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        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 46: 1900
   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 Death of Christ for His People

   (No. 2656)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 7, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK, ON A LORD'S-DAY EVENING, IN THE
   WINTER OF 1857.

   "He laid down His life for us." 1 John 3:16.

   Come, Believer, and contemplate this sublime Truth of God, thus
   proclaimed to you in simple monosyllables--"He laid down His life for
   us." There is not one long word in the sentence--it is all as simple as
   it can be--and it is simple because it is sublime. Sublimity in thought
   always needs simplicity in words to express itself. Little thoughts
   require great words to explain them. Little preachers need Latin words
   to convey their feeble ideas, but great thoughts and great expressers
   of those thoughts are content with little words.

   "He laid down His life for us." Here there is not much upon which any
   man can display his eloquence. Here is little room for metaphysical
   discussion or for deep thought--the text sets before us a simple yet
   sublime Doctrine of God. What, then, shall I do with it? If I would
   speak of it profitably to myself, since I need not employ my wit to
   dissect it, nor my oratory to proclaim it, let me exercise my adoration
   to worship it! Let me prostrate all my powers before the Throne of God
   and, like an angel when his work is done and he has nowhere else to fly
   at his Lord's command, let me fold the wings of my contemplation and
   stand before the Throne of this great Truth and meekly bow and worship
   Him who Was, and Is, and is to come--the great and glorious One who
   "laid down His life for us."

   It will be well for me, in commencing my discourse, to remind you that
   there is no understanding the death of Christ unless we understand the
   Person of Christ. If I were to tell you that God died for us, although
   I might be telling you the truth and you might possibly not
   misunderstand what I meant, yet I would be, at the same time, uttering
   an error. God cannot die! It is, of course, impossible, from His very
   Nature, that He could even for a moment cease to exist! God is
   incapable of suffering. It is true that we sometimes use words to
   express emotions on the part of God but, then, we speak after the
   manner of men. He is impassive. He cannot suffer. It is not possible
   for Him to endure anything, much less, then, is it possible for Him to
   suffer death. Yet we are told, in the verse from which our text is
   taken, "Hereby perceive we the love of God." You notice that the words,
   "of God," are inserted by the translators. They are in italics because
   they are not in the original. A better translation would be, "Hereby
   perceive we love." But when we read, "of God," it might lead the
   ignorant to fancy that God could die, whereas God could not.

   We must always understand and constantly remember that our Lord Jesus
   Christ was "very God of very God" and that, as God, He had all the
   attributes of the Most High and could not, therefore, be capable either
   of suffering or death. But then He was also Man, "Man of the substance
   of His mother." Man, just like ourselves, sin alone excepted. And the
   Lord Jesus died not as God--it was as Man that He gave up the ghost. As
   Man, He was nailed to the Cross. As God, He was in Heaven, even when
   His body was in the tomb. As God, He was swaying the scepter of all
   worlds even when the mock scepter of reed was in His hand. And the
   imperial robe of universal monarchy was on the eternal shoulders of His
   Godhead when the soldier's old purple cloak was wrapped about His
   Manhood. He did not cease to be God, He did not lose His Omnipotence
   and His eternal dominion when He became Man--nor did He, as God, die or
   suffer--it was as Man that He "laid down His life for us."

   Come now, my Soul, and worship this Man, this God! Come, Believer, and
   behold your Savior! Come to the innermost circle of all sanctity, the
   circle that contains the Cross of Christ, and sit down and, while you
   worship, learn three

   lessons from the fact that "He laid down His life for us." The first
   lesson should be--Did He lay down His life for us? Ah, then, my
   Brothers and Sisters, how great must have been our sins that they could
   not have been atoned for by any other price! Secondly, did He lay down
   His life for us? Ah, then, Beloved, how great must have been His love!
   He would not stop short anywhere until life, itself, had been resigned.
   Thirdly, did He lay down His life for us? Ah, then, my Soul, be of good
   cheer--how safe you are! If such an Atonement has been offered, if such
   a sure satisfaction has been given to Almighty God, how secure you are!
   Who is he that can destroy him who has been bought with the blood of
   such a Redeemer?

   I. Come, then, let me believingly meditate on the first sad fact. Did
   Christ lay down His life for me? Then, HOW GREAT MUST HAVE BEEN MY
   SINS!

   Ah, my Brothers and Sisters, I will speak a little of my own experience
   and, in so doing, I shall also be describing yours. I have seen my sins
   in many different ways. I saw them once by the blazing light of Sinai
   and, oh, my spirit shrank within me, for my sins seemed exceedingly
   black! When the sound of the trumpet waxed loud and long, and the
   lightning and fire flashed into my heart, I saw a very Hell of iniquity
   within my soul--and I was ready to curse the day that I was born, that
   I should have had such a heart so vile and so deceitful! I thought that
   then I had seen the exceeding blackness of my sin. Alas, I had not seen
   enough of sin to make me loathe it so as to leave it, for that
   conviction passed away! Sinai was but a volcano and it was hushed to
   silence--and I began to play with sin, again--and loved it as much as
   ever.

   I beheld another sight one day. I saw my sins by the light of Heaven. I
   looked up and I considered the heavens, the work of God's fingers. I
   perceived the purity of God's Character written on the sunbeams. I saw
   His holiness engraved upon the wide world as well as revealed in
   Scripture and, as I compared myself with Him, I thought I saw how black
   I was. O God, I never knew the heinousness of my own guilt until I saw
   the glory of Your Character! But now I see the brightness of Your
   holiness, my whole soul is cast down at the thought of my sinfulness
   and my great departure from the living God! I thought that, then, I had
   seen enough. Ah, I had seen enough to make me worship for a moment, but
   my gladness was as the early cloud and as the morning dew! Soon I went
   my way and forgot what manner of man I was. When I had lost the sense
   of the majesty of God, I also lost the consciousness of my own guilt!

   Then there came to me another view. I beheld God's loving kindness to
   me. I saw how He had dandled me upon the knee of Providence--how He had
   carried me all my life--how He had strewn my path with plenty and given
   me all things richly to enjoy. I remembered how He had been with me in
   the hour of trial, how He had preserved me in the day of hurricane and
   kept me safe at the moment of storm. I remembered all His goodness to
   me and, struck with surprise at His mercy, I looked upon my sin in the
   light of His Grace and I said, "O Sin, how base you are! What dire
   ingratitude do you manifest against a God so profoundly kind!" I
   thought, then, I had surely seen the worst of sin, when I had laid it
   side by side, first, with the Character of God and afterwards with His
   bounties. I cursed sin from my inmost heart and thought I had seen
   enough of it. But, ah, my Brothers and Sisters, I had not! That sense
   of gratitude passed away and I found myself still prone to sin--and
   still loving it.

   But, oh, there came a thrice-happy, yet thrice-mournful hour! One day,
   in my wanderings, I heard a cry, a groan. I thought 'twas not a cry
   such as came from mortal lips--it had in it such unutterable depths of
   wondrous woe. I turned aside, expecting to see some great sight and it
   was, indeed, a great sight that I saw. Lo, there, upon a tree, all
   bleeding, hung a Man! I marked the misery that made His flesh all
   quiver on His bones! I beheld the dark clouds come rolling down from
   Heaven, like the chariots of misery--I saw them clothe His brow with
   blackness! I saw even in the thick darkness, for my eyes were opened
   and I perceived that His heart was as full of the gloom and horror of
   grief as the sky was full of blackness. Then I seemed to look into His
   soul and I saw torrents of unutterable anguish--wells of torment of
   such an awful character that mortal lips dare not sip lest they should
   be burned with scalding heat. I said, "Who is this mighty Sufferer? Why
   does He suffer thus? Has He been the greatest of all sinners, the
   basest of all blasphemers?" But a voice came forth from the excellent
   Glory and it said, "This is My beloved Son, but He took the sinner's
   sin upon Himself and He must bear its penalty." O God! I thought I
   never saw sin till that hour, when I saw it tear Christ's glories from
   His head--when it seemed, for a moment, even to withdraw the loving
   kindness of God from Him--when I saw Him covered with His own blood and
   plunged into the uttermost depths of oceans of grief! Then I said, "Now
   shall I know what you are, O Sin, as never before I knew it!" Though
   those other sights might teach me something of the dire character of
   evil, yet never, till I saw the Savior on the Cross, did I understand
   how base a traitor man's guilt was to man's God!

   heir of Heaven, lift now your eyes and behold the scenes of suffering
   through which your Lord passed for your sake! Come in the moonlight and
   stand between those olives! See Him sweat great drops of blood. Go from
   that garden and follow Him to Pilate's bar. See your Master subjected
   to the grossest and filthiest insults! Gaze upon the face of spotless
   Beauty defiled with the spit of soldiers! See His head pierced with
   thorns! Mark His back, all torn, and scarred, and bruised and bleeding
   beneath the terrible lash! And O Christian, see Him die! Go and stand
   where His mother stood, and hear Him say to you, "Man, behold your
   Savior!" Come you tonight and stand where John stood. Hear Him cry, "I
   thirst," and find yourself unable either to relieve His griefs or to
   comprehend their bitterness. Then, when you have wept there, lift your
   hands and cry, "Revenge!" Bring out the traitors! Where are they? And
   when your sins are brought forth as the murderers of Christ, let no
   death be too painful for them! Though it should involve the cutting off
   of right arms, or the quenching of right eyes and putting out their
   light forever, do it! For if these murderers murdered Christ, then let
   them die! Die terribly they may, but die they must! Oh that God the
   Holy Spirit would teach you that first 1esson, my Brothers and
   Sisters--the boundless wickedness of sin--for Christ had to lay down
   His life before your sin could be wiped away!

   II. Now we will come to the second head and here we will lift up our
   hearts from the depths of sadness to the heights of affection. Did the
   Savior lay down His life for me? We will read it, now, "He laid down
   His life for me," and I pray the Lord to help each of you, by faith, to
   read it so, because when we say, "us," that is dealing in
   generalities--blessed generalities, it is true--but let us, at this
   time, deal in specifics and say, each one of us who can do so
   truthfully, "He laid down His life for me." Then, HOW GREATLY HE MUST
   HAVE LOVED ME!

   Ah, Lord Jesus! I never knew Your love till I understood the meaning of
   Your death! Beloved, we, shall try again, if we can, to tell the story
   of our own experience to let you see how God's love is to be learned.
   Come, saint, sit down and meditate on your creation. Note how
   marvelously you have been formed and all your bones fitted to one
   another--and see love there. Mark next, that predestination which
   placed you where you are, for the lines have fallen unto you in
   pleasant places and, notwithstanding all your troubles, you have,
   compared with many a poor soul, "a goodly heritage." Mark, then, the
   love of God displayed in the predestination that has made you what you
   are and placed you where you are. Then look back and see the loving
   kindness of your Lord as displayed to you in all your journey up till
   now. You are getting old and your hair is whitening above your brow,
   but He has carried you all the days of old--not one good thing has
   failed of all that the Lord your God has promised! Recall your life
   story. Go back, now, and look at the tapestry of your life which God
   has been working every day with the golden filament of His love--and
   see what pictures of Grace there are upon it! Can you not say that
   Jesus has loved you? Turn your eyes back and read the ancient rolls of
   the Everlasting Covenant and see your name among the first-born, the
   elect, the Church of the living God! Say, did He not love you when He
   wrote your name there? Go and remember how the eternal settlements were
   made and how God decreed and arranged all things so that your salvation
   should come to pass! Say, was there not love there?

   Pause at the remembrance of your convictions. Think of your conversion.
   Remember your preservation and how God's Grace has been working upon
   you in adoption, in justification and in every item of the New
   Covenant. And when you have summed up all these things, let me ask you
   this question--Do all these things produce in you such a sense of
   gratitude as the one thing that I shall mention now, the Cross of our
   Lord Jesus Christ? For, my Brothers and Sisters, if your mind is like
   mine, although you will think highly enough of all these things that
   God has given you, you will be obliged to confess that the thought of
   the death of Christ upon the Cross swallows them all up! This I know,
   my Brethren--I may look back, I may look forward--but whether I look
   back to the decrees of eternity, or look forward to the pearl-gated
   city and all the splendors that God has prepared for His own beloved
   children, I can never see my Father's love so beaming forth, in all its
   brilliance, as when I look at the Cross of Christ and see Him die
   there!

   1 can read the love of God in the rocky letters of the Eternal Covenant
   and in the blazing letters of Heaven hereafter, but, my Brothers and
   Sisters, in those crimson lines, those lines written in blood, there is
   something more striking than there is anywhere else, for they say, "He
   laid down His life for us." Ah, here it is you learn love! You know the
   old story of Damon and Pythias--how the two friends struggled together
   as to which should die for the other. There was love there. But, ah,
   there is no comparison between Damon and Pythias, and a poor sinner and
   his Savior! Christ laid down His life, His glorious life, for a poor
   worm! He stripped Himself of all His splendors, then of all His
   happiness, then of

   His own righteousness, then of His own robes till He was naked to His
   own shame! And then He laid down His life--that was all He had
   left--for our Savior had not kept anything back.

   Just think of that for a moment. He had a crown in Heaven, but He laid
   that aside, that you and I might wear one forever. He had a belt of
   brightness--brighter than the stars, about His loins, but He took it
   off and laid it by--that you and I might eternally wear a belt of
   righteousness. He had listened to the holy songs of the cherubim and
   seraphim, but He left them all that we might forever dwell where angels
   sing. And then He came to earth and He had many things, even in His
   poverty, which might have tended to His comfort, but He laid down first
   one glory, and then another, at love's demand. At last it came to
   this--He had nothing left but one poor garment, woven from the top,
   throughout, and that was clinging to His back with blood--and He laid
   down that, also. Then there was nothing left. He had not kept back one
   single thing. "There," He might have said, "take an inventory of all I
   have, to the last farthing. I have given it all up for My people's
   ransom." And there was nothing left now but His own life. O insatiable
   Love, could you not stay there? He had given up one hand to cancel sin
   and the other hand to reconcile us unto God. He had given up one foot
   that we might have our sinful feet forever transfixed, and nailed, and
   fastened--never to wander--and the other foot to be fastened to the
   Cross that we might have our feet at liberty to run the heavenly race!
   And there was nothing left but His poor heart--and He gave His heart
   up, too--they ripped it apart with the spear and forthwith there came
   out blood and water.

   Ah, my Lord! What have I ever given You compared to what You have given
   me? Some poor things, like some rusty farthings, I have given You, but
   how little compared with what You have given me! Now and then, my Lord,
   I have given You a poor song upon an ill-toned instrument. Sometimes,
   my Lord, I have done some little service for You, but, alas, my fingers
   were so dirty they spoiled what I intended to have presented to You
   white as snow! It is nothing I have done for You, my Lord. No, though I
   have been a missionary and surrendered home and friends. No, though I
   have been a martyr and given my body to be burned, I will say, in the
   last hour, "My Master, I have done nothingfor You, after all, in
   comparison with what You have done for me! And yet, what can I do more?
   How can I show my love to You, for Your love to me, so peerless, so
   matchless? What shall I do? I will do nothing but--

   "'Dissolved by Your goodness, I'll fall to the ground, And weep to the
   praise of the mercy I've found!" That is all I can do, and that, by
   Your Grace, I must and will do.

   III. Now, Beloved, we will change the theme and go one note higher. We
   have run a long way up the gamut and now we have reached the height of
   the octave. But we have something else to get out of the text, "He laid
   down His life for us." Did my Savior lay down His life for me? Then,
   HOW SAFE I AM!

   We will have no controversy, tonight, with those who do not see this
   Truth of God--may the Lord open their blind eyes and show it to them!
   That is all we will say. We, who know the Gospel, see, in the fact of
   the death of Christ, a reason that no strength of logic can ever
   shake--and no power of unbelief can remove why we should be saved.
   There may be men with minds so distorted that they can conceive it
   possible that Christ could die for a man who afterwards is lost. I say,
   there may be such. I am sorry to say that there are still to be found
   some such persons whose brains have been so addled, in their childhood,
   that they cannot see that what they hold is both a preposterous lie and
   a blasphemous libel! Christ dies for a man and then God punishes that
   man again? Christ suffers in a sinner's stead and then God condemns
   that sinner after all? Why, my Friends, I feel quite shocked in only
   mentioning such an awful error! And were it not so current as it is, I
   would certainly pass it over with the contempt that it deserves!

   The Doctrine of Holy Scripture is this, that God is just, that Christ
   died in the stead of His people and that, as God is just, He will never
   punish one solitary soul of Adam's race for whom the Savior did thus
   shed His blood! The Savior did, indeed, in a certain sense, die for
   all--all men receive many a mercy through His blood--but that He was
   the Substitute and Surety for all men is so inconsistent, both with
   reason and Scripture, that we are obliged to reject the doctrine with
   abhorrence! No, my Soul, how shall you be punished if your Lord endured
   your punishment for you? Did He die for you? O my Soul, if Jesus was
   not your Substitute and did not die in your very place, then He is no
   Savior to you! But if He was your Substitute. If He suffered as your
   Surety, in your place, then, my Soul, "Who is he that condemns?" Christ
   has died, yes, rather, has risen again and sits at the right hand of
   God, and makes intercession for us. There stands the
   master-argument--Christ "laid down His life for us." And "if, when we
   were enemies, we were reconciled to God by

   the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by
   His life." If the agonies of the Savior put our sins away, the
   everlasting life of the Savior, with the merits of His death added
   thereunto, must preserve His people, even unto the end!

   This much I know--you may hear men stammer when they say it--but what I
   preach is the old Lutheran, Calvinis-tic, Augustinian, Pauline,
   Christian Truth of God--there is not one sin in the Book of God against
   anyone that believes. Our sins were numbered on the Scapegoat's head
   and there is not one sin that ever a Believer did commit that has any
   power to damn him, for Christ has taken the damning power out of sin by
   allowing it--to speak by a bold metaphor-- to damn Himself, for sin did
   condemn Him and, inasmuch as sin condemned Him, sin cannot condemn us!
   O Believer, this is your security--that all your sin and guilt, all
   your transgressions and your iniquities have been atoned for and were
   atoned for before they were committed--so that you may come with
   boldness, though red with all crimes, and black with every lust, and
   lay your hand on that Scapegoat's head! And when you have put your hand
   there and seen that Scapegoat driven into the wilderness, you may clap
   your hands for joy, and say, "It is finished, sin is pardoned!"--

   "Here's pardon for transgressions past,

   It matters not how black their cast

   And oh, my Soul, with wonder view,

   For sins to come, here's pardon too!" This is all I need to know--did
   the Savior die for me? Then I will not continue in sin that Grace may
   abound, but nothing shall stop me of thus glorying, in all the Churches
   of the Lord Jesus, that my sins are entirely removed from me and, in
   God's sight, I may sing, as Hart did sing--

   "With Christ's spotless vesture on,

   Holy as the Holy One!"

   O marvelous death of Christ, how securely do You set the feet of God's
   people on the rocks of eternal love! And how securely do You keep them
   there! Come, dear Brothers and Sisters, let us suck a little honey out
   of this honeycomb! Was there ever anything so luscious and so sweet to
   the Believer's taste as this all-glorious Truth that we are complete in
   Him? That in and through His death and merits, we are accepted in the
   Beloved? Oh, was there ever anything more sublime than this fact that
   He has already raised us up together and made us sit together in
   heavenly places in Christ Jesus, far above all principalities and
   powers, just where He sits? Surely there is nothing more sublime than
   that, except it be that a master-thought stamps all these things with
   more than their own value--that master-thought that, though the
   mountains may depart and the hills be removed, the Covenant of His love
   shall never depart from us! "For," says Jehovah, "I will never forget
   you, O Zion." "I have engraved you upon the palms of My hands; your
   walls are continually before

   Me."

   O Christian, that is a firm foundation, cemented with blood, on which
   you may build for eternity! Ah, my Soul! You need no other hope but
   this--Jesus! Your mercy, my Savior, never dies! I will plead this Truth
   of God when cast down with anguish--Your mercy never dies! I will plead
   this when Satan hurls temptations at me and when conscience casts the
   remembrance of my sin in my teeth! I will plead this always and I will
   plead it now--

   "Jesus, Your blood and righteousness

   My beauty are, my glorious dress." Yes, and after I die, and even when
   I stand before Your eyes, You dread Supreme--

   "When from the dust of death I rise,

   To take my mansion in the skies,

   Even then shall this be all my plea,

   'Jesus has lived and died for me.'

   Bold shall I stand in that great day,

   For who anything to my charge shall lay?

   While through Christ's blood absolved I am

   From sin's tremendous curse and shame?" Ah, Brothers and Sisters, if
   this is your experience, you may come to the Table of Communion now
   right happily--it will not be coming to a funeral, but to a feast of
   gladness! "He laid down His life for us."

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON:

   JOHN 9; 1 CORINTHIANS 10:15-33; 11:1.

   We will first read about one of our Lord's miracles and then, as many
   of us will be coming to the Communion Table, we will read about the
   Lord's Supper.

   John 9:1-3. And as Jesus passed by, He saw a man which was blind from
   his birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, Master, who did sin,
   this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered,
   Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents. That is, the sin of the
   man or of his parents was not the cause of his being blind.

   3. But that the works of God should be made manifest in him. What a
   very blessed way of looking at evil--as an opportunity for God to
   manifest the power of His works of Grace by getting rid of it! I wish
   that everyone here would look upon the evil within his own heart in
   this very hopeful light and say, "There is something in me for God to
   conquer. There is some spiritual disease in me for the great Physician
   to heal. There is space in my poor soul for the Lord, Himself, to work
   some miracle of mercy."

   4-7. I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day. The
   night comes when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am
   the light of the world. When He had thus spoken, He spat on the ground
   and made clay of the spittle, and He anointed the eyes of the blind man
   with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam,
   (which is by interpretation, Sent). He went his way, therefore, and
   washed, and came seeing. You notice, Brothers and Sisters, that the
   disciples wanted to know how the man became blind, but Christ removed
   his blindness and gave him sight. I have known a great many puzzle
   themselves about the origin of evil. Christ did not come to explain
   that mystery--He came to put an end to evil. That is an infinitely more
   practical objective than that of speculating about how evil first
   entered the world, or how it entered any individual soul! He will tell
   you how to get rid of it. What a blessed way of healing Christ used! He
   could have spoken and the man's eyes would have opened at once. He who
   said, "Let there be light," and there was light, in the first creation,
   could have said the same thing to this blind man--and light would at
   once have entered his eyes. Instead of that, He chose to use means, and
   the means did not appear to be very likely to effect the cure. Jesus
   covered the man's eyes with clay and bade him go and wash it off. Is
   this the way to give him sight? Yes, Our Lord often uses means that
   seem to be very unlikely to accomplish His purpose. But He always uses
   the right means. Often, when He is going to open a man's eyes,
   spiritually, He first makes him feel more blind than he ever was in all
   his life. A sense of deeper darkness hangs over him just before the
   dawn of eternal day! Perhaps even this very hour some words of mine,
   human and imperfect as they are, may, nevertheless, have the Truth of
   God in them, just as the clay was made efficacious by the spittle from
   the Savior's blessed mouth. And if so, there will be healing work
   worked among blind hearts tonight. God grant that it may be so!

   8, 9. The neighbors, therefore, and they which before had seen him that
   he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged? Some said, This
   is he. Others said, He is like he. But he said, I am he. There is an
   end of all question about the matter! He says, "I am the very man." No
   one knew this better than he did and, therefore, he was the one to say
   it.

   10, 11. Therefore said they unto him, How were your eyes opened? He
   answered and said, A Man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed
   my eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam and wash And I went
   and washed, and I received sight. A very plain story, very well told.
   It is the story of every soul that gets the eternal light. "Christ told
   me to believe in Him. I did believe in Him and I received the
   blessing." There are not many incidents in the narrative and there is
   nothing very romantic--it is a simple and plain declaration of what
   Christ had done for him. And, blessed be God, just as sight was given
   to the blind man, Christ still gives salvation to all who trust Him!--

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

   There is life at this moment for thee.

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

   Unto Him who was nailed to the tree!

   It is not your tears of repentance or prayers,

   But the blood that atones for the soul.

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

   Your weight of iniquities roll.

   But take, with rejoicing, from Jesus at once

   The life everlasting He gives:

   And know, with assurance, you never can die, Since Jesus, your
   righteousness, lives."

   12-14. Then said they unto him, Where is He? He said, I know not They
   brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind. And it was the
   Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Oh, that He
   would do the same thing, in a spiritual sense, this Sabbath day! On
   another occasion, when He had worked a miracle on the Sabbath and the
   Jews, therefore, sought to persecute Him and slay Him, He said to them,
   "My Father works hitherto, and I work." The Sabbath day was often
   Christ's chief working day--may He make it to be so again now!

   15-17. Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his
   sight He said unto them, He put clay upon my eyes, and I washed, and do
   see. Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This Man is not of God
   because He keeps not the Sabbath day. Others said, How can a Man that
   is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them. They
   said unto the blind man again, What do you say of Him, that He has
   opened your eyes? He said, He is a Prophet There was no mistake about
   that matter in the mind of the man whom he had healed--none but a
   Prophet, mighty in word and deed, could have worked such a miracle as
   that!

   18-21. But the Jews didnot believe concerning him, that he had been
   blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him
   that had received his sight And they asked them, saying, Is this your
   son, who you say was born blind? How, then, does he now see? His
   parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son and that
   he was born blind, but by what means he now sees, we know not; or who
   has opened his eyes, we know not He is of age, ask him: he shall speak
   for himself. And so he did. He was one of those people who can speak
   for themselves and it is greatly to be wished that many more of those
   who have been cured by Christ could do the same! He was a conscientious
   man, who, outside fear of offending or any desire to curry favor, spoke
   out honestly what he knew--nothing more.

   22-27. These words spoke his parents, because they feared the Jews: for
   the Jews had already agreed that if any man did confess that He was
   Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. Therefore said his
   parents, He is of age; ask him. Then again called they the man that was
   blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise; we know that this Man is
   a sinner He answered and said, Whether He is a sinner or not, Iknownot.
   One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, nowI see. Then said they
   to him again, What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes? He
   answered them, I have told you already, and you didnot hear: why would
   you hear it again? Will you also be His disciples?He was a sharp,
   ready-witted man who was not to be enticed into making any rash and
   unguarded statements. He knew what he did know and he kept to that. And
   whenever any of you are assailed by the enemies of Christ, you will do
   well to imitate this man and neither be abashed by their frowns and
   sneers, nor yet be too ready to cast your pearls before swine!

   28. Then they reviled him. That is the usual way with the men of the
   world--when they cannot beat a man in argument, they begin to call him
   bad names. "They reviled him."

   28-31. And said, You are His disciple; but we are Moses' disciples. We
   know that God spoke unto Moses: as for this Fellow, we know not from
   where He is. The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a
   marvelous thing, that you know not from where He is, and yet He has
   opened my eyes. Now we know that God hears not sinners. That is to say,
   He does not work miracles by them. He does not hear their prayers and
   give them the power to open blind men's eyes.

   31-33. But if any man is a worshipper of God, and does His will, him He
   hears. Since the world began it was not heard that any man opened the
   eyes of one that was born blind. If this Man were not of God, He could
   do nothing. Christ could not have given sight to the blind man if He
   had not, Himself, come from God. This was good reasoning and it would
   have been convincing if the objectors had been willing to be convinced
   by the truth.

   34. They answered and said unto him, You were altogether born in sins,
   and do you teach us? ' 'Holy and learned people like us Pharisees--do
   you set up to be our teacher?"

   34-38. And they casthim out Jesus heard that theyhadcast him out and
   when He had foundhim, He said unto him, Do you believe on the Son of
   God? He answered and said, Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on
   Him? And Jesus said unto him, You have both seen Him, and it is He that
   talks with you. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped Him.
   Then was his cure, indeed, complete! He had seen Christ spiritually as
   well as naturally, and fell at His feet and worshipped Him as the Son
   of God.

   39-41. And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that
   they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made
   blind. And some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words,
   and said unto Him,

   Are we blind, also? Jesus said unto them, if you were blind, you would
   have no sin: but now you say, We see; therefore your sin remains.

   1 Corinthians 10:15-19. I speak as to wise men; judge you what I say.
   The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the
   blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of
   the body of Christ?For we being many are one bread, and one body: for
   we are all partakers of that one bread. Behold Israel after the flesh:
   are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? What
   say I then? That the idol is anything, or that which is offered in
   sacrifice to idols is anything? After they had offered the beasts as
   sacrifices to their idols, it was the custom to sell the carcasses in
   the shambles. Christian men, going into the market to buy meat, and
   asking no questions, bought and ate portions of these sacrifices, and
   they did no wrong whatever. But there were some in the Church who were
   very tender of conscience and who said, "If we eat meat which has been
   offered to idols, we thereby become partakers with the idolaters." Paul
   therefore writes:--

   20, 21. But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they
   sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that you should
   have feelowship with devils. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and
   the cup of devils. I t cannot be--there must be a separation between
   these two things. We cannot have any delight in idol-worship and yet
   worship the Christ of God.

   21-28. You cannot be partakers of the Lord's Table, and of the table of
   devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?
   All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all
   things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Let no man seek his
   own, but every man another's wealth. Whatever is sold in the shambles,
   that eat, asking no question for conscience sake: for the earth is the
   Lord's, and the fullness thereof. If any of them that believe not
   bidyou to a feast, andyou are disposed to go; whatever is set before
   you, eat, askingno question for conscience sake. But if any man says
   unto you, This is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake
   that showed it, and for conscience sake: for the earth is the Lord's,
   and the fullness thereof. So, you see, you may eat the meat if you
   like, for the idol is nothing at all. But still, if you are told that
   it is meat that has been offered to idols and that you, by eating of
   it, seem to join in the worship of idols, abstain from doing it--not
   for your own sake, but for the sake of the man who might be caused to
   stumble through you. This is a safe rule with regard to Christian
   behavior in many other things. There may be things lawful in drink as
   well as in meat which a man may take without sinning. But if he knows
   that his example leads others astray, then let him take heed that he
   does not set such an example! An example which is an excuse for
   drunkenness is not a good one. Therefore, let none of us set it before
   the eyes of men. If any man says to you, "This meat has been offered in
   sacrifice to idols, eat not for his sake that showed it, and for
   conscience sake: for the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness
   thereof."

   29. Conscience, I say, not your own, but of the other: for why is my
   liberty judged of another man's conscience? That man may not be able to
   do it without injury to himself, but I may, and I have liberty to do
   so. But yet, as a Christian, I am to consider his need of power, and I
   am not to use my liberty lest I do harm to my brother.

   30, 31. For if I by Grace am a partaker, why am I evilly spoken of for
   that for which I give thanks? Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or
   whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. And if anything you might
   do would not glorify God, do not do it!

   32, 33. Give none offense, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles,
   nor to the church of God: even as I please all men in all things, not
   seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.
   1 Corinthians 11:1. Be you followers of me, even as I, also, am of
   Christ.
     __________________________________________________________________

All the Promises

   (No. 2657)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 14, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST
   31, 1882.

   "For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the
   glory of God through us." 2 Corinthians 1:20.

   As the result of a very simple incident, a sublime Truth of God may be
   proclaimed. It was so in the instance referred to in this chapter.
   These Corinthians had misrepresented the Apostle Paul and spoken ill of
   him. He might have ignored their unkindness and said nothing about it,
   but, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he was led to act otherwise
   and, while defending his own character for consistency, he also
   vindicated the consistency and truthfulness of God. We might never have
   had this precious verse if Paul had not been so ill-treated by these
   men of Corinth. They did him great wrong and caused him much sorrow of
   heart, for a man who was so sincere and upright could not but be sorely
   vexed by their unjust suspicions and misrepresentations. Yet you see
   how the evil was overruled by God for good and through their unsavory
   gossip and slander this sweet sentence was pressed out of Paul--"For
   all the promises of God in Christ are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the
   glory of God by us.

   There are many things which, at first, we may regret, but for which we
   are afterwards exceedingly grateful. I have felt half inclined to thank
   the Pharisees and scribes for some of their cruel attacks upon our
   blessed Lord, Himself, for, in answering them, He has given us lessons
   which we now highly prize. Perhaps we might never have had those three
   wonderful parables of the lost sheep, the lost silver and the lost son,
   if those cavilers had not spoken evil of Him because all the publicans
   and sinners drew near to hear Him.

   The fact was that Paul had intended to visit the Christians at Corinth,
   again, but he felt compelled to alter his decision and so he did not go
   to them, because he would only have gone in order to chastise or rebuke
   them, they had behaved so badly. In their folly and in their coolness
   towards the Apostle, they misconstrued his actions and they said, "We
   cannot rely upon his word and we do not know what he will do. He
   promised that he would come to us, but he has changed his mind." The
   Apostle declares here that he did not use lightness, or fickleness,
   either in giving his conditional promise, or in retracting it. He was
   not accustomed to speak outside thinking what he was going to say. He
   was prompted by a worthy motive when he made the proposition to go to
   them--and an equally good motive swayed him when he resolved not to go.
   He tells them that his mind was not of the "yes and no" order, but when
   he said, "yes," he meant it. His yes was yes, and if he said, "no," he
   meant it--his no was no.

   This remark led the Apostle to further say that the Gospel which he
   preached was not of the "yes and no" kind. It was something certain,
   settled, positive, fixed--it was not a variable gospel, nor a deceptive
   gospel. It was not a chameleon gospel which changed its color according
   to the light which fell upon it, but it was a clear and distinct
   Gospel, given in all sincerity by the truthful and truth-loving Savior
   who never used words in a double sense, but who said what He meant and
   meant what He said! It was by this process of reasoning that the
   Apostle was led to the statement contained in our text concerning
   Christ--"All the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to
   the glory of God by us." That is now to be the theme of our meditation.

   I. The first thing I notice in the text is the destiny OF THE PROMISES.
   Notice the Apostle's words--"For all the promises of God in Him are
   yes."

   These promises were all made according to the purpose of His own will
   We sometimes read, or hear, or speak of the promises written in God's
   Word, but do not give them as much credit as if they were the promises
   of a friend, or of our father, or our brother! If we valued them more,
   we should believe them better. We have many proverbs to remind us what
   poor and frail things the promises of men are, but those of which Paul
   writes are "the promises of God." Men often change their minds--even
   the Apostle did that and, therefore, he was wise to try to take the
   thoughts of those to whom he was writing off from the promises even of
   an Apostle, which were liable to change, and which might very properly
   not be carried out because of altered circumstances--and lead them away
   to the promises of God which are unfailing and unchangeable, and are
   always fulfilled to His Glory and to our profit. We know little what
   solemn things we are trifling with when we say that we cannot believe a
   certain promise. What? Has it come to this--that God's own children
   cannot believe Him? Is it so, that we, who say that "we l ove Him
   because He first loved us," yet add to that declaration, "but there are
   some of His promises which we cannot believe"? I am afraid that we talk
   far too flippantly about our unbelief and that we seek to shelter one
   another in it, instead of whipping ourselves out of it. To be
   unbelieving may be painful, but there is a more serious consideration
   than that, for it is sinful! It is heinous to the last degree when we
   feel--much more when we express--any incredulity with regard to "the
   promises of God." Just turn that thought over in your minds for a
   minute or two and see whether it does not crimson your face with shame
   to think that you should have had any suspicion about the fulfillment
   of promises made by "God, who cannot lie."

   Even in the case of a man, a promise is something which comes from him
   and yet, in a sense, still remains with him. He cannot speak of a
   promise and let it blow away with the wind. It is his promise after he
   has uttered it and those to whom it was given can bring it back to him
   and say, "That is your promise, will you not fulfill it?" If a man
   repudiates his own pledged word, he does, in fact, repudiate the fruit
   of himself, the outgoing of his own life! And every promise of God
   partakes of His Nature--there is something Divine in it, something
   which comes distinctly from God and which He will continue to
   acknowledge as His. Though it may have been spoken two, or three
   thousand years ago, or longer than that, yet it is still His promise
   and part and parcel of Himself. Well, then, if God will acknowledge it
   as His promise, shall I, to whom it is given in Infinite Mercy, doubt
   whether it is His promise or not? And shall I even venture to go
   further than that and, knowingit to be His promise, shall I begin to
   question how He can fulfill it, or whether He willfulfill it or not?
   God forbid! The dignity of the promise must not be insulted by our
   doubting it!

   Kindly observe the position of the promise which is a very singular
   one. It is a kind of link between the Divine thought and the Divine act
   It is not at all a necessary link, so far as God is concerned, but it
   is often a most necessary and consoling link to us. There is the
   eternal purpose that has always been in God's secret mind and His
   promise is the shadow which that purpose casts upon the revealed page.
   It is the Divine decree made manifest and it stands there-- bright and
   sparkling, between the decree, which our eyes cannot and dare not look
   upon--and the blessed fulfillment which is to be our joy and delight
   forever! I confess that I cannot think of God's eternal purposes
   outside the utmost awe and reverence for, to me, there is something
   very solemn and impressive about them. I know that some people speak as
   though they would trample them in the mire if they could, but whenever
   I hear a word against the promises, the Providences, the decrees and
   the purposes of God, I feel inclined to do as a Negro slave did, under
   certain circumstances, in the presence of his master.

   While waiting upon his master, who frequently took the name of God in
   vain and blasphemed it most terribly in his cursing, the black man
   bowed his head. His master asked him why he did so and he replied that
   it was because his soul was full of trembling at the very name of God
   and he wished to do Him reverence, even while He was being blasphemed
   and insulted. So, whenever I hear or read of anyone speaking or writing
   against the Divine decrees I at once feel anxious to bow my head and to
   prostrate myself in homage before that eternal mind which knows no new
   thought--for God knew all things from the beginning--and to adore that
   Infinite Wisdom which has planned everything from the flitting of a
   sparrow to the flight of the archangel! It is very wonderful to me to
   think of a promise in the Scriptures being virtually the manifestation
   of God's everlasting purposes. I might compare the purpose to God
   Himself--invisible--and the promise to the Incarnate God, who was born
   at Bethlehem and who came to earth to be seen of men. Think yet again
   of the promise of God and you will see how a sense of its dignity grows
   upon you while you are meditating upon it.

   Consider, next, that the Truth of God is irrevocably bound up with His
   promise. If a man says, "Such a thing shall be done," he ought to do it
   if it is in his power. We have no right to break promises that we have
   made. We feel that if we

   do, men will learn to distrust us and soon will care nothing at all for
   our promises. But, Beloved--and we speak with the utmost reverence
   concerning the Most High--His Character for truthfulness would be lost
   if His promises were not kept! And, while it would be an awful loss to
   us to miss what He has promised, it would be a far greater loss to Him
   to lose His truthfulness! We rejoice that, as a matter of fact, this is
   a thing which can neverhappen! All things except this are possible with
   God, but it is not possible for Him to be God and yet to fail in the
   fulfillment of His promises. The two ideas will not run together at
   all! If He is God, He must be true to His Truth, and He will be! So,
   when I read a promise in His Word, I read something which is as certain
   as a fact already accomplished, since, if it were not to come to pass,
   God's Glory would suffer an eclipse--and His veracity would be
   impugned. But that can never be!

   Nor is the Truth of God the only attribute which would suffer if He
   failed to fulfill His promise, for His immutability would also be put
   in jeopardy. If He makes a promise, and yet does not fulfill it in due
   time, then He must have changed. The motives which led to the making of
   the promise have now no influence over Him and He has become something
   different from what He was when He made the promise. But God must be
   immutable! It cannot be possible for Him to change for the better, for
   He is infinitely good! And, certainly, He cannot change for the worse,
   for, if He did, then He would be something less than He might be--and
   so He would not be God at all! Change is impossible to Him! He can
   never change His will, and His promise, as one of the most solemn
   declarations of His will, must be fulfilled when He has once made it.
   Surely, no one of us would wish or dare to deny either the truthfulness
   or the unchangeableness of God!

   Further, His power is bound up with His promise. Shall it ever be said
   that God failed to keep His promise because He could not keep it, or
   because He miscalculated His resources, or His arm waxed short, or the
   great deeps of His eternal Godhead became dried up? No! That cannot be,
   for what He has promised He will always be able to perform. So, then,
   if we slight the promises of God, we slight also His Truth, His
   Immutability and His power. And we also seriously compromise His mercy
   and His love. It was love that moved Him to give the promise. He might
   have bestowed the blessing outside promising to do so and that would
   have been a gracious proof of His love. But, because the promise has a
   sweet, consoling power in it, He has been pleased to give it to us as a
   further proof of His love. And if He does not grant the blessing at
   once when He promises it, the delay is all for loving reasons. But,
   having given the promise, He must keep it because of His love. His love
   would be changed if it did not constrain Him to fulfill what it caused
   Him to promise. But that can never be and we must not--we dare
   not--cast such a slight upon the promise of God as to imagine, for a
   moment, that it can remain unfulfilled! So much, then, concerning the
   dignity of the promises.

   II. Still keeping closely to the text, I want you to notice, next, the
   range of the PROMISES, for Paul here speaks of "the promises of God."

   There is a prospect for you--"All the promises." There are very many of
   them and they are found in both the Old and the New Testaments. There
   was one given at the gates of the Garden of Eden, very near the
   commencement of human history. There is another right at the end of the
   Revelation. "Surely I come quickly." The Bible is a Book of precious
   promises! All the way we have to travel, they seem to be like a series
   of stepping stones across the stream of time, and we may march from one
   promise to another and never wet our feet all the way from earth to
   Heaven if we do but know how to keep our eyes open and to find the
   right promise to step upon. "All the promises"--the Old Testament ones
   as well as those in the New Testament--are sure and steadfast! The
   conditional promises--if we believe, and if we repent--God will
   certainly fulfill. And the unconditional ones--the promises of the
   Everlasting Covenant in which He pledges Himself to give men repentance
   and to give them new hearts and right spirits--He will keep them, too!

   God will fulfill all temporal promises. Bread shall be given you and
   water shall be assured unto you if you are the Lord's children. He will
   keep His promises about temporal affairs as well as those which concern
   everlasting joys and blessings. "No good thing will He withhold from
   them that walk uprightly." You may speak of the promises in any way
   that you please--and then you may say that the Lord will keep them all!
   You may pick out the promise to the prisoner, the promise to the
   sinner, the promise to the backslider, the promise to the doubting one,
   the promise to the aged, the promise to the young, the promise to her
   that halts, the promise to the barren woman, the promise to the strong,
   the promise to those who have full assurance of faith, the promise to
   those who love the Lord, the promise to those who delight themselves in
   the Lord--and then you may confidently declare, concerning all these
   promises to all sorts and conditions of people--that the Lord will
   surely keep every one of them!

   "All the promises." Why, here is a grand granary full! Who can sort
   them all out? Promises of pardon to the seeking sinner! Promises of
   justification to the believing child! Promises of sanctification to him
   who is struggling against sin! Promises of the supply of all kinds of
   spiritual food to the flock of Christ! Promises of guidance! Promises
   of preservation! Promises of holy education! Promises of peace and joy!
   Promises of hope! Promises of the sustenance of our love! Promises for
   death! Promises for judgment! Promises for glory! Promises that reach
   to all eternity! "All the promises." What a range of vision this
   expression opens up! Go forth and lift up your eyes and gaze upon the
   stars. See whether you can number them all--do they not far exceed all
   your powers of mathematics? Yet, if you could count the stars, weigh
   them in scales and tabulate the measure of their light, you could not
   count the promises of God, or estimate their true value, or know how
   infinitely precious is the Divine Light which streams from them into a
   believing soul! If God does not fulfill a single promise to me for the
   next 50 years, I shall be perfectly satisfied to live on the promises,
   themselves, if my faith shall but be sustained by His Grace! I may
   fairly talk thus, for you would say, "I do not need a single penny to
   spend, as long as ever I live, if I can but always have plenty of
   notes. I shall never care if I do not see a sovereign, again, so long
   as I can always have the promise of the Bank of England to pay me on
   demand all that I need!

   So let it be with the promises of God! Men's promises are but breath,
   they would never feed us. But God's promises can satisfy us, for they
   are the substance of the things hoped for! And faith, the evidence of
   things not seen, rejoices to see that which is invisible, to lay hold
   of that which it cannot touch, and to feed upon that which, as yet, it
   cannot taste. Faith works wonders! It enables a man to project himself
   right into eternity! He sits down and sighs, and sorrows, and then he
   says to himself, "This will never do. I will trust in the Lord." And,
   in an instant, by faith, he walks the golden streets and sings the
   everlasting songs! He is not obliged to live in this narrow sphere of
   time and sense, for by faith he spreads his wings and like the lark, he
   ascends and sings. He soars far more rapidly than even the eagle and
   finds himself already enjoying the things which God has prepared for
   them that love Him! And so he is happy in the Lord.

   III. Now I must turn to my third point, which is in the very heart of
   the text--"For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen.
   "These words teach us THE STABILITY OF THE PROMISES.

   The promises of God are very firm for, first, they are settled on an
   everlasting basis, for they are promises in Christ. As I look at the
   text, I can see two words leaping up out of it. And as I look at it
   again, I see the same two words leaping up again-- "in Him."
   "Allpromises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen." There is a great
   thought which I cannot fully open up to you, now--you must lie awake
   tonight and think it over and pray over it-- "All the promises of God
   in Him." What a great Christ you have, to have "all the promises of
   God" within Himself! The range of the promises seems to be infinite and
   yet Christ is great enough to be the circumference that shuts them all
   in! I rejoice in this great Truth of God, that "all the promises of
   God" are in Christ Jesus our Lord!

   And in Christ they are said to be, "Yes."That is a Greek word, so this
   is a message to Gentiles. "And in Him Amen." That is a Hebrewword and
   is, therefore, for the Jews. You may have noticed how whenever the Holy
   Spirit wishes to impress any Truth upon us with more than usual
   solemnity, He uses two languages, as in the case of, "Abba, Father." In
   this way, all the saints of God, whether they are Jews or Gentiles, may
   have their portion of meat in due season.

   "All the promises of God in Him are "Yes." That is, they are certain.
   "And in Him Amen." That is, they are accomplished. We may say after
   every promise of God, "Yes, so it is. Amen, so let it be." There is but
   a slight variation in the meaning of the words, but it is enough to let
   us see that there is no tautology here, not even if the words are
   translated, "All the promises of God are Yes." That is, true. "And they
   are Amen." That is, they shall be accomplished in Christ Jesus.

   The stability of the promises in Christ is established beyond all
   hazard. First, because Christ is God's Witness. If anyone asks, "Did
   God make this promise?" Christ comes forward and says, "Yes, I heard
   Him say it." Christ is "the faithful and true Witness." He bears
   witness of God and for God to the sons of men. And He sets His seal to
   every Divine promise and certifies it with His, "Yes and Amen."

   Next, the promises are sure in Christ because He is God's
   Representative. He is always doing the Father's will, even as He has
   done it in the past. When He came to earth and died upon the Cross, He
   accomplished the work of redemption upon which God's heart was set and
   He is still doing the Father's will. Whatever Jesus has said, God has
   said, for He speaks the Words of God. The Father sent Him into the
   world as His Representative and He spoke not merely His own Words, but
   the Words of the Father who sent Him.

   Then, next, Jesus, is the Surety of the Covenant. The promise was first
   made to Adam. If Adam keeps the command of God and does not touch the
   forbidden fruit, he and those whom he represents shall have all manner
   of good things. But Adam transgressed the Law of the Lord so that
   Covenant was made void. The Second Covenant is on this wise. If Jesus
   Christ, the Second Adam, will do this and that, then all whom He
   represents shall have the blessings guaranteed in the Covenant. The
   Lord Jesus has done all that He agreed to do--He has kept the Law and
   so has honored it--and He has also died and borne the sentence of the
   Law. He has thus offered both an active and a passive obedience to the
   Law of God and now all the promises of God must be kept to Christ, for
   they are, "Yes and Amen" in Him. Take those great promises in the 53rd
   of Isaiah--"He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be
   satisfied: by His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many;
   for He shall bear their iniquities. 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 and He was numbered with
   the transgressors; and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession
   for the transgressors." These are promises, first to the Head, and then
   to us, the members of His mystical body--first to the Second Adam and
   then to all who, by a living faith, are included in His federal
   Headship. So the promises are, "Yes and Amen" in Him.

   And as long as Jesus Christ lives, they are also, "Yes and Amen" in
   this sense--that He is seeing to their being carried out. He is
   interceding before the Throne of God for us that the promises of God
   may meet our distresses. O Brothers and Sisters, all the promises must
   be true in Christ because God spared not His own Son, but freely
   delivered Him up for us all! And, having given Him, will He not, with
   Him, also freely give us all things? If God had meant to run back from
   any promise, He would surely have run back from the promise to give His
   only-begotten Son! But, having fulfilled that, what promise is there
   that He will ever break? Moreover, in the gift of Christ He has
   virtually and really given us all things, for if Christ is yours, all
   things are yours! All things are in Christ, so, having Him, you possess
   all! There is no desire of your spirit, or need of your nature that
   shall remain unsatisfied when once you have Christ as yours. You have
   Heaven, earth and all things that are or ever shall be, encompassed in
   that blessed One whose very name is, "the Amen, the faithful and true
   Witness." O Beloved, rejoice with all your heart that every promise of
   God is sure in Christ Jesus to all His true seed!

   IV. Now let us consider the last words of the text. "For all the
   promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God
   through us. "This impression teaches us THE RESULT OF THE PROMISES.

   So, then, dear Friends, the promises of God are His Glory. There is no
   pretended god that has ever been supposed to make promises like those
   of our God. Turn to the Koran and see what Mohammed has promised. Ah,
   me! What a beggarly array of promises does he set before his followers!
   Turn to Brahma and Buddha and read all the so-called sacred books
   written by their priests, and see what their gods are said to have
   promised. You can put the essence of it all into an eggshell and not
   even see it! But our God has promised more than Heaven and earth can
   hold! He has promised to give Himself to His people! He is the great
   Promiser--the mighty Promiser. I set the promises of God in comparison
   and contrast with all the promises that were ever made in connection
   with all false systems of religion under Heaven and unhesitatingly
   declare that there are none that can compare for an instant with the
   promises of the Most High!

   It was greatly to God's Glory to make those promises all sure, for they
   all depended at first upon the condition that Christ should obey the
   Father's will. And He has done it and oh, what a glory it is to God
   that, "He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him
   should not perish, but have everlasting life!" The gift of the
   Redeemer, the life of the Redeemer, the death of the Redeemer, the
   intercession of the Redeemer, the making the promises sure--all this is
   greatly to the Glory of God.

   And now it is to the Glory of God to keep every promise that He has
   made. There is not one which, if it were broken, would redound to His
   praise or increase His honor. No, and there is not one but, when it is
   kept, reflects fresh honor upon Him and brings still further renown to
   His ever-blessed name!

   If I had time, I would enlarge upon all these points, but as it is
   already past our usual hour for closing the service, I must end my
   discourse with a brief reference to the last words in our text. "To the
   glory of God by us." While I was thinking earnestly over my text, I
   fancied that the two little words, "by us," seemed to spoil that grand
   word, "glory," and that greater word, "God." "To the glory of God
   "--"by us." What a contrast! It is even more marked than in that old
   story of the organ-blower who would persist in saying, " We did it,"
   when all that he did was just pump the air into the organ. Must we be
   mentioned at all? Is it not a pity to bring us in?

   But, as I turned the subject over in my mind, I thought, "Oh, no,
   no--it is quite right to bring us in here!" Now look. God wants to have
   the glory of being merciful. Yes, but He cannot have that glory unless
   there is a sinner somewhere to whom He can show mercy. A sinner is an
   essential part of the whole business! Suppose that the king who made
   the great supper had said to his servants, "Go out into the highways
   and hedges, and compel them to come in"--and that they had come back to
   him and said, "There is not a single creature under the hedges or in
   the highways! There is not even a solitary beggar anywhere about the
   streets or lanes of the city!" Then he could not have had the feast,
   whatever dainties he might have prepared, if he had not anybody to eat
   them. It would have been a mournful business to have the oxen and
   fatlings killed and heaped upon the tables, yet nobody to sit down to
   partake of them. Even the king, if he is to have honor, must be
   dependent for once on the beggars in the highways and hedges! Is not
   this amazing? God wants to show His power in pardoning my sin, but He
   cannot do it if I have no sin to be pardoned! And if I do not come to
   Him to be pardoned and do not ask for His mercy, then it lies like dead
   capital never spent! The Lord delights to help the weak--it is His joy
   to do it. But suppose that there is no weak person anywhere--what is to
   happen then?

   Ah, but I think I hear the weak souls crying out, "By us! By us! 'To
   the glory of God by us.' He delights to help the poor and needy and He
   cannot do so if there are not some poor and needy ones for Him to help.
   So, when we seek His aid, it is 'to the glory of God by us.'" And the
   Lord delights to make His strength perfect in our weakness. I think I
   hear Paul crying out and He is the man who wrote these words, "by
   us"--"God is glorified by my weakness." And I hear many of you who are
   trying to serve your Lord and Master, saying, "Ah, then, that is why
   such weak ones as we feel ourselves to be used, 'to the glory of God by
   us.'"

   Come along, then, all you who need God's mercy. You have laid hold of
   one of His promises and feel that you need and must have all that it
   includes. With utmost reverence would I say that God Himself cannot be
   glorified by His promises without you! If He intends to feed the
   hungry, then the hungry are essential to the accomplishment of His
   purpose! If He would clothe the naked, then there must be naked ones
   for Him to clothe! Is there not a mine of comfort here for you who have
   been almost outside hope? I trust that some of you poor lost ones will
   say in your hearts, if you do not utter it with your voices, "Are we
   really essential to God's Glory? Does God need our poverty, our
   sinfulness and our nothingness in order that He may, through them,
   display the greatness of His Grace? Then we will certainly come to Him
   just as we are." Do so, I pray you. Come! Come!! Come!!! May the Holy
   Spirit, by His Omnipotent Grace draw you now, for our Lord Jesus
   Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 2 CORINTHIANS 1; 2:1.

   2 Corinthians 1:1. Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,
   and Timothy our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth,
   with all the saints which are in all Achaia. Paul is very jealous of
   his Apostleship. There were some in Corinth who denied it and,
   therefore, he takes care, at the very commencement of this Epistle--as
   he does in beginning most of his letters--to write concerning himself,
   "Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God." But with what
   humility of mind does he associate Timothy with himself! Frequently he
   puts Timothy, his own convert, one so young and so much beneath him in
   position and attainments, on a level with himself! And if we also can
   help our younger brethren, how willingly should we put ourselves side
   by side with them!

   2. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord
   Jesus Christ What a wonderful source of Grace and peace! "God our
   Father." How can He give other than Grace and peace to His own
   children? "And from the Lord Jesus Christ," our redeeming Savior, who
   has given Himself for us, and who has engraved our names on the palms
   of His hands--is there not an abundant supply of Grace and peace to be
   found in the very music of His name?

   3. Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
   of mercies, and the God of all comfort Let me read those titles again.
   "The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Father of mercies. The God of
   all comfort." Do not the second and third titles derive much of their
   significance from the first one? It is because God is "the Father of
   our Lord Jesus Christ" that He becomes "the Father of mercies and the
   God of all comfort."

   4. Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to
   comfort those who are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we
   ourselves are comforted of God. Experience teaches the first rank of
   God's servants--and their experi-

   ence of sorrow and consolation is often the means of enabling them to
   be the means of blessing to others. Almost everything that the minister
   of the Gospel enjoys or endures will be found to be sent to him for the
   elect's sake, that he may know how to teach them the lessons he has,
   himself, learned.

   5. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation
   also abounds by Christ Are we not willing to endure the greater
   suffering that we may enjoy the greater consolation?

   6. And whether we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and
   salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings
   which we also suffer: or whether we are comforted, it is for your
   consolation and salvation. We receive both suffering and consolation
   for the sake of others and we are bound to give out, again, all that we
   receive. It is the essence of the true Christian life, first to be
   dependent upon God for everything, and then to give forth to all around
   us that which God has poured into our spirit. The heart would soon die
   if it pumped in the blood and never pumped it out again--but it is by
   that perpetual process of giving out what it has received that it
   continues in life! And the highest form of Christian life is the
   reception of all that comes to us out of the fullness of Christ and
   then the free giving out of what He has bestowed.

   7-10. And our hope ofyou is steadfast, knowing that as you are
   partakers of the sufferings, so shallyou be also of the consolation.
   For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came
   to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength,
   insomuch that we despaired even of life: but we had the sentence of
   death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God
   who raises the dead: who delivered us from so great a death, and does
   deliver: in whom we trust that He will yet deliver us. No doubt Paul
   did preach all the better and with the greater confidence in God
   because he preached, like Richard Baxter, "as a dying man to dying
   men." His life was frequently in danger and on this occasion it was so
   in a very remarkable degree. So, when he was again able to testify for
   his Master, he realized that he had no time to waste and, therefore, he
   wrote and spoke with the utmost earnestness. He felt himself in
   jeopardy every hour and, therefore, he fell back upon his God and
   trusted alone in Him. Anything that works to this end for us, also, is
   an undisguised blessing.

   11. You also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift
   bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by
   many on our behalf. Much prayer leads to much thanksgiving. It should
   be a great cause for joy when numbers of Christians unite in praying
   for any Christian minister, for they will also unite in praising God on
   his behalf when that which they asked for him is granted!

   12. For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in
   simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshy wisdom, but by the
   Grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world and more
   abundantly to you-ward. There had been whispers among these Corinthians
   that Paul had concealed a double meaning in some of his writings, and
   also that he had made a promise which he never intended to keep. So now
   he calls upon them to bear witness that he never was a man to act
   according to policy, but he was a straightforward, honest,
   plain-dealing man, full of godly sincerity and unselfishness. He had
   abundantly proved all this to the Corinthians, for, lest they should
   have any occasion for speaking against him, he would not take at their
   hands the support to which he was entitled--but he labored at his trade
   of tent-making that they might not have anything to say concerning him
   except that he was disinterested in all his endeavors to serve them.
   Paul evidently felt their unkindness very much, but his conscience
   assured him that their accusations were unjust.

   13. 14. For we write none other things unto you than what you read or
   acknowledge; and I trust you shall acknowledge even to the end; as also
   you have acknowledged us in part, that we are your rejoicing, even as
   you also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus. See how Paul restrains
   himself in writing to these people? He had good cause to be offended,
   for they had touched him in a point about which he was very jealous,
   namely, his integrity. But here he speaks with great moderation of
   spirit--and herein lay his strength. Every Christian, when he has to
   defend himself against false accusations, should use soft words and
   hard arguments.

   15, 16. Andin this confidence I was minded to come unto you before,
   thatyou might have a second benefit; and to pass by you into Macedonia,
   and to come again out of Macedonia unto you, and ofyou to be brought on
   my way toward Judaea. He had planned to see them in his going and also
   in his returning, but he could not carry out the idea which was in his
   mind. The wisest of men often find their plans impracticable--and even
   an Inspired man is not always inspired!

   God guides him when guidance is absolutely necessary, but, at other
   times, He leaves him to arrange according to his own judgment--and to
   find out that his judgment is not Infallible. "I had a mind," he says,
   "to come and see you twice."

   17. When I therefore was thus minded, did I use lightness? "Did I make
   up my mind hastily and then did I change it all of a sudden without
   good reason? Had I failed to think before I decided and, therefore, did
   I find it necessary to revoke my promise?"

   17, 18. Or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the
   flesh, that with me there should be yes, yes, and no, no? But as God is
   true, our word toward you was not yes and no. He binds up his own
   ministry with himself, and he says, "You charge me with being fickle,
   but you know better! You are well aware that I am not one who says one
   thing, today, and another thing tomorrow. You know that I have been
   open and aboveboard in all my dealings with you, and that I have never
   stooped to policy and craftiness, but have spoken that which I
   believed, whatever might come of it."

   19. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us,
   even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not Yes, and No, but in Him
   was Yes. He declares that he preached the Truth of God
   straightforwardly and consistently, and that he did not say one thing,
   one day, and another thing a few days later.

   20. For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, unto
   the glory of God by us. Christ is no quicksand, slipping and sliding
   away, and so ruining those who cling to Him. He is the Rock of Ages and
   He stands fast forever. His Gospel is one and the same at all times.
   You see that as Paul grows warm, he advances in his argument. If the
   Corinthians suspected his honesty in making a promise, the next thing
   they would do would be to suspect the Gospel-- and after that they
   would suspect Christ, Himself, who is the Truth!

   21-23. Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed
   us, is God, who has also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit
   in our hearts. Moreover I call God for a record upon my soul, that to
   spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth. "If I had come, I would have
   been obliged to rebuke you and reprove you. I would have had to be like
   an armed man going to battle, or an officer of the law carrying out the
   sentence pronounced upon a criminal, but I could not bear to do that,
   so I felt it would be better and wiser to stay away and, therefore, I
   did not visit you as I had proposed."

   24. Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers
   ofyour joy: for by faith you stand.

   Chapter 2. Verse 1. But I determined this with myself, that I would not
   come again to you in heaviness. And they ought to have had enough
   confidence in him to know that he had a very good and sufficient reason
   for not fulfilling his conditional promise.

   Let us, dear Friends, who, are one in Christ, trust each other, for, if
   suspicion is once bred among the people of God, it will mean farewell
   to all fellowship.
     __________________________________________________________________

Waking to See Christ's Glory

   (No. 2658)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 21, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 3, 1882.

   "And when they were awake, they saw His glory and the two men that
   stood with Him." Luke 9:32.

   It seems, at first sight, a strange thing that the Apostles should have
   been asleep at such a time, yet, if we think of the circumstances in
   which they were placed and of the extreme excitement under which they
   must have labored, it will not appear at all amazing that "Peter and
   they that were with Him were heavy with sleep." In the 28th verse it is
   written, concerning our Lord, "He took Peter and John and James, and
   went up into a mountain to pray. And as He prayed, the fashion of His
   countenance was altered and His raiment was white and glistening." We
   know that the Savior frequently retired to some quiet, secluded spot
   for fellowship with His Father and that, sometimes, He spent the whole
   night in prayer. It is very probable that on this occasion He had been
   engaged in earnest prayer for several hours before the Transfiguration
   came. And it is worthy of note that He was transfigured while He was
   praying. Every blessing comes to the great Head of the Church and to
   all the members of His mystical body through prayer! There is nothing
   promised to us without prayer, but, with prayer, everything is provided
   for us--and by prayer we shall ascend into Glory.

   I cannot tell how long the Lord had been in prayer but, judging from
   His usual manner and custom, I should suppose that He had spent some
   hours in supplication. Even the three most highly favored Apostles were
   not as spiritually minded as He was and they grew weary while He was
   still full of holy vigor and fervor. The most zealous among us might be
   tired of listening to the best man in the world if he were to keep on
   praying hour after hour, yet he himself might be enjoying a special
   baptism of the Spirit and be quite unconscious of fatigue and, in his
   wrestling with God, might be all the while going from strength to
   strength. We, who were merely onlookers, would probably grow drowsy and
   be unable to keep up the strain as he would keep it up--our spirit
   might be willing enough to sympathize with him--but the weakness of our
   flesh would make us, like the Apostles, "heavy with sleep." I wonder
   not, therefore, if the Savior's supplication was long-continued and
   that His disciples grew weary and fell into a state of slumber!

   Probably, however, their sleeping was the result of the extraordinary
   excitement through which they had passed, for, as in extreme pain, kind
   Nature comes to the rescue and causes a swooning or fainting fit by
   which the poor sufferer is relieved. sometimes she comes in when there
   is a stress of mental excitement, whether joyous or grievous, and gives
   rest, even by unwilling slumber, to those who otherwise might have been
   exhausted. You remember, dear Friends, that these very persons fell
   asleep in Gethsemane. When their Master rose up from His agony of
   prayer and came back to them, "He found them sleeping for sorrow." They
   were themselves so depressed in spirit by His sufferings, that although
   they had true sympathy with Him, as far as they could have it, they
   fell asleep and their Master, while gently chiding them, made excuse
   for them as He said, "What, could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch
   and pray that you enter not into temptation: the spirit, indeed, is
   willing, but the flesh is weak."

   These Apostles are not the only persons who have slept in the presence
   of the grandly supernatural. It happened so to Daniel--that Seer with
   the burning eyes who seemed as if he could look right into the glories
   of Heaven without blinking or being blinded by the wondrous vision! Yet
   we read in his 8th Chapter, at the 18th verse, when an angel appeared
   to him, "Now as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my
   face toward the ground: but he touched me and set me upright." And
   further, in the 10th Chapter, at the 8th verse, we read, "Therefore I
   was left alone and saw this great vision,

   and there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned in
   me into corruption, and I retained no strength. Yet heard I the voice
   of his words: and when I heard the voice of his words, then was I in a
   deep sleep on my face, and my face toward the ground." These
   supernatural things are too much for mortal men to endure! The narrow
   compass of our mind cannot contain the Infinite and if, when we behold
   the Glory of God to an unusual degree, we do not die--if our lives are
   spared after we have seen that great sight--at least the image of death
   must come upon us and we must fall into a deep sleep. I will not,
   therefore, blame Peter, James and John for sleeping on that memorable
   occasion, for I do not think that there was any sin in their slumbering
   under such circumstances. They were Apostles, but they were only men
   and, being men, they were feeble creatures. And when they came into
   those deep waters, they were altogether out of their depth, so they
   began to sink in the ocean of the Divine Glory and soon were lost in
   the unconsciousness of sleep. Marvel not, therefore, Brothers and
   Sisters, that you find these three Apostles slumbering even in the
   Presence of their Transfigured Lord!

   But, now--and this will be our first head--it was necessary that they
   should be awake to see the glories of Christ Secondly, if you and I are
   to see the glories of Christ, it is necessary that we, also, should be
   awake, and that is more than can be said of all of us. I may say to
   some, "Let us not sleep as others do," for there are many who are so
   soundly sleeping that they are quite oblivious of the glories of
   Christ. When I have spoken on those two points, I want to close my
   discourse by showing you that this doctrine of the necessity of our
   wakefulness explains many things.

   I. "When they were awake, they saw His glory and the two men that stood
   with Him." So, first, IT WAS NECESSARY FOR THEM TO BE AWAKE TO SEE
   CHRIST'S GLORY.

   It was necessary, first, that Christ's Transfiguration might be known
   to be a fact--not a dream, nor a piece of imagination which had no real
   existence. "When they were awake, they saw His glory." It was a literal
   matter of fact to them. As surely as Christ was born at Bethlehem. As
   certainly as He toiled in the carpenter's shop at Nazareth. As truly as
   His blessed feet trudged over the holy fields of Judaea. As truly as He
   healed the sick and preached the Gospel wherever He went and as really
   as He did actually die upon the Cross of Calvary, so it is a matter of
   plain fact that Jesus Christ did, on a certain mountain--what mountain
   we do not know--undergo a wonderful change, for the time being, in
   which His glory was marvelously and distinctly displayed so that His
   three disciples could see it!

   "And, behold, there talked with Him two men"--Elijah, who never died,
   and who was there with Him bodily. And Moses, who did die, and so may
   only have been there in spirit, unless that dispute between Michael the
   Archangel and the devil, about the body of Moses, may relate to the
   fetching away of that body that he might enjoy the same privilege as
   Enoch and Elijah did. Of that matter, I know nothing, but those two
   men, Moses and Elijah, were certainly there--not merely in appearance,
   but in reality. And our Lord Jesus Christ was really transfigured--"the
   fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and
   glistening." It is true that Peter did not know what he said, but he
   knew what he saw when he was wide awake. The Revised Version renders
   our text, "When they were fully awake, they saw His glory and the two
   men that stood with Him." They had not imagined this scene while they
   were in a semiconscious state between sleeping and waking! It was no
   night vision or daydream. It was not something painted by fancy upon
   their eyeballs and which had no actual existence, but it was a real
   meeting between their Lord and Moses and Elijah. They did see Christ
   and His two companions from Heaven and they did hear the Father's
   voice, saying, "This is My beloved Son: hear Him."

   Peter did not know what he said, but he knew what he heard. He was wide
   awake enough to understand that message and, long afterwards, he
   recalled it when he wrote concerning his Lord, "For He received from
   God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him
   from the excellent glory, This is My beloved Son in whom I am well
   pleased. And this voice which came from Heaven we heard, when we were
   with Him on the holy mount." So, you see, dear Friends, that they had
   to be awake in order that they might be able to confirm all this as an
   actual occurrence. And, to my mind, this is very pleasant. I like to
   remember that the Lord Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, let some beams of His
   glory shine out even while He was here below. And if, in His
   humiliation, His transfigured face appeared so bright, what must His
   glory be above where His face shines brighter than the sun, and His
   eyes are as flames of fire, and his feet like fine brass, as if they
   burned in a furnace? What is now the matchless beauty of that Visage
   which was marred more than that of any other man? When He did but for a
   moment withdraw the veil, His disciples were overwhelmed with the
   magnificence of the display! But what must it be to see His face
   forever in Heaven above?

   Next, it was necessary that the disciples should be awake, that they
   might see the real glory of Christ I trust they were spiritual enough
   to know that the splendor which they saw was not the essential glory of
   Christ's Godhead, for that no man can see. Neither was it that secret
   spiritua1 glory which Christ always had, for that is not a sight for
   human eyes to behold, but for loving hearts to think of with reverent
   affection. But it was a special glow which was, for the time, shed upon
   His Humanity and even upon the garments in which that Humanity was
   arrayed, so that "His raiment was white and glistening." The Apostles
   then saw Christ in some measure as He will be, by-and-by, and, being
   fully awake, they knew that it was not an illusion that they were
   looking upon, but that it was real glory which streamed from the
   Savior's face and from every part of His most blessed and adorable
   Person. We are glad to know that Christ has no fictitious honors and no
   empty pomp, but that there is about Him a real glory which our opened
   eyes may see and which we may perceive without being fanatical or
   frenzied! Such a glory as we can see in the time of our quiet, calm
   judgment and earnest, deliberate thought, when every faculty is in full
   exercise and our whole soul is in the enjoyment of the utmost degree of
   vigorous health. I care little for the visions that need night,
   curtains and dreams before they can be perceived! I prefer the glory
   which can be seen by a man when he is fully awake and all his faculties
   are awakened so that he is able to discern between truth and fiction,
   and to detect any imposition that may be attempted to be played upon
   him.

   Further, these disciples were fully awake that they might perceive
   somewhat of the greatness of Christ's glory. Do you not envy these
   three holy men who saw our Lord in the holy mount? So glorious was He
   that even the mountain, itself, was made "holy" wherein this
   transaction occurred, for so Peter called it. From that time it was as
   holy as Sinai, itself, where God came down in terrible pomp of power to
   proclaim His Law. Had not these Apostles been wide awake, they would
   not have perceived how truly marvelous is Christ's glory. What would
   not any of us give, just now, for a sight of Christ with our eyes wide
   awake? What must He be like who is the very center of Heaven's glory?
   All the grandeur of man is but external, but there is about Christ's
   very face a beauty of character which continually shines out--the
   luster of Deity which gleams through His Humanity so that to see Him as
   He is must be the fairest sight in the whole universe! To behold Him
   but for a momentmust be the most dazzling vision that ever fell to the
   lot of men! Did you ever hear dying men and women talk about Him when
   they have begun to see Him? What strange words sometimes drop from
   their lips just as they are departing this life--giving us just a hint
   as to how grand He must be whose glory the Apostles saw when they were
   with Him on the holy mount!

   One thing which they were fully awake to see was this, the singularity
   of the glory. If you read the text, you will notice that when they were
   awake, "they saw His glory"--and the glory of Moses and Elijah? Oh, no!
   Not at all. But did they not see Moses and Elijah? Yes, but mark how
   the text sinks, as it were, when it speaks of them--"They saw His glory
   and the two men that stood with Him." There is nothing about any glory
   being around or upon them--they are nothing but "the two men that stood
   with Him." He is fairer than the children of men, greater than Moses
   and greater than Elijah, mighty as both of them were! I think that we
   never truly see Christ until we behold Him all alone--as we never see
   the sun and the stars at the same time. If you once see the sun
   flooding the sky with its glow, you will find that the stars have
   disappeared. The Apostles saw the greatest of the Prophets and the
   great law-giver, after whom there was never the like till Christ
   Himself came--yet the Inspired record concerning the event is, "They
   saw His glory and the two men that stood with Him." May you never see
   any earthly representatives of the Church of God in any higher place
   than this! In the Church and in all its ministers, may you see His
   glory and the men that stand with Him. And when you look upon those
   whose feet are beautiful because they proclaim the Gospel of Christ,
   yet may you only see His glory and the men that stand with Him to speak
   in His name!

   The Apostles needed to be wide awake to discern this difference and so
   do we, for many, nowadays, seem to have no more respect for Christ than
   they have for His disciples. I know that there are some who think more
   of a dogma that was promulgated by Calvin, because it is Calvin's, than
   they do of that which Christ has preached because it is Christ's! And
   there are some who will refer everything they believe to "The Minutes
   of Conference," or the sayings of Mr. Wesley, but some of the sayings
   of Christ do not seem to have as much weight with them. As for us, I
   trust that we may always see the true and noble men who stand with
   Christ, but, first of all, may we see His glory because Christ has
   awakened us out of that sinful sleep in which we make no distinction
   between the Master and the servant! Happy are we if He has taught us
   that the greatest of His servants is not worthy to unloose the laces of
   His shoes!

   So much, then, upon the necessity for these three men being fully
   awake.

   II. Now, Brothers and Sisters, let me speak to you upon the second part
   of our subject which is that IT IS NECESSARY FOR US, ALSO, TO BE AWAKE
   IF WE ARE TO SEE CHRIST'S GLORY.

   We have not dreamt our religion. It has not come to us as a vision of
   the night, but when we were fully awake, we saw Christ's glory. We have
   seen His glory when we have been awake without weariness, awake without
   pain, awake without losses, awake without fears and trembling. In our
   coolest moments, when there was the least likelihood of our being
   deceived, we have seen His glory as our Savior, our Helper, our Keeper,
   our All-in-All. Set that fact down, then, and stand to it before the
   face of every man who dares to speak a word against Jesus of Nazareth,
   the Son of God, that just as truly as "when they were awake, they saw
   His glory," so have we seen it in our most wakeful and calm and quiet
   moments!

   But, dear Friends, let me impress upon your minds the truth that, in
   order to see the glory of Christ, it is necessary that we should be
   fully awake. Are we fully awake? Is there a man among us who has even
   one eye wide open? Is there not a corner of it still sealed? Are our
   mental and spiritual faculties really quickened to the utmost, or are
   we not still, to a large extent, as dreamers compared with what we
   ought to be in the Presence of Christ? Come now, Brother, are your
   highest powers thoroughly awakened? I believe that it was so with
   Peter, James and John, and that what little spiritual faculty they then
   possessed--for they were then but babes in Grace--was fully awakened to
   learn all that could be learned from their Lord and Master in that
   mysterious manifestation of His glory. Are we in such a condition as
   that? There are many things that tend to make the soul go off into
   sleep, so let us bestir ourselves, for, unless all our powers of mind
   and heart are fixed upon our Lord, we shall not fully behold His glory.
   And if ever there was a sight that demanded and deserved all a man's
   powers of vision, it is the sight of the glorious Savior who stooped to
   die for us and who now is at the Fathers right hand interceding for us!
   When you hear the Gospel, hear it with both your ears and with your
   whole heart and soul! When you are present in the assembly of the
   saints, be really there--do not come, as some men do, leaving their
   real selves at home or at their place of business. They sit here and we
   think that they are here, but they are not! Their thoughts are far away
   over the seas, or in their shops, even when the preacher is proclaiming
   the glorious Gospel of the blessed God! You know that it is so with
   many, but we cannot expect to have a clear sight of Christ until we are
   fully awake as these three Apostles were upon the mountain.

   But to what shall we be awake? Well, first, it is a good thing to be
   awake to our present condition and circumstances. Brothers, Sisters,
   you would be in Hell within an hour if God did not keep you from it by
   His Grace. You who think you know Him best need constant supplies of
   His Grace, else you would fall into the most sorrowful condition. You
   are dependent upon Him every instant and for everything--for
   consistency of life, for the smallest grain of faith, for hope, for
   love, for peace, for joy, for steadfastness, for courage, for
   everything! Now, dear Friend, are you fully awake to that fact? Do any
   of us really feel how weak we are? How sinful we are? What floods of
   depravity there are pent up within us ready to burst out at any moment?
   Do we realize what terrible volcanic fires are hidden within our
   thoughts, as if the fury of Gehenna had entered our nature? And who
   alone can save us and who does save us? Brothers and Sisters, when you
   are thoroughly awake to your dangers, to your needs, to your
   weaknesses, then you will see Christ's glory! He is never rightly
   valued until we see ourselves to be utterly valueless! Low thoughts of
   self make high thoughts of Christ. Lord, awake us to know what we are,
   for then shall we begin to see the glories of Your Son!

   We must also be thoroughly awake to the mercies that we are constantly
   receiving. Thousands of blessings come to us when we are sound asleep
   in our beds and, oftentimes, we know nothing of many favors that come
   to us in broad day-light--we are asleep, as it were, concerning them.
   Think, dear Christian people, of your election! Think of your
   redemption! Think of your effectual calling, of your cleansing by the
   precious blood! Think of your washing by the Spirit with water by the
   Word! Think how you have been held up, supplied, educated, comforted,
   strengthened! Think of what yet remains for you of peace and joy in
   this life and of the abundant entrance into the everlasting Kingdom of
   your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! Let your mind contemplate all the
   mercies that are sure to come to you--and bless the Lord for them even
   before they come, as faith reckons them to be already here. When you
   are awake to all these mercies, then you will see your Lord's glory.
   All these blessings will make you see what a glorious Savior--what an
   infinitely gracious Lord He is to you! Father of Mercies, wake us up to
   a sense of Your mercies, that we may see the glory of Jesus in them

   all!

   And, dear Friends, we ought also to be awake to all manner of holy
   exercises. For instance, when we are awake to prayer, then we see
   Christ's glory. Often what are our prayers? At morning and night a few
   hurried sentences, when we are either half-asleep or scarcely awake. I
   mean that, at night, we are ready to go to sleep over our devotions and
   we nod even while we pray. And in the morning, when we get up, we have
   hardly time, through the demands of business, to spend a proper time in
   fellowship with our Lord. I bless God for our Prayer Meetings, for
   there is much that is good in them. But do we, even there, pray as we
   should? Those who speak for us are often graciously helped, but are not
   those of us who sit silent and who should be praying to God, often
   thinking of a thousand things instead of our supplications? We cannot
   expect to meet with Christ while we are in prayer unless we are wide
   awake! Then think of our singing. Praise is a blessed way of getting
   near to Christ, but sometimes people sing mechanically, as if they were
   wound up, like the old-fashioned organs that ground out a tune with
   painful regularity--the poor pipes knowing nothing, of course, about
   the sense or the meaning of the music--for there was no living hand to
   touch the keys. Yet we sometimes sing like that--

   "Hosannahs languish on our tongues,

   And our devotion dies." But, oh, when we are thoroughly awake in our
   singing, then are we able to--

   "Behold the glories of the Lamb

   Amidst His Father's Throne"--

   and then we also--

   "Prepare new honors for His name, And songs before unknown."

   Many of us are coming presently to the Table of our Lord--what will
   happen if we come there half-awake? Well, we shall not see the glory of
   Christ in His ordinance! There will be bread and there will be wine,
   but, to us, there will be nothing more, no body of Christ, no blood of
   Christ, to be our spiritual meat and drink. The Master will not come
   and sit down with a company of nodding disciples, all fast asleep
   around the Table which is the special memorial of His great love to us.
   "When they were awake, they saw His glory." And it must be the same
   with us, also.

   Now I want to press this thought home a little more closely. Brothers
   and Sisters, if we are fully awake to holy service, then we shall see
   the glory of Christ. Those among you who live to win souls for Christ,
   whose soul is all on fire to try and carry the Gospel into some place
   where as yet it is not known, are certain to see the glory of Christ.
   While you serve Him, you shall see His face as they do who are with Him
   in Heaven! I have read a great many biographies of men and women who
   were full of doubts and fears, but when I have been reading about a man
   who was full of sacred zeal, one who was wholly consecrated to the
   service of his Savior, I have found very little about his doubts and
   fears. Those two seraphic men, Whitefield and Wesley, seemed to have no
   time for depression of spirits. They were always about their Master's
   business. They flashed through the earth like flames of fire! They
   seemed to be so girt about by God with His strength that they rode upon
   the whirlwind and, consequently, as a rule, they enjoyed the Presence
   of their Lord and were full of holy delight in Him.

   So I believe it will be with those of us who addict ourselves to our
   Master's service with all our might. If you are doing nothing for
   Christ, you cannot expect to have His Presence and blessing. But if you
   are serving Him with all your heart, not from the low motive that you
   may win something by it, but entirely out of love to Him, then will He
   come and manifest Himself to you as He does not unto the world! Some
   Christians walk so slowly that sin easily overtakes them, while Christ
   goes far before them, for He always walks a good honest pace and likes
   not the sluggard's crawl. And some professors seldom get beyond that
   pace, so they see but little of Him whom they call Master. If they were
   awake--awake to His service--then they would see His glory!

   But above all, dear Friends, we must be awake with regard to our Lord
   Himself. Oh, that our hearts were fully awake to His love! He says to
   each Believer, "I have loved you with an everlasting love." Does our
   wakeful heart reply, "Yes, Lord, that You have"? Are we awake to
   remember all that He did by way of love even to the death for us? Are
   we so awake as to have continually before us His Divine and Human
   Person--His blessed condescending life--His wondrous atoning death? Are
   we wide awake enough awake to know that He is with us now? Do you not
   think that we are often like the disciples who saw Jesus standing by
   the sea and knew not that it was Jesus? He comes to us in the way of
   sickness, in the way of bereavement, in the way of heart-searching! We
   do not know that it is Jesus, yet it is. Our eyes are blinded because
   of our sleeping! If we were awake, we would soon perceive His glory. O
   blessed Savior, by Your Cross

   and passion, by Your glorious Resurrection and Ascension, awaken all
   our spirits to perceive that You are not far from any one of Your
   people and that Your Word is still true, "Lo, I am with you always,
   even unto the end of the world." III. I must not keep you much longer,
   but I want to say that THIS DOCTRINE OF THE NECESSITY OF OUR

   WAKEFULNESS IN ORDER THAT WE MAY SEE THE GLORY OF CHRIST, THROWS A
   LIGHT ON SEVERAL THINGS.

   First, it shows us why some see so little of the glory of Christ '
   'Ah," says one, "I used to see it. I could not get through a sermon
   without being moved at the thought of my Savior suffering for me, and
   rising for me. But now I do not seem to get any good out of all the
   services I attend." Whose fault is that? It is not His, for He is
   unchanged. Is it mine? Perhaps so and yet, since others see him, surely
   the blame cannot be allmine. Is it not your fault, Friend? You are not
   as wide awake as you used to be! It is a curious thing when a man says,
   "I do not knew how it is that I cannot see as I used to." Why, he has
   not got his eyes open! Foolish man, let him awaken himself and when he
   is thoroughly awake, then his eyes will be as good as ever and he will
   see as much of his Lord's glory as he used to! Old age has not come
   upon you yet, my Brother, my Sister, though you sorrowfully sing--

   "Where is the blessedness I knew

   When first I saw the Lord?" Let me alter one line of the hymn and then
   you may sing--

   "Where is the wakefulness I knew,

   When first I saw the Lord?"

   When you first joined the Church, you were all alive! Every power of
   your being was full of zeal and earnestness. Do you recollect how you
   stood in the aisle and never seemed to get tired? You wished that the
   preacher would keep on for another half-hour. You remember how you
   could walk several miles to the service, then, and when the minister
   said, "I think you live too far away to worship with us," you replied,
   "Oh, no, Sir! The distance is nothing when I get such food for my soul
   as I find here. I am glad of the walk. It does me good." Now you write
   a little note to say that you live so far off that you cannot often
   come to the services. It also happens that you live far from every
   other place of worship, too, so you begin to stay away from the House
   of God--and then do you wonder that you feel no power and no delight in
   your Lord? Of course you do not, for you are sound asleep! When you
   awake again, you will see Christ's glory. Oh, for wakeful piety,
   earnest religion--and plenty of it--no mere sprinkling of Grace, but a
   thorough immersion into the very depths of it! May the Lord, in His
   mercy, cause you to be filled with all the fullness of God, by the
   power of His Spirit, till you shall be carried right away into a holy
   life that shall write over the natural life of your manhood, "I live,
   yet not I, but Christ lives in me."

   Next, does not this fact explain why, in trials, we often get our
   sweetest fellowship with Christ? If I might mark out the happiest
   periods of my life, I would not choose those in which outward mercies
   have been multiplied and success has followed success. But I think that
   I would especially note those times when abuse followed abuse, when I
   could hardly say a word without its being misrepresented and something
   horrible being made out of things which were as good as good could
   be--when lies flew about me as bullets whistle round the warrior's ears
   in the midst of the battle! Then it was that I kept close to Christ and
   lived on Him, alone, and I was among the happiest of the happy! When
   the dog barks, then the people of the household wake up and the
   burglars will not be likely to get in! And, sometimes, our troubles are
   the very best things that can happen to us because they wake us up and
   drive Satan away and make us fit us to see Christ's glory! We got into
   a careless, drowsy condition when we were rich and increased in
   goods--and then we went to sleep. So our Master came and pulled the bed
   from under us and made us feel the cold--then we woke up and found that
   Christ was close beside us, and our heart was glad. Thus, affliction or
   trial is often a blessed means of Grace because it wakes us up so that
   we see Christ's glory.

   This fact also explains why dying saints often declare that they have
   such blessed sights of Christ. Is it not because, as they die, they
   really begin to live? They shake off the dull encumbrance of this house
   of clay and they get into a clearer light, and so they truly live. They
   wake up when they die! All their lifetime their business engagements or
   other cares occupied their thoughts. But now they have done with
   business, with care and they begin to awake, for the morning comes--the
   blessed, everlasting morning that shall never know an eventide--and
   they awake and see the glory of their Lord, and we, who sit by their
   bedside, are often amazed! We cannot understand what they describe, for
   we are the sleeping ones, and they are the awakened ones, waking up to
   see Christ's glory!

   But suppose that I were to take my text for just a minute and project
   it a little way into the future? We shall soon fall asleep, Brothers
   and Sisters. Some of the older ones among us will certainly do so!
   Others of us very probablywill do so, and all of us, unless the Lord
   shall come first, shall soon fall into that last quiet slumber which we
   call death. But, what a awakening there will be, first of our soul,
   when we shall see our Lord as He is! What must the first five minutes
   in Heaven be if there are any minutes where time is swallowed up in
   eternity? What must be the joy when, for the first time, we enter that
   land where "they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord
   God gives them light"? When we shall see the saints in Heaven, I
   suppose that we shall not say much about them. They will be like Moses
   and Elijah, "the two men that stood with Him." But, oh, when we shall
   get our first glimpse of Jesus on His Throne, that will be a ravishing
   sight beyond all conception! And then, when the next awakening comes,
   when the trumpet sounds its mighty blast, and these poor limbs arise
   out of their beds of clay, when we are awake, we shall see His glory!
   Then shall we be satisfied, when we awake in His likeness! And then
   shall His prayer be answered, "Father, I will that they, also, whom You
   have given Me, be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory."

   Well, Beloved, be content to go to bed when there is such an awakening
   in store for you! Learn to die every day. Regard your bed as a tomb and
   every time you give yourself up to unconsciousness, and the image of
   death is upon you, be practicing the art of dying, so that when, for
   the last time, you must go upstairs and lie down once again, it may be
   very, very sweet to feel, "I shall awake in the morning, the
   everlasting morning, when all these shadows of this night of grief and
   toil shall eternally have fled away! When I am awake, I shall see His
   glory!"

   The Lord grant to you and to me, dear Friends, to know all the bliss of
   awakening to behold His glory! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW17:1-5.

   [Mr. SPURGEON does not appear to have commented on the chapter read
   before he preached the foregoing Sermon. It has, therefore, been
   decided to insert his exposition of the parallel passage in Matthew, as
   he wrote it for The Gospel of the Kingdom. This will enable his Sermon
   readers, who do not possess his last literary work, to judge as to the
   contents of the volume upon which he was at workjust eight years ago,
   within a few days of receiving the call Home. It is one of the most
   precious of the many memorials of the "promoted" Pastor.]

   Verses 1, 2. And after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John, his
   brother, and led them up on a high mountain, and was transfigured
   before them: and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was
   white as the light. Were these "six days" a week's quiet interval in
   which our Lord prepared Himself for the amazing transaction upon the
   "high mountain"? Did the little company of three know from one Sabbath
   to another that such an amazing joy awaited them? The three were elect
   out of the elect, and favored to see what no one else in all the world
   might behold. Doubtless our Lord had reasons for His choice, as He has
   for every choice He makes, but He does not unveil them to us. The same
   three beheld the agony in the Garden. Perhaps the first sight was
   necessary to sustain their faith under the second. The name of the
   "high mountain" can never be known, for those who knew the location
   have left no information. Tabor, if you please. Hermen, if you prefer
   it. No one can decide. It was a lonely and lofty hill. While in prayer,
   the splendor of the Lord shone out. His face, lit up with its own inner
   glory, became a sun! And all His clothes, like clouds irradiated by
   that sun, became white as the light, itself. "He was transfigured
   before them." He alone was the center of what they saw. It was a
   marvelous unveiling of the hidden Nature of the Lord Jesus. Then was,
   in one way, fulfilled the word of John-- "The Word was made flesh and
   dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory." The Transfiguration occurred
   but once. Special views of the glory of Christ are not enjoyed every
   day. Our highest joy on earth is to see Jesus. There can be no greater
   bliss in Heaven! And we shall be better able to endure the exceeding
   bliss when we have laid aside the burden of this flesh.

   3. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elijah talking with
   Him. Thus the Law and the Prophets, "Moses and Elijah," communed with
   our Lord, "talking with Him," and entering into familiar conversation
   with their Lord. Saints long departed still live! They live in their
   personality. They are known by their names and enjoy near access to
   Christ. It is a great joy to holy ones to be with Jesus. They find it
   Heaven to be where they can talk with Him. The

   heads of former dispensations conversed with the Lord as to His decease
   by which a new economy would be ushered in. After condescending so long
   to His ignorant followers, it must have been a great relief to the
   human soul of Jesus to talk with two masterminds like those of Moses
   and Elijah! What a sight for the Apostles, this glorious trio! They
   "appeared unto them," but they, "talked with Him." The objective of the
   two holy ones was not to converse with Apostles, but with their Master.
   Although saints are seen of men, their fellowship is with Jesus

   4. Then answered Peter and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to
   be here. If You will, let us make here three tabernacles; one for You,
   and one for Moses, and one for Elijah. The sight spoke to the three
   beholders, and they felt bound to answer to it. Peter must speak--"Then
   answered Peter." That which is uppermost comes out--"Lord, it is good
   for us to be here." Everybody was of his opinion. Who would not have
   been? Because it was so good, he would gladly stay in this beatific
   state and get still more good from it. But he has not lost his
   reverence and, therefore, he would have the great ones suitably
   sheltered. He submits the proposal to Jesus. "If You will." He offers
   that, with his Brothers, he will plan and build shrines for the three
   holy ones. "Let us make here three tabernacles." He does not propose to
   build for himself, and James, and John, but he says, "One for You, and
   one for Moses, and one for Elijah." His talk sounds rather like that of
   a bewildered child! He wanders a little, yet his expression is a most
   natural one. Who would not wish to abide in such society as this?
   Moses, Elijah and Jesus! What company! But yet how unpractical is
   Peter. How selfish the one thought, "It is good for us"! What was to be
   done for the rest of the twelve and for the other disciples, and for
   the wide, wide world? A sip of such bliss might be good for the three,
   but to continue to drink thereof might not have been really good, even
   for them. Peter knew not what he said. The same might be said of many
   another excited utterance of enthusiastic saints.

   5. While he yet spoke, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and
   behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is My beloved Son, in
   Whom I am well pleased. Hear Him. "While he yet spoke." Such wild talk
   might well be interrupted! What a blessed interruption! We may often
   thank the Lord for stopping our babbling. "A bright cloud overshadowed
   them." It was bright and cast a shadow. They felt that they were
   entering it and feared as they did so. It was a singular experience,
   yet we have had it repeated in our own cases. Do we not know what it is
   to get shadow out of brightness and "a voice out of the cloud"? This is
   after the frequent manner of the Lord in dealing with His favored ones.
   The voice was clear and distinct. First came the Divine attestation of
   the Sonship of our Lord, "This is My beloved Son," and the Father's
   declaration of delight in Him, "in Whom I am well pleased." What
   happiness for us that Jehovah is well pleased in Christ and with all
   who are in Him! Then followed the consequent Divine requirement, "Hear
   Him." It is better to hear the Son of God than to see saints, or to
   build tabernacles. This will please the Father more than all else that
   love can suggest. The good pleasure of the Father in the Lord Jesus is
   a conspicuous part of His glory. The voice conveyed to the ear a
   greater glory than the luster of light could communicate through the
   eyes. The audible part of the Transfiguration was as wonderful as the
   visible!
     __________________________________________________________________

Fallen Asleep

   (No. 2659)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 28, 1900.

   (C. H. Spurgeon Memorial Sabbath).

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   JANUARY 29, 1882.

   [Just 10 years before he fell asleep in Jesus.]

   "Some are fallen asleep." 1 Corinthians 15:6.

   Writing concerning the brethren who had seen the Lord Jesus Christ
   after His Resurrection and of whom "above five hundred" were present at
   one time, Paul said, at the date when he was writing this Epistle, "the
   greater part" remained alive, "but," he added, "some are fallen
   asleep."

   We might have thought that God, in great mercy, would have preserved
   the lives of those 500 brethren to an extreme old age, that, in every
   part of the globe, there might be extant, as long as possible, someone
   who would be able to say, "I beheld the Son of God when He was upon the
   earth. I heard Him preach. I saw Him die on the Cross and then I looked
   upon Him again after He had risen from the grave." Every one of these
   witnesses would have been worth his weight in gold to the Christian
   religion! Wherever such a man lived, he would have been, under the
   blessing of God, the means of convincing many people of the truth of
   our glorious faith! Yet, dear Friends, it does not appear that these
   invaluable brethren were spared the shafts of death. These witnesses of
   Christ's Resurrection died as other men did. They had no immunity from
   death and no extreme old age was granted to them, for the Apostle,
   writing not so very long after the event, said, "Some are fallen
   asleep."

   From this fact I gather that lives which appear to us to be extremely
   necessary, may not be so regarded by God! Your own observation will, I
   am sure, agree with mine, that the Lord sometimes takes from us those
   whom we can least spare. Those who seemed to be the pillars of the
   Church have been suddenly removed. The fathers among us--those who have
   been the bravest confessors of the faith--or the most useful servants
   of the Savior, have been called away. This should teach us--if we are
   wise enough to learn the lesson--to regard the most invaluable person
   in our own Israel as being only lent to us by the Lord, for a season,
   and liable to be summoned to higher service at any moment! Possibly,
   God takes some men away from us because we think them absolutely
   necessary. He will not let us trust in an arm of flesh--and if He is so
   condescending as to use human feebleness and we go and confide in the
   feebleness--and suppose that God's strength is tied up to it--in secret
   jealousy He removes the instruments that He has used, that men may
   learn not to glory in their fellow men, or to make idols out of their
   Christian brethren and fathers!

   It is probable that these witnesses of Christ's Resurrection enjoyed a
   large measure of reverence from the members of the Christian Church.
   Had they lived very long, they might have been regarded with a
   superstitious and almost idolatrous reverence. God intended that His
   Church should increasingly live by faith, not by sight, so, while she
   was in her infancy He gave her the prop of miracles and also the
   support of living witnesses. But when she had somewhat increased in
   strength, He no longer gave the power to work miracles, but left her to
   rest upon His Word, alone. And as she further progressed, He, in a few
   years, took away the earthly witnesses of Christ's life, death and
   Resurrection, that the Eternal

   Spirit, working through the Word, might stand, to all time, as the
   living and unfailing Witness of the fact that Jesus lived, died and
   "rose again the third day according to the Scriptures."

   The lesson for us all to learn is just this--let us not set too much
   store by any of God's servants and, especially--let us never reckon
   that we are essential to the carrying on of His work! The fly upon the
   chariot wheel was easily to be dispensed with and so are we. Like
   shadows we have come--like shadows we shall go. We may be missed--I
   hope we shall all live so that many will miss us when we are gone. But
   they will brush their tears away and both the world and the Church--and
   especially the Church--will continue to go on without us! While Jesus
   lives, whoever may die, we shall never have to say, "My father, my
   father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!" But still
   shall the Church of God flourish and increase, for the Spirit of God is
   with her.

   Paul wrote, "Some are fallen asleep." Of course all the witnesses who
   personally saw Christ have long ago fallen asleep, but, among
   ourselves, it is also true that, "some are fallen asleep." And the
   Truth of God is impressed upon us more and more forcibly every week. I
   never expect, now, to come to this place on two succeeding Sabbaths
   without hearing that some one or other of our friends has departed. Our
   death-rate, for many years, has been wonderfully small, for God seems
   to have favored us by sparing us to one another. We must not forget
   that in past days more of our number were young than is the case with
   us now and, as we all march onwards towards the inevitable river, the
   deaths will naturally be more numerous among us than they have been.
   They are beginning to be so, already, and I am continually hearing of
   one or another of our most useful Brothers or Sisters being "called
   Home." Almost every day this Truth of God is impressed upon me--"Some
   are fallen asleep." I suppose that all the year round, almost as
   regularly as the clock ticks, about two a week of our Church members,
   beside others out of the congregation, are taken up to dwell in the
   Master's Presence. So my subject concerns us just as much as it did
   those of whom and to whom the Apostle wrote.

   I. Now, coming to the text, I call your attention, first, to THE FIGURE
   USED HERE--"Some are fallen asleep." In the heathen part of the
   catacombs of Rome, the inscriptions over the place where their dead
   were buried are full of lamentation and despair. Indeed, the writers of
   those inscriptions do not appear to have been able to find words in
   which they could express their great distress--their agony of heart--at
   the loss of child, or husband, or friend. They pile the mournful words
   together to try to describe their grief. Sometimes, they declare that
   the light has gone from their sky now their dear ones are taken from
   them. "Alas! Alas!" says the record, "dear Caius has gone and with him
   all joy is quenched forever, for I shall see him no more." Heathenism
   is hopeless to afford any comfort to the bereaved!

   But when you come into that part of the catacombs which was devoted to
   Christian burial, everything is different. There you may constantly
   read these consoling words, "He sleeps in peace." There is nothing
   dreadful or despairing in the inscriptions there--they are submissive,
   they are cheerful, they are even thankful! Frequently they are
   victorious and the most common emblem is--not the quenched torch, as it
   is on the heathen side, where the light is supposed to have gone out
   forever--but the palm branch, to signify that the victory remains
   eternally with the departed one. It is the glow of the Christian
   religion to have let light into the sepulcher, to have taken the sting
   away from death and, in fact, to have made it no more death to die!

   The figure used here is that of falling asleep. It describes first, the
   act, and then the state. "Some are fallen asleep." That is the act of
   death. Having fallen asleep, they remain so--that is the state of
   death. For a Christian to die, is, according to Scripture, an act of
   the most natural kind, for it is but to fall asleep. What that act
   really is, in its literal meaning, I cannot fully explain to you,
   though I know by long personal experience--and all of you know, and
   will soon know, again, if you are permitted to fall asleep, tonight,
   and to wake in the morning! Yet you never knew exactly when you went to
   sleep. You have often wanted to go to sleep, but you could not and,
   probably nobody has ever gone to sleep while he has tried to do so. But
   it is when all idea of forcing slumber has gone from us that gradually
   we pass into a state of unconsciousness. Such, perhaps, is death--the
   sinking away and becoming unconscious of this world, and asleep to
   it--though happily conscious of another world and sweetly awake to it.
   That is the act of falling asleep.

   Then, after the act of falling asleep, which is death, comes the state
   of sleep in which rest is the main ingredient Are Believers, then,
   asleep? Yes, and no. Never make a figure run on four legs when it was
   only meant to go on two. Some people, when they get hold of a metaphor,
   want to make it have as many feet as a centipede--and they seek to draw
   all sorts of parallels which were never intended to be drawn. The fact
   is that the saints sleep, first, as to their bodies. There they are in
   the cemetery--which means the sleeping-place--till dawns the bright
   illustrious day when these bodies shall

   wake again. As for their souls, they are asleep as to this world--their
   memory and their love are things of the past--they are, alike,
   unknowing and unknown as far as this earth is concerned. As to that
   other world, we read that they shall be "forever with the Lord." Our
   Savior said to the penitent thief--"Today shall you be with Me in
   Paradise." And the prayer of Christ for His people was that we might be
   with Him where He is--not to be asleep--but to behold His glory, the
   glory which the Father had given Him.

   Hence, the word, "sleep," is not to be regarded as implying that the
   souls of the departed lie in a state of unconsciousness. It is nothing
   of the kind! It is unconsciousness as to the things of time and sense,
   but a blessed consciousness as to another and a fairer and brighter and
   better world than this! Even while I am in this mortal state, when I am
   asleep, though I may be unaware of anything that is happening in my
   bedroom, yet, full often, in my sleep, my mind is soaring on the wings
   of eagles, mounting up to Heaven, or diving into the depths, conscious
   of dreamland, and of the spirit land, though unconscious of the present
   world for the time being!

   The meaning of the term is evidently this--as sleep brings to us rest,
   the blessed ones, who have fallen asleep in Christ, are perfectly at
   rest. It is delightful for a man, who has worked very hard all day, to
   forget his toils and fall asleep. Well did Young write, in his Night
   Thoughts, concerning--

   "Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." In his sleep, the
   prisoner in the dungeon forgets his manacles. The slave in the galley
   forgets his bondage. The poor man forgets his poverty and he who dreads
   the approach of danger drinks a draught of the waters of Lethe and
   remembers his fears no more. What a blessing sleep is to this poor,
   weary frame and to the throbbing brain! The saints in Heaven have a
   better rest than sleep can give, but sleep is the nearest word we can
   find to describe the state of the blessed. They have no poverty, no
   toil, no anguish of spirit, no remorse, no struggling with indwelling
   sin, no battling with foes without and fears within. "They rest from
   their labors and their works do follow them." Oh, what a sweet thing to
   fall asleep, if this is what it means--to enjoy perfect repose and to
   be beyond the reach of all influences which make life here to be so
   sorrowful! "Some are fallen asleep," that is, they have entered into
   their rest.

   By falling asleep, again, is meant a state of security. The man who is
   in the battle may be wounded and may die, but he who has gone up to his
   chamber to sleep is supposedly there to be at peace and out of the
   reach of danger, though that is not always the case. But, in those
   heavenly chambers where the Lord shall hide away His people, they shall
   be perfectly secure. They will never have to keep watch against "the
   arrow that flies by day," or, "the pestilence that walks in darkness."
   They are out of gunshot of the enemy! As Dr. Payson said, when he was
   dying, "The battle is fought," so is it with them--the battle is fought
   and the victory is won forever! Therefore have they ascended to the
   hilltops of Glory and to the chambers of eternal rest! And there they
   sleep while we still struggle hand to hand with the enemy, with many a
   deadly thrust and many an ugly wound. God be praised that there is a
   place of safety for all the soldiers of the Cross! "Some are fallen
   asleep," and so shall we, in due time, if we are fighting under the
   banner of Emmanuel, God with us!

   Now let us learn, from this figure of falling asleep, a little about
   death and, especially, about a Christian's death. I learn from it,
   first, that the act is not a painful one, nor even a disagreeable one.
   As I have said before, I cannot really tell what falling asleep is, for
   in the very act we, ourselves, pass out of the consciousness of it.
   But, as far as one has watched children falling asleep, there certainly
   is no appearance of any pain, for usually they drop off into slumber
   very happily--and that is how God's people shall do when they fall
   asleep in Jesus. Do not regard your departure out of the world as a
   thing to be surrounded with horror! Do not conjure up hobgoblins, evil
   spirits, darkness and terror! "The Valley of the Shadow of Death," of
   which David spoke, I do not think was ever meant to be applied to
   dying, for it is a valley that he walks through and he comes out the
   other side of it! And it is not the Valley of Death, but only of "the
   Shadow of Death." I have walked through that valley many a time--right
   through from one end of it to the other--and yet I have not died! The
   grim shadow of something worse than death has fallen over my spirit,
   but God has been with me, as He was with David, and His rod and His
   staff have comforted me. And many here can say the same! And I believe
   that often those who feel great gloom in going through "the Valley of
   the Shadow of Death," feel no gloom at all when they come to the Valley
   of Death itself! There has generally been brightness there for the most
   sorrowful spirits and those who, before going there, have groveled in
   the dust, have been enabled to mount as on eagles' wings when they have
   actually come to the place of their departure into the future state.

   The more you think this matter over, the more clearly will it appear to
   you that there cannot be any pain in death-- all pain must be connected
   with life--it is the living who suffer. In death, we forget all pain.
   That gentle touch, that Divine love-pat that shall end all pain and
   sorrow is the thing which men usually call death, but which the Apostle
   rightly calls sleep. There is nothing to be dreaded in it! It may be
   altogether unattended with pain. I believe that full often it is so. To
   fall asleep is a very natural act and so it is for us to die. A little
   child has been playing in the field gathering buttercups and daisies
   all day long, but, at last, tired right out, he drops asleep upon his
   mother's lap. What could he do better? So, though we may be unwilling
   to die, the time will come when we shall have finished our life-work or
   play, whichever you may please to call it--and we shall fall asleep
   upon the bosom of our God. What better thing could we do? There is a
   dear old friend of mine, now in Heaven and, when he came to this house,
   one Sunday, I said to him, "Our old friend, So-and-So, has gone Home."
   The one to whom I spoke was an old man himself, one of our most
   gracious elders, and he looked at me in a most significant way and his
   eyes twinkled as he said, "He could not do better, dear Pastor! He
   could not do better and you and I will do the same thing one of these
   days. We, also, shall go Home!" Our aged friend, as I told you, has
   gone Home since that time, and now I may say of him, "He could not have
   done better." Why, that is where good children always go at
   night--home! If they ran away, where would they go? When our night
   comes, beloved children of God, you and I also must go Home--do we feel
   at all afraid of such a prospect? If so, surely our love to our
   Heavenly Father, and to our Elder Brother, and to our Home above must
   be growing somewhat cold.

   And then, again, if we did not die, we would wish to do so. Certainly,
   when people cannot sleep, that is the very thing they crave for! There
   have, perhaps, been times when you have been ready to take something
   which would help to keep you awake when you have needed to do some
   special work, or to watch over some precious sick one. But when night
   follows night and there has been no sleep for you, you do not want
   anything to keep you awake, then, but you long for sleep. "Oh, that I
   could sleep!" you cry. We regard it, always, as a bad symptom when the
   sufferer says, "I cannot sleep." The disciples said, concerning
   Lazarus, "If he sleeps, he shall do well," and they spoke wisely,
   although they misunderstood the meaning of the word, sleep, in that
   connection. And, surely, we shall do well when we fall asleep in Jesus!
   It shall become to us the most blessed thing that God Himself can send
   us. Oh, if we could not die, it would be indeed horrible! Who wants to
   be chained to this poor life for a century or longer?

   There came to me one of whom I may tell the story, for he is now dead
   and he said that if I would do his bidding, I would live forever here,
   for he had discovered a great secret by which men need never die. I
   said to him, "Sir, you seem to me like a man of seventy, and I should
   say that you are getting on towards death, yourself." He replied, "Oh,
   no! I expect some little rash will come out all over me, in a few
   years, and then I shall be quite young again, and start living for
   another hundred years." He told me that the people would believe his
   teaching when he had been here six or seven hundred years. And I
   answered that I thought it was very likely that they would! He offered
   to share his great secret with me, dear good man that he was, but I
   replied, "I would not give a button to know it--why should I want to
   live in this wretched penal colony forever?" He talked to me for some
   little time and when he found that he could make no impression on me,
   to consummate his madness, he asked me to go outside my door with him.
   He lifted up the knocker and rapped two or three times, saying very
   solemnly, "Too late! Too late! You cannot enter now!" He said that he
   had shut me out of the blessing of living here forever and so I said to
   him, "I am very much obliged to you for doing me such a kindness!"

   He printed books and gave lectures on the subject, being fully
   persuaded in his own mind that he would never die. But he has died--I
   knew he would and I told him so. He said it was my lack of faith which
   made me talk like that, but he himself was confident that he would
   never die. Oh, what an awful thing it would be if that man's fad could
   be a fact! Superstition declares it to be the curse upon "the wandering
   Jew" that he should never die. God be thanked that such a curse has
   never fallen upon us! No, unless the Lord should come first, we shall
   fall asleep in Him--and what a blessed thing it must be to fall asleep
   on the bosom of Christ! The child may be afraid to be put to bed in the
   dark, but it never fears to fall asleep upon its mother's breast. And
   we might dread to be laid to rest, out there in the cold cemetery, all
   alone, but we do not fear to sleep in Jesus! Such a state as that is a
   thing to be desired, not to be dreaded!

   II. Now let us come to our second point, THE THOUGHTS AWAKENED BY THIS
   FIGURE--"Some are fallen asleep."

   First, thinking about the many who have fallen asleep, let me ask--How
   did you treat them? If your conscience pricks you concerning that
   matter, I want you to act towards the livingsaints in such a way as you
   would like to have

   done supposing you never see them again. When there has been an angry
   meeting or parting--when there have been hard words spoken, or when
   there have been unkind thoughts--when you could not enjoy true
   fellowship with some Christian friend, suppose that, the next morning,
   somebody came to your house and said, "Brother So-and-So is dead?" You
   would feel deeply pained to think that he had fallen asleep after you
   had so treated him. People have killed their minister by their
   unkindness--and there have been, alas, many who have done so! Those who
   have killed other persons--and there have been many of that sort, who
   have vexed and worried other people into their graves--may well think,
   with great sorrow, "Some are fallen asleep, but we did not treat them
   with the love and kindness we ought to have shown them." Think over
   that matter, dear Friends, and see to it that no such regrets shall be
   possible to you.

   "Some are fallen asleep." Then, who is to fill their place? Many have
   already gone from us this year and others keep on going. Sunday school
   teachers go--who will be "baptized for the dead"--by taking their
   places in the ranks and filling the gap? Hear this, you Church members
   who are doing nothing for Christ! "Some are fallen asleep." Let that
   little sentence be a clarion call to you to wake up and go and occupy
   the vacant positions, that the work of Christ may know no lack in any
   part of His vineyard! Wake up! Wake up! You who are asleep in another
   sense--now that so many are being taken away from us--dig up the talent
   that has been wrapped in a napkin and buried in the earth--and put it
   out to blessed usury by employing it in the Master's service!

   "Some have fallen asleep." Then you and I will also fall asleep before
   long. It cannot be a long while for some of you who are getting gray or
   white. It may be a very short time for some of us who have scarcely
   reached the middle of life. And even you young folk may soon fall
   asleep, too, for I have seen a child asleep in the morning as well as
   at night, and so have you. Oh, let us not live in this world as if we
   thought of staying here forever, but let us try to be like a pious
   Scotch minister who was very ill and, being asked by a friend whether
   he thought himself dying, answered, "Really, Friend, I care not whether
   I am or not for, if I die, I shall be with God. And if I live, He will
   be with me." There is not much to choose between those two blessed
   states! But let us remember, by the memory of everyone who has fallen
   asleep, that the time of our own departure is coming, by-and-by, and it
   may be very soon!

   But, as for those who have fallen asleep in Jesus, we need not fret or
   trouble ourselves about them. To cut their faces, in token of their
   mourning for the dead, was natural to the heathen--well might they
   torture themselves in their hopeless grief, for they believed the
   separation to be eternal! But as for us, when children go upstairs to
   bed, do their elder brothers and sisters, who sit up later, gather
   together and cry because the other children have fallen asleep? Ah, no!
   They feel that they have not lost them, and they expect to meet again
   in the morning--and so do we! Therefore, let us not weep and lament to
   excess concerning the dear ones who are fallen asleep in Christ, for
   all is well with them! They are at rest--shall we weep about that? They
   are enjoying their eternal triumph--shall we weep about that? They are
   as full of bliss as they can possibly be--shall we weep about that? If
   any of your sons and daughters were taken away from you to be made into
   kings and queens in a foreign land, you might shed a tear or two at
   parting, but you would say, "It is for their good, let them go." And do
   you grudge your well-beloved their crown of glory and all the bliss
   which God has bestowed upon them? If the departed could speak to us,
   they would say, "Bless God for us! Do not sit down and mourn because we
   have entered into His Glory, but rather rejoice because we are with Him
   where He is." Therefore let us comfort one another with these words.

   III. Lastly, Brothers and Sisters, let us think, for just a minute or
   two, of THE HOPES CONFIRMED BY THIS FIGURE--"Some are fallen asleep."

   First, then, they are still ours. If they were really dead, we might
   say that we had lost them, but as they have only fallen asleep, they
   are still ours! Wordsworth proclaimed a great Truth of God in that
   simple little poem of his, "We are seven." There were some of the
   family buried in the churchyard, but the girl still declared that they
   were seven--and so they were! Did you ever notice, concerning Job's
   children, that when God gave him twice as much substance as he had
   before, he gave him only the same number of children as he formerly
   had? The Lord gave him twice as much gold and twice as much of all
   sorts of property, but He only gave him the exact number of children
   that he had before. Why did He not give the Patriarch double the number
   of children as well as twice the number of cattle? Why, because God
   reckoned the first ones as being still his! They were dead to Job's
   eyes, but they were visible to Job's faith! God still numbered them as
   part of Job's family--and if you carefully count up how many children
   Job had, you will find that he had twice as

   many in the end as he had in the beginning! In the same way, consider
   your friends who are asleep in Christ as still yours--not lost, any one
   of them--and say of them, "Some are fallen asleep."

   "Our membership has been diminished," somebody says. Yes, it has been,
   according to the Church Book and the figures as we reckon them here,
   but it has not really been diminished. I have, by faith, seen our
   Brothers and Sisters flying, like doves to their windows, and ascending
   to Heaven from this place! Every week some of them are going to the
   land beyond the skies. My soul has often rejoiced as I have thought of
   the spiritual children whom God has given me. I might almost claim that
   great promise which was made to Abraham, "Look now toward Heaven, and
   count the stars, if you are able to number them: and He said unto him,
   So shall your seed be." For, if they have not reached the number of the
   stars yet, they are no more to be reckoned than are the stars! As I
   remember how many of them have already reached the better land, I do
   not think of them as lost, for they only fell asleep, here, to wake in
   the Presence of Jesus. Their sleeping bodies shall also wake again when
   the Resurrection trumpet sounds. No matter what has become of the
   particular particles of dust of which those bodies were composed, the
   essence of each individual shall be preserved by Omnipotent power, and
   out of it shall spring an undying body, remodeled and fashioned like
   unto Christ's glorious body! And the soul shall enter it and that soul
   shall be here, again, at the coming of Christ, for when He shall come
   in His Glory, they, also, who sleep in Jesus will He bring with Him!
   "Therefore," again I say unto you, "comfort one another with these
   words."

   This is our last thought--we shall again meet those who have fallen
   asleep. We said, "Adieu," to them, and so committed them to God's
   keeping. We said, "Good-bye," that is, "God be with you," and God has
   been with them. We said, "Farewell," and they have fared well. And we
   shall see how well they have fared to be with Christ, for we shall see
   them again! I believe that we shall know them, have communion with them
   and shall admire Christ's Grace in them, and that it shall be part of
   our Heaven to come not only "to Jesus the Mediator of the New
   Covenant," but also, "to the general assembly and church of the
   first-born, who are written in Heaven."

   Now I have finished my discourse, but, how far is there any comfort to
   some of you in all that I have said? Some of you work very hard--have
   you any hope of rest in Heaven? If not, I pity you from the very depths
   of my heart! Some of you fare very hard--have you any hope of better
   fare with Christ forever? If not, I do indeed pity you, more than I can
   say! To go from poverty and misery, here, to a place where there shall
   be no hope for you forever, will be dreadful, indeed! If there were no
   Hell, I could not endure the thought of being shut out of Heaven, for,
   to be with Christ, to be with the Father, to be with the Holy Spirit,
   to miss the company of gracious and just men forever, would be a Hell
   that might well make men gnash their teeth in torment! Oh, may God save
   us all through faith which is in Christ Jesus! May we be saved tonight
   and then it will not matter how soon anyone may say of us, also, "They
   have fallen asleep," for all will be well with us forever! God bless
   you, dear Friends, for Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: REVELATION 7:9-17; 1 CORINTHIANS 15:1-28;
   50-58.

   We will read two passages from the New Testament tonight. The first
   will show us where the glorified saints are and the second will tell us
   what is to become of their bodies.

   Revelation 7:9-13. After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude,
   which no man couldnumber, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and
   tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with
   white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice,
   saying, Salvation to our God which sits upon the throne, and unto the
   Lamb! And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the
   elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces
   and worshipped God, saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and
   thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might be unto our God forever
   and ever Amen. And one of the elders answered, saying unto me. In
   reply, as it were, to John's question put by the very look of his
   countenance! Sometimes the Lord Jesus Christ gave an answer to men who
   had not spoken to Him--and the angelic elder here followed His example
   and also, in another respect, imitated his Lord by replying to the
   inquisitive glance of John by asking him a question.

   13-17. Who are these which are arrayed in white robes? And whence came
   they? And I said unto him, Sir, you know. And he said to me, These are
   they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes,
   and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before
   the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple:

   andHe that sits on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger
   no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them,
   nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall
   feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God
   shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. This is to be the future
   state of all those who are redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus and
   to whom the saving Grace of God has come! So that, concerning all who
   have thus fallen asleep, we sorrow not as those without hope, for we
   know that all is well with them forever!

   Now let us read a little of what the Apostle Paul was inspired to write
   with regard to the resurrection of the body.

   1 Corinthians 15:1, 2. Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the
   Gospel which I preached unto you, which also you have received, and
   wherein you stand; by which also you are saved, if you keep in memory
   what I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. What, then,
   was this Gospel which Paul had preached, and which the Christians in
   Corinth had received--the Gospel which Paul declared would save them if
   they truly believed it? Was it a Gospel made up merely of doctrines?
   No! It was a Gospel formed of facts.

   3. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received,
   how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. That is
   the first fundamental fact in the Gospel system. Blessed is the man who
   believes it and rests his soul upon it!

   4. And that He was buried: and that He rose again the third day
   according to the Scriptures. That grand fact of the Resurrection of
   Christ from the dead is rightly put next to His substitutionary
   Sacrifice, for it is the very cornerstone of our holy faith! It is one
   of the essential doctrines which must be received by us, for we cannot
   truly believe the Gospel unless we accept the great Truth of Christ's
   Resurrection!

   5-8. And that He was seen ofCephas--that is, Peter--then ofthe twelve:
   after that, He was seen ofabove five hundred brethren at once; of whom
   the greater part remain unto this time, but some are fallen asleep.
   After that, He was seen of James, then of all the Apostles. And last of
   all He was seen of me, also, as of one born out of due time. I suppose,
   Brothers and Sisters, that we may have persons arise who will doubt
   whether there was ever such a man as Julius Caesar, or Napoleon
   Bonaparte. And when they do--when all reliable history is flung to the
   winds--then, but not till then, may they begin to question whether
   Jesus Christ rose from the dead, for this historical fact is attested
   by more witnesses than almost any other fact that stands on record in
   history, whether sacred or profane! The risen Christ was seen by many
   persons who knew Him intimately before He died--by those who saw Him
   put to death and who saw Him when He was dead. He was seen, on various
   occasions, privately, by one, by two, by 12 of those who had been His
   companions for years. At other times, He was seen in public by large
   numbers who could not all have been deceived. These men were so certain
   that this was, indeed, the same Christ who had lived, and died, that,
   although it was at first difficult to make them believe that He had
   risen from the dead, it was impossible to make them doubt it
   afterwards! And the major part of them died to bear witness to the
   fact! They were martyred because they confessed that Jesus had indeed
   risen from the dead. There is no fact in history, from the days of Adam
   until now, that is better attested than this great central Truth of God
   of the Resurrection of Christ! So we accept it and receive it gladly.
   Paul finishes up his list of witnesses by putting himself down as one
   of them, although his conversion was, to himself, such a marvelous
   display of Divine Grace that he was like "one born out of due time."

   9-14. For I am the least ofthe Apostles, that am not meet to be called
   an Apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the Grace of
   GodI am what I am: and His Grace which was bestowed upon me was not in
   vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I; but the
   Grace of God which was with me. Therefore whether it were I or they, so
   we preach, and so you believed. Now if Christ is preached that He rose
   from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of
   the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ
   not risen: and if Christ is not risen, then is our preaching vain and
   then your faith is also vain. It is all emptiness! Our preaching
   evaporates--there is nothing left in it--unless Christ did really rise
   from the dead! And your faith has nothing in it, either--you are
   believing in that which is only vanity and nothingness--unless His
   Resurrection was a fact.

   15-17. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God because we have
   testified of God that He raised up Christ: whom, He raised not up, if
   it is so that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not
   Christ raised: and if Christ is not raised, your faith is vain; you are
   yet in your sins. So that you cannot be a Christian if you deny the
   Resurrection of Christ! You must give up Christianity altogether and
   confess that your faith in it was a delusion unless you believe that
   Jesus Christ rose from the dead and that, therefore, there is a
   resurrection from the dead for the sons of men! Let it always

   be most clearly understood that what Christ is, that His people are!
   There is an unbroken union between the Head and the members, so that,
   if He lives, they live. And if He lives not, then they live not. And if
   they live not, then He lives not. Jesus and those for whom He died are
   so intimately joined together that they are really and truly one--and
   nothing can ever separate them!

   18, 19. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.
   If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are, of all men, most
   miserable. That is to say, if our hope for the future is all a lie, we
   have been dreadfully deceived and, moreover, if we could lose a hope so
   brilliant as that has been to us, there would fall upon us a sense of
   loss so great that no one in the world could be so wretched as we
   should be! Besides, the Apostles were always in jeopardy of their
   lives--if they were suffering poverty, persecution and the fear of
   death by martyrdom, all for a lie----they were, indeed, of all men the
   most deluded, and the most miserable! But the Corinthians would not
   admit that and neither will we.

   20. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits.
   He must always come first, that in all things He may have the
   preeminence.

   20-28. Of them that slept. For since by man came death, by Man came
   also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in
   Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ
   the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming. Then
   comes the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even
   the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and
   power. For He must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet
   The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For He has put all
   things under His feet But when He says all things are put under Him, it
   is manifest that He is excepted, which did put all things under Him.
   And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also
   Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may
   be all in all. The mediatorial Person of Christ, as God-Man, shall bow
   before the eternal majesty of the Godhead, "that God may be all in
   all." Now we will finish our reading with just a few verses at the
   close of the chapter.

   50, 51. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit
   the kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption.
   Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all
   be changed. We shall not all die, some will be alive when Christ comes
   to this earth, again, "but we shall all be changed," if not by the
   process of death and resurrection, yet by some other means.

   52. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump for the
   trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we
   shall be changed. Somehow or other, such a change as this must take
   place before we can enter Heaven, for "flesh and blood cannot inherit
   the kingdom of God."

   53-58. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal
   must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on
   incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall
   be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in
   victory. O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?
   The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law. But
   thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus
   Christ Therefore, my beloved brethren, be you steadfast, unmovable,
   always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that
   your labor is not in vain in the Lord. That should be the practical
   outcome of receiving the great Truths of which we have been reading.
   God grant that it may be! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Suffering Outside the Camp

   (No. 2660)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JANUARY 3,
   1858.

   "Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own
   blood, suffered outside the gate." Hebrews 13:12.

   IN one sense, sanctification is wholly the work of the Lord Jesus
   Christ, but there is another meaning which is more usually affixed to
   the term, in which sanctification is rightly described as the work of
   God the Holy Spirit. Many disputes have arisen concerning this Doctrine
   of God, because all men do not distinguish between the two meanings of
   the same word. There is one kind of sanctification which signifies
   setting apart and, in that sense, God's people were sanctified from all
   eternity. They were sanctified in election, before they had a being,
   for they were even then set apart from the impure mass, to be vessels
   of honor meet for the Master's use. Further, as redemption has in it
   much of peculiarity and specialty, God's people were sanctified, or set
   apart, by the blood of Christ, when, on Mount Calvary He offered up
   Himself, an offering without spot or blemish, for the sins of His
   people. So it is true that Jesus is not only made unto us wisdom and
   righteousness, but also sanctification.

   You will remember that in one of my recent sermons, [Sermon #2634,
   Volume 45--"Jesus Only"--A Communion Meditation the text of which was,
   "Jesus only," I made the remark that it was "Jesus only" for
   sanctification. And I have not had any reason to retract that
   expression, for there is a sense in which sanctification, as far as it
   means setting apart, is an eternal work and is a work wholly completed
   for us by the election of the Father and the blood of Jesus Christ.
   Still, sanctification sometimes, and most generally, signifies another
   thing--it means the work of the Spirit within us. There is a work which
   God the Holy Spirit carries on, from the first moment of our spiritual
   birth, to the last moment when we are taken to Heaven--a work by which
   corruptions are overcome, lusts restrained, faith increased, love
   inflamed, hope brightened and the spirit made fit to dwell with the
   glorified above. That is the work of God's Holy Spirit, yet we must
   remember that even though it is the work of the Holy Spirit, Jesus
   Christ, even in this, still sanctifies His people! For with what does
   the Holy Spirit sanctify them?

   Beloved, He sanctifies them with the precious blood of Jesus! We know
   that when our Savior died, His Sacrifice had a double objective--one
   objective was pardon, the other was cleansing--and both the blood and
   the water flowed from the same source to show us that justification and
   sanctification both spring from the same Divine Fountain and, though
   sanctification is the work of the Spirit in us, yet, to accomplish this
   purposes, the Holy Spirit uses the sacrificial blood of Jesus and the
   sacred water of His Atonement applied to our heart, sprinkling us from
   dead works and purging us from an evil conscience, that we may serve
   God without let or hindrance. So, then, Christian, in your
   sanctification, look to Jesus! Remember that the Spirit sanctifies you,
   but that He sanctifies you through Jesus. He does not sanctify you
   through the works of the Law, but through the Atonement of Christ! And
   will you therefore remember that the nearer you live to the Cross of
   Jesus, the more of sanctification, growth and increase in all spiritual
   blessings will His Spirit give to you? So, then, we see that whatever
   sanctification may mean, the text is still true--"Therefore Jesus also,
   that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside
   the gate."

   Let us pause here a minute and let each of us, as we begin a new year,
   ask this question--How far has Christ's purpose of sanctifying me been
   answered in my own case? I know that in one sense I am completely
   sanctified, but, in another sense, I still feel my imperfections and
   infirmities. How far have I progressed in sanctification during the
   past year? How

   much has my faith increased during the year? How many of my corruptions
   have I overcome? How much nearer am I living to Christ, now, than on
   the first Sabbath of last year? How much do I know of the Savior? How
   much closer do I approach in my likeness to Him? Have I more power in
   prayer? Am I more careful in my life? Is my spirit more loving than it
   used to be? Am I more decisive for that which is right? At the same
   time, am I more meek in standing up for it? Am I, in all respects, more
   like my Master than I was a year ago? Or, on the other hand, have I
   been going backward? Stand still, I cannot--I must either go forward in
   Grace or go backward! Which have I been doing during the past year? And
   I charge you, O my Heart, whatever answer you have to give to these
   questions, to remember that if you are ever so much sanctified, you
   have not yet attained perfection! I beseech you, forget that which is
   behind, and press forward toward that which is before, looking still
   unto Jesus, who is both the Author and the Finisher of faith! The Lord
   give you so plente-ously of His Grace that you may be sanctified
   wholly, by soul and spirit! And I pray God to preserve you all unto His
   coming and glory.

   I. But now the principal subject upon which I wish to speak is the fact
   that JESUS CHRIST SUFFERED OUTSIDE THE GATE.

   You know that when the High Priest offered the sin-offering, because it
   typified sin, it was so obnoxious to God that it might not be burned
   upon the great altar, but it was always burned outside the camp, to
   show God's detestation of sin and His determination not only to put it
   away from Himself, but also to put it away from His Church. Now, when
   our Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to be our Sin-Offering, it
   behooved Him, also, to be put outside the camp--and it is very
   interesting to note how remarkably Providence provided for the
   fulfillment of the type. Had our Lord been killed in a tumult, He would
   most likely have been slain in the city. Unless He had been put to
   death judicially, He would not have been taken to the usual Mount of
   Doom. And it is remarkable that the Romans should have chosen a hill on
   the outside of the city to be the common place for crucifixion and for
   punishment by death. We might have imagined that they would have
   selected some mount in the center of the city and that they would have
   placed their gibbet in as conspicuous a spot as our Newgate, so that it
   might strike the multitude with greater awe. But, in the Providence of
   God, it was arranged otherwise. Christ must not be slain in a tumult!
   He might not die in the city and when He was delivered into the hands
   of the Romans, they had not a place of execution within the city, but
   one outside the camp, that by dying outside the gate, He might be
   proved to be the Sin-Offering for His people.

   Concerning this great Truth of God, I have one or two remarks to offer
   to you very briefly. First, I want to ask you a question. Do you know
   who the people were who lived outside the gate? If you could have gone
   to the great camp of Israel, you would have seen the tents all placed
   in order, the standard of Dan there, of Judah there, of Ephraim there--
   surrounding the Ark of the Covenant. And you would have seen a few
   wretched huts far away in the rear, outside the camp. And if you had
   asked, "Who lives, there? Who are the poor people that are put away
   from kith and kin, and who cannot go up to the sanctuary of the Lord to
   present their offerings unto Him, or to join in the songs of praise
   unto His holy name?" The answer to your enquiry would have been, "The
   people out there are lepers and others who are unclean." And if, in
   later days, you had walked through some of the shady glens around the
   city of Jerusalem, you might have heard in the distance, the cry,
   "Unclean! Unclean! Unclean!"--a bitter wail that sounded like the
   sighing of despair, as if it came from some poor ghost that had been
   commanded to forever walk this earth with restless steps. Had you come
   nearer to the unhappy being who had uttered so mournful a sound, you
   would have seen him cover his upper lip and again, cry, "Unclean!
   Unclean! Unclean!--to warn you not to come too near him, lest even the
   wind should blow infection towards you from his leprous skin. If, for a
   minute, he had moved his hand from his mouth, you would have seen,
   instead of those scarlet, ruddy lips of health which God had originally
   put there, a terrible, white mark not to be distinguished from his
   teeth. His lips were unclean, for there the leprosy had discovered
   itself and, in a minute, he would have again covered up that lip that
   had the white mark of disease upon it--and again he would have cried,
   "Unclean! Unclean! Unclean!"

   Of whom was that leper a type? He was a picture of you and me, my
   Brothers and Sisters, in our natural state! And if the Holy Spirit has
   quickened us and made us to know our ruined condition, we shall feel
   that the leper's cry well becomes our unholy lips! Perhaps I have,
   within the walls of this house of prayer, a hearer who is today
   separate from all mankind. With worldlings, he dares not associate any
   longer. The harlots and others, with whom he spent his living
   riotously, are not now his companions. He cannot bear their pleasures,
   for they are dashed with bitterness. With the children of God, he dares
   not go--he feels that they would put him outside the camp, for he has
   no hope, no Christ, no faith!

   He cannot say that Christ has died for him. He has no trust in
   Jesus--not so much as one pale ray of hope has stolen into his poor
   darkened heart and, tonight, the inward wail of his now-awakened spirit
   is--

   "Unclean! Unclean! Unclean!

   Unclean, and full of sin,

   From first to last, O Lord, I've been!

   Deceitful is my heart."

   Leper, leper, be of good cheer! Christ died outside the camp that you
   might be sanctified through His blood! I see the leper now stealing
   through the desert places, not daring to sip of the clear stream that
   lies in his track, lest he should communicate contagion to the next
   person who drinks from it, but seeking out some filthy puddle, that
   there he may satisfy his thirst, where no others are likely to drink. I
   see him covering up his lips. If his father met him, he must run away
   from him. If the wife of his bosom saw him, she must shun his presence,
   for a loathsome disease is in his skin and in his garments--and in the
   very breath that comes from his lips there is death! Well, suddenly, as
   he steals along, he sees a Cross, and on it lifted up One who is dying.
   He stands there astonished! He thinks that surely he may come near to a
   dying man, leper though he is--to the living, he must not approach--but
   to the dying he cannot bring a new death. So he draws near to the Cross
   and the lips of the dying Man are opened, and He says, "Verily I say
   unto you, Today shall you be with Me in Paradise." Oh, what joy and
   rapture rush through his poor leprous spirit! How his heart, that had
   long been heavy and baked like a black coal within him, begins, again,
   to burn with bright light! He smiles, for he feels that that marvelous
   Man upon the Cross has forgiven him all his sins and before he has
   begun to feel it, his leprosy is cleansed! And soon he goes his way,
   for his flesh has come unto him like the flesh of a little child and he
   is clean! O leprous Sinner, hear this and believe it for yourself!
   Tonight look unto Him who died outside the camp that poor unclean
   sinners might find a Savior there!

   That is my first lesson from the text. If the Lord the Spirit shall
   graciously apply it to your souls, it will be a very precious one to
   many a sin-distracted heart!

   But, Believer, did you never feel as if you, too, were unclean and
   outside the camp? Brothers and Sisters, let me tell you just a little
   of my own heart's feelings and let me see whether you have ever felt
   the same. You have often known yourselves to be children of God. I have
   felt myself, with much joy, to be certainly assured of my interest in
   Christ but, suddenly, sin has surprised me, some unhappy propensity has
   developed itself and I have felt as if I could not meet my God. When I
   was on my knees in prayer, I seemed as if I could not pray. I felt like
   the unclean one that must be put outside the camp--like Miriam, who,
   though the leprosy was but for a little time, would still be unclean
   for seven days. And when I have come to the House of God, I have felt
   as if the lowliest Christians there were so much superior to myself
   that I would but have been glad to have been a footstool at their feet!
   I would have crept into any part of the fold if I might have known
   myself to be the lowliest lamb in the flock of Jesus. I have seen the
   deacon and I have seen the Church member and I have thought, "Brethren,
   you are happy, but my heart is sad, for I am not worthy to be called
   God's son. Father, I have sinned. I have done grievously and have
   transgressed against You."

   For a little while faith has seemed sluggish and hope has been dull.
   And the sense of sin has rested on us and we have seemed to be quite
   put away from our Lord's Presence. We have read the Bible, but we could
   get no comfort there. The heavens seemed like brass above our heads. No
   shower of Grace fell upon our thirsty souls--both God and man seemed to
   put us outside the camp! I believe that many times, in a Christian's
   experience, he will have to feel what I have been describing. I do not
   mean merely little Christians, but I mean the greatest Christians,
   those who have lived nearest to their God, those who have been eminent
   in the Lord's service--God's Aarons and Miriams who sometimes have to
   be put outside the camp!

   Who, then, is there among us who will not sometimes be unclean? Surely,
   not any of the great ones of Israel could always live outside
   contracting some ceremonial defilement, for you know that under the
   Jewish law, the sitting upon the bed of a leper made a man unclean--and
   many things that happened to men rendered them unclean for seven days.
   And who can wonder if, through the infirmities of our bodies, through
   the companionships into which we are called, through the evil thoughts
   of our mind, we are often unclean as the Jews were? And who wonders
   that, sometimes, the Lord should put us, as it were, out of the camp
   for a little season till we have been purged with hyssop and have been
   made clean--till we have again been thoroughly purified by the washing
   of water through the Word?

   But, Brothers and Sisters, what a mercy it is that when we are outside
   the gate, Christ is outside the gate, too! O poor Backslider, does your
   conscience shut you out of the Church today? Remember, Christ shut
   Himself out, too. He was "despised and rejected of men." Do you feel,
   tonight, as if you cannot come to His Table--as if your Master would
   spurn you from it? Remember, if you are His, you are welcome, for His
   Table is where His Cross is--and His Cross is outside the gate. Come,
   sinner! Come, backsliding saint! Come and welcome! God may seem to have
   put you away, but it is only seeming, for we know He has written that
   He hates to put away. Come, and though you are outside the gate, behold
   your Lord, who, "that He might sanctify the people with His own blood,
   suffered outside the gate."

   II. I have only one more thought to bring before your notice. The
   Apostle says, in the next verse to our text, "Let us go forth,
   therefore, outside the camp, bearing His reproach." So, AS CHRIST
   SUFFERED OUTSIDE THE CAMP, LET US NOT BE ASHAMED TO SUFFER THERE, TOO.

   I do not think much of the religion of that man who is not put outside
   the, camp. If you can dwell with the wicked. If you can live as they
   live and be, "hail-fellow well met," with the ungodly. If their
   practices are your practices. If their pleasures are your pleasures,
   then their god is your god and you are one of them! There is no being a
   Christian except being shut out of the world's camp! I can scarcely
   conceive it possible for any man to be a true saint, a holy man, one
   who is set apart unto God and sanctified in Christ Jesus, unless he is
   reproached while on earth for being too strict, too Puritan, or
   perhaps, sometimes, too melancholy. There must be a grave distinction
   between a Christian and a man of the world--and where there is no such
   distinction, or only a slight one--there is most solemn cause for
   suspicion that all is not right! When I see a man dress like
   worldlings. When I hear him talk like worldlings. When I know that all
   his outward carriage is just like a worldly man's. When I can detect no
   difference. When I see no mark of the Lord Jesus upon him. When I can
   hear no "shibboleth" in his speech, whereby he is to be detected from a
   sibboleth-speaking world. When I discover no distinction between him
   and others, then this I know, "God is not mocked." That man is in the
   flesh and he shall, "of the flesh reap corruption."

   No, I will go further still! In this age I can scarcely imagine it
   possible for a man to serve his Master faithfully unless he is
   sometimes shut out of the camp, even of the Church itself! I do not
   mean excommunicated--I mean something far different from that. I mean
   that the man who serves his God aright will often feel himself left in
   the minority, even in the Church. It is never his business to so act
   and to so think that others are obliged to differ from him. It is folly
   to be singular except where to be singular is to be right! But so lax
   has the professing Church become, so low in its doctrine, so light in
   its experience and, sometimes, so unholy in its life, that to be
   Christians, now, we must be elect out of the elect--elect out of the
   Church as well as elect out of the world! What pride, on the one hand.
   What sloth, on the other. What anger, what distrust, what covetousness,
   what worldly-mindedness we constantly see! The most of us are too much
   mingled with the world, too much joined unto Egypt! And the man who is
   firm in the faith and loves his Master well is a rarity! The man of a
   loving spirit, the man of a large heart and yet of a determined zeal,
   and of a steadfast mind--such a man will have to go outside the
   camp--and he will have to suffer, now, even as all have had to suffer
   who have dared to go into the front of the sacramental host of God's
   elect, in advance of the more tardy followers of the Lamb! If any
   minister of Christ dares to be too bold, too plain, too honest for the
   common run of professors, he must expect to be maligned! Let him reckon
   on that and let him willingly go forth outside the camp, for that is
   where his Master went before him!

   If I turn to the pages of history to find out the best men who ever
   lived, do you know where I find them? I never find them among those who
   were called, "respectable," in their time. There, in the pages of
   history, I see great names-- Erasmus and others, mighty and learned
   men--but, on a dirty-thumbed page, I see the name of Luther associated
   with such epithets as, "dog, adulterer, beast," and everything else
   that Rome's malice could suggest! And I say, "Ah, this is the man whom
   God chose, for he went outside the camp!" That list of great divines,
   of schoolmen and of theologians you may wipe out without much
   regret--but this man outside the camp--he is somebody, depend upon it!
   He is the man whom God has blessed!

   Turn to another list of archbishops, bishops, deans, rural deans,
   rectors and curates. There they are, all as respectable as possible,
   and great volumes of their sermons may be found on bookshelves,
   nowadays, with the dust of years upon them! I read their names. There
   is one, there is another, there is another--but there is nothing
   special about any of them! At last, I find a picture by Hogarth--a
   caricature of a man preaching with devils coming out of his mouth, and
   underneath it written, "Fire and brimstone!" I look at the portrait and
   I say, "Look, that is Mr. Whitefield!" Ah, there is the

   man of the age, depend on it! That man, all black, charged with crimes
   that Sodom never knew--that is the man! Not the curate in the other
   picture who is preaching to a congregation all asleep--but this man,
   here, that is abused, that is laughed at, that is mocked--this is the
   man who is somebody!

   So you may go on as long as you like and you shall always find that
   those "intruders into the ministry," as some call them, those that the
   parliament of parsons dislikes, those that the great mass reject and
   laugh and scoff at--those are the very men whom God blesses! So, if you
   go outside the camp, you will be in very good company. The great and
   holy men of years gone by have all been put outside the camp. If an
   ungodly throng have thrust out our fathers and have said, "Get you
   gone, we want you not," it is true--their children build their
   sepulchers and then they thrust us out. What if it is so? We are
   content to share the lot of so goodly a parentage! We think it a high
   honor to be thrust out of these gates whose only glory is that good men
   once passed through them, and whose great disgrace is that good men
   pass through them the wrong way--not into them, but out of them! So,
   Beloved, be you content to be cast outside the camp.

   But mark, going outside the camp in itself is nothing--it is suffering
   outside the camp that is the great thing. Making myself different from
   everybody else is nothing--it is suffering for the Truth of God's sake
   that is the truly noble thing! It is being crucified with Christ that
   is honorable! It is not my being a Sectarian or a Separatist. It is not
   your going outside the camp that is any good--it is your suffering
   outside the camp that proves you to be a Believer. O Christians, if you
   have to do the same, rejoice!

   And now, as you come to this Communion Table, I shall bid you only
   remember that word, suffered. "Jesus suffered outside the gate" and I
   shall ask you, as you sit there, to meditate upon that word. Turn it
   over again and again, and think how His body and His soul all suffered
   for you. Then, when you have meditated upon that great Truth of God,
   you will be in a fit frame of mind to commune with Him who has
   sanctified you by His own blood, by suffering outside the gate.

   May the God of mercies give to sinners Grace, that, like lepers outside
   the camp, they may look to Jesus, crucified for them, and so obtain
   eternal life! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JEREMIAH5:1-6; 10-31; REVELATION 22:1-7.

   Jeremiah 5:1. Run you to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and
   see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof if you can find
   a man, if there is any that executes judgment, that seeks the truth;
   and I will pardon it I t was a very wonderful offer, on the part of
   God, to forgive the inhabitants of the whole city of Jerusalem for the
   sake of oneman! And it was all the more remarkable because He gave them
   time to make a thorough search to see whether such a person could be
   found--"if there is any that executes judgment, that seeks the truth."
   Into what a horrible state of guilt must the Jewish capital have fallen
   when there was not one man, even among the magistrates or the priests,
   who cared for that which was just and true! May God prevent London and
   England from becoming like Jerusalem and Judah! May truth and
   righteousness flourish in our land!

   2. And though they say, The LORD lives; surely they swear falsely. Even
   those who assumed an appearance of being religious and who said,
   "Jehovah lives"--even they were false swearers. To what a terribly sad
   state had the age come when its very religion was a lie and its
   professedly holy things were thoroughly rotten!

   3. OLORD, are not Your eyes upon the truth?If there is any truthful man
   anywhere, God sees him. His eyes are upon him, He regards him with
   attentive delight and He will take care of him with the utmost
   vigilance. But what was the real character of these people? Listen.

   3. You have stricken them, but they have not grieved; You have consumed
   them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their
   faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return. Nothing could
   make them act rightly! Whatever God did with them, they still persisted
   in their iniquity.

   4, 5. Therefore I said, Surely these arepoor; they are foolish: for
   they know not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment of their God. I
   will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they have
   known the way of the LORD, and the judgment of their God. But Jeremiah
   found no improvement among them--they were even worse than the poor and
   ignorant, for he goes on to say--

   5, 6. But these have altogether broken the yoke and burst the bonds.
   Therefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the
   evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities:
   everyone that goes out from there shall be torn in pieces: because
   their transgressions are many, and their backsliding are increased. Now
   let us continue our reading at verse 10, where we shall see that both
   the house of Israel and the house of Judah had turned aside from the
   Lord their God.

   10-12. Go up upon her walls and destroy; but make not a full end: take
   away her battlements; for they are not the LORD'S. For the house of
   Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against Me,
   says the LORD. They have lied about the LORD--They have made it out as
   though God, Himself, were a liar! They have contradicted Him whose Word
   is Truth itself. They have despised His threats, they have refused His
   invitations, they have disbelieved His promises! "They have lied about
   the Lord"--

   12-14. And said, It is not He; neither shall evil come upon us; neither
   shall we see sword nor famine: and the Prophets shall become wind, and
   the Word is not in them: thus shall it be done unto them. Therefore
   thus says the LORD God of hosts, Because you speak this word, behold, I
   will make My Words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it
   shall devour them. It is a dreadful state of things when God turns from
   pleading with men to threatening them! When He ceases to invite them to
   return to Him and denounces them as transgressors against His Laws! At
   such times He makes the words that come out of the mouths of His
   Prophets to be like fire and men are utterly consumed by them as the
   stubble in the field is destroyed by the devouring flames!

   15-18. Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house ofIsrael,
   says the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation
   whose language you know not, neither understand what they say. Their
   quiver is as an open sep-ulcher, they are all mighty men. And they
   shall eat up your harvest, and your bread, which your sons and your
   daughters should eat: they shall eat up your flocks and your herds:
   they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees: they shall impoverish
   your fenced cities, wherein you trusted, with the sword. Nevertheless
   in those days, says the LORD, I will not make a full end of you. See
   how, in the midst of His wrath, God remembers mercy? He utters a
   terrible sentence concerning transgressors and then He pauses and says,
   "Nevertheless"--listen to the gentle note of pity in that word--
   "Nevertheless, in those days, says the Lord, I will not make a full end
   of you." Still does He spare the guilty and in His long-suffering He
   gives them further opportunities for repentance!

   19. And it shall come to pass, when you shall say, Why does the LORD
   our God do all these things unto us? Then shall you answer them, Like
   as you have forsaken Me, and serve strange gods in your land, so shall
   you serve strangers in a land that is not yours. A man may often see
   his sin in its punishment. Because they had served strange gods,
   therefore the Lord sent them to serve strangers in a strange land!
   Remember, O transgressor, that your sin will come home to you in some
   form or other! If we sow the wind, we shall reap the whirlwind.
   "Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap." Therefore let us beware
   of scattering seeds of sin, for they will produce a terrible harvest of
   woe!

   20, 21. Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah,
   saying, Hear now this, O foolish people and without understanding;
   which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not. And, alas,
   there are far too many of such people still around! They hear God's
   Word, yet it never reaches their hearts. They see what God's hand is
   doing all around them, yet they do not and they will not really see it
   as they should.

   22. Do you not fear Me? says the LORD. Willyou not tremble at My
   Presence, which, have placed the sand for the boundary of the sea by a
   perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof
   toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can
   they not pass over it?There is a little belt of sand which checks the
   surging sea and says to it, "To here shall you come, but no further!
   And to here shall your proud waves be stayed." Now, if sand, which is
   so weak a thing, can, nevertheless, control the mighty ocean within
   bounds, how readily ought you and I to be governed by God and held in
   check even by the slightest intimations of His will?

   23. But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are
   revolted and gone. God restrains the sea, but nothing seems to be able
   to restrain the sinfulness of man! Man breaks every barrier that should
   keep him back--he is like a desolating torrent when he gives way to
   iniquity!

   24. Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God,
   that gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season: He
   reserves unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest. Though God gives
   timely and suitable seasons for the growth and ingathering of the
   corn--rain when it is needed to aid the springing up of the blade and
   fine weather

   for garnering the harvest--yet many men see not the hand of God at all
   and they are, therefore, not moved by gratitude to bless His name and
   fear Him to whom they are indebted for all that they receive. Oh, what
   an ungrateful and blind creature is man!

   25. Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have
   withheld good things from you. Does any unconverted man here know what
   good things he has missed up to the present moment? Suppose you, my
   Friend, were to be saved tonight? Can you even imagine what joy you
   have lost through all the years of your past impenitence? Nothing can
   ever give back to you the years that have gone, or impart to you in the
   future, the joy you might have had, but which you have missed! And,
   mark you, if there were no Hell to be endured, it is enough of Hell to
   have missed Heaven! It will be grief enough to your heart, at the last,
   to find that "your sins have withheld good things from you."

   26. For among My people are found wicked men. ' 'Among My people," says
   the Lord--in the very Church, itself, making as loud a profession as
   the most genuine Christian! "Among My people are found wicked men."
   Here, in this place, tonight, mingling with the godly in this
   congregation, are found wicked men! The Lord have mercy upon them and
   turn them from their evil ways!

   26, They lay wait, as he that sets snares; they set a trap, they catch
   men. Beware of these man-catchers who entrap souls and ruin them
   forever, ensnaring them by leading them into evil habits and
   transgressions!

   27, 28. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit:
   therefore they are become great, and waxen rich. They are waxen fat,
   they shine: yes, they exceed the deeds of the wicked. The manifestly
   wicked--

   28, 29. They judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they
   prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge. Shall I not
   visit for these things? Angels in Heaven, God says to you, "Shall I not
   visit for these things?" And they answer, "Yes, Lord." Even to the
   devils in Hell, He may put the same question. They are already smarting
   under His wrath and He may say to them, "Shall I not visit for these
   things?" And they also answer, "Yes." He puts the question to all
   intelligent beings who know what is right and true, "Shall I not visit
   for these things?" And they, with one consent, reply, "Yes, Lord, it
   must be so!"

   29-31. Says the LORD: shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as
   this? A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the
   Prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means;
   and My people love to have it so. I t is a most horrible thing that
   God's own people should ever be willing that error should be preached
   and that oppression and wrong-doing of any kind should be practiced!
   You know that if God's own people did not tolerate false doctrine, it
   would soon cease to be heard in many places. But it is when those who
   profess to know God's Word endorse that which is contrary to the Truth
   of God that error is kept in power in the land--"The Prophets prophesy
   falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and My people love
   to have it so."

   31. But what will you do in the end? That is a question which I would
   propose in God's name to all here. Is your religion of such a character
   that when you come to die, it will bear you up? Or have you taken up
   with some form of falsehood which will not stand the test of your dying
   hour? Are you living in neglect of God? Is your life such that He must
   be angry with you, for He is angry with the wicked every day! Then take
   home to yourself the question with which this chapter closes, "What
   will you do in the end?" I am going to speak to you presently about
   those who go forth with Christ, outside the camp, bearing His reproach,
   so let us read a few verses about the glory which awaits them,
   by-and-by. [Remember that the exposition was delivered before the
   sermon was preached.--EOD]

   Revelation 22:1. And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear
   as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
   Infinite sovereignty bestows Grace. The River of Grace flows from the
   Throne of God. It is the King who saves His people, yet the Atonement
   is always connected with the sovereignty. "He showed me a pure river of
   water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God
   and of the Lamb."

   2. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river,
   was there the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, and yielded her
   fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of
   the nations. God will enrich His Church by giving her a great variety
   of good things--"twelve fruits." There shall also be a constant and
   perpetual supply of them, for this tree "yielded her fruit every
   month." And if there is anything of ill remaining anywhere in the world
   in those halcyon days, God shall supply a cure for it--"The leaves of
   the tree were for the healing of nations."

   3. And there shall be no more curse. The curse shall be taken from the
   soil on which it fell when God said to Adam, "Cursed is the ground for
   your sake." There shall be no curse upon man's body--there shall be
   nothing but blessing. Blessing shall swallow up the cursing and God
   shall be manifest everywhere.

   3. But the throne of Godand of the Lamb shall be in it; andHis servants
   shallserve Him. This is what we try to do, now, but we shall more fully
   accomplish the blessed task in those brighter days which every
   revolution of the wheel of time is hastening on.

   4. And they shall see His face. Oh, that is glorious service--to serve
   the Lord and to see His face at the same time! Communion and service
   are always best when they are blended. There can be no fellowship
   better than that which serves, and no service sweeter than that of
   those who continue to see the face of their Master while they are
   serving Him.

   4. And His name shall be on their foreheads. There will be no mistaking
   them--they shall bear on their foreheads the glorious name of God, just
   as the High Priest of old had the words, "Holiness unto the Lord" upon
   his brow.

   5. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither
   light of the sun. Even the sun is only worthy to be ranked with a
   candle in comparison with the Light of God, Himself! John puts the two
   things in one sentence. "They need no candle, neither light of the
   sun"--

   5-7. For the Lord God gives them light: and they shall reign forever
   and ever. And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and
   the LORD God of the holy Prophets sent His angel to show unto His
   servants the things which must shortly be done. Behold I come quickly!
   Blessed is he that keeps the sayings of the prophecy of this Book

   Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Come quickly! Amen
     __________________________________________________________________

A Marvelous Change

   (No. 2661)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. HSPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 7, 1882.

   "Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of
   God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor
   adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor
   thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners
   shall inherit the Kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you
   were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the
   name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." 1 Corinthians
   6:9-11.

   THE Gospel is as holy as the Law. The Gospel is full of mercy to
   sinners, but it shows no mercy to sin. The Gospel speaks most tenderly
   to the ungodly, but it speaks most sternly to ungodliness. There is a
   great difference made, in the New Testament, between the sinner and the
   sin. And while the sinner is, in Infinite mercy, spared, encouraged to
   hope, and wooed by almighty love, sin is denounced as a dreadful thing,
   an abominable thing which God hates and must punish.

   Ah, dear Friends, it is not from Sinai, alone, that we have need to
   shrink if we are lovers of sin, for, if we are resolved to keep on
   sinning, Calvary also condemns us and, at last, even from the lips of
   Jesus Christ, Himself, willful sinners, continuing in their sin, shall
   hear the awful sentence, "Depart from Me, you that work iniquity." Let
   no man say, when we proclaim God's message of mercy to the very chief
   of sinners, that, therefore, we think lightly of sin! No, it is because
   of the shedding of the precious blood of Him whom we call Master and
   Lord, without whose agonizing death not a single sin could ever have
   been put away, that we are able to freely preach the mercy of God to
   those who truly repent of their transgressions. But, at the same time,
   we never hesitate to declare in the plainest possible terms, that God
   will not spare the guilty ones who refuse to repent, for only through
   the blood of His dear Son will He have mercy upon the ungodly sons and
   daughters of men, who turn unto Him, with full purpose of heart,
   trusting in the great atoning Sacrifice of Jesus!

   The highest standard of holiness is set forth under the Gospel. It does
   not come to cut down the requirements of the Law and to say, "You
   cannot keep the perfect Law of the Lord, but do the best you can and
   that will suffice." There is nothing like that in the New Testament! It
   does not come to men and say, in a tone of pity, "You are poor ignorant
   creatures who have unwittingly fallen into sin and, therefore, there is
   no guilt in your transgression of the Law of God." Nothing of the kind,
   for even when our Savior, on the Cross, said, concerning His mockers
   and murderers, "they know not what they do," He prayed, "Father,
   forgive them," thereby plainly declaring that they were sinners who
   needed to be forgiven, even though their transgression was a sin of
   ignorance!

   That is the short preface to the discourse I am now to deliver, which
   will be divided into three parts, the first of which will show us that
   we have, here, a solemn sentence--a sentence shutting the guilty and
   unrepentant out of the Kingdom of God. Then, secondly, here is a
   reminder to some of us--"and such were some of you." And, then,
   thirdly, here is a change spoken of--"but you are washed, but you are
   sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by
   the Spirit of our God."

   I. Now, Beloved, first of all, here is A SOLEMN SENTENCE. "Know you not
   that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God?" Oh, While I
   speak of it, pray God, in Infinite mercy, to carry home the words I say
   to any who are guilty of either or all the sins in this black and
   shameful list!

   "Be not deceived: neither fornicators shall inherit the Kingdom of
   God." That is the first set of sinners mentioned in this terrible
   catalogue--"fornicators"--men and women who have been guilty of
   unchastity with those who are unmarried. Not necessarily in the bonds
   of wedlock should we all be, but always in the bonds of purity. And
   those who sin against that which is pure, in their relations with one
   another, shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. Nothing could be more
   explicit than this Inspired declaration of the Apostle. If any persons
   live in lust and uncleanness, God will not permit them to defile His
   true Church on earth, or to profane His Temple above. It is quite
   possible that I may be speaking to some people upon whose ears this
   message grates very harshly--for all sorts of hearers come to this
   place--and they will be the first to say, "The preacher should not
   mention such a subject." My answer to that remark is, Then you should
   not commit such iniquity and give me cause to speak of it! As long as
   there are sinners of this character in the world, there must be
   servants of the Lord Jesus Christ faithful enough to pluck the velvet
   from their mouths and to speak with the utmost plainness about them and
   to them! Let there be no mistake concerning this matter--you cannot be
   Christians if you thus defile yourselves. You cannot be children of God
   and live in filthy sin. It must not--it cannot be--and God here, by the
   pen of the Apostle Paul, excommunicates all who pretend to be members
   of His Church and yet are guilty of the sin of fornication.

   Strange to say, in the very next place stands idolatry, that is, the
   worshipping of any god other than the true and living Jehovah, the God
   of the whole earth. All through the Old Testament the Lord calls this
   sin of idolatry by the name of fornication, because it is the turning
   away of that love which ought to be fixed upon the one and only God,
   and giving it to those that are not gods, and so defiling the heart and
   sinning against God. "Oh," says one, there are no idolaters here!" I
   greatly fear that there are, for idolatry is not merely the worship of
   images made of stone, or wood, or gods of gold, or crucifixes, or
   pictures of the Virgin Mary--though all that is idolatry--but it is
   also the worship of that dear child you have at home, of whom you make
   an idol. Or it is the worship of the Queen's image on gold and silver
   pieces by those who live only to amass worldly wealth. Or it may be
   even the worship of yourself! The Apostle tells us of a very low form
   of idolatry when he writes concerning those "whose God is their belly,
   and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things." There are
   far too many of such idolaters as these still about, all around us, and
   our text declares that they "shall not inherit the Kingdom of God."

   As to adulterers, whom the Apostle next mentions, I need not say much,
   but, alas, there are still many such sinners and they are found not
   only among the poor, but perhaps even more among those who can afford
   to pay for divorces, dispensations and indulgences to vice. Oh,
   horrible and terrible in this country, as well as in other lands, is
   the prevalence of this filthy sin! If there are any persons here who
   have made a profession of religion and yet who have fallen into this
   guilt and crime of adultery, let me read this solemn sentence of my
   text to you without mincing matters in the least, or toning down the
   severity of the Inspired language--you "shall not inherit the Kingdom
   of God." Unless you hate and abhor this shameful sin--and flee from it,
   as from a poisonous serpent--you can never come into that Kingdom where
   Christ is--neither in the Kingdom of His Grace, nor in the Kingdom of
   His Glory can you ever have any inheritance, for, as Dr. Watts sings--

   "PPure are the joys above the sky, And all the region peace! No wanton
   lip nor envious eye Can see or taste the bliss. Those holy gates
   forever bar Pollution, sin and shame-- None shall obtain admittance
   there But followers of the Lamb."

   I dare not explain to you what is meant by the next expression used by
   the Apostle--"nor effeminate"--but, alas, alas, there are still to be
   found all too many who are altogether given up to sinful practices, and
   who go from one form of vice to another, secretly ruining themselves
   both in body and in soul for time and for eternity! These are also
   among those who "shall not inherit the Kingdom of God." So are those
   whom the Apostle next describes--"nor abusers of

   themselves with mankind." Would God that this accursed vice had been
   swept off the face of the earth, as God did sweep it away when He
   rained brimstone and fire from Heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah and
   destroyed the guilty inhabitants of the cities of the plain!

   Next to these great sinners, whom the Apostle mentions, come "thieves."
   There are still far too many of them in the world--not merely those who
   are brought before the magistrates for having broken into a house, or
   having robbed a person in the street. But those who steal little
   things--peculators, servants in the house who take what is not their
   own! And men who do dishonest things in trade, calling an article in
   their shop by a name that is not its proper description-- and so
   cheating their customers and getting their living by their lies. These
   are also among those who "shall not inherit the Kingdom of God." You do
   not like to hear me talk about such matters? Then do not continue to
   sin in this fashion. I shall cease to rebuke the sin when it has been
   abandoned, but, as long as such evils abound, it is my duty, as the
   servant of the living God, to declare plainly that the continuance in
   dishonest actions is not consistent with being in the Kingdom of God's
   Grace and it will effectually close the gate of the Kingdom of His
   Glory. Dr. Watts was right when he wrote--

   "Not the malicious or profane,

   The wanton or the proud,

   Nor thieves, nor slanderers shall obtain

   The Kingdom of our God."

   Then, next, the Apostle says, "nor covetous." It is a strange thing
   that hardly anybody ever admits that he is covetous. Such a person
   calls himself, "Mr. Prudent Thrifty." Mr. Covetous tries to make us
   believe that he is only thrifty and prudent, both excellent qualities
   which are not to be condemned! But he is really greedy and grasping,
   which are quite different. He denies help to the poor and help to the
   work of God--all he cares for is himself, that he may be rich. It is
   very significant that the covetous are put in the same list with
   fornicators and adulterers. Oh, dear, how quickly Mr. Covetous would
   move out of the seat if he thought that there were any such people as
   those about! But, my dear Sir, you need not be so particular, or think
   so much of yourself, for, in the sight of God, you are in the same
   condition as they are and you, also, are among those who "shall not
   inherit the Kingdom of God" unless you repent of your sin!

   "Nor drunkards," says the Apostle. We know that in the Church at
   Corinth there were some who were so degraded that they were actually
   drunk at the Lord's Table. We hope there are no professing Christians,
   nowadays, of so low a type as that, though we know that there are still
   some who have named the name of Christ who are rightly called by that
   terrible name, "drunkards." And we also know that outside the nominal
   Church, there are multitudes to whom that title belongs. Drunkenness is
   one of the most debasing of sins--it lowers the whole tone of the
   person who is held in bondage by it. We sometimes talk of a man being
   "as drunk as a beast," but whoever heard of a beast being drunk? Why,
   it is more beastly than anything a beast ever does! I do not believe
   that the devil himself is ever guilty of anything like that. I never
   heard even him charged with being drunk! It is a sin which has no sort
   of excuse--those who fall into it generally fal1 into other deadly
   vices. It is the devil's backdoor to Hell and everything that is
   hellish, for he that once gives away his brains to drink is ready to be
   caught by Satan for anything.

   Oh, but while the drunkard cannot have eternal life abiding in him
   while he is such, is it not a joy to think of the many drunkards who
   have been washed and saved? This night, there are sitting here, those
   who have done with their cups, who have left behind them their strong
   drink and who have renounced the haunts of their debauchery. They are
   washed and cleansed--and when they think of the contrast between where
   they used to spend their evenings, and where they now are, they give
   echo to the question--"Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?"

   After the drunkards, the Apostle says, "nor revilers"--those who gossip
   and slander, pulling other people's characters to pieces. Or those who
   revile the saints and the things of God, profane swearers, who
   constantly add oaths to anything they have to say, those who cannot let
   the godly man's character alone. All such as these "shall not inherit
   the Kingdom of God." And, alas, there are thousands and tens of
   thousands of them even in this so-called Christian country!

   And then, to close the black list, the Apostle writes, "nor
   extortioners"--the men who demand usurious interest, those who prey
   upon the poor while they pretend that they are going to be their
   helpers. They have a certain sum of money to lend and they are willing
   to lend it out of pure benevolence. But, when any fall into their
   clutches, they pick their bones and suck their blood before they have
   done with them. Woe unto the men who grind the poor and rob another of
   anything that is justly his due! Of all these people, the Apostle truly
   says that they "shall not inherit the Kingdom of God." No, not merely
   does the Apostle say it, but the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of His
   servant Paul! He whose

   word is faithful and true--He who knows what the Truth of God is,
   declares that all such persons as these whom the Apostle has been
   describing are not partakers of Divine Grace--they are not subjects of
   King Jesus and into His glorious Kingdom they can never come except
   they repent of their sins and turn unto the Lord with godly sorrow and
   genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ!

   So much for that part of our subject. May God make these solemn and
   faithful words to be like arrows from the bow of a mighty man!

   II. But secondly, in our text we also have A REMINDER TO SOME OF
   US--"and such were some of you."

   The Apostle does not say, "and such were all of you," and I thank God
   that I have not to say that to you, my Hearers. Oh, what a mercy it is
   for any of us to have been kept from those terrible sins! Yet, with the
   Apostle, I can say, "and such were some of you." Those vices and evils
   were so common in Corinth that it was a great glory to God that He had
   taken some of these people who had formerly committed them, and had
   made Christians of them! "Such were some of you."

   Now, will you, dear Friends, look at the first part of our text and, as
   you run your eyes down the black list, put your finger upon the points
   where you were guilty--and then say to yourself, "Yes, it is true, such
   was I, before the Lord saved me by His Grace. That, or that, or that
   was my grievous offense against Him." "Such were some of you." Then let
   me ask you, my Brothers and Sisters, to consider why it is that God is
   pleased to save some of the worst of sinners so that, in the Church of
   Christ, it can always be said, "such were some of you"?

   First, it illustrates the great power of the Gospel If nobody were
   saved except the better sort of people, who have never openly offended,
   then the quibbler would say to us, "That is a very poor religion of
   yours! It is suitable for the moral, the sober and the chaste, but what
   good is it to a poor fallen world where there are so many real sinners
   of the blackest dye?" But the Lord seems to have said, "I will stretch
   out My hand and I will save some of the very chief of sinners, in order
   that, throughout all time, it may be known that My Gospel can effect
   the salvation of all sorts of sinners, even the most degraded. However
   depraved and fallen they may be, they cannot have gone beyond the reach
   of the Gospel of My Son." Is not that a glorious fact? Oh, when I think
   of some of you big sinners whom the Lord has saved under my ministry, I
   stand on this platform and, with the utmost confidence, cry to the
   guiltiest sinners who may be present-- "Come along with me, whoever you
   may be! I have a Gospel that is just suited to you." I can say, "Come,
   you who are moral and refined, who have never gone into any gross sin,
   here is a Gospel just suitable for you!" But I am also glad to be able
   to add, "Come along, you who have raked the very kennels of Hell with
   your iniquities--here is that which can wash you and make you white as
   the newly-fallen snow!"

   That, I believe, is one reason why the Lord saves these great
   sinners--to glorify His Gospel.

   Next, He does it to magnify His mercy, for when, in great tenderness,
   He comes to look upon sin as a disease, then, the worse the disease,
   the more is His pity! I remember reading of one who was giving some
   relief to a dumb man and his companion said to him, "Why, he never
   asked anything of you!" "No," he answered, "but his dumb lips asked of
   me more eloquently than any man could have done by speaking." Look at
   the blind man. He cannot affect you with his eyes, for he has none, but
   it is the absence of his eyes that makes you stop and say to him, "Poor
   blind man, I am so sorry for you, here's a trifle to help you." The
   crafty beggars in the streets will often show their sham sores and
   imitation wounds in order to provoke your pity. But our great God, when
   He sees us really full of sin--leprous, foul, corrupted--then He says,
   "Poor Soul, I will have pity upon you." It is in this way that He looks
   upon these greatly-diseased ones and blesses some of them on purpose
   that the majesty of His mercy and the Omnipotence of His Grace may be
   plainly seen by the sons ofmen!

   I am sure that He does it, also, to confound self-righteousness. I have
   heard this kind of remark again and again, "If God saves anybody, it
   ought to be those of us who always go to a place of worship and listen
   so attentively to the preacher." Ah, yes, you proud sinner! I know what
   you think, but I must remind you that there is no sin worse than pride,
   the one you are evidently full of! "Oh, but," someone says, "I have
   always been seeking and striving to be as good as I could, and yet I am
   not saved. But over there is a poor fallen girl, just rescued from the
   streets, who has believed in Christ and is now rejoicing in Him." I can
   easily explain why you are not saved--it is because you say that you
   see and, therefore, you prove that you are blind! You think you are
   righteous and that thought is, itself, the very essence of
   unrighteousness! I pray you notice how the Lord rebukes you and to
   learn, from His rebuke, where your sin lies. He does, as

   it were, smite your pride on the cheekbone, and He says, "Because you
   say that you do not need a Savior, you shall not have a Savior. I came
   not to call the righteous, but sinners unto repentance." Come down off
   your lofty pinnacle, Mr. Pharisee--you who thank God that you are not
   as other men are! Stand side by side with the poor publican whom you
   have despised, and cry, as he does, "God be merciful to me a sinner!"
   And then see if God will not deal in mercy with you, also!

   I am sure, too, that God saves some of these very black sinners on
   purpose to encourage the preachers of His Gospel I will tell you a
   secret. We ministers are often a very faint-hearted set of men. And if
   we do not have a great many converts, we go crying to our Master, "Who
   has believed our report?" And, while we are doing it, in comes one who
   has been a drunkard, or an unchaste person, or a thief, and we hear
   what God has done for him by our poor feeble ministry--and we shake his
   hand. Then he cries, and we cry--and we do not know which is the bigger
   sinner of the two--he for his open iniquity, or we for our unbelief! I
   know that when I meet with such converts, I say, "Bless God for them!
   When I get into the pulpit again, I will give the people some more of
   that same Gospel, for I see that what it has done for them, it can do
   for others!" Oh, yes, they may empty the prisons if they like, and let
   all the criminals in them come to hear the Gospel! We have a Christ to
   preach who is more than a match for the very worst of them! And even if
   there should come one whose heart had been turned into thrice-hardened
   steel, this Gospel would be able to melt it and, behind it, there is
   the Christ who can take the hard heart away and give in its place the
   heart of flesh, full of tenderness and full of love to Himself and to
   saints and sinners, too! Oh, yes, God often encourages His servants by
   fetching out from among the ungodly some of these great black sinners,
   washing them whiter than snow in the precious blood of Jesus and
   bringing them into His Kingdom on earth, in anticipation of the time
   when they shall be received into His Kingdom above!

   Further, by this means, He also encourages other great sinners to come
   to Him. I have known a man who said, "I fear that I cannot be saved,
   for I have been such a terribly great sinner." But, one day he has met
   one of his old companions who used to swear, drink and lie. And finding
   him to be saved, he said to himself, "Oh, then, I also might be saved!"
   I once knew a poor fellow who was very much distressed in spirit
   because he thought there was no pardon that could ever come to him. But
   he went into a chapel one morning when a little Prayer Meeting was
   being held before the service, and there was a certain old sea captain
   praying with such a tremendous voice that the man thought, "I must
   surely have seen and heard that man somewhere else."

   When the prayer was ended and he saw the man's face, he said to
   himself, "Why, that is Captain So-and-So! Six months ago my very blood
   ran cold as I listened to his blasphemy! I never heard a man swear as
   he did and I never before heard a man pray as he now does!" And then he
   added, "God can save me, now that He has saved him, for I am sure that,
   great sinner as I have been, I never went his length in blaspheming my
   Maker."

   There was good ground for that man's conclusion and many other people
   have argued in a similar fashion. It has frequently been the case that
   the big sinner has become a kind of decoy. He is caught first in the
   blessed Gospel net and then he allures others to come in with him! Very
   often those who had not the courage to go to Jesus, before, say, when
   they see how He welcomes some out-and-out profligate, "Well, as He has
   received him, why should He not also receive

   me?"

   You know how Bunyan relates that when he was converted and began to
   preach, people said, "What? Is that tinker saved?" And they gathered
   together to hear what he had to say--and then he preached to them,
   Jesus the Savior, and there were more tinkers that got tinkered that
   day! No, not tinkered, but made new creaturesin Christ Jesus! Christ
   finds it easier work to make us anew than to mend us--and that is what
   we really need to have done to us. If any of you are thinking of being
   mended tonight by signing the pledge, [This sermon was delivered at the
   service in the Tabernacle which was followed by a public meeting in
   connection with the Gospel Temperance Mission held there in September,
   1882] well, I am glad to see old kettles repaired, but, for all that, I
   would rather that you were made new kettles altogether!

   That is to say, I pray God to take you in hand and make you new
   creatures in Christ Jesus, for that is what we are aiming at in all
   these Gospel Temperance services--and we shall not be satisfied unless
   that great work is accomplished!

   I want to tell you one more thing about the salvation of these great
   sinners. I believe that the Lord saves them in order that He may win
   from them great love, intense zeal and much earnestness. If a man, with
   a cut finger, calls on a doctor, the surgeon says, "Oh, yes, I see! Put
   this piece of plaster on and it will be all right in a day or two." And
   so it is. He

   had not much the matter with him, so there was not much to be said when
   his finger was healed. But here is a man who can hardly breath. He is
   on the very borders of the grave. He will be dead in a week unless
   something extraordinary happens to him. He has been to scores of
   doctors and they all say, "It is no use to give you any medicine, for
   nothing will ever cure you--you will soon die," But he hears of a
   physician who has been the means of healing other sick folk in just
   such a plight as his. He calls him in and the doctor says to him, "If
   you take this remedy, you will recover." And so he does. In a month's
   time, that man is walking about, breathing the fresh air, and he is
   soon going to work again. Will he talk about the wonderful physician
   who cured him? Won't he talk about him? Why, there is no stopping him
   when once he begins on that topic! To every friend whom he meets, he
   says, "Do you see what a difference there is in me? You remember how my
   bones were almost sticking through my skin? It was as much as ever I
   could do to keep on breathing, but just look at me now, I have every
   hope of living on, perhaps for 20 or 30 more years!" Possibly a man who
   is suffering from neuralgia comes to see him, and he says, "I am not
   sure whether my doctor treats such a slight ailment as that--I almost
   wish you were in a consumption like mine was, for he would cure you as
   he healed me."

   Is it not so with regard to the diseases of the body and gratitude to
   the man who cures them? Well, in like manner, when the Lord saves a
   great big sinner, oh, how that sinner will love Him and how he will
   talk about Him to other sinners! There is a common saying among game
   preservers, that an old poacher makes the best game warden. He is the
   man to catch all other poachers when they come, for he knows, from his
   own experience, all their ways. "Set a thief to catch a thief," is a
   similar proverbial expression which teaches the same lesson. A woman
   who has been brought up out of great sin, into the paths of virtue and
   honor, is the one who will rejoice in rescuing others from a life of
   sin and shame. If you find a man who has been permitted to know the
   depths of sin, he is the one who will delight to go and seek after
   those who are sinking in the terrible flood.

   In the Providence of God I was never allowed to plunge into gross open
   sin, yet the Lord made me to feel myself to be the worst sinner who
   ever lived. I had such a vivid realization of my own guilt that I
   thought there never was another individual who had broken God's Law as
   I had--and when He pardoned me, I felt that there was no one who owed
   more to Him than I did. People say that I preached Calvinistic doctrine
   from the very first. I know I preached Free Grace and that I must and
   will proclaim until I die, for I should have been damned in Hell, years
   ago, if it had not been for the freest, richest and mightiest Grace
   that ever came from the heart of God! And, oh, I do love to tell you
   big black sinners that He can forgive your grossest sin and cleanse you
   from your worst wickedness--that He waits to do this for all who will
   come and put their trust in His dear Son! And that very trust He gives
   them by the effectual working of His Spirit. Salvation is all of Grace
   from first to last and, as it is all of Grace, the greater the sinner
   who is saved by it, the more glory to the Grace that saves him!

   III. My time has gone, but I must say just a little about the third
   point, that is, THE MARVELOUS CHANGE.

   Oh, that I knew how to preach upon this theme! I never feel my own
   weakness so much as when I stand here to plead with unconverted men to
   yield to the Savior! If any man thinks that he can preach, let him come
   and try it, if by preaching he means affecting the hearts of men and
   bringing them to God. This must be the work of the Holy Spirit and,
   whatever we may do, nothing comes of it until He works the great
   miracle! We go back home and say, "Who has believed our report?" until
   the arm of the Lord is revealed and then men are saved.

   Now, turning to this last part of our text--"and such were some of you:
   but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in
   the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." I will
   endeavor briefly to set all these things before you as best I can. The
   Lord knows how much better I would do it if it were in my power to do
   it. But, after all, it is not my language which is the important
   matter--it is the power of the Truth of God I utter on which I rest.
   Nor yet even upon that, but on the wonder-working Spirit of God who can
   effectually apply that Truth of God to the heart, and make it anew by
   His Omnipotent Grace--

   "Come, Holy Spirit, (for, moved by You,

   The Prophets wrote and spoke)

   Unlock the Truth, Yourself the Key

   Unseal the sacred Book!

   God, through Himself, we then shall know,

   If You within us shine

   And sound, with all Your saints below,

   The depths of love Divine."

   "And such were some of you." Where are you--dear members of this
   church, or of other churches of whom this is true--"and such were some
   of you"? "But you are washed." The High Churchman says that this means
   Baptism. Does it? I have seen some people washed by Baptism--I do not
   mean sprinkled, for I never could see how anyone could be washed in
   that way. But when we have immersed them, know this --that an
   unregenerate person, even after immersion is unre-generate still! And
   that a man who is not a Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ before he is
   baptized, has need to be baptized again, for it is not really
   Scriptural Baptism to him--and it cannot be a means of blessing to him.
   It may be a piece of hypocrisy on his part and of no value to those who
   practice it. No, no! That is notthe washing of which Paul writes! And
   Baptism, repeated ten thousand times, can do you no good whatever
   unless, first of all, you are washed in another fountain of which we
   often sing. Let us sing about it, now, all of us who know the verse--

   "There is a fountain filled with blood,

   Drawn from Immanuel's veins

   And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,

   Lose all their guilty stains."

   [This verse was accordingly sung by the congregation, and then MR.
   SPURGEON resumed and concluded his sermon.] That is the washing of
   which the Apostle says, "but you are washed," and after that washing
   comes the sanctifying, that is, the changing of the heart and the
   making of the whole nature holy! And that is the work of the Spirit of
   God, by the application of the Word of Christ.

   And then follows the justification. Pardon washes away our sin.
   Justification makes us righteous in the sight of God and sanctification
   gives us true holiness. Justification gives us imputed holiness, so
   that we stand before God, first in the righteousness which Christ has
   worked out for us--and next in the righteousness which the Spirit of
   God has worked in us. Oh, what a marvelous change is worked as the
   result of that one act of blessed washing!

   Now, to close, let me say that if you would be saved, this is the one
   thing for you to do--believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Do not trust in
   anything else whatever, but rely alone upon Him. Trust in Christ to
   make you hate sin. Trust in Christ to enable you to overcome every bad
   habit. Trust in Christ to help you to do everything that is right.
   Trust in Christ to cause you to stand fast even till you get to Heaven.
   "He that believes on the Son has everlasting life"--not, "he shall be
   saved tomorrow, or ten years hence"--he is saved now, on the spot! If
   you have only trusted in Christ since last that clock ticked, you are
   forgiven, you are a child of God, you are accepted in the Beloved, you
   are saved! It is an instantaneous, an immediate, but a perfect
   work--this washing away of sin--and this giving to us the righteousness
   of Jesus Christ. The Lord grant it to each one of you, for Jesus
   Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 1 CORINTHIANS 6:1-14.

   Verse 1. Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law
   before the unjust, and not before the saints?\n those days, the courts
   of law were utterly unjust. It was all a matter of who could bribe the
   most, for he would gain the suit. I think that we cannot say that it is
   quite like this at the present time in our law courts, neither can this
   verse be strictly a rule for the guidance of men in these days, except
   that, in the spirit of Paul's words, all lawsuits among Christians
   should be avoided if possible.

   2, 3. Do you not know that the saints shall judge the world? And if the
   world shall be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest
   matters? Knowyou not that we shall judge angels?Sitting with Christ, at
   the last great day ofjudgment, we shall give our, "Amen," to the
   condemnation of the fallen spirits.

   3, 4. How much more things that pertain to this life? If then you have
   judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are
   least esteemed in the church. For they will be better judges than the
   best of worldly men! Do you set such people to judge your difficult
   matters? And if you do not, then why do you go to those who are even
   worse qualified to give a right decision?

   5-11. I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man
   among you? No, not one that shall be able to judge between his
   brethren? But brother goes to law with brother, and that before the
   unbelievers. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because
   you go to law one with another Why do you not rather take wrong? Why do
   you not

   rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? No, you do wrong, and
   defraud, and that your brethren. Know you not that the unrighteous
   shall not inherit the Kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither
   fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers
   of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards,
   nor revilers, nor extortionists shall inherit the Kingdom of God. And
   such were some of you. They were Corinthians and some of them had
   fallen into the same sad and shameful condition as the rest of the
   inhabitants of Corinth. Many of them had been fetched, by almighty
   Grace, out of the very depths of the grossest sin, so that Paul, after
   giving a list of the blackest sinners, could add, "and such were some
   of you."

   11, 12. But you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are
   justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
   All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient There
   are some things that I may do. That is, I have the liberty to do them
   if I please. But I must also consider whether they are expedient, or
   whether they will damage others and do mischief to them. And, if so, it
   will be better for me not to do them because they are not expedient,
   even though they are lawful.

   12, 13. All things are lawful for me, but I willnot be brought under
   the power of any. Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God
   shall destroy both it and them. So, on the one hand, do not make too
   much of abstaining from this or that, for these things, after all, are
   but small matters to glory in. But, on the other hand, let no man ever
   call himself a Christian while he is a slave to any evil habit. What
   does Paul say? "God shall destroy both it and them." In the previous
   verse, he says, "I will not be brought under the power of any." The
   immortal spirit under the power of materialism? No, that must never be!

   13, 14. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the
   Lord for the body. And God has both raised up the Lord, and will also
   raise up us by His own power. Our bodies belong to Him! Therefore, let
   us think highly of them and never do anything to injure them and,
   especially, let us take care never to let them become instruments of
   iniquity to the grieving of the blessed Spirit of God.
     __________________________________________________________________

Some Marks of God's People

   (No. 2662)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 10, 1882.

   "Your God has commanded your strength: Strengthen, O God, what You have
   done for us." Psalm 68:28.

   DEAR Friends, at this time there is a special stir among the people. I
   know, from what I have seen and heard, that many are beginning to seek
   the Lord and others, who are not yet actually turning unto the Lord,
   are at least resolved to break off certain grosser sins and seek after
   something better. Well, there is something to be thankful for even in
   the waves of hunger pains which the prodigal feels before he says, "I
   will arise and go to my Father." I value even the pains he has to
   endure when he would gladly fill his belly with the husks that the
   swine eat. Before we can pronounce anyone's experience to be proof of
   the working of God's Grace, we are glad if we see any signs of what
   usually comes when Grace enters the heart. So I am thankful when an
   ungodly man says, "It is time I changed my course," for I trust that
   this is the first chipping upon the marble block--and that the great
   Sculptor, who fashions us in His own glorious image, will carry on the
   work and complete it to His own praise!

   Just now, when I see these signs of a stir among the people, I think it
   is my business to repeat the exhortation I have often given, "Make sure
   work of the change you are contemplating--make sure work for eternity!
   Do not put up with anything that will fail you at the last. If you are
   looking for something better than you already possess, mind that you
   get the best that is to be had." No, more, I would bid you give heed to
   our Lord's own words, "I counsel you to buy of Me gold tried in the
   fire, that you may be rich; and white raiment, that you may be clothed,
   and that the shame of your nakedness does not appear; and anoint your
   eyes with eye salve, that you may see." Mind that you buy all these
   things of Christ, for the terms on which you may have them are "without
   money and without price"--and you cannot get them anywhere else! I hope
   I am now addressing some who are saying, "We shall be glad and grateful
   if you will help us to judge as to our true condition and aid us to see
   whether we are Christians or not." That is what I am going to try to do
   tonight.

   The verse before my text describes God's ancient people when they were
   assembled in the order of their tribes. "There is little Benjamin with
   their ruler, the princes of Judah and their council, the princes of
   Zebulun, and the princes of Naphtali." They belonged to various tribes
   of the children of Israel, but they were all numbered among the Lord's
   people. And it is said of the whole of them, as if they were but one,
   "Your God has commanded your strength." These words apply to all the
   armies of Israel, so you and I, dear Friends, had better consider and
   see whether we belong to His armies or not.

   I. From our text, I learn that the first mark of the people of God is
   that THE LORD IS THEIR GOD.

   Notice, the first two words--"Your God." This proves that they have a
   God. We cannot be God's people unless we know His name and know that He
   is the living and true God--and that all the rest of the so-called gods
   are but fictions or idols of the heathen! There is one God who made
   Heaven and earth, the sea and all that is therein. There is one God who
   has made us and from whom the breath in our nostrils has come. There is
   one God who has ruled in all past history and who is still the God of
   Providence, the Preserver and Director of His chosen people--the one
   God who, in the fullness of time, sent His only-begotten Son, who was
   equal with Himself, but who lived and died that the guilty sons of men
   might have their sins pardoned and their wandering feet directed back
   to the great Father's house. The God of the Old

   Testament and the God of the New--the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of
   Jacob--the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! "This
   God is our God forever and ever: He will be our Guide even unto death."

   First, God's people believe in this God. If any do not believe in Him,
   they may call themselves what they please, but they are not the people
   of the living God! They may be the people of philosophy. They may be
   the people of the many dreams which men dream, nowadays, instead of
   believing in God, but they are not His people. I hope, Beloved, that we
   have no question about this matter and that we can say, without the
   slightest hesitation, "Yes, Jehovah, He is the God; Jehovah, He is the
   God."

   He becomes our God, then, first, by our belief in Him, and next, by our
   reliance upon Him. This God is not merely an influence! Certainly, He
   is not a fiction. He is a real Person with whom we may speak and who
   will hear us and answer us according to His wisdom and goodness. The
   Apostle truly wrote, "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners
   spoke in time past unto the fathers by the Prophets has, in these last
   days, spoken unto us by His Son." And He is still speaking to us,
   through Him, words of Grace, love and kindness. And He becomes our God,
   I repeat, when, believing in Him, we come and rely upon Him--implicitly
   trusting Him that, seeing we are sinful, He may cleanse us. That,
   seeing we are ignorant, He may teach us. That, seeing we are feeble, we
   may lay hold upon His strength and may thereby be preserved unto
   everlasting life!

   Let me ask all of you whom I am addressing--Are you trusting the living
   God? You know what it is, as a child, to trust your parents. As a
   friend, to trust a friend. Are you dealing just in that way with God?
   Then, are you relying upon Him, depending upon Him--especially relying
   upon Him as He is revealed in Jesus Christ, His Son, the sin-atoning
   Savior? If you are, you are His people! If you are not--whatever you
   may do, or be, or say, or think--you are not numbered among the people
   of God! Faith is the distinguishing mark of His elect. Where it is
   present, there is Grace and Truth. Where it is absent, the soul is dead
   in trespasses and sins.

   How does God yet further become my God? By my love to Him. As the
   result of having trusted Him, I find myself peaceful, happy, restful. I
   receive at His hands, pardon, and I know it is mine. I get love from
   Him and I feel it--and I love Him in return. This is another of the
   marks of the Lord's people. The true child of God loves God! There are
   many men who are, to a certain extent, religious because they feel
   bound to be so by a law which they cannot resist. Ah, but we are not
   under law--we are under Grace--and we obey the commands of God because
   we love to do so! No man, who takes pleasure in sin, is a child of God,
   for the new nature hates sin! And though, alas, through the influence
   of the old naturewhich still remains within us, we are imperfect and
   often transgress the Law of the Lord, yet it is not our delight and we
   grieve that it should ever be the case with us. If a child of God falls
   into sin, he is like a sheep in the mud--up again, directly! But he who
   is still ungodly is like the sow that falls in the mud and wallows in
   it, for he is in his element--and he delights in it.

   There is a very important thing to be observed in connection with this
   point. That is that our love to God is one of the chief qualifications
   for serving Him acceptably. He who serves God out of love to Him, is
   the one who really and truly serves Him. The Lord of Love, the great
   King eternal, immortal, invisible, needs no slaves to grace His Throne!
   He wants those to do His bidding who serve Him with delight and
   pleasure. There is such a thing as self-denial ceasing to be
   self-denial when a man takes such pleasure in denying himself, for
   Christ's sake, that the self-denial is a greater source of joy to him
   than the indulgence would have been--and that is just what true service
   for God is! Have I come here, tonight, because I am paid to do it? Or
   do I preach the Gospel with regret and loathing? Ah, no! The Gospel is
   as much my elements as the sea is the element of the fish. What else
   could I preach? Silent be this tongue forever, sooner than I should
   have anything to teach concerning the way of salvation except Jesus
   Christ and Him crucified, and His mighty mercy received by faith! Do
   not, many of you, Beloved, feel just the same as I do? We know that we
   are children of God and that He is our God because we love Him--and
   that love has put a new mainspring within us which moves our hands and
   all the wheels of our nature as they ought to be moved.

   How, next, does He become our God still more clearly? By our
   acknowledgement of Him when we come forward and say, "Let others do
   what they will, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
   And when we say, "God has set forth His Son, Jesus Christ, to be the
   Savior of sinners, we accept Him as our Savior and with our mouth we
   confess that we have done so. Let men hear it, let angels hear it, let
   devils hear it--it matters not to us how many hear our confession that
   we are set apart for God and for His Christ!" Our Christian profession
   is not a profession of perfection. No, no! It is

   not a profession that we are, in and of ourselves, any better than
   other people. But it does mean that we have believed in Jesus Christ
   unto the renewal of our nature and the salvation of our souls. He who
   has had that great work of Grace done in him and for him ought to
   say--and say at once--"This God is my God forever and ever; He shall be
   my Guide even unto death." Let us be branded with the name of God! Let,
   us, Beloved, who have believed in Jesus, be God's people and God's,
   alone! And on all suitable occasions let us confess the blessed fact
   that we are not our own, for we are "bought with a price"--that price
   being more than we can ever calculate, even the precious blood of
   Jesus, God's dear Son!

   Genuine people of God, then, have the Lord to be their God according to
   the first two words of our text, "Your God." And, oh, Beloved, I have
   scarcely time to tell you in what a sweet way we get personal
   possession of God. After having trusted Him, relied upon Him, loved Him
   and confessed that we belong to Him, we get to be as conscious of His
   Presence as we are of the air we breathe! We are freely able to
   converse with Him and feel within our spirit that He is listening to
   what we say to Him--and that He is speaking back to us. "Oh," says
   someone, "I do not believe that is possible!" Friend, you may do as you
   like about believing what I say, but, at any rate, if you have never
   enjoyed this experience, that does not prove that there is no such
   thing! We are as honest as you are and we have as much right to be
   believed as you have. If we were before a jury, we would be as good
   witnesses as you would be! We are not liars and we do solemnly declare
   that God's Presence is so consciously realized by us that we are
   certain that in Him "we live, move, and have our being." And we believe
   that spiritual communications--communications from the Holy Spirit--are
   frequent with us, checking us when we might fall into sin, stimulating
   us when we would be laggard, enlightening us when we are in difficulty
   and, sometimes, bearing us upward, as on eagles' wings, till we seem to
   get into the very vestibule of Heaven, and could scarcely be happier
   than we are, or else, I think, we must die! Oh, yes, there is a God! We
   who believe in Jesus have this God as ours and we will rejoice in Him!

   That, then, is the first mark of the Lord's people--the Lord is their
   God.

   II. A second mark of the Lord's people is given in our text. Read the
   whole of the first sentence and you will see that he who feels that God
   has called upon him, to serve him with all his strength, is one of the
   Lord's servants--"Your God has commanded your strength." That is to
   say, ALL THE STRENGTH OF A CHRISTIAN--physically, mentally, morally,
   spiritually--IS AT GOD'S DISPOSAL.

   A true Christian acknowledges that all he has, and the best of all that
   he has, should always be consecrated and dedicated to his Lord. First,
   we are heartily to obey God's commands. There is no part of our
   strength that we may reserve for ourselves--it all belongs to our Lord.
   We are to be like a soldier who, when he goes to war, thinks of nothing
   but how he shall discharge his duties so as to please his commanding
   officer.

   Now, my dear Hearer, is that the case with you? Has God commanded your
   strengths. "Well, Sir, I go to church. I go to chapel. I profess to be
   a Christian." Yes, yes, yes, but there may he nothing in all that--has
   God the absolute and sole command of you? Is He your
   Commander-in-Chief? Has he come and taken possession of that strong
   will of yours and made it subject to His will? And if He has made you
   to be a man strong in faith, fervent in love, brave in holy daring and
   great in patience, do you desire to have all those forces used for His
   Glory, and His Glory alone? If not, you are not one of God's people!
   But, if you do hold all your powers at His disposal, that is one of the
   marks of His people--and the more clear it is, the better! Beloved, God
   is to be served by us with all our heart and with all our mind--and
   with all our soul and all our strength.

   After this fashion, also, we should fervently pray to Him. Oh, what
   poor prayers some people pray, when they bow their heads for a moment
   as they come into the House of God! Often, there is no prayer at all in
   it and it is the same when they kneel down by their bedside, nearly
   asleep, or when they get up in the morning rather late and the bell is
   ringing for breakfast and they hurry down--yet they call that prayer!
   Listen to the text, my Friends--"Your God has commanded your strength."
   Take the pick of the day for prayer if you can! If you are half asleep
   at other things, be wide awake then! It is the best time for trading
   that you ever have--see that you make good use of it. This is the most
   noble exercise, except one, in which you can be engaged--get all the
   good that you can out of it! When you go up to the mountain, like
   Elijah on the top of Carmel, bring all the powers of your heart, mind
   and soul to bear upon this privileged occupation, and cry mightily unto
   God! Half-hearted prayers ask for a denial and usually get it. Pray as
   if you meant to be heard! Pray as he, who is starving, asks for bread,
   or for a drink of water if he is dying of thirst! Plead as he does who
   pleads for his life, for this is the way to prevail with God! Effectual
   fervent prayers bombard the gates of pearl and the Kingdom of Heaven is

   carried by the violence of that importunity which will not take a
   denial! "Your God has commanded your strength." Oh, for more of this
   kind of prayer!

   And the same strength ought to go out when we praise God. Never ought
   our heart to be more energetic than when we say, "Blessed be His holy
   name!" And when we are singing in company with others, then we should
   also praise the Lord with joyous heartiness. I love to hear the bright,
   gladsome songs of people who really sing with their souls as well as
   with their voices. I have been in some congregations where, during the
   hymns, I have thought I needed a microphone to enable me to hear what
   they were singing, for they sang so very softly. Pull out the stops of
   your organ and let the music fly abroad, for, "your God has commanded
   your strength."

   In a similar fashion, we should earnestly labor for the Lord. In the
   great warfare which we have now to wage against the world, the flesh
   and the devil, let us give to God the whole of our strength! Some
   people are said to work so hard for Christ that they wear themselves
   out. What a blessed consummation that must be! To wear ourselves away
   in our Master's service--to let the zeal of God's House eat us up--is
   the very best thing that can happen to us! I am sorry to say that I do
   not meet with many people who are too zealous. Some areso because they
   have not much brain, and what little they have easily catches fire.
   Very well, my Brother, if that is your case, burn away! There are some,
   however, who have more brains, but they seem to keep them very damp, so
   they never get thoroughly alight. But he who serves God aright should
   burn if he does not blaze, though it is better to be a burning and a
   shining light, as John the Baptist was. There should be a red,
   ruby-like heat in the very center of our soul. If there are no sparks
   and flames, yet should our heart be on fire for God. God never meant us
   to do His work half-heartedly--He wishes each of His people to feel and
   say, "My God has commanded my strength, and He shall have it."

   And, lastly under this head, let us give God our strength by living
   wholly to Him in our ordinary life. I t is a great mistake to make a
   division between what is "sacred" and what is "secular" in a
   Christian's life. You are not only to serve God when you worship Him in
   this Tabernacle or in any other House of Prayer, you are to equally
   serve Him tomorrow morning when you take the shutters down from your
   shop windows! Pray to God, as you do so, "O Lord, take my shutters down
   and enlighten my darkness! I know that this day I cannot prosper
   without Your blessing. I mean to work hard at my business, but it is
   vain to rise early and to sit up late, unless You bless my effort.
   Lord, be with Your servant all the day long!" Here comes the first
   customer. Now pray the Lord that you may not say anything to him but
   what is right, and ask God to give you an opportunity of saying a good
   word to him about the Lord Jesus Christ! Here come half a dozen
   customers all at once! Now, you young men, pray the Lord to enable you
   to attend to your business as you ought to do it so as really to serve
   those who employ you--"not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as
   the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart" even
   while you are serving your earthly employer!

   All day long there are opportunities for glorifying God if man really
   wishes to do it. If the Spirit of God is with you all day, you will
   feel and say to yourself, "I will give to God all my strength. These
   things down here--this measuring out, either by yards or by
   bushels--this buying and this selling--must be done by somebody and I
   must, by some means, earn my bread by the sweat of my brow, or the
   sweat of my brain. And as this is what God has given me to do, I will
   do it thoroughly, with a single eye to His Glory, so that no one shall
   ever be able to truthfully say that Christianity makes me, in any
   respect, a worse man than I was before I knew the Lord." "Your God has
   commanded your strength," so live unto God in everything! Let your
   meals be sacraments! Let your garments be vestments! Let your common
   utterances be a part of a great life-Psalm! And let your whole being be
   as a burnt-offering ascending unto the Most High, acceptable to God
   through Jesus Christ! Oh, for the power of the Spirit of God to help
   you to do this!

   III. The next part of the verse will show you, dear Friends, that God's
   people are known by this sign--THEY ASCRIBE TO HIM ALL THAT IS GOOD IN
   THEM AND IN THEIR FELLOW MEN. Let me read you the latter part of

   the text, "Strengthen, O God, what You have worked in us."

   This applies, first, to the steps which lead to conversion--"That which
   You have worked for us." There is no prayer, here, about what we have
   worked for ourselves, for that is all mischief and evil which needs to
   be forgiven and undone. The sooner all that nature spins is unraveled,
   the better. What God works is worth having worked for us and in us!
   There are some people who have very crude and false ideas about what
   the work of God is in the soul. I heard one say that the sinner is to
   take the first step towards salvation and then good will do the rest.
   But I have often said and now say it, again, that the first step is the
   one point of difficulty! You know the French story about Saint Denis,
   whose head was cut

   off, and then it was said that he picked it up and carried it in his
   hands for a thousand miles? That was what the priests of the Church of
   Rome declared, but one of Voltaire's followers very wittily remarked
   that, as for the thousand miles, there was no difficulty in that--it
   was only the first step that had any difficulty in it--if the saint
   could manage that part, the rest would be easy enough! And it is just
   so in the matter of salvation! If the dead man can pick his own head
   up--if the dead sinner can make himself alive--why, then he can do very
   well without God the rest of the way to Heaven! But that can never be,
   for Jesus Christ is Alpha as well as Omega--the first as well as the
   last in the sinner's salvation. And we may constantly say to Him--

   "No sinner can be beforehand with Thee! Grace is most sovereign, most
   rich and most free."

   No, further. Not only does God begin it, but it is He who carries it
   on. If ever the work of Grace were to stop at a certain point and the
   rest of it were to be the work of nature, that linsey-woolsey garment
   would be unfit for a child of God to wear! Yes, and what is more, the
   work which God has begun, He must finish, too. If He has left anything
   to our unaided strength, we shall fall in that particular point--and
   all of it will become faulty and useless. The true people of God are
   resting, for the whole of their salvation, upon the Triune
   Jehovah--upon the Father's love, upon the Son's redemption and upon the
   Spirit's effectual work upon the heart and conscience. It must be all
   of God and all of Grace, from the first even to the last--and they are
   the true people of God who feel and know this.

   Let me speak to some of you who have been taking the pledge lately.
   That is a very right thing to do. I wish that all did it, but that will
   not save you. The salvation of the soul is God's work and you must come
   to Him for it. "But, supposing I abstain for the future, will not all
   be right?" Certainly not! What about the times when you have been
   drunk? "Oh, well, of course, the pledge will not wipe out that sin."
   No, it will not. If you are a thief, would you tell the magistrates
   that they must not punish you because you are not going to steal again?
   "No," they would say, "we must punish you for what you have doner There
   are all your past sins and only the Lord Jesus Christ can blot them
   out.

   Perhaps a man says, "But, if I abstain from sin in the future, will not
   that do?" No, it will not. You owe your grocer a long bill, do you not?
   Call upon him and tell him that you cannot pay a halfpenny of the debt,
   but that you are not going to get into any more debt. "Oh," says he,
   "but that will not do for me! There is a County Court somewhere and I
   shall get a summons for you to appear there." So, if you go to God and
   say, "I am not going to sin in this way any more," He will not believe
   you, but if He did, He would say, "What about the past?" "God requires
   what is past." There is the stain of your past sin upon you--how can
   that be removed? Not by your tears. If you could shed an Atlantic full
   of tears, yet might the red spot of your sin turn every wave to carmine
   and the fatal spot would still be upon you. Nothing but the blood of
   Jesus can wash you clean and none are God's people but those who know
   that--and who come to Him for salvation, cleansing and everything
   else--and who commit themselves, body, soul and spirit, unto Him.

   IV. Now, lastly, the fourth mark of God's people is that THEY PRAY TO
   HIM FOR THEIR STABILITY. "Strengthen, O God, what You have done for
   us."

   What is a man's strength? Some think that their strength lies in their
   resolution. "Now," says one, "I have said it, and I will keep to it.
   You know, I am not a man who is easily turned from his purpose. I have
   made up my mind and I will do it." Yes, I have known several who have
   made up their mind, but it did not come to much when they had made it
   up. And I have known a great many persons promise and, having done that
   half a dozen times before and broken their promise every time, it did
   not come to much when that was done! "Oh," says one, "do not think that
   I shall act like that! I pledge myself to act differently." Yes, yes,
   and when a man has not a halfpenny in his pocket and he pledges himself
   that he will be a millionaire, I think to myself, "All right, but he
   had better not begin spending any of it yet."

   A soldier puts on his armor to go out to fight--he has his helmet on
   his head and leg armor of brass on his legs, a breastplate and all the
   rest of the armor. "Am I not a brave fellow?" he asks. When you come
   back, you may be, but not just yet. Remember Ahab's message to
   Benhadad, "Let not him that girds on his armor, boast himself as he
   that takes it off." I believe in you, my dear Friend. You have made a
   promise and I believe that you will keep your promise. That is to say,
   I believe as much in you as I do in the majority of people. "How much
   is that?" you ask. Well, not too much, for I have seen too many men
   place much reliance upon them. I have not yet been 50 years among them,
   but there are several of them whom I would only trust as far as I could
   throw them--and there are some whom I would not trust as far as that.
   But there are others whom I thought I might trust out of my sight, and
   I have done so--and I have been bitten by them! I

   believe myself bound to give as much credence and confidence to your
   resolution as your resolution is worth, so please let me see how much
   it is worth by observing how you go on.

   "Oh," says one, "but there is an addition to my resolution! There is my
   past experience. I am an experienced person. I am not like your young
   kids who are apt to be easily led astray again. A burnt child dreads
   the fire. My experience has made me very careful, steady and reliable."
   Yes, I know. You are the man whom I would not trust with a bad
   farthing, because the very people who have demanded my trust on the
   ground that they could not be led astray, I have generally found were
   the men who had already gone far astray! I knew an old friend who used
   to attend here who was a very curious sort of man, but he had a great
   deal of common sense. A deacon of a church met him in Smithfield, one
   morning, and asked him for a loan of 50 pounds. He was going to say,
   "Yes," for he knew and trusted him, but the deacon said to him,
   "Robert, you know you can safely lend that amount to me. I shall be
   sure to let you have it on the day that I promise. At my time of life,
   I am quite past temptation." My old friend stopped and said, "I was
   going to let you have that 50 pounds but, as you have arrived at that
   point, I shall not lend you a halfpenny, for I am quite certain I
   should never see it again." At that very moment the man knew that he
   was utterly bankrupt, and he failed, shortly after, for a very large
   sum, too, yet he said, "You may safely lend it to me, for I am quite
   past temptation."

   "Well," asks one, "then you would not have us believe in one another?"
   No, unless you want to believe a lie. David said, "Verily every man at
   his best is altogether vanity." "You are not very complementary." No.
   If you want compliments, do not come here, for I do not deal in them
   and I do not intend to. God's Word is what I have to preach and that
   contains something better than compliments. Brothers and Sisters, your
   best resolutions and your best experience are as strong as a broken
   reed! They only need to be touched in a certain way and they will break
   again! You have already failed again and again--it is no use for you to
   start again as you started, then, for you will fail again! The same
   causes under the same circumstances will produce the same results!

   Now stop, my Friend, while I get a grip of your hand and say, "Come,
   let us pray together." And this shall be our prayer, "Lord, if You have
   worked any good in us, however little it is, we dare not trust to it,
   or trust ourselves with it. But, Lord, do strengthen it. If it is only
   just a consciousness of sin, Lord, strengthen it till it grows into
   repentance. If it is only a little trembling desire to be right, Lord,
   strengthen it into a firm and brave resolve. If it is but a little hope
   in Christ, Lord, strengthen it until I can say, 'I know whom I have
   believed.' If I have a little germ of faith, Lord, strengthen it till
   the mustard seed grows into a tree. O Lord, I have promised to do this
   and that, but I know that I am as weak as water. I am apt to slip when
   I feel that I am standing most safely. Lord, help me! Lord, help me!
   Lend me Your strength!"

   Some of you have lately taken the pledge, "I promise, by the help of
   God, to abstain." That is the thing for you, that, "help of God," is
   what you need! I entreat any of you who are starting on a fresh life,
   do not start outside the help of God. Do not attempt to go on outside
   the help of God. And you, dear Friends, who are far advanced in the
   Christian life, never be so besotted as to think that you have gone so
   far by God's aid and now you can traverse the rest of the road without
   Him! You cannot do anything in that way. Have you never noticed that we
   make our worst blunders over the plainest things? The children of
   Israel were commanded to slay all the Canaanites, but a company of
   Gibeonites disguised themselves in a very clever fashion, and the
   people said, "Their shoes are old and scarred. And their clothes--well,
   they must have come a long way, for they are dreadfully worn. These men
   look like travelers who have come from a very far-distant country."
   They did not question the Gibeonites, for they said, "These are
   strangers, that is quite evident, so let us make a covenant with them
   and let their lives be spared." Yet, all the while, these men were
   their next-door neighbors, living very close to them! On the plainest
   point, the Israelites were taken in--and it is often the same with us.

   Brothers and Sisters never trust in yourselves, even though your
   strength seems to be more than adequate for the occasion! Trust in God
   as much when you have a huge "Woolwich infant" to fire against your
   enemy as when you have nothing but a sling and a stone. When you are
   full of knowledge, full of wisdom and full of Grace, yet still be
   nothing and let the Lord your God be your All-in-All! Oh, what a
   blessing it would be if everyone of us would get to Heaven! I do not
   see why we should not, the Lord being our Leader! One thing I know--if
   we do get there, by-and-by, there is not one of us who will throw up
   his cap and shout, "Hurrah! Glory be to myself! I did this!" No, no,
   no! But we will all go together and such crowns as Grace shall give us
   we will cast at Jesus' feet. And the song, "Non nobis, Domine" shall go
   up

   from all of us, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Your name
   give glory, for Your mercy, and for Your Truth's sake."

   Let us begin to learn that song, now, and let us sing it in life, in
   death and forever, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM68

   This was a Psalm sung at the removing of the Ark when it was taken up
   to its resting place on Mount Zion. All the tribes were gathered
   together and, in full pomp, they marched along, bearing the sacred
   chest. As they marched forward, the trumpets sounded and this Psalm
   rose up to God.

   Verse 1. Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered: let them also
   that hate Him flee before Him. That is the way to move--God first and
   His people following closely after Him. That is the true order of
   revival--the Lord in the front, then all His children, quick of step,
   to follow where He leads. The Psalmist seems to take it for granted
   that there would be no fighting if God should arise, for all His
   enemies would be put to flight by His Presence.

   2, 3. As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melts before
   the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God. But let the
   righteous be glad; let them rejoice before God: yes, let them
   exceedingly rejoice. The courtiers of God ought to be clad in the silks
   ofjoy and to be bright with the jewelry of rejoicing!

   4, 5. Sing unto God, singpraises to His name: extol Him that rides upon
   the heavens by His name JAH, and rejoice before Him. A father of the
   fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in His holy habitation.
   In the wilderness the Israelites were like a company of fatherless
   people. But God was their Protector and in all their trials and dangers
   He was their Defender.

   6. God sets the solitary in families. He brings out those which are
   bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. They had
   been in a sad condition in Egypt, scattered and driven here and there.
   God promised to bring them all together, in great families, and to
   richly bless them.

   7, 8. O God, when You went forth before Your people, when You did march
   through the wilderness; Selah: the earth shook, the heavens also
   dropped at the presence of God: even Sinai itself was moved at the
   presence of God, the God of Israel If the translators had given us the
   original words, we would have valued this Psalm much more, for it
   contains nearly every name of God. This verse would run, "Even Sinai
   itself was moved at the presence of Elohim, the Elo-him of Israel."

   9, 10. You, O God, did send a plentiful rain, whereby You did confirm
   Your inheritance, when it was weary. Your congregation has dwelt
   therein: You, O God, have prepared of Your goodness for the poor It
   rained manna and it rained quail. There are no difficulties about the
   commissariat of an army when God is the Commander-in-Chief! All those
   who put their trust in Him shall be provided for!

   11. The Lord--Or, Adonai--

   11. Gave the word: great was the company of those that published it
   When God speaks, He always has publishers of His message! Our Lord
   found a woman at the well and sent her back to the men of the city as
   His messenger. And He will find many others before His work is all
   done!

   12. 13. Kings of armies did flee apace: and she that tarried at home
   divided the spoil Though you have lain among the pots. Grimy among the
   brick kilns, covered with clay and black with smoke--despised,
   rejected, earthbound. "Though you have lain among the pots."

   13. Yet shall you be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and
   her feathers with yellow gold. There are good times ahead for God's
   people! Rich and rare blessings are laid up in store for them that fear
   Him. Therefore, let us rejoice in Him even now.

   14. When the Almighty scattered kings in it, it was white as snow in
   Salmon. Driven from the bare, bleak mountainside in gusts like
   feathers, the snow flies before the wind! And so, when God scatters the
   mighty, they cannot resist Him--"It was white as snow in Salmon."

   15. The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan; an high hill as the hill
   of Bashan. This hill of Zion is not high at all--it is a mere knoll
   compared with the lofty peaks--yet it was highly favored. So, to carnal
   eyes, Christ's Kingdom on earth was little in comparison with the
   kingdoms of this world, yet, in the sight of God, it is greater than
   all of them!

   16. Why leap you, you high hills? This is the hill which God desires to
   dwell in. Yes, the LORD will dwell in it forever. There are grander
   places than Zion, but if God chooses to dwell there, His Presence gives
   her a glory and a greatness that no other spot can have. The forces at
   the disposal of Zion's King are boundless--note how the Psalmist
   enumerates some of them.

   17. 18. The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of
   angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place. You
   have ascended on high, You have led captivity captive: You have
   received gifts for men, yes, for the rebellious, also, that the LORD
   God might dweel among them. As the Ark went up the hill of Zion, so has
   Christ ascended to eternal Glory! He is the true Ark of the Covenant
   and He is also the true Mercy Seat. Therefore, let our hearts rejoice
   in our ascended Savior who has "led captivity captive." "You have
   received gifts for men, yes, for the rebellious, also." "In due time,
   Christ died for the ungodly." "He made intercession for the
   transgressors." Let rebellious sinners catch at this great Truth of God
   and, touched by the love and Grace of God, let them cease to rebel any
   longer.

   19, 20. Blessed be the Lord who daily loads us with benefits, even the
   God of our salvation. Selah. He that is our God is the God of
   salvation; and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death. All
   glory be to His thrice-blessed name for all that this verse includes!

   21, 22. But God shall wound the head of His enemies, and the hairy
   scalp of such an one as goes on still in his trespasses. The Lord said,
   I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring My people again from the
   depths of the sea. Wherever His people may have gone, God will bring
   them all together again--"from Bashan"--or "from the depths of the
   sea."

   23-35. That your foot may be dipped in the blood of your enemies, and
   the tongue of your dogs in the same. They have seen Your goings, O God;
   even the goings of my God, my King, in the sanctuary. The singers went
   before, the players on instruments followed after, among them were the
   damsels playing with timbrels. Bless God in the congregations, even the
   Lord, from the fountain of Israel There is little Benjamin with their
   ruler, the princes of Judah, and their council, the princes of Zebulun,
   and the princes of Naphtali. Your God has commanded your strength:
   strengthen, O God, what You have worked for us. Because of Your temple
   at Jerusalem shall kings bring presents unto You. Rebuke the company of
   spearmen, the multitude of the bulls, with the calves of the people,
   till everyone submits himself with pieces of silver: scatter the people
   that delight in war. Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall
   soon stretch out her hands unto God. Sing unto God, you kingdoms of the
   earth! O sing praises unto the Lord; Selah: to Him that rides upon the
   heavens of heavens, which were of old; lo, He does send out His voice,
   and that a mighty voice. Ascribe strength unto God: His exceelency is
   over Israel, and His strength is in the clouds. O God, You are terrible
   out of Your holy places: the God of Israel is He that gives strength
   and power unto His people. Blessed be God. The Psalm ends with an
   ascription of praise unto God. So let our reading end--and our
   worship--and our lives! "Blessed be God."
     __________________________________________________________________

A Leap Year Sermon

   (No. 2663)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   FEBRUARY 29, 1880.

   "One born out of due time." 1 Corinthians 15:8.

   PAUL thus describes himself. It was necessary that Paul, as an Apostle,
   should have seen the Lord. He was not converted at the time of Christ's
   Ascension, yet he was made an Apostle, for the Lord Jesus appeared to
   him in the way, as he was going to Damascus, to persecute the saints of
   God. When he looked upon himself as thus put in, as it were, at the end
   of the Apostles, he spoke of himself in the most depreciating terms,
   calling himself, "one born out of due time."

   Those who are acquainted with the Greek tongue know what a despicable
   term Paul here applied to himself--as though he was scarcely a man at
   all. At any rate, as the very last of the family, "born out of due
   time," and not only the last, but also the very least, for he says, "I
   am the least of the Apostles, that am not meet to be called an Apostle,
   because I persecuted the church of God." Scholars will know why I
   cannot exactly explain the word which Paul uses, but rather keep to the
   rendering of our translation, which, although it may not have the force
   and full meaning of the Greek expression, is, perhaps, none the less
   useful for public reading. "One born out of due time."

   Paul thought very humbly of himself. He reckoned himself less than
   nothing and put himself down at the very lowest estimate--and mentioned
   that he was brought to Christ and made an Apostle when the time for
   such a work was apparently over. Out of date altogether, beyond the
   period when it might have been thought that another Apostle would be
   called of God, there was Paul--found as "one born out of due time."

   My subject tonight is, first, the singular time of Paul's spiritual
   birth. There are many of God's true children who, like the Apostle,
   were "born out of due time." When I have expatiated upon that fact, I
   shall speak of the sure evidences of his spiritual birth and show you
   that, although "born out of due time," he was born--and there were sure
   evidences of his spiritual birth--which evidences, I trust, may be seen
   in many of us, also!

   I. First, then, let us think of THE SINGULAR TIME OF PAUL'S SPIRITUAL
   BIRTH.

   There are still some who, like the Apostle, are born to God "out of due
   time." They are truly born again, regenerated, converted, at a most
   unlikely season. There have been multitudes brought to Christ under
   earnest sermons, when the appeals of faithful men have thrilled the
   congregation and the Truth of God has been effectually carried home to
   the hearts of many of the hearers. But there have also been times when
   God's ministers have waxed faint, when the sermon has appeared to be
   destitute of all force, when nobody has seemed to have felt the power
   of the sermon and, apparently, the Truth of God has fallen quite flat!
   Yet, on many such occasions there have been some sinners converted to
   God when we would hardly have thought it to be possible!

   Mr. Tennant, a famous American minister of Whitefield's time--one of
   the most earnest and seraphic men who ever proclaimed the Gospel of
   Jesus Christ--had a hearer who remained unmoved under many a score of
   his most faithful sermons. Others were saved, but not this man. He
   seemed unmoved and immovable, but it came to pass, on a certain Sab-

   bath, that a very unusual thing happened. Mr. Tennant had prepared his
   sermon with great care. It was what we are known to call a laborious
   discourse into which he had put all the thought and all the pains
   possible. But he had not been preaching long before his memory
   completely failed him! His mind refused to work and, after floundering
   about for a while, he was obliged to sit down in great confusion and
   say that he could not preach to the people that day. The man I have
   mentioned, who had never before been impressed under Mr. Tennant's
   ministry, was that daycalled by Sovereign Grace as "one born out of due
   time," for he was led to see that there was a spiritual and
   supernatural force which had usually helped the pastor to preach--and
   that when this Divine influence was withdrawn--he was as weak as other
   men and could not speak with power as he had been accustomed to do!
   This Truth of God, somehow or other--for human minds are strangely
   constituted and things which have no effect upon certain people, very
   greatly affect others who are present at the same time--this Truth, I
   say, induced the man to think! And thinking, he was led to believe in
   God, and to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of his
   soul. He was, without doubt, one "born out of due time."

   I would like to break down, as Mr. Tennant did, if some of you would be
   born to God by that means! I would rather be dumb and win a soul for
   Jesus, than speak with the tongues of men and of angels and yet men's
   hearts should not be impressed by the Truth of God I proclaimed! How
   often I have found that when I have gone home and sighed, and cried,
   and groaned over a sermon in which I felt no liberty, but thought it
   was an utter failure, it has afterwards been proved that, here one, and
   there another, have come forward blessing and praising God for that
   very testimony which seemed to me so faulty and feeble, but which the
   Spirit of the Lord has savingly impressed upon them! So, still, there
   are some who in this way are "born out of due time," through the Holy
   Spirit's use, even, of the preacher's weakness and apparent failure!

   Another illustration may be taken from the opposite side of the same
   Truth. Some are converted when they seem, themselves, to be in a state
   of mind in which they are the most unlikely to be impressible. I
   remember being in Dr. John Campbell's house, one day, when he told me
   that a minister was preaching at Whitefield's old Tabernacle in
   Moorfields, one evening, when there were present, under very strange
   circumstances, two young men who had fallen into dissipated habits and
   who had made an appointment with each other for the commission of some
   gross sin that very night. Had they committed what they had planned, it
   may be that they would have plunged themselves into a career of vice
   from which they might never have been extricated. They were passing by
   the Moorfields Tabernacle, which some of you remember, and as they
   needed to know the time at which they were to meet for this unholy
   purpose, one of them said to the other, "Go in and check the
   time--there is sure to be a clock in there." But the clock was not
   fixed as it is here, at the back of the preacher, but the other way--so
   the young man had to go some little distance further in than he
   intended, in order to see the clock. If I remember rightly, the
   preacher that night was Matthew Wilks, and he was just uttering some
   quaint remark, something that arrested the young man's attention and
   held him fast in the aisle. His companion waited outside for a time,
   but it was cold, so he thought he had better go in and look at the
   clock, himself, and fetch his friend out. He went in--the arrows of the
   Lord pierced the heart of both of them! The second of those young men
   was John Williams, the famous missionary and, at last, the martyr of
   Erromanga! Thus they, also, were "born out of due time."

   You would not have thought it possible that those men would become, as
   they did, preachers of the Gospel, when they were, at that very time,
   desperately set on the commission of a great sin against God and their
   hearts were wholly given up to the pleasures and follies of this world!
   But so it happened and our Lord still knows how to stop men as He
   stopped Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. He is the man who says
   that he was "born out of due time" and he is a wonderful instance of
   this method of Divine interposition. He has in his possession the
   letters from the High Priest which will enable him to bind the saints
   and carry them off to Jerusalem. He is riding towards Damascus and is
   within sight of the city when, in the very midst of his high-handed
   course of persecution, the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, intervenes and
   smites him down to the ground! Presently, Paul rises to pray and, in
   his three days' blindness and fasting, to seek the Lord and then to
   find Him, to the salvation of his soul and the joy of his spirit--and
   thus to become an Apostle of that very Savior whom, in his ignorance,
   he had been persecuting! After such a triumph of Divine Grace, let us
   never despair of anysinner, however far he may have gone into sin!

   You know how Paul, writing to Timothy, said of himself, "For this cause
   I obtained mercy, that in me, first, Jesus Christ might show forth all
   long-suffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on
   Him to life everlasting." The God who blessed the broken sermon of Mr.
   Tennant can bless our imperfect work in the pulpit, the Sunday

   school, or anywhere else! And the God who saved such men as John
   Williams and his companion, when they least thought of such a thing
   happening, can also save some who have strayed in here, tonight, little
   dreaming what designs of love God has toward them in bringing them at
   this time under the sound of His Word!

   I consider, next, that a convert may be described as one "born out of
   due time" when he is brought to Christ after some great revival or
   notable religious movement has come to an end. There are some of you
   who attended the recent special services conducted here by Messrs.
   Fullerton and Smith. What power there was in those hallowed gatherings!
   Some of your neighbors wept under conviction of sin, but you did not.
   Some of them came to Christ and are now rejoicing in Him, but you did
   not come to Him. You were not even impressed during the meetings,
   though, possibly, you wished to be. Or it may be that you began with a
   desire after better things, but you ended in indifference. And now the
   special services are all over and the good men who came among us to
   preach and sing the Gospel are gone--and you have been saying to
   yourselves, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not
   saved." Ah, but our Lord has a blessed way of picking up the stragglers
   behind the army! When the main body has marched on with sound of
   trumpet, praising God, there are a few left behind--and the Lord Jesus
   sometimes comes and picks them up! I do earnestly pray that some of you
   may be thus picked up by Him just now, so that you may be able to say,
   "We were not born for God when many others were, but, like Saul of
   Tarsus, we were 'born out of due time.' But, blessed be God, we were
   born again by the effectual working of His Spirit! We were brought to
   Christ, to the praise of the glory of His Grace, and now we, also, have
   become children of God by faith in Jesus Christ." Pray that it may be
   so dear Friends! O you Christian people, bow your hearts before God and
   ask that it may be so! Perhaps the very fact that those services are
   over and that a gracious opportunity has gone may be impressed upon the
   minds of some who were present during the meetings, but who were not
   converted--and they may now seek the Savior and find Him to their
   everlasting salvation and happiness!

   The Lord can bless strange methods to the awakening of the ungodly.
   When Puritanism seemed to be trodden under foot, in the reign of James
   I, and the king issued the Book of Sports, and gave commandment that
   every clergyman was to read from the pulpit, on Sunday, that it was the
   royal will and pleasure that the young people should play at football,
   cricket and other games and pastimes on the Lord's-Day afternoon, godly
   ministers who really loved the Lord did not know what to do. One of
   them thought, perhaps, it would be well to do as the king ordered and
   to say something beside, so, when the Sunday came for reading the Book
   of Sports to the people, he said, "I am commanded by the king and the
   authorities to read to you the following document, but it grieves my
   heart and conscience to have to read it. I know it is wicked, wrong,
   shameful and abominable to desecrate the Sabbath as you are invited to
   do, and I wonder what will become of my country when even from the
   church, itself, Sabbath-breaking is recommended."

   So, the good man spoke, to the relief of his own conscience and in hope
   of awakening the consciences of others. It happened that there was in
   the congregation, that day, a young man who had always been a
   ringleader in the Sabbath sports--he was no sooner out of church, in
   the morning, than he was on the village green, fast and furious in all
   the amusements of the time. But, when he heard that Book of Sports
   read, he said to himself, "well, I acted in that way on my own account
   and it was wrong enough for me to do so, but now I say with the
   minister, "What is to become of all the country if everybody is to be
   as bad as I have been? What will happen to the nation if this kind of
   thing is to go on?" The thought struck him so forcibly that he became,
   first, a serious character, and then a true seeker after God--and
   afterwards a genuine believer in the Lord Jesus Christ! So it came to
   pass that when the devil thought he was going to have everything his
   own way, that very day, this young man was born to God--truly, "born
   out of due time."

   I remember reading a very striking saying of Mr. Bunyan's. He said he
   had good reason to believe that in the generation after him, there
   would be many more saints than in the one of which he formed a part. He
   said his belief was based upon the fact that wherever he went, he found
   that there were so many great sinners that he hoped they would be
   converted and become eminent servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well,
   there was a blessed truth at the back of that hope of his, for, very
   often, where sin has abounded, Grace does much more abound! And when
   the Word of God seems to grow scarce and the candle of the Gospel burns
   but dimly, we may pray and expect that even then some may be "born out
   of due time" to the praise of the glory of that Grace which saves as it
   wills--and often selects the very chief of sinners to be the subjects
   of it's almighty power!

   There have been some dear friends who may be said to have been "born
   out of due time," for they have been converted to God after it seemed
   impossible that they ever should be. I remember well reading of one who
   imbibed skeptical

   notions and became exceedingly furious against the preaching of the
   Word. One day, in Edinburgh, he heard it said that a certain eminent
   minister of the Gospel intended, if he met him, to speak with him about
   his soul. Whereupon the man uttered some very strong expressions and,
   among other wicked things, he said, "I shall never be converted unless
   I lose my senses!" All who were acquainted with him and who knew how
   desperately he was set against the Gospel, thought that his was,
   indeed, a hopeless case. But, in the Infinite mercy of God, it turned
   out to be quite the opposite! He began to suffer from great incoherence
   of thought. His mind gradually wandered--when he was trying to speak,
   he often spoke utter nonsense. He became unfit for business and had to
   be put into the custody of someone who watched him as his keeper.
   Reason was not actually gone, but it was reeling upon its throne, and
   while he was in that sad state, the case of Nebuchadnezzar came to his
   mind and he wondered whether God had given him up, altogether, on
   account of what he had said--that he would never be converted while he
   was in his senses. He turned his mind, all shipwrecked and battered as
   it was, towards God, and out of the depths of his half-bewildered
   spirit, he cried unto the Lord as Nebuchadnezzar did--and his mind
   returned to him and he became a humble, gentle, holy believer in the
   Lord Jesus Christ!

   Do you not think, dear Friends, that he also was "one born out of due
   time"? The time of salvation seemed utterly past so far as he was
   concerned. He had made a covenant with death and a league with Hell. He
   had cast off those ordinary beliefs which many men hold even though
   they do not obey them--yet, notwithstanding all that, the surprising
   Grace of God dealt with him after its own Sovereign manner and laid him
   low, that it might bring him up again! I do not pray that such a thing
   may happen to anybody here, but I do pray that God may bring you to
   Christ somehow and if, in order to attain that end, you have to be
   driven to the very gates of Hell--so long as you do not actually pass
   through them--I will rejoice if, afterwards, you are led to flee to
   Christ for refuge!

   Another instance of "one born out of due time" occurs in the case of
   one converted after the spiritual father is dead. We sometimes see
   posthumous children, that is, those who are born after the father is
   deceased, and there is generally much sorrow mingled with the thought
   of such births, for the poor widow's heart is doubly troubled by the
   extra care needed for the little stranger who arrives after the
   bread-winner of the family is taken away. But if a man is the means of
   bringing another to Christ after he, himself, is dead, there need be no
   sorrow about that matter! There have been many, many instances in which
   earnest Christian people have sought the conversion of their relatives
   or friends. They have prayed for them, and wept over them, and pleaded
   with them--but all their efforts have been unsuccessful. Yet, after
   their death, the memory of their holy zeal has touched the conscience
   of the one who would not yield, before, and brought him to Christ. I
   wish, dear Friends, that your godly mother, who is in Heaven and who
   died leaving her son unsaved, might seem to come to you just now. I ask
   for no apparition, but that she may be consciously present to your mind
   and that her dying words may ring in your ears, for perhaps the
   remembrance of what she said may be blessed to you even now.

   When I am taken away, I can but wish that any true and faithful word
   that I have spoken may still continue to speak to you from my grave.
   When good Mr. Payson died, he begged that his people might come and see
   him, if they wished, before he was interred and those who did so, read
   these words on his bosom, "Remember the word which I have spoken unto
   you being yet present with you." It was thus his desire, you see, that
   he should have posthumous spiritual chil-dren--that they should be born
   to God even though they should seem to be "born out of due time." Ah,
   you wives, who have been praying for your husbands these many years,
   never give them up, because they may be brought to Christ when you,
   yourselves, will be in Heaven! Mothers and fathers, never cease
   pleading for your children, for they, too, may be brought to Jesus when
   you are among the angels.

   Up in one of the northern counties of England there was a woman, a
   believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose prayer went up continually for
   her husband, but he never entered the House of God--and despised her
   for doing so. She was accustomed to go to her usual place of worship
   alone, so far as any human companions were concerned, yet she was not
   quite alone, for there was a dog that always went with her. This dog
   curled himself up under the seat and lay quite still during the
   service, and then walked home with his mistress. The first Sunday after
   she was dead, the poor dog went off to the Meeting House as usual, and
   curled himself up in his old place. He did the same the next Sunday,
   and the husband, noticing the dog start out so regularly, was struck by
   its action and wondered where the dog went, now that his mistress was
   gone. So he thought he would go and see. The dog went before him to his
   mistress's old seat and curled himself up. The man went in after the
   dog and sat down in his wife's place--and God helped the minister, that
   day, to show him that

   his good works and self-righteousness in which he had always trusted,
   would not be sufficient for his salvation. And the minister preached to
   him the full salvation of Christ Jesus--and the man believed and lived.
   Was not he, also, "born out of due time," for his wife's prayers for
   him were a all over, and she was gone? Yet he was brought to Christ.

   The subject is one upon which I might enlarge indefinitely, but I would
   rather have you to supply further instances of similar blessing by
   urging you to persevere in prayer, you who are seeking the salvation of
   others.

   Some have been "born out of due time" because they have been converted
   to God in extreme old age. I would like to encourage any very aged
   person who is here and still unsaved--and to drive away altogether the
   notion that it is too late to seek the Lord! It is never too late as
   long as life lasts and there is the power to repent of sin and to turn
   to the Lord--

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

   I will not quote cases, but I have a vivid recollection of a good many
   persons who have been saved at the age of 70 or eighty. We have had
   persons, past both of those periods, baptized upon profession of their
   newly-found faith. The world's proverb says, "It is never too late to
   mend," but Christ would tell you, if He were here in bodily Presence,
   that it is never too late for Him to mend you, or rather, for Him to
   make you anew, for that is the work He undertakes to do. It is never
   too late for Him to stretch out His pierced hands and help the man who
   is tottering on his staff, to become a babe in Christ! Yet, surely when
   very old men are born again, they seem to be "born out of due time."

   Many of you have not yet come to old age, yet if God should save you,
   tonight, you would be as those who are "born out of due time," because
   you are on the very brink of the grave. Consumption has laid its cruel
   hand upon you and pulled down all your strength. In all probability you
   will not be long in this world. You have come out, tonight, but you are
   half-afraid that you have done wrong in coming in the state you are in,
   with that terrible cough that you have--and you have not found the
   Savior. O my dear young Friend, wherever you may be, it is a sad, sad
   thing to be carrying about with you, your death-warrant, as you
   certainly are doing, and yet to have no warrant to believe that when
   you die, it will be well with you! Oh, I pray you, do not let Satan
   tempt you with the idea that now, when sickness is upon you, there is
   no hope for you!

   Come to Jesus, however consumptive you look! Come to Jesus, young man,
   with that chest that scarcely allows you to breathe! Come unto Him, for
   He will not cast you away! I remember one, whom I met at Mentone, who
   had gone there in the hope of lengthening his life, but that was quite
   out of the question, for he was too far gone when he came. He had two
   sisters who were sent for to come to him, for it was certain that he
   could not live long. He himself was under deep concern of soul,
   earnestly seeking the Lord, but he could not find Him. Day after day,
   week after week, he had been getting worse and worse and showing all
   the signs of his approaching departure, but he could not find peace
   with God. At last, his sisters came from England. They arrived just in
   time. They found him very anxious about his soul. That night they spoke
   with him of Jesus and in the morning, early, when they woke, they went
   to him and he was sitting up in bed, all pale and ghostlike. He said,
   "Sisters, Christ has forgiven me!" And he fell back on his pillow and
   he was gone Home. There was an end of his suffering and weakness here
   below, but the consolation of that last word to them, and of the joy
   that beamed from his poor eyes was enough to make them gladly commit
   his body to the tomb. "Sisters, Christ has forgiven me!" Ah, he was,
   indeed, "born out of due time"--born between the very jaws of death!
   But death's jaws could not close upon him till he had received
   forgiveness from his Savior. I beseech any of you who are in a similar
   condition to his, do not put off seeking the Lord, but hasten to find
   Him even now!

   Once more, there are some who are "born out of due time" because they
   are born all of a sudden. They suddenly come to Christ. They suddenly
   find peace. They are suddenly saved. I wish that might happen to some
   here tonight. There is no need of any set period for this all-important
   matter! Time is no element in the matter. God can work conviction and
   conversion in a single instant. You know that, sometimes, you see a
   flash of lightning and then you wait several seconds before you hear
   the thunder. But when a storm is right overhead, the flash and the slap
   are simultaneous, and down comes the pouring rain at the same time!
   And, in like manner, the Lord knows how to send a flash of conviction
   and, at the same instant, to make His deep voice of mercy to be heard
   in the soul--and to send the floods of Grace upon the spirit then and
   there! Why should He not do so tonight for any of you who need these
   blessings?

   Now I will tell you the special reason why I chose this text. It is
   because this is the 29th of February and it is a Sunday. There is a
   large number of you who never saw a 29th of February on Sunday, before,
   and there is a still larger number

   who will never see the 29th of February on a Sunday, again. I suppose
   it will be 28 years before that will occur again. So, this is a Sunday
   thrown in, as it were. It is an odd kind of day, an extra day in the
   calendar. If you ask our friends of the Greek Church, the Russians,
   they will tell you that there is not such a day at all, for they keep
   to the old system of reckoning time. This plan of putting in an odd day
   every four years, to make our days square with the sun, is a very good
   and proper one. Still, it is a kind of a day thrown in, and it seemed
   to me that, if the Lord would convert some souls on this odd day in
   this leap year, it would make the 29th of February, that came on a
   Sunday, to be specially memorable! You will not forget it if it is the
   day of your conversion! You will say to your children, it may be, 28
   years hence, if you are alive, "Ah, I recollect when the 29th of
   February last came on a Sunday--that was the day when I sought and
   found the Lord! Mr. Spurgeon said that I was like the Apostle Paul,
   'one born out of due time,' and so I was. Yet I was born in due time, I
   know, according to the Covenant of Grace."

   Oh that the Lord, in His Infinite mercy, having given us this special
   day, would now give us a special blessing and bring many to Himself
   this leap year! Oh, that all of you who are still unsaved, would make a
   leap right out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of His dear
   Son, His Holy Spirit enabling you so to do by a simple act of faith in
   Jesus Christ! And you Christian people, pray for a special and unusual
   blessing, a 29th of February blessing. Ask God to give it to us, in His
   infinite mercy, that many and many a soul may be "born out of due time"
   this very night!

   Who shall it be? And where shall the work of repentance begin? Does not
   somebody over there say, "Lord, let it be me"? There is said to be a
   special opportunity of making proposals in leap year, but I can tell
   you, if you make a proposal to come to Christ, that He has long ago set
   His heart on you! You would never have thought of proposing to Him if
   He had not first of all ordained to bring you to Himself! If you come
   to Him, He will receive you and oh, in His great mercy, may the Holy
   Spirit incline you to come to Him this 29th of February that falls upon
   a Sunday!

   II. Now I have only two or three minutes left for the second part of my
   subject--THE SURE EVIDENCES OF PAUL'S SPIRITUAL BIRTH.

   Though Paul was, in a spiritual sense, "born out of due time," he was
   truly born again. And those persons who have been converted at singular
   times and, under strange circumstances, have been really converted. How
   do we know that Paul was born again and that he was called to be an
   Apostle of Jesus Christ?

   I answer, first, because he had seen the Lord. After mentioning those
   who saw the risen Christ, he says, "Last of all He was seen of me,
   also, as of one born out of due time." The first evidence that he was
   an Apostle was that he had actually beheld the Lord. Now, in a
   spiritual sense, one of the marks of a true Believer is that he has
   seen the Lord. My dear Friend, if you have looked to Christ for
   forgiveness, even though you have only looked to Him, tonight, and this
   is an odd night--the 29th of February, yet, if you have, by faith, seen
   Jesus on the Cross, and truly trusted Him, you are as much saved as the
   man is who believed in Christ 50 years ago! Looking to Jesus is the
   evidence that we are born again-- and happy is everyone who can
   truthfully say, concerning Christ, "He was seen of me, also."--

   "Isaw One hanging on a tree, In agonies and blood."

   I looked to Him. He looked on me and we were one forever. I trusted Him
   and, therefore, I am saved. If you can say that from your heart and the
   Holy Spirit bears witness that what you say is true, you need not raise
   any question about your new birth! If you are trusting in Jesus, it is
   well with your soul in time and to eternity!

   The next evidence of his spiritual birth, which Paul gave, was that he
   confessed his sin. Read the verse following our text. "For I am the
   least of the Apostles, that am not meet to be called an Apostle,
   because I persecuted the church of God." See how he confessed his sin
   and forsook it? "He that covers his sins shall not prosper, but who
   confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy." Are you, dear Friend,
   willing, now, to confess your sin? Do you turn from it with loathing?
   Do you desire, henceforth, to be delivered entirely from it? Well,
   then, your repentance is another sure evidence that you are born again!
   If you have seen Jesus taking your sin upon Himself and suffering its
   dread penalty. If you have confessed your sin and, by faith, laid it
   upon Him as your Sacrifice and Substitute, you are born again, though
   you may have been, in a certain sense, "born out of due time."

   Next, we are sure that Paul was really born again because he was
   thoroughly converted. Never was there a greater change in any man than
   there was in him! He never went back to his former life and he had no
   hankering to return to it. With him, old things had passed away and all
   things had become new--he was, indeed, a new creature in Christ Jesus!

   I am sure he was converted, also, because he praised the Grace of God.
   Read the 10th verse. "By the Grace of God I am what I am." Even when he
   truthfully says, "I labored more abundantly than they all," he humbly
   adds, "yet not I, but the Grace of God which was with me." It its a
   sure sign of conversion when a man knows that he is saved by Grace,
   alone, and does not attribute it to his own merit, or his own works,
   but praises and adores the Sovereign Mercy and Grace of God. Have you
   that evidence, dear Friend? Then you are born aright, even though "born
   out of due time."

   And, lastly, Paul proved that he was a true citizen of the New
   Jerusalem because he became, of all men, most zealous for Christ,
   zealous for the Gospel, zealous for the winning of souls. He seemed to
   try to do all he could to undo the mischief he had worked in the days
   of his unregeneracy and to work with both his hands and all his heart
   to establish and extend the Kingdom which once he tried to overthrow. O
   God, by Your great mercy, cause another Paul to be born in this House
   of Prayer tonight! You can do it. Will You not bring to Yourself, by
   the power of the Eternal Spirit, some wild, threatening, blustering,
   blaspheming hater of Christ? Lay him at the dear feet of the Crucified
   and cause him to look up and live!

   Pray for this, dear Christian people. Pray for it tonight when you
   reach your homes as well as now! And then we shall have special reason
   to remember this 29th of February. Possibly, someone who will, in days
   to come, stand on this very spot preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
   will say to you, "Do you remember the 29th of February, 1880? Do you
   remember the text, 'One born out of due time'?" I trust that some of
   you will be here to hear him say, "I remember it better than any of you
   do, for that was the night when I was born to God, glory be to His holy
   name!" Now pray for it with all your hearts, for our Lord Jesus
   Christ's sake. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN3:1-18.

   If you were sent for to visit a dying man and you wished to select a
   chapter which would set the Truth of God before him very briefly and
   very clearly, you could not make a better choice than this 3rd Chapter
   of the Gospel according to John. So, as we are all dying men and women,
   let us read it with that same desire--and may the Holy Spirit apply it
   to our hearts as we read it.

   Verses 1, 2. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler
   of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by night That was better than not
   coming at all. "Better late than never." Better come to Christ in the
   dark than not come to Him at all.

   2. And said unto Him, Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from
   God: for no man can do these miracles that You do, except God be with
   him. This was good reasoning on the part of Nicodemus. If he did not at
   first go as far as he afterwards did, it argued well for him that he
   went as far as he could. O you who are troubled with unbelief, believe
   as much as you can, and then cry, "Lord, I believe, help You my
   unbelief and, especially, help me to get rid of it." Confess to Christ
   what you do believe, and He will add more to your belief.

   3. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
   Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God. He cannot
   understand what it is. He cannot know anything about it. He cannot see
   it.

   4. 5. Nicodemus said unto him, How can a man be born when he is old?
   Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus
   answered, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a man be born of water
   and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. If the
   "water" mentioned here relates to Baptism--which I greatly
   question--then, certainly, it shows the way of entrance for a Believer,
   publicly, into the Kingdom of God. But if it relates to the purifying
   power of the Spirit of God--as I believe it does--then it teaches us
   that no man enters into the Kingdom of God and becomes a partaker of
   its privileges--which is something more than merely seeing it--except
   the Spirit of God shall be to him as water purifying him from sin. This
   is the reason why a man cannot enter into the spiritualKingdom until he
   is born again--born from above.

   6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. And "flesh and blood
   cannot inherit the Kingdom of God." 6. And that which is born of the
   Spirit is spirit And only the new creature, which is thus born, can, by
   any possibility, understand or enter into the possession of the
   spiritual things which belong to the Kingdom of God.

   7, 8. Marvel not that I said unto you, You must be born again. The wind
   blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell
   from where it comes, and where it goes: so is everyone that is born of
   the Spirit The Holy Spirit is mysterious, like the wind, and so is the
   creature that is "born of the Spirit." The spiritual man often cannot
   understand himself, he is so mysterious a being--how then shall he be
   able to fully comprehend how that wondrous new life is created within
   him? All we know is that he is a new creation, as much the work of
   eternal power as our first creation.

   9, 10. Nicodemus answered and said unto Him, How can these things be?
   Jesus answered and said unto him, Are you a master of Israel, and know
   not these things? ' 'These things" that lie at the very root of
   everything? "Are you a Rabbi and do you not know this?" Alas, good
   Master, there are still many Rabbis who do not understand this! Many
   who have taken the highest degree the University can give them, yet do
   not know in their own souls what it is to be born again!

   11. Verily, verily, I say unto you, We speak what We know, and testify
   what We have seen; and you receive not Our witness. Spiritual men
   declare that there are spiritual things. They know them and have seen
   them, and they have a right to be believed, for they are not liars.
   They are honest men and speak what they know, yet, often, their witness
   is not received. They need not be surprised at this, for it was the
   same with their Master!

   12. If I have told you earthly things, and you believe not, how shall
   you believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? If these elementary
   Truths of God about the new birth stagger you, what is the use of My
   going on to anything higher? You would not understand it, or receive
   it.

   13. And no man has ascended up to Heaven, but He that came down from
   Heaven, even the Son of Man which is in Heaven. He alone knows the
   secrets of God who has been with God, who has come from God, and who is
   still with God.

   14-18. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so
   must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whoever believes in Him should
   not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He
   gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not
   perish, but have everlasting life. For Godsent not His Son into the
   world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be
   saved. He that believes on Him is not condemned: but he that believes
   not is condemned already, because he has not believedin the name ofthe
   only-begotten Son of God. God give us, even now, deliverance from
   condemnation through faith in His dear Son--and prevent our being
   condemned through our unbelief--for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Things Unknown

   (No. 2664)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MARCH 4, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL SOUTHWARK, ON A LORD'S-DAY EVENING, EARLY IN
   THE YEAR 1858.

   "Call unto Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty
   things which you know not." Jeremiah 33:3.

   GOD'S people will never thrive on anything less substantial than bread
   from Heaven. Israel in Egypt might live on garlic and onions, but
   Israel in the wilderness must be fed with the manna that came down from
   Heaven, and with the water that gushed out of the Rock when it was
   smitten by the rod of God. The child of God, while he is yet in his
   sins, may, like other men, revel in them, and the pleasures and follies
   of this world may be his delight. But when he is once brought out of
   Egypt by the high hand of God's purpose, and the almighty hand of God's
   strength, he will never live on anything less than God's promise and
   God's Truth! It is vain for men to try to remove his doubts and
   strengthen his self-confidence. It is vain for men to endeavor to feed
   himself with man-made doctrine or with rationalistic ideas--he must
   have something that is Divine, that has the stamp of Revelation upon
   it. In fact, unless we can come forth every Sabbath with a, "Thus says
   the Lord," we are not capable ministers of the New Covenant and it is
   not in our power to comfort the Lord's children.

   In this chapter we find the Prophet Jeremiah in prison. He was shut up
   in the court of the prison and, in order to comfort him, the Word of
   the Lord came to him saying, "Thus says the Lord." Something less than
   that may suffice in the time of our prosperity, to make our hopes
   buoyant, for, alas, there is enough of the natural man in the Christian
   to make him rejoice even in carnal things when he is far from being
   thoroughly sanctified. But when we are in trouble. When affliction and
   adversity, sickness and suffering are trying us, there is no man-made
   raft upon which our soul can float through floods of tribulation and
   waves of deep distress--we must have the Divine life buoy of a, "Thus
   says the Lord." That is what the Christian needs in every time and in
   every place, but this is what he most especially needs when he does
   business in deep waters and is sorely exercised by affliction, "Thus
   says the Lord." My text is a, "Thus says the Lord." "Thus says the
   Lord, call unto Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and
   mighty things, which you know not."

   Here is, first, a large promise. Here is, secondly, an implied
   imperfection. And here is, thirdly, a particular application of the
   promise, making up for that imperfection.

   I. Here is, first A LARGE PROMISE. "Call unto Me, and I will answer
   you."

   Now, if any friend should write us a letter containing such words as
   those, "Call unto me, and I will answer you," we would naturally
   understand by them that whatever we might ask of our friend, he would
   most assuredly give us. And if he were a person in whose ability and
   kindness we had confidence, we would not be very slow in availing
   ourselves of his permission to seek his aid. If we were in debt, we
   would apply to him for financial help so that we might be able to meet
   our liabilities. If we were tried by sickness, we would apply to him
   that he might give us medicines to relieve our pains. If our friends
   had been ungrateful to us, we would most likely call upon him for
   sympathy. And if our spirits were distressed from some unknown
   cause--if we believed him to have immense wisdom--we would ask him for
   some cordial to raise us from our distress.

   But how different is the case when we read these Words as coming from
   the lips of God! Then, my Brothers and Sisters, how strange it is that,
   instead of making use of them, we just read them as a matter of
   course--we seldom think of making use of them! "Yes," we say, "it is a
   very comforting doctrine, that God answers prayer. It is truly
   consolatory to

   hear our minister inform us that whatever we ask in prayer, believing,
   we shall receive." But there the matter ends. And, except with a few
   choice spirits, it remainsa matter of doctrine and not a matter of
   practice to us! "O fools, and slow of heart to believe," our Master
   might well say to us! And if He should come into our heart, He would
   administer a thousand rebukes to us for our slackness in proving the
   Truth of His promise. For God means what He says and, inasmuch as He
   has said, "Call unto Me, and I will answer you," He intends that His
   Words should stand good. And He wishes us to believe them to be true
   and, therefore, to prove our faith by acting upon them. Alas, the Truth
   of God is too plain to be disputed, that the most of us, while, in a
   sense, we receive this doctrine because it is in the Bible, do not so
   receive it as to put it into practice! In introducing to your notice
   the great general Truth of God, "Call unto Me, and I will answer you,"
   I shall probably have to answer a host of objections and questions.

   "Well," says one person, "would you wish us to believe, Sir, that
   whatever we ask in prayer we shall receive?" I must reply to you with
   discretion. In the first place, who are you who now ask that question?
   Are you a child God, or are you a worldling? Have you been born again,
   or are you still what you were by nature, without any renewal from the
   Holy Spirit? For, upon your answer to those questions, mine must
   depend. If you are still without the Spirit of God, and are unrenewed,
   I would remind you of that passage which says, concerning the wicked,
   "Even his prayer shall be an abomination "--and if your prayer is an
   abomination, of course you cannot expect God to accept an abomination
   and answer it! You must, therefore, know that you, yourself, are a
   partaker of the Grace of God, or else this promise does not belong to
   you.

   You grant me that, and then you ask me this question, "Sir, I hope I am
   a child of God. Am I, therefore, to understand that whatever I shall
   ask for in prayer, I shall receive of God?" To you, also, I must answer
   with discretion, lest, in endeavoring to state a truth, I should utter
   a falsehood. I must first ask you in what state of heart you are as a
   child of God. Have you been lately communing with Christ? Have you been
   constant in the study of His Word? What are your wishes? What are your
   needs? What are your desires? For, upon your answers to these
   questions, my reply to your enquiry must depend. It may be that you are
   a Christian, but, nevertheless, though an Israelite, you, like Israel
   in the wilderness, are asking for meat that you may satisfy your own
   lust, even as they did. And when they craved for flesh and the Lord
   sent them quails, while the meat was yet in their mouths, the curse of
   the Lord came upon them!

   We are sure to have our prayers answered if it is right that they
   should be answered. Sometimes even the Lord's people ask for things
   which it would not be for God's Glory to give, nor for their profit to
   receive. If you should tell your child you would give him anything he
   asked for, you would not, for a moment, suppose that you included in
   the promise any absurd request he might make! Suppose he should ask you
   for a dose of arsenic? Suppose he should request you to kill him? Would
   you fulfill your promise? Certainly not! You would Say, "My child, I
   love you too well to listen to the ravings of your madness. I desire
   your good too much to grant your absurd request and I cannot listen to
   you." God says the same--"'Call upon Me, and I will answer you,' but I
   will not always answer you as you wish to be answered. If you ask for a
   thing which is not fit for you to receive, I will give you something
   better--I will not give you that very thing. I will hear your prayers,
   but I will not give you exactly what you ask for--I will grant you
   something infinitely superior to the thing itself."

   It would be a sad thing if God always heard our prayers and gave us
   just what we asked of Him. If He always gave us the exact thing we
   asked for, we should ruin ourselves! You may have heard the story of a
   woman who had a child who was very ill. When her pastor called to see
   her, she asked him to pray for the child's life, and in the prayer he
   very properly said, "O Lord, spare this child's life, if it is Your
   will." The mother interrupted him and said, "No, I cannot have it
   so--this child must live. I want you to pray to God that the child may
   live whether God wills it or not." The minister said, "Woman, you will
   have cause to tremble on account of this petition. If you ask such a
   thing as this of God, there will be a curse upon it." Nevertheless, the
   prayer was prayed and, 20 years afterwards, that woman, with an aching
   heart, saw her son riding in a cart to Tyburn where he was to be
   hanged! Better would it have been for him and also for her that he had
   perished at the breast and be carried to an untimely grave, than that
   he should send her gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. God, therefore,
   makes this very kind reservation that if we ask for absurd things,
   things which would not be for our profit, He will not grant them.

   But the question is put to me again, "Sir, if I ask for a thing which
   is obviously a good thing, which is most assuredly for my profit, may I
   be certain, after I have asked in prayer for that thing, that I shall
   have it?" Once more, I must ask

   another question. Have you yet learned the heavenly art of believing
   God? Because you may be a Christian, you may believe in Christ enough
   for your soul's salvation, but you may be so small a Christian that you
   have never yet attained the mountain height of belief in all your Lord
   has uttered. And, mark you, the promise of an answer to our prayers is
   only given to our faith. The Lord Jesus Christ put it thus to His
   disciples--"What things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that
   you receive them, and you shall have them." Now, if you go on your
   knees in prayer and ask God for anything and do not believe that He
   will give it to you, it may come in God's extraordinary bounty, but it
   will not come in answer to your prayer! Your prayers shall be answered
   in proportion to your faith. So, if you believe and ask for a thing
   that is for your good and God's Glory, you will have it as surely as
   the promise is a promise and God is God! I have talked with many
   Christians and some of my aged friends have talked with far more than I
   have, but both they and myself can bear witness that we have never yet
   met with any Christian that could charge God with breaking His promise.
   We have met with many who have been far from having the faith they
   ought to have, but we have never discovered one so faithless to God as
   to charge Him with not answering the prayer that was stamped with
   believing. Whenever there is faith, there will be the answer to the
   prayer of faith--you will never hear a Christian deny that Truth of
   God.

   It was my privilege, some two years ago, when at Bristol, to visit the
   Orphanage of Mr. Muller, and I never saw a more striking or startling
   exhibition of the power of faith than I did there. Mr. Muller supports
   300 orphan children on no resources but his own faith and prayer. When
   he needs anything, he calls them together, offers supplication to God,
   and asks that necessities may be supplied. And, although there are 300
   to be fed, to be clothed and to be housed--and though they have often
   been brought so low that there has not been a farthing in their
   coffers, nor a handful of meal in their barrel--when mealtime has come,
   there has always been abundance of bread in the house in answer to
   prayer.

   I shall never forget my interview with that holy man of God. Some
   gentleman said to me, "I wish you would ask Mr. Muller a question or
   two, if you see him, as to the foundation of a new Orphan House which
   he proposes to build to hold 700 more children. Now, I feel that three
   hundred is quite enough for one man to care for," the old gentleman
   said. "I think it is very absurd for him to have 700 more. He will
   never be able to support a thousand. As to the preset Institution, I
   believe that generous persons hear about it and send him subscriptions
   for it maintenance. But as to his supporting 700 more orphans, that is
   impossible!"

   I replied, "I think there is something in what you say. I will ask him
   when I see him." But when I saw him, I could not and dared not ask him
   any such questions! And when I saw what a great work he had done by his
   faith, and began to remark upon it, he said, "Oh, it is only a little
   thing that I have done--faith could do far more than that. If it were
   God's will that I should feed the universe on prayer and faith, I could
   do it. If I had more faith, it could be accomplished." I was just going
   to say that, possibly, a thousand orphans would be more than he could
   support, when he said, "When I got three hundred children, I began to
   pray God to send me money to build an Orphan House to hold seven
   hundred more, and I already have £17,000 sent in for it, although I
   have never solicited a contribution from anybody but the Lord. I
   believe God has made me to be here, to be to the world a proof that He
   hears and answers prayer." I thought so, too, when I saw that huge
   building and the many dear children rising up to praise their God, and
   singing so sweetly in honor of the Good Shepherd who had gathered them
   like lambs to His bosom, and had gently folded them there.

   Brothers and Sisters, we do not speak without solid facts to confirm
   our assertion when we affirm that whatever a saint asks in prayer, if
   he asks in faith, and it is for his own profit and for God's Glory, he
   will be sure to have it. I daresay you have read Huntington's, "Bank of
   Faith." He certainly gives us too many of those instances for most
   people to believe, but I fancy there are plenty of persons alive who
   have had as many answers to their prayers as ever William Hunt-ington
   had, and who, if they were to write the minutiae of their lives, could
   bear most solemn testimony to the truth that never could they remember
   God being unfaithful to His promises, or their prayers unanswered.
   This, however, must always depend upon the person, himself, for if we
   ask waveringly, or without faith, we must not expect to be answered. We
   must not forge that what God implies, when He does not grant
   unbelieving requests, is just this, "Inasmuch as you have no faith, I
   have nothing to give you."

   We must do as the people did at Christmas time in the olden days. It
   used to be the custom for the poor inhabitants in a village to go round
   with basins to the rich people in the parish and beg bread and other
   victuals of them. And the rule was that every gentleman was to fill the
   bowl that was brought to his door. Of course, the wisest among the poor
   folk brought a very large bowl for the Christmas gathering, but those
   who had little faith in the generosity of their wealthy

   neighbors took a small bowl, and that was filled. But those who took a
   big bowl had theirs filled too! So, dear Friends, you must always try,
   in your prayers, to bring a big bowl to God! Bring great faith and rest
   assured that, according to your faith, it shall be done unto you. If
   you have little faith, you shall have a little answer. If you have
   tolerable faith, you shall have a tolerable answer. But if you have a
   mighty faith, you shall have such a mighty answer that you shall wonder
   at it, yet you shall feel that it is according to the promise of our
   text, "Call unto Me, and I will answer you."

   II. Now we come to the second part of our subject and we notice AN
   IMPLIED IMPERFECTION. "Call unto Me, and I will answer you, and show
   you great and mighty things, which you know not." It is implied that
   God's people do not know everything.

   Did you ever meet a man who knew everything? I have happened to meet
   half-a-dozen such. I once met with a minister who knew all
   things--according to his own account, I mean--not according to mine. He
   told me when I saw him that in the parish where he lived, there were
   not more than a dozen people who knew the Lord Jesus Christ in truth. I
   was interested in that man, for I knew a little about him, so I said to
   him, "Well, who are they?" So he began, "Well, there is myself, and my
   wife, and my two deacons," and so on. "Oh," I answered, "the only
   person I should dispute out of that number would be yourself, because I
   think you know too much by a great deal--you seem to have climbed up
   and to have looked into the secret roll of God's Decrees. No child of
   God would do that. Children do not look into their father's secrets--it
   is only thieves who do that. I doubt your claim to be a child of God."

   Each of us, at times, meets with an interesting individual who knows
   far too much, in whose company one always feels uncomfortable. We never
   introduce any subject--we leave him to do that because he is the Pope
   of our circle. He hates Popery, of course! Two Popes cannot agree, so,
   naturally, he has a very strong objection to the Pope of Rome. He
   himself knows all things. You utter a sentiment--he tells you,
   directly, that it is not sound--he knows, of course. You talk about a
   matter of experience, but he says, "That is not the experience of the
   living child of God." He is umpire, of course. He knows all about it.
   He is the judge who ends all strife. He settles everything. Bring him
   in, his vote is the casting vote, which it were almost profane to
   controvert! He is King, Lords and Commons, all rolled into one. He
   makes the laws and he fulfils them. He is, in his own sphere, the
   Autocrat of all Christians!

   Now, God's children belong to a very different order of beings from
   this very respectable and very venerable individual! They do notknow
   everything and they do not pretend to be full of all knowledge. One of
   the best of them, whose name was Paul, said, "Not as though I have
   already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if
   that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ
   Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one
   thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching
   forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark or
   the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

   An old man once met a young one who had been to College about six
   months and he sad to him, "Do you know much?" "Yes," the young man
   answered, "I am getting on very fast." The old man said, "You will not
   say that in a year's time, or else I shall have no hope for you." In a
   year's time, he asked him whether he knew much more than he did six
   months before. He replied, "Sometimes I think I know a great deal more,
   but, at other times, I think I know a great deal less. I have
   discovered my own ignorance more than ever this last year." Then the
   old man said, "By the time you have been in college four years, you
   will confess yourself to be a very great fool." And when he met him,
   during the fourth year, he said, "What do you know now" The student
   replied, "I think, perhaps, I know more than when I entered College,
   but, in my own opinion, I know much less. When I first came, I thought
   myself competent to give a decisive opinion upon every subject. Now, I
   am obliged to weigh everything before I am able to state anything
   positively. My own ignorance has been discovered."

   Now, depend upon it, dear Friends, it will be the same with each of
   you! We may think, when we first join the Church, "We know almost
   everything." Some people suppose that all the Truths of God are found
   in the Baptist denomination. Others imagine it is all in the
   Episcopalian, Independent, or Wesleyan denomination, or in whatever
   sect they belong. But when we have been members of the Baptist
   denomination for a considerable time, we discover that there are
   several faults among us. And we think, perhaps, that if we were
   fashioned according to the Presbyterian model, we might be improved.
   By-and-by, we find a friend who attends an Episcopal Church, where he
   hears the Gospel very plainly preached by a very earnest clergyman and
   we say we think there is something good in the Episcopalians! And the
   longer we live, the more we find that there is something good in all
   and that, after all, we do not know as much as we

   thought we did, and that our Church, though it seemed to be the very
   model of perfection, is found to be full of infirmities as well as any
   other Church, and it is not exactly theChurch after all.

   I repeat, then, the assertion that is implied in the text, that we
   have, all of us, a certain amount of ignorance and imperfection, for if
   we knew all things, we would have no necessity for this promise, that
   God would show us great and mighty things which we do not know. But, as
   we are still imperfect and growing in our knowledge, this promise is
   exceedingly precious to us. I can scarcely think that I have any person
   here of that particular clique who fancy they know everything. If I
   have, I would say a word to him. There is a certain body of excellent
   men who call themselves "God's dear people!" That is just what they
   are--they are dear to anybody--nobody would think of buying them. If
   they were to be given away, they would be scarcely worth having! They
   are God's dear people. They hear their minister preach a sermon made up
   of the extract of gall and bitterness, and that just pleases them. His
   people rejoice in that kind of talk and say that he is a faithful
   minister. If he were to leave off being bitter, he would not be
   faithful--faithfulness, according to their meaning, consists in finding
   fault with all the world besides. They tell you to go to "Little
   Bethel," "Rehoboth," or "Bethesda," because there is no truth anywhere
   else. It is only there that the Truth of God is to be had, and all
   other congregations are schismatics, whom it is their duty to denounce
   and persecute with the utmost rigor of the Gospel-- and you are aware
   that the utmost rigor of the Gospel is worse than the utmost rigor of
   the law!

   The rigor of the Gospel is more intolerable than even the rule of
   Draco, himself, for those persons exclude, denounce, and condemn every
   man who is not to the very turn of a hair's breadth in conformity with
   theirviews. To every such person we say, "Dear Brother, you are very
   wise! All hail to you! We will put you in the chair as the marvelous
   Doctor of Divinity! You are the man! Wisdom will die with you and,
   while we humbly bow at your feet, we are obliged to say that you do not
   yet know everything--there are a few things that need to be revealed,
   even to you! And while we keep ourselves at a respectful distance from
   anything like your superior knowledge, we are compelled to think that
   you have not yet attained unto perfection--and we cannot admit that you
   are the only man in all the world who understands and knows the
   Gospel."

   Well, though our Brother will not join with us in saying, "We do not
   know all things," I think that all who are here present will bow their
   heads and each one will say, "Lord, teach me what I do not know; for
   the little that I know is nothing to be compared with the volumes of
   Your wisdom which I have not read and do not yet understand."

   III. Now we come to the third head of our subject, which is the best of
   all. We have, here, THE PARTICULAR APPLICATION OF THE PROMISE. "Call
   unto Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things,
   which you know not."

   First, we understand this promise to relate to Gospel doctrines. I
   confess that when I first preached in a country village as its pastor,
   I read all Dr. Gill's, "Body of Divinity," and Calvin's, "Institutes."
   And when I had done that, I thought, "Now I have got hold of the Truth
   of God, I am certain I have, and I can meet all opponents. And if they
   are not conformed to the views of that most learned man, Dr. Gill, and
   that excellent confessor, John Calvin, I will soon cut them up root and
   branch." Well, I began to preach what I had learned from these great
   and good men, and I have never been ashamed of having done so, for, as
   a successor of Dr. Gill, I am not ashamed to endorse his views, even
   now, and to subscribe to the doctrinal statements that John Calvin
   uttered.

   However, I soon began to find out that there was a good deal to be
   said, after all, concerning some matters that Dr. Gill and John Calvin
   did not mention! And I found that I was obliged, somewhat, to stretch
   my charity and to take to my heart some Brothers and Sisters who did
   not quite see all things which those enlightened men saw! And,
   moreover, I found out that I did not know everything and that I had a
   good deal, still, to learn, and I find the same thing every day. I hope
   at all times to hold firmly all the Truths of God I have received. I
   intend to grasp tightly with one hand the Truths I have already learned
   and to keep the other hand wide open to take in the things I do not yet
   know.

   Perhaps I have some young man here who has a notion that some minister
   has got all the Truth, or that he, himself, has embraced all the Truth.
   Now, young man, there are a great many things that you do not know!
   There are some doctrines you do not understand. If you will wait a
   little while and study your Bible more, you will go down on your knees,
   and say, "Lord, I never knew my own ignorance as much as I do now. Will
   You teach me Your Truth?" Do we desire to understand the faith of God?
   Let us not be discouraged. In answer to our prayer, God will show us
   "great and mighty things" which we do not now know. You are a
   Christian, yet you do not comprehend the Doctrine of Election. Or, per-

   haps, the Doctrine of Effectual Calling puzzles you. You are a
   Churchman, perhaps, yet you do not know anything about these things.
   You are like a man I met once in a railway carriage. He said he was a
   High Churchman and I said I was a High Churchman, too. "How can that
   be?" he enquired, "you are a Dissenter." "But," I replied, "I believe
   many of the doctrines of your Church." He said, "I think not." "Well,"
   I said "I believe in the Doctrine of Election, Predestination and so
   on." "Oh," he said, "I do not." "But," I said, "they are in your
   Articles." He said, "I believe the Catechism, but I have not read the
   Articles." "Then," I rejoined, "I am the better Churchman of the
   two--you are the Dissenter, and I am the High Churchman! You ought to
   be turned out of the Church if you do not believe the Articles. They
   ought to take me, and give me a first-rate living and make me one of
   their bishops, for I have read the Articles, and studied them."

   A great many people do not know what they believe. No person has a
   right to say he is a Churchman till he has read the Prayer Book. You
   have no right to say you are Wesleyan till you have read Wesley's
   sermons. And you have no right to say you are a Calvinist till you have
   read what Calvin believed. And you have no right to say you are a
   Christian till you have read your Bible, for the Bible is the standard
   of Christian faith and practice! And when you come to read your Bible,
   you will find this one thing out, that your own little views were not
   quite so wide as the Bible, after all--and you will have to say, "Lord,
   show me great and mighty things, which I know not now." I am persuaded
   that neither the Church of England, nor the Wesleyans, nor the
   Independents, nor the Baptists have all the Truth. I would not belong
   to any one of these denominations for all the land that is beneath the
   sky, if I had to endorse all that is held by them! I believe that the
   Church ought to be governed by an Episcopalian Presbyterian Baptist
   Independency. I believe we are all right in a great many of our
   doctrines, but that we all have something yet to learn. The Doctrine of
   "Man's Responsibility" is not to be denied, nor the Doctrine of "God's
   Sovereignty" to be disputed. I hope that, some day, we shall all bring
   our views to the test of the Sacred Scriptures. Then shall we have one
   Church, "one Lord, one faith, one Baptism." Then shall we know great
   and mighty things which we know not now. I would persuade you, my
   Baptist friends, that your system is not perfect, and you members of
   the Episcopalian Church, that your polity is not altogether without
   imperfection. And I would entreat you, my Friend, though you are a
   member of an excellent body of Believers, however excellent that Church
   may be, not to think it is infallible! Go down on your knees and ask
   God to teach you what you do not know, and to make you better than your
   creed. Or else, in nine cases out of ten, you will not be worth much.

   But, next, "great, and mighty things, which you know not," God will
   show you in Providence. A poor man is in trouble. He has not funds to
   buy daily bread. Let him call upon God and ask for it--and though he
   has never seen the Lord thrust out His hand from Heaven, or feed him by
   the ravens, or quench his thirst with water out of the Rock--let him go
   down on his knees and he will find that there are more wonders in
   Providence than you and I have yet seen! In answer to prayer, we shall
   see how God's Providence, though it is far beyond our ideas, is
   according to our prayers. There are many Christians who have been in
   great trouble and have experienced a most marvelous deliverance in
   Providence. If we have great trouble, let us bring them to our great
   God. Let us cry unto Him and, in Providence, we shall see "great and
   mighty things" which we know not as yet.

   In the next place, very briefly passing over these points, "great and
   mighty things, which you know not," God will show you in matters of
   Christian experience. Let us search God's Word and give ourselves to
   prayer and then, in matters of experience, we shall see "great and
   mighty things" which we yet know not. A Christian is immeasurably
   beyond the worldling and there is a possibility of a Christian becoming
   as much beyond himself as he now is beyond a sinner dead in sins. There
   is no telling how great he may become even on earth. I do not think we
   can ever, on earth, become perfect, but we know not how near to
   perfection we may come. We may not, while on earth, dwell in Heaven,
   but, who can tell how much of Heaven may dwell in us while we are here?
   Did you ever sit down and read the Life of Herbert, or Whitefield, or
   Haliburton? After we have read such books, we say within ourselves,
   "What poor worms we are!"

   We feel like Robert Hall, who, when a certain minister came to see him,
   said, "I am so glad to see you! Mr. So-and-So has been here. He is so
   far above me that I felt myself to be nothing in his presence, but now
   I begin to feel myself a man again." Have you never felt, when in the
   company of some great and mighty man, as if you were nothing at all?
   When I first read HenryMartyn'sLife, I could not refrain from weeping
   for some hours afterwards, to think how much below such a life as his I
   was living! Yet you know not but that you may climb where these men
   did! The steps of the mountain of piety may be steep to look upon, but
   they are accessible to the feet of diligence. Go on and you shall yet
   stand where Moses stood, and behold Canaan from the top of Nebo!
   Remember that you are as yet upon the lowlands. Be

   not ashamed to acknowledge that you are desirous to climb upwards. Bend
   your knees and God will show you in experience "great and mighty
   things" that you yet know not.

   If any man is content with his own experience, it is entirely through
   ignorance. I will defy anyone to take Rutherford's Letters and sit down
   and, after reading them, to not say, "Rutherford seems to have been
   like an angel of God! I am only a man, I never can stand where
   Rutherford stood." Frequently, when I return home from Chapel on the
   Sabbath evening, I get down George Herbert's Book of Songs. And when I
   see how much he loved the Lord, it seems to me as if he had struck upon
   his harp the very notes that he shall heard in Paradise--and sung them
   all again. Let us not be discouraged--we may yet become Herberts, and
   Rutherfords, and Whitfields! No, there is no reason why we should not
   become as great as the Old or New Testament saints! There is no reason
   why we should not be as great as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! For why
   should not every child of God, in these days, become a mighty a man of
   faith as was Abraham of old? Let us plead the promise of the
   text--"Call unto Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and
   mighty things, which you know not."

   And, to conclude, the same Truth of God holds good with regard to the
   universal Church of God. I do not know whether you may have noticed
   that the devil, in his wisdom, has just tried to pervert all our
   services. My heart has been made glad by the opening of Exeter Hall for
   the preaching of the Gospel! Never did my heart so leap for joy as when
   I heard that our Brothers of the Church of England had to begun to
   preach in Exeter Hall, though I felt sad when those doors were shut
   against them. Now our joys are blasted and our happiness is clouded. It
   appears that because some have lately endeavored to turn to good
   account the earnestness of the people to hear the Word in their own
   churches and chapels, next Sunday we shall see the lamentable spectacle
   in this great metropolis of a place, not open simply for the preaching
   of the Word, but actually for a Sabbath Concert.

   [MR. SPURGEON was referring to the arrangements which had been made for
   a sacred concert and a Gospel address combined at the Alhambra Palace.
   Happily, the minister who took the service abandoned it after one
   attempt, being convinced that more harm than good would result from it.
   But, unhappily, since then, not only have sacred concerts been
   regularly established, either with or without Gospel addresses, but
   many places are open on the Lord's-Day for secular concerts, at which
   there is not even the pretence of any religious service. Our comfort
   still is, as it was MR. SPURGEON'S over 40 years ago, that "the Lord
   reigns," and He will get the victory over all His adversaries.]

   We shall read of multitudes assembled in a building, the property of
   one connected with a theatre. We shall hear of people being gathered
   together and there will be a person found who will profess to preach
   the Gospel to them, and the "Messiah" will be performed as the great
   inducement for attracting them. Perhaps there is no person who feels
   more sorrow than I do that this fearful cloud has fallen upon us. The
   devil may one day open the Crystal Palace, the Museum and every other
   place on Sunday--but the Lord reigns--and if this nation shall be given
   up to Sabbath-breaking, let us not despair! God sits as the Ruler in
   Heaven and, as surely as He is God, He will get the victory! The devil
   will outwit himself, as he has always done--Satan will fall into his
   own pit. I hope, however, that the Christians of Great Britain will be
   very earnest in calling upon God. Pray continually to the Most High,
   that He will prosper the preaching of the Gospel to the multitude, but
   that He will never allow our entering into unconsecrated places to be
   twisted and turned to unhallowed uses! And pray that God will bring
   forth greater good out of the great evil, and so glorify Himself, and
   thus show us great and mighty things that we know not.

   I can only now beseech the Lord to pour His blessing upon each of you.
   May you be earnest in prayer and constant in supplication. And if you
   have yet never known Christ, may He soon be made known to you by the
   Holy Spirit and may your prayers be lifted up to Heaven that He may
   show you His salvation--which is one of the "great and mighty things"
   which you know not now!
     __________________________________________________________________

A Day to Be Remembered

   (No. 2665)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, MARCH 11, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   OCTOBER 1, 1882.

   "And Jesus said unto him, This day has salvation come to this house."
   Luke 19:9.

   OBSERVE, dear Friends, that our Lord spoke this sentence to Zacchaeus.
   Some of us may have fancied that He said it to the objecting people,
   but He did not. They may have heard it and their objection may have
   been answered by it, but the main purpose of our blessed Lord, in
   uttering those words, was not to answer objectors, but to comfort one
   who might feel dispirited by their murmuring remark. Therefore, "Jesus
   said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house."

   It is always better to comfort Believers than to answer quibblers. The
   quibblers scarcely deserve a reply, for they are pretty sure to find
   fault again--it is according to their nature to do so. But as for the
   poor distressed people of God, who gladly receive the Truth of God, and
   yet have to endure unkind observations, let these be cheered, for has
   not the Lord, Himself, said, "Comfort you, comfort you My people"? Now,
   what could give Zacchaeus greater consolation than for the Lord Jesus
   Christ to bear witness to the fact of his salvation? "Jesus said unto
   him, This day is salvation come to this house."

   I fancy that I can hear some of you say, "We should count it the
   happiest day in our lives if the Lord Jesus would come and tell us that
   salvation had come to us." But, Beloved, you cannot have Him come, in
   the flesh, to say that to you, for He has gone away, to carry on His
   service elsewhere. Among other things, He has gone to prepare a place
   for you who believe in Him. But His Spirit is equally Divine and He is
   always with us--and you may have the Spirit of God bearing witness with
   your spirit that you are the children of God. No, I trust that you not
   only believe that you may have this Witness, but that you actually have
   hadit--you have had that secret, silent, inward evidence which no man
   understands but the one who receives it--and you know, in your own
   soul, that you have passed from death unto life because the Holy Sprit
   has sealed that Truth of God upon your heart! Therefore, dear Friend,
   be joyful. Yes, be exceedingly glad! If anything can make a man leap
   for joy, it ought to be the assurance of his eternal safety. If
   salvation has come to your heart, you ought to be as happy as an angel!
   I think that there are some reasons why you should be even happier, for
   an angel cannot know, by personal experience, the bliss of having his
   sins forgiven. You who have realized this wondrous blessing ought to
   cause the wilderness and the solitary places to resound with the melody
   of your thanksgiving! And with the music of your grateful delight you
   should make even the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose. Oh,
   what bliss it is to be assured by the Holy Spirit, Himself, that you
   have passed from death unto life, and that salvation has indeed come to
   you! May many of you enjoy that bliss from this very hour!

   Now let us come directly to the text. "This day," says Christ, "is
   salvation come to this house." You will not forget the outline of the
   sermon, for it is very simple, and one that can be easily remembered.
   First, This day--what?Secondly, This day--why?Thirdly, This day--why
   not?

   I. First, THIS DAY--WHAT? What about this day?

   Christ says, "This day is salvation come to this house." He seemed to
   cut that day out of all the rest of time and to say concerning it,
   "This day--this particular day--on this very day--is salvation come to
   you." Then, let this day be a holy

   day and let it be a holiday! Let it be remembered for many a year, yes,
   let it be remembered throughout all time and throughout eternity, too.
   "This day."

   You know that there are some people who observe certain days which God
   has not ordained to be kept in any special manner. The Galatians did so
   and, therefore, Paul wrote to them, "I am afraid for you, lest I have
   bestowed upon you labor in vain." We do not judge those who act in a
   similar way, today, but still, like Paul, we are afraid for them--that
   is to say, we fear they are mistaken in what they do. But there aresome
   days which God commanded to be observed.

   The first was the day when the work of creation was finished,
   concerning which we read, "On the seventh day God ended His work which
   He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which
   He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it:
   because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created
   and made." The completion of the creation, when, "God saw everything
   that He had made and, behold, it was very good," deserves to be
   remembered! And does not the new creation also deserve to be
   remembered? When the Lord creates in a man a new heart and a right
   spirit, shall we not say, one to another, "This day--this joyful
   day--this Divine day--this new creation day--is a day to be observed
   very specially"?

   It is clear, from the practice of the Apostles, that the Lord intends
   us to observe the first day of the week, because that was the day of
   Christ's Resurrection from the dead, the day of the completion of our
   redemption--and well may we commemorate the complete redemption even
   more than the complete creation! Shall not each saved man especially
   celebrate the day when he was redeemed from sin? Shall he not count it
   worthy to be observed, with holy rites of preaching, praise and prayer,
   and to be had in grateful remembrance as long as he lives? Each
   Believer can say of the Lord's Day, "This day the Lord redeemed my soul
   out of the land of the enemy and set me free forever." God has
   appointed but one day to be kept sacred above all others--that is the
   Lord's Day. Your Christmas days, and your Good Fridays and all such
   seasons are only observed by man's ordinance--but the Sabbath is
   ordained of God--and that is to be observed as the emblem of rest. Now,
   surely, when a man comes into rest and "we which have believed do enter
   into rest," then that day should be especially observed by him. It
   should become a Sabbath unto the Lord throughout the man's whole life--
   that happy day in which salvation came to him. Let, then, "this day"
   stand as a special day in your calendar! Mark it with a red line, if
   you like. Or mark it with a golden seal and let it be had in
   remembrance forevermore.

   Our Lord said to Zacchaeus, "This day is salvation come to this house."
   From these Words I learn, first, that salvation is a speedy blessing.
   It can come to a house in a day. No, more, it can take possession of a
   man's heartin a day. No, to go further, this great work can be
   accomplished in a single moment! I suppose that the new birth is
   actually a thing which requires no appreciable period of time--a flash
   and it is done! If a man is dead and he is restored to life, there may
   be, in certain respects, a gradual operation upon that man and some
   time may elapse before he is able to walk. But there must be a certain
   instant in which there is life in the man, whereas, a moment before,
   there was no life in him. The actual quickening must be a thing that is
   instantaneous, so that the working of salvation in a man may not only
   be performed this day, or this hour, or this quarter of an hour, but
   this minute, or even this second! Between light and darkness there is
   usually a period of twilight and so there is in the soul, but, even in
   twilight there is a measure of light, and there must be a moment when
   the first real beam of light begins to smite the ebonite darkness.

   So there must be a moment when Grace first enters the soul and the man
   who before was graceless, becomes gracious! I think this is a good
   point to be remembered. You poor deluded souls who hope to save
   yourselves by your own works will have to keep on throughout your whole
   lives at that useless occupation! And even when you lie dying, you may
   be sure that you are not saved if you have been trusting to your own
   works. But he that believes in Christ Jesus is saved then and there and
   he can joyfully sing--

   "'Tis done! The great transaction's done! I am my Lord's, and He is
   mine." This is a blessed fact, that salvation can come to a soul this
   very hour. No, as I have already reminded you, long before the hand of
   that clock shall have reached the end of this hour, salvation may have
   entered into many hearts that are in this place, as truly as it entered
   into the house of Zacchaeus!

   Next, I learn from our text that salvation is a discernible blessing.
   "This day is salvation come to this house." Christ could see it, so
   that it was something which could be seen. Yes, and salvation was also
   seen by Zacchaeus, himself, and the fruits of it were soon seen by
   those who were in the house with him. Do not suppose that a man can be
   saved and yet know

   nothing about the great change that has been worked in him. It is not
   every man who can say for certain that he is saved, for faith is a
   thing of growth and assurance may not come at once. But when a man is
   really and completely saved, he has but to use the proper means and he
   may become absolutely certain of it. God the Holy Spirit is willing and
   waiting to give the full assurance of faith and of understanding to
   those who seek it at His hands.

   Next, salvation is a perfect blessing. ' 'This day is salvation come to
   this house." Well, but only as late as yesterday that man had not even
   seen Jesus! Half an hour ago, he was climbing a tree, like a boy might
   have done, with no wish but just to get a sight of Jesus! And, now, is
   that man saved "Yes," says Christ, "this day is salvation come to this
   house." "But, surely, you don't talk as positively as that concerning a
   man who came here tonight unsaved and who has just trusted in Jesus?
   You must mean that he has reached a hopeful stage in his experience and
   that, after several years, he may, perhaps, come to be really assured
   that he is a saved man." I mean nothing of the sort! I mean just what
   the text implies, which is that the moment the Lord Jesus Christ
   crossed the threshold of the house of Zacchaeus, his sins were forgiven
   him, his heart was renewed, his spirit was changed and he was a saved
   man. "But," someone asks, "is anybody ever saved before he dies?" Yes,
   certainly! Were those persons dead of whom Paul wrote, "For the
   preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness, but unto us
   who are saved, it is the power of God." They were living men and women,
   yet the Apostle said that they were saved--and so they were! And, at
   the present moment, there are hundreds of thousands of believers in
   Jesus upon the face of this earth who are as truly saved, now, as they
   will be when they stand before the burning Throne of God "without spot,
   or wrinkle or any such thing." In God's judgment, by virtue of the
   Sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, on whom they are resting by faith,
   they have been delivered from condemnation, they have escaped from the
   dominion of sin and, in a word, they are saved! So, you see dear
   Friends, that salvation is a perfect blessing.

   Notice, next, that it is a much-containing blessing. A man who believes
   in Christ is saved directly, but he does not fully know how much that
   word, "saved," means yet. It is like a big box that comes into the
   house and you begin to open it and to take out, first, one thing and
   then another. "There," you say, "that is all." "Oh, no!" somebody says,
   who looks more carefully, "here is another packet." "Well, then, that
   is surely all. There is nothing but straw at the bottom of the box."
   You put your hand in and you cry, "Why, there is something more, and
   something more--what a boxful it is!" And what a boxful salvation is!
   You have no idea what there is in it--not only the pardon of sin, but
   justifying righteousness. Not only that, but regeneration, a new heart
   and a right spirit! Not only that, but sanctification, adoption,
   acceptance, power in prayer, preservation, perseverance, victory--yes,
   we are to be more than conquerors through Him that has loved us--and
   all that is in the box!

   Yes, and more, too, for we are to have a safe and happy departure out
   of this world and an abundant entrance into the everlasting Kingdom of
   God our Father! All that is in the box and all that had come into the
   house of Zacchaeus when the Lord Jesus Christ came there. And you,
   also, have all that if you have Christ, for it is all in Christ. You
   know how He said, "All things are delivered unto Me of My Father," and
   Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "All things are yours: whether Paul, or
   Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present,
   or things to come; all are yours; and you are Christ's and Christ is
   God's." You will never get to the bottom of that box which bears the
   name, "salvation." However great your needs may be, you may keep on
   taking out of it all that you require and still there shall be more
   left! Or, to change the figure, salvation is a springing well from
   which the more you draw, the more there is remaining, for drawn wells
   are always the sweetest and usually the fullest. So, bring your buckets
   to this great well of Gospel Grace that is springing up at your very
   feet! Thus you see that salvation is an all-containing blessing.

   And, next, it is a spreading blessing, for salvation had come to the
   house of Zacchaeus--not to him only, but I hope it means to his wife,
   his children, and his servants. I never like to have the servants left
   out, though I am afraid that they often are. You servants who live in
   Christian families, mind that you do not get left out, for remember
   that Noah, although he was a good man, did not get a servant into the
   ark with him and his family. Also remember Lot. He was a good man of a
   very poor sort and he only got his two children out of Sodom, and no
   servant went with them. It is a sad thing when you live and labor in
   the midst of Christian people and yet you remain unsaved. I hope and
   believe that in the case of Zacchaeus, all in his house were saved when
   salvation came there.

   But, once more, the salvation which had come to the house of Zacchaeus,
   was an abiding blessing, for I never read that it went away. If
   salvation comes to a man's house, it comes to stay there, as Christ
   said to Zacchaeus, "I must abide at your house." I can never believe in
   a man being saved for a time and then falling from Grace--and having to
   begin all

   over again. If he does not hold on his way to the end, it is clear that
   he was never really saved at all. As I have often told you, I can
   understand a man being regenerated, that is, being born again--but then
   some people tell us that it is possible for him, afterwards, to fall
   away from Grace. But what is to become of him the next time? Why, I
   suppose that he must be re-regenerated, born again and again! But I
   never read in Scripture anything of the kind. A man may be born again
   once, but he cannot be born again, and again, and again, and again, and
   again, and again! That cannot be! When the work of regeneration is once
   done, it is done forever! The work of man comes to an end, but the work
   of God fails not. That which is born of God is as immortal as God
   Himself! The new life that comes into the converted man from God cannot
   die. How often do we ring in the ears of our friends those glorious
   words of our Lord, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they
   follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never
   perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father,
   which gave them to Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck
   them out of My Father's hand." Happy is the man to whose house
   salvation comes, for it comes to stay, world without end! That must
   suffice for the first head, This day--what?

   II. Now, secondly, we are to think of another aspect of the subject,
   that is, THIS DAY--WHY? Why had salvation come to the house of
   Zacchaeus that day?

   I answer, because that day Zacchaeus was called by effectual Grace and
   whenever effectual Grace comes to anyone, it brings salvation.
   "Therefore, brethren," as Peter says, "give diligence to make your
   calling and election sure," for these are the "things that accompany
   salvation." If you are sure that you are called of God, you may be
   quite certain that you are saved, for "this day"--the day in which a
   man is effectually called by Grace--this day does salvation come to his
   house. Look, dear Friends, God chose His people in His everlasting
   purpose, but salvation did not come to their houses that day. They knew
   nothing of it at that time, for they were not then born! Christ
   redeemed His people when He died on the Cross, but salvation did not
   come to their houses that day, for the most of them were not then in
   existence. But, in the fullness of time, the Gospel was preached to
   them and they heard it. Yet, in all cases, salvation did not come to
   their houses that day, for though they heard it, they refused it. But
   the moment that effectual Grace says to anyone, "Today I must abide at
   your house," that Grace at once gains admission and salvation comes,
   then and there, to that man's house. You remember how the Apostle Paul
   wrote to the Romans, "Whom He called, them He also justified: and whom
   He justified, them He also glorified"? These great blessings are joined
   together, like the links of a chain, and you cannot pull them apart!
   There is the calling that fits into the justification and the chain is
   so made that the two links never can be separated. And then
   justification fits into glorification in such a way that you cannot
   possibly part them. It is no use for anyone to try to separate them.
   The devil may pull and hammer as much as ever he likes, but all his
   efforts will be in vain. I have sometimes likened that passage in
   Romans to a vast suspension bridge between earth and Heaven--"For whom
   He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
   of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren.
   Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He
   called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also
   glorified." If you get your foot firmly resting on that great plank of
   effectual calling, you may be quite sure that you will be able to cross
   all the rest of the bridge and will most certainly reach the other
   side--and be "forever with the Lord."

   But how do we know that Zacchaeus was really called? I answer in such a
   way that you may know whether you, also, are called or not. The call of
   Zacchaeus was an effectual call, first, because it was a personal call
   He was up in the sycamore tree and He heard Christ call, "Zacchaeus!"
   "Why," he said to himself, "That is my name. He is calling me."
   "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down." "Then He can see that I am up
   here! His description exactly fits my case." Now, when you come and
   hear me preach the Gospel, I try to put the Truth of God before you in
   a clear and very pointed manner. Some people say that it is wrong to be
   personal in preaching, but I always try to be as personal as I can. Yet
   I know that many of my hearers pass on to their neighbors and friends
   what I say to them. "Oh, that just fits Mrs. So-and-So," says somebody.
   No, my dear Sir--it is meant for you, but you will not take it home to
   yourself. But when the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, calls, then the man
   says, "Dear me! I do not believe that the preacher can see me right
   here, yet he is speaking straight at me. I am sure that he is. How
   amazing! He just mentioned something that cannot have occurred to
   anybody but me. He has exactly described my case."

   Those are the times when God is about to bless the soul--when the man
   feels himself picked out from the rest of the congregation and the
   Gospel sharpshooter is just covering him with His rifle of Grace! I
   pray that the blessed bullet of

   the Gospel may find its mark in the very center of your heart and bring
   you down at the feet of Jesus as a weeping penitent! "Zacchaeus!" The
   Lord knew that was the name of the man up the sycamore and He also
   knows your name and your character. And when He means to call you by
   His effectual Grace, He will hold your photograph up and make you say,
   "Yes, that is my portrait! There is nobody else exactly like that."

   Next, it was a royal call. Jesus said to Zacchaeus, "Today I must abide
   at your house." One of our proverbs says, "Must is for the king." And
   when the King speaks, He mustbe obeyed! We who are His ministers try to
   be very pressing and urgent, but when the Master Himself utters the
   call, where the word of that King is, there is power! I hope He is
   saying to someone here, "Today I must abide in your heart." Now you
   have come to the point when you, also, will have to say, "I must."
   There must be no turning back, now, dear Friend! You must not say to
   Christ, "Go your way for this time." No, but you must say, "This time
   is the time when I, also, will say, 'must,' as Christ says it to me."
   That is an effectual call when it comes as a royal mandate, a warrant
   from the King! "I must."

   Then, next, it was a call which produced immediate obedience. The Lord
   said to Zacchaeus, "Make haste and come down." And we read, "He made
   haste and came down." I think I see him coming down that tree a great
   deal faster than he had gone up! He had not moved at such a rate as
   that for a long while, but he scurried down, for he was told to make
   haste by One whose command compelled him to obey. When the Lord Jesus
   Christ calls any of you effectually, you will not put off your decision
   till the next morning. You will not say, "I will wait till I can get
   home and pray." You will not even say, "I will wait till the end of the
   service and then talk with a Christian," but your prayer will be,
   "Lord, help me to look to Jesus, now. I yield myself up to You this
   very instant. I am in a hurry about it. Lord, I am making haste to get
   to You! Make haste to come and save me. I would not delay a single
   second longer. I want to be Yours alone, and Yours at once." That is a
   mark of effectual calling, when immediate obedience is given to the
   call.

   Another mark in the case of Zacchaeus was, that it was joyful
   obedience. "He made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully."
   Oh, the joy of the heart that receives Christ when Christ Himself does
   really come to the soul! The moment I believed in Christ, I wanted to
   shout, "Hallelujah," and if I had done so, I think that I might have
   been forgiven. The moment one believes in Christ and knows that his sin
   is all gone, what extravagance would be extravagant under such
   circumstances? Is not the man justified in being joyful when at length
   his iniquity is blotted out and his transgression is covered? It is a
   mark of effectual calling when we receive Christ joyfully. In the case
   of Zacchaeus, observe that his obedience was complete, for Christ said,
   "Today I must abide at your house" and, "he made haste and came down,
   and received Him joyfully" at his house, for the people murmured
   because Christ had gone to be his guest. Now, dear Friends, will you
   also receive Christ? That is the point. Are you willing to let Him come
   to you and be your salvation? Are you eager that He should come? Do you
   beg Him to Come? Depend upon it, He will come to you when you are ready
   to receive Him--but mind you--do not trust for salvation to anything
   else or anyone else but Christ! Be satisfied with nothing but the
   ever-living Savior to be your Savior from first to last.

   There was yet one more mark of the effectual calling of Zacchaeus, and
   that was that He received Christ in a spiritual sense, for he did not
   only take Him into his house, but he took Him into his heart. I know
   that he did so because he began at once to purge his heart by driving
   out covetousness. That was a splendid way of getting rid of it when he
   said, "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor." Then he
   began to drive put his former grasping habit, for he said, "And if I
   have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore to him
   fourfold." That was clear evidence that he meant to receive Christ in
   all His holy, gracious teaching, not merely as a man and a stranger,
   but, spiritually, as his Master, his Ruler, his Teacher, his Guide--in
   a word, as his Savior!

   III. Now, lastly, THIS DAY--WHY NOT?

   And now, change the day altogether, for I mean this very day when I am
   speaking to you, this first of October in the present year of Grace,
   1882. "This day." This day--why not? Why should we not, "this day,"
   give ourselves to Christ? I have tried to think of a reason why a man
   should not give himself up to the Lord Jesus Christ this day and I
   cannot find one. Then, why should he give himself to Christ this day,
   on this particular day? I think I know several reasons why he should do
   so.

   First, it is late enough. Surely you do not need to wait any longer!
   How old did you say you are, Friend? Seventy-six? Eighty-six? What? As
   old as that and not yet saved? You do not need one like me, so much
   younger, to urge you to a speedy decision. Or did you say that you are
   not more than my own age--not yet fifty? Well, I find it is quite late
   enough

   for me. There are certain influences and sensations creeping over me
   which make me realize that I am somewhat different from what I used to
   be--and I expect it is the same with you. I think it is getting rather
   late in life for you to be still undecided. Perhaps some younger person
   says, "But I am only twenty-one." Well, that is late enough to be
   without Christ! It is a thousand pities that the devil should have had
   21 years of your life. I was converted to the Lord Jesus Christ when I
   was fifteen, but I wish it could have been 15 years before. Oh, that I
   had known and loved Him as soon as I knew anything and had lisped His
   name with the first words I ever uttered! I think every Christian will
   say the same. Whatever our age is, the time past may well suffice to
   have worked the will of the flesh. Do not you think so, my Friend? Have
   not you had quite enough of sin? What profit have you ever received
   from it? It is surely quite late enough for you to receive Christ as
   your Savior!

   And, further, it is late enough in the year I t seems to me, when the
   leaves are falling all around you, as if they all said to you, "We all
   do fade as a leaf," is it not fully time to seek the Lord? I know of no
   season that seems more suited for pensive thought than just now when
   the year seems to be weeping itself into its tomb--and burying itself
   amid falling leaves. Now is the time to yield yourself to the Lord!
   There cannot be a better period than just now--before yet the year is
   fully gone.

   The mercy is, dear Friend, that though it is quite late enough, it is
   not too late for anybody here. There is yet time for you to seek the
   Lord! It is a pity to have put the Lord off until you have got into the
   sere and yellow leaf, but yet there is time to turn to Him! What? Have
   you reached the eleventh hour of life? It is late, it is very late, but
   still, it is not yet too late! It is not yet too late even if you are
   to die this week--and there are some out of this great company who
   will, I suppose, pass into the unseen world this week. Dear Friend, I
   know not who you are, but you who stand nearest to your eternal
   destiny, it is not yet too late even for you! I pray you, clutch at
   once at the great mercy now offered to you! God help you so to do!

   Every week I have to hear of some out of our number who have passed
   away. There have been some this last week, and some whom I certainly
   thought we might have had with us for a long time. They were,
   apparently, in good health, yet now they are to be buried at the
   beginning of the week, for they have gone from us quite suddenly. And
   why may not some of you be the next to be taken? Do not postpone your
   decision any longer--I would that we could say tonight, "This day,
   October 1st, some soul did receive salvation! Let the recording angel
   mark it down." The harvest is not quite over, though I thought it was.
   We down south have almost forgotten it, but there is a farming friend
   up with us today, who said to me, "We have not finished our harvest,
   for we have not got the beans in yet." So, you see, the harvest is not
   quite over, but I do not want you to have to say, The harvest is past,
   the summer is ended, and we are not saved." I would like to get some of
   you to come in with the beans, just with the last crop. Oh, that you
   might be brought to Christ just at this end of the harvest! The Master
   is willing that you should come to Him even now, so do not delay.
   "Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts." "Behold,
   now is the accepted time: behold, now is the day of salvation!"

   Remember, also, that today is Gospel time. Still is Christ preached to
   you! The door of mercy is still set open before you! "Come," is still
   the cry uttered by the Spirit, and the bride, the Lamb's wife echoes
   it, "Come!" Still the Water of Life is freely flowing for all who are
   willing to receive it!

   Recollect, too, that this is praying time. You are still on praying
   ground. A prayer will yet find God. A traveler tells us that when he
   was in the East, he saw the procession of a Sultan passing through a
   certain city. The monarch was there--all bedizened with gems and every
   kind of barbaric ornament and surrounded by his guards. There was a
   poor wretch who wanted to get a petition to the Sultan, but he did not
   know how to manage it. He had no money with which to bribe the
   officials and he could not force his way through the armed men. So, in
   his desperation, he got near enough to throw the petition down at the
   monarch's feet, but one of the soldiers stuck a spear through it and he
   held it aloft--and that was the end of it, for the Sultan took no
   notice of the incident--he was much too great a man to attend to the
   petition of his poor subject. It is never so with God! Cast your
   petition--now you may--at His dear feet! He will answer it and send you
   on your way rejoicing!

   You are not only on praying ground, for tonight seems to me to be a
   very auspicious season, for it is Communion time. God's people are
   presently coming together around His Table to remember Christ. Will you
   not also remember Him? We are about to receive Christ spiritually
   through the emblems of bread and wine which will set Him forth to us.
   Why should not you also receive Christ, in a spiritual fashion, by
   faith, as your Savior? Oh, that you would press

   through the throng and bow at the feet of Jesus Christ, our Lord! If
   you do so, He will accept you, and again it shall be said, "This day is
   salvation come to this house." God grant it, for Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: LUKE18:35-43; 19:1-10.

   Luke 18:35-39. And it came to pass, that as He was come near unto
   Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the wayside begging: and hearing
   the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant And they told him that
   Jesus of Nazareth passed by. And he cried, saying, Jesus, Son of David,
   have mercy on me! And they who went before rebuked him, that he should
   hold his peace. "Hush," they cried, "how can you disturb the blessed
   Master's discourse? Be quiet."

   39, 40. But he cried so much the more, Son of David, have mercy on me!
   And Jesus stood still Prayer held Him fast. Here is a stationary
   Savior, held in His place by the cries of a blind man. Oh, the power of
   prayer! It stays the onward march of the Son of God. "Jesus stood
   still."

   40, 41. And commandedhim to be brought to Him: and when he was come
   near, He askedhim saying, What do you want Me to do for you? And he
   said, Lord, that I may receive my sight It is a great thing to know
   what you really need. There are some persons who are so blind that they
   do not know that they are blind--and because they say, "We see,"
   therefore is their blindness the more intense! I fear that there is
   many a person who professes to pray, yet who, if Christ should come
   into the room and say, "What do you want Me to do for you?" would not
   know how to answer the question. This man did. He said, very briefly,
   and very clearly, but in a very full way, "Lord, that I may receive my
   sight."

   42. And Jesus said unto him, Receive your sight Often, the blessing
   from Christ's lips is the echo of the prayer which fell from ours. The
   blind man said, "Lord, that I may receive my sight." Echo answered,
   "Receive your sight."

   42, 43. Your faith has saved you. And immediately he received his sight
   See how the prayer, the Word of Christ and the immediate effect of it,
   all tally? "That I might receive my sight." "Receive your sight." "He
   received his sight."

   43. And followed Him. Christ likes not blind followers--"and followed
   Him."

   43. Glorifying God: and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise
   unto God. They seemed to be greatly impressed, but we shall see that
   some of them soon spoke in another fashion.

   Luke 19:1 And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. There was to be
   a miracle at each end of Jericho. Long before, it had been cursed--now
   it was to have a double blessing!

   2. And, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was the chiefamong
   the publicans. That is, tax-gatherers.

   2. And he was rich. As they often were, for they farmed the taxes and
   then squeezed every farthing they could out of the people.

   3. Andhe sought to see Jesus, who He was, and couldnot for the crowd,
   because he was little of stature. That was a fortunate thing for him.
   We need not all wish to be so tall as some people are. Perhaps
   Zacchaeus would not have gone up the sycamore tree if he had been a
   tall man. But the whole story turns upon something which many regard as
   a disadvantage--"he was little of stature."

   4-7. And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him:
   for He was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to theplace, He looked
   up andsaw him, andsaid unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down;
   for today Imust abide atyour house. Andhe made haste and came down, and
   received Him joyfully. And when they saw it, they allmur-mured. There
   is a great contrast between this verse and the last one in the previous
   Chapter--"All the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto God." Here
   it is, "When they saw it, they murmured." Yet, very likely many of them
   were the same people! Certainly they were the same sort of people that
   we hear of every now and then! "When they saw it, they all murmured."
   There are far too many of that kind still about. We do not quite know
   who they are, nor where they are-- they have a sort of nondescript,
   mysterious existence that finds expression in the words, "They say
   so-and-so and so-and-so." They have been saying something about the
   minister, something about the Sunday school, something about the Bible
   class, something about your work and mine. You see, there always were
   such people about, and they always would talk, and their talk often
   took the form of complaining. "When they saw it, they all murmured,"

   7. Saying, He has gone to be guest with a man who is a sinner. If He
   had not done so, He could not have gone anywhere, for all men are
   sinners! "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." But
   this man was a sinner above

   others, for he had sold himself to the hated Roman power and was
   authorized to collect the conqueror's taxes from his own people. So, of
   course, in the estimation of the Jews, he was the worst kind of sinner
   that could be found anywhere. 8. And Zacchaeus stood. And he did not
   talk at all like a sinner!

   8. And said unto the Lord; Beheld, Lord, the half of my goods I give to
   the poor Some of those saints, as they reckoned themselves, had not
   done anything like as much as that! "The half of my goods I give to the
   poor."

   8. And if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I
   restore him fourfold. Which restitution was an act ofjustice--and when
   charity and justice go hand in hand, what more can we expect of men?

   9, 10. And Jesus said unto him, Today is salvation come to this house,
   because he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man is come to seek
   and to save that which was lost And that day He had both sought and
   saved one of the lost ones, for He had found Zacchaeus up in a sycamore
   tree, and He had brought salvation to the tax-gatherer's house. May He
   do the same for many who are here!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Sorrowful Man's Question

   (No. 2666)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MARCH 18, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   OCTOBER 8, 1882.

   "Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has
   hedged in?" Job 3:23.

   I AM very thankful that so many of you are glad and happy. There is
   none too much joy in the world and the more that any of us can create,
   the better. It should be a part of our happiness and a main part of it,
   to try to make other people glad. "Comfort you, comfort you My people,"
   is a commission which many of us ought to feel is entrusted to us. If
   your own cup ofjoy is full, let it run over to others who have a more
   trying experience. If you, yourself, are privileged to have flashing
   eyes and elastic steps, and a bounding heart, be mindful to speak words
   of good cheer to such as are in bonds! Feel as if you were bound with
   them and try to revive their drooping spirits. That is what I am going
   to aim at, tonight, so you will excuse me if I bid, "good-bye," for a
   while to you joyous ones! I want to seek after those who have no such
   delight as you now possess--those who are, on the contrary, suffering
   from extreme depression of spirit. Sometimes, we must single out the
   wounded ones of the flock. That is what I am about to do, yet I feel
   sure that while some few will be distinctly sought after, there will be
   something that may be of use to the many who are in a less sorrowful
   condition. The 99 shall get their full portion although the shepherd
   goes especially after the lost one.

   The question of our text was put by Job when he first opened his mouth
   in the extreme bitterness of his anguish. "Why is light given to a man
   whose way is hidden, and whom God has hedged in?" His case was so sad
   and so trying that life itself became irksome to him. I suppose that
   by, "light," here, he means the power to see the Light of God, the life
   which lives in the light. "Why," he asked in his agony, "is that
   continued to a man when God has filled him with sorrow upon sorrow?"
   The verses preceding our text are to the same effect--"Therefore is
   light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul
   which long for death, but it comes not; and dig for it more than for
   hidden treasures; which rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they can
   find the grave."

   The Patriarch was weary of living and, perhaps, we shall not wonder so
   much at his pitiful lamentation if we remember the extreme distress
   into which he had been brought. He had lost all his property. Stroke by
   stroke all his wealth had been taken away from him. He might have borne
   that if it had been his only loss, but close upon the heels of it had
   come sore bereavement. His happy children, for whom he daily cared and
   whom he had tenderly loved, were all destroyed in a moment--while they
   were feasting in the house of one of their brothers. The calamity
   seemed all the greater because it came in the very midst of their joys.
   Then, as if that was not trial enough, Job was, himself, smitten from
   head to foot with boils. If you have ever seen a person in that
   condition, I am sure that you must pity him. There is a dear friend of
   ours, now with God, whom I visited when he was in much the same state
   as that. Perhaps he had not to endure quite all that Job suffered, but
   something exceedingly like it had befallen him. The irritation, the
   pain and the depression of spirit that come with that particular form
   of disease all tend to make us treat very gently the petulant
   expressions of Job.

   We may not excuse them, but only he among us that is without fault may
   take up the first stone to cast at him. I will warrant that if we had
   suffered as he did, been brought to poverty, left childless, and then
   been tortured as he was, from head to foot--and even his wife rendering
   him no comfort, but, on the contrary, adding to his grief and woe--we
   might have said even worse things than Job did! For remember, dear
   Friends, that he said nothing against God in the time of his deepest
   sorrow. He cursed most vehemently the day of his birth and wished that
   he had never existed, or that he might

   speedily pass away to sleep with the generations that are dead. He used
   unwise and foolish expressions--but any of us might have used far worse
   words if we had been in his case, so we will not condemn him, but we
   will see what lessons we can learn from his experience.

   I think that Job's experience teaches us the very small value of
   temporal things. To have spiritual blessings and to enjoy them, is one
   thing, but to have earthly things, and to enjoy them, is quite another.
   You may have an abundance of them and yet they may be utterly tasteless
   to you, or they may even be bitter as gall to you--and you may curse
   the day that gave them to you. I am sure that it is so, because Job
   speaks thus concerning life, which is the chief of all earthly things.
   It is true, although Satan said it, "All that a man has will he give
   for his life," yet we may be brought into such a condition that we may
   wish that we had never been born! Life itself may become so wearisome
   to us that we may even wish to escape from it, that we may be at rest,
   as we hope.

   Job had once enjoyed every comfort that heart could desire and he still
   had this blessing of life left to him. But even that had become curdled
   and soured--the last thing to which a man usually clings had become
   distasteful and disgusting to him--so that he set no store by it, but
   longed to get rid of it. O Beloved, seek eternal treasures, for there
   is no moth that can eat them, no rust can mar them, no fermentation or
   corruption can injure them. But, as for the things of time and sense,
   if you dopossess them, use them as though you had them not and never
   make them your gods, for they are but as a shadow that passes away in a
   moment. They come, and they are gone. And if you make idols of them,
   the Lord may permit you to retain them, but take away from you all
   power to enjoy them. You may have abundance and yet not be able to
   relish even the bread you eat, or the drink that refreshes you! You may
   have a loss of health, or a loss of all power to be happy, though
   everything that men think to be the cause of happiness may be laid
   abundantly at your feet.

   With this as a preface, I now come to my text and ask you to notice,
   first, the case which raises the question. Secondly, the question
   itself. And, thirdly, answers which may be given to the question--"Why
   is light given to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has hedged
   in?"

   I. First, notice THE CASE WHICH RAISES THE QUESTION. "Why is light
   given to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has hedged in?"

   That is to say, "Why does God permit men to live when their souls are
   under deep depression and gloom? Why does He not let them die at once?
   When their days are spent in weariness and their nights yield them
   neither rest nor refreshment--when they look upward and see nothing to
   give them hope, or onward, and behold nothing but that which is even
   more dreadful than the present--why is it that God continues life to
   those who are in such sad circumstances?" Well, dear Friends, if life
   were not continued to any but those who are bright of eye, fleet of
   foot and joyous of heart, how few would live! And if the first time
   that darkness fell upon a man's pathway, he were to be permitted to
   die, well, then, the whole population of the globe would soon be swept
   away! If our murmuring and petulance demanded that we should die rather
   than suffer, then we should soon pass away and be gone. And that is the
   case which is supposed in Job's question--If a man finds himself
   entirely in the dark, if God's Presence is completely hidden from him
   and he can find no joy in anything whatever, and his spirit is tossed
   to and fro with worries and perplexities, the question is--"Why does he
   continue to live"

   Yet, further, the man here described is in such trouble that he can see
   no reason for the trouble. His "way is hidden." Job could not perceive,
   in his case, any cause for the distress into which he had been plunged.
   As far as he knew, he had walked uprightly. He had not sinned so as to
   be now suffering the result of his sin. He had not committed a crime,
   otherwise he would have understood the punishment when it came upon
   him. He looked back upon all that he had done and he could not, at
   first glance, see in himself any cause for his affliction. Nor, indeed,
   dear Brothers and Sisters, was there any cause why all these things
   should have happened to Job by way ofpunishment, for the Inspired
   record concerning him is that he was "perfect and upright, and one that
   feared God and eschewed evil."

   Even the devil, himself, who kept a sharp lookout with his malicious
   eyes, could not find any fault whatever with which he could charge Job.
   He deserved the character which God had given to him, though Satan did
   insinuate that he had acted from interested motives. He asked, "Does
   Job fear God for nothing?" That question has always seemed to me to be
   a very crafty one, yet very foolish, for if it could have been proved
   that Job had feared or served God for nothing, then the devil would
   have said at once that God was a bad Master and that there was no
   reward for those who served Him. But now that he finds God putting a
   hedge of roses round about Job, and sheltering him on every side, he
   declares

   that Job was only pious because he found it profitable! He could find
   no other fault with him--and even that accusation was not true.

   Job, on his part, remembered how he had fed the widows and succored the
   fatherless--how he had acted justly towards his fellow creatures in the
   midst of an unjust generation and how, amidst a mass of idolaters, he
   had worshipped God and God alone. He had never kissed his hand in
   adoration to the moon, as she walked along her shining way in all her
   queenly brightness, nor had he ever bowed himself down to the host of
   heaven, as nearly all around him had done. He stood alone, or almost
   alone, in that age, as a true and faithful servant of Jehovah--yet his
   sorrows and trials were multiplied. And so, his way was hidden, he was
   hedged in by God, and he could not make it out. You know, dear Friends,
   that it is often a great aggravation of our troubles when we do not
   know why they come. A man, when he is ill, usually wants to know what
   is the nature of his disease and how he came to be attacked by it. When
   we see a person suffering, we generally ask "Where did you catch that
   cold?" or, "What was it that brought on that congestion?" We always
   like to know the cause of the complaint--and Job, too, wanted to
   ascertain the reason for his trouble, but he could not find out--and
   this rendered it all the more mysteriously grievous to him. And
   therefore he enquired, "Why do I continue to live, when I have come
   into such darkness as this?"

   It was equally trying to Job that he did not now what to do. There
   seemed to be nothing that he could do. He was stripped of all his
   earthly possessions. Those ashes where he sat formed his uncomfortable
   couch. And the only property that remained to him was a potsherd, with
   which, in his desperation, he began to scrape himself because of his
   boils. What could he do in such a case as that? There was no physician
   there to cure him of his sad complaint.

   True, there were his three friends, but all that they could do, or, at
   least, the best thing they did, was to sit still and say nothing. When
   they opened their mouths, it was only to pour vinegar into his wounds
   and to increase his agony tenfold! What could poor Job do under such
   circumstances? His very helplessness tended to increase his
   wretchedness.

   Am I addressing anyone who is in that kind of perplexity? I think I
   hear someone moaning, "I don't know which way to turn. I have done
   everything I can think of and I cannot tell what is to come next. I sit
   in darkness and can see no light. Why I am brought to this pass, I
   cannot tell. Or what is the reason for it, I cannot make out. If I
   could light upon some great and grievous fault which had brought me
   where I am, I could understand it. But as it is, I am in thick Egyptian
   night about it all and I know not what to do. Why does a man continue
   to live when his way is thus hidden, or hedged up." If that is the way
   you talk, you are in very much the same sort of plight that the
   Patriarch was in when he uttered the mournful question which forms our
   text.

   What was still worse to Job was that he could not see any way out of
   his trouble. He said that God had hedged him in, not with a hedge of
   roses, but with a barrier of briars. Whatever he tried to do, he found
   himself obstructed in doing it. And there are now men in this world
   whose sorrows are the more grievous because everything they do to
   alleviate their distress seems only to increase it. Their efforts are
   all fruitless. They are like men who have become entangled in a
   bog--the more they struggle to get out, the deeper they descend. They
   strive to their very utmost, but it is all in vain. They rise up early,
   they sit up late, and they eat the bread of carefulness mingled with
   their tears, but there is a blight on all that they do. Nothing
   prospers with them. They are at their wits end. Then they begin to cry,
   "Oh, that we had never been born, rather than that we should have been
   born to such trouble as this! 'Why is light given to a man whose way is
   hidden, and whom God has hedged in?'"

   I have thus stated the case which gave rise to Job's question and I
   should not wonder if I have, at the same time, stated the case of some
   who are here. Do not think it has been a waste of time for any of you
   to hear this sorrowful description of a very sad condition of heart and
   mind. If I should only have been describing one such individual, let us
   all feel sympathy for him or for her--and let us unite in breathing the
   silent petition, "Lord, bring Your servant out of prison."

   II. Now, secondly, we are to consider THE QUESTION ITSELF. "Why is
   light given to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has hedged in?"
   In other words, Why is the light of life given to him who is in the
   darkness ofmisery?

   Well, first, let me say that it is a very unsafe question for anyone to
   ask. Brothers and Sisters, we are sure to get into mischief as soon as
   we begin catechizing God and asking, "why?" Such questioning comes not
   well from our lips. He is the Potter and we are the clay in His hands.
   "Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why have you made me
   thus? Has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make
   one vessel unto honor and another unto dis-

   honor?" God's eternal purposes are a great deep and when we try to
   fathom them, we utterly fail. Divine Sovereignty is an ocean without a
   bottom and without a shore--and all we can do is to set our sail and
   steer by the chart which He has given us and all the while believe
   that, as we sang just now--

   "Even the hour that darkest seems,

   Will His changeless goodness prove;

   From the mist His brightness streams,

   God is Wisdom, God is Love." Voyaging in that fashion, we shall be
   safe, indeed!

   But to try to cross such a sea without rudder, or chart, or
   compass--this is a venture--some piece of sailing which we had better
   not undertake! I tremble whenever I have to think of the wondrous ways
   of God. I mean when I have to think of them after the manner of the
   reasoner and not after the style of the Believer! Well did Milton
   describe the fallen spirits sitting in little groups, discussing
   predestination and the counsels of the Eternal. You know how Paul
   answers the man who calls in question the dealings of God either in
   Providence or in Grace--"No but, O man, who are you that replies
   against God?" Job received his answer when the Lord spoke to him out of
   the whirlwind and said, "Who is this that darkens counsel by words
   without knowledge?" What God said to him was not so much a vindication
   of the ways of Providence, but a revelation of His matchless power as
   the Creator and the Ruler of the universe. And, though men may not like
   to hear it, yet there is, in the thunder of God's power, an answer
   which, though it may not always answer the skeptic, but ultimately
   overpower and silence him! As for God's child, he sits down in the
   shadow of that black cloud which is the canopy of Deity, and he is well
   content to be still in the Presence of the Lord of the whole earth!
   Imitate him, my Brothers and Sisters, and do not keep asking God the
   why and the wherefore of what He does. It is an unsafe thing to ask
   such questions!

   Next, it reflects upon God. In this question of Job, there is really a
   reflection upon the wisdom of the Almighty. He has given the Light of
   Life to a man whose way is hidden and whom He has hedged in, yet Job
   asks, "Why did He do it?" I think that far too often we indulge our
   questionings of Divine Providence. Is God to stand and answer to you
   and me for what He does? Is He bound to tell us the reason why He does
   it? Job's friend, Elihu, said, "God is greater than man. Why do you
   strive against Him? For He gives not account of any of His matters." If
   there is His equal anywhere, let him meet Him in the field and they
   shall speak together. But to us worms of the dust, answers shall not be
   given if we haughtily put questions to Him of, "what?" and "why?" To
   accept the Lord's will with absolute submission is after the manner of
   the Son of God, Himself, for He prayed, in the hour of His greatest
   agony, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me:
   nevertheless not as I will, but as You will." But to quibble and to
   question is after the manner of the prince of darkness who is always
   seeking to dispute the Sovereignty of God. Therefore, Beloved, let no
   question of ours reflect upon the Lord's love, or the dispensations of
   His Providence.

   Further, we may rest quite certain that there must be an answer to this
   question, a good answer, and an answer in harmony with the Character of
   God. If there are men and women to be found still sitting in the
   darkness of grief and sorrow and we ask why they are allowed to
   continue to live, there is a reply to that enquiry, and a reply
   consistent with boundless Grace and infinite compassion, but, mark you,
   that reply may never be given, or, if it is given, we may be incapable
   of understanding it! There is much that God does that cannot be
   understood, even by those great men of modern times who would gladly
   sit on the Throne of the Eternal and judge Him--

   "Snatch from His hand the balance and the rod, Rejudge His judgments,
   be the god of God." I say that there are some answers which God might
   give if He pleased, but which even they could not comprehend with all
   their wit and wisdom! And you and I must often come to a point where we
   have to stop and say, "We cannot understand this." And we shall be
   still wiser if we add, "Nor do we wish to do so."

   Brothers and Sisters, I, for one, have had enough of searching into
   reasons! I am perfectly satisfied to accept facts. I am ready to bow my
   reason before the Lord and to accept whatever He says. If I do not, how
   little shall I ever know! What is there that I really understand? I
   confess that I see profound mysteries about the most common phenomena
   around me. I cannot fully comprehend anything when I get right to the
   bottom of it. There is, on every hand, a deep which I cannot fathom.
   How, then, shall I understand the ways of God and measure Him with my
   finite mind, comparing so many inches with the Infinite, weighing so
   many ounces against the Omnipotent and reckoning so many seconds in

   contrast with the Eternal? No, Brothers and Sisters, for such
   calculations you have nothing to measure with! You have nothing to draw
   with, and the well is deep, yes, bottomless! So, the less of such
   questions as Job's, any of us ask, the better, for, even if we had the
   answer to them, we might not be able to understand it.

   Let me remind you, also, that however important this question may seem
   to be, it is not the most profitable question. I have heard of a
   farmer, whose boy said to him, "Father, the cows are in the corn;
   however did they get there? Boy," he replied, "never mind how they got
   there--our work is to get them out as soon as we can." That is our main
   business, also--to get the cows out of the corn! How they got there is
   a matter that can be thought of, by-and-by, when we have nothing else
   to do. The origin of evil is a point that puzzles a great many people,
   but I hope you will not worry your brain over that question. If you do,
   you will be very foolish. But if you are wise, you will not trouble
   yourself so much about the origin of evil, as about how to conquer it,
   in yourself, and in others! Get the cows out of the corn, and then find
   out how they got in, if you can, and, by so doing, prevent their
   getting in again.

   There will be space enough and time enough, and better Light to discuss
   these questions when we get up yonder before the Throne of the Eternal.
   If their solution is of any real consequence to us, we shall get them
   solved, but, meanwhile, we are colorblind, or, if we are not, it is so
   dark and so misty here--and we have so many other more pressing matters
   to attend to--that we had better leave these whys and wherefores, and
   rely on the Infallible wisdom and the Infinite love of God. If He has
   done anything, it is quite certain that it is right and just! Yes, if
   it has come from His dear hands, it is also gracious and kind. There is
   more sublimity in being like a little child in the Presence of the
   Eternal than there is in trying to imitate the Deity, for that is but a
   mockery--a thing to be despised! No, more, it is the greatest insult we
   can offer to God and it is a pity and a shame that any of us should so
   live and act. Put aside everything of the kind, I implore you, and in
   very truth submit yourselves unto God.

   III. But now, in the last place, speaking to the sorrowful person, I
   want to mention SOME ANSWERS WHICH MAY BE GIVEN TO HIS QUESTIONS. "Why
   do I continue to live," he asks, "in such sorrow as this? Why does not
   God take from me the light of life when He does not permit me to enjoy
   the light of comfort?"

   Supposing that you are a child of God, I will give you one answer which
   ought to satisfy you, though, perhaps, it will not if your spirit is
   rebellious. God wills it If you are one of His true children, that is
   all the answer that you will require--and you will say, with those
   early Christians, "The will of the Lord be done." And with your Lord,
   Himself, "Not My will, but Yours be done." It was enough for Christ
   that His suffering was in accordance with the Father's will, so He
   bowed before Him in unquestioning submission. And shall not you, the
   disciple, be content to fare as your Master did? Will you not be
   perfectly satisfied with that which satisfied your Lord? It is the will
   of the Lord--then what need is there of any further question if you are
   His child?

   But supposing that you are an unconverted person, and you say, "I
   cannot bear to live in such sorrow as this, why is my life prolonged?"
   The answer is, "Because of God's mercy to you." Where would you go to
   be better off than you are here? You who have no hope in Christ and yet
   who say, "I wish I were dead," you know not what you are wishing! You
   wish you were dead? But what would be your portion after death? What?
   Do you really wish to hear that dread sentence which must be passed
   upon you if you die unregenerate--"Depart from Me, you cursed, into
   everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels"? Do you really
   desire to feel the full weight of Divine Justice! Ah, I hope that you
   are not so foolish! You have spoken in petulance and do not mean what
   you have said. It may be hard for you to live, but it would be harder
   far for you to die--and then to live forever in a death that never
   dies! God grant that you may never know that awful doom!

   Moreover, the answer to your question is that the Lord spares you
   because He would gladly save you. You are kept alive that you may hear
   again that voice of mercy which says, "Repent and be converted."
   "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." God comes
   to you in this time of suffering, that He may stop you in your sin and
   make you think! Even to the most careless and giddy among you, during
   the poignancy of your grief, He says, "Now, My prodigal child, you have
   wasted your substance in riotous living, your belly is hungry and you
   have nothing with which to fill it. Arise and go unto your Father, for
   He will receive you." Come then, sorrowful one, it may be that your
   sorrows will end when your sins end. Certainly, when you come to Christ
   to be forgiven, you shall find Divine consolation, even if all your
   griefs do not at once disappear. Anyhow, it would be better to be
   whipped all the way to Heaven than to be car-

   ried down to Hell "on flowery beds of ease." Pray this prayer, "O Lord,
   let me enter into life with one eye and one hand, halt or maimed,
   rather than, having two eyes and two hands, to be cast into Hell!"

   This is one answer to your question--The Lord lets you live, even
   though it is in pain and grief, because He has purposes of love and
   mercy towards you. Therefore, be not anxious to die, but be thankful
   that you are still permitted to tarry upon Gospel ground! No, do not be
   content to tarry there, but fly at once to the God of Grace! Look this
   very instant to Jesus, for--

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

   One believing glance of the eyes to Him who is the sinner's Substitute
   and all transgression is forgiven! Therefore, yield yourself unto Him.
   Trust to His finished work and eternal life is yours! And when you have
   that unspeakable blessing, why need you sorrow more?

   As for the child of God, to whom I now again speak, if you ask, in a
   timid, childlike way, "Why do I continue to live in such sorrow as I
   have to endure?" I would, as your Brother, try to answer you. First, it
   may be that all this trouble has come upon you to let you know what is
   in you. None of us know what there is in us until we are put to the
   test. We are wonderfully sweet-tempered until somebody touches one of
   our sore places--and then, ah, me--there is not much sweetness of
   temper left after that! We are remarkably patient until we get a sharp
   neuralgic pain, perhaps--and then where is all our boasted patience? We
   are very generous until we, ourselves, are somewhat pinched--and then
   we become as tight-fisted as others whom we have condemned. We do not
   know what is really in us while all goes smoothly and well. But
   sickness, sorrow, bereavement, poverty and hunger will soon let us see
   what we are! They make a mental or moral photograph of us and when we
   look at the picture we say, "Oh, no! That cannot be our likeness." But
   we look again and again, and then we say, "Alas, it is even so. But we
   did not know we were like that. Now we see our faults and our follies.
   O Lord, You have searched us, and tried us, and shown us the wicked
   ways that are in us. Now purge us from them and make us clean and pure
   in Your sight!" That is one reason, and a very good reason, for sharp
   affliction--to let us see ourselves as we really are.

   The next is that, often, our trials bring us very near to our God. Your
   children run down the meadow to play and they get a good way off from
   home in the sunny day, as they ramble along, gathering their buttercups
   and daisies. But by-and-by, the sun sets, and night comes on--and now
   they cry to be at home. Just so. And you, in all your pretty ways of
   pleasure in your happy home, though you are a child of God, sometimes
   forget Him. Sorrowfully must you remember that sad fact. But now the
   night comes on and there is danger all around you. So you begin to cry
   for your Father and you would gladly be back in fellowship with
   Him--and that is a blessed trouble which brings us near to our God.
   Christ's sheep ought to be thankful for the ugly black dog that keeps
   them from going astray, or fetches them back when they have wandered
   from the Shepherd! Perhaps Christ will call that black dog off when he
   has answered the Master's purpose and brought you near His side.

   Dear child of God, anything that promotes your sanctification, or
   increases your spirituality, is a good thing for you. I have had my
   share of physical pain and, perhaps, more of it than most who are
   here--and I bless God for it. If it comes again, I ask Him for Grace to
   bless Him for it then--and now that it has gone for a while, I freely
   bless Him for it, for I cannot tell you all the good that it has worked
   in me! Oh, how often a proud spirit has been cut back by affliction and
   trial, like a vine that is made to bleed, that the clusters that
   followed the pruning might be all the better and richer! The mown grass
   is very sweet and fine and so, often, are Believers who have been
   deeply tried. This tribulation, as Paul says, "works patience; and
   patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope makes not ashamed;
   because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit
   which is given unto us." Therefore, bow humbly before the Lord, my
   tried and afflicted Friend, and see at least some of the reasons why He
   thus puts you in he dark chamber of tribulation.

   Perhaps, dear Brother, you are being very greatly tried, more than most
   people, to fit you to be an example to others. The Lord means to make a
   veteran of you, so you must be the first in the breach, or you must
   lead the forlorn hope. He puts you on the hardest service because He
   wants others of His children to be able to learn from you. I do not
   know that we should ever have heard anything of Job if it had not been
   for his troubles--he was a most respectable Eastern farmer with a
   considerable estate--very much like a great many country gentlemen we
   have in England who may be

   heard of at the Quarter Sessions, or the corn and cattle market. But
   nothing more will be known of them unless you go to the parish church
   and see some memorial of them stuck up there. Job would have been much
   the same sort of man as that--an Oriental magnate who would have lived,
   died and been forgotten--but now his fame will last as long as the
   world endures! "You have heard of the patience of Job." You have all
   heard of it, and Job is one of the undying names. So it may be with
   you, Beloved. You are, perhaps, to sail through seas of trouble to
   reach your crown. God means to use you in His service and make you a
   blessing to others, and a teacher of others, by passing you, again and
   again, through the fire. One of the ancient warriors said, "I cannot
   use in battle a sword that has not been often times hardened. But give
   me a Damascus blade that has been so prepared, and I will cut through a
   coat of mail, or split a man from head to foot at a single stroke. It
   gets its temper and keenness of edge from having slept with the flames
   again and again." So must it be with Believers! Full often they are
   unfit for God to use till they have been sorely tried.

   Perhaps, dear Friend, the Lord is putting you through all this
   trouble--(only I hardly like to say it aloud, I must whisper it in your
   ears somehow) because He loves you more than anybody else. Dear Samuel
   Rutherford, when he wrote to a lady who had lost, I think, seven
   children, congratulated her and said, "I am sure that the Well-Beloved
   has a strong affection for Your Ladyship, for He will have all your
   heart. He has taken away all these children that there may not be a
   nook or a corner for anybody else but for Him." So the Lord loves you
   much and He is testing you to see whether you can bear His
   will--whether you love Him so much that you will take up your cross and
   deny yourself, just as, sometimes, architects will ask for their work
   to be put to the severest possible tests. "Yes," they say, "see what it
   will really bear."

   No doubt Stephenson felt great joy when the heaviest train went safely
   across his tubular bridge. And other engineers have said, "Yes, put on
   as much pressure as you like; it will stand it." Fathers often take
   delight in the athletic feats of their sons, and princes revel in the
   brave deeds of their warriors. And so does the Lord delight to see what
   His people can do and He often puts upon them more and more, to prove
   whether they love Him so much that they can bear it all for His sake.
   Did not the Lord do this to let Satan see that Job did love his God,
   and would still say, "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." We cannot tell what blessing
   might come from such a state of heart as that!

   It is very possible, dear Friend, also, that God is putting you through
   all this trouble that He may enable you to bear great prosperity. Job
   was to have twice as much as he had ever had before, and that was a
   very great deal, for he said that he washed his steps with butter, and
   the rock poured him out rivers of oil. But how much richer he was when
   everything was doubled! Job was hardly fit to manage such a large
   estate as that until he had been made to see the vanity of it all, and
   to get nearer to his God. So, dear Friends, you are going to be
   pressed, and squeezed, and tried in order that you may be fitted to
   come right out into the front rank and to be magnified and made much of
   by the Lord your God! I have noticed this kind of thing happen more
   than once. I have seen a man suddenly taken from the very dregs of the
   people and put up to preach--and he has been popular all at once.
   Nobody has abused him, nobody has said a word against him. But, before
   long, he has passed completely out of sight. He could not bear the
   weight that was put upon him, and gave way.

   You have seen others who have been called of God to preach the Word,
   and they have been abused year after year. They could not say anything
   that was not perverted. They were called mountebanks, impostors, and I
   know not what. And then, when happier days came, and almost all men
   spoke well of them, they could bear it, for they had learned to despise
   alike the flatteries and the abuse of men! Now, something like that
   must happen to all God's servants who are to be greatly honored. If
   they are to bear prosperity, they must first go through the fire.
   Perhaps that is what the Lord is doing with you, my dear Friend. If so,
   be content with your lot.

   And, once again, do you not think that the Lord means thus to make you
   more like His dear Son than other people are? Some other Christians
   have not as much trouble to endure as you have. No, why is it? You know
   how an artist can, if he likes, dash off a picture. There! A little
   red, a little blue and so on, and it is done. And away it goes! Yes,
   but when he wants to paint something that will be observed and admired,
   then he takes more pains. Look how he works at every part of it. Note
   what care and what trouble he takes with it. It is the same with the
   lapidary or the sculptor when he has choice work in hand. And you are,
   I hope, the kind of material that will pay for cutting and carving--and
   the Lord is using His chisel upon you more than He does upon most folk.
   He wants to make you just like His dear Son--so now He is

   chipping out a crown of thorns and you must wear it round your head. He
   is fashioning the image of His Son out of the block of your renewed
   nature and you must patiently bear the blows from His hammer and chisel
   till the work is done.

   Finally, if I cannot tell you why all this trouble falls to your lot, I
   know it is right, for the Lord has done it, and blessed be His name!
   Aaron held his peace when his two sons died. He got as far as that in
   submission to the will of the Lord. But it will be better still if,
   instead of simply holding your peace, you can bless and praise and
   magnify the Lord even in your sharpest trouble! Oh, may you be Divinely
   helped to do so! Let every troubled soul march out of this place
   feeling, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted." Rise, dear
   Friend, out of all despondency and despair! Shake yourself from the
   dust and put on your beautiful garments of praise and joy, remembering
   that--

   "Thepath of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the land where sorrow
   is unknown." You can see the tracks of the martyrs along the road you
   are journeying! Better still, you can see the footprints of the Son of
   God, your Lord and Savior! Therefore, you may rest assured that you are
   on the right road, so press bravely forward on it and, in due time, you
   will come to that place of which Job said, "There the wicked cease from
   troubling; and there the weary are at rest." And you shall be forever
   without fault before the Throne of God!

   May He grant this happy portion to you all, for His dear Son's sake!
   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Pressed Man Yielding to Christ

   (No. 2667)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MARCH 25, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER
   12, 1882.

   "Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him, He
   said unto him, Do you believe on the Son of God? He answered and said,
   Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him? And Jesus said unto him,
   You have both seen Him, and it is He that talks with you. And he said,
   Lord, I believe. And he worshipped Hun." John 9:35-38.

   LAST Sabbath morning [Sermon #1683, Volume 28--The Great Cross-Bearer
   and His Followers] I spoke to you concerning one who was forced into
   the King's service. That was Simon, the Cyre-nian, who was compelled to
   bear Christ's Cross. He was not a volunteer, but a pressed man, yet, I
   think that after he had been forced to bear the Cross, he willingly
   carried it and I hope that he, afterwards, became a faithful follower
   of the Lord Jesus Christ.

   Now, strange to say, here is another pressed man, for I do not think
   that this man, whose eyes had been opened by Christ, had thought of
   becoming a Believer in the Son of God until the Lord Jesus found him.
   Before he had reached that point--indeed, before he knew that the
   Prophet who had opened his eyes was the Son of God--the Pharisees had
   cast him out of the synagogue so that he was compelled to bear the
   cross for Christ although he did not, then, fully know Christ and
   certainly had not believed upon the Son of God. Yet, in his case, also,
   it appears that he cheerfully took up the cross which had been, at the
   first, forcibly laid upon him.

   It may happen that there are some persons here who are in a similar
   position--some who have been ridiculed for being Christians even before
   they are Christians! Some who have been mocked merely because they go
   to a place of worship, though as yet they have not yielded themselves
   to Christ. Well, if that is the case with any, seeing that the cross is
   laid upon their shoulders, I trust that they will not throw it off, but
   that they will bravely bear it for Christ and freely suffer what, up
   till now, has seemed to them to be a piece of injustice, for they have
   been treated as if they were believers in Christ, when really they are
   not yet on the Lord's side.

   This man, then, bearing Christ's Cross in a certain way, was cast out
   of the synagogue. And then Christ found him and blessed him. Observe,
   dear Friend, where Christ began with him, for it will show us where and
   how the blessing usually enters. The door by which the richest of
   Heaven's favors must come to us is indicated by our Lord going to that
   door and opening it. He said to the man, "Do you believe on the Son of
   God." So that faith in the Son of God is the gate of benediction. Faith
   is that window of agate and gate of carbuncle by which the Divine Light
   of Jesus' love comes streaming into the soul. This is the way by which
   God's mercy enters the heart of man and, therefore, the Lord Jesus
   Christ, Himself, begins there. And in all our dealings with the
   unconverted, it will be wise for us, also, to begin there. That is the
   place where the decisive battle will have to be fought, for, upon the
   believing or the not believing on the Son of God, the eternal destiny
   of each individual will turn! "He that believes on the Son has
   everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life;
   but the wrath of God abides on him."

   That wrath abides even now upon him if the life of God is not in him.
   Let us hammer away at that all-important point of faith in Christ. This
   is the Thermopylae [narrow pass] of Christian experience. If this pass
   can be stormed and carried, we can capture the citadel of men's hearts.
   But if unbelief continues to guard that narrow passage to eternal life
   and to hold it against the Gospel and its invitations, exhortations,
   promises and threats, then nothing whatever can be

   done! So, in this enquiry of our Lord, we have most instructive
   teaching. His objective, no doubt, was to bless this man by working in
   him saving faith and, therefore, He said to him, "Do you believe on the
   Son of God?"

   I think our text will help us, first, to speak of true faith--how it is
   known. Secondly, true faith--how it progresses. And thirdly, true
   faith--how we can promote it

   I. First, I want to speak concerning TRUE FAITH--the faith that
   saves--HOW IT IS KNOWN.

   First, it is absolutely essential that it should be faith in the Son of
   God. Our blessed Lord knew that this man believed in Him as a
   Prophet--so might He not have been content with that? No, because to
   believe in Christ merely as a Prophet is not saving faith. It may be a
   step towards salvation and it may lead up to it, but the faith that is
   absolutely necessary is that belief in Him as the Son of God. And he
   who does not believe in the Deity of Christ has not a Savior who can
   save him! The work of saving a soul is a Divine operation and no one
   but a Divine Being can accomplish it. It is He who sits upon the Throne
   of God who says, "Behold, I make all things new!" There cannot be
   anyone except the Creator who can create--and the Creator must, in
   every case, be God. To save a soul, there must be a work performed
   which is analogous to the Resurrection. But, in order to raise the
   dead, there must be the Presence and Power of God. It is one of those
   operations which it is not conceivable can be performed by an angel or
   by any created being. The Highest alone can accomplish it--has He not
   said of Himself, "I kill and I make alive"? The power of life and death
   must rest with God alone. Hence, then, the work of salvation needs a
   Power nothing less than Divine. He who believes in Christ as a mere man
   has not believed in a Person who can give him salvation--and Christ
   cannot accomplish the stupendous task if He is only man, for the Savior
   must be God!

   There is no true and logical standpoint, in reference to the Deity of
   Christ, except one of two things. Either our Lord was the Son of God,
   equal with the Father, or else He was an impostor, for He most
   distinctly claimed that He was the Son of God. In the chapter preceding
   our text, at the 54th verse, we read that Jesus said to the Jews, "If I
   honor Myself, My honor is nothing: it is My Father who honors Me; of
   whom you say, that He is your God." Then they took up stones to cast at
   Him because He said that He was the Son of God! And, in this case of
   the blind man whom He had healed, He took pains to find him that He
   might communicate to him in private the fact that He was, Himself, the
   Son of God. He never withdrew His claim to the Deity! If He had only
   said to the Jews, "No, I am not the Son of God. You are mistaken in
   supposing that I said I was. The expressions I used are not intended to
   convey that idea," then they would not have crucified Him. This was the
   chief point of their quarrel with Him and I must again say that either
   He was God, or He willfully misled the people by using words which made
   them think that He was God.

   His words have led millions of Christians, from those days until now,
   to worship Him as God. And they were perfectly justified, by His
   utterances, in doing so. And if He meant anything less than that, then
   He was a deceiver. But He did mean that He was God and it is our joy
   and glory to rest in Him as being, alike, the Son of Mary and the Son
   of Jehovah, Himself--"Light of Light, very God of very God"--co-equal
   and co-eternal with the Father. And here we feel that we can rest for
   our soul's salvation! We can lean with our whole weight on One who is,
   indeed, "mighty to save. Seeing that all power is His and that He is
   equal with God, He can and He will save all those who put their trust
   in Him!" Do not any of you, I beseech you, be content with any faith
   less than that! If you have any sort of faith which does not recognize
   Christ as God, do with it as the man did with the bank note, when he
   found that it was bad--he laid it down and ran away from it, for fear
   anybody should suspect him of being its owner. Put away every kind of
   confidence that is short of faith in the Son of God and abhor it, for
   it is a damnable delusion! And may the Lord bring you fully into this
   blessed state of salvation through believing on the Son of God!

   A second point about saving faith is that it rests upon a knowledge of
   Him. This man said to Jesus, "Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on
   Him?" He was not one whose notion of faith was that he need not
   knowwhat he believed. The Church of Rome seems to inculcate some kind
   of implicit faith (or credulity) which can exist apart from
   knowledge--but how can I believe that which I do not know? Paul puts it
   thus, "Faith comes by hearing." You must first hear and know what it is
   you are to believe before you can believe it Otherwise your faith is
   vain, like that of the man of whom I have sometimes spoken, who said,
   "I believe what the church believes." "But what does the church
   believe?" It believes what I believe." "Then what do you and the church
   believe?" "Why, we both believe the same thing."

   That is not the kind of believing that can save the soul! It is through
   the knowledge of Christ that we are saved. To knowChrist is sometimes
   said to be analogous to believing in Christ. You must know what it is
   that you have to believe!

   A faith that does not know is no faith at all. Read through the
   Epistles of John and mark with your pencil every time the word, "know,
   "is used. The Apostle makes that word, "know,"come in again and again,
   for a man must know that which he is to believe and hence this man says
   to Christ, "Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him?"

   For my part, I could never be content without unquestioning certainty
   as to my soul's salvation. Do you think that is more than a man ought
   to wish for? Are any of you at ease while you are afraid that you have
   a mortal disease working within you? Oh, no! You want to know, from a
   qualified physician, the truth about your case. And if it were
   whispered in your ear, at this moment, that your house was being broken
   into or was on fire, would you sit still and not trouble yourself as to
   whether the report were true or not? Would you not want to go at once
   and see for yourself? If you knew that you bought an estate, some time
   ago, but you have since heard that the title to it is a very uncertain
   one, in fact, in all probability, you will lose all you have paid for
   it, would you not say, "I ought to have taken care to be certain about
   the title. And I would not have bought the estate if I had not felt
   that the deeds relating to it were all right." Well, then, if you
   desire certainty about your bodily health, about the safety of your
   house and about the validity of your title-deeds, can you afford to go
   without certainty as to your soul's affairs? No, you cannot. Therefore,
   rest not till you have it. If you have various questions about your
   spiritual condition, boldly face those questions and answer them. Never
   let any questions about your eternal welfare be such that you dare not
   face them and do not wish to search out the answers to them. Pry to the
   very bottom of them and, better still, ask the Lord to search you, and
   know your heart, to try you, and know your thoughts, and to lead you in
   the way everlasting. And be not content till you can truthfully say, "I
   know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep
   that which I have committed unto Him."

   This man, of whom I am speaking, knew that Christ had opened his eyes
   and, therefore, He must be at least a Prophet. He also knew, further,
   that whatever that Prophet told him must be true, for the Man who had
   opened his eyes must have been sent by God--and God does not work
   miracles by liars. He said to himself, "This Man is undoubtedly a
   faithful person, or God would not employ Him in such a wonderful work
   as that of opening the eyes of a man who was born blind." And then he
   stood perfectly prepared to receive whatever might be spoken by this
   Prophet of whom he knew something, though he did not know enough to
   understand what was meant by the Savior when He asked, "Do you believe
   on the Son of God"? He, therefore, sat as an enquirer at the Savior's
   feet, waiting for something to be told him which should enable him to
   believe!

   You, dear Friend, may not be in exactly the same condition that this
   man was, but, still, your case may be, in many respects, a parallel
   one. You say, perhaps, "I wish, above all things in the world, that I
   could believe in Christ." Do you intend to sit down and try to make
   yourselfbelieve in Him? That would be a very unwise thing because faith
   is not worked in the soul in that fashion! Suppose it was rumored, at
   the present moment, that there had been another massacre in Alexandria,
   and that our troops had been driven out of the city? How would you
   decide whether the report was to be believed or not? Would you sit down
   in your pew and say, "I will try to make myself believe it"? Well, you
   might come, by a process of reasoning, to some sort of conclusion as to
   whether it was or was not a likely thing, but the mere sensible plan
   would be to enquire what foundation there was for the report. And if,
   on going to the War Office, you were informed by someone in authority,
   "Yes, there has been a very great disaster," well, then, knowing the
   facts of the case, you could believe. The enquiry at headquarters would
   be the way to ascertain the truth of the report, and just so is it in
   connection with believing in Christ. If I am to believe in Him, I ask,
   with this man, "Who is He?" and until I know who He is, it is idle for
   me to talk about forcing myself to believe in Him!

   Now listen, He in whom you are asked to believe for salvation is,
   first, of all, Himself God! Then, in Infinite mercy, He came and took
   upon Himself our nature and dwelt among men. He voluntarily came--being
   God--but He was also sent of God, appointed and authorized to be God's
   Ambassador to man. He was, in addition to being sent of God, anointed
   of God, for the Spirit of God rested upon Him without measure,
   qualifying Him for His work. The life He led here on earth was
   unique--there was never another like it--and the imagination of man
   cannot write the history of another man that shall be at all comparable
   to the life of Christ! It stands apart in a lone, simple majesty,
   utterly inimitable, absolutely perfect. Then He died and by that death
   He forever put away the sin of His people. He took upon Himself the sin
   which He had never committed. He was numbered with the transgressors
   and He suffered as if men's transgressions had been His own. He died,
   "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God."

   And God has accepted those sufferings as a propitiation for all who
   believe in Him. And now, this is the witness of God concerning Him,
   that He has raised Him from the dead, and taken Him up to His Throne
   and made Him to sit there, at His Father's right hand, where, at this
   moment, He is making intercession for all who come to God by Him. And
   now, our prayers are accepted through Him--and the infinite blessings
   which are His, He distributes among us! And He is shortly coming again
   with sound of trumpet, and attended by myriads of saints and angels. As
   He ascended from Olivet, in like manner He will also descend to earth
   again. King of Kings and Lord of Lords shall He be in that day--"And
   before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them,
   one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats." He
   is God! He still lives! It is the living, reigning Christ whom we
   preach to you! He lives in Glory and He also lives here by the Presence
   of His Holy Spirit who is with us and who is to abide with us evermore.
   And it is upon Him as God Incarnate, as Savior--crucified, risen, and
   gone into Glory--that you are asked to place your soul's confidence!

   If you would learn this Truth of God more fully, read the four Gospels
   and the Epistles, and ask the Spirit, who inspired the writers of them,
   to explain and apply them to you. That is the way to obtain faith! Many
   a man has been reading in the Bible the story of the Cross, and so he
   has believed in Jesus. Many another has heard about the Savior, and so
   has been led to believe in Him. It is the simplest thing in the world
   to believe upon trustworthy evidence and when we get the evidence of
   Christ's life and death manifesting the glory of His Person, the
   graciousness of His Character and the efficacy of His atoning blood,
   then are we led to believe in Him! True faith is based upon knowledge
   of Christ, as it was in this man's case. Take care, dear Friends, that
   you always remember that simple but important Truth of God.

   And, further, true faith always expresses itself to the Lord. This man,
   when he had believed in Jesus, said, "Lord, I believe." True faith
   ought also to express itself to men, as Paul puts it, in writing to the
   Romans, "For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with
   the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Or, as the Master Himself
   puts it, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." Therefore,
   the confession before men ought not to be neglected in any case, yet I
   fear, and hope, that there are some pilgrims who steal into Heaven,
   scarcely known by men to be Christians--at least, not acknowledged as
   such by open profession. I do not recommend dodging behind the hedges
   and getting to Heaven along back roads--that is a bad plan--but still,
   I trust some have managed it, though with much trouble and loss to
   themselves. But, in every case, everyone who has believed has made the
   confession of that faith to the Master Himself. He has said to Jesus,
   as this man did, "Lord, I believe," even though he has added, with
   another man, "Help You my unbelief." He has said to Jesus, with Thomas,
   "My Lord and my God." There has been a personal acknowledgment, as we
   sometimes sing it--

   "My faith looks up to You, You Lamb of Calvary, Savior Divine."

   It is a very vital point about true faith, that it thus recognizes its
   obligation to speak to Him and to acknowledge itself to Him. How
   sweetly does faith, sometimes, come up from the wilderness, leaning
   upon her Beloved and acknowledging to Him that she is His and He is
   hers! She cannot help making this confession--she would be untrue to
   herself and to her Lord if she did not do so.

   In one respect, we are better off than this man was, for we have many
   Divine promises to help us to believe in Christ. Have you ever noticed,
   dear Friends, how much we live upon the promises of our fellow men? In
   buying a small article at a shop, you pay your twopence for it across
   the counter, but, the larger the business transaction gets to be, the
   less there is of metallic currency in connection with it--then you
   often pay each other in promises. The most common form of a promise is
   a bank note--and it is worth while to observe how much a bank note is
   made after the model of God's promises. How does the wording of this
   bank note run? It is headed, "Bank of England." And it begins, "I
   promise." You take this note readily enough instead of five golden
   sovereigns, because you read on it, "I promise to pay the bearer," and
   God's promise is payable to "the bearer." Whoever has the promise in
   his possession, whoever has faith enough to lay hold of God's promise,
   may read it in this way--"I promise to pay the bearer."

   I remember when I first snatched at one of God's precious promises. I
   could hardly hope that I had any right to it, for I felt myself so
   utterly unworthy, but I snatched it up and ran with it to the Bank of
   Faith! And as soon as I presented it, I received its full value. God
   always honors His own promises. Here is one: "Him that comes to Me I
   will in no wise

   cast out." Go to Him with that gracious message and it shall be
   fulfilled to you, whoever you are! The note says, "I promise to pay the
   bearer." If a janitor takes that note to the Bank of England, he will
   get the money for it--I mean a janitor in characteras well as by trade,
   for the declaration on it is, "I promise to pay the bearer."

   What does it now say on the bank note "I promise to pay the bearer on
   demand." That is how all God's promises run--"on demand." It is worthy
   of note that in the olden times, when the Lord had made many promises
   to His people, He added, "I will yet for this be enquired of by the
   house of Israel, to do it for them," as though the fulfillment of the
   promise was delayed until it was asked for! No doubt many of God's
   great and precious promises are not realized by you and me because they
   are not presented to the Lord as we should take a note to the bank to
   get it cashed. We do not enquire of God as much as we ought. You hear
   of enquirers going to see the minister--that may be a good thing, but
   the best sort of enquirers are those I heard before I came up here to
   preach tonight--when some good earnest souls met downs in the lecture
   hall to enquire of God for a blessing, and to ask Him to help His
   servant to speak the Word with power.

   Now, coming back to this bank note, I daresay you would not mind having
   a pile of paper of this kind reaching from the floor to the
   ceiling--then you would say to yourself, "Now I am a rich man." But you
   have not a single farthing there, you have only a promise "to pay the
   bearer on demand the sum of five pounds." "Ah," you say, "but that
   promise is good all the world over." Whose promise is it? Well, it is
   signed by the chief cashier, but he only signs it, "for the Governor
   and Company of the Bank of England." Thatis where the value of the
   promise lies! And it is our comfort to know that we have a noble name
   written below all God's promises, for the Lord Jesus Christ has signed
   them all in God's behalf--for the great Governor of Heaven and earth,
   who has no need of any "company" to be joined with Him, for His sole
   resources are fully equal to the fulfillment of every promise that He
   has ever issued!

   Now, if we treat men's promises with respect, and pass them from hand
   to hand as if they were genuine gold, and we constantly do so, shall we
   not treat God's promises with something more than respect and trust
   them with implicit confidence? Will any man have the impudence to say,
   "I have faith in a note signed by the chief cashier of the Bank of
   England, but cannot trust a promise that is certified by the Lord Jesus
   Christ Himself?" Shall I consider that bank note to be as good as the
   money it represents and yet, when I hold in my hand, God's Word,
   signed, sealed and ratified by the sprinkling of the very blood of His
   dear Son, shall I dare to say, "I find it hard to believe in that
   Word"? If I talk so, I shall grieve the people of God and, what is far
   worse, shall grieve the Lord Himself!

   II. Now I turn to the second part of our subject, which is, TRUE FAITH,
   HOW IT PROGRESSES.

   Very often it has a very small beginning. Saving faith does not always
   come all of a sudden. Some men are saved, as Saul of Tarsus was--they
   are struck down in the midst of their sins and converted in remarkable
   and unusual manner. But with many others there is, first, a faint
   twilight. Then, by-and-by, a little more and, at last, the sun has
   fully risen upon them. Perhaps you cannot tell when it did actually
   rise, but you know that it has risen, for there is the light and the
   brightness of its shining!

   In the case of the man of whom I am speaking, faith began with a
   preparedness to believe. His eyes had been opened and he was, thereby,
   made ready to believe anything that Jesus might tell him. And there is
   many a man who, looking back upon God's goodness to himself and God's
   goodness to his father and mother, and God's goodness to gracious
   people in general--and thinking of the holy and lovely Character of
   Christ--has, in that way, been prepared to believe when the Truth of
   God was clearly set before him!

   This man went a step further on the right road, for he desired to
   believe. He said, "Who is He, Lord," not, "that I might know about Him,
   and talk about Him"--but, "that I might believe on Him?" He had a
   desire to possess true faith! And there are many like he, who desire to
   believe, but who have not exercised faith in Christ. This is very
   amazing, but it is true. Of all things in the world, to believe in
   Christ is one of the most simple, yet that is the reason why many find
   it so difficult. If it were difficult, it would seem easy to them, but,
   being easy, it appears difficult. Some of you, dear Friends, when I try
   to describe how we come to trust in Christ, will twist and turn what I
   say, even if I make it "as plain as a pikestaff." You think, "Oh, he
   must mean something very different from what he says!" You really
   cannot get this idea into your heads--that you have only to depend on
   Christ, to trust Him and then you are saved, for "he that believes on
   the Son has everlasting life."

   Whenever we use a metaphor, or figure, or illustration to try to
   explain the simplicity of faith, straightway somebody finds a
   difficulty even in that. When I have been trying to catch a sinner, I
   find that he has as many hiding places as there are days in the year. I
   have stopped up one after another, and I have said to him, "No,
   salvation only comes through believing." "Yes, Sir, I know, but"--and
   down he runs into another hole! When I have dug him out of that, and
   fancied I will surely catch him, he says, "Oh, yes, we are to trust the
   Savior, but"--and again he is off. Somehow, men seem very ingenious in
   trying to find out reasons why they should not be saved! And all their
   foolish ingenuity seems to be employed in attempting to escape from
   this blessed Divine simplicity--"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and
   you shall be saved." May God the Holy Spirit lead them to believe in
   Him! He must lead them, for no man can see Christ until his eyes are
   Divinely opened. We may put the Truth as plainly as we can, and preach
   it so that we think we cannot be misunderstood, but men
   willmisunderstand us, even those who desire to believe in Christ, until
   the Holy Spirit works effectually in them!

   This man went still further on the right road, for he not only desired
   to believe, but he made enquiry in order that he might believe. I put
   it to you very simply, just now, with regard to making enquiries
   concerning a certain piece of news. Well, this man did the same. He
   said to the Master, "Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him?" If
   sinners would only make enquiries about the Savior, they would soon
   trust in Him. You will find, as a rule, that the people who rail at the
   New Testament, have never read it. If they would but read it, their
   foolishness might soon come to an end and be followed by a blessed
   faith in Christ. But, instead of doing so, they read what some
   objection-manufacturer has said about the Bible, instead of going to
   the Book, itself, and seeing what it really teaches. If I were very
   thirsty, I do not think that I would abstain from going to a well
   because somebody told me that it contained bad water--but I would go
   and see, and taste for myself. And when a soul gets very thirsty, if it
   is wise, it goes to the Word for itself. I advise you to do that, dear
   Friends. "O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man who
   trusts in Him."

   When this man had made his enquiry and received Christ's answer, he
   soon became decided. He said, "Lord, I believe." I like that simple,
   clear acknowledgement of faith. So often, when we are conversing with
   an enquirer, he says, "Yes, Sir. I hope I believe." Oh, dear, is that
   all you can say? "Well, I trust I believe"--and so faith is surrounded
   by fog--"I hope I believe. I trust I believe." Man, don't you know
   whether you believe or not? You may know it! One thing I know, you have
   no business to go to sleep till you know, once and for all, for, if you
   are not a Believer, you are an unbeliever! There is no middle state
   between the two. And if you are an unbeliever, you are "condemned
   already," because you have not believed in the name of the
   only-begotten Son of God! This matter of believing ought never to be
   left in doubt at all, but it should be definitely settled, so that you
   can say with this man, "Lord, I believe."

   Then, further, he acted as a Believer, for, "he worshipped Him." This
   proves how his faith had grown. I should like to ask you, who are the
   people of God, when you are happiest. I think you will agree with what
   I am going to say, but if you do not, it will still be just as true to
   me. My happiest moments are when I am worshipping God, really adoring
   the Lord Jesus Christ, and having fellowship with the ever-blessed
   Spirit. In that worship, I forget the cares of the Church and
   everything else. And, to me, it is the nearest approach to what it will
   be in Heaven, where, day without night, they offer perpetual adoration
   unto Him that sits upon the Throne, and unto the Lamb. Therefore, what
   a memorable moment it was for this man when he worshipped Christ!

   Now, if Christ was not God, that man was an idolater, a man-worshipper.
   And you and I, instead of being regarded as very excellent people, by
   those who call themselves, "Unitarian Brethren," should be condemned as
   idolaters! If Christ was not God, we are not Christians! We are
   deceived dupes, we are idolaters as bad as the heathen whom we now
   pity. It is making a man into a god if Christ is not God. But, blessed
   be His holy name, He is God, and we feel that it is the supreme delight
   of our being to worship Him! We cannot veil our face with our wings,
   for we have none, but we do veil them with His own robe of
   righteousness whenever we approach Him. We cannot cover our feet with
   our wings, as the angels do, but we do take His blood and His
   righteousness both as a covering for our feet, and as wings with which
   we fly up to Him. And though as yet we have no crowns to cast at His
   dear feet, yet, if we have any honor, any good repute, any Grace,
   anything that is comely, anything that is honest, we lay it all at His
   feet and cry, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Your name
   give glory, for Your mercy and for Your truth's sake."

   III. Now I come to the third point, which is this, TRUE FAITH--HOW TO
   PROMOTE IT.

   Beloved Brothers and Sisters, there are many of you who are constantly
   looking out for souls and trying to bring them to Christ. You have,
   here, an example of what you may do in endeavoring to lead them to
   exercise faith in Jesus.

   First, if you have any choice as to those to whom you go, seek out the
   oppressed. You are to go, as far as you can, "into all the world, and
   preach the Gospel to every creature." But if you may specially look for
   some more than others, seek out the sick, the sad, the weary, the poor,
   the broken-down ones and especially such as have been put out of the
   synagogue. When our missionaries have gone among the Brahmins in India,
   they have had a few converts, but the most blessing has been given
   among the poor people who have no high caste of which they are proud.
   When the Gospel was taken to them, they gladly received it! The Gospel
   worker will be wise if, instead of shunning those whom even nominally
   religious people put away, he looks after them, first. They are likely
   soil for the good Seed of the Kingdom to grow in and bring forth fruit.
   Our Lord Jesus Christ, at Sychar, did not go to some goodly matron who
   was an ornament to her sex. You know where He found the woman who
   became His disciple and missionary, and you know what kind of woman she
   was and, to this day, He delights to go about, as Whitefield used to
   say, "sweeping up the devil's castaways." Those whom nobody else wants
   and nobody else will have--our blessed Lord and Master delights to
   receive. Therefore, look after those out-of-the-way sinners! I like
   that expression, those out-of-the-way Sinners, because our Lord Jesus
   Christ is the High Priest "who can have compassion on the ignorant, and
   on them that are out of the way." Out-of-the-way sinners are the sort
   He came to save, therefore, look out for them, you who would follow the
   example of the great Soul-Winner.

   Then, next, when you come to close quarters with them, ask them
   questions, as Christ did. He said to this man, "Do you believe on the
   Son of God." Put the enquiry pointedly and personally. Here am I, up in
   the pulpit, firing the Gospel gun, and the shot flies where God directs
   it. But you, downstairs, who love the Lord, can, as it were, hold a
   pistol close to the sinner's head! Take them separately, one by one,
   and make them "stand and deliver." Put the question as our Lord did,
   "Do you believe?" "See, Friend," you can say, "the minister has been
   preaching about faith. 'Do you believe?'" This is what nine people out
   of ten need--somebody to come and make a personal application of the
   Truth of God to them. They are like soldiers out upon the battlefield.
   They lie there, wounded, bleeding, dying. Close by, there is all that
   is needed to bind up their wounds and plenty of it! Then, why do they
   lie there in agony? They need personal attention and it is your
   business, as an army surgeon, to go and put on the splint and bind up
   the wounds. Oh, that we had multitudes who would do this, and that all
   God's people were constantly looking out for opportunities of making a
   personal application of the Truth to those who hear it! "Do you
   believe?" said the Lord Jesus to this man, and by that question He held
   him fast. That is the way to win souls--begin with a personal question!

   Then, be ready to answer enquiries. This is what our Lord Himself did
   when He revealed Himself to this man. Tell them all you know and if you
   cannot tell them all they need to know, try to bring them to somebody
   more advanced in spiritual things than you, yourself, are, so that,
   with prayer, patience and wise instruction, hemay lead them to Christ.

   Next, pray to the Lord Jesus Christ to reveal Himself to them, for that
   is the way faith comes. We cannot speak of Christ as He should be
   spoken of, but when He reveals Himself, then the sinners see Him. All
   the portraits of a beauty never touch the heart like one glance from
   her eyes--and all the portraits of Christ that were ever painted by His
   most admiring disciples, never make such an impression on the heart of
   man as when once He says, as He said to this man, "You have both seen
   Him, and it is He that talks with you." None but Christ Himself can
   preach Christ to the fullest. He must reveal Himself, or the Spirit
   must reveal Him, or else men do not see Him.

   Finally, glorify Christ by your own personal testimony. Remember that
   wondrous intercessory prayer of our Lord, in which He said, "Neither
   pray I for these, alone, but for them, also, which shall believe on Me
   through their word." It was so kind, yet just like He, not to say,
   "through My Word," though it is His Word that we are to proclaim. But
   we get it into our hearts and so appropriate it that when we utter it,
   we speak out of our own heart, and soul, and then it becomes our word,
   too, and so sinners believe on Christ through our word. Go on speaking
   your word, that is, Christ's Word spoken by you, for this is how to win
   souls for Him!

   Now, in closing, I want to begin again, and give you another little
   sermon altogether, only I shall not be able to preach it to you, but
   just to give you the heads of it and leave it with you.

   The first head is, when you are believing, mind that you believe in
   Jesus Himself''Do you believe in the Son of God?" or is it somebody
   else in whom you are believing? Is it merely what others say about
   Christ that you believe? Is it

   your own opinion of Christ? Or is it really the Son of God upon whom
   you are believing? When you are believing, believe in Jesus Himself.

   Next, when you are enquiring, enquire of Jesus Himself This is a
   beautiful thing, to my mind. Here is a man asking Christ about
   Christ--asking Jesus, "Who is He?" and, all the while, speaking to the
   very Person about whom he was enquiring! He did not know it was Jesus,
   yet he had gone to the very Fountainhead! Now, perhaps some of you have
   made enquiries of Christian people and you have read the Bible, and
   prayed, and yet you cannot find Jesus. Then go direct to Him, by faith,
   and say, "Lord, show me Yourself." That is the way to learn of Him.
   Have I a book of which I cannot make heads or tail as I read it? If I
   knew where the author lived, I would call on him and say, "Dear Sir,
   will you kindly tell me what you mean by this expression? I cannot
   understand it." That is the way to find anything out--go to the
   fountainhead. So, always go to Christ and, when you are enquiring,
   enquire of Christ Himself.

   Next, when you are seeking Christ, ask Christ to reveal Himself to you,
   for there is nobody who can reveal Christ as Christ can reveal Himself
   by His blessed Spirit.

   And, next, when you are confessing your faith, confess it to Christ
   Himself Say, as this man did, "Lord, I believe." Say to your minister,
   or to your mother, or to your friends, "I believe," but take care,
   above all the rest, that you say, "Lord, I believe."

   And, lastly, when you are worshipping, worship Christ Himself ' 'He
   worshipped HIM" and no one else. Take care that your reverence and
   adoration are not given, in any degree, to the church, or to any person
   in it, or to any priest, or minister, or anything created or made.
   Worship God, and God in Christ Jesus. And the Lord bless you, Beloved,
   for His name's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Communion With Christ--a Baptizing Sermon

   (No. 2668)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, APRIL 1, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK, ON A THURSDAY EVENING, EARLY IN
   THE YEAR 1858.

   "Cain two walk together, unless they are agreed?" Amos 3:3.

   THE expression, "walking together," is often used in Scripture as a
   figure for communion. "Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God
   took him." Communion, if it is thorough and entire, implies activity.
   It is not merely contemplation, it is action and, therefore, inasmuch
   as walking is an active exercise, and walking with a man is communion
   with him, active communion with him, we see how walking comes to be the
   picture of true communion with Christ. An old Puritan said, "It does
   not say that Enoch returned to God and then left Him, but he 'walked
   with God.'" All his journey through, he had God for his Companion and
   lived in perpetual fellowship with his Maker.

   There is also another idea contained in the term, "walking together."
   It is not only activity, but continuance. So, true communion with
   Christ is not a mere spasm--not just an excitement of ecstasy--but if
   it is the work of the Holy Spirit and if it is enjoyed by the healthful
   soul, it will be a continual thing.

   It also implies progress,for, in walking together, we do not lift up
   our feet and put them down in the same place, but we proceed nearer to
   our journey's end. And he that has true communion with Christ is making
   progress. It is true that Christ can go no further towards excellence,
   for He has already attained perfection, but the nearer weget to that
   perfection, the more fellowship we have with Jesus--and unless we
   progress, unless we seek to be more childlike in faith, more instructed
   in knowledge and more diligent in service--unless we seek to have more
   zeal and fervency, we shall find that, in so standing still, we lose
   the Presence of the Master, for it is only by following on with the
   Lord that we continue to walk with Him. It will, therefore, very
   readily strike you how walking with a person is an excellent figure for
   communion with him and how the term, "walking with God," is the best
   expression for fellowship with God. Hence, our text implies by its very
   form that two cannot walk together unless they are agreed. And it
   teaches us, therefore, that unless we are agreed with Christ, we cannot
   attain to the sweet state of communion with Him.

   We, shall, first, notice the agreement here mentioned. We shall,
   secondly, try to notice the necessity for this agreement And then,
   thirdly, we shall ask all Christians to seek after this agreement with
   Christ that they may have full communion with Him.

   I am not addressing myself so much to the world outside as to the
   Church within. When we are preaching the Gospel of salvation, we preach
   that to the world. But communion is like the Holy of Holies! Salvation,
   itself, seems to be but as the court of the priests, but communion is
   the Innermost Place, that which is within the veil, and into that none
   but the Christian can be allowed to enter.

   I. First, then, Christian, we shall endeavor to show you WHAT IS THE
   AGREEMENT which must exist between your Lord and yourself before you
   can walk with Him. We will do this in a very simple way. We shall keep
   to the figure and we shall see that there are certain things necessary
   to enable one person to walk with another.

   First, then, it is quite certain that if we would walk with Christ, we
   must walk in the same path Two men cannot walk together if one turns
   his head in one direction and the other turns his head the opposite
   way. If one should turn to the right and the other to the left, they
   cannot walk together, although they may arrive at the same end by
   different roads, but they cannot walk togetherunless they walk along
   the same road. It is true that they can have a little conversa-

   tion even if they are some yards apart, but if one walks on one side of
   the road, and the other on the other, we would think that their
   communion was rather distant and their love rather cold. But, the
   nearer they walk on precisely the same road, the more are they enabled
   to hold fellowship with one another.

   Now, child of God, albeit you cannot be saved by your good works, and
   your salvation does not depend upon your works, remember that your
   communion does! It is impossible for you to have fellowship with Christ
   unless you are obedient to His commands. Let a Christian err and he
   will be pierced with many sorrows. Let the child of God forsake the way
   of God, let him, as, alas, we oftentimes do, go down by the stile to
   By-Path Meadow, and he will not have his Master go down By-Path Meadow
   with him! If we will be self-willed and choose our own path, we must go
   our own path alone. If, for some seeming pleasure, or some fancied
   gain, instead of following the fiery cloudy pillar, we follow the
   will-o'-the-wisp of our own desires, we shall have to go alone, and in
   the dark, too! Christ will go with us anywhere where duty calls us. If
   duty should call us into the burning fiery furnace, the Son of Man will
   be there. If it should lead us into the lions' den, He will be there to
   shut the lions' mouths. He would not have gone there with Daniel if
   Daniel had sought, by neglect of duty, to avoid the threatened
   destruction. Although the Lord would go with Shadrach, Meshach and
   Abednego even into the heat of the burning fiery furnace, yet, if they
   had bowed down to the image, He would not have gone with them. "If you
   walk contrary to Me," says the Lord, "I will walk contrary to you."

   Here I must guard what I have said lest I should be misunderstood. I do
   not mean that Christ forsakes His people so as to destroythem--but He
   forsakes them so as to take away their communion with Himself. For
   again I repeat that, although salvation does not depend upon good
   works, communion hasthis dependence--and cannot be enjoyed between
   Christ and the soul that is full of sin. A man may have much sin about
   him and yet be a saved man. And much of frailty and imperfection
   cleaves to us all. But if we are livingin sin. If we are, in anyway
   whatever, breaking the commands of God--to the extent of our sin there
   will be just that extent of separation between our souls and Christ.
   Sin may not kill us, but it will make us sick. It will take Christ's
   right hand from under our heads. Take care, therefore, Christian, that
   you walk in the steps of your Master. Strive to be obedient to His Law.
   Live righteously, soberly and godly in the midst of a crooked and
   perverse generation. Be you like Caleb, who followed the Lord fully.
   Endeavor in every way to learn His will and then to do it. In all your
   Lord's appointed ways, pursue your journey. Remember all His
   ordinances, and perform His every precept. Resign yourself to His every
   dispensation. Be you not as the horse or mule which have no
   understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle lest
   they come near to you--but be you guided by the Lord's own eye. Run in
   the way of His commandments and you shall find them a delightful road!
   This is the first point-- those who walk together must go the same way.

   Further, in going the same way, they must go with the same motive. Two
   persons may be going the same way, but suppose they are going for very
   opposite reasons? There is a lawyer walking side by side with the man
   whom he is going to fleece. Let the poor man know that he is to be
   robbed at the end of his journey and there will not be any communion
   between the two travelers! Suppose two men are going together and one
   is about to bring an action against the other-- there will not be any
   communion between them. Suppose they are going to fight with each
   other--there will not be any communion between them. Suppose the two
   are going to the same election, intending to vote for opposite
   candidates-- they will not be likely to hold very sweet conversation
   with one another, albeit they may go in the same way. So, it is
   necessary that we should not only go in the same road, but with the
   same motive.

   Perhaps you ask, "Is it possible that we can go with Christ in the same
   road, but yet not with the same motive?" Certainly, it is. You see a
   man who appears to be quite as holy as a Christian. He seems to be as
   obedient to the Lord as the man who really follows the Master. As for
   ceremonies, he is the very first to observe them. As for the duties of
   morality, he attends to them most scrupulously. But ask him why he does
   all this and he says it is because he desires to save his soul by it.
   Immediately, he and Christ are at arms' length! Christ calls such an
   one an antichrist and they are sworn enemies. You are trying to save
   yourself, are you? Then you are to be a savior, while Christ is a
   Savior? Then you and He are at enmity! But if you are traveling on this
   road to be saved by Grace, desiring to show forth your thanks with your
   lips and in your life, then you do not wish to rob Christ's kingly or
   priestly office of any of its dignity. You do not desire to set
   yourself up as another king in Zion. But if you are walking in this
   road with a motive contrary to Christ, you cannot hold any communion
   with Him.

   There is very blessed communion with Christ to be enjoyed in the Lord's
   Supper, but if anyone comes to the Lord's Table merely with the thought
   that it may do him good and save his soul, there is no communion with
   Christ for him because that is not Christ's objective. And it is the
   same with Baptism. That ordinance is a blessed means of communion with
   Christ in His death and burial, but if anyone desires to be baptized,
   supposing that the observance of the ordinance will save his soul, then
   there is no communion! If anyone attaches more to the act than Christ
   has commanded and, therefore, makes it our duty to fulfill it--the
   moment a man supposes any efficacy in the water and in the body being
   buried therein--then the communion ceases, for unless we come to
   anything with Christ's motive, or with a motive which is congenial to
   Christ's heart, we are not capable of walking with Him. Two cannot walk
   together unless they are agreed, not only in the way they walk, but
   also in the objective with which they walk in that way.

   Once again, two persons may walk the same road, they may walk with the
   same purpose and yet they may not be able to speak to each other unless
   they travel the same pace. If one person shall travel home very
   swiftly, tonight, and another, who lives in the same house, goes
   creeping home very slowly, perhaps they will go down the same streets,
   yet they will say nothing to one another because one will be at home
   long before the other. So we must agree in the pace at which we travel.
   Why is it that many Christians hold no fellowship with Jesus? It is
   because they travel to Heaven so slowly that the Lord Jesus leaves them
   behind! They are so lukewarm, so cold, so indifferent--they have so
   little zeal, so little love-- they have so little true desire to
   glorify God that the swift heart of Jesus cannot be restrained to tarry
   with them.

   "Oh," says one, "I travel as fast as I can, but I am only a poor feeble
   creature! I often creep when I see others run and, when I do run, I
   often see others flying." Beloved, Christ does not measure your walking
   by the speedat which you go. If your desire is slack, the Lord Jesus
   will leave you and travel on before you--and you will probably find the
   whip of affliction behind you goading your soul to travel more swiftly!
   John Bunyan has a good picture. He says, "if you send a servant for
   medicines and he goes as fast as he can, perhaps he rides on a sorry
   jade of a horse and he cannot make it go fast. But the master does not
   measure the pace by the rate at which the horse goes, but by the rate
   at which the servant wishesthe horse to go, and he says, 'That man
   would go fast if he could. If you put him on a horse that had some
   mettle in him, he would be back and bring the medicines.'"

   So is it with our poor flesh and blood. It is an ill pace at which we
   can ever go with such a sorry thing to ride on-- but the Lord Jesus
   measures our pace, not by the actual distance traversed, but by our
   desires! When he sees us kicking and spurring, as it were, in prayer,
   pulling at the rein, and toiling to make our poor flesh and blood rise
   to something like devotion and zeal, He accepts the will for the deed
   and He keeps company even with us who are such poor disciples. But let
   our desires be cold, let us become lazy, let us do little or nothing
   for Christ--what wonder if the Lord Jesus says, "This man observes not
   My Words and keeps not My sayings. I will not sup with him and he shall
   not sup with Me. I will give him enough comfort to keep him alive. I
   will give him enough spiritual food to keep his soul from actually
   starving, but I will put him on a poor diet until he turns to Me with
   full purpose of heart. And then I will take him to My bosom and show
   him My love."

   There is one more thing. You can suppose two persons traveling on the
   same road with the same intentions and at the same pace, yet they do
   not walk together so as to hold any fellowship with each other because
   they do not like each other Where there is no love (and that, perhaps,
   is the fullest meaning of the text), there can be no communion. Unless
   two are agreed in heart, they cannot walk together. You know some of
   our very excellent Hyper-Calvinistic friends. Now, suppose one of them
   meets an Arminian--you cannot suppose for an instant that there could
   be any conversation between them unless it were some jangling and abuse
   of each other. Suppose some good strict Baptist Brother speaks to us,
   who have more enlarged principles. He smites us with his heavy weapons
   and cuts us down for the great sin of loving all who love the Lord
   Jesus Christ and welcoming to the Lord's Table all whom we believe the
   Lord has received. But, so far as communion is concerned, our Brother
   would be obliged to go on the other side of the road. There must be, he
   thinks, a little distinction and a little difference kept up, for the
   honor of his own views. And we know that there are some Brethren who
   have a peculiar obnoxiousness of temper--they seem to be covered with
   bristles and sharp quills to prick and annoy any and every person who
   happens to come in their way. You cannot commune with them. It is
   impossible for you to walk in the same road with them, for you would
   feel it better to hold your peace all the way because they would be
   sure to misunderstand what you said. There must be an agreement in
   heart, an agreement in opinion, or otherwise two cannot walk together.

   Believer, have you agreement of heart with the Lord Jesus? Do you love
   Christ and do you think a great deal of Him? Do you ever seek to
   magnify Him and speak well of His name? Do you think Him the chief
   among ten thousand and altogether lovely? And do you feel that He also
   has a good opinion of you? Has He said to you, "You are all fair, My
   love; there is no spot in you"? Has He spoken soft words to your heart
   which have caused you to think that His heart of compassion has yearned
   over you? Ah, then, communion is easy with you and your Lord, for your
   two souls are bound up in the same bundle of life and, therefore, it is
   possible for you and Christ to walk together! Are you and He of the
   same opinion? Are Christ's Words your doctrine? Have You been taught to
   give up all divinity except that which came from Jesus? Can you say of
   Him, "He is my only Rabbi, my only Teacher in the Law and the Gospel.
   At His feet, with Mary, I could sit and receive His Words and believe
   all that He has uttered to be the very Truth of God"? If so, Believer,
   communion between you and Christ is easy, for, when two agree in
   thought, intention, way and affection, then they can walk together.

   1 have taken so much time for this first point that the other two must
   be very briefly hinted at.

   II. The second point was to be THE NECESSITY FOR THIS AGREEMENT.

   First, Christ will not walk with us unless we are agreed with Him
   because if He did so, it would be a slur upon His own honor. No, more
   than that, it would be a denial of His own Nature! Should Christ come
   into concord with Belial? Should He make Himself free and communicative
   with those who indulge the lusts of the flesh and who disobey His
   commands? It would look ill if the King's Son should walk arm in arm
   with traitors! We should not think it a good sign if we saw the highest
   in the land herding with the lowest. Christ keeps good company and if
   we do not have our hearts purified by the Holy Spirit, He will not come
   to us at all. He will not abide even with His own children so long as
   they harbor sin. Invite the devil into the front parlor of your heart,
   and Christ will not come. No, it would be a derogation of His own
   dignity, an insult to His own Character to do so. Give your heart up to
   the indulgence of some ambitious desire and you cannot insult the
   Savior by inviting Him to come to you. In our own houses we do not
   invite two persons who are at enmity, and is it likely that Christ will
   come where sin is reigning, or pampered, or indulged? No, Brothers and
   Sisters, He knows there is sin in the best human heart, but, as long as
   it is kept down and as long as He sees that our desires are to overturn
   it, He will come there. But when He sees sin petted and fed in the
   place which ought to be His own palace. When He sees self-righteousness
   and self-security harbored there, He says, "I will not return until
   they have repented of their sin."

   There is another reason why you cannot commune with Christ unless you
   are in agreement with Him and that is because you, yourselves, are
   incapable of it Unless your soul is in agreement with Christ. Unless,
   in motive, aim and will, you are, as far as possible, like your Master,
   you cannot rise to the dignity of fellowship with Him! Fellowship with
   Christ is a high privilege--no man can attain to it as long as he
   indulges evil purposes, or low desires. The heart must be assimilated
   to the likeness of Christ. It must be cleansed and renewed by the Holy
   Spirit, or else it loses its wings and is unable to mount to the high
   places of the earth where Christ shows His people His love.

   There is another reason why Christ will not commune with us unless we
   are agreed with Him, namely, for our own good. Christ cannot and will
   not hold sweet fellowship with His people unless they are in harmony
   with Him. If Christians swerve from Christ's path and backslide from
   His ways--and Christ were still to indulge them with love feasts-- they
   would not realize their sin and would still continue in it. Let a
   father indulge the erring child with all the usual display of his
   affection. Let him put away the rod. Let him never use a harsh word at
   all, but treat the sinning one with the same love as another who is
   dutiful and obedient--how is it to be expected that the child would
   ever forsake its faults? If Christ should give the same love, the same
   enjoyments in sin and after sin, as He does in duty and after duty, His
   people would scarcely recognize their sins and they would continue in
   them. But just as the Lord is pleased to make pain the telltale of
   disease, so that a headache becomes an indication of something wrong
   within the system, so does He make the absence of His own fellowship
   the tell-tale by which we may know that there is something within our
   soul that is hostile to Him--something that must be driven away before
   the sacred Dove will come, with wings of comfort, to dwell in our
   hearts. "Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?" No. That is
   impossible.

   III. Now, thirdly, I want to urge all Christians to SEEK AFTER THIS
   AGREEMENT WITH CHRIST. Beloved Brothers and Sisters, in order that you
   may agree with Christ, I have first to remind you that the perpetual

   indwelling of the Holy Spirit must be with you. Unless the same Spirit
   that dwells in Christ shall dwell in you, your

   agreement can never rise to such a height as to admit of any depth or
   nearness of union. Take care continually to seek the unction from on
   high, the indwelling of the Holy One of Israel! In the measure in which
   your heart has been endued by the Divine influence and baptized by the
   holy fire of the Spirit--in that proportion will your soul be in
   agreement with Christ and your union be true, close and lasting. Take
   care of that.

   And then, next, under that Divine influence, look well to all your
   motives. Seek not to have any aim to get honor to yourself, or honor to
   your fellow men. Take care that in all you do, you do it with a single
   eye to your Master's honor, for, unless your eye is single, your whole
   body shall be full of darkness. If you will win the sunlight of your
   Master's face, you must seek His Glory and His Glory alone.

   Then, if you would have union with Christ, take care, in the next
   place, that you do all in dependence upon Him, for if, in the affairs
   of your soul, you set up in business for yourself, Christ will be at
   enmity with you. Seek not only to turn your eyes to Him for direction,
   but also for support. And look to Him in your prayers, in your
   preaching, in your hearing and in everything, for so shall Christ and
   your soul be agreed and you shall have fellowship with Him.

   And, lastly, be continually panting after more holiness. Never be
   content with what you are. Seek to grow. Seek to be more and more like
   Christ! And then, when that desire for holiness is strongest, you will
   have the same desire that Christ has, for His desire is that you should
   be holy, even as He is holy. And His command is, "Be you, therefore,
   perfect, even as your Father who is in Heaven is perfect." And when
   your desires are Christ's desires, then shall it be possible for you to
   walk with Christ, but not till then!

   I long to have a Church in complete agreement with the Lord Jesus
   Christ, for that would be a Church against which the gates of Hell
   could never prevail! If a church is merely founded by a man, the man
   will die and the church will perish. If a doctrine is only taught by a
   man and you receive it on his authority, his authority will pass away
   as all earthly things must. But, if it is of God, woe unto them that
   fight against it, for they can never prevail against Him! Woe unto him
   that dashes himself against this stone, for he shall be broken in
   pieces! And if it is rolled upon him, it shall grind him to powder! Let
   us be sure that a church is a Church of God in her doctrines, in her
   ordinances, in her prayer and praise--and we may know that she shall be
   like the stone we read of in Daniel, "cut out of the mountain without
   hands." None shall be able to break her, but she shall break all
   opposers in pieces and she shall fill the earth!

   Now there are some friends who are about to walk with Christ into this
   pool of Baptism. Can two walk here unless they are agreed? You may walk
   into this pool, but you cannot bring Christ with you unless you are
   agreed with Him. If you come without agreement with Christ, you will
   make a slip of it in your life, or else go back and walk no more with
   Him and be offended with Him. Remember, Brothers and Sisters, unless
   your two hearts are agreed, unless Christ and your heart are made one,
   you will fall out with one another before long! Christ will not long be
   at peace with you, nor will you be at peace with Christ. Your
   profession will be short-lived, after all, unless it is a true and real
   one--the expression of the inner heart. I pray that your profession
   tonight may be a sincere one, that you may testify to the world a true,
   saving and entire agreement with your Lord and Master. And if any of
   you are not agreed with Christ, I beseech you, though you have come so
   far, come no farther! Go not into this pool till you are thoroughly
   agreed with Christ! I charge you, in the name of the living God, as you
   shall have to stand before His bar at last, play not the hypocrite! Be
   sincere, for, if you give yourselves not wholly to Christ, you are
   doing like those who come unworthily to the Lord's Ta-ble--who eat and
   drink condemnation to their own souls--for he that is plunged into the
   Baptismal pool as a hypocrite, is immersed unto his own damnation!

   But, O, you humble followers of Jesus, you have testified to us your
   fellowship in the faith! Be not afraid, now, to confess it before
   men--and may God acknowledge all your names, at last, among the
   followers of the Lamb, for His dear Son's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON:

   JOHN 9.

   [Regular readers of the Sermons will probably notice that this
   Exposition was given by MR. SPURGEON before he delivered the discourse
   published last week [Sermon #2667, Volume 46].

   John 9:1-2. And as Jesuspassed by, He saw a man who was blind from his
   birth, AndHis disciples askedHim, saying, Master, who did sin, this
   man, or his parents, that he was born blind? The procedure of these
   disciples is very much like that of many people in these days--they are
   much more ready to ask questions about sufferers than they are to
   sympathize with them. If the hearts of the disciples had been in a
   right condition when they saw this blind man, they would have said,
   "Lord, cannot this poor man's eyes be opened?" But, instead of talking
   like that, they were full of idle curiosity which prompted them to
   raise metaphysical difficulties and to ask foolish questions. So they
   wanted to know how it was that the man came to be born blind. Was it in
   consequence of some sin on the part of his parents, or through some sin
   of his own in a previous state of existence, (for some of them seem to
   have had even that foolish notion), or was it because of some sin of
   his which God foresaw that he would commit and, therefore, laid this
   affliction upon him from the hour of his birth?

   3. Jesus answered, Neither has this man sinned, nor hisparents: but
   that the works of Godshould be made manifest in him. That is to say,
   this blindness was not the result of special sin in any individual, but
   God intended that His works of mercy and of Grace should be manifested
   through his affliction. It is a cruel thing when every form of malady
   or disease is traced to some fault in the person who has to suffer from
   it. This is evil! I had almost said infernal, for Satan himself could
   hardly devise a more false and wicked thing than to say that because a
   man is a special sufferer, therefore he must have been a special
   sinner! It is not so, for, often, some of God's truest children--some
   of those who live nearest to Him--are those who keep the night watches
   through pain, or they are bedridden from year to year, or are deprived
   of some of their limbs, or in some other way are full of suffering.
   This is in order that in their case, also, the works of God should be
   manifest in them as they were in this poor blind man.

   4. I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day. ' 'I have
   no time to go into these questions with you merely to satisfy your
   curiosity. 'While it is day,' I must go on with the work which I was
   sent into the world to do."

   4-7. The night comes, when no man can work As long as I am in the
   world, I am the light of the world. When He had thus spoken, He spat on
   the ground and made clay of the spittle, and He anointed the eyes of
   the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of
   Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent). He went his way, therefore,
   and washed, and came seeing. There was no long discourse to be
   delivered while this poor man was waiting to see what would happen to
   him. Our Lord spoke just a few words to His disciples and then went at
   once to the miracle He intended to perform. "When He had thus spoken,
   He spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle, and He anointed the
   eyes of the blind man with the clay." Our Savior sometimes works
   without means. At other times by means and, occasionally He uses means
   which, at first sight, appear not to be the best to produce the
   designed result. To put clay on a blind man's eyes does not seem a very
   likely operation for giving him sight. And, oh, dear Friends, when God
   uses us as His instruments and makes us to be like this clay upon the
   poor blind man's eyes, I am sure that there is much about us that might
   make us feel as if we would rather hinder than help! And when we do the
   best we can, what is there in us that is of any value?

   I think I once saw the pen with which Milton was said to have written
   part of Paradise Lost Poor pen! It could not remember the great poet,
   could it? Yet, he had used it to noble purpose. As I looked at it, I
   did not think of ascribing a single stanza of that matchless poem to
   the pen with which Milton wrote. So, Beloved, we are the pens that the
   Lord uses when He means to write His messages of Grace upon the hearts
   of saints and sinners. But we are such poor pens, such feeble
   instruments to be held in His hand that we wonder He can ever make use
   of us! This blind man did exactly as he was told to do. What a blessing
   it was for him that he received the clay on his eyes and simply went
   and washed it off again as the Savior told him! That was all he had to
   do--and then he came back seeing clearly! Oh, if sinners were only
   attentive to Gospel directions--and then were obedient to them without
   adding to them or taking from them--how many more blind eyes would be
   very speedily opened and how greatly would Christ be glorified!

   8, 9. The neighbors therefore, and they which before had seen him that
   he was blind, said, is not this he that sat and begged? Some said, This
   is he: others said, He is like him. But he said, I am he. With that
   downright simplicity and shrewdness which marked his whole character,
   the man said, "I am he." He did not go beating about the bush at all,
   but he straightway acknowledged that he was the man of whom they were
   speaking.

   10, 11. Therefore said they unto him, How were your eyes opened? He
   answered and said, A Man that is called Jesus made clay and anointed my
   eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash; and I went
   and washed, and I

   received sight. I admire the brevity of his statement, the boldness of
   it and the simple naivete of it. The way in which he told the story did
   not embellish it in the least degree. In fact, it could not have been
   embellished without spoiling it. And when you, dear Friends, are giving
   an account of your own conversion, describing the way in which
   salvation became yours, tell it as simply and plainly as you can. It
   will never be so well adorned as when it appears in its own naked
   simplicity and beauty. I commend this man's example to all of you who
   have to give your testimony before you are admitted as members of the
   Church. When speaking of your conversion, put the narrative in as plain
   and simple a form as this man adopted.

   12-14. Then said they unto him, Where is He? He said, I know not They
   brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind. And it was the
   Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Therefore,
   this act of Christ would be something horrible in the eyes of the
   Pharisees. They would make out that Christ, when He made the clay, had
   turned brick maker on the Sabbath, thus violating the traditions of the
   fathers, just as, on another occasion, they said that He allowed His
   disciples to go threshing on the Sabbath, when they gathered ears of
   corn in the field, rubbed them between their hands, and ate the grain
   because they were hungry. The Rabbis regarded that as an act of
   threshing, and a very serious violation of the Law of God! And now that
   Jesus had Himself made clay, and opened a man's eyes with it, they held
   up their hands in holy horror--no, in impioushorror--that Christ should
   do such a thing on the Sabbath!

   15. Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his
   sight He said unto them, He put clay upon my eyes, and I washed, and do
   see. He makes his story shorter as he goes on telling it. These people
   were unworthy of the words he spoke to them and, therefore, he gave
   them as few as possible.

   16, 17. Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God,
   because He keeps not the Sabbath day. Others said, How can a Man that
   is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them. They
   said unto the blind man again, What say you of Him, that He has opened
   your eyes? He said, He is a Prophet That was as much as he then knew.
   By thoughtful consideration he had come as far as to know that Jesus
   must be a Prophet.

   18-21. But the Jews didnot believe concerning him, that he had been
   blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him
   that had received his sight. And they asked them, saying, Is this your
   son, who you say was born blind? How, then, does he now see? His
   parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that
   he was born blind: but by what means he now sees, we know not; or who
   has opened his eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him: he shall speak
   for himself. They also were shrewd. They did not wish to get themselves
   into trouble and, therefore, they said as little as they could. They
   referred the Pharisees to their son who was quite able to answer them.

   22-24. These words spoke his parents because they feared the Jews: for
   the Jews had agreed, already, that if any man did confess that He was
   Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. Therefore said his
   parents, He is of age; ask him. Then again called they the man that was
   blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this Man is
   a sinner. They thought that they could smooth the man over, so that he
   would say no more. "We know"--we who know everything, we who are the
   rulers and teachers of the people--"we know that this Man is a sinner."
   That might have closed the mouths of many men but, on that occasion,
   they had before them a person who could not easily be made to believe
   all they chose to say--a sharp, shrewd man who had keener eyes in his
   head, even when he was blind, than they had while they could see!

   25. He answered and said, Whether He is a sinner or not, I know not:
   one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see. "About that
   point, I am perfectly certain, whatever question there may be
   concerning anything else."

   26-28. Then said they to him again, What did He do to you? How opened
   He your eyes? He answered them, I have told you already, and you did
   not hear: why would you hear it again? Will you also be His disciples?
   Then they reviled him. As they could not answer him, they reviled him.
   It is the old plan which is still followed by certain lawyers, "No
   case. Therefore abuse the plaintiff." "They reviled him."

   28, 29. And said, You are His disciple; but we are Moses' disciples. We
   know that God spoke unto Moses: As for this--They did not say,
   "fellow," because they meant something worse than that, something which
   they could not express. "As for this"--

   29, 30. We know not from where He comes. The man answered and said unto
   them, Why here is a marvelous thing, that you know not from where He
   comes, and yet He has opened my eyes! They were the gentlemen who said,
   "We know," and they wanted, a little while before, to silence him by
   parading their superior knowledge! So now he turns

   upon them, and says, "Herein is a marvelous thing, that you know not
   from where He comes, and yet He has opened my eyes!"

   31. Now we know that God hears not sinners. He meant men who are living
   in known sin, impostors and deceivers. Of course, God would not hear
   sinners of that stamp.

   31-33. But if any man is a worshipper of God, and does His will, him He
   hears. Since the world began it was not heard that any anyone opened
   the eyes of one that was born blind. If this Man were not of God, He
   could do nothing. This was bravely spoken. The man did not, at that
   time, know the Godhead of the Savior, but he felt that He must have
   come from God, that He was one of God's servants, or messengers, or
   Prophets. Therefore he avowed what he knew. Dear Friends, always act up
   to the light you have enjoyed. If you have starlight, thank God for it,
   and acknowledge it before men, for then He will give you moonlight. And
   if you have moonlight, walk by it, thank God for it, and acknowledge it
   and He will give you sunlight. And when you have sunlight, walk in it,
   and, one of these days, you will come to that Light which is as the
   light of seven days, the Light of God Himself!

   34. They answered and said unto him, You were altogether born in sins,
   and do you teach us? Their dignity was touched! Their superlative
   wisdom lifted them so much above this poor man that they said, with the
   utmost disdain, "Do you teach us?"

   34, 35. And they cast him out Jesus heard that they had cast him out
   Oh, if there are any of you who are suffering persecution for Christ's
   sake, who have been cast out of any company because of what He has done
   for you, I do not think you need any sweeter comfort than this one
   line--"Jesus heard that they had cast him out."

   35-37. And when He had found him, He said to him, Do you believe on the
   Son of God? He answered and said, Who is He, Lord, that I might believe
   on Him? And Jesus said unto him, You have both seen Him, and it is He
   that talks with you. I scarcely remember a time that, up to this time,
   the Lord Jesus had given such a manifestation of Himself to anyone
   except to the Samaritan woman at the well! When she mentioned the
   Messiah, He said to her, "I that speak unto you am He." And here He
   reveals Himself to this man as the Son of God, which was somewhat more
   than that woman probably meant by the term, "Messiah."

   38. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped Him. Which proves
   that the man was not a Unitarian. "He worshipped Him" who had opened
   his eyes. And we, also, will worship Him forever and ever, blessed be
   His holy name!

   39-41. And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that
   they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made
   blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with Him heard these words,
   and said unto Him, Are we blind, also? Jesus said unto them, If you
   were blind, you should have no sin: but now you say, We see; therefore
   your sin remains. It would have been better for them if they had known
   their blindness and applied to Him who could give them sight and
   forgive their sin!
     __________________________________________________________________

Comfort From Christ's Omniscience

   (No. 2669)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, APRIL 8, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   OCTOBER 15, 1882.

   "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You." John 21:17.

   PETER was somewhat pressed. He felt that he was pushed into a corner
   and compelled to look into his own heart and divulge its innermost
   secret. To be asked once, in the presence of his Brothers, whether he
   loved his Lord more than they did, had a tendency to humiliate him, for
   he had boastfully declared that, though all men should be offended
   because of Christ, he would not. But to be asked, next, whether he
   really loved Christ at all, sank him to the ground with holy shame. And
   when his Master asked him, the third time, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you
   love Me?" Peter was grieved--not angry--that could not be his condition
   under such circumstances, nor was he rebellious, but, at last, his
   heart was effectually touched by his Master's skillful hands and he was
   grieved, just as true love is always grieved when it is questioned, but
   most of all grieved when it is questioned again, and again, and again.
   Now, the enormity of his guilt in denying his Lord has come home to
   him--and the grief which he had caused his gracious Master is now
   reflected in his own deep and contrite sorrow. "Peter was grieved
   because He said unto him the third time, Do you love Me?"

   Our Savior's thus pressing him closely was no doubt necessary as a
   salutary discipline to Peter. It was not unkind-ness, but the highest
   form of honest tenderness which led our Lord to act in this way. I
   suppose that if such a thing had occurred in any of our churches as for
   some leading member to deny that he knew Christ, and to go the length
   of denying it with oaths and curses, and to commit that great sin three
   times in the presence of many witnesses, so that the fact could not
   possibly be doubted, it would have been absolutely necessary, according
   to the teaching of the New Testament, to exercise discipline upon such
   a man--and I think that he would have been excluded from church
   fellowship. The Apostle Paul, writing concerning one who had been
   guilty of gross sin, says that with such a man we can have no
   fellowship-- no, not so much as to eat with him. And he would have said
   the same about Peter.

   Peter had denied Christ with oaths and curses. It was a most heinous
   sin and surely the purity of the Church would be put in jeopardy--the
   very existence of the Church as a testimony for Christ would be
   hazarded by the retaining of such a man in its communion. According to
   such a rule as that, I suppose we must always judge. But the Lord Jesus
   Christ possessed attributes which we have not. He was Omniscient and,
   therefore, He could read Peter's heart. It was not necessary for Him to
   do what it might be lawful and even necessary for us to do. He knew
   that Peter's heart was right, notwithstanding all the evil of which he
   had been guilty. So, instead of refusing to have fellowship with him,
   the Savior first eats with him--Christ literally bids him come to
   breakfast. And then He exercises what I may call a sort of church
   discipline upon him, though I mean that expression in no hard or unkind
   sense.

   Paul wrote to Timothy, "Then that sin rebuke before all, that others
   also may fear," and our Lord acted in that manner on this occasion. The
   six other Brothers, who might fitly be regarded as representing the
   entire Church, were present, and the Savior began gently, but firmly,
   to probe Peter's heart and to probe it again, and yet again, until He
   perceived that He had touched him in the most tender possible
   place--and had drawn from him this last and most solemn declaration of
   the sincerity of his love--"Lord, You know all things; You know that I
   love You." Thrice had he denied his Lord. It was right, therefore, that
   he should thrice confess his love. And so his Master constrained him to
   do by His thrice-repeated question, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love
   Me?"

   Let us, dear Friends, as we think over this sad incident of Peter's
   sin, and of our Lord's gracious way of restoring him to his former
   office by a gentle act of discipline, put ourselves through a little
   heart-searching. It may be that, thanks to the restraining Grace of
   God, we have not sinned as Peter did, but we have sinned in some other
   way. We have, all of us, sinned quite enough to make us ask, "Lord, do
   we love You?" Instead of waiting for Him to put the question to us, we
   will ask it of ourselves--Do we really and truly love the Lord? Let us
   also believe that our Lord, as He stands at this moment among us and
   walks from pew to pew, bows His head over each one of us, and asks, "Do
   you love Me?"

   As He does so, let us not evade the question, or play tricks with it.
   Let not, any one of us, say, "I hope I do," or, "I am afraid I do not."
   We either do or we do not--and the only answer that will be
   satisfactory will be, "Yes," or, "No." If we say, "No," it will be so
   far satisfactory that we are speaking the truth and, possibly, we may
   be helped to start back from so terrible a truth as that--that we do
   not love the Lord Jesus Christ--and that will be good for us,
   especially if it shall lead us to yield to Him. A man should always
   know the consequences of what he is doing, that he may do it with his
   eyes open and, then, perhaps, he will see the folly and the sin of it
   and take to a better course. But if, dear Friend, you can answer,
   "Yes," to Christ's question, then say it. Slowly, thoughtfully, as in
   the Presence of the Eternal God, say, "Lord, I ask You to bear witness
   on my account, for Your word is faithful and true. 'You know all
   things; You know that I love You.'" If you can say that, it will be a
   happy thing for yourself, and it will be a blessed thing for those who
   are round you, for, now, being assured of your own love to Christ, you
   will endeavor to win others to share that love, that many of you
   together may be able to say to Christ--

   "Yes, we love You, and adore; Oh, for Grace to love You more!"

   Now, coming to the text, I am going to try to do two things--first, to
   examine Peter's reply. And then, secondly, to invite you to examine
   yourselves to see whether you can each give the same reply.

   I. First, let us EXAMINE PETER'S REPLY. "Lord, You know all things; You
   know that I love You."

   I begin with the observation that it is quite clear, from his reply,
   that Peter was no Unitarian. He had no doubts about the Divinity of
   Christ, for he said to Him, "Lord, You know all things." Now, there is
   no being conceivable as knowing all things except God! And if it is
   true that Jesus Christ knows all things, then He possesses that
   Omniscience which is one of the essential attributes of Deity. I find
   that, nowadays, there is a sad increase of that pestilent heresy which
   is practically a return to the old Arianism which sought to rob Christ
   of His true Glory and reduce Him to the level of a mere man. We, at any
   rate, are not tainted with that fatal error--God grant that we never
   may be! No, He who as Man, is our Brother, is also God, our Lord and
   Savior, Jesus Christ, whom we worship and adore! And we think and speak
   of Him as possessing every attribute that is essential to the Deity
   and, therefore, as possessing this one--that He knows all things. He
   searches the hearts and tries the reins of the children of men, for He
   is, assuredly, "very God of very God," or, as Paul says, in his Epistle
   to the Romans, He "is over all, God blessed forever."

   My next remark upon our text is that Peter's mention of Omniscience in
   connection with Christ, and in connection with our declaration of love
   to Him, may be regarded as a fact very full of awe, because the Christ
   with whom we have to deal knows everything of which we are thinking. He
   reads all that is in the very core and center of our soul! We are in
   the Presence of One whose Infinite knowledge takes in, at one glance,
   the whole of our lives--past, present and future.

   My dear Friends, if we remember that fact, it becomes a very solemn
   thing for us to make an appeal to Him to bear witness that we do really
   love Him. Peter said to Christ, "Lord, You know all things," which in
   his case meant, "Lord You know that when the damsel said to me, 'You,
   also, were with Jesus of Galilee,' I denied it and said, 'I know not
   what you say.' And when another maiden said, 'This fellow was also with
   Jesus of Nazareth,' I denied with an oath, and said, 'I do not know the
   Man.' And then, as if to settle the matter once and for all, and make
   my accusers believe that I could not be one of Your followers, I took
   to profane swearing and, with oaths and curses, like any son of Belial
   or lewd fellow of the streets, I did blaspheme and swear."

   Yes, the Master had read the inner thoughts of Peter, as well as heard
   his words. Jesus knew all about how mean and cowardly he was to be
   afraid of a couple of silly maids and of those who stood with the
   throng in the High Priest's palace. Yet Peter says, "Lord, You know all
   things; You know that I love You." As we think of poor Peter and his
   answer to Christ's question, let us remember that Jesus also knows
   everything that we have done since we were converted as well as
   before--all those times in which our thoughts have been impure and
   unclean, or our desires have wandered beyond the

   bounds of that which is right and proper--or our temper has been hasty
   and hot, or our spirit has been angry and proud. He sees the whole of
   our life in a single instant! God's mind does not need a certain space
   of time to think of one wrong thing which we have done and then,
   afterwards, to think of another--it is all present before His eye at
   the same moment! As when a man rises in a balloon, above London, and
   sees it all at once spread before him, so God, from His Throne on high,
   sees our whole life at one glance. Just think of His pure and holy eyes
   seeing every portion of all your lives--your life at the table, your
   life in the parlor, your life in the kitchen, your life at your work,
   your life in the bedchamber, your life everywhere--and, as you think of
   all that being under His immediate gaze, I think it must become a very
   solemn thing for you to say to Him, "Lord, You know all this and yet I
   dare call You to witness that I do love You notwithstanding all that
   You have seen." Brothers and Sisters, it is not by any means a trifling
   matter if our Lord only knows the sin of last week. Will you just think
   for a minute what it has been? Perhaps some of you may have grievously
   wronged the Savior during the week. If so, and remembering that He
   knows it all, can you yet creep up to Him and say, "Lord, though I am
   fully conscious that You know all that has happened, yet, for all that,
   I do say, You also know that I love You." That is a fact full of awe.

   It is, in the next place, a fact which suggests to us that we should be
   very sincere, for, if the Lord knows all things, then anything like an
   attempt to profess a love which we do not possess is utterly foolish,
   for God will search it through and through and discover its falseness.
   Then, in addition to being very foolish, it must be very wicked and
   insulting to the Lord. To tell another human being, whom you do not
   love, that you love him, would be a most cruel thing to do, and also a
   most impudent and impertinent thing. But to voluntarily express to God
   an affection which you do not feel is a very near approach to
   blasphemy! If it is not blasphemy in words, it certainly is in thought
   and intent. God knows, Friend, whether, when you joined the Church, you
   were really a follower of Christ. That night, when you were baptized,
   He saw all that was done and He knew exactly whether it was to you only
   an outward form, or whether you were really, in a spiritual sense, dead
   and buried with Christ. And when this service is over, it will be vain
   and futile for you to come to the Communion Table and eat the bread,
   and drink of the cup, unless in your very soul you are trusting Christ
   and believing in Him unto salvation. If you are determined to deceive
   someone, deceive your equal--play tricks with your fellow
   creatures--but never think to deceive the Most High who sees through
   you as if you were made of crystal and, at this moment, is watching
   each beat of your heart and reading not only what is on your tongue,
   but what is in your mind and will come forth from your lips, by-and-by!
   Oh, let us never, in our testimony, talk beyond our own line, or boast
   of virtues which we never possessed! And in our prayers, let us never
   pray as if we had an experience which we have never felt, but let us
   say to Jesus, "Lord, You know all things." Let us be intensely sincere
   before Him and it shall be a blessed thing if, being so, we then dare
   to say, "yet You know that I love You."

   Further, dear Friends, this is a fact which not only fills us with awe
   and suggests to us sincerity, but it is a fact which inspires us with
   hope. At times, the Grace that is really in us is scarcely visible to
   ourselves. I have often rejoiced that God's Omniscience has enabled Him
   to spy out Grace in me which I could not see--and I feel sure that
   there must be some of you who sometimes are led to question whether
   there is any Grace in you or not. You ask, "Where is that grain of
   mustard seed?" Fie on you! Fie on you! You ought to have watered it
   till it grew into a tree! But remember that even when you cannot see
   the Grace that is in you, God can! When you are brought into such a
   state of diffidence and despondency that you are half afraid there is
   not any real love to Christ in your soul at all, yet, if it is there,
   He can see it, for He put it there, and He values it very highly and
   has a quick eye to spy it out.

   "Lord, You know all things; therefore, I do bless You that You know
   every place where I have been and You know my secret love passages with
   You." That is a blessed thought. I have no doubt that when Peter said
   to Christ, "You know all things," he not only remembered his sin, but
   he recollected his going out and weeping bitterly. And he also
   remembered that look that Jesus gave him--such a look as you and I
   could not give to anyone. I do not know what Peter said to the Lord
   while he was weeping bitterly, but there must have been many a sigh,
   many a groan and many a tear in that time of anguish. Peter no doubt
   got away into a corner, all alone, and he was ready to cover himself
   with sackcloth and ashes, as he there groaned, wrestled and cried. He
   did not know what to do with himself and while he was thus praying,
   perhaps his Lord let in the light of the Gospel and made him recollect
   some such promise as this, "He that covers his sins shall not prosper:
   but whoso confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy." And Peter had
   some comfortable gleams of hope even amid the darkness and, after a
   while, he even dared to speak to his Lord, and tell Him how he loved
   Him.

   And now Peter says, "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love
   You, for between You and me there has been some love passages which
   nobody knows but Yourself and myself. My eyes, all full of tears, have
   met Your eyes all full of love. And my heart all breaking has touched
   Your heart which was pierced upon the tree. Your wounded hands have
   been laid to my sores and Your weeping eyes have looked my tears away.
   You know, Lord. You know all things; You know that I love You." So,
   dear Friends, you see that there is something exceedingly sweet about
   that Omniscience which has read the secret motions of our spirit
   towards the Lord. Even when they have been so feeble that we could
   scarcely see them, ourselves, God has seen them!

   And do you not think, dear Friends, that there is something very
   blessed in Peter's plan of bringing in Christ's Omniscience to answer
   his Lord's question about his love, inasmuch as it meets our inability
   to speak?Some of us can speak fast enough, but others have the holy
   gift of silence which is a great blessing. They cannot say much, but
   they can look up to their Savior and say, "Lord, You know all things;
   You know that we love You." I have heard of a young Christian woman who
   was asked to tell before the church the story of her experience, but
   she could not utter a word, till, just as she was going out of the
   room, she turned around and said, "I cannot speak for Jesus Christ, but
   I could die for Him." Then the one who was in charge of the meeting,
   said to her, "Come back, dear Sister, you have said quite enough for us
   to know that you love the Lord."

   No doubt there are many who find it easier to live for Christ than to
   speak for Him--they have not that gift of speech. Let me remind you who
   must always be the silent members of the Church, that you may be
   blessed in your silence by reflecting upon this fact--God knows all
   about what you cannot explain to your fellow Christians. His
   Omniscience sets aside the necessity of your being able to express your
   love fluently and you, also, can say, "Lord, You know all things; You
   know that we love You."

   And is not this fact a sweet encouragement to any of you who are
   persecuted for Christ's sake? Our enemies do not burn us now, or
   stretch us on racks, but they still have many methods of showing their
   malice. They know how to torture us and some of them are very ingenious
   in the art of tormenting. I have known some say--ungodly parents will
   say it to their daughters--sometimes, wicked men will say it to their
   gracious wives--"You know very well that all your idea about being
   religious is that you want to be different. You go to your place of
   worship because you like to be different from everybody else--that is
   the only reason you have." Possibly, you do not know what to say to
   them, but you can always say thisto your Savior, "Lord, You know all
   things; You know that I love You."

   Then, again, if there is some little fault to be found with you in the
   family, down they come upon you, crying, "Ah! that is your
   Christianity, is it? You are one of those who have professed to be
   religious and joined the Church!" Mark you, Friends, they will do a
   hundred times worse things, themselves, and think nothing of it, but if
   they can catch you tripping in the slightest degree, they magnify your
   little slip into a grievous fall! Now, it would be quite fair for them
   to do so if you set up to be perfect, but as you never did that, it is
   an unfair thing to charge you with insincerity because of imperfection.
   Do not let them have the opportunity of saying even that, if you can
   help it. Yet, sometimes, when you have given them no occasion for
   finding fault with you, they will make one--invent an accusation for
   which there is no foundation. Well, if they do so, never mind. Let them
   say what they will, but lift up your eyes to Heaven, and say, "Lord,
   You know all things; You know that I love You."

   A man of God--as upright a Christian man as I know--came to me, not
   long ago, in great trouble because somebody had said that he had been
   drunk. He was dreadfully cut up about it, for he had been a teetotaler
   for many years, and nothing of the kind had occurred. "Well," I said,
   "you are only tarred with the same brush as others of us." And then I
   added, "As for me, I have had all manner of false and cruel things said
   about me! I remember that an influential daily paper said of me, at the
   time of the Surrey Gardens accident, 'We would place in the hand of
   every right-thinking man, a whip to scourge from society such a ranting
   charlatan.' Yet I am still here, notwithstanding all that was said.
   Moreover, when most abused, I used to go to bed at the same hour as I
   would have done if they had not slandered me--and I believe that I ate
   my dinner with as hearty an appetite as if everybody had been praising
   me."

   One gets by degrees into such a condition that it does not matter what
   people say. And, after all, does it ever really matter what they say?
   Let them throw mud at you till you are covered with it from head to
   foot--the kind of mud they fling has a tendency to come off when it is
   dry and to make the garment that it once sullied look even brighter
   than it was before! Do not fret yourselves about these slanderers and
   persecutors, but just get alone and say to the Lord, "You know

   all things." They do not and it is a good thing for us that they do
   not! If they did, then they might find plenty of fault with us--and
   find some real faults in us--but they do not know everything, and they
   generally hit on the very thing of which we are quite innocent, but,
   "Lord, You know all things; You know that we love You."

   This seems to me to be a blessed text for you to take home and to carry
   with you wherever you go in the midst of a ribald world, for it will
   often remind you of a precious Truth of God-- " 'You know all things;
   You know that I love You." Of course He does! If you do really love
   Him, it is His own love in you returning to where it came! And He knows
   that it is there. If you do love Him, it was He who made you love Him!
   This plant of paradise never grows of its own accord in the dunghill of
   our nature--neither does it grow anywhere unless it is planted by the
   hand of God. He who gave you that love watches over it to bring it to
   perfection. Being a plant of His own right-hand planting, He will water
   it every moment and, lest any hurt it, He will keep it night and day.
   Having loved the Lord here on earth, you shall love Him, by-and-by, in
   Heaven, where, with all the blood-washed company, you shall find it the
   very Heaven of your Heaven to live forever adoring Him whose eternal
   love, Sovereign Grace and almighty power have at last made you perfect
   and brought you Home to love Him even as He loves you, according to
   your capacity.

   II. There I must leave the text, so far as it especially concerns
   Peter, and come now to speak briefly upon the second part of the
   subject, which is, TO INVITE YOU TO EXAMINE YOURSELVES TO SEE WHETHER
   YOU CAN EACH GIVE THE SAME REPLY--"Lord, You know all things; You know
   that I love You."

   First, some say the same as Peter did, though they ought not to do so.
   They say that they love Christ. "Yes, oh, yes, we love Him!" Let us
   talk to one of these glib speakers for a few moments. When did you
   begin to love the Lord? "Oh, I--I--I always loved Him." When were you
   converted and renewed in heart? "Oh, I do not know that I ever was."
   Stop, then, Friend, before you say again that you love the Lord. Do you
   truly trust the Savior? Are you resting the whole weight of your soul
   upon Him? If you say, "No," then you do not love Him, for the only love
   which Christ will accept is born of faith. Love is the flower which
   grows out of the root of faith.

   Perhaps you think that you are very good and that you will probably get
   to Heaven by your goodness. If that is your notion, then I am sure you
   do not really love Christ. You admire your beautiful self--you have
   been so good and so excellent that you do not want to be saved by the
   sinners' Savior! You want a special, particular Savior for you--a
   saint-Savior, not a sinner's Savior. Then I know you do not love the
   Christ of the Bible--the Christ of Calvary. You may love a sort of
   antichrist of your own inventing, but you do not love the Christ of
   God. Let me ask you another question. You say that you love Christ,
   well, then, for what do you thank Christ? "Well, I believe that there
   are some imperfections in me, and that Christ makes up for them." Do
   you? Then, in your esteem, He is only a makeweight, just to compensate
   for your deficiencies. His seamless robe of righteousness is to be torn
   to patch up your old rags! How many of you want to make Christ a kind
   of extra horse to drag the load up the hill? That is all you think of
   Him--but do you imagine that Christ and your poor team are to be joined
   together like that? Is it to be partly self-salvation and partly
   salvation by Christ? If that is your idea, you insult the Savior--it
   may be unwittingly, but I am sure you cannot really love Him.

   I have heard of a very excellent man--one of the holiest and best of
   men--who, when he lay dying, said, "Lord, when I estimate my works, I
   have to remember that Your estimate is so very different from mine that
   I think it best to leave this business altogether--and only trust my
   Savior." I have heard of another who said, when he was dying, that he
   began to sort out his works and some he thought were good, and some
   were bad. But after he had sorted them a little, he felt that the good
   ones were so very like the bad ones, when he came to really look
   closely into them, that he pitched the whole lot overboard and just
   trusted himself to Christ. That was a very wise and sensible thing to
   do! And I am sure that no man among you loves Christ unless he is
   trusting to Him only, and to Him wholly.

   What is your view of Christ, dear Friend! Is He your Master as well as
   your Savior? This is a question which I want to put very pointedly, for
   I heard a person ask, the other day, "Is Baptism essential to
   salvation?" Listen! This man means to do only that which is essential
   for his own salvation--that is all. To get into Heaven is all that he
   cares about, so he asks, concerning one thing or another, "Is it
   essential to salvation?" A soldier in her Majesty's army says, when an
   order is given to him, "Is this essential? Shall I be shot if I do not
   obey it?" Drum him out of the regiment, for what is the good of him? I
   look upon Christ as my Lord and Master and if He bids me do something,
   though there may be in it nothing whatever to my profit, I am bound to
   do it because He ismy Master and Lord! "Is it essential to salvation?"
   is a sneak's question! I dare not use a milder term. I am often ashamed
   to answer those who make such an enquiry. The mes-

   sage to you is, "Whatever He says to you, do it." Did you come into the
   world merely that you might get saved? Is that all? Oh, poor, mean
   wretch! The Lord save you from being so selfish! How can you even get
   to Heaven when your sole ambition is, somehow or other, to save your
   own skin? To get inside the pearly gates and enjoy yourself--that is
   your notion of Heaven! But that is the very thing from which you have
   to be saved! I hope you will come to have quite another idea. I live
   not to save myself, but to glorify Him who has saved me. I work not
   because I hope to escape from Hell by what I do, or to get to Heaven by
   what I do, but because Christ has saved me and now, out of gratitude to
   Him, if there is anything He wishes me to do, I do it without a
   question, saying to Him--

   "Have You a lamb in all Your flock

   I would disdain to feed?

   Have You a foe, before whose face

   I fear Your cause to plead?"

   Get rid of selfishness, or else you cannot truthfully say that you love
   Christ! You are only loving yourself and baptizing selfishness with the
   name of Christianity.

   But, next, I think that there are some persons who ought to say what
   Peter did and yet they are afraid to do so. Some of the most beautiful,
   tender, loving, genuine, true-hearted people in the world are,
   nevertheless, so timid and so jealous of themselves--and they have such
   brokenness of spirit--that they dare not say that they love Christ,
   though I am sure that, if any people in the world do love Him, it is
   these poor people! There are many who are so hard and harsh towards
   these dear tender, broken-hearted ones, that I like to cheer them all I
   can. I wish that they would grow stronger. I wish that they would
   become bolder. I wish they were braver, but, then, I know that among
   these who dare not say publicly that they love Christ, are many who
   love Him vastly more than some who can talk very glibly about it.

   I have told you before of the two friends who were shut up in prison
   and one said to the other, "Oh, I do dread tomorrow morning! I am
   afraid that when I come to feel the fire, I shall recant. I know that I
   never was good at bearing pain and I have heard that the pain of being
   burnt to death is very dreadful." So the other turned round upon him
   and said, "I am ashamed of you talking like that! You know very well it
   is for Christ's cause that we are going to die. I am sure that I shall
   not have any such fear--I could bear a thousand deaths for Christ! I
   feel such courage in my spirit that I do not dread the pain and I am
   ashamed that you do." They both came to be chained to the stake and the
   boastful man recanted and saved his skin. But the poor timid man stood
   bravely in the midst of the fire and burned to death--and kept saying,
   "Lord, help me! Lord, help me!"

   I believe that it often happens that those who are so trembling in
   themselves, are, nevertheless, sound to the core, while many of your
   high-flying gentlemen who get perfect in about three minutes and then
   begin to preach to those of us who have been, perhaps, 30 years in
   Christ, and tell us that we ought to be as perfect as they are--which
   we were before they were born--will be blown away like thistledown by
   the first wind that comes! And that the solid, weighty lumps of
   gold--these humble broken-hearted saints--will endure even to the end.
   Still, dear Brother, where are you? Mr. Despondency, I mean. I want you
   to say, "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You." Where
   are you, Mrs. Much-Afraid? I think I have read about you in The
   Pilgrim's Progress. Mrs. Much-Afraid, Mr. Despondency, Mr. Feeble-Mind
   and Mr. Ready-to-Halt, who had the crutches, and went limping all his
   life, yet, once upon a time, when Mr. Great-Heart cut off Giant
   Despair's head and brought it to the pilgrims, they said that they
   would all dance, and Ready-to-Halt danced on his crutches and said that
   he hoped, by-and-by, to be where he should not be encumbered with them.

   Come along, all you poor tried souls, let this be a time of rejoicing
   with you! Say in your spirit, if not in words, "Yes, Lord, we cannot
   hold back any longer! We must say it--'You know all things; You know
   that we love You.'" And when you have once said it, keep on saying it,
   my dear Brothers and Sisters, and the Lord keep you up to that blessed
   mark till, when the trumpet sounds in the morning and you wake up in
   the endless day, you shall say, "Yes, Lord, I did love You and I love
   You now, and I will love You forever." God grant that we may allsay
   that, for Christ's sake! Amen.

   Before we go, let us sing this one verse--

   "I will love You in life, I will love You in death, And praise You as
   long as You lend me breath. And say, when the death-dew lies cold on my
   brow, If ever I loved You, my Jesus, 'tis now."

   Comfort from Christ's Omniscience

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--711, 788, 639, 804.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ISAIAH 26:1-14.

   Verse 1. In that day. Or, rather, as we may read it now, "In this
   day"--

   1-3. Shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong
   city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. Open you the
   gates, that the righteous nation which keeps the truth may enter in.
   You willkeep him inperfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You: because
   he trusts in You. Here is the song which we are to sing in this Gospel
   day. The theme of it is God and the city which He has built, and which
   He has given to us to be our heritage forever. "We have a strong city."
   Yes, Beloved, a very strong one, for although the devil has exercised
   all his ingenuity for these thousands of years, he has not been able to
   destroy it. He has thrown in the bombshell of persecution. He has tried
   to undermine it with his subtlety and cunning of false doctrine, but he
   has not yet been able to do anything effectually against the strong
   city. "We have a strong city" and she is just as strong, now, after all
   the desperate attacks that have been made upon her walls, as ever she
   was. Against her, the gates of Hell cannot prevail!

   The Church of Christ is never in danger. "We have a strong city;
   salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks." After noticing the
   security of the city, the Prophet bids us "open the gates, that the
   righteous nation which keeps the truth may enter in." It is the Gospel
   minister's business to seek to open the gates. It is the Christian's
   business, in some sense, to open the gates. Yes, we should all of us be
   endeavoring, if possible, to "open the gates, that the righteous
   nation"--that is, the righteous people--"may enter" into the Church.
   But, after all, the Lord Jesus Christ is the great Opener of the gates!
   He opens the gates to let His people in. And, mark you, they do not all
   come in at one gate. The command is, "Open you the gates." Some come in
   by means of one Doctrine, and some by means of another. We are not all
   converted by the same agency. Some come in at the Sunday school gate.
   Others come in at the gate which is kept by pious parents. Many come in
   at the gate of the preached Word. But all the gates should be
   open--"Open you the gates, that the righteous nation which keeps the
   truth may enter in."

   The Prophet next describes the peaceableness of this city. The gates
   are open, but no enemy ever enters in, for he says to the Lord, "You
   will keep Him in peace--peace," as the original has it, in double
   peace. "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on
   You." There is nothing like staying the mind on God. If you stay the
   mind on anything else, you cannot have perfect peace, for that
   something else may fail you. If you trust in horses and in chariots,
   horses may tire, and the wheels of the chariots may break. But he who
   trusts in the Lord shall dwell "in perfect peace." Let the earth be all
   in arms abroad, the Believer dwells "in perfect peace, because He
   trusts in You."

   4, 5. Trust you in the Lord forever: for in the LORD JEHOVAHis
   everlasting strength: for He brings down them that dwell on high. Some
   of you dwell so much "on high" that you do not believe the Doctrine of
   Original Depravity. You are very good by nature, according to your own
   ideas. Well, remember this declaration of the Prophet--"He brings down
   them that dwell on high." Others of you boast of your free will
   capacity and you think you have power to do anything outside the
   assistance of the Holy Spirit. Ah, but, "He brings down them that dwell
   on high." Others of you do not know what a doubt or a fear is, but you
   wrap yourselves up complacently in your self-sufficiency and say, "We
   are secure!" Ah, but, "He brings down them that dwell on high."

   5. The lofty city, He lays it low. No one can lay God's city low, but
   God can lay the lofty city low.

   5-7. He lays it low, even to the ground; He brings it even to the dust
   The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor, and the steps
   of the needy. The way of the just is uprightness: You, most upright, do
   weigh the path of the just God "weighs the path of the just" in scales.
   We read elsewhere that God weighs the spirits and weighs our actions.
   Here we are told that He "weighs the path of the just." Those words,
   which were used by the Prophet when he went to Heze-kiah and said,
   "What have they seen in your house?" would serve for a very striking
   text. But it is still more important to consider what Godhas seen in
   ourhouse and in our hearts, for God weighs our actions. He weighs our
   private thoughts and our public deeds. He "weighs the path of the
   just." But, according to the Prophet, "the way of the just is
   uprightness," even after it is weighed! Notwithstanding all the sin
   that is mixed with it, in the main it is "uprightness" ascending
   towards God.

   8, 9. Yes, in thee way of Your judgments, O LORD, have we waited for
   You; the desire of our soulis to Your name, and to the remembrance of
   You. With my soul have I desired You in the night; yes, with my spirit
   within me will I seek You early: for when Your judgments are in the
   earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. Alas, it
   is often the case that when God's "judgments are in the earth, the
   inhabitants of the world learn righteousness" for a little while--and
   then forget it. All too often they are like the child who merely learns
   his lesson by rote and repeats it under the fear of the rod--and then
   forgets all about it on the morrow. They "learn righteousness," but,
   soon, the effect of the warning is all gone and then God sends fresh
   judgments upon the earth to teach the inhabitants further lessons.

   10-12. Let favor be showed to the wicked, yet will he not learn
   righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and
   willnot behold the majesty ofthe LORD. LORD, when Your handis lifted
   up, they willnot see: but they shall see, and be ashamed for their envy
   at the people; yes, the fire of your enemies shall devour them. LORD,
   You will ordain peace for us: for You also have worked all our works in
   us. Troubled saint, what a precious passage this is for you! Poor,
   tempest-tossed soul, what a glorious utterance! "Lord, You will ordain
   peace for us." There shall come an ordinance from God that His people
   shall have peace! "You will ordain peace for us: for You also have
   worked all our works in us"--so they must be good works, but those
   works which God did not work in us are bad ones.

   13, 14. O LORD our God, other lords beside You have had dominion over
   us: but by You only will we make mention of Your name. They are dead,
   they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise. Many of us
   can look back to the time when we made idols of business and of worldly
   things. But now these lords are dead and they shall not live
   again--they are buried out of our sight--and they shall not rise from
   their graves.

   14. Therefore have You visited and destroyed them, and made all their
   memory to perish. And a blessed thing it is when the memory of our sins
   perish and we have no desire to be enslaved by them again!
     __________________________________________________________________

Pride Catechized

   (No. 2670)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, APRIL 15, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Should it be according to your mind? He will recompense it whether you
   refuse, or whether you choose; and not I: therefore speak what you
   know." Job 34:33.

   DEAR FRIENDS, it is never wise to dispute with God. Let a man strive
   with his fellow, but not with his Maker. If we must discuss any point,
   let it be with imperfect beings like ourselves, but not with the
   Infallible and Infinitely wise God, for, in most of our discussions,
   these questions will come back to us, "Should it be according to your
   mind? Are you master? Is everyone to be subordinate to you?"

   I am going to speak, this evening, to those who have a quarrel with God
   concerning the way of salvation. They are very unwise not to take
   salvation just as God brings it to them, but they do not. They have
   some difficulty or other, so they raise a dispute and they have been,
   perhaps for years, quibbling at the Savior whose Infinite goodness has
   provided a way of salvation exactly adapted to their needs. I am going
   to use Elihu's words and apply them to their case.

   I. To begin at the beginning, here is, first, A QUESTION--"Should it be
   according to your mind?" You say that you are willing to find mercy,
   and that you are very teachable; but you object to the plan of
   salvation as it is revealed in the Scriptures.

   First, then, what is it to which you object? Do you object to the very
   basis of the plan, namely, that God will forgive sin through the
   atoning Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, His Son? I know that some do object
   to this--they cannot bear to hear about Atonement by blood, or
   justification by imputed righteousness. Others, who will not say that
   they object to Atonement, spirit away the very meaning of it! They
   cannot endure that glorious Doctrine of Substitution which is such a
   joy to us. Christ standing in the sinner's place and the sinner then
   standing in the place of Christ--Christ taking the sinner's sin and the
   sinner wearing Christ's righteousness--all this they absolutely reject!
   "No doubt Christ did something for sinners," they say, but they cannot
   define what He did and, as for the sin of any man being actually put
   away by Christ being punished in the place of the ungodly sinner, they
   will not believe it!

   Yet, that is God's plan of salvation, and some of us know, in our
   inmost hearts, that we never had peace until we accepted that plan of
   salvation, and that now, if it should be taken away from us, we would
   lose all the joy of existence and go back to the despair which, at one
   time, was so heavy upon us that we could sympathize with Job when be
   said, "My soul chooses strangling and death rather than my life." We
   could better afford that the sun should be quenched, that the moon
   should be darkened, that all springs should be dried, that the very air
   itself should disappear--we could better afford to die and rot in our
   graves than that we should lose our Savior and His atoning blood and
   justifying righteousness! Whatever you, Mr. Objector, may say about it,
   we say to you, "Should it be according to yourmind?" Would you have
   Christ to die and yet not really secure salvation by His death? Could
   you invent a better plan, or even one half as good--

   "So just to God, so safe for man"--

   so consolatory to a wounded conscience, so constraining to gratitude
   when that conscience has been pacified? Would you, could you, propose
   anything one thousandth as good as God's plan of salvation? Even if you
   could, "should it be according to your mind?" Who are you, a guilty
   sinner, to despise the Savior's blood? If you had your just deserts,
   you

   would years ago have been in the lowest pit of Hell! Will you set aside
   the Cross of Christ and seek to put something else in the place of the
   crucified Redeemer?

   But, possibly, you do not object to the Doctrine of Substitution, but
   your objection is to the way of salvation by faith "I don't like that
   Doctrine of Justification by Faith," says one, "for I am sure that when
   it is preached, people will begin to think that there is no virtue in
   good works and that they may live as they like." I have often heard
   such a remark as yours, my Friend, but experience is dead against you!
   Whenever justification by faith has been uppermost in the preaching,
   the morals of the people have been purest and their spirituality has
   been brightest! But whenever the preachers have extolled the works and
   ceremonies of the Law, or the Arminianism which brings in something of
   trust in works, or human power, it is most certain that there has been
   a declension in point of morals, while religion itself has seemed
   almost ready to expire! You may go to those who preach up salvation by
   works to hear them talk, but you had better not go to see how they
   live--whereas those who preach justification by faith can boldly point
   to the multitudes who have accepted this Truth of God and whose godly
   lives prove the sanctifying power of the Doctrine!

   But if you object to this Doctrine, how would you like to have it
   altered? "Oh, well, I would like to have some good feelingsput in with
   faith." And how, then, would any man be saved? Can he command his own
   feelings? Those feelings come naturally enough after faith, but, if
   they are demanded without faith, how will they ever be presented to
   God? Besides, feelings would claim some credit if they were thus joined
   with faith. A man would be able to boast that he had felt his way to
   Heaven and he would have the same self-congratulatory spirit which we
   see in those who trust in works and ceremonies--and thus Christ would
   be robbed of His Glory as the sinner's Savior. Man would put his dirty
   hands upon the crown and place it upon his own head--but that must
   never be the case! You shall be saved if you trust the Savior, but if
   you do not like that way of salvation, you can never be saved! Why
   should the plan of salvation be changed for you? Is God to be tied down
   to act only as youplease? Is He to alter His Gospel to suit the fancies
   of rebellious men? That must not be! There is no mistake about this
   matter--"He that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath
   of God abides on him." And our Lord, Himself, said, "He that believes
   not shall be damned." That is the only message for him if he continues
   in his unbelief--and it shall not be altered to suit the mind of any
   man that lives!

   "Oh, but," some say, "we object to the requirements of the Gospel,
   especially to that verse where Christ says, 'You must be born again.'
   Where is the need of that We were christened when we were children! We
   were confirmed as we grew older! We have taken the sacrament! We do not
   agree with that hard saying, 'You must be born again.'" They will not
   walk with Christ if He insists upon that condition. Moreover, He
   requires the giving up of all known sin, the hating of all sin--and the
   objector says, "But may I not retain my one darling sin? May I not keep
   my pet evil? I will give up all else, but that one I must have." And
   when men are told that wherever Christ comes, He makes a radical
   change--He casts out Satan and all his imps, drives them out by force
   and takes complete possession of the soul--they bar the door of their
   heart against the Savior, for they do not want such strong measures as
   His in their case.

   Well, Sirs, as you say that Christ's requirements are not according to
   your mind, what would you like them to be? Do you wish to be allowed to
   continue taking what you call your little drop, which is powerful
   enough to make you reel across the street? Then there is somebody over
   yonder who would like to keep his adulteries. And another who would
   like to keep his petty thefts. And another who would like to keep on
   with his swearing and another who would like to retain his covetousness
   so that he could still grind the poor to powder and make money by
   crushing them! What sin is there, in the whole world, that would be put
   to death if men were left to pick and choose the Agag which each one
   wished to save? No! Christ came to save His people from their sins--not
   in them--and it is essential to salvation that sin should be repented
   of and, being repented of, should be renounced and that, by the help of
   God, we should lead a new life, under a new Master, serving from a new
   motive because the Grace of God has renewed our spirit!

   "Should it be according to your mind?" No, certainly not, for, putting
   all reasons into one, it is not the slightest use for you to make any
   objection to the Gospel, for you will be lost if you do not accept it
   just as it is revealed in the Scriptures! Christ will never alter the
   Gospel one jot or tittle--not the cross of a "t" or the dot of an
   "i"--to please the biggest man that lives! "Oh, but, really, I am a man
   of education! Am I to be saved in the same way as the man who does not
   know A from B?" Precisely! There is no other way of salvation for you.
   There is not one gate for Doctors of Divinity and another for the poor
   and ignorant. "But I am a person of good character, a matronly woman.
   Am I to be saved just in the same way as a Magdalene?" Precisely the
   same! There is no other Savior for you than the one in whom Mary
   Magdalene

   delighted and trusted. "But, Sir, you do not surely mean to say that
   all these street Arabs are to go to Heaven in the same way as a man who
   has kept shop and been respectable all his life?" Yes, I do! All must
   go in exactly the same road. Queens and chimney sweeps must enter
   Heaven by the same gate, or not enter at all. There is but one name
   given among men whereby we must be saved! There is no other Savior but
   Christ Jesus the Lord! He suits every class of persons--big sinners and
   little ones, if there are anylittle sinners anywhere--all must come to
   Christ and at His feet confess their sin, for God's plan cannot be
   altered for anyone. My dear Sir, we are not going to have any
   enlargement, or rather, any mystification, of the plan of salvation to
   suit your profound mind! There will be no golden handles put to the
   doors of Heaven to suit you, my lord, with all your wealth and pride!
   No, no, no! Come to Christ, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and
   He will give you rest! But there is no other way of obtaining rest of
   heart and conscience.

   I have thus tried to mention a few of the objections which men make to
   God's plan of salvation. Now let me ask two or three questions. First,
   should not God have His way Is it not intolerable that you and I should
   raise objections at all when the mercy of God, if it ever comes to us,
   is a pure gift of charity? God may well say to us, "Shall I not do as I
   will with My own?" There is no man living who has any absolute right to
   receive anything from God except destruction. That terrible doom we
   have all merited, but nothing beyond that. If we were shut up in prison
   and fed only dry bread, so long as we were out of Hell we would still
   be under obligation to God. If the Lord should choose to show mercy to
   only one man in the world, He has a perfect right to do so. If He
   chooses to give it to a few, or if He chooses to give it to all, He has
   the right to do so. He is absolutely Sovereign and these are the words
   that He would have everyone of us hear and heed-- "I will have mercy on
   whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have
   compassion."

   The crown rights of the King of Kings must never be assailed! For us
   beggars to turn choosers and to dictate to God what He shall give to
   us--for us condemned criminals to begin to make bargains with God as to
   how He shall preserve our lives, if He chooses to do so--oh, this will
   never do! You know, dear Friends, that when we give even a trifling
   charity, we like to do it in our own way. I remember that one
   Christmastime a certain gentleman had given away a quantity of meat to
   many poor people. He had been so generous that he had given away all he
   had. The next morning a woman came to him, bringing back the piece of
   meat which she had received, which was meant for boiling--she said she
   wanted to have a piece for roasting. There was none left for changing,
   so she had to take what had been given to her or go without any at all.
   You are quite sure that the next year, that woman's name was put down
   among the first to have a Christmas gift, are you not? On the contrary,
   the gentleman said, "She will not be troubled next year, either with a
   boiling piece or a roasting piece from me. I will take good care of
   that." I think it was quite natural that he should say so, for our
   common proverb regards it as ingratitude when we "look a gift horse in
   the mouth." When anything comes to us entirely as a gift, it is not for
   us to quibble at it, but to accept it!

   And this is specially true of God's great gift of salvation. O Lord, if
   You will but save me, save me Your way! If I may be delivered from this
   accursed sin of mine and made pure and holy, do it, Lord, after Your
   own gracious fashion! It is not for me to suggest any plan to You, but
   to leave myself entirely in Your hands and to let it be according to
   Your mind.

   Further, is not God's way the best. The mind of God is so Infinitely
   great, good and wise, that it cannot be supposed that even if He left
   the plan of salvation to our option, we could choose anything half as
   good as what He decrees and appoints! Should He, for a single moment,
   hold His Sovereignty in abeyance and allow us to be kings and princes
   on our own account, what follies we would perpetrate! We would choose a
   way of salvation that would not honor God, nor destroy evil, nor even
   be good for our own selves! Some people would like a Heaven into which
   they could enter without being born again, but what kind of Heaven
   would that be? Some would like to have joy and peace without believing
   in Christ. Some would like to have eternal happiness, but still indulge
   their lusts. This would be an evil of the most awful kind! It is better
   that sin should bring to man infinite sorrow than that it should be
   linked with eternal enjoyment! The mischief of it is that it does get
   linked with enjoyment for a while by foolish men who forget what must
   come afterwards--but God has never joined these two things together--it
   is only wicked men who have pretended to celebrate this unholy
   marriage! God proclaims a perpetual separation between sin and
   happiness and it is well that it should be so.

   Now, to conclude this first part of our subject, suppose the plan of
   salvation should be according to any human mind, whose mind is to
   decide what it shall be Yours? No, mine! And another says, "No, mine!"
   Our proverb rightly says, "Many men, many minds," and if we were to
   have salvation arranged according to the mind of each one of us, there

   would be a pretty quarrel before we left this place. You say, Friend,
   that it is to be according to your mind. But why not according to your
   neighbor's mind? If man's mind were to decide it, what should we have?
   Why, you would all contradict each other and there would be no plan of
   salvation at all if God did not settle it once and for all!

   Then, besides, should it be according to your mind today? "Yes," you
   say, "I have made up my mind." But you will take your mind to pieces
   tomorrow--what little there is of it--and then you will put it together
   again the next day, and say, "I have made up my mind. I am a man of
   mind, you know." Ah, yes, we know you, Sir. There is a certain tribe of
   people about, nowadays, who call themselves "men of culture" and they
   sneer at everybody who does not go in for that kind of boasting. If
   they were really men of mind, they would never talk like that, for the
   man who has the most culture generally has enough to be a little modest
   and not to brag about what he is. Well, then, if salvation is to be
   according to man's mind, whose mind is to decide it, and on what day,
   and at what hour of the day is the verdict of that man's mind to be
   taken? It is vacillating, changing like the moon, never twice in the
   same mood on the same day--so salvation cannot be according to our
   mind--for it would be chaos! It would be destruction if that were the
   case.

   II. Now, secondly, here is A WARNING. "He will recompense it, whether
   you refuse, or whether you choose."

   By this I understand that, whatever our will may be, God will carry out
   His own purpose. As surely as God is God, He will never be defeated in
   anything. He who is Omniscient and, therefore, sees the end from the
   beginning, is also Omnipotent and, therefore, can work His own will
   exactly as He chooses--He will never be baffled by the will of men. I
   believe in the free agency of man as much as anyone who lives, but I
   equally believe in the eternal purpose of God. If you ask, "How do you
   reconcile those beliefs?" I answer, "They have never yet been at
   variance, so there is no need to attempt to reconcile them. They are
   like two parallel lines which will run side by side forever--man
   responsible because he does what he wills, and God infinitely glorious,
   achieving His own purposes, not only in the world of dead, inert
   matter, but also through those who are free agents--without changing
   them in the least degree, leaving them just as free as they ever were,
   He yet, in every jot and tittle, performs the eternal purpose of His
   will."

   I would also remind you that though you quibble at God's way of
   salvation, God will punish sin just the same. There is many a man who
   has said, "I will never believe that God will send men to Hell"--but he
   has gone there--and then he has changed his mind in a very remarkable
   and terrible fashion when it is too late! There are many who say, "It
   should be this, or it should not be that," but they do not ask, "What
   says the Scripture?" Yet that is the all-important point, for, whatever
   you may say as to what it should be or should not be, makes no
   difference to God! He will take less notice of you and your opinion
   than you do of a gnat or a fly that buzzes about you on a summer's
   evening. He is so infinitely great and good that any opposition you and
   I may think that we can raise against Him shall be less than nothing
   and vanity! Shall twigs contend with fire, or wax with the flame? Shall
   nothing oppose itself to Omnipotence? Shall the creature of a day, that
   is and is not, attempt to wrestle with the Eternal? No, this cannot be!
   Therefore, God will have His way and He willpunish sin!

   And, further, my Friends, though you may object to God's way of
   salvation, others will be saved by it. Christ did not die in vain. He
   will rejoice in everyone whom He purchased with His blood. He will not
   lose one of the jewels that are to deck His crown forever. You may
   strive against His Kingdom, but that Kingdom will come when He pleases.
   The King eternal, immortal, invisible, shall surely reign forever and
   ever! And if your voice is not heard in the great Hallelujah chorus of
   Heaven, yet not one of its notes will be missing! Christ shall be
   glorified to the highest possible degree, whoever may oppose Him. It is
   well that those who object to God's plan of salvation should know these
   facts. That is how Christ treated objectors when He was upon the earth.
   When they murmured at what He told them, He did not tone down the
   unpalatable Truth. He did not say to them, "You are robbing me of My
   honor and glory, and I shall never prosper." He said, "No man can come
   to Me unless the Father, which has sent Me, draw him." On another
   occasion, He said, "You believe not because you are not of My sheep, as
   I said unto you." He did not humble Himself to them, but again
   proclaimed His own Truth in all its majesty and sublimity, that they
   might bow before Him and His message.

   Just once more upon this point, let me say that God will certainly
   magnify His own name, whoever may oppose Him--"Whether you refuse, or
   whether you choose," shall make no difference to Him! His Grace comes
   like the dew, which tarries not for man, neither waits for the sons of
   men. Oftentimes, He is found of them that seek Him not and, to those
   who were not His people, He says, "You are My people," thus magnifying
   His own amazing Grace. Whoever may stand out against Him, He shall lack
   none of His honor and glory, world without end.

   III. This brings us to the third part of our subject, on which I desire
   to say exactly what Elihu said, "and not I." We cannot be absolutely
   sure what these three words mean, but, if they mean what I think they
   do, they teach us a lesson which I have called A PROTEST.

   Whenever you find anyone opposing God, say to yourself, "and not I."
   When there is any wrong thing being done, and it comes under your
   notice, say, "and not I." Take care that you go not with a multitude to
   do evil! Do not take upon your tongue just what others may be saying,
   but bear your individual protest against the evil. Even if you stand
   alone, say, "and not I."

   What Elihu meant, I think, was this. Whoever opposes God should know
   that he is not dealing with a man like himself If you hear a preacher
   make a statement, and you feel, "That is not the Word of the Lord,"
   pray God to forgive him for his sin in saying it. But if he speaks with
   the sound of his Master's feet behind him and what he says is the Word
   of God, then do not trifle with it. If it is clearly a revealed Truth
   of God, it may grate against your feelings and set your teeth on edge,
   but what of that? You had better get your teeth and your feelings put
   right, for the Truth of God cannot be altered in order to please you!
   Someone says, "I cannot believe that statement, because it seems too
   shocking." That is just why I do believe it, for it does me good by
   shocking me. And if it is in God's Word, I am bound to accept it. "Oh,"
   you say, "but something within me revolts against it." It is only
   natural it should do so, for "the heart is deceitful above all things,
   and desperately wicked"--and it naturally cries out against the thing
   that is most surely true. The supreme majesty of God's Word is that
   before which we have to bow, and not the insignificant usurpers of our
   inward feelings, fancies and whims. "Let God be true and every man a
   liar."

   Elihu also means, I think, "I will not be responsible for the man who
   refuses God's Word. I will not stand in his place, or take the blame
   which is due him. He shall be recompensed, and not I, for I have spoken
   the Truth. I will not bear the responsibility of it. If men choose to
   refuse it, they must take the consequences--to the Lord alone they must
   stand or

   fall."

   And, once more, Elihu means, "If you refuse God's Word, it is not I. I
   will not share in your rebellion against Him." Ah, my dear Hearers,
   there are some of you who think yourselves very intelligent, wise and
   thoughtful. And you imagine that you know a great deal more than I do
   and, therefore, you refuse to receive God's Word. Well, if you do so, I
   will not! I am determined about this matter and I say, with Joshua, "As
   for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah." And, mark you, by,
   "Jehovah," I mean the old Testament God! I have never seen Him
   superseded in His own Word, though some men profess that it is so.
   According to them, the God of the Hebrews was not the God of our Lord
   Jesus Christ, though Jesus never said so, but quite the reverse! The
   God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob is He whom we worship this
   day--and His Character, as it is written out in full in the Old and New
   Testament--is that which we admire and delight

   in!

   Others may have new gods, newly come up, which our fathers knew not,
   but not I. He who made the heavens and the earth. He who led forth His
   people out of Egypt and divided the sea, even the Red Sea. He whose
   mercy endures forever. The God who shines forth all along as the God of
   a covenanted people to whom He did reveal Himself, "this God is our God
   forever and ever: He will be our Guide even unto death." Learned men
   may dispute as much as they like about Him, but we bow humbly at His
   feet. We question nothing that He does! We believe it to be right even
   when we do not understand it and it is our hope that others will do the
   same. But if they will not, it will not affect our own decision.

   IV. Our last head is, A CHALLENGE AND AN INVITATION.

   If there are any who refuse the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ for any
   reason known only to themselves, we venture to ask them to say what it
   is--"Therefore speak what you know." It was not in Elihu's mind to tell
   Job to be silent and never open his mouth again. Speech is the glory of
   man, and freedom of speech, as far as concerns his fellow creatures, is
   the right of every man! It is far better that when there is a
   difficulty or an objection, it should be fairly stated, than that it
   should lie smothered up within the soul to breed untold mischief.
   Therefore, if you have an objection to God's Word, write it out and
   look at it. Or, if you care not to do that, state it, if not to your
   friend--if you prefer privacy--state it to yourself! Only bring it out
   and let it be known! But, at the same time, when you are speaking,
   "speak what you know."

   Now, what do you really know of God? Little enough do the most of us
   know, but, still, I think we know enough to know that He is not the god
   of modern times whom some preach. One single night of frost will
   destroy millions upon millions of creatures that were happy and enjoyed
   life--and this is done by that God of whom we are often assured that

   He cannot possibly punish sin, or put men to pain. But He does it. Hear
   the cry of the poor seamen, when the storm tosses the great boat and
   drives it on the rocks. See how, everywhere, the Lord is a great God
   and terrible. Even though He condescends to be a Father to those of us
   who trust in Jesus Christ, His Son, and is gentle as a nurse to us, yet
   is He the God of thunder and of fire, the great and almighty God, the
   King who will not be questioned by His subjects and who will not alter
   His arrangements to please their fancies!

   It is well for us to speak of God as we have found Him. He has dealt
   kindly and graciously with us--"He has not dealt with us after our
   sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities"--else had we been
   cast away forever. We long that others may be able to speak of God in
   the same way--not saying what they would have Him to be, but what He
   has revealed Himself to be in nature, in Providence and especially in
   Grace. Let us all come humbly to His feet! He bids us look to His dear
   Son and so find peace and salvation. If we will not do so, there is
   nothing for us but to be driven from His Presence and from the glory of
   His power, world without end.

   Will we dare to defy Him? Have we the impiety to do so? O God, humble
   us! Beneath the terror of Your majesty, the glory of Your righteousness
   and the supreme splendor of Your love, bow us down to accept Your Grace
   and to become Yours forever and ever! God grant that it may be so, for
   our Lord Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Sincere Summary--and a Searching Scrutiny

   (No. 2671)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, APRIL 22, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   OCTOBER 29, 1882.

   "I have kept Your precepts and Your testimonies: for all my ways are
   before You." Psalm 119:168.

   "I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant; for I do not
   forget Your commandments."

   Psalm 119:176.

   IF anyone says that these two texts contradict one another, I say that
   they do not. They form a paradox and they are both true, and true of
   the same man, at the same time. I will read them to you again. "I have
   kept Your precepts and Your testimonies: for all my ways are before
   You." "I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant; for I
   do not forget Your commandments."

   I purpose to take our first text as a sincere summary of a godly man's
   life and our second text as a searching scrutiny, or as the result of a
   searching scrutiny, which looks below the surface, and then comes to a
   conclusion, not contradictory to the former one, yet supplementary to
   it.

   I. First, then, dear Friends, our first text is A SINCERE SUMMARY OF A
   GODLY MAN'S LIFE. Looking back, he can say of it in general, "I have
   kept Your precepts and Your testimonies: for all my ways are before
   You."

   First, let me say that it is necessary that we should have so lived
   that this shall be the summary of our life, for if we have not so
   lived, what evidence have we that we have been born again--that we have
   passed from death unto life--that we have been delivered from the
   bondage of sin and brought into the way of holiness? If our life is not
   different from what it used to be, how can we try to deceive ourselves
   with the idea that we are converted? If our lives are no better than
   the lives of unregenerate men, what reason can we have for believing
   that we are regenerate? After all, at the last we shall be judged
   according to our works. "By their fruits you shall know them," is a
   test that still stands good and will stand good even to the end. "Be
   not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows, that shall he
   also reap." And, in looking back, if our life has been ungodly--if it
   has been wanton and unchaste--if it has not been characterized by
   sobriety, honesty, prayerfulness, consecration, what can we say of it?
   We shall have to judge ourselves to be still "out of the way" and to
   have need that we should turn to God with full purpose of heart and
   seek what, evidently, we have not at present found. If the Grace which
   we are supposed to have received has not made us to differ both from
   our former self and from men of the world, then it is not the true
   Grace of God.

   Next, whenever a man can truly say, with the Psalmist, "I have kept
   Your precepts and Your testimonies," it is a fruit of Grace. I t is not
   a product of the legal spirit. It is not a result of free will
   un-helped by God's Grace and love. Wherever there is even a spark of
   holiness, it must have come from that great central fire which is in
   the heart of God. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from
   above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no
   variableness, neither shadow of turning." There is not on earth a rare
   flower of loveliness and purity which is not an exotic--it is blooming
   in a clime to which it is a stranger. God has planted it with His own
   right hand.

   So, then, he who can thus sum up his life has nothing of which to
   glory, for he has received from God everything of good there is in it
   and, therefore, he gives all the glory of it to the Giver and takes
   none of it to himself. It is faith that works by love, purifying the
   soul, and producing the devout and godly character--and faith never
   claims any honor for

   itself, for it is, itself, the gift of God. Christ says much in praise
   of faith because faith says so much in praise of Christ! And faith is
   used, in the Covenant of Grace, as a means of blessing, because it
   excludes boasting and gives all the glory to God, who works all that is
   good within us. So, you see, dear Friends, that there is nothing of
   legality in what I am saying now when I testify that a godly Christian,
   when he sums up his life, can say, "I have kept Your precepts and Your
   testimonies."

   Next, this summary of life is excellent for its breadth. Notice how it
   is worded. It comprehends the precepts and the testimonies of the Lord.
   That is, the practical and the doctrinal parts of true religion. There
   are some persons who appear to be very scrupulous concerning the
   precepts and they are very anxious to keep them. So far, they do well.
   But as to the Doctrines of Grace, they say, "We do not know much about
   them," and they appear to think that it is not at all necessary that
   they should know about them. A very large part of God's Word, which
   teaches most precious Truth, they slur. They think that it does not
   matter to them. Should they not believe according to the denomination
   in which they were born or brought up? They say that there is no
   particular necessity for them to be so diligent in searching and
   knowing the Word. The Psalmist thought not so, but he said to the Lord,
   "I have kept Your precepts and Your testimonies." I feel that I am as
   much bound to believeright as to actright and it is just as truly a sin
   to believe error, when I can learn the truth, as it is to commit
   iniquity. We are responsible to God for the use we make of our
   understanding, as well as for the exercise of our affections. There is
   nothing in the Word of God to justify men in believing what they like,
   and anyone who neglects to search out the Truth of God commits a sin of
   omission. He who holds an error which he might see to be an error if he
   looked in the mirror of God's Word, is guilty of rebellion against the
   teaching of God. If we would live a life such as we can look back upon
   with pleasure, we ought to try to keep the testimonies as well as the
   precepts of the Lord.

   I have met with some people who used to be more numerous than they are
   now, who were very strenuous about the Doctrines of Grace. If anybody
   differed from their view of the Doctrines, they at once said that he
   was unsound. I should hardly like to repeat the hard things they used
   to say about such a person, but, certainly, to be sound in the Truth of
   God was the grand thing with them. And I do not condemn them for that,
   but I do blame them because, sometimes, practical preaching seemed
   irksome to them and the enforcement of the precepts of the Word made
   them wrathful--they could not endure it. You could tickle their palates
   and delight them with a good strong sermon on the Doctrines of Grace,
   but when you came to insist upon holy walking, they would turn upon
   their heels and say that the preacher was "legal."

   Now, inasmuch as I before said that to neglect God's testimonies is an
   evil, so I add that to neglect the precepts is an equal evil. Be you, O
   man of God, as earnest to do the right as to believe the right and, on
   the other hand, as earnest to believe the right as to do the right!
   Your whole nature should be subject to God. He is to be your Teacher as
   well as your Law-Giver. Will you not sit at the feet of Jesus, like
   Mary did, to learn of Him, as well as rise up, like Martha did, to
   serve Him? If you will not, then you give to Him a lame and limping
   obedience. "The legs of the lame are not equal," and your obedience is
   lame, since the legs of it are not equal. There is a long doctrine and
   a short obedience, or a long precept and a short doctrine. Be it not so
   with you, O man of God, if you would look back upon a well-ordered
   life! Happy shall that man be who can say, "Ever since that glad day
   when I was brought as a penitent to my Master's feet, I have studiously
   endeavored to do what He has bid me do and I have just as earnestly
   shunned and turned away from everything which I have known to be sin. I
   praise the Lord that He has helped me to keep my garments unspotted
   from the world."

   But if he would be a complete Christian, he must be able to add, I have
   also strived to believe all that is taught in the Word of God. I have
   not given myself up blindly to be led by priest or minister. I felt
   that God had given me a conscience for which I was responsible, not to
   my fellow men, but to Him, so I have gone to the Law and to the
   Testimony, testing everything by that Infallible standard. I have not
   sat down in idleness, taking things for granted because they were
   preached with brilliant oratory, but, like the Bereans, I have searched
   the Scriptures daily to see whether these things are so or not." Ah,
   Beloved, it will make a soft pillow for your head if, in the retrospect
   of life, you can say, "I have made the Law of God, in its teachings and
   in its commands, to be the rule of my whole life." God grant that you
   may have that satisfaction at the last!

   Further, dear Friends, this summary is excellent for its length, as
   well as for its breadth, for here the man of God says, "I have kept
   Your precepts and Your testimonies." I do not know how long the
   Psalmist had kept them, but it seems to me natural that he should make
   this summary towards the end of his life. I pray that it may be so with
   us when

   we come to die. I have known the gray-headed old man--how well I knew
   him, and how greatly I loved him, for I mean my venerable
   grandfather--who, when he was dying, could say, "That which I preached
   when I first entered the pulpit I have preached to the last. And for 58
   years, to the best of my knowledge I have preached nothing but Jesus
   Christ and Him crucified. I have nothing to retract of the testimony
   which I have given, for what the Spirit of God taught me, that have I
   taught to others." And he could equally have said at the last, "I have,
   as a father, trained my children in God's fear and they are all
   following in my footsteps. I have, as a pastor, watched over my flock
   with sedulous care. I have set them an example which they can safely
   follow. And there is no man who can truthfully lay a charge against me,
   for in all uprightness and integrity have I walked before God."

   Mark you, this dear old man was a Calvinist--an out-and-out preacher of
   Free Grace who would not, for a moment, take the slightest credit to
   himself for anything that he was, or had done! Yet he could not have
   said less than this unless he had pretended to possess a modesty which
   was not true and mimicked a humility which was based on falsehood. In
   like manner, may we be kept, by the Grace of God, clear of all trusting
   in our works, but, at the same time, may we abound in good works to the
   Glory of God and, both in thought and in life, may we be clear in the
   sight of God! Oh, how I have envied that first Quaker, George Fox, who,
   with all the eccentricities of his life, could honestly say on his
   deathbed, "I am clear, I am clear, I am clear of the blood of all men."
   This is the highest ambition that a minister's heart may indulge--that
   he should be able to say that at the last--as other men of God have
   been able to do.

   So, you see, this is a blessed summary as to length as well as breadth.

   Above all things, it is excellent from its cause. Notice how the
   Psalmist says to the Lord, "I have kept Your precepts and Your
   testimonies." That is what the true man of God still says, "I followed
   the precept because it was God's precept. I did not care whether a
   Church or a Council of any sort had set its stamp upon it. It was God's
   precept and that was enough for me. And I believed the Doctrine because
   it was His testimony. It might not be the testimony of any Reformer, or
   Confessor, but it was enough for me that it was God's testimony." That
   should be the reason for our conviction and also our action.

   The Psalmist kept God's precepts and testimonies because all his ways
   were before God. He felt that God was watching him. He lived under the
   consciousness of God's Presence with him both by night and by day and,
   therefore, he dared not believe anything contrary to God's Truth, or
   act contrary to God's command. "You God see me" either held him in
   check or else impelled him onward. This is the way for us, also, to
   live, dear Friends! I pray that you may live thus.

   I think the Psalmist also meant, when he said that all his ways were
   before God, that they were under God's smile of approval. God not only
   observed, but He communed with and commended His servant. Another
   Psalmist, or perhaps the writer of these words which form our text,
   said, "I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living." And
   Enoch might have said, "I have walked with God from day to day.
   Communion with Him has been my continual delight and all my ways have
   been before Him." The Book of Psalms begins thus--"Blessed is the man
   that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of
   sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in
   the Law of the Lord; and in His Law does he meditate day and night."
   His ways are always before God and he has respect unto the Law of the
   Lord evermore.

   Such a life as that, dear Friends, is excellent from its use. It is
   sure to be a life of happiness, even though it should bring on
   persecution. It is certain, also, to be a useful life. It is an example
   which your children and your children's children may safely follow. It
   is an argument for the Gospel which the most skeptical cannot refute
   and it is a most blessed way of propagating that Gospel, for men are
   more often convinced by our actions than by our words. Seek after it,
   dear Friends, and let your lives be such that you may close them with
   the words of my first text, "I have kept Your precepts and Your
   testimonies: for all my ways are before You."

   II. Now let us pause a moment and observe that the Psalmist, after he
   had spoken thus, and spoken quite sincerely and truly, yet felt that he
   must close his long life's summary in another fashion. He then uttered
   our second text, which I called a SEARCHING SCRUTINY. "I have gone
   astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant; for I do not forget Your
   commandments."

   His life was perfect, after the manner of Scriptural perfection, but
   when it was carefully examined and scrutinized, it was found to be
   manifestly imperfect! Suppose you take a needle, one of the very best
   that has ever been made--any seamstress would be glad to use it. She
   would never think of sending a packet of such needles back and saying
   that they were

   not good. They are bright, untarnished, sharp, smooth--all that they
   should be--quite perfect needles. But just put one of them under a
   microscope--I have done so--and then see what it is like! Why, now, it
   is a bar of steel--rough and ugly-looking, tending towards a point at
   one end, but certainly very blunt. That is just the difference between
   the microscopic examination and the ordinary observation of our poor
   eyes. So, the life of a Believer may be like that of Job, "perfect and
   upright," but when it comes under the scrutiny of an eye that is
   illuminated by the Spirit of God and touched with the heavenly
   eye-salve, quite another verdict is given! And, tremblingly, with many
   tears, the confession is poured into the ear of God, "I have gone
   astray like a lost sheep"--followed by the petition--"Seek Your
   servant" and the renewed declaration, "for I do not forget Your
   commandments."

   Here is, first, a confession of imperfection and of helplessness. I t
   really means a continual imperfection and helplessness, for the Hebrew
   verb relates not only to the past, but to the present. It might just as
   well be read, "I am still going astray like a lost sheep." Indeed, it
   mustbe so read, for the Psalmist goes on to say, "Seek Your servant."
   He would not have offered such a prayer if his confession had only
   related to something that was at an end. There is, here, not only
   imperfection and the tendency to a continuous imperfection, but there
   is also an acknowledgment of helplessness! The Psalmist does not say,
   "I have gone astray like a lost sheep, but I can return when I please."
   No, he prays to the Lord, "Seek Your servant," as if the only help for
   him lay in the search which the great Shepherd would make and the
   consequent restoration which would come by His gracious and powerful
   hand!

   Let us just think for a little while and then I feel sure that we shall
   soon say that we must confess to God as the Psalmist did. I mean that
   each one of those here present who have led godly lives will still have
   to say to the Lord, "I have gone astray like a lost sheep." Think first
   of God's precepts. Have we ever gone astray in heart from any one of
   them? Suppose you never have departed from them in life--which is a
   very charitable supposition--have you ever in heartfelt the precepts to
   be hard? Had you been really perfect, it would have been easy, it would
   have been natural for you to keep them. Have you not sometimes had to
   whip yourself up to a duty? The need of being whipped up to it proves
   that evil is still remaining within you. Then, have you ever forgotten
   a precept? Lives there a man who has carried out all the precepts of
   God without forgetting any one of them? I would like to see the Brother
   who has done so--but such a Brother I never expect to see.

   I think that, with the most of us, it is thus. There is a certain duty
   and we try to do it with all our hearts, but, meanwhile, we forget
   another duty which is just as binding upon us as the first was. We look
   right on and so we overlook the duties that lie on the right hand and
   on the left. The very intensity which makes us earnest about one thing
   often prevents our attending to another thing which is equally
   important--and thus we present to God one duty stained with the blood
   of another! I have known a father, in aiming at being firm with his
   children, err by being too severe. But far oftener have I known others,
   intent upon being kind to their children, who have grown like Eli and
   have winked at their sin. That is but one instance among thousands of
   the evil I am deploring. A man may say, "I shall rebuke So-and-So for
   his fault," but he does it too sharply and therein he errs. Or, afraid
   of being too severe, he says nothing and therein he errs. Did you ever,
   in all your life, do any one thing so well that it could not possibly
   have been done better? The difference between the good there was in
   what you did and the good there might have been in it is just so much
   of deficiency--and sin is any lack of conformity to perfection. Whether
   you fall short of the mark or go over the line matters little. In
   either case, you have missed the perfection God demands. If you do not
   reach His standard, you have not yet attained to perfect holiness and
   there is still something of sin to confess.

   The precepts of the Lord are so broad that they touch the secret
   imagination of the heart. Is there a man living who never has an
   unclean desire? "I fought against it," says one. I know you did, but
   the very desire was sinful. Or, if it has not come to a desire, was
   there never an impure imagination that crossed your mind? "Yes, it just
   flitted across my mind," you say. Well, in proportion as you yielded to
   it, in that proportion it was a guilty thing. Yes--I must say it--if
   even a dream has had anything of sin in it, and you have been
   complacent over it, it detects the sin that is within you, for were you
   really perfect, even the very passing thought, though it were but as a
   bird of the air that flew above your head, would still, by casting a
   shadow over your spirit, cause you vexation and sorrow. Keep that
   microscope close at hand and it need not have very strong lenses--only
   look fairly into your own life, first, by the light of the Law of God,
   and, secondly, by the light of your obligations to Christ who has
   redeemed you with His precious blood--and then I feel sure

   that you will have to say, "I fall short even of my own ideal and I am
   persuaded that my ideal falls very far short of what God's ideal of
   perfection is."

   Has it not often struck you, dear Friends, as a very amazing thing that
   good men--some of the best of men who have ever lived--have
   nevertheless been guilty of things which, at the present moment, we
   regard as heinous crimes? Mr. Whitefield had a strong objection to
   slavery, but still it did not seem to him to be wrong to have a number
   of slaves at the orphan house at Savannah--and to speak of them as his
   goods and chattels. That was a matter about which the conscience of the
   good man was not then enlightened. We do ill if we condemn men too
   strongly for things about which no enlightenment has come to them, but
   are they not, themselves, guilty in the sight of God? Of course they
   are! There are men, nowadays, carrying on trades that are doing
   mischief and only mischief to the populace, but they are not aware of
   the evil, their conscience is not enlightened about it.

   To take another line of thought, suppose a man is worth many hundreds
   of thousands of pounds and all the while there are millions of people
   abroad perishing for lack of the Gospel and, often, the great
   deficiency of the Missionary Societies is not in the men, but in the
   means to send out the preachers of the Gospel? Is that man right,
   before the living God, who says, "I am not my own, for I am bought with
   a price, and all that I am and have belongs to Christ," and yet who
   nevertheless remains immensely rich--rich beyond anything that he or
   his children after him can ever need? Yet, possibly, his conscience is
   not enlightened about that matter and it is no very great crime in his
   judgment--neither may you and I condemn him, for our own conscience is
   probably quite as much in the dark upon something else. But whenever
   anybody, who is very rich, gets up and says, "I am a perfect man," I
   feel inclined to say what Christ said to the young man who thought that
   he was perfect, "Sell all that you have." Somebody asks, perhaps, "Does
   Christ propose that test to every one of us?" No, certainly not, but to
   any of us who say that we are perfect, that test may be applied. If you
   are such a perfect man, see if you can do as our Lord said--sell all
   that you have, and give the proceeds to the poor. I have known a man
   sing--

   "Yet if I might make some reserve, And duty did not call, I love my God
   with zeal so great That I should give Him all"--

   but, all the while, he has been trying to feel whether it was a
   three-penny piece or a four-penny piece that he was going to give to
   the collection!

   As I begin to think of these various things which I have
   mentioned--just casting, as it were, a little ray of light upon them,
   not the great Light of the eternal purity of God--I cannot understand
   how there can be any man, even though he has kept God's precepts and
   testimonies as far as he could, who, nevertheless, is not bound to say,
   "I have gone astray like a lost sheep."

   But, further, suppose it to be possible that we have not gone astray
   from the precepts of the Lord, how about His testimonies? Is any man
   here prepared to say, "I feel that I have, in every respect, believed
   the Truths of God as they are revealed in God's Word, and that I have
   never erred from them"? Do you believe all the Truths of God and all
   the Truths in their right proportions and relations? And do you give
   due emphasis to each Truth at the right moment? Have you ever believed
   that which afterwards you found to be incorrect and false? Possibly you
   have not willfully done this, but have you done it at all? Think of
   Augustine, that mighty master and teacher in the Church of God, sitting
   down in his old age and writing his, "Confessions." Alas, even he found
   that he had plenty of things to confess and to amend! And it must be so
   with us, too. The very man who can say, "In the main, I have preached
   the same things all through my ministry," yet, nevertheless, adds, "I
   preached them as far as I knew them, but I did not know them at the
   first as I learned them afterwards. I did not know this Truth in
   relation to that Truth and I sometimes misrepresented God in my very
   zeal to give a correct statement--and I slew one Truth of God in my
   defense of another." Ah, Friends, we are all so fallible! No, more than
   that, we do all so sadly failin one way or another, that we must meekly
   bow our head and each one, say, "I have gone astray like a lost sheep."

   I am afraid that I might have put this matter much more strongly than I
   have ventured to lay it before you and still have been within the mark.
   But there I leave it, as I need to speak upon one more point.

   In that prayer of the Psalmist, "Seek Your servant," I discern
   conscious faith in the Divine power. He seems to say, "Lord, I am as
   silly as a sheep, but if I were only a sheep, I could not pray. I am a
   servant, too--'Your servant.' It is my

   joy, it is my glory to be Your servant. Now, Lord, because I am Your
   servant, seek me. Do not lose me, Lord! You have bought me with Your
   blood. I am seeking You, Lord, so come and seek me. I want to be
   perfectly holy--come and help me. Forgive every sin of omission or of
   commission. Draw me away from every mistake. Draw me nearer and yet
   nearer to Yourself. 'Seek Your servant.'" Perhaps you are ill, or even
   dying--well, living or dying, this prayer may still suit you--"Seek me,
   Lord, 'seek Your servant.'"

   Then, lastly, comes in that sweet reflection, "For I do not forget Your
   commandments." "I have a love for them, I have a longing for them and I
   am sure that this never grew in my heart by nature. It is the gift of
   Your Grace and, because You have put it there, Lord, and You have begun
   to work in me, finish Your work, I pray You. Lord, You have made me
   long to be rid of every false way, therefore, deliver me from it. You
   have made me wish to be transparent and sincere. You have made me
   hungry and thirsty to be like Yourself! Then will you not satisfy the
   craving You have, Yourself, imparted?--

   "'The dearest idol Ihave known, Whatever that idol be, Help me to tear
   it from Your Throne, And worship only Thee.'

   "If I hold an error, yet You know that I wish not to hold it. Show me
   that it is an error and I will have done with it at once. And if I am
   acting in good faith in a wrong way, Lord, do You but let me see that
   it is wrong and, cost what it may, I will do the right and cease from
   the evil."

   This is a blessed way in which to close our life, but there is a still
   more blessed way and that is, after all is said and done, and after
   God's Grace has been praised for everything that is lovely and of good
   repute that it has worked in us, then to cast bad works and good works
   all away and just look to the Cross, and to the Cross alone, and see
   our life in Jesus' death, our healing in His wounds, our glory in His
   shame, our Heaven in His anguish! Look, saint! Look now! Sinner, you
   may do the same. Where the saint's salvation is, there is yours, too.
   And if the graybeard, hoary with years of honor and of virtue,
   gathering up his feet in the bed, knows no better or brighter hope than
   that of being justified through the righteousness of Christ and washed
   in His blood, it is a joy to know that the same hope is free to you
   guilty ones who have not kept the precepts or the testimonies of God!

   Turn to Christ on Calvary! Cast your eyes on Him who, like the bronze
   serpent, is lifted up that every sin-bitten one may look unto Him and
   live! Oh, by His Grace, look to Him now and you shall live, for never a
   soul looked to Him and died while looking there!

   God bless you, dear Friends, for Christ's sake! Amen.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK "--185, 232, 119 (SONG II), 538.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS 7; 8:1-4.

   Romans 7:1-3. Know you not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know
   the Law), how that the Law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?
   For the woman which has an husband is bound by the law to her husband
   so long as he lives; but if the husband is dead, she is loosed from the
   law ofher husband. So then if, while her husband lives, she is married
   to another man, she shall be called an adulteress, but if her husband
   is dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress,
   though she is married to another man. He merely states this as an
   illustration.

   4. Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the Law by the
   body of Christ; that you should be married to another, even to Him who
   is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
   While we were under the Law of God, we could not come into the bonds of
   the New Covenant--the Covenant of Grace. But, through the death of
   Christ, we are dead to the Law and, therefore, we are set free from the
   principle and Covenant of Law, and we have come under the Covenant of
   Grace.

   5. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by
   the Law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. Sin
   is the transgression of the Law of God. Therefore, out of the Law, by
   reason of our corrup-

   tion, springs sin. And, in our past lives, we did, indeed, find sin to
   be very fruitful. It grew very fast in our members and it brought forth
   much "fruit unto death."

   6. But now we are delivered from the Law, that being dead wherein we
   were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the
   oldness of the letter No longer is the message to us, "This do and you
   shall live." No more are we slaves under bondage, but we have come into
   a new state--we are free, rejoicing in the glorious liberty of the
   children of God--and what we now do is done out of a spirit of love,
   not of fear. We are not seeking after holiness in order to be saved by
   it, neither do we seek to escape from sin because we are under any fear
   of being cast into Hell. We have another spirit altogether within us.

   7. What shall we say, then? Is the Law of God sin? God forbid/No, so
   far from being sin, the Law is the great detective of sin, discovering
   it and letting us know what sin really is.

   7, 8. No, Ihad not known sin, but by the Law: for Ihad not known lust,
   except the Law had said, You shall not covet But sin, taking occasion
   by the commandment, worked in me all manner of concupiscence. Or,
   "covetousness." The very fact that God said to us, "Do it not," worked
   upon our nature so that we wanted to do it! And that which God
   commanded, which was a matter of indifference to us while we were in
   ignorance of His will, became, by reason of the depravity of our
   hearts, a thing to be resisted just because He had enjoined it upon us.
   Ah, me, what wicked hearts are ours that fetch evil even out of good!

   8, 9. For without the Law, sin was dead. For I was alive without the
   Law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. ' 'I
   did not know how sinful I was until God's commandment came to me. Sin
   seemed to be dead within me and I thought myself a righteous man. But
   when the Law of God came home to my heart and conscience, and I
   understood that even a sinful thought would ruin me, that a hasty word
   had the essence of murder in it and that the utmost uncleanness might
   lurk under the cover of what seemed a mere custom of my fellow
   men--when I found out all this, sin did, indeed, live, but I died so
   far as righteousness was concerned."

   10-13. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be
   unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me
   and by it slew me. Therefore the Law is holy, and the commandment holy,
   and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God
   forbid.'' 'If I sinned the more when God's commandment was revealed to
   me. And if, by the light of the Law, sin was made more apparent to me,
   and became so exceedingly sinful that it drove me to despair and so to
   commit still worse sin, the fault was not in the Law, but in sin, and
   in me, the sinner."

   13. 14. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that
   which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceedingly
   sinful. For we know that the Law of God is spiritual. The Law of the
   Lord is a far higher thing than it seems to be in the esteem of many
   people. Talk not of it as a mere "Decalogue." It has far-reaching hands
   and it affects the secret thoughts and purposes of men. Even their
   stray imaginations come under its supremacy. "The law is spiritual."

   14. But I am carnal, sold under sin. "I am carnal." There is the source
   of all the mischief--a disobedient and rebellious subject, not an
   irksome Law! The Law is good enough, it is absolutely perfect, "but,"
   says the Apostle, "I am carnal"--fleshly--"sold under sin."

   15. For that which I do, I allow not. The man himself does that which
   is evil, but his conscience revolts against it.

   15. For what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that I do. This
   is a strange contradiction--a man who has Grace enough to will to do
   good and yet does it not! There are two men in the one man--the new
   nature struggling against the old nature. This must be a renewed man
   who talks in this fashion, or else he could not say that he hated sin!
   Yet there must be a part of him still imperfect, or else he would not
   do that which he hates.

   16. If, then, I do that which I would not, I consent unto the Law that
   it is good. "If I do that against which my will and my conscience
   rebel, so far, the better part of me acknowledges the goodness of the
   Law, though the baser part of me rebels against it."

   17. Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.
   The renewed man still stands out against sin. His heart is not wishful
   to sin, but that old nature within him will sin even to the end.

   18. 19. For Iknow that in me (that is, in my flesh), dwells no good
   thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is
   good I find not For the good that I would, I do not: but the evil which
   I would not, that I do. Oh,

   how often have men who have been struggling after holiness had to use
   these words of the Apostle! The more holy they are, the more they
   realize that there is still a something better beyond them, after which
   they struggle, but to which they cannot yet attain! So they cry still,
   "The good that we would, we do not: but the evil which we would not,
   that we do."

   20. Now if I do what I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin
   that dwells in me. The true man--the newborn man--is struggling after
   that which is right. The real, "I," the immortal, "ego," is still
   pressing forward like a ship beating up against wind and tide, and
   striving to reach the harbor where it shall find perfect rest. Oh, what
   struggles, what contentions, what corrections there are within the men
   and women in whom the Grace of God is mightily working! Those who have
   but little Grace can take things easily and swim with the current. But
   where Grace is mighty, sin will fight for the mastery, though it must
   ultimately yield, for there can never be any true peace until it is
   subdued.

   21. I find then a Law that when I would do good, evil is present with
   me. Speaking for myself, I can say that, often, when I am most earnest
   in prayer, stray thoughts will come into my mind to draw me off from
   the holy work of supplication. And when I am most intently aiming at
   humility, then the shadow of pride falls upon me. Do not gracious men
   generally find it so? If their experience is like that of the Apostle
   Paul, or like that of many another child of God whose biography one
   delights to read, it is so and it will always be so.

   22-24. For I delight in the Law of God after the inwardman: but Isee
   another law in my members, warring against the law ofmy mind, and
   bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O
   wretchedman that Iam! Who shall deliver me from the body of this
   death?These are birth-pangs, the throes and anguish of a regenerated
   spirit! The Christian man is fighting his way to sure and certain
   victory so the more of this wretchedness that he feels, the better--if
   it is only caused by a consciousness that sin is still lurking within
   him--and that he longs to be rid of it.

   25. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I
   myself serve the Law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

   Romans 8:1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in
   Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit Some
   people talk about "getting out of the 7th Chapter, into the Eighth."
   But who made this into an Eighth Chapter? Certainly, the Holy Spirit
   did not! There are no chapters in the Epistle as He inspired Paul to
   write it--the whole of it runs straight on without a break--"There is,
   therefore, now no condemnation"--while struggling, fighting, warring,
   contending--

   2. For the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free
   from the law of sin and death. ' 'Has made me free"--that is, the real,
   "I," of which he wrote a little while before--the true man, himself.
   "'The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from
   the law of sin and death.' I have broken its bonds, I am a free man.
   Contending against its usurpation, I have escaped from under its yoke
   and I shall yet tread sin under my feet, and God shall shortly bruise
   even Satan himself under my feet."

   3. For what the Law couldnot do, in that it was weak through the flesh,
   God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin,
   condemned sin in the flesh. That He has done most effectually!

   4. That the righteousness ofthe Law might be fulfilledin us, who walk
   not after the flesh, but after the Spirit Oh, what a blessed thing it
   is to walk freely, "not after the flesh, but after the Spirit," even
   though, all the while, there is, within the soul this strife that the
   Apostle has been describing!
     __________________________________________________________________

Neither Forsaken Nor Forgotten

   (No. 2672)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, APRIL 29, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   NOVEMBER 5, 1882.

   "Behold, I have engraved you upon the palms of My hands." Isaiah 49:16.

   You have probably noticed, dear Friends, while reading the chapter from
   which our text is taken, that it seems to divide itself into two parts.
   The first portion concerns that glorious Servant of God, "who, being in
   the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God," even our
   Divine Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. There is, in this part of the
   chapter, somewhat of a complaint--Christ was, as it were, uttering one
   of His Gethsemane groans when He said, "I have labored in vain, I have
   spent My strength for nothing, and in vain: yet surely My judgment is
   with Jehovah, and My work with My God." As far as our Lord's personal
   ministry among the Jewish people was concerned, it did seem as if He
   had labored in vain, for almost all of them rejected Him and they even
   imprecated an awful curse upon themselves and their descendants when
   they said, "His blood be on us, and on our children." He is here
   represented as crying out before Jehovah concerning this apparent
   failure of His earthly mission. And an answer is at once given to Him
   which must have been eminently satisfactory to our Savior's spirit, for
   He adds, "Though Israel is not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the
   eyes of Jehovah and My God shall be My strength. And He said, It is a
   light thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of
   Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give You for
   a light to the Gentiles, that You may be My salvation unto the ends of
   the earth." Oh, what joy must have filled the heart of our Divine
   Master, even in the depths of His agony, as He saw that, through His
   death, all nations should ultimately behold the Light of God's
   salvation! What though Israel for a while rejected Him? Yet multitudes
   of the Gentiles would receive Him and then, by-and-by, in the fullness
   of time, the Jews would also receive Him, and acknowledge as King the
   Nazarene whom once they crucified on Calvary!

   The second part of the chapter, singularly enough, relates to the
   Israelite Church and, to a large extent, to the whole Church of God,
   and it also contains a complaint. In the expressive language of verse
   13, God bids the heavens and the earth rejoice--"Sing, O heavens, and
   be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for
   Jehovah has comforted His people, and will have mercy upon His
   afflicted." Yet, even while that jubilant note is pealing over sea and
   land, there is heard the wailing of poor forsaken Zion--Judaea's
   Church, the ancient Church of the living God! She sighs, "'Jehovah has
   forsaken me and my Lord has forgotten me.' He is blessing the Gentiles,
   but I am left unblessed. He is gathering multitudes unto Himself, to
   glorify His Son; but His poor Israel, His ancient choice, His first
   love, He seems to have left out of all reckoning,' Jehovah has forsaken
   me, and my Lord has forgotten me.'" Then comes the Lord's answer, "Can
   a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion
   on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet will I not forget
   you. Behold, I have engraved you upon the palms of My hands." Israel
   shall yet acknowledge her King, her salvation waits for the appointed
   time. There is a high destiny in store for the Israel of God and many
   shall yet see the day when He who died as King of the Jews shall live
   again to wear that title and to be acknowledged as the Head of all the
   house of Abraham!

   My objective, in speaking upon the familiar and precious words of our
   text, is just this--Sometimes you and I get into the same sad condition
   as Zion was then and we fancy that God has forgotten us, so I want to
   show you that if we are

   believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord gives to us an answer
   similar to that which He gave to sorrowful Zion, "I have engraved you
   upon the palms of My hands." Upon that short sentence I shall try now
   to speak to you.

   I. First, let us think, for a while, upon THE FEAR EXPRESSED--the fear
   in the hearts of God's people which led to the utterance of our text.
   In verse 14, this fear is thus expressed, "Jehovah has forsaken me, and
   my Lord has forgotten me."

   This fear has been felt by very many. Fear is a most contagious and
   infectious thing. When it has taken hold on one person, it has been
   often known to spread to many others till a terrible panic has resulted
   from a very slight cause. Here is the whole Jewish church expressing
   the fear that God has forgotten her! I feel sure that I am not now
   addressing such a church as that--I hope that the most of those now
   present know that God has not forgotten them and that they are walking
   in the light of His Countenance so that they do not imagine that
   Jehovah has forsaken them. But, still, this fear has darkened, shall I
   say, every sky, and passed before the window of every spirit? Well, I
   will not go quite that far, yet I know that there must be but very few
   of us who have not, at one time or another, naughtily whispered to our
   own heart, if we have not said it aloud, "Jehovah has forsaken me, and
   my Lord has forgotten me." We have gone up to the House of God with our
   brethren and we have seen them very happy. The Word of God has been
   precious to them and they have seemed to enjoy it to the fullest, but
   we could not feed upon it, or get a glimpse of the Well-Beloved. And we
   have gone out of the place sighing, "Jehovah has forsaken me and my
   Lord has forgotten me." Have you ever had that thought? If you never
   have, I hope you never will, but I fear that the most of us have, at
   some time or other, been subject to that distressing complaint.

   And it has sometimes been very plaintively expressed. I t is so in the
   text. I think I hear the mountains echoing the joyous voice of God and
   the very skies reverberating with the song of the redeemed! And then,
   in between the breaks of the glad chorus, I catch this little mournful
   note, "Jehovah has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me." Perhaps
   it is all the more plaintive because the tone seems to indicate that
   Zion felt that she deserved to have it so. She thought herself so
   insignificant, so sinful, so provoking, that it was no wonder that the
   great Jehovah should forget her in her littleness--and that the pure
   and holy God should turn His face away from such iniquity as hers.
   Brothers and Sisters, I feel sure that you and I must have been in that
   state in which we could weep and groan and sigh because of the joy in
   the air of which we could not partake, the songs in which we could not
   unite unless we became utter hypocrites. We heard the sweet strains of
   the holy merriment in the Father's House, but we felt that we could not
   join in it! And we sat by ourselves mourning, with our harps hanging on
   the willows, while everyone around us only increased our grief in
   proportion to his own delight. I am trying to speak to such troubled
   souls--God comfort them! There are many such, and their grief is great.

   And some, too, are very obstinate while they are in that condition, for
   our text contains a very unreasonable com-plainer. Read the latter part
   of the 13th verse. "Jehovah has comforted His people, and will have
   mercy upon His afflicted." Yet, in the teeth of that double
   declaration, Zion said, "Jehovah has forsaken me, and my Lord has
   forgotten me." Ah, dear Friends, our complaints of God are generally
   groundless! We get into a state of mind in which we say, "God has
   forsaken us," when He is really dealing with us more than He was known
   to do. A child who is feeling the strokes of the rod is very foolish to
   say, "My father has forgotten me." No, those very blows, under which he
   is smarting, are reminders that his father does notforget him--and your
   trials and your troubles, your depressions and your sorrows are tokens
   that you are not forgotten of God. The chastening which is guaranteed
   to every legitimate son is coming to you! If you had not been
   chastened, there would have been far more cause for saying, "My Lord
   has forgotten me." Besides, dear Friend, you have had some comforts
   though you have had many sorrows. You can say, "Comforts mingle with my
   sighs." Do not forget that. It is not all gall and wormwood--there is
   so much honey as greatly to mitigate the bitterness. Think of that and
   do not obstinately stand to a word which, perhaps, you spoke in haste.
   If you have said, "My Lord has forgotten me," take back the word, for
   it cannot be true. You have slandered Him who can never forget one of
   His own people! And if you have said, "Jehovah has forsaken me," again
   I ask you to take back the evil and false word, and eat it. Never let
   it be heard again, for it is impossible that Jehovah should change, or
   that the Immutable love of His Infinite heart should ever die out! Be
   not obstinate about this matter, I implore you! Yet I have known some
   of God's people stick to this grave lie to their own grievous wounding
   and hurt.

   I suppose that Zion came to this conclusion because she was in
   banishment. She was away from the land that flowed with milk and
   honey--she was suffering in exile. Is this the conclusion to be drawn
   from all suffering? Does the vine say, "The vinedresser has forsaken me
   because he prunes me so sharply"? Does the invalid say, "The physician
   has forgotten me because he gives me such bitter medicine"? Shall the
   patient beneath the knife, say, "The surgeon has forsaken me because he
   cuts even to the bone"? You see at once that there is no reasonableness
   about such talk, so dismiss it at once! "Judge not the Lord" by outward
   Providences, any more than "by feeble sense," but trust Him even when
   you can see no trace of His goodness to you. "Let God be true, and"
   every circumstance, as well as "every man, a liar," for God must keep
   His promise to His people. He is Immutable! He cannot possibly change.
   He must be true to every word that has gone forth out of His mouth. The
   fear that God may forsake and forget His own, if obstinately indulged,
   will certainly deserve to be set down among the wanton and unreasonable
   transgressions of His people against their gracious God.

   Yet I think that there is some measure of Grace mingled with this fear
   Let me read you this passage straight on-- "Jehovah has comforted His
   people and will have mercy upon His afflicted. But Zion said, Jehovah
   has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me." She did not say that
   till God had visited her. "The Lord has comforted His people." He has
   brought them out of a yet lower depth that they were in and they have
   been lifted up so high as now to want His Presence, and to sigh for it!
   Beloved Brothers and Sisters, you who are so deep down in the dungeon,
   I feel glad that you want to get out of it. There is, in your soul, a
   longing after God, is there not? There is a panting and a crying after
   peace with God, is there not? You are not satisfied as long as you even
   think that God has forsaken you, are you? Ah, then, this is the work of
   His Holy Spirit in your soul, making you long after the living God, so
   that there is some sign of Grace even in that discontented moan of
   yours, for it proves that you cannot bear that God should forsake you!
   Now, if you belonged to the world, it would be nothing to you if the
   Lord had forsaken you. If there were no Grace in you, you would not
   care whether God forgot you or not! Indeed, you might almost wish that
   He wouldforget you and not visit you in His wrath. There is, therefore,
   some trace of His hand in your spirit, even now that you say, "Jehovah
   has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me."

   Besides, although the text is a word of complaint, it has also in it a
   word of faith--"myLord." Did you notice that? Zion calls Jehovah hers
   though she dreams that He has forsaken her! I love to see you keep the
   grip of your faith even when it seems to be illogical--even if you
   fancy that the Lord has forgotten and forsaken you! Though you fear
   that it is so, yet you still say, "my Lord," held on to this assurance
   with a death-grip! If you cannot hold on with both hands, hold on with
   one and if, sometimes, you can hold with neither hand, hold on with
   your teeth! Let Job's resolve be yours-- "Though He slay me, yet will I
   trust in Him. Though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my
   flesh shall I see God" "And every scattered grain of this, my dust,
   shall still confide in God." Oh, for the faith that laughs at
   impossibilities, that leaps with joy between the very jaws of death,
   itself, and sings in the very center of the fire! Such a faith as that,
   whatever weakness there may be about it, brings glory to God! So I
   treasure up that little word, "my." There are only two letters in it,
   but they are fraught with untold hope to the man who can use them as
   Zion does here, "my Lord."

   So much for the fear which the text is intended to meet.

   II. Now I come, as God shall help me, to speak concerning THE COMFORT
   BESTOWED. "I have engraved you upon the palms of My hands."

   This assurance is the Lord's answer to Zion's lament, "Jehovah has
   forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me." So take it from God's own
   mouth and never doubt it! God's remembrance of His people as a whole
   and of each individual in particular, has been secured by Him beyond
   all question. "That we might have a strong consolation, who have fled
   for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us," He has said to
   each of us, "'I have engraved you upon the palms of My hands.' I have
   done it and I have done that which will render it utterly impossible
   that I should ever forget one of My people. I the Lord have committed
   Myself to something which will henceforth render it absolutely certain
   that I never can forget My own, for, 'I have engraved you upon the
   palms of My hands.'"

   These words seem to say to us that God has already secured, beyond any
   possible doubt, His tender memory towards all His own. He has done this
   in such a way that forgetfulness can never occur at any moment
   whatever. The memorial is not set up in Heaven, for then you might
   conceive that God could descend and leave that memorial. It is not set
   up in any great public place in the universe, nor is it engraved in a
   signet ring upon God's finger, for that might be taken off. It is not
   written upon the Almighty's clothes--to speak after the manner of
   men--for He might disrobe Himself for conflict.

   But He has put the token of His love where it cannot be laid aside--on
   the palms of His hands. A man cannot leave his hands at home. If he has
   put something, by way of memorial, upon the walls of his house or the
   gates of his home, he may go away and forget it. Or if, as I have said,
   he shall write the memorial upon some precious diamond, or topaz, or
   other jewels which he wears, yet he might lay them aside. But God says,
   "I have engraved you upon the palms of My hands," so that the memorial
   is constantly with Him! Yes, it is in God, Himself, that the memorial
   of His people is fixed.

   I suppose the allusion is to an Oriental custom, possibly not very
   common, but still common enough to have survived to this day. Mr. John
   Anderson, the pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Helensburgh, who was
   a very dear friend of mine, told me that on one or two occasions, he
   had seen, in the East, men who had the portraits of their friends, and
   others who had the initials of their friends, on the palms of their
   hands. I said to him, "But I suppose that, in time, they would wash off
   or wear out." "No," he said, "they were tattooed too deeply in to be
   removed, so that, whenever they opened their hand, there were the
   familiar initials, or some resemblance to the features of the beloved
   one, to keep him always in remembrance." And the Lord here adopts that
   ancient custom and says, "I cannot forget you. It is impossible for Me
   to do so, for I have engraved you where the memorial can never be apart
   from Myself. 'I have engraved you upon the palms of My hands.'"

   Now, what is it, dear Friends, that makes it so certain that God cannot
   forget His people? Well, first, God remembers His eternal love to His
   people, and His remembrance of them is constant because of that love.
   He says to each believing soul, "I have loved you with an everlasting
   love." The people of God were loved by Him long before the world was
   created--He has loved them too long to ever forget them. "I have loved
   too long," said one man, "to be turned aside by the blandishment of
   another." We cannot imagine anything that could separate us from that
   dear heart to which our heart is knit even with a human love. While
   both of us shall live, the two are, indeed, one. And God has loved us
   more than husbands love their wives, or fathers love their children, or
   brothers love their brothers. His love is like a great ocean of which
   all human love is but a drop of spray! And He has loved us so long, so
   well, so deeply, so unreservedly, that He cannot forget us. Even when
   any of His people wanders from Him and grieves His heart, He says,
   "Yes, but I have loved you with an everlasting love, and I will not
   cast you off. Though all that you now are might tend to wean Me from
   you, yet Mine is not the love of yesterday, it is not a passion like
   that which flames within some men for a brief space and then quickly
   goes out in darkness." It is God's eternal love that makes Him keep us
   in memory! He has engraved us, from all eternity, upon the palms of His
   hands and, therefore, He cannot forget us.

   Next, God's suffering love secures His memory of us. Well did we sing,
   just now--

   "The palms of My hands while I look on I see The wounds I received when
   suffering for thee!" Oh, how deeply the cruel engravers cut our names
   in Christ's dear hands! Those nails that fastened Him to the Cross were
   the engraving tools and He leaned hard while the iron pierced through
   flesh, and nerve and vein. Yet the engraving of which our text speaks
   is more than that, for the Lord Himself says, "I have engraved you upon
   the palms of My hands." The sufferings of Christ for us were such that
   never, by any possibility, can He forget us. Since He has died for us,
   He will never cast us away. By His death, on Calvary's Cross, Christ
   ensured that all those for whom He died shall live with Him in His
   Kingdom as surely as He, Himself, lives. He paid not in vain such a
   tremendous price--neither shall He lose any part of that which He has
   thus purchased for Himself! What a blessed memorial, then, is not only
   God's eternal love, but Christ's suffering love!

   Yet again, by the expression, "I have engraved you upon the palms of My
   hands," God seems to say, "I have done so much for you that I can never
   forget you." God has actively worked for His people in many ways, but I
   will only now mention what His Spirit has worked in you. What a theme
   that is! And, from the fact that the Spirit of God has worked so much
   in us, we derive the satisfaction that He will never forget us. A man
   does not forget the work of His own hands, especially if it is
   something very choice. I remember that, in the siege of Paris, a great
   artist hid away a grand picture which was then but partly finished. Did
   he forget to go to Paris when it had its liberty, and to seek out his
   painting? Assuredly not! He remembered the work of his own hands and
   back he went to draw it out and put the finishing touches to it. So God
   has done too much for us for Him ever to lose us. Has He not created us
   anew in Christ Jesus, and given His Spirit to dwell within us? Then,
   surely, He will never turn away from work so costly, so Divine--but He
   will complete it to His own praise and Glory!

   But, once more, when a memorial is engraved on a man's hand, then it is
   connected with the man's life. While he lives, that memorial is a part
   of his life. So is it with God. He has linked His people with His life.
   Our Lord Jesus said to His disciples, "Because I live, you shall live
   also." The union between your Incarnate God and yourself is a thing
   which is so complete that your life is intertwined with His life!
   Christ and you have become one fabric. To tear you away would be to
   destroy Him. "Your life is hidden with Christ in God" and until Christ
   Himself shall die, His people shall not die. Oh, think of this wondrous
   mystery! The ever-blessed Son of God is bound up in the bundle of life
   with all His people!

   This I take to be the meaning of the Lord's words, "I have engraved you
   upon the palms of My hands." I cannot go deeper into this blessed
   subject, but I pray God to take you deeper, for there is a great depth
   here.

   III. Now, Beloved, I turn to the third head of my discourse, upon which
   I will be very brief. We have had a fear expressed and a comfort
   bestowed. Now, here is AN INSPECTION INVITED. "Behold," says Jehovah,
   "Behold, I have engraved you upon the palms of My hands."

   Come, then. "Behold." Look for yourselves. There is God the Father. Did
   you say that He had forsaken you? But how can that be? Behold, and see.
   He is your Father if you are trusting in His Son, Jesus Christ. Do you
   forget, do you forsake your own children? Tell me! You had a boy who
   well-near broke your heart. He went away and you were sadly glad when
   he went, for he had so grieved you that you thought it better that he
   should be out of sight. But have you forgotten him? Suppose he came
   back tonight? 'Tis years, now, since he left you without your blessing.
   Mother, you have never heard from him. Father, no tidings of your boy
   ever come to you. But if, when you went home tonight, there should be a
   big fellow sitting by the fireside--not your boy any longer, and yet
   your own long lost son--after the first surprise and after you had seen
   that it was your son, tell me, Mother, would you turn him out of doors
   for all his ingratitude to you? Father, what would you do, first of
   all? I know what I would do if it were my case--I would fondly kiss
   that cheek, and bless God that I had lived to see my son again,
   whatever he might have been, and however much he might have grieved me!
   If you, then, being evil, neither forget nor forsake your children,
   will your Father who is in Heaven forget you? Behold, and see if it is
   possible! God the everlasting Father does so intensely love, so
   Infinitely love His own children that it must never be dreamt for a
   moment that it is possible for Him to forget any one of them!

   Come, now, and look again. Behold, by faith, the second Person of the
   Blessed Trinity in Unity, Jesus, the Lamb of God. Look at Him on the
   Cross. Oh, what griefs He bore there for His people! Take down the
   blessed body--(you can scarcely bear to handle it), and help to wrap it
   in its linen cloths, and lay it in the tomb. Why did He suffer thus?
   Why did He die? For His own loved ones! Then, can He ever forget them?
   Is it possible? After all that agony, can Jesus forget? Oh, no! Our
   children may forget us, but the mother remembers how she suffered for
   the child and she loves it for the very pangs she endured in its birth.
   She knows the struggles of her widowhood to find bread for the
   child--how she starved herself to satisfy its hunger. Oh, what agony
   and self-denial some parents have suffered for their children! But
   these make them all the dearer and render it all the more impossible
   that they should ever forget them. Well, then, remembering all this,
   look into the face of your Savior, who died for you, and will you dare
   to say that He can possibly forget you? It cannot be! He has engraved
   you upon the palms of His hands and He will never forget or forsake
   you!

   Then think, also, of that dear and blessed Spirit of God who has come
   into your heart and striven with you when you resisted Him and, at
   last, won the day. And, since then, has helped your infirmities,
   checked your hastiness, awakened you from your sloth and been
   everything to you that He could be--and do you think that, after all
   this, He will ever forget or forsake you? Oh, if He had meant to cast
   you away, He has had many opportunities when He might have done so!
   Surely, He would never have come to dwell in such a hovel as your
   fallen nature is if He had not intended to transform it and make it
   into a pure alabaster palace wherein the living God might dwell!
   "Behold," says the Lord. That is, look into this great Truth of
   God--look deeply into it--and then say to yourself, "My fears of being
   forgotten or forsaken are all gone, for I am engraved upon the palms of
   His hands."

   IV. So I close by referring very briefly to the last point, which is
   this, A RETURN SUGGESTED. I want, Brothers and Sisters, to speak in a
   very homely and familiar way to each one of you and, at the same time,
   to

   be speaking to myself as well as to you.

   Does Christ remember us as I have tried to prove that He does? Then,
   let us remember Him. To that end He ordained that blessed Supper to
   which many of us are presently coming--the eating of the bread and the
   drinking of the cup in memory of Him. "This do you in remembrance of
   Me." Now try to forget everything but your Lord and Savior. Pass an

   act of oblivion on all your cares, troubles and sorrows--and only look
   at Him as though, like a mysterious stranger, He stood at the pew door
   and leaned over you, and you seemed to feel His shadow falling upon
   you. Now think of Him, for He is very near you, and you are very near
   to Him.

   And, Brothers and Sisters, let us not only remember Him at His Table,
   but let us remember Him constantly. Let us, as it were, carry His name
   upon the palms of ourhands. Let us ask God to help us always to think
   of Jesus--never to forget Him, but to have the memory of Him
   intertwined with our very breathing, with the pulsing of our
   blood--till our whole nature, like a bell, shall ring out but one note,
   and that shall be love to Jesus! And our heart shall be like
   Ana-creon's harp, of which he said that he wished to sing of the deeds
   of Cadmus, but his heart and his harp resounded only love. Oh, for the
   love of Christ to be the one all-engrossing, all-absorbing theme of our
   entire being, till we truly say to Christ, "I have engraved You upon
   the palms of my hands."

   And, Brothers and Sisters, let us remember Christ practically. We ought
   so to wear Christ on our hands that whatever we touch should be thereby
   Christianized. I have heard of the "christening" of babies--that is an
   idle superstition and a perversion of Christ's ordinance of Believers'
   Baptism--but I believe in the Christening of everything a Christian
   touches! Make it all Christ-like by doing everything in the name of the
   Lord Jesus, as the Apostle Paul says, "Whether therefore you eat, or
   drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." Thus engrave
   His name upon the palms of your hands.

   And, so Brothers and Sisters, let the name of Christ and your memory of
   it become vital to you. Not with a broad phylactery, not with the
   borders of your garments enlarged, not with outward signs and tokens of
   which some think a good deal too much in these days--for true religion
   consists not in a dress of this cut or that, nor does it lie in
   boasting, like Pharisees, what we are, sounding our own praise at the
   corners of the streets that all may know it and observe! True religion
   lies in this--that we cannot live without Christ, that our ordinary
   life becomes uplifted by the Christ who dwells within us till every
   meal is a sacrament, every garment is a vestment, every place is an
   altar, and the whole world a temple in which we are kings and priests
   because God has made us so! Unto this may we each of us come, and come
   now!

   If any of you have not yet believed in Jesus, oh, how I wish you would!
   As I am going away for a while, I shall not be able to speak personally
   to you for some time to come, but I hope that those whom my voice has
   failed to influence, may be reached by some other servant of the Lord
   Jesus Christ who shall occupy this pulpit to speak to you in my
   absence. Oh, that you all knew my Lord! There is none like Him! His
   bonds are freedom! His service is rest! To die for Him is life! To live
   for Him is Heaven! God bring you to Him and fasten you to Him forever!
   Amen, and Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN14:1-21.

   We have often read this chapter, both in our private meditations and at
   our public worship, but we cannot read it too often. It is sweet as
   honey and the honeycomb. It contains the very quintessence of
   consolation. Every word in the chapter is rich and full of meaning.
   Perhaps they understand it best who cannot read it quickly, but are
   obliged to spell over every word of it and so are like those who feast
   upon marrow and fatness.

   Verse 1. Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe
   also in Me. That is the cure for heart-trouble, and all other trouble,
   too--believing in God, and believing in His Son, Jesus Christ. Faith is
   the double cure of trouble, for it delivers us altogether from the
   trouble and, at the same time, it helps us to find sweetness in it as
   long as we have to endure it. Notice that our Savior says, "Let not
   your heartbe troubled." If your heart can be preserved from trouble,
   you will not be greatly tried by it. Trouble is in your house, perhaps,
   but, if so, let it not get into your heart. The waves beat all round
   your vessel, but let not the vessel itself leak and take in the water.
   "Let not your heart be troubled."

   2. In My Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would
   have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. This was very largely
   the cause of their trouble--they were full of sorrow because their Lord
   and Master was going away from them. Yet He was going for their good.
   It was with a set purpose that He was leaving them, and the same reason
   still keeps Him away from us. We are not to mourn for Him as we might
   for one slain in battle who would never come back to us. He has gone
   for a little while to another country, to the great Father's House,
   upon a most gracious and nec-

   essary errand--"I go to prepare a place for you." The Spirit of God is
   down here to prepare us for the place--the Son of God is up yonder to
   prepare the place for us!

   3. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and
   receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. Do not
   tell us about a "purgatory" for Christ's people, a limbo in which they
   are to be awhile to be prepared to share His Glory. No, He will come at
   the right time and take them to be where He is, and they shall have the
   very place that Jesus has! "I will come again, and receive you unto
   Myself; that where I am, there you may be also." Do you need a better
   rest than that after all your work and warfare here below? Does not
   this prospect cheer you while you are journeying down the hill of life?
   It is better on ahead.

   4. And where 1 go you know, and the way you know. "You know that I am
   going to the Father, and you know that I am, Myself, the Way to the
   Father; I am going from where I came."

   5. 6. Thomas said unto Him, Lord, we knownot where You go; and how can
   we know the way? Jesus said unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the
   Life. "I am all that you need on your Way to Heaven--the Truth that
   will make Heaven for you--and the Life which you will enjoy with Me
   forever in Heaven. I give you all that while you are yet here

   below."

   6. No man comes unto the Father, but by Me. There is no getting to God
   except through Christ. Those who say that we can go to Heaven without a
   Mediator know not what they say, or say what they know to be a lie!
   There can be no acceptable approach to the Father except by Jesus
   Christ the Son!

   7. If you had known Me, you should have known My Father also. For
   Christ is also "the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father." All the
   Character of God is seen in the Christ of God, and he who truly comes
   to Christ has really come to the Father.

   7. And from henceforth you know Him, and have seen Him. I hope that
   this may be said of many of us, that we do truly know God and, since we
   have seen Christ by faith, we have seen the Father also.

   8. Philip said unto Him, Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us.
   What a comfort these questions and blunders of Thomas and Philip ought
   to be to us, for it is clear that we are not the only dolts in Christ's
   school! And if He could bear with them, He can bear with us also. Like
   they, how little do we retain of that which He teaches us! We are
   taught much, but we learn little, for we are such poor scholars. Our
   memory holds but little and our understanding still less of what we
   have been taught, and we are all too apt to want something that we can
   see, just as Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices
   us."

   9-11. Jesus said unto him, Have I been so long a time with you, and yet
   have you not known Me, Philip? He that has seen Me has seen the Father;
   and why do you say, then, Show us the Father? Don't you believe that I
   am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak unto
   you, I speak not of Myself but the Father that dwells in Me, He does
   the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: or
   else believe Me for the very works' sake. Note how the Master continued
   to urge His disciples to believe. Again and again He returned to that
   vital point--"Do you believe?".. .believe Me.. .believe Me." This He
   did because there is no relief from heart-trouble but by believing the
   everlasting Truth of God and especially by believing Him who is "the
   Truth." The Believer, alone, has true peace of heart. The unbeliever is
   tossed to and fro on the billows of the great ocean of doubt--how can
   he rest? There is nothing for him to rest upon. Happily, Christ is
   still saying, "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest," and they are
   truly wise who accept His gracious invitation!

   12. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believes on Me, the works
   that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do;
   because I go unto My Father When Christ had gone back to the Father, He
   opened all Heaven's treasures for His people. He bestowed the Spirit of
   all Grace, and so His servants were helped to do even greater works
   than He, Himself, did while He was upon the earth. We cannot add
   anything to His Atonement--that work must forever stand as complete and
   unique--but there are other forms of service in which He engaged in His
   earthly ministry, in which His servants have gone far beyond Him. The
   Lord Jesus Christ never preached a sermon after which 3,000 were
   converted and baptized in one day. To a large extent He kept His
   personal ministry within the bounds of Palestine, but, after His
   Resurrection, when the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost, then, in the
   power of the Spirit, greater works than His were worked the wide world
   over!

   13, 14. And whatever you shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the
   Father may be glorified in the Son. If you shall ask anything in My
   name, I will do it. Is that promise true to every man? Certainly not!
   It was made by Christ to His own disciples and not absolutely to all of
   them, but only to them as they believe in Him, as they are filled with
   His Spirit, and as they keep His commandments. There are some of God's
   children who have little power with Him in prayer--some who walk so
   disorderly that since they do not listen to God's Words, He will not
   listen to theirs. Yet He will give them necessities as you give even to
   your naughty and disobedient children. But He will not give them the
   luxury of prevailing prayer and that full fellowship with Him which
   comes through abiding in Him. Such luxuries He saves for His obedient
   children who are filled with His Spirit. Even under the old
   dispensation, David wrote, "Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shall
   you dwell in the land, and verily you shall be fed. Delight yourself
   also in the Lord; and He shall give you the desires of your heart." And
   in a very special sense, under the new dispensation, that spirituality
   of mind which enables us to delight in God is a necessary antecedent to
   our obtaining the desires of our heart in the high and spiritual sphere
   of prayer.

   15-17. If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the
   Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with
   you forever; even the Spirit of Truth; whom the world cannot receive,
   because it sees Him not, neither knows Him. The world is carnal. It is
   unspiritual. Therefore, it is unable to see or to know the Spirit of
   God. A man outside a spiritual nature cannot recognize the Holy
   Spirit--he must be born again before he can do so. You who are only
   soul and body need to receive that third and loftier principle--the
   spirit which is worked in us by the Spirit of God! Until you have it,
   this verse applies to you--"The Spirit of Truth; whom the world cannot
   receive, because it sees Him not, neither knows Him."

   17. But you know Him. Christ's own disciples know Him.

   17-19. For He dwells with you, andshall be in you. I will not leave you
   comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world sees
   Me no more; but you see Me: because I live, you shall live also. Oh,
   what a rich promise! How, then, can Christ's people ever perish? Until
   Christ Himself perishes, no child of His can ever be lost!

   20. At that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me,
   and I in you. Three wondrous mysteries of union--Christ in the Father,
   the Church in Christ, and Christ in His Church.

   21. He that has My commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves
   Me: and he that loves Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love
   him, and will manifest Myself to him. May we be such lovers of Christ
   that He may love us and manifest Himself to us, for His name's sake!
   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Christ Crucified

   (No. 2673)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MAY 6, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK, ON A LORD'S-DAY EVENING, EARLY IN
   THE YEAR 1858.

   "For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ
   and Him crucified." 1 Corinthians 2:2.

   CORINTH was situated in the midst of a people who admired eloquence and
   wisdom. This Epistle was written in the age of orators and
   philosophers. The Apostle Paul was a man of profound learning--he had
   been educated at the feet of Gamaliel in all the wisdom of the East. We
   are quite sure he was a man of a very capacious mind, for, although his
   writings were inspired by the Holy Spirit, yet the Holy Spirit chose as
   His instrument a man evidently possessing the capacity for strong and
   vigorous thought and argument and, as for his oratorical powers, I
   believe that if he had chosen to cultivate them, they would have been
   of the very first order, for we have in some of his Epistles eloquence
   more sublime than ever fell from the lips of Cicero or Demosthenes.

   The temptation would exist, in the mind of any ordinary man entering
   into such a city as Corinth, to say within himself, "I will endeavor to
   excel in all the graces of oratory. I have a blessed Gospel to preach
   that is worthy of the highest talents that ever can be consecrated to
   it. I am," Paul might have said to himself, "largely gifted in the
   matter of eloquence. I must now endeavor to carefully polish my periods
   and so to fashion my address as to excel all the orators who now
   attract the Corinthians to listen to them. This I may do very laudably,
   for I will still keep in view my intention of preaching Jesus
   Christ--and I will preach Jesus Christ with such a flow of noble
   language that I shall be able to win my audience to consider the
   subject."

   But the Apostle resolved to do no such thing. "No," he said, "before I
   enter the gates of Corinth, this is my firm determination--if any good
   is to be done there, if any are led to believe in Christ the Messiah,
   their belief shall be the result of hearing the Gospel--not of my
   eloquence! It shall never be said, 'Oh, no wonder that Christianity
   spreads, see what an able advocate it has.' Rather, it shall be said,
   'How mighty must be the Grace of God which has convinced these persons
   by such simple preaching, and brought them to know the Lord Jesus
   Christ by such humble instrumentality as that of the Apostle Paul!'" He
   resolved to put a curb upon his fiery tongue. He determined that he
   would be slow in speech in the midst of them and, instead of magnifying
   himself, he would magnify his office and magnify the Grace of God by
   denying himself the full use of those powers which, had they been
   dedicated to God--as indeed they were, but had they been fully
   employed, as some would have used them--might have achieved for him the
   reputation of being the most eloquent preacher upon the face of the
   earth!

   Again, he might have said, "These philosophers are very wise men. If I
   would be a match for them, I must be very wise, too. These Corinthians
   are a very noble race of people--they have, for a long time, been under
   the tutorage of these talented men. I must speak as they speak, in
   enigmas and with many sophisms. I must always be propounding some dark
   problem. I need not live in the tub of Diogenes, but if I take his
   lantern, I may do something with it. I must try and borrow some of his
   wisdom. I have a profound philosophy to preach to these clever people
   and if I liked to preach that philosophy, I should dash in pieces all
   their theories concerning mental and moral science. I have found out a
   wondrous secret and I might stand in the midst of the market and cry,
   'Eureka, Eureka, I have found it!' But I do not care to build my Gospel
   upon the foundation of human wisdom. No, if any are brought to believe
   in Christ, it shall be from the simple

   unadorned Gospel, plainly preached in unpolished language. The faith of
   my hearers, if they are converted to God, shall not stand in the wisdom
   of men, but in the power of God."

   Can you not see, dear Friends, that the Apostle had very good reasons
   for coming to this determination? When a man says that he is determined
   to do a certain thing, it looks as if he knew that it was a difficult
   thing to do. So, I think it must have been a hard thing for the Apostle
   to determine to keep to this one subject--"Jesus Christ and Him
   crucified." I am sure that nine-tenths of the ministers of this age
   could not have done it. Fancy Paul going through the streets of Corinth
   and hearing a philosopher explain the current theory of creation. He is
   telling the people something about the world springing out of certain
   things that previously existed and the Apostle Paul thinks, "I could
   easily correct that man's mistakes. I could tell him that the Lord
   created all things in six days and rested on the seventh, and show him
   in the Book of Genesis the Inspired account of the creation. But, no,"
   he says to himself, "I have a more important message than that to
   deliver." Still, he must have felt as if he would have liked to set him
   right, for, you know, when you hear a man uttering a gross lie, you
   feel as if you would like to go in and do battle with him. But instead
   of that, the Apostle just thinks, "It is not my business to set the
   people right about their theory of the creation of the world. All that
   I have to do is to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

   Besides, in Corinth, there was now and then sure to be a political
   struggle, and I have no doubt that the Apostle Paul felt for his
   people, the Jews, and he would have liked to see all his Jewish kindred
   have the privilege of citizenship. Sometimes the Corinthians would hold
   a public meeting in which they would support the opinion that the Jews
   ought not to have citizenship in Corinth--might not the Apostle have
   made a speech at such a gathering? If he had been asked to do so, he
   would have said, "I know nothing about such matters! All I know is
   Jesus Christ and Him crucified." They had political lectures, no doubt,
   in Corinth, and one man delivered a lecture upon this subject, and
   another upon that. In fact, all kinds of wonderful themes taken from
   the ancient poets were descanted upon by different men. Did not the
   Apostle Paul take one of the lectures? Did he not say, "I may throw a
   little Gospel into it and so do some good ?" No, he said, "I come here
   as Christ's minister and I will never be anything else but Christ's
   minister. I will never address the Corinthians in any other character
   than that of Christ's ambassador. For one thing, only, have I
   determined to know, and that is Jesus Christ and Him crucified." Would
   to God that all the ministers of this age had determined to do the
   same!

   Do you not sometimes find a minister who takes a prominent part in an
   election, who thinks it his business to stand forth on the political
   platform of the nation? And did it ever strike you that he was out of
   his place, that it was his business to know nothing among men except
   Jesus Christ and Him crucified? Do we not see, at every corner of our
   streets, a lecture advertised to be delivered on this and that and the
   other subject, by this minister and that, who leave their pulpits in
   order that they may be enabled to deliver lectures upon all kinds of
   subjects? "No," Paul would have said, "if I cannot spread the Gospel of
   Christ legitimately, by preaching it openly, I will not do it by taking
   an absurd title for my sermon! The Gospel shall stand or fall on its
   own merits, and with no enticing words of man's wisdom will I preach
   it. Let anyone say to me, 'Come and give able advocacy for this or that
   reform,' and my answer would be, 'I do not know anything about that
   subject, for I have determined not to know anything among you except
   Jesus Christ and Him crucified.'"

   As Albert Barnes very well says, "This should be the resolution of
   every minister of the Gospel. This is his business-- not to be a
   politician; not to engage in the strifes and controversies of men; not
   to be merely a good farmer, or scholar; not to mingle with his people
   in festive circles and enjoyments; not to be a man of taste and
   philosophy or distinguished mainly for refinement of manners; not to be
   a profound philosopher or metaphysician, but to make Christ crucified
   the grand Object of his attention and to seek always and everywhere to
   make Him known. He is not to be ashamed anywhere of the humbling
   doctrine that Christ was crucified. In this, he is to glory! Though the
   world may ridicule, though philosophers may sneer, though the rich and
   the gay may deride it, yet this is to be the grand object of interest
   to him and at no time, and in no society, is to be ashamed of it!

   "It matters not what are the amusements of society around him--what
   fields of science, or gain, or ambition, are open before him--the
   minister of Christ is to know only Christ and Him crucified. If he
   cultivates science, it is to be that he may the more successfully
   explain and vindicate the Gospel. If he becomes in any manner familiar
   with the works of art and of taste, it is that he may more successfully
   show to those who cultivate them the superior beauty and excellence of
   the Cross. If he studies the plans and the employments of men, it is
   that he may more successfully meet them in those plans and more
   successfully speak to them of the great plan of redemption! The
   preaching of the Cross is the only kind of

   preaching that will be attended with success! That which has in it much
   respecting the Divine mission, the dignity, the works, the Doctrines,
   the Person and the Atonement of Christ will be successful.

   "So it was in the time of the Apostles! So it was in the Reformation!
   So it was in the Moravian missions! So it has been in all revivals of
   religion! There is a power about that kind of preaching which
   philosophy and human reason have not. 'Christ is God's great ordinance'
   for the salvation of the world and we meet the crimes and alleviate the
   woes of the world just in proportion as we hold the Cross up as
   appointed to overcome the one and to pour the balm of consolation into
   the other."

   Would that all ministers would keep this mind, that they would do
   nothing outside the office of the ministry, that to once be a minister
   is to be a minister forever and never to be a politician, never to be a
   lecturer! That to once be a preacher is to be a preacher of Christ's
   holy Gospel until Christ takes us to Himself to begin to sing the new
   song before the Throne of God!

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, I have discharged my duty in saying these
   things. If they apply to any ministers whom you admire, I cannot help
   it. There is the text and what do we learn from it but this, that the
   Apostle Paul determined to do everything as a minister of Christ! And,
   my dear Brothers and Sisters, it is your duty to do this as hearers. As
   Christians, it is your duty and privilege to know nothing but Jesus
   Christ and Him crucified!

   I. And first, with regard to THE DOCTRINES WHICH YOU BELIEVE, I beseech
   you, do not know anything except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

   You are told by one person that such-and-such a system of theology is
   based upon the most sound principles of reason. You are told by another
   that the old doctrines which you have believed are not consistent with
   these advanced times. You will now and then be met by smart young
   gentlemen who will tell you that to be what is called a Calvinist is to
   be a long way behind this progressive age, "for you know," they say,
   "that intellectual preachers are rising up and that it would be well if
   you would become a little more intellectual in the matter of preaching
   and hearing." When such a remark as that is made to any one of you, I
   beseech you to give this answer, "I know nothing but Jesus Christ and
   Him crucified. If you can tell me more about Christ than I know, I will
   thank you. If you can instruct me as to how I may become more like
   Christ, how I may live nearer in fellowship with Him, how my faith in
   Him may become stronger and my belief in His holy Gospel may become
   more firm, then I will thank you. But if you have nothing to tell me
   except some intellectual lore which you have with great pains
   accumulated, I will tell you that although it may be a very good thing
   for you to preach, and for others who are intellectual to hear, I do
   not belong to your class, nor do I wish to belong to it--I belong to
   that sect spoken against everywhere, who after the way that men call
   heresy worship the Lord God of their fathers--believing all things that
   are written in the Law and in the Prophets. I belong to a race of
   people who believe that it is not the pride of intellect, nor the pomp
   of knowledge that can ever teach men spiritual things. I belong to
   those who think that out of the mouths of babes and sucklings God has
   ordained strength, and I do not believe that out of your mouth God has
   ordained any strength at all! I belong to the men who like to sit, with
   Mary, at the feet of Jesus, and to receive just what Christ said, as
   Christ said it, and because Christ said it. I want no truth but what He
   says is the Truth of God, and no other ground for believing it but that
   He says it, and no better proof that it is true than that I feel and
   know it to be true as applied to my own heart."

   Now, dear Friend, if you can do that, I will trust you anywhere--even
   among the wisest heretics of the age! You may go where false doctrines
   are rife, but you will never catch the plague of heresy while you have
   this golden preservative of the Truth of God and can say, "I know
   nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified." As for myself, I can truly
   say that Jesus Christ and Him crucified is the sum of all knowledge to
   me. He is the highest intellectualism! He is the grandest philosophy to
   which my mind can attain! He is the pinnacle that rises loftier than my
   highest aspirations and deeper than this great Truth of God I wish
   never to fathom! Jesus Christ and Him crucified is the sum total of all
   I want to know and of all the Doctrines which I profess and preach!

   II. Next, it must be just the same in YOUR EXPERIENCE. Brothers and
   Sisters, I beseech you, in your experience know nothing except Jesus
   Christ and Him crucified.

   You may go out tomorrow not merely into the outside world, but into the
   church, the nominal church, and you will meet with a class of persons
   who take you by the ear and who invite you into their houses. And the
   moment you are there, they begin to talk to you about the Doctrines of
   the Gospel. They say nothing about Christ Jesus, but they begin at once

   to talk of the eternal decrees of God, of election and of the high
   mysteries of the Covenant of Grace. While they are talking to you, you
   say in your hearts, "What they are saying is true, but there is one
   lamentable defect in it all--their teaching is the truth apart from
   Christ." Conscience whispers, "The election that I believe is election
   in Christ. These men do not talk anything about that, but only of
   election. The redemption that I believe always has a very special
   reference to the Cross of Christ. These men do not mention Christ--they
   talk of redemption as a commercial transaction and say nothing about
   Jesus. With regard to final perseverance, I believe all that these men
   say, but I have been taught that the saints only persevere in
   consequence of their relation to Christ--these men say nothing about
   that." This minister, they say, is not sound, and that other minister
   is not sound, and let me tell you that if you get among this class of
   persons, you will learn to rue the day that you ever looked them in the
   face!

   If you must come into contact with them, I beseech you to say to them,
   "I love all truths that you hold, but my love of them can never
   overpower and supersede my love to Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And
   I tell you plainly, while I could not sit to hear erroneous doctrine, I
   could just as soon do that as sit to hear the truthful doctrine apart
   from the Lord Jesus Christ! I could not go to a place where I saw a man
   dressed in gorgeous robes, who pretended to be Christ, and was not.
   And, on the other hand, I could not go to a place where I saw Christ's
   real robes, but the Master, Himself, was absent--what I need is not His
   robe--I need the Master, Himself. And if you preach to me dry doctrine
   without Jesus Christ, I tell you it will not suit my experience, for my
   experience is just this--that while I know my election, I can never
   know it unless I know my union with the Lamb. I tell you plainly that I
   know I am redeemed, but I cannot bear think of redemption without
   thinking of the Savior who redeemed me. It is my boast that I shall
   endure to the end, but I know--each hour makes me know--that my
   endurance depends upon my standing in Christ. I must have that Truth
   preached in connection with the Cross of Christ."

   Oh, have nothing to do with these people, unless it is to set them
   right, for you will find that they are full of the gall of bitterness
   and the poison of asps is under their tongue! Instead of giving you
   things whereon your soul can feed, they will make you full of all
   manner of bitterness, malice and evil speaking against those who truly
   love the Lord Jesus, but who differ from them in some slight matter.

   You may meet with another class of persons who will take you by the
   other ear, and say to you, "We, too, love Christ's doctrines, but we
   believe that our friends on the other side of the road are wrong. They
   do not preach enough experience." And you say, "Well, I think I have
   got among the people who will suit me, now," and you hear the minister
   insisting that the most precious experience in the world is to know
   your own corruption, to feel the evil of the human heart, to have that
   filthy dunghill turned over and over in all its reeking noisomeness and
   exposed before the sun! And after hearing the sermon, which is full of
   pretended humility, you rise from your seats more proud than you ever
   were in your lives, determined now that you will begin to glory in that
   very thing which you once counted as dross! The things which you were
   ashamed, once, to speak of, you now think should be your boast! That
   deep experience which was your disgrace shall now become the crown of
   your rejoicing! You speak to the dear Brothers and Sisters who imbibe
   this view and they tell you to seek first, not the Kingdom of God and
   His righteousness, but the hidden things of the prison, the discovery
   of the unrighteousness and unholiness of the soul.

   my dear Friends, if you wish to have your lives made miserable! If you
   want to be led back to the bondage of Egypt. If you want to have
   Pharaoh's rope put round your necks once again, take their motto for
   your motto. But if you wish to live as I believe Christ would have you
   live, I would entreat you to say, "No, it does me good, sometimes, to
   hear of the evil heart, but I have made a determination to know nothing
   but Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and you do not tell me anything
   about Him." These men preach one Sunday upon the leper, but do they
   preach, the next Sunday, upon the leper healed! These men tell all
   about the filthy state of the human heart, but they say little or
   nothing about that river that is to cleanse and purify it! They say
   much about the disease, but not so much about the Physician! And if you
   attend their ministry very long, you will be obliged to say, "I shall
   get into such a doleful condition that I shall be tempted to imitate
   Judas and go out and hang myself! So, good morning to you, for I have
   determined to know nothing in my experience but Jesus Christ and Him
   crucified."

   1 must be very earnest in trying to warn you about this matter, for
   there is a growing tendency, among a certain order of professing
   Christians, to set up something in experience beside Jesus Christ and
   Him crucified. Tell me that your experience is all concerned with the
   Lord Jesus Christ, and I will rejoice in it. The more of Christ there
   is in it, the more

   precious it is. Tell me that your experience is full of the knowledge
   of your own corruptions, and I answer, "If there is not in it a mixture
   of the knowledge of Christ, and unless the knowledge of Christ
   predominates to a large degree, your experience is wood, hay and
   stubble and must be consumed--and you must suffer loss."

   By the way, let me tell you a little story about Bunyan's Pilgrim's
   Progress. I am a great lover of John Bunyan, but I do not believe him
   Infallible. The other day I met with a story about him which I think a
   very good one. There was a young man in Edinburgh who wished to be a
   missionary. He was a wise young man. So he thought, "If I am to be a
   missionary, there is no need for me to transport myself far away from
   home. I may as well be a missionary in Edinburgh." There's a hint to
   some of you ladies who give away tracts in your district, but never
   give your servant Mary one. Well, this young man started and he was
   determined to speak to the first person he met. He met one of those old
   fishwives-- those of us who have seen them can never forget them--they
   are extraordinary women, indeed! So, stepping up to her, he said, "Here
   you are, coming along with your burden on your back. Let me ask you if
   you have got another burden, a spiritual burden." "What?" she asked.
   "Do you mean that burden in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress? Because
   if you do, young man, I got rid of that many years ago, probably before
   you were born.

   "But I went a better way to work than the pilgrim did. The evangelist
   that John Bunyan talks about was one of your parsons that do not preach
   the Gospel, for he said, 'Keep that light in your eye and run to the
   wicket-gate.' Why, man alive! That was not the place for him to run to!
   He should have said, 'Do you see that Cross? Run there at once!' But,
   instead of that, he sent the poor pilgrim to the wicket-gate first--and
   much good he got by going there! He got tumbling into the slough and
   was like to have been killed by it."

   "But did not you," the young man asked, "go through any Slough of
   Despond?" "Yes, I did. But I found it a great deal easier going through
   with my burden off than with it on my back." The old woman was quite
   right! John Bunyan put the getting rid of the burden too far off from
   the commencement of the pilgrimage. If he meant to show what usually
   happens, he was right, but if he meant to show what ought to have
   happened, he was wrong. We must not say to the sinner, "Now, Sinner, if
   you will be saved, go to the baptismal pool, go to the wicket-gate, go
   to the church--do this or that." No, the Cross should be right in front
   of the wicket-gate and we should say to the sinner, "Throw yourself
   down there and you are safe. But you are not safe till you can cast off
   your burden and lie at the foot of the Cross and find peace in Jesus."

   III. Let me conclude by saying, Brothers and Sisters, determine, from
   this hour, that IN YOUR FAITH you will know nothing but Jesus and Him
   crucified.

   I am perfectly certain that I have not a grain of my own merit to trust
   in and not so much as an atom of creature strength to rely upon, but I
   often find myself, during the seven days of the week, relying upon
   merit of my own that does not exist, and depending upon strength of my
   own which I, at the same time, confess has no existence at all. You and
   I often call the "Pope," the antichrist, but do we not, ourselves,
   often play the antichrist, too? The "Pope" sets himself as the head of
   the Church, but do not we go further by setting ourselves up,
   sometimes, to be our own saviors? We do not say so, except in a sort of
   still small voice, like the mutterings of the old wizards. It is not a
   loud, out-spoken lie, because we would know, then, how to answer it.
   "But now," whispers the devil, "how well you did that!" And then we
   begin to rely upon our works, and Satan says, "You prayed so well
   yesterday, you will never be cold in your prayers again. And you will
   be so strong in your faith that you will never doubt your God again."

   It is the old golden calf that is set up once more, for, although it
   was ground to powder, it seems to have the art of coming together
   again! After we have been told, ten times over, that we cannot have any
   merit of our own, we begin to act as if we had! And the man who tells
   you, in his doctrine, that all his fresh springs are in Christ, yet
   thinks and acts just as if he had fresh springs of his own--he mourns
   as if all his dependence were upon himself and groans as if his
   salvation depended upon his own merits! We often get to talking, in our
   own souls, as if we did not believe the Gospel at all, but were hoping
   to be saved by our own works and our own creature performances. Oh, for
   a stronger determination to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him
   crucified! I would to God that I could make that resolution, myself,
   and that you would all make it with me!

   I heard once of a countryman who was preaching, one day, and he
   preached very nicely the first half of his sermon, but towards the end
   he entirely broke down and his brother said to him, "Tom, I can tell
   you why you did not preach well at the end of your sermon. It was
   because you got on so nicely at first that devil whispered, 'Well done,
   Tom, you are

   getting on very well.' And as soon as the devil said that, you thought,
   'Tom is a very fine fellow,' and then the Lord left you." Happy would
   it have been for Tom if he could have determined to know nothing but
   Jesus Christ and Him cruci-fied--and not to have known Tom at all!

   That is what I desire to know myself, for if I know nothing but the
   power which comes from on high. I can never be less powerful at one
   time than at another and I can glory in my infirmity because it makes
   room for Christ's power to rest upon me--

   "I glory in infirmity,

   That Christ's own power may rest on me: When I am weak, then am I
   strong, Grace is my shield, and Christ my song."

   It would be a good resolution for you, Brothers, and for myself, to
   determine to know nothing about ourselves and nothing about our own
   doings. Now friend John, begin to think nothing about yourself and to
   know nothing but Jesus Christ. Let John go where he likes and be you
   relying not upon John's strength, but upon Christ's. And you, Peter,
   know nothing about Peter at all, and do not boast, "Though all men
   should deny You, yet will I never deny You," but know that Peter's Lord
   Jesus is living inside Peter--and then you may go on comfortably
   enough.

   Determine, Christian, that, by the Grace of God, it shall be your
   endeavor to keep your eye single, to keep your faith fixed only on the
   Lord Jesus, without any addition of your own works, or your own
   strength--and determining that-- you may go on your way rejoicing,
   singing of the Cross of Christ as your boast, your glory and your all!
   We are now coming to the Table of our Master, and I hope that this will
   be our determination there--to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him
   crucified. And may the Lord give us His blessing! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: Psalm 22.

   This Psalm is headed, "To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar"--or,
   as the margin renders it, "the hind of the morning"--"A Psalm of
   David." It begins in the very depths of the Master's sorrow, when this
   great and bitter cry escaped His lips--

   Verse 1. My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?Every word is
   emphatic. "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" "All others may
   forsake Me, and I need not be greatly troubled at their absence, but
   'why have You forsaken Me?'" "Why have You forsaken Me?' I understand
   why You smite Me, for I am the Shepherd predestined to be smitten for
   the flock, but 'why have You forsaken Me?'" "Why have you forsaken
   Me?--Your only-begotten, Your well-beloved Son--'why have You forsaken
   Me?'"

   1. Why are You so far from helping Me, and from the words of My
   roaring?1 'Why have I no inflowing of Your love--no enjoyment of Your
   Presence--no whispers from Your heart? I am left alone--left
   utterly--left on the Cross--left in My direst need." God's adapted
   children do not usually talk like this. Such a lament as this has not
   often come even from the martyrs for the faith, for, as a rule, they
   have had God with them in their hour of deepest agony. But here was One
   who was far greater than they, who had to yet endure suffering from
   which they were exempted--the only perfect One was forsaken by God! You
   know that if was because He stood in our place that the Savior had this
   preeminence in suffering and sorrow.

   2. O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You hear not; and in the night
   season, and am not silent Think of what a weight that unanswered prayer
   was upon the soul of the Well-Beloved. Have you ever felt such a burden
   as that? Then, you are not alone in that experience, for He who is
   infinitely better than you had to think over His day prayers and His
   night prayers which, for a while, were not answered.

   3. But You are holy, O You that inhabits thepraises ofIsrael. Follow
   the example of your Lord, poor troubled soul. Find no fault with your
   God, even though He should forsake you. Call Him holy even though He
   should leave you. And when He seems not to hear your prayers, yet do
   not forget His praises.

   4-6. Our fathers trusted in You: they trusted, and You did deliver
   them. They cried unto You, and were delivered: they trusted in You, and
   were not confounded. But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men,
   and despised of the people. Think of our Divine Lord thus taking the
   very lowest place and becoming, as it were, something less than man--

   just that little crimson worm which has simply a life made up of blood.
   Christ likens Himself to it as He says, "I am a worm, and no man."

   7, 8. 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. Oh, these
   were cruel and cutting words! Like a sharp razor, they cut to the very
   heart of our Divine Master as He heard His enemies exulting even over
   His faith, as though it had come to nothing, for now Jehovah, Himself,
   had forsaken Him and left Him to die alone upon the tree!

   9, 10. But You are He that took Me out of the womb: You did make Me
   hope when I was upon My mother's breasts. I was cast upon You from the
   womb: You are My God from My mother's belly. Sometimes, we also may
   derive great comfort from this Truth of God to which our Savior here
   refers. When we could not help ourselves in the least degree, the Lord
   preserved us, so will He not again help us when we are at our worst?
   You who have reached your second childhood may reflect with gratitude
   and hope upon the way in which God took care of you in your first
   childhood. Then, you certainly were entirely dependent upon Him, yet
   you fared well and so you shall if each sense shall fail you--if the
   power of moving shall be taken away, and the power of sight, and the
   power of hearing--yet the Lord, who blessed you when you were just
   born, will still preserve you right to the end. You remember how the
   Lord puts this Truth in Isaiah 46:4-- "Even to your old age I am He;
   and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear;
   even I will carry, and will deliver you." Our Savior, having comforted
   Himself thus, falls to praying again.

   11, 12. Be not far from Me; for trouble is near; for there is none to
   help. Many bulls have compassed Me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset
   Me round. These were the Pharisees, the chief priests and the strong
   Roman soldiers that compassed our Savior when He was upon the Cross.

   13, 14. They gaped upon Me with their mouths, as a ravening and a
   roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of
   joint: My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of My bowels.
   Can you not see your Savior hanging on the accursed tree--every
   particle of Him, as it were, loosened from its fellow by the fever
   raging in His whole being and the anguish and deep depression of His
   spirit?

   15. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and My tongue cleaves to
   My jaws. Such was the intensity of His anguish that the fever within
   Him turned His mouth into an oven and His tongue was so dried up that
   it could scarcely stir.

   15. And You have brought Me into the dust of death. As if His whole
   body were prepared to go back into its primary elements. He feels in
   Himself the sentence pronounced upon the first Adam, "Dust you are, and
   unto dust shall you return,"

   16. For dogs have compassed Me: the assembly of the wicked have
   enclosed Me. These were the common people, the rabble, the multitude
   that thronged around, barking at Him like a pack of hungry hounds.

   16. They pierced My hands and My feet This little sentence shows that
   this Psalm must relate to the Lord Jesus. Truly did David see Him in
   vision! It happened not to David to have his hands and feet pierced,
   but this was the portion of David's Master and Lord. He could, indeed,
   say, "They pierced My hands and My feet."

   17. I may count all My bones: they look and stare upon Me. He is
   emaciated through His fasting and all the agony He has endured. And His
   bones seem to break through His skin by reason of the cruel scourging
   to which He had been subjected.

   18. 19. They part My garments among them, and cast lots upon My
   vesture. But be not You far from Me, O LORD: O My Strength. That is,
   El--the name He gave to God in the first verse--"O My Strong One."

   19-21. Hasten You to help Me. Deliver My soul from the sword; My
   precious life from the power of the dog. Save Me from the lion's mouth
   and from the horns of the wild oxen. You have heard Me. Did You notice
   that flash of light gleaming through the darkness, "You have heard Me"?
   Perhaps it was at that moment that the sun again shone forth; at any
   rate, it is clear that the lost light had returned to our suffering
   Lord, for the rest of this Divine soliloquy is full of comfort and
   confidence.

   22. I will declare Your name unto My brethren. His first thought, even
   in His agony on the Cross, was about them. And He seemed to say, "When
   I have risen from the dead, I will tell them all about this time of
   trial. And through the ages to come, I will tell My people how You did
   help Me--the greatest of all Sufferers--and that You will help them,

   also. I was left for a time, and yet I was not finally left. I cried,
   'Lama Sabachthani,' and yet I triumphed, even then, and so shall they.
   They shall do as I have done--confide and conquer."

   22. In thee midst of thee congregation will I praise You. And you know
   that He did so. He stood in the midst of His people and told them what
   God had done! And, spiritually, He stands in our midst at this moment
   and He leads our songs of praise unto Jehovah.

   23, 24. You that fear the LORD, praise Him; all you the seed of Jacob,
   glorify Him; and fear Him, all you the seed of Israel For He has not
   despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither has He
   hidden His face from Him; but when He cried unto Him, He heard. What a
   change of note! If men could hear us speak when we are in the depths of
   sorrow, they might conclude that God had forsaken us. But when we get
   out, again, how quickly we eat our words and how soon we begin to tell
   the goodness of the Lord! Then we lift up the joyous strain, "O give
   thanks unto the Lord; for He is good: for His mercy endures forever."

   25. My praise shall be of You in the great congregation: I will pay My
   vows before them that fear Him. Christ still praises God in the great
   congregation. On my way to this evening's service, I called to see one
   of our dear brethren who is very ill, and I was much refreshed with a
   sweet thing that he said--"When we all get to Heaven, we shall feel
   quite at home there, for you know, Sir, we have worshipped in a great
   congregation for these many years." And so we shall. There is something
   most exhilarating and refreshing in going with a multitude to keep holy
   day--the more, the merrier! But what shall be the joy in Heaven, where
   the number of the redeemed cannot be counted, and all shall be
   continually praising God? This was one of the joys that was set before
   Christ, for which "He endured the Cross, despising the shame."

   26. The meek shall eat and be satisfied. Even in the time of His great
   agony, our Lord was thinking of you hidden ones, you little ones who
   think yourselves worth nothing. Christ says that He was finding bread
   for you, for He gives us His flesh to eat, that flesh which is meat,
   indeed.

   26. They shall praise the LORD that seek Him: your heart shall live
   forever. Because He died, all who trust in Him shall live forever. Oh,
   how sweetly does He die, with the thought of their eternal bliss upon
   His mind!

   27. All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord:
   and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before You. He sees
   the result of His death. He beholds the fruit of His soul-travail and
   His heart is glad within Him!

   28-31. For the kingdom is the Lord's: and He is the Governor among the
   nations. All they that are fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all
   they that go down to the dust shall bow before Him: and none can keep
   alive his own soul A seed shall serve Him; it shall be accounted to the
   Lord for a generation. They shall come and shall declare His
   righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that He has done this.
   The Psalm really ends with almost the last cry of our Lord upon the
   Cross--"It is finished." So the whole Psalm is a window through which
   we can see into the inmost heart of Christ when it was being torn upon
   the Cross.
     __________________________________________________________________

Learning in Private What to Teach in Public

   (No. 2674)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MAY 13, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   DECEMBER 24, 1882.

   "What I tell you in darkness, speak in light: and what you hear in the
   ear, preach on the housetops." Matthew 10:27.

   I HOPE that many who are now present desire, beyond everything else, to
   be useful to their fellow creatures. We do not want to go to Heaven
   alone--we are most anxious to lead others to the Savior! I remember a
   very remarkable telegram which was sent from England by a lady who had
   sailed from New York with all her children. She landed in England after
   being shipwrecked and she sent her husband this brief but suggestive
   telegram, "Saved--alone." Ah, that last sad word seemed as if it took
   almost all the sweetness out of the first one. "Saved alone." May that
   never be what we shall have to say as we enter Heaven, but may we have
   the privilege of saying, "Here am I, Father, and the children whom You
   have given me." May it be my joy to be able to say, "Here am I and all
   my congregation, saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation."

   So we begin with the assurance that all of you who know the Lord want
   to be useful, but, if that is to be the case, preparation is necessary.
   You say that you are going out to battle, young man, do you? Well, do
   not be in such a hurry! You have no rifle or sword--you will be in the
   way of the other soldiers rather than an addition to them. Unless you
   are, first of all, properly trained, you will certainly make a failure
   of your soldiering. The man who jumps into the army is not a warrior
   all at once--there must be drills, there must be a certain course of
   training before he can be of any service to the Queen. So is it with
   Christ's disciples. He did not send them out to preach at once--He
   called them from their former occupations--but He kept them with
   Himself for a time till they had learned at least some of the lessons
   they were to impart to others, for how could they teach what they did
   not know? Can a thing which is not in a man come out of him? And if it
   has never been put into him, how can it be gotten out of him? So our
   Savior, in the words of our text, encouraged His disciples to proclaim,
   even from the housetops, the Gospel which He had revealed to them, but
   He also gave them to understand that, first of all, they had need of
   preparation before they would be qualified to deliver their message.
   "What I tell you in darkness, that speak you in light: and what you
   hear in the ear, that preach you on the housetops."

   I. I want, first, to speak to you who desire to work for Jesus,
   concerning His own definition of AN INVALUABLE PRIVILEGE FOR ALL
   CHRISTIANS--"What I tell you in darkness." "What you hear in the ear."

   From our Lord's words, I learn that it is the great privilege of
   Christians to realize, first, that Christ is still alive and still with
   His people, still conversing with His chosen ones, still, by His Divine
   Spirit, speaking out of His very heart into the hearts of His true
   disciples. Christ was born an Infant, but He is no Infant now. Christ
   died, but He is not dead now. He is risen! He has gone up into His
   Glory! He sits upon the Throne of God, but, at the same time, by a very
   real spiritual Presence, He is with all His people, as He said to His
   disciples, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."
   And there is nothing that can so fit a man for holy service as to have
   Christ's eyes looking into his eyes and reading him through and
   through--and to have Christ's pierced hand laid on his heart till the
   very imprint of its wound is reproduced, filling that heart with a
   loving grief for others!

   "Oh," says one, "I think that I could speak for Christ if that should
   ever be true to me!" Ah, my Friend, you will neverspeak aright until it
   istrue to you! Not with those mortal eyes will you see Him, but your
   heartshall behold Him without any help from those dull eyes. Not with
   your ears shall you hear His voice, but your heart shall attend to His

   message without the use of those poor impediments of ears. You shall
   know that He is with you--you shall be sure of it--for His life shall
   touch your life, His Spirit shall flood your spirit and then, but not
   till then, shall you be fit to speak in His name! That is the first
   part of this invaluable privilege--we are permitted to realize our
   Lord's Presence with us personally.

   Next, we are enabled to feel Christ's Word as spoken to us--"I tell
   you." The message of the Gospel is applied directly and distinctly to
   our own soul by Christ! We do not look for any new Revelation, but we
   do expect the old Revelation to be made known to our hearts and
   consciences in all its wondrous power. We expect that the Words which
   Jesus spoke should ring in our souls with such music as they evoked
   when He first uttered them and that we should, by the working of His
   Spirit, feel the force of those Words just as they did who heard Him
   with their outward ears! And we shall never fully preach the Gospel
   till then. A man may go to Seminary, he may learn all about the letter
   of Scripture, but he is no minister of God if he has not sat at Jesus'
   feet and learned of Him. And when he haslearned of Him and the Truth of
   God has come home to his heart as his own personal possession given to
   him by Christ, then shall he speak with more than mortal power, but not
   till then! Step back into the rear rank, Sir, if Christ has never
   spoken to you thus--and wait there until He has done so. If the Master
   has given you no message, do not run--what is the use of running if you
   have nothing to tell? Do you think that you are to make up your own
   message as you run? Ah, then, you are not Christ's servant, for His
   servant waits until he has heard the message from his Master--and then
   it is both his duty and his privilege to proclaim it just as he has
   heard it! "What I tell you in darkness, that speak you in light: and
   what you hear in the ear"--"I myself whispering it into your ear, that
   you may receive it directly from Me--this it is which you are to go and
   proclaim upon the housetops."

   The text seems to imply that these communications are made to us again
   and again. There are some of us who are called to spend our whole lives
   in our Master's service. And unless we are often alone with Him,
   listening to the message He has for us to deliver, our streams will not
   continue to run. I thank God that during the last few weeks, while I
   have been in the South of France, I have had a blessed period of
   privately hearing the Word afresh from the Master. It has been a
   constant joy and delight to me to meditate again and again upon the
   Truths which I have preached, to feed upon them in my own soul and, in
   quiet communion with God, to be gathering spiritual stores of
   nourishment for you, of which, first of all, I had proved the power and
   preciousness to my own heart. I would earnestly urge all Christian
   workers to be sure to get some time alone for the prayerful study of
   the Word. The more of such time that you can get, the better will it be
   both for yourself and for others. You know that it is impossible for a
   sower of seed to be always scattering, and never gathering--the seed
   basket must be filled again and again, or the sowing must come to an
   end. You cannot keep on distributing bread and fish to the multitude,
   as the disciples did, unless every now and then you go back to the
   Master and say, "My Lord, I need more bread and more fish, for my
   supply is running short. Give me more, that I may give out more."

   Make such occasions as often as you can. I am glad to see so many of
   you, my young Friends, busy for the Master, but I pray you not to
   forget that it was Mary, who sat at the Master's feet, of whom He said
   that she had chosen that good part which should not be taken away from
   her! It is well to be like Martha, busy on your Lord's behalf, but you
   cannot do without Mary's quiet meditation. You must have the
   contemplation as well as the activity, or else you will do mischief and
   not really honor the Master. Suppose you see a carpenter with a little
   hammer in his hand go round the workshop and gently tap a hundred nails
   on the head? You would rightly say that he has not done any good at
   all! But here is another workman with a good heavy hammer--and when he
   hits a nail, he drives it home--and he does not leave it till he has
   driven it home and clinched it, too. There is a way of seemingto be
   doing a great deal and yet really doing nothing. And there is also a
   way of apparently doing but little, but then it is good solid work,
   thoroughly well done. Nobody can do this solid, permanent work, in a
   spiritual sense, without often getting alone with the Lord Jesus
   Christ.

   Avail yourselves also, dear Friends, of those special opportunities
   which God makes for you to receive His messages. Sometimes He takes one
   of His servants and puts him away for a while. "Be you silent," He
   says, "and I will talk to you." Perhaps the Lord takes away the
   strength, the bodily vigor of His servant. There is the Christian woman
   who longs to be going up and down her district, laid upon a sick bed.
   Or there is the earnest, faithful Sunday school teacher no longer able
   to instruct his class. Yet it is in God's wisdom that the nets are
   sometimes drawn out of the water, that there may be an opportunity to
   mend them--otherwise they would not always take the fish that are ready
   to be caught! It is true

   economy to let the cannon rest till it gets cool, or else there may be
   mischief done to the men who are firing it, instead of to the enemy!
   And all of us need rest, every now and then, if we are to be fitted for
   future service. Above all, we need often to go to Christ, to get from
   His hand a fresh stock of that Gospel provision which we are afterwards
   to dispense to the people in His name. I pray you who are seeking to
   serve the Savior, to take good note of the advice I have been trying to
   give you.

   II. Now, secondly, this going to Christ, to hear the Word directly from
   Him, is itself A MOST BLESSED PREPARATORY PROCESS FOR ALL CHRISTIAN
   WORKERS. Let me show you how it is so.

   First, if you get your message of mercy directly and distinctly from
   the living Christ, you will have the Truth of God in its
   personality--living, acting, feeling, for He is "the way, the truth and
   the life." The message will come to you with power because He uttered
   it and you will, therefore, preach Him as well as it. We do not want a
   misty, cloudy Christ--a sort of impalpable phantom, to comfort us--we
   want a real Christ, God and Man, really among us and really able to
   save unto the uttermost all them that come unto God by Him. So, my dear
   Brother, if you go to Him for your message, you will be sure not to
   forget Him! He will be real to you and your teaching will make Him real
   to other people. Some ministers preach very finely about Christ, but
   that which saves sinners is preaching Christ Himself. He is our
   salvation and we shall never put that salvation in tangible, graspable,
   real form unless we go to Him and get distinctly from Himself the
   message we are to deliver on His behalf.

   By doing this, we shall also have the Truth of God in all its purity.
   You know that when the light of the Gospel shines through me, it takes
   a little tinge of color from me, just as when it shone through Luther,
   there was a Lutheran shade about the Truth. And when it shone through
   John Calvin, there was a Calvinistic tinge. Shining through any man,
   God's light will be tinged to a certain extent, just as it is when
   shining through the very best glass that was ever made. You had better
   get into the sunlight for yourself, so that you may have it in all its
   purity. I am of the mind of that man who said that the milk was so bad
   where he lived that he would move into the country and keep a cow for
   himself. It is just so with the Gospel--there is nothing like going to
   the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, as to the wellhead of doctrine, and
   saying to Him, "Master, what do You teach? What can I learn from You?"
   Our unfailing rule is--What did Jesus say about this or that? How did
   His Spirit speak by the Apostles? It is that living with Christ, from
   day to day, which will give us the Truth of God in all its purity!

   And it will also give us the Truth of God in its due proportions. We
   are, all of us, lopsided in one way or another. I suppose that there is
   not a pair of eyes in this world that is absolutely a pair. There is
   scarcely anything about us that is exactly as it ought to be--we are,
   all of us, somewhat wrong and, therefore, there is no man who teaches
   all the Truth of God in its exact proportions. One man sees the
   responsibility of man and he preaches it. Another sees the Sovereignty
   of God and he preaches that. Cannot we find a Brother who preaches both
   those Truths? Yes, no doubt we can, but, then, that Brother will
   probably fail to see some other Truth of God. If we knew all Truths in
   their right proportions, we would be God rather than man, for we would
   practically possess Omniscience! But to avoid giving undue prominence
   to any one Truth of God and casting another Truth into the shade, the
   best remedy is to get your teaching directly from Christ, Himself. You
   think you see a certain doctrine in the Bible. Well, then, take it to
   Him who gave you the Bible and say, "Blessed Lord Jesus, by Your
   Spirit, teach this doctrine to me. Let me know, by Your teaching, what
   this passage of Scripture means, for I am prepared to receive whatever
   You impart to me."

   If you do this, dear Friends, you will get the Truth of God in its
   personality, in its purity and in its due proportions.

   And, let me add, that you will then get the Truth of God in its power
   When the Truth of God has broken your heart and, afterwards, bound it
   up. When Christ has so spoken it to you that you have felt the power of
   it, then you will speak it as men should speak who are ambassadors for
   God! George Fox was called a Quaker because, when he preached, he often
   trembled and quaked. Was that folly on his part? No, for he had so felt
   the power of what he spoke that his very body was full of emotion while
   he delivered the Truths of God to others. And well may you and I also
   tremble at the Word of the Lord. But, on the other hand, whenever that
   Word comes home with sweetness to the heart, you must often have
   noticed with what sweetness the man proclaims it to others. There is
   nobody who can preach the Gospel like the man who has experienced its
   power! You know that the tale of a tale, the report of a report, is a
   very poor thing--but when a man gets up and says, concerning some
   notable event, "I was there, I saw it all"--then you listen to him. So,
   if you can say of Christ, "He is, indeed, precious, for He is precious
   to me. He can save, for He has saved me. He can com-

   fort, cheer and gladden, for He has done all that to me"--then you
   speak with power to others because Christ has spoken with power to you!

   And there is something more than that. A man who receives the Gospel
   distinctly from Christ will speak the Truth in Christ's spirit Did you
   ever hear a man preach the Gospel in a passion? You wonder at my
   question, yet such a thing has happened. But if you are present on such
   an occasion, you feel sure that the man did not get his message--or, at
   any rate, he did not get his manner--from his Master! The other day I
   saw a man offer a bit of bread to a poor, lean, half-starved dog. The
   animal did not seem to care for bread, so he turned away and, then,
   directly, the man was so angry with the creature because he would not
   have the bread that he threw a stone at it. There is a certain kind of
   preaching that is just like that--the minister seems to say, "You dogs
   of sinners, there is the Gospel for you--will you have it? If you do
   not, I will throw a stone at you!" Well now, neither dogs nor men
   admire that sort of treatment and, certainly, the Lord Jesus Christ
   never intended us to deliver His message in that kind of fashion!

   There are some, I believe, who preach the Doctrines of Grace very much
   as a dog of mine acts with his rug. When I go home tonight, he will
   bring it out and drag it up to my feet just because he wants me to try
   and take it away from him, that he may growl over it. So have I seen
   some people preach the Doctrine of Election and other Truths of God
   like it, as if they wanted some Arminian to try to run away with them,
   or have a fight over them! Now that is not the way which Christ teaches
   us to preach! He never bids us proclaim the Gospel in such a way that
   we seem to want to make an Irish fight over it. No, no, no--go direct
   to Christ for the Truth of God and you will preach it strongly,
   honestly, openly, positively--and you will always preach it with love.

   That is the plan I recommend to you--the system of getting the Gospel
   fresh from the mouth of Jesus--and then delivering it, as far as we
   can, in Jesus Christ's tones and in Jesus Christ's spirit. I can assure
   you, my dear Friends, that we shall never know how Jesus preached till
   we hear Him speak in our hearts and then endeavor to imitate the tone
   of that speech which our inward ears have heard. Oh, to preach Christ
   in a Christly way--to tell of mercy in the spirit of mercy and to
   preach Divine Grace in a truly gracious way!

   Here is the time to say that if you go to Christ for all the Truth of
   God you preach and if you proclaim it in His way, then you will preach
   it with what is called "unction." Do you know what unction is? I do,
   but I cannot tell you. I can tell when a man has notany unction, and I
   can tell when he has, but I do not know exactly how to define and
   describe it, except by saying that it is a special anointing from the
   Spirit of God. There is an old Romish tale of a monk who had been the
   means of converting great numbers of persons, but, on a certain
   occasion, he was detained in his journey and could not reach the
   congregation in time to conduct the service. The devil thought it was a
   fine opportunity for him to speak to the people, so, putting on the
   robe of the monk, he went into the pulpit and preached. According to
   the story, he preached about Hell--a subject with which he was well
   acquainted--and the hearers listened very attentively. Before he
   finished his discourse, the holy man appeared and made the devil
   disclose himself in his proper form. "Get out of here," said he to
   Satan, "but however dared you preach the Truth of God as you were doing
   when I came in?" "Oh," replied Satan, "I did not mind preaching the
   Truth, for there was no unction in it, so I knew that it could not do
   any hurt to my cause." It is a curious legend, but there was a great
   truth at the bottom of it--where there is no unction, it does not
   matter what we preach, or how we preach it!

   One of my friends behind me sometimes says to me, after the service, "I
   believe that God has been blessing the people, for there has been
   plenty of dew about." That is what we need--that holy dew which the
   Spirit of God so graciously bestows! You may preach to one
   congregation, but it is all in vain, for there is no dew about. But, at
   another time, it is sweet preaching and blessed hearing because there
   is plenty of dew about. And the way to get that dew is by coming
   straight out of the Master's Presence, with the Master's message
   ringing in your own ears, to proclaim it as nearly as possible as He
   has told it to you!

   Once more, this preparation for declaring the Truth is very valuable
   because it enables a man to have the Truth of God in its certainty.
   Concerning the Truth of God, questions are continually being raised
   nowadays. Many people ask, with Pilate, "What is truth?" Even preachers
   ask that question. Why do they not hold their tongues until they know?
   Suppose a servant comes to the door to bring you the answer to a
   question which you have sent to her mistress. She begins to talk on all
   sorts of subjects and you say to her, "Do you not know what the reply
   is from your mistress to my enquiry?" She says, "Well, to tell you the
   truth, I have not been to her to know what her reply is, but I am
   making up an

   answer myself." Of course you say to her, "I do not want to hear your
   answer. Go to your mistress at once and whatever message she has to
   send to me, kindly report it to me, for that is all I want to know." So
   we say to the minister, "Tell us what your Master has told you--we
   don't want to hear anything else." If he says, "I think--, uh, I beg
   your pardon, I am very anxious not to appear dogmatic, but with great
   diffidence I submit to you," you reply, "My dear Sir, we want you to be
   dogmatic! If you have been to your Master and He has given you a
   message for us, tell it to us! And if you have not been to Him and He
   has not told you anything to say on His behalf, then clear out of that
   pulpit, for you have no right to be there! Go and earn an honest living
   at breaking stones, or something of that sort."

   An ambassador who is not commissioned by his sovereign had better be
   sent home by the first ship that is going that way. He who comes
   professedly as a messenger from God and yet declares that, for the life
   of him, he does not know what God would have him preach, proclaims his
   own condemnation! And we say to him, "We cannot let our souls run the
   risk of being lost, so, if you have no message from Christ for us, we
   will not waste our time by listening to you." Be sure, dear Friends, to
   have as your minister a man who lives with God and walks with God--a
   man who leans his head on the bosom of Jesus and then comes forward and
   speaks what his Master has whispered into his ear. Men are startled
   when they hear him--they say, "Who is this fellow? Where did he learn
   such things?" But, with awful earnestness, so that his hearers
   sometimes think him half-demented, he tells what he feels that he must
   tell because he has received it from his Lord and Master! He says,
   "That is the Truth of God, whether you take it or leave it. I will
   preach to you nothing but what God has told me. I cannot and I dare not
   turn aside from what I believe to be His teaching."

   Look at Martin Luther whom God raised up to speak so bravely for Him.
   People said, "This man is so positive, so dogmatic"--but he could not
   be otherwise--his whole heart and soul were possessed by certain great
   Truths of God and he felt that he must proclaim them, whether men put
   him in prison, or dragged him away to the stake! And such a man,
   speaking after that fashion, shook the Vatican and the most powerful
   empires of the earth! And he was the means of bringing the Light of God
   to multitudes who otherwise would have remained in darkness! In like
   manner as the Reformer did, get you to your Lord, my Brother--receive
   your message from Him and what He speaks privately into your ear. Tell
   that wherever you have the opportunity, but mind that you do not tell
   anything else.

   III. Now I must finish with THE CONSEQUENT PROCLAMATION. "What I tell
   you in darkness, that speak you in light: and what you hear in the ear,
   that preach you upon the housetops."

   First, it has been told me in the ear and whispered into my very soul
   that there is pardon for the greatest guilt through faith in Jesus
   Christ--that His precious blood, shed on Calvary's Cross, is able to
   cleanse from all sin of every kind--and that as many as believe in Him
   are saved. "Their sins, which were many, are all forgiven." I heard
   this said, once, and I thought it was true. No, I heard it many times
   from those who would not have said what was false. But, on a
   never-to-be-forgotten day, I, myself, looked to Him who did hang upon
   the Cross. It had been dark days with my spirit until then and my
   burden had been exceedingly heavy. I was like a man who would have
   preferred to die rather than to live and I might even have laid violent
   hands upon myself, in the hope of ending my misery, but that the dread
   of something worse after death did haunt me.

   I found neither rest nor respite until I heard one say, "Look unto
   Christ and you shall be saved. Look, young man, look, for He says,
   'Look unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth.'" And then
   and there I did look unto Him and my sins were, at that moment,
   forgiven me! I know as surely as I know that I am standing here, and
   speaking to you, that they were forgiven! I might be made to doubt some
   things about which I feel tolerably certain, but I must absolutely lose
   my reason before I can ever doubt the fact that I then passed out of
   despair into something higher than hope--and rose from the very gates
   of Hell into a joy that is with me even now! Shall I not tell others
   what the Grace of God has done for me? Shall I not lay hold of every
   poor sinner's hand and say, "Look you to Christ and you, also, shall be
   saved, even as I was"? Shall I not, from the very housetops, shout
   again and again--

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

   Further, there is another thing that has been whispered in my ear. It
   is that by faith in Christ, the ruling power of sin is immediately
   broken and that every sin, of every kind, may be overcome by faith in
   the blood of Jesus Christ. I heard one man laughing at another because
   he said that he had a clean heart. Ah, me, but that may have been true,
   for every man who believes in Christ has a clean heart. Are you
   nominally a Christian and yet your Christianity does not make you

   holy? I implore you to throw such worthless Christianity to the dogs,
   for it is worse than useless to you! If your religion does not make you
   holy, it will damn you as surely as you are now alive! It is simply a
   painted pageantry to go to Hell in--it is not the true religion of the
   Lord Jesus Christ. He that believes in Christ shall be delivered from
   sin! He shall trample it under his feet! He may have a lifelong battle
   with it--no, I am surehe will have that, else Christ would never have
   taught His disciples to pray, "Lead us not into temptation." When there
   is no more sin in us, we need not fear temptation--there is no risk of
   fire to the man who has no tinder in his heart. The Lord can keep His
   people and He will preserve them. "He will keep the feet of His
   saints." Brother, have you fallen into drunkenness? Faith in Christ can
   turn that cup bottom upwards for you! Are you a swearer? My Master can
   rinse your mouth out so that you shall never speak in that shameful
   fashion again, or even be tempted to do so, for I have known swearers
   cured in a moment and the temptation to blaspheme has never come back
   to them! Have you been a thief, or a liar? Have you been a fornicator,
   or an adulterer? Are you unjust, unholy and unclean? There is provision
   for washing sinners such as you are! There is a Fountain opened for sin
   and for uncleanness--and Christ can deliver you from the power as well
   as from the penalty of sin! Only trust Him about it. Come and rest your
   soul upon Him. Oh, if there is a harlot here, or a man who has fallen
   into all sorts of gross sin, Christ can and will deliver you if you
   will only come and repose your heart's trust in Him!

   I cannot tell you all that I have had whispered into my ear, but I must
   mention one other thing that I know. It is that faith in Christ can
   save a man from every sort of fear in life and in death. Faith in
   Christ can make even trouble to be welcome and affliction to be
   regarded as a gain! Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ can make poverty to
   be sweet and sickness to be borne with patience. The ills of life are
   turned into blessings when once a man believes in Jesus and fully
   trusts in Him. I am not now saying what I, alone, know, but what a
   great many others here also know. There are hundreds--I might
   truthfully say thousands--here who can say the same as I can about
   these matters. Let me prove my assertion. You who have found that faith
   in Christ sweetens life to you, speak out and say, "Yes." Has Christ
   sweetened life to you who have believed in Him? If so, say, "Yes."
   [Many voices: "Yes."] Of course you can say it and you are not ashamed
   to say it over and over again! Is He the joy of your heart? [Voices:
   "Yes."] Has He made your very soul to leap within you when you have
   kept close to Him? [Voices: "Yes."] I knew that you would answer "Yes"
   to that question, for it is even so with you! There is a joy which
   sometimes comes upon the Christian--which I cannot attempt to
   describe--but it bears us right away above all physical pain and
   everything that might depress the spirit. The heart is made strong in
   the Lord and in the power of His might. Oh, He is a precious Christ! Is
   there one person here who has trusted in Christ who is willing to give
   Him up? [Voices: "No."] There is not one, I am sure. You hardly need to
   answer the question, for there never was one individual who really knew
   Christ, who could give Him up! They who leave Him have only fancied
   that they knew Him--they never really trusted Him.

   Possibly, dear Friend, you are in trouble because you say that you feel
   afraid to die tonight. Well, but perhaps you are not going to die
   tonight and, therefore, dying Grace has not yet been given to you! But
   when the time comes for you to die, then very likely you will not feel
   the slightest fear. My brother said to me, the other day, when he had
   been seeing one of our members pass away, "Brother, we can say to one
   another what the two Wesleys said, 'Our people die well.'" So they do.
   They often die shouting for very joy and, at any rate, they go Home
   peacefully, quietly welcoming the everlasting future and the Glory that
   Christ has laid up for them. Oh, yes, we know that "to die is gain."
   Some of us have been laid very low and we have thought that we were
   about to die--and we have had the greatest joy, then--greater than we
   ever knew, before, in all our lives! And, therefore, we proclaim it to
   others and we mean to tell it as long as we live!

   Salvation by Grace, through faith in Jesus, is no dream, no fiction!
   Let skeptics say what they will. Our experience-- and we are as honest
   as they are and no more fanatical than they are--our experience agrees
   with what our Lord has revealed to us in His Word and, therefore, when
   we preach the Gospel, or relate what Grace has done for us, we use
   Christ's very Words and say, "We speak what we do know and testify what
   we have seen." God grant that many of you may be able to bear similar
   testimony, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW 10:1-27.

   Verses 1-4. And when He had called unto Him His twelve disciples, He
   gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal
   all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. Now the names of the
   twelve Apostles are these. The first, Simon, who is called Peter, and
   Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother;
   Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James the
   son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus; Simon the
   Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him. The lesson to be
   learned from these names is, first, that these men are mentioned in
   couples and I think that, as a rule, God's servants work best in pairs.
   In other senses than the matrimonial one, it is not good that man
   should be alone. Moses needs Aaron; Peter needs Andrew; James needs
   John. It is well to be of such a temperament and disposition that you
   can work harmoniously with another of your Lord's servants. If you
   cannot, pray God to change you! Notice that expression, in the 3rd
   verse, "and Bartholomew." I think there is not a single instance in the
   New Testament where Bartholomew is mentioned without the word, "and,"
   before or after his name--"and Bartholomew," or, "Bartholomew and"
   someone else. Perhaps he was not a man who ever began any work by
   himself, but he was a grand man to join in and help it on when somebody
   else had started it. So, dear Friend, if you are not qualified to be a
   leader in the Church of Christ, be willing to be Number Two--but do
   serve the Master, in some capacity or other, with all your might! Be a
   Brother who carries an, "and," with him wherever he goes. Be like a
   horse that has his harness on and is ready to be hooked into the team.
   That is the lesson of the two words, "and Bartholomew." The last lesson
   from the names is at the end of the 4th verse--"and Judas Iscariot, who
   also betrayed Him." He preached of Christ. He worked miracles in the
   name of Christ. He was ordained as one of the Apostles of Christ, yet
   he was, "the son of perdition." Oh, let none of us be content merely
   with our official position, or trust in the good which we hope we have
   done, or in any gifts with which the Master has entrusted us! Judas
   Iscariot had all these marks of distinction, yet he betrayed his Lord.
   God grant that no one among us may turn out to be a Judas Iscariot!

   5, 6. These twelve Jesus sent forth and commanded them, saying, Go not
   into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter
   you not: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel The
   Gospel is now to be preached to every creature in all the world, but,
   in those days, it was to be proclaimed first to the Jews, then to the
   Samaritans and afterwards to the Gentiles as a whole. The largeness of
   our commission to "preach the Gospel to every creature" need not
   prevent our following Providential directions to make it known in one
   place rather than in another. It is well for the servants of Christ to
   always ask their Master where they are to go. You know how it is
   recorded, in the Acts of the Apostles, that Paul and Silas "essayed to
   go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered them not." Ask the Lord,
   therefore, where you shall work, as well as what your work shall be,
   for your Master knows how you can best serve Him.

   7. And as you go, preach, saying, The kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
   That blessed Kingdom, which is now set up among men, of which Christ is
   the King, and I hope many of us are the subjects. That Kingdom was then
   "at hand."

   8. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils:
   freely you have received, freely give. "Exercise your healing arts most
   freely. They cost you nothing--let them not cost anything to those who
   receive the benefit of them."

   9. 10. Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor
   scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet
   staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat They were to "quarter on
   the enemy," as we say. Wherever they went, they would be furnished with
   food, raiment and shelter if they faithfully executed the commission
   with which their Master had entrusted them.

   11-13. And into whatever city or town you shall enter, enquire who in
   it is worthy; and there abide till you go thence. And when you come
   into an house, salute it And if the house is worthy, let your peace
   come upon it: but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.
   How about your houses, dear Friends? Are they "worthy" houses in this
   New Testament sense? If an Apostle came there, could he bring "peace"
   to it? Or would he have to take the peace away with him to some other
   house that was more worthy to receive it?

   14, 15. And whoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when
   you depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.
   Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom
   and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city. Despised and
   rejected privileges make the fiercest fuel for the fires of Hell. They
   who might have heard the Gospel, but would not hear it, shall find the
   hand of God more heavy upon them than it will be even upon the accursed
   Sodomites! Woe, then, unto such as live in London, yet who will not
   hear the Word of the Lord, or, when they do hear it, will not accept
   it!

   16, 17. Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be
   you therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of
   men. ' 'Do not trust yourselves with them."

   17-19. For they will deliver you up to the councils, and they
   willscourge you in their synagogues; andyou shall be brought before
   governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony against them and the
   Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what you
   shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what you shall
   speak. "Let it not fret you that you are not orators, that you are not
   men of culture--speak what God the Holy Spirit shall teach you to
   say--and leave the result with Him."

   20. For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which
   speaks in you. Oh that is grand--when a man has so communed with God
   that the very Spirit of the Father has entered into him--then shall
   there be a wondrous power about his speech! Men may not understand from
   where it came, but they will be obliged to feel the force of it.

   21. And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the
   father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents,
   and cause them to be put to death. Read the martyrologies and see
   whether it was not exactly as our Lord foretold that it would be! In
   martyr times men often burst all the bonds of natural affection and
   betrayed even their own fathers or children to death! Yet the saints
   quaffed not--they were content to let every earthly tie be snapped so
   that the tie of their heavenly and eternal relationship might be
   confirmed. So may it be with us, also!

   22-27. Andyou shall be hated of all men for My name's sake: but he that
   endures to the end shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this
   city, flee you into another, for verily I say unto you, You shall not
   have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes. The
   disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is
   enough for the disciple that he is as his master, and the servant as
   his lord. If they have called the master of the house, Beelzebub, how
   much more shall they call them of his household? Fear them not,
   therefore, for there is nothing co vered that shall not be revealed;
   andhidden, that shallnot be known. What I tellyou in darkness, that
   speakyou in light: and whatyou hear in the ear, that preach you on the
   housetops. God help us to do so, for Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Jehovah's Challenge

   (No. 2675)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MAY 20, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   DECEMBER 31, 1882.

   "Is there anything too hard for Me?" Jeremiah 32:27.

   A Truth of God may be sincerely believed by us and yet it may do us
   good to have it put in the form of a question. As I read the chapter, I
   called your attention to Jeremiah's confident declaration to God,
   "There is nothing too hard for You." Yet in our text, which is only a
   few verses further on in the chapter, the Lord says to this same
   Prophet, "Is there anything too hard for Me?" I think the explanation
   of this mystery is that we do not always thoroughly believe even all
   that we do truly believe. We may believe it so as to have no doubt
   about it, but not so believe it as to be prepared to put it into
   practice. Jeremiah might say to the Lord, "There is nothing too hard
   for You," and he might be confident of the truth of his words, yet
   there might be, in the background, so much mistrust, possibly
   imperceptible to himself, that it might be necessary for God to put the
   matter to him in the form of a question and to say, even to believing
   Jeremiah, "Is there anything too hard for Me?" Ah, we little know what
   unbelievers we really are! The most of us are scarcely aware of what an
   awful amount of skepticism still lies lurking within our breasts, only
   waiting for the opportunity to show itself.

   Besides, dear Friends, you must always remember that it is one thing to
   believe a general doctrine, but it is quite another thing to make a
   particular and personal application of it. Jeremiah believes that God
   can drive away the Chaldeans and leave the land free for the use of its
   owners--but can he believe that the little plot of ground at Anathoth,
   for which he has just paid 17 shekels of silver, will ever be worth the
   money it has cost him? I expect the devil began to inject doubts into
   his mind concerning that transaction by saying to him, "Can you trust
   God about that purchase of land?" So the Lord does not, at once, accept
   Jeremiah's declaration when the Prophet says, "There is nothing too
   hard for You," but He puts to him a direct question relating to that
   very point, "Is there anything too hard for Me?" Some of you think you
   could believe concerning the conversion of a nation, but do you never
   have doubts concerning the conversion of a perverse child? You believe
   in the peacefulness that is to reign during the millennium, but have
   you never had a doubt about the peace of your own domestic circle? You
   could trust God, you say, in a storm at sea, but can you trust Him
   about that bad debt on your books? You could depend upon Him, you say,
   in death and throughout eternity, but can you depend upon Him about
   that trifling matter which is just now bothering you and giving you so
   much vexation? Is there anything, great or small, that is too hard for
   God? That is the question I am going to try to answer. I throw down the
   challenge, in the name of the glorious God who said to Jeremiah, "Is
   there anything too hard for Me?" Now is your opportunity to bring up
   your hard things, your difficult things, your apparently impossible
   things and to see how they are affected by this challenge of the Most
   High--"Is there anything too hard for Me?"

   In calling attention to this challenge of Jehovah, I ask you to
   remember, first, that the hardest conceivable things have already been
   done by God. Next, I will mention some of the hard things which remain
   to be done. And, lastly, since nothing is too hard for the Lord, I will
   try to answer the short and simple question, "What then?"

   I. First, then, I want you to remember that THE HARDEST CONCEIVABLE
   THINGS HAVE ALREADY BEEN DONE BY GOD.

   Let us begin at the beginning, with God's work of creation, as Jeremiah
   does in this very chapter, and we shall then say, with him, that
   Jehovah "made the Heaven and the earth." There was a time when there
   was nothing that had been

   created and God dwelt alone. There was no raw material out of which to
   construct the universe, yet, when it pleased Him to do so, everything
   was formed and fashioned by God out of nothing. What, then, can He not
   do after having done that? I ask you to also think what God did
   afterwards. At first, when He made the world, He left it for ages in an
   unfinished state, for "in the beginning God created the Heaven and the
   earth. And the earth was without form and void." But, long afterwards,
   when He came to put it in order, and make it fit for man's abode--and
   then to create man to have dominion over all the earth--who was with
   Him to help Him? "With whom took He counsel and who instructed Him?"
   With His own hands He piled up the mountains and dug the foundations of
   the great deep. His unaided power achieved it all! Everything was in
   darkness even after He had made it, but He spoke, and said, "Light,
   be," "and there was light." Everything was in confusion and chaos. The
   earth and the waters were mingled together, but again He spoke, and
   divided the land from the sea, and the clouds rose up to paint the sky,
   the rivers sought their bed and old Ocean was girt about with his belt
   of sand!

   God did it all, but, even then, the world was dead. No life was
   anywhere to be seen. But again God spoke and, straightway, the earth
   was green with grass, herbs and trees! The waters teemed with fish, all
   kinds of birds began to fly in the open firmament of Heaven and
   multitudes of beasts ranged the plain. Then, last of all, God said,
   "Let Us make man in Our image, after our likeness: and let them have
   dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and
   over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing
   that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the
   image of God created He him; male and female created He them." Now,
   whenever we doubt the power of God to do anything, let us read again
   the first chapter of the Book of Genesis and then say, with Jeremiah,
   "Ah, Lord God, behold, You have made the Heaven and the earth by Your
   great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for
   You!" There is nothing which the Lord did not make and He made it all
   unaided. He did it all alone, by His own unguided wisdom and skill.
   Therefore, one of the hardest things that ever could be done, was done
   by God when He accomplished His great work of Creation!

   Now let us think of His work under a different aspect, that is, His
   work of destruction. And let any who doubt the power of God tremble as
   they hear or read how He has displayed it. Again and again has the Lord
   shown how easily He can rid Himself of His adversaries and shake them
   off, as Paul shook off the viper into the fire. Go far back in the
   history of the world and note how all mankind had become corrupt--they
   who ought to have been holy and separate from sinners, had mixed
   themselves with the ungodly--and on a certain day, when God's patience
   had at last reached its limit, He spoke and down came torrents of rain,
   descending with tremendous power and, at the same time, the sluices of
   the great deep were unlocked and up leaped the fountains that, till
   then, had been sealed! And, very soon, over the whole earth, there was
   one great sheet of water, for God had determined that He would destroy
   all flesh from off the face of the earth, save a "few, that is, eight
   souls," whom He had housed within the ark. Terrible as the work of
   destruction must have been, it was done as God determined and, after
   that, let none ever think that God cannot overcome His enemies! Let no
   one ever imagine that a warfare can be successfully waged against Him!
   When He bares His arm for battle, His foes shall all flee before Him
   like chaff before the wind, or they shall fall before Him like the
   wheat falls before the reaper. He can create and He can destroy! In
   looking back upon what He has already done, we can see that He has
   accomplished inconceivably great and difficult things both in making
   and in unmaking. "Ah," you say, "perhaps these are sublime things on an
   enormous scale." Yes, but God is great on anyscale, and almighty
   wherever you perceive the signs and tokens of His working!

   Think, next, of His work for the defense and deliverance of His chosen
   people. Read the Book of Exodus--you cannot too often read the wondrous
   story of how, when the children of Israel were few in Egypt, God
   nevertheless preserved them. And how, when they multiplied and the
   cruel Pharaoh arose and tried, first, to curb and then to crush them,
   God remembered His people and determined to bring them out of the land
   of bondage. Moses and Aaron said to Pharaoh, "Thus says the Lord God of
   Israel, Let My people go." How that proud monarch bridled up when he
   heard those words! "Who is the Lord," he said, "that I should obey His
   voice to let Israel go?" He soon knew who Jehovah was, for plague
   followed plague till everything that Egypt had was destroyed and, last
   of all, God "smote all the first-born in Egypt; the chief of their
   strength in the tabernacles of Ham." Then the oppressors opened wide
   their gates and Egypt was glad when Israel departed. With a high hand
   and an outstretched arm, the Lord brought forth His people! And when
   they came to the Red Sea and the Egyptians pursued them--and the tyrant
   thought that he would surely destroy them, for the wilder-

   ness had shut them in--then the Lord divided the sea and led His people
   through the depths in safety! "But the sea overwhelmed their enemies,"
   and on the farther shore, Miriam and the women joined in the jubilant
   refrain to the triumphant song of Moses and the Israelite host, "Sing
   you to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his
   rider has He thrown into the sea."

   Brothers and Sisters, after this mighty act of Jehovah, you need never
   imagine that He cannot deliver His people! You need not suppose that a
   little Church, or a little island, or a little nation shall be
   domineered over by the proud ones of the earth! If God shall but repeat
   that ancient command, "Touch not My anointed, and do My Prophets no
   harm," it will be a case of, "Hands off," for the oppressors, however
   mighty they may be--and they will have to learn that they must not
   touch the elect of the Most High to do them harm!

   If you need another instance of God's wonderful working, I remind you
   that harder things than we need to have done for us by God have been
   done by Him in the work of His Providence. Think how He led His people
   through the wilderness and fed them for 40 years, though all that time
   they never stirred a plow in the furrow, or gathered fruit from fig
   trees or from olive trees. A pathless desert was the highway of the
   millions who were His people! Heaven dropped with daily manna for them
   and the smitten Rock yielded a perennial stream to quench their thirst.
   When they craved flesh to eat, the Lord sent them innumerable feathered
   fowl. Their garments waxed not old upon them, neither did their feet
   swell for 40 years in that great and terrible wilderness. When you
   think of all this, my poor Brother, you may well say, "If God could do
   that great work, surely He can provide for mylittle family." Of course
   He can! The God who could, for 40 years, feed three millions of people
   who marched or stopped with nothing but bare sand beneath them, can
   much more feed you, O you of little faith!

   All these are great things that God has done, but I am going to take
   you into much greater depths than we have traversed yet, for all this
   is as nothing compared with what God has done in His great work of
   Redemption. Creation is shorn of its glory. The terrors of God at the
   deluge may almost be forgotten. The deliverance of Israel at the Red
   Sea may take quite a secondary place and the leading of the people
   through the wilderness may be put quite in the background when I begin
   to tell the story of our redemption! This is the hardest thing, the
   most amazing thing God has ever done! His Son came down to live among
   men! He took on Him a human form and was born of the Virgin Mary,
   sheltered in a stable, cradled in a manger! This is such a miracle that
   all the other miracles I ever heard of seem commonplace affairs
   compared with this wonder of wonders--that God should take upon Himself
   the nature of man and then-- still more marvelous-- take upon Himself
   the sin of His people and bear the awful load of their transgression,
   all the burden of their punishment and endure it even to the last pang,
   drinking up the cup of Infinite Justice to its dregs! Never was God so
   Godlike as when Jesus died upon the Cross! Never was Omnipotence so
   potent as when He died that men might live, crushing the old dragon as
   He bled, leading captivity captive while He was, Himself, bound to the
   accursed tree, casting death into an eternal grave when He, Himself,
   was laid in the sepulcher! I cannot adequately tell you the story of
   all these marvels! The very angels in Heaven have been set a-wondering
   ever since that day--and they have been continually telling to one
   another, over and over again, the story of the God that loved and died
   and, by His love, death and living again, defeated Satan, conquered
   death and led captivity captive for all His people! I feel more
   inclined to burst out with, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" than to say even
   a single syllable more concerning this greatest of all God's works!

   Certainly, in what I have said, I have fully proved that the hardest
   conceivable things have already been done by God and, therefore, He may
   well ring out the challenge of our text, "Is there anything too hard
   for Me?"

   II. Now, secondly, I am going to mention SOME OF THE THINGS WHICH
   REMAIN TO BE DONE.

   The hardest things have been done by God--what remains to be done? Look
   within you, look around you. Find all the difficult things that you
   need to have done for you and then see how easy it is for the Lord to
   meet your every need! Some of the hard things relate to temporal
   matters. ' 'It would be a great thing for God to deliver me out of all
   my troubles," says one, "for I am sorely afflicted and tried." But,
   really, my dear Friend, after all that God has done, will you, canyou,
   dareyou think to yourself that He cannot deliver you? Are you His
   child? Do you love Him? Do you trust Him? Then, surely, you will not
   say that He will leave you--that He will forsake you--or that He cannot
   help you! I am certain that you would be ashamed to lead anybody to
   think that God could not deliver you, yet you have, perhaps, allowed
   the thought to creep into your own mind. Then drive it out at once! Do
   not let it remain there a moment longer. God can help you and in very
   simple ways, too.

   I have known Him deliver His people in very extraordinary and
   unexpected ways. There was a poor man, not long ago, who had no bread
   for his family and they were almost starving. One of his children said
   to him, "Father, God sent bread to Elijah by ravens." "Ah, yes," he
   replied, "but God does not use birds in that way now." He was a cobbler
   and a short time after he spoke those words, there flew into his
   workshop a bird, which he saw was a rare one, so he caught it and put
   it in a cage. A little later, a servant came in and said to him, "Have
   you seen such-and-such a bird?" "Yes," he answered, "it flew into my
   shop, so I caught it and put it into a cage." "It belongs to my
   mistress," said the maid. "Well, then, take it," he replied, and away
   she went. Perhaps you think that there was not anything very remarkable
   in that incident, but when the girl took the bird to her mistress, the
   lady sent her back to thank the cobbler for his care of her pet--and to
   give him half a sovereign! So, if the bird did not actually bring the
   bread and meat in its mouth, it was made the medium of feeding the
   hungry family although the father had doubted whether such a thing
   could happen! God has blessed ways of delivering His people if they
   will but trust Him. I do not doubt, if this were the time for such
   testimony to be given, that every Christian here could tell some story
   of the way in which God has delivered in time past. "Oh, yes," says
   one, "I could, I know." What, you? Yet you are the very one who doubts
   God's power to deliver you! Cover your face for shame and cry, "Lord,
   have mercy upon me! Forgive my unbelief and help Your poor child to
   trust Your fatherly care and to know that You will provide for me."

   But, next, some of the hard things relate to spiritual matters. I fancy
   that I hear someone say, "I have a trouble which causes me more anxiety
   than the things you have just mentioned. I know that God can provide
   for me in temporal matters, but I have a very hard fight of it,
   spiritually. I am tempted, first in one way, and then in another, till
   I sometimes fear that I shall not be able to hold out. Satan appears to
   know just where I am weakest. He shoots at the joints of my harness and
   all his fiery darts seem to sorely wound me. I shall one day fall by
   the hand of the enemy." David said something very much like that, yet
   he did not perish by the hand of his enemy, King Saul. He died in his
   bed, rejoicing in his God! And very likely it will be the same with
   you. At any rate, if you are trusting in Christ, you shall not be
   overcome, for greater is He that is for you than all that can be
   against you! Do you believe that you, a child of God, cannot be so
   helped by Him that you shall be able to overcome any kind of sin?
   Surely you cannot believe anything so dishonoring to your Heavenly
   Father?

   If you do, I do not. I cannot tell how God's mind comes into contact
   with man's mind, but I know that it does--that His Spirit comes into
   most intimate connection with our spirit and so influences our spirit
   that the sin, which once seemed to fascinate and charm us, loses all
   its attractions and delights. And the doubts and fears, which for a
   while depress us, have, by-and-by, no depressing power whatever! You
   remember how Eliphaz said to Job, "At destruction and famine you shall
   laugh," and God often helps His servants to laugh at those very things
   which before seemed great burdens to them. There is nothing in your
   spiritual case that is too hard for the Lord--so bring it before Him in
   faith and prayer this very hour!

   I fancy that I can hear someone else saying, "But I am not God's child!
   Oh, how I wish that I could be! Alas, I am a great sinner." What has
   been your sin, my Friend? I do not want you to tell me--I only ask you
   what it was that you may tell it to yourself, and then answer the
   Lord's question, "Is there anything too hard for Me?" If Christ had not
   died, it would have been useless to ask you that question, but since
   Jesus died, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God."
   And since it is written, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us
   from all sin," can there be anything conceivable that is too hard for
   the Lord? There is no sin which you have committed which the blood of
   Christ cannot wash out if you believe in Him! Though you were even red
   with murder, black with blasphemy and covered from head to foot with
   the filthiness of lust, yet, on your believing in Jesus, you will be
   made, then and there, as white as snow! Free pardon for every kind of
   sin is proclaimed to every soul that will believe in Jesus Christ. "All
   manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men," if they will
   only trust in Christ. So, in this sense, there is nothing too hard for
   the Lord. There is no sinner too guilty for the Lord to forgive when he
   trusts the Savior's Sacrifice on Calvary.

   "Yes," says another friend, "I can understand that I can have
   forgiveness, but this is a greater difficulty to me--I have been so
   long a transgressor of God's Law that I do not think I ever could
   conquer my sin." No, I know that you could not and I want you to be
   fully persuaded that you could not! And then, when you are perfectly
   convinced upon that point, let me ask you this question, "Is even this
   thing--this power of overcoming sin--too hard for the Lord?Your
   successful resistance is out of the question--you cannot accomplish
   anything in this great conflict, for you are nobody

   and nothing--but is the struggle too hard for the Lord?" It often
   happens that a man says, "Well, I know that I have been a great
   drunkard. Drinking has been my besetting sin, but I can leave it off
   when I like, and become a sober man at once." So he does and he signs
   the pledge and wears his blue ribbon. But, by-and-by, the color of that
   ribbon ought to be ruby rather than blue, for the man has given way to
   strong drink again! The reason of his fall is that he cured himself and
   so the disease came back. But the drunkard who says, "I am afraid to
   trust myself, for this intemperance has got such a hold on me that I
   never can get out of its clutches by my own power. O God, deliver me! I
   trust You to save me! I look to Jesus Christ to save me!" He is the man
   who shallfe helped and he shall be more than a conqueror through the
   might of God! Let me assure you, my dear Friend, that there is no form
   of sin from which you cannot be delivered by the Grace of God. After
   many years of vice--prolonged, continued, inveterate, horrible
   vice--men have not only been reformed and reclaimed, but they have been
   renewed, sanctified and made pure and holy!

   I wonder how you would have felt, if you had been visiting in certain
   of the South Sea Islands, and you had been sitting at the Lord's Table
   with some good old deacon, and then, after you had been eating and
   drinking with him at the Communion and had heard him pray and preach,
   somebody had whispered in your ear, "That man used to be a cannibal. He
   has murdered many." "Oh," you would say, "and has the Grace of God
   changed such a lion as that into a lamb?" It would have struck you as a
   very remarkable illustration of the power of Divine Grace, yet there
   are, even in this Tabernacle tonight, cases that are quite as striking
   as that! If you could know all about them, you would agree with me that
   it is so. God's Grace can do marvelous things! It can change lions into
   lambs, ravens into doves and sinners into saints! In fact, the proof of
   Christianity is the moral change which it is continually working in the
   minds and lives of men and women. Above all other miracles stands this
   one--the miracle by which the dishonest are made just, the impure are
   made clean and the disobedient are brought to the obedience of faith.

   Truly, there is no case that is too hard for the Lord. I suppose a good
   many of you never heard that "Satan" came into this place, one Sabbath,
   and was converted. [The remarkable story of this man's conversion is
   related at greater length in C H Spurgeon's Autobiography, Volume IV,
   with other similar narratives. Visit Pilgrim Publications for
   availability and pricing at
   http://www.pilgrimpublications.com/spurgeon.htm# biographies.] "No,"
   you say, "surely that has never happened." Yes, it has! I can vouch for
   the truth of the story. There was a sailor who lived at Wivenhoe, in
   Essex, a man who was such a vile blasphemer and who lived altogether
   such a disgraceful life, that the people called him, "Old Satan." When
   the ship in which "Satan" sailed, came to London, a godly seaman, who
   was on the same vessel, persuaded the man to come to hear me. He was
   the more willing to do so because I once lived at Colchester, which is
   not far from Wivenhoe. As he heard the Word, the Lord touched "Old
   Satan's" heart and there was never before such a stir in Wivenhoe as
   when he went home, a converted man, to tell other sinners the power of
   the Grace of God! If there is anybody here who might be called a very
   devil, let him come and trust Christ, and he shall be saved
   straightway. Come along with you, poor slave of Satan! Leave your old
   master this very minute! Do not give him even a moment's notice, but
   speed away to the great Father's house and He will receive you, for He
   is expecting you! No, more--it is He who is drawingyou, by His gracious
   Spirit! And it is His Son who has said, "All that the Father gives Me
   shall come to Me; and him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out."
   God grant that many who have been hard sinners, may come to Christ and
   find in Him eternal life!

   Once more, Jehovah's challenge, "Is there anything too hard for Me?"
   contains a lesson for you who are trying to serve the Lord. I want you
   also to catch the meaning and the message of my text--there is nothing
   too hard for God, so He can save the children in your Sunday school
   class! He can bless the people of the district where you visit. He can
   help you to talk to that dying person whom you went to see yesterday.
   There is nothing too hard for the Lord, so He can bless you, city
   missionary, to that dark slum which gives you so much anxiety. He can
   bless you, dear Friend, at that street corner where you scarcely get
   through a dozen sentences before you are interrupted! This question of
   Jehovah, "Is there anything too hard for Me?" seems to be like a
   rallying cry from God to urge all His followers to press on, like
   heroes, without a doubt about the victory! "Courage, my comrades," said
   Mohammed to his troops, one day, when the battle was going against
   them--"I can hear the angels coming to our rescue." There were no
   angels flying to help him, but they are always coming to aid uswhen we
   need them, for, "are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to
   minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" If we are truly
   trusting in the living God, He will surely send the heavenly
   principalities and powers to help us, so that, in our weakness, His
   strength shall be glorified and sinners shall be saved!

   I can believe in the conversion of the Jews when I hear Jehovah's
   challenge, "Is there anything too hard for Me?" I can believe in the
   spread of His Gospel over the whole world when I hear Him ask, "Is
   there anything too hard for Me?" I can believe in my Master setting up
   a Kingdom that shall have no bounds and no end, when I hear His royal
   enquiry, "Is there anything too hard for Me?" Very often, when we get
   among men and women, we seem to be surrounded by a lot of children
   playing with toys, for they bother, hinder, hamper and only increase
   our own helplessness. But when we get clear of them and just look to
   God, alone, then we seem to have elbowroom for our work. A thoroughly
   consecrated man can do something, by God's Grace, when he has got rid
   of the intolerable nuisance of having too many human helpers who are
   often only hindrances--and who has not any other helper but his God.
   Oh, it is a blessed thing to be flung back upon the bare arm of
   Omnipotence--to be gloriously compelled to rest on God and on God
   alone! May many of us know, by happy, personal experience, how blessed
   it is!

   III. I have done, dear Friends, when I have, in the last place, very
   briefly answered a short and simple question. Since nothing is too hard
   for the Lord, WHAT THEN?

   I want that we, as a people, should be true to the very core to our
   blessed God and, to that end, as there is nothing that is too hard for
   Him, let us trust Him, all of us, whatever our trials or our
   difficulties may be. Let us have no sham faith, no pretended
   confidence, but real trust in a real God!

   Then, next, I want that we should act as if we trusted God. Do not let
   us waver, "for he that wavers is like a wave of the sea driven with the
   wind and tossed."

   And, then, believing in God, let us always do what is right Let us
   believe that to do the right is always right--that policy--that
   "hedging" a little, and doing what we call a "slight wrong," can never
   be justified in the sight of God.

   Finally, let us live a life of love, a life of forgiveness and
   kindness, trusting that God will cause love to overcome human hate and
   kindness to conquer all misrepresentation. Live in all respects so as
   to glorify God.

   Beloved in the Lord, who are one with us in Christ Jesus, do be
   out-and-out Believers and let your faith be as evident as the color on
   a healthy cheek, that all men may see that the very life-blood of your
   spiritual being is your faith in God and in His Christ! What made brave
   Oliver Cromwell, in the days gone by, so terrible an enemy to all who
   loved not liberty and right? It was his faith! And he had gathered
   about him a band of men who also believed and so, when the Ironsides
   marched to the fight, you might as well have hoped to stop the stars in
   their courses as to keep those men back from victory! And today, what
   England needs is men of faith whose watchword is, "The Lord of Hosts!"
   and whose confidence it is that "with God all things are possible," and
   also that "all things are possible to him that believes." May all of us
   be such Believers, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JEREMIAH32:1-27.

   Verses 1-5. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth
   year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of
   Nebuchadnezzar For then the king of Babylon's army besieged Jerusalem:
   and Jeremiah the Prophet was shut up in the court of theprison, which
   was in the king of Judah's house. For Zedekiah, king of Judah, had shut
   him up, saying. Therefore do you prophesy, and say, Thus says the Lord,
   Behold, I will give this city into the hands of the king of Babylon,
   and he shall take it; and Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out
   of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be delivered into the
   hands of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him mouth to mouth,
   and his eyes shall behold his eyes; and he shall lead Zedekiah to
   Babylon, and there shall he be until I visit him, says the Lord: though
   you fight with the Chaldeans, you shall not prosper So you see that
   Jeremiah was shut up in prison at the time here mentioned. Zedekiah,
   the king of Judah, had treated him very harshly because of his faithful
   utterance of the Word of the Lord. He was a true servant of Jehovah,
   yet he suffered much at the king's hands. One very remarkable event,
   which happened at that time, is here recorded.

   6-8. And Jeremiah said, The word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
   Behold, Hanameel, the son of Shallum, your uncle, shall come unto you,
   saying, Buy you my field that is in Anathoth: for the right of
   redemption is yours to buy it. So Hanameel, my uncle's son, came to me
   in the court of the prison according to the word of the LORD, and said
   unto me, Buy my field, I pray you, that is in Anathoth, which is in the
   country of Benjamin: for the right of inheritance is

   yours and the redemption is yours; buy it for yourself. Then I knew
   that this was the word of the LORD. The Lord had told him beforehand
   that it would be so and, therefore, in due time, his cousin came to him
   with the offer of this plot of land in the country of Benjamin.

   9, 10. Andlbought the field ofHanameel, my uncle's son, that was in
   Anathoth, and weighedhim the money, even seventeen shekels of silver.
   And I subscribed the evidence, and sealed it, and took witnesses, and
   weighed him the money in the balances. This was, in every respect, a
   very extraordinary transaction! Remember that the Chaldeans were
   already besieging Jerusalem and they were all over the land, carrying
   fire and sword into every part of it. Jerusalem was shut up, so that
   none of the inhabitants could get out of the city--yet here is
   Jeremiah, himself a prisoner, buying land which was virtually worth
   nothing whatever! But he believed so firmly that the Chaldeans would
   yet permit the Jews to live unmolested in that land that he paid down
   the purchase money for the field and saw to the legal execution of the
   deed of transfer, just as you or I might have done if we were
   purchasing a plot of land in our own country. This is a notable
   instance of the triumph of faith over unfavorable surroundings and,
   also, of the Prophet's obedienceto the Word of the Lord.

   11, 12. So I took the evidence of the purchase, both that which was
   sealed according to the law and custom, and that which was open: and I
   gave the evidence of the purchase to Baruch, the son of Neriah, the son
   of Maaseiah, in the sight of Hanameel, my uncle's son, and in the
   presence of the witnesses that subscribed the book of the purchase,
   before all the Jews that sat in the court of the prison. Jeremiah did
   all this openly. What they may have thought to be an absurd action, he
   did not do in private, but in the presence of them all! True faith in
   God does not go in for hole-and-corner transactions. Faith can do its
   business in the light of the sun! Faith believes God under all
   circumstances and believes that the truest common sense is to obey His
   Word. Therefore she is not ashamed of what she does--neither shall she
   ever have cause to be ashamed or confounded, world without end! There
   is a living God and if we do what He bids us, good must come of it. No
   harm shall happen to the man who confidently rests in the Most High.

   13-17. And 1 charged Baruch before them, saying, Thus says the LORD
   ofHosts, the God ofIsrael; Take these evidences, this evidence of the
   purchase, both which is sealed, and this evidence which is open; and
   put them in an earthen vessel, that they may continue many days. For
   thus says the LORD ofHosts, the God ofIsrael; Houses and fields and
   vineyards shall be possessed again in this land. Now when I had
   delivered the evidence of the purchase unto Baruch, the son of Neriah,
   I prayed unto the LORD, saying, Ah Lord GOD!Faith cannot live without
   prayer. When she has performed her most heroic deeds, she turns to God
   and humbly asks for renewed strength, for oh, my Brothers and Sisters,
   the best of men are but men at the best--and those who have the most
   faith never have any to spare. Jeremiah says, "I prayed unto the Lord,
   saying, Ah Lord God!" It looked, at first sight, as if the Prophet was
   going to utter some mournful complaint, or to express some doubt or
   misgiving concerning the purchase of the land, but it was not so.
   Having allowed that exclamation to escape from him, his faith came to
   the rescue and he continued--

   17. Behold, You have made the Heaven and the earth by Your great power
   and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for You. Is not
   that a grand sentence? "There is nothing too hard for You." He that
   could make the Heaven and the earth can do anything! Read, in the Book
   of Genesis, the story of the creation, and see how, "He spoke, and it
   was done; He commanded, and it stood fast." And then judge as to what
   can ever be a difficulty for the Almighty. Surely you must say to Him,
   as Jeremiah did, "There is nothing too hard for You."

   18. You show loving kindness unto thousands, and recompense the
   iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them;
   the Great, the Mighty God, the LORD ofHosts, is His name. See how these
   godly men, in their times of trouble, delighted in the great names and
   glorious attributes of God. There are, nowadays, many namby-pamby,
   fashionable religionists, wrapped in luxury, who have only a little
   God--they never seem to know "the Great, the Mighty God"--but Jeremiah,
   with the smell of the prison still clinging to him, talks grandly! "The
   Great, the Mighty God, the Lord of Hosts, is His name."

   19-21. Great in counsel, and mighty in work: for Your eyes are open
   upon all the ways of the sons of men: to give everyone according to his
   ways, and according to the fruit of his doings: who has set signs and
   wonders in the land of Egypt, even unto this day, and in Israel, and
   among other men; and have made You a name, as at this day; and have
   brought forth Your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs,
   and with wonders, and with a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm,
   and with great terror. Those ancient Jews, in the time of their
   trouble, always looked gratefully back to the wonders worked by Jehovah
   in Egypt. That great deed of God, when He smote the might of Pharaoh,

   was always present to the Hebrew mind and the people, in every season
   of tribulation, refreshed themselves with the remembrance of it. Well,
   then, dear Friends, as they sang the song of Moses, shall not we sing
   the song of the Lamb? Will not we go back in thought to the glorious
   triumphs of our Redeemer and recount again and again, for the
   encouragement of our faith, what Christ did for us upon the Cross, even
   as the Jews thought often, for the strengthening of their confidence,
   of their wondrous deliverance from Egypt by the high hand and the
   stretched out arm of Jehovah?

   22-24. And have given them this land, which You didswear to their
   fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey, and they came
   in, and possessed it; but they obeyed not Your voice, neither walked in
   Your Law; they have done nothing of all that You commanded them to do:
   therefore You have caused all this evil to come upon them: behold the
   mounts. The margin renders it, "the engines of shot," which we see, by
   the next chapter, were powerful enough to throw down the houses in
   Jerusalem.

   24, 25. They are come unto the city to take it; and the city is given
   into the hands of the Chaldeans, that fight against it, because of the
   sword, and of the famine, and of the pestilence; and what You have
   spoken is come to pass and, behold, You see it. And You have said unto
   me, O LORD GOD, Buy you the field for money, and take witnesses; for
   the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans. I suppose that,
   although Jeremiah, with unquestioning faith, had done as God had
   commanded him, yet afterwards, when he was alone in his prison cell, he
   began to think the whole matter over. And though he may not have had
   any actual doubts, yet he probably had some anxieties as to the issue
   of the whole affair. He could not quite understand it, so he wisely put
   it before the Lord. Some of you who have truly trusted God, may yet be
   just now perplexed with anxiety of one kind or another. Well, then,
   tell it to the Lord--go at once into His Presence and spread the case
   before Him, as Jeremiah did.

   26, 27. Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah, saying, Behold, I
   am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard
   forMe?That question we will try to answer presently. [Remember, the
   exposition was before the sermon.]
     __________________________________________________________________

Comfort From the Future

   (No. 2676)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MAY 27, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   JANUARY 30, 1881.

   "You shall forget your misery, and remember it as waters that pass
   away." Job 11:16.

   JOB'S misery was extreme and it seemed as if he could never forget it.
   He never did forget the fact of it, but he did forget the pain of it.
   That he had been utterly miserable would always remain recorded upon
   the tablets of his memory, but the wretchedness itself would not
   remain. It would be so entirely removed that it should be as a thing
   that has been altogether forgotten. Nothing better can happen to our
   misery than that it should be forgotten in the sense referred to in our
   text, for then, evidently, it will be clean gone from us. It will be as
   it is when even the scent of the liquor has gone out of the cask, when
   even the flavor of the bitter drug lingers no longer in the medicine
   glass, but has altogether disappeared. So is it with the sorrow that
   has so effectually gone out of the mind that it is just as though it
   had never been there.

   If anyone here is in misery of any kind--whether it is misery of
   physical pain, or misery of need, or misery of soul on account of sin,
   or the loss of the light of God's Countenance--I can only pray for you,
   dear Friend, that you may speedily forget your misery and only remember
   it as waters that pass away. The thing goes to be done--it is quite
   possible, and you may expect it. If you look carefully at the
   connection of our text and give earnest attention to the matter, I do
   not doubt that you will experience this blessed forgetfulness. When we
   are in pain of body and depression of spirit, we imagine that we never
   shall forget such misery as we are enduring. The sharp plowshare has
   gone down so deeply that we think it has made a mark in the soul that
   can never be erased. We seem to lie all broken in pieces, with our
   thoughts like a case of knives cutting into our spirit, and we say to
   ourselves, "We never shall forget this terrible experience." And yet,
   by-and-by, God turns the palm of His hand towards us and we see that it
   is full of mercy. We are restored to health, or lifted up from
   depression of spirit and we wonder that we ever made so much of our
   former suffering or depression. We remember it no more, except as a
   thing that has passed and gone, to be remembered with gratitude that we
   have been delivered from it, but not to be remembered so as to leave
   any scar upon our spirit, or to cause us any painful reflection
   whatever. "You shall forget your misery, and remember it as waters that
   pass away."

   I. I am not going to limit the application of the text to Job and his
   friends, for it also has a message for many of us at the present time.
   And I shall take it, first, WITH REFERENCE TO THE COMMON TROUBLES OF
   LIFE WHICH AFFECT BELIEVING MEN AND WOMEN.

   These troubles of life, more or less, happen to us all. They come to
   one in one shape and, perhaps, he thinks that he is the only man who
   has any real misery. Yet they also come to others, though possibly in
   another form. There is certainly a cross for every shoulder to bear.
   Simon must not bear the cross alone and all the rest go free. There is
   no road to Heaven without its stones, or without its Hill Difficulty.
   And I think that there are few pilgrims from the City of Destruction
   who get to the Celestial City without passing through the Valley of
   Death and having to fight with giants and even with Apollyon, himself.
   Cowper truly wrote--

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

   There is much joy in true religion. Wisdom's "ways are ways of
   pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to
   them that lay hold upon her and happy is everyone that retains her."
   But, still, notwithstanding the joy, in addition to it there is sorrow.
   There is misery lurking close by the Believer's pathway and it is
   always ready to pounce upon him somewhere between here and Heaven. The
   Lord of the pilgrims was "a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief."
   And His disciples must expect to fare even as their Master fared while
   here below--it is enough for the servant if he is as his Lord.

   You, dear Friends, who are just now enduring misery, should seek to be
   comforted under it. Perhaps you will ask me, "Where can we get any
   comfort?" Well, if you cannot draw any from your present experience,
   seek to gather some from the past. You have been miserable before, but
   you have been delivered and helped. There has come to you a most
   substantial benefit from everything which you have been called to
   endure. You must be conscious that when you think of your troubles, you
   can say, with Hezekiah, "O Lord, by these things men live, and in all
   these things is the life of my spirit: so will You recover me, and make
   me to live." Or you can say, with the Psalmist, "Before I was afflicted
   I went astray: but now have I kept Your word." I believe that, very
   often, God sends His very choicest love tokens to us in black-edged
   envelopes--and many a time has it happened that the great rumbling
   wagons of tribulation have been those which have brought the heaviest
   weight of treasure to the doors of the saints! Do we ever learn much
   without the rod? I fear we do not. Most of us are quickest learners, I
   think, when we smart the most. Well, then, if affliction has been
   profitable in the past, let us rest assured that it will be so in the
   future.

   Let us gather consolation, also, from the future. If, as the Apostle
   truly says, "No chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but
   grievous," recollect how he goes on to say, "Nevertheless afterward it
   yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are
   exercised thereby." I have been trying to ring the changes on those two
   words, during the last few weeks, while I have been laid aside by
   illness--"nevertheless afterward"--"nevertheless afterward"--
   "nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness
   unto them which are exercised thereby." The Apostle James tells us that
   "the husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth and has long
   patience for it, until he receives the early and latter rain." He does
   not complain because his corn is buried under the clods and covered
   with the snow. But he lives upon hope and rejoices in the future
   harvest, pleading the promise, "He that goes forth and weeps, bearing
   precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his
   sheaves with him." In your own case, dear Friend, if you are a Believer
   in the Lord Jesus Christ, what will happen in the future? For it is
   with that I would comfort you at this time. Why, this is what will
   happen--"You shall forget your misery, and remember it as waters that
   pass away." How will that be?

   Well, first, by the lapse of time. Time is a wonderful healer. Hearts
   that seem as if they must break when first the trial comes, at last
   grow quite used to it. Look through the veil of a few minutes. Gaze
   through the longer vista of a few years and that which seemed dark as
   tempest wears quite another aspect! Oh, if you whose hearts seem now
   almost ready to burst, could but project yourselves only six months
   ahead--if you could leap forward a year and then look back-- probably
   even in that time you would almost have forgotten your misery!

   Yes, but there is something better than the lapse of years and that is
   when, during a considerable time, you are left without trial. That is a
   sharp pain you are now enduring, but what if you should have years of
   health afterwards? Then you will forget your misery. That is a sad loss
   which you have been called to suffer--it seems to you to be a crushing
   dis-aster--but what if it should be succeeded by years of prosperity?
   Remember how Job forgot his misery when, in a short time, he had double
   as much of all that he possessed as he had before? He had back twice
   the amount of all his former wealth. He had, again, a smiling family
   around him, so he might well forget his misery. Year after year and,
   perhaps, even to his death--it was so as far as we know--Job was again
   a man who had a hedge made round about him and all that he had! And in
   the happiness of his later life he might well forget his former misery.
   Well, now, it is very likely to be so with you after you get through
   this present struggle. Therefore, keep your heart up, believe in God,
   have confidence in Him and all shall be well. There is wonderfully
   smooth sailing on ahead for some of you when you are once over this
   little stretch of broken water. If you can safely pass over this stony
   portion of the road, it will be good traveling for you all the way to
   Heaven! Remember that the horses' heads are towards home--you are
   journeying to your Father's House, so be of good courage, for you shall
   forget your misery and only remember it as waters that pass away!

   And besides the lapse of time, and an interval of rest and calm, it may
   be--it probably is the fact with God's people--that He has in store for
   you some great mercies. When the Lord turns your captivity, you will be
   like they that dream--and you know what happens to men who dream. They
   wake up. Their dream is all gone, they have completely forgotten it. So
   will it be with your sorrow! Through God's goodness, you will seem
   suddenly to wake up out of a dreary dream and then you will begin to
   laugh and soon your mouth will be filled with laughter. You will almost
   despise your former depression of spirit! And when you see the abundant
   mercy of God toward you, all your misery shall seem like a dream that
   has gone, a vision of the night--unreal--that has melted into
   nothingness! Some of you have no idea what is reserved for you--you
   would not be weeping, but laughing, if you knew what God has in store
   for you--I mean, even here below. It is good for us not to be able to
   read the roll closed by the hand of God, but we may be sure that there
   are such blessed things in it concerning our future that each Believer
   may well say, "I will not be bowed down by the trials of the present,
   but my spirit shall rejoice in God who does for me what eye has not
   seen, nor ear heard and what my heart has never conceived."

   Be of good courage, Brothers and Sisters, in these dark, dull times,
   for, perhaps, this text is God's message to your soul, "You shall
   forget your misery, and remember it as waters that pass away." It has
   been so with many, many, many Believers in the past. What do you think
   of Joseph sold for a slave, Joseph falsely accused, Joseph shut up in
   prison? But when Joseph found out that all that trial was the way to
   make him ruler over all the land of Egypt and that he might be the
   means of saving other nations from famine, and blessing his father's
   house, I do not wonder that he called his elder son "Manasseh." What
   does that name mean? "Forgetfulness"--"for God said He has made me
   forget all my toil, and all my father's house." Why, sitting on the
   throne, feeding the nation and blessing his father and his brothers, he
   must have thought that the being cast into the pit, being sold to the
   Ishmaelites and being put into prison was not worth recollecting,
   except for gratitude to God that it ever happened as a means to the
   grand end of helping him into that position of usefulness!

   And Joseph is not the only one who has had such an experience as that.
   Read the Scriptures through and you will find that those whom God has
   called and anointed to eminent service have been put, like the blades
   of Damascus, into the fire and drawn through the fire again and again,
   that in the day of battle they might strike on the northern iron and
   steel and yet not turn their edge! These servants of the Lord have been
   prepared for an immortal destiny by desperate griefs and--

   "The deeper their sorrows, the louder they'll sing."

   As a woman remembers no more her travail, for joy that a man is born
   into the world, so has it happened to the Believer in the time of his
   sorrow--he has forgotten it, cast it all away because of the greater
   joy which God has brought out of it. Jabez is the child of sorrow, but
   he is, therefore, more honorable than his brethren. The more stormy the
   sea, the sweeter the haven. The rougher the road on earth, the better
   the rest above. So, poor tried child of God, believe that this text is
   intended to be a Divine message of comfort to your heart, "You shall
   forget your misery, and remember it as waters that pass away."

   Thus much on the first head.

   II. I should be greatly rejoiced if, in the second place, I might speak
   A CHEERING WORD TO POOR SOULS UNDER DISTRESS ON ACCOUNT OF SIN. I mean
   you who long to be saved, yet cannot understand how it is to come to
   pass, or who, understanding the plan of salvation, are somehow unable
   to appropriate it to yourselves. You feel as if you have your eyes
   bandaged and your feet fast fixed in the stocks, so that you cannot go
   to Christ, cannot even look to Christ and, therefore, your souls are
   full of sorrow. I want you, dear Friends, to especially notice what
   Zophar recommends to a man who has sin upon him. Read the 13th, 14th,
   15th and 16th verses of this chapter--"If you prepare your heart, and
   stretch out your hands toward Him; if iniquity is in your hands, put it
   far away, and let not wickedness dwell in your tabernacles. For then
   shall you lift up your face without spot; yes, you shall be steadfast,
   and shall not fear: because you shall forget your misery, and remember
   it as waters that pass away." I recommend these words to you, also. But
   I have something even better to recommend to you. Does any man here
   say, "I cannot get peace with God. I am full of misery on account of
   sin?" I know all about you, Friend. I have gone that road, long ago. I
   have been splashed up to my very eyes in the mire of the Slough of
   Despond and I sometimes get a little of its mud in my eyes even now.

   Well, now, I exhort you, first of all, to look to Christ and lean on
   Christ Trust in His atoning Sacrifice, for there, alone, can a troubled
   soul find rest. If you say that, somehow, you cannot get peace, then I
   shall have to ask you to see whether, perhaps, sin may not be lying at
   the door. To use Zophar's expression, have you prepared your heart?
   Have you gone to Christ with your whole heart and soul? Have you sought
   Him with all your might? I hope you realize that repentance and faith
   are very bad things to play with, for such play will damn a man's soul.
   These are things to be earnestly used in a most solemn undertaking.
   "The kingdom of Heaven suffers violence" in this matter. We can neither
   repent nor believe with half our heart--it is our whole soul that is
   required if salvation is to be ours. Now, have you sought the Lord with
   all your heart? If you have, you will surely find Him. I am certain
   that you will. And then, afterwards, "you shall forget your misery, and
   remember it as waters that pass away." There was never a man yet who,
   with all his heart, sought the Lord Jesus Christ, but sooner or later
   found Him. And if you have been long in seeking, I lay it to the fact
   that you have not sought with a prepared heart, a thoroughly earnest
   heart, or else you would have found Him.

   But, perhaps, taking Zophar's next expression, you have not stretched
   out your hands toward the Lord, giving yourself up to Him like a man
   who holds up his hands to show that he surrenders. You must come and
   say, "My opposition is over. I now have no quarrel with God. I yield
   unconditionally to Him." The word may refer to one who stretches out
   his hands to grasp whatever may come from God within his reach. He
   stretches out his empty hands, asking to have them filled. He stretches
   out his entreating hands, pleading that God will bless him. Well now,
   if you have done that, you shall get a blessing.

   Further, you may and you shall forget your misery, provided you fulfill
   one more condition mentioned by Zophar, and that is that you are not
   harboring any sin. "If iniquity is in your hands, put it far away, and
   let not wickedness dwell in your tabernacles." There is an
   old-fashioned Grace that I am never ashamed to preach, though some, who
   call themselves evangelists, have folded it up and put it away in the
   back cupboard. They never mention this old-fashioned Grace which is
   called repentance. Now, I learn from the Scriptures that repentance is
   just as necessary to salvation as faith is-- and the faith that has not
   repentance going with it will have to be repented of one of these days.
   A dry-eyed faith is a faith that will save no man. Peter's message was,
   "Repent you, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted
   out." And our Lord's own declaration was, "Except you repent, you shall
   all likewise perish." He began His public ministry by crying, "Repent
   and believe the Gospel," which means just this--that if any man is
   living in sin, it is no use his praying, or pretending to believe until
   he gives up that sin. If there is any passion that you are indulging,
   any lust that is your master--if you are carrying on a wicked
   business--if you are living in willful transgression of God's Law,
   Christ can save you from your sins, but even Christ cannot save you in
   your sins. If you will have your sin, you must be lost--so stands God's
   decree. Christ must, by His Grace, separate you from your sin or else
   you will be separated from Him forever. I want this to be a very
   heart-searching word and, therefore, I say to any miserable man or
   miserable woman here-- "You shall forget your misery if you give up
   your sin and trust in the sin-atoning Savior. Come, Friend, you shall
   not say that I am flattering you, for I tell you plainly that you must
   flee for your life from the dearest sin that now lays hold upon you."

   "Oh" you say, "but how am I to do it?" Christ will help you. Trust Him
   to help you. But if you say, "I will trust Him to save me," and yet
   continue to live in sin, He will not save you. That is not the
   salvation that we preach! We proclaim salvation from sin, for that is
   the salvation which Jesus came to bring us. You must, as Zophar said to
   Job, put your iniquity far away--and you must not let wickedness dwell
   in your tabernacles--that is to say, in your tents, in your houses. I
   know some men who will never get peace of conscience and rest of heart
   while they let their wives live as they do, and while they allow their
   children to live as they do. Some of you will not find mercy for
   yourselves while you neglect your children's highest welfare as you do.
   I know some men--I hope they are good men, but certainly they are not
   good fathers--they are so peaceful and gentle that they never like to
   utter a word of reproof. Their boys and girls may go where they like--I
   might almost say that they may go to the devil if they like--yet their
   father has not a word to say to them. Do you call that proper conduct
   for a professedly Christian? There are some parents who allow their
   children to do such things that God is grieved with them for their
   children's sakes--and they will never get peace of mind till they set
   their house in order. What? Is God coming to live where there is no
   family prayer, where there is no care for His name or His day, where
   there is no rebuke of open sin? It has filled me with unspeakable
   sorrow when I have heard of Christian parents whose boys swear and
   whose girls are allowed to go where, if they are not ruined, body and
   soul, it is little short

   of a miracle! Oh, do see that you let not wickedness dwell in your
   tabernacles, you who are the people of God, and you who wish to be His,
   if you would have Zophar's words to Job fulfilled in your experience,
   "Then shall you lift up your face without spot; yes, you shall be
   steadfast, and shall not fear: because you shall forget your misery,
   and remember it as waters that pass away."

   III. Now let me tell you HOW SWEETLY GOD CAN MAKE A SINNER FORGET HIS
   MISERY. The moment a sinner believes in Jesus Christ with true heart
   and repentant spirit, God makes him forget his misery,

   first, by giving him a full pardon. All his sin is forgiven and,
   therefore, he feels ready to dance for joy and he soon forgets his
   misery. By faith, he gets a sight of the great, pardoning Lord and of
   His atoning blood. He sees the Son of God suffering and dying for him
   on the Cross and he is overjoyed at the Revelation of such a wondrous
   redemption. He claps his hands and he forgets his misery.

   Next, he rejoices in all the blessings that God gives with His Grace.
   He reads that those whom Christ has pardoned "are justified from all
   things," from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses. He
   learns that they are clothed with the robe of Christ's perfect
   righteousness and he forgets his own nakedness while he rejoices that
   he is so wondrously clothed. He feeds on the Bread of Heaven and
   forgets his former hunger. He drinks of the Water of Life and forgets
   his previous pangs of thirst. He enjoys the liberty of the sons of God
   and he forgets the chains he used to wear as Satan's slave. He has
   peace with God and he forgets the trouble that was such a burden on his
   heart! He is so full of joy that there is no room for sorrow and if,
   perchance, the tear of repentance still lingers in his eyes, it is not
   sullen but sweet sorrow, and the tear glistens in the sunlight of God's
   Countenance like a diamond, or like some choice pearl that slumbers in
   its shell. Oh, Beloved, if you will but come to Christ and leave your
   sin, whatever your misery is, you shall forget it! Or, if you do
   remember it at all, it shall only be to remember it as the snow that
   has melted and vanished, or as the rain that has soaked into the earth,
   "as waters that pass away."

   Now, dear Friends, all that I have been saying to the sinner is quite
   as applicable to every backsliding child of God! It may be that some of
   you who are here are Christians--that is, you have trusted in Christ to
   save you--but you have got into a very sad state of heart. You have not
   half the spiritual life that you once had and, therefore, you do not
   glorify God as you once did. It is most grievous to think how many
   professing Christians live at a poor dying rate--they seem to be barely
   alive, or hardly that. Well, dear Brother or Sister, if you have become
   miserable, I am rather glad that you have! That is part of the way
   towards a better state of things. When a man cannot be happy in a
   backsliding state, he will soon seek to get out of it! The hurt is a
   part of the cure. Solomon says, "The blueness of a wound cleanses away
   evil," and the chastisement which follows sin is often for the healing
   of the sinner.

   IV. I will bring my discourse to a close with this last reflection.
   THIS TEXT WILL COME TRUE TO THE SICKENING, DECLINING, SOON-DEPARTING
   BELIEVER.

   Ah, dear Friend, when you first found out that the complaint from which
   you are suffering really was consumption, what a chill seemed to come
   over everything! When the physician said to you, very tenderly but very
   faithfully, "I fear I cannot do much for you. I can perhaps give you a
   little relief, but I dare not deceive you, for you have an incurable
   dis-ease"--then, although you are a child of God, you endured a great
   deal of misery and spent many long, sleepless nights looking forward
   to, you scarcely knew what. Are you still in that state, my dear
   Sister? As you get worse and worse, do your spirits continue to sink?
   My dear Brother, as you gradually fade away, does the light seem to
   fade, too? Well, then, listen!

   If you have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and if you are resting
   alone upon Him, remember that in a very short time, "you shall forget
   your misery, and remember it as waters that pass away." In a very,
   very, very short time, your suffering and sadness will all be over! I
   suppose the expression, "waters that pass away," signifies those rivers
   which are common in the East and which we meet with so abundantly in
   the South of France. They are rivers with very broad channels, but I
   have often looked in vain for a single drop of water in them. "Then,"
   perhaps you ask, "what is the use of such rivers?" Well, at certain
   times, the mountain torrents come rushing down, bearing great rocks,
   stones and trees before them--and then, after they have surged along
   the riverbed for several days, they altogether disappear in the sea!
   Such will all the sorrows of life and the sorrows even of death soon be
   to you, dear Friend, and to me also. They will all have passed away and
   all will be over with us here. The passage to the grave may be sharp,
   but it must be short--

   "The road may be rough, but it cannot be long,

   So I'll smooth it with hope, and cheer it with song."

   And then, you know, dear Friends, those waters that have passed away
   will never come back again. Water that is spilt upon the ground can
   never be gathered up again--and it is one of the charms of the heavenly
   world that our sorrows will never reach us there. No more poverty, no
   more cold, no more heat, no more sin, no more depression of spirits, no
   more pain, no more forsaking of friends, no more sorrow of any kind,
   for, "the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with
   songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and
   gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." That is a very
   beautiful expression--"Sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Here, they
   keep clinging to us, one on one arm and the other on the other! Sorrow
   and sighing will come with us wherever we go and we sometimes say to
   them, "Now, you might go somewhere else, for we do not want you," yet
   they still hold fast to us. But when we get up to the golden gate, no
   sooner shall the eternal light flash on our eyes than we shall look in
   vain for our old companions, for they will be gone! "Sorrow and sighing
   shall flee away" and lest there should be any trace of their mournful
   companionship left, we are expressly told that "God shall wipe away all
   tears from our eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow,
   nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things
   are passed away."

   Thank God, we shall recollect our sorrows in Heaven only to praise God
   for the Grace that sustained us under them! We shall not remember them
   as a person does who has cut his finger and who still bears the scar in
   his flesh. We shall not recollect them as one does who has been wounded
   and who carries the bullet somewhere about him. In Heaven, you shall
   not have a trace of earth's sorrow! You shall not have, in your
   glorified body, or in your perfectly sanctified soul and spirit, any
   trace of any spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing that shall show that
   you ever had a pain on earth, or even that you ever committed a sin!
   Some diseases, you know, leave marks on our hands or faces, so that we
   say to our friends, "Do you see that lump? It was a time of terrible
   pain that brought that up, and I fear it will not go away." Ah, but in
   Heaven there will be no trace of anything like pain or sorrow of any
   sort. All sorrow and suffering shall be gone and we shall forget our
   misery, or only remember it as waters that have passed away, never to
   come back again.

   This is the sum and substance of all that I have been trying to say to
   you--"Be of good courage and He shall strengthen your heart, all you
   that hope in the Lord." Christians do not live on the comforts of this
   world--their inheritance is on the other side of Jordan. If you are
   like Esau and can be content with red pottage, well, you may have it,
   but you will lose the birthright if you do not prize it. But if you are
   God's true Jacob, you will gladly give up the pottage to get the
   promise of the future inheritance. Oh, what a blessed thing is the
   faith that enables the soul to postpone the present in order to obtain
   that blessed future! For what is the present, after all, but a fleeting
   show, an empty dream? But the future is eternal and incorruptible,
   reserved in Heaven at the right hand of God, where there are pleasures
   forever-more!

   Now that, by God's mercy, I again find myself in your midst after a
   season of sore suffering, I desire to forget my miseries--and some of
   them have been very sharp ones. I am so glad to be here, again, to see
   you all, and I pray that it may be a long time before I am deprived of
   the great privilege of speaking to you in the name of the Lord. I bless
   God tonight and praise His name in the great congregation. And I ask
   for every Brother and Sister that, when your time of misery comes, you
   may be brought through it all and come out of the big end of the horn,
   rejoicing in the cornucopia of God's bounty and blessedness, and
   praising His name, as I do at this time with all my heart! Oh, may
   every one of you find this text to be true to you, "You shall forget
   your misery, and remember it as waters that pass away"! The blessing of
   the Lord be with you all forevermore! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOB 11.

   The words we are about to read were spoken by one of Job's three
   friends--or what if I call them his three tormentors? These men did not
   speak wisely and their argument was not altogether sound. But, for all
   that, in the instance before us, Zophar the Naamathite spoke that which
   was truthful. Although he made a great mistake in turning it against
   Job, yet what he said was, in the main, correct, and we may learn from
   it as we read it. Remember, dear Friends, that whenever you read the
   words of these three men, you must take them with a good many grains of
   salt. They are not to be

   accepted as if they were God's Word, because they are not. Those three
   men were mistaken in many points, yet very much of what they said was
   weighty and valuable--and is still worthy of our careful consideration.

   Verses 1-3. Then answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said, Should not
   the multitude of words be answered? And should a man full of talk be
   justified? Should your lies make men hold their peace? And when you
   mock, shall no man make you ashamed?This was a very bitter and cruel
   speech. Zophar was not using the language of friendship, or even of
   common courtesy. First, he charged Job with being a great talker, "a
   man full of talk." No doubt Job did speak well and eloquently, but to
   retort upon him that he was a man abundant in words was a very cruel
   thing, especially when he was in such a condition of distress and
   suffering. Yet, dear Friends, it is an evil thing to be men of tongue
   and not of hand. It is a dreadful thing to be men--or, for that matter,
   women--who are "full of talk" and, therefore, have no room for anything
   else. There are some people who seem to think that simply by their
   volubility they can carry all before them! In such a case we may say
   with Zophar, "Should not the multitude of words be answered? And should
   a man full of talk be justified?" But he went beyond these questions
   and charged Job with downright lying because he had pleaded his own
   inno-cence--"Should your lies make men hold their peace?" Zophar also
   insinuated that Job fumed and frothed, as it were, and spoke folly,
   which he certainly did not do, for he spoke in solemn, sober earnest if
   ever a man did.

   4. For you have said, My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in Your eyes.
   Job did not say that. At least he did not say it in so many words. He
   did endeavor to prove his own innocence of the false charges that were
   brought against him, but he never said that he was clean in God's eyes.

   5. 6. But oh that God would speak, and open His lips against you; and
   that He would show you the secrets ofwis-dom, that they are double to
   that which is!Oh, that God would enable you, dear Friends, to see your
   sin and make you perceive that there is a double meaning in His Law--a
   deep, underlying, spiritualmeaning, as well as that which is apparent
   on the surface, so that a man may be guilty of transgression even when
   he thinks it is not! Oh, that God would unveil the secrets of His
   wisdom so as to make you see that He is wiser than all His works, that
   His hidden wisdom is double that which you have been able to perceive
   in Nature, or in Providence, and infinitely greater than He has ever
   made it appear before men's eyes!

   6. Know therefore that God exacts of you less than your iniquity
   deserves. That was a hard thing for Zophar to say to Job but, still, it
   was true--and it is true in the case of all of us! "He has not dealt
   with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities."
   Even when a man sits down among the ashes, robbed of all his property
   and bereaved of all his children--and when he has to scrape himself
   with a potsherd because of his many boils--even then it may be truly
   said to him, "God exacts of you less than your iniquity deserves."

   7. Can you, by searching, find out God? Can you find out the Almighty
   unto perfection! What amazing questions these are! How they ought to
   convict those who glibly talk of God as if they could measure Him with
   a ruler and understood exactly what He ought to do and ought to be. We
   are constantly meeting with statements that such-and-such a thing,
   which is revealed in Scripture, cannot be true because it is
   inconsistent with the modern idea of the benevolence of God! Our only
   answer to the quibbler is, "Can you, by searching, find out God? Can
   you find out the Almighty unto perfection?"

   8. 9. It is as high as Heaven; what can you do? Deeper than Hell; what
   can you know! The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader
   than the sea. God is incomprehensible by any finite mind--and He is
   Omnipotent, too.

   10. IfHe cuts off, andshuts up, or gathers together, then who can
   hinderHim?\f He sees fit to destroy men, or for a while to make them
   prisoners. Or if He pleases to gather them together and multiply them
   like the hosts of Heaven, who can hinder Him?

   11. For He knows vain men. He sees wickedness, also. Will He not then
   consider it? Wickedness hidden under the veil of night, God sees as
   clearly as in the blaze of noon. Wickedness which never comes out of
   the heart, but tarries there, and does not lead into overt action, God
   sees. "Will He not then consider it?" Of course He will!

   12. For vain man--That is just what man is by nature! The best of men
   are vanity--emptiness. "For vain man"-- 12. Would be wise. He pretends
   to wisdom. He wishes to be thought wise. He likes to wear a wise man's
   title. "Vain

   man would be wise."

   12. Though man is born like a wild ass's colt As untamed, as ignorant,
   as willful as a wild ass's colt are we by nature. Zophar seems to think
   that he has sufficiently rebuked Job for pretending to be wise and for
   complaining that God was dealing unjustly with him. So now he begins to
   admonish him to repent.

   13-18. If you prepare your heart, and stretch out your hands toward
   Him; if iniquity is in your hands, put it far away, and let not
   wickedness dwell in your tabernacles. For then shall you lift up your
   face without spot; yes, you shall be steadfast, and shall not fear:
   because you shall forget your misery, and remember it as waters that
   pass away: and your age shall be clearer than the noonday; you shall
   shine forth, you shall be as the morning. And you shall be secure,
   because there is hope; yes, you shall dig about you, and you shall take
   your rest in safety. I t is a great mercy when God enables men to
   pursue their daily callings and to take their nightly rest in safety.
   And it is a still greater mercy when they feel secure, whether they
   live or die, because they have a good hope concerning the hereafter. It
   is an unspeakable blessing when sin is washed away and a man can lift
   up his face to God without spot, and walk in the light of Jehovah's
   Countenance all the day long!

   19, 20. Also you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid; yes,
   many shall make suit unto you. But the eyes of the wicked shall fail.
   Carefully notice this very solemn prophecy--the eyes that have looked
   upon sin with pleasure--the eyes that have flashed with lascivious
   desire--the eyes that have dared to look towards God with defiance or
   derision-- "the eyes of the wicked shall fail."

   20. And they shall not escape. To what place could they escape from
   God, when He is everywhere? During the days when the Roman empire
   extended all over the world, people said that the whole earth was one
   great prison for Caesar's enemies. And the universe itself is a vast
   prison for those who are condemned of God! Where shall they go to avoid
   arrest? Where shall they flee to get beyond God's reach? They cannot
   escape anywhere! There is neither hole nor corner, even in the bowels
   of the mountains, or in the flinty hearts of the rocks, where a sinner
   can hide himself from the hand of God! "They shall not escape."

   20. And their hope. The last thing that ever dies, "their hope"--

   20. Shall be as the giving up of the ghost Like death itself, their
   hope shall be. Then, if "their hope shall be as the giving up of the
   ghost," what hope is there for them? Let us not have our portion with
   them, else we shall be as hopeless as they are!
     __________________________________________________________________

Spiritual Religion

   (No. 2677)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JUNE 3, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK, ON A THURSDAY EVENING, EARLY IN
   THE YEAR 1858.

   "It is the spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing." John 6:63.

   To a casual reader, it looks as if the meaning of this passage lay upon
   the very surface, but he who has studied the chapter carefully has
   discovered that it is a sentence replete with many difficulties as to
   the exact interpretation of it. I shall not, however, waste your time
   by entering into any critical discussion of it, but shall only try to
   give you simply what I believe to be the mind of the Spirit, as uttered
   by the lips of Jesus in this passage. And after I have done that, I
   shall then revert to what I shall call the meaning which any person
   would give to it who is not a diligent and careful student of
   Scripture. That meaning being true, although not the special Truth of
   God taught in this passage, I shall briefly enlarge upon it.

   "It is the spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing." I suppose
   there is not a man in the world who could form any intelligent idea of
   what a spirit is. It is very easy for persons to define a spirit by
   saying what it is not, but I question whether there is, or ever could
   be, any man who could form any idea of what it is. We sometimes talk
   about seeinga spirit--ignorant persons in ages gone by--and some living
   now in benighted villages talk about seeing spirits by night. They must
   know that such talk is a contradiction. Matter can be seen, but a
   spirit, if it clothed itself in any light substance, could not even
   then be seen--it would only be the substance that would be visible! The
   spirit itself is a thing which can neither be tasted, handled, seen,
   nor discerned in any way whatever by our senses, for if it could thus
   be perceived, there would then be proof positive that it was not a
   spirit at all, but that it belonged to the material realm. We divide
   all things into matter and spirit. And whatever can be recognized by
   the senses in any way, is matter, depend on it. A spirit is itself a
   thing too subtle to be either seen or in any other way perceived by the
   senses, so I repeat what I said just now, that I suppose there is no
   man living, and that there never will be any man in this mortal state
   who will be able to accurately define a spirit so as to say what it is,
   though he may be able to say what it is not.

   Now, there is a region where there are spirits dwelling without any
   bodies being connected with them. It is certain that, in the world to
   come, in that state which now intervenes between the death of the
   saints and the day of the resurrection, they are dwelling before the
   Throne of God in a disembodied state--pure spirits, without any
   corporeal form whatever. It is quite certain that the saints before the
   Throne have no semblance of bodily shape whatever. They are pure
   spirits--beings whose substance we cannot imagine--purely immaterial,
   as they are also immaculate. But, on earth, you can find no such thing
   as a pure spirit. We are all spirits in bodies and, somehow, from the
   fact that wherever we find souls and spirits, they are always found in
   bodies, we are very apt to confuse bodies and spirits together. But let
   us always understand that bodies and spirits are distinct things and
   though it has pleased God, in this world, never to make a spirit
   without making a house for it to dwell in, called the body, yet the
   body is not the spirit. "It is the spirit that quickens; the flesh
   profits nothing."

   You will easily perceive the truth of this passage if you will
   recollect that, in man's body, no one can tell where the life is
   situated. In vain the surgeon lays the body on the table and dissects
   it--he will find life neither in the brain nor in the heart. He may cut
   the body in pieces as he pleases, but he will not find anything that he
   can lay hold upon, tangible and real, and say, "That is life." He can
   see all the effects and evidences of life. He can watch the various
   parts of the body

   moving. He can behold all the appearances of life which are caused by a
   supernatural something, but he cannot see life. That is altogether
   beyond his skill and, after all his searching, he must lay down his
   scalpel and say at once, "There now, the task is all over. There is a
   spirit that quickens this body, but in my search after life, this flesh
   profits me nothing. I might as well search for a soul within a stone,
   or within one of the pillars that support this house, as search for a
   soul within mere flesh and blood if I look for something which I can
   see, which I can lay hold of, or which, by either taste, sight,
   smelling, or any other sense, I can distinguish and can designate as
   being a spirit."

   So, Brothers and Sisters, this illustration just brings me to the Truth
   of God that is taught in our text. We are here assembled, at this
   moment, spirits, souls. Here we are, also, bodies, but these bodies are
   not ourselves--they are the houses in which we live. I question whether
   there is any man who can define what he, himself, is. The most that any
   man can say is, "I am. I know I have an existence, but what kind of
   thing my spirit is, I do not know, I cannot tell. I have no knowledge
   of what it is. I feel it. I know it moves my body. I feel its outward
   manifestations. I am certain of my existence. But what I am, I know
   not. God alone can say." "I AM THAT I AM," is comprehensible only to
   God Himself. Man is a being incomprehensible to himself and though the
   Lord may allow him to say, "By the Grace of God I am what I am," he
   cannot tell what he really is--he cannot fully comprehend his own
   existence!

   Understand, then, that, as in our being there is a mystery in our
   flesh, so religion, the true religion of the blessed God, in order to
   be made like unto us and to be a something suitable to us, must be a
   religion of spirit But, because we also have a body, it must have a
   body in which to clothe itself. I want, if I can, to make this plain to
   you. And if you do not understand it now, I hope you will before I have
   done. We are spirits in bodies. Well, then, in order to meet our cases,
   the great work of God in us must be a spiritual thing! But in order
   that I may be able to talk about it to you and that you may be able to
   hear it with your ears, that spiritual thing must be encased in a body.
   Or else, if it were a purely spiritual thing, I could not explain it to
   you any more than I could explain to you about a spirit, if there were
   no body in which a spirit could be found, and no body in which I could
   be able to live to talk about it.

   I want to show you this Truth very clearly, because there are some
   persons who are so busy about that which concerns merely the body of
   religion that they altogether forget that religion has also a spirit. I
   believe that what our Lord Jesus meant in this passage was, "The mere
   embodiment of religion profits nothing; it is the spirit that
   quickens." Just as, to use my figure over again, in order to perform an
   act the mere flesh and blood and arms and legs profit nothing, it is
   the spirit that quickens all the bones and makes the nerves act as they
   ought to do and the sinews work as they should. And so religion has its
   outward form, it has its ceremonies, it has its external and visible
   developments--its body--but the mere outward body of religion is of no
   use whatever unless the inward and invisible spirit quickens it.

   I. To begin, then, I WILL FIRST SHOW YOU THIS TRUTH AS OUR SAVIOR, I
   THINK, MEANT IT WHEN HE FIRST OF ALL STATED IT.

   There were some people, in our Savior's day, who admired Christ merely
   as a Man. And they thought there was some marvelous efficacy in His
   flesh and blood. To them He said, using almost the very words of our
   text, "Even My flesh will profit you nothing; it is the spirit that
   quickens." I must state this Truth of God very cautiously, yet very
   plainly. When our Savior was upon this earth, there were some, I
   repeat, who admired His Person. You remember how our Savior rebuked the
   woman who said to Him, "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the
   breasts which nursed You"? He would not have people simply admire His
   flesh and think so much of His mere Humanity, so He said to her, "More
   than that, blessed are they who hear the Word of God and keep it."

   There were some other people who wanted to take the Lord Jesus and make
   Him a king, but, in effect, He said to them, "My flesh, even if you
   exalt it to a throne, will profit you nothing. I did not come here that
   you might bow down and venerate My mere flesh--that you might think the
   mere admiration of My mortal frame is vital religion. It is the spirit,
   the Gospel that I came to preach, that will benefit you. It is not
   these outward appearances. It is My thoughts, Words and acts which are
   to bless you." Hear what the Savior says in the next sentence, "It is
   not your admiration of My flesh that is of any use to you, for My flesh
   profits nothing; it is the spirit that quickens; and if you want to
   know what is the spirit of My Incarnation, I tell you that the Words
   that I speak to you, they are spirit, and they are life. It is not your
   venerating My flesh and blood, it is your reception of My doctrines
   that will be the heart and soul of the religion that I desire you to
   possess."

   Our Savior was, however, led to make these remarks from the fact that
   the ignorant Jews, when Jesus talked about eating His flesh and
   drinking His blood, really thought that He meant that they were to turn
   cannibals and eat Him up. You may well smile at so ridiculous an idea,
   yet you know that the idea is still prevalent in the Church of Rome.
   The Romish priest solemnly assures us that the people who eat the bread
   and drink the wine, or the stuff he calls bread and wine, do actually
   act the part of cannibals and eat the body of Christ and drink His
   blood. You say to him, "You mean, my dear Sir, that they do it in a
   figure, spiritually." "No," he says, "I do not. I mean to say that
   after I have pronounced certain words over that bread, it becomes
   Christ's flesh. And after I have said a certain prayer over that wine,
   it becomes His actual blood." "Well," we reply to him, "it is very
   singular, and you certainly cannot expect us to believe you while God
   allows our heads to be occupied by brains! But even if we do believe
   you, my dear Sir, we refer you to this passage which says, 'It is the
   Spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing.' You tell the people
   that they do actually and really receive the body and blood of Christ.
   Suppose they do--it is no earthly use to them! And even if they could
   carnally bite the flesh with their teeth and drink the blood down their
   throats, it would be of no more use to them than the eating of the
   flesh and blood of any other man. It could be of no service whatever to
   them, for Christ Himself denounces the error of transubstantiation and
   declares that even His flesh profits nothing! It is only the spirit,
   the spiritual receiving of that flesh and blood, that can be of any use
   whatever."

   While I am referring to this point, allow me to say just a few more
   words upon it, for Popery prevails in this day, and the doctrine that
   the bread and wine are turned into the body and blood of Christ is the
   bulwark of Popery. Dr. Carson, of Coleraine, son of Dr. Carson the
   eminent Baptist, has challenged Dr. Cahill in a remarkable way. He has
   challenged Dr. Cahill to prove that he can turn the bread and wine used
   in the sacrament into Christ's body and blood. He offers to give Dr.
   Cahill a hundred pounds if he will let him make a wafer for him and, if
   Dr. Cahill will then put it on his own tongue and swallow it in Mr.
   Carson's presence, "if the Doctor is not dead in an hour," says Dr.
   Carson, "I'll give him a hundred pounds." "No," says someone, "that is
   not fair." "Oh, but if he can turn it into the body and blood of
   Christ, it cannot hurt him, whatever it may contain." "But would you
   make it of poison, then?" "Yes, the deadliest I could find." "Would you
   give him poison?" "I would not give it to him--he would swallow it
   himself--he would do it of his own voluntary choice." Of course Dr.
   Cahill will not submit to that test! He knows that he cannot turn the
   wafer and the wine into the body and blood of Christ--if he could, Dr.
   Carson says it would not hurt him, for the body and blood of Christ
   would poison no one.

   But some wise Romanist says, "That is not a fair test. Dr. Cahill does
   not pretend to turn poison into the body and blood of Christ--it is
   only pure bread and wine that can thus be manipulated." "Very well,"
   says Dr. Carson, "I'll try him another way. I will let him choose a
   youth from seven or eight Catholic boys. He shall take a quart of wine
   and turn this wine, in his own peculiar way, into the blood of Christ.
   The boy shall drink the quart of wine and if he is not drunk in six
   hours, I will pay the hundred pounds." "Now," says Dr. Carson, "if that
   liquid is really the blood of Christ, it will not make him drunk! He
   might drink a barrel of it and it would not make him intoxicated." But
   Dr. Cahill dares not accept such a trial as that, for it would very
   soon be found that the so-called "consecrated" wine would make the boy
   intoxicated as quickly as any other wine would! Therefore it cannot be
   turned, even by the great Doctor, himself, into the blood of Christ.
   [We assume Dr. Cahill is a priest.]

   The fact is, the lie is so foolish, the delusion is so absurd, that any
   child of a reasonable age would as soon think of believing the cock and
   bull story which we used to read in our childish days, about what the
   bull said, and what the cock said, to be actual truth, as to imagine it
   to be a literal fact that any priest, or any man in the world, could
   ever turn bread and wine into flesh and blood! But even if they could,
   hear again the words of our text--"It is the spirit that quickens; the
   flesh profits nothing." So, then, after all, the Roman Catholic
   "sacrament," if it is actually a cannibal's feast upon the body and
   blood of Christ, is of no earthly use! But that Divinely-appointed
   ordinance wherein we do spiritually receive the flesh and blood of
   Jesus and, in a spiritual way hold communion with Him, is that alone
   which quickens!

   This brings me to the Truth of God that I want you, dear Friends,
   especially to understand. As Christ Jesus in His flesh was the
   embodiment of His own doctrine, and yet not His flesh, but the spirit
   of His doctrine quickens souls, so the outward forms and ceremonies
   which Christ has made to be the body to contain the spirit of His
   Truth, are of no earthly use at all unless the Spirit of God is in
   them!

   Take, for instance, the ordinance of Believers' Baptism--there are the
   pool and the water. That pool and that water are, so to speak, the
   flesh and blood of dedication. The right observance of that holy
   ordinance signifies that we do solemnly devote ourselves to the Lord
   Jesus. Suppose, however, our hearts are in a wrong condition, or that
   we are not converted persons--suppose there is no influence of the
   Spirit resting upon us during the act of Baptism? Then the act of
   Baptism is like the flesh apart from the spirit--it is a dead thing, it
   profits nothing because it is without the soul. We come, the next
   Sabbath, to the Lord's Table--there is the bread broken by God's
   servant. There is the wine reverently handed round by the deacons of
   the Church and it is sipped by the communicants. But, mark you, however
   devoutly the whole service is performed, unless the Spirit of the
   living God breathes through the Divine ordinance, "the flesh"--that is,
   the mere embodiment of communion--will profit you nothing! You might
   sit at a thousand communion tables and you might be baptized in a
   myriad pools--but all this would not avail one jot or tittle for your
   salvation unless you had the Spirit of God to quicken you!

   No, to go further, it is not these two outward ordinances only that
   need the Spirit in them--it is so in everything else. You have
   sometimes read, dear Friends, of some eminent Christians who grew to
   have much fellowship with Christ by prayer. Perhaps you imbibed the
   idea that if you were to go home and spend as many hours in your closet
   as they did, you would get as much profit by it--but not thinking about
   the Holy Spirit, you simply devote yourself to private prayer as you
   might to any manual exercise--with a hope of profiting by the exercise.
   I tell you, you might be on your knees till your knees were worn bare
   and you might be in your closet till the steam of your devotion ran
   down the walls, but unless the Spirit of the Lord was in that closet
   with you, the mere fleshly exercise of praying would no more avail and
   profit you than if you had been chanting songs to the moon, or standing
   in the street to sell your goods!

   Another hears that a certain person has been very much blessed by
   reading a text of Scripture. "Oh," he says, "has that text been blessed
   to such an one? Then I'll go and read the same passage." You think that
   if you do the same as he does, you will be equally blessed and you are
   marvelously surprised that when you read the passage, it does you no
   good. It made his spirit leap for joy. It filled his soul with the wine
   of the Kingdom of God, but to you it is like a dry well, or an empty
   bottle. Why is this? The mere letter, in which the promise is revealed,
   profits you nothing--it is the spirit of the promise, it is the life of
   the Holy Spirit running through the veins of the promise that alone can
   profit you! You hear that another man meditates on God's Law day and
   night and becomes like a tree planted by the rivers of water. You say,
   "I will take care that, every morning, I will read a chapter out of the
   Scriptures and that, every night, I will read twochap-ters." There are
   certain people who think that if they read a good passage out of the
   Bible, they have done a great deal. In that kind of spirit, they might
   just as well read a portion out of Hudibras, for they just read it
   straight through, without thinking or understanding it.

   Many of our ministers think that in the public service they must read a
   certain quantity of Scriptures and they take, perhaps, three long
   chapters out of Ezekiel--and not a soul in the congregation knows the
   meaning of what they are reading! If they were to read a Dutch sermon
   in an English chapel, it would do the hearers just about as much good,
   for no one understands what they read. Instead of reading, as Ezra did,
   and expounding the meaning to the people, they must go on over hedge
   and ditch--one continual steeple-chase! Instead of stopping to crack
   the shells and give the kernels of Truth to the people, they read right
   on, without attempting to give any explanation of the passage. To such
   persons, we would simply say, "Your Bible reading is but the flesh, it
   is of no use to you, 'it is the spirit that quickens.' The mere flesh,
   the outward fashion and form of Bible reading will not profit anybody.
   One sentence of the Bible prayed over and bedewed with the Spirit, and
   made alive, though it is only a short sentence of six words, will
   profit you more than a hundred chapters without the Spirit, because
   they are 'flesh'--dead! But the one verse with the Spirit is the thing
   that quickens."

   I do not know whether I have as yet brought out the full meaning of the
   text, but I want to let everyone understand that it is not the mere
   outward embodiment of our religion that saves the soul and that profits
   us--it is the inner spirit of the thing that does us good. Mark, I
   would not find fault with any of these forms, any more than I would
   find fault with our bodies because they are not spirits. Our bodies are
   good things for our spirits to live in and the forms of religion are
   good things for the spirit of religion to live in--but the form without
   the spirit, though it is the most decorous, and apparently the most
   devout that can be presented to God, can be of no use for our soul's
   eternal profit and ultimate salvation. "It is the spirit that quickens;
   the flesh profits nothing."

   Now, my dear Friend, Mr. So-and-So, if you will just take out your
   pencil and cast up your accounts for all the years of your life, the
   sum of them all will come to very little if what I say is true. "I
   think," you say, "I am a tolerably good sort of man. I have a few
   faults, but just look at what I have done! I have been to Chapel twice
   every Sunday almost since I was a boy--I don't know that I missed once,
   except when I was ill--that has been very good of me, and no mistake. I
   always read the Bible every morning. I always have family prayer--that
   is very good of me. Another item to be reckoned to my account--I say my
   prayers when I go to bed at night, and when I get up in the morning. I
   very frequently go to Prayer Meetings. I don't think anyone can
   reasonably find fault with me. Really, I think I do everything to make
   me a truly religious man."

   Ah, and did you put at the end of it, "Lord, I thank You that I am not
   as other men are--unjust, extortioners," and so on, or even like that
   poor fellow, a Sabbath-breaker, whom you saw going the opposite way as
   you were coming to your usual place of worship? It is a pity you didn't
   finish it up in that fashion--but if you did not in words, you finished
   it up so in your heart! I pray God to show you that all these beautiful
   things of yours are good for nothing! There are your Chapel-goings--all
   flesh! There are your Bible readings--all flesh! There are your family
   prayers--all flesh! There are your good works and excellences--all
   flesh! You have never received the Spirit of the living God--you dare
   not say that you have. Well, then, all these things will profit you
   nothing whatever.

   "It is the spirit that quickens," you know, my dear Sir--and let me
   speak very pointedly--you know that you never enter into the spirit of
   the things of which you have been speaking. Though you go to your
   church or chapel regularly, yet you know that you might very often just
   as well be at home, for when the worshippers sing, you do not sing with
   all your heart--and when the minister preaches, it is seldom there is
   much that touches you, unless it is what you call "a good intellectual
   discourse," which happens to please you--and you believe it just
   because it agrees with your views. You know that, into the inward soul,
   marrow and heart of devotion, you have never yet learned to penetrate.
   Your devotion is like a certain ox which was slain as a sacrifice in
   the time of siege in Rome, and was said to forecast evil because, when
   the sorcerer slew it, he declared that he could not find a heart
   anywhere. He looked through all the entrails, but no heart could he
   discover and, therefore, the Romans declared that their city must be
   destroyed. It was an omen of ill fortune, they said, when the sacrifice
   had no heart in it.

   It is just the same with you. You have done all these things and there
   has been as much reality in what you have done as there was devotion in
   the poor fool's windmill, when he tied a prayer to it and put it up in
   the garden--every time it blew round, he counted that as one more
   prayer. There was as much heart in your prayer as there was in his
   windmill-- that is to say, none at all! Go on no longer with this
   useless round of performances, I implore you. I would not have you give
   up the performances, but seek the spirit that can make them true and
   acceptable in God's sight. Stop awhile and ask God to give you that
   inward spirit that quickens, for that is what is needed--"the flesh
   profits nothing."

   But I must also speak to you who are the children of God, and I must
   ask you--How often do you forget this all-important Truth of God? I
   know it is not likely that I would leave my chamber any morning without
   prayer. But, oh, Brothers and Sisters, I have often left it without
   having the spirit of prayer! I should not like to pass a day without
   reading the Scriptures, but I am afraid it is very often the mere
   "flesh" of formal reading and not the spirit breathing in the Word. And
   how often is our conscience satisfied with the mere form without the
   spirit? Now, if we were what we ought to be, we would never be content
   with the form unless we could also see the spirit in it.

   Mother, would you be content to have at home a child who was dead?
   Suppose someone should say to you, "Why, this child is just as good a
   child as ever it was! Look at it! It has not lost a leg, or an arm, or
   any part of its body!" "Ah, but," you would say, "it is dead." "Oh,"
   says one, "there is no great difference. It looks as beautiful, now, as
   ever it did." "Ah," says the poor mother, "but there is a vast deal of
   difference between what it was when it was alive, and what it is now it
   is dead." Just transfer that idea to your poor dead prayers, your poor
   dead Bible readings, your poor dead sacraments, your poor dead goings
   to chapel and all that! Ah, how many of our sacrifices are just poor
   dead things when we bring them to the Lord! They have died in the night
   and then we come and offer them before God! How frequently do we
   satisfy our conscience with having "the flesh"--the embodiment of the
   sacrifice--and yet, all the while, we forget the spirit! But let us
   remember that God only looks for the life. He does not trouble about
   the body and we ought, in all we do for him, to take care, first of
   all, that the spirit is there and then we may rest quite sure that the
   flesh and blood of the devotion will take care of themselves.

   II. This, I believe, is the true meaning of the passage. But the common
   rendering of it, if anyone reads it without noticing the context, would
   be, "Why, that means, 'It is the Spirit that quickens.' That is to say,
   'IT IS THE HOLY SPIRIT THAT QUICKENS; THE FLESH PROFITS NOTHING.'"

   Our friend will excuse me when I say that it cannot mean that. You
   notice that the "s" in the word, "spirit," in the text has not a
   capital letter. If it meant the Holy Spirit, it would be so marked, to
   separate it from the spirit to which I have just referred--the inward
   spirit, the life of a thing. This word, "spirit," here does not mean
   the Holy Spirit. Still, almost every ordinary reader would make that
   mistake and say, "It is the Holy Spirit that quickens; the flesh
   profits nothing." Well, it is a mistake that will not do him any hurt,
   because if it does not say so here, it does say so somewhere else! And
   if it is not true in this one particular text, it is true all over the
   Bible! And it is true in a Christian's experience, so that a man may
   make a great many worse mistakes than that. Well, then, let us for once
   make that mistake, and then let us get the Truth of God out of it--"It
   is the Holy Spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing"--

   "Can anything beneath a power Divine

   The stubborn will subdue?

   'Tis Yours, Eternal Spirit, Yours

   To form the heart anew.

   'Tis Yours the passions to recall,

   And upwards bid them rise

   And make the scales of error fall

   From Reason's darkened eyes.

   To chase the shades of death away,

   And bid the sinner live--

   A beam of Heaven, a vital ray--

   'Tis Yours alone to give."

   How often have I thought, when I have been preaching, "There is a young
   woman in the gallery and down there in that area is a young man--how
   interested they look during the sermon!" I have met with them, I have
   admired their characters. They have had an amiable carriage and
   deportment. There has been much in them that everybody would tell
   others to imitate and emulate. I have said, "Ah, I shall soon have them
   added to the Church--there is so much that is good about them, it will
   be such an easy transition for them--they are so moral and so
   excellent, surely it will be very easy for them to take a step into the
   Kingdom of Heaven." I don't say that I have said so much as that in
   words to my heart, but that has been about what I have thought. Well,
   there has been a very different sort of fellow, a strange looking
   object, certainly, who came running into the Chapel one Thursday
   evening, towards the end of the service. He was not even washed, nor in
   any way prepared for Divine worship--he only came to hear something
   that would make him laugh, as he thought. I did not expect to have him
   converted, but the next time I sat to see enquirers, in he
   came--cleaned and brushed up--but I recognized him, for all that, and I
   said to him, "Didn't you come into the Chapel, one Thursday night,
   after you had been hammering and tinkering away somewhere? I thought
   you looked a strange customer, certainly." "Yes," he said, "and the
   Lord met with me that night!"

   Now, I sat many and many a time to see enquirers, but I did not see the
   young man or the young woman come. Why was this? The Lord meant to
   teach His servant that "the flesh profits nothing." That man seemed to
   me far from God, but that young man and that young woman seemed very
   near. But the Lord said to me, "I will let you learn that all their
   morality and all their goodness did not put them near the Kingdom of
   Heaven, or help towards their salvation. I could save one as well as
   the other, and if I chose to show My Sovereignty, I might even let
   publicans and harlots enter the Kingdom of Heaven before those who,
   becoming proud of their morality, would not stoop before Me."

   Have you not, sometimes, met with a person of such a peculiar character
   that you have said, "Is it not a pity someone cannot talk with that
   man?" I often have notes of this sort. A father writes to me, "I wish
   you could get hold of my son. He is a very interesting young man. If
   you were to put the Truth before him to suit his turn of mind, he would
   be sure to lay hold of it, for if you knew how he was mentally
   constituted, you would say at once there was a peculiar adaptation in
   his mind for the reception of the Gospel." Well, I have been told that
   a dozen times, but I never found it true even once! "The flesh profits
   nothing." No peculiar adaptation of mind is any more susceptible of
   Gospel influences than another. Dead sinners are all dead and all dead
   alike! Some may be black and some may be white--some may be well washed
   and

   dressed, and some may have all the mire and filth of sensuality about
   them--but they are all dead! And when converting Grace comes to deal
   with them, it finds as much for its exercise in the one case as in the
   other. It finds as much to help it in the one heart as in the
   other--that is to say, it finds nothing to help it at all. It brings
   all that is helpful within itself--it kindles its own fire with its own
   torch! It blows the fire with its own breath and asks for nothing in
   the sinner, be he who he may!

   Then, again, we have sometimes said, "If such-and-such a man were
   converted, dear me, what a shining Christian he would make! He is a man
   of brilliant talents, of great intellectual power and of extensive
   fortune. Oh, if he were but converted, what a jubilee it would be to
   the Church of God! How much he would do for Christ!" Well, do you know,
   I have always found out that these fine people who, when they were
   converted, were to be something extraordinary--if they have been
   converted and we have got them--have not turned out to be quite so
   great after all! I knew a minister once, who, with great joy and
   gladness, baptized a man. It was on a New-Year's Day and I remember
   with what self-congratulation he said, "The Lord has sent me one of the
   best New-Year's gifts I ever had." And he looked upon that man and
   said, "Ah, this is a Brother! He is a great gain to the Church. He is a
   man of such active spirit, of such an excellent turn of mind and he is
   everything that could be desired." Well, I have just happened to live
   long enough to see that man tear the church apart and drive the
   minister out of his pulpit! And he is still alive--a thorn in the side
   of that church and a huge prickly bramble that they would be glad
   enough to eradicate--but they have not the power to do that. No, the
   Lord will show us that "the flesh profits nothing." "You may have him,"
   says the Lord, "if he is such a fine fellow, take him. You will find he
   will not be much good to you, after all. I will let you know that 'the
   flesh profits nothing.' 'It is the Spirit alone that quickens.'"

   On the other hand, we have seen some come whose "flesh" could not help
   them. They were the poor, the mean, the illiterate, the despised--and
   we have seen the Grace of God blaze up in their hearts to an intense
   degree of fervor! And we have seen them stand confident and strong,
   notwithstanding the nothingness of the flesh. And then we have said,
   "Verily, O God, it is marvelous how, when the flesh is weak, Your Grace
   is strong." And we have heard an answer from "the excellent glow,"
   which said, "Ah, the flesh profits nothing; it is the Spirit that
   quickens."

   Now, I do not believe that there is any form of our flesh, nor any act
   of our flesh, nor anything that our flesh can do, or attempt to do, or
   think of, or suggest, that can in any way assist in the great spiritual
   work of our salvation. It is the Spirit alone that quickens, and you
   will find, till you die, that "the flesh profits nothing," and profits
   no one except the devil. It often profits him, but in God's ways. And
   in God's holy Gospel, you will always find the flesh lusting against
   the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. You will have to feel
   this Truth, that the flesh at its best estate profits nothing. "It is
   the Spirit that quickens."

   Now, my Brothers and Sisters, in conclusion, I will ask you this
   question--Have you received the influences of the Holy Spirit? And have
   those influences led you to worship God, who is a Spirit, "in spirit
   and in truth?" For, if not, though some may put you in the cradle of
   ceremonies and rock you to sleep, I will not be one of them! Although
   men may tell you you are right enough because you are outwardly so
   religious, because you are no Sabbath-breaker, no swearer, no drunkard,
   I warn you that unless you are born again from above, you cannot see
   the Kingdom of God! And when drunks, harlots and all manner of ungodly
   persons shall be driven from the Presence of God, you, also, shall
   share their fate, for you are dead in trespasses and sins, even as they
   are! If you would ever enter Heaven, you must be quickened by the Holy
   Spirit. No more shall I say, but earnestly entreat the Spirit of the
   blessed God to impress upon your hearts this solemn thought and lead
   you to renounce the works of the flesh--and put your trust in Him "who
   is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe." May the
   Lord's mercy rest upon you all, for Jesus' sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Lesson of the Almond Tree

   (No. 2678)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JUNE 10, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL
   7, 1881.

   "Moreover the word of the LORRD came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what do
   you see? And I said, I see a branch of an almond tree. Then said the
   LORD unto me, You have seen well: for I am ready to perform My word."
   Jeremiah 1:11,12.

   OBSERVE, first, dear Friends, that before Jeremiah becomes a speaker
   for God, he must be a seer. The name for a Prophet, in the olden time,
   was a "seer"--a man who could see--one who could see with his mind's
   eye, one who could also see with spiritual insight, so as vividly to
   realize the Truth of God which he had to deliver in the name of the
   Lord. Learn that simple lesson well, O you who try to speak for God!
   You must be seers before you can be speakers.

   The question with which God usually begins His conversation with each
   of His true servants is the one He addressed to Jeremiah, "What do you
   see?" I am afraid that there are some ministers, nowadays, who do not
   see much. Judging by what they preach, their vision must be all in
   cloudland, where all they see is smoke, mist and fog. I often meet with
   persons who have attended the same ministry for years--and when I have
   asked them even very simple questions about the things of God, I have
   found that they do not know anything. It was not because they were not
   able to comprehend quickly when the Truth was set forth plainly before
   them, but I fear that it was, in most cases, because there was nothing
   that they could learn from the minister to whom they had been
   accustomed to listen. The preacher had seen nothing and, therefore,
   when he described what he saw, of course it all amounted to nothing.
   No, my Brother, before you can make an impression upon another person's
   heart, you must have an impression made upon your own soul. You must be
   able to say, concerning the Truth of God, "I see it," before you can
   speak it so that your hearers shall also see it. It must be clear to
   your own mind, by the spiritual perception which accompanies true
   faith, or else you will not be able to say with the Psalmist, "I
   believed, therefore have I spoken." Let me say again that sentence
   which I uttered a minute ago--the speaker for God must first be a seer
   in the Light of God.

   And, next, the true speaker for God must see what God sets before him.
   In this case, the Lord had set before Jeremiah's eye "a branch of an
   almond tree." We might have thought that as a preparation for his
   prophetical work, he would have seen mysterious wheels full of eyes, or
   flaming seraphs and cherubs, or the wonderful creatures that were
   caused to appear in the dreams of Ezekiel and the Revelation to John.
   Instead of this, Jeremiah simply sees "a branch of an almond tree" and,
   beloved Friends, when you look into the Bible, you will see some very
   simple things there--such things as save little children's souls--such
   things as men with no education can understand and believe! Be not
   anxious to be numbered among those who are so "eclectic" and "cultured"
   that if God sets before them the branch of an almond tree, they cannot
   condescend to notice it.

   That is something which everybody can see, so why should such
   remarkable eyes as theirs behold the plain things which ordinary
   individuals can perceive? They want to see--I scarcely know what they
   want to see, except their own foolish dreams--and even those are hidden
   from them. God give us Grace to see branches of almond trees when He
   sets them before us--I mean may He give us Grace to see such simple
   Truths as these--"You must be born again." "This is a faithful saying,
   and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to
   save sinners." "He that believes and is baptized, shall be saved." What
   do your see, my Friend? Do you see what God would have you see, what He
   has put before you in His Word? If so, I may say to you what the Lord
   said to Jeremiah, "You have seen well." But if not,

   however gorgeous the panorama or pageant which you have invented for
   yourself to behold, you might as well be blind, for you will only be
   following some will-o'-the-wisp that may amuse for a while, but will
   ultimately destroy the souls of men!

   Further, those who would speak aright for God must also take care to
   see with all their eyes. I do not suppose that everybody here who had
   seen the vision of a branch, would have known it to be "a branch of an
   almond tree." I do not imagine that I would, though I think I could,
   after close examination, identify a branch if it were from an olive
   tree, or orange tree, having become familiar with them during my visits
   to the South of France. But I do not know that I would, in a moment, be
   able to say of a certain branch, "That is the branch of an almond
   tree." But Jeremiah understood these things and, therefore, as soon as
   he saw what was set before him, he did not merely say, "I see a
   branch," but, "I see a branch of an almond tree." He distinguished at
   once the kind of branch that was revealed to him in vision, for he was
   a man who had those powers of discernment and discrimination which are
   most necessary in the Lord's servants. And if you, dear Friend, are
   called to teach the children in the Sunday school, or if you try to win
   souls by private conversation, or if you are a preacher of the Word,
   blessed are you if you can see below the surface of the Truth of God
   and can peer into its hidden depths of meaning and get a spiritual
   insight into the Word of God so that you do not merely see a small
   portion of the Scriptures, but you perceive a far larger part than most
   people do! You should, if you can, see it all.

   I think that many years of spiritual education and Divine training
   would be required for you to attain to that position--at any rate, to
   see all that is necessary for the due discharge of your ministry, all
   that may help you to know the meaning of the Truth and to bring it out
   for real, practical use among those to whom you seek to be made a
   blessing. O seer, ask to have clear eyes! Speaker, remember that your
   speaking must begin with your eyes and--though it may seem a strange
   thing to say--the first education for the true servant of God does not
   concern his tongue so much as his eyes! "What do you see?" Seek to be
   able to see all that you can see! And take care that you do not miss
   anything through inadvertence or neglect. "Search the Scriptures." Be
   you one of those who gazes into the Truth, as the angels desire to look
   into it, so that when you see the vision, you shall be able to say,
   with Jeremiah, "I see a branch of an almond tree."

   Next, the servant of the Lord must seek to win the approval of his
   Master as Jeremiah did. It will be a grand thing for you, dear Brothers
   and Sisters who try to speak to others, if you would receive such
   praise as God so freely gave to Jeremiah, at the very first moment of
   his ministry, when He said to him, "You have seen well." You shall
   speak well if you have seen well. O my dear young Brothers in the
   College, you who are here tonight, I hope that it will be true of you,
   whenever you think of the Doctrine of Human Depravity, that you have
   looked into your own hearts and seen the evil of your own nature till
   you have wept over it! So shall it be said to each one of you, "You
   have seen that well." I hope that you will so clearly see the truth of
   the Fall that you will recognize the evil that comes of it and the evil
   that abides in the corrupt nature of man.

   And then may you get such a sight of the Cross--such a clear view of
   the atoning blood and understand so fully the great Doctrine of
   Substitution and the Divine plan of reconciliation, that God may be
   able to say to you, "You have seen well." A lack of distinctness in our
   understanding of the Truth of God will lead to a lack of distinctness
   in our utterance of it. Oh, to have eyes like those of the Heavenly
   Bridegroom, of whom His spouse said, "His eyes are as the eyes of doves
   by the rivers of waters, washed with milk and fitly set," for, in His
   turn, He says to His bride, "Behold, you are fair, My love; behold, you
   are fair; you have doves' eyes." The ministers of the Church of Christ,
   who have, to a great extent, to be her seers, need to have clear,
   far-seeing, and pure-seeing eyes! May God grant us the power to
   distinctly trace His wondrous Grace from the eternal Fountain of
   electing love, along the streams of never-ceasing mercy which bring
   final perseverance to the saints, right onward to the coming of our
   Lord and the blessed rising of all His Church to be with Him in His
   Glory forever and ever! Before you venture to tell anything of the
   Gospel message to others, you need to hear the Lord say to you, as He
   said to Jeremiah, "You have seen well."

   For this purpose it will be necessary that your eyes should be
   enlightened. What an appropriate prayer is that for you Sunday school
   teachers and Christian ministers to offer, "Open You my eyes, that I
   may behold wondrous things out of Your Law"! I think that if I had, as
   a preacher, to make only one request to my Master, and He asked me,
   "What will you that I should do unto you?"--I should reply, "Lord, that
   I may receive my sight more fully than ever, and see Your Truth more
   clearly than ever," because there is no fear about our speaking for God
   if our seeing is what it should be. That is the main matter and,
   therefore, the Lord asks each one of us, "What do you see?" If our
   answer proves that we

   have seen well, it is because the Spirit of God has enlightened us and,
   enlightenment from God having been once received, we shall proclaim to
   others right gladly what God has revealed to us.

   Yet once more, those who see what they can see and take care to see it
   well, are the people who shall receive further instruction, for it was
   when Jeremiah said, "I see a branch of an almond tree," that the Lord
   went on to explain the vision to him, saying, "You have seen well: for
   I will hasten My word to perform it." Those who do not see what they
   can see shall not be allowed to see any more. If you will not use, in
   diligently studying the Scriptures, the judgment and perception which
   you already have, God will not give you further light since you neglect
   the gift that is in you. He will leave your fire to burn low because
   you do not stir it up--and it shall get to be more dim than it is now,
   for he who will not learn more when God is willing to teach him shall
   forget what he already knows. I charge you, who are called to teach
   others in any way whatever, to submit yourselves fully to the teaching
   of the Holy Spirit. A disciple is the only person who can become an
   Apostle. A scholar in the school of Christ is the only one who can be
   sent out to tell others what his Master wishes to have made known to
   the sons of men.

   I have spoken thus with the view of helping those who are working for
   Christ. But now I must try to explain the vision mentioned in our text.
   "Jeremiah, what do you see? I see a branch of an almond tree."

   I. Observe, first, that THE ALMOND IS A WAKEFUL TREE. The Hebrew word
   which is rendered, "almond," comes from a root signifying to be
   wakeful, so this passage might be read thus, "I see the wakeful branch.
   Then said the Lord unto me, You have seen well: for I will be wakeful
   concerning My word to perform it."

   When the other trees are asleep, before the warmth of the springtime
   has awakened them from their winter slumbers, the almond tree awakes
   and opens the lovely eyes of its abundant blossoms. In Jeremiah's
   country it begins to bloom in early January and it is in such haste to
   produce its fruit that it is often ripe before the end of March. You
   know how, even in our suburban gardens, one of the first signs of the
   approach of spring is that the almond tree begins to blossom. The East
   wind often keeps it back, yet it struggles to its utmost to come out
   while other trees are asleep. Even before the chestnut, which is
   generally up as early as almost any of our trees, has been able to cast
   off the blankets in which it slept during the winter, the almond tree
   has opened its eyes and looked out as if it were asking whether
   springtime is not coming. The almond is a wakeful tree, and so says the
   Lord, "I will be wakeful concerning My word to perform it."

   Note, first, that God never forgets a promise. Alas, you and I do not
   remember all our promises! How often are they made only to be broken!
   But God never forgets one that He has given. We even forget God's
   promises and, often, when we are in trouble, we can hardly recollect
   one that we can plead before Him. But God never yet forgot a
   promise--all these centuries in which He has been dealing with men, He
   has never yet failed to keep His word. "Has He said, and shall He not
   do it?"

   What is equally wonderful, God has never forgotten a single person to
   whom a promise belonged--not even the least. Even if they have only
   desired to seek Him, or if they have only commenced to seek Him, He has
   been gracious to them--He has heard their cry and has delivered them.
   This is a big world and there are many millions of people in it, yet
   not one of them has ever been able to say that God has failed to keep
   one of His promises. More than that, in the whole universe, throughout
   all the ages, there has never been a forgotten soul! He who counts the
   brilliant stars, counts such dim things as our understanding--and He
   who numbers the very hairs of our head never fails to reckon the cries
   of our hearts.

   Further, there has never been a single occasion of a promise which God
   has allowed to slip. When the promise has become due, He has discharged
   it to the tick of the clock! There are no dishonored bills recorded
   against God in the archives of men or of angels! No one can look up to
   the heavens and say to Him, "You have deceived me and I was deceived."
   But we can say, "Faithful and true are You, O Jehovah; this is part of
   Your Son's title, for He is the faithful and true Witness, and You are
   the faithful Promiser who always performs what He has promised." "The
   Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness."

   Let me also add that there is not a threat in God's Word which has not
   been fulfilled, or which will not yet be executed. He has been a
   wakeful God in that respect. When men have persisted in their iniquity,
   He has not allowed them to escape the just punishment of their evil
   deeds. Happily for us, we cannot hear the sighs and cries of the
   spirits shut up in Hell, but they are there. In His mercy God has made
   a great gulf between us and those who are tormented in that flame-- but
   they are there, though we cannot see or hear them. As surely as God
   lives, their iniquity and transgression are al-

   ready receiving their just recompense of reward--and there is a worse
   doom to follow. As God watches over His people to do them good, so does
   He watch over the transgressor who is finally impenitent--and makes him
   to know the terrors of His wrath. That is the black side of this Truth
   of God and it must not be ignored. You may rest assured that a judge
   who does not punish the guilty is as unjust as the one who does not
   acquit the innocent. There must be with every king who is worthy of the
   name, an execution of the sentence of the law upon evildoers, as well
   as the award of praise for them that do well. Paul says, concerning the
   earthly representative of authority, "He bears not the sword in vain."
   And that sentence is certainly true concerning the King of Kings.
   "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

   Look, then, dear Friends, at this branch of an almond tree and believe
   in a wakeful God who will surely deal with men according to His Word,
   whether in promise or in threat.

   II. But the more obvious sense of the text is that which I give under
   the second head. THE ALMOND IS IN HASTE TO BLOSSOM AND BEAR FRUIT.
   Hence our translators have rendered the passage, "I will hasten My word
   to perform it." The almond tree is not slow to bloom--it is one of the
   very first trees to tell us that springtime is near. And the Lord is
   quick to fulfill His Word.

   Very briefly, let me remind you of the quickness of God to fulfill His
   threats. Do you realize, dear Hearers, you who are now hearing the
   Gospel, but have not received it, that God's threats take effect at
   once? "No," you say, "'He has not dealt with us after our sins, nor
   rewarded us according to our iniquities.'" That is most true, yet there
   is a sense in which His sentence takes effect at once. For instance,
   "He that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed
   in the name of the only begotten Son of God." If you have heard the
   Gospel--and some of you have heard it many, many years--and yet have
   not heeded it, you will not be condemned for the first time at the Last
   Great Day, you are condemned even now! Some people say to us, "Why do
   you ministers, in your preaching, so constantly deal with another life,
   instead of dealing with this one?" Our answer is that we do deal with
   this life--we deal with it continually, for we believe that both sides
   of that text are true at this very minute, "He that believes on the Son
   has everlasting life: he that believes not the Son shall not see life;
   but the wrath of God abides on him." Even now, at this moment, while
   you are in this building, if you are not a Believer in the Lord Jesus
   Christ, the wrath of God is abiding on you!

   Listen again. There is another immediate effect of the Word of the Lord
   which follows as quickly as the blossom appears upon the almond tree.
   Upon some hearers, it produces an instant hardening. You remember how
   Paul wrote, "We are unto God a sweet savor of Christ in them that are
   saved, and in them that perish: to the one we are the savor of death
   unto death; and to the other the savor of life unto life"? You, dear
   Friends, are deriving, from every Gospel sermon that you hear, either
   life unto life, or else death unto death. If you get no good from it,
   you will assuredly get harm. An unbelieving hearing of the Gospel is a
   multiplication of curses to your soul--another sermon for which you
   have to give account, another rejected exhortation recorded against
   you, another earnest invitation which you have refused--and for which
   you will be held responsible. You are heaping up to yourselves wrath
   against the Day of Wrath even while you hear the Word of the Lord. I am
   not now talking about what will happen to you when you die, or when you
   rise for the final judgment--I am speaking about what is happening NOW!
   The same sun which melts wax hardens clay. And the same Gospel which
   melts some persons to repentance hardens others in their sins. Take
   heed that you do not soon see the almond tree blossom in this terrible
   sense.

   There is also another sense in which a definite result is speedily
   coming, for you must soon die unless Christ comes shortly. In any case,
   it cannot be long before some here will be gone. We who have reached
   middle life must not reckon on continuing to live for many years--and
   others are already bald with age, or their hair is gray--so they must
   soon die. Suppose, however, that you young people should live to be
   ninety--yet how soon that period will be ended! Years seem to spin
   round, especially as we grow older. I thought, when I was a boy, that a
   year was a very long time. But, now, one scarcely seems to have time to
   kiss his hand before it is Christmas again! People say, "Christmas is
   coming," as if it were a long way off, but the next one is coming as
   soon as the last one has gone! Time flies very rapidly as years advance
   upon us--it even appears to quicken its pace, though it does not really
   go any faster than it used to do. It will be but a short while and you,
   my dear Hearer, if you die without Christ, will find that God is not
   slack concerning His threat-- that though He seems to tarry in
   long-suffering, yet He comes in due season after all. And when He
   comes--ah, when the last trumpet rings out and the Great White Throne
   is set and the angels gather in solemn pomp to the tremendous judg-

   ment of the grand assize--you will find that the time which seemed long
   enough, proved all too short, while the eternity, which you despised,
   you will dread with such despair as we cannot even now imagine!

   Forever, forever, forever, forever lost! I see "a branch of an almond
   tree" for some of you, for it may be that I am addressing some who will
   never enter any place of worship again. I may be speaking to some out
   of these many hundreds who will not be alive this day next week. Out of
   our great congregation, there never is a gathering of the same people
   twice in this place week by week. Even among our membership, there are
   now, on the average, two a week who are taken Home, and I know not how
   many more out of the congregation. Who will be next? I see, for that
   next one, "a branch of an almond tree," for God will hasten His Word to
   perform it.

   While I have felt compelled to speak of these solemn Truths, I am glad
   to turn to the other part of the subject which is this--that God is
   quick in performing His promises. They are like the almond tree--they
   blossom and bear fruit very quickly. "What s ort of promises," you ask,
   "are thus speedily fulfilled?"

   Well, first, the promise to give salvation to all these who believe in
   the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen--

   "The moment a sinner believes, And trusts in his crucified God, His
   pardon at once he receives, Redemption in full thro'His blood." I see
   "a branch of an almond tree" here. The Psalmist says, "His word runs
   very swiftly," and I am a witness that it does. Many years ago, I, a
   poor sinner, went into a place of worship to hear the Gospel preached.
   The preacher repeated the Lord's command, "Look unto Me, and be you
   saved." I looked to Christ and I was saved that very instant. It takes
   no longer to tell the story than it did to work the miracle of mercy.
   Swift as a lightning flash I looked to Christ, and the great deed was
   done! I was a pardoned and justified soul--in a word, I was saved! Why
   should not the same thing happen to you who are here? It will happen to
   everyone who shall now be led to believe in Jesus Christ.

   "Oh, but," says one, "there are often long delays before peace is
   enjoyed." Then it is because you make them, for God does not. "But
   sometimes we have to wait," says one. Yes, yes. I know all about that
   waiting. Do you remember, in the parable of the prodigal son, where he
   waited? Why, with the harlots and others with whom he wasted his
   substance in riotous living, or with the swine when he was feeding them
   with the husks with which he would gladly have filled his own empty
   belly! That is where he waited! But when did he end his waiting? When
   he said, "I will arise and go to my father." He did not wait any
   longer, for we read, "And he arose and came to his father." And then it
   is written, "When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him,
   and"--"and"--"and"--"and stood still, and waited for him to come"? No,
   no! I know that God waits to be gracious, but, according to the
   teaching of that parable, "when he was yet a great way off, his father
   saw him, and had compassion, and ran."

   Do you know how fast Godcan run? Come, now, there is a task for you! We
   know, sometimes, how fast fleet runners can go. What a rate they go! As
   we hear about them, we seem to realize the force of David's description
   of Saul and Jonathan, "They were swifter than eagles, they were
   stronger than lions." But again I ask, can you tell me how fast Godcan
   run? No, you do not know, you cannot tell. But you do know that He is
   all on fire with love to embrace a poor penitent sinner--and He speeds
   towards him at an amazing rate! Remember that hymn with which we
   commenced this service--

   "On cherub and on cherubim, Full royally He rode, And on the wings of
   mighty winds, Came flying all abroad. 'And so delivered He my soul."
   Swift as the lightning's flash is the glance of Divine compassion that
   brings life to a penitent soul! Believe, then, in Jesus and "the great
   transaction's done!" "He that believes on the Son has everlasting
   life." "Why, Sir, he only believed a minute ago! Has he already
   received eternal life?" Yes, he has everlasting life just as surely as
   if he had been believing in Jesus for 50 years! If you do but believe,
   this blessing is at once yours! "I see a branch of an almond tree." Oh,
   that you also may see it blossom before your very eyes, although, when
   you came into this House of Prayer, it seemed as bare as the rest of
   the trees that have been nipped by the wintry winds!

   This part of our subject is just as true about prayer. The man who
   knows how to pray remembers God's promises concerning prayer and its
   answer. Think of that remarkable passage in Isaiah 65:24--"It shall
   come to pass, that before

   they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will
   hear." That is quicker than the telegraph! "Before they call, I will
   answer." God knows what petition is in your heart! He foresees what
   will be the utterance of your tongue and He has the answers all ready
   for them. I have found many of my prayers answered years before I
   prayed them. "No," you say, "that could not be." Well, there was one of
   them that was answered more than 1,800 years before I prayed it. That
   was when I cried to God for a Savior and He gave me One all those
   centuries before I was born, even the Savior who worked out for me a
   complete salvation on Calvary's accursed tree! O you praying souls, "I
   see a branch of an almond tree!" When men begin to pray in faith, they
   are speedily heard!

   So is it when God's people want to have their spiritual life revived.
   When we get into a dull doleful state, as we sometimes do, if we cry to
   God, He is able to quickly revive our drooping spirits. You remember
   that verse in the Song of Solomon, "Or ever I was aware, my soul made
   me like the chariots of Amminadib"?--Which were, I suppose, noted for
   their swiftness--"I was dull, motionless, lifeless; but before I could
   tell where I was, I found myself almost flying along like the chariots
   of Amminadib." So may it be with you, dear Friend! Though you are like
   Laodicea, neither cold nor hot, yet remember what the Lord said to the
   angel of that Church. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; 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." Renewed communion with Christ may be
   enjoyed at once, even by you who have fallen into a lukewarm state!

   Our subject also applies to deliverance from trouble. "The righteous
   cry, and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles."
   God may not take away your trouble, but yet, in a moment, He may give
   you Grace to bear it and turn the trouble, itself, into a source of
   joy. "I see a branch of an almond tree" full often. In times of deep
   depression, God can lift up the heart very speedily.

   So can He bless His Word. As neither snow nor rain returns to Him void,
   so is it with His Word--it shall prosper in the thing to where He sent
   it, and it shall prosper at once. O you who want to win souls, go about
   your work very boldly, believing that God will bless you! "Lo, I am
   with you always, even unto the end of the world," said Christ. When
   Peter preached, the Apostles and disciples did not wait for several
   years to find out the result of his sermon--though I daresay there were
   further results after a long time--but they picked up 3,000 birds which
   had been brought down by that one discharge of the great Gospel gun!
   Oh, that you and I would so work for God as to expect immediate
   results--and go and look for them! "I see a branch of an almond tree."
   I believe that there are some here who will, tonight, lay hold on
   Christ. It was a great joy to me to have a Sister come in, just before
   service, to tell me that, years ago, she found the Lord when I was
   preaching at the Agricultural Hall. She said, "That will comfort you."
   I said, "Yes, it does. It shows me that I was useful once, but," I
   added, "I want to be useful now. I want to see souls brought to Christ
   now." And so they will be! Let us believe it and see this branch of an
   almond tree blossom tonight!

   III. Now, to close, I can only briefly remind you that THE ALMOND TREE
   SETS AN EXAMPLE TO ALL WHO WOULD BE LIKE GOD. He hastens His Word to
   perform it. Oh, that you and I would be in haste to perform our word!

   Is there one here who wishes to seek the Lord?' 'Seek you the Lord
   while He may be found; call you upon Him while He is near." There will
   be a friend or two, on the lower platform, after the service, to talk
   with any of you who wish to say anything to them about your own souls
   and to hear from them some good words about the Lord Jesus Christ. Do
   not go away, even from this service, till you have sought and found the
   Savior! Seek Him now, you young people! Recollect that precious
   promise, "Those that seek Me early shall find Me." Others shall find
   the Lord if they seek Him, but, certainly, the young shall do so even
   if others do not. Be up early, then, while yet you are in your teens,
   before you get to be a young man or woman--seek the Lord now, for you
   shall surely find Him if you search for Him with all your heart. God
   help you to do it!

   Then, you who have found Him, be prompt in obeying Him. Do you know
   what David said? "I made haste, and delayed not to keep Your
   commandments." If you have found the Savior by faith, be baptized
   according to His command and His example. Unite yourself with His
   people and begin at once to serve Him.

   And then, you who have been serving the Savior, if you have any good
   desire in your heart to do anything for Christ, do it You may be dead
   tomorrow morning, therefore I would advise you to do something for
   Christ tonight. Are you going to leave something in your will for the
   Master's cause? Be your own executor if you can--and whatever you think
   of doing, do it speedily. Do not leave anything till tomorrow that can
   be done today. "I see a branch of an almond tree." There are some men
   who must act now, or they never will do anything, for it is pretty
   nearly the end of the day with

   them. Up, Brother, up! "I see a branch of an almond tree." Do what you
   can tonight. Speak to your children about Christ tonight. Wake them up
   if they are in bed. Speak to that friend to whom you have often
   intended to speak. I know of one who resolved to speak to a man who
   used to come to his counter twice a week to buy some goods. He thought,
   "The next time he comes in, I will speak to him about his soul." He
   never came again! On the morning when he should have come, there came a
   messenger to say that he was dead. Therefore, take advantage of every
   opportunity while it lasts. "In the morning sow your seed," but do not
   wait for the morning! "In the evening withhold not your hand" and,
   "whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might."

   And, lastly, be ready for your immediate departure. Be prepared to go
   Home to Heaven tonight. Come, now, are all things ready for your
   journey? If not, pack up all the luggage, label it, and have everything
   ready for the start at any moment. Blessed is that man who is ready to
   blossom in Heaven any instant. "Oh," says one, "I should not like to
   die tonight. I believe that I am a Christian and that I am saved, but I
   do not feel ready to go." Set your house in order, then, for your house
   cannot be right if it is not in order! If your house is in order, why,
   then you are ready to die! There is no right living except living as
   you would wish to live if you knew that this was to be your last day.
   The right way to spend the next hour is so to spend it as if it were
   your last hour. The Lord bring us into that happy condition that it
   shall not matter to us one single farthing whether we live or whether
   we die--and may He keep us in that blessed state, for Christ's sake!
   Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 18:1-19.

   Verse 1. I will love You, O Lord, my strength.' 'I do love You, and I
   will love You yet more and more. I bind myself to You for the future as
   well as the present."

   2. The LORD is my rock and my fortress, andmy deliverer; my God, my
   strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my
   salvation, and my high tower Note how David delights to heap up poetic
   imagery to describe his God. They who glory in the Lord would gladly
   speak worthily of Him and because there is no one object in Nature that
   can fully set Him forth, they mention many, as David does here. Like
   he, if we would convey even a faint idea of what God is to us, we must
   think of all things that are strong and worthy of our confidence--and
   putting them all together, we must say that our God, our strength, in
   whom we trust, is all this and much more,

   3. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I
   be saved from my enemies. Prayer brings salvation. Prayer must,
   however, be mingled with praise, for prayer and praise make up the
   breath of the Christian life. Have I not often reminded you that we
   breathe in the air of Heaven by prayer, and then breathe it out again
   in grateful praise?

   4. 5. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men
   made me afraid. The sorrows of Hell compassed me about: the snares of
   death prevented me.' 'They were before me, behind me, all around my
   path whichever way I turned."

   6. In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: He
   heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry came before Him, even into
   His ears. What a difference there is between this living God of
   David--our living God--and that impersonal nonentity which, nowadays,
   is regarded by many as God. The god of the pantheist--what is he? A
   nobody and a nothing! But our God made the heaven; and our God hears
   the prayer of all who truly cry unto Him.

   7. Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills
   moved and were shaken, because He was angry. The cry of one of His
   oppressed children stirred Him to anger! Nothing moves the heart of God
   like an injury done to His people. You remember how the Prophet
   Zechariah wrote to the captive Jews in Babylon, "Thus says the Lord of
   Hosts, He that touches you touches the apple of His eye."

   8. 9. There went up a smoke out of His nostrils, and fire out of His
   mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it He bowed the heavens also, and
   came down; and darkness was under His feet In this wonderful poetic
   description, Jehovah is represented as descending from His Throne at
   the cry of one of His children in distress.

   10. And He rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yes, He did fly upon the
   wings of the wind. So swift is prayer to reach the ears of God, and so
   swift is God to come and answer His people's prayers!

   11. He made darkness His secret place; His pavilions round about Him
   were dark waters and thick clouds of thee skies. Like an Oriental king
   who travels beneath his royal canopy, the Lord is pictured as coming to
   earth with the bursting clouds and opening heavens as the pavilion of
   the Deity.

   12. At the brightness that was before Him, His thick clouds passed,
   hail stones and coals of fire. These are some of the weapons with which
   He assails the adversaries of His people. With this dread artillery, He
   smote Pharaoh of old when He rained hail upon the land of Egypt, and
   fire mingled with the hail, and the fire ran along the ground.

   13. 14. The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave
   His voice; hail stones and coals of fire. Yes, He sent out His arrows,
   and scattered them; and He shot out lightning, and discomfited them.
   God Himself came forth on His people's behalf, and fought for them from
   Heaven. As we read that "the stars in their courses fought against
   Sis-era," so did God make the very tempests in the skies to be like an
   invincible legion, sweeping before it the enemies of His anointed
   servant.

   15-18. Then the channels ofwaters were seen, and the foundations ofthe
   world were discovered at Your rebuke, O LORD, at the blast ofthe breath
   of Your nostrils. He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of
   many waters. He deliveredme from my strong enemy, and from them which
   hatedme: for they were too strong for me. They prevented me in the day
   of my calamity. They went before him, they blocked his way.

   18, 19. But the LORD was my stay. He brought me forth also into a large
   place; He delivered me because He delighted in me. Oh, how sweetly this
   record continues! Never was there a poem more lofty in its diction.
   Even Milton cannot equal the language of this Psalm! This Inspired
   writing rises superior to all human compositions, even if regarded only
   from the poetic point of view. Oh, what must have been the Psalmist's
   experience when he was delivered after this wonderful fashion! And if
   God has delivered you and me in a quieter and gentler way, yet He has
   quite as surely delivered us! And blessed be His name from this time
   forth, and even forevermore!
     __________________________________________________________________

Christ's Indwelling Word

   (No. 2679)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JUNE 17, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, APRIL
   10, 1881.

   "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly inn all wisdom; teaching
   and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
   singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." Colossians 3:16.

   THAT is a very beautiful name for Holy Scripture. I hardly remember to
   have met with it anywhere else--"Let the word of Christ dwell in you."
   Remember, dear Friends, that Christ Himself is the Word of God, and
   also remember that the Scriptures are the word of the Word. They are
   "the word of Christ." I think that they will be all the sweeter to you
   if you realize that they speak to you of Christ, that He is the sum and
   substance of them, that they direct you to Christ, in fact, as John
   says of His Gospel, that they were "written that you might believe that
   Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you might have
   life through His name."

   Remember, also, that the Scriptures do, in effect, come to us from
   Christ. Every promise of this blessed Book is a promise of Christ, "for
   all the promises of God in Him are yes, and in Him, Amen, unto the
   glory of God by us." They all come to us through Christ, God speaks
   them to us through Him as the Mediator. Indeed, we may regard the whole
   of the Sacred Scriptures, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of
   Revelation, as being "the word of Christ."

   The text tells us, first, how to treat the Scriptures. ' 'Let the word
   of Christ dwell in you richly." And, secondly, it tells us how to
   profit by them.' 'In all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another
   in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your
   hearts to the Lord."

   I. First, then, we are told here HOW TO TREAT THE SCRIPTURES--"Let the
   word of Christ dwell in you richly."

   In order that it may dwell in you, it must first enter into you. It is
   implied, in our text, that the Apostle says, "Let the word of Christ
   enterinto you." Then you must read it, or hear it, for, unless you do,
   you will not know what there is in it. Yet there must be something more
   than the mere hearing or reading of it, for some hear the Truth of God
   with one ear, but let it go away out of the other ear. And others are
   great readers, yet they seem to read only what is on the surface. The
   letter passes under their eyes, but the deep spiritual meaning never
   enters into their heart. If you read a portion of Scripture every day,
   I commend you for doing so. If you make a practice of reading right
   through the Bible in a stated period, I commend you still more. Some I
   know read the Bible through every year, in due course. This is well,
   but all this may be done and yet "the word of Christ" may never have
   entered into the reader!

   You know how children sometimes learn their lessons. I am afraid that,
   at a great many schools, there is no true instruction--the scholars
   have simply to repeat their lessons without ever getting at the sense
   and meaning of them. And, a week or two after, they have forgotten all
   that they were supposed to have learned! Do not let it be so with our
   knowledge of Scripture--let us not merely know it so as to be able to
   turn to its different chapters, or to be familiar with certain passages
   in it, or even to repeat all its words. This is but to let "the word of
   Christ" pass by your door, or look in at your window! Paul says, "Let
   it dwellin you."

   So I say again that in order that it may dwell in you, it must first
   enter into you. You must really know the spiritual meaning of it. You
   must believe it, live upon it, drink it in--you must let it soak into
   your innermost being as the dew saturated the fleece of Gideon. It is
   not enough to have a Bible on the shelf--it is infinitely better to
   have its Truths

   stored up within your soul. It is a good thing to carry your Testament
   in your pocket--it is far better to carry its message in your heart.
   But mind that you let it get right into you!

   How differently some people read the Bible from the way in which they
   read any other book! I have seen a young woman sitting down, on board a
   steamboat, completely absorbed in a very suspicious looking book. I
   have passed behind her and passed before her, but she has not taken the
   slightest notice of me. Presently, I saw a tear brushed away from her
   eye--I knew that she was not reading the Bible--and it was my firm
   conviction that she was reading a novel. I have often noticed how such
   people let the novels get right into them, trash as they generally
   are--but when the most of people read the Bible, they appear to be
   anxious to get the unpleasant task finished and put away! In some cases
   they seem to think that they have performed a very proper action, but
   they have not been in the least affected by it, moved by it, stirred by
   it. Yet, if there is any book that can thrill the soul, it is the
   Bible! If we read it aright, we shall, as it were, lay our fingers
   among its wondrous harp strings and bring out from them matchless music
   such as no other instrument in the world could ever produce! There is
   no book so fitted or so suited to us as the Bible is. There is no book
   that knows us so well. There is no book that is so much at home with
   us. There is no book that has so much power over us if we will but give
   ourselves up to it! Yet, often, we only let it look in at our window,
   or knock at our door, instead of inviting it to enter our very heart
   and soul--and therefore we miss its power.

   Then, when it once gets into you, let it remain there. A person could
   not be said to dwell in a house even though he should enter into the
   most private part of it, if he only passed through it and went away. A
   man who dwells in a house abides, resides, remains, continues there.
   Oh, to have "the word of Christ" always dwelling inside of us--in the
   memory, never forgotten! In the heart, always loved! In the
   understanding, really grasped with all the powers and passions of the
   mind fully submitted to its control! I love those dear Christian people
   who do not need to refer to the printed page when you speak to them
   about the things of God, for they have the Truth in their hearts. They
   have a springing well within their souls at all times and they have
   only to hear a Scriptural theme started and, at once, they begin to
   speak of the things which they have looked upon and their hands have
   handled of the Word of Life, because it dwells in them.

   What is the good of merely external religion? I heard of some people
   who met together to pray about a certain matter, but they could not
   pray because the Bishop had not sent the form of prayer which they were
   to use on that occasion. I think that if they were believers in the
   Lord Jesus Christ, they might have managed to speak to God without the
   necessity of having a written or printed form to guide them. Yet there
   are many who fancy they cannot offer a proper prayer unless they have
   it in a book. And they cannot talk about the things of God, or they can
   say but very little about them because they have not "the word of
   Christ" dwelling within them. O dear Friends, let it be always in you,
   from morning to night, abiding as a constant visitor within your
   spirit--no, not merely as a visitor, let it dwell with you--

   "No more a stranger or a guest, But like a child at home."

   Further, "let the word of Christ dwell in you" so as to occupy your
   whole being. If it dwells within you, let it take such entire
   possession of your being that it shall fill you. To push the truth of
   Christ up into a corner of your nature--to fill the major part of your
   being with other knowledge and other thought--is a poor way to treat
   "the word of Christ." It deserves the fullest attention of the best
   faculties that any man possesses. The Truth of God revealed by the Holy
   Spirit is so sublime that its poetry outsoars the eagle wings even of a
   Milton. It is a deep so profound that the plumb line of Sir Isaac
   Newton could never find the bottom of it. The greatest minds have been
   delighted to yield their highest faculties to its wondrous Truths. Dear
   young Friends, you who have only lately put on Christ, I beseech you
   not to let other books stand on the front shelf and the Bible lie
   behind. Do not, for the most part, read those other books and only read
   small portions of Scripture now and then--let it always have the chief
   place. The most excellent of all sciences is the science of Christ
   Crucified and the Bible is the textbook for all who would learn it! If
   other forms of knowledge are useful, they are like the planets--but the
   knowledge of God as revealed in Christ Jesus is as the sun. Let this
   always be the center of your system of knowledge and let all the rest
   that you know move in subordination and subjection to that first and
   best form of knowledge.

   If I may know myself, and know my Savior--if I may know my sin and the
   Atonement by which it is put away--if I may know my way through this
   life and my way into the eternal life above, I will be content if I
   know but little else. Gladly would I intermeddle with all knowledge
   and, though "much study is a weariness of the flesh," yet would I find
   a

   pleasure in such weariness if I only knew even as much as Solomon knew.
   But it would be vanity of vanities, and altogether vanity, if you and I
   were as wise as Solomon, and yet did not know the Truth of God.
   Therefore, "let the word of Christ dwell in you" so as to occupy the
   whole of your being! Let it be the resident, the occupant, the master
   and ruler of your entire nature!

   Once more. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you." That is, let it be
   your most familiar friend. We know the people who live in our home, but
   we do not really know other people. When someone asked Mr. Whitefield,
   "What do you think of Mr. So-and-So's character?" He answered, "I
   cannot say, for I never lived with him." Ah, that is the true test! It
   is living with people that lets you know what they are. In like manner,
   if you will live with "the word of Christ," especially if you will let
   it dwell in you and abide with you as a constant friend, you will get
   to know it better, and the better you know it, the more you will love
   it. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, if you meet with a man who
   finds fault with the Bible, you may be certain that he never read it.
   If he would but read it in the right spirit, he would be of another
   opinion. And if you find a professing Christian indifferent to his
   Bible, you may be sure that the very dust upon its cover will rise up
   in judgment against him! The Bible reader is always the Bible lover,
   and the Bible searcher is the man who searches it more and more.
   Various pursuits have a measure of fascination about them, but the
   study of God's Word is fascinating to the highest degree. Jerome said,
   when he was pondering a certain text, "I adore the Infinity of Holy
   Scripture." I have often felt that I could say the same. The Bible is a
   book that has no bounds to it. Its thoughts are not as men's thoughts,
   a multitude of which may go to make up half an ounce! Any one of the
   thoughts of God can outweigh all the thoughts of men. This Book is not
   a book of pence, or a book of silver, or even a book of gold, but a
   book whose every leaf is of untold value! He shall be enriched, indeed,
   who lets "the word of Christ" richly dwell in him.

   My dear Friends, I should like you to so read the Bible that everybody
   in the Bible should seem to be a friend of yours. I should like you to
   feel as if you had talked with Abraham and conversed with David. I can
   truly say that there is hardly anybody in the world that I know so well
   as I know David. In making The Treasury of David, I have labored, year
   after year, in that rich field of Inspiration, the Book of Psalms, till
   I assure you that David and I are quite familiar friends. And I think I
   know more about him than about any man I ever saw in my life. I seem to
   know the ins and outs of his constitution and experience, his grievous
   faults and the graces of his spirit. I want you to be on just such
   intimate terms with somebody or other in the Bible--John, if you like,
   or Mary. Sit at Jesus' feet with her. Or Martha--it will not hurt you
   to make the acquaintance of Martha and do a great deal of serving,
   though I do not want you to get cumbered with it. But do find your
   choicest friends in the Scripture. Take the whole company of Bible
   saints home to your heart, let them live inside your soul. Let old Noah
   come in with his ark, if he likes, and let Daniel come in with his
   lions' den, if he pleases--and all the rest of the godly men and women
   of the olden time--take them all into your very nature and be on
   familiar terms with them! But, most of all, be specially intimate with
   Him of whom they all speak, namely, Jesus Christ your blessed Lord and
   Master!

   As for the doctrines revealed in the Bible, you should have them at
   your fingertips. The great Truths of the Word of God should be as
   familiar to you as a scholar makes his much-loved classics to be, or as
   the mathematician makes his plus and minus, his a and his x, familiar
   to him from hour to hour. So should you prize "the word of Christ."
   "Let it dwell in you richly in all wisdom."

   II. But now, secondly, I am to tell you How TO PROFIT BY THE WORD OF
   CHRIST, if we once get it to dwell in

   us.

   First, seek to profit by it yourself' 'Let the word of Christ dwell in
   you richly in all wisdom." Let it make you wise. The man who studies
   his Bible well, will become a wise man. If God the Holy Spirit teaches
   him, I believe that he will become a wise man even in something more
   than a spiritual sense. Every Scot child used to be taught the Book of
   Proverbs--it was one of the class books of Scot schools--and I have
   heard it said that this particular form of instruction has largely
   helped to make our Scot friends so sharp. And I should not wonder if
   that is the case. They certainly are as wise a race of people as we are
   likely to meet with. I wish our Irish friends would also study the Book
   of Proverbs. If it would make them as cool as it has made our Scot
   friends, it might improve them without taking away any of their natural
   humor and warmth of heart. I wish that English people, also, would read
   more of the Bible. I can truly say that when I have met with men in
   whom "the word of Christ" has dwelt richly, I have often found them
   very shrewd even about commonplace things.

   I remember a man, in a certain workshop, making a great many very rude
   remarks and, at last, he was silenced by one of the workmen who said to
   him, "I think, Sir, you are referred to in the 20th Chapter of
   Proverbs." He did not explain his meaning, but the man who was thus
   addressed went home and when he looked up the chapter, he found these
   words in the third verse, "Every fool will be meddling." It was an
   admirable rebuke for him and all the better because he had an hour or
   two before he knew exactly what it was. And when he reached his home
   and was at leisure to think, he could look up the passage and see how
   appropriate it was to his case. If you will take the Word of God for
   your guide, even in domestic and business matters, you will often
   manifest a shrewdness which, perhaps, may not be natural to you, but
   which will come to you through "the word of Christ" dwelling in you
   richly in all wisdom. That, however, is only a small part of the profit
   which it will bring to you.

   Do you want wisdom with which to master yourself? "Let the word of
   Christ dwell in you richly." Do you need something to cheer a naturally
   sinking spirit? "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." Do you
   wish for that which will calm an angry mind, a temper all too apt to be
   suddenly excited? "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." Are you
   in a calling where you are sorely tempted and do you long to know how
   to be kept from falling into sin? "Let the word of Christ dwell in you
   richly." Is your position a very difficult one? Are you scarcely able
   to balance the claims of different relationships? "Let the word of
   Christ dwell in you richly." Are you expecting to have a time of
   intense strain and trial such as you have never experienced before?
   Prepare yourself for it by letting "the word of Christ dwell in you
   richly." It shall give you all manner of wisdom by which you shall be
   able to baffle even the subtlety of the old serpent himself! We used to
   have in many of our churches a number of solid, substantial men--"men
   that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to
   do"--and an equal proportion of deeply-taught, godly matrons, true
   mothers in Israel. Well, those stalwart Christians were brought up on
   such spiritual meat as I have been commending to you. They were
   diligent students of the Word of God and if we are to have a succession
   of such men and women, they can only be qualified by going to the
   University of Scripture and taking their degree by permitting "the word
   of Christ" to dwell in them richly!

   The next way of using "the word of Christ" to profit is to seek to
   profit others by it' 'Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all
   wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and
   spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." We are
   to know the Truth of God so as to be able to teach and admonish one
   another.

   First, we are to seek the profit of our fellows by teaching one
   another. No one man can ever teach such a vast congregation as I have,
   so as to give the separate instruction that is needed by each one. This
   work must be done by the members of the Church themselves. "The word of
   Christ" must dwell in you and then you must become a Mutual Instruction
   Society. Every Christian should exercise the office of the pastorate
   according to his ability and his opportunity. In such a Church as this,
   every one of the members must look well not only to his own spiritual
   affairs, but also to the well-being of others. What sweet and gracious
   instructions the older ones among you can give if you tell your
   experience! It is very interesting to any of us to hear it, but how
   helpful it is to the beginners in the Divine life!

   And if, in addition to relating your experience, you talk of the
   Scriptures that have been opened up to you--the promises that have been
   fulfilled to you--the passages in the Bible that have been applied to
   your heart by the Holy Spirit who Inspired them--you will greatly
   instruct your fellow Christians. A dear Brother in the Lord said to me,
   the other day, "I do not often meet, now, with those people who talk
   about the things of God to one another. Even when I meet with
   Christians, their conversation is generally concerning a meeting or a
   Conference that is going to be held, or something that is to be
   done--we do not seem to talk much about Jesus Christ, Himself, and
   about experimental Truth, and about the sorrows and the joys of God's
   people." I wish we did talk more of such things. It is well to be busy
   for the Lord, but it is still better to be in communion with Him. You
   who are deeply taught in the Scriptures should try to teach others for
   their profit.

   One way of teaching one another is mentioned in the text--"in Psalms
   and hymns and spiritual songs." A learned divine, a little while ago,
   discovered that no hymn ought to be sung unless it was distinctly
   directed and addressed to God and was intended to be full of praise
   throughout. Well, we do have some remarkably wise men nowadays--at
   least, in their own estimation--but it appears that the Apostle Paul
   thought that "Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" were to be used for
   instruction and admonition as well as for the praises of God! And, to
   my mind, there is no teaching that is likely to be more useful than
   that which is accompanied by the right kind of singing! When I am
   preaching, I often

   find a verse of a hymn the very best thing I can quote--and I have not
   the shadow of a doubt that, frequently, a verse of sacred poetry has
   struck a man who has been altogether missed by the rest of the sermon.
   Think how compactly the Truth of God can be taught by means of "Psalms
   and hymns and spiritual songs," and how likely it is to be remembered
   when the very measure and rhyme and rhythm help the memory to treasure
   up the message! I shall never forgot what repentance is while I can
   say--

   "Repentance is to leave The sins I loved before, And show that I in
   earnest grieve By doing so no more."

   It is well to have the Truth of God put into the form of a verse that
   the memory may be able to lay hold of it, and to retain it. Do try,
   dear Friends, to get so full of "the word of Christ" in all forms of
   it, that you may run with it. You know, it cannot come outof you if it
   is not first inyou. If you do not get "the word of Christ" into you,
   you will not be instructive in your general conversation.

   In addition to instruction, there is to be admonition. That is a very
   difficult thing to administer wisely. I have known a Brother try to
   admonish another and I have felt that he would have done better if he
   had left the task alone, for he has only caused irritation and
   resentment. There is a gracious way of admonishing which cannot be too
   frequently practiced. When I first began to preach, I am afraid that I
   used to say a great many strange things--which, of course, I do not do
   now--but having, on a certain occasion, said something rather striking
   and, perhaps, not quite wise, there was an excellent Christian man who
   wanted to set me right. He did not come and thrust himself upon me in a
   very solemn manner and provoke me to scoff at him and his reproof.
   Neither did he say anything so as to irritate me, but, finding my Bible
   lying about, he stuck a pin into it at the words, "Sound speech, that
   cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be
   ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you." When I was at home, I
   looked at that pin, and I looked at that text, and I said to myself,
   "Whose house was I in last?" When I remembered, I said, "That is the
   man who stuck that pin in there, depend upon it." I never felt vexed
   with him! On the contrary, I was very grateful and I always loved and
   admired him. And I thought, "Now, if he had spoken to me about what I
   had said, it is possible that he might have stuck the pin into me where
   I should not have liked it--but as he only stuck it into my Bible, it
   did not irritate me." You see, also, that I gratefully remember the
   rebuke even to this day.

   Sometimes the best way to give an admonition will be by singing a Psalm
   or a hymn. The clerks in the old Meeting Houses, when they used to be
   allowed to choose the hymns, often took away much of the evil effect of
   an erroneous sermon by their wise selection of the closing verses. Now
   and then, if you are discreet, you can quote an appropriate verse-- as
   people say, "accidentally on purpose"--and you can bring in a portion
   of a Psalm that shall exactly say for you what you might have said in a
   blundering way! And the dear Brother who has done wrong will accept the
   rebuke without being enraged by it. When you attempt to snuff the
   candle, do not put it out by your clumsiness, but take the golden
   snuffers--in the form of a verse of a Psalm, or a hymn, or a spiritual
   song--and even while you sing it, you will be administering the
   admonition and the instruction which it is your duty to give.

   I wish to put this matter so that it shall be remembered by you, and I
   want especially to press it home upon you, dear Friends, members of
   this Church of more than 5,000 souls. What can we do unless you all
   look after one another? And how shall we ever get on unless, in
   addition to preaching, there shall be continual mutual instruction
   going on, wise and joyful and cheerful--and accepted in a kind, loving
   and generous spirit? God fill you with "the word of Christ," that you
   may thus teach and admonish one another!

   But, lastly, "the word of Christ," when it dwells in us, is to profit
   us in our relation to God Himself, for, after all, the main objective
   of our singing--the principal purpose of our teaching and
   admonishing--must be the glory of God! "Singing with grace in your
   hearts to the Lord." Oh, may "the word of Christ dwell in us" so richly
   that you shall bless God from morning to night! May you so overflow
   with holy thought and sacred knowledge that your whole being shall be a
   hymn of praise to the Most High and your entire existence shall be a
   glorious hallelujah! I do not think that we, any of us, sufficiently
   value the Divine ordinance of praise. Neither do I think that we ever
   shall, till "the word of Christ" has taken full possession of our
   souls.

   You have been upstairs to pray, you say, and you have got no comfort
   from the exercise. Let me suggest that the next time you go upstairs,
   you sing a Psalm. "Oh, I have been up and down," says one, "trying to
   awaken myself into earnestness of supplication." May I also propose to
   you that you do not try that method again for a while, but begin to
   praise God. How many times a day do you praise Him? I think you do get
   alone to pray and you would be ashamed if you did not, once, twice, or
   three or even more times in the day--but how often do you praise God?
   Now, you know that you will not pray in Heaven--there it will be all
   praise. Then do not neglect that necessary part of your education which
   is to "begin the music here." Start at once praising the Lord! Many of
   our doubts and fears would fly away if we praised God more. And many of
   our trials and troubles would altogether vanish if we began to sing of
   our mercies. Oftentimes, depression of spirit that will not yield to a
   whole night of wrestling, would yield to ten minutes of thanksgiving
   before God! Praying is the stalk of the wheat, but praise is the very
   ear of it. Praying is the leaf of the rose, but praise is the rose
   itself, redolent with the richest perfume.

   Praise God, then, "in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs," and if you
   say you do not know how to do it, then "let the word of Christ dwell in
   you richly." It is a praise-begetting thing! Out of every Book of
   Scripture will stream praises unto Jehovah. Out of every promise will
   spring a sonnet. Out of every Divine Truth enjoyed and lived upon will
   rise a spiritual song. The whole Revelation of God is the condensed
   essence of praise--you have only to give it a fitting opportunity, by
   setting it simmering on the fire of a graceful heart--and you shall
   find a sweet cloud of holy incense rising from it, acceptable to the
   Most High. Therefore, Beloved, be much with your Bibles and let your
   Bibles be much with you--for your own profit, for the profit of others
   and for the glory of God! So be it, for Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: COLOSSIANS 3:1-17.

   Verse 1. If you then are risen with Christ, seek those things which are
   above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. Your Lord and Master
   has gone up to Heaven. You profess that He represents you and that you
   have gone up there in Him and with Him. Then do not seek the things
   that are down here below, the things of earth--but live where your life
   has gone. Where your treasure is, there let your heart be also. "Seek
   those things which are above."

   2. 3. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
   For you are dead. You profess to be dead to the world. Is that
   profession false? You have observed that Scriptural ordinance in which
   you profess to be buried with Christ--was that observance only an empty
   form? If there was any truth in your profession, "You are dead"--

   3. And your life is laid with Christ in God. You have a new life
   now--it is up yonder, "where Christ sits at the right hand of God." Do
   you not feel drawings upward? Are there no longings after the high and
   heavenly estate where Jesus is? Come, Beloved, let your soul break
   loose for a while and, like a lark, having found its liberty ascends
   with joyous wing, singing as it rises till it is out of mortal sight,
   so let it be with you!

   4. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also
   appear with Him in Glory. You are hidden now, your life is veiled in
   Him, but, at His Second Coming He shall shine forth in all His Glory
   and "then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of
   their Father." Beloved, seek no greatness here! Ask not for any
   exaltation of yourself among the sons of men, but wait for your true
   manifestation with Christ in Glory!

   5. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth;
   fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and
   covetousness, which is idolatry. Kill all these evil things! Do not let
   them live in you for a single moment. The command applies not only to
   the grosser actions which are summed up under the head of fornication
   and uncleanness, but to all that leads to those foul sins. Not only to
   the fire, but also to the sparks, such as "inordinate affection," a
   sort of softness which is seen in some persons, men and women, too, and
   which often leads to something far worse--and "evil concupiscence," the
   first desires towards that which is unchaste. God give us Divine Grace
   to kill these loathsome things at once, for if thoughts of evil are
   indulged, they soon become actsof evil, and then who knows how far we
   may go in the way of unholiness?

   Sin, if allowed to grow in the heart, will soon take gigantic strides
   and come out in the life. Depend upon it, whenever a professing
   Christian goes into overt sin of the kind mentioned here, he does not
   do it all of a sudden. The evil has long been festering and fomenting
   within his heart, or it would not have manifested itself thus. Oh, if
   he had only watched and destroyed the thief before he broke into the
   house, what a mercy it would have been! You notice that covet-

   ousness is put down with the most filthy sins and it is described as
   idolatry. The desire to possess the goods that belong to others--the
   lust to get gain at any price--this is idolatry.

   6, 7. For which things 'sake the wrath of God comes on the children of
   disobedience: in which you also walked some time, when you lived in
   them. This was true of the Colossians and it was true of almost all
   those to whom Paul wrote, for these gross evils were scarcely regarded
   as sins in his time, so polluted had the nations become. I hope that in
   the case of many now living, they have been preserved by Christian
   training from having walked even for a time in such sins.

   8. But now you also put off all these. Put them all off, like old
   clothes that are never to be worn again. "Put off all these"--

   8. Anger It is hard work for some to pull that garment off, for it fits
   them so tightly. This burning coat of wrath will not readily come off,
   but the Apostle's command is, "Put it off! Put it off!" It does not
   become a Christian to be an angry man.

   8. Wrath, malice. Christ will not live in a heart that harbors malice.

   8. Blasphemy. Thank God that if we ever wore that robe, we pulled it
   off long ago.

   8. Filthy communication out of your mouth. All talking that is of a
   dubious character must go. Anything which savors of corruption and
   defilement must be put away from every Christian.

   9. Lie not one to another In Paul's day, lying was thought to be a
   virtue unless the liar happened to be exposed. In that case it was
   considered wrong. But to lie through thick and thin, and to lie so
   dexterously as to deceive, was looked upon by an Oriental as an
   accomplishment of which he might be proud. So the Apostle might well
   write, "Lie not one to another"--

   9, 10. Seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds; and
   have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image
   of Him that created him. There is nothing false or untrue in God. God
   is true and in Him is no falsehood at all. And if you and I have really
   been renewed, as we profess to have been, we shall hate the very
   semblance of a lie and our word will be as good as our bond.

   11. Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor
   uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all,
   and in all Whenever you hear certain very wise Brothers and Sisters
   say, "Such-and-such a promise in the Bible is for Israel, not for the
   Gentiles," do not be misled in the least by their assertion! Just quote
   this text to them-- "There is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor
   uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all,
   and in all." These distinctions all vanish when once we come to Christ!
   We are one in Him and every promise to Believers is good to all who are
   in Christ Jesus, for "Christ is all, and in all."

   12. Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, hearts of
   mercies, kindness. Be ready to feel for others. Be very considerate of
   their needs. Look at others as if they were your kith and kin. If you
   and they are in Christ, they are indeed your kin, so put on
   kinned-ness, or, "kindness"--

   12. Humbleness of mind. Do not try to be a big man. He who thinks
   himself big has not yet learned the true spirit of Christianity.
   Especially towards those who are sorrowful and sad, be pitiful, be
   kind, be humble. 12. Meekness. If others try to provoke you, do not be
   provoked by them, but be gentle and meek.

   12. Long-suffering. Continue to put up with others, remembering the
   Lord's long-suffering with you.

   13. Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man has a
   quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do you. Hear
   this, Beloved, I pray you! Especially those of you who have hot tempers
   and have fallen out with one another. "Let not the sun go down upon
   your wrath." Remember how much Christ has forgiven you and show a
   forbearing and forgiving spirit to others.

   14. And above all these things put on charity. Or, rather, "love"--

   14. Which is the bond of perfectness. The perfect bond, the belt that
   goes round and keeps every other garment of virtue in its place.

   15. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you are
   called in one body. Do not fall out with one another. You are called to
   peace, for you are called in one body. Does one hand in the body fight
   with the other hand? Does the foot contend with the eye? Of course not,
   for they are in one body. So are you in one body with all your fellow
   Christians, therefore lay aside all strife. I deeply deplore when I see
   Christians--and especially eminent Christians-- contending with one
   another about minor matters of small account. Surely, almost anything
   ought to be borne before

   there should be public strife among members of the one body! God grant
   that such a state of things may speedily come to an end wherever it has
   existed! We have enough to do to "earnestly contend for the faith which
   was once delivered unto the saints," without contending for our own
   dignity or honor.

   15. And be you thankful. That is a nice little text, "Be you thankful."
   When you are grumbling at your plain food, put this as a sandwich
   between your bread and butter, "Be you thankful." When you are
   complaining of the East wind, just try if you cannot spell this little
   sentence, "Be you thankful." When you are murmuring about those sharp
   pains and that long sickness, this is the kind of tune for the little
   bird to whistle at your window, "Be you thankful." We have all much for
   which we ought to be thankful, however sad we may think our lot to be.
   Look on the bright side, rejoice in God! "Be you thankful."

   16, 17. Let the word of Christ dwellin you richly in all wisdom;
   teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual
   songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you
   do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks
   to God and the Father by Him. Do not draw any line of demarcation, and
   say, "So far is secular and so far is religious." Let your whole life
   be religious--and if there is anything proposed to you in which you
   cannot glorify God--do not touch it! "Whatever you do in word or deed,
   do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the
   Father by Him."

   If any of you go to the theater, can you go there in the name of the
   Lord Jesus? Why, you would not dare to cross the threshold with such
   blasphemy in your soul! And when you go to any place of doubtful
   amusement, can you go there giving thanks to God and the Father by
   Jesus Christ? Can you thank the Lord that you are permitted to go and
   pray for Divine blessing when you go and when you leave? A lady once
   said to a Christian minister, "The pleasures of going to the play are
   very great. There is the pleasure of thinking of it beforehand, the
   enjoyment of it at the time, and then the pleasure of thinking of it
   afterwards." "Yes, Madam," said the good man, "and there is one other
   pleasure which you seem to have forgotten--that is the pleasure of
   thinking of it on your dying bed. I would like you to remember that."
     __________________________________________________________________

Ruth Deciding for God

   (No. 2680)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JUNE 24, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL
   21, 1881.

   "And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave you, or to return from
   following after you: for where you go, I will go; and where you lodge,
   I will lodge: your people shall be my people, and your God my God."
   Ruth 1:16.

   THIS was a very brave, outspoken confession of faith. Please notice
   that it was made by a woman, a young woman, a poor woman, a widow woman
   and a foreigner. Remembering all that, I should think there is no
   condition of gentleness, or of obscurity, or of poverty, or of sorrow
   which should prevent anybodyfrom making an open confession of
   allegiance to God when faith in the Lord Jesus Christ has been
   exercised. If that is your experience, my dear Friend, then whoever you
   may be, you will find an opportunity, somewhere or other, of declaring
   that you are on the Lord's side. I am glad that all candidates for
   membership in our Church make their confession of faith at our Church
   Meetings. I have been told that such an ordeal must keep a great many
   from joining us, yet I notice that where there is no such ordeal, they
   often have very few members--but here we are with 5,600 or thereabouts,
   in Church fellowship and, very seldom, if ever, finding anybody kept
   back by having to make an open confession of faith in Christ. It does
   the man, the woman, the boy, or the girl--whoever it is--so much good
   for once, at least, to say right out straight, "I am a Believer in the
   Lord Jesus Christ and I am not ashamed of it," that I do not think we
   shall ever deviate from our custom. I have also noticed that when
   people have once confessed Christ before men, they are very apt to do
   it again somewhere else. And they thus acquire a kind of boldness and
   outspokenness upon religious matters--and a holy courage as followers
   of Christ--which more than make up for any self-denial and trembling
   which the effort may have cost them.

   I think Naomi was quite right to drive Ruth, as it were, to take this
   brave stand in which it became an absolute necessity for her to speak
   right straight out and say, in the words of our text, "Entreat me not
   to leave you, or to return from following after you: for where you go,
   I will go; and where you lodge, I will lodge: your people shall be my
   people, and your God my God." What is there for any of us to be ashamed
   of in acknowledging that we belong to the Lord Jesus Christ? What can
   there be that should cause us to be ashamed of Jesus, or make us blush
   to acknowledge His name?--

   "Ashamed of Jesus? That dear Friend On whom my hopes of Heaven depend?
   No, when I blush, be this my shame, That I no more revere His name." We
   ought to be ashamed of being ashamed of Jesus! We ought to be afraid of
   being afraid to acknowledge Him! We ought to tremble at trembling to
   confess Him and to resolve that we will take all suitable opportunities
   that we can find of saying, first to relatives, and then to all others
   with whom we come into contact, "We serve the Lord Christ."

   I should think that Naomi was--certainly she ought to have
   been--greatly cheered by hearing this declaration from Ruth, especially
   the last part of it--"Your people shall be my people, and your God my
   God." Naomi had suffered great temporal loss. She had lost her husband
   and her two sons, but now she had found the soul of her
   daughter-in-law. And I believe that, according to the scales of true
   judgment, there ought to have been more joy in her heart at the
   conversion of Ruth's soul than grief over the death of her husband and
   her sons. Our Lord Jesus has told us that "there is joy in the presence
   of the angels of God over one sinner that repents." And I always
   understand, by that expression, that there is joy in the heart of God,
   Himself, over every sinner's repentance! Well, then, if Naomi's husband
   and sons were true Believ-Volume 46 www.spurgeongems.org 1

   ers--if they had been walking aright before the Lord--as, let us hope,
   they had done, she need not have felt such sorrow for them as could at
   all compare with the joy of her daughter-in-law being saved.

   Perhaps, some of you, dear Friends, have had bereavements in your
   homes, but if the death--the temporal death-- of one should be the
   means of the spiritual life of another, there is a clear gain! I am
   sure there is and though you may have gone weeping to the grave, yet if
   you have evidence that, with those tears, there were also tears of
   repentance on the part of others of your family--and with that sad
   glance into the grave there was also a believing look at the dying,
   risen, and living Savior--you are decidedly a gainer and you need not
   say with Naomi, "I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home,
   again, empty." Really, Naomi, with her converted daughter-in-law at her
   side, if she had only been able to look into the future, might have
   been a happier woman than when she went away with her husband and her
   boys, for now she had with her one who was to be in the direct line of
   the progenitors of Christ--a right royal woman--for I count that the
   line of Christ is the true imperial line and that they were the most
   highly honored among men and women who were in any way associated with
   the birth of the Savior into this world. And Ruth, though a Moabitess,
   was one of those who were elected to share in this high privilege. So I
   beg you, if you have been sorrowful because of any deaths in your
   family circle, pray God to outweigh that sorrow with a greater measure
   of joy because, by His Grace, He has brought other members of your
   family to trust in Jesus!

   Another thought strikes me here. That is, that it was when Naomi
   returned to the land which she ought never to have left--it was when
   she came out from the idolatrous Moabites among whom she had, as you
   see, relatives, and friends, and acquaintances--it was when she said,
   "I will go back to my own country, and people, and God"--that then the
   Lord gave her the soul of this young woman who was so closely related
   to her. It may be that some of you professedly Christian people have
   been living at a distance from God. You have not led the separated
   life. You have tried to be friendly with the world as well as with
   Christ--and your children are not growing up as you wish they would.
   You say that your sons are not turning out well and that your girls are
   dressy, flighty and worldly. Do you wonder that it is so?

   "Oh," you say, "I have gone a good way to try to please them, thinking
   that, perhaps, by doing so, I might win them for Christ!" Ah, you will
   never win any soul to the right by a compromise with the wrong! It is
   decision for Christ and His Truth that has the greatest power in the
   family and the world, too. If a soldier in the barracks is converted
   and he says, "I mean to be a Christian, but, at the same time, I will
   join with the other men as much as I can. I will sometimes step into
   the tavern with them," and so forth, he will do no good. But the moment
   he boldly takes his stand for his new Captain and is known to be a
   Christian--his comrades may begin to scoff at him, but they will also
   begin to be impressed--and if he bravely maintains that stand and never
   gives way in the least degree, but is faithful to his Lord and Master,
   then he will be likely to see conversions among his fellow soldiers.

   It was while Naomi was on her way back to her own land that she heard
   the good news that her dear daughter-in-law had decided to be a
   follower of Jehovah and to say, "Your people shall be my people, and
   your God my God." This gave her great joy, but how must some of you
   Christian people feel when you find out that others have been caused to
   stumble through your living at a distance from Christ? What pangs of
   remorse will seize you when you discover that your arm has been
   paralyzed for good--that you have been unable to lead others to the
   Savior because you, yourself, were living so far from Him that it was a
   serious question whether you were not growing to be a worshipper of the
   Moabite idols and giving up altogether your profession of being a
   follower of the one true God?

   Now, with this as a preface, I come directly to the subject of the
   text. Here is a young woman who says to a follower of Jehovah, "Your
   people shall be my people, and your God my God."

   I. My first observation is that AFFECTION FOR THE GODLY SHOULD
   INFLUENCE US TO GODLINESS.

   It did so in this case. Affection for their godly mother-in-law
   influenced both Orpah and Ruth for a time "and they said unto her,
   Surely we will return with you unto your people." They were both drawn
   part of the way towards Canaan, but, alas, natural affection has not
   sufficient power, in itself, to draw anybody to a decision for God! It
   may be helpful to that end. It may be one of the "cords of a man" and
   "bands of love" which God, in His infinite mercy, often uses in drawing
   sinners to Himself, but there has to be something more than that mere
   human affection. Still, it ought to be of some service in leading to a
   decision and it is a very dreadful thing when those who have godly
   parents seem to be the worse, rather than the better for that fact, or
   when men, who have Christian wives, rebel against the Light of God and
   become all the more wicked because God has blessed their homes with
   godly women who speak to them lovingly and tenderly

   concerning the claims of the religion of Jesus. That is a terrible
   state of affairs, for it ought always to be the case that our affection
   for godly people should help to draw us towards godliness. In Ruth's
   case, by the Grace of God, it was the means of leading her to the
   decision expressed in our text, "Your people shall be my people, and
   your God my God."

   Many forces may be combined to bring others to this decision. First,
   there is the influence of companionship. Nobody doubts that evil
   company tends to make a man bad. And it is equally sure that good
   companionship has a tendency to influence men towards that which is
   good. It is a happy thing to have side by side with you one whose heart
   is full of love to God. It is a great blessing to have as a mother a
   true saint, or to have as a brother or a sister one who fears the Lord.
   And it is a special privilege to be linked for life, in the closest
   bonds, with one whose prayers may rise with ours, and whose praises may
   also mingle with ours. There is something about Christian companionship
   which must count in the right direction unless the heart is resolutely
   bent on mischief.

   There is something more than this, however, and that is the influence
   of admiration. There can be no doubt whatever that Ruth looked with
   loving reverence and admiration upon Naomi, for she saw in her a
   character which won her heart's esteem and affection. The few glimpses
   which we have of that godly woman, in this Book of Ruth, show us that
   she was a most disinterested and unselfish person--not one who, because
   of her own great sorrow, would burden others with it and pull them down
   to her own level in order that they might in some way assist her. She
   was one who considered the interests of others rather than her own--and
   all such persons are sure to win admiration and esteem. When a
   Christian man so lives that others see something about him which they
   do not perceive in themselves, that is one way in which they are often
   attracted towards the Christian life. When the sick Christian is
   patient. When the poor Christian is cheerful. When the Believer in
   Christ is forgiving, generous, tenderhearted, sympathetic, honest and
   upright, then it is that observers say, "Here is something worth
   looking into--from where comes all this excellence?" And they take
   knowledge of them that they have been with Jesus and that they have
   learned these things of Him--and in that way they are, themselves,
   inclined to become His followers.

   Nor is it only by companionship and admiration that people are won to
   the Savior. There is also the influence of instruction. I have no doubt
   that Naomi gave her daughter-in-law much helpful teaching. Ruth would
   want to know about Naomi's God and Naomi would be only too glad to tell
   her all she knew. When the Spaniards went over to South America, they
   treated the poor natives so badly that the Indians did not wish to know
   anything about the Spaniards' god, for they thought, from the cruelties
   they had suffered, that he must be a devil! And there are certain sorts
   of professors who are so unkind--they have such an absence of
   everything gentle and generous about them--that one does not want to
   know anything about their god, for if they are like he, he probably
   isthe devil!

   But, dear Friends, it ought not to be so with us. We should make people
   want to know what our religion really is and then be ready to tell
   them! I have no doubt that, many a time, in the land of Moab, when her
   daughters-in-law ran in to see her, Naomi would begin telling them
   about the deliverance at the Red Sea and how the Lord brought His
   people through the wilderness and how the goodly land, which flowed
   with milk and honey, had been given to them by the hand of Joshua. Then
   she would tell them about the tabernacle and its worship, and talk to
   them about the lamb, and the red heifer, and the bullock, and the
   sin-offering and so on. And it was thus, probably, that Ruth's heart
   had been won to Jehovah, the God of Israel. And, perhaps, for that
   reason--because of Naomi's instruction--Ruth said to her, "'Your people
   shall be my people.' I know so much about them that I want to be
   numbered with them. 'And your God shall be my God.' You have told me
   about Him--what wonders He has worked--and I have resolved to trust
   myself under the shadow of His wings." Well, Beloved, it ought to be
   thus with us, also. We should take care that the influence of our
   companionship, the influence of our lives in which there should be
   something for observers to admire and the influence of our
   conversation, which should be full of gracious instruction, should lead
   those who come under our influence in the right way.

   Besides that, I have no doubt that some persons are drawn towards good
   things by a desire to cheer the godly persons whom they love. And
   though I do not put this forward as one of the highest and strongest
   motives, yet I do feel at liberty to suggest to some young people here
   that their sins are a great grief to their loving fathers and mothers
   and that, if their hearts were given to Christ, it would fill the whole
   house with holy joy! It was a great joy to me when my sons were born,
   but it was an infinitely surpassing joy as, one after the other, they
   told me that they had sought and found the Savior! To pray with them,
   to point them yet more fully to Christ, to hear the story of their
   spiritual troubles and to help

   them out of their spiritual difficulties was an intense satisfaction to
   my soul. Ah, my young Friends, you do not know how much those who love
   you would be cheered if you were converted--especially any of you who
   have not lived as you should have done--who have, perhaps, even gone
   away from home and acted in a way that might well bring your father's
   gray hairs in sorrow to the grave. I think that he would almost dance
   with delight if he could only hear that you were truly converted to
   God!

   I know a minister who took out of his pocket an old letter that was
   nearly worn to pieces. He made a journey from the country to bring it
   up for me to see. It was not really old--it was worn out because he had
   so constantly taken it out to read. It was somewhat to this effect. His
   son had been such a scapegrace and such a disgrace to his family that
   he was helped to go abroad--and he came to London to join the ship. As
   he had heard his father speak of me, he thought that he would spend his
   last Thursday night, before starting on the Friday morning, in hearing
   me in this Tabernacle. And here God met with him, for I was moved by
   the Holy Spirit to say, "Here you are, Jack--going away from home, from
   your father's house, oh, that the great Father in Heaven would take you
   to Himself!" It happened that his name was Jack, so it was the very
   words for him--and the Lord blessed it to him then and there. He went
   to America. He did not write to his father to tell him about his
   conversion till he had had time to prove the reality of it. But when he
   had been baptized and had joined the Church, and walked consistently
   for six months, he sent the good news home. The old man said, "I
   thought he might have been lost at sea, but the Lord had saved him
   through your preaching. God bless you, Sir!" I had a thousand blessings
   heaped upon my head by that grateful father. It was only a simple
   sermon that I had preached on a Thursday night, but it was the means of
   that son's conversion and it was the source of great joy to that
   father--he did not mind about his son being in America, or what he was
   doing--so long as he had become a true Believer in the Lord Jesus
   Christ! What a mercy it would be if this sermon should be blessed as
   that one was!

   I think, too, that there was another thing which had great influence
   over Ruth, as it has had over a great many other people. That is, the
   fear of separation. ' 'Ah," said one to me only last week, "it used to
   trouble me greatly when my wife went downstairs to the communion and I
   had to go home, or to remain with the spectators in the gallery. I did
   not like to be separated from her even here. And then, Sir, the thought
   stole over me, 'What if I have to be divided from her forever and
   ever?'" I think that a similar reflection ought, with the blessing of
   God, to impress a good many. Young man, if you live and die impenitent,
   you will see your mother no more, except from an awful distance, with a
   great gulf fixed between her and you, so that she cannot cross over to
   you, or you go over to her! There will come a day when one shall be
   taken and another left. And before the great separation takes place at
   the Judgment Seat of Christ--when there shall be a division made
   between the goats and the sheep, and between the tares and the wheat--I
   implore you to let the influence of the godly whom you love help to
   draw you towards decision for God and His Christ.

   II. My time would fail me if I dwelt longer on this point, though it is
   a very interesting one, so I must pass on to my second observation
   which is, that which RESOLVES TO GODLINESS WILL BE TESTED. Ruth speaks
   very positively--"Your people shall be my people, and your God my God."
   This was her resolve, but it was a resolve which had already been put
   to the test and she had, in great measure, satisfactorily passed
   through it.

   First, it had been tested by the poverty and the sorrow of her
   mother-in-law. Naomi said, "The Almighty has dealt very bitterly with
   me," yet Ruth says, "Your God shall be my God." I like that brave
   resolution of the young Moabitess. Some people say, "We would like to
   be converted, for we want to be happy." Yes, but suppose you knew that
   you would notbe happy after conversion? You still ought to wish to have
   this God to be your God. Naomi has lost her husband, she has lost her
   sons, she has lost everything--she is going back penniless to
   Bethlehem--and yet her daughter-in-law says to her, "Your God shall be
   my God." Oh, dear Friends, if you can share the lot of Christians when
   they are in trouble. If you can take God and affliction. If you can
   accept Christ and a cross--then your decision to be His follower is
   true and real! It has been tested by the afflictions and the trials
   which you know belong to the people of God, yet you are content to
   suffer with them in taking their God to be your God, too.

   Next, Ruth's decision had been tested when she was bidden to count the
   cost Naomi had put the whole case before her. She had told her
   daughter-in-law that there was no hope that she should ever bear a son
   who could become a husband to Ruth--and that she had better stay and
   find a husband in her own land. She set before her the dark side of the
   case--possibly too earnestly. She seemed as if she wanted to persuade
   her to go back, though I do not think that, in her heart, she could
   really have wished her to do so. But, my young Friend, before you say
   to any Christian, "Your people

   shall be my people, and your God my God," count the cost! Remember if
   you are following an evil trade, you will have to give it up. If you
   have formed bad habits, you will have to forsake them. And if you have
   had bad companions, you will have to leave them. There are a great many
   things which have afforded you pleasure which must become painful to
   you and must be renounced. Are you prepared to follow Christ through
   the mire and the slough, as well as along the high road and down in the
   valley as well as up upon the hills? Are you ready to carry His Cross
   as you hope, afterwards, to share His crown? If you can stand the test
   in detail--such a test as Christ set before those who wanted to be His
   followers on earth--then is your decision a right one!

   Ruth had been tried, too, by the apparent coldness of one in whom she
   trustedand whom she had a right to trust, for Naomi did not at all
   encourage her. Indeed, she seemed to discourageher. I am not sure that
   Naomi is to be blamed for that and I am not certain that she is to be
   much praised. You know, it is quite possible for you to encourage
   people too much. I have known some encouraged in their doubts and fears
   till they never could get out of them. At the same time, you can
   certainly very easily chill enquirers and seekers. And though Naomi
   showed her love to Ruth, yet she did not seem to have any very great
   desire to bring her to follow Jehovah. This is a test that many young
   people find to be very trying--but this young woman said to her
   mother-in-law, "Entreat me not to leave you, or to return from
   following after you: for where you go, I will go; and where you lodge,
   I will lodge: your people shall be my people, and your God my God."

   Another trial for Ruth was the drawing back of her sister-in-law. Orpah
   kissed Naomi and left her. And you know the influence of one young
   person upon another when they are of the same age, or when they are
   related as these two were. You went to the revival meeting with a
   friend and she was as much impressed as you were. She has gone back to
   the world and the temptation is for you to do the same. Can you stand
   out against it? You two young men went to hear the same preacher and
   you both felt the force of the Word of God, but your companion has gone
   back to where he used to be. Can you hold out, now, and say, "I will
   follow Christ alone if I cannot find a companion to go with me?" If so,
   it is well with you--

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

   When the many turn aside?

   Can you witness He has the living Word,

   And none upon earth beside?

   And can you endure with the virgin band,

   The lowly and pure in heart,

   Who, wherever the Lamb does lead,

   From His footsteps never depart?

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

   Through His love's constraining power'?

   But, ah, remember the flesh is weak,

   And will shrink in the trial-hour.

   Yet yield to His love, who round you now,

   The bands of a man would cast

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

   To the altar binding you fast" But one of the worst trials that Ruth
   had was the silence of Naomi I think that is what is meant, for after
   she had solemnly declared that she would follow the Lord, we read,
   "When she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she
   stopped speaking unto her." She left off stating the black side of the
   case, but she does not appear to have talked to her about the bright
   side. "She stopped speaking unto her." The good woman was so sorrowful
   that she could not talk! Her heart-break was so great that she could
   not converse. And such silence must have been very trying to Ruth--and
   when a young person has just joined the people of God, it is a severe
   test to be brought face to face with a very mournful Christian and not
   to get one encouraging word!

   Sometimes, Brothers and Sisters, we must swallow our own bitter pills
   as fast as we can, that we may not discourage others by making a wry
   face over them. It is sometimes the very best thing a sorrowful person
   can do to say, "I must not be sad. Here is young So-and-So coming in. I
   must be cheerful, for here comes one who might be discouraged by my
   grief." You remember how the Psalmist, when he was in a very mournful
   state of mind, said, "If I say, I will speak thus--

   behold, I should offend against the generation of your children. When I
   thought to know this, it was too painful for me"? Let it be too painful
   for us to give any cause for stumbling or disquietude to those who have
   just come to the Savior, but let us cheer and encourage them all we
   can. Still, Naomi's silence did not discourage Ruth--she was evidently
   a strong-minded, though gentle young woman, and she gave herself up to
   God and His people without any reserve. Even though she might not be
   helped much by the older Believer and might even be discouraged by
   her--and still more by the departure of her sister-in-law, Orpah--yet
   she still pressed on in the course she had chosen!

   Well, you do the same, Mary. And you, Jane, and John, and Thomas. Will
   you be like Mr. Pliable and go back to the City of Destruction? Or will
   you, like Christian, pursue your way and steadfastly hold on through
   the Slough of Despond, or whatever else may be in your pathway to the
   Celestial City?

   III. Now, thirdly, and very briefly, TRUE GODLINESS MUST MAINLY LIE IN
   THE CHOICE OF GOD. That is the very pith of the text--"Your God shall
   be my God."

   First, dear Friends, God is the Believer's choicest possession. Indeed,
   it is the distinguishing mark of a Christian that he acknowledges a
   God. Naomi had not much else--no husband, no son, no lands, no gold, no
   silver, no pleasure, even--but she had a God. Come, now, my Friend, are
   you determined that, henceforth and forever, the Lord shall be your
   chief possession? Can you say, "God shall be mine. My faith shall grasp
   Him, now, and hold Him fast?" Next, God was, henceforth, to Ruth, as He
   had been to Naomi--her Ruler and Law-Giver. When anyone truthfully
   says, "God shall be my God," there is some practical meaning about that
   declaration. It means, "He shall influence me. He shall direct me. He
   shall lead me. He shall govern me. He shall be my King. I will yield to
   Him and obey Him in everything. I will endeavor to do all things
   according to His will. God shall be my God." You must not want to take
   God to be your helper, in the sense of making Him to be your servant,
   but to be your Master and so to help you. Dear friends, does the Holy
   Spirit lead you to make this blessed choice and to declare, "This God
   shall be mine, my Law-Giver and Ruler from this time forth?"

   Well, then, He must also be your Instructor At the present day, I am
   afraid that nine people out of ten do not believe in the God who is
   revealed to us in the Bible. "What?" you say. It is so, I grieve to say
   it. I can point you to newspapers, to magazines, to periodicals and
   also to pulpits by the score in which there is a new god set up to be
   worshipped--not the God of the Old Testament--He is said to be too
   strict, too severe, too stern for our modern teachers. They do not
   believe in Him. The God of Abraham is dethroned by many, nowadays, and
   in His place they have a spineless god, like those of whom Moses spoke,
   "new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not." They
   shudder at the very mention of the God of the Puritans! If Jonathan
   Edwards were to rise from the dead, they would not listen to him for a
   minute--they would say that they had quite a new god since his
   day--but, Brothers and Sisters, I believe in the God of Abraham, and of
   Isaac, and of Jacob! This God is my God--yes, the God that drowned
   Pharaoh and his host at the Red Sea and moved His people to sing
   "Hallelujah" as He did it! The God that caused the earth to open and
   swallow up Korah, Dathan and Abiram and all their company--a terrible
   God is the God whom I adore--He is the God and Father of our Lord and
   Savior Jesus Christ, full of mercy, compassion and Grace, tender and
   gentle, yet just and dreadful in His holiness and terrible out of His
   holy places. This is the God whom we worship and he who comes to Him in
   Christ, and trusts in Him, will take Him to be his Instructor--and so
   shall he learn aright all that he needs to know. But woe unto the men
   of this day who have made unto themselves a calf of their own devising
   which has no power to bless or to save them! "Your God" says Ruth to
   Naomi--not another god--not Chemosh or Moloch, but Jehovah--"shall be
   my God." And so she took Him to be her Instructor, as we, also, must
   do.

   Then, let us take Him to be our entire trust and stay. O my beloved
   Friends, the happiest thing in life is to trust God--first to trust Him
   with your soul through Jesus Christ the Savior--and then to trust Him
   with everything and in everything. I am speaking what I know! The life
   of sense is death, but the life of faith is life, indeed! Trust God
   about temporary things--no, I do not know any division between
   temporary things and spiritual things--trust God about everything!
   About your daily livelihood, about your health, about your wife, about
   your children--live a life of faith in God and you will truly live and
   all things will be right about you. It is because we get to
   partlytrusting God and partly trusting ourselvesthat we are often so
   unhappy. But when, by simple faith, you just cast yourselves on God,
   then you find the highest joy and bliss that is possible on earth--and
   a whole series of wonders is spread out before you! Your life becomes
   like a miracle, or a succession of miracles, God hearing your prayers
   and answering you out of Heaven, delivering you in

   the time of trial, supplying your every need and leading you always
   onward by a matchless way which you know not, which every moment shall
   cause you greater astonishment and delight as you see the unfolding of
   the Character of God. Oh, that each one of you would say, "This God
   shall be my God. I will trust Him. By His Grace I will trust Him now."

   IV. The last thing is that THIS DECISION SHOULD LEAD US TO CAST IN OUR
   LOT WITH GOD'S PEOPLE AS WELL AS WITH HIMSELF, for Ruth said, "Your
   people shall be my people."

   She might have said, "You are not well spoken of, you Jews, you
   Israelites. The Moabites, among whom I have lived, hate you." But, in
   effect, she said, "I am no Moabitess now. I am going to belong to
   Israel and to be spoken against, too. They have all manner of bad
   things to say in Moab about Bethlehem-Judah, but I do not mind that,
   for I am going to be, from now on, an inhabitant of Bethlehem and to be
   reckoned in the number of the Bethlehem people, for no longer am I of
   Moab and the Moabites."

   Now, dear Friend, will you thus cast in your lot with God's people and,
   though they are spoken against, will you be willing to be spoken
   against, too? I daresay that the Bethlehem people were not all that
   Ruth could have wished them to be. Even Naomi was not--she was too sad
   and sorrowful--but, still, I expect that Ruth thought that her
   mother-in-law was a better woman than she was herself. I have heard
   people find fault with the members of our Churches and say that they
   cannot join with them for they are such an inferior sort of people.
   Well, I know a great many different sorts of people and, after all, I
   shall be quite content to be numbered with God's people, as I see them
   even in His visible Church, rather than to be numbered with any other
   persons in the whole world! I count the despised people of God the best
   company I have ever met with--and I often say of this Tabernacle, as I
   hope members of other Churches can say of their own places of worship--

   "Here my best friends, my kindred dwell, Here God, my Savior, reigns."

   "Oh!" says one, "I will join the church when I can find a perfect one."
   Then you will never join any. "Ah," you say, "but perhaps I may." Well,
   but it will not be a perfect church the moment you have joined it, for
   it will cease to be perfect as soon as it receives you into its
   membership! I think that if a Church is such as Christ can love, it is
   such as I can love. And if it is such that Christ counts it as his
   Church, I may well be thankful to be a member of it. Christ "loved the
   Church and gave Himself for it"--then may I not think it an honor to be
   allowed to give myself to it?

   Ruth was not joining a people out of whom she expected to get much.
   Shame on those who think to join the church for what they can get! Yet
   the loaves and fishes are always a bait for some people. But there was
   Ruth, going with Naomi to Bethlehem--and all that the townsfolk would
   do would be to turn out and stare at them and say, "Is this Naomi? And
   pray who is this young woman that has come with her? This Naomi--dear
   me! How altered she is! How worn she looks! Quite the old woman to what
   she was when she left us." Not much sympathy was given to them, as far
   as I gather from that remark, yet Ruth seemed to say, "I do not care
   how they treat me. They are God's people, even if they have a great
   many faults and imperfections, and I am going to join them."

   And I invite all of you who can say to us, "Your God is our God," to
   join with the people of God, openly, visibly, manifestly, decidedly,
   without any hesitancy, even though you may gain nothing by it! Perhaps
   you will not, but, on the other hand, you will bring a good deal to it,
   for that is the true spirit of Christ. "It is more blessed to give than
   to receive." Yet, in any case, cast in your lot with the people of God
   and share and share alike with them.

   I conclude by saying that whatever the other Bethlehem people might be,
   there was among them one notable being, and it was worth while to join
   the nation for the sake of union with him. Ruth found it all out by
   degrees. There was a near kinsman among those people and his name was
   Boaz. She went to glean in his field and, by-and-by, she was married to
   him. Ah, that was the reason why I cast in my lot with the people of
   God, for I said to myself, "There is One among them who, whatever
   faults theymay have, is so fair and lovely that He more than makes up
   for all their imperfections! My Lord Jesus Christ, in the midst of His
   people, makes them all fair in His fairness and makes me feel that to
   be poor with the poorest and most illiterate of the Church of Christ,
   meeting in a village barn, is an unspeakable honor since He is among
   them!"

   Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself is always present wherever two or three
   are gathered together in His name. If His name is on the list, there
   may be a number of odds and ends put down with Him--members of
   different denominations, some strange persons, some very old people--as
   long as His name is on the list, I do not mind about what others are

   there, put my name down! Oh, that I might have the eternal honor of
   having my name written even at the bottom of the page beneath the name
   of Jesus, my Lord, the Lamb! As Boaz was there, it was enough for Ruth,
   and as Christ is here, that is quite enough for me! So I hope I have
   said sufficient to persuade you, who say that our God is your God, to
   come and join with us, or with some other part of Christ's Church and
   so to make His people to be your people. And mind you, do it at once,
   and in the Scriptural fashion, and God bless you in the doing of it,
   for Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Covenant Blessings

   (No. 2681)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JULY 1, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK, ON A THURSDAY EVENING, IN THE
   SUMMER OF 1858.

   "He has given meat unto them that fear Him: He will always be mindful
   of His Covenant." Psalm 111:5.

   THIS verse occurs in one of the Hallelujah Psalms, that is, those
   commencing with "Praise you the Lord." We often find the Psalmist
   praising and extolling God--let us imitate his example. Let us do so
   because we shall find it very pleasant and profitable and because,
   also, it is our bounden duty. One of the highest exercises of the new
   life is praising God! Our doubts and fears are indications of life, for
   the dead man neither doubts nor fears. But our songs of praise are far
   higher demonstrations of the life within and are more worthy fruits of
   a soil which has been the subject of God's husbandry, which has been
   plowed by the agonies of the Savior and made fertile through His
   precious blood. My Brothers and Sisters, our life should be one
   continuous Psalm with here and there a note descending very deep! Yet
   we should always seek to sing as we live. The stars sing as they shine
   and they sing by shining. Let us sing while we live and live by
   singing--and let our life be perpetually singing one great Psalm!

   There are many ways of praising God. We should do it with the lips and
   grateful is the voice of song in the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth.
   We should do it by our daily conversation--let our acts be acts of
   praise, as well as our words be words of praise. We should do it even
   by the very look of our eyes and by the appearance of our countenance.
   Let not your face be sad, let your countenance be joyous! Sing wherever
   you go, yes, when you are laden with trouble, let no man see it. "You,
   when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face." Be you always
   glad, for it is God's commandment, through His servant, the Apostle
   Paul, "Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say, Rejoice." And yet
   once more he says, "Rejoice evermore." That we may have themes for
   song, David has in this Psalm mentioned many subjects. Let us attend to
   the subjects of the text--the subject, I might have said, for it is all
   one. This verse is the voice of experience. It is not the voice of
   hope, saying, "He will give," but the voice of experience--"He has
   given meat unto them that fear Him" and the voice of faith--"He will
   ever be mindful of His Covenant."

   We shall notice, first of all, the gift--"He has given meat unto them
   that fear Him." Then we shall notice the Covenant--"He will ever be
   mindful of His Covenant." And then, lastly, the character of the
   persons here spoken of--"He has given meat unto them that fear Him."

   I. Let us first consider THE GIFT. "He has given meat." We are to
   understand this expression, of course, in a twofold sense, of our
   necessities. The first, temporal. The other, spiritual.

   First, we are to understand this expression in a temporal sense. Our
   bodies need meat. We cannot keep this mortal fabric in repair without
   continually providing it with food. God's children are not, by the fact
   of their being spiritual men, prevented from feeling natural
   needs--they hunger and they thirst even as others do. Sometimes, too,
   they are even called to suffer poverty and know not where their next
   morsel of meat shall come from. Blessed be God--

   "He that has made our Heaven secure Will here all good provide"--

   and God's Covenant relates not merely to the great and marvelous things
   that we need spiritually, but it is a Covenant which includes in the
   catalog of its gifts, mercies that are food for the body, mercies for
   our immediate and pressing needs--"He has given meat unto them that
   fear Him."

   God has never suffered His people to starve. "The young lions do lack
   and suffer hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good
   thing." The promise is as true under the New Covenant as under the Old,
   that our bread shall be given us and our water shall be sure. The Lord,
   who feeds the ravens, will not be less careful of His people. He who
   supplies every insect with its food and feeds the prowling lion in his
   majesty, will not suffer His own home-born children, those who are
   nearest His heart, to perish for lack of nutriment. "The cattle on a
   thousand hills are His," so He will not allow His children to lack for
   their meat. He it is to whom the earth belongs and the fullness
   thereof--He will not, then, suffer His children to go without necessary
   supplies. "He has given meat unto them that fear Him."

   Some of us are qualified to speak from experience upon this point. We
   may truly say that God has always given us our meat. Indeed, we have
   not lacked anything. Up to now the road has been to us like that of the
   Israelites when they came to the camp of the Syrians and found the way
   strewn with gold, silver and garments! God has provided for our needs
   even before they have come. He has anticipated our necessities. But
   there are others of you who have been brought so low by poverty and
   affliction that you are qualified to speak in a still more emphatic
   fashion. You have sometimes gone, with a hungry stomach, to an empty
   cupboard. You have wondered where your supplies would come from. You
   may even have been houseless and homeless. But ah, children of the
   living God, has He utterly failed you? Though He has reduced you very
   low, so that the last morsel was eaten from the cupboard, has He not
   ultimately supplied your needs and that, too, by means not miraculous,
   but almost so? Has He not in Providence sent you things which you
   needed and which you scarcely expected to receive? In answer to prayer,
   has He not delivered you out of your deepest tribulations? And when you
   were well-nigh famished, has He not spread your table with plenty when
   you have bent your knees before Him? Yes, you tried ones, you have
   tested this text and have proved it true! You sons of poverty and toil,
   you have had to rest the whole weight of your daily maintenance on the
   promise of God without anything to look to but that--and have you ever
   found Him fail you? No, you will unanimously bear witness that this is
   a great Truth of God, "He has given meat unto them that fear Him."

   But it is surprising, sometimes, how God has done it! I have heard many
   a story from the poor among my own flock of how God has delivered
   them--strange stories, at which some of you would laugh if I were to
   repeat them. There are some of them who could write, "Banks of Faith"
   that would be as wonderful as that of William Huntington! Some of you
   laugh at that book and do not believe it, but it is only because there
   are so many things of the same sort all put together that they seem to
   be incredible through their number. But there are many of the Lord's
   servants who could easily compose a "Bank of Faith" like Huntington's,
   for they have had their most deep necessities and their most poignant
   sorrows--and they have had their relief well-nigh miraculous--so that,
   if God had thrust His hand out of the clouds and handed down bread and
   clothing for them, their deliverance would not have been more
   apparently from His hand than it has been in the way whereby His
   Providence has supplied their needs! They can say that He has done it
   and He has done it marvelously and constantly, too. "He has given meat
   unto them that fear Him."

   Why, if the child of God were in such a position that the earth could
   not yield him bread, God would open the windows of Heaven and rain
   manna from there again! If a Christian could be placed in such a
   position that the common course of Providence could not serve his end,
   God would change the nature of everything, rather than break His
   promise! He would reverse all the seasons and unloose the very bonds of
   Creation, itself, and let the laws of Nature run riot, rather than
   suffer one of His promises to fail, or one of His children to lack. "He
   has given meat"--and He will always do so-- "unto them that fear Him."

   But we are to understand this expression chiefly in a spiritual sense.
   God's people need spiritual meat. I was talking, the other day, to a
   minister who certainly is not noted for his great soundness in the
   faith. He was making a joke to me about certain people in his
   congregation who said they could not feed under him. "There is Mrs.
   So-and-So," he said, "who tells me that she cannot get a bit of food
   out of my ministry. I do not know how it is," he continued laughingly,
   "for I do not think you say half as many good things as I do! But yet
   the old woman cannot feed upon my sermons." He laughed at the idea of
   feeding under a ministry, but there is a good deal more in the
   expression than many think. There is much meant by it that cannot be
   expressed by any other word. It is only the true Christian who can
   understand its meaning. He hears a very eloquent discourse delivered,
   "but," he says, "I have got no food out of it." Or he hears a very
   learned discourse, "but," he says, "I cannot feed under that." There is
   a peculiar style of preaching and a peculiar style of hearing which can
   only be described as a "feeding preaching" and a "feeding hearing," in
   which the child of God feels

   that, though he may have learned little that is fresh, yet still his
   soul has been receiving spiritual food and he can go on his way
   rejoicing.

   And, my Brothers, the House of God is one of the principal places where
   He feeds His people. And those to whom He has committed the solemn work
   of the ministry should be very careful that there is something in what
   they say that the child of God can feed on. The child of God can never
   feed under a ministry unless he hears the doctrines of Grace and
   listens to the things of the Kingdom of God.

   "Our minister preached a fine metaphysical sermon the other day," one
   says. "I never heard such a clear distinction as he made between that
   point and the other." But the child of God goes out and says, "Well, I
   don't need any of his metaphysics--there was no food in the sermon for
   my soul. I went there to hear about the Lord Jesus Christ. I went to be
   taught something for my soul's welfare, something about the Heaven that
   is to come, or the Hell that is to be shunned. I wanted to hear
   something about communion with Christ, something about the Eternal
   Covenant. But there was nothing of the kind in the whole discourse."
   Sermons need to be instructive! There should be real teaching in them
   concerning the things of the Kingdom of God. "Why," said a good writer,
   once, "if you were to hear six lectures by a geologist, he would be the
   poorest geologist in the world if he did not give you some clear ideas
   concerning geology. But you may hear 60 sermons from many preachers
   without getting any notion of their system of divinity."

   It is the glory of the men of this age that they have no system of
   divinity--they have cast creeds to the wind--they have no forms in
   which they can systematically state the Truths of God which they
   believe. The reason is because they have nothing to state! No man will
   avoid having a system when he has certain definite principles. It is
   impossible for a man to believe the Truths in God's Word without
   insensibly to himself forming a creed of some sort or other. It is the
   fashion to talk about giving up creeds, but creeds are only the orderly
   way of stating God's Truth. If we hold the Truths, themselves, we shall
   always be able to set them out in some fashion and to communicate our
   knowledge to others so that, in a given number of discourses, our
   hearers will be pretty tolerably acquainted with our ideas of the Truth
   of God. "He has given meat unto them that fear Him" under the ministry.
   Sometimes God gives your minister such a gift of utterance that if he
   were to preach for a week, you would listen to him. There are periods
   when your own minister gives no food to you, though he does to others,
   because he has to care for different members of God's family. But there
   are other periods when the Lord seems to have given him such bountiful
   gifts that he has let fall handfuls to be gathered by the gleaners as
   did the man, Boaz, and you pick them up and feast on them and are
   satisfied.

   There is another way in which God gives food to His children--that is,
   in the Bible. This precious volume is the greatest granary of spiritual
   food for God's people. Would to God you read it more! With your
   magazines, newspapers and tracts on this, that and the other subject,
   you have too much covered up this ancient Bible, this grand old Book,
   this emporium of all wisdom, this sum of all knowledge! Yes, Christian,
   if you need spiritual meat, study a chapter of God's Word. If you need
   to have food for your souls, give up, for a little while, reading the
   works of even the best of men, and take a Psalm for the theme of your
   study--or if not a whole Psalm, take one verse of it! Take it for your
   daily meditation--chew on it and digest it all day long--and so you
   will find meat for "them that fear Him."

   Let me just say a word or two of caution to you on this point. When you
   read the Bible, do not think that you will get spiritual food out of it
   simply by reading. I know some people who make a point of reading two
   chapters of the Bible every day. They do so as a sort of mental
   exercise--they simply run their eyes down the page and, after all, do
   not know a word they have been reading. That is not the way to feed
   upon God's Word! We cannot truly feed unless we understand and believe
   what we read. In reading the Scripture, do as Luther advised. He says,
   "When I get a promise, I treat it as if it were a tree in my garden. I
   know there is rich fruit on it and if I cannot at once get it, I shake
   the tree backwards and forwards by prayer and meditation until, at
   last, the fruit drops into my hand." Do you the same! Read a short
   portion of Scripture--turn it over and over, again, in your meditation
   all day long--and then, if you cannot get anything out of it, I will
   tell you a way whereby you will be sure to get something. Go down on
   your knees before the passage and say, "O Lord, open this passage to
   me! Give me something out of it. Teach me to understand it." And it
   will not be long before God refreshes you with dainty portions from the
   tables of Paradise and makes your soul glad with choice morsels of
   royal dainties wherewith He feeds His own chosen ones!

   But there is another way of getting spiritual meat, even when we have
   not our Bible with us. The Lord sometimes gives meat "unto them that
   fear Him," by bringing Jesus Christ home to them, without the use of
   the Word--simply in

   meditation and communion. You know, Beloved, after all, that what a
   child of God feeds upon is Jesus Christ. When the Jews went to the
   Temple, they did not eat the tongs and fire shovels. They did not eat
   the garments of the priests and the bells and the pomegranates. They
   valued all these things, for they were made according to God's orders
   and, therefore, they thought them precious. But they did, at the
   appointed season, eat the paschal lamb. So the Christian does not eat
   the Doctrines of the Word--he feeds on Christ! He loves the Truths of
   God. He loves the ordinances, he loves everything in the Bible for
   Christ's sake. But his food is the Lamb, Himself! Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
   is the real food for all the Lord's chosen! And are there not most
   sweet and happy moments when the spirit is carried aloft in blessed
   communion, when Jesus Christ seems very present and very precious, when
   we lean our head on His bosom, when we seem to feel the very beating of
   His heart and to realize His love for us, when we lose ourselves in Him
   and almost forget that we have a separate existence? Then we are--

   "Plunged in His Godhead's deepest sea, And lost in His immensity!"

   I was much struck, the other evening, at a Prayer Meeting, by the
   prayer of one of our Brothers, which came home to my heart. When he
   prayed, he said, "O Lord, give me Mary's place--

   "'Oh that I could forever sit

   With Mary at the Master's feet!

   Be this my happy choice,

   My only care, delight and bliss,

   My joy, my Heaven on earth, be this,

   To hear the Bridegroom's voice.'" He prayed that he might have Mary's
   part and always sit at the feet of Jesus. But, by-and-by, the good
   man's fervor increased and in his prayer he said, "No, my Master, I
   have not asked enough of You. Mary's place is too low for me, if I may
   have a better one. Lift me up higher, Lord! Give me John's place--

   "'Oh, that I might, with favored John,

   Forever lean my head upon

   The bosom of my Lord!'"

   As he pleaded for that higher degree of communion between his soul and
   Christ, I thought, "Surely, now you have asked enough." But, suddenly
   rising another flight on the wings of communion, like the eagle taking
   its last soar into the skies, he said, "No, Lord, John's place does not
   suffice me. You have lifted me from Your feet to Your bosom, now lift
   me from Your bosom to Your lips." Then, quoting the words of the
   spouse, "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth: for Your love is
   better than wine," he sweetly paraphrased it thus, "Let the lips of my
   petitioning meet the lips of Your benediction. Let the lips of my
   praise meet the lips of Your acceptance--so shall the kiss of love be
   consummated and my joy be complete."

   Yes, and when we, also, are favored to go through these various stages
   of fellowship with Christ--to go from the foot to the bosom and from
   the bosom to the lips. To go from the mere learner to be a friend and
   companion and then to go still higher--to be lifted up and to feel our
   fellowship with Christ by standing as high as He does and our lips
   being on His lips--it is there that the child of God almost insensibly
   receives strength and, like Elijah smitten by the angel, he rises up
   and finds his meat baked upon the coals, eats thereof and lives upon it
   for forty days! This is, indeed, a most precious mode of feeding for
   our souls!

   But, somehow or other, God does give meat to His children and will
   never leave them to be famished. You have often noticed, I daresay,
   that when one means of feeding fails for God's children, others become
   available and effective. You are sick and cannot be fed by the public
   ministry--you cannot go out to hear sermons--so God's Word becomes more
   precious to you. Or, you have nobody to read to you and your sight has
   failed--generally, then, communion becomes more precious. One way or
   other, God will have His children fed.

   II. We will now consider THE COVENANT. "He will always be mindful of
   His Covenant."

   God has made many Covenants at divers times and none of these Covenants
   has He ever broken. Let me briefly mention these Covenants. There was
   the Covenant with Adam, the Covenant of Works--"Obey Me and you shall
   live; disobey Me and you shall die." That Covenant God did not break.
   He did not subject Adam to pain or misery until he had first broken the
   Covenant and so became the inevitable heir of suffering. God made a
   Covenant with Noah that the wa-

   ters should no more go over the earth--and the rainbow, the sign of
   that Covenant--has lit up the sky ever since at various intervals. And
   the earth has not been drowned with a flood a second time. He made a
   Covenant with Abraham, that he would give the land of Canaan to be the
   heritage of his seed. And that Covenant has He kept. Neither has He
   altered the thing that went out of His lips. He made a Covenant with
   David, that his seed should sit upon his throne and that Covenant He
   kept.

   But the Covenant here referred to is a better Covenant than all these,
   it is the Covenant of Grace. That is a sweet subject to preach upon!
   Suffer me to go back to the time when this Covenant was made. It is
   older than the oldest things that man has ever seen--the Covenant of
   Grace is more ancient than the everlasting hills. It was made by God
   with Christ for us before all worlds were created! God had foreseen
   that man would be a sinner. Jesus Christ and His Father were determined
   to save him and, therefore, a Covenant was made between them. God the
   Son, on His part, stipulated that He would suffer all the punishment
   which all the elect deserved to suffer--that He would offer a perfect
   righteousness on their behalf and pay all the demands of God's justice.
   God the Father, on His part, covenanted that all the elect, being
   redeemed by the blood of Christ, would most certainly be accepted and
   saved. That is the Covenant of which God is always mindful.

   Some people believe in a rickety kind of Covenant which I could never
   find in the Bible--a Covenant that has conditions in it which you and I
   are to fulfill. If there were such a Covenant as that, it would not be
   a Covenant of Grace, but of works. If the Covenant of Grace were made
   with men--with those that should be saved, on condition of their
   believ-ing--it would be as impossible for any man to be saved on that
   condition as it would be on the condition of obeying, since faith is no
   more possible to unaided man than is perfect obedience! Faith in Christ
   is as difficult a thing, to a man dead in trespasses and sins, as is
   perfect obedience to every command of God. The Covenant of Grace is a
   Covenant without any conditions on our part, whatever, of any sort, in
   any shape, in any form, or any fashion. The Covenant, in fact, is not
   made between us and God--it is made between God and Christ, our
   Representative. All the conditions of that Covenant are fulfilled so
   that there are none left for us to fulfill! The conditions were that
   Christ should suffer--and He has suffered. That Christ should obey--and
   He has obeyed. All that is done. And all that is now standing is the
   unconditional Covenant, that God will give to all His elect, though
   dead in sin, power to live! That He will give to them, though black,
   perfect cleansing in the fountain filled with blood! That He will give
   to them, though naked, a robe of perfect righteousness! That He will
   ultimately accept them to dwell with Him forever in Glory everlasting.
   This Covenant, on which our hopes are built, this glorious Covenant,
   is--

   "Signed, sealed and ratified, In all things ordered well."

   Will God ever forget it? No, "He will always be mindful of His
   Covenant," in everything that it guarantees and towards every person
   who is interested in it. God will not suffer one single promise of the
   Covenant to be unfulfilled, nor one single blessing of the Covenant to
   be kept back. Every iota, jot and tittle of the covenanted purpose of
   God shall be fulfilled--and everything which He has promised to His
   people in the Covenant, and which Christ has bought for His people
   through the Covenant--shall most infallibly be received by His people!
   As for the persons interested therein, not one of them shall be
   forgotten. If in the Covenant, they shall most assuredly be saved
   despite every attack of the devil, all their own wickedness, or any
   "accident," so-called, of Providence, or whatever may happen! All who
   are in the Covenant must and shall be gathered in. The Arminian says
   there are some in the Covenant who tumble out of it--that God has
   chosen some men--that He justifies them, that He accepts them--and then
   turns them out of His family.

   The Arminian holds the unnatural, cruel, barbarous idea that a man may
   be God's child, and then God may disown him because he does not behave
   himself. The idea is revolting even to human sensibility! If our
   children sin, they are still our children--though chastened and
   punished--yet never do they cease to be numbered among our family.
   There are many of God's children who have gone astray from Him and been
   chastened for it, but it were an idea too barbarous to suppose that God
   would disown His child for any sin he commits. He keeps fast His
   Covenant--He loves them, sinners though they may be. He keeps them from
   running riotously into sin, but when, sometimes, they go astray, as the
   best of them will, still His loving heart towards them is unchangeably
   the same!

   I do not serve the god of the Arminians at all! I have nothing to do
   with him and I do not bow down before the Baal they have set up! He is
   not my god, nor shall he ever be! I fear him not, nor tremble at his
   presence. A mutable god may be

   the god for the Arminian--he is not the god for me. My Jehovah changes
   not! The god that says today and denies tomorrow. That justifies today
   and condemns the next. The god that has children of his own one day and
   lets them be the children of the devil the next has no relation to my
   God in the least degree! He may be the relation of Ashtaroth or Baal,
   but Jehovah never was nor can be his name. Jehovah changes not! He
   knows no shadow of turning. If He has set His heart upon a man, He will
   love him to the end. If He has chosen him, He has not chosen him for
   any merit of his own-- therefore He will never cast him away for any
   demerit of his own. If He has begotten him unto a lively hope, He will
   not suffer him to fall away and perish! That were a breaking of every
   promise and an abrogation of the Covenant! If one dear child of God
   might fall away, then might all. If one of those for whom the Savior
   died might be damned, then the Savior's blood would be utterly void and
   vain. If one of those whom He has called according to His purpose might
   perish, then would His purpose be null and void. But, children of God,
   you may lay your heads upon the Covenant and say with Dr. Watts--

   "Then should the earth's old pillars shake And all the wheels of Nature
   break, Our steady souls should fear no more Than solid rocks when
   billows roar." III. Now I close by noticing THE CHARACTER OF THE
   PERSONS HERE REFERRED TO--"them that fear Him." Those who fear the Lord
   are in the Covenant of His Grace.

   The anxious enquirer or the young convert oftentimes says to the
   minister, "Sir, how can I know that I am elect?" And the usual answer
   is, "You have nothing to do with that--you may think of that matter,
   by-and-by." Begging the gentleman's pardon, that is not true! A sinner
   has everything to do with it. Instead of having nothing to do with
   election, he has everything in the world to do with it. But it is said
   that he need not trouble his mind about it. Perhaps he should not, but
   he will, and it is no source of comfort to tell him that he ought not.
   If I have a toothache, it is poor comfort for a physician to tell me
   that I ought not to have it. So, when a sinner is troubled about the
   Doctrine of Election, it is poor comfort to tell him he ought not to be
   troubled. The best way is to go fairly through the whole question and
   say to him, "Do you fear the Lord? Then, so sure as you are a living
   man, you are elect. You have the fear of the Lord before your
   eyes--then you need have no doubt but that your name is in the
   Covenant." None have feared the Lord who were not first loved by the
   Lord. Never did one come and cast himself at the feet of Jesus simply
   because he feared the penalty of sin. And none ever came to embrace the
   loving skirts of the Redeemer because he feared lest he should go
   astray without having been first called, chosen and made faithful. No,
   the fear of God in the heartis the proof of being God's elect one. If
   we fear Him, we may believe that He will always give meat to us and
   that He will always keep His Covenant towards us which He has made for
   us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

   "But," says one, "how am I to know whether I am elect?" Beloved, you
   cannot know it by any outward profession. You may be of any church in
   the world, or of no church, and yet be one of God's elect. Nor can you
   know it even by the sentiments which you receive as being true, for you
   may know truth and yet not have truth in your soul. You may be orthodox
   in your head and heterodox in your heart. You may believe everything
   and yet be cast away at last. The only way whereby you can judge
   yourself is this--Do you fear the Lord? Do you reverence His name and
   His Sabbath? Have you trembled at His Word? Have you cast away your
   self-righteousness at His command? And have you come to Him and taken
   Christ to be your All-in-All? I do not ask you whether you fear
   Hell--many fear Hell who fear not God. Do you fear to offend a loving
   Father? Do you fear lest you should go astray from God's commandments?
   Do you cry to Him--

   "Savor, keep me lest I wander?" Do you ask Him to preserve you? And can
   you honestly say that if you could be perfect, you would be? That you
   desire to be freed from sin? That you hate every false way? And is it
   your dally groaning to be set free from guilt and to be wholly
   surrendered to the Crucified? Lastly, can you say this after me--

   "A guilty, weak and helpless worm, On Christ's kind arms I fall-- He is
   my strength and righteousness, My Jesus and my All?"

   Then you are elect! Then you are justified! Then you are accepted and
   you have no more reason to doubt your acceptance and your election than
   you will have when you stand before the Throne of God, amid the blazing
   luster of eternal Glory!

   You are elect and you always were elect! God has chosen you. Your
   fearing Him is the evidence of it and your believing in Christ, without
   any righteousness of your own, is proof positive that you were chosen
   of God before the foundation of the world!

   Now what shall I say in conclusion? There are some of you who fear not
   God. Alas, for you, that you should be in a state so utterly miserable
   and pitiable, without the fear of God before your eyes! Oh, that God
   would teach you to fear Him! Oh, that He would break your hearts and so
   make you feel your ruined state as to bring you to His feet to receive
   the perfect righteousness of Christ--then would you fear Him--and then
   might you rejoice that He would give you meat and keep you in His
   Covenant.

   I think I hear one say, "I am a great sinner. I am in the very front
   rank of the army of guilt. I have truly transgressed and gone astray
   from the Most High. Tell me, did Jesus die for me? Did He die--not as
   some say He died, for all men-- but in that special sense which ensures
   salvation?" I will answer you. Can you say, "I am a sinner," not as a
   kind of idle compliment that most men pass when they say they are
   sinners and do not mean what the word implies, for they no more mean
   that they are sinners than that they are horses. But do you really
   believe that you are sinners deserving God's wrath and the fire of Hell
   forever? Then the Lord Jesus died for you and, "this is a faithful
   saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the
   world to save sinners." If the word is to be understood in the sense in
   which Hart uses it when he says--

   "A sinner is a sacred thing,

   The Holy Spirit has made him so"--

   if you feel you are a sinner in that sense, Christ died for you.

   But you say, "I wish He had set my name down in the book, that I might
   read it." Why, my Friend, if He had done so, you would believe it was
   intended for somebody else! If the book contained the name of Smith, on
   such a street, Smith would declare that there were so many Smiths that
   it could not be meant for him! And if you could read your name, you
   would still doubt that it could, by any possibility, be a description
   of you, since another person might bear the same title. But since it
   says, "sinners," Satan himself cannot beat you out of that. God has
   taught you what the term, "sinner," means and Satan cannot unteach you
   that. Are you, then, a sinner--fully, wholly, in all the black sense of
   the word? Then Christ died for you. Cast yourself upon that Truth of
   God-- Christ died for sinners.

   "But," you say, "Sir, if I were a little better, I might believe that
   He died for me." I would not, for He died for sinners. Or you say, "If
   I were a saint, I might believe that He died for me." I would not, for
   he died for sinners. Only prove yourself a sinner and you have proved
   that Christ died for you! Only be sure that you are a sinner, that you
   have revolted from God and that you know it--only confess with your
   heart your transgressions and take this title to yourself, and you may
   believe that Jesus died for you.

   Let me give you a lesson in logic--not from Whateley nor Watts, but
   from the logic of Faith. It is extraordinary how different are the
   conclusions of Faith from those of Reason. Once Reason came along and
   heard a man cry, "I am guilty, guilty." She stopped and said, "The man
   is guilty. God condemns the guilty, therefore this man will be
   condemned." She went away and left the man condemned, ruined and
   quivering with fear. Faith came and heard the same cry, rendered more
   bitter by the cruel syllogism of Reason. Faith stopped. She said, "The
   man is guilty, but Christ died for the guilty--therefore the man will
   be saved." And her logic was correct--the man lifted up his head and
   rejoiced!

   Reason came one day and saw a man naked. And she said, "He has not on a
   wedding garment. Can naked souls appear before the bar of God? Should
   they have a place at the supper of the Lamb? The man is naked--he must
   be cast out for naked ones cannot enter Heaven!" Then Faith came by and
   said, "The man is naked. Christ worked a robe of righteousness--He must
   have made it for the naked--He would not have made it for those who
   have a robe of their own. That robe is for the naked man and he shall
   stand in it before God." And her logic was correct and just. The other
   might seem strictly according to rule, but this was still better.

   Reason one day heard a man say that he was very good and righteous. She
   saw him go up to the Temple and heard him pray, "Lord, I thank You that
   I am not as other men," and Reason said, "That man is better than
   others and he will be accepted." But she argued wrongly, for, lo, he
   went out and a poor sinner by his side, who could only say, "God be
   merciful to me, a sinner," went down to his house justified--while the
   proud Pharisee went on his way disregarded. The logic of Faith is to
   argue white from black, whereas the logic of Reason argues white from
   white.

   Luther says, "Once upon a time the devil came to me and said, 'Martin
   Luther, you are a great sinner and you will be damned.' 'Stop, stop,' I
   said, 'one thing at a time! I am a great sinner, it is true, though you
   have no right to tell me of it. I confess it. What next?' 'Therefore
   you will be damned.' 'That is not good reasoning. It is true I am a
   great sinner, but it is written, 'Jesus Christ came into the world to
   save sinners,' therefore I shall be saved. Now go your way.' So I drove
   off the devil with his own sword and he went away mourning because he
   could not cast me down by calling me a sinner."

   I have a right to believe that Jesus Christ died for me and I cast
   myself wholly upon Him. Do the same, poor disconsolate one, for you
   have nothing of your own to depend upon! But you, O great, and good,
   and rich man, I have nothing to say to you!--

   "Not the righteous, Sinners, Jesus came to save."

   While you have a rag of your own, you shall never have Christ's robe!
   Go your way, your righteousness shall prove like the shirt of Hercules,
   when it burnt him and did eat his flesh away--though you glory in it,
   it shall be the winding-sheet of your soul forever.

   But if you have nothing and are poor, penniless and miserable--reduced
   to utter spiritual destitution and pov-erty--in God's name I preach to
   you the Gospel! Christ died for you and you shall not perish. God will
   not punish Christ for us and then punish us afterwards. He will not
   demand the payment, first at His hands and then again, at ours. He is
   not unjust to punish, first, the Scapegoat, the Surety, the
   Substitute--and then to punish you. Christ was your Substitute--He bore
   your guilt, He carried your iniquities upon His head. Your sins were
   numbered upon Him and your punishment was laid upon Him!

   Go your way. You can never be punished. Your sins, which are many, are
   all forgiven. Rejoice in pardon bought with blood--be glad, be
   satisfied, be happy even till you die--and then you shall be happy
   forever!
     __________________________________________________________________

A Song and a Solace

   (No. 2682)

   INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JULY 8, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY
   1, 1881.

   "You have granted me life and favor, and Your visitation has preserved
   my spirit And these things have You hid in Your heart: I know that this
   is with You." Job 10:12,13.

   BEFORE I speak upon these two verses, I will read the four which
   precede them, that you may note the connection in which they are found.
   Job is in great trouble, in sore distress of soul. His heart is very
   heavy and his unfriendly friends are casting salt into his wounds
   instead of trying to heal them. In his distress, he turns to his God
   and appeals to Him in this fashion (beginning at the 8th verse)--"Your
   hands have made me and fashioned me together round about; yet You
   destroy me. Remember, I beseech You, that You have made me as the clay;
   and will You bring me into dust again? Have You not poured me out as
   milk and curdled me like cheese? You have clothed me with skin and
   flesh, and have fenced me with bones and sinews." Then follows our
   text--"You have granted me life and favor, and Your visitation has
   preserved my spirit. And these things have You hid in Your heart: I
   know that this is with You."

   You see that Job is appealing to the pity of God and this is the form
   of his argument--"You are my Creator--be my Preserver. You have made
   me--do not break me. You are dealing very harshly with me, I am almost
   destroyed beneath the pressure of Your hands. Remember that I am Your
   own creature. Weak and frail as I am, I am the creation of Your hands.
   Therefore, despise not Your own work. Whatever I am, with the exception
   of my sin, You have made me what I am. 'Tis You who has brought me into
   my present condition--consider, then, O God, what a poor, frail thing I
   am and stay Your hand and do not utterly crush my spirit."

   This is a wise prayer, a right and proper argument for a creature to
   use with the Creator. And when Job goes still further and, in the
   language of our text, addresses God not only as his Creator, but as his
   Benefactor, and mentions the great blessings that he had received from
   God, his argument still holds good. "Do not, Lord, change Your method
   of dealing with me. You have given me life, You have shown me special
   favor, You have hitherto preserved me. Cast me not away from Your
   Presence. Dismiss me not from Your service, let not Your tender mercies
   fail, but do unto me, now, and in days to come according as You have
   done unto me in the days that are past."

   In speaking about these two verses, I am going to use them in two
   senses. The first in one sense and the second in another, but both and
   each of them in its own true meaning, so far as I understand it. First,
   here is a song for bright days. "You have granted me life and favor,
   and Your visitation has preserved my spirit." Secondly, here is a
   solace for dark nights. "And these things have You hid in Your heart: I
   know that this is with You."

   I. First, then, let us use the former part of our text as A SONG FOR
   BRIGHT DAYS--"You have granted me life and favor, and Your visitation
   has preserved my spirit."

   Whatever we have received that is good, has come to us from God as a
   matter of pure favor--certainly we have deserved nothing at His hands
   but displeasure, and everything short of death and Hell is a mercy--and
   a thing for which to magnify the goodness of God. In this first portion
   of our text, there is a mention of three blessings that must never be
   forgotten. The great charter of God's bounty includes three notable
   things which He has granted to us--life, favor and His visitation which
   has preserved our spirit.

   Now, then, you joyful ones, unite with me while we, first, bless God
   for granting us life. To a Christian, life is a blessing in itself.
   Considered alone, it is a blessing. But to the ungodly man it may turn
   out to be a curse, for it would have been better for that man if he had
   never been born. But to a godly man like Job, it is a great mercy even
   to have an existence. Blessed be the Lord who brought us into the world
   and gave breath to these lungs, and the flowing life to these veins!
   Blessed be God for having made us! Sometimes, as I gaze upon the world
   in springtime, or in the summer, it appears to me that it is a great
   happiness to all Nature to simply exist. Look at the lovely lily, as it
   stands quite still and never speaks--it seems to praise God in silence
   by its beauty. But a Christian should go beyond a mere flower. He ought
   to feel that it is a great favor to be made by God. The man who knows
   that his eternal future is secured by the unfailing Grace of God may
   forever praise the Lord who has given him life!

   I find that in the Hebrew, this word, "life," is in the plural--"You
   have granted me lives" and, blessed be God, we who believe in Jesus
   have not only this naturallife which we share in common with all men,
   but the Holy Spirit has begotten in the hearts of Believers a new life
   infinitely higher than mere natural life--a life which makes us akin to
   Christ, joint-heirs with Him of the eternal inheritance which He is
   keeping for us in Heaven! A Christian is lifted into quite another
   sphere of action--he is no longer in the carnal but in the
   spiritual'realm and, therefore, he understands things that are hidden
   from carnal eyes--and he lives in the midst of a world into which the
   unregenerate cannot possibly come. An unconverted man cannot enter into
   the Kingdom of Heaven. He cannot even see it until he is born again,
   regenerated by the Holy Spirit! But once he is born again, he can bless
   God for giving him a second life infinitely better than the first one!
   Our well-being is a far higher thing than simply our being! The new
   creation is vastly superior to the first creation, good as that was,
   and the life of God in the soul is infinitely above the mere ordinary
   life of man!

   Let us praise God, then, for life, and especially for this higher life
   if it is ours. What a joy it is to live in this respect! You know that
   when a person is very sick and ill, and can scarcely turn in bed, or
   lift a hand--when every sense is deprived of enjoyment and every vein
   or nerve becomes a road for the hot feet of pain to travel over--then
   life is hardly to be called life. But when God graciously raises us up
   from sickness, we ought to bless Him for giving us life again--
   prolonged, restored, enjoyable life. And when the heart itself is
   sick--when the spirit flags and the soul is ready to burst with inward
   grief--then the spiritual life seems scarcely to be life. But when,
   through the mercy of God, the Holy Spirit comes to us and applies the
   pardoning blood of Jesus to our heart and conscience, and whispers
   peace to our troubled spirit so that we can read our title clear to
   mansions in the skies, then our spiritual life is life indeed! We run,
   we leap, we fly! We would scarcely exchange for the bliss of angels the
   joy which the spiritual life brings to us at such times. And we bless
   and magnify the Lord who has granted us this higher life, this life so
   blessed, so superlatively blessed that even here below it makes us
   anticipate and realize some of the glory of Heaven itself! Are you, my
   Brother, my Sister, enjoying these lives? Do you feel that it is your
   privilege to be one with Christ and to live because He lives? And do
   you really know that you have received this wondrous blessing? Oh,
   then, sing unto the Lord as long as you live, for it is the living,
   even the living in Zion who shall praise Him as we do this day! Let
   this be one of your songs in this bright day of your happy experience.
   Let the joy of your heart ring it out in the words of our text--"You
   have granted me life."

   Next, we have to praise God for granting us favor I am quite unable to
   tell you to the fullest all that is wrapped up in that word, "favor."
   Favor from God! It is a great word in the original, a word big with
   meaning, for it means the love of God. What the expression, "the love
   of God," fully means, we cannot tell, for Charles Wesley truly wrote--

   "God only knows the love of God." God loves immeasurably. The force and
   extent of true love never can be calculated--it is a passion that
   cannot be measured by degrees as the temperature can be recorded on the
   thermometer. It is something that exceeds and overflows all
   measurement, for a man gives all his heart when he truly loves. So is
   it with God--He sets no boundary to His love. When He loves a man, the
   great infinity of His Being flows out towards His chosen. How much God
   loves you, my Brother, my Sister, if you are, indeed, one of His elect
   and redeemed people, it would not be possible even for an angel to
   calculate! Bernard of Clairvaux wrote--

   "The love of Jesus--what it is, None but His loved ones know"-- but I
   correct the poet, for even His loved ones cannot know it, except in
   that sense which Paul intended when he wrote to the Ephesians, "that
   you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with
   all saints what is the

   breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of
   Christ, which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the
   fullness of God." We might rightly paraphrase Job's words and say, "You
   have granted me life and love." Oh, what wondrous words to put
   together, life and love! Life without God's love is death. But put
   God's love with it and then what a song we ought to send up to His
   Throne if we feel that He has given us both spiritual life and infinite
   love.

   The word, "favor," however, means not only love, but, as we ordinarily
   use it, it means some special form of Divine Grace and goodness. I know
   that there are some people who never will admit that God favors anyone,
   or that He has any special love toward some more than toward others.
   They do not like that hymn which Dr. Watts wrote. I heard one alter the
   verse--

   "Let those refuse to sing That never knew our God; But favorites ofthe
   heavenly King May speak their joys abroad."

   The gentleman did not like the word, "favorites," so he gave out the
   line--

   "But subjects of the heavenly King."

   I let him sing it in that fashion, for I thought that very likely he
   was only a subject. But I sang the line correctly because I knew that I
   was one of the King's favorites, and I was resolved to rejoice in that
   fact! So I am at this moment, for I know that I have received special
   favor from God and that there are some who have not received such favor
   and mercy. If, at this hour, anyone of you is a child of God, it is
   because God has done more for you than He has done for others. If there
   is a difference between you and others, somebody made that
   difference--and whoever made it ought to be honored and praised for it.
   Did you make it yourself? Shall I put the crown on your head? Why, if
   you are right-hearted, you will cry, "No, no! It is God who has made me
   to differ from others! It is His Grace which has been given to me, to
   bring me out of the darkness in which others have been left."

   So, whatever others may think or say, we, at any rate, believe in that
   special form of Grace which may be called favor--"You have granted me
   life and favor." The Lord has given peculiar favor unto His own chosen
   people and this makes them sing a song that rises above all the others!
   "He has not dealt so with any nation." "Let the redeemed of the Lord
   say so, whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy." Let them
   praise the Lord with thanksgiving evermore and if you, dear Friends,
   belong to that privileged company, praise the Lord!

   By the word, "favor," is also meant Grace in all the shapes which it
   assumes, so Job's words might be rendered, "You have granted me life
   and Grace." Come, my Brothers and Sisters, if you can say this, just
   think over all that it means. "You have granted me the Grace and favor
   of Your electing love and of Your redeeming love, the Grace of
   effectual calling, the Grace of regeneration, the Grace of
   justification, the Grace of adoption, the Grace of perseverance until
   this day, the Grace of sanctification," (for all this is of Grace).
   "You have given it, You have granted it of Your free favor and granted
   it to me."

   "I do not know whether God has granted this Grace to me," says one.
   Well, my dear Brother, you cannot sing while you doubt this, but if,
   through faith in Jesus, you know that God has given you life and Grace,
   sing away, sing despite all that might stop you, for this is a mercy
   which should forever monopolize the music of everyone who has been thus
   favored of God! "You have granted me life and Grace." I do not know
   what any other person in this place might say, but if no one else said
   it, I would be compelled, in the courts of the Lord's House and in the
   midst of His people, to say, "I bless His name for giving me life and
   Grace. I am altogether undeserving of such mercy, yet He has favored me
   with His goodness, so that I cannot do otherwise than feel overwhelmed
   by His Grace." I do not know whether you can all say the same, but I
   feel persuaded that there are scores, hundreds, yes, even thousands of
   you who might stand up and say, "We bless God that though unworthy of
   His notice, He has granted us life and Grace."

   Now let us dwell, for a minute or two, on the third blessing of this
   Divine grant--"and Your visitation has preserved my spirit.." There is
   a wonderful range of meaning in those words, but Job, no doubt, first
   refers to the Providence of God by which He makes, as it were, a
   visitation of all the world, but especially of His own people. As a man
   who possesses a large estate, if he is wise, goes around and looks over
   all his cattle and his servants and his fields--and makes a visitation
   to see whether all is going well, for he knows that the master's eye
   does much--so does God visit the earth, inspect it and care for the
   creatures whom He has formed to live upon it. "He gives to the beast
   his food, and to the

   young ravens which cry." The Lord keeps a watchful eye upon the whole
   universe. He leads out the stars, calling them all by their names, and
   nightly marshals their serried ranks. He counts even the sparrows, so
   that not one of them falls upon the ground without His knowledge. It
   has been the Providence of God that has preserved us up to now, so let
   us bless Him for this great favor.

   Some of us have had very special Providential deliverances. we will not
   mention them, tonight, because they are too many. It has been well
   said, "He that watches Providence shall never be without a Providence
   to watch." I am sure it is so. You who have had your eyes divinely
   opened must have seen an act of God's gracious Providence everyday.
   Some will only see God's Providence in deliverance from a terrible
   catastrophe--such as an escape from fire, or from a railway accident,
   or something of that unusual and startling kind. But, indeed, the
   Providence of God is watching over us just as much when we sit in our
   home, or sleep in our beds, or go about our daily duties. People used
   to say of Dr. Gill, my illustrious predecessor, that they could easily
   find him, for he was always in his study. And someone remarked, "At any
   rate, he is in a safe place there--a man is out of harm's way when he
   is studying at home." It so happened that the Doctor was called away
   from his study one day when a high wind blew down a stack of
   chimneys--which crashed right through the house into his study--and
   would have surely killed him if he had been in the place where he was
   usually sitting! Truly, it is the Providence of God that preserves our
   lives as much when we are at home as if we were out on the vast deep
   when it is tossed with tempests.

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, is it not wonderful that some of us are
   alive at all? Have not most of you reason to praise God for some very
   singular instances of his guardian care which has preserved you in
   being until this day? Refuse not to sing to God the song of
   thanksgiving which is His due! Prolonged life should beget continual
   gratitude and votive offerings ofjoyful praise should ascend unto the
   Most High.

   Oh, but that is only the beginning of the meaning of Job's words, "Your
   visitation has preserved my spirit." God has visited those of us who
   are His people in other ways besides the watching of His Providence.
   Let me mention some of them. He has visited some of us with
   correction--and we do not like that form of visitation. We have been
   smitten heavily with His rod till all our bones have ached and the
   blows have been so severe that they have left black bruises. Or we have
   lost friend after friend, or we have been corrected by the scandal and
   the slander of wicked men, or in some way or other God has used man as
   the rod in His hand to chasten us. "Now no chastening for the present
   seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the
   peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised
   thereby." Look back and see whether you cannot say to God, "Your
   visitation in correction has preserved my spirit." Can you not say,
   "Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now I have kept Your Word"?
   There have been times, in the lives of some of us, when nothing but
   affliction could have saved us from falling into gross sin. We would
   have been carried away with pride, but we suffered from grievous
   depression of spirit and so could not afford to be proud. There have
   been times when we would have been exalted above measure, but the thorn
   in the flesh was graciously given to us, a messenger of Satan came to
   buffet us, and so we were preserved in the hour of temptation.

   There are some whom God will yet permit to be rich, who would not have
   been capable of managing so much money to the Lord's honor and glory if
   they had not, for a while, had to live on short commons. The very thing
   we regret most in Providence will probably be that in which we shall
   rejoice most in eternity. You know, in this world, we see the wrong
   side of the carpet that is being woven. We are like Hannah More in the
   carpet factory, when she said to the workman, "I cannot see any
   design--there seem to be a great number of loose pieces of wool, but I
   cannot perceive any pattern or order." "No, Madam," said the man, "of
   course you cannot, because you are standing on the wrong side of the
   carpet. If you will come to the other side, you will then see it all."
   We are on the wrong side, at present, but God will take us to the other
   side, by-and-by, and then we shall each one say, "O my Lord, how
   wrongly did I judge You! How little did I understand Your dealings with
   me! I thought Your visitation would have crushed me, but it preserved
   my spirit."

   There are other visitations, however, such as the visitations of
   consolation. Oh, how sweet those are to the soul when in trouble! You
   and I must have known times when our spirits have gone down below
   zero--when no earthly friend could comfort us and we could not think of
   any source of consolation for ourselves. Just then, some unnoticed
   promise of the Word of God has dropped into our soul with charming
   effect. It was, perhaps, but a sentence of half a dozen words, but they
   came from God, the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, and they were so
   powerfully applied to our spirit that we said, "I do not mind what
   burden I have to bear, for I know that Christ's Grace will be
   sufficient for me. I cannot tell what the

   Divine will may be concerning me, or however dark and dreary may be the
   Valley of the Shadow of Death through which I shall have to pass, but
   God's rod and staff are evidently with me and they will comfort me in
   the most trying hour and my Lord, Himself, will surely bring me through
   all my tribulations." Cannot some of you say that your blessed Savior,
   who has suffered for you and who understands all your griefs, has come
   and bound up your broken hearts, and given you unfailing comfort when
   you were in such sorrow that you feared you would have lost your reason
   and, perhaps, even taken your own life? But here you are, the living to
   praise Him, and to say, "Your visitation by way of comfort has
   preserved my spirit."

   Once more, how sweet are the visitations of God in communion! Have you
   not sometimes had such communion with your Lord, during a sermon, that
   you have said, "My steps had well-nigh slipped, but now my Lord has
   come near unto me and he has made me to stand so firmly that nothing
   can cast me down"? Or perhaps you have gone upstairs to your room when
   you have been weighed down under very heavy grief and you have told it
   all to Jesus--whispered it all into the ear that never wearies of His
   people's complaints. And, after awhile, you have come down and you have
   felt, "Now I do not mind what happens. I can even face a frowning
   world, for Jesus Christ's visitation has preserved my spirit." I am
   also sure that many of us can say that at the Lord's Table, in the
   breaking of bread, our spirits have been so refreshed that we could go
   out into our daily callings, or back to our domestic griefs and feel,
   "It really does not matter now. I can shoulder my cross, for I have
   seen the Crucified! I can bear my own sorrows, for I have had
   fellowship with Him in His sorrows. I could even die for His sake, for
   I have entered into fellowship with His death."

   "Your visitation has preserved my spirit." I want you, my Brother, my
   Sister, to pray for that visitation tonight. Ask the Lord Jesus not
   only to pay a visit to your soul, but to come and stay with you. You
   have only to open the door of your heart and He will come in. That is
   what He said even to lukewarm Laodicea. "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." So open wide the door at once. You say, "But there is nothing
   within--it is only an empty house." That does not matter to Him, for He
   will bring with Him the provisions on which He will sup with you, and
   you with Him. Open the door, give Him heart-room! Say, "Come in,
   blessed Savior! Why do You stand outside?" He says to you who are slow
   to admit Him, "My head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops
   of the night." Oh, keep not the door of your heart closed against Him
   any longer! At least be willing that He should enter. Praythat He may
   enter! Cry to Him to enter and He will surely come in to you, and you
   shall have such a blessed season that you shall say, "Your visitation
   has preserved my spirit."

   I have it deeply impressed upon me--so I must say it--that there are
   some of you who had better get a good feast tonight, for you have a
   great sorrow coming. You had better enter into close fellowship with
   Christ tonight, for the dark clouds of trouble are gathering about you.
   The tempest lowers and if your ship is not prepared to weather the
   storm by having Christ on board, it will go ill with you. Avail
   yourselves of this present opportunity of a visit from Christ! Creep to
   the Cross! Clasp it to your heart, hide yourselves there, for no
   lightning flash can strike you there--that Cross will conduct the
   lightning of Divine wrath right away from you and you will be saved!
   And you will say afterwards, "I am glad that I stayed for the Communion
   and that I communed, for I did not merely eat bread and drink wine, I
   spiritually ate the flesh and drank the blood of my Lord. And I had
   fellowship with Him and He has made me strong to suffer or to serve."
   If it is so with us now, or if it has been so in the past, let us sing
   unto the Lord a glad song of thanksgiving for this trinity of
   blessing--life, favor and preserving visitation--yes, let us sing unto
   Him as long as we live!

   II. Very briefly must I speak upon the second part of our subject, that
   is, A SOLACE FOR DARK NIGHTS "And these things have You hid in Your
   heart: I know that this is with You."

   There is another interpretation of this verse, quite different from the
   one that I am going to give you, but I do not think that Job ever could
   have meant what some people think he did. I believe that when he said,
   "These things"--that is, life, favor and God's gracious
   visitation--"These things have You hid in Your heart: I know that this
   is with You," that he meant, first, that God remembers what He has
   done, and will not lose His pains. ' "You have granted me life and
   favor,' Lord, You have not forgotten that. You have hidden that in Your
   heart, You remember it well. Since You have done this for me, and You
   remember that You have done it, therefore You will continue Your mercy
   to me and not lose all the Grace and goodness which You have already
   bestowed upon me."

   Just think of that for a minute. Even if you have forgotten all that
   God has done for you, God has not forgotten it! If you do a kindness to
   a man, it is very probable that he will not remember it, but you will.
   Many children forget all the

   kindness and love of their mother, but the mother remembers all that
   she did for her children in the days of their helplessness and she
   loves them all the more because of what she did for them. There is a
   little secret which I may whisper in your ear. If you want people to
   love you, do what you can for them, yet, possibly, you will not gain
   their love by that process. But if you let them do something for you,
   they will be sure to love you, then! When you have done much for
   anyone, you are especially bound to that person, so Job puts it thus,
   "You, Lord, have done much for me. You have all this in Your
   remembrance and I am persuaded that this binds You to me--Your great
   goodness in giving me life, and favor, and in visiting me--all this has
   bound You to me, and I am persuaded that You will not leave me." That
   is the teaching of the verse many of us delight to sing--

   "His love in time past forbids me to think

   He'll leave me at last in trouble to sink.

   Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review,

   Confirms His good pleasure to help me quite through."

   If the Lord had not meant to finish His work, He would never have begun
   it. If He had not meant to bring us to Heaven, He would not have
   snatched us like brands from the burning. If He had not meant to
   complete His work, He would not have spent so much upon us. "Spent so
   much upon us?" asks one. Yes, He lavished upon His people more than all
   the millionaires who were ever upon the earth have possessed! He
   expended more than there is in Heaven with the exception of that which
   He spent upon them. "What is that?" you ask. He spent the life of His
   only-begotten Son--and Heaven itself does not contain any other
   treasure that is at all comparable to the Father's equal Son! He spent
   the best He had upon us and do you think that, after that, He will ever
   leave us? No, that can never be! Though He were to take away all our
   property. Though He were to deprive us of every one of our children.
   Though He were to cover us from head to foot with sores. Though He
   should cause us to sit upon a dunghill and scrape ourselves with a
   potsherd. Though the very wife of our bosom should bid us curse God and
   die. Though all our friends should become miserable comforters and make
   us ready to curse the day on which we saw the light--yet still, God
   must be gracious to us, and we must trust Him! Yes, though He should
   slay us, yet must we trust Him! All the goodness of the past is an
   infallible guarantee that He will be good to us even to the end,
   according to that Word concerning the Lord Jesus, "Having loved His own
   which were in the world, He loved them unto the end." That is one
   meaning of the verse.

   But, next, I think that the words, "And these things have You hid in
   Your heart: I know that this is with You," have this meaning, that God
   sometimes hides His favor and love in His heart, yet they are still
   there. At times it may be that you get no glimpse of His face, or that
   you see no smile upon it. When that is my experience, I love to turn to
   that verse in the 63rd Psalm--"Because You have been my help, therefore
   in the shadow of Your wings will I rejoice." It is all shadow, shadow,
   shadow--no sunshine--I cannot see my God, but the very shadow is the
   shadow of His wings and as you may often see the chickens cower down
   beneath the mother hen, and nestle there, so in the shadow of His wings
   will I rejoice! And you, dear Friend, may share that blessed and safe
   shelter. "He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings
   shall you trust: His truth shall be your shield and buckler."

   When there is no light, you shall walk on as steadily as if seven suns
   were shining! When there is no comfortable assurance for you. When
   there is no temporal deliverance. When there is nothing for you out of
   the winepress or out of the barn. When there is no friend nor helper
   near you, when the fig tree does not blossom, when you have no flocks,
   and your herds are cut off by the storm--when God's mercy seems to be
   clean gone, forever, and His promises all appear to fail, it is not
   really so--

   "He hides the purpose of His Grace To make it better known."

   The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, therefore, O tried child
   of God, learn what Job, here, teaches us, that these things are still
   hidden in the heart of God, and that Eternal Love holds fast to the
   objects of its choice.

   "I know that this is with You," said Job, so the last thing I want you
   to learn from his words is that God would have His people strong in
   faith to know this Truth Job says, "I know that this is with You." I
   speak to many persons who say that they are Christians and who,
   perhaps, are Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ--and one of their
   clearest evidences is that they are very happy. Dear young people, I am
   glad you are so happy. True religion makes people happy--it is a
   perennial fountain of delight. But do not set too much store by your
   emotions of delight, because they may be taken from you--and then where
   will your evidences be? God's people sometimes walk in darkness and see
   no light. There are times

   when the best and brightest of saints have no joy. I will not say
   whether they are not to be blamed for that--it is probable that they
   are, in most instances, though I do not see that Job could be much
   blamed. I wish I were able to be a thousandth part as good as he was
   with a thousandth part of his pains and troubles. But it is a fact that
   whether rightly or wrongly, God's people are not always joyous. As
   Peter says, "For a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through
   manifold temptations." Whenever you get into that condition, dear young
   people, if you have learned to trust Christ before, trust Him still! If
   your religion should not, for a time, yield you any joy, cling to it
   all the same! Do not give it up, for if there is any time when you need
   faith, it is when your spirits sink and when your outward trials
   multiply.

   You see, God does not give you faith in order that you may merely run
   about in the meadows with it all among the fair spring flowers. I will
   tell you for what purpose He gives you faith--it is that you may put on
   your snow-shoes, go out in the cold wintry blast and glide along over
   the ice and the snow. He does not give you faith that you may put it on
   as I remember seeing Napoleon's guard with armor in which I saw my face
   as well as ever I did in a mirror. The Lord does not give you faith
   merely that you may go on parade with it and show yourself--you are to
   fight with it! There is not a fragment of faith that you have which
   will not be dinted by the blows of the enemy and rusted through
   exposure to the weather. You will have difficulties, mark you, as
   surely as you have faith! You will have a difficulty in maintaining
   your faith against the assaults of the adversary, for wherever there is
   faith in the world, there are trials for it to encounter.

   Railway men do not build bridges over rivers without an intention of
   sending engines and trains across them--and God does not give faith
   without an intention of letting it be tried. And He wants you to know,
   when He does try you, or permit others to try you, that He still loves
   you. When He leaves you for a little while in the dark, He loves you
   just as much as when you were in the light. A little child cries and
   says that her mother does not love her because she has put her to bed
   and gone downstairs, and left her in the dark. She will always be a
   baby if the mother stays there with a candle by the hour together till
   she gets to sleep. The mother wants her child to grow into a woman and
   she trains her accordingly. So is it with us. God does often humor our
   littleness and weakness by doing many kind things to us as we do to
   poor feeble little children, but He wants us to grow up and become men
   and women in Christ Jesus and to be strong in the Lord.

   I pray that you, my dear Brothers and Sisters, may be stalwart
   Christians of this sort. You see, if our faith is to depend upon our
   disposition--our joy or our sorrow--it will always be fluctuating up
   and down--and we shall be apt to think that we may be saved today and
   lost tomorrow. That is not the teaching of the Bible! When you are on
   the mountain with Christ, you are safe, but when you are at the bottom
   of the valley with Christ, you are just as safe! When you sit at the
   table with Christ, you are safe, and so are you if you should be at sea
   with Christ in a vessel. Only have faith in Him and say, "My God, Your
   will towards me to give me life, and favor, and preservation may be
   hidden, but it is still in Your heart, 'I know that this is with You.'"

   Now I must leave these things with you. You who know and love the Lord
   will seek a renewal of His visitations tonight. But as for you who do
   not know Him, oh, how I wish that you did! Often as I come on this
   platform and look upon this throng of people, I would wonder why so
   many came if I did not know that the earnest, simple preaching of the
   Gospel will never fail to bring people together. But as you have come
   to hear the Gospel, I pray you also to receive it. Do not merely hear
   it, but acceptit. If there were diamonds to be given away, here, and I
   said that I would give them to everybody who was willing to have them,
   I am sure that you would not be content to hear me talking about their
   beauty, their facets, or their particular brilliance--but you would
   each one cry out, "Hand me one!" "Give me one!" "Pass me down one worth
   a hundred thousand pounds! I will be content with thatand you may leave
   off talking if you like!"

   I will leave off talking about Christ if you will take Him as your
   Savior. I shall not need to extol Him when you have once accepted Him,
   for you will find out His excellence for yourselves. The Scripture
   says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good." Oh, that you would all
   taste and see for yourselves! You would know His goodness far better
   from that taste and sight than you can ever know it from any human
   language, however earnest it may be! God bless you all, for Christ's
   sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Bitterness of the Cross

   (No. 2683)

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JULY 15, 1900.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 12,
   1881.

   "They...shall be in bitterness for Him." Zechaariah 12:10.

   You know, dear Friends, that this text primarily refers to the Jewish
   nation. They will not always be blinded as they are at present. The
   veil will ultimately be taken away from their eyes and their heart. And
   when it is taken away, it will not be by the enlightenment of mere
   reason, or through the process of argument by itself, but it will be
   through the outpouring of the Spirit of our God! The verse from which
   our text is taken makes this quite clear--"I will pour upon the house
   of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of Grace
   and of supplications."

   Our Lord Jesus Christ can only be seen in His own light. The Grace of
   God must be given to us before we can see and understand Christ at
   all--and this shall be the great proof that Grace has been given to
   Israel--that they shall look upon Christ. It is good evidence that
   Grace has been given to any man when he looks upon Christ, obeying the
   great command--"Look unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the
   earth." This is the first sign and token of Believers and it is to be
   our continual distinguishing mark, for we are always to be "looking
   unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith." There is much more
   in a look at Christ than many suppose--it is the index of everything
   that appertains to the Christian life. There must be life in an eye
   that can see and when there is life in the eye, there is life in the
   whole man who possesses that eye. When an eye can see Christ, it can
   see other things that He intends it to see. That eye which has been
   enabled to behold Him and which has taught the heart to cry, "My Lord
   and my God," is prepared to see all the wondrous things that are in
   God's Law!

   The first mark of Grace, then, in the Jew, will be that he shall look
   to Christ. By that word, "look," I do not understand a mere transient
   glance at Him, but a long, lingering, wistful, discerning, penetrating,
   loving look at Him and unto Him, as it is in that verse, "They looked
   unto Him, and were lightened." At first, it may be only a furtive
   stolen glance, but when men come to see and feel the full power of
   Christ, they will want to have a long, fixed, steady gaze at Him.
   Blessed will be the day when the Jews shall be brought even to think
   seriously about Christ! At present, they will scarcely listen to the
   arguments concerning Him. They denounce the Nazarene and close their
   ears against His Gospel, but the day shall come when they will hear,
   when they will listen diligently and incline their ears and come unto
   Him that their soul may live. They shall look, and look, and look, and
   look, and look, until the vision shall, at last, break in upon their
   very soul--and then they shall say, "It is He! Yes, it is He of whom
   Moses in the Law and the Prophets did write. This is no other than the
   promised Messiah, the Son of David and, alas, up to now, both we and
   our fathers have rejected Him." And as they thus look and realize the
   greatness of their guilt, they will begin to weep and lament that they
   have so long refused their only Savior.

   So the first effect upon the Jews of a true sight of Christ--and, as we
   are all constituted so much alike, the first effect upon any man who
   has a true sight of Christ--is that it produces sincere sorrow. "They
   shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for
   Him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for
   Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." I must confess
   that I have no love for a dry-eyed faith. The faith that never wept
   over sin will have to be wept over, one of these days. If you say that
   you have seen Christ and yet you have never bemoaned yourself, and
   mourned over your transgressions, I think you must have seen a false
   christ, and not the true Son of

   God, for they who behold His wounds are, themselves, wounded. They who
   gaze upon His pierced heart are, themselves, pierced to the heart--no,
   they are pierced inthe heart. And they who, by faith, see the flowing
   of His precious blood, feel their very hearts bleed on account of Him
   and all that He endured on their behalf. A sight of His Crucifixion
   crucifies sin! A sight of His death--if it is a true sight--is the
   death of all love of sin! If, then, you have never felt the mournful
   effect of the sorrowful spectacle of the bleeding Savior, you still
   have need to stand and to look, and look, and look again, until you do
   feel it, for so it will always be--"They shall look upon Me whom they
   have pierced, and they shall mourn."

   That is the general thought of this verse--the Jews will look to Christ
   and they will mourn. And the same thing happens with Gentiles--they
   also look to Christ and mourn. So the theme we are to consider is the
   wonderful Truth of God that when we rightly look to Christ, whether we
   are Jews or Gentiles, we are "in bitterness for Him, as one that is in
   bitterness for his firstborn." It is quite true that of all sights in
   the world, the sight of Christ crucified is the sweetest. People say,
   "See Naples and die." But it would be worthwhile to see Christ, by
   faith, even if that sight were necessarily followed by death. Of all
   that can be seen in the world, there is nothing so delightful as a
   believing sight of Jesus Christ. I appeal to all of you whose eyes have
   ever been ravished with that wondrous vision--do you not say to your
   Lord--

   "A glimpse--a single glimpse of You,

   Would more delight my soul

   Than this vain world, with all its joys,

   Could I possess the whole"?

   At first sight it seems strange that the mourner turns his eyes sooner
   to the place called Calvary than to the sacred spot where the star of
   Bethlehem shone. And still more strange that there should be more
   delight to be found in Gab-batha and Golgotha than even in the Mount of
   Transfiguration. The Cross of Christ is the first resort of sorrow for
   sin and it is the last abode of holy Grief--where she lays aside her
   weeds and puts on her beautiful array. Yet there must be some
   bitterness always associated with Calvary--do not be startled at that
   thought. The command concerning the paschal lamb was. "With bitter
   herbs shall you eat it." So marvel not that the Lamb of God, however
   sweet He is, and however nourishing to our souls, can never be enjoyed
   by us without the bitter herbs of godly sorrow for sin. "They shall
   mourn for