the sole Revelation of God. Every Gospel sermon should set forth Jesus
   scripturally. For it is not the Christ of fancy but the Christ of fact
   that saves the souls of men. Let me add that where the Gospel is
   faithfully preached the reproach of Christ will not be shunned by the
   preacher. Read in the fifth verse of the twenty-fourth of Acts how Paul
   won this reproach. His adversaries said--"We have found this man a
   pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout
   the world and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes."

   This was the reputation of Paul. Well did Mr. Whitefield say, "There is
   no going to Heaven as a minister except in a fool's cap and a fool's
   coat." There is no hope of preaching Christ faithfully without being
   called by disrespectful titles, regarded as a fool and reckoned among
   the vulgar and ignorant. Some kind of ugly name will always be appended
   to the preacher of the true Gospel. Brethren, expect it and accept it!
   Bid farewell to a quiet life, if you resolve to be true to Jesus.
   Nothing excites such animosity as the preaching of Jesus. The carnal
   mind rages at the Cross of Christ. That which would be to men the
   greatest comfort and the greatest joy if they were in their right minds
   is their direst hate because sin has perverted their judgments.

   Do not, I beseech you, imagine that it is possible, fairly and
   squarely, to preach Jesus Christ and His Gospel without raising
   opposition. I know a minister of whom one said, "He is a truly good man
   and nobody ever says a word against him." Upon enquiry I heard a
   judicious person say, "He preaches no error but he avoids the obnoxious
   side of the Truth of God. What he preaches is true enough, no doubt,
   but it is not easy to say what it is. Nine out of ten of his hearers
   could not say what his precise opinion may be, but he has a fine flow
   of words. Those who do know what he is preaching about usually say
   that, "take it for granted, there is nothing in it."

   Of course nobody opposes an indistinct, colorless, please-everybody
   Gospel--it is not worth anything. But speak clearly and distinctly the
   doctrine of the great Sacrifice and you will bring upon your head a
   shower of opposition--you will be "a pestilent fellow" and "a
   ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes." Gospel preaching does not
   cry, "Peace, peace," where there is no peace. But it is the sword which
   the Lord Jesus came to send upon the earth.

   Once more--Jesus Christ must be preached in the Gospel as the sum and
   substance of it all. For we note concerning Paul, in this connection,
   that whoever might be his hearer, his theme was the same--he preached
   Jesus. If he speaks to Felix, he does not only preach to him of
   "righteousness, temperance and judgment to come," as some remind
   us--but in the twenty-fourth verse of the twenty-fourth chapter we are
   told that, "after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla,
   which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith
   in Christ."

   The faith in Christ was the first thing that Paul preached and then he
   "reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come." The
   foundation of Christian morality is Christ Himself. And though we do
   preach moral duties most earnestly and press them home upon the
   conscience, yet first of all we preach the faith of Jesus Christ. When
   Paul spoke to Festus in the twenty-sixth chapter at the twenty-third
   verse, he told him that, "Christ should suffer and that He should be
   the first that should rise from the dead." It was this that made Festus
   cry out, because he was amazed at this strange Truth of God concerning
   Jesus.

   So was it with Agrippa. Agrippa is forced to feel that Paul is
   preaching Christ, for he cries, "You almost persuaded me to be a
   Christian." Paul did not merely persuade him to justice and
   righteousness but he pressed him to yield himself to Christ. Indeed the
   whole of Paul's address goes to prove the power and glory of the Jesus
   by whom Paul had been called to be an Apostle.

   Now, Beloved, as I resolve, God helping me, in my preaching to preach
   to you nothing else save Jesus Christ, so I beseech you, in your
   schools, in your families, in your public ministries of any and every
   kind, begin and end with Jesus, who was dead and is alive. Declare His
   blessed name and proclaim the glory of His Cross! God forbid that you
   should place anything in front of your testimony save Jesus crucified!
   Your Gospel is a golden frame, let Jesus be the portrait which is hung
   up in it.

   II. Secondly--GOSPEL PREACHING AFFIRMS THE RESURRECTION. Please notice
   that Paul did not argue the

   resurrection but affirmed it. He did not prove it philosophically but
   he affirmed that Jesus rose from the dead because such-and-such persons
   saw Him alive after He had risen. He did not merely say that it was
   probable, that it was possible, that it was reasonable--but that it was
   so--for witnesses proved it. Two saw Him, eleven saw Him, four hundred
   saw Him. He dealt with the resurrection as common-sense persons deal
   with any other fact of history.

   He quoted his authorities and affirmed that it was so. His witnesses
   were honest and true men who dared to go to prison and even to die on
   account of their statements. They had nothing whatever to gain and
   everything to lose by their testimonies. They stated that Jesus, whom
   they knew to have been dead, had risen again and had given clear proofs
   that He was alive. This cornerstone of our faith is sure and upon the
   certainty of it we build our faith.

   Paul asserted that the Savior had the pre-eminence in resurrection and,
   "that He should be the first that should rise from the dead." Several
   persons rose from the dead before our Savior but not in the sense which
   Paul intended. Those mentioned in the Old Testament were quickened for
   a time but they died after all and saw corruption. They lived anew but
   they lived not evermore, as Jesus does. A miracle was worked but it
   gave them only a temporary prolongation of life. They went back to the
   grave again in due time. Whether it was the child of the woman in the
   Old Testament, or the brother of Mary and Martha in the New, they were
   not so raised from the dead as to have attained to immortality.

   But our Savior finally rose from the dead and rose from the dead by His
   own power. He was the first fruits of the resurrection harvest. He was
   the first sheaf of that wheat which will one day be gathered in
   bulk--He was the first fruits to be presented unto the Lord to sanctify
   the whole. Jesus is the pattern, the proof, the pledge, the earnest,
   the guarantee of the resurrection of all the rest. This Paul asserted
   and declared as a Revelation of God. From this he inferred the general
   resurrection. He says in another place that if there is no resurrection
   of the dead, then is Christ not risen and the whole faith of the Gospel
   falls to the ground.

   To you and to me this is full of comfort--the dead must rise. Our
   beloved ones have been taken from us but they shall come again from the
   land of the enemy. We have a glorious hope concerning our own bodies.
   "I know that my Redeemer lives: and though after my skin worms destroy
   this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." We shall rise, for Jesus
   has risen. This is the constant assertion of Scripture. There would be
   no proof of the resurrection of the dead if Jesus had not risen. But as
   He has risen from the dead, our resurrection is secured. Now has death
   lost its sting--the grave may receive us but it cannot retain us, since
   Jesus has burst its bars.

   Moreover, Paul--and he, I say, is a model among Gospel
   preachers--teaches us to preach in our Gospel all the sweet inferences
   which flow from the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Here they are:
   He rose from the dead and therefore His sacrifice has been accepted.
   God has brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd
   of the sheep, by the blood of the Everlasting Covenant. The work He has
   done has pleased the Father and therefore He has brought Him back from
   among the dead. His acceptance is ours--we are "accepted in the
   Beloved."

   Next, Jesus Himself is clear. He had, as our sponsor, become our
   hostage. Sin was laid on Him and He was laid in the grave. But now the
   sinner's surety is as clear as the sinner himself--for the Lord Jesus
   is released from the prison of the tomb. He was delivered for our
   offenses but He rose again for our justification. Now, also, we live
   unto God. Our Lord Jesus died unto sin once. But in that He lives, He
   lives unto God--so is it with us. This is our joy--His work is
   accepted, His bearing of our curse is finished, life in us is made
   manifest.

   And now, Beloved, we see in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
   dead that He is Divine. He is "declared to be the Son of God, with
   power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from
   the dead." So says Paul in the first chapter of his Epistle to the
   Romans. Jesus raised Himself from the dead by His own will. "I have
   power to lay down My life," said He, "and I have power to take it
   again." Who could possess and exercise such a power but a Divine Being?

   I must repeat what I have said already, that from the resurrection of
   our Lord we draw the comfortable inference of the resurrection unto
   eternal life of all who are in Christ. We said farewell, a little while
   ago, to him whom we loved so well but we shall see the honored one
   again. We laid our sister in the grave with many tears. Oh, how we miss
   her! But we shall meet her again when the trumpet shall sound. We
   preserve a long list of departed ones, of which we scarcely dare to
   think, for tears drown our eyes. Yet will we refrain from weeping, for
   as the dew of herbs causes them to spring up again, so the rising again
   of our Lord restores to us the beloved ones who have fallen asleep. The
   broken circle of our fellowship shall be renewed, for Jesus, its
   center, has risen again.

   III. But now, alas for me! I have scant time for the point which I
   wanted most fully to discuss--GOSPEL PREACHING AFFIRMS THAT JESUS IS
   ALIVE. We do not preach to you a dead Christ but one who is able to
   save to the uttermost, seeing He ever lives.

   Jesus died, Jesus rose again, Jesus is now alive. Paul knew that Jesus
   lived, for He had spoken to him out of Heaven. Paul had both seen and
   heard the Lord Jesus and thus he had been turned from a persecutor into
   an Apostle. We do not need to see Jesus, nor to hear His voice, for we
   are well satisfied with the witness of a man so true as Paul, in whom a
   change so remarkable was worked by what he saw. His entire being was
   transformed by what he saw and heard--assuredly he was no deceiver and
   he was not the sort of person to have been deceived.

   Jesus Christ is then alive, for Paul saw Him. No, not only once did he
   see Him but on several other occasions. He saw the Lord when he was in
   the temple in a trance and heard Him say, "Depart, for I will send you
   far hence unto the Gentiles" (Acts 22:17-21). Even when he lay in
   prison in Jerusalem the Lord stood by him and said, "Be of good cheer,
   Paul: for as you have testified of Me in Jerusalem, so must you bear
   witness also at Rome." Jesus had thus spoken to Paul, once, twice and
   many times. And so He was to him most assuredly alive. Ah, dear
   Friends, if the Lord Jesus has had gracious dealings with any of us and
   we have had Him revealed within us, we also shall affirm that He is
   alive.

   Beloved, receiving the witness of our Apostle and remembering many
   other infallible proofs which we have not time to mention, we also
   believe that Jesus, who was dead, is alive. What follows from this?
   Why, first, He is alive to bestow the Holy Spirit. Many blessings come
   from our Lord's death but the Holy Spirit was an early gift of His
   resurrection life--especially was it the outcome of His ascended life.
   The gift of the Holy Spirit is the ascension gift of our living Lord.
   When we think of His resurrection life, we couple with it the
   outpouring of the Spirit of God.

   Oh, that this same Spirit would work among us more manifestly just now!
   And why not? He is with us because Jesus lives. No Spirit of life could
   proceed from a dead Christ. Jesus, if He were not alive, could not send
   the Comforter to us. The life and light and liberty of the Spirit are
   with us, because Jesus lives. Beloved, do you think the times are dark
   and dreary? Be not afraid--while Jesus lives the Holy Spirit is always
   obtainable--the Holy Spirit is always ready to work in and with us.
   What more do we want? Error will fall and the Truth of God will be
   established by the Holy Spirit. This is our battle-axe and weapon of
   war. O living Christ, we praise and bless Your name. For out of You
   shall come abundance of life and power through Your Spirit!

   Jesus is alive. Dwell on that thought. He is alive, to claim Heaven for
   His redeemed. He has gone up before us to occupy our inheritance for
   us. When He first put His feet within the golden gate He took
   possession of eternal glory for every soul that He represents. He is
   our forerunner and representative. Brethren, Heaven is yours, Heaven is
   mine, because Jesus is, "the Man in possession," on our behalf. That
   pierced hand has taken hold of eternal bliss on the behalf of those for
   whom He shed His blood.

   Jesus is also in Heaven making preparation for our coming. What has to
   be done to make Heaven ready I am sure I do not know, though I have
   often tried to guess. But Jesus says, "I go to prepare a place for
   you." Heaven, when we get there, will prove to be the exact place for
   us. It has taken Jesus all these years to make it ready for us. He that
   with a Word made earth fit for created man, did not with a Word make
   Heaven fit for His regenerated but went to Heaven Himself as a living
   Christ to see everything set in order for them. I think I hear Him say,
   "This will not do for My Beloved. There is something yet needed. These
   fruits are not quite mellow enough, these flowers are not full-blown
   enough for My Beloved, whom I desire to entertain to the utmost of
   their capacity." Jesus is living--living on purpose to keep Heaven for
   us and make it in all respects ready for us.

   Furthermore, lay hold of this thought--that Jesus is alive to intercede
   for us. I am most rich, Beloved, when I have your prayers. If I might
   have a part in the prayers of all the saints on earth I would not envy
   a Kaiser his dominions. Yet what are all the prayers of saints compared
   with the prayers of the King of saints? When He prays--He of the
   pierced hands and feet-- when He prays whom the Father loves so
   well--who has such deservings of Jehovah for His obedience unto death,
   even the

   death of the Cross? What a prevalence must dwell in His intercession!
   We trust not in a dumb, dead Christ, who could not speak for us but we
   rest in an Advocate whose eloquent pleadings before the Throne of God
   can never be denied.

   Observe also that our Lord lives to rule all things on our behalf. His
   enemies put Him to an ignominious death but the Father has delivered
   all things into His hands. He whom they spat upon wears majesty in His
   face. The despised and rejected of men has all power in Heaven and in
   earth. Jesus lives to control all events and overrule them for the
   highest purposes of Divine Grace. Trust in Him for His kingdom cannot
   fail, neither can anything go amiss while He is to the front. Paul
   affirmed that He was alive. And alive He is in the fullest sense, so
   that nothing escapes His government. Hallelujah!

   "Ah," you say, "you have now put Him far away from us by reason of His
   adorable majesty." Then let me bring Him near to you. He is not only
   alive Godward, that the Father may delight in Him but alive towards
   you, that He may have the fellowship of kinship with you. He is touched
   with a feeling of your infirmities. He sympathizes with all your
   griefs, even as a loving husband shares the pangs and sorrows of his
   spouse. He is most near to you, for He is one with you. We may not
   think of our Lord as One whose shadow flitted over the historic page
   and left a faint photographic trace. But He lives as truly in the
   present as in the past.

   He is not Jesus of the mist but of this day's light. He is the same in
   heart, the same in tenderness, the same in living feeling and union as
   ever He was. Did you ever reflect that something of Christ remained on
   earth and was not taken to Heaven? I mean those drops of blood which
   fell from Him in Gethsemane and that other stream which gushed from His
   pierced heart on Calvary. I see that his heart's essence is with us
   still. It was after death that His heart poured forth for us its
   treasure of water and blood. And now, long after death His whole heart
   is as truly ours as it was when He bare our sins in His own body on the
   tree.

   O child of God, I would have you further remember that Jesus is still
   alive to commune with you. You bend not over His corpse but you sit at
   His feet. Carnal men would think me dreaming if I were to tell of our
   spiritual relationship with our living Lord. Still does He speak to our
   hearts. Pearls may not be cast before swine, nor the love secrets of
   our souls declared in the streets. But we have been conscious at times
   of influences other than those which are natural and common. Jesus has
   made Himself known to us--He has stood behind us and His shadow has
   fallen over us. He has manifested Himself to us as He does not to the
   world.

   Many a time has He cast a spell over us and bathed us in mystic
   influence. We have been raised from the valley of weeping to the
   mountains of joy by a Word from Himself laid home to the heart. You
   know what I mean. Jesus does not forget us. He has not allowed a great
   gulf to open between us and Himself. He is still the loving, living,
   active Jesus to us and with us. How I wish that every child of God here
   who is in trouble would go at once with that trouble to the living
   Christ! Oh, that every sinner who is crushed beneath his load of sin
   would bow at once before the living Christ, whose voice speaks pardon!

   You cannot perceive Jesus but He is present where His Gospel is
   preached. Eyes cannot see Him, nor hands touch Him but He is visible
   and tangible to faith. Bow before Him. I know you have often thought,
   "If, instead of seeing Mr. Spurgeon on the platform, I could see Jesus,
   I would confess my sin to Him and ask His pardon." I pray you do so
   even though you see Him not, for He sees you. Gladly would I cease to
   be seen of you that your hearts might see my Lord, for He is here. Bow
   before Him, confess to Him and trust Him.

   "Oh," cries a loving one, "if Jesus were visibly here, I would take Him
   home with me and entertain Him." Do so, I pray you, though you do not
   see Him. Constrain Him to abide with you. Treat the Lord Jesus, not as
   a phantom but as a real Christ. Paul affirmed that He was
   alive--believe Paul's affirmation and speak to the living Jesus. I will
   give you a text, "Whom having not seen, you love." You cannot love a
   dead person as a dead person. You may love the memory of the dead. But
   if you love them, you regard them as living. Love is for life. It
   cannot dwell with death. We have not seen Jesus but we love Him and
   this proves that to our hearts He lives.

   Let us view Him in the light of life at this very hour. I beseech my
   Lord Jesus to let me personally realize His august Presence. My Lord,
   are You really here? Hear, then, my prayer--I beseech You, enable me to
   serve You with my whole being and to count reproach for Your sake to be
   greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt. Will you not, my
   Beloved, each one of you, think of your Lord as with you at this
   moment? Behold Him and speak to Him in the silence of your hearts. Will
   you now renew your dedication vow and be the Lord's forever?

   Oh that our Lord would now appear! Oh that His silver trumpets would
   ring out while yet I speak to you! Oh that His feet would once more
   touch this earth! The second coming of our living Lord is the ultimatum
   of our faith. He is alive and as surely as He lives, He will open wide
   the golden gate and come again to take His people up to be with Him
   forever. Has He not

   said, "I will come again and receive you unto Myself"? They that have
   been faithful to Him in this evil generation, through the dark as well
   as through the light and have followed at His heels through mire and
   slough--these shall partake of His glory.

   "These are they which follow the Lamb wherever He goes." Who is on the
   side of the living Christ at this hour? Let him come out and boldly say
   so. Hold not back lest you be found traitors. Confess your Lord, take
   up your cross and by God's grace be the living servants of the living
   Jesus. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

"David's Spoil"

   BY C. H. SPURGEON, INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, APRIL 15, 1888.

   "This is David's spoil." 1 Samuel 30:20.

   We have earlier gathered spoil for ourselves out of David's behavior in
   the hour of his sorrow at Ziklag and we will now turn to the other side
   of this leaf in his history and receive instruction from the time of
   his victory. But we must not do this till we have refreshed our
   memories with the story of his conduct under distress. When he came to
   the city he found it burned with fire, the property of himself and his
   comrades carried away and what was worse, all their wives and their
   sons and their daughters gone into captivity. In the madness of their
   grief the people turned upon their leader, as if he had led them into
   this calamity. He was the only calm person among them, for he
   "encouraged himself in the Lord his God."

   With due deliberation he waited upon the Lord and consulted the oracle
   through the appointed priest and then, under Divine guidance he pursued
   the bandits, took them by surprise, recovered all of his people's goods
   and captured a large booty which the Amalekites had collected
   elsewhere. David, who had been the chief object of the people's mutiny
   and the leader of the successful pursuit of the robbers, most properly
   received a special portion of the spoil and concerning it the words of
   our text were spoken, "This is David's spoil."

   We shall now look into this victorious act on the part of David with
   the view of finding spiritual teaching in it. David may be regarded as
   a very special type of our Lord Jesus Christ. Among the personal types
   David holds a leading place--for in so many points he is the Prophetic
   foreshadowing of the great and glorious Son of David. Whenever David
   acts as the man after God's own heart, he is the picture and emblem of
   the One who is still more after God's own heart-- even the Christ of
   God.

   David, under Divine guidance, pursued the Amalekites who had come as
   thieves to smite and to burn and carry away captives. The marauders
   were overtaken and slaughtered and a great spoil was the result. David
   recovered all that the Amalekites had taken. "And there was nothing
   lacking to them, neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters,
   neither spoil, nor anything that they had taken to them: David
   recovered all." We are told several times over in the chapter that
   nothing was lacking--"David recovered all." When our Lord Jesus worked
   out our redemption, He recovered all and left nothing in the enemy's
   hand. All glory to His name!

   But over and above, David took great store of cattle and jewels and
   gold and silver and so forth, which belonged to the Amalekites, and out
   of this a bountiful portion was taken which was set apart as David's
   spoil. David's men, in the moment of their despair, had spoken of
   stoning him. But now, in the morning of their victory, with general
   acclamations, they determine that David shall have, as his portion of
   the spoil, all the cattle which belong to the Amalekites themselves.
   And so, driving these in front, as they return to Ziklag, they say,
   "This is David's spoil." I think I hear them, as they drive the
   bullocks and the sheep before them, shouting right lustily, "This is
   David's spoil."

   Now, using David as the type of Christ, I want, if I can, to set all
   David's men--all Christ's men--shouting with all their hearts, "This is
   Jesus' spoil!" He it is of whom Jehovah says, "I will divide Him a
   portion with the great and He shall divide the spoil with the strong."
   He has a grand reward as the result of the great battle of His life and
   death. We will even now award to Him the spoil and cry, "This is
   David's spoil," feeling, all the while, as the Psalmist did when he
   said, "You are more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey."

   I. We begin with the first observation that practically all the spoil
   of that day was David's spoil and in truth all the good that we enjoy
   comes to us through our Lord Jesus. He has been given as a Leader and a
   Commander to the people and every victory they win is due to Him and to
   Him alone. Without Him we can do nothing and without Him we can obtain
   nothing. All that we once possessed by nature and under the Law, the
   Spoiler has taken away. By our own efforts

   we can never regain what we have lost--only through our great Leader
   can we be restored and made happy. We ascribe unto Jesus all our
   gains--even as David's men honored their captain.

   For, first, David's men defeated the Amalekites and took their
   spoil--but it was for David's sake that God gave success to the band.
   God's eyes rested upon His chosen servant, the Lord's anointed, and it
   was not for the warrior's own sakes but for David's sake that God
   guided them to the hosts of Amalek and gave them like driven stubble to
   their sword. How much more true it is to us that every blessing, every
   pardoning mercy, every delivering mercy, is given to us through Him who
   is our Shield and God's Anointed! It is for the sake of Jesus that we
   are pardoned, justified, accepted, preserved, sanctified. Only through
   this channel does the mercy of God come to us.

   The Lord God says, "Not for your sakes do I this, O house of Israel! Be
   ashamed and confounded for your own ways." And we, in response to that,
   can answer, "Not unto us, not unto us but unto the name of the
   well-Beloved be praise and honor and glory forever and ever!" Since
   everything comes to us because of Christ Jesus, we may say of every
   Covenant mercy, "This is David's spoil." On this blessing and on that
   favor, yes, on them all, we see the mark of the Cross. These are all
   fruits of our Redeemer's passion, the purchase of His blood. Again we
   say with gratitude, "This is David's spoil."

   Moreover, David's men gained the victory over Amalek because of David's
   leadership. If he had not been there to lead them to the fight--in the
   moment of their despair they would have lost all heart and would have
   remained amidst the burning walls of Ziklag a discomfited company. But
   David encouraged himself in the Lord and so encouraged all his
   desponding followers. Drawing his sword and marching in front, he put
   spirit into them--they all followed with eager step because their
   gallant leader so courageously led the way.

   This is exactly our case, Beloved, only we are even more indebted to
   our Lord Jesus than these men were to David. The Lord Jesus Christ has
   been among us and has fought our battle for us and recovered all that
   we had lost by Adam's Fall and by our own sin. It is written of Him,
   "He shall not fail nor be discouraged." You know how He sets His face
   like a flint, how stout-hearted He was to accomplish the work of our
   redemption and how He ceased not till He could cry victoriously, "It is
   finished"--

   "Our glorious Leader claims our praise For His own pattern given."

   Following at His feet, we, too, fight with sin. Treading in His
   footsteps, we, too, overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. Have
   you ever heard Him say, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world"?

   And you, dear Brothers and Sisters--whatever victories you win,
   whatever spoils you divide--will acknowledge that it is through Jesus
   that you have conquered. They said of Waterloo that it was a soldier's
   battle and the victory was due to the men. But ours is our Commander's
   battle and every victory won by us is due to the great Captain of our
   salvation. Let the crown be set upon His head, even on the battlefield
   and let us say of every sin that we have overcome, every evil habit
   that we have destroyed, "This is David's spoil."

   We had never won this victory if Jesus had not led us--we have it for
   His sake. We have it under His leadership. Without exception, all the
   saints on earth and in Heaven confess this to be true--

   "I ask them from where their victory came?

   They, with united breath,

   Ascribe their conquest to the Lamb,

   Their triumph to His death.

   They marked the footsteps that He trod,

   His zeal inspired their breast,

   And, following their incarnate God,

   Possess the promised rest."

   I will not say more upon this point but only ask you to remember that
   by nature we had all lost everything. We lost the garden with all its
   Paradisiacal joys. Lost this world, the very earth bringing forth
   thorns and thistles to us. Lost life, lost hope, lost peace, lost the
   favor of God. But Jesus has recovered all. All that the first Adam lost
   the second Adam has restored. David recovered all and Jesus has
   recovered all. We ourselves were lost. But Jesus has brought us back
   from the hand of the enemy. He has given us ourselves, if I may use
   such an expression--and now we who were dead are alive again--the lost
   are

   found. Once, every faculty of ours was being used for our own
   destruction but now, sanctified by the Grace of God, all is being used
   for God's glory and for our own ripening and perfecting.

   Jesus has recovered us for ourselves and for our God--the prey has been
   taken from the mighty and the lawful captive has been delivered. Yes,
   and our Lord Jesus has recovered for us the future as well as the past.
   Our outlook was grim and dark, indeed, till Jesus came. But oh, how
   bright it is now that He has completed His glorious work! Death is no
   more the dreaded grave of all our hopes. Hell exists no longer for
   Believers. Heaven, whose gates were closed, is now set wide open to
   every soul that believes. We have recovered life and immortal bliss. We
   are snatched like brands from the burning and made to shine like lamps
   of the palace of the great King.

   We are set up to be forever trophies of the conquering power of Jesus,
   our glorious David. Look at all the saints in Heaven in their serried
   ranks and say of them all, "This is David's spoil." Look at the
   blood-bought Church of God on earth--the ten thousands that are already
   washed in His blood and following at His feet--we may say of all this
   ransomed flock, "This is David's spoil." Each one of us, looking at
   himself and all his past and all his future, may say, "This, too, is
   David's spoil."

   Christ has done it, done it all and unto His name let the whole host
   shout the victory. I feel as if I could stop the sermon and ask you to
   sing but it will be better if I content myself with repeating the
   hymn--

   "Rejoice, you shining worlds on high,

   Behold the King of Glory near!

   He comes adorned with victory,

   He made our foes before Him flee.

   You hea venly gates, your lea ves display,

   To make the Lord the Sa vior's way!

   Laden with spoils from earth and Hell,

   The Conqueror comes with God to dwell.

   Raised from the dead, He goes before;

   He opens Heaven's eternal door--

   To give His saints a blessed abode,

   Near their Redeemer and their God." II. But the most interesting part
   of our subject is this--all the booty was practically David's spoil but
   there was a part of it which was not recovered but was a clear gain.
   They recovered all they had lost and over and above there was a surplus
   of spoil from the defeated foe. Now, in the great battle of Christ on
   our behalf He has not only given us back what we lost but He has given
   us what Adam in his perfection never had. And I want you to dwell upon
   that--because this part of it is peculiarly our Lord's spoil. Those
   good things which we now possess over and above what we lost by sin
   come to us by the Lord Jesus. Now that the Son of God has come into the
   field He is not content with restoration--He turns the loss into a
   gain--the Fall into a greater rising.

   And first, dear Friends, think--in Christ Jesus human nature is lifted
   up where it never could have been before. Man was made in his innocence
   to occupy a very lofty place. "You made him to have dominion over all
   the works of Your hands. You have put all things under his feet." Man
   would have enjoyed that dominion had he never fallen but he never could
   have obtained what he has now gained, for, "we see Jesus, who was made
   a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with
   glory and honor."

   And we see in Jesus human nature joined in mysterious union with the
   Godhead. I never know how to speak about this miracle of the Divine
   incarnation. We are men and women, poor creatures at our very best. Yet
   in Christ Jesus our dignity is perfectly amazing. Angels excel in
   strength and beauty but no angel was ever joined to the Godhead as
   manhood is now united to God. The nearest being to God is a man. The
   most noble existence--how shall I word it?--the most noble of all
   beings is God. And the God-Man Christ Jesus, in whom dwells all the
   fullness of the Godhead bodily is with Him upon His Throne.

   It is a wondrous honor, this--that manhood should be taken into
   intimate connection, yes, absolute union with God! For listen--through
   Jesus Christ we are this day made the sons of God which angels never
   were. "Unto which of the angels said He at any time, You are My Son"?
   But He has said this to us. Christ took not up angels but He took up
   the seed of Abraham and He has made the believing seed of Abraham to be
   the sons of God. Listen again--"And if children, then heirs. Heirs of
   God." God's heirs! What a word is this! How simple but how sublime! I
   know how to say it but not how to expound it!

   It does not want explanation and yet its depths are fathomless. Every
   Believer is God's heir--the heir of God. Could this have been and there
   been no Fall and no redemption? Children and heirs are more than was
   ever spoken of in Eden. Yes, listen yet again. Now we are one with God
   in Christ Jesus. For it is written concerning our Lord, "We are members
   of His body, of His flesh and of His bones." Close as the marriage
   union is, yet Paul declared, when he spoke of it, "This is a great
   mystery-- but I speak concerning Christ and the Church." Unfallen
   manhood was never declared to be one with the Son of God and yet
   through the Covenant of Grace this is our position.

   We are joined by vital, real, conjugal union to Jesus Christ the Son of
   the Highest, very God of very God. And this is an elevation so
   transcendent that I feel bowed down beneath the weight of glory which
   is revealed in us. The most glorious being next to God is man. A sinner
   most shameful, once, but now in Christ a child accepted and honored!
   What can I say of this but, "This is David's spoil"? This is what Jesus
   brought us. It came to us by no other way or method. Neither do we know
   in what way or method it could have been given to us but by the will of
   God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is given to us through Jesus
   Christ, our elder Brother and our covenant Head and unto Him let the
   glory of it be ascribed world without end.

   Another blessing which was not ours before the Fall and therefore never
   was lost but comes to us as a surplus, is the fact that we are
   redeemed. You sang just now that verse--

   "Never did angels taste above Redeeming grace and dying love."

   It is clear that you could never have known free grace and dying love
   if Jesus had not come to redeem you. Unfallen intelligent spirits will
   say in eternity, "Do you see those beings bowing nearest to the eternal
   Throne? Do you see those well-beloved creatures? Who are they?" Spirits
   that have lived in other worlds will come crowding up to the great
   metropolis and will say one to another, "Who are those courtiers--those
   that dwell nearest to God? Who are they?"

   And one spirit will say to another, "They are beings whom God not only
   made as He made us but whom the eternal Son of God redeemed by blood."
   And one shining one will say to his fellow, "What is that? Tell me that
   strange story." Then will his companion delight to say, "They were
   saved because the Son of God took their nature and in that nature
   died." "Wonderful! Wonderful," his friend will answer, "How could it
   be? Was there suffering for them and pain for them and bloody sweat for
   them and death for them on the part of the ever-blessed Son of God?"
   The answer, "It was even so," will be news full of astonishment even to
   the best instructed celestial mind.

   Spirits will look at us with wonder and say, "What strange beings are
   these? Others are the work of God's hands but these are the fruit of
   the travail of His soul. On others we see the marks of Divine skill and
   power but here we see the tokens of a Divine sacrifice--a Divine
   blood-shedding." Truly, we may say of our redemption, "This is David's
   spoil." That you and I should be such wonders as we must be in being
   redeemed beings is, indeed, something given to us by Jesus over and
   above what Adam lost. And throughout eternity all the sacred
   brotherhood of the redeemed by blood will be princes in the courts of
   God--the aristocracy of Heaven--for "He has made us kings and priests
   unto God."

   We shall be creatures who have known sin and have been recovered from
   its pollution. There will be no fear of our being exalted with pride,
   or drawn away by ambition as the now-apostate angels were. For we shall
   constantly remember what sin did for us and how grievous was our fault.
   We shall forever remember the price at which we were redeemed. And we
   shall have ties upon us that will bind us to an undeviating loyalty to
   Him who exalted us to so glorious a condition. It seems to me wonderful
   beyond expression--the more I consider it, the more I am astonished. A
   spirit that has never fallen cannot be trusted in the same way as one
   that has fallen and has been delivered and has been newly-created and
   blood-washed and has been gifted with an abiding and eternal character!

   Such a being shall never fall because it is forever held by cords of
   love eternal and bonds of gratitude infinitely strong. Cords of love
   which will never let it waver in holy service. It is a work worthy of a
   God to create such beings as we shall be-- since we shall be securely
   bound to voluntary holiness. And our wills, though always free, shall
   be immutably loyal to our Lord. As the twice-born we shall be the most
   noble of God's works. We shall be the first fruits of His creatures. We
   shall be accounted as the royal treasure of Jehovah. Then shall we sit
   with Christ upon His Throne and reign with Him forever. "This is
   David's spoil."

   We receive blessings unknown to beings who have never fallen. I
   sometimes murmur to myself--and sweet music it has been as I have
   quietly murmured it--we are the elect of God. Election is a privilege
   most high and precious--what can exceed it in delight? This also is
   David's spoil. We are also redeemed from among men--the redemption of
   the soul is precious. "This is David's spoil." We are covenanted ones,
   with whom God has entered into bonds of promise, swearing by an oath to
   keep

   His Word--this, too, is David's spoil. Where had you ever heard of
   redemption, election, covenant and such-like words if it had not been
   for the blessed Christ of God who has redeemed us by His blood?

   Sing, then, you who have received back your lost inheritance--and sing
   more sweetly, still, you who have been blessed with all spiritual
   blessings in the heavenlies according as the Father has chosen you in
   Christ Jesus. Sing aloud unto His holy name--and say of your special
   privileges--"This is David's spoil."

   Again--to my mind it is a very blessed fact that you and I will partake
   of a privilege which would have been certainly unnecessary to Adam and
   could not by Adam have been known and that is, the privilege of
   resurrection. We shall die unless the Lord should suddenly appear. I
   would not have you, Brothers and Sisters, look upon the prospect of
   death with any sort of dread. I know that death is associated with
   pain. But nothing can be more absurd. There is no pain in death--pain
   belongs to life. Death, even naturally, puts an end to pain. But death
   to the Believer is undressing as His Lord undressed--putting off
   garments of which, I think, we need not be so very fond, for they do
   fit us ill.

   And oftentimes, when our spirit is willing, it is hampered by these
   garments of clay--for the flesh is weak. Some look with intense delight
   to the prospect of the Savior's coming--as a means of escape from
   death. I confess I have but slender sympathy with them. If I might have
   my choice, I would prefer, of the two, to die. Let it be as the Lord
   wills. But there is a point of fellowship with Christ in death which
   they will miss who shall not sleep. And it seems to me to have some
   sweetness in it to follow the Lamb wherever He goes, even though He
   descend into the sepulcher. "Where should the dying members rest but
   with their dying Head?" That grave of our blessed Lord, if He had not
   meant us to enter it, would have been left an empty tenement when He
   came away. But when He came out of it, He left it furnished for those
   that should come after Him. See there the grave clothes folded up for
   us to use!

   The bed is prepared for our slumber. The napkin is laid by itself
   because it is not for the sleeper but for those who have lost His
   company. Those who remain behind may dry their eyes with the napkin but
   the grave clothes are reserved for others who will occupy the royal
   bedchamber. When great men died in olden times their servants took away
   the tapestry or hangings of their chambers. But if those hangings
   remained it was for the convenience of guests who were invited to
   occupy my lord's rooms. See, then, our Lord expects us to lie in His
   royal bedchamber for He has left the hangings behind Him! To the
   retiring room of the tomb we shall go in due time. And why should we be
   grieved to go? For we shall come forth again--we shall rise from the
   dead.

   "Your brother shall rise again," was Mary's consolation from the
   Master's lips. It is yours. We are not going to a prison but to a bath
   wherein the body, like Esther, shall be purified to behold the King. It
   is our joy to be sure that, "as the Lord our Savior rose, so all His
   followers must." We do not know much about the resurrection of the body
   and therefore we will not attempt to describe it. But surely it will be
   a delightful thing to be able to dwell forever in a body that has been
   in the grave and has had fulfilled in it the sentence, "Dust you are
   and unto dust shall you return," but which has been raised again by
   that same power which raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead.

   We shall inhabit a body which shall no more see corruption, or be
   subject to weakness, or pain, or decay but shall be like the glorified
   person of our Lord. Oh, there is sweetness in the thought that we shall
   in this forever have fellowship with our risen Lord! Children of the
   resurrection, dread not death! Your faces are turned to the sun. Press
   forward to the light eternal and fear not to pass through the
   death-shadow--it is no more than a shadow. If you cannot leap over the
   grave you can pass through it. It shall be your joy to rise when the
   morning breaks and to be satisfied. For you shall wake up in His
   likeness. As for the resurrection, "this is David's spoil," this is
   Christ's gift and benefit. The resurrection from the dead is the
   peculiar glory of Christianity. The immortality of the soul had been
   taught and known before, for it is a Truth of God which even reason
   itself teaches.

   But the resurrection of the body comes in as the last and crowning
   effort of our spirits--and "this is David's spoil." Let me not weary
   you. The topic might well interest us on several occasions. It is too
   large to be confined to one discourse. Our singular relation to God and
   yet to materialism is another rare gift of Jesus. God intended, by the
   salvation of man and the lifting up of man into union with Himself, to
   link together in one the lowest and the highest--His creation and
   Himself. Shall I make it very plain? These poor substances--earth,
   water and the like--they seem far down in the scale. God makes a being
   that shall be, as an old Puritan used to say, half soul and half
   soil--even man who is both spirit and dust of the earth.

   We find in him water, salts, acids, all sorts of substances combined to
   make up a body and married to this is a soul, which is brother to the
   angels and akin to Deity. Materialism is somewhat exalted in being
   connected with spirit at all. When spirit becomes connected with God
   and refined materialism becomes connected with a purified spirit by the
   resurrection from the dead, then shall be brought to pass the uplifting
   of clay and its junction with the celestial. Do you not see how God, in
   the

   perfecting of His gracious purpose through the resurrection of the
   dead, causes His glory to be reflected even upon what we regard as poor
   material substances, gross and mean?

   Try and get at my meaning again. Quakers, whom I greatly respect, get
   rid of the two ordinances by denying that they are of perpetual
   obligation. They banish Baptism--they put away the Lord's Supper. I
   have sometimes wished that I were able to agree with them because my
   whole spirit and tendency are towards the spiritual rather than the
   ritual. But if anything is plain to me in Scripture, it is that Jesus
   Christ did command us to be baptized in water in the Triune name and
   that He bade His disciples remember Him in the breaking of bread and in
   the drinking of the cup. The danger of men's making too much of outward
   forms was encountered for some wise purpose. It was, I think, because
   God would have us know that even the material, though it can only enter
   the outer court, is still to be sanctified unto Himself.

   Therefore, water, bread and wine--all material substances--are used not
   only as symbols but as tokens that all created things shall be ennobled
   and sanctified. Look, Sirs, "Creation was made subject to vanity, not
   willingly but by reason of Him who has subjected the same in hope."
   Through man's sin this outward world became blackened, darkened and
   degraded. But God intends, through man, to lift up the nethermost
   extremities of His creation into a greater nearness to Himself than
   they ever could have reached by any other means. And this is how it
   comes about. We are taking up with us, as it were, the earth which
   makes a part of ourselves.

   We are drawing up with ourselves the earth in those simple symbols with
   which we worship God. We are ourselves lifted up as spirits and we are
   soon to be lifted up as spirits enshrined in purified bodies and thus
   we bring the whole creation of God into nearer contact with Himself.
   Hence it is that we are called "kings and priests." What can the dead
   earth do in worship till there comes one who worships God as the
   world's priest? What can the fields and woods and hills say in the
   worship of God? They are dumb till a tongue attempts the holy task of
   uttering their praise. You and I are made of such stuff as the world
   around us and yet we are the compeers of angels.

   We are brothers to the worm. And this body of ours is but a child of
   mother earth on which it lives. See, then, how mother earth worships
   God through us and dull, dead matter, finds life and song. Behold the
   mists and the clouds become a steaming incense of praise to God through
   men like ourselves, who, because Christ was slain, have been made kings
   and priests unto God.

   I wish you would, rather than listen to me, try and muse upon the
   wonderful position which redeemed men do now occupy and will occupy
   forever and ever. For my own part, I would not change places with the
   angel Gabriel--not if he gave me his swift wing to boot--for I believe
   that an infinitely greater honor belongs to the least of God's children
   than to the very highest of God's servants. To be a child of God--oh,
   bliss!--there is no glory that can excel it. But all this is a special
   gift to our humanity through our Lord Jesus. "This is David's spoil."

   Our manifestation of the full glory of God is another of the choice
   gifts which the pierced hands of Jesus, alone, bestow. Principalities
   and powers shall see in the mystical body of Christ more of God than in
   all the universe besides. They will study in the saints the eternal
   purposes of God and see therein His love, His wisdom, His power, His
   justice, His mercy blended in an amazing way. They will admire forever
   those whom God loves and delights in, those whom He keeps as the apple
   of His eye. Those whom He rejoices over and of whom He has said that He
   will rest in His love and He will rejoice over them with singing. Truly
   it has not entered into the heart of man to guess at the glory of God
   in the saints--the exceeding glory which shall be revealed in us
   through Jesus Christ our Lord. "This is David's spoil." Oh, come, let
   us sing unto the Lord, let us magnify the name of Jesus Christ!

   III. I close with the most practical part of my sermon--that which we
   willingly give to Jesus may be called His spoil. There is a spoil for
   Christ which every true-hearted follower of His votes to Him
   enthusiastically. We have already seen that all things which we have
   are of Christ and that there are certain special gifts which are
   peculiarly of Christ. And now, what shall be David's spoil from you and
   from me?--

   "First, our hearts are His, alone, forever.

   Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it,

   Seal it for Your courts above."

   Of every believing heart it may be said, "This is David's spoil." You
   and I must give ourselves tomorrow to earning our daily bread and our
   thoughts must go, to a large extent, after earthly things in the common
   pursuits of everyday life. But our hearts, our hearts, are as fountains
   sealed for our Well-Beloved.

   O mammon, you shall not have them! O pleasure, you shall not have them!
   These are David's spoil. Our hearts belong to Jesus, only. "My son,
   give Me your heart," is an Old Testament command but under the New
   Testament manifestation of love

   we fulfill it--"for the love of Christ constrains us. Because we thus
   judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead--and that He died
   for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto
   themselves but unto Him which died for them and rose again." Let it be
   so that our whole heart is the sole possession of Jesus! We will
   neither rend it, nor cast lots whose it shall be, for "this is David's
   spoil."

   Now there is another property I should like King Jesus to have and that
   is our special gifts. I know one who, before his conversion, was likely
   to sing and he often charmed the ears of men with the sweet music which
   he poured forth. But when he was converted he said, "Henceforth my
   tongue shall sing nothing but the praises of God." He devoted himself
   to proclaiming the Gospel by his song, for he said, "This is David's
   spoil."

   Have you not some gift or other, dear Friend, of which you could say,
   "Henceforth this shall be sacred to my bleeding Lord?" Some peculiar
   faculty? Some choice piece of acquirement not generally possessed?
   Something in which you excel? I would that you had at least some little
   garden of flowers or herbs which you could so reserve that therein only
   Jesus should pluck the fruits. Say of the best gift you possess, "This
   is David's spoil." Is it not well to consecrate some part of the day
   and say, "This hour is Christ's"?

   "I have my work to do, my business must be seen to--all is Christ's.
   But, still I will reserve a special season and wall it in, like a
   private garden, in which, with prayer and praise and meditation, I will
   commune with my Lord, or else in actual service I will honor His name."
   Say, "This is David's spoil." Come dear Heart, what do you mean to give
   Him? Surely you have some natural faculty or acquired skill which you
   can lay at His feet.

   Moreover, while our whole selves must be yielded to the Lord Jesus
   there is one thing that must always be Christ's--and that is our
   religious homage as a Church. Somebody says that the Queen is head of
   the Church. God bless her. But she is not head of the Church of Christ!
   The idea is blasphemous--headship "is David's spoil." Jesus Christ is
   Head over all things to His Church and nobody else can take that
   position. No one may dare to take the title of "head of the Church"
   without an usurpation of our Lord's royal right.

   Certain teachers of the Church claim authority over conscience and
   assert that they are infallible. I have heard it said that they are
   supreme guides but I do not believe it, because, "This is David's
   spoil." We have one infallible Teacher and that is Jesus Christ our
   Savior. We yield obedience to His every word and demand that others
   should do the same. Whatsoever He says to us by His Spirit in the Word
   of God is to us infallible Truth and we cease to dispute when Jesus
   speaks. But no man else shall dictate doctrine to us, for "This is
   David's spoil."

   Jesus Christ must be sole Rabbi in the midst of His Church. We call Him
   Master and Lord for so He is. I would have you keep your conscience for
   Christ alone. Take care that no book ever overlaps the Bible, that no
   creed ever contradicts the form of sound words contained in God's own
   Word--that no influence of minister or writer supplants the guidance of
   the Holy Spirit. Your soul's obedience and faith belong to Jesus
   only--"This is David's spoil."

   Lastly, have you not something of your own proper substance that shall
   be David's spoil just now? That was a blessed act when the woman broke
   the most precious thing she had--her box of alabaster and let the
   perfumed nard stream down the Savior, anointing Him for His burial. She
   felt that the precious perfume was "David's spoil." There was no waste.
   In fact, no other gift ever went so completely to its purpose without
   being taxed on the road, for Jesus had it all. Kindly did He observe
   the loving honor which she paid Him. What if the ointment were sold and
   given to the poor? Yet it could never be so economically used as when
   it was all devoted to Him.

   I do think it so pleasant sometimes to give Jesus Christ distinctly a
   gift from yourself of somewhat that you will miss. It is good to give
   to the poor but it has a daintier sweetness in it to do somewhat
   distinctly for Him, for the spread of His own glory and the making
   known of His own fame. "The poor you have always with you"--abound
   towards them in your charity whenever you will--but to your Lord at
   special seasons dedicate a choice gift and say, "This is David's
   spoil."

   There was a poor woman once, whose little fortune could be carried
   between her finger and her thumb--her fortune I said, for it was all
   she had. Two mites, I am told, was all it came to. She took it--it was
   her all and she put it in the treasury. For this was "David's spoil."
   It belonged to the Lord her God and she gave it cheerfully. I do not
   know whether since the days of the Apostles anybody has ever given so
   much as that woman. I have not. Have you? She gave all her living. Not
   all her savings but all her living. She had nothing left when she gave
   her farthing--she loved so much that she consecrated all her living.

   We sometimes sing--

   "Yet if I might make some reserve,

   And duty did not call,

   I love my God with zeal so great

   That I would give Him all."

   But do we mean it? If not, why do we sing falsehoods? There was a man
   who, in the Providence of God, had been enabled to lay by many
   thousands. He was a very rich and respected man. I have heard it said
   that he owned at least half-a-million. And at one collection, when he
   felt especially grateful and generous, he found a well-worn sixpence
   for the plate, for that was David's spoil! That was David's spoil! Out
   of all that he possessed, that sixpence was David's spoil! This was the
   measure of his gratitude!

   Judge by this how much he owed, or at least how much he desired to pay.
   Are there not many persons who, on that despicable scale, reward the
   Savior for the travail of His soul? I shall not upbraid them. I shall
   not urge them to do more, lest I spoil the generosity of the large
   gifts they mean to bring. Let a hint suffice. For us, who are deep in
   the Redeemer's debt, who have had much forgiven, who every day are
   bankrupt debtors to the measureless mercy of infinite love--for us no
   paltriness will suffice. We must give something which, if it is not
   worthy of Him, shall, at least, express the truth and warmth of the
   gratitude we feel.

   God help us to be often setting aside this and that and the other
   choice thing and saying, "This is David's spoil and it shall be a joy
   to my heart to give it!" We shall find much sweetness in buying our
   sweet-cane with money and filling our Lord with the fat of our
   sacrifices. It is Heaven for a true heart to give largely to Jesus. God
   bless you, dear Friends. May we come to the table of communion and meet
   with our glorious David there and feel His praises making music in our
   hearts! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Cured At Last!

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, APRIL 8, 1888,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all
   her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, came behind
   Him and touched the border of His garment: and immediately her issue of
   blood stanched." Luke 8:43, 44.

   THOUGH I take Luke's statement as a text, I shall constantly refer to
   the version of the same story which we find in Mark 5:25 to 29. Here we
   have one of the Lord's bid ones--a case not to be publicly described
   because of its secret sorrow. We have here a woman of few words and
   much shamefacedness. Her malady subjected her to grievous penalties
   according to the ceremonial Law. There is a terrible chapter in the
   Book of Leviticus concerning such a case as hers. She was
   unclean--everything that she sat upon and all who touched it--shared in
   the defilement. So that, in addition to her continual weakness, she was
   made to feel herself an outcast, under the ban of the Law.

   This created, no doubt, great loneliness of spirit, and made her wish
   to hide herself out of sight. In the narrative before us she said not a
   word until the Savior drew it out of her, for her own lasting good. She
   acted very practically and promptly but she was a silent seeker--she
   would have preferred to have remained in obscurity, if so it could have
   been. Some here may belong to the great company of the timid and
   trembling ones. If courage before others is needed to secure salvation,
   matters will go hard with them. They shrink from notice and are ready
   to die of shame because of their secret grief.

   Cowper's hymn describes their inward feelings, when it says of the
   woman--

   "Concealed amid the gathering throng She would have shunned your view,
   And if her faith was firm and strong, Had strong misgivings too."

   Such plants grow in the shade and shrink from the light of the sun. The
   nature of their sorrows forces them into solitary self-communion. Oh,
   that the Lord may heal such at this hour!

   The immediate cure of this woman is the more remarkable because it was
   a wayside miracle. The Savior was on the road to restore the daughter
   of Jairus. This woman's healing was an extra portion of Divine Grace, a
   sort of over-splash of the great fountain of mercy. The cup of our
   Lord's power was full, full to the brim--and He was bearing it to the
   house of the ruler of the synagogue. This poor woman did but receive a
   drop which He spilt on the way. We do well if, when going upon some
   errand of love, we concentrate all our energy upon it and do it well in
   the end--but the Savior could not only perform one great marvel but He
   could work another as a sort of by-play incidentally--I almost said
   "accidentally," on the road.

   The episodes of the Lord Jesus are as beautiful as the main run of His
   life's poem. Oh, that this day, while my sermon may seem meant for one
   and distinctly directed to his salvation, it may also, by the power of
   Jesus, save another not so clearly pointed at! While the Word is aimed
   at one particular character, may the Lord cause the very wind of the
   Gospel shot to overcome another--or, to change the figure for a better
   one, while we spread the table for some bid guest, may another hungry
   soul have Divine Grace given him to take his place at the banquet of
   Grace! May those who hide away and whom, therefore, we are not likely
   to discover, come forth to Jesus and touch Him and live!

   Let us at once speak of this much-afflicted woman, for she is a typical
   character. While we describe her conduct and her cure, I trust she may
   serve as a mirror in which many tremblers may see themselves. We shall
   carefully note what she had done and then what came of it. This will
   lead us on to see what she did, at last, and what we, also, should do.
   May the

   Holy Spirit make this a very practical discourse by causing you to
   follow her till you gain the blessing as she did! The preacher is very
   weak. And may the Lord, for this very reason, work by him to your
   salvation.

   Consider, therefore, concerning this woman, WHAT SHE HAD DONE. She had
   been literally dying for twelve years. What had she been doing? Had she
   resigned herself to her fate, or treated her malady as a small matter?
   Far from it. Her conduct is highly instructive.

   First, she had resolved not to die if a cure could be had. She was
   evidently a woman of great determination and hopefulness. She knew that
   this disease of hers would cause her life to ebb away and bring her to
   the grave. But she said within herself, "I will have a struggle for it.
   If there is a possibility of removing this plague it shall be removed,
   let it cost me what it may of pain or payment." Oh, what a blessing it
   would be if unsaved ones here would say each one for himself, "I am a
   lost soul. But if a lost soul can be saved, I will be saved. I am
   guilty. But if guilt can be washed away, mine shall be washed away. I
   have a hard heart and I know it. But if a heart of stone can be turned
   into a heart of flesh, I long to have it so and I will never rest until
   this gracious work is worked in me!"

   Alas, it is not so with many! Indifference is the rule. Indifference
   about their immortal souls! Many are sick with dire spiritual disease
   but they make no resolve to have it cured. They trifle with sin and
   death and Heaven and Hell. Insensibility has seized upon many and a
   proud conceit--they are full of sin, and yet they talk of
   self-righteousness, they are weak and can do nothing--yet they boast of
   their ability. They are not conscious of their true condition and hence
   they have no mind to seek a cure. How should they desire healing when
   they do not believe that they are diseased? How sad that beneath the
   ruddy cheek of morality there should lurk the fatal consumption of
   enmity to God!

   How horrible to be fair without and leprous within! Are there not many
   who can talk freely about religion and seem as if they were right with
   God and yet in the secret of their hearts they are the victims of an
   insincerity and a want of the Truth of God which fatally undermines the
   life of their profession? They are not what they seem to be--a secret
   sin drains away the lifeblood of their religion. May the Holy Spirit
   show every unregenerate person the fatal nature of his soul's disease.
   For this, I trust, would lead to the making of a firm resolve to find
   salvation, if salvation is to be had.

   No doubt some are held back from such action by the freezing power of
   despair. They have reached the conclusion that there is no hope for
   them. The promises of the Gospel they regard as the voice of God to
   others but as having no cheering word for them. One might suppose that
   they had searched the Book of Life and had made sure that their names
   were not written there. They act as if their death warrant had been
   signed. They cannot believe in the possibility of their becoming
   partakers of everlasting life. They are under a destroying delusion,
   which leads them to abandon hope. None are more presumptuous than the
   despairing. When men have no hope, they soon have no fear. Is not this
   a dreadful thing? May the Lord save you from such a condition!

   Despair of God's mercy is an unreasonable thing--if you think you have
   grounds for it, the lying spirit must have suggested them to you. Holy
   Scripture contains no justification for hopelessness. No mortal has a
   just pretense to perish in despair. Neither the nature of God nor the
   Gospel of God, nor the Christ of God, warrant despair. Multitudes of
   texts encourage hope. But no one Scripture, rightly understood, permits
   a doubt of the mercy of God. "All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be
   forgiven unto men." Jesus, the great Healer, is never baffled by any
   disease of human nature--he can cast out a legion of devils and raise
   the dead. Oh that I could whisper hope into the dull ear of yonder
   mourner! Oh that I could drop a rousing thought into the sullen heart
   of the self-condemned--how glad should I be! My poor desponding Friend,
   I would gladly see your chains snapped, your fetters broken off! Oh
   that the Spirit of God would cause you, like this woman, to resolve
   that if there is healing for your soul you will have it!

   Alas, many have never come to this gracious resolution because they
   cherish a vain hope and are misled by an idle dream. They fancy that
   salvation will come to them without their seeking it. Certainly they
   have no right to expect such a thing. It is true that our Lord is found
   of them that sought Him not. But that is an act of His own sovereignty
   and is not a rule for our procedure. The plain directions of the Gospel
   are, "Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is
   near." How dare they set these gracious words aside? They fancy that
   they may wake up one of these fine days and find themselves saved.
   Alas, it is more likely to happen to them as the rich man in the
   parable, "In Hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments."

   God grant that none of you may trifle your souls into such misery! Some
   fancy that in the hour of death they may cry, "God be merciful to me a
   sinner," and so may leap into salvation. It seems to them a very slight
   business to be recon-

   ciled to God. They imagine that they can be converted just when they
   will and so they put it off from day to day, as if it were of no more
   consequence than going to shop to buy a coat or a gown. Believe me, the
   Word of God does not set forth the matter in this way. It tells us that
   even the righteous scarcely are saved and it rouses us to strive to
   enter in at the strait gate. God save you from every false confidence
   which would prevent your being in earnest about the healing of your
   souls.

   Spiritually, your case is as desperate as that of the poor woman now
   before us. May the Lord sweetly constrain you to feel that you must be
   healed and that you cannot afford to put off the blessed day! If
   beneath the firmament of Heaven there is healing for a sin-sick soul,
   seek it till you find it. When the Lord brings you to this resolve by
   His good Spirit, you will not be far from the kingdom of Heaven.

   Let us next note that this woman, having made her resolve, adopted the
   likeliest means she could think of. Physicians are men set apart on
   purpose to deal with human maladies, therefore she went to the
   physicians. What better could she do? Though she failed, yet she did
   what seemed most likely to succeed. Now, when a soul is resolved to
   find salvation, it is most fit and proper that it should use every
   likely means for the finding of salvation, Oh that they were wise
   enough to hear the Gospel and to come at once to Jesus! But often they
   make grave mistakes. This woman went to gentlemen who were supposed to
   understand the science of medicine. Was it not natural that she should
   look for help to their superior wisdom?

   She cannot be blamed for looking to the men of light and leading. Many,
   in these days, do the same thing. They hear of the new discoveries of
   professedly cultured men and hear their talk about the littleness of
   sin and the larger hope and the non-necessity of the new birth. Poor
   deceived creatures! They find in the long run that nothing comes of it.
   For the wisdom of man is nothing but pretentious folly. The world by
   wisdom knows neither God nor His salvation. Many there are who know
   less of the saving Truth of God because they know so much of what human
   fancy has devised and human search discovered. We cannot blame the
   woman that, being a simple soul and anxious for healing, she went to
   those first who were thought to know most. Let us not, with Christ so
   near, go roundabout as she did but let us touch our Lord at once.

   No doubt the sufferer also tried men who had diplomas, or were
   otherwise authorized to act as physicians. How can you blame her for
   going to those who were in the succession and had the official stamp?
   Many sin-sick souls nowadays are, at first, very hopeful that the
   ordained clergy can benefit them by their duly performed services and
   duly administered sacraments. At least, good men, eminent in the
   Church, may be looked to for aid--surely these know how to deal with
   souls! Alas, it is vain to look to men at all, and foolish to depend on
   official dignity, or special repute. Some teachers do not know much
   about their own souls and therefore know less about the souls of
   others.

   Vain is the help of man, be the man who he may. Whatever his
   popularity, learning, or eloquence, if you seek him for his prayers, or
   his teachings, as able to save you, you will certainly seek in vain. As
   this poor woman did--she is not to be blamed but to be commended, that
   she did what seemed best to her, according to her light. But you are
   warned--go not, therefore, to men.

   No doubt she met with some who boasted that they could heal her
   complaint at once. They began by saying, "You have tried So-and-So but
   he is a mere quack--mine is a scientific remedy. You have used a
   medicine which I could have told you would be worthless. But I have the
   secret. Put yourself absolutely into my hands and the thing is done. I
   have healed many that have been given up by all the faculty. Follow my
   orders and you will be restored." Sick persons are so eager to recover
   that they readily take the bait which is offered them by brazen
   impudence. An oily tongue and a bland manner, backed with unblushing
   assurance, are sure to win their way with one who is anxious to gain
   that which is offered.

   Ah, me, "All is not gold that glitters." And all the professions which
   are made of helping sin-sick souls are not true professions. Many
   pretenders to new revelations are abroad but they are physicians of no
   value. There is no balm in Gilead. There is no physician there--if
   there had been, the hurt of the daughter of my people had long ago been
   healed. There is no medicine beneath the sky that can stay the
   palpitations of a heart which dreads the judgment to come. No earthly
   surgery can take away the load of sin from the conscience. No hand of
   priest or presbyter, Prophet or philosopher, can cleanse the leprosy of
   guilt. The finger of God is wanted here. There is one Heal-all, one
   Divine Catholicon and only one.

   Happy is he that has received this infallible balm from Jehovah
   Rophi--the "Lord that Heals." Yet we marvel not, that when souls are
   pressed down with a sense of guilt, they try anything and everything
   which offers even a faint hope of relief. I could wish that all my
   hearers had an intense zeal to find salvation. For even if it led them
   into passing mistakes, yet, under God's blessing, they would find their
   way out of them and end by glorifying the Divine Grace of our Lord
   Jesus Christ which never fails.

   This woman, in the next place, having resolved not to die if a cure
   could be had and having adopted the likeliest means, persevered in the
   use of those means. No doubt she tried many and even opposite remedies.
   One doctor said, "You had better go to the warm baths of the lake of
   Tiberius--such bathing will be comforting and helpful." She grew worse
   at the warm bath, and went to another physician who said, "You were
   wrongly treated. You need bracing up in the cold baths of the Jordan."
   Thus she went from vanity to vanity, to find both of them useless. An
   eminent practitioner assured her that she needed an internal remedy and
   he alone could give her an infallible receipt.

   This, however, was of no use to her. And she went to another who said
   that an external application should be tried, such as Isaiah's lump of
   figs. What perseverance that woman must have had! I am not going to say
   anything about our doctors nowadays, no doubt they are the most learned
   and skillful that can be--but in earlier times surgery was murderous
   and medicines were poisonous. Many of the prescriptions of those days
   are sickening and yet ridiculous. I read yesterday a prescription, of
   our Savior's time, warranted to cure many diseases which consisted of
   grasshopper's eggs. These were supposed to exercise a marvelous
   influence but they are no longer in the list of medicines.

   The tooth of a fox was said to possess special powers. But I noticed
   that one of the chief drugs of all, the most expensive but the surest
   in its action, was a nail from the finger of a man who had been hanged.
   It was important that he should have been hanged--another fingernail
   might have had no efficacy. Poor creatures were made to suffer most
   painfully by cruel medicines which were far worse than the disease. As
   for surgical operations, if they had been designed to kill, they were
   certainly admirably arranged for their purpose. The wonder is that for
   twelve years poor human nature could stand out, not against the
   disease, but against the doctors.

   Brethren, the case is much the same spiritually. How many, under their
   burden of sin, go first to one and then to an-other--practice this and
   agonize after that and pine for the other--perseveringly and still
   without avail! Travel as fast as you may in a wrong direction you will
   not reach the place you seek. Vain are all things save Jesus our Lord.

   Have you been to Doctor Ceremony? He is, at this time, the fashionable
   doctor. Has he told you that you must attend to forms and rules? Has he
   prescribed you so many prayers and so many services? Ah, many go to him
   and they persevere in a round of religious observances but these yield
   no lasting ease to the conscience. Have you tried Doctor Morality? He
   has a large practice and is a fine old Jewish physician. "Be good in
   outward character," says he, "and it will work inwardly and cleanse the
   heart." A great many persons are supposed to have been cured by him and
   by his assistant, Doctor Civility, who is nearly as clever as his
   master. But I have it on good evidence that neither of them apart, nor
   even the two together, could ever deal with an inward disease.

   Do what you may, your own doings will not stanch the wounds of a
   bleeding heart. Doctor Mortification has also a select practice. But
   men are not saved by denying themselves until they first deny their
   self-righteousness. Doctor Excitement has many patients but his cures
   seldom outlive the sunset. Doctor Feeling is much sought after by
   tender spirits. These try to feel sorrow and remorse. But, indeed, the
   way of cure does not lie in that quarter. Let everything be done that
   can be done apart from our blessed Lord Jesus Christ and the sick soul
   will not be better. You may try human remedies for the space of a
   lifetime but sin will remain in power, guilt will cling to the
   conscience, and the heart will abide as hard as ever.

   But this woman not only thus tried the most likely means and persevered
   in the use of them but she also spent all her substance over it. That
   was perhaps the chief thing in ancient surgery!--the golden ointment
   which did good to the physician, whatever became of the patient. The
   most important point was to pay the doctor. This woman's living was
   wasting away as well as her life. She continued to pay and to pay and
   to pay. But she received no benefit from it. You might say, rather,
   that she suffered more than she would have done had she kept her gold.
   Thus do men waste their thought, their care, their prayer, their agony
   over that which is as nothing--they spend their money for that which is
   not bread.

   At last she came to her last shekel. In the end there was an end to her
   means. But so long as the silver lasted, she lavished it out of the
   bag. What would not a man give to be saved? I never wonder that dying
   men give their estates to priests in the hope that they can save their
   souls. If gold could purchase pardon, who would withhold it? Health of
   body, if it could be purchased with gold, would be cheap at any price.
   But health of soul, holiness of character, acceptance with God,
   assurance of Heaven--

   these would be cheap if we counted out worlds as poor men pay down
   their pence for bread. There are men so mean that they would not part
   with a pound for a place in Paradise. But if these once knew their true
   condition they would alter their minds. The price of wisdom is above
   rubies. If we had mines of gold, we might profitably barter them for
   the salvation of our souls.

   Beloved, you see where this woman was. She was in downright, desperate
   earnest to have her mortal malady healed and so she spared neither her
   labor nor her living. In this we may wisely imitate her.

   II. We have seen what the woman had done. Now let us think of WHAT HAD
   COME OF IT. We are told that she had suffered many things of many
   physicians. That was her sole reward for trusting and spending--she had
   not been relieved, much less healed. But she had suffered. She had
   endured much additional suffering through seeking a cure. That is the
   case with you who have not come to Christ but, being under a sense of
   sin, have sought relief apart from Him. All that you do apart from
   Jesus, in order to win salvation, will only cause you increased
   suffering.

   You have tried to save yourself by prayers. Your prayers have turned
   your thoughts upon your sin and its punishment and thus you have become
   more wretched than before. You have attended to ceremonies and if you
   have used them sincerely, they have worked in you a solemn sense of the
   holiness of God and of your own distance from Him. And this, though
   very proper, has only increased your sorrow. You have been trying to
   feel good and to do good, that so you may be good. But the very effort
   has made you feel how far off you are from the goodness you so much
   desire.

   Your self-denial has excited cravings after evil and your
   mortifications have given new life to your pride. Efforts after
   salvation made in your own strength act like the struggles of a
   drowning man, which sink the more surely. As the fruit of your
   desperate efforts, you have suffered all the more. In the end I trust
   this may work for your good, but up till now it has served no healing
   purpose--you are now at death's door and all your praying, weeping,
   Church-going, Chapel-going and sacrament-taking--do not help you one
   bit. There has been this peculiarly poignant pang about it all, that
   you are not better. Cheerily did you hope but cruelly are you
   disappointed.

   You cried, "I have it this time," but the bubble vanished as you
   grasped it. The evil of your nature, when repressed in one place, broke
   out in another. You dealt with the symptoms of your disease but you did
   not cut off the root of the mischief--it only showed itself in another
   form--it never went away. You gave up one sin only to fall into
   another--you watched at the front entrance and the thief stole in at
   the back door. Up till now, O Soul, you have not come to Jesus and
   after all your goings elsewhere, you are not better!

   And now, perhaps this morning you are saying, "What can I do? What
   shall I do?" I will tell you. You can do nothing except what this woman
   ultimately did, of which I will speak by-and-by. You are now brought to
   this extremity--that you are without strength, without merit, without
   power, and you must look out of yourself to another--one who has
   strength and merit, and can save you. God grant that you may look to
   that glorious One before this service is over!

   We read of this woman, that though she suffered much, she was not
   better but rather grew worse. No better after twelve years of medicine?
   She went to the Egyptian doctor and he promised her health in three
   months. She was worse. She tried the Syrian doctor--he was a man who
   had great knowledge of the occult sciences and was not ashamed to
   practice enchantments. She was bitterly disappointed to find herself
   decidedly weaker. Then she heard of a Greek practitioner, who would
   cure her, presto! in a instant. She paid her remaining money but she
   still went backward. She bought disappointment very dearly.

   Friend, is this your condition? You are anxious to be right, and
   therefore you are earnest in every effort to save yourself. But still
   you are not better. You climb a treadmill and are no higher after all
   your climbing. You drift down the river with one tide and you float up
   again when it turns. Night after night you pull up in the same old
   creek that you started from. Oh, pitiful condition! Getting gray,
   too--becoming quite the old gentleman. And yet no nearer eternal life
   than when, as a lad, you used to attend the House of God and wish to
   become a child of God.

   Was she better? No. She grew worse? Fresh mischief had developed--other
   diseases fed upon her weakness. She was more emaciated, more lifeless
   than ever. Sad result of so much perseverance! And is not that the case
   with some of you who are in earnest but are not enlightened? You are
   working and growing poorer as you work. There is not about you so much
   as there used to be of good feeling, or sincere desire, or
   prayerfulness, or love for the Bible, or care to hear the Gospel. You
   are becoming more careless, more dubious than you once were. You have
   lost much of you former sensitiveness. You are doing certain things now
   that would have startled you years ago and you are leaving certain
   matters undone which once you would have thought essential. Evidently
   you are caught in the current and are nearing the waterfall. The Lord
   deliver you!

   This is a sad, sad case! As a climax of it all, the heroine of our
   story had now spent all that she had. She could not go now to the
   Egyptian doctor, or to the Syrian doctor, or to the Hebrew doctor, or
   to the Roman doctor, or to the Greek doctor. No. Now she must do
   without their flattering unction in the future. As for those famous
   medicines which raised her hopes, she

   can buy no more of such costly inventions. This was, perhaps, her
   bitterest grief--but let me whisper it in your ear--this was the best
   thing that had yet happened to her. And I am praying that it may happen
   to some of you. At the bottom of your purse I trust you will find
   wisdom.

   When we come to the end of self we come to the beginning of Christ!
   That last shekel binds us to the pretenders but absolute bankruptcy
   sets us free to go to Him who heals diseases without money and without
   price. Glad enough am I when I meet with a man who is starved out of
   self-sufficiency. Welcome, Brother! Now you are ready for Jesus. When
   all your own virtue has gone out of you, then shall you seek and find
   that virtue which goes out of HIM.

   III. This brings to our notice, in the third place, WHAT THIS WOMAN DID
   AT LAST. Weaker and weaker had she become and her purse had become
   lighter and lighter. She hears of Jesus of Nazareth, a man sent of God
   who is healing sick folk of all sorts. She hears attentively. She puts
   the stories together that she hears. She believes them. They have the
   likeness of the Truth of God about them. "Oh," says she, "there is yet
   another opportunity for me. I will get in the crowd and if I can only
   touch the bit of blue which he wears as the border of his garment, I
   shall be made whole."

   Splendid faith! It was thought much of in her own day and we may still
   more highly prize it now that faith has grown so rare. Note well she
   resolved to trust in Jesus in sheer despair of doing anything else. My
   dear Friend, I do not know where you are sitting this morning in this
   great congregation--I almost wish I did, that I might come up to you
   and say to you personally, "Try Jesus Christ, trust Him and see whether
   He will not save you. Every other door is evidently shut--why not enter
   by Christ, the Door? There is no other life buoy. Lay hold on this! Say
   with our poet--

   "I can but perish if I go; I am resolved to try; For if I stay away, I
   know I must forever die."

   Exercise the courage which is born of desperation. May God the Holy
   Spirit help you now to thrust forth your finger and get into touch with
   Jesus! Say, "Yes, I freely accept Christ. By God's grace, I will have
   Him to be my only hope. I will have Him now." Be driven to Jesus by
   force of circumstances. Since there is no other port, O weather-beaten
   boat, make for this One! Wanderer, here is a Refuge! Turn in here, for
   there is no other shelter.

   After all, this was the simplest and easiest thing that she could do.
   Touch Jesus. Put out your finger and touch the hem of His garment. The
   prescriptions she had purchased were long. But this was short enough.
   The operations performed upon her had been intricate. But this was
   simplicity itself. The suffering she had endured had complicated her
   case. But this was as plain as a pikestaff. "Touch with your finger the
   hem of His garment--that is all." O my Hearer, you have tried many
   things, great things and hard things and painful things--why not try
   this simple matter of faith? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you
   shall be saved. Trust Jesus to cleanse you and He will do it. Put
   yourself into your Savior's hands once and for all, and He will save
   you.

   Not only was this the simplest and easiest thing for the poor afflicted
   one, but certainly it was the freest and most gracious. There was not a
   penny to pay. Nobody stood at the door of the consulting room to take
   her guinea. And the good Physician did not even give a hint that He
   expected a reward. The gifts of Jesus are free as the air. He healed
   this believing woman in the open street, in the midst of the crowd. She
   had felt that if she could but get into the throng, she would, by hook
   or by crook, get near enough to reach the hem of His garment and then
   she would be healed.

   It is so this morning, dear Hearer. Come and receive Divine Grace
   freely. Bring no good works, no good words, no good feelings, no good
   resolves, as the price of pardon. Come with an empty hand and touch the
   Lord by faith. The good things which you desire, Jesus will give you as
   the result of His cure. But they cannot be the cause or the price of
   it. Accept His mercy as the gift of His love! Come empty-handed and
   receive! Come undeserving and be favored! Only come into contact with
   Jesus, who is the Fountain of Life and you shall be saved.

   This was the quietest thing for her to do. She said nothing. She did
   not cry aloud like the blind men. She did not ask friends to look on
   and see her make her venture. She kept her own counsel and pushed into
   the press. In absolute silence she took a stolen touch of the Lord's
   robe. O my Hearer, you can be saved in silence. You have no need to
   speak to any person of your acquaintance, not even to mother or father.
   At this moment, while in the pew, believe and live. Nobody will know
   that you now are touching the Lord. In after days you will own your
   faith but in the act itself you will be alone and unseen. Believe on
   Jesus. Trust yourself with Him. Have done with all other confidences
   and say, "He is all my salvation." Take Jesus at once, if not with a
   hand's grasp, yet with a finger's touch. O you poor, timid, bashful
   Creature, touch the Lord! Trust in His power to save. Do not let me
   tell you to do it in vain but do it at once. May God's Spirit cause you
   to accept Jesus now!

   This is the only effectual thing. Touch Jesus and salvation is yours at
   once. Simple as faith is, it is never-failing. A touch of the fringe of
   the Savior's garment sufficed--in a moment she felt in her body that
   she was healed of that plague. "It is twelve years ago," she said to
   herself, "since I felt like a living woman. I have been sinking in a
   constant death all this while, but now I feel my strength come back to
   me." Blessed be the name of the great Healer! She was exceeding glad.
   Tremble she did, lest it should turn out to be too good to be true. But
   she was most surely healed. O my dear Hearer, do trust my Lord, for He
   will surely do for you that which none other can achieve. Leave feeling
   and working and try faith in Jesus. May the Holy Spirit lead you to do
   so at once!

   IV. And now, poor convicted Sinner! Here comes the driving home of the
   nail. DO AS THIS WOMAN DID--ask nobody about it--but do it. She did not
   go to Peter, James and John and say, "Good Sirs, advise me." She did
   not beg from them an introduction to Jesus but she went of her own
   accord and tried for herself the virtue of a touch. You have had
   advising enough. Now come to real work. There is too much tendency to
   console ourselves by conversations with godly men--let us get away from
   them and speak to their Master. Talks in the enquiry room and chats
   with Christian neighbors are all very well. But one touch of Jesus will
   be infinitely better.

   I do not blame you for seeking religious advice--this may be a half-way
   house to call at but do not make it the terminus. Press on till, by
   personal faith, you have laid hold on Jesus. Do not tell anybody what
   you are about to do. Wait till it is done. Another day you will be
   happy to tell the minister and God's people of what the Lord has done
   for you. But for the present, quietly believe in the Lamb of God which
   takes away the sin of the world. Do not even ask yourself about it. If
   this poor woman had consulted with herself she might never have
   ventured so near the Holy One of God. So clearly shut out from society
   by the Law of her people and her God, if she had given the matter a
   second thought, she might have abandoned the idea.

   Blessed was the impetuosity which thrust her into the crowd and kept
   her head above the throng and her face towards the Lord in the center
   of the press. She did not so much reason as dare. Do not ask yourself
   anything about it. But do it. Believe and have done with it. Stop not
   to parley with your own unbelief, nor answer your rising doubts and
   fears. But at once, this instant, put out your finger, touch the hem of
   His garment and see what will come of it. God help you to do so while I
   am speaking!

   Yield to the sacred impulse which is just now operating upon you. Do
   not say, "Tomorrow may be more convenient." In this woman's case there
   was the Lord before her. She longed to be healed at once and so, come
   what may, into the crowd she plunged. She was so enfeebled that one
   wonders how she managed to get near Him. But possibly the crowd took
   her off her feet and carried her onward, as often happens in a rush.
   However, there was her chance and she seized it. There was the fringe
   of the Lord's mantle--out went her finger--it was all done.

   O my Friend, you have an opportunity now, by God's great grace, for you
   are in His House of Prayer. Jesus of Nazareth passes by at this moment.
   He who speaks to you is not trying to say pretty things but he is
   pining to win your soul for Jesus. Oh, how I wish I could lead you to
   that saving touch! The Spirit of God can do it. May He now move you to
   cry--"I will believe in the appointed sacrifice and trust my soul with
   Jesus"! Have you done so? You are saved. "He that believes in Him has
   everlasting life."

   "Oh but I tremble so!" So did she whom Jesus healed. Her hand shook but
   she touched Him all the same for that. I think I see her quivering
   finger. Poor emaciated woman, with pale and bloodless cheeks! What a
   taper finger was that which she held out and how it quivered! However
   much the finger of your faith may tremble, if it does but touch the hem
   of the Lord's garment, virtue will flow from Him to you. The power is
   not in the finger which touches but in the Divine Savior who is
   touched. So long as there is a contact established between you and the
   almighty power of Jesus, His power will travel along your trembling
   finger and bring healing to your heart.

   A telegraph wire may shake with the wind and yet convey the electric
   current and so may a trembling faith convey salvation from Jesus. A
   strong faith which rests anywhere but in Jesus, is a delusion. But a
   weak faith which rests alone on Jesus, brings sure salvation. Out with
   your finger, dear Soul, out with your finger! Do not go away till you
   have touched the Lord by a believing prayer or hope. Holy Spirit, do
   not suffer any to quit the Tabernacle until, by a believing desire, or
   trust, or confidence of some sort, they have established a contact
   between themselves and Jesus and have felt the virtue enter them for
   their instant healing.

   O Lord, save this people! Why do you come, Sunday after Sunday, in such
   crowds? And why must I stand here and bleed my heart away in love to
   your souls? Is the sole result to be that I help you to spend an
   hour-and-a-half in a sort of religious amusement? What a waste it is of
   my labor and of your time unless some gracious work is done! O Sirs, if
   you are not brought

   to Christ, my preaching will prove a curse to you! It appalls me to
   think that the preaching of the Gospel will be a savor of death unto
   you unless it brings you life. Put not the day of Divine Grace from
   you.

   By the living God, I do implore you, trust the living Redeemer. As I
   shall meet you all, face to face, before the Judgment Seat of Christ, I
   do implore and beseech you--put out the finger of faith and trust the
   Lord Jesus, who is so fully worthy to be trusted. The simple trust of
   your heart will stay the death which now works in you. Lord, give that
   trust, for Jesus' sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

"Is Anything Too Hard for the Lord?"

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, APRIL 22, 1888,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah, saying, Behold, I am the
   Lord, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for Me?"
   Jeremiah 32:26,27.

   THIS method of questioning the person to be instructed is known to
   teachers as the Socratic method. Socrates was likely, not so much to
   state a fact as to ask a question and draw out thoughts from those whom
   he taught. His method had long before been used by a far greater
   teacher. Putting questions is Jehovah's frequent method of instruction.
   When the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind it was with a series of
   questions. "Know you the ordinances of Heaven? Can you set the dominion
   thereof in the earth? Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that
   abundance of waters may cover you? Can you send lightning, that they
   may go and say unto you, Here we are?" and so forth.

   Questions from the Lord are very often the strongest affirmations. He
   would have us perceive their absolute certainty. They are put in this
   particular form because He would have us think over His great thought
   and confirm it by our own reflections. The Lord shines upon us in the
   question and our answer to it is the reflection of His light. The
   Infallible One challenges a contradiction, or even a doubt. "Is
   anything too hard for Me?" is the strongest way of saying that nothing
   can be too hard for Him, for it proclaims defiance to Heaven and earth
   and Hell, to produce a difficulty which can perplex the Lord.

   I invite you, therefore, dear Friends, to turn the question over in
   your minds till the omnipotence of Jehovah shall be your one
   all-absorbing thought. You cannot think of anything which renders it
   necessary to put a footnote to the text. Search well and see if it
   needs qualification. See whether there is an exception to the rule of
   absolute omnipotence. Revolve the Divine question long and well--"Is
   anything too hard for Me?" May your thoughts be awake at this time! May
   the Truth of the text take possession of your minds and fill them with
   its fragrance even as the woman's box of ointment filled the room with
   its perfume!

   I. I shall ask you, first, to consider the wonderful question of our
   text which the Lord put to the Prophet, VIEWING IT AS NECESSARY. The
   utterance of these words was no superfluity, there was need for them to
   be spoken. Flesh is frail and mortal minds are forgetful. And Jeremiah,
   great as he was, was but a man.

   It was needful to tell the Prophet this though he knew it. He never
   doubted that the Lord is Almighty and yet it was needful for Jehovah
   Himself to speak home this Truth to his mind and heart. It is often
   necessary for the Lord Himself to drive home a Truth into the mind of
   His most faithful servant. None can teach as the Lord teaches. Truth is
   never fully known by the sons of Zion until the Lord teaches it to
   them. Hence it is written, "all your children shall be taught of the

   Lord."

   We learn much in many ways, but we learn nothing vitally and
   practically till the Spirit of God becomes our schoolmaster. The God of
   Truth must teach us the Truth of God or we shall never learn it.
   Jeremiah knew this Truth in his inmost soul--see the sixteenth and
   seventeenth verses of this chapter--"I prayed unto the Lord, saying,
   Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the Heaven and the earth by Your
   great power and stretched out arm and there is nothing too hard for
   You." He expressed the Truth admirably and yet the Lord saw it needful
   to give him a special Divine Revelation to impress it more fully upon
   his heart.

   Brethren, it is one thing to know that such a doctrine is true and
   quite another thing to know the Truth itself. We need to be persuaded
   of it so as to embrace it. It is a glorious thing to see Truth blaze
   out as if written in letters of fire. We are far too apt to put Truth
   down in our creed and after that to shut it away from practical
   everyday use. We believe it and we should be indignant if anybody
   disputed it. And yet we ignore it. The Truth of God laid upon the shelf
   is as

   good as unknown. Doctrines which are disputed often have the most
   influence upon the community because they are brought clearly before
   men's minds. And being threshed out, they yield seed for the sower and
   bread for the eater.

   We read in one of the Epistles, "I put you in remembrance of these
   things, though you know them and are established in the present truth."
   There is a Proverb which says that, "Truth is mighty and will prevail."
   That is true, as far as it goes. But the Truth of God may be formally
   admitted and then it may be laid aside and so may never prevail. It is
   ill to treat a Truth like some great Egyptian king who is swathed in
   fine linen, embalmed with precious spices and pompously placed in the
   tomb with other honorable mummies. The Lord would not have the Truth of
   His own omnipotence thus dealt with, and therefore He comes forth from
   His secret place and speaks personally to His servant, saying, "Is
   anything too hard for Me?"

   May the Lord do the same with us in reference to the precious Truths of
   His Gospel! May the Holy Spirit Himself take of the things of Christ
   and show them to us. Then shall we see them in their own light and know
   them as Divine realities!

   But I go a step further and say that it is necessary for us to be thus
   specially instructed, even though we know a Truth well enough to plead
   it in prayer, as Jeremiah did when he cried, "There is nothing too hard
   for You." That man is no mean scholar in the classes of Christ who has
   learned to handle Scriptural Truths when pleading with the Lord. Oh,
   that we used more argument in prayer! Prayers are weak when they lack
   pleadings. "Bring forth your strong reasons, says the Lord." The sinews
   of prayer are the holy arguments which we urge with the Lord, such as
   His own promises and our great needs--His own glory, His covenant, the
   malice of the enemy, and so forth. We know great Truths of God well
   when we see their bearing towards God in supplication.

   And yet, though we may be able to plead it in supplication, we may not
   even, then, know the Truth to the full. O men of God, you that are
   fathers in Israel, may the Holy Spirit still teach you, till you know
   all the power and fullness of His Truth. In lowliness of spirit I doubt
   not that you still cry--

   "I find myself a learner yet, Unstable, weak and apt to slide." May the
   Comforter continually bring to your remembrance the things which Jesus
   has told you till you know the heart and soul of them.

   You gracious mothers in Israel, may God reveal Himself to you more and
   more and even those Truths which you already plead in your closet may
   He yet cause you to realize more vividly still. May you weave songs as
   well as prayers out of the Truth of God. This Truth of His omnipotence
   may He come and speak to our hearts as He did to the heart of
   Jeremiah--

   "Behold, I am Jehovah, the God of all flesh-- Is there anything too
   hard for Me?" But I must yet go a step further. It is necessary for God
   thus to reveal Truth individually to each of our hearts even though we
   may have acted on it. Jeremiah had acted on the fact that nothing was
   too hard for God. He had but very little money. And in days of famine
   and pestilence money was very precious. A morsel of bread was worth
   silver during the siege. Poor Jeremiah had not many shekels and those
   shekels would all be wanted in one way and another for the necessaries
   of life. And yet he had counted into the scales the price of a piece of
   land at Anathoth, which he would probably never see, much less enjoy.

   The Lord had bid him do so and he had done it without demur. Beloved,
   it is a great thing to be a little child before God, unquestioningly
   obedient to our Father's will. We may not calculate consequences, nor
   estimate difficulties. We are to do what the Lord tells us, as He tells
   us, when He tells us. O you Jeremiahs, it is--

   "Yours not to reason why, Yours at all price to buy."

   Jeremiah did not doubt, debate, or even delay. He signed the deed and
   took care to have it properly preserved. If you see any difficulty,
   obey the Lord first and seek an explanation afterwards, for so the
   Prophet did. He obeyed in the full confidence that nothing was too hard
   for God.

   After his obedience he began to look back on what he had done and to be
   considerably bewildered while trying to make out how God would justify
   what He had done. Elijah himself was faint, though he had taken the
   Prophets of Baal and slain them before the Lord--but the faintness came
   after the conflict and not before it. This is much the best time for

   faintness, if we faint at all. He was the Prophet of fire, a man of
   iron firmness for his Master, yet after the strong excitement had
   passed he was overcome and it was needful for his Lord to revive him.

   The best of men are men at the best. If the Lord lifts you up into the
   purity and dignity of a child-like faith, yet you will have your
   moments when you will cry, "Lord, speak to me Yourself again, even
   though it be out of the whirlwind. And let me know that I have done all
   these things according to Your word and not after my own fancy." Even
   the practice of Truth does not raise us above the need of having it
   again and again laid home to the soul. So, you see, our gracious God
   applies to our hearts the Truth which we know, which we plead and which
   we practice--that it may come even yet more fully into our soul and
   abide there.

   Another necessity for this arises out of further manifestations with
   which we are to be favored. God had caused Jeremiah to know His
   omnipotence so far but he was to see still more of it. Faith has led
   you into marvelous places. But there are greater things before you and
   the Lord presses Truth upon you that you may receive more of it. Did
   you ever climb a mountain? A friend of mine, when among the Alps,
   asserted confidently that he could reach the top of a certain mountain
   in half-an-hour. It certainly looked very near us but my eye had been
   better educated to estimate distances among mountains and I assured him
   that it would take him all the day to stand upon that ridge.

   The fact is, that when you have climbed one stiff bit of hill you find
   yourself bound to go down into a valley before you can tackle the next
   ascent. There are hills above hills and one summit is a sort of lookout
   from which you see that you have much further to go. That which looked
   like a part of the side of the hill may really be a mountain by itself.
   And when you have ascended it, you have the cheering privilege of
   seeing that you are now at the bottom of the next. In fact, although
   you are decidedly higher, you often seem to have further to go than
   when you started.

   It is just so with our experience of Divine things--when we know the
   Lord to the full of our capacity, that capacity enlarges and we begin
   to learn again. We know more and for that very reason are far more
   conscious of our ignorance than we were at the first. The Lord Himself
   came to His servant Jeremiah and thus prepared him for those greater
   things which He was about to reveal. The Lord had told him what to do
   and he had done it and thus he had believed up to the highest degree of
   that which was revealed to him. And therefore the Lord was going to
   reward his obedient faith by committing to him other mysteries and
   prophecies of the future.

   The city was to be burned and to be destroyed. God would wash out the
   footprints of sin in the blood of the sinners and lay their land
   utterly waste. And yet the day would come when the scattered people
   would come back and lands and vineyards would be bought and sold,
   whereof the buying of the field at Anathoth was a type and a pledge.
   Then the Lord would restore the nation to more than its former
   prosperity and make with the people an Everlasting Covenant that He
   would not turn away from them to do them good and would put His fear in
   their hearts that they should not depart from

   Him.

   All that he had already believed would prepare Jeremiah to believe in
   this amazing blessing. Possibly some of you imagine that it would be an
   easy thing for him to believe well of Israel but, indeed, you forget
   how the people had treated him. He had been dealing with them patiently
   and tearfully for many years and they had proved a most perverse,
   rebellious and cruel people. They had jested at his tears, disbelieved
   his prophecies and refused his warnings. He was even then in prison for
   having spoken the Truth. So that it needed that God Himself should come
   to him and cheer him as to these people, saying, "I am the Lord, the
   God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for Me?"

   The stiff-necked people could be brought to obedience and should be,
   for the Lord Himself would do it. The Lord would take away the stony
   heart out of their flesh and make them a lovingly obedient people. This
   was impossible with Jeremiah but possible with Jehovah. He will yet be
   glorified even in the midst of those who have dishonored Him and
   despised His Prophets. Thus you see how wise it was of the Lord to
   repeat to His servant that which he knew, pleaded and acted on--that he
   might be made to believe still more fully in the all-sufficiency of the
   Lord his God.

   II. Under the second head of our discourse we shall look at the text
   REGARDING IT AS DECISIVE. "Then came the Word of the Lord unto
   Jeremiah, saying, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there
   anything too hard for Me?" This argument is decisive. For the argument
   is fetched from the Lord Himself. Note this--in his prayer, Jeremiah
   drew his encouragement from what the Lord had done. Observe "Ah, Lord
   God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great
   power and stretched out arm and there is nothing too hard for You."

   Creation is a fine argument. The God that made the heavens and the
   earth without help from any can surely do anything He pleases. He who
   made the mountains and the sea and the isles thereof can do anything.
   He who created the skies and made the stars also in the far-off
   space--those great and mighty orbs--what is there that He cannot do?
   This was good argument for Jeremiah. But Jehovah does not point to His
   works, nor quote creation nor Providence--He speaks of Himself--the
   source of all, from where a thousand earths and heavens might flow like
   streams from a fountain. There it stands in its majestic simplicity--"I
   am Jehovah."

   When we look to God alone and think, by the help of His Spirit, of who
   He is and what He must be, then we realize that nothing can be too hard
   for Him. Alas, what feeble notions we have of God! I dare say we think
   that we magnify Him but in reality we belittle Him with our highest
   thoughts. When we go down to the sea of trial and do business on great
   waters of trouble we find that we know little enough of God. When we
   see His wonders on the deep we are astonished and overwhelmed and if
   one of His storms should arise, our faith is staggered. If we did but
   rise to an idea of God--if we could but form a fair idea of the
   immeasurable greatness of His power--doubt and mistrust would become
   impossible. "Is anything too hard for Me?" says Jehovah.

   Meditate much upon the Divine Father, Creator and Preserver. Meditate
   upon the Divine Son, the risen Redeemer, who has all power in Heaven
   and in earth. Meditate upon the sacred Spirit, of whom the rushing
   mighty wind in the tornado is but a faint symbol and you will feel that
   here is the source of all might. "I am Jehovah." The argument takes you
   to Himself and coming to you from His own mouth the reason is a
   decisive one.

   But He means us also to see the argument as founded on His name, "I am
   Jehovah." I am always sorry that our revisers had not the courage of
   their knowledge and had left the Divine name as it is in the original
   Hebrew and given us the word "Jehovah" where they usually put LORD. It
   is a name of awe and glory, and the Christian Church must get back to
   it and return more distinctly to the worship of Jehovah. The God of
   Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob--this God is our God forever and ever.
   And we might more clearly have recognized this if the incommunicable
   name had been preserved to us in our version of the sacred Scriptures.

   The name brings out the personality of God. Those who say that there is
   no God, are, some of them, forced to admit that there is a central
   force--a power which makes for righteousness. They talk of an
   impersonal something but we believe in a personal God and he who has no
   personal God has, in truth, no God at all. I cannot call an unknown
   force my Father, and I cannot address my trust or my prayer to it. It,
   indeed! The Creator of persons an it! We want Him, a Person, a
   conscious, thinking, acting personality. This we have here--"I am
   Jehovah." The name signifies self-existence. God does not exist because
   of His surroundings--He draws nothing from without. His life is in
   Himself. He derives no support or aid from anything outside of Himself.
   Indeed, there is nothing which has not come of Him. All things were
   made by Him and He sustains all things by the word of His power.

   The name of Jehovah reminds us that He has within Himself sufficiency
   for all His will. He has adequate power of performance for all His
   purposes and decrees. Jehovah wills and it is done. He has created
   legions of angels but He borrows nothing from them. He can truly say,
   "I Am and there is none beside Me." Those mysterious living creatures
   which are nearest to His Throne are His creatures and not His helpers.
   The best instructed and the most willing of His servants derive their
   all from Him but supply Him with nothing. Remembering the name,
   Shaddai, God All-Sufficient, we understand all the better His question,
   "Is anything too hard for Me?"

   He lays the burden of the question upon His own Self. The whole stress
   of that which is hard in itself and too hard for others, He meets with
   that word, "I am Jehovah." All the power that can possibly be required
   in any imaginable case is in that name "Jehovah"! It is an immeasurable
   word--the eagle's wing cannot rise to its height. He that dives into
   the abyss cannot reach its depth. Jehovah's name is higher than Heaven,
   deeper than Hell, broader than space and greater than all things. What
   can we know of this infinite Word, "I am Jehovah"?

   Moreover, the name sets forth the Truth that He is immutable--He is "I
   Am that I Am." Time does not affect Him, nor change come near Him. He
   is never less than Jehovah. He cannot be more. We may at any moment of
   the dark night rest as confidently upon the I AM as in the brightest
   day. In fact, the meaning of that glorious word is infinite and
   unutterable. I do not wonder that the Jew should fear to write it and
   substitute for it the word Adonai, or Lord. We, casting away the
   superstition, feel an equal reverence and when our God says to us, "I
   am Jehovah," we bow before Him and confess that all questioning of
   possibility is ended forever.

   Yet in the text please notice that the argument is also founded on the
   Lord's relation to man. "I am the Lord, the God of all flesh." There is
   no other God for man anywhere or at any time save Jehovah. The gods of
   the heathen, aha, aha! They deserve no such name--they are idols but
   our God made the heavens. There is one living and true God for all
   flesh. There is, there can be no other. There is no room for another
   god, for our God fills all things. He is the God of all flesh, for "it
   is He that made us and not we ourselves."

   We have neither been evolved by Law, nor struck out by chance. The
   wretched it, which idiots talk of, is no sire of ours--Jehovah is the
   Maker of all flesh--

   "His sovereign power, without our aid, Made us of clay and formed us
   men." We rejoice that all flesh have such a God. Yet note that before
   the Lord, men are only "flesh." Hear this, you kings and great ones of
   the earth! He calls you "flesh." How sorrowfully do we see the truth of
   this in the heart-rending sickness of one of the greatest and best
   beloved of potentates! How wretchedly do we see it amidst the pomp of
   the funeral when the greatest of the great are carried out to be laid
   in the pasture of the worm!

   Hear this, you men of light and leading! You who have bedecked your
   names with all the letters of the alphabet! You, too, with all your
   learning, are but flesh. Do I hear you say of such a one--he is a great
   man? Is "great" a word which can be linked with flesh? What is the
   grandeur, the glory, the pomp of flesh? All flesh is grass and grass is
   cut down and withers. Right surely is he accursed that trusts in man
   and makes flesh his arm. You tell me of the charms of beauty. You sing
   of your beloved so white and ruddy--think what they will come to
   by-and-by. Flesh! Ah me! Leave it to itself. Is there anything fouler
   or more putrid than flesh when God calls back the spirit which quickens
   it?

   Behold the harvest of flesh in the garner of the sepulcher! See how the
   great reaper heaps up corruption! This is what we are, Brothers and
   Sisters. God sees us in our true condition and He calls us "flesh." Yet
   I do rejoice that, while we are flesh, He is our God. How is the worm
   linked to the immortal! Happy men who have such a God! Not that flesh
   and blood, as they are, can inherit the kingdom of God, nor that
   corruption can dwell with incorruption. But for Believers in the Lord
   Jesus there is a resurrection which shall lift us into a body of a
   nobler sort. We shall soon be rid of this carrion and we shall be aloft
   with Him where He dwells. And then, in the day of His appearing, even
   this poor body shall put on glory and in our flesh shall we see God.

   As the Lord makes the dull gold of earth into clear gold, like unto
   transparent glass, even so He makes this vile body to be like the
   glorious body of our risen and ascended Lord. We bow before the Lord,
   even we who are but dust and ashes, yes, worse--who are but flesh--and
   we bless His name, that yet He deigns to call us His people and to be
   our God. The argument is that since Jehovah is the God of all flesh He
   can effect His purposes by men and work among them things which seem
   impossible. The argument is so great that it puts all other arguments
   out of court.

   Poor Jeremiah is puzzled--he has been buying that acre or two of land
   which he will never see and his pockets are empty. And Baruch has been
   putting away the title-deeds in an earthen vessel, with a half-smile
   upon his face. The Prophet sits down and thinks over the transaction
   and his reason as the devil whispers, "What a fool you are! You might
   just as well have bought a horn of the new moon." Yet, somehow it must
   be made to appear a wise and sensible transaction, for the Lord never
   makes fools of His people. Jeremiah feels that as the command came from
   Jehovah, his own judgment is out of court--it is for the Lord and not
   for him to make good the transaction.

   All Jerusalem was to be burned and destroyed. What could be the use of
   his purchase? But, then, the condition of Jerusalem was not the point
   to be considered. God had said, "I am Jehovah," and that had put the
   King of Judah and his mighty men out of the reckoning. Is anything too
   hard for Jehovah? Come, Jeremiah, rake up your difficulties. Set in
   order the discouraging circumstances. Call in your friends, who all
   shake their heads at you and point their fingers to their brows, as
   much as to insinuate that you are a little gone from your senses. And
   then, answer them all with this-- "nothing is too hard for Jehovah."

   This clears the deck of every doubt that would board your vessel. This
   is the blessed argument which answers every difficulty and sets faith
   upon a rock from which it cannot be removed! "My soul, wait you only
   upon God. For my expectation is from Him."

   III. Having led you thus far, I now would have you follow me in
   something practical, namely, APPLYING IT IN DETAIL. The text says, "Is
   anything too hard for Me?" Apply this question to the justification of
   your obedience. When

   you know what is right it will happen, more often than not, that to do
   right will be costly or at least risky--and if you judge after the
   manner of worldly-wise men you will consider yourselves likely to be
   losers by obeying God. You may lose friends, reputation, assistance and
   peace. This question of loss is answered at once by this fact--if you
   do what God bids you--the responsibility of your conduct lies with Him
   and He will bear you through. "Is anything too hard for the

   Lord?"

   As He justified the action of His servant Elijah at Carmel and
   justified the purchase made by Jeremiah, so will He justify all the
   obedient actions of His people. He will bring forth our judgment as the
   light and our righteousness as the noonday. Apply this glorious Truth
   of God to the sure fulfillment of all the Divine promises. Consider a
   great one to begin with. This chapter evidently shows that the Jews are
   one day to be converted and restored. Do you believe it? "Oh," says
   one, "that would be a wonder"! It will be a wonder and the text may be
   read, "Is anything too wonderful for

   Me?"

   He can call them off from money-hunting--can take away their unbelief
   concerning the Lord Jesus. He can cause the lips which now revile the
   name of the Crucified to sing praises to the Nazarene. Glory be to His
   name, He can cause the waters of Siloa, which flow softly, again to
   flow with blessing and make the desolate land again to blossom as the
   rose. They that crucified the Lord of Glory shall look on Him whom they
   pierced and shall mourn for Him. "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"

   Apply this to any case of great sin. Select anyone whom you knew to be
   especially hard-hearted and pray for him earnestly and hopefully.
   Choose out some glaring sinner, or special heretic, or fierce hater of
   religion and pray for him. You say to yourself, "I will choose an
   easier case." Do not. "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" Will you, in
   your judgment, set anyone beyond the reach of mercy and out of the
   bounds of grace? Make an application of our text to the most desperate
   and loathsome sinner and believe that nothing is too hard for the Lord.
   O chief of sinners, if you are here this morning--blasphemer, swearer,
   thief, drunkard, whoremonger, harlot, take home this question to
   yourself--Thus says the Lord, "Is anything too hard for Me?"

   If you believe in the Lord Jesus, God has saved you, saved you now. He
   can and will wash every believing sinner from all his sins through the
   blood of Jesus and He will graciously blot out all his iniquities.
   Remember how He forgave David and Manasseh and the dying thief and Saul
   of Tarsus and the woman that was a sinner? May the Holy Spirit make a
   personal application of omnipotent love to each of you who now feel
   your sins! Salvation is not too hard a thing for the Lord.

   Apply this to difficult Truths of God. I will put before you a problem.
   There is the Truth of man's free agency. It is an easy cut, you know,
   to deny that there is such a thing as free will. But it is not fair,
   for men are responsible, free agents, and God has endowed them with
   will. But the knotty question arises--if man acts freely in his sinful
   actions how can predestination be a fact? If every man acts after his
   own will, how, then, does God foreordain all things? I answer, "Is
   anything too hard for Jehovah?" The solving of this great problem
   constrains me to worship the Lord. For He does solve it in actual
   history.

   I could understand God's executing His purposes upon material
   substances such as stones and wood. But this is the grandeur of His
   power, that while He leaves men free agents and does not in any case
   lead them to sin, yet they do act exactly as He foretold that they
   would do. The responsibility lies with them, for they do as they
   please. But yet His Divine purpose is effected. Peter said to the Jews
   concerning our Lord, "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel
   and foreknowledge of God you have taken and by wicked hands have
   crucified and slain." They did their evil deed most willingly and yet
   it was in the Divine purpose from of old.

   They were eager to destroy Christ out of diabolical malice and yet all
   the while they were the instruments of the death by which we are
   redeemed from destruction. Have faith enough to believe that Jehovah
   rules in the world of mind as well as in that of matter. He does as He
   wills among the armies of Heaven and among the inhabitants of this
   lower world. Consider another hard case--the hardest of all--human
   salvation. Sin must bring with it punishment. It is an inevitable Law
   of moral government that if you break the commandment, the command will
   be avenged upon you.

   Yet God is merciful and He is willing to forgive sin. How can it be
   possible for God to exercise the fullness of His mercy and yet
   discharge the necessities of His justice? All men and all angels put
   together would have made but one fool in trying to solve that
   difficulty. The Lord has answered it. He gave His Son to bear our sin.
   Jehovah Jesus died and presented Himself as the great sacrifice for our
   iniquities. On yonder Cross the Law is honored and man is justly saved.
   "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"

   Bring here your own little problems. You are always getting into
   tangles and snarls. Prudent friends try to help you but the tangle
   grows worse. Bring your hard cases to One who is wiser than Solomon and
   He will draw out a clear thread for you. "Is anything too hard for the
   Lord?" After Calvary nothing is intricate or difficult. The atoning
   sacrifice is such a triumph of wisdom and grace as can never be
   paralleled. Love here wore the girdle of omnipotence. All things are
   possible since Jesus has died. We believe in the deep depravity of
   humanity but Jehovah can change its nature. The Lord of Love can make
   sinners into saints. We tremble lest some have lost the very capacity
   for virtue. We ask in despair, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or
   the leopard his spots?" But with God such marvels are everyday things.

   For the salvation of great multitudes we are also exercised. We look on
   wicked London and despair of it. We look on China and India and Africa
   and say, "Can these dry bones live?" "Is anything too hard for the
   Lord?" The tears are in our eyes as we think of the Congo and the
   heroic ones who have perished by its pestilential waters. Will Africa
   ever stretch out its hands to Christ? "Is anything too hard for the
   Lord?"

   We look upon the Church at home in the present day. It is steeped in
   worldliness and smothered with false doctrine. Many have turned aside
   from the Gospel and given themselves up to a thousand errors--how can
   the evil be cured? It is to be cured. It must be cured. It shall be
   cured, for thus says Jehovah--"Is anything too hard for Me?" If the
   Lord had left but one faithful man under Heaven He would with that one
   man deliver Israel. But He has reserved for Himself thousands who have
   not bowed the knee to Baal. Let us have no fear about it but let us
   exhibit a boundless confidence. God's Truth will win the day whoever
   comes against it. "Is anything too hard for Jehovah?"

   I have lived to see and shall yet live to see such marvels in this
   respect as fill my mouth with laughter and my tongue with singing. "The
   Lord has done great things for us, whereof we are glad." If the Lord
   waits a little it is that He may gain the more glory. If He even seems
   to draw back, does not many a man draw back when he is about to take
   the longer leap? Have you ever seen a man draw back his hand when he is
   about to strike a tremendous blow? God is never baffled--Jesus shall
   not fail, nor be discouraged. The living Christ has died in weakness
   once. But now that He lives He lives, in all the power and majesty of
   the living God. To what may we not apply the text, when Jehovah asks
   us, "Is anything too hard for Me?"

   IV. Lastly, dear Friends, I beg you to treat the text as USING IT WITH
   DELIGHT. Time allows but few words. Use the text as a preventive of
   unbelieving sin. You say you are in a nasty hobble. I know you are. And
   therefore the devil says, "Put forth your hand unto iniquity." An evil
   transaction seems the sure way to get you out of your difficulty. What?
   Do you wish to help the Lord? Do you dream that He needs your sin to
   aid Him in delivering you? Flee from the rash action. Let not your hand
   reproach you, as Crammer's did. When at the stake he held it in the
   fire and cried, "That unworthy right hand," because it had once signed
   a recantation.

   Do not sin. Be poor, but be holy. Be straightforward and honest, come
   what may. God does not need the help of your sin in order that He may
   give you your daily bread. When I think of a man supposing that sin is
   necessary to help God's Providence, I am ashamed. Even in what is
   right, our aid to God is like an ant lending help to an elephant. But
   to do wrong to help the Lord to provide for us is a sort of acted
   blasphemy. And such a poor creature as you are, do you think that your
   foul finger is needed for God's Divine work?

   Away with the idea of its ever being needful to do wrong. Let all sins
   of haste, all tricks of policy, all compromises with error, all silence
   through the fear of consequences, all doings or not doings which would
   involve a blot on your conscience be put away forever. That filthy
   thing--temporizing and parleying with evil, which men call
   prudence--let it be hanged upon the gallows of scorn. Do God's work
   thoroughly, heartily, intensely--and God will reward you in His grace.

   Use it next for consolation in the time of trouble. You are now in a
   pit wherein there is no water--how can you ever get out? Listen--"Is
   anything too hard for the Lord?" It is worse than a pit, you say --it
   seems like a living Hell. The Lord can deliver you. Remember Jonah in
   the belly of the great fish which went down deeper and deeper till it
   seemed to dive below the bottoms of the mountains? It seemed all over
   with Jonah. But it was not so. "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"
   Jonah owned that "salvation is of the Lord," and the fish was not able
   to imprison him any longer. Forth came Jonah to life and liberty.
   Jehovah has delivered those who trust in Him, and He will yet deliver
   us.

   Next, use the text as a window through which you look with expectation.
   "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" Expect the unexpected to happen to
   you. He who whispers to himself--"God is going to do something for me
   that I have never looked for" is the brave man. "A storm is brewing,"
   cries one. Is it? My way of putting it is--rain is being prepared for
   the earth. Brethren, the Lord's blessing is coming upon the
   Churches--look for it! Let this text be a stimulus to you to engage in
   great enterprises. Launch out into the deep. Do not always keep on
   fishing for shrimp along the shore.

   Attempt great things for God. Attempt something which as yet you cannot
   do. Any fool can do what he can do. It is only the Believer who does
   what he cannot do. "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" Fall back upon
   omnipotence and then go forward in the strength of it.

   Let the text be a reason for adoration. O You to whom nothing is hard,
   we adore You! We worship You with all our hearts and this day we
   believingly link our weakness with Your omnipotence. We trust You for
   life, for death, for eternity. Dear Savior, we trust You now with all
   our sins and sorrows. Nothing is too hard for You, therefore save Your
   poor servants according to the riches of Your grace--

   "A guilty, weak and helpless worm,

   On Your kind arms I fall;

   Be You my strength and righteousness,

   My Jesus and my All."
     __________________________________________________________________

Nathanael--Or, the Ready Believer and His Reward

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto you, I saw you
   under the fig tree, you believe? You shall see greater things than
   these." John 1:50.

   NATHANAEL was by nature a man free from cunning and deceit. He was a
   specimen of that "honest and good ground" of which our Savior speaks in
   the parable, upon which, when the seed fell, a hundred-fold harvest was
   produced. We have some such men about us, thank God, in this
   country--regular John Blunts, as we say, clear as crystal, true as the
   sun in the heavens. Many men are well known to us who are upright,
   downright, truthful, honest, candid and open-hearted. You might trust
   them anywhere. Yes, trust them to repeat a conversation without
   misrepresenting it and that is saying a good deal in these times.

   Such people do not understand the clever arts of craft and cunning for
   they do not take to them naturally and have never been trained in the
   practice of policy. Speech is not to them the medium for concealing
   their thoughts. When they have a mind to speak, they speak their mind.
   You know where they are. They may have a great many faults but they
   have not the faults of deception and dissimulation. They are
   Israelites, indeed, in whom is no guile. You know the kind of
   people--they may at times speak too harshly and hurt your feelings.
   They may put things in an ugly shape and tread on people's corns--but
   they are as straight as a plumb-line and you may be sure that you know
   them when you have heard what they say.

   In the end they cause far less pain to people's feelings than those who
   have a great deal of finesse and policy, whose words are softer than
   butter but inwardly they are drawn swords. Smooth and oily tongues,
   with lying hearts at the back of them are fit instruments for Satan.
   But truth-speaking lips, which are joined to an honest heart are
   precious things which the Lord Himself delights to use. Now, when the
   good Brethren who had joined the Savior came to tell Nathanael that
   they had found the Christ he blurted out his objection at once.

   They said, "We have found Him, of whom Moses in the Law and the
   Prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth." But he did not take everything
   for Gospel which his friends told him. Nathanael had been born and bred
   in the midst of people prejudiced against Nazareth and he had sucked in
   their prejudice and felt sure that the Messiah could no more come from
   Nazareth than a profound philosopher could come from Gotham. He does
   not beat about the bush but he says at once, "Can there any good thing
   come out of Nazareth?"

   It is always a good thing, when a man has a prejudice, if he will but
   state it and "out" with it. You can always deal with this kind of
   fellow. If he will say what is troubling him and tell you what keeps
   him back from faith, why, then you can put your finger on his
   difficulty and try to remove it. It is a great miracle when a dumb
   devil is cast out. If the evil will but speak and so declare itself we
   have a chance of overcoming it.

   Nathanael's question was met at once by his comrades, who said to him,
   "Come and see." And like the honest man that he was, he took up their
   challenge. He would "come and see." How many there are who make
   objections but they will not "come and see"! They have heard concerning
   a certain preacher, perhaps, such-and-such absurd things. But another
   says, "It is not so. Come and see." Not they. They do not want to come
   and see--for they are unfair and prefer to cherish a bad opinion of the
   man. They have heard that Calvinistic doctrine is cruel, harsh and
   unjust. "Ah," says a Believer in Free Grace, "you have only seen a
   caricature of it. You should read for yourself and judge by Scripture."

   Oh, no--they do not want to read! They have made up their minds--not
   that they have much of a mind to make up. If they had more mind it
   might take them longer to make it up. But, having once made up their
   little mind, they have no mind to unmake it. They prefer to go blindly
   on whether they are right or wrong. They know so much that they do not
   wish to learn any more. Nathanael was not of that sort. "Come and see,"
   was an invitation which commended itself to his judgment. "Oh, yes,"
   said he, "by all means! I am open to conviction. I will come and see."

   I wish I could prevail on each one of my hearers to search the Bible
   for himself to see what the true doctrine is, that he may have a firm
   foundation to build upon and not take his religion second-hand from
   another. Nathanael is on his way to see for himself, when the Lord
   Jesus Christ, turning to those round about Him, says, in a voice loud
   enough for Nathanael to hear, "Behold an Israelite, indeed, in whom is
   no guile!" Here comes a man with no craft, no cunning in him. Nathanael
   is startled to find his real character so clearly read and somewhat
   bluntly asks, "From where do You know me?"

   I must do him the justice of believing that he said it respectfully,
   yet, nevertheless, he curtly said, "From where do You know me?" As much
   as to say-- "You have hit the nail on the head. But how came You to
   know this?" You see, the enquiry that was in his mind is soon upon his
   tongue--his words at once declare his thought. It is a great mercy when
   men dare speak upon that which troubles them. Instead of letting a
   doubt or a difficulty fester in their souls, they bring it out--that
   the light may play upon it and it is soon gone.

   "Jesus answered and said to him, Before that Philip called you, when
   you were under the fig tree, I saw you." What Nathanael was doing under
   the fig tree I do not know. Some think that he was there in meditation.
   Others say in prayer. Very possibly, but I do not know, and the wisest
   expositors do not know, and you do not know. Nobody knew but Jesus and
   Nathanael. He was doing something of which he was not ashamed but which
   he modestly did not wish to have known and so he had chosen a private
   place. That transaction was a secret between himself and the Lord, his
   God, and He who knew that secret must have come from God.

   Perhaps he was doing nothing there but sitting still before the Lord in
   anguish of spirit. Possibly he there had looked towards the God of his
   fathers with hope, or had enjoyed hallowed fellowship with Heaven.
   Anyhow, Jesus mentioned to him something which he remembered and
   thought much of, though it was entirely between God and his own soul.
   Between Jesus and Nathanael--"under the fig tree"--served as a
   password. They were known to one another by that. And at once Nathanael
   cried, "Rabbi, You are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel."

   He is fairly won and by an open confession he commits himself at once
   to what he believes. He is not ashamed of his convictions. He has
   enlisted beneath the banner of the King of Israel once and for all.
   Forth he comes without a moment's reservation with that blessed
   confession of faith--"Rabbi, You are the Son of God. You are the King
   of Israel." Our Lord Jesus, charmed with the grace which He had Himself
   given, delighted with the faith which He had Himself created, answers,
   "Because I said unto you, I saw you under the fig tree, you believe?
   You shall see greater things than these." This ready convert, so
   speedily convinced, was very acceptable to the Lord Jesus.

   Now, we have tonight here, first, one who believed readily. I am going
   to speak of that. Secondly, here is one who was highly commended for
   it--"You shall see greater things than these." Thirdly, here is one who
   might possibly in after days be subject to a peculiar temptation on
   account of his very readiness to believe. And, lastly, here is one who,
   I doubt not, was peculiarly grateful. And if there is another here like
   he, he ought to be very grateful, too.

   I. First, then, HERE IS ONE WHO BELIEVED READILY. The first time he saw
   the Savior he was converted to the faith. The first sentences that were
   addressed to him by the Lord Jesus Christ fairly won him to hearty
   faith and loyal service. Why was that? Why was he so soon brought to
   discipleship?

   I think, perhaps, it was because he was such a true man himself that
   the element of suspicion was not in his character. Persons who are
   remarkably suspicious and constantly incredulous are seldom very
   truthful themselves. If you follow them home, you will discover that
   they are suspicious of others because they are not true themselves and
   their difficulty in believing others arises from the fact that they
   measure other people's corn with their own bushel. They imagine that
   other people are as big liars as they are themselves. I believe that
   this is the bottom of much of the mistrust and questioning which
   seethes around us.

   Sometimes that suspiciousness comes upon men's minds through long
   dealing with deceptive persons. But if you find that a man began life
   with a general suspicion and doubt of others, you may conclude that he
   was a born deceiver, radically false from his birth. He judges human
   nature from his experience within his own heart. He has observed his
   own trickiness and he thinks that everybody else is going to trick him.
   And so he is full of suspicion. Nathanael had never taken anybody in
   nor tried to mislead anyone in his life and therefore he did not expect
   to be deceived.

   I wonder whether he was a sailor. I should think that he must have
   been, for sailors are generally as open as the sea they sail over. He
   never said anything with reserve. Not he. He was accustomed to wear his
   heart on his sleeve even if the

   crows did peck at it. He could not conceal anything, nor think that
   others did so. He was just as honest as the day. And so he came to the
   Savior with a heart that was open to faith, ready to believe Him. I
   should think the very sight of the Savior's blessed face had half won
   him and the tone of that truthful voice had moved him. But when it came
   to his laying bare a secret in his life which he was sure that nobody
   knew but himself and God, then Nathanael yielded to conviction at once
   and became a Believer straightway.

   Now I do hope that there are some here to whom the Lord has given, from
   their very birth, a truthful, openhearted nature--and if you should
   believe in Jesus Christ tonight straightway, even though it is the
   first time you have ever heard of Him, I shall bless the grace of God
   which has led you to so speedy a closing in with Christ. Oh that the
   Holy Spirit may complete the work of which there is already so hopeful
   a beginning! But, further, this Nathanael, this rapid Believer in the
   Lord Jesus Christ, had, I have no doubt, been seeking guidance
   beforehand and that guidance he had honestly followed.

   I should think that he had for years been expecting the coming of the
   Messiah. The tone of his language argues that. Therefore, when Philip
   came to him and told him that he had found the Messiah and indicated to
   him that he had better come and see for himself, he was willing at once
   to come and without delay he came with the view of seeing for himself
   whether this Jesus of Nazareth was the Promised One. He was not only
   candid but he was interested. He was concerned about Divine things and
   in thorough earnest to know the Truth of God in reference to them. So
   he came to Jesus with solemn intent and eager desire.

   O dear Friends, if you came to hear the Gospel in sincerity, we should
   expect to see more of you converted. But people come into our great
   assemblies to see the congregation, or to inspect the building, or to
   hear the preacher. Their motive is mere idle curiosity. If they get a
   blessing we shall heartily thank God for it and admire the sovereignty
   of His Grace. But when persons come, as they often do, I thank God,
   even from a great distance with the desire to know what the Gospel is
   and with a wish to find the Savior for themselves, then we have surer
   hope. These enquirers are the people that are likely to be converted.

   When fish want to be caught, it is good fishing. When they are anxious
   to take the bait, then the fisherman have fine times. If, my dear
   Hearers, you would come here saying, "I will go and see whether I can
   find salvation. I will hear with the intention that the hearing may be
   a means of grace to my soul," none of you would come long in vain where
   Christ Jesus is faithfully preached. If you come with a desire of
   understanding and knowing Him, He will come and reveal Himself to you.
   This was one main reason why Nathanael so speedily believed--that he
   came having sought guidance and desiring really to find the Messiah of
   whom Philip had spoken.

   Observe that he was satisfied with one piece of clear evidence. That
   one item of evidence convinced him. The Lord Jesus said, "Before that
   Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." Nobody
   knew that he had been under the fig tree except the Lord who sees all
   things. No mortal living was aware of what Nathanael had done, or
   thought, or purposed in that shady retreat. When Jesus, therefore, with
   a peculiar look, said "I saw you," Nathanael also saw Him that spoke to
   him. "Godhead alone could speak thus," said he--"there is the Spirit of
   God in that man. He knows the secret things of my life. He has revealed
   me to myself." "Rabbi," said he, "You are the Son of God. You are the
   King of Israel." The conclusion was a sound one but how speedily it was
   reached!

   One argument, if it is sound, is enough. If a matter is in dispute and
   if one man can solemnly declare that he saw such-and-such a thing and
   that one man is of high repute, his evidence is sufficient for a
   truthful man to rest upon. Twenty may come and say that they think it
   is so-and-so but twenty weak links will not make a strong chain. And I
   would rather trust to one solid link than I would trust to a chain of
   twenty worn and rusted links--each one of which is ready to snap. If it
   is so, it is so. If it is not so, it is not so. If a man has proved
   anything to me by one infallible proof that is enough. Hence, I believe
   that those who come to Christ on one bit of evidence are justified in
   so doing. They afterwards receive a host of confirming evidences but
   one is quite enough for them to begin with.

   Oh that I might have some tonight who shall hear in this sermon some
   one thing which shall strike them as being of the Lord! I pray that
   some secret matter, which I do not personally know, shall yet be
   uttered by me so that my hearers will say to themselves, "How came that
   to be spoken? That fits me exactly, yet the minister could not have
   known it. God must have spoken to me. Only the Lord knew what I did in
   the back kitchen. Only He knew what I was thinking of this afternoon.
   But speaking through His servant He has touched a secret spring and
   opened a drawer in my cabinet that nobody knew of, save myself! This is
   the finger of God."

   God grant that some may thus be led to Jesus Christ by one piece of
   evidence and may not tarry to feel fifty impressions on their hearts.
   Oh, that you would not wait for whole weeks of invitations and months
   of pressure and years of expostulation. But oh, that you would yield
   tonight! Sometimes, in warfare, cities have been taken without a shot
   being fired. The valiant men have come up to the gates and they have
   said, "Capitulate and you shall be spared." And the townsmen have
   opened wide their gates. I know that many other cities have had to be
   battered till there has been scarcely a house without tokens of shot
   and shell. But what has been their gain when they have been captured
   after all? Do not let it be so with your souls but yield at once to the
   conquering Savior who comes forth in the robes of His glorious Grace
   and bids you yield. He promises that if you accept His scepter you
   shall see the greatness of His Grace.

   Notice, however, that although Nathanael yielded at once and believed
   on one bit of evidence, yet his faith went a long way! He did not
   merely say, "Rabbi, I believe that you are the Messiah," but he said,
   "You are the Son of God." This was farther than anybody else had gone
   at that time so far as I remember. He added, "You are the King of
   Israel." And this again was a great declaration to make. He worshipped
   Jesus and he crowned Him. He owned Him as God and he magnified Him as
   King. Do not suppose that the faith which is quickly born is therefore
   weak. No, but that faith which comes suddenly and quickly is often the
   very best and strongest faith in all the world. And I trust that some
   of you may prove it to be so tonight by flying to Christ at once--as
   the doves fly to their windows--and rest in Him till you find fullness
   of peace.

   Thus much concerning the Israelite, indeed, who believed readily.

   II. In the second place, HERE IS ONE WHO WAS HIGHLY COMMENDED. The Lord
   Jesus owned his faith to be true faith. He said, "You believe?" But He
   meant that He perceived that he truly believed. He owned that though
   his faith was born then and there, it was the genuine article. Christ
   owns, as true faith, that faith which is not long in coming. Fear not,
   dear Hearer, that if you believe at this very moment your faith will be
   any the less sincere and effectual.

   Jesus did more than own it to be faith. He commended it as rarely
   excellent. He spoke as if He were astonished. "Because I said, I saw
   you under the fig tree, you believe?"--as much as to say, "Many see Me
   work miracles and do not believe. Do you believe so soon? They see Me
   heal lepers and raise the dead and yet they will not believe. But you
   believe merely because I said I saw you under the fig tree?" He is
   charmed with him for his readiness to own the Truth. Why, there are
   some young people who come to Christ and believe in Him by one little
   word from their mother. And on the other hand there are men and women
   who have been for fifty years hearers of the Gospel and yet have not
   believed.

   Now, the text proves that Christ has an admiration of those who
   readily, willingly, obediently and cheerfully come. Those who make no
   questions, raise no difficulties but on comparatively slender evidence,
   that evidence being quite sufficient, yield their full trust to Jesus
   Christ their Lord. And our blessed Lord was so pleased with this ready
   faith that He made a promise to Nathanael. Said He, "You shall see
   greater things than these. If you can see so much in My one saying that
   I saw you under the fig tree, you have the kind of eyes that are fit to
   see great sights."

   He that will see shall see, but he that closes his eyes shall be
   blinded. Many are the people in this world who, if you show them the
   greatest marvel, do not wonder. They look at it and see nothing. When
   you meet with such an unobservant person, you say to yourself, "I shall
   not show that man anything more. It does not pay to unveil rarities to
   him, he has no appreciation of them." But here is another who, when you
   show him some curio that you have in your house, is pleased with it and
   spies out at once the excellence and beauty of it. You say, "I have
   something more which I will gladly show you!" When your visitor
   appreciates your choice treasure, you say to him, "I will unlock all my
   cabinets. I will take you into my private room and every little thing I
   have that can interest you, you shall see, because I perceive that you
   have eyes and a mind which finds gratification in rare curiosities."

   Oh, you that readily believe in Christ--you are the men and women to
   whom Christ will make known His secrets! Those of you who are "fools
   and slow of heart to believe" must mend your manners, or the Holy
   Spirit will never lead you into the mysteries of the kingdom. Did not
   Jesus say to one who came to Him by night, "If I have told you earthly
   things and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you of
   heavenly things?" But, you Israelites, indeed, you quick Believers--to
   you will He reveal Himself as the Ladder that father Jacob saw,
   reaching from earth to Heaven, upon which the angels ascend and descend
   between God and His chosen. You shall see the deep things of God. You
   are the people out of whom He will make such men as John, who, in
   Patmos, beheld a glorious Apocalypse.

   O my beloved Hearers, may it be so with you! Because your faith so
   readily chimes in with what Christ reveals, may you have visions of God
   and may none of you be so dull of heart that it shall be said, "He
   could not show them many mighty works because of their unbelief"!

   III. I have thus spoken and I come, thirdly, to notice that HERE IS A
   MAN WHO MIGHT POSSIBLY BE TROUBLED WITH A PECULIAR TEMPTATION.

   People of this kind are subject to a special trial with which I will
   now deal. In this Church a considerable number of us, beginning with
   the pastor, came to Christ after an awful amount of conviction and
   despondency. We are none the better for this but we are at least free
   from one particular temptation of the Evil One. Oh, how I look back
   upon those times in which I felt my bondage but could not attain
   liberty--those days in which Christ was preached to me but I could not
   hear Him and I wandered up and down everywhere before I found peace!

   In this Church and in the officers of the Church among the deacons,
   there is especially one dear Brother who sometimes can hardly
   understand me when I speak about the difficulties some have in coming
   to Christ for he never experienced them. You all know him, one of the
   sweetest and best of men. But he came to Jesus Christ as a boy readily
   enough. He heard the Gospel and he believed it and without any sort of
   terror he rejoiced in the Lord and he continues to do so to this day.
   He is none the worse saint for this but in some respects all the
   better.

   I know, however, what is the peculiar temptation of those who come so
   readily to Christ. The devil comes to them and he says, "Now, look at
   you. You have read Mr. Bunyan's 'Grace Abounding,' have you not?"
   "Yes," says the good man. "Well," says he, "you never went through the
   like battle and struggle." "No, I never did." "Then," says he, "You are
   no child of God. You see you were easily converted--there was no deep
   work in your soul. You came to Jesus Christ one sunshiny day and you
   will go away from Him one dark day. You are like the stony-ground
   hearer, the seed sprang up in you on a sudden, because there was no
   depth of earth and you will soon die away when the sun is risen with
   fervent heat."

   Now, the next time the devil comes to any of you with that, I want you
   to talk to him, if he is worth it, for your own good. I want you to
   quench the fiery dart which he will fling at you. It is true that many
   come to the Lord Jesus under extreme difficulties and are long before
   they can rest in faith. But you must not compare yourself with others,
   nor expect that the work of God will take precisely the same shape in
   every heart. Some, like Nicodemus, say, "How can these things be?" But
   others believe in Jesus as readily as Nathanael did and they come just
   as truly, just as really, just as lastingly as those who find it
   difficult to come.

   Let me help you with a few considerations. Those you have read of, who
   came to Christ under so much terror--it may be that they had some other
   trouble at the same time--as well as the trouble of their conscience.
   Perhaps, in addition to being convinced of sin, they were suffering
   from poverty, or sickness, or indigestion, or remorse, or some other
   vexation of spirit. Discern carefully between spiritual trouble and
   temporal trouble. Temporal trouble may help to aggravate the spiritual
   but it is not a necessary part of it--in fact, very much the reverse.
   It may increase the apparent depth of the work of repentance but it may
   detract from its real worth.

   In the next place, it may be, and probably is, the fact that those who
   found so much difficulty in coming to Christ were worried by Satan.
   Perhaps he injected into their minds blasphemous thoughts or he
   suggested doubts concerning the Scriptures, or the Truth of God.
   Because they were just escaping from his power he worried them most
   maliciously. Do you want to be worried in that way? Do you think that
   there is any advantage in Satan's attacks? If you can get to Christ
   without them, ought you not to be thankful to escape them? How can you
   desire an affliction so utterly undesirable? How can you wish to feel
   that which those who suffer from it would give their eyes to be rid of?
   I beseech you, be reasonable.

   In many persons their difficulties in coming to Christ were caused very
   largely by their melancholy temperament. We are not all alike cheerful
   by natural constitution. Why, here is one man who is bright-eyed by
   nature and when he is down he is higher up than others are when they
   are up. He is always bright and hopeful. Yonder is another Brother who
   seems inevitably to take a dark view of matters. He is an unhappily
   constituted person. A person with whom it is not easy to live except in
   a very large hotel, in which the dinner-table is many yards long. You
   know and avoid the style of man.

   If there is a melancholy disposition, it tends to darken the work of
   the Spirit in the heart. And whereas the work of the Spirit makes the
   man sorrowful, his own melancholy disposition, perhaps caused by mental
   disease, darkens that sorrow into black despair. Few of us are
   perfectly sane. In fact, I do not think anybody is altogether so. I see
   you smile but I am not jest-ing--we have each one a peculiarity which
   we could hardly defend by the rules of strict reasoning. Have we not?
   We are all a little "touched" by that black hand which sin stretched
   out when it shook our universal manhood in all its faculties.

   Some are touched with melancholy from their birth and so a part of
   their great terror, when under conviction, may arise from the fact that
   they are not absolutely free to form a hopeful judgment. Why should you
   wish to be like they? What can there be desirable about feelings which
   spring from a disease?

   Again, there is no doubt that many in coming to Christ are greatly
   troubled because they are ignorant. They do not know that which would
   comfort them if they did but know it. They are vexed with fears which
   would not exist if they were better acquainted with Scripture. If they
   knew more of the Doctrines of Grace they would not be vexed with the
   fears which their ignorance creates. You who are taught in the Word are
   all the more likely to find speedy peace. Now, dear Friends, do you
   want to be bothered with fears which only spring out of ignorance? Must
   it not be much better for you, having a clearer light and a brighter
   knowledge, to say, "Yes, that is it. I believe in Jesus Christ and I am
   saved. Blessed be His name! I ask no questions. I believe and am saved
   at once"?

   May it not also be that those who are so hard put to it in coming to
   Christ are without the helps that you have? Perhaps they cannot read.
   Possibly they have nobody to explain the Scriptures to them. They may
   be misled by their religious guides and have no one to keep them out of
   the ditch. It may be that they are placed where they are rather
   hindered than helped-- they have no Sunday school teacher, no Christian
   friend to sympathize with them. And so they have a hard fight of it.
   Many a man who is wounded in battle is soon restored because the
   surgeon takes him up as soon as the bullet lays him low. Whereas the
   wound of another, who has to lie and bleed for hours, will prove far
   more serious. Do you not think that you ought to be very thankful that
   you have so many things to help you, and that thus you the more readily
   come to Christ?

   Very possibly, too, many of those who had those terrors and horrors in
   coming to Christ, as I had myself, must lay them to the door of their
   unbelief. Had they believed, they might have had comfort long before.
   But they went to the Law for comfort, or they looked to feelings
   instead of looking to Christ and so they remained in darkness. Now, if
   you have the privilege of believing at once, as I pray you may have,
   should you not be glad of it and instead of envying those others,
   should you not thank God that you were brought to find Jesus Christ by
   so sunny and speedy a route?

   There is a story that I have told you before but I must tell it to you
   again, for I do not know anything better. A young man in Edinburgh went
   out and he thought he would speak about Jesus to the first person that
   he met with. He met a Mussel burgh fishwife carrying a great load on
   her back. I cannot speak Scotch--I have not that useful acquirement--so
   I will put the conversation into English. He said to her, "Here you are
   with your burden." "Yes," said she. "Well," he said, "did you ever feel
   a spiritual burden?" "Yes," said she, "that I did, long ago, long ago
   and I soon got rid of it. For I did not go the same way to work that
   John Bunyan's pilgrim did."

   "Oh," thought the young man, "I hoped that I had met with a Christian
   woman, but she must be a great heretic to talk in that way." "Now,"
   said she, "Bunyan's Evangelist that he speaks of was not half a Gospel
   preacher. He was one of the usual sort. He was not clear in the Gospel.
   For when he met with the poor pilgrim, weary with his burden, he said
   to him, 'Do you see that wicket-gate?' 'No,' said the man, 'I do not
   see it.' 'Do you see that light over the gate?' 'Well,' he said, 'I
   think I do.' 'Now,' he said, 'you run that way with your burden.' Why
   man," said she, "that was not the way to do at all. What had that man
   to do with the wicket-gate or with the light over it?

   "The Gospel does not say run to a gate or a light. What he should have
   said was, 'Do you see that Cross? Look at that and your burden will
   fall from your shoulder.' I looked straight away to the Cross and not
   to the wicket-gate. And at the Cross I lost my burden. Now," said she,
   "what did Pilgrim get by going round to the wicket-gate? He tumbled
   into the Slough of Despond and was like to have lost his life there."
   "Ah," said the young man, "did you never go through the Slough of
   Despond?" "Ah, yes!" she said, "I have been through that slough many a
   time. But, let me tell you, it is much better to go through it with
   your burden off than it is with your burden on."

   And so it is. I do not want any of you to attempt to flounder through
   the Slough of Despond with your burden on. I want you to have done with
   the Slough of Despond and the wicket-gate and all that bother and just
   look to Christ alone. For salvation lies in a look at Him and there is
   salvation in none other. Peace comes to sinners by nothing else but
   faith in Jesus. All else is vain, be it what it may. Frames and
   feelings, sinkings and risings, doings and fretting--all these may go
   for nothing. Believe in Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. This is
   God's short way to Heaven and blessed is he who knows how to take it.

   Listen yet once more. You say, "But I have heard of some who endured a
   dreadful Law-work within their souls. They were plowed and cut up
   dreadfully and I never was." I will further tell you that certain
   persons need rougher handling than others. The needle in surgery will
   do for certain cases, whereas the lancet is wanted for others. If the
   Lord can, with a needle, do for you all that is needed, why do you want
   more? The Lord required to take the knife to me and are you going to
   fret because you have never felt the deep gashes which made me cry out
   in agony? I pray you, be not such a fool--I cannot speak a softer word
   if you have a craving after anguish.

   Again, the Lord may deal roughly with some because He means to qualify
   them for comforting despairing souls. He puts His servants through the
   furnace when He means them to work at pulling others out of the fire.
   He chastens them every morn-

   ing because He means to make Barnabases of them, that they may be sons
   of consolation to souls in distress. I have been through the thick
   darkness at times for your sakes. If ever a soul was in a horror of
   great darkness, I was, one day, when I preached in this pulpit from "My
   God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" I could not understand why I
   felt in such an awful state as I did, till that evening there came into
   the vestry a man whose hair seemed to stand on end.

   He looked at me and said, "I have never found a preacher that met my
   experience before." We sat down and he told me his tale of woe. By
   God's grace I rescued that man, by seasonable comfort, from being sent
   to a lunatic asylum and perhaps from committing suicide. And then I
   said to the Lord my God, "Let me go through the fire again if it will
   help me to meet the case of your poor afflicted children. Let me feel
   the horror of great darkness, if so I may thereby find light with which
   to cheer the victims of despair."

   But you, my dear Brother, my dear Sister, may not be called thus to cut
   your way through the forests of sorrow as the pioneer of others. You
   are not sent to be a guide to thousands but quietly to pursue your own
   lowly way. And why do you want all this painful experience? You cannot
   make use of it. Be thankful that you are spared the ordeal. These who
   have to be champions must be trained for war after a sterner sort than
   those who only make up the rank and file of the army. If your Lord
   means to lead you only as sheep at His heel into the green pastures by
   the still waters, you will see but little of the war and little of the
   rough side of the march. And why should you be so stupid as to desire
   distress and condemn yourself because you have it not?

   Be a Nathanael. Take the happier and better side and believe your God
   without a doubt or a quibble. And go to Heaven following the Lamb
   wherever He goes, without doubt or fear. I was going to have another
   head but I think that I will not, I will venture no further but close
   with a word to sinners, although I have in truth been speaking to them
   all through my discourse.

   Hear me, you that would be saved! The way of salvation is by believing
   in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is, by trusting Him. There are two
   things I have to say to you. First, God COMMANDS you to believe in
   Jesus Christ--and, secondly, nothing you can do will please God so much
   as for you to believe at once in His Only-Begotten Son, whom He has set
   forth to be the propitiation for sin.

   These are two strong things to say and so I will not say them, of
   myself, but give you God's Word for them. Please note these texts down,
   all of you. First Epistle of John, third chapter, at the twenty-third
   verse--"And this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name
   of His Son Jesus Christ." Let me tell you where it is again. First
   Epistle of John, third chapter, twenty-third verse--"This is His
   commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus
   Christ." If you are commanded to do it, do it. If you have salvation
   promised you when you do believe on the name of Jesus, why then,
   believe, and have salvation. Believe on the name of His Son Jesus
   Christ. That is the first point. God commands you--will you disobey?

   The second thing I said was that nothing you can do will please God so
   much as for you, now, to believe in Jesus Christ. Look at the sixth
   chapter of John's Gospel and the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth verses.
   There you have it. "Then said they unto Him, What shall we do, that we
   might work the works of God?" They meant, "What are the best works, the
   works most pleasing to God?" "Jesus answered and said unto them, This
   is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent." If you
   could build a row of almshouses, or endow a Church, or pay the salaries
   of a hundred missionaries, it would not half so well please God as for
   you to believe on His Son Jesus Christ.

   Trust Christ and you have worshipped God as acceptably as cherubim and
   seraphim. Trust Christ and you have brought unto the Lord that which
   will charm Him more than the hallelujahs which day without night,
   circle His Throne with praise. You poor guilty man, you poor guilty
   woman--humble, unknown, obscure, a nobody--God bids you trust His Son
   and assures you that this will please Him more than all else you can
   do! Will you not do it? Oh, end your ramblings! End your strivings! End
   your seeking! Come and trust my Lord Jesus and you shall receive
   eternal life. Your fretting and your hoping and your doubting, your
   coming and your going--end them all by simply trusting Jesus and it is
   finished--you are saved from wrath and the life of holiness has begun
   in you.

   Now shall you live after a nobler sort. Now shall you be filled with
   good works to the praise of His Glory, seeing you are no more trusting
   in them. I beseech you, trust in the Lord Jesus Christ alone and you
   shall receive power to become a child of

   God.

   May the Lord bless you, dear Friends! May we all meet in Heaven, the
   whole company of us, without exception, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

"The Wedding Was Furnished with Guests"

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, MAY 6, 1888,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The wedding was furnished with guests." Matthew 22:10.

   OUR discourse will follow the lines of the parable. A king desired to
   honor his son right royally. He loved his son well, for he deserved
   richly of him and therefore, as the most fitting time had come, he
   resolved to honor him. His son was about to take to himself a
   spouse--should not his marriage, which is a great event in life--be
   celebrated with honor? The father determined to honor his son on the
   joyful occasion by inviting a large number of guests to a sumptuous
   banquet. Not by the infliction of pain, or the pressure of taxation but
   by liberality and festivity would the king honor the Crown Prince. It
   should be an extraordinary feast.

   Surely, it would be the simplest thing in the world to gather together
   a grateful company of guests. One would expect a competition for
   admission--everybody in the royal domain would eagerly ask for an
   invitation. But it fell out otherwise. There was a disloyal feeling
   abroad and it now expressed itself--those who were bid would not come
   and means had to be used to secure the result spoken of in the text so
   that "the wedding was furnished with guests."

   The parable is plain. The great Father delights to honor Jesus, his
   Only-Begotten Son. The Father loves the Son, with whom He is One. The
   Son has deserved well at the Father's hands, for He has been "obedient
   unto death, even the death of the Cross." It is the Father's aim in the
   work of Divine Grace to glorify His Son, who, as God and Man in one
   nature, is the channel of Divine Grace to fallen men. He proposes to do
   this now that the Lord Jesus takes His Church into marriage union with
   Himself. The incarnate God calls a chosen company, the bride, the
   Lamb's wife and celebrates thus early in the day this happy union by a
   wedding breakfast, to which He invites multitudes to come.

   It is a feast of mercy, grace and peace. A marriage feast of delight
   and joy. The feast is for the glorifying of the Lord Jesus Christ in a
   very special manner. Can any of us measure the glory which comes to our
   Lord Jesus by His union with the Church? Angels and principalities and
   powers, intelligences now existing and all intelligences yet to be
   created will wonderingly gaze upon the riches of His inheritance in the
   saints. What a spectacle is this! The Word made flesh that He might
   dwell among us! Immanuel, God with us, taking unto Himself a company of
   chosen men to be one with Him forever. In the union of Christ and His
   Church all wisdom centers--all Grace shines forth.

   "The excellency of our God" is to be seen in the salvation of the elect
   and the joining of them unto the Christ. Our glorious Second Adam was
   like the first Adam in the garden, for whom no helpmeet was found.
   Neither cherubim nor seraphim, angels nor spirits, could be fit
   companions for Him. He says, "My delights were with the sons of men."
   He willed that His chosen Church should stand to Him in the same
   relation as Eve stood to Adam, to be the solace of His heart and the
   rest of His love. He chose men to be His companions, His friends, His
   joy, His crown.

   One would have thought that every man hearing that manhood was thus to
   be honored by union with Godhead would flock towards the marriage
   feast. It would have seemed certain that all would desire to know this
   heavenly mystery, and as soon as they knew it, would press forward to
   be partakers in its bliss. Alas, this is not the case. And this morning
   my business is to tell you the story of how the purpose of Divine love
   appeared in peril but how, in the end, it is accomplished. And,
   according to the language of the text, "the wedding was furnished with
   guests."

   I. Our first point is, that IT SEEMED AS IF NONE WOULD COME. The
   wedding feast was prepared--oxen and

   fatlings were killed--all things were ready. But where were the guests?
   Those first invited and naturally expected, would not come. Previous
   notice had been given them of the festival and afterwards a summons had
   been sent to say that the hour was come. But, instead ofjoyfully
   responding, they would not come.

   These were, first of all, the Jews--to whom the Gospel had been given
   by the Law and the Prophets long beforehand. "He came unto His own but
   His own received Him not." Israel was not gathered--few out of the
   chosen nation

   recognized the Messiah. He came with a feast of mercy for them but they
   would have none of it. He called and they refused.

   Today this same class will be found among the children of godly
   parents. Dedicated from their birth, prayed for by loving piety,
   listening to the Gospel from their childhood and yet unsaved. We look
   for these to come to Jesus. We naturally hope that they will feast upon
   the provisions of Divine Grace and like their parents will rejoice in
   Christ Jesus. But, alas, how often it is the case they will not come?
   Some such are here this morning. We greatly grieve over you. You do not
   choose your father's God, nor accept your mother's Savior. Ah me! If
   you will not come, who will? If you, who are taught concerning
   salvation by Divine Grace, yet refuse it, how can we wonder that the
   children of the godless and the profane reject our message? Who will
   come ifyou will not?

   Dear Hearers, some of you are not privileged with godly parents but you
   have been for many years willing listeners to the Word of Life and yet
   you do not accept Christ Jesus as yours, nor accept the provisions of
   His Grace. You do not joy with Him in His union with His chosen, for
   you do not love Him. How sad this is! Well may the dispirited preacher
   mourn and fear in his heart that the great festival of love will prove
   a failure! If such as you are will not come--how will the wedding be
   furnished with guests?

   The outlook grew worse still when they came not though they were
   reasoned with. When they would not come, the king sent other servants
   to bring them to a better mind. And this was the form of His
   reasoning--"Behold, I have prepared My dinner, My oxen and My fatlings
   are killed and all things are ready--come unto the marriage." No kinder
   argument could have been used--there was an appeal to all that was
   noble in them, and had they been worthy, they would have come at once.
   I can well understand that the servants would repeat their lord's
   message with special eagerness, as they thought of His waiting in the
   palace and watching for the guests.

   They would cry to those who hesitated, "You have waited long enough,
   come at once. The marriage cannot be delayed, why should you delay?
   Tarry no longer. Today if you will hear His voice harden not your
   hearts." Still they made light of it. When you have been invited to
   Jesus many a time--when tearful earnestness has pleaded with you and
   yet men of God have had to return to their Master, saying, "Who has
   believed our report?"--it becomes a sorrowful business and our anxious
   fears cannot see how the wedding will be furnished with guests. This
   would have been an overwhelming surprise to us if Jesus had not
   declared of men in His own day, "You will not come unto Me that you
   might have life." If they refused His pleadings, we cannot wonder that
   they reject our sayings. Still it is a mournful fact, that "Many are
   called but few chosen."

   The case looks darker, still, when we notice that, though reasoned with
   by new messengers, they did not come. It is said, "He sent forth other
   servants." I tell you from my very soul that if my Lord will only bring
   you to the banquet of His Grace, I care not who shall be the successful
   messenger. If you will not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ unto
   eternal life through what I have to say, may the Lord remove me and
   send someone else to whom He will give power by His Grace to reach your
   hearts. I shall be glad to remain in this pulpit for years to come but
   not at the cost of a single soul, if somebody else can preach to you
   more efficiently, if someone else can get at your hearts better than I
   have done, may the Lord allow me to retire for your good!

   Do you wish it? "He sent other servants." A preacher may be too
   rhetorical--let a plain-speaking person be tried. He may be too
   weighty--let another come with parable and anecdote. Alas, with some of
   you the thing wanted is not a new voice but a new heart. You would
   listen no better to a new messenger than to the old one. After so many
   good men and true have spoken--after Paul and Apollos and Cephas have
   all failed--how shall the wedding be furnished with guests? If you look
   at the various characters who would not come you will see more and more
   cause for sorrow. Of some we simply read that "they would not come."
   They made no excuses or apologies but curtly said they would not come.
   That was the end of the matter.

   Many dismiss the Gospel at once. They are not to be reasoned with--they
   do not want it and will not have it. A large class of the community
   have heard of the way of salvation but they care nothing for it. It is
   not with them lack of information but want of inclination. They have
   neither mind nor will for heavenly things. A second class made light of
   it. They were indifferent to royal honors and duties. They were taken
   up with the care of what they had in possession and went their way,
   each man to his farm saying, "I have worked hard to get my farm and I
   cannot afford to let it lie idle."

   Another was taken up with the care of getting an estate and went to his
   merchandise, saying, "I have nobody to keep my shop. I must mind the
   main chance. If you do not look alive, everybody will run over you. I
   must attend to my buying and my selling." The worldly-wise make up a
   very numerous class. The rich man cannot be religious--his position in
   society prevents it. The poor man cannot mind the things of God--he is
   worn out by earning his daily bread. Thus they all make excuse. Lord,
   when so many are unwilling and so many more are occupied with other
   things, how shall the wedding be furnished with guests?

   A third class were violently opposed--they would not be bothered, they
   had no patience with religious cant--they "took His servants and
   entreated them spitefully and slew them." These are not so numerous as
   the others. But yet they are found among us. Skeptics, swearers,
   revilers of godliness and "modern thought" men--these revile the Cross
   and are ferocious against the Gospel. When we see these raging, we are
   apt to ask very mournfully--How can the wedding be furnished with
   guests?

   The most dreadful thought of all remains--some of the invited had
   already perished. The King in His wrath sent His troops and slew the
   murderers of His messengers and burned their city. While I have been
   preaching, many of my hearers have died. Where are they now? If they
   died without Christ they are now past hope. Ah me! They can never enter
   now, for the door is shut. If they died in their sins, they are in the
   outer darkness--where is weeping and gnashing of teeth. When you think
   of it, this is a dark prospect. Men are dying, dying without hope. And
   those who are yet alive are resolved to perish in like manner, for they
   are earnestly invited to the feast of love but they refuse to come. How
   can the wedding be furnished with guests?

   The King tells us the real reason why they would not come--they were
   not worthy. Those who were invited specially and about whom there was
   the greatest hope had nothing in them to encourage that hope--they were
   not loyal, they were not kind-hearted, they were not honest, they were
   not worthy--else they would have come to do honor to the Son of their
   King. Their not coming revealed the enmity of their hearts. It was a
   wretched way of showing their spite to the Prince upon His wedding day.
   It is horrible that men refuse Christ and Heaven out of enmity to God.
   Rejecters of Christ are unworthy of pardoning Grace, unworthy of a
   dying Savior, unworthy of those marriage bonds into which Jesus enters
   with believing hearts. They are not worthy in the Gospel sense of
   worthiness, and of course, they were far less worthy in a legal sense.

   The most mournful spectacle in the world is a heart which refuses the
   mercy of God. Objection is sometimes made to the doctrine of total
   depravity. I do not know what adjective can be too strong to describe
   human depravity when I perceive that it refuses God under His loveliest
   aspect--God in the greatness of His love, God sparing not His own Son.
   If men turn away from God in anger I can understand it. If men turn
   aside from God in justice I can understand it. But when they so hate
   God that they will not even have His salvation--when they refuse pardon
   through the precious blood of Christ, when they will sooner be damned
   than reconciled to God--this shows that their heart is desperately
   wicked. The Cross rejected is the clearest proof of the heart depraved.
   There I leave this mournful subject and go a step further. Certainly it
   did seem as if the wedding would not be furnished with guests.

   II. Secondly, IT WAS A MOURNFUL PROSPECT. Imagine that there had been
   no guests at the wedding feast--

   what then?

   First, it would have been greatly to the King's dishonor. The Crown
   Prince is married and nobody comes to the wedding! The feast is free,
   costly, plentiful but nobody will come to it. What an insult! The
   banquet hall is lighted and the minstrels are in their place but no
   eyes or ears are charmed. Oxen and fatlings make the tables groan but
   none are there to make the hall resound with shout and song. What a
   wretched spectacle! Empty halls, unfurnished benches, meat uneaten
   carried out to the dogs! History does not record a more deliberate and
   unmistakable insult.

   Let me translate the parable. If no souls are saved, if the great plan
   of redemption does not save, what a farce the whole business will be!
   What a dishonor to the name of the great God! Look at the supposition
   that you may see the impossibility of it. Think for an instant of a
   defeated, disappointed, dishonored Jehovah, Can it be? And yet, if the
   wedding had not been furnished with guests, the king would have been
   disappointed and insulted in the most tender point. If the chosen are
   not saved, if men are not brought to Christ, then the glorious name of
   the God of Grace is dishonored. Do you think it is possible?

   In the next place, suppose none had come to the wedding feast. Then the
   king's son would have been grieved. His wedding and nobody there! If it
   were your own, perhaps you could put up with it. For you do not stand
   in so public a position as the king's son and you have not provided so
   vast a banquet. But the king's son! Only imagine that it is his
   wedding-day and the servants are mustered in the hall but not a single
   guest arrives. He has no one to congratulate him upon the happy day, no
   one to wish him well, no one to welcome the bride.

   Now, the same is true of our Lord Jesus Christ--if He dies and men do
   not believe in Him. If He rises again and men do not accept Him. If He
   enters Heaven as a Prince and a Savior and yet no one receives
   repentance and remission, where is His honor? Where is His Glory? Look
   at the dreadful supposition and think whether it can be. I am sure, as
   you gaze upon it, you will say, "Impossible! A bleeding Savior cannot
   die in vain. Our Christ could not in death have paid down the ransom
   price for nothing. He could not have stood a Substitute for men and yet
   see men lost after all!"

   If no guests had arrived, how disappointed would the Bride have been!
   She, too, would have had to share in the failure of the day. Her
   wedding would not have been remembered with pleasure. She would have
   been happy in the Bridegroom but also unhappy because of the unkindness
   shown to Him. In vain her rich apparel and her costly ornaments-- for
   there are no eyes to gaze upon them. If souls are not saved the Church
   misses her greatest joy. When men believe in Jesus, how delighted we
   are! Our hearts leap for joy when men repent. But if sinners are not
   saved, if the preaching of the Gospel is in vain, if they will not come
   to Christ--then are saints full of heaviness and the Church cries out
   in her anguish, "Have you forgotten to be gracious?"

   Had none come to the marriage feast, a store of provisions would have
   been wasted. The King says, "My oxen and my fatlings are killed." See
   the bullocks roasting whole! See yonder fatted calf killed for the
   feast! Mark how the sheep are led to the slaughter! All this will
   remain untouched. Yonder dainty dishes and flowing bowls and luscious
   fruits will have none to enjoy them. It will be a wretched business,
   indeed! I want you to look at the dreadful picture till it vanishes out
   of sight. Can it be that Jesus has made Himself the heavenly bread and
   none will feed on Him, or at the best a very few? Can it be that He has
   provided a robe of righteousness and nobody will wear it? Is Heaven
   prepared and will it remain half occupied? I do but suppose it for the
   moment--to make you see what a melancholy fact a failure in the scheme
   of mercy would be.

   Would it not have meant, also, the enemy's triumph? The King's foes
   would have heard of it and laughed Him to scorn. At a royal wedding He
   could not command guests! How they would scoff at His wasted provision!
   "Ha, ha! Ha, ha!" The story would have been told on every ale-bench.
   The sons of Belial would make rare mirth of it. The King, the Prince,
   the Bride would all have been ridiculed, because of a wedding in empty
   halls, a feast with phantom guests! I do not believe that God intends
   to let Satan triumph in this way. I cannot imagine that He will allow
   the powers of darkness thus to open their wicked mouths against Him. If
   free will refuses the gift of God, Free Grace will come in and win the
   day.

   I have shown you already how free will threatens to empty the
   banqueting hall and dishonor the King, the Son and the Bride. And if
   the business had been left to the free will of man, this is the result
   which would have come of it--a God dishonored and men preferring to die
   rather than accept life through Jesus Christ. Then it could never have
   been said that "the wedding was furnished with guests."

   III. Let us go a step further and notice that in the parable THIS
   CATASTROPHE WAS GRACIOUSLY PREVENTED. "The wedding was furnished with
   guests."

   We are very much in the same case today as the servants were in when
   the invited ones would not come. We preach and teach the Gospel but we
   have to complain that so many will not come to the banquet of Divine
   Grace. God gives us many souls but not so many as we desire. We are
   eager for many more and we begin to be afraid lest, after all, God
   should not be glorified as we wish that He should be. In the parable an
   unfurnished banquet was prevented and so it will be in the reality. How
   was the calamity averted? It was prevented, first, by a fuller
   invitation. At first the heralds only called those who had been
   previously bid, a sort of aristocracy of hopeful persons.

   As these would not come, we read, "Go you therefore into the highways
   and as many as you shall find, bid to the marriage." They went out, not
   to a select band but to all whom they might find. Brethren, it is a
   grand thing when we get a clearer idea of what the Gospel really is.
   The more evangelical our notions become--so that we are prepared to
   preach the Gospel to every creature under Heaven and to say, "He that
   believes and is baptized shall be saved"--the

   more we may hope for large success. If, by my preaching, I lead a man
   to look at himself--to see whether there is anything in him which
   entitles him to believe--I practically hide the Gospel from him.

   If I preach only character so that the man mainly enquires whether he
   has that character, I fix his eye upon himself. And this is not what I
   should aim at. If I go forth and gather together as many as I find,
   both good and bad, then their thoughts are on the banquet rather than
   on themselves. We want men to look to Jesus, and therefore we cry,
   "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." When we get
   upon clear Gospel lines and keep there, we may expect to see the arm of
   the Lord revealed and the wedding furnished with guests.

   Again, the invitation was now given more publicly. They had simply gone
   to the houses of the invited guests and said, "All things are
   ready--come." But now the servants go to the chief places of concourse.
   And they cry aloud and spare not among the crowds of men. One has gone
   to the market. Another is preaching where four ways meet. Hark to the
   voice of one upon the village green and to the songs of others as they
   traverse the back slum. You cannot now go along a street without
   hearing the news of the great wedding feast. Many will be brought in
   when many are eager to bring them in. God is pleased to acknowledge the
   means which He has Himself ordained.

   The more constant and public the proclamation of the Gospel becomes,
   the more numerous will men be saved through the Spirit of God. Then is
   the set time to favor Zion come. We are not to hide our lamps under a
   bushel. He that knows the Gospel should speak it out as plainly as he
   can and let his voice be as the silver trumpets ofjubilee--that every
   ear may hear. It came to pass that the king's message was more widely
   made known and thus "the wedding was furnished with guests."

   Another matter assisted--the servants were now thoroughly zealous. I am
   sure I should have felt dreadfully agitated to see all those provisions
   and none coming to eat them. Think of the halls decorated, the cooks
   working day and night, the big fires burning, bullocks roasting, the
   wines positioned on the lees and yet no guests. It would have worried
   me greatly and you, too. You would have said, "It cannot be, it must
   not be, we cannot bear it. The King, how sad He must feel! The good
   Prince, how bitter it is for Him! The dear Bride, what must be her
   sadness when this great insult is put upon her? "I must fetch in some
   guests, or die in the attempt."

   I am sure we should have traveled six ways at once if we could. We
   should have invited with a thousand mouths if possible. Getting hold of
   one man's coat and of another man's sleeve, we should have compelled
   them to come in. This, also, is the Lord's way of blessing men. He
   excites His own people, makes them sorrowful for the sins of the times,
   and then they grow earnest and troubled and so they lay themselves out
   to snatch men as brands from the burning. "As soon as Zion travailed,
   she brought forth her children." The want of travailing causes the
   absence of conversion. When we begin to sigh and cry and mourn because
   the ways of God are forsaken--then our earnestness moves the
   heart--both of God and man--and the guests come to the wedding.

   Again, the calamity of a wedding without guests was prevented by a
   certain secret power which went with the messengers. We read that they
   "gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good." They
   did not merely invite them but they gathered them in. Now people are
   not to be gathered in great numbers all of a sudden and led to a feast
   by mere words. Words are but air. There is nothing in our words to make
   men come to Jesus unless the Lord works by them. Yet the guests did
   come in shoals. An influence went with the words of those servants
   which drew the people together. They could not wish to stay away. They
   came gladly. Their wills were sweetly inclined and they thronged the
   palace.

   Beloved, all the hope of our ministry lies in the Spirit of God
   operating upon the spirits of men. I want all the members of this
   Church to feel this more deeply and practically than ever. Do not put
   trust in the preacher--if he happens to be away, do not think that God
   is tied to him. Look for a blessing upon the Gospel itself--whoever
   preaches it. If the Holy Spirit is with us we shall see thousands
   flocking to Jesus. No sinner will ever come to Christ apart from the
   quickening, enlightening, drawing, converting power of the Holy Spirit
   supernaturally exercised upon the conscience and heart. Let us believe
   this.

   And next, let us be assured that the Spirit of God is with us and let
   us then go forth with all boldness. To the street corner, the cottage,
   the lodging house, the wayside--let us go forth and publish abroad the
   invitation of the great King--"My oxen and My fatlings are killed and
   all things are ready: come unto the marriage." Thus you have seen the
   outward means by which the Holy Spirit brings men to Jesus and the
   wedding is furnished with guests.

   IV. I close by noticing, in the fourth place, that IN THE END THE FEAST
   WAS A GLORIOUS SUCCESS. "The

   wedding was furnished with guests." Guests are a part of the furniture
   of a wedding feast. You may pile on your gold and silver plates, hang
   up your banners, load your tables and sound your music--but if you have
   no guests, the feast is a failure. It is our solemn conviction that the
   Lord our God has never failed yet and that He never will fail. We
   believe that the Lord's eternal purpose will stand and that He will do
   all His pleasure. We believe in no blind fate, but we trust in a
   predestination which is full of eyes and which accomplishes its purpose
   to the least jot and tittle.

   God's greatest work is redemption--will He fail in it? Salvation is the
   focus of His Glory--shall this be frustrated? If God were to fail in
   connection with the Cross, it would be a failure, indeed. God would be
   dishonored and His crown jewels cast into the mire. But it shall not
   be. Turn to the parable and we find there were sufficient guests--"the
   wedding was furnished with guests." There were as many guests as were
   necessary to the honor of the King and His Son and His Bride. Oh yes,
   in the gathering up and consummation of all things, the wedding of the
   Lord Jesus will be amply furnished with guests--"He shall see of the
   travail of His soul and shall be satisfied."

   There will be no disappointment to Christ at the Last Great Day. Satan
   may whisper disaster and disappointment to us at this hour and for the
   moment it may seem as if the forces of darkness triumphed. But the end
   is not yet. The will of God--so full of grace and mercy--shall be
   accomplished, the preparations of Divine Grace shall be used and the
   purpose of love fulfilled. As the wedding was furnished with guests, so
   shall Heaven be filled with "a number which no man can number."

   The feast was more of a success than it would have been had there been
   no opposition. The persons who came to the wedding were more grateful
   than the first invited might have been if they had come. The richer
   sort had a good dinner every day. Those farmers could always kill a fat
   sheep. And those merchants could always buy a calf. "Thank you for
   nothing," they would have said to the King if they had accepted His
   invitation. But these poor beggars picked off the streets had not
   tasted meat for months. Their half-starved bodies welcomed the
   fatlings. How glad they were!

   One of them said to the other, "It's a long time since you and I sat
   down to such a meal as this," and the other answered, "I can hardly
   believe that I am really in a palace dining with a king. Why, yesterday
   I begged all the day and only had two pence at night. Long live the
   King, say I, and blessings on the Prince and His Bride!" I warrant they
   were thankful for such a feast. They said it was an ill wind that blew
   nobody any good--because their betters had refused to come-- there was
   now room for them.

   When the Lord saves great sinners such as you and me, He wins warm
   hearts for Himself. When the Lord saves unlikely ones, He gets unusual
   thankfulness. When He brings in the drunkard and the profane, the
   unclean and the hard-ened--and makes them pure and holy and puts them
   among the children--what gratitude He gets! The Pharisee may ask Christ
   to a cold dinner but it is the woman that was a sinner who will wash
   His feet with tears and wipe them with the hairs of her head. If some
   of you moralists get saved--and God grant you may!--you will never
   prize the precious blood so much as those do who are washed by it from
   foulest stains.

   The joy that day was much more expressed than it would have been had
   others come. Those ladies and gentlemen who were first invited--if they
   had come to the wedding--would have seated themselves there in a very
   stiff and proper manner. Dear me, what a fine thing propriety is! And
   yet, what a dead thing it is! One said to me the other day, "I have
   gone to my place of worship for many years and nobody ever did speak to
   me that I know of and nobody ever will. For we are all too respectable
   to know one another."

   You know the dignified style of self-satisfied people. Among such there
   is no cordiality, no freshness, no sweet naturalness. Did you ever
   attend a breakfast or a dinner of beggars? Did you ever see a company
   of very hungry people feeding to their heart's content? They make a
   merry clatter. They are not muzzled by propriety. They are glad at the
   sight of every dish. They look at the waiters as angels. And when the
   hurrahing comes to be done, you admire the strength of their lungs. The
   dull monotony of respectability knows no joy like that which comes to
   poverty when it feasts to the full at the table of bounty.

   The Crown Prince was happier that day among His poor subjects than He
   would have been among the grandees and the fashionables. Those paupers,
   those laborers, those tramps, those hedge-birds--those were the fellows
   to make merry! To whom much is forgiven, the same loves much. Up in
   Heaven they sing like the voice of many waters and like great thunder
   because they have been cleansed from many sins and have partaken of
   great grace. Let the Pharisee and the mor-

   alist refuse the Gospel. There are those about who, in accepting it,
   will do it greater honor than those dull souls could ever render to it.
   Thus the wedding was furnished with guests who expressed their joy
   enthusiastically.

   How the provisions were relished! It does one good to see a hungry man
   eat his food. To him even every bitter thing is sweet. He does not turn
   over his food and cut off every little bit of gristle, as some of you
   do because of your delicate appetites. The true Gospel hearer hearkens
   to the text--"Eat you that which is good and let your soul delight
   itself in fatness." He does not act the critic and laugh at this
   expression and that. He is too sharp-set to be particular about the
   dishes and the carving. We marvel sometimes at the capacity of hungry
   men. There is no end to it.

   And it is the same with spiritual as with natural hunger. I think I can
   tell what happened at that wedding--the Bride nudged the Bridegroom and
   said, "See these poor people eat! Is it not a pleasure to give one's
   oxen and fatlings where they are so much needed?" The Bridegroom was as
   happy as He could be, for He was of a sympathizing heart and He greatly
   rejoiced in the joy of the poor people around Him. The King Himself
   that day was gladdened as He saw what a gallant company of trenchermen
   they were and how there was no bickering, nor finding fault but only
   unbroken enjoyment and gratitude. The choicest kind of guests had been
   collected if the object was to give joy.

   Ah, dear Friends, if you have a deep sense of sin, you will greatly
   love Free Grace and dying love. This is the lack of certain gentlemen
   who are always finding fault with the Gospel--they never knew their own
   state by nature and by practice and therefore they do not prize
   salvation. If they had felt a few lashes of the ten-thronged whip of
   the Law upon their bare consciences, they would relish Gospel
   forgiveness far more. He that has been in the prison of conviction
   prizes blood-bought freedom. He that has felt the chains of sin values
   the liberty wherewith Christ makes him free.

   So I say that inasmuch as these poor creatures were brought in from the
   streets and their splendid appetites enjoyed the feast--the wedding
   festival was no failure but all the greater success--because of the
   King's enemies. The wedding was furnished with guests--guests who
   enjoyed the abundance provided by the King. Certainly, the occasion
   became more famous than it would otherwise have been. If the feast had
   gone on as usual it would have been only one among many such things.
   But now this royal banquet was the only one of its kind--unique,
   unparalleled. To gather in poor men off the streets, laboring men and
   idle men--bad men and good men to the wedding of the Crown Prince--this
   was a new thing under the sun.

   Everybody talked of it. There were songs made about it and these were
   sung in the King's honor where none honored kings before. In the
   kitchens, among the servants, this was a fine story to tell by the
   fireside while Mary and Jane wished they had been there to see. In
   every lodging house for years to come this would be the favorite
   story--the tale of the poor man's Prince and the needy man's Queen. On
   the exchange and in the market men talked of the brave Bride and
   Bridegroom who had defied the customs of fashion and had done a deed so
   daring in its goodness. Was ever such a thing heard ofbefore?

   Here was a feast for men who never feasted before! Sensible men said,
   "And nothing could be better--they were feeding those that wanted
   feeding--they were giving good cheer to those who have little enough of
   it." Among the poor, themselves, the Prince's name was very famous
   while the portrait of the Princess was nailed up over the mantel.
   Children said to one another, "My father went to the wedding of the
   imperial Prince." To many it seemed like a story out of the Arabian
   Nights. It did not read like a piece of common history at all, but like
   a fairy tale of the age of gold.

   Dear Friends, when the Lord saved some of us by His Grace, it was no
   common event. When He brought us great sinners to His feet and washed
   us and clothed us and fed us and made us His own--it was a wonder to be
   talked of forever and ever. We will never leave off praising His name
   throughout eternity. That which looked as though it would defame the
   King turned out to His honor and "the wedding was furnished with
   guests."

   One thing more--the king's liberality was all the better seen. If those
   who were first bid had put in an appearance they would have come
   arrayed in their own scarlet and fine linen. Some of the gentlemen
   would have bought a new suit on purpose. You may depend upon it--all
   the cunning women in the city would have been employed to get their
   Ladyships ready for the banquet that they might have honor in the court
   that day. Now these fine clothes would have been more for the glory of
   those who came in them than for the honor of the King.

   There was nothing of this among those who were gathered from the
   highways. They were in sorry gear. It was difficult, perhaps, in some
   cases, to tell which was the original stuff of their garments, so
   patched and mended they were. Anyhow, they were a ragged regiment. And
   what was the consequence? Why, then they must all be dressed in the
   Prince's

   own livery and all the glory of their apparel must be unto Him. He said
   to His servants, "Go to My wardrobe. Bring forth changes of raiment."
   Everyone that came in to the feast was invited to put on the King's
   wedding garments. When He came in to see the guests, it was a grand
   sight, for everybody was royally arrayed.

   The king's wedding robes were much better than His subjects' best
   suits. It was a grand sight to see so many all in one royal
   livery--every guest wearing the uniform of mercy. So is it with us poor
   sinners saved by Divine Grace. If we had possessed any true
   righteousness of our own we should have worn it. But now we count our
   own righteousness but dross and dung that we may win Christ and be
   found in Him. His righteousness decorates all the saints--they could
   not be better arrayed. Thus is the feast made more glorious than it
   otherwise would have been and the wedding is furnished with guests.

   How I wish that I could gather in many this morning, both bad and good!
   I mean by good, those who are comparatively so as to their moral
   conduct. You are bid to come to the wedding feast of love. But even if
   you are bad and obliged to admit that you are so, I am equally anxious
   to gather you in to the feast. Do you ask me--What are we to do? What
   were these persons to do? To come just as they were and freely receive
   what the King had freely provided. Sometimes at our treats for Sunday
   school children, every child is told to bring his own mug and plate.
   But it is not so with our great King. His banquet is too royal for
   that. You are to bring nothing.

   Still, everybody must go home and wash, must he not? No, the washing
   and the clothing shall all be done for you at the King's palace. Come
   as you are. "But what do you mean by coming?" We mean trusting--trust
   your soul with Jesus Christ and He will save you. Trust Him and you
   shall know that He died in your place, so that believing in Him, you
   shall not perish but have everlasting life. May the Holy Spirit lead
   you to believe in Jesus, that is, trust Him.

   I have told you the Gospel and the whole of it. Trust the crucified
   Savior and you shall live. Jesus says, "Look unto Me and be you saved,
   all the ends of the earth." Do not look within to see what is there but
   look to Jesus hanging on the Cross. A look at Christ crucified will
   save you. Look, dear Hearers, young as you are, look to Jesus now!
   Look, you gray-headed men and women who have never looked before--look
   now! Strangers and foreigners who have not heard this word before,
   there is life in a look at the Crucified One for you! You guiltiest of
   the guilty and you most amiable of the amiable, turn away from anything
   there is in yourselves--bad or good--and look to Jesus only.

   Receive from Jesus all He brings you--pardon, righteousness,
   sanctification, redemption, Himself. He that comes to a wedding feast
   has nothing to do but to eat and to drink. Give your mind up to this
   delightful exercise. Take the food which God provides you. You shall do
   good works afterwards! For they will follow as a consequence of the
   strength which comes of receiving heavenly food through faith. But just
   now eat, drink and be merry, as becomes a Prince's marriage. May the
   Father be pleased, His Son be honored and His Church be comforted
   through you! Amen and Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                         The Blessing of Full Assurance

   A Sermon

   (No. 2023)

   Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, May 13th, 1888, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At [4]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the
   Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may
   believe on the name of the Son of God."'1 John 5:13.

   JOHN wrote to believers'"These things have I written unto you that
   believe on the name of the Son of God." It is worthy of note that all
   the epistles are so written. They are not letters to everybody, they
   are letters to those who are called to be saints. It ought to strike
   some of you with awe when you open the Bible and think how large a part
   of it is not directed at you. You may read it, and God's Holy Spirit
   may graciously bless it to you, but it is not directed to you. You are
   reading another man's letter: thank God that you are permitted to read
   it, but long to be numbered with those to whom it is directed. Thank
   God much more if any part of it should be used of the Holy Ghost for
   your salvation. The fact that the Holy Spirit speaks to the churches
   and to believers in Christ should make you bow the knee and cry to God
   to put you among the children, that this Book may become your Book from
   beginning to end, that you may read its precious promises as made to
   you. This solemn thought may not have struck some of you: let it
   impress you now.

   We do not wonder that certain men do not receive the epistles, for they
   were not written to them. Why should they cavil at words which are
   addressed to men of another sort from themselves? Yet we do not marvel,
   for we knew it would be so. Here is a will, and you begin to read it;
   but you do not find it interesting: it is full of words and terms which
   you do not take the trouble to understand, because they have no
   relation to yourself; but should you, in reading that will, come upon a
   clause in which an estate is left to you, I warrant you that the nature
   of the whole document will seem changed to you. You will be anxious now
   to understand the terms, and to make sure of the clauses, and you will
   even wish to remember every word of the clause which refers to
   yourself. O dear friends, may you read the Testament of our Lord Jesus
   Christ as a testament of love to yourselves, and then you will prize it
   beyond all the writings of the sages.

   This leads me to make the second remark, that as these things are
   written to believers, believers ought especially to make themselves
   acquainted with them, and to search into their meaning and intent. John
   says, "These things have I written to you that believe on the name of
   the Son of God." Do not, I beseech you, neglect to read what the Holy
   Ghost has taken care to write to you. It is not merely John that
   writes. John is inspired of the Lord, and these things are written to
   you by the Spirit of God. Give earnest heed to every single word of
   what God has sent as his own epistle to your hearts. Value the
   Scriptures. Luther said that "he would not be in paradise, if he might
   , without the Word of the Lord; but with the Word he could live in hell
   itself." He said at another time that "he would not take all the world
   for one leaf of the Bible." The Scriptures are everything to the
   Christian'his meat and his drink. The saint can say, "O how I love thy
   law!" If we cannot say so, something is wrong with us. If we have lost
   our relish for Holy Scripture, we are out of condition, and need to
   pray for spiritual health.

   This much is the porch of my sermon, let us now enter more fully into
   our subject, noticing, first, that John wrote with a special purpose;
   and then going on to assert, secondly, that this purpose we ought to
   follow up.

   I. First, JOHN WROTE WITH A SPECIAL PURPOSE. Men do not write well
   unless they have some end in writing. To sit down with paper and ink
   before you, and so much space to fill up, will ensure very poor
   writing. John knew what he was at. His intent and aim were clear to his
   own mind, and he tells us what they were.

   According to the text the beloved apostle had one clear purpose which
   branched out into three.

   To begin with, John wrote that we might enjoy the full assurance of our
   salvation. "These things have I written unto you that believe on the
   name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life."

   Many who believe on the name of Jesus are not sure that they have
   eternal life; they only hope so. Occasionally they have assurance, but
   the joy is not abiding. They are like a minister I have heard of, who
   said he felt assured of his salvation, "except when the wind was in the
   east." It is a wretched thing to be so subject to circumstances as many
   are. What is true when the wind is in the soft south or the reviving
   west is equally true when the wind is neither good for man nor beast.
   John would not have our assurance vary with the weather-glass, nor turn
   with the vane. He says, "These things have I written unto you, that ye
   may know that ye have eternal life." He would have us certain that we
   are partakers of the new life, and so know it as to reap the golden
   fruit of such knowledge, and be filled with joy and peace through
   believing.

   I speak affectionately to the weaker ones, who cannot yet say that they
   know they have believed. I speak not to your condemnation, but to your
   consolation. Full assurance is not essential to salvation, but it is
   essential to satisfaction. May you get'may you get it at once; at any
   rate may you never be satisfied to live without it. You may have full
   assurance. You may have it without personal revelations: it is wrought
   in us by the Word of God. These things are written that you may have
   it; and we may be sure that the means used by the Spirit are equal to
   the effect which he desires. Under the guidance of the Spirit of God,
   John so wrote as to attain his end in writing. What, then, has he
   written with the design of making us know that we have eternal life? Go
   through the whole Epistle, and you will see that it all presses in that
   direction; but we shall not at this present have time to do more than
   glance through this chapter.

   He begins thus: "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born
   of God." Do you believe that Jesus is the anointed of God? Is he so to
   you? Is he anointed as your prophet, priest, and king? Have you
   realized his anointing so as to put your trust in him? Do you receive
   Jesus as appointed of God to be the Mediator, the Propitiation for sin,
   the Saviour of men? If so, you are born of God. "How may I know this?"
   Brethern, our evidence is the witness of God himself as here recorded.
   We need no other witness. Suppose an angel were to tell you that you
   are born of God, would that be a more sure testimony than the
   infallible Scripture? If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, you are
   born of God. John has thus positively declared the truth, that you may
   know that you have eternal life. Can anything be more clear than this?

   The loving spirit of John leads him to say, "Every one that loveth him
   that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him." Do you love God?
   Do you love his Only-begotten Son? You can answer those two questions
   surely. I knew a dear Christian woman who would sometimes say, "I know
   that I love Jesus; but my fear is that he does not love me." Her doubt
   used to make me smile, for it never could have occurred to me. If I
   love him, I know it is because he first loved me. Love to God in us is
   always the work of God's love towards us. Jesus loved us, and gave
   himself for us, and therefore we love him in return. Love to Jesus is
   an effect which proves the existence of its cause. Do you love Jesus?
   Do you feel a delight in him? Is his name as music to your ear, and
   honey to your mouth? Do you love to hear him extolled? Ah, dear
   friends! I know that to many of you a sermon full of his dear name is
   as a royal banquent; and if there is no Christ in a discourse, it is
   empty, and vain, and void to you. Is it not so? If you do indeed love
   him that begat and him that is begotten of him, then this is one of the
   things that is written "that ye may know that ye have eternal life."

   John goes on to give another evidence: "By this we know that we love
   the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments." Do
   you love God? and do you love his children? Listen to another word from
   the same apostle: "We know that we have passed from death unto life,
   because we love the brethren." That may appear to be a very small
   evidence; but I can assure you it has often been a great comfort to my
   soul. I know I love the brethern: I can say unto my Lord,

   "Is there a lamb among thy flock

   I would disdain to feed?"

   I would gladly cheer and comfort the least of his people. Well, then,
   if I love the brethern, I love the Elder Brother. If I love the babes,
   I love the Father; and I know that I have passed from death unto life.
   Brethren, take this evidence home in all its force. It is conclusive:
   John has said, "We know that we have passed from death unto life,
   because we love the brethren"; and he would not have spoken so
   positively if it had not been even so. Brethren, never be content with
   sentimental comforts; set your feet firmly upon the rock of fact and
   truth. True Christian assurance is not a matter of guesswork, but of
   mathematical precision. It is capable of logical proof, and is no
   rhapsody or poetical fiction. We are told by the Holy Ghost that, if we
   love the brethren, we have passed from death to life. You can tell
   whether you love the brethren, as such, for their Master's sake, and
   for the truth's sake that is in them; and if you can truly say that you
   thus love them, then you may know that you have eternal life.

   Our apostle gives us this further evidence: "This is the love of God,
   that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous."
   Obedience is the grand test of love. If you are living after your own
   will, and pay no homage to God, you are none of his. If you never think
   of the Lord Jesus as your Master, and never recognize the claims of
   God, and never wish to be obedient to his will, you are not in
   possession of eternal life. If you desire to be obedient, and prove
   that desire by your actions, then you have the divine life within you.
   Judge yourselves. Is the tenor of your life obedience or disobedience?
   By the fruit you can test the root and the sap.

   But note, that this obedience must be cheerful and willing. No doubt
   some for a while obey the commands of God unwillingly. They do not like
   them, though they bow to them. They fret and grizzle because of the
   restraints of piety; and this proves that they are hypocrites. What you
   wish to do you practically are doing in the sight of God. If there
   could be such a thing as holiness forced upon a man, it would be
   unholiness. O my hearer, it may be that you cannot fall into a certain
   line of sin; but if you could, you would: your desires show what you
   really are. I have heard of Christian people, so called, going to
   sinful amusements, just, as they say, to enjoy a little pleasure. Ah
   well, we see where you are! Where your pleasure is, your heart is. If
   you enjoy the pleasures of the world, you are of the world, and with
   the world you will be condemned. If God's commands are grievous to you,
   then you are a rebel at heart. Loyal subjects delight in the royal law.
   "His commandments are not grievous." I said to one who came to join the
   church the other day, "I suppose you are not perfect"? and the reply
   was, "No, sir, I wish I might be." I said, "And suppose you were"? "Oh,
   then," she said, "that would be heaven to me." So it would be to me. We
   delight in the law of God after the inward man. Oh, that we could
   perfectly obey in thought, and word, and deed! This is our view of
   heaven. Thus we sing of it:

   "There shall we see his face,

   And never, never sin;

   There from the rivers of his grace

   Drink endless pleasures in."

   We would scarce ask to be rid of sorrow, if we might be rid of sin. We
   would bear any burden cheerfully if we could live without spot we shall
   also be without grief. His commandments are not grievous, but they are
   ways of pleasantness and peace to us. Do you feel that you love the
   ways of God, that you desire holiness, and follow after it joyfully?
   Then, dear friends, you have eternal life, and these are the sure
   evidences of it. Obedience, holiness, delight in God never came into a
   human heart except from a heavenly hand. Wherever they are found they
   prove that the Lord has implanted eternal life, for they are much too
   precious to be buried away in a dead soul.

   John then proceeds to mention three witnesses. Now, dear hearers, do
   you know anything about these three witnesses? "There are three that
   bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and
   these three agree in one." Do you know "the Spirit" ? Has the Spirit of
   God quickened you, changed you, illuminated you, sanctified you? Does
   the Spirit of God dwell in you? Do you feel his sacred impulses? Is he
   the essence of the new life within you? Do you know him as clothing you
   with his light and power? If so, you are alive unto God. Next, do you
   know "the water," the purifying power of the death of Christ? Does the
   crucified Lord crucify your sins? Is the water applied to you to remove
   the power of sin? Do you now long to perfect holiness in the fear of
   God? This proves that you have eternal life. Do you also know "the
   blood"? This is a wretched age, in which men think little of the
   precious blood. My heart has well-nigh been broken, and my very flesh
   has been enfeebled, as I have thought upon the horrible things which
   have been spoken of late about the precious blood by men called
   Christian ministers. "O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto
   their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united." Beloved friends, do
   you know the power of the blood to take away sin, the power of the
   blood to speak peace to the conscience, the power of the blood to give
   access to the throne of grace? Do you know the quickening, restoring,
   cheering power of the precious blood of Christ which is set forth in
   the Lord's Supper by the fruit of the vine? Then in the mouth of these
   three witnesses shall the fact of your having eternal life be fully
   established. If the Spirit of God be in you, he is the earnest of your
   eternal inheritance. If the water has washed you, then you are the
   Lord's. Jesus said to Peter, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part in
   me." But ye are washed, and therefore the Lord's. If the precious blood
   has cleansed you from the guilt of sin, you know that it has also
   purchased you from death, and it is to you the guarantee of eternal
   life. I pray that you may from this moment enjoy the combined light of
   these three lamps of God'"the spirit, and the water, and the blood,"
   and so have full assurance of faith.

   One thing more I would notice. Read the ninth verse: the apostle puts
   our faith and assurance on the ground that we receive "the witness of
   God." If I believe that I am saved because of this, that, and the
   other, I may be mistaken: the only sure ground is "the witness of God."
   The inmost heart of Christian faith is that we take God as his word;
   and we must accept that word, not because of the probabilities of its
   statements, nor because of the confirmatory evidence of science and
   philosophy, but simply and alone because the Lord has spoken it. Many
   professing Christians fall sadly short of this point. They dare to
   judge the Word instead of bowing before it. They do not sit at the
   Master's feet, but become doctors themselves. I thank God that I
   believe everything that God has spoken, whether I am able to see its
   reason or not. To me the fact that the mouth of God hath spoken it
   stands in the place of all argument, either for or against. If Jehovah
   says so, so it is. Do you accept the witness of God? If not, you have
   made him a liar, and the truth is not in you; but if you have received
   "the witnesses of God," then this is his witness, that "He hath given
   to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." I say again, if your
   faith stands in the wisdom of men, and is based upon the cleverness of
   a preacher, it will fail you; but if it stands on the sure Word of the
   Lord it will stand for ever, and this may be to you a special token
   that you have eternal life. I have said enough upon this subject; oh
   that God may bless it to you! May we be enabled, from what John has
   written, to gather beyond doubt that we have the life of God within our
   souls.

   Furthermore, John wrote that we might know our spiritual life to be
   eternal. Please notice this, for there are some of God's children who
   have not yet learned this cheering lesson. The life of God in the soul
   is not transient, but abiding; not temporary but eternal. Some think
   that the life of God in the believer's soul may die out; but how, then,
   could it be eternal? If it die it is not eternal life. If it be eternal
   life it cannot die. I know that modern deceivers deny that eternal
   means eternal, but you and I have not learned their way of pumping the
   meanings out of the words which the Holy Spirit uses. We believe that
   "eternal" means endless, and that if I have eternal life, I shall live
   eternally, Brethren, the Lord would have us know that we have eternal
   life.

   Learn, then, the doctrine of the eternality of life given in the new
   birth. It must be eternal life, because it is "the life of God." We are
   born again of the Spirit of God by a living and incorruptible seed,
   which liveth and abideth for ever. We are said to be "made partakers of
   the divine nature." Surely, this means, among other things, that we
   receive an undying life; for immortality is of the essence of the Life
   of God. His name is "I am that I am." He hath life in himself, and the
   Son hath life in himself, and of this life we are the receivers. This
   was his purpose concerning his Son, that he might give eternal life to
   as many as the Father had given him. If it be the life of God which is
   in a believer'and certainly it is, for he hath begotten us again'then
   that life must be eternal. As children of God, we partake of his life,
   and as heirs of God, we inherit his eternity. "This is life eternal,
   that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
   thou hast sent."

   Beloved, our Lord Jesus Christ calls the life of his people eternal
   life. How often do I quote this text! It seems to lie on the tip of my
   tongue: "I give unto my sheep eternal life; and they shall never
   perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." And again,
   "He that believeth in him hath everlasting life." It is not temporary
   life, not life which at a certain period must grow old and die, but
   everlasting life. "It shall be in him a well of water springing up into
   everlasting life." This is the life of Christ within the soul. "For ye
   are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." "I live; yet not I,
   but Christ liveth in me." "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear,
   then shall ye also appear with him in glory." If our life is Christ's
   life, we shall not die until Christ dies. If our life is hidden in him,
   it will never be discovered and destroyed until Christ himself is
   destroyed. Let us rest in this.

   Mark again how our Lord has put it: "Because I live, ye shall live
   also." As long, then, as Jesus lives, his people must live, for the
   argument will always be the same, "Because I live, ye shall live also."
   We are so one with Christ that while the head lives the members cannot
   die. We are so one Christ that the challenge is given, "Who shall
   separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?" A
   list is added of things which may be supposed to separate, but we are
   told that they cannot do so, for "in all these things we are more than
   conquerors through him that loved us." Is it not clear, then, that we
   are quickened with a life so heavenly and divine that we can never die?
   John tells us in this very chapter, "We know that whosoever is born of
   God sinneth not." He does not go back to his old sin, he does not again
   come under the dominion of sin; but, "he that is begotten of God
   keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not."

   Beloved, I entreat you to keep a hard and firm grip of this blessed
   doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. How earnestly do I long
   "that ye may know that ye have eternal life"! Away with your doctrine
   of being alive in Christ to-day and dead tomorrow. Poor, miserable
   doctrine that! Hold fast to eternal salvation through the eternal
   covenant carried out by eternal love unto eternal life; for the Spirit
   of God has written these things unto you that believe on the name of
   the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life.

   Once more, according to the Authorized text, though not according to
   the Revised Version, John desired the increase and confirmation of
   their faith. He says, "That ye might believe on the name of the Son of
   God." John wrote to those who believed, that they might believe in a
   more emphatic sense. As our Saviour has come not only that we may have
   life, but that we may have it more abundantly, so does John write, that
   having faith we may have more of it. Come beloved, listen for a moment
   to this! You have the milk of faith, but God wills that you should have
   this cream of assurance! He would increase your faith. May you believe
   more extensively. Perhaps you do not believe all the truth, because you
   have not yet perceived it. There were members of the Corinthian church
   who had not believed in the resurrection of the dead, and there were
   Galatians who were very cloudy upon justification by faith. Many a
   Christian man is narrow in the range of his faith from ignorance of the
   Lord's mind. Like certain tribes of Israel, they have conquered a
   scanty territory as yet, though all the land is theirs from Dan to
   Beersheba. John would have us push out our fences, and increase the
   enclosure of our faith. Let us believe all that God has revealed, for
   every truth is precious and practically useful. Perhaps your doctrinal
   belief has been poor and thin. Oh that the Lord would turn the water
   into wine! Many of you live upon milk, and yet your years qualify you
   to feed on meat. Why keep the babes' diet? You that believe are
   exhorted to "go in and out, and find pasture"; range throughout the
   whole revelation of God.

   It will be well for you if your faith also increases intensively. Oh
   that you may more fully believe what you do believe! We need deeper
   insight and firmer conviction. We do not half believe, as yet, any of
   us. Many of you only skim the pools of truth. Blessed is the wing which
   brushes the surface of the river of life; but infinitely more blessed
   is it to plunge into the depths of it. This is John's desire for you,
   that you would believe with all you heart, and soul, and strength.

   He would have you believe more constantly, so that you may say, "My
   heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise."
   It is not always so with us. We are at times chicken-hearted. We play
   the man today, and the mouse tomorrow. Lord have mercy upon us: we are
   an inconsistent people, fickle as the wind. The Lord would have us
   abide always in him with strong and mighty confidence, being rooted and
   built up in him.

   He would have us trust courageously. Some can believe in a small way
   about small things. Oh for a boundless trust in the infinite God! We
   need more of a venturesome faith: the faith to do and dare. Often we
   see the way of power, but have not the faith which would be equal to
   it. See Peter walking on the sea! I do not advise any of you to try it,
   neither did our Lord advise Peter to do so: we do well enough if we
   walk uprightly on land. But when Peter had once taken a few steps on
   the sea, he ought to have known that his Lord could help him all the
   rest of the way; but alas! His faith failed, and he began to sink. He
   could have walked all the way to Jesus if he had believed right on. So
   is it with us: our faith is good enough for a spurt, but it lacks
   staying power. Oh, may God give us to believe, so that we may not only
   trip over a wave or two, but walk on the water to the end! If the Lord
   bids you, you may go through fire and not be burned, through the floods
   and not be drowned. Such a fearless, careless, conquering faith may the
   Lord work in us!

   We need also to have our faith increased in the sense of its becoming
   more practical. Some people have a fine new faith, as pretty as the
   bright poker in the parlour, and as useless. We want an everyday faith,
   not to look at, but to use. Brothers and sisters, we need faith for the
   kitchen and the pantry, as well as for the drawing-room and the
   conservatory. We need workshop faith, as well as prayer-meeting faith.
   We need faith as to the common things of life, and the trying things of
   death. We could do with less paint if we had more power. We need less
   varnish and more verity. God give to you that you may believe on the
   name of the Son of God with a sound, common-sense faith, which will be
   found wearable, and washable, and workable throughout life.

   We need to believe more joyfully. Oh what a blessed thing it is when
   you reach the rest and joy of faith! If we would truly believe the
   promise of God, and rest in the Lord's certain fulfillment of it, we
   might be as happy as the angels. I notice how very early in the morning
   how the birds begin to sing: before the sun is up or even the first
   grey tints of morning light are visible, the little songsters are awake
   and singing. Too often we refuse to sing until the sun is more than up,
   and noon is near. Shame on us! Will we never trust our God? Will we
   never praise him for favours to come? Oh for a faith that can sing
   through the night and through the winter! Faith that can live on a
   promise is the faith of God's elect. You will never enjoy heaven below
   until you believe without wavering. The Lord give you such faith.

   II. Thus I have gone through my first head, and taken nearly all the
   time. I must now come to push of pike, as the old soldiers used to say.
   We must drive our teaching home. THE PURPOSE WHICH JOHN HAD IN HIS MIND
   WE OUGHT TO FOLLOW UP. If he wished us to know that we have eternal
   life, brothers and sisters, let us try to know it. The Word of God was
   written for this purpose; let us use it for its proper end. The whole
   of these Scriptures were written that "we might believe that Jesus is
   the Christ, and that believing we might have life through his name."
   This Book is written to you who believe, that you may know that you
   believe. Will you suffer your Bibles to be a failure to you? Will you
   live in perpetual questioning and doubt? If so, the Book has missed its
   mark for you. The Bible is sent that you may have full assurance of of
   your possession of eternal life; do not, therefore, dream that it will
   be presumptuous on your part to aspire to it. Our conscience tells us
   that we ought to seek full assurance of salvation. It cannot be right
   for us to be children of God, and not to know our own Father. How can
   we kneel down and say, "Our Father which art in heaven," when we do not
   know whether he is our Father or not? Will not a life of doubt tend to
   be a life of falsehood? May we not be using language which is not true
   to our consciousness? Can you sing joyful hymns which you fear are not
   true to you? Will you join in worship when your heart does not know
   that God is your God? Until the spirit of adoption enables you to cry,
   "Abba, Father," where is your love to God? Can you rest? Dare you rest,
   while it is a question whether you are saved or not? Can you go home to
   your dinner to-day and enjoy your meal, while there is a question about
   your soul's eternal life? Oh, be not so foolhardy as to run risks on
   that matter! I pray you, make sure work for eternity. If you leave
   anything in uncertainty, let it concern your body or your estate, but
   not your soul. Conscience bids you seek to know that you have eternal
   life, for without this knowledge many duties will be impossible of
   performance. Many Scriptures which I cannot quote this morning stir you
   up to this duty. Are you not bidden to make your calling and election
   sure? Are you not a thousand times over exhorted to rejoice in the
   Lord, and to give thanks continually? But how can you rejoice, if the
   dark suspicion haunts you, that perhaps, after all, you have not the
   life of God? You must get this question settled, or you cannot rest in
   the Lord, and wait patiently for him. Come, brothers and sisters, I
   beseech you, as you would follow Scripture, and obey the Lord's
   precepts, get the assurance without which you cannot obey them.

   Listen, as I close, to this mass of reasons why each believer should
   seek to know that he has eternal life. Here they are. Assurance of your
   salvation will bring you "the peace of God, which passeth all
   understanding." If you know that you are saved, you can sit down in
   poverty, or in sickness, or under slander, and feel perfectly content.
   Full assurance is the Koh-i-noor amongst the jewels wherewith the
   heavenly Bridegroom adorns his spouse. Assurance is a mountain of
   spices, a land that floweth with milk and honey. To be the assured
   possessor of eternal life is to find a paradise beneath the stars,
   where the mountains and the hills break forth before you into singing.

   Full assurance will sometimes overflow in cataracts of delight. Peace
   flows like a river, and here and there it leaps in cascades of ecstatic
   joy. There are seasons when the plant of peace is in flower, and then
   it sheds a perfume as of myrrh and cassia. Oh, the blessedness of the
   man who knows that he has eternal life! Sometimes in our room alone,
   when we have been enjoying this assurance, we have laughed outright,
   for we could not help it. If anybody had wondered why a man was
   laughing by himself alone, we could have explained that it was nothing
   ridiculous which had touched us, but our mouth was filled with laughter
   because the Lord had done great things for us, whereof we were glad.
   That religion which sets no sweatmeats on the table is a niggardly
   housekeeper. I do not wonder that some people give up their starveling
   religion: it is hardly worth the keeping. The child of God who knows
   that he has eternal life goes to school, be he has many a holiday; and
   he anticipates that day of home-going when he shall see the face of his
   Beloved for ever.

   Brethren, full assurance will give us the full result of the gospel.
   The gospel ought to make us holy; and so it will when we are in full
   possession of it. The gospel ought to make us separate from the world,
   the gospel ought to make us lead a heavenly life here below; and so it
   will if we drink deep draughts of it; but it we take only a sip of it
   now and again, we give it no chance of working out its design in us. Do
   not paddle about the margin of the water of life, but first wade in up
   to your knees, and then hasten to plunge into the waters to swim in.
   Beware of contentment with shallow grace. Prove what the grace of God
   can do for you by giving yourself up to its power.

   Full assurance gives a man a grateful zeal for the God he loves. These
   are the people that will go to the Congo for Jesus, for they know they
   are his. These are the people that will lay down their all for Christ,
   for Christ is theirs. These are the people that will bear scorn and
   shame and misrepresentation for the truth's sake, for they know that
   they have eternal life. These are they that will keep on preaching and
   teaching, spending and working, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,
   and they know it. Men will do little for what they doubt, and much for
   what they believe. If you have lost your title deeds, and you do not
   know whether your house is your own or not, you are not going to spend
   much in repairs and enlargements. When you know that heaven is yours,
   you are anxious to get ready for it. Full assurance finds fuel for zeal
   to feed upon.

   This also creates and sustains patience. When we know that we have
   eternal life, we do not fret about the trials of this passing life. I
   could point to the brethren here this morning, and I could mention
   sisters at home, who amaze me by their endurance of pain and weakness.
   This I know concerning them, that they never have a doubt about their
   interest in Christ; and for this cause they are able to surrender
   themselves into those dear hands which were pierced for them. They know
   that they are the Lord's, and so they say, "Let him do what seemeth him
   good." A blind child was in his father's arms, and a stranger came into
   the room, and took him right away from his father. Yet he did not cry
   or complain. His father said to him, "Johnny, are you afraid? You do
   not know the person who has got hold of you." "No, father," he said, "I
   do not know who he is, but you do." When pain gives us an awkward nip,
   and we do not know whether we shall live or die, when we are called to
   undergo a dangerous operation, and pass into unconciousness, then we
   can say, "I do not know where I am, but my Father knows, and I leave
   all with him." Assurance makes us strong to suffer.

   This, dear friends, will give you constant firmness in your confession
   of divine truth. You who do not know whether you are saved or not, I
   hope the Lord will keep you from denying the faith; but those who have
   a firm grip of it, these are the men who will never forsake it. A
   caviller in an omnibus said to a Christian man one day, "Why, you have
   nothing after all to rest upon. I can prove to you that your Scriptures
   are not authentic." The humble Christian man replied, "Sir, I am not a
   learned man, and I cannot answer you questions; but I believe in the
   Lord Jesus Christ, and I have experienced such a change in character,
   and I feel such a joy and peace through believing, that I wish you knew
   my Saviour, too." The answer he received was a very unexpected one: the
   unbeliever said, "You have got me there; I cannot answer that." Just
   so: we have got them there. If we know what has been wrought in us by
   grace, they cannot overcome us. The full-assurance man baffles the very
   devil. Satan is cunning enough, but those who know and are persuaded,
   are birds which he cannot take in the snares of hell. When you know
   that your Lord is able to keep that which you have committed to him
   until that day, then you are firm as a rock. God make you so.

   Dear brethren, this is the kind of thing that will enable you to bear a
   telling testimony for your Lord. It is of no use to stand up and preach
   things that may or may not be true. I am charged with being a dreadful
   dogmatist, and I am not anxious to excuse myself. When a man is not
   quite sure of a thing, he grows very liberal: anybody can be a liberal
   with money which he cannot claim to be his own. The broad-school man
   says, "I am not sure, and I do not suppose that you are sure, for
   indeed nothing is sure." Does this sandy foundation suit you? I prefer
   rock. The things which I have spoken to you from my youth up have been
   such as I have tried and proved, and to me they wear an absolute
   certainty, confirmed by my personal experience. I have tried these
   things: they have saved me, and I cannot doubt them. I am a lost man if
   the gospel I have preached to you be not true; and I am content to bide
   the issue of the day of Judgement. I do not preach doubtingly, for I do
   not live doubtingly. I know what I have told you to be true; why should
   I speak as if I were not sure? If you want to make your own testimony
   tell in such a day as this, you must have something to say that you are
   sure about; and until you are sure about it I would advise you to hold
   you tongue. We do not require any more questionings; the market is
   overstocked. We need no more doubt, honest or dishonest; the air is
   dark with these horrible blacks.

   Brethren, if you know that you have eternal life, you are prepared to
   live, and equally prepared to die. How frequently do I stand at the
   bedside of our dying members! I am every now and then saying to myself,
   "I shall certainly meet with some faint-hearted one. Surely I shall
   come across some child of God who is dying in the dark." But I have not
   met with any such. Brethren, a child of God may die in the dark. One
   said to old Mr. Dodd, the quaint old Puritan'"How sad that our brother
   should have passed away in the darkness! Do you doubt his safety?"
   "No," said old Mr. Dodd, "no more than I doubt the safety of him who
   said, when he was dying, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?""
   Full assurance, as we have said before, is not of the essence of
   salvation. Still, I beg of you to note this, that all along through
   these many years, in each case, when I have gone to visit any of our
   brethren and our sisters at death, I have always found them departing
   in sure and certain hope of seeing the face of their Lord in glory. I
   have often marvelled that this should be without exception, and I glory
   in it. Often have they said to me, "We have fed on such good food that
   we may well be strong in the Lord." God grant that you may have this
   assurance, all of you! May sinners begin to believe in Jesus, and
   saints believe more firmly, for Christ's sake! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'1 JOHN 5.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN-BOOK"'175, 738, 711.
     __________________________________________________________________

What Is the Wedding Garment?

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, MAY 20, 1888,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And when the king came in to see the guests he saw there a man which
   had not on a wedding garment: and he said unto him, Friend, how came
   you in here not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then
   said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot and take him away
   and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing
   of teeth." Matthew 22:11-13.

   Two Sabbath mornings ago I preached from this parable and I trust many
   were encouraged by it. But I noticed among enquirers who came to see me
   afterwards, a desire to know about the wedding garment. For they feared
   lest, in coming to join the Church, they should come like the man of
   whom I shall now speak. Many true hearts are extremely sensitive to the
   impression of fear and they seem to be on the watch for reasons for
   anxiety. I do not condemn them--on the contrary I wish there were more
   of such holy tremblers. It is much better to be afraid of being wrong
   than to be indifferent as to what you are. I perceive among the very
   best of the saints a considerable number who are deeply anxious as to
   their state before God.

   Those who will one day be cast out of the wedding feast are feeding
   themselves without fear, while those who have the most right to enjoy
   the banquet are full of gracious anxiety. Solomon says, "Happy is the
   man that fears always"--he will cling closely to his God and that will
   make him happy. He will not run risks like the presumptuous and so he
   will be happy. Holy fear spreads few banquets but it takes care that
   when there is a feast we go to it in a wedding garment.

   My chief object this morning will be to allay the fears of gracious
   ones. If they understand what the wedding garment really is, they will
   probably discover that they are wearing it. And, if not, they will know
   in whose wardrobe that garment ofjoy is to be found and they will
   gladly ask to be arrayed therein. May the Holy Spirit, the Comforter,
   give a wedding joy this morning to each wedding guest, by causing him
   to see for certain that he is clothed in the wedding robe.

   Immediately after our text, we find these solemn words--"Many are
   called, but few are chosen." This is a conclusion drawn from the whole
   parable in which we see processes at work which separate the chosen few
   from the many who are called. A distinction was made by the summoning
   of the invited guests. The simple delivery of the invitation set a
   difference between the loyal and the rebellious--a distinction most
   marked and decisive. So it is in the preaching of the Gospel--we preach
   it to every creature within our reach. Lovingly, tenderly, earnestly.
   Not so well as we would, but still with all our heart we call men to
   the royal feast of Divine Grace.

   And straightway the very invitation begins to gather out the precious
   from the vile. Pure Gospel preaching is very discriminating. You can
   tell Cain from Abel as soon as the sacrifice is the subject. Preach
   salvation by Divine Grace and you find that some will not have it at
   any price. Others postpone all consideration of it and a third party
   raise questions without end. Still do men make light of it and go their
   way to their farms and to their merchandise. Thus, dear Friends, every
   Sabbath Day, without our attempting to sit in judgment on men, the
   Gospel is, in itself, a refining fire.

   In the Gospel the Son of David has a throne ofjudgment as well as of
   mercy. When men will not have Christ and His Grace, the Word preached
   by His humble servant drives them away and they go with the chaff. But
   the work of discrimination is not finished after the Gospel has been
   heard and men have been brought into the Church. Alas, even in the
   Church division has to be made. Indeed, it is there that this is most
   fully carried out. "His fan is in His hand and He will thoroughly purge
   His floor." If He uses a scourge nowhere else, He will be sure to use
   it in His own temple.

   Among the sheep there are goats. Among the virgins there are foolish
   ones. And among the guests at the wedding feast there are those who
   have not on the wedding garment. Until we come to Heaven itself we
   shall always discover necessity for the work of self-examination. Even
   in the Apostolic College Judas carried on his dishonesty, as if to warn
   us

   that no rank in service, no honor among Brethren, no length of
   experience can screen us from the necessity of saying, "Lord, is it I?"
   when His warning voice says, "One of you shall betray Me."

   In our text we see a man who has hearkened to the invitation and has
   come into the feast and thus has passed the first test. And yet he is
   unable to abide the second. He has been received by the servants but he
   cannot deceive their Master. The King detects him as a spot in the
   feast and he is cast out from the palace of mercy into the outer
   darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. May
   none of us be of this sort.

   I shall endeavor to answer four questions naturally arising out of the
   parable. First, what is meant by the king's coming in?--"when the king
   came in to see the guests." Secondly, what is the wedding garment?
   Thirdly, who is he that has it not? And fourthly, why did he stand
   speechless when he was asked, "How came you in here not having a
   wedding garment?"

   I. May the Holy Spirit help us while we consider, first, WHAT IS MEANT
   BY THE KING IS COMING IN.

   "The king came in to see the guests." They were all reclining at the
   tables, for "the wedding was furnished with guests." They gathered
   while the sun was up but darkness covered the world outside when "the
   king came in to see the guests." They had feasted and now the king came
   to honor the assembly.

   It was the crown and the culmination of the feast. No matter how dainty
   the viands, nor how bright the hall, the feast has not reached its
   height till his majesty appears in gracious condescension. It is so
   with us, Beloved, in reference to our greater King. When we are
   gathered in this house, which has often proved to us a palace of
   delights, we never reach the height of our desire till the Lord
   manifests Himself to us. You delight to hear the preacher and to join
   in the song and to say Amen to the prayer but these are not all. Your
   heart and your flesh cry out for God, for the living God--you look to
   behold the King in His beauty.

   When the glorious Father reveals Himself in Christ Jesus, then the
   Sabbath is a high day, for our prayer is answered, "Make Your face to
   shine upon Your servant." Our glorious King is not always equally
   manifest in our solemn assemblies. Doubtless because of our sins He
   hides Himself. In truth He is always with us. For the feast is His and
   the hall is His and every guest is brought in by His Grace and every
   dish on the table is placed there by His love. But yet there are times
   when He is specially seen among His people. Then our communion with the
   Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ, is sweet, indeed.

   These are seasons of gracious visitation--times of refreshing from the
   presence of the Lord. When the King comes into the assembly, the
   preaching of the Word is in demonstration of the Spirit and in power.
   Then the day of Pentecost has fully come, the Spirit is abundantly
   outpoured, souls are saved, saints are edified and Christ is glorified.
   The spiritual soon detect the Divine Presence and the shout of a King
   is heard in the camp. When I think of it, my heart cries out with
   Isaiah, "Oh that You would rend the heavens, that You would come down,
   that the mountains might flow down at Your presence!"

   The presence of our God brings with it heavenly happiness, solemn
   content and overflowing joy. Well does Dr. Watts sing--

   "The King Himself comes near, And feasts His saints today; Here we may
   sit and see Him here, And love and praise and pray."

   "One day amidst the place Where my dear God has been Is sweeter than
   ten thousand days

   Of pleasurable sin."

   Beloved Friends, you know better than I can tell you when the King is
   near and you know sorrowfully when He is not in the assembly. Alas,
   from how many congregations is He absent and that absence not mourned!
   When the Lord is gone we spread our sails but there is no wind--we
   bring the sacrifice but there is no fire. The wedding would have been a
   failure without guests. But what would the feast have been if the host
   had refused to come in and see the guests? But the King came in in due
   time. Yes, came in among that crowd of wayfarers gathered from the
   highways at a moment's notice and His presence crowned the festival
   with honor and rapture.

   This coming in to see the guests indicates a glorious Revelation of
   Himself. When the King saw the guests, the guests saw Him. But,
   inasmuch as His sight of them was the more important sight of the two,
   the chief thing is mentioned while the minor matter is implied. Do we
   know what it is to see God? This is the special privilege of the pure
   in heart. When the Lord's way is in the sanctuary, then His sanctified
   ones behold Him. Spiritual eyes have looked to Jesus by faith and He
   says, "He that has seen Me has seen the Father." Have you ever been
   like John in Patmos, ready to swoon away because of the Revelation of
   the Father in Christ?

   When Jesus has been set forth evidently crucified among us, we have in
   Him beheld the face of the great King and our hearts have leaped for
   joy so that we have been ready to leap into Heaven itself if the word
   had been given. When Augustine read those words, "You can not see My
   face and live," he was bold enough to answer, "Let me die to see Your
   face." Blessed vision!--

   "Lord, let me see Your beauteous face!

   It yields a Heaven below;

   And angels round the throne will say,

   It is all the Heaven they know." The King delights to see His guests
   and His guests delight to see Him. Then is our worship full of bliss
   and no place out of Heaven is so like to Heaven as the place of our
   assemblies. We read in the Gospel of John--"Then were the disciples
   glad when they saw the Lord." And well they might be. Then are we glad,
   also, when we distinctly discern Him as our Lord and our God. My own
   soul knows this joy unspeakable but because it is unspeakable, I say no
   more.

   For the King to come in and see the guests includes a manifestation of
   special favor. He comes in, not to judge the guests but to look upon
   them. You that were here last Thursday might will remember my
   text--"Look You upon me and be merciful unto me, as You used to do unto
   those that love Your name" [Psa. 119:132]. The Lord is accustomed to
   look with favor upon those who love His name, for He is pleased with
   them. O Brothers and Sisters, when the love of God is shed abroad in
   our hearts by the Holy Spirit--when the Father lifts upon us the light
   of His countenance--then our summer weather is come! Can anything be
   compared with the favor of God? The smiles of kings, the friendships of
   emperors--do not mention them in the same breath.

   Some of you know that the Lord loves you. Yes, that He loved you from
   before the foundation of the world and He will love you when the world
   has ceased to be. Oh that the King would come here this morning in that
   sense and look into all your faces and give you all the full assurance
   that you are in His heart and shall be there to all eternity! Oh that
   this whole Church may be a living temple in which the Lord shall
   delight to dwell. May every stone of it be brilliant with the reflected
   light of His favor. May all our testimonies and labors be acceptable
   unto Him and may He be very gracious at the voice of our cry!

   O Jehovah, manifest Yourself here as You did between the cherubim! For
   Your sake we have borne reproach--Lord be our glory! We have held fast
   Your Truth. We beseech You, let the light of Your countenance encourage
   us!

   But here is the solemn point to which I call your attention--this
   visitation brings with it a time of discovery and searching of heart.
   When the King comes in to see the guests, the light grows stronger and
   hidden things are revealed. For all things are naked and open to the
   eyes of Him with whom we have to do. When the Lord visits His Church,
   His fire is in Zion and His furnace in Jerusalem. Then the man without
   a wedding garment is winked at no longer. You can go on sleeping as a
   Church when God is away and no members will fall off. For those who
   know not the Lord will come in and go out among you as before.

   The dead will remain quiet till the Lord sounds the trumpet of
   resurrection--mere professors will not know that they are making a
   false profession but will remain at ease in our solemn feasts. But when
   the King comes in, all things are changed. "Who may abide the day of
   His coming? And who shall stand when He appears? For He is like a
   refiner's fire and like fullers' soap." You cannot receive abundant
   spiritual life into the Church without the discernment of the unworthy
   and the expulsion of the spiritually dead. One goes away because he is
   offended at the doctrine, another is grieved at the heart-searching
   experience, and a third feels himself too sternly rebuked as to his
   life.

   Thus the Lord's visitation of Divine Grace becomes an assize ofjudgment
   and the finger of the Lord writes upon the wall, "You are weighed in
   the balances and are found wanting." If the Lord our God were to come
   into His Church today there would be an awful shrinkage among the
   number of His guests. A panic would seize the assembly and the door
   would be blocked with men hastening to escape His eye.

   Look how the king's discernment is recorded in the text. One man, only,
   had refused to put on a wedding garment. But the king at once fixed His
   eye upon him. The Savior, by a kind of heavenly charity, mentions only
   one intruder but I fear we must regard the one as the type of many. If
   the King should come in at the time of our communion, I am afraid He
   would de-

   tect more than one. Still, if there were but one, he would concentrate
   His gaze upon that one and speak to him by himself. If you are the only
   person who has dared to enter the Church knowing that you are not
   converted, the King will spy you out.

   If you make a profession of religion out of bravado and keep it up by
   sheer deceit, you may hide yourself away among your family connections,
   or think that your respectability will screen you. But you are
   mistaken. You have to deal with One whose eyes are as a flame of fire
   and He will so unmask you that you will not have a word to say in your
   own defense. This is a solemn matter. It will not make the true-hearted
   wish the King to stay away but those who are willful deceivers may well
   tremble. The King does come to this Church. He is specially present in
   the midst of this people and the consequence is that His judgment is
   strict with us. I have seen the rod of His discipline here in a very
   striking manner. I have seen the fair professor wither in the heat of
   love and the rootless Christian dried up in the noontide of Divine
   Grace.

   He might have gone on very well in any other Church but he has not been
   able to abide the brandished sword of the Spirit and its dividing
   asunder soul and spirit, joints and marrow. He has not been able to sit
   it out but has been obliged to go away and find an easier rest. Just in
   proportion as we really have the King in the midst of us making glad
   the saints, we shall have the King in the midst of us discerning the
   false and casting them out. First into the outer darkness of the world,
   which lies in the Wicked One and at last into the outer darkness of
   weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Still, be the result what it
   may, our prayer this morning is, "God be merciful unto us and bless us.
   And cause His face to shine upon us."

   II. Now I would answer the second question--WHAT IS THE WEDDING
   GARMENT? You are probably aware that this has been a point greatly
   disputed among theologians. Is the wedding garment justification, or
   sanctification, or what? I am not going to be theological and bring
   doctrinal matters to the text. But I shall read the parable as it
   stands and interpret its details by its general run. It is called a
   "wedding garment"--a garment suitable for a marriage feast. Let us
   translate the figure rather than attempt to rivet a doctrine to it.
   What does a wedding garment mean? What is that which we must have in
   connection with our Lord's marriage or be cast out forever?

   I think I may say plainly that it must signify a distinguishing mark of
   Divine Grace. Everybody does not wear a wedding garment--he who wears
   it has put it on because he is a wedding guest. You know the wedding
   guest at once by his attire. He dresses in a way which would be
   considered singular if he were so arrayed every day. Your steady
   citizen indulges in a white waistcoat on the nuptial occasion but he
   never dreams of going down to his office in the city in such gear. True
   members of the Church of God wear a distinguishing mark. If you are not
   different from other people, you have no right in the Church of God. If
   a servant can live with you for years and never discover your love to
   God, I should think there is none to discover.

   If you are just the same as those you lived with in your former days,
   if you have undergone no change and are like the rest of men, you have
   not the distinguishing mark which sets forth your right to be in the
   Church of God. There ought to be a something about us which sets us
   apart--a something which can be seen and understood by common people,
   even as a wedding garment could be seen and its meaning at once
   perceived. Your religion must not require a microscope to perceive it,
   nor should it be so indistinct that few can discover any meaning in it.
   It should be as visible as the white garment which was worn by Easterns
   at a marriage. Is it so?

   I may boldly add here that the wedding garment was a distinguishing
   mark of Divine Grace. For as these people were fetched in from the
   highways they could not have provided themselves with wedding garments.
   It is the custom in the East for a king to provide robes for his
   guests. Therefore this wedding garment was a mark of Divine Grace,
   freely given and received. Is there, then, a something about you which
   the Lord in love has given you? Do you differ from others, not in
   natural attainments but in spiritual Grace? Does the difference mainly
   lie in what God Himself has done for you? That is the question involved
   in the symbol of the wedding garment.

   Do you differ from what you used to be. Do you differ from what you
   were years ago? Do you differ from those with whom you used to
   associate, so that you seek other company and turn aside from those who
   once were charming fellows to you? If so, you have on the wedding
   garment. It is a distinguishing mark. I do not mean to put this in a
   way that would grieve anybody here unless they ought to be grieved. But
   if they ought to be grieved then we would have them cry to God for
   renewal by His Grace. May the Lord make you to wear His livery! May He
   give you the spot of His children and cause you no longer to be of the
   world! A distinguishing mark is plainly the first meaning of the
   wedding garment.

   In the next place, it was a symbol of respect for the king. To be fit
   for His company, the dress must be special. The absence of such a dress
   was, in the case before us, the badge of irreverence and disloyalty.
   This man said to himself--"I will feed at the feast without
   acknowledging its intent. Whoever stops me, I will push my way in and I
   shall sit there in my everyday garments to let the king know that I do
   not respect Him in the least and will not wear the robes He provides."
   It is as if you had lost a

   son and some wretched man should say, "I will attend the funeral in a
   wedding suit. I shall thus wound the feelings of the mourners and show
   my contempt for the whole affair."

   What an insult it would be! To turn the picture. Suppose you were being
   married and somebody forced his way into the wedding dressed in
   mourning, with crape upon his hat and black kid gloves upon his hands?
   What a wanton insult! If such impudence were met with a horse-whip, who
   would be surprised? Now, this man acted in that fashion--he had no
   respect for the king--he showed his traitorous nature in the worst
   possible manner--spiting the King in His own halls upon a tender
   occasion.

   Dear Friends, I trust that you can truly say, "I have on the wedding
   garment of reverence for the King. I do not despise the Lord God. But I
   bow before Him in true worship. I would come into His Church, not to
   dishonor Him but to give glory to His name." The wedding garment was a
   token of respect to Him who had provided the feast and presided over
   it--judge this day whether you have on the wedding garment, by
   enquiring whether you honor and reverence the Lord God and labor to be
   obedient to Him in all things.

   The wedding garment was, moreover, a token of honor for the Prince.
   Those who put on the wedding garment did as good as say, "We join in
   the joy of the Prince and come here today to show our attachment to
   Him, and to wish Him joy of His Bride." My Hearers, do you feel a love
   to the Lord Jesus Christ? Many do not. I grieve to say we have a race
   of men sprung up nowadays who call themselves Christians who pour
   contempt upon His precious blood and ridicule the substitutionary
   sacrifice. Dreadful assertion! But it is a matter of fact.

   The name of Jesus, why, it is to our lives what the sun is to the
   skies! What the rivers are to the plains. Nothing makes us so glad as
   thoughts of Jesus. I am sure when I hear a sermon about Christ, my
   Master, my very heart grows warm within me! Is it so with you? Well,
   then, you have on the wedding garment. That is to say, you do truly,
   though it is but in a simple way, pay homage to the Prince of Peace.
   You love the Name and Person of Jesus and you come into His Church
   because you do so. The wedding garment also signified a confession of
   sympathy with the great occasion. Every man who ate of the fatlings,
   every man who drank of the wines, every man who gave his presence, was
   a helper in the honors of that wedding feast, save only this one
   intruder, who would not even pretend to join in the joy for he refused
   the simple act of putting on a robe fit for the feast.

   Dear Friend, do you feel sympathy with the Lord's purposes of Divine
   Grace? Do you rejoice that Jesus finds a Bride among our race? Do you
   bless God for the Covenant of Grace, which includes incarnation,
   redemption and sanctification? Do you bless the name of the incarnate
   God for taking into everlasting union with Himself a people prepared of
   the Lord? Well, then, you are in sympathy with the marriage of the Lamb
   and you have a right to be present at the feast. You evidently wear the
   wedding garment which denotes your joy in Christ, your interest in His
   Church, your part and lot in the joyous work of His salvation.

   The wedding garment means, in a word, conformity to the requirements of
   the occasion. It was a wedding and the guests must put on a suitable
   dress. This man refused to put it on. He was proud and would not wear
   the gift of Divine Grace. He was self-willed and must needs be singular
   and show his independence of mind. The regulation was by no means
   irksome and to the rest of the guests the commandment was not grievous.
   But this man would have his own way in defiance of the Lord of the
   feast. What could come of such folly?

   Now, Beloved, one of the requirements of the feast is that you, with
   your heart, believe on the Lord Jesus and that you take His
   righteousness to be your righteousness. Do you refuse this? If you will
   not accept the Lord Jesus as your Substitute, bearing your sins in His
   own body on the tree, you have not the wedding garment. Another
   requirement is that you should repent of sin and forsake it. And that
   you should follow after holiness and endeavor to copy the example of
   the Lord Jesus. You are to possess, as the work of Divine Grace, a
   godly and upright character. Have you such a character? Even though you
   are not perfect, inasmuch as you follow after righteousness, you have
   the wedding garment. You say that you are a Christian--do you live like
   a Christian? Are you in a position and condition which agree with the
   Gospel feast? If so, you have on the wedding garment.

   Those who came unto the feast were, when they came, both bad and
   good--so that the wedding garment does not relate to their past
   character but relates to something with which they were invested when
   they came to the banquet. The putting on of a wedding robe cannot refer
   to an elaborate ceremony, or a feat of the intellect, or to a deep
   experience of the heart. And yet it involved joining in the wedding, or
   not joining in it. It involved reverence for the King and homage to the
   Prince and sympathy with the whole matter. Look well to yourselves and
   see whether you truly yield yourselves to the Lord and agree with Him
   in the whole matter.

   III. Thirdly, WHO IS THE MAN THAT HAS NOT ON THE WEDDING GARMENT?

   I should say, first, he is the man who rejects God's revealed Gospel
   that he may follow his own thought and his own wisdom. He says that he
   is loyal to Christ and he expects all his fellow guests to be firm
   friends with him, for is he not in the banquet as much as they are? But
   he does not mean by loyalty what they mean by it. He is among Believers
   but he is not truly of them. He talks about atonement. He does not mean
   substitution. He talks about the divinity of Christ. He does not mean
   the Godhead of Christ. He talks about justification by faith. But he
   does not mean the old-fashioned doctrine.

   He speaks of regeneration but means evolution. He girds himself with
   the garment of philosophy but he refuses the robe of Revelation, for
   the cut of it is too old-fashioned for him. He is no more a wedding
   guest than he is a clown--perhaps, not as much so. He wears raiment in
   which the robe of righteousness and the garments of gladness are not to
   be seen. The looms of Free Grace and dying love have never woven him a
   wedding dress. His robe is not of God's provision. It is from his own
   wardrobe. He glories in his own culture and not in the Revelation of
   God, nor yet in the work of Divine Grace upon the heart. He is in the
   Church but he is not in Christ. He has a name to live but he is dead.

   The next person who has not on the wedding garment is the man who
   refuses the righteousness of God because he has a righteousness of his
   own. He thinks his work-day dress good enough for Christ's own wedding.
   What does he want with imputed righteousness? He thinks it immoral--he
   who is himself immoral! What does he want with the precious blood of
   Jesus? He does not need to be washed from crimson stains. He writes a
   paper against the sensuousness of those persons who sing--

   "There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Immanuel's veins."

   His own righteousness, though it be of the Law and such as Paul
   rejected, he esteems so highly that he counts the blood of the Covenant
   an unholy thing! Ah me, the insolence of self-righteousness! Its pride
   is the very chief of sins, for it slights the righteousness of God.
   Practically, the self-righteous man does not see any wedding in the
   Gospel system. He does not see anything in the Gospel to make him glad,
   nothing for him to sing about, nothing to make him shout for joy of
   heart. He will not praise the Prince. Not he! He is under the Law and
   he is content to be a slave. He is trying to save himself by his own
   works and Law knows no holidays. He is not a wedding guest but a mere
   drudge.

   Another sort of person has profession without feeling. If he were
   outside of the Church his conscience might trouble him--he has come
   inside of it, and now he says to himself, "It is all right." He does
   not care to watch his feelings. He never had any--he would rather not
   have any. To the power of the Word he is a stranger, though he knows
   the letter of it. As to repentance and the burden of sin, he never knew
   them and does not want to know them. He thinks Mr. Bunyan must have
   been superstitious or morbid when he wrote "Grace Abounding." Joy in
   the Lord is equally a thing unknown to him, for he hates all
   excitement. He has no solemn depressions and no raptures, for he has no
   spiritual life.

   As he has no holy feeling, so he has no holy action--he is a Christian,
   he says. But having put up the sign-board, he drives no trade. His
   religion operates far more upon his boots and his hat than it does upon
   his heart--that is to say he comes out respectably dressed on a Sunday
   but his religion never affects his conduct. Nobody can find much fault
   with him except that he is as dead as a door nail. He commits no gross
   sin, he certainly performs no brilliant deeds of piety. Spiritually he
   is a very well washed corpse--and that is all he is.

   We have others who are in the Church who think that what they have done
   themselves, or what nature has done for them is quite enough. They do
   not seek anything supernatural. They do not want any wedding garment
   more than their everyday coats. They are quite reputable in appearance
   even now, and with a little touching up they will be good enough
   without the new birth and without the Holy Spirit. Alas, my Hearers!
   All that nature can ever do for you will leave you on the wrong side of
   Heaven. You may cultivate nature to its utmost--it will never bring
   forth the fruits of the Spirit. "You must be born again."

   If you have not come into living contact with a living Savior by the
   work of the Holy Spirit you may be in the Church but you are not in
   Christ and have not on the wedding garment. Why, some dare to come into
   the Church who have not even common morality. It is shocking we should
   have to say it, but nowadays we meet with those who call themselves
   Christians who can drink upon the sly, who can commit uncleanness with
   their bodies, who can be dishonest in their trading, who can be liars,
   who can hate their own flesh and blood and be at enmity with their
   Brethren--and yet dare to come to the communion table!

   In the highlands of Scotland it was at one time difficult to get
   Christian people to come to the Lord's Table, for they so trembled
   under a sense of their unworthiness. We do not want to push this too
   far, but that is a great deal better than that unholy daring, which is
   to be found in the minds of so many who serve Christ and Belial. God
   save His Church from

   degradation! Unholy professors have not on a wedding garment--their
   outward robes by no means befit the King's feast. They are a dishonor
   to Him.

   I do not see how that man can be said to have on a wedding garment who
   takes no interest in the work of the Church. You see, when a man puts
   on the wedding garment, he does as good as say, "I am interested in the
   wedding. I wish God's blessing to the Bride and Bridegroom." But many
   come in now to the King's feast who do not care a snap of the finger
   for the Church of God, nor for Christ, either. They come in because a
   sort of selfishness makes them anxious to be saved. But as to the
   Bride, the Lamb's wife, they do not care whether she starves or
   flourishes.

   Sad and wretched business this! If members of the Church only
   distribute tracts or attend meetings for prayer--if they are doing this
   and show an interest, thus, in the wedding--they have on the wedding
   garment. But if all they do is simply listen, either to criticize or to
   enjoy, but never work for Christ, nor pray for Christ, they have no
   sympathy in the wedding feast and therefore they have not on a wedding
   garment.

   IV. To close, WHY WAS THIS MAN SPEECHLESS? We do not often meet with
   people who have no excuse. Excuse-making is the easiest trade out. A
   man can make an excuse out of nothing at all, or out of what is less
   than nothing--out of a direct lie. But here was a man who could not
   speak? Why was that?

   Well, I think, first, the affront was too bare-faced. "How came you in
   here?" If he did not like the King he should have stayed outside. There
   was no need why he should come in at all and there, display his malice.
   If any of you are resolved to be lost, you need not add to your eternal
   ruin by making a profession of religion--for hypocrisy is a superfluity
   of naughtiness. But this man willfully refused the wedding garment. Now
   those dear souls I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon do not
   willfully refuse the Lord's Grace--I am sure they do not. Oh no, they
   are afraid they are not right but they do not wish to be wrong. Such
   are not among those whom this parable condemns.

   Next, the affront was so audacious. "How came you in here?" said the
   King. He must have pushed by the deacons at the door. The fellow would
   come in. When the king said, "Bind him hand and foot," I think it was
   because he had used hand and foot to get in. He would get in. He said,
   "I will get in. I will defy the King to His face and sit in among His
   guests without a wedding garment." You, dear Friend, do not wish to do
   that--I am sure it is the last thing you would do. Why, we have to
   persuade you to come in at all. For you are so tenderly jealous lest
   you should be mistaken. Do not let this parable condemn you.

   But why was the man speechless? I answer once more, because it was the
   King Himself who spoke to him. Ah, if I speak to you, what am I but
   flesh and blood? You do not mind me! But if the King Himself were here
   today, and He said to any one of you, "Friend, how came you in here not
   having a wedding garment?" the tone of His voice, the glory of His
   presence, would flash in upon your hearts--you would be obliged to feel
   it and you could not invent an answer. If you do not love Him, if you
   have no reverence for Him, no sympathy with His Son, you will be
   speechless before His bar.

   Lastly, the reason why he was speechless was because, even if he could
   have spoken and been free from terror, there was nothing to be said. He
   could not cry, "Lord, I did not know it." He saw all the rest with
   wedding garments on. He could not say, "Lord, I could not get a wedding
   garment"--each one had received a garment gratis and he might have
   received the same. He could not say, "Lord, I was pushed in here by
   somebody else." No, he had willingly chosen to come and to defy the
   rules. The guests had all looked at him--some had edged a little way
   off from him.

   Some had tenderly said, "Brother, will you not put on the wedding
   garment?" He answered, "No." "Will you not go out before the King comes
   in?" "Why," he said, "I came on purpose to defy Him. I mean to keep my
   place." I do not wonder that the king said, "Bind him hand and foot and
   cast him into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of
   teeth." Our Lord Jesus Christ says very strong things about the future
   of the wicked. I have been accused of representing the state of the
   lost in too horrible a manner. I have never gone beyond the dreadful
   descriptions given by our Lord Himself.

   Do not risk your eternal future. Come to the Church of God and join it
   but do not join it unless you love the Lord. Do not come to the Gospel
   feast unless you reverence the King. Unless you love the Prince. Unless
   you are in sympathy with the great work of Divine Grace which is
   pictured as a wedding feast. If you have sympathy with the wedding,
   love to the Bridegroom, and delight in the Bride, then come and
   welcome. For you have the wedding garment.

   I am thinking just now of all those other hundreds of people at the
   wedding, all of them clothed with the wedding garment. What joy they
   felt! Many had been bad and all had been poor--but they all had the
   wedding garment and not

   one of them was cast out. If you will but put your trust in Jesus and
   so honor the Son--and rest in the love of the Father and so honor the
   King, it is written, "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out."
   God bless you for Jesus' sake! Amen. Amen. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Tender Enquiry of a Friend

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "How long will you cut yourself?" Jeremiah 47:5.

   TRAVELERS in the East tell us that among the most melancholy scenes
   they witness is the following: Men inflict upon themselves very
   grievous voluntary wounds and then exhibit themselves in public. They
   even disfigure themselves with gashes and cuts in the presence of
   excited throngs. I am speaking of what has occurred even within the
   last few years among the Muslims. When some great Prophet or emir is
   coming that way, a certain number of fanatical Mahometans take swords,
   spears and other sharp instruments and gash themselves terribly,
   cutting their breasts, their faces, their heads and all parts of their
   bodies.

   Frequently they have taken care to dress themselves in white sheets so
   that as the blood flows copiously from their bodies, it may be the more
   clearly seen, that they may become the more ghastly spectacles of
   misery, or more fully display the religious excitement under which they
   labor. As everything in the East remains forever the same, this Muslim
   superstition carries us back to the olden times whereof we read in the
   Old Testament when the priests of Baal, having cried in vain to their
   idol, cut themselves with lances and with knives. Our translators were
   probably afraid to write the harsher words and so they translated the
   passage "knives and lances," but they might have written swords and
   spears--sharp instruments of a desperate character.

   Thus they displayed their inward zeal and thus, perhaps, they hoped to
   move the pity of their god. Eastern fanaticism surpasses belief--you
   would suppose that the raving creatures were about to commit suicide
   and yet there is a method in their madness. You could hardly think that
   men possessed of reason would torture themselves and disfigure
   themselves as they do. But they know what they are doing and are only
   carrying out their plans. The Lord expressly forbade His people, the
   Jews, to perpetrate such folly. They were not even to shave the corners
   of their beards, or to hack their hair, as the Orientals do in the hour
   of their grief.

   And then they were further prohibited from injuring their bodies by the
   command, "You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead,
   nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord" (Lev. 19:28.) Men in
   Eastern lands, not only in connection with fanaticism but in reference
   to domestic affairs, will cut themselves to express their grief and
   anguish--or to make other people believe that they are feeling such
   grief and anguish. We may congratulate ourselves that we are free from
   at least one foolish custom.

   The Prophet here speaks to the Philistines who were about to endure the
   tremendous judgments of God and, indeed, to be crushed as a nation by
   the Egyptians and the Chaldeans. And he says to Philistia, "How long
   will you cut yourself?" Gaza was to be made bald by the smiting of
   Pharaoh. Ashkelon was to be shorn away. And the whole nation was to
   feel the sword of the Lord, which would not rest in its scabbard. How
   long would they continue to bring upon themselves such terrible
   judgments?

   The expression is used, first, almost in despair. The question is asked
   with little hope--as if the self-torturer would never have done but
   would go on to mutilate himself without end. I intend to use it at this
   time, in the second place, as a question asked instructively and
   hopefully, in the hope that some, who have practically been cutting
   themselves, will cease from this self-torture and find rest and peace
   where it is to be had and to be had at once and forever. May the good
   Spirit grant our desire!

   I. First, dear Friends, I SHALL ASK THIS QUESTION VERY
   DESPAIRINGLY--"How long will you cut your-self?"--for many are cutting
   themselves very terribly and will have to feel their wounds for a long,
   long time--neither can we induce them to cease.

   I allude, first, to some professors of religion who have been Church
   members for ten, twenty, or more years and yet have practically done
   nothing at all for the Savior. If they were really to awaken to a sense
   of their neglect, I do not know how long they would be in anguish, or
   how deep would be their distress. For if Titus mourned that he had lost
   a day when he had done no good action for twenty-four hours--and he but
   a heathen--what would happen to a Christian if he were really to see
   his responsibility before God and to feel that he has not only lost a
   day but a year--perhaps many years?

   Have not some of you well-near lost a whole lifetime? What hosts of
   opportunities you have thrown away! What multiplied responsibilities
   you have incurred! Favored as you have been and so ungrateful!
   Comforted as you have been and yet keeping the comfort to yourself and
   never seeking out other lonely hearts to share with them the heavenly
   balm. Instructed as you have been and yet instructing none in return!
   With Divine light shining upon you and yet never giving that light to
   others!--

   "Can we, whose souls are lighted With wisdom from on high, Can we, to
   men benighted, The lamp of life deny?"

   The good Bishop's hymn asks the question as if it were impossible. But,
   Sirs, it is not impossible. It is sadly true. And alas, commonly true!
   Our Churches are made up largely of barren members and of cumber-ground
   trees that bring forth no fruit. Oh, if I am addressing such--and
   honestly in the sight of God I fear I am--then how long will you
   chasten yourselves for your neglect? It must be long before you can
   forgive yourselves for such wicked indolence. How long will you afflict
   yourselves to think that you should have suffered time which you can
   never recall and opportunities which you will never enjoy again, to go
   by you wasted?

   The miller puts his wheel hard by the stream and uses its constant flow
   to grind his corn. But you have a stream of opportunity and power
   flowing by you which you have turned to no practical service. Your
   tears might well be as plentiful as the drops of the wasted stream of
   life. Some of you stand by and listen to the hum of the wheel and
   admire the liquid music of the falling waters. But nothing practical
   comes of it. Your taste is gratified and your conscience is eased by
   attending religious services but there is nothing done for
   Christ--nothing done for the souls of men.

   Like little children with their toy windmills you are amused with that
   which, if you were true men, you would turn to good account. Are you
   not ashamed to have been playing, while God and Heaven and even Satan
   and Hell are all so terribly in earnest? You have come to years of
   discretion, when "life is real, life is earnest," and you have still
   trifled. Can you ever be sorry enough for this? How long will you cut
   yourself? Ah, me! I think I should eternally regret it if up till now I
   had never preached the Gospel of the Grace of God. Ah, me! If it had
   not been God's good pleasure to let me break out as a soul-winner while
   yet a boy, I could lay me down upon my bed and wish that I had never
   been born.

   If I had reached the very center of life and yet had done nothing to
   reclaim and restore the sons of men and glorify the Lord my Redeemer, I
   should tear my hair. Do I address any who have come to the noon of life
   and have not yet done a hand's turn in my Lord's vineyard? The dew of
   the morning is gone and the best hours of the day have glided away--why
   do you stand here all the day, idle? Do I make you feel uncomfortable?
   I shall thank God if I do. And I shall be happy, indeed, if, instead of
   cutting yourselves with vain regrets, you lacerate yourselves with my
   sharp remarks as with spears and knives and then gird up your loins and
   say, "God helping me, there shall never be another wasted year, no, nor
   another wasted day!"

   Then I shall be rejoiced, indeed. Oh, how I wish each one of you would
   pray--

   "Let every flying hour confess I bring Your Gospel fresh reno wn, And
   when my life and labors cease May I possess the promised crown!" But,
   lazy Professors, when will you have done with your regretting if your
   conscience is once aroused? If you are once moved to see what cause you
   have for shame, surely you will never leave off cutting yourselves with
   regrets? But what will be the use of your lamentations unless they lead
   you to amendments and from sluggards you become laborers? Let us hope
   it will be so. But I am not very hopeful, for it is hard to make long
   habits of indolence yield to diligence.

   The same may be applied and applied very solemnly, too, to those who
   backslide--who, in addition to being useless, are injurious because
   their example tends to hinder others from coming to Christ. Oh, if any
   of you that name the name of Jesus and have been happy in His service
   and have enjoyed high days and holy days in His presence, turn aside, I
   shall use this lamentation over you! You will do yourselves terrible
   injury and I shall shudder as I see the edged tools of sin in your
   reckless hands. Every sin is a gash in the soul. The Lord will bring
   you back and save you, as I believe. But oh, how long will you cut
   yourselves? You will feel in after life how grievously you have injured
   your souls.

   David's great sin was put away so that he did not die but he was never
   the same David as before. The Lord's people seem to have shunned him
   for a time while the adversary found occasion to blaspheme. He offers a
   remarkable prayer in the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm when he says,
   "Let those that fear You turn unto me" (v. 79). I think they had, in a
   measure, turned away from him in horror at his great sin. They began to
   stand in doubt of him. They had loved him as their champion

   in his earlier days, when he led the van of the armies of the Lord of
   Hosts and when as a youth he returned from the battle bringing the head
   of Goliath.

   They had looked up to him when he was in the wilderness because of his
   integrity. Though hunted like a partridge by the ungodly party, yet he
   was the hope of Israel and the joy of all the saints. With what delight
   did they gather round him at Hebron and Jerusalem when he was crowned
   their king! They felt that God had blessed His people in giving them
   such a leader. But when it was whispered that he had defiled his
   neighbor's wife, then the godly shuddered. They knew what blasphemy and
   rebuke would come of it and they kept out of his way. They must have
   been deeply grateful when they found him truly penitent. When he was
   crying to God for mercy, probably some of them would know it and
   perhaps step in to cheer him.

   But still David was scarcely David again, either to the people of God
   or to himself. The Lord, out of very love to him, chastened him sorely
   and pursued him with plague upon plague. His family became his dishonor
   and his sorrow. He went with broken bones to the grave--a man of
   sorrows and acquainted with grief. How grievously he had injured
   himself! How long he had to cut himself with anguish for that one sin!
   His life, surely, from the time when he fell with Bathsheba, was
   penitential sorrow rather than confident delight. And though the Lord
   left him not but brought him to much maturity of Divine Grace out of
   his brokenness of heart, still, as often as he went to his couch, the
   memory of his great transgression would cut and wound his heart.

   What is true of David applies also to others who have in any great
   measure turned aside. Solomon, in a high degree, hurt himself by his
   terrible follies. In the New Testament Peter is a conspicuous example.
   It is a tradition that whenever Peter heard the cock crow he used to
   weep. And I do not wonder at it. Alas, If you and I should ever be
   suffered to fall into grievous sin, it may be all done in ten minutes
   but it cannot be gotten rid of in fifty years. We shall bear the scars
   of that ten minutes' sin until the Lord shall take us home and permit
   us to wake up, "without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing," in the
   full likeness of our perfect Lord.

   Oh, my Brethren, watch anxiously lest you have to mourn for years over
   the sin of an instant! God grant that all His servants may be kept both
   from the sin of omission, of which I spoke at first, which leads to
   neglect of duty--and also from the sin of commission which leads to
   actual backsliding and practical departing from the living God.

   There is one thing which comes after these and comes in connection with
   them. If you and I should know that souls have been lost--lost as far
   as we are concerned--through our neglect, how long shall we cut
   ourselves on that account? A dear soul said to me yesterday, "My
   husband died. He had been a sad drunkard but in his last illness,
   through the blessing of God upon those who visited him, I trust he
   found peace. He said that he believed in the Lord Jesus and there is my
   comfort. But oh, if he had died without finding Christ, I should have
   been indeed a widow! I know not what could have comforted me."

   I am grateful that our Sister called in her Christian friends and that,
   by their efforts and her prayers, she was spared the keenest edge of
   sorrow. "Surely the bitterness of death is past." But suppose you were
   to lose your son and that your son should die in sin which he learned
   from you? Or in sin which you saw in him and never rebuked? Suppose, I
   ask, your son should die in his iniquity? What if he should have been
   your favorite child and you should have tolerated much evil in him
   which you would not have suffered in another? What if you pampered and
   indulged him and gave him liberty to make himself

   vile?

   Shall I tell you how you will behave yourself when the news comes to
   you that he is dead? You will get by yourself alone and cry like David,
   "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for
   you, O Absalom, my son, my son!" You can lay your children down upon
   the bed all stark and cold and follow them to the tomb and even sing as
   you commit their mortal remains to the grave, when you know that they
   die in hope. But if they perish in their sin, guilty, red-handed,
   unforgiven, what will you say to yourselves?

   Fathers, if you have never sought to bring your children to repentance,
   how will you excuse yourselves? If you have never prayed with them, or
   wept with them--if you have never even instructed them in the things of
   God, what flattering unction will you lay to your guilty consciences?
   What will you say, Mother, if your daughter passes into eternity
   unforgiven and you have never tried to lead her to Jesus? What shall I
   say of you, my congregation, if I waste your Sabbaths with fine shows
   of oratory but do not seek your souls? When next the knell is heard and
   there is another gone who constantly listened to my voice, if I have
   not been faithful with you and persuaded you to lay hold on Christ, how
   long must I tear my hair and cut myself for very anguish because my
   garments will be spotted crimson with your blood?

   These are solemn things but there are deep Truth of Gods in them and
   they ought to be considered by all of you who profess to be Christians.
   I knew one who used to have a man calling upon him in the way of
   business and bringing certain articles which he bought across the
   counter. This tradesman said one day to himself, "I have dealt with
   that man for nine or ten years

   and we have scarcely passed the time of day. He has brought in his work
   and I have paid him across the counter but I have never tried to do him
   any good. Surely this cannot be right. Providence has put him in my way
   and I ought at least to have asked him whether he is saved in Christ."

   Well, the next time the man came, our good Brother's spirit failed him
   and he did not like to begin a religious conversation. The man never
   came again but a boy brought in the next lot of goods. "How is this?"
   said the shopkeeper. "Father is dead," said the boy. My friend, the
   shopkeeper, said to me, "I could never forgive myself. I could not stay
   in the shop that day. I felt that I was guilty of that man's blood. But
   I had not thought of it before. How can I ever clear myself from the
   guilty fact that, when I did think of it, my ungracious timidity
   prevented me from opening my mouth?"

   My dear Friends, do not bring upon yourselves such cutting regrets!
   Avoid them by daily watching to save men from the second death. Will
   you let them die? Will you let them die? If so, when you wake up to the
   sense that you have suffered them to perish, then this dreadful
   question may well be put to you, "How long will you cut yourself?" How
   long will you feel remorse and regret that your hopeful opportunity was
   allowed to pass by unimproved?

   One other most solemn use may be made of this question--God grant that
   it may never be so but if anyone of you should die in his sins, how
   long will you regret it? It looks dreadfully possible that some of you
   will perish forever since you have so often been entreated to come to
   Christ and have never come. For the moment, suppose that there is no
   Hell but if you are only shut out of Heaven, how long will that be a
   subject of grief? If you should only hear the King say, "Depart, you
   cursed!" and should only have to depart and keep on departing, oh, the
   wringing of hands and the anguish! O you who have lost eternal life,
   how long will you cut yourself?

   If you should miss Christ and miss mercy and miss Heaven and miss
   eternal glory--if there were nothing else--how long will you bemoan
   yourself? With what depth of anguish will you smart to have lost all
   this--to have, in fact, lost all which makes up life and joy! What if,
   after all, I come short of the kingdom, I that had my Sabbaths but
   never found rest in Christ? I that heard the Gospel but never took
   Christ to be my Savior? I that was almost persuaded and yet never
   yielded my heart to Divine Grace? I that was almost in the ark and yet,
   not being altogether in it, was left to drown? I that had so much about
   me that was hopeful? I that would, as I said, in a short time, concern
   myself about Divine things--I--I am cast out, left with the tares, not
   gathered with the wheat?

   What if I find myself on the left hand, condemned and cast away? What
   regrets will such a calamity cost me if it is so! O souls, how
   long--how long will you grieve and mourn when it shall come to this?
   According to my reading of this Book-- and I would gladly read it
   otherwise if I did not feel that truth and honesty forbid me to do
   so--your loss, your anguish will be forever. Forever you will cut
   yourselves. Forever will you lament that when the opportunity was so
   near you, you put it away from you and when Christ was ready to receive
   you, you would not be received but chose your own delusions and
   committed eternal suicide.

   O Friends, do not trifle with that which is and must be eternal! Make
   not a dreadful choice which can never be altered. Be solemn, be intense
   when you are dealing with matters which for good or bad will be past
   changing when death comes to you.

   II. I leave this very painful use of the text now, to try and use it at
   greater length in a happier sort, by way of consolation and hopeful
   comfort, to those who will, we trust, be soon brought to receive the
   Lord Jesus. "How long will you cut yourself?" I SHALL ASK THIS QUESTION
   HOPEFULLY, trusting that in many their sorrow is nearing its end.

   This text may be very profitably and prudently applied to those who
   have been bereaved and who, being bereaved, sorrow and sorrow to
   excess. I hope that I am not about to say a harsh word. But I would
   deal faithfully with rebellious repining. "Jesus wept." And he that
   does not weep when he loses a dear one must be something less than a
   man and unworthy to be called a Christian. But there is such a thing as
   carrying to an extreme our sorrow for those we lose till it becomes
   rebellion against God.

   You remember the Quaker saying to the lady who was wearing very deep
   double mourning attire years after one of her children had died,
   "Madam, have you not forgiven God yet?" And there is a truth about that
   remark. Some do not forgive God for what He has done. Their sorrow
   amounts to this--that they have a quarrel with God over His
   dispensations. "How can He be good and have taken away my mother?" said
   one to me. "How can God be good and have taken away my child?" cried
   another. There is a want of faith, a want of reverence, a want of love,
   a want of many sweet and placid graces in such mourning as that.

   And, without dwelling long upon it, I beg to put that question to any
   mourner here who is mourning with the ungodly sorrowing of the
   heathen--as if there were no hope. "How long will you cut yourself?" Is
   not your child in Jesus' bosom? Has not your friend gone among the
   angels, to join the sweet singers of God? Is it not a gain to the
   departed, though it is a loss to

   you, that they are translated to the place of everlasting bliss? Would
   you have them back again? Dare you wish such a thing even for a moment?
   If they are supremely blessed, is there no blessedness to you in their
   blessedness? Are you so selfish that you would tear a star from Heaven
   that you might have the light of it all to yourself?

   Come, be reconciled, not only to your grief but to your God who sent
   it! It has come to be now like a fretting canker within you--will you
   not end it? As the moth eats the garment, so does this grief eat you
   up. Therefore arise and shake yourself from it. Know you not that their
   Redeemer lives and your Redeemer, too? And will you not now yield up to
   Christ what is infinitely more His than yours and cheerfully say, "Let
   Him have those whom He has purchased with His blood and for whom He
   prayed, 'Father, I will that they also, whom You have given Me, be with
   Me where I am' "? "How long will you cut yourself?" Put away your
   disputing and murmuring and either, like Aaron, hold your peace, or
   better still, like Job, bless the name of the Lord and rejoice in your
   God.

   But now, turning to quite another character, I would use the same
   expression for another purpose. There are some persons with whom God is
   dealing in great love and yet they are very rebellious. They persevere
   in known sin although the evil way has become exceedingly hard on them.
   They seem as if they would walk over red-hot plowshares to Hell. I have
   known some who have found the pleasures which once delighted them to
   become a nuisance, a trouble, a pain, a disgust and a weariness. And
   yet they continue in their unprofitable course.

   You remember Saul of Tarsus, to whom the Lord said, "It is hard for you
   to kick against the pricks"--he was acting as though with a naked foot
   he kicked against iron nails, or like the bullock when it is struck
   with the ox-goad and kicks back, driving the goad much deeper into
   itself than otherwise it would have gone. Certain men are doing just
   that--how I wish they could see that it is so! They are following a
   wild course of life and they are losing money at it and they are likely
   to lose much more. They are plunging down. What are they thinking of?
   "How long will you cut yourself?" Already they have met with great
   disasters and misfortunes--they will meet with many more. When the dogs
   are out hunting, they run in packs. The plagues of Egypt are ten, at
   least, and everyone who plays the Pharaoh may expect the full number.

   you to whom the Lord is sternly kind--by terrible things in
   righteousness He will chasten you to your right mind! If the Lord means
   to have you at His feet, He will bring you there. By hook or by crook
   He will bring you there, depend upon it. And if you will not come by
   gentle means, you shall come by some other means. But He will break you
   down in due time. I know that already certain of you have had stroke
   upon stroke. From wealth you have descended to poverty, from health you
   have come down to sickness, from honor you have fallen to obscurity. Is
   not this enough to humble you before God?

   You will come down lower yet. As surely as you live, you will be made
   to feel that it is an evil and a bitter thing to sin against God. My
   heart's desire is that it may be so--that by this painful method you
   may be saved. I spoke some time ago with the son of a very godly man.
   He seemed to be an infidel outright and had taken to horseracing and
   the like. My inmost soul was grieved concerning him--I could have wept.
   As he talked very largely, and mild words were lost on him, I said to
   him, "Keep as many racehorses as you can and go in for gambling most
   heartily, for thus the sooner you will lose all your money. Some
   prodigals never come back to the Father's house until they sink as low
   as the pig's trough and that is probably the way for you. When you get
   a hungry belly, I trust you will come home."

   He knows what my warning meant and I fear he intends to make it true.
   The way of transgressors is hard. And it is a mercy when it becomes so
   hard that they are resolved to quit it for another and a better way. Is
   this happening to anybody here? Have you spent your money riotously?
   Are you getting into trouble? I half congratulate you. I congratulate
   the angels who watch your course--I hope that the probabilities are
   that you will soon say, "How many hired servants of my Father's have
   bread enough and to spare and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go
   to my Father." But do not make the process too long, I charge you. "How
   long will you cut yourself?"

   Have you not had enough of the consequences of your folly? Will you not
   turn at the Lord's rebuke? Will you not yield under the strokes you
   have already felt? "Turn you; turn you; why will you die, O house of
   Israel?" Why should you be stricken any more? Have you not played the
   fool long enough? "How long will you cut yourself?"

   1 might use this expression even to the Jewish nation itself. Ah, my
   God, through what seas of trouble have they had to swim since the day
   when they said, "His blood be on us and on our children"? Alas, the
   story of Israel is enough to make one's blood turn to ice within his
   veins! And will they not come back? Will they not come back? Must they
   be hunted in Germany and hounded in Russia? Shame on the countries that
   dare do such things! But must it be so? God grant that they may no
   longer provoke their Holy One to indignation against them! How long
   will they cut themselves? For still these great evils happen to them
   according to the eternal counsels of the God of Abraham, Isaac and
   Jacob, because of their unbelief.

   When they turn to the Messiah, their glory shall return, also, and the
   crown God crowned His people shall again be set upon their head and
   their ancient city shall again be "beautiful for situation, the joy of
   the whole earth." Assuredly the Lord gave the land of Canaan to Abraham
   and his seed forever--how long will they shut themselves out of it?

   But, now, all this has rather kept me from my main design which is to
   speak to those dear Friends of ours who are afflicting their souls with
   needless fears. No good can possibly come by a continuance in their
   unhappy moods--they are cutting themselves quite needlessly. They might
   at once have peace and rest and joy if they were willing to accept the
   Lord's gracious way of salvation. You who are burdened with sin and are
   trying to get rid of it but will not come to Christ for deliverance--I
   want to ask each one of you, "How long will you cut yourself?"

   Why, there are some persons who think that before they can believe in
   Christ they must undergo a world of torture! From where do they derive
   the notion and what Scripture do they twist to support it? My
   commission runs thus, "Go you into all the world and preach the Gospel
   to every creature. He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." I
   do not find that I am to look out for those who have undergone a long
   probation and then tell them to believe in Christ. But every creature
   is to hear the good news that whosoever believes in Christ Jesus has
   everlasting life and shall never come into condemnation. So far the
   Gospel message gives no hint of a sort of purgatory in this life. It
   deals with every creature as it finds him.

   Now, you think, "Well, I must not--I really must not lay hold upon this
   salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus. I dare not be so greatly blessed.
   I must first of all be tortured with conviction and afflicted with
   despair." Alas, that you should thus choose to be miserable and refuse
   to be made happy! I am forced, again, to put to you the question, "How
   long will you cut yourself?" Find me, if you can, any place where the
   Lord requires this at your hand--that you should be dragged about by
   the devil--that you should be despairing, that you should be tempted to
   blaspheme and all that. I know that some who have come to Christ have
   endured such misery but I defy you to prove that it is any part of the
   Gospel and that we are to preach such an experience as a necessary
   preface to believing in Christ. The case is far otherwise.

   Hear me, I beseech you, and be not obstinately wedded to your
   wretchedness. You are a sinner--you cannot question that fact. Christ
   Jesus came into the world to save sinners. If you trust Him you are
   saved. This, in brief, is the glad tidings of salvation. This is the
   Gospel way. Who has required at your hands that you should despond?
   That you should despair? That you should deny the promises of God? That
   you should put from you the invitation of mercy? That you should remain
   outside the Gospel feast, and say, "I dare not enter, for I am not
   hungry enough, nor poor enough, nor ragged enough, nor filthy enough"?
   Oh, that you were wise and would cut yourself no more with these absurd
   objections to infinite Grace!

   How can this cutting of yourself, this tearing of yourself with
   anguish, bring you any benefit? Do you think that God delights in it?
   Is He a God who delights in the misery of His creatures? Will it not be
   joy to Him that you should believe in His Son and find peace? He wills
   not the death of any but that they should turn unto Him and live. "Oh,"
   said one to me, "I cannot think that the way can be so plain, for my
   grandfather was so miserable for years that they had to put him into a
   lunatic asylum before he found the Savior." You smile but the good
   woman who told me this was in terrible earnest. I cannot help quoting
   what she said, for it was the natural and outspoken form of an error
   which lurks in thousands of minds.

   I believe that many think they must be driven near to madness or they
   will not be able to come to Christ. But what benefit could this despair
   possibly be to you? If the Gospel were, "Doubt and be saved," I would
   bid you doubt. And if it were, "Despair and be saved," I would preach
   despair to you with all my might, though it might go a little against
   the grain. But it is not so written. The Scripture is,
   "Believe--trust--confide--rely. Trust in Jesus--and you are saved."
   Despairing and desponding are not commanded in the Gospel but they are
   forbidden by it. Do not cultivate these gross follies, these deadly
   sins. Do not multiply these poisonous weeds--this hemlock and this rye
   grass--as if they were fair flowers of Paradise.

   How long do you mean to continue in this wretched condition? Have you
   set yourself a certain point of anguish up to which you will go and
   then you will trust Christ? The sooner you reach that point the better.
   But suppose that, in reaching that point, you should grow hardened in
   sin and perish? Suppose that in striving to be more tender, the very
   skin of your soul should turn hard, so that you no longer feel
   anything? I have known that to occur. I have known persons attend
   places of worship many years and always say, "I do not feel tender
   enough and penitent enough," and all the time they have been growing
   invulnerable to the shafts of God's Word till they have perished in an
   unfeeling, indifferent, immovable condition.

   They have hugged a sort of self-righteousness of feeling and would not
   give it up to believe in Christ and that self-righteousness has been
   their destruction. Beware lest you lose all feeling because you idolize
   feeling. Beware lest your heart turn to an adamant stone because you
   prefer your own feelings to the sufferings of the Lord Jesus.

   Why, my Friends, if you are allowed to follow up this despairing policy
   much further, some of you will go out of your senses! Those who love to
   take up a reproach against the Lord Jesus frequently declare that
   religion has deprived many people

   of their reason. But the fact is that many lose their senses because
   they refuse true religion and then take to sullenness and morbid
   feeling. Why blame Jesus for the fact that men refuse Him and so find
   no rest? I do fear that many have fought against believing in Christ
   till their uneasiness has weighed them down and so they have lost their
   reason. They have been indulging their pride. And, not yielding
   themselves up to Jesus has cost them dearly. I am afraid that some of
   you, who now feel God's hand heavy upon you, will come to utter
   hopelessness unless you yield to the Lord Jesus very soon. Therefore, I
   pray you, make haste about it and may the blessed Spirit lead you to
   obey the Gospel--believe in Jesus and enter into rest!

   Besides all this, remember that you may die while you are, as you
   think, getting ready for the Savior. The Savior never told you to get
   ready for Him. Have we not preached to you continually that you are to
   come as you are? Alas, you will not come just as you are but will try
   to mend and improve. And I have a dreadful fear upon me that you will
   die in the process of mending and improving. If it should be so, where
   will you be? Why, you will be guilty of having set up your mending and
   improving in the place of Christ and that is a serious insult to the
   great God and His dear Son! You will have taken more notice of your own
   efforts to save yourself than of Christ's atoning death. Will not this
   seal your condemnation?

   Jesus will save you, if you will have Him, just as you are, whoever you
   may be. But if you reply, "Not just as I am. I must be somewhat better
   before I can trust Him." Then, if you perish while you are getting
   somewhat better, who shall be to blame? A sick man is dying and the
   physician says, "Here is medicine that will restore you. Will you take
   it?" The dying man answers, "Sir, I believe in your medicine but I will
   not take it till I feel better." If that man dies, who murders him?
   Shall the physician be blamed? Surely not. On his own head his death
   must lie. And recollect that it will be as certainly your ruin to
   refuse Christ because you want to be better, as it will be to refuse
   Him from any other reason. Any reason which leads you to reject the
   Lord Jesus is a bad one.

   One man refuses Christ because he hates Him and he blasphemes Him.
   Another refuses Him because he thinks that he must be a little better.
   There may be a difference in the motive but the result will amount to
   the same thing. Take heed, I pray you, lest through your pride in
   refusing to receive the Gospel just now and just as you are, you should
   put it away from you till you get where there will be no Gospel
   preaching and no invitations to Christ and you are cast away forever.

   Now let me ask you this question--what good have you got by all this up
   till now? O you, good Sir, who always mean to have Christ
   by-and-by--how much farther have you got after all your good intentions
   and painful waiting? You used to sit in that pew twelve, fifteen,
   twenty years ago. And even then you had hopeful resolves. Are you any
   nearer Christ now than you were then? Say, does the preaching affect
   you any more than it did in those bygone days? "No," you say, "not half
   so much."

   This is a dangerous symptom--what does it mean? Has the preacher
   changed? I will take my share of the blame. I grow older, I know.
   Perhaps I get more stupid, too. But still, when I sat yesterday to see
   the converts coming to join the Church, I saw them till I had not
   physical power to see any more, for God had brought so many to come and
   tell me that I had led them to the Savior. Therefore I think that there
   cannot be much difference in my preaching. It must be I that is getting
   hard! I fear you are getting chilled into indifference and I pray that
   the deadly process may go no further.

   Therefore I pray God that you may end this mischief, this death, this
   ruin to your soul. And may you be driven or drawn--whichever God
   pleases--to say at once, "I will immediately cast myself on Jesus. If I
   perish, I will perish clinging to His Cross. If there is power in
   trusting Christ to give a man peace, liberty, salvation, holiness, then
   I will have it. And if there is not this power, I will at least know by
   personal trial that it is not so and that Free Grace is not for me."

   Would to God that you, my dear Hearers, would leave all else and just
   come and cast yourselves on Jesus! If you will not, I must again
   persecute each one of you with this enquiry, "How long will you cut
   yourself?" How long must you go on with your piteous prayers and get no
   answer? Must you have more tears, more groans, more cries, more
   despairs, more regrets, more broken vows? How long will you cut
   yourselves with these vain attempts to be your own Savior? How long
   must you shut Heaven's door against yourself by a horrible resolve to
   disbelieve? How long will you be so diligent to pull down an avalanche
   of wrath upon your own head?

   How long will you refuse the bread of Heaven, and determine to perish
   with famine, while all the plenty of God's Grace is round about you?
   How long? How long? God end it ere you cross the portal of this House
   of Prayer and go down those stone steps, which will again conduct you
   to the level of a careless world! Stop here till you have yielded
   yourself to Jesus. I beseech you not to go home a stranger to eternal
   life. The Lord grant that you may now throw yourself into the arms of
   Jesus, for His dear name's sake!
     __________________________________________________________________

                           To the Saddest of the Sad

   A Sermon

   (No. 2026)

   Intended for Reading on Lord's-day, June 3rd, 1888, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At [5]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "And Moses spake so unto the children of Israel: but they hearkened not
   unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage."'Exodus 6:9.

   LITTLE WORDS OFTEN CONTAIN great meanings. It is often the case with
   that monosyllable "so." In the present instance we must lay stress upon
   it and read the text thus'"Moses spake so unto the children of Israel."
   That is, he said what God told him to say. He did not invent his
   message. He did not think out the gospel that he had to carry to the
   people. He was simply a repeater of the divine message. As he received
   it, so he spake it. "Moses spake as unto the children of Israel." If he
   had not done so, the responsibility must have rested upon himself,
   whether the nation was moved by his words or not; but when he was
   simply God's ambassador, saying only what God would have him say, his
   responsibility was limited. If he delivered the Lord's own word and it
   failed to win the heart of Israel, he could not be blamed. Although it
   was a great sadness of heart to him that the people did not, and even
   could not, receive the divine message, yet as far as he was concerned,
   his conscience was clear. It is ever so with the preacher of the
   gospel: if he declares the word of the Lord as he has received it,
   whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, he is clear before
   God, whatever his hearers may do or may not do.

   I often wonder what those preachers do who feel called to make up their
   message as they go on; for if they fail, their failure must be
   attributed in great measure to their want of ability to make up a
   moving tale. They have to spread their sails to the breeze of the age,
   and to pick up a gospel that comes floating down to them on the stream
   of time, altering every week in the year; and they must have an endless
   task to catch this new idea, or, as they put it, to keep abreast of the
   age. Unless, indeed, like chameleons, they have a natural aptitude to
   change colour, they must have a worrying time of it, and a horrible
   amount of shifting to get through. When they have done their best to
   preach this gospel of their own, then they are accountable for having
   made that gospel. For every bit of its teaching they are accountable,
   because they were the manufacturers of it, and it came forth from their
   foundry, bearing their stamp. If they take this yoke upon them, and so
   refuse to learn of Christ, they will find no rest to their souls. To me
   the preaching of the Lord's own gospel is a joy and a privilege; for
   notwithstanding that concern for your souls loads me with the burden of
   the Lord, it is his burden, and not one which I have selected for
   myself. I often feel on a Sabbath night when I go home weary: "I know
   that I have preached what I believe to be God's gospel." I have not
   said anything'I have not intended to say anything that was my own. I
   have not left out, at least, I have not intended to leave out anything
   that was in the text, nor anything which I believe to be the teaching
   of the gospel of Christ. And then if you do not receive it, that is a
   sorrowful business, but it is no concern of mine so that I shall have
   to answer for it at the last great day. When a man-servant goes to the
   door with a message from his master, if you do not like what he tells
   you, do not be angry with him. What has he to do with it? Has he said
   what his master told him to say? If he has, then be angry with his
   master if you must be, or accept what his master says if you think fit;
   but let the poor man that brought the message be held clear if he has
   faithfully reported his master's words. I claim that, if I have
   preached my Master's gospel, whether men are saved or lost, whether
   they accept it or reject it, I must leave that with themselves, and not
   have their sin laid at my door. How heartily do I cry to God that the
   Word may not be a savour of death unto death, but a savour of life unto
   life; but oh, my hearers, if you perish after hearing the gospel of
   God, do not think that you can cast the blame on me.

   Now, the message Moses brought was rejected, and he knew why it was
   rejected. He could see the reason. The people were in such bondage,
   they were so miserably ground down, they were so unhappy and hopeless,
   that what he spake seemed to them to be as idle words. There are
   hundreds of reasons why men reject the gospel. We will not go into them
   to-night. He that wants to beat a dog can always find a stick, and he
   that wishes to reject Christ can always find a reason for it; and,
   however unreasonable a reason may be, it will serve a sinner's turn,
   when that turn happens to be the making of some excuse for himself why
   he should not yield to the Saviour. Oh that men were less cunning in
   making apologies for refusing the Lord Jesus!

   Amongst all the reasons, however, that I ever heard, that with which I
   have the most sympathy, is this one'that some cannot receive Christ
   because they are so full of anguish, and are so crushed in spirit that
   they cannot find strength enough of mind to entertain a hope that by
   any possibility salvation can come to them. It is to their sad case
   that I desire to speak. I think that I can speak to the case, if God
   help me, for I have felt the same. I do remember when I could not
   believe even Jesus himself by reason of sore anguish and straitness of
   spirit; and, therefore, as one who has worn the chains, I speak to
   those who are still in chains. I know the clanking of those fetters,
   and what it is to feel the damp of the stone walls, and to fear that
   there is no coming out of prison, and to be so despairing that even
   when the emancipator turned the great key in the lock, and set the door
   wide open, yet still my heart had made for itself a direr cage, and I
   could not believe in the possibility of liberty, and therefore I sat
   bound in a dungeon of my own creation. Ah! there is no Bastille so
   awful as that which is built by despair, and kept under the custody of
   a crushed spirit. Many are the desponding ones whose eyes fail so that
   they cannot look up, or look out. To such I speak. May God speak
   through me by the Holy Spirit, the Comforter!

   I. And first, will you notice that what Moses brought to these people
   was glad tidings. IT WAS A FREE AND FULL GOSPEL MESSAGE. To them it was
   the gospel of salvation from a cruel bondage, the gospel of hope, the
   gospel of glorious promise. It is a very admirable type and
   metaphorical description of what the gospel is to us. Moses' word to
   them was singularly clear, cheering, and comforting; but they could not
   receive it. "They hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit and
   cruel bondage."

   First, Moses spoke to them about their God. He said, "You have a God,
   and his name is Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham,
   of Isaac, and of Jacob." They looked up from their bricks, and they
   seemed to say, "God? What have we to do with him? Oh, that the straw
   were given us to make our bricks! We are up to our necks in this filthy
   Nile mud, making the bricks, and you come and talk to us about God. Go,
   and preach to Pharaoh and the taskmasters that rule us; but as for us
   poor creatures, slaves that we are, we do not understand you. What do
   you mean by JAH, Jehovah, our God? Bring us more garlic and onions, or
   lessen our daily tasks, or take away the sticks from our drivers, and
   then we will listen to you." And so they shook their heads, and said
   that such mysteries and theologies were not for them. And yet, dear
   sirs, if any of you are in such a case, it is for you. Jehovah,
   Israel's God, was indeed their only hope, and he is your only hope
   also. Alas, that they should be so unwise as to refuse to let the light
   shine upon them, for light it was! What a poor reason for refusing
   light because the night is so dark! Man's best hope lies in his God. O
   you whose lives are bitter with toil and want, there is something for
   you after all, much better than the hard saying, "What shall we eat,
   and what shall we drink?" There is an inheritance above the grinding
   toil of every-day life. There is a portion much better than this
   killing care, which frets so many of you and makes life a calamity to
   you. Do not, therefore, because of the heaviness of your lot, refuse to
   hear about God, your Maker, your Benefactor. In that direction lies
   your only real hope. Have this God for a father and a friend, and life
   will wear another aspect, and you will be another man.

   Then Moses went on to tell them about a covenant. He said, "You have a
   God, and that God has said, "I have also established my covenant with
   them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage,
   wherein they were strangers.'" Covenant? Why, many of them would hardly
   know what it meant. "Covenant?" said they, "God made a covenant with us
   poor brickmakers, that have to slave from morning to night without
   wage, and now are forced to make bricks without straw?" God and a
   covenant: these are strange words in ears that hear the curses of
   taskmasters and the crack of their whips. It sounded like mockery to
   them to talk of such high matters. I doubt not they muttered to
   themselves, "This Moses is a mad philosopher who has grand mouthfuls of
   words; but what are words to us? A bit of fish out of the Nile, or a
   cumber from the irrigated fields would be a deal better than talking to
   us about a covenant." And yet, hearken. If any of you are in a sad
   condition, your best hopes may lie this way. What if God has entered
   into covenant with you that he will bless you for Jesus Christ's sake?
   There may be a mint of wealth for the sons of poverty in this
   everlasting covenant; and the best kind of wealth, too. There may be
   for you a promised emancipation which will break the fetters which now
   hold you, and set you free. I tell you that in the covenant of grace
   lies the charter of the poor and needy. At any rate, if you come under
   that covenant it cannot be worse with you than it is now. You seem now
   to be under a covenant of bondage and of sorrow, and any change will be
   for the better. If there be another covenant'a covenant of grace, and
   love, and peace, and everlasting faithfulness, it were worth while to
   hear about it, and to seek it out until you discover whether you have
   part and lot in it. I entreat you, look into this matter. Hearken
   diligently to the voice of the gospel. Hear, and your soul shall live.

   So, when Moses had spoken of the covenant, he went on to speak yet more
   about God's pity to them. He reported that Jehovah had said, "I have
   also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians
   keep in bondage, and I have remembered my covenant." I fancy that those
   words opened their eyes a little. They looked up and said to one
   another, "Is there, indeed, a God who has heard our groanings? Oh,
   but," they muttered, "look at the many years we have been groaning.
   Why, it is forty years since this man Moses first came out and saw our
   burdens. Where has he been these forty years? What is the use of pity
   that is so tardy in its movements?" And yet, dear sirs, if you are
   inclined to talk so, it may be that if God be slow he is sure; and if
   he be slow to you it is out of patience and long-suffering to others.
   He knows best when and how to save his people. Remember that when the
   tale of bricks was doubled then Moses came; and when you are getting to
   your very worst, and your night is darkening into a sort of hellish
   midnight, it may be that your darkness is coming to an end. Therefore,
   be not so bowed down as to let the brick-earth get into your ears and
   eyes and make you deaf and blind. But do listen if there be anything to
   be heard that is better than your daily moans and groans. Listen to the
   messenger of God who comes to tell of what God is about to do. He is a
   God full of compassion, and he has respect unto broken hearts and
   tearful eyes.

   And then Moses went on further with his blessed gospel message to tell
   them about the Lord's resolve to rescue them by a great redemption. The
   Lord had said, "I am Jehovah, and I will bring you out from under the
   burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage." Do
   you notice that all along the Lord uses strong words, and speaks like a
   great king? "I am Jehovah. I will. I will. I will." When you go home
   just notice what a number of "I wills" there are in this declaration of
   the great God. When God says, "I will," he means it; depend upon it. He
   does not ask our leave, or wait for our help. "I will" is omnipotence
   putting itself into speech. Jehovah will accomplish what he promises.
   He told them, therefore, that he meant to come to their rescue. "I will
   bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid
   you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out
   arm, and with great judgments." God means to save you. Poor, troubled,
   confessedly guilty sinner, believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God, and
   trust yourself with him, and the Lord will save you. He will deliver
   you from all the guilt of your past life, from the evil habits of your
   present life, and from the temptations of your future life. He will
   break the yoke of Satan from off your neck and make you to be no more
   the slave of sin, but you shall become the child of the living God.

   Moses told them about the Lord's ways of grace and the inheritance
   which he had prepared for them. My message is after the same sort. Thus
   saith Jehovah to-night, in the preaching of the gospel to every one
   that will believe in Jesus, "I will save and I will deliver you; and I
   will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am your God, which
   bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will
   bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it
   to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it you for an
   heritage: I am the Lord." These are great words, but they come from the
   mouth of the great God, who cannot lie. Wherefore believe them, and
   take heart of hope. God will take you, poor guilty ones, to be his
   children. He will promote you to be his willing servants. He will use
   you for his glory though now you dishonour his name. He will sanctify
   you and cleanse you, and he will bring you to heaven, even you who have
   lien among the pots and have been defiled in the brick-kilns of sin. He
   will never rest till he makes you sit upon his throne with him, where
   he is glorified, world without end. This I speak to you who are in
   bondage. Even as Jesus said of old, so say I in my measure as his
   messenger: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because he hath sent
   me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,
   and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Believe you in
   Christ Jesus, and he who has come to save the lost will give you as
   clear and clean a deliverance from the power of sin as Jehovah gave
   Israel deliverance from the power of the Egyptian tyrant. He will bring
   you out of bondage and guide you through the wilderness till you come
   into the eternal rest, even to a goodlier land than Canaan, though it
   flowed with milk and honey.

   II. We come now to note that IT WAS RECEIVED WITH UNBELIEF CAUSED BY
   ANGUISH OF HEART. The message was from the Lord, and it was full of
   hope for them, but they were too much broken down to receive it. We can
   quite understand what that meant. Let us look into the case. They could
   not now receive this gospel because they had at first caught at it, and
   had been disappointed. They were under a misapprehension, for they
   expected to be free at once, as soon as Moses went to Pharaoh; and as
   they did not get immediate relief, they fell back into sullen despair.
   When Moses came to them and said that God had appeared to him at the
   bush, and had sent him to deliver them, they bowed their heads, and
   worshipped. Great things they looked for on the morrow, for they were
   at the end of their patience; but after that, when Moses went in unto
   Pharaoh, and the tyrant doubled their labour by denying them straw,
   then they could not believe in God or in his messenger. In the process
   of salvation it often happens'I have seen it many time'that after
   persons have come to hear the gospel, after they have, in some measure,
   become attentive to its invitations, they have for a season been much
   more miserable than they were before. Have you never noticed, in taking
   a medicine, how often you are made to feel more sick before you are
   made well? It is often so in the workings of the great remedy of divine
   grace: it discovers to us our disease that we may the more heartily
   accept the heavenly medicine. Yes, and in special cases there may be
   evils within the spiritual system which must be thrown out in the
   flesh, to be made visible, and so to become the subjects of repentance
   and abhorrence. The man who judges with shortness and straightness of
   judgment, demands a remedy that will cure his soul of all evils on the
   spot, and if it does not evidently and immediately do this, he cries,
   "Away with it." I find that the Hebrew word translated "anguish" here
   signifies shortness. Your marginal Bibles have "straitness." So they
   could not believe because of the shortness of their judgment: they
   measured God by inches. They limited the great and infinite God to
   minutes and days; and so, as they found themselves at first getting
   into a worse case than before, they said to Moses, deliberately, "Let
   us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians." They did as good as say'You
   have done us no good; indeed you have increased our miseries; and we
   cannot believe in you or accept your message as really from God, seeing
   it has caused us a terrible increase of our sufferings.

   Grace may truly and effectually come to a heart, and for a while cause
   no joy, no peace; but the reverse. I have known many a man coming to
   this Tabernacle, who has been prospering in business, and so on, and
   yet he has been going down to hell as fast as ever he could travel.
   Well, he has come and heard the gospel, and he has made a great many
   improvements in his conduct, and has become a regular and attentive
   hearer; and at that very time he has fallen into an affliction the like
   of which he had never experienced before; and he has consequently
   complained, "Why, I am worse instead of better. I find my heart grows
   more rebellious against God than ever it was before." I do not wonder
   that it should be so, for I have seen so many examples of it. The
   discipline of the household of God begins very early. But a present
   increase of sorrow has nothing to do with what the main result will be,
   except that it works towards it in a mysterious manner. Perhaps what
   you at first thought was genuine faith was not faith; and God is going
   to knock down the false before he builds up the true. If you had an old
   house, and any friend of yours were to say, "John, I will build you a
   new house. When shall I begin?" "Oh!" you might say, "begin next week
   to build the new house." At the end of the week he has pulled half your
   old house down. "Oh," say you, "this is what you call building me a new
   house, is it? You are causing me great loss: I wish I had never
   consented to your proposal." He replies, "You are most unreasonable:
   how am I to build you a new house on this spot without taking the old
   one down?" And so it often happens that the grace of God does seem in
   its first work to make a man even worse than he was before, because it
   discovers to him sins which he did not know to be there, evils which
   had been concealed, dangers never dreamed of. Thus the work of grace
   even makes his bondage seem to be heavier than ever it was; and yet
   this is all done in wisdom, in love, and in fulfilment of the promise
   which God has given. Yet I am never very much astonished when I find
   people ready almost to turn away from the hearing of the gospel;
   because, after having at first heard it with pleasure, they find that,
   for the time being, it involves them in even greater sorrow than
   before. How earnestly would I persuade them to overcome their very
   natural tendency to a hasty judgment! Press on, dear friend. Be of good
   courage. Pharaoh will not long be able to make you keep up that
   enormous number of bricks. Within a very few days he will be glad to
   get rid of you. Wait hopefully; for the God who begins in darkness will
   end in light, and before long you will come to understand those ways of
   mercy, which are now past finding out. Not many weeks after the sobbing
   and sighing at the brickyards, Moses and the children at Israel sang
   this song unto the Lord: " Sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed
   gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea." The
   work of deliverance began very grimly, but it ended very gloriously.

   The inability of Israel to believe the message of Moses arose also from
   the fact that they were earthbound by heavy oppression: the mere
   struggle to exist exhausted all their energy, and destroyed all their
   hope. The extreme hardness of their lot made them despondent and
   sullen. They had to work from morning to night. The Egyptian fellahs of
   the present age have known what it is to work very, very hard, and to
   let their earnings go into the coffers of their precious princes. It
   seems always to have been so with wretched Egypt: it is ever the house
   of bondage. But these Israelites, being not even Egyptians, but
   strangers in Egypt, were worked without any pity or mercy. It was a
   daily question with them whether life was worth living under such cruel
   conditions. I do not wonder that a great many are unable to receive the
   gospel in this city of ours, because their struggle for existence is
   awful. I am afraid that it gets more and more intense, though even now
   it passes all bounds. If any of you can do anything to help the
   toil-worn workers, I pray you, do it. The poor workwoman, who sits so
   many hours with the candle and needle, and does not earn enough, when
   she has worked all those hours, to more than just pay the rent and keep
   body and soul together, do you wonder that she thinks that this gospel
   of ours cannot be for her, and does not care to listen to it? I know
   that it would be her comfort, but her soul refuseth to be comforted,
   she is so crushed. The dock labourer, who comes home five days out of
   the six having earned nothing, and hears his little children crying for
   bread'is it any wonder that he cannot hear about heavenly things? Why,
   it is with our white population very much as it was with the negro
   population of Jamaica. When there was work to be had, and they could
   get enough to eat and more, our churches were crowded with them. They
   were the best of hearers and the speediest of converts; they were soon
   gathered into immense churches. But when everything went badly with
   them, and they had to work very hard barely to live, there were groups
   of backsliders, and multitudes who did not feel that they could go to
   the house of God at all. They said that they had no garments to wear,
   and no money to spare; and do you wonder at it? Their poverty was so
   grinding, and their toil so severe, that the services they had once
   delighted in they had no heart for. It is all very easy to say that it
   ought not to be so; but it is so; and it is so with multitudes in
   London. And yet, dear friend'if such a one has come in here to-night'I
   pray you do not throw away the next world because you have so little of
   this. This is sheer folly. If I have little here, I would make sure of
   the more hereafter. If you have such a struggle for existence here, you
   should seek that higher, nobler, better life, which would give you,
   even in penury and want, a joy and a comfort to which you are a
   stranger now. May the Holy Ghost come upon you, and raise you out of
   this present evil world into newness of life in Christ Jesus! I do not
   find that God's people get into a condition of utter desolation: they
   are, at their very worst, kept from total desertion; for the Lord hath
   said, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." They do have to work
   hard, and they may come very near to want, but my observation satisfies
   me that they are happy still; that they are joyful still; and they are
   uplifted by the inner life above the down-dragging depression of
   external trials. I would to God that I could say a word that might
   comfort any child of poverty who should happen to be here to-night, and
   I pray the Lord himself to be their comforter and helper.

   But, worst of all, there are some who seem as if they could not lay
   hold on Christ because their sense of sin has become so intolerable,
   and the wretchedness which follows upon conviction has become so
   fearful, that they have grown almost to be continually despairing. I
   hardly know any condition of mind that is worse than chronic despair,
   when at last that which seemed alarming enough to drive to madness
   settles down into a lifeless, sullen moroseness. These Israelites had
   at last sunk so low that they said, "Let us alone, that we may serve
   the Egyptians." But your lot is terrible. "We know it is," they said,
   "but we shall never get out of it." But your bondage is horrible. "Yes,
   but you may make it worse by interfering. You will only aggravate our
   taskmasters, and bring upon us that last straw which breaks the back.
   Let us alone. We are doomed to suffer: we are predestined to be
   bondsmen. Let us go on as quietly as we may in our slavery. It may be
   that like poor fishes in the cave, we may lose our eyes yet, and then
   we shall not know that it is dark, for we shall have lost the capacity
   for light." Oh, it is a dreadful thing when a heart gets to that'when a
   man desires that Christ would depart from him, and let him alone to
   perish. Do not some men virtually say, "I know I am lost. Let me enjoy
   myself as well as I can; I cannot'I cannot enjoy sin; but don't vex my
   conscience. Do not worry me with your talk here, for I shall suffer
   enough hereafter. Do not tantalize me about saving faith, for I shall
   never believe. Do not begin talking to me about repentance. I shall
   never have a soft and tender heart; I know I never shall." A man who
   has begun to be numbed with cold, cries to his comrades, "Leave me to
   sleep myself to death"; and thus do despairing ones ask to be left in
   their misery. Dear soul, we cannot, we dare not, thus desert you. I
   will tell you what you shall do, dear soul; do give me a hearing. In
   the name of God, believe that there is hope yet'that even now Christ
   Jesus invites men, and especially such as you, to put their trust in
   him. O you who are burdened with sin, he calls you to let him be your
   Saviour. If there is a man in the world he died for, you are the man.
   If I see a physician hurrying down the street in his brougham, and
   anybody says to me, "Where is that doctor going?" if I knew every house
   in the street, I should pick out the case of a man that I knew to be in
   the worst condition, and most near to death's door. "Sir," I should
   say, "the doctor is going there. That dying person needs him most, and
   I believe that he is hurrying to his bedside." If there is one man here
   that is worse than any other, more sad, more sick, more sorry, more
   despairing than another, my Lord Jesus Christ, who is here, has come to
   meet with such a one. O troubled heart, Jesus has come to seek and to
   save you! I am sure it is so. Hope thou! Hope thou! Hope thou! Thou art
   not beyond hope of salvation.

   See, O soul, thou'rt yet alive,

   Not in torment; not in hell.

   Still doth his good Spirit strive,

   With the chief of sinners dwell.

   Lift up thy eyes, for thou art not yet where the rich man was after his
   death and burial. Do not yet despair. May be, there awaits thee yet a
   happy life of joy in God. The sun may yet bring thee brighter days,
   days of peace, and rest, and usefulness. Did you never hear the story
   of John Newton, on the coast of Africa? He had got himself into such a
   state by his sins, his drunkenness, his vice, that at last he was left
   on the coast of Africa, and virtually became a slave. Did John Newton
   dream, when he wandered up and down with a hungry belly, full of fever,
   and at death's door, that the day would come when he would be the
   companion and dear friend of Cowper, and when the church of St. Mary
   Woolnoth, over there in the city, would be crowded every time he stood
   up to preach of free grace and dying love? He did not think it, but it
   was so predestined. Something equally gracious may be ordered for you.
   Blasphemer, you may preach the gospel yet. O thou Magdalene, full of
   filthiness, thou wilt yet wash his feet with thy tears, and wipe them
   with the hairs of thy head. Thou black villain, thou mayest yet stand
   among that white-robed host, of whom the angel asked, "Who are these,
   and whence came they?" You, even you, will sing more sweet and loud
   than any of them unto him that loved you and washed you from your sins
   in his precious blood. God make it so, and unto his name shall be
   praise for ever and ever!

   III. I have many more things to say, but I might weary you with them
   rather than bless you. The message was at first not received by Israel
   by reason of their anguish of soul, but IT WAS TRUE FOR ALL THAT, AND
   THE LORD MADE IT SO. What did the Lord do when he found that those
   people did not hearken to Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel
   bondage? What did the Lord do? He was not going to give them up because
   of their wretched condition. He had said, "I will bring them out," and
   he meant to do it.

   The first thing the Lord did to prove his persevering grace was to
   commission Moses again. (Ex. 6:1; 7:2.) So the Lord God, in everlasting
   mercy, says to his minister, "You have to preach the gospel again to
   them. Again proclaim my grace." It seems a terrible thing to have to
   pour our souls into deaf ears. Yet I shall not give it up, for I have
   done it with some here for nearly thirty-three years, and I may as well
   go on. Why should I lose so much labour? I will try again, like Peter,
   who, after toiling all night and taking nothing, yet let down the net
   at the Lord's bidding. One of these days those dead ears will be made
   to live. God in mercy says, "Go on with it. As long as there is breath
   in your body, tell them to believe in my Son, and they shall live. Tell
   them till you die that 'He that with his mouth confesseth, and with his
   heart believeth that God hath raised Christ from the dead shall be
   saved.'"

   But the Lord did more than that for Israel. As these people had not
   listened to Moses, he called Moses and Aaron to him, and he renewed
   their charge. He laid it upon them'gave them again their marching
   orders: "He gave them a charge unto the children of Israel, and unto
   Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring the children of Israel out of the land
   of Egypt." A monstrous thing it did look. They would not even hear
   Moses but the Lord will have his servants stand to their work. Moses
   and Aaron have to do it, however impossible it may appear. There is to
   be no backing out of it. They must know of a surety that Israel is to
   be delivered by their means. It is a grand point when the Lord lays the
   conversion of men on the hearts of his ministers, and makes them feel
   that they must win souls. Moses was bound to bring out Israel. "But
   there is Pharaoh" Pharaoh is included in the divine charge. They have
   to beat Pharaoh into submission. "But those children of Israel will not
   obey." The Lord put them in the charge: did you not observe the words,
   "He gave them a charge unto the children of Israel, and unto Pharaoh "?
   Moses and Aaron, you have to bring Israel out, Pharaoh is to let them
   go, and Israel is to go willingly. God has issued his royal decree, and
   be you sure it will stand. I believe that God is saying to his church
   "You have to do it. You have to gather out mine elect out of every
   nation under heaven." To the church in London, he says, "Bring this
   people out of the bondage of sin." That terrible London with all its
   poverty, its drunkenness, its infidelity, and licentiousness: you are
   to save it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Its darkness is dense; you
   are to shine till it is enlightened. You have to save London. So do not
   back out of it. "Oh," says one man, who lives down some street near
   this place, "Sir, I can hardly live in the street. It teems with
   ill-living women." You have to save them. Passing a little shop as I
   did the other day, I saw written up in the window, "If any poor girl
   that wishes to lead a better life will only step inside she will find a
   friend." That is one of our dear members. I felt so pleased as I saw
   it. I should like to see such a notice in a great many windows. I would
   like to see you live among the wicked, and put up in your windows, "If
   anybody wants a friend, there is one inside. Come in." You are called
   to save them! They must not be lost. Somebody says, "What are you
   talking about, Mr. Spurgeon? We cannot save them." I am talking as God
   said, when be told Moses and Aaron that he gave them a charge to bring
   his people out of Egypt. They could not do it: but yet they did it.
   Anyone can do what he can do, but it is only God's servant that can do
   what he cannot do. We, my brethren, are called to perform the
   impossible; we are to be familiar with miracles. Look at Ezekiel. There
   is a valley full of dry bones. Ezekiel is to go and say to them, "Thus
   saith the Lord, Ye dry bones, live." What a preposterous thing! An able
   divine of good repute once said that, to preach the gospel to dead
   sinners, was as preposterous as to wave a pocket-handkerchief over a
   grave. Ah, just so! Therefore, I would not have him do it. If the Lord
   has not sent him to do it he would do no good if he were to attempt to
   preach to the sinner dead in sin; but it is a different thing when it
   is my case, for I feel that I am sent to do it, and therefore I am not
   vexed at being thought to be acting absurdly. If God had sent me to
   wave a pocket-handkerchief over the dead in Nunhead cemetery, that they
   might live, I would go and wave that pocket-handkerchief, and they
   would live. To the eye of reason there is no use in preaching to men
   dead in sin. I freely admit that; but if it is a commission from God,
   then it is not ours to raise questions, but to do as we are bidden. God
   has commissioned his servants to preach the gospel to every creature.
   Whatever those creatures may be, we are to say to them, "He that
   believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not
   shall be dammed." This is our message and our mission, and we are just
   to tell the truth, and leave God to apply it to the heart. Oh that he
   may give us grace to tell out the gospel, and to keep on doing it till
   he has brought his own elect out of the bondage of sin and Satan, and
   saved them with an everlasting salvation!

   Once more. As I told you in the reading, I greatly admire this chapter.
   I cannot help admiring the next thing that God did when he told his
   servant what to do. The Lord began to count the heads of those whom he
   would redeem out of bondage. You see the rest of the chapter is
   occupied with the children of Reuben, and the children of Simeon, and
   the children of Levi. God seemed to say, "Pharaoh, let my people go!"
   "I will not," said the despot. Straightway the Lord goes right down
   into the brick-town where the poor slaves are at work, and he makes out
   a list of all of them, to show that he means to set free. So many there
   of Simeon. So many here of Reuben. So many here of Levi. The Lord is
   counting them. Moreover he numbers their cattle, for he declares,
   "There shall not a hoof be left behind." Men say, "It is of no use
   counting your chickens before they are hatched"; but when it comes to
   God's counting those whom he means to deliver, it is another matter;
   for he knows what will be done, because he determines to do it and he
   is almighty. He knows what is to come of the gospel, and he knows whom
   he means to bless. And so let Satan rage, and let adversaries do what
   they will, "The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The
   Lord knoweth them that are his"; and to prove this, he goes on writing
   down their names, and taking an account of them. "They shall be mine,
   saith the Lord, in that day when I make up my jewels." Now, my hearers,
   if you do not come to Christ, it will be your own loss, and not his. If
   you refuse him, it will be because you are not Christ's sheep, as he
   said to you. He has a people, and he will save them, whether you, my
   hearer, believe in Jesus or wilfully refuse to do so. Out of the mass
   of mankind a company shall come to him, and shall glorify his name, as
   it is written, "This people have I formed for myself; they shall show
   forth my praise." Oh, that you had such a mind in you that you would
   accept his gospel! Will you do so even now? Trust Christ, and you are
   saved. Look unto him, and be ye saved The Lord bless you, for his
   name's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'Exodus 4:31 to 6:14.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"'397, 540, 502.

   * Since this sermon was preached, brother Bilborough has gone to his
   reward.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Sluggard's Farm

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, JUNE 3, 1888,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I went by the field of the slothful and by the vineyard of the man
   void of understanding. And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and
   nettles had covered the face thereof and the stone wall thereof was
   broken down. Then I saw and considered it well: I looked upon it and
   received instruction." Proverbs 24:30-32.

   NO DOUBT Solomon was sometimes glad to lay aside the robes of State,
   escape from the forms of court and go through the country unknown. On
   one occasion, when he was doing so, he looked over the broken wall of a
   little estate which belonged to a farmer of his country. This estate
   consisted of a piece of plowed land and a vineyard. One glance showed
   him that it was owned by a sluggard who neglected it, for the weeds had
   grown right plentifully and covered all the face of the ground. From
   this Solomon gathered instruction.

   Men generally learn wisdom if they have wisdom. The artist's eye sees
   the beauty of the landscape because he has beauty in his mind. "To him
   that has shall be given" and he shall have abundance, for he shall reap
   a harvest even from a field that is covered with thorns and nettles.
   There is a great difference between one man and another in the use of
   the mind's eye. I have a book entitled, "The Harvest of a Quiet Eye,"
   and a good book it is--the harvest of a quiet eye can be gathered from
   a sluggard's land as well as from a well-managed farm. When we were
   boys we were taught a little poem, called "Eyes and no Eyes." There was
   much truth in it for some people have eyes and see not, which is much
   the same as having no eyes--while others have quick eyes for spying out
   instruction.

   Some look only at the surface, while others see not only the outside
   shell but the living kernel of truth which is hidden in all outward
   things. We may find instruction everywhere. To a spiritual mind nettles
   have their use and weeds have their doctrine. Are not all thorns and
   thistles meant to be teachers to sinful men? Are they not brought forth
   of the earth on purpose that they may show us what sin has done and the
   kind of produce that will come when we sow the seed of rebellion
   against God?

   "I went by the field of the slothful and by the vineyard of the man
   void of understanding," says Solomon. "I saw and considered it well: I
   looked upon it and received instruction." Whatever you see, take care
   to consider it well and you will not see it in vain. You shall find
   books and sermons everywhere--in the land and in the sea, in the earth
   and in the skies--and you shall learn from every living beast and bird
   and fish and insect and from every useful or useless plant that springs
   out of the ground. We may also gather rare lessons from things that we
   do not like. I am sure that Solomon did not in the least degree admire
   the thorns and the nettles that covered the face of the vineyard. But
   he nevertheless found instruction in them.

   Many are stung by nettles but few are taught by them. Some men are hurt
   by briars but here is one who was improved by them. Wisdom has a way of
   gathering grapes from thorns and figs from nettles and she distills
   good from herbs which in themselves are noisome and evil. Do not fret,
   therefore, over thorns but get good out of them. Do not begin stinging
   yourself with nettles--grip them firmly and then use them for your
   soul's health. Trials and troubles, worries and turmoil, little frets
   and little disappointments may all help you, if you will.

   Like Solomon, see and consider them well--look upon them and receive
   instruction. As for us, we will now, first, consider Solomon's
   description of a sluggard--he is "a man void of understanding."
   Secondly, we shall notice his description of the sluggard's land--"it
   was all grown over with thorns and nettles had covered the face
   thereof." When we have attended to these two matters we will close by
   endeavoring to gather the instruction which this piece of waste ground
   may yield us.

   First think of SOLOMON'S DESCRIPTION OF A SLOTHFUL MAN. Solomon was a
   man whom none of us would contradict for he knew as much as all of us
   put together. And besides that, he was under Divine inspiration when he
   wrote this Book of Proverbs. Solomon says a sluggard is "a man void of
   understanding." The slothful does not think so. He puts his hands in
   his pockets and you would think from his important air that he had all
   the Bank of England at his disposal. You can

   see that he is a very wise man in his own esteem for he gives himself
   airs which are meant to impress you with a sense of his superior
   abilities.

   How he has come by his wisdom it would be hard to say. He has never
   taken the trouble to think, and yet I dare not say that he jumps to his
   conclusions because he never does such a thing as jump--he lies down
   and rolls into a conclusion. Yet he knows everything and has settled
   all points--meditation is too hard work for him and learning he never
   could endure. But to be clever by nature is his delight. He does not
   want to know more than he knows, for he knows enough already and yet he
   knows nothing. The Proverb is not complimentary to him and I am certain
   that Solomon was right when he called him, "a man void of
   understanding."

   Solomon was rather rude according to the dainty manners of the present
   times because this gentleman had a field and a vineyard and as Poor
   Richard says, "When I have a horse and a cow every man bids me good
   morrow." How can a man be void of understanding who has a field and a
   vineyard? Is it not generally understood that you must measure a man's
   understanding by the amount of his ready cash? At all events you shall
   soon be flattered for your attainments if you have attained unto
   wealth. Such is the way of the world--but such is not the way of
   Scripture. Whether he has a field and a vineyard or not, says Solomon,
   if he is a sluggard he is a fool--or if you would like to see his name
   written out a little larger--he is a man empty of understanding.

   Not only does he not understand anything but he has no understanding to
   understand with. He is empty-headed if he is a sluggard. He may be
   called a gentleman, he may be a landed proprietor, he may have a
   vineyard and a field. But he is none the better for what he has--no, he
   is so much the worse--because he is a man void of understanding. and
   is, therefore, unable to make use of his property.

   I am glad to be told by Solomon so plainly that a slothful man is void
   of understanding for it is useful information. I have met with persons
   who thought they perfectly understood the Doctrines of Grace, who could
   accurately set forth the election of the saints, the predestination of
   God, the firmness of the Divine decree, the necessity of the Spirit's
   work and all the glorious Doctrines of Grace which build up the fabric
   of our faith. But these gentlemen have inferred from these doctrines
   that they have to do nothing and thus they have become sluggards.
   Do-nothing-ism is their creed. They will not even urge other people to
   labor for the Lord, because, say they, "God will do His own work.
   Salvation is all of grace!"

   The notion of these sluggards is that a man is to wait and do nothing.
   He is to sit still and let the grass grow up to his ankles in the hope
   of heavenly help. To arouse himself would be an interference with the
   eternal purpose which he regards as altogether unwarrantable. I have
   known him to look sour, shake his aged head and say hard things against
   earnest people who were trying to win souls. I have known him to run
   down young people and like a great steam ram, sink them to the bottom
   by calling them unsound and ignorant. How shall we survive the censures
   of this dogmatic person? How shall we escape from this very knowing and
   very captious sluggard?

   Solomon hastens to the rescue and extinguishes this gentleman by
   informing us that he is void of understanding. Why, he is the standard
   of orthodoxy, and he judges everybody! Yet Solomon applies another
   standard to him and says he is void of understanding! He may know the
   doctrine but he does not understand it. Or else he would know that the
   Doctrines of Grace lead us to seek the Divine Grace of the doctrines.
   And he would know that when we see God at work we learn that He works
   in us, not to make us go to sleep but to will and to do of His good
   pleasure. God's predestination of a people is in His ordaining them
   unto good works that they may show forth His praise. So, if you or I
   shall, from any doctrines, however true, draw the inference that we are
   warranted in being idle and indifferent about the things of God, we are
   void of understanding.

   We are acting like fools. We are misusing the Gospel. We are taking
   what was meant for meat and turning it into poison. The sluggard,
   whether he is sluggish about his business or about his soul, is a man
   void of understanding. As a rule we may measure a man's understanding
   by his useful activities. This is what the wise man very plainly tells
   us. Certain persons call themselves "cultured," and yet they cultivate
   nothing. Modern thought, as far as I have seen anything of its actual
   working, is a bottle of smoke out of which comes nothing solid. Yet we
   know men who can distinguish and divide, debate and discuss, refine and
   refute and all the while the hemlock is growing in the furrow and the
   plow is rusting.

   Friend, if your knowledge, if your culture, if your education does not
   lead you practically to serve God in your day and generation, you have
   not learned what Solomon calls wisdom and you are not like the Blessed
   One, who was incarnate Wisdom, of whom we read that, "He went about
   doing good." A lazy man is not like our Savior, who said, "My Father
   works up to now and I work." True wisdom is practical--boastful culture
   vapors and theorizes. Wisdom plows its field, wisdom hoes its vineyard,
   wisdom looks to its crops, wisdom tries to make the best of everything.
   And he who does not do so, whatever may be his knowledge of this, of
   that, or of the other--is a man void of understanding.

   Why is he void of understanding? Is it not because he has opportunities
   which he does not use? His day has come, his day is going and he lets
   the hours glide by to no purpose. Let me not press too harshly upon
   anyone but let me ask you all to press as harshly as you can upon
   yourselves while you enquire each one of himself--"Am I employing the
   minutes as they fly?" This man had a vineyard but he did not cultivate
   it. He had a field but he did not till it. Do you, Brethren, use all
   your opportunities? I know we each one have some power to serve God--do
   we use it? If we are His children He has not put one of us where we are
   of necessity, useless.

   Somewhere we may shine by the light which He has given us, though that
   light be only a farthing candle. Are we thus shining? Do we sow beside
   all waters? Do we in the morning sow our seed and in the evening still
   stretch out our hand? If not, we are rebuked by the sweeping censure of
   Solomon, who says that the slothful man is a "man void of
   understanding." Having opportunities he did not use them and being
   bound to the performance of certain duties he did not fulfill them.
   When God appointed that every Israelite should have a piece of land
   under that admirable system which made every Israelite a landowner, He
   meant that each man should possess his plot--not to let it go to
   waste--but to cultivate it.

   When God put Adam in the garden of Eden it was not that he should walk
   through the glades and watch the spontaneous luxuriance of the unfallen
   earth, but that he might dress it and keep it. And He had the same end
   in view when He allotted each Jew his piece of land. He meant that the
   holy soil should reach the utmost point of fertility through the labor
   of those who owned it. Thus the possession of a field and a vineyard
   involved responsibilities upon the sluggard which he never fulfilled
   and therefore he was void of understanding. What is your position, dear
   Friend? A father? A master? A servant? A minister? A teacher? Well, you
   have your farms and your vineyards in those particular spheres.

   If you do not use those positions aright you will be void of
   understanding because you neglect the end of your existence. You miss
   the high calling which your Maker has set before you. The slothful
   farmer was unwise in these two respects and in another also. For he had
   capacities which he did not employ. He could have tilled the field and
   cultivated the vineyard if he had chosen to do so. He was not a sickly
   man who was forced to keep to his bed but he was a lazybones who was
   there of choice. You are not asked to do in the service of God that
   which is utterly beyond you--it is expected of us according to what we
   have--not according to what we have not.

   The man of two talents is not required to bring in the interest of five
   but he is expected to bring in the interest of two. Solomon's slothful
   man was too idle to attempt tasks which were quite within his power.
   Many have a number of dormant faculties of which they are scarcely
   aware and many more have abilities which they are using for themselves
   and not for Him who created them. Dear Friends, if God has given us any
   power to do good, let us do it, for this is a wicked, weary world. We
   should not even cover a glow-worm's light in such a darkness as this.
   We should not keep back a syllable of Divine Truth in a world that is
   full of falsehood and error.

   However feeble our voices, let us lift them up for the cause of the
   Truth of God and righteousness. Do not let us be void of understanding
   because we have opportunities that we do not use, obligations that we
   do not fulfill and capacities which we do not exercise. As for a
   sluggard in soul matters, he is indeed void of understanding, for he
   trifles with matters which demand his most earnest heed. Man, have you
   ever cultivated your heart? Has the plowshare ever broken up the clods
   of your soul? Has the seed of the Word ever been sown in you? Or has it
   taken no root? Have you ever watered the young plants of desire? Have
   you ever sought to pull up the weeds of sin that grow in your heart?

   Are you still a piece of the bare common or wild hearth? Poor Soul! You
   can trim your body and spend many a minute at the glass--do you not
   care for your soul? How long you take to decorate your poor flesh which
   is but worm's meat, or would be in a minute if God took away your
   breath! And yet all the while your soul is uncombed, unwashed,
   unclad--a poor neglected thing! Oh, it should not be so! You take care
   of the worse part and leave the better to perish through neglect. This
   is the height of folly! He that is a sluggard as to the vineyard of his
   heart is a man void of understanding. If I must be idle, let it be seen
   in my field and my garden, but not in my soul.

   Are you a Christian? Are you really saved and are you negligent in the
   Lord's work? Then, indeed, whatever you may be, I cannot help saying
   you have too little understanding. For surely, when a man is himself
   saved, and understands the danger of other men's souls, he must be in
   earnest in trying to pluck the firebrands from the flame. A Christian
   sluggard! Is there such a being? A Christian man on half-time? A
   Christian man working not all for his Lord--how shall I speak of him?
   Time does not tarry, DEATH does not tarry, HELL does not tarry. Satan
   is not lazy, all the powers of darkness are busy--how is it that you
   and I can be sluggish, if the Master has put us into His vineyard?
   Surely we must be void of understanding if, after being saved by the
   infinite love of God, we do not spend and are not spent in His service.
   The eternal fitness of things demands that a saved man should be an
   earnest man.

   The Christian who is slothful in his Master's service has no idea what
   he is losing. For the very cream of religion lies in holy consecration
   to God. Some people have just enough religion to make it questionable
   whether they have any or not. They have enough godliness to make them
   uneasy in their ungodliness. They have washed enough of their face to
   show the dirt upon the rest of it. "I am glad," said a servant, "that
   my mistress takes the sacrament, for otherwise I should not know she
   had any religion at all." You smile and well you may. It is ridiculous
   that some people should have no goods in their shop and yet advertise
   their business in all the papers--should make a show of religion and
   yet have none of the Spirit of God.

   I wish some professors would do Christ the justice to say, "No, I am
   not one of His disciples. Do not think so badly of Him as to imagine
   that I can be one of them." We ought to be reflections of Christ. But I
   fear many are reflections upon Christ. When we see a lot of lazy
   servants we are apt to think that their master must be a very idle
   person himself, or he would never put up with them. He who employs
   sluggards and is satisfied with their snail-like pace cannot be a very
   active man himself. O, let not the world think that Christ is
   indifferent to human woe, that Christ has lost His zeal, that Christ
   has lost His energy-- yet I fear they will say it or think it if they
   see those who profess to be laborers in the vineyard of Christ not
   better than mere sluggards.

   The slothful man, then, is a man void of understanding. He loses the
   honor and pleasure which he would find in serving his Master. He is a
   dishonor to the cause which he professes to venerate and he is storing
   up thorns for his dying pillow. Let that stand as settled--the slothful
   man, whether he is a minister, deacon, or private Christian--is a man
   void of understanding.

   Now, secondly, LET US LOOK AT THE SLUGGARD'S LAND--"I went by the field
   of the slothful and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding.
   And lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the
   face thereof." Note, first, that land will produce something. Soil
   which is good enough to be made into a field and a vineyard must and
   will yield some fruit or other. And so you and I, in our hearts and in
   the sphere God gives us to occupy, will be sure to produce something.
   We cannot live in this world as entire blanks. We shall either do good
   or do evil, as sure as we are alive. If you are idle in Christ's work,
   you are active in the devil's work.

   The sluggard, by sleeping, was doing more for the cultivation of thorns
   and nettles than he could have done by any other means. As a garden
   will either yield flowers or weeds, fruits or thistles, so something
   either good or evil will come out of our household, our class, or our
   congregation. If we do not produce a harvest of good by laboring for
   Christ, we shall grow tares to be bound up in bundles for the last
   dread burning. Note again that if it is not farmed for God, the soul
   will yield its natural produce. And what is the natural produce of land
   if left to itself? What but thorns and nettles, or some other useless
   weeds?

   What is the natural produce of your heart and mine? What but sin and
   misery? What is the natural produce of your children if you leave them
   untrained for God? What but unholiness and vice? What is the natural
   produce of this great city if we leave its streets and lanes and alleys
   without the Gospel? What but crime and infamy? There will be harvests
   and the sheaves will be the natural produce of the soil, which is sin,
   death and corruption. If we are slothful, the natural produce of our
   heart and of our sphere will be most inconvenient and unpleasant to
   ourselves.

   Nobody can sleep on thorns, or make a pillow of nettles. No rest can
   come out of an idleness which lets ill alone and does not by God's
   Spirit strive to uproot evil. While you are sleeping, Satan will be
   sowing. If you withhold the seed of good, Satan will be lavish with the
   seed of evil and from that evil will come anguish and regret for
   time--and it may be for eternity. O Man, the garden put into your
   charge, if you waste your time in slumber, will reward you with all
   that is noisome and painful. "Thorns also and thistles shall it bring
   forth to you."

   In many instances there will be a great deal of this evil produce. For
   a field and a vineyard will yield more thistles and nettles than a
   piece of ground that has never been reclaimed. If the land is good
   enough for a garden it will present its owner with a fine crop of weeds
   if he only stays his hand. A choice bit of land fit for a vineyard of
   red wine will render such a profusion of nettles to the slothful man
   that he shall rub his eyes with surprise. The man who might do most for
   God, if he were renewed, will bring forth most for Satan if he is let
   alone. The very region which would have glorified God most if the Grace
   of God were there to convert its inhabitants will be that out of which
   the vilest enemies of the Gospel will arise.

   Rest assured of that. The best will become the worse if we neglect it.
   Neglect is all that is needed to produce evil. If you want to know the
   way of salvation I must take some pains to tell you. But if you want to
   know the way to be lost, my reply is easy. For it is only a matter of
   negligence--"How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?"
   If you desire to bring forth a harvest unto God, I may need long to
   instruct you in plowing, sowing and watering. But if you wish your mind
   to be covered with Satan's hemlock, you have only to leave the furrows
   of your nature to themselves. The slothful man asks for "a

   little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to
   sleep"--and the thorns and thistles multiply beyond all numbering and
   prepare for him many a sting.

   While we look upon the lazy man's vineyard let us also peep into the
   ungodly sluggard's heart. He does not care about repentance and faith.
   To think about his soul, to be in earnest about eternity, is too much
   for him. He wants to take things easy and have a little more folding of
   the arms to sleep. What is growing in his mind and character? In some
   of these spiritual sluggards you can see drunkenness, uncleanness,
   covetousness, anger and pride and all sorts of thistles and nettles. Or
   where these ranker weeds do not appear, by reason of the restraint of
   pious connections, you find other sorts of sin. The heart cannot
   possess it.

   My dear Friend, if you are not decided for God you cannot be neutral.
   In this war every man is for God or for His enemy. You cannot remain
   like a sheet of blank paper. The legible handwriting of Satan is upon
   you--can you not see the blots? Unless Christ has written across the
   page His own sweet name, the autograph of Satan is visible. You may
   say, "I do not go into open sin. I am moral," and so forth. Ah, if you
   would but look and consider and search into your heart you would see
   that enmity to God and to His ways and hatred of purity are there. You
   do not love God's Law nor love His Son, nor love His Gospel. You are
   alienated in your heart and there is in you all manner of evil desires
   and vain thoughts and these will flourish and increase so long as you
   are a spiritual sluggard and leave your heart uncultivated.

   O, may the Spirit of God arouse you! May you be stirred to anxious,
   earnest thoughts, and then you will see that these rank growths must be
   uprooted. Then you will see that your heart must be turned up by the
   plow of conviction and sown with the good seed of the Gospel--till a
   harvest rewards the great Husbandman.

   Friend, if you believe in Christ, I want to peep over the hedge into
   your heart, also--if you are a sluggish Christian. For I fear that
   nettles and thistles are a threat to you, also. Did I not hear you sing
   the other day--"It is a point I long to know"? That point will often be
   raised, for doubt is a seed which is sure to grow in lazy men's minds.
   I do not remember reading in Mr. Wesley's diary a question about his
   own salvation. He was so busy in the harvest of the Master that it did
   not occur to him to distrust his God.

   Some Christians have little faith in consequence of their having never
   sown the grain of mustard seed which they have received. If you do not
   sow your faith by using it, how can it grow? When a man lives by faith
   in Christ Jesus and his faith exercises itself actively in the service
   of his Lord, it takes root, grows upward and becomes strong till it
   chokes his doubts. Some have sadly morbid forebodings. They are
   discontented, fretful, selfish, murmuring--and all because they are
   idle. These are the weeds that grow in sluggards' gardens. I have known
   the slothful become so peevish that nothing could please them.

   The most earnest Christian could not do right for them. The most loving
   Christians could not be affectionate enough. The most active Church
   could not be energetic enough. They detected all sorts of wrong where
   God Himself saw much of the fruit of His Spirit. This censoriousness,
   this contention, this perpetual complaining is one of the nettles that
   are quite sure to grow in men's gardens when they fold their arms in
   sinful ease. If your heart does not yield fruit to God it will
   certainly bring forth that which is mischievous in itself--painful to
   you and injurious to your fellow men. Often the thorns choke the good
   seed. But it is a very blessed thing when the good seed comes up so
   thick and fast that it chokes the thorns.

   God enables certain Christians to become so fruitful in Christ that
   their graces and works stand thick together and when Satan throws in
   the tares they cannot grow because there is not room for them. The Holy
   Spirit by His power makes evil to become weak in the heart so that it
   no longer keeps the upper hand. If you are slothful, Friend, look over
   the field of your heart and weep at the sight. May I next ask you to
   look into your own house and home? It is a dreadful thing when a man
   does not cultivate the field of his own family.

   I recollect in my early days a man who used to walk out with me into
   the villages when I was preaching. I was glad of his company till I
   found out certain facts and then I shook him off and I believe he
   hooked on to somebody else, for he must needs be gadding abroad every
   evening of the week. He had many children and these grew up to be
   wicked young men and women and the reason was that the father, while he
   would be at this meeting and that, never tried to bring his own
   children to the Savior. What is the use of zeal abroad if there is
   neglect at home? How sad to say, "My own vineyard have I not kept."

   Have you ever heard of one who said he did not teach his children the
   ways of God because he thought they were so young that it was very
   wrong to prejudice them and he had rather leave them to choose their
   own religion when they grew older? One of his boys broke his arm and
   while the surgeon was setting it the boy was swearing all the time.
   "Ah," said the good doctor, "I told you what would happen. You were
   afraid to prejudice your boy in the right way but the devil had no such
   qualms. He has prejudiced him the other way and pretty strongly, too."

   It is our duty to prejudice our field in favor of corn, or it will soon
   be covered with thistles. Cultivate a child's heart for good--or it
   will go wrong of itself--for it is already depraved by nature. O that
   we were wise enough to think of this and leave no little one to become
   a prey to the Destroyer. As it is with homes, so it is with schools. A
   gentleman who joined this Church some time ago had been an atheist for
   years and in conversing with him I found that he had been educated at
   one of our great public schools and to that fact he traced his
   infidelity.

   He said that the boys were stowed away on Sunday in a lofty gallery at
   the far end of a Church, where they could scarcely hear a word that the
   clergyman said but simply sat imprisoned in a place where it was
   dreadfully hot in summer and cold in winter. On Sundays there were
   prayers and prayers and prayers but nothing that ever touched his heart
   until he was so sick of prayers that he vowed if he once got out of the
   school he would have done with religion. This is a sad result, but a
   frequent one. You Sunday school teachers can make your classes so
   tiresome to the children that they will hate Sunday. You can fritter
   away the time in school without bringing the lads and lasses to Christ
   and so you may do more hurt than good.

   I have known Christian fathers who by their severity and want of
   tenderness have sown their family field with the thorns and thistles of
   hatred to religion instead of scattering the good seed of love to it. O
   that we may so but love our Father who is in Heaven. May fathers and
   mothers set such an example of cheerful piety that sons and daughters
   shall say, "Let us tread in our father's footsteps, for he was a happy
   and a holy man. Let us follow our mother's ways, for she was sweetness
   itself." If piety does not rule in your house, when we pass by your
   home we shall see disorder, disobedience, pride of dress, folly and the
   beginnings of vice.

   Let not your home be a sluggard's field, or you will have to rue it in
   years to come. Let every deacon, every class leader and also every
   minister enquire diligently into the state of the field he has to
   cultivate. You see, Brothers and Sisters, if you and I are set over any
   department of our Lord's work and we are not diligent in it we shall be
   like barren trees planted in an orchard. They are a loss altogether
   because they occupy the places of other trees which might have brought
   forth fruit unto their owners. We shall cumber the ground and do damage
   to our Lord unless we render Him actual service.

   Will you think about this? If you could be put down as a mere cipher in
   the accounts of Christ, that would be very sad. But, Brothers and
   Sisters, it cannot be so--you will cause a deficit unless you create a
   gain. Oh that through the Grace of God we may be profitable to our Lord
   and Master. Who among us can look upon His life-work without some
   sorrow? If anything has been done aright we ascribe it all to the Grace
   of God. But how much there is to weep over! How much that we would wish
   to amend! Let us not spend time in idle regrets but pray for the Spirit
   of God that in the future we may not be void of understanding but may
   know what we ought to do and where the strength must come from with
   which to do it. And then pray for Divine Grace to give ourselves up to
   the doing of it.

   I beg you, once more, to look at the great field of the world. Do you
   see how it is overgrown with thorns and nettles? If an angel could take
   a survey of the whole race, what tears he would shed, if angels could
   weep! What a tangled mass of weeds the whole earth is! Yonder the field
   is scarlet with the poppy of popery and over the hedge it is yellow
   with the wild mustard of Mohammedanism. Vast regions are smothered with
   the thistles of infidelity and idolatry. The world is full of cruelty,
   oppression, drunkenness, rebellion, uncleanness, misery. What the moon
   sees! What God's sun sees! What scenes of horror! How far is all this
   to be attributed to a neglectful Church?

   Nearly nineteen hundred years are gone and the sluggard's vineyard is
   but little improved! England has been touched with the spade but I
   cannot say that it has been thoroughly weeded or plowed yet. Across the
   ocean another field equally favored knows well the Plowman and yet the
   weeds are rank. Here and there a little good work has been done but the
   vast mass of the world still lies a moorland never broken up, a waste,
   a howling wilderness. What has the Church been doing all these years?
   She ceased after a few centuries to be a missionary Church and from
   that hour she almost ceased to be a living Church. Whenever a Church
   does not labor for the reclaiming of the desert it becomes itself a
   waste.

   You shall not find on the roll of history that for a length of time any
   Christian community has flourished after it has become negligent of the
   outside world. I believe that if we are put into the Master's vineyard
   and will not take away the weeds, neither shall the vine flourish nor
   shall the corn yield its increase. However, instead of asking what the
   Church has been doing for this nineteen hundred years, let us ask
   ourselves, What are we going to do now? Are the missions of the
   Churches of Great Britain always to be such poor, feeble things as they
   are? Are the best of our Christian young men always going to stay at
   home?

   We go on plowing the home field a hundred times over, while millions of
   acres abroad are left to the thorn and nettle. Shall it always be so?
   God send us more spiritual life and wake us up from our sluggishness,
   or else when the holy watcher gives in His report, He will say, "I went
   by the field of the sluggish Church, and it was all grown over with
   thorns and nettles

   and the stone wall was broken down, so that one could scarcely tell
   which was the Church and which was the world, yet still she slept and
   slept and slept and nothing could waken her."

   I conclude by remarking that THERE MUST BE SOME LESSON IN ALL THIS. I
   cannot teach it as I would like. I want to learn it myself. I will
   speak it as though I were talking to myself. The first lesson is that
   unaided nature always will produce thorns and nettles and nothing else.
   My Soul, if it were not for Divine Grace, this is all you would have
   produced. Beloved, are you producing anything else? Then it is not
   nature but the Grace of God that makes you produce it. Those lips that
   now most charmingly sing the praises of God would have been delighted
   with an idle ballad if the Grace of God had not sanctified them.

   Your heart, that now clings to Christ would have continued to cling to
   your idols--you know what they were--if it had not been for Divine
   Grace. And why should Divine Grace have visited you or me--why? Echo
   answers, Why? What answer can we give? "It is even so, Father, for so
   it seemed good in Your sight." Let the remembrance of what Divine Grace
   has done move us to manifest the result of that Grace in our lives.
   Come, Brothers and Sisters, inasmuch as we were aforetime rich enough
   in the soil of our nature to produce so much of nettle and thistle--and
   God only knows how much we did produce-- let us now pray that our lives
   may yield as much of good corn for the great Husbandman.

   Will you serve Christ less than you served your lusts? Will you make
   less sacrifice for Christ than you did for your sins? Some of you were
   whole-hearted enough when in the service of the Evil One. Will you be
   half-hearted in the service of God? Shall the Holy Spirit produce less
   fruit in you than that which you yielded under the spirit of evil? God
   grant that we may not be left to prove what nature will produce if left
   to itself.

   We see here, next, the little value of natural good intentions. This
   man who left his field and vineyard to be overgrown always meant to
   work hard one of these fine days. To do him justice we must admit that
   he did not mean to sleep much longer, for he said--"Yet a little sleep,
   a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep." Only a
   little doze and then he would tuck up his sleeves and show his muscle.
   Probably the worst people in the world are those who have the best
   intentions but never carry them out. In that way Satan lulls many to
   sleep. They hear an earnest sermon. But they do not arise and go to
   their Father. They only get as far as saying, "Yes, yes, the far
   country is not a fit place for me. I will not stay here long. I mean to
   go home by-and-by."

   They said that forty years ago but nothing came of it. When they were
   quite youths they had serious impressions. They were almost persuaded
   to be Christians and yet they are not Christians even now. They have
   been slumbering forty years! Surely that is a liberal share of sleep!
   They never intended to dream so long, and now they do not mean to lie
   in bed much longer. They will not turn to Christ at once but they are
   resolved to do so one day. When are you going to do it, Friend? "Before
   I die." Going to put it off to the last hour or two, are you? And so,
   when unconscious and drugged to relieve your pain, you will begin to
   think of your soul? Is this wise?

   Surely you are void of understanding. Perhaps you will die in an hour.
   Did you not hear the other day of the alderman who died in his
   carriage? Little must he have dreamed of that. How would it have fared
   with you had you also been smitten while riding at your ease? Have you
   not heard of persons who fall dead at their work? What is to hinder
   your dying with a spade in your hand? I am often startled when I am
   told in the week that one whom I saw on Sunday is dead--gone from the
   shop to the Judgment Seat.

   It is not a very long time ago since one went out at the doorway of the
   Tabernacle and fell dead on the threshold. We have had deaths in the
   House of God, unexpected deaths. And sometimes people are hurried away
   unprepared who never meant to have died unconverted--who always had
   from their youth up some kind of desire to be ready, only still they
   wanted a little more sleep. Oh, my Hearers, take heed of little delays
   and short pauses. You have wasted time enough already--come to the
   point at once before the clock strikes again. May God the Holy Spirit
   bring you to decision.

   "Surely you do not object to my having a little more sleep?" says the
   sluggard. "You have waked me so soon. I only ask another little nap."
   "My dear man, it is far into the morning." He answers, "It is rather
   late, I know, but it will not be much later if I take just another
   doze." You wake him again and tell him it is noon. He says, "It is the
   hottest part of the day--I daresay if I had been up I should have gone
   to the sofa and taken a little rest from the hot sun." You knock at his
   door when it is almost evening and then he cries, "It is of no use to
   get up now, for the day is almost over." You remind him of his
   overgrown field and weedy vineyard and he answers, "Yes, I must get up,
   I know." He shakes himself and says, "I do not think it will matter
   much if I wait till the clock strikes. I will rest another minute or
   two."

   He is glued to his bed, dead while he lives, buried in his laziness. If
   he could sleep forever he would, but he cannot, for the Judgment Day
   will rouse him. It is written, "And in Hell he lift up his eyes, being
   in torment." God grant that you spiritual sluggards may wake before
   that. But you will not unless you bestir yourselves, for "now is the
   accepted time." And it may be

   now or never. Tomorrow is only to be found in the calendar of fools.
   Today is the time of the wise man, the chosen season of our gracious
   God.

   Oh that the Holy Spirit may lead you to seize the present hour, that
   you may at once give yourselves to the Lord by faith in Christ Jesus!
   And then from His vineyard--"Quickly uproot the noisome weeds, that
   without profit suck the soil's fertility from wholesome plants."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Love of God and the Patience of Christ

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, JUNE 17, 1888,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the
   patient waiting for Christ." 2 Thessalonians 3:5.

   FOR the moment, Paul in spirit is coasting the purple shores of the
   celestial country. With his Thessalonian friends he is making a joyful
   voyage within hail of Immanuel's land. The sail is bright with the
   sunlight and the keel is marking a silver track behind it. The
   Apostle's happy soul has left far in the stern the deceivableness of
   unrighteousness and the rocks of error. It comes into his heart that he
   would gladly steer his friends into certain of those lovely creeks
   which run up far into the inner recesses of the sacred fatherland.
   Shall he turn the helm that way? He pauses, for the navigation is
   difficult. One must be greatly expert to thread the streams which
   descend from the sunny fountains.

   It is not given to all saints to follow safely all the windings of the
   rivers of delight. Paul had been with his Brethren at sea in the place
   where the Lord sank all their transgressions in the depths and he had
   been with them in sore affliction when neither sun nor moon
   appeared--and in all such seafaring he was in his element. But, brave
   pilot as he was, he could not pretend to penetrate all the richer and
   rarer experiences which bring elect souls nearest to the heart of the
   great Father. Therefore, instead of offering to be their pilot, he
   bowed his head and prayed, "The Lord direct your hearts into the love
   of God and into the patient waiting for Christ."

   The special entrance into the goodly land, which the Apostle desired
   for his friends, was one which mere insight, wit, knowledge, or
   instruction could never give them. If so, he would have directed their
   minds that way at once. But the perception of the heavenlies is only
   given to heavenly faculties. The attainments which Paul desired for his
   friends were not beliefs of the head but indwelling of the heart. To
   return to our figure of sailing up the creeks and rivers into the
   center of the glorious country--that delicious voyage was only possible
   to the more refined and spiritual powers of the soul. Those sweet
   waters could only be navigated by the heart and the heart itself would
   need Divine direction before it could find the entrance to them.

   There is a path which the vulture's eye has not seen and the lion's
   whelp has not trod--only God sees and knows it. The Beulah country of
   spiritual wisdom, especially in its higher reaches, is a matter for
   personal Revelation from God to each one of His own. We are here
   hopelessly in the dark if we have no light from above. And even with
   that light we do but see the difficult nature of our way and fail to
   enter upon it until the light becomes a force and He whom we desire to
   know directs our hearts into communion with Himself. Yes, yonder are
   the radiant coasts and the rivers of life up which our boat might sail
   into the center of "the island of the innocent." Yet our great Apostle
   does not rush into the office of pilot but humbly acts as intercessor,
   crying, "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God."

   All this whets our desires! Who would not wish to go where only choice
   spirits can enter and where these can only come as the Lord directs
   their hearts? Paul could give his converts external directions, he
   could guide his more advanced Brethren in the work, walk and warfare of
   life. And he did so with all simplicity and earnestness. He urged them
   to abound in this grace and to avoid that folly. But he felt that his
   exhortation would be inefficient unless their hearts were touched. Here
   he felt his own powerlessness and so he cast the grand matter of
   heart-work upon the Lord Himself. As the heart naturally baffles all
   physicians so spiritually it is far beyond our knowledge. Who among
   ministers can guide you? Therefore, may "the Lord direct your hearts."

   God alone knows the heart and God alone can rule it--for this ruling
   Paul makes request. "The Lord direct your hearts." Let us borrow his
   prayer and turn it to our own personal use--"Domine dirige nos." The
   place for God in reference to the heart is that of supreme director.
   When the Lord lays His hand on the heart, which is the helm of the
   ship, then the whole vessel is rightly directed--this, therefore, is
   what we beseech Him to do. When the Holy Spirit comes into

   the heart and takes supreme control of the affections, the whole life
   and conversation are after a godly sort, Oh, that He may prove this
   fact to each one of us! Some think much of liberty--I long far more to
   be in perfect subjection to the Lord my God. Oh, how I wish for a
   Master, a Dictator, a Director! Oh, that my Lord would take the reins
   and bring my every thought into captivity to His own will, henceforth
   and forever!

   What a heavenly content I feel in yielding myself to the sacred
   Trinity! The God who made us may most fitly be called upon to govern
   us. When we recognize the glory of the whole Godhead we perceive the
   perfect suitability of such direction as will come from the Three in
   One God. Albeit that the Holy Spirit is not mentioned in this verse by
   name, He is mentioned by His operations, for it is the Spirit of God
   that deals with the hearts of Believers. I take rare pleasure in our
   text, because we have the blessed Trinity in unity in these few words,
   "The Lord"--that is, the Holy Spirit who dwells within
   Believers--"direct your hearts into the love of God (by whom I
   understand the Father) and into the patient waiting for Christ."

   May the Trinity in Unity work with us and fulfill in each of us this
   prayer of the Apostle that our hearts may be directed into the love of
   God and into the patient waiting for Christ! Paul would have his
   Thessalonian friends advance in a straight line. Our heart is to be as
   a vessel that is not left to beat about, nor to come into harbor by a
   circuitous route, but is steered directly into the fair haven. May the
   Spirit of God take us and give us a straight tendency towards the
   holiest things and then at once bring us into the love of God and into
   the patient waiting for Christ.

   But here we must do a little translating or interpreting. Observe in
   the Revised Version a difference of translation. There we read "into
   the patience of Christ." This is a great improvement upon our former
   translation. But, although it is accurate, it is not complete--it does
   not take up the whole of the meaning. In our Authorized Version we have
   "the patient waiting for Christ," but in its margin we find "into the
   patience of Christ"--showing that the earlier translators felt that
   "the patience of Christ" would be a good translation. And yet, after
   considering it in all its bearings, they thought that Paul did not
   quite mean the patience of Christ, but that he meant a patience which
   we exert towards Christ.

   Is there not weight in this? Does not the context support it? As the
   love into which we are to be directed is love to God, so the patience
   into which we are to be directed must be a patience towards Christ. Our
   grand old translators expressed this Truth by language which may be
   inaccurate as mere wordings, but it is deeply correct as to its sense.
   Surely Paul did mean "the patience towards Christ which manifests
   itself in the patient waiting for Christ." If you consider all this you
   will see that we have no infant-class lesson in the text before us!
   Here are nuts for young men who have cut their wisdom-teeth. May the
   good Spirit help us to reach the kernels.

   Having turned the text over many times, I thought that we might be able
   to gather up a considerable amount of its real meaning if we thought of
   it thus--first, here are two precious things for us to enter into--the
   love of God and the patience of Christ. And, secondly, here are two
   eminent virtues to be acquired by us--the love of God, that is, love to
   God and the patience of Christ--the patient waiting for Christ.

   I. To begin, then, here are TWO PRECIOUS THINGS FOR US TO ENTER INTO.
   We cannot enter into them except as the Lord directs our hearts. There
   is a straight entrance into them but we do not readily find it. It
   needs the Holy Spirit to direct our feet along the narrow way which
   leads to this great blessedness.

   The first precious thing which we are to enter is the love of God.
   Beloved, we know the love of God in various ways. Many know it by
   having heard of it, even as a blind man may thus know the charms of an
   Alpine landscape. Poor knowledge this! Others of us have tasted of the
   love of God, have talked about the love of God, have prayed and have
   sung concerning the love of God. All very well, but Paul meant a dove
   of a brighter feather. To be directed into the love of God is quite
   another thing from all that we can be told of it. A fair garden is
   before us. We look over the wall and are even allowed to stand at the
   door while one hands out to us baskets of golden apples. This is very
   delightful. Who would not be glad to come so near as this to the garden
   of heavenly delights?

   Yet it is something more to be shown the door, to have the latch
   lifted, to see the gateway opened and to be gently directed into the
   Paradise of God. This is what is wanted--that we may be directed into
   the love of God. Oh, that we may feel something of it while we meditate
   upon it! Beloved, we come, when we are taught of the Spirit of God, to
   enter into the love of God by seeing its central importance. We see
   that the love of God is the source and center, fountain and foundation
   of all our salvation, and of all else that we receive from God.

   At first we are much taken up with pardoning Grace. We are largely
   engrossed with those royal robes of righteousness with which our
   nakedness is covered. We are delighted with the viands of the marriage
   banquet--we eat the fat and we drink the sweet. What else would you
   expect from starving souls admitted to the abundant supplies of
   heavenly Grace? Afterwards we begin more distinctly to think of the
   love that spread the feast, the love that provided the raiment, the
   love that invited us to the banquet and gently led us to take our place
   in it. This does not always come at first.

   But I pray that none of us may be long receiving the gifts of love
   without kissing the hand of love. That none of us may be content to
   have had much forgiven without coming and washing the feet of our
   forgiving Lord with our tears and declaring our deep and true love to
   Him. O saved soul, may the Lord fill you with personal love to that
   personal Savior through whom all blessings come to you! Remember, you
   have all good things because God loves you! Remember that every cake of
   the heavenly manna, every cup of the living water comes to you because
   of His great love wherewith He loved you. This will put a sweetness
   into what you receive even greater than that which is there
   intrinsically, sweet though God's mercies are in their own nature and
   quality. Oh, to enter into God's love by perceiving it to be the
   wellhead of every stream of mercy by which we are refreshed!

   If we further enter into the love of God, we see its immeasurable
   greatness. There is a little word which you have often heard, which I
   beg to bring before you again--that little word "so." "God so loved the
   world that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whosoever believes in
   Him should not perish but have everlasting life." Come, you surveyors,
   bring your chains and try to make a survey of this word "so." No, that
   is not enough. Come here, you that make our national surveys and lay
   down charts for all nations. Come, you who map the sea and land and
   make a chart of this word "so."

   No, I must go further. Come here, you astronomers, that with your optic
   glasses spy out spaces before which imagination staggers, come here and
   encounter calculations worthy of all your powers! When you have
   measured between the horns of space, here is a task that will defy
   you--"God so loved the world." If you enter into that you will know
   that all this love is to you--that while Jehovah loves the world, yet
   He loves you as much as if there were nobody else in all the world to
   love. God can pour the infinite love of His heart upon one object and
   yet, for all that, can love ten thousand times ten thousand of His
   creatures just as much. O Heir of God, your store of love is not
   diminished because the innumerable company of your Brethren share it
   with you! Your Father loves each child as if He had no other. Peer into
   this abyss of love. Plunge into this sea. Dive into this depth
   unsearchable. Oh, that God might direct you into the immeasurable
   greatness of this love!

   Neither be you afraid to enter into this love by remembering its
   antiquity. Some fight the great Truth of the eternal electing love of
   God. But to me it is as wafers made with honey. What music lies in that
   sentence--"Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love"! When this
   great world, the sun, and moon and stars, had not yet flashed the
   morning of their little day, the Lord Jehovah loved His people with an
   everlasting love. In the Divine purposes, which were not of yesterday,
   nor even of that date of which Scripture speaks as "In the
   beginning"--when the Lord created the heavens and the earth--God loved
   His own people.

   He had chosen you, thought of you, provided for you and made ten
   thousand forecasts of loving kindness towards you before the earth was.
   Beloved Believer, you were engraved on the hands of Christ even then.
   Oh that the Lord would direct you into the antiquity of His love. It
   shall make you greatly prize that love to think that it had no
   beginning and shall never, never have an end.

   Again--I pray that we may be directed into the love of God as to its
   infallible constancy. The unchangeable Jehovah never ceases to love His
   people. It would be a wretched business to be directed into the love of
   God only to find it a thing of the past. O believing Soul, you have not
   to deal with things which once were gems of the mine but now are dreams
   of the night. Oh, no! The love of God abides forever the same. When you
   are in darkness the Lord still sees you with an eye of love--

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

   When you were without strength, "in due time Christ died for the
   ungodly." Since you have known Him He has never varied in His love.
   When you have grown cold He has loved you. When you have grown cruel He
   has loved you. You have grievously provoked Him till He has taken down
   His rod and made you smart. But He has loved you in the smiting. With
   God there is as much love in chastening as in caressing. He never
   abates in fervor towards His ancient

   friends. Has He not said, "I am the Lord. I change not. Therefore you
   sons of Jacob are not consumed"? I pray the Lord to direct us into the
   immutability of His Divine love, for this is a great medicine in the
   day of soul-trouble.

   When conscious of imperfection, when darkened by the shadow of a great
   fault, when trembling under apprehension of wrath it draws you back
   again if you can feel, "Still my Father is my Father, still will He
   receive His wandering child and press His prodigal to His bosom and
   rejoice over me and say, 'This My son was dead and is alive again.' " O
   Child of God, your questionings of Divine love are grievous to your
   God. But if you can learn this Truth and be led into it--that He loves
   you evermore the same--it will help you right graciously.

   This love we ought to know and if the Lord will lead us into it we
   shall know that it is omnipresent. I mean by this, that whatever
   condition we may be in, the Lord is still active in love towards us.
   You are going across the sea to a far country but your Father's love
   will be as near you on the blue wave as on the greensward of Old
   England. You have come out tonight alone--time was when you did come to
   the House of God in company. But it may be that graves and desertions
   furnish sad reasons for your present solitude. Still, you are not
   alone, your Father's love is with you.

   You are tonight, perhaps, in a very strange part of your spiritual
   experience--you have not gone this way before. But the road is not new
   to eternal love. Go where you may, the air is still about you--go where
   you may, your Father's love is all around you. Higher than your
   soaring, deeper than your sinking is all-surrounding love. You are
   going home, perhaps, to a bed from which you shall not rise for months.
   You have no apprehension just now of what lies before you in the
   immediate future. It is as well you should not know. I should be slow
   to lift the curtain of merciful concealment even if it were in my power
   to do so. There is no necessity to know details when one or two grand
   facts provide for all contingencies.

   Trouble not yourself about the morrow. If you are to be sick or if you
   are to die, your Father's love will be with you still. Therefore go on
   and fear not. He cannot, will not, turn away from you. An omnipresent
   God means omnipresent love and omnipotence goes hand-in-hand with
   omnipresence. The Lord will show Himself strong on the behalf of them
   that trust Him. His love, which never fails, is attended by a power
   that faints not, nor is weary. Oh, may the Lord lead you into such love
   as this! May the Holy Spirit lead you into the innermost secret of this
   joy of joys, this bliss unspeakable.

   And I would also wish that you may be directed into the love of God as
   to its entire agreement with His justice, His holiness, His spotless
   purity. I firmly believe that God loves sinners but I am equally sure
   that He hates sin. I do believe that He delights in mercy but I am
   equally clear that He never dishonors His justice, nor frustrates the
   sternest threat of His Law. It is our joy that a holy God loves us and
   does not find it needful to stain His holiness to save the unclean. We
   are loved by one so just, so righteous that He could not pardon us
   without atonement. Even today He will never spare our sins but He will
   drive the love of them out of us by chastisement, even as He has washed
   the guilt of them away by the precious blood of His dear Son.

   Beloved, we have a holy God who is determined to make us holy. He would
   have us love our wives. And he sets before us a holy model--"Even as
   Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for it; that He might
   sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word." All
   true love goes towards purification. And the true love of God goes that
   way with an invincible current that can never be turned aside. O
   Believer, your God loves you so well that He will not let a darling sin
   stay in your heart. He loves you so strongly that He will not spare any
   iniquity in you. "You only have I known of all the families of the
   earth. Therefore I will punish you for your iniquities." Out of His
   pure love He will chasten and refine till He has made us pure and able
   to abide in fellowship with His perfect nature.

   1 have thus spoken a little upon a vast theme. I fear it will seem to
   you mere surface-work. And yet I pray that it may lead you to deep
   knowledge of Divine things so that you may apprehend God's love as
   yours. And that you may feel the power, the unction, the savor which
   come out of His love. I pray this knowledge, by His Grace, will make
   your heart as sweet and aromatic as a chamber in which a box of
   precious ointment has been broken. Oh, that you might be led into the
   innermost secret of the Lord's love till it shall saturate you,
   influence you, take possession of you, carry you away! The Lord direct
   you into the love of God.

   The second part of the prayer upon which we shall have to dwell is,
   "The Lord direct your hearts into the patience of Christ." Now,
   Beloved, I have another great sea before me, and who am I that I should
   act as your convoy over this main

   ocean? Here I am lost. I cannot take my bearings. I am a lone speck
   upon the infinite. I will imitate the wise Apostle and pray, "The Lord
   direct your hearts into the patience of Christ."

   What a patience that was which Jesus exhibited for us in our
   redemption! To come from Heaven to earth, to dwell in poverty and
   neglect and find no room even in the inn! Admire the patience of
   Bethlehem. To hold His tongue for thirty years--who shall estimate the
   wonderful patience of Nazareth and the carpenter's shop! When He spoke,
   to be despised and rejected of men. What patience for Him whom Cherubim
   obey! Oh, the patience of the Christ to be tempted of the devil! One
   can hardly tell what patience Christ must have had to let the devil
   come within ten thousand miles of him, for He was able to keep him far
   down in the abyss below His feet.

   There is not much in a patience which cannot help itself. But you well
   know that all the while Christ could have conquered all foes, chased
   away all suffering and kept off all temptation. But for our sakes, as
   Captain of our salvation, that He might be made perfect through
   suffering, His patience had its perfect work, right on to Gethsemane.
   Do you need that I tell you this? Golgotha, with all its woes, its
   "lama Sabacthani," its abysmal griefs--do I need remind you of the
   patience of Christ for us when the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us
   all? Patient as a lamb, He opened not His mouth but stood in
   omnipotence of patience, all-sufficient to endure. You have heard of
   the patience of Job but you have need to enter into the patience of
   Jesus.

   Oh, the patience within Christ Himself! God never seems so like a God
   as when He divinely rules Himself. I can understand His shaking earth
   and Heaven with His Word. But that He should possess His own soul in
   patience is far more incomprehensible. Marvel that omnipotent love
   should restrain omnipotence itself. In the life and death of our Lord
   Jesus we see almighty patience. He was very sensitive--very sensitive
   of sin, very sensitive of unkindness, and yet, with all that
   sensitiveness He showed no petulance but bore Himself in all the calm
   grandeur of Godhead. He was not quick to resent an ill but He was
   patient to the uttermost. As I have said before, there went with His
   sensitiveness the power at any time to avenge Himself and deliver
   Himself but He would not use it.

   Legions of angels would have been glad to come to His rescue but He
   bowed alone in the garden and gave Himself up to the betrayer without a
   word. And all the while He was most tender and graciously considerate
   of everybody but Himself. He spoke burning words sometimes--His mouth
   could be like the red lips of a volcano as He poured out the burning
   lava of denunciation upon "scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." But the
   resentment was never aroused by any injury done to Himself. When He
   looked that way it was always gentleness--He cried, "Father, forgive
   them. For they know not what they do." Oh, the wondrous patience of
   Heaven's own Christ!

   Enter into His patience with us as well as for us. How He put up with
   each one of us when we would not come to Him! How He wept over us when
   we neglected Him! How He drew us with constancy of love when we tugged
   against the cords! And when we came to Him and since we have been with
   Him, what patience He has had with our ill manners! If I had been
   Christ, I would have discharged such a servant as I have been long ago.
   Often have I gone to His feet and cried, "Dismiss me not Your service,
   Lord." I know how justly He might have stripped His livery from my
   back. But He has not done so. Have you not often wondered that He
   should still love you? He is affianced to you and He hates divorce.

   But is it not marvelous that He keeps His betrothal with you and will
   do so, though you have often defiled yourself and forgotten Him?
   Blessed fact, the ring is on His finger rather than on yours and the
   marriage is as sure as His love. He will present you unto Himself,
   "without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing," one of these days. But
   oh, His patience with each one of us! How He has put up with our
   unbelief, our mistrust, our hard hearts, our indifference, our strange
   ways! Never lover so kind as He! On our part never return so unworthy.
   Blessed be the patience of our Best Beloved!

   Now, Beloved, what is wanted is that we be directed into this patience
   of Christ. The choicest saints in different ages of the world have
   studied most the passion of our Lord. And although nowadays we hear
   from the wise men that it is sensuous to talk about the Cross and the
   five wounds and so forth, for my part I feel that no contemplation ever
   does me so much real benefit as that which brings me very near my
   bleeding Lord. The Cross for me! The Cross for me! Here is doctrine
   humbling, softening, melting, elevating, sanctifying. Here is Truth
   that is of Heaven and yet comes down to earth--love that lifts me away
   from earth even to the seventh Heaven.

   Have you ever read the words of holy Bernard, when his soul was all on
   fire with love of that dear name of which he so sweetly sang--

   "Jesus the very thought of You

   With sweetness fills my breast"? Why, Bernard is poet, philosopher and
   Divine, and yet a child in love. Have you studied Rutherford's letters
   and the wondrous things which he says about his own dear Lord? For an
   hour at Glory's gate commend me to heavenly Master Rutherford. Have you
   ever held fellowship with George Herbert, that saintly songster? Hear
   him as he cries--

   "How sweetly does my Master sound! My Master!

   As ambergris leaves a rich scent

   Unto the taster,

   So do these words a sweet content,

   An oriental fragrance, my Master!" O Friends, I can wish you no greater
   blessing than to be directed into these two things--the love of God and
   the patience of your Savior. Enter both at the same time. You cannot
   divide them--why should you? The love of God shines best in the
   patience of the Savior. And what is the patience of Christ but the love
   of the Father? "What God has joined together, let no man put asunder."
   May the Lord lead us into both of them at this hour and continue upon
   us the heavenly process all the rest of our lives, in all experiences
   of sorrow and of rapture and in all moods and growths of our spirit!

   II. But now I must ask your attention for the few minutes that remain
   to me to what is, perhaps, still the real gist of the text--HERE ARE
   TWO EMINENT VIRTUES TO BE ACQUIRED.

   "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God." Beloved, let the
   love of God to you flow into your hearts and abide there till it
   settles down and bears on its surface the cream of love to God, yielded
   by your own heart. The only way to love God is to let God's love to you
   dwell in your soul till it transforms your soul into itself. Love to
   God grows out of the love of God.

   Well, now, concerning love to God--if you receive it fully into your
   souls it will nourish the contemplative life. You will want to be
   alone. You will prefer to sit silently at Jesus' feet while others
   wrangle over the little politics of the house. You will give up being
   busy-bodies, talking in six peoples' houses in an hour--quietude will
   charm you. You will love no company so much as the society of Him who
   is the Best and the Most. To be with God in quiet will be your highest
   enjoyment. You will not say, as some do, "I must have recreation."

   Contemplation of God is recreation to the child of God. It creates the
   soul anew. And is not this the truest recreation? Whenever God's
   creation in us seems to have grown a little dim, love to God will
   gender and nourish the contemplative life and so make us come forth as
   new creatures, fresh from our Maker's holy hand.

   It will also animate the active life if you love God. You will feel
   that you must yield fruit unto your Lord. Your soul, when full of the
   love of God, will cry, "I must go after the wanderer. I must care for
   the poor. I must teach the ignorant." You cannot love God and be lazy.
   Love to God will stir you up. Contemplation teaches you to sit still
   and this is no trifling lesson. But after sitting still, you rise with
   greater energy to go about the one thing needful, namely, the service
   of your Lord's love.

   Love to God will also arouse enthusiasm. We want more persons in the
   Church who will be a little daring--rash men and women who will do
   things which nobody else would think of doing, such as will make their
   prudent friends hold up their hands and say, "How could you? If you had
   consulted with me, I could have given you many a wise hint as to how it
   ought to have been done." This has been my lot of late. I have been
   surfeited with notions as to how I should have acted. Yes, my Friend, I
   know you of old. You have wisdom at your fingers' ends. But let me
   quietly whisper that you would have done nothing at all. You would have
   been too anxious to save yourself from trouble.

   It is an easy thing to tell a man how he ought to have done it. And yet
   that man, perhaps, may be suffering intensely for having done bravely a
   well-meant deed. Instead of your showing sympathy with him, you treat
   him to the remark, "It might have been done better in another way."
   There was never a child that was near drowning but what the man that
   plunged in and drew him out of the river ought to have done it in a
   better way. He wetted himself too much. He waited too long. Or he
   handled the drowning one too roughly. Alas, for silly criticisms of
   gracious deeds!

   If you come to love God with all consuming zeal you will not be
   hindered by criticisms. You will testify for Jesus freely, because you
   cannot help yourself. It has to be done--somebody has to sacrifice
   himself to do it and you say to

   yourself, "Here am I, Lord, send me. At every risk or hazard, send me.
   For Your dear love's sake I count it joy to suffer shame or loss. I
   count it life to suffer death that I may honor You." Love to God will
   arouse enthusiasm.

   It will also stimulate holy desire. They that love God can never have
   enough of Him--certainly never too much. Sometimes they are found
   pining after Him. When we love the Lord, we chide the laggard hours
   which keep us from His coming. Time has not wings enough--

   "My heart is with Him on His Throne,

   And ill can brook delay,

   Each moment listening for the voice,

   'Rise up and come away.'"

   A heavenly love-sickness sometimes makes God's handmaids swoon. For
   they long to see the Beloved face to face and to be like Him and to be
   with Him where He is. The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God
   in some such fashion as this. For it will make you sit loose by all
   things here below.

   Do you ever feel that your wings are growing? Do you ever sigh, "Oh,
   that I had wings like a dove! For then would I fly away and be at
   rest"? And this love, better still, will transform the character. It is
   wonderful what a difference love makes in the person that is possessed
   with it. A poor timid hen that will fly away from every passerby loves
   its offspring and when it has its chicks about it, it will fight like a
   very lion for its young. And when the love of Christ comes into a timid
   Believer, how it changes him! It takes the love of sin away and
   implants a sublime nature.

   Only God knows what a mortal man can yet become. Of women sunken in
   sin, what saints the Lord has made when He has filled them with His
   love! When the sun shines on a bit of glass bottle far away it flashes
   like a diamond. A little fleecy vapor in the sky rivals an angel's wing
   when the sun pours itself upon it. Our Lord can put so much of Himself,
   by means of His love, into the hearts of His people that they may be
   mistaken for Himself. John made a blunder in Heaven and fell at the
   feet of one of his Brethren, the Prophets--for he had come to be so
   much like His Lord that John could hardly tell the one from the other.
   Had he forgotten that word, "We shall be like He. For we shall see Him
   as He is"? It does not yet appear what we shall be but love is the
   transfiguring power in the hand of the Holy Spirit. If the heart is
   directed into the love of Christ, it is on the highway to holiness.

   Lastly--I am sorry that time will fly so fast just now--we want our
   hearts to be directed into patience towards Christ. What a subject is
   this! Beloved, if our heart is directed into patience towards Christ we
   shall suffer in patience for our Lord's sake and we shall not complain.
   Those about us will say, "It is wonderful how resigned he seems." Or,
   "How gladly she bears grief for love of Christ!" And if it is the
   suffering of reproach and scorn for Jesus' sake, if we are directed
   into the patience of Christ, it will not seem to be any trouble at all.
   We shall bear it calmly and in our hearts we shall laugh at those who
   laugh at us for Jesus' sake.

   Yet it is not all patience of suffering that we want. We want the
   patience offorbearing. We must learn not to answer those who blaspheme.
   "Bear and forbear and be silent." Chew the cud in peace. Put up with
   much. When reviled, revile not again. The Lord direct your hearts into
   the patience of Christ.

   We shall also want the patience of working--working on when nothing
   comes of it--pleading on with souls that are not converted. Preaching
   when preaching seems to have no effect--teaching when the children do
   not care to learn. We need the patience of Christ who set His face like
   a flint and would accomplish His work, cost what it may. He never
   turned aside from it for a moment. The Lord direct our hearts into
   patient working.

   Then there is the patience of watching in prayer--not giving it up
   because you have not received an answer. What? Did a friend say she had
   prayed for seventeen years for a certain mercy and now meant to ask it
   no more? Sister, make it eighteen years and when you have got to the
   end of eighteen make it nineteen. May the Lord direct our hearts into
   the patience of Christ in prayer! We long kept Him waiting--we need not
   complain if He makes us tarry at His leisure. Still believe. Still
   hope. Still wrestle, until the break of day.

   Pray for the patience of waiting His will, saying, "Let Him do what
   seems Him good." Though it be for months, for years, wait on. Christ is
   glorified by our patience. Depend on it, the best way in which certain
   of us can extol Him is by letting Him have His way with us. Even though
   He plunge me into seven boiling caldrons one after the other, I will
   say--Let Him do what He wills with His own and I am His own. I am sure
   that He does not make the furnace one degree too hot. If He means to
   give His servant ten troubles, let His heavy hand fall even to the
   tenth, if so He pleases.

   We want to be directed into patience towards Christ and especially in
   patience in waiting for His coming. That, no doubt, is very justly
   inferred and so it is put in our translation very prominently--"Patient
   waiting for Christ." He will come, Brothers. He will come, Sisters. It
   is true the interpreters of the Book of Revelation told us that He was
   to come three hundred years ago and there are thousands upon thousands
   of books in the British Museum which were very dogmatic upon this point
   and yet they have all been disproved by the lapse of time.

   Men were as sure as sure could be that Christ would come just then. And
   He did not, for He is bound by His Word-- not by their interpretation
   of it. He will come at the appointed hour. To the jots and tittles,
   God's Word will stand. He will come to the tick of the clock. We know
   not when. We need not ask. But let us wait.

   Just now some of you may be, as I am, troubled because the Lord does
   not yet appear to vindicate His cause. And there is noise and triumph
   among the priests of Baal. The Lord direct our hearts into the patience
   of Christ. It is all right. Clouds gather. The darkness becomes more
   dense. The thunder rolls, friends flee in confusion. What next? Well,
   perhaps before we have hardly time for dread, silver drops of gracious
   rain may fall and the sun may break through the clouds and we may say
   to ourselves, "Who would have thought it?"--

   "You fearful saints, fresh courage take, The clouds you so much dread
   Are big with mercy and shall break In blessings on your head."

   May the Lord direct each one of us into the patient waiting for Christ!
   I am sorry, very sorry, that there are persons here to whom all this
   must seem a strange lot of talk. They know nothing about it. Dear
   Souls, you cannot at present know anything about it. You must first be
   born again. A total change of heart must come over you before you can
   enter into the love of God or the patience of Christ. May that change
   take place tonight, before you go to sleep!

   If the Lord shall lead you to seek His face, this is the way to seek
   it--trust His dear Son. Lifted on the Cross is Jesus Christ, the great
   Propitiation for sin. Look to Him and looking alone to Him, you shall
   be saved. He will give you the new heart and the right spirit with
   which you shall be enabled to enter into the love of God and the
   patience of Christ. The Lord direct you at this very hour, for Jesus'
   sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                            Let Him Deliver Him Now

   A Sermon

   (No. 2026)

   Intended for Reading on Lord's-day, June 17, 1888, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At [6]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "He trusted in God; let him deliver him now; if he will have him: for
   he said, I am the Son of God."'Matthew 27:43.

   THESE WORDS ARE a fulfilment of the prophecy contained in the
   twenty-second Psalm. Read from the seventh verse'"All they that see me
   laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
   He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him,
   seeing he delighted in him." Thus to the letter doth our Lord answer to
   the ancient prophecy.

   It is very painful to the heart to picture our blessed Master in his
   death-agonies, surrounded by a ribald multitude, who watched him and
   mocked him, made sport of his prayer and insulted his faith. Nothing
   was sacred to them: they invaded the Holy of holies of his confidence
   in God, and taunted him concerning that faith in Jehovah which they
   were compelled to admit. See, dear friends, what an evil thing is sin,
   since the Sin-bearer suffers so bitterly to make atonement for it! See,
   also, the shame of sin, since even the Prince of Glory, when bearing
   the consequences of it, is covered with contempt! Behold, also, how he
   loved us! For our sake he "endured the cross, despising the shame." He
   loved us so much that even scorn of the most cruel sort he deigned to
   bear, that he might take away our shame and enable us to look up unto
   God.

   Beloved, the treatment of our Lord Jesus Christ by men is the clearest
   proof of total depravity which can possibly be required or discovered.
   Those must be stony hearts indeed which can laugh at a dying Saviour,
   and mock even at his faith in God! Compassion would seem to have
   deserted humanity, while malice sat supreme on the throne. Painful as
   the picture is, it will do you good to paint it. You will need neither
   canvas, nor brush, nor palette, nor colours. Let your thoughts draw the
   outline, and your love fill in the detail; I shall not complain if
   imagination heightens the colouring. The Son of God, whom angels adore
   with veiled faces, is pointed at with scornful fingers by men who
   thrust out the tongue and mockingly exclaim, "He trusted on the Lord
   that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in
   him."

   While thus we see our Lord in his sorrow and his shame as our
   substitute, we must not forget that he also is there as our
   representative. That which appears in many a psalm to relate to David
   is found in the Gospels to refer to Jesus, our Lord. Often and often
   the student of the Psalm will say to himself, "Of whom speaketh the
   prophet this?" He will have to disentangle the threads sometimes, and
   mark off that which belongs to David and that which relates to the Son
   of God; and frequently he will not be able to disentangle the threads
   at all, because they are one, and may relate both to David, and to
   David's Lord. This is meant to show us that the life of Christ is an
   epitome of the life of his people. He not only suffers for us as our
   substitute, but he suffers before us as our pattern. In him we see what
   we have in our measure to endure. "As he is, so are we also in this
   world." We also must be crucified to the world, and we may look for
   somewhat of those tests of faith and taunts of derision which go with
   such a crucifixion. "Marvel not if the world hate you." You, too, must
   suffer without the gate. Not for the world's redemption, but for the
   accomplishment of divine purposes in you, and through you to the sons
   of men, you must be made to know the cross and its shame. Christ is the
   mirror of the church. What the head endured every member of the body
   will also have to endure in its measure. Let us read the text in this
   light, and come to it saying to ourselves, "Here we see what Jesus
   suffered in our stead, and we learn hereby to love him with all our
   souls. Here, too, we see, as in a prophecy, how great things we are to
   suffer for his sake at the hands of men." May the Holy Spirit help us
   in our meditation, so that at the close of it we may more ardently love
   our Lord, who suffered for us, and may the more carefully arm ourselves
   with the same mind which enabled him to endure such contradiction of
   sinners against himself.

   Coming at once to the text, first, observe the acknowledgment with
   which the text begins: "He trusted in God." The enemies of Christ
   admitted his faith in God. Secondly, consider the test which is the
   essence of the taunt: "Let him deliver him, if he will have him." When
   we have taken those two things into our minds, then let us for a while
   consider the answer to that test and taunt: God does assuredly deliver
   his people: those who trust in him have no reason to be ashamed of
   their faith.

   I. First, then, my beloved brethren, you who know the Lord by faith and
   live by trusting in him, let me invite you to OBSERVE THE
   ACKNOWLEDGMENT which these mockers made of our Lord's faith: "He
   trusted in God." Yet the Saviour did not wear any peculiar garb or
   token by which he let men know that he trusted in God. He was not a
   recluse, neither did he join some little knot of separatists, who
   boasted their peculiar trust in Jehovah. Although our Saviour was
   separate from sinners, yet he was eminently a man among men, and he
   went in and out among the multitude as one of themselves. His one
   peculiarity was that "he trusted in God." He was so perfectly a man
   that, although he was undoubtedly a Jew, there were no Jewish
   peculiarities about him. Any nation might claim him; but no nation
   could monopolize him. The characteristics of our humanity are so
   palpably about him that he belongs to all mankind. I admire the Welch
   sister who was of opinion that the Lord Jesus must be Welch. When they
   asked her how she proved it, she said that he always spoke to her heart
   in Welch. Doubtless it was so, and I can, with equal warmth, declare
   that he always speaks to me in English. Brethren from Germany, France,
   Sweden, Italy'you all claim that he speaks to you in your own tongue.
   This was the one thing which distinguished him among men'"he trusted in
   God," and he lived such a life as naturally grows out of faith in the
   Eternal Lord. This peculiarity had been visible even to that ungodly
   multitude who least of all cared to perceive a spiritual point of
   character. Was ever any other upon a cross thus saluted by the mob who
   watched his execution? Had these scorners ever mocked anyone before for
   such a matter as this? I trow not. Yet faith had been so manifest in
   our Lord's daily life that the crowd cried out aloud, "He trusted in
   God."

   How did they know? I suppose they could not help seeing that he made
   much of God in his teaching, in his life, and in his miracles. Whenever
   Jesus spoke it was always godly talk; and if it was not always
   distinctly about God, it was always about things that related to God,
   that came from God, that led to God, that magnified God. A man may be
   fairly judged by that which he makes most of. The ruling passion is a
   fair gauge of the heart. What a soul-ruler faith is! It sways the man
   as the rudder guides the ship. When a man once gets to live by faith in
   God, it tinctures his thoughts, it masters his purposes, it flavours
   his words, it puts a tone into his actions, and it comes out in
   everything by ways and means most natural and unconstrained, till men
   perceive that they have to do with a man who makes much of God. The
   unbelieving world says outright that there is no God, and the less
   impudent, who admit his existence, put him down at a very low figure,
   so low that it does not affect their calculations; but to the true
   Christian, God is not only much, but all. To our Lord Jesus, God was
   all in all; and when you come to estimate God as he did, then the most
   careless onlooker will soon begin to say of you, "He trusted in God."

   In addition to observing that Jesus made much of God, men came to note
   that he was a trusting man, and not self-confident. Certain persons are
   very proud because they are self-made men. I will do them the credit to
   admit that they heartily worship their maker. Self made them, and they
   worship self. We have among us individuals who are self-confident, and
   almost all-sufficient; they sneer at those who do not succeed, for they
   can succeed anywhere at anything. The world to them is a football which
   they can kick where they like. If they do not rise to the very highest
   eminence it is simply out of pity to the rest of us, who ought to have
   a chance. A vat of sufficiency ferments within their ribs! There was
   nothing of that sort of thing in our Lord. Those who watched him did
   not say that he had great self-reliance and a noble spirit of
   self-confidence. No, no! They said, "He trusted in God." Indeed it was
   so. The words that he spake he spake not of himself, and the great
   deeds that he did he never boasted of, but said "the Father that
   dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." He was a truster in God, not a
   boaster in self. Brethren and sisters, I desire that you and I may be
   just of that order. Selfconfidence is the death of confidence in God;
   reliance upon talent, tact, experience, and things of that kind, kills
   faith. Oh that we may know what faith means, and so look out of
   ourselves and quit the evil confidence which looks within!

   On the other hand, we may wisely remember that, while our Lord Jesus
   was not self-reliant, he trusted, and was by no means despondent: he
   was never discouraged. He neither questioned his commission, nor
   despaired of fulfilling it. He never said, "I must give it up: I can
   never succeed." No; "He trusted in God." And this is a grand point in
   the working of faith, that while it keeps us from self-conceit, it
   equally preserves us from enfeebling fear. When our blessed Lord set
   his face like a flint; when, being baffled, he returned to the
   conflict; when, being betrayed, he still persevered in his love, then
   men could not help seeing that he trusted in God. His faith was not
   mere repetition of a creed, or profession of belief, but it was
   childlike reliance upon the Most High. May ours be of the same order!

   It is evident that the Lord Jesus trusted in God openly since even
   yonder gibing crowd proclaimed it. Some good people try to exercise
   faith on the sly: they practise it in snug corners, and in lonely
   hours, but they are afraid to say much before others, for fear their
   faith should not see the promise fulfilled. They dare not say, with
   David, "My soul shall make her boast in the Lord: the humble shall hear
   thereof, and be glad." This secrecy robs God of his honour. Brethren,
   we do not glorify our God as he ought to be glorified. Let us trust in
   him, and own it. Wherefore should we be ashamed? Let us throw down the
   gauge of battle to earth and hell. God, the true and faithful, deserves
   to be trusted without limit. Trust your all with him, and be not
   ashamed of having done so. Our Saviour was not ashamed of trusting in
   his God. On the cross he cried, "Thou didst make me hope when I was
   upon my mother's breast." Jesus lived by faith. We are sure that he
   did, for in the Epistle to the Hebrews he is quoted as saying, "I will
   put my trust in him." If so glorious a personage as the only begotten
   Son of God lived here by faith in God, how are you and I to live except
   by trust in God? If we live unto God, this is the absolute necessity of
   our spiritual life "the just shall live by faith." Shall we be ashamed
   of that which brings life to us? The cruel ones who saw Jesus die did
   not say, "He now and then trusted in God"; nor "he trusted in the Lord
   years ago"; but they admitted that faith in God was the constant tenor
   of his life: they could not deny it. Even though, with malicious
   cruelty, they turned it into a taunt, yet they did not cast a question
   upon the fact that "he trusted in God" Oh, I want you so to live that
   those who dislike you most may, nevertheless, know that you do trust in
   God! When you come to die, may your dear children say of you, "Our dear
   mother did trust in the Lord"! May that boy, who has gone furthest away
   from Christ, and grieved your heart the most, nevertheless say in his
   heart, "There may be hypocrites in the world, but my dear father does
   truly trust in God"! Oh, that our faith may be known unmistakably! We
   do not wish it to be advertised to our own honour. That be far from our
   minds. But yet we would have it known that others may be encouraged,
   and that God may be glorified. If nobody else trusts in God, let us do
   so; and thus may we uplift a testimony to the honour of his
   faithfulness. When we die, may this be our epitaph'"He trusted in God."

   David, in the twenty-second Psalm, represents the enemies as saying of
   our Lord'"He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him." This
   practical faith is sure to be known wherever it is in operation,
   because it is exceedingly rare. Multitudes of people have a kind of
   faith it God, but it does not come to the practical point of trusting
   that God will deliver them. I see upon the newspaper placards,
   "Startling New! People in the Planets!" Not a very practical discovery.
   For many a day there has been a tendency to refer God's promises and
   our faith to the planets, or somewhere beyond this present every-day
   life. We say to ourselves, "Oh yes, God delivers his people." We mean
   that he did so in the days of Moses, and possibly he may be doing so
   now in some obscure island of the sea. Ah me! The glory of faith lies
   it its being fit for every-day wear. Can it be said of you, "He trusted
   in God, that he would deliver him"? Have you faith of the kind which
   will make you lean upon the Lord in poverty, in sickness, in
   bereavement, in persecution, in slander, in contempt? Have you a trust
   in God to bear you up in holy living at all costs, and in active
   service even beyond your strength? Can you trust in God definitely
   about this and that? Can you trust about food, and raiment, and home?
   Can you trust God even about your shoes, that they shall be iron and
   brass, and about the hairs of your head that they are all numbered?
   What we need is less theory and more actual trust it God.

   The faith of the text was personal: "that he would deliver him."
   Blessed is that faith which can reach its arm of compassion around the
   world, but that faith must begin at home. Of what use were the longest
   arm if it were not fixed to the man himself at the shoulder? If you
   have no faith about yourself, what faith can you have about others? "He
   trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him." Come, beloved, have you
   such a faith in the living God? Do you trust in God through Christ
   Jesus that he will save you? Yes, you poor, unworthy one, the Lord will
   deliver you if you trust him. Yes, poor woman, or unknown man, the Lord
   can help you in your present trouble, and in every other, and he will
   do so if you trust him to that end. May the Holy Spirit lead you to
   first trust the Lord Jesus for the pardon of sin, and then to trust in
   God for all things.

   Let us pause a minute. Let a man trust in God; not in fiction but in
   fact, and he will find that he has solid rock under his feet. Let him
   trust about his own daily needs and trials, and rest assured that the
   Lord will actually appear for him, and he will not be disappointed.
   Such a trust in God is a very reasonable thing; its absence is most
   unreasonable. If there be a God, he knows all about my case. If he made
   my ear he can hear me; if he made my eye he can see me; and therefore
   he perceives my condition. If he be my Father, as he says he is, he
   will certainly care for me, and will help me in my hour of need if he
   can. We are sure that he can, for he is omnipotent. Is there anything
   unreasonable, then, in trusting in God that he will deliver us? I
   venture to say that if all the forces in the universe were put
   together, and all the kindly intents of all who are our friends were
   put together, and we were then to rely upon those united forces and
   intents, we should not have a thousandth part so much justification for
   our confidence as when we depend upon God, whose intents and forces are
   infinitely greater than those of all the world beside. "It is better to
   trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man; it is better to trust
   in the Lord than to put confidence in princes." If you view things in
   the white light of pure reason, it is infinitely more reasonable to
   trust in the living God than in all his creatures put together.

   Certainly, dear friends, it is extremely comfortable to trust in God. I
   find it so, and therefore speak. To roll your burden upon the Lord,
   since he will sustain you, is a blessed way of being quit of care. We
   know him to be faithful, and as powerful as he is faithful; and our
   dependence upon him is the solid foundation of a profound peace.

   While it is comfortable, it is also uplifting. If you trust in men, the
   best of men, you are likely to be lowered by your trust. We are apt to
   cringe before these who patronize us. If your prosperity depends upon a
   person's smile, you are tempted to pay homage even when it is
   undeserved. The old saying mentions a certain person as "knowing on
   which side his bread is buttered." Thousands are practically degraded
   by their trusting in men. But when our reliance is upon the living God
   we are raised by it, and elevated both morally and spiritually. You may
   bow in deepest reverence before God, and yet there will be no fawning.
   You may lie in the dust before the Majesty of heaven, and yet not be
   dishonoured by your humility; in fact, it is our greatness to be
   nothing in the presence of the Most High.

   This confidence in God makes men strong. I should advise the enemy not
   to oppose the man who trusts in God. In the long run he will be beaten,
   as Haman found it with Mordecai. He had been warned of this by Zeresh,
   his wife, and his wise men, who said, " If Mordecai be of the seed of
   the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail
   against him, but shalt surely fall before him." Contend not with a man
   who has God at his back. Years ago the Mentonese desired to break away
   from the dominion of the Prince of Monaco. They therefore drove out his
   agent. The prince came with his army, not a very great one, it is true,
   but still formidable to the Mentonese. I know not what the high and
   mighty princeling was not going to do; but the news came that the King
   of Sardinia was coming up in the rear to help the Mentonese and
   therefore his lordship of Monaco very prudently retired to his own
   rock. When a believer stands out against evil he may be sure that the
   Lord of hosts will not be far away. The enemy shall hear the dash of
   his horse-hoof and the blast of his trumpet, and shall flee before him.
   Wherefore be of good courage, and compel the world to say of you, "He
   trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him."

   II. Secondly, I want you to follow me briefly in considering THE Test
   WHICH IS THE ESSENCE OF THE TAUNT which was hurled by the mockers
   against our Lord'"Let him deliver him now, if he will have him."

   Such a test will come to all believers. It may come as a taunt from
   enemies; it will certainly come as a trial of your faith. The
   arch-enemy will assuredly hiss out, "Let him deliver him, seeing he
   delighted in him."

   This taunt has about it the appearance of being very logical, and
   indeed in a measure so it is. If God has promised to deliver us, and we
   have openly professed to believe the promise, it is only natural that
   others should say, "Let us see whether he does deliver him. This man
   believes that the Lord will help him; and he must help him, or else the
   man's faith is a delusion." This is the sort of test to which we
   ourselves would have put others before our conversion, and we cannot
   object to be proved in the same manner ourselves. Perhaps we incline to
   run away from the ordeal, but this very shrinking should be a solemn
   call to us to question the genuineness of that faith which we are
   afraid to test. "He trusted on the Lord," says the enemy, "that he
   would deliver him: let him deliver him"; and surely, however malicious
   the design, there is no escaping from the logic of the challenge.

   It is peculiarly painful to have this stern inference driven home to
   you in the hour of sorrow. Because one cannot deny the fairness of the
   appeal, it is all the more trying. In the time of depression of spirit
   it is hard to have one's faith questioned, or the ground on which it
   stands made a matter of dispute. Either to be mistaken in one's belief,
   or to have no real faith, or to find the ground of one's faith fail is
   an exceedingly grievous thing. Yet as our Lord was not spared this
   painful ordeal, we must not expect to be kept clear of it, and Satan
   knows well how to work these questions, till the poison of them sets
   the blood on fire. "He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him;
   let him deliver him;" he hurls this fiery dart into the soul, till the
   man is sorely wounded, and can scarcely hold his ground.

   The taunt is specially pointed and personal. It is put thus: "He
   trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him";
   "Do not come to us with your fiddle-faddle about God's helping all his
   chosen. Here is a man who is one of his people, will he help him? Do
   not talk to us big things about Jehovah at the Red Sea, or in the
   Desert of Sinai, or God helping his people in ages past. Here is a
   living man before us who trusted in God that he would deliver him: let
   him deliver him now." You know how Satan will pick out one of the most
   afflicted, and pointing his fingers at him will cry, "Let him deliver
   HIM." Brethren, the test is fair. God will be true to every believer.
   If any one child of God could be lost, it would be quite enough to
   enable the devil to spoil all the glory of God for ever. If one promise
   of God to one of his people should fail, that one failure would suffice
   to mar the veracity of the Lord to all eternity; they would publish it
   in the "Diabolical Gazette," and in every street of Tophet they would
   howl it out, "God has failed. God has broken his promise. God has
   ceased to be faithful to his people." It would then be a horrible
   reproach'"He trusted in God to deliver him, but he did not deliver
   him."

   Much emphasis lies in its being in the present tense: "He trusted in
   God that he would deliver him: let him deliver him now." I see Thee, O
   Lord Jesus, thou art now in the wilderness, where the fiend is saying,
   "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread."
   No. Thou art nailed to the tree; thine enemies have hemmed thee in. The
   legionaries of Rome are at the foot of the cross, the scribes and
   Pharisees and raging Jews compass thee about. There is no escape from
   death for thee! Hence their cry'"Let him deliver him now." Ah, brothers
   and sisters! this is how Satan assails us, using our present and
   pressing tribulations as the barbs of his arrows. Yet here also there
   is reason and logic in the challenge.

   If God does not deliver his servants at one time as well as another he
   has not kept his promise. For a man of truth is always true, and a
   promise once given always stands. A promise cannot be broken now and
   then, and yet the honour of the person giving it be maintained by his
   keeping it at other times. The word of a true man stands always good:
   it is good now. This is logic, bitter logic, cold steel logic, logic
   which seems to cut right down your backbone and cleave your chine. "He
   trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him
   now." Yet this hard logic can be turned to comfort. I told you a story
   the other day of the brother in Guy's Hospital to whom the doctors said
   that he must undergo an operation which was extremely dangerous. They
   gave him a week to consider whether he would submit to it. He was
   troubled for his young wife and children, and for his work for the
   Lord. A friend left a bunch of flowers for him, with this verse as its
   motto, "He trusted in God; let him deliver him now." "Yes," he thought,
   "now". In prayer he cast himself upon the Lord, and felt in his heart,
   "Come on, doctors, I am ready for you." When the next morning came, he
   refused to take chloroform, for he desired to go to heaven in his
   senses. He bore the operation manfully, and he is yet alive. "He
   trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him" then and there, and the
   Lord did so. In this lies the brunt of the battle.

   A Christian man may be beaten in business, he may fail to meet all
   demands, and then Satan yells, "Let him deliver him now." The poor man
   has been out of work for two or three months, tramping the streets of
   London until he has worn out his boots; he has been brought to his last
   penny. I think I hear the laugh of the Prince of Darkness as he cries,
   "Let him deliver him now." Or else the believer is very ill in body,
   and low in spirit, and then Satan howls, "Let him deliver him now."
   Some of us have been in very trying positions. We were moved with
   indignation because of deadly error, and we spoke plainly, but men
   refused to hear. Those we relied upon deserted us; good men sought
   their own ease and would not march with us, and we had to bear
   testimony for despised truth alone, until we were ourselves despised.
   Then the adversary shouted, "Let him deliver him now." Be it so! We do
   not refuse the test. Our God whom we serve will deliver us. We will not
   bow down to modern thought nor worship the image which human wisdom has
   set up. Our God is God both of hills and of valleys. He will not fail
   his servants, albeit that for a while he forbears that he may try their
   faith. We dare accept the test, and say, "Let him deliver us now."

   Beloved friends, we need not be afraid of this taunt if it is brought
   by adversaries; for, after all, no test will come to us apart from any
   malice, for it is inevitable. All the faith you have will be tried. I
   can see you heaping it up. How rich you are! What a pile of faith!
   Friend, you are almost perfect! Open the furnace door and put the heap
   in. Do you shrink? See how it shrivels! Is there anything left? Bring
   hither a magnifying glass. Is this all that is left? Yes, this is all
   that remains of the heap. You say, "I trusted in God." Yes, but you had
   reason to cry, "Lord, help my unbelief." Brethren, we have not a tithe
   of the faith we think we have. But whether or not, all our faith must
   be tested. God builds no ships but what he sends to sea. In living, in
   losing, in working, in weeping, in suffering, or in striving, God will
   find a fitting crucible for every single grain of the precious faith
   which he has given us. Then he will come to us and say'You trusted in
   God that he would deliver you, and you shall be delivered now. How you
   will open your eyes as you see the Lord's hand of deliverance! What a
   man of wonders you will be when you tell in your riper years to the
   younger people how the Lord delivered you! Why, there are some
   Christians I know of who, like the ancient mariner, could detain even a
   wedding guest with their stories of God's wonders on the deep.

   Yes, the test will come again and again. May the gibes of adversaries
   only make us ready for the sterner ordeals of the judgment to come. O
   my dear friends, examine your religion. You have a great deal of it,
   some of you; but what of its quality? Can your religion stand the test
   of poverty, and scandal, and scorn? Can it stand the test of scientific
   sarcasm and learned contempt? Will your religion stand the test of long
   sickness of body and depression of spirit caused by weakness? What are
   you doing amid the common trials of life? What will you do in the
   swellings of Jordan? Examine well your faith, since all hangs there.
   Some of us who have lain for weeks together, peering through the thin
   veil which parts us from the unseen, have been made to feel that
   nothing will suffice us but a promise which will answer the taunt, "Let
   him deliver us now."

   III. I shall finish, in the third place, dear friends, by noticing The
   Answer to the test. God does deliver those who trust in him. God's
   interposition for the faithful is not a dream, but a substantial
   reality. "Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord
   delivereth him out of them all." All history proves the faithfulness of
   God. Those who trust God have been in all sorts of troubles; but they
   have always been delivered. They have been bereaved. What a horrible
   bereavement was that which fell to the lot of Aaron, when his two sons
   were struck dead for their profanity in the presence of God! "And Aaron
   held his peace"! What grace was there! Thus will the Lord sustain you
   also should he take away the desire of your eyes with a stroke. Grave
   after grave has the good man visited till it seemed that his whole race
   was buried, and yet his heart has not been broken; but he has bowed his
   soul before the will of the ever-blessed One. Thus has the Lord
   delivered his afflicted one by sustaining him. In other ways the bush
   has burned, and yet has not been consumed. Remember the multiplied and
   multiform trials of Job. Yet God sustained him to the end so that he
   did not charge God foolishly, but held fast his faith in the Most High.
   If ever you are called to the afflictions of Job you will also be
   called to the sustaining grace of Job. Some of God's servants have been
   defeated in their testimony. They have borne faithful witness for God,
   but they have been rejected of men. It has been their lot, like
   Cassandra, to prophesy the truth, but not to be believed. Such was
   Jeremiah, who was born to a heritage of scorn from those whose benefit
   he sought. Yet he was delivered. He shrank not from being faithful