__________________________________________________________________ Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 30: 1884 Creator(s): Spurgeon, Charles Haddon (1834-1892) CCEL Subjects: All; Sermons; LC Call no: BV42 LC Subjects: Practical theology Worship (Public and Private) Including the church year, Christian symbols, liturgy, prayer, hymnology Times and Seasons. The church year __________________________________________________________________ The New Year's Guest (No. 1757) A SERMON PREACHED ON LORDS-DAY AFTERNOON, DECEMBER 16, 1883, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT MENTONE, BEFORE THE COMMUNION, TO A SMALL COMPANY OF BELIEVERS. "I was a stranger, andyou took Me in." Matthew 25:35. "But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name." John 1:12. I LATELY received a New Year's card which suggested to me the topic on which I am about to speak to you. The designer of the card has, with holy insight, seen the relation of the two texts to each other and rendered both of them eminently suggestive by placing them together. There is freshness in the thought that, by receiving Jesus as a stranger, our believing hospitality works in us a Divine capacity and we thereby receive power to become the sons of God. The connection suggested between the two Inspired words is really existent and by no means strained or fanciful, as you will see by reading the context of the passage in John--"He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not." So He was a stranger in the world which He Himself had made! "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." So He was a stranger among the people whom He had set apart for His own by many deeds of mercy! "But as many as received Him"--that is to say, gave entertainment to this blessed Stranger--"to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name." I thought that this might prove to be a suitable and salutary passage to discourse upon at the beginning of a New Year, for this is a season of hospitality and some among our friends will think it well to commence a New Year by saying to the Lord Jesus, "Come in, You blessed of the Lord; why do You stand outside?" This Divine stranger has knocked at many doors till His head is wet with dew and His locks with the drops of the night. And now I trust there are some who will rise up and open unto Him so that at the end of the year they may say with Job, "The stranger did not lodge in the street: but I opened my doors to the traveler." Verily, in so doing, you will not only entertain angels unawares, but you will be receiving the Lord of angels! The day in which you receive Him shall be the beginning of years to you--it shall be the first of a series of years which, whether they are few or many, shall be, each one, in the best sense happy! I would say a few words, first, about the Stranger taken in and then, about the Stranger making strangers into sons. I. THE STRANGER TAKEN IN--this is a simile given to us by our Lord, Himself--a royal metaphor presented to us from His own Throne. Note that the passage begins, "I was hungry and you gave Me meat: I was thirsty and you gave Me drink." These are two good works which prove faith in Jesus and love of Him and, therefore, they are accepted, recorded and rewarded. But it is a distinct and memorable growth when it comes to, "I was a stranger, and you took Me in." A place to stay is a larger gift than refreshment at the door. It is good, believingly, to do anything for Christ, however small, but it is a much better thing to give entertainment to Jesus within our souls, admitting Him into our minds and hearts. We have not come to the full of what our Lord has a right to expect of us until we have given from our stores to Him by benefiting His poor and aiding His cause--then we deliberately open the doors of our entire being to Him and install Him in our souls as an honored Guest! We must not be satisfied with giving Him cups of cold water, or morsels of bread, but we must "constrain Him, saying, Abide with us." Our hearts must be as a Bethany, where, like Mary, Martha and Lazarus, we give our Master a grand welcome! Or as the house of Obededom where the Ark of the Lord may dwell in peace. Our prayer must be that of Abraham's, "My Lord, if now I have found favor in Your sight, pass not away, I pray You, from Your servant." The most important word of our text is stranger and its light casts a hue of strangeness over the whole passage. Here are three strange things. The first is, that the Lord Jesus should be a Stranger here below. Is it not a strange thing that, "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him," and yet He was a stranger in it? Yet is it not a whit more strange than true, for when He was born there was no room for Him in the inn? Inns had open doors for ordinary strangers, but not for Him, for He was a greater Stranger than any around Him. It was Bethlehem of David, the seat of the ancient family to which He belonged, but alas, He had become "a Stranger unto His brethren, and an alien unto His mother's children"! And no door was opened unto Him. Soon there was no safe room for Him in the village, itself, for Herod the king sought the young Child's life and He must flee into Egypt, to be a Stranger in a strange land and worse than a stranger--an exile and a fugitive from the land where, by birthright, He was king! On His return and in His public appearing, there was still no room for Him among the mass of the people. He came to His own Israel--to whom Prophets had revealed Him and types had set Him forth-- but they would have none of Him. "He was despised and rejected of men." He was the Man "whom men abhorred," whom they so much detested that they cried, "Away with Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" Yes, the world so little knew Him that they must necessarily hang up the Lord of Glory on a Cross and put "the Holy One and the Just" to a felon's death! Jew and Gentile alike conspired to prove how truly He was a stranger--the Jew said, "As for this Fellow, we know not from where He is." And the Roman asked Him, "Where are You from?" Now, that Christ should be such a Stranger was, indeed, a sadly singular thing, and yet we need not wonder, for how should a wicked, selfish world know Jesus or receive Him? The Lord's own had been forewarned of this in ancient type, for long before the Lord appeared in the flesh, He had shown Himself as a Stranger to the faithful. He came in angelic form to Abraham and thus we read the story--"And he lifted up his eyes and looked and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground. And said, My Lord, if now I have found favor in Your sight, pass not away, I pray you, from Your servant: Let a little water, I pray You, be fetched, and wash Your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort you your hearts." The Lord, who stands out in the center of the three, was a Stranger, and the father of the faithful entertained Him, in type of what all the faithful of every age will do. This is He of whom Jeremiah said, "O the hope of Israel, the Savior thereof in time of trouble, why should You be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turns aside to tarry for a night?" Yet with this fair warning, it still remains sadly singular that, coming on an errand of mercy, our Lord should find so scant a welcome; should be so little known; so seldom recognized, so harshly entreated. Truly as Egypt made Israel to serve with rigor, so have we made this patient Stranger to serve with our sins and wearied Him with our iniquities. The Son of Man had not where to lay His head. Luke says the barbarians showed Paul and his friends no little kind-ness--but men were worse than barbarians to their Savior! Shall the servant be better treated than his master, or the disciple than his Lord? "Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knows us not, because it knew Him not." Another strange thing is that we should be able to receive the Lord Jesus as a stranger. He has gone into Glory and will He always say of us, "I was a stranger and you took Me in"? Yes, He will say so, if we render to Him that spiritual hospitality of which He here speaks. This can be done in several ways. Brothers and Sisters in Christ, for such I trust you are, we can receive Christ as a stranger when Believers are few and despised in any place. We may sojourn where worldliness abounds and religion is at a discount--and it may need some courage to swear our faith in Jesus. Then have we an opportunity of winning the approving word, "I was a stranger, and you took Me in." There is a sure proof of love in receiving our Lord as a stranger. If the Queen desired, again, to visit Mentone, every villa would be gladly placed at her disposal! But were she driven from her empire and reduced to be a poor stranger, hospitality to her would be a greater test of loyalty than it is today. When Jesus is in low esteem in any place, and He sometimes is so, let us be all the more bold to acknowledge our allegiance to Him. I fear that many professors take their color from their company and are fellows with the irreligious and the unbelieving. These cry, "Hosanna," with the multitude of the Lord's admirers, but in heart they have no love to the Son of God. Our loyalty to Christ must never be a matter of latitude and longitude--we must love Him in every land, honor Him when the multitude disregard Him--and we must speak of Him when all forget Him. Again, we have the Lord's own warrant for saying that if we show brotherly kindness to a poor saint we entertain the Lord, Himself. If we see Christians in need, or despised and ridiculed and we say, "You are my Brother in Christ. It matters not what garb you wear, the name of Christ is named on you and I suffer with you. I will relieve your needs and share your reproach," then the glorious Lord, Himself, will say to us at the last, "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these, My brethren, you have done it unto Me." It does seem passing strange, though I thus speak, that you and I should still be able to entertain our Lord and yet it is so! We do not wonder that the righteous, with a humble truthfulness exclaim, "Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You? Or thirsty and gave You drink? When did we see You a stranger and took You in?" Neither are we free from admiring surprise. We also cry, "Will God in very deed dwell with men upon the earth? Will He accept hospitality at our hands?" It is even so! Again, we may entertain the Stranger, Christ, by holding fast to His faithful Word when the doctrines taught by Himself and His Apostles are in ill repute. Nowadays the Truth which God has revealed seems of less account with men than their own thoughts and dreams! And they who still believe Christ's faithful Word shall have it said of them, "I was a stranger and you took Me in." When you see the revealed Truth of God, as it were, wandering about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, and no man says a good word for it, then is the hour come to acknowledge it because it is Christ's Truth--and to prove your fidelity by counting the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt! Oh, scorn on those who only believe what everybody else believes because they must be in the swim with the majority! These are but dead fish borne of the current and they will be washed away to a shameful end! If living fish swim against the stream, so do living Christians pursue Christ's Truth against the set and current of the times, defying alike the ignorance and the culture of the age! It is the Believer's honor, the chivalry of a Christian, to be the steadfast friend of the Truth of God when all other men have forsaken it. So, also, when Christ's precepts are disregarded, His day forgotten and His worship neglected, we can come in, take up our cross and follow Him--and so receive Him as a stranger. To be sure, some will say, "Those people are fanatical Methodists, or strait-laced Presbyterians," but what of that? It matters nothing to us what the world thinks of us, for we are crucified to it and it to us! If our Lord has laid down a rule, it is ours to follow it and find rest unto our souls in so doing! Yes, and a special rest in doing it, when by so doing we are securing that blessed sentence, "I was a stranger, and you took Me in." Death, itself, for His sake, would be a small matter if thereby we secured that priceless word! Once more, that spiritual life which is the innermost receiving of Christ--that new life which no man knows but he that has received it; that quickening of the Spirit which makes the Christian as much superior to ordinary men as men are above dumb, driven cattle--if we receive that blessed gift, then shall we with emphasis be entertaining our Lord as a stranger. Profession is abundant, but the secret life is rare. The name to live is everywhere, but where is the life fully seen? To be rather than to talk; to enjoy rather than to pretend; to have Christ truly within--this is not every man's attainment, but those who have it are among the God-like ones, the true sons of God! A third strange thing is the fact that Jesus will deign to dwell in our hearts. Such a One as Jesus in such a one as I am? The King of Glory in a sinner's bosom? This is a miracle of Divine Grace, yet the manner of it is simple enough. A humble, repenting faith opens the door and Jesus enters the heart at once. Love shuts the door with the hand of Penitence and holy Watchfulness keeps out intruders. Thus is the promise made good, "If any man hears My voice, and opens the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with Me." Meditation, contemplation, prayer, praise and daily obedience keep the house in order for the Lord! And then follows the consecration of our entire nature to His use as a temple--the dedication of spirit, soul, body and all their powers, as holy vessels of the sanctuary! It is the writing of, "Holiness unto the Lord," upon all that is about us till our everyday garments become vestments, our meals sacraments, our life a ministry and ourselves priests unto the Most High! Oh, the supreme condescension of this indwelling! He never dwelt in angels, but He resides in a contrite spirit! There is a world of meaning in the Redeemer's words, "I in them." May we know them as Paul translates them, "Christ in you, the hope of glory." II. A few words must suffice upon THE STRANGER MAKING STRANGERS INTO SONS. "As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name." Yes, Beloved, the moment Christ is received into our hearts by faith, we are no more strangers and foreigners, but of the household of God, for the Lord adopts us and puts us among His children! It is a splendid act of Divine Grace, that He should take us, who were heirs of wrath, and make us heirs of God, joint-heirs with Jesus Christ! Such honor have all the saints, even all that believe on His name. There is more to follow--the designation of sons brings with it a birth into the actual condition of sons. The privilege brings with it the power; the name is backed up and warranted by the nature--for the Spirit of God enters into us, when Christ comes, and causes us to be born again. To be adopted without being born again would be a lame blessing, but when we are both adopted and regenerated then have we the fullness of sonship and the Grace is made perfect towards us. "Except a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." And this mysterious birth, which comes with the reception of Christ, makes us free, not only in the kingdom of God, but in the house and the heart of God! Don't forget that when the Lord Jesus enters our hearts, there springs up between us and Him a living, loving, lasting union which seals our sonship--for as we become one with the Son, we must be sons, also. Jesus puts it, "My Father and your Father." It is the Spirit of His Son in our hearts by which we cry, "Abba, Father." "He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit." We are unto the Father even as Jesus is, as He says, "You have loved them as You have loved Me." Thus you see that in receiving Jesus, we receive, as the Revised Version puts it, "the right to become the sons of God." Yet once more--the practical reception of Jesus into the life becomes a proof to ourselves and others that we are the sons of God, for it creates in us a likeness to God which is apparent and unquestionable. For look, although Jehovah, our God, is incomprehensible and Infinite, and His Glory is inconceivable in its splendor, yet this fact we know of Him, that in His bosom lies His Son, with whom He is always well-pleased. When we receive Jesus into our bosom, as one with us, and when our joy and delight are in Him, we do, in that matter, become like the Father. Having thus, with the Father, the same Object of love and delight, we are brought into fellowship with Him and begin to walk in the Light of God as He is in the Light. A small window will let in the great sun--much more will Jesus, as the blessed meeting place between our souls and God--let in the Life, Light and Love of God into our souls, making us like God! Moreover, having received Jesus as a stranger, we feel a tenderness towards all strangers, for we see in their condition some resemblance to our own. We have love to all who, like ourselves, are strangers with God and sojourners, as all our fathers were, and thus again we are made like God, of whom it is written, "The Lord preserves the strangers." Our God is "kind unto the unthankful and to the evil." Our Lord Jesus, therefore, bade us be the children of our Father which is in Heaven, "For He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." By becoming doers of good, we are known as children of the good God. "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." A man is a son of God when he lives beyond himself by a thoughtful care for others; when his soul is not confined within the narrow circle of his own ribs, but goes abroad to bless those around him, however unworthy they may be. True children of God never see a lost one without seeking to save him; never hear of misery without longing to bestow comfort. "You know the heart of a stranger," said the Lord to Israel. And so do we, for we were once captives, ourselves, and even now our choicest Friend is still a stranger, for whose sake we love all suffering men. When Christ is in us, we search out opportunities for bringing prodigals, strangers and outcasts to the great Father's house. Our love goes out to all mankind and our hands are closed against none if it is so that we are made like God, as little children are like their father. Oh, sweet result of entertaining the Son of God by faith! He dwells in us and we gaze upon Him in holy fellowship so that, "we all with open face beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." "Love is of God and everyone that loves is born of God and knows God." May we daily feel the power of Jesus within our hearts, transforming our whole character and making us to be more and more manifestly the children of God! When our Lord asks, concerning us, "What manner of men were they?" may even His enemies and ours be compelled to answer, "As You are, so were they--each one resembled the children of a King." Then shall Jesus be admired in all them that believe, for men shall see in the children, the Divine Stranger's handiwork. __________________________________________________________________ The Pastor's Life Wrapped Up with His People's Steadfastness a Pleading Reminder for the New Year (No. 1758) DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "Now we live, if you standfast in the Lord." 1 Thessalonians 3:8. MINISTERS who are really sent of God greatly rejoice in the spiritual prosperity of their people. If they see God's Word prosper, they prosper. If the Church of God is blessed, they are blessed. Their life is wrapped up in the spiritual life of their people. Never is the servant of God so full of delight as when he sees that the Holy Spirit is visiting his hearers, making them to know the Lord, and confirming them in that heavenly knowledge. On the other hand, if God does not bless the word of His servants, it is like death to them! To be preaching and to have no blessing makes them heavy of heart--the chariot wheels are taken off and they drag heavily along--they seem to have no power nor liberty. They get depressed and they go back to their Master with this complaint, "Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" He revives and cheers them--and they come back to their service--but if they do not see a manifest blessing resting upon the people, they cry and sigh and are like dying men. If the Lord willed to do so, He might have made robots to preach and these would only need to be wound up and allowed to run down again! They would have known no feelings of joy or of sorrow and would have been invulnerable to the arrows of grief. We have heard of the Iron Duke. Iron preachers would have been enduring instruments and would never have been laid aside by mental depression. But the sympathy of the preacher is God's great instrument for blessing the hearer! If you read a sermon in a book it is good, but if you hear it preached fresh from the man's heart, it is far more effective. There is a living fellow-feeling about it, and that is the power which God has, in all ages, been pleased to use--the power of a spirit which He has made sensitive with affec-tion--so sensitive that it rises to joy when its affectionate purpose is accomplished and sinks to depths of grief when that purpose fails. This, I take it, is what the Apostle means when he says, "Now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord." The people can make the pastor happy beyond expression by their being rich in Grace and happy in Christ! But they can make him miserable beyond all description if they are either unstable or insincere. Dearly Beloved, I have often rejoiced in God as I have seen the work of the Spirit among you. It is no small joy that for many years we have never been without an increase to the Church. With few exceptions we have never gathered at our monthly communions without receiving a considerable number into our membership. During these years some have turned back, to our great sorrow, and some have flagged, to our solemn grief. But others have persistently carried on the work of God and have developed gifts and graces which have made them qualified for larger spheres. At this day those at home come behind in no gifts and those abroad do not forget the hallowed training of Zion. In every part of the earth some are engaged in holy service who have gone out from this Church. For all this, our heart must be grateful. But these are evil times. These are times, the like of which I have not seen before, in which the foundations are removed and "what shall the righteous do?" The winds are out. The tacklings are loosed. The mariners reel to and fro! Everything seems to be drifting. Men know not where they are! Half the professing Christians of the present day do not know their heads from their heels and the half that do know seem inclined to take to their heels and run rather than stand steadfast in the faith and wait till evil days are over! It is time that we spoke to you concerning steadfastness--that you be not like idle boys that leap hedges and ditches after every nest that silly birds may choose to make--but that you keep to the King's Highway of holiness and truth and hold fast to the doctrines and the practices which are taught us in the Word of God. I say to you by this discourse, "Now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord." It is a matter of life and death to us that you should be rooted, grounded, and settled. Notice first, that some are not in the Lord. Secondly, some appear to be in the Lord, but they are not standing fast. And thirdly, that some in the Lord standfast in the Lord and these are our life--"Now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord." I. First, SOME ARE NOT IN THE LORD AT ALL. A solid mass of infidelity and godlessness hems us in. Our heart is heavy because this great city is determined to shut its eyes to the Light of God . There are streets upon streets in which none attend the House of God and we have it on credible information that in certain districts if one man in a street is seen to go regularly to a place of worship, his neighbors mark him as a singular being. The home-born Londoner of the working classes, as a rule, has no care for a place of worship. If I were living in the country, I think I would be content with but half a wage sooner than to come and dwell in this ungodly place! Our members try to bring up their children in God's fear, but they are often compelled to quit their homes because of the filthy conduct of those who defile our streets. Yet this is not my present theme. Our greater sorrow is that there are many who hear the Gospel and are not in the Lord! We are not sorry that they should come to hear the Word of God-- would to God that all Christless souls would hear of Christ! But we are sorry that they have come month after month, year after year, and have received no saving benefit. I still meet, here and there, with those who tell me, "I used to hear you in Park Street and Exeter Hall," and yet I gather from them that they are undecided. I have small hope for them if 30 years of ministry have not brought them to Christ! At any rate, these many years add to the dreadful probability that they will continue to make the Word of God to be unto themselves a savor of death unto death. If I could pick out of this audience, tonight, by Infallible guidance, one man or one woman and could point to that person and say, "Such a one will certainly go down to Hell to endure the everlasting wrath of God"--and if you knew that I was speaking like a Prophet from God and that it was certainly so--you would turn round and look with deepest grief upon that doomed soul! You would shudder to be sitting in the same pew! And yet though, thank God, we may not speak with that certainty, the probability grows so great as almost to amount to a certainty concerning those upon whom entreaties have been wasted, upon whom expostulations have been wasted, by whom invitations have been refused, that they will continue to harden their hearts until at last they sink into the place where mercy never enters! Ah, Lord, these are heavy tidings and Your saints feel them! I know I am speaking to many who deeply sympathize with me when I say that the thought of this is a worm that makes our joys decay. I mean the thought that some of you contribute to God's work and are, in many points, excellent--and yet you lack the one thing necessary--and after having joined with God's people in outward acts of devotion you will be driven from His Presence forever! O Infinite Mercy, grant that it may not be so, but may these men and women, even now, be led to believe in Jesus and be saved! We die when we think of those who are not in the Lord at all! How it would revive us if we could see them saved! If there is a deadening influence about the thought that some few among us are not converted, think of what the effect must be upon a minister's mind if he shall have labored long and seen no fruit. There may be instances in which a man has been faithful, but not successful--places where, for a time, the dew falls not and the softening influences of the Spirit are not given. Then the soil breaks the plowshare and the weary ox is ready to faint. I began to preach while yet a youth, scarcely 16 years of age, but before I had preached half a dozen times I saw persons affected by those sermons. I pined to find some heart that had looked to Jesus while I had preached Him--and I have photographed upon my memory, at this very moment, a very humble clay-walled cottage which seemed to me to be a sacred spot, for I was told by a venerable deacon that it was the house of a poor woman who had sought and found the Savior through my ministry. I did not let the week conclude till I had seen her, for I hungered for the joy of meeting with one whom I had brought to Christ! If I found one soul converted, I took heart and looked for more. Brothers, are you working for Jesus? Then you know what it is to feel the shadow of death when you do not win a soul! Does it not seem hard to be knocking for Christ against a door that never opens, but has fresh bolts put on it to keep it closed? Be not ashamed of yourself because you feel distressed--it proves your capacity for being used. By-and-by God will bless you and then you will understand the text, "Now we live." You will find that your pulse is quickened, your heart's blood warmed--you will be filled with a more Divine life as you rise nearer to the dignity of a savior of men and taste the unspeakable joys for which Christ laid down His life! II. We notice, secondly, that THERE ARE SOME WHO PROFESS TO BE IN CHRIST, BUT THEY CERTAINLY ARE NOT STANDING FAST. This is a Marah--a bitter well. This is a source of heartbreak and of sore tribulation to the servant of God in whom the Spirit of God dwells, namely, that, first, there are many over whom we rejoice who, nevertheless, altogether apostatize. Use the best judgment that you can, there will be some added to a Church who are not really the Lord's people. They run well--"What hinders them that they should not obey the truth?" They appear to begin in the Spirit, yet, by-and-by, they attempt to be made perfect in the flesh. Oh, foolish ones, "Who has bewitched you?" They seem to be all that we want them to be, for a time, but soon they are nothing that they should be. And this does not happen merely during the first six months or so, otherwise we might set them on probation, but, alas, it has happened to men that have grown gray in the Church--esteemed and honored-- and yet they have fallen till their names cannot be mentioned without sorrow! We can never feel sufficiently grateful to our Lord for allowing a Judas to be among the 12, for thus, He, Himself, bore what has been to His servants the most crushing of grief! The man that went to the House of God in company with us has betrayed, not only us, but our Master, and the Truth of God. This has often happened in the history of the Church and, therefore, we may expect it. But whenever it comes, it is a stab to the very soul! Paul, I think, if he were here, would say, "Now we die, because these men do not stand fast in the Lord." Happy am I to have been so largely spared this heart-wounding calamity! Oh, my Brothers and Sisters, we live, if you stand fast in the Lord! But it is as death to us if you turn aside! But there are other forms of instability. Many do not behave in such a way that we could remove their names from the Church roll, but they decline in Grace. Far too many grow worldly and it is especially the case when they grow wealthy. Well did one say to me the other day who has risen to riches, "I almost regret that I have ever changed my position, for I find my difficulties wonderfully increased--my difficulties especially with my family. They ask for things, now, in the form of amusements which they never would have thought of if I had not become wealthy." When a man toils and moves to heap riches together, he is laboriously endeavoring to make it difficult for himself to be saved. Yet some think that the main objective of life is to load themselves so that they cannot easily follow after Christ. It is poor progress to grow rich in gold but poor in Grace. We see others whom we look upon as likely to be leaders and helpers, who, if not from this cause, yet from some other, are diverted from the work of God. We do not, now, expect to see them at Prayer Meeting--it would be rather astonishing if they came! We do not dare expect them to conduct a tract society, or a lay-preaching association, or a Sunday school class, for they are careless as to the salvation of souls. We know some who were once full of zeal, but now they are neither cold nor hot. These may seem trifles to the thoughtless, but they are not trifles to those who watch after their souls and will have to give an account! Whenever I have seen it, I have said to myself, "How much of this is due to me? How much must I blame myself for this?" And one cannot answer that question immediately. Many thoughts and searching considerations are needed, but, believe me, there is nothing which eats more like a sharp acid into a man's inmost soul to cause him a daily grief than when he sees those that profess to be servants of Christ not answering to the processes of Grace, but acting like worldly men! There are some of whom I must speak even weeping because they vex our spirit by their neglect of their Master's business. In these days there are other forms of this lack of steadfastness and they come up in this way. Some are always shifting their doctrinal opinions. Within the last 10 years we have had the most remarkable selection of abominations in the way of new doctrines that ever cursed our human race! If all the heresies that have been put forth were true, I do not know whether there would remain either Heaven, or Hell, or earth, or God, or man--for all these have been removed by the foul finger of doubt! Some go in not so much for disbeliefs as for fanaticisms and, believing nothing one day, the world is to believe everything the next! We have already miracles restored to us and a daring person has arisen who assumes the name of Christ! A bottomless pit of fanaticism is yawning. Hell from beneath is vomiting all manner of absurdities to vex the Church of God. Now is the time for steadfastness! It is a blessed thing for a man to know what he believes and to hold to it--to have no ear for novelty-mongers, but to say--"If it is new, it is not true. I have my colors nailed to the mast and I cannot take them down." We know some who are not steadfast in their service of Christ. When a man claims to be perfect, he is wholly use- less to us--he is sure to leave his work. He needs all his time to admire his own perfections! It is not possible for him to be of any further service among such poor sinners as we are--and off he goes to stand by himself and say, "God, I thank you, that I am not as other men are." I would a great deal sooner remain imperfect and be of some use to God, than brag of my excellence and do nothing! Brothers, stick to your work for God! If you preach, preach on! If called to teach in the Sunday school, at your peril leave your class! If God has bid you go from door to door with tracts, stick to it, and when the Lord Himself shall come, you cannot be found in a better position than in that of discharging the offices to which He has called you! He would not have us stand with our mouths wide open gazing into the air! The best position for a servant, when his Master comes, is to be found doing his Master's will. We live, if you stand fast in the Lord as to doctrine and as to holy service, and especially we live if the Lord keeps you, dear Brothers and Sisters, true in the matter of holy conversation. I call that holiness which minds its work at home. I call that holiness which makes a kind father, a true brother, an obedient child and makes me mind my daily calling and see that I make others happy and so commend the Gospel to them. See to it that your personal characters in secret before God, at home before your friends and outside in the world where eagle eyes watch to perceive your infirmities, are spotless and unblameable! For then we live! But when men can turn round and fling in our teeth, "These are your Christians, and they deal as others deal and talk as others talk," then down goes our spirit and we wish we could die! It is life to lead a band of earnest steadfast men who know the Truth of God and live the Truth of God and are ready to die for the Truth of God! This is an honor of which we feel we are unworthy, though we aspire to it. But to lead inconsistent, dubious, half-hearted, idle people onward to some imaginary goal is a doom compared with which death, itself, is delight. Now, dear Brothers and Sisters, the reason why every true minister sinks in heart when those who seem to be in Christ do not stand fast is this--unless men are steadfast, the Church is weakened. The strength of any Church must be the aggregate of the strength of all the members put together. Therefore if you have a set of weak Brethren, you multiply the weakness of each one by the number of the membership. What a hospital is the result! If each Believer is strong, then the whole Church is strong. And that is our desire--we pine to see the Church of God vigorous in her holy calling! If Believers are steadfast, then God is glorified. Transient piety brings no glory to God! God is not honored by that religion which is taken up today and laid down tomorrow. It is only by perseverance--yes, and perseverance to the end, that glory is brought to God. The minister is disappointed of his reasonable expectations when men do not stand fast. He is like a farmer who sees the seed grow and just when it is about to yield him a crop, he spies out black smut and his wheat is blighted. He may well weep over the fact that it went so far and yet so utterly failed! Judge, you mothers, what it is to nurse your children till they are near to manhood and then to see them sink into the grave. You have wished, perhaps, that you had been childless sooner than see your dear offspring taken from you. Very similar is the sorrow of the true pastor--when he expects that God will be glorified by his converts, they turn aside and his work is lost. Or if they do not turn aside unto perdition, yet if they are unstable, their joy is lessened and their usefulness is marred. And this is no small thing. We live in your joy and if you miss it, we grieve for your incalculable loss, for believe me, there is no joy like the highest form of Christianity--and to lose this is a catastrophe! The beginnings of piety are often bitter--and difficult advances are often made through the sea and through the terrible wilderness--but the higher stage of piety is the Beulah land from which you look into the Paradise of God, yourself living on the borders of it! If any child of God should miss this highest joy, it is a most heavy grief to those who watch for their souls. Be you steadfast, for so we live. III. Then THERE ARE SOME WHO ARE IN THE LORD AND WHO STAND FAST IN THE LORD--and these are our life! They are our life because their holy conduct fills us with living confidence. I tell you, Brothers and Sisters, when I have seen the holy generosity of members of this Church making sacrifices to serve the Lord. When I have seen the holy courage of Brothers and Sisters standing up for Jesus and bearing reproach for the sake of principle--and speaking out the Truth of God in defiance of ridicule. When, in fact, I have seen many things that I will not mention now--I have said to myself, "These are fruits that could not have been produced except by the Truth and by the Spirit of God!" Then have I felt very confident in the Gospel which has been so adorned by your actions. Certain of our Beloved elders and deacons passed away, to our deep sorrow, not very long ago, and when I came down from their death chambers, I did not require any further argument to prove the religion of the Lord Jesus--the Holy Spirit set His seal upon the Truth by their joyful departures. If infidels had met me as I left those choice deathbeds, I would not have argued with them for a single moment--I would have simply laughed them to scorn--for I would have felt like a man that has looked at the sun till he cannot bear the blaze of it any longer--and then hears a blind man swear that there is no sun! With what confidence we speak when holy lives and joyful deaths prove the Gospel! Again, how often have I seen fears which have crept into my soul driven away by my dear people! This is a time of fear, when all Solomon's men that keep watch about his bed had need, each one, to carry his sword drawn because of fear in the night. Yet, when I have seen God's people steadfast, my fears have fled! Yes, I have said the Lord keeps the feet of His saints. He is as a wall of fire round about His own. If it were possible, the powers of evil would deceive the very elect--but it is not possible! The saints are steadfast and each steadfast one cheers his minister and helps him to lay aside his anxieties and to rejoice in the certainty that the Gospel will triumph! The steadfast become our life by stimulating us to greater exertion. I believe that the steadfast help the minister to a high degree of usefulness. When the man of God sees his people living to God at a high rate of piety, he speaks many things which otherwise he never would have spoken. He glories in the work of God and with no bated breath or trace of hesitation, he points to his people and cries, "See what God has done!" He exults over his converts with a holy joy. He cries, "See what they used to be and what they are now! See how life has been made to spring up in the midst of death and how the Light of God shines, where before, darkness reigned." Take away the living evidences of Divine power from the Church and you lower the preacher's spirit at once--and deprive him of power to demonstrate his commission by the signs that follow it. I am sure, dear Friends, you would have a deadening influence on me if you were not steadfast in holiness. How can I preach up holiness if someone sitting in the gallery looks down and says, "Yonder is one of his members and a worse thief I do not know!" Can I preach up the glory of Grace when someone cries, "Fine talk, but I saw one of the members of his Church half drunk the other night! Is that what is meant by the free spirit?" If behind me there is a regiment of deceivers and hypocrites, my position is horrible. Surely I had better give over the preaching of the Gospel when you give over the living of the Gospel! My task, in itself difficult, is rendered absolutely impossible if while I preach one thing, you live another! Happily it has not been so among you and you will not permit it to be so in the future. May God of Infinite Mercy grant to me that I may live because Christ lives in you! That I may be strong because I can fall back upon you as my "living Epistles, known and read of all men!" Of godly established Christians, I may quote the words of David, "Happy is the man that has his quiver full of them: he shall speak with the enemies in the gate." The best answer to all the opponents of the old-fashioned Gospel is the godly zeal of an earnest Church. "Now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord." I had many things to say to you, but my time has gone. Only may God the Holy Spirit dwell with the preacher that he may preach the Lord Jesus and not himself. And may the Spirit of God dwell with you, dear members of this Church, that you may live under His influence and may bear His fruit unto the Glory of God! As for you that are members of other Churches, may the Lord make you to be to your own pastors, their joy and crown! It will be ill for you if, in the Day of Judgment, they have to give an ill account of you. We do not think enough about that trial which each man will have to undergo, or of that account which all under shepherds will have to render in the Last Great Day. It is written, "If the watchman warns them not, they shall perish, but their blood will I require at the watchman's hands." Oh, my Master, when You search my garments for the blood of souls, grant that I may be found clear of the blood of all men! What a Heaven this will be! Remember that other Word of God, "If the watchman warns them, and they take no heed of the warning, they shall perish; but he has delivered his soul." May every one of us take care to deliver his soul! It is my highest prayer to be able to make full proof of my ministry, that in all of you I may have an unquestioned testimony to my lifelong fidelity to my Lord and to your souls. Pray for me daily and for yourselves, also, that by our steadfastness this favored Church may be made to live and flourish till our Lord Himself shall come! __________________________________________________________________ The Spirit of Bondage and Adoption (No. 1759) DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "For you have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but you ha ve received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit, Himself, bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." Romans 8:15,16. THESE two verses are full of the word "spirit," and they are also full of spiritual truth. We have read in previous verses about the flesh and of the result that comes of minding it, namely, death. But now, in this verse, we get away from the flesh and think only of the work of the Holy Spirit upon our spirits--and of the blessed privilege which comes of it-- "that we should be called the sons of God." We cannot enter into this except by the power of the Holy Spirit, for the spiritual Truths of God must be spiritually discerned--our eyes need God's Light and our spirits need the Holy Spirit's quickening. We breathe our prayer to the Great Spirit that He would make us feel the full meaning of His Words. I think that I see in the text the fourfold work of the Spirit. First, the Spirit of bondage. Secondly, the Spirit of adoption. Thirdly, the Spirit of prayer--here it is, "Whereby we cry." And fourthly, the Spirit of witness--"The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God." I. Consider, first of all, THE SPIRIT OF BONDAGE. Much of the bondage in which we are plunged by our fallen nature is not the work of the Spirit of God at all. Bondage under sin, bondage under the flesh, bondage to the fashions and customs of the world, bondage under the fear of man--this is carnal bondage, the work of the flesh, of sin and of the devil. But there is a sense of bondage to which, I think, the Apostle here mainly alludes, which is of the Spirit of God. Before the Spirit of God within us becomes the Spirit of liberty, He is, first of all, the Spirit of bondage. The Spirit is not, first, a quickening Spirit to us, but a withering Spirit--"The grass withers, the flower fades: because the Spirit of the Lord blows upon it: surely the people is grass." The Divine Spirit wounds before He heals, He kills before He makes alive. We usually draw a distinction between Law-work and Gospel-work, but Law-work is the work of the Spirit of God and is so far a true Gospel-work that it is a frequent preliminary to the joy and peace of the Gospel. The Law is the needle which draws after it the silken thread of blessing and you cannot get the thread into the stuff without the needle--men do not receive the liberty wherewith Christ makes them free until, first of all, they have felt bondage within their own spirit driving them to cry for liberty to the great Emancipator, the Lord Jesus Christ! This sense or Spirit of bondage works for our salvation by leading us to cry for mercy. Let us notice that there is a kind of bondage which is, in part, at least, the work of the Spirit of God, although it is often darkened, blackened and made legal in a great measure by other agencies which do not aim at our benefit. That part of the bondage which I shall now describe is altogether the work of the Spirit of God. That is, first, when men are brought into bondage through being convicted of sin. This bondage is not the work of Nature and certainly never the work of the devil. It is not the work of human oratory, nor of human reason--it is the work of the Spirit of God! As it is written, "When the Spirit of Truth is come, He shall convince the world of sin." It needs a miracle to make a man know that he is, in very deed, a sinner. He will not admit it. He kicks against it. Even when he confesses the outward transgression, he does not know or feel the inward heinousness of his guilt in his soul so as to be stunned, confounded and humbled by the fact that he is a rebel against his God. Now, no man can ever know a Savior without knowing himself a sinner--even as no man can value a physician while he is ignorant of the existence and evil of disease. By the killing sentence of the Law of God we are bruised, broken and crushed to atoms as to all comeliness and self-righteousness. This, I say, is the work of the Spirit of God. He works a necessary sense of bondage within us by putting us under a sense of sin. The Spirit of God is always the Spirit of Truth and, therefore, He only convinces men of that which is true. He puts them into no false, or fanciful, or needless bondage. "When the Spirit of Truth is come, He shall convince the world of sin"--because it is sinful. When the Spirit puts men into bondage because they are sinners, He only puts them into their right place. When He came to some of us by the Law, He made us feel what we were by nature--and what we felt and saw was the truth. He made us see things as they really were. Until He came, we put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter, darkness for light and light for darkness! But when the Spirit of Truth was come, then sin appeared as sin. Then we were in bondage and it was no fancied slavery, but the very truth. The Spirit of God also brought us farther into bondage when He made us feel the assurance that punishment must follow upon sin, when He made us know that God can by no means clear the guilty and that He was not playing with us when He said, "The soul that sins, it shall die." We were made to feel the sentence of death in ourselves, that we might not trust in ourselves. At that time we trembled on the brink of fate. We wondered that we were not already in Hell. We were so convinced of sin that it was a matter of astonishment to us that the sentence did not immediately take place upon us. We were speechless before God as to excuse or justification. We could not offer anything by which we could turn away the edge of justice, though we saw it like a glittering sword stripped of the scabbard of almighty patience. Do you know what this means? I can hardly hope that you will prize the Atonement, or feel the sweetness of the expiation by blood, unless, first of all, you have felt that your soul's life was due to God on account of your transgressions! We must know a shutting-up under the sentence of the Law of God, or we shall never rejoice in the liberty which comes to us by Grace through the blood of the Lamb of God! Blessed be the Spirit of God for working in us this double sense of bondage--first making us know that we are guilty and, secondly--making us feel that the justice of God must punish us for sin! And then, further, the Spirit of God operates as a Spirit of bondage upon the hearts of those whom God will save by bringing them to feel the bitter impossibility of their hoping to clear themselves by the works of the Law. We heard this sentence thundered in our soul--"By the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight: for by the Law is the knowledge of sin." We could not meet our God under His Law--we looked up to Sinai's fiery summit where the Lord revealed Himself and we felt that its crags were too steep for our tottering feet to climb! Even if the way were smooth, how could we dare to pass through the thick darkness and hold communion with Jehovah, who is a consuming fire? The Spirit of God once and for all weaned us from all thought of a righteousness of our own. We were divorced from the legal spirit and compelled to abhor the very notion of justifying ourselves in the sight of a pure and holy God by our works, or feelings, or prayers! This was, by His Grace, the work of the Spirit of God! This result is always produced in every child of God, but not always by the same degree of bondage. Fetters of different weights are used in this prison, as wisdom and prudence appoint. The Spirit of bondage comes not to all alike, for some find peace and life in a moment, and come to Calvary as soon as Sinai begins to thunder. I have known this Spirit of bondage come with great force to men who have been open transgressors. Others who have been kept by the preventing Grace of God from the extremes of open sin have not felt as much of it. But men that have blasphemed God, broken the Sabbath and violated every holy thing--when they are brought before God under a sense of sin--have frequently had a hard time of it. See how Saul was blinded three days and did neither eat nor drink. Read John Bunyan's, "Grace Abounding," and notice the five years of his subjection to this Spirit of bondage. It must, in Bunyan's case, be noted that his bondage was far from being altogether the work of the Spirit, for much of it arose from his own unbelief. But still, there was in the core and heart of it, a work of the Spirit of God most wonderfully convincing him of sin. I would not wonder if some of my hearers who may have gone far into outward transgression are made to feel, when brought to spiritual life, great grief and humiliation under a sense of their sin. Such bondage often happens to those who, as the old authors used to say, were "close sinners"--men who did not even know that they were sinners at all, but, in consequence of their morality and the strictness of their lives, had a high conceit of their own excellence in the sight of God. Certain of these people experience most fearful convictions of sin--as if God would say to each one, "I must rid you of your self-righteousness. I must cure you of trusting in your moral life and, therefore, I will let you see into the depths of your depravity. I will discover to you your sins against My Light and knowledge, your sins against conscience, your sins against the Love of God. You are brought into sore bondage, but that bondage shall heal you of your pride." I have noticed one thing more, and that is that those who are, in later life, to be greatly useful are often thus dug, tilled and fed in order that much fruit may be brought forth by them in later years. I have had to deal with as many troubled souls as any living man--and God has greatly used me for their deliverance--but this never could have happened, so far as I can judge, unless I had, myself, been the subject of a terrible Law-work, convincing me not only of my actual sin, but of the source of that sin, namely, a deep and bottomless fountain of depravity in my own nature. When I have met with persons driven to despair and almost ready to destroy themselves, I have said, "Yes, I understand all that. I have been in those sepulchral chambers and can sympathize with those who are chilled by their damps. I know the heart of a stranger, for I, also, was a captive in Egypt and worked at the brick kilns." In such a case this bondage of spirit becomes a profitable preparation for later work. The sword that has to cut through coats of mail must be annealed in many fires. It must endure processes which a common blade escapes. Do not, therefore, expect that the Spirit of bondage will be seen in all of you to the same degree, for, after all, it is not the Spirit of bondage which is to be desired for its own sake, but that which comes after it--the Spirit of liberty in Christ Jesus! Our text reminds us that the result of this Spirit of bondage in the soul is fear--"The Spirit of bondage to fear." There are five sorts of fears and it is always well to distinguish between them. There is the natural fear which the creature has of its Creator because of its own insignificance and its Maker's greatness. From that we shall never be altogether delivered, for with holy awe we shall bow before the Divine Majesty, even when we come to be perfect in Heaven. Secondly, there is a carnal fear, that is, the fear of man. May God deliver us from it! May we never cease from duty because we dread the eye of man! Who are you that you should be afraid of a man that shall die? From this cowardice God's Spirit delivers Believers. The next fear is a servile fear--the fear of a slave towards his master, lest he should be beaten when he has offended. That is a fear which should rightly dwell in every unregenerate heart. Until the slave is turned into a child, he ought to feel that fear which is suitable to his position. By means of this fear, the awakened soul is driven and drawn to Christ and learns the perfect love which casts it out. If servile is not cast out, it leads to a fourth fear, namely, a diabolical fear, for we read of devils, that they "believe and tremble." This is the fear of a malefactor towards the executioner, such a fear as possesses souls that are shut out forever from the light of God's Countenance. But, fifthly, there is a filial fear which is never cast out of the mind. This is to be cultivated. This is "the fear of the Lord" which is "the beginning of wisdom." This is a precious gift of Grace--"Blessed is the man that fears the Lord." This makes the saints fearful of offending lest they should grieve Infinite Love. It causes them to walk before the Lord with the fear of a loving child who would not, in anything, displease his parents. When the Spirit of bondage is at work upon the heart, there is much of the fourth form of fear, namely, servile fear--and I tell you that it is the Spirit of Truth which brings this to us because we are in a condition which demands it--we are slaves until Christ sets us free and, being still under the Law, servile fear is our most natural and proper feeling. Would you have the slave rejoice in a liberty which he does not possess? Is he not the more likely to be free if he loathes his slavery? I wish that every man here, who is not a child of God, would become possessed with servile fear and tremble before the Most High! Now, mark that while this fear lasts, it is intended to work us toward God. I have already touched upon that. This bondage, which causes fear, breaks us off from self-righteousness. It makes us value the righteousness of Christ and it also puts an end to certain sins. Many a man, because he is afraid of the consequences, leaves off this and that which would have ruined him and, so far, the fear is useful to him. And, in later life, the sense of the terror which fear worked in his soul will keep him nearer to his Lord. How can he return to that evil thing which once filled his soul with bitterness and grief? But now I want to notice that in due time we outgrow this bondage and never receive it again, for, "We have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear." There comes a time when the Spirit of Truth no longer causes bondage. Why not? Because we are not slaves any longer and, therefore, there is no bondage for us because we are no longer guilty, having been cleared in the court of God and, therefore, no sin should press upon our spirit! We are made to be the children of God and God forbid that God's children should tremble like slaves! No, we have not received the Spirit of bondage again, for the Spirit of God has not brought it to us again. And though the devil tries to bring it, we do not "receive" his goods. And though sometimes the world thinks that we ought to feel it--we are not of the world--and we will not "receive" the world's spirit. We are new creatures in Christ Jesus! We are not under the Law, but under Grace! And, therefore, we are free from our former bondage. "We have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear." I know some Christians, or persons who call themselves Christians, who often come under this spirit of bondage. They erroneously say, "If I have sinned I have ceased to be a child of God." That is the spirit of bondage with a vengeance! If a servant disobeys, he will be sent adrift--but you cannot discharge your child. My son is my son forever! Who denies that? Sonship is a settled fact and never can be altered under any possible circumstances. If I am a child of God, who shall separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, my Lord? Some perform all religious actions from a principle of fear and they abstain from this and that iniquity because of fear. A child of God does not desire to be thus driven or held back! He works not for reward. He toils not in order to gain salvation. He is saved! And because God has "worked in him to will and to do of his own good pleasure," he, therefore, works out the salvation which God has already worked in! Blessed is the man who knows that he is no longer a servant, but has become an heir of God, a joint-heir with Jesus Christ! II. This brings us to our second head which is, THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION. I should require a week to preach properly upon this blessed theme. Instead of preaching upon it, I will give you hints. Will you kindly notice that the Apostle said, "You have not received the Spirit of bondage"? If he had kept strictly to the language, he would have added, "But you have received the Spirit of--what? Why of "liberty." That is the opposite of bondage! Yes, but our Apostle is not to be hampered by the rigid rules of composition! He has inserted a far greater word--"You have received the Spirit of adoption." This leads me to observe that from this mode of putting it, it is clear that the Spirit of adoption is, in the highest sense the Spirit of liberty! If the Son make you free, you shall be free, indeed. If you become sons through that blessed Son, oh, the freeness of your spirits! Your soul has nothing to fear--you need not dread the wrath of God, for He has sworn, "I will not be angry with you, nor rebuke you." The Believer feels the love of God shed abroad within him and, therefore, he exercises a liberty to draw near to God such as he never had before. He has access with boldness! He learns to speak with God as a child speaks with his father! See what a blessed thing is this Spirit of liberty, this Spirit of adoption. Now, the Apostle said, "You have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear." What is the opposite of that? He should have added--should he not?--"but you have received the Spirit of liberty by which you have confidence." He has not, in so many words expressed himself thus, but he has said all that and a great deal more by saying, "Whereby we cry, Abba, Father." This is the highest form of confidence that can be thought of--that a child of God should be able, even when he is forced to cry, to cry nothing less than, "Abba, Father." At his lowest, when he is full of sorrow and grief, even in his crying and lamenting, he sticks to, "Abba, Father"! This is a joyous confidence, indeed! Oh, that God may give it to you, dearly Beloved, to the very fullest! Thus it is clear that the Spirit of adoption is a Spirit of liberty and a Spirit of confidence. As a child is sure that its father will love him, feed him, clothe him, teach him and do all that is good for him, so are we sure that, "No good thing will be withheld from them that walk uprightly." And He will make all things to "work together for good to them that love God." The Spirit of bondage made us fear, but the Spirit of adoption gives us full assurance. That fear which distrusts God--that fear which doubts whether He will remain a loving and merciful God--that fear which makes us think that all His love will come to an end is gone, for we cry, "Abba, Father," and that cry is the death of doubting and fearing! We sing to brave music, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him." The Spirit of adoption, moreover, is a spirit of gratitude. Oh, that the Lord should put me among the children! Why should He do this? He did not need children that He should adopt me. The First-born alone was enough to fill the Father's heart throughout eternity! And yet the Lord puts us among the children! Blessed be His name forever and ever! "Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!" The Spirit of adoption is a spirit of child-likeness. It is pretty, though sometimes sad, to see how children imitate their parents. How much the little man is like his father! Have you not noticed it? Do you not like to see it, too? You know you do! Yes, and when God gives the Spirit of adoption, there begins in us, poor fallen creatures as we are, some little likeness to Himself--and that will grow to His perfect image! We cannot become God, but we have the privilege and the power to become the sons of God. "Even to as many as believe on His name" does Jesus give this privilege and, therefore, we grow up into Him in all things, who is our Head--and at the same time the pattern and mirror of what all the children of God are to be! Thus, dear Friends, let us see with great joy that we have not received, again, the Spirit of bondage! We shall not receive Him any more! The Spirit of God will never come to us in that form, again, for now we have been washed in the blood! We have been taken away from being heirs of wrath even as others! We have been placed in the family of the MOST HIGH and we feel the Spirit of adoption within us, whereby we cry, "Abba, Father!" III. Just two or three words upon the next office of the Holy Spirit, which is THE SPIRIT OF PRAYER. Whenever the Spirit of adoption enters into a man it sets him praying. He cannot help it. He does not wish to help it-- "Prayer is the Christian's vital breath, The Christian's native air. His watchword at the gates of death-- He enters Heaven with prayer." And this praying of the true Believer who has the Spirit of adoption is very earnest praying, for it takes the form of crying. He does not say, "Abba, Father." Anybody can say those words. But he cries, "Abba, Father." Nobody can cry, "Abba, Father," but by the Holy Spirit. When those two words, "Abba, Father," are set to the music of a child's cry, there is more power in them than in all the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero! They are such heavenly sounds as only the twice-born, the true aristocracy of God, can utter, "Abba, Father." They even move the heart of the Eternal! But it is also very natural praying--for a child to say, "Father," is according to the fitness of things. It is not necessary to send your boys to a Boarding School to teach them to do that. They cry, "Father," soon and often. So, when we are born again, "Our Father, which are in Heaven," is a prayer that is never forced upon us--it rises up naturally within the new-born nature and because we are born-again, we cry, "Abba, Father." When we have lost our Father for a while, we cry after Him in the dark. When He takes the rod to us, we cry, but we cry no other way than this--"Abba, Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me." It seems to me to be not only an earnest cry and a natural cry, but a very appealing cry. It touches your heart when your child says, "Don't hurt me, Father. Dear Father, by your love to me, forgive me." True prayer pleads the fatherhood of God--"My Father, my Father, I am no stranger. I am no foe, I am Your own dear and well-beloved child. Therefore, like as a father pities his children, have pity upon me." The Lord never turns a deaf ear to such pleading. He says, "I do earnestly remember him still," and in love He checks his hand. And what a familiar word it is--"Abba, Father"! They say that slaves were never allowed to call their masters "Abba." That was a word for free-born children only--no man can speak with God as God's children may. I have heard critics say, sometimes, of our prayers, "How familiar that man is with God." And one adds, "I do not like such boldness." No, you slaves! Of course you cannot speak with God as a child can! And it would not be right that you should! It befits you to fear, crouch and, like miserable sinners, to keep yourselves a long way off from God. Distance is the slave's place--only the child may draw near! But if you are children, then you may say, "Lord, You have had mercy upon me, miserable sinner as I was, and You have cleansed me, and I am Yours. Therefore deal with me according to the riches of Your Grace. My soul delights herself in You, for You are my God and my exceeding joy." Who but a true-born child of God can understand those Words of God--"Delight yourself, also, in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of yours heart"? I do not know any more delightful expression towards God than to say to Him, "Abba, Father." It is as much as to say--"My heart knows that You are my Father. I am as sure of it as I am sure I am the child of my earthly father! And I am more sure that You would deal more tenderly with me than that my earthly father would." Paul hints at this when he reminds us that our fathers, verily, chastened us after their own pleasure, but the Lord always chastens us for our profit. The heavenly Father's heart is never angry so as to smite in wrath, but in pity, gentleness and tenderness He afflicts His sons and daughters. "You in faithfulness have afflicted me." See what a blessed state this is to be brought into, to be made children of God, and then in our prayers to be praying, not like serfs and servants, but as children who cry, "Abba, Father"! IV. Now, the last thing is, THE SPIRIT OF WITNESS--"The Spirit, Himself, bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." There are two witnesses to the adoption of every child of God. Two is a legal number--in the mouth of two witnesses the whole shall be established. The first witness is the man's own spirit. His spirit says, "Yes, yes, yes, I am a child of God! I feel those drawings towards God; I feel that delight in Him; I feel that love to Him; I feel that wish to obey Him which I never would have felt if I were not His child. Moreover, God's own Word declares, 'To as many as received Him'--that is Christ--'to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.' Now, I have received Christ, and I believe on His name--therefore, I have the evidence of God's written Word that I am one of the sons of God. I have the right, the permission, the authority, to be one of the sons of God! That is the witness of my spirit--I believe and, therefore, I am a child." Now comes in the witness of the Holy Spirit. Nobody can question His veracity, but how does the Spirit of God witness to our sonship? First, He witnesses it, as I have already said, through the Word of God of which He is the Author. The Word contained in Scripture is quite enough for us if we have a saving faith. We accept it and believe it. The Spirit of God thus witnesses through the Word and that is the surest medium! "We have a more sure Word of testimony," said Peter. That is a wonderful declaration of the Apostle! Peter had spoken about seeing Christ transfigured on the holy mountain. Was not that sure? Yes, it was, but he, in effect, says--We have a more sure Word of testimony than all the sights that we have seen. Therefore we do well if we take heed, as unto a light that shines in a dark place. Next, the Spirit of God bears witness by His work in us. He works in us that which proves us to be the children of God. And what is that? The first thing is that He works in us great love to God. None love God but those that are born of Him. There is no true love to God in Christ Jesus except in those that have been begotten again by God's own Spirit, so that our love to God is the witness of the Spirit that we are the children of God. Furthermore, He works in us a veneration for God. We fear before Him with a childlike reverence--everything that has to do with God becomes sacred to us when He communes with us. Yes, if He only met us in a dream, we would say, "How wonderful is this place! It is none other than the House of God and the very gate of Heaven." The place of His feet is glorious in our eyes! The meanest of His chosen are honorable in our esteem! This holy awe of Believers is a proof of their being God's children. If He is their Father, they will reverence Him, for we know that when we had fathers of our flesh, they corrected us and we gave them reverence, for it was due them. Shall we not be in subjection to the Father of our spirits? That subjection is the surest evidence that we are, indeed, the sons of God. In addition to this, the Spirit of God works in us a holy confidence. By His Grace we feel, in days of trouble, that we can rest in God. When we cannot see our way, we go on joyfully without seeing. What is the good of seeing with our own eyes when the eyes of the Lord are running to and fro in the earth to show Himself strong on the behalf of all them that trust in Him? Our faith feels a joy in believing seeming contradictions; a delight in accepting apparent impossibilities! We have a belief in God's veracity so sure and steadfast that if all the angels in Heaven were to deny the Truth of God, we would laugh them to scorn! He must be true and we know it--every Word in His Bible is as certainly true to us as if we had seen the thing with our own eyes--yes, and truer, still, for eyes deceive and mislead--but God never can! Wherever there is this blessed child-like trust, there is the Spirit's witness that we are the children of God. And then, again, when the Spirit of God works sanctification in us, that becomes a further witness of our sonship. When He makes us hate sin. When He makes us love everything that is pure and good. When He helps us to conquer ourselves. When He leads us to love our fellow men. When He fashions us like Christ--this is the witness of the Spirit with our spirit that we are the children of God! Oh, to have more and more of it! Besides which, I believe that there is a voice unheard in the outward ear which drops in silence on the spirit of man and lets him know that he has, indeed, passed from death unto life. This, also, is the seal of the Spirit to the truth our adoption. Now let us begin at the beginning and bless Him that He has made us feel the bondage of sin. Let us bless Him that He made us fear and tremble--and fly to Jesus. Let us bless Him that He has brought us into the adoption of children. Let us bless Him that He helps us to cry, "Abba, Father." And, lastly, let us bless Him that, tonight, He bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God! Dear Friend, do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? If so, all the privileges of an heir of God are yours! If you do not believe in Christ, the Spirit of God will never bear witness to a lie and tell you that you are saved when you are not! If you are not saved and not yet a believer in Jesus, I tell you that you are like a blank document to which the Spirit of God will never set His hand and seal, for He is never so unwise as to sign a blank paper! If you have believed, you are a child of God and the Spirit of God sets His seal to your adoption! Go in peace and rejoice in the Lord forever!-- "Nor fret, nor doubt, nor suffer slavish fear-- Your spirit is released, your path is clear! Let praise fill up your day and evermore Live to love, to copy and adore!" __________________________________________________________________ "He Shall Be Great" (No. 1760) A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, DECEMBER 2, 1883, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "He shall be great." Luke 1:32. Being his last sermon before his journey to the South of France. Strictly speaking, I suppose these words refer to the human Nature of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is as to His humanity that Christ was born of Mary. The context runs thus--"Behold, you shall conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call His name JESUS. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David. And He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end." The angel of the Lord thus spoke concerning the Manhood of "that Holy Thing" that should be born of the favored virgin by the overshadowing of the power of the Highest. As to His Divinity, we must speak concerning Him in another style than this. But, as a Man, He was born of the virgin and it was said to her before His birth, "He shall be great." The Man, Christ Jesus, stooped very low. In His first estate He was not great; He was very little when He was upon His mother's breast. In His later estate He was not great, but despised, rejected and crucified! Indeed, He was so poor that He had nowhere to lay His head and He was so cast out by the tongues of men that they called Him a "fellow," mentioned Him among drunken men and wine-bibbers--and even accused Him of having a devil and being mad! In the esteem of the great ones of the earth, He was an ignorant Galilean of whom they said, "We know not where He is." His life binds up more fitly with the lowly annals of the poor than with the aristocracy or whatever stood for that in Caesar's day. In His own time His enemies could not find a word base enough to express their contempt of Him. He was brought very low in His trial, condemnation and suffering. Who thought Him great when He was covered with bloody sweat, or when He was sold at the price of a slave, or when a guard came out against Him with swords, lanterns and torches, as if He had been a thief? Who thought Him great when they bound Him and led Him to the judgment seat as a malefactor? Or when the cowards smote Him, blindfolded Him and spat in His face? Or when He was scourged, led through the streets bearing His Cross and afterwards hung up between two thieves to die? Truly He was brought very low and a sword pierced through His mother's heart as she saw the sufferings of her holy Son. When she knew that He was dead and buried in a borrowed tomb, she must have painfully pondered in her heart the words from Heaven concerning Him and thought within herself, "The angel said He would be great, but who is made so vile as He? He said that He should be called the 'Son of the Highest,' but, lo, He is brought into the dust of death and men seal His sepulcher and cast out His name as evil." Still, while I think that our text most fitly applies to the manhood of Christ in the first place, I rejoice to think that-- "He who on earth as Man was known, And bore our sins and pains, Now, seated on the eternal throne, The God of Glory reigns." The very Man who was despised and spat upon, now sits glorious on His Father's Throne! As Man, He is anointed, "King of kings, and Lord of lords." As man, He has been lifted up from the lowest depths and set in the greatest heights to reign forever and ever! Peter and the Apostles testified, "This Jesus has God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses, He being by the right hand of God exalted." Stephen also said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man stand- ing at the right hand of God." While we believe that and rejoice in it, we shall be wise never to dissociate the Deity of Christ from His Humanity, for they make up one Person. I cannot help remarking that in the New Testament you find a disregard of all rigid distinction of the two Natures in the Person of our Lord when the Spirit speaks concerning Him. The two Natures are so thoroughly united in the Person of Christ that the Holy Spirit does not speak of the Lord Jesus with theological exactness, like one who writes a creed, but He speaks as to men of understanding who know and rejoice in the Truth of the one indivisible Person of the Mediator. For instance, we read in Scripture of "the blood of God"--Paul says in Acts 20:28, "Feed the Church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood." Now, strictly speaking, there can be no blood of God, and the expression looks like a confusion of the two Natures. But this is intentional that we may clearly see that the two Natures are so joined together that the Holy Spirit does not stop to dissect and set out differences. He says of the united Person of our blessed Lord that which is strictly true either of His Humanity or of His Deity. He is called both, "God, our Savior," and, "the Man, Christ Jesus." The combined Natures of the Man, the God, Christ Jesus our Lord, are one Person--and all the acts of either Nature may be ascribed to that one Person. Therefore I, for one, do not hesitate to sing such verses as these-- "He that distributes crowns and thrones, Hangs on a tree and bleeds and groans! The Prince of Life resigns His breath; The King of Glory bows to death. Well might the sun in darkness hide, And shut his glories in, When God, the mighty Maker, died For man, the creature's sin! See how the patient Jesus stands, Insulted in His lowest case! Sinners have bound the Almighty hands, And spit in their Creator's face." We shall not labor, therefore, to preserve the niceties of theology, but we shall, at this time, freely speak of our Lord as He is in His Godhead and in His Manhood--and apply our text to the whole Christ--declaring the Divine promise that "He shall be great." While my Brother was praying for me, I was wishing that I had the tongues of men and of angels with which to set forth my theme tonight, and yet I shall retract my wish, for the subject is such that if my words were the most common that could be found--yes, if they were ungrammatical and if they were put together in a most uncouth manner, it would little matter--for failure awaits me in any case! The subject far transcends all utterance! Jesus is such a One that no oratory can ever reach the height of His Glory and the simplest words are best suited to a Subject so sublime. Fine words would be but tawdry things to hang beside the unspeakably glorious Lord! I can say no more than that He is great! If I could tell forth His greatness with choral symphonies of cherubim, yet would I fail to reach the height of this great argument! I will be content if I can touch the hem of the garment of His greatness. If the Lord will but set us in a cleft of the rock and only make us see the back parts of His Character, we shall be overcome by the vision! As yet, even of Jesus, the face of His full Glory cannot be seen, or if seen, it cannot be described. Were we caught up to the third Heaven, we should have little to say on coming back, for we would have seen things which were not lawful for us to utter. I shall not, therefore, fail with loss of honor if I tell you that my utmost success at this time will but touch the fringe of the splendor of the Son of Man. This is not the time of His clearest revealing. The day is coming for the manifestation of the Lord--as yet He shines not forth among men in His noontide! His Second Advent shall more fully reveal Him. Then shall His people "shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father" because He, also, shall rise in the clear face of Heaven as the Sun of Righteousness, greatly blessing the sons of men. I. Let me touch my theme as best I can by, first of all, saying of our adorable Lord Jesus that HE IS GREAT FROM MANY POINTS OF VIEW. I might have said from every point of view, but that is too large a Truth of God to be surveyed at one sitting. Mind would fail us; life would fail us; time would fail us--only eternity and perfection will suffice for that boundless meditation! But from the points of view to which I would conduct you for a moment, the Lord Jesus Christ is emphatically great! First, in the perfection of His Nature. Think, my Brothers and Sisters. There was never such a Being as our Well-Beloved! He is peerless and incomparable. He is Divine and, therefore, unique. He is "Light of light, very God of very God." Jesus is truly equal with God, One with the Father! Oh, the greatness of the Godhead! Jehovah is an Infinite Being--immeasurable, incomprehensible, inconceivable! He fills all things and yet is not contained by all things. He is, indeed, great beyond any idea of greatness that has ever dawned upon us. All this is true of the Only-Begotten. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning which were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made." "For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen." "He is before all things, and by Him all things consist." But our Lord Jesus is also Man and this makes the singularity of His Person, that He should be perfectly and purely God, and as truly and really Man! He is not humanity Deified. He is not Godhead humanized. I have admitted latitude of expression, but there is, in fact, no confusion of the substance. He is God. He is Man. He is all that God is and all that man is as God created him. He is as truly God as if He were not man, and yet as completely and perfectly Man as if He were not God! Think of this wondrous combination! A perfect Manhood without spot or stain of original or actual sin--and then the glorious Godhead combined with it! Said I not truly that Jesus stands alone? He is not greatest of the great, but great where all else are little! He is not something among all, but all where all else are nothing! Who shall be compared with Him? He counts it not robbery to be equal with God. And among men He is the Firstborn of every creature. Among the risen ones He is the Firstborn by His Resurrection from the dead. Among the glorified He is the Source and Object of glory! I cannot compass His Nature--who shall declare His generation? He is one with us and yet inconceivably beyond us. Our nature is limited, sinful, fallen. His Nature is unbounded, holy, Divine. When Jehovah looks on us, we ask, "What is man, that you are mindful of him? And the son of man, that you visit him?" But, "when He brings in the First-Begotten into the world, He says, And let all the angels of God worship Him." Shall it not truly be said as to His Nature, "He is great"? He is great, also, in the grandeur of His offices. Remember that He has, for our sakes, undertaken to be our Redeemer. You see your bondage, Brothers and Sisters. You know it, for some of you have worn the fetters till they have entered into your soul--from such slavery He came to redeem us! Behold His Zion in ruins, heaps on heaps, smoking, consumed! He comes to rebuild and to restore! This is His office--to build up the old wastes and to restore the Temple of the living God which had been cast down by the foe. To accomplish this, He came to be our Priest, our Prophet and our King. In each office He is glorious beyond compare! He came to be our Savior, our Sacrifice, our Substitute, our Surety, our Head, our Friend, our Lord, our Life, our All! Pile up the offices and remember that each one is worthy of God. Mention them as you may, and truly you shall never remember them all, for He, the express image of His Father's Glory, has undertaken every kind of office that He might perfectly redeem His people and make them to be His own forever! In each office He has gained the summit of Glory and therein He is and shall be great! Have you ever stood in Westminster Abbey when some great warrior was being buried and when the herald pronounced his various titles? He has been greatly honored by his queen and his nation, for which he has fought so valiantly. He is prince of this and duke of that, and count of the other, and earl of something else--the titles are many and brilliant. What a parade it is! "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!" What matters it, to the senseless clay, that it is buried with pomp of heraldry? But I stand at the tomb of Christ and I say of His offices that they are superlatively grand! And, moreover, that they are not buried and neither is He among the dead! He lives and still bears His honors in the fullness of their splendor! He is still all to His people--every office He still carries on and will carry on till He shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father--and God shall be All in All. Oh, the splendor of this Christ of God in the mighty offices which He sustains! He is the Standard-Bearer among ten thousand! Who is like HE in all eternity? "The government shall be upon His shoulders and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." "Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord!" Let our hearts give Him our adoring praise tonight, for He is great in the glorious offices which God has heaped upon Him. His Nature and His offices would, alone, furnish us with a lengthened theme, but oh, my Brothers and Sisters, the Lord Jesus is great in the splendor of His achievements. He does not wear an office whose duty is neglected--His name is faithful and true. He is no holder of a lie--He claims to have finished the work which His Father gave Him to do. He has undertaken great things and, glory be to His name, He has achieved them! His people's sins were laid upon Him and He bore them up to the Cross and on the Cross He made an end of them--that they will never be mentioned against them any more forever! Then He went down into the grave and slept there for a little season. But He tore away the bars of the sepulcher and left Death dead at His feet, bringing life and immortality to light by His Resurrection! This was His high calling and He has fulfilled it! His victory is complete! The defeat of the foe is perfect. "O Death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?" Springing upward from the tomb when the appointed day was come, He opened Heaven's gates to all Believers, according to the Word of God--"The breaker is come up before them, and their king shall pass before them, and the LORD on the head of them." As He opened the golden gates, He led captivity captive and, receiving gifts for men, He cast down a royal largess among the poorest of His people that they might be enriched. This was His objective and the design has been carried out without flaw or failure! Within the veil He went, our Representative, to take possession of our crowns and thrones, which He holds for us to this day by the tenure of His own Cross. Having purchased the inheritance and paid off the heavy mortgage that lay upon it, He has taken possession of the Canaan wherein our souls shall dwell at the end of the days when we shall stand in our lot. Is it not proven that He is great? Conquerors are great and He is the greatest of them! Deliverers are great and He is the greatest of them! Liberators are great and He is the greatest of them! Saviors are great and He is the greatest of them! They that multiply the joys of men are truly great--and what shall I say of Him who has bestowed everlasting joy upon His people and entailed it upon them by a Covenant of salt forever and ever? Well did you say, O Gabriel, "He shall be great," for great, indeed, He is! He shall be great, again, in the prevalence of His merits. Never a Being had such merit as Christ. His life and death cover all Believers from head to foot with a perfect obedience to the Law of God! With royal vesture are they clad-- Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these! His blood has washed Believers white as the driven snow and His righteousness has made them to be "accepted in the Beloved." He has such merit with God that He deserves of the Most High whatever He wills to ask--and He asks for His people that they shall have every blessing necessary for eternal life and perfection! He is great, indeed, my Brothers and Sisters, when we think that He has clothed us all in His righteousness and washed us all in His blood! Nor us alone, but ten thousands times ten thousands of His redeemed stand, today, in the wedding dress of His eternal merit and plead before God a claim that can never be denied--the claim of a perfect obedience which must always please the Father's heart! Oh, what mercy is that which has turned our Hell to Heaven; transformed our disease into health and lifted us from the dunghill and set us among the princes of His people! In Infinite power to remove sin, to perfume with acceptance, to clothe with righteousness, to win blessings, to preserve saints and to save to the uttermost, the Lord Jesus is great beyond all greatness! My theme will never be exhausted, though I may be. Let me not delay to add that our Lord Jesus Christ is great in the number of His saved ones. I do not believe in a little Christ, or a little Heaven, or a little company before the Throne of God, or a few that shall be saved! Hear this, for I would gladly reply to a lie that is often stated and is the last resort of those who assail the Doctrines of Grace! They say that we believe that God has left the great mass of His creatures to perish and has arbitrarily chosen an elect few. We have never thought such a thing! We believe that the Lord has an elect MANY! And it is our joy and delight to think of them as a number that no man can number! "Oh," they say, "you think that the few who go to your little Bethel or Salem are the elect of God." That, Sirs, is what you invent for your own purposes! We have never said anything of the sort! We rejoice to believe that as many as the stars of Heaven shall be the redeemed of Christ--that as many as the sands that are upon the seashore, even an innumerable company, are those for whom Christ has shed His precious blood that He might effectually redeem them! As I look up to the Heaven of the sanctified, my mind's eyes do not see a few dozen saints met together in select circles of ex-clusiveness--no, my eyes are dazzled with the countless lights which shine, each one, from the illustrious brows of the redeemed! Illustrious, I say, for each glorified one wears upon his forehead the name of the Most High! My heart is glad to turn away from the multitude that throng the broad way and to see a greater multitude that throng the heavenly fields and, day without night, celebrate redemption by the blood of the Lamb! Have they not washed their robes and made them white in His blood? In all things our Lord will have the pre-eminence--and this shall be the case in the number of His followers--He shall therein vanquish His great enemy! His redeemed shall fly as a cloud, as doves to their windows. Countless as the drops of morning dew shall His people be in the day of His power. He shall be great in the host of His adherents in Glory. Multitudes upon earth are even now pursuing their road to Heaven and greater hosts are yet to follow them. A day shall be when the people of God shall be increased exceedingly--above anything that we see at the present--they shall spring up as the grass and as willows by the watercourses, as if every stone that heard the ripple of the brook had been turned into a man! The seed of the Lord Jesus Christ shall multiply till arithmetic shall be utterly baffled and numeration shall fail. He is great--a great Savior of a great mass of great sinners who shall, by His redeeming arm, be brought safely, without fail, to His right hand in endless Glory! As the tribes of the natural Israel increased exceedingly, so, also, shall the spiritual Israel. The Lord shall multiply His Zion with men as with a flock--and thus shall the King of Israel be great! Brothers and Sisters, the Lord Jesus Christ shall be great in the estimation of His people. If I were to try, tonight, to praise my Lord to the highest heavens, my Brother might well follow me and extol our Lord much more. Then I would get up from my seat, again, and I would not rest until I found yet loftier praises for my Lord and God! Then might my dear Brother return to the happy task and excel me, yet again! And then, for sure, I would be on my feet a third time and keep up the hallowed rivalry, lauding and magnifying Jesus to my mind's utmost! And, if the Lord permitted, we would never stop, for I would give in to no man in my desire to extol my Lord Jesus Christ! I am sure that none of His people would give way to others in a humble sense of supreme indebtedness, but each one would say, "There is something which He has done for me which He never did for you. There is some point of view in which He is greater to me than He is to you." Brothers and Sisters, I admit that there are many points in which He is greater to you than He is to me! But yet, to me He is higher than Heaven, vaster than eternity, more delightful than Paradise, more blessed than blessedness itself! If I could speak of Him according to my soul's desire, I would speak in great capital letters and not in the small italics which I am compelled to use. If I could speak as I would, I would make winds and waves my orators and cause the whole universe to become one open mouth with which to proclaim the praises of Emmanuel! If all eternity would speak as though it, too, were but one tongue, yet it could not tell all the charms of His love and the sureness of His faithfulness and His truth! We must leave off somewhere, but, truly, if it is the point of our estimation of Him, we can never express our overwhelming sense of His honor, His excellence, His sweetness! Oh, that He were praised by every creature that has breath! Oh, that every minute placed another gem in His crown! Oh, that every soul that breathes did continue to breathe out nothing but hosannas and hallelujahs unto Him, for He deserves all possible praises! Do you hear the crash of the multitudinous music of Heaven? It is like many waters and like the mighty waves of the sea--and it is all for Him! Can you hear the charming notes of "harpers harping with their harps"? Their harpings are all for Him! Can you conceive the unutterable joys of the glorified? Every felicity of eternity is a song to His honor! Heaven and earth shall yet be full of the brightness of His Glory! Who can look the sun in the face in the height of his noontide? Who can tell the illimitable greatnesses of the Son of God?-- "To Him, even to Him, let all praises be, For He has redeemed our souls with blood And set the captives free!" He has made us unto our God both kings and priests--and we shall reign with Him forever and forever! Truly, He is great, and shall be eternally great! But, oh, Brothers and Sisters, how great must Christ be in the glory of Heaven! We have never seen that. Some of us shall see it very soon-- "For we are in the border-land, The heavenly country's near at hand! A step is all 'twixt us and rest, E'en now we converse with the blest." But the greatness of Christ in Heaven! Surely this is the grand sight for which we long to go to Heaven--that we may behold His Glory! "The Gory which He had with the Father before the world was," and the Glory which He has gained by His service for the Father here below! Has He not said, "Father, I will that they, also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My Glory"? What honor and majesty surround our Prince in the metropolis of His empire! What is this city? From where comes its brightness? The sun is dim. The moon no more displays herself. "The glory of God did lighten it and the Lamb is the Light thereof." The whole city shines in the Redeemer's Glory! And who are these that come trooping down the golden streets?-- these shining ones, each one comparable to a living, moving sun? Each one as bright as the star of the morning? Ask them where their brightness comes from and they tell you that the Glory of Christ has risen upon them and they are reflecting His brightness as the moon reflects the brilliant radiance of the sun! If you sit down with one of these shining ones and hear him tell his story, the sum of the matter will be, "Not unto us; but unto Him that loved us, be honor and glory." This will be the substance of every testimony--"He loved me and gave Himself for me." But they will put it something like this--"HE loved me! He, that great HE!" How they will pronounce it as they point to His Glory--"HE loved me--that little me." They will sink their voices, oh, so low, as with wonder and surprise they express their admiration that ever He could have loved such unworthy ones as they were. But I must not--dare not--try to touch upon the Glory of Christ upon the Throne of the Father. Certain great divines have written upon the Glory of Christ, but I will guarantee you that when they died and went to Heaven, they half wished that they could come back again to amend their most glowing pages! Ah me, what can ignorance say of the All-Wise? What do blinking owls know of high noon? What do we poor limited creatures, babes of yesterday, know of the Infinite, the Ancient of Days and of the splendor that comes from the Firstborn at the right hand of the Most High? It would need an angel to tell us that but, perhaps if he did, either we would not understand, or else what we did understand would overpower us and we should fall before our Lord as dead! The heavens are now telling the Glory of our Lord, but the half of it will never be told throughout ages of ages. Assuredly, concerning our adorable Lord Jesus, it is true--"He shall be great." II. Now, by your leave, I want to turn the subject around a little and look at it in another light. "He shall be great," and He is so, for HE IS WITH GREAT THINGS. He is a Savior and a great one. As I have already said, it was a great ruin which He came to restore. The wind came from the abyss and smote the four corners of the house of manhood and it fell. Devils laughed and triumphed as they saw God's handiwork spoiled. Human nature sank in shame. Paradise was blasted, sin was triumphant and the fiery sword was set at Eden's gate to exclude us. It was a hideous ruin. But, oh, when Christ came, He brought a great salvation! He came to prepare a better Paradise and to plant in it a better Tree of Life. He came to give us possession of it upon a better tenure than before. Oh, He is a great Savior! He worked amid the chaos of the Fall and restored what Adam had destroyed! And, Beloved, we were covered with great sin--some of us, especially so. But "He shall be great," and therefore He makes short work of great sin! Great sinners, what a joy it ought to be to you to think that He is great and, therefore, has come to rescue such as you are and deal with such difficulties as beset and surround you! What if sin is great? His arrangement for its removal is great, too. Look, there, at Calvary, and if you can see it through your blinding tears, behold the Sacrifice He offered once and for all to put away sin! Regard the old Tabernacle and its faulty types--Aaron has offered his bullock which has smoked to Heaven, but no result has followed! Aaron has brought his lambs, his goats, his rams--and their blood in basins is thrown at the foot of the altar--the whole soil of the Tabernacle is saturated with the blood of bullocks and of goats! And no result has come of it--these can never take away sin! See, now, the greater Sacrifice which Jesus brings. That great High Priest of ours is great, indeed, for He has offered up Himself without spot unto God! Lo, on His great altar there smokes to Heaven no longer clouding incense or burning flesh, but the body and soul of the appointed Substitute offered up in sacrifice for men! We have, none of us, a due conception of the grandeur of that vicarious offering which at once and forever made an end of sin! Think of it carefully and in detail. Count it no light thing that He who was the Father's equal; that He who was pure and perfect in both Natures became a curse for us--and was made sin for us--and presented Himself as a Victim to Justice on our behalf! This is a wonder among wonders, as much exceeding miracle as miracle exceeds the most commonplace fact! It overtops the highest lips of thought, that He who was offended should expiate the offense! He who was perfect should suffer punishment! He who was all Goodness should be made sin and He who was all Love should be forsaken of the God of Love! What merit and majesty are found in His glorious oblation! Great is the sin, but greater is the Sacrifice! The Atonement has covered the guilt and left a margin of abounding righteousness! Beloved, what a mercy it is for us that we have such a High Priest, for if you and I are burdened, tonight, with great transgression, there is great pardons to be had! Pardon so great that it actually annihilates the sin--pardon so great that the sin is cast behind Jehovah's back while the pardon rings out perpetual notes of joy and peace in the soul-- "His the pardon, ours the sin-- Great the pardon great. Great His good which healed our ill, Great His love which killed our hate." He shall be great, indeed, who has worked us so great a salvation. And now, dear Friends, you and I, being greatly pardoned through the great Sacrifice, are journeying through the wilderness toward Canaan and we have great needs pressing upon us every day. We are poverty, itself, and only All-Sufficiency can supply us--and that is found in Jesus. We need great abundance of food--the heavenly Bread lies around the camp and each may fill his own. We require rivers of Living Water--the smitten Rock yields us a ceaseless flood-- the stream never ceases. We have great demands, but Christ has great supplies. Between here and Heaven we shall have, perhaps, greater needs than we have yet known, but, all along, every resting place is ready, stores are laid up, good cheer is stored, nothing has been overlooked. The commissariat of the Eternal is absolutely perfect! Do you feel, sometimes, so thirsty for Grace that like Behemoth, you could drink up Jordan at a draught? More than that river could hold is given you! Drink abundantly, for Christ has prepared you a bottomless sea of Grace to fill you with all the fullness of God! Deprive not yourselves and doubt not your Savior--why should you limit the Holy One of Israel? Be great in your experience of His all-sufficiency and great in your praises of His bounty--and then in Heaven you shall pour at His feet great treasures of gratitude forever and ever. Yes, and He is a Christ of great preparations. He is engaged before the Throne of God, today, in preparing a great Heaven for His people! It will be made up of great deliverance, great peace, great rest, great joy, great victory, great discovery, great fellowship, great rapture, great glory! He is preparing for His redeemed no little Heaven, no starveling banquet, no narrow delight! He is a great Creator and He is creating a great Paradise wherein a great multitude shall be greatly happy forever and ever! "He shall be great"--great in the bliss of His innumerable elect! If we once get within the pearly gates and walk those golden streets, we are not ashamed, tonight, to vow that He shall be great--we will make Him glorious before His holy angels! If praises can make Him great, our praises shall ring out night and day at the very loudest--and ten thousands times ten thousands of the glorified shall join with us in perpetual hallelujahs to Him who loved us before all worlds--and will still love us when all worlds shall cease to be! "He shall be great." He must be great! If we live, it shall be our business to sing like the Virgin, "My soul does magnify the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior." III. I have come to a close when I have said a few words upon the last point, which is this--HIS GREATNESS WILL SOON APPEAR. It now lies under a cloud to men's bleary eyes. They still belittle Him with their vague and vain thoughts, but it shall not always be so. It is midnight with His honor, here, just now--or if it isn't midnight, it is much the same, for men are stone blind. But it will not long be darkness, nor shall human minds be blinded forever. My eyes foresee the dawning. Did you hear the clarion just now? I dream not that ears of flesh can catch the sound as yet, but the ears of faith can hear it! The trumpet rings out exceedingly loud and long! And after the trumpet there is heard this voice--"Behold, the Bridegroom comes! Go you forth to meet Him." Hear you not the shouts of armies--"Lo, He comes! Lo, He comes! Lo, He comes!" Right gladly I hear the cry. Let the world ring with the notes of joy. He comes! That trumpet proclaims Him! I shall propound no order, now, as to how predicted events shall happen, but I know this, that the Lord shall reign forever and ever, King of kings and Lord of lords. Hallelujah! "He shall be great." The nations shall bow at His feet. Rebellious enemies shall acknowledge Him as their King. The whole universe shall be filled with the Glory of God! There shall be left no space where this Light of God shall not shine. "He shall be great." To Him "every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Fret not yourselves, Brothers and Sisters, because of the false doctrine which roams through the world today. Worry not your hearts as though Christ were defeated. He is clad in shining armor through which no dart of error can ever pierce. He lingers for a little while upon the hills, surveying the battlefield with eagle eyes. He leaves His poor servants to prove how weak they are, as they almost turn their backs in the day of battle. He lets Heaven and earth see the weakness of an arm of flesh. But courage, Brothers and Sisters! The Prince Emmanuel hastens! You may hear His horse hoofs on the road. He is near! On white horses shall His chosen follow Him, going forth "conquering and to conquer," for the battle is the Lord's and He will deliver the enemy into our hands. The Lord shall reign forever and ever--king of kings! Hallelujah! "He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet." The day is coming when the mighty progress of the Gospel shall make Christ to be great among men! And then you need not listen long to hear that other trumpet which shall wake the sleeping dead. The Risen One descends. Resurrection is at hand! Oh, what greatness will be upon Christ in that hour when all shall leave their graves, even the whole multitude of the slain of death! He shall be glorious among them, the First-fruits of the Resurrection, illustrious in those who rise by virtue of His rising! Oh, what honor will He have that day! Jesus, You are He whom Your elect shall praise as they see You victorious over Death in all those quickened myriads! Then shall come the Judgment--and oh, how great will Christ be in men's eyes in that day when He sits upon the Throne and holds the scales of justice and judges men for the deeds done in the body! I guarantee you that none will deny His Godhead in that day! None will proclaim themselves His adversaries in that dread hour! The earth is reeling! The sky is crumbling! The stars are falling! The sun is quenched! The moon is black as sackcloth! And Jesus is sitting on the Throne! A cry is heard from all His enemies. "Hide us, mountains! Fall upon us, rocks! Hide us from His face!" That face of His--calm, quiet and triumphant--shall be terrible to them. They will cry in horror, "Hide us from the face of Him that sits on the Throne and from the wrath of the Lamb." But they cannot be hidden! Fly where they may, those eyes pursue them--those eyes of love more terrible than flames of wrath! Oil, though it is soft, yet burns furiously--and Love on fire is Hell! Fiercer than a lion on his prey is Love when once it grows angry for holiness' sake and the Truth of God's sake! In that day those who know His love shall admire Him beyond measure, but those who know His wrath shall equally feel that "He is great." Though it is their Hell to feel it, yet shall they know that there is none so great as He when He shall take the iron rod and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel! Their cries of remorse and despair, as they rise up to the Throne of His awful majesty, shall proclaim to an awe-struck universe that Jesus is great! "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him." He shall be great, finally, when He shall gather all His elect about Him--when all the souls redeemed by blood shall assemble within His palace gate to worship Him. Oh, what a sight it will be when He is seen as the center, while, far away from north, south, east and west, a blazing host of shining ones, all glorious in His Glory, shall, in ever-widening circles, surround His Person and His Throne--all bowing down before the Son of God and crying, "Hallelujah!" as they adore Him! Not one will doubt Him nor oppose Him there! Oh, what a sight it shall be when everyone shall praise Him to the uttermost--when from every heart shall leap up reverent love, when every tongue shall sound forth His honors, when there shall be no division, no discord, no jarring notes--and countless armies shall as one man adore the Lord whom they love! Again they say, "Hallelujah!" and the incense of their adoration goes up forever and ever. Oh, for that grandest of cries, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! The Lord God Omnipotent reigns and His Son is exalted to sit with Him upon the Throne of His Glory forever and ever!" Truly, He shall be great! Oh, make Him great tonight, poor Sinner, by trusting Him! Make Him great tonight, dear child of God, by longing for Him! Make Him great as you come to the table by hungering after Him! Count it a great privilege to eat and drink with Him with overflowing delight! Come with a great hunger and a great thirst after Him and take Him into your very self, and say, "He is my bread-- He is my drink! He is my life--He is my All." All the while let your spirit live by adoring and let every pulse of your body beat to His honor. Tune your hand, your heart, your tongue to this one song, "Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah! Unto Him that loved us and died for us, and rose again, be glory forever and ever!"-- "To the Lamb that was slain all honor be paid, Let crowns without number encircle His head! Let blessing, and glory, and riches, and might, Be ascribed evermore by angels of light." __________________________________________________________________ The Lord with Two or Three (No. 1761) A SERMON DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 4, 1883, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." Matthew 18:20. WE have, in the verses preceding, the text a mention of the first Church Meeting of which I remember to have found mention in the New Testament. The Savior declares of His assembled people, "Verily I say unto you, whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven: and whatever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven." A few Believers, gathered out of the world, have met in the name of the Lord Jesus to attend to the affairs of His household here below. It is a case of discipline. A Brother has trespassed against another Brother. The offended one has sought him out privately and by personal expostulation has endeavored to bring him to a better mind, but he has failed. He has then taken with him two or three Brethren of the Church and they have together pleaded with the offender that he would do that which is right, but he is obstinate--even in the presence of two or three witnesses he persists in his trespass and refuses to be won over by kindly entreaty. It only remains that they shall tell it to the Church. The Church is grieved. It hears the case patiently and waits upon God in prayer. It asks guidance and, at last, finding that there is no help for him, removes the member of the body who is not in true sympathy with the rest and is acting as if he had not the life of God in him. This being done, according to Christ's rule--justly, impartially, lovingly, with prayer--that which is done by a few men and women assembled here below, is registered in the court above. What they have bound on earth is bound in Heaven. What they have loosed on earth is also loosed in Heaven. It is a happy privilege when they can loose the bound one! When repentance is expressed, when the backslider is restored, when the Church has reason to believe that the work of the Spirit is truly in the heart of the offender, then the bond is loosed on earth and it is also loosed in Heaven. The meetings of God's servants for the necessary discipline of the Church are not trifling meetings, but there is a Divine Power in them, since what they do is done in the name of Jesus Christ their Lord. Oh, that Church Meetings were more generally looked at in this solemn light! Next, we are introduced to the Prayer Meeting. In the 19th verse we read, "Again I say unto you, that if two of you," two of you, "shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in Heaven." It is a very little meeting. It could not be smaller to be a meeting at all. There are only two there, but they are two praying Believers. They are two of the Lord's own servants, whose great concern is His kingdom! They are two earnest persons who very greatly desire the prosperity of the Church. They are two of kindred spirit, agreeing in love to God and the Truth. And they have talked over the matter, considered it--and they feel moved by the Spirit of God to unite their supplications about one important subject. Will they meet together and pray in vain? As they are only two, will not the meeting fail to count with God? Assuredly not! The Lord Jesus Christ has left them this gracious promise, that if they shall agree on earth touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of His Father which is in Heaven! They are only two, but this suffices to secure them the promised healing. Perhaps the exact petition which they offer may not apparently be answered. Remember that God often hears the prayer of our prayers and answers that rather than our prayers themselves--by which I mean, that there is an inner soul within true prayer which is the quickening life of true supplication. The body of prayer may die, but the soul of prayer lives and abides forever. If I am asked what my inmost heart prays for, I should reply the heart of my prayer is--"The will of the Lord be done." Is not this the essence, quintessence and extract of the prayer by which our Savior taught us how to pray? He bade us say, "Your will be done in earth as it is in Heaven." Is not this the finale of His own prayers, the entreaty of His passion, His deepest and yet His highest pleading? "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will." Now we want the will of the Lord to be done--we do not desire it to remain as a secret decree, but actually to be fulfilled--and it is ours, as it were, with the finger of prayer, to turn the folded leaves, one by one, and exhibit them to the light of fact so that the purpose of God may become an accomplished thing in answer to the prayer of His people. Do we mean anything more than this by our prayers? I think that when well instructed, this is neither more nor less than what we intend. And if it is really so and we come together, delighting ourselves in the Lord, He will most certainly give us the desire of our hearts. When we come together with our wills sanctified into the likeness of the Divine will, then our prayers succeed till they become no presumption even if we dare to say with Luther in one of his bold prayers, "Oh, my Lord, let my will be done this time!" He ventured to speak thus because he felt sure that his will must be in accordance with the Divine will. Only there do you stand on solid ground! Only there may you plead without any reserve for special blessings. The Prayer Meeting is not a farce, waste of time, or mere pious amusement. Some in these times think so, but such shall be lightly esteemed. Surely they know not the Omnipotence that lies in the pleas of God's people! The Lord has taken the keys of His royal treasury and put them into the hands of faith. He has taken His sword from the scabbard and given it into the hands of the man mighty in prayer. He seems at times to have placed His sovereign scepter in the hands of prayer. "Ask Me concerning things to come: concerning My sons, command Me." He permits us to speak with such boldness and daring that we overcome Heaven by prayer and dare to say to the Covenant Angel, "I will not let You go unless You bless me." If one Jacob can prevail over a wrestling Angel, what can two do? What a victory would come to two who joined in the same wrestling! "One of you shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight." There is an accumulated power in united supplication--two do not only double the force, but multiply it tenfold! How soon the gate of mercy opens when two are knocking! God grant to each one of us a praying partner! When John pulls the oar of prayer, let James join him in the hearty tug. Better still, may we always believe in our Father's Presence at our Prayer Meetings, so that we may find the words of Jesus true when He says, "It shall be done for them of My Father which is in Heaven." Now, thirdly, we come to a promise which includes every meeting of any sort or kind which is for Christ's Glory. So long as it is a sacred meeting of saintly men and women for the purposes of devotion or service--for the purposes of prayer or praise, or whatever else may be most suitable for the occasion, here is the promise for them--"For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." This sanctions the Church Meeting; this prospers the Prayer Meeting! Overshadowing every gracious assembly of the chosen we see the great Shepherd of the sheep, who here expressly says, "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." Now, first, we shall mention with regard to these meetings, matters not essential. Then, secondly, we shall carefully mention a matter most essential. And, thirdly, we shall dwell upon an assurance most encouraging. I. First, let us speak of MATTERS NOT ESSENTIAL. At the outset, we know that numbers are not essential, for "where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I." It is very important in a large Church that there should be large gatherings for prayer, for it would be an evidence of a slighting of the ordinance of united supplication if a fair proportion of the members did not come together for that holy and blessed exercise. But still, where that cannot be--where the Church, itself, is small--where, for different reasons which we need not here recapitulate, it is not possible for many to gather together--it is a very encouraging circumstance that numbers are not essential to success in prayer. "Where two or three are gathered together." The number is mentioned, I suppose, because that is about the smallest number that could make a congregation. We can hardly call it a congregation where the minister has to say, "Dearly Beloved Roger, the Scripture moves us in different places," as we have heard was once done by a clergyman--truly it was an assembly of two and so was within the number--and, under the circumstances, might find the Lord present. But two out of a large Church would have been a wretched sign of decline. If two were all that met out of a great Church, it would be a sadly little company and the blessing might be withheld. Two or three are mentioned, not to encourage absence, but to cheer the faithful few who do not forget the assembling of themselves together, as the manner of some is. Still, the number has this advantage, that it is the readiest congregation to be gathered. It is not difficult to make up two or three. A husband and wife--there are two. A husband and wife and a child--there are three. Or there may be two unmarried sisters, or a widow and child--two can be easily made up. Where there are no children, there may be a husband and a wife and a servant--and these are three. Where there is no wife, perhaps there are two brothers, or a brother and a sister, or perhaps three sisters. And where there is no relation, but a man lives alone, it is not impossible, surely, in the most deserted region for him to find one other or two others with whom he can meet. It is a very handy congregation because it can meet in a bedroom. It can meet in a kitchen. It can meet in a closet--it can meet anywhere because it is so small. It is also easily hidden away. In persecuting times, two or three could get together in a corner, a cave, a cellar, or an attic. For that matter, two or three may be in prison together, and they can pray in one narrow cell or they can do what Latimer and Ridley did when they stood back to back at the stake and lifted up their hearts as one man. That was brave praying, when the two bishops stood to burn with devotion as well as to burn with fire for Christ's sake! I am sure that Jesus was in the midst of them when they met upon the firewood. Two people may meet in the street or in the field. They can get together in the corner of an omnibus or a train and unite their supplications. Two or three make a congregation which is among the small things, but who shall dare despise what God has blessed? I commend to you the frequent practice of praying by twos and threes. There was a minister who had a little society which he called the "Aaron and Hur Society." It consisted of two--one to hold up his right hand and one to hold up his left, while, like Moses, he was on the mountain pleading for Israel. We need this institution multiplied to any extent. We need the twos and threes as well as the one separately praying--and then a blessing will come. But numbers are not important at all. We need say no more about them except this--I like to note that the text puts it, "two or three," for, as one remarks, that is much better than, "three or two." For if "three or two" are gathered together, they are getting smaller! But if it is "two or three," they are evidently upon the increase. If they have only increased from two to three, they have advanced fifty per cent and that is something! If this congregation were to do that, where should we all be able to meet on the Sabbath? On week nights I would encourage you to try to increase till we fill the upper gallery as well as the rest of the building. "Two or three." It is a growing congregation--but still, numbers are not essential to good speed in prayer. Next, the rank of the people is not important. Does it say, "Where two or three ministers are gathered together in My name"? By no means, no! Ministers may expect the Lord to be in the midst of them, but they have no special promise as ministers--they must come before the Lord as plain Believers. The "two or three" may be unable to utter a word by way of teaching the great congregation, but this is not mentioned in the promise. Does it say, "Where two or three instructed Christians, advanced in experience, are met together"? No! There is no such limit expressed or implied. In the matter of prayer, no special need is set apart for those who are eminent in Grace. We do not read, "Where two or three full-grown Believers are met." Much less does it say, "Where two or three rich people are met together." No distinction is made! If they are the people of God and if they are the little ones whom the Lord has been describing--humble and lowly in spirit--where two or three of such are met together in the Redeemer's name, "There," says Jesus, "am I in the midst of them." It may be that a poor man and his wife are praying together before retiring for the night. The Lord is there. A couple of servants unite their supplications in the kitchen. The Lord is there. Two or three little boys have come out of school and they love the Lord--and so they have met in a corner to pray. The Lord is there. Do you remember how Luther was encouraged while he and Melancthon, too, were down in the dumps about the Lord's work? They were dreadfully downcast, but as Luther passed by a room, he heard the voices of children and he stopped. Some women, the wives of good men, had gathered with a few holy children and they were praying the Lord to let the Gospel spread in the teeth of the Pope and all his friends from below! Luther went back and said, "It is all right. The children are praying to God. The Lord will hear them. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings has He ordained strength." So you see in the promise of the Divine Presence there is nothing said about numbers and nothing about rank. Neither is a word said as to place, except that it says, "Where two or three." "Where" means anywhere! In any place where two or three are met together in Christ's name there He is! Not only in the cathedral, but in the barn. Not only in the Tabernacle, but in the field. "Where" means everywhere! In the loneliest place, in the far-away forest, in an upper room, or on board ship, or in an hospital-- "Jesus, wherever Your people meet, There they behold Your Mercy Seat. Wherever they seek You, You are found, And everyplace is hallowed ground. For You within no walls confined, Inhabit the humble mind. Such always find You where they come, And going, take You to their home." Christ will be with you anywhere when you are with Him in prayer! Have you ever read how the Covenanters, when the times of peace came on and they could worship in Church buildings, yet, nevertheless, often looked back with sadness to the glorious days they had in the mosses and on the bleak hillsides when they were hunted by Claverhouse's dragoons and the Lord covered them with the skirts of His garments? See the preacher reading his text by the lightning flash and hear his voice sounding, afterwards, amid the thick darkness! The saints who had gathered together to hear the Word of God had an overpowering sense of His Presence which nothing could excel! We may meet for prayer anywhere and expect Jesus to be in the midst of us! The place is not essential even in the least degree. When I see people running out every morning to church, it savors of a superstition which ought to have died out long ago. When you look into the church, you will find no great number assembled--generally the rector and one or two of the family make up the company. But if the whole parish came trooping out to church, I would say that they had better stay at home and pray with their families! Family prayer is a better institution than the tinkling of a bell every morning and the collecting of people in a church! Have a bell of your own and be your own priest! Open your Bible and pray with your children--that will be a more acceptable sacrifice than if you plod, in your superstition, half-a-mile to a so-called "sacred" place to enjoy the voice of a supposed priestly man! Dedicate your parlor; consecrate your sitting room; make your kitchen into a Church for God--for there is no sacredness in bricks, mortar, stone and stained glass! The outside of a Church is as holy as the inside. Far ought such an age as this to be from the revolting superstition which makes the houses of the godly to be common and unclean in order to magnify the parish church! May we get back to the simplicity of Christ! "Neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem shall men worship the Father." The time is coming, yes and now is, when in every place God seeks spiritual worshippers who worship Him in spirit and in truth. And will you please notice this--that as numbers and rank and place are all non-essentials, so also is the time! There may be--there ought to be to us from holy habit--an hour of prayer. But though that hour is especially and rightly the hour of prayer--for he that has no appointed time for prayer may probably forget to pray--yet still that pious custom must never degenerate into superstition as though Heaven's gate were opened at a certain quarter of an hour and shut during all the rest of the day! Meet whenever you please! No time will be unseasonable. All hours are good--from 12 o'clock at night to 12 o'clock the next night--and so onward. The hour of prayer is the hour of need, the hour of opportunity, the hour of desire, the hour when you can come together. Let every hour, according as occasion permits you, become the hour of prayer! I have heard it said, sometimes, in the country, "Well, we cannot get our people together for a Prayer Meeting because they are busy at the harvest." If the preacher were to get up at four o'clock in the morning and hold a meeting for prayer out in the field, itself, while yet the dew is on the grass--would it not be a wonderful thing for him and for his flock? Suppose the people cannot come to pray at six o'clock in the evening, make it seven, make it eight, make it nine, make it ten! Perhaps the young folks had better be in bed at so late an hour and there may, thus, be legitimate objections to some hours for public gatherings, but yet, twos and threes may sit up as late as they like to pray and no policeman will come round and tell them to go to bed! Our rulers do not ring the curfew! The Lord our God does neither slumber nor sleep-- He is always waiting to be gracious. And, once more, there is nothing said, here, about the form which the meeting is to take. "Where two or three are met together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." "They are going to break bread together." Very well, they are quite at liberty to do so. And if they have met in the Lord's name, He will be in the midst of them. "But they are going to hear a sermon." All right, so they may. Preaching is an ordinance of God and He will be in the midst of them. "But they are neither going to hold the communion, nor to hear a sermon--they are going to pray." Quite right! The Lord will be in their midst. "But they are not going to pray, that is to say, vocally. They are going to read Scripture and sit and think on it." Quite right! The Lord will be in the midst of them. "But they are not even going to read, or sing, or pray vocally--they are going to sit still." The Lord will be in the midst of them if they meet in the name of Jesus. "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." Do not be the dupes of those who say, "This one particular form of service is the only one." Christ has not put it so! And we will not be brought into any bondage by those who call themselves, "Brethren," and are the most unbrotherly brothers that ever lived! They tell us that we are all wrong--we cannot expect to have the Lord with us. To answer these is not difficult. "Dear brothers, we are not at all grieved by your talking as you do, for we know you are wrong, since we have the Lord with us. It does not matter at all to us what you say so long as we enjoy His company and see the prosperity which He gives to us. So long as we do not quarrel with one another once every few years, we are not anxious to follow you in your methods which are illustrated by your bitter feuds. "As long as we do not split up into the most miserable sections of sectarians that ever disgraced the name of Christ, we shall not be greatly wounded by any remarks which you have to make. Condemn and welcome, for your condemnations are mere wind! May your abjurations be blessed to us and may they ease your minds, also, by relieving your minds of a little of your bitterness! We believe that any form which true worship takes is a form which the Lord Jesus Christ not only tolerates but sanctions if His Spirit is there. But if you meet without that Spirit of God, even though you should think yourselves Infallibly correct in the form which your meeting assumes, that form will be of very little use to you. I bless God for the grand liberty of worship which is given here! I bless God that He has not laid down this regulation and that, but has left His people to His own free Spirit." "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." So much on non-essentials. II. But now, secondly, there is A MATTER WHICH IS MOST ESSENTIAL and that is, that they should be gathered in Christ's name. Does not this mean that the gathering must be that of Christians met together as Christians to have fellowship with Jesus Christ and so with one another? Does it not mean that they must be met together in obedience to His will, as they understand it, to carry out His will as they find it in the New Testament and as the Spirit of God opens up that New Testament to them? Does it not mean, also, that they must be met together distinctly for the Lord's pur-poses?--to honor Christ, to bring glory to His name, to worship Him? They must be met together not to a kind of mystic, invisible, unknown Christ, but in His name, for Christ has a name--a distinct Personality, a Character--and that must be known, loved and honored, or else we have not met in His name. Are we not to meet because He bids us meet and because we have His authority for meeting, His authority for breaking bread, His authority for Baptism, His authority for prayer, His authority for praise, His authority for the ministry of the Word, His authority for reading the Scriptures, His authority for mutual edification, or whatever form of worship seems most suitable? We meet not to carry out our own devices, but to carry out that which is appointed us by our Lord Himself. And does not this gathering into His name mean that we are, first, to be known by His name, and then to get close to one another by drawing more and more near to Him? The way to be gathered together is to be gathered by Him and to Him. If all press to the center, they all press to one another. If each man's aim is personal fellowship with Christ, personal knowledge of Christ, personal trust in Christ, personal adoration of Christ, personal service to Christ and the getting of a personal likeness to Christ, then we are all coming together. While our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ, we also have fellowship with all the saints. This should be the great objective of all our gatherings, to be brought more fully into Christ--and all of us must, meanwhile, believe that Jesus is in the midst and we must come together unto Him. You do not meet, tonight, to listen to a certain preacher, but because through that preacher you have been helped to get nearer to the Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, you are glad to hear his voice and glad to worship God with those friends with whom you have fellowship in Christ. You do well to come where you have found Christ before--and you do well to stay away from any gathering where you have not found Christ. Some, as they go out of the place where they usually worship, are sadly compelled to cry, "They have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid Him." Do not go where Jesus is not present! And if you are distinctly obliged to say, "I have heard sermon after sermon almost without mention of His name. I have gone for months together and I have not had a sweet thought of heavenly fellowship arising out of the service"--then do not go there again. Do not go to any Church or Meeting House merely because you have been in the habit of going. If your father used to live in Islington, but has now moved, you do not think it necessary to go and call at his empty house, do you? Go where the Lord has met with you and where you may expect that He will meet with you again! Sabbaths are too precious to be thrown away by sitting still to be starved. Even a cow does not care to be tied up in an empty stall! And a horse does not run to an empty manger. Seek the Lord Jesus and do not rest till you find Him. We must gather into His name and get closer and closer to Him, or else the Lord's Day will run to waste--and barrenness will devour our souls. III. Now, as usual, I have taken up too much time with the first two heads, for the last is the most important and that is, AN ASSURANCE MOST ENCOURAGING--"Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." First then, very briefly, how is the Lord Jesus there? Notice the exact words. Catch the gracious sense. He does not say, "I will be there." He says, "I am there." He is the first at the gathering! "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I." Not, "I will be," though that is true, but He puts it in a more Divine fashion-- "There am I." Jesus is there already before another arrives! He is the first in the congregation, the first in the assembly and they come gathering to Him! He is the Center and they come to Him. "There am I." How is He there? As we, His people, meet, He is there because He is in every one of us. It is a blessed thing to see Christ in His people. Did you ever try to do that? I know some who try to see the old man in Christ's people. It does not take them long to see the body of sin and death--and it is not a refreshing sight when they see it. But oh, to see Christ in His people--what a charming sight it is! And I think, with regard to every child of God that I know, that I can see a little more of Christ in him than I can see in myself. I cultivate the practice of endeavoring to see my Lord in all His people, for He is there and it is irreverent not to honor Him. He is with them and is in them--why should we doubt it? That is something worth remembering. If so many temples of the Holy Spirit come together, why, surely, the Holy Spirit, Himself, is there--and the place where they stand is holy ground! Jesus is in their thoughts, in their objectives, in their desires--yes, and in their groans, in their sorrows, in their spirits, in their inmost souls. Where two or three are gathered together in His name, there is He in the midst of them! And, next, He is with us in His Word. When the Book is opened, it is not mere words, it is the living and "incorruptible seed which lives and abides forever." And Christ is in it as the Immortal Life, the secret life-germ in every seed that we sow! Christ is the Way if we teach men the road to Heaven. Christ is the Truth if we preach the doctrines of Grace. Christ is the Life if we enjoy and feed upon His precious name. Where His Word is preached, there He is, for it shall not return to Him void, but it shall prosper in the thing whereto He has sent it. Christ is in His ordinances. He has not dissociated Himself from Baptism which is the blessed symbol in which His death, burial and Resurrection are clearly set forth. He has not separated Himself from that other ordinance in which we behold His passion and see the way in which we become partakers of it, by feeding upon His body and His blood. He has promised to be with us even to the end of the world in the keeping of those Divine memorials of His Incarnation and Atonement, His life and His death. And then the Lord Jesus Christ is with the assembly by His Spirit. The Spirit is His Representative, whom He has sent as the Comforter to live with us forever. You must have felt Him, sometimes, convincing you of sin, humbling you and bowing you down--then cheering you, comforting you, enlightening you, guiding you, relieving you, sustaining you, sanctifying you! Oh, what light He brings! What life He brings! What love He brings! What joy He brings! When the Spirit of God is in the midst of God's people, what merry days they have! What days of Heaven upon earth! Does not this fact that Christ is among His people show us that He must be Divine? How can He be everywhere in all the assemblies of His people unless He is the Omnipresent God? There may be professing Christians who feel a kind of fellowship with Socinians, but I have none. I will not call them Unitarians, for I am as truly a Unitarian, myself, as any of them can be! I no more believe in three gods than I believe in 30 gods! There is but one God to me and, therefore, I am in that sense a Unitarian--and Socinians have no right to the name merely because they deny the Godhead of our Lord Jesus. We believe Father, Son and Holy Spirit to be one God! But Jesus Christ is God and whoever casts that Truth of God away, casts away eternal life! How can he enter into Heaven if he does not know Christ as the everlasting Son of the Father? He must be God since He has promised to be in thousands of places at one time--no mere man could do that. Next, where is the Lord in the assembly? He has promised to be with His people, but where is He? "There am I in the midst of them." Not up in the corner, but here in the midst of them is the Lord! He is the Center to which all saints gather. He is the Sun in the heavens lighting all. He is the Heart in the midst of the body giving life to all the members. "In the midst of then." Is not this delightful? The Lord Jesus Christ does not come into the assembly of His people to bless only the minister. No, you are all equally near in proportion to the Grace of nearness you have received. He is in the midst of you! He is in the center of all hearts! Like the center of a wheel, from which all the spokes radiate, Jesus Christ is the middle of the company. Armies place the king or some great general in the heart of the host, in the place of honor and command--so, as our army marches to battle--our King is in the center. The King is in the midst of the saints in all His Glory and His Presence is their strength and their assurance of victory. Glory be to our present Lord--He is in the midst of us right now! And if He is in the midst of His people, what will He do? Why, He is there to sanction every little gathering of His people--to say to the twos and threes--"You are not Dissenters, for you have met with Me. You are not Nonconform-ists--you are conformed to Me and I am one with you. You are the Established Church--you two or three. I have established you in My everlasting love. Those that meet in My name I have established them and I have endowed them--and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against them! I sanction your assemblies if you are My people." He is there to bless those who supplicate and adore. But, mark you, the text does not say this in so many words--and do not you say it, Brothers and Sisters, next time you pray. Did I not hear you say, "Lord, You have said, 'Where two or three are met together in My name, there am I in the midst of them, and that to bless them and do them good'"? That last little bit is your own--that addition is not in the Bible, for it is not the Lord's way to say what never needs be said. What other blessing do we need than Christ in the midst of us? If He is there, the blessing is not what He gives--He Himself is the blessing! It is not what He does--it is Himself! It is not even what He says--it is Himself. Oh, blessed be His name for what He gives! And blessed be His name for what He does! And blessed be His name for what He says! But still more blessed be His name because He Himself'loved us and gave Himself for us--and now comes, Himself, into the midst of His people! Now, dear Friends, if Christ Himself is in the midst of His people, He will bring us peace, just as He did when He dropped into the assembly of the 11, the doors being shut. He stood and said, "Peace be unto you!" And when He had said that, He showed them His hands and His side. It was Himself, His own peace and His own Person which made His disciples glad. Then He said, "As My Father has sent Me, even so send I you." This was His own commission from His own lips to His own servants and, having said this, He breathed on them and said, "Receive you the Holy Spirit." Thus His own breath and His own Spirit coming upon them made them strong for service--and that is what He means when He says, "I am in the midst of then." Does not this make our meetings delightful--Christ in the midst of us? Does not this make our meetings important? How one ought to strain a point to be there! If we have ever met with Christ, we shall not bear to be away. We shall long to meet Him again and count it a great denial if we must be absent. Does not this make our meetings influential? The gatherings of God's people are centers of influence. When the gathering contains but two or three, if Christ is there, the eternal power and Godhead are present! And out of this Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shined. Where even two or three are met together and He is in the midst of them, "there breaks He the arrows of the bow, the sword, and the shield, and the battle." He will make His power known and the glory of His Grace shall go forth out of those little companies even to the ends of the earth-- "Where two or three, with sweet accord, Obedient to their Sovereign Lord, Meet to recount His acts of Grace, And offer solemn prayer and praise, 'There,' says the Savior, 'will I be, Amid this little company-- To them unveil My smiling face, And shed My glories round the place.'" "Oh, but," you say, "the pulpit is the great power of God, is it not?" I answer, it is so because of the prayers of God's people. One may speak, but what of that, unless the rest shall pray? Preaching is God's ordinance--His battle-ax and weapons of war. But, as far as the Church is concerned, the arm that wields these weapons must be the prayer of the whole body of the faithful--the gathering together of the saints in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ! "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is," but come together as often as you have opportunity--not neglecting other duties--but balancing them, one with the other! He says, "Seek you My face." Let your cry be, "Your face, Lord, will we seek." When Sir Thomas Abney was Lord Mayor of London, in the middle of the banquet which takes place on the first night, he disappeared for a quarter-of-an-hour. And when he came back, he said to the friends around him that he had been keeping a particular engagement with a most intimate friend and so he had retired for a while. That appointment was to have family prayer with his household in the Mansion House. And that gathering for prayer he would not have given up on any account whatever. Say to all other things, "You must stand back. I have a particular appointment--I must meet the Lord Jesus Christ with two or three of His people. He says that He will be there and I should not like Him to say, 'Where is My servant? Where is My son? Where is My daughter? Are they absent when I am here?'" It is such a blessing to get to know the Lord Jesus personally. I heard the other day of a famous infidel, an agnos-tic--that is, an ignoramus, a person who knows nothing--and he went to a certain house to meet an elderly lady of considerable literary renown. He was told that she believed in the Word of God and was a faithful follower of the Lord Jesus. And so he thought that he would have a word with her before he went away. "Madam," he said, "I have been astonished to hear one thing of you. I hear that you believe in the Bible." "Yes, Sir," she said, "every Word of it." "And pray, Madam," he said, "however came you to believe in that Book?" She replied, "One of the principal reasons that I have for believing in the Book is that I am intimately acquainted with the Author of it." That was a blessed answer! Faith gets to know Christ and so, knowing Christ, and meeting Him in the midst of His people, it becomes armed against all unbelief and goes forth in its panoply conquering and to conquer. So will it be with you, Beloved, if you meet the Well-Beloved alone in your closets--and if you add to this a frequent attendance at the holy assembly. I pray you, do not let us have to complain that one of you is away! Come always. My heart will rejoice if our meetings are filled with men and women who there seek communion with Jesus! Come, for Jesus is with us! Come, for it would be most unseemly for Him to be here and you away. I pray you come and make this house like Heaven, which is thronged with shining ones who rejoice because Jesus is in their midst! Amen. __________________________________________________________________ High Doctrine And Broad Doctrine (No. 1762) DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT EXETER HALL. "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and him that comes to Me I will by no means cast out." John 6:37. THESE two sentences have been looked upon as representing two sides of Christian doctrine. They enable us to see it from two standpoints--the Godward and the manward. The first sentence contains what some call high doctrine. If by "high" they mean "glorious towards God," I fully agree with them, for it is a grand, God-honoring Truth which our Lord Jesus declares in these words--"All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me." Some have styled this side of the Truth of God Calvinistic, but while it is true that Calvin taught it, so, also, did Augustine, Paul and our Lord, Himself, whose Words are these. However, I will not quarrel with those who see in this sentence a statement of the great Truth of God of predestinating Grace. The second sentence sets forth blessed, encouraging, evangelical doctrine and is, in effect, a promise and an invitation--"Him that comes to Me I will by no means cast out." This is a statement without limitation of any kind. It has been thought to leave the free Grace of God open to the free will of man, so that whoever pleases my come and may be sure that he will not be refused. We have no permission to pare down either sentence, nor is there the slightest need to do so. The first sentence appears to me to say that God has chosen a people and has given these people to Christ--and these people must and shall come to Christ--and shall be saved. The second Truth of God declares that every man who comes to Christ shall be saved, since he shall not be cast out--and that implies that he shall be received and accepted. These are two great Truths of God--let us carry them both with us and they will balance each other. I was once asked to reconcile these two statements and I answered, "No, I never reconcile friends." These two passages never fell out--they are perfectly agreed! It is folly to imagine a difference and then set about removing it! It is like making a man of straw and then going out to fight with it. The grand declaration of the purpose of God that He will save His own is quite consistent with the widest declaration that whoever will come to Christ shall be saved! The pity is that it should ever be thought to be a difficulty in the two Truths, or that, supposing there is a difficulty, we should have thought it our duty to remove it. Believe me, my dear Hearers, the business of removing religious difficulties is the least remunerative labor under Heaven. The truest way is to accept the difficulty, wherever you find it in God's Word, and to exercise your faith upon it. It is unreasonable to suppose that faith is to be exempted from trials--all the other Divine Graces are exercised--and why should not faith be put to the test? I often feel a joy within my spirit in having to believe what I cannot understand! And sometimes, when I have to say to myself, "How can it be?" I find a joy in replying that it is so written and, therefore, it must be so. In spite of all reasoning stands the utterance of God--our Father speaks and doubts are silenced--His Spirit writes and we believe! I feel great pleasure in gliding down the river of Revelation upon a voyage of discovery and, hour by hour, obtaining fresh knowledge of Divine Truths. But when I come to an end of progress and see my way blocked up by a sublimely awful difficulty, I find equal pleasure in casting anchor under the lee of the obstacle and waiting till the Pilot tells me what to do next. When we cannot go through a Truth of God, we may be led over it, or around it and what does that matter? Our highest benefit comes not of answering riddles, but of obeying commands by the power of love! Suppose we can see no further into the subject--what then? Shall we be troubled about that? Must there not be an end of human knowledge somewhere? May we not be perfectly satisfied for God to appoint the boundary of understanding? Let us not, therefore, run our heads against difficulties of our own invention--and certainly not against those which God has seen fit to leave for us. Take, then, these two Truths of God, and know that they are equally precious portions of one harmonious whole! Let us not quibble over them, or indulge a foolish favoritism for one and a prejudice against the other, but let us receive both with a candid, large-hearted love of the Truth of God such as children of God should exhibit. We are not called upon to explain, but to accept! Let us believe if we cannot reconcile! Here are two jewels--let us wear them both. As surely as this Book is true, God has a people whom He has chosen and whom Christ has redeemed from among men! And these must and shall, by Sovereign Grace, be brought, in due time, to repentance and faith, for not one of them shall ever perish. But yet is it equally true that whoever among the sons of men shall come and put his trust in Christ shall receive eternal life. "Whoever will, let him take the Water of Life freely."-- "None are excluded but those Who do themselves exclude. Welcome the learned and polite, The ignorant and rude." The two Truths of my text are by no means inconsistent with each other--they are perfectly agreed. Happy is the man who can believe them both, whether he sees their agreement or does not see it. I was cruising, one day, in the western Highlands. It had been a splendid day and the glorious scenery had made our journey like an excursion to Fairy Land. But it came to an end, for darkness and night asserted their primeval sovereignty. Right ahead was a vast headland of the isle of Arran. How it frowned against the evening sky! The mighty rock seemed to overhang the sea. Just at its base was a little bay and into this we steamed and there we lay at anchorage all night, safe from every wind that might happen to be seeking out its prey. In that calm loch we seemed to lie in the mountain's lap while its broad shoulders screened us from the wind. Now, the first part of my text, "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me," rises like a huge headland high into the heavens. Who shall scale its height? Upon some it seems to frown darkly. But here at the bottom lies the placid, glassy lake of Infinite Love and Mercy--"Him that comes to Me I will by no means cast out." Steam into it and be safe under the shadow of the great rock! You will be the better for the mountain-truth as your boat snugly reposes within the glittering waters at its foot--while you may thank God that the text is not all mountain to repel you--you will be grateful that there is enough of it to secure you. First, I shall bid you view that goodly mountain and then we shall sail into that pleasant loch. I. Consider, then, with reverential joy THE ETERNAL PURPOSE. Our Lord Jesus Christ, when He found that the mass of the people rejected Him, turned round upon them and said, "You believe not, because you are not of My sheep." He knew in His own heart that even if they refused Him, all would not do so--a number would assuredly believe on Him. Therefore He boldly said, "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me." He threw this grand fact in the teeth of His fierce revilers! It was His own comfort and their rebuke. Now, I do not want to throw it at anybody tonight! On the contrary, I desire to use it as a beckoning finger to any troubled heart that longs to come to Jesus and be saved. I saw the other day, round a gentleman's park, a very strong and lofty palisade--and to recomplete the exclusive apparatus, a superabundant number of tenter-hooks were nailed upon the top of the fence and a liberal quantity half-way up. I somewhat jokingly observed upon the kindness of the proprietor, in placing so many nails for the boys to climb up by--and so many more for them to hold on by when once they were up. "Why," said my companion, "those tenter-hooks would tear fingers and clothes to pieces! They are no help to climbers." "No," I replied, "No more help to climbers than the remarks which your minister made upon the Sovereignty of God could be considered to be no help to seekers of the Lord Jesus." The good man set forth the truth in the most awkward and pernicious manner possible; not making, thereof, steps for earnest climbers, but tenter-hooks for unwelcome intruders. I never yet saw such a crowd desirous of salvation that there was the slightest call for fences and tenter-hooks to keep them out--but I do see so many tremblers needing en-couragement--and so many doubters needing instruction that I delight to turn every Word, promise and doctrine of the Lord into sweet invitations to all around me to come and welcome to the great heart of the Crucified! I am not afraid that too many will come--my fears are all in the opposite direction! Oh, that I could hope that all my present hearers would come to Jesus at once! First, notice carefully, that if all that the Father gives to Christ shall come to Him, then some people shall most surely come to Christ--and why should not you be among them? This seems to me to be a sweet suggestion for the help of despondency when she is at her worst--some must come to Christ, why should not I come? When the devil says to you, "You cannot come to Christ," and you, yourself, feel as if you could not come. When sin hampers you, when doubt drags you down, when you cannot do what you want to do--still it is decreed and determined that some people must come-- then why not you? By Divine decree they shall come! Why should not you be among them? Does not that help you? If God blesses it, you will no longer sit on the borders of despair! Suppose there is a plague in the city, but there are some people predestinated to be healed? I would be glad to know of that fact! I would be almost glad of it if it was sure that I was not one of the favored ones, for I rejoice in the good of others--but I would be still more glad to press to the physician with this assurance upon my mind--some must be healed, why should not I? There is a famine in the land. I hear that it is revealed by a sure prophet that a certain number never shall die of famine. Then why should not I outlive the dreadful days and be among them? Why not? I hear one say, "Suppose I am not one of God's elect?" To Him I answer, "Suppose you are?" Better still, suppose that you leave off supposing altogether and just go to Jesus Christ and see! To go to Him is your wisdom--your immediate business, as laid down in His Word--therefore, delay not! Instead of shutting myself out, as some do, because it is written, "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me"--I shut myself in and say--"Then I will be among them." Why should I not? Oh, Lord, if You have ordained that some shall come, then I see that to them no difficulties can be insuperable and I will, therefore, come to You, myself, and in Your name enter in where every coming one is welcome! In the next place, I find that those that come to Christ, according to this text, come because of the Father and the Son. Read it. "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me." That is, they come to Jesus. Why is it that they are made to come? Because the Father has given them to Christ! Why is it that they shall come? Is it because there is some good thing in them? No, there is nothing said upon that point either one way or the other. Is it because they have strong wills and firm determinations and, therefore, come? The Scripture is equally silent upon that point, except that it says elsewhere that the New Birth is not of the will of man! The reason that is given why they shall come to Jesus is because something was done for them by the Father and by the Son. Why, then, should I not come? Suppose I am weak? Suppose I am sinful? Suppose I am seven times more sinful than anybody else? Yet, since this "shall come" depends not on the character of those to whom the promise is made, but upon a certain something done for them by the Father and the Son, why should I not be among those for whom the Father and the Son have done this certain thing? And why should I not, therefore, be made to come to Jesus? There never was a soul that really wanted to come to Jesus but what it could come and did come! There never was a pining, longing sinner that was long kept away from Christ! When he wanted Christ, Christ wanted him a hundred times as much! If you have the least desire or the faintest longing after the Lord Jesus Christ, then the cords of love are about you and His mighty hands are drawing home those cords! Yield to the sweet pressure and you shall come, not because of what you are, or what you have ever been, but because of what the Father is doing and because of what the Son is doing! It is written, "No man can come to Me except the Father which has sent Me draws him." And when He is drawing, you can come. The Father is drawing you since you are longing to come and are anxious to find a Savior! Now, do not turn this Truth of God about so as to set it edgeways and make a chevaux de frise of it to keep yourself from getting to Christ. The doctrine of the Divine Purpose is not a thorn hedge to keep you off from the Tree of Life--on the contrary, you are bound to regard it as an open door! "Some must come. Why not I? Those that come do so because of something done for them by the Father and of the Son--why should not that have been done for me? Why should I not draw near to God?" Notice, thirdly, that these people are, all of them, saved because they come to Christ. Observe the words--"All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me." They are not saved in any other way than by coming to Christ. Here are certain people that are different from others, for the Father has given them to Christ. Yes, but it does not matter how different they are from others--they have to be saved in the same way as other people. There is no way of salvation specially prepared for these peculiar people--they must still follow the King's highway. The one common way of salvation is by coming to Christ--and all that the Father has given to Christ must come in by this gate! This is the one door that God has opened--there is no other--there shall never be any other! Come! Pluck up heart, my dear Friend--you that are bowing your head like a bulrush--the best saint in Heaven found his way there by a simple trust in Jesus Christ! Why cannot you get there in the same way? Many sinners of the deepest dye have been saved through Jesus Christ--and why should not you be saved in the same way? Ask Peter, and James, and John, and Paul and all the rest of them, whether they entered into Heaven by a private bridge thrown across for them, alone--and they will tell you that they were saved by the one Redeemer! As no Scripture is of private interpretation, so be sure that there is no private and secret Savior for a few favored persons! Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. God's elect can only be saved by coming to Christ. Jesus says, "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me," for they cannot be saved any other way! Coming to Christ is the one essential thing. "Oh," says one, "I sometimes wish that I knew whether I was one of God's elect." Why should you wish to know anything out of its turn, when you can learn every Truth that you need by studying other Truths which lead up to it? You come to Christ and you will know that you were given to Christ--for none come to Him but those who are His--and by their coming to Him they give the best evidence of their election. You know what the Brother in Cornwall said to Malachi, who was rather a stout Calvinist? He said, "Now, Mala-chi, I owe you £2. Before I discharge the debt I need you to tell me whether I am predestinated to pay you." Malachi opened wide his hand and said, "Put the £2 there and I will tell you directly." Like most sensible folk, he preferred to prophesy after the event--and there are many advantages in keeping to that method! It is evidently the natural order of things for uninspired folk. Whether the Father gave me to Christ or not, I cannot discover till I know whether I have come to Christ! When I know that I have truly come to Christ with all my heart, then I am certain that I was given to Christ and I find no difficulty in so believing! Yes, my heart is glad to think that I am saved in the same way as others are saved! Yet, once again, from this text it is most clear that if I come to Christ, the Father gave me to Christ. If I, whoever I may be, do but simply trust Jesus--for that is the coming, here, meant--then I am one whom the Father gave to His Son. If, just as I am, I cast myself upon His blood and righteousness and become His disciple, sworn to follow Him, hoping, by His help, to tread in His footsteps--then I may know that, long before the daystar knew its place, or planets ran their round, the Eternal Father had looked upon me with eyes of everlasting love--and that He still accepts me and will never cast me away! Is it not so? "All that the Father gives Me shall come to me" and, if I have come, then the Father has given me to Christ! The great question is answered; the eternal mystery is unveiled and my spirit may rejoice in God, my Savior, and in all the precious things of that Everlasting Covenant which is ordered in all things and sure! So much about that huge, overhanging mass of rock! Of that I am going to say no more. Only under its lee I have anchored long ago and at that anchorage I mean, still, to remain. Since I have come to Jesus, I know that I belong to Him by the Great Father's gift--and I am right well assured that the purpose of God shall be fulfilled in me--and that He will assuredly bring me, with all the rest of His elect, to His Kingdom and Glory, where we shall see His face forever! This may be called old-fashioned doctrine--I care not what it is called--it is my life and I dare rest my soul's weight upon it for time and for eternity! II. Now we enter into smooth water--the mystery is opened, let us partake of the joy of it. We have, in the second place, to speak to you for a little time on THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL--"Him that comes to Me I will by no means cast out." You may forget my first head if you like, especially if you are troubled by it, but I earnestly beseech you remember the second. "Him that comes to Me I will by no means cast out." This is one of the most generous Gospel texts that I remember to have met with between the covers of this Book. Generous, first, as to the character to whom the promise is made. "Him that comes to Me"--that is the character. The man may have been guilty of an atrocious sin, too black to mention, but if he comes to Christ, he shall not be cast out! To that atrocious sin he may have added many others, till the condemning list is full and long--but if he comes to Christ, he shall not be cast out. He may have hardened his neck against the remonstrances of prudence and the entreaties of mercy. He may have sinned deeply and willfully--but if he comes to Christ, he shall not be cast out! He may have made himself as black as night--as black as Hell--but if he shall come to Christ, the Lord will not cast him out! I cannot tell what kind of persons may have come into this Hall tonight--but if burglars, murderers and dynamite-men were here, I would still bid them come to Christ, for He will not cast them out! I suppose that the most of you are tolerably decent as to moral character and to you I say, if you come to Christ, He will not cast you out. Children of godly parents, hearers of the Word of God, He will not cast you out! You who lack only one thing, but that the one thing necessary, He will not cast you out! Backsliders! Are there some such here who have almost forgotten the way to God's sanctuary--for whom the Sabbath bell proclaims no Sabbath now? Come to Jesus and He will not cast you out! Oh, you Londoners, you have grown weary of God's House and of God's Day-- millions of you, but if with all your irreligion you are here tonight, this Truth of God holds good for you, also--if you trust in Jesus, He will not cast you out! If, amidst this company, there should be some whose characters we had better not describe and who already shrink into themselves at the very idea of being picked out and mentioned by name--yet if such persons come to Jesus, He will gladly receive them! Be your character what it may, you who are wrapped in mystery--you shall not be cast out! I wish that I could convince those who are troubled about a life of grievous sin, for to the life-long transgressor the text is still true! My Lord proclaims an act of oblivion concerning all the past. It shall be as though it had never been! Through Jesus Christ, if you will but believe in Him, the whole past shall be rolled up and put away as though it had never known an existence--and you, yourself, shall be born again! When Naaman came up from washing in the Jordan we read that, "His flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child and he was clean." And so it shall be with you. The old man took the fair-haired child upon his knee and ran his fingers through its locks, and said, "Young child, God keep you from the sin into which I have plunged. My old life is full of evil. It is now almost over and I am past hope. Would God I were a child again!" Lo, the Angel of Mercy whispers to anyone in that condition, "You may be a child again!" The man a hundred years of age may yet be made a child! And he that is a gray-beard in infamy may yet become a babe in innocence through the cleansing power of the water and the blood which flowed from the side of Jesus! Go and write it across the brow of night! Write it in new stars if you can--"Him that comes to Me I will by no means cast out." Then hang it up over the midday heavens and let the sun cast all his beams upon it, till it seems written in the splendor of God--"Him that comes to Me I will by no means cast out." The character who will be received is not mentioned, lest in mentioning one sinner, another should seem to be excluded. No limit is set to the extent of sin--any "him" in all the world--any blaspheming, devilish "him" that comes to Christ shall be welcomed! I use strong words that I may open wide the gate of mercy. Any "him" that comes to Christ--though he come from slum or taproom, betting ring or gambling hall, prison or brothel--Jesus will by no means cast out! Further, this text is a very generous one because it gives no limit to the coming. The only limit to the way of coming is that they come to Christ. I have known some come to Christ running to Him--a willing, speedy, earnest pace. You read of that in the Gospels. They were so glad to hear of a Savior that they flew to Him at once! Many young children and young people do this and they are blessed in the deed. Come along with you, you lively and tender spirits! He will not cast you out if you leap and rush to Him! If you run all of a sudden to Him tonight--if you make a dash for Christ--He will not cast you out. Alas, a great many, when they come to Christ, advance very limpingly. They are burdened with a huge load of sin and fettered with doubts and fears--and so they make slow progress. They do not look to Jesus and live all at once. They keep looking here and looking there, instead of looking to Him. They are a long while in coming, for they are afraid, ignorant and dull. Never mind, Brothers and Sisters. The snail got into the Ark! And if you come to Christ, He will not cast you out though your pace is sadly sluggish. Some look to Christ as soon as they hear of Him, with clear, bright eyes like those of Rachel. Oh, such a look! They seem to drink in Christ and His salvation all at once with those bright eyes. But I have met with many whose look is like that of Leah, who had tender eyes--they look through the mists of their doubt and the showers of their tears--and they do not half see Christ as they should. Yes, but that half-clouded look will save them! Any looking will save you if it is looking to Christ--and any coming, if it is coming to Chris, will save you! Coming to sacraments may condemn you! Coming to priests will ruin you! But coming to Christ will save you! If your simple faith takes hold of Christ's salvation, there is life in that grip. If your thoughts think of Him, if your heart embraces Him, if your soul trusts Him, however weakly and imperfectly you do it, He will not cast you out! Oh, this is glorious truth to my mind--is it not so to yours? So long as we but come to Him, our Savior will not cast us away! I feel glad to be preaching this Gospel in Exeter Hall--are you not glad to hear it? If you are not, you are a sorry lot. Thirdly, there is no limit, here, as to time. "Him that comes to Me I will by no means cast out" is a glorious, free utterance, compassing every age. There may be some little children here--indeed, I am glad to see boys and girls mingling with the congregation. Listen to me, my children! I am always glad to see you and we preachers make a great mistake if we do not preach to you. Oh, dear John and Jane, Mary and Thomas--I wish you would come to Christ while you are yet young--and put your trust in Him and become young Christians. There is no reason why you should not! You are old enough to die; and you are old enough to sin; and you are old enough to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ! Why should you not do so at once? When I was just about 15 years of age I was helped by God's Spirit to cast myself upon Christ. And have I ever regretted that I came to Jesus so soon? No! I wish that I could have come 15 years before and that I had known Christ as soon as I learned to know my mother! Some of you have heard about Jesus from your infancy. His name was part of the music with which your mother sang you to sleep. Oh, that you may know Jesus by faith as well as by hearing! Do not think that you have to wait till you are grown up before you may come to Jesus. We have baptized quite a number of boys and girls of 10, 11 and twelve. I spoke the other day with a little boy nine years of age and I tell you that he knew more about Christ than many gray-headed men do--and he loved Jesus most heartily! As the sweet child talked to me about what Christ had done for him, he brought tears into my eyes, to see how happily and brightly he could speak of what he had felt in his own soul, of the Savior's power to bless. You young children are like rosebuds and you know everybody likes a rosebud better than a full-blown rose. My Lord Jesus will gladly receive you as rosebuds! Offer yourselves to Him, for He will not cast you away! I am sure He never will. If any here are in the opposite extremity of life, I would remind them that, "him that comes to Me I will by no means cast out" applies to the aged as well as to the young! I heard it said by a minister--a very earnest man--that if persons were not converted before they were 45, he hardly believed that they would ever be converted afterwards. And he gave it as a note of his observation that he had not seen any persons converted after forty-five. I wished that I had been in his pulpit. I should not have questioned his statements, but I would have overlaid them with others of another character. Surely this Brother had been living in some minute hamlet or other, or else he had never preached the Gospel, in its fullness, to every creature! Perhaps he did not believe in the conversion of the aged and, consequently, no aged persons were converted by his means. I have seen as many people converted of one age as another--that is to say, in proportion to the number of them--for there are not so many people in the world over 50 as there are under 50 and, consequently, a large proportion of those persons who make up our congregations are young. We have in our regular gatherings a fair number of all ages. And as to the additions to the Church, I have noticed that there is about the same proportion of very young children as of very old men and women. We have baptized, upon profession of faith, men and women over 80 years of age, about whose conversion we had as firm a conviction as we had about the conversions of the little ones--neither more nor less. Who shall dare say that there is an age after which God's Grace does not work? I challenge anyone to bring a text which looks that way! Furthermore, I challenge the truth of any observations which arrive at such a result. My own preaching has been such that young and old in equal proportions have attended it and in equal proportions they have been saved. However old you may be, my Master bids me say to you, "him that comes to Me I will by no means cast out." Come along, come along, dear old Friend, though you cannot come without your cane! Come along, though your eyes are failing--come in your spectacles! Though you cannot do much for my Master, He can do everything for you! Though you have only a little time to live on earth, you will have all eternity in Heaven through which you can praise Him! I am sure you will be one of the most eager at that work. I think you will be like an old woman of my acquaintance. When I spoke to her about her conversion at an advanced age, she said, "Sir, if the Lord Jesus Christ ever does save such a poor old sinner as I am, He shall never hear the last of it." That is just why I want Him to save you--for then He will never hear the last of it! You will praise Him forever and forever for what He has done for you! Will you not? Oh, my dear Hearers, come to Jesus! Come in the morning when the dew is on your branch, for He will not cast you out. Come in the heat of noon, when the drought of care parches you--and He will not cast you out. Come when the shadows have grown long and the darkness of the night is gathering about you, for He will not cast you out! The door is not shut, for the gate of Mercy closes not, so long as the gate of Life is open! Oh, fly to Christ and find mercy, now! Once again, dear Friends, I want you to notice in my text the blessed certainty of this salvation. "Him that comes to Me I will by no means cast out." Two or three negatives in the Greek language make a negation stronger, though they would have no such effect in the English tongue. It is a very strong negative here. "Him that comes to Me I will not not cast out," or, "I will never never cast out." As much as to say--On no account, or for no reason, or on no pretence, or from no motive whatever will I ever, in time or in eternity, cast out the soul that comes to Me. That is how it stands--a declaration of absolute certainty from which there can be no escaping! What a blessed thing it is to get your foot on certainties! Certain preachers, who are much cried up nowadays, are very uncertain preachers, for they do not, themselves, know what they will be propounding tomorrow! They make their creed as they go along and a very poor one it is when they make it. I believe in something sure and certain, namely, in Infallible Scripture and that which the Lord has written therein, never to be altered while the world stands. My text is certain as the Truth of Christ Jesus and if we have ever seen that beautiful face of His, we could not distrust Him! Can your imagination picture, for a minute, the ever-blessed face of the Son of God? Could you look into that face and suspect Him of a lie? And when He says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believes in Me has everlasting life," the saying must be true! If you believe in Him, you have everlasting life! When He says, "him that comes to Me I will never never cast out," the declaration must be true. He never, never, can cast you out, whoever you may be, however long you may live, or whatever else may happen--if you but come to Him! There are plenty of reasons, apparently, why He should cast you out, but He has knocked them all on the head by saying, "I will by no means cast out!" That is, "In no way, and under no pretext, will I ever cast out a soul that comes to Me." Now, if Christ does not cast us out, then He receives us--and if He receives us, we are received into the heart of God! We are received into eternal life and, by-and-by, we shall be received into everlasting blessedness! Oh, the joy of my text, in that it is so certain! So I shall close here, dear Friends, with just a word or two of further encouragement by noticing the personality of my text, for in this, a part of the liberality consists. Do you observe that the first part of the text began with, "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me"? Yes, but when Christ began to deal with sinners with broken hearts, He dropped the, "all," and every form of general statement, and He came to the personal singular pronoun --"him that comes to Me I will by no means cast out." Now, herein He meant to say to everyone in this Hall, "Ifyou come to Me, I will not cast you out." It is not, "If you and another come," for, if so, it would be put in the plural--"If you come." But it is, "him that comes." You alone! Your servant alone! Your child alone! But specially yourself alone--if YOU come to the Lord Jesus, He will not cast you out! You cannot doubt this. Come, then, my dear Hearers, believe your Savior! I am not talking, tonight, to persons who doubt the veracity of the Son of God. I am not talking to persons who think Christ a liar. You know that He would receiveyou if you would come. Then, why do you not come? But you mean to come, do you, by-and-by? Then why not now? What is it that holds you back? How dare you delay! Will you be alive next week? How can you be sure of a day, or an hour? When money is to be given away, I do not find that persons generally delay to receive it, and say, "I should rather have it next year." No, they say, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Oh, to have Christ in the hand and to get Him now! And why not now? Is it because you really do not understand what it is to receive Him, or to believe in Him? It is, indeed, the simplest thing in the world--and that is the only reason why it is so difficult! It is so exceedingly simple that men cannot believe that it can be as we put it. Indeed, it is so! Faith is simply to trust Christ! And trusting Christ brings with it the new life and salvation from sin. I sometimes put it in Watt's way -- "A guilty, weak, and helpless worm, On Christ's kind arms I fall." But after I had once been preaching, a young man said to me, "Sir, I cannot fall." "Oh dear," I said, "then I do not know how to talk; for I meant not a thing you could do, but the cessation of all your efforts! Just falling, or if you will see it better, just tumbling down--because you cannot stand upright." Because I cannot save myself, I fall into Christ's arms. Ceasing to hold to anything of my own, I just drop upon Him. "Still," you say, "there must be something more than that." There is nothing more than that! If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, you are born of God. "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believes not shall be damned." "He that with his heart believes, and with his mouth makes confession of Him, shall be saved." "Oh, but I must--I must--I must do something mysterious, or feel something which at present is far beyond me." Thus you call God a liar and put away from you eternal life! Have you never read the story of the good ship that had been a long time at sea and the captain had lost his reckoning? He drifted up the mouth of the great Amazon River and, after he had been sailing for a long time up the river without knowing that he was in a river at all, they ran short of water. When another vessel was seen, they signaled her, and when they got near enough for speaking they cried, "Water! We are dying for water!" They were greatly surprised when the answer came back, "Dip it up! Dip it up! You are in a river. It is all around you." They had nothing to do but to fling a bucket overboard and have as much water as they liked! And here are poor souls crying out, "Lord, what must I do to be saved?" when the great work is done and all that remains for them is to receive the free gift of eternal life! What must you do? You have done enough for one lifetime, for you have undone yourself by your doing! That is not the question! It is, "Lord, what have You done?" And the answer is, "It is finished! I have done it all. Only come and trust Me." Sinner, you are in a river of Grace and mercy! Over with the bucket, man! And drink to the full, for you will never exhaust the stream of Grace. A river is free to every dog that runs along the bank--every cow that stands by the river may drink to the full! So is the mercy of God free to every sinner, be he who he may, that does but come to Jesus! That river runs near to you tonight! Stoop down, you thirsty ones, and drink and live! But you say, "I must feel different from what I do now." You need not come with your bad feelings. "Oh, I have not yet a broken heart," says one. Come to Christ and He will break your heart. "But I do not feel my need as I ought." Come to Christ and He will help you to feel your need. "Oh, but I am nobody!" You are the very person that Christ delights in, for to you He will be everybody! Do you see that beautiful tree in the orchard loaded with fruit? It is a pear tree. From top to bottom it is covered with fruit. I think I never saw such a sight--every branch is bowing down. Some boughs are ready to break with the luscious burden. As I listen to the creaking boughs, I can hear the tree speak. What does it say? It says, "Baskets, baskets, baskets! Bring baskets!" Now, then, who has a basket? "I have one," cries yonder friend, "but it is of no use, for there is nothing in it." Bring it here, man! That is the very kind of basket the tree needs! A person over there says, "Oh, I have a basket--a splendid basket. It is just the thing. It is full from top to bottom." You may keep your basket to yourself. It is of no use to my loaded tree. Where is there an empty basket? Who has an empty basket? Come along with you! Come and pick from the tree as long as you like. Bring all your baskets. Bring thousands and thousands of baskets, all empty, and fill them all! Do you notice as we fill the baskets that the fruit begins to multiply? There is more when we have filled the baskets than there was at first, for this inexhaustible tree produces more and more fruit, as fast as we pluck from it. What is wanted by the Lord Jesus is an empty soul to receive out of the fullness which God has treasured up in Him! God bless every one of you, for His name's sake. Amen. LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON DEAR FRIENDS--It is with very sincere regret that I find myself obliged to prolong my absence. I have been exceedingly full of pain and have been very much a prisoner to my room, or I should have returned upon the appointed day. The deacons judged it better for me to remain till I could recover and certainly there is a far better hope for a man here in the sunshine than in a London fog. I rejoice to say that I already feel much better. Though I cannot quite maintain the erect figure which is becoming an upright man, yet the pains of lumbago are less acute than they were. I am full of confidence that I shall soon be well, in answer to your prayers. My heart is at home. I long to be preaching Christ and winning souls. May your work be blessed while I am silenced. Innumerable are the forms of your holy activity--may the Holy Spirit fill them all with His power. I send my love to all who are in Christ Jesus. As for those who are not in Him--what shall I say? No blessing can come to the soul which refuses the Lord Jesus. May there be none such among us. Wishing you a glorious Sabbath, I am your willing but suffering Pastor. C. H. SPURGEON Mentone, France January 17, 1884 __________________________________________________________________ Knowledge. Worship. Gratitude. A Sermon (No. 1763) Delivered by C. H. SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington So that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful.'Romans 1:20, 21 THOSE who boast of their knowledge betray their ignorance. Knowledge is not a possession to be proud of, since it brings with it so great a responsibility that a nurse might as well be proud of watching over a life in peril. Knowledge may become good or ill according to the use which is made of it. If men know God, for instance, and then glorify him as God, and are thankful, their knowledge has become the means of great blessing to them; but if they know God, and fail to glorify him, their knowledge turns to their condemnation. There is a knowledge which does not puff up the mind, but builds up the soul, being joined with holy love. Did not our Lord say, And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent'? But for men to know God, and not to glorify him as God, and to be unthankful, is according to our text, no benefit to them: on the contrary, it becomes a savour of death unto them, because it leaves them without excuse. Our Saviour could plead for some, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' But what plea is to be used for those who know what they do, and yet do evil; who know what they ought to do, and do it not? These have the light, and close their eyes; or, to use another figure, they have the light, and use it to sin by. They take the golden candlestick of the sanctuary into their hands, and by its help they perform their evil deeds the more dexterously, and run in the way of wickedness the more swiftly. Accursed is that man who heaps to himself knowledge till he becomes wise as Solomon, and then prostitutes it to base ends by using it to aggrandize his wealth, to pamper his appetites, to bolster his unbelief, or to conceal his vices. A man may by knowing more become all the more a devil. His growing information may only increase his condemnation. It is clear, then, that knowledge is not a possession of such unmingled good that we may grow vain of it; better far will it be if the more we know the more we watch and pray. Go on and read, young man. Go on and study with the utmost diligence. The more of knowledge you can acquire the better; but take care that you do not, like Sardanapalus, heap up your treasures to be your own funeral pile. Do not by a rebellious pride curdle the sweet milk of knowledge, and sour your precious blessing into an awful curse. It is soon done, but not so soon undone. It was the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil the eating of which brought all this evil upon us which ye see this day. Ye may eat of that tree still, if so it please you; but if ye taste not of the tree of life at the same time, your knowledge shall only open to you the gates of hell. Knowledge of itself alone is as land which may either become a blooming garden or a howling wilderness. It is a sea out of which you shall bring pearls or dead men's bones. Life and death, heaven and hell, are here: if it was said of old, Take heed what you hear,' I also say, Take heed what you know.' The people mentioned by Paul in our text fell into two great evils, or rather into two forms of one great evil'atheism: the atheism of the heart, and the atheism of the life. They knew God, but they glorified him not as God, neither were they thankful. We will first consider the first sin mentioned here, and then the second. I shall not look at these two evils as if you were Romans, because I know that you are not, but I shall adapt the text to your own case, and speak of these sins, as Englishmen are too apt to commit them. Thirdly, let us view the consequences, or, what comes of men not glorifying God, and not being thankful. Then, fourthly, let us fly from these sins immediately, God helping us. O Holy Spirit, help the preacher now, for all his help is in thee! I. At once, then, let us look at this first sin, a sin very common in these days. THEY KNEW GOD, BUT THEY GLORIFIED HIM NOT AS GOD. Even in old Rome, with all its darkness, there was some knowledge of God: how can the creature quite forget its Creator? Of course the people had not that spiritual knowledge which the Holy Ghost communicates to the renewed heart, for the carnal mind cannot know God spiritually: its fleshly ideas cannot come near to his holy spirituality. But Paul means that they perceived the eternal power and Godhead of the Great Former of all things; and they might have perceived much more of his divine character and glory if their foolish hearts had not been darkened by their evil passions. When you go among the heathen, whether they are Pantheists or Polytheists, or whatever they may be, there is still a notion in the background of all their mythology of some one great superior being, elevated above those whom they call gods, some serenely just father, preserver, avenger, and rewarder of men. The most debased of mankind are still found to have some measure of knowledge of the great Creator: they hold the truth, though they hold it in unrighteousness. They can as soon shut their eyes to the sun, as completely blind their mind to the fact that there is a God. Some among the heathen no doubt attained to a very considerable knowledge of God, or at least they walked upon the borders of marvellous discoveries of the Godhead. We are greatly surprised at the language of Socrates, and Plato, and Seneca, and others: such men have lately been held up as patterns; but if their lives are studied, they will be found to be sadly defaced with what Paul fitly calls vile affections.' These were wise men, but the world by wisdom knew not God; they were great thinkers, but a clear revelation of God was not in all their thoughts. They did not like to retain God in their knowledge, and so they remained steeped in loathsome vice which we dare not mention, for it is a shame even to speak of the things which were done of the most enlightened of them in secret. They had knowledge, but they forgot its responsibilities: they knew God, but they glorified him not as God, neither were they thankful. We may now let all the heathen go, for it is more true of us than it is of them, that we know God. Those to whom I am speaking to-night dwell where the name of God is familiar, where the gospel of God sounds like a trumpet in their streets, where the character of God is painted with the finger of light upon the blessed pages of the Bible, and where the Spirit of God takes care that the consciences of men shall be enlightened. We know God, but I am afraid that there are many thousands and millions of our fellow-creatures who glorify him not as God; let us see to it that we do not ourselves belong to the unhappy number. Those do not glorify God as God who do not trace all their good things to God. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,' but many ungrateful hearts forget this truth, and receive the blessings of this life with dumb mouths and cold hearts. In the old time there were those who traced everything they saw to what they called Chance'; that misformed deity has been laid aside, and on its pedestal men have set up another idol known as Nature.' Nowadays swarms of people attribute everything that is great and wonderful to Nature':' they talk for ever of the beauties of Nature,' the grandeur of Nature,' the laws of Nature;' but God is as little spoken of as if he were not alive. As to laws of Nature, these occupy with moderns much the same place as the deities of Olympus with the ancients. What are laws of Nature but the ordinary ways in which God works? I know of no other definition of them. But these people attribute to them a sort of power apart from the presence of the Creator. One standing up in the street, venting his infidelity, said that we could not do better on Sunday than go abroad and worship Nature. There was nothing that was so refining and elevating to the mind as Nature. Nature did everything. A Christian man in the crowd ventured to ask, What is Nature?' And the gentleman said, Well, Nature'well'it is Nature. Don't you know what it is? It is Nature.' No further definition was forthcoming; I fear the term is only useful as enabling men to talk of creation without being compelled to mention the Creator. I find nowadays that people talk about Providence,' and yet discard God. Among the vulgar and the ungodly this is another subterfuge to avoid the ascribing of their blessings to the Giver of them. A farmer, whose crops had failed a second time, was consoled by a clergyman, because he suffered from the hand of Providence. Yes,' said he, that Providence is always treating me shamefully: but there's one above that will stop him.' The poor soul had heard of Providence till he thought it an evil power, and hoped that the good God would curb its mischievous influence. This comes of not speaking plainly of God. For what is Providence? Can there be such a thing without the constant working of the Great Provider? Men talk of Foresight.' But is there any foresight without an eye? Is there not some living eye that is watching for our good, some living hand that is following up the eye, and providing our needs? Man does not like to think of his God. He wants to get away into a far country, away from God his Father; and he will adopt any sort of phrase which will help him to clear his language of all trace of God. He longs to have a convenient wall built up between himself and God. The heathen often attributed their prosperity, to fortune'; some of them talked of chance;' others discoursed of fate.' Anything is to man's taste rather than blessing the great Father, and adoring the one God. If they prospered, they were lucky'; this was instead of gratitude to God. They looked into the almanac to find lucky days; this instead of faith in the Most High. They were superstitious, and ask their priest to tell them what would be a fortunate time for commencing an undertaking; this instead of resting upon the goodness of the Lord. Have we not some now who bless their good luck, and still talk about their fortunate stars? God, whom they know they do not honour as God. Yes, and we have among us men who talk neither of fortune' nor of Nature,' but of themselves. They are styled self-made men,' and they are very prone to worship the great self who made them: they are never backward in that cult. Their adoration of themselves is constant, reverent, and sincere. Self-made men,' indeed! Infinitely better is it to be a God-made man. If there be anything about us that is worth the having, it must be from him from whom every good gift and every perfect gift has evermore descended; let us therefore give Him thanks. There is no other sun for our sky than your sun in the heavens: there is no other source of good but the ever-blessed God, who has made himself known to us, whom with all our hearts we now adore. But may I not be addressing some who, at this moment, do not bow before God, and bless him for their prosperity? They attribute it to their industry, and to their good luck. Oh, sirs, you come under the head of those who know God, and yet do not glorify him as God; neither are you thankful. The Lord help such to confess this sin, and may his grace wash them clean of it, for indeed it is a great and heinous sin in the judgment of the Most High. Justice makes a black mark against those who do not ascribe their good things to God, from whom they flow with such sweet constancy of kindness. But we can also commit that sin, in the next sense, by not feeling any obligation laid upon us through partaking of the divine bounty. Are there not many rich men to whom it never occurs to feel bound to serve the Lord who gave them power to get wealth? Are there not many healthy persons, sound of limb, and strong in constitution, who yet do not praise the God who has kept them from sickness and death? Are we any of us sufficiently grateful for our talents, our faculties, our friends, our daily provisions? Do we not all receive a large amount of blessing for which we do not render praise to God? The fact that every mercy brings an obligation with it, and we that receive most ought to render most; for we receive nothing from God without being thereby naturally and of right laid under bonds to return to him the glory due unto his name. We are tenants, whose rent is to be paid in service and praise. It is a very blessed obligation! It is a happy bond to be bound to praise and bless God! Praise is no more a burden to a true heart than song to a bird, or perfume to a flower, or twinkling to a star. Adoration is no taxation. God's revenue of glory comes from myriads of free-will offerings, which gracious spirits delight to present to him all their days. Yet there are some who know God, but they glorify him not as God: they rob him of that which it should be their life to bring. They seem to say that they are their own, and not God's: they may live as they please; they may serve themselves. God is not in all their thoughts; and, as to spending and being spent in the service of him who gave them being, it has not yet crossed their minds. God's complaint concerning them is a just one,'Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doeth not know, my people doeth not consider.' God grant us grace to avoid this cruel provocation, and may we glorify God as God by practically owning the obligation under which his mercy places us. Many may be met with who know God, but never glorify him as God, because they never adore him, and worship him, with the love of their hearts. They go to church or to some place of worship regularly, and sing psalms and hymns, and they may even have family-prayer at home; but their heart has never adored the living God with living love. Their worship has a name to live, but it is dead. They present to the Lord all the eternal harvest of worship, but the corn is gone, only the straw and the husk are there. And what is the value of your husky prayers? your prayers without a kernel, made up of the straw of words, and the chaff of formality? What is the value of professions of loyalty from a rebel? What is the worth of professed friendship to God when your heart is at enmity against him? Is it not a mockery of God to present to him a sacrifice where not the heart is found'? When the Lord has to say'They come as my people, and they sit as my people, and they sing as my people, but their heart is far from me,'can he take any pleasure in them? May not God thus complain of many? Oh, let it not be so with you! I know that there are some here against whom that charge would lie if we preferred it'that they know God, but they do not glorify him as God, for they do not love him. The name and service of God are much on their tongues, but they do not delight in him, they do not hunger and thirst after him, they do not find prayer and praise to be their very element, but such service as they render is merely lip-service, the unwilling homage of bond-slaves, and not the delighted service of those who are the children of God. Oh, my brethren, if we accept Jehovah as the living God, let us give him the utmost love of our souls. Will you call a man brother, and then treat him like a dog? Dare you call God your God, and then act towards him as though he were not worthy of a thought. With what joy does David cry, I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds'! This is the kind of spirit with which to deal with the Lord. Oh, to rejoice in God all the day, and to make him our exceeding joy! Thus, and thus only, do we glorify him as God. Without the fire of love no incense will ever rise from the censer of praise. If we do not delight in God we do not fitly adore God. There is another way of not glorifying God as God, and that is by never recognizing his omnipresence. Have we not among us those who on Sunday feel some kind of reverence of God, but during the six days of the week are godless? When they are in a place of worship they have some sense of God's being there; if they do not fear and tremble, yet they behave with decency and respect; but in other places they dare to act as if they were out of range of God. Do they fancy that God is not in that secret chamber where they follow out their passions? Do they imagine that he is not in that ribald company where they make mirth of sacred things? Do they imagine that out of man's sight is also out of God's sight? Do not some men so act and live as if God were either dead, or else were blind or deaf, utterly oblivious to everything that is done on the face of the earth? How blind must they be, who think God blind! May we never fall into this absurdity! May we feel that we cannot anywhere consent to sin for God is there. The whole earth is God's house: shall we abuse the King in his own palace? The skies are the roof of his temple, and beneath God's blue sky we ought not to find a place to sin in. Nowhere in time is there space for evil, nor in the universe is there room for sin. Yet, alas, how few recognize, Thou God seest me,' as being a death-blow to sin? They know God, but they glorify him not as God,' but think that he is absent either in person or in mind, and that in some great secret places they can hide away from him, and with impurity follow their own desires. Are there not some again, and many, who do not admit the true glory of God because the idea of his sovereignty is very horrible to them? I lay this charge against many professing Christians'that their God is not the God of the Bible, and that they have no notion of Jehovah, the true God. The one God of heaven and earth is Jehovah'that God who said of old, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.' Certain professed followers of Jesus will not have this God, but they make to themselves a god who is under some degree of obligation to his sinful creatures, of whom they say that he is bound to treat all alike. These are guilty of robbing Divinity of its most majestic attribute, namely, sovereignty. They are for dictating to the King of kings, and tying the hands of infinite compassion, lest the supreme will of God should have too much liberty. I know of no such God as that: the God I worship can never do other than right, yet is he under no bond to his creatures, but ordereth all things according to the counsel of his own will. I believe that if the Lord had denied me mercy, I had so sinned that I could never have impugned his justice. When I see him save a sinner, I look not at it as a deed which he was bound to do, but as a spontaneous act, free as the air, full of his own goodness which arises entirely from himself. He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth.' I, for one, am perfectly satisfied with everything that God does, whether of power, justice, or mercy. My heart says, It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good.' I could have sung the song of Moses at the Red Sea, when all Egypt was drowned, and found in the drowning of the foe a deep background of joy, because I should have seen in it the carrying out of the divine will, the reign of righteousness, and the avenging of cruel tyranny. I make bold to say that I would have praised God as the waves went over Pharaoh; for the Lord did it, and he did right. I would have cried with Moses, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.' I expect to be among the number, though some seem as if they would decline the service, who shall for ever bless God for all his dealings with mankind'the stern as well as those that seem more tender. The Lord God, even Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament, is the God whom I worship. I do not know this new god that has lately come up, who they say is all tenderness and has none of the stern attributes of righteousness and wrath. The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob is the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and in him my soul delights. Let him sway his sceptre even as he pleases. His will be done on earth even as it is in heaven. Again will we say Hallelujah, when all his everlasting purposes shall have been fulfilled, and the wicked shall be punished, and the righteous raised to their Father's throne. To know God, and to glorify him as God, is to regard him as supreme, ungoverned, the Arbiter of all things, whose will is law. I believe in God on his throne, God giving no account of his matters, but doing his own pleasure as God over all. Short of this I could not glorify him as God. There are some others who know God, who fail to glorify him as God, because they do not trust him. In revelation God has presented himself as the object of trust to his creatures, and he has promised that all who trust in him shall be forgiven their transgressions through the atonement of his Son, Jesus Christ. Such as trust him he declares shall be saved; and he sends out a messenger of mercy to all mankind, proclaiming'He that believeth in him is not condemned.' He bids sinners come and trust under the shadow of his wing; and he declares that none that come to him will be ever cast out. Revealing himself in Christ Jesus, he pleads with guilty men. Asking nothing of them, he entreats them to accept his mercy, which he freely presents to them without money and without price. Making no distinction in the gospel-call, he bids men come to him, saying, Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth; for I am God, and besides me there is none else.' When proud man replies, No, I shall trust in myself, trust in my own works, trust in my own prayers, but I shall not trust in Christ,' then he knows God, but he glorifies him not as God, and when he perishes he will be without excuse. What kind of God is that whom we will not trust? How do we honour him when we refuse to believe him? Do we accept his Godhead, and yet refuse his mercy? This cannot be. The counts are many against men, but this one more must be mentioned'many know God, but they never glorify him as God by submitting themselves to him, and yielding up their members to be instruments of his glory. If I glorify God as God, then I desire to obey God's commandments, to spread his glory, to magnify his name. I desire in all things to please him, if indeed I treat him as God should be treated. If I know God, and yet live for my own profit, for my own honour, for my own comfort, then I do not glorify God as God. Oh, sirs, when the Lord is glorified as God, we yield ourselves to his control without a murmur. He may take what he will away from us, and we say, It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good.' He may remove every comfort from us, and cover us with sore boils and blains, but we shall sit down with Job upon the dunghill, and say, The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' Knowing him as God will make us submissive to suffer, and quick to act. We shall feel the force of Elijah's cry, If the Lord be God, follow him.' We shall rouse ourselves to the utmost energy to serve him when he stands before us as really God. If we serve man and are faithful, we do the best we can for our master; but if God be our Master, oh, what service we are bound to render to him! What enthusiasm ought to be kindled in our breast by the belief that we are God's servants! I am thy servant,' is our happy claim, our honoured challenge. This it is that makes a man of a man, and something more than man. Oh, to learn this lesson, and to practise it! To glorify God as God will make us akin to angels! Even you Christians may feel that this is much beyond you yet, but towards it you must ever fly. I shrink before my Lord in speaking of him, but I desire what I have not yet attained'that I may truly glorify him as my Lord and my God. II. Now we come to consider the second sin. May the word which I may have to say about it, be blessed to many of my hearers by the power of the Holy Spirit! The second sin is NEITHER WERE THANKFUL.' Did you know, dear friends, that unthankfulness was such a sin as this? Have you ever thought of it in this light before'that men were without excuse because when they knew God they were not thankful? Unthankfulness is a sin for which there is no excuse if it be attended with knowledge. I fear there are thousands who call themselves Christians, who are not thankful, and yet they never thought themselves very guilty on that account. Yet you see these sinners were without excuse, because they were guilty of a great sin before God, and that sin was unthankfulness. I tremble both for myself and you when I see want of thankfulness thus set in the front rank of sins. How is it that we may be thankful? I answer, first, there is in some a want of gratitude for mercies possessed. They receive many blessings without making a note of them, or even seeming to know that they have them. Their daily mercies seem to come in always at the back door, where the servants take them in, and never tell their master or mistress that they have arrived. They never receive their mercies at the front door with grateful acknowledgments; but they still continue dumb debtors, daily owing more, but making no attempt at a return. The Lord continues to bless them in things temporal, to keep them in health and strength, ay, and to give them the means of grace and spiritual opportunities; and they live as if these things were so commonplace that they were not worth thanking God for. Many professors are of that kind'recipients of countless mercies, but destitute of such common thankfulness as even beast might manifest. From them God hears no song of gratitude, no chirp of praise, though birds would charm the woodlands with their minstrelsy: these are worse than the dumb driven cattle, or the fishes in the brook, which do at least leap up, and mean their Maker's praise. Some show this unthankfulness in another way, for they always dwell most on what they have not got. They have manna, and that is angels' food; but then they have no fish, and this is a ready theme for grumbling. They talk very loudly of the fish we did eat in Egypt,' and lament those ample feasts provided by the muddy Nile. Moreover, they have none of those delightful vegetables'the leeks, and the garlic, and the onions. They have none of these rank luxuries, and therefore again they murmur, and call the manna light bread.' They put this complaint over and over again to Moses, till Moses must have been sick of them and their garlic. They said that they could not get leeks, and cucumbers, and onions, and that they were therefore most hardly done by, and would not much longer put up with it. Thankless rebels! And have I not known some of God's servants say that they enjoy much of the presence of their Lord, but they have no riches; and so they are not among the favoured ones. Over their poverty they fetch a deep groan. Some live in the presence of God, so they tell us, and they are full of divine delights, but yet they are greatly afflicted with aches and pains, and all the dolors of rheumatism, and therefore they murmur. I admit that rheumatism is a dreadful pain enough, but at the same time to dwell always on the dark side of things, and to forget our mercies, is a sad instance of ingratitude. We are few of us as thankful as we ought to be; and there are some people who are not thankful at all, for instead of a song concerning their mercies, their life is one long dirge for their miseries. Must we always hear the sackbut? Is the harp never to give forth a joy-note? Some show their unthankfulness by fretting under their supposed ills. They know from Scripture that even their afflictions are working for their good, yet they do not rejoice in the prospect, or feel any gratitude for the refining process through which the Lord is passing them. Heaven and perfection are left unsung, but the present processes are groaned over without ceasing. Their monotonous note is always this pain, this loss, this burden, this uncomfortable sensation, this persecution from the world, this unkindness from the saints, and so on; all this goes to show that, though they know God, they do not glorify him as God, neither are they thankful. We can be guilty of unthankfulness, also, by never testifying to the goodness of God. A great many people come in and out of your houses; do you ever tell them about God's goodness to you? Did you ever take up a single ten minutes with the tale of the Lord's lovingkindness to you? Oh, what backwardness there is to testify to God as God, and to all his goodness and love! Our mouths are full of anything rather than the goodness of the Lord. Shame on our wicked lips! Some fail, also, in their singing of God's praises. I love to be singing in my heart, if I may not sing with my tongue. Is it not a good thing for you house-wives, when you are about the house, to sing over everything? I remember a servant that used to sing at the washtub, and sing in the kitchen; and when some one asked her why she was always singing, she said that if it did not do anything else it kept bad thoughts out of her mind. There is a great deal in that; for bad thoughts are bad tenants, who pay no rent and foul the house. I knew a dear old Methodist preacher, who is now in heaven, who when he came downstairs of a morning was always tooting a bit of a hymn over, and he did the same in the barn, and the field. I have passed him in the street, and noted his happy melody: indeed he was always singing. He never took much notice of anybody, so as to be afraid of being overheard. Whether people heard him or not did not make much difference to him. He was singing to the Lord, not to them; and so he went on singing. I do not think he had much of a voice, or an ear for music, but his soul was made up of praise, and that is better than a musical education. God does not criticize our voice, but he accepts our heart. Oh, to be singing the praises of God every minute of our lives, and never ceasing therefrom! Do you not think that many fail in this respect? They are not preparing for heaven, where all is praise, or they would take up the joyful employment at once. It is plain that many are not thankful to God, for they never praise him with their substance. Yet when the Jew was thankful, he took care to give a portion to the house of the Lord: before he would eat of his corn, he would send his sheaf to the sanctuary. If we are grateful to God, we shall feel that the first thing to do is to give of our substance an offering of thanksgiving to the Most High. But this does not strike some people, whose religion is so spiritual that they cannot endure to hear of money, and they faint at the sound of a collection. Their thankfulness rises to singing a hymn occasionally, but it never goes as far as giving a button to the cause of God. I am afraid their thankfulness is not worth more than what they pay to express it: that is to say, nothing at all. God deliver us from such a state of heart as that; and may we never, in any of these senses, be found amongst those professors, of whom it is said that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were they thankful. III. Listen to me now carefully for two or three minutes while, in the third place, I mention, very briefly and solemnly, what was THE RESULT OF THIS. They knew God, but they glorified him not as God, neither were they thankful. And the first result of it was that they fell into vain imaginings. If we do not glorify God, the true God, we shall soon be found setting up another god. This vain-imagination business is being done quite as extensively now as in Paul's days. Depart from the inspiration of the Bible, and from the infallibility of the Spirit of God who wrote it, and where will you go? Well I cannot tell you where you will go. One wanders into one vain imagination, and one into another, till the dreamers are on all sides. I expect to see a new doctrine every day of the week now. Our thinkers have introduced an age of inventions, wherein everything is thought of but the truth of God. We do not want these novelties. We are satisfied with the word of God as we find it. But if we do not glorify God as God, and are not thankful to him for all his teachings, then away you go into vain imaginations. And what next? Well, away goes the mind of man into all sorts of sins. The chapter describes unnatural lusts and horribly fierce passions. Men that are not satisfied and thankful'men that have no fear of God before their eyes'it were a shame for us to think, much more to speak, of what they will do. A heart that cannot feed at God's table will riot somewhere. He that is not satisfied with the cup that God has filled will soon be a partaker of the cup of devils. An unthankful spirit is, at bottom, an atheistic spirit. If God were God to us, we should not be unthankful to him. If God were glorified in our hearts, and we were thankful for everything that he did, we should walk in holiness, and live in submission. And if we do not thus behave ourselves, the tendency will be for us to go from bad to worse, and from worse to very worst. This has been done on a large scale by nations, whose downward course of crime began with want of thankfulness to God. It is done on a smaller scale by individuals, to whom departure from God is the beginning of a vicious career. Get away from God, and where have you gone? If you do not love him, and delight in him, whither will you stray? May the Lord tether us fast to himself, and even nail us to the cross. It seems that these people, of whom Paul wrote, fell into all kinds of bitterness, such as envy, murder, deceit, malignity, whispering, backbiting, hating of God. They became spiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, and so forth. Well, if your spirit is not sweetened by the adoration and the love of God, it will grow bitter. If love does not reign, hate will rule. Look at unthankful people. Hear them talk. Nobody's character is safe. There is no neighbour whom they will not slander. There is no Christian man whom they will not misrepresent. The very angels of God would not be safe from suspicion if they lived near to people of that kind. But when you glorify God as God, and are thankful for everything'when you can take up a bit of bread and a cup of cold water, and say with the poor Puritan, What, all this, and Christ too?'then are you happy, and you make others happy. A godly preacher, finding that all that there was for dinner was a potato and a herring, thanked God that he had ransacked sea and land to find food for his children. Such a sweet spirit breeds love to everybody, and makes a man go through the world cheerfully. If you give way to the other order of feeling, and do not glorify God, but quarrel with him, and have no thankfulness for his mercies, then you will suck in the spirit of the devil, and you will get into Satan's mind, and be of his temper, and by-and-by his works you will do. Oh, brothers and sisters, dread unthankfulness! Perhaps you did not think that it was so bad, but it is horrible! God help you to escape from it! IV. And that you may escape from it, let us finish up by this exhortation. LET US FLY BY THE HELP OF GOD'S SPIRIT FROM THESE TWO SINS. Let us glorify God, as God, every one of us. Oh,' says one, I am full of sin.' Come and glorify God, then, by confessing it to him. Oh, but I am not pardoned.' Come and glorify him by accepting pardon through the blood of his dear Son. Oh, but I am of an evil heart.' Come and glorify him by telling him so, and asking his Spirit to renew you in your mind. Come, yield yourself to his sweet gospel. May his blessed Spirit incline you so to do. Come, take him now to be your God. Have you forgotten him? Remember him. Have you neglected him? Seek him. Have you offended him? Mourn before him. Say, I will arise, and go unto my Father.' Your Father waits to receive you. Glorify him as God. And then, next, let us begin to be very thankful, if we have not been so before. Let us praise God for common mercies, for they prove to be uncommonly precious when they are once taken away. Bless God that you were able to walk here, and are able to walk home again. Bless God for your reason: bless him for your existence. Bless God for the means of grace, for an open Bible, for the throne of grace, for the preaching of the Word. You that are saved must lead the song. Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.' Bless him for his Son. Bless him for his Spirit. Bless him for his Fatherhood. Bless him that you are his child. Bless him for what you have received. Bless him for what he has promised to give. Bless him for the past, the present, and the future. Bless him in every way, for everything, at all times, and in all places. Let all that is within you bless his holy name. Go your way rejoicing. May his Spirit help you so to do! PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'Romans 1:1-22. HYMNS FROM OUR OWN HYMN BOOK'103 (First version), 1032, 699. __________________________________________________________________ The Rocky Fortress and Its Inhabitant (No. 1764) A SERMON PREACHED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 3, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly; he that despises the gain of oppressions, that shakes his hands from holding of bribes, that stops his ears from hearing of blood, and shuts his eyes from seeing evil, he shall dwell on high: his place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure." Isaiah 33:15,16. THERE were terrible times in Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah. The Assyrian power was exceedingly formidable and it was ferocious to the last degree. Woe to the unhappy land which fell under the power of this spoiler! Assyria knew not the meaning of "mercy." It came down "like a wolf on the fold," tearing and devouring without pity. The armies of Sennacherib were ravaging the kingdom of Judah and they had brought it into such a state that the Prophet cried, "The earth mourns and languishes: Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down: Sharon is like a wilderness and Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits." Before the invaders the land was a garden and behind them it was a desolate wilderness. Yet the Lord had given a promise to His people in Jerusalem on this wise--"therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, he shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, says the Lord." Notwithstanding Rabshakeh's blasphemous letter and all his foul reviling, those who trusted in Jehovah were not dismayed, for the Lord had promised to defend the city for His own name's sake. There were godly men in the city, though I fear they were not many, who rested content with the sure promise of God and went about their daily business feeling perfectly safe. They would have felt secure if the whole land had swarmed with Assyrians as the fields with locusts, for they believed the Word of the Lord. Their trust was in the living God and therefore, they feared not the multitude of the enemy! But the whole of the inhabitants of Jerusalem were not of this brave or-der--the unholy were afraid and fearfulness surprised the hypocrites. Their sin and their deceit made cowards of them! They would all be destroyed, they would all perish by the Assyrians! Who was to save them? What power could resist the conqueror of nations? Where were the gods of Hamath and Ar-phad? The people of those cities had trusted in their gods and yet none of them had been delivered out of the hands of the invaders! How could Jehovah turn back the fierce tyrant, now that he had come upon the land like a flood? The sinners and the hypocrites in the time of trial were discovered--the sinners showed their fear and the hypocrites manifested their unbelief. They began to flee before they were pursued! They trembled though no enemy could be seen from the walls. God in vengeance was near to the city! The land smoked with all-consuming fire! The flame of the Lord's indignation burned perpetually--how could these men hope to live in such times? As well hope to live amid devouring fires and everlasting burnings! Alas, there are many who dwell among God's people at this time and have a name and a place among them who are sinners and not saints--hypocrites and not Believers--and these will, before long, be discovered and dismayed. While all goes well with the Church of God, you cannot separate the vile from the precious, nor pluck up the tares from among the wheat, nor cast out the bad fish from among the good which are enclosed in the same net. But trying times come and days of adversity--and then the false brethren are discerned! When persecution arises, the hypocrites are offended! When affliction rushes like a torrent, the sand-founded houses fall! And especially shall it be so when, amid the terrors of the Last Tremendous Day, every secret thing shall be revealed--and hypocrites and sinners shall appear in their true colors! Fearfulness will leap unexpectedly upon the hypocrites to their intense surprise, for they will see how impossible it is for them to dwell with God and to abide in His holy Presence. Oh, dear Brothers and Sisters, let us not be satisfied with being in Zion, or in the Church. Let us not rest till we are quite sure that we are not sinners in it, that we are not hypocrites in it, for, mark you, if our religion is not sanctifying and true, it will fail us in the hour of trial! If our confidence in God does not make us calm and hopeful in the time of temptation and sorrow, what is the use of it? Yet it is certain that no man shall find his profession to be of use to him in testing times but he that is true in it; he that is thorough in it; he that is neither a sinner nor a hypocrite in the sense in which those words are here used. Safety in Zion belongs to those born in her by regeneration, reared in her by sanctification, enfranchised in her by faith in the Son of God, settled in her by fixed principles, confirmed in her by obedience to her laws and bound to her by intense love of her King and her citizens. Such "shall dwell on high" secure from danger--and only such--the aliens and foreigners within her gates shall, before long, be driven forth with shame! We are going to look, this morning, at these favored people. First, to note their character. Secondly, to observe their security. And to finish, thirdly, by calling up all present to seek their felicity. Oh, for the aid of the Holy Spirit all the sermon through! I. First, let us NOTE THEIR CHARACTER. They are described, in part, in the words of our text, but I am obliged to go a little further afield for one essential part of their character. The true people of God, who, in the time of danger will be preserved are a people who display a humble, patient, present faith in God. They reveal their character in the second verse of the chapter before us when they pray--"O Lord, be gracious unto us; we have waited for You: be You our arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble." They humbly cry, "O Lord, be gracious unto us." They are a praying people who make their appeal to God under a sense of need--they are not fatalists, for they pray. Neither are they self-sufficient, for they seek help from God. They beseech the Lord to bless them, not according to their own merit, but according to His Grace. Though their outward life has been cleansed and their hearts are renewed, yet they do not imagine that they have any claim upon God. Their appeal is to His free favor--"O Lord, be gracious unto us." They are not a people who think that God will be necessarily gracious and that, therefore, they need not pray for mercy, for they are found crying to Him in earnest prayer. They are, you see, a trustful people who feel that they have need--and that their need can only be fulfilled by the Sovereign Grace of God, to whom they make supplication. Those who dwell on high with God are always lovers of Grace--it is the top and bottom of their hope! Furthermore, they are a waiting people--"We have waited for You." If the Lord does not seem to hear their prayer at once, they nevertheless expect that He will do so and, therefore, they wait expectantly. If at once they have not all the comfort and joy they would desire, they wait on God's pleasure, not rushing into sin to snatch a hasty rescue, nor running away at the first rebuff and saying, "What profit is there if we wait upon Him?" Quite certain that the Lord does hear prayer and that He waits to be gracious, they hopefully wait His time, for His appointments are always wise. They are a people who have a present faith which they exercise every day, saying, "Be You our arm every morning!" They do not imagine that by having trusted in God years ago and having obtained salvation, they may, therefore, now live without faith--they believe today as they believed from the beginning of their Christian life and so prove it true that, "the just shall live by his faith." Every step they are depending. Every morning they are looking up to the hills from where their help comes. These are the true people of God and the only people of God--trusting, hoping, expecting, relying and resting upon the Lord their God! The fear of the Lord is their treasure and they cry with exultation in the language of the 22nd verse, "The Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King; He will save us." The description in our actual text is the portrait of their outer life, but a living faith is the secret basis and foundation of it all. This being understood, our text gives a description of these people, setting out their various features. It first describes their feet, or how they walk--"He who walks righteously." Faith has an effect upon our entire manhood. When a man believes, his faith affects every part of him. It operates upon his actions, thoughts, wishes and designs. And it affects both his private and public life. One of the first evidences of a true belief in God is that a man walks righteously. He tries to act rightly towards his God and towards his fellow men--and thus he is led to be devout before the Lord and upright among men. The rule of right is the rule for him--not policy, nor the hope of gain, nor the desire to please--much less the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. By the Grace of God he labors above all things to walk in the narrow way of true holiness. I want you to notice this, because the promise I am going to speak about belongs only to the people who answer to this description--therefore, see you to it--that you do not take the comfort of the promise if you come not under the character to whom that comfort is given! The man who does not walk righteously shall not dwell on high! There shall be no place of defense for him. If we depart from the ways of righteousness and run in the paths of the wicked, we shall meet with the same fate as they. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap." Where the Grace of God truly dwells and a living faith is in exercise, the man becomes righteous in his walk and conver-sation--and his course is more and more conformed to the will of the Lord. I deny that a man is a believer in the Lord Jesus if he remains a dishonest man. I deny that he has real faith in Jesus Christ if he is rotten in heart, unjust in business and untrue in life. He knows not Christ who delights in iniquity! So you see that the first description of this blessed man who is to dwell on high is very searching, for it does not relate to his profession, but to his walk and conversation from day to day. It is not talk, but action that we have here. Here is no room for the fiction of formality! All is fact, fact of daily life. The next feature that is described is his tongue--"He speaks uprightly." No description of a man's character can be perfect which does not include his speech. A man who lies, or who talks obscenely or profanely, is a bad man! A man whose words are arrogant and boastful, cruel and slanderous, unreliable and deceptive, unchaste and impure, is no child of God! The Grace of God very speedily sweetens a man's tongue and, if his religion does not operate upon his speech, it is surely not the religion of the pure and holy God. "By your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned." If the tongue is set on the fire of Hell, the heart is not on fire with Grace from Heaven! The doctor says, "Stick out your tongue," and he judges the symptoms of health or disease thereby. Assuredly, there is no better test of the inward character than the condition of the tongue. "Out of your own mouth will I judge you" is a fair decision. If, then, our lips do not speak uprightly, that is, speak truthfully and justly--if our tongue is not salted and sanctified by the Grace of God--then we cannot claim any of the privileges which are described in our text! God grant that we may prove by our conversation that the Lord has reweaved us in our inner man. The next feature is the heart--"He that despises the gain of oppressions." Not only does he not oppress any man--nor wish to gain anything by extortion or by grinding the faces of the poor, or by any act of unrighteousness--he thinks such gain as might be made in that fashion to be utterly contemptible! He desires gain if it may come cleanly to him. Prosperity is as welcome to him as to another man, for he has his own needs and the needs of his household for which he is bound to provide. But if any should say to him that there is gold to be had through pinching the laborer in his wages, or through grasping by law that which is not morally his own, he abhors the thought! He says of such gain, "I would not win it if I could. I would not put such evil money among my honest earnings--it would pollute all the rest of my substance." A good man is jealous lest he should seem to receive the wages of unrighteousness. He desires to receive his goods as blessings at the hands of God and not to win them as a spoil from the oppressed. A true Christian would not bring into his house a thing over which he could not seek the blessing of God--he would count it a thing accursed like Achan's wedge of gold. Many ways of making money which are tolerated, nowadays, would be loathsome to a right-minded men. Though unrighteous practices should promise to fill his house with silver and gold, he would not follow them. He could not sell his Lord for pieces of silver! He despises the gain of oppression! It is as the mire of the streets to him. He looks down upon it with utter contempt. Dear Friends, it little matters what our outward life may be, or even what our speech may be, if our heart is not affected by our religion! If Grace only lies skin-deep in you, it has only saved your skin, but not your soul! Until Grace touches the mainspring, it has done nothing! The heart must despise evil as well as the lips denounce it! Until the wellhead is sweetened, the streams are foul. Not only must I do right, but love right! Not only must I avoid wrong, but I must hate wrong! Not only must I refuse unrighteous gain, but I must utterly despise it! See, my Brothers and Sisters, how much is necessary before any one of us can claim the choice blessings which are spread before us in the second part of our text? The portrait does not omit the hands, those important members of the body--those prominent actors both for good and for evil. In Isaiah's day, bribery was connected with every government office high and low-- but the good man "shakes his hands from holding of bribes." If money was slipped into his hand before he was aware of it, he shook it off with indignation. He would not take what was offered or keep what was given. There is still much bribery abroad in indirect ways. Men are offered advantages if they will wink at evil, or frown on good. Satan tempts young and old with the old insinuation, "All these things will I give you if you will fall down and worship me." The Destroyer still makes merchandise of souls! Oh, for Grace to shake off every sort of bribe from our hands as men shake off dust from their feet with utter abhorrence when their indignation is awakened! Clean hands are as necessary as renewed hearts. If your hands clutch the reward of a sinful trade, or a dishonest transaction. Or if you hold a profit by countenancing wrong, or forbearing from right, you are not among the people whom the Lord has sworn to guard with His own right hand! Thus we have described the feet, the tongue, the heart and the hands. Now comes the ear--"that stops his ears from hearing of blood." Men who delighted in war, in olden times, were apt to boast to one another of their cruel deeds-- whom they slew and how they slew them--they rolled the dainty morsels of cruelty under their tongues. In Hezekiah's time, I guarantee, blood-red tales were told with horror that would have made our ears tingle--but these were greedily listened to by those of a coarse spirit. But the good man in Jerusalem would not hear them. When a man boasted of having slain such an enemy, the godly man said, "Go tell your tale somewhere else, lest I bring you before the judge. I will not hear of your wicked doings. I cannot endure your brutal talk." He shut his ears. He drew back from the discussion. It was sickening to him. Now, it is not the hearing of blood, alone, that you and I must avoid, but the hearing of anything that is tainted, prurient, skeptical, depraving. This has much to do with the health of a genuine Christian's soul--that he puts an embargo upon unclean conversation, counts it contraband and will not allow it to enter his soul by the gate of the ear. He wisely shuts the gate, lets down the iron gate and pulls up the drawbridge, so that no filthy communication may come in by Ear-Gate! The same sacred prudence prevents our reading books which are corrupt, or false. As soon as we reach a page which has an ill savor about it, we drop the volume and return it to its owner. Or, if it is our own, we cast it into the fire that it may do no harm to others. The righteous man "stops his ears." He will not be interested in that which cannot subserve his highest interest. He is not willing to be like the king in the story, poisoned through the ear. He knows that an evil tale cannot injure him if he never hears it and, therefore, he denies his curiosity that he may preserve his memory undefiled. He is deaf to news about which a good man would be dumb. He has the blood upon his ear to signify that his Lord has bought him with a price in that member, as well as in every other. Yes, his ear is bored to the doorpost of the Truth of God, that he may hear it, and it only, with full intent of heart. The picture is complete when the eyes are mentioned--"and shuts his eyes from seeing evil." He cannot help seeing it as he goes along his pilgrimage through life, but he seeks not such sights and, as much as he can, he avoids it. He takes no pleasure in the most brilliant displays of folly. Vain pomps and glories charm him not. He does not seek his amusement in gazing upon bedizened wickedness. If there is a turmoil in the streets, he is not the man that will be called as a witness to it, for he discreetly walks the other way, leaving off strife before it is meddled with. He is one that does not leap into the ditch in the hope that he may come out of it without being covered with mire--he chooses the clean path and keeps out of harm's way. When others crave to see life, he judges such life to be death and pursues a nobler path. He wishes to see only that which is good, true and helpful to his progress to Heaven. Opened eyes and ears are good, but sometimes closed eyes and stopped ears are better. You know the old classic story of how Ulysses caused his sailors to pass the rocks of the Sirens in safety. The sweet enchanting song of the fatal sisters would have fascinated the mariners and drawn them upon the rocks and so the crafty Ulysses sealed the ears of all his mariners with wax, lest the sweet deluders should destroy them-- "Then every ear I barr'd against the strain, And from access of frenzy lock'd the brain." To be blind and deaf and dumb in some places would be far better than to hear and see and speak to our own condemnation--it is infinitely better to enter into life halt or blind or deaf, than, having all our powers, to use them for sinful purposes and fall into the fires of Hell at the last! Shortly, the text means just this, that a true Believer is a man who has himself well in hand, having mastery over his whole manhood. He has a bit in the mouth of all the steeds which draw the chariot of life and he holds them under due control. He will not let his ears or his eyes delude his fancy, nor his feet or hands deface his conduct, nor his heart or tongue betray his spirit. He will have nothing to do with evil! He has no fellowship with it. His spirit is redeemed, regenerated, renewed. He will not be flattered into pride, nor bribed into deceit, nor allured into unholiness. The Holy Spirit has worked in him holiness--and integrity and uprightness preserve him. The true Christian is a man who keeps himself clear of the common sins of the arts and the popular vices which flourish uncondemned. The sins mentioned in the text were those current in Jerusalem--there they oppressed the poor, they ground them down in their rents, in their wages, in the price of food, in the usury demanded for loans--there they took bribes and sold justice! But the good man did not because of the fear of the Lord. In Jerusalem men-at-arms gained wealth by deeds of blood and violence. They devoured widows' houses and ate up the inheritances of the fatherless! But the child of God did not. Gainful sins were to him most accursed. He would rather suffer wrong than inflict it. David sketched this man in his 24th Psalm and with this I give a finishing stroke to the portrait--"Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His holy place? He that has clean hands, and a pure heart; who has not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation." II. We have reached our second head. I ask you to follow me while, concerning these godly men, WE OBSERVE THEIR SECURITY. Observe it, first, as it is pictorially described in the text. The times are those of war--the battle rages in the plains, but, "he shall dwell on high"--aloft upon the craggy rocks shall be his citadel. In times of invasion men resorted to the highest mountains and rocks, that there they might be sheltered among the lofty fastnesses. While others flee, this man shall dwell--dwell at ease, in permanent peace--and that dwelling shall be on the heights, far beyond the reach of the invader. Is not this glorious? The bands of robbers ravage all around, but they cannot plunder him--he looks down upon them and defies their power. There upon the inaccessible rock stands the City of Peace, its quiet walls gleaming in the sunlight and flashing back a calm defiance to the foe. "Mark you well her bulwarks." A Believer dwells on the heights--his life is hid with Christ in God--he cannot be reached by the darts of the adversary. "Yet," says one, "though he dwells on high, the enemy may reach him by scaling-ladders, or by some other means of assault." By no means shall they smite him, for he shall have a "place of defense." Is it not written, "In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence: and His children shall have a place of refuge"? "Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks." As a castle prepared for war, as "the tower of David built for an armory," so shall the Lord be unto His people! The adversary shall rage in vain, dashing himself against ramparts which he cannot shake. He shall go round the city like a dog, but find no entrance, for the Lord is there. "Yet," says one, "these walls may be dashed down, or may fall into decay." Not so, for, "His place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks." Stupendous rocks--firm, massive, enormous-- shall furnish him a hiding place! Immutable strength shall gird him around both day and by night forever and ever! "His place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks." Not one fortification, but many shall make up his stronghold--mountains shall be round about him--the solid foundations of the earth shall stand between him and the enemy and nothing shall, by any means, hurt him-- "Mountains of stupendous rock His dwelling place shall be! There might his soul without a shock The wreck of Nature see." "Yet," says one, "the enemy may starve a man out of his citadel--rock cities have been captured, at last, because the inhabitants have been pinched with hunger. There has been nothing for the men-at-arms to eat and, therefore they have sold their castle for bread." But this is also provided for--"bread shall be given him." God will take care that the godly shall not want. As the Lord's chosen cannot be driven out, so they shall not be starved out. The Believer shall hold the fort till Christ shall come, for the bread of angels shall be rained upon him sooner than he shall lack! "Ah, well," says one, "but even if bread could be conveyed into the fortress, yet you know these elevated positions cannot be readily supplied with water--and by thirst they may be forced to yield." The Promiser has thought of that, also, for it is written, "his waters shall be sure." The well within the gate shall never fail! The hidden springs shall never be dried up and the people of the city shall drink and drink as much as they will--and yet the supply shall never be exhausted. O you enemy, let your hopeless warfare end! Give up the conflict, for vainly do you beleaguer the City of God! The chosen of the Lord shall never be conquered by the foe, for his God has taken measures to garrison him against all assaults and to deliver him in all straits! Do you remind me that all this is poetry? I answer, It is a poetical description, but it is true in every jot and tittle, and so I ask you to accompany me while we consider this thing as it may be actually experienced. It is a matter of fact that the man who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ and lives as a Christian should live, dwells on the heights. His mind is lifted up above the common cares, worries and vexations of life. The Holy Spirit has begotten him, again, unto a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and, therefore, his conversation is in Heaven, from where he looks for his Savior, the Lord Jesus. I am sure that many of you know what it is to ride on the high places of the earth and to look down upon the world as a poor, paltry thing. You have walked with God in His Light, even as He is in the Light, and then you have been filled with a joy which no man takes from you and you have trod the world beneath your feet--and all that earth calls good or great. Thus has it been true of you, "he shall dwell on high." You have also found that you have had a place of defense in time of trouble. Though often assailed, you have never been really injured. Unto this day the rage of man has caused you no real loss. You can understand, today, the meaning of that Word, "Who are you, that you should be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass?" Even Satan, himself, has not been able to overthrow you--you have trod upon the lion and the dragon! In the name of the Lord you have resisted the devil and he has fled from you. Tell it out this day to all the sons of men, that the Lord your God has been a wall of fire round about you! I, also, will join you in this glorying. "O my Soul, you have trod down strength!" All things have worked together for good to us up till now and we know it--we have had a place of defense--and in this we will rejoice and be glad! And do you not know today how secure, how immutable is your defense? Even as the eagle on the rock cannot be reached by the fowler, so are you secure. Look! You have God's promise--"I will never leave you nor forsake you!" "No good thing will be withheld from them that walk uprightly." These promises are the munitions of rocks behind which you are sheltered--the sure Words of an unchanging God are your bulwarks! You also have the oath of God as your high tower, for He has sworn by Himself because He could swear by no greater! There stands His Covenant made up of promises, secured by oath and ratified by blood--who shall break within that line of defense? What munitions of rock can be compared with these things in which it is "impossible for God to lie"--these pledges which God can never dishonor--these guarantees of everlasting faithfulness that can never be questioned. Oh, the blessed security of a child of God! At this present moment, O child of God, you are dwelling where you must be safe for, first, you were chosen before the foundation of the world and God will not lose His choice, nor shall His decree be frustrated! Next, you have been bought with the precious blood of the Son of God, Himself, and He will never lose what He has dearly bought. You have been quickened by the Holy Spirit and such a life can never die! You know who has said, "I give unto My sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of My hand." You have been taken into the family of God and made His child--and will your Father now disown you, or remove your name out of the family register? You are also joined unto Christ in one spirit, you are a "member of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones," and shall Christ be dismembered and the Son of God be torn in two? Believing in my Lord, this morning, I stand where the devils of Hell cannot reach me and where the angels of God might envy me, for I can exclaim in your name and in my own, "Who shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?" We challenge earth and Hell, time and eternity, to dissolve the blessed union between Christ and His people! Who is he that can harm you if you are followers of that which is good? If your confidence is in the living God, who shall put you to shame? I must not fail to notice that the poetic utterance, "Your bread shall be given you," is also literally true. It has been true to you, my Brothers and Sisters, concerning your daily bread. That Word of God is true, "Trust in The Lord, and do good; so shall you dwell in the land, and verily you shall be fed." At times there has been little on the table, but All-Sufficiency has still filled the storehouse. When God multiplied the oil and the meal of the poor women at Sarepta, I do not believe that at any one moment she ever had more than sufficed for a single meal. Every day that Elijah lived with her she had to scrape the bottom of the barrel, for she had never more than a handful of meal and a little oil. We are not told that either the barrel or the cruse were filled up, but we read--"the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail." You may frequently reach the end of your provisions, but you can never exhaust your Provider! The meal may come by handfuls and the oil may only drip out, drop by drop, but what does that matter? Was not the manna from Heaven a small round thing and did it not fall morning by morning? If you have earthly provision as you need it, should it not suffice you? If you get as much as you need for this meal and as much as you need for the next meal, is it not well? Are not the loaves of heavenly bread all the better for being fresh? The manna would not keep, but bred worms--who wants such unsavory food? There is nothing like living from hand to mouth when it is from God's hand to faith's mouth! Daily bread promotes daily gratitude and from God's hand hourly Providence brings multiplied tokens of love and is a surer sign of remembrance than if we could have life's mercies all in a lump. "Bread shall be given him" refers, also, to heavenly bread which we have even more cause to think about than about the bread which perishes--this, also, shall be given us. If we are driven away from a faithful ministry. If we move to the utmost ends of the earth where we miss the means of Grace, yet the Lord will feed our souls. If His ministers do not feed us, He will, Himself, minister to us. The Word of the Lord shall not cease to nourish us. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." As for the waters, the living waters of Grace and of the Holy Spirit--these shall always flow--in summer and winter shall the still waters be found at your side! Yes, they shall be within you "a well of water springing up unto everlasting life." Words cannot tell the privilege of the man who lives in God and lives with God! He need not shiver in the damps of earth--he lives on high! He need not fear the fury of the enemy, for he has a place of defense! He need not dread the lapse of time--his munitions are of rock! He need not tremble at famine and drought--his needs shall all be met by the care of Heaven! The man who knows His sins are forgiven, who is covered with the righteousness of Christ, who is in vital union with the Lord Jesus, who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit--that man, I say, need not desire to be any other than he is, but may give himself up to blessing and praising and magnifying the Most High every moment of his life till he is caught up to the highest Heaven, to dwell where enemies cannot threaten nor necessities arise! III. So this brings me to close by urging you, dear Friends, to SEEK THEIR FELICITY. First, shall I need to say, "Do not try to obtain it by hypocrisy"? Since they are so happy, whom God favors, do not think that by getting your name into their Church book you will necessarily be favored, too. Oh, Brothers and Sisters, be true Believers and not make-believers! Do not pretend to be what you are not. Sinners in Zion are still sinners and they will, one day, be afraid. Hypocrites, though joined with the people of God, are still hypocrites, and will, before long, be surprised with fearful-ness. Do not hope by a mere empty profession to win the blessedness of God's people, for by such means you will win a curse rather them a blessing. Secondly, do not hope to win the bliss of the righteous by self-righteousness, for although we have been describing righteous men this morning, yet we have not been describing self-righteous men! The self-righteous is not righteous-- the two things are wide apart as the poles. These very people whom God favored had sinned, for we read in the 24th verse of the chapter, "The people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity." The blessing is not to the man who glories in his innocence, but, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." These favored people cried, "O Lord, be gracious unto us." They knew their need of Grace. Do not hope that God will favor you when you neither confess your sin nor seek His Grace. Self-righteousness damns! It is only the righteousness of God that saves. Seek the character and the privilege of the saints as a gift of Divine Grace. Gladly would I drop into your hearts and mouths that prayer of the second verse--"O Lord, be gracious unto us." I commend it to you! Go to your homes and in your silent chamber pour out your hearts with cries and tears, saying, "O Lord, be gracious unto us! We cannot walk in Your ways and keep our tongue and eyes and ears as we desire to do unless we are renewed and preserved by Your Grace. Be gracious in forgiving the past and in helping us for the future to live in Your fear and service. Do this through Christ Jesus our Lord, we implore You." Your prayer shall be heard and these blessings shall be yours--but see to it that you seek unto the Lord by a sincere faith. Again, use the second verse as your guide and cry, "Be You our arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble." Commit yourself to the guardian care of the Lord each day and especially fly to Him in the hour of trouble! Then will He create righteousness in you and cause you in every good word to do His will. Go, I say, and seek unto the Strong for strength and to the Righteous One for righteousness--and the blessings of the dweller upon the heights shall be yours. As for you, my dear Brothers and Sisters, who are really walking before the Lord aright, straining with your utmost endeavors to do only that which is just and true, at the same time trusting alone in Jesus for your salvation, I would charge you to rejoice exceedingly! If this text is true--that we dwell on high and that our place of defense is the munitions of rocks--and that our bread shall be given us and our waters shall be sure, let us be glad! What a happy people we ought to be! We ought, every one of us, to have a beaming face, flashing eyes, an elastic step, a singing life, a courageous heart! All men should be made to feel that the chosen of the Lord are a happy people. It is our privilege beyond that of all other men to go through the world with Heaven about our steps. It is not ours to be clad in the weeds of sorrow, for the Bridegroom is with us! We are not commanded to complain, but to rejoice! I leave to others the task of showing the beauty of groaning, or the delightfulness of murmuring--it is mine to urge you to shake yourselves from the dust and put on your beautiful garments! Why are you so cast down? Dear people of God, you go out in the streets in rags and yet you have royal robes provided for you--why do you not put them on? "Oh," you, say "but I have great sorrow." Yes, but it is written, "As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." Why tell everybody of your grief? Is there any good to be done in that? What does our Lord say? "But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face that you appear not unto men to fast." It is a Christian's duty to be happy! What a blessed religion is that in which joy is a matter of precept--"Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice." I have been so long away from England that I do not know where our Queen is residing just now, but if I had the wings of a dove and could mount into the upper air, I would soon find out! I should look for the Royal Standard. I should see it floating over Windsor or Osborne and, by this token, I should spy the royal abode. Fling out the banner to the breeze when the King is within! Is the King at home with you, dear Brothers and Sisters? Do not forget to display the standard of holy joy! Hoist it up and keep it flying! When the Bridegroom is not with us, we will mourn. But so long as we see His face, no man can make us fast. Rejoice, and yet again, rejoice, and thus let the Royal Standard fly at the top of the tower--the King is within us! The Prince of Peace is enthroned in our hearts! The Lord is exalted, for He dwells on high and we dwell on high with Him! Glory be unto His name! Ring the joy-bells! With clamor of united joy let us shout unto our God who makes us to ride upon the high places of the earth! Let it be known abroad that there is no God like our God and no people like His people! Under Heaven there are none so joyous as the Lord's afflicted saints, none so rich as the Lord's poor, none so honored in Heaven as those that are despised of men for Christ's sake, none so worthy to be envied as those who, today, are ridiculed for their faith in God! The Lord be with you and bless every one of you with the full enjoyment of this majestic text, for Christ's sake. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ An Astounding Miracle (No. 1765) A SERMON PREACHED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 10, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "And they went into Capernaum, and straightway on the Sabbath day He entered into the synagogue, and taught. And they were astonished at His doctrine: for He taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes. And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, saying, Let us alone, what have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold your peace, and come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had convulsed him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him. And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thingis this? What new doctrine is this? For with authority commands He even the unclean spirits, and they do obey Him. And immediately His fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee." Mark 1:21-28. You will find the same narrative in Luke, at the fourth chapter, from the 31st to the 37th verse. It will be handy for you to be able to refer to the second passage, from which I shall quote one or two matters. These two Evangelists commence the narrative by telling us of the singular authority and power which there was about the Savior's teaching-- authority so that no man dared question His doctrine--power, so that every man felt the force of the Truths of God which He delivered. "They were astonished at His teaching, for His Word was with power." Why was it that the Savior's teaching had such a remarkable power about it? Was it not, first, because He preached the Truth of God? There is no power in falsehood except so far as men choose to yield to it because it flatters them, but there is great force in the Truth of God--it makes its own way into the soul. As long as men have consciences they cannot help feeling when the Truth is brought to bear upon them. Even though they grow angry, their very resistance proves that they recognize the force of what is spoken. Moreover, the Savior spoke the Truth in a very natural, unaffected manner--the Truth of God was in Him and it flowed freely from Him. His manner was truthful as well as His matter. There is a way of speaking the Truth so as to make it sound like a lie. Perhaps there is no greater injury done to the Truth of God than when it is spoken in a doubtful manner, with none of the accent and emphasis of conviction. Our Savior spoke as the Oracles of God--He spoke the Truth of God as Truth should be spoken, unaffectedly and natural--as One who did not preach professionally, but out of the fullness of His heart. You all know how sermons from the heart go to the heart. Moreover, our great Exemplar delivered His teaching as one who most heartily believed what He was speaking, who spoke what He knew, yes, spoke of things which were His own. Jesus had no doubts, no hesitancy, no questions--and His style was as calmly forcible as His faith. Truth seemed to be reflected from His face just as it shone forth from God in all its native purity and splendor. He could not speak otherwise than He did, for He spoke as He was, as He felt and as He knew. Our Lord spoke as One whose life supported all that He taught. Those who knew Him could not say, "He speaks after a right kind, but He acts otherwise." There was about His whole conduct and deportment that which made Him the fit Person to utter the Truth of God because the Truth was Incarnate and embodied and exemplified in His own Person. Well might He speak with great assurance when He could say, "Which of you convicts Me of sin?" He was as pure as the Truth which He proclaimed. He was not a speaking-machine, sounding out something with which it has no vital connection; but out of the midst of His own heart there flowed rivers of Living Waters. Truth overflowed at His lips from the deep well of His soul--it was in Him and, therefore, came from Him. What He poured forth was His own life, with which He was endeavoring to impreg- nate the lives of others. Consequently, for all these reasons, and many besides, Jesus spoke as One that had authority-- His tone was commanding, His teaching was convincing. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit who had descended upon Him in His Baptism, rested upon Him, and bore witness by His Divine operations in the consciences and hearts of men. If Jesus spoke of sin, the Spirit was there to convince the world of sin. If He set forth a glorious righteousness, the Holy Spirit was there to convince the world of righteousness and when He told men of the coming judgment, the Holy Spirit was present to make them know that a judgment would surely come at which each of them must appear. Because of His unlimited anointing by the Spirit, our Lord spoke with power and authority of the most astonishing kind, so that all who heard Him were compelled to feel that no ordinary Rabbi stood before them! That power and authority was seen all the more in contrast with the Scribes, for the Scribes spoke hesitatingly. They quoted authority; they begged leave to venture an opinion; they supported their ideas by the opinion of Rabbi this, although it was questioned by Rabbi the other--they spent their time in tying and untying knots before the people, quibbling about matters which had no practical importance whatever! They were wonderfully clear upon the tithing of mint and anise. They enlarged most copiously upon the washing of cups and basins. They were profound upon phylacteries and borders of garments. They were at home upon such rubbish which would neither save a soul, nor slay a sin, nor suggest a virtue. While handling the Scriptures they were mere word-triflers, lettermen whose chief objective was to show their own wisdom. Such attempts at oratory and word-spinning were as far as the poles asunder from the discourses of our Lord. Self-display never entered into the mind of Jesus. He was so absorbed in what He had to teach that His hearers did not exclaim, "What a preacher is this!" but, "What a Word of God is this!" And, "What new teaching is this!" The Word and the teaching with their admirable authority and amazing power subdued men's minds and hearts by the energy of Truth! Men acknowledged that the great Teacher had taught them something worth knowing and had so impressed it upon them that there was no shaking themselves free of it. Now, when they were beginning to perceive this authority in His Word, our Lord determined to prove to them that there was real power at the back of His teaching and that He had a right to use such authority, for He was Jesus Christ, the Son of God, clothed with Divine authority and power. It occurred to Him to display before their eyes the fact that as there was power about His speech, there was also power about Himself--that He was mighty in deed as well as in Word--and therefore He worked the miracle now before us. This most astounding deed of authority and power has been passed over by certain expositors as having too little of incident about it to be of much interest, whereas, to my mind, it rises, in some respects, above all other miracles and is certainly excelled by none in its forcible demonstration of our Lord's authority and power! It is the first miracle which Mark gives us. It is the first which Luke gives us. And it is, in some respects, the first of miracles, as I hope I may show before I have done. Remember, however, that the objective of the miracle is to reveal more fully the power and authority of our Lord's Words and to let us see, by following signs, that His teaching has an Omnipotent force about it. This Truth is much needed at the present moment, for if the Gospel does not still save men--if it is still not "the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes"--then the attacks of skepticism are not easily repelled. But if it is still a thing of power over the minds of men--a power conquering sin and Satan--then they may say what they like, our only answer shall be to lament their doubts and to scorn their scorning! O for an hour of the Son of man! O where is He that trod the sea and bade the rage of Hell subside with a word? I. First, then, to show forth this power and authority, Out LORD SELECTS A MOST UNHAPPY PERSON ON WHOM TO PROVE HIS POWER. This person was, first, one possessed. A devil dwelt within him. We cannot explain this fact any more than we can explain madness. Many things which happen in the world of our minds are quite inexplicable and, for that matter, so are many facts in the world of matter. We accept the recorded fact--an evil spirit entered into this man and continued in him. Satan, you know, is God's ape--he is always trying to imitate Him, to caricature Him. So, when God became Incarnate, it occurred to Satan to become incarnate, too--and this man I may call, without any misuse of words--an incarnate devil! Or, at any rate, the devil was incarnated in him. He had become like a devil in human form, and so was, in a certain manner, the opposite of our Lord Jesus. In Jesus dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily by an eternal union. In this man the devil dwelt for a while. Is not this an awful picture? But note the fact the man whom Jesus selects to prove His power and authority on was so far gone that the foul fiend controlled his mind and made a kennel of his body! I wondered, when thinking this over, whether a person of whom this man is the emblem would come into the congregation today, for I have seen such people. I have not dared personally to apply such an epithet to any man, but I have heard it applied--I have heard disgusted friends and indignant neighbors, worn out with the drunken profanity, or horrible filthiness of some man, say, "He does not seem to be a man, He acts like the Evil One." Or when it has been a woman, they have said, "All that is womanly is gone. She seems to be a female fiend." Well, if such shall come within sound of my voice, or within reading of this sermon, let them take note that there is help, hope, and health--even for them! The power of Jesus knows no limit! Upon one who was the Devil's own did our gracious Lord display His authority and power in connection with His Gospel teaching--and He is not less able now than then! This man, further, was one whose personality was, to a great extent, merged in the Evil One. Read the 23rd verse--"There was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit." The rendering might be equally accurate if we read it, "A man in an unclean spirit." Do you see that? Not only a man with an unclean spirit in him, but a man in an unclean spirit! The phrase is simple enough, we speak of a man being in drink. For liquor to be in a man does not mean half as much as for a man to be in liquor. To give a more pleasant illustration, we speak of a person's being "in love." He is absorbed in his affection. We should not express a tenth as much if we said that love is in the man. A man can be in a rage, in a passion and even so was this man in an evil spirit! He was completely ruled by the Evil One. The poor creature had no power over himself, whatever, and was not, himself, actually responsible. In all that I say of him, I am not condemning him, but only using him as a type of human sin. Please do not forget this. As far as the narrative is concerned, the man, himself, scarcely appears. It is the unclean spirit that cries out, "Let us alone! I know who You are." These are words spoken by the man, but they are the sentiments of the demon who used the man's organs of speech according to his own will. The man was scarcely a man with a will or wish of his own! In fact, you do not notice him till you see him flung down into the midst of the synagogue. You only see the proper man when the Savior raises him up before them all--unharmed and rational. Until the miracle is worked, the man is lost in the unclean spirit that dominates him. Have you ever seen such men? You say, sometimes, and you say truly, "alas, poor wretch! The drink has the mastery over him; he would never do such things as he does if he was not in drink." We do not mean to excuse him by such an expression--far from it! Or it may be the man is a gambler and you say, "He is quite overtaken by gaming; though he impoverishes his wife and children, yet he is possessed by that spirit so completely that he has not the mind nor the will to resist the temptation." Or it may be that such another person is carried away with unchaste affections and we say, "How sad! There was something about that man which we used to like. In many points he was admirable, but he is so deluded by his bad passions that he does not seem to be himself." We almost forget the man and think mainly of the dreadful spirit which has degraded him lower than the beasts. This is the type and emblem of such a person as that our Lord selected as the platform to show His power! I wonder whether this voice of mine will reach one of that sort? I sincerely hope that none of you are in such a condition, but if you should be, still there is hope for you in Christ Jesus! He is able to deliver such as are led captive at the will of Satan. Though you seem wholly given up and utterly abandoned to the dominion of a terrible sin to which you yield a willing obedience, yet Jesus can break off the iron yoke from your neck and bring you into the liberty of holiness! It will be an awful thing for you to die in your sins--and you surely will unless you believe in the Lord Jesus! But if you look to Him, He can make you pure and holy and create you anew! Note further, for we must show you how our Lord selects the worst of cases, it was a man in whom the evil spirit was at his worst. Kindly look at the fourth chapter of Luke, verse 33, and you will see that in this man there was "the spirit of an unclean devil." Think of that! The devil is never particularly clean at any time--what must an unclean devil be? The ruling spirit in the man was not only a devil, but an unclean devil! Satan sometimes cleans himself up and comes out quite bright and shining, like an angel of light--but do not mistake him--he is still a devil, for all his pretended purity! There are glittering sins and respectable sins--and these will ruin souls--but this poor man had a disreputable demon in him, a spirit of the foulest, coarsest and most abominable order! I suppose this foul spirit would incite its victim to filthy talk and obscene acts. The Evil One delights in sins against the Seventh Commandment. If he can lead men and women to defile their bodies, he takes special delight in such crimes. I doubt not that this poor creature was reduced to the most brutal form of animalism. I can well believe that in his body he was filthy. And that in his talk, in all the thoughts that hurried through his poor brain, and in all his actions, He went to a pitch of uncleanness upon which we need not permit a conjecture. If we were to say of such a character as this man pictured, "Let us turn out of the way," who could blame us? If we separated from such sinners, who could censure us? We do not desire to go near to Satan in any shape, but most of all we would shun him when he is openly and avowedly unclean. You say, "We could not bear to hear the man speak. The very look of him is offensive." Nor is it strange that you should! There are women so fallen that modesty trembles to be seen in their company. And the feeling that makes you shudder at them is not to be condemned, so long as it does not spring from self-righteousness or lead to contempt. Yet, now, see it and wonder! Our blessed Lord and Master fixed His eyes of old on the man with the unclean devil in him--and today He fixes His eyes of mercy on the basest and vilest of mankind, that in their conversion He may show the power and authority of His Word! Lord, do so at this moment! Let us see, today, the miracles of Your Grace. Bring the chief of sinners to repentance! Raise up those who are fallen to the lowest degree! In this man there did not seem to be anything for the Lord to begin with. When you are trying to bring a man to the Savior, you look over him to see where you can touch him--what there is in him that you can work with. Perhaps he is a good husband though he is a drunk and you wisely attempt to work upon his domestic affections. If a man has some point of character upon which you can rest your lever, your work is comparatively easy. But with some people, you look over them from top to bottom and you cannot find a spot for hope to rest upon! They seem so utterly gone that there is neither reason, nor conscience, nor will, nor power of thought left in them. Of all this, the possessed man in the synagogue is a striking example, for when the Lord comes into the synagogue, the poor wretch does not begin to pray, "Lord, heal me." No, his first cry is, "Let us alone." He does not seem to resist this cry of the evil spirit in him, though it was so much to his own injury. And he goes on to say, "What have we to do with You, You Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are." The possessed man seems wholly lost in the dominating spirit of evil which permeated his entire being! Now I look upon this, though it is negative, as a very glaring part of the difficulty, for I do not care how far a man has gone in outward sin, if he has some point left in him of common honesty, or love to his family, or a generous heart, you know where to commence operations and your work is hopeful. Even leviathan has some crevice between his scales though they are shut up together as with a close seal. And there is some joint in the harness of most men, even though mail may cover them from head to foot. But in those outcasts of whom I am now speaking, there is neither lodgment for hope, nor foothold for faith, nor more than a bare ledge for love! As the man in the synagogue was shut up within the demon's influence, so are some men encompassed by their iniquity, blocked up by their depravity! Yet the great raiser up of the fallen can rescue even these! He is able to save unto the uttermost! One other matter makes the case still more terrible--He was a man upon whom religious observances were lost. He was in the synagogue on the Sabbath and I do not suppose that this was anything unusual. The worst man of all is one who can attend the means of Grace and yet remain under the full power of evil. Those poor outside sinners who know nothing of the Gospel at all and never go to the House of God at all--for them there remains at least the hope that the very novelty of the Holy Word may strike them. But as for those who are continually in our synagogues, what shall now be done for them if they remain in sin? It is singular, but true, that Satan will come to a place of worship. "Oh," you say, "surely he will never do that?" He did it as long ago as the days of Job, when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord--and Satan came, also, among them. The evil spirit led this unhappy man to the synagogue that morning and it may be he did so with the idea of disturbing the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am glad he was there. I wish that all the slaves of sin and Satan would attend Sabbath worship. They are then within range of the Gospel gun and who can tell how many may be reached? Yet how sad it was that the influences of religious worship had altogether failed to rescue this man from his thralldom! They sang in the synagogue, but they could not sing the evil spirit out of him. They read the lessons of the day in the synagogue, but they could not read the foul spirit out of him! They gave addresses from passages of Scripture, but they could not address the unclean spirit out of him. No doubt some of the godly prayed for him, but they could not pray the devil out of him. Nothing can cast out Satan but the Words of Jesus, Himself! His own Words, from His own lips, have power and authority about them, but everything short of that falls to the ground. O Divine Redeemer, let Your Omnipotence be displayed in turning great sinners into sincere penitents! You see, then, what a terrible case the Master selected. I am sure I have not exaggerated. O the comfort which lies in the thought that He still chooses to save persons of whom this wretched being is the fit emblem and representative! O you vilest of the vile, here is hope for you! II. Let us now look a little further and observe that OUR LORD ENCOUNTERS A FIRMLY-ENTRENCHED ENEMY. The evil spirit in this man had ramparted and bulwarked himself against the assault of Christ, for as I have said, he had the man fully at his command. He could make him say and do whatever he pleased. He had that man so at his command that he brought him to the synagogue that day and he compelled him to become a disturber of the worship. Quietness and order should be in the assemblies of God's people, but this poor soul was egged on to cry out and make horrible noises, so as to raise great tumult in the congregation. The Jews allowed all the liberty they could to persons possessed and, so long as their behavior was bearable, they were tolerated in the synagogues. But this poor mortal broke through the bounds of propriety and his cries were a terror to all. But look, the Lord Jesus deals with this disturber! This is the very man in whom He will be glorified. So have I seen my Lord convert His most furious enemy and enlist unto His service the most violent of opposers. The Evil One compelled his victim to beg to be left alone--as we have it here, "Let us alone." In the Revised Version of Luke, the same rendering is put in the margin, but in the text we have, "Ah!" While the Lord Jesus was teaching there was suddenly heard a terrible, "Ah!" A horrible, hideous outcry startled all and these words were heard--"Ah! What have we to do with You?" It was not the voice of supplication! It was distinctly the reverse--it was a prayer not for mercy, but against mercy! The translation is, however, quite good if we read, "Let us alone." Is it not a horrible thing that Satan leads men to say, "Do not trouble us with your Gospel! Do not bother us with religion! Do not come here with your tracts! Let us alone!" They claim the wretched right to perish in their sins--the liberty to destroy their own souls! We know who rules when men speak thus--it is the Prince of Darkness who makes them hate the Light of God. Oh, my Hearers, do not some of you say, "We do not want to be worried with thoughts of death, judgment and eternity! We do not desire to hear about repentance and faith in a Savior! All we want of religious people is that they will let us alone." This cruel kindness we cannot grant them! How can we stand by and see them perish? Yet how sad the moral condition of one who does not wish to be made pure! You would think it impossible for Jesus to do anything with a man while he is crying out, "Let us alone." Yet it was the evil spirit in this man that our Lord met and overcame! Is there not encouragement for us to deal with those who give us no welcome, but shut the door in our faces? The foul spirit made the man renounce all interest in Christ. He coupled him with himself and made him say, "What have we to do with You, You Jesus of Nazareth?" This was a disclaimer of all connection with the Savior. He almost resented the Savior's Presence as an intrusion! The voice seems to cry to Jesus, "I have nothing to do with You! Go Your way and leave me alone. I do not want You! Whatever You can do to save or bless me is hereby refused. Only let me alone." Now, when a man deliberately says, "I will have nothing to do with your Jesus. I want no pardon, no salvation, no Heaven," I think the most of you would say, "That is a hopeless case. We had better go elsewhere." Yet even when Satan has led a man this far, the Lord can drive him out! He is mighty to save! He can change even the hardest heart. The unclean spirit did more than that--He caused this man to dread the Savior, and made him cry out, "Ah! Have You come to destroy us?" Many persons are afraid of the Gospel. To them religion wears a gloomy aspect. They do not care to hear of it for fear it should make them melancholy and rob them of their pleasures. "Oh," they say, "religion would get me into Bedlam! It would drive me mad." Thus Satan, by his detestable lies, makes men dread their best Friend and tremble at that which would make them happy forever! A further entrenchment Satan had cast up--he made his victim yield an outward assent to the Gospel. "I know who You are," said the spirit, speaking with the man's lips, "the Holy One of God." Of all forms of Satan's devices, this is one of the worst for workers, when men say, "Yes, yes, what you say is very proper!" You call upon them and talk about Jesus and they answer, "Yes, Sir. It is quite true. I am much obliged to you, Sir." You preach the Gospel and they say, "He made an interesting discourse and he is a very clever man!" You buttonhole them and speak about the Savior--they re- ply, "It is very kind of you to talk to me so earnestly. I always admire this sort of thing. Zeal is much to be commended in these days." This is one of the strongest of earthworks, for the cannonballs sink into it and their force is gone. This makes Satan secure in his hold on the heart. Yet the Savior dislodged this demon and therein displayed His power and authority! Have I not proved my point? Jesus selected a most unhappy individual to become an instance of His supremacy over the powers of darkness! He selected a most firmly-entrenched spirit to be chased out of the nature which had become his stronghold. III. We have something more pleasant to think upon as we notice that OUR LORD CONQUERED IN A MOST SIGNAL MANNER. The conquest began as soon as the Savior entered the synagogue and was thus under the same roof with the devil. Then the Evil One began to fear! That first cry of, "Ah," or, "Let us alone," shows that the evil spirit knew his Conqueror. Jesus had not said anything to the man. No, but the Presence of Christ and His teaching are the terror of fiends. Wherever Jesus Christ comes in, Satan knows that he must go out. Jesus has come to destroy the works of the devil and the Evil One is aware of his fate. Now, as soon as one of you shall go into a house with the desire to bring the inmates to Christ, it will be telegraphed to the bottomless pit directly! Insignificant person as you may think yourself, you are a very dangerous person to Satan's kingdom if you go in the name of Jesus and proclaim His Gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ opened the Book and read in the synagogue and soon His explanation and teaching with authority and power made all the evil spirits feel that their kingdom was shaken. "I beheld," said our Lord at another time, "Satan fall like lightning from Heaven," and that fall was commencing in this "beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God." The first token of our Lord's triumph was the evident alarm which caused the evil spirit to cry out! The next sign was that the devil began to offer terms to Christ, for I take it that is the reason why he said, "I know who You are, the Holy One of God." He did not confront our Lord with the hostile doubt, "If you are the Son of God," but with the compliment, "I know who You are." "Yes," the false spirit said, "I will allow this man to say his creed, and avow himself one of the orthodox and then, perhaps, I shall be let alone. The man is sound in his views and so my living in him cannot be a bad thing, after all. I am quite willing to admit all the claims of Jesus, so long as He will not interfere with my rule over the man." The Evil One had read his Bible and knew how Daniel had called Jesus, "the Most Holy," and so he calls Him "The Holy One of God." "I am quite willing to admit it all," says the devil, "only let me stay in the man. Do not meddle with me and this man's lips shall confess the truth." And so, when Jesus comes in His power, and men hear His Words, this deceitful compromise is often proposed and attempted! The sinner says, "I believe it all. I deny nothing. I am no infidel, but I mean to keep my sin and I do not intend to feel the power of the Gospel so as to repent and have my sin chased out of me. I will agree to the Gospel, but I will not allow it to control my life." However, this coming to terms shows that the fallen spirit knows his Destroyer. He could wish to be let down easily. He is willing to crouch, to cringe, to fawn and even to bear testimony to the Truth of God if he may but be allowed to keep in his den--that den a human soul. Liar as he is, it must go sadly against the grain for him to say, "I know who You are," yet he will do this if he may be allowed to keep dominion. So when Jesus draws near to men's minds, they say, "We will be orthodox, we will believe the Bible and we will do anything else You prescribe, only do not disturb our consciences, interfere with our habits, or dislodge our selfishness." Men will accept anything rather than renounce their sin, their pride, their ease. Then came our Lord's real work on this man. He gave the evil spirit short and sharp orders. "Silence! Come out!" "Jesus rebuked him." The word implies that He spoke sharply to him. How else could He speak to one who was maliciously tormenting a man who had done him no harm? The Greek word might be read, "Be muzzled." It is a harsh word. Such as an unclean tormenting spirit deserves. "Silence! Come out." That is exactly what Jesus means that the devil shall do when He delivers men from him. He says to him, "Come out of the man. I do not want pious talk and orthodox professing. Hold your peace and come out of him." It is not for evil spirits, nor yet for ungodly men, to try to honor Christ by their words. Traitors bring no honor to those they praise. Liars cannot witness to the Truth of God--or if they do, they damage its cause. "Be still," says Jesus. And then, "Come out." He speaks as a man might call a dog out of a kennel, "Come out." "Oh," says the unclean spirit, "let me stay and the man shall go to Church! He shall even go to the sacrament." "No," says the Lord, "Come out of him. You have no right within him. He is Mine, and not yours. Come out of him!" I pray that the Master may give one of His mighty calls at this moment and speak to some poor besotted creature--and say to the devil in him, "Come out of him!" O Sinners, you must quit your sin or it will ruin you forever! Are you not eager to be rid of it? Now, see the conquest of Christ over the unclean spirit. The fiend did not dare to utter another word, though he went as near it as he could. He "cried with a loud voice." He made an inarticulate howling as he left the man. As he came out, he tried to do his victim some further injury, but in that he also failed. He convulsed him and threw him down in the midst of the synagogue, but Luke adds, "He came out of him, having done him no hurt." From the moment when Jesus bade him, "Come out," his power to harm was gone! He came out like a whipped cur. See how Jesus triumphs! As He did this, literally, in the man in the synagogue, so He does it spiritually in thousands of cases. The last act of the fiend was malicious, but fruitless. I have seen a poor creature rolled in the dust of despair by the departing enemy, but he has soon risen to joy and peace. Have you not seen him in the Enquiry Room, weeping in the dismay of his spirit? But that has caused him no real harm--it has even been a benefit to him by causing him to feel a deeper sense of sin--and by driving him quite out of himself to the Savior. Oh, what a splendid triumph this is for our Lord when out of a great sinner the reigning power of sin is expelled by a word! How our Master tramples on the lion and the adder! How He treads under His feet the young lion and the dragon! If the Lord will speak today with power to any soul, however vicious, or depraved, or besotted--his reigning sins shall come out of him and the poor sinner shall become a trophy of His Sovereign Grace! IV. Lastly, THE SAVIOR RAISES BY WHAT HE DID A GREAT WONDERMENT. The people that saw this were more astonished than they generally were at the Savior's miracles, for they said, "What thing is this? What new teaching is this? For with authority commands He even the unclean spirits and they obey Him!" The wonder lay in this--here was man at his very lowest--he could not be worse! I have shown you the impossibility of anybody being worse than this poor creature was. I mean not that he was morally evil, for, as I have hinted before, the moral element does not actually enter into the man's case. But he is the instructive picture of the worst man morally--utterly and entirely possessed of Satan-- and carried away to an extreme degree by the force of evil. Now, under the preaching of the Gospel, the worst man that lives may be saved! While he is listening to the Gospel, a power goes with it which can touch the hardest heart, subdue the proudest will, change the most perverted affections and bring the most unwilling spirit to the feet of Jesus! I speak now what I know, because I have seen it in scores and hundreds of cases--that the least likely persons, about whom there seemed to be nothing whatever helpful to the work of Grace or preparatory for it--have, nevertheless, been turned from the power of Satan unto God! Such have been struck down by the preaching of the Gospel and the devil has been made to come out of them, then and there, and they have become new creatures in Christ Jesus! This creates a great wonderment and causes great staggering among the ungodly-- they cannot understand it--and they ask, "What thing is this? And what new doctrine is this?" This is a convincing sign which makes the most obdurate unbeliever question his unbelief! Notice, in this case, that Jesus worked entirely and altogether alone. In most of His other miracles, He required faith. In order to salvation there must be faith, but this miracle before us is not a parable of man's experience so much as of Christ's working--and that working is not dependent upon anything in man. When a man is commanded to stretch out His withered hand, or told to go to the Pool of Siloam and wash, He does something. But in this case the man is ignored. If he does anything it is rather to resist than to assist--the devil makes him cry, "Let us alone; what have we to do with You?" The Lord Jesus Christ here displays His Sovereignty, His power, and His authority--utterly ignoring the man, consulting neither his will nor his faith--but sovereignly bidding the fiend, "Be silent and come out." The thing is done and the man is delivered from his thralldom before he has had time to seek or pray. The miracle seems to me to teach this--that the power of Christ to save from sin does not lie in the person saved--it lies wholly in Jesus Himself. And, further, I learn that though the person to be saved is so far gone that you could scarcely expect faith of him, yet the Gospel coming to him can bring faith with itself and do its own world, ab initio, from the very beginning. What if I say that the Gospel is a Seed that makes its own soil! It is a spark that carries its own fuel! It is a life which can implant itself within the ribs of death, yes, between the jaws of destruction! The Eternal Spirit comes with His own light and life--and creates men in Christ Jesus to the praise of the glory of His Grace. Oh, the marvel of this miracle! I was never led more greatly to admire the splendor of the power of Christ to rescue men from sin than at this hour. And, to conclude, I notice our Lord did nothing but speak. In other cases He laid His hands upon the diseased, or led them out of the city, or touched then, or applied clay, or used spittle. But in this case He does not use any instrumentality--His Word is all. He says, "Hold your peace and come out of him," and the unclean spirit is evicted. The Word of the Lord has shaken the kingdom of darkness and loosed the bonds of the oppressed! As when the Lord scattered the primeval darkness by the fiat, "Light be," so did Jesus give the Word and its own intrinsic power banished the Messenger of Darkness. Oh, you that preach Christ, preach Him boldly! No coward lips must proclaim His invincible Gospel! Oh, you that preach Christ, never choose your place of labor! Never turn your back on the worst of mankind! If the Lord should send you to the borders of Perdition, go there and preach Him with full assurance that it shall not be in vain! Oh, you that would win souls, have no preference as to which they shall be, or, if you have a choice, select the very worst! Remember, my Master's Gospel is not merely for the moralist in his respectable dwelling, but for the abandoned and fallen in the filthy dens of the outcast! The all-conquering light of the Sun of Righteousness is not for the dim dawn, alone, to brighten it into the full blaze of day, but it is meant for the blackest midnight that ever made a soul to shiver as in the shadow of death! The name of Jesus is high over all, in Heaven, earth and sky! Therefore let us preach it with authority and confi-dence--not as though it were an invention of men. He has said He will be with us and, therefore, nothing is impossible! The Word of the Lord Jesus cannot fall to the ground! The gates of Hell cannot prevail against it! The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hands! The Lord shall bruise Satan under our feet shortly. I have gone to great lengths in this sermon because I would reach sinners who have gone to great lengths. Oh that they would accept this message of amazing mercy! He who has come to save sinners is God--and this is the surest ground of hope for the very worst! Hear this I pray you--it is the Lord your God who speaks to you--"Look unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." __________________________________________________________________ A Waiting God and a Waiting People (No. 1766) A SERMON PREACHED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 17, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "And therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you and, therefore, will He be exalted, that He may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for Him." Isaiah 30:18. The people were in a great hurry to be delivered from their enemies. The Assyrians had come up in great force and were covering the land with their armies. They had already devastated the neighboring kingdom of Israel and, therefore, the men of Judah were afraid that they would be swallowed up quickly, even as dry stubble is devoured by fire. The Prophet bade the inhabitants of Jerusalem remain where they were, adding, "For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: In returning and rest shall you be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength." But they would not listen to the counsel of wisdom--they preferred to follow the suggestion of their fears and go down into Egypt for shelter. They were impatient because they were unbelieving. They were slow to obey, but they were swift to rebel and, therefore, the Lord cries to them by His Prophet--"Woe to the rebellious children that take counsel, but not of Me." They sent their princes as ambassadors to Zoan to entreat aid from the Egyptian king! Yes, they sent a great treasure upon camels as a bribe to Pharaoh to espouse their cause against Assyria. They would not rely upon their God and so they looked to the land of the viper and the fiery flying serpent--and were stung with bitter disappointment--for vapor and emptiness were the help of Egypt. It seemed as if the motto of the people then was, "We will flee upon horses; we will ride upon the swift." Again and again Isaiah urged them to be quiet, saying, "Your strength is to sit still," but they would not learn that rash haste is but ill-speed. They could not be quiet by reason of their fear and folly. But the Lord waited and turned not from His long-enduring patience. In the words of our text, He showed that if mortals could not wait, yet their Maker could-- "Therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you"--and He assured them, yet again, that if they would learn to wait, they would find it their wisdom and happiness, for, "Blessed are all they that wait for Him." Here is the subject of this morning's discourse. Certain of God's people are in trouble and distress and they are eager for immediate rescue. They cannot wait on God's time, nor exercise submission to His will. He will surely deliver them in due season, but they cannot tarry till the hour comes. Like children, they snatch at unripe fruit. "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the Heaven," but their one season is the present--they cannot--they will not wait. They must have their desire instantaneously fulfilled or else they are ready to take wrong means of attaining it. If in poverty, they are in haste to be rich--and they shall not long be innocent. If under reproach, their heart ferments towards revenge. They would sooner rush under the guidance of Satan into some questionable policy than, in childlike simplicity, trust in the Lord and do good. It must not be so with you, my Brothers and Sisters--you must learn a better way. I hope that the sermon of this morning may go some way, by God's Spirit, towards instructing you in the holy art of waiting for the Lord. "Those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth." The text divides itself into two parts--first, it introduces us to a waiting God. And secondly, it speaks of a waiting people. I. First, we have here A WAITING GOD. I shall not confine our illustration of this waiting on the part of God to the case of the men of Judah described in the text, but I shall come home to your own experience and speak of how the Lord has waited that He might be gracious to you. Let us behold His long-suffering towards ourselves. In so doing we shall not be leaving the Scripture, for the text as truly describes our own experience as that of the men of Isaiah's day. The Word of the Lord which is now to be considered opens, first, with a wonderful reason for waiting--"And therefore will the Lord wait." "Therefore"--mark that word! The Lord Jehovah does as He wills both in Heaven and earth and His ways are past finding out, but He never acts unreasonably. He does not tell us His reasons, but He has them, for He acts, "according to the counsel of His will." God has His "therefore," and these are of the most forcible kind! Full often His "therefore" are the very reverse of ours--that which is an argument with us may be no argument with God-- and that which is a reason with Him might seem to be a reason in the opposite direction to us. For what is there in this chapter that can be made into a "therefore"? "Therefore will the Lord wait." From where does He derive the argument? Assuredly it is a reason based on His own Grace and not on the merit of man! The chapter contains a denunciation of the false confidences of the people and, because of these, one might have concluded that the Lord would cast them off forever. If they will have Egypt to lean upon, let them lean on Egypt till, like a spear, it pierces their side! God might well say, "Let them alone; they are given to their idols!" But instead, He cries, "Therefore will the Lord wait." He will let them see the result of their carnal confidences--He will allow them time in which to test and try Egypt and see whether Egypt is not a boaster whose help is to no purpose. Do you not remember when it was so with you? Perhaps you began your religious life with the great mistake of hoping to find salvation in your own goodness. You looked to your feelings, prayers, works and professions for safety. You thought that your deliverance must come from yourself and so you sought to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling"--without remembering--"it is God that works in us to will and to do of His own good pleasure." You knew nothing of God's Grace--you thought too much of your own good works! So many prayers and tears; so many Church-goings or Chapel-goings; so much of sacraments, almsgivings and the like--you thought this would make up a sweet-smelling sacrifice, acceptable to God! Blessed be the Lord who had great patience with you! He had told you plainly enough, beforehand, that by the works of the Law there should no flesh be justified in His sight--and you ought not to have tried that forbidden way-- but as you would try it, He suffered you to run therein till a gulf opened before you. You worked out a plan of self-salvation and the net result was bitter disappointment, for you saw that you could not keep the Law and you felt, also, that if you did keep it your obedience would make no recompense for the sins of the past! You perceived that the wrath of God was your righteous due! An abyss yawned before you! You dared not go further; neither could you trust the sandy ground upon which you stood. You were in great distress of mind, but it was for this that the Lord had, in mercy, waited. I heard, some time ago, of a man who rented horses and carriages. A person wished to hire and, having heard the price, he went round the little town to all other persons in that line of business to get something cheaper, but, as he did not succeed, he returned to the first person and said he would hire his horse and carriage. "No," said the other, "I am not going to let you have it. I know why you have come to me--you have been round everywhere else and if you could have saved a shilling you would not have come back to me." I do not commend the tradesman, but I do not much wonder at his conduct. See how much more patience there is in God than in man--we refuse His free salvation and go round by way of our own merits and everywhere else to try and find some other ground of confidence. And then at last, when everything has broken down, we come back to God and to salvation through Jesus Christ! And yet we find the Lord lovingly waiting, graciously waiting--a God ready to pardon! Further, these people were rebels against God, and the Lord was waiting to let them fully manifest their rebellious spirit and be made ashamed of it. The chapter begins that way--"Woe to the rebellious children." Further on He calls them, "a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the Law of the Lord"--was that a reason for waiting to be gracious? Yes, with the Lord, sin shows the need of Grace and so becomes a reason for Grace. The Lord allowed the people to show their rebellious character--to let all mankind know what kind of people God had to deal with--and that they might, in later days, have the higher admiration of His long-suffering and of His Grace. I think the Lord permits many sinners to go to the full length of their tether in order that they may know, in the future, what stuff they are made of, and may never trust in themselves. Those who, from their youth up, have been under restraint do not know the evil of their own hearts and are apt to think that they can scarcely be heirs of wrath even as others. But those who have developed their innate depravity by actual sin dare not dream such proud falsehoods, for their actual sins would cry them down if they did so! When the Lord leaves us to ourselves, awhile, and just stands back and lets us have our spin, what pretty creatures we are! Ah me, it makes us blush to remember all! In later years we have to bemoan and distrust ourselves--and admire the measureless bounty of the Grace which chose us--and would not alter its choice notwithstanding all our untowardness! A strange "therefore" is God's, "therefore"--"therefore will the Lord wait that He may be gracious"--that the abundant display of the sin within the man may lead to a more thorough and hearty confession of his fault and to a greater admiration of the splendor of the Grace which puts that sin away. The Lord would wait, again, for yet another reason, namely, to let them suffer somewhat of the effect of their sin. He permitted them to send their ambassadors to Egypt that they might come back disappointed. And He allowed the Assyrians to devastate the land that they might feel the pinch of famine and learn that it is an evil and a bitter thought to forsake the living God. It has a purifying effect upon men to let them bathe in the bitter waters which flow from the foul fountain of their iniquity! It is well that they should see what kind of serpent is hatched from the egg of evil. Perhaps some of us were left in the same way and we shall never forget what we thus learned--we were allowed to go on in sin and we did so until we began to feel the result of it! And now we flee from it with horror. We put our hand into the fire until it was burned--and now we dread the fire. The quittance of self, the abhorrence of sin, the clinging to the Lord which come out of our miseries, are all precious and, therefore, does the Lord wait to be gracious--wait until we set a just value upon that Grace--and have a due horror of the sin from which it delivers us. Once more, I do not doubt that the Lord waited in this case to be gracious until the people should begin to pray, for that seems to be the turning point in this affair. The Prophet says, "He will be very gracious unto you at the voice of your cry; when He shall hear it, He will answer you." The Lord is listening for the sinner's prayer! How is it that you have not prayed long ago, O troubled spirit? Why have those lips been dumb for years? What? With all your sense of sin and with a clear idea of the misery that will come of it, do you still refuse to pray? Then you may well wonder that the Lord should wait! It is a marvel that He should have any patience with a prayerless soul! The open display of His Grace in your soul in the form of pardoned sin will not appear to you until it is said, "Behold, he prays!" Why, then, are you so slow to cry to Him? If mercy is to be had for the asking, what shall become of the man who never asks? If God says, "Only acknowledge your transgressions," what must be the fate of him who will not acknowledge his transgressions? If the Lord sets Mercy's door before us, and writes over it, "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you," how can we be excused if we do not knock at once? And yet such was my condition once--and such was yours, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ! We did not feel the guilt of our sin! We would not acknowledge that we had erred! We did not recognize the misery that sin brought upon us! We did not pray! We did not seek the Lord through Jesus Christ! Yet all that long while the Lord of Mercy waited that He might be gracious to us! The reason why He should have exercised such forbearance and long-suffering is hard to see until we look into the goodness of His heart--until we see in the heart of His compassion, the deep fountains of love from which rivers of mercy flow. Behold how the heart of God yearns towards His people! Was it ever more clearly seen than in His long forbearance, His waiting to be gracious unto us? This leads us to notice, in the second place, the singular patience of God in that waiting. What does it mean when we are told that the Lord waits that He may have mercy upon us? It means that He kept back the sword of Justice! It is inevitable that where there is evil, God shall be angered with it. It is not a matter of arbitrariness with Him, but it is inevitable that the Judge of all the earth should take vengeance upon evil and wrong. God must punish sin! This is one of the fixed and settled principles of His very existence! Here, the attribute of long-suffering patience comes in and spares the guilty from time to time, giving space for repentance. Justice waits awhile, that Love may try her hand and bring the rebel to a better mind. With some of us, the Lord must have drawn the sword right out of the scabbard! And yet He put it back, again, into the sheath, bidding it be quiet a little longer. With some of us the Lord must have lifted up the axe to cut us down, for we have been such cumberers of the ground--and yet His mercy has stayed His justice and the axe has been laid by for mercy's sake. Because of the intercession of the Lord Jesus, the Lord has put the lifted thunderbolt down--and here we are, still the living--the living, I trust, to adore our long-suffering God! There are some dear friends before me who must forever highly honor the forbearance of God in sparing them through so many years of sin till, at last, their gray heads bowed before His Grace! It could have been easy enough for God to have destroyed them when they were running riot in their youth! Yes, easier to destroy them than to spare them! Have not some of you been in positions where, if you had been killed, it would have seemed only according to the order of Nature that you should be? But your being spared was a miracle of Providence! A special interposition of goodness! The brand in the fire will be consumed by being left alone. And if it is to escape, it must be plucked from the burning. Well, then, bless that God who waited and held back the punishment that was due to you! Bless the Judge who was so slow to call you to account, who postponed the day of trial! Yes, and issued a reprieve to let you live when you were already condemned! This patience of God signifies more, however, than delay in punishment--it means the continuance of privileges, for the Lord told these people that although He might give them the bread of adversity and the water of affliction on account of their sins--yet He would not take away their teachers from them! They would still be instructed, warned and invited to come to Him. Now, if God were to send a word of mercy to a man, once, and that man willfully refused His message, it would be perfectly just on God's part if He said, "I will never send another ambassador! It was condescension on My part to invite this rebel to be at peace with Me and since he declines to do so, he has made his choice of war--and surely I will contend with him. As he has made his bed, so shall he lie in it! As he prefers to be My enemy, so let him be, to his own destruction." Ah me, how long does Mercy linger! How earnestly she pleads with men to be kind to themselves! Instead of hasty wrath against His people when they rejected His Word, the Lord sent Prophet after Prophet to them. And when they stoned one and slew another, He even sent His own Son, saying, "They will reverence My Son." Still did the heralds of salvation cry, "Turn you, turn you, why will you die?" Has it not been so with some of us? We heard the Gospel when we were quite young and we have continued to hear it till we are quite old, so patient is the Lord! It may be that I speak to some who have continued to hear that Gospel every Sabbath and have determinedly refused it throughout a long life. Shall it continue to be so? Dare we always provoke the Lord? Still the white flag is hung out and the silver trumpet knows no note but, "Mercy, mercy, mercy!" Oh that man would hear that note and turn to the Lord! O my Brethren, the man who loves not the Lord Jesus is already "Anathema Maranatha!" All holy intelligences say, "Amen" to his being held accursed and yet the Lord permits him to tread His courts and hear His Word--and gives him space in which to repent of his evil deeds! He waits that He may be gracious unto you, therefore He bids His ministers wait upon you in hope and proclaim to you, over and over again, the loving-kindness of the Lord! So singular was God's patience that He even increased His holy agencies to lead the people to Himself. He says--"Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way, walk you in it." Do we not remember how, when their public ministry seemed to miss us, we began to be bothered by an inward force more powerful than visible ministries? Conscience cried aloud and accused us from within doors. I remember well when it dogged my heels wherever I went--it would not be at peace with me until I was at peace with God! Do you not remember in your own case when it began to be very hard to sin? The drags were clapped on and you could not gallop down the hill as you wished to do? You found it hard to kick with naked feet against the sharp pricks of conscience! You found it difficult to go to Hell--you had to leap fence and rail and ditch--and you were tired of such steeple-chasing. The voice of Jesus from without seemed echoed from within! You could hardly tell where the voice came, but it was always following and crying, "This is the way, walk you in it." O the devices of infinite Love! What patience was shown by the Lord to send this inward monitor! Why did He not say, "They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them"? Though we had Moses and the Prophets, the Scriptures to read and the Gospel to hear, yet He added to all this the still small voice! In addition to a summons from without, He added a pleader within! Did we contend against even this? Alas, we did, for we seemed determined to destroy ourselves! Behold, what manner of patience the Lord has exercised towards us according to the abundance of His Grace. No, this is not all, for all this while God was passing by our rejections of Him, blotting out our sinful refusals and insulting despising of His goodness. You know how it would be, even with your own child, if you were to say to him, "My Child, I am ready to forgive you if you will confess your fault." If he would not acknowledge that he was wrong, but held out stubbornly, you might have considerable patience, but I question if that patience would last for days and weeks. Your rod would soon be spoken with. Men that have been very famous for bearing insults have, at last, been compelled, in vindication of their own honor, to put an end to the provocation. How grievously far have you and I carried our insults of God! Do I not speak to some who are carrying the provocation a long way even now? You will not accept the Son of God by whom alone you can be saved! To save you it was necessary that Jesus should die, but you trample on His blood! It was not possible for you to enter Heaven unless the Lord Jesus should be your Substitute and bear your sin--and you have heard all about that wonderful Truth of God--and have yet acted as if it were nothing to you. You have not believed on Jesus! You have rejected the Father's testimony concerning Him and resisted the witness of the Spirit of God! This you have done for many a day. The tears have started in your eyes, but you have wiped them away and they have gone as the dew of the morning disappears in the heat of the sun. You have, at times, been driven to your chamber and to your knees, but you have forgotten your hurried prayers and, again, the dog has returned to his vomit and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire! This cannot always last--men cannot always thrust their fingers into God's eyes at this rate! The wonder is that it has lasted so long. Please remember that all this while God has been waiting and everything has been ready, ready for the sinner to come to Him. Listen to the Divine Words--"My oxen and My fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage." Alas, they would not come! So it was with us who are now brought in to enjoy the provisions of Grace--and so it is with many who are still outside the banquet hall--they do despite unto the love and mercy of God and the provision of His boundless Grace. Of multitudes Jesus says sorrowfully, "You will not come unto Me that you might have life." I wish I could better set forth the singular waiting of the Lord that He may have mercy upon us, but I pray the Holy Spirit to bless my feeble utterances to all that hear me this day. I must now notice a most remarkable action which follows upon the waiting. After the Lord had displayed His patience to His people, He resolved to go further, and He proceeded to a most notable matter which is thus described-- "Therefore will He be exalted, that He may have mercy upon you." You and I would have turned the text round the other way and said--"Therefore will He have mercy upon you, that He may be exalted"--that would be true, but it is not the Truth here taught. The picture represents the Lord, as it were, as sitting still and allowing His people, through their sin, to bring suffering upon themselves. But now, after long patience, He awakens Himself to action. I think I hear Him say, "They will not come to Me. They refuse all My messengers. They plunge deeper and deeper into sin, now will I see what My Grace can do!" He rises as one who means to put forth His power. He stands ready for action. And now, as if that were not enough, He says to Himself, "I will be exalted. I will go up to My Throne that I may have mercy upon them. I will manifest My power. I will take the ensigns of My dominion into My hands and act as a Sovereign. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy--and where sin abounded shall much more Grace abound." Oh, how I love to speak of the Lord exalted in Christ Jesus upon the Throne of Grace! Glory be to His name! Do you see what a wonderful thing is the work of Grace in saving men--"Therefore will He be exalted, that He may have mercy upon you." He will take to Himself an absolute Sovereignty, mount to the Throne, and display His reigning Grace! Where else is there any hope for men? It also bears this meaning. When a man is about to deal a heavy stroke, he lifts himself up to give the blow--he exalts himself to bring down the scourge more heavily upon the shoulder. Even so the Lord seems to say, "I will put forth all My might. I will exercise all My skill. I will display all My attributes up to their greatest height, that I may have mercy upon these hardened, stiff-necked sinners--I will be exalted that I may have mercy upon them." As if He would, in some way, make His greatness to be more illustrious than it had ever been seen before, by doing the most splendid act He had ever done, namely, by having mercy upon these provoking sinners for whom He had been waiting so long! Oh, but this is a surpassingly glorious text! I remember thinking, "Surely, if God saves me, He will be a God, indeed!" He did save me because He is a God, indeed. Here is the proof of it--"Look unto Me and be you saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God." Because He is God, He saves those who look to Him! Somebody here says, "Well truly, if the Lord were to crown His patience by bringing me to Himself I should think more of His glorious Grace than ever I have done before." Just so, and He means to make you think after that manner! Our Lord intends to make you stand at His feet weeping, as that woman did who had been a sinner and who so loved Him that she washed His feet with tears--and wiped them with the hair of her head because she had sinned much and much had been forgiven. Jesus loves to make converts like these. "Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together!" is a fit speech for a great sinner! But how can we magnify the Lord? He is already infinitely great--how can we magnify Him or make Him great? We can do it by our thoughts--we can greaten Him in our own esteem and in the esteem of our fellow men. We can cry out in wonder at His exceeding mercy--"Who is a God like unto You, that pardons iniquity and passes by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?" We never cry out, "Who is a God like unto You?" until we see Him forgiving sin! Then is He robed in an excellent and surpassing Glory! The Lord is exalted when He has mercy upon sinners in Christ Jesus because by this deed of Grace He glorifies every attribute, reveals His wisdom, displays His power, honors His justice and displays His love! His power is more resplendent in saving souls than in making worlds! His justice is more honored in the Sacrifice of Christ than in sending offenders to Hell! And His love is more resplendent than is all the gifts of His Providence! If you would see the Sun of Righteousness at seven times its ordinary strength--behold it shining with Grace and the Truth of God upon men who deserve to be thrust into outer darkness--if God has magnified His own name in our salvation, let us magnify it, too! O you saints of His, remember forever those words, "His Glory is great in your salvation: honor and majesty have you laid upon Him." One thing more before I leave this waiting God and that is, there is a final success to all this waiting. When the waiting turns to a glorious transaction of Grace upon the sinner's heart and conscience, then the time of love has come. Observe that it is written, "He will be very gracious unto you at the voice of your cry." When God has waited for the soul--that soul is brought to wait on Him. God's patience is not in vain towards His chosen. When God deals with His redeemed, He does not deal in vain! The Almighty is not defeated. Jehovah is an Omnipotent God--He works out His own pleasure upon men and we see Him, by His patience and Grace, causing men to pray--yes, and to weep! That is implied in the 19th verse--"They shall weep no more"--then they did weep till He forgave! Their tears and prayers are flowing, for He declares, "He will be very gracious unto you at the voice of your cry." Now, also, they listen eagerly to the Gospel, for they count it a privilege that "their teachers shall not be removed into a corner any more." They value their ministers and look at them with careful love, as it is here written--"Your eyes shall see your teachers." Those whom they formerly despised, they now esteem and delight in! They begin, also, to obey the voice of the Lord, for they hear the voice behind them saying, "This is the way." This great change comes to transgressors when God deals with them in His own effectual manner--then they mourn for sin, pray for mercy, listen with attentive ears to the message of love--and then they bow themselves down before the present God and desire nothing so much as to lie at peace with Him. Meanwhile, one of the chief and most evident tokens of their change is their casting away of the sin they formerly loved. "You shall defile, also, the covering of your graven images of silver and the ornament of your molten images of gold: you shall cast them away as a menstrual cloth. You shall say unto it, Get you hence." See what free Grace can do? It is no enemy of holiness, but the direct cause of it! The love of God reigning in the heart makes a man hate his sin! God never forgives sin without making us forsake sin. When He casts our sins into the depths of the sea, He causes us to do the same. When the Lord says to our sin, "Be gone from My memory," we say to it, "Be gone from my heart." Repentance, faith, holiness and zeal all follow upon the effectual working of Divine Grace. Oh, that all of you were under its power! Forever blessed be the Lord who waits to be gracious! And then, being gracious unto us, makes us gracious and causes us to bring forth the fruits of righteousness to His honor and praise. II. Now learn the lesson of the whole subject. Under our second head we have A WAITING PEOPLE--"Blessed are all they that wait for Him." God's waiting people wait only upon God. They are not trusting to the arm of flesh, nor looking to the changeable creature. They do not rely upon themselves, nor depend upon their own experiences, or their mental acquirements. Here is their song-- "My spirit looks to God alone My rock and refuge is His throne! In all my fears, in all my straits, My soul on His salvation waits." Dear Friends, you can judge whether you are the people of God or not by this--Can you say, "My Soul, wait only upon God, for my expectation is from Him"? "Trust you in the Lord forever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." God's waiting people wait upon God expectantly. They are looking for everything from Him, for He is their All in All. They have had a great deal from God, but they expect more from Him. They already swim in a river of Grace and they are floating on to an ocean of Glory! They know that they have nothing in themselves and they rejoice that they have everything in their God. Every morning they see that the light of the day comes from above and so, for spiritual things, they lift up their eyes to the hills, where comes their help! They are not waiting in despair, nor even in hesita-tion--they are waiting in hope--a joyous and assured hope of blessedness in reserve. They confidently expect to find their way in the Lord grow brighter and brighter and still brighter--from the twilight of the morning to the shining of the perfect day. Oh, my Brothers and Sisters, let us wait and watch, even as men look for the dawn because they know that it will not fail them. "But," you ask, "what are they waiting for?" I answer, God's people are waiting upon Him patiently for many things. Sometimes they wait for the tokens of His Grace--they are believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and yet they may not, for the moment, enjoy the peace and comfort which are theirs by faith. If they had more faith their peace would at once be as a river, but it is well if they have faith enough to wait for that peace. At times faith may be very weak and then it is well if it clings and abides in its place. A man may believe and be saved and yet he may not be sure of his own salvation, nor discern the safety and blessedness of his condition in Christ Jesus. Oh Soul, if you cannot get out of the dark, believe in the dark! If you have light enough just to look to Christ by faith, though you cannot perceive all His beauties and His glories, yet remember you are bid to look and are saved by looking, however dim the light may be! If you can but look to the Cross so as to trust wholly to the Lamb of God, He has taken away your sin! All the joy of the Lord and all the peace and all the rest that come of faith do not come at once--you must wait for them. These are the ripe ears of corn and you must plow in hope and sow in faith before these can be reaped. The Graces of the Christian character--the assurance of faith, the strength of courage, the mellowness of experience--all these are peaceable fruits of righteousness which will come in their season and not before. Surely some of the Lord's people appear to attain to joy and peace at once and keep it all their days. These are favored, indeed! I wish that we were in the same case, but if we are not, let us not despair, but still trust in the Lord our Righteousness-- "And when your eyes of faith are dim, Still trust in Jesus--sink or swim! When darkness fills your inmost soul, Still all your griefs on Jesus roll." If He has never yet given you a comfortable word, still cling to Him as she did whom He likened to the dogs, but who yet replied, "Truth, Lord. Yet the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." It is yours to look to Christ--it is His to give you the Light of God! If your face, as yet, is not lightened, yet keep it towards the sun, even Jesus the Lord. "Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of His servant, that walks in darkness and has no light? Let Him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon His God." It must, in the end, be well with the man who trusts in God and waits for Him! Yes, it is already well, for the Lord in our text pronounces all such to be blessed, and blessed they are! Let us wait for those spiritual delights and inward joys which are the portion of Believers. And if they come not immediately, let us solace ourselves with this present benediction--"Blessed are all they that wait for Him." You have read of those charming seasons which are enjoyed by choice saints in communion with Jesus. And you have said, "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!" Trust you well and wait, for the Lord will reveal Himself to you. Possibly you are looking back to your own past history and sighing-- "What peaceful hours I once enjoyed, How sweet their memory still!" Those years which the locust has eaten shall be restored to you--only be you hopeful, trustful and obedient. Lean heavily upon your God! It is a poor faith which only believes as far as the eyes can see. Believe that your Lord loves you when He smites you! Believe that He loves you though He slay you! Do not doubt the Lord nor limit Him. He cannot change! Hang on His arm even when He lifts it to chasten you. If you cannot rejoice in the light of His Countenance, yet rest in the shadow of His wings. Yes, we must be a waiting people and, assuredly, we may not complain, for we caused the Lord to wait for us many a day. What patience He has had! Cannot we be patient? Sometimes God's people have to wait for the fulfillment of His promises. Every promise will be kept, but not today nor tomorrow. God's Word has its due season and His times are the best times. We may also have to wait for answers to our prayers. Prayer will be heard--yes, it is heard the moment it is uttered--but it may not be answered just yet. The bread cast on the waters of prayer will be found again, but it may not be till after many days. Watch unto prayer, if it is long that you have sought a favor from your God. Wait upon the Lord and so renew your strength. There is a benefit even about hungering and thirsting when it is for the bread of Heaven and the wine of the kingdom. Pray on! Wait on! Knock! And if the door is not opened, knock again! And if the door is still closed, knock again with greater earnestness than before! "Men ought always to pray and not to faint." If your importunity is worked up to the pitch of enthusiasm, it shall be well with you, for "the kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force." Frequently we may have to wait for temporal blessings. It may not be safe for us to obtain the desires of our heart because our heart is, as yet, too much occupied with the world and the things thereof. We may have to wait for deliverance from trouble, for, as yet, the furnace may not have accomplished its refining work. You may be ill, and you may pray God to make you well, but He may still allow His Beloved to be sick--to you, sickness may be healthier than health! You are very poor and you would like to struggle out of abject penury. By all means struggle on, but do not murmur if you should not be successful. Poverty may be a richer state for you than wealth! There may be something in your character which cannot be perfected except by suffering and labor--and it is better that your character be perfected than your substance increased. None of us can come to the highest maturity without enduring the summer heat of trials. As the sycamore fig never ripens if it is not bruised; as the corn does not leave the husk without threshing; and as wheat makes no fine flour till it is ground, so are we of little use till we are afflicted! Why should we be so eager to escape such benefits? We shall have to wait with patience, saying, "The will of the Lord be done." He waited to give Grace to us! Let us wait to give glory to Him! Brothers and Sisters, wait cheerfully. If God sees fit to say, "Wait," do not be angry with Him. Why give way to hurry and worry? O rest in the Lord! Your strength is to sit still. One of the most lovely flowers of the new creation is entire submission to the Divine Will--he who has it is not far from Heaven. Yet you will have to wait, a little, for Glory which is yours by a Covenant of salt. Do you not, at times, suffer a heavenly homesickness? Do you not grow weary of these wildernesses and long for the mountains of spices and the gardens of the blessed? Do you not long for the wings of a dove? I am afraid you would not manage them if you had them--dove's wings would hardly suit this cumbrous clay! It is not easy to long for Heaven and yet to wait! Yet we are better where we are waiting than attempting to fly where the Lord has not called us. Wait, for there is yet more business to be done for your Master. Would you go to your rest before your day's work is fairly finished? Wait, for it is necessary for others, if not for yourself. Wait and work on! How many years were wasted before you came into the vineyard? How little have you accomplished since? Wait! For the vision of Glory is sure--as sure as though it were tomorrow, or today at this very hour!-- "Hea ven is nearing! How much further? Count the milestones one by one! No, no counting--only waiting Till the glory has begun." __________________________________________________________________ Faith Among Mockers (No. 1767) DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver Him: let Him deliver Him, seeing He delighted in Him." Psalm 22:8. DAVID experienced what Paul afterwards so aptly described as "cruel mockings." Note the adjective, cruel--it is well chosen. Mockings may not cut the flesh, but they tear the heart. They may shed no blood, but they cause the mind to bleed internally. Fetters gall the wrists, but the iron of scorn enters into the soul. Ridicule is a poisoned bullet which goes deeper than the flesh and strikes the center of the heart. David in the wilderness, hunted by Saul and on the throne abused by Shimei, knew what it was to be the butt of scorn, the football of contempt. Many a time and often he was the song of the drunk and the byword of the scoffer. But what have I to do with the son of Jesse? My heart remembers the Son of Man. What if David suffered despising and scorn? He knew it but in small measure compared with our blessed Lord! Well is it said, "The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his Lord." It is not amazing that such an one as David should have to cry, "My soul is among lions," when the Lord of All, the perfectly pure and Holy One, was driven to utter the same cry, saying, "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." My Brothers and Sisters in Christ, if you have to pass through a like painful experience, count it no strange thing, for a strange thing it is not! Reproach is the common heritage of the godly. Do not think that this fire which you suffer is the first that ever burned a saint. Others have had to bear the enmity of the world long before you! Remember that, of old, from the first moment when sin came into the world, there were two seeds, the Seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent--and between these two seeds there is an enmity of the most deadly kind which will never cease! It may assume different forms and it may be held in check by many forces, but it will always continue, forever the same, while men are men, sin is sin--and God and the devil are opposed. It was so, you know, in the house of Abraham--he was a man that walked before God and was perfect in his genera-tion--and yet in his family there were the two opposing powers. Ishmael, born after the flesh, mocked him that was born after the Spirit. When Rebekah had brought forth twin sons, yet the fact of their being twins of holy Isaac did not prevent the enmity that arose between Jacob and Esau. Nothing will prevent the seed of the serpent from exhibiting its spite towards the Seed of the woman! Even kinship and brotherhood go for little in this strife. In fact, a man's foes full often are they of his own household. Count it no marvel, then, if you are derided! It seems to be a necessity of the holy Nature of God that it should incur the enmity of the evil nature of fallen man and that this evil nature should show itself by direct and bitter attack. Remember "Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds." Henceforth, bow your shoulders to the yoke! Expect that if you follow the Crucified, you will have to bear the Cross, for so it will be. I trust that our present meditation may be useful to any of God's servants who are feeling the sharp lash of envious tongues, that they may not, thereby, be driven from their steadfastness. If any, in their hearts, are bowed down because they are conscious that possibly they have given the scoffers some opportunity to mock them, may they even in this, take heart, for David had done so, and yet he was not crushed by the blasphemies of the wicked. I. The first thing to which I shall call your attention at this time is that a truly gracious man is like David and like the Lord Jesus, in that HIS TRUST IN GOD IS KNOWN. Even the enemies of this holy man who is mentioned in the text, and, as I interpret it, even the enemies of our Divine Lord and Master, never denied that He trusted in God. This, indeed, is the commencement of their scoff--"He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver Him." From which I gather that every gracious man should have an apparent, manifest, public trust in God. He should not merely trust Him in his heart, alone, but that trust should so enter into his entire nature that he does not conceal it nor think of concealing it. He should be so open in the avowal of his confidence, that his enemies, before whom he is naturally restrained and on his guard, nevertheless are able to spy out this precious thing within him and are forced to bear their witness, though it is mockingly and jestingly, that, "He trusted on the Lord." Such a testimony is all the more valuable as coming from an enemy! You know our character is not likely to be drawn too prettily by those who hate us--the utmost will be sure to be said against us! But if even our enemies say of us, "He trusted on the Lord," we may be very thankful that we have so lived as to extort this testimony from their lips. What, then, ought a child of God to do in order to show that he really does trust in the Lord? How did Jesus do this? Well, I think that in our Lord's case it was His wonderful calmness which compelled everybody to see that "He trusted on the Lord." You never find Him in a flurry. He is never worried nor confused. He is beset behind and before with men who try to catch Him, but He is as self-possessed as if He spoke among friends. He does not appear to be the least upon His guard and yet, instead of their catching Him, before long He either catches them, or else they retire, saying, "Never man spoke like this Man." He was always cool, peaceful, ready, self-composed. You notice His inward quietude not only when enemies are round about Him, but when He is surrounded by a great mob of people all hungry, starving, famishing--He breaks the bread and multiplies it--but not before He has made them all sit down on the green grass by hundreds and by fifties. He will have them in companies, arranged in ranks, for convenient distribution. And when they are all placed in order, as if it had been a well-marshaled royal entertainment, then it is that He takes the bread and, looking up to Heaven, with all deliberation asks a blessing and breaks and gives the food to the disciples. The disciples make no scramble of it-- it is an orderly festival and the thousands are all fed in due time and in majestic decorum--for Christ was calm and, therefore, master of the situation! He never looks as if He had fallen into difficulties and then adopted expedients to get out of them! His whole life is pre-arranged and ordered in the most prudent and peaceful manner. Nothing upon this earth, although He was so reduced that He had nowhere to lay His head and although He was sometimes so weary that He sat down upon a well to rest, could put Him out of the way, or disarrange His perfect col-lectedness! He was always ready for every emergency. In fact, nothing was an emergency to Him! What a beautiful picture that is of Christ on board ship in a storm! While they that are with Him are afraid that they will go down, that the wind will blow them into the water, or blow the water over them, so that they will certainly be drowned--what is He doing? Why, He is asleep! Not because He forgot them--no, but because He knew that the vessel was in the great Father's hands! It was His time for sleep. He was weary and needed rest and so He carried out that which was the nearest duty--and in all peacefulness laid His head on a pillow and slept! His sleep ought to have made them feel at ease. Whenever the captain can afford to go to sleep, the passengers may go to sleep, too. Depend upon it, He that manages everything would not have gone to bed if He had not felt that it was all right in the hands of the Highest, who, at any moment, could stop the raging storm! I wish we could be similarly restful, for then even our enemies would say of us, "He trusted on the Lord." I wish we could have that steadfast, imperturbable frame of mind in which our Lord untied the knots with which His foes would have bound Him--for then our assailants would marvel at our quiet confidence. Jesus knew no hurry, but calmly and deliberately met each matter as it came and grandly kept Himself free from all entanglement. Oh, for the holy quiet which would prevent our going about our business in haste! "He that believes shall not make haste," but do everything as in the infinite leisure of the Eternal who is never before His time and is never behind. If we could do that and did not get so flurried and worried, and tossed about and driven to our wit's end, then our enemies would say with astonishment, "He trusted on the Lord!" Brethren, this ought, also, to come out not merely in our calm and quiet manner, but also by our distinct avowal. I do not think that any man has a right to be a secret believer in the Lord Jesus Christ at this time. You will tell me that Nico-demus was--that Joseph of Arimathaea was--and I answer, "Yes," but therein they are not our exemplars. These weak Brothers were forgiven and strengthened--but we may not, therefore, presume. Times, however, are different now--by the death of Christ the thoughts of many hearts were revealed--and from that day those secret disciples were among the foremost to avow their faith! Nicodemus brought the spices and Joseph of Arimathaea went in boldly and begged for the body of Jesus. Since that day when Christ was openly revealed upon the Cross, the thoughts of other men's hearts are revealed, too, and it is not now permissible for us to play hide and seek with Christ. No, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." "He that with his heart believes and with his mouth makes confession of Him, shall be saved." The open confession is constantly, in Scripture, joined with the secret faith! The Lord Jesus Christ puts it, "He that denies Me before men, him will I deny." And if you read it, the text sets denying in opposition to confession, so that it really means, "He that does not confess Me before men, him will I not confess when I come in the Glory of the Father." Our Lord does not reckon upon leading a body of followers who will always keep behind the hedge, hiding themselves in holes and corners whenever there is anything to be done for His Glory--and only running out at mealtimes when there is something to be had for themselves! I know some professors of that sort, but I have very little to say to their credit--they are a cowardly crew. No, no! We ought to distinctly declare that we believe in God and we should take opportunities, as prudence dictates, of telling our friends and neighbors what our experience has been about trusting in God--telling them of deliverances we have received, of prayers which have been answered--and of many other tokens for good which have come to us as the result of our faith in God. To trust in man is a thing of which we may be ashamed, for we find man to be as a broken reed, or as a spear that pierces us to our heart when we lean on him. But, blessed are they that trust in the Lord, for they shall be as trees planted by the rivers of water! They shall bring forth their fruit in their season and even their leaves shall not wither! God, in whom they trust, will honor their faith and bless them yet more and more! Let them, therefore, honor their God and never hesitate to speak well of His name. So, then, I say, first, a calm belief and, secondly, an open avowal should cause even our adversaries to know that we have trusted in the Lord. And, then, I will add to that, that our general conduct should reveal our faith. The whole of our life should show that we are men who rejoice in the Lord, for trusting the Lord, as I understand it, is not a thing for Sundays and for places of worship, alone--we are to trust in the Lord about everything! If I trust the Lord about my soul, I must trust Him about my body, about my wife, about my children and all my domestic and business affairs. It would have been a terrible thing if the Lord had drawn a black line around our religious life and had said, "You may trust Me about that, but with household matters I will have nothing to do." We need the whole of life to be within the fence of Divine care. The perfect bond of Divine Love must tie up the whole bundle of our affairs, or the whole will slip away. Faith is a thing for the closet, the parlor, the counting house and the farmhouse--it is a light for dark days and a shade for bright days--you may carry it with you everywhere and everywhere it shall be your help. Oh, that we did so trust in the Lord that people noticed it as much as they notice our temper, our dress, or our tone! The pity is that too often we go forward, helter-skelter, following our own wisdom, whereas we ought to say, "No, I must wait a little while, till I ask counsel of the Lord." It should be seen and known that we are distinctly waiting upon God for guidance. What a stir this would make in some quarters! I wish that without any desire to be Pharisaical, or to display our piety, we, nevertheless, did unconsciously show the great principle which governs us! Just as one man will say, "Excuse me, I must consult a friend," or, "I must submit the case to my solicitor," so it ought to be habitual with a Christian--before he replies to an important matter--to demand a moment wherein he may wait upon God and obtain direction! In any case, I wish that it may be so usual with us to ask guidance from above that it may be noticed as our habit to trust on the Lord. Once more, I think this ought to come out most distinctly in our behavior during times of trouble, for then it is that our adversaries are most likely to notice it. You, dear Sister, have lost a child. Well now, remember that you are a Christian woman--and sorrow not as those that are without hope. Let the difference be real and true, and do not be ashamed that others might observe it. When your neighbor lost her child, it occasioned a quarrel between her and God, but it is not so with you, is it? Will you quarrel with God about your baby? Oh, no! You love Him too well. And you, Brother, you are perplexed in business and you know what a worldling does--if he has nothing more than outward religion, he complains bitterly that God deals harshly with him and he quarrels with God! Or, perhaps, to make things better, he does what he ought not to do in business and makes them a great deal worse. Many a man has plunged into rash speculations until he has destroyed him- self commercially! But you, as a Christian man, must take matters calmly and quietly--it is not yours to speculate, but to confide. Your strength lies in saying--"The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." You must not be so eager to be rich that you would put forth your hand to do iniquity in order to seize the golden apples--that is the reverse of faith! You are now to play the man and, in the power of the Holy Spirit, you are now with resignation, no, with more than that--with a sweet acquiescence to the Divine will--to show men how a Christian can behave himself. I have never admired Addison's words as some have done, who, when he came to die, sent for a lord of his acquaintance and said, "Watch how a Christian can die." There is a little pride about that, but I desire that every Christian should say in his soul, "I will show men how a Christian can live. I will let them see what it is to live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Those who do not believe there is a God shall yet be led to feel there must be a God, because my faith in Him does speed so well and I obtain so many unnumbered blessings as the result of it." I say, most earnestly, that especially in the time of sorrow and bereavement, when other people are sore put to it because they have lost their joy, and the light of their house is quenched, it is the Believer's duty and privilege, by his holy calm of heart, to show his trust in God! If religion cannot help you in trouble, it is not worth having! If the Spirit of God does not sustain you when you lose your dearest friend, you ought to question whether it is the Spirit of God! You ought to ask, "Can this be the Spirit which bore up the martyrs at the stake?"--if now that you are passing through these waters, you are carried away by them? If our faith shines out in dark times, even as the stars are seen by night, then is it well with us! Oh, that you and I might, in all these ways so live that all who see us should know that we are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ! It would be ridiculous if a man went into society with a label on his coat, "This man trusts in God," and it would be a pretty clear sign that he needed to be thus ticketed. I would have you shun all distinctive phylacteries in matters of religion as too much flavored with the leaven of the Pharisees! But when the possession of godliness proclaims itself, even as a box of precious spikenard tells its own tale, you need not be ashamed of it! Display and ostentation are vicious, but the unrestrained use of influence and example is commendable. In these days when men glory in their unbelief, let us not be bashful with our faith! If, in a free country, men should not persecute an infidel, they certainly ought not to silence a Believer. We do not intend to smuggle our religion through the land. It is not contraband and, therefore, we shall bear it with us, openly, in the sight of all men--and let them say if they please--"He trusted on the Lord." II. Secondly, THIS TRUST ON THE PART OF BELIEVING MEN IS NOT UNDERSTOOD BY THE WORLD. "He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver Him." Observe that they restricted the Savior's trust to that point--"He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver Him." But now, in the first place, our faith is not confined to merely receiving from God. No, Brothers and Sisters, if the Lord does not deliver us, we will trust Him. See how firmly Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego stood to it that they would not bow before the image which Nebuchadnezzar had set up! "Our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and He will deliver us out of your hands, O king. But if not, be it known unto you, O king, that we will not serve your gods, nor worship the golden image which you have set up." There was great faith in that, "if not." We must not live and wait upon God with a kind of cupboard love, just as a stray dog might follow a man for bones. we must speak well of our God even if He scourges us, for therein lies both the truth and the strength of faith. Job has put it--"Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Whatever happens to us--if our faith is the work of the Holy Spirit--we shall hold on to our trust in God. Neither is our faith limited to what men call deliverance. It is a misrepresentation when His enemies say, "He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver Him" because though it is the truth, it is not the whole truth. Our blessed Lord continued to trust in the Father though the cup did not pass from Him and though no legions of angels were sent to deliver Him from Pilate. Though the enemy was permitted to exercise all his malice upon Him until His blessed body was nailed to the accursed tree, yet the faith of our Divine Lord and Master was not moved from its steadfastness. He trusted in God for something higher than deliverance from death, for He looked beyond the grave and said, "You will not leave My Soul in Hell, neither will You suffer Your Holy One to see corruption." In all His pains His heart said, "It is the Lord, let Him do what seems good to Him." The blind world cannot understand this. They say, like their father, "Does Job fear God for nothing?" They insinuate that Christian people trust God for what they get out of Him. Now I have often thought that if the devil could have put it the other way, he would have been very rejoiced to do so. Suppose he could have said, "Job serves God for nothing," then the ungodly world would have shouted, "We told you so! God is a bad Paymaster! His servants may serve Him as perfectly as Job, but He never gives them any reward." Happily, the accuser's grumble is of quite the opposite kind. Neither one way nor another is there any pleasing the devil--and it is not a thing we desire to do. Let him put it as he likes! We serve God and we have our reward, but if the Lord does not choose to give us exactly what we look for, we will still trust in Him, for it is our delight! It is a misrepresentation to say of a Believer that, "He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver him," if he is supposed to trust for no other reason. And, dear Friends, our faith is not tied to time. That is the mistake of the statement in the text. They said, "He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver Him"--as much as to say, "If God does not deliver Him now, His trust will have been a folly and God will not have answered to His confidence." But it is not so. Brethren, if we are in the fire, tonight, and we are trusting in God, our faith does not mean that we expect to come forth from the furnace at this very hour. No, we may not come out tonight, nor tomorrow, nor next month--it may be not for years! We do not tie God down to conditions and expect Him to do this and that--and then if He does not, in His wisdom, see fit to do it, threaten that we will trust Him any more! The very worst we could do would be to make the Eternal God a slave to time, as though He must do everything at our bidding and measure His Divine movements by the ticking of a clock! The Lord did deliver His Son, Jesus Christ, but He suffered Him to die first! He was put into the grave before He was lifted up from the power of death. And if it had not been that He died and lay in the tomb, He could not have had that splendid deliverance which His Father did vouchsafe Him when He raised Him, again, from the dead! Had He not yielded to death, there could have been no Resurrection for Him or for us! So, Beloved, it may be God has not effected His purpose with you, yet, nor has He quite prepared you for the height of blessing to which He has ordained you. Receive what He is going to give you and gratefully take the painful preliminaries. High palaces must have deep foundations and it takes a long time to excavate a human soul so deep that God can build a gorgeous palace of Grace therein! If it is a mere cottage that the Lord is to build in you, you may escape with small troubles. But if He is going to make you a palace to glorify Himself with, then you may expect to have long trials. Coarse pottery needs not the laborious processes which must be endured by superior vessels. Iron, which is to become a sword for a hero, must know more of the fire than the metal which lies upon the road as a rail. Your eminence in Grace can only come by affliction! Will you not have trust in God if severe trials are ordained for you? Yes, of course you will! The Holy Spirit will be the All-Sufficient Helper of your infirmities! I say it is misrepresentation if we limit the Holy One of Israel to any form for our deliverance, or to any time for our deliverance. Let not the Lord of Love be treated like a child at school, as if He could be taught anything by us! So, also, our faith must not judge at all by present circumstances. The ungodly world judges that God has not delivered us because we are now in trouble and are, at present, distressed by it. Oh, how wrongly the world judged Christ when it judged Him by His condition! Covered with bloody sweat and groaning out His soul to God beneath the olives at midnight--why, they that passed by who did not know Him must have judged Him to be a man accursed of God! "Look," they would have said, "we never heard of a man that sweat blood before--sweat blood in prayer! And yet listen to His groans! He is not heard by God, for evidently the cup does not pass from Him." If any man had looked at our Lord Jesus when He was on the Cross and had heard Him cry, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" they would have certainly concluded that He was the most ungracious and undeserving of men--for had He been a saint, surely, they say--"God would not have forsaken Him." Yes, but you see they only saw a little of our blessed Master's career! They only looked upon a span of His existence! What a grievous error it was to have estimated His life by His brief passion, knowing nothing of its grand intent! Look at Him, now, while harps unnumbered sound His praises and all Heaven rejoices to behold His Glory and the Father looks upon Him with ineffable delight! This is the same Jesus who was crucified! What do you think of Him now? You must not measure a man by a little bit of his life, nor even by the whole of his earthly career, for it is nothing compared with the hidden future of his life in eternity! These men measured David's faith and measure our faith by what they see of us on one day--we are sick, we are sorry, we are poor, we are troubled and they say--"We told you so! This faith of theirs is not worth having, or else they would not fare so roughly or be found in so much heaviness." Faith and feeling are in contrast. Outward circumstances must never be made the tests of the value of pious trust in our God! We must not judge God by His dealings with us nor judge ourselves by them! Let us still hold on to this pure, simple faith that the Lord is good to Israel. Let us love the Lord for a whole eternity of His love and then for everything--for every turn of His hand, for every frown and stroke and rebuke--for He is good in everything, unalterably good! If with this faith of ours we are praying and pleading and God does not answer us, does not help us, but leaves us in the dark, yet still let not our trust waver. If any man walks in darkness and sees no light, let him trust and trust on until the light shall come. So, then, we have just touched upon two points--that a true man's faith is soon made known, but that, though it is known, it is usually misunderstood. We live among blind men--let us not be angry because they cannot see! III. Thirdly, THIS TRUE FAITH WILL, IN ALL PROBABILITY, BE MOCKED AT SOME TIME OR OTHER. It is a great honor to a man to trust in God and so to have his name written upon the Arch of Triumph which Paul has erected in the 11th Chapter of Hebrews where you see name after name of the heroes who served God by faith. It is a glorious thing to mingle our bones with those who are buried in that mausoleum which bears this epitaph, "These all died in faith." It is an honorable thing to be a believer in God, but there are some who think the very reverse and these begin to scoff at the Believer. Sometimes they scoff at faith itself. They count faith itself to be a folly of weak minds. Or else they insult over one particular Christian's faith. "Oh," they say, "he professes to trust in God. This man talks after this mad fashion! Why, he is a working man like other people--works in a shop along with me! What has he to do with trusting God any more than I have? He is conceited and fanatical." Or in other circles they cry, "This is a man of business! He keeps a shop and I dare say he knows as much of the tricks of the trade as we do, and yet he talks about trusting in God! No doubt He pretends to this faith to win religious customers." Sometimes the mockery comes from one of your family, for Faith's foes live in the same house with her. The husband has been known to say to his wife, "Ridiculous nonsense, your trusting in God!" Yes, and parents have said the same to holy children and, alas, children have grown up to speak in the same fashion to their parents to the wounding of their hearts. As if faith in God were a thing that could be scoffed at, instead of being the most wise, proper and rational thing under Heaven! Faith in God is a thing to be reverenced rather than reviled! True religion is sanctified common sense! It is the most commonsense thing in the world to put your trust in One that cannot lie! If I trust myself, or trust my fellow man, I am thought to be in the first case, self-reliant, and in the second case I am judged to have a charitable disposition. Yet in either case I shall, sooner or later, prove my folly! But if I trust God, who can bring a reason against my confidence? What is there to be ridiculed in a man's trusting his Maker? Can HE fail that created the blue heavens, that settled the foundations of the earth and poured out the waters of the great sea? Can the Almighty retract His promise because He is unable to fulfill it? Can He break His cord because circumstances master Him and prevent His performance of it? "Trust you in the Lord forever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." The day shall come when it will be known by all intelligent beings that unbelief of God is folly, but that faith in the Eternal is essential wisdom. God give us more faith in Himself! No doubt we may expect to have all the more of the laughter of the ungodly who will make a spectacle of us for our faith--but what of that? We can bear mockery and much more for His sake who died for us. And then men scoff at the very idea of Divine interposition. They judge the Lord's deliverance to be the main point of our faith. "He trusted God that He would deliver Him." "Look," they say, "he fancies that God will deliver him, as if the Creator had not something else to do besides looking after him, poor miserable creature that he is! He is nothing to God--a mere speck--the insect of an hour, and yet he trusts in God to interfere on his behalf." The philosophers laugh whenever you speak of Divine interposition and figure that we must be in the last stage of lunacy to expect anything of the kind! They believe in laws, they say--irreversible, immutable laws, that grind on like the great cogs of a machine which, when once they are set in motion, tear everything to pieces that comes in their way. They do not believe that God fulfils promises, or answers prayers, or delivers His people. Their God is a dead force, without mind, or thought, or love, or care. He, who in Nature acts according to law is yet believed to have no power to carry out His own Word which must always be Law to a truthful being. Why, some of us are as sure that God has interposed for us as if He had rent the heavens and thrust forth His right hand visibly before the eyes of all beholders! The wise ones laugh at us for this, but we are not abashed--rather do we reply, "Laugh if you like, and as long as you like; but we daily receive unnumbered blessings from God in answer to our cries! And your laughter no more affects us than the noise of the dogs by the Nile disturbs the flow of the river. We shall believe in spite of all your merriment and if it please you to go on with your laughter, we, also, will go on with our faith." The object of the ungodly man's scorn is the idea that God should ever interfere to help His people in human affairs, but you stand to it, O true Believers, for He does still show Himself strong on the behalf of them that trust in Him. Let them say and laugh at you as they say it, "He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver him," but let none of these things move you. Further, we have known this mockery to extend to all kinds of faith in the Divine Love. "Let Him deliver Him," they say, "seeing that He delighted in Him." Perhaps you have unwisely told out the tale of God's special love to those who are now making fun of you--you have cast your pearls before swine and they turned against you. They say, "This man says God loves him above others! That He chose him before the world began! That He redeemed him from among men with the blood of Christ! He says that God has called him by His Holy Spirit; that He has admitted him into His secrets and made him His child!" And then they laugh right lustily, as if it were a rare jest! How the world rages against electing love! It cannot endure any specialty in Grace. The idea that one man should be more Beloved of Heaven than another, it declares as horrible. The heathen could not understand a certain brave saint because he called himself, Theophorus, or, "Godbearer." But he stuck to it, that he was so, and this made his foes the more wrathful. God dwelt in him, he said, and he would not give up his happy belief and, therefore, they ceased not to mock. It was a carrying out of our text, "Let Him deliver him, seeing He delights in him." Well, well! We can afford to bear these mockings, for if we are beloved by a King--it will not much matter if we are sneered at by His subjects! If we are beloved by God, it is a small concern though all men should make us the subject of their jest! Ungodly men are exceedingly apt to find amusement in the trials involved in the life and walk of faith. Their cry of "Let Him deliver Him" implies that their victim was in serious difficulty from which He could not extricate Himself. This is no novelty to the Believer, but it makes rare fun for the ungodly. What is the good of faith if the Believer suffers like others, endures the same pains, losses and diseases as others? So the men of the world argue. They would be Believers, too, if it would bring them a fortune, or a handsome salary, or at least a loaded table and a full cup! But when they see a saint on the dunghill with Job, or in the pit with Joseph, or in the dungeon with Jeremiah, or among the dogs with Lazarus, they sneer and cry, "Is this the reward of piety? Is this the recompense of godliness?" They like to spy us out in our time of trouble and taunt us with our confidence in God and, alas, there is so much unbelief in us that we are all too prone, in such seasons, to question the justice and faithfulness of the Lord and to say with David, "Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence." It seems hard for us to be mocked by the base ones of the earth--to become the song and the byword of the ungodly--yet this has happened to the excellent of the earth and will happen yet again. Set your account that this is a part of the covenanted heritage and accept it with joy for Christ's sake! IV. Now, I must close with this point (though there is much more to be said)--THE TIME SHALL COME WHEN THE FAITH OF THE MAN WHO HAS TRUSTED IN GOD SHALL BE ABUNDANTLY JUSTIFIED. I think it is no small thing to have the ungodly bearing witness that, "He trusted in God that He would deliver Him." I have known what it is to be exceedingly grateful to ungodly men for helping me to believe that I am truly a child of God. Somebody, years ago, uttered an atrocious lie against me--an abominable slander. I was very low and heavy of spirit at the time, but when I read it, I clapped my hands for joy, for I felt, "Now I have one of the marks and seals of a child of God, for it is written, 'Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake.'" The love of the Lord's Brethren and the hatred of the Lord's enemies are two things to be desired! We may gather that we are not of the wicked when they will not endure us in their company--when our very presence irritates them-- and they begin to rail and jeer. It has happened to us even as Jesus said--"If you were of the world, the world would love his own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." So that there is justification, as it were, of our faith even from the lips of adversaries--and we ought to be thankful for it instead of being downcast about it. Another justification awaits us and in due season it will come. Brothers and Sisters, the day will come when God will deliver His people. You will be brought out of your trouble--it may not be immediately, but it will be seasonably. You may most wisely, in the meantime, learn to glory in your tribulation! Your bitters shall turn into sweets and your losses into gains. Your sorrows shall be your joys, your struggles your triumphs--perhaps in this life this transformation may occur, even as the Lord gave to Job twice as much as he had before--but certainly in the life to come you will find the tables turned. Then, what will the ungodly say? They say now, "He trusted on God that He would deliver him," but they will be compelled to say as they gnash their teeth, "God has delivered him." Whereas the ungodly ridicule the idea that God delights in His people, the day shall come when they shall be made to see that He does delight in them. When the Lord appears on behalf of His people and gives them "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning," the wicked shall gnash their teeth and be filled with confusion! When the Lord shall turn, again, our captivity, even our most desperate foes shall be made to say, "The Lord has done great things for them." They shall wonder and be sorely vexed to see how the Lord has such favor to His chosen. If they do not see it in this life, oh, what an exhibition ungodly men will see of His delight in His people in the world to come! Dives sees Lazarus in Abraham's bosom--what a sight for him! They that scoff at God's poor people, here, shall see them exalted to be kings and priests to reign with Christ forever and ever! And what will they say, then? What can they say but be compelled to bear witness that their faith was justified! Brethren, at the Last Great Day, ungodly men will be witnesses on behalf of the saints. If any doubt whether the saints trusted in God, the wicked will be compelled to come forward and say, "They did trust, for we laughed at them for it." Of this and that man they shall say, "He trusted on God that He would deliver him." In that day the unbelieving will be swift witnesses against themselves, for as they ridiculed the children of God here, they will have it read out before them as evidence of their enmity against the Lord--and how will they answer it? A man is generally much grieved with anyone who injures his children. I have known a man behave patiently to his neighbors and put up with a great deal from them. But when one of them has struck his child, I have seen him incensed to the last degree. He has said, "I cannot stand that! I will not look on and see my own children abused." The Lord says, "He that touches you, touches the apple of My eye." Jesus rises from His Throne in Glory and stands up indignantly while His servant Stephen is being stoned. If I had no other amusement whatever, I would not, for merriment sake, mock the people of God, for it will go hard with those who make unhallowed mirth out of the saints of the Host High! If any of you have ever done so--if you have done so ignorantly--may the Lord forgive you and bring you to be numbered among His people, as was Saul of Tarsus. And if any of you have done so knowingly, be humble and penitent, and the Lord will forgive you and receive you among His people. But whether you revile or flatter, it is all one to us. We are at a pass with you--we trust in God that He will deliver us--and we cannot be removed from this confidence. O you mockers, we will not be fooled out of our hope, nor jested out of our peace! We cannot find anyone like our God to trust to, and so we will not depart from Him in life or death, but will rest in Him, by His Grace, come what may, even till we see Him face to face! __________________________________________________________________ First, King of Righteousness, and after That, King of Peace (No. 1768) A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 8, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "First being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace." Hebrews 7:2. WE will not enlarge upon the story of Melchisedec, nor discuss the question as to who he was. It is near enough for us to believe that he was one who worshipped God after the primitive fashion, a believer in God such as Job was in the land of Uz, one of the world's gray fathers who had kept faithful to the Most High God. He combined in his own person the kingship and the priesthood--a conjunction by no means unusual in the first ages. Of this man we know very little and it is partly because we know so little of him that he is all the better type of our Lord, of whom we may enquire, "Who shall declare His generation?" The very mystery which hangs about Melchisedec serves to set forth the mystery of the Person of our Divine Lord. "Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, he abides a priest continually. Now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the Patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils." Melchisedec seems to have been, first by name, and then by place of office, doubly designated a king. First, his name is Melchisedec, which signifies by interpretation, "King of righteousness." His personal name is "King of righteousness." As a matter of fact, he was also the monarch of some town called Salem. It is not at all likely to have been Jerusalem, although that may have been the case. The interpretation of his official name is "King of peace." A teaching was intended by the Holy Spirit in the names--so the Apostle instructs us in the passage before us. I believe in the verbal Inspiration of Scripture and, therefore, I can see how there can be instruction for us even in the proper names of persons and of places. Those who reject verbal Inspiration must, in effect, condemn the great Apostle of the Gentiles, whose teaching is so frequently based upon a Word of God. He makes more of words and names than any of us would have thought of doing and he was guided therein by the Spirit of the Lord and, therefore, he was right. For my part, I am far more afraid of making too little of the Word than of seeing too much in it. This man is, first, named "Mel-chiz-edek"--"King of righteousness" by interpretation--and herein he is like our Divine Lord, whose name and Character can only come to us by interpretation. What He is and who He is and all His Character, no angel's tongue could tell. No human language can ever describe to the full what Jesus is. He is King, but that is a poor word for such royalty as His. He reigns, but that word, "reigns," is but a slender description of that supreme empire which He continually exercises. He is said to be King of Righteousness, but that is, by interpretation--by the toning down of His Character to our comprehension. Scripture might have called Him King of Holiness, for He is "glorious in holiness." His Character, better known to spirits before the Throne of God than to us, is not to be comprehended in that one word, "righteousness." It is but an interpretation and most things lose by translation, and so the perfect Character of the Son of God, as it stands before the Eternal Mind, cannot be fully expressed in human language. In fact, when our faculties are enlarged and our spirits raised to the highest platform, they can never reach the eternity of our Lord's Sonship and the Glory of His Kingdom--the equity of His Character and the loveliness of His mind, both as God and Man, must still be far beyond us! But this much is translated to us into our own tongue--that He is a King, and that He is a righteous King--yes, the very King of Righteousness--the Sovereign of the realm of equity, the Supreme Lord of everything that is good and holy. That, you see, is wrapped up in His name and Nature. Jesus is Righteousness and every righteous thing gathers beneath the right scepter of His Kingdom. But the second word, Salem, which, brought down to our tongues signifies, "peace," is in reference to a place rather than a person. You see, our Lord Jesus is essentially Righteousness--that is interwoven with His name and Person--but He gives, bestows, deposits and pours forth peace in a place which He has chosen. And upon a people whom He has ordained and whom He has brought near unto Himself--so that His Kingdom of peace links Him with His redeemed, to whom He has given the peace of God. "First, King of righteousness." How early that "first" was, I cannot tell you. "In the beginning was the Word," but when that beginning was, who knows?--for is He not, indeed, without beginning? First and firstborn, from everlasting You are God, O mighty Son of Jehovah! First, King of Righteousness, and then afterwards, when men fell, when rebellion, strife and war had sprung up--then He came to heal the mischief and become, "King of Peace." He comes Himself as the Divine Ambassador, our Peacemaker and Peace. He comes here into this place even into the midst of His Salem, into the midst of His people, and gives us, now, as He has long given, the vision of peace--opening up before the eyes of faith the completeness, the sureness and the delight of perfect peace in Himself. The one matter which I am going to set forth at this time is just this--"First King of righteousness, and after that also King of peace." Note well the order of these two and the dependence of the one upon the other, for there could be no true peace that was not grounded upon righteousness. And out of righteousness peace is sure to spring up. Righteousness is essential to peace. If it were not first, peace could not be second. If there could be a lying peace apart from righteousness, it would be dank, dark, deadly--a horrible peace ending in a worse misery than war, itself, could inflict! It is necessary, where an unrighteous peace exists, that it should be broken up, that a better peace should be established upon a true foundation which will last forever. I shall ask you--and may the Spirit of God help us to do it--first, to admire the King, and, secondly, to enjoy Him-- to enter with holy delight into the full meaning of His name and Character as King of Righteousness and King of Peace. I. First, I ask you to ADMIRE THIS KING. This Melchisedec, whom we exhibit as a type, is such a king as God is. He is according to the Divine model. He is priest of the Most High God and he is like the Most High God, for the Lord Jehovah, Himself, is, first, King of Righteousness, and after that also King of Peace. The great Creator entered the Garden of Eden in that sorrowful hour when our parents had rebelled and were hiding among the trees to escape His call, and He bade them answer for their fault. When they stood trembling before Him in the nakedness of their conscious guilt, they knew Him as their King and their Judge. At that moment He was not first, the King of Peace to them, but first the King of Righteousness! He pronounced sentence upon the serpent, upon the woman and upon the man, gently making much of the punishment to fall, also, upon the ground; but yet vindicating justice before He spoke a word of peace. After that discourse, yes, in the midst of His sentences, He spoke of peace when He mentioned the woman's Seed that should bruise the serpent's head. Then, also, there happened the slaying of a victim, for the Lord God made unto them coats of skins, of beasts which had, no doubt, been slain in sacrifice--and with these they were covered. In beginning to deal with an apostate race, the Lord observed the fitting order of our text--He began first, righteousness, and afterwards went on to peace. At the gate of the Garden commenced the dispensation of mercy and peace, but first of all there was the pronouncing of the sentence that man should eat bread in the sweat of his face and that unto dust he should return. Substantial righteousness was dealt out to the guilty and then peace was provided for the troubled. At the Fall, God first set up a Judgment Seat and right speedily a Mercy Seat! Righteousness must always lead the van. Well, the times went on and men began to sin with a high hand. There were giants in those days and the people of God were mixed up with the men of the world. This is the worst sign of the world's depravity--when there ceases to be a division between the people of God and the sons of men. There was an unholy alliance between sin and righteousness. And then the King came forth, again, and displayed His Countenance and began to judge, correct, and call to repentance. Men perceived that the Countenance of God towards them was the face of one who is first, King of Righteousness. Noah's teaching taught men to return unto the Lord, or He would surely deal with them in righteousness and make a full end. Space most ample was given for repentance, but men were mad upon their follies. He is first, King of Righteousness, and afterwards King of Peace--and so He dealt with that guilty world. He pulled up the sluices of the great deep which lies under. He let loose all the cataracts of Heaven from above and He swept men from off the face of the earth. Then afterwards He hung the rainbow in the sky and He smelled a sweet savor of rest--and there was peace, once more, between God and a race that had to begin, again, with father Noah instead of father Adam. Righteousness ruled first and washed out, with a flood, the traces of ungodliness. And then Peace set up her gentle reign upon a new world. All along, in the history of God's dealings with men, He kept to this unvarying rule. God has never forsaken righteousness, not even for the sake of love! He selected a people for Himself. He called His Son out of Egypt. He brought His chosen people through the Red Sea into the wilderness and there He communed with them. But they went astray after graven images. They defiled themselves with the vices of the surrounding heathen. They became degraded and polluted. And then He came again among them as the King of Righteousness, setting Sinai on a blaze, making even Moses to fear and quake, compelling the earth to open and swallow up rebels, causing the fire to break out among them, or fiery serpents to inflame their veins with death! Though to them He was a King of Peace and walked among them in tenderness, and by the fiery cloudy pillar led their band, and in the midst of the tabernacle by His Shekinah unveiled His Glory, yet it was then true, as it is now true--"The Lord your God is a jealous God." He would not bear iniquity. He could not look upon sin without indignation. His anger smoked against it, for He is and always must be "first, King of righteousness, and after that also King of peace." That wonderful wilderness journey is bright with mercy, but it is equally dark with justice. Remember the graves of lusting and the burnings. Israel's God was always sternly righteous though glorious in Grace. It is a high but terrible privilege to dwell near to God, for His holiness burns like a consuming fire and will not endure evil! Yes, and when He had brought His people into the promised land, and had given them their heritage by lot, we must remember how they sinned against Him--and it was not long before He brought upon them the Midianites, or the Philistines, or foes of one race or another, so that they were grievously oppressed, quieted and brought low. When they cried to Him, then He delivered them, but He took vengeance upon their inventions. He would not bear their sin--He took it exceedingly ill from them that a people so highly favored should so constantly rebel. He said, "You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities." He was, to His own elect nation, first, King of Righteousness, and then King of Peace! And so it went on until, at last, Israel provoked the Lord beyond measure and the chosen people went astray to their own confusion. And then, with the besom of destruction, He swept them off from the face of their land. He scattered them as a man scatters dung upon the field. Are they not divided to this day among all the people? Are they not, still, a by-word and a proverb, for men everywhere say, "These are the people that forgot their God and He banished them from their land and will keep them in banishment till they return unto their God in spirit and in truth"? Every Jew whom we see pacing our streets, far off from the city of his fathers, is a proof that the Lord of Heaven is, first, King of Righteousness. All over the world, and everywhere, this is God's way of dealing with men! Do not imagine that God will ever lay aside His righteousness for the sake of saving a sinner--that He will ever deal with men unrighteously in order that they may escape the penalty due to their transgression. He has never done so and He never will! Glorious in holiness is He forever and ever. That blazing Throne of God must consume iniquity! Transgression cannot stand before it! There can be no exception to this rule. The Judge of all the earth must do right. Whatever things may change, the Law of God cannot alter and the Character of God cannot deteriorate. High as the great mountains, deep as the abyss, eternal as His being is the righteousness of the Most High. Peace can never come to men from the Lord God Almighty except by righteousness. The two can never be separated without the most fearful consequences. Peace without righteousness is like the smooth surface of the stream before it takes its awful Niagara plunge. If there is to be peace between God and man, God must still be a righteous God--and by some means or other the transgression of man must be justly put away, for God cannot wink at it, or permit it to go unpunished. Salvation must first of all provide for righteousness, or peace will never lodge within its chambers. The Lord of Heaven is first King of Righteousness and then King of Peace, so that Melchisedec was such a king as God is. And now, next, the type is especially meant to teach us that He was such a king as Christ is, for when the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, He came with this everlasting and unchangeable rule girt about Him--that, though He should be a King, yet He would be first, King of Righteousness and after that also King of Peace. Why did He not set up a kingdom here below among the Jews? Many spirits would have welcomed Him. If He had only set Himself up to be a king, promising them sure conquest and abundant plunder, the zealots of the Jewish nation would have fought like tigers at His side. But, no, He came, first, to be a King of Righteousness, and that was a topic for which they cared nothing. He went into His own Father's House like a king into his palace, but it was with a scourge of small cords, crying, "Take these things hence!" The Temple was no abode for Him while greed, self and mammon defiled its courts. In that Temple He looked round about Him with indignation, for He saw no trace of righteousness there, but every indication that up to the very veil of the Temple all was given over to human unrighteousness! They wanted an unrighteous kingdom, but He would not have it. His fan was in His hand and He would thoroughly purge His floor. His Laws were not to be like those of Caesar! His soldiers were not to fight with carnal weapons. He came not to set up a kingdom of power and force, but a kingdom of love and truth and righteousness and, therefore, His own people knew Him not and rendered Him no homage! His holiness stood in the way of such a kingdom as the Jews desired and, therefore, they turned upon Him and cried, "Let Him be crucified." Though they would not acknowledge His Sovereignty, He was their King! And at His death He bore above His head the superscription, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews." He would not set up a carnal kingdom of their sort. Church and State, truth and force united in some form or other, must have been suggested to Him, but no--He must be first, King of Righteousness, and then King of Peace. He preached no peace apart from purity. He never made little of vice or error. He was the deadly foe of all evil. He said, "I came not to bring peace, but a sword." Until there is righteousness, there must be conflict--and peace can only enter when righteousness has won the field. Oh, my Brothers and Sisters, I wish I had power to describe to you how our Divine Master, in all His lowliness, began to be the King of Righteousness by His superlative, unrivalled Character! Here among us there was never such Righteousness as His--such royal Righteousness throughout all His career in all the details of life. I see an imperial Righteousness in the Character of my Divine Lord--Righteousness that is master and superior of all others! Even those that hate Jesus cannot find fault with Him! Books written to disprove His Divine mission are, nevertheless, full of almost fulsome adulation of Him--I call it by no better word because I think that the praises which Infidels have given to our Lord are no more acceptable to Him than were the praises of devils when they said, "This is the Son of God!" Then He bade them hold their peace and I think He has the same wish at this moment touching His Unitarian and Infidel admirers! All sorts of men have been compelled to do homage to this kingly One who has passed across the pages of history, the very Sovereign of all that is right and good. But ah, I think He was most king of Righteousness when He said unto Himself, "My Father's Law has been broken: I will restore its honor. Men have defied it and trampled on it: I will pay to it the highest homage." With this strong desire upon Him, He went up to the Cross and gave His hands and feet to the nails, and His side to the spear! And with a crown of thorns upon His dying brow, He became, in very deed, the King of Righteousness! As the Son of God, He rendered unto the Divine Majesty all the honor due to the Law by reason of the many insults which sin had heaped thereon. The transgressions of His people were laid upon their Great Shepherd--they were made to meet upon Him in one dreadful storm--and that hurricane spent itself upon Him! Our Great Substitute endured the consequences of human guilt on our behalf and thus He is able to pacify the troubled conscience. He is, first, King of Righteousness. He knew that He could not be King of Peace to us till, first of all, He had woven a perfect Righteousness in the loom of His life and dyed it in His own heart's blood in His death! But when He had achieved this, then He became King of Righteousness, demonstrated to be so before the eyes of all--and then to you and to me He became, from then on-- the King of Peace. How glorious is His name! Oh, for a voice of thunder with which to praise Him! Today our Lord and Master has gone His way up to the eternal hills where He reigns. But His Kingdom, for which we daily pray, is coming and, mark you, it will come by righteousness! I say no word against those who endeavor to bring peace to the nations by the extension of commerce, facilities for travel and so forth. But it is not thus that the sword of war will be broken! Would God the sword of the Lord were quiet in its scabbard forever, but I never anticipate the reign of universal peace on earth till first, the King of Righteousness is acknowledged in every place. I do not think that we shall ever see the fruits without the tree, or the stream without the source, or peace without the enthronement of the principle of righteousness from which it springs. There shall come a day when the lion shall eat straw like the ox and the wolf shall lie down with the lamb--when they shall hang the useless helmet in the hall and study war no more! But that reign of the joyous King--that era of plenty, love, and joy--can only commence as a reign of righteousness! It cannot be anything else! And until sin is dethroned, till iniquity is banished, we shall not see the Divine fruit of peace upon the face of the earth. Wherever Jesus is King, He must be first, King of Righteousness, and after that King of Peace. So, then, Melchisedec is such a king as God is, and such a king as Jesus is. Note, next, that he is such a king as right-hearted minds desire. I say "right-hearted minds." I mean not only those who are saved, but those in whom there is some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel. There is an honest and good ground not yet sown and we know what that soil waits for. I remember what my thoughts used to be when I was seeking the Lord. I longed to be saved. I desired to escape from my sin, but with it there always went this thought--"God must be just." I had always a certain trembling sense of guilt, but at the same time a deep reverence for righteousness. In my heart of hearts I said, "Let not the Lord, even for my sake, do an unrighteous thing. I am nothing, but God and His Righteousness are All in All. It were a greater calamity for God to be unjust than for me to be lost! It were a dark day for all the aspirations of noble minds if it were possible for God to swerve from the strict rule of His integrity. Though He slay me, yet let His name be honored, and let His righteousness remain untarnished." I remember distinctly being the subject of that feeling. Sinner as I was, I had a care for the perfect Law of the Lord, and would by no means have agreed to its being dishonored in order to my own personal salvation. I needed this question answered--"How can God be just and yet the Justifier of him that believes?" I did not know, at that time, the sweet secret of Substitution, but when I did know it, no music ever sounded so sweetly in the human ear as that sounded in my heart! When I saw that, by the interposition of the Son of God and His bearing my guilt, God could be sternly, strictly, severely just to the letter--in every jot and tittle--and yet could put all my sin away and take me to His bosom and let me be His child, then I said, "This must be of God! This Divine secret bears upon its own face its own warranty of truthfulness, for no man could have invented a system at once so just to God, so safe to man." To be able to look for mercy as just and receive pardon on the ground of righteousness is certainly a high ground to reach! And yet every Believer stands there before God! I say that every right-minded man feels a deep concern for the Righteousness of God when he is soberly in his senses and thinking the matter over. He longs to be saved--that is more than natural--but he does not wish to be saved in a way that would derogate from the supreme splendor of the Righteousness of God! Let the Lord God be glorious in justice and then, if I can be saved, well and good! Blessed be God, we can be thus saved! Our entrance to Heaven can be as justly secured as our banishment to Hell was righteously deserved! How Justice and Peace have kissed each other is now made known! That secret is told us in the Word of God. Is it not written on the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ? And I am sure, again, that no right-hearted man wants Christ to come and be to him the King of Peace and then to let him live in sin. Brothers and Sisters, I want no peace in my heart concerning any fault. If I know myself before God, my heart's inmost prayer is that I may never be able to rest till I am rid of every relic of evil. I do not want to make myself happy and yet to live in a single known sin. If I could have the offer of Heaven and be a drunk, I wish not for a drunk's heaven! What could it be but a scene of riot, strife, and obscenity? If I could have Heaven and be a liar, I want not a liar's heaven. What could the heaven of falsehood be but Hell in truth? No, I would not wish for a heaven in which I might freely indulge some minor sin, or be jovial in the commission of some unconsidered transgression. No, there can be no Heaven for me till evil in every form is expelled from my nature! My God, my longing is not for happiness, first, but for purity, first, and happiness afterwards and, therefore, it is my delight to read that my King is first, the King of Righteousness, and then the King of Peace! My heart rejoices in a sin-killing King and then a peace-bestowing King, sweeping out the buyers and the sellers from the Temple, and then manifesting Himself there in all His majesty to His waiting people! Melchisedec, therefore, sets forth such a king as all right-minded people desire. Again, this wonderful Melchisedec is such a king as Jesus must be to every one of you who have not yet known Him, if you are ever to receive Him as your Savior. Let me not sew pillows to all arm-holes by preaching salvation to those who do not repent of their evil ways. I do not come here to chant in dulcet tones sweet lullabies to men who sleep in unrighteousness. If you would have peace with God, you must repent of sin! If you love evil you cannot love God. There must be a divorce between you and sin, or there can be no marriage between you and Christ. When Jesus comes to a soul, He comes as King of Righteousness first, and after that as King of Peace. We must have a positive righteousness of life, a cleanness of heart and hand--or we shall not be found at the right hand of the Judge! Let no man deceive himself. "Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap." He that comes to Christ and takes Christ to be his Savior, must take Christ also to be his Ruler and, Christ ruling him, there must be in that man's heart an active, energetic pursuit of everything that is good and holy, for, "without holiness no man shall see the Lord." He that lives in sin is dead while he lives and knows nothing of the life of God in his soul. Righteousness must hold the scepter, or Peace will not attend the court. I know that I speak to many who long to be saved, but will you give up your sin? Christ has come to save His people from their sins. It you do not wish to be saved from sinning, you will never be saved from damning! Do you hug your Delilah? Then shall you lose your eyes like Samson. Do you hold to the viper and press the asp to your bosom? Then shall the poison boil within your veins. Christ cannot save you while sin is loved and followed after, and has a reigning power in you, for it is an essential of His salvation that He should deliver you from the mastery of evil. I would to God that many here would cry, "That is the very thing I want. I long for it. Can I be helped to renounce sin?" O poor Heart, if you hunger after righteousness you shall be filled! You shall be helped to conquer evil--you are being helped by the fiery desire which has been breathed into you! "Oh," says one, "can I break off the iron yoke and come out of the Egyptian bondage of my lust?" You can! For Christ has come to set you free. Trust in Him, the great Emancipator! But if you say, "I will live in sin and yet go to Heaven," you shall never do so! There shall, by no means, enter into the Celestial City anything that defiles. He that takes men to Heaven is first, King of Righteousness, and after that He is King of Peace. I have closed this first head when I have noticed that that is the kind of king that God would have every one of us to be. We ought all to be first, kings of righteousness, and then kings of peace. The Lord has appointed each man his kingdom--let us see to it that we reign for good and not for evil. On all sides we hear voices inviting us to peace apart from righteousness. "Oh," they say to us, "a confederacy, a confederacy." What do you mean? You are to preach a lie and we are to preach the Truth of God, and yet we are to call each other brothers? We are not brothers and we will not, by our silence, aid the fraud. "Oh, but," they say, "be charitable." Charitable with what? Charitable with God's Truth, flinging it down into the mire of error? Charitable by deceiving our fellow men? That we cannot be! Brothers and Sisters, we must so hold and love the Truth of God as to hate every false way, for the way of error is ruinous to the souls of men and it will go hard with us if, even by our silence, we lead men to run therein. If any man shall say to you, "Come and let us sin together," reply to him, "I cannot enter into association with you, for I must first be pure and then peaceable, since I serve a Lord who is first, King of Righteousness, and after that King of Peace." "Hold your tongue," says the world. "Do not fight against error. Why need you speak so loudly against a wrong thing?" We must speak and speak, sharply, too, for souls are in danger! We must uplift the banner of the Truth of God or we shall be the worst of all cowards! God has made us kings, and we must be first, kings of righteousness, and after that kings of peace. God's people are tempted, sometimes, to be a little too peaceable. Remember that our Lord Jesus has not come to make us live at peace with sin. He has come to set a man against his brother--to divide a household where iniquity holds sway. There can be no peace between the child of God and wrong doing or wrong thinking of any kind. We must have "war to the knife" with that which would rob God of His Glory and men of their salvation! Our peace is on the footing of righteousness and on no other ground. We are for all that is good and right, but we dare not cry, "Peace, peace, where there is no peace." II. Now my time has fled, but I must occupy a little upon the best part of my subject. I have asked you to admire the King. I now beg you to ENJOY HIM. Our Lord Jesus Christ is, first, King of Righteousness. You know what it means. Shall I tell you what it includes? You who are in Him and one with Him in His Kingdom, are righteous in His Righteousness. His is a righteous kingdom and those who obey it will be found to have done rightly. If we follow Christ's rule we need never be afraid that it will mislead us. We are righteous, certainly, when we are doing His bidding. If any laugh and say, "Why do you do this?" quote the King's authority! Do not be afraid if you do the King's bidding! He is a King of Righteousness and you are righteous in obeying His righteous ordinances. He who religiously obeys Mohammed may yet be doing grievous moral wrong--but it is never so with the disciple of Jesus--obedience to Jesus is holiness! Notice, next, that if we trust this King of Righteousness we are righteous in His merit. I want you to believe this. If you had always kept God's Law and had never sinned, you would have been conscious of righteousness. Now, by faith, as many of you who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are as righteous as He is righteous in the sight of God--as righteous as if you had never sinned! Oh, I want you to feel this. "Being justified by faith we have peace with God." But there must first be this justifying righteousness before there can be peace! What Christ did, He did for His people. I say not that what Christ did is imputed to His people, though I believe that it is so--but it belongs to His people--for they are part and parcel of Him and so are partakers with Him. They are in Him as in their Federal Head, and whatever Christ is, or has, or does, belongs in itself, in the very nature of things, to all that are in Him and in that Covenant of which He is the Head. Stand up straight, then, before your God, and though, in yourself, the publican's humble demeanor suits you well, yet in your Lord you may take another stand and say, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died; yes, rather, that is risen again." The Lord Jesus is "made of God unto us wisdom and righteousness." "This is His name whereby He shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness," for, "as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners," as you and I know to our cost, "so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous." "By His knowledge"--by the knowledge of Him--"shall My righteous Servant justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities." Now, then, do you believe in Christ? Then you have no sin. Your sin was laid upon Christ of old and He bore the punishment of it, and you can not be punished for it. Divine Righteousness cannot exact a double penalty for the same offense. Do you believe in Jesus? Then He has made an end of all the sin which was once written against you! He has buried your transgressions forever in His own sepulcher! If you are in Christ, His perfect Righteousness is wrapped about your loins, and you stand, this day, "accepted in the Beloved." Oh, it is a glorious standing, Jesus the King of Right-eousness--and we, in our King, made righteous! We are comely through the comeliness of Christ which is put upon us! Now this I want you to think of. Whenever you are enjoying the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ, please remember that He never gives you any part of salvation without giving it to you righteously! And if He gives it to you righteously, you are possessed of it righteously. My sins are pardoned. Yes, and righteously pardoned! Oh, is not this a wonder? Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other! If I pray, I have naturally no right to be heard as a sinner, but, using the name of Christ, I expect to be heard as righteously as if I were the new-created Adam fresh from the hand of Deity! When I come before God and ask His protection, I look for it as righteously as Christ looked for it when He was here below, for He has put upon me, a poor unworthy Believer, all His regal rights! And all His righteousness is mine, so that I may use His name at the foot of my prayers and stamp my petitions with His Christly authority. I may take the blessings of the Covenant as freely as He may take them who bought them with His blood--for He bought them for all His people and He has made transfer of all the covenant estate to all who are in Him. Oh, Brothers and Sisters, it is a dreadful thing to be under a sense of sin, but it is an equally blessed thing to be under a sense of righteousness! We are righteous even as He is righteous! Let us never forget this. And then, next, He is after that, King of Peace. I want you to try, tonight--no, I do not want you to try, I want the Holy Spirit to do it for you--I want you to enjoy the King of Salem, the King of peace! Do you know that at this moment, if you are a Believer, you have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord? There is no quarrel between you and God tonight. You are one with Him! Your delight is in Him! I know not now in my own soul of anything that I could say against the Lord's dealings with me throughout the whole of my life! Nor, let Him deal with me as He wills, do I feel any repugnance to putting myself entirely into His hands. For happiness or sorrow, for wealth or poverty, for life or death I am content to hand myself absolutely over to the Lord. And now, there being peace on the poor creature's side, it is such a joy to think that there is peace from God's side, only still more perfect and enduring. He looks at you through His dear Son, and He sees no sin in you--no iniquity in you! He loves you with a perfect love at this moment and He knows of no just cause or impediment why He should not love you. "Why," says one, "I have not been a Believer more than a week." I do not care if you have not been a Believer more than 10 minutes! He that believes has everlasting life and everlasting love! As soon as the prodigal son was home, what did his father do? Upbraid him? No, he kissed him! Had his father no fault to find? No, not any. He said, "Bring forth the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. Let us eat and be merry." Why did he not say, "Come, my dear Son, I must have a little sharp talk with you, for your own good. You know you have behaved very badly to me. I must chide you and upbraid you"? No, no! Not a word of the sort! Not a syllable or even a look after that fashion! He gives liberally and upbraids not. He puts his dear child at perfect ease with himself and says, "Be at home. Be happy. Eat, drink and be merry with me; for you are my child, and though you were lost, you are found. You were dead, but you are alive again. Let us rejoice together in this blessed salvation which glorifies my son." I want you to sit in those pews--you that really believe in Jesus--and receive this bread and wine in perfect contentment, saying within yourselves, "It is well. It is all well. It is well from beginning to end--from top to bottom. Being justified by faith, I have peace with God. The peace of God that passes all understanding keeps my heart and soul by Jesus Christ." Come. If you have never enjoyed it before, enjoy it tonight, and do not be afraid! If you go to the devil's feasts, put a knife to your throat if you are a man given to appetite, for you may soon eat and drink and be drunk. Solomon is the author of this prudent advice. But when you come to the feasts of love, drink--yes, drink abundantly, O Beloved! There never was a Christian man that was too happy in God! There never was a Believer that was too peaceful, too serene, too confident, too hopeful! You cannot drink too much of this heavenly nectar. Oh, that you would but have Grace to take in all that you may have! I know what you will do. You will come, tonight, into my Lord's treasury, and He will say, "Take what you will." There will be mints of gold and silver before you and you will look all round and take up some brass farthing or other and say, "Bless the Lord for this!" Such gratitude is right enough. Bless the Lord for anything. At the same time, why not take something better? "Oh, I have been a mourner," you say, "all my days." Whose fault is that? "Oh, but I have never had any great light or any great joy." Whose fault is that? Is it not your own? The Lord seems to me to say tonight, even to the elder Brothers here, "Rejoice and be glad." I do not think that many grumblers come to the Tabernacle, but there are certain grumpy elder Brothers that are apt to say, "Neither at any time transgressed I Your commandments, and yet You never gave me a kid that I might make merry with my friends. I never have any joy. I am a regular seat-holder and a member. I go to the communion. I do all I can, but I never get any of these holy raptures and spiritual delights. These reformed thieves and converted rascals, when they are converted, seem to monopolize all the music and the dancing. I never have a dance to myself at all." But the father was in such a blessed humor that night that he did not even upbraid the elder brother! He said, "Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. If you have had no kid with which to make a supper for your friends, why did you not take it? All that I have is yours." Come in, dear elder Brother, as well as you younger ones, and let us eat and drink and be merry this night in the name of Him who, having been the King of Righteousness upon the bloody tree, is now, tonight, the King of Peace upon His glorious Throne! It is He, who upon this table, shows you how He worked out perfect Righteousness, breaking His body and pouring out His blood for you! And He now bids you come and see how all this is worked for your peace, for His flesh and blood are now your bread and wine to make you glad! Rejoice in the Lord! And again I say, Rejoice! Amen. __________________________________________________________________ Before Daybreak with Christ (No. 1769) A SERMON DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 14, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. And Simon and they that were with Him followed after Him. And when they had found Him, they said unto Him, All men seek for You. And He said unto them, Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also for therefore came I forth. And He preached in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and cast out devils." Mark 1:35-39. A WONDERFUL day was closed and crowned by a wonderful evening. Capernaum had been exalted to Heaven that day, for deeds worthy of Heaven had been worked in her. Within the synagogue the power and authority of the new Teacher had been seen, but at the close of the Sabbath, when the people felt more free to lay their sick before Him, His Divine Majesty was glorified before all in the open streets of the little town. Galilee had never before seen such a day of preaching, or such an eventide of healing. "At even, when the sun did set, they brought unto Him all that were diseased, and them that were possessed with devils. And all the city was gathered together at the door. And He healed many that were sick of different diseases, and cast out many devils." Surely this day was worthy to take a front rank among "the days of the Son of Man." A very wonderful evening! Did not they think it so who had long grown to their beds, but suddenly found themselves walking, leaping and praising God? Those must have thought it so who beheld their pining relatives restored to health and vigor. Even devils must have felt it to be so, as they fled pell-mell into the deep! Assuredly the people of the city must have been greatly excited-- on the housetops, in the market and in every lane and alley the one theme of talk must have been the new Rabbi--His strange teaching and His unrivalled miracles! After our Lord's sermon in the synagogue He held an inquiry-meeting in the street--He had no other assembly room. There He led them to look to Him and obtain healing; and as this went on, crowds of persons were present confessing what the Lord had done for them. One might be content to die after being present at such a scene! After that evening was over and men went home, they said, "It was a very extraordinary occasion. What new teaching is this? What power is this? We have never seen its like." It was a day from which to date an era--Heaven and earth and Hell were all affected by it! That pure teaching opening the mystery of the Kingdom; that healing energy setting forth the power of the redeeming King! No wonder that all tongues were fluent and all lips eloquent, when there was so Divine a subject to enlarge upon! Children and unlettered peasants could repeat the chronicle of that day of Grace. They needed not to expatiate, much less to exaggerate, for, in truth, it was a heavenly day and grew even brighter as the shadows fell. Those evening hours were as the hands of Mercy, all bedecked with rings and jewels of heavenly charity--Love was then in her bridal attire and miracles were the bespangled ornaments of her beauty! Do you not think that the wonderful evening was followed by an equally wonderful morning? That Sunday morning, as we now call the first day of the week, was it not equally notable? Remember the grand excitement of the day and its long eventide--and then observe the hallowed devotion of the coming dawn. The Preacher and Miracle-Worker had been worked up to a high pitch and we should not have wondered had He needed lengthened rest. But instead thereof we read, "Rising up a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed." Jesus has taken such necessary sleep as He desired and He wakes. It is still dark and all the inhabitants of the house are asleep. He very quietly and noiselessly steals out of the chamber and finds His way into the street. And you see Him go along, alone, till He has left the narrow roadway and reached the open fields. The gleaming of the morning has hardly come--the dawn is scarcely gray. It is, "a great while before daylight," and the darkness hangs all around with its friendly veil. But Jesus knows His way--He had been down those streets healing the sick--and out in the open He is at home, for He is acquainted with solitude and the lines upon the face of sleeping Nature are familiar to Him. He turns to the most solitary hillside. Yonder is a hollow. He who enters that recess is quite out of sight. Jesus has passed into that hidden place and there, in the darkness, He kneels. He cries! He supplicates! He speaks with God! He prays! Is this His rest after a toilsome day? Is this His preparation for coming labor? It is even so! That early morning of prayer explains the evening of power. As Man, He had not possessed that wonderful power over human minds if He had not perpetually communed with God. And now that His day's work is done and the marvelous evening is over, all is not ended--a life-work still remains before Him and, therefore, He must pray. He feels a necessity that there should be more marvelous evenings--that there should be further displays of power-- and therefore the Great Worker draws near, again, to the Source of strength, that He may, afresh, gird up His loins for that which lies before Him. Dear Friends, there is always a connection, even if we do not see it, between that great crowd on Sunday, and the pleadings of the saints--a most intimate connection between the flocking converts of the ministry and those secret prayers which follow and precede it. There is such a connection that the two cannot be parted! God will not send great blessings in the way of open conversion if secret prayer is neglected. Let the preacher or the Church fail to pray and God will refuse to bless! Yes, and after conversions, unless there is, again, special prayer presented by the Lord's servants, much that looked like blessing may turn out to have been but the semblance of it and future blessings may be withheld. If I could impress my heart on every syllable, and baptize every word with my tears, I could not too earnestly entreat you to be, above all things, earnest in prayer! I delight to think of our Lord as praying before He did a great thing--it was His custom so to do! Perhaps the early morning prayer of our text preceded the Sermon on the Mount. I am not quite sure about that fact, though certain of the writers of Harmonies are assured of it. But I am quite certain that this special supplication followed an evening of miracles and it seems to teach us that when God is with us, we should have even more anxiety than ever to keep Him with us. When the blessing has really come and souls are being saved on all sides, then are we to redouble our cries to Heaven, that the merciful Presence may be retained and enjoyed to a still higher degree! Fresh from the wonderful successes of that miraculous night, the Christ of God goes, on the Sunday morning, to open the gates of the day with the uplifted hands of His prayers! Prayer should be our companion at all times. Pray when you are pining for a blessing. Pray when you have newly obtained a blessing. Now, we shall look at four points of our Savior's Character as we see them in these few verses. Let us hear the melody of four of those golden bells which adorn the garments of our great High Priest. First, we are caused to observe--Prayer by Him intensely esteemed. Secondly, popularity weighed in the balances and lightly valued. Thirdly, practical duty followed out, for when they said, "All men seek for You," He said to them, "Let us go into the next towns that I may preach there also for therefore came I forth." The fourth point is well worthy of attention. Here it is--preaching always to the forefront with Him. Whatever He does not do, He does preach and, though He works miracles such as casting out devils, He evidently regards all bodily cures as subsidiary to His main work. "Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also for therefore came I forth." We shall put the four things together and see how the power and the preaching hang upon one another, and how the despising of popularity is fitly conjoined with the intense purpose to carry out His life-work. I. First, then, let us think a little about our Lord in His private communion with the Father--PRAYER--HOW INTENSELY IT WAS ESTEEMED BY HIM! He rose up early that weekday morning and retired to a solitary place to pray, to teach us not to keep our religiousness for Sabbath days, or retain our prayerfulness for one day of the week. Many Jews in Christ's day said, "We have been to synagogue." And when going to synagogue was over, their religion was over, too. At this day we are surrounded by persons whose godliness is circumscribed within the four walls of their synagogue, their church, their tabernacle, or whatever else they like to call it. Religion means to many the observance of certain ceremonies at stated times. They put on different clothes and tread another floor--and then their religion begins. Do they put on different garments on the Sabbath because they are different men, or because they wish to be thought so? There is such a thing as a Sunday religion and he that has it will be lost. The religion which only lives in our religious assemblies--how can it serve our turn? Shall we be at the meeting all the week? Shall we die in the place of worship? In all probability we shall die in our beds at home and, therefore, we need a household godliness. Prayer on Sunday is well enough, but far better is the supplication which continually waits upon God. Our Sunday prayer should abound, but the weekdays equally need prayer and should be saturated with it. Grace is for streets and shops as well as for sanctuaries. It is well when God rules our thoughts as much in the shop as in the Prayer Meeting--when we are as much under the governance of our Lord Jesus Christ when we are busy in the family as when we are sitting in the Church of God. Oh, let us see to this! Our Master gives us a good example, here. It was not upon the Sabbath morning that He woke so early--it was on the first day of the week, not yet rendered sacred by His Resurrection, that our Lord left His bed and wended His way through the shadows to find a place for fellowship with the Father! You observe that in His prayer He desired very much to be alone. He was anxious that His prayer might not be seen of men. Woe unto that man whose devotion is observed by everybody and who never offers a secret supplication! Secret prayer is the secret of prayer, the soul of prayer, the seal of prayer, the strength of prayer! If you do not pray alone, you do not pray at all. I care not whether you pray in the street, or in the church, or in the barracks, or in the cathedral--but your heart must speak with God in secret--or you have not prayed. "You, when you pray, enter into your closet and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father which is in secret; and your Father which sees in secret shall reward you openly!" The less prayer is observed on earth, the more it is observed in Heaven. That which is carefully concealed from men is seen of the Father. I suppose, too, that our Lord loved to be alone that He might pray aloud. It is not necessary to pray with the voice-- it is sometimes highly undesirable that you should pray aloud--but yet, as a rule, you will find it greatly advantageous to yourself to use your voice as well as your mind in prayer. I speak what I have often proved. I am accustomed to pray without uttering a single sound, but I find a relief and a stimulus in occasionally "crying aloud." In a lone spot where I shall not be heard, I find it an intense delight to pour out my heart aloud, using words and exclamations whereby the spirit expresses itself with freedom and force. I think that the Savior, who was intensely Human, felt much rest in the unrestrained pouring out of His heart and soul before His Father. He was supremely Human as He was certainly Divine-- and I do not doubt that it was a comfort to Him to awaken the hills with His praises, startle the glens with His groans and put a tongue into every bush and tuft by His strong crying and tears. All Nature was akin to Him and the desert places were meet chambers for His great soul, wherein as in His own house "the Holy Child Jesus" might speak with the Father face to face. I commend to you, who would attain to high communion with the Eternal that, as often as you can, you get so far afield as to be able to pray aloud and use the unrestrained voice in prayer. "My voice shall You hear in the morning, O God." David continually speaks of crying with his voice unto God. It is not essential, but it is often helpful. Our blessed Master desired to get alone because there He would feel free to express Himself--to tell out His very secrets to the great Father. His prayers in solitude! They must have been marvelous communications! How familiar with God and yet how lowly! How simple, yet how spiritual! How full! How deep! How intense! Perhaps you have desired that they had been recorded, but you need not that I remind you that the world, itself, could not have contained all the books that might have been written! Be grateful for those that are written and believe that Infinite Wisdom is as much displayed in the concealment of a part of our Lord's life as in the publication of the rest of it. Perhaps those prayers of His were such as we might not hear. Every saint pleads, at times, in forms of passionate petition which nobody else should hear but God. When we are quite alone, we may dare to say things which might seem too venturesome for any other. I am glad that we have not many of Luther's prayers, for I conceive that the great bold German often said things to his God which a common Christian might not dare to say. That which was perfectly reverent in him might have savored of presumption if you or I had ventured upon it! That which the Lord accepted from Luther, whom He had placed in so singular a position and constituted in so remarkable a way for his work, might have been offensive if spoken by another. The Master's prayers were a free, outspoken talk with the Most High. His heart was open to the Lord as yonder river to the shining of the moon above it. Certainly, our Lord Jesus Christ rose up early and went alone in the dark to pray, because He loved to put prayer first of all. He would go nowhere till He had prayed. He would attempt nothing till He had prayed. He would not cast out a devil, He would not preach a sermon, He would work no cure, however necessary, however profitable, until, first of all, He had drawn near to God. Take good heed unto yourselves, my Brothers and Sisters, that you follow the same rule. Look no man in the face till you have seen the face of God. Speak with none till you have spoken with the Most High. Go not to your labor with your loins ungird with the girdle of devotion, lest you fail therein. Take not to running till you have, in prayer, laid aside every weight, lest you lose the race. We cannot, we must not, think of entering upon a day, or upon an enterprise, without first saying, "Bring here the ephod: let us ask counsel of the Lord!" We can do nothing without our God! Let us attempt nothing without Him. So the Savior rises a great while before day and gets alone with His God, that for Him prayer might perfume the morning dew and sweeten the first breath of the dawn. There was about the Savior an intense desire to meet with God--to commune with the Father. Herein there is a living likeness between His prayers and ours, but yet His devotions must have been very different from ours because He had no sin to confess as we have. A large part of our communion with God must lie in our confession of sin, in our expression of personal weakness and in our pleading the righteousness of our Divine Redeemer. But this Blessed One had no sins to admit before the Host High and no weakness to lament, for in Him was neither sin nor tendency to sin. I can conceive that much of His devotion was shown in converse with the Father, when His blessed mind, forever in agreement with the mind of God, spoke to God and God revealed Himself to Him. Intimate communion must have been the main ingredient of the Savior's prayers. Some of the sweetest devotion Christians ever enjoy does not lie in asking anything of the Father, but in the enjoyment of the Father, Himself. Two friends in closest communion do not spend their time in mutual explanations and setting things straight--nor even in asking favors of each other--they proceed to heart-to-heart conversation, known only to those who have enjoyed the like. We are always in need and, therefore, our daily devotion must consist largely of petitions, but yet we are, by Divine Grace, the children of the Lord, and the child says many things to his Father beside that which takes the form of a request. Have we not, with joyful reverence, told our heavenly Father how we love Him? How we long to be more like He? How we desire to serve Him? That is how we talk--alone with God--our heart is to the heart of God as the echo to the living voice which calls to it. The Savior would tell the Father of all His love to Him, how He desired nothing but the salvation of those whom the Father gave Him, how He devoted Himself to glorify His name in them, for they were His and He was Surety for them. All that the Divine Jesus could and would say to His Father, we may not endeavor to imagine. We could not be permitted to stand by and hear those solitary prayers, but they must have been something unique, worthy of the Sacred Persons who there held solemn dialogue. Yes, the great heart of Jesus swam in supplication as in its element--and in proportion as we become like He, we shall be of His mind as to private prayer. One said to me the other day what I have sometimes read, but I was especially shocked to hear it. She said, "I am so conformed to the mind and will of God that I do not need to pray." I answered in sad surprise, "I pray God will open your eyes to see the delusion under which you are laboring, for the Holy Lord Jesus Christ abounded in prayer, notwithstanding His absolute perfection." That kind of perfection which leads a man to think that he does not need to pray is damnable! I will use no calmer word. I believe that the "doctrine of sinless perfection," as it is frequently taught in these fanatical days, will be the ruin of many a soul that holds it! Could you cease to pray, you would cease to live spiritually. It is the very breath of your nostrils if you are a child of God! As to your being so perfect as to need no more prayer and watchfulness, you lie to your own soul, as surely as you live! Instead of believing in your perfection, I pray God deliver you from so terrible a delusion. If you were perfect, you would still need to pray. No, you would pray more than ever and your life, like that of Jesus, would be steeped and saturated in prayer! Our Lord, because He was perfect, longed perpetually to draw near unto God. "Oh," says one, "I live in the spirit of prayer and, therefore, I do not need times and seasons for prayer." And do you think that Christ did not live in the spirit of prayer? Yet He must have His special time and place to pray! Do not fall under the injurious notion that because your spirit cries to God in prayer all day long, therefore there must not be some season for more immediately coming into God's Presence! If you do thus imagine, I am afraid that it will prove a snare to your feet. The Lord Jesus Christ, who knew better than you, that the main thing is the spirit of prayer rather than the act of prayer, yet, Himself retired into desert places to maintain the act and exercise of prayer! Be spiritual. Be baptized into the spirit of prayer, but do not be deceived by the enemy who can spirit a duty away while we dream that we only spiritualize it! We had better preserve the very bones of prayer, the posture, time and place, rather than let it all ooze away into an impalpable mental condition. God keep us prayerful! He will do so if He makes us like His dear Son. Further, I want you to notice concerning our Lord's prayer that there can be no doubt that in His prayer He prayed for Himself. Much of His prayer belonged to Himself, and to Himself, only. He was, we know, in one great instance, "heard in that He feared," and He was heard in many other things known only to Himself. But our Lord also much abounded in prayer far His disciples--He took their cases, one by one, and pleaded with the Father for them. Remember how He prayed for Peter--supplicating for him before he came into danger? He said. "Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to have you." The enemy had only reached as far as the desire, but the Good Shepherd was quicker than the wolf and had already interceded--"but I have prayed for you." Christ had outstripped the devil! He had already prayed before the temptation came. And here on earth, as a father in the midst of his children, He took care that none of them should be in danger through the lack of His loving intercession! And do you not think that He was praying, too, at that time, for the sinners that were round about Him? It is His practice in Heaven to make intercession for the transgressors--and I am sure that He did it here below. As He looked into those faces in the streets of Capernaum, He read the stories of their sin and these came back to His memory amid those lone hills. He knew more about men than we do, for He could search their thoughts. He knew how foolish they were and how far they had gone aside from God--and so, in the silence of the desert, He prayed with wide knowledge and profound sympathy--and He spoke with the Most High in eager pleas for those whose sins He measured and whose doom He foresaw. To do His people and the world the grandest service in His power till He should lay down His life, our Lord stole away amid the heathery hills or the stony heaps of the shores of Galilee. Dear Friends, take care that you pray. Need I say it? Take care that you use all aids to prayer, such as being alone and rising early to pray. If your Lord needed prayer, you require it much more. Take care that you pray much in the time of your success. Do not think that because of the wonders God did for you last night, you are not to pray in the morning, but set double guard over your spirit in the moment of rejoicing lest you be carried away by pride. "Oh," you say, "but my prayers are so often disturbed!" I know! The devil is sure to send somebody to knock at the door when you want to be quiet in prayer. Your Lord can sympathize with you in that, for Simon and they that were with Him followed after Him and disturbed the solitude which He had sought with so much care. Simon was always to the front and sometimes mischievously so. And here He is, leading the way in disturbing His Master! Do not wonder if Satan finds a Simon to worry you. But as your Lord knows what it is to be disturbed, He can help you to bear up under disturbances. He can cheer you when these interruptions distress you and He can aid you to renew your pleadings when the chain of your prayer has been broken. I regret that I can say no more on this point, because my time has fled. II. Only just a word or two, in the second place, upon POPULARITY WEIGHED by the Savior. The disturbance that came to the Savior's prayers arose out of the desire of His disciples to tell Him that everybody was after Him and, according to Luke's account in his fourth chapter, the people of the town were close on the heels of the disciples, to pray him not to go away, but to stop and be their Prophet and heal their sick. Our Lord's popularity was of the best kind--it had not been gained by any arts or tricks, nor by pandering to their pride, nor by yielding to their prejudices. He had preached nothing but the Truth of God and He had worked no miracle among them for the mere sake of display, but only for their good. Yet He did not care for the best of popularity. He did not think it worth the having for its own sake and, therefore, He shunned it to the utmost. His popularity could be used and He did use it--for when the people came together He preached the Gospel to them--but applause had no charms for Him. He knew what poor stuff it is--of what gas it is made. He knew how uncertain it is--how, like the wind, it will veer round in no time. He knew that it might prove dangerous and it did, for they sought, by-and-by, to make Him a king. Even His disciples would, if they could, have turned Him from His spiritual purpose. Poor hearts! They wished to see Him honored, but they did not know that honor from men would have brought no honor to Him. When they told our Lord, "All men seek you," He did not take notice of it, but proposed to go elsewhere and preach the Gospel. Oh, dear Friends, if ever you succeed in Christ's Kingdom, bless God for your spiritual success, but do not think much of the approbation which follows upon it. Pass it over in silence, as though you heard it not. What is human approbation? What can it do for you? "When we have done all, we are unprofitable servants." If we have done anything good, no credit is due to us, but only to the Lord, whose Grace has made us to be His workmanship! If the Lord Jesus Christ, who preached by His own authority and power, and who worked miracles by His own might, yet fled away as much as He could from the applause of men, much more let each one of us do so! Oh, to walk before the Lord and be blind and deaf to all the censures and the plaudits of the poor creatures around us! I have seen men whom God has greatly blessed, who have been highly honored by their Brethren, and yet they have been cast down and have, therefore, been made to lie low in their own esteem. On the other hand, I have observed others whose usefulness in the Church has not appeared to anybody but themselves, and yet they have been so tall that they almost needed St. Paul's Cathedral to stand upright! Their self-esteem has been 10 times taller than the esteem of their wiser brethren! Let us prefer to be found among the useful and lowly, rather than among the self-conceited and useless! God will not greatly bless us if we grow great. We may soon become too big to be used to win souls. I notice that soul-winning is generally accomplished by humble instruments. It is a delicate task and the Lord, who does it, will not use those who are great, strong and mighty in their own esteem. When the Lord finds His servants lowly, like the Lord Jesus Christ, then they shall be used! The longer I live, the more do I see that, as a rule, pride is the death of all true spiritual usefulness. As you love God and would desire to honor Him by a useful life, put far from you the temptation to sip of the intoxicating cup of human honor! Drafts of worldly glory are not for the priests of the Most High! Though not in the Savior's case, yet in ours, there is a close connection between our prayers and our being kept humble before the Lord. It is remarkable how kindly our neighbors watch over our vineyards in that respect. They are all in a fraternal flutter for fear we should grow vain--it is very good of them, but we do not wish them to rob themselves for our advantage! "Ah, Sir," said a good lady to me one day, "I pray for you every day that you may be kept humble!" She was a wonderfully fine-looking woman and splendidly dressed and, therefore, I replied, "Thank you much; but you remind me of a failure in my duty. I have never prayed for you that you might be kept humble." "Dear Sir," she cried, "there is no need for such prayers, for I am not tempted to be proud." How proud she was to have attained to such a delusion! When anybody says, "I am not tempted to be proud," shrewd common sense suggests that it is time to wake up, lest the enemy get a fatal advantage over the vain spirit! When there is much prayer--abundant prayer and drawing near to God--then the greatest success can be borne without risk. Prayer ballasts the ship and so, when God fills the sails with a prosperous wind, the vessel is not overborne. III. Notice, thirdly, how our Lord put aside all the dangers of popularity by setting before us PRACTICAL DUTY FOLLOWED OUT. They said, "All men seek You." I think that most of us would have replied, "Well, then, let us go down and talk to them." But Jesus cries, "Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also." Instead of desiring honor, He shuns it! Yes, He leaves no space for it, for He occupies each hour with a new labor. He will break up new soil--old harvests only serve to fill the basket for new seed-sowings. He will go to encounter other trials as soon as the first are overcome. When He enters a place for the first time, there is opposition, and Jesus is eager to face it. For Him there remained no love of ease, no resting upon laurels already won. His nobly impatient spirit cries, "We have done something for Capernaum; let us seek fresh fields and new pastures." He will also enlist assistance and awaken others to share in the Holy War. How condescendingly the Master puts it! He says, "Let us go." "O Divine Master, all men seek Fou." And the answer is, "Let us go into the next towns." He lifted His poor disciples into the us with Himself! Because they are, through the rest of their lives, to be associated with Him in His holy work, He takes care that in the first flush of His success they shall be brought to the front in connection with Himself. They will feel how unworthy they are to be in such high fellowship--they will admire His condescension in putting them there--and they will be the more ready to go on with Him, taking their full part in evangelizing the other villages and towns. Our Lord is thinking of the whole business! It is all before His mind's eye what He is to do personally and what He is to do through each one of them. The practical duty of doing His part of the work and using them for their part of the work is strong upon Him. With a quick eye He sees not what has been done, but what is to be done! Not what God has given, but what God will still give in answer to the prayers which He has prayed--and He expects that it will be so large that He will need all His followers to help Him in the process of gathering it in! So He says, "Let us go into the next towns." He does not say, "Let us rest and be thankful," but He obeys the secret instinct which drives Him forward to be doing more and more of good to the sons of men. He feels within His soul that imperial must which, every now and then, crops up in His story as it is told by the Evangelists. He is under a necessity to do the Father's will in blessing the sons of men. All else is as nothing to Him--"Therefore came I forth," He says. The errand for which He came forth evidently presses Him, constrains Him, impels Him! He must go forward till all His baptism is accomplished! His slow of understanding disciples cry, "All men seek You; stay in Capernaum!" But He thinks of the myriads who do not seek Him, but need Him more than those who do! Let His zeal for the unseeking multitudes inflame our hearts and let us, in enthusiastic chorus, sing concerning the lost sheep-- "O, come, let us go and find them! In the paths of death they roam! At the close of the day it will be sweet to say, 'I have brought some lost one home.'" Jesus seemed to say, "Come with Me and I will lead the way, for therefore am I sent, that all over Galilee and Judea I may wander after wandering souls and give them health of body and salvation of spirit." This absorption in His life-purpose is one great evidence and accompaniment of our Lord's perfect spiritual sanity. He could not repose in work done, for the work which remained drove Him always onward! I say not that the Master could possibly have gloried--He never did glory--never would have gloried with any sinful pride. But in your case and mine, the way to keep from ever glorying in what we have done is to think of what we have yet to do-- "Forget the steps already trod, And onward urge your way." You know what the general said when one of his officers rode up and cried, "Sir, we have taken a standard!" "Take another," he cried. Another officer salutes him and exclaims, "Sir, we have taken two guns." "Take two more," was the only reply. This way lies the reward of holy service--you have done much--you shall do more. Have you won a soul? Win another! Did you bring 50 to Christ? Bring 50 more! If you have been faithful in little, you shall be entrusted with much. What is all we have accomplished compared with the necessities of this immeasurable city, compared with the needs of our nation, compared with the desolated condition of the world? Brothers, in the hour of success, resolve on wider labor. Go forward! Press on! Go to other cities. Attempt other methods of service, for therefore came you forth from God. IV. Now I must close--compelled to do so by the incessant ticking of the clock--when I have noticed how the Lord Jesus Christ in all things makes us see PREACHING PUT TO THE FRONT, for He says, "Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth." It is refreshing to hear preaching spoken of without a sneer. "The Pulpit is a worn-out piece of furniture," so they say. Printers have quite annihilated preachers--the few of us who survive may as well go home to our beds! Well, I am not going to speak of any excellence in preachers, or stand up for my Brothers as though we were the wisest of all men. Suppose I confess that we are a set of fools? This is nothing remark-able--we have always been so! But it still remains written in Scripture, "It pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe." Such is our folly that we are fools enough to go on preaching after our critics have decided that we belong to the dead past! The wise men tell us about our day being over, but notwithstanding all of that, we shall keep to our marching orders--"Go you into all the world and preach!" In that day when stock shall be taken of results and judgment shall be according to equity, it will be found that the preachers of the Gospel have, after all, with all their imperfections, been the great instruments in the hands of God for bringing in His people to eternal salvation! The people are supposed to read books in these times of the School Board and, therefore, they do not need living speech. We are glad that the people should read, but much of what they read which is best worth reading was first heard from the pulpit! We know of no rivalry between the printed word and the preached Word--it is often the same thing. But I reckon that the most of you who have been converted to God will say that it was not what you read, but what you heard which was used of the Holy Spirit for your conversion! When heart speaks to heart with accents of emotion, it is somehow different from the paper. Some Brothers read their sermons and I do not condemn them, but I know that most of the people feel a kind of chill creeping over them as they hear the leaves rustle. It may be a prejudice, but I know that nine out of10 are numbed by the foolscap for the reading. I confess I feel the influence myself--a read sermon usually freezes me to the marrow, or else makes me fidget upon my seat. When a warm heart speaks to an earnest ear, it proves itself a suitable means for the transmission of blessing. The man bears witness better than the paper can! He speaks what he knows and he throws a tone, a force, a light, a vigor into what he says which the printing press cannot possibly communicate to the page! I know you grumble at the dullness of preachers and I do not wonder at it, but I believe that the improvement of that matter lies much with yourselves. You shall find, I believe, that when more attention has been paid to the ministry--when you have prayed more for students-- and when more care has been exercised in churches that only the right kind of men shall be helped into the ministry, the preachers of the Word of God will rise into higher rank in esteem. When, instead of a man's being set apart for a minister because his father has a living to give him. Or because he cannot pick up a subsistence anywhere else. When, instead of the power of simony and patronage--men shall only be introduced into the ministry who are really moved by the Holy Spirit--then the dishonor will be wiped from the pulpit and it shall be seen to be the tower of the flock, the castle of the Truth of God. We preach Christ Crucified and preach it because we are commanded to preach it. And we are well assured that wisdom is justified of her children. God's grand means of preaching the Gospel, which the Lord Jesus followed so closely, is used for the sure accomplishment of eternal purposes! I leave that point, because I need to say this much more--it is the praying man that is the right preaching man--and if any of you long to do good to your fellow men, you must begin on your knees! You cannot have power with man for God until first you have power with God for man! Solitary prayer was the equipment for the Prince of Preachers when He came forth among the crowds--it is the best equipment for you, also. In solitary vigil, buckle on the armor of the Light of God. Workers for God, I entreat you to be abundant in supplication, that if success comes, you may not be elevated unduly by it. That if failure comes, you may not be depressed unduly by it. Come what may, having prayed, it is yours to continue steadfast in present duty, still doing that for which you were sent, and still believing that the Gospel of Jesus will prevail. Oh, my Comrades, may the Lord uphold us even to the end! As for you here present who never pray, what will become of you? As for you who, instead of preaching, do not care to hear preaching, what will become of you? If the Lord Jesus Christ went out to pray so early in the morning, do you know what He was praying for? Why, for the salvation of sinners like you, that you might be saved! His cries and tears were for those who neither plead nor weep for themselves! When Jesus stood up to preach, what had He on His mind but the salvation of sinners like you? Shall He think of you and will you not think of Him? Oh, look to Him! See how He loves sinners! Now that He has been dead and buried, and has risen again and gone into His Glory, He still lives to save sinners! Look to Him! Trust Him! Seek Him, tonight, in solitary prayer, and He will meet with you. Tomorrow morning rise up early, "a great while before day," if you have no other means of being alone, and cry to Him for mercy and He will set Heaven's gate open before you--and answer you even as His Father answered Him! The Lord bless you, for Christ's sake. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ Recruits for King Jesus (No. 1770) A SERMON PREACHED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 17, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "And there came of the children of Benjamin and Judah to the hold unto David. And David went out to meet them, and answered and said unto them, If you ha ve come peaceably unto me to help me, my heart shall be knit unto you: but if you have come to betray me to my enemies, seeing there is no wrong in myhands, the God of our fatherlook thereon, andrebuke it. Then the Spirit came upon Amasai, who was chief of the captains, and he said, 'Yours are we, David, and on your side, you son of Jesse: peace, peace be unto you, and peace be to your helpers; for your God helps you. Then David received them, and made them captains of the band." 1 Chronicles 12:16-18. AT this time David was in the hold--I suppose in the stronghold of Ziklag, which the king of the Philistines had given to him. It was in that fortress-town that he received a welcome addition to his band. David was an exile and it is not every man who cares to cast in his lot with a banished nobleman. He was outlawed and his sovereign would have slain him with his own hands if he had found opportunity--few care to stake their all with a man in such a condition. The many who were on Saul's side spoke very bitterly of David and, wishing to curry favor with the king, they slandered him to the blackest degree--few respectable people care to associate themselves with a person who is in ill-repute. Many to whom David had done no ill were eager to betray him and sell him into the hands of his enemy, for men sought their own gain and cared not whom they sold, so long as they clutched the reward--it was no small thing for a band of men to unite with a man upon whose head a price was set. David had to stand upon his guard, for traitors were all around--the men of Keilah would have delivered him up when he went in all simplicity of heart within their gates. The fortunes of David were at a low ebb and, therefore, when these men came to David, they did a valorous action--an action which he would be sure to remember in the later days of his triumph. I want to run a parallel between the case of David and that of our Lord Jesus Christ. At the present moment our Lord Jesus, the Son of David, is still in the hold. Among the men of this world, He is not yet enthroned--their hearts go after another prince--and as yet the kingdom has not come to the Son of David. I know that He reigns in Heaven and that He is, in very deed, King of kings and Lord of lords--but before the eyes of the mass of men He is still despised and rejected. His people, as yet, are but a feeble folk and often hard put to it. His kingdom is ridiculed, His claims are derided and His yoke is scorned. The doctrines which He preached are tossed to and fro like a ball. And men at the present time are glorying in science or tradition, in reason or in speculation! Yes, they speak as if human wisdom would soon wipe out the very name of Christianity! It is not so in truth before God, but it is so in appearance before men. This is an age of blasphemy and of rebuke for our Lord the King! Brave are they who will stand for Christ in this, the day of His exile! They shall be right royally rewarded who will now take up His cause and will go forth to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. He is the man for the Lord Jesus who can now run the gauntlet of miles of scoffers and be willing to be called a fool, a madman, or an idiot for His name's sake. Blessed are they who are not ashamed, this day, to bear the name of Christ written out large and to confess that, after the way which men call, "orthodoxy," so worship they the Lord God of their fathers! The philosophic Christian may escape if he will drown the Christian in the philosopher; but this is not to stand out square for Christ. It does our heart good, nowadays, to meet with a few Brothers and Sisters who are not ashamed to believe in the merit of the Redeemer's precious blood and in the power of His Spirit to regenerate. We feel at home when we drop in with a few who believe in prayer and expect the lord to interpose on the behalf of His people. I say, blessed are they who, like these men of Benjamin and Judah, are willing to go to the King in the hold and take up His cause though it is at a low ebb--and stand up for Him when the many are ready to trample Him down--and are ridiculing His work and His cause. For my own part, I never loved my Lord more than now, that He is defamed! And His Truth is all the dearer to me because it is flouted by the worldly-wise. It is to those who will volunteer for Jesus that I am about to speak, and our first head is that using the text as a parable, we have here a commendable example. It is a commendable example for men to join themselves with Christ while He is unpopular. Secondly, here is a cautious inquiry. When David sees these men come, he does not, at once, receive them with open arms, but there is a reserve about him till he has asked them a question or two. He wants to know who they are before he writes down their names in his muster-roll. And, thirdly, here is a very cordial enlistment as they answer to his question, and say, "Yours are we, David, and on your side, you son of Jesse; for your God helps you." I. First, then, here is A VERY COMMENDABLE EXAMPLE. May the Holy Spirit lead many of my dear Hearers to follow it. Many of these men of Benjamin and Judah, in the first place, went to join themselves to David because they had heard that he was the Lord's anointed. They understood that Samuel had gone down to Ramah and, in the days of David's youth, had anointed him in the name of the Lord to be king instead of Saul. Therefore they said, "Whom God anoints, we will follow," and they came after David. It was fit that they should be loyal to David if they would be obedient to God. Now, it is within the belief, I trust, of all assembled here, that the Lord God Almighty has anointed "one chosen out of the people" to be His King in Zion--the King of His Church forever and ever--and that One chosen out of the people is Jesus of Nazareth, of the house of David, who is Himself, as Man, the servant of God, but who is also Divine, and counts it not robbery to be equal with God. We have, I trust, all of us, drunk in this doctrine, that the Lord Jesus is the Anointed of God, the very Word of God, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Now, it seems to me that if it is so, the next inevitable step for men who fear God is to go forth and follow the Lord's Anointed! If Jesus is the Messiah, the Sent One of God--in the name of everything that is gracious and right, let us follow Him! God has given Him to be a leader and a commander to the people--let us rally to His banner without delay. If the Lord has anointed Jesus to be a prince and a Savior, let Him be our prince and our Savior at once! Let us render Him obedience and confidence, and openly acknowledge the same. Our Lord puts it thus--"If I tell you the truth, why do you not believe Me?" The argument is irresistible with true-hearted men. If any of you believe that Jesus is anointed to be the Savior of men, I say that you are unreasonable if you do not practically accept Him as such. But if you are willing to come right straight out and say, "Let others do as they will; as for me, I will be the loving servant of the Anointed of the Lord," then you act rightly and render a reasonable service. What better argument can I find with just and reasonable persons than this? You believe that God has anointed Jesus, therefore accept Him for yourself! If these men followed David because God had anointed Him, infinitely more binding is it upon you and upon me, believing that God has anointed Jesus of Nazareth to be the King, for us to follow Him, that we may be found faithful to His cause and Kingdom. Oh, my dear Hearers, I am perplexed about some of you! You call Jesus Lord and yet you do not obey Him! You acknowledge that He is the Savior and yet you do not trust in Him for salvation! Think this over and may the Holy Spirit lead you to a sensible decision. If Jesus is God's Anointed, led Him be your Beloved. Next, these men, no doubt many of them, followed David because of his personal excellencies. They had heard of him--of what he was in his youth, what he had been at home, at court--and in the army and in the day of battle. He had behaved admirably everywhere and these warriors had heard of it. I should not wonder if some of them remembered that when he was a youth and ruddy, he came forth with his sling and stone and smote the giant foe of Israel on the forehead. Perhaps they had heard of all his mighty acts that he did when, as Saul's captain, he went in and out before the host and did valiantly in the name of the Most High. And when they heard of his gentleness, of his courtesy and of all the many virtues which adorned him, making him so greatly different from those leaders of free-looting bands who were so common in that land, I do not wonder if they enthusiastically gave themselves up to be the loyal followers of this David, the son of Jesse. A good soldier should have a good captain--a good captain deserves good soldiers. These men of war argued well when they enlisted under David. But how shall I commend the Lord Jesus Christ to you that are of a noble spirit? Was there ever any like He? Who among the good, the great, the brave, the beautiful can be likened unto Him? He left the courts of Heaven that He might save men! Love brought Him from Glory to be the Redeemer of His enemies! Being found in fashion as a Man, He gave Himself up to death, even the death of the Cross for love of men! All His life long he did valiantly for the Lord, His God! In all holiness and righteousness He defeated every temptation and overcame all evil! And He ended His labor by going up to the Cross to enter into personal duel with Death and Hell, therein overthrowing all the powers of evil on the behalf of His people! Oh, could I paint His face, and could you see it as it is beheld by the eyes of God, you would all be enamored of Him! Oh, could all men know how good He is, how gracious He is, as some of us know, even if they only went to that partial extent, surely no men would stand out, but the Prince Immanuel would win all hearts! All these young men and all the vast multitude who gather in this Tabernacle would gladly take up their cross and follow after Jesus at once, if they had any idea of His surpassing excellence! O my Soul, how would you rejoice if men would come at once to Jesus! Oh to hear you all say, "We, also, will be with Jesus in the day of His derision and His scorn--for we see what He is and there is none like He. He shall be our King and our Captain, for He is the chief among ten thousand and the altogether lovely." He, being such an One, and so worthy of the anointing which He has received of God, I, as His recruiting sergeant commend Him to everyone here! Oh, that you would all become His true followers at once! He deserves the love and loyalty of every one of you! If you would be safe and happy, come to my Lord, and be His servants! If you would fight a good fight, enlist beneath this glorious, "Captain of our salvation." There was a third reason why brave spirits resolved to enlist under David, and that was that he was so cruelly persecuted by Saul--so misrepresented and abused by his enemies. There are some cringing, fawning spirits in this world who must always go with the majority. What everybody says they say--they take their cue from those who lead the fashion of the hour. They ask leave of common custom to breathe or eat. They dare not swallow down their spit till they have obtained permission to do so. Cringing, fawning sycophants of all that is great and all that is fashionable, scarcely could a soul be found in them if they were searched through and through with a microscope! These will never come to David when he is in the hold, nor need he wish that they would. On the other hand, there are brave spirits who rather prefer to be in the minority. They do not even care it they have to stand alone for truth and righteousness! They could have ventured to say with Athanasius, "I, Athanasius, against the world," for they know the right and they cling to it. It is not to them a question whether the truth walks in silver slippers or whether she plods barefoot through the mire. It is the truth they care for--not the habiliments with which she may be adorned or disfigured. Such men took up David's side chivalrously because it was the right side and the despised side-- and they liked it, none the less, because so many spoke evil of it. Sadly true is it that the Lord Jesus Christ is still of so little account in this world. His name, ah, I am sick of the way in which they use His name today! Shame on some that are called Christian ministers! They believe in Christ, but it is a Christ without His crown, His Atonement, His Judgment Seat, or even His Godhead! They mock us with orthodox phrases, from which the essential Truth of God is gone. They pretend that they believe in the Atonement--and when we listen to their atonement we find that it does not effectually atone for anyone! It is a mere fiction and not a fact. It saves nobody--it is a mere sham. They have eviscerated the Gospel and then they hold up the empty carcasses and claim that they are still Christians! Christians who have murdered Christianity! Believers who doubt whether there is anything to be believed! Yet we are entreated in our charity to hug such traitors to our bosom! We shall do nothing of the kind! We would sooner believe in infidels outright than in those who pretend to be Christians and are infidels at heart. "Modern thought" is a more evil thing than downright atheism--even as a wolf in a sheep's skin is worse than a wolf in his natural form. There are pretty things said of our Lord Jesus by those who deny the faith which are sickening to me! I loathe to hear our true Lord praised by false lips! They deny the doctrines which He taught and yet make a great boast about believing Him. It is a shallow trick, but yet it deceives shallow souls. Poor, weak minds say, "The man speaks so beautifully of Jesus, surely he cannot be in error." I tell you it is the old Judas trick--the Son of Man is betrayed with a kiss! How nauseating their praises must be to Him whom they are betraying! Think not that they are honest--their designs are far other than appear upon the surface. They laud Him as Man that they may dishonor Him as God! They cry up His life and His example, that they may cast His atoning Sacrifice into the ditch. They lift up one part of the Divine Revelation with no other intention than that they may dash down the other! They crouch at His feet that they may stab at His heart! I avow myself, at this hour, the partisan of Christ, and of the whole truth of Christ in its old-fashioned form--the more old-fashioned the better for me. I am for Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever. I am for the Gospel of martyrs and confessors who gave their hearts' blood as the seal of their faith! New gospels and new theologies I abhor! I am for that same ancient Gospel which, today, is said to be absolutely defunct. Science has wiped out the evangelicals-- we are dead--we are gone. So they say of us. Yet in our graves we turn--even in our ashes live our routine fires--we expect a resurrection! The Truth of God may be crushed down, but it cannot be crushed out! If there survived but one lover of the Doctrines of Grace, he would suffice, by God's Spirit, to sow the world, again, with the Truths of our holy faith. The eternal Truth which Christ and His Apostles taught is not dead but sleeps! At a touch of the Lord's hand, she shall rise in all her ancient power and look round for her adversaries and they shall not be--yes, she shall diligently consider their place and they shall not be. Blessed are they who at this time are not afraid to be on the side that is ridiculed and laughed at! The Truths of God will have their turn and though they now grind the dust, they shall be at the top, before long, and they who are loyal to them shall share their fortunes. Let us be bold enough to say, "Put down my name among the fools who believe and not among those whose wisdom lies in doubting everything." God save us from the wisdom which believes in itself and give us more of the wisdom which believes in Him! Once more. These men came to David because they believed that David had a great future before him. He was very poor when they came to him. He was an exile--as we have said, an outlaw--one who could not return to his land because the king, himself, had a personal feud with him. But they said, "It does not yet appear what he shall be. This son of Jesse will be king, yet, and his enemies shall beg for their lives of him." So, looking to the great future that awaited him, they determined to take shares with him in his present low estate that they might be raised with him in his exaltation. Now, I think that I can say to everyone here, "I would that you would come over to David's side--to Jesus' side--for there is a future awaiting Him, a glory, a triumph, even here on earth, such as shall make those men gnash their teeth who throw away this opportunity of enlisting in His host." How will souls lament forever their neglect of joining themselves to Jesus! It shall be their everlasting regret that they lost the opportunity of standing straight out for truth, right and love, as they are seen in the Person of the Son of God. Oh, it will be an endless loss to have refused to stand upon the pillory of scorn and avow Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God and the Savior of men! "Behold He comes with clouds, and every eye shall see Him." Woe to those who pierced Him by refusing to believe in Him! The Lord shall reign forever and ever, and the shout of, "Hallelujah, hallelujah," shall come up from earth and descend from Heaven! He shall sit upon the Throne of His father, David, and of His kingdom there shall be no end! Who does not desire to be with Him and to behold His Glory? Cast in your lot with Him, then, O you undecided! Let His cause be as it may in the eyes of worldlings--espouse it at once right heartily--for they that are with Him in His humiliation shall be with Him in His triumph! Those are the reasons why, at this time, I stand here, and exhort, beg, beseech, entreat everyone among you to be on the side of Jesus Christ our Lord! Woe unto you if you turn your backs upon Him! Woe unto you if you attempt to be neutral! Woe unto you if you are lukewarm followers! Remember, he that is not with Him is against Him. He that takes not up his cross and follows not after Him is not worthy of Him and shall not be counted among His disciples! Oh, that this whole company here tonight were distinctly and avowedly, perfectly and continuously, on the side of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, the coming King! O my Friend, yonder, I speak to you, personally! I would to God that you would at once put on the livery of my Lord Jesus and become His sworn servant forever! II. Now, I have just a few words to say upon the second head. CAUTIOUS INQUIRY. These men of Benjamin and of Judah came to David and David met them as a warrior standing upon his guard. The times were not such as to allow a negligent confidence in all who professed friendship. The Benjamites were of the same tribe as Saul and it was singular that they should come and join with David, the rival of their own leader! The men of Judah belonged to the same tribe as those men of Keilah who had betrayed David--therefore the hero was cautious and made careful inquiry. Your Lord Jesus Christ is never so eager after disciples as to enroll those who cannot bear to be questioned! He did not go abroad sweeping up a heap of nominal followers who would increase His apparent strength and prove a real weakness to Him! He said to those who offered themselves, "Count the cost." "Lord, I will follow You wherever You go," says one. Jesus does not, then and there, enlist him, but calmly replies, "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has not where to lay His head." He wants followers, but He wants them to be of the right kind and, there- fore, He does not delude them and excite them to enter suddenly upon a course which they will, before long, renounce. He does not act as, I am afraid, the recruiting sergeant does when he tells the brave boys of all the glories they will enjoy and crosses their hands with a shilling, so that they may take Her Majesty's money and become her servants. The sergeant does not say much about the wounds of battle and the pains of hospitals--he does not dwell very long upon wooden legs, and broken arms, and lost eyes, and all that. No! He dwells on pleasure, victory, pension, glory! Our great Captain does not, in this manner, entrap allies, but He sets the worst part of His service first and bids men consider whether they will be able to carry out that which they propose to do. I would in this matter imitate my Lord--I have pressed you to come to His banner, but at the same time I would cautiously inquire of you. Now, see what David said to them. He set before them the right way. He said, "If you have come peaceably unto me to help me, my heart shall be knit unto you." If you wish to join with Christ's people and have your name numbered with them, one main question is--Do you come unto Him? Do you first give yourselves to the Lord and afterwards unto His people? "If you have come unto me," says David. It would have been useless for them to answer, "We have come because we are fond of some of the people that are with you." "No," he says, "if you have come to me, then my heart shall be knit to you. No way else." Do you come to Christ, dear Friend? Are you sure that Jesus is your Leader? Do not profess to be a Christian if you have not come to Christ, for Christ is the soul of Christianity! To come to Christ is this--confessing your sin, looking to Him as the Sin-Bearer, trusting Him with your future--trusting Him with your soul altogether. By a sincere, simple, undivided faith, you really come to Jesus--have you such a faith? Let Jesus Christ be first and last with you! Take Him to be your Savior altogether! Do not be your own Savior even in part! Let Him save you from beginning to end, from top to bottom, in all ways and respects. If it is so, come along with you, for our host will be glad to have its number increased by your coming! If you do not thus come to our Lord, pray do not come to us, for you will neither do good, nor get good thereby. Then David puts the question, "If you have come peaceably unto me," and this was necessary, for some are critical and quarrelsome. Some profess to come to Christ, but they quarrel with Christ at the very first. They would make terms with Him and they come intending to dispute with His people. From the first they are discontented and fault-finding, rather patronizing Christ and His cause than humbly uniting with Him and His people. They do not think half as much of God's people as God thinks of them. When I hear people say, "Oh, there is So-and-So, who is not what he ought to be, and he is a member of the Church," and then they begin finding fault with this and with that, I say to myself, "That critic is no true friend." The Church is not perfect, but woe to the man who finds pleasure in pointing out her imperfections! Christ loved His Church, and let us do the same. I have no doubt that the Lord can see more fault in His Church than I can. And I have equal confidence that He sees no fault at all, because He covers her faults with His own love--that love which hides a multitude of sins--and He removes all her defilement with that precious blood which washes away all the transgressions of His people! I dare not find fault with those whom the Lord has loved from before the foundation of the world! More especially since I find that I need all my time to find out my own faults and to get rid of them. If you are a faultless man, I do not ask you to join the Christian Church, because I am sure that you would not find anybody else there like yourself. It is true that if you do not join a Church till you find a perfect one you will not be a Church member this side of Heaven, but I may add, that if there were such a Church, the moment your name was written in the list it would leave off being a perfect Church, for your presence would have destroyed its perfection! If you are coming to pick holes, and quiz, and question, and find fault, and talk about inconsistencies and so forth, then you may pass on and join some other army. But if you have come peaceably to our Lord and to us, then I offer you a hearty welcome. We are not anxious to enlist men who love to have the pre-eminence, nor men of fierce temper, nor unforgiving spirits, nor proud, envious, lovers of strife--we want only those who have the mind of Christ! Come peaceably, or come not at all. Again, David puts the question, "If you have come peaceably to me to help me." Mind this and mark it well--they that join with Christ must join in His battles, join in His labors, join in His self-sacrifice. We must come to His Church not only to be helped, but to help. It is of no use your entering the army if you do not mean to fight. And it is of no use your uniting with the host of God unless you mean to take your share in the holy warfare. Many forget this and look upon a religious life as one of sanctified selfishness. A great many stop the Gospel plow. "Stop!" they say, "stop!" They want to ride on one of the horses. Yes, but the plowman has no opinion of such friends. Let them lead the horses or hold the plow handles, or do something--or else let them stay away. Of course, I do not mean the sick and faint--but all fit for war must go to the war. There is something for every Church member to do as well as to receive. They that join the Church of Christ must come to pull as well as to be pulled--come to work as well as to eat--and usually the rule is true in Christ's house as it ought to be in everybody else's, "He that will not work, neither shall he eat." They that do not labor in the cause of Christ will very soon find that they are not fed in the house of God. Why should they be? I count it no office of mine to carry bread and meat to sluggards and lie-a-beds--I would sooner feed swine! They who never do a hand's turn among us ought to be turned out from us. If you have come peaceably to help us, then I speak for my Captain and bid you welcome! But if you do not mean real service, please march on. There are the three questions, then. Do you come to Christ and accept Him? If so, come along! Do you come with a desire to maintain peace among your Christian Brothers and Sisters? If so, come! Do you come with the intent of helping the Lord Jesus Christ to spread abroad His Truth? Then come, and welcome, and the Lord be with you and with us! Do you know what Jesus says to you who come to Him aright? "My heart shall be knit unto you." Oh, I think that if I had been Amasai, I should have felt the spirit come upon me to speak just as Amasai did when he so heartily declared that he and his brothers came to join heart and soul with David! With all that loving warmth which was so natural to him, David said, "My heart shall be knit to you." Now when the Lord Jesus Christ says, "Will you espouse My cause? Will you accept Me for your Leader? Will you come and join with My people? Then My heart shall be knit unto you"--do not your hearts leap within you? What a charming promise it is! What union of soul it sets forth! I do not know much about knitting, but some of you do. Things knit together are not merely joined in one, but they are one. They are not merely sewn together by a machine, so that you can draw out a thread and the pieces divide, but they are knit together and are of one piece, one fabric, one substance. Come, then, you truly faithful--you shall be knit together with Christ! His heart with your heart! You shall never be separated from Him any more. It is a great thing when the hearts of God's people are knit together--but the greatest of all--when their hearts are knit with Christ's heart and His heart is knit with theirs! Come here, you true-hearted--cast in your lot with your Lord! Is it not reward enough for coming into His host that His heart shall be knit to you? I count this my Heaven upon earth, to have my Lord's love! Do you not agree with me? Notice how David put the other side of it, and set before them the wrong way--"But if you have come to betray me to my enemies, seeing there is no wrong in my hands, the God of our fathers look thereon, and rebuke it." Will persons ever join the Church to betray the Lord Christ to His enemies? I say not that such is their present purpose, but a great many have acted as if it were--from the beginning the were traitors to Him and to His Truth! They have come into the Church and yet they have betrayed Christ to His enemies! Yes, they have been aided in their treachery by having been admitted within our ranks. Some have done this by giving up the Doctrines of the Gospel. Falling into this error and that, they have denied the Gospel, overthrown the weak and shaken the strong. Some have proved themselves the enemies of the Cross of Christ by their inconsistent lives. People have pointed at them and said, "Those are followers of Christ, you see. They can lie, cheat and get gain as the basest rogues do." They say that they are Christians and yet you cannot trust them in trade. They are just as worldly and false as if they were not Christians at all. Why, then I suspect that they are not Christians at all, but, like Judas Iscariot, they are children of perdition! Then there are some in all ages who betray the Lord Jesus by apostasy. They run well, for a time, and then they are hindered. Being armed and carrying bows, they turn back in the day of battle! They are trees twice dead, plucked up by the roots. Such sorrowful heart-breaking cases occur in all churches, where men come to the very front and appear to do great service for Christ--and yet forsake Him, and walk no more with His people, nor in His ways--even denying that they ever were associated with Him and with His cause. They open His wounds! They put Him to an open shame! Woe unto them! Sorrowfully, yet sternly, I say, if there should be one here who will, in some future day, willfully betray the Savior on any account whatever--the Lord have mercy upon such and prevent his joining with our Church lest we be overwhelmed with shame and sorrow! True-hearted men, we invite you! Half-hearted, fickle men, we would avoid you! Yet such do come and will come--and what can we say of them? "The God of our fathers look thereon and rebuke them"--yes, rebuke them so as to prevent them--that they may not be as thorns in our side. III. But time fails me and, therefore, I must finish up, thirdly, by describing from the text A CORDIAL ENLISTMENT. The captain of these brave men felt the Spirit come upon him and he spoke up as warmheartedly as David had spoken, saying, "Yours are we David, and on your side, you son of Jesse: peace, peace, be unto you, and peace be to your helpers; for your God helps you." He began thus--"Yours are we, David." Now, that is the first thing I want of those who are going to join the Church--"Yours are we, Jesus! We are not our own; we are bought with a price." Well may that man avow himself to belong to Christ who has been bought with the blood of Christ! "For you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ." Now, if you are, indeed, redeemed by Him, I pray you confess that you are altogether and absolutely your Lord's. Sing with your whole heart-- "All that Iam, and all I have Shall be forever Yours." Don't only sing it, but practice it! Let your lives say--"Yours are we, Jesus. Neither count we anything that we possess to be our own; but all is dedicated to Your royal use." Then Amasai added, "and on your side, you son of Jesse," for, if we belong to Christ, of course we are on Christ's side, whatever that side may be! In religion, morals, politics--we are on Christ's side. Here is the side of the learned. There is the side of the ignorant. We are on neither the one, nor the other-- we are on Christ's side! In every political question we desire to be and ought to be on Christ's side--we are neither of this party nor of that, but on the side of justice, peace, righteousness! In every moral question we are bound to be on Christ's side. In every religious question we are not on the side of predominant thought, nor on the side of fashionable views, nor on the side of lucre, but on the side of Christ! Make this your slogan--"What would Jesus do?" Go and do that. "How would Jesus think?" Go and think that. "What would Jesus have me to be?" Ask God to make you just that. "Yours are we, David, and on your side, you son of Jesse." Then he added, "Peace be to you." "Peace, peace, be to you." Double peace to you! So say we to our Lord Jesus Christ--our heart salutes Him and invokes peace upon Him! Blessed Master, we are at peace with You so completely as to be at one with You. What You say we believe. What You do we admire. What You command we obey. What You claim we resign. What You forbid we forego. We yield ourselves up to You wholly and are at perfect peace with You in all Your purposes, designs, and acts. Peace, peace, to You. "And peace be to your helpers." We desire all good for all good men! We pray for the peace of the peaceful! The day that we were converted, we felt that we loved every Christian. I used to say of the little village where I first preached, that I had such an attachment to every inhabitant in it that if I had seen a dog that came from Waterbeach I would have given him a bone! Do you not feel the same towards all the Lord's people? The proverb has it, "Love me, love my dog." And when you love Christ, you love the very lowest of His people. Yes, if Jesus had a dog, you would love that dog for Christ's sake! I am sure that it is so. When a man is always quibbling, I fear he has not the spirit of Christ, and is none of His. We know some people who might be compared to porcupines--they cannot be touched by anybody--they are all spines and prickles. Such people may think well of themselves, but it is to be feared that the loving Jesus does not think well of them. The man with a hot head and a bitter heart, is he a friend of Jesus? I cannot imagine that such a head as that will lie in Jesus Christ's bosom! Oh, no, dear Friends--he that loves is born of God, but not the man of hate and spite! Give me the eyes of the dove and not those of a carrion crow. When the dove soars aloft into the air, what does she look for? Why, for her dovecote! And when she discovers the beloved abode, she uses her wings with lightning speed, for there is her delight. If you were to throw a raven or a carrion crow into the air, it would be looking for something foul which it could feed upon--and there are men and women in every Christian Church who are always trying with far-reaching and greatly-magnifying eyes to find out some wretched scandal or another. If you want to go to your bed uncomfortable and to lie awake all night, if you are a pastor of a Church, have a few minutes' talk with a friend of this order! These are the folks who have just sniffed out a matter that ought to be inquired into. When it is inquired into, there is nothing to discover, and great heartburning is caused in the process of investigation. These same scandalmongers will have something fresh tomorrow morning to keep their dear tongues going. May we be favored with very few of these irritating beings. May those that come among us always be those that can say, "Peace be to your helpers." Whatever helps Christ, I wish to help. Wherever I see anything of Christ, there my heart shall rest. Oh, to have a large increase to this Church and all the Churches of hearty, loving, peacemaking people! The last word that they said to David was, "For your God helps you." And I shall keep that last sentence very much to myself--I want to feed upon it as my portion of meat! You must not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treads out the corn--and I am that ox at this time. "Your God helps you." How I do rejoice to think that God is helping the Great Son of David! All the powers of the God of Nature and Providence are working to aid the Lord of Grace! The stars in their courses are fighting for our Immanuel! Everything is being overruled for the advance of Christ's Kingdom. We are all on edge as to the Sudan and Egypt--but could we see all things, we would rejoice! None of us know what is coming. I am no Prophet, nor the son of a Prophet, but I venture to foretell that mountains will be leveled for the coming of our Lord even by calamities and disasters! There will be a speedier dissolution of the empire of the false Prophet and of the false Prophet's imitator because of all this mixing up of the west and the east in an unwilling conjunction. I say not how or when, but the Lord's purpose shall stand and He will do all His pleasure! When the ocean roars at its utmost fury, the Lord puts a bit into the mouth of the tempest and reins up the storm. Jehovah makes a way for Himself amid the tumult of great waters. When confusion and uproar predominate everywhere and old chaos seems to be coming back, again--all this is but a phase of unbroken order! How swift and sure are the revolutions of the wheels which are bringing nearer the chariot of the Son of God! Cast in your lot with "the Leader and Commander of the people," who has God with Him! It is the glory of Christ's cause that the Lord God is involved in it. Mr. Wesley's dying words were, "The best of all is, God is with us!" As I repeat the Truth of God, my heart cries, "Hallelujah! Blessed be the name of the Lord!" The Lord Your God helps You, O Christ of God! The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in Your hands. You must reign--Your Father swears it to You! You shall divide a portion with the great and You shall share the spoil with the strong, for You have given up your soul unto death and permitted Your Glory to be rolled in the dust--and You have risen and gone into Glory--therefore You must reign! O Anointed of the Lord, Your Throne shall endure forever! Tonight Your servants salute You again, You Son of David! Wounded Christ, we lay our fingers in the print of the nails and say, "My Lord and my God!" Risen Christ, we look upward as the heavens receive You, and we adore! Ascended Christ, we fall at Your dear feet, and say, "Yours are we, O Son of David, anointed to be a Prince and a Savior." Coming Christ, we wait and watch for Your appearing! Come quickly to Your own! Amen and amen! __________________________________________________________________ Putting the Hand Upon the Head of the Sacrifice (No. 1771) A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 16, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. And he shall kill the bullock before the LORD." Leviticus 1:4, 5. No doubt there are clear distinctions in the teaching of the burnt offering, the meat offering, the peace offering and the sin offering. In those various sacrifices we have views of our Lord's atoning work taken from different standpoints. On another occasion it will be profitable to note these delightful lessons and lay them to heart, but at this time I am not about to enter into such matters. These instructive distinctions are the special property of those who by reason of years have had their senses exercised and, therefore, can discern not only the great work of our Lord, but the details of it. I am not sufficiently strong in mind at this time to bring forth "butter in a lordly dish" for men of robust constitution, but I must be content to serve the little ones with a cup of milk. I cannot carry the great cluster from Eshcol and, therefore, I will bring you a few grapes in my trembling hands. I desire to preach, this morning, so that I may fulfill the prayer of a little boy who, one Saturday evening before he went to bed, said in his prayers, "Lord, grant that our minister may say something tomorrow that I may understand." I am very sorry that such a prayer should ever be necessary, but I am afraid it is not only necessary for children, but sometimes for grownup people to pray, "Lord, help our minister to say something that we can understand and that is worth understanding." Some of my Brothers appear to dwell on high Olympus among the clouds--it were better if they lived on Calvary. Little dew comes from the dark mountains of intellectual dreaminess--far more refreshing drops are found upon Mount Hermon of the Gospel! I feel like Dr. Guthrie when he desired those around him to sing him a child's hymn--I would like to be a little child in preaching to you. Simple things are the most sublime and, to a sick man, the most sweet. I wish to be plain as a pikestaff in setting forth the way of expiation by the death of Jesus. I also have a reason for preaching foundation Truth of God today which, to myself is serious, though you may smile at it. It is this--if I have but few shots to fire, I should like each time to hit the center of the target, that is to say, if I may only speak to you once, today, after having been laid aside for three weeks, I desire to speak only upon topics which touch the vitals of godliness. I would plunge into the heart of the matter and deal with the essence and soul of true religion! There are some things that may be or may not be and yet no great evil will come either way. But there are other things that must be, or all goes wrong! Of these "must-bes" I would now speak. Some things are important for the well-being of Christians, but certain other things are absolutely essential to the very being of Christians--and it is upon these urgent necessaries that I shall now speak--namely, concerning the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and our faith in it. These two things are of the highest importance and they cannot too often be brought before our minds. Two matters were essential in the sacrifices of the Ceremonial Law and you have them both in our text--"He shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering," and, "he shall kill the bullock before the Lord." The appropriation by the offerer and the death of the offering are most fitly joined together and must, neither of them, be overlooked. For our immediate objective, there was no need to have taken our present text, for there are many others of the same effect. Look at Leviticus 3:2--"And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the tabernacle." Glance at the 8th verse--"And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it before the tabernacle." Turn to chapter 4, verse 4, the second clause of the verse--"He shall lay his hand upon the bullock's head, and kill the bullock before the Lord." Also at the 15th verse--"And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands upon the head of the bullock before the Lord: and the bullock shall be killed before the Lord." To the same effect is the 24th verse--"And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the goat, and kill it in the place where they kill the burnt offering." All through the Book of Leviticus, the laying on of the hand and the killing of the victim are mentioned in immediate connection. These are, each of them, so important and so full of meaning that we must have a sermon upon each of them. Let us, on the present occasion, look at THE LEADING ACT OF THE OFFERER--"He shall lay his hand upon the head of the burnt offering." All that goes before is important, but this is the real sacrificial act so far as the offerer is concerned. Before he reached this point, the person who presented the offering had to make a selection of the animal to be brought before the Lord. It must be of a certain age and it must be without blemish--and for this latter reason a careful examination had to be made--for the Lord would not accept a sacrifice that was lame, or broken, or bruised, or deficient in any of its parts or in any way blemished. He required an offering "without spot." Now I invite all those who seek reconciliation with God to look about them and consider whether the Lord Jesus Christ is such an atoning Sacrifice as they need and as God will accept. If you know of any other atonement for sin, examine it well, and I am persuaded that you will find many a fault and flaw in it. But concerning the Lamb of God, I have no question--you may search, but you shall find no blemish in Him. If there were any fault in Him, either of excess or deficiency, you might well refuse Him! But since there is nothing of the kind, I pray you joyfully accept Him at once. Come, now, and look at the Lord Jesus Christ--both at His Godhead and His Manhood; at His life and His death, His acts and His sufferings--and see if there is any iniquity in Him. He knew no sin--He had no acquaintance or dealing with it! "He was holy, harmless, undefiled." After you have well examined His blessed Person and His spotless Character, if you arrive at the conclusion that He is a fit and acceptable Sacrifice for you to present before the Lord, then I long that you may take the much more practical step and accept the Lord Jesus to be your Representative, your Sin Offering, your Burnt Offering, your Substitute and your Sacrifice. I long that every unsaved person here may, at once, receive the Lord Jesus as his Atonement, for this is the main part of that which the sinner must do in order to be cleansed from sin and accepted by God! Happily you have not to find a sacrifice as the Jew had to supply a bullock--God has provided Himself with a perfect Sacrifice! That which you have to bring to God, God first brings to you! Happily, there is no need for you to repeat the examination through which the Lord Jesus passed both at the hands of men, of devils and of God, when He was tested and tried and examined, and even the Prince of this world found nothing of his own in Him! You have to attend to this one thing, namely, the laying ofyour hands upon the Sacrifice provided for you. To the Jew it was a sacrifice to be slain. To you it is a sacrifice already offered--and this you are to accept and recognize as your own. It is not a hard duty! You sang of it just now-- "My faith does lay her hand On that dear head of Yours. While like a penitent I stand, And there confess my sin." If you have already attended to this, do so again this morning! If you have never done so, I pray from my inmost soul that you may immediately do that which was meant by laying the hand upon the victim's head. I. To our work, then, at once. What did that mean? It meant four things and the first was, CONFESSION. He that laid his hand upon the head of the offering made confession of sin. I do not care what offering it was that was brought by a believing Israelite--there was always a mention of sin in it, either implied or expressed. "But," says one, "the burnt offering was a sweet-savor offering! How could there be any reference to iniquity therein?" I know that the burnt offering was a sacrifice of sweet smell and that it sets forth our Lord as accepted of the Father. But let me ask you, Why did the Israelite bring a sweet-savor offering? It was because he felt that in and of himself, he was not a sweet savor unto God, for if he had been so, he would not have needed to have brought another sweet savor! When I accept the Lord Jesus to be my righteousness, it is a confession of sin, for I should not need His righteousness if I had any of my own. The very fact of presenting a sacrifice at all contains within it a confession of the need of a sacrifice, which is the confession of personal shortcomings and a need of personal acceptableness. This is true of the burnt offering, but in other sacrifices--especially in the trespass offering--where the hands were laid upon the victim's head, the offerer was charged to "confess that he has sinned in that thing" wherein he had trespassed. There was a detailed confes- sion of sin joined with the laying on of hands in the case of the scapegoat. Let us read the passage in Leviticus 16:21-- "And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness." See, then, that if you would have Him to be your Atonement, whom God has appointed to be His Sacrifice, you must come to Him confessing your sin! Your touch of Jesus must be the touch of one who is consciously guilty. He belongs not to you unless you are a sinner. Ah, Lord, confession of sin is no hard duty to some of us, for we can do no other than acknowledge and bemoan our guilt! Here we stand before You, self-condemned--and with aching hearts we each one cry, "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your loving kindness." Do any of you refuse to make confession of guilt? Then, do not think it hard if, since according to your own proud notions you are not sinners, the Lord should provide you no Savior! Should medicine be prepared for those who are not sick? Why should the righteous be invited to partake of pardon? Why should a righteousness be provided for the innocent? You are the rich and you are sent away empty--the hungry shall be filled with good things. Go away, you that say, "I am clean; I am not defiled." I tell you that you have no part in the great Sacrifice for sin! For the blackest sinner out of Hell that will confess his sin, there is mercy--but there is none for you--your pride excludes you from pity! It bars the gate of hope against you. You sprinkle the blood of the lamb upon the threshold and trample on it in your arrogant self-conceit by making yourself out to have no need of its cleansing power! O self-righteous man, you make God out to be a fool since He gave His only-begotten Son to die, when, according to you there was no necessity for His death! In your case, at any rate, there is no need of a sacrifice by blood, no need of an Atonement through the Son of God laying down His life for men. By your refusal to trust in the Lord Jesus you charge God with folly and, therefore, into His holy place, where His glory shines forth in its excellence, you can never come! Many of us come most readily, at this time, and lay our hand upon the head of the appointed Sacrifice, even our Lord Jesus Christ, because we have sin to confess and we feel that we need a Savior, even a Savior for the guilty! We are unworthy and undeserving. We dare not say otherwise! The stones of the street would cry out against us if we should say that we have no sin! The beams of every chamber in our house would upbraid us if we dared to assert that we are without transgressions! Our true place is that of sinners--we plead guilty to the dread indictment of God's holy Law and, therefore, we are glad to lay our hand upon the head of the sinner's Savior and Sacrifice. In this act there was also a confession of self-impotence. The Believer who brought the bullock did as good as say, "I cannot, of myself, keep the Law of God, or make atonement for my past breaches of the Commandments. Neither can I hope, through future obedience, to become acceptable with God. Therefore I bring this sacrifice because I, myself, cannot become acceptable without it." This is a Truth of God which you and I must also confess if we would be partakers of Christ and become "accepted in the Beloved." Oh, Brothers and Sisters, what can we do without Christ? I like what was said by a child in Sunday school, when the teacher said, "You have been reading that Christ is precious: what does that mean?" The children were quiet a little while, till, at last, one boy replied, "Father said the other day that Mother was precious, for 'whatever would we do without her?'" This is a capital explanation of the word, "precious." You and I can truly say of the Lord Jesus Christ that He is precious to us, for what would we do, what could we do without Him? We come and take Him, now, to be ours because if He is not ours, we are utterly undone! I, for one, am lost forever if Jesus cannot save. There is, in us, no merit and no streng-th--but in the Lord Jesus Christ we find both righteousness and strength--and we accept Him, this day, for that reason. Because we are so deeply conscious of our own self-impotence, we lean hard upon His All-Sufficiency. If you could read the text in the Hebrew, you would find it runs thus--"He shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make a cover for him"--to make atonement for him. The word is copher in the Hebrew--a cover. Why, then, do we hide behind the Lord Jesus? Because we feel our need of something to cover us and to act is an interposition between us and the righteous Judge of all the earth! If the Holy One of Israel shall look upon us as we are, He would be displeased. But when He sees us in Christ Jesus, He is well pleased for His Righteousness' sake. When the Lord looks this way, we hide behind the veil, and the eyes of the Lord behold the exceeding glories of the veil, to wit, the Person of His own dear Son! And He is so pleased with the cover that He refuses to remember the defilement and deformity of those whom it covers! God will never strike a soul through the veil of His Son's Sacrifice. He accepts us because He cannot but accept His Son, who has become our covering! With regard to God, when I am a conscious sinner, I long to hide away from Him and lo, the Lord Jesus is our shield and hiding place--the cover, the Sacred Atonement within which we conceal ourselves from Justice. Even the all-seeing eyes of God see no sin in a sinner that is hidden in Christ! Oh, what a blessing it is, dear Friends, when our sense of self-impotence is so great that we have no desire to make a show of ourselves, but, on the contrary, long to be out of sight and, therefore, we enter into Christ to be hidden in Him, covered in the Sacrifice which God has prepared! That is the second confession, and thus we have a confession of sin and of need of covering. There was a further confession of the desert of punishment. When a man brought his bullock, or his goat, or his lamb, he put his hand on it and as he knew that the poor creature must die, he thus acknowledged that he, himself, deserved death. The victim fell in the dust, struggling, bleeding, dying. The offerer confessed that this was what he deserved. He acknowledged that death from the Almighty hand was due to him. And oh, when a man comes to that--when he acknowledges that God will be justified when He speaks in anger, and clear when He judges and pronounces sentence in justice--when he confesses that he cannot deliver himself, but has so sinned as to deserve to be cursed of God and judged to feel the horrors of the second death, then is he brought into a condition in which the great Sacrifice will be precious to him! Then will he lean hard upon Christ and, with broken heart, acknowledge that the chastisement which fell upon Jesus was such as he deserved and he will be amazed that he has not been called upon to bear it! For my own part, I deserve eternal damnation, but I trust in the Lord Jesus and believe that He was punished in my place. "The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed." If you can thus confess sin and bare your neck to punishment--and then lay hold upon the Lord Jesus--you are a saved man! Can your heart truly confess, "I am guilty. I cannot save myself. I deserve to be cast into the deepest Hell, but I now take Jesus to stand in my place"? Then be of good cheer, "Your faith has saved you: go in peace!" May the Spirit of God bless this first point! II. Secondly, the laying on of hands meant ACCEPTANCE. The offerer, by laying his hand upon the victim's head, signified that he acknowledged the offering to be for himself. He accepted, first of all, the principle and the plan. Far too many kick against the idea of our being saved by substitution or representation. Why do they rebel against it? For my part, if God will but graciously save me in any way, I will be far enough from raising any objection! Why should I complain of that which is to deliver me from destruction? If the Lord does not object to the way, why should I? Moreover, as to this salvation by the merit of another, I remember that my first ruin did not come by myself. I am not speaking to excuse my personal sin, but yet it is true that I was ruined before I committed any actual sin by the disobedience of the first father of the race who was my representative. How this was just, I do not know, but I am sure it must be right, or God would not so reveal it. In Adam we fell--"By one man's disobedience many were made sinners" (Rom. 5:19). If, then, the Fall began by the sin of another, why should not our rising be caused by the righteousness and the atonement of another? What says the Apostle? "For if through the offense of one, many are dead, much more the Grace of God, and the gift by Grace, which is by one Man, Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many." At any rate, it is not for you and for me to raise objections against ourselves, but to feel that if God sees that this is a proper way of salvation, He knows best and we cheerfully accept what He approves! Who is there among you that will not do so? God grant that no one may hold out against a method of Grace so simple, so sure, so available! But then, remember. After you have accepted the plan and the way, you must not stop there, but you must go on to accept the Sacred Person whom God provides. It would have been a very foolish thing if the offerer had stood at the altar and said, "Good Lord, I accept the plan of sacrifice--be it burnt offering or sin offering--I agree thereto." He did much more than that! He accepted that very bullock as his offering and, in token thereof, placed his hand upon it! I pray you beware of resting satisfied with understanding and approving the plan of salvation. I heard of one who anxiously desired to be the means of the conversion of a young man and one said to him, "You may go to him and talk to him, but you will get him no further, for he is exceedingly well acquainted with the plan of salvation." When the friend began to speak with the young man, he received for an answer, "I am much obliged to you, but I do not know that you can tell me much, for I have long known and admired the plan of salvation by the Substitutionary Sacrifice of Christ." Alas, he was resting in the plan, but he had not believed in the Person! The plan of salvation is most blessed, but it can avail us nothing unless we believe! What is the comfort of a plan of a house if you do not enter the house, itself? What is the good of a plan of clothing if you have not a rag to cover you? Have you never heard of the Arab chief at Cairo who was very ill and went to the missionary, and the missionary said he could give him a prescription? He did so and a week later, he found the Arab none the better. "Did you take my prescription?" he asked. "Yes, I ate every morsel of the paper." He dreamed that he was going to be cured by the plan of the medicine! He should have gone to the chemist and had the prescription filled--and then it might have worked him some good. So is it with salvation--it is not the plan--it is the carrying out of that plan by the Lord Jesus in His death on our behalf! The offerer laid his hands, literally, upon the bullock. He found something substantial there, something which he could handle and touch. Even so do we lean upon the real and true work of Jesus, the most substantial thing under Heaven! Brothers and Sisters, we come to the Lord Jesus by faith and say, "God has provided an Atonement, here, and I accept it. I believe it to be a fact accomplished on the Cross that sin was put away by Christ and, therefore, I rest on Him." Yes, you must get beyond the acceptance ofplans and doctrines to a resting in the Divine Person and finished work of the blessed Lord Jesus Christ--and a casting of yourself entirely upon Him. III. But thirdly, this laying of the hand upon the sacrifice meant not only acceptance, but also TRANSFERENCE. The offerer had confessed his sin and had accepted the victim presented to be his sacrifice and now he mentally realizes that his guilt is, by Divine appointment, to pass over from himself to the sacrifice. Of course this was only done in type and figure at the door of the Tabernacle. But in our case, the Lord Jesus Christ, as a matter of literal fact, has borne the sin of His people. "The Lord has made to meet on Him the iniquity of us all." "Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree." "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." But do we, by faith, pass our sins from ourselves to Christ? I answer, No. In some senses, no. But by faith he that accepts Christ as his Savior agrees with what the Lord did ages ago, for we read in the Book of Isaiah the Prophet, "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." That was Jehovah's own act in the ages past--and it was complete when Jesus stood as the great Sin-Bearer and redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us. All the transgressions of His people were laid on Him when He poured out His soul unto death and, "was numbered with the transgressors, and bore the sin of many." Then and there He expiated all the guilt of all His people, for He, "finished transgression, made an end of sin and brought in everlasting righteousness." By His death He cast the whole tremendous load of human guilt, which was laid upon Him, into the depth of the sea, never to be found again! When we believe in Him, we agree to what the Lord has done and we may sing-- "I lay my sins on Jesus The spotless Lamb of God. He bears them all and frees us From the accursed load." There are two ruling religions around us in this day, and they mainly differ in tense. The general religion of mankind is "Do," but the religion of a true Christian is, "Done." "It is finished" is the Believer's conquering word! Christ has made Atonement and we accept it as done. So in that respect we lay our sins on Jesus, the holy Lamb of God, because we set our humble seal to that grand transaction which was the confirming of the Covenant of old. The laying of the hand upon the head of the sacrifice meant a transference of guilt to the victim and, furthermore, a confidence in the efficacy of the sacrifice then and there presented. The believing Jew said, "This bullock represents to me the sacrifice which God has provided and I rejoice in it because it is the symbol of a sacrifice which does, in very deed, take away sin." Brothers and Sisters, there are a great number of people who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, after a fashion, but it is not in deed and in truth, for they do not believe in the actual pardon of their own sin! They hope that they may one day be forgiven, but they have no confidence that the Lord Jesus has already put away their sin by His death. "I am a great sinner," says one, "therefore, I cannot be saved." Man alive, did Christ die for those who are not sinners?! What was the need of a Savior except for sinners? Has Jesus actually borne sin, or has He not? If He has borne our sin, it is gone! If He has not borne it, our sin will never depart. What does the Scripture say? "He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." If, then, Christ took the sinner's sin, it remains not upon the sinner that believes! Assuredly, you, my Hearer, if you are a Believer, cannot have sin if Jesus has taken it away! You are made clean in the sight of God because your uncleanness has been washed away in the blood of the Great Sacrifice! Can't you see this way of salvation? If you see it, will you not accept it now? Do you not already feel a joy springing up within your soul that there should be such a blessed way of deliverance? At any rate, I tell you where I stand today--I stand guilty and without a hope in anything I have ever done or ever hope to do! But I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ bore my sin in His own body on the Cross and I am, at this moment, putting my hands on Him in the sense in which the Hebrew has it, leaning all my weight upon Him! If Jesus cannot save me, I must be damned, for I cannot help Him, neither can I see anyone else who can do so much as a hand's turn in that direction! If there is not virtue enough in the blood of Jesus to cleanse me from all sin, then I must die in my sins! And if there is not sufficient merit in His Righteousness to save me apart from any righteousness of my own, then I am a castaway, a spirit shipwrecked on the ironbound coast of despair! But I have no fears, for I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him until that day! Now I pray you, dear people of God, to lean on Jesus and keep on leaning on Him. Oh, that you who as yet do not know Jesus may be brought to touch Him by faith and to lean upon Him by full reliance! In times of sharp pain, or great depression of spirit, or in seasons when death is near, you are forced to look around you to see where your foundation is, and what it is and, believe me, there is no groundwork that can bear the weight of a guilty conscience and a trembling, tortured body, except this foundation--"the precious blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin." Jesus is the Atonement-- He is the Covering--the Refuge! In fact, He is our All in All! IV. Once more, this laying of the hand upon the head of the victim meant IDENTIFICATION. The worshipper who laid his hand on the bullock said, "Be pleased, O great Lord, to identify me with this bullock, and this bullock with me. There has been a transferring of my sin, now I beseech You let me be judged as being in the victim, and represented thereby." Now consider that which happened to the sacrifice. The knife was unsheathed and the victim was slain! He was not merely bound, but killed--and the man stood there and said, "That is me, that is the fate which I deserve." The poor creature struggled, it wallowed in the sand in its dying agonies--and if the worshipper was a right-minded person and not a mere formalist--he stood with tears in his eyes and felt in his heart, "That death is mine." I beseech you, when you think of our blessed Lord, to identify yourselves with Him! See the bloody sweat trickling down His face? That is for you. He groans, He cries! For you. Your sins deserved that you should sweat great drops of blood, but Jesus sweats, instead. The Lord is taken prisoner and scourged. Look how the red streams of gore flow down those blessed shoulders! He bears the chastisement of our peace. He is nailed to the Cross and we are crucified with Him. By-and-by He dies. And we die in Him--"We thus judge that if One died for all, then all died." Believer, you died there in Christ! When your Substitute rendered to the Law of God, the penalty which it demanded, you virtually rendered it! "The soul that sins, it shall die," and you have died, Believer! You have paid the debt in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ whom, by the laying on of your hands, you have accepted to be your Substitute! You know that story--it is a capital one, well worth telling a thousand times! In the great French War a person was drawn for a conscript but as he could not leave his family, he paid a very heavy sum for a substitute. That substitute went to the war and was killed. After a time, Napoleon called out the rest of the conscription and the man was summoned because he had been formerly drawn, but he refused to serve. He said, "No, by my substitute I have served, and I am dead and buried--I cannot be made to serve again." It is said that the question was carried up to the highest court and laid before the Emperor, himself, and the Emperor decided that the man's claim of exemption was a just one. He had fulfilled the conscription by a substitute and that substitute had served for life. Therefore he could not be called upon to do more and, therefore, the person for whom he was the substitute could not further be summoned under that conscription. This sets forth our joy and glory! We are identified with Christ; we are crucified with Him; buried with Him and in Him raised to newness of life! "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live." "You are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." It ought to be remembered that we were identified with Christ in His passing under the wrath of God as a Sin Offering. If you read in this Book, you will find that the sin offering was burnt outside the camp as an unclean thing--and so you and I were put outside the camp long years ago as an unclean thing! That is over, now, and we are, at this hour, no more cast out from the sight of God than Jesus is! The burnt offering was consumed upon the altar as a sweet savor unto God and in this, also, we are identified with Christ. We are now a sweet savor unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord. We are accepted in the Beloved. We are joined unto the Lord and there is no separating our interests from His, nor His from ours. Who shall separate us from the Christ of God forever and ever? That is what the laying on of hands upon the beast meant. I trust, dear Friends, you have known all this for years and, if not, may you know it now. If the Lord will enable me, I intend to enter into the second part of my text next Lord's-Day morning, and for this time it will suffice for me to drive this one nail home. Oh, that the Spirit of God would fasten it in a sure place in your hearts! My soul's yearning desire is that each one of you may come, at once, and lay your hands on Christ by confession, acceptance, transference and identification. Nothing short of such an act will suffice to give you salvation! Now, suppose that the Jew, who went up to the tabernacle and to the altar, when he got there, had been content to talk about the sacrifice without personally placing his hand on it? To talk of it would be a very proper thing to do, but suppose that he had spent all his time in merely discoursing about the plan of a sacrifice, the providing of a substitute, the shedding of blood, the clearance of the sinner through sacrificial death? It would have been a delightful theme, but what would have come of it? Suppose he had talked on and on and had gone back home without joining in the offering? He would have found no ease to his conscience--he would, in fact, have done nothing by going to the house of the Lord! I am afraid that this is what many of you have done so far. You are pleased to hear the Gospel. You take pleasure in the Doctrine of Substitution and you know true doctrine from the current falsehoods of the hour--for all of which I am very glad--but yet you are not saved because you have not taken Christ to be your own Savior! You are like persons who might say, "We are hungry and we admit that bread is a very proper food for men, besides which we know what sort of food makes bone, and what makes muscle, and what makes flesh." They keep on talking all day long about the various qualities of food--do they feel refreshed? No. Is their hunger gone? No! I should suppose that if they are at all healthy, their appetite is increased, and the more they talk about food the more hungry they become. Why, some of you here have been talking about the Bread of Heaven for years--and yet I am afraid you are no more hungry than you used to be! Go beyond talking about Christ and learn to feed upon Christ! Come, now, let us have done with talk and come to deeds of faith. Lay hold on Jesus, who is set before you in the Gospel! Otherwise, Friend, I fear you will perish in the midst of plenty, and die unpardoned, with mercy at your gate. Suppose, again, that the Israelite, instead of talking with his friends, had thought it wise to consult with one of the priests. "Might I speak with you, Sir, a little? Have you a little room somewhere at the back where you could talk with me and pray with me?" "Yes," says the priest, "what ails you?" "My sin lies heavy upon me." The priest replies, "You know that there is a sacrifice for sin--a sin offering lies at the door and God will accept it at your hands." But he says, "I beg you to explain this matter more fully to me." The priest answers, "I will explain it as well as I can, but the whole of my explanation will end in this one thing--bring a sacrifice and over its head confess your sin--and let an atonement be made. The sin offering is what God has ordained and, therefore, God will receive it. Attend to His ordinance and live. There is no other way. Fetch your offering. I will kill it for you and lay it on the altar and present it to God." Do you say to him, "I will call again tomorrow, and have a little more talk with you"? Do you again and again cry, "Tomorrow"? Do you go again and again into the Inquiry Room? O Sir, what will become of you? You will perish in your sin, for God has not appointed salvation by Inquiry Rooms and talks with ministers, but by your laying your own hand upon the Sacrifice which He has appointed! If you will have Christ, you shall be saved! If you will not have Him, you must perish! All the talking to you in the world cannot help you one jot if you refuse your Savior! Sitting in your pew this morning, without speaking to me or any living man or woman, I exhort you to believe in Jesus! Stretch out your withered hand, God helping you, and lay it on the head of Christ, and say, "I believe in the merit of His precious blood. I look to the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." Why, Man, you are saved as sure as you are alive, for he that lays the hand of faith upon this Sacrifice is saved thereby! But I see another Israelite and he stands by his offering and begins to weep and groan, and bewail himself. I am not sorry to see him weep, for I trust he is sincerely confessing his guilt. But why does he not place his hand on the sacrifice? He cries and he sighs, for he is such a sinner! But he does not touch the offering. The victim is presented and, in order that it may be of any use to him, he must lay his hand upon it. But this vital act he neglects and even refuses to perform. "Ah," he says, "I am in such trouble, I am in such deep distress," and he begins explaining a difficulty. You hunt that difficulty down, but there he stands, still groaning and moaning, and producing another difficulty and yet another, world without end! The sacrifice is slain, but he has no part in it, for he has not laid his hand upon it--and he goes away with all the burden of his guilt upon him, though the sacrificial blood has reddened the ground on which he stood. That is what some of you do. You go about lamenting your sin, when your chief lament should be that you have not believed on the Son of God! If you looked to Jesus, you might dry your eyes and bid all hopeless sorrows cease, for He gives remission of sins to all penitents. Your tears can never remove your sins--tears, though flowing like a river--can never wash away the stain of guilt. Your faith must lay her hand on the head of the Lord's Sacrifice, for there and there, only is there hope for the guilty! "But surely," says one, "that cannot be everything." I tell you it is so much everything that-- "Could tears forever flow, Could your zeal no respite kno w, All for sin could not atone, Christ must save, and Christ, alone." Jesus will only save those who accept Him and desire to be identified with Him. I would to God that you would delay no longer, but come at once and freely accept what God has provided! I know the devil will tempt you to look for this and to look for that, but I pray you look at nothing but the Sacrifice that is before you. Lean on Jesus with all your weight! Observe that the Israelite had to put his hand upon a victim which was not slain as yet, but was killed afterwards. This was to remind him that the Messiah was not yet come. But you, Beloved, have to trust in a Christ who has come, who has lived, who has died, who has finished the work of salvation, who has gone up into Glory and who always lives to make intercession for transgressors! Will you trust Him or will you not? I cannot waste words. I must come to the point. John Bunyan says that one Sunday when he was playing the game of tip-cat on Elstow Green, as he was about to strike the cat with the stick, he seemed to hear a voice saying to him, "Will you leave your sins and go to Heaven, or will you keep your sins and go to Hell?" This morning the voice from Heaven sounds forth this question--Will you trust in Christ and go to Heaven, or will you keep apart from Him and go to Hell?--for there you must go unless Jesus becomes your Mediator and your atoning Sacrifice. Will you have Christ or not? I hear you say, "But"--O that I could thrust your "buts" aside! Will you have Christ or not? "Oh, but"--No, your "buts" ought to be thrown into limbo, for I fear they will be your ruin. Will you trust Christ or not? If your answer is, "I trust Him with all my heart," then you are saved! I say not you shall be saved, but you are saved! "He that believes in Him has everlasting life." You know how our dear friend, Mr. Hill, put it, the other night, at the Prayer Meeting? "He that believes in Him has everlasting life." "H-A-S"--that spells--"Got it." Very good spelling, too! If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have eternal life in present possession! Go your way and sing for joy of heart, because the Lord has loved you! Mind you, keep on singing until you join the choristers before the eternal Throne of God! May the Lord save every person that shall hear or read this sermon, for Jesus' sake! Amen. __________________________________________________________________ Slaying the Sacrifice (No. 1772) A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 23, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "And he shall kill the bullock before the LORD." Leviticus 1:5. You remember that last Lord's Day we spoke of two things vitally essential to a true sacrifice and the first upon which we then enlarged was the laying on of the hands of the offerer upon the victim, by which he accepted it as his sacrifice, and made a typical transfer of his sin from himself to the victim. [ "Putting the Hand Upon the Head of the Sacrifice," No. 1771. And Sermon #1780, "The Sprinkling of the Blood of the Sacrifice" continues the series.] Now, the second essential thing, of which we are to speak this morning, is this--that the victim, thus bearing the guilt of the offerer, must be killed--its blood must be shed before the Lord. Nothing short of its death by violence would render it an atonement for the offerer--"he shall kill the bullock." You will find this order continually repeated whenever a sacrifice is spoken of. As I said on the last occasion, I feel great satisfaction, in this time of my weakness, in being permitted to speak to you about essential things. It was always a stigma upon the character of Caligula that he gathered his warriors, fitted out his ships and, when the people of Rome looked for some great addition to the empire by the vast naval expedition, he simply anchored his vessels near the beach and bade his legions advance upon the shore and gather shells and pebbles--and carry them home as trophies of their undisputed conquest. He trifled where he should have struggled. He spent time and labor upon matters of no importance and neglected the weighty business of his kingdom. We shall not do so today--we have nothing to do with shells and stones! We have to do with matters worth more than gold or pearls--things essential to eternal life and vital to the salvation of the souls of men! Neither have I, this morning, a controversial topic upon which to debate before you. However important controversy may sometimes be, we are glad to be away from its strife and to consider a doctrine around which true Believers gather in hearty unity--a doctrine which must be taken for granted in the Christian Church! A doctrine which lies at the very root of the Truth of God and in the very heart of true religion! Without controversy, great is this mystery of godliness, that Christ, manifest in the flesh, must die for sin, or otherwise sin cannot be put away. You remember what the Greek said when he heard an old philosopher with hoary head and gray beard disputing upon how to live. "Goodness!" he said, "if at his age he is disputing upon that subject, when will he be able to practice his conclusions should he arrive at one?" Truly, I may say to you to whom I have so long ministered-- if we are forever to be learning and never coming to a knowledge of the Truth of God, what will become of us? If we are to have nothing but questionable matters laid before us, when shall the time come for the actual possession and enjoyment of the blessings of the Gospel? At this hour my theme is such that I speak to you without diffidence or hesitation. In this case, "we believe and are sure." Concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, the great Sacrifice for sin, it was essential that He should die, for only through the blood which He shed on Calvary for human guilt can there be preached among men the remission of sins-- "What can wash away my stain? Nothing but the blood of Jesus! What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus! This is all my hope and peace-- Nothing but the blood of Jesus! This is all my righteousness-- Nothing but the blood of Jesus!" May the Holy Spirit lay home the blood of Atonement to our consciences at this time to the glory of God and our own peace! I. Concerning the killing and slaying of the offering, our first point is that it was ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL. The pouring out of the blood of the victim was of the very essence of the type. The death of Christ by blood-shedding was absolutely necessary to make Him an acceptable Sacrifice for sin. "It behooved Christ to suffer." He could only enter into the Presence of God with His own blood. He could not be the grain of wheat which brings forth much fruit unless He should die. Remember that although there were important matters about the victim, yet nothing would have mattered if it had not been slain. The Israelite brought an unblemished bullock, but the fact of its being unblemished did not make it an atonement for sin. No doubt many faultless bullocks and lambs still fed in the plains of Sharon. If the most perfect animal had gone away from the altar, alive, it would have effected nothing whatever by way of atonement. It must be unblemished in order to be an offering at all, but still, its perfections did not make it a sacrifice until it was killed. No matter what could be said of that bullock--it may have been the most laborious animal throughout all Israel; it may have dragged the plow to and fro, or even drawn the wagon loaded with the harvest--but that was nothing to make it a sacrifice for sin. It must die and its blood must be sprinkled upon the altar, or else the offerer has brought no acceptable oblation. All its life and its labor would not satisfy. Nor would it be enough to bring the bullock there and dedicate it to God. Some animals which had been dedicated to the Divine service were used in the drawing of the wagons which carried the sacred furniture through the wilderness, but they were not sacrifices, for all that, neither did they avail for the bearing away of sin. It was indispensably necessary that the bullock should be without blemish--it was necessary that it should be voluntarily dedicated to God--but if it had not been killed, there would have been no presentation of an offering according to the Divine Law, nor any easing of the conscience of the Israelite. And even so, Jesus must die--His perfect Nature, His arduous labor, His blameless life, His perfect consecration could avail us nothing without the shedding of His blood for many, for the remission of sin. So far from His death being a mere adjunct and conclusion of His life, it is the most important matter connected with Him! It stands in the foreground. It is the head and front of His redeeming work! We justly value Him for His example and for His living intercession--but in the business of Atonement, it is beyond all things necessary that we view Him as the Lamb slain! Now notice that this was expressly declared by God in the Jewish Law book in express words. Kindly turn in this Book of Leviticus to the 17th chapter, and there read in the 11th verse, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul." It is not the burning of the victim, it is not the flaying of it, nor the washing of it--it is the shedding of its blood--that is to say, the taking of its life, which makes it an atonement for sin. I need not quote another Old Testament text, because this is so completely to the point and so fully covers the whole of the ground. The atonement is not the animal itself, but the blood of the animal, which blood represents its life. As to the entire Scriptures, they teem with statements of this Truth. I will only call to your recollection a few prominent passages, to collect them all would be impossible. When a child gathers flowers in the spring meadows when they are all golden with the kingcups, he fills his hands once, but he is almost persuaded to throw away what he has gathered that he may pluck yet more from the inexhaustible store around him! So do I feel that what I now bring before you might fitly be exchanged for another selection, yes, for many such, if time did not fail us. In the Old Testament, one of the most instructive types of redemption ever given is that of the Passover lamb. When God was about to smite Egypt He promised to spare His people--and in order to their safety He bade each family take a lamb, kill it and sprinkle the blood upon the lintel and the two side posts of their door. Then they were to stay within the house till morning and the destroying angel would not touch so much as one of them. What is expressly said by God Himself about this passing-over? Hear the words and wonderingly drink in their teaching! "And when I see the blood, I will pass over you." There was never a fuller type of the redemption of Christ, I hardly think one so full, as that of the passing-over of Israel through the blood of the paschal lamb! But the essence of that passing-over is displayed to us in this sentence--"When I see the blood, I will pass over you." God's eyes resting upon the evidence of a life having been taken instead of the sinner's life, is the reason why He passes over the sinner so that he does not die! When Isaiah, the great evangelical Prophet, spoke concerning Him upon whom the Lord laid our iniquity, he mentions His death as the main cause of His glorious reward! The last verse of the 53rd chapter of Isaiah is the culminating point of the whole, and it runs thus--"Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He has poured out His soul unto death." It is a wonderful expression--it shows that Christ must die, or else He could not achieve the victory for us, nor share the spoil. He must pour out His Soul. He must relinquish life, must pour it out lavishly, as though He possessed much of it! He must make it flow like water gushing in a river from the smitten rock. This He must do voluntarily and without stint--"pouring out His soul unto death"--till none remained and the bottom of the vessel was reached in death. It is clear that if He had not done this, He had done nothing, for the victory comes to Him because of this--not because He kept His Soul free from spot, not because He preached righteousness in the great congregation! Not because of anything else which Jesus did was He rewarded--the victorious deed was that, "He poured out His soul unto death." This is the verdict, not only of the Holy Spirit in the Inspired Prophecy, but also of all that dwell with God above, for they sing with sweet accord before the Throne of God--"A new song, saying, You are worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." In the New Testament the passages abound which set forth the doctrine upon which we are now speaking. Look at that passage in Hebrews 9:12. There we are told expressly, "Without shedding of blood there is no remission." There is no remission by the life of Christ, no remission by the teaching of Christ, no remission by our repentance, no remission by our faith--apart from the shedding of the blood of Christ, by whom, alone, sin is put away! This is negative; but in this case the negative is as strong as the most positive statement could be, for if without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin, then we see how all-important that blood-shedding becomes! If you desire a positive statement, a sentence rises to our lips at once--"The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." Observe, not the life, not the Incarnation, not the Resurrection, not the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus, but His blood, His death, the giving up of His life is that which cleanses us from all sin! This is that purging with hyssop of which David speaks when he laments his sin and yet looks to be made whiter than snow by the free pardon of his God. This Truth is the subject of all true Gospel preaching! Do you not know how Paul puts it--"The preaching of the Cross is to them that perish, foolishness; but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God." "For," he says, "the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ Crucified." It is not Christ in any other position, but Christ as Crucified! Christ as made a curse for us upon the tree--that is the first and most prominent fact that we are called to preach among the sons of men! "In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His Grace." Take away this substitutionary death of our Lord and you have taken all away! Without the death of Jesus there remains nothing for us but death! Forget the Crucified One and you have forgotten the only name by which we can be saved! Oh, that all of you would trust in Him. "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God." My Brothers and Sisters, this is the cause of the saints being in Heaven! In the first chapter of the Book of the Revelation, verse 5, we have the doxology, which begins, "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood." Thus say all the glorified! Further on we are told concerning the saints, "They have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple: and He that sits on the throne shall dwell among them." This is the true reading of the 14th verse of the last chapter of the Book of Revelation--"Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into the city." Thus the passport to Glory is the precious blood of Jesus! Access to God, either on earth or in Heaven, is only by the blood of the Son of God! Now and then we meet with some squeamish person who says, "I cannot bear the mention of the word, blood." Such individuals will be horrified this morning--and it is intended that they should be! Sin is such a horrible thing that God has appointed blood to wash it away, that the very horror which the thought of it causes may give you some notion of the terrible nature of sin as God judges it! It is not without a dreadful blood-shedding that your dreadful guilt could by any possibility be cleansed! Sin-bearing and suffering for sin can never be pleasant things--neither should the type which sets it forth be pleasing to the observer. On great days of sacrifice, the courts of the tabernacle must have seemed like a shambles, and fitly so, that all might be struck with the deadly nature of sin. If it is so, that the blood of Jesus is mentioned in the songs of Heaven, let it not be forgotten in the hymns of earth-- "To Him that loved the souls of men, And washed us in His blood, To royal honors raised our head, And made us priests to God. To Him let every tongue be praise, And every heart be love! All grateful honors paid on earth, And nobler songs above!" The Church militant is called upon continually to commemorate the blood-shedding. So often as we gather to the Communion Table we may ask the question, "The cup of blessing which we bless--is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?" At the sacred table we show the death of our Lord until He comes. He says to us in express words, "This is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." He bids you remember the blood as you drink of the fruit of the vine, saying, "This cup is the new testament in My blood." Take the blood away and the communion of the Lord's Supper has gone--there remains nothing but the Popish "mass" which is so blasphemously called an unbloody sacrifice for the quick and the dead! Forget not that every person gathering to that table of communion is, if he is what he professes to be, a consecrated man and how comes he to be so but for this reason--"You are not your own, for you are bought with a price"? We are redeemed unto God by the blood of Jesus. "You were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." It is the blood that makes you what you are--and the blood that permits you to enjoy what God has prepared for you--so that in every way you see the absolute essentiality of the death of the great Sacrifice. Here let us further consider that death is the result and penalty of sin--"The soul that sins, it shall die." "Sin, when it is finished, brings forth death." "The wages of sin is death." It was right that the Substitute should bear a similar chastisement to that which would have fallen upon the sinner. Our Savior did not endure annihilation, for that is not the meaning of death--neither the first nor the second death should be so explained. Jesus was not annihilated, but He bore the pain, the loss, the ruin, the separation, the overwhelming which is intended by death. He was even forsaken of God, so that He cried out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" The penalty was death and, therefore, Jesus was exceedingly sorrowful even unto death. He laid down His life for us and became obedient to death, even the death of the Cross. The Law of God demanded death and death has fallen upon our great Covenant Head. "In due time Christ died for the ungodly." There is great comfort to my soul in this, for if the Lord Jesus has paid the capital sentence, nothing remains unpaid! "He that is dead is freed from sin." That is to say, if the law has killed the man, it can ask no more of him--he must be free from further charge of guilt. When the criminal has died, he has suffered the last sentence of the law, and is now beyond its jurisdiction. Our Lord Jesus has died--the Just for the unjust, and as that which He has borne is nothing less than death, it must cover all that is due to sin-- "He bore on the Tree the sentence for me, And now both the Surety and sinner are free." Since Jesus has died unto sin once, He dies no more. Death has no more dominion over Him. He has borne the last and most far-reaching penalty of the Law of God and there can be nothing left upon the score. His Atonement was a complete redemption. If you were in debt and were bound to pay so much every month, you would be very grateful to a friend who should step in and pay several installments for you. But if one of more liberal spirit discharged the whole amount, your gratitude would be deep and overflowing! Let us rejoice that the Lord Jesus Christ has evidently, by His substitutionary Sacrifice, put away not a part and a portion of our sin, but the whole of it! By bearing death, itself, He has removed all our legal obligations and has placed us beyond the reach of further demands. "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us." Now we may sing to Him who has removed our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west. This death of Christ was also absolutely necessary for the clearing of the troubled conscience. An awakened conscience will never be quieted with anything less than the blood of the Lamb--it rests at the sight of the great Sacrifice, but nowhere else. A conscience smarting under a sense of sin is an unequalled fountain of misery. Let Conscience once begin to scourge the sinner and he will find it to be the most terribly tormentor out of Hell! I do not know whether the Prophet Isaiah was really sawn asunder by Manasseh, but we know that some of the saints suffered that torture. Yet, surely, a saw that should gradually cut a man in half from head to foot is a faint picture of what your conscience can do when it begins to operate upon the mind with all its cutting force! What a Divine Atonement that must be which calms the storms of an accusing conscience and gives the soul a lasting peace! Some may trifle with their consciences, but where God is at work, men dare not attempt it. The most important thing in the world to a sensible man is the condition of his conscience--if that is restless, he is in an evil case. Thomas Fuller, in his quaint way, tells us that he, one day, asked a neighboring minister to preach for him, when he called upon a short visit. "No," said the other, "I cannot, for I am not prepared." "But," said Fuller, "though you are unprepared, I am sure you will preach well enough to satisfy my people." His friend answered, "That may be true, but I could not preach well enough to satisfy my own conscience." There's the rub with a true man. We cannot live well enough to satisfy our conscience and we cannot pray well enough to satisfy our conscience! A really tender conscience is as greedy as the horseleech which cries, "Give! Give!"-- it asks for perfection and, as we cannot render it by reason of sin--Conscience will never cease its outcries till it is quieted with the precious blood of Jesus Christ! Once let us see Jesus offered up upon the Cross for sin and our heart feels that it is enough! When God is well pleased, we may well be satisfied and get on our way enjoying peace with God from that time and forever. Thus much, then, upon our first point--for many reasons it was absolutely essential that our great Sacrifice should die. II. Secondly, we will, with great delight, meditate upon the fact that the death of Christ is EFFECTUALLY PREVALENT. Other offerings, though duly slain, did nothing thoroughly, did nothing lastingly, did nothing really, by way of expiation, for the Scripture says, "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins." The true purification is only found in the death of the Son of God! When our Lord was fastened to the Cross and cried, "It is finished," and gave up the ghost, He had finished transgression, made an end of sin and brought in everlasting righteousness. By offering one Sacrifice for sins, forever, the work was done, the accusing record was altogether blotted out! Why was there such cleansing power in the Redeemer's blood? I answer, for several reasons. First, because of the glory of His Person. Just think who He was! He was none other than the, "Light of light, very God of very God." He counted it not robbery to be equal with God, yet He took upon Himself our nature, and was born of a virgin. His holy Soul dwelt in a perfectly pure Body and to this, the Godhead was united. "For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Now, for this glorious, this sinless, this Divine Person, to die, is an amazing thing! For the Lord of angels, Creator of all things, sustaining all things by the power of His Word--for Him, I say, to bow His head to death as a vindication of the Law. is an inconceivably majestic recompense to the honor of eternal justice! Never could justice be more gloriously exalted in the presence of intelligent beings than by the Lord of All submitting Himself to its requirements! There must be an infinite merit about His death--a merit unutterable, immeasurable! I think if there had been a million worlds to redeem, their redemption could not have needed more than this "sacrifice of Himself." If the whole universe, teeming with worlds as many as the sands on the seashore, had required to be ransomed, that one giving up of the ghost would have sufficed as a full price for them all! However gross the insults which sin may have rendered to the Law of God, they must be all forgotten since Jesus magnified the Law so abundantly and made it so honorable by His death. I believe in the special design of our Lord's atoning death, but I will yield to no one in my belief in the absolutely infinite value of the offering which our Lord Jesus has presented! The glory of His Person renders the idea of limitation an insult. Next, consider the perfection of our Lord's Character. In Him was no sin, nor tendency to sin. He was "holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners." In His Character we see every virtue at its best! He is incomparable. If He, therefore, died, "the Just for the unjust," what must be the merit of such a death? His righteousness has such sweetness in it that all the ill-savor of our transgression is put away--it is no wonder that by the obedience of such an One as this Second Adam many are made righteous! Think next, dear Friends, of the nature of the death of Christ and you will be helped to see how effectual it must be. It was not a death by disease, or old age--but a death of violence, well symbolized by the killing of the victim at the altar. He did not die in His bed, sleeping Himself out of the world--He was taken by wicked hands, scourged, spit upon and then fastened up to die a felon's death! His was a cruel doom! Human malice could scarcely have invented any method of execution more sure to create pain and anguish than death by hanging on a tree, fastened by nails driven through hands and feet! In addition to His physical pain, our Lord was sorely vexed in spirit. His soul-sufferings were the soul of His sufferings--"He was exceedingly sorrowful even unto death." Heaven refused its smile. His mind was left in darkness. To be frowned upon of God was a part of the punishment of our sin and Jesus Christ was not spared that direst and bitterest woe. God, Himself, turned away His face from Him and left Him in the dark! He died a dishonorable death, yes, a cursed death--"As it is written, cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree." Now, for the Son of God to die, and die in such a manner, was a marvel! Never martyr died crying that he was forsaken of his God! That desertion was the lowest depth of the Savior's grief. And since He died thus, I can well understand that He has, thereby, made an ample Atonement for the sins of all who believe in Him. Oh, great Atonement of my blessed Lord, my sins are swallowed up in You! Looking to the Cross and to the pierced heart of Jesus, my Lord, I am assured that if I am washed in His blood I shall be whiter than snow! And then think of the spirit in which our Lord and Savior bore all this. Martyrs who have died for the faith have only paid the debt of Nature a little before its time, for they would have died, sooner or later. But our Lord needed not to have died at all! He said of His life, "No man takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself." The pouring out of His soul unto death was not in the power of man until the Lord was pleased to yield Himself a Sacrifice. "He gave Himself for me." He laid down His life for His sheep. Out of love to God and man He willingly drank of the appointed cup--the only compulsion which He knew was His own desire to bless His chosen. "For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the Cross, despising the shame." Oh, it was splendidly lived, that life of our Lord! The Spirit which guided it, lights it up with an unrivalled brightness! Oh, it was splendidly died, that death of our Lord, for He went up to the Cross with such willing submission that it became His Throne! The crown of thorns was such a diadem as emperor never wore! It was made of the ended sorrows of His people-- sorrows ended by their encircling His own majestic head! On the Cross He routed His enemies and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it! In the act of death He nailed the handwriting of ordinances that were against us to His Cross and so destroyed the condemning power of the Law of God. O glorious Christ, there must be infinite merit in such a death as Yours, endured in such a style! And then I bid you to remember, once more, the Covenant Character which Christ sustained, for when He was crucified, we thus judge that One died for all, and in Him all died. He was not slain as a private individual, but He was put to death as a Representative Man. God had entered into Covenant with Christ and He was the Surety of that Covenant, therefore His blood is called "the blood of the Everlasting Covenant." Remember the expression of the Apostle where he speaks of "the blood of the Covenant with which we are sanctified"? Neither the First nor the Second Covenant were dedicated without blood--but the New Covenant was established by no blood of beasts, but by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd of the sheep! When He offered Himself, He was accepted in that Character and capacity in which God had regarded Him from before the foundations of the world, so that what He did, He did as the Covenant-Head of His people. It was meet that He should die for us, seeing He had assumed the position of the Second Adam, being constituted our federal Head and Representative. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him because He condescended to be one flesh with us--and with His stripes we are healed because there is a Covenant union between us. Thus much upon the effectual prevalence of that great Sacrifice--a theme so vast that one might enlarge upon it throughout all time! III. Beloved Friends, it seems to me that no one will now forbid my saying, thirdly, that the fact of the necessity for the death of the Lord Jesus is INTENSELY INSTRUCTIVE. Listen while I repeat the lessons very briefly--you can enlarge upon them when you go from here to meditate in solitude. Must the victims die? Must Jesus bleed? Then let us see what is claimed by our righteous God. He claims our life--He claimed of the offering its blood, which is the life thereof-- He justly requires of each of us our whole life. We must not dream of satisfying God with formal prayers, or occasional alms-deeds, or outward ceremonies, or a half-hearted reverence. He must have our heart, soul, mind and strength--all that makes our true self--the very life of our being. Dead works are worthless before the living God. He claims our life and He will have it one way or another--either by its being perfectly spent in His service, or else by its being smitten down in death as the righteous punishment of rebellion! Nor is the demand unjust. Did He not make us and does He not preserve us? Should He not receive homage from the creatures of His hands? Next, must the sacrifice die? Then see the evil of sin. It is not such a trifle as certain men imagine. It is a deadly evil, a killing poison. God, Himself, in human form, took human guilt upon Himself--the sin was none of His--it was only imputed to Him, but when He was made sin for us and bore our iniquities, there was no help for it, He must die! Even He must die! It was not possible that the cup should pass from Him. A voice was heard from the Throne of God--"Awake, O Sword, against My Shepherd, and against the Man that is My Fellow, says the Lord of Hosts: smite the Shepherd!" So unflinching is Divine Justice that it will not, cannot spare sin, let it be where it may! No, not even when that guilt is not the Person's own, but is only taken up by Him as a Substitute. Sin, wherever it is, must be smitten with the sword of death--this is a Law of God fixed and unalterable. Who, then, will take pleasure in transgression? Will not every man who loves his own life awaken himself to fight against iniquity? Sinner, shake off your sin, as Paul shook off the viper into the fire! Do not dally with it. Pray God that you may have done with it. It is a horrible and a grievous thing and God says to you "Oh, do not this abominable thing which I hate." God help you to flee from all iniquity. Next, learn the love of God. Behold how He loved you and me! He must punish sin, but He must save us--and so He gives His Son to die in our place. I shall not go too far if I say that in giving His Son, the Lord God gave Himself, for Jesus is One with the Father. We cannot divide the Substance though we distinguish the Persons--thus God, Himself, made Atonement for sin committed against Himself! The Church is "the flock of God which He has purchased with His own blood." Wonder of wonders! Truly love is strong as death as we see it in the heart of God! "Scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet perhaps for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." This is a heaped-up marvel! Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us! Next, learn how Christ has made an end of sin. Sin is laid on Him and He dies--then sin is dead and buried! If it is sought for, it cannot be found. Speak offinality--this is the truest and surest finality that ever was, or ever shall be! "If a man dies shall he live again?" Not as before. If Christ died, what is there after death? Nothing but the Judgment and lo, He comes to that judgment--"Being raised from the dead He dies no more, death has no more dominion over Him." This is our joy because neither sin nor death can have dominion over us for whom Christ died, and who died in Him! Christ has made an end of sin. His one offering has perfected, forever, the set-apart ones. These are but a few of the great lessons which we may learn from the necessity that the Sacrifice should be slain. I pray you learn them well. May they be engraved on your hearts by the Holy Spirit! IV. And so I shall close by saying that this blessed subject is not only full of instruction, but it is ENERGETICALLY INSPIRING. First, this inspires us with the spirit of consecration. When I think that I could not be saved except by the death of Jesus, then I feel that I am not my own, but bought with a price. I remember reading of Charles Simeon, the famous evangelical clergyman of Cambridge, that he was, one day, thrown from his horse and was fearful that he had sustained serious injury. When he had recovered from the force of the fall, he stretched out his right arm, felt it, and finding that there was not a bone broken, he consecrated that arm, anew, to the living God who had so graciously preserved it. Then he examined his left arm and found it all right--and so held that up and dedicated it anew unto Divine service. He did the same with his head, his legs and his whole body. As I was thinking over this subject, I felt as if I must go over my body, soul and spirit, and dedicate all to that dear Savior by whose blood I am altogether redeemed from death and Hell. "Bless the Lord, O my Soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name!" As I am not cast away from God. As I am not destroyed. As I am not in torment, not in Hell--I dedicate to God my blood-bought spirit, soul and body from this day forth to be the Lord's as long as I live! Brothers and Sisters, do you not feel the same? I pray God the Holy Spirit to make you do so in a very practical manner. This doctrine of the death of Christ ought to inspire you till you sing-- "Jesus, spotless Lamb of God, You have bought me with Your blood. I would value nothing beside Jesus-- Jesus crucified! I am Yours and Yours alone. This I gladly, fully own. And, in all my works and ways, Only now would seek Your praise." Next, this Truth of God should create in us a longing after the greatest holiness, for we should say, "Did sin kill my Savior? Then I will kill sin! Could I not be saved from sin except by His precious blood? Then, O sin, I will be revenged upon you! I will drive you out by the help of God's Spirit! I will not endure you, nor harbor you. I will make no provision for the flesh. As sin was the death of Christ for me, so Christ shall be the death of sin in me." Does not this inspire you with great love for the Lord Jesus? Can you look at His dear wounds and not be wounded with love for Him? Are not His wounds as mouths which plead with you to yield Him all your hearts? Can you gaze upon His face, wet with bloody sweat, and then go away and be ensnared with the world's painted beauties? Heard you ever of a ruler dressed in such robes of love as those which Jesus wore? Did ever Love use such sacred means to win the beloved heart as Christ has done? What can any one of us do but answer Him thus-- "Here, Lord, I give myself away 'Tis all that I can do"? Do you not think that this solemn Truth of God should inspire us with great zeal for the salvation of others? As Christ laid down His life for us, should we not lay ourselves out for perishing souls and, if necessary, lay down our lives for the Brethren? Should we not practice self-denial in our labors to bring men to Jesus? Should we not joyfully toil and cheerfully bear reproach, if by any means we may save some? I think if this subject should go home to our hearts, it would be beneficial to us in a thousand ways and make us better soldiers of the Cross, closer followers of the Lamb. I pray that God the Holy Spirit may place it in the center of our souls and keep it there! It will bring with it peace and rest. Why should we be troubled, since Jesus died? It will fill our mouths with praises! Hallelujah to the Lamb that was slain, who has redeemed us by His blood! It will draw us into closer communion with Him. If He loved us and died for us, we must live with Him, and in Him, and to Him. Surely it will also make us long to behold Him! Oh, for the vision of the Crucified! When shall we see the face that was so marred for us? When shall we behold the hands and feet which still bear the nail marks? And when shall we look into the wounded side bejeweled with the spear wound? Oh, when shall we be done with all our sins and griefs, forever to behold Him shine and see Him still before us? Oh, when shall we be-- "Far from a world of grief and sin, With God eternally shut in"? Till then our hope, our solace, our glory, our victory are all found in the blood of the Lamb, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen! __________________________________________________________________ What Is Your Life? (No. 1773) DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 30, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away." James 4:14. A sermon suggested by the sudden death of H.R.H., the Duke of Albany. WHEN a prince dies, they toll the great bell of the cathedral that all the city may hear it and that for miles around the tidings may spread. Swift messengers of the press bear the news through the length and breadth of the land and all men's ears are made to tingle. A royal death is a national warning! A death in any of our families is a loud call to our own household, a call which I trust we hear. But a death in the Royal Family has a voice to the whole nation. It will be heard, it must be heard! In this great city, the crowds who care not to come to the house of God will, nevertheless, hear of this lamented death, and think of it and speak of it, each man to his fellow. Death is an orator whose solemn periods demand attention, especially when he preaches from the steps of the throne. "The Lord's voice cries unto the city"--let Believers be quick to hear the call to humiliation, to awakening and to prayer, that the visitation may be overruled for great and lasting good. A sudden death is an especially impressive warning. If men die of old age, we regard it as coming in the common course of things. But when a young man is suddenly snatched away, then we understand that though the old must die, the young may die and that no one among us may reckon upon any long day of life, since, in a moment, our sun may go down before it is yet noon. So falls the grass beneath the mower's scythe! So fades the leaf from the tree! In a moment our strength is turned to weakness and our comeliness into corruption. Then, in accents as plain as they are terrible, the Lord says, "Because I will do this unto you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!" We have, this week, received fresh proof that death is impartial. As the Arab proverb has it, the black camel stops at every man's door. Sorrow has entered in at the windows of palaces and even in the royal chamber there lies one dead. If, therefore, Death is so impartial that he smites down the captains, let not the rank and file hope to escape. Death, which forces entrance to a prince's bedchamber, will not respect our cottage door. To us, also, in due time, shall be brought the message, "The Master is come and calls for you." My ear hears a voice crying aloud, "Set your house in order; for you shall die and not live." Will not you hear it? Will any one of you refuse the voice which speaks from Heaven? Death evidently pays no respect to character, age, or hopefulness. A man may addict himself to the service of his country, but his patriotism will not protect him. He may be surrounded with a wall of affection, but this will not screen him. He may have at his command all the comforts of life and yet life may ooze out before the physician is aware. He may be tenderly loved by an affectionate mother and his name may be engraved on the heart of the fondest of wives, but death has no regard to the love of women. "It is appointed unto men once to die." There is no discharge in this war--we shall all march into this fight--and unless the Lord, Himself, shall speedily come and end the present dispensation, we shall, each one, fall upon this battlefield, for the shafts of Death fly everywhere and there is no armor for either back or breast by which his cruel darts may be turned aside. I would to God that all of us retained this Truth of God in our memories. "Lord, make me to know my end and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am." We have a very clear conviction that others will die, but as to ourselves, we put far from us the evil day and care not to dwell upon a subject which smells so unpleasantly of the morgue! Yes, we admit that we shall die, but not so soon as to make it a pressing matter--we imagine that we are not within measurable distance of the tomb. Even the oldest man gives himself a little longer lease on life. And when he has passed his four-score years, we have seen him hugging life with as much tenacity as if he had just commenced it! Brothers and Sisters, in this we are not wise--Death will not spare us because we avoid him. What is there about any one of us that we should fare better than the rest of our fellow men? We are in the same army, marching upon the same field--why should we escape where all others fall? Only two of our race have gone into the better land without crossing the dark river of death--Enoch and Elijah--but no one among us will make a third. Now, upon this matter we have nothing to say but what is commonplace, for, garnish them as you may, graves are among the most common of common things. Yet a solemn reflection upon the shortness of life and the certainty of death may prove to be important and even invaluable, if it is allowed to penetrate our hearts and influence our lives. History tells us of Peter Waldo, of Lyons, who was sitting at a banquet as thoughtless and careless as any of the revelers, when suddenly, one at the table bowed his head and died. Waldo was startled into thought and went home to seek his God. He searched the Scriptures and, according to some, became a great helper, if not the second founder of the Waldensian Church, which in the Alpine valleys kept the lamp of the Gospel burning when all around was veiled in night! The whole Church of God was thus strengthened and perpetuated by the hallowed influence of death upon a single mind! I suppose it is also true that Luther, in his younger days, walking with his friend, Alexis, saw him struck to the ground by a flash of lightning and became, from that day on, prepared in heart for that deep work of Grace through which he learned the Doctrine of Justification by Faith--and rose to be the liberator of Europe from Papal bondage! How much, every way, we owe to this weighty subject! Among the earnest, the prayerful, the holy, many must acknowledge that the vaults of death have brought them spiritual health! Men have been helped to live by remembering that they must die--yes, some men knew nothing of the highest form of life till Death awakened them from their deadly slumbers. I hope that God's Spirit may, this morning, impress many of you with these reflections, and lead you to the Cross of Christ by the way of this memento mori. May a prince's death awaken many of you to life! He, being dead, now speaks to you! From yonder sunny shores he reminds you of the valley of death which you must shortly traverse. With an intense desire for our spiritual profit I shall speak upon our text in two ways--first, let us consider the Truth of God in the text and, secondly, the lessons in that Truth. I. We commence with THE TRUTH IN THE TEXT, upon which we have already touched. The text begins by reminding us that we have no foresight--"Whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow." God has given us memory that we may look backward--and it were well if we used our memories better for remembrance, reflection and repen-tance--but God has given us no eyes with which to pry into the future. He unveils the past to our penitence, but He veils the future from our curiosity. Dark days may be near at hand for some of us, but we do not perceive them. Let us be thankful that we do not, for we might multiply our afflictions by the foresight of them--and the prospect of evil to come might cast a gloom over pleasure near at hand. As we may feel a thousand deaths in fearing one, so may we faint under a thousand lashes in dreading a single stroke. It is good, also, that our God conceals from us our earthly joys until the time for their arrival. Great prosperity may await you and a considerable enlargement of your temporal comfort, but you do not know it and it is as well that you should not, for you might be none the better for the prospect. Earth's goods are like birdlime and are fearfully apt to glue us down to things below and prevent our soaring towards Heaven. If, then, we could know all the pleasurable events that may happen to us, we might become more worldly and more earthbound than we are. None of us should desire that this present evil world should have an increased influence over us--we are glad that it should have less and, therefore, we rejoice that its future has such slight power over us because of its being unknown. No, we cannot see far, and those who act as if they could see into coming days behave most foolishly. Hear these people whom James describes--they boast most wretchedly! They will go into the city--they are sure they will--what is to hinder them? "Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city"--they have plenty of time and can make a selection according to their pleasure--they can go where they like and when they like. They see themselves, with prophetic glance, entering in at the city gate, and they are fully assured that they shall "continue there a year." Of course, a year is a small matter--if they please, they will stay longer. They allot themselves a lease for three, seven, 14, or 21 years, at discretion--at least they talk as if they could do so. They are going into the city to "buy and sell." They are sure of that, too. Of course they will not be laid up with sickness! They do not fear that accident or disease will keep them away from market, or hinder the active transacting of their business. No, they are going to buy and sell, and such is their confidence in their own superior abilities that they are sure to make a profit--the markets cannot fall below the price which they have fixed in their own minds--neither will they make bad debts, nor incur other losses, for they have decided that they will "get gain." Up to now they have been self-made men and they mean to go on making themselves until they put the finishing stroke by adding a few more thousands. They have visions of going on to fortune. Ah, you prophets, you are going to your graves! This is a sure oracle. The tomb will be your only patrimony and the shroud your sole possession! Let none of us talk of what we resolve to do at some future date. Look well to the present, for that is all the time we can be sure of--and there may be little enough of that. "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, where you go." Thus said the wise man. Let wise men take heed to his counsel. The Apostle emphasizes the folly of this supposed foresight by telling us that we cannot even reckon upon another day. You have come close up to the end of March, but if you reckon upon what you will do upon the first of April, you may find, by the event, that you are a fool! You may get to the last day of the year, but if you reckon on a new year, you may be giving new proof of your ignorance! Even in the morning we cannot make sure of the eventide, nor in the evening can we reckon upon the morning. James puts the matter strongly when he asks--"What is your life?" You do not know what is going to happen on the morrow, for you do not know your own life. What is it? The text divides itself into an emphatic question, "What is your life?" And an instructive answer--"It is even a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away." First, I say, we have, here, an emphatic question. He asks, "What is your life?" For solidity, for stability, what is it? What is there in it? Is it not composed of such stuff as dreams are made of? The breath in your nostrils is not more unsubstantial than is your life. There, breathe it out! On such a morning as this, you see your breath, but it is only in your sight for a moment and then it vanishes away. Your own breath is a fair picture of the flimsy, airy thing which men call life. What is your life? What is it for continuance? Some things last for centuries--but what is your life? Even garments bear some little wear and tear, but what is your life? A delicate texture--no cobweb is a tenth as frail. It will fail before a touch, a breath! Justinian, an emperor of Rome, died by going into a room which had been newly painted! Adrian, a pope, was strangled by a fly! A consul struck his foot against his own threshold and his foot mortified, so that he died thereby! There are a thousand gates to death and, though some seem to be narrow wickets, many souls have passed through them! Men have been choked by a grape seed; killed by a tile falling from the roof of a house; poisoned by a drop; carried off by a whiff of foul air. I know not what there is that is too little to slay the greatest king! It is a marvel that man lives at all! So unstable is our life that the Apostle says, What is it? So frail, so fragile is it, that he does not call it a flower of the field, or the snuff of a candle, but asks, What is our life? It is as if he had said--Is it anything? Is it not a near approach to nothing? Have you ever noticed how David answers this question in the 39th Psalm? He says in the 5th verse of that Psalm that man is vanity. What is vanity? It is nothing in reality! It is merely the presence of something. It is an idle dream, an empty conceit, a delusion, a make-believe! Such is man. But David says more than that--he declares that every man is vanity. Princes, kings, philosophers, the strongest, the healthiest, the ablest, the most virtuous--every man is vanity! Among the millions of mankind, none rises above this dreary state of nothingness! He says more than that. He writes--every man at his best state is vanity--when he is in the prime and glory of his life, when he is most healthy and vigorous, when his eyes are clearest and his muscles are firmest, he is still no better than sheer vanity! David goes even further, for he thus speaks--"Every man at his best state is altogether vanity." That is, he is nothing but vanity, there is nothing more enduring about him. He is gone with a puff! He spends his years as a tale that is told. Do not overlook one more emphatic word which David sets in the forefront of the sentence, "Verily," as if he were quite sure of it and could not tolerate a question upon the subject--"Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity." Have you ever observed how Job, when he speaks of our life, sets us a sign in each of the three elements whereon and wherein we dwell? See his ninth chapter, at the 25th verse. He says, "My days are swifter than a runner." Here is an emblem upon the land. Oriental kings employed swift-footed runners and horses and camels--and these, to the Oriental imagination, were the very essence of speed. Even we, before the days of electricity, knew of nothing faster than the royal mail! Job, therefore, well says, "My days are swifter than a runner." Then he bids us look to sea, for he says, "They are passed away as the swift ships." Ships which are built for speed seem to fly as on wings when they spread their sails to a favoring wind. We ought not to view ships at sea without remembering the brevity of our days. But lest we should still forget, the Patriarch further likens his days to "the eagle that hastens to the prey." As the vulture spies, from a distance, the carcass of a camel and descends upon it with hasty swoop, so our life hastens to descend. Thus earth, sea, and air all remind us of the speed at which life flies towards its end! St. Augustine used to say he did not know whether to call it a dying life or a living death--and I leave you to choose between those two expressions. This is certainly a dying life--its march is marked by graves. Nothing but a continuous miracle keeps any one of us from the sepulcher. Were Omnipotence to stay its power but for a moment, earth would return to earth and ashes to ashes. It is a dying life--and equally true is it that it is a living death. We are always dying. Every beating pulse we count leaves the number less. The more years we count in our life, the fewer remain in which we shall behold the light of day. While we are sitting still in this house, the earth is revolving round the sun and bearing us all through space at an amazing rate. We are all moving and yet we do not perceive it! Even so, while you are listening to this sermon you are all being borne onward towards eternity at lightning speed. As though we were laid in the bosom of some mighty angel and he, with outstretched wings, darted along like a flame of fire, we are always going our onward way. Though we dream that we are at a stay, yet we never rest for an instant! The stream is bearing us onward--we are nearing the cataract! We must always obey the mandate--"Onward, onward, onward." From childhood to youth, from youth to manhood, from manhood to gray old age we march onward in serried ranks from which no man can retire. We tarry not even when we sleep--we are continually moving forward like the waters of yonder river, on whose banks we find a habitation. What, then, is our life? That is a question which remains, to a large degree, unanswered and unanswerable. Yet our text affords us what is, in some aspects, an instructive answer. It does not so much tell us what life actually is as what it is like. "It is even a vapor." James compares our life, you see, to a very subtle, unsubstantial, flimsy thing--a vapor. If you live upon a high hill, from which you can look down upon a stretch of country, you see in the early morning a mist covering all the valleys. It is singular to mark the tops of the great elms appearing above it, like islands in a sea of cloud, with, perhaps, here and there a Church spire rising like a sharp pyramid from the waste of mist. In a little time you look from the same window and the vapor has all vanished. It was so thin, so fine, so much like a gas, that a breath of wind has scattered it, or perhaps the sun has drawn it aloft. At any rate, not a trace of that all-encompassing vapor remains. Such is your life! Or you have marked a cloud in the western sky, illuminated with those marvelous lights which glowed during those extraordinary sunsets, the like of which none of our fathers had seen. You looked at the jeweled mass--it shone in the perfection of beauty and all the colors of the rainbow were blended in its hues! In another instant, lo, it was not! It was gone past all recall. Such is your life! This morning, as we came here, we saw our breath--it was before our eyes for an instant and then it had gone. Such is the picture which James presents to us. "What is your life? It is even a vapor." He proceeds to explain his own symbol in a sentence which is full of meaning. "It is even a vapor, that appears." Notice that. He does not speak of it as a substance, having a true existence, but says that it "appears." Vapor is so ethereal, phantom-like and unreal, that it may rather be said to appear than to exist. If you could reach yon fleecy cloud, you would scarcely know that you had entered it, for it would possibly appear to be the thinnest of mist. The vapor which steams from your mouth--how light, how airy it is! It is next door to nothing--it only "appears." And such is this life--a dream, a vain show, an apparition of the night! Half our joys and sorrows are but the presence of joy and the shadow of sorrow--and the most of things through which we travel are not what they seem. We ought to know this in a practical way and set less store by the thing which are seen, which are temporal. This life "ap-pears"--that is all. Further, the Apostle says, it, "appears for a little time." It is only a very little while that a man lives at the longest. Compare a man's life with that of a tree. There is so striking a contrast between our present short life and that of a cedar, or an oak, that to set forth the longer life of saints in the millennial age, the Lord says, "As the days of a tree are the days of My people, and My elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands." In that happy age men shall nourish long as the trees of the forest, but now, a man standing beneath an oak is a mere infant compared with the branches which over- shadow him. A hundred years ago that oak seemed every way as venerable as it does today, whereas the man was then unthought of by his grandfather. Compare our life with the existence of this world. I mean not the present state of the earth as fitted up for man, but I allude to those unknown ages which intervened between the present arrangement and that beginning wherein God created the heavens and the earth. The long eras of fire and water, the reigns of fishes and reptiles, the periods of tropical heat and polar ice make one think of man as a thing of yesterday. Then contrast our life with the being of the eternal Lord--and what is man--man when most venerable with years? A Methuselah--what is he? He is but an insect born in the morning's sunbeam, sporting in the noontide ray and dead when the dews begin to fall! He appears for a little while. The parallel is further consummated by the Apostle's adding, "And then vanishes away." The cloud is gone from the mountain. Where is it? It has vanished away. No trace of it is left--neither can you recall it. We, too, shall soon be gone--gone as a dream when one awakens. With the most of us, our memory will be short. Many leave us concerning whom it would be a pity that they should be remembered, while many fail to live for others and, therefore, their fellows speedily forget them. Amid the crowded cemetery a single grave is lost--amid 10,000 deaths no one departure can long abide in human memory. As far as this world is concerned, we all shall, by-and-by, vanish away. Then shall our near companion say of us-- "One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill, Along the heath, and near his favorite tree. Another came, nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he." The air has felt the passing bell and now the stars look down upon a stone on which is written in large letters, "HERE HE LIES!" Or the dews shall wet a grass-grown mound, girt about with brambles, on which a few wild flowers have sprung up spontaneously to show how life shall yet triumph over death. Children may bear our name and yet a fourth generation shall quite forget that we ever sojourned in this region! Such is our life--"a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away." This is the Truth of God--you know it--but I cannot impress it upon your hearts as it ought to be impressed. Therefore I invite you to join me in the prayer, "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." II. Secondly, let us now learn THE LESSONS WHICH LIE WITHIN THIS TRUTH. May we read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the same. First, if this life is as unsubstantial as a vapor--and nobody can deny the fact--let us regard it as such and let us seek for something substantial elsewhere-- "This world's a dream, an empty show. But the great world to which I go Has joys substantial and sincere-- When shall I wake and find me there?" It may be well to make the best of both worlds, but of this poor world, nothing can be made unless it is viewed in the light of another. This is a poor withering life at the best, for we all fade as a leaf. Unless we purposely live with a view to the next world, we cannot make much out of our present existence. Such rags as this poor present world of time and sense, can never be made up into an array in which a man would care to robe himself. At the same time, do not be frightened at the unhandsome form in which this life, at times, appears--it is, after all, but a vapor--and who will be alarmed at it? Do not be overjoyed as he was who hoped to embrace a goddess and was deceived by a cloud--it is, after all, but a semblance--its sorrows are scarcely worth a tear, nor do its joys deserve a smile! Vanity and vapor are things which wise men set small store by. Children may be pleased with the bubbles which they blow by the aid of an old pipe and a piece of soap, but as for men who have put away childish things, they ought not to be greatly moved by the things of this life, for they are but bubbles of less brilliance and less substance than those which delight the child! "Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity." Let the lower lights burn dimly before your eyes--they are mere sparks and they are soon quenched. Let us grip the eternal and sit loose by the temporal. The jewels of eternity will glitter in our crowns when all things pass away, but the trifles of this life are as the flowers which children pluck in the meadows, which wither in their hands before they can carry them home. In this place I suggest as your prayer that stanza of the poet, in which he addresses the Well-Beloved thus-- "Show me Your face-- My faith and love Shall henceforth fixed be, And nothing here have power to move My soul's serenity. My life shall seem a trance, a dream, And all I feel and see Illusive, visionary-- You, the one reality." Next, is life most uncertain? We know it is--no one attempts to deny it. It is certain that life will come to an end, but it is most uncertain when it will come to that end. Is it so uncertain? Then let us not delay! I would to God I could whisper this wisdom into every procrastinator's ear. Why do you halt and hesitate? If you are desirous to be saved from the wrath to come, why do you put it off till a tomorrow which may never come? Will you delay repenting and die impenitent? Will you delay faith and perish as an unbeliever? Will you keep back from mercy and pardon--and refuse the free Grace of God? I pray you do not, for if you delay another day, it may be you will be in the land where hope can never come to you! Think of your peril, O you ungodly men! Within an hour you may be at the Judgment Seat of God, or in the pit of Hell. Nothing keeps you where there is hope except a thread so fine as to be invisible and, so easily broken, that none but a madman would trust his soul's destiny upon it! Awake, I pray you! Since death is hastening, hasten yourself until you have found a refuge in the cleft of the Rock of Ages--and are safe in the arms of Jesus! Since life is so uncertain, oh, hasten, Christian, to serve your God while the opportunity is given you! Be diligent, today, to do those works which perfect saints above and holy angels cannot do. You will soon be where you can no more give alms to the poor, nor instruct the ignorant, nor visit the fatherless and the widow. You shall have no opportunities for speaking to men about their souls, or winning them for Christ, when once this shadowy life has vanished away! How earnest every worker ought to be to do his work well while he has the opportunity. I have charged myself again and again--I would to God the charge had been more effectual--to preach-- "As though I never might preach again, A dying man to dying men." I am persuaded that if we were in possession of all the wisdom that Grace will give us, we should do everything for the good of men most speedily, with deep prayerfulness, with true spiritual life and with an entire dependence upon the Spirit of God for the blessing of it. Come, my Brothers and Sisters, what you do, do quickly! If you wish to honor your Lord while you are here, and win jewels for His crown, up and at it, for the day is far spent! You cannot afford to waste a moment, for you have much to do, and very little time to do it in! Help us, O Spirit of the Lord! Is life so short? Does it only appear for a little time and then vanish away? Then let us put all we can into it. If life is short, it is wisdom to have no fallows, but to sow every foot of ground while we can. It will be prudent to pack our little space as full as possible. Somebody said, the other day, of our dear friend, Mr. Moody, that he was the only man who could pronounce "Jerusalem" in two syllables. It shows the activity of the man that he can speak as much in two syllables as other people can say in four! He is always at it, working for his Master, double tides, rowing with both hands! Some speakers are long in delivering short sentences--instead of saying much in little, they say little in much! Oh, for someone to teach them to say "Jerusalem" in two syllables! Let us put plenty of life into our existence, plenty of work into our life, plenty of heart into our work and plenty of warmth into our heart. Oh, may God give us to live while we live! May we not only live but be all alive. Is life so short? Then do not let us make any very great provision for it. I have heard of certain people who are so imprudent that they never lay by anything for a rainy day, to whom I would say, "Go to the ant, you sluggard--consider her ways and be wise--which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provides her meat in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest." It would be a poverty-stricken world if all followed the example of improvidence which is set by certain spiritual blunderers. There is a thriftiness which we all ought to exercise, but there is no justification for laying up treasure which will never be used! Ants do not store up grain for storing's sake--they do but divide over the whole year the harvest of a month. To hoard up endless gold is a species of insanity! If I were going a day's voyage, I would not wish to take with me enough biscuit and salt beef to last for three years--it would only cumber the boat. One walking stick is an admirable help, as I often find. But to carry a bundle of them when going on a journey would be a superfluity of absurdity! Alas, how many load themselves as if life's journey would last a thousand years at the least? Some men have amassed hundreds of thousands of pounds--when are they going to enjoy their wealth? They are getting more and more and this occupies all their time--they are so busy cooking that they never have time to dine! They are so taken up with filling the wardrobe that they are all in rags. We do not need a ton weight of candles if we are only going to sit up for a few minutes. Let us be wise enough to suit the supply to the need. Is time so short? Then do not let us fret about its troubles and discomforts. A man is on a journey and puts up at an inn. And when he is fairly in the hostelry, he perceives that it is a poor place with scant food and a hard bed. "Well, well," he says, "I am off the first thing tomorrow morning and so it does not matter." This world is an inn and if there are certain discomforts in it, let us remember that we are not tenants for years, but only guests for a day! Let us make the best we can of the temporary accommodation which this poor shanty of a world affords. Our life is removed as a shepherd's tent, which was a hovel in which the shepherds watched their sheep. A shepherd who has to watch the sheep for a short time does not set to work to build a granite palace, or a brick house--he is satisfied with a reed hut--and does not complain of its scant space and slender strength. So let it be with us! Let us sing together-- "The way may be rough, but it cannot be long! So let's smooth it with hope and cheer it with song." Must life vanish away? We know it must! What then? That vanishing is the end of one life and the beginning of another! Dear Friends, may I recommend you to remember that death is the end of this life? Do not leave this life to be raveled out at the end. I would like to have a well-hemmed life, with a finish about it. I would like to have my life enclosed with a fence of completeness. Too many leave life's business in such a way that they leave endless trouble for their families-- lawyers devour their substance--and their children are impoverished. See that your will is made, your debts paid, your charities distributed and all your affairs are arranged! Set your house in order--it is your duty as a citizen--it is your higher duty as a Christian! Do all that you would like to have done if you knew you would die tomorrow. I like Mr. Whitefield's order, for he could not go to bed comfortably if his gloves were not in his hat ready for the morning! He felt that he could not tell when he would be called away--but he wished to have everything in its place whenever the summons should come. Must this life vanish away? Then remember it is the beginning of another. The present life melts into the life to come! What kind of life will that other be? Do you not think that if it is to be a glorious life, it ought to commence here? Who would like to enter Heaven, could it be possible, and feel compelled to say, "I cannot join in the music, for I do not know the tune. I cannot take up the hymn, for I know nothing of the song. I cannot glorify God, for I never did so while below. I cannot adore the Lamb, for I never trusted in Him while I was on earth." You must learn the music here, or you will never sing in the choirs of Heaven! Oh, that this might awaken some of you! By the memory that this life must vanish away, may you be led to seek that eternal life which will abide in its excellency, world without end! And is death quite sure to come to me? Then, as I cannot avoid it, let me face it! If there were a way of avoiding it, I might postpone all consideration of it. But since I must meet it, let me know what I am doing--let me get ready for the inevitable and maybe it will become desirable. The thought of death will be one of two things to us--it will be a ghost to haunt us if we remain out of Christ, unreconciled to God and unrenewed in heart. To Godless and Christless persons, death will be the king of terrors in prospect and in reality. Ungodly men cannot bear to think of being called away! This morning they feel very uncomfortable while I am treading upon this troublesome subject. I hope they will not soon recover their composure, but will remain uncomfortable till they yield to Divine love and trust in the living Savior! Death is an awful thing to those who have their all in this world! If they could but live here forever, they would be at peace. But it cannot be so. God will not give men an immortality in this life to spend in disregarding Him. They must die. They may put Christ far from them, but they cannot put death far from them! They may avoid the Cross, but they cannot avoid the grave! The ungodly man frowns upon death because Death frowns upon him. Death is the skeleton in his closet--it is the goblin at the foot of his bed--it is the canker of his fairest joy. I would not like to be in such a position. Count me down all the red gold that could buy this round world, yet would I not accept it if I must live in fear of death! But death will become another thing to you if you are renewed in heart. To the Christian it is an angel beckoning him onward and upward! It were not worth while to live on earth if this life were not to be crowned by death--I mean by leaving this world to go unto the Father. It is the supreme delight of the man who runs the race that is set before him that that course concludes with the winning post--and so comes to an end. We are not of those who voyage the sea of this life for the sake of it--we ask not to forever sail over this rough ocean--we long for land! It is our delight to think of the port ahead! It is our joy to see the snow-white cliffs of our heavenly Albion! We do not desire to live here always. Why should we? Banished from our God, liable to sin, subject to temptation, vexed with infirmities, with corruptions, O Lord, what do we wait for?-- "Welcome, sweet hour of full discharge That sets my longing soul at large, Takes off my chains, breaks up my cell, And gives me with my God to dwell!'" Believers have everything to gain by dying. "To die is gain." We shall lose nothing which will be a loss to us! If one should take from us a jewel, but should give us another a thousand times its value, we should not regret the exchange. We lose this life--let it be such a jewel as you like--but we win the life to come which is infinitely more precious! Beloved, instead offearing death, we should be willing to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better! Why should we be unwilling to be glorified? Our departing day is our wedding day! Oh, that the bells would ring it in! It is our home-coming from the school where we have been in training here below! Why are the minutes so slow, the years so long? Let the holidays, the holy days, come soon, when we shall be at home in the Father's house! "It does not yet appear what we shall be," but it very soon will appear, and it will be no mere appearing--it will be real joy and lasting pleasure--solid, substantial, eternal, like the God who has prepared it for us from of old! It is a blessed thing to be able to go through the world thanking God for this life, yet blessing Him more that it will land us at His right hand! Death is thus stripped of all dread! The curse is turned into a blessing! At the thought of it I feel ready to join in that rough but sweet verse-- "Since Jesus is mine, I'll not fear undressing! But gladly take off these garments of clay-- To die in the Lord is a covenant blessing Since Jesus to Glory through death led the way." God grant us so to live and die that we may live to die no more, for Christ's sake. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ God's Work Upon Minister and Convert (No. 1774) A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 6, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "'But rise, and stand upon your feet: for I have appeared unto you for this purpose to make you a minister and a witness both of these things which you have seen, and of those things in which I will appear unto you; delivering you from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send you, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from thepower of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me.' Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision: but showed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance." Acts 26:16-20. BEHOLD an amazing sight! Saul of Tarsus at the feet of Jesus of Nazareth! Listen! The persecutor's voice is changed into that of an enquiring disciple. He asks, "What will You have me to do?" If angels sang with delight over a new-made world, their song must have been seven times as joyous over a new-made Apostle! The change was miraculous. At this distance of time we can hardly appreciate it, but if we had been living in daily fear of our lives--if we had seen our father or our brother dragged off to death by this ferocious enemy of the Cross--and then had suddenly heard that he was converted to the faith which he opposed, we would have cried, "Incredible!" For the Ethiopian to change his skin, or for the leopard to lose his spots would be little compared with this cruel Pharisee bowing himself in lowly penitence before the Lord Jesus whom He had persecuted! Do you wonder that when Saul came to Jerusalem and assayed to join himself to the disciples, they were all afraid of him and believed not that he was a disciple? My Brothers and Sisters, as in history, so in the Grace of God, it is the unexpected which frequently occurs! The men and women whom I expected to confess Christ long ago have not yet come. I have seen Felix tremble, but I have not seen him converted. I have seen Agrippa almost persuaded, but he is not yet a Christian. Meanwhile, I have beheld a Saul of Tarsus, who, before, raged against the Cross, bowing himself submissively before the Lord Jesus! Let us never be discouraged, but let us expect to see signs and wonders in the world of Divine Grace! Though priestcraft is far too dominant in our land, we may yet hear that "a great company of the priests" has believed in Christ. Though free thought rides roughshod over everything, we may yet hear that the boldest freethinkers have been made truly free and have felt the power of His thoughts, which are as high above our thoughts as the heavens are above the earth! Who knows, good Brother, but that son who has caused you the greatest grief may yet give you the greatest pleasure? Who knows but that one among your relatives who seems most decidedly to take the wrong side may yet become a leader in the armies of Christ? Hope on! Hope always! Note with care how men are converted. I shall show you God's preparation for it, in a work worked upon the minister, making him a fit witness for the Truths of God. Then I shall speak upon God's work worked in the convert in opening his eyes and turning him from darkness to light. And, lastly, I shall call your attention to a work which must be worked by the convert, himself, for Paul preached that they should repent and turn to God and do works meet for repentance. I. First, let us notice A WORK WORKED BY GOD UPON THE MINISTER. "It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." "Faith comes by hearing." "How shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they are sent?" In order to the conversion of the hearer, many processes must be experienced by the preacher--he must be made, called, sent and, afterwards, delivered. All the work of the Lord upon him is a work of Grace on behalf of those who shall be converted by his means. The minister whom God sends is, first of all, himself subdued and made to be obedient to the will of his Lord. While a man is a rebel, the Lord does not appoint him to act as an ambassador. While he is dead in sin, He does not commission him to preach the way of life. Paul was struck down to the earth--if he had not, himself fallen, he would not have known how to lift up others whom the Lord has laid low. There flashed into his face a Light above the brightness of the sun. He declares, "I could not see for the glory of that light." He remained blind for three days and this, also, was necessary--for if he had not been shut up in that darkness, he would not have been qualified to deal with others on whom the darkness of conviction had settled. An experience of breaking down and of soul-horror is necessary to prepare a man for later usefulness among the convicted, the desponding and the despairing. It may be that some young man present, this morning, is undergoing a singularly severe discipline at the hands of the Holy Spirit. His sins are exceedingly heavy upon him and relief does not come. A companion of his who was awakened at the same time has found rest and is already rejoicing in the Light of God--but this young Brother finds the darkness thicken about him. Dear Friend, it may be that your deeper conviction and more oppressive sense of sin are necessary because in your future life you are to be made largely helpful to troubled hearts. Do not think that everybody is blind for three days, as Paul was when he did neither eat nor drink during all that time--but conclude that some peculiar end is to be served by this remarkable experience. Lydia, whose heart the Lord opened to receive the Truth of God, was not thus blinded and troubled--but then she was not called to be an Apostle to preach the Gospel from Jerusalem to Spain! The weapon which is to be most used in battle must be more completely hardened than that which is for peaceful service! Discipline in our own spiritual life is a part of ministerial education which the chosen of the Lord shall not miss. See then, how God may be working for the conversion of generations yet unborn in the deep and painful experience of individuals who are now being turned from darkness to His Light. See, my dear Hearer, what God may have done already in the hearts of His chosen ministers to fit them to become the means of your conversion! In order to slay your sins, the shaft has been polished! Another has groaned and wept and cried out in bitter agony, in order that he may know how to speak a word in season to you. Each of the best locks made by our eminent locksmiths is unique and by itself. And when this is the case, each lock needs its own special key. So is it with human minds--there is a peculiarity about each one. Certain minds will never be reached until they come in contact with other minds constituted on purpose to touch them! I know that there is a suitability in my experience to affect many of my fellow men--and they open to me when the Lord takes me in His hands and uses me as His key. But I also feel that in all probability I shall never move certain other individuals because my mental conformation excites prejudice in them--I do not fit them and they will not permit me to be of use to them. Thank God, He has other servants and by these, I trust, He will accomplish good for those to whom I am an unsuitable instrument. Assuredly I know that much of the experience through which I have passed has not been with a view to myself, but with a view to those persons to whom the Lord will make me His channel of blessing! Consider, then, how gracious is the Lord thus to be working upon His own servants with the design of saving some of you who are far from Him. The next preparation for the Lord's minister was that he should be encouraged. The Lord Jesus said to him, "Rise, and stand upon your feet." As much as to say--"You are forgiven, you are chosen, you are beloved--therefore lie no longer prostrate, overwhelmed with fear. Give not way to despondency. Resign yourself into My hands and be prepared, with activity and diligence, to spend the rest of your life in doing good. Arise, stand on your feet, for work is to be done at once which will need all your courage and might!" Men can hardly be very useful till they cease to be despondent, diffident, depressed and become energetic and hopeful. Even good men need to be braced up that they may rise to bold attempts and believing labors for their Lord. Many are slow to take the encouragement which is offered them and need to hear a voice, saying, "Shake yourself from the dust, O captive! Rise and serve your God." I wish that I could speak to any Brother here whose heart is true and right, and who has the power to be exceedingly useful, but who has not yet the courage to proceed to his proper work. O my Brother, rise and stand upon your feet! "Alas," you say, "I have tried to do good, but I have seen no effects following my endeavors. I have spoken to one or two about their souls, but I have not yet won a heart for Christ." Did you really expect to do so? I have noticed that those who do not believe that they will be successful seldom are so--but those who rise and stand upon their feet and manfully expect that God will bless them are not disappointed. We are not to hope for success because there is anything in us, but because God has promised that His Word shall not return unto Him void! And if we, therefore, sow in faith, a harvest will assuredly follow. Faith receives promises--unbelief goes empty-handed. Arise, then, and stand upon your feet! Who knows but somebody who shall receive encouragement this morning will, from this day, become the messenger of God to open the blind eyes of others? The strengthening of the worker is as necessary a part of God's work as the immediate operation of the Spirit with the message. The vessel must be prepared for the Master's use and Grace is to be clearly seen in the making and fitting of that vessel for so Divine a purpose. The uplifting work being done, it remained that Paul should now be made, constituted and ordained a minister--and to this end he must see the Lord for himself. The Lord said, "I have appeared unto you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness." It is plain from these Words that the right way to make ministers is for the Lord Jesus Christ to appear to them. We have heard of making men into ministers, but we have no belief in the result of such a manufacture. If one man makes another man a minister, he will be very badly made--and the sooner he is broken up, again, the better! The fabrication of man is not fit to be an instrument for the Lord! All the laying on of hands and all the fitness that can be given in College or University cannot possibly make a minister apart from the Revelation of the Son of God to the heart. If God intends to use any man, he must be as much the creation of God as are the heavens and the earth. The means which the Lord uses for the true preacher's education and ordination are here displayed before us. It is by Christ's appearing to the man that he is prepared to preach the Lord Christ among men. Our Lord's appearing to a man operates two ways--first, it makes him willing to be a servant, for that is the meaning of the word, "minister." When the renewed mind beholds the Lord, it adores Him and cries out, "What will You have me do?" A sight of the Glory of Christ, of the love of Christ, of the sufferings of Christ forces a Believer to render onto the Lord all that lies in his power of cheerful service. Who that has beheld the unrivalled beauties of Jesus can refuse Him honor? Having seen You, O my Lord, I become, forever, Your servant, and feel it a privilege to minister to the very least of Your redeemed according as You may appoint! The same heavenly vision qualifies the Believer to act as a witness for Jesus. We cannot bear witness to that which we have never seen. Hearsay is of small value--we must see for ourselves. Christ must appear to His elect servant or he will not be able to go forth and tell what he has seen. The true Prophet is a Seer--he sees and, therefore, speaks. "We speak what we know, and testify what we have seen." If you have had no vision, hold your tongue, for you have no message. But if you have seen, then tell carefully only what you have seen, adding nothing to it and taking nothing from it. Your message is that which God has revealed to you by His Holy Spirit in His Word and in your own spiritual experience. See then, dear Friends, that in order to the conversion of those who are not yet saved, the Lord Jesus has been at work upon others, making them fit to be servants and witnesses. And He has used, as His chief means of instruction, the revealing of Himself. This is instructive, for it gives us a clear indication as to the best method of accomplishing the salvation of those around us. Beloved, if you want to win souls, follow up this line of things. Soul-winning is generally accomplished not by argument, but by testimony. The best minister is a witness-bearer. "Butler's Analogy" is one of the most notable works in defense of Revelation and it is eminently calculated to impress the student with the truthfulness of our holy religion. But I should like to know whether there ever was a man, woman, or child truly converted to the Lord Jesus by "Butler's Analogy." I do not think so! Nor do I depreciate the work on that account, for it has other uses which it admirably serves. This, however, I am certain of, that a little book like the "Dairyman's Daughter," by Leigh Richmond, which is not worthy, for a moment, to be compared with "Butler's Analogy" as a display of intellectual power, has led thousands to saving faith in the Lord Jesus! That little biography of a peasant girl, a mere nothing as to thought compared with the wonderful, "Analogy," has brought tens of thousands to the Savior's feet, where the other has brought few, if any! What is the reason? The "Analogy" is a very clear and admirable argument, but the "Dairyman's Daughter" is a witness of what has been seen, tasted and handled by one like ourselves. Heads are won by reasoning, but hearts are won by witness-bearing. Our line of thought should be that of David--"I will declare what the Lord has done for my soul." Paul frequently repeated the story of his own conversion, for he knew of nothing more likely to convince and convert. I do not believe that people will ever be converted by gaudy rhetoric. Poetical expressions are too fine to draw men away from sin to holiness--men do not come to Christ on the back of Pegasus! Argument which appeals only to the intellect is poor fuel with which to kindle the fire of love to Christ! Even sound instruction will not suffice without personal witness to vivify and support it. To convince men of the truth of a statement is one thing--to convict them ofpersonal sin is another thing--and to convert them is a step still higher! Bear witness to what you know, to what you feel, to the power of Christ to pacify the conscience and to change the life! Bear, I say, your witness to Jesus, and you will have done that which God will bless to the opening of the eyes of the spiritually blind. Further, dear Friends, the man who is to win a soul for Christ must be continuously instructed of God. He is to be a witness not only of those things which he has seen, but also of those things in the which the Lord will yet appear unto him. The discipline and intuition which our Lord vouchsafes to His servant, when he begins his witness, will not suffice him for the whole of his life--he must continue to be taught that he may continue to teach. You who wish to win souls for Jesus--and I know many of you do--must always sit at His feet, yourselves. Your eyes must always be fixed upon your Master, so that His dear Image may photograph itself perpetually upon your heart. Our message, if it is to daily win souls for Jesus, must come to us daily. The manna of last year, where is it if we have hoarded it? In a day it bred worms--where is it after many days? As the manna fell fresh and fresh each morning, so must we, each day, learn more and more of Him. We should strive each day to obtain a closer, more tender, more experimental view of Him. We must feel our sinnership more deeply and, therefore, recognize more fully the power of His precious blood. We must grieve over our corruption more bitterly and, therefore, understand better the power of the renewing Spirit who cleanses the heart. We need to live upon Jesus hourly so that we may talk of the Tree of Life with the flavor of its fruit upon our palates. It is poor work to talk of a Savior whom we have not communed with for months--but it is blessed to come forth from His Presence to describe His beauties! Oh to live in Christ and love Christ--and then to preach live sermons from live texts! Even the dead in sin will feel the force of so vital a ministry! God the Holy Spirit must work all this in those whom He prepares to be the implements of His gracious work. Herein He shows much love to sinners who as yet care nothing for His operations. But where all this is done, there yet remains something more, namely, that God should constantly preserve His messenger; as He said to Paul, "Delivering you from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send you." Paul's life was always in danger and yet never in real peril, for the Lord was His Keeper. He was daily delivered unto death and yet he was immortal till his life-work was complete! They stoned him and supposed that he was dead--but he rose up and began to cheer the Brethren! Till his time came and his work was finished, the stormy sea could not drown him! The beasts of Ephesus could not devour him! The mob could not kill him--even sworn conspirators could not slay him! When he had finished his course, he submitted his neck to the headsman's sword. But till that moment, he was delivered out of the mouth of the lion and guarded from perils of robbers, perils of rivers and perils by false brethren. So shall every true servant of Christ be kept as with a garrison from all evil. We do not, nowadays, run risks of the kind which beset the Apostle, but ours are more subtle and insinuating--yet the true servant of God shall be preserved from all evil. He shall be kept from the pride which comes of visible success and from the despondency which comes of apparent failure. He shall be delivered from the temptations common to man and from the peculiar temptations which compass him as a minister of Christ. He shall be delivered from the strife of tongues and from the tumult of the people. If God has sent him, the devil cannot withstand him--he shall perform his mission in the conversion of those whom the Lord intends to save. I earnestly invite you to look at this portion of the machinery of Grace, for some entirely overlook it. Conversion is a very simple business and yet if I were to say that the heavens, the earth and all things that are, and are to be, are made subservient to its accomplishment, I should not go too far! Everything is laid under commission to save the chosen! Each elect soul might say, "You have given commandment to save me." I have known the Lord bring men to Himself not only by His ministers, but by the simplest things and most common events. A young woman, utterly careless and godless, returned to her room one night where she had left her lamp burning, but, lo, it had gone out and she was in darkness! As she sought for the lamp she remembered the parable of our Lord and the cry of the foolish virgins, "Our lamps have gone out." She reflected that her lamp had gone out because she had forgotten to put oil in it that morning--and then and there, under the power of the Word of God--she knelt down and gave her heart to Christ! A funeral knell, a tempest, a faded flower, a picture--have all been God's means of bringing His banished home to Himself! I am constantly meeting with instances of individuals who, for years, were careless, irreligious, dissipated and vicious. And yet, though they rose one Sabbath morning to waste the day as usual--by some circumstance or other they were induced to hear Mr. Moody, or to turn in here, or to attend a theater service--and then and there the Lord met with them! That God who could control the crowing of a cock to work conversion in His servant, Peter, has servants everywhere--from the highest angel to the tiniest insect! It is delightful to think that God can put any man or any creature into commission to carry out His purposes of love! Is it not a wonderful proof of His great love, that He thus makes all things subservient to the salvation of men, and especially that He creates ministers--and leads, trains and fits them to become the spiritual parents of others? Oh, Sinners, how glad I should be if you would think of yourselves, for you see how practically God thinks of you! II. And now, secondly, we come to describe THE WORK WHICH IS WORKED IN THE HEARER when God is saving him. It usually begins by illumination--the Lord sends His servant "to open their eyes." Men are born blind and continue blind till, by the power of Jesus, sight is given to them. Opening the eyes of the mind is not an operation which usually demands much time. In Paul's case we read, "Immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized." The mind sees the Truth of God all of a sudden. The aspect of everything is altered and the man has obtained a new faculty. What a blessing it will be if the Lord has sent me to any of you this day, that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit! A film shuts out the light from your souls, so that you grope as blind men, but the Lord can remove it at once. Perhaps you are ignorant. If you did but know the Truth, you would see by its light. Oh, that the Holy Spirit may teach you! Or your education and your surroundings have placed a film of prejudice over your eyes--if a candid, child-like spirit were given you, you would speedily see! Or possibly some favorite sin is like a cataract upon the eyes of your conscience and you cannot see the evil of sin, or the beauty of holiness, or the desirableness of being renewed. The Lord can take away these scales! Oh, that the Lord would cause you to see sin in its true colors and holiness in its own splendor! Or it may be that unbelief darkens your soul. Those who will not believe cannot see the salvation of God. What a difference is made by Divine illumination! A moment ago the man was in the dark, but now he is brought into marvelous light! He was not in the dark because the sun was set or the shutters were closed, but because he was blind. What matters how bright the day when the eyes are sealed? If the light that is in us is darkness, no outside light can be of use to us. Jesus came on purpose to give eyes to the blind and by a single word of the preacher, or a text of Scripture, or a verse of a hymn, the Lord can cause the darkened mind to enter upon the life of light and discernment--"The eyes of your understanding being enlightened." The next thing which the minister is made to do is conversion--Paul was sent "to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God." Much depends upon the direction in which a man's face is turned. Here stands a blind man with his face to the darkness--if he goes forward, he advances into blacker night! How necessary, then, is that work of the blessed Spirit by which men are turned completely round and their front is reversed! The darkness is now behind the convert and the light is ahead, so that every step he takes, he advances towards the Light of God which increases upon his vision as he nears it! He loves the Light! He seeks it! He sighs to get nearer and nearer to it--he runs towards it that he may read everything by its aid--and he turns away from darkness, which is now dreaded by him as an Egyptian plague. He has not received all the Light he desires, but one thing he knows--whereas he was once blind, he now sees! What a blessed turning is that which makes us face truth, goodness, God and Heaven--and leave ignorance, sin and Hell behind! The soul is brought into a new element--the Light of God is its life in which alone it flourishes and bears fruit--darkness is its death in which it shivers, pines and withers. As the soul is brought into a new element, so is it also brought under a new government. Translation has taken place. The man is translated from the power of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son, or, as our text has it, "from the power of Satan unto God." Notice the man is turned "from the power of Satan," the tyrannical dominion and crushing grasp of the evil, cunning, malicious, hateful Prince of fallen angels. Once he was hopelessly under that power, but now he has clean escaped from the slavery of the devil and has come into the liberty of a child of God! To the Lord whom he had forgotten, he has turned, so that he thinks of Him, cares for Him, trusts in Him. His heart, his desire, his longing, his hope all look toward his Savior! He longs to become more and more like his God and to enjoy more and more the favor of the great Father! What a blessed turning this is--from the power of Satan to the power of God! Happy are the men who are the means of converting their fellows in this fashion! Somebody says, "Well, I know there is such a fact as conversion, but I do not understand how it can be performed in a minute." I reply that I do not understand how regeneration, which is the secret cause of conversion, could occupy so long as a minute! Should not goodness rule at once? Two men are fighting and we beg them to stop. Do you recommend them to stop gradually! Shall they take an hour or two over it? Why, they might kill one another in that time! A fire is about to consume your house--do you say to the firemen, "Put it out gradually"? If my house were on fire, I should long to see the flame quenched at once! If anybody held a pistol at my head I should not say, "Take it away by degrees." I would wish him to remove the revolver at once. Yet all these things are matters which could be prolonged over a space of time without such risk as would be involved in a slow process of conversion! Changes of mind such as are necessary to conversion had need be quick when sin is to be forsaken, for every moment deepens the guilt. I grant you that in many persons, conversion appears to be gradual, and many things lead up to it as by an inclined plane, but as to the new birth and the reception of the Divine life, there is a distinct line of demarcation--on that side of the line all is death--and on this side of it all is life. I cannot tell you when any one man crosses that line, but there must be an instant when he does so! It may seem a very gradual process by which a man who was dead comes to life, but, for certain, there is a point at which he left the dead and became alive--and that point God sees very clearly even though we do not. Life to the body may at first be perceived only by some painful tingling sensation, or a gentle attempt at breath-ing--but there is a sharp division between life and death though we may not perceive it. The outward appearance of life may become gradually visible, but there must be an instant--and no more--in which life enters and death ends. Conversion may be effected by the power of the Holy Spirit in less time than it takes me to tell you of it. The man being regenerated straightaway turns to his God. Oh, that the Lord would work such a marvel of power here under our eyes! It can be done! I preach with the full conviction that it will be done! He who turned me to Himself has sent me to turn others in the name of Jesus by the power of His Spirit. Together with conversion comes complete forgiveness. Read the passage--"that they may receive forgiveness of sins." When a man turns to God, it is a proof that God has turned to him! When he hates his sins, the Lord has put them away--as soon as ever he confesses and forsakes them, they are blotted out forever. The complete turning of his mind from darkness to the Light of God is a proof to the convert that God, the righteous Judge, has turned away His wrath from him. When the love of sin has gone, the guilt of sin has gone, also. Full conversion carries with it full pardon. The same moment that we receive Christ, we "receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified." Think of that! Oh, that you may all know what it means! What a blessing to become an heir of God! Yet in the moment of forgiveness, we receive power to become the sons of God. We are put among the children--and the children's portion is our portion. All that belongs to the sanctified belongs to you, poor Sinner, the moment you turn to God, through faith in Christ Jesus--yes, all that belongs to the glorified belongs to you, for, though as yet you cannot pass the golden gate, nor join in the celestial song--yet the glory is yours, reserved for you till the day of God's appointment! Be of good cheer, if you are, indeed, turned from darkness to light--you have obtained an inheritance among them that are sanctified! What more do you need? To what choice company is a sinner introduced when he believes in Jesus! He, alas, was only fit to herd with the profane, or to make his bed in Hell with devils! But now he obtains an inheritance among all them that are sanctified! He is a freeholder among the burgesses of the New Jerusalem! What a wonderful procession it would be if all those who are sanctified could pass before us now! Martyrs--their noble army! Confessors-- their goodly fellowship! Prophets and Apostles and ministers of the Word, of whom the world was not worthy! What a joy to be numbered among them! We are so numbered as soon as we take upon ourselves to trust ourselves with Jesus. We are akin to the perfect! Where they dwell we dwell! Where they die we shall die and where they live forever we shall live, for our inheritance is with all them that are sanctified! Oh, Brothers and Sisters, it is worth living, is it not, to become servants of God in any form, so as to introduce our poor sinful fellows into such society as this? May the Lord prepare all Believers to deliver the life-giving message, that they may bring many heirs of wrath to be heirs of Heaven! And all this has for its certificate and mark of genuineness these words--"By faith that is in Me." Those words are not merely appended to sanctification, though it is worth noticing that sanctification is by faith, since so many look at it as if it were by effort rather than by believing. But the whole process of salvation is by faith! The preacher is to preach in faith. Dear Friends, you that teach in the Sunday school, do you always teach in faith, believing that God will save your children? You, dear Brothers, who are going to hold a service in the streets, are you going to do it in faith? If not, you need not do it at all, because nothing will come of it. Without faith it is impossible to please God--and if He is not pleased with what you do--no saving result can follow. All work is true when it is worked by faith in Jesus. Men's eyes are opened through their believing in Jesus--that is the great means of illumination. They are turned from darkness to light by God's giving them faith in Jesus. By faith they receive forgiveness of sins and the Divine inheritance. It is all of faith from first to last. May God work it in your souls! I feel pleased, at times, to dig down to the old granite formation which underlies the Gospel. You know there are certain topsoil Truths which we have to plow, and out of which we raise harvests for the Lord. But every now and then, when things go rather hard with our little farm, I like to dig down to the underlying rock. Salvation is of the Lord and He is Omnipotent and works out His eternal purposes. The child of God can get oil out of this flinty rock, for God will save His own elect, and all the skeptics in the world cannot prevent the operations of the Holy Spirit from being effectual! His purpose shall stand and He will do all His pleasure. His miracles of Grace shall be worked and all the devils in Hell shall not be able to prevent them. Neither skeptics nor fiends can hinder, even for a moment, the eternal purpose of God which must and shall be fulfilled--and this is it--"He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied." This work in the hearts of men He must and will carry on to His own praise and Glory--let who will, say no to Him. III. Now, I close by the last point, which is A WORK WHICH MUST BE DONE BY THE HEARER HIMSELF. This text speaks of Paul being an instrument in the hands of God of opening men's eyes and turning them to God, that they may receive pardon and so forth--in all of which they seem to be passive. But in this later verse they are called upon to be active--"That they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance." Paul was commanded to go and do such-and-such things in the power of the Spirit, but when he commenced to do them, it was by telling men that they should repent. God gives repentance, but men must, themselves, repent. We are created thinking, intelligent beings and we are saved as such. If we were blocks of wood or masses of iron, God could carve or mold us most readily, and then He would have done no more than men commonly do with such materials. But if we remain free agents and yet the Lord works His will upon us, it is an amazing miracle--worthy of the Lord who works it! Never let us forget either the free agency of man or the purposes of God! God leaves us free agents and yet, in Infinite Wisdom, He accomplishes His purposes and fulfils His decree! Grace reigns not over slaves, but over obedient children. The will of the Lord is done and yet the responsibility and freedom of men are left untouched! How the Lord does this I do not know. He has never deigned to explain His Infinity to us, nor need we desire that He should. It is a great blessing to have something to wonder about. I had rather have reasons for adoration than temptations for indulging my pride! Dear Hearer, if you would be saved, you must repent! It is not the work of God the Holy Spirit to repent for you, but to lead you to repent. The Holy Spirit has nothing to repent of and it is not a work which can be done by proxy. We cannot give you repentance as a doctor may inject morphine under the skin--it must be your own act and deed, your own feeling and emotion. You cannot be saved unless you personally turn from sin--it is the work of God's Holy Spirit to bring you to do so, but you have to repent with your own heart and mind. Observe this carefully. You have sinned and you must repent of it and turn from it. You must undergo a change in your mind about everything. You think little of sin--you must thoroughly change your mind on that matter! You think little of Christ--your mind must be totally changed upon that point! You must loathe sin and grieve over it! There can be no forgiveness unless there is a confessing and forsaking of sin. Remember your child's verse and attend to it-- "Repentance is to leave The sins we loved before And show that we, in earnest, grieve By doing so no more." This is demanded of you by the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. "The times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commands all men everywhere to repent." The next thing necessary is that you turn to God. Your prayer may be, "Turn me, and I shall be turned," but the command is, "Turn you, turn you, why will you die?" God will turn you, but you have to willingly yield and thus turn yourself! A number of texts indicate that there can be no turning of a man's heart to God by any force put upon him-- the turning which God grants us is a perfectly willing and delighted turning on our part--we do it as freely as if there were no such thing as the Grace of God operating upon us! And yet we do it because Grace is sweetly working in us to will and to do. We cannot take you by the ears and drag you into Heaven. No person can be unwillingly holy, or unwillingly happy, or go to Heaven unwillingly! The great turn needed is to turn to God. Now you turn away from Him. You do not like to think of Him--this morning you have heard quite as much as you can bear--and you will try and forget it and so turn away from God. Would not it be grand news for some of you if there were no God, no Law, no judgment to come, no Heaven, no Hell? It would create in you a sense of liberty, would it not? But as for some of us, it would be slavery to us and the worst calamity that could possibly happen, for we should have lost our joy, our comfort, our all! O Sirs, you must turn to God--thinking of Him, trusting Him, loving Him, longing for Him, living for Him, delighting in Him! Your aversion must be removed by conversion--God the Holy Spirit will work this in you, but you must become willing in the day of His power. What do you say to this? If you live and die without this turning, you must be turned into Hell! I dare not set before you any other prospect. And then, to conclude, it is added they must do works meet for repentance, for wherever there is true faith there will be corresponding works. Now what are, "works meet for repentance"? They are such as these--restitution if you have wronged anyone. Reconciliation if you are at enmity with anyone. Acknowledgment if you have spoken falsely. Giving up of evil habits and an earnest endeavor to be pure and holy. If you run into temptation willfully--that is not a work fit to go with repentance! If you commit, again, the sin which you have committed before, and return to it as a dog to its vomit--that is not a work meet for repentance! If you live in neglect of the means of Grace. If you disregard the Sabbath. If you neglect prayer. If you omit the study of God's Word--these are all not works that will agree with repentance! If you live wholly for yourself and your own personal aggrandizement, that is not a work meet for repentance. But if you do, indeed, repent, you must pray the Lord to change your whole life. "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature"--that is the whole of it--you must be new from head to foot, new in every thought and word and deed. The saved man is a creation and none can create him but God, Himself! Oh that we may, each one of us, feel His transforming power, that we may henceforth, "work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure." After all, it comes to this, Will you have Christ or not? Dear Hearers, I would like to press that question home upon you. I pray that you may be enabled to say, "I will put my trust in Him. I will at once accept Him as my Lord and Savior." I am afraid you get so used to my voice that it does not strike you, now, as it used to do. But still, the Truth of God is the same, whoever speaks it. If I talk nonsense, forget it! But if this is the Truth of God to which you are listening, I implore you to attend to it! Do not hear it and say, "Oh, yes," and then go away and think no more of it! May God grant you Grace, at once, to really repent, to turn to God and to do works meet for repentance, through faith which is in Christ, for His dear name's sake. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ "My Lord and My God!" (No. 1775) A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 13, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "And Thomas answered and said unto Him, 'My Lord and my God!'" John 20:28. WHEN the Apostles met on the first Lord's Day after Jesus had risen, Thomas was the only disciple absent out of the eleven. On the second Lord's Day, Thomas was there and he was the only disciple doubting out of the eleven. How much the fact of his doubting was occasioned and helped by the fact of his former absence, I cannot say, but still, it looks highly probable that had he been there at the first, he would have enjoyed the same experience as the other 10, and would have been able to say as they did, "We have seen the Lord." Let us not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, for we cannot tell what loss we may sustain thereby. Though our Lord may reveal Himself to single individuals in solitude as He did to Mary Magdalene, yet He more usually shows Himself to two or three, and He delights, most of all, to come into the assembly of His servants. The Lord seems most at home when, standing in the midst of His people, He says, "Peace be unto you." Let us not fail to meet with our fellow Believers! For my part, the assemblies of God's people shall always be dear to me. Where Jesus pays His frequent visits, there would I be found-- "My soul shall pray for Zion still, While life or breath remains. There my best friends, My kindred dwell. There God my Savior reigns." I know that full many of you can most heartily say the same. Oh, that we may behold the Lord Jesus in the present assembly! On the second occasion, Thomas is present, and he is the only one out of the 11 who is vexed with doubts. He cannot think it possible that the Lord Jesus, who was nailed to the Cross, and whose side was pierced, could have really risen from the dead. Observe joyfully the Lord's patience with him. All the others had been doubtful, too, and the Lord had gently upbraided them for their unbelief and the hardness of their hearts. But Thomas is not convinced by the ten-fold testimony of his Brothers, who, each one, well deserved his implicit confidence. After the plain way in which the Lord had told His disciples that He should be crucified and would rise again from the dead, they ought to have expected the Resurrection--and inasmuch as they did not, they were to be blamed-- but what shall we say of him who, in addition to all this, had heard the witness of his 10 comrades who had actually seen the Lord? Yet there he is, the one doubter, the one sturdy questioner who has laid down most stringent requirements as to the only way in which he will be brought to believe. Will not his Lord be provoked by his obstinacy? See how patient Jesus is! If we had been in that case and had died for those people--and had passed through the grave and risen again for them--we would have felt very greatly grieved and somewhat angered if they had refused to believe in what we had done. But our Lord shows no such sign. He is tender among them as a nursing father. He rebukes their unbelief--that was necessary for their sakes--but He manifests no vexation of spirit. Especially on this occasion He shows His tenderness toward Thomas and addresses His first words to him. If Thomas will not be convinced except by what I must call the most gross and materialistic evidence, our Master will give him such evidence! If he must put his finger into the print of the nails, he shall put his finger there! If he must thrust his hand into His side, he shall be permitted to take that liberty! Oh, see how Jesus condescends to the weaknesses and even to the follies of His people! If we are unbelieving, it is not His fault, for He goes out of His way to teach us faith--and sometimes He even gives what we have no right to ask, what we have no reason to expect, what it was even sin in us to have desired! We are so weak, so ignorant, so prone to unbelief that He will do anything to create, sustain and strengthen our faith in Him! He condescends to men of low estate. If through our own folly we are such babes that we cannot eat the meat which is fit food for men, our Lord will not grow weary of giving us milk, but He will even break the bread into morsels and take away the hard crusts that we may be able to feed thereon. It is not His will that one of His little ones should perish and, therefore, He chases away unbelief, which is their deadliest foe. Our Lord had special reasons for turning as He did to Thomas, that day, and for taking so much trouble to bring Thomas out of his unbelieving condition. The reason must have been, surely, first, that He desired to make of Thomas a most convincing witness to the reality of His Resurrection. Here is a man who is determined not to be deceived--let him come and use the tests of his own choice. If you tell me that the Resurrection of our Lord from the dead was witnessed by men who were prepared to believe it, I reply that the statement is totally false! Not one among that company even knew the meaning of the Lord's prophecy that He would rise, again, from the dead! It was hard to make any of them catch the idea--it was so foreign to their thought--so far above their expectation. In Thomas we have a man who was especially hard to be convinced. A man who was so obstinate as to give the lie to 10 of his friends with whom he had been associated for years! Now, if I had a statement to make which I wished to have well attested, I would like to place in the witness box a person who was known to be exceedingly cautious and wary. I would be glad if it were known that, at the first, he had been suspicious and critical, but had, at length, been overwhelmed by evidence so as to be compelled to believe. I am sure that such a man would give his evidence with the accent of conviction as, indeed, Thomas did when he cried, "My Lord and my God!" We cannot have a better witness to the fact that the Lord is risen, indeed, than that this cool, examining, prudent, critical, Thomas arrived at an absolute certainty! Further, I conceive that our Lord thus personally dealt with Thomas because He would have us see that He will not lose even one of those whom the Father has given Him. The Good Shepherd will leave the 99 to seek the one wanderer! If Thomas is the most unbelieving, Thomas shall have the most care! He is only one, but yet he is one, and the Lord Jesus will not lose one whom He has ordained to save! You and I might have said, "Well, if he will not be convinced, we must leave him alone. He is only one--we can do without his testimony--we cannot be forever seeking a solitary individual. Let him go." Thus might we have done, but thus Jesus will not do! Our Good Shepherd looks after the units--He is tenderly observant of each separate individual--and this is a ground of comfort to us all! If one sheep is lost, why not the whole flock? If one is thus cared for, all will be cared for! This note is also to be heard in reference to this matter--it is to be feared that the dull, the slow, the questioning, the anxious, the weak in faith make up a very considerable part of the Church--I do not know that they are in the majority, but they are certainly far too numerous. If all Christians were arranged and classified, I fear we could not, many of us, place ourselves in the front rank, but a large portion would have to go among the Little-Faiths. Our Lord here shows us that He has a condescending care for those who lag behind. Thomas is a week behind everybody else, yet his Lord has not lost patience, but waits to be gracious. The other 10 Apostles have all seen the Lord and been well assured of His Resurrection for the last seven days. But that is no reason why the latecomer should be left out in the cold. Our Lord does not leave the rear rank to perish. We know that in the wilderness, the Amalekites slew the hindmost of the children of Israel. But when King Jesus heads the army, no Amalekites shall smite even the hindmost of His people, for the Glory of the Lord shall bring up the rear! The walls of Zion enclose babes as well as veterans! The Ark of our salvation preserves mice as well as bullocks! Our Solomon speaks of the hyssop on the wall as well as of the cedar in Lebanon--and the Glory of the Lord may be seen in the preservation of the glowworm's lamp as truly as in the sustenance of the furnace of the sun! Now, if there should be any in this assembly who honestly have to put themselves down in the sick list, I beg them to take comfort while I try and set forth the experience of Thomas and what came of it. First, I shall call your attention to the exclamation of Thomas, "My Lord and my God!" Secondly, we will consider, how he came to it. And thirdly, how we come to it, for I trust many of us have also cried, "My Lord and my God!" I. Let us consider THE EXCLAMATION OF THOMAS, "My Lord and my God!" This is a most plain and hearty confession of the true and proper Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is as much as a man could say if he wished to assert indisputably and dogmatically that Jesus is, indeed, God and Lord. We find David saying, "O Lord of Hosts, my King, and my God," and in another place, (Psa. 35:23), he says, "My God and my Lord," terms only applicable to Jehovah! Such expressions were known to Thomas and he, as an Israelite, would never have applied them to any person whom he did not believe to be God! We are sure, therefore, that it was the belief of Thomas that the risen Savior was Lord and God. If this had been a mistake, the Lord Jesus would have rebuked him, for He would not have allowed him to be guilty of worshipping a mere man. No good man among us would permit a person to call him God and Lord--we would feel like Paul and Barnabas when they tore their clothes because the men of Lystra were ready to sacrifice to them--how much more would the holy Jesus have felt a revolting of spirit against the idea of being worshipped and called, "My Lord and my God," if He had not been of such a Nature that He "thought it not robbery to be equal with God!" The perfect Jesus accepted Divine homage and, therefore, we are assured that it was rightly and properly given. And we here, at this moment, offer Him, by His Grace, the same adoration! To escape from the force of this confession, some who denied our Lord's Deity in olden times had the effrontery to charge Thomas with breaking the Third Commandment by uttering such a cry of surprise as is common among profane talkers. Just as thoughtless persons take the Lord's name in vain and say, "Good God!" or, "O Lord!" when they are much astonished, so certain ancient heretics dared to interpret these words--"My Lord and my God!" It is clear to any thoughtful person that this could not have been the case. For, in the first place, it was not the habit of a Jew to use any such exclamation when surprised or amazed. An irreligious Gentile might have done so, but it was the last thing that would occur to a devout Israelite. If there is one thing about which the Jews in our Lord's times were particular beyond everything, it was about using the name of God. Why, even in their sacred books they have omitted the word, "Jehovah," and have only written "Adonai," because of a superstitious reverence for the very letters of the Divine name! How can we, then, believe that Thomas would have done what no Jew at that time would have dreamed of? Israel, after the Babylonian captivity, had many faults, but not that of idolatry or irreverence to the Divine name! I do not know what an Israelite might have said under the influence of a great surprise, but I am absolutely certain that he would not have said, "My Lord and my God!" In the next place, it could not have been a mere exclamation of surprise, or an irreverent utterance because it was not rebuked by our Lord--and we may be sure He would not have suffered such an unhallowed cry to have gone without a reprimand. Observe, too, that it was addressed to the Lord Jesus--"Thomas answered and said unto Him, My Lord and my God!" It was not a mere outburst of surprise addressed to no one, but it was an answer directed to the Lord who had spoken to him. It was also such a reply that our Lord Jesus Christ accepted it as an evidence of faith, for in the 29th verse He says, "You have believed," and that confession was the only evidence of His believing which our Lord had received from Thomas. A mere outcry of confused astonishment in irreverent words would never have been received as a satisfactory proof of faith! Sin is not an evidence of faith! The slander proposed by the Arian must, therefore, be rejected with derision. I am almost ashamed to have mentioned it, but in these days, when every kind of error is rife, it is necessary to bring to light and break in pieces many idols which we had rather have left with the moles and bats. I regard this cry of Thomas, first, as a devout expression of that holy wonder which came upon him when his heart made the great discovery that Jesus was assuredly His Lord and God. It had flashed upon the mind of Thomas that this august Person whom he had regarded as the Messiah was also God. He saw that the Man at whose feet he had sat was more than man and was assuredly God, and this amazed him so that he used broken speech. He does not say, "You are my Lord and my God," as a man would say who is making a doctrinal statement, but he brings it out in fragments. He makes adoration of it. He cries in ecstasy, "My Lord and my God!" He is amazed at the discovery which he has made and probably, also, at the fact that he has not seen it long before. Why, he might have known it and ought to have perceived it years before! Had he not been present when Jesus trod the sea? When He hushed the winds and bade the waters sleep? Had he not seen Him open the blind eyes and unstop the deaf ears? Why did he not cry, "My Lord and my God," then? Thomas had been slow to learn and the Lord might have said to him, as He did to Philip, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet have you not known Me?" Now, all of a sudden, he does know his Lord--knows Him to such a surprising extent that such knowledge is too wonderful for him! He had come to the meeting to prove whether He who appeared to his Brothers was the same Man who had died on Calvary, but now he seems to have forgotten that original question-- it is more than answered--it has ceased to be a question! He is carried far further by the flood of evidence! He is landed in a full belief of the Godhead of Jesus! He spies out within that wounded body the indwelling Godhead and, at a leap, he springs beyond the conviction that it is the same Man, to the firm assurance that Jesus is God and, consequently, in broken accents, but with double assurance, he cries, "My Lord and my God!" My Brothers and Sisters, how I wish you would all follow Thomas this morning! I will stop a minute that you may do so. Let us wonder and admire! He that had not where to lay His head. He that suffered scourging and spitting, and died on Calvary is, nevertheless, God over all, blessed forever! He who was laid in the tomb lives and reigns, King of kings and Lord of lords! Hallelujah! Behold, He comes in the Glory of the Father to judge the quick and the dead! Let your spirits drink in that Truth of God and be amazed at it! If the fact that Jesus, the Son of God, suffered and bled and died for you, never astonishes you, I fear that you do not believe it, or have no intelligent apprehension of the full meaning of it! Angels wonder, should not you?! Oh, let us feel a holy surprise, today, as we realize the Truth that He who has redeemed us from our sins by His blood is the Son of the Highest! Next, I believe that this was an expression of immeasurable delight, for you observe he does not say, "Lord and God," but, "My Lord and my God!" He seems to take hold of the Lord Jesus with both hands, by those two blessed "mys"-- "My Lord and my God!" Oh, the joy that flashed from the eyes of Thomas at that moment! How quickly his heart beat! He had never known such joy as at that instant and, though he must have felt deeply humbled, yet in that humiliation there was an excessive sweetness of intense satisfaction as he looked at His Divine Lord and gazed on Him, from the pierced feet up to the brow so marred with the crown of thorns, and said, "My Lord and my God!" There is, in these few words, a music akin to the sonnet of the spouse in the Canticles when she sang, "My Beloved is mine, and I am His." The enraptured Apostle saw the Friend of his heart standing before him, shining upon him in love and knitting His heart to him. I pray you follow Thomas in this joy in Christ. I pause a minute that you may do so. Jesus now stands before you, visible to your faith. Delight yourselves in Him! Be always ravished with His love! He is altogether lovely and altogether yours! He loves you with all the infinity of His Nature! The tenderness of His Humanity and the majesty of His Deity blend in His love to you. Oh, love the Lord, you, His saints, for He deserves your hearts! Therefore at this moment say, "My Lord and my God!" More than this, I believe that the words of Thomas indicate a complete change of mind--in other words, a most hearty repentance. He has not asked of the Lord Jesus to be permitted to put his finger into the print of the nails. No, all that has gone without debate. If you look at the chapter you will find no statement that he ever did handle the Lord as he had, at first, proposed. Whether he did put his finger into the print of the nails and his hand into His side must forever be unknown to us until we see Thomas in Heaven and ask him the question. If you read the Savior's words as commanding him to do so, then we may conclude that he did so--but if you read them as only permitting him to do it--then I think he did not do it. I put the question to a dear companion of mine--I read the passage and then I asked--"What do you think, did Thomas put his hand into Christ's side?" And the answer from a thoughtful mind and a gentle heart was this--"I do not think he could. After the Master had so spoken to him, he would shrink from doing so, and would think it willful unbelief to attempt it." This reply coincided exactly with my own convictions. I feel sure that had it been my case, I would have felt so ashamed at ever having proposed such a test, and so overwhelmed to find the Lord yielding to it, that I could not have gone an inch further in the way of seeking tokens and proofs unless I had been absolutely commanded to do so. So, judging Thomas to be like ourselves and, indeed, much better than any of us, notwithstanding his imperfection, I gather that he completely turned round and, instead of putting his finger into the print of the nails, he cried, "My Lord and my God!" The Savior said to him, "Because you have seen Me, you have believed." Now, I lay no stress upon it, but it would seem probable that the Savior might have said, "Because you have touched Me, you have believed," if Thomas had, indeed, touched Him. But inasmuch as He only speaks of sight, it may be that sight was enough for Thomas. I do not insist upon it, but I think it right to suggest it. I feel it is not unreasonable to conclude that all Thomas did was to look at his Lord. He could do no more--the delicacy of his spirit would not permit him to accept the offered test--his reverence stopped him. He saw and believed! In Him we see a complete change of feeling--from being the most unbelieving of the 11, he came to believe more than any of them and to confess Jesus to be God! This exclamation is also a brief confession offaith, "My Lord and my God!" Whoever will be saved, before all things, it is necessary that he is able to unite with Thomas heartily in this creed, "My Lord and my God!" I do not go in for all the minute distinctions of the Athanasian Creed, but I have no doubt that it was absolutely necessary, at the time it was written, and that it materially helped to check the evasions and tricks of the Arians. This short creed of Thomas I like much better, for it is brief, pithy, full, sententious and it avoids those matters of detail which are the quicksands of faith. Such a belief is necessary--and no man can truly hold it unless he is taught by the Holy Spirit. He can say the words, but he cannot receive the spiritual Truth! No man can call Jesus, "Lord," but by the Holy Spirit. It is, therefore, a most necessary and saving creed that we should cry to the Lord Jesus, "My Lord and my God!" I ask you to do this, now, in your hearts. Renew your faith and confess that He who died for you is your Lord and God. Socinians may call Jesus what they please--to me He is God over all, blessed forever! I know that you say, "Amen!" Further than this, do you not think that these words of Thomas were an enthusiastic profession of his allegiance to Christ? "My Lord and my God!" It was as though he paid Him lowliest homage and dedicated himself, then and there, in the entirety of his nature to His service. To Him whom he had once doubted, he now submits himself, for in Him he fully believes. He does as good as say, 'Henceforth, O Christ, You are my Lord and I will serve You. You are my God, and I will worship you." Finally, I regard it as a distinct and direct act of adoration. At the feet of the manifested Savior, Thomas cries, "My Lord and my God!" It sounds like a rehearsal of the eternal song which ascends before that Throne where cherubim and seraphim continually cry, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth." It sounds like a stray note from those choral symphonies which day without night circle the Throne of the Eternal! Let us, in solemn silence, now present our souls before the Throne of God, bowing in reverent adoration unto Him that was, and is, and is to come, even the Lamb that was slain, who is risen, and who lives forever. "My Lord and my God!" O Son of Mary, you are, also, Son of the Highest, and unto my heart and spirit you are my Lord and my God and I worship you this day! We have not time or else I would sit down and invite you to spend a few minutes in private, personal worship, following the example of Thomas in adoring our Lord and God. II. Our next division is to be headed with the question--HOW DID HE COME TO THAT EXCLAMATION? Have you ever thought what Thomas's feelings were when he went to the meeting that evening? His going needed a complicated explanation. Why did he mingle with men whose assertions he doubted? Could he have fellowship with them and yet call them liars? Suppose Jesus Christ to be dead and not risen--why does Thomas go? Is he going to worship a dead man? Is he about to renounce the faith of the last two years? How can he hold it if Jesus is not alive? Yet how can he give it up? Was Jesus Christ, Lord and God to Thomas when he first entered that meeting? I suppose not. He did not, when he entered the room, believe Him to be the same Person who had died. The other disciples believed and Thomas was now the lone doubter--peculiar, positive, obstinate. Has it never happened to other disciples to drift into much the same condition? Thomas was a lot out of catalog that evening--he was the odd person in the little gathering and yet, before service was over, the Lord had completely changed him. "Behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last." The first thing, I think, that led Thomas to this confession of his belief in Christ's Deity was that he had his thoughts revealed. The Savior came into the room, the doors being shut--without opening the doors He suddenly appeared before them by His own Divine Power. Then and there, pointing to Thomas, He repeated to him the very words which Thomas had said to his Brothers. They had not been reported to the Savior, but the Savior had read Thomas' thoughts at a distance and He was, therefore, able to bring before him, his exact words. Notice that the Savior did not say, "Stoop down and put your finger into the nail prints in My feet." Why not? Why, because Thomas had not said anything about His feet and, therefore, the Savior did not mention them! Everything was exact. We, in looking at it, can see the exactness, but Thomas must have felt it much more. He was overwhelmed! To have his thoughts put in plain words and to hear his own words repeated by Him whom they concerned, this was truly amazing! "Oh," he says, "He who now speaks to me is none other than God! And He shall be my Lord and my God." This helped him to his assured conviction that the One who had read his thoughts must be God. He was aided still further, for as soon as he perceived that this was the same Jesus with whom he had conversed before, all the past must have risen before his mind and he must have remembered the many occasions in which the Lord Jesus had exercised the attributes of Deity. Those past conversations, thus revived before him, must all have gone to support the conviction that Jesus was none other than Lord and God. And then, I think, the very air, and manner, and Presence of the Savior convinced the trembling disciple. They say there is a divinity that hedges a king--that I am not prepared to believe, but I am sure there was a majesty about the look of our Lord--a more than human dignity in His manner, tone, speech and bearing! Our Lord's personal Presence convinced Thomas, so that he saw and believed. But perhaps the most convincing arguments of all were our Lord's wounds. It seems a long way round to infer the Deity of Christ from His wounds, yet it is good and clear argument. I shall not set it out in order before you, but leave you to think it out for yourselves! Yet one little hint I would give you--here is a wound in His side more than sufficient to have caused death. It has gone right to the heart--the soldier pierced His side with a spear and forthwith flowed there out blood and water--proving that the heart was pierced. The opening was still there, for the Lord invited Thomas to thrust his hand into His side--and yet Jesus lived! Heard you ever such a story as this--a man with a gaping wide death wound inviting another to thrust his hand therein? Had our Lord been living after the way in which we live, by the circulation of our blood, one can hardly see how this could have been possible! Flesh and blood, being subject to corruption, cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, but the Savior's risen body came not under that description, as, indeed, His buried body did not, for He saw no corruption. I invite you to note well the distinction which may be seen in our Lord's words concerning His own body. He does not speak of His body as flesh and blood, but He says, "Handle Me and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see I have." It was a real body and a material body, for He took a piece of a broiled fish and honeycomb and did eat before them--but still His Resurrection body, living with an open wound in His side, reaching to the heart, was not after the manner of men. So even in the wounds of Christ, we read that He is Man, but not mere man! His wounds, in various ways, were evidence to Thomas of His Deity. Anyway, the glorious fact rushed upon Thomas's astonished mind in a single moment and, therefore, he cried out, "My Lord and my God!" III. Finally, let us see HOW WE MAY COME TO IT. That is our final point and the most practical of all. I doubt not that the Spirit of God was at work with Thomas, at that time, very mightily--and that the true cause of his enlightenment was heavenly illumination. If ever any one of us shall cry in spirit and in truth, "My Lord and my God!" the Holy Spirit must teach us. Blessed are you who can call Jesus, "Lord and God," for flesh and blood has not revealed this unto you, but the Father from Heaven. But I will tell you when Believers do cry, "My Lord and my God!" I remember the first time it filled my heart. Burdened with guilt and full of fears, I was as wretched as a man could be outside of Hell, when I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Look unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." I did look, then and there, by His Grace! I gave a faith-glance to Him who suffered in my place and, in an instant, my peace was like a river! My heart leaped from despair to gladness and I knew my Lord to be Divine! If anyone had said to me, then, "Jesus Christ is not God," I would have laughed him to scorn! He was beyond all question, my Lord and my God, for He had worked a Divine work in me! It may not be an argument to anybody else, but forgiveness consciously known in the soul is a conclusive argument to the man who has ever felt it! If the Lord Jesus turns your mourning into dancing! If He brings you up out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay and sets your feet upon a rock and establishes your goings, He is sure to be your Lord and God from that time on and forever! In the teeth of all that deny it--in the teeth of all the devils in Hell--the redeemed heart will assert the Godhead of its Savior! He that has saved me is, indeed, God, and beside Him there is none else. This first avowal has proved to be only the beginning of these confessions. We remember many other acknowledgments of the same fact. We were severely tempted and yet we did not slip, nor stain our garments, a wonder that we escaped! He that kept us from falling, must be God. I know some moments in my life when I could stand and look back in the morning light upon the valley through which I had passed in the dark--and when I saw how narrow the pathway was; how a little step to the left or to the right must have been my total destruction and yet I had never tripped, but had come straight through in perfect safety--I was astounded and, bowing my head, I worshipped, saying, "The Lord has been my refuge and my defense. He has kept my soul in life and preserved me from the Destroyer, therefore will I sing songs unto Him as long as I live." Oh, yes, dear children of God, when your heads have been covered in the day of battle, you have magnified the Keeper of Israel, saying, "My Lord and my God!" We have felt that we could not doubt, again, and have joyfully committed ourselves to His keeping as to the guardian care of a faithful Creator. Such, also, has been the case in time of trouble, when you have been comforted and upheld. A very heavy affliction has fallen upon you and yet, to your surprise, it has not crushed you as you feared it would have done. Years before you had looked forward to the stroke with agonizing apprehension and said, "I shall never bear it." But you did bear it and, at this moment, you are thankful that you had it to bear! The thing which you feared came upon you and when it came, it seemed like a feather compared with what you expected it to be--you were able to sit down and say, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Your friends were surprised at you--you had been a poor, wretchedly nervous creature before, but in the time of trial you displayed a singular strength such as surprised everybody! Most of all, you surprised yourself, for you were full of amazement that in weakness you were made so strong. You said, "I was brought low, and He helped me." You could not doubt His Deity then--anything which would rob Him of Glory you detested, for your heart said, "Lord, there is none that could have solaced my soul in this fashion save only the Lord God Almighty." Personally I have had to cry out, "It is the Lord," when I have seen His wonders in the deep. "O my Soul, you have trodden down strength." My soul shall magnify my Lord and my God, for, "He sent from above, He took me; He drew me out of many waters. He brought me forth, also, into a large place: He delivered me, because He delighted in me." There have been other occasions less trying. Bear with me if I mention one or two more. When we have been musing, the fire has burned. While studying the story of our Lord, our faith in His Deity has been intensified. When the Spirit of God has revealed the Lord Jesus to us and in us, then we have cried, "My Lord and my God!" Though not after the flesh, yet in very deed and truth we have seen the Lord. On a day which I had given up to prayer, I sat before the Lord in holy peacefulness, wrapped in solemn contemplation. And though I did not see a vision, nor wish to see one, yet I so realized my Master's Presence that I was borne away from all earthly things and knew of no man save Jesus, only. Then a sense of His Godhead filled me till I would gladly have stood up where I was and have proclaimed aloud, as with the voice of a trumpet, that He was my Lord and my God! Such times you, also, have known. Jesus is often known of us in the breaking of bread. At the Communion Table many a time we have seen and adored. It was very precious--we were ready to weep and laugh for joy. Our heart kept beating to the tune of, "My Lord and my God!" Perhaps it was not in any outward ordinance that your soul thus adored, but quite away in the country, or by the seaside, as you walked along and communed with your own heart, you were suddenly overpowered with a sense of Jesus' glorious Majesty, so that you could only whisper to yourself as in a still small voice, "My Lord and my God!" Or perhaps it was when you were laid aside with illness that He made all your bed and then you knew His Divine Power. It was a long and weary night to those who watched you, but to you it was all too short and brimmed with sweetness, for the Lord was there, and He gave you songs in the night! When you awoke you were still with Him and felt ready to faint with overwhelming delight because of the brightness of the manifestation. At such a time you could have sung-- "My Christ, He is the Lord of lords, He is the King of kings! He is the Sun of Righteousness, With healing in His wings! My Christ, He is the Hea ven of heavens, My Christ, what shall I call? My Christ is first, my Christ is last, My Christ is All in All!" I will tell you, yet again, when Jesus has been Lord and God both to me and to you--and that is in times when He has blessed our labors--and laid His arm bare in the salvation of men! When our report has been believed by those who rejected it, before, and the Lord has sent us a happy season of revival, we have given to Him the glory and rejoiced in His Omnipotent Love! We prayed for our children and when, to our surprise--it is a shame to say, "to our surprise," for it ought not to have surprised us--the Lord heard our prayer and, first one, and then, another, came to us and said, "Father, I have found the Lord!" Then we knew that the Lord, He is God, and our God, too! We looked up from our prayers with tears in our eyes to think the Lord Jesus could have heard such weak petitions. And we said in the depths of our hearts, "My Lord and my God!" We went out and tried to teach a dozen or two in a cottage--poor, broken words were all that we could utter--but the Lord blessed it and we heard a poor woman crying for mercy as we came out--and we said inwardly, "My Lord and my God!" If you have been in the Enquiry Room after some Brother, whom God greatly honors, has been proclaiming the Word with power, and if you have seen the people falling right and left under the shafts of the Divine Word, you must have cried, "This is no cunningly devised fable, no fiction, and no fancy," and your heart must have throbbed with all its life, "My Lord and my God!" Have you not felt as if you would dare to go through the very streets of Hell and tell the grinning fiends that Christ is King and Lord forever and ever? The time is very soon coming with some of us when we shall have our last opportunities in this life to find this true. How comforted and refreshed have I often been when visiting dying saints. Truly the Lord has prepared a table for them in the presence of the last enemy. I can truly say that no scenes that these eyes have ever beheld have so gladdened me as the sight of my dear Brothers and Sisters when they have been departing out of the world unto the Father! The saddest scene has been the happiest! I have known some of them in life as self-distrusting, trembling, lowly-minded Believers--but when they have come into the Valley of Death, they have displayed no fear, no doubt, but all has been full assurance! Placid, calm, beautiful, joyful and even triumphant have been the last hours of timid Believers! As I have heard their charming words, I have been certain of the Godhead of Him who gives us victory while we die! It is faith in His name that makes men strong in death! When heart and flesh fail us, only the living God can be the strength of our life and our portion forever. How sweet to know Jesus as our living God in our dying moments! In Him we rejoice with unspeakable joy and full of glory, as we say unto Him in death, "My Lord and my God!" Come, Brothers and Sisters, be of good cheer! A little further on and we shall come to the narrow stream! This we shall cross in an instant and then it will be but a short, short time! Twenty years is soon gone, a hundred years, even, fly away as on eagles' wings--and then we shall be forever with the Lord in Glory! How sweetly will we sing to His eternal praise, "My Lord and my God!" There shall be no doubters in Heaven! No skeptics shall worry us there! But this shall be the unanimous voice of all the redeemed--"Jesus is our Lord and God." The united Church, freed from every spot and wrinkle, and gloriously arrayed as the Bride of Christ, shall be conducted to His Throne and acknowledged as the Lord's Beloved. And then shall she with full heart exclaim, "My Lord and my God!" __________________________________________________________________ Unbinding Lazarus (No. 1776) A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 20, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "And when He had thus spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth! And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave clothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said unto them, Loose him, and let him go." John 11:43,44. In many things our Lord Jesus stands alone as a worker. No other can unite His voice with the fiat which says, "Lazarus, come forth!" Yet, in certain points of gracious operation, the Master associates His servants with Him, so that when Lazarus has come forth He says to them, "loose him, and let him go." In the raising of the dead, He is alone, and therein majestic and Divine--in the loosing of the bound He is associated with them and still remains majestic--but His more prominent feature is condescension. How exceedingly kind it is of our Lord Jesus to permit His disciples to do some little thing in connection with His great deeds, so that they may be, "workers together with Him." Our Lord, as frequently as possible, associated His disciples with Himself. Of course, they could not aid Him in presenting an atoning Sacrifice, yet it was their honor that they had said, "Let us go, that we may die with Him," and that in their love they resolved to go with Him to prison and to death. Our Lord understood the fickleness of their character, yet He knew that they were sincere in their desire to be associated with Him in all His life story, whatever it might be. Therefore, when He, afterwards, rode into Jerusalem in triumph, He, alone, was saluted with Hosannas--but He sent two of His disciples to bring the donkey on which He rode and they cast their garments upon the colt. And they set Jesus on it and, as He went, they spread their clothes on the way. Thus they contributed to His lowly pomp and shared in the exultation of the royal day. Further on, when He would keep the feast, He expressly dwells upon it that He would keep it with them, for He said, "With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." He sent Peter and John to prepare that Passover. He directed them to the large furnished upper room and there He bade them make ready. Anything that they could do, they were allowed to do. Their Lord was willing to have led them further, still, but through weakness they stopped short. In the garden He bade them watch with Him on that dreadful night and He sought sympathy from them-- "Backward and forward, thrice He ran, As if He sought some help from man." He cried in sorrowful disappointment, "Could you not watch with Me one hour?" Ah, no! They could go to the brink of the abyss with Him, but they could not descend into its deeps! He must tread the winepress alone and of the people there must be none with Him. Yet, as far as they could go, He disdained not their dear society. He allowed them, according to their capacity, to drink of His cup and to be baptized with His baptism. And if their fellowship with Him in His sufferings went no farther, it was not because He warned them back, but because they had not the strength to follow. According to His own judgment they were intimately associated with Him, for He said to them, "You are they which have continued with Me in My temptations." Beloved, our Jesus Christ still delights to associate us with Him as far as our feebleness and folly will permit! In His present work of bringing sinners to Himself, He counts it a part of His reward that we should be laborers together with Him. In His working people He beholds the travail of His soul as well as in the sinners whom they bring to Him. Thus He has a double reward and is as much glorified in the love, pity and zeal of His servants as in the harvest which they reap. As a father smiles to see his little children imitating him and endeavoring to assist him in his work, so is Jesus pleased to see our lowly efforts for His honor. It is His joy to see the eyes which He has opened weeping with Him over the impenitent and to hear the tongue which He has loosed speaking in prayer and in the preaching of the Gospel--yes, to see any of the members which He has restored and healed occupied as members of righteousness in His service! Jesus is glad to save sinners at all, but most of all glad to save them by the means of those already saved. Thus He blesses the prodigal sons and the servants of the household at the same moment! He gives to the lost, salvation and upon His own called and chosen ones, He puts the honor of being used for the most grand purposes under Heaven! It is more honorable to save a soul from death than to rule an empire! Such honor all the saints may have. The chief subject of this morning's discourse is our association with Christ in gracious labor, but we must on the road consider other themes which lead up to it. First, I would call your attention to a memorable miracle which was worked by our Lord in the burying place at Bethany. Secondly, I would set before you a singular spectacle, for in Lazarus we see a living man wearing the wrappings of the dead. Thirdly, we will learn something from a timely assistance which the friends around lent to the risen man after the Lord had said, "Loose him, and let him go." And then, by way of conclusion, we will note a practical hint which this whole subject gives to those who are willing to hear what Christ, their Lord, will speak to them. Oh, that the Spirit of God may make us quick of understanding to perceive the mind of the Lord--and then diligent of heart to carry out His will! Come, O blessed Spirit, help Your servant at this hour! I. First, then, this chapter records A MEMORABLE MIRACLE. Perhaps that writer is correct who speaks of the raising of Lazarus as the most remarkable of all our Lord's mighty works. There is no measuring miracles, for they are all displays of the Infinite, but, in some respects, the raising of Lazarus stands at the head of the wonderful series of miracles with which our Lord astonished and instructed the people. Yet I am not in error when I assert that it is a type of what the Lord Jesus is constantly doing at this hour in the realm of mind and spirit. Did He raise the naturally dead? So does He still raise the spiritually dead! Did He bring back a body from corruption? So does He still deliver men from loathsome sins! The life-giving miracle of Grace is as truly astounding as the quickening miracle of power. As this was, in some respects, a more remarkable resurrection than the raising of Jairus' daughter, or of the young man at the gate of Nain, so there are certain conversions and regenerations which are, to the observing mind, more astonishing than others. I notice the magnificence of this miracle in the subject of it because the man had been dead four days. To give life to one of whom his own sister said, "Lord, by this time he stinks," was a deed fragrant with Divine Power! Corruption had set in, but He who is the Resurrection and the Life stayed and reversed the process! Probably the sisters had perceived the traces of decay upon the body of their beloved brother before they buried him, for it is more than likely that they delayed the funeral as long as possible under an undefined hope that, perhaps, their Lord would appear upon the scene. In that warm climate the ravages of decay are extremely rapid and, before many hours, the loving sisters were compelled to admit, as Abraham had done before them, that they must bury their dead out of their sight. It was their full conviction that the terrible devouring of corruption had commenced. What, then, can be done? When a man has newly fallen asleep in death and every vein and artery is in its place--and every separate organ is still perfect--it might seem possible for the life-flood, again, to flow. It somewhat resembles an engine which was but lately in full action and, though it is now motionless, the valves, wheel and bands are still there--only kindle anew the fire and reapply the motive force--and the machinery will speedily begin to work. But when corruption comes, every valve is displaced, every wheel is broken, every band is severed and the very metal, itself, is eaten away. What can be done then? Surely it were an easier task to make a new man, altogether, out of the earth than to take this poor corrupted corpse which has turned to worms' meat and make it live again! This was the stupendous miracle of Divine Power which our glorious Lord performed upon His friend, Lazarus. Now, there are some men who are symbolized by this case--they are not only devoid of all spiritual life, but corruption has set in--their character has become abominable, their language is putrid, their spirit is loathsome. The pure mind desires to have them put out of sight! They cannot be endured in any decent society. They are so far gone from original righteousness as to be an offense to all and it does not seem possible that they should ever be restored to purity, honesty, or hope. When the Lord, in infinite compassion, comes to deal with them and makes them to live, then the most skeptical are obliged to confess, "This is the finger of God!" What else can it be? Such a profane wretch become a Believer? Such a blasphemer a man of prayer? Such a proud, conceited talker, receive the kingdom as a little child? Surely God Himself must have worked this marvel! Now is fulfilled the Word of the Lord by Ezekiel--"And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up out of your graves." We bless our God that He does thus quicken the dry bones whose hope was lost! However far gone a man may be, he cannot be beyond the reach of the Lord's right arm of mighty mercy! The Lord can change the vilest of the vile into the most holy of the holy! Blessed be His name, we have seen Him do this and, therefore, we have cheering hope for the worst of men! The next notable point about this miracle is the manifest human weariness of its worker. He who had to deal with this dead man was, Himself, a Man. I do not know of any passage of Scripture wherein the Manhood of Christ is more frequently manifested than in this narrative. The Godhead is, of course, eminently conspicuous in the resurrection of Lazarus, but the Lord seemed as if He designedly, at the same time, set His Manhood to the front. The Pharisees said, according to the 47th verse, "What do we? For this Man does many miracles." They are to be blamed for denying His Godhead, but not for dwelling upon His Manhood--for every part of the singular scene before us made it conspicuous! When our Lord had seen Mary's tears, we read that He groaned in spirit and was troubled. Thus He showed the sorrows and the sympathies of a man. We cannot forget those memorable words, "Jesus wept." Who but a man should weep? Weeping is a human specialty. Jesus never seems to be more completely bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh than when He weeps! Next, our Lord made an enquiry--"Where have you laid him?" He veils His Omniscience--as a Man, He seeks in-formation--where is the body of His dear departed friend? Even as Mary, in later days said about Him, "Tell me where you have laid Him," so does the Lord Jesus ask for information as a man who knows not. As if to show His Manhood even more fully, when they tell Him where Lazarus is entombed, He goes that way. He needed not to go! He might have spoken a word where He was and the dead would have risen! Could He not as easily have worked at a distance as near at hand? Being Man, "Jesus therefore, again groaning in Himself, comes to the grave." When He has reached the spot, He sees a cave whose mouth is closed by a huge stone. And now He seeks human assistance. He cries, "Take away the stone." Why surely, He who could raise the dead could have rolled away the stone with the same word! Yet, as if needing help from those about Him, the Man, Christ Jesus, reminds us, again, of Mary at His own sepulcher, saying, "Who shall roll away the stone for us?" That done, our Lord lifts up His eyes to Heaven and addresses the Father in mingled prayer and thanksgiving. How like a man is all this! He takes the suppliant's place! He speaks with God as a man speaks with his friend, but still as a Man! Did not this condescending revelation of the Manhood make the miracle all the more remarkable? The time came when the flame of the Godhead flashed forth from the unconsumed bush of the Manhood! The voice of Him who wept was heard in the chambers of death and forth came the soul of Lazarus to live again in the body! "The weakness of God" proved itself to be stronger than death and mightier than the grave! It is a parable of our own case as workers. Sometimes we see the human side of the Gospel and wonder whether it can do many mighty works. When we tell the story, we fear that it will appear to the people as a thrice-told tale. We wonder how it can be that Truth so simple, so homely, so common, should have any special power about it. Yet it is so. Out of the foolishness of preaching the wisdom of God shines forth! The Glory of the eternal God is seen in that Gospel which we preach in much trembling and infirmity. Let us, therefore, glory in our infirmity, because the power of God does all the more evidently rest upon us! Let us not despise our day of small things, nor be dismayed because we are manifestly so feeble. This work is not for our honor, but for the Glory of God--and any circumstance which tends to make that Glory more evident is to be rejoiced in! Let us consider, for a few moments, the instrumental cause of this resurrection. Nothing was used by our Lord but His own word of power. Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth!" He simply repeated the dead man's name and added two commanding words. This was a simple business enough. Dear Friends, a miracle seems all the greater when the means used are apparently feeble and little adapted to the working of so great a result. It is so in the salvation of men! It is marvelous that such poor preaching should convert such great sinners. Many are turned unto the Lord by the simplest, plain, most unadorned preaching of the Gospel. They hear little, but that little is from the lips of Jesus! Many converts find Christ by a single short sentence. The Divine Life is borne into their hearts upon the wings of a brief text. The preacher had no eloquence. He made no attempt at it, but the Holy Spirit spoke through him with a power which eloquence could not rival! Thus said the Lord, "You dry bones, live," and they did! I delight to preach my Master's Gospel in the plainest terms. I would speak still more simply if I could. I would borrow the language of Daniel concerning Belshazzar's robe of scarlet and his chain of gold--and I would say to Rhetoric--"Let your gifts be to yourself and give your rewards to another." The power to quicken the dead lies not in the wisdom of words but in the Spirit of the living God! The voice is Christ's voice and the Word is the Word of Him who is the Resurrection and the Life and, therefore, men live by it! Let us rejoice that it is not necessary that you and I should become orators in order that the Lord Jesus should speak by us--let the Spirit of God rest upon us and we shall be endowed with power from on high so that even the spiritually dead shall, through us, hear the voice of the Son of God--and they that hear shall live! The result of the Lord's working must not be passed over, for it is a main element of wonder in this miracle. Lazarus did come forth and that immediately. The thunder of Christ's voice was attended by the lightning of His Divine Power and, forthwith, life flashed into Lazarus and he came forth. Bound as he was, the power which had enabled him to live, enabled him to shuffle forth from the ledge of rock where he lay--and there he stood with nothing of death about him but his grave clothes! He left the close air of the sepulcher and returned to know, once more, the things which are done under the sun--and that at once. To me it is one of the great glories of the Gospel that it does not require weeks and months to quicken men and make new creatures of them! Salvation can come to them at once! The man who stepped into this Tabernacle this morning, steeped in rebellion against his God and, apparently impervious to Divine Truth, may, nevertheless, go down those steps with his sins forgiven and with a new spirit imparted to him--in the strength of which he shall begin to live unto God as he never lived before! Do you speak of a nation being born, at once, as if it were impossible? It is possible with God! The Divine Power can send a flash of life all round the world at any instant to quicken myriads of His chosen! We are dealing, now, with God--not with men! Man must have time to prepare his machinery and get it into working order, but it is not so with the Lord. We, on our part, must seek after a preacher and find, for him, a place where the people may be gathered. But when the Lord Jesus works, straightway the deed is done--with or without the preacher--and inside or outside the place of assembly! If you and I had to feed 5,000, we would need to grind the corn at the mill, bake the bread in the oven--and then we would be a long time in bringing the loaves in baskets! But the Master takes the barley cakes and breaks--and as He breaks--the food is multiplied! Likewise He handles the fish and lo, it seems as if a shoal had been in His hands instead of "a few small fishes." Behold, the vast multitude receives refreshment from the little stock which has been so abundantly increased! Trust in God, my Brothers! In all your work of love, trust in the unseen Power which lay at the back of the manhood of Christ--and still lies at the back of the simple Gospel which we preach! The everlasting Word of God may seem to be weak and feeble. It may groan and weep and seem as if it could do no more. But it can raise the dead and raise them at once! You can be sure of this. The effect which this miracle produced upon those who looked on was very remarkable, for many believed in the Lord Jesus. Besides this, the miracle of raising Lazarus was so unquestioned and unquestionable a fact, that it brought the Pharisees to a point--they would now make an end of Christ. They had huffed and puffed at His former miracles, but this one had struck such a blow that in their wrath they determined that He should die! No doubt this miracle was the immediate cause of the Crucifixion of Jesus--it marked a point of decision when men must either believe in Christ or become His deadly foes. Oh, Brothers, if the Lord is with us, we shall see multitudes believing through Jesus! And if the rage of the enemy becomes, thereby, the more intense, let us not fear it--there will come a last decisive struggle and perhaps it shall be brought on by some amazing display of the Divine Power in the conversion of the chief of sinners! Let us hope so! Let us not be afraid that Armageddon should be fought, for it will end in victory! We shall see greater things than these! II. Secondly, I beg you to observe A SINGULAR SPECTACLE. A notable miracle was unquestionably worked, but it required a finishing touch. The man was wholly raised, but not wholly freed! Look, here is a living man in the garments of death! That napkin and other grave clothes were altogether congruous with death, but they were much out of place when Lazarus began to live again! It is a wretched sight to see a living man wearing his shroud. Yet we have seen, in this Tabernacle, hundreds of times, people quickened by Divine Grace with their grave clothes still on them! Such was their condition that unless you observed carefully, you would think them still dead. And yet within them the lamp of heavenly Life was burning. Some said, "He is dead, look at his garments." But the more spiritual cried, "He is not dead, but these bands must be loosed." It is a singular spectacle--a living man hampered with the garments of death! Moreover, he was a moving man bound hand and foot. How he moved, I do not know. Some of the old writers thought that he glided, as it were, through the air, and that this was part of the miracle. I think he may have been so bound that though he could not freely walk, yet he could shuffle along like a man in a sack. I know that I have seen souls bound and yet moving--moving intensely in one direction--and yet not capable of stirring an inch in another. Have you not seen a man so truly alive that he wept, he mourned, he groaned over sin--but yet he could not believe in Christ--but seemed bound hand and foot as to faith? I have seen him determinedly give up his sin and crush a bad habit under his foot--and yet he could not lay hold on a promise or receive a hope! Lazarus was free enough in one way, for he came out of the tomb, but the blinding napkin was about his head and, even so, it is with many a quickened sinner, for when you try to show him some cheering Truth of God, he cannot see it. Moreover, here was a repulsive object, but yet attractive. Mary and Martha must have been charmed to see their brother, even though wrapped in grave clothes. He startled all the assembly and yet they were drawn to him. A man fresh from the sepulcher robed in a winding-sheet is a sight one would go a long way not to see, but such was Lazarus! But a man restored from death--it were worthwhile to travel round the world to look upon--and such was Lazarus! Mary and Martha felt their hearts dancing within them since their dear brother was alive! Notwithstanding the repulsiveness of the spectacle, it must have charmed them beyond anything they had seen except the Lord Himself! So have we come near to a poor sinner--it was enough to frighten anybody to hear his groans and to see his weeping--yet he was so dear to every true heart that we loved to be with him! I have sometimes spoken with broken-hearted sinners and they have pretty nearly broken my heart. And yet, when they have gone out of the room, I have wished to see a thousand more like them! Poor creatures, they fill us with sorrow, and yet flood us with joy! Moreover, here was a man strong and yet helpless. He was strong enough to come forth from his grave and yet he could not take the napkin from off his head, for his hands were bound and he could not go to his house, for his feet were swathed. Unless some kind hand unbound him, he would remain a living mummy! He had sufficient strength to quit the grave, but he could not loosen his grave clothes. So have we seen strong men, for the Spirit of God has been in them, and has moved them mightily! They have been passionately in earnest--even to agony in one direction--yet the newborn life has been so feeble in other ways that they seemed to be mere babes in swaddling clothes. They have not been able to enjoy the liberty of Christ, nor enter into communion with Christ, nor work for Christ. They have been bound hand and foot so that work and progress have, alike, been beyond them. This seems a strange sequel to a miracle. The bands of death loosed, but not the bands of linen! Motion given, but no movement of hands or fee! Strength bestowed, but not the power to undress himself! Such anomalies are common in the world of Divine Grace. III. This brings us to consider A TIMELY ASSISTANCE which you and I are called upon to render. O for wisdom to learn our duty and Grace to do it at once! Let us consider what are these bands which often bind newly regenerated sinners. Some of them are blindfolded by the napkin about their head--they are very ignorant--sadly devoid of spiritual perception and, therefore the eye of faith is darkened. Yet the eye is there and Christ has opened it. And it is the business of the servant of God to remove the napkin which bandages it, by teaching the Truth of God, explaining it, and clearing up difficulties. This is a simple thing to do, but exceedingly necessary. Now that they have life, we shall teach them to purpose. Besides that, they are bound hand and foot, so that they are compelled to inaction--we must show them how to work for Jesus! Sometimes these bands are those of sorrow, for they are in an awful terror about the past--we have to unbind them by showing that the past is blotted out. They are wrapped about by many a yard of doubt, mistrust, anguish and remorse. "Loose them, and let them go." Another hindrance is the band offear. "Oh," says the poor soul, "I am such a sinner that God must punish me for my sin." Tell him the grand Doctrine of Substitution! Unwrap this cerement by the assurance that Jesus took our sin and that, "by His stripes we are healed." It is wonderful what liberty comes by that precious Truth of God when it is well understood! The penitent soul fears that Jesus will refuse its prayer--assure it that He will in nowise cast out any that come to Him. Let fear be taken from the soul by the promises of Scripture, by our testimony to their truth and by the Spirit bearing witness to the doctrine which we endeavor to impart. Souls are very often bound with the grave clothes of prejudice. They used to think such-and-such before conversion and they are very apt to carry their dead thoughts into their new life. Go and tell them that things are not what they seem--that old things have passed away--and behold, all things have become new! The days of their ignorance God winked at, but now they must change their minds about everything and no more judge according to the sight of the eyes and the hearing of the ears. Some of them are bound with the grave clothes of evil habit. It is a noble work to aid a drunk to unwind the accursed bands which prevent his making the slightest progress towards better things. Let us tear off every band from ourselves, that we may the more readily help them to be free! The bonds of evil habits may still remain upon men that have received the Divine Life until those habits are pointed out to them and the evil of them is shown. And so they are helped by precept, prayer and example, to free themselves. Who among us would wish Lazarus to continue wearing his shroud? Who would wish to see a regenerate man falling into evil habits? When the Lord quickens men, the main point of the business is secured--then you and I can come in to loose every bond which would hamper and hinder the free action of the Divine Life. But why are those bandages left? Why did not the miracle which raised Lazarus, also loosen his grave clothes? I answer because our Lord Jesus is always economical of miracles. False wonders are plentiful! True miracles are few and far between. In the Church of Rome, such miracles as they claim, are usually a lavish waste of power. When St. Swithin made it rain for 40 days, that his corpse might not be carried into the Church--it was much ado about very little. When St Denis walked a thousand miles with his head in his hands, one is apt to ask why he could not have journeyed quite as well if he had set it on his neck! And when another saint crossed the sea on a tablecloth, it would appear to have been an improvement if he had borrowed a boat. Rome can afford to be free with her counterfeit coins! The Lord Jesus never works a miracle unless there is an object to be gained which could not be obtained in any other way. When the enemy said, "Command that these stones be made bread," our Lord refused, for it was not a fit occasion for a miracle. Lazarus cannot be raised out of the grave except by a miracle--but he can be unstripped without a miracle and, therefore, human hands must do it. If there is anything in the Kingdom of God which we can do, ourselves, it is folly to say, "May the Lord do it," for He will do nothing of the sort! If you can do it, you shall do it--or if you refuse, the neglect shall be visited upon you. I suppose that those bands were left that those who came to unwind him would be sure that he was the same man who died. Some of them may have said, "This is Lazarus, for these are the grave clothes which we wrapped about him. There is no trickery here. This is the same man that was laid out and prepared by us for burial." "I recollect putting in that stitch," cries one. "I remember that stain in the linen," cries another! From coming so near to Lazarus, they would be equally well assured that he was really alive! They perceived his living flesh rising as each ligature was removed--they marked his breathing and the flush which reddened his cheeks. For some such cause our Lord permits the quickened sinner to remain in a measure of bondage, that we may know that the man is the same person who was really dead in trespasses and sins. He was no sham sinner, for the traces of his sins are still upon him. You can see by what he says that his training was none of the best--the relics of the old nature show what manner of man he used to be. Every now and then the smell of the sepulcher meets your nostrils--the mold of the grave has stained his grave clothes--his was true death and no imitation! So, too, we know that he is alive, for we hear his sighs and cries. And we perceive that his experience is that of a living child of God. Those desires, that searching of heart and that longing to be soundly right with God--we know what these mean. It is a great help to us in discerning spirits and in being assured of the work of God upon any person, to come into living contact with those imperfections which it is to be our privilege to remove under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, I still think that the main object was that these disciples might enter into rare fellowship with Christ. They could each say, not proudly, but still joyfully, "Our Lord raised Lazarus and I was there and helped to unloose him from his grave clothes." Perhaps Martha could say in later life, "I took the napkin from my brother's dear face." And Mary could add, "I helped to unbind a hand." It is most sweet to hope that we have done anything to cheer, or to teach, or sanctify a soul! Not unto us can be any praise, but unto us there is much comfort concerning this thing. Brothers and Sisters, will you not earn a share in this dear delight? Will you not seek the lost sheep? Will you not sweep the house for the lost money? Will you not, at the very least, help to feast the long-lost son? This, you see, gives you an interest in a saved person. Those who are very observant tell us that those whom we serve may forget us, but those who do us a service are fast bound to us! Many kindnesses you may do for people and they will be altogether ungrateful, but those who have bestowed the benefit do not forget. When the Lord Jesus sets us to help others, it is partly that they may love us for what we have done--but still more that we may love them because we have rendered them a benefit! Is there any love like the love of a mother to her child? Is it not the strongest affection on earth? Why does a mother love her child? Did the little child ever render a pennyworth of service to the mother? Certainly not! It is the mother that does everything for the child. So then, the Lord binds us to the new converts in love by permitting us to help them. Thus is the Church made all of one piece and woven together from the top throughout by the workmanship of love. O you who are devoid of love, it is evident that you do not labor with pure desire to benefit others, for if you did, you would be filled with affection for them! Before we leave this point of seasonable assistance, let us ask--why should we remove these grave clothes? It is enough reply that the Lord has bid us do so! He commands us to "loose him, and let him go." He bids us comfort the feebleminded and support the weak. If He commands it, we need no other reason! I hope, my dear Friends, you will set to work at once, for the King's business requires haste and we are traitors if we delay. We should do this because it is very possible that we helped to bind those grave clothes upon our friend. Some of the people who were at Bethany that day had assisted in the burial of Lazarus and, surely, they should loose Lazarus who helped to bind him. Many a Christian man, before his conversion, has helped to make sinners worse by his example. And possibly, after his conversion, he may, by his indifference and lack of zeal, have aided in binding new converts in the bonds of doubt and sorrow. At any rate, you have said of many a person, "He will never be saved!" Thus you have wrapped him in grave clothes--the Lord never told you to do that--you did it of your own accord and now that He bids you remove those grave clothes, will you not be quick to do it? I remember when somebody lent a hand to take the grave clothes off me and, therefore, I desire to loose the grave clothes of others. If we cannot repay what we owe to the precise individual who worked us good, we can at least repay it by working for the general benefit of seekers. "There," said a benevolent man, as he gave help to a poor man, "take that money and when you can pay it back, give it to the next man whom you meet who is in the same plight as yourself. And tell him he is to pay it to another destitute person as soon as he can afford it--and so my money will go traveling on for many a day." That is how our Lord does it--He sends a Brother to loose my bonds. Then I am helped to set another free and, he releases a third, and so on to the world's end! God grant that you and I may not be negligent in this heavenly service! IV. Lastly, A PRACTICAL HINT. If the Lord Jesus Christ employed the disciples in relieving Lazarus of his grave clothes, do you not think He would employ us if we were ready for such work? Yonder is Paul. The Lord Jesus has struck him down, but the lowly Ananias must visit him and baptize him, that he may receive his sight. There is Cornelius. He has been seeking the Lord and the Lord is gracious to him, but he must, first, hear Peter. There is a wealthy Ethiopian riding in his chariot. He is reading the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, but he cannot understand it till Philip comes. Lydia has an opened heart, but only Paul can lead her to the Lord Jesus. Innumerable are the instances of souls blessed by human instrumentality! But I shall conclude by calling attention to one passage upon which I wish to dwell for a second or two. When the prodigal came home, the father did not say to one of his servants, "Go and meet him." No, we read, "when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him." He did all this himself! The father personally forgave him and restored him. But we read further on, "the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: and bring here the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat, and be merry." The loving father might have done all this himself, might he not? Oh yes, but then he desired that all the servants in the house should be of one accord with him in the joyful reception of his son. The great Lord could do everything for a sinner, Himself, but He does not do so because He wishes all of us to be in fellowship with him! Come, fellow servants, bring forth the best robe! I am never happier then when I preach the righteousness of Christ and try to put it upon the sinner. "What?" cries one! "You cannot put it on!" So the parable says-- "Bring forth the best robe and put it on him." I not only bring it out and show it, but by the Holy Spirit's help, I try to put it on the sinner! I hold it up before him, just as you hold up a friend's great-coat to help him to put it on. You have to guide the poor sinner's hand into the sleeve and lift it up upon his shoulders or he might never get it on. You are to teach him, comfort him, cheer him and, in fact, help him to be dressed like one of the family! Then the ring, can we not bring it forth? Surely the father should have put the ring upon his son's hand. No, he bids his servants do that. He cries to them, "Put a ring on his hand"--introduce him into fellowship, gladden him with the communion of saints! You and I must conduct the new convert into the joys of Christian society and let him know what it is to be married to Christ and joined to His people! We must put honor upon these reclaimed ones and decorate those who once were degraded. Nor must we fail to put shoes on his feet! He has a long journey to go--he is to be a pilgrim and we must help to shoe him with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace. His feet are new in the Lord's ways--we must show him how to run on the Master's errands. As for the fatted calf, it is ours to feed the restored ones. And as for the music and the dancing, it is ours to make the hearts of penitents glad by rejoicing over them. There is plenty to be done! O my Brothers and Sisters, try and do some of it this morning! Certain among us will be looking after an enquirer as soon as the service is over--and they will try to put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. I wish that more of you did this, but if you cannot do so within these Tabernacle walls, do it when you get home! Commence a holy ministry for the converted who are not yet brought into liberty. There are children of God who have not yet a shoe on their feet--there are plenty of shoes in the house, but no servant has put them on! When I come to look, I see some Brethren who have not the ring on their hand. Oh, that I might have the privilege of putting it on! I charge you, Brothers and Sisters, by the blood that bought you, and by the love that holds you, and by the supreme bounty which supplies your need--go forth and do what your Master graciously permits and commands you to do-- loose Lazarus! Bring forth the best robe and put it on him! Put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet! And let us all eat and be merry with our Father! Amen. __________________________________________________________________ Esther's Exaltation--or, Who Knows? (No. 1777) A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 27, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "Then Mordecai told them to answer Esther, "Do not thinkin your heart that you will escape in the king's palace, more than all the Jews. For if you altogether hold your peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house shall be destroyed: and who knows whether you are come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Esther 4:13,14. THE appeal of Mordecai in his pressing time of distress was to one single person, namely, to Esther. I believe that I shall do better this morning by making my sermon an address to individuals than by speaking of nations or Churches. I assuredly believe that England has been raised up as a nation and brought to her present unique position that she may be the means of spreading the Gospel throughout all the nations of the earth. I judge that God has blessed the two great nations of the Anglo-Saxon race--England and the United States--and given them pre-eminence in commerce and in liberty on purpose, that in such a time as this they may spread abroad the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Woe to these nations if they fail to fulfill their solemn obligations! If, being raised up for a purpose, they refuse to perform it, they shall melt away. If, being armed and carrying bows, they turn back in the day of battle, both empires will perish as surely as did the power of Macedon and the dominion of Rome. We ought to be very careful as a people to act upon the rule of righteousness and the principles of peace, for any other conduct is inconsistent with our high calling. We are entrusted with great opportunities--if we do not rightly use them, the New Zealander of Macaulay may yet survey the ruins of this empire city. "You and your father's house shall be destroyed," said Mordecai to Esther, and he says the same to us! Oh, that England may know the day of her visitation! We might properly say of any Christian Church that it has its own appointed place in the purposes of Divine Mercy. If the candle is lit, even though it is set upon a golden candlestick, it is not lit for itself, but that it may give light to all that are in the house. If any Church fails to bless others and so proves unfaithful to her solemn trust, the Lord will take away the candlestick out of its place and leave the unfaithful to mourn in darkness. Remember the Lord's warning voice, "Go you, now, unto My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people Israel." Remember, also, unfaithful Jerusalem, whose house is left unto her desolate because she obeyed not the voice of the Lord. The Church in Rome was once a Church of high commanding influence for good--you know what it has become. Some other churches are on the way, I fear, to the same dreadful end. God grant that none of the Churches with which we are connected as Christian people may ever either apostatize from the faith, or grow lax and worldly, or become indifferent to the Glory of God and the salvation of men! I might thus speak to each Church and say, "Who knows whether you are come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" My Brothers and Sisters, it is a wonderfully easy thing to denounce the faults of a government or of a nation--to complain of this being done, and of that being left undone--and this amusement may only serve to divert our conscience from its more profitable duties at home. But consider the matter and remember that in a free state we, each one, are part and parcel of the nation--and of the government--and we are, each one, personally responsible, in our measure and degree, for all the acts of the nation. It is an easy matter to tie up our country to the halberdiers, like a criminal, and then to scourge it without mercy, but it would be a far more profitable business to use the whip of criticism upon ourselves! The same is true with regard to a Church. Men are too apt to condemn, in the mass, what they tolerate in themselves as individuals. But why are we so ready to accuse the Churches? Why are we so censorious as to what the Churches do and what the Churches are? Who make up the Churches? Why, we, each one, by our influence, help to make the Churches good, or bad, or indifferent, as the case may be! Therefore, I will not waste time in generalities, but I will come to personalities. I will follow Mordecai's tack and speak only to Esther--that is to say, to each one who may happen to be here to whom God has entrusted opportunity, talent and position. I would urge them to remember that there is a something for each Believer to do, a work which he cannot delegate to another. A task which it is his privilege to be permitted to undertake--which it will be to his solemn disgrace and detriment if he does not execute--but which will be to his eternal glory under God if he is found faithful in it. The Gospel assures us that the great Householder has committed talents "to every man according to his several ability." Our hope of success, this morning, in our sermon, shall lie in your individualizing yourselves and hearing the voice of the Spirit of God saying to each one, "Who knows whether you are come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" I shall lay out my sermon in four parcels, arranging it under four words. I. The first word is LISTEN! LISTEN to my words, as Mordecai desired Esther to listen to him. Listen while God, the Lord, speaks to your heart and calls you to your high vocation. Listen, first, to a question. Brother, will you separate your interests from those of your people and your God? I do not think that Mordecai was afraid that Esther would do so, but still, it is sometimes well to prevent an evil before we perceive it, and he did so by saying, "Do not think that you will escape in the king's palace." It was possible, that being a queen, it might enter into her mind that she would be safe even if all the rest of the Jews were put to death. It would be a painful thing that her countrymen should be destroyed, but the stroke might not touch her in the seclusion of the palace where she had, "not yet showed her kindred nor her people." She would still remain the favored wife of the great king and she might, therefore, selfishly look to herself and leave those who were in peril to look to themselves or to their God, while she coldly hoped that the Lord would somehow or other give them deliverance. Does that temptation come across the path of any one of us? It may. You may say, "I shall be saved though the city should perish in its iniquity. Though the people are steeped in poverty and ignorance, I shall enjoy plenty and live in the Light of God. I know the Lord, myself, and that is my main concern. If the heathen perish, I am not one of them, and I am thankful that it will not interfere with my destiny." Will you argue in this selfish manner? Will you follow the wicked policy of separating your own personal interests from those of your Redeemer and His Church? If so, your ship is wrecked before it leaves the harbor! You are no child of God if this principle holds the mastery over you! Your salvation lies not in your separation from Christ and His Church, but in your union with them! Over the sea of life, there is no passing in safety but in the vessel which carries your Lord and His disciples. Are you going to sail in a separate boat, or will you try to swim across the sea in your own strength? Then look to yourself--and expect disaster! If your interests and Christ's are to be separated, you must supply yourself with atonement, with righteousness, with spiritual life and with heavenly food! Yes, you must make a Heaven for yourself. You cannot do this and, therefore, it would be your ruin to attempt to stand alone. Do you wish to be joined with Jesus so as to be rescued from Hell? I tell you, Sirs, there is no receiving Christ unless you receive His doctrine and rule! You must receive this Grace, also, namely, that you give yourself to Him to make His interests your interests, His life your life, His Kingdom your kingdom, His Glory your glory! Your personal welfare will be found in submergence into Christ. Sink or swim with your Lord and His cause! Do you mean to separate yourself from the Church of God and say, "I shall look to my own salvation, but I cannot be supposed to take an interest in saving others"? In such a spirit as that, I do not say you will be lost, but I say you are already lost! It is as necessary that you be saved from selfishness as from any other vice! Some of our worst fetters are those which are forged by selfishness--and this is one of the chief bonds which our Redeemer must burst for us. We must live unto God and love others as God has loved us, or else we are still in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity. I conceive that nobody who professes to be a Christian would deliberately wish to set up a private estate apart from Christ and His cause. Then if you are partners in name, be partners in fact! If you have fellowship with Christ--remember that it is of the essence of fellowship that you are in co-partnership with Him--if He is a loser, you are a loser and you are to fret about it. And if He is a gainer, you are a gainer and you are to joy therein! He bids you rejoice with Him that He has found His sheep that was lost! I ask again--Are you determined to set up a separate interest from Christ? If you are, say so deliberately and count the cost. Mark that man, for though he may, in his selfishness, spread himself abroad and flourish like a green bay tree, yet the day shall come when he shall wither and the place that knows him shall know him no more, forever! O professed servant of God, minister, deacon, or private church member, you shall perish if once you begin to live unto yourself! Remember those Words of God, you careless women, "She that lives in pleasure is dead while she lives." And listen, you selfish religionists, to this Truth of God--"If you live after the flesh, you shall die." Listen to a second question. If you could separate your interests from those of the cause of God, would you thereby secure them? You are a Church member. You think, also, that you are a living member of the body of Christ--but you are tempted to look to yourself and to leave others to their shifts. Listen--"Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king's palace, more than all the Jews?" Is it so, that because you are, yourself, a member of a flourishing Church and because you enjoy all sorts of Christian privileges you, therefore, harden your heart concerning dying Churches and desponding saints? Do you imagine that the body can be sick and yet you, as a member of it, will not suffer? I tell you, if the Church of God goes aside, it will be to your injury! If the Truth of God is not preached, you will be a loser! If Christian life is not vigorous, you will be weakened! When a baneful atmosphere is over other Christians, you will breathe it! Sinners cannot be left in their spiritual death without creating a foulness in the air which is to the peril of us all. If this great city is left to seethe and rot in its infidelity and misery and filthiness, fancy not that you Christian people will escape! You dwell with these outcasts and you are already feeling their influence--and will feel it still more if they do not feel yours. How far and how deep that participation will go, I will not venture to prophesy, for I am no Prophet, neither the son of a Prophet--but there are elements now fermenting which threaten, first, the existence of the commonwealth and next, the liberties of Christian worship! Listen good, my Brothers and Sisters--things cannot long remain as they are. This great flood of wretchedness must be stopped or it will sweep us all away! I know not what of evil may yet come of the negligence of the Christian Church towards the population with which it is surrounded. Those wretched beings who starve in overcrowded rooms will not die unavenged if nothing more comes of it than the sin which is begotten of need. If you live in a house well-ventilated and well-drained, and you have near you foul hovels--filthy, dilapidated, overcrowded--when the fever breeds there, it will not respect your garden wall--it will come up into your windows, strike down your children, or lay you, yourself, in the grave! As such mischief to health cannot be confined to the locality in which it was born, so is it with spiritual and moral disease--it must and will spread on all sides! This may be a selfish argument, but as we are battling with selfishness, we may fitly take Goliath's sword with which to cut off his head! You Christian people suffer if the Church suffers! You suffer even if the world suffers. If you are not creating a holy warmth, the chill of sin is freezing you! Unconsciously, the death which is all around will creep over you who are idle in the Church--and it will soon paralyze all your energies unless, in the name of God, you awaken yourselves to give battle to it! You must unite with the Lord and His people in winning the victory over sin, or sin will win the victory over you! Listen to this and let it sink into your mind. Next, remember, for your humiliation, that God can do without you! Enlargement and deliverance will arise to His people from another place if it comes not by us. If the Lord were tied up to any one man, or any one Church, or any one nation, it were treasonable for that person, Church, or nation to be negligent! But as the Lord waits not for man, neither tarries for the sons of men, it becomes them to mind what they are doing. He can do without us! When He looked and there was no man, His own arm brought salvation! And as it was of old, so will it be again. Remember that! The great Owner of the vineyard will have fruit at the end of the year and if yonder tree does not bear it, He will cut it down--why let it cumber the ground? If the farmers consult their own gain and plot to gain the inheritance for themselves, their Lord will destroy them, "and will let out His vineyard unto other farmers which shall render Him the fruits in their seasons." He will effect His purpose! He will fetch home His banished. He will gather together His scattered sheep. He will cause the earth to be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea--and if we do not gather in the wanderers, or spread the knowledge of His Grace--the work will be done by more faithful men. The Spirit says unto the Church in Philadelphia, "Hold fast that which you have, that no man take your crown." The crown of this Church has been soul-winning--suffer none to rob you of it! If any one of you has already gained the high honor of bringing sinners to Christ, do not lose it by a future life of sloth or powerlessness! Hold fast your zeal and perseverance, that you may be rewarded at the last day. He can do without you--remember that, O servant of the Lord! We are apt to think ourselves wonderfully important and begin to fret if we are put aside from our work for a little while, but perhaps this affliction is necessary to teach us--and to teach all that know us--to cease from man and to look to God alone! It would be a sad thing to exhibit pride and self-conceit and provoke the Lord to show the world how readily He can dispense with our labors. With this Truth of God in view, my heart cries-- "Dismiss me not from Your service, Lord, But train me for Your will." Here follows a still more sobering reflection. Remember, that as God can do without us, it may be He will do without us. It might come to pass that God will say, "I will no more bless the world by this England. She has become selfishly mercantile. She cares more for commerce than for righteousness--she is drunken and infidel--I will give her up. Her merchants care nothing for the poor, whose labor is ill-requited. Let her pass away as all oppressors must and let the nations say--'Alas, alas, that great city, that mighty city! For in one hour so great riches is come to nothing.'" He may say to any Church, "Repent! Or else I will come unto you quickly and will fight against you with the sword of My mouth." "Ichabod" has been written before and may be, again, on places where once there shone upon the forefront the inscrip-tion--"Holiness unto the Lord." So, also, any man may be set aside, even as the Lord put away Saul and said to him, "You have rejected the Word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel." Though, like Samson, a hero may have slain his thousands and the hopes of Israel hang upon the hero--yet shorn and blinded, he may yet grind with slaves at the mill if his lusts enslave him! The Lord may decline to use us if we are not prepared, in such a time as this, to do our very utmost and to lay ourselves out for the cause of His Truth and Holiness. It may please the Lord to say of a wicked and slothful servant, "Take away his talent from him and give it to him that has ten talents." He may say to any pastor among us, "Let his habitation be desolate and his bishopric let another take." Listen, I pray you, to this warning from the Lord! Hear, O Heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord will judge His people, and to whom much is given, of him shall much be required. Listen to yet one thing more. How will you bear the disgrace if ever it comes upon you, of having allowed your golden opportunities to be wasted? What if Israel had been destroyed for lack of Esther's intercession? Her name would have been a byword among other nations as a base and traitorous woman! If the people had been spared by some other means because she had refused her mission--as long as there lived a Jew, they would have kept no feast of Purim--but have cursed her memory! When I think of the neglects of our own ancestors, I am anxious that we take warning by them. There are, at this moment, valleys in the Highlands which are thoroughly Romish. Why? They were not carefully evangelized at the time of the Reformation! If the workers of that period had done their work thoroughly, there would have been no Romish valleys in Presbyterian Scotland! Ireland still cowers under the shadow of the Pope! There was a hopeful time when better things were promised, but this was allowed to pass by--and what can be done to rescue Ireland now? Times do not tarry and tides do not wait-- and if we do not avail ourselves of them while they are with us, our descendants may lament our neglects! I fear that the best among us can remember with regret times which we have suffered to pass over us unimproved. We can never call them back again! You did not train your children--they are men and women, now, and will not listen to you. Oh, parents, why did you not speak to them when they would have listened? But what if a whole life should glide away in living for yourselves, in living for your own comfort and enriching? What if you have done nothing, in all these years, for the cause of the Lord Jesus and the coming of His Kingdom? What disgrace awaits the unfaithful servant! What dishonor awaits you! If you have been clouds without rain, wells without water, smoking lamps giving no light, fields that yield no harvest, what must be your portion? Let every Esther resolve that she will never bring this ban upon her name! Let every man, woman and even child among us, knowing the Lord, feel that the vows of the Lord are upon us and that by imperative necessity we must serve according to our capacity the cause of God and His Truth! If we should perish through our zeal for the Lord of Hosts, it will be grand, thus, to lose our lives! Thus much for the word, "Listen." May the Spirit of God sanctify your hearts by His Word. II. I change a little and the call is now, "CONSIDER." Consider to what some of you have been advanced. You have been raised to salvation! You have been lifted from the dunghill and set among princes! I have uttered the word, "salvation," and what an infinity of goodness lies hidden there! In the music of that word, all sweetnesses meet together! What are the obligations of one elected according to the foreknowledge of God, redeemed by the heart's blood of Christ and quickened by the Holy Spirit? What manner of persons ought we to be? You have been raised to that honor, walk worthy of it! Besides that, some of you have been raised to a considerable degree of Christian knowledge. You are not mere babes in Grace--you are well instructed and you have had a blessed experience both of trouble and of joy which has made you strong in the Lord--and has confirmed you in the faith and has admitted you into the inner circle where the joy of the Lord is best known. If I had said that you had been elevated to be queens, like Esther, it would have been a poor elevation compared with that which you have actually received! Some of you who are the favorites of Heaven have leaned your head on Christ's bosom and have been permitted to sit where angels would wish to be! You are near and dear to Jesus and espoused to Him in love. In addition to all this, the Lord has raised some of you out of poverty and brought you to comparative wealth, perhaps to positive wealth--and He has given you positions which once you never dreamed of. To this He adds domestic comfort, health and prosperity in all its forms. The Lord has also given you talent. I fear we have, all of us, more ability than we use--but some have more talent than they, themselves, are aware of--and this, perhaps, they display in business, but never in the cause of God! Thus you are brought to the Kingdom of God, but why is it so? I want you to consider why the Lord has brought you where you are. Do you think that He has done it for your own sake? Does He intend all this merely that you may practice self-indulgence? Can this be the design of God? Do not think so! Has He done all this merely to give you pleasure? Not so! God's work is like a net of many meshes and these are all connected with each other. We are links of the same chain and cannot move without moving others. We are members of one body and God acts towards us with that fact in view. He does not bless the hand for the hand's sake, but for the sake of the whole body! Well then, dear Friend, you are saved that you may save! You are taught that you may teach! You are confirmed in the faith that you may confirm others! Talents are allotted to you that you may turn them over and bring in heavenly usury for your Lord! Whatever you have is not yours to hoard for yourself, or to spend upon yourself, but that you may use it as a good steward of God! Who knows whether you are come to the kingdom which God has given you for such a time as this, when there is need of you and all that you have? Consider, next, at what a time it is that you have been thus advanced. You have been instructed in the faith in a time when unbelief is rampant. Why? You have been confirmed in full assurance at a time when many are weak and trembling. Why? You have been entrusted with talent in a time when multitudes are perishing for lack of knowledge. Why? You are found in the Church when valued Brothers and Sisters are dying or moving off. Why is this? You have wealth when many are starving. Why is this? You hold a high position when many master spirits are leading men into infidelity, or ritualism, or communism. Why are you placed where you are? Brother, your inevitable answer must be that God has put you where you are for some good purpose--which purpose must be connected with His own Glory--and with the extension of His Kingdom in the world. If, however, you think it enough to have secured a fortune, let me ask you--Do you think you are the proprietor of what you have amassed, or do you admit that you are a steward? If you are a steward, use not the goods entrusted to you for your own ends, but for your Master's, for if you do not, you are a thief! Whenever a steward considers that the estate is his own property and not his master's, he is a thief and, before long, his master will deal with him and say, "Give an account of your stewardship; for you may be no longer steward." Consider also, I pray you, under what very special circumstances you have come where you are. To you as an individual I distinctly speak, and to no one else. It was a very strange thing that Esther, who was the foster child of Mordecai, a humble Jew, should rise from lowly rank to be the queen of Persia! Out of all the women gathered from every province, how amazing that she should be chosen to be queen! Special Providence selected the Jewish maiden for the throne! The same is true of each one of us now occupying a post of usefulness. David was taken from the sheepfolds--from following the ewes great with young--that he might be the shepherd of God's people, Israel. I am marveling to find myself where I now am--are not you? How came you into your present pastorate, my dear Brother in the ministry? How did you gain that comfortable position which you now occupy in society? How came you, even, to be in the Church of God? Oh, if anybody had told yonder Brother, a few years ago, that he would be here, he would have sworn at them! But here he is, sitting at the feet of Jesus, charmed to be His disciple! Now, consider what a wonder of Grace you are, what a singular favor it is that you are where you are! Should not these remarkable dealings of the Lord towards you bind you to the Divine service? Many a man of business here, today, obtaining a satisfactory livelihood, has, a dozen times, been within an inch of bankruptcy and yet he has obtained help and passed the rock in safety. Some of you have been well-near ruined several times--and yet you still have bread to eat and clothes to put on. It is a miracle in your eyes that you have not come to beggary! Let your special deliverances and memorable mercies be as the tongue of persuasion, calling you to grateful service. Consider how great things the Lord has done for you and let us not have to say, "Many times did He deliver them, but they soon forget His works. They understood not His wonders in Egypt. They remembered not the multitude of His mercies." Then I beg you to consider, once more, with what singular personal adaptations you are endowed for the work to which God has called you. I believe you are endowed with special capacity for a certain work, so that no one is so fit for it as yourself--you are a key to a lock which no other key will fit so well. God has prepared you for the work for which you are appointed. Is it not written--"Also unto you, O Lord, belongs mercy: for You to render every man according to his work"? Each laborer for the Lord has his proper tools found for him. God does not, like Pharaoh, require us to make bricks without straw, nor to fight without weapons, nor to build without a trowel! The Lord provides lamps, oil and wedding garments for all who are called to the Bridegroom's midnight banquet. You, my Brother, are equipped for such work as the Lord has appointed you--will you not at once get to your post? You say, "If I could preach, I would do it gladly." You would not preach worthily unless you are, even now, prepared to do other service for which you are fitted. You would be a disgrace to the pulpit if you are useless in the home circle. If God entrusts you with a single talent and you do not use it, neither would you use 10 talents, for he that is unfaithful in that which is least, would be unfaithful in that which is greatest. "But," says one, "I can hardly get out to public worship! I am a mother shut in at home with five or six little children." To you there is a little kingdom in your own household. No one can bring up those little ones for the Lord as well as you can. Your influence over them is as strong as it is tender. Now, do not say, "Because I am not allowed to be a preaching woman, therefore I will not attend to the lowly care of my children." It is far better to train a little family for Jesus than to be attempting a work to which you are not called. Let each one of you feel that he has come to his own little kingdom for such a time as this. You and your work fit each other--God has joined you together--let no man put you asunder. Ask for more power from the Holy Spirit and if there happens to be a tool which the Lord intends for you which hangs a little higher than your present reach, get the ladder of earnest endeavor and you will soon attain to it! Consider how you can improve yourself. Give yourself to reading; study Scripture more and use all helps towards increased knowledge and efficiency. If a further qualification is within your reach, be eager for it, and even the reaching after it may be as great a blessing to you as the talent itself! III. Thirdly, ASPIRE. "Who knows whether you are come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Rise to the utmost possible height. Fulfill your calling to its loftiest degree. Not only do all that you are sure you can do, but aim at something which, as yet, is high up among the questions. Say to yourself, "Who knows?" That is what the ambitious man says when he aspires to be great. When Louis Napoleon was shut up in the fortress of Ham and everybody ridiculed his foolish attempts upon France, yet he said to himself, "Who knows? I am the nephew of my uncle, and may yet sit upon the imperial throne." And he did before many years had passed. I have no desire to make any man ambitious after the poor thrones, honors and riches of this world, but I would gladly make you all ardently ambitious to honor God and bless men! Who knows? Does anybody know what God may do by you? Does anybody know what capacities slumber within your bosom? I suggest the enquiry and I will help you to an answer. "Who knows whether you are come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Nobody knows to the contrary. I cannot tell but what God may bless you to this entire nation. Nobody will dare to say that He cannot! I cannot tell but what God may bless you, my Friend, to that part of London in which you live, even though you may be deeply conscious of its great needs and of your own insufficiency. Who can tell what the Lord can or will do? Dear mother, who knows but what the Lord Jesus may bless you to all the members of your family, so that by your means all the little ones shall come to Him? Nobody has any right to speak to the contrary! Who knows but what God may bless you, dear teacher, to all your Sunday school class, so that you may meet them all in Heaven? Nobody can declare that it shall not be so, therefore strive after it. The watchword is, "ASPIRE." Further, nobody knows the limit of the possibilities that surround any man--should God please to use him. "Alas," cries one, "I am soon at the end of my powers." My dear Brother, if you begin calculating how much there is in you by nature and how much you can do of yourself, you may as well end the enquiry by hearing our Lord's Words--"Without Me you can do nothing." Though you are no better than a mere cipher, yet the Lord can make something of you. Set one before a cipher and it is 10, directly. Let two or three nothings combine to serve the Lord and, if the Lord Jesus heads them, these nothings become tens of thousands! Who knows what you can do? Shall the Church ever say, "Here is a problem we cannot solve?" Bite your lip through rather than have it thought that you doubt the power of the Almighty! All things are possible to Him that believes! You are able to take the land into possession, the Lord being your Helper. Go up against even these entrenched Canaanites, the walls of whose cities reach to Heaven, for you can drive them out! You seem, in your own sight, to be as grasshoppers when compared with the sons of Anak. But the Lord on high is mighty and out of the weakest things He has ordained strength to His honor and glory! Young man, I trust you have given your heart to the Lord--what are you going to do? You have come into some property unexpectedly, or you are promoted in a house of business--what is the meaning of it? "Who knows whether you are come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" My talented Brother, should you not take your share in battling with present evils? I believe that in dark times God is making lamps with which to remove the gloom. Martin Luther is sitting by his father's hearth in the forest when the Pope is selling his wicked indulgences--Martin will soon come out and stop the crowing of the cock of the Romish Christ-denying Peter! John Calvin is quietly studying when false doctrine is most rife and he will be heard of at Geneva! A young man is here this morning--I do not know whereabouts he is, but I pray the Lord to make this to be an ordination sermon to him--starting him on his life-work. I feel as if I were Samuel at Bethlehem, seeking for David, to anoint him with a horn of oil in the name of the Lord! Some beloved Brothers are here who have done a good deal and the Lord has blessed them, but their work is heavy and their hearts are weary. By the anointing which has given you the kingdom, I trust that you will not be weary in well-doing! Pluck up courage, for a grand future is before you! "Who knows whether you are come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Be content to be a living sacrifice. Say with Esther, "If I perish, I perish. I am content to give myself up for such a cause. Come life, come death, I am all His! If I die in my Lord's work, I die content." Further, "Who knows whether you are come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" You do not, yourself, know. I speak experimentally, using myself as an instance in the work which God has enabled me to do. If it had been revealed to me that I should have enjoyed the opportunities which have fallen to my lot, I would never have believed it. If the Lord can use me, He can also use you! Only stand in a waiting posture, saying, "Here am I, send me!" and you shall see things which you dare not expect! If the curtain could be drawn and you could behold the future, you would exclaim, "Is Your servant born of angels that he should attempt such things as these?" I do not suppose Peter, James and John had any inkling of what the Lord was going to do by them when they left their boats and nets at His call. John dreamed that one day he might sit on an earthly throne and, his brother, James, on another. Though this was not to be, yet they have obtained a nobler heritage! To each of us there is a share in the purposes of Heaven and this is a large enough kingdom! Who knows, Brother or Sister, whether you are put in your family to save your family? Who knows whether you are made to live in a back street to bless that street? Who knows whether you are set down in a forlorn district to raise up that district? Who knows whether you are put into that nation to save that nation? Yes, put into the world, in Christ's name, to save the world? Aspire to great things for God! IV. Our fourth word is--CONFIDENCE. "Who knows whether you are come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" If you are come to the kingdom for such a time as this, be confident that you are safe. If God has brought Esther to the throne that she may go in unto the king and save her people--go in, good Esther! Fear not the risk. Fast and pray your three days before you go, but be not dismayed! If the womanhood in you trembles in the prospect of a possible death, let confidence in God override your fears! Ahasuerus cannot kill you! You cannot die! He can refuse his golden scepter to all the princes of the empire, but not to you--for God has placed you where you are and ordained you for His purpose! Rest assured if He had meant to destroy you, He would not have shown you such things as these. Fall back on His past mercy and be confident! What is more, if God has a purpose to serve by a man, that man will live out his day and accomplish the Divine design. The more resistance he experiences, the more surely will his life-work be achieved. If all the devils in Hell rose up at once against a true, devoted servant of God who has a work to do--in the name of the Lord he would drive them away as smoke before the wind! David said, "They compass me about like bees, yes, they compass me about; but in the name of the Lord will I destroy them." It is a bad day for anybody when he opposes himself to the manifest destiny of one of the Lord's commissioned ones! I fall back often on the grand Truth of God of Predestination--it is no sleepy doctrine to me! If God's decree so runs, there is no altering, it! And if He has purposed it, there is no defeating it! Heaven and earth shall sooner fail than the eternal purpose! Each chosen servant of God is like the Word which called him--as the Word of the Lord does not return unto Him void, but prospers in the thing of which He has sent it, even so shall it be with every servant of the Most High! A holy confidence in the Divine purpose, instead of making men grow stolid and idle, may prove to be one of the mightiest impulses to the heroic life. Cromwell's Ironsides, to a man, believed in the everlasting purpose, therefore they were invincible, for no fear ever breathed upon them! Though the hosts of the tyrant may be innumerable, yet with the war cry, "The Lord of Hosts is with us," we will ride forth conquering and to conquer! Settle it in your mind that the Lord has called you to the work and then advance without question or fear. Put your hand to the plow and pause not. Do the work with all your might. Do not stand asking how--do it as if you can! Do not stand asking when--do it now! Do not say, "But I am weak"--the Lord is strong! Do not say, "But I must devise methods." Do not concoct schemes or tarry to perfect your methods--fling yourself upon the work with all your might! Load your cannon with rough bits of rock or stones from the road if nothing better comes to hand. Ram them in with plenty of powder and apply the fire. When you have nothing else to hurl at the foe, place yourself in the gun! Believe me, no shot will be more effectual than the hurling of your whole being into the conflict. There was a man who strove, in the House of Commons, for what he thought would be a great blessing to seamen, but he could not prevail. At last he broke through all the rules of the House and acted like a fanatic--and when everybody saw that the man was so in earnest that he was ready to faint and die, they said, "We must do something"--and it was done! An enthusiasm which overpowers yourself is likely to overpower others. Do not fail from lack of fervor! Never mind if men think you are crazy. When you are overwhelmed, yourself, the flood of zeal will bear all opposition before it. When you become so fanatically insane as to be absorbed by a passion for the Glory of God, the salvation of men, the spread of the Truth and the reclaiming of the fallen masses--there shall be about you the truest sanity and the mightiest force! May you feel such a passion concerning missions! May you feel that the Gospel must be preached to all nations! May you feel that impulse, at this moment, while we worship God by giving our contributions to His cause. __________________________________________________________________ 6:10 A Heavenly Pattern for Our Earthly Life A Sermon (No. 1778) Preached on Wednesday Morning, April 30th, 1884, By C. H. SPURGEON, At Exeter-Hall Being the Annual Sermon of the Baptist Missionary Society. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.'Matthew 6:10. OUR Father's will shall certainly be done, for the Lord doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth.' Let us adoringly consent that it shall be so, desiring no alteration therein. That will' may cost us dear; yet let it never cross our wills: let our minds be wholly subjugated to the mind of God. That will' may bring us bereavement, sickness, and loss; but let us learn to say, It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good.' We should not only yield to the divine will, but acquiesce in it so as to rejoice in the tribulation which it ordains. This is a high attainment, but we set ourselves to reach it. He that taught us this prayer used it himself in the most unrestricted sense. When the bloody sweat stood on his face, and all the fear and trembling of a man in anguish were upon him, he did not dispute the decree of the Father, but bowed his head and cried, Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.' When we are called to suffer bereavements personally, or when, as a holy brotherhood, we see our best men taken away, let us know that it is well, and say most sincerely, The will of the Lord be done.' God knows what will best minister to his gracious designs. To us it seems a sad waste of human life that man after man should go to a malarious region, and perish in the attempt to save the heathen: but infinite wisdom may view the matter very differently. We ask why the Lord does not work a miracle, and cover the heads of his messengers from the death shaft? No reason is revealed to us, but there is a reason, for the will of the great Father is the sum of wisdom. Reasons are not made known to us, else were there no scope for our faith; and the Lord loves that this noble grace should have ample room and verge enough. Our God wastes no consecrated life: he has made nothing in vain: he ordains all things according to the counsel of his will, and that counsel never errs. Could the Lord endow us with his own omniscience, we should not only consent to the deaths of his servants, but should deprecate their longer life. The same would also be true of our own living or dying. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints'; and therefore we are sure that he does not afflict us by bereavement without a necessity of love. We must still see one missionary after another cut down in his prime; for there are arguments with God, as convincing with him as they are obscure to us, which require that by heroic sacrifice the foundations of the African church should be laid. Lord, we do not ask thee to explain thy reasons to us. Thou canst screen us from a great temptation by hiding thyself; for if even now we sin by asking reasons, we might soon go further, and provoke thee sorely by contending against thy reasons. He who demands a reason of God is not in a fit state to receive one. In the case of the honoured men whom the Lord has removed from us this year, there is assuredly no loss to the great cause as it is viewed by the eye of God. See the great stones and costly stones laboriously brought from the quarry to the edge of the sea! Can it be possible that these are deliberately thrown into the deep? It swallows them up! Wherefore is so much labour thrown away? These living stones might surely have been built into a temple for the Lord; why should the waves of death engulf them? Yet more are sought for, and still more: will the hungry abyss never cease to devour? Alas, that so much precious material should be lost! It is not lost. No, not a stone of it. Thus the Lord layeth the foundation of his harbour of refuge among the people. Mercy shall be built up for ever.' In due time massive walls shall rise out of the deep, and we shall no longer ask the reason for the losses of early days. Peace be to the memories of the heroic dead! Men die that the cause may live. Father, thy will be done.' With this prayer upon our lips let us bend low in child-like submission to the will of the great Jehovah, and then gird up our loins anew to dauntless perseverance in our holy service. Though more should be taken away next year, and the next, yet we must pray on, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.' My heart is grieved for the death of beloved hartley, and those noble men who preceded him to the white man's grave.' I had seen him especially, for it had been a joy to assist him for three years in preparing for missionary service. Alas! the preparation led to small visible results. He left us, he landed, and he died. Surely the Lord means to make further use of him; if he did not make him a preacher to the natives, he must intend that he should preach to us. I may say of each fallen missionary, He being dead yet speaketh.' Faithful unto death,' they inspire us by their example. Dying without regret in the cause of such a Master, they remind us of our own indebtedness to him. Their spirits rising to his throne are links between this Society and the glorified assembly above. Let not our thoughts go downward to their graves, but rise upward to their thrones. Does not our text point with a finger of flame from earth to heaven? Do not the dear departed ones mark a line of light between the two worlds? If the prayer of our text had not been dictated by the Lord Jesus himself, we might think it too bold. Can it ever be that this earth, a mere drop of a bucket, should touch the great sea of life and light above and not be lost in it? Can it remain earth and yet be made like to heaven? Will it not lost its individuality in the process? This earth is subject to vanity, dimmed with ignorance, defiled with sin, furrowed with sorrow; can holiness dwell in it as in heaven? Our Divine Instructor would not teach us to pray for impossibilities; he puts such petitions into our mouths as can be heard and answered. Yet certainly this is a great prayer; it has the hue of the infinite about it. Can earth be tuned to the harmonies of heaven? Has not this poor planet drifted too far away to be reduced to order and made to keep rank with heaven? Is it not swathed in mist too dense to be removed? Can its grave-clothes be loosed? Can thy will, O God, be done in earth as it is in heaven? It can be, and it must be; for a prayer wrought in the soul by the Holy Spirit is ever the shadow of a coming blessing, and he that taught us to pray after this manner did not mock us with vain words. It is a brave prayer, which only heaven-born faith can utter; yet it is not the offspring of presumption, for presumption never longs for the will of the Lord to be perfectly performed. I. May the Holy Spirit be with us, while I first lead you to observe that THE COMPARISON IS NOT FAR FETCHED. That our present obedience to God should be like to that of holy ones above is not a strained and fanatical notion. It is not far-fetched, for earth and heaven were called into being by the same Creator. The empire of the Maker comprehends the upper and the lower regions. The heaven, even the heavens are the Lord's'; and the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof.' He sustaineth all things by the word of his power both in heaven above and in the earth beneath. Jesus reigneth both among angels and men, for he is the Lord of all. If, then, heaven and earth were created by the same God, and are sustained by the same power, and governed from the same throne, we believe that the same end will be subserved by each of them, and that both heaven and earth shall tell out the glory of God. They are two bells of the same chime, and this is the music that peals forth from them: The Lord shall reign for ever and ever. Hallelujah!' If earth were of the devil and heaven were of God, and two self-existent powers were contending for the mastery, we might question whether earth would ever be as pure as heaven; but as our ears have twice heard the divine declaration, Power belongeth unto God,' we expect to see that power triumphant, and the dragon cast out from earth as well as heaven. Why should not every part of the great Creator's handiwork become equally radiant with his glory? He that made can remake. The curse which fell upon the ground was not eternal; thorns and thistles pass away. God will bless the earth for Christ's sake even as once he cursed it for man's sake. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.' It was so once. Perfect obedience to the heavenly upon this earth will only be a return to the good old times which ended at the gate of Eden. There was a day when no gulf was digged between earth and heaven; there was scarce a boundary line, for the God of heaven walked in Paradise with Adam. All things on earth were then pure, and true, and happy. It was the garden of the Lord. Alas, that the trail of the serpent has now defiled everything. Then earth's morning song was heard in heaven, and heaven's hallelujahs floated down to earth at eventide. Those who desire to set up the kingdom of God are not instituting a new order of things; they are restoring, not inventing. Earth will drop into the old groove again. The Lord is king: and he has never left the throne. As it was in the beginning so shall it be yet again. History shall, in the divinest sense, repeat itself. The temple of the Lord shall be among men, and the Lord God shall dwell among them. Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven.' Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.' It will be so at the last. I shall not venture far into prophecy. Some brethren are quite at home where I should lose myself. I have scarcely yet been able to get out of the gospels and the epistles; and that deep book of Revelation, with its waters to swim in, I must leave to better instructed minds. Blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of that book;' to that blessing I would aspire, but I cannot yet make claim to interpret it. This much, however, seems plain,'there is to be a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.' This creation, which now groaneth and travaileth in pain,' in sympathy with man, is to be brought forth from its bondage into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Blessed be the Lord Jesus, when he brought his people out of their bondage, he did not redeem their spirits only, but their bodies also: hence their material part is the Lord's as well as their spiritual nature, and hence again this very earth which we inhabit shall be uplifted in connection with us. The creation itself shall be delivered. Materialism, out of which there has been once made a vesture for the Godhead in the person of Christ, shall become a fit temple for the Lord of hosts. The New Jerusalem shall come down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride is prepared for her husband. We are sure of this. Therefore unto this consummation let us strive mightily, praying evermore, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.' Meanwhile, remember also that there is an analogy between earth and heaven, so that the one is the type of the other. You could not describe heaven except by borrowing the things of earth to symbolize it; and this shows that there is a real likeness between them. What is heaven? It is Paradise, or a garden. Walk amid your fragrant flowers and think of heaven's bed of spices. Heaven is a kingdom: thrones, and crowns, and palms are the earthly emblems of the heavenlies. Heaven is a city; and there, again, you fetch your metaphor from the dwelling-places of men. It is a place of many mansions'the homes of the glorified. Houses are of earth, yet is God our dwelling-place. Heaven is a wedding-feast; and even such is this present dispensation. The tables are spread here as well as there; and it is our privilege to go forth and bring in the hedge-birds and the highwaymen, that the banqueting-hall may be filled. While the saints above eat bread in the marriage supper of the Lamb, we do the like below in another sense. Between earth and heaven there is but a thin partition. The home country is much nearer than we think. I question if the land that is very far off' be a true name for heaven. Was it not an extended kingdom on earth which was intended by the prophet rather than the celestial home? Heaven is by no means the far country, for it is the Father's house. Are we not taught to say, Our Father which art in heaven'? Where the Father is the true spirit of adoption counts itself near. Our Lord would have us mingle heaven with earth by naming it twice in this short prayer. See how he makes us familiar with heaven by mentioning it next to our usual food, making the next petition to be, Give us this day our daily bread.' This does not look as if it should be thought of as a remote region. Heaven, is at any rate, so near that in a moment we can speak with him that is King of the place, and he will answer to our call. Yea, before the clock shall tick again you and I may be there. Can that be a far-off country which we can reach so soon? Oh, brothers, we are within hearing of the shining ones; we are well-nigh home. A little while and we shall see our Lord. Perhaps another day's march will bring us within the city gate. And what if another fifty years of life on earth should remain, what is it but the twinkling of an eye? Clear enough is it that the comparison between the obedience of earth and that of heaven is not far-fetched. If heaven and heaven's God be, in truth, so near to us, our Lord has set before us a homely model taken from our heavenly dwelling-place. The petition only means'let all the children of the one Father be alike in doing his will. II. Secondly, THIS COMPARISON IS EMINENTLY INSTRUCTIVE. Does it not teach us that what we do for God is not everything, but how we do it is also to be considered? The Lord Jesus Christ would not only have us do the Father's will, but do it after a certain model. And what an elevated model it is! Yet is it none too elevated, for we would not wish to render to our heavenly Father service of an inferior kind. If none of us dare say that we are perfect, we are yet resolved that we will never rest until we are. If none of us dare hope that even our holy things are without a flaw, yet none of us will be satisfied while a spot remains upon them. We would give to our God the utmost conceivable glory. Let the mark be as high as possible. If we do not as yet reach it, we will aim higher and yet higher. We do not desire that our pattern should be lowered, but that our imitation should be raised. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.' Mark the words be done,' for they touch a vital point of the text. God's will is done in heaven. How very practical! On earth his will is often forgotten, and his rule ignored. In the church of the present age there is a desire to be doing something for God, but few enquire what he wills them to do. Many things are done for the evangelizing of the people which were never commanded by the great Head of the Church, and cannot be approved of by him. Can we expect that he will accept or bless that which he has never commanded? Will-worship is as sin in his sight. We are to do his will in the first place, and then to expect a blessing upon the doing of that will. My brethren, I am afraid that Christ's will on earth is very much more discussed than done. I have heard of brethren spending days in disputing upon a precept which their dispute was breaking. In heaven they have no disputes, but they do the will of God without discord. We are best employed when we are actually doing something for this fallen world, and for the glory of our Lord. Thy will be done': we must come to actual works of faith and labours of love. Too often we are satisfied with having approved of that will, or with having spoken of it in words of commendation. But we must not stay in thought, resolve, or word; the prayer is practical and business-like, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.' An idle man stretched himself on his bed when the sun had risen high in heaven, and as he rolled over, he muttered to himself that he wished this were hard work, for he could do any quantity of it with pleasure. Many might wish that to think and to speak were to do the will of God; for them they would have effected it very thoroughly. Up yonder there is no playing with sacred things: they do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Would God his will were not alone preached and sung below, but actually done as it is in heaven. In heaven the will of God is done in spirit, for they are spirits there. It is done in truth with undivided heart, and unquestioned desire. On earth, too often, it is done and yet not done; for a dull formality mocks real obedience. Here obedience often shades off into dreary routine. We sing with the lips, but our hearts are silent. We pray as if the mere utterance of words were prayer. We sometimes preach living truth with dead lips. It must no longer be so. Would God we had the fire and fervour of those burning ones who behold the face of God. We pray in that sense, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.' I hope there is a revival of spiritual life among us, and that, to a large extent, our brotherhood is instinct with fervour; but there is room for far more zeal. Ye that know how to pray, go down upon your knees, and with the warm breath of prayer arouse the spark of spiritual life until it becomes a flame. With all the powers of our innermost being, with the whole life of God within us, let us be stirred up to do the will of the Lord on earth as it is done in heaven. In heaven they do God's will constantly, without failure. Would God it could be so here! We are aroused to-day, but we fall asleep tomorrow. We are diligent for one hour, but sluggish the next. This must not be, dear friends. We must be steadfast, unmovable'always abounding in the work of the Lord. We need to pray for sacred perseverance, that we may imitate the days of heaven upon the earth by doing the Lord's will without a break. They do God's will in heaven universally, without making a selection. Here men pick and choose'take this commandment to be obeyed, and lay that commandment by as non-essential. We are, I fear, all tinctured, more or less, with this odious gall. A certain part of obedience is hard, and therefore we try to forget it. It must no longer be so; but whatsoever Jesus saith unto us we must do. Partial obedience is actual disobedience. The loyal subject respects the whole law. If anything be the will of the Lord, we have no choice in the matter, the choice is made by our Lord. Let us pray that we may neither misunderstand the Lord's will, nor forget it, nor violate it. Perhaps we are, as a company of believers, ignorantly omitting a part of the Lord's will, and this may have been hindering our work these many years; possibly there is something written by the pen of inspiration which we have not read, or something read that we have not practised; and this may hold back the arm of the Lord from working. We should often make diligent search, and go through our churches to see wherein we differ from the divine pattern. Some goodly Babylonish garment or wedge of gold may be as an accursed thing in the camp, bringing disaster to the Lord's armies. Let us not neglect anything which our God commands lest he withhold his blessing. His will is done in heaven instantly, and without hesitation. We, I fear, are given to delays. We plead that we must look the thing round about. Second thoughts are best,' we say, whereas the first thoughts of eager love are the prime production of our being. I would that we were obedient at all hazard, for therein lies the truest safety. Oh, to do what God bids us, as God bids us, on the spot, and at the moment! It is not ours to debate, but to perform. Let us dedicate ourselves as perfectly as Esther consecrated herself when she espoused the cause of her people, and said, If I perish, I perish.' We must not consult with flesh and blood, or make a reserve for our own selfishness, but at once most vigorously follow the divine command. Let us pray the Lord that we may do his will on earth as it is done in heaven; that is, joyfully, without the slightest weariness. When our hearts are right, it is a glad thing to serve God, though it be only to unloose the latchets of our Master's shoes. To be employed by Jesus in service which will bring us no repute, but much reproach, should be our delight. If we were altogether as we should be, sorrow for Christ's sake would be joy: ay, we should have joy right along, in dark nights as well as in bright days. Even as they are glad in heaven, with a felicity born of the presence of the Lord, so should we be glad, and find our strength in the joy of the Lord. In heaven the will of the Lord is done right humbly. There perfect purity is set in a frame of lowliness. Too often we fall into self-gratulation, and it defiles our best deeds. We whisper to ourselves, I did that very well.' We flatter ourselves that there was no self in our conduct, but while we are laying that flattering unction to our souls, we are lying, as our self-contentment proves. God might have allowed us to do ten times as much, had he not known that it would not be safe. He cannot set us upon the pinnacle, because our heads are weak, and we grow dizzy with pride. We must not be permitted to be rulers over many things, for we should become tyrants if we had the opportunity. Brother, pray the Lord to keep thee low at his feet, for in no other place canst thou be largely used of him. The comparison being thus instructive, I pray that we may be the better for our meditation upon it. I do not find it an easy thing even to describe the model; but if we essay to copy it: this is the work; this is the difficulty.' Unless we are girded with the divine strength we shall never do the will of God as it is done in heaven. Here is a greater labour than those of Hercules, bringing with it victories nobler than those of Alexander. To this the unaided wisdom of Solomon could not attain; the Holy Ghost must transform us, and lead the earthly in us captive to the heavenly. III. Thirdly, I beg you to notice, dear friends, that THIS COMPARISON of holy service on earth to that which is in heaven, IS BASED UPON FACTS. The facts will both comfort and stimulate us. Two places are mentioned in the text which seems very dissimilar, and yet the likeness exceeds the unlikeness'earth and heaven. Why should not saints do the will of the Lord on earth as their brethren do it in heaven? What is heaven but the Father's house, wherein there are many mansions? Do we not abide in that house even now? The Psalmist said, Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, they will be still praising thee.' Have we not often said of our Bethels, This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven'? The spirit of adoption causes us to be at home with God even while we sojourn here below. Let us therefore do the will of God at once. We have the same fare on earth as the saints in heaven, for the Lamb in the midst of the throne doth feed them:' he is the Shepherd of his flock below, and daily feeds us upon himself. His flesh is meat indeed, his blood is drink indeed. Whence come the refreshing draughts of the immortals? The Lamb doth lead them to living fountains of waters; and doth he not even here below say to us, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink'? The same river of the water of life which makes glad the city of our God above, also waters the garden of the Lord below. Brethren, we are in the same company below as they enjoy above. Up there they are with Christ, and here he is with us, for he hath said'Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.' There is a difference as to the brightness of his presence; but not as to the reality of it. Thus you see we are partakers of the same privileges as the shining ones within the city gates. The church below is a chamber of the one great house, and the partition which separates it from the church above is a mere veil, of inconceivable thinness. Wherefore should we not do the Lord's will on earth as it is done in heaven? But heaven is a place of peace,' says one; there they rest from their labours.' Beloved, our estate here is not without its peace and rest. Alas,' cries one, I find it far otherwise.' I know it. But whence come wars and fightings but of our fretfulness and unbelief? We which have believed do enter into rest.' That is not in all respects a fair allegory which represents us as crossing the Jordan of death to enter into Canaan. No, my brethren, believers are in Canaan now; how else could we say that the Canaanite is still in the land? We have entered upon the promised heritage, and we are warring for the full possession of it. We have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. I for one do not feel like a lone dove flying over waters dark, seeking rest for the sole of her foot. No, I have found my Noah: Jesus has given me rest. There is a difference between the best estate of earth and the glory of heaven, but the rest which every soul may have that learns to conquer its will, is most deep and real. Brethren, having rest already, and being participators of the joy of the Lord, why should we not serve God on earth as they do in heaven? But we have not their victory,' cries one, for they are more than conquerors.' Yes, and our warfare is accomplished.' We have prophetic testimony to that fact. Moreover, This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.' In the Lord Jesus Christ the Lord giveth us the victory, and maketh us to triumph in every place. We are warring; but we are of good cheer, for Jesus has overcome the world, and we also overcome by his blood. Ever is this our war-cry, Victory! Victory!' The Lord will tread Satan under our feet shortly. Why should we not do the Lord's will on earth as it is done in heaven? Heaven is the place of fellowship with God, and this is a blessed feature in its joy; but in this we are now participators, for Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.' The fellowship of the Holy Ghost is with us all; it is our joy and our delight. Having communion with the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we are uplifted and sanctified, and it is becoming that by us the will of the Lord should be done on earth as it is in heaven. Up there,' says a brother, they are all accepted, but here we are in a state of probation.' Did you read that in the Bible? for I never did. A believer is in no state of probation; he has passed from death unto life, and shall never come into condemnation. We are already accepted in the Beloved,' and that acceptance is so given as never to be reversed. The Redeemer brought us up out of the horrible pit of probation, and he has set our feet on the rock of salvation, and there he has established our goings. The righteous shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger.' Wherefore should we not, as the accepted of the Lord, do his will on earth as it is in heaven? Ay,' saith one, but heaven is the place of perfect service; for his servants shall serve him.' But is not this the place, in some respects, of a more extensive service still? Are there not many things which perfect saints above and holy angels cannot do? If we had choice of a sphere in which we could serve God with widest range, we should choose not heaven but earth. There are no slums and over-crowded rooms in heaven to which we can go with help, but there are plenty of them here. There are no jungles and regions of malaria where missionaries may prove their unreserved consecration by preaching the gospel at the expense of their lives. In some respects this world has a preference beyond the heavenly state as to the extent of doing the will of God. Oh, that we were better men, and then the saints above might almost envy us! If we did but live as we should live, we might make Gabriel stoop from his throne and cry, I wish I were a man!' It is ours to lead the van in daily conflict with sin and Satan, and at the same time ours to bring up the rear, battling with the pursuing foe. God help us, since we are honoured with so rare a sphere, to do his will on earth as it is done in heaven. Ay,' say you, but heaven is the place of overflowing joy.' Yes, and have you no joy even now? A saint who lives near to God is so truly blessed that he will not be much astonished when he enters heaven. he will be surprised to behold its glories more clearly; but he will have the same reason for delight as he possesses to-day. We live below the same life which we shall live above, for we are quickened by the same Spirit, are looking to the same Lord, and rejoicing in the same security. Joy! Do you not know it? Your Lord says, That my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.' You will be larger vessels in heaven, but you will not be fuller; you will be brighter, doubtless, but you will not be cleaner than you are when the Lord has washed you and made you white in his own blood. Do not be impatient to go to heaven. Nay, do not have a wish about it. Set very loose by the things of earth; yet count it a great privilege to have a long life in which to serve the Lord on earth. Our mortal life is but a brief interval between the two eternities, and if we judged unselfishly, and saw the needs of earth, we might almost say, Give us back the antediluvian periods of human life, that through a chiliad we might serve the Lord in suffering and in reproach, as we cannot do in glory.' This life is the vestibule of glory. Array yourselves in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, for this is the court-dress of earth and heaven. Manifest at once the spirit of saints, or else you will never abide with them. Now begin the song which your lips shall carol in Paradise, or else you will never be admitted to the heavenly choirs; none can unite in the music but those who have rehearsed it here below. IV. Lastly, THIS COMPARISON, which I feel I can so feebly bring out, of doing the will of God on earth as it is done in heaven, OUGHT TO BE BORNE OUT BY HOLY DEEDS. Here is the urgency of the missionary enterprise. God's will can never be intelligently done where it is not known; therefore, in the first place, it becomes us as followers of Jesus to see to it that the will of the Lord is made known by heralds of peace sent forth from among us. Why has it not been already published in every land? We cannot blame the great Father, nor impute the fault to the Lord Jesus. The Spirit of the Lord is not straitened, nor the mercy of God restrained. Is it not probably true that the selfishness of Christians is the main reason for the slow progress of Christianity? If Christianity is never to spread in the world at a more speedy rate than the present, it will not even keep pace with the growth of the population. If we are going to give to Christ's kingdom no larger a percentage than we have usually given, I suppose it will require about an eternity-and-a-half to convert the world; or, in other words, it will never be done. The progress made is so slow, that it threatens to be like that of the crab, which is always described in the fable as going backward. What do we give, brethren? What do we do? A friend exhorts me to say that the Baptist Missionary Society ought to raise a million a-year. I have my doubts about that; but he proposes that we should, at least, try to do so for one year. There is nothing like having a high mark to aim at. A million a-year seems hugely too much by the general consent of you all, and yet I am not sure. What amount of property is now held by Baptists? The probable estimate of money now in the hands of baptized believers in the United Kingdom might make us ashamed that a million is not put down at once. Far more than that is spent by a similar number of Englishmen upon strong drink. We do not know how much wealth lies in the custody of God's stewards; and some of them are not likely to let us know until we read it in the paper, and then we shall discover that they died worth so many hundreds of thousands. The world counts men to be worth what they hoard; but in truth they were not worth much, or else they could not have retained so much from the work of the Lord when it was needed for the spread of the gospel. As a denomination we are improving a little. We are improving a little. I was obliged to repeat that sentence, and place the emphasis in the right place. We may not congratulate ourselves: considerable room for improvement yet remains: the income of the Society might be doubled and no one oppressed in the process. It is not for us to say, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven: but, Lord. Thou hast many ways and means of accomplishing that will; I pray thee do it, but let me not be asked to help on the work.' No, when I utter this prayer, if I am sincere I shall be searching my stores to see what I can give to make known the truth. I shall be enquiring whether I cannot personally speak the saving word. I shall not decline to give because the times are very hard, neither shall I fail to speak because I am of a retiring disposition. An opportunity is a golden gift. Now, do not offer the prayer of the text if you do not mean it. Better omit the petition than play the hypocrite with it. You who fail to support missions when it is in your power to do so should never say, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,' but leave out that petition for fear of mocking God. Our text, dear friends, leads me to say that as God's will must be known that it may be done, it must be God's will that we should make it known; because God is love, and the law under which he has placed us is that we love. What love of God dwelleth in that man who denies to a benighted heathen that light without which he will be lost? Love is a grand word to talk of, but it is nobler as a principle to be obeyed. Can there be love of God in that man's heart who will not help to send the gospel to those who are without it? We want to bless the world; we have a thousand schemes by which to bless it, but if ever God's will is done in earth as it is done in heaven it will be an unmixed and comprehensive blessing. Join the Peace Society by all means, and be forgiving and peaceable yourself; but there is no way of establishing peace on the earth except by God's will being done in it, and that can only be done through the renewing of men's hearts by the gospel of Jesus Christ. By all manner of means let us endeavour so to control politics, as Christian men, that oppression shall not remain in the earth; but, after all, there will be oppression unless the gospel is spread. This is the one balm for all earth's wounds. They will bleed still until the Christ shall come to bind them up. Oh, let us then, since this is the best thing that can be, show our love to God and man by spreading his saving truth. The text says, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.' Suppose any one of you had come from heaven. It is but a supposition; but let it stand for a minute: suppose that a man here has come fresh from heaven. Some would be curious to see what his bodily form would be like. They would expect to be dazzled by the radiance of his countenance. However, we will let that pass. We want to see how he would live. Coming newly from heaven, how would he act? Oh, sirs, if he came here to do the same as all men do on earth, only after a heavenly sort, what a father he would be, what a husband, what a brother, what a friend! I would sit down and let him preach this morning, most assuredly; and when he had done preaching, I would go home with him, and have a chat. I should be very careful to observe what he would do with his substance. His first thought would be, if he had a shilling, to lay it out for God's glory. But,' says one, I have to go to shop with my shilling.' Be it so, but when you go say, Oh! Lord, help me to lay it out to thy glory.' There should be as much piety in buying your necessaries as in going to a place of worship. I do not think this man coming fresh from heaven would say, I must have this luxury; I must have this goodly raiment; I must have this grand house.' But he would say, How much can I save for the God of heaven? How much can I invest in the country I came from?' I am sure he would be pinching and screwing to save money to serve God with; and he himself, as he went about the streets, and mingled with ungodly men and women, would be sure to find out ways of getting at their consciences and hearts; he would be always trying to bring others to the felicity he had enjoyed. Think that over, and live soso as he did who really did come down from heaven. For after all, the best rule of life is, what would Jesus do if he were here to-day, and the world still lying in the wicked one? If Jesus were in your business, if he had your money, how would he spend it? For that is how you ought to spend it. Now think, my brother, you will be in heaven very soon. Since last year a great number have gone home: before next year many more will have ascended to glory. Sitting up in those celestial seats, how shall we wish that we had lived below? It will not give any man in heaven even a moment's joy to think that he gratified himself while here. It will give him no reflections suitable to the place to remember how much he amassed, how much he left behind to be quarrelled over after he was gone; he will say to himself, I wish I had saved more of my capital by sending it on before me, for what I saved on earth was lost, but what I spent for God was really laid up where thieves do not break through and steal.' Oh, brothers, let us live as we shall wish we had lived when life is over; let us fashion a life which will bear the light eternal. Is it life to live otherwise? Is it not a sort of fainting fit, a coma, out of which life may not quite have gone, but all that is worth calling life has oozed away? Unless we are striving mightily to honour Jesus, and bring home his banished, we are dead while we live. Let us aim at a life which will outlast the fires which shall try every man's work. If I may have moved any person here to resolve, I will so live,' I have not spoken in vain. I have at least stirred myself with the intense desire to cast off the mere outsides and husks of life, and to ripen the real kernel of my being. Thy will by me be done on earth, as yet, my Lord, I hope to do it in the skies. May I begin here a life worthy to be perpetuated in eternity. God bless you, for Christ's sake. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ Grappling Irons (No. 1779) A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 4, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "Quicken me after Your loving kindness; so shall I keep the testimony of Your mouth." Psalm 119:88. When David wrote this part of the Psalm, he was evidently beset by many enemies who sought to destroy him. And it is exceedingly important to note what part of himself he guarded with the most care. Which part of his nature did he regard as the most vital? Where did he hold the shield that he might be screened from the darts of the foe? We observe that his prayer is very little about his body or his temporal interests. Like other men, he desired to be preserved in life and kept in prosperity, but his main prayer is not about these matters. Evidently his chief thought is concerning his soul, his character, his adherence to God's Word, his steadfastness in the faith. Observe the current of his supplication--"Quicken me after Your loving kindness; so shall I keep the testimony of your mouth." He is not so anxious to keep his health, or to keep his house, or to keep his crown, or even to keep his life, as he is that he may keep the testimony of God's mouth! O Brothers and Sisters, everything is right when the heart is right! And everything is wrong when the soul is wrong. We are prospering even when we lose our wealth if we grow in Grace--but we are in the direst adversity--even if we are growing rich, if we become spiritually poor. Starve your soul and you will be wretched amid the dainties of a king's table. But let your soul be satisfied as with marrow and fatness-- and a dinner of herbs will be better to you than a stalled ox. The first thing, the main thing, the chief thing, is that the heart be kept true towards God and His Word! Concerning this David prays. I would call to your notice, this morning, first, his intense desire, which is that he may keep the testimony of God's mouth. Secondly, his consequent prayer arising out of that desire. "Quicken me after Your loving kindness; so shall I keep the testimony of your mouth." When we have spoken upon those two points we shall then endeavor to use the whole text by way of showing his holy example--a lesson to all believing people in all ages to strive after quickened spiritual life that they may keep the testimony of God's mouth. I. First, in these words of David, we have HlS INTENSE DESIRE that he might keep the testimony of God's mouth. This desire was founded in a high esteem of God's Word. He viewed the Divine Revelation as coming directly from Jehovah's own mouth. To some men, this holy Book is no more inspired than the plays of Shakespeare or the poems of Milton. We have, in the Old Testament, they say, the sacred writings of the Jews which deserve to be treated with great respect, but that is all. David thought not so and, thank God, we join with David in his opinion! David speaks of God's Word, though he had but a small portion of it compared with what we have, as "the testimony of God's mouth." To me there is no explanation of those Words except that which involves verbal and Infallible Inspiration. The testimony of God's mouth must be given in words--God's heart has thoughts, but God's mouth has words-- and Words from the Omniscient and true God must be Infallible. This view invests Holy Scripture with an awe and a glory which create in us the deepest reverence and brings us to the most earnest attention. When we look upon every Word of this precious Book as coming fresh from God's mouth, we liken it to those other Words by which He called the universe out of nothing and created light where there had only been darkness. To the ear that is rightly tuned by God's Spirit there is a voice and a music as of infinite wisdom and love about every syllable of Scripture. The breath of life is in the testimony from the mouth of the living God! In truth, the Lord may have spoken His Word, actually, by the mouth of Moses, but spiritually His own mouth has uttered it. The Inspired sentence may come down to us from the pen of David, Isaiah, or any other of the Prophets may have been the visible medium of its transmission--but the Word itself has come distinctly and directly, with absolute truth and unmingled purity--from the mouth of the Most High! The coin of Inspiration comes from the mint of Infallibility! The Truth is the teaching of the God of Truth! As such, we render to it our ears, our hearts and our obedient lives. What God has said we dare not question. The man of God wraps his face in his mantle and bows before the Divine Majesty, humbly saying, "Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears." Those who have this reverence for God's Word will long to cling to it. They will be afraid of misinterpreting it and they will not venture to add any of their own words to it, lest they be called into judgment for such presumption! The ears of the devout man seem to hear the thunder of that sentence, "If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." God grant that we may accept the Bible not as the writings of man, but as the Word of the living God! A few evenings ago we were led to think of those who tremble at God's Word--may we be numbered among them, for to such will God look and, with such will He dwell. Let us unite with the Psalmist in saying, "Your testimonies are wonderful: therefore does my soul keep them." This prayer of David's, springing from his great reverence for the revealed will of God, includes within it many points of virtue. I cannot explain what he means by keeping the testimony of God's month by any one line of things--it is a far-reaching prayer, as full as it is brief. He means, no doubt, that he desired to be steadfast in the doctrine which the mouth of the Lord had spoken. He wished to be taught of the Lord so as to know the Truth of God and then to be so confirmed and established in it that no wind of doctrine should carry him away from his moorings. He desired to be steadfast, un-movable, rooted and grounded in the Truth of God--such an attainment is much to be desired at this time. The things which we have learned and have received, we must hold fast until our Lord shall come. He has set us in our place to keep guard over His Truth--let no sentry sleep at his post! He has put us in trust with the Gospel--God grant we may not be dishonest trustees, trifling with our charge. May those, especially, who are teachers of others, be good stewards of the manifold Grace of God. Though we bring forth things new and old, let us take care that we bring forth nothing but what we find in the treasury of the Word of God. Woe unto the man who declares "a vision of his own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord." Too many are doing so at this hour, glorying in their boasted culture and trusting to their own intellects. Of such we may say with Jeremiah, "They are prophets of the deceit of their own heart." The Lord shall one day silence such and put their followers to confusion. But blessed is that man who speaks the mind of God and causes the people to hear the Word of the Lord. Man's word is for the forum, but God's Word must be spoken in His temple. The things which we have heard, seen and received of the Spirit of God--these things we would hold and teach--and nothing else! I am sure that the prayer of our text means-- "Help me, Lord, to know, believe, and hold fast the testimony of Your mouth--may I be a true Believer, having my feet upon the solid rock of Your teaching, and not upon the quicksand of man's invention. May I never be ashamed of Your Truth. If men call it outworn and effete, may I, nevertheless, know it to be Your own eternal Word which lives and abides forever. Let me feel it to be quickening, reviving, strengthening and as full of power and energy as ever it was. May I believe concerning it that it has the dew of its youth about it, that its locks are bushy and black as a raven, that it still goes forth as the sun from the chambers of the morning and, that like a mighty man, it marches onward conquering and to conquer." Brethren, this Word shall never return to God void, but it shall accomplish that which He pleases. This meaning of the prayer is worthy of solemn note in these evil days. But there is another meaning which will seem, to some, more practical, though, indeed, it is not so, for there is as much real practice about right thinking as about right acting! And for the understanding to be obedient to God is as vital a thing as for the actions of the life to be conformed to His will. We ought to be anxious to be obedient to God in all His precepts--and if we are striving to be so, our prayer should daily be that we may be preserved in the keeping of the testimony of God's mouth. Our Father who is in Heaven has told His children what His will is--should not this cause them to fulfill it? He has been pleased to teach us what it is that pleases Him--should we not hate that which God hates and love that which He delights in? Let us pray that we may be set in the straight and narrow way which leads unto eternal life--and may be kept there even to the end. There is no Law of God's mouth which a faithful and loving Believer would wish to be ignorant of. There is no command of His mouth which we would willfully disobey or neglect. Our prayer is, "Make me to run in the way of Your commandments." That Law of God which was once so terrible to us, has lost its frowns through the atoning Sacrifice--and now we delight in the Law of God after the inward man and we long to be perfectly conformed to it! Our grief is that we are not perfect. Sin is our pain and plague. We shall never be perfectly happy till we are perfectly holy. Sin is a constant fret and burden to us--whenever we see, even, a trace of it in our nature or our acts, we cry, "Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me?" We cannot endure that the shade of evil should flit across the imagination--no, even if in our dreams a sin cast its shadow over our spirit, we wake disturbed. We would not have a wish which leans towards iniquity! We would have every thought brought into captivity to the Lord, bound by the bonds of righteousness and led prisoner along the triumphant way of sanctification, for holiness is life, light and liberty to us. "I will walk at liberty, for I seek Your precepts." Freedom from the power of evil is the highest liberty which we expect on earth. I am sure, my Friends, the prayer is rising in your hearts at this moment-- "Teach me to run in Your commands, 'Tis a delightful road. Nor let my head, nor heart, nor hands, Offend against my God." David further desired that he might be preserved in perfect and unwavering confidence in the promises of God. The testimony of God's mouth is largely made up of exceedingly great and precious promises. Oh, what rich and eternal things has He promised to them that fear Him! No good thing will He withhold from them--all things work together for their good. He will give them of the dew of Heaven and of the deep that lies under! The chief things of the ancient mountains and the precious things of the lasting hills has He covenanted to give them! The sad fact is that sometimes His own people begin to question those promises--and if the vision tarries--they are in unbelieving haste and limit the Holy One of Israel! Yet the Covenant is ordered in all things and sure--"God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent: has He said and shall He not do it? Or has He spoken and shall He not make it good?" Not one of His Words shall fail, nor shall one blessing which He has promised be withheld! "All the promises of God in Him are yes, and in Him, Amen, unto the glory of God by us." His Covenant shall stand fast, though Heaven and earth pass away! He will not alter the thing that has gone out of His mouth. Therefore our prayer is that we may keep the testimony of His mouth and, like our fathers, may be persuaded of the promises and embrace them. What an instructive word is that! "Embraced them"--pressing them to their hearts and holding them dear to their souls! Oh, never, never let us dare to suspect the faithfulness of our God! Rather let us emulate the faith of Abraham who staggered not at the promise through unbelief--believing that if God had promised him a seed of Isaac and yet commanded him offer Isaac as a sacrifice--believing, I say, that God was able, even from the dead, to raise Isaac up and so to keep His Word! All things may be contrary to what they seem to be and all human witnesses may be intentionally or unintentionally false, but the Eternal God must be true! "Let God be true and every man"--yes, and every thing--"a liar." It were better to suppose the very heavens did lie, that the earth beneath us had become untrue and that all our senses were instruments of deception rather than we should, for a moment, allow that the God of Truth could falter or waver! The largest faith of which the most enlarged mind is capable is the righteous due of God, who cannot err or change! Be this your prayer, that you may be confident of the truth of every promise of the Covenant of Grace and stand to it, come life or come death! Be this your firm resolve--"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." This prayer, then, you see, has a very wide significance, and I want you to observe that upon the very surface of the words there is an indication that this desire in his soul was backed up by the experience of the past. He desires to keep the testimony of God's mouth--and that implies that he has already received that testimony and is in possession of it! If a man has not obtained a thing, he cannot keep it. Beloved, I would take you back, this morning, for a moment, upon memories of the past. Do you remember the place, the spot of ground where you first heard of God with your inner ear? Do you remember your poverty, your disease, your death? And how the heavenly Word of God gave you wealth, healing, and life in Christ? Since then, how precious, how soul-sustaining, how full of deliverance, how pregnant with victory have the Words of God been to you in days of affliction and conviction! At this day you must feel that you could not leave this precious Word of God, for you would be leaving the fountain of Living Waters! It has been your life, your joy, your all--why would you leave it? With David you can bear witness, "Unless Your Law had been my delights, I should then have perished in my affliction." Where will you go if you forsake the Lord's testimony? What way is open to you if you turn from the way of His statutes? And, my Brothers, the mercies of the past--I might even say the miseries of the past--all bind us to our God and to His statutes. All that has happened up to now has only magnified His Word above all His name! We have lived on that Word when, otherwise, our soul would have died of famine. We have had light in the midst of more than Egyptian darkness through its testimonies! What wonders we have worked through the promises of God. "O my Soul, you have trodden down strength." By the power of this Word of God we have run through a troop. By our God we have leaped over a wall. Passing through the fire we have not been burned! Wading through the rivers we have not been drowned, for the Word of the Lord has brought us deliverance! Believe for the future, for the past demands it! God grant that we may, by a childlike confidence, forever keep the testimony of His mouth! Furthermore, this desire is necessitated by the struggles of the present. Poor David had become like a bottle in the smoke--his eyes were failing, his heart had fainted, his days were growing few, his pathway was intercepted with pits, he was persecuted wrongfully, he was almost consumed--but he adds, "I forsook not Your precepts." That was the saving clause of it all! We may be in the smoke, but we shall not be smothered! We may be persecuted, but we shall never be forsaken! We may be cast down, but we shall not be destroyed while we keep the testimonies of God's mouth! We are still in the sea, therefore let us cling to our life belt. We are still in the wilderness, let us daily gather the heavenly manna. Cast not away your confidence which, even now, has great recompense of reward. Stand to it, that, be the present what it may, your choice is made, your understanding is assured, your convictions are indelible! Change as you will, all you that know not God--we that know Him by long experience are inseparably united to Him! To quit the Truth of God for modern notions would be to leave the streams from Lebanon for the sand of the desert! The sweet waters of Siloam for the brine of the Dead Sea! Tossed no longer with tempest, our soul has found her anchorage and rests in the Lord. "O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise!" We are not forever learning, but we have come to the knowledge of the Truth of God by the teaching of the Holy Spirit. We are neither to be bribed nor bullied so as to lose our faith, for it is of the operation of God! The elect shall not be deceived, for they know the voice of their Lord and He has taught them to distinguish the language of the Truth of God from the jargon of error. I am sure I may add that this desire of David is well warranted by every prospect of the future. We do not know what troubles we shall yet experience, but we do know that He who has helped us, bears us through and makes us more than conquerors! The testimony of God's mouth is our shield in the day of battle. We cannot put on Saul's armor, for we have not proved it, but we have proved the panoply which God provides for us in His Word and, therefore, by His Grace, we wear it daily! That future, which extends in endless vista far beyond our mortal life, demands faithfulness of us. If we are traitors to the Truth of God, today, what will become of the next generation, and the next, and the next? At this hour we suffer for the negligences of our ancestors--error has been established by a long continuance of perversity--shall we persevere in maintaining falsehood? Today will you rebuild the Jericho which the Reformers threw down? Will you pull down the Jerusalem which they have built up? If so, our sons shall curse the memory of their fathers! This poor world may experience great delay to her grand hope if Christian men in the present are unfaithful to the Truth of God. Ages hang upon the conduct of the Church of today! Speak out the Truth of God while you live, so that when you leave this life it may be said, "He, being dead, yet speaks." Let us, today, anchor the Church to sound doctrine, lest she drift further and further in years to come. Speak God's Word faithfully, for that Word shall live and conquer when you are gone. He that sows the seed of heresy and evil doctrine entails upon succeeding generations an evil and a plague--and his very name shall rot! But he that sows the good Seed shall be the father of10,000 successive harvests! Today we may seal the coming centuries unto the Lord, setting the impression of the Truth of God upon them. Be you steadfast for the Truth of God in your own day, for you know not what perilous times will come before the advent of the Lord Jesus! Your words and acts, today, will affect eternity itself! A word spoken today, barbed with ill intent, and envenomed with the poison of falsehood, may make souls to smart throughout a dread eternity! Tremble, therefore, lest in any way you cease to keep the testimony of the mouth of God! Thus much upon David's desire--may a like desire burn in our hearts! II. Secondly, let us consider HIS CONSEQUENT PRAYER. He did not pray immediately that he might keep the testimony of God's mouth, but he offered the next prayer to it, the one which leads up to it right surely. As a man that goes up to his chamber does not leap up all at once, but climbs the stairs, so does David rise to the keeping of the Lord's Word by the prayer--"Quicken me after Your loving kindness." This prayer is wisdom. He that says, "I shall keep the testimony of God's mouth, for I am fully resolved to do it," had better salt that resolution with prayer, or it will rot like all things which come of the flesh. "Oh, but" he says, "I am strong-minded and firmly established and shall never be moved from the hope of my high calling." O Man, you know not yourself, nor the power of temptation, if you are depending upon yourself! You will be as readily blown away as the thistledown upon the plain when the north wind is raging! O Heart, you are but human! And humanity is unstable as water. O Man, you are frail as a shadow--trust not in yourself for a moment! "Trust in the Lord with all yours heart; and lean not unto your own understanding." Put up a prayer to God that He would confirm you, for in that way and in that way, only, shall you be true to His statutes. He shall keep God's testimony that is kept by God's power, and he alone, therefore this prayer is wisdom. Moreover, as there is but one Lord and Giver of life, what more could David do than pray? He could not give himself life--and he was wise to apply to Him who, alone, quickens the dead. This prayer was suggested, I do not doubt, by David's inward state. He says, "Quicken me." Does he mean that he was dead? Yes, comparatively. He means that he felt the power of death working in him. Before he is quite numbed, he cries, "Quicken me." He was not altogether dead, for dead men never pray for quickening--but he had a sense of deadness creeping over him, gradually chilling the genial current of his soul. He was dull. He was heavy. He felt lethargic and indisposed to activity. "Quicken me, Lord," he says. "Quicken me." The Lord has given us some life, Beloved, but that life, at intervals, seems to go to sleep through weariness--let us pray, "Quicken me, Lord." The Lord has given us His Well-Beloved Son, not only that we might have life, but that we might have it more abundantly. Is your life vigorous, dear Brother? Yet this prayer is still suitable for you. Still cry, "Quicken me." Nobody knows how much vitality a man can manifest. He who seems all alive might still have more life. He can rise from life to strength, from strength to activity, from activity to intensity, from intensity to violence. When a man is thoroughly alive, what a man he is! Are we not, the most of us, a droning, sleepy, half-quickened set? We mope and grope like men who are looking for their graves! But when the Lord comes to us, He quickens us from head to foot--and then the blood leaps in our veins, our spiritual breath is full and deep--and we are fired with enthusiasm. We are dry, now, and powerless, like the bush in the desert, but the Spirit descends upon us as fire and then we blaze with Divine fervor! We can do all things through Christ that strengthens us! If we desire to cleave to the Truth of God, let us pray that up to the highest point we may be filled with the life of God, since life and truth go together. Oh that we may become quick in every respect--quickened by Him who is the Resurrection and the Life. This is every way a suitable prayer--a very fitting one for lukewarm Laodiceans. It will not be out of place in the mouth of any of us! However full of life we may be, let us all together plead for this master blessing of quickening-- "Revive Your work, OLord! Disturb this sleep of death. Quicken the smoldering embers now, By Your almighty breath." It is a prayer which met David's condition. Carefully read the octave of verses with, "Caph," [verses 81-88] at the head of them, and see how well it fits in at the end of each. "My soul faints"--"Quicken me." "My eyes fail"--"Quicken me." "I am become like a bottle in the smoke"--"Quicken me." "How many are the days of Your servant?"--I seem near to death--"Quicken me." "The proud have dug pits for me"--"Quicken me," that I may spy out their pitfalls and avoid them. "They persecute me wrongfully"--"Quicken me," Lord; for they cannot hurt me, though they pour death upon me, if You pour life into me. "They had almost consumed me"--"Quicken me," and then I may burn with fire, but I shall not be consumed. You see, the blessing of quickening meets all these conditions. I believe that the best preservative under trial is increased spiritual life. Did I hear you complain, "I am very poor"? Brothers and Sisters, if your soul is quickened and you become rich in faith, poverty will be a light burden! "But I am very depressed in spirit." Truly, this is sad, but if you are more fully quickened, you will shake it off as living men put from them the garments of the tomb. But you cry, "I have such hard work to do!" If you have stronger life, the task will be easier. "But I have been disappointed and defeated." You will have few defeats or you will bear them joyfully when your spiritual life is vigorous and full. "Quicken me!" I suggest that this prayer be presented all over the place by every child of God. Breathe it before God in the silence of your hearts. "Quicken me. Quicken me." I, Your minister, how much I need the quickening influences of Your Spirit, O God! My Brothers associated with me in the Church, how much they require it! Lord, quicken us all! You that have come up from the country--some of you grow dull enough in your rustic quietude--join with us in pleading, "Quicken me!" You who are Sunday school teachers need life for yourselves if you are to communicate it to others. In any and every case, increased spiritual life will be a blessing to you! Whatever your difficulty, whatever your doubt, whatever your sorrow, whatever your temptation-- here is a prayer that meets every case--"Quicken me after Your loving kindness." It is especially a prayer which answered to David's aim in presenting it. He prayed this prayer that he might be enabled to keep God's testimony. Now who are the people that give up sound doctrine? Why, the people who do not know the quickening power of it in their own souls and do not live in the delightful enjoyment of it! Who are the people that give up holy practice? Why, the people that are not dwelling in the power of the Holy Spirit, and are not full of the life of God! Who are those that are tossed up and down like the locust and are shifty and have no fixed position? Why, they are the men that have not received the fullness of life from on high. You can do a great many things with a dead man--but you cannot make him stand up! You may try most earnestly, but a corpse cannot stand! Until you put life into the body, it will fall to the ground, and so if the Life of God is not in you, you cannot hold to the Truth of God, or maintain purity, or walk in integrity. Life is absolutely essential to steadfastness in the Truth. Whenever I hear of churches and ministers departing from the faith, I know that piety is at low ebb among them. It is proposed that we should argue with them--it is of no use to argue with dead people! It is proposed that we should bring out another book of Christian evidences--it is small benefit to provide glasses for those who have no eyes! What is needed is more spiritual life, for as the Truth of God quickens men, they love the quickening Word of God. But dead men care little about that which is to them a dead letter. "Your Word has quickened me," says David, and the man that is quickened clings to the Truth which quickens him. Whenever you feel a little shaky and your feet begin to totter, and your head to swim, just cry, "Lord, quicken me! Here is a sign that I am dying, for I am doubting. Pour more of Your Divine Power into me." When spiritual life is healthy, it will feed upon the Word, and so take it into its innermost self that nothing can remove it. Why do men grow weary of heavenly food? David tells us--"Fools, because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted. Their soul abhors all manner of meat and they draw near unto the gates of death." Just so--the best meat in God's Word is not enjoyed by men who are sinful and foolish, for they are suffering under a soul-sickness which kills holy appetites. The prayer of our text answers David's aim--"Quicken me after Your loving kindness; so shall I keep the testimony of Your mouth." He presented this prayer on the right ground. Observe how He pleads the mercy and love of God. "Quicken me after Your loving kindness." That is a lovely way of putting it--"I do not, now, appeal to Your righteousness, but to Your love, Your special love, Your loving kin-dness--to those that are of kin to You! Lord, I would entreat You to bless me because of Your loving kindness to those whom You did foreknow and did predestinate to be Your own! Oh, by that special love of Yours I pray You quicken me, that I may take fast hold upon Your Word and never let it go!" He means, too, I think, by saying, "after Your loving kindness," that he desires to be quickened by a sense of God's love. Is there anything that puts life into a man like that? A mother finds her babe half frozen and she warms it back to life by pressing it to her bosom--she imparts the warmth of her own heart to it until it lives, again, and smiles. It is just so with our God--there is no reviving us except by pressing us close to His bosom! Did I hear you say, "I will repent in terror. I will go to Moses to get revival"? I advise you not to do so, for he will use the rod most severely and flog you back to feeling! And that is by no means a desirable method. Divine Love is a sweeter and surer quickener. The true elixir of life is love. Oh, for a draught of it!-- "Your mercy is more than a match for my heart, Which wonders to feel its own deadness depart. Awakened by Your goodness I rise from the ground, And sing to the praise of the mercy I've found." "Quicken me after Your loving kindness." I would close this section of my discourse by saying, it is a prayer which has a promise attached to it. It was not so in David's day, but in these latter times we have a promise which fits it as the wax the seal. When I have a lock I am always glad to find a key which fits it. Here is the lock--"Lord, I feel as if I were dead." And here is the key--"He that believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." That answers the supplication as a glove fits the hand--"Though he were dead, yet shall he live." If it were possible for a Believer to get between the jaws of death and stand there, the mouth of the sepulcher could not close itself upon him! Look at Jonah. He is in the whale's belly and the whale is in the great deeps, far down from the light of day. Surely it was the very belly of Hades to Jonah, but it could not be his grave! The great fish had an indigestible morsel within him at that time--he could not possibly consume the Prophet because Jonah believed the Truth of God with a living faith. He soon escaped after he had uttered his creed--and this was his creed--"Salvation is of the Lord." With that confession of faith in your heart, no power can destroy you, no belly of Hell can swallow you up! You must live, for so it is written, "Though he were dead, yet shall he live." Plead that promise and cry unto God, when you feel sloth creeping over you--"Quicken me, that I may keep the testimony of Your mouth." III. We part with David and this is the last word--in this verse we have HIS HOLY EXAMPLE, which I commend to you. First, offer this prayer of life when you feel that you are dead. It is a strange paradox, but I put it with all my might to you. If this morning you are forced to cry, "My heart seems like adamant! My feeling is all gone--if anything is felt it is only pain to find I cannot feel! I seem to be altogether out of sorts--if the life of God is in me at all it is like a spark hidden away among the ashes--and I cannot discover it!" Well, then, bestir yourselves to pray. "Awake, you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light." Let your groan go up from the grave's mouth. If you can get no further than a sigh, let your moans be addressed to God, let the heaving of your anguished heart move towards your heavenly Father. Let prayer arise like smoke from the alter towards Heaven--"Quicken me! Quicken me!" Such a prayer will prove an antidote to the poison of death. Though your bones lie scattered at the grave's mouth, as when one chops wood, yet if the sighing of your soul is towards quickening, you shall be brought up again! "Your dead men shall live." From between the very ribs of death there shall come a higher, better and more Divine life. Breathe, then, your desire in prayer after this fashion--"Lord, Your poor, dead servant cries to You for life!" Do not say to me, "It is such an odd prayer. It is so strange and, therefore it cannot be correct." I gather that it is genuine because it is so strange that no one would borrow it from his neighbor! In spiritual life that which is according to routine is often false--and that which is so strange that only a personal experience could have suggested it, is most probably correct. Therefore I say, again, to you who seem as if you were dead, let this prayer go up, "Lord, quicken me!" And He will enlighten you by His Holy Spirit. The next thing I learn is this, that the living Truth of God can only be held firmly by living men. Some who are very sound are nothing else but sound--but we need no such allies! Some of those who hold a correct creed are very narrow and will not tolerate a departure by a hair's-breadth from their fixed opinions--but narrowness is not strength! To know the Truth of God and feel its power--and manifest its influence in your life--is the proof that you have grappled it to your soul as with hooks of steel! A dead creed in a dead man's hand is like dead wheat in the grip of an Egyptian mummy--what can come of it? But observe carefully a living man, with living seed to sow, and you shall yet see a harvest! A living man who grasps a living Truth of God is mighty as Moses with Aaron's rod in his hand which had life in it, for it budded and blossomed and brought forth almonds! Such a rod as this can divide the Red Sea and fetch waters out of flinty rocks! Oh, for living Truth in the grip of a living man! My dear Friend, if you are going to be a champion of reformation, first be reformed yourself! If you would become a defender of the faith, first be an exemplifier of it! Let Jesus reign in your soul and then He will make you a priest and king unto Himself by His own Divine Power! The next lesson is, regard God's loving kindness as a source of life. Unhappily too many have viewed it as an excuse for death. "Oh, yes," they say, "I am one of God's chosen. I need not trouble myself about holiness or activity. I shall be saved by Sovereign Grace." Do you sit down and quietly cross your legs, fold your arms, do nothing and then look to be rewarded for it? In all probability you will be lost at the last, for you are already lost! The man who dares to pervert the Truth of God is already a lost man! But he that knows the loving kindness of the Lord says, "Quicken me, Lord. Such love as this I must translate into life--grant that, to me, to live may be love." Those words, "love," and, "live," are very near akin in their conformation. They are joined together in spiritual things--let no man put them asunder. Do not get behind the door and suck your honeycomb and say, "I love enjoyment, but I hate employment! I never try to defend the Truth or to spread it, but it is very sweet to me." Ah, my dear Sir, that kind of honey will poison you! The thought of it makes me sick! The right thing is to feel that the more God loves you, the more you love Him--the more He does for you, the more you will do for Him-- "Loved of my God, for Him again With love intense I burn. Chosen of Him ere time began, I choose Him in return." "Quicken me after Your loving kindness." And lastly, let Divine aid, whenever we seek it or obtain it, lead us to the practical use of it in obedience. "Quicken me" and, "so shall I keep." I put those words together in that fashion, for they are together. That is to say, if the Lord gives quickening, I will give steadfastness. The Believer is active, not passive! He is acted on, but he also acts. In the first work of regeneration we are passive--that must be a pure act of God's Grace. But as the child, as soon as it is born, becomes active and begins to cry, so does a new-born soul prove its activity by its prayer! As the child ever after has an activity all its own in proportion to the measure of its vitality, so will it be with the child of God--he becomes more and more energetic in proportion as God pours into him more and more of the Divine Life. Come, you that lie in the dust, shake yourselves from it! You that are at ease in Zion, bestir yourselves in the service of your Lord and Master before a heavy woe overwhelms you! This is an evil day--a day in which multitudes are perishing in poverty and sin by reason of their ignorance of Christ--will you not instruct them? This is a day of blasphemy and rebuke in which the Truth of God is cast down and trodden like mud in the streets--will you not stand up for it? If you come not, today, to the help of the Lord and His Truth, then shall you be cursed like the inhabitants of Meroz of old! But oh, I charge you, men of God who live by faith on the Son of God, feed upon Him and be strong! And then quit yourselves like men and keep His testimonies in the teeth of an infidel world and a philosophizing church! Hold to the fundamentals of the faith though, with others, the foundations are shaken. Abide like rocks in the midst of foaming billows and defy all opposition! Stand fast in the house of your God, below, and this shall be your reward above--"Him that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of My God and he shall go no more out." May the best of blessings rest upon you. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ The Sprinkling of the Blood of the Sacrifice (No. 1780) A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 11, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle of the blood seven times before the Lord, before the veil of the sanctuary. And the priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord, which is in the tabernacle of the congregation; and shall pour all the blood of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation." Leviticus 4:6, 7. I HAVE preached, before, to you upon the types of our Lord's Sacrifice--the subject is as large as it is important. We began with the laying of the hands upon the offering and we went on to the all-important matter of the slaying of the victim [See Sermon Nos. 1771 and 1772.] Now we come to the use which was made of the blood of the sacrifice after it had been slain. In thinking upon this subject, I seem to hear a voice saying to me, "Put off your shoes from off your feet, for the place whereon you stand is holy ground." This is the central mystery of our religion. It becomes us to be reverent in heart as we approach it. The Doctrine of Substitution is the heart of the whole matter--our whole heart needs to be awakened while we speak upon it. The Son of God, Himself, assuming human nature and, in that Nature bleeding and dying in our place, is the Revelation of Revelation, the wonder of wonders, the Glory of the glorious God! Solemnity and awe may well fill us while we meditate on such a theme. Oh, that the Spirit of God may rest upon us now! May His melting power be over this vast assembly! May the speaker feel it and may the hearers experience it, so that we may, with one consent, in spirit and in truth, look to Him who, by the Eternal Spirit, offered up Himself without spot unto God! The sacrifices under the Law of God were varied according to the uppermost thoughts in the offerers' minds and their peculiar conditions before God. A burnt offering, a peace offering, or a sin offering might be brought, according as men wished to give unto the Lord, to have fellowship with Him, or to confess their sin to Him. There was a sacrifice specially arranged for the anointed priest, another for all the congregation, another for a ruler and yet another for one of the common people--in truth the typical sacrifices all pointed to the one Great Sacrifice, but they indicated various marks and characteristics of the undivided Lamb of God. The victims varied from a bullock or a lamb down to a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. We take different views of the Sacrifice of Christ according to our capacity to see it, but all these views may be quite in accordance the Truth of God, for the Atonement is many-sided and operates in many directions. The Levitical types represent the different views which believing minds take of our Lord Jesus Christ. They set forth but one Christ, but that one Christ from various standpoints. The mercy is that the Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus is suitable to you and equally suitable to me--and to all that come to Him by faith. The rich, the poor, the brave, the timid, the amiable and the immoral all find, in Jesus, that which fits their individual case. You may be a person of great mind and profound thought, but you shall find, in Jesus, all that your high intelligence can desire! I may be a person of slender education and of narrow powers of thought, but I shall find the Lord Jesus humbling Himself to my limited capacity. The manna is said, by the rabbis, to have pleased every man's taste and, even so, the Christ of God is every man's Christ, so that no man who comes to Him shall be disappointed, but each shall find His needs supplied. Each man shall find his case perfectly met by the Savior's Atonement, as much so as if Jesus were prepared for that man, only--as if that man were the only sinner under Heaven--or Jesus a Redeemer sent to him, alone, of all the family of man! Oh, the depth of the wisdom and of the Grace of God in the Person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ! Note particularly, with great interest, that there were sacrifices provided for sins of ignorance under the Law--therefore we safely conclude that a sin of ignorance is a sin. There is not that intensity of evil in a sin of ignorance which is to be seen in willful, deliberate transgression, but still, there is sin in it--for no law can allow ignorance to be an excuse for trespass since it is the duty of the subject to know the law. Even if I do that which is wrong with a sincere wish to do right, still, my wrong act has a measure of sin in it. No amount of sincerity can turn injustice into righteousness, or transform falsehood into truth. You can illustrate this by the stern facts of Nature. Certain inventors have thought that they could fly and they have, in perfectly honest faith, leaped from a lofty crag. But their honest belief has not saved them from the result of violating the law of gravity--they have fallen to the ground--and have been dashed in pieces just as surely and terribly as if they had felt no real belief in their powers of flight. If a man partakes of a deadly poison believing it to be a health-giving medicine, his sincerity will not hinder the natural course of Nature--he will die in his error. It is precisely so in the moral and spiritual world. Sins committed in ignorance must be, still, sins in the sight of the Lord, or else no expiation would have been provided for them. Without shedding of blood, there is no remission even for sins of ignorance! Paul persecuted the saints ignorantly, but he thereby incurred sins which required to be washed away--so Ananias told him and so he felt--for he called himself the chief of sinners because he persecuted the Church of God. When the people sinned through ignorance and the thing was hid from the eyes of the assembly, they were to bring an offering as soon as the sin was known. If you have transgressed ignorantly, my Brothers and Sisters, the time may come when you will find out that you were sinning--and it will then rejoice your heart to find that the Lord Jesus has made Atonement for your sins before you knew them to be sins! I am greatly rejoiced to think there should be such a Sacrifice provided, since it may yet turn out that the larger number of our sins are sins of which we have not been aware because our heart has prevented our discovering our error. You may have sinned and have no conscience of that sin at this present time-- yes, and you may never have a conscience of that particular offense, in this world--yet it will be sin all the same. Many good men have lived in an evil habit and remained in it unto death--and yet have not known it to be evil. Now, if the precious blood of Jesus only put away the sin which we perceived in detail, its efficacy would be limited by the enlightenment of our conscience and, therefore, some grievous sin might be overlooked and prove our ruin. But inasmuch as this blood puts away all sins, it removes those which we do not discover as well as those over which we mourn. "Cleanse You me from secret faults" is a prayer to which the Expiation of Christ is a full answer. The Atonement acts according to God's sight of sin and not according to our sight of it, for we only see it in part, but God sees it all and blots it all out. When we discover our iniquity, it is ours to weep over it with true and deep repentance. But if there are some sins which, in detail, we have not discerned and, consequently, have not, by a specific act of repentance, confessed them separately, yet, for all that, the Lord puts away our sin, for it is written, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." Those unknown sufferings of Christ which the Greek Liturgy mentions so wisely, have put away from us those unknown sins which we cannot confess in detail because we have not yet perceived them. Blessed be God for a Sacrifice which cleanses away, forever, not only our glaring faults, but those offenses which the most minute self-examination has not yet uncovered! After the blood had been spilt by the killing of the sacrifice and thus atonement had been made, three several acts were to be performed by the priest--we have them described in our text--and if you will kindly look, you will see that very much the same words follow in the 17th and 18th verses, as, also, in the 25th verse and the 34th verse, where, with somewhat less detail, much the same act is set forth. "And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord, before the veil of the sanctuary. And the priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord, which is in the tabernacle of the congregation; and shall pour all the blood of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation." All this is symbolic of the work of the Lord Jesus and the manifold effects of His blood. There were three things-- first, "the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord, before the veil of the sanctuary." This represents the atoning sacrifice in its reference to God. Next, "The priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord." This sets forth the influence upon the offering of intercessory prayer. Thirdly, we read, "He shall pour all (the rest) of the blood of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offer- ing." This displays the influence of the blood of Christ on all our service for the Lord. Oh, for the Spirit's power to us to show the things of Christ! I. We begin with THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST IN ITS RELATION TO THE LORD GOD OF ISRAEL. In the type before us the prominent thing before God is the blood of atonement. No mention is made of a meat offering, or a drink offering, or even of sweet spices upon the golden altar--the one conspicuous object is blood. This was sprinkled before the Lord before the veil of the Most Holy place. I am well aware that some persons cry out, "The preacher continually talks about blood and, this morning, from the first hymn to the last, he has brought before us constant allusions to blood. We are horrified by it!" I wish you to be horrified for, indeed, sin is a thing to shudder at--and the death of Jesus is not a matter to be treated lightly! It was God's intent to awaken in man a great disgust of sin by making him see that it could only be put away by suffering and death. In the Tabernacle in the wilderness, almost everything was sanctified by blood. The purple drops fell, even, on the Book and all the people. The blood was to be seen everywhere. As soon as you entered the outer court you saw the great bronze altar--and at the base of it bowls of blood were constantly being poured out! When you passed the first veil and entered the Holy Place, if you saw a priest, he was spattered from head to foot with blood--his snow-white robes bringing the crimson spots most vividly before your eyes. If you looked around, you saw the horns of the golden altar of incense smeared with blood--and the gorgeous veil which hid the innermost sanctuary was bedewed with a frequent sprinkling of the same! The holy tent was by no means a place for sentimentalists--its emblematic teachings dealt with terrible realities in a boldly impressive manner--its ritual was not constructed to gratify the taste, but to impress the mind! It was not a place for dainty gentlemen, but for broken-hearted sinners. Everywhere, the ignorant eye would see something to displease--but the troubled conscience would read lessons of peace and pardon! Oh, that my words would cause triflers with sin to be shocked at the abominable thing! I would have them filled with horror of that detestable thing which cannot be put away except by that which is infinitely more calculated to shock the instructed mind than rivers of the blood of bulls and of goats--I mean the sacrifice of God's own Son--whose soul was made an offering for sin! The blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled before the veil seven times, signifying this--first, that the Atonement made by the blood of Jesus is perfect in its reference to God. All through the Scriptures, as you well know, seven is the number of perfection, and in this place it is doubtless used with that intent. The seven times is the same as once and for all--it conveys the same meaning as when we read, "For Christ also has once suffered for sins." And again, "We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once." It is a complete act. In this text we understand that the Lord Jesus offered unto the justice of God an absolutely complete and satisfactory Atonement by His vicarious suffering and death for guilty men. There is no need of further offering for sin. "It is finished." He has purged our sins! In old times--before the coming of our Lord--the veil hung darkly between the place of God's glorious Presence and His worshipping people. It was only lifted for a moment, once a year, and then that only one of all living men might enter into the Holy of Holies for a brief time--the way into the Holiest not yet being made manifest. But still, the blood was sprinkled towards the place where the Glory of God was pleased to dwell indicating that access to Him could only be by the way of the blood. Albeit that modern thought will contradict me, I shall not cease to assert perpetually that the greatest result of the death of the Lord Jesus was Godward. Not only does He reconcile us unto God by His death and turn our enmity into love, but He has borne the chastisement of our peace, and thus magnified the Law and made it honorable. God, the Judge of All, is enabled without the violation of His justice to pass by transgression, iniquity and sin. The blood of the sin offering was sprinkled before the Lord because the sin was before the Lord. David says--"Against You, You only, have I sinned," and the prodigal cries, "I have sinned against Heaven and before you." The Sacrifice of Christ is so mainly a Propitiation before God, so thoroughly a vindication of Divine Righteousness, that this one view of the Atonement is sufficient for any man, even if he obtains no other! But let him beware of trusting to a faith which does not look to the great Propitiation! This is the soul-saving view--the idea which pacifies conscience and wins the heart! We believe in Jesus as the Propitiation for sin. The lights which stream from the Cross are very varied, but as all the colored rays are found in the white light of day, so all the varied teachings of Calvary meet in the fact that Jesus suffered for sin--the Just for the unjust! Do not your hearts feel glad to think that the Lord Jesus Christ has offered a perfect Atonement, covering all, removing every obstacle to the mercy of God--making a clear way for the Lord most justly to justify the guilty? No man need bring anything more, or anything of his own with which to turn away the anger of God--he may come just as he is--guilty and defiled, and plead this precious blood which has made effectual Atonement for him. O my Soul, endorse the doctrine! Feel the sweet experiences that flow from it and stand, now, in the Presence of God without fear--for seven times has the blood spoken for you unto God! Note next, that not only is the Atonement, itself, perfect, but that the presentation of that Atonement is perfect, too. The sevenfold sprinkling was typical of Christ, as a Priest, presenting Himself unto the Father as a Sacrifice for sin. This has been fully done. Jesus has, in due order, carried the Propitiation into the sanctuary and appeared in the Presence of God on our behalf. Here are the Apostle's own words, "by His own blood He entered in once into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." It is not our presenting of the blood, but Christ's presenting of the blood which has made the Atonement--even as it is not our sight of the blood, but Jehovah's sight of it which causes us to escape--as it was written concerning the Passover, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." Jesus at this moment sets His Atonement within view of a righteous God and, therefore, the Judge of all the earth is able to look on the guilty with eyes of mercy! Let us rest perfectly satisfied that all we require to bring us near to God has been done for us--and we may now come boldly unto the Throne of the heavenly Grace-- "No longer far from God, but now, By precious blood made nigh, Accepted in the Well-Beloved Near to His heart we lie." We now pass on to a few thoughts about ourselves in relation to this type. This sevenfold sprinkling of the blood upon the veil meant that the way of our access to God is only by virtue of the precious blood of Christ. Do you ever feel a veil hanging between you and God? In very truth, there is none, for Jesus has taken it away through His flesh. In the day when His blessed body was offered up, the veil of the Temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom, showing that there is now nothing to divide the Believer from his God. But still, if you think there is such a separating veil; if you feel as if the Lord had hidden Himself; if you are so despondent that you are afraid you will never draw near to the Mercy Seat, then sprinkle the blood towards the Throne of Grace--cast it on the very veil which appears to conceal your God from you! Let your heart go towards God, even if you cannot reach Him, and let this blood go before you, for rest assured nothing can dissolve obstacles and furnish you with an open access to God except the blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God! Rest assured that you are already come unto God if boldly, yes, even if timidly with trembling finger, you do but sprinkle the blood in the direction which your faith longs to take! If you cannot present the Atonement of Christ, yourself, by the firm hand of an undaunted faith--remember, Christ's own hand has presented the Propitiation long before--and, therefore, the work will not fail because of your feebleness! O that by a simple confidence in the Lord, your Redeemer, you may, this day, by His Grace, imitate the example of the priest under the Law, for Jesus makes you a priest by the Gospel! You may now look towards the Lord and plead that all-prevailing blood which makes us near, who were once afar off! I have often admired that blessed Gospel precept, "Look unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth," for suppose I cannot see, yet if I look, I have the promise of being saved! If there should be a mist and a cloud between me and the bronze serpent, yet if I look that way I shall be healed! If I cannot clearly discern all the glories of my Lord and Savior, yet if I look with the glance of trust, blessed be God, He saves me! Turn, then, your half-opened eyes which only at one corner admit light! Turn them, I say, Godward and Christ-ward--and know that by reason of the atoning blood you are saved! The blood-spattered way is the only one which a sinner's feet can traverse if he would come to God! It is easy, plain and open. See, the priest had the Gospel at his finger-tips--at every motion of his hand, he preached it, and the effect of such preaching remained wherever the drops found a resting place! I further think that the blood was sprinkled on the veil seven times to show that a deliberate contemplation of the death of Christ is greatly for our benefit. Whatever else you treat lightly, let the Sacrifice of Calvary be seriously considered again and again--even unto seven times let it be meditated on! Read the story of our Lord's death in the four Evangelists and ponder every detail till you are familiar with His griefs. I would have you know the story by heart, for nothing will do your heart so much good! Read over the 22nd Psalm and the 53rd of Isaiah every day if you are in any kind of trouble of heart about sin--and pray to God for enlightenment that you may see the exceeding greatness of His Grace to us in Christ Jesus! Oh, that you may with all your heart believe in the Lamb of God! Angels desire to look into these things, therefore, I pray you, do not neglect so great a salvation! Think lovingly of the atoning Sacrifice. Earnestly consider it a second time, do it a third time, do it a fourth time, do it a fifth time, do it a sixth time, do it a seventh time! Remember, too, that this sets out how great our guilt has been, since the blood must be sprinkled seven times before the work of Atonement is fully seen by you. Our guilt has a sevenfold blackness about it and there must be a sevenfold cleansing. If you plead the blood of Jesus once and you do not obtain peace thereby, plead it again! And if the burden still lies upon your heart, still go on pleading with the Lord the one prevailing argument that Jesus bled! If for the present you do not gain peace through the blood of the Cross, do not conclude that your sin is too great for pardon, for that is not the fact since, "all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." A fuller acquaintance with Him who has made peace by His blood will calm the tempest of your mind. Christ is a great Savior for great sinners and His precious blood can remove the blackest spots of iniquity. See it sprinkled seven times for a seven-times polluted sinner and rest your soul on Him though seven devils should have entered into you! God, who bids us forgive unto 70 times seven, sets no limit to His own forgiveness. Reflect that if your case seems to yourself to be very difficult, it is provided for by this sevenfold sprinkling of the blood. If you say, "My heart is so hard! I cannot make it feel." Or if you say, "I am so frivolous and foolish I seem to forget what I once knew," then continue to look to the blood of Jesus and draw hope from it even to seven times. Do not go away from that, I charge you--where else can you go? The devil's desire will be to keep you from thinking about Christ, but remember, thoughts about anything else will do you very little good. Your hope lies in thinking about Jesus, not about yourself! Masticate and digest such a text as this every morning--"He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him." Go to bed at night with this verse upon your tongue, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." Or this, "Him that comes unto Me I will by no means cast out." That dear man of God, Mr. Moody Stuart, somewhere tells us that he once talked with a woman who was in great trouble about her sins. She was a well-instructed person and knew the Bible thoroughly, so that he was in a little difficulty what to say to her, as she was so accustomed to the all-saving Truth of God. At last he urged upon her, very strongly, that passage, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners," and he noticed that she seemed to find a quiet relief in a gentle flow of tears. He prayed with her and when she rose from her knees, she seemed much comforted. Meeting her the next day and seeing her smiling face--and finding her full of rest in the Lord--he asked, "What was it that worked you deliverance?" "Oh," she said, "it was that text, 'Jesus Christ came to save sinners.'" "Did you not know that before?" asked Mr. Stuart. Yes, she knew the words before, but she found that in her heart of hearts she had believed that Jesus came to save saints and not sinners! Do not many awakened persons abide in the same error? Well, I want you, poor troubled heart, yes, and you, also, who are of a joyful spirit, to keep on with this sevenfold presentation of the Sacrifice of Christ unto God. And even if a veil should hang between you and the Lord, I beg you to continue to sprinkle the veil with blood until, before the eyes of your faith, the veil tears in two and you stand in the Presence of your reconciled God, rejoicing in Christ Jesus! ' II. Our second head is this--THE BLOOD IN ITS INFLUENCE UPON PRAYER. "The priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord." The priest, in this case, goes from the inside of the Holy Place towards the outer court, having dealt with the veil of the Holy of Holies. He turns round and finds close at his side the altar of incense made of gold and surmounted with a golden crown--to this he goes deliberately and places a portion of the blood upon each of its horns. Horns signify power and the explanation of the symbol is that there is no power in intercessory prayer apart from the blood of expiation. Remember, first, that the intercession of Christ Himself is based upon His Atonement. He is daily pleading before the Throne of God and His great argument is that He offered Himself without spot unto God. It seems to me most clear and blessed that our Lord Jesus makes this the main plea with the Father on our behalf--"I have finished the work which You gave Me to do." He has suffered in our place and every day He pleads these sufferings for us. His blood speaks better things than that of Abel. He seeks no new plea, but always urges this old one--His blood shed for many for the remission of sins. "It pleased the Father to bruise Him," and now it pleases the Father to hear Him! The bruised spices of His pas- sion are an incense of sweet smell and derive a double acceptance from the blood-smeared altar upon which they are presented. And now take the type to yourselves. You and I are to offer incense upon this golden altar by our daily intercession for others, but our plea must always be the atoning blood of Jesus. I pray you, dear Friends, to urge this much more than you have been accustomed to do in your prayers. We are to cry to God for sinners and we are to cry to God for saints-- but the sacrifice of Jesus must be our strength in petitioning. Intercession is one of the most excellent duties in which a Christian can be engaged--it has about it the honor both of priesthood and kingship. The incense altar ought to be continually smoking before the Lord God of Israel, not only in our public Prayer Meetings, but in our private supplications. We should be continually pleading for our children, for our friends, for our neighbors, for those who are hopeful and those who seem hopeless. But the great plea must always be, "By Your agony and bloody sweat! By Your Cross and passion." Offer sweet spices of love, faith and hope, and lay on the burning coals of strong desire. But on the horn of your altar smear the blood-- "Blood has a voice to pierce the skies! 'Revenge,' the blood of Abel cries. But the rich blood of Jesus slain Speaks, 'Peace' as loud from every vein." Take care you never advance another plea, or if another, let it be very subsidiary to this master reason. We may say, "O Lord, save men because their immortal souls are precious. Save them that they may escape from endless misery and that they may display the power of Your Grace. Save them, also, that Your Word may not return unto You void, and that Your Church may be built up by their means." But we must never be content with these pleas! We must go on to plead the name of Jesus, for whatever we ask in that name we shall receive. He who once poured out His soul unto death and now makes intercession for the transgressors, will see to it that our pleas shall not be rejected! In all our intercessions we must remember Calvary--the incense altar, for us, must, on the horn of its strength, be always sprinkled with the blood! And, dearly Beloved, as this must be the plea of our intercession, so it must be our impulse in making intercession. When we pray, we come, as it were, to this golden altar and we look thereon--what do we see? Stains of blood! We look again, and again see crimson spots, while all the four horns are red with blood. Did my Lord pour out His soul unto death for men and shall not I pour out my soul in living earnest when I pray? Can you now bow your knee to plead with God and not feel your heart set upon the good of men when you see that your Lord has laid down His life that they may be saved? Cold prayers and dull pleas would vanish if we would but remember how Jesus loved--how being in an agony He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood. Brothers and Sisters, we are sadly blameworthy for neglect of intercessory prayer! I cannot tell how much of a blessing is being withheld because we do not pray importunately for our fellow men! May the Lord awaken us! May He never permit us to neglect the precious use of the Mercy Seat! When the late Dr. Bacchus was ill and near to death, a surgeon visited him. And as he left the room, he was observed to speak to the servant. The good old Divine begged the attendant to tell him what the surgeon said. After some pause, he said, "Dear Sir, he told me not to leave you, for you could not live more than another half-hour." "Then," said the saint, "help me out of bed, let me get upon my knees and spend my last half hour on earth in praying for the Church of God and for the salvation of men." What a blessed way of spending one's last half-hour! Let me rather say--what a blessed way of spending half-an-hour at any time! Try it this afternoon! I do not know any method of benefiting our friends which is more constantly open to us all than that of intercessory prayer. And I cannot give you a better argument for why you should use it than this--your Lord has sprinkled the golden altar of intercession with His own blood! Where He poured out His blood, will you not pour out your tears? He has given His bleeding heart for men--will not you give your pleading lips? I think, too, I must say that this smearing of the horns of the altar with blood is meant to give us very great encouragement and assurances whenever we come to God in prayer. Never give anybody up, however bad he may be. If you know a man that is as much like the devil as two peas in a pod, still have hope for him, because when you come to the golden altar to offer your prayers on his behalf what do you see? Why, there is the blood of Christ! What sin is there which it cannot remove? "Oh," you ask, "did Jesus die for sinners like this man and shall I despair of him and, therefore, refuse to pray for him?" This is logical argument. We are slow to labor for men because we are slow of heart in expecting their salva- tion--and this arises out of our narrow views of our Lord Jesus. I pray you enlarge your ideas of God's mercy and of Christ's power to cleanse! Pray not with a phantom hope, but with solid confidence, and say, "Lord, I do but follow with my tears where You have been with Your blood. I am pleading for this man's pardon and You are also making intercession for transgressors. I am pleading for those whom You have bought with Your blood and, therefore, I am confident that my desire is in consonance with Your will and that I shall be heard in Heaven, Your dwelling place." When we pray, let us with vehement desire plead the blood of Jesus Christ! Perhaps fewer petitions and more urging of the merit of Christ would make better prayers. If we were shorter in what we ask for but longer in pleading the reason why we should obtain it, we might prevail more easily. I suggest that we use fewer nails, but take care that those nails are driven in with Calvary's blood-stained hammer and clenched with this argument--"For Jesus' sake." May this sort of prayer be used by all of us in private and in public--and then we must and shall prevail! III. Time flies too quickly this morning and, therefore, I must pass over many things I had thought to dwell upon. The last point is, THE BLOOD IN ITS INFLUENCE UPON ALL OUR SERVICE. You see we have been coming outwards from the veil to the golden altar and now we pass outside the Holy Place into the outer court. And there in the open air stands the great bronze altar--the first object that the Israelite saw when he entered the sacred precincts. As soon as he entered into the first enclosure, his eye lighted upon the great altar of brass upon which burnt offerings were burned and oblations were presented unto the Lord. It was at the foot of this bronze altar that the bowls of blood were continually poured out--so that the altar was encrimsoned with it--and the soil around was soaked with the sanguine flood. That altar represents a great many things and among the rest of them, our Lord Jesus presenting Himself to God as an acceptable Sacrifice. Whenever you think of our Lord as being an offering of a sweet smell unto God, never dissociate that fact in your mind from His being slain for sin, for all our Lord's service is tinged by His atoning death. It is a great mistake, when you are trying to explain any one of the Levitical sacrifices to run entirely upon one line, for there is a blessed union of all of them in Christ. The offerings of a sweet savor were, all of them, in a sense, sin offerings--there are clear indications of this. At the same time the sin offering was not altogether an abomination, but, in part, a sweet savor offering, for the fat, as we have seen in our reading, was presented upon the altar. What God has joined together let no man put asunder. You may look at your Lord under various headings and separately think of His life and of His death-- but never stereotype even that division, for His death was the climax of His life--and His life was necessary to His death. Always think of Jesus, in all your meditations upon Him, as presenting Himself to God and pouring out His soul unto death by way of atonement. When I see that great bronze altar, I do not forget how our Lord was accepted of God, but when I see the floods of blood at the foot of the altar, I am reminded of the fact that, "He His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree." Viewing the type in reference to ourselves, let us learn that whenever we come to offer any sacrifice unto the Lord, we must take care that we present it by virtue of the precious blood of Christ. The worship of this morning--God knows our hearts--He knows how many have really adored Him. And He knows, out of those who worship, how many of us have presented our sacrifice, thinking only of the merit of Jesus as the reason why it should be received. When you rise from your knees after your morning prayer, have you really pleaded the precious blood? Your petitions will not be acceptable to God if you have not. When you are praying at eventide and speaking with your heavenly Father, have you your eyes upon Christ? If not, your devotion will be rejected. As it is with worship in the form of prayer, so is it with worship in the form of praise. Sweet sounds are very delightful when we sing the praises of God, but unless the altar is blood-stained upon which we lay our Psalms and hymns, they will not be accepted for all their music! We also bring to God our gifts as He prospers us. I trust we are all ready to give Him a portion of our substance--but do we present it upon the altar which sanctifies the giver and the gift? Do we see the blood of Christ upon it and present our gold and silver through that which is more precious by far? If not, we might as well keep our money. When you go, this afternoon, to your Sunday school classes, or go out into the streets to preach, or go round with your tracts, will you present your holy labor to God through the precious blood? There is but one Altar on which He will accept your services--that Altar is the Person of His dear Son--and in this matter Jesus must be viewed as pouring out His blood for us. We must view the Atonement as connected with every holy thing. I believe that our testimonies for God will be blessed of God in proportion as we keep the Sacrifice of Christ to the forefront. Somebody asked our Brother, Mr. Moody, how it was that he was so successful. And he is said to have replied, "Well, if I must tell you, it is, I believe, because we come out fair and square upon the Doctrine of Substitution." In that remark he hit the nail on the head. That is the saving doctrine! Keep that before your own mind. Keep it before the minds of those whom you would benefit. Let the Lord see that you are always thinking of His dear Son. And, Beloved, do you not think that this pouring of the blood at the foot of this bronze altar indicates to us how much we ought to bring there? If Jesus has brought His life, there, and laid Himself thereon, ought we not to bring all that we are and all that we have--and consecrate all to God? Let us not offer a lean, scraggy sacrifice, or one that is half dead, or broken, or diseased--but let us bring our best at its best--and cheerfully present it unto the Most High through the precious blood of Christ. One said of a young man who had lately joined the Church, "Is he O and O?" And another answered, "What do you mean by that?" "Why," said the first, "I mean--Is he out and out for Christ? Does he give him-self--spirit, soul and body, to Jesus?" Surely, when we see the altar with Christ Himself upon it and His blood poured out there, we must acknowledge that if we could spend our whole life in zealous labor, and then die a martyr's death, we should not have rendered even half what such amazing love deserves! Let us be stimulated and quickened by the sight of the blood upon the bronze altar! Lastly, you notice the blood was poured out at the bottom of the altar. What could that mean but this--that the altar of thank offering stood upon and grew out of a basis of blood. So all our deeds for God and our sacrifices for His cause must spring out of the love which He has manifested in the death of His dear Son. We love Him because--you know the "be-cause"--because He first loved us. And how do we know that He loves us? Behold the death of Jesus as the surest proof! I long to put my whole being upon that altar and I should feel, as I did so, that I was not giving my God anything, but only rendering to Him what His dear Son has bought a million times over by once shedding His life-blood! When we have done all, we shall be unprofitable servants and we shall say so. All that we have given to God has been presented out of gratitude for the fact that God so loved us that He gave His only-begotten Son to die for us that we might live through Him. Load the altar! Heap it high! Let sacrifices smoke thereon, for it is built upon God's unspeakable Gift! When sin is removed, service is accepted--"then shall they offer bullocks upon Your altar." Attempt no offering of your own works till then, for unpardoned sinners bring unaccepted offerings! First, let the blood be recognized and let the full Atonement be rejoiced in. Service rendered to God with a desire for personal merit is abominable in His sight. But when our merit is all found in the Divine Person of His Son, then will He accept us and our offering, too, in Christ Jesus! God grant unto you, dear Hearers, to be accepted in the Beloved. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ Two Pauls and a Blinded Sorcerer (No. 1781) A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 18, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the Doctrine of the Lord." Acts 13:12. CYPRUS was by no means a reputable island--it was devoted to the goddess Venus and you can imagine what her worship was--and what would be the fruitful licentiousness which sprang of it. It was the native country of Barnabas and, as he was, at first, the leader of the missionary party sent out by the Church of Antioch, it was fit that Barnabas and Saul should begin preaching there. Landing at one end of the island, the two Apostolic men traversed it till they came to Paphos, where the Roman governor resided. Now, this Paphos was the central city of the worship of Venus and was the scene of frequent profligate processions and abominable rites. We might call it, "the place where Satan's seat is." Athanasius styled its religion "the deification of lust." Neither men nor women could resort to the shrine of Venus without being defiled in mind and depraved in character. Yet it was no business of the Apostles to stay away, either from Cyprus or Paphos, because they were the resorts of the gay and vicious. On the contrary, there was a special need for them to go there with the purifying waters of the Gospel. The more wicked the locality, the more need for Christian effort in that very spot. Moreover, the Holy Spirit had sent the missionaries to Cyprus and, therefore, they might safely enter the caverns of dark obscenity and proclaim the word of salvation among the openly abandoned. Nor need they fear of success, for publicans and harlots have frequently been known to enter the Kingdom of God before self-righteous Pharisees. Even the vilest of open sin is not so hard to deal with as a proud heart which abhors the Doctrine of the Cross because of its humbling character. Let us not refuse to plow up any kind of soil--great harvests come from broken rocks! Happily for the two servants of the Lord, God had prepared their way as He prepares the way of all His servants, for whenever He sends a sower forth to sow, albeit that a part of the land which he sows may be rock, or trodden path, yet there is always a portion which is plowed before the sower comes. God has a prepared people wherever He sends a minister to gather them in. He does not mock us by sending us on fruitless errands. If He bids Philip go down to the way which leads from Jerusalem to Gaza, which is desert, Philip does not find it a desert spiritually, for there he gathers one of the sweetest flowers that ever bloomed in the garden of the Lord. So now, when Barnabas and Saul come to Paphos, it shall not be to break their hearts over the filthiness and obscenity of its idol worship, but to find for the Lord a jewel amid the mire! The chief magistrate of the island was a candid, studious, prudent man. He possessed an intelligent and inquisitive spirit, and was desirous to know all that could be known. Pliny mentioned him among the authors from whom he quoted. This man was anxious to discover the truth if it could be discovered--he had said with Pilate, but not as Pilate, "What is truth?" A certain Jew who was expert in the dark learning of the East and practiced sorcery had obtained considerable influence over this ruler, whose name was Sergius Paul. But instead of teaching him the truth, this false-hearted Jew imparted to him the mysteries of the Magi and the superstitions of sorcery. Bar-Jesus was this mountebank's Jewish name, but he was false to it, for he was no son of Jesus, but one of a generation of vipers! Sergius Paul, hearing that there were other Eastern teachers in the island, and being dissatisfied with the teaching of Elymas, sent for Barnabas and Saul to teach him the Word of God. What a door of hope for this prudent man! What a splendid opening for the two preachers of Christ! Barnabas and Saul can go to court and hold a meeting in the proconsul's palace with one of the best of hearers as the center of their congregation--for a really prudent man is one of the most hopeful of listeners to the Gospel if his pru- dence has not curdled into sophistry--and his knowledge has not fermented into self-conceit. It was a hopeful omen for the rest of the island that its proconsul was so free from prejudice that he called the two missionaries to his hall and desired to hear from them the Word of God. Barnabas and Saul accepted the invitation and I think I see them both opening their commission in the deputy's presence. Good will surely come of such an opportunity! We are all looking for memorable results, but stop!--we must postpone our hopes, awhile, and look around upon facts. I. Notice first, opposition TO THE FAITH. The missionaries were not to have it all their own way. Bar-Jesus, who was also called Elymas, "withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith." As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses when he commenced his mission, so this Jew, Bar-Jesus, opposed himself to the ministers of Christ. In some respects, opposition to the Gospel is to be much deplored. Under some aspects, the withstanding of the message of mercy is a very grievous thing. Should the glad tidings be denied? Should the Doctrine which God has given by express Revelation be held up to scorn? Woe unto the men who dare thus to provoke their God! Behold, you despisers, and wonder and perish! No man can set himself against God and against His Christ without frightful peril to his own soul. The greatest of men become base when they rebel against the Light of God. "Be wise now, therefore, O you kings: be instructed, you judges of the earth. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little." Rivers of water should run down our eyes because of the wicked who keep not God's Law. Our hearts should be filled with horror at the blasphemy and presumption of those who set themselves with deliberate intent to oppose the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ--especially when they do it knowing something about it--and being half convinced of its truthfulness. The rejection of known Truth is a crime which goes very near to the sin against the Holy Spirit, if it is not that sin. To oppose Truth when it is seen to be Truth, and to shut the eyes to the Light of God when it is admitted to be Light, is a heinous offense against the God of Truth and He will certainly avenge it. Let us pity with all our hearts the men who oppose the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ! And the more so because we believe that in some instances they know better and are violating conscience by their opposition. If half the noise that has been made in this country against certain infidels for wishing to exercise the rights of English citizens had been spent in prayer for their conversion, it would have been a more profitable use of zeal and would have been far more likely to bring down a blessing upon the nation. We are too apt to ban and curse antagonists instead of pitying and praying for them. It is not yours and mine to shut the door in any man's face, however depraved he may be! We are to stand and entreat him to come to the Savior, regarding, even, if the judgments of God which fall upon him are meant to last only for a season--and intended to lead him to repentance--for this is the usual design of the chastening of this life. Why should not the chief of sinners yet become a Believer? Sometimes those who were the most opposed to Christ have been the first to yield and have become the bravest champions of the faith! Saul of Tarsus, himself, who was opposed by Elymas, had been a furious enemy of that Gospel which now he earnestly proclaimed--and this fact must have sustained his courage under the sorcerer's attack. Saul did it ignorantly in unbelief, but there is reason to fear that this Elymas willfully perverted the right ways of the Lord and set himself deliberately, with premeditated malice, to keep back an enquiring soul from the true faith. In such a case, opposition to the faith is to be sadly deplored because of our pity for the enemy of the Truth of God, who is, in this thing, an enemy to his own soul. But I further notice that opposition is eminently overruled for good and, therefore, it would be unbecoming in us to lament it or dread it. We may not think so much of opposition as to yield to it so far as to cease our testimony, or tone it down, or omit a portion of it! The Apostle Paul, when speaking of a place where he hoped for great success, said a great and effectual door was opened to him, and there were many adversaries (1 Corinthians 16:9). It would seem that the second clause was as good a sign of success as the first! Wherever there is likely to be great success, the open door and the opposing adversaries will both be found. If there are no adversaries, you may fear that there will be no success. A boy cannot get his kite up without wind, nor without a wind which drives against his kite. A contrary wind does much more for us than we suppose. Adversaries advertise the Gospel and so spread it! Opposing work, although in itself, evil, is wondrously overruled by God for the best purposes, since persecution often awakens natural sympathy, and this becomes a ladder by which love climbs up into the heart. The devil is growing a little wiser than he used to be, but he still remains a fool, for if he looked back over his own history, he would see that he has been the means of spreading the Gospel by the attacks which he has made upon it! A little stream of Living Water flowed through Jerusalem and wherever it went, it fertilized the earth and caused it to bring forth and bud. It flowed on and became wider and Satan said within himself, "If this continues, I cannot tell what will come of it. I will, therefore, stop its flow." He looked around and found a great stone, nearby--I think it bore on it the name of Herod. This stone, the arch-enemy dashed into the bed of the stream, with intent to turn it aside. Great was the fall thereof and, in consequence of its force, the Water of Life splashed right and left, for they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word of God! Every drop of that little stream became the mother of another fountain where it fell and so other lands were refreshed with the Waters of Life. "Divide and conquer," said Satan--he divided--but he did not conquer! His raging winds carry far afield the precious seed of Divine Truth! Every tempest that he raises, speeds onward the boat of the Church! Now, look! Saul of Tarsus desires to preach and tell Sergius Paul about the eternal Truth of God--and Elymas must interpose. "What good could that be?" cries one! "How can that be overruled?" It was overruled--the Lord made the wrath of man to praise Him and brought to nothing the subtlety of Elymas! In all probability, the opposition of Bar-Jesus may have called the attention of Sergius Paul more intently to the Doctrine of the Word of God. When a certain Doctrine is neglected and half forgotten by the Church of God, there rises up a bold heretic who rails at the Truth most bitterly--and then Christian people remember it, defend it, and propagate it! A Colenso attacks the story of the Exodus--and all eyes are fixed upon Moses and the tribes of Israel. Some critic or other attacks the book of Deuteronomy and straightway we get a host of books about Deuteronomy! All the scholars of the Christian Church begin to study it and, as a part of the Word of God, it is exceedingly valued. This Elymas finds fault with the Gospel--and Saul and Barnabas are thus called upon to clear up the points at issue--and by refuting the magician's malicious errors, they make the Truth of God the more apparent to the mind of the proconsul! So far so good. But this man's opposition was further overruled, for when Saul looked at him and pronounced upon him the solemn judgment of God--namely that he should be blind and should not see the sun for a season--then the proconsul saw what power attended the Word of the Lord and how truly it came forth from the Almighty! God, by that solemn judgment, set His seal to the Truth and let all men know that it could not be reviled without the most solemn hazard to the opposer. Blinded Elymas, seeking someone to lead him by the hand, was a visible witness for the Truth against which he had fought! His sightless eyes were a just judgment from God. He had shut the eyes of his mind to the Truth of God and the Lord justly closed the eyes of his body. As he groped for the wall, he was, against his will, a most convincing witness to the Truth of the Gospel--and of the Divine commission of Barnabas and Saul! Depend upon it, the Lord will yet baffle all opposers and He will establish His Truth above all the traditions of men--His adversaries, themselves, being judges. Out of their own months will He condemn His enemies. He will so confound and confuse unbelieving philosophers, that their blindness shall bear evidence to the light of His Word, which blinds the proud and self-sufficient. Men will again see how "professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." Manifestly, even before the eyes of the unlearned, it has happened--and will happen against that learned skeptics will give vent to sheer folly and become the victims of childish credulity till men shake them off and say--"They are not the wise men we thought they were. And the old-fashioned Gospel which they set themselves to overthrow is better than their vaunted discoveries." So may it be right speedily! Moreover, this Elymas, by his overthrow, made the victory of Christ to be the more conspicuous. Here are Barnabas and Saul, two poor Jews, and they are met by one of their own countrymen who has obtained the ear of a ruler by acting the part of a courtier and a doctor. He knew how to play his cards with the proconsul. How can these two men hope to destroy his influence and establish the Cross of Christ in its stead? If you had looked at them, you would have said Elymas was master of the situation! He had a fullness of subtlety and no conscience to embarrass his actions--he could use any cunning trick--while the missionaries could only keep to the Truth of God. He seemed sure of defeating the two simple-minded men! But as soon as Saul drew forth the sword of the Spirit and told him plainly that though he might be called the son of Jesus, he was the son of the devil, the victory was speedy and the vanquished sorcerer begged for help to make a retreat! Sergius Paul was one of the great ones of the earth--in those days comparable to a king--and when he believed, it was a noble gain to the cause! A chamberlain of the queen of Ethiopia had believed before him, but as not many great men, not many mighty are chosen--the conversion of the Proconsul of Cyprus was a great triumph for the Gospel! It is noteworthy that from this point, Saul of Tarsus is called Paul, and we read no more of Barnabas and Saul, but of Paul and Barnabas. If Saul had assumed the name of Paul from this memorable conversion, it would not have been an unworthy act, for his joy at the winning of Sergius Paul might fitly have expressed itself in a fashion suggested by a common custom among Romans. As Scipeo, after he conquered Africa, was called Scipeo Africanus, so this man, Saul, after such a glorious winning of Sergius Paul for Christ, might himself become Paul. It is very amazing, but from this moment we do not find him called Saul except when he is telling the story of his conversion and uses his old name. Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, henceforth calls him Paul, and that name must often have cheered the suffering Apostle. When he was persecuted, he would remember his own namesake, the Roman Proconsul whom he had brought to the feet of Jesus--and Paul would see him standing in the front, as a bright Believer--while Elymas in the background utterly confounded, would serve as a dark figure to bring out the lights of the picture all the more clearly! Courage then, Brothers and Sisters, whenever you are trying to serve your Lord! If you are assailed, take heart and hope that a great victory is near! Satan would leave you alone if you were doing nothing of any consequence against his kingdom. If he could foresee your defeat, he has plenty to do and, therefore, he would spend his strength elsewhere. But as he fears you, he assails you. If you were a mere official, he would let you go on with your rigmarole, but since he sees you to be a living servant of the Lord, he raises up an Elymas, with smooth and slippery tongue, to speak against you. Be bold, and faint not, for you shall find even the most crafty and cruel enemy to be the unwilling agent of bringing greater glory to God! Be not afraid of a man that shall die, nor of the son of man which shall be made as grass. Go forward resting in the Lord, for greater is He who is for you than all they that are against you! With a brave heart defy all opposers, crying, "I will trust and not be afraid." Never let us be discouraged, for the Lord is on our side. What can man do to us? This opposition must have been, to Paul, very instructive, for it was symbolic of the future. It seemed hard to teach this man, this Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin, as touching the law, a Pharisee, that he was sent to preach to the Gentiles, for even when he went to Cyprus, he and Barnabas kept pretty much to Israel, preaching the Word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. But now he is to have an object lesson which will show him his full career as in a living parable. Jew and Gentile are both before him! The Jew, Elymas, is opposing with the most bitter venom--true picture of his race. Sergius Paulus, the Gentile, listens with most prudent attention, candidly weighing everything and, at last he believes--thus has it been with many of the Gentiles! The chosen of God among the Gentiles accept that which the Jews refuse. When Elymas was struck with blindness, what a sorrowful picture he was of that blindness which has fallen upon Israel! "Blindness in part," says Paul, "is happened to Israel," and so it happened to Elymas--"You shall be blind, not seeing the sun for a season." That word, "for a season," is a door of hope, for as the day came when Elymas could again behold the sun, so the day comes when the blindness shall be taken from the heart of Israel--and the seed of Jacob shall look on Him whom they have pierced. The scene before us is a vivid description of the whole history of the Christian Church in its relation to Jew and Gentile. Let us, therefore, look forward with the expectation that wherever the Gospel triumphs, it will meet with opposition--and wherever it is opposed, it will win the victory! II. We have done with the opposition; now let us consider certain AIDS TO FAITH. Sergius Paul, "when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the Doctrine of the Lord." Kindly notice the words I have selected for a heading to this second part of my discourse--"aids to faith." I have not called miracles, causes of faith, for they do not cause it, although they may lead up to it. What Sergius Paulus saw did not make him believe, but it helped him to believe. What did he see? He saw what was done. First, He saw the great courage of Paul. In another case, boldness struck a blow at unbelief, for when the rulers saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled. In this case the effect would be the same. That despised and persecuted Jew, Saul of Tarsus, fixed his eyes on Elymas as though he were perfectly master of the situation--as indeed he was--and without hesitation, or apology, addressed him, "O full of all subtlety and all mischief, you child of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?" What made Paul bear himself so bravely? What had given courage to this otherwise retiring individual, to come into the front and speak like a hero, as he was? Brothers, I believe the courage of the minister is often made a great blessing to undecided and trembling spirits. Therefore, when you go to teach and preach, never exhibit doubt or fear. The man who himself doubts, may beget doubters, but he cannot be the father of Believers. If you have any question about what you have to say, go home and wait till you have solved the problem. "I believed, therefore have I spoken," is the Psalmist's statement, and it is a wise one! Unbelief in a pulpit is like the rebellious angels in Heaven--the sooner it is cast out, the better! Intense conviction on the mind of Paul led him to speak thus plainly, sternly and even indignantly--and we are sure that he did not err in so doing, since his warmth was not the heat of his own spirit, but the fire of the Spirit of God, for we read that he was filled with the Holy Spirit! Let every teacher of Christ be thus filled and then let him speak boldly as he ought to speak! Come not forward with your "ifs" and "buts" and "perhapses," to prove that which is its own proof and bears its own evidence upon its brow! Tell the message God has told you, as from Him, and not as your own opinion! Deliver sound Doctrine because you have been delivered into it, yourself, as metal is poured into a mold. Speak because you cannot be silent! Speak because the Holy Spirit has stirred you, in your privacy, to unutterable groans and now moves you to speak out your soul before the sons of men! It must have been an aid to Sergius Paul's faith to have seen the dauntless outspokenness of the greater Paul. But when he saw Elymas blinded, that gave a further impulse to him. When God works in judgments among the sons of men, many are astonished and inclined to hear what this Word may be which bears so solemn a seal from the God of Judgment. O Sirs, I would to God that some of you who have seen men die in their sins would be warned by what you have seen! To many of us it has happened that we have seen the drunk in his rags, perhaps in his delirium, possibly upon his deathbed. Some of us have seen the unchaste diseased in body and despairing in soul. We have seen the profligate in poverty and dishonor. We have seen the sluggard hungry and homeless. And thus we have learned the result of sin upon other men if we have never felt it upon ourselves. He that will go to the hospital with his eyes open, or, perhaps, even call upon his next door neighbor when his sins have come home to him, may see what sin can do even upon the outward fabric of our manhood! What it can do upon the soul can be guessed from the ruin which it brings upon the body. The blinded Elymas is not before us, today, but we know that the narrative is true and, therefore, without our actually seeing it, the lesson should come home to every thoughtful mind. We have probably seen with our own eyes instances in which other members of the human body have been rendered horrible with disease engendered by sin--and that ought to create in us a horror of all evil and incline us to hear what the remedy of sin may be. He that has once seen the sickness will long to know the antidote. He that has smarted under the curse of sin will be anxious to learn the way by which the plague can be stopped and men can be made anew in the image of God. But if God's judgments and wonders are aids to faith, what shall I say of His wonders of mercy? Blessed be His name, these are much more common and can be much more easily seen! I cannot show you, today, a man blinded because he refused the Gospel. But I can show you a great many whose eyes have been opened by receiving the Gospel! They did not believe it, nor wished to know anything about it--but they were persuaded to come and hear the Word of God preached--and while they listened, there fell from the eyes of their understanding, as it had been scales, and they began to see! The glorious Light of God which gleams from Jesus' brow was suddenly visible! The Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ came streaming into their once darkened minds and they saw and believed! Hundreds of us who are now present were once as blind as bats to the saving Truth of God, but we have been brought out of darkness into marvelous light and we gladly bear our testimony to the power of saving Grace! I, for one, can say, "One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see!" What I could not understand is now clear to me! What I could not receive has now stamped itself upon my very being, to my heart's intense joy! I know, Brothers and Sisters, that thousands of you would rise if I were to ask you to testify that the Lord has renewed you in the spirit of your minds and has brought you into spiritual life, light, and liberty! Glory be to God for it! It ought to be a great help, to enquiring minds, when they see numerous conversions all around them, for conversions are the standing miracles of the Gospel, and if any man will only look into them and consider them, awhile, he will perceive that they are the best attesting seals the Truth of God can have! Evidently there is a singular power in the Gospel which is not to be found anywhere else. What is this power? From where does it come? Could it go with a falsehood? We have seen the Gospel produce an amazing revolution in a man-- not merely a reformation, but a far deeper change--a new birth, a complete reconstruction of his nature! How was this done? I knew a man who was of a fierce temper--a troubler to his own household when he happened to fall into his fits. He was so passionate at times that I should not like to tell all the wild things which he would do. I have seen that man, since conversion--and he has had things to test him which might, as we say, have provoked a saint. But he bore them patiently and in a manner which I desire to imitate! The lion has become a lamb! He is gentle and tender--no one could think that he was the same man! Indeed, he is not, for Grace has made him a new man in Christ Jesus! We have seen persons reveling in licentiousness who sinned greedily, who could not be satisfied with any common sin--they have heard the Gospel and become chaste and even delicate in purity, so that the very mention of their former crimes has shocked them and made them weep! Such persons have manifested a watchful care against the fault in which they once delighted. They have been afraid to go near their old haunts, or to mix with their old companions. What has worked this? What teaching must that be which accomplishes such marvels? These changes have sometimes taken place in a brief space of time. Look at Colonel Gardiner, going to keep an appointment of the worst sort--and as he waited for half-an-hour because he found himself early, he saw, or thought he saw a vision of our Lord upon the Cross. And, being reproved and melted by the sight, he fled from the spot, repented, believed and lived a godly life! Until his death at the battle of Prestonpans, he was one of the leading Christians of his day! "That is an extraordinary instance," says one. I tell you I have met with scores equally remarkable! Not a week passes over my head but I hear of conversions which astound even me, as used as I am to these miracles of love! The most unlikely people, those whom their friends never accused of a touch of Methodism, who never spoke of religion without a sneer, have heard the doctrine of our Lord Jesus and, before long, they have repented of sin, have believed in the Redeemer and have come to the front among earnest Christians--working for the Lord Jesus Christ with all their might! Thousands of others who have been quietly pursuing the paths of morality and outward religion, have, nevertheless, experienced a spiritual change which, to them, has been quite as memorable as if they had been turned from the grossest immorality to virtue! These Lydias are as truly converted as if they had been Magdalenes--and the change has been as real to themselves as if it had been conspicuous to all beholders. What is this change? Is it fact or fancy? Do I see the skeptics smiling in a pretended pity for our folly? We are quite able to bear their contempt! Will they be willing to hear a little reason? Sirs, do you think that we are all fools? In what are we inferior to those who thus despise us? Can we not manage our business affairs quite as well as those who think us fanatics? Are we all deceived? It is an odd thing that this deceit should lead hundreds of thousands, in all ages, to seek after virtue and true holiness, to seek peace and live for the good of others! This singular phenomenon of regeneration is not to be denied, for its witnesses are countless! I claim that we have a right to be heard even by those gentlemen who believe only in actual phenomena. This is not to be put aside by a wave of the hand and a sneer--all attempts in that direction are as unphilosophical as they are insulting. We testify of certain operations which we have seen in others and felt in ourselves, by which the current of our thought is changed, our loves and hates have been made entirely different, and our whole manhood has been made anew! These operations, we believe, to be worked by the finger of God and to be proofs that the Gospel is supernatural and true. I do not say that this witness will lead any man to saving faith by itself, but I do say that were not men's minds depraved, it would do so. I say it ought, at any rate, to lead every man to give attention to that Gospel whose operation is so remarkable. A skeptical barrister in America took it into his head to attend a Wesleyan meeting and he sat down apart from the rest merely to take notes of what was said, as he might have done in a court of law. He knew the persons who spoke, one after the other, and bore testimony to the effect of the Gospel upon them. They were his neighbors and he thought to himself, "If I were arguing a case and could put these people into the witness box, and they were on my side, I should feel quite sure of carrying my case, for they are well known for honesty and truthfulness." Several persons, without any collusion, rose, one after another, and though their stories greatly varied, yet they all came to one point--that they had believed the Lord Jesus Christ--and by the power of the Holy Spirit had been made totally new. As the lawyer went out, he said to himself, "Their case is proved. I cannot question the truthfulness of any of these witnesses. There must be much more in religion than I thought." This led him to seek the Savior for himself and he became a Christian. I pray that many here present may feel that these wonders of mercy are a great aid to them! And may the Holy Spirit lead them to attend to the Gospel which has such power in it! Here I wish we could stop and sing that admirable hymn-- "Questions and doubts be heard no more, Let Christ and joy be all our theme! His Spirit seals His Gospel sure To every soul that trusts in Him. 'Tis God's inimitable hand That molds and forms the heart anew. Blasphemers can no more withstand, But bow, and own Your Doctrine true. The guilty soul that trusts Your blood, Finds peace and pardon at the Cross. The sinful soul, averse from God, Believes and loves his Maker's laws. Learning and wit may cease their strife, When miracles with glory shine: The voice that calls the dead to life Must be almighty and Divine." III. But I must proceed. Lastly, let us observe THE SOURCE OF FAITH. "Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the Doctrine of the Lord." It is Doctrine, then, or faithful teaching, which brings men to Christ. Let those who despise the Doctrine of God mind what they are doing, for the Doctrine of the Cross is only foolishness to them who perish! Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, the plain teaching of the Word of the Lord leads men to believe in Jesus! I do not think it is any great good for a preacher to stand up and cry, "Believe, believe, believe," if he never tells you what is to be believed! There is plenty of this kind of preaching around and the result is sadly transient and superficial. Poor souls say, "We are ready to believe, but tell us what to believe! We are ready to trust, but tell us what to trust in!" If we do not preach the great Doctrine of the atoning Sacrifice. If we do not lift up Christ as suffering chastisement in man's place, we have not put before them the basis on which their faith is to be built! Justification by faith and regeneration by the Spirit must be continually taught. The proconsul was, no doubt, astonished to see Elymas blinded, but he was a great deal more astonished at the Doctrine which Paul preached when he began to tell him that salvation was not by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ--that the way to be accepted of God was not by presenting to the Lord anything performed by us or felt within us--but by laying hold upon the righteousness which Jesus Christ has worked out and brought in! When he heard this good news, he might well be astonished and yield his heart to Jesus! Dear Friends, the most astonishing thing in the world is the Gospel! "We have heard it for a long time," says one. Have you? You may have listened to it for years--and all the while it may have gone in and out of your ears--but still you may have never heard it. But if you have heard it inwardly, and understood it, you will acknowledge that it is the miracle of miracles, the masterpiece of Divine wisdom! Listen! In the Gospel, God is just and yet merciful! He lays upon His Son the chastisement of our peace and then He forgives us freely for His own name's sake! In the Gospel, everything is of Grace--there is no respect to human merit or human virtue--God gives freely to undeserving sinners! And yet there is nothing like the Gospel for fostering holiness and making men zealous for good works. It will not allow good works to be the root of spiritual life, but it promotes, no, creates good works as the fruit of that life. All the really good works in the world are fashioned upon the anvil of Free Grace. Nothing ever produces holiness but faith in the Holy Savior. And it is as wonderful as it is true, that while the Gospel bids the sinner come to Jesus as freely as if he were not guilty, yet it declares that without holiness no man can see the Lord! It does not merely command holiness, but it produces it! It is a wonderful system for clearing the guilty and yet for condemning his sin. It is the glory of the Gospel that it can, at one blow, save the sinner and slay his sin, absolve the rebel and end his rebellion. This supernatural effect is not produced for a short time, only, but forever! The Gospel does not renew a sinner for a season and then leave him to re- lapse--it gives an endless life, implants a deathless principle--and secures ultimate perfection. It is written, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." "He that believes in the Son has everlasting life"--not a life that comes and goes, but a life that endures to all eternity! All this can be done in a minute, so that a heavenly life commences in less time than it takes your clock to tick--is not this an astonishing work of the Holy Spirit? As Sergius Paul heard of this, he was amazed and believed--do you wonder? I say to you who do not understand the Gospel, if you need a refreshing sensation--if you go in for novelty and desire something of the common--begin to study the Word of God and to hear it without prejudice. Here is a Doctrine which is always news, always glad tidings-- hear and your soul shall live! Turn from it and you will perish! Angels have not yet grown weary of gazing into the depths of the Gospel. It is written, "which things the angels desire to look into." Two figures of cherubim were placed over the Mercy Seat of old, standing with outstretched wings and gazing down upon the lid of the Ark of the Covenant, which was called the Mercy Seat. This was meant to set forth the desire of holy angels to comprehend the Gospel of Propitiation. They cannot get a full understanding of all its mysteries till you and I shall join them before the Throne of God and there declare what Grace has done for us, "to the intent that now, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God." Come then, my Hearers, come and candidly study what is to be believed! Come and be astonished at the Doctrine of Christ Crucified! Incline your ears, awaken your minds and yield your hearts! Be eager to be instructed of the Holy Spirit who waits to teach you. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land! If you desire to know God, you shall know Him! The great Father is not far from any of you. There is the light! It is not dim, nor far away. The fault is in your eyes if you do not see. Oh, that you would cry out with Bartimaeus, "Son of David, have mercy on me." Oh, that your prayer would be, "Lord, that I might receive my sight." Then you would see and believe--and live forever! God grant it this very morning, to the praise of the glory of His Grace. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ The First Fruit of the Spirit (No. 1782) A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 25, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love." Galatians 5:22. THE worst enemy we have is the flesh. Augustine used to frequently pray, "Lord, deliver me from that evil man, myself." All the fire which the devil can bring from Hell could do us little harm if we had not so much fuel in our nature. It is the powder in the magazine of the old man which is our perpetual danger. When we are guarding against foes outside, we must not forget to be continually on our watchtower against the foe of foes within. "The flesh lusts against the Spirit." On the other hand, our best Friend, who loves us better than we love ourselves, is the Holy Spirit. We are shockingly forgetful of the Holy Spirit and, therein, it is to be feared that we greatly grieve Him. Yet we are immeasurably indebted to Him--in fact, we owe our spiritual existence to His Divine Power. It would not be proper to compare the love of the Spirit with the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, so as even, by implication, to set up a scale of degrees in love--for the love of the regenerating Spirit is infinite, even as is the love of the redeeming Son. But yet, for a moment, we will set these two displays of love side by side. Is not the indwelling of the Spirit of God equal in loving kindness to the Incarnation of the Son of God? Jesus dwelt in a pure Manhood of His own--the Holy Spirit dwells in our manhood, which is fallen and, as yet, imperfectly sanctified. Jesus dwelt in His human body, having it perfectly under His own control, but, alas, the Holy Spirit must contend for the mastery within us, and though He is Lord over our hearts, yet there is an evil power within our members, strongly entrenched and obstinately bent on mischief. "The flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh." Our Lord Jesus dwelt in His body only for some 30 years or so, but the blessed Spirit of All Grace dwells in us through all the days of our pilgrimage--from the moment when He enters into us by regeneration He continues in us, making us qualified to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. You sing-- "Oh, 'tis love, 'tis wondrous Love," in reference to our Lord Jesus and His Cross--sing it, also, in reference to the Holy Spirit and His long-suffering! He looks at us from within and, therefore, He sees the chambers of imagery where hidden idols still abide. He sees our actions--not from the outside, for there, perhaps, they might be judged favorably. But He discerns them from within--in their springs and in the pollution of those springs--in their main currents and in all their side eddies and back waters. Brothers and Sisters, it is amazing that this blessed Spirit should not leave us in indignation! We lodge Him so evilly. We honor Him so little. He receives so little of our affectionate worship that He might well say, "I will no longer abide with you." When the Lord had given up His people to the Roman sword, there was heard in the Temple at Jerusalem a sound as of rushing wings and a voice crying, "Let us go from here." Justly might the Divine Presence have left us, also, because of our sins! It is matchless love which has caused the Holy Spirit to bear with our ill manners and bear our vexatious behavior! He stays though sin intrudes into His temple! He makes His royal abode where evil assails His palace! Alas, that a heart where the Spirit deigns to dwell should always be made a thoroughfare for selfish or unbelieving traffic! God help us to adore the Holy Spirit at the commencement of our discourse and to do so even more reverently at its close! The Holy Spirit, when He comes into us, is the Author of all our desires after true holiness. He strives against the flesh in us. That holy conflict which we wage against our corruption comes entirely of Him. We would sit down in willing bondage to the flesh if He did not bid us strike for liberty. The good Spirit also leads us in the way of life. If we are led of the Spirit, says the Apostle, we are not under the Law. He leads us by gentle means, drawing us with cords of love and bands of a man. "He leads me." If we take a single step in the right road, it is because He leads us. And if we have persevered, these many years, in the way of peace, it is all due to His guidance--even to Him who will surely bring us in and make us to enjoy the promised rest!-- "Andevery virtue wepossess, And every victory won, And every thought of holiness, Are His alone.' The Holy Spirit not only creates the inward contest against sin and the agonizing desire for holiness, but He leads us onward in the way of life. And He remains within us, taking up His residence and more--for the text suggests a still more immovable steadfastness of residence in our hearts since, according to the figure, the Spirit strikes root within us. The text speaks of, "fruit," and fruit comes only of a rooted abidance--it could not be conceived of in connection with a transient sojourning, like that of a wayfaring man. The stakes and tent pins that are driven into the ground for an Arab's tent bear no fruit, for they do not remain in one place. And, inasmuch as I read of the, "fruit of the Spirit," I take comfort from the hint and conclude that He intends to abide in our souls as a tree abides in the soil when fruit is borne by it! Let us love and bless the Holy Spirit! Let the golden altar of incense perfume this earth with the sweet savor of perpetual adoration to the Holy Spirit! Let our hearts heartily sing to Him this solemn doxology-- "We give You, sacred Spirit, praise, Who in our hearts of sin and woe Makes living springs of Grace arise, And into boundless glory flow." I. Now, coming to our text, I shall notice the matters contained in it. The first thing which my mind perceives is A WINNOWING FAN. I would like to be able to use it, but it is far better that it should remain where it is, for, "the fan is in His hand and He will thoroughly purge His floor." The handle of this winnowing fan is made of the first word of the text, that disjunctive conjunction, that dividing monosyllable, "But." "But the fruit of the Spirit is love"! That, "but," is placed there because the Apostle had been mentioning certain works of the flesh, all of which he winnows away like chaff. And then he sets forth in opposition to them, "the fruit of the Spirit." If you will read the chapter, you will notice that the Apostle has used no less than 17 words--I might almost say 18--to describe the works of the flesh. Human language is always rich in bad words because the human heart is full of the manifold evils which these words denote. Nine words are used to express the fruit of the Spirit. But to express the works of the flesh--see how many are gathered together! The first set of these works of the flesh which have to be winnowed away are the counterfeits of love to man. Counterfeited love is one of the vilest things under Heaven. That heavenly word, love, has been trailed in the mire of unclean passion and filthy desire. The licentiousness which comes of the worship of Venus has dared to take to itself a name which belongs only to the pure worship of Jehovah. Now, the works which counterfeit love are these--"adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness." To talk of "love" when a man covets his neighbor's wife, or when a woman violates the command, "You shall not commit adultery," is little less than sheer blasphemy against the holiness of love! It is not love, but lust--love is an angel and lust a devil! The purities of domestic life are defiled and its honors are disgraced when once the marriage bond is disregarded. When men or women talk of religion and are unfaithful to their marriage covenant, they are base hypocrites! Even the heathen condemned this infamy--let not Christians tolerate it! The next fleshly work is "fornication," which was scarcely censured among the heathen, but is most sternly condemned by Christianity. It is a wretched sign of the times, that in these corrupt days some have arisen who treat this crime as a slight offense and even attempt to provide for its safer indulgence by legislative enactments! Has it come to this? Has the civil ruler become a panderer to the lusts of corrupt minds? Let it not be once named among you, as it becomes saints. "Uncleanness" is a third work of the flesh and it includes those many forms of foul offense which defile the body and deprive it of its true honor. We bring up the rear with, "lasciviousness," which is the cord which draws on un-cleanness and includes all conversation which excites the passions, all songs which suggest lewdness, all gestures and thoughts which lead up to unlawful gratification. We have sadly much of these evils in these days, not only openly in our streets, but in more secret ways. I loathe the subject! All works of art which are contrary to modesty are here condemned and the most pleasing poetry, if it creates impure imaginations. These unclean things are the works of the flesh in the stage of putridity--the very maggots which swarm within a corrupt soul. Bury these rotten things out of our sight! I do but uncover them for an instant that a holy disgust may be caused in every Christian soul and that we may flee from them as from the breath of pestilence! Yet remember, O you that think yourselves pure and imagine you would never transgress so badly, that even into these loathsome and abominable criminalities high professors have fallen! Yes, and sincere Believers, trusting in themselves, have slipped into this ditch from where they have escaped with infinite sorrow--to go with broken bones the rest of their pilgrimage. Alas, how many who seemed to be escaped from pollution have so fallen that they have had to be saved so as by fire! Oh, may we keep our garments unspotted by the flesh! And this we cannot do unless it is in the power and energy of the Spirit of Holiness. He must purge these evils from us and cause His fruit to so abound in us that the deeds of the flesh shall be excluded forever. The winnowing fan is used next against the counterfeits of love to God. I refer to the falsities of superstition-- "Idolatry and witchcraft"--"but the fruit of the Spirit is love." Alas, there are some that fall into idolatry, for they trust in an arm of flesh and exalt the creature into the place of the Creator--"their God is their belly and they glory in their shame." The golden calf of wealth, the silver shrines of craft, the goddess of philosophy, the Diana offashion, the Moloch of power--these are all worshipped instead of the living God! Those who profess to reverence the true God, yet too generally worship Him in ways which He has not ordained. Thus says the Lord, "You shall not make unto you any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in Heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them." Yet we have Christians (so called) who say they derive help in the exercise of devotion from images and pictures! Look how their places of assembly are rendered gaudy with pictures, images and things which savor of old Rome! What idolatry is openly carried on in certain buildings belonging to the National Church! What sensuous worship is now approved! Men cannot worship God, nowadays, unless their eyes, ears and noses are gratified! When these senses of the flesh are pleased, they are satisfied with themselves! "But the fruit of the Spirit is love." Love is the most perfect architecture, for "love builds up." Love is the sweetest music, for without it we become as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Love is the choicest incense, for it is a sacrifice of sweet smell. Love is the most fit vestment--"Above all things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness." Oh, that men would remember that the fruit of the Spirit is not the finery of the florist, the sculptor, or the milliner, but the love of the heart! It ill becomes us to make that gaudy which should be simple and spiritual. The fruit of the Spirit is not idolatry--the worship of another god--or of the true God after the manner of will worship! No, that fruit is obedient love to the only living God. "Witchcraft," too, is a work of the flesh. Under this head we may rightly group all that prying into the unseen; that rending of the veil which God has hung up; that interfering with departed spirits; that necromancy which calls itself spiritualism and pays court to familiar spirits and demons--this is no fruit of the Spirit, but the fruit of a bitter root! Brother and Sister Christians, modern witchcrafts and wizardry are to be abhorred and condemned--and you will be wise to keep clear of them, trembling to be found acting in concert with those who love darkness rather than light--because their deeds are evil! Idolatry and witchcraft are caused by a lack of love to God and they are evidences that the Spirit's life is not in the soul! When you come to love God with all your heart, you will not worship God in ways of your own devising, but you will ask, "How shall I draw near unto the most high God?" And you will take your direction from the Lord's Inspired Word. The service which He prescribes is the only service which He will accept! The winnowing fan is at work right now--I wonder whether it is operating upon any here present? But next, this great winnowing fan drives away, with its, "but," all the forms of hate. The Apostle mentions, "hatred," or an habitual enmity to men, usually combined with a selfish esteem of one's own person. Certain men cherish a dislike to everybody who is not of their clique, while they detest those who oppose them. They are contemptuous to the weak, ready to take offense and care little whether they give it or not. They delight to be in minorities of one and the more wrong-headed and pugnacious they can be, the more are they in their element. "Variance," too, with its perpetual dislikes, bickering and quarrelling, is a work of the flesh. Those who indulge in it are contrary to all men, pushing their angles into everybody's eyes, and looking out for occasions of fault-finding, and strife. "Emulations"--that is, jealousy--jealousy in all its forms, is one of the works of the flesh. Is it not cruel as the grave? There is a jealousy which sickens if another is praised and pines away if another prospers. It is a venomous thing and stings like an adder! It is a serpent by the way, biting the horse's heels, so that his rider falls backward. "Wrath" is another deed of the flesh--I mean the fury of angry passion and all the madness which comes of it. "But I am a man of very quick temper," says one! Are you a Christian? If so, you are bound to master this evil force or it will ruin you! If you were a saint of God to the very highest degree in all but in this one point, it would pull you down! Yes, at any moment an angry spirit might make you say and do that which would cause you life-long sorrow. "Strife" is a somewhat milder, but equally mischievous form of the same evil. It burns not quite so fast and furiously, yet it is a slow fire kindled by the same flame of Hell as the more ardent passion. The continual love of contention; the morbid sensitiveness; the overbearing regard to one's own dignity which join together to produce strife are all evil things. What is the proper respect which is due to poor creatures like ourselves? I suppose that if any one of us got our "proper respect," we would not like it long--we would think that bare justice was rather scant in its appreciation! We desire to be flattered when we cry out for, "proper respect!" Respect, indeed! Why, if we had our just due, we would be in the lowest Hell! Then our Apostle mentions, "seditions," which occur in the State, the Church and the family. As far as our Church life is concerned, this evil shows itself in an opposition to all sorts of authority or law. Any kind of official action in the Church is to be railed at because it is official! Rule of any sort is objected to because each man desires to have the preeminence and will not be second! God save us from this evil leaven! Heresy is that kind of hate which makes every man set up to create his own religion, write his own bible and think out his own gospel. We have heard of, "every man his own lawyer," and now we are coming to have, "Every man his own god, every man his own bible, every man his own instructor." After this work of the flesh, come "Envyings"--not so much the desire to enrich one's self at another's expense, as a wolfish craving to impoverish him and pull him down for the mere sake of it. This is a very acrid form of undiluted hate and leaves but one stronger form of hate. To desire another's dishonor merely from envy of his superiority is simply devilish and is a sort of murder of the man's best life. The list is fitly closed by, "murders"--a suitable cornerstone to crown this diabolical edifice--for what is hate but murder? And what is murder but hate bearing its full fruit? He who does not love has, within him, all the elements that make a murderer! If you have not a general feeling of benevolence towards all men and a desire to do them good, the old spirit of Cain is within you and it only needs to be unrestrained and it will strike the fatal blow and lay your brother dead at your feet! God save you, Brothers and Sisters, every one of you, from the domination of these dark principles of hate which are the works of the flesh in its corruption. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love." Next time you begin to boil over with wrath, imagine you feel a hand touching you and causing you to hear a gentle voice whispering, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love." Next time you say, "I will never speak to that man again, I cannot stand him," imagine you feel a fresh wind fanning your fevered brow and hear the Angel of Mercy say, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love." Next time you are inclined to find fault with everybody, set your brethren by the ears and create a general scuffle, I pray you let the chimes ring out, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love!" If you wish to find fault, it is easy to do so--you may begin with me and go down to the last young member that was admitted into the Church--and you will not have to look long before you can spy out something which needs improvement! But to what end will you pick holes in our coats? Whenever you are bent on the growling business, pause awhile and hear the Scripture admonish you--"The fruit of the Spirit is love." When you become indignant because you have been badly treated and you think of returning evil for evil, remember this text--"The fruit of the Spirit is love." "Ah," you say, "it was shameful!" Of course it was! And therefore do not imitate it--do not render railing for railing--but contrariwise, blessing, for, "the fruit of the Spirit is love." The winnowing fan is at work--may God blow your chaff away, Brothers and Sisters, and mine, too! The next thing which the winnowing fan blows away is the excess of self-indulgence--"drunkenness, reveling and such like." Alas, that Christian people should ever need to be warned against these animal offenses! And yet they do. The wine cup still has its morgues for professors! Nor is this all--it is not merely that you drink to excess, but you may eat to excess, or clothe your body too sumptuously--or there may be some other spending of money upon your own gratification which is not according to sober living. Drunkenness is one of those trespasses of which Paul says, "they which do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God." The reveling which makes night hideous with its so-called songs -- call them howling and you are nearer the mark--the reveling which spends hour after hour in entertainment which heats the blood, hardens the heart and chases away all solid thought, is not for us who have renounced the works of dark-ness--for us there is a better joy, namely, to be filled with the Spirit--"the fruit of the Spirit is love." II. The second thing which I see in the text is A JEWEL--that jewel is love. "The fruit of the Spirit is love." What a priceless diamond this is! It is altogether incalculable in value. What a heavenly Grace love is! It has its center in the heart, but its circumference sweeps, like Omnipresence, around everything! Love is a Grace of boundless scope. We love God--it is the only way in which we can fully embrace Him. We can love the whole of God, but we cannot know the whole of God! Yes, we love God, and even love that part of God which we cannot comprehend or even know. We love the Father as He is. We love His dear Son as He is. We love the ever-blessed Spirit as He is. Following upon this, for God's sake, we love the creatures He has made! It is true, in a measure, that-- "He prays best that loves best Both man and bird and beast." Every tiny fly that God has made is sacred to our souls as God's creature. Our love climbs to Heaven, sits among the angels and soon bows among them in lowliest attitude, but, in due time, our love stoops down to earth, visits the haunts of depravity, cheers the attics of poverty and sanctifies the dens of blasphemy, for it loves the lost! Love knows no outcast London--it has cast out none! It talks not of the "lapsed masses," for none have lapsed from its regard. Love hopes good for all and plans good for all--while it can soar to Glory, it can descend to sorrow. Love is a Grace which has to do with eternity, for we shall never cease to love Him who first loved us! But love has also to do with this present world, for it is at home in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, nursing the sick and liberating the slave. Love delights in visiting the fatherless and the widows and thus it earns the encomium--"I was hungry and you gave Me meat: I was thirsty and you gave Me drink: I was a stranger and you took Me in: naked, and you clothed Me: I was sick and you visited Me: I was in prison and you came unto Me." Love is a very practical, home-spun virtue, and yet it is so rich and rare that God, alone, is its Author. None but a heavenly Power can produce this fine linen--the love of the world is sorry stuff! Love has to do with friends. How fondly it nestles in the parental bosom! How sweetly it smiles from a mother's eyes! How closely it binds two souls together in marriage bonds! How pleasantly it walks along the ways of life, leaning on the arm of friendship! And love is not content with this--she embraces her enemy, she heaps coals of fire upon her adversary's head--she prays for them that despitefully use her and persecute her. Is not this a precious jewel, indeed? What earthly thing can be compared to it? You must have noticed that in the list of the fruits of the Spirit, it's the first--"The fruit of the Spirit is love." It is first because, in some respects, it is best. First, because it leads the way. First, because it becomes the motive principle and stimulant of every other Grace and virtue! You cannot conceive of anything more forceful and more beneficial and, therefore, it is the first. But see what follows at its heels. Two shining ones attend it like maids of honor, waiting upon a queen! "The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace"--he that has love, has joy and peace! What choice companions! To love much is to possess a deep delight, a secret cellar of the wine of joy which no man may otherwise taste. He that loves is like to God, who is the God of Peace. Truly the meek and loving shall inherit the earth and delight themselves in the abundance of peace! He is calm and quiet whose soul is full of love. In his boat the Lord stands at the helm, saying to the winds and waves, "Peace! Be still!" He that is all love, though he may have to suffer, yet shall count it all joy when he falls into different trials. See, then, what a precious jewel it is that has so many shining brilliants set at its side. Love has this for its excellence, that it fulfils the whole Law of God--you cannot say that of any other virtue! Yet, while it fulfils the whole Law, it is not legal. Nobody ever loved because it was demanded of him--a good man loves because it is his nature to do so. Love is free--it blows where it will--like the Spirit from which it comes. Love, indeed, is the very essence of heart liberty! Well may it be honored, for while it is a true Grace of the Gospel, it nevertheless fulfils the whole Law. If you would have Law and Gospel sweetly combined, you have it in the fruit of the Spirit, which is love. Love, moreover, is Godlike, for God is Love. Love it is which prepares us for Heaven where everything is love. Come, sweet Spirit, and rest upon us till our nature is transformed into the Divine Nature by our becoming burning flames of love! Oh, that it were so with us this very day! Mark, Beloved, that the love we are speaking of is not a love which comes out of men on account of their natural constitution. I have known persons who are tenderly affectionate by nature--and this is good, but it is not spiritual love--that is the fruit of nature and not of Grace! An affectionate disposition is admirable, but it may become a danger by leading to inordinate affection, a timid fear of offending, or an idolatry of the creature. I do not condemn natural amiability--on the contrary, I wish that all men were naturally amiable--but I would not have any person think that this will save him, or that it is a proof that he is renewed. Only the love which is the fruit of the Spirit may be regarded as a mark of Grace. Some people, I am sorry to say, are naturally sour--they seem to have been born at the season of crabapples and to have been fed on vinegar. They always take a fault-finding view of things. They never see the sun's splendor and yet they are so clear-sighted as to have discovered his spots. They have a great specialty of power for discerning things which it were better not to see. They do not remember that the earth has proved steady and firm for centuries, but they have a lively recollection of the earthquake, and they quake, even now, as they talk about it. Such as these have need to cry for the indwelling of the Spirit of God, for if He will enter into them His power will soon overcome the tendency to sourness, for, "the fruit of the Spirit is love." Spiritual love is nowhere found without the Spirit and the Spirit is nowhere dwelling in the heart unless love is produced. So much for this jewel! III. I see in the text a third thing, and that is A PICTURE--a rich and rare picture painted by a Master, the great Designer of all things beautiful--the Divine Spirit of God. What does He say? He says, "The fruit of the Spirit is love." We have seen many fine pictures of fruit and here is one. The great Artist has sketched fruit which never grow in the gardens of earth till they are planted by the Lord from Heaven! Oh, that every one of us might have a vineyard in his bosom and yield abundance of that love which is "the fruit of the Spirit!" What does this mean? "Fruit"--how is love a fruit? The metaphor shows that love is a thing which comes out of life. You cannot fetch fruit out of a dead post. The pillars which support these galleries have never yielded any fruit and they never will--they are of hard iron and no life-sap circulates within them. A dead tree brings forth no fruit. God implants a spiritual life in men and then, out of that life, comes love, as the fruit of the Spirit. Love appears as a growth. Fruit does not begin perfectly ripe from the tree all at once. First comes a flower; then a tiny formation which shows that the flower has set. Then a berry appears, but it is very sour. You may not gather it. Leave it alone, a little while, and allow the sun to ripen it. By-and-by it fills out and there you have the apple in the full proportions of beauty--and with a mellow flavor which delights the taste. Love springs up in the heart and increases by a sure growth. Love is not produced by casting the mind in the mold of imitation, or by fastening the Grace to a man's manner as a thing outside of himself. Little children go to a shop where their little tastes are considered and they buy sticks upon which cherries have been tied--but everybody knows that they are not the fruit of the sticks--they are merely bound upon them! And so have we known people who have borrowed an affectionate mannerism and a sweet style--but they are not natural to them--they are not true love. What sweet words! What dainty phrases! You go among them and, at first, you are surprised with their affection! You are a, "dear Sister," or a, "dear Brother," and you hear a, "dear minister." And you come to the "dear Tabernacle" and sing dear hymns to those dear old tunes. Their talk is so sweet that it is just a little sticky--and you feel like a fly which is being caught in molasses! This is disgusting! It sickens me! Love is a fruit of the Spirit--it is not something assumed by a man--but something growing out of his heart. Some men sugar their conversation very largely with pretentious words because they are aware that the fruit it is made of is unripe and young. In such a case their sweetness is not affection but affectation! But true love, real love for God and man comes out of a man because it is in him, worked within by the operation of the Holy Spirit whose fruit it is. The outcome of regenerated manhood is that a man lives no longer unto himself but for the good of others. Fruit, again, calls for care. If you have a garden, you will soon know this. We had a profusion of flowers upon our pear trees this year and, for a few weeks, the weather was warm beyond the usual heat of April. But nights of frost followed and cut off nearly all the fruit. Other kinds of fruit which survived the frost are now in danger from the dry weather which has developed an endless variety of insect blight so that we wonder whether any of it will survive! If we get over this trial and the fruit grows well, we shall yet expect to see many apples fall before autumn because a worm has eaten into their hearts and effectually destroyed them. So is it with Christian life! I have seen a work for the Lord prospering splendidly, like a fruitful vine, when suddenly there has come a frosty night and fond hopes have been nipped. Or else new notions and wild ideas have descended like insect blights and the fruit has been spoiled! Or if the work has escaped these causes of damage, some immorality in a leading member, or a quarrelsome spirit has appeared unawares like a worm in the center of the apple--and down it has fallen, never to flourish again. "The fruit of the Spirit is love." You must take care of your fruit if you wish to have any laid up in store at the end of the year. And so must every Christian be very watchful over the fruit of the Spirit, lest in any way it should be destroyed by the enemy. Fruit is the reward of the husbandman and the crown and glory of the tree. The Lord crowns the year with His goodness by giving fruit in due season--and truly the holy fruit of love is the regard of Jesus and the honor of His servants. How sweet is the fruit of the Spirit! I say, "fruit," and not fruits, for the text says so. The work of the Spirit is one, whether it is known by the name of love, or joy, or peace, or meekness, or gentleness, or temperance. Moreover, it is constant--the fruit of the Spirit is borne continually in its season. It is reproductive, for the tree multiplies itself by its fruit, and Christianity must be spread by the love and joy and peace of Christians. Let the Spirit of God work in you, dear Brothers and Sisters, and you will be fruitful in every good work, doing the will of the Lord--and you will rear others like you, who shall, when your time is over, occupy your place and bring forth fruit to the great Husbandman! IV. Lastly, you see in my text, A CROWN. "The fruit of the Spirit is love." Let us make a diadem out of the text and lovingly set it upon the head of the Holy Spirit, because He has produced, in the people of God, this precious thing which is called, "Love." How comes heavenly love into such hearts as yours and mine? It comes, first, because the Holy Spirit has given us a new nature. There is a new life in us that was not there when we first came into the world. And that new life lives and loves. It must love God, who has created it, and man, who is made in His image. It cries, "My Father," and the essence of that word, "My Father," is love! The Spirit of God has brought us into new relationships. He has given us the spirit of adoption towards the Father. He has made us to feel our brotherhood with the saints and to know our union with Christ. We are not in our relationships what we used to be, for we were "heirs of wrath even as others." But now we are "heirs of God, joint heirs with Jesus Christ" and, consequently, we cannot help loving, for love, alone, could make the new relation to be fully enjoyed. The blessed Spirit has also brought us tender new obligations. We were bound to love God and serve Him as creatures, but we did not do it--now the Holy Spirit has made us to feel that we are debtors to infinite love and mercy through redemption. Every drop of Jesus' blood cries to us to love! Every groan from yonder dark Gethsemane cries love! The Spirit of God works in us so that every shiver of yonder Cross moves us to love! The love of Christ constrains us--we must love, for the Spirit has taken of the things of the loving Christ and has revealed them to us. The Spirit of God has so entered into us that He has caused love to be our delight! What a pleasure it is when you can preach a sermon full of love to those to whom you preach! Or when you can visit the poor, full of love to those you relieve! To stand on the street corner and proclaim of Jesus' dying love--why, it is no irksome task to the man who does it lovingly--it is his joy and his recreation! Holy service in which the emotion of love is indulged is as pleasant to us as it is to a bird to fly, or to a fish to swim! Duty is no longer bondage, but choice! Holiness is no longer restraint, but perfect liberty! And self-sacrifice becomes the very crown of our ambition--the loftiest height to which our spirit can aspire! It is the Holy Spirit that does all this. Now, my dear Hearer, have you this love in your heart? Judge by your relation to God. Do you live without prayer? Do you very seldom read God's Word? Are you getting indifferent as to whether you go and worship with His people? Ah, then, be afraid that the love of God is not in you! But do you feel that you love everything that has to do with God--His work, His service, His people, His Day, His Book--and that you do all you possibly can to spread His Kingdom, both by prayer, by word of mouth, by your liberality and by your example? If you love, you can easily see it, I think, and there are many ways by which you can test yourself. Well, suppose that to be satisfactorily answered, then I have this further question--Do you and I--who can say, "Lord, you know that I love You"--do we sufficiently bless the Holy Spirit for giving us this jewel of love? If you love Christ, then say, "This love is given to me. It is a rare plant, an exotic. It never sprang out of my natural heart. Weeds will grow there, but not this fair flower." Bless the Holy Spirit for it! "Oh, but I do not love God as I ought!" No, Brother, I know you do not, but bless Him that you love Him at all! Love God for the very fact that He has led you to love Him--and that is the way to love Him more! Love God for letting you love Him! Love Him for taking away the stone out of your heart and giving you a heart of flesh! For the little Grace that you see in your soul, thank God! You know when a man has been ill, the doctor says to him, "You are not well by a long way, but I hope you are on the turn." "Yes," says the man, "I feel very ill, but still, I think I am a little better--the fever is less and the swelling is going down." He mentions some little symptom and the doctor is pleased because he knows that it indicates much--the disease is past the crisis. Bless God for a little Grace! Blame yourself that you have not more Grace, but praise Him to think you have any! Time was when I would have given my eyes and ears to be able to say, "I love God." And now that I do love Him, I would give my eyes and ears to love Him more! I would give all I have to get more love into my soul! But I am grateful to think I have a measure of true love and I feel its power. Do be grateful to the Holy Spirit. Worship and adore Him specially and peculiarly. You say, "Why specially and peculiarly?" I answer--Because He is so much forgotten. Some people hardly know whether there is a Holy Spirit! Let the Father and the Son be equally adored, but be careful in reference to the Holy Spirit, for the failure of the Church towards the Holy Trinity lies mainly in a forgetfulness of the Gracious work of the Holy Spirit! Therefore I press this upon you and I beg you to laud and magnify the Holy Spirit and sedulously walk in all affectionate gratitude towards Him all your days. As your love increases, let your worship of the Holy Spirit become daily more and more conspicuous because love is His fruit although it is your vital principle. To the God of Love I commend you all. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ Pentecost (No. 1783) A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 1, 1884, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. "The day of Pentecost." Acts 2:1. [Sermon No. 511, Volume 9, is also entitled, "Pentecost." Its Scripture verses are Acts 2:1-4.] LOOKING into a silversmith's window on Thursday last, I observed a notice card upon which was printed as follows--"This shop will be closed this evening and will not be re-opened until Tuesday evening." I looked at the name over the window and observed that it belonged to one of the house of Israel. I had forgotten till that moment that we have now reached the Levitical feast of Pentecost which contains, among its regulations, that no servile work is to be done--and hence all business is laid aside by the faithful Jew. Surely, the Jews, in their care to observe their law, deserve much praise. At what an expense must large trading firms suspend their business! They send a lesson to many professed Christians who seem to have little regard for the Lord's Day, break in upon its rest in a thousand frivolous ways and half regret that they cannot pursue their earthly callings throughout the whole seven days of the week. It is true that we consider these days, weeks and sacred festivals to have become obsolete by the fulfillment of the great Truths of God which they typified, but as this is not the judgment of the Jew because he has not received Jesus as the Messiah, we may at least learn from his strict observance of the Sabbath, the Passover and the feast of Pentecost, that it becomes us to study the spiritual meaning of these types, and to guard with care the one great festival which remains to the Church, namely, the Lord's Day. On our Sabbath let us do no needless work, but seek rest both for body and soul. We are now at the season called Pentecost. In the reading of the Scriptures, I showed you out of Leviticus 23 that the first feast was the Passover and that there is no feasting, no satisfaction, no peace, no rest, no joy to any heart till, first of all, we have seen the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus, who is our Passover. When we have understood the great Truth declared in Jehovah's Word, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you," then we know what it is to dwell in safety within the blood-sprinkled doors while the Destroying Angel passes by. Through the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, "we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement." Under the covering of the blood of the Lord's Passover, we feast upon the Pascal Lamb, and thus our hunger is removed, our desires are satisfied, our strength is renewed and our heart is made glad. As the result of that Passover, we do, in fact, what the Jews did in emblem on the morrow after the Passover Sabbath--we confess that we are not our own, but are bought with a price--and that all that we have belongs to our redeeming Lord. On the morrow after the Sabbath, the Israelite brought the wave-sheaf of his barley harvest, which was waved before the Lord in type that every product of the soil--and all the result of man's labor--was from God and belonged to God. So, as soon as we have fed upon Christ and have come out of the house of bondage, we begin to enquire, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits towards me?" It becomes an instinct with us to express our gratitude in one way or another. Without any deliberation or delay, we conclude that if He has loved us and given Himself for us, we ought to show our love to Him in some manifest form. Seven clear weeks passed away from the waving of the sheaf of the barley harvest and then came the feast of first fruits for all the crops, but principally for the wheat harvest which was then in full operation--this was Pentecost. In 50 days Israel was fully clear of Egypt, far away in the desert, and quite delivered from all fear of pursuing armies. Pharaoh's hosts had been destroyed and the Red Sea rolled between Israel and her former oppressors. Then it was that they held a holy convocation. They did not bring to God in the wilderness the loaves of bread of first fruits, for they had not yet reached the land which would yield them a harvest. But they held their convocation and were instructed as to what their duty would be when they came to the promised land. When they actually reached their possessions in Canaan, they kept the 50th day and held a solemn feast in which they presented unto the Lord two loaves of bread made of fine flour from the new wheat. This offering dedicated the harvest. The teaching of this ceremony is just this--"When you are saved, when you have entered into rest, when you have considered and deliberated, then renew your vows unto the Lord, make your consecration more large and full and deliberate--and dedicate yourself and all that you have unto the Lord who has given you all things richly to enjoy. You have already, in the short time since you have known the sprinkled blood, obtained a harvest of joy and peace--therefore delay not to bring a worthy portion unto the Lord and say unto Him, 'You have set me free and made me to be Your servant. And now I offer to You all that I am and all that I have, for You have bought me with Your precious blood.'"-- "Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small! Love so amazing, so Divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all!" Thus the three feasts can be understood by us in our own spiritual experience. We can keep them in spirit; let us do so at once. Let us again rehearse the Passover by fresh faith in Jesus! Let us renew our first dedication which was like to the wave-sheaf. And then let us come with solemn resolve and, after many days of sweet experience, let us renew our covenant before the Lord, saying-- "High Heaven, that heard the solemn vow, That vow renewed shall daily hear: Till in life's latest hour I bow, And bless in death a bond so dear." We deliberately wish our loyalty to stand good to the end. We have no desire to draw back, but rather would we wish to be more completely the Lord's than we have been. We would bring "a new meat offering before the Lord" and keep the feast with great joy, ceasing from all servile work, but in the spirit of obedient children serving the Lord with gladness. Thus we read Pentecost by the light within. On the larger platform of the Lord's doings for His Church, the Passover stands for the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus upon the Cross when He poured out His soul unto death--that by His blood we might be saved from wrath. The waving of the barley sheaf was carried out by our Lord's rising from the dead on the morrow after the Sabbath--when He rose from the dead and became the first fruits of them that slept. The feast of first fruits 50 days after His death is fulfilled by the descent of the Holy Spirit, giving to the Church the first fruits of the Spirit and working the conversion of 3,000 souls who were thus the first fruits from among the Jews. This beginning of blessing was followed by a revival which continued with the Church at Jerusalem for a long time--and extended throughout all the world, till almost every nation had, in a short time, learned the Doctrine of the Cross and multitudes had submitted unto Christ! Of this greater Pentecost we shall not fail to speak this morning--we shall dwell upon both the type and the antitype--and if I run them a little into one another, you must forgive me. The type is so admirable and so many-sided that it has its own actual lesson as well as its figurative lesson. I scarcely know where the type ends and where the antitype be-gins--but your meditations will easily set it right if I should make a muddle. First, I shall speak upon the consecrated harvest of the field which we shall illustrate by the passage out of Leviticus. Then, secondly, upon the consecrated harvest of our Lord Jesus Christ. And, as a practical lesson, we shall close by considering the consecrated harvest which should come from each soul unto the redeeming Lord. I. First, let us speak of THE CONSECRATED HARVEST OF THE FIELD. It may seem somewhat singular to you that we should be talking of harvest on this first day of June, but I beg you to remember that the Bible was not written in England, but in Palestine. And in that country the harvest is much earlier than in this northerly latitude where the climate is so much more severe. An early day in June would be the average time for the fruits of the field to be ripe. At the beginning of the barley harvest the first ripe ears were presented to the Lord in due order, but at the fuller festival they brought into God's house, not the ears of wheat, but two large loaves of bread taken from their habitations--the fruit of the earth actually prepared for human food. These loaves were offered unto the Lord with other sacrifices. What did that mean? It meant, first, that all came from God. "We know that," says one. Yes, we do know it, but we often talk as if it were not true. We regard our bread as the fruit of our own labor, which is also true, but it is only a small part of the truth--for who is He that gives us strength to labor--and gives the earth the power to bring forth her harvest from the seed which is sown in her furrows? It is not every man that accepts the mercies of daily Providence as in very truth sent from God. I fear in many houses, bread is eaten and the Giver is forgotten. There may, perhaps, be a formal giving of thanks, but there is no heart in it. It is a horrible thing that men should live like brutes--like dumb cattle, grazing but thinking nothing of Him who causes grass to grow for the cattle--and herbs for the service of man. If any here have sunken into that brutish condition, may God deliver them from their degrading ingratitude! Oh, you Christian people, you are clothed by the charity of God and fed by His bounty! And if you do not continually acknowledge that every good gift is from your heavenly Father, may the Lord have pity upon you and bring you to your right minds! Poverty has been, sometimes, sent upon men because they were not grateful when they enjoyed abundance. Persons who can grumble when their table is loaded, must not wonder if, one of these days, they become so distressed as to pine for the crumbs which once fell from their table! Let us not provoke God to chasten us for our murmuring, but let us bless Him, this day, for our life, our health, our bread and our clothing--yes, and for the very air we breathe! All that is short of Hell is more than we deserve. Let us, by grateful offerings to the Lord, express our thankfulness for all the comforts we enjoy. The waving of those loaves before the Lord signified, next, that all our possessions need God's blessing upon them. It would be a horrible thing to be rich with unblessed riches, yet some are in that condition and, consequently, the more they hoard, the more curses they lay up for themselves. Without a blessing from God, His gifts become temptations and bring with them care, rather than refreshment! We read of some, that "while their meat was yet in their mouths, the wrath of God came upon them and slew the fattest of them." Thus it seems that the very bread on the table may prove a curse unless God shall bless it. It was, no doubt, a very joyous sight to see the loaves and the fishes multiplied for the crowd--but the best part of it was that before fish or bread had been increased, the Master had looked up to Heaven and blessed them! The people ate of blessed fish and blessed bread--and thus it nourished them. If you have little, my Brother, yet if God has blessed your little, there is a flavor in it which the ungodly cannot know when they fill themselves with their stalled oxen! If you have an ample estate, yet if you have more blessing, your riches shall not be a snare to you, but you shall be able to endure prosperity which, to many, is like the height of the craggy rock from which they are dashed down to destruction! God's blessing is what we need upon common life, yes, upon the leavened bread of daily life as well as upon the unleavened bread of our holy things! We need the Lord's blessing from morning to night, from the first day of the week till Saturday night. We need it on all we are, and have and do! The Israelites brought the two loaves of leavened bread, praying the Lord to bless all the other loaves that would be baked out of the year's harvest--and the Lord did so. Let us sanctify the bulk of our substance by the sacrifice unto the Lord of what is needed for His holy service. It meant, next, all that we have, we hold under God as His stewards. These two loaves were a kind of peppercorn rent, acknowledging the superior Landlord who was the true Owner of the Holy Land. The two loaves were a quit rent, as much as to say, "O Lord, we acknowledge that this is Your soil and we are tenants at will." We farm our portions as bailiffs for our God! We gather the fruit of it as stewards for the Most High and bring a part, thereof, to His altar in token that we would use the rest to His Glory. Have we all done this with our substance? Do we continually dedicate all that we have unto our God and stand to the dedication? Do we make a conscientious use of such temporal benefits as the Lord entrusts to us? Where is that one talent of yours, O slothful servant? Where are those five talents, O you man of influence and of wealth? If you have not traded with them for the Great Master, what are you but an embezzler of your Master's goods, false to your trust? Beware lest He come and say to you, "Give an account of your stewardship, for you may no longer be steward." The faithful Believer will bring unto the Lord, with gladness, the Lord's portion, and thus confess that everything He has is, like himself, the royal possession of the King of kings! Again, the bringing of those loaves signified that they were afraid they might commit sin in the using of what God had given. The first thank-offering, as we have seen, was of barley, fresh plucked from the field. There was nothing evil about that--and so our Lord, when risen from the dead, made a pure and perfect presentation unto the Lord. But this second offering of the first fruits was not wheat as God made it, but a loaf of bread in which there was leaven. Somehow human nature seems to crave for leaven with the pure flour and so the Israelite brought to God not a pure gift, but that form of it which is used by man for his nourishment. Why was it ordained that they should present leaven to God? Was it not meant to show us that common life, with all its imperfections, may yet be used for God's Glory? We may, through our Lord Jesus, be accepted in our business life as well as in sanctuary life--in market dealing as well as in sacramental meditation. Life, as it comes to common people in their daily labor and in their domestic relationships, is to be holiness unto the Lord! Yet do not fail to notice that when they brought these two leavened loaves, they brought with them a burnt offering of seven lambs, without blemish, and one young bullock and two rams--the Holy Spirit thus signifying that our daily lives, services and gifts cannot be accepted in and of themselves--but we must bring with them the true sweet-savor offering of our Lord Jesus Christ who offered Himself without spot unto God! The precious blood of His Sacrifice must fall upon our leavened loaves, or they will be sour before the Lord. We can never be accepted except in that one ordained way--"He has made us accepted in the Beloved." Christ's Sacrifice is so sweet that it perfumes our offerings and renders that acceptable which otherwise would have been rejected. This poor leavened cake of ours has the elements of corruption in it--but lo--here, in Jesus, we have a savor which is sweet unto the Lord and the Lord is well pleased with us for His righteousness' sake! No, that was not all. In consideration of the loaf being leavened, they brought with it a sin offering as well. "Then you shall sacrifice one kid of the goats for a sin offering." See Leviticus 23:19. Confessing, as each one of us must do-- that however hearty our dedication to God, there is still a faultiness in our lives--we are glad to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus! However much we labor to live wholly and alone unto God's Glory, yet, in many things we offend and come short of the Glory of God. We bring a sacrifice for sin because it is needed. We confess the iniquities of our holy things. That loaf which we present is of fine flour, but it is baked with leaven and, therefore, a sin offering is needed. O man of God, never try to bring any prayer, or any act of penitence, or any deed of faith, or any gift of love to God apart from the great sin offering of Jesus Christ! You are a saint, but you are still a sinner--and though you are clean before men--yet when you come before God, His pure and holy eyes behold folly and defilement in you which nothing can put away except the cleansing blood of Christ! "If we walk in the light, as God is in the light, we have fellowship one with another." Yet we still sin, for it is written, "and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin," which it could not do if there were no sin to put away even then. It is, to my mind, a great joy that you and I can give to God the first fruits of our substance and can dedicate to Him our time and talents and, in doing so we need not be afraid of rejection because we bring with us the sweet savor offering of Jesus Christ, which is His righteousness, and the sin offering of Jesus Christ which He offered when He was made to be sin for us! Let us learn one more lesson--all this was done as an act of joy. A new meat offering was offered unto the Lord with peace offerings, which two offerings always signify, among other things, a quiet, happy communion with God. In addition to all this, they presented a drink offering of wine which expresses the joy of the offerer. Pentecost was not a fast--it was a festival! When you give anything to God, give it not as though it were a tax, but render it freely, or it cannot be accepted! If you do anything for the Lord, your God, do it not as of forced labor demanded by a despot, whom you would gladly refuse if you could. You do nothing unto God if it is not done of a willing mind. God loves a cheerful giver. He wants no slaves to grace His Throne--you shall hear no crack of whips in all the domains of our great Lord! His service is perfect freedom! To give to Him is rapture! To live to Him is Heaven! When we shall perfectly serve Him, we shall be in our glory, which is His Glory. The sinking of self is the rising of joy! Beloved, the Lord would not have any of you give of your substance to Him with rueful countenance, squeezing it out as though you were losing a drop of blood. Give nothing if you cannot give heartily--but do everything unto the Lord with all your heart, soul and strength! The Lord would not have the Ark of the Covenant dragged by unwilling beasts, but He ordained that it should be carried upon the willing shoulders of chosen men, to whom the service was an honor and a delight. He would have His servants sing in their joyous hymns, "God is the Lord, which has showed us light: bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar." He would have each one gladly say, "O Lord, truly I am Your servant! By Your Grace I am Your servant and the son of Your handmaid--You have loosed my bonds." II. Thus far we have been considering part of the lesson of the original Jewish Pentecost. Now we must hasten on to consider, in the second place, THE CONSECRATED HARVEST OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST as taught by the events of the great Christian Pentecost described in the Acts of the Apostles. Our Lord is the greatest of all Sowers, for He sowed Himself. Did He not say, "Except a corn of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone: but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit"? Our Lord had been sown in His death and burial--and since such a corn of wheat as this is quick in growing and soon yields a harvest--in 50 days there comes a time for the ingathering of the first fruits. Had He not said, "Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest"? And now, when the day of Pentecost was fully come, the fruit was seen of them and joyfully gathered! Let us learn some lessons from the Christian Pentecost. First, learn that the first harvest of our Lord Jesus Christ was through the Holy Spirit. There were no 3,000 converts till, first of all, was heard the rushing of mighty wind! Till the cloven tongues had rested on the little company of disciples, there were no broken hearts among the crowd. Until the Believers were all filled with the Holy Spirit, the minds of their hearers were not filled with conviction. We are longing, greatly longing, for our Lord Jesus to see of the travail of His soul and to be satisfied in this congregation and in this city. How we long to see millions brought to Christ! I am sure some of us will feel a heartbreak until whole nations come to Jesus' feet--and this cannot be except by the special power of the Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit will bless the world by filling the Church with His own might. If I want my hearers converted, I must first of all, myself, be filled with the Holy Spirit. I know that I address a great many workers and I, therefore, say to each one of them--pay great attention to your own spiritual state. If you desire to save your class, you must, yourself, be endowed with the power of the Holy Spirit. You cannot burn a way for the Truth of God into the heart of another unless the tongue of fire is given to you from on high. Mind this. I tried, last Lord's Day, to exhort you to pay much reverence and honor to the Holy Spirit, who is so often forgotten in the Church of God. I pray you take good heed to the exhortation. Maintain a grateful spirit towards the Holy Spirit, paying special honor to Him, for He works all our works in us--and without Him there will be neither sheaves nor loaves of the harvest to offer the Lord. The ingathering of the revival at Pentecost was worked by the Holy Spirit. That day when the Spirit of God was given may be considered to be the ordering of the Christian dispensation. You may not have noticed it, but if you will count the days, you will find that it was exactly 50 days after the original Passover that the Law was given on Mount Sinai. Many careful readers have observed this, but have feared to attach importance to the fact because the Jews did not connect it with Pentecost. Neither Philo nor Josephus speak of the giving of the Law as happening at the time known as Pentecost. But that has nothing to do with us. We are not bound to be blind to a matter because Josephus, or Philo, or all writers did not happen to see it! They are not Rabbis to us. The Jews did not, at that time, see all in the Law of God which they have seen since, and we, having the Law in our hands, are bound to examine for ourselves. It was at Pentecost that God descended upon Mount Sinai and the national laws of Israel were proclaimed together with those Ten Commandments which are the standard of equity for all mankind. Moses asked of Pharaoh, on the behalf of Israel, that they might keep a feast unto Jehovah their God in the wilderness--and this was no mere pretext--but a truthful statement. They did keep a holy season as they proposed. They summoned a special assembly of the elders and sanctified the people as soon as the turmoil of their leaving Egypt had subsided. On the 50th day after the Exodus, the Lord came down in the sight of all Israel upon Sinai. The trumpet was herd from the top of Horeb and Sinai was altogether on a smoke. Now, we assert that as the inauguration of the Law was on Pentecost, so, also, was the inauguration of the Gospel! At the commencement of the Old Testament dispensation, what manifestation do we get? God gives His people a law. At the commencement of the New Testament dispensation, what do we get? A law? No, the Lord gives His people the Spirit. That is a very different matter. Under the Old Covenant, the Commandments were given. But under the New Covenant, the will and the power to obey are bestowed upon us by the Holy Spirit. No more have we the Law of God upon stone, but the Spirit writes the precept upon the fleshy tablets of the heart! Moses on the mount can only tell us what to do--but Jesus, ascended on high, pours out the power to do it! Now we are not under the Law, but under Grace, and the Spirit is our guiding force. In the Church of God, our rule is not according to the letter of a law, but according to the Spirit of the Lord! Some peo- ple look for a specific ordinance for every item of procedure on the part of the Church. But, as far as I can see, there is a singular absence of written rule and ritual concerning particulars--apart from the two great standing ordinances. I believe that under this dispensation, saints are left to the freedom of the Spirit and are not specifically commanded in every detail by a written law. Neither this form of Church government, nor that is forced upon us--but life is permitted to assume its own necessary form under the molding power of the Holy Spirit. Because we are to become men in Christ and to no longer be children, we are directed not so much to a specific law as to certain great general principles which are made to be our guide through the Holy Spirit. Servants, you know, must be told to do this and that, at such an hour and in such a way--but loving, obedient children may be left free to obey the dictates of their loving hearts. We love the Inspired Book which reveals to us the mind of God and we revere it all the more because the Lord, Himself, who inspired the Book dwells among us to conduct us by its holy instruction in all things. The Lord is among us in a higher degree than ever He was in Sinai, where boundaries were set to keep off the trembling people. The Lord is in the midst of His people in love and fellowship--and by the indwelling Spirit whereby He leads the sacred marching of His redeemed. Pentecost was thus the inauguration of the Gospel dispensation. This Pentecost was also the beginning of a great harvest of Jews and Gentiles. Were there not two loaves? Not only shall Israel be saved, but the multitude of the Gentiles shall be turned unto the Lord Jesus Christ and He shall see of His soul's travail in those whom His Father gave Him from before the foundation of the world! If the first fruits were so great, what will the ultimate harvest be? Let us look for whole kingdoms to submit themselves to Jesus! That day of Pentecost, or feast of first fruits, what was it? Did it only consist in many conversions? No. I believe that the filling of the Apostles with the Holy Spirit was a part of the first fruits of the day of Pentecost. We, ourselves, who are born to God whenever the Holy Spirit visits us in His fullness and sanctifies and elevates us, are a large part of our Lord's reward. A man full of the Holy Spirit rejoices the heart of Christ! Your poor starveling Christians, who have a name to live and nothing more, who shiver over Christ's commands and never plunge into His service to find waters to swim in, bring Him little honor and little pleasure. But when we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we make men see the glory of His Grace, and His name is magnified in the esteem of all onlookers! Still, the major part of the Pentecostal first fruits will be found in the great number that were that day converted. How much we desire the same blessing, as a Church, for ourselves and all other Churches! We hope to receive some 75, today, but what is this compared to three thousand? We are not without additions to the Church every month, but, oh, that the Lord would add to us daily! Why should it not be? Persuade the people to come and hear! Pray for them and for the preacher while they are hearing--and watch for their souls after hearing--and we shall yet see a far larger increase! The Christian Pentecost is, to us, full of instruction. Learn its lessons. First, the disciples had to wait for it. "The husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth." Sow on! If you have to wait a week of weeks or a week of years, wait with confidence, for Pentecost will yet yield its loaves unto the Lord! They obtained nothing until they began preaching the Gospel--and then, in one day, the Church was multiplied by twenty-five. O, when shall each member bring in 25 in a day by preaching the Word of God? Those 3,000 souls were due to the testimony of Jesus by the disciples. The Spirit of God was there, but He did not work upon men apart from the means which He has ordained! Peter stood up with the eleven. They preached Christ crucified and then the people believed! Oh, for a great day of preaching when all shall turn out and preach! If all the Lord's servants and handmaids began to proclaim His salvation, we would soon wake up these sleepy millions and London would be all on the move towards better things! A great multitude must preach the Gospel if we are to have a great multitude converted by it! Of all those people saved, it was acknowledged that they belonged unto the Lord, alone. When they were pricked to the heart and believed in Jesus, they came at once and were baptized! As they were dead to the world, it was right that they should be openly buried with Christ in Baptism. So consecrated were they, that their lives were wholly given to their Lord! In a very special manner it was so with them, for they had all things in common--they lived a heavenly life here below. We read, "And they, continuing daily with one accord in the Temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart." Thoroughly did they give unto God the glory of their salvation, for they were wholly occupied in "praising God"--so we are told in the last verse of the chapter from which we have culled our text. Yet if even we should see 3,000 converted in a day, we must not reckon that such first fruits would be absolutely perfect. In the first Pentecost, as we have seen, leavened cakes were presented to God--so in all our successes and additions, there will sure to be a leaven. Do not wonder if some converts go back or if others turn out to be hypocrites, or merely temporary converts. It will always be so and we should not think it a new and strange trial--tares grow with the wheat and bad fish are taken in the same net with the good. Therefore let the Church, in her best success, still keep to Christ and His precious blood--and daily turn to His finished Sacrifice. Let us use upon the large scale, as well as in our own personal concerns, the great Sacrifice for sin--and when we admit members into the Church wholesale, let us continually plead the precious blood that each one may be dedicated to God. Be this our motto--"None but Jesus! None but Jesus!" Let us exalt the Lamb of God, the sin-atoning Lamb! These converts and this success can only be accepted in the Beloved. But with all our care and prudence, let us not dampen our joy, for the feast of first fruits is ever to be a gladsome occasion. So the type teaches us and so let the fact always be with us. Oh, Brothers and Sisters, on that day on which I lately saw 40 persons, one by one, and listened to their experience and proposed them to the Church, I felt as weary as ever a man did in reaping the heaviest harvest! I did not merely give them a few words as enquirers, but examined them as candidates with my best judgment. I thought that if I had many days of that sort I must die, but I also wished it might be my lot to die in that fashion! Having so many coming to confess Christ, my mind was crushed beneath the weight of blessing, but I would gladly be overwhelmed again! O that my Hearers would thus oppress me every week of my life! Pray the Lord to send us, day after day, such additions to the Church that we shall be scarcely able to hear all the testimonies of what the Lord has done for them! Then let us sing, "Hallelujah, Hallelujah," every day in the week and every hour of the day! Let us rejoice and be glad--and give a hearty welcome to those who come into the Church--and hearty praise to God who sends them! So much about the Pentecost at Jerusalem. God send a Pentecost like it to Newington Butts and to every other place! III. The last thing was to be THE CONSECRATED HARVEST FROM EACH PARTICULAR PERSON. What I have to say is not mine, but the Lord's. If you open your Bibles at Deuteronomy 26, you will find, there, a form of service which I pray may serve you today. After the first offering on behalf of the nation, consecrating all the harvest, individuals began to bring their first fruits personally, even to the very end of the year. Whenever the olives had been pressed, or the figs had been gathered, or the grapes had been trodden, or the wheat fields had been reaped, the truly believing Israelite took a part of his crop to the House of God and presented it as a love token. "And it shall be, when you are come in the land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance, and possess it, and dwell there; that you shall take of the first of all the fruit of the earth, which you shall bring of your land that the Lord your God gives you, and shall put it in a basket, and shall go unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose to place His name there. And you shall go unto the priest that shall be in those days, and say unto him, I profess this day unto the Lord your God, that I am come unto the country which the Lord swore unto our fathers for to give us. And the priest shall take the basket out of your hands and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God." See how the offerer began--"I profess this day unto the Lord your God, that I am come unto the country which the Lord swore unto our fathers for to give us." I wish to stand here, this morning, and to say for myself, what I hope you can say, each one of you, for himself--"I have come to the land of peace and rest which the Lord promised to Believers. I have become a possessor of all things in Christ." That is the reason why I would bring my offering. If the Lord has brought you into the goodly land of salvation, you, too, should bring your sacrifice to Him. After this, the offerer went on to say--"A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians evil entreated us and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage." Here was an admission of a former state of misery! Must we not, also, say that we were in bondage, but that the Lord brought us out with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and set us free from our oppressors? I can say so and I know I am speaking the mind of hundreds of you! The Lord has delivered you! Your sin is pardoned! Your iniquities are covered! You are free from the power of sin! You walk at liberty in righteousness! You have come into the land of promise! You have entered into rest! That is abundant reason for bringing your gift of love to the Lord! Then the man also said, "The Lord has brought us into this place and has given us this land, even a land that flows with milk and honey." Thus we, also, glory in our happiness and peace in Christ Jesus. Ours is a blessed lot! It is a good thing to be a Christian! It is a blessed privilege to be a child of God! It is a delightful blessing to be a partaker of the Covenant and all the blessings stored up therein. Do we not say so? I am sure we do and, therefore, it is that we bring our thank offering as a token that we love the Lord and desire to praise Him for all that He has done for us. Then the offerer prese