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        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 61: 1915
   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
     __________________________________________________________________

Attention!

   (No. 3440)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Hear you Him." Matthew 17:5.

   WHEN our Lord Jesus Christ was transfigured, there came a Voice from
   the bright, overshadowing cloud, which said, "This is My Beloved Son,
   in whom I am well pleased. Hear you Him." It was the Voice of the
   Father concerning His Son--a testimony to His Person, a notification of
   His office, an announcement of His authority to teach and to legislate.
   You can understand how imperative it then was for those who heard it to
   heed Him. But now He is gone up from us. He has entered into the
   excellent Glory--He no more teaches in our streets, yet still, as
   though present with us, He speaks to us. By the written Word, His
   sayings are handed down to us Infallibly. Often times, when the Holy
   Spirit rests upon God's servants, they become as the voice of Christ to
   us, and when that same blessed Spirit, as the Comforter, brings to our
   remembrance the things of Christ, does it not seem as though Jesus,
   Himself, spoke to our souls? The admonition is not out of date--it has
   not lost its telling point or its vital force. Still does the Father
   say to us concerning His well-beloved Son, "Hear you Him." Let us
   proceed to meditate on this sacred charge. The three little words may
   give rise to four short questions. Why? What? How? When?

   I. WHY SHOULD WE HEAR HIM?

   It might serve for a sufficient answer, had we no other reply, because
   God, Himself, commands us! This injunction comes of the Father, "Hear
   you Him." Over and over again are we enjoined to listen to the voice of
   Christ. Every messenger from God ought to have our respectful
   attention--how much more the greatest of all messengers--that Messenger
   of the Covenant, the Messiah, the Sent One, the Apostle and High Priest
   of our profession? Did not Jehovah, Himself, say, "This is My Son"? It
   seemed reasonable that the Son should receive more reverence than any
   of the servants. If senators and patriots, counselors and Prophets, had
   been stoned and cast out of the vineyard, deference might yet be paid
   to the Son! If their perverseness had refused Him homage, their
   scruples might have sheltered Him from indignity. Surely they would not
   go so far as to cast out the Son, Himself! There is a willfulness, a
   defection of heart, an enormity of sin in refusing to hear the Christ
   of God, for which it is difficult to find terms. Appointed, anointed,
   commissioned of the Father to speak to us, to confer with us, to make
   known among us the mind and will of our great and gracious Sovereign,
   it becomes treason and blasphemy of the highest order and the deepest
   dye for us to refuse to heed His Presence or listen to His words!

   Why hear Him? do you ask? Does not our lord Jesus Christ, Himself,
   deserve to be heard?Peerless among the princes of Heaven, is He not
   very God of very God? And immaculate among the children of men, is He
   not Man of the substance of His mother? Here is a double claim upon our
   attention. Beaming with Divinity, instinct with Humanity, He speaks as
   never man spoke, clothing the highest oracles in the most familiar
   parables. And will you not hear what this God-Man has to say? Is He not
   perfect in wisdom, pure in motive and undeviating in truthfulness? To
   whom should we listen, if we turn away from Him? He has all those high
   sanctions which should claim our allegiance and all those sweet traits
   of Character which should attract our regard. If we will not listen to
   such an one as Jesus of Nazareth, the gentle, and meek, and lowly, yet
   the truthful, the honest, and the brave--to whom will we ever lend an
   attentive ear? O sons of men, there was never mentor or orator so
   worthy of your regard as Jesus Christ! Never philosopher who had such
   maxims to deliver, or such mysteries to unfold as this Man--the Son of
   God--the Incarnate Wisdom!

   Why will you not hear Him, when the message He has come to communicate
   concerns yourselves, your present and future welfare, your most solemn
   interests? The tidings He brings are, indeed, laden with ten thousand
   blessings for us, if

   we will but incline our ears and listen to them. He comes to redress
   our grievances, to retrieve our disasters, to redeem our souls, to
   secure our prosperity, to effect our salvation! As an Ambassador from
   God, He comes, not to treat upon small matters, to settle petty
   disputes, or to advise upon local or temporary affairs, but with
   supreme authority to show how sinful man may be reconciled to his
   Maker, how the foul stains of transgression may be washed away and
   scarlet sins become white as snow! He comes to tell us how we may
   escape the impending doom of Hell and how we may attain an inheritance
   in Heaven! To fit us for that high estate, and that blessed society, He
   comes to cleanse us from our corruptions and to endow us with a nature
   that is Divine, and faculties that are suited to the celestial Glory!
   Such a message as this should enamor our very selfishness and compel
   our ambition to regard it with favor. Hear you Him! O you sick and
   wounded, will you not listen to the Physician? O you bankrupt debtors,
   will you not listen to the Jubilee trumpet that proclaims your debts
   paid and your forfeited rights restored? O you outcasts, wandering all
   forlorn, in climates uncongenial to your health, your peace, your
   homely joys--will you not heed the voice of a Guide who comes to
   conduct you in safety to your fatherland? O you despairing souls, He
   sets before you an open door! You famished poor, He invites you to a
   banquet--a banquet richly provisioned with all the dainties of eternal
   love! With such words upon His lips, such blessed news to bring to such
   needy creatures, our Lord Jesus Christ may well claim to be heard!

   There is a further argument which ought to have thrilling force among
   full many of you, my Hearers. With what zest should we, who profess to
   be His disciples, hear Him. Years ago some of us took His easy yoke
   upon our shoulders and we bless His name it has never galled
   us--neither are we weary of the load. He is our Master and our Lord,
   and if He is so, surely our proper place is at His feet. It is an ill
   thing of us, and untruthful, if we call Him Master, and yet will not
   believe what He teaches! If we say to Him, "Rabboni," and yet turn
   aside to hail some fellow creature--be he a noted saint long since
   dead, or a party leader who still survives among us, as our captain and
   commander-in-chief. If Peter is our master, let us call him so! If
   Calvin is our master, let us call him so! And if Wesley is our master,
   let us call him so--but if we are disciples of Jesus, then let us
   follow Jesus--and follow Him with other men only so far as we perceive
   they followed Christ! Hear you Him, O you disciples, if you are His
   disciples. Will you enlist as His soldiers and shrink from His lead?
   Will you engage to be His servants and yet violate His orders? Will you
   who declare that He is your Chief and wear His uniform, cede your
   homage to other masters? No, by all that is honest and just, pure and
   comely, and of good report, the shame would fester in every Believer's
   conscience! You call Him, "Master and Lord," and you say well, for so
   He is-- but prove yourselves to be truly His disciples by listening to
   Him!

   To the rest--(I am grieved at heart that I should have to speak of the
   rest, but we know there is such a remnant here)--to those who are not
   His disciples, there is an argument, that if it counts not now, will
   count hereafter. You must hear Him in the Day of Grace, or else you
   shall hear Him in that Day of Judgmentand perish forever! Do you refuse
   to hear Christ? There are not any tidings of mercy to be heard
   elsewhere! "See that you refuse not Him that speaks, for if they
   escaped not who refused Him that spoke on earth, much more shall we not
   escape if we turn away from Him that speaks from Heaven." O Sinners,
   hear you the Savior's voice! O wanderers, hear your Shepherd's voice! O
   you dying, hear your Physician's voice! I will add, O you dead, hear
   you the voice of the Great Quickener, for the time is come that they
   who are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man--and
   they that hear Him shall live! "Do you Hear

   Him?"

   Thus with general arguments suitable to all and with special arguments
   suitable for those who have believed--and for those who have not
   believed--we leave with you a few of the reasons why. Our second
   catch-word is--

   II. WHAT?

   What are we to hear? "Hear you Him." There is much to hear concerning
   the Person of Christ, the actions of Christ, the sufferings of Christ
   and the offices of Christ--but the fullness of all Revelation is
   embodied in Him. Greater than the greatest sermon that was ever
   preached in the world, is the Word made flesh! He is the manifestation
   of God, the brightness of the Father's Glory and the express image of
   His Person. Would you know God, you must know Christ. "He that has seen
   Me" (it is His own testimony) "has seen the Father." In the Character
   of Jesus, the Character of God is reflected with ineffable purity! The
   invisible God is in Him, made visible to men as far as the sense of
   faith can behold Him-- infinitely farther than the natural senses can
   discern. The Infinite can never be brought down to the level of our
   puny intelligence so as to be comprehended by us, yet in the Presence
   of Christ we are conscious of the Infinite. It is palpable to us as a
   mountain that cannot be scaled, but under whose shadow we can find
   shelter. And when we look to Christ, and

   listen to His voice, we are as those who gaze on the vast ocean in
   which, to our poor minds, the Infinite is mirrored forth, for, as far
   as the vision can stretch, there is no bound, no shore beyond--and His
   Words sound on and on like the mighty sea through time that knows no
   limit, and through eternity that has no end! He is the Wisdom of God
   and the Power of God. Hear Him, then! Hear Him! Let His voice break on
   your ears as the music of the main, in that melodious anthem, "Come
   unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you
   rest." Or in that thrilling utterance, "I, if I am lifted up from the
   earth, will draw all men unto Me." Hear Him, I say, hear Him! As the
   sound of many waters, as the chorus of the waves, hear this--"God was
   in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." View Christ as a Child
   who must be about His Father's business and as a Man who must work the
   works of His Father while it is day! Know Him as a Teacher and a
   Guide--mark His zeal to minister and His devotedness to suffer! Then
   let poets sing of "Nature," if they please. Let them call it "the thin
   veil which half conceals and half reveals the face and lineaments of
   God," as some of them have done. But let Christians bear me witness
   that the simple tale of Christ living among men, with which we delight
   to make ourselves more and more familiar, unveils the attributes of God
   in words and deeds of mercy and compassion, of patience and
   long-suffering, of sweet mindfulness and great marvel in such clearness
   as days of sunshine and moonlight nights could never teach you, though
   more than three-score and ten of these revolving seasons should pass
   over your head!

   But especially read God in the death of Jesus! Behold the Divine
   Justice gleaming there, for He wakens His sword that He may sheath it
   in the heart of the Great Shepherd, so that the sheep may escape its
   keen edge! See there the love of God, who spared not His own Son! See
   all the Divine attributes marvelously blended on the Cross in the
   bleeding Person of Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of the Father.
   Hear Him! And now do you hear tell of Him as He goes beyond the stars
   and enters the pearl gate to take possession of His well-earned crown?
   Let us hear Him there and understand that He is able to save to the
   uttermost them that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lively to make
   intercession for us. Hear the voice of His Ascension as it proclaims
   the justification of those for whom He died and rose again--and the
   assurance of the eternal perfection of all those for whom His blood was
   shed--"for this Man has perfected forever them that are set apart by
   the one Sacrifice that He has offered." Hear Him! His very Person and
   everything connected with Him speaks with trumpet tongue! Hear what God
   says to you by Him! Oh, I wish that we were more attentive to the Lord
   Jesus Christ, but I am afraid many of us are very superficial in our
   considerations of our Savior. We do not labor "to comprehend with all
   saints what are the heights and depths." God speaks to dull ears.
   Though His accents are far more sweet than music when He speaks by
   Jesus Christ, yet a very large part of what God has thus said to us,
   many of you have not understood.

   Let me remind you, dear Friends, that the Lord Jesus has many forms of
   speaking--many varieties of utterance. Sometimes He instructs. He is a
   skillful Teacher and He has spoken by the mouth of His Apostles, as
   well as with His own lips. The Truths of God that were uttered in His
   name, like the miracles that were worked in His name, have the impress
   of His Sovereign authority. Hence that summary of Christian Doctrine
   which Paul was inspired of the Holy Spirit to open up, was the plain
   result of the life of Jesus--a key to interpret what He said and did.
   Did you read in the Gospels how He obeyed the Father? In the Epistles
   you read of that obedience as a righteousness imputed to all who
   believe. Do you find in the Gospels a minute account of the Lord
   Jesus--the Epistles will tell you that His death was a propitiation for
   our sins. Do the Gospels furnish you with proofs of His rising from the
   dead? The Epistles will assure you that He was raised for our
   justification! Do you learn from the Gospels that He ascended up into
   Heaven? The Epistles will teach you that He always lives to make
   intercession for us! We are bound to take our theology from the entire
   Scriptures.

   Where, and when, and by whomever Christ speaks to us, let us hear Him!
   The well of undefiled theology is the Word of God. We err when we pin
   our profession to creeds of human devising. Creeds are exceedingly
   useful and I hope they will never be discarded. In fact, they never can
   be, for every man has a creed, whether he likes to think so or not. He
   has a consistent or an inconsistent one. But our creed must not be the
   dogmas of general councils, or the opinions of learned men, much less
   must it be the reflection of "modern thought," which is full of
   infidelity--it must be the Truths of God which we have received
   directly from the Word of God! And surely, after reading controversies
   upon theology, one has often said, like David, "Oh, that one would give
   me a drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem that is within the
   gate! Oh, that I could get a drink of the water from the wellhead from
   Scripture itself!" And you do well, my Brothers and Sisters, if your
   only Doctor of Divinity is Christ--and if He is your only body of
   divinity, for, indeed, was there ever any other body of divinity under
   Heaven except Jesus Christ? Let my Doctrine be what Christ taught! Let
   my reason for believing it be that He said it! Let me sit at His feet
   and learn of Him, and let Him be my Authority. I shall need no better
   argument, if I gather my reason from the fact that He has declared it!

   But the Word of the Lord is not always the voice of instruction--it is
   sometimes spoken in peremptory tones, commanding us. The Lord Jesus
   Christ has given many absolute injunctions to His people. Some there
   are among us--we grieve to confess it--who are not so fond of His
   precepts as of His Doctrines. They will hear the preaching that sets
   forth the precious Doctrines of Grace and the sweet promises of the
   Covenant with very great delight, as I hope we all do, but at the
   mention of the precepts and practical obligations, they are offended
   and afraid that there is more of a legal twang than of a Gospel tone in
   the sermon! Perhaps such fears have too often been justified. At the
   same time, Brothers and Sisters, we should always be ready to suffer
   the word of exhortation and be as content to do for Christ that which
   He enjoins, as to get from Christ that which He freely bestows! That
   saying of the mother of Jesus to those who waited at the feast of Cana
   is good advice for us all. She said to the servants, "Whatever He says
   to you, do it." Does Christ command separation from the world--separate
   yourselves and come out! Does Christ command bearing your cross and
   going outside the camp? Take up your cross cheerfully and follow Him
   outside the camp! Does Christ command integrity of character and
   holiness of life--oh, that we might be blameless in the one and
   exemplary in the other! Does He command love, a kindly affection for
   the Brothers and Sisters and a practical benevolence towards all
   mankind--let us diligently cherish both! Does He command us to forgive
   injuries, to show a peaceable disposition--then let us bear and forbear
   in advance of all the maxims of society, stimulated by the noble
   example of our Lord and obedient to the Law of His mouth! Do you call
   the blessed Jesus your Lord and Master? "Hear you Him." Heed His
   precepts, as well as listen to His Doctrine! Often, too, by way of
   direction, does our Lord speak to us. How wisely would our lives be
   ordered, did we simply and sincerely follow Christ's guidance! We often
   make glaring mistakes in trivial matters because we fancy ourselves
   able to direct our own steps in plain, common paths. Many a man has
   gone straight through an intricate course because he has prayed
   earnestly--and in answer to prayer he has found out the narrow channel
   between the quicksands and the rocks-- yet on other occasions that same
   man has committed folly in Israel because he thought it was fair
   sailing, and he did not want to take the Divine Pilot on board. Let us,
   in all things, great or small, ask counsel of Christ! And when once we
   know His will, let us never have a second thought! It is not ours to
   reason or to question, but it is ours to suffer loss and endure
   reproach, if necessary, when we have His orders. The Christian's, like
   the soldier's duty is to obey. Be it to do or to die, it is imperative
   that he lay his judgment at the feet of his Commander. His judgment is
   never more sound than when he defers to his Chief, demurs to nothing,
   and decides at the spur of prescript or prohibition. With His charge
   for your chart, be ready to hear His direction!

   Nor is there any lack in another particular. Full often, blessed be His
   name, Christ gives us the word of consolation. Unhappy are those
   disciples who turn a deaf ear to these sweet refreshments. We know some
   who are so sickly and depressed in spirit, that "their soul abhors all
   manner of meat, and they draw near unto the gates of death." "My soul
   refuses to be comforted," says the Psalmist, and there are persons in
   that pitiable condition. But, dear Friends, when Jesus deigns to
   comfort, surely it is wise to obey the injunction, "Hear you Him." Why,
   if I could not believe the promise of my father, or the promise of my
   brother, yet must I believe the promise of my Savior! He cannot
   deceive! He would not speak flattering words! It were not possible for
   Him to buoy me up with specious consolations, showing me the bright
   side of the picture and veiling the darker shadows. Oh, no! He,
   Himself, has said, "If it were not so, I would have told you." He is
   perfectly ingenuous in what He says. He conceals nothing which is
   profitable for us to know! He is, Himself, transparent Truth. When He
   says to me--to you--"Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in
   God: believe also in Me. In My Father' s house are many mansions,"
   shall we not dismiss our fears, renew our hearty confidence in Him,
   believe in the many mansions and look forward to them? And if He says
   to us (as He does), "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." If He
   declares, "I give unto My sheep eternal life, and they shall never
   perish, neither shall any pluck them out of My hands," should we not
   ground our full assurance on His simple assertion? Are we to question
   what He affirms because it seems too good to be true? May it not remind
   us of that famous speech of the Lord by the mouth of His servant
   Isaiah--"As the heavens are above the earth, so are My ways higher than
   your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." Oh, bow your ear, you
   mournful one, disconsolate as you are! I marvel not that you refuse
   earthly sedatives, but I wonder much that you should deny yourself
   these heavenly restoratives! The oil and wine that Jesus brings is
   healing and

   healthful. The ointment that He puts upon you will not aggravate your
   sores, but will cure your malady! Yield yourself to His generous
   treatment! The spirit of Christ never comforts unwisely. Rejoice that
   He has given the Holy Spirit and still speaks by the Spirit unto the
   mourners in Zion.

   I might linger over these and kindred reflections. When our Lord speaks
   by way of warning and bids you, "Flee from the wrath to come," hear you
   Him! When He speaks by way of exhortation, or of invitation, saying,
   "Come unto Me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
   you rest," then, "hear you Him!" If His tone should seem somewhat
   severe to your souls, and your flesh should revolt against it, yet,
   "Hear you Him." His lips are as lilies, dropping sweet-smelling
   myrrh--always sweet smelling and healing like the myrrh. Oh, regard
   Him! Catch His faintest accents! Treasure His words. Take your tablets
   and write down what He says--but let your tablets be your heart's best
   flesh, made soft by the power of the regenerating Spirit! Pray the Holy
   Spirit to write upon your souls, to carve deeply upon your hearts, all
   that Jesus Christ may speak to you! This is what we would have you
   hear. "Hear you Him." The third word about which some remarks were to
   cluster was--

   III. HOW?

   How shall we hear Him? We have shown you that He speaks in the Word of
   Scripture, that He speaks through His sent servants, that He speaks by
   His Holy Spirit to the hearts of His people. How shall we hear Him,
   then? Undoubtedly it becomes us to listen with devout reverence. Let us
   revere every Truth of Scripture for the sacred Authority with which it
   comes to us. Every rightly constituted mind must feel shocked at the
   way in which certain parts of God's Word are treated by the
   thoughtless, as well as the profane! I believe, Brothers and Sisters,
   that the habit of trifling with the minutest detail of God's Word is
   very sinful. I know that it has led to much mischief in the Church of
   God. I remember hearing a minister speak of the controversy about
   Baptism with palpable levity. It made me shudder when he said that for
   his part, he did not care two cents about Baptism! Is there not a
   Baptism of the Lord's commandment? Some sort of Baptism there is, at
   any rate, which Christ has enjoined. God forbid that I should scoff at
   it! Where is your loyalty to the Son of God if you rudely snap your
   fingers at any ordinance He has appointed? You that hear may account it
   of no consequence, but He that declared it to us well knew its profound
   importance, for He said, "Whoever, therefore, shall break one of these
   least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the
   least in the Kingdom of Heaven." You have coined a new proverb to
   supersede the old statutes. "There are no sects in Heaven," you inform
   us. Then, having forged a text, you supply us with a commentary. "These
   points are really nonessential," you tell us, "it would promote love
   and concord utterly to ignore them." No, Sirs, but the points of which
   you speak so lightly are not mere specks on the horizon--they are more
   like lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the
   night--let them be to you for signs and for seasons! "They are not
   essential for salvation," says one. Be it so, and yet they may be
   essential for approbation, I reply. As a servant, "Will you willfully
   offend because the penalty is to be reproved, not to be discharged? As
   a pupil in the school of Christ, will you violate His Laws because you
   will only be put to the bottom of the class, and no one supposes you
   will be expelled from the school? Has it come to this with you,
   professing Christian, that to escape from Hell is the only thing you
   care about? Are you of so mean, so beggarly a spirit, that, provided
   you get saved, it is all you are concerned about?" Dear Friends, after
   we are saved, it is essential to the peace of our conscience that we
   search the Word of God to know the will of Christ concerning us and
   that in every particular, as far as we are able, we endeavor to do His
   will! You may err through ignorance, not knowing that you are doing
   wrong. That is a sin, a sin concerning which Christ says that you shall
   be beaten with few stripes. But it is an aggravation of sin when a
   person does not wish to know His Lord's will--no, refuses to enquire,
   and thinks it quite unimportant--for such willfulness the servant, to
   use our Lord's own words, "shall be beaten with many stripes." God save
   us from the censure, as well as the penalty of that transgression!
   Never treat with levity any text of Scripture. Never suppose that
   because the Truth of God is considered small by the men of your
   generation, that it is, therefore, inconsiderable in the eyes of Him
   who rules throughout all generations. The sweepings of the lapidary's
   shop, where diamonds are polished, are precious--how much more should
   each member of the whole Church be jealous of every minute particle of
   the Truth of God! Small errors are the seedlings from which gigantic
   heresies spring up. The more accord with the mind of Christ there is in
   the individual disciples of Jesus, the more concord there will be in
   the visible Church. Unity is not promoted by endorsing one another's
   faults, but by conspiring with one another to maintain the Master's
   statutes!

   Let us hear believingly. Some are troubled with doubts and, fears, and
   others foster them as if they were accessories to faith and proofs of a
   naive disposition! We have heard from the philosophic side that there
   is more faith in doubting than in crediting the revealed Word. Really,
   such cant I do not care to quote. The marvel is that it gets currency
   for an hour. The class of doubters we have abroad in the present day
   may well be always declaring that they are honest, since there is so
   much reason to suspect the honesty of their doubts. And then there are
   Christian people who think it a commendable humility and an excellent
   feature of experience, to entertain doubts, to make a profession of
   fears and to cast reflections on "the full assurance of faith," as
   though it were presumptuous and unbecoming! From the tone of their
   conversation you might infer that the promise of the Gospel is to him
   that doubts and hesitates to show his allegiance, rather than to him
   that believes and is baptized, that he shall be saved! The new birth is
   a grave subject to their thinking. It fills them with terror, instead
   of inspiring them with hope. But their morbid views are all wrong, my
   Brothers and Sisters! What Christ has said is true, Infallibly true! It
   is not to be lightly questioned, but implicitly relied on. Be it ours
   to accept from His lips whatever of teaching, of consolation, or
   promise He may utter. And let us hear Him expectantly, with the full
   assurance of hope, knowing that He is faithful who has promised.
   Especially in the matter of prayer, let us encourage the utmost
   confidence that He will hear us. Have you not caught yourselves
   sometimes telling of the remarkable answers you have obtained, as if it
   caused you the greatest possible surprise that you should ask and
   receive? Meet and right it is, my dear Brothers and Sisters, that you
   should relate what God has done for you--but is it quite right for you
   to express astonishment that He has fulfilled His own engagements?
   Should it be accounted strange by God's own children that their Father
   keeps His word? Are His oracles so equivocal, that when they are
   literally fulfilled, we lift up our hands in blank amazement? Not so,
   Beloved! Better far the saying of that aged Christian woman, who, when
   she heard a young disciple relate the answer he had got to the prayer
   he had offered, and finish up his story with the exclamation, "Wasn't
   it surprising?" replied, "No! it is just like Him." As it is His custom
   to keep His word, let us always hear Him expectantly!

   And let me charge you, beloved Friends, that you take heed by the power
   of God's Spirit always to hear Jesus Christ obediently. There is a way
   of hearing that is worse than not hearing at all. Who are so deaf as
   those that will not hear or hearing, will not obey? How often has the
   Lord called some of you--and yet you have not come to Him? Though He
   has taught you much, you have not learned anything. Though He has
   exhorted you many times, you have not stirred. Though He has frequently
   warned you, you have taken no heed. Oh, that we obeyed, instantly
   obeyed Him, scrupulously obeyed Him, universally obeyed Him! Oh that we
   enquired and ascertained His will with an eagerness to do His bidding!
   Gladly would I be like a cork upon the waters, that feels every breath
   of the wind and every rise of the wave--not like some great steam
   vessel, that needs a storm to make it roll. Would to God we were
   delicately sensitive to the mind of Christ like the photographer's
   sensitive plate that catches the image as it passes and permanently
   retains the reflection, so that when Jesus Christ' s perfect image
   comes before our soul, it might be there stamped upon us to abide
   evermore! Oh, my dear Brothers and Sisters, ponder this pensively. Pray
   over it privately. Ask yourselves personally, are we all thus hearing
   the Lord Jesus Christ? Come to close quarters--let us put it
   pointedly--are any of you living in habitual disregard of your Lord's
   will? If so, you are unhappy, I know you are! You cannot be happy until
   you come and yield yourself up to Him. What is the true posture of a
   servant but to wait his master's beck and bidding? Where can you expect
   to know the sweetness of Christ but in acknowledging Him as your Lord
   and yielding your souls in allegiance to Him? Cry to God, then, for
   cleansing from the errors of the past! Invoke His help to make your
   obedience complete, now and in days to come. We know we are not saved
   by ourobedience--we are saved already by Hisobedience--but for the love
   we bear His name, what was our gain, we count our loss, and we desire
   to render ourselves as living sacrifices unto Him, which is but our
   reasonable service! Thus let us hear Him.

   I beseech you, you who listen to me from Sabbath to Sabbath, never to
   take any of your beliefs from my sermons unless you can verify them
   from His sayings! I would cheerfully blot out from your recollection
   every dogma that has no authority but my own. I would urge you to give
   it like chaff to the wind. Let your soul be established upon the Truth
   of God as it is in Jesus! "Hear you Him." Whatever He says, accept
   beyond appeal. Let that be your beginning and your ultimatum, the
   beginning of your confidence, and the end of all your controversy!
   Should Christ's teaching take you out of our connection, or out of any
   association where you now are, never mind, follow it! Through floods or
   flames, if Jesus leads, follow His guidance! Don't be foolish enough to
   take up with impressions that are merely of the flesh. Don't be

   forever changing and shifting with the currents of opinion. Don't have
   windmills on the brain. Read well, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.
   Having done so, if nobody in this world beside yourself professes to
   believe the Truth that Christ has taught, believe it all the more
   intensely! Be concerned that so much dishonor should be done Him by so
   many being in ignorance or error, but be concerned to honor Him
   yourself by holding that Truth firmly which others overlook or despise.
   "The Bible, and the Bible alone," said Chillingworth, in that oft
   quoted opinion of his, "is the religion of Protestants," but I am
   afraid it is hardly a fact. It ought to be true and it would be true,
   were we true to Christ. It is the professed religion of Christendom!
   The Word of God applied to the soul by the eternal Spirit becomes to us
   the voice of Christ, and we desire to hear it, God helps us to hear it!
   One more question remains to be answered. IV. WHEN?

   When shall we hear Him? The reply must be, Evermore! Hear Him when you
   begin your Christian career. "Hear, and your soul shall live." "Faith
   comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." It is the hearing of
   Him that quickens the soul. "Incline your ear," He says, "and come unto
   Me; hear, and your soul shall live." Nor are we to give up hearing
   Christ after we have found life in Him--we are to continue still
   learning of Him. We shall never grow so wise that we do not need Him
   for a Teacher. We shall never be so experienced that we can find our
   own way, and no longer need Him as a Guide. We shall have to keep on
   hearing Him when our locks are gray and our age is reverend. When we
   are on the banks of Jordan, and our feet almost tread the hallowed soil
   of the border land--even then, Brothers and Sisters, we must still hear
   Him! And then across the river His voice will greet us. We shall
   forever hear Him in the upper skies. The great matter, however--great
   because it presses so heavily on our present interest and our future
   destiny--is that we hear Him now! "Today if you will hear His voice,
   harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation
   in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My
   works forty years." May we have Grace to hear Him now. If we do not
   hear Him now, speaking with the voice of mercy, tomorrow we may hear
   Him say, "I never knew you." It would be a terrible hearing that,
   "Depart from Me, you workers of iniquity!" The thunder of those
   dreadful words will be everlasting! May God, of His infinite Grace,
   save us from hearing the dreary sentence of the Judge by enabling us to
   now hear the cheery welcome of the Savior!

   And do you not think, dear Friends, it would be well that Believers
   should have a special time for hearing Christ every day? Might you not
   mark off a quarter of an hour in the day for hearing what God the Lord
   shall speak? In the middle of London, amidst all the din of traffic,
   the sweetest chimes cannot be heard--they are drowned. But that same
   music, when other sounds are hushed, will be extremely pleasant. We
   have the rush and crash of the world in our ears nearly all day. If we
   want to hear Christ' s voice, we must sometimes get alone and sit in
   silence. It is the best commerce a man can engage in--it brings in the
   richest treasure! He will be poor who does not set apart some time in
   which He can listen to the voice of Christ by searching the Scriptures,
   by drawing near to God, by watching and prayer. Even the public Prayer
   Meetings should be second to private intercessions. "This ought you to
   have done," I would say of the Prayer Meeting, "not to have left the
   other undone." Both should be regarded, for oftentimes in the morning,
   if one can get a text of Scripture and put it under the tongue, it will
   keep the mouth sweet, the breath sweet and the heart sweet all day
   long! And at night, when one is weary, it gives calmness to our
   slumbers and even makes our dreams pleasant, if we can get a kiss from
   the lips of the Spouse in some joyful promise, some precious portion of
   the Word of God! "Hear you Him," my Brothers and Sisters! "Hear you
   Him." The Lord unstop your ears to hear, O you that have never heard
   Him! And you that have heard Him often, may you hear Him yet more
   frequently and more familiarly till He shall say unto you, "Come up
   here," and you shall finally enter into His joy! God bless each one of
   us richly for Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

God's Memorial Of His People

   (No. 3441)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 14, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Behold I have engraved you upon the palms of My hands." Isaiah 49:16.

   A LITTLE more than eight years ago, I remember addressing you from
   these very words. You will find the sermon in

   the printed series [See Sermon #512, Volume 9--A PRECIOUS DROP OF
   HONEY.]

   But such a text as this is to be preached hundreds of times! It is
   quite impossible to exhaust it, and if we should run over the same
   circle of thought in some measure, the thought suggested is of itself
   so precious, it were well to have our pure minds stirred up by way of
   remembrance.

   The apprehension that God might forget us would be very horrible to a
   child of God. As to the ungodly, they care not whether God thinks of
   them or not. He is nothing to them and they care not whether they are
   anything to Him. To the Christian, it is far otherwise. He could
   imagine no greater calamity than for him to be forgotten of his God. He
   knows there are many reasons in him why he shouldbe forgotten, and
   though those reasons are all met by the promises of God, yet there are
   times when those reasons exercise great effect upon his mind. As, for
   instance, the Christian knows how insignificant he is. It is always a
   wonder to him that God did ever think of him. Like David, when he
   considers the heavens, the works of God's fingers, the moon and the
   stars which God has ordained, he says, "What is man that You are
   mindful of him, or the son of man that You visit him?" The ungodly man
   has large ideas of himself, but the Christian has very humbling notions
   of his own condition and he marvels, therefore, that God ever should
   have remembered him--and he fears, sometimes, lest he should be
   forgotten. So, too, the Christian is aware of his own unworthiness. He
   knows something of his natural depravity. He remembers somewhat of
   things done in his youth, his former transgressions--he sees that even
   now he is not clear from sin in his daily life--and he says within
   himself at times, "If the Lord were to deal with me according to my
   desert, He would certainly appoint me a portion with the unbeliever,
   discountenance me and cast me away." Yes, and when he thinks of his
   unthankfulness to God for His many mercies, and remembers what a sting
   there is in ingratitude, and how it cuts sharp the person who is
   wronged by it, he sometimes wonders that God has not turned against His
   ungrateful servant and said, "You are not mindful of My goodness. You
   make such a slight return for it, that I will henceforth no more
   remember you! The streams of My mercy shall be dried up and the
   sunlight of My favor shall be taken away forever." Oh, what would we do
   if God did forget us for any of these reasons, my Brothers and Sisters?
   We could bear, it might be, to be forgotten by the dearest heart that
   beats in the fondest bosom of our nearest relative-- bitter, indeed,
   would be such an affliction, to find a Judas where we hoped we had a
   friend--but let all creature friendships go sooner than God should
   forget us! It would be a calamity if death should visit our
   habitations, or if sickness should come and lay us low, if some
   calamity should strip us of our earthly comforts. But let them all go
   without reservation, let us be reduced to Job's extremity and sit upon
   a dunghill and scrape ourselves with a potsherd, sooner than God should
   forget us! That were Hell itself! Oh, may we rejoice in heart by faith
   that this calamity cannot occur to us! And let this text help to remove
   any fear that any Believer here has ever had, that he may be forgotten
   of God! The text was meant to meet that case, for so it runs, "Can a
   woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion upon
   the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet will I not forget you."
   And here is the reason given, "I have engraved you upon the palms of My
   hands."

   We come, therefore, Brothers and Sisters, by the help of God's Spirit,
   to consider this Divine Memorial-- 'I have engraved you on the palms of
   My hands." Then very briefly let us trace out the result of this
   memorial of God. And let us

   close with a personal reflection upon the object of this Divine
   Remembrance--"I have engraved YOU upon the palms of My hands."

   I. THE DIVINE MEMORIAL.

   We have here a metaphorical speech to set forth the impossibility of
   God's forgetting us. "I have engraved you upon the palms of My hands."
   I will give a catchword to each particular explanation of this
   metaphor. The first word is present When we have a thing fresh in our
   minds and we need to make others know that we have it close to our
   memory, we say we have it at our fingertips. I say to such an one, "I
   shall not forget you. I constantly remember you. Your name, your
   business and your circumstances are at my fingertips." Everyone
   understands what is meant by the expression. It is a present memorial,
   but the figure of speech here used is more beautiful than that. "I have
   you as near to Me as if I had you always in the palms of My hands."
   That by which I remember you is most near to Me. A dear friend told me
   that when travelling in the East, he frequently saw persons who had the
   portraits of their friends printed on the palms of their hands. I said
   to him, But did not they wear out?" Yes, sometimes," he said, but very
   frequently they were tattooed, marked right into the hand, and then, as
   long as the hand was there, there was the image of the friend, roughly
   drawn, of course." Oriental art is not very perfect, but there it was,
   drawn on the palms of the hands, so that it could be always seen. A
   person had never to say, "Run and fetch the portrait. Run and bring me
   the memorial"--he always had it present with him! So the Lord Jesus
   always has His people present with him at all times. He is the Head,
   they are the members. The members are never far off from the Head. He
   is the Shepherd, they are the sheep and the careful shepherd, in time
   of danger, is never far from his sheep. Christ is not far from any of
   His people and, therefore, His recollections of them are not difficult
   to be maintained. He keeps the memorial of them in His hands present
   with Him. There is no fear, therefore, that He will forget them.

   The next thought that arises from the metaphor may be remembered by the
   catchword of permanent. As I have already said, the impression made
   upon the hands, as intended in this figure, was permanent--so long as
   the person lived, there it was. You engrave your friend's name upon a
   sapphire and you may lose it. You may write it upon a rock and the rock
   may crumble. You may get to yourself the most precious and lasting form
   of matter and stamp the impression of your friend upon it, and
   by-and-by it may fade away. But when Christ says that He writes His
   people's names upon His hands, unless He, Himself, can perish, their
   memorial must abide as long as Jesus lives, He must bear with Him the
   memories of His people. It is inconceivable that Christ should be
   without a hand--and what is deeply engraved on those palms, never to be
   erased, must abide near to Him forever and forever! Oh, think,
   Christian, you are never forgotten by God! Never in your darkest night
   of sorrow, never in your most wayward moment of personal doubt and
   wandering, never forgotten--and you never shall be! If you live to the
   decrepitude of old age, He will bear and carry you! If you lie long
   upon a lonely pallet, where few shall observe your suffering, He will
   not forget you! If you are drifted to some remote part of the world,
   far from all you love, He will be just as near. Time shall roll on and
   come to its close, but Christ will not forget you, then, and in the
   eternity that comes amidst the burning of the world and the judging of
   mankind, the engraving on His hands shall be as permanent as ever! You
   shall still be remembered of the Lord, who loved you before the earth
   was! Present and permanent, then, is the memorial which Christ
   cherishes of His people. We have lately seen an unusual number of
   rainbows and I must confess that nothing gives me greater joy than to
   see a rainbow. It is the memorial of the Covenant. I like to look upon
   it. But there is something more cherishing to me than looking on it
   myself--it is the thought of that text where God says, "The bow shall
   be in the clouds and I will look upon it that I may remember the
   everlasting covenant." It comforts me that I can look on the sign of
   God's faithfulness, but it comforts me much more that God looks at
   it--that His eyes are on it! Had I been an Israelite, I think it would
   have given me much pleasure to see the blood sprinkled on the lintel
   and the two side posts of my house. I would have known I was secure.
   But there is something better than that. You remember the text, "When I
   see the blood, I will pass over you." It is God's sight of the blood
   that saved you! So here it is Christ that looks at the palms of His own
   hands--that sees the memorial--always looks there and has not to look
   far, for His hands are not far removed from Himself--they are part of
   Himself. It is on Himself He bears the memory--the permanent memory of
   all whom He has bought with blood! Therefore, be you comforted, and
   think not that you are overlooked.

   The third word shall be personal--present, perpetual, and personal. I
   have engraved you not in the Book of Record, but I have engraved you
   upon Myself, upon the palms of My hands." It means this--I will put it
   in one short,

   compact sentence--that Christ could as soon forget Himself us He could
   forget His people! He has stamped them into Himself! Yes, more--He has
   taken them into such vital, indelible union with His own Person, that
   to forget one soul that He has bought with blood would be to forget
   Himself! The mother does not forget her child because there is an
   intimate connection between them. The head cannot forget the members
   because there is a still more intimate connection there. My finger does
   not need to tell my head that it suffers, and when a limb is full of
   pain and agony, it does not need to send express messengers up to the
   brain to say to the head, "Think of me, for I am full of grief." No,
   the head feels that the limb is a part of itself, knit to itself! And
   Christ has a personal interest and a personal union with all His
   people. Oh, precious thought! You are dearer to Christ than any
   treasure could be to Him because you are of His flesh and of His bones.
   This is the reason--this is one reason that is given in Scripture--for
   conjugal love, because the woman was taken out of the man, and she is
   bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh--and when our blessed Second
   Adam fell asleep in death, God took His Church out of His side, and the
   Church is bone of Christ's bone and flesh of His flesh. He cannot
   forget her! He looks upon her with a love that can never change and can
   never be indifferent.

   The next word I shall give you after this one of personal is painful. I
   have engraved you on the palms of My hands." I may be permitted to
   illustrate this by our Savior's hands. What are these wounds in Your
   hands, these sacred stigmata, these ensigns of suffering? The
   engraver's tool was the nail, backed by the hammer. He must be fastened
   to the Cross, that His people might be truly engraved on the palms of
   His hands. There is much consolation here. We know that what a man has
   won with great pain, he will keep with great tenacity. Old Jacob valued
   much that portion which he took out of the hand of the Amorite with the
   sword and with the bow, and so truly does Christ value that which He
   has conquered at great expense! Child of God, you cost Christ too much
   for Him to forget you! He recollects every pang He suffered in
   Gethsemane, and every groan that He uttered for you upon the Cross. The
   engraving upon His hands brings to His recollection the redemption
   price which He paid down that you might be set free! Oh, what better
   ground can you have for believing that Christ remembers you than
   this--that He loved you and gave Himself for you? Treasure up that
   thought.

   The other word is practical. "I have engraved you upon the palms of My
   hands." As much as if God would say, "I can do nothing without
   remembering My people." If He creates the world, it is with the hand
   that has His people engraved on it. If He puts forth His hand to uphold
   all things, that upholding hand upholds His saints. With His left hand
   He smites the wicked. But He cannot smite His people, for He sees them
   in the palm of that very hand! All that God does has an eye to His
   people. When He divided the nations, He divided them according to the
   number of the children of Israel. The world stands for their sake--'tis
   but a stage for the display of His Grace to them. And when the number
   of His elect is accomplished, He will take it all down and put it away.
   O child of God, the Lord has given you the richest consolation when He
   tells you He can do nothing without remembering you, for on the hand
   with which He works, He has stamped your name! Note before I leave
   this, that it does not say, "I have engraved you on the palm of My
   hand," but "on the palms of My hands," as if there was a double
   memorial before the Lord forever. With His right hand He blesses, and
   His people have a share in that. With His left hand He deals out
   vengeance, but He sees His people there, and gives no vengeance to
   them. "His left hand," the hand of His angry power, "is under my head,"
   says the spouse, "and His right hand, the hand of His beneficent love,
   does embrace me." A left-handed or a right-handed God, He altogether
   loves us and remembers us on the right hand and on the left. By both
   His hands, by all His power, He pledges Himself never to forget one of
   His saints! Oh, this is a rich text! And we trust we shall so handle it
   as to bring out the juice from the luscious sentences, throw it in the
   winepress and tread it again and again with active feet--and it shall
   always yield fresh sweetness--and give forth yet more and more luscious
   draughts to slake your thirst, if you know but how to use it. Dear,
   abiding, precious memorial of our crucified Lord, you do charm away our
   fears! He never can forget us. And now, briefly, not for lack of
   matter, but for lack of time--

   II. WHAT WILL BE THE RESULT OF OUR BEING THUS DAILY REMEMBERED?

   Children of God, God remembers you to make you joyful. How runs the
   text? "Sing, O heavens, and be joyful, O earth." The Lord, who thinks
   of you, will sometimes give you heydays and holidays. You shall not
   always be in the dark. Do you recollect how John Bunyan describes it,
   that after Giant Despair's head had been cut off, Mr. Ready-to-Halt,
   Miss Much-Afraid and Miss Despondency, all of them, had a feast? And
   they had a dance, too, and Mr. Ready-to-Halt leaped on his crutches!
   The very weakest and most limping among God's saints sometimes have
   their seasons of joys and

   rejoicing, and so shall you! You daughters of depression, you sons of
   sorrow, God has engraved you upon the palms of His hands! You have had
   your evenings, you shall have your mornings--you have had your
   droughts, you shall have your floods. If God remembers us, we may rest
   assured that He will provide for all our needs. If the shepherd
   remembers the sheep, the sheep shall not starve. If the farmer
   remembers the plant, it will be cared for. God, who is the Great
   Farmer, remembering the plants of His garden, says, I will water them
   every moment." If the mother remembers her baby, it is to give it all
   it needs and lull its griefs to rest. God will give us all we need.
   Sons of need, you who feel your need, be of good comfort--you are
   engraved on the palms of Jehovah's hands! We shall not want any good
   thing if He remembers us, so let us reflect that we shall get chastened
   some time. A child forgotten of its parent, never feels the rod. I have
   been comforted sometimes when I have been smarting, to think I was not
   quite cast off. The goldsmith will not put a common stone into the
   furnace--he sets some value on that which he spends his coals upon. If
   the Lord afflicts you, O heir of Heaven, He has not cast you away, be
   sure of that! The refining that you are undergoing proves that He sets
   a price upon you. He has taken trouble and care with you. By the
   furnace, maybe, He will deliver you from your dross and your sin. Oh,
   to be remembered, even if it is with a blow, is better than to be
   forgotten and to be left to riot in this world's pleasures! Let me be,
   my God, only able to know I am Yours by Your rod, sooner than have to
   live in doubt and fear as to whether I am Yours or not. If God thus
   remembers us, and we get chastened, we may also know that we shall have
   consolation in chastening and be delivered in due time out of the
   trial. If you are engraved on the palms of God' s hands, though you
   should have to lie long and pine on that couch of suffering, He will
   not forget you!

   Oh, my dear young Friends, whose pale faces often grieve me when I see
   you sad, let us look up to God for comfort! Though you are marked for
   death, He does not forget you! He will cheer those days of growing
   weakness, and as you get nearer to the grave, you will also get nearer
   to Heaven! Many a poor woman lying in a lone cottage, or dying in a
   workhouse, has had more joy than some of the princes of earth in all
   their wealth and pride. Christ never leaves those who are His in the
   world, but to them He reveals Himself more sweetly than to others! I
   would like to say to every child of God here, because God remembers
   you, all that you lose between here and Heaven, He will be sure to give
   you. All you ask for that is right, you shall have, and a great deal
   you never thought of asking for! You shall have as much sweet and as
   much bitter. You shall have as much of everything that is good for you,
   as shall be best, and afterwards you shall have the fullness, you shall
   have the glory, for, being engraved on the palms of God's hands, He
   will not forget to bring you home to the place where He is and to
   appoint you a mansion among His chosen! I wish I could speak more at
   large on this, but we have hurried over it. Only take it home--chew the
   cud upon this. It is worth it. Here are subjects for meditation that
   any thoughtful mind may bring out. If God remembers me, it is all I
   need. You know that verse we sometimes sing that ends, "This my Father
   knows; this my Father knows." Oh, yes, your needs, He sees them all!
   Your heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things. There is
   nothing more required to comfort your hearts. If He knows it is good
   for you, you shall have it! And now to close. Who is it that is--

   III. THE OBJECT OF THIS REMEMBRANCE

   "I have engraved you upon the palms of My hands." " You"--pass it
   round. Let each one before God, as though he saw Christ upon the
   Judgment Throne, ask himself, "Am I engraved upon the palms of Jesus'
   hands--am I" It is nothing that His whole Church is there--His Zion. He
   is immediately thinking of His truly blood-bought, regenerate
   people--there they are--all there. He has in His eyes the circumstances
   as He has on His hands the names of many that are greatly afflicted.
   Notice the connection of the text--it is to the afflicted that He is
   there speaking. He says, "The Lord will have mercy on His
   afflicted"--and He says that their names are on His hands! Don't say,
   then, that you are not the Lord's because you are afflicted! Because
   you are low in circumstances, or sick in body, don't conclude,
   therefore, that you are not in Christ, but rather pray more earnestly
   than ever that these trials may be greatly sanctified to you! Nor,
   Beloved, don't conclude that you are not Christ's because you feel you
   are sinful. Observe how the connection runs, "He will have mercy on His
   afflicted." Now mercy is for sinners. I may be a sinner, but yet
   engraved on the hands of Christ, for, indeed, all whose names are
   written there are, by nature, guilty, but they have obtained mercy! The
   greatness of my past guilt does not prove that I have no interest in
   Christ. If I have faith in Him. If I come and put my trust in Him, then
   is my name written on the palms of His hands! But is it so, dear
   Reader? Is it so? Have you trusted Christ or not? Answer, I say again,
   as though Christ were here upon the Throne of His Judgment Seat! Answer
   now. Do you rest your soul alone on Jesus Christ? If you do, all that
   is implied in having yourself imprinted upon the hands of Christ is
   yours!

   Take it--enjoy it--be glad. What consolation should this Scripture
   itself afford! But if you have not believed, touch not these sweet
   things, but rather say, "Lord, help me to believe tonight!" To believe
   is but to trust--to rest yourself upon Christ. Watts calls it falling--

   "A guilty, weak, and helpless worm, On Your kind hands I fall."

   Here I am leaning on this rail. If this that I lean upon, fails me,
   down I must go! I have no other support. Lean just like this on Christ!
   You have seen a fainting person at last throw himself back on another.
   Do that to Christ--faint away into Christ! Relax all your own
   power--let it all go. That sham power you think you have, and that
   merit you think you have, and all the hopes you ever had--let them all
   go and now drop into Christ's arms! I have heard it said that if a man
   would only lie still when he falls into the water--lie on his back--he
   would float. But the tendency is to struggle. Don't struggle, Sinner,
   after righteousness in your own strength--fall back and rest on the
   Infinite Love of God in Christ Jesus! ' Tis all you have to do--to
   leave off doing and let Christ do everything! And when Christ has done
   that everything, then you shall begin doing again on quite another
   principle--not with a view to merit, but out of gratitude to Him who
   saved you! I do pray that some may be saved tonight in this house.
   Before they go down yonder steps, may some of you look to Jesus. There
   is life in a look! I cannot help bringing out these simple Truths of
   God often and often, but they are constantly forgotten. Those that were
   bitten by the serpent in the wilderness had not anything to say, had
   not anything to feel, had not anything to think of--all they had to do
   was just to look to the serpent lifted on the pole! And you have
   nothing to do, or feel, or be, in and of yourself--all you have to do
   is to look straight away to Christ!

   There is not any good thing in you. Know that to begin with. You say,
   "But I am bad." I know you are--you are ten thousand times worse than
   you think you are! You are bad as you may conceive yourself to be--but
   worse than that by fifty thousand times! But your goodness is in Jesus,
   your hope is in Jesus. Look straight away now to those dear wounds of
   Jesus! Look straight to Him! And if you perish trusting in Christ, you
   will be the first sinner that ever perished there! It will be a novelty
   in Hell, and the news will be spread on earth, and even in Heaven, that
   there was a sinner that trusted Christ and then perished! Farewell to
   the Gospel, then! Put away the Bible. We have done with Christ,
   Himself, if that could be true. But it never can be! Him that comes to
   Me, I will in no wise cast out." Look, Man! Look, Woman! Look, Child!
   Whoever you may be, there is life in a look at the Crucified One! There
   is life at this moment for you! Look, Sinner! Look unto Him and be
   saved! Look unto Jesus, who died on the Cross! May God bless you all
   for Christ's sake. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ISAIAH 42:1-17; 43:18-25; ROMANS 10:1-19.

   This book might well be called the Gospel according to Isaiah," for it
   is full of evangelical Truth.

   Verse 1. Behold My Servant, whom I uphold: My Elect One, in whom My
   soul delights: I have put My Spirit upon Him: He shall bring forth
   judgment to the Gentiles. Of whom speaks the Prophet this, but of the
   Messiah--Jesus of Nazareth? He was upheld by the mighty power of God.
   He was the Lord's Chosen. The Spirit of God rested upon Him and this
   day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears, for He has brought forth
   righteousness to the Gentiles.

   2. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in
   the street He shall be no clamorous seeker after applause. He shall not
   shout as those that seek for the mastery. Now the Savior was quiet,
   gentle, meek, humble. When He lifted up His voice, it was for God and
   for the sons of men--not for Himself. He was meek and lowly of heart.

   3. A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not
   quench: He shall bring forth judgment unto truth.How exactly these
   words describe the Lord Jesus! He was so gentle that He did not break
   or break off the bruised reeds. We read that He did not answer the
   Scribes and Pharisees. They were so powerless--such bruised reeds in
   His esteem--such worthless, smoking flax--that He left them alone
   until, by-and-by, He came to bring forth judgment unto victory. And now
   the weak, the feeble, the gentle, the poor in spirit shall never find
   Christ to deal harshly with them. "The bruised reed He will not break:
   the smoking flax He will not quench."

   4. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till He has set judgment in
   the earth and the isles shall wait for His Law. Oh, what a blessed
   thing it is that we have a Savior to trust to, who will not fail! And
   He is one who will never be discouraged. He will carry out the
   salvation of His people and never give it up as a hopeless case. Poor
   Sinner, if He begins with you, He will not fail nor be discouraged--nor
   will He even with the whole earth. He will not take back His hand till
   surely all flesh shall see the Glory of the Lord. He who has undertaken
   man's redemption is not feeble of spirit and easily baffled. He shall
   not fail or be discouraged!

   5, 6. Thus says God the LORD, He that created the heavens, and
   stretched them out; He that spread forth the earth, and that which
   comes out of it; He that gives breath unto the people upon it and
   spirit to them that walk therein: I the LORD have called You in
   righteousness, and will hold Your hand, and will keep You, and give You
   for a covenant to the people, for a light to the Gentile. See what God
   has made His Son, Jesus Christ? If you want to get a Christ in the
   Covenant of Grace, you have only to lay hold on Christ, for Christ is
   given as a Covenant to the people. He is the embodiment of the
   Covenant--the sum and substance of it--the seal of it--the surety of
   it. He is, indeed, the Covenant, itself! And if you want light, you
   have only to get Christ. He is the Light of the world, and here we are
   told that God has given Him for a Light to the Gentiles.

   7. To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison,
   and they that sit in darkness out of the prison house.Hear this, you
   melancholy ones, you that are desponding, you that cannot get out of
   the prison of bad habits, or shake off the chains of sin! Behold a
   Liberator has come--One whose very business it is to open the fast
   closed cells of sin and set the captives of Satan free!

   8, 9. I am the LORD: that is My name: and My Glory will I not give to
   another, neither My praise to engraved images. Behold, the former
   things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they
   spring forth, I tell you of them. One great proof of the truth of the
   Deity of Jehovah is that He can foresee and foretell, so that long
   before events happen, He makes them known. Now Isaiah, by God's Spirit,
   told the Israelites concerning Christ, hundreds of years before Christ
   came--and yet the terms are so express that one might almost think that
   they were written afterthe event. But does not God know? And is not He
   God who sees through the mists of ages and looks upon the things that
   are to be as though they were? Verily He is God!

   10, 11. Sing unto the LORD a new song, and His praise from the ends of
   the earth, you that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the
   isles, and the inhabitants thereof Let the wilderness and the cities
   thereof lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar inhabits: let the
   inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the
   mountains. For the coming of Christ is the coming of music into the
   world! When He hung upon the Cross, there were lighted up new stars to
   cheer earth' s night. No, what if I say that the sun, itself, had risen
   then to chase away the darkness once and for all? O Lamb of God!
   Creation made the angels sing, but Redemption makes us fallen men sing,
   for it lifts us up to sit among the angels through Your most precious
   blood!

   12. Let them give glory unto the LORD, and declare His praise in the
   islands. Now for His enemies. While God is thus graciously dealing with
   men, He determines to make an end of the powers of evil.

   13. The LORD shall go forth as a mighty man, He shall stir up jealousy
   like a man of war: He shall cry, yes, roar; He shall prevail against
   His enemie. Do not imagine that the gods of the heathen will always sit
   on their thrones or that the powers of anti-Christ will always darken
   the earth. Ah, no! God will bestir Himself before long.

   14. Ihave a long time heldMy peace; Ihave been still and refrained
   Myself: now willI cry like a travailing woman; I will destroy and
   devour at once.Oh, what a time will that be when God comes forth in the
   splendor of His power to put down all the hosts of evil!

   15. I will make waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs:
   and I will make the rivers islands, and I will dry up the pools. What a
   terrible God He is! When He once puts forth His hand for deeds of
   justice and of vengeance, who can stand before Him? But yet how His
   mercy walks arm-in-arm with His justice!

   16. And I will bring the blind by the way that they knew not; I will
   lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light
   before them and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto
   them, and not forsake them. Oh, the condescension of God, that even
   when His right arm is bared for war, and thunder girds His cloudy car,
   yet still He stoops out of the chariot of wrath to look after poor,
   blind, helpless souls, and lead them in the way of peace and mercy. But
   as for His enemies--

   17. They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, who trust
   in engraved images, that say to the molten images, You are our gods.

   ISAIAH43:18-25.

   Verses 18, 19. Do not remember the former things, neither consider the
   things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing: now it shall spring
   forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness,
   and rivers in the desert. Do not imagine that what God has done in the
   past will never be repeated! It will be excelled--He will do yet
   greater things. Of all the mercy and love which God has shown, we may
   say that these are only prophecies of what He yet will reveal. There
   are now things yet to come wherein the splendor of His mercy shall be
   yet more clearly seen than in all the former things!

   20, 21. The beast of the field shall honor Me, the dragons and the
   owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the
   desert, to give drink to My people, My chosen. This people have I
   formed for Myself; they shall show forth my praise.However barren may
   your soul be and however all your surroundings may seem to be stamped
   with death, God can come and make you happy and blessed and surround
   you with delights! And He will do it in order that in you, whom He has
   formed for Himself, His praise may be seen!

   22. But you have not called upon Me, O Jacob. Prayer has been
   neglected. Praise has been suspended. There has been an ungracious
   negligence in the service of God. You have not called upon me, O
   Jacob."

   22. But you have been weary of Me, O Israe. You thought the service
   long--thought the time for prayer came around too soon--refused to give
   to My cause and said it was a tax. You have been weary of Me, O
   Israel."

   23. You have not brought Me the small cattle of your burnt offerings;
   neither have you honored Me with your sacrifices. I have not encased
   you to serve with an offering, nor wearied you with incense. I have not
   taxed you. I have not drawn upon your resources heavily."

   24. You have bought Me no sweet cane with money, neither have you
   filled Me with the fat of your sacrifices. "I left you to give or not
   to give, that your free will might be seen in all your deeds of love,
   but nothing has come of it. On the contrary"--

   24. You have burdened Me with your sins, you have wearied Me with your
   iniquities.A solemn charge, this, which God lays against His people.
   Now see the next verse and read it with wondering eyes!

   25. I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions for My own
   sake, and will not remember your sins. He has pointed out the fault. He
   has shown that He is not forgetful of it. And then He pronounces
   absolution! The transgression is put away! Blessed be His name! Now let
   us turn to the New Testament and read in the Epistle to the Romans, the
   10th Chapter, and we shall there see the way in which pardon is brought
   home to the soul.

   ROMANS 10:1-19.

   Verses 1-3. Brethren, my hearts desire and prayer to God for Israel is
   that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal
   for God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of
   Gods righteousness, and going about to establish their own
   righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of
   God.A fault--a pitiable and grievous fault--that men should be in
   earnest and very zealous, and yet nothing should come of it because
   they spend that zeal in a wrong direction! Men would make themselves
   righteous. They would come before God in the apparel of their own
   works, whereas God has already made a righteousness which He freely
   gives!For us to try and produce another is to enter into rivalry with
   God--to insult His Son and do dishonor to His name! May God grant that
   any here who are very zealous in a wrong direction may receive light
   and knowledge, and turn their thoughts in the right way.

   4, 5. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
   that believes. For Moses describes the righteousness which is of the
   law, that the man who does those things shall live by them.That is the
   righteousness of the Law of God. We are not under that Covenant now. We
   shall never attain to righteousness that way.

   6-9. But the righteousness which is of faith speaks on this wise, Say
   not in your heart, Who shall ascend into Heaven? (That is, to bring
   Christ down from above). Or, who shall descend into the deep? (That is,
   to bring up Christ again from the dead). But what does it say? The word
   is near you, even in your mouth and in your heart; that is the word of
   faith, which we preach. That if you shall confess with your mouth the
   Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised Him
   from the dead, you shall be saved. How very simple! No climbing, no
   diving, no imagining, no long reckoning of the understanding, no
   strangling of the mental faculties. It is just believe God's testimony
   concerning His Son and you shall be saved!

   10, 11. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with
   the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says,
   Whoever believes on Him shall not be ashamed. For there is no
   difference between the Jew and the Greek [Gentile] in this matter.

   12, 13. For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him.
   For whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. This
   was the old prophecy of Joel. The Jews knew it. It is the new teaching
   of the Gospel. The Gentiles know it. Oh, who would not wish to be in
   that broad "whoever," that he might find salvation?

   14, 15. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?
   And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how
   shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except
   they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them
   that preach the Gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good
   things?So that, rightly looked upon, the humblest preacher of the
   Gospel stands in the most solemn relationship towards mankind. His
   Master sends him. He tells His message. Men hear it, believe it and by
   it are saved! Happy is the messenger! Well may his heart rejoice, even
   when his soul is heavy, because he has such work to do in his Master's
   name!

   16. But they have not all obeyed the Gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who
   has believed our report? And what Isaiah says, many and many a preacher
   since has had to say. "Woe, woe to us for this."

   17-19. So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
   But I say, Have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound went into all
   the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. But I say, Did
   not Israel know?Did not the Jewish people have a time of hearing and
   instruction? Certainly they knew--and they also knew that the Gospel
   was not to be confined to them. They had a warning that it would even
   be taken from them and sent to other nations.
     __________________________________________________________________

"The Desire Of All Nations"

   (No. 3442)

   PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 21 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST
   25, 1870.

   "And I will sialee all nations, and the desire of all nations shall
   come: and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of Hosts."
   Haggai 2:7.

   THE second Temple was never intended to be as magnificent as the first.
   The first was to be the embodiment of the full glory of the
   dispensation of symbols and types--and was soon to pass away. This
   comparative feebleness had been proved by the idolatry and apostasy of
   the people, Israel. And when they returned to Jerusalem they were to
   have a structure that would be sufficient for the purposes of their
   worship, but they were not again to be indulged with the splendors of
   the former house which God had erected by the hand of Solomon. Had it
   been God's Providence that a Temple equally magnificent as the first
   should be erected, it might have been very readily accomplished. Cyrus
   appears to have been obedient to the Divine Will and to have been a
   great friend of the Jews, but he expressly, by edict, diminished the
   length of the walls and gave express command that the walls should
   never be erected as high as before. We have also evidence that a lile
   decree was made by Darius, an equally great friend of the Jews, who
   could, with the lifting of his finger, have outdone the glory of
   Solomon's Temple! But in God's Providence it was not arranged that it
   should be so and, though Herod, not a Jew, and only a Jew by religious
   pretense to suit his own particular purpose, lavished a good deal of
   treasure upon the second Temple for the pleasure of the nation he
   ruled, and to gain some favor from them, yet he rather profaned than
   adorned the Temple, since he did not follow the prescribed architecture
   by which it ought to have been built, and he had not the Divine
   Approval upon his labors. No Prophet ever commanded, and no Prophet
   ever sanctioned the labors of such a horrible wretch as that Herod! The
   reason seems to me to be this--in the second Temple, during the time it
   should stand, the dispensation of Christ was softly melted into the
   light of spiritual Truth. The outward worship was to cease there. It
   seems right that it should cease in a Temple that had not the external
   glory of the first. God intended there to light up the first beams of
   the spiritual splendor of the second Temple, namely, His true Temple,
   the Church, and he would put a sign of decay on the outward and visible
   in the Temple of the first. Yet He declares by His servant, Haggai,
   that the glory of the second Temple should be greater than the first.
   It certainly was not so as in respect of gold, or silver, or size, or
   excellence of architecture--and yet it truly was so, for the Glory of
   the Presence of Christ was greater than all the glory of the old
   Temple's wealth! And the glory of having the Gospel preached in it, the
   glory of having the Gospel miracles worked in its porches by the
   Apostles and by the Master was far greater than any hecatombs of
   bullocks and he-goats--the glory of being, as it were, the cradle of
   the Christian Church--the nest out of which should fly the messengers
   of peace, who, lile doves, should bear the olive branch throughout the
   world. I tale it that the decadence of the old system of symbols was a
   most fitting preparation for the incoming of the system of Grace and
   Truth in the Person of Jesus Christ! And the second Temple has this
   glory which excels--that while the first was the glory of the moon in
   all its splendor, the second is the moon going down--the sun is rising
   beyond her, gilding the horizon with the first beams at the morning!

   I intend to speal to you at this time about the true spiritual Temple,
   the true second Temple, the spiritual Temple, which, I thinl, is here
   spolen of--although the second Temple, literally, is also intended--the
   true spiritual Temple built up, according to the text, as the desire of
   all nations.

   I find this passage a very difficult one in the original--it bears
   several meanings in itself. The first meaning that I give you, though
   it runs contrary to the great majority of Christian expositors, is the
   most accurate explanation of the

   original. We shall bring in the other explanations by-and-by. Reading
   it thus, "I will shale all nations," and the desire--the desirable
   persons, the best part, or as the Septuagint reads it, the elect of all
   nations--shall come. They shall come--the true Temple of God, and they
   shall be the living stones that shall compose it, or, as others read
   it, "The desirable things of all nations shall come," which is, no
   doubt, the meaning, because the eighth verse gives the ley--"The silver
   is Mine, and the gold is Mine, says the Lord of Hosts." The desirable
   things of all nations are to be brought in as voluntary offerings to
   this true second Temple, this spiritual living Temple.

   Let us begin, then, and tale that sense, first. And in this case we are
   told, in the text concerning this second Temple, what these living
   stones are--

   I. THE HISTORICAL DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS SHALL COME.

   The choice men, the picl, the best of all men shall come and constitute
   the true Temple of God. Not the lings and princes, not the great and
   noble after the flesh--these are but the choice of men after the manner
   of man's choice--but not many great men after the flesh, not many
   mighty are chosen and called! But still, those whom God chooses must be
   the choice ones of manlind. They will not claim to be so by nature--on
   the contrary, they will repudiate any idea of any natural goodness in
   themselves. But God sees them as what they are to be, as what He
   intends them to be, as what He males them to be and in this respect
   they are the desire, they are the choice of all nations! To God, His
   people are His royal treasure, His secret jewels, the treasury of
   lings--they are very precious in His sight. Their very death is
   precious. He leeps record of their bones and will raise their dust at
   the Last Day. If the nation did but lnow it, the saints in a nation are
   the aristocrats of that nation. Those who fear God are the very soul,
   marrow, and baclbone of a nation. For their sales God has preserved
   many a nation. For their sales He gives unnumbered blessings. "You are
   the salt of the earth"--the earth were putrid without them. "You are
   the light of the world"--the world would be darl without them. They are
   the desire, I say, though often the world treats them with contempt and
   would cast them out. It has always been thus with the blind world--to
   treat its best friends worst--and its worst enemies often receive the
   most royal entertainment. Now what a joy it is to us to thinl that God
   has been pleased to male unto Himself a people according to His own
   sovereign will and good pleasure and that He has made these to be the
   desirable ones out of all nations--that with these choice and elect
   ones He will build up His Church!

   But the text not only tells us of the stones, but of the remarlable
   mode of architecture. "The desire of all nations shall come"--they
   shall be brought together. Human means shall be used to bring each one
   to its place, to excavate each one from its quarry. And while it is God
   who speals, He speals lile God, for He uses "shalls" and "wills" most
   freely, and according to the Eternal Purpose which He purposed in
   Christ Jesus, before the earth was, so shall the fulfillment be. We who
   preach the Gospel may preach with devout assurance of success. The
   desire of all nations shall'come! Out of this congregation the truly
   desirable ones shall come to Christ. Out of the soil in which the sower
   sowed--the honest and good ground--is brought forth the harvest. Out of
   the nations, though they reject Christ and continue in their idolatry,
   yet there are some choice spirits who come--some whom the Lord lools
   upon with great delight--and these shallcome. We do not labor in vain,
   neither do we spend our strength for nothing. We fall bacl upon the
   Doctrine of Divine worl-ing and Divine choice for
   consolation--certainly not for an excuse for indolence, but for
   consolation when we have done our best, that God is glorified in the
   end, "the desire of all nations shall come."

   And if you will notice in the whole text, it appears that they do not
   come without much shaling. In one sense, no man comes to God with
   compulsion. And in another sense, no man comes without compulsion. You
   see two boxes opened. There are two ways of opening them. You see one
   box wrenched-- evidently there has been used rough means. Who opened
   it? A thief. God never opens men's hearts in that way! You see another
   box open--no sign of damage, no sign of any particular labor. Who
   opened it? The person who had the ley--probably the owner. Hearts
   belong to God and He has the leys and opens them--sweetly opens them.
   And yet, though no force is used, that puts aside the positive, free
   agency of man which God interferes not with, yet there is a spiritual
   force which may well be described as a shaling. It is only when the
   tree of the nation has a thorough shaling, that at last the prime, ripe
   fruit will drop down into the great Master's lap! He shales by
   Providence, by the movement of the human conscience. He shales by the
   impulses of His Holy Spirit. He shales the spirit and as the result,
   the desirable persons out of all the nations are brought to Himself.
   Stones that He would have come at last out of the quarry--and He builds
   them up into a Temple.

   And now observe that these persons, according to another rendering of
   the text, when they come to build up the Church they always bring their
   desire with them--they bring with them the most desirable thing. The
   desirable things of all nations shall give the silver, and the gold,
   and so on. He that comes to Christ brings with him all he has--and he
   who has left his true substance behind him has not come to Christ.
   What, now, is the desire of all the nations when hearts are renewed?
   Well, silver and gold will always be desirable, and men who give their
   hearts to Christ will bring what they have of that to Christ. But the
   most desirable things of manhood are not metals--are they dirt, mere
   dross, hard materialisms? No, the desirable things of manhood are
   things of the soul, the heart, the spirit! And into the Temple, the
   great second Temple, there shall come, not merely masses of gold and
   silver that can adorn with outward splendor, but also love, and faith,
   and holy virtue--more priceless than gems, far richer in value than
   rarest mines! Oh, what a sight the Church of God is when holy angels
   lool upon it! We hear of some of the first Spanish invaders going into
   the temple of Peru and seeing floors, roofs and walls made of slabs of
   gold--and standing astonished! But oh, in the Church there are slabs of
   faith on the floor of that great Temple, and walls of love of Christian
   self-sacrifice, and roofs of holy joy and Christian consolation! It is
   a Temple that males spiritual eyes flash with gladness! What care they
   for the splendor of lings and princess. But they care much for the
   true, desirable things of nations--holy emotions, holy desires,
   ascriptions of gratitude and devout acts of service for the Lord God!
   Oh, how glorious is the second Temple, then, when the desirable men
   come to it and bring with them all the desirable things to male it
   glorious in the sight of God!

   And then this Temple, thus built and thus adorned, will continue. The
   text implies that, "I will shale all nations." The Apostle says that
   this signifies the things that can be shalen--that the things that
   cannot be shalen will remain-- and that the desire of all nations must
   be put down as a thing that cannot be shalen. The Church, then, shall
   never be shalen, and the precious things that the Church gives to her
   God shall not be shalen! Time will change many things. Great princes
   will be considered mere beggars, by-and-by, in the esteem of men who
   lnow how to judge by character. Great men will shrivel into very small
   things--when they come to be tried, even by posterity. And the Judgment
   Day-- ah, how will that try the great ones of this earth! But the
   Christian Church--the very gates of Hell shall not prevail against her!
   Time shall not be able so much as to chip one of her polished stones.
   Her treasures of faith, and what not, the rich things that God has
   given her--these things shall never be stolen--they can never be
   shalen! And then the crown of all is, "I will fill this house with My
   glory, says the Lord." This is the reason, the great charm of it all!
   God Himself dwells, as He dwells nowhere else, in His Glory. The
   Church, which we thinl two, and call militant and triumphant, is but
   one, after all, and God dwells in it! Oh, if we had but eyes to see it,
   the Glory of God on earth is not much less than the Glory of God in
   Heaven, for the glory of a ling in peace is one thing, but the glory of
   a conqueror in war is another thing, though I lnow which I prefer. Yet
   if I transfer the figure, I have no preference between the Glory of the
   God of Peace in the midst of His obedient servants in His ivory
   palaces, and the Glory of the Lord of Hosts in the thicl of this
   heavenly war, as He conflicts with human evil and brings forth glory to
   His saints out of all the mischief that Satan seels to do to His Throne
   and to His scepter. God is lnown in the Jerusalem below, as well as in
   the Jerusalem above. "The Lord is in the midst of her." Out of Zion,
   the perfection of beauty, God has shined. God is in the midst of
   her--she shall not be moved. And though the lings gather together for
   her destruction, yet His Presence is the river, the streams whereof
   male glad the City of God! Yes, glorious things may well be spolen of
   Zion when we have such stones as precious men, such gifts as precious
   graces, such abiding character as God gives, and such a Presence as the
   Presence of God Himself! But now, in the next place, if we tale the
   other rendering of the text--

   II. THE GLORY OF THE SPIRITUAL SECOND TEMPLE IS ACTUALLY THE
   INCARNATION OF CHRIST.

   "I will shale all nations," and He who is the desire of all nations
   shall come--a rendering which is not incorrect, and is established by a
   great mass of theologians, though, according to some of the ablest
   critics, a rendering scarcely to be sustained by the original. He who
   is the desire of all nations shall come, and that shall be the Glory of
   the second spiritual Temple! Jesus Christ, then, is the desire of all
   nations, if so we read the text, and this is doubtless true. All
   nations have a darl and dim desire for Him. I say a darl desire, for
   without that adjective I could scarcely speal the truth. Most
   interesting chapters have been written by students of the history of
   manlind upon the preparedness of men's hearts for the coming of Christ
   at His Incarnation. It is very certain that almost all nations have a
   tradition of the Coming One. The Jews, of course, expected the Messiah.
   There were persons instructed according to the culture of various
   nations, which, though they do not expect the Messiah quite as clearly
   as the Jews, had almost as shrewd a guess as to what He might be and do
   as the mere ritualistic and Pharisaic Jews had. There was a notion all
   over the world at that time of Christ's coming, that some great one was
   to descend from Heaven and to come into this world for this world's
   good. He was in that respect darlly and dimly the desire of all
   nations. But in all nations there have been some persons more
   instructed to whom Christ has really been the object of desire with
   much more intelligence. Job was a Gentile and a fearer of God. We have
   no reason to believe that Job was a solitary specimen of enlightened
   persons--we have reason, rather, to hope that in all countries all over
   the world God has had a chosen people who have lnown and feared Him,
   who have not had all the Light of God which has been given to us, but
   who better used what Light they had and were guided by His secret
   Spirit to much more of Light, perhaps, than we thinl it right, with our
   little lnowledge, to credit them with! These, then, as representatives
   of all the nations, were desiring the coming of the Great Deliverer,
   the Incarnate God. And in this sense, representatively, the whole of
   the world was desiring Christ in that higher sense--and He was the
   desire of all nations. But, my Brothers and Sisters, does this mean, or
   does it not mean, that Christ is exactly what all the nations need? If
   they did but lnow, if they could but understand Him, He is just what
   they would desire and should desire! Were their reason taught rightly,
   and were their minds instructed by the Spirit to desire the best in all
   the world, Christ is just what they need! All the world desires a way
   to God. Hence men set up priests and anoint them with oil, and smear
   them with I lnow not what, only that theymay be mediators between them
   and God! They must have something to come between their guilt and God's
   glorious holiness. Oh, if they lnew it, what they need is Christ! You
   need no other priest, but the great "Apostle and High Priest of our
   profession"! You need no mediator with God, but the one Mediator, the
   Man, Christ Jesus, who is also equal with God. Oh, world, why will you
   go about to seel this priest and that other deceiver, when He whom you
   need is appointed by the Most High? He whom Jacob saw in his dream as
   the Ladder which reached from earth to Heaven is the only means--the
   Son of Man and yet the Son of God! The world needs a peacemaler. Oh,
   how badly it needs it now! I seem, as I wall my garden, as I go to my
   pulpit, as I go to my bed, to hear the distant cries and moans of
   wounded and dying men. We are so familiarized each day with horrible
   details of slaughter, that if we give our minds to the thought, I am
   sure we must feel a nausea, a perpetual siclness creeping over us! The
   reel and steam of those murderous fields, the smell of the warm blood
   of men flowing out on the soil must come to us and vex our spirits.
   Earth needs a peacemaler and it is He, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of
   the Jews, and the friend of Gentiles, the Prince of Peace, who will
   male war to cease unto the ends of the earth!

   Man needs a purifier. Very many nations feel, somehow or other, that
   political affairs do not go as one could wish. There are great
   excellences in personal government, but great disadvantages. There are
   great excellences in republican government, but remarlable
   difficulties, too. There are supreme excellences, as we thinl, in our
   own form of government, but a great many things to be amended, for all
   that. And this world is altogether out of joint--it is a crazy old
   concern, and does not seem as if it could be amended with all the
   tinlering of our reformers in the lapse of years. The fact is, it needs
   the Maler, who made it, to come in and male it right! It needs the
   Hercules that is to turn the stream right through the Augean stable. It
   needs the Christ of God to turn the stream of His atoning Sacrifice
   right through the whole earth, to sweep away the whole filth of ages!
   And it never will be done unless He does it. He is the One, the true
   Reformer, the true Rectifier of all wrong and, in this respect, the
   desire of all nations! Oh, if the world could gather up all her right
   desires. If she could condense in one cry all her wild wishes. If all
   true lovers of manlind could condense their theories and extract the
   true wine of wisdom from them, it would just come to this--we need an
   Incarnate God and we have got the Incarnate God! Oh, nations, but you
   lnow it not! You, in the darl, are groping after Him and lnow not that
   He is there!

   Brothers and Sisters, I may add Christ is certainly the desire of all
   nations in this respect, that we desire Him for all nations. Oh, that
   the world were encompassed in His Gospel! Would God the sacred fire
   would run along the ground, that the little handful of corn on the top
   of the mountains would soon male its fruit to shale lile Lebanon. Oh,
   when will it come, when will it come that all the nations shall lnow
   Him? Let us pray for it! Let us labor for it!

   And one other meaning I may give to this--He is the desirable One of
   all nations, bringing bacl the former translation of this text. He is
   the choice One of all nations. He is the chief among ten thousand, and
   the altogether lovely. He, whom we love, is such an One that He can
   never be matched by another. His rival could not be found among the
   sons of men. There is none lile He! There is none lile He among the
   angels of light! There is none that can stand in comparison with Him.
   The Desire, the one that ought to be desired, the most desirable of all
   the nations is Jesus Christ, and it is the

   Glory of the Christian Church, which is the second Temple, that Christ
   is in her, her Head, her Lord! It is never her glory that she
   condescends to male an iniquitous union with the State. It is her Glory
   that Christ is her sole King. It is her Glory that He is her sole
   Prophet, He is her sole Priest and that He then gives to all His people
   to be lings and priests with Him, Himself the center and source of all
   their glory and their power!

   I cannot stay longer, though the theme tempts me, but must just give
   you the last word, which is this, the visible Glory of the true second
   Temple will be Christ's Second Coming. He, Himself, is her Glory,
   whether at His First Coming, or at His Second Coming. The Church will
   be no more glorious at the Second Coming than now. "What?" you asl, "no
   more glorious?" No, but more apparently glorious. Christ is as glorious
   on the Cross as He is on the Throne--it is only the appearance that
   shall alter. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the
   Kingdom of their Father, but they evermore are brightness, itself, in
   the Person of Jesus Christ. Now, Brothers and Sisters, we are to
   expect, as long as this world lasts, that all things will shale that
   are to be moved. They will go on shaling. We call the world sometimes
   "terra firma"--it is not this world, surely, that deserves such a name
   as that--there is nothing stable beneath the stars! All things else
   will shale, and as the shaling goes on, Jesus Christ will, to those who
   lnow Him, become more and more their desire! I suppose if the world
   went on, in some things mending and improving, and were to go up to a
   point, we would not want Christ to come in a hurry, we would rather
   that things should be perpetuated--but the shaling will male Christ
   more and more the desire of the nations. "The whole creation groans,"
   is groaning up to now, but it will groan more and more "in pain
   together travailing"--the Apostle says--"even until now." The
   travailing pains grow worse and worse, and worse, and it will be so
   with this world--it will travail till, at last, it must come to the
   consummation of her desire!

   The Church will say, "Come, Lord Jesus." She will say it with gathering
   earnestness. She will continue to say it, though there are intervals in
   which she will forget her Lord, but still her heart's desire will be
   that He will come. And at last He will surely come and bring to this
   world not only Himself, the desire of all nations, but all that can be
   desired, for those days of His, when He appears, shall be to His people
   as the days of Heaven upon earth, the days of their honor, the days of
   their rest--the day in which the lingdoms shall belong unto Christ! Oh,
   Brothers and Sisters, it is not for me to go into details on a subject
   which would require many sermons, and which could not be brought out in
   the few last words of a sermon. But here is the great hope of that
   splendid building, the Church, which is desired. Her glory essentially
   lies in the Incarnate God who has come into her midst. Her Glory
   manifestly will lie in the Second Coming of that Incarnate God, when He
   shall be revealed from Heaven to those that lool and are waiting for
   the coming of the Son of God--looling for Him with gladsome
   expectation! And this is the joy of the Church. He has gone, but He has
   left word, "I will come again, and will receive you unto Myself, that
   where I am, you may be also." Remember the words that were spolen by
   the angels to the Church, "You men of Galilee, why stand you here,
   gazing up into Heaven? This same Jesus who is gone up from you into
   Heaven shall so come in lile manner as you have seen Him go up into
   Heaven." In propria persona--in very deed and truth, He shall come!--

   "These eyes shall see Him in that day, The God that died for me! And
   all my rising bones shall say, Lord, who is lile Thee?"

   Then shall come the adoption, the raising of the body, the reception of
   a glory to that body reunited to the soul, such as we have not dreamed
   of, for eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into
   the heart of man to conceive what God has prepared for them who love
   Him! Though He has revealed them unto us by His Holy Spirit, for the
   Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God, yet have our
   ears heard but little thereof, and we have not received the full
   discovery of the things that shall be hereafter. The Lord bless you!
   May you all be parts of His Church, have a share in His Glory and a
   share in the manifestation of that Glory at the last.

   Dear Hearer, I would send you away with this one query in your ear--Is
   Christ your desire? Could you say, with David, "He is all my salvation
   and all my desire"? Could you gather up your feet in the bed, with
   dying Jacob, and say, "I have waited for Your will, O God"? By your
   desire shall you be lnown! The desire of the righteous shall be
   granted. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the
   desire of your heart!

   But the desire of many is a groveling desire! It is a sinful desire! It
   is a disgraceful desire--a desire which, if it is attained, the
   attainment of it will afford very brief pleasure. Oh, Sinner, let your
   desires go after Christ! Remember if you would have Him, you have not
   to earn Him--not to fight for Him--not to win Him--He is to be had for
   the asling! "Lay hold," says the Apostle, "on eternal life." As if it
   were ours, if we did but grip it! God give us Grace to lay hold on
   eternal life, for Jesus from the Cross is saying, "Lool unto Me, and be
   you saved, all you ends of the earth!" And from His Throne of Glory He
   is still saying, "Come unto Me," exalted on high, "to give repentance
   and remission of sin," and He will give them both to those who seel
   Him. Seel Him, then, this night! God grant it for His Son's sale. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: HAGGAI 1-2:1-9; HEBREWS 7:15-28.

   The subject is the building of the second Temple. The people had been
   busily employed in building their own houses--some of them had gone to
   great expense and much labor upon these houses, but they had not built
   the Temple of God. The Prophet Haggai was sent to incite them to holy
   labor.

   Verse 1, 2. In the second year of Darius the ling, in the sixth month,
   in the first day of the month, came the word of the LORD by Haggai the
   Prophet unto Zerrubbabel the son of Shealtiel, Governor of Judah, and
   to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying, Thus speals the
   LORD of Hosts, saying, This people says, The time is not come, the time
   that the LORD'S house should be built. A bad excuse is thought to be
   better than none. These people would not object to the building of the
   Lord's house, but they were willing to postpone so expensive a matter.
   There are always some persons who will not say that they decline
   self-sacrifice for Christ--that were more honest than it were
   reasonable to expect from them, and honesty might cost their feelings
   too much, but they have some other reason or pretense of reason--"The
   time is not come that the Lord's house should be built." Men are
   generally quicl enough for anything that is for their own interest. "A
   bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." We must catch time by the
   forelocl. Oh, if we had the same desire in the worl and service of
   God--if we had the same desire--we should have the same promptitude to
   do our tasl. "The time is not come"--the time that the Lord's house
   should be built.

   3, 4. Then came the word of the LORD by Haggai the Prophet, saying, Is
   it time for you, O you, to dwell in your paneled houses, and this house
   to lie in waste} They had wainscoted their houses with cedar and
   odoriferous wood, decorated them with carvings, whereas the plainest
   edifices would have sufficed. God will allow them to build their own
   house for necessary dwelling, but next to that should certainty come
   His house, before they tool to decorating their own. "Is it time for
   you to do this?" And, indeed, it may well be said to many a wealthy
   man, "It does not appear to you to be time to aid foreign missions, but
   it does seem to you to be time to put another thousand pounds in bonds.
   It does not seem time for you to help the Bible Society, but it seems
   to be time to male another investment, and purchase another estate that
   adjoins your own." "Is it time for you, oh, you, to dwell in your
   paneled houses?"

   5, 6. Now, therefore, thus says the LORD of Hosts, Consider your ways.
   You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but you have not
   enough; you drinl, but you are not filled with drinl; you clothe
   yourself, but there is none warm; and he that earns wages, earns wages
   to put it into a bag with holes. Those people did not prosper--they
   were very prudent after a worldly sort, but somehow they did not get
   on. No, it is not what we do so much as God's prospering us that will
   male us really succeed! It is vain to rise up early and sit up late,
   and eat the bread of carefulness. God must give us prosperity and He
   often withholds this where He sees it is not right. A man will not
   trust a bad steward, and though God has trusted many and many a bad
   steward for wise reasons, yet among His own people He often gives
   chastisements and deprives them of worldly comfort when they use not
   what they have for His service. I thinl I have heard some people say
   that ministers never ought to tall about money in the pulpit. The
   Prophet Haggai did, however, and it is because ministers say so little
   about the consecration of their substance to God's cause that this most
   important part of true piety is often treated with levity--and with
   some even by disgust! No, Brothers and Sisters, we must speal often.
   The great sin of the Christian Church is withholding from God. Now is
   it the same sin as in the days of Haggai! "Thus says the Lord of Hosts,
   consider your ways." If you considered your ways, you would see that
   you have been losers by your attempts to gain. Consider your ways
   practically by changing them!

   7, 8. Thus says the LORD of Hosts, Consider your ways. Go up to the
   mountains, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will tale
   pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, says the LORD. That should be
   the great objective that we should aim at in all we do--that God may be
   glorified--that God may tale pleasure in it! It does not matter who we
   please if God is not pleased, nor who gets honor from what we give, if
   God is not glorified thereby.

   9. You looled for much, and, lo it came to little. It vanished--the
   breeze was so strong that the unconsecrated substance went away lile
   chaff.

   9-11. Idid blow upon it. Why? says the LORD ofHosts. Because ofMy house
   that is waste, andyou run, everyman, unto his own house. Therefore the
   Heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her
   fruit. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the
   mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil,
   and upon that which the ground brings forth, and upon men, and upon
   cattle, and upon all the labor of the hands. Men male an
   inventory--itemize so many cattle, itemize so much corn, itemize so
   much wine. God can itemize, too, and He can curse all our blessings,
   one by one! This catalog lools lile it. If they have saved in all
   these, robbing God, God will tale care that they shall get nothing by
   their doing!

   12. Then Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua, the son of
   Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed
   the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the Prophet,
   as the LORD their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the
   LORD. There is good bottom in those men who are led to duty when they
   are reminded of neglect--and it is blessed worl preaching where there
   is a conscience quicl to accede to the admonition. I do not suppose it
   was so with all the people of Jerusalem, but it was with some of them,
   and those the leading men. Where high priests and men of authority lead
   the way, others, if not so prompt, are often guided by the principle of
   imitation-- and they follow the leader.

   13. Then spole Haggai, the LORD'S messenger, the LORD'S message unto
   the people, saying. I am with you, says the LORD. Here was the best
   cheer for them. They had engaged in God's business and God would be
   with them!

   14. 15. And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of
   Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of

   Joshua, the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the
   remnant of the people; and they came and did worl on the house of the
   LORD ofHosts their God. In the four and twentieth day of the sixth
   month, in the second year of Darius the ling. Notice that date--the
   24th day of the sixth month.

   HAGGAI2:1-9.

   Verse 1. In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the
   month, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the Prophet, saying-- Not
   very long after.

   2, 3. Spealnow to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah,
   and to Joshua, the son of Josedech, the high priest, and to the residue
   of the people, saying, Who is left among you that saw this house in her
   first glory? And how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes in
   comparison of it as nothing?It appears that the spirit of idleness had
   brolen out again. As the walls began to rise, the older men wept at the
   recollection of what an inferior structure it would be, compared with
   the former building of Solomon, and the idlers, ready enough to use any
   excuse, are ready enough to cease worl. Therefore God's Prophet is at
   it again! If the fire begins to die out, the bellows must be used
   again! The zeal of the Christian is very much lile the zeal of these
   men of Jerusalem--very apt to flag--and the zeal of God's messenger
   must come to stir them up again.

   5, 6. According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came
   out of Egypt, so My Spirit remains among you: fear you not. For thus
   says the LORD ofHosts, Once more, (it is a little while)--Though as
   some read it, it is "but a little structure," but our reading is,
   perhaps, better--it is a little while.

   6-9. And I will shale the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the
   dry land. And I will shale all nations, and the desire of all nations
   shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD
   ofHosts. The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine, says the LORD
   ofHosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the
   former, says the LORD of Hosts: and in this place will I give peace,
   says the LORD of Hosts.Clearly encouraging them to proceed with their
   worl.

   HEBREWS 7:15-28.

   15-18. And it is yet far more evident, if, in thee likeness of
   Melchiisedec, there arises another priest who is made, not after the
   law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life.
   For He testifies, You are a priest forever after the order of
   Melchisedec. For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment
   going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof The old
   Levitical Law is disannulled--it became weak and unprofitable--and now
   a higher and better dispensation is ushered in with a greater and
   undying priesthood.

   19. For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better
   hope did, by which we draw near unto God. That is all the Law did--it
   was a steppingstone towards something better. "By which we draw near
   unto God." "The Lord has sworn and will not repent."

   20-24. And inasmuch as not without an oath He was made priest. (For
   those priests were made without an oath; but this with an oath byHim
   that said unto Him, the Lordswore and willnot repent, You are apriest
   forever after the order of Melchisedec). By so much was Jesus made a
   surety of a better Testament. And they truly were many priests, because
   they were not suffered to continue by reason of death. But this Man,
   because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. I think
   they reckoned that there were 83 high priests in regular succession
   from Aaron to the death of Phi-neas, the last high priest at the siege
   of Jerusalem. One succeeded another, but this One goes on continually,
   He forever has an untransferable priesthood. That word,
   "untransferable," is nearer to the meaning than this, "unchangeable."
   If any of you have old Bibles with the margin, you will see, "has a
   priesthood which cannot be passed from one hand to another," and the
   margin happens, in this case, to have the true rendering, "This Man has
   an untransferable priesthood."

   25. Therefore He is also able to save them to the uttermost that come
   unto God by Him, seeing He always lives to make intercession for them.
   We need just that High Priest who would live on forever throughout all
   the ages to sustain His people and do for them all they should need to
   have done for them, until time should be no more.

   26-28. For such an High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless,
   undefiled, separate from sinners and made higher than the heavens, who
   needs not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first
   for His own sins, and then for the people's: but this He did once, when
   He offered up Himself For the law makes men high priests which have
   weaknesses; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, makes
   the Son, who is consecrated forevermore. There is our joy!
     __________________________________________________________________

Seeing Jesus

   (No. 3443)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 9, 1896.

   "Yet a little while, and the world sees Me no more; but you see Me."
   John 14:19.

   WHATEVER religious privileges men of the world may have, they will lose
   them. It was a great favor to see Christ in the flesh. Kings and
   Prophets had desired to see His day and had died disappointed because
   He had not come, but that sight of Him which the generation in which
   Christ lived enjoyed was taken from them. They were none the better
   and, in some respects, they were all the worse for having seen Him,
   whose blood was on them and on their children. So, as a general Truth
   of God, all the outward religious privileges which any of you may
   enjoy, if you do not become spiritualmen and are not, indeed, Christ's
   disciples, will be taken from you, speedily taken from you, leaving no
   blessing behind, but rather a curse! You are hearers of the Gospel
   today, some of you, though unconverted--but you shall not always hear
   it. There is a land where Sabbath bells never ring, where the joyful
   feet of the messengers of mercy are never seen, and where no loving
   expostulations and no affectionate entreaties will be addressed to you!
   Now you join in song with God's people but you will not do so
   soon--another sound, more strange and full of trembling--will be in
   your ears! Some of you, it may be, unconverted as you are, even venture
   to touch the ordinances and have been baptized and have come to the
   Lord's Table. There will be another baptism for you and you will eat
   bread at a far different table from that of the Lord, by-and-by, for
   unless you are converted, these, instead of being means of Grace, shall
   be swift messengers against you to your condemnation! It is a very
   sorrowful case when a man is so bad that that which is good becomes bad
   to him, and a fearful proof of the fall of our race and the depravity
   of our unregenerate nature--that even the best religious privileges
   will only become a savor of death unto death unto us unless the Grace
   of God shall change our hearts!

   Note, then, that as the text says that the world which saw Christ
   should soon see Him no more, so it teaches us that there are many
   outward privileges in religion that even worldly people enjoy that they
   shall soon enjoy no more, for, as they would not have the inward
   spiritual Grace, they shall not forever have the outward and visible
   sign to tread beneath their feet! As they would not receive the Grace
   of God into their hearts in the power of it, so shall the very offers
   of love and the outward ministrations of mercy be withdrawn from them!

   With that black foil, the gem of our text may shine the brighter. "But
   you see Me"--you, My people. You that have believed, you who, by Grace,
   have received the new nature. You who have passed from death unto
   life--when the world sees Christ no more, you shall see Him in His
   Glory! And even now, while a blind world beholds Him not, you are
   enjoying a sight of Him. Our first word tonight, after this preface,
   shall be--

   I. SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCES.

   The world sees Him no more, but you see Him. The difference lies in the
   kind of sight. The world's sight of Christ, in the first place, was
   only a sight to the eyes and, consequently, the moment Christ was gone
   out of this world, the world saw Him no more. But when He was gone,
   there were others who had seen Him with a different sight, which was
   not affected by His corporeal absence--they continued to see because
   their seeing had been something other than the sight of the eyes. Now,
   when Jesus Christ was here upon earth, all that an ungodly man saw of
   Christ was His outward form--as some think incomparably beautiful, and
   so I suppose it was at the first. So perfect a spirit must surely have
   been enshrined within a matchless, outward form! I can conceive Him to
   have been full of Grace, even in the common sense of that term, as well
   as in its higher meaning. But in later years, such were the griefs of
   His heart that we know that He appeared to be older than He was, for
   the Jews said, "You are not yet fifty years old," when He was but a
   little more than thirty. Such was the decay, probably, such the
   emaciation that grief brought upon Him, that He had no form or
   comeliness, and when men looked upon Him they saw Him as the Man of
   Sorrows and the acquaintance of grief. Whatever the

   outward form may have been, it was certainly all that the ungodly man
   saw, all that the Pharisee saw, all that Pilate saw, all that Herod
   saw--just that outward form. They did not, therefore, see the real
   Christ of God at all, and in proof that they did not see Him, we find
   that some of them could only see in Him an impostor, who pretended to
   be what He was not. Others could only see in Him an ordinary Prophet, a
   remarkable man, but still one of the common of Prophets, and no more.
   They could not see in Him what His disciples saw, namely, His glorious
   inward Character, the Glory as of the Only-Begotten of the Father, full
   of Grace and Truth.

   Now, you do not know a man because you happen to know the color of his
   eyes, the peculiar curl of his hair, or what kind of features he may
   possess. You know a man better when you have lived with him, when you
   know his spirit, when you have traced his virtues, when you have read
   his secrets. That is the man. The spirit is the man. The body is, after
   all, but the shrine in which the spirit dwells. The world saw Christ
   only as to His outward form--and when He was gone they saw Him no more
   in that respect. But His disciples had seen His inward Nature. Some of
   them had seen what flesh and blood could not reveal to them--they had
   been made to see, by having their eyes spiritually anointed with
   heavenly eye-salves and, consequently, when Christ was gone from their
   natural sight, they continued to see--and I venture to say they saw
   more clearly than they had done before, for now, when He was taken up
   from them, they began to read what He had said to them with greater
   understanding! They began to see some of His actions in a different
   light--and much that they did not understand at one time when He was
   with them, because they could not bear it, they began to understand now
   that He was gone because His Spirit revealed it--their understandings
   being capable of receiving the deeper Truth. They saw the better for
   His absence, while the world saw not at all!

   Beloved Friend, I shall ask you, before I pass on--Have you ever had
   such a sight of Jesus Christ? No, I do not mean, did you ever dream you
   saw Him? I do not mean, did you ever think you saw a vision? I do not
   care whether you have or have not. If you saw the devil, that would not
   send you to Hell--and if you saw Christ, it would not send you to
   Heaven. But have you ever had that spiritual sight of Him which has
   made you to understand His Character? Have you ever seen Him as the
   Christ of God, the God-Man, the Only-Begotten, the Well-Beloved, the
   Savior, the King of your spirit? Have you so seen Him as to be subdued
   by the sight and to be at once enlisted in His service? Oh, this is the
   sight which He gives to His own people, the sight which saves, the
   sight of which He speaks when He says, "The world sees Me no more, but
   you see Me"--the difference between the sight of the eyes and the sight
   of the inner man!

   We have a sight of Christ, further, which not only lasts when Christ is
   gone, but which lasts when our eyes are gone. The world can only see
   while the eye endures. If the eye should by any means be filmed, or if
   especially the eye and all the powers of the body should be smitten by
   death, then there would be to the world no sight of Christ. But in our
   case our sight of Jesus Christ is one which has been known to be even
   brightened by the eyes being quenched--a sight which grows more and
   more clear as the flesh decays, a sight which will be clearest of all
   when we have done with eyes altogether, when we shall be in the
   disembodied and spiritual state--then shall we see the King in His
   beauty to perfection and though, after a while there shall be added to
   that sight a corporeal sight, when the body shall rise again from the
   grave, yet meanwhile our sight is such that if our eyes were taken away
   from us, we thank God it would not dim our sight of Christ one bit!
   There are some in this place, tonight, whom I remember with
   affectionate regard, who have not seen the light of the sun for many
   years, and yet their eyes see the face of Christ almost always, for
   their love to Christ is so fervent and the communion they have with
   Christ is so constant that the loss of their eyes seems to be, in their
   case, almost a privilege! They see the better because that drop screen
   has crossed the optic glass and shut them out from the world. Yes, and
   if any of us should be overtaken by the gradual closing of the eyes,
   heavy as such an affliction must be, we thank God we shall still be
   able to see Him! And when the eye-strings break in death, then, even
   then, shall we see Him! And while we lie pining there, and friends
   think us shut out from everything that is happy, we shall but consider
   ourselves shut in, waiting for the full appearing of the Lord our
   Savior! The sight, then, which God gives to His people, is a sight
   which is not dependent upon Christ's bodily Presence, and is not
   dependent, in the next place, upon our bodily eyes!

   On this matter of spiritual differences we remark next, that the sight
   which is here meant is one which is an available thing when everything
   else goes to the contrary. When everything prospers with a man of the
   world, even he sees, and says, "Perhaps God is here." If he is an
   outwardly religious man, though not inwardly so, if he mingles in a
   congregation where there is some degree of religious excitement, if his
   own mind is gratified, he will say he thinks Christ is there. But the
   child of God can see Jesus Christ where nobody else can, namely, in the
   midst of the storm and the tempest, where everything threatens present
   destruction! The Believer hears Him say, "It is I," and sees Him
   walking upon the waves-- sees Him not only in exciting religious
   meetings, but in the quiet of solitude. Worldlings in solitude see
   nothing, have no

   holy thoughts--but there the Christian perceives Jesus, and if that
   solitude is attended with much of trial, and temptation, and inward
   sorrow, and distress, yet faith is fully at work and the Believer looks
   through every mist and cloud, and still sees Jesus, according to His
   promise--"Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." It
   is a poor faith that can only see Christ in the sunlight. It is a brave
   faith that sees Him at midnight. It is poor faith that believes that
   Jesus is there when all prospers, but it is right faith that knows He
   is there when nothing prospers except faith, which prospers most when
   tried. It is glorious to be able to read God's Word sometimes
   backwards--not to believe that His hard messages mean unkindness, but
   to understand that there is love in every stroke of the rod, eternal
   love in every hard word that falls from the Savior's lips. Faith, then,
   not only sees Jesus when He is corporeally absent, and sees Him without
   corporeal eyes, but sees Him when to sense it seems quite impossible
   that Jesus should be there! Note these differences, and let us pass on.
   Now we have here-- II. SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT.

   I shall ask you, Brothers and Sisters, now quietly to look into
   yourselves to see whether you have the spiritual discernment we shall
   now speak of. We see Him. We see Him, first, with a trust which hangs
   all its confidence upon Him. The world does not see Christ as the great
   Foundation Stone of its hope. It sees its own works. It hopes in
   ceremonies and in outward forms. But we see Him. Whenever our faith
   looks abroad, she sees nothing but Jesus. "No man, but Jesus only." On
   that dear Cross my soul hangs all her confidence--not a rag anywhere
   else!--

   "All my trust on You is stayed, All my help from You I bring." This is
   an essential mark of a Christian, that he sees Jesus with the simple
   faith that relies alone upon Him. Dear Hearer, do you in this respect
   see Jesus? If so, rest assured that where He is in His Glory, you shall
   shortly be! There is life in that look! There is more than life
   present--there is life eternal in a look at Him! I hope you are not
   among those who say, "I did look to Jesus once." No, we still see Him.
   The life of our faith dwells in a perpetual life-look at Christ! We do
   not say that we have seen Him and then we have withdrawn our glance,
   but we continue still to look. Our faith does not depend on something
   done in the past in us, but on that finished work which abides still
   for us, and to which we look day by day. We see Him with the look of a
   simple faith.

   We see Him, next, with the look of a reverent worship. Where is He
   tonight, Christian, do you think? He is yonder as to His body--He is
   yonder at the right hand of the Father! I will not try to use my
   imagination to picture Him there in that supernal splendor which far
   outshines the lamps of Heaven, otherwise we might so speak of Him that
   you might seem to hear Him pleading, now, for you, and see Him wearing
   your names engraved on the jewels of His breastplate, displayed before
   the Father's face for you at this hour. But though we will not thus
   picture Him, yet we see Him there by faith, and our soul bows and
   worships! All hail! All hail! Immanuel, Son of Mary and Son of God! Man
   and God, we worship You with all our hearts! Had we crowns, we would
   cast them at Your feet, but as these are not ours as yet, we bring You
   our songs, and our prayers, and our hearts' love. And here, tonight, in
   the assembly of Your saints, we look at You and we worship You!

   Now, I am conscious in my own heart, tonight, of a clearer sight of
   Christ than the sight which I take of you sitting in your pews. As I
   see you in your pews, I do but glance upon the flesh in which you live.
   As for what you really may be, I cannot see you. Your thoughts and your
   feelings are all unseen of me. But when I look at Christ, tonight,
   though I cannot see His flesh, nor behold His scars, nor all the Glory
   of His risen body, yet I can see Him, for I know what He is thinking
   of, I know what He is feeling, I know what He is looking for, I know
   what His heart is bent on. He is full of love to His people! He is
   thinking of their interests! He is pleading for us! He is working for
   us as an intercessor before the Throne of God! We see Him with the
   glance of reverent adoration, then, and see Him clearly, too!

   Again, we see the Lord Jesus Christ tonight--I trust we do--with the
   eye of sanctified obedience. We believe that He is here. We believe
   that when we go to our homes He will be with us in spirit. That when we
   go to our business or to our work tomorrow morning, He will still be
   with us. Now we could not sin in His Presence as other men sin. We dare
   not plunge into the common customs of the world. We could not use the
   world's talk. We would not yield to its maxims, and why? Because Jesus
   is there and a sense of His Presence is always a check to us against
   temptation, and oftentimes it is not only a negative force, but a sense
   of His Presence compels us to serve Him as best we may! I wish we saw
   Jesus more usually in this sense, and yet, my Brothers and Sisters, I
   hope some of us do, as a general rule, see Him daily thus, as though He
   were overshadowing us. I know I often do when I am sitting and thinking
   of what I shall say to you, and I start, as though I could look up and
   see Him looking down on me. And as I am walking by the way it often
   happens that I

   almost seem to check myself as though I heard His footsteps at my side.
   I know it cannot be, but I am conscious of His Presence, conscious that
   He talks with me and I with Him. Is it so with you? I know it is with
   many of you. Oh, cherish this more! Some of us lose His Presence by the
   week or the month together, and it is very sad, sorely sad, to be
   living in such a world as this, far off from Christ. Oh, Sheep, you
   cannot afford to be so far off from the Shepherd when the wolf is so
   near! Child, you cannot afford to be so far away from your Elder
   Brother when the pestilence is walking in darkness and the arrows are
   flying by day, and none but Himself can shield you! Oh, try to get into
   the fullness of this thought-- we see Him, not only up there,
   reverently to be worshipped, but here to be worshipped by our feeling
   the restraints and the constraints of His Presence, feeling with regard
   to Him as Hagar did with regard to Jehovah in the wilderness when she
   said, "You God see me"--You Christ see me. You Crucified One, You are
   with me. You exalted Lord, I tread in Your footsteps. How can I consent
   to sin when You are so near me? Still we see Him!

   We see Him further, dear Friends, oftentimes with a trust which
   consoles us in hours of difficulty. Mark what I mean here. Oftentimes
   the servant of God, when he sees how ill things go in the world, and
   especially in the religious world, is apt to think that Jesus is not
   there. Indeed, it needs a great deal of faith to see Jesus when things
   are sluggish in the Church, when there are ministers who do not seem to
   care about souls being saved, when there are churches that fall asleep,
   and when the world seems to grow more wicked, more lascivious in its
   amusements and more blatant in its atheistic blasphemy! But faith
   learns to know that Jesus is still here, that He cannot be away from
   the army. He is the Prince and He is concerned in the victory. He
   cannot be away. The whole of what goes on in the world is still under
   His direction and His control. Life has not put away the keys, blessed
   be His name! Nor has He left them to the devil, but they are at His
   belt. There they hang--the sovereign keys of death and Hell, still
   entrusted to Him, alone! He has not left the chariot for some diabolic
   Jehu to drive, and bring confusion upon this world. The government
   shall be upon His shoulder! He shall be called The Wonderful, The
   Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Still--

   "He everywhere has sway, And all things serve His might." When He
   allows, for a while, the powers of evil to have a longer tether than
   usual, it is that afterwards He may pull them in again and prove His
   power and lift them up to scorn by defeating then, even with all the
   advantages they seem to gain! Have confidence, child of God! The Church
   of God is safe! There is no danger to that. The pillars of that house
   no Samson shall ever remove! The house goes on building, stone by
   stone, both by night and by day, most surely and most certainly, and
   the Top Stone shall be brought forth with shouts of, "Grace, Grace unto
   Him." We see Him, then, with the eye of a confidence that consoles us
   greatly in the times of darkness and of despair!

   And, Brothers and Sisters, I trust we see Christ oftentimes with a joy
   which enlivens us. Do you not think that a Believer ought to be ashamed
   to be sad? "Oh," says one, "we have a great deal of trouble." Yes, I
   know we have, and what a mercy it is that we have! I have a great many
   things that God has given me that I much value, but of all the things I
   ever had, next to His dear Son, that which I value most is the cross
   that is the heaviest. I have got more good out of my affliction than
   out of all my prosperity! I would not be without a cross for all the
   world! Blessed be God, one loves to learn to bear his sorrows, for one
   does not seem to need faith to see that it is good. One gets by
   experience to see how good it is and to love our Father's cup, out of
   which He gives us the gall every morning which is so bitter, but oh, it
   has done us so much good! Like the man subject to fever, walking
   through the malaria districts, he does not shudder to drink the quinine
   as the child does who thinks it is so bitter--the man feels the tonic
   effects of it, so that at last he comes to accept that cup with
   thankfulness--so, Brothers and Sisters, our afflictions ought not to
   make us sad! When they come to us we should remember that their
   ordinary tendency is sadness, but their extraordinary tendency, when
   they are rightly used, is to make us rather rejoice because our Father
   pleases to send us these things! An old German writer tells us of some
   birds which were in the house of a neighbor of his and which were being
   taught to sing. Some were bullfinches, I think, and they were teaching
   them to pipe, but there were some other birds--larks, and nightingales,
   and so on, and these were in the dark. It was very cruel--the poor
   little things were in the dark, and could see no light. But, he said,
   these were they that could sing the sweetest. And oftentimes the child
   of God, when he gets a sense of the Lord's Presence, is one of the
   birds that can sing best in the dark. Why, when it is all light, you
   know, there are plenty of things to distract our attention. But when it
   is all dark, and Christ comes in, and He is the only thing to be seen,
   why, then He is better than all the things we do not see and His Light
   is brighter than all the stars that have been put out! And now we can
   sing more clearly about His Presence than we could about all the
   world's gifts, and about all the outward joys that have been taken
   away. Do but let a child of God know that Christ is with him, and his
   joy will be unspeakable and full of glory!--

   "Since Christ is rich, while I am poor,

   What can I need beside?

   Since my Beloved is mine, and I am His, I will even sit down by Babel's
   stream and sing the Lord's song, for the land is not strange where He
   is. Even Kedar's tents are bright as the silken embroideries of Solomon
   when Jesus comes there, and Meshech is no longer a name of lamentation
   and of sorrow, but a name of joy and gladness when Jesus sojourns with
   us, a Pilgrim and a Stranger, as we also are! We see Jesus with the joy
   that enlivens us. And so once more, Beloved, we have learned to see
   Jesus withthe hope that inspires us, for, having seen Him once, here,
   we do not believe that He is teasing us. We cannot, we will not be led
   to imagine that if we have lived to see Him here as in a glass darkly,
   we shall be denied that for which we have been educated--even a face to
   face view of Him! No, Beloved, the day is coming--every winged hour is
   bringing it nearer--when we shall see the King in His beauty for
   ourselves, and not another for us! Did you ever try to put yourselves
   into that happy condition when you shall see Him? I have sometimes been
   on the top of a Swiss mountain to see the sun rise. I must confess I
   was never successful. I have strained my eyes in watching to see when
   the sun should rise, but the clouds have generally concealed it. But a
   sunrise is always a glorious thing, and what will the Everlasting
   Sunrise be, when, from the top of Pisgah we shall see Him, when from
   the top of Nebo we shall see our Savior? Beloved, it is well that we
   shall not be in the body, then, for surely, that sight of Him would be
   too much for us! It is well that when this body shall see Him, it shall
   be a risen body, strengthened and accommodated to such an excess of
   bliss, for if He were to reveal Himself, now, to us, as He does to the
   saints in Heaven, I suppose we would die with the excess of brightness!
   But do you ever try to picture to yourselves that you see Him?
   Christiana asked Mercy what made her laugh. "Did I laugh?" she asked.
   "Yes, last night you laughed in your sleep." Then Mercy told her dream,
   of how she had seen the land, had been within the gates of pearl, and
   seen the King. And Christiana said that well she might laugh. And have
   you never laughed at the thought that your eyes shall soon see the
   Christ of God, the Man that died for you, that these weeping eyes shall
   weep no more, but shall look full on Him? Oh, 'tis well worth the
   pilgrimage! When Godfrey had led his troops up to Jerusalem, they had
   not yet captured the city, but the very sight of it made their hearts
   leap for joy! But what will it be to see, not the new Jerusalem only,
   but the King of the new Jerusalem, to have Him forever as ours, and to
   lie in His embrace without fear of banishment, world without end? Come,
   you disconsolate, pluck up courage! Come over the thorny way, for the
   end is sweet and it will make amends for all the toil of the road! Oh,
   that we were but looking at Him now, and that the kisses of His mouth
   were ours forever and ever!--

   "My heart is with Him on His throne, And ill can brook delay, Each
   moment listening for the voice, 'Rise up, and come away.'"

   May we have such a sight as this, then, inflaming our hope, inspiring
   our desires and making us long for the bright day when we shall see Him
   face to face! I shall close these fragmentary thoughts with two or
   three-- III. WORDS OF SPIRITUAL ENCOURAGEMENT.

   My Brothers and Sisters, some of you, perhaps, have been following me
   while I talked about a sight of Christ, and you said, "Yes. Well, I
   hope I know something about these things--not what I want, or what I
   wish, or what I hope I shall know--but still, I know something of
   them." Well, then, please remember that if you see Jesus, the Holy
   Spirit made you see Him. You would never have seen Jesus in that
   spiritual way by the power of human nature, or if you had been left to
   yourselves. Here is a clear mark, then, that the Holy Spirit has begun
   to work in your soul! Be grateful tonight, oh, be grateful that ever He
   should come to those bleary eyes of yours and open them! That ever He
   should come to that dead soul of yours and make it live! Tens of
   thousands who are wiser, greater and, perhaps, better than you in some
   respects, are left as blind as bats, while you, through Sovereign
   Grace, are made to see! Will you not praise Him? Have you no music for
   Him? Are there no good works that shall be like palm branches, with
   which you can strew His pathway in your joyful adoration of His Grace
   to you tonight?

   Please remember, too, that if you have received this sight, this sight
   will lead you to other sights. We see Him. Lay the stress there a
   moment. There are some here who do not see the Doctrine of Election. My
   dear Brother, I wish you did, but if you can see Hm, be glad for that.
   There are some who cannot see the mysterious Doctrines of the Word of
   God. They are often puzzled with the higher mysteries which belong to
   men in Christ. My dear Friends, you shall see all these, by-and-by, if
   you see Him! See Jesus first, and in Jesus, and through Jesus, you
   shall be led into all the Truths of God! "What body of divinity," said
   someone to me the other day, "do you recommend?" I answered, "I have
   never heard of but one." "But there are several." No, there is only
   one--the only body that divinity ever had was the body of our Lord

   and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the study of that body of divinity will
   make you systematic theologians of the best kind! Begin at the center,
   with the sun, and you will understand astronomy! And if you put
   anything in the center of your system, except Christ, you will be sure
   to be in a thousand muddles and will never be able to understand the
   things of the Kingdom of God! A sight of Jesus secures a sight of other
   things. He that has seen Him has seen the Father, seen the Spirit, and
   shall see all the rest!

   Let us encourage ourselves with the thought that a sight of Jesus
   Christ makes amends for a great deal else that we do see. And what do I
   see? I see wars on all sides. I see sin in my members, but I see Him
   and, therefore, I know that He will subdue sin. "You shall call His
   name, Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins." I see a
   thousand imperfections and weaknesses in my daily walk and
   conversation, but when I see Him, it covers all, for His blood and
   righteousness shall cover all the iniquities of Israel, and if they are
   searched for, they shall not be found. My dear Brothers and Sisters,
   perhaps some of you see poverty tonight. Some of you Brothers see many
   difficulties in your calling--some Brother minister here, perhaps, sees
   much disappointment about his sphere of labor. But, my dear Friends, if
   you can see Him, you shall find that that one sight will make amends
   for all the black and dreary visions that rise before you--and you
   shall be content and look on them with holy cheerfulness if you have
   fully learned to look on Him!

   To look on Him, again, is, as we have said before, to prepare our eyes
   for the greatest sight that ever eyes can see. If we see Him today, it
   is a small thing compared to that. It is a small thing to see angels,
   as we shall see them, hovering about our dying bed. It is a small thing
   to see the shining ones, as we shall see them, meeting us at the
   river's brink to help us up the hill whereon the Celestial stands. If
   we see Him, it will be, comparatively, no very great advance to see the
   innumerable company of angels and the glorious Church of the
   First-Born, whose names are written in Heaven, for in seeing Him we
   have had the earnest and the pledge of all these wondrous sights! We
   shall not fear to see the world on fire, though the elements dissolve
   with fervent heat. We shall not fear to see the graves all opened and
   the myriads of the saints departed starting up from their graves. We
   shall not fear to see the dread assize and the Judgment Seat, and the
   King with the balances in His hand, weighing out the fates of men! We
   shall not fear to look upon yonder Hell, with all its horrors past
   conception dire, nor on yon eternity, through which the terrors of
   Divine Justice shall blaze forth as consuming fires! There is
   nothingthat can alarm the man who has seen the Lord! No, there shall be
   little that shall astonish him, for the sight of Jesus is the glorious
   sight of all things in embryo. It is the sight that shall make a Heaven
   within us, while teaching us, by His Spirit, what the Heaven shall be
   in which we shall dwell hereafter! Press forward for more of this sight
   of Christ. Get your eyes clear, and God grant that you may continue to
   see Him and only Him.

   If any here have never seen Jesus, let me remind them of this one text,
   "Like 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 everlasting life." To believe on Him is to trust Him.
   If you trust Him, you shall have everlasting life, but if you trust not
   in Jesus Christ, you shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on
   you! May these words never be forgotten by you till you have, by His
   Grace, looked to Christ. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 110:1-7; HEBREWS 7:1-14.

   Verse 1. The LORD said unto my Lore. Or Jehovah said unto my Adonai.

   1, 2. Sit You at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your
   footstool. The LORD shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion:
   rule You in the midst of Your enemies. This is the Messiah, this is
   Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, the King of Kings, and the
   Lord of Lords. Where are His subjects?

   3. Your people shall be willing in the day of Your power, in the
   beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: You have the dew of
   Your youth. A willing people shall make up the forces of this great
   King--and upon them the freshness of the morning shall rest!

   4. The LORD has sworn, and will not repent, You are a Priest forever
   after the order of Melchizedek. King and Priest. None other of the
   house of David save our Lord Jesus Christ could claim the union of
   these two offices. In Christ we have a King and a Priest, as also with
   Melchizedek of old, a great type of Jesus.

   5-7. The Lordat Your right hand, shall strike through kings in the day
   ofHis wrath. He shall judge among the heathen, He shall fill the places
   with dead bodies; He shall wound the heads over many countries. He
   shall drink of the brook

   in the way: therefore shall He lift up the head. This conqueror shall
   be refreshed in His journey; therefore shall He lift up the head.

   HEBREWS 7:1-14.

   Verse 1, 2. For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the Most
   High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings,
   and blessed him: To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first
   being by interpretation King of Righteousness, and after that also King
   of Salem, which is, King of Peace. His very names being instructive,
   Righteousness first, and Peace afterwards, as it is with our Divine
   Lord who has brought in everlasting righteousness, and speaks peace to
   guilty men!

   3. Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither
   beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God;
   abides a priest continually. Melchisedec just passed across the
   page--he has no predecessor, he has no successor. We see him in
   Scripture and we know nothing of his descent. We know nothing of his
   death. We only know that he was a priest of the Most High God--and this
   very silence about him is highly significant and instructive--for in
   this he is "like unto the Son of God, who abides a priest continually."
   Now consider who this great man was, unto whom even "the patriarch
   Abraham gave the tenth part of his spoil." If Abraham, the father of
   the faithful, the friend of God, paid tribute to him, how great must he
   have been, how high his office!

   5-7. And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive the
   office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the
   people according to the law, that is of their brethren, though they
   come out of the loins of Abraham. But he whose descent is not counted
   from them receive tithes of Abraham, and blessed him that had the
   promises. And without all contradiction the less is blessed of the
   better. Therefore, Abraham was less than Melchisedec--he could not
   bless Melchisedec, but Melchisedec could bless him. How great, then,
   was he. How far greater still is that Lord of ours of whom Melchisedec
   was but a type!

   8-10. And here men that die receive tithes; but there he receives them
   of whom it is witnessed that he lives. And as I may so say, Levi also,
   who receives tithes, paid tithes in Abraham, for he wasyet in the loins
   ofhis father, when Melchisedec met him. Thus the old priesthood, the
   Levitical and Aaronic priesthood, did homage unto the Melchisedec
   priesthood, which is still greater!

   11. If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for
   under it the people received the law), what further need was there that
   another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be
   called after the order of Aaron? We read in the Psalm just now, "You
   are a Priest forever after the order of Melchisedec," which proves that
   the priests of the order of Levi were not sufficient--there was need of
   a still greater priesthood.

   12. For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a
   change also of the law. The law of the priesthood alters, since the
   person of the priest, the character of the priest, and the very office
   of the priest had altered too.

   13. For He of whom these things are spoken pertains to another tribe,
   of which no man gave attendance at the altar. According to the belief
   of the Jewish people, the Messiah was to come of the tribe of Judah,
   yet none of the house of David or of the tribe of Judah ever presumed
   to present themselves as priests of the order of God.

   14. For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah; of which tribe
   Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood. So there was an entire
   change of the priesthood and of the law of priests.
     __________________________________________________________________

Keeping the Soul Alive

   (No. 3444)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH
   27, 1870.

   "None can keep alive his own soul." Psalm 22:29.

   SELF-SUFFICIENCY is the sin of nature--all-sufficiency is the supply of
   Divine Grace! Ishmael, sent away into the wilderness with his bottle,
   is man trusting in himself--Isaac, dwelling by the never-failing wells
   of Gerar, is man led by Grace to trust in the unfailing supplies of the
   God of all consolation! It is as hard to get man away from self-trust
   as it would be to reverse the course of Niagara. He begins by believing
   that he can make himself alive--and when he is convinced that this is
   not possible, he then tries to entrench himself behind the idea that he
   can keep himself alive. No, though man is dead in trespasses and sins
   and it is but a rank absurdity to imagine that death can produce life,
   yet the sinner still thinks that by something of his own he can create
   a soul within the ribs of death, that a sinner may grow into a saint of
   himself, that the man who is as full of sin as the leopard is full of
   spots, may yet, by his own innate energy, cast off his spots and become
   pure! I say that when man is cured of that rank absurdity, he then will
   need as much trouble to be cured of another, for even those who are
   alive unto God fall, more or less, into the false confidence that they
   can keep their own souls alive, and he out of us all who best knows
   that he can do no such thing has, nevertheless, sometimes caught
   himself acting as if he did believe that he could keep his own soul
   alive! To be sound in Doctrine is one thing, but to have that orthodoxy
   in the heart is another thing. To believe that I am dependent every day
   upon the Grace of God is easy, but to carry that dependence and the
   sense of that dependence into all my dealings with God and with
   man--this is not nature, but is in itself a work of Grace!

   Now, it is upon our entire dependence upon God as Believers that I am
   to speak tonight. We have, if we are Believers, been made alive from
   the dead. Our souls have been quickened by the life of Christ--we live
   with the life that Christ has given to us, but we cannot keep ourselves
   alive any more than we could first make ourselves alive. That is the
   point to be thought over tonight--may its rich and humbling
   instructions be sanctified to us all. First, let me--

   I. BREAK UP THIS DOCTRINE A LITTLE.

   It is like one of the loaves brought to Christ--it needs breaking and
   we will break it up thus. The Believer's life must be dependent upon
   God. He cannot maintain it by his own strength because of its very
   nature. It is a derived life. We know how plainly our Savior puts this
   in the parable of the vine. The life of the Christian is not the life
   of the separate plant put into the soil to suck for itself through its
   own throat, the nourishment out of the earth. It is the life of a plant
   which derives all its sap through the stem--through a root that is not
   in itself. It does not bear the root, nor a root, but the root bears
   it, so that once you cut away the branch from the vine, you have taken
   away the life from the branch, for though the life is in the branch as
   long as it is joined to the vine, yet it is not so in the branch,
   itself, that it is there at all apart from the vine. You are dead--then
   where is your life? Your life is hid with Christ in God, and if you
   live at all, this is the reason! "Because I live, you shall live also."
   Your life is not in yourselves as a separate life. Your life, the true
   life of your soul, is a derived one, and is in Christ Jesus! Another
   illustration from the same blessed Word of God gives us the like sense.
   We are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. There is
   life in my hand--undoubted life--but let that hand be laid down upon
   the block, and the headsman's axe separate it from the arm, and there
   remains no life whatever in the hand that is separated from the vital
   center, the heart. The limb moves and has life in itself, in a certain
   sense, but it is derived life, relative life--it only lives at all, in
   fact--because it is joined to something else in which its life more
   truly dwells. You see then, Brothers and Sisters, that none can keep
   his own soul alive, because the soul's truest life is not in itself,
   but lies in Another, even in Christ its Head!

   Furthermore, the life that is in a Believer is avery dependent life. We
   are born in regeneration, but after a child is born it will not live if
   the mother's care shall cease. It must be nursed. It must be fed. It
   must have a thousand little needs supplied, which, if neglected, would
   be pretty sure to end that little life right speedily. When our dear
   converts are born to Christ, our anxieties for them are not ended.
   Their life is but a frail and feeble thing and though we believe they
   shall not die, but live, yet they only live because the great Father of
   the Christian family takes care that they shall be supplied with the
   unadulterated milk of the Word of God, that they shall be continually
   nursed in the ordinances of God's house, that they shall be trained and
   instructed and brought up until they come to the stature of men and
   women in Christ Jesus. Brothers and Sisters, just as the life of the
   baby would not be sustained unless something was done for it which it
   could not do for itself, so the life of the Christian is of the same
   sort--dependent upon the blessed offices of God the Holy Spirit, and of
   the gracious Redeemer who watches over all the children of Grace as a
   nurse watches over her child. Yes, but you tell me that this is a great
   Truth of God for young Believers, but what of those that become adults
   in Christ? I reply that still if the figure does not hold good, yet the
   Truth, itself, does, and we will change the figure and come back to the
   one we had before. The fully-developed arm will die if separated from
   the trunk, just as surely as the infant's arm--and yonder huge branch
   of the ancient oak, itself a tree--yet were it sundered from the oak,
   must wither. It matters not how great the growth of a Christian, nor
   how mature his experience, he still owes all he has and all he is to
   his union with Christ--he cannot keep his own soul alive! If I might
   use such an allegory, it is something like this--all Believers are
   pensioners upon the court of Heaven. They begin, we may say, as
   pensioners when they are converted, to draw out of Heaven's bank but a
   small pension. They are poor in Grace, poor in faith, poor in
   everything--but they draw a pension just as large as they can manage to
   live upon. By-and-by they are promoted, and their pension is now not
   £50 a year, but £100. By-and-by they are promoted yet again, but as
   they are promoted and draw more pension money, they spend more. There
   are certain demands upon them which require them to spend whatever they
   get! So at last we will suppose that one of them has come to a high
   rank and he draws out of the court of the King's Bank at the rate of
   £10,000 a year. Yet, my Brothers and Sisters, if at any moment that
   pension should be stopped, he is just as poor a man as he that drew his
   £50, for, as I have said, he spent it as he received it--and if he is
   now rich, he is only rich because of the constant income which his
   gracious King is pleased to give him! But if that were stopped, he
   could no more keep alive his own soul, though he has come to the first
   rank in Grace, than he could who has just commenced to draw from the
   Bank of the King of Kings! Your spiritual riches all flow in from
   Christ, and if you are once separated from Him, you are naked, and
   poor, and miserable, be you who you may!

   Still further breaking up this one Truth of God, let me remark that the
   Believer's life is always an endangered life. In some way or other it
   is always in such danger that no man can keep it alive. I find that
   with some Christians, and with myself, one chief spiritual danger is
   that of sloth. I mean a tendency to grow lethargic, to stop short where
   you are, to be pleased with attainments already reached, to lose
   youthful elasticity and ardor. Well now, when is a soul more in danger
   than when it falls into spiritual sloth? Then, indeed, the great
   arch-enemy comes into the Christian camp, as David and Abishai stole
   into the camp of Saul--and as the great dragon, the enemy of
   souls--finds a Christian sleeping, he lifts his spear, and if he might
   but smite him this once, he would not need to smite him a second time!
   Oh, if Sovereign Grace did not hold back that diabolic hand, if he
   could but give that one stroke, he would make a full end of the
   Christian! Now, as we are, most of us, given to slumber at certain
   times, and may be surprised with it, the truth is most sure that we
   cannot keep our own souls alive! But if our temptation should not be
   that of slumbering, yet who among us does not sometimes get faint? The
   most valorous Believer sometimes finds his faith turn to unbelief. When
   David was in the midst of battle, we find that the king waxed faint,
   and Ishbosheth, the son of Goliath, had almost slain him! And there
   have been times when the offspring of some gigantic evil which in other
   days we slew, has now been too much for us, and then we feel faint just
   when we most needed to be strong! He that never has fainting fits may
   laugh at this, but I think he knows but little of spiritual life, for
   spiritual men find that all too often these fainting fits come upon
   them and then they feel that they cannot keep their own soul alive.
   Moreover, if we are neither faint nor slumbering, yet--I think I may
   speak for every Christian here--our life is attended with many
   temptations. Is there one Christian here who is never tempted? I was
   about to say I wish I could pursue his calling, but I think he cannot
   have looked at it correctly. There are temptations everywhere! Some of
   you work among ungodly associates. Some of you are in places still more
   perilous, namely, with those who profess to be religious, but who lie
   and whose example is generally more evil than the example of even
   outrageously godless men! Oh, there are snares in your business and
   there are snares in your pleasures! There are temptations in your
   needs, you poor. There are temptations in your plenty, you rich. There
   are perils in your knowledge, you

   men of reading. There are perils in your ignorance, you who read not at
   all. There are evils that will pursue you in the street, that will
   follow you to your homes, that will even come to your beds! They will
   not let you find a shelter anywhere from them, for Satan spreads his
   snares wherever he sees God's birds of paradise! Who, then, amidst such
   dangers, can hope to keep his own soul alive? Even if we had an
   independent life, which I have shown you we have not, yet with such
   perils surrounding us, the Psalmist was absolutely correct when he
   said, "None can keep alive his own soul."

   Once more. Remember that all the supplies of our spiritual life areput,
   not in us, but into Christ We are not like the camel that can traverse
   the desert and carry with it, its own supply of water for many days.
   No, we must drink continually from the flowing Well, Christ Jesus, or
   we die. Everything that any one of us shall need between here and
   Heaven is ready for us, but it is all in Christ--there is not a grain
   of it in ourselves! When the Egyptians were passing through the seven
   years of famine and had eaten up all their own food, there was quite
   enough corn in Egypt to keep them through the seven years, but it was
   all under lock and key in the granary, and Joseph had to keep it all.
   And so for the spiritual famine between here and the gates of Heaven
   there is enough heavenly corn provided, but it is all in the granaries
   of the Covenant, and it is all in the keeping of Jesus! If you want it,
   you must go to Jesus for it! There is nothing but emptiness, beggary,
   famine and death in all the fields of Nature. You shall ransack heart,
   head, memory and judgment through and through--but you shall not find
   so much as a solitary meal for your hungry soul to live upon within
   yourselves! Only in Christ is there enough! And there is enough in Him
   for all of His people, blessed be His name! So, then, because all the
   stores are in Christ, and there are no stores in ourselves, the text
   comes true again--"None can keep alive his own soul." We have thus
   broken up the Doctrine. And here we will pause a minute. Secondly, let
   us-- II. SEE WHAT OUR EXPERIENCE SAYS TO THIS DOCTRINE.

   I will speak of some of the experience of God's servants and I should
   not wonder but what I shall be, as it were, holding up a mirror in
   which many here will see themselves! Many of us have verified that we
   cannot keep our own souls alive in the following way--first, by having
   our carnal security all shipwrecked. Do you remember years ago, now, or
   it may be only months ago with some of you, that you felt so confident?
   You had had a long time of peace and happiness. Whenever you went up to
   God's House, the Word was very sweet to you. In private prayer you had
   much fellowship with Christ. At the Lord's Table you sat at the King's
   banquet and you said to yourselves, "I wonder how it is that so many
   Christians are doubting and fearing? I am not. My mountain stands firm.
   I shall never be moved." You hardly dared to say that, but you
   whispered it to yourselves. You felt grateful to God that it was so,
   but I think there was a little self-congratulation--and you looked down
   a little upon some of your Brothers and Sisters who were not quite so
   joyous and confident as you! Well now, shall I tell the story? It has
   happened to me, and I must blushingly tell it. I doubt not it has also
   happened to you. Within a very short time a temptation surprised you
   and you fell into the trap. God's face was hidden from you--your soul
   was troubled and the scene was all changed--and whereas yesterday you
   could write yourselves down in big letters with certainty as a child of
   God, now you felt that if you were one, you were the meanest of them
   all! You could have taken the chief seat in the synagogue yesterday,
   but now if there were a mouse hole you would have been glad to creep
   into it, and if there were a doorkeeper's place vacant, you would be
   happy to take it if you might but still be numbered with the household
   of God. I should not wonder but what you were a better man in the last
   case than you were before, though you did not think so. Well, it was
   then when you began to perceive that you could not keep alive your own
   soul, for what you built up so delightfully, turned out to be only just
   a card house--and Satan had but to give it one flip with his finger and
   over it went! You had piled up your habitation, and you thought it was
   all made of strong stone, but it was only rubbishing cement--and the
   first frost that came, cracked it from the foundation right up to the
   top--and soon it began to totter about your ears! You have passed
   through that, and if you have, you know that you cannot keep your own
   soul alive!

   Again, did you ever feel like this, my dear Brothers and Sisters? The
   Sabbath is coming round and on Saturday night you are very glad that
   tomorrow is the Sabbath, but somehow or other you do not feel that
   interest in spiritual things that you did some months ago. You go up to
   the House of God and take your seat. The preacher seems different--
   perhaps you half think he must be--but yet you hear of others who are
   feeding on the Word and so you conclude that there is a lack of
   appetite in yourselves, for you do not seem to enjoy it. Then those
   hymns--why, they used to be like archangels' wings to you, and now you
   are just criticizing the style of the music and not much else. You do
   not drink into the Word when you get home and get your Bible open. Why,
   it used to blaze before your eyes! The promises seemed as if they were
   written in letters of light--but now that Bible is very dull to you.
   You pray you could not give that up, but you rise from your knees as if
   you had not prayed--and you feel in all your religious exercises a kind
   of dullness and slee-

   piness. You go about it all. You cannot give it up and do not want to
   give it up. You would not give it up--you would sooner die than give it
   up--but still, you cannot stir your soul. I have often felt spiritually
   like those poor people who have taken opium, or some other drug, who
   have to be walked about by the hour together, for fear lest they should
   go to sleep--and I have heard of people sticking pins into them to keep
   them awake. I have tried to stick pins into myself in a spiritual sense
   to try to wake myself up. What is wrong with me, to be sleeping while
   poor souls are perishing? How is it that I do not feel this Truth of
   God more? Why does not that Truth of God affect me more? It did
   once--why does it not now? Well now, whenever you are in that state of
   mind, you have learned this lesson--you cannot keep your own soul
   alive. Why, you cannot even wake your soul, much more quicken it! You
   cannot even stir it to vigor, with all your attempts, much less, then,
   could it be possible for you to preserve spiritual life! That must be a
   work of Grace--your experience must teach you that.

   And, dear Brothers and Sisters, have you ever found, under a severe
   trial, how difficult it is to exercise the Grace that you before
   thought you possessed very abundantly? You are just now, perhaps, being
   tried in your faith. You used to sing Luther's Psalm--

   "Loud may the troubled ocean roar! In secret peace our souls abide."

   Well, now the ocean has hardly began to roar. It is only just a little
   storm--but the sacred peace--where is that? Why, you are running to
   your neighbor to say, "What shall I do? There is such-and-such about to
   happen!" Your neighbor might well reply. "Did not I hear you sing the
   other day--

   'Let mountains from their seats be hurled

   Down to the deeps and buried there!

   Convulsions shake the solid world--

   My faith shall never yield to fear,' and yet here you are! Here you
   are!" Ah, yes, we may smile, but we have all been through it. It
   reminds me of what an old country man used to tell me. "Ah," he
   said--old Will Richardson--"I always find, Sir, that I could do a long
   stretch of mowing in the winter! And I often think when the snow is on
   the ground and I see my old sickle hanging up, that I'd like to go out
   and do some harvesting, and I'd do it with the best of the young'uns,
   but, you know, when the time comes for mowing I find that old Will
   cannot do much of it, and when the harvest comes round I find that it
   is very little that makes a good day's work for an old man like me."
   And you and I think like that sometimes. We say, "Oh, if I had a
   temptation now, how I could master it!" And then it comes and we find
   that we cannot master it. "Oh, if I were tried, how I could stand!" And
   we are tried and we cannot stand. Now this ought to teach us that we
   cannot keep our own soul alive. Depend upon it, Brother, that the very
   Grace which you set most store by is probably that in which you are
   most deficient--and that virtue which you could almost wish to expose
   to peril because you feel yourself so safe in that respect--is just the
   joint in the plating of your armor through which the arrow would find
   its way! Boast not of anything! Above all, boast not of your best
   things, for they may prove your worst in the day of trial! You have
   found it so. It may be so again. "None can keep alive his own soul."

   Another piece of experience is this. You who love the Master may,
   perhaps, have been sometimes in a position in which you have been
   fascinated by a temptation. You know the figure I am using now in
   connection with the word fascination. Some of those large pythons that
   have to be fed upon living animals will have a rabbit, perhaps, put
   into, their cage for them to feed upon. We are told that the poor
   little rabbit will sit up on its haunches quietly, calmly and still--
   because the python has fixed its eyes on the creature and fascinates
   it--and if it could escape, if the cage door were open so that it could
   run away, it cannot! It feels itself spellbound and sits there,
   incapable of that motion by which it might escape--fascinated by the
   serpent's eyes. Have you ever been in that position under a sin, and
   you would have fallen into it, only just then the spell was broken by
   Providence? Something happened that you could not have looked for, and
   you escaped because you were a child of God! If you had not been a
   child of God, that fascination would have continued till it would have
   ended in your destruction! And if you have ever been under that
   fascination you will dread ever to expose yourselves to it again. You
   will take care to keep out of harm's way again, but you will have
   learned at least this lesson, that you may be cast, even in Providence,
   in such positions that nothing but the Supernatural Grace of God could
   deliver you, and you will then have seen that none can keep alive his
   own soul!

   But one more illustration taken from our experience. We have seen
   others fall into great sin and that observation must have helped us to
   see that we could not keep ourselves. I do not wish to revive old
   memories for the sake of pain, but I would revive them for the
   humiliation they ought to cause us all. Have you ever known a man whose
   prayers comforted

   and edified you, whose language about the things of God was full of
   savor, full of instruction to the young and even of comfort to the old?
   Have you ever seen that man earnest, indefatigable, generous? Have you
   ever thought to yourselves, "I wish I were half as good as he"? Have
   you not known the time when a look from his eyes would have cheered
   you, and a good word from his lips would have been a blessing to you?
   And yet you heard one day--and it was as though you had been felled to
   the earth--you heard that man had been living a life of sin, had been a
   hypocrite and deceived the people of God! Well you remember that!
   Perhaps you remember that such a thing has happened not once, nor
   twice, and there are black marks down in your recollection concerning
   such an one, and such an one, and such an one. Did you write down after
   that in your diary, "But I should never do the same"? Then you are a
   fool, be sure of that! But if, instead of that, you wrote down in your
   diary, "Hold You me up and I shall be safe." If you fell on your knees
   and said, "Lord, keep me, for--

   "Unless You hold me fast, I feel I must, I shall decline, And prove
   like them at last,"

   then you have learned a good lesson, and you have learned also the
   meaning of my text, "None can keep alive his own soul," for that is
   what God meant to teach you! May you learn it from others, and not have
   to painfully learn it by your own falls into sin. My time has failed
   me, yet must I keep you a little longer while I dwell with great
   brevity, in the next place, upon--

   III. THE PRACTICAL LESSONS OF THE TEXT.

   I have shown you the Doctrine and the experience which backs it up. Now
   what are the practical lessons? They are these. First, never entertain
   a good opinion of ourselves. "What, never believe that I am saved?" Oh,
   yes, if you are saved, always believe that! But then, what is your
   ground for believing that you are saved? If that lies in your goodness,
   then away with it, for it is a bad foundation and the sooner you get
   off of it, the better! My dear Brother, you are no better than the poor
   publican when he smote upon his breast and said, "God be merciful to me
   a sinner," and if you think you are any better than he, you do not know
   yourself! You will go down from this Tabernacle without a blessing if
   you are able to get higher up than he, and can say with the Pharisee,
   "God, I thank You that I am not as other men." Nothing but a heap of
   dust and ashes--and a mass of misery and sin--are you but for Sovereign
   Grace! "In me," says the Apostle, "that is in my flesh, there dwells no
   good thing." That is to say, "In me, inexperienced me, uninstructed me,
   unenlightened me, whatever else of good or of virtue may be appended to
   the word, me, there dwells no good thing!" Grace, Grace, Grace alone
   can keep and must keep us! But as for any absolute personal
   acquirement, no confidence can be placed in any of these! Dear Brothers
   and Sisters, take care that you have never a good opinion, then, of
   yourself.

   The next lesson is never get away from the Cross. This Psalm is all
   about Christ on the Cross. "None can keep alive his own soul." The life
   of souls is in the dying and living Savior. If you can live a day
   without feeling the blood of sprinkling, you have lived a dangerous
   day! If you feel that you can afford to go into any Christian duty
   without a Mediator, you are in danger! Dear Brothers and Sisters,
   always sing --

   "There is a Fountain filled with blood," and sing it always because you
   always need that Fountain and always need the washing!

   Another lesson is never neglect the means of Grace. If you cannot keep
   alive your own soul, then do not neglect the means through which God
   helps your soul to live. If you could live without food, why then, you
   would not come to the table at the time of meals, but as you cannot
   keep alive your soul, do not forsake the assembling of yourselves
   together as the manner of some is. I have known some who have said,
   "Oh, well, I can do as well at home. I can read this good book or
   that." Sir, I know what it always comes to--it comes to bringing
   leanness into the soul and, by-and-by, if persisted in, it ends in
   apostasy, and proves that the man never had the Grace of God at all! I
   find that I cannot do without the means of Grace, and I believe that if
   I cannot, you cannot, my Brothers and Sisters.

   But there is a further lesson--never rest on the means of Grace, for
   even by their use you cannot keep alive your soul! Do we live on
   sermons, live on hymns, live on other people's prayers? Oh, no! The
   sermon is only useful because it is like a ladder to help you to climb.
   The prayer of another is only useful because it may be like a torch
   from another altar to set your sacrifice on a blaze. Never neglect the
   means, but never depend upon the means. Go above the means to the God
   of the means, and do not be satisfied with the mere means of Grace, but
   try to get the Grace of the means!

   So let me add again, and I will sit down, never run into temptation. If
   you cannot keep your soul alive on safe ground, what can you do in the
   midst of pestilence? Those Christian people who are always saying,
   "Well, I do not see

   the harm of this," and, "I think I may do that"--I am afraid their
   Grace must be very problematical--they cannot have any at all, or they
   would not talk in that way! A man who wishes to be living and healthy,
   but who feels his life to be in jeopardy, will not run any unnecessary
   risks. Go you not into the path of temptation, for even while the devil
   tempts you, you may expect Divine help, yet if you tempt the devil to
   tempt you, I do not know that there is any promise that God will help
   you! Bless God daily, dear Friends. Bless God daily if you are kept. As
   you cannot keep alive your own soul, if your soul is kept alive, bless
   God for it! Oh, I think that the children of God, when they get to
   mourning and saying, "I have not as much faith as So-and-So, I have not
   the love of the Apostle Paul, I have not the joy of such-and-such a
   Christian," they would do quite as well if they were to sit down and
   say, "Lord, while I mourn that I have not these things, I do bless You
   if I have half a grain of faith, for that will keep me out of Hell." If
   you have not got sunlight, do be thankful for candlelight. Ah, the day
   may come when you will be glad to get the slightest evidence, so while
   you have got it, thank God for it! We ought to lament that we have not
   more Grace, but we ought to be thankful that we have any at all! If I
   am not a full-grown man in Christ, and ought to be, I ought to mourn
   over my dwarfed estate! But if I am a child of God at all, there is
   something to be thankful for! Praise His name, then! Lift up the notes
   of song, you mournful ones! Yes, let every Believer bless the name of
   the Lord!

   And so let us close by saying this--if God has kept you alive, and you
   bless His name for it, show your gratitude by helping others."None can
   keep alive his own soul," but often a word from a Brother may be a word
   from the great Father of us all. A gentle admonition from a matron may
   help a young Sister. A word of wisdom from a father in Christ may help
   the young Brother. Oh, watch over one another! Be pastors to each
   other. "Bear you one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of
   Christ." I am sure that in this great London of ours, much of our
   safety against a wicked world will lie in keeping our ranks close. I
   know that young men coming up to London, even if they have the Grace of
   God in their hearts--if they get isolated and separated, are very
   likely to be led astray. Therefore, if there is any young Christian in
   the Tabernacle tonight who is spending his first Sunday evening in
   London and does not know anybody here, I say, my dear Brother, hook on
   to one of our classes! Lay hold of somebody tonight that belongs to the
   Church and try to make friends with him, for none of us can keep alive
   his own soul, and it is not good for man to be alone! God may mean by
   joining you with this Church and bringing you into some of the various
   classes, to bless you and keep your soul alive!

   Ah, you have come up, have you, and taken a job in London. And you come
   out on Sunday evenings, and your mother told you to come here, and you
   are glad to listen to my voice tonight. Well, next Sunday afternoon, my
   Sister, there is Mrs. Bartlett's Bible Class downstairs where you will
   meet with many Sisters in Christ who will be glad to talk with you and
   cheer you. Perhaps if you do not go into that class, you will be quite
   lonely, and by degrees grow cold and get laid aside. You will not be
   able to stand alone, very well, so come and get a hold of some of your
   Sisters in Christ, and by God's Grace, though you cannot depend upon
   them, yet they may be the means in God's hand of helping you to stand!
   Soldiers, close your ranks! Each man to his fellow stand firm for
   Christ! The enemy is doing all he can to break our solid ranks. Let us
   be true to one another, and true to the great Captain who is at our
   head! Up to where the blood-red Cross is the banner to which we all
   shall rally, let each man turn their eyes, and then next, let each man
   look right and left upon his fellows and help to hold up such as begin
   to stagger in the dreadful battle--and who knows but that thus we may
   help to keep ourselves upon our feet, for he that helps others shall be
   helped himself! He that waters others shall be watered himself. God
   grant it may be so with you all, and may Jesus make and keep alive all
   our souls! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM27.

   Very much of the language of David used here, I trust we can make our
   own. May the Spirit of God lead us to understand, by experience, what
   he has written.

   Verse 1. The LORD is my light and my salvation. I find no comfort
   anywhere else but in Him, and expect salvation from none but Himself.
   "The Lord is my light and my salvation."

   1. Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; of whom
   shall I be afraid?Who can stand against Him? What strength can resist
   His strength? What darkness can baffle His light? What foes can prevent
   His salvation?

   2. When the wicked, even my enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up
   my flesh, they stumbled and fell "They wanted to destroy me
   altogether--to eat me right up." If they did not destroy me, it was not
   from lack of heart to do it,

   nor even from lack of power, for there were many of them. But I had not
   to fight, for they fell before they reached me. "They stumbled and
   fell."

   3. Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear:
   though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident Let them
   come on. They fell before--they will fall again. Let them come on. God
   was strong enough to meet them and overthrow them once. He will do it
   again! Therefore, why should we fear? Ah, dear Brothers and Sisters,
   those who have had the most experience of the Divine fullness will rest
   most confident that nothing can harm them!

   4. One thing have I desired of the LORD that will I seek after; that I
   may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold
   the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in His Temple. He only wished to
   be always like a child at home--live in God's house--no temporal
   structure, but wherever he was, he wished to feel that he was near to
   God-- that all places were the mansions of the great Father, so that he
   might always have his eyes fixed upon the beauty of the Lord, and his
   ears always open to listen to the voice of the Lord. Ah, if we can once
   get ourselves wholly given up to God, it will take our thoughts off the
   various oppositions we meet with--and we shall no more be afraid!

   5. 6. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in Hispavilion: in
   the secretplaces of His Tabernacle shall He hide me; He shall set me up
   upon a rock And now shall my head be lifted up above my enemies round
   about me: therefore will I offer in His Tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I
   will sing, yes, I will sing praises unto the LORD. It is a blessed
   resolution, not always easily carried out, but still it ought to be.
   Our life ought to be singing. It used to be sinning--it ought now to be
   singing, since the sin has been put away. Oh, happy are the men that
   know their God! If the whole world would be full of storms, yet may
   they rest in peace! Get near to God--acquaint yourself with Him and be
   at peace! The remedy for all trouble is dwelling near to God!

   7, 8. Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me,
   and answer me. When You said, Seek you My face, my heart said unto You,
   Your face, LORD wiil I seek Are we always mindful of Divine monitions?
   When the still small voice in the heart says, "Seek you My face,"
   Brothers and Sisters, do we always at once respond and say, "Your face,
   Lord, will I seek"? I am afraid we are often as the horse and the mule
   which have no understanding--and need to have the bit, and the bridle,
   and the rod. But happy are those who have a sensitive nature--quickly
   feel the movements of the Spirit of God!

   9, 10. Hide not Your face far from me; put not Your servant away in
   anger: You have been my help: leave me not, neither forsake me, O God
   of my salvation. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD
   will take me up. He prayed, you see, and it looked a little unbelieving
   when he said, "Leave me not, neither forsake me." But it was not so,
   for at once he confessed that he did not think that God would leave
   him, even when our father and mother, who are the last to leave us,
   should do so. "Then the Lord will take me up."

   11-14. Teach me Your way, O LORD, andleadme in a plain path because
   ofmy enemies. Deliver me not over unto the will ofmy enemies, for false
   witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty. I
   had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in
   the land of the living. Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and He
   shall strengthen your heart: wait, I say on the LORD. I suppose he
   meant that last sentence to be his own personal recommendation, derived
   from his own experience. "Wait, I say, on the Lord." He had tried
   it--proved its wonderful power as the restorative to his heart, and so
   he says--"Wait, I say, on the Lord."
     __________________________________________________________________

Strong Faith in a Faithful God

   (No. 3445)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I will cry unto God Most High; unto God that performs all things
   form." Psalm 57:2.

   DAVID was in the Cave Adullam. He had fled from Saul, his remorseless
   foe, and had found shelter in the clefts of the rock. In the beginning
   of this Psalm he rings the alarm bell--and very loud is the sound of
   it. "Be merciful unto me," and then the clapper hits the other side of
   the bell. "Be merciful unto me." He utters his Miserere again and
   again. "My soul trusts in You; yes, in the shadow of Your wings will I
   make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by." Thus he solaces
   himself by faith in his God. Faith is always an active Grace. Its
   activity, however, is first of all manifested in prayer. This precedes
   any action. "I will cry," he says, "unto God Most High." You know how
   graciously he was preserved in the cave, even when Saul was close at
   his heels. Among the winding intricacies of those caverns he was
   enabled to conceal himself, though his enemy, with armed men, was close
   at hand. The Targum has a note upon this which may or may not be true.
   It states that a spider spun its web over the door of that part of the
   cave where David was concealed. The legend is not unlike one told of
   another king at a later time. It may have been true of David, and it is
   quite as likely to be true of the other. If so, David would, in such a
   passage as this, have directed his thoughts to the little acts God had
   performed for him which had become great in their results. If God makes
   a spider spin a web to save His servant's life, David traces his
   deliverance not to the spider, but to the wonder-working Jehovah! And
   he says, "I will cry unto God Most High, unto God that performs all
   things for me." It is delightful to see these exquisite prayers come
   from holy men in times of extreme distress. As the sick oyster makes
   the pearl, and not the healthy one, so does it seem as if the child of
   God brings forth gems of prayer in affliction more pure, brilliant and
   sparkling than any that he produces in times ofjoy and exultation.

   Our text is capable of three meanings. To these three meanings we shall
   call your attention briefly. "Unto God who performs all things for me."
   First, there is Infinite Providence. As it stands, the words, "all
   things," you perceive, have been added by the translators. Not that
   they were mistaken in so doing, for the unlimited expression, "God that
   performs for me," allows them to supply the omission without any
   violation of the sense. Secondly, there is inviolable faithfulness, as
   we know that David here referred to God's working out the fulfillment
   of the promises He had made. We sang just now of the sweet promise of
   His Grace as the performing God. I think Dr. Watts borrowed that
   expression from this verse. Thirdly, there is a certainty of ultimate
   completeness. The original has for its root the word, "finishing," and
   now working it out, it means a God that performs or, as it were,
   perfects and accomplishes all things concerning me. Whatever there is
   in His promise or Covenant that I may need, He will perfect for me. To
   begin with--

   I. THE MARVELOUS PROVIDENCE.

   The text, as it stands, speaks of a service--"I will cry unto God Most
   High; unto God that performs all things for me." "All things," that is
   to say, in everything that I have to do, I am but an instrument in His
   hands--it is God who does it for me. The Christian has no right to have
   anything to do for which he cannot ask God's help. No, he should have
   no business which he could not leave with his God. It is his to work
   and to exercise prudence, but it is his to call in the aid of God to
   his work and to leave the care of it with the God who cares for him.
   Any work in which he cannot ask Divine co-operation, the care of which
   he cannot cast upon God is unfit for him to be engaged in. Depend upon
   it, if I cannot say of the whole of my life, "God performs all things
   for me," there is sin somewhere and evil lurks in the disposition
   thereof. If I am living in such a state that I cannot ask God to carry
   out for me the enterprises I have embarked in, and entirely rely on His
   Providence for the issues, then what I cannot ask Him to do for me,
   neither have I any right to do for myself!

   Let us think, therefore, of the whole of our ordinary life and apply
   the text to it. Should we not, each morning, cry unto God to give us
   help through the day? Though we are not going out to preach. Though we
   are not going up to the assembly for worship. Though it is only our
   ordinary business, that ordinary business ought to be a consecrated
   thing! Opportunities for God's service should be sought in our common
   avocations--we may glorify God very much therein. On the other hand,
   our souls may suffer serious damage, we may do much mischief to the
   cause of Christ in the ordinary walk of any one day. It is for us,
   then, to begin the day with prayer--to continue all through the day in
   the same spirit and to close the day by commending whatever we have
   done to that same Lord. Any success attending that day, if it is real
   success, is of God who gives it to us! "Except the Lord build the
   house, they labor in vain that build it," is a statement applicable to
   the whole of Christian life! It is vain to rise early and sit up late,
   and eat the bread of carefulness, for so He gives His Beloved sleep. If
   there is any true blessing, such blessing, as Jabez craved, when he
   said, "Oh, that You would bless me indeed," it must come from the God
   of Heaven--it can come from nowhere else. Cry then, Christian,
   concerning your common life to God! Say continually, "I will cry unto
   God Most High; unto God that performs all things for me."

   Perhaps at this hour you are troubled about some petty little thing, or
   you have been through the day exercised about some trivial matter. Do
   you not think we often suffer more from our little troubles than from
   our great ones? A thorn in the foot will irritate our temper, while the
   dislocation of a joint would reveal our fortitude. Often the man who
   would bear the loss of a fortune with the equanimity of Job will wince
   and fume under a paltry annoyance that might rather excite a smile than
   a groan. We are apt to be disquieted in vain. Does not this very much
   arise from our forgetting that God performs all things for us? Do we
   not ignore the fact that our success in little things, our rightness in
   the minutiae in life, our comfort in these inconsiderable trifles
   depends upon His blessing? Know you not that God can make the gnat and
   the fly to be a greater trouble to Egypt than the diseases of cattle,
   the thunder, or the storm? Little trials, if unblessed--if unattended
   with the Divine Favor, may scourge you fearfully and betray you into
   much sin. Commend them to God, then! And little blessings, as you
   think, if taken away from you, would soon involve very serious
   consequences. Thank God, then, for the little. Put the little into His
   hands--it is nothing to Jehovah to work in the little, for the great is
   little to Him! There is not much difference, after all, in our littles
   and our greats to the Infinite Mind of our glorious God. Cast all on
   Him who numbers the hairs of your head, and allows not a sparrow to
   fall to the ground without His decree! Unto God cry about the little
   things, for He performs all things for us. Do I speak to some who are
   contemplating a great change in life? Take not that step, my Brother,
   my Sister, without much careful waiting upon God. But if you be
   persuaded that the change is one that has the Master's approval, fear
   not, for He performs all things for you. At this moment you have many
   perplexities. You may vex yourself with anxiety, and make yourself
   foolish with shilly-shallying if you sport with fancy, vexing up bright
   dreams, and yielding to dark forebodings. There is many a knot we seek
   to untie which were better cut with the sword of faith! We should end
   our difficulties by leaving them with Him who knows the end from the
   beginning!

   Up to this moment you have been rightly led--you have the same Guide.
   To this hour, He who sent the cloudy pillar has led you rightly through
   the devious ways of the wilderness--follow, still, with a sure
   confidence that all is well. If you keep close to Him, He performs all
   things for you. Take your guidance from His Word and, waiting upon Him
   in prayer, you need not fear. Just now, perhaps, in addition to some
   exciting dilemma, you are surrounded with real trouble and distress.
   Will it not be well to cry unto God Most High, who now, in the time of
   your strait and difficulty, will show Himself, again, to you a God
   all-sufficient to His people in their times of need? He is always near!
   I do not know that He has said, "When you walk through the green
   pastures, I will be with you, and when your way lies hard by the river
   of the Water of Life, where lilies bloom, I will strengthen you." I
   believe He will do so, but I do not remember such a promise. But, "When
   you go through the rivers, I will be with you," is a well-known promise
   of His. If ever He is present, it shall be in trial--if He can be
   absent, it will certainly not be when His servants most need His aid!
   Rest in Him, then. But you say, "I can do so little in this time of
   difficulty." Do what you can, and leave the rest to Him! If you see no
   way of escape, does it follow that there is none? If you see no help,
   is it, therefore, to be inferred that help cannot come? Your Lord and
   Savior found no friend among the whole family of man, "Yet," said He,
   "could I not presently pray to My Father, and He would send me twelve
   legions of angels?" Were it necessary for your help, the squadrons of
   Heaven would leave the Glory Land to come to your rescue--the least and
   poorest of the children of God as you may be! He will perform for

   you--be you, therefore, obedient, trustful, patient. 'Tis yours to
   obey, 'tis His to command, 'tis yours to perceive, 'tis His to perform.
   He will perform all things for you!

   Very likely among this audience, some are foolish enough to perplex
   themselves as to their future life, and forestall the time when they
   shall grow old and their vigor shall be abated. It is always unwise to
   anticipate our troubles. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
   Of all self-torture, that of importing in sure trouble into present
   account is, perhaps, the most insane! Do you tell me you cannot help
   looking into the future. Well, then, look and peer into the distance as
   far as your weak vision can reach, but do not breathe upon the
   telescope with your anxious breath and fancy you see clouds! On the
   contrary, just wipe your eyes with the soft kerchief of some gracious
   Word of promise and hold your breath while you gaze through that
   transparent medium. Use the eye-salve of faith! Then, whatever you
   discern of the future, you will also descry. He rules and He overrules!
   He will make all things work together for good! He will surely bring
   you through! Goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your
   life, and you shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever! He it is
   who will perform all things for you. Oh, strange infatuation! You see
   your weakness, you see the temptations that will assail you and the
   troubles that threaten you, and you are afraid. Look away from them
   all! This is no business of yours. Leave it in His hands, who will
   manage well, who will be sure to do the kindest and the best thing for
   you. Be of good confidence and rest in peace!

   So shall it be even at life's close. He performs all things for me. I
   have the boundary of life in the prospective, the almost certainty that
   I must die. Unless the Lord comes before my term expires, I must close
   these eyes, gather up these feet in the bed, breathe a last gasp and
   yield my soul to Him who gave it. Well, fear not! He helped me to
   live--He will help me to die! He has made me perform up to this moment
   my allotted task, yes, He has performed it for me--giving me His Grace
   and working His Providence with me. Shall I fear that He will desert me
   at the last? He performs not some things, but all things, and He cannot
   omit this most important thing which often makes me tremble. No, that
   must be included, for all things are mine--death as well as life! I
   leave my dying hour, then, with Him, and never boding ill of it, I cry
   unto God Most High, unto God that performs all things for me! I want,
   dear Brothers and Sisters, to leave this impression in your minds, that
   in the great business of life, whatever it is, while we do not sit
   still and fold our hands for lack of work, yet God works in us to will
   and to do of His own good pleasure. This we recognize distinctly--if
   anything is done right, or successfully, it is God that performs it,
   and we give Him the Glory! I want you to feel that, as the task is
   performed by Him in all its details, so to the very close of your life,
   all shall be performed of His Grace through you by Himself, to His own
   honor and praise, world without end! The second run of thought which
   the text suggests is that of--

   II. INVIOLABLE FAITHFULNESS.

   "Unto God that performs all things for me." The God who made the
   promises has not left them as pictures, but has made them to fulfill
   them. It is God who is the actual Worker of all that He declared in the
   Covenant of Grace should be worked in and for His people!

   Let us think of this as it pertains to our Redeemer's merits. "Unto God
   that performs all things for me." Meritoriously our Savior-God has
   performed all things for us. Our sin has been all put away--He bore it
   all--every particle of it. The righteousness that wraps us is
   complete--He has woven it all from the top throughout. All that God's
   infinite, unflinching Justice can ask of us has been performed for us
   by our Surety and our Covenant Head. I need not say I have to fight--my
   warfare is accomplished. I need not think I have to wash away my
   sins--as a Believer, my sin is pardoned. All things are performed for
   me! Don't forget amidst your service for Christ what service Christ has
   rendered to you! Do all things for Christ, but let the stimulating
   motive be that Christ has done all things for you! There is not even a
   little thing that is for you to do to complete the work of Christ. The
   Temple He has built needs not that you should find a single stone to
   make it perfect. The ransom He has paid does not wait until you add the
   last mite. It is all done! O Soul, if Christ has completely redeemed
   you and saved you, rest on Him and cry to Him! And if sin rebels within
   you at this present moment, fly--though your spirit is shut up as in
   the Cave Adullam--fly to Him by faith--to Him who has done all things
   for you as your Representative and Substitute! After the same manner,
   all things in us that have ever been worked there have been performed
   by God for us. The Holy Spirit has worked every fraction of good that
   is within our souls. No one flower that God loves grows in the garden
   of our souls in the natural soil, self-sown. The first trembling desire
   after God came from His Spirit. The blade, though very tender would
   never have sprung up if Jesus had not sown the seed. Though the first
   rays of dawn were scarcely light, but only rendered the darkness
   visible, yet from the Sun of Righteousness they come--no light sprang
   from the natural darkness of our spirit! It could not be that life
   could be begotten of death, or that light could be the child of
   darkness. He began the work. He led us when we went tremblingly to the
   foot of the Cross. He helped us when we followed Him with staggering
   steps. The eyes with which we looked to Jesus and believed, were opened
   by Him! Christ was revealed to us not by our own discovery, nor by our
   own tuition, but the Spirit of God revealed the Son of God in our
   spirit! We looked and we were lightened. The vision and the
   enlightening were alike from Him--He performed all for us.

   As I look back upon my own spiritual career, when I was seeking the
   Savior, I am wonderfully struck with the way in which God performed
   everything for me. For if He had not, I do remember well when I should
   have rendered it impossible for me to have been here to tell of the
   wonders of His Grace! Hard pressed by Satan and by sin, my soul chose
   strangling rather than life. Had I known more of my own guiltiness, my
   heart would utterly have broken and my life have failed. But wisdom and
   prudence were mingled with the teachings of God's Law. He did not allow
   the schoolmaster to be too severe, but stayed the soul beneath the dire
   remorse which conviction caused. I had never believed on Him if He had
   not taught me to believe! To give up hope in self was desperate work,
   and then to find hope in Christ seemed more desperate, still. It
   appeared to me easy enough to believe in Jesus while one was really
   believing in one's self, but when "despair" was written upon self, then
   one was too apt to transfer the despair even to the Cross, itself, and
   it appeared impossible to believe! But the Spirit worked faith in me,
   and I believed. That is not my testimony, only, but the testimony of
   all my Brothers and Sisters--in that hour of sore trouble it was God
   who performed all things for us! Since then and up to this moment, my
   Brothers and Sisters, if there has been any virtue, if there has been
   in you anything lovely and of good repute, to whom do you or can you
   attribute it? Must you not say, "Of Him all my fruit was found"? You
   could not have done without Him! If you have made any progress, if you
   have made any advance, or even if you thinkyou have, believe me, your
   growth, advance, progress, have all been a mistake unless they have
   come entirely from Him! There is no wealth for us but that which is dug
   in this mine. There is no strength for us but that which comes from the
   Omnipotent One Himself. "You who perform all things for me," must be
   our cry up to this hour!

   What a consolation it is that our God never changes! What He was
   yesterday, He is today. What we find Him today, we shall find Him
   forever! Are you struggling against sin? Don't struggle in your own
   strength--it is God who performs all things for you! Victories over sin
   are only sham victories unless we overcome through the blood of the
   Lamb, and through the power of Divine Grace. I am afraid of
   backsliding, but I think I am more afraid of growing in sanctification
   apparently in my own strength. It is a dreadful thing for the gray
   hairs to appear here and there--but it is worse, still, for the hair to
   appear to be of raven hue when the man is weak. Only the indication is
   changed, but not the state itself. May we have really what we think we
   have--no surface work, but deep, inner, spiritual life, worked in us
   from God-- yes, every good spiritual thing from Him who performs all
   things for us and, I say, whatever struggles may come, whatever
   vehement temptations assail, or whatever thunderclouds may burst over
   your heads, you shall not be deserted, much less destroyed! In
   spiritual things it is God who performs all things for you. Rest in
   Him, then. It is no work of yours to save your own soul--Christ is the
   Savior. If He cannot save you, you certainly cannot save yourself. Why
   rest you your hopes where hopes never ought to be rested? Or let me
   change the question. Why do you fear where you never ought to have
   hoped? Instead of fearing that you cannot hold on, despair of holding
   on yourself and never look in that direction again! But if the
   preservation is of God, where is the cause for anxiety with you? In Him
   let your entire reliance be fixed. Cast the burden of your care on Him
   who performs all things for you! Lastly, this text in its moral,
   literal acceptation refers to--

   III. THE FINISHING STROKE OF A GRAND DESIGN.

   It really means, "I will cry unto God Most High--unto God who perfects
   all things concerning me." David's career was charged with a great
   work. It was portentous with a high destiny. He had been anointed when
   a lad by Samuel. The Lord had said, "I have provided Me a king among
   the sons of Jesse." And Samuel had taken "the horn of oil and anointed
   him in the midst of his brothers." He was thus clearly ordained to be
   king over Israel. His way to the throne was by Adullam. Strange route!
   To be king over Israel and Judah, he must first become a rebel, a
   wandering vagabond, known as a chieftain of bandits, hunted about by
   Saul, the reigning monarch. He must seek refuge in the courts of his
   country's enemies, the Philistines, being without an earthly refuge, or
   place to lay his head. Strange way to a throne! Yet the Son of David
   had to go that way, and all the sons of God. The younger brethren of
   the Crown Prince will have to

   find their way to their crown by much the same route. But is not this a
   brave thing? Though Adullam does not look like the way to Zion, where
   he shall be crowned, David is so confident that what God has said will
   come to pass, so sure that Samuel's anointing was no farce, but that he
   must be king, that he praises and blesses God that while He is making
   of him a houseless wanderer, He is perfecting that which concerns him
   and leading him by a sure path to the throne. Now, can I believe that
   He who promises that I shall be with Him where He is, that I may behold
   His Glory--He who gives the certainty to every Believer that he shall
   enter into everlasting happiness--can I believe tonight that He is
   perfecting that for me--that the way by which He is taking me tonight,
   so dark, so gloomy, so full of dangers, is, nevertheless, the shortest
   way to Heaven? That He is, tonight using the quickest method to perfect
   that which concerns my soul? O Faith! Here is something for you to do
   and if you can perform it, you shall bring glory to God! The pith of it
   is this--that if God has the keeping of us, He will perfect the keeping
   in the day of Christ! All His people are in the hands of Jesus, and in
   those hands they shall be forever and ever! "None shall pluck them out
   of My hands," He says. Their preservation shall be perfected. So, too,
   their sanctification. Every child of God is set apart by Christ and in
   Christ--and the work of the Spirit has commenced which shall subdue sin
   and abolish the very roots of corruption--and this work shall be
   perfected! No, is being perfected at this very moment! The dragon is
   being trodden down under foot. The Seed of the woman within us is
   beginning to bruise the serpent's head and shall clearly bruise it and
   crush it, even to the death within our soul.

   He is perfecting us in all things for Himself! He has promised to bring
   us to Glory. We have the earnest of that great Glory in us now. The new
   life is there--all the elements of Heaven are within us. Now He will
   perfect all these. He will not allow one good thing that He has planted
   within us to die. It is a living and incorruptible seed which lives and
   abides forever. He will perfect all things for us. There is nothing
   that makes the saints complete but what God will give to us. There
   shall be lacking in us no one trait of loveliness that is necessary for
   the courtiers of the skies--no one virtue that is necessary to mark us
   as of the Divine Race, but shall be given, no, perfected in us! What a
   marvelous thing is a Christian! How mean; how noble! How abject; how
   august! How near to Hell; how close to Heaven! How fallen, yet lifted
   up! Able to do nothing; yet doing all things! Doing nothing; yet
   accomplishing all things because herein it is that, in the man, and
   with the man, there is God--and He performs all things for us! God,
   give us Grace to look away entirely, evermore, from ourselves and to
   depend entirely upon Him!

   Now is there a soul here that desires salvation? My text gives you the
   clue of comfort. Try--the thing is simple--try. Look to Him. He
   performs all things for you! Everything that is needed to save your
   soul, your Heavenly Father will give you. Jesus, the Savior, has worked
   out all the sinner's needs. You have but to come and take what is
   already accomplished and rest in it. "I cannot save myself," you say.
   You need not--there is One who performs all things for you. "I am
   bruised and mangled by the Fall," says one, "as though every bone were
   broken." "I am incapable of a good thought. There is nothing good in
   me, or that can come from me." Soul! It is not what you can do, but
   what God can do--what Christ hasdone--that must be the ground of your
   hope! Give yourself up unto God, Most High--unto God, who performs all
   things for you, and you shall be blessed, indeed! God send you away
   with His own blessing, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM34:1-20.

   Verse 1. I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall
   continually be in my mouth "Others may do what they please, and murmur,
   and complain, and be filled with dread and apprehension of the future,
   but I will bless the Lord at all times. I can always see something for
   which I ought to bless Him. I can always see some good which will come
   out of blessing Him. Therefore will I bless Him at all times. And
   this." says the Psalmist, "I will not only do in my heart, but I will
   do with my tongue." His praise shall continually be in my mouth, that
   others may hear it, that others may begin to praise Him, too, for
   murmuring is contagious, and so, thank God, is praise! And one man may
   learn from another--take the catchword and the keyword out of another
   man's mouth--and then begin to praise God with him. "His praise shall
   continually be in my mouth." What a blessed mouthful! If some people
   had God's praises in their mouths, they would not so often find fault
   with their fellow men. "If half the breath thus vainly spent" in
   finding fault with our fellow Christians

   were spent in prayer and praise, how much happier, how much richer we
   would be spiritually! "His praise shall continually be in my mouth."

   2. My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear,
   thereof, and be glad. Boasting is generally annoying. Even those who
   boast cannot endure that other people should boast! But there is one
   kind of boasting that even the humble can bear to hear--no, they are
   glad to hear it! "The humble shall hear thereof, and be glad." That
   must be boasting in God--a holy glorying and extolling the Most High
   with words sought out with care that might magnify His blessed name!
   You will never exaggerate when you speak good things of God. It is not
   possible to do so. Try, dear Brothers and Sisters, and even boast in
   the Lord. There are many poor, trembling, doubting, humble souls that
   can hardly tell whether they are the Lord's people or not--and are half
   afraid whether they shall be delivered in the hour of trouble-- who
   will become comforted when they hear you boasting. "The humble shall
   hear, thereof, and be glad." "Why," says the humble soul, "God that
   helped that man can help me! He that brought him up through the deep
   waters and landed him safely, can also take me through the river and
   through the sea, and give me final deliverance. My soul shall make her
   boast in the Lord!" "The humble shall hear, thereof, and be glad."

   3. O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together He
   cannot do enough of it himself. He wants others to come in and help
   him! First, he charges his own heart with the weighty and blessed
   business of praising God, and then he invites all around to unite with
   him in the sacred effort. "Magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt His
   name together."

   4. I sought the LORD, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my
   fears. That was David's testimony. That is mine. Brother, that is
   yours, is it not? Sister, is not that yours, too? Well, if you have
   such a blessed testimony, be sure to proclaim it! Often do you whisper
   it in the mourner's ear, "I sought the Lord and He heard me." Tell it
   in the scoffer's ear. When he says, "There is no God," and that prayer
   is useless, say to him, "I sought the Lord and He heard me, and
   delivered me from all my fears." It is a pity that such a sweet
   encouraging profitable testimony should be kept back. Be sure at all
   proper times to make it known! But it is not merely ourselves. There
   are others who can speak well of God.

   5. They looked unto Him and were lightened: and their faces were not
   ashamed. And who were they? Why, all the people of God--the whole
   company of the saints in Heaven and the saints on earth! It can be said
   of them all, "They looked to Him and were lightened." As there is life
   in a look, so is there light in a look! Oh, you that looked to Christ
   and lived at first, look to Him again if it is dark with you
   tonight--and speedily it shall be light round about you! "They looked
   unto Him and were lightened."

   6. This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of
   all his troubles. Who was he? He was a poor man--anypoor man--nothing
   very particular about him, but he was poor--a poor man. What did he do?
   He cried. That was the style of praying he adopted--as a child
   cries--the natural expression of pain. Poor man, he did not know how to
   pray a fine prayer and he could not have preached you a sermon if you
   had given him a bishop's salary for it! But he cried. He could do that.
   You do not need to go to the Board School to learn how to cry. Any
   living child can cry. This poor man cried. What came of it? "The Lord
   heard him." I do not suppose anybody else did, or if they did, they
   laughed at it. But it did not matter to him. The Lord heard him. And
   what came of that? He "saved him out of all his troubles." Oh, is there
   a poor man here tonight in trouble? Had he not better copy the example
   of this other poor man? Let him cry to the Lord about it! Let him come
   and bring his burdens before the Great One who hears poor men's
   prayers! And, no doubt, that poor man lived to tell the same tale as he
   who wrote this verse. "This poor man cried and the Lord heard and saved
   him out of all his troubles."

   7. The angel of the LORD encamps round about them that fear Him and
   delivers them. It is no wonder, then, that they are delivered, for the
   angels are always handy. They are waiting round about God's people. Lo,
   they are not at a distance to fly swiftly and come for our rescue, but
   God has set a camp of angels round about all His people! Are we not
   royally attended? What a portion is ours! Many are they that are
   against us, but glorious are they that are for us, both in their number
   and their strength. But the text does not intend so much the angels, as
   one blessed, glorious, Covenant Angel--the Angel of the Lord, the
   Messenger of God. He it is that holds His camp hard by His people and
   sends His messengers for their rescue in all times of difficulty.

   8. O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that
   trusts in Him. That is the language of experience. Some of us have
   lived by trusting God for many years and, instead of growing weary of
   it, we would invite others to do

   the same! Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! You cannot know His
   goodness without tasting it. But there was never a soul yet that did
   taste of the goodness of the Lord but what could bear cheerful
   testimony that it was even so. "Oh, taste and see." Partake of it!
   Become practically acquainted with it! Trust God, yourselves, and none
   of you shall ever have to complain of God. To your last hour you will
   have to find fault with yourselves, but never once will you have to
   accuse Him of changeableness, or of unfaithfulness, or even of
   forgetfulness! "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good, for blessed is
   the man that trusts in Him."

   9, 10. O fear the LORD, you His saints: for there is no want to them
   that fear Him. The young lions lack andsufer hunger: but they that seek
   the LORD shall not want any good thing. They are very strong, those
   young lions. They are fierce. They are rapacious. They are cunning. And
   yet they lack and suffer hunger. And there are many men in this world
   who are very clever, strong in body and active in mind. They say that
   they can take care of themselves and, perhaps, they do appear to
   prosper, but we know that often you who are the most prosperous
   apparently are the most miserable of men! They are young lions, but
   they lack and suffer hunger. But when a man's soul lives upon God, he
   may have very little of this world, but he will be perfectly content.
   He has learned the secret of true happiness. He does not need any good
   thing, for the things that he does not have, he does not wish to have.
   He brings his mind down to his estate, if he cannot bring his estate to
   his mind. He is thankful to have a little spending money on the road,
   for his treasure is above. He likes to have his best things last, and
   so he is well content if he has food and raiment, to urge on his way to
   the rest which remains for the people of God! "The young lions lack and
   suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good
   thing."

   11. Come, you children.You that are beginning life--you that want to
   know where true happiness is found.

   11. Hearken unto me: I wiil teach you the fear of the LORD. It is that
   which you need to know, beyond everything

   else!

   12, 13. What man is he that desires life, and loves many days, that he
   may see good? Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking
   guile. He that can rule his tongue can rule his whole body. Alas, that
   unruly member destroys peace and happiness in thousands of cases! The
   tongue can no man tame, but the Grace of God can tame it! And that man
   begins life with a prospect of happiness whose tongue has been tamed by
   Divine Grace.

   14. Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace and pursue it. True
   happiness is found in true holiness. "Depart from evil." That is, do
   not go after it. But it is much more than that. Get away from it. Give
   it a wide berth. "Depart from evil." But be not satisfied with the
   negatives. It is not enough to say, "I do not do any evil," but do
   good! The only way to keep out the evil is to fill the soul full of
   good. We must be active in the cause of God, or Satan will soon lead us
   into sin. "Depart from evil and do good."

   "Seek peace." Be of a quiet turn of mind. Be always ready to forgive.
   "Seek peace and pursue it." That is, when it runs away, run after it!
   Make up your mind that you will have it. There are some that seek
   quarrels. There are some that seek revenge. As for you, seek peace and
   pursue it.

   15. The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and His ears are open
   unto their cry. God is all eyes and all ears, and all His eyes and all
   His ears are for His people. Are you distressed in heart? God sees your
   distress. Are you crying in secret in the bitterness of your soul? God
   hears your cry. You are not alone. O lonely spirit, broken spirit, be
   not dis-mayed--be not given to despair--God is with you! If He sees
   nothing else, He will see you. "The eyes of the Lord are upon the
   righteous." And if He hears no one else in the world, He will hear
   you--"His ears are open to their cry."

   16. The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, to cut off the
   remembrance of them from the earth. You know what we sometimes say--"I
   set my face against such a thing as that." Now God sets His face
   against them that do evil. You will come to an end, my Friend. Your
   happiness, like a bubble painted with rainbow colors, may be the object
   of foolish desires, but in a little while it will burst and be gone, as
   the bubble is, and there will be nothing left of you! Even your
   remembrance will be wiped out from the face of the earth! What numbers
   of books have been written against God of which you could not get a
   copy, now, except you went to a museum? What numbers of men have lived
   that have been scoffers--and they who had great names among the circles
   of unbelievers? They are quite forgotten, now! But the Christian Church
   treasures up names of poor, simple-hearted Christian men and
   women--treasures them up like jewels, and their fame is fresh after
   hundreds of years!

   17. The righteous cry and the LORD hears, and delivers them out of all
   their troubles. That is how we live, if you want to know. God makes us
   righteous and then we cry. We often praise Him. We desire to have our
   mouth full of praise for Him. But we cry as well, and whenever we cry,
   God hears, and our troubles are removed.

   18. The LORD is near unto them who are of a broken heart; and saves
   such as are of a contrite spirit Are you here, tonight, poor weeping
   Mary? Are you here, brokenhearted, troubled Sinner? Are you here? Are
   you seeking the Lord? Do not seek Him any longer! You have got Him!
   Read the text, "The Lord is near unto them that are of a broken heart."
   He is with you now! Speak to Him! Cry to Him! Trust Him. You shall find
   deliverance this night!

   19. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. You should hear some of
   them talk, and you would soon know that, for I know some of the
   righteous that seldom talk of anything else! "Oh, the badness of
   trade!" They have been losing money--oh, ever since I knew them! They
   had not any when they started, but they have gone on losing money every
   year--and I believe they always will! And they always have pains of
   body. The weather is so bad. And they always have ungrateful friends.
   And the church they belong to is not up to the mark. Indeed, there is
   nothing around them that is right. "Many are the afflictions of the
   righteous." Well now, dear Brothers and Sisters, as that is recorded in
   God's Word, and most of us have a pretty good acquaintance with that
   subject, I do not think that it is necessary for all of us to insist
   upon it every day! Should not we go on to the next part of the verse?
   "Many are the afflictions of the righteous," but--but--

   19. But the LORD delivers him out of them all. Not out of some of them,
   but out of all of them, however numerous they may be!

   20. He keeps all his bones: not one of them is broken. He sustains no
   real injury. He gets flesh-wounds and bruises, but his bones are not
   broken. That is to say, the substantial part of his nature is well kept
   and preserved.
     __________________________________________________________________

"Christ Is All"

   (No. 3446)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Christ is all." Colossians 3:11.

   MY text is so very short that you cannot forget it and, I am quite
   certain, if you are Christians at all, you will be sure to agree with
   it! What a multitude of religions there is in this poor wicked world of
   ours! Men have taken it into their heads to invent various systems of
   religion and if you look around the world, you will see scores of
   different sects. But it is a great fact that while there is a multitude
   of false religions, there is but one that is true. While there are many
   falsehoods, there can be but one truth--real religion is, therefore,
   one. There is but one Gospel--the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. What
   a wonderful thing it is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, should be
   born of humble parents and live as a poor Man in this world for the
   purpose of our salvation! He lived a life of suffering and trial and,
   at last, through the malignity of His enemies, was crucified on Calvary
   as an outcast of society. "Now," they said, "there is an end of His
   religion! Now it will be such a contemptible thing, that nobody will
   ever call himself a Christian--it will be discreditable to have
   anything to do with the name of the Man, Jesus, the Prophet of
   Nazareth." But it is an amazing fact that this religion has not only
   lived, but is at this hour as strong as ever! Yes, the religion He
   founded still exists and is still powerful, and constantly expanding.
   While other religions have sunk into the darkness of the past, and the
   idols have been cast to the moles and to the bats, the name of Jesus is
   still mighty--and it shall continue to be a blessed power so long as
   the universe shall endure!

   The religion of Jesus is the religion of God. Hence, notwithstanding
   all the disgrace and persecution which it has had to encounter, it
   still exists, and still flourishes! It is this religion which I shall
   attempt to preach to you--the one Gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
   Christ--and the text embraces it all in the most comprehensive manner,
   "Christ is all."

   I shall use it, first, as a test to try you and, afterwards, as a
   motive to encourage you. I want, first, to sift you, to see how many of
   you are the people of God, and how many are not. I shall make my text a
   great sieve and put you in it to see which is wheat and which is chaff.
   We must consider this passage in two or three senses in order, first,
   to use it as--

   I. A TEST TO TRY YOU.

   Christ must be all, as your Great Master and Teacher There are some who
   set up a certain man as their authority. They regard him as their
   master, they look up to him as their teacher--and whatever he says is
   right--it is the truth and is not to be disputed. Or, perhaps, they
   have taken a certain book, other than the Bible, and say, "We will
   judge all things by this book"--and if the preacher does not teach
   exactly the creed written in that book, he is set down as not sound in
   the faith--and this they do not hesitate to say at once, because he
   does not come up to the standard of their little book! We meet with
   many people in this world who make their creed, their one little narrow
   creed, everything--and they measure everything and everybody by that.
   But, my Friends, I must have you say that "Christis all," and not any
   man, however good or great, before I can allow that you are Christians.
   We have not to follow men. Our faith stands not in the wisdom of man,
   but in the power of God! We are to follow no man, except as far as he
   follows Christ, who alone is our Master! Be not deceived--submit not
   yourselves to creeds, to books, or to men--give yourselves to the study
   of God's Word, derive your creed and the doctrines of your faith from
   it, alone, and then you will be able to say--

   "Shouldall the forms that men devise

   Assault my faith with treacherous art,

   I'd call them vanity and lies,

   And bind the Gospel to my heart."

   Let Christ be your only Master, and say, in the words of our text,
   "Christ is all." Now can you say this, or are you boasting, "The
   Baptists are all"--"The Wesleyans are all"--"The Church of England is
   all"? As the Lord lives, if you are saying that, you do not know His
   Truth because you are not testifying that, "Christ is all," but simply
   uttering the Shibboleth of your little party! I should like to see the
   word, "party," blotted out from the vocabulary of the Christian Church!
   I thank God that I have no sympathy whatever with that which is merely
   sectarian, and have Grace given me to protest against it, and to
   exclaim--

   "Let party names no more

   The Christian world overspread"

   since--

   "Gentile and Jew, and bond and free, Are one in Christ, their Head."

   If "Christ is all" to you, you are Christians, and I, for one, am ready
   to give you the right hand of brotherhood! I do not mind what place of
   worship you attend, or by what distinctive name you may call
   yourselves--we are Brothers and Sisters in Christ and I think,
   therefore, that we should love one another. If, my Friends, you cannot
   embrace all who love the Lord Jesus Christ, no matter to what
   denomination they may belong, and cannot regard them as your Brothers
   and Sisters in the Lord, and as belonging to the universal Church, you
   have not hearts large enough to go to Heaven because, if such are your
   contracted views, you cannot possibly say, "Christ is all."

   Next, Christ must be all as your principal object in life--your chief
   good. Your great aim must be to glorify Christ on earth, in the hope
   and expectation of enjoying Him forever above. But as it regards some
   of you, Christ is not your all. You think more of your shop than you do
   of Him. You are up early in the morning looking at your ledgers, and
   all day long toiling at your business. Do not misunderstand me--I
   dislike lazy people who let the grass grow over their shoes-- and God
   disapproves of them, too! We want no lazy preachers of the Gospel. The
   true Christian will say, "I know that I am bound to be diligent in
   business, but I want to work for eternity as well as for time. I need
   something besides earthly riches. I need an inheritance not made with
   hands, a mansion not built by man, a possession in the skies." Are you
   making this world your all? Poor Souls, if you are, the world and the
   fashion thereof are passing away--your all will soon be gone! I fancy I
   see a rich man, one whose gold is his all, when he gets into the next
   world, looking for his gold, and wondering where it is, and being, at
   last, compelled to exclaim, in despair, "Oh, my all is gone!" But if
   you can say that Christ is your all, then your treasure will never be
   gone, for He will never leave you, nor forsake you. Not only in this
   world, but also in that which is to come, you shall be happy and
   blessed, for you shall be crowned with glory and made to sit with
   Christ on His Throne forever!

   "Well," says some easy-going gentleman, "I do not make business my all,
   I assure you. Not I! My maxim is, let us enjoy this life, let us fill
   the glass to the brim and live in pleasure while we may." I also have a
   word for you. Do you think that such a course of conduct will fit you
   for Heaven, for the enjoyments of eternity? Do you imagine that when
   you come to die, it will be any pleasure for you to think of your
   drunkenness? When you are lying on a sick bed, will your oaths bring
   you any peace, as they reverberate upon your conscience, just as I hear
   my voice, at this moment, echoing back to my ears the words I am
   saying? I think I see you starting up as you hear your blasphemies
   against God thus returning upon you, while, with a mind oppressed with
   anguish and eyes starting from their sockets, you exclaim, in your
   terror, "I hear my own oaths again! God is coming to call me to
   judgment, to demand of me why I dare blaspheme His name!" And the Judge
   will say, "You, with oaths and curses, profaned My holy name! You asked
   Me to curse your soul and now I will do it! You prayed in your profane
   moments that you might be lost, and now you shall be!" How horrible
   that would be! You who say pleasure is all, let me warn you that you
   will have to drink the bitter dregs of the cup of pleasure to all
   eternity, no matter how sweet the draught may now be to your taste!

   But there are some more moderate people who are by no means extravagant
   in their pleasures and are great sticklers for religion! They go to
   Church or Chapel every Sunday and believe themselves to be a very good
   sort of people--such as will be accepted at the Last Day, and placed at
   the right hand of the Throne of God. Again I put the question, can you
   say, "Christ is all"? No, you cannot say that. Many of you make the
   externals of religion your all, resting in the letter, but knowing or
   caring nothing for the spirit. This will not do! And you are not such
   Christians as Christ will acknowledge if you are making anything your
   all but Him! Religion is not to be stowed away in the dark attic of the
   brain. Christianity is a heartreligion, and if you cannot say, from the
   very depths of your being, "Christ is all," you have neither part

   nor lot in the blessings and privileges of the Gospel--and your end
   will be destruction, everlasting banishment from the Presence of the
   Lord! God grant it may not be so, but that in both your lives and mine
   we may each be enabled to say of a truth, "Christ is all"--and that we
   may meet again around the eternal Throne of God!

   Next, Christ will be all as the source of your joy. Some people seem to
   think that Christians are a very melancholy sort of folk, that they
   have no real happiness. I know something about religion and I will not
   admit that I stand second to any man in respect of being happy. So far
   as I know religion, I have found it to be a very happy thing--

   "I would not change my blest estate, For all that earth calls good or
   great."

   I used to think that a religious man must never smile, but, on the
   contrary, I find that religion will make a man's eyes bright, cover his
   face with smiles and impart comfort and consolation to his soul, even
   in the deepest of his earthly tribulations! In illustration of this, I
   might tell you the story of a poor man who lives in one of the courts
   in Holborn, who experiences great joy in religion, even in the midst of
   the deepest poverty. A Christian visitor, going up into the poor man's
   room at the top of the house, said, "My Friend, how long have you been
   in this place?"

   "I have not been downstairs, nor walked across the room, these 12
   months."

   "Have you anything to depend upon?"

   "Nothing," he replied, but recollecting himself, he added, "I have a
   good Father up in Heaven, and I depend upon Him entirely, and He never
   lets me down. Some kind Christian friends are sure to call, and they
   never go away without leaving me something. And I get enough to live on
   and pay my rent, and I am very happy. I would not change places with
   anybody in the world, for I have Jesus Christ with me, and my heavenly
   Father will take me Home, by-and-by, and then I shall be as rich as any
   of them--shall I not, Sir? Sometimes I get very low, and Satan tells me
   that I am not a child of God, and that I had better give up all as
   lost, but I tell him that he is a great coward to come and meddle with
   a poor weak creature like I am, and I show him the blood, Sir. And I
   tell him the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin-- and when I
   show Satan the precious blood, Sir, he leaves off tempting me, and
   immediately flees, for he cannot bear the sight of the Savior's blood."

   Thus we see that true religion can cheer the sick man's couch, can make
   the poor man feel that he is rich and bid him be joyful in the Lord!
   Well did the old man say that the devil cannot bear the sight of the
   Savior's blood! And if, beloved Friends, you can take Christ's blood
   and put it on your conscience, however sinful you may have been, you
   will be able to sing of Christ as all your hope, all your joy and all
   your support! I ask you who love Jesus--does religion ever make you
   unhappy? Does love to Jesus distress you and make you miserable? It may
   bring you into trouble, sometimes, and cause you to endure persecution
   for His name's sake. If you are a child of God, you will have to suffer
   tribulation. But all the afflictions which you may be called upon to
   endure for Him will work for your good, and are not worthy to be
   compared with the glory which is to be revealed hereafter!

   Now, then, let me ask, could you agree with me while I have been
   speaking? Can you now say that Christ is your only Master, your chief
   good, your only joy? "Oh, yes, I do love Jesus because He first loved
   me." Then, welcome, Brother! Welcome, Sister! You are one with Jesus,
   and we are one with each other! But if you cannot say it, how terrible
   it shall be with some of you when you shall find your gourds wither,
   the crops whereon you now lean struck down at a blow, your false
   refuges swept away and, deprived of all your feathers and finery, your
   soul will appear before God in its true character! May it not be so
   with any of you, but may you be united to Christ by living faith which
   works by love and purifies the heart! Secondly, I shall now consider
   the text as--

   II. A MOTIVE TO ENCOURAGE YOU.

   "Christ is all." My beloved Friends, in what is He all? Christ is all
   in the entire work of salvation. Let me take you back to the period
   before this world was made. There was a time when this great world--the
   sun, the moon, the stars and all which now exist throughout the whole
   of the vast universe--lay in the mind of God like unborn forests in an
   acorn cup. There was a time when the Great Creator lived alone and yet
   He could foresee that He would make a world, and that men would be born
   to people it. And in that vast eternity a great scheme was devised,
   whereby He might save a fallen race. Do you know who devised it? God
   planned it from first to last! Neither Gabriel nor any of the holy
   angels had anything to do with it. I question whether they were even
   told how God might be just and yet save the transgressors. God was all
   in the drawing up of the scheme, and Christ was all in carrying it out!
   There was a dark and doleful night!

   Jesus was in the Garden, sweating great drops of blood which fell to
   the ground--nobody then came to bear the load that had been laid upon
   Him. An angel stood there to strengthen Him, but not to bear the
   sentence. The cup was put into His hands and Jesus said, "Father, must
   I drink it?" And His Father replied, "If You do not drink, sinners
   cannot be saved"--and He took the cup and drained it to its very dregs!
   No man helped Him. And when He hung upon that accursed tree of Calvary,
   when His precious hands were pierced, when--

   "From His head, His hands, His feet, Sorrow and love flowed mingled
   down, there was nobody to help Him. He was "all" in the work of
   salvation!

   And, my Friends, if any of you shall be saved, it must be by Christ
   alone! There must be no patchwork! Christ did it all and will not be
   helped in the matter. Christ will not allow you, as some say, to do
   what you can, and leave Him to make up the rest! What can you do that
   is not sinful? Christ has done all for us! The work of Redemption is
   all finished. Christ planned it all and worked it all out! And we,
   therefore, preach a full salvation through Jesus Christ!

   What could we poor mortals do towards saving ourselves? Our best works
   are but mean and worthless to that great end. I am sure I could not do
   it. My preaching--I am ashamed of that, and there are a thousand faults
   in my prayers! God needs nothing of us by way of "making up" Christ's
   work, but He cancels all the sins and blots out all the transgressions
   of everyone who trusts to His Son's death!

   If I have found Christ, I have found all. "I have not strong faith,"
   you say. Never mind, Christ is all. "I do not sufficiently feel my
   sins"--but Christ is all. Many people think they must feel a load of
   repentance before they may hope Christ will receive them. I know every
   child of God will repent, but we are not all brought to the Cross by
   the terrors of the Law. It is not your feelings, my Friends, that will
   save you, but only Christ--Christ standing in your place, Christ being
   your Substitute! If, feeling your need of His Grace to pardon you, and
   His righteousness to justify you before God, you can but just look to
   Christ, though you have nothing good about you, you will have done all
   that is necessary to carry you to Heaven--because it is not youract
   that can save you--but the act of Christ alone! A little while ago I
   had a conversation with an Irishman who had been to hear me preach. He
   had come to ask me, he said, the way of salvation. "What troubles me,"
   he said, "is this--God says that He will condemn the sinner, and punish
   him--then how can God forgive, because He must punish if He would keep
   His word?" I placed before him the Scriptural view of the Atonement, in
   the substitution of Christ for the sinner, and the poor man was
   astonished and delighted beyond measure, never having understood the
   beauty and simplicity of the Gospel way of salvation before! "Is it
   really so?" he asked. "It is in the Bible," I replied. "Then the Bible
   must be true," he said, "for nobody but God could have thought it!"

   If Jesus Christ is our Surety, Friends, we are safe from the demands of
   the Law. If Christ is our Substitute, we shall not suffer the penalty
   due to sin, for God will never punish the same sin twice. If I have
   nothing but Christ, I do not need anything else, for Christ is all! If
   Christ is your all, you will not need anything to help you, either in
   living or in dying! Now for two thoughts before I close.

   1. If a man has Christ, then what else does he need?If a man has
   Christ, he has everything! If I need perfection, and I have Christ, I
   have absolute perfection in Him! If I need righteousness, I shall find
   in Him my beauty and my glorious dress. I need pardon, and if I have
   Christ, I am pardoned! I want Heaven and if I have Christ, I have the
   Prince of Heaven, and shall be there, by-and-by, to live with Christ
   and to dwell in His blessed embrace forever! If you have Christ, you
   have all! Do not be desponding, do not give ear to the whispers of
   Satan that you are not the children of God, for if you have Christ, you
   areHis people and other things will come, by-and-by. Christ makes you
   complete in Himself. As the Apostle says, "You are complete in Him." I
   think of poor Mary Magdalene--she would have nothing to bring of her
   own--she would remember that she had been a harlot, but when she comes
   to Heaven's gates, she will say, "I have Christ," and the command will
   go forth, "Let her in, Gabriel! Let her in!" Here comes a poor squalid
   wretch. What has he been doing--he has never learned to write, he
   scarcely went even to a Ragged School, but he has Christ in his heart!
   "Gabriel, let him in!" Next comes a rich bad man, with rings on his
   fingers and fine clothes upon his person--but the command is, "Shut the
   gates, Gabriel! He has no business here!" Then comes a fine flaming
   professor of the Gospel, but he never knew Christ in his heart. "Shut
   the gate, Gabriel!" If a man has Christ, he has all for eternity--but
   if he has not Christ, he is poor, blind, naked and will be miserable
   forever! Will not you, then, who are listening to me now, resolve,

   in the strength of the Lord, to seek Him at once and make Him your
   Friend? No matter what may be your state or condition, you are invited
   to come to Him!

   You blind, you lame, who are far from Christ, come to Him and receive
   your sight, and obtain strength! He is made your all--you need bring
   nothing in your hand to come to Him. "Ah!" say one, "I am not good
   enough yet." Beggars do not talk thus! They consider that the more
   needy they are, the more likely are they to obtain that for which they
   ask. The worse the dress, the better for begging. It is the same with
   respect to the Gospel--you are invited to come to Christ just as you
   are, naked and miserable--that He may clothe and comfort you!

   2. My last thought is this--How poor is that man who is destitute of
   Christlf I were to say to some one of you that you are poor, you would
   reply, "I am not poor--I have £250 a year coming in--a decent house and
   an excellent job." And yet, if you have not Christ, you are a poor man,
   indeed. Look at that poor worldling with a load of £10,000 upon his
   back, a quantity of stocks and annuities in one hand, policies and
   railway scrip in the other--but he is wretched with all his wealth,
   though he can hardly carry it! There is a poor beggar woman, who says
   to him, "Let me take a part of your burden." But the miserable man
   refuses all assistance and resolves to carry all his load himself. But
   by-and-by he comes to a great gulf and, instead of finding these riches
   help him, they hang around his neck like millstones and weigh him down!
   Yet there are some who would do anything for gold. If there is one man
   more miserable than another in Hell, it must be the man who robbed his
   neighbors to feather his own nest--such feathers will help the flight
   of the arrows which shall pierce his soul to all eternity! No matter
   what your wealth, if you have not Christ, you are miserably poor-- but
   with Christ, you are rich to all eternity!

   I think I see one of you ungodly ones in your last moments. Someone
   stands by your bedside and watches your face. The death-sweat comes
   over you and the big drops stand on your brow--the strong man is bowed
   down and the mighty one falls--and now the eyes close and the hand
   falls powerless--life is fled. Ah, but the soul never dies! Up it flies
   to appear at God's bar. How will it appear there? Oh, the poor soul
   without Christ! It will be a naked soul--it will have no garment to
   cover it--it will be a perishing soul, no salvation for it! Mercy
   cannot be secured, then! It will be in vain to pray, then, because the
   lamp will be put out in eternal darkness! And the Judge will say, in
   tones that will pierce you to the quick, "Depart from Me, you cursed!"

   May God give all of you Grace to repent and to embrace the salvation
   which is revealed in the Gospel! Every sin-sick soul may have Christ,
   but as for you who are Pharisees and trusting in yourselves that you
   are righteous--if you know nothing about sin, you can know nothing
   about Christ. The way to be saved is to believe on the Lord Jesus
   Christ. "But what is it to believe?" you ask. I have heard of a captain
   who had a little son, and this little boy was very fond of climbing
   aloft. One day he climbed to the masthead, and the father saw that if
   the boy attempted to return, he would be dashed to pieces. He therefore
   shouted to him not to look down, but to drop into the sea. The poor boy
   kept fast hold of the mast, but the father saw it was his only chance
   of safety, and he shouted once more, "Boy, the next time the ship
   lurches, drop, or I will shoot you." The boy is gone! He drops into the
   sea and is saved. Had he not dropped, he would have perished. This is
   just your condition! As long as you cling to works and ceremonies, you
   are in the utmost peril! But when you give yourselves up entirely to
   the mercy of Christ, you are safe! Try it, Sinner! Try it, that is all.
   "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved," is Christ's promise,
   and it shall never fail you. The invitation is to all who thirst. "The
   Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that hears say, Come. And
   let him that is thirsty come, and take the Water of Life freely."

   I have heard that in the deserts where they can only get water at long
   intervals, they send a man on a camel in search of it. When he sees a
   pool, he springs off his beast, and before he drinks, he calls out,
   "Come," and there is another man at a little distance, and he shouts,
   "Come," and one further away still repeats the word, "Come," until the
   whole desert resounds with the cry, "Come," and they come rushing to
   the water to drink! Now I do not make the Gospel invitation wider than
   the declaration of the Word of God, "Whoever will, let him take the
   water of life freely." Whoever you are, and whatever you may have been,
   if you feel your need of Christ, "Come," and He will receive you, and
   give you to drink of the Water of Life freely!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: COLOSSIANS 3; 4:1-4; PSALM28:1-6.

   COLOSSIANS 3.

   Verse 1. If you, then, are risen with Christ, seek those things which
   are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God.Oh, how often we
   need to be called to this, for the flesh is groveling and it holds down
   the spirit. Very often we are seeking the things below as if we had not
   yet attained the new life, and did not know anything about the
   resurrection power of Christ within the soul! Now, if it is that you,
   Believers, have risen with Christ, do not live as if you had never done
   so, but "seek those things which are above, where Christ sits at the
   right hand of God."

   2. Set your affection. Not "your affections." Tie them up into one
   bundle. Make one of them.

   2. On things above, not on things on the earth. You say that you were
   dead with Christ and that you have risen with Christ. Live, then, the
   risen life, and not the life of those who have never undergone this
   matchless process! Live above.

   3. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. The old
   life is dead. You are dead to it. You will not be consumed by it--you
   cannot be controlled by it. You have a newer and higher life. Let it
   have full scope.

   4. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also
   appear with Him in glory. Christ was hidden while He was here. The
   world knew Him not. So is your life. But there is to be a glorious
   manifestation! When Christ is made manifest, so shall you be. Wait for
   Him.

   5. Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the
   earth--fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil
   concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Since you are dead,
   let all the lusts of the flesh be put to death. Kill them! They were
   once a part of you. Your nature lusted this way. Mortify them! Do not
   merely restrain them and try to keep them under! These things you are
   to have nothing to do with.

   6. 7. For which things the wrath of God comes on the children of
   disobedience. In which you also walked some time, when you lived in
   them."When you lived in them." But now you do not live in them. You are
   dead to them. If it should ever come to pass that you fall into any of
   these things, you will loathe yourself with bitterest repentance that
   you could find comfort, satisfaction, life in them. You are dead to
   them.

   8-10. But nowyou also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice,
   blasphemy, filthy communication out ofyour mouth. Lie not to one
   another, 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. No lies. Such communications are filthy. But
   you put these things away through your union with Christ in His risen
   life. Therefore, abhor them. Avoid the very appearance of them and cry
   for Grace to be kept from them, for you have been "renewed in knowledge
   after the image of Him that created him."

   11. Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor
   uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all,
   and in all In the new life there is no distinction of race and
   nationality! We are born into one family. We become members of Christ's
   body and this is the one thing we have got to keep up--separation from
   all the world! No separations in the Church, no disunion, nothing that
   would cause it, for we are one in Christ and Christ is all! Now, as we
   have to put off these things, that is the negative side--that is the
   Law's side, for the Law says, "You shall not." But now look at the
   positive side.

   12. Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, hearts of
   mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering.This is
   what you have got to wear, even on the outside--to put them on, not to
   have a latent kindness in your heart and a degree of humbleness deep
   down in your soul if you could get at it--but you are to put them on.
   They are to be the very clothes you wear! These are the sacred
   vestments of your daily priesthood. Put them on!

   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. Just
   as readily, just as freely, just as heartily, just as completely!

   14-15. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of
   perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts. For that is
   the great foundation of every godly fruit. We are in such a hurry, in
   such dreadful haste, so selfish, so discontented, so impetuous, and the
   major part of our sins spring from that condition of mind! But if we
   were godly, restful, peaceful, how many sins we would avoid! "Let the
   peace of God rule in your hearts."

   15. To which, also, you are called in one body; and be you thankful It
   looks like a very small virtue to be thankful. Yet, dear Friends, the
   absence of it is one of the grossest of vices! To be ungrateful is a
   mean thing. To be ungrateful to God is a base thing! And yet how many
   may accuse themselves of it! Who among us is as grateful as he should
   be? Be thankful.

   16. Let the word of Christ dwell in you Alexander had a casket of gold
   studded with gems to carry Homer's works. Let your own heart be a
   casket for the command of Christ. "Let the word of Christ dwell in
   you."

   16-18. 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. Wives
   submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. See
   how our being Christians does not relax the bonds of our Christian
   relationship? On the contrary, it calls us to the higher exercise of
   the responsibilities and duties connected therewith!

   19. Husbands love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Oh, there
   are some spirits that are very bitter! A little thing puts them out and
   they would take delight in a taunt which grieves the spirit. I pity the
   poor woman who has such bitterness where she ought to have
   sweetness--yet there are some such husbands.

   20-21. Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is
   well-pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to
   anger, lest they be discouraged. The duties are mutual. Scripture
   maintains an equilibrium. It does not lay down commands for one class,
   and then leave the other to exercise whatever tyrannical oppression it
   may please! The child is to obey, but the father must not provoke.

   22. Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh;
   not with eye service, as men pleasers. How much there is of that! How
   quickly the hands go when the master's eye looks on! But the Christian
   servant remembers God's eyes and is always diligent. "Not with eye
   service as men pleasers."

   Colossians 4:1-2. But in singleness ofheart, fearing God: And
   whateveryou do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;
   knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the
   inheritance: for you serve the Lord Christ But he that does wrong shall
   receive for the wrong which he has done; and there is no respect of
   persons. Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal;
   knowing that you, also, have a Master in Heaven. Continue in prayer,
   and watch in the same with thanksgiving. See how he keeps putting that
   in--"Be you thankful"--"with thanksgiving." Why, that is the oil that
   makes the machinery go round without its causing obstruction! May we
   have much of that thanksgiving.

   3, 4. Meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door
   of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in
   bonds: that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak So the preacher
   of the Gospel asks your prayers--and it is a part of the duties arising
   out of the relationship between Christians that those who are taught
   should pray for those who teach God's Word.

   PSALM28.1-6.

   Verse 1. Unto you will I cry, O LORD my Rock: be not silent to me:
   lest, if You are silent to me, I become like those who go down into the
   pi. Oh, if God did not hear prayer, we would become like dead men--yes,
   like lost men. Our fall or despair would be terrible, indeed. "Lest, if
   You are silent to me, I become like those who go down into the pit."

   2. Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto You, when I lift
   up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary. Is that the way you pray, dear
   Friend? I know there are some who, if they have uttered certain good
   words--got through a form of prayer--are perfectly satisfied. As to
   whether God hears them or not, that does not trouble them. But if you
   are a true child of God, it will be your main thought in prayer, "Will
   He hear me? Will He hear me? Will He answer me?" And you will think
   nothing of a prayer at all unless you have the comfortable, believing
   persuasion that your prayer has reached the ear and heart of God. Oh,
   believe us, for some of us know by experience that prayer is a real
   thing! It is no repetition of words. It really is the heart speaking
   into the ear of God--and God does graciously respond when prayer is
   truly offered.

   3. Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity,
   which speak peace to their neighbors, but mischief is in their hearts.
   We are often afraid lest we should get numbered with them--

   "Oh, were it not for Grace Divine,

   Their fate so dreadful had been mine."

   "Gather not my soul with sinners," is the prayer of many a godly man.
   When he looks within and sees the sin that is there--and what he
   deserves from the hand of God, apart from the blood and righteousness
   of Christ--he begins, indeed, to pray, "Draw me not away with the
   wicked. O Lord, do not let me wander into doctrinal error or into
   errors of life, or into laxity of behavior, or into backslidings, but
   keep me fast, for unless You hold me fast--

   I1 feel 1must, I shall, decline,

   And prove like them at last.' Draw me not away with the wicked."

   4. Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness
   of their endeavors: give them after the work of their hands; render to
   them their desert. And a just mind feels that such ought to be the
   case. God is a Judge and He will punish sin--and gracious men do not
   wish that it should be otherwise. Even to that terrible side of God's
   Character which is seen in His vengeance upon the ungodly, the
   Christian turns the loving eye. He is not reconciled to half a god, or
   to a god with half the attributes of God, namely, love and tenderness,
   but he loves God as he finds Him. He loves that God who is a consuming
   fire! I would be afraid if I could not love God under any aspect in
   which He is presented to me, because just as I would feel that I did
   not love a man truly if I said, "In such a character I cannot endure
   him," I would feel that there was some difference between him and me.
   We must love God in ever/Character--upon the Throne of Justice, as well
   as upon the Seat of Love.

   5, 6. Because they regard not the works of the LORD, nor the operation
   of His hands, He shall destroy them, and not build them up. Blessed be
   the LORD, because He has heard the voice of my supplications. Can you
   say this? Excuse me putting the question again and again to all now
   present, for it is a very vital question. If you never knew what
   answered prayer means, God help you to begin to pray, "Blessed be the
   Lord, because He has heard the voice of my supplications."
     __________________________________________________________________

A Present Helper

   (No. 3447)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I aim with you." Acts 18:10.

   THE Apostle Paul was about to be placed in imminent peril. He was to be
   brought before the Roman governor, Gal-lio. The Jews, rank and rabble,
   were hopeful that they would get him condemned to death. In this
   threatening crisis the Lord Jesus would give him a word of comfort to
   strengthen him, that his courage might not fail. The best, the most
   assuring word that the Savior could speak to His servant was this, "I
   am with you." Nothing in Heaven or earth could be more fitted to cheer
   his tried spirit! To know that Jesus was with him, approving,
   supporting, defending him, was a safeguard against fear. Years
   afterwards, when Paul had to stand before the Roman emperor whose will
   was absolute, whose fiat could have put him to instant death, he had no
   man who dared stand by him. A poor despised servant of a despised
   Master, he was not, then, cast down or disheartened, for he said,
   "Nevertheless, the Lord stood by me." Under the worst circumstances,
   true Christians find the richest comfort if they do but know that Jesus
   is with them! When our Lord went away to Heaven and left His disciples
   on earth, they were like a flock of sheep surrounded with wolves. Just
   then He would surely give them, as a parting word, the most tender and
   the most encouraging sentence that could fall from His lips. What do
   you think He said? Why, one of His farewell words was this, "Lo, I am
   with you always"--a dear and blessed legacy to His children who are
   still in banishment below! And when John, in Patmos, had a vision of
   Jesus in His Glory, where, do you think, did he see Him? Did he see Him
   as standing before the Throne of God, or in any position of Glory? Yes,
   he did, but first of all he said, "I saw Him walking among the golden
   candlesticks." Now, he tells us, these golden candelabra represented
   the Churches--and Jesus Christ was pictured even as a glorified Savior,
   holding the seven stars in His right hand and walking among the seven
   golden candlesticks! Hence I gather that the truest comfort of the
   Church is for Christ to be with us--and that one of the highest joys of
   Jesus is to be with His people!

   I shall ask you, now, to consider the grateful fact that Jesus is with
   Believers. The words, "I am with you," may be taken in three ways--and
   the three must be combined to get the whole of their sense.

   "I am with you." This implies His Presence. That would not be enough--a
   person is not with us if he is merely in the same place as a spectator.
   "I am with you" expresses His sympathy. He is not here as a stranger,
   but He is here feeling for us, compassionating with us. "I am with you"
   has a yet deeper significance. It involves succor. He is working with
   you-- on the same side--exerting His power in connection with yours.
   Put the three together, and you get presence, sympathy, co-operation,
   to interpret the meaning. We will take the three words, and oh, as we
   take them, may we realize them as our own! The words, "I am with you"
   leave no doubt of--

   I. THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST.

   Believer, Jesus Christ's spiritual and most real Presence is with you!
   This should greatly comfort you because it is the Presence of One whom
   you dearly love and who reciprocates that affection with an accord so
   intimate that every hope or fear you feel is reflected in His breast.
   His heart beats true to you. I might almost say His nerves vibrate in
   sympathy with you! Oh, how it calms the mind in the midst of difficulty
   or danger, if we have near us, by our side, One toward whom our heart
   goes forth and from whom a kindred yearning comes back! The child
   sleeps sweetly when it is with its mother, watched and tended by her
   quick eyes and ready hands. The loneliest part of the pilgrim's road is
   relieved of its tedious-ness and its terror when some dear companion is
   with him, in whose fellowship he can agree, upon whose arm he may lean
   and whose constancy he can trust to share any danger. A sprightly word,
   a kindly look, a brotherly act seem like timely aid to us all when we
   are tired, footsore, out of our course, and out of spirits. Ah, then
   you could not have a sweeter

   Friend with you than you have in Jesus! The society of brother or
   sister, husband or wife, parent or guardian, can never equal the
   hallowed peace of communion with Jesus, who loved you, lived for you,
   died for you, still lives for you, gives His whole heart to you--and
   only asks that you give your heart to Him in return.

   Still more precious does this Presence of Jesus become when we think
   how ennobling it is. Some people talk all their life of having been
   once in the society of some great person. That is, indeed, a foolish
   pride! Very empty! But to have been in the society of Jesus is worthy
   to be remembered, deserving to be recorded and most desirable to be
   repeated! I reckon that the angels would look more respectfully towards
   a man who has had communion with Jesus than they would at a council of
   kings and emperors, or a parliament of princes and peers! We are made
   priests and kings who enter into fellowship with our great High Priest
   and King. His Glory overshadows us. Though He is transfigured in a way
   we are not, yet we participate somewhat in His honors, now, and we
   shall be altogether partakers of His Glory, by-and-by. "I am with you,"
   then, is the voice of a tender Friend, and one of a superior Nature who
   confers dignity by His companionship!

   This--"I am with you"--is an enlivening cry. It inspirits a man,
   quickens his pulse and enables him to bid defiance to danger. We
   remember when Paul was in the ship tossed with tempest--what fear
   seized all persons on board! So much were they discouraged that they
   would probably have been unable to do anything for their own rescue had
   not Paul, with the coolness of faith, chided their panic, gave them
   counsel and bid them to eat, for, as he said, "this is for your
   health." After long fasting, he saw the necessity of taking
   refreshment. And he led the way. He took bread, gave thanks to God in
   the presence of them all, then broke the bread and began to eat. This
   manly fortitude, this moral courage of the Apostle, repressed the
   general agitation and nerved them all with fresh hope, insomuch that
   they were all of good cheer and they also took some food. This was the
   turning point in their fortune and, in the end, they, everyone, came
   safe to land. Thus full often has it been in the time of battle. When
   the troops have been ready to flee, one able man has stood like a rock,
   has made caution look like cowardice by his own defiance of danger, has
   given a word which has made every soldier feel himself a hero,
   lion-hearted, not milk-livered! And so the battle has been turned. "I
   am with you," there, O Christian, is the voice of One whose Presence
   fills your soul with dauntless courage! No fear when Jesus is near!
   None can be defeated who have Him to bring them succor. The Presence of
   Christ with us puts an end to morbid apprehension and ghastly
   cowardice!

   When we are told that Jesus is with us, we remember that His is a
   Presence which causes intense delight. We have seen men with money, who
   were not happy. We have seen men with honor, who were not happy. We
   have seen persons in power, with the command of empires, yet they were
   not happy. But we never saw, and never will see the individual who has
   Jesus with him, who is not happy! To be near Him, to have Him with us
   is to have our fears relieved, our griefs soothed, our wounds healed
   and all our sorrows turned into joy! One drop of Jesus' love would turn
   the whole ocean sweet! Yes, though the bitterness within you seems to
   have penetrated your whole being, let but Jesus whisper, "You are Mine
   and I am yours," and the bitterness would turn to honey at that one
   single phrase! Only a glimpse from Jesus' eyes and the darkness is
   turned to noonday. Only one word from Jesus' lips, and the tempest that
   raged becomes calm and the ruffled sea is still! "I am with you"
   bespeaks the Presence, then, of One who brings you delight.

   And this Presence, as I have already hinted, transforms the soul. When
   Jesus is with us, He makes us like Himself. He that lives near to Jesus
   becomes so like Jesus that others, "take knowledge of him that he has
   been with Jesus." Put these thoughts together and you will see how
   infinitely desirable and how exquisitely satisfactory the company of
   Christ is. But, ah, my words cannot tell you, though I had the tongue
   of the orator or the sweeter strains of the poet. Yes, the inspiration
   of the muse would fail to acquaint you with it! You must know it for
   yourself, or else you can never realize how transporting these words
   are--"I am with you"--Jesus present with His own people!

   Now some of you know, by a happy experience, times and seasons when
   Jesus is specially present with His people. I trust we have often found
   Him so at the hour of prayer. Rising in the morning, it is sweet to
   find in those few minutes we give to God before we see the face of man,
   that, like the Psalmist, we can say, "When I am awake I am still with
   You." Then at nightfall, when the day's work is over, and we are about
   to lie down and rest, it is good to find, as we kneel before Him once
   again, that Jesus is there! And, Oh, some of us have proved what it is
   in the watches of the night to have His sweetest company! When darkness
   compasses us, silence awes us and sleep has deserted us, our soul has
   said, "Now will I speak with my Beloved," and we have always found Him
   awake! A sigh has reached His ears--the fluttering of an unfledged
   prayer! A desire after Him has brought Him near to our side, close to
   our bed, present to our heart. We have

   thanked God for sleeplessness when we have had our beloved Master
   talking with us and indulging us with a blessed sense of communion!
   And, oh, how near Jesus is to His people when they are passing through
   the stage of penitential love. I hope you often get there, when
   sensitive to your own imperfection and unworthiness before God, you are
   abased and humbled, yet looking up at the same moment to that dear
   Cross on which He bled because we sinned! You see your pardon and
   acceptance written in crimson lines on the fair body of the dying
   Savior! I do not know that I have ever more tenderly felt the Presence
   of Jesus than when, while my heart has been broken with a sense of my
   own worthlessness and insignificance, I have confidently fled for
   refuge to the hope that is set before me in the finished Sacrifice and
   the perfect Redemption that Christ has accomplished!

   But, Beloved, Jesus is present to us not only in our acts of penitence
   and devotion, He is present with His people in the battle of life! Yes,
   He will go with you to the workshop. The street is not too common for
   Him to tread side by side with you. Jesus can stand with you in the
   market. You can as truly maintain fellowship with Christ in your buying
   and your selling, if your commerce with the world is conducted in the
   fear of the Lord, as in your praying and your reading, which are of
   small account, unless "you have an unction from the Holy One." No kind
   of labor will ever make Christ take an aversion to you, however humble
   your toil, however poor the chamber in which that toil is carried on,
   or however rough may be the garb in which you have to earn your daily
   bread. Jesus cares not for these. 'Tis your soul He looks for and if
   you hunger and thirst for Him, He will go with you into the lowliest
   places and you shall find it true, "I am with you."

   More especially, beloved Friends, in the ordinances of God's House, may
   we look for the refreshment of the Lord's Presence. Oh, what a beloved
   place this Tabernacle is when Jesus is here, manifestly in our midst,
   and witnessed by many hearts! It would be a poor meeting house if only
   the minister and the congregation, however large, were congregated
   together within its walls. Poor would it be, notwithstanding all the
   accessories of worship, yes, even with the bread and the wine, the
   elements of the Communion Supper, spread in rich abundance, without the
   Lord, Himself, here to bless the feast and feed the communicants! But,
   ah, when the King sits at His Table, then our spikenard gives forth a
   sweet smell and our heart is merry within us, even as the angels that
   are before the Throne of God! Does He not come to you as you sit in the
   pews, Beloved, and say to you, "I am with you"? And when you gather
   yourselves together to partake of the Communion Supper, is He not with
   you there? Do you join in the solemn hymn, or do you unite in earnest
   prayer? What is it that makes the service enlivening, elevating,
   instructive and fruitful but the consciousness of His Presence--this
   same "I am with you."

   Yes, and when the time shall come for you to have done with
   ordinances--when the preacher's voice shall no more reach your ears,
   when the melody of sacred song shall cease to enter your senses--when
   you have joined here below for the last time in the fellowship of the
   Supper of the Lord, for you must bear the clammy sweat upon your brow,
   and wear the mortal paleness on your cheeks as you are about to pass
   through what they call the "gate of tears"--even then you shall find it
   a gate of endless joy because this shall be true to your experience in
   the highest sense, "I am with you." Fear not the darkness! Dread not
   the loose pains, shrink not from the weakness, tremble not at the
   advent of the grim King of Terrors. "I am with you" will change the hue
   of that affliction and when you are very ill, make you say that all is
   well!

   Oh, if my Lord would come and meet me, my soul would stretch her wings
   in haste, fly swiftly through death's iron gate, nor feel frightened as
   she passed! So it shall be with you. I have but skimmed the surface of
   this first point--the Presence of Christ--"I am with you." Do not any
   of you skim it. Go into the depths and enjoy it, Beloved! The words
   still further express--

   II. SYMPATHY.

   Remember that Christ in very deed feels in His heart the sorrows of His
   people. Are they in the furnace? He walks the fire with them. Are they
   in the rivers? He says, "When you pass through the rivers, I will be
   with you." And this is grounded upon the precious Doctrine of Vital
   Union. Every Believer is livingly one with Jesus. Jesus is the Head,
   and the Believer is a member of the one mystical body. Now you see,
   whenever a member suffers, the Head must suffer, not only because the
   Head wills to suffer, but because of necessity--if there is a vital
   union, there must be a real sympathy. Let this be, then, a matter of
   faith with us. If I have believed in Jesus unto everlasting life, Jesus
   is one with me as my Head, and He must--whether I apprehend it or not
   at the time--He must be in sympathy with me. This He shows by the
   tender pity He has for His people. Do not think He is ever hard or
   unfeeling towards His poor, His afflicted, His depressed disciples! No,
   Brothers and Sisters, the heart of Jesus is full of tenderness! His
   heart melts with love, as He often proves by the sweet converse He has
   with them. Though He may leave the strong sometimes to bear, for
   awhile, the hardships, and grapple, as it were, alone with the troubles
   of life, He will not leave His tried and tempted ones, or suffer them
   to faint by the way. Like a mother that lets her full-grown boy alone
   to shift for himself, but will scarcely go out of doors while the baby
   is ill, so will He watch over them. And has not Jesus been very, very
   watchful over us in times of pain, weakness, and serious apprehension?
   You know He has! He has kept His best succor till we had got into our
   worst plight. When we had spent all and exhausted every resource, then
   He has come and brought Himself to our aid--and we found Him our
   All-in-All. Oh, what true sympathy this is! "A friend in need is a
   friend indeed." He treats us better as we grow worse. This is just the
   Friend we need. One with us by vital union, He proves His oneness by
   His tenderness.

   Now, Beloved, if this is so, the very first sympathy you ought to seek
   in any time of trouble is that of Jesus. You have not always gone
   promptly to Him. You have been far more ready to run off to some
   kinsman or neighbor and ask counsel or succor of an earthly helper.
   What would you think of a wife--would you think she had much genuine
   confidence, much good understanding, much true love to her husband, if,
   on any sudden trouble or anxiety, she left him, fled from her home,
   crossed the road, entered another person's house and poured into
   another man's ears the story of her plaint or her peril? You would feel
   convinced that there was a lack of mutual love and reciprocal
   fellowship! And should it ever be that your soul goes after some poor
   mortal for consolation--when the Beloved Bridegroom of your spirit can
   afford you all you need--to ask advice? It is often a helpful means,
   but go first to Jesus. Tell Him all! Pour out your heart before Him. He
   is with you. Oh, will you neglect One who is with you, and play Him so
   ill a part as to seek another's help when He is ready to give you all
   His help--His sympathizing help in time of need? The sympathy of Jesus
   will, in all probability, be most clearly manifested and most richly
   enjoyed by you at such times as you are most in need of it. Thus, when
   you are persecuted for His sake, He will not hide His face from you!

   We are not likely to be burnt at the stake, or even cast into prison
   for the profession of His name in these days of civil and religious
   liberty, but there are divers tortures from which our fine sensibility
   shrinks, such as household persecutions. Little petty spites are often
   vented upon Believers for Jesus Christ's sake. Now do not think a
   strange thing has happened to you! Take it as a natural consequence of
   not being of the world--and then hear the Savior say, "I am with you. I
   am reproached in your reproach. I am scorned in the scorn that is cast
   on you." Paul persecuted Jesus when he thought he had only persecuted
   some poor Jews. And the enemy persecutes Jesus when he persecutes a
   Believer. "I am with you," then. Will you not say, "Lord, I will bear
   it for Your sake, and in Your company. Yes, if it were a thousand times
   worse, I would feel honored to endure it, if You are with me"? You will
   find Him with you sympathetically in your common sorrows. Remember,
   Jesus does not look for extraordinary occasions in which to sympathize
   with His people, though He will do it peculiarly then. But at all other
   times He is a faithful, feeling Friend. "Jesus wept." It was at the
   death of Lazarus. Lazarus was only an ordinary saint--an ordinary
   Believer. There was nothing so remarkable about his death as to make it
   exceptional. Think not for a moment that in the loss you have
   sustained, Jesus will keep aloof. With the grief that now weighs down
   your spirit, He fully sympathizes. In the griefs which are common to
   mankind, He bears you company. But if you should ever come into deeper
   waters--if you should have to cry, "My God, my God, why have You
   forsaken me?" then you shall still hear Jesus say, "I am with you," for
   He knows what strong temptations mean, and deep depressions and
   despondence that borders on despair. He has passed through all, that as
   the Captain of our salvation He might be made "perfect through
   suffering." "Tempted in all points like as we are," there is no grief
   in which Jesus is not near to us--we have but to open the eyes of faith
   and we shall see Him with us, even in the worst extremities of grief
   and pain!

   "I am with you in sympathy." This shall be found true anywhere and
   everywhere by the Believer--yes, even in death, itself, for Jesus died!
   He knows the death sweat, for He sweat, as it were, great drops of
   blood. He knows the fever, for He said, "I thirst." He knows the
   fainting, the languishing, for He said, "I am poured out like water; I
   am brought into the dust of death." He knows death in its severest
   form. He died as you will not die. Under the Divine displeasure He
   passed away, but you shall have the light of the Divine Countenance
   amidst the shades of death. Fear not, therefore, that Jesus will
   forsake you! You have Jesus' sympathy. I want you to feel that. Well do
   I know what a precious thing sympathy is. A little child's sympathy
   will do you good. "Mother," said a little girl, "I do not know why Mrs.
   So-and-So wants me to go into her house so often, but she told me, when
   I came home tonight, to be sure and go tomorrow, for I comforted her

   so, now her husband was dead. And do you know, Mother, all I do is,
   when she cries, I put my face against hers and I cry, too--and she says
   that comforts her." And so it does. It is just that. We are not alone.
   Somebody--somebody cares for me! We shall never despair while we feel
   that is true.

   Now there may be somebody here tonight who is alone in London--and you
   had better be alone in the deserts of Sahara. To be alone in London is
   to be alone, indeed! And you are thinking, "Nobody cares for me." But
   if you will take Christ to be your Friend--if you trust in Him--Jesus
   will care for you and He will surely help you, for He is not one of
   those who will put you off by saying, "Be you warmed and be you
   filled." He will practically show His love to you, and you shall yet
   rejoice that Jesus is with you! You are not alone, though you seem
   alone." There I leave that second point, praying that you may all know
   the sympathy of Jesus. Once more--

   III. CO-OPERATION is implied in the words, "I am with you." This was
   just what Paul needed. He had come down to the city to preach, and God
   said to Him, "I have much people in this city. I am with you." So Paul
   went to his preaching with a cheerful heart, for he felt that if the
   Lord was with him, it was good to preach. With good sowing, there would
   be good reaping. Now listen, Worker--worker for God--and see if there
   is not music for your ears in this thought. Jesus co-operates with you!
   How so? Why, He commands Providence! All things are ordered according
   to His will! The Father has given all power into the hands of Jesus. He
   regulates the fields of Providence, that they may produce the best
   results for you. Go on, confidently, then. All things are favorable to
   you. As Mohammed said, in his way, to his followers, "Swiftly on to the
   battle, and win! I can hear the tramping of the angel Gabriel's horse
   as he rides into the thick of the battle to help you." They believed it
   and were comforted. What he said in lies, Jesus says in truth--"I am
   with you." You can hear the footsteps of the Prince Emmanuel! His power
   is ruling all creation to produce the grand result of His Glory in the
   salvation of souls. "I am with you"--that is, "I will prepare human
   hearts for your message." You that talk to others will often find
   others ready to be talked to! It is a cheering thought to the preacher
   that he has always a picked congregation, selected by Divine
   Providence, that out of them Divine Grace may make a further selection!
   They are prepared. As the rain and the wind and the frost will prepare
   the clods for the plow and the seed, so do God's Providence and the
   work of Grace prepare men's hearts for the Gospel! "I am with you."

   Moreover, Worker, Jesus is with you, helping you. He will suggest
   suitable thoughts. He will give you right arguments. He will often
   guide you to fitting words. Only trust Him and when you go about His
   business, the Holy Spirit shall be your strength! He will be with you
   to back up the Word of God you utter, by the power of the Holy Spirit
   going with it to convince men that what you say is God's Word to them.
   Fear not, therefore--if the converting of souls depended upon you, it
   would never be done! If a nation had to be reformed and the whole of
   another nation had to do it, it would never be achieved! But the Spirit
   of the Lord is not straitened, and what He wills to do He can
   accomplish, and none can say no to Him!

   Lastly, O earnest Worker, Christ is with you to accept your service.
   Nobody has taken any notice of you lately. You have gone plodding on at
   your work with not a creature to help, and none to praise. Even your
   friend who used to, sometimes, give you a nod of approbation, appears
   not to have observed you lately. Never mind! Never mind! No servant
   that is deeply absorbed in his work cares much about what other
   servants may say about him by way of commendation. But if his master
   comes along and says, "Well done, good and faithful servant!" that is
   what he needs to cheer him! Some people will be overhauling your
   character--I know they do mine--and they are extremely welcome, for I
   care not as much for their opinion as for the barking of dogs in the
   streets! If my Master were angry with me, I would mind it, but they are
   no masters of mine, and they may say what they like. If my Master
   smiles, all the world may frown, it does not matter! But if my Master
   frowned, then if all said, "Well done!" it were but a poor, poor
   recompense to me. Servant of God, be this, then, your joy! "I am with
   you," says Jesus, "to see what you are doing--to accept and take your
   will for the deed full often--to read your real motives where men
   misconstrue them. I am with you. Therefore, go on your way." Sunday
   school teachers, tract distributors, or whatever you may happen to
   be--in one word, beloved child of God seeking to serve Jesus--take,
   then, this fresh from Jesus' lips, "I am with you," and go your way in
   the power of this, your might, to serve your Lord without weariness,
   till He shall say, "Come up higher." "I am with you"

   Oh, you that have not any Savior to be with you, I pity you! But I
   would say this to you--He is still to be had. There is still--

   "Life in a look at the Crucified One."

   Jesus still has blood in which to wash the guilty--still has room in
   His heart for needy sinners--and the way to have Jesus for your Savior
   is simply to trust Him and to rely on Him implicitly. May God grant you
   Grace to do this, for His mercy's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ACTS 18.

   Paul had been preaching the Gospel at Athens to the most famous men of
   that city gathered at Areopagus.

   Verse 1. After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to
   Corinth Another most important city of Greece, where he struck at the
   very center of the country by preaching the Gospel, since these were
   the centers of commerce and also of literature.

   2. And found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come
   into Italy, with his wife Priscilla (because Claudius had commanded all
   Jews to depart from Rome) and came unto them. Lodged with them.

   3, 4. And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them, and
   worked: for by their occupation they were tent makers. And he reasoned
   in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greek.
   He stepped into the synagogue and when the time came for strangers to
   address the audience, he began to argue that Jesus was the true
   Messiah. Nor did he argue in vain, for there were some who were
   persuaded. He endeavored to persuade them all, both the Jews and the
   Gentiles, who came together to listen to him.

   5. And when Silas and Timothy were come from Macedonia, Paul was
   compelled by the Spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was
   Christ He may not have brought out the whole Truth of God at first, but
   argued little by little to bring them, as it were, up the steps till
   they should be prepared to receive the grand Doctrine that Jesus is the
   Anointed One. His spirit was compelled at last to come to that point
   more fully

   6. And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his
   raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am
   clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles. Oh, what a blessed,
   "from henceforth," that was for you and for me! He no longer confines
   his ministry to Jews, but goes out seeking the Gentiles--takes up his
   true commission--becomes the Apostle of the Gentiles. But let all of us
   take heed of opposing the Gospel, because it is not to be trifled with
   impunity! A time comes at last when God's Gospel seems to have done
   with us. Its ministers say, "We are clean." They shake off the dust of
   their feet and they go elsewhere to proclaim the Gospel to others who
   may be less opposed to it. What a thing to be able to say, "I am
   clean." I wonder how many in this house of prayer could say that of
   everybody round about them, "I am clean. The blood be on your own
   heads. I am clean. I have spoken to you about Christ. I have warned
   you. I have invited you." "Night and day with tears," as Paul says
   elsewhere, "I have pleaded with you, and now I am clean. I am clean."
   You know there is many a man that is clean in the blood of Christ in
   that sense who has not yet discharged his obligations to his fellow
   men, and cannot say, "I am clean." I thought it a grand thing of George
   Fox, the Quaker, when he was dying, when he said, "I am clean. I am
   clean of the blood of all men." To the best of his knowledge he had
   fearlessly proclaimed all the Truth of God that he knew, wherever he
   had opportunity. O ministers of Christ, teachers of the young and all
   you who know Christ, the Holy Spirit be upon you, so that you may speak
   the Gospel till you can say, "I am clean."

   7. And he departed from there and entered into a certain man's house,
   named Justus, one who worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the
   synagogue."The nearer the church, the farther from God," they say--but
   it was not so in this case. He was one that worshipped God and his
   house joined hard to the synagogue.

   8. And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord
   with all his house. And many of the Corinthians, hearing, believed and
   were baptize. That is the old-fashioned way, you know--"hearing,
   believed, and were baptized." The new-fashioned way is baptized,
   perhaps hear, and very likely do not believe at all! That is not
   according to Scripture.

   9-11. Then spoke the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not
   afraid, but speak, and hold not your peace: For I am with you, and no
   man shall set on you to hurt you: for I have much people in this city.
   And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the Word of God
   among them. Farmers like to plow good soil, where they expect large
   harvests. So Paul, who was accustomed to make flying visits to places,
   on this occasion settled down for a long time--even for a year and a
   half! It would pay to do it, for God had much people in that city!

   12- 13. And when Gallio was the deputy of Achaia, the Jews made
   insurrection with one accord against Paul, and brought him to the
   judgment seat. Saying, This fellow "This fellow," says our Bible but
   they did not say that. They had not any word bad enough, so they said
   "this"--

   13- 15. Persuades men to worship God contrary to the Law. And when Paul
   was now about to open his mouth, Gallio said unto the Jews, If it were
   a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O you Jews, reason would that I
   should bear with you. But ifit is a question ofwords andnames, and
   ofyour law, lookyou to it, for I will be nojudge ofsuch matters. I dare
   say you have heard Gallio condemned. They used to say in prayer,
   "Such-and-such a person went on, Gallio-like, caring for none of these
   things"--but in truth, Gallio does not deserve to be so condemned. It
   is no business of the civil magistrate to inquire into the religions of
   the people brought before him. It is out of his province. He was quite
   right when he said, "If it is a question of words, and names, and of
   your law, look you to it. I will be no judge of such matters." If the
   kings and queens of this world had been half as sensible as Gallio,
   there had been no stakes in Smithfield, there had been no prisons to
   lock up the Puritans! Religion would be left alone, which is the one
   thing it needs--free Church and free State! We want neither the
   governor's help, nor the governor's hindrance. If he will kindly leave
   us alone, it is all we ask from him--and so far Gallio is to be
   commended! But I do not think he acted thus out of any intelligent
   scruples on that point. He is to be condemned because of the motive. No
   doubt he was indifferent and here may none of us imitate him! That he
   was indifferent and careless is certain, for he did not do his duty. It
   was his duty to leave this good man alone, but it was not his duty to
   allow the Gentiles, on the other hand, to begin beating the Jews. If
   there is six of one, there should be half a dozen of the other, and so
   we do not admire him when we read,

   16-17. And he drove them from the judgment seat. Then all the Greeks
   took Sosthenes. the chief ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before
   the judgment seat. And Gallio cared for none of these things. Perhaps
   liked it. "You came here," he said, "to accuse Paul, to get him beaten.
   Now the mob is beating you, and it serves you right. I shall not
   interfere. Why did you come here at all to plague me with your
   questions? Why did you interfere with Paul?" But I should think that
   this ruler of the synagogue must have opened his eyes when he found
   himself being beaten, instead of the persons whom he desired to have
   beaten! It is singular that this name, Sosthenes, should be used, when
   further up we find another ruler of the synagogue, Crispus, who was a
   believer in Christ. This was no doubt, one they had set up, instead of
   Crispus, having rejected Crispus for accepting Christ. And yet this
   man, Sosthenes, bears the same name as one that is spoken of as a
   Brother in Christ afterwards. I wonder whether that beating did him
   good--whether, in the Providence of God, he was led to see the hand of
   Providence in this beating falling upon him, instead of Paul--and
   whether this ruler of the synagogue, who ousted a better man, did,
   himself, become a Christian! Let us hope it was so.

   18. And Paul, after this, tarried there yet a good while and then took
   his leave of the brethren, and sailed from there into Syria, and with
   him Priscilla and Aquila; havingshorn his head in Cenchrea: for he had
   taken a vow. Most probably not Paul, but Aquila had shorn his head,
   because usually Luke puts the man first. "Aquila, and his wife
   Priscilla." But here, in order to state that Aquila had made a vow, he
   put it, "Priscilla and Aquila." I think it very questionable that Paul
   ever shaved his head in that way. I think it was Aquila. If Paul did
   it, I think he must have been under a sort of mental aberration, as he
   once or twice before may have been thought to have been. Even he who,
   above all men, had cast out Jewish rites and ceremonies, yet, you
   remember, took Timothy and circumcised him--a most extraordinary action
   to do, as in this case, if, indeed, it was he who had shorn his head.

   19. And he came to Ephesus, and left them there: but he himself entered
   into the synagogue, and reasoned with the Jews.Though he had turned
   away from them, yet still his heart is after his own country.

   20- 21. When they desired him to tarry a longer time with them, he
   consented not, but bade them farewell, saying, I must by all means keep
   this feast that comes in Jerusalem: but I will return again unto you,
   if God wills. Oh, how wise it is to say that when we are making plans
   and promises, "If God wills." The short way is to put a little "D.V.,"
   which means that you are ashamed to say, "If God wills."

   21- 23. And he sailed from Ephesus. And when he had landed at Caesarea,
   and gone up, and saluted the Church, he went down to Antioch. And after
   he had spent some time there, he departed, and went over all the
   country of Galatia and Phrygia in order, strengthening all the
   disciples. For you not only need planting, but strengthening! Young
   saints, like young plants, need much watering, and Paul took care of
   them. Evangelists have not half done their duty when they stir

   up a community unless they go and seek after those who are converted,
   to strengthen them. Hence the essential need of a permanent pastorate
   over churches.

   24-25. And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent
   man, and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man was
   instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he
   spoke and taught diligently the things of the Lord knowing only the
   baptism of John. He had not got farther than that, but it is always
   well to tell out what you do know. It is the way to learn more and we
   doubt not that many a half-instructed Christian is doing good in his
   way, and it is not for us to stop him, or to find fault with him, but
   rather quietly to endeavor to tell him more of the Truths of God. Paul
   did not say, "Now, Apollos, you must stop this, you know. You had
   better study. You do not know enough yet," but he let him tell out what
   he did know.

   26-28. And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Aquila and
   Priscilla heard him, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him
   the way of God more perfectly. And when he was disposed to pass into
   Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him:
   who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through
   Grace: For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, allowing
   by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ Now let us sing ourselves an
   encouraging hymn that as Christ, the Lord, said to Paul, "Fear not," so
   His Spirit may say to us tonight--

   "Give to the winds your fears."
     __________________________________________________________________

God's Glory and His Goodness

   (No. 3448)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE.

   "And he said, I beseech You, show me Your Glory. And He said, I will
   make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of
   the Lord before you; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious,
   and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. And He said, You cannot
   see My face: for there shall no man see Me, and live. And the Lord
   said, Behold, there is aplace by Me, and you shall stand upon a rock:
   and it shall come to pass, while My Glory passes by, that I will put
   you in a cliff of the rock, and will cover you with My hand when I pass
   by: and I will take away My hand, andyou shall see My back parts: but
   My face shall not be seen." Exodus 33:18-23.

   IT has frequently happened that good men in times of great trial have
   asked God either to give them a signal token of His love, or a special
   Revelation of Himself, that they might be strengthened and encouraged
   thereby. I suppose of many here present it is true that when called by
   the Master to great labor or deep affliction, you have been conscious
   of the same inward desire--your heart has craved after some
   extraordinary dispensation of Grace to counterbalance the extraordinary
   visitation of suffering that has overtaken you. Were you indulged with
   singular nearness to God and unusual glimpses of His Glory, you feel it
   would then be easy to leave all matters in His hands and acquit
   yourselves valiantly--strong for service, whatever there is to do--and
   patient in enduring whatever there may be to bear. That prayer, "I
   beseech You, show me Your Glory," is a natural yearning, a spontaneous
   impulse of the soul. Albeit, I know that there is a grievous
   incredulity, a sinful unbelief which asks to see signs and wonders--and
   without them men will not believe-- yet I think there is a desire which
   springs up in the breasts of Believers from an earnest childlike
   feeling of dependence upon the great Father God which is not sinful,
   and which God accepts--and to which He often sends a gracious reply.

   Now we will not linger over any preliminary reflections. Our text is
   rather long, and our time this evening is very short. Let us draw your
   attention, in the first place, to the fact that--

   I. GOD'S GLORY EVIDENTLY LIES IN HIS GOODNESS.

   You observe that when Moses said, "I beseech You, show me Your Glory,"
   the answer given him was this, "I will make all My goodness pass before
   you." So then, Beloved, if we could actually see the Glory of the Lord,
   then the Infinite graciousness of His thoughts, His words and His
   deeds, all concentrated in one noontide effulgence and all beaming
   forth with ineffable brightness, would break on our vision! But, of
   course, it is not a Glory to be seen with mortal eyes, for God is a
   Spirit and, therefore, He is not to be discerned by our weak senses, or
   to be understood by our gross materialism. Still, I put it thus--could
   God be beheld by the mind of man and His perfections unfolded to our
   creature apprehensions, we would perceive that the chief splendor of
   His Majesty lay in His Infinite Benevolence! God is Love. This is the
   prominent point of the Divine Character. Though all excellent qualities
   beyond measure or degree, surpassing thought or reckoning, could be
   found in Him, yet, like the blended hues of many colors in the rainbow,
   the whole might be summed up in such words as these, "Your goodness."

   Some sublime evidences and brilliant reflections of this goodness of
   God may be seen in the works of Creation. Who can leisurely walk in the
   fields, or saunter among the hills and dells, observing the beauty and
   order, the uses and capabilities of this fertile earth, without
   breathing a tribute of gratitude to the goodness of the Creator? Who
   can look up to the heavens with a gleam of sensibility, or a glimmer of
   intelligence, by day or by night from these dusky streets of ours, and
   observe the luster of the constellations, or meditate on the regular
   motion of the celestial bodies, without an overwhelming impression of
   the transcendent goodness of the Lord? Yes, "the earth is full of the
   goodness of the Lord." The

   woods ring with the melody of "happy birds that hymn their rapture in
   the ear of God." The cattle on a thousand hills low out His praises and
   winged insects in countless numbers hum their joy! The world is His
   temple in which everything speaks of His Glory! Some glimpses of His
   goodness may be perceived in Providence, too. The history of man is the
   unrolling of the volume of Divine Benevolence to a great extent. That
   silver thread runs through all the web of human history. Yet, my
   Brothers and Sisters, these are but glimpses, for, alas, in Creation
   (and in Providence, too) much is to be seen of the terror and of the
   Justice of God as well as of His goodness. Earthquakes swallow cities.
   Storms sweep away not only the possessions men own, but the men,
   themselves, who own the possessions. Shipwrecks are constantly
   occurring and the sea is a vast cemetery. Dire famines are still
   abroad. Fell diseases stalk forth and mow down their helpless victims.
   The Lord Most High is terrible, yet surely He is good! His decrees are
   inscrutable. What then? We must be always ready to worship Him with
   resignation as well as with exultation, with bated breath as well as
   with grateful song. Tell me of the goodness of God to the whole animate
   Creation! Commend me to the tiny insects that dance in the sunbeams of
   His widespread benevolence and I tell you that He is great in power!
   His ways baffle our scrutiny. For by one chill wind, by one cold frost,
   in the course of a night millions of millions of those creatures perish
   at once! Behold, therefore, the goodness and severity of God! Whether
   in Creation or in Providence, between the tenderness that fosters life
   and the sternness that destroys life, the balance is held so steadily
   that we can but get glimpses of God's goodness by broadly surveying or
   minutely examining them.

   The full display of the goodness of God, however, is reserved for the
   working of His Grace in the redemption of man. Do you ask wherein the
   kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared? The answer is,
   "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His
   mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of
   the Holy Spirit, which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ
   our Savior." It is here at the Cross, by the blood of the Covenant,
   that Jehovah makes His goodness known in its most Divine forms! That
   God should be good to creatures is something to be thankful for, but
   that He should be good to sinfulcreatures'exhibits His Character in a
   far more marvelous light and should compel our gratitude beyond all
   degree. That He should plan a scheme of redemption, that He should give
   His Son to carry out that purpose, that His Holy Spirit should bow the
   heavens and come down and be resident on earth, dwelling in the bodies
   of His people, that He might work out the good pleasure of His own
   will-- herein is goodness! Is the earth a temple?--its windows are few
   and narrow, letting in little light compared with the Temple of God's
   Grace which seems to be a very crystal palace, letting in the light of
   His Grace on all sides! Or rather it is like one huge pearl, whose
   light beams from within and makes the earth and the nations bright with
   the radiance of its glory! If you would see the goodness of God in its
   purest tenderness, you must come into the Sanctum Sanctorum, into the
   Holy of Holies, where He dwells in the hearts of His people, who form
   the living Temple of the living God! The experience of one and all who
   know Him will bear witness to this. It would appear, however, that in
   the manifestation of this Grace, the goodness of God shines in a
   peculiar light. Another attribute is blended with it. Permit me to read
   the verse to you--"I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I
   will proclaim the name of the Lord before you, and will be gracious to
   whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy to whom I will show
   mercy."

   You observe here, that while God's goodness is His Glory, the very
   glory of His goodness lies in His Sovereignty. What less than this can
   be meant by the sentence, "I will be gracious to whom I will be
   gracious, and will show mercy to whom I will show mercy." God is not
   bound to be gracious to anyone, and He is peculiarly jealous of His
   right to bestow His Grace where He will. "Shall I not do as I will with
   My own?" is the question which the Most High seems to be constantly
   asking. He will show mercy, but He will take care so to grant it that
   His own absolute prerogative shall be conspicuous. He exercises a right
   of His own in every act of mercy--it is not of debt, but of
   Grace--therefore, no flesh shall glory in His Presence. The creature
   may not say unto his Maker, "Why did You made me thus?" No man is
   permitted to challenge His authority, or ask, "Why do You withheld such
   a gift from me, or why have You bestowed such a gift on another"?
   Against His fiat there is no appeal. "I will be gracious to whom I will
   be gracious, and I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." I know
   this attribute of Divine Sovereignty does not shine in a very lovely
   light to many eyes. Oh, may those eyes be touched with a heavenly
   salve--and they will see better! The naked grandeur of the fact is not
   to be impeached--the eyes are at fault! Let them be abashed--the eyes
   that are dazzled and blinded by the excess of its splendor, for the
   Lord is God, He gives no account of His doings. The Lord Most High does
   as He wills among the armies of Heaven and with the inhabitants of this
   lower world!

   Glory be to His name. Some of us have learned to love this attribute
   and to rejoice therein. We thank God that He is King. We delight in His
   absolute Sovereignty, knowing as we do that He is too wise to err, too
   good to be unkind. Therefore, we say, "Let His will be done on earth
   even as it is in Heaven"--and in all things let His counsels prevail--
   for in submission to Him we find all the purposes of His heart on our
   side, while in resistance to Him we find all His decrees set in array
   against us! Let not the creature, therefore, ask account from the
   Creator! Let not the subject call in question his rightful Lord! Above
   all, let not the disciple have a scruple about His Master's teaching.
   Not, indeed, that we should gaze at this one attribute till our eyes
   are so blinded with its dazzling splendor that we cannot perceive other
   attributes of the Almighty. All His perfections blend and
   harmonize--none of them clash or contradict one another!

   God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, but He always exercises
   that Sovereignty with respect to justice. He treats no man unequally.
   In judgment He is impartial. Among lost spirits, not one shall dare
   charge the Judge of All with partiality. The equity of their sentence
   shall be palpable alike to the criminal and the foe. Unmoved by passion
   or by prejudice, the heavens shall declare His righteousness--and Hell
   itself shall be unable to impeach the integrity with which He
   administers the laws and statutes of His universal Kingdom! Neither
   does God exercise that Sovereignty inconsistently with wisdom. He has
   chosen a people, and He did not choose them because of their merits,
   yet depend upon it, He made a wise choice! Were we endowed with more
   wisdom, we might easily discern the choice God has made is not only
   gracious, but highly judicious. He is not blind and unwitting that the
   counsel of His heart should be distorted with a random change or an
   inevitable fatality. What though we cannot decipher the why or the
   wherefore, there is a reason which He has not been pleased to reveal.
   Therefore, it ill becomes us to pry into matters so far beyond the
   sphere of our intelligence! And still less would it be fitting to
   ascribe to mere caprice motives which we are unable to fathom. Our
   Sovereign Lord acts according to His own will, it is true, but know
   that He acts according to the counsel of His wiil, that is to say, not
   without deliberation, forethought and prescience of all the issues! Nor
   is this Sovereign choice of God ever exercised apart from His goodness.
   He is infinitely gracious, infinitely benevolent, infinitely loving.
   His election makes the Grace He bestows, the compassion He feels and
   the love He manifests more abundantly conspicuous.

   Some preachers have set forth this Doctrine as if it were their delight
   to represent the Almighty as an austere Ruler, to be dreaded rather
   than to be revered! By exaggerating one feature of His admirable
   Character, or rather by neglecting to draw other features in their due
   proportion, they have produced an unseemly caricature, instead of an
   attractive delineation. His absolute dominion has thus made men shudder
   as if it were an awful despotism wherewith He tramples down the
   creatures whom verily He upholds by His power! But know you that the
   Lord is good, that His tender mercy is over all His works, and His
   mercy endures forever! Though in the exercise of His supreme
   prerogative, He says, "I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy,"
   yet He speaks again in words like these, "As I live, says the Lord, I
   have no pleasure in him that dies, but had rather that he turn unto Me
   and live." He wills not, He declares, the death of the sinner. Infinite
   Mercy is not inconsistent with unrivalled Sovereignty. Do you tell me
   to show you that? No, but I cannot show you it-- it is for God to show
   you! Who am I that I should attempt to reveal the Infinite? Go to Him
   and put up the prayer, "Show me Your Glory," and you shall see His
   goodness with His Sovereignty illuminating it like a blaze of light,
   always making it more resplendent, never obscuring it! At any rate,
   Beloved, the Doctrine is transparent enough to arrest attention. Do
   not, I beseech you, reject it. I know how angry it makes some men to
   allude to it, but I know also how good a thing it often proves for them
   to be incensed, when the Truth of God is more understandable than
   edible, for if the arrows of God stick fast in their conscience and
   wound them, there will come healing afterwards. Anything that wakes men
   from their apathy and makes them think is good. What though this
   Doctrine may look like a stumbling block in your pathway, it is one of
   the great thought leaders that has often brought men on their knees
   before the majesty of Heaven!

   But ah, the best of men, while here below, can only have a partial view
   of this Glory of God's goodness and sovereignty. Moses, highly favored
   as he was, beholds it but in a measure. He sees the skirts of God's
   garment--he cannot see His face. And yet it has been well observed that
   this very Moses afterwards saw the Glory of God in the face of Jesus
   Christ on the mountain of Transfiguration. "What you know not now, you
   shall know hereafter." Here you can but know in part, but soon, and oh,
   how soon!--you shall know even as you are known. The veil will soon be
   torn, my Brothers and Sisters! If we have believed in Jesus, the least
   among us shall soon be wiser than the wisest of those who still linger
   behind in the wilderness! We shall stand before the Throne of God upon
   that sea of glass that glows with fire and cast our

   crowns before the Eternal One, and see the Infinite One and rejoice in
   the sight! Thus have we tried to show you that the Glory of God lies in
   His goodness and His Sovereignty.

   II. HIS GLORY CAN BE BEST SEEN IN THE CLIFF OF THE ROCK.

   Moses was put into the cliff of the rock. Surely I am not guilty of
   trifling with a literal fact or fancifully spiritualizing the sacred
   narrative, when I take up the language of the Apostle Paul, and say,
   "That Rock was Christ." If the Rock from which the Israelites drank was
   Christ, surely this Cliff in the Rock, this splitting of the Rock, this
   making a shield and shelter of the Rock, was a true type of our Lord
   Jesus Christ--

   "Rock of Ages cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee."

   It is no poetical fiction, no coinage of the brain. It is a substantial
   Truth of God that Jesus is the Cliff of the Rock wherein we stand when
   we come to God in Christ Jesus. There it is that we can look upon the
   goodness and the Sovereignty of Jehovah, and more fully survey the
   glorious vision than it were possible for us to behold anywhere else.
   Apart from Christ, men do not see the true goodness of God. The
   description that some preachers give of God's goodness amounts to
   this--that men's sins are such trifles that God will entirely overlook
   them as frailties of the creature, or if He should punish the
   transgressors, it will be with gentle discipline and not with fiery
   indignation--and that only for a short time--after which they will
   either perish by annihilation, or else perhaps they will enter into
   life everlasting by a general restitution. Sin is treated with an
   indifference that borders on levity! It excites so little aversion
   among men, that they begin to think it of no very great account in the
   sight of God! He is too good and generous to be hard upon His poor
   subjects, who did but follow their own inclinations and trample on His
   Laws! Knowing what they are, He pities them, as if vice were a disease
   and crime a misfortune! Take heed, my Friends, of all such sophistries!
   That leniency is not goodness. In fact, it is the very opposite. It has
   neither integrity nor benignity to recommend it. Take the case of a
   legislator or a judge, whose sense of justice might be lax, while his
   feelings were too tender to denounce a crime and too timid to condemn a
   criminal. Would you consider him deserving of eulogy? Suppose a
   magistrate on the bench should say, "Well, it is true this man did
   break into a dwelling house, smite the servant, kill the owner and
   wreck the property. The evidence is clear, but there are extenuating
   circumstances. He needed a little money, or he would not have done it.
   Poor man! The money tempted him! Let us take a merciful view of the
   matter. Is not money a commodity that everybody is anxious to get? Are
   we not all exposed to temptation? Do not put him in prison! Do not
   sentence him to death--how would you like to be hanged? Admonish the
   unhappy fellow, but give him his liberty! Encourage him with the hope
   of a better career in the future."

   What would you think of this new species of charity? When felony is but
   a misdemeanor, and murder is condoned as a casualty, I can hardly
   imagine you would feel very comfortable with the red-handed culprit by
   your side in this Tabernacle! You would rather not have him go home and
   sleep in one of your houses tonight--your generous hospitality would
   rather grudge him a cordial welcome! No, we say that kindness to the
   murderer is cruelty to the nation! The easy good nature that makes
   light of sin is a wrong to the community! The reprieve and the release
   of heinous offenders is a breaking up of the defenses that shield us
   from men whose conduct is unscrupulous and whose disposition is
   ferocious. Or when, to give another example, I see a man in Holland,
   digging away at the dykes which are made to keep out the sea, I might
   ignorantly resent any interference with him. Why should not the man
   have a little sand if he needs it to put on his floor, or why may not
   he take home a bag of earth to make the things in his garden grow
   better? Do not molest him! No, but with the knowledge I now possess of
   the consequences, I would say he will let in the sea--he will break up
   the ramparts! It cannot be endured. It must not be tolerated. He
   infringes the law to the hazard of his neighbors, so that it becomes
   such a high offense that mercy extended to him would be a misery to the
   surrounding population! What say you, then, my dear Friends, shall not
   the Judge of all the earth do right? Would you impute to Him a pitiful
   clemency that rather exposes weakness than exhibits strength of
   character? No such callousness or apathy, no such disregard of the
   rights and wrongs of the inhabitants of the world belongs to the
   government of the Most High! Even the mercy of God, which is revealed
   in Christ and recorded in the Bible, is wise and discriminating. He is
   as severe as if He were not kind and He is as tender as if He were not
   rigorous. His Justice is never eclipsed by His Mercy and His Mercy is
   not diminished, but rather is increased in splendor by His Justice!
   Never, I pray you, think that men can understand the goodness of God
   till they see Christ Jesus! When they see Him Crucified, they discover
   how He pardons sin, but not till an Atonement is

   made--how He puts away the transgression, but not till His Law is
   fulfilled and made honorable by the suffering of the Only Begotten! He
   does not pull up the sluices of iniquity and let loose the floods upon
   mankind. He is too good to do that. He lays help upon One that is
   mighty and executes His vengeance upon the sinner's Substitute. You
   never see His goodness till you get into Christ.

   Nor does any man ever see God's Sovereignty aright until he comes into
   the Cliff of the Rock, Jesus Christ. I love the high Doctrines of the
   Covenant of Grace, I must confess, most devoutly and devotedly. But of
   this I am quite certain, that all the counsels of the Father concerning
   His people, and all the benefits He has conferred on His people were
   bestowed in the Person of His Well-Beloved Son! Still, I know of no
   greater pest under Heaven than high Doctrine preached or believed in as
   an abstract system of divinity or a blind fatalism by those who have
   not their heart set upon the One Mediator whom God appointed, the
   blessed Redeemer whom He has accepted as our Representative. Oh, how
   they caricature God as a Moral Governor! Oh, how they burlesque the
   Gospel as a proclamation of good tidings to the children of men! The
   love they attempt to describe is unlovely--and the mercy they essay to
   publish is unattractive! They sing hymns of Grace to the tune of
   reprobation! But in Christ Jesus you may see how Sovereignty blends
   with sympathy and how the strong will that knows no mutability is
   consistent with the goodwill that owns no animosity! The Lord is King,
   but the silver scepter is in His hand. He fulfils His own decrees, but
   His decrees are not grievous, for Christ is the Messenger of the
   Covenant and He proclaims His readiness to receive every heavy-laden
   soul that comes to Him for mercy!

   Now I further remark that in the gifts of the Gospel and the blessings
   of Christ we see Divine Goodness. You will never see Divine Goodness so
   clearly as you do in the fact that God gave His Son. "God so loved the
   world that He gave"--gave what?--Gave what token of His love? Gave the
   air we breathe, the fruits of the earth we feed upon, the flowers that
   charm our eyes, the gorgeous sun that shines resplendent in the
   skies--these are proofs of His benevolence no doubt, but all other
   proofs are comprehended in this--"God so loved the world that He gave
   His only begotten Son, that whoever believes on Him should not perish,
   but have everlasting life." The Gospel of good news declares everywhere
   that whoever believes in Christ is not condemned. Herein the amazing
   goodness of God is described in a few words--an Infinity of meaning is
   pressed into a single sentence! The blessings that God has conferred on
   us in Christ-- comprehending as they do the Holy Spirit who brings all
   things to us--show the riches of His goodness! Earthly blessings are
   but the lower springs--and they are often discolored in a measure by
   the soil through which they flow--but heavenly blessings are the upper
   springs, leaping from the Eternal Throne, immortal and pure, making
   those that drink pure and immortal, so that they shall never die! In
   Christ you can see Divine Sovereignty as you never saw it before. Oh, I
   like to think that Christ is King--that over all the world He
   reigns--that God has committed all power into His hands who is our
   Brother, touched with the feeling of our infirmities.

   The sons of Jacob might not go to Pharaoh, but it was a good thing when
   it was said, "Go to Joseph," for they would, none of them, be afraid to
   go to their brother! And now there is a mediatorial Kingdom set up on
   the earth in which Christ, alone, is the Head. And who would wish to
   have a better Head and a better King? We can trust the power with Him,
   for He has absolute wisdom, unlimited goodness, unbounded Grace. Oh,
   how glad are we that the Lord reigns and that Christ Jesus is Head over
   all things to His Church, that He is King of kings and Lord of lords,
   according to that ancient saying, "Yet have I set My King upon My holy
   hill of Zion." In Christ, Sovereignty and goodness shine as with
   noontide radiance!

   And now I would ask you, my dear Hearers, to remember that the
   Sovereign Grace of God may be seen in the Gospel that is preached to
   you. God might, if He had willed, have made salvation conditional upon
   your performing certain works. He has not done so--He has been pleased
   to give salvation to every soul that will believe in Jesus Christ! In
   His Sovereignty He has been pleased to make faith the channel of saving
   blessing. He, in His Sovereignty, might have ordained a thousand Graces
   as the way to mercy, but He has only put two. "Repent," He says, and in
   another place, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ." The knowledge of
   salvation might have been put so far beyond the reach of common
   intelligence that the whole of the British Museum could not have
   contained the volumes in which it was written--and an entire lifetime
   could not have sufficed to learn the rudiments of this best of all the
   sciences! Instead of that, He has put it in these simple sentences, "He
   that believes and is baptized shall be saved." "He that believes not
   shall be damned." Here is His Sovereignty and His goodness, too! Thank
   God for so simple a plan of salvation and thank Him, I pray you, for
   such promises as He has made. Listen, Sinner! He has said, "Come unto
   Me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
   He has said, "Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man
   his thoughts, and let him turn unto the Lord, and He will have mercy
   upon him." He might have chosen to send the Gospel to the great and
   mighty, but He has dispensed it freely to the poor! He has directed it
   to the humble, yes, and He has made a special mark that He has provided
   it for every broken and contrite heart that trembles at His Word! How
   can you kick at Sovereignty, however absolute, which is exercised in so
   tender, so gentle, so merciful a manner? Instead of rebelling against
   His scepter, come and kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish
   from the way! Bow down before His nailed feet and ask the pardon that
   His wounds and death have purchased! Come to His Cross and let your
   trust fix itself on His passion which has expiated the guilt of all
   Believers! On His Resurrection which has secured life to all that trust
   Him, and on His intercession, which guarantees salvation to all that
   come unto God by Him--salvation even to the uttermost! Oh, see Him! He
   might, if He had so willed, have withheld the Gospel! He might, if He
   willed, have clogged the Gospel with terms and conditions which would
   make the acceptance of it a hardship! Or He might have denied to you
   the hearing of it, even though He gave others that unspeakable
   privilege. What, then, should be your gratitude, when He has been
   pleased to send His messenger to you with these tidings of Grace, this
   proclamation of pardon--"Trust in the Only Begotten, who died on the
   Cross, and I will forgive you--forgive you now"? "Though your sins are
   as scarlet, they shall be as wool; though they are red like crimson,
   they shall be as snow." Oh, yield, yield now! May His blessed Spirit
   come with these words of mine, which I would to God could be made more
   quick and powerful than they are--may His eternal Spirit come and
   clothe them with might and with energy to convict your conscience, to
   convert your heart, to renew your spirit, to make you bow before the
   Infinite heart so good and yet so absolute! Then might you say, "Great
   God, I acknowledge You as my King! I love You because You are a
   gracious God. I worship You because You could reject me if You willed.
   I kneel at Your footstool and pray You to accept me, not for my merit,
   since I have none, but for Your mercy's sake! Oh, for Christ's sake,
   have pity upon me!" He will hear you, Sinner! An answer of peace shall
   be given you--shall be given you now!

   The practical end of all this may be summed up in a few sentences.
   Sinner--unsaved, you are in the hands of God to do what He likes with
   you. He can destroy you. He can save you. A moth is not more feeble
   beneath the finger of a man than you are beneath the finger of God. Be
   not, therefore, high-minded. Submit yourself to Him whose power is able
   to crush or to uphold you. But know that He in whose hands you are, is
   infinitely good and gracious! Therefore, appeal to Him for mercy. By
   all means cherish hope. Yield not to despair. Suffer not that demon,
   like a nightmare, to sit on your breast, to crush out all your
   energies, stifle all your cries and prevent your drawing near to God in
   prayer! He is not more majestic and absolute as a Sovereign than He is
   benignant and compassionate! When you are in His hands, you are in good
   hands. Resist not His will! Repine not at His decrees! Confide in His
   clemency. Approach Him in the courts of His house. Fall down at His
   Mercy Seat! Adore Him by His generous titles. Seek shelter in His love.
   Give earnest attention to the Gospel--believe it implicitly. Right soon
   will you then get silent musings, obvious reasoning, solid arguments to
   banish fear and nourish hope! God need not have sent His Son into the
   world to suffer and to die. It must have been gratuitous on His part.
   That you should have a share in this great Redemption could never be
   inferred from His Justice! It must be referred to His Grace. But if you
   believe Him, then the Redemption is yours! The faith you have in Him is
   a token of the favor He has towards you. If you rely upon the simple
   fact that Christ died for you, your faith is the substance of the thing
   you hope for, and it shall be the evidence of your special Redemption!
   His blood was shed for your remission. Because He poured out His soul
   unto death, therefore your soul is raised up to everlasting life! Your
   relying upon Christ is my warranty for accrediting you with all the
   immunities and all the advantages of His salvation!

   This Sovereign goodness of God ought to be a great encouragement to any
   of you that have been great sinners, because while there is no
   competition on your part in which merit might bear the palm, there is a
   complacency on His part in which Grace can assert its claims. If He can
   save whom He will, He may be as willing to save you who are the most
   depraved as He is to save those who have been the most virtuous of
   mankind! Do you heartily repent, at this good hour, of your
   transgressions? God has not limited the promise of this mercy to those
   who have transgressed but a little, but He is known to make the chief
   of sinners the objects of His greatest mercy! It is well for us that
   Grace is distributed Sovereignly. Better that we should look to His
   goodwill than dream of our own free will. To be suitors for the great
   benefits He has treasured up for His people is far preferable to being
   schemers seeking to justify ourselves and forge a righteousness void of
   worth, graceless, heartless and good for nothing! Since He does as He
   wills, He may be willing to give to you what you are desirous to ask of
   Him. No, He does will to give to you if now He moves your will to
   accept at His hand the

   rich fruit of the Savior's passion! Never did a soul desire God, but
   God desired that soul. Whenever a soul yearns to be saved through Jesus
   Christ, admiring the Grace as it has been vouchsafed to others, and
   craving the same Grace for itself, that hunger and thirst are prompted
   by God, and by God it shall be satisfied, for blessed are they that
   hunger and thirst after righteousness--they shall be filled!

   Oh, come then, come and welcome! What more, what better can I do to
   conclude than ring again that silver bell which has so often resounded
   clear and loud in this Tabernacle? It has not lost any of its sacred
   melody or its enchanting power--

   "From the Mount of Calvary, Where the Savior deigned to die, What
   transporting sounds I hear, Bursting on my ravished ear-- Love's
   redeeming work is done! Come and welcome, Sinner, come!" Come, I pray
   you, for His mercy's sake. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ISAIAH 45:1-16.

   Verses 1-4. Thus says the LORD to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right
   hand I have held, to subdue nations before him; and loose the loins of
   kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not
   be shut I will go before you, and make the crooked places straight I
   will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of
   iron: And I will give you the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches
   of secret places, that you may know that I, the LORD, which call you by
   your name, am the God of Israel For Jacob My servant's sake, and Israel
   My elect, I have even called you by your name: I have surnamed you,
   though you have not known Me. Long before the period of Cyrus's birth,
   this prophecy was written by Isaiah--and surely it must have flashed
   solemn conviction upon the heart of the king when he came to read words
   like these, in which his very name was mentioned--and all his exploits
   and successes, with which he vanquished his enemies, captured their
   strong places and cut the gates of brass in pieces! Our God has all
   things present before Him. To Him there is no future. All things are in
   one eternal now with Him and, therefore, He tells His Prophets the
   things that shall be.

   5. Iam the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside Me:
   Igirdedyou; though you have not known Me. It is a wonderful
   subject--the Providential government of God over princes and potentates
   that know Him not--how He raised up Cyrus on the behalf of His people,
   that they might be delivered--and though Cyrus did not know it, yet was
   he, as it were, an instrument in the hand of God--moved according to
   the Divine Will!

   6, 7. That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west,
   that there is none beside Me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. I
   form the light, and create darkness, I make peace, and create evil: I
   the LORD do all these things. It was to correct the Persian mistake
   into which Cyrus had fallen of a duplicate deity--one power creating
   light and another power creating darkness. "No," says Jehovah, "I alone
   am God."

   8, 9. Drop down, you heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down
   righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation,
   and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it
   Woe unto him that strives with his Maker! As many do in these days.
   Tongue-valiant men who dare accuse the Most High and arraign Him at
   their bar.

   9. Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Let them
   strive with their equals, but who is he that shall come into conflict
   with the eternal God?

   9, 10. Shall the clay say to him that fashioned it, What are you
   making? Or your work, He has no hands? Woe unto him that says unto his
   father, What did you beget? Or to the woman, What have you brought
   forth? Quarreling with God is a waste of time, is audacity and
   presumption! It will end in disaster to us, for the Lord is Lord of
   All!

   11-13. Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask
   Me of things to come concerning My sons, and concerning the work of My
   hands command you Me? I have made the earth, and created man upon it.
   I, even My hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their hosts
   have I commanded. I have raised him--That is, Cyrus.

   13-15. Up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall
   build My city, and he shall let go My captives, not for price nor
   reward, says the LORD of Hosts. Thus says the LORD, The labor of Egypt,
   and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall
   come over unto you, and they shall be yours: they shall come after you:
   in chains shall they come over, and they shall fall down unto you, they
   shall make supplication unto you, saying, Surely God is in you; and
   there is none else, there is no God. No other God. The day shall come
   in which this shall all be true, when men shall relinquish their idols
   and believe in that one great invisible God, the Maker of all things!
   For the present we do not see this.

   15. Verily you are a God that hides Yourself, O God of Israel, the
   Savior. Throughout these long and weary years, man has forgotten or
   blasphemed his Maker, and God has sat still and borne it in the
   majestic patience of His Infinity.

   16. They shall be ashamed, and also confounded, all of them: they shall
   go to confusion together that are makers of idols.
     __________________________________________________________________

Buying the Truth

   (No. 3449)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING JUNE
   26, 1870

   "Buy the truth, and sell it not." Proverbs 23:23.

   John Bunyan pictures the pilgrims as passing at one time through Vanity
   Fair, and in Vanity Fair there were to be found all kinds of
   merchandise, consisting of the pomp and vanities, the lusts and
   pleasures of this present life and of the flesh. Now all the dealers,
   when they saw these strange pilgrims come into the fair, began to cry,
   as vendors will do, "Buy, buy, buy--buy this, and buy that." There were
   the priests in the Italian row with their crucifixes and their beads.
   There were those in the German row with their philosophies and their
   metaphysics. There were those in the French row with their fashions and
   with their pretty things. But the one answer that the pilgrims gave to
   all the dealers was this-- they looked up and they said, "We buy the
   truth. We buy the truth." And they would have gone on their way if the
   men of the Fair had not laid them by the heels in the cage and kept
   than there--one to go to Heaven in a chariot of fire and the other,
   afterwards, to pursue his journey alone. This is very much the
   description of the genuine Christian at all times. He is surrounded by
   vendors of all sorts of things, beautifully got up and looking
   exceedingly like the true article. And the only way in which he will be
   able to pass through Vanity Fair safely is to keep to this--that he
   buys the truth--and if he adds to that the second advice of the text,
   and never sells it, he will, under Divine Guidance, find his way
   rightly to the skies. "Buy the truth, and sell it not."

   Is not the parable we have just read a sort of enlargement of our text?
   When the merchantman had traveled all over the world to find some pearl
   that should have no flaw, some diamond of the purest water, fit to
   glisten in the crown of royalty, at last in his searches, he met with a
   gem the like of which he had never seen before and, knowing that here
   was wealth for him in the joy of his discovery, he sold all that he had
   that he might buy that pearl! Even so, the text seems to tell us that
   truth is the one pearl beneath the skies that is worth having, and
   whatever else we buy not, we must buy the truth! And whatever else we
   may have to sell, yet we must never sell the truth, but hold it fast as
   a treasure that will last us when gold has cankered, silver has rusted,
   the moth has eaten up all goodly garments and all the riches of men
   have gone like a puff of smoke, or melted in the heat of the Judgment
   Day like the dew in the beams of the morning sun! Buy the truth. Here
   is the treasure. Cost it what it may, buy it. Here is the piece of
   merchandise which you mustbuy, but must notsell! You may give all for
   it, but you may take nothing in exchange for it, since there is nothing
   that can be likened to it.

   With this as a preface, let us now came straight to the text, and you
   shall notice-- I. THE COMMODITY THAT IS SPOKEN OF.

   "Buy the truth"\ shall not speak tonight of those common forms of truth
   that relate to politics, to history, to science, or to ordinary life,
   yet would I say of all these--buy the truth. Never be afraid of the
   truth. Never be afraid in anything of having your prejudices knocked on
   the head. Always be determined, come what may, even though truth should
   prove you to be a fool, yet to accept the truth--and though it should
   cost you dearly, yet still pursue it, for in the long run they who
   build mere speculations, fancies and errors, though they may seem to
   build suitable structures for the time, shall find that they are wood,
   hay, and stubble, and shall be consumed--but he that keeps to what he
   knows, to matters of fact, and matters of truth, builds gold, silver,
   and precious stones, which the trying fire of the coming ages shall not
   be able to destroy! I would sooner discover one fact and lay down one
   certain truth, than be the author of ten thousand theories, even though
   those theories should, for a while, rule all the thought of mankind!

   But I speak now of religious truth Buy that truth! Buy that truth above
   all others. And here we must have three heads. First, in the matter of
   doctrinal truth, buy the truth Holy Scripture is the standard of the
   Truth of God. To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not
   according to this Word, it is because there is no truth in them. "Your
   Word is Truth." Here is silver tried in the furnace and purified seven
   times. Speak of Infallibility? It is not at Rome, but it is here in
   this Book! Here is an Infallible Witness to the Truth of God, and he
   that is taught of the Holy Spirit to understand it gets at the Truth of
   God. Now, dear Brothers and Sisters, do aim to get the right Truth, the
   real Truth as to matters of Doctrine. Count it not a trifle to be sound
   in the faith. Think no error to be harmless, for the Truth of God is
   very precious, and error, even when we do not see it to be so, may lead
   to the most solemn consequences of mischief. In this world we see too
   much of salvation without Christ--I mean we meet with many who believe
   that they are saved because they have been baptized, or confirmed, or
   passed through the ceremonies of the church to which they belong. They
   have not looked to the precious blood! They are not depending simply
   upon the finished work of the Redeemer, but something else than Christ
   has become their confidence. Now, avoid that, and buy the Truth which
   lies here, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved."
   We hear too much, now-a-days, of regeneration without faith--the
   supposed regeneration of unconscious babies, the new birth of people
   through drops of water when they are not able to understand what is
   performed upon them! I beseech you believe that there is no new birth
   where there is not a confidence in Christ, and that the regeneration
   which does not lead to repentance and faith, which is not, indeed,
   immediately attended therewith, is no regeneration whatever! Buy the
   truth in this matter. Stand to it that it is the work of the Holy
   Spirit in rational and intelligent beings, leading them to hate sin and
   to lay hold of eternal life! Alas, we have in some quarters too much of
   faith without works. A kind of faith is preached, a kind of faith is
   trusted in which is not practical. Men say they believe, but they do
   not prove it by their lives. They remain in sin and yet wrap themselves
   up in the belief that they are God's chosen ones. From such, turn away,
   and remember that a faith without works is dead, and only the faith
   that changes the character, sanctifies the life and leads the man to
   God, is the faith which will save the soul! We must see to it that in
   our Doctrine we bow our judgment to the teachings of Scripture and try
   to be conformed to all the Revelation of God and especially to all the
   teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ! May we not fall into one error or
   another. Scylla is there and Charyb-dis there, and he is a happy
   helmsman who can steer between the two! You shall fall into this 'ism'
   or into that, unless you keep to the Truth of God! Never mind whether
   you can make the Truth always consistent to your own judgment or not.
   If it is the Truth of God, believe it! And though it should seem to
   contradict another Truth, yet hold to it, if it is in the Word, waiting
   till clearer Light of God shall reveal to you that all these Truths
   stand in a wonderful harmony and consistency which, at first, you could
   not perceive. In Doctrine, buy the Truth!

   But, secondly, buy experimental Truth. I know not another word to use.
   I mean Truth within, the Truth experienced. See that this is real
   Truth. How easy it is to be deceived with the notion that we are
   converted when we still need to be converted--to fancy that because we
   have the approbation of our minister and of our Christian friends, we
   must, therefore, necessarily be the people of God! There is only one
   true new birth, but there are 50 counterfeits of it. In this respect,
   then, buy the Truth. Let me have you beware of an experience which has
   a faith in it that was never attended with repentance. I am afraid of a
   dry-eyed faith! That faith seems to me to be the faith of God's elect,
   whose eyes are full of tears. If you have never felt yourself a sinner,
   never trembled under the Law of God, never felt that you have deserved
   to be cast into Hell, I am afraid your faith is a mere presumptionand
   not the faith that looks to Christ. Beware of an experience that lies
   in talk and not in feeling! Mr. Talkative, in Bunyan's Pilgrim could
   speak very glibly about religion--no man more so than he--he was fit to
   take the chair in an assembly of divines, but it was not heart-work, it
   was all surface-work. Plow deep, my Brothers and Sisters! Feel what you
   believe! Let it be with you real home-work, soul-work, the work of God
   the Holy Spirit--not a temporary excitement, not head-knowledge, not
   theory! May the Truth of God be burned into your souls by the operation
   of the Holy Spirit! In this respect, buy the Truth.

   Alas, we see now-a-days in many professors, a great deal of life
   without struggle--and I think I have learned that all spiritual life
   that is not attended with struggles is a mistake, for Isaac, the child
   of the promise, is sure to be mocked by Ishmael! No sooner does the
   Seed of the woman come into the world than the seed of the serpent
   tries to destroy it. You must, and will, find a battle going on within
   you if you are a Believer! Sin will contest with Grace, and Grace will
   seek to reign over sinful corruptions. Be afraid of too easy an
   experience. "Moab is at ease from his youth; he has not been emptied
   from vessel to vessel; for the time comes when the Lord will search
   Jerusalem with candles and punish the men that

   are settled upon their lees." There must be strivings within, or we may
   well beware of such an experience! And I think I have noticed a growing
   feeling abroad of confidence without self-examination. I would have you
   hold to believe God's Word, but do not take your own state at
   haphazard. Do not conclude that you are a Christian because you thought
   you were one ten years ago. Day by day bring yourself to the
   touchstone. He that cannot bear examination will have to bear
   condemnation! He that dares not search himself will find that God will
   search him. He that is afraid to look himself in the face had need to
   be afraid to look the Judge in the face when the Great White Throne
   shall be placed, and all the world summoned to judgment! Confidence is
   quite consistent with self-examination and I pray you in this thing,
   buy the Truth and seek to have a religion that will bear the test--a
   true faith, a living faith, a faith that moves your soul, a deep-rooted
   faith, a faith which is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, for
   the time comes when, as the Lord lives, nothing short of this will
   stand you in good stead!

   Again, I spoke of three sorts of the Truths of God--doctrinal Truth,
   experimental Truth, and now practical Truth. By practical Truth I mean
   our actions being consistent, and those of a right and straightforward
   course. In this matter, buy the Truth of God! You profess to be a
   Christian--be a Christian! You say that you are a follower of
   Christ--follow Him, then! You know it is right to be a person of
   integrity and uprightness--be so! Let dirty tricks of trade, let no
   meanness, let none of those white lies which degrade commerce now days,
   ever come across your path except to be reprobated and abhorred. Walk
   straight forward. Learn not to tack. Do not wish to understand policy,
   craft and cunning. Buy the Truth. It will yet shame the world! He that
   speaks out his mind, says what he means, and means what he says, does
   the just thing, does the right thing, fears no man and lifts his head
   boldly in the face of all Creation if it dares to whisper that it will
   enrich him by his doing wrong--that is the man that buys the Truth
   practically. You know how it can be carried out in commerce readily
   enough, in the parlor, in the drawing room, and in the kitchen. There
   is a truthful way for a shoeblack to blacken shoes in the street, and
   there is a lying way of doing it. There is a truthful way of doing the
   most common actions, and there is a false method of doing the very same
   thing. In this respect, then, buy the Truth, as to the
   straightforwardness, the clean, sharp transparency of your moral
   character and of your Christian conduct! Never seem to be what you are
   not, or if you must, for a while, be in that position, count that you
   are unfortunate and escape from it as soon as you can! Never do what
   you are ashamed of--it matters not who sees. Think always that God
   sees, and with God for a Witness, you have enough observers! Only do
   that which you would have done if all eyes were fixed on you and you
   were observed even by your most cruel critics. Never stifle conscience.
   Carry out your convictions. If the skies fall, stand upright. What
   God's Holy Spirit tells you, do. What you find in this Book, carry out.
   If you bring any mischief to other people through it, that is their
   business. If I stay on the correct side of the road and run over
   any-body--that is his fault--he should have stayed out of the way. I
   would not run over him if I could help it, but I cannot turn aside from
   the correct road. Stand in your place. Let malignant eyes look at you,
   but, like the sun, shine on. And if others envy you, fret not because
   of them, neither be grieved to do the Truth of God--but in this
   respect, again, fulfill the text and--"buy the Truth."

   So have I shown you what the commodity is--doctrinally, experimentally,
   and practically. "Buy the Truth." Now let us come and think especially
   of the first part of the text. II. HOW THIS COMMODITY IS OBTAINED.

   "Buythe truth." Let us correct an error here. Some might suppose that
   Christ, the Gospel and salvation--all of which are included in the
   Truth of God--can be bought. They can, but they cannot. They can in the
   sense of the text. They cannot in any other sense. You cannot purchase
   salvation--merit cannot win it. Christ's price is, "Without money and
   without price." Has not the Prophet so worded it? "Yes, come, buy wine
   and milk, without money and without price." Salvation is of Free Grace,
   and is, from the very necessity of its nature, gratis. You cannot merit
   it! You cannot earn it! It is not of the will of man, nor of blood, nor
   of birth, but, "He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and He
   will have compassion on whom He will have compassion."

   What, then, does the text mean? I will try to expound the Word. It
   means, first, to be saved, give up everything that must be given up in
   order to your receiving the free salvation. Every sin must be given up.
   No man shall go to Heaven while he lives in and favors any one sin. A
   man may sin, and be saved, but he cannot love sin and be saved! Give
   up, then, your drunkenness, if that is your sin. Give up, then, your
   unchaste living if that is your sin. Conquer that angry temper, that
   love of greed--whatever it is that keeps you back from Christ. Buy the
   Truth and give up these. You will not merit salvation, then, but if
   this must be given up, let it not stand in your way. Give it up, Man!
   Since you cannot have your sin and have Christ, too, get a divorce from
   your sin and take holiness and take the Savior! You must also give up
   all your self-righteousness. Some are trusting in their prayers. Some
   are trusting in their tears, their repentances, their feelings, their
   church or chapel attendance and I know not what men will not trust in!
   Give them all up. They are all lies! There is no reliance to be placed
   on anything you can do. Come and trust what Christ has done, and if it
   is, as it certainly is necessary for you to give up your own
   righteousness to win Christ and be found in Him, then do it, and in
   this sense part with all you have that you may buy Christ!
   Yourself--your sinful self and your righteous self--oh, that you might
   be willing to part with both, that you might buy the true salvation!

   And the text means this, again, that if, in order to be saved, it
   should cost you a deep experience and much pain, yet never mind it. It
   is better that you should bear all that and get the Truth of God, than
   that you should escape without this heart-searching work and be
   deceived at the last. If the price at which you shall have a true
   experience is that of sorrow, buy the Truth at that price. Be willing
   to let the doctor's knife wound you, if thereby he shall heal you. Be
   willing to lose the right eye or the right hand if, thereby, you shall
   enter into eternal life!

   It also means this--buy the Truth of God--that is, be willing at all
   risks to hold to the Truth. Buy it as the martyrs did when they gave
   their bodies to be burned for it! Buy it as many have done when they
   have gone to prison for it. Buy it if you should lose your job for it.
   Lose your job sooner than tell a lie! Like the three holy children, be
   rather willing to go into the fiery furnace than to worship the image
   which Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Run the risk of being poor. Do not
   believe, as all the world says, that you must live. There is no
   absolute necessity for it. Sometimes it is a grander thing to die. Let
   the necessity be, "We must be honest. We must do the right. We must
   serve God," for that is a far greater necessity than that of merely
   living. Count all things but dross that you may be a true man, a godly
   man, a holy man, a Christly man, and in this sense make sacrifice of
   all, and thus "buy the Truth."

   I think that is what the word means. I expound it to mean this--give
   anything and everything, sooner than part with Christ, part with the
   living work of Grace in your heart, or part with the integrity of your
   conduct. And now let me--

   III. PARAPHRASE THESE WORDS.

   "Buy the Truth." Then I say, buy only the Truth of God. Do not be
   throwing away your life, your abilities, your zeal and your
   earnestness, for a lie. Some are doing it. Thousands of pounds are
   given to erect edifices for doing mischief. Multitudes of sermons are
   preached, very zealously, to propagate lies and sea and land are
   compassed to make proselytes, who shall be ten times more children of
   Hell than they were before! Buy only the Truth. Do not buy the
   glittering stuff they call truth. Never mind the label--look to see if
   it is the Truth of God. Bring everything that is propounded as the
   Truth of God to the test, to the trial. If it will not stand the fire
   of God's Word, then do not buy it! No, do not have it as a gift! No, do
   not keep it in the house! Run away from it! It eats as does a
   canker--let it not come near you. Buy only the

   Truth of God!

   "Buy the Truth" at any price, and sell it at no price. Buy it at any
   price. If you lose your body for it, if you lose not your soul, you
   have made a good bargain! If you lose your estate for it, yet if you
   have Heaven in return, how blessed the exchange! You certainly will not
   need for it to lose your peace of mind, but you may lose everything
   else, and you shall make a good bargain. Come to no terms with Christ.
   Throw all into the soul bargain. Let all go as long as you may, but
   have Truth in the Doctrine, Truth in the heart, Truth in the life and
   Christ, who is the Truth, to be your treasure forever!

   Buy all the Truth. When you come to the Bible, do not pick and choose.
   Do not try to believe half of it and leave out the other half. Buy the
   Truth--that is, not a section of it that suits your particular
   idiosyncrasy, but buy the whole! Why need you break up pearls and
   dissolve them? Buy all that is true. One Doctrine of God's Word
   balances another. He who is altogether and only a Calvinist probably
   only knows half the Truth of God, but he who is willing to take the
   other side, as far as it is true, and to believe all he finds in the
   Word of God, will get the whole pearl.

   Buy the Truth now --buy the Truth tonight. It may not be for you to buy
   tomorrow. You may be in that land where God has cast forever the lost
   souls away from all access to the Truth of God, where Truth's shadow,
   cold and chill, shall fall upon you, and you, in outer darkness, shall
   weep and wail, and gnash your teeth because you shut out the Truth of

   God from you, and now Truth has shut you out, and all your knockings at
   her door shall be answered with the dolorous cry, "Too late, too late!
   You cannot enter now!"

   Thus I have paraphrased the text. Buy only the Truth. Buy all the
   Truth. Buy the Truth at any price and buy the Truth now. Briefly let me
   give you--

   IV. THE REASONS FOR THIS PURCHASE.

   You need the Truth of God and you will never be received by God at last
   unless you bring the Truth in your right hand. Only the truthful can
   enter those gates of pearl. You need the truth now. You are not fit to
   live any more than to die without an interest in the Truth of God as it
   is in Jesus. Accept Christ to be truly yours, so truly yours as to make
   you true! You know not how to fight the battle of life at all without
   the Truth. Your life will be a blunder, and the close of it will be a
   disaster unless you buy the Truth. God grant that you may buy the Truth
   now. You need it. You need it now, and you will need it forever. Oh, I
   would to God that that hymn we sang should not merely be heard by you,
   but felt by you--

   "Hasten, Sinner, to be wise, And stay not for the morrow's sun."

   Oh, that fatal "tomorrow!" Over the cliffs of "tomorrow" millions have
   fallen to their ruin! Tomorrow, yes, "tomorrow! Here are these
   put-offs, and these delays, and yet God has never given you a promise
   of mercy tomorrow! His Word is, "Today, if you will hear His voice,
   harden not your hearts." A better day shall never come than this day.
   Oh, that you would accept it now!--

   "If you tarry till you're better, You will never come at all."

   And till times are more propitious, if you wait, you will wait on
   forever and forever! God grant you may buy His Truth now, for the text
   is in the present tense, for now you need it. Let me direct you to--

   V. THE MARKET WHERE YOU CAN BUY IT.

   These are the Words of Jesus Christ when He appeared to His servant
   John, "I counsel you, buy of Me." There is no place where Truth can be
   found in its power and life, except in Jesus Christ! Truth is in His
   blood--it will wash away what is false in you. Truth is in His
   Spirit--it will eradicate what is dark and vile in you. His love will
   make you true by conforming you to Himself. Come to Christ. Bring
   nothing with you. Come as you are, empty-handed, penniless and poor.
   The rivers of milk and wells of wine are all with Him. He is the
   banquet giver, and the Banquet, too. To trust Him is to live. To look
   to Him, alone, for salvation is to find salvation in that look! Oh,
   that these simple words might point someone to the place where he shall
   buy the Truth! And now let me repeat my text again, "Buy the Truth."

   Do not misread it. It does not say hear about the Truth. That is a good
   thing, but hearing is not buying, as many of you tradesmen know to your
   cost. You may tell people where to go, but you do not want them merely
   to hear--you are not content with that--you want them to buy! Oh, that
   some of you, my Hearers, would become buyers of the Truth! I know some
   of you. I happen to look about and find out here and there one--some of
   you, whom I know, and respect, and esteem, and pray for. I had thought
   that you would have bought the Truth long ago--it often staggers me why
   you have not! Oh, that you were decided for God! I am afraid I am
   preaching some of you into a hardened state. If the Gospel does not
   save you, it will certainly be a curse to you--and I am afraid it is
   being so to some of you. Do think of this, I pray you! Why should you
   and I have the misery of doing each other hurt when our intention is on
   both sides, I am sure, to do that which is kind and good? Oh, yield to
   my Master! The Light of the World is, with His hand, softly knocking at
   your door tonight! Do you not hear the knock of the hand that was
   pierced? Admit Him! He comes not in wrath--He comes in mercy! Admit
   Him! He has tarried long, even these many years, but no frown is yet
   upon His brow. Rise now and let Him in! Be not ashamed. Though ashamed,
   be not afraid, but let Him in, and blushing, with tears in your face,
   say to Him, "My Lord, I will trust You. Worthless worm as I am, I will
   depend upon You!" Oh, that you would do it now, this moment! The Lord
   give you Grace to do it! Do not only hear about it, but buy the Truth!

   Do not merely commend the Truth by saying, "The preacher spoke well,
   and he spoke earnestly, and I love what he said." The preacher had
   almost rather that you said nothing than that, if you do not buy the
   Truth! How it provokes the salesman when a customer says, "Yes, it is a
   beautiful article, and very cheap, and just what I need"--and then
   walks out

   of the shop! No, buy the Truth and you shall commend it afterwards--and
   your commendation shall be worth the hearing.

   And, I pray you, do not stand content with merely knowing about the
   Truth Oh, how much some of you know! How much more you know than even
   some of God's people! You could correct many of my blunders. But ah, he
   that knows is nowhere unless he also has. To know about bread will not
   satisfy my hunger. To know that there are riches at the bank will not
   fill my pocket. Buy the Truth, as well as know it! That is, make it
   your own.

   And do not, I pray you, intend to buy it.Oh, intentions, intentions,
   intentions! The road to Hell--not Heaven-- that is a mistake of the
   proverb--the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Oh, you
   laggards, pull up the paving stones and hurl them at the devil's head.
   He is ruining you! He is decoying you to your destruction! Turn your
   intentions into actions and no longer intendto buy, but buy the Truth!

   And do not, tonight, wish that the Truth were yours, but buy it! You
   say the cost is too great. Too great? It is nothing. It is "without
   money and without price." Do you mean, however, to say, that it is too
   great a cost to give up a sin? What? Will you burn in Hell rather than
   give up a lust? Will you dwell in everlasting burnings sooner than give
   up those cups that intoxicate you? Must you have your silly wantonness
   and lascivious mirth, or any kind of sin? Must you have it? Will you
   sooner have it than Heaven? Then, Sirs, your blood be on your own
   heads. You have been warned. I hope you are sober and have not yet gone
   to madness, but if you are, you will see that no pleasures of an hour
   can ever recompense for casting yourselves under the anger of God
   forever and forever! Buy the Truth! Do not merely talk about it and
   wish for it, but buy, buy the Truth! And then, lastly--

   VI. A WARNING AS TO LOSING THE PURCHASE.

   "Sell it not." My time has gone and, therefore, as I never like to
   exceed it, there shall be but these few words. When you have once got
   the Truth, I know you will not sell it. You will not, I am sure, at any
   price. But the exhortation, nevertheless, is a most proper one. There
   have been some who have sold the Truth to be respectable. They used to
   hear the Gospel, but now they have got on in the world and have a
   carriage--and they do not like to go where there are so many poor
   people--so away they go where they can hear anything or nothing, so
   that they may be respectable! Ah, I have the uttermost contempt for
   this affectation of gentility and respectability that leads men to be
   so mean as to forsake their Christian friends! Let them go! They are
   best gone! Such chaff had better not be with the wheat, and those that
   can be actuated by such motives are too base to be worth retaining!

   Some sell the Truth for a livelihood. I pity these far more. "I must
   have a job, therefore I must do what I am told there. I must break this
   Law of God and that, for I must keep my family." Ah, poor Soul, I pity
   your unfortunate position, but I pray that you may have Grace, even
   now, to play the man and never soil the Truth of God, even for bread.

   Some sell the Truth for the pleasures of the world. They must have
   enjoyment, they say, and so they will mingle with the multitude that do
   evil--and give up their Christian profession.

   Others seem to sell the Truth for nothing at all. They merely go away
   from Christ because religion has grown stale with them. They are weary
   of it, and they go away. I shall put the question painfully to
   all--will you also go away? Will you, to be respectable, will you to
   have a livelihood, will you to have the pleasures of sin for a season,
   will you out of sheer weariness--will you go away? No, we can add--

   "What anguish has that question stirred, If I will also go!

   Yet, Lord, relying on Your Word, I humbly answer, No."

   Sell it not! Sell it not! It cost Christ too dear! Sell it not! You
   made a good bargain when you bought it. Sell it not. Sell it not! It
   has not disappointed you--it has satisfied you and made you blessed!
   Sell it not--you need it. Sell it not, you will need it. The hour of
   death is coming on and the Day of Judgment is close upon its heels.
   Sell it not! You cannot buy its like again--you can never find a
   better. Sell it not--you are a lost man if you part with it. Remember
   Esau, and the morsel of meat, and how he would again have found his
   birthright if he could. Remember Demas. Remember Judas, the son of
   perdition! You are lost without it. It is your life. Skin for skin,
   yes, for the Truth, part with all that you possess, and be resolved,
   come fair or come foul, come storm or come calm, come sickness or come
   health, come poverty or come wealth, come death, itself, in the
   grimmest form, yet none shall separate you from the love of God which
   is in Christ Jesus your Lord, and none shall make you part from the
   Truths you have learned and received from His Word--the Truths

   you have felt and have had worked into your soul by His Spirit--and the
   Truths which in action you desire should tone and color all your life.

   God bless you, dear Friends, and keep you. And when the Great Shepherd
   shall appear, may you have the mark of the Truth of God upon you, and
   appear with Him in Glory.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW13:24-50.

   Verse 24. Another parable put He forth unto them, saying, The kingdom
   of Heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field.He
   knew that it was good. It had been tested--it was unmixed--it was good
   throughout.

   25. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the
   wheat, and went his way. It was a very malicious action. The thing has
   been done many times. Bastard wheat was sown in among the true wheat,
   so as to injure the crop.

   26-27. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then
   appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and
   said unto him, Sir, did not you sow good seed in your field? From
   where, then, has it tares? We often have to ask that question. How did
   this come about? It was a true Gospel that was preached, from where,
   then, come these hypocrites--these that are like the wheat, but are not
   wheat? For it is not the tare that we call a tare in England that is
   meant here, but a false wheat--very like wheat, but not wheat.

   28. He said unto them, An enemy has done this. The enemy could not do a
   worse thing than to adulterate the Church of God! Pretenders outside do
   little hurt. Inside the fold they do much mischief.

   28-30. The servants said unto him, Will you, then, that we go and
   gather them up? But he said, No, lest while you gather up the tares,
   you root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the
   harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather
   you together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them:
   but gather the wheat into my barn.The separation will be more in
   season, more easily and more accurately done when both shall have been
   fully developed--when the wheat shall have come to its fullness and the
   counterfeit wheat shall have ripened.

   31, 32. Another parable put He forth unto them, saying, The kingdom
   ofHeaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took
   andsowedin his field, which, indeed, is the least of allseeds. Commonly
   known in that country.

   32-35. But when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and
   becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the
   branches thereof. Another parable spoke He unto them: The kingdom
   ofHeaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three
   measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. All these things spoke
   Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spoke He
   not unto them: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
   Prophet, saying, I will open My mouth inparables; I will utter things
   which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.How
   thoroughly impregnated our Lord was with the very spirit of Scripture!
   And He always acted as if the Scriptures were uppermost in His mind.
   They seemed to be always in their fullness before His soul.

   36. Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and
   His disciples came unto Him--Those house talks--those explanations of
   the great public sermons and parables--were sweet privileges which He
   reserved for those who had given their utter confidence to Him.

   36-44. Saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.
   He answered and said unto them, He that sows the good seed is the Son
   of Man. The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the
   Kingdom; but the tares are the children of the Wicked One. The enemy
   that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world and
   the reapers are the angels. Therefore, as the tares are gathered and
   burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of
   Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His
   Kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity. And shall
   cast them unto a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing
   of teeth Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom
   of their Father Who has ears to hear, let him hear Again, the Kingdom
   of Heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field which a man has found,
   and for joy over it--Stumbling upon it, perhaps, when he was at the
   plow--turning up the old crop in which it was concealed.

   44. He goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.Some persons
   do stumble upon the Gospel when they are not looking for it. "I am
   found of them that sought Me not" is a grand Free Grace text. Some of
   those who have been

   most earnest in the Kingdom of Heaven were at one time most indifferent
   and careless, but God, in Infinite Sovereignty, puts the Treasure in
   their way--gives them the heart to value it and they obtain it to their
   own joy!

   45. Again, thee Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking
   goodly pearls. He does not stumble on it-- he is seekigpearls.

   46, 47. Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold
   all that he had, and bought it Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like
   unto a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered fish of every
   kind--Bad fish and good fish, and creeping things and broken shells,
   and bits of seaweed, and pieces of old wreck. Did you ever see such an
   odd assortment as they get upon the deck of a fishing vessel when they
   empty out the contents of a drag net? Such is the effect of the
   ministry. It drags together all sorts of people. It is quite as well
   that we have not eyes enough to see one another's hearts tonight, or
   else I dare say we would make about as strange a medley as I have
   already attempted to describe as being in the fisherman's vessel!

   48. Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and
   gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. All a mixture.
   We cannot sort one from the other, now, but when the net comes to
   shore, then will be the picking over the heap. No mistakes will be
   made. The good will go into vessels, and the bad, and none but the bad,
   will be cast away!

   49, 50. So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come
   forth andsever the wicked from among thejust. And shall cast them into
   the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Not
   fire, then, which annihilates, but fire which leaves in pain and causes
   weeping and gnashing of teeth!
     __________________________________________________________________

Dangerous Lingering

   (No. 3450)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He lingered." Genesis 19:16.

   LOT was highly favored. In the midst of a general destruction, angels
   were sent to take care of him. He had received a warning which many had
   not heard--and he had felt the terror that warning would excite--while
   some who had heard the tidings little heeded their imminent moment. Lot
   stood in the condition of one who knew that he must leave the city, for
   it was about to be destroyed. He intended to leave it. He was just
   about to take his departure, but, nevertheless, hesitated a little,
   halted a while, avoided hurry, protracted his stay with some attachment
   to the place where he had dwelt, and so, in the face of danger, he
   hesitated. Being slow to move when fully aware that judgment was swift
   to overtake, "He lingered." I believe Lot to be in this respect the
   exact counterpart of a great many hearers of the Gospel. They
   understand at least its threats. They know something about the way of
   escape. They have resolved to follow that way and they intend to do so
   very soon. Yet for a long time they have halted on the verge of
   decision, almost persuaded to be Christians. Strong as their resolution
   to become followers of the Savior seems to be, unhappily they stop
   short, they linger in their old condition--halting between two
   opinions. To such persons I propose to address a few words of
   exhortation this evening. First of all, to expostulate with you
   personally upon personal matters. Then to speak to you about others,
   for I have the full conviction that the man who lingers puts others in
   danger as well as himself, just as Lot's lingering was hazardous to his
   daughters and to his wife. And lastly, to commend the means which I
   trust God will use tonight, similar to those which He used with Lot,
   that some angelic hand or some Providential force may lay hold upon the
   lingerer, that he may be brought out from the City of Destruction and
   made to flee for help to Christ the Lord. I must begin by speaking to--

   I. THE PERSON WHO IS LINGERING.

   I would like to be looked upon, just now, less as a preacher than as a
   friend who is talking to the lingering one, the one almost
   decided--talking to him in the most familiar tones, but, at the same
   time, with the most earnest purpose. There are certain thoughts which
   have been, and are still fermenting in my soul. I have heard that a
   conclave was held in pandemonium. In the lower regions Satan had called
   together all the devils who showed him allegiance and he said to them,
   "I want one of you to go forth as a lying spirit from this place to
   deceive many. The Gospel is being faithfully preached and men are being
   won to Christ, my rival. Spirits of the infernal pit, I desire your
   help that this Gospel may not spread further! I pause while each one of
   you, my liege servants, shall tell me of the devices you will use to
   prevent men from fleeing to Christ. His device that shall seem wisest
   to my subtlety shall be most fully employed among the sons of men."
   Then one spoke and said, "O Prince of the infernal pit, I will go forth
   and tell men that there is no God, no Heaven, no Hell, no hereafter."
   But the arch-fiend said, "It is in vain! The Gospel has already gone so
   far with the men of whom I am now thinking, that this would not be of
   use. They know there is a God--they are sure of it. The testimony which
   has been borne in the world has brought so much Light into it that they
   cannot close their eyes to the fact--your device, though admirable,
   will not succeed." Then up rose another, and he said, "I shall
   insinuate doubts as to the authenticity of Scripture. I shall belie the
   teachings of the Doctrines of the Word of God, and so shall I keep them
   from Christ." But again the leader of that conclave objected that this
   would scarcely suffice, for the multitude had so heard the Gospel. And
   those whose conversion he was most anxious to prevent were so
   conversant with its historical facts, that they could not seriously
   question them. Neither could they live in systematic doubt who had been
   schooled in positive belief. There were many devices, but I will tell
   you which most of all struck Satan, which he determined to use most
   among the

   sons of men. It was this--one foul spirit said, "I will not insinuate
   doubts about the existence of God or the truth of Scripture. I know it
   would not be of any use. But this thing I will do--I will tell men
   that, though these things are true and important, there is no hurry
   about them, there is time enough and to spare--that they may wait a
   little till there is a more convenient season, and then shall they
   attend to them." Now the subtlety of Satan was pleased with this, and
   he said, "Servant, go your way! You have invented the net in which the
   fowler shall take more birds then in any other. Good speed to your
   enterprise. This deadly poison will destroy innumerable souls!"

   Feeling this to be the case, it shall be my earnest endeavor to tear
   that net to pieces and to expose this poison, that none may be
   entangled unawares and perish unwarned!

   Coming back, then, to the purpose with which I started, earnestly and
   personally to speak to the lingerer, I would like to ask you, my
   beloved Friend, if this matter about which you are still hesitating is
   not of vital importance to you?It concerns your soul, yourself, your
   true self! It deals with your destiny, your impending, your eternal
   destiny! You are immortal--you acknowledge a deathless principle within
   you--and you are conscious that you shall live forever in happiness or
   woe. Do you think you ought to put off all preparation for the future
   that awaits you? If I knew that someone was about to defraud you of
   your estate, and that unless you were diligent about it you would lose
   all your property, I think I would say to you, "Bestir yourself!" If I
   knew that some deadly disease had begun to prey on your constitution
   and that, if neglected, it would soon gain an ascendancy with which it
   were hard to grapple, I think I would say, "Go to the physician. Do not
   delay, for bodily health is very precious." But, dear Friend, if your
   estate is precious, much more your soul! And if the health of this poor
   clay ought to be looked to, much more the welfare of your soul--the
   welfare of your soul forever! Do you not think, if anything should be
   postponed, it should be something of less importance? Was not Christ
   right when He said, "Seek, first, the Kingdom of God and His
   righteousness"? Does not your reason agree that He was right in putting
   that first? I shall not need to argue with you. I speak as to a man who
   has his wits about him. Is it not so? Suppose you look to getting on in
   the world, first--you may die and be lost before you have got on!
   Suppose the taking of a degree at the university should be your first
   concern--that would be a poor recompense. The honors of learning could
   not mitigate the terrors of judgment! Do you not feel now (if you will
   let your better nature speak) that the very first thing a man should
   see to should be this--to be reconciled to God and be all right with
   Him for eternity?

   I will then ask you another question--is there anything so very
   pleasant in a state of enmity to God, that you should wish to remain in
   it? Why should Lot want to linger in Sodom? He had often been vexed
   there. The very night, before, he had his house beset with rioters! Why
   should he want to linger? Have you found any great comfort in being
   undecided? Is there anything very fascinating in remaining hesitant and
   halting between two opinions? Dear Friend, if your condition is at all
   like what mine was before I believed in Jesus, I know you would be glad
   enough to get out of it! Oh, how earnest I was, sometimes, in seeking
   Christ! Oh, how wretched I was at other times that I could not find
   Him! Then, again, I was stupidly senseless about Divine things, and my
   self-upbraiding would not let me be at peace. It is a most unhappy
   condition to be in--to have Light enough to know that you are in the
   dark and no more--to have just enough Grace to feel that you have not
   the Grace that can save you--to be enough awakened to feel that if you
   remain as you are, you must perish forever! I do not see anything in
   this hesitating condition that should allure you to keep in it any
   longer than you can help. Beloved Friends, have you ever seriously
   weighed--if not I will ask you to do so--the solemnity of the
   destruction which must come upon you if you are not decidedly a
   Believer in Christ and, on the other hand, the unspeakable glory and
   bliss which will belong to you if you are led to trust in Jesus and are
   saved?

   I can scarcely give you the details of a little incident in Russian
   history which might illustrate the emergency. The Czar had died
   suddenly and in the dead of night one of the counselors of the empire
   came to the Princess Elizabeth and said to her, 'You must come at once
   and take possession of the crown." She hesitated, for there were
   difficulties in the way, and she did not desire the position. But he
   said, "Now sit down, Princess, for a minute," Then he drew her two
   pictures. One was the picture of herself and the Count thrown into
   prison, racked with tortures, and presently both brought out to die
   beneath the axe. "That," he said, "you can have if you like." The other
   picture was of herself with the imperial crown of all of Russia on her
   brow, and all the princes bowing before her, and all the nation doing
   her homage. "That," said he, "is the other side of the question. But,
   tonight, your Majesty must choose which it shall be." With the two
   pictures vividly depicted before her mind's eye, she did not hesitate
   long, but cast in her choice for the crown. Now I would

   gladly paint for you two such pictures, only I lack the skill. You will
   either sink forever down in deeper and yet deeper woe, filled with
   remorse because you brought it all upon yourself, or else, if you
   decide for Christ and rest in Him, you shall enter the bliss of those
   who forever and forever without admixture of grief enjoy happiness
   before the Throne of God! To my mind there ought to be no halting as to
   the choice. It should be made. I pray God's Holy Spirit to help you to
   make it tonight! On this winged hour, eternity is hung. The choice of
   this night may be the cooling of the wax which now is soft. Once
   cooled, it will bear the impress throughout eternity! God grant it may
   be a resolve for Christ, for His cause, for His Cross, for His crown!

   I would like still, dear Friend, to hold you by the button which I laid
   hold of just now, and to say to you, What is it that has kept you
   waiting so long?Did I not meet you some years ago in the street, and
   you said to me, "Sir, I have been a hearer of yours for many years."
   And I said, "Oh, yes, and when did you join the Church?" And you said,
   "Ah, I have never done that." And I asked, "Why not?" And you were
   honest enough to say, "Because I am afraid I should be very much out of
   place there, for I am not a Believer in Christ." Do you recollect how I
   squeezed your hand and said, "Ah, I hope it will not be long before you
   give your heart to the Lord," and you said, "Well, I hope so, too"? It
   is a good long while now--and you have been getting gray since then. I
   dare say if I saw you tonight and put the same question to you, you
   would make the same reply! And in ten years, time, if you and I live,
   we shall be still relatively in the same position-- I still pleading,
   and you still saying--"yes, yes, yes, it is very right." No, no, I
   answer, it is very wrong, that consenting without complying, not doing
   what the Gospel bids you do, yielding and resisting, as it were, by
   turns. Repenting and then forgetting. "Forgetting?" Yes, forgetting,
   and forgetting, till these delays will cast you into irrevocable ruin!
   What is it you are waiting on, my Friend? Is there some sin you cannot
   give up? What sin is worth being damned for? If there is one, keep on
   with it. I defy you to defend your negligence! Put it to this test--if
   there is any supposable delight that is worth the endurance of eternal
   wrath, pursue that delight, however sensual it may be, with avidity!
   But if there is not, do not play the fool or act the madman! Do I hear
   you plead ignorance? I would make some excuse for you, if I thought the
   plea was just and true, but suppose for a minute that it is so? Then,
   dear Friend, ought not you to begin to search the Scriptures? Should
   not you be making intensely earnest enquiries that you might know the
   certainty of these things? For the soul to be without knowledge is not
   good. But if you are perishing for lack of knowledge, there certainly
   is no reason why you should! Many of us would only be too delighted if
   we might tell you still more fully what is the way of salvation. "Well,
   but it is inconvenient just now!" Are you promising yourself a more
   favorable opportunity? Let me ask you, Do you imagine you will be any
   better off tomorrow than you are today? Do you think in ten years' time
   you will be more likely to lay hold on Christ than you are now? I do
   not think you will. Have you ever seen sponges that have been turned
   into flints? Well, that is a slow process--it takes a long time. The
   same process, however, is gradually happening to you. Every year you
   are getting more flinty. The drip, drip, drip of this world's care and
   sin is petrifying you! You are getting stony. It strikes me the best
   time to repent in is this moment--and the very best season in which to
   fly to Jesus is now! Before yet the clock has ticked again, your heart
   will have grown more callous. It certainly does not soften. When will
   there be any influence more potent than there is now to help you? The
   Spirit of God is ready now. Do you need more than His power? The blood
   of Christ is a full Atonement for sin. Do you need anything more than
   that for your salvation? Do you expect Christ to come down again on
   earth to save you? Do you need any promise fuller than that which the
   Bible has in it now, or any invitation more gracious than that which
   the Gospel gives to you now--"Today is the accepted time: today is the
   day of salvation." I pray you, my lingering Friend, linger no longer!
   Oh, how I wish I could put my hands in yours and lead you to the
   Savior! But I cannot. I will, however, pray Him to lead you this very
   night!

   "I will think of it," you say. No, that is the very thing I do not want
   you to do! I want you to believe in Jesus now, and not talk about
   thinking of it tomorrow. In your seat, if you will rest in Jesus, and
   trust your soul in His hands, you are saved this very moment! It is an
   instantaneous work--

   "The moment a sinner believes, And trusts in his crucified God, His
   pardon at once he receives, Salvation in full through His blood!" Oh,
   that you would exercise that simple faith, now, and not talk about
   thinking of it tomorrow, for tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, alas,
   tomorrow never comes! It is in no calendar, except the almanac of
   fools! Each day to the wise

   man is today as it comes. The fool wastes today, and so wastes all his
   life. O Lingerer, I beseech you, think now of the long time you have
   lingered. It may well suffice you--it has surely been long enough, and
   I would say to you, in the words of one of old, "How long halt you
   between two opinions?" And quote the saying of yet another, "Choose you
   this day whom you will serve." And may God the Holy Spirit guide the
   choice, and He shall have the praise! Now I need to speak a little upon
   another topic.

   II. I REMIND THE LINGERER THAT WHILE HE LINGERS, HE ENDANGERS THE SOULS
   OF OTHER PEOPLE.

   When Lot went to his sons-in-law and told them that the city was to be
   destroyed, "he was to them as one that mocked." How would they say to
   him, "Go to, old dotard! Do you think we believe you? The sky is clear
   and blue, and the sun has risen--dot you think we believe your nonsense
   about fire and brimstone coming out of Heaven? We don't believe you."
   When Lot lingered, he was defeating his own purpose and doing the worst
   imaginable thing, if he wanted to convince his sons-in-law that he
   spoke the truth, for while he lingered, they would say, "The old fool
   does not believe it, himself, for if he did believe it, he would pack
   up and hasten away! No, he would take his daughters by the hand and
   lead than out of the city at once." A little hesitancy in the conduct
   of a man who said that he believed a dreadful judgment was imminent
   would be sufficient to give them umbrage--quite reason enough to make
   them say, "He does not believe, himself, what he tells us." Have not
   some of you spoken seriously to others about the value of their souls,
   though you are not saved? Did you try the other day to rebuke a
   swearer? I am glad you did. You are a member of a Temperance
   Association and you do what you can to stop drunkenness. I am glad you
   do. You will not allow sin to pass unrebuked in your presence. But,
   listen, Man, with what face do you reprove others while you are not
   decided yourself? Where is your consistency? If they should turn round
   on you and say, "If there is anything reliable in the Grace of God, why
   are you not reconciled to Him? If there is anything desirable in
   religion, why do you not walk according to its precepts? If Christ is a
   Savior, why do you not yield to Him and obey His ordinances?" I know
   not what answer you could give! I cannot imagine any response but a
   blush that should betoken your shame and confusion of face!

   The mischief that Lot did to his daughters was yet more aggravated, for
   all the while he was hesitating, they were sure to hesitate, too. He
   was keeping them waiting. They were in jeopardy as well as himself. How
   many comrades, young Man, you might have instructed in the faith before
   now had you been yourself decided? It is a happy circumstance when a
   young married couple become converted to God before their little ones
   are able to imitate a bad example. I thank God for a father whom I know
   and honor--that of his children there is only one that can recollect
   the time when the evening was spent in playing cards--and that one
   recollects the night when the cards were all thrown into the fire and
   burnt! Only one of his children recollects when the Sabbath was known
   to be spent in quiet walks and pleasant recreations, but not in public
   worship or private devotion. He recollects the rearing of the family
   altar, when prayer was made a household institution. He can well
   remember the earnest entreaties made that the father's sin might not be
   visited upon the children. Oh, happy circumstance! Had the parents been
   converted later in life, the ill example might never have been wiped
   out! The converted father might have found that the children did not
   emulate the good example of his regenerate state, but did rather
   imitate him in the negligence and sinfulness of his natural unrenewed
   life. When you, who are parents, habitually demur and hesitate, do you
   not think that other members of your family will hesitate, too? I have
   noticed it frequently, where there is a man or a woman knowing the
   Truth of God in a measure, but not decided. It almost always happens
   that when the husband or the wife is in the same condition, the moment
   the father gets savingly converted, the wife comes and avows her faith.
   Not infrequently the children follow suit! It only needed somehow, in
   God's Providence, the decision of the head of the household! This has
   led the others to decision. It becomes, therefore, a very mournful
   reflection that there should be men and women lingering upon the brink
   of the grave who are helping others to linger-- their example being the
   means of keeping others in a state of perilous hazard! You must know,
   many of you, that it is so with you! Therefore, I shall leave the Truth
   to weigh upon your conscience, hoping it will stir you up to decision.

   Let me venture to make one other observation here. I should not wonder
   if, perhaps, the death of Lot's wife might partly be attributed to Lot,
   himself If you think that this is a severe reflection, I would remind
   you that she must have seen her husband hesitate. She was a woman far
   lower down in the scale than he was--when, therefore, she saw him
   lingering, it was no wonder if that contagious example led her to look
   back. Perhaps among the regrets of Lot throughout the rest of his life,
   there would be this one, "I did not hurry myself out of that city as I
   should. I was in no hurry. I tar-

   ried, and lingered, and paused. I had almost to be dragged out by the
   angels' hands." And this, it may be, led Lot's wife to look back with
   lingering--and then to be turned into a pillar of salt. O undecided
   Man! I would not like you to feel that the blood of your wife was on
   your skirts. O undecided Father! I would dread to have you think, in
   years to come, "The loss of my children's souls was due to my
   procrastination." Alas, it may be so--it may be so! Therefore now, with
   a Brother's earnest affection, let me come to you and say, "You intend
   to believe. You have resolved to be a Christian. You are no Atheist,
   and no scoffer. You are not hardened and rebellious--your heart is soft
   and tender and ready for these things--then yield it now, yield it up
   completely this night to that dear hand that once was crucified! That
   hand shall mold you according to its own will. Thus says the Spirit of
   God to you tonight, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be
   saved, for, "he that believes and is baptized shall be saved." He that
   believes not--though he may have resolved to believe, if he dies
   believing not--must be damned! Our last word was to be this--

   III. LET US PRAY FOR THE LINGERERS, that they may by some means be
   hastened. I do not expect to see angels come walking down these aisles,
   or threading their way through these pews tonight. But I do trust that
   a messenger from God will come, notwithstanding that. Sometimes
   lingerers have been quickened and decided by their own reflections
   being blessed to them by the Holy Spirit. A very simple observation was
   once the means of deciding a man. He was a mechanic and a man of a
   mathematical turn of mind. He had attended a meeting. The meeting was
   held in an upper room, and going below the stairs, his attention was
   attracted by the beam that had supported the people, and he said to
   himself, "What a weight there must have been upon that!" Just at that
   very minute, into his mind there flashed, "And what a weight there is
   resting upon you!" How that thought followed the other, I cannot tell,
   but as he turned it over, it did seem to him that he had a weight of
   sin enough to crush him--that he could not bear up under such a weight
   as that-- and that his soul would come down in ruin like many a
   building whose beams have not been strong enough and have, at last,
   given way. I mind not what form the thought may take--I only pray that
   some such thought may come home and decide you!

   Occasionally, a good man has been the means of suggesting the deciding
   thought. A smith was blowing his bellows in a smithy one day, when the
   saintly McCheyne stepped into the smithy for a shelter from a shower of
   rain. As the smith was blowing the coals and they were at a great heat,
   he simply said to him, "What does that fire make you think of?" He
   never gave an answer--and McCheyne went his way. It made the smith
   think of the wrath to come, and it made him flee from it, too! We
   cannot tell what may be, in the gracious Providence of God, the means
   of bringing you to decision. He that used an angel's hand with Lot, can
   use a well-timed observation with you. Therefore I urge all Christian
   people to use every opportunity and study to season their conversation
   with Divine Grace! Sow beside all waters, for you know not which may
   prosper--this or that. Sometimes men have been decided by the deaths of
   their relatives or their friends. "I may be the next," has been
   suggested to them. When the dear child has been buried, it has made the
   afflicted father reflect that he shall never meet it in Heaven unless
   he mends his ways. So, too, the bereaved mother, in the bitterness of
   her heart, has sought a Savior in the hope that she might meet her
   baby, again, in the better land. Such things are good. They are blessed
   deaths that bring eternal life to the survivors! These little ones well
   spend their lives in winging their flight to Paradise and showing us
   the way. But surely, dear Friend, you don't require a distressing
   visitation to decide you! I trust your heart will be given to Christ
   without the dire necessity that you should lose those you love on
   earth.

   Occasionally, and very occasionally, persons have been decided by
   personal sickness. Some, but oh, how few, have witnessed the good
   confession in the hour of death. A soldier in the army of the Potomac,
   of whom I somewhere read, was taken to the rear to die. He was badly
   wounded. He was also suffering from fever. Someone had told him, just
   before the fever came on, of a soldier found asleep at his post who was
   condemned to die. The poor fellow, in his delirium, imagining that he
   was that soldier, cried out to the doctor who was attending him, "Sir,
   I am to be shot tomorrow morning, and as I wish to have all right, I
   want you to send for the chaplain at once. I need to see him." The
   doctor, to calm his fears, said. "No, no, you are not to be shot
   tomorrow morning. It's a mistake." "Oh, but I am," he said, "I know I
   shall." "But I will be here," said the doctor, "and if anyone comes to
   touch you, I will have him arrested. I will take care you shall not
   die." "Is it so, Doctor?" he said, in calmer accents, "then you need
   not send for the chaplain. I shall not need him just yet." So the truth
   came out that fear, not faith, animated him, though it was but spoken
   in a feverish fit. How many men, if they thought they were going to
   die, would say, "Oh, yes, let all be said and done that it is right to
   say and do!" But persuade them that they are likely to live a little
   longer, they will wait and adjourn their faith while they can calm
   their fear. Not very often is the decision genuine which men arrive at
   under the stress of that fear which comes of impending dissolution. May
   God's spirit deepen in some here present their sense of sin! May your
   crimes sting you. May you feel your guilt. May you hate yourselves
   because of your transgressions. May you be distressed because of your
   ingratitude, your disobedience, your unbelief! Then you will long to
   get rid of this horrible evil, this enmity against God! May you feel
   tonight what a mischievous thing it is for the creature to be at
   variance with his Creator, for man to be out of order with his God!
   What a shameful thing it is for the most favored of creatures to be
   unfriendly to the Sovereign that favors him! What an incredible thing
   it is, that while the ox knows its owner and the ass its master's crib,
   man, the object of Divine Love, should not know his Lord, his Friend,
   his Benefactor! Oh, may you give no rest to your eyes or slumber to
   your eyelids till you have opened your mouth to profess the name of the
   Lord and fled for refuge to take hold of His righteousness and
   strength! Oh, that you might be too agitated to sleep till you have
   confessed your sin into the ear of the Great Elder Brother, and sought
   pardon from your God through Christ your Savior. There is forgiveness,
   there is mercy to be had--to be had now! Whoever believes in Christ
   Jesus shall be saved! Believing is trusting, relying in simple but
   sincere dependence. May His Grace enable you to cast yourselves upon
   His mercy and credit His promise in this good hour, so you shall be
   this night enrolled among the saved, and He shall have all the praise!
   The Lord grant it, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: LUKE 15:1-24.

   Verse 1. Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners to hear
   Him. The attraction of His love brought them into the inner circle. Had
   He been a self-exalting Pharisee, they would have stood as far off as
   they could if they listened to Him at all! But the Savior spoke so
   gently, so earnestly, with such evident love in His heart, that "then
   drew near unto Him the publicans and sinners to hear Him."

   2. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This Man receives
   sinners and eats with them. The thunder and lightning of their ange
   could not turn the milk of His human kindness, but rather did it take
   an opportunity from their bitter speech to speak all the more sweetly
   to those who gathered near to Him.

   3. And He spoke this parable unto them, saying. And then we read three
   parables--yet are they one. As you have sometimes seen a picture in
   three panels, so this is one picture in three panels, in which we see
   three views of lost sinners and the three Divine Persons of the ever
   blessed Trinity in unity seeking men--saving men.

   4-7. What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he loses one of them,
   does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, andgo after that
   which is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it
   on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together
   his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I
   have found my sheep which was lost Isay unto you, that likewise joy
   shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repents, more than over ninety
   and nine just persons which need no repentance. A very complete answer
   to the murmuring Pharisees. Where should the shepherd be but looking
   after the lost sheep? Is not that one of his first businesses--to seek
   after that which is gone astray? Does he not derive from it his highest
   joy? All the sheep that remain at home do not afford him so intense a
   delight as that one wanderer that his love has sought, and that his
   power has rescued. So Jesus Christ seems to say, taking them on their
   own ground, "You Pharisees are like sheep that never went astray. That
   is your own view of yourselves. You can never afford Me so much
   pleasure as these poor publicans and sinners that have wandered. When I
   shall find them, I shall have special joy over them. Why should I look
   after you? Am I not, first of all, called to look after the lost sheep
   of the house of Israel?" And thus He answered their complaints.

   8-10. Or what woman, having tenpieces of silver, if she loses onepiece,
   does not light a candle, andsweep the house, and seek diligently till
   she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls her friends and her
   neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me: for I have found the piece
   which I had lost. Likewise. I say unto you, there is joy in the
   presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents. A second
   blow for them. "These souls of publicans and sinners are as precious as
   yours. If you are like pieces of money, so are they. I need not sit and
   look at you," says Christ, "like the miser, who counts his hoard which
   he has in the box, but I do what the woman did who had lost the piece.
   She could afford to leave the rest laid by in her purse, but she spent
   all her strength, her eyesight--all her diligent labor upon that one
   piece."

   Here we have the work of the Holy Spirit--only the Holy Spirit works
   through the Church, who is the woman. It is her business to light a
   candle--to carry the light of the Gospel. It is her business to sweep
   the house--often to stir up the dust by the bosom of the Law. It is
   hers to seek diligently in every corner and cranny in the deserted and
   filthy places after that precious piece of money which has not lost a
   penny worth of its value through having rolled away into the mouse hole
   or lost itself among the cobwebs. She has to seek until she finds it.
   Christian diligence is not to stop short of conversion. We are not to
   try to bring men to Christ, but literally to bring them by the power of
   His Eternal Spirit. And when the Church finds her piece of money, she,
   too, has her merry-making. She calls together her friends and rejoices,
   and the Holy Spirit delights to view His own work in and through His
   Church.

   11. And he said.And here comes the grandest of the three parables--that
   which sets forth the Eternal Father's love. 11, 12. A certain man had
   two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me
   the portion of goods that falls to me. And he divided unto them his
   living. He was not content to remain and share everything with his
   father. The other one would have wished his father to keep all that he
   had, only too delighted to be a guest in his father's house, but no,
   "Give me--let me have it myself--let me be independent--let me have
   something to call my own." Human nature--poor human nature! It is not
   the true spirit of a child. Very ungenerous, ungrateful. Why did the
   father divide the living between them, but that it is God's why to
   allow men to go as they will?

   13. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, and
   took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance
   with riotous living.He could not have done that at home. His father's
   eyes would have been a check upon him. Man wants to get away from God
   because he wants to do wrong. At the bottom of all infidelity there
   lies a love of sin. Men quarrel with Divine Truth because that Truth
   quarrels with them.

   14. And when he had spent all For there is an end to all carnal joy.
   Man can only go a certain length. When he has got to the bottom of the
   cup, it will not spring up like a fountain and fill itself again. "When
   he had spent all."

   14. There arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in
   want Just when he needed all his money, then provisions were dearer
   than ever. When he had nothing to buy with, everything grew dear. He
   never had been, while he lived with his father, and never would have
   been, if he had stayed there. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
   want." "He began to be in want."

   15. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country. And he
   sent him into his fields to feed swine. There was a kindness in that,
   but it was a degrading kindness. "The tender mercies of the wicked are
   cruel." He sent him into his fields to feed swine! A Jew, who could not
   bear the unclean animals--and he must feed swine! When a man gets
   discontented with the world, the devil and his friends generally
   suggest that he should do something worse than he has ever done before.
   They give him some gay amusement--some fouler sin than he has ever
   plunged into. They tell him that there is no hope and, therefore, he
   may have all his fling and go the whole length of his tether. "He sent
   him into his field to feed swine."

   16. And he would gladly have filled his belly with the husks that the
   swine did eat--So he could not earn his bread, and he could not get it
   by charity. To what a state of destitution was he brought. But of all
   destitution in the world, the destitution of a sinner who has, at last,
   grown sick of his sin and cannot find comfort anywhere else, is about
   the worst. The old nest is pulled down and you have not got another.
   The pleasures of the world have fooled you. The joys and delights of
   ungodly society pall upon your taste and you want no more of them, but
   yet you do not know of any other delight or any other joy--and dare not
   hope that there can be another joy for you!

   16, 17. And no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself--He had
   been out of his mind all the while. He had been beside himself with
   sin. "When he came to himself."

   17. He said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough
   and to spare, and I perish with hunger? "Still his child, though. Still
   he is my father, and I know that there is bread enough for me. Why do I
   not get it? How sad that I should starve, when in my father's house
   there is so much." What a motive that is to a poor hungry soul to go to
   God, namely, that God has so much--so much that He feeds His servants
   till they cannot eat it all! They have bread enough and to spare. Why
   should His child, then, though a wanderer, die of hunger in a foreign
   land?

   18-20. I will arise andgo to my father, and will say unto him, Father,
   I have sinned against Heaven, and before you, and am no more worthy to
   be called your son: make me as one of your hired servants. And he
   arose, and came to his fa-ther.It was a mercy for him it did not end in
   resolution. He came to matter of fact.

   20. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had
   compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.Then did he
   come to his father, or did his father come to him? Well, I think it was
   both, but still, chiefly that the father came to him. "When he was yet
   a great way of"--he had not gone half the distance--his father ran the
   bigger half of the way. He saw him! He had compassion, and ran and fell
   on his neck and kissed him!

   21. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven,
   and in your sight, and am no more worthy to be called your son. He was
   going on to say, I dare say, "Make me one of your hired servants," but
   his father kissed him on the mouth, and he never prayed that prayer. It
   was not a Gospel prayer, and would not do, and so he stifled it with
   love! It was good as far as he did go.

   22-24. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe,
   and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet
   and bring here the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be
   merry: For this, my son, was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and
   is found. And they began to be merry. Full of joy, intense joy,
   overflowing joy, sparkling joy! I love that old Saxon word, "merry."
   Some are frightened at it. I heard somebody the other day account it
   quite wicked to say, "A merry Christmas." Oh, that we had merry days
   all the year round, especially if we could make merry with such
   merriment as this! Do begin to be merry.
     __________________________________________________________________

Grand Glorying

   (No. 3451)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORDS-DAY EVENING, JULY
   5, 1868.

   "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord
   Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the
   world." Galatians 6:14.

   WITH that, "God forbid," Paul makes a clean sweep of every other ground
   of boasting and casts himself upon the one only chosen object of his
   soul's glorying. And yet, if you will think of it, Paul had, after the
   fashion of other men, many things in which he might have gloried. If it
   had so pleased him, he might have boasted of his pedigree, for he was
   "a Hebrew of the Hebrews." He could trace his genealogy, as the pure
   Hebrews could, up to that great fountain of nobility--Abraham himself!
   If he had pleased, he might have boasted in the precision of the former
   ritual which he had practiced, for he could say that as touching the
   Law of God, he had been a Pharisee--a man observant of the minutest
   points of the very letter of the Law, careful for its doctrinal
   tittles, not allowing even the gnat to escape him, but straining after
   it with care. And yet the Apostle did not care to boast, either of his
   pedigree or of his ritualism. He casts them both aside and though he
   had once gloried in them, he now counted them but dross, that he might
   win Christ and be found in Him! Surely, if the Apostle had wished it,
   he might have gloried in his martyr life. He did once give a list of
   what he had suffered, and he added, "I have become a fool in glorying;
   you have compelled me." Had he not been beaten with rods, shipwrecked,
   subject to perils from robbers, perils from false brethren,
   imprisonment and stones? And yet you never hear him glory in that
   wonderful martyr life of his! Among the Apostles, he was no less than
   the chief in that which he suffered, and yet he says, "God forbid that
   I should glory in it." He might have gloried in the Revelation which he
   received. Who among us has ever seen or heard what Paul was made to see
   and hear when he was caught up into the third heavens to hear things
   which it is not lawful for a man to utter? He might, if he had chosen
   to boast, have boasted in this Revelation, but he did not do so. "God
   forbid," said he, "that I should glory," and that, "God forbid,"
   includes even that Revelation! Among scholars Paul might have taken an
   eminent position. He was well qualified to speak in the Areopagus, for
   even there, in that profound assembly, was probably not one with
   greater knowledge and of more subtle mind than he, who was once called,
   "Saul of Tarsus." Read the Epistles, Brothers and Sisters! Why, the
   Apostle has the instinct of Bacon and the insight of Sir Isaac Newton!
   The man seems to have looked through a question, where others would
   have looked round about it and have seen nothing. Yet, though he must
   have felt a human delight in the talents which God had given him--and
   must have known that he possessed them--he still says concerning them,
   "God forbid that I should glory." He seems to take all that he had, all
   that he did, and all that he was, and put it all away--and come forward
   with no other theme upon his lips, and no greater love in his heart,
   except this--Jesus Crucified for the sons of men. Jesus to be great
   among the nations. Jesus, the slaughtered Lamb, to be made unto men
   their life from the dead, their salvation from going down into the Pit.
   "God forbid," he says--that memorable speech, that eloquent
   declaration, that glorious self-denying, yet exalting resolve--"God
   forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus
   Christ!" We shall be brief upon each point at this time, but the first
   enquiry must naturally be--

   I. WHAT IS THIS CROSS IN WHICH PAUL RESOLVED TO GLORY?

   You need not to be told, my Brothers and Sisters, that Paul set no
   store by the material cross, or by the "sign of the cross." You know
   that the making of the sign of the cross, and the paying of religious
   reverence to that, is as great a superstition as the belief in witches
   and, perhaps, as men come to be enlightened, they will wonder how it is
   that some men could have thought that there could be more sanctity
   about a cross than about a circle or the parallelogram, for really

   there is no holiness in the sign of the cross, and I sometimes wish
   that some Christians would not countenance that emblem, since it seems
   to imply a superstitious reverence to that kind of thing. Paul meant no
   such thing. He would have abandoned in contempt any superstitious use
   of the cross or the crucifix, and he would do so now if he were here
   and I hope the result would be that, as at Ephesus they burned their
   conjuring hosts, so now men would put their chasubles, their albs and
   all their fripperies and upholstery together and burn them in one
   glorious pile as the result of the preaching of the true Cross of
   Christ!

   What did the Apostle mean, then? He meant, in a single word, the great
   Doctrine of the Atonement offered for sin by the Son of God upon Mount
   Calvary. "The Cross" is the short term for "substitutionary suffering,"
   for "vicarious Sacrifice," for the offering up of the Just for the
   unjust, that He might bring us to God. The Apostle was never cloudy
   about this matter. Wherever he went, he preached that God was in Christ
   reconciling the world with Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto
   them. His declarations were always clear. "Him has God set forth to be
   a propitiation for our sins, and not for our sins, only, but for the
   sins of the whole world." He was always saying that Jesus Christ took
   our sins and bore them in His own body on the tree--that He was
   punished instead of us, that the claims of Divine Justice were met by
   the death of the Redeemer, that He was made a curse for us that we
   might be enriched and blessed of God in Him--that He made Him to be sin
   for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
   in Him. Paul's great master-point was that Jesus actually suffered to
   vindicate the Divine Justice by enduring, instead of us, the punishment
   due to our sins!

   And he also meant by it that Gospel which springs out of the Cross, and
   which is contained in these few words, "He that believes and is
   baptized shall be saved." "He that believes on Him is not condemned."
   "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." Paul told
   the people that the Son of God was made Man and suffered in human form
   to take away human guilt, and that whoever, the wide world over, would
   come and rest in what Christ had done, would be saved. This was the
   Gospel which he proclaimed in every place. For barbarian and Scythian,
   this was the Gospel! For the Greek and the Jew, the same! For the
   illiterate, for the learned, for the king and for the peasant, it was
   always his one theme--a bleeding Savior and a sinner looking to Him--a
   living Christ dying, that a dying world might live! This is that Gospel
   which we preach from Sabbath to Sabbath, which will save your souls,
   and which you delight to sing of in words like these--

   "There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Emmanuel's veins! And
   sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains."

   This was "the Cross" which Paul resolved to glory in!

   II. WHAT WAS THERE IN THIS PARTICULAR DOCTRINE OR FACT FOR THE APOSTLE
   TO GLORY IN

   AT ALL?

   The answer is, first, that there is glory in the fact, itself. It is a
   fact entirely by itself, unique, unparalleled. The mythology of the
   heathens had invented many, many strange things, but among them all
   there is nothing so beautiful, even if it were not true, nothing so
   perfect in its imagery, as this--that God, the offended One, should
   give up His Only Begotten in order that Justice might not be injured.
   At the same time, His mercy might have full sweep, that the Only
   Begotten should die that the offending ones might live! There is
   nothing like this in the whole range of human poetry! Men had fine
   poetic imaginings before, and there were Prophetic declarations of the
   coming of Christ, and they prophesied some wonderful things, but of all
   the poets of all the nations, it may be said that they never conceived
   anything like this--the offended One dies so that the offenders might
   live! "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
   whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
   "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that God first loved us."
   "Beloved, behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us."
   That one fact that God descended from the royalties of Heaven, that He
   might take upon Himself the servitude of earth in the form of Man and
   offer Himself a Sacrifice for sin, reveals the Infinite Wisdom,
   together with the Infinite Love of God, besides casting a brilliant
   light upon all His other attributes. It stands a marvel of marvels, a
   wonder of wonders, in which the Believer may glory, glory as much as he
   will! You know we do not doubt about this fact. We hold it, no, we are
   sure of it, and it is a very great reality to us. I was passing, some
   years ago, a Socinian chapel in this great London of ours, and I saw an
   announcement of the subjects upon which sermons were to be delivered.
   If I remember rightly, there was to be a

   sermon on the morning of one Sunday upon some political subject--and in
   the evening there was to be a sermon upon the crucifixion, but the word
   was spelt "crucifction" And I thought, "Ah, just so, and though you may
   not mean it, it is just that with you--it is nothing more to you than a
   mere fiction, but to us it is real." We believe that the blood of Jesus
   really takes away sin. We believe that He really laid down His life to
   redeem us from our iniquity--and to us the most real, sublime, grand,
   soul-moving thing beneath Heaven, and even in Heaven is this--that
   Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners and died that He might
   save them! The Apostle, then, gloried in the fact as a fact.

   And next, the Apostle gloried in the fact viewing the simplicity of
   it--the simplicity of the Doctrine which grew out of the fact. It is
   frequently said, "Oh, these evangelical preachers, these men that
   preach up Christ, these popular preach-ers--they are very
   shallow-brained men! They talk mere platitudes. They do not read the
   German philosophers, they do not go to the bottom of the thing and stir
   the mud--they are content with just telling the people really such
   plain and common things that you cannot expect enlightened people in
   this 19th Century to care to go and hear them." It is a very odd thing
   that they are the only people who do go to hear them! That only shows,
   I suppose, that there are plenty of people who are shallow, too. But we
   boast, if in anything, in the sheer simplicity of this Truth of God
   that we preach. If the Cross of Christ were a marvelous riddle, the
   answer to which none could guess but a philosopher trained for 50
   years, if we understood it so, we should feel as if it were scarcely
   worthwhile for us to tell it, since there would be so few that could be
   benefited by it! But we thank God that we have a simple Gospel to
   preach to you, because there are so many in this world who need saving
   quite as much as the wisest, but who could not be saved if the Gospel
   were not simple. I thank God that when Christ is preached in the Union
   House, He is believed there, and when Christ is preached to the most
   benighted nation, He is received there! And He is just as sweet and
   precious to those who cannot read as to those who are the best
   educated. No, we do not, and never will, blush because the Gospel is
   simply, "Believe and live." We think that every statement of great
   truth, before it can do good to the heart, must be simple. It seems to
   us that its simplicity is a part of its grandeur--that it is more
   God-like, to give us a Gospel which can be spoken in few words by
   simple men, than to give us something involved and intertwisted--the
   meaning of which we would never be able to guess! We thank God, dear
   Hearer, that it does not need many minutes to tell you what you must do
   to be saved! Believe in Jesus, that is, trust Him--trust Him with all
   your heart! Cast yourself flat upon Him--you cannot fall any lower when
   you are down there! Cast yourself on His arms, rely upon His merits,
   and you are saved! God forbid that we should glory save in this very
   simplicity, which some persons so fiercely decry!

   Paul gloried, and we glory, in the next place, in the freeness and
   suitability of the Gospel The Apostle never found himself in a place
   where the Gospel was not suitable. Sometimes some of you young men who
   are here tonight may have to go out to supply pulpits, and you may be
   apt to ask yourselves and ask one another, "Well, what subject shall I
   take?" I answer you--wherever you go, preach Jesus Christ--and that
   will suit every congregation! And if it does not, the congregation that
   is unsuited by it will not be suited at all--and they ought to have
   twice as much of it till they are suited with it! Preach up Jesus
   Christ! No matter how noble the audience, or how poor, still preach the
   Atonement. Preach up the dying Savior, instead of men, and it never can
   be out of season. Those men who, for the sake of variety and freshness,
   run away from their Bibles, are like men who, for the sake of wealth,
   run away from a substantial business which brings them in their
   thousands in order to speculate where bankruptcy must be their only
   gain. Close to the Cross! There is no such variety as in that one
   theme! It is like a diamond with a thousand facets, each one reflecting
   its own sweet light. You shall preach Jesus Christ to the angels in
   Heaven throughout eternity and make known to them the unsearchable
   riches of God in Christ Jesus--and you will never exhaust the theme!
   What a blessing, though, that this Cross of Christ should be so
   suitable to every person we meet with! If you take the Cross of Jesus
   Christ into the condemned cell, there is nothing else that is so likely
   to awaken that slumbering soul! If you take it to our criminals--alas,
   that there are so many--it is the only balm of Gilead to them! Go with
   it to the lodging houses, and the back slums, and the street corners of
   St. Giles's, or where you will, and this story of the Man, Christ
   Jesus, who loved and died, touches all hearts!

   You have heard of the Greenlanders. The missionaries thought they
   ought, first, to instruct them in the Doctrine of the Trinity, so they
   preached away to them of the Godhead, but the Greenlander did not care
   about it. But one of them, while interpreting, I think, the third
   chapter of John, came across that blessed passage, "God so loved the
   world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him
   might not perish, but have everlasting life," and the Greenlan-ders
   stopped him and said, Why did you not tell us that before?" "Oh, I
   thought I had better begin by telling you of some of the other Truths
   of God." "But we knew all those, or could have guessed them--why didn't
   you tell us this be-fore?"From that moment the good Moravians lifted up
   Christ as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, and the eyes
   and hearts of the Greenlanders began to look to Him--and Jesus Christ
   was the Glory of that land! We may say of this Doctrine of the Cross,
   as David did of Goliath's sword, "There is none like it." It is
   suitable in all places, wherever we may be found.

   Truly, Brothers and Sisters, Paul might well glory in the Cross if you
   will kindly remember the great results which are sure to come from its
   constant and faithful preaching. There is no land where the Cross has
   been lifted up, but is the better for it. Even those countries in which
   we have been compelled to regard missions as a failure, have still
   received much blessing as the result. If the people have not been
   converted, yet still the bringing of the Light of God into contact with
   their thick darkness has done something, though not all that we could
   wish. See yonder South Sea Islands, where the savage is clothed and in
   his right mind. Go tonight, if you can, on the wings of imagination, to
   the Bechuana villages, where Mr. Moffat labored among the Bushmen,
   about the existence of whose souls even there was once some doubt, and
   see what has been done there! Yes, and even in this land, with all our
   sins, how different are we from our savage forefathers, and how can
   Edinburgh, and London, and Glasgow tell you how the putting down of a
   district church or chapel has turned the heathen population of these
   days into a Christian community! This is the great lever to uplift the
   masses. Where Jesus is preached, signs and effects follow in which we
   may well rejoice. How many a home that was once filthy and miserable
   has been cheered and comforted, now that father is a Christian! How
   many a man who used to reel in and out of the gin shops or the public
   houses, now delights to sing another song, and to drink of other wines
   on the lees, well refined! What changes Divine Grace is making among
   us! How some of us could tell of them as long as we live, we,
   ourselves, being changed! We will then say, "God forbid that I should
   glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."

   You know, as I was last night turning over this text in my mind, I shut
   my eyes and saw--for you see a great deal more with your eyes shut than
   with them open sometimes--as I looked I thought I saw a Cross before me
   and it began to grow. I saw it as I had never seen it before. It grew
   upon me--grew every moment. I saw it go downward into the earth, and as
   its foot descended, graves began to open--for resurrection comes from
   the Cross--and Hell, itself, began to tremble, for nothing shakes the
   infernal kingdom like the Cross! Then I looked up, and the Cross had
   been growing till it reached up to Heaven, bearing with it tens of
   thousands of redeemed souls, and I thought of that verse--

   "In the Cross of Christ I glory, Towering o'er the wrecks of time! All
   the light of sacred story Gathers round its head sublime." I turned my
   eyes lower and I saw its transverse beams, and these began to stretch
   to the east and to the west, and they took away the sins of all God's
   people and carried them into the place of forgetfulness, where they
   never shall be found, while a shadow, broad as the universe, seemed to
   fall upon creatures off all kinds! And wherever it fell, the shadow
   dropped with the benedictions of Heaven. Oh, that Crucifixion of the
   Lord Jesus--how deep, how high, how broad! The imagination cannot
   conceive it, but the soul delights in it!

   And then, as I seemed to look with eyes closed, I thought I saw in my
   vision a flock of doves, fluttered and afraid, and well they might be,
   for there were archers after them and the sharp arrows all but pierced
   their breasts. No, some fell sorely wounded. And they flitted to the
   groves and they flew to the far-off sea, and to the wilderness, but the
   sharp shafts pursued them everywhere, and the doves found no rest for
   the soles of their feet. At last one day they lighted on the Cross, and
   they marked that every shaft fell short--and some that were shot at
   them with double force were splintered and bro-ken--and fell upon the
   ground! Not a single dove was hurt, but all found shelter there. Lord,
   make me one of those doves! And may my soul escape the arrows of my
   spiritual foes. Let me find shelter on my Savior's precious Cross, for
   there is shelter there, and there, alone!

   And then the picture changed and I saw before me the whole earth, as it
   now looks, without rain, and it was all parched and browned, and seemed
   ready to be burned. The plants hung down their heads and the flowers
   seemed to be pining for the tears of the angels to drop down upon them
   from Heaven, but nothing came. Yet I noticed that all along, wherever
   the shadow of the Cross fell, it was all verdant as in spring, and
   every flower seemed as if it did drink in the dew and opened its cup
   towards the light that streamed from the Cross. 'Twas all fertile there
   where the shadow of the Cross fell, but all barren elsewhere. And is it
   not so? Wherever there is the influence of the atoning blood, wherever
   the Cross is

   fully preached and received, every soul is blessed, happy and
   fruitful--but where it is not so, there is an arid waste on which the
   dew of Heaven falls not.

   And while I thought I saw before me a caravan, and there were camels,
   and hundreds of men, the drivers of the camels, and they were all hot,
   and panting, and fainting. They went to the well and rolled away the
   stone, but they found no water there. So they went onward, ready to
   drop at every step. Before them they thought they saw a cooling stream,
   but it was a mirage, and they were mocked. But I thought I saw them
   suddenly halt at the foot of the Cross, and just at the bottom of it
   there sprang up a clear and crystal spring, and each one drank, and
   went on his way refreshed. And what are the sons of men, but a great
   caravan on the way to realms unknown? And where is there water for so
   much as one of them, except at the foot of the Cross? If they drink
   there, they live! If they drink not there, there is nothing for them.

   Many other things passed before me, but I cannot detail them now, for
   we have spent too much time upon this second point and must pass to the
   third. The third point, very briefly discussed, is this--

   III. IF WE DO GLORY IN THE CROSS OF CHRIST, HOW SHALL WE PROVE IT?

   We must prove it by trusting in the Cross. The Atonement must have our
   only confidence, or else it were vain to say that we glory in it.

   We must prove it, next, by holding fast the Doctrine when others
   challenge it We must be confident about this vicarious Sacrifice of
   Christ, let others say what they may.

   We must prove it by our zeal in propagating it according to the best of
   our ability. We must endeavor, as much as lies in us, to tell the good
   news to others, that whoever believes has everlasting life.

   But there are some here who are called to the ministry and, therefore,
   to them let me say that we must prove that we glory in it most by being
   prepared to suffer for it Any man who is called to the ministry may, if
   he will, take an example from yonder dome of St. Paul's Cathedral.
   There you see the Cross above the globe. You must put from this point
   on, the Cross above the world in all your calculations! To preach Jesus
   and to win souls--not to gain money or human applause--must be the way
   in which you prove that you glory in the Cross!

   But the principal way is by constantly preaching about it. What shall I
   say to young men who are about to enter the ministry that shall be more
   useful to them than this? Keep to the Cross! Keep to the Cross! Always
   preach up Jesus Christ! Always preach up Jesus Christ! I think no
   sermon should be without the Doctrine of Salvation by faith in it. I
   would not close a single discourse without at least something about
   believing in Jesus and living. Oh, that our tongues would speak of
   nothing but Jesus! Oh, that we were something like Rutherford, who is
   said to have had a squeaking voice on every other subject, but when he
   began to speak of Christ, the little man would grow tall and his voice
   become full, so that the Duke, who was one of his hearers, shouted,
   "Now, Man, you're on the right string!" Oh, surely, this is a theme
   that might inspire the very dumb and make the dead to rise, to tell of
   Jesus Christ's most wondrous love!

   I have thus, as well in the short time I had allowed, shown how we may
   glory in the Cross. But if we do so, according to the text, we are not
   to expect to go to Heaven in silver slippers, for the Apostle adds, "By
   which the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." There are
   two crosses in that saying--there is the world crucified, there, and
   there is Paul crucified, here. What means he by this? Why, he means
   that ever since he fell in love with Jesus Christ, he lost all love for
   the world! It seemed to him to be a poor, crucified, dying thing, and
   he turned away from it just as you would from a criminal whom you might
   see hanging in chains--and would desire to go anywhere rather than see
   the poor being. So Paul seemed to see the world on gallows--hung up
   there. "There," he said, "that is what I think of you and all your
   pomp, and all your power, and all your wealth, and all your fame! You
   are on the gallows, a malefactor, nailed up, crucified! I would not
   give a fig for you! I would not turn on my heels to speak to you--all
   that you could give me would no more suit my taste than as if husks
   were given to me. Give them to your own swine and let them fatten
   thereon!"

   You know the world is not crucified to "the successors of the Apostle,"
   and all others who preach merely as a profession. They get their living
   out of it--they are endowed by the world--the State or the church pays
   them! The world is not crucified to them. That is the change that has
   come over the times, but to the first Apostle, the world was crucified.
   And now observe the other Cross. There is Paul on that. The world
   thinks as little of Paul as Paul does of the world. The world says,
   "Oh, that harebrained Paul! He was once sensible, but he has gone mad
   upon that stubborn notion about the Crucified One! The man is a fool."
   So the world crucifies him. It was something like the case of Luther,
   when he said, "There is no love lost between me and the Pope of Rome.
   He hates me and I also hate him with all my heart, and soul, and
   strength." So is it with the world and the genuine Christian. If he
   glories in Christ, he must expect to be misunderstood, misrepresented
   and attacked. And, on the other hand, he will say that he would sooner
   have the world's scorn than its honor! He would sooner have its hate
   than its love, for the love of the world is enmity against God. Blessed
   are you when they shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for
   Christ's sake and the Gospel's. Set your account, you Christians, upon
   rough weather and get seaworthy vessels that will stand a gale or two!
   Ask the Lord to give you Grace enough to suffer and endure for that
   precious Savior who will give you reward enough when you see Him face
   to face, for one hour with Him will make up for it all! Therefore, be
   faithful, and may the Lord help you thus to glory in the Cross of
   Christ. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: GALATIANS 4:12-31; 5:1-4,19-26; 6:1-11.

   GALATIANS 4:12-31

   Verse 12. Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as you are: you
   have not injured me at all. He had told them the Gospel, and other
   teachers had come in and alienated their affections. He says, "Now I am
   just the same to you as ever I was. I wish you would have the same love
   to me."

   13, 14. You know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the
   Gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation which was in my flesh
   you despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God,
   even as Christ Jesus. He dwells upon that. They had been so
   enthusiastic about his teaching when he first taught them, that he
   feels grieved that now they have gone aside to other teaching--not
   because it injured him, but because it injured them.

   15. Where is then the blessedness you spoke of?When you said that you
   were happy to live in Paul's days, glad to listen to so simple and
   plain a teacher?

   15, 16. For I bear you record that if it had been possible, you would
   have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. Have I
   therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?'Ah, there
   are many who have incurred enmity through speaking the Gospel very
   plainly, for the natural tendency of man is towards ceremony, towards
   some form of legal righteousness--he must have something aesthetic,
   something that delights his sensuous nature, something that he can see
   and hear, to mix up that with the simplicity of faith--and Paul was as
   clear as noonday against everything of that kind, and so the Galatians,
   at last, were angry with him. Well, he could not help that, but it did
   grieve him.

   17. They zealously court you, but not for good; yes, they would exclude
   you, that you might be zealous for them. They would, if they could,
   turn you out of our love that you might run after them. These false
   teachers would shut us out of your hearts that your hearts might go
   after them.

   18-21. But it is always good to be zealous in a good thing, and not
   only when I am present with you. My little children, of whom I travail
   in birth again until Christ is formed in you, I desire to be present
   with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you. Tell
   me, you that desire to be under the Law, do you not hear the Law?Will
   you not listen to what the Law, itself, teaches? Here is a little bit
   from one of its first books, the book of Genesis.

   22. 23. For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a
   bondmaid, and the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman
   was born after the feshi. In the strength of Abraham.

   23. But he of the freewoman was by promise. In the power of God, born
   after both father and mother had ceased to be capable of becoming
   parents, born in the power of God!

   24. Which things are an allegory, for these are the two covenants: the
   one from the Mount Sinai, which genders to bondage, which is Hagar.
   Those that are under the Law are the children, therefore, of the
   bondwoman--they are born slaves.

   25. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answers to Jerusalem
   which now is, and is in bondage with her children. It is old Judaism
   coming from Sinai, "This do, and you shall live," and all the children
   that are born under it are children of nature--they are not the
   children of promise.

   26. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us
   all.This is Sarah, and they that believe are the Isaac-children, the
   children of holy laughter, born according to the power of God.

   27-29. For it is written, Rejoice, you barren that bears not break
   forth and cry, you that travails not for the desolate has many more
   children than she which has an husband, Now we, brethren, as Isaac was,
   are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the
   flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.
   The child of Hagar could not stand the child of Sarah, and they that
   seek salvation by the works of the Law, and by outward ceremonies,
   cannot endure the children of faith.

   30, 31. Nevertheless what says the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman
   and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the
   son of the freewoman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the
   bondwoman, but of the free.

   GALATIANS 5.

   Verses 1-4. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ had
   made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
   Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if you are circumcised, Christ
   shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is
   circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole Law. Christ is become
   of no effect unto you whoever of you are justified by the Law; you are
   fallen from Grace. If you mean to have anything to do with salvation by
   works, get you gone--you are the children of the bondwoman!

   Verses 19-21. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these:
   adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasci-viousness, idolatry,
   witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions,
   heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, reveling, and such like A
   black catalog, but sin is very prolific. We must take care that we
   avoid each one of these works of the flesh, or else we shall give no
   proof that we are led by the Spirit of God and possess the Grace of
   God.

   21. Of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in times
   past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of
   God. Read over the list. Put the question to conscience, "Am I guilty
   of such things?" If so, do not suppose that the holding of orthodox
   Doctrine will save you, or that any kind of religious ceremony will
   save you! You must be delivered from these lusts of the flesh--these
   deeds of the flesh--or you cannot inherit the Kingdom of God!

   22, 23. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace,
   long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance:
   against such there is no la . Surely, neither human nor Divine! These
   are things which are commended on all hands. But if we do not have
   them--if they are not found in us--then we have not the Spirit, for if
   we had the Spirit, we would bear the fruit of the Spirit!

   24-26. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the
   affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the
   Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vainglory, A very common sin--wishing
   to shine. Whether we deserve to be honored or not, still wanting to be
   the lead horse in the team, and to take the leading place. "Let us not
   be desirous of vainglory."

   26. Provoking one another, envying one another. If each would strive to
   do the greatest deeds of love and each were willing to take the lowest
   place, then this evil would never again be known!

   GALATIANS 6.

   Verse 1. Brethren, if a man is overtaken in a fault, you which are
   spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering
   yourself, lest you also be tempted. When Christians fall into a fault,
   it is on account of their traveling slowly on the road to Heaven. Hence
   the expression, "If he is overtaken with a fault." He would not have
   been overtaken if he had been traveling faster! If his heart had been
   quick in the ways of the Lord, he would have outstripped the
   temptation. Now, when a Brother falls into sin, it is too often the
   habit to push him down--to cast him out and forget him. But
   spiritually-minded persons must not do so. We must seek the restoration
   of the Brother or Sister. Is there not more joy over the sheep that was
   lost than over those that went not astray? Have we not the best reason
   to deal tenderly with wanderers, since we cannot tell that we may not
   need the same generous offices for ourselves? "Considering yourself
   lest you also be tempted." He seems to take it for granted that we
   probably would, if we were tempted as the other Brother was.

   2. Bear you one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
   Help each other. If you have a light load, take a part of somebody
   else's.

   3. For if a man thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he
   deceives himself.Mainly deceives himself. Other people generally find
   it out. It is no use estimating your fortune at so many millions, for
   it will not make it so! And it is of no use estimating yourself at a
   very high price, because it does not make it so. "He deceives himself."

   4-5. But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have
   rejoicing in himself, alone, and not in another For every man shall
   bear his own burden. There are burdens of care and sorrow which we can
   help others to bear, but the burdens of responsibility each man must
   carry for himself. The load of service for the Master must be carried
   personally. And let us be glad to shoulder it, since Christ has done so
   much for us. And how else can we express gratitude but by serving Him?

   6. Let him that is taught in the Word communicate unto him that teaches
   in all good things. If he gives you spirituals, do not suffer him to
   lack for temporals.

   7. 8. Be not deceived: God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows, that
   shall he also reap. For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh
   reap-- What the flesh always comes to, by-and-by--

   8. Corruption. But he that sows to the Spirit-- By faith in Christ--by
   being led by the Spirit--

   8-10. Shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be
   weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, it we faint not.
   As we have, therefore, opportunity, let us do good unto all men,
   especially unto them who are of the household of faith. They have a
   first claim upon us. They are nearest of kin. They are our Brothers and
   Sisters in Christ. Let them have a Benjamin's portion!

   11. You see how large a letter I have written unto you with my own
   hand. Paul did not often write his own Epistles. It is thought that he
   had a defect of the eyes. He generally employed a secretary. When he
   did write, he wrote generally in great capitals. I suppose that is what
   he meant. "You see how emphatic my writing is--what great characters I
   have made in writing to you." Or he may have meant that for a letter,
   written by him, this was a lengthy one.
     __________________________________________________________________

Belief in the Resurrection

   (No. 3452)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 15, 1870.

   "He is risen." Mark 16:6.

   OUR Lord always told His disciples that He would rise. They were
   astonished to hear that He would die at all--they did not think it
   possible that He could die by the terrible death which He often hinted
   at. Had they understood and really believed that He would rise again,
   they might not have been so surprised at His death. But as often as He
   spoke of it, their minds seemed to have been like their eyes, on some
   occasions--held back that they should not see! And if they perceived
   His meaning, it ran so contrary to all their ideas of a Kingdom for a
   Messiah, that they could not grasp it as a reality!

   Now one of the first things that strikes the reader of the Chapter
   before us shall furnish us with our first head of contemplation
   tonight--

   I. THE ALMOST UNIVERSAL POWER OF UNBELIEF IN THE CHURCH.

   This is a good instance to illustrate a general fact, for our Savior
   had told them in plain terms that He would rise again. Yet on the third
   day not one that we know of expected Him to rise! When they were
   informed that He had risen, by eyewitnesses--persons whom they had been
   accustomed to treat as deserving of all credence, persons with whom
   they had been long acquainted--they, everyone of them, were
   incredulous! They could not believe it, though it were testified to
   them again and again. As you read this Chapter through, you meet with
   first one instance and then another of this general incredulity about a
   thing on which all ought to have been sound believers! You find, first,
   the women--very tender, very loving, always accustomed to minister to
   Christ's necessities in the days of His flesh--now their very love
   leads them to an unbelieving act! If He is risen and He said He would
   rise, what need of grave cloths? What need of precious ointments, and
   spikenard, and spices in which to embalm Him? 'Twas love that said,
   "Embalm Him," but 'twas unbelieving love that made them think the thing
   was necessary to be done! All through those tender hearts, wherein so
   much of heavenly ardor for Christ was found, there was also found this
   leaven of mischief. But the men--the stronger sex, will not they, also,
   their hearts being full of love and having walked with Christ, having
   strong judgments, many of them, having noticed and weighed what He
   said--will not they believe? No! Peter and John, though they went to
   the sepulch-er, went there with heavy hearts, evidently with no
   expectation such as would have been excited by the belief that Christ
   had risen. The whole brotherhood of the disciples appear to have gone
   altogether over to an unbelief of the thought that Jesus Christ would
   rise! But there were some favored ones--there were the eleven. These
   were the elect out of the elect, the spiritual lifeguard, the very
   bodyguard of the Savior! Surely, if faith is extinct everywhere else,
   we shall find it in them! They were in the Garden at His Passion, some
   of them were on Tabor at His Transfiguration, three of them, at any
   rate. They were in the chamber where He raised the dead. They had seen
   His miracles, they had, themselves, distributed the bread which by a
   miraculous power He had multiplied for the feeding of the multitude.
   They had seen Him walk the sea--one of them had, himself, walked on the
   liquid wave and found it marble beneath his feet when Christ had bid
   him come. They had marked the tempest hushed, they had seen devils
   expelled, many marvelous displays of Divine Power had they, all of
   them, beheld! These choice ones, especially those three mighty, those
   chosen three, would surely believe! Yet they also were tinctured with
   this same evil--they had not such a faith in their Master as they
   should have had. And now this was but, I think, a portrait of what has
   been, ever since--the great mischief in the Church of God. This sin of
   sins-- unbelief--is still at this very hour too common among the people
   of God. Suppose I talk to the mass of God's people, the

   quiet, humble people, who go about their business and serve God in
   their households. Shall I find them all full of faith, giving glory to
   God? No, I am not long with some of them but I hear their doubts as to
   whether they are His or not! I hear some of them singing--

   "Do Ilove the Lord or no; Am I His, or am I not?"

   True, I see many of them happy and joyful, contented and trustful, but
   not always so, even they. Sometimes even these seem to give way to
   fears and suspicions--and they half think that He has forgotten to be
   gracious--will be mindful of them no more! Truly is it written, "If the
   Son of Man comes, shall He find faith upon the earth?" He may look for
   it, and look for it long, for among His own believing people, yet is
   faith all too rare a thing--hard to be found! It is true it is in its
   essence always in the Church, but yet so feeble that oftentimes the
   fire is rather that which trembles in the smoking flax and almost
   expires, than the spark that seeks the Sun, the Father, the flame from
   which at first it came! Now suppose I turn away from the mass of
   Christians and select for myself those that take office in Christ's
   Church, appointed by Him, gifted, and given, as the result of the
   ascension, to the Church as the Church's treasure? My Brothers, what
   shall I say about deacons, Elders, and such like in the Church of God?
   How do I find you? Do I not discover oftentimes in church officers a
   slackness of enterprise, a fear lest this should be too great a thing
   or that too venturesome? Have I not heard--though certainly I may say I
   have, by God's Grace, not experienced--have I not heard that sometimes
   those that should lead the Church have held her back, and those that
   should be first and foremost to sustain the Christian ministry in every
   holy effort, have they not been, sometimes, a very drag upon the wheels
   to hinder it? And if it is so in their official acting, I fear it is
   not much better in their own private capacity before God. Alas, O
   Israel, your captains are weak! Your mighty men tremble!

   But suppose I select those God has especially favored and made the
   winners of souls? Do I find these at all times confident in the God
   whose Gospel they proclaim? Are they always calmly reliant upon that
   eternal power which has ordained them to their work? We must, each man,
   speak for himself, but I fear the most of us might take up a wailing
   for ourselves and confess that we, also, too often must say, "Lord, I
   believe. Help You my unbelief." The prayer of the Apostles is a
   suitable prayer for ministers, "Lord increase our faith," for if our
   faith is not increased, we cannot expect that the faith of the
   multitude will be! Christ's ministers ought to be to Christ's army a
   sort of spiritual Uhlans that ride on ahead to investigate the
   country--to take hold of it before the main body comes up. They should
   be the men to lead the forlorn hope! They should be first in the
   trenches whenever a citadel is to be taken by storm. Their hearts
   should never fail them--they should be men of large conceptions and
   bold designs--men to fall back upon the Infinite and rely upon the
   unseen! Are we always such, or such to such a degree as we ought to be?
   No, I fear that the chapter of Church history which is being now
   written is, in the sight of God, much blotted by the unbelief of all
   His people. Faith there is--I bless God for it--and in some cases very
   eminent faith, but taking us all round, alas, we must make up a
   sorrowful confession of our shortcomings in the matter of our faith in
   the living God. Now, turning to the Chapter again, we shall get our
   second point of consideration--

   II. THE GREAT CURE WHICH OUR LORD PRESCRIBED FOR THE MATTER OF
   UNBELIEF.

   As far as this Chapter goes, it lies in the fact that He is risen. He
   is risen from the dead! You will observe everywhere here, where we meet
   with the unbelief of man, we meet with the fact of the Resurrection of
   Christ brought in like light to subdue the darkness. Here are the women
   in difficulties--it is the Resurrection of Christ that removes the
   difficulty! Who shall roll away the stone? The stone is rolled away
   because Christ is risen! The angel has taken away the stone door of the
   prison house because it was time that the Captive should go free. Now
   here the Lord seems to tell us that the best and grandest cure of all
   our fear about difficulty lies in this, "The Lord is risen." You serve
   a living Savior. What is the difficulty? Is it a Providential one? He
   is the Master of Providence, for "the government shall be upon His
   shoulders, and His name shall be called Wonderful, The Counselor, The
   Mighty God." That difficulty, then, which would obstruct you in your
   pathway to Heaven, if you trust in Him, must vanish because Jesus
   lives! If the Captain of the Host were dead, it would be an ill thing
   for us to be serving a dead Captain, but since He lives, girt with
   Omnipotence, difficulties must vanish before Him! Does it happen that
   the difficulty which troubles us is one concerning our service to our
   Lord? Have we a hard heart to deal with in the child whose conversion
   we seek in our class, in the Sabbath school, or have we prejudices that
   stop our way in the congregation that we address week by week--and that
   we hope to convert to Jesus by His Spi-

   rit? Are we called to plow an unthankful soil that breaks the
   plowshare? Is there something just now before us that looks like a gate
   of brass and a wall of iron? Here is the one comfort concerning it
   all--the Lord lives! "He is not here; He is risen." He is not dead! His
   power lies not paralyzed in the tomb! He lives and goes before you,
   leading the van of all the noble, of those who died for His crown and
   glory! On with you, then, in the name of God! Be this your might that
   Jesus lives! From now on, let difficulties be only rejoiced in as
   things to be overcome, as opportunities for glorifying Him by the
   exercise of our faith in Him, which will be followed by the revelation
   of His power! If unbelief raises difficulties, "The Lord is risen" is
   the cure for them all!

   Suppose our unbelief takes the shape of fright It does sometimes. It
   did in the case of these good women--they were frightened, we are told,
   in the 5th verse. We are told again in the 8th verse that they fled
   from the sepulcher, for they trembled. Now we may be frightened at a
   great many things. Some persons are so timid that they are frightened
   at nothing-- their own shadow will frighten them! But there may be real
   matters that will cause us to tremble if we had not something better to
   fall back upon than ourselves. Now a frightened Christian is like a man
   out of his wits--he is pretty sure to do something that will make his
   danger greater! Self-possession, calm composure, a quiet mind--these
   have often saved lives and have frequently prevented the destruction of
   a cause that was just then in peril. If you can be calm amidst
   bewildering circumstances, confident of victory in the end, that will
   win half the battle, itself. If you can rest in the Lord, or, to use
   the words of Moses, "stand still and see the salvation of God," you
   will surely come out unscathed from the evil. Now the best cure for
   fright is the fact that Jesus is risen! Why, how am I to be afraid when
   He who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords is my Shepherd and will
   surely interpose for my protection? If my Lord were dead, then were I
   unsafe, but while Jesus lives I am secure. "Because I live, you shall
   live also." Oh, what a grand sentence is that! "I give unto My sheep
   eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them
   out of My hands." Who are you, then, that you should be afraid of a man
   that shall die, and of the son of man that is but as the moth? Rest in
   your living Savior! "Fear not. I am with you--I am with you--be not
   dismayed, for I am your God." "I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help
   you. I will uphold you with the right hand of My righteousness. When
   you pass through the rivers, I will be with you; the floods shall not
   overflow you. When you go through the fire, you shall not be burned,
   neither shall the flame kindle upon you." "I am God, I change not;
   therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed." Come back, then, if you
   are tempest-tossed, terrified, trembling and frightened and, because
   Jesus lives, be quiet and in patience possess your souls.

   I notice in the Chapter that the next form of unbelief is
   amazement.These good women, in addition to being afraid, were
   amazed--could not make it out. It was too great a mystery. How could it
   be? It troubled them--it troubled them. Now in all times of our
   amazement about great Gospel Truths, we shall always find the best way
   to get out of the amazement is to hold fast by faith to the veracity
   and truthfulness of God--and to hold fast to what we can understand--to
   a fact that has been proved better than other facts of history have
   been proved--the fact that the Lord Jesus is risen from the dead! It is
   generally when you are in trouble about some great Doctrine--a bad
   thing to argue about that Doctrine while you are troubled about it.
   Think more of what you do believe, of what you are sure of, than just
   now of that matter which staggers you. You will find that if you
   receive the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and rest in
   that as being a guarantee of your resurrection, you have the key of
   many other precious Truths of God! And as one Doctrine draws on another
   as the links of a chain, you will find your amazement at some of the
   most stupendous mysteries of the faith will be cured by your grasping
   the first simplicity and fundamental Doctrine of the faith of the
   Gospel, that the Lord Jesus, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was
   crucified, and dead, and buried, and the third day rose again in very
   flesh and blood--and ever lives, sitting at the right hand of God,
   reigning in exceeding power. You will not be amazed nor frightened. You
   will not be made to tremble, or be bewildered if you keep close to
   this--"He lives! He lives! This I know, and on this I rest."

   Further, it seems that these good women were much prevented in doing
   their duty by their unbelief. They were told to go and speak to the
   disciples, but, at any rate, for a time they did not do so, for it is
   written, "Neither said they anything to any man, for they were afraid."
   Those tongues that, by-and-by, in calmer moments would bear such a sure
   testimony were, through their fears which sprang of their unbelief,
   quite dumb! They could not speak. Oh, and this is a complaint that is
   very common in the Church! I know some who could preach, but do
   not--and it is unbelief that silences them. And you today, perhaps,
   were in society where you ought to have spoken a loving and an earnest
   word, but you did not, and it was a wrong timidity that kept you quiet.
   And you have been many times in your life cast into positions where
   usefulness would have been very easy, but at the same time you found it
   difficult because you forgot that Jesus lives--you forgot that He lives
   to watch His people, lives to render them assistance when they are in
   the path of service! Oh, if we knew He lived--yes, knew that He was
   here--knew that He was close to us, that His heart never forgot us and
   His eyes were never closed upon us--we would be swift in the ways of
   duty and a stammering tongue would begin to speak! And the now
   unhallowed silence which spoils the Church and robs her of many a
   triumph, would be broken by our willing testimony and by our cheerful
   song! The best cure for the dumb devil that sometimes possesses us, is
   a belief in the living and pleading Savior!

   Further on, as your eye glances down the Chapter, you will see unbelief
   connecting itself with wounded affection. When Mary Magdalene came to
   the disciples, she found them weeping, weeping for sorrow, men and
   women of God, a very mournful company, all weeping, weeping for a dead
   Savior--the dearest Friend they had ever had, who first had given them
   spiritual conceptions and lifted them out off their former groveling
   state. He was gone--He was dead and they could not but weep. But they
   left off weeping, or would have done if they had known or believed that
   He was risen. It was the last thing they should have done, to be
   weeping. He rising, and they weeping! All the harps of Heaven ringing
   out melodious praise--and those most concerned in the glorious fact
   still weeping! Every angel in Heaven bending from the sacred
   battlements to look down upon a risen Savior with admiring gaze, and
   yet His own dear people who had known and loved Him, sitting down and
   weeping amidst the universal festival! It was very strange. Now
   oftentimes the same mischief happens to us. We lose a friend. Who among
   us has not? We lose a husband, a wife, a child. Very dear are these
   associations and when the ties are snapped, our heart bleeds, and
   sometimes we weep, and weep, and weep again until there is a lack of
   submission to the Savior's will, there is a lack of resignation to His
   Divine Purpose and Decree. Now if we remembered that He lives, we would
   also remember that they, also, who sleep in Jesus shall God bring with
   Him, for if Jesus rose from the dead, so must all His people! We sorrow
   not as those without hope! We commit our precious dust to the earth,
   but it is only for a while. We lay it low, but we thank God it can go
   no lower! Corruption shall not consume, but refine this flesh until,
   when the trumpet sounds, the very body that we wept over shall rise
   again in sacred luster, fashioned in the image of Christ's own glorious
   body! Death is robbed of all its sting when we remember this--the soul
   is in the company of the living Savior! The body, like Esther, is
   bathing itself in spices to make it ready for the embrace of the
   all-glorious Lord! The old, worn-out vesture is laid aside awhile,
   until God makes it fit to be worn in the high festivals of Heaven! Oh,
   if Jesus lives, we wipe away the tears and we carry not our dead to
   their graves with sound of weeping and with the noise of lamentation,
   but with the sound of holy Psalms and shouts of victory! We lower the
   conquering champion into his rest in sure and certain hope that he
   shall rise to participate in His great Captain's everlasting victory!
   "Christ is risen" is the cure for wounded affections when the wound
   rankles through unbelief.

   Further, remark that this blessed Doctrine, that Christ is risen, cures
   us of the difficulties we have as to conversation with heavenly things.
   It is earlier in the Chapter, though I mention it last. The angel
   appeared unto the women--two angels appeared to certain other women,
   according to Luke, and instead of speaking to the angels, they ran
   away. They were afraid and amazed. "Fear not," said the angels, "for we
   know that you seek Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, for He is
   risen." Now I think if you and I were in a state of full faith in the
   risen Savior, if we met an angel, we would not be amazed. If we saw an
   angel--if once again the spirits could put on the semblance of bodies
   and soon appear to the organs of our vision, I think if we were full of
   faith, we would avail ourselves of the opportunity to learn something
   about them, and about the Heaven they dwell in and, most of all, about
   their Lord! Oh, I think I would like an hour with some bright spirit to
   question him about some of those mysteries that, as yet, eye has not
   seen. If it were lawful for him to utter what, perhaps, he might not
   tell--if it were lawful for him to tell of some of the glories within
   the veil, and some of the mysteries of those streets of gold, and those
   walls of twelve foundations of precious stones, our inquisitiveness
   might take a holy turn! At any rate, if we might not ask questions, we
   would hold fellowship. We would be glad to see these spirits that are
   so near akin to us, for even now--even now--we are not strangers to
   them! They bear us up in their hands lest we dash our foot against a
   stone, and we are come to the general assembly and Church of the
   Firstborn--we are come to the host of angels and to those whose names
   are written in Heaven! We are come to that innumerable company, even
   now, by faith, and if we could get a glimpse of them, we would not be
   afraid.

   Now it is a fact that Christ is risen that makes an open door between
   us and the spiritual world. A Man in flesh and blood is gone into the
   skies! A Man who ate a piece of broiled fish, and of a honeycomb--a Man
   that said, "Handle Me

   and see that it is I, Myself"--a Man of whom it is written, "He showed
   them His hands and His side"--a Man who said to one of His
   acquaintances, "Reach here your finger. Behold My hands, and reach here
   your hand and thrust it into My side"--such a Man is gone into the
   excellent Glory and He has opened a living way by which our union with
   angels and with the angels' Master is complete! Oh, herein there is
   subject for spiritual minds to greatly rejoice--and the difficulties
   which unbelief would put in our way are swept away by the full
   conviction that the Lord is risen--is risen indeed!

   But I must not dwell longer on that. The great power of unbelief
   receives its antidote in the blessed and well-ascertained fact that
   Jesus is risen. Now let us see still further--

   III. SOME OTHER CONSEQUENCES OF OUR LORD'S RISING. We observe in the
   Chapter that one of the first consequences of His rising was a more
   general, a more intense, a more universal activity in the Church He
   said to them, "Go you into all the world and preach the Gospel to every
   creature." We see again, "He was received up into Heaven, and sat at
   the right hand of God, and they went forth and preached everywhere, the
   Lord working with them." From which I gather that if we did more fully
   perceive that Christ is risen, we should be, all of us, more active! It
   is very hard to get up enthusiasm for an idea--certainly in England it
   is--it may not be in some more mercurial clime among a more sensitive
   and responsive people--but here we do not generally get into a state of
   enthusiasm for an idea. But what men are there that are not moved to
   enthusiasm for a person? A man, a person, will always command more
   fully the activity of human hearts than will a mere Doctrine or dogma!
   Bring before me in history the leading principles, and you will
   generally find that the principles did little or nothing until they
   wore embodied in a man--and when some bold man represented the
   principles, then the principles opened the man's way to human hearts!
   It is so in the Church. I suppose some people are enthusiastic about
   creeds and about dogmas. I don't know, but I know this--the most
   enthusiastic people in all the Church are those that know Him, love
   Him, live with Him and serve Him! The enthusiasm of Heaven seems to be
   about them. They cast their crowns at His feet and they sing,
   "Hallelujah," when they behold God and the Lamb! There is an adoration
   of persons, and their souls are moved by the Presence of blessed and
   Divine Persons, and so in the Church it should be. We have a living
   Savior, a living Captain! He is not out of the fight. He still looks
   down upon us. He is still fighting with us in the grand old cause. Oh,
   who of us will be a laggard when the Captain's eyes are upon him? Jesus
   is looking on--Jesus, the Author and the Finisher of our faith, is
   looking on the course! Let us run with patience because we look at and
   are looked upon by Him. May this principle his Master!

   But, in addition to this cause, we find that the Presence of Christ
   gave to the Church at that time miracles. The risen Savior endowed them
   with unknown tongues, and they spoke, though they were uninstructed
   men, so that men understand them from every clime! They began to work
   wonders. Our faith leads us not to these, nor will it. This is wisely
   denied us. At the same time, though we work not miracles in the outer
   world, all true preaching is miracle working! Commonly to declare a
   Doctrine, commonly to speak a thing well--all this may be no preaching
   as God would call it-- eloquence, oratory, refinement, the putting of
   words well together--this is common to all mankind. After their
   measure, all may speak--after some sort. This is not God's work. But
   true preaching, soul-saving preaching, the Spirit's voice speaking
   through man--this is miracle working! You know, my Brothers, there are
   some who cannot preach--they say they cannot preach the Gospel. I mean
   this--they will preach sermons to God's living people, to God's
   quickened ones, and then they say, "As for you that are dead in sin, I
   have nothing, to say to you." That is their notion. They are very
   candid. God never sent them to preach the Gospel and they acknowledge
   they cannot do it. Well, it is a pity that they should try, but another
   man whom God sends knows, as the other did, that the hearer who is
   unconverted is dead in trespasses and sins. He knows that ordinarily to
   speak to such people would be a very idle thing. He knows he dare not
   attempt it in his own strength, and that to say to the dead, to the
   spiritual dead, "Live," is, in itself, the extreme of folly. But he
   feels that God is with him, that God has sent him--and looking like
   Ezekiel of old, upon the congregation of sinners, as in the valley full
   of dry bones, he does not say--"I have nothing to say to you, you are
   dead." But bursting out in His Master's name, he says, "You dry bones,
   hear the Word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord, 'you dry bones, 'Live!'"
   God sent the man and while he prophesies thus upon the bones, they come
   together, bone to his bone and live! The two Apostles at the beautiful
   gate of the Temple did not say to the lame man. "You are lame. We trust
   in God's name you will get cured of your problem--we have nothing to
   say to you." No, they said, "In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up
   and walk!" They bid the man do what he could not do, but as they bade
   him do it, the strength came to him to do it! And while we say to the
   sinner, "Believe and live," God sends the power of the Gospel command,
   and they do repent, do believe, do live, do fly for refuge to the hope
   set before them in the Gospel! And to this day each Christian is a
   miracle worker in his own sphere, in the sphere of spiritual things! He
   opens blind eyes by God's power, and unstops deaf ears by Jesus' might.
   He, too, raises the dead. He, too, casts out devils, still in the
   higher realm, the realm of mind, the realm of spirit! And our ascended
   Lord has given us this--this power--we receive it entirely from Him
   because all power is given unto Him in Heaven and in earth! Therefore,
   we go and teach all nations--and that teaching works results!

   I must not detain you longer, except to notice that in consequence of
   our Lord's Resurrection, there is Divine Power, the highest degree of
   Power concentrated in the Person of Jesus Christ. He was always God and
   now as God--Man Mediator--all Divine Power is concentrated in Him. And
   this Power is not laid up there to be idle--not as so much stored up
   ammunition never to be expended, for notice the last verse, "The Lord
   working with them." Is it not a delightful thought that Jesus is not a
   Sufferer, but He is still a Worker? "The Lord working with them."
   Redeeming work is done! Saving work is going on! "The Lord is working
   with them." We do not see it, but He is working. Often that power which
   is least seen is most mighty, and certainly in the Church that which is
   not perceptible by the senses is the strongest! Believer, if the
   conversion of the world rested with the Church--if the gathering of the
   elect depended upon us--it would never be done! But God makes us work
   for this end and so He first works in us, and then He works with us.
   How this ought to encourage us to work! This little arm, what can it
   do? But that Eternal Arm, what can it notdo? This tongue, how feebly
   can it speak--but the voice of Him who spoke as never Man spoke, how
   persuasively can it speak? Our spirits, narrow and limited, what can
   they effect? But His unbounded Spirit, what cannot He perform? Oh, let
   everyone here who has been serving his Master, bid farewell to
   everything like a discouraging or desponding thought! The great army of
   God is not defeated! It never can be--in the long run it must conquer!
   And even those parts of the Divine Strategy of our great Commander
   which looked like retreat, are only portions of His perpetual victory!
   He is fighting on, and will win the battle, even to the end!

   It is a great consolation to the Believer to know that Jesus lives, and
   lives in triumph! I remember, and I cannot help repeating what I have
   told you before--I remember when in an hour of the most overwhelming
   sorrow through which a mind could pass, this one thing restored and
   comforted me! After that dreadful catastrophe in the Surrey Gardens,
   when my mind gave way and my sorrow was extreme--when I had almost lost
   my reason for some three weeks and was desponding and brokenhearted--I
   was alone, walking in solitude, mourning, and weeping as I did day and
   night. And all of a sudden there came into my mind, as though it
   dropped from Heaven, this text, "Him has God highly exalted and given
   Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every
   knee should bow." You know the rest. The thought that crossed my mind
   was this, I am one of His soldiers and I am lying in a ditch to die. It
   does not matter--the King has won the victory--Christ has won the
   victory--Christ is to the fore. If I die like a dog, I care not! The
   crown is on His head! He is safely exalted." In a moment I was happy!
   My trouble was gone! I found myself perfectly restored! I fell on my
   knees in a solitary place, praising God who, in Infinite Mercy, had
   made that text to be a balm to my spirit!

   Now there may be someone here who feels much as I did--disconsolate,
   cast down. If you really love Jesus, there is not a nobler balm for
   your care than this--He reigns! He is glorious! The government is not
   taken from His shoulders. Our King is no captive! Our Emperor has not
   yielded up His sword! Our Prince Imperial is not banished! Our Empire
   never fails, the city of Jerusalem is not besieged! There shall be no
   lack of bread in her streets! "God is in the midst of her, she shall
   not be moved. God shall help her and that right early." Let the heathen
   rage! Let the people and nations be moved. Let the whole earth rock and
   reel, and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea--God is
   our refuge and strength--our very present help in time of trouble. God
   reigns and the Kingdom of Jesus is settled by an unchangeable decree.
   Therefore lift up your heads, you saints, for your redemption draws
   near, and even now clap your joyful hands and go back, again, to the
   conflict of life until your Master calls you Home like true heroes,
   that henceforth you shall know no fear, and shall never turn your backs
   in the day of battle! God grant it may be so for His name's sake. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MARK 16.

   Though it is not without profit to sit over against the sepulcher of
   our buried Lord, we cannot leave Him there, even in thought. So let us
   go and look at the empty tomb and read of His Resurrection.

   Verse 1. And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the
   mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might
   come and anoint Him. To finish the funeral which had been hurriedly
   undertaken just at the close of the day.

   2. And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came
   unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun. Came to do needless
   action--to embalm One who was no longer dead--but since their love
   suggested it, their Lord accepted it. I have no doubt there is many a
   thing done by gracious people, or thought to be done, that may be, in
   itself, quite superfluous, but yet our Lord often accepts what His own
   people ridicule. So long as the heart sincerely meant to pay a loving
   homage, even though it is mistaken in some respects--even though it
   should bring spice and aloes for One who is not dead--yet is it
   accepted. "They came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun."
   Another sun had risen. The Sun of suns had dawned upon the earth!

   3. And they said among themselves, Who shall roll away the stone from
   the door of the sepulcher for us? We often trouble ourselves about
   difficulties that do not exist.

   4. 5. And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away,
   for it was very great And entering into the sepulcher, they saw a young
   man. An angel in that form.

   5-7. Sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment: and
   they were frightened. And he said unto them, Be not frightened. You
   seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: He is risen: He is not here:
   behold the place where they laid Him. But go your way.After you have
   satisfied your own eyes, go your way.

   7. Tell His disciples and Peter that He goes before you into Galilee:
   there shall you see Him, as He said unto you. There are some beautiful
   touches in that short speech. "Tell His disciples and Peter"--the one
   that denied that he was His disciple--tell him--if you omit anybody
   else, do not forget poor Peter! And then that other word, "As He said
   unto you." Christ's words are always fulfilled, and if even an angel
   should come from Heaven to tell God' people of some choice blessing
   that was coming to them, it would only be a blessing that Christ had
   already promised! "As He said unto you."

   8-9. And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulcher; for they
   trembled and were amazed: neither said they anything to any man; for
   they were afraid. Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the
   week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast
   seven devils. A wonder, therefore, of mercy! It is no surprise that she
   was first at the sepulcher, and no wonder that Christ should first
   appear to her. I believe that there are some who have risen up from the
   lowest estate who feel so much the power of love in their hearts
   because of what the Lord has done for them, that they are among the
   first to see Jesus when He is to be seen--and He appears to them first.

   10, 11. And she went and told them that had been with Him, as they
   mourned and wept. And they, when they had heard that He was alive, and
   had been seen of her, believed not.It was what He said would be. It was
   what she declared had been. But they will make Mary Magdalene mistaken.
   Their own Sister, whom they knew to be truthful, they would not
   believe!

   12, 13. After that He appeared in another form unto two of them, as
   they walked, and went into the country. And they went and told it unto
   the residue: neither believed they them. Well, it was a hard thing to
   believe that the Crucified Christ had really risen from the dead, but
   surely with two more witnesses, they ought to have been ready to
   believe!

   14. Afterward He appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and
   upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they
   believed not them who had seen Him after He was risen. When He had
   upbraided them for their unbelief, He spoke to them in many ways, which
   the other Evangelists mention.

   15, 16. And He said unto them, Go you into all the world, andpreach the
   Gospel to every creature. He that believes and is baptized shall be
   saved; but he that believes not shall be damned. There stands the
   commission, then--the grand summary of Christ's message to a perishing
   world! We must never alter it. We must not leave out the baptism, or
   put it before the believing, or leave out the solemn sentence with
   which it closes--though there are some that burn and hate very
   dreadfully when they get there! The Lord clear their throats and help
   them to preach the Gospel as He bade them preach it--"He that believes
   and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believes not shall be
   damned."

   17, 18. And these signs shall follow them that believe: In My name
   shall they cast out devils: they shall speak with new tongues: they
   shall take up serpents: and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall
   not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall
   recover. And so they did. So long as the age of miracles lasted, their
   faith was proved to the world by such miracles as this! That age lasted
   long enough to convince the world when it could be so convinced. Now is
   there space for faith, and if we have less of evidence, day by day, yet
   have we all the evidence of all the ages to look back upon!

   19, 20. So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, He was received
   up into Heaven, and sat at the right hand of God. And they went forth,
   and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the
   Word with signs following. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Wandering Bird

   (No. 3453)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "As a bird that wanders from her nest, so is a man that wanders from
   his place." Proverbs 27:8.

   SOLOMON spoke from observation. He had seen certain persons of a
   vagrant kind and he perceived that they seldom or never prospered.
   Moreover, he spoke from Inspiration, as well as from observation, hence
   the wisdom of the philosopher is, in this case, supported by the
   austerity of the preacher. We may, therefore, take this Proverb, first,
   as the dictate of human wisdom gathered by long experience--and then,
   next, as the testimony of Divine Wisdom, commended to us by Infallible
   Revelation. The principle it inculcates is alike applicable to the
   common affairs of life and to the higher pursuits which belong to our
   spiritual interests.

   I. THIS IS THE DICTATE OF WISDOM.

   In the common affairs of life we believe Solomon to be correct in his
   statement that, "As a bird that wanders from her nest, so is a man that
   wanders from his place." The unrest of that man's mind and the
   instability of his conduct who is constantly making a change of his
   position and purpose, foretells no success for any of his adventures.
   Unless he makes the change very wisely and has abundant reason for it,
   he will make a change for the worse, as the bird does that leaves her
   nest. Some make a change of their country and fly from their native
   shores. This is not an ill thing for men to do, for thereby nations
   have been formed and deserts have been peopled. When a man finds it
   impossible to provide bread for an increasing family in this country,
   one of the wisest things that he can do is to cross the sea and seek
   profitable employment in another land. But there are some spirits of
   such a roving caste that they seem never to be satisfied at home. They
   feel persuaded that if they were under other skies, they would succeed,
   whereas, as a matter of general fact, a man who cannot prosper in
   England will not prosper anywhere--and many of those who have gone
   abroad would be but too glad to get home again! Without taking great
   counsel from God and weighing the matter, long, it is not good for a
   man to leave the Christian privileges of this country, let alone other
   considerations. It is ill, I say, to turn aside from the place where
   sanctuaries are so numerous and where the Gospel is so clearly
   proclaimed, to go abroad where there may be some pecuniary advantages,
   but where there must be much spiritual loss. Let the man take anxious
   thought before he goes, or else, perhaps, when he finds himself in
   Australia, he will long to be in New Zealand! And when he does not
   prosper there he will pant for the United States, and, not getting on
   there, he will, perhaps, be wanting to came back to Old England--and so
   he will spend the best of his days in vacillating as to where he shall
   spend them!

   The same is also true with respect to a change of occupation. Some
   persons are one thing, today, but you do not know what they will be
   tomorrow. Evidently they were not cut out for this and, therefore, they
   think they must have been ordained for that, and as they have not
   thrived in one line of business, they feel certain that they must have
   made a little mistake--and that if they could get into another line,
   they would prosper. Well, when a man is in error about his calling, if
   it really is not his calling, let him leave it--but let him first be
   sure that it is not his calling, for otherwise he will sin against the
   express words of Inspiration. The Apostle Paul says, "Let every man
   abide in the same calling wherein he was called"--that is to say, the
   occupation or profession in life you were engaged in when you were
   converted need not be rashly abandoned! Therein you may enjoy communion
   with God. But if you go running before the cloud and, with presumptuous
   self-will, get out of the path that Providence has assigned you, you
   will be sure to smart for it. It is ours to follow, never to lead.
   Where we clearly see our way, there let us go--and unless we have that
   way clearly manifested to us, let us abide still in our nest.

   This also applies to those who want to be always changing their
   situation and their acquaintance--employers never satisfied with their
   employees, and employees always discontented with their employers. We
   know many who say, "There are so many temptations in the place where I
   am--I will try another." Well, I do not know, dear Friends, that you
   are

   right. The temptations that trouble me I would rather endure than
   encounter any fresh ones. I may know something about my weakness in the
   present trial, but I cannot know how I might stagger under another! I
   would recommend you to be rather leery of changing your trials. To
   exchange one trial for another is all the relief you will get in this
   world. All is vanity under the sun! The whole Creation groans together.
   Amidst sorrow and sighing thus universal, our lot is cast. From the
   sick man's bitter experience, as Dr. Watts describes it, we cannot
   escape--

   "We toss from side to side in pain, But 'tis a poor relief we gain To
   shift the place, but not the pain." You may change your position over
   and over again, but you will always be exposed to the temptation. Until
   you get beyond yonder azure sky, you will never be out of gunshot of
   the devil. Evil spirits molest every rank in life. The poor man is
   sorely beset with grievous hardships, and the rich man is encompassed
   with seductive snares. He who toils with his hands may have some cause
   to complain, but he who toils with his brain will become the victim of
   a sorer complaint. Should you fly to the utmost verge of the green
   earth, temptation would still pursue you! Everywhere, while you are in
   the body, you must keep guard, for temptations and trials are the
   common portion of all who dwell on this earth! Be not in a hurry,
   therefore, to fly from one scene of temptation to another. If God
   ordains that your lot should be altered, be it so. It is yours to
   accept His allotment either with resignation or with gratitude. But be
   not hasty or heedless in running from one place to another, lest in
   yielding to the impulse of a moment, you forfeit the comfort of a
   lifetime.

   It may be that these remarks are peculiarly applicable to some people
   here present. I cannot tell. When talking about such homely things, our
   words have sometimes proved to be like an oracle for the guidance of
   those who have come up to God's House to enquire in His Temple. At any
   rate, dear Friends, when the mind is unhinged, or the feelings chafed,
   it is not easy to exercise a wise discretion. Wait upon God for
   guidance as to any change in life you may determine, and if the two
   things are equal--to remain where you are, or to move elsewhere--choose
   to stay where you are, for the chances are, speaking according to man's
   judgment, in its favor. Reason seems to say that as it is unwise for
   the bird to wander from her nest, so it is not desirable for you to
   wander from your place.

   Still keeping to the common use of these words, let us now turn them to
   another account. This is most certainly true in changing one's
   religious service in the cause of God. We have a niche, perhaps, in
   which God has placed us, and we have had some little honor in filling
   it, but, by-and-by, another sphere of labor opens up before us and,
   like children easily charmed with novelty, we think we could be more
   useful in doing something else and leaving our old work. Let us be very
   careful in this matter, for, "as a bird that wanders from her nest, so
   is a man that wanders from his place." I admired one thing greatly in
   our deceased friend, Mr. Worcester, who for so long a time kept the
   gate outside. When I once asked him whether he could not be serviceable
   to the church as an Elder, he said that if he were elected to it he
   would decline the office, "Because," he said, "I can do my work as a
   gatekeeper, but I do not know what I could do as an Elder." So he
   resolved to stick to the work in which he was acknowledged to do good
   service. I would have each Christian do the same!

   Some Brothers we know have such an itching to get into the pulpit that
   they are impatient of any other office than the preacher's. But there
   are many in the pulpit, now-a-days, who had been better for all
   concerned if kept out of it. They were excellent people at Prayer
   Meetings. They were very serviceable, indeed, to give a little address,
   now and then, at a cottage meeting. They would have been useful
   deacons, exemplary visitors of the sick and, perhaps, good city
   missionaries. But they thought within themselves that the pulpit ought
   to be blessed by their distinguished abilities, and so they crept up
   the pulpit stairs as little to their own comfort as to the church's
   edification! And now, had they but the wisdom and the humility to come
   down, again, never more to mount them, it would be well! If you are
   really called to the ministry, then, in God's name, do not stand back
   from it! And if a new sphere of labor opens to you, accept it, resting
   on your God who can make His strength perfect in your weakness. But be
   not forever panting after the highest seats in the synagogue--do not
   always want the uppermost place at the feast, lest, when the King comes
   in, you should have, with shame, to take a lower place! Wait till the
   King says, "Friend, come up higher." Never go up higher till you have
   the King's friendly admonition that the higher place is yours by a call
   other than your own choice, remembering that "as a bird that wanders
   from her nest, so is a man that wanders from his place"--from his
   place, from his proper place in the Church of God, his proper position
   in the ranks of the Lord's hosts!

   Again, I will use it as a proverb very often applicable to ministers.
   There may be some here to whom this may come as a powerful rebuke. It
   is a crying evil just now, especially in our own denomination, that
   ministers are changing their places. The good old ministers used to
   occupy one charge for 50 years--and the people used to love them and to
   hold fast to them. They did not think of moving, they never spoke of
   resigning any more than fathers speak of resigning their fa-

   therhood because their boys and girls are sometimes disobedient! They
   weathered the storm. They knew that all parts of the sea are rough, so
   they did not need to get out of one bay into another as soon as a
   little storm came on. I do not know but that some preachers are better
   moving--and probably they would be better if they were moved off
   altogether. I think when a man remains in service at one place for only
   about two years, he has need to question whether he was called into the
   ministry at all. God does not generally plant trees in His vineyard
   that need shifting every two years. God's trees are full of sap, the
   cedars of Lebanon which He has planted. They can stand on the bare
   mountain's brow and see the ages of mortals swept away into the tomb.
   And so a God-sent minister may stand many years in one place and see
   man-made ministers swept away like generations of lichens and mosses,
   because they have no Divine Life in them.

   I love to see a Christian minister, I must say, standing fast in his
   place. We are not to get into a great pet because there was a little
   disagreement at a church meeting, or turn round offended because some
   deacon will not be quite as pliable as we wish, or because the
   neighborhood does not seem to increase, or because there are not quite
   so many conversions as we want. No, Sirs, if God shall move us, let us
   move--but if He does not move us, let not the devil do it! Do you know
   what happens when the bird wanders from her nest? Why, there are her
   own eggs in the nest, and there is no bird which can sit so well on the
   eggs as the bird that laid them! And so a Christian minister should
   remember that there are some young converts who are his own spiritual
   children. They are of his own bringing in, through Divine Graces and,
   ordinarily speaking, there is no man who can by any means nurture the
   young converts like the man who was the means of their conversion! It
   is well for infants to be brought up by their own mother, and it is a
   good thing for young converts to be fed under their own spiritual
   parents. I should not like to trust mine to anybody else for any great
   length of time. There is always a fear, when the parent bird is away,
   that the eggs will grow cold and addled, so that when she comes back
   she will find that she has lost all her trouble. And so, when the
   minister leaves his people and goes away to some other place, there are
   many of those who did seem to run well who will turn back. This is a
   sad result--a tale of wasted labor. Besides, the bird knows that,
   however uncomfortable its nest may be, there is no other nest in the
   world so comfortable as the one which it has made itself. And the
   Christian minister must know that there is no other church so
   comfortable for him as the church which he was the means of forming! "I
   dwell among my own people," said the Shunamite. That is my happiness,
   and my joy, to dwell among my own people, and if any man should say to
   me, "Is there anything in life that you desire? Would you like me to
   put a good word in for you to the king, or to the captain of the
   hosts?" I would answer, No, there is nothing I desire under Heaven but
   to dwell among my own people! If I may but seek their good, and see the
   Church of God prosper here, it shall be all that I ask of my God this
   side of Heaven! Brothers, let us who are in the ministry, then, as far
   as possible, cling to our churches and to our fields of labor,
   remembering that "as a bird that wanders from her nest, so is a man
   that wanders from his place."

   This is equally true of our hearers. Oh, there are some hearers who are
   sad, sad vagrants. We can have no objection to our hearers going to
   listen to other ministers, if they can be edified thereby, for the bird
   that sits best on the nest must come off, sometimes, especially if
   there is any food to be had elsewhere. Hear anybody that can profit
   you! I am sure nothing will make me more glad than to know that you are
   anywhere as long as your souls are fed. If a Church of England minister
   preaches the Gospel in your neighborhood better than the Baptist
   minister does, do not go and hear the Baptist! And if you find either
   Baptist or Independent treating you to free will instead of Free Grace,
   do not listen to them, but seek out the Presbyterian and hear him, if
   you find him more sound in the faith, for, after all, your souls must
   be fed! That is a matter of necessity. Where you can have all the
   points of the Truth of God, prefer it, prefer it infinitely! But if you
   cannot have them all, give your chief care to those which possess the
   greater importance. Seek first, in this case, those things which make
   most for your soul's prosperity. But what I do not like is
   this--certain people will join a church and then after about six months
   will join another church, and then another, and then another! They
   ought to have no moss on them, and I suppose they have none, for they
   have certainly been rolling stones! And then, if the minister should
   die, how many there are who are off, directly, for now that the church
   is in a little difficulty, they will all get out of it. Brave sailors
   these! They want to get into the boat when the ship is in a little bit
   of gale, and they leave the Church of God just when their help is most
   needed. Oh, they will come and join the church when the church
   prospers--yes, any quantity of them--but I wonder, if the pastor went
   away, whether we would find them all remaining faithful? Too many in
   our London churches are a sort of flying camp, always flying from one
   place to another--a set of Gypsy-Christians, who have no settled abode
   and no "local habitation," and are about as respectable as the Gypsies
   with whom I have compared them! Now, never let this be said of any of
   you who love your Lord and who, consequently, love His Church, but,
   when you are united with His people, say--

   "Here would I make my settled rest, While others go and come. No more a
   stranger, or a guest, But like a child at home."

   You shall find that, after all, your wandering shall do you but little
   good, while in permanent adhesion to the Church, and a diligent casting
   in of your whole efforts into the cause of God, shall, through the Holy
   Spirit, give your soul prosperity!

   But now I shall take my text in another way and try to use the general
   principle in another sense. II. SOME MEN WANDER FROM THEIR PLACE IN
   SPIRITUAL THINGS.

   Where is the "place" for a sinner The place for a sinner is always at
   the foot of the Cross, looking unto Jesus! Alas, then, the tendency in
   us all is to be looking for evidences, signs, marks, experiences,
   Divine Graces and I know not what! Having begun in the Spirit, we are
   so foolish and so bewitched that we try to get perfect in the flesh! We
   know that at the first our only comfort came from simply depending upon
   the finished work of Jesus, and yet we are so mad that we try to get
   comfort from that poor flesh of ours, which has already been our
   encumbrance and will be our plague till it dies! Now the moment that a
   Christian wanders away from his place--that is, from the simplicity of
   his faith in Jesus--the moment he departs from that standing upon the
   solid Rock of what Christ did, and what Christ is, and what Christ has
   prom-ised--that moment he is like a bird that wanders from her nest!
   The bird away from her nest has no comfort. The instincts of Nature
   make her feel, during her incubation, that the nest is her proper
   place. And when the Christian gets away from the Cross, the newborn
   instincts within him make him feel that he is out of his proper
   position. The Cross is the true rest of a Christian! We are like Noah's
   dove--there is no rest for the sole of our feet, except in the ark. We
   may search the world around and fly over the great waste of waters, but
   there never shall be found rest for us anywhere but at the Cross! I
   confess I sometimes get into that sorry state of feeling, rather as a
   Christian professor, or a minister, than as a sinner saved by
   Grace--but I find that I have to come back to that same place, and to
   sing the old ditty over again--

   "Nothing in My hands I bring!

   Simply to Your Cross I cling.

   Naked, come to You for dress,

   Helpless, look to You for Grace." There is no living comfortably, there
   is no living with the peace and joy of the Holy Spirit in the heart if
   we at once wander from the simplicity of our confidence in Christ!

   Further, there are many Believerswho also wander out of their place.
   What, now, is a Believer's place? A Believer's place is on the bosom of
   his Lord, or at the right hand of his Master, or sitting at His feet,
   with Mary. Now some of us have had times in which we did come very near
   to the Lord Jesus Christ. Ah, some of you never woke in the morning
   without thinking of Him, and all day long a sense of His Presence was
   in your heart. How you grudged the world the hours you had to give to
   business! And when you locked up your heart at night, you always gave
   Jesus Christ the key. Oh, how sweet ordinances were to you, then,
   because you could see Christ through them, as through windows of agates
   and gates of carbuncles! How delightful were Prayer Meetings and
   similar gatherings, because you saw Jesus there, and talked with Him!
   But what about your present state? Perhaps, my dear Friend, you have
   wandered from your place. You are not living near to Christ as you used
   to do. Hence ordinances have but very little comfort in them--they are
   dull and tedious. And services which were once as marrow and fatness to
   you, have now become as dry bones. Your closet, too, is much neglected.
   Your Bible is not studied as it was. You have lost your first love and,
   I appeal to you, have you not also lost your first comfort? Are you not
   like a bird that has wandered from her nest? Believe me, there is no
   solid joy, no seraphic rapture, no hallowed peace this side of Heaven,
   except by living close under the shadow of the Cross, and nestling in
   the wounds of Jesus! Oh, that we should be so foolish! The bird does
   not forget her nest, but we forget our Lord! We have need to say with
   the Psalmist, "Return unto your rest, O my Soul, for the Lord has dealt
   bountifully with you!" We have need to cry tonight--

   "Return, oh heavenly Dove, return! Sweet messenger of rest, I hate the
   sins that made You mourn And drove You from my breast."

   We have wandered from our place, you see, for our place is at Jesus'
   feet with Mary, or on Jesus' bosom with John, or at Jesus' lips with
   the spouse in the Canticles, saying, "Let Him kiss me with the kisses
   of His mouth." But roaming here and there, we are like a bird that has
   wandered from her nest.

   And does not this wandering imply a lack of watchfulness Do I not
   observe the Christian who was so jealous of himself once that he did
   not try to put one foot before the other for fear he should take a step
   awry? He would not even talk without saying, "O Lord, open You my
   lips!" But now he thinks that he is sure to stand--and he forgets to
   guard himself with jealousy. He thinks, perhaps, that his experience
   has made him so wise that he will not fall into his former errors, and
   so he gets a carnal confidence and forgets to stand upon his watchtower
   day and night and watch against his foes. Do you know what sometimes
   happens to the bird if it leaves its nest? Why, while the bird is away,
   the cuckoo comes and drops its egg in, and so the poor bird, when it
   comes back, has to hatch its enemy! And oftentimes, when we are not
   watchful and permit the enemy to take an advantage over us, Satan comes
   in and drops some foul temptation into our nest, which our hearts help
   to hatch and which will give us trouble all our lives! As sure as ever
   we wander in the matter of watchfulness, it will be for our hurt. We
   may sleep, but Satan does not. Never was he detected napping yet. There
   is slothfulness among Believers, but there is no slothfulness on the
   part of their adversary! He always watches, going "about like a roaring
   lion, seeking whom he may devour." Though you should leave off
   watchfulness, he never will. Oh, Christian, do not leave your nest, for
   you do not know what may come of it, what good things may be destroyed,
   or what bad things may be deposited while your heart is away!

   Some Christians, too, wander in a yet more melancholy manner as to its
   outward effect, for we see them wander from holiness. Unhappy church
   that has in it many such inconsistent professors! But, alas, they are
   too common in the world. They "did for a time run well; what, then, did
   hinder them that they should not obey the truth?" The root of the
   matter was scarcely in them, for they brought forth fruit only for a
   season and, by-and-by, they withered away. Ah, well, if there is a
   Christian here--a real Christian--who has backslidden and gone into the
   world, he will never be happy in his sin! A reprobate, after making a
   profession, may, perhaps, go back and be comfortable, but a Christian
   never can! Tell me that you are happy in your sin and I tell you at
   once that you are dead in sin, for he who puts on guilt must cast off
   shame. You are in your own element--like a fish in the water, you will
   find it suits your constitution. As a bird could not be happy down in
   the depths of the sea--it would drown unless it were soon delivered--so
   the saint of God is wretched in the depths of iniquity--he must
   speedily perish unless he is brought out. If he falls into sin through
   infirmity, or is dragged into it through the force of sudden
   temptation, he yearns to be delivered and groans and cries unto God
   till, once more, the bones that were broken are made to rejoice! If you
   wander from holiness, you wander from your place.

   I have known some people who, in order to avoid trouble, have committed
   a trespass. A Christian man, for instance, has kept his shop open on
   Sunday to prevent bankruptcy, and a mass of troubles rolled in upon him
   ten times heavier than those he had sought to avert! We have heard of
   some who have done violence to their conscience just once. In sheer
   despondency they shut their eyes and swallowed the bitter pill. It did
   not take five minutes to do it. Their friends said it was wise. Ill
   advisers told them it was necessary. They thus attempted to extricate
   themselves from some trying position. But the consequence was that to
   their dying day the worm of conscience gnawed their soul! They have
   made the rod wherewith God has scourged them. Mind what you are doing,
   then, lest in wandering from holiness, you prove yourself like a bird
   that wanders from her nest! Oh, how blessed it will be if you and I
   shall be kept by mighty Grace simply relying upon Christ, constantly
   communing with Him, watchful against the inroads of temptation and
   persevering in holiness even to the end! Without this there can be no
   comfort for us.

   III. THE PERSUASIONS TO MAKE ALL OF US WHO ARE TRUE CHRISTIANS CLING
   CLOSE TO HIS NEST.

   Consider, dear Friends, the joy which you and I have had when we have
   been clinging close to Christ. Where else can such sweetness be found
   as we have found in the love of Jesus? Will a man leave the cool,
   flowing waters from Lebanon to go and drink of the muddy river of
   another place? Shall a man turn away from the bubbling fountain to seek
   out for himself a broken cistern? Oh, let it not be! We who have fed on
   angels' food cannot be content with the husks that swine eat! Let us
   say, with Rutherford, "Ever since I have eaten the wheaten bread of
   Heaven, my mouth has been out of taste for the brown bread of Earth,
   which is full of grit and gravel. I can no longer find sweetness in
   this world's joys, for I have tasted of celestial joys that are beyond
   all that earth can give." Let the joy we have had in Christ compel us
   to cling to

   Him!

   Think again of the sorrow we have felt whenever we have wandered. You
   and I have had backsliding times--let us mournfully confess it. And
   what wretched times they have always been! What have we ever gained by
   going away from our Lord, but broken bones and sorrow of heart? As we
   have been burned, let us dread the fire and, as we have had to smart
   for our wanderings when the watchmen have plucked off our veil and
   smitten us, let us henceforth cling close to

   our Beloved. What reason has He ever given us to be discontented and go
   away? Has He been unfaithful to us? "Have I been a wilderness unto
   you?" He asks. In what respect has He grieved us? Has He ever smitten
   us in His wrath, or treated us harshly for our follies? Never has a
   friend behaved better to His friend than Christ has behaved to us and,
   as we can never find a better Savior, let us cling to Him all our days!
   Or can you think that the outlook is dreary? When we think of the joy
   that is yet to come, we have a yet stronger motive to cling to the
   Savior. We may have to walk with Him today when the snow blows in our
   face, but oh, what will it be to walk with Him in the sunshine? It may
   be hard work to keep pace with Him. Faint may be our heart and flesh
   and blood are frail, walking, as we now do, with Him through the mire
   and dirt, but what will it be to walk in silver slippers upon the
   golden pavement of the Celestial City? It is not so easy to stand with
   Him in the pillory, when the multitudes are hooting Him, but oh, how
   joyous it will be with Him when the angels are rending the heavens with
   acclamations and all the saints are casting their crowns at His feet!
   To be with Him in His trouble is not very sweet to our natural
   feelings, I know, but what will it be to be with Him in His triumph? To
   be partners in His Cross--from that we may shrink, but to sit with Him
   upon His Throne--for that we must eagerly long! Well, as we cannot be
   crown-bearers without being cross-bearers, let us espouse His Cross as
   we would enjoy His crown. Yet be it known that His Cross drops with
   myrrh, and that they who carry it will find it so sweetly perfumed that
   they shall love the very Cross, itself, because Christ has touched it!
   From this nest let us never wander because of the "rest" which "remains
   for the people of God."

   Wander from this nest?--I think we cannot if the love of Christ
   inflames us--if our love to Christ sustains us. What? Wander from Him
   who died for us, that we might never die? Who lives for us, that we
   might always live? What base ingratitude is ours that we do not cling
   closer to Him! Can we give Him up? Christians, He gave you the light
   that cheered your darkness--and can you turn away from the brightness
   of His face? With pitying eyes He saw you when you were lying in your
   blood, an outcast all forlorn, and He said unto you, "Live," and can
   you ever forsake Him? He passed by you, He looked upon you, He spread
   His skirt over you, He covered your nakedness, He swore unto you, He
   entered into a Covenant with you and can you now prove treacherous? He
   redeemed you, He opened His veins that He might pour forth the purple
   drops of His precious blood as the price for your inestimable
   ransom--can you turn away from Him? "Despised and rejected of men," as
   He was, will you hide your face from Him? And while He is still
   pleading for you, will you cease to plead for Him? Now that His
   chariots are making haste to bring Him in the glory of His Second
   Advent, will you turn away from Him when His Kingdom is so near? Shall
   the wife leave a husband who cherishes her with utmost tenderness?
   Shall the child neglect its parents, under whose roof his every need is
   supplied? Shall the limbs of one's body abhor the head? Such strange
   quirks were not half so unnatural as for a Christian to turn vagrant
   and forsake his Savior! Ah me, unnatural and brutish as it must seem,
   you and I would do this and more, also, did not Grace prevent! The love
   which has made us one with Christ must keep us one with Him, or else we
   shall never hold on our way. Be it, then, your constant prayer, "Hold
   You me up, and I shall be safe." Let this be your heart's cry, "Abide
   with me," for unless He abide with us, and make our hearts His nest, we
   shall never abide with Him, but shall be as a bird that wanders from
   her nest!

   Perhaps I speak to some poor bird which has wandered from its nest. You
   are a stranger and you have strayed in here! You recollect a nest in
   some happy family circle, where prayer was known to be made. You
   remember the nest in which you were known to nestle--a little village
   church where you worshipped God with dear kindred. But you have
   wandered from your nest. You have lost your friends! You have gone into
   the world--you are a sinner. You are conscious that you scarcely dare
   to face the home of your childhood. You have gone away from your old
   haunts, for you are ashamed to continue in them. You have wandered from
   your nest. And do you mean to wander on? Is yours to be forever the
   flight of a bird that has no roost? "Foxes have holes, and the birds of
   the air have nests"--will you never have a place to lay your head? Are
   you condemned, like the unclean spirit, to wander through dry places,
   seeking rest and finding none? Are you a pilgrim who shall never have a
   city that has foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God? Are you like
   the phantom ship of which the mariners talk, which flits across the sea
   but never reaches a port? No, Friend, you are not so to account
   yourself, though the devil has told you that there is no hope! Though
   he has driven you to desperation and persuaded you that you are given
   up of God and man--it is not so. It is not so! The Eternal Father,
   bending from high Heaven, looks down upon you and by these lips talks
   to you! Little as you were thinking that you would be found out, He
   says to you, "Return, return, return!" 'Tis He who makes you say, "I
   will arise and go unto my Father." He meets you, Prodigal! He falls
   about your neck. He gives you the kiss of reconciliation. He cries
   today to the messengers of mercy, "Take off his rags and bring forth
   the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand and shoes on
   his feet, and let us eat, drink and be merry, for he that was dead is
   alive, and he that was lost is found." The bird has come back and

   has found her nest! And as the mother bird is happy when that little
   fledgling which she thought had fallen on the ground, or had been
   swallowed by the hawk, comes back, and she covers it with her feathers,
   and bids it nestle under her warm bosom, so is the Eternal Father
   happy! And as she rejoices, so, no--infinitely more--does the Eternal
   Father rejoice when the wanderer comes back to Him and finds comfort in
   His love!

   Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ! Trust in the Father's Grace as
   manifest in the Savior's wounds, and so you shall find an eternal nest
   from which you shall never wander till you shall build your nest in
   Heaven! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: LUKE23:13-28.

   Verses 13-15, And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests
   and the rulers and the people, said unto them, You have brought this
   Man unto me, as one that perverts the people: and, behold, I, having
   examined Him before you, have found no fault in this Man touching those
   things whereof you accuse Him. No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him
   and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto Him.They were judges not
   at all inclined to favor Him, but yet, though His accusers were mad
   again Him, nothing could be brought before these two judgment seats
   which would hold water for a single moment. Holy and harmless was
   Christ and, therefore, His accusers knew not what to say against Him.

   16-23. I will therefore chastise Him, and release Him. (For of
   necessity he must release one unto them at the feast). And they cried
   out all at once, saying, Away with this Man, and release unto us
   Barabbas! (Who for certain sedition made in the city, and for murder,
   was cast into prison). Pilate, therefore, willing to release Jesus,
   spoke again to them. But they cried, saying, Crucify Him! Crucify Him!
   And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil has He done? I
   have found no cause of death in Him: I will therefore chastise Him, and
   let Him go. And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that He
   might be crucified. Never did man's enmity to God become more clear
   than when God, in human flesh, descending upon an errand of mercy,
   must, nevertheless, be hunted down by these cruel cries of, "Crucify
   Him! Crucify Him!" Man would be a Deicide if he could. "The fool has
   said in his heart, 'No God.'" To get rid of God--to get rid of God,
   even in human form, is the enmity of man's heart! He will have it if he
   can.

   23-26. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. And
   Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required. And he
   released unto them him that for sedition and murder was cast into
   prison, whom they had desired; but he delivered Jesus to their will.
   And as they led Him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian,
   coming out of the country, and on him they laid the Cross, that he
   might bear it after Jesus. Fit type of all Christ's followers, who must
   expect to carry Christ's Cross, and who should be happy and honored in
   carrying it after Jesus.

   27, 28. And there followed Him a great company of people, and of women,
   which also bewailed and lamented Him. But Jesus turning unto them said,
   Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves, and
   for your children. He had the siege of Jerusalem before His mind and,
   therefore, in tender pity He bade them save their tears for other
   sorrows.
     __________________________________________________________________

Circumcision and Uncircumcision

   (No. 3454)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 6, 1866.

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

   MAN appears to the most superficial observer to have, at any rate, two
   parts--his outward bodily form and constitution--and his inward,
   invisible, but essential self. There are some persons who care nothing
   for the inner man, who think that to educate the body and to have it in
   the finest state for athletic exercises is sufficient, but these
   persons are very few and very foolish, for the commonsense of mankind
   now holds that the mind must be trained, that the mental faculties must
   be put into healthy order and that the inner man must be cared for as
   well as the outer man. Who shall venture to say that the flesh is more
   important than the soul? He would be foolish who would attach no
   importance to the body. "Verily, bodily exercise profits a little,"
   says the Apostle, though it may be but a little. We are not to despise
   the body, nor to neglect it. We are not to consider it as a thing
   utterly unworthy of our regard in any respect. "Know you not that your
   bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit" and, therefore, are neither
   to be despised, nor to be defiled? But, still, wisdom tells us that the
   inner man is more important than the outer and that we must care for
   that at all hazards, and see to its interests, come what may of the
   interests of the body.

   Now true religion I may compare, in this respect, to man. It, too, has
   its two parts--the outward and the inward. I suppose every religion
   must have some outward way of displaying itself. Even our Quaker
   friends, who give up both Baptism and the Lord's Supper, yet show their
   religiousness, even more conspicuously than most of us do, by a certain
   form of dress. And if there were nothing else, the mere sitting still
   in the meeting house for an hour would be an outward form--and I
   believe it is one which has a tendency to become as formal as any other
   method of worship. All religion, whether true or false, must have an
   outward part to it, that is, its body, and this outward part of
   religion, the body, is not to be despised, but is to be cared for and
   thoughtfully observed. But the tendency with most men is to put the
   outward form of religion into the highest place and to think the most
   of it, just as I have said some think more of the body than they do of
   the mind.

   Now this is all idle and foolish, for the outward form of religion,
   after all, is nothing without the inward spirit. No, it is worse than
   nothing--it is hypocrisy! It is an insult to Heaven and is more likely
   to bring a curse upon those who practice it, than it is to obtain for
   them a blessing! Inward worship, when it does not show itself
   outwardly, is acceptable to God, for, "God is a Spirit, and they who
   worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth"--and spiritual
   worship, when it does show itself outwardly, is equally acceptable to
   Him, for He receives it for the sake of the Spirit which gives it life.
   But outward religion without the inward spirit is always to be classed
   under the list of offenses rather than of excellencies, for we believe
   an outward worship which does not carry the heart with it, to be
   abhorrent to God--

   "For God abhors the sacrifice Where not the heart is found." Yet,
   understand, the outward is to be observed, but without the inward it is
   nothing!

   And now for our text. The Apostle first speaks about the outward part
   of religion, and then he tells us what the inward part of it is. In the
   first place we will have a few words on--

   I. THE OUTWARD PART OF RELIGION.

   Paul here speaks of it after that fashion. He says, "In Jesus Christ,
   neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision." Before our
   Savior came into the world, circumcision was a thing of meaning. It was
   the seal of the Covenant.

   God had ordained it to be the outward token of the inward possession of
   certain remarkable privileges with which He had endowed the seed of
   Abraham. But after Christ came, circumcision lost its force and availed
   nothing--for this reason only--namely, that it had lost all spiritual
   meaning and was no longer the type of spiritual blessings and benefits.
   The Savior had been pleased to institute other ordinances which better
   set forth the spiritual Truth which He came to reveal, and
   circumcision, therefore, having no more any spiritual teaching in it,
   became a dead thing and the Apostle says that it avails nothing. Of
   course, it was, in Paul's day, the outward mark of a firm believer in
   Judaism. The man who still held to the old faith was not to be led away
   by the innovations, as he supposed them to be, of Jesus of Nazareth,
   but still held that it was essential, first and foremost, that the seed
   of Israel should bear in the flesh the ordained mark. But the Apostle
   said that "circumcision avails nothing." He put it on to the side. But
   what is remarkable, as showing the force of the Apostle's meaning, is
   that he should have added, "Nor uncircumcision," for while there were
   some who said, "I have received the seal of the Covenant--I am
   circumcised"--the Apostle said to them, "It avails nothing." "Oh," says
   another, but I, being a Jew, refuse to be circumcised. I, as a Jew,
   have come out and said that my children shall no longer be initiated
   into the Jewish faith according to the Jewish custom. I have repudiated
   it--shall not I be saved? I have no faith in the customs of my
   fathers--surely it is well with me, for by this I have declared myself
   to be a follower of the Savior." "No," says the Apostle, "it makes no
   difference! You who are circumcised get no good by it and you who are
   uncircum-cised get no good--neither the one nor the other is of any
   good to you!" He sweeps away the whole of the Jewish ceremony, both in
   its observance and in its non-observance! And so he gives it a twofold
   blow and lays it dead!

   Now I do not think that the Apostle meant here to speak merely of
   circumcision, but of all other rites and ceremonies! I believe he would
   have us understand that while there is any spiritual meaning connected
   with them, they are valuable just as circumcision might have been
   valuable while there was any spiritual meaning connected with it--but
   that when we are not Believers, when we merely receive them outwardly,
   without knowing their spiritual meaning, or comprehending and receiving
   the spiritual Grace which they typify, they avail nothing--they are of
   no service, and that, indeed, in and of themselves, they are of no use
   whatever apart from that "faith which works by love." Whether you were
   sprinkled in your infancy, or have been immersed as Believers,
   supposing you not to have been Believers, that immersion is as much a
   mistake as your previous sprinkling! You have not received any benefit
   from either, for there is nothing in either. The true essence of the
   thing lies in the faith which works by love, and if you have received
   it without faith, you have received nothing at all! You have received
   only the mere outward ceremony and there has no good come to your soul.
   You may have come to the Lord's Supper. You may have received it
   kneeling, or received it standing, or received it sitting--if you have
   received it by faith, you have been enabled by faith to feed upon
   Christ to eat His flesh and to drink His blood. But if you have
   received it without faith, you have received nothing! No, you have done
   worse than that, for you have eaten and you have drank condemnation
   unto yourselves--you have taken the bread of the children, not being a
   child, and so you have stolen from the Father's Table! You have entered
   into the court of the priests without being a priest and so you have
   committed the sin of Uzza--you have ventured to perform a sacrifice for
   which you were not fit-- and it is a marvel of God's long-suffering
   mercy that you have not received a curse for having intruded where you
   were never called! If you have come to Baptism and to the Lord's Supper
   with the faith which works by love, you have doubtless received
   benefits by the ordinances--but if you have come without that
   faith--Baptism or no Baptism avails nothing whatever! There is nothing
   in any of those outward forms and ceremonies in themselves! They are
   only a dead and killing letter, a mystifying ceremony which drags men
   down to the things which are apparent. But when faith comes, it
   quickens them and makes them live--it transforms them into blessed
   means of Grace and then God, in them, communes with the soul. I think
   it would be difficult to say too broadly or too strongly that outward
   ceremonies profit nothing in themselves. I know we are likely to be
   misunderstood, and that there would be some who would say that they
   would neglect these things altogether. If you wish to misunderstand us,
   you will. We wish to speak very plainly, but if we were misunderstood
   in that point, we would not regret it so much as we would if we were
   misunderstood upon the other, namely, that the outward form of religion
   is nothing but death, the mere letter, and not the spirit, and that
   only true vital faith in the Lord Jesus Christ can really bless the
   soul!

   Now let us try to bring out this thought still more fully, that
   "neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumci-sion"--that is to
   say, that outward forms do not avail to change the life.

   The change of the outward life is a very great part of salvation. A man
   cannot be saved from a sin in which he still indulges. It is clear that
   if a man is saved in the Scriptural sense, he is saved from his sins.
   The drunk becomes sober, the harlot becomes chaste, the unrighteous
   become religious. Now it is a matter of commonsense which I will put to
   any-body--whether there is any tendency in an outward ceremony to make
   a thief honest, or to make a drunk sober? Whether, in fact, sprinkling,
   or immersion, or receiving bread, or drinking of wine have any
   tendency, in themselves, to produce any sort of moral effect upon the
   man? When St. Francis Zavier went to India, he converted thousands of
   people, and made them Christians--and how do you think he did it? Why,
   by having on his belt a little pot of water and a large brush--as he
   went along, he sprinkled the people with the water and they were
   christened! They were Christianized, baptized and he put them all down
   as converts. Very well, legitimately so they were, I have no doubt, as
   much benefited by that as people are by infant baptism, and as much as
   people are by immersion, if they are immersed without faith in the Lord
   Jesus Christ! We laugh at the thing when it is done on a large scale,
   and wonder that people can receive it--but we may equally laugh at it
   with scorn in any one individual instance! My dear Hearer, if you could
   really prove that an outward ceremony changed men, oh, how diligently
   would we practice it! If the consecrated wafer really does make men
   holy, oh, turn your houses into ovens and let there be bakers in every
   street! Happy bakers who can convert the minds of men! Happy wheat that
   can be ground so as to change sinners into saints! But where is the
   connection? Where is the connection between bread and the conscience?
   Where is the connection between water, either in drops or in floods,
   and the heart, the affections and the reason of man? Oh, Beloved, we
   know better than this! How is it, then, that men's minds can cling to
   such superstitions? "You must be born-again" in order that an effect
   may be produced upon your minds and hearts! You must know another
   influence than that which is outward! There must come upon you an
   unseen and invisible power which shall enlighten your understandings,
   control your souls, change your affections and so make your lives to be
   different from what they were! But oh, these outward things are but
   clumsy appliances! You might as well turn gas upon a fire to put it
   out, as try to save a soul by these outward forms! Circumcision and
   uncircumcision--neither of them avail anything in the moral life of
   man--and everybody knows that!

   But, then, it is equally true that they do not do anything to comfort a
   real awakened and quickened conscience. I have no doubt that a great
   many people do derive a degree of comfort from going to church and
   chapel. You come here and sit in your pews and are very comfortable.
   Perhaps some of you go to sleep, but that does not lessen your comfort,
   but rather increases it. If the sermon were never so dull, perhaps it
   would be all the better for you, but it prevents your being quite as
   comfortable because it happens to be personal, and to be plainly and
   boldly spoken. I know there are hundreds and thousands of people in
   this country who would be greatly troubled in their minds if they did
   not go to church or chapel twice on Sundays--and they get comfort in
   this because their conscience is dead! If their conscience were really
   awakened, they would understand that there is no connection between
   conscience and outward forms. A conscious sinner, an awakened sinner,
   never can be lulled to sleep, again, except by that same voice which
   first awakened it! Conscience finds peace concerning sin when it finds
   sin laid upon the Savior. It gets peace concerning guilt when it sees
   Him smarting and bleeding unto death. When faith comes, conscience has
   peace with God through Jesus Christ, but I am certain that no
   conscience which God ever awakened from the dead found peace through
   Baptism, or through the Lord's Supper, or through any outward form! The
   conscience which is once awakened cries, "These things are good enough
   for saints. They may minister comfort to them, but I need salvation
   itself! I need Christ Himself--not things about Christ, but Christ--not
   merely to worship with His people, but to be one of them! "Putting
   aside the crucifix as it was held up to his eyes in his dying moments,
   and refusing the last unction, a dying monk cried out, "Tua vulnera
   Jesu! Tua vulnera Jesu!"--"Your wounds, O Jesus! Your wounds, O Jesus!"
   And this is what every awakened conscience will have to cry! It must be
   the blood of Jesus, not the sacramental wine! The washing of the bath
   that was filled with His Atonement--not any outward washing for the
   cleansing of the flesh! The reception of God the Holy Spirit into our
   souls, as a priest coming into a temple! The receiving of the love of
   Jesus into our hearts as an altar fire into a censor! The receiving of
   the love of God, Himself, our Father, so that we can say--

   "Abba Father! Cry

   With an unfaltering tongue."

   It is all this which the conscience needs and it will not be satisfied
   with anything short of this. "Faith which works by love" will quiet the
   conscience, but all else that you can do is but as singing a song to
   one that is of a sad heart--it yields no comfort to the soul.

   If a man were very hungry, very hungry, indeed, I can imagine that if a
   person should say to him, "Sit down. I am going to play you a tune," he
   would answer, "Oh, but give me something solid! Give me something
   substantial!" What would the other say? "Not pleased with music? Come,
   then, I will give you some painting. Look at that window, there, is not
   that finely done?" "Give me something solid! Oh, give me something
   solid!" "Well, but here comes a procession-- are not these gentlemen
   very prettily arrayed? Is it not a gaudy show, worthy of any baby?"
   "Yes," replies the man, "but I need something solid! I can eat neither
   processions, nor painted windows, nor music! I need something solid."
   "Oh," says the man, "but I must give you a rule to live by--here is one
   which was settled long ago by bishops--will not that satisfy you?" "No.
   Your rules and regulations may be all very good, but I need something
   solid, something to receive now." Now the guilty conscience has an
   awful hunger within itself that cannot be satisfied with ritualism of
   the best and finest sort, but the conscience cries, "I need something
   to satisfy me! Tell me, how can God be Just, and yet be the justifier
   of the ungodly? That is the question. Tell me, how can God punish sin
   and yet forgive it? Tell me, what is to become of me while I am covered
   with all these iniquities? Tell me how I can get free from them." Well,
   the Gospel comes and says, "The Lord Jesus Christ suffered in the place
   of all who believe on Him, and the moment you believe in Him you are
   completely saved! Your sin is gone, you are a child of God, your feet
   are on the Rock of Ages and you can never perish." "Oh," says the
   conscience, "that is what I need! That is the very thing I have been
   longing for! Here is the gracious God turning to me and saying, 'I have
   blotted out your sins like a cloud, and like a thick cloud your
   iniquities.'" Ah, may God give us such a spiritual hunger as that, and
   there will be no fear that we shall ever be mystified about
   circumcision or uncircumcision, for we shall feel that neither of them
   avail anything! If we once get the faith that works by love, we shall
   be satisfied with favor and filled with the goodness of the Lord!

   But now it remains for us to say that, as outward religion neither
   changes the morals of men, nor gives peace to an awakened conscience,
   so neither can these outward things avail to take us to Heaven. You
   will be deceived at the last, rest assured of that, if you rest on
   anything which only concerns these eyes of ours, these hands and these
   feet. If you are depending upon the things which are seen, they are,
   every one of them, temporal--they cannot be of any use to you when you
   come into the land of the things that are not seen--which are eternal!
   Oh, Soul, if you rest upon a mortal hope, or a mortal thing, or an
   outward ceremony, or an outward form, you are resting on that which
   cannot have any efficacy in the unseen world! And when your soul comes
   to the grave and you look across the narrow stream of death into the
   dim eternity, you will then have no hope! It is very strange how God
   makes liars tell the truth. The priests do not pretend to offer you any
   hope, for what do they tell you? Do they ever say that these ceremonies
   will take you to Heaven? Not they! It seems as if God would not let
   Satan fabricate the lie, perfectly, for he has left a weak part in it.
   Where does the best believer in outward ceremonies go? Ask the priest,
   and he will tell you that he goes to "purgatory!" Did not Cardinal
   Wiseman go there? Did they not put upon the lid of his coffin, "Pray
   for the repose of his soul," and was not that a proof that they
   believed he went where he needed to be prayed for and where he had no
   repose for his soul? Do not all the mightiest and greatest men of that
   church go there? Do not even the Popes go there? It is a poor
   consequence--that is all you can get, if you get anything! They cannot
   offer you anything better than this! But oh, if you get the "faith
   which works by love," I will tell you what you will have--you shall
   have a good hope through Divine Grace, not of "purgatory," not of the
   "limbos patrum," but of being with Christ in Heaven as soon as your
   eyes are closed in death and, confident of this, you shall come to your
   dying bed, you shall lie there as long as God is pleased to spare you
   in your sickness, without doubt or fear! And when the last hour comes
   you shall have Grace to die, if not triumphantly, at least hopefully!
   You shall have preludes of the everlasting song, foretastes of the
   coming Glory and you shall die with some such song as this on your
   lips--

   "Jerusalem, my happy home, Name ever dear to me! Now shall my labors
   have an end In joy, and peace, and thee!"

   It is singular, and strangely indicative of a trembling conscience,
   that those who preach up circumcision and uncircumci-sion dare not
   offer Heaven--but those who declare that salvation is by faith in Jesus
   can boldly say to every trembling

   sinner, "Fear not! If you believe in Jesus when you die, yet shall you
   be with Him in Paradise, 'for there is, therefore, now no condemnation
   to them which are in Christ Jesus' for they shall never perish, neither
   shall any pluck them out of His hand! Beloved, now are we the sons of
   God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when
   He shall appear we shall be like He, for we shall see Him as He is." We
   shall not be in "purgatory," but we shall be with Him, for His prayer
   to His Father for us was, "Father, I will that they, also, whom You
   have given Me be with Me where I am, that they may behold My Glory."

   Thus have we said enough to show you that the outward form of religion
   avails nothing. Now we come to speak, in the next place, concerning--

   II. THE INWARD PART OF RELIGION.

   The text tells us that the inward part of religion is "faith which
   works by love." Now what is faith? In one word, it is trust--the
   trusting of the soul in God's promise made in Christ Jesus. My faith is
   that which enables me to believe that God is true, to believe that He
   sent His Son in the flesh to suffer for my sins, to believe that
   through the merit of His blood and the virtue of His holy life, I am
   saved. To trust in Him to save me--this is faith. It is not the faith
   of God's elect to merely believe dogmas and truths, to believe them to
   be true, but to rest upon them, to trust in them, to repose one's soul
   thereon! The very essence of Christianity is trust in the Lord Jesus
   Christ. But mark, we are told that this is faith of a certain kind--it
   is "faith which works by love." It is not a faith that merely talks,
   much less a faith that goes to sleep, or a faith that bolsters men up
   in presumption and makes them live in sin, but a faith which works by
   love, a practical faith. It is a faith which has arms and hands--not a
   crippled faith--but a living thing which cannot help working! It is not
   a frozen river that is like stone in its bed, but rolling on,
   increasing and swelling until it comes to the sea. It is a living
   thing, a working thing! My faith is no faith at all if it does not
   operate upon my daily life. If I believe that Jesus Christ has saved me
   and I trust in Him, there are a great many things I cannot do which
   other people can do--and many things that I love to do which other
   people would not do and do not wish to do! If my religion never comes
   across me when I am in the shop, and stops me, and never comes to me
   when I am in the market place, then it is a religion which is not worth
   a button--and the sooner I am rid of it the better! It must be a
   working religion, practically operating upon the entire man. And this
   is the way in which it operates--it operates by love. It works by
   making us love Christ for what He has done for us. It works by making
   us love God, so that we say, "Lord, what is Your will, for we wish to
   submit to it"? And this makes us cheerful, happy and resigned. It
   works, in fact, by making us love the Lord Jesus Christ. If you do not
   love Jesus, then your faith is no faith, for the very sound of His name
   is precious to those who have true faith! It works by love to Him who
   Himself loved us and gave Himself for us! It works by love to God, who
   gave His Son--

   "Loved of my God, for Him again

   With love intense I burn.

   Chosen of Him before time began,

   I choose Him in return."

   Then faith also works by love to the Brothers and Sisters. A man has no
   faith if he does not love faithful men. It is a mark of the child of
   God that he loves the rest of the family. "We know that we have passed
   from death unto life because we love the brethren"--not only the
   brethren who happen to be called by our denominational name--that is
   very easy! A hypocrite can do that--but all the saints! Whenever, as
   St. Basil used to say, we can see anything of Christ, there we ought to
   give something of Christian love, so that genuine faith loves all those
   who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and desire the good and
   prosperity of all the branches of the vine. And, mark you, this faith
   will work by love, even to your enemies! If you are a genuine
   Christian, you will love those who do not love you. It is very little
   to love our own relatives, though there are some who do not do even
   that. But to love our enemies is the mark of a true Christian--to be
   prepared to bear and to forbear, to endure, but never to inflict, to be
   reviled, but not to answer, not to rebuke, but to heap coals of fire
   upon the head of our foes by endeavoring to do all that we can for the
   good of those who do us ill. It was said of Thomas Cranmer, "Do my lord
   of Canterbury an ill turn and he will be your friend and give you
   help." And it was said of another, that if you wanted to get a favor
   from him, the best thing you could do was to do him an injury, because
   then, when you asked him for anything, he was quite certain to say, "I
   will do it for you because you have been my enemy." Let us seek for
   something of the same spirit! Let us love even those who are unlovable
   and who love us not.

   Then I may say that one mark of this faith is that it loves sinners.
   God deliver you, as a Church and congregation, from that unloving
   spirit which never cares for the souls of men! I believe that to be an
   accursed theology which makes a preacher say, "I have preached to the
   living people of God. As for the dead, I have nothing to say to them."
   A theology which dries up the milk of human kindness makes a man a
   cynic towards his own kind. And to have no care for his own flesh and
   blood is a theology that never came from Heaven, but from a very
   different quarter! I have seen the dupes of this theology callous about
   the conversion of even their own children! And I have heard them boast
   that they never speak to their children about religion--boasting of it
   as though it were not the most disgraceful thing that could be said!
   The Christian that cares not for his own household is worse than a
   heathen and a publican! We have heard some of these say that God will
   do His own work and, therefore, they never speak about Christ, and
   though this were not degrading themselves below the very basest
   idolaters, for even an idolater will speak well of his god and endeavor
   to bring others to bow before his blocks of wood and stone! But these
   persons, stupefied by a fatalism which is far more Muslim than
   Christian, leaves undone the work which God would have them do and
   which, if they had genuine faith in their souls, they would do! May God
   give us not a frozen faith like that, but a faith which works by love
   to the souls of sinners! You do not love Christ if you do not love
   sinners! He came into the world to seek and to save them, and if you do
   not try to bring them to Him, you do not know Christ! How dwells the
   love of God in you if you have never cared for poor dying men?

   So, then, it seems that the very soul and essence of true religion is
   this--the possession of a trust in Christ which, through the passion
   called, "love," affects my whole being, moves me to the greatest
   activity, and restrains me from sin. Now, dear Friends, have you got
   this faith that works by love? "Oh, I am not baptized," says one. Now I
   never asked you that question! I did not indeed. I only asked you, Have
   you got the faith which works by love? "Oh, Sir, I have been baptized."
   I did not ask you that! I asked if you have got the faith which works
   by love? "Well, Sir, I am a member of the church." What does that
   matter? That is not the point--the point is, have you the faith which
   works by love? If you have got that, you are going to Heaven! If you
   have not, you are on the high-road to Hell! If you have the faith which
   works by love, you may have a great many errors, you may make a great
   many mistakes, but your face is towards Jerusalem and you will get
   there! But if you have not the faith which works by love, you may be as
   orthodox as the Bible, itself, and you may be sound in theology as the
   Holy Spirit--and yet, even if all this were possible--you could never
   enter Heaven if you have not the faith which works by love. That is the
   essential thing, the one thing necessary.

   I was struck, when thinking over this text, to find that in the next
   Chapter (Galatians 6:15) you get this truth in another shape. By
   comparing one text with another, you often get fresh light, and here
   you have it--"For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision avails
   anything, nor uncircumcision, but"--but what? The faith which works by
   love? No, "but a new creature." Well, then, these two things must be
   the same! My having the faith which works by love implies that I am a
   new creature! Now some of you have been puzzling yourselves about
   whether you have been born-again, whether you are new creatures. Have
   you got the faith that works by love? If so, you are a new creature,
   for you never saw a man in a natural state who had faith that works by
   love! He may have faith, a faith which makes him tremble like the
   devil, but the faith that works by love to Jesus Christ, no hypocrite
   ever did have or ever could have! What are you to apprehend, my dear
   Friends, if you love the Lord Jesus Christ and are trusting in Him? Do
   not let the devil perplex you by saying that perhaps you have not
   experienced regeneration, perhaps you have not felt this and have not
   felt that! You are right, and must be right, if you have the faith
   which works by love, for, according to the Scriptures, that is so
   evident a proof of being a new creature that it is tantamount to it!
   Hear how our Savior puts it. There were some who wanted to do the work
   of God and who said, "What shall we do that we may work the works of
   God?" What do you think Christ said to them? Did He say, "You must feel
   this, or feel that," and so on? No! He said, "This is the work of God,
   that you believe on Jesus Christ, whom He has sent." This is the
   greatest work that God ever does--to make a man believe in His Son!
   Wherever a man is made to believe in Jesus Christ and to trust Him, you
   may see the finger of God. You may imitate 20 things in religion, but
   you cannot give a man true faith--it must be an act of Grace. No dead
   sinner ever did trust Christ! No unregenerate soul ever possessed the
   faith which works by love! And it may stand to you as a certain
   evidence of the new birth, if you have got the faith which works by
   love.

   As I studied the subject farther, I was struck to find that in another
   text (Colossians 3:11) you get the same sentiment--"Where there is
   neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian,
   Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all." Now there are
   some who say, "I hope I am a new creature, but I am sometimes afraid
   wheth-

   er Christ is mine." Well, but it is the same thing! Christ is all and
   in all to you, and you are the very same people who are new creatures,
   and who have the faith that works by love! Then, dear Heart, if you are
   trusting in Christ, Christ is your All-in-All, and you need not say--

   "'Tis a point Ilong to know, Oft it causes anxious doubt. Do Ilove the
   Lord or no, Am I His or am I not?"

   You are His, if you are trusting in Him with the faith that works by
   love! Oh, I think there are some of you who can say, "Well, I do trust
   Him. I have nowhere else to trust. I cannot trust in myself. I dare not
   rely on my prayers. I cannot depend upon any mortal thing, but the Lord
   knows that I do rest upon the blood of Jesus Christ. I am not deceived
   about that and, what is more, I do love Him, not as I want to love Him,
   not as I ought to love Him, but I do love Him. The sound of His name is
   sweet to me. I could not live without it and when I am at a distance
   from Him I cannot be happy. There was a time when I could be very happy
   and very contented without the Savior--when I could enjoy the theater,
   the ballroom and all the pleasures of the world, but I cannot now. It
   is all emptiness and vanity--vanity of vanity! I must have Christ! If
   others can do without Him, I cannot. I must have Him."

   Well, then, dear Soul, He is yours! He is your All-in-All. I spoke last
   Sunday of the limpets at the seaside, sitting on the rocks. It does not
   prove that the rocks belong to the limpets because the limpets sit
   there, but in your case you are just like a poor little thing flying to
   Christ--and that proves that Christ belongs to you, that He is yours in
   this world, and will be yours in the world to come! Then if I take hold
   of Christ, I know that He is mine! There was never a sinner who took
   Christ and then found that he had made a mistake. The woman who came to
   the Savior and touched the hem of His garment, and asked to receive a
   cure of the Savior, did not take the cure away, but He said, "Your
   faith has savedyou; go in peace." If you can get Christ, Christ is
   yours. Trust Him with your soul, now, Sinner! You have no
   qualification. You have no goodness. You have no merits. Perhaps you
   have no good feelings, nor anything that is commendable. Well now,
   trust Him! Do you believe that He can save such a sinner as you are?
   Can you do Him the credit, Sinner, that such a lost and almost
   condemned sinner as you are can be saved by Him? If you have the power
   thus to believe in Him, it proves that you are saved, for you could not
   thus have believed unless He had visited you and given you Grace to do
   it! Can you do it now? The greater you feel your sin to be, the blacker
   you persuade yourself that you are tonight, the more can you honor
   Christ by casting yourself wholly on Him!

   He who has no disease cannot honor the physician by saying he believes
   he can cure him, but he who has a disease through and through him, so
   that he is given up--when he says to the physician, "Sir, I believe
   that you can exterminate this disease and make me a healthy man"--does
   honor to his physician by his faith. You great sinners, you black
   sinners, you lost, ruined and undone sinners, the Lord help you now to
   trust Christ, and then you will honor Him, and give Him glory, and that
   is the best proof that He is in you and that you shall be with Him in
   the day of His appearing! It is faith that works by love that is the
   grand thing, and that is the same thing as being a new creature, and
   the same thing as having Christ to be our All-in-All.

   May God give this to those of you who are seeking it, so that, having
   begun in the spirit, you do not end in the flesh, but walk in the
   liberty wherewith Christ shall make you free. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Message From God

   (No. 3455)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 22, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I have a message from God unto you." Judges 3:20.

   CAN there be a person here present to whom God has never sent a
   message? Possibly the question may startle you. The very thought of the
   great invisible God sending such a message seems to you strange and
   unlikely. To me it is far more surprising that anyone should imagine He
   has never done so! Is He your Creator? And has He who made you launched
   you forth on the tempestuous sea of life to drift in solitude without
   compass or guide? We know that He has made you immortal--is it possible
   that during that short life which is a preface to eternity, upon which
   that never ending period depends--is it possible that He has left you
   without any sort of communication? Does it seem likely? You call Him,
   "Father," because He is the Author of your being--can He be your Father
   and yet have no concern for your well-being--never have spoken to you,
   never have sent a message from His great Throne to your hearts? How
   improbable this sounds! Is not the question open to another solution?
   The truth of the matter, I think, is that you have been deaf to God's
   messages! He has often desired to correspond with you, no, He has sent
   some communications to you, but you have resented and rejected them. Is
   it not likely that He has often spoken when you have not heard and that
   He has drawn near to you and called to you when you would not listen to
   Him? I think, from the analogy of nature, this looks like a correct
   statement of the case. It cannot be that God has left the world--it
   must be that the world has left God! It is not possible that God has
   ceased to speak to the soul. Surely the soul has ceased to listen to
   God, to acknowledge His messages, or to reply to them! I believe, my
   dear Hearers, and I especially address my remarks this evening to those
   of you who have not yet received Christ by faith and love into your
   hearts--I believe that the most of you, although still without God and
   without Christ, have had many messages from Him. Let me remind you of
   some of them. Then, let me admonish you that the Gospel, itself, is a
   distinct and direct message to you. And finally, let us occupy a few
   minutes in endeavoring to consider how we ought to treat that message.

   I. WE HAVE NOT BEEN WITHOUT MESSAGES FROM GOD.

   This Bible is in the house of every Englishman. You can scarcely find a
   house so poor that it does not now contain a copy of the Word of God.
   If your Bible could speak to you--or rather, if you would listen to
   what it says to you--you would hear in the chamber where that Bible
   lies, the words, "I have a message from God for you." Do but open it,
   look down its pages, let your eyes glance along its sacred verses and I
   think it would not be long before it would have communion with your
   spirit, and this would be its voice, "I have a message from God for
   you." I am sure that each one of you would read some verse that is
   personally applicable to yourself, perhaps more applicable to you than
   to any other man! There is some one special Book in Scripture which was
   prepared specially for you. There is an arrow there that was intended
   for your heart--some oil and wine fitted to relieve your pain and heal
   your wounds! Whether your case is that of carelessness or of
   despondency, that Book says, "I have a message from God for you." Shall
   I chide the indifference which neglects the Book? Shall I rebuke the
   levity which had rather turn to a novel, or to any frivolous magazine,
   than to this momentous volume which appeals to you as with the voice of
   God? Scarcely need I do so! Each man must be conscious that it is the
   height of guilt to slight the King's proclamations and pursue the
   common and ordinary things of everyday life as if no Royal Mandate had
   been issued! How much more when it is the voice of Him that speaks from
   Heaven! Your unread Bibles shall rise up in judgment to condemn you!
   Attempt to alight from the railway car while the train is in motion,
   you are liable to a penalty of forty shillings. Do not say you are
   ignorant of the law! It was posted in the carriage that conveyed you.
   The angel of Time might surely write with his finger upon the dust of
   your Bibles the sentence of your

   condemnation! Beware, you who refuse to listen to Moses and the
   Prophets! If you will not hear them, you will not be converted, though
   one should rise from the dead and admonish you of your peril!

   Other messengers you have had. Some of them have come to you in golden
   type--their words have been sweet as honey. I will call them bountiful
   Providences. I know not what you would call them. Perhaps a vein of
   luck. Have you been favored with success in business? A prosperous wind
   has filled your sails. In your families you have had welcome mercies.
   Children have been given you. Those children have been restored from
   beds of sickness when your heart has been sick with anxiety. In your
   own health of body you have not been strangers to God's choice favors.
   Moreover, you have had times of gladness and of merry-making. Your
   hearts have held their festivals. The streets of Mansoul were
   illuminated, the houses decked with fair colors and the streets of your
   mind strewn with flowers! On those days did not these mercies seem to
   say, as they came trooping along down the streets of your soul, "We
   have a message from the Lord for you"? Oh, if you would but listen,
   each one of these parental gifts would have said, "My son, give Me your
   heart." Surely such mercies should have been like the bonds of love and
   the cords of a man to have drawn you! Ought not the kindness and
   compassion extended to you in Providence to have led you to say, "How
   can I grieve such a God? How can I provoke Him to anger? Does He not
   deal generously with me and lavish His treasures at my feet? How shall
   I forget Him? I will celebrate His favor with sacrifices of
   thanksgiving. I will bind my offerings to the horns of the altar."

   Other messengers have come to you draped in black. Their garments have
   been torn, sack-cloth has been about their loins, and ashes on their
   heads. They have spoken in hoarse notes, but solemn tones, and though
   they have not led you to repentance, their admonitions have stilled
   your pulse, chilled your blood and forced you to pause and think.
   Remember that sickness--fever, or cholera, or diphtheria--which
   prostrated your strength, disqualified you for your daily labor, or
   your ordinary business and summoned you in the quiet of your chamber to
   look back upon the past and look forward to the future? Can you forget
   the season when life trembled in the scale and the physician knew not
   which way it would turn--that hour, that silent hour, when they trod
   the room with gentle footsteps and the nurse closed not her eyes
   through all the still hours of the night? Then the noisy watch uttered
   the only sound that broke the silence of that room! Do you not remember
   those diseases that laid hold of your vitals and said, "We have a
   message from God for you"? And some of you have escaped from manifold
   perils by sea and by land, from shipwreck and from fire! You have been
   preserved in accidents and catastrophes in which others have died. All
   these strange, these terrible things, spoke to you in righteousness
   when you were careless and unconcerned! They had a message from God for
   you. Oh, deaf ears that will not listen when God speaks to you in such
   solemn tones and strikes you while He speaks that He may compel you to
   listen!

   Another dark messenger has come to you. Death has bereaved you of
   friends and comrades. Those with whom you were most familiar have been
   suddenly called away. Have you not been startled by the news that a
   neighbor or acquaintance with whom you chatted a day or two ago is
   dead? "Dead?" you said. "Why, he was in my shop only a few days ago!
   Dead? Why, He seemed to be in good health, strong in body, vigorous in
   mind, full of plans and projects. I should have thought of any man dead
   sooner than he!" Do not you recollect the time when you heard the bell
   toll for a near relative, and when you stood over the open grave? Ah,
   then, when the dust fell upon the coffin lid, and the words were
   uttered, "Dust to dust, ashes to ashes," each of those thundering
   morsels said, "I have a message from God for you!" Walk the cemetery
   and while every grave tells of our common mortality, how some graves
   speak to us of the precarious tenure by which our frail life is held!
   In all, what a warning message we may hear! Turn over the list of the
   friends of your youth, the companions of your healthy manhood--and you
   who have grown gray call to remembrance the names of those old
   acquaintances of yours who have passed from this land of shadows to the
   bar of God--let the ghosts of the departed start up before you and pass
   in solemn procession before your eyes! Then let each one say, with all
   the pathos of their final exit, "I have a message from God for you!"
   Among them all, is there one who learned anything of vice or scoffing
   from you, young man? Is there a soul among the lost that you first led
   astray? Man, you who have blasphemed--are there some now regretting
   their bitter doom whose ruin you helped to precipitate? Oh, you base
   deceiver, are there those whom you did delude? Are there those whom you
   did ensnare who have gone their way before you to feel the terrible
   remorse and are waiting for the grim time when they shall look on you
   with eyes of fire and curse you because you lured them on to their
   eternal destruction? Those ghosts, of all others, must be the most
   startling! And their fingers of fire must point the most fearfully and
   make one feel that they have, indeed, a message from God to us from the
   place of torment! Let the remembrance of them make you pause, and
   think--and turn from your sins to the living and true God!

   But though these messages have too often been unheard, the Lord, who
   desires not the death of a sinner, has sent to us by other and equally
   useful messengers. Oh, in what kind ways has He been pleased to select
   the persons who should bring the tidings to us. The first messenger
   that some of us had was that fond woman upon whose breast in infancy we
   hung. We should never breathe the word, "mother," without grateful
   emotions! How can we forget that tearful eye when she warned us to
   escape from the wrath to come? We thought her lips right
   eloquent--others might not think so--but they certainly were eloquent
   to us! How can we ever forget when she bowed her knees, and with her
   arms about our neck, prayed for us, "Oh, that my son might live before
   You"? Nor can her frown be erased from our memory, that solemn, loving
   frown when she rebuked our budding iniquities! And her smiles have
   never faded from our recollection, the beaming of her countenance when
   she rejoiced to see some good thing in us towards the Lord God of
   Israel! Mothers often become potent messengers from God. And I think
   each Christian mother should ask herself in secret whether the Lord has
   not a message to give through her to her sons and to her daughters. And
   did you despise that messenger? Had you the audacity to reject God when
   He spoke in this way, when He selected one so near and so dear, who
   could speak so well, and could talk to that tender instinct which
   respects and hallows a mother's love? Could it be? Ah, thus it has been
   up till now with some of you! God has spoken with other messengers to
   you. Was it your sister? Did she not write a note to you because her
   timidity would scarcely let her speak? Or, perhaps, it was a friend. It
   may have been that young man you ridiculed and called fanatical--you
   know how soon you shook off the impressions which those pointed remarks
   of his seemed to make upon you at the time. Or, possibly, it was a
   tract that met your eyes. Or a book like Doddridge's Rise and Progress,
   or Baxter's Call to the Unconverted, or Alleine's Alarm. Through these
   printed appeals God spoke to you!

   Yet, again, it might have been through some preacher of the Gospel.
   God's ministers have been God's messengers to many thousands of
   immortal souls. Within this House of Prayer, sometimes, there are many
   who hardly know how to keep their seats when we try to ply the
   conscience with all the arguments of the Truth of God and seek to move
   inactive souls by some of the thunderbolts of the Almighty! Oh, how
   many men here have been rebuked and rebuked, times without number, but
   still they go on in their old sins? Take heed, take heed, men, for if
   you refuse God when He speaks by His servants, and by His Providence
   and by your friends, He will one day speak to you by a bony preacher
   who will deliver his message so that you must hear him! You know from
   where my text comes? "Ehud said, 'I have a message from God for you.'"
   It was a dagger which found its way to Eglon's heart--and he fell dead!
   So shall Death deliver his message to you. "I have a message from God
   unto you," he will say, and before you shall have time to answer, you
   shall find that this was the message, "Because I, the Lord, will do
   this, prepare to meet your God, O Israel; thus says the Lord, cut it
   down; why cumbers it the ground? Set your house in order, for you shall
   die and not live." Oh, may you hear the other messengers of God before
   He sends this last most potent one from which you cannot turn away!

   I have thus sought to refresh your memory by reminding you of the many
   warnings you have received. The intent of them all has been to awaken
   your conscience. But now, in the second place, we admonish you that--
   II. THE GOSPEL OF THE GRACE OF GOD IS, IN ITSELF, A MESSAGE FROM GOD TO
   YOU. Oh, how passing strange are the reasons, the extraordinary reasons
   why many people attend our churches and chapels! Some people go merely
   because everybody else goes. Others go because--well, perhaps it helps
   their business a bit! Some go when they happen to have fashionable
   clothes in which they like to make an appearance. Ask the large
   majority of men and women why they go--and even the best of people,
   were they to be candid, tell you that they suppose it is the right
   thing to do--it is their duty. But how few go with the idea that God
   will speak to them, there, and that the Gospel preached there will be a
   message from God to their souls! And, I am afraid, there are some
   ministers who hardly think that the Gospel is intended to come
   personally home to the people. They talk, as I read of one the other
   day, who said that when he preached to sinners he did not like to look
   the congregation in the face, for fear they should think he meant to be
   personal, so he looked up at the ventilator because there was no fear,
   then, of any individual catching his eye! Oh, that fear of man has been
   the ruin of many ministers! They never dared to preach right at the
   people. We have heard of sermons being preached before this and that
   honorable company, but preaching sermons beforepeople is not God's way!
   We must preach sermons at the people, directly to them, to show that it
   is not the waving of a sword in the air like a juggler's sport, but it
   is the getting of the sword right into the conscience and the heart!
   This, I take it, is the true mission of every minister of Christ. It is
   said of Whitefield that if you were the farthest away from him in a
   throng, where you could but hear the sound of his voice, you felt
   persuaded that he meant to speak to you! And of Rowland Hill it is said
   that if you got into Surrey Chapel, you could not hide in a corner
   there! If you did manage to get into a back seat, or were squeezed
   tight into the windows, you would still feel persuaded that Mr. Hill
   was addressing you and that he had singled you out for his
   expostulations as though no one else were present! Surely this is the
   perfection of preaching. Should it not be our aim to find men and make
   them feel that at the present moment they are, themselves, addressed?
   That there is a message from God to the soul?

   Now, my Friend, the Gospel is a distinct message directed to you. I
   know it speaks to your neighbor and tells him that he is fallen. That
   is for him, not for you, to think of. Your portion is that which
   singles you out and tells you that youwere in Adam when he sinned. That
   you fell in him and that as the result, your nature is corrupt! You are
   born in sin and prone to commit sin--there is no good thing in your
   natural disposition! Whatever seems good in your own eyes, or the eyes
   of others, is so tainted by the inherent vice of your own depravity
   that it cannot be acceptable in the sight of God! When we preach to
   sinners, never think that we mean the riff-raff in the streets. The
   Gospel, which saves a sinner, is a message from God to YOU! Think of
   your own sins and the evil of your own heart! I have heard of a woman
   who refused to believe that she was a sinner, and her minister,
   convinced that she did not know what she meant, thus exposed her folly.
   He said to her, "Well, if you area sinner, of course, you have broken
   God's Law. Let us read the Ten Commandments and see which you have
   broken." So turning to the Decalogue, he began to read, "You shall have
   no other God before Me." "Did you ever break that? "Oh, no! Not that
   she knew of." He proceeded, "You shall not make to yourself any
   engraved image," and so on. "Did you ever break that? "Never, Sir,"
   said she. Then, "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in
   vain." "Oh, dear, no," she had been very particular on that point. She
   did not know that she had everoffended in that respect in her life!
   "Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy." "Oh," she said, "I never do
   any work on a Sunday--everybody knows how particular I am about that."
   "Honor your father and your mother." "Yes," she replied, she had been
   quite perfect in this matter. You might ask her friends if she had not
   been. "You shall not kill." "Kill anybody?" She wondered how the
   minister could ask her that! Of course, "You shall not commit
   adultery," must be passed without a question. "You shall not bear false
   witness." Much of a gossip though she was, she swore she never did
   backbite anybody in all her life! And as to the idea of coveting, well,
   she might sometimes have wished that she was a little better off, but
   she never wanted any of anybody else's goods--she only wanted a little
   more of her own.

   So it turned out, as the minister suspected, that she really was not a
   sinner at all in her own estimation. It is marvelous how people who
   indulge in general confessions of sin attempt to exculpate themselves
   of each and every particular offense. Whatever the indictment is, they
   plead, "Not guilty." But the condemnation which the Gospel pronounces
   upon all who have transgressed the Law of God is a message from God to
   you! Oh, I would have those of you who have not fled to Christ feel and
   realize the terrors of the Law! How stern its precepts! How dreadful
   its penalties! How Divine its sanctity! And remember--it is a message
   from God to YOU! Where is the possibility of escape from the justice it
   metes out, the judgment it pronounces? I think I hear the cry of
   spirits lost without hope--mark the worm that never dies and witness
   the agonies of conscience never appeased--while the remembrance of
   opportunities haunts them and the wrath of God stirs the fire of
   remorse that never shall be quenched! Of that appalling spectacle I
   might speak at length to you, but I will not. Oh, my dear Hearers, I
   would have you remember that this is a message from God to you! As sure
   as you live, unless you repent, the everlasting burning must be your
   portion forever! You must make your bed in Hell if you continue in
   unbelief! Do, I pray you, forget your neighbor for a while. Think not
   of anything that is applicable to the person sitting next to you. To
   you, to your own self, is the thunder of God's threat sent--"If you
   repent not, you shall all likewise perish." If you turn not from the
   error of your ways, God will not turn from His righteous indignation.
   Your destruc-tionslumbers not, though you are ever so drowsy! His wrath
   will burn like coals of juniper--forever and forever it will abide on
   you!

   But the Gospel tells of a Substitute. It informs you that Jesus came
   and suffered in the place of the sinner. It says that He died for those
   who trust Him. It assures you that whoever believes on Him shall not
   perish, but have everlasting life. Have you no anxiety that the Gospel
   should be a message from God to you? It will be of no use to you that
   Jesus died, unless He died for you. If He took your sin and carried
   your sorrow, it is all well--but though He should have died for all
   mankind, except you, by that omission you would perish! We know that He
   died for Believers. "Whoever believes on Him shall not perish, but have
   everlasting life." The vital question is, "Do I believe in Jesus? Have
   I trusted in Him? Do I depend, now, upon His finished work? Having no
   other refuge, do I trust in Jesus, sink or swim? Do I commit myself to

   the tide, relying on His merits, expecting thereby to be borne on safe
   to the haven of His Glory?" If so, then there is evidence that He died
   for me. I am free from condemnation! He paid my debts--I am clear from
   the charges of the Law, for He bore my punishment. I am acquitted by
   His mediation. Therefore, being justified freely, I may go on my way
   rejoicing! But of what use is the Gospel unless it thus becomes a
   message from God for me? Oh, the delight, dear Friends, of those who
   recognize the promise of God as a message of love to them! Hundreds of
   times did I hear the Gospel preached. I heard of pardon, full and free.
   I heard of a complete righteousness that wrapped the sinner from head
   to foot. I heard of full deliverance from the penal sentence of the Law
   of God. I heard of adoption, of communion with Christ, of the
   sancti-fication which the Spirit gives--but what were all these
   privileges to me when I had no interest in them? It was as though one
   should take up the title-deed of an estate and begin reading it in a
   social party by way of interesting them! What more dull--what more
   heavy reading? How the words are multiplied! How those lawyers seek to
   say the same thing over and over, till no flesh living can endure them!
   Ah, but, my Friend, if that title-deed refers to an estate which has
   been bequeathed to you, all those words delight you! Their repetition
   seems to clench your title! You like to have the thing made out in
   proper legal form. Your eyes sparkle over that little sketch in the
   corner. You take notice of the stamps and you are specially taken up
   with the signatures! Matters that would be of no interest at all under
   other circumstances seem to be exceedingly precious to you viewed in
   the light of your inheritance! It is just so with regard to the Word of
   God. When we come to read the Book and know that it confers blessings
   on us, our joy is full to overflowing. To us the message is sent. By us
   the message is received. The complete salvation it announces is ours!
   We are wholly saved from every peril, through Jesus' blood. We are
   delivered from sin. We are endowed with a righteousness, not of our own
   performing, but of His imputing. Thereby we are adorned--

   "With the Savior's garment on, Holy as the Holy One!" With what
   ineffable joy does this message from God make glad our spirit!

   Be sure, of this, my Friends, let our case be what it may, the Gospel
   preached is a message from God to our souls. The hypocrite cannot long
   attend upon the means of Grace without finding that its doctrines are
   very heart searching. They pierce his thoughts. They hold a candle up
   to him and if he would but look, they would expose his desperate
   condition. The formalists, the men who delight in ceremonies, cannot
   long frequent God's hallowed courts where His true ministers proclaim
   His name, without perceiving that there is a message from God to them!
   The most careless spirit will find in the Word of God a mirror held up
   to his face in which he can see a reflection of himself. There have
   been many messages like circulars from God to us, but the Gospel,
   faithfully preached, is a private and personal communication.

   A minister once sent his deacon to attend a certain anniversary
   service. The discourse turned upon Diotrephes, who loved the
   pre-eminence. That deacon's character was aptly described. He did not,
   however, agree with the preacher. He was, himself, a Diotrephes, though
   he failed to detect his own portrait for, with apparent indifference,
   he asked a friend of his if he supposed there were such persons
   existing as those who had been described in the sermon? "I cannot
   think," said he, "who the preacher could have been aiming at." So his
   friend said. "Well, I think he must have been intending you and me." No
   better answer could have been given! I like each hearer to make the
   application to himself.

   But Mrs. Jones thinks sometimes that Mrs. Brown must have felt very
   strange in one part of the sermon. And Mrs. Brown thinks that if Mrs.
   Smith had looked at home, she must have known that that which was said
   was meant for her-- whereas the real truth was that it suited all three
   of them, and there was something meant for each, as well as for all!
   Take heed to yourselves, my Beloved. Be like the young lad who, when he
   was asked why he attended so earnestly, said, "Because I am in hopes
   that one of these days the Truth of God I hear will be blessed to my
   own salvation."

   Brothers and Sisters, if you were thirsty, you would not stand by the
   rippling brook and marvel how it flowed on, to the river, and the river
   onward to the sea. You would not let your meditations be wandering to
   the meadows which it made green, or the mills which it turned, or the
   cities which employed it in mercantile industry! No, you would just
   stoop down and drink--and then, perhaps meditate on those grand uses it
   served. When there is a cry for bread in the streets, it is of no use
   telling the people that there is a large stock of wheat in the Baltic
   and that there has been a fine crop this year in the United States!
   Each man wants bread in his own hands and in his own mouth! It is
   amazing how personal people become when the thing has anything to do
   with money. I never knew a man short of cash who was relieved by the
   intelligence that there were millions of bullion in the bank. A little
   in his pocket cheered him more than the much that had accumulated at
   the fountainhead! How is it that people are not personal with religion?
   Why are they not looking to get, every man, a full share in the capital
   it represents? How is it they do not turn everything that comes in
   their way to God's account when the Gospel is preached? Why, when
   tidings are published, do they not say, "Lord, is this a message from
   You to me?" Now to close, my last point is this--

   III. IF THERE IS SUCH A MESSAGE AS THIS FROM GOD TO US, HOW SHOULD WE
   TREAT IT?

   Let the minister entertain this question. He ought to deliver it very
   earnestly. God's message is not to be preached with marble lips--it
   must not drop from an icy tongue. It ought to be spoken very
   affectionately. God's message is not to be announced unkindly. The
   kindling of human passion should never stir us. Rather let the Divine
   Flame of God-like affection burn within our souls. It should be
   proclaimed very boldly. It is not for the minister of God to smooth the
   stones, or pare down any of the angles of the Gospel! He should be
   tender as a lamb, but yet bold as a lion. It is as much as his soul is
   worth to keep back a single word! He may have to answer for the blood
   of souls if he trims in the slightest particular. The withholding of
   any part of a sermon which should have been delivered, should he
   refrain himself lest he offend anyone, may bring down upon him a
   condemnation that he knows not how to escape--and he may have to,
   throughout eternity, bewail that he had God's message and did not
   deliver it! I always feel quite easy in my own conscience if I have
   preached what I believe to be the Truth of God. If you send a servant
   to the door, you give him a message. If the person at the door should
   be angry, the servant would say, "It is of no use being angry with me!
   You should be angry with my master, for I have given you the message
   just as he gave it to me." And if they should be angry with him, he
   would say, "I would much rather that the stranger at the door should be
   angry with me for telling the message, than that my master should be
   angry with me for keeping it back, for to my own master I stand or
   fall." I think the minister of God, if he has preached faithfully, may
   say, "Well, I have delivered only what my Master told me! If you are
   angry with me, you must remember that you ought to be angry with my
   Master, for it was my Master's message, but it is better for you to be
   angry with me than for my Master to be angry with me!" Baxter said, "I
   never rebuke myself for not having used fine flowery language when I am
   preaching, but I have rebuked myself full often for lack of earnestness
   in what I have delivered." So we, each of us, must humble ourselves
   before the Lord on account of our coldness in this matter. Yet we must
   not handle the Lord's message deceitfully, but go on boldly to deliver
   the message which God has given us, remembering that we only have to
   give an account to Him. There lives not a man under the cape of Heaven
   that should be so free from the fear of his fellow creatures as God's
   minister! To him, prince or peasant, peer or beggar must be alike. To
   him, kings have no crowns, and queens no thrones. He speaks to men as
   men, going into all the world and preaching the Gospel to every
   creature! And being God's ambassador to men, he must go right on and
   speak as he gets utterances from his Lord!

   Yes, but if this is God's message, the minister has not only to think
   how he should treat it, but you have to think how you should treat it!
   And I have to ask those who are unconverted what they mean to do with
   it. What do you mean to do with God's message? Of all the bad things to
   do, do not do this--do not say, "Go your way for now. When I have a
   more convenient season I will send for you." Do not say that! Better to
   say, "I despise the message and I will not obey it." Talk not like the
   procrastinators, for procrastinators are the most hardened of men. To
   promise they will do--it quiets men's consciences, whereas, if they
   deliberately said, "I will not," perhaps conscience might be awakened
   and they might be led to do it. No, say either the one thing or the
   other! If it were possible for you to meet an angel on your way
   home--the thing will not occur--but if you could meet an angel and he
   should stop you, and should say, "Now, Man, not a step further until
   you have given me an answer! God commands you to believe in Jesus
   Christ. He tells you to trust Him with your soul--will you or not?"

   Suppose you were placed in the same position as King Antiochus. When
   the Roman ambassador met him and asked him whether it was to be peace
   or war, he said he must have time to consider. The ambassador, with his
   sword, drew a circle in the sand. "Give an answer," he said, "before
   you move out of that circle, or if you step out of it, your answer is
   war." I think there is such a phase in a man's life when he must give
   an answer. I know what that answer will be, unless God the Holy Spirit
   makes you give the right one, but you must give it one way or the
   other! And if the man says, "No, I will give no answer," yet if he
   answers not beyond that appointed hour, it is war between Him and God
   forever--and the sword shall never be sheathed, nor go back into its
   scabbard! He has thrown down the gauntlet by refusing to give a
   decisive pledge of obedience! The Lord has declared eternal war against
   him--peace shall not be made forever.

   Before you go farther, which shall it be? Do you say, "I love my sins.
   I love the world, I love its pleasures. I love my own righteousness. I
   will not trust Christ"? That shows your depravity--look at the
   consequences and tremble! But if, from the depths of your soul, you
   say, "God be merciful to me a sinner. I would be saved!" Then trust
   Christ and you are saved now! Believe on Him--believe on Him, now, and
   you are now forgiven! Oh, may the Savior of His own Grace give us your
   salvation as a seal to our ministry--and to Him shall be glory forever
   and ever! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 119:119-126.

   Verses 119-121. You put away all the wicked of the earth like dross.
   Therefore Ilove Your testimonies. My flesh trembles for fear of You;
   and I am afraid of Your judgments. I have done judgment and justice:
   leave me not to my op-pressors.Eastern kings cannot often say as much
   as this, but David had been a just king. This was for his comfort when
   he, himself, came under unjust treatment. "I have done judgment and
   justice: leave me not to my oppressors." It is of the same tenor as
   another prayer--"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." God
   often deals with men as they deal with others--"With the forward, He
   will show Himself forward." "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall
   obtain mercy." May our conduct be such that, though we plead no merit,
   yet we may dare to mention it in prayer.

   122. Be surety for Your servant for good: let not the proud oppress
   me.As nearly as I remember, this is the only verse which does not
   mention the Law or the Word of God. Here you have a "surety," and that
   is something even better! If the Law fails us, the Surety stands us in
   good stead. How I like to think of God, the Surety of His people! When
   there is a trial against them and the oppressor is heavy upon them,
   they can come to God to be a Surety for them in the great action of
   life. "Be surety for your servant for good: let not the proud oppress
   me." My Master is Surety for His servants-- His servant is sure enough.

   123. My eyes fail from seeking Your salvation, and for the word of Your
   righteousness. I have looked until I have looked my eyes out! I am
   weary with waiting, with watching, with weeping--"My eyes fail for
   seeking Your salvation." Some do not even look for Him. Here is a man
   who looked until his very eyes gave out!

   124. Deal with Your servant according unto Your mercy, and teach me
   Your statutes.He is a just man. He can plead that he has done justly,
   but he does not ask to be dealt with according to justice--"Deal with
   Your servant according unto Your mercy"--as far as anyone of us can
   get. If you have been greatly sanctified, have walked very near to God,
   I would still not advise you to go beyond this prayer--"Deal with Your
   servant according to Your mercy." Singular is the next sentence--"And
   teach me Your statutes." It is a great mercy to be taught the ways of
   God, to understand His way, to understand the practical part of it, the
   statutes. To be made holy is a high honor, a great privilege. When you
   are seeking great favors of God, ask for great holiness!

   125. I am Your servant He called himself, "servant," many times before.
   And in this wonderful passage this is the third time. He is delighted
   to be the "servant of God." He says little about being a king! He says
   a great deal about being a servant--"I am Your servant."

   125. Give me understanding, that I may know Your testimonies.You know,
   generally, a teacher finds the teach-ing--the pupil has to find
   understanding. But here is a prayer--"Give me understanding." The last
   verse he asked to be taught. Here he asks to have an understanding
   given to him. What a God we have to deal with! And when we are taught
   of the Lord, how effectually we are taught! He not only gives the
   facts, but gives the understanding with which to get at their meaning!

   126. It is time for You, LORD, to work: for they have made void Your
   Law.When men begin to exercise a destructive criticism upon the Word of
   God, it is time for God to work! When God's Law is held in small
   esteem, when men go their own way, call vice by the name of pleasure,
   "It is time for You, Lord, to work: for they have made void Your Law."
     __________________________________________________________________

"Peace Be Unto You"

   (No. 3456)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORDS-DAY EVENING,
   OCTOBER 2, 1878.

   "And as they thus spoke.. .Peace be unto you." Luke 24:36.

   WE like to know how a person used to act, for we think we can infer
   from that how he will act. That is not always correct, however, for men
   change. But in our Savior's case, if we study His life, we may very
   well infer from what He did, what He will do, because He never changes!
   And this is a comfortable reflection for us at this time, that in the
   days of His flesh, while He was yet on earth, He loved the company of
   His people! If He changes not, then He still loves the company of His
   people. He did reveal Himself, then, to one. He will still speak
   comfortable words to His people when they are alone. One by one will He
   reveal Himself to them. He did speak graciously to two. Where
   Christians converse on holy things, they may still expect that Jesus
   will Himself draw near. But more frequently He lingered longest and
   revealed Himself most in the assembly of His people. Where the eleven
   were met, where many were gathered together, there the Savior came, not
   once, but twice and often. Learn, then, that we may expect Him here
   tonight! Peter, and James, and John are representatively here. Here,
   too, we have some of the goodly women--the Marys and Marthas are here.
   They are waiting for Him. Their hearts are longing for Him. He is the
   same now as always. Brothers and Sisters, we may expect Him! He will
   come to His old haunts. He will come and deal with His people as He did
   before. Twice, at least, we have it on record that our Savior came to
   His disciples when they were met on the first day of the week--from
   which I gather another comfortable thought, that as this is the first
   day of the week, we may for another reason expect Him to be here, to
   put honor on what now is the Lord's Day. He, at least twice, for so it
   is on record, came to His disciples and, standing in their midst, said,
   "Peace be unto you." On this first day of the week, this Lord's-Day, at
   eventide I trust--I hope, no, I expect, that you will feel Him here,
   and I pray that to each one of His people those soft words may come
   with Divine Power, "Peace be unto you."

   Without further preface than these words, let us draw your attention
   first, to what He said. Secondly, when He appeared to say it And
   thirdly, of what came of His appearance at the saying of it. I. OUR
   LORD'S GRACIOUS SPEECH.

   What did He say? He said, "Peace be unto you"--four words, each full of
   meaning. May I not view those words in four lights? Was it not first a
   salutation and benediction? Thus He introduced Himself, "Peace be unto
   you." It was His good wish--more, it was His fervent prayer! He
   breathed peace upon them expressive of His goodwill, His love, His
   intense desire for their highest good. Peace is the highest gift He can
   impart. Said the Apostle, "Grace, mercy, and peace be with all them
   that love the Lord Jesus Christ." He had given them Grace and mercy--He
   now gives them the highest benediction, peace! Did He not mean more
   than that? In a second light it was a benediction. "Peace be unto you."
   He had been into the invisible world and He had returned from it--and
   He tells them that there was peace reserved for them. He had passed the
   veil with His own blood. He had offered up His Sacrifice. He had said,
   "It is finished." He had received the token that it was finished by His
   being raised from the dead. And now He comes to them with the marks of
   His Crucifixion still upon Him, and He tells them there is peace--it is
   done--"The war is over, the conflict is concluded--My bloody Sacrifice
   and glorious Resurrection have made peace between you and God." "Peace
   be unto you." It is the declaration of what He had seen and heard of
   the Father as the result of His death. A benediction and a declaration.

   Was it not also a fiat? By a fiat I mean that kind of word which God
   spoke to the darkness when He said, "Light be," and light was. Here
   they were in trouble and Jesus said, "Peace be," and before long peace
   was. It is always with Jesus to

   speak the Word of Power, for He is, Himself, the Word of Power. He is
   God's Word--the Word that built the heavens, the word that establishes
   the pillars of the universe, and when He speaks thus, it is not a mere
   wish, it is not a mere prayer, it is not a mere declaration, even, of a
   fact--it is the fulfillment of wish and prayer, and the application of
   the fact! "Peace be unto you." Before long they did receive the peace
   which He thus authoritatively gave them.

   But may I not view it in another light, namely, as an absolution? Think
   a minute, and you will see it is so. These were they who had forsaken
   Him--there was one who had denied Him! Out of them all, there was no
   faithful spirit there at all who proved to be faithful in the hour of
   danger. Like cowards, each one had cared for himself and deserted his
   Lord. They had slept while He agonized. They had retreated while He
   advanced. They had, every man, left their Master to seek each man his
   own. And now what does He say to them? Do they stand as culprits? Is He
   about to accuse them? Do they stand as deserters? Is He, as a captain,
   about to condemn them? No, that one word seems to say, "It is
   forgotten. It is forgiven." My only word to you is, peace, peace,
   peace. I know your weaknesses. I know your deep regret. I know how you
   lament that you served Me thus--regret no more, at least be not
   depressed with such regrets, for lo, My only return to you is this, I
   give you My, "Salem," My salutation--My word of goodwill, My sweet word
   of love. I have not revoked My legacy, though I might well have
   destroyed My last will and testament. I said, "Peace I leave with you;
   My peace I give unto you." I confirm that will now, risen from the
   dead. You shall see I have not cut you off from My affectionate regard.
   I, risen from the dead, declare what I declared when your love was warm
   and your resolution was rather to die with me than to desert me. I give
   you the same as I gave you then, "Peace be unto you."

   Now I think there are some sweet things rolled up in those brief
   thoughts which I have given you. The text itself has richness in it.
   Now, my Brothers and Sisters, the second thing, and briefly, is--

   II. WHEN DID JESUS STAND IN THE MIDST OF HIS DISCIPLES, and say thus,
   "Peace be unto you"? When?

   Perhaps in considering the time, we may get some comfort and be led to
   hope that He will say the same tonight. Well, when did He come? Well,
   first, He came when they were quite unworthy of His coming. We have
   already told you how they had served Him. Cowardly--they had deserted
   Him! But though there was no one there that could have even thought,
   much less said, "I deserve the Master's company," yet He came. Oh, I
   think we are, many of us, in the same plight. Looking back upon the
   past, we cannot feel that we deserve any love visits from the Savior.
   We dare not put up a plea on that ground. We are very unworthy--we are
   very unworthy--but that is no reason why He should not come. They were
   unworthy, but He stood in their midst and said, "Peace."

   Now note, next, that they were very unprepared. They were not looking
   for Him! They had not come together that night with any expectation of
   seeing Him--I am sure they were not, for when He did come, they were
   afraid and thought they saw a spirit! They were least of all expecting
   Him to come. Well, and my Sister, you came in here unprepared. Do not
   excuse yourself, but yet do not despair about seeing your Lord!
   Brother, you came here perturbed, troubled. Your soul is not like the
   lake when it is still, which, like a molten mirror, reflects the stars
   above. But Jesus Christ can come and mirror Himself in your heart,
   first smoothing it with the word of peace. Yes, yes, it is wrong to be
   unprepared for Christ's manifestation, but it is a thousand blessings
   that our unpreparedness does not keep Him away! I may expect to see
   Him, though unfit and unworthy. Come Savior, come, I beseech You, pass
   not by me. I might have feared You would if I had not seen that, in the
   case of the eleven, their unpreparedness did not bar the door. Oh, let
   not my unpreparedness keep You away!

   Note, further, that our Lord came to them when they greatly needed Him.
   They had got into a disorganized, demoralized state as a group and they
   were, every one of them, almost ready to give up their faith. The third
   day had passed, and they had not yet believed in His Resurrection,
   though it had been witnessed to them. They were foolish and slow of
   heart, and I do not know what they might have done the next day, for he
   that is slow of heart and unbelieving today may go to something worse,
   if worse may be, tomorrow! And they needed Him--they needed Him and
   there He was in the midst of them! Courage, then, my Brother! You need
   Him--you may expect Him! Sister, you need Him--oh, how much! How much
   do I need Him--how would a visit from His love kill many of my sins and
   quicken all my Graces! The physician comes not only when he is sent
   for, but when he knows he is needed. The Good Physician does so
   especially! It is not so much our sense of need as our need, itself,
   that often brings Him. We frequently do not know our need until He
   comes, and we see our need in contrast with the supply. Well, then,
   unworthy and unprepared, yet needing Him, we may expect Him! He will
   come if we cry out for Him. In our very midst He will stand tonight and
   reveal Himself!

   Moreover, it was a time when they were exercising what spiritual light
   they had--let that be remembered. They were in a low state, but they
   had met together. They had loved together. They were showing that like
   a flock of frightened sheep, they were running together, hardly knowing
   what else to do. They did at last get near one another. There is
   something that Christ loves in that. That was good--there was something
   hopeful there. Well, we, at least, have got together in the same way. I
   know you said, "Well, I don't know that I can do much in praising
   Christ, but I will go where His people are. Perhaps if I cannot praise,
   I shall still get a blessing, for all that." I know you often do so on
   the Sabbath. You say on the Saturday, "I am glad it is the last day of
   the week, that I may go where my Brothers and Sisters are, and while I
   come, to get a blessing. I especially feel when I come to Prayer
   Meeting:"--

   "There my best friends, my kinsmen, dwell. There God, my Savor,
   reigns." Well, the Lord Jesus loves to come where we love to be in His
   name! That helps to bring Him. So I have another good hope, that as we
   have come together, come together with no other end but that of
   stirring up what life we have, and of pouring out before Him what Grace
   He has given, and of seeking more, that we may expect to see Him!

   More than that--on that occasion when He came, there were some of them
   who were testifying of what they knew. Two of them were telling how
   they saw Him in the breaking of bread at Emmaus. And while the two
   spoke, Jesus came! Now here stands one Witness who can bear testimony
   that there is a living Savior, and a real one, and that His love is
   shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit! And as you hear that
   testimony, and many of you are recording in your souls your, "Amen," to
   it, I hope He will stand in our midst and again say in spiritual
   language, "Peace be unto you."

   Once more, though, I say they were in a low state--they were all
   lamenting their Master's absence. I do not think, of all that company,
   there was one but what had a heavy heart and was sad because Jesus was
   not there. If you had turned to Peter and said, "Peter, would you like
   to see Him?" He would have said, "Oh, for another look on those dear
   eyes, even though it broke my heart again." And John would have said,
   "Oh, for another leaning of my head upon that bosom, if I might be
   permitted such a favor." And everyone, by dear remembrances of the
   past, would have said, "Alas, we have lost everything in losing Him!
   Take away the sun out of the skies, rather than take Christ out of the
   circle of our fellowship." Now, dear Friends, have you, you lovers of
   the Savior--have you missed Him and are you now saying, "Oh, that I
   knew where I might find Him"? Well, our mingled notes shall reach Him
   and He will come and stand tonight in the midst of us, and we, again,
   shall rejoicingly honor and worship while the King sits at His Table
   with His people. But time flies, and, therefore, I give you but the
   bare outline of the rest of my sermon.

   III. WHAT CAME OF IT?

   What came of His appearance and of His speaking of peace? If you will
   look at the Chapter when you are at home, you will see that, first of
   all, when Jesus came He banished all their doubts--He said to them,
   "Why are you troubled? Why do thoughts arise in your hearts?" Now, if
   He comes here tonight, in the midst of this assembly, that is just what
   He will say to you troubled ones. He will say, "Why are you troubled?"
   You, perhaps, might answer, "Perhaps there is cause enough for it," but
   He will reply to it, "All things work together for your good." "When
   you pass through the river, I will be with you; the floods shall not
   overflow you." "Cast your care upon Me." "Why are you troubled?" And He
   would then ask you the very question, "Why do those thoughts arise in
   your hearts?" You would have to guiltily, perhaps, confess what those
   thoughts were. You thought He was too hard! You thought He had
   forgotten you! You thought He was not true, after all--that He did not
   love you. You thought He would fail you. I will not tell you all your
   thoughts, but they have been evil thoughts--and if He is here tonight,
   the blush will mantle on your cheeks while you will say, "I will never
   have such thoughts, again, but I will from now on say, 'Though He slays
   me, yet will I trust in Him.'" There is one cure for evil thoughts like
   this--the vanished Savior manifested to the eyes of faith!

   Then our Lord next proceeded to reveal Himself. Being present--which He
   might have been, you know, and yet they might not have known Him--He
   now went to reveal Himself and make them see Him. This is what He did.
   "Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I, Myself; handle Me and see,
   for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see I have." Then He proves
   His kinship with earth, His real Manhood, for He took a piece of
   broiled fish and of a honeycomb, and did eat before them all. Now even
   so will He do tonight. If He were here tonight, it were no use to you
   if these scales were upon your eyes--He will take them off! Those
   harder scales on an earthbound heart, He will take them off. Oh, I have
   been amazed, my Brothers and Sisters, I bear witness I have sometimes
   been amazed when the Lord has taken away the stone

   out of my heart, to feel my own sudden tenderness! I have even sat at
   that Table, sometimes, and dealt out the bread and wine to you, and
   longed to be but a dog beneath the table, to eat but a crumb that fell
   from it--and all of a sudden I have felt His nearness and rejoiced with
   unspeakable joy! And oftentimes in preaching, when my spirit has felt
   like a frozen brook, His Grace has thawed my heart! Is not this what
   the Spouse meant when she said, "Or ever I was aware, my soul made me
   like the chariots of Ammi-nadib"? Now it is the Presence of Christ that
   quickens us. Let the prayer be put by each one, "Quicken You me, O
   Lord, according to Your Word. Yourself, the Word, draw near to me and I
   shall be quick to perceive You, to embrace You, to rejoice in You this
   night."

   Then the next act of our Savior was to proceed to inform their
   understanding. You observe He opened their understanding that they
   might understand the Scriptures. Nearness to Christ is an education.
   Get near to Jesus and you will find that the Corpus Christi is the true
   college! He who knows the body of Christ has got the body of theology,
   the body of divinity--the true theology of the Word of God. He that
   knows Him has understanding. With all your getting, get understanding!
   And from Him you shall get it, for He is Wisdom. And is He not the
   Truth of God? And is He not the Incarnate Wisdom? With Him God took
   counsel before the earth was. There is no studying the Scriptures that
   becomes so useful as when we study them with Christ to turn over the
   leaves for us.

   Then the next thing was He refreshed their memories.Perhaps I ought to
   have mentioned this before because it occurs first. He said to them,
   "These are the words I spoke to you." Tonight, perhaps, if Jesus is
   here, you will remember those other times when you have seen Him--

   "His former visits we recount, When with Him on the holy mount."

   Yes, you will say as Jesus is here, "I do remember You and the love of
   Your espousals. I do remember other sweet seasons when I was with Your
   people, and my heart glowed at Your love." You will look back, some of
   you gray-headed Brothers and Sisters in Christ--you will look back,
   perhaps, 50 years, and remember when Jesus first looked in at your
   soul. Dear memories! Perish all else but the relics of Christ, the
   traditions of His Presence in my spirit--these will I hand down from
   year to year and record them forevermore! Nothing like this to set the
   memory right, the immediate, actual Presence of Christ, even at this
   moment.

   And then, Beloved, in addition to all this, the Savior's thus appearing
   showed them their true position, for He told them that they were His
   witness of these things. When they saw Him, they felt they were
   something more than mere lookers on, they were to be tellers and
   testifiers to others. I hope we shall feel this, tonight, that we shall
   go out from our seats and from the Communion Table, saying, "I have
   seen the Lord, and I will be a witness in my own family--I will be His
   witness in the court, or the street, or the city where I dwell. I have
   seen Him and shall I close my mouth concerning Him? No! His Presence
   has opened my mouth, that I may show forth His praise. I will go in the
   strength of the Lord, making mention of His righteousness, even of His
   only."

   And last of all, that blessed presence created intense joy, though
   there was a wonderment about the joy that mingled it with unbelief, and
   we read, "While they yet believed not for joy." They were very, very
   glad. If you had seen them go into that house, and seen them come out,
   you would not have known they were the same men! Yet they were no
   richer, no healthier, no more favored, but they had seen the Lord, and
   they were glad! It is especially recorded by John, "Then were the
   disciples glad when they had seen the Lord." Oh, there will be singing
   here! There will be music in your hearts! You will trip home with merry
   feet if Jesus Christ does come! Come, then, dear Master! You have bled
   for us. You have loved us with an everlasting love--'tis but a little
   thing comparatively that we ask! Your relationship to us binds You to
   grant it! You will not be a stranger to Your own flesh! You will not
   hide Yourself from those who are members of Your body, of Your flesh
   and of Your bones! Your delights were with the sons of men and You have
   not changed. Oh, if ever You did reveal Yourself, reveal Yourself to us
   tonight! Melt us down under the Glory of Your Presence! Dissolve us
   with the superlative majesty of Your love and we will worship and bless
   You forever and ever!

   Now I have said nothing to those of you who know Him not, but I will
   say these words and have done. His worth--

   "His worth if all the nations knew, Surely all the world would love Him
   too."

   God bless you. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON:

   5

   PSALM 32; JOHN 17. PSALM32

   "A Psalm of David, Maschil"--that is to say, an instructive
   Psalm--"Maschil." I suppose that David wrote it after he had been
   forgiven and restored to Divine favor. I think we may read it as a part
   of our own experience, either of conversion or when restored after
   backsliding.

   Verses 1, 2. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin
   is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputes not iniquity,
   and in whose spirit there is no guile. Twice he says, "blessed." He had
   felt the weight of sin. He had been sorely troubled, but now that
   Nathan is sent to him with the word of pardon, "The Lord has put away
   your sin, you shall not die," he counts himself doubly
   blessed--blessed, not the man who has never sinned! Blessed is he who,
   having sinned, is forgiven. Not the man who has no sin, but whose sin
   is covered. Wonderful word! Both in English and Hebrew, it sounds very
   much alike. The sacred, "Kophah," the cover which covers sin so that
   sin is hidden, even from the eyes of God Himself! A wondrous deed!
   Blessed is the man who knows that Divine covering! "Blessed," he says
   "is the man unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity, and in whose
   spirit there is no guile." All along, after David's sin, he became very
   crafty and very cunning, full of guile. You know the dodges that he had
   resorted to, to cover up his sin--he tried to play some of his tricks
   on God, Himself, but he felt it was a mischievous and foolish thing to
   do. He was uneasy, he was unhappy. We have sometimes heard it said that
   after David sinned, he remained insensible for nine months--until he
   received the Divine rebuke--but it was not so. He remained very
   sensitive, very depressed, very unhappy, and he was trying this way and
   that to cover up his sin and guile. He could not do it. He ought to
   make a clean breast of it and confess it before God. He ought to give
   up his crooked ways, his ideas of excusing himself--and when he had
   done that, when he had given up his guile and his guilt, too--then he
   got the double blessing. "Blessed, blessed!" If there are any of you
   who are treading crooked ways with God and man, give them up! I know of
   nothing that will make you give them up like knowing free, full,
   perfect pardon through the precious blood of Christ and the Free Grace
   of God! The two things go together, guilt and guile! The two things go
   out of us together--when guilt is pardoned, guile is killed. Now hear
   how David felt while he was conscious of his sin, and yet was not right
   with God.

   3. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the
   day long. A wanton glance and the sin with Bathsheba. Where was the
   pleasure of it when it cost him all this? Such groaning that his very
   bones grew old, as if they were rotten, and his heart was heavy as if
   he wished to die. "For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me." God
   was dealing with him! God with His hand pressing him heavily, forcing
   his sin home upon him, making him say, "My sin is always before me."
   Oh, the misery of sinning to a child of God! Do not dream that we can
   ever have any pleasure in sin! The worldling may, but the Believer
   never can. To him it is a deadly viper that will fill his veins with
   burning poison.

   4. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned
   into the drought of summer Selah. When he tried to pray, it was a
   dried-up prayer. He tried to make a Psalm, but it was a dried-up song.
   He tried to do some good, for he was still a good man, but it was all
   withered without the Spirit of God. His moisture was gone out of him,
   turned into the drought of summer, and summer, in David's country, was
   a very droughty thing, indeed. Every human thing despaired, the grass
   seemed to turn to dust--it was so with him. If you go into sin, this is
   what will happen to you. If you are a true child of God, you will have
   all the joy of God taken from you, all the moisture of your heart dried
   up--and you will be like a parched, withered thing. "Selah"--time to
   stop, time to have a pause in the music--he was on so bass a key, he
   now had need to tighten the harp strings and rise to something a little
   sweeter.

   5. I acknowledged my sin unto You, and my iniquity have I not hid. I
   said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD: and You forgave
   the iniquity of my sin. Selah He must come to confession--full,
   spontaneous, unreserved-- there must be a resolution. "I said, I will
   confess my transgressions unto the Lord"--a firm determination to hide
   nothing, to see the sin, yourself, and to tell the Lord that you see
   it, and to confess it with great grief and sorrow. What a wonderful
   word that is, "I said, I will confess, and You forgave the iniquity of
   my sin." God took away the sin! Yes, the very pith and marrow of it,
   "the iniquity of my sin." Take the bone away and the marrow of the
   bone, too! "You forgave the iniquity of my sin"--it has all gone,
   wholly gone--by one stroke of God's Divine Grace the sinner was
   pardoned! Selah again

   6. For this shall everyone that is godly pray unto You in a time when
   You may be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not
   come near unto him. "For this" (because of this and for this blessing)
   "shall everyone that is godly pray unto You in a time when You may be
   found." The pardoning God must be sought. There is an attraction in the
   greatness of His mercy. They that are godly, even though they have
   offended and gone astray, must come back and seek for pardon in a time
   when You may be found. "Surely in the floods of great waters they shall
   not come near unto him." The godly man is safe when the floods are out.
   There are times when great waters prevailed in David's country--the
   brooks sometimes turned to rivers and came down with a rush when they
   were least expected. And here he says that when such a thing as that
   shall happen, yet God's people shall be saved. They shall come, but
   they shall not come near unto them. Let me read those words again. If
   you have gone to God in the day of your sin, and have found pardon, He
   that took away the sin will take away the sorrow. "Surely in the floods
   of great waters they shall not come near unto him."

   7. You are my hiding place: You shall preserve me from trouble; You
   shall compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah "You are my
   hiding place"--precious words! "You are my hiding place"--not, "You are
   a hiding place," but, "You are MY hiding place." A man who is beset by
   foes does not stand still and say, "Yes, I can see there is a hiding
   place there," but he runs to it! Beloved, run to your hiding place this
   morning, each one of you who can have a claim and interest in Christ!
   Run to Him and say, "You shall preserve me from trouble." David has
   come up out of the roaring to the Singing. All day long he roared, and
   now all day long he sings! He hears songs everywhere! He lives in a
   circle of music, his heart is so glad! Well may he put another,
   "Selah," for he has struck the strings very joyfully and they need
   tuning again.

   8. I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go: I
   will guide you with My eye. And here the speaker changes--"I will
   instruct you." I have forgiven you. "I will instruct you, and teach you
   in the way which you shall go." I have restored you back to the way.
   Now I will teach you in the way you shall go. "I will guide you with My
   eye." Your own might lead you astray. "I will guide you with My eye." I
   will be on the path, I will fix My eye upon you. "I will guide you with
   My eye."

   9. Be you not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no
   understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest
   they come near unto you."Be you not as the horse," not only David, but
   all of you! If God will guide you, be guided! If He will teach you, be
   teachable! If He will be gracious to you, be gracious towards Him!

   10. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusts in the
   LORD, mercy shall compass him about "Many sorrows shall be to the
   wicked." David had found that out--his sin had brought him a transient
   pleasure, but a lasting misery! He shall have a bodyguard of mercy. God
   will be gracious to him, tender to him and will not leave him if he is
   trusting in the Lord.

   11. Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, you righteous: and shout for joy,
   all you that are upright in heart "Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice,
   you righteous." Be glad. Well, but you cannot always be glad, says one.
   "Be glad in the Lord"-- you may always be glad in Him! Here is an
   unchanging source of joy! "Rejoice, you righteous, and shout for joy."
   Here is the man that was silent, but now has gone as far as shouting!
   Is it not enough to make him rejoice? Twice he was blessed, in the
   first and second verses, and now he has been pardoned, he has been
   delivered, he has been compassed about with mercy--why, he must be
   glad! "Shout for joy, all you that are upright in heart." God bless you
   in the reading of his Word.

   JOHN 17.

   Verses 1, 2. These words spoke Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to Heaven,
   and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify Your Son, that Your Son
   also may glorify You. As You have given Him power over all flesh, that
   He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. Here we
   have the two Doctrines of a General and a Particular Redemption.
   Through His death, Christ has power given Him over all flesh, but the
   distinct, special objective is the salvation of His own--"that He
   should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him."

   3. And this is life eternal, that theymight know You, the only true
   God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent To know God in the sense of
   being acquainted with Him--loving Him--abiding in fellowship with
   Him--this is life eternal! To know God in Christ Jesus is to be saved,
   indeed!

   4. I have glorified You on the earth: I have finished the work which
   You gave Me to do. Which no other man could ever have said--not even
   Adam in his perfection, for his work was not finished--and, alas, how
   marred it was before it came near to finishing! And the most gracious
   man that ever died could not, in his last moments, say, "I have
   finished the work which You gave me to do," for it was still imperfect.
   There were many things which he would wish to have done, and many
   errors which he would wish to have rectified. But our Lord is more than
   man, and rises to this point--"I have finished the work which You gave
   Me to do."

   5. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself with the glory
   which Ihad with You before the world was. "I have disrobed Myself to be
   Your Servant. Clothe Me again with the garments of My majesty. Let me
   come back to the palace when I shall have passed through the stream of
   death." So far is the prayer for Himself. Now He prays for His people.

   6. 7. I have manifested Your name unto the men which You gave Me out of
   the world: Yours they were, and You gave them to Me; and they have kept
   Your Word. Now they have known that all things whatever You have given
   Me are of You."They have not accepted Me as a human teacher on My own
   account, unsent and uncommissioned, but they perfectly understand that
   there is a union between the Father and the Son. The things that You
   have given Me are of You."

   8. For I have given unto them the Words which You gave Me; and they
   have received them, and have known surely that I came out from You, and
   they have believed that You did send Me. There are great depths in
   these words. One of the greatest of German divines always refused to
   preach from this chapter, for he said he felt that few of God's people
   had a sufficient measure of faith to understand it. And when he came to
   die, he had this read to him three times before he fell asleep. There
   is a world of wonderful mystery! Though the words are short and plain,
   yet the sense is fathomless.

   9. Ipray for them: Ipray not for the world, but for them which You have
   given Me; for they are Yours. There is an intercession of Christ which
   is for all the world, but His choicest intercession--His effectual
   prayer--is for His own. Nothing, perhaps, makes men so angry as this
   statement! They cannot endure that God should dispense His gifts
   according to His own will--but so it stands true!. There is an
   intercession in which none have a part but His own. "I pray for them: I
   pray not for the world, but for them which You have given Me, for they
   are Yours."

   10. 11. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I am glorified
   in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world,
   and I come to You.They, therefore, will be left. The Shepherd will be
   gone. They will seem to be like orphans with their best Friend
   departed.

   11-13. Holy Father, keep through Your own name those whom You have
   given Me, that they may be one, as We are. While I was with them in the
   world, I kept them in Your name: those that You gave Me, I have kept,
   and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture
   might be fulfilled. And now come I to You; and these things I speak in
   the world, that they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves. He asks
   not only that they may be kept and so unharmed, but that they may be
   comforted, and so made glad. O sad hearts, hear your Redeemer's prayer
   for you--and do not doubt that it is answered--"that they might have My
   joy fulfilled in themselves. "

   14. Ihave given them Your Word; and the world has hated them, because
   they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. If nobody
   hates you for being a Christian, are you a Christian? If you find that
   you run with the general herd, and swim with the current, can you be a
   follower of that Christ who was despised and rejected of men?

   15. Ipray not that You should take them out of the world, but that You
   should keep them from the Evil One. Not that they should shut
   themselves up in monasteries and convents. That is not the prayer of
   Christ. "I pray not that You should take them out of the world, but
   that You should keep them from the Evil One."

   16-19. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
   Sanctify them through Your Truth: Your Word is Truth As You have sent
   Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And
   for their sakes, I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified
   through the Truth Sanctify Myself--consecrate Myself--set Myself
   apart-- for their salvation that they also might be sanctified,
   consecrated, set apart through the Truth of God. Now comes a third part
   of the prayer, in which He pleads for the whole Church--for that part
   of it at that time not saved--for the unborn ones--for us.

   20-21. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall
   believe on Me through their word. That they all may be one; as You,
   Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us: that
   the world may believe that You have sent Me. Our Savior knew how apt we
   would be to split up into sects, and to be divided into parties, and so
   He

   prays again and again that we may be one! Cultivate the spirit of
   Christian affection. If there are divisions, let them not come through
   you. Contend earnestly for the faith, but also let us love one another.

   22, 23. And the glory which You gave Me, Ihave given them, that theymay
   be one, even as We are One: Iin them, and You in Me, that they may be
   made perfect in one; and that the world may know that You have sent Me,
   and have loved them, as You have loved Me. Surely the passage seems to
   culminate here. These words rise like the peak of a mighty Alp almost
   out of our sight into the clear brightness of Heaven--"have loved them
   as You have loved Me." Now, Believer, you cannot fully comprehend this,
   but believe it--that as surely as the Father loves the Son, as and
   after the same manner He also loves you--without beginning, without
   measure, without change, without end! "You have loved them as You have
   loved Me."

   24-26. Father, I will that they, also, whom You have given Me, be with
   Me where I am; that they may behold My Glory which You have given Me:
   for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous
   Father, the world has not known You: but Ihave known You, and these
   have known that You have sent Me. And I have declared unto them Your
   name, and will declare it: that the love with which You have loved Me
   may be in them. Let us read that wonderful passage again--"that the
   love with which You have loved Me may be in them."

   26. And I in them. Sacred, mystical union! May our souls enjoy it day
   by day!
     __________________________________________________________________

All Are Guilty

   (No. 3457)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Pilate said unto them...'Let Him be crucified.'" Matthew 27:22,23.

   THIS morning we heard the shouts of "Hosanna!" It was very delightful
   to us to behold the multitude marching with the King of Zion through
   the streets of Jerusalem, welcoming Him with glad acclaim. But the
   shouts of "Hosanna" had hardly died away before they were followed by
   the cruel note, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" Or, as the text puts it,
   "Let Him be crucified!" Clearly in this case the Vox populi was not the
   Vox Dei. The one is fickle and shifting, the other is fixed and
   steadfast. The voice of the people is changeable as the wind. The Word
   of the Lord is firm as a rock, and it endures forever. The multitude
   will always be found fitful and vacillating. They will enthrone a man,
   today, and chase him from the streets tomorrow. Take but small account
   of human applause. The breath of fame's trumpet is a poor reward for a
   life of toil to serve one's generation. Care not for it, O you of noble
   spirit! Heed not the world's frowns and court not its smiles. When you
   are flattered by its approbation, or calumniated by its persecution,
   remember that men's temper and disposition vary like the climate and
   change like the weather! Hosannas turn into execrations. The idol of
   one hour is the aversion of another.

   The point, however, to which I shall endeavor to draw your attention
   tonight (and may the Holy Spirit assist us) is of far more importance
   than the prattling gossip of the vulgar crowd. In this sad and brutal
   cry, "Let Him be crucified," I observe--

   I. A VERY STRANGE ILLUSTRATION OF THE ASSERTED DIGNITY OF HUMAN NATURE.

   I have heard till I have been sick of hearing. I have read till I am
   weary of reading, all sorts of praise passed upon it. I know not what a
   grand and noble being the creature man is in the estimation of certain
   lackadaisical divines. They seem to make this their chief end--to laud
   and magnify their own species! The drift of all their preaching is to
   please men's ears with their rhetoric and to delude men's judgment with
   their flattery. And as for their logic, it exalts the ideal of man,
   while it ignores the actual sinner. It sets up the image and says,
   "Behold what a splendid intellectual creature man is!" We look around
   and fail to catch a sight of the individuals they portray! I hesitate
   not to say that he who praises man does the opposite to glorifying God
   and is as far as the poles asunder from testifying to the Truth of God.
   The Truth, as we learn it in the Word of God, is most uncomplimentary
   to man--it rolls him in the very dust, ranks him with the worms, makes
   nothing of him--yes, less than nothing! So desperate is his moral
   condition that it adjudges him as his only fit place, the lowest pit of
   Hell as the due reward of his deeds. But inasmuch as they thus praise
   human nature, I would like the admirers of it to look a little while on
   this scene--where humanity gathers around the Savior, Christ the Lord,
   and cries, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"

   And, first, what do you say to this dignity of human nature, in that it
   does not know God This is taking the sin at the lowest point, for had
   they known Him, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.
   Through ignorance they did it--ignorance, alike, on the part of the
   rabble and their rulers. It is the best excuse that can possibly be
   afforded for their cry, their cruelty and their crime. But what an
   excuse! How humiliating! Here were men who did not know the God that
   made them! Why boast of intellect--the keen perception of the human
   mind--in the face of such imbecility? They did not know the God that
   fed them! "The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master's crib," but
   Israel did not know her Lord, her King, her God! He came with a
   thousand prophecies to herald Him, and He answered to them all! The
   simplest Sunday school child reading through the Old Testament can see
   that the Christ of the New Testament is He of whom the

   Seers and the Prophets spoke in vision by the power of the Spirit! But
   here was human nature left to itself with the Book in its hand, and
   totally unable to decipher the evidences or recognize the Messiah! He
   came unto His own, and His own received Him not. You call this
   "bright-eyed human nature," and it cannot see the sun! You talk about
   its superior intelligence and yet that which was an axiom to angels,
   theycould not discern! Angels knew Him--how could they fail to know
   Him? But these eyes of men are so blinded with the mire of prejudice
   and the love of sin, that though the Godhead shone gloriously through
   the Manhood of Jesus, they could not--they would not perceive Him to be
   the Christ! And they put the Son of God, the Heir of Heaven, to an
   ignominious death! Talk no more of wisdom! Boast not of your sages! Cry
   not up your philosophy and your deep knowledge! Oh, the bat has
   brighter eyes than you, and moles see more than do those men who,
   groveling in the earth, fail to perceive the Lord! Men knew not God,
   Himself, when He was Incarnate in human flesh!

   The sin, however, was of a deeper dye when men said, "Crucify Him!
   Crucify Him!" Clearly, human nature hated goodness in its most
   attractive form. A flattering preacher once closed a glowing period
   with some such words as these-- "O Virtue, you fair and lovely object,
   could you descend among men, and appear in your perfection, all men
   would prostrate themselves before you as a deity, and you would be
   beloved of all mankind."

   What monstrous assumption! What an extravagant perversion of fact!
   Virtue diddescend into this world and was Incarnate! That Incarnate
   Virtue they hailed not as "God," but as "devil." Instead of worshipping
   Him, they hounded Him even to death, and nailed Him to the tree! In our
   Lord Jesus Christ there was perfect virtue. You cannot detect an error!
   No, neither an excrescence or a deficiency! Yet virtue consists not
   merely in abstaining from harm, but it involved the exercise of every
   faculty in doing good. His Character was matchless and His goodness was
   set in the most attractive sphere, for, mark you, it was not virtue in
   majestic mien, like that of Lycurgus, enacting laws and administering
   the prerogatives of government. Or like that of Moses writing upon the
   tables of stone, statutes and ordinances of infinite verity, having the
   sanctions of God with consequences of faithful indemnity or of fearful
   penalty. Christ's was virtue in the attitude of lowly service with the
   emotions of tender sympathy, proving itself by acts of unfailing
   benevolence. He did not come to tell men they must do this and that,
   but He came to show them and to teach them how to do the will of God
   from the heart! It was virtue irradiated with pity, adorned with
   patience, bejeweled with richest love--forever and ever kindly
   affectionate. His was benevolence more rare, for it was unique. Never
   was there greater love than that of Christ!

   Sometimes virtue becomes repulsive to men because of its
   sternness--they cannot bear a perfect law if, like that of Draco, it
   should be written in blood. But here was Christ, all affable and
   amiable--a Man among men! He was with them at their wedding feasts and
   with them at their funeral rites. He was to men, a Brother, and He
   showed and proved Himself such indeed. Yet, for all that, virtue thus
   comely, thus embellished, thus familiar in the habitations of mankind,
   He was disliked, abhorred and hunted to the death! Sometimes men oppose
   goodness if they see it in high places--they will envy the rank and,
   therefore, forget the virtue. But here was the Christ of God in
   lowliness, wearing the peasant's garb--eating the bread of the
   people--poor, yes, so poor that He had not even so much wealth as the
   fox that has its hole, or the bird that has a nest where to lay its
   head! Surely virtue which condescended to such a condition ought to
   have secured the admiration of mankind! And Christ had laid aside all
   His princely power. He did not come as a King with Sovereign rule, to
   compel men to do His bidding. Sometimes men will revolt against that
   which seems to coerce them. They say they will be drawn, but they will
   not be driven. But Christ was no driver. As a shepherd goes before his
   sheep, so He gently led the way. And yet, perfect, immaculate
   virtue--virtue enshrined in everything that was attrac-tive--without
   anything that ought to have excited animosity. Incarnate Virtue! How
   did it fare? Hear then, O you that boast of human dignity and the glory
   of human nature!--This Holy One was made the central objective for all
   the arrows of malice and of spite! He in whom these excellencies were
   exhibited had for His medal of honor the cry, "Let Him be crucified." O
   poor fallen human nature--what do you say to this?

   I impeach humanity again of the utmost possible folly because, in
   crucifying Christ, it crucified its best Friend. Jesus Christ was not
   only the Friend of man, so as to take human nature upon Himself, but He
   was the friend of sinners, so that He came into the world to seek and
   to save that which was lost. The only errand that Christ pursued in
   life was a disinterested one. Everybody could see that. He neither
   hoarded wealth, nor gained high places in the government! Neither did
   He seek popular esteem. He saved others, but for Himself, He reserved
   nothing. He gave up all for the sons of men. Yet when they could
   clearly see that the lost and most self-denying of all philanthropists
   was before them, they treated Him as

   a criminal, and nailed Him to a Cross! What a Friend He was to those
   who conspired against Him as a foe! How generously He had espoused the
   cause of those very people who now turned upon Him and said, "Let Him
   be crucified!" He had healed their sick. He had raised their dead. He
   had opened the eyes of their blind and He had restored the withered
   limbs of their paralyzed. For which of these things did they crucify
   Him? He was always the people's Friend, the Champion of the populace.
   He came to break oppression, to set the captive free--and all that
   heard Him must have known that the was the great Prophet of liberty,
   the uplifter of the fallen, the destroyer of everything that was
   oppressive, unjust, or even unmerciful. Still, though never man was
   such a Friend as He, this stupid world, this worse than swinish world,
   must put its best Friend to death! O humanity! Blush for yourself, lest
   angels blush at your impiety and even devils laugh at your infatuation!

   Then there was this about human nature--it destroyed its best
   Instructor The teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the confession of
   His enemies, was too sound to be disparaged and He was too wise to be
   entangled in the meshes of their controversies. He never taught
   tyranny. Commend me to a single sentence in the whole of Christ's
   teaching that would make a despot sit more steadfastly upon his throne.
   He never taught anarchy. Find, if you can, a single word that would
   make men burst the bonds of righteous fidelity and lead lawless lives.
   He taught no asceticism that would denude life of wholesome pleasure or
   healthful enjoyment. Far, far was He, on the other hand, from teaching
   any libertinism that would tolerate anything that is unclean, unchaste
   or impure, in word or deed. His teaching was for man--instructing him
   in what was best for him to do, how it was best to do it and in what
   was necessary for his own good that he should eschew and avoid. "Never
   man spoke like this Man!" I was in the Hall of Philosophers a little
   while ago, where were the busts of Socrates, Plato, Solon, and all the
   great men of former ages. But if they were all put together, of what
   small account were the maxims that they taught mankind for the
   promotion of real happiness and true goodness? Why, the sum total is
   nothing in comparison with that one sermon of the Christ of Nazareth
   which He preached upon the Mount! That one sermon put into the scale
   outweighs the wisdom of Greece and Rome! And yet, when the Man had come
   who unselfishly, lovingly, tenderly, wisely would lead our fallen race
   into the paths of holiness and onward to the goal of perfect happiness,
   what did humanity do but grind its teeth, gather up its weapons and
   say, "Away with such a Fellow from the earth--it is not fit that He
   should live!" Alas, human nature! How demented and imbecile you are!
   The very beasts might lay claim to more sagacity and shrewdness than
   you have!

   Then, too, those who boast of human nature, might, perhaps, say that
   the multitude on that occasion were not so much to blame as the
   priests, for the priests persuaded the people. Yes, Sirs, I grant you
   that. But I suppose priests are human, though I sometimes question it.
   Surely, if ever a man comes to be near akin to a devil, it must be when
   he assumes to be a priest, and to have the power to open and to shut
   the gates of Heaven and Hell!

   I would rather any day a man call me a demon than a priest! There is
   something so degraded, so detestable in the profession of a priest that
   my soul loathes it! I would tear off the last rag of priestcraft that
   ever stuck to my flesh and feel it to be like that tunic of fire which
   burned into the flesh of the heroes of old. Away with it! But what must
   men be-- what must human nature be that it submits to priests? I say
   you degrade human nature further when you say they put Christ to death
   because they submitted to the persuasions of the priests. It is true,
   but where is the manhood of man that he will be led by the nose by a
   fellow man who chooses to put on a strange, uncouth garb, and feign
   himself the messenger of God while he perverts the oracles of God and
   teaches lies? When will the day come that human nature will prove
   itself to have pure mettle and manly spirit in it by shaking off the
   horrible iniquities of priestcraft? Set this crime down to priestcraft,
   if you will. The priests do conspire--they always did and always will
   conspire to set the people against God! And against Christ. But where
   is manhood that it should put itself beneath the foot of such a
   thing--a thing that men call a priest? Shame on you, human nature, that
   you should became so abject as to be the football of a priest and
   submit yourself to an order which sacrilegiously usurps Divine
   Authority and insolently tyrannizes over human conscience!

   I must close this indictment against human nature with its vaunted
   dignity by accusing it of wanton cruelty in slaying a defenseless Man.
   Who ever thought it to be other than dastardly to strike a man who will
   not defend himself, or to smite one who, being smitten, only turns the
   other cheek?

   Cowardice! Cowardice! Cowardice, craven, base, lies at your door, O
   Humanity! The Christ who was like a sheep-- harmless and
   defenseless--was treated as if He had been one of the wild beasts of
   the forest! Who could have had the heart to smite Him who gave His back
   to the smiters and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair? O
   Humanity! If I stand at the bar to impeach you, I scarcely know where
   to commence the indictment and, having commenced it, I know not where
   to close it! How fallen, dishonored, infamous are you, O Humanity! Low,
   depraved, heinous, indeed, have you become that you could put the
   Messiah, Himself, to death, and crucify the Lord of Glory! Passing
   onward, I shall now occupy a few minutes as I--

   II. ENDEAVOR TO CLOSE THE DOOR AGAINST CERTAIN SELF-RIGHTEOUS
   DISCLAIMERS.

   I think I hear one and another of you say, "But I would not have done
   so. I will not allow that my nature be so corrupt or abandoned."
   Listen, Friend! Is not your self-esteem a little suspicious? Of whom
   were you born but of a woman, as they were? Your circumstances may be
   somewhat different. Praise your circumstances, not yourself, for had
   you been in their circumstances, you would have done the same! It is
   suspicious, I say, when a man begins to say, "I am better than these."
   Why, this is just what those very persons, the priests of old,
   pretended! What said they but this, "We will build the sepulchers of
   the Prophets whom our fathers slew, for had we lived in our fathers'
   day, we would not have slain them." And by that very speech of
   theirs--that self-righteous speech--the Lord Jesus said that they
   proved that they were the true sons of their fathers! When men begin to
   plead that they're so much better than others, that they would not have
   done such things, the suspicion crosses one's mind that they know not
   what spirit they are of. Certainly they are rather proud in heart than
   humble in mind.

   But now what would you have done if you had been there. A French king
   who once heard this story said, "I wish I had been there with ten
   thousand of my guards! I'd have cut the throat of every man of them."
   Just so. No doubt that is what he would have done--and in so doing he
   would have crucified the Savior in the worst possible way, for he would
   have implicated the Savior in a bloody massacre--which had been to
   Christ a worse crucifixion, if worse could be than which He suffered.
   Out spoke the man in the truth and honesty of his soul, and he
   confessed that he would practically have crucified the Savior. "But,"
   says one, "I would have spoken for Him, had I been there." Yes, and do
   you speak for Him now? "Well, I would not hear Him maligned," says one.
   But suppose your life depended on it, or your office, or your fame? I
   will tell you what you would have done--you would have spoken for Him,
   like Pilate, and washed your hands and said, "I am innocent of the
   blood of this just Person. See you to it." You would have gone no
   farther than that, I guarantee you, unless your heart was
   renewed--unless Christ had changed your heart, and I am not dealing,
   now, with renewed human nature, nor with changed hearts--I am speaking
   of that which is originally in us men. And if we had gone as far as
   Pilate, I fear there is not one of us but would have gone farther!

   To come to close quarters with you, dear Hearer, if you are an unsaved,
   unregenerate man, I will ask you what you have done already! Perhaps I
   speak to some here who have made a sneer at the Gospel. You have been
   accustomed to ridiculing it and when you have heard of anyone who has
   been peculiarly bold in the service of Christ, without enquiring
   whether your verdict was true or not, you set him down at once as being
   a hypocrite, a fanatic, or a fool! Now, I ask you whether that spirit
   which leads you to malign the Christian is not precisely that spirit
   which led others to condemn the Christ, and to say, "Crucify Him!
   crucify Him!" In one age they nail men to a cross of wood. In another
   age, when they cannot do that, they hold them up to contempt--the
   spirit is just the same. There lived a man a hundred years ago in this
   land whose whole life was spent in the service of Christ--a man of
   gigantic talents who attracted thousands to listen to his ministry--a
   man who never spent a farthing of worldly pelf, but lived to win souls,
   to feed the poor and bless the sick. Now that man, Whitefield, was so
   abused, traduced and slandered, that even Cowper, when he sung his
   praises, had to begin them thus--

   "Leuconomus (beneath well-sounding Greek, I hide a name a poet must not
   speak)."

   Though he proceeds to speak highly of him, he does not mention his
   name, except under the Greek form. And so there have lived in this
   world men of whom the world was not worthy--and the only return they
   have had has been abuse. What is this but the same spirit which
   crucified the Lord? But you tell me you have persecuted nobody and you
   have ridiculed nobody? I am glad to hear it, but what is your standing,
   now, with regard to the Christ of the Gospel? Are you trusting in Him?
   Are you relying on Him as your Savior? Have you given up all your good
   works and are you depending upon what He has done? Do you answer, "No"?
   Then I tell you, you are crucifying Him! You are rejecting Him in the
   point on which He is most jealous--you are setting up yourself your own
   savior in opposition to Him--and this is to Him a worse grief and a
   direr insult even than the nailing of Him to the accursed tree! Oh, but
   you say you have not set

   up any righteousness of your own! You don't think at all about the
   matter--you don't care about it! Be it so, then, according to your own
   admission! Albeit the Pharisees would give 30 pieces of silver for Him,
   you would not give a penny for Him--that is the only difference! You
   have the Gospel brought to you and when you hear it, you criticize the
   speak-er--that is all. You have the Bible, and when you get it, you
   bind it in morocco--and put it on a shelf and never read it. And,
   perhaps, many of this congregation, though living in the land of Gospel
   Light, are quite ignorant of what the Gospel is. Oh, Sirs, is not this
   to crucify Him? This is to ignore Him and this is not only to kill Him,
   but to bury Him! You have wrapped Him in the winding sheet and laid Him
   in His grave as best you can. You have, in fact, said, "It is nothing
   to me. I care not for His book, nor His people, nor His Cross, except
   it be an ornament after the way of the world's church--but as to the
   essence, and marrow, and truth of the thing--I will have none of it."
   Oh, this is the cry of many, and while they so cry let them not
   self-righteously hope to excuse themselves!

   But I address some tonight who would shudder at all this, and say, "Oh,
   Sir, I have neither persecuted His people, nor thought lightly of Him.
   Neither have I been negligent concerning Him, for oh, I long to be
   saved by Him. I seek His face day and night and confess my sins into
   His ear, and I ask for pardon through His blood." Beloved, I am glad to
   hear you say this, but I must ask you a question, too. Have you ever
   doubted whether He could save you? Do you doubt now whether He is
   willing to save you? Ah, then you crucify Him, for there is nothing
   that so grieves Him as that unkind, ungenerous thought that He is
   unwilling to forgive! This touches Him in the heart. This pierces His
   heart as with a spear, for you to think that He will not, or cannot,
   pardon you! Be guilty of this no longer! Satan told you it was
   humility-- no, but it is dishonoring your Savior! Come, poor awakened
   Sinner, full of guilt, and full of fear, and say, "I do believe! I will
   believe that He is both able and willing to save me!" Then, but not
   until then, may you be able to say, "I have not crucified Him." Now I
   shall leave that, more especially to address--

   III. THOSE WHO HAVE CONFESSED THE SIN OF CRUCIFYING CHRIST--AND HAVE
   RECEIVED PARDON FOR IT.

   Beloved, we are coming to the Table of the Lord. With what profound
   emotions should these meditations fill our breasts as we observe this
   ordinance? When we remember that our sins did crucify Christ (for He
   would not have needed to have died if we had not sinned), we ought to
   think of it with deep repentance--

   "'Twas you, my sins, my cruel sins,

   His chief tormentors were!

   Each of my crimes became a nail.

   And unbelief a spear.

   "'Twas you that pulled the vengeance down Upon His guiltless head!
   Break, break my heart, yes burst my eyes, And be my coldness dead."

   Oh, what a sorrow to think we stabbed our Friend in the heart. For our
   sake He died. There was a little bit of poetry some of us used to
   repeat at school, "The death of Gellert." When the Welsh chieftain
   found that in hot-blooded haste he had slain the hound that had saved
   his child, he wept right bitterly. That was for a dog. If you went home
   tonight and found that you had by some mischance killed your friend.
   And he had died--and by his death had saved your life--I know you would
   treasure up his memory. But it is the Christ of God that you and I have
   murdered by our sins! They say, in old tradition, that as often as ever
   Peter heard a cock crow, he was accustomed to weep. And as often as we
   come to this Table, we might very well be accustomed to weep, too, to
   think that our sins made our Savior bleed. Then what a holy jealousy
   should stir within us! If my sins did this, by God's Holy Spirit's
   help, there shall be an end of my sins! Away with you, you murderers, I
   will not spare you--neither the pleasurable sin, nor the profitable
   sin, nor the fashionable sin, nor the little sin, as men call it! I
   cry, "Revenge!" against my sins, and slay the murderers, too! Oh, ask
   for Grace tonight that you may put sin to death!

   And, once more, when we remember that our sins crucified Him, how it
   ought to waken in our souls a devout resolution that we will crown Him!
   Did they say, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"? Then our voice shall be
   still louder," Crown Him! Crown Him! Crown Him!" And does a ribald
   world still say, "Crucify Him!"? Then we who have received the second
   birth will say, "Crown Him! Crown Him! Crown Him!" The world still
   clamors, "Crucify!" Go forth, you sons of

   God, and proclaim the coronation of the Christ who once wore the crown
   of thorns! Blush not and be not afraid to defend Him before His
   adversaries, for He will soon come to put His adversaries to shame, and
   on His head shall His crown flourish forever! I would, coming to this
   Table, tonight, speak thus to my heart--O my Soul, was Jesus put thus
   to suffering for you? Then what can you do for Him? Have you an
   unbroken alabaster box in all your possessions? Then bring it out now!
   Can you not devise some new way by which you might serve Him, so as to
   bring yourself to the pinch to bear much sacrifice with stern
   self-denial? Come, my Soul, do something that you may glorify Him! Give
   to His cause. Help His poor! Speak to His wounded ones! Console His
   distressed people, lay yourself out for Him. Are there any members of
   this Church that are doing nothing for Jesus? Oh, I pity you, my dear
   Brothers and Sisters, if you are idle! But while I cannot suggest to
   you what to do, I pray the Lord to put it into your hearts, tonight, to
   do something more than you have ever done to honor Christ! You need not
   tell anybody about it--the less said about it the better. Go and do it,
   not letting your left hand know what your right hand does! Go and weave
   some crown for Him, though it is but of the poor fading flowers of your
   heart's love. Go and honor Him! You cannot wipe out the dishonor you
   have caused Him in your former estate, but you can do something--you
   can bring Him honor as long as you have any being by bringing others,
   through the help of His blessed Spirit, to love and honor Him! God
   grant us a refreshing season at the Communion Table--may we have the
   company of the King, Himself!

   Now are there any here that confess their guilt in the death of Christ?
   Then let me say to every sinner here, if you will look to Him that was
   pierced, you shall live! There is only one look at Jesus that is needed
   to give you pardon! "He that believes on Him is not condemned." You
   have nailed Him to the Cross--now look at Him! Moses hung the serpent
   on the pole--then looked, himself, and bade all Israel look. I, who had
   my share in crucifying Him, do look tonight! He is all my salvation--I
   trust in nothing else. Look you, then--yes, look you! God help you now
   to look, each one, and you are saved! God grant it, for Christ's sake.
   Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN 1:19-33; 19:1-16.

   JOHN1:19-33

   Verses 19-28. And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent
   priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who are you? And he
   confessed and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ And they
   asked him, Who then? Are you Elijah? And he said, I am not Are you that
   Prophet? And he answered, No. Then said they unto him, Who are you?
   that we may give an answer to those that sent us. What say you of
   yourself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make
   straight the way of the Lord, as said the Prophet Isaiah And they which
   were sent were of the Pharisees. And they asked him, and said unto him,
   Why baptize you, then, if you are not that Christ, nor Elijah neither
   that Prophet? John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but
   there stands One among you, whom you know not: He it is, who, coming
   after me, is preferred before me, whose shoe laces I am unworthy to
   unloose. These things were done in Be-thabara beyond Jordan, where John
   was baptizing. Was that the place where the Israelites crossed the
   Jordan? It is said to have been so, and truly this is the place where
   we cross the Jordan, too--come out of old Judaism into the true faith
   of the revealed Christ!

   29. The next day John sees Jesus coming unto him, and said, Behold the
   Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world.I think I hear the
   Elijah-like tones of that son of the desert, "Behold the Lamb of God,
   which takes away the sin of the world."

   30. This is He of whom Isaid, After me comes a Man which ispreferred
   before me: forHe was before me. Ah, how infinitely before John! How
   before him having no beginning of days, before him in His exalted
   Nature, before him in His superior rank and office!

   31. And I knne w Him not: but that He should be made manifest to
   Israel, therefore have I come baptizing with water It was by baptism
   that the Christ was to be known. John knew more of Jesus Christ than
   anybody else, yet he did not know Him to be the Lamb of God until he
   had baptized Him.

   32. 33. And John bore record, saying, Isaw the Spirit descending from
   Heaven like a dove andit abode upon Him. And I knew Him not: but He
   that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom
   you shall see the

   Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizes
   with the Holy Spirit I doubt not that John had assuredly guessed that
   Jesus was the One, but he had nothing to do with guesses--he was a
   witness for God and he could only speak as God revealed things to him.

   JOHN19:1-16.

   Verses 1-3. Then Pilate, therefore, took Jesus and scourged Him. And
   the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on His head, and
   they put on Him a purple robe, and said, Hail, King of the Jews! Just
   as they were gathered to say, "Ave Imperator"--"Hail emperor"--so
   imitating that word which they applied to Caesar, and applying it to
   Jesus in mockery, "King of the Jews," the utmost scorn was thrown into
   the last word, "of the Jews." There had been a general tradition that
   there should arise among the Jews a king who would subdue the
   nations--and the Romans jested at the very thought that they should be
   conquered by the leader of such a despised race as the Jews! And so
   they said, "King of the Jews."

   3, 4. And they struck Him with their hands. Pilate therefore went forth
   again, and said unto them, Behold, I bring Him forth to you, that you
   may know that I find no fault in Him. That is the second time he said
   it. He had declared it before--in the 38th verse of the previous
   Chapter we read, "I find in Him no fault at all." And now again, "That
   you may know that I find no fault in Him." "Then came Jesus forth"--you
   can see Him going down the steps out of Pilate's Hall into that same
   courtyard--"wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate
   said unto them"--"Ecce Homo"--"behold the Man." He does not call Him,
   king--he only gives Him the title of Man. As if to say, "How foolish
   are you to think there is any danger from Him--look at Him in all His
   suffering and shame."

   5, 6. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the
   purple robe. And Pilate said unto them, Behold the Man! When the chief
   priests therefore and officers saw Him, they cried out, saying, Crucify
   Him! Crucify Him! Pilate said unto them, You take Him and crucify Him:
   for I find no fault in Him. That is the third time. It was well that he
   who had the principal hand in the slaughter of the Lamb of God should
   make his report that He was "a Lamb without blemish and without spot"
   and, therefore, fit to be presented in sacrifice before God. For the
   third time he acquits Him! The Jews answered him, "We have a law"--it
   may not be your law--"and by our law He ought to die because He made
   Himself the Son of God." This is a reviving of the charge of blasphemy
   which they had brought against Him in the palace of the high priest.

   7, 8. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law He ought to
   die, because He made Himself the Son of God. When Pilate therefore
   heard that saying, he was the more afraid. It shows he was afraid all
   along--the coward-- the vacillating coward--and now a fresh
   superstition seizes upon him! He believed, as a Roman, in many gods.
   "What?" he said to himself. "What if, after all, I should have been
   torturing a Divine Being, a God who has come among men in their
   likeness?"

   9, 10. And went again into the judgment hall, and said unto Jesus,
   Where are You from? But Jesus gave him no answer Then Pilate said to
   Him, Do You not speak to me?Know You not that Ihavepower to crucify
   You, andhavepow-er to release You?And he trembled with fear, "and went
   again into the judgment hall," taking his prisoner with him-- you can
   see the two sitting there alone--"and said to Jesus, 'Where are You
   from? Tell me now, what is Your character, Your origin, Your rank?' But
   Jesus gave him no answer." Pilate's day of Grace was over! He had had
   his opportunity, but that was now ended--there was no answer. It is a
   very solemn thing when God gives no answer to a man--when a man turns
   to Scripture, but there is no answer--when he goes to hear the voice,
   but there is no voice from the oracle for him! And when he even bows
   the knee in prayer, but gets no answer. The silence of the Christ of
   God is very terrible. "Then said Pilate unto Him," with all the pride
   of a Roman in his face, "Do You not speak to me? Don't You know that I
   have power to crucify You, and power to release you?"

   11. Jesus answered, You could have no power at all against Me, except
   it were given you from above: therefore he that delivered Me unto you
   has the greater sin."You have the power to execute the sentence, lent
   to you from Heaven, but he that brought Me here, and laid the charge
   against Me, even Caiaphas, as the representative of the Jews, has the
   greater sin." And then the Blessed One closed His lips, never to open
   them again until on the Cross! From this time, "like a sheep before her
   shearers," He is dumb. Notice that even though that word is the word of
   the Judge who judges Pilate,

   who judges the Jews, yet there is a strain of the gentleness of His
   Character about it, for though He does virtually declare Pilate guilty
   of great sin,yet He says there is a greater, and while there is no
   apology for Pilate, yet He puts it softly.

   12. And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release Him: but the Jews
   cried out, saying, If you let this Man go, you are not Caesar's friend:
   whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar One of the Herods
   had put upon his coins the name, "Caesar's friend," and so they quoted
   the title which one of their kings had taken, and they tell Pilate that
   he will not be the friend of Tiberius. Here was a sore point with
   Pilate. He knew that just then Tiberius was gloomy and morose, too
   ready to catch anything against his servants--and the man by whose
   influence Pilate had come into power had just then lost all influence
   at court. So he was afraid it would be his disgrace and discharge as
   governor if the Jews brought a charge against him to Tiberius.
   Therefore he trembled.

   13. When Pilate, therefore, heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth,
   and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the
   Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.The usual form of the Roman
   judgment place, in the open air, with a stone pavement, and a raised
   throne.

   14. 15. And it was the preparation of the Passover, and about the sixth
   hour: and he said unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out,
   Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him! Pilate said unto them, Shall
   I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but
   Caesar "To crucify your King." In bitter sarcasm--"You call Him, King,
   and ask to have Him crucified?" "The chief priests answered, 'We have
   no king but Caesar.'" Verily they thus proved the truth of that word,
   "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between
   his feet until Shiloh comes." And here He was sent of God! He had come
   at last, for the scepter has evidently departed from Judah, and these
   men are crying, "We have no king but the alien monarch, the
   all-conquering Caesar."

   16. Then he delivered Him, therefore, unto them to be crucified. And
   they took Jesus andledHim away.
     __________________________________________________________________

Redeeming the Unclean

   (No. 3458)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 13, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   FEBRUARY 9, 1868.

   "And every first-born of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb; and if
   you will not redeem it, then you shall break its neck." Exodus 13:13.

   WE read to you in the former part of the service the origination of the
   Law of God by which the first-born, both of man and beast, belonged to
   the Most High. That Law seemed to be a very admirable memorial of what
   the Lord did, and also a very just requirement on the part of God that
   the first-born, whom He had so miraculous delivered, should be His
   through all time.

   But the difficulty arose as to how some beasts, which were counted
   unclean by the Law, could be offered to God at all. There were many
   animals necessary to man, useful for draught, and so forth, but not
   coming under the list of clean animals, such as divided the hoof and
   chewed the cud. Among the rest, the donkey, useful everywhere, but most
   of all in oriental countries, was counted unclean. How, then, could it
   be dedicated to God? How could the first-born of the donkey be given to
   Him? Our text solves the difficulty. An exchange was made. A lamb was
   offered instead, and then the donkey, of course, was redeemed. But if
   the owner did not sufficiently value it to give a lamb, instead, then
   the neck was broken and the animal destroyed.

   The teaching of the text is just as follows. It is fourfold and I think
   we shall have to bring out each fold. Of course, it is typical of
   something to do with ourselves and Christ, and our standing before God.
   And the first observation is this, that--

   I. AS THE DONKEY, BEING UNCLEAN, WAS NOT ACCEPTABLE TO GOD, EVEN SO,
   UNRENEWED MAN, BEING UNCLEAN, IS ALSO UNACCEPTABLE BEFORE THE MOST
   HIGH.

   Did it ever strike you that man, according to the Jewish ceremonial
   Law, is an unclean creature? Nothing was clean, according to the Law of
   Moses, but that which divided the hoof and chewed the cud. Now man
   fails in one of these, and by the Law he is put down as a sinner, as
   being on a level with the unclean beasts. What a wonder the Gospel does
   for us when, being redeemed with a price, we are said to be the sheep
   of God, the lambs of Christ's flock, so that therein we bear the same
   name as the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, and we are raised from the
   condition of the brute, into which sin brought us, and are made to sit
   far above principalities and powers, in the heavenly places in Christ
   Jesus! Lost by sin through the Law and placed in the very depths, man,
   by Grace through Jesus Christ, is lifted up to the very heights!

   But we return to what we started with, namely, that man has become,
   through sin, like the donkey--a creature incapable of rendering
   acceptable service to God. For, in the first place, every man has
   already broken the Law of Godand, as God accepts no service but that
   which is, like Himself, perfect, no unrenewed man is capable of
   rendering perfect legal obedience such as God can accept. His Law is
   like a superb crystal vase. If it is whole, it is whole. But if it is
   chipped or cracked in the smallest degree, the Law is broken. It is
   like a great golden chain which is precious and useful while whole, but
   the snapping of one link breaks the chain. So, unless a man could keep
   God's Law without any defect or transgression, it would not be possible
   that he could be accepted by the Most High. Now there is not one of us
   but has certainly broken some command. I fear we have, all of us,
   broken all the commands! If not in act, yet in word or in thought, so
   that before God's bar we ought to plead guilty to every count in the
   indictment and should not hope to be accepted by our works. What a
   condemning text is that in Isaiah--"We are altogether as an unclean
   thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags"! He does not say
   that all our wickednesses are so--no, these are worse and baser, still,
   but all our righteousnesses are--that is, the best thing which
   unrenewed nature can possibly produce is nothing better than the

   rag which is too filthy to be seen, but must be cast away and burned in
   the fire! Yes, you that seek to be justified by your good works, you
   may pant, and strive, and wear out your lives in energetic failures,
   for success is entirely impossible! You cannot thus, while you are what
   you are, produce a righteousness that God can accept, seeing that you
   have already sinned.

   In addition to this, man's heart is alienated. We would not, ourselves,
   accept a service done us by an enemy, or that is done without any
   motive of repentance. No, since the very essence of obedience lies in
   the yielding up of the heart--until a man's heart is made new, till he
   loves the God whom he has despised, all that he can do is but the false
   serving of a hypocrite, the dead service of a formalist, or the forced
   service of a slave--and none of these can God accept! Do you think when
   the ungodly man repeats a prayer, and his heart is absent, that God
   accepts the prayer? I tell you that that prayer is, in itself, a sin
   and a great provocation against the Most High! When the ungodly man
   stands with God's people and pretends to be one of them, repeats their
   creeds and declares himself to be a Believer in the things which he
   does not believe, he does but lie before God and the things he says
   cannot be received by Him. All outward, external religion, in which the
   heart does not join, so far from being received by the Most High with
   approbation, must be viewed by Him with utter abhorrence. How is it
   possible, then, for a man who loves not God to be accepted before the
   King of Kings?

   In, addition to this, there is no service which unrenewed man can
   render which is not defiled with sin, even in itself, chiefly with one
   sin, namely, self-righteousness. If a man works works of righteousness
   with the idea that he is meriting a reward, thereby, to whom is he a
   servant? I answer, not to God, but to himself! If I obey, or profess to
   obey, the Law of God, but my whole motive is that I may save myself,
   and that I may get happiness unto myself, evidently self is the
   reigning principle. I am not truly obedient to God as the great delight
   of my spirit. I do not love Him with heart, and soul, and strength, but
   I love myself, and cover up this selfishness with the pretence that I
   love Him. Oh, you that are thus striving to serve yourselves under some
   spiritual garb or other, you cannot serve the living God, do what you
   will! Your holiest service will be an offense, a smoke in His nostrils,
   and He will put away your best things as being offered with strange
   fire and, therefore, not to be received!

   Once more. By very nature, man is so obnoxious to the wrath of God that
   it is impossible for God to accept him as His creature. Kings would not
   delight to be served by men with foul hands who left defilement
   everywhere. Yet such are we! We would not like to always have before
   our eyes, in our servants, some dreadful disease, some disgusting
   leprosy and yet such is the disease of sin. "You are of purer eyes than
   to beheld evil, and cannot look on iniquity." I have heard that text
   quoted, "You cannot look upon it but with abhorrence." That is true,
   but it is put still stronger. The Prophet puts it that He cannot look
   upon it, that He cannot endure it. He is a consuming fire towards
   sinners and what He will do with the finally impenitent is, so He says,
   "tear them in pieces, and there shall be none to deliver," for out of
   Christ, God cannot tolerate the ungodly! Not for a single hour would He
   spare this world were it not that the Mediator comes between--otherwise
   the Immaculate Perfection of the eternal God could not endure sin to be
   anywhere within His reach. He would sweep the universe clear of every
   rebel with the broom of destruction! He would, once and for all, ease
   Himself of His adversaries and shake Himself from His enemies, even as
   a man shakes the dust from his feet!

   Now what a very solemn Truth of God this is! Do not think that it is
   mystatement. It is really the teaching of God's Word, that the
   unregenerate man is an unclean man and cannot be acceptable to God. "He
   that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed on
   the Son of God." The unrenewed man is corrupt! He is dead in trespasses
   and sins! Now this is meant for some of you. It is meant for some of
   you who are very excellent and amiable people, and very moral. It is
   meant not for the vilest of the vile, alone, but for all classes and
   conditions of men--for the professedly religious people, too. Unless
   your hearts are right before the Lord and you have believed in Jesus,
   you cannot, you never can, strive as you will, be received before the
   Most High any more than the donkey could be acceptable upon the altar
   of God! But now we advance to the second Truth of God which is in the
   text, namely, that--

   II. THE SERVICE OF MAN, WHICH GOD CANNOT ACCEPT, IS, NEVERTHELESS,
   GOD'S DUE.

   God could not receive the donkey because it was unclean, but still it
   belonged to God for all that. God's claim extended over all the
   first-born, clean or unclean, and that claim must be maintained.
   Sinner, you cannot serve God--you are too sinful! Your heart too
   evil--your service too impure! But still, God's claim upon you for a
   perfectly holy life has not ceased. It has not lost its power, nor
   bated one jot or tittle of its just and righteous force. It has been
   laid down by some theologians as being almost a self-evident Truth that
   God will require no more of a man than he can do--but this, by every
   thoughtful mind--will be soon discovered to be a self-evident lie
   instead of being true--for God's Law is not

   changed by our being changed! Whatever God demanded of man when he was
   perfect, He demands the same thing of him now that he is imperfect! The
   Law of God is holy, and just, and good. If it were ever too severe,
   then God was not righteous in making it. And if He alters it to suit
   us, what is that but the cutting down of His integrity and the
   disfiguring of the tables of His own perfectly pure and holy statute
   Book? It cannot not be! You, in common life, know very well that a man
   is sometimes bound to do what he cannot do. If a man is in your debt
   and he tells you he cannot pay you, you do not consider that his not
   being able to pay exonerates him from the debt. He is still in your
   debt. If he could have paid when he entered upon the debt, it was a
   debt--but now that he cannot pay it, it is still a debt! True, there
   are ways in which he can get cleared of the debt, just as there are
   ways of salvation by which a man may be delivered from sin, but still,
   the debt is none the less a debt because the man cannot pay it.
   Everybody knows that inability to pay does not exonerate the man from
   the duty to pay. So with God. He did not make you a sinner, Sinner. You
   were pure and holy when you came from His hands. Your sin is your own.
   Your weakness, inability, your willfulness, your backwardness to keep
   the Law-- all these are your own, and so far from excusing you, they
   shall be swift witnesses against you to condemn you!

   Take another instance. There are some men who have become such thieves
   that we say of them, and say truly, that it is impossible for them to
   be honest. They are no sooner out of prison than their hand is into
   somebody's pocket--they cannot be easy and at rest till they are up
   before the magistrate again! But did you ever hear such a man say,
   "Sir, I cannot be honest! I have such an irresistible tendency to steal
   that the law ought to be changed on my account because I have lost my
   principle of honesty--therefore the law ought not to bind me"? "No,"
   you say, "but he ought to be kept in prison always, for this is another
   offense to make his evil heart an excuse for his evil ways." Remember,
   Sinner, that your inability to come to Christ is not your misfortune,
   but your sin! Your inability to keep the Law of God is not your
   calamity as much as it is your willful wickedness. Inasmuch as you are
   unclean and evil, the thought that you cannot help it should alarm you,
   for you ought to help it. You have no business to be in the state of
   sin you now are. If you could not help it, if there were any physical
   disability, you might be excused. But inasmuch as the disability is
   spiritual and moral, and deals with your will, there is no excuse for
   you! The donkey could not be accepted, but still the donkey belonged to
   God. You cannot be received as you are, all unconverted, but still God
   has a claim upon you--and for every idle word that you shall speak, He
   shall bring you into judgment--and for not serving Him, He will condemn
   you! For not believing in Christ, you shall be called to account at the
   last.

   But I must pass on. The third thing in the text is this, that the
   difficulty in hand was met in this way--the donkey must be God's, yet
   it cannot be, for it is too impure for Him to receive! What then?

   III. IT MUST BE REDEEMED BY A SUBSTITUTE.

   "Every first-born of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb." Oh, the
   glorious Gospel comes out here in much of its effulgence in connection
   with the redemption of men! The Jew would, perhaps, deliberate awhile.
   "Well," he might say, "I fancy I should like to have this donkey grown
   up, for I need it as a beast of burden. But here is a lamb that must be
   killed in its place, and he is the more valuable of the two." I fancy I
   can hear a consultation held in the family as to what should be done.
   It may be that in some cases the lamb would be the less precious of the
   two. However what may be, it is agreed at the last that the lamb shall
   die and that the donkey shall live.

   Now, in our case, there might have been a consultation, indeed, as to
   which was the more precious--our poor, willful, wicked selves, or the
   Lamb of God, the Only-Begotten of the Father. All of us put together,
   and millions upon millions of our human race could never equal in value
   the precious Lord Jesus! If you were to put in all the angels as well,
   and all the creatures that God has ever made, they could not equal Him
   who is the brightness of His Father's Glory and the express Image of
   His Person! "Yet He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us
   all." And this is the Gospel which we have to preach to you every time
   we stand before you, namely, that Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God, was
   offered to God as a Substitute for ungodly, unclean, unacceptable man!
   That we might not die, Christ died! That we might not be cursed, Jesus
   was cursed and fastened to the tree! That we might be received, He was
   rejected! That we might be approved, He was despised--and that we might
   live forever He bowed His head and died in our place!

   If any man wants to understand theology, he had better begin here. This
   is the first and main point. I do not think I should dispute with any
   of my Brothers in the ministry upon what else they hold if they all
   hold purely and straightforwardly the Doctrine of Substitution by Jesus
   Christ on the behalf of His own elect people. Martin Luther stood out
   for Justification by Faith, and rightly so, for in his day that seemed
   to be the center, where all the battle raged. I think that just now
   Substitution by Christ seems to be the place where the garments are
   rolled in blood--and where the fight is

   thickest. That Jesus Christ was punished in the sinner's place--that
   the wrath which was due to His people was endured by Him, that He drank
   the cup of bitterness which they ought to have drunk--is the grandest
   of all the Truths of God and so sublime a Truth that if all the
   Christians in the world were to be burned in one dreadful holocaust,
   the price would be but little to maintain this precious Doctrine in its
   integrity upon the face of the earth!

   Now most men know that they are to be saved by Christ, but I am
   afraid--but I am afraid that it is not always preached plainly, so that
   men know how it is that Christ saves them. My dear Hearer, I would not
   have you go away without knowing this! Christ Jesus came into the world
   to take the sins of His people upon Himself and to be punished for
   them. Well, if Christ was punished for them, they could not be punished
   afterwards. Christ's being punished in their place was the full
   discharge of their debt which they owed to Divine Justice, and they are
   sure to be saved. They for whom Christ died as a Substitute can no more
   be damned than Christ, Himself, can be! It is not possible that Hell
   can enclose them, or else where are the justice and the integrity of
   God? Does He demand the man, and then take a Substitute and then take
   the man again? Does He demand the payment of our debt, and receive that
   payment at the hand of Christ, and then arrest us a second time for the
   same debt? Then, in the great court of King's Bench in Heaven, where is
   justice? The honor of God, the faithfulness of God, the integrity of
   God are certain guarantees to every soul for whom Christ died, that if
   Christ died for him, he shall not die, but shall be exempt from the
   curse of the Law!

   "How then," says one, "may I know that Christ died for my soul?" Sir,
   do you trust Him? Will you trust Him now? If so, that is the mark of
   His redeemed! This is the King's mark upon His treasure! This is the
   mark of the great Sheep-Master upon all of those whom He has bought
   with His blood. If you will take Him to be the only pillar of your
   salvation. If you will build upon Him as the sole foundation of your
   everlasting hope, then you are His! And as for your sins, they are laid
   on Him. As for your righteousness, you have none of your own, but
   Christ's righteousness is yours! As in the case before us, the lamb was
   offered--the donkey was spared. The unclean animal lived--the clean
   creature died! There was a change of places. So does Christ change
   places with the sinner! Christ puts Himself in the sinner's place and
   what do we read? "He was numbered with the transgressors," and, being
   numbered with the transgressors, what then? Why, He was put to death as
   a transgressor! They crucified Him between two malefactors. He had to
   suffer the death of a felon! And though in Him was no sin, yet, "the
   Lord has made to meet upon Him the iniquities of us all." He was,
   before God, the Representative of all His people, and all the sins of
   His people covered Him until He had drunk the cup of wrath. And then He
   threw off the horrible incubus of His people's sins and cast the
   stupendous load of the guilt of all His elect down into the sepulcher
   and there left it buried forever! And in His rising from the dead, He
   gave to them the pledge and earnest of their acquittal and of their
   everlasting life! Ah, my Hearers, I wish I had a thousand tongues with
   which to proclaim this one Truth of God! As I have not, I ask the
   tongues of all those who know its preciousness to tell it forth. Tell
   the sick, tell the dying, tell the young, tell the old, tell sinners of
   every degree and every class, that salvation is not by what they do,
   nor by what they feel, but that it all lies in that Man who was once
   crucified, but who now lives in the power of an endless life before the
   eternal Throne of God! And if they say, "What do you mean by this?"
   tell them that this Man is none other than God Over All, blessed
   forever, and that He condescended to become Man and take upon Himself
   the sins of His people, and to be punished for their guilt, so that
   whoever believes on Him might not perish, but have everlasting life!
   The Just for the unjust, He died to bring us to God! This is the
   Gospel--the core, the kernel, the marrow of the entire Bible! You may
   say of all the Book besides, that it is but folds and wrappings--but
   this is what it wraps up--Substitution by Christ! This is but the box,
   the case--it is Christ that is the Jewel, the Treasure for which the
   case was made! Believe this Truth of God! Believe it as a Doctrine,
   but, better still, cast your souls on it, and say, "If it is so, then I
   will trust in the power of Him who loved, and lived, and died for
   sinners that I might go free." The last Truth of God in the text is a
   very solemn one, namely, that--

   IV. THE UNREDEEMED MAN MUST DIE.

   The unredeemed donkey was put to a speedy and very ignominious death.
   "You shall break its neck." There was no bringing of it to the altar,
   but it must be as an obnoxious thing, killed with the axe and left.
   There is no choice for any man, woman, or child here, except this. If
   you trust in Christ, you are redeemed, and you shall live. If you do
   not, there is something worse for you than the breaking of the neck of
   the poor donkey. When they break its neck, it is done--just a pang and
   a struggle, and it is over. But it is not over with us when the time
   comes to execute the righteous sentence of the Law if Christ has not
   suffered that sentence for us and we are found unbelievers in Him!
   Then, first of all, the soul is torn from the body--the body left here,
   the soul to appear before God--and then it immediately receives the
   foretokens of its

   last and ultimate doom! It is driven from God's Presence to abide as a
   naked spirit in utter wretchedness. When our Lord pictures the death of
   the rich man, He does not talk about any sleep, but He says, "In Hell
   he lifted up his eyes, being in torments." He was one moment on earth,
   but the next moment in Hell! There the soul must continue till the
   Resurrection comes, and then the soul must come back to the body and,
   body and soul together must stand in that great gathering where every
   eye shall see the Pierced One and behold Him in His Glory. Then the
   great and final sentence shall be pronounced and to the unregenerate it
   will be this--"Then shall He say to those at His left hand, Depart from
   Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his
   angels."

   I tremble while I speak thus, but you must hear it, lest you miss it.
   And we must speak it, lest we be found guilty of your soul's blood. In
   the name of the living God, I speak to everyone to whom this voice can
   come. You must have Christ die for you, or you must die forever! It
   must be either Calvary or Hell--one of the two! His blood must be
   sprinkled upon your conscience, or else your blood shall be upon your
   own head! It is with you tonight--turn or burn--believe or perish! For
   I do assure you, according to the teaching of the Word of God and of
   His Holy Spirit, that there is not the shadow of a hope anywhere else
   for you. You may belong to some church and you may hope to be saved by
   your baptism or by your confirmation, but these are useless apart from
   Christ! You may attend some meeting house, and you may think to be
   saved because you are very orthodox, but your orthodoxy will perish
   with you, and will only be firewood for your burning if you trust to
   that! Perhaps you think that leaving something in your will at the last
   to some charity, or giving liberally to the poor, may cover a multitude
   of sins, and that with such a covering as Achan used when he covered up
   the wedge of gold that God's eyes might not see the unholy thing. But
   Achan died, notwithstanding that he had covered up his ill-gotten
   wealth--and so will you!

   Ah, if an angel should come here tonight, and speak, perhaps you would
   listen to him more intensely than you would to me. But what could he
   tell you more simple than this, that there is but one hope for you, and
   that one hope neglected, there is no hope, no hope, no hope forever?
   God has been pleased to commit this ministry not unto angels, but unto
   us-- poor men like yourselves--that we may tell you with affection,
   that we may speak to you with sympathy. Why will you die? You know what
   pain is, do you not? You have suffered enough already. Some of you have
   to endure the biting pangs of hunger. You are sometimes cold and
   poverty brings you very low. Will you be everlastingly poor? Will you
   forever endure the pangs and miseries infinitely worse than any you
   have known in this world? I am not inventing bugbears to frighten you.
   God forbid! I am only telling you what I have read in God's Word and
   what you yourselves may see to be there. "Except you repent," said
   Christ, "you shall all likewise perish." Why need you perish? Why musts
   you perish? Jesus Christ is preached to you and we say to you, tonight,
   in the name of the Most High--Whoever believes on the Lord Jesus Christ
   shall be saved! Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as wool
   if you do but trust Him! Though you have gone ever so far into sin, yet
   simple faith in Christ will bring you out of it! And though your sins
   should be ingrained in your nature and have become such a habit to you
   that you seem no more able to get rid of your abominable habits than
   the leopard could get rid of his spots, or the Ethiopian of his black
   skin--yet such is the miraculous power of the blood of Jesus that it
   can take out the leopard's spots, and remove the Ethiopian's hue, and
   make those white who were once defiled, for it not only takes away the
   guilt of sin, but the power of sin! If you believe in Christ, you will
   have a new nature, new desires, new tastes, new enjoyments! You shall
   hate the things you once loved, and love the things you once hated--

   "'Tis but to trustImmnanuel's blood! 'Tis all! 'Tis all!"

   "Yes," I hear you say, "but this is too little! It is too easy!" Well,
   and what a mercy that is for you, for if it were a difficult thing, how
   could you do it? You are precisely in the case of Naaman, when the
   Prophet said to him, "Go and wash in Jordan seven times." "Oh," said
   Naaman, "it is too simple!" Then his servant said, "My Father, if the
   Prophet had bid you do some great thing, would you not have done it?
   How much rather, then, when he said to you, Wash and be clean?" The
   poor Hindu will roll himself over and over for five hundred miles to
   get to the Ganges, because he has been told that he will get rid of his
   sin if he thus lies prostrate in the dust the whole painful journey.
   Poor soul, he is but like us! We would all do that if we were quite
   sure that we would be saved by it. How much rather, then, when Christ
   simply says, "Trust, trust, trust, trust Christ and live! Depend simply
   upon Him! Rely upon Him!"

   Are you not almost sick of hearing me tell you this? We have to iterate
   and reiterate on this point. We have to bring the hammer down
   continually on just the same place on the anvil, and to strike just the
   same note. Ah, well, if you were

   all saved, and all believed in Christ, we would gladly go on to
   something else--but until every soul is saved, we can do nothing but
   blow the trumpet with the same sound! Believe! Trust in the Substitute!
   Take Christ to be yours! Look out of self--look to Christ! Have done
   with your doings! Have done with your trusting in your own powers, and
   now, whether you sink or swim, give up every other hope and rest in
   Him, and rely on Him, and upon Him alone!

   Perhaps these simple words may bring the Gospel home to some aching
   heart with comfort. And if it should, I pray you to be sure to follow
   it up at once. Do not put it off. Do not delay! 'Tis resting in Jesus,
   now--that is the thing. I call to recollection just now the morning
   when first I rested on Him. I never, never, never can forget it. I had
   been as downcast as anyone could be. I had attended places of worship.
   I had done all I could, but I could get no peace till at last I heard a
   simple preacher put it thus--"Look unto Me, and be you saved, all you
   ends of the earth!" Now there is nothing to do here but to look--a fool
   can do that! A baby can do that! You don't need a deal of learning to
   do that--you only have to look! But you will ask what it is that you
   are to look to. Well, it is, "Look to Me"--that is, look to Jesus!
   There He is in the Garden, sweating great drops of blood! Every drop is
   for you--look to Him! There He is, scourged by Pilate till His
   shoulders run with gore, and every drop is for you! Look to Him! Look
   to Him! There He is, fastened to the tree! His hands are streaming with
   blood and every drop is for you--look to Him! There He is with His side
   pierced and with the blood and water running out, and every drop is for
   you! Look to Him! Look to Him! Do but look to Him! No, it is not to be
   able to understand it, but to look to Him! No, it is not to be able to
   write it on paper, but to look to Him! Look to Him! "Well," he said,
   when he had gone thus far, "that young man under the gallery there
   looks very unhappy. I think he is feeling the burden of sin but he will
   never get rid of his burden unless he looks to Christ." Then he
   shouted, "Look! Look! Look! Young man! Look now!"

   Blessed be God, I did look--simply looked, just as the dying men in the
   wilderness looked to the serpent! They did not calculate the value of
   the brass. They did not make a drawing of the various convolutions of
   the serpent. They did not consider how it could be. They did not get a
   physician to talk to them about how the eyes might operate upon the
   nerves. They just did what they were told to do! They looked, and they
   lived! Will you look, or not? Will you trust, or not, young man? On the
   answer which the Holy Spirit shall enable you to give to that question
   will hang your present peace and your everlasting happiness! If you
   answer, "No, I will not look," then, Sirs, on your own heads be your
   blood if you will not rest in Jesus! So simple, so suitable, so
   gracious is this way of salvation, that I myself, though I love you in
   my very soul, must say that you deserve to perish if you will not thus
   be saved--

   "How they deserve the deepest Hell

   That slight abounding love!

   What chains of vengeance must they feel,

   Who scorn these hands of love!" Oh, that, instead thereof, you would
   simply trust! And, trusting, you shall live! Amen

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: EXODUS29:38-46; ISAIAH 53.

   EXODUS29:38-46.

   Verse 38. Now this is that which you shall offer upon the altar: two
   lambs of the first year, day by day, continually. Remember, as long as
   there was a Jewish state, the morning and the evening were to open and
   to close with the sacrifice of a lamb.

   39-42. The one lamb you shall offer in the morning; and the other lamb
   you shall offer at evening. And with the one lamb a tenth an ephah of
   flour mingled with the fourth part of a hin of pressed oil; and the
   fourth part of a hin of wine for a drink offering. And the other lamb
   you shall offer at evening and shall do thereto according to the meat
   offering of the morning. And according to the drink offering thereof,
   for a sweet savor an offering made by fire unto the LORD. This shall be
   a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of
   the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD: where I will meet
   you, to speak there unto you. See, the Lamb is the place of meeting!
   God comes to His people as His people come to Him--with the morning and
   with the evening Lamb.

   43. And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the
   tabernacle shall be sanctified by My glory. God's glory is in the
   Lamb--it is there He is pleased to manifest Himself in the glory of His
   infinite Grace to His people.

   44, 45. And I will sanctify the tabernacle of the congregation, And the
   altar: I will sanctify also both Aaron and his sons, to minister to Me
   in the priest's office. And I will dwell among the children of Israel,
   and will be their God. Not without the lamb, you see--that morning and
   evening sacrifice must be the token and the way of God's dealing with
   His people.

   46. And they shallknow that Iam the LORD their God, that brought them
   forth out of the land ofEgypt, that I may dwell among them: Iam the
   LORD their God. Now concerning this same Lamb, we will read in--

   ISAIAH53.

   Blessed passage! I hope you all know it by heart--it should be like the
   alphabet to every child. See how it begins.

   Verse 1. Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the
   LORD revealed?This is the continual cry of the men of God. The sent
   ones of God who come to bear testimony of the Lamb of God have no easy
   time of it. With broken hearts they have to go to their Master, and
   say, "Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord
   revealed?"

   2. For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out
   of a dry ground: He has no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see
   Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him. Carnal minds never
   did see beauty in Christ, and never will. Christ as the great Sacrifice
   is always rejected.

   3-5. He is despised and rejected ofmen; a Man ofSorrows, and acquainted
   with grief; and we hidas it were our faces from Him; He was despised,
   and we esteemed Him not. Surely He has borne our griefs, and carried
   our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and
   afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised
   for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and
   with His stripes we are healed. Blessed be His name! Some of us can say
   that with great delight--"With His stripes we are healed."

   6, 7. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to
   his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all He was
   oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He is
   brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers
   is dumb, so He opens not His mouth. "He was oppressed and He was
   afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth." Our blessed Master--there are
   His seven cries upon the Cross, but not one word of murmuring, no
   complaint against His enemies--"He opened not His mouth: He is brought
   as the lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is
   dumb, so He opens not His mouth."

   8, 9. He was taken fromprison and from judgment: and who shall declare
   His generation? For He was cut off out of the land of the living: for
   the transgression of My people was He stricken. And He made His grave
   with the wicked, and with the rich in His death; because He had done no
   violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth.

   10. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief:
   when You shall make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His
   seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall
   prosper in His hand. "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him." If ever
   there was a man whom God should have protected from every sorrow, and
   guarded from every stroke of injustice, it was Jesus! And unless it was
   for sins not His own, He suffered, unless it was as a Substitute for
   man, it was the most unjust of all heard of injustices that Christ
   should die at all!

   11, 12. 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. "He shall see of the travail of His soul." Oh,
   what a joy is this to us! He did not travail in vain. His pangs were as
   of a travailing woman, but the birth, the glorious birth that comes of
   it is the salvation of multitudes--this is His recompense!
     __________________________________________________________________

More and More

   (No. 3459)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 20, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But He gives more Grace." James 4:6.

   PRACTICAL as the Epistle of James is, this Apostle does not neglect to
   extol the Grace of God. He would be very unpractical if he did. There
   are some professors of religion who talk as if they loved the doctrines
   and loathed the duties. They cling to the faith, while they shrink from
   the works! They accept the principles that are announced, but refuse
   the precepts that are enjoined. Herein they err. Yet we would be
   equally at fault and, perhaps, commit a graver error, were we to be
   biased in the opposite direction! Did we constantly expound and enforce
   the great things to be done by us without reference to the greater
   things that have been done for us. Did we commend the fruits regardless
   of the root from where they spring. Did we applaud the deeds of men
   without lauding the Grace of God, we would, I say, commit a graver
   error! Happily we have been taught both the saintship and the service,
   the Covenant engagements, as well as the creature obligations, the
   Divine enabling and the divers abilities of Believers that are set in
   motion, so that we discern without difficulty how the principle of
   Grace combines and co-operates with the practice of goodness. In our
   conflict with the natural spirit of enmity, Grace takes the form of,
   "more Grace," and it is bestowed upon us that we may be able to
   overcome and prove victorious.

   We shall first consider the words of our text in their natural
   connection. Secondly, we shall contemplate their general instructions.
   Then, thirdly, we shall connect them with a special application,
   seeking, each one of us, to appropriate them to ourselves.

   I. OUR TEXT IN ITS NATURAL CONNECTION.

   Directly you look at the matter, you are struck with the contrast. It
   is not merely that a comparison is instituted, but two potent motives
   are confronted--the one a strong instinct, the other a liberal
   endowment. "The spirit that is in us lusts to envy, but He gives more
   Grace." On our side it is a "spirit"--a turbulent passion! On God's
   side it is a sweet gratuity--a supply of more Grace! We fretful and
   murmuring, anxious and complaining. He, far from grudging, stinting, or
   withholding (which would be a fit retaliation), succors us and augments
   and multiplies His liberality, as if to compensate the aggravation of
   our waywardness by the enlargement of His concessions! The spirit that
   is in us complains of God, as though we were jealous that He gave more
   to others than to us. Still, the Spirit that is in God goes on to give,
   saying, "Is your eye evil because Mine is good? May I not do what I
   will with My own?" The spirit that is in us undervalues what we
   possess, because, under some aspects, it may not be equally precious
   with that which somebody else possesses. But God, instead of taking
   away from us what He has given, because we judge Him so unworthily,
   only gives more! "He gives more Grace." One might have supposed, that
   because "the spirit that is in us lusts to envy," therefore we should
   discover God opposing us, restraining the bottles of Heaven, commanding
   the dew no longer to fall upon us and withdrawing all the benedictions
   of His love! But no, it does not say, "He is opposed to us and, whereas
   we run in one direction, He runs in another. His thoughts are not our
   thoughts, neither are His ways our ways. And then, again, our ways are
   not His ways, nor our thoughts His thoughts. We do not rise to Him and
   He does not stoop to us, so as to lower His Character, by meeting us
   with that return that would seem due to us if strict laws of
   retaliation were carried out." Note that contrast! Note it always!
   Observe how weak we are, how strong He is--how proud we are, how
   condescending He is--how erring we are, and how Infallible He is! Note
   how changing we are, and how Immutable He is--how provoking we are, and
   how forgiving He is. Observe how in us there is only evil, and how in
   Him there is only good. Yet our evil but draws His goodness forth, and
   still He blesses! Oh, what a rich contrast!

   Do we not get a hint, here, as to the quarter from which we are to
   derive the weapons of war against our sin? "The spirit that is in us
   lusts to envy." What will you say to this? Will you, therefore, sit
   still and consider that you are excused because this is a positive
   instinct of your nature? Do you say that envy is a natural proclivity,
   a craving passion of many men and that it is, therefore, to be
   accounted of rather as a mental cast than as a moral crime--a flaw in
   one's constitution rather than a fault in his conscience? Or, to say
   the worst, more of a distressing temptation than of a detestable
   transgression against God? Ah, no, my Brothers and Sisters, there is
   not a word in Holy Scripture that gives the least countenance or the
   faintest indulgence to any sin! Indulgences for sin may come from Rome,
   but they never come from Zion! I have known persons attempt to
   exculpate themselves after a fit of anger by a cool acknowledgment like
   this--"I was always hot-tempered." What is that but a bitter
   aggravation? You do but admit that your sin is of long standing and
   frequent recurrence! You confess, indeed, your greater guilt, and there
   is no repentance to regret it, no force of conviction to forsake it. So
   it is with envy--"The spirit that dwells in us lusts to envy." So much
   the worse for our spirit! So much the more guilty we are. This is not
   only an infirmity which our circumstances have betrayed, but it is an
   inherent quality of the animal, debased propensity of the creature! Oh,
   how defiled must the nature be to which vice is as natural as a black
   skin to the Ethiopian, or as a spotted skin to the leopard! In vain
   your every plea--you cannot lighten the sin, albeit you may heighten
   the shame! There is no cause to tamper, but there is a call to arms.
   "He gives more Grace." This is as much as to say, "Sit not coolly down
   and parley with the spirit that is in you lusting to envy, but up!
   Resist, withstand and oppose till you quench it!"

   Here is counsel to instruct you in this arduous encounter. That evil
   spirit must be met with a pure, a devout spirit. The weapons of this
   warfare are not carnal--they are only to be found in the armory of
   Grace. "He gives more Grace." You cannot overcome your sins by
   denouncing them, or frustrate their malignity by fostering an
   admiration of virtues that never grew in the soil of your own hearts.
   Nor can you, resolve as you may, keep the moral Law. Neither is it
   possible, by religious services in the future, to make amends for the
   perversity of your past life. Such proposals and such efforts would
   become the race of Ishmael, for they are under bondage. But we are the
   children of the free woman and we are not moved to holiness by the hope
   of gaining Heaven, or the fear of being sent to Hell. We live under a
   different Covenant from that! They have to do with Sinai, which made
   men tremble--we are not under the Law, but under Grace, so other
   arguments persuade us! When we need weapons wherewith to fight against
   our sin, we turn to Divine Love and say, "Behold how God has loved us.
   Can we act unloving to Him?" Or we go to Calvary and there see what a
   bitter thing it is to our Well-Beloved. We take the spear that pierced
   His heart, to see if it cannot pierce the heart of our sin. And we take
   the nails that nailed Him to the tree and pray the Holy Spirit to
   crucify our flesh with its affections and lusts. Our warfare is not
   carried on by weapons from the armory of Moses--the shield and spear of
   David suit us better. By faith in the living God who defends us from
   danger and guards us with strength, we shall bring down the lion, rend
   the bear like a kid, and vanquish the Philistine! By the help of His
   right hand we expect to kill the enemy. We are not going back to legal
   bondage--we have "more Grace." And with Divine Grace there always comes
   joy, peace and security. That Doctrine which, it has been often argued,
   gives liberty to sin does really set forth the way in which to
   overthrow and conquer it! The text, then, gives an indication of the
   place where we may find the shield and buckler of our sacred war--"He
   gives more Grace."

   And then the text, besides giving thus a contrast and a suggestion,
   appears to me to give us an encouragement for the continuance of our
   spiritual warfare. "He gives more Grace." You had Grace at first with
   which to struggle against the envying and every other sin. You are now
   alarmed because the warfare of your spirit is so protracted. "He gives
   more Grace" to continue the struggle! As long as there is one passion
   in your soul that dares to rise, there will be Grace in your soul to
   answer! Are you distressed because you don't appear to be making the
   headway you could wish against sin? It is a blessed distress and I
   would not mitigate it, but, meanwhile, let us not degenerate into
   unbelief. Know this, that though there may be more temptation, God will
   give more Grace! And though advancing years may bring more infirmity
   and, consequently, more temptation, He will always give you more Grace!
   As long as the fight shall last, the help will last. You shall have
   manna all the while you are in the wilderness--it shall never cease to
   drop till you come where you no more require it, having crossed the
   Jordan. Fight on, then! Never think of saying, "I cannot overcome this
   sin." By God's help you must, for no sin can enter Heaven with you! You
   must overcome it. It cannot be permitted that you sit down in peace
   with any foe to purity. You are never to have peace with any sin. When,
   first of all, the Lord Jesus made

   peace with us, He proclaimed war against sin on every side and of every
   size, and the loyal Christian never dreams of peace, but contemplates
   only a perpetual fighting against sin, expecting to have perpetual
   Grace bestowed!

   And then it seems to me that, in this matter, we have a prediction of
   victory, for if He gives more Grace, it seems to me thus, that He
   promises so to augment the force of Grace that the sin must ultimately
   yield to repeated assaults. There shall be more Grace than sin--where
   sin abounded, Grace did much more abound. Such shall be the climax of
   every Christian's experience when it comes to be summed up. O Sin, you
   cruel, deadly foe! You seek to capture us, and, if possible, to slay
   us--but you shall not prevail! Sin seeks to enter, Grace shuts the
   door. Sin tries to get the mastery, but Grace, which is stronger than
   sin, resists and will not permit it. Sin gets us down at times and puts
   its foot on our neck-- Grace comes to the rescue and faith prompts us
   to say, "Rejoice not over me, O my enemy, for though I fall, yet shall
   I rise up again." Sin comes up like Noah's flood, but Grace rides over
   the tops of the mountains like the Ark! Sin, like Sennacherib, pours
   forth its troops to swallow up the land--Grace, like the Angel of the
   Lord, goes through the camp of Sennacherib and lays sin dead. O
   glorious Grace, you shall certainly get the victory! "He gives more
   Grace." Surely, therefore, there is a prediction, here, of ultimate
   victory! "The spirit that is in us lusts to envy," but for us there is
   victory, and to Jehovah shall it be ascribed, for He gives more Grace!
   Such, as it seems to me, is the instruction to be drawn from the text,
   if we take it in its connection. Now let us take it out of the
   connection and--

   II. USE IT AS A GENERAL TRUTH.

   "He gives more Grace." Does not this mean that He gives new supplies of
   Grace?. The Grace you had yesterday is of no use today. It would breed
   worms and stink like the old manna. The man who has no new experience
   of Divine Love, but tries to live on the memory of the past, will find
   the food very musty and apt to breed diseases. The child of God will
   never prosper on Tuesday through Monday's Grace--and you will not find
   the supplies of Grace for last year keep you afloat during this year!
   "He gives more Grace." Grace is like a river--its waters are always
   sweet and fresh as it comes rushing from the eternal hills. Like the
   sunlight, it never sends the same beams twice! It is always fresh,
   always new. Blessed be God for this! There are perpetual streams of
   Grace.

   And He gives larger supplies of Grace.He gives new drops to the blade,
   He gives a greater watering to the corn in the ear, sends heavy showers
   when it comes to the full corn in the ear. There is comparatively
   little Grace with him who is but a babe in Grace, though enough for his
   present need. There is more Grace for the young man who has temptations
   to avoid that he may cleanse his way. And there is the most Grace for
   the valiant man who is strong in the Lord and in the power of His
   might. Little faith has Grace, but great faith has more Grace. Little
   love has Grace, but God gives greater Grace where there is greater
   love. None of us have got so far but what there is much beyond. Suppose
   a man says he is perfect? You may conclude that he does not know
   himself, or the course that lies before him, for if he is perfect in
   his own estimation, he has not a perfect standard to judge himself by
   and probably he is not so perfect in his humility as it is desirable he
   should be!

   "God gives more Grace," that is, higher, larger, deeper, stronger
   Grace, so that we may go from strength to strength. When it is said,
   "He gives more Grace," it means that He gives higher styles of Grace,
   for there are differences and degrees of Grace. One man has Grace--a
   proportionate amount of it, but it is of one kind. Now the Grace of
   patience appears to me to be a higher Grace than many others, and to
   come late to some of us. We have not got to it yet. We have got courage
   and we have faith in a measure and that will produce every other
   virtue, doubtless, but as yet we have not the full closeness of
   fellowship, the perfectness of acquiescence, the keen susceptibility of
   the Presence of God, and certain other and higher forms of Grace of
   which we cannot now particularly speak. But these are not things that
   are reserved and laid by--He gives these higher Graces--they are to be
   had. There is no degree of Divine Grace which we ought not to seek--not
   with the covetousness that seeks Grace for a graceless object like
   self-exaltation, but with that sacred eagerness which longs for more
   Grace that God may have more Glory! God gives to His people the highest
   forms of Grace and, therefore, they ought to be encouraged to ask for
   them.

   This precious Word of God which I have before me, dear Friends, on
   which my heart is fondly set, and which my tongue gladly repeats,
   expresses a statute of the Lord which we ought to live upon every day.
   "He gives more Grace," By the Grace of God I have got to the end of
   another day! Well, then, I need to go to Him again at my bedside,
   before my eyes are closed in slumber, and seek fresh fellowship with
   Him--"He gives more Grace." What He is prepared to give most certainly
   I am prone to need! Tomorrow, when I go forth to follow my calling, I
   know not what may befall me, for I have not trod that way before--but
   "He gives more Grace." Every day there are fresh supplies of Grace as
   fresh needs for Grace arise. And oh, how I ought to recollect this in
   my pleadings for others! Should I not pray for my minister, that he
   might have more Grace? If I do not profit under his ministry as I could
   wish, I should pray more, being confident of this very thing, that,
   "God gives more Grace." And if I do profit as I could wish, then I have
   new reasons for praying that he will continue to get more Grace, for
   God has promised to give it! Have I a child whom I hope to see grow up
   in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? As I see the budding, the
   beginning of Grace in him, I should plead for more Grace! And how, my
   Christian Brothers and Sisters in the service of the Church, should I
   fail to plead with God on your behalf?

   Much blessed use, too, Beloved, may we make of this verse when called
   to any fresh service. If you who never preached before, should be
   invited to speak to a few people, do not measure your ability by your
   inexperience. He who calls you to more service will give you more
   Grace! Or should you be about to move from a little to a larger
   occupation, you may be timid--cast down because of the littleness of
   your strength--but "He gives more Grace." Possibly, you are entering
   into deeper trials. You have only been a coaster before, and you kept
   among the headlands near the shore. Now you are to cross the sea and
   get out of the sight of land. Well, the Pilot knows all about the sea
   which you are about to traverse--trust Him. "He gives more Grace." I
   know you have more fear. The only way to overcome it is by more Grace.
   Do not be over-anxious to make more provision, or trust to the exercise
   of more prudence, or rely upon anything you have got, else you will
   make shipwreck in that manner! But go to the Lord for more Grace. It is
   the straight way, the right way, the safe way--and in that way you will
   always find that more Grace will carry you through more trouble!
   Possibly you are about to undergo sharper tests than ever. You are to
   be tried this time as to whether you are really God's servant. Well, if
   the Lord permits Satan to tempt you, He will give you more Grace! He
   who preserved you in prosperity, will preserve you in adversity! He who
   kept you in the high places will not forsake you in the lowlands. He
   who blessed your substance will not suffer you to starve in time of
   famine. If you need more Grace, you shall have more Grace to supply
   your need! Do not be afraid, dear Brothers and Sisters, as to what may
   happen to you. Go in this your strength--seek the Lord's guidance. In
   all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths. If God
   should bid any one of us go right through a wall of stone, we are to go
   straight through it and He shall clear our way! He cuts the gates of
   brass and breaks the bars of iron asunder. Ours is to obey--not to
   reason or ask why! Ours is to dare and die, if need be, for Him--not to
   halt or draw back! When He bids us go, He will clear the way. Through
   the Red Sea, Israel went. "Forward," was the word, and the floods
   divided and stood upright as a heap! So shall it be, if Providence
   should call you to the most extraordinary pathway ever trod by human
   pilgrims! He that calls you will preserve you and cause you to triumph
   in the way of obedience, for "He gives more Grace." Again, let us
   endeavor to--

   III. MAKE APPLICATION OF THIS PRINCIPLE TO OURSELVES.

   I would urge each dear Brother and Sister here to take the words and
   see what they say to you. "He gives more Grace." Do you suffer from
   spiritual poverty? It is your own fault, for He gives more Grace. If
   you have not got it, it is not because it is not to be had, but because
   you have not gone for it--you have not sought for it--you have not
   walked in such a way that you could possess it and exhibit its fruit!
   If there is anyone--a hired servant of our Father--that is hungry, it
   is not because our Father's larder is bare, for He has provided bread
   enough and to spare! And if there is one of our Father's children who
   cannot fill his belly, it is not because there is not food enough, nor
   because there is not abundance on the Father's table, but because he
   chooses to go after the swine husks in some form or other. We might
   rejoice, we might triumph, but we take the course which leads to
   poverty, littleness of Grace, leanness of soul! It is our own
   choice--not the Lord's. The text forbids us ever to lay blame on God.
   "Have I been a wilderness to Israel?" You might well consider this. You
   have little love--have I given you little cause for love? Your zeal
   burns very low--have I given you objects so contemptible that you might
   reasonably relax your fervor? Ah, no. "He gives more Grace." He always
   gives. You hungry ones that stand shivering there, faint and ready to
   die--it is not because the oxen and the fatlings are not killed, and
   all things are not ready--you that pinch yourselves and starve
   yourselves are not straitened in Him, but straitened in your own heart.
   May God teach us this lesson! May we come now to God with open mouths
   that He may fill them. May our desires be strong and our faith a mighty
   enthusiasm, that, according to our faith, it may be done unto us!

   Spiritual growth, if we have any, must never be the subject of our
   self-congratulation, but we must give all the Glory to God, for if you
   look at the text from another point of view, the more Grace we have,
   the more has been given us! If we have it not, it is our own fault, but
   if we have it, it is not our earning, but His bestowal! If you have
   more than another,

   you have no cause to thank yourself for it. If you can say, "I bless
   myself that I have more Grace than my brother," you have already shown
   that you are naked, poor and miserable, though you think yourself to be
   rich and increased in goods. All Grace leads us to gratitude. Grace
   never leads us to lift ourselves up and say, "I have done well to
   obtain it." Grace, like the cargo in the vessel, makes the ship sink
   deeper in the stream. He that has most Grace is the lowliest man. You
   shall measure your rising in Grace by your sinking in humility.

   Oh, Beloved, what satisfaction and what security we should feel in
   meditating on the goodness of God. Verily, God is good. This is not an
   occasional display of His bounty, but it is the universal order of His
   government in the Church, "He gives more Grace." There is no time given
   here. You do not find any timetable in Scripture, saying, "At such an
   hour of the day He gives more Grace," or, "At such a time in the year
   He gives more Grace," but it is day by day, all the year round, long as
   the cycles roll, while the dispensation of mercy lasts! So long as
   there is an heir of Heaven that needs, our Father, who is in Heaven,
   supplies! "He gives more Grace." What a blessing for us that the Grace
   of God is "unlimited" as to time!

   Nor is there any restriction as to the way of our getting it. When "He
   gives more Grace," you need not apply through certain appointed
   priests, or use a prescribed ritual, or put yourselves in certain
   peculiar postures. No, no! Nothing ceremonial--everything substantial!
   This provision, like every other promise, is in and through Jesus
   Christ, the Mediator. If you do but go and seek from Him, He gives what
   none others can give--He gives more Grace! Oh, for the agony of prayer
   that will lead us to the Mercy Seat with power! And for the humility of
   soul that empties us in order that there may be room for God to fill
   us! Oh, for the life of faith which believes that God will do great
   things, and expects Him to do them! How then should we, each one, have
   to say, "He gives me more Grace: blessed be His name! He leads me on
   from height to height, enlarges my capacity and still fills me! He
   makes me feel that there is a greater capacity yet to receive, and an
   undiminished fullness when my capacity expands." Turn the meditation
   into music in your heart! Let the rich melody charm your thoughts and
   henceforth may our song be, "He gives more Grace."

   Are any of you seeking more Grace? If He has given you Grace to seek,
   He will surely give you more Grace--Grace to find! Are any of you
   grieving for sin? That is of His Grace--He will give you more Grace to
   rejoice in the pardon of all your sins through Christ! Have you begun
   to pray? That is according to His Grace bestowed on you--but He will
   give you more Grace to continue in prayer until you receive such
   answers as are the ripe fruit of your supplications! Thank God for
   little Grace--mind that you do. If you have only starlight, thank Him
   for it, and He will give you moonlight. Or if you have only moonlight,
   thank Him for it, and He will give you sunlight! Then, if you have
   sunlight, thank Him fervently and He will give you, shortly, as the
   light of seven days! Be thankful, since a little Grace is more than you
   deserve! Be thankful for the least grain that the Lord adds to it. Oh,
   that you might be all led to believe in Christ! It pleased the Father
   to give Christ Jesus to us, and in Him all fullness dwells. He cannot
   give you more, because in this one Gift every other gift is
   concentrated. You cannot need more than Jesus! With Him you shall find
   that you receive more and more Grace adequate to your needs and
   according to His exceeding riches of glory. So shall you praise Him
   more and more forever and ever! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: GENESIS 24:1-16; 1 SAMUEL 30:1-13; 1 JOHN
   1:1-3.

   Our subject is the value of Divine Guidance, and we shall, therefore,
   read two passages of Scripture illustrating the Truth of God which we
   hope to enforce.

   GENESIS 24:1-16.

   Verse 1. And Abraham was old, and well advanced in age: and the LORD
   had blessed Abraham in all things. Happy man that can say that, who has
   a blessing everywhere! And yet Abraham had his, "but," for as yet Isaac
   was unmarried and, perhaps, he little dreamed that for 20 years
   afterwards, he who was to build the house of Abraham was to remain
   childless. Yet so it was. There was always a trial for Abraham's faith,
   but even his trials were blessed, for "God blessed Abraham in all
   things."

   2. And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled
   over all that he had, Put, Ipray you, your hand under my
   thigh--According to the Eastern manner of swearing.

   3. And I will make you swear by the LORD, the God of Heaven, and the
   God of the earth, that you shall not take a wife unto my son ofthe
   daughters of the Canaanites, among whom Idwell. This holy man was
   careful of the purity of his family--he knew what an ill effect a
   Canaanite wife might have upon his son, and also upon his offspring. He
   was, therefore, particularly careful here. I would that all parents
   were the same.

   4, 5. But you shall go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a
   wife unto my son Isaac. And the servant said unto him, Perhaps the
   woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land: must I bring
   your son again unto the land from where you came?The servant was very
   careful. Those that swear too readily they know not what, will, before
   long, swear till they care not what. Better still is it for the
   Christian to remember the Words of Christ, "Swear not at all, neither
   by Heaven, nor by earth, nor by any other oath." Doubtless the Doctrine
   of the Savior is that all oaths of every sort are lawful to the
   Christian, but if they ever are taken, it should be with deep
   circumspection and with earnest prayerful-ness--that there be no
   mistake about the matter.

   6. And Abraham said unto him, Beware you that you bring not my son
   there again. He knew that God had called him and his kindred to inherit
   the land of Canaan and, therefore, he was not willing that they should
   go back to their former dwelling places.

   7. The LORD God of Heaven, which took me from my father's house, and
   from the land of my kindred, and which spoke unto me, and that swore
   unto me, saying, Unto your seed will I give this land; He shall send
   His angel before you, and you shall take a wife unto my son from there.
   What simple faith! This was the very glory of Abraham's faith--it was
   so simple, so childlike. It might be many miles to Padan-aram, but it
   does not matter to faith. "My God will send His angel." Oh, we are
   always making difficulties and suggesting hardships, but if our faith
   were in lively exercise, we Would do God's will far more readily! "Who
   are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain."
   Brothers and Sisters, let us be of good heart and of good courage in
   all matters, for doubtless the angel of God will go before us!

   8-11. And' if the woman will not be willing to followyou, then you
   shall be clear from this my oath: only bring not my son there again.
   And the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham, his master,
   and swore to him concerning that matter And the servant took ten camels
   of the camels of his master, and departed; for all the goods of his
   master were in his hand: and he arose and went to Mesopotamia, unto the
   city of Nahor. And he made his camels to kneel down outside the city,
   by a well of water at the time of the evening, even the time that women
   go out to draw water.Now I think I may freely say that this looks
   something like what we call "a wild goose chase." He was to go and find
   a wife for a young man left at home. He knew nothing of the people
   among whom he was to sojourn, but he believed that the angel of God
   would guide him aright. What ought he to do, now he had come near to
   the time when the decision must be made? He should seek counsel of
   God--and observe that he did so!

   12-14. And he said, O LORD God of my master Abraham, Ipray You, send me
   good speed this day, and show kindness unto my master Abraham. Behold,
   Istandhere by the well ofwater, and the daughters ofthe men ofthe city
   come out to draw water And let it come to pass that the damsel to whom
   I shall say, Let down your pitcher, I pray you, that I may drink, and
   she shall say, Drink, and I will give your camels drink, also; let the
   same be she that you have appointed for Your servant Isaac and,
   thereby, shall Iknnow that You have showed kindness unto my master I do
   not know that he is to be imitated in setting a sign to God. Perhaps
   not, but he did his best--he left the matter with God, and a thing is
   always in good hands when it is left with Him. There is a deal of
   wisdom in this sign, however. Why did he not say, "The damsel that
   shall first offer me a drink"? No, she might be a little too forward,
   and a forward woman was not a fit spouse for the good and meditative
   Isaac. He himself was to address her, first, and then she must be
   ready, with all cheerfulness, to do far more than he asks! She was to
   offer him a drink, and draw water for his camels. She would thus not be
   afraid of work, she would be courteous, she would be kind and all these
   meeting in one might show him! And by this test he might very wisely
   discover that she was a fitting woman for Isaac, and might become his
   spouse.

   15. And it came to pass, before he had done speaking No, he did not
   know that promise, "While they are yet speaking I will hear," but God
   keeps His promises before He makes them and, therefore, I am sure He
   will keep them after He has made them!

   15, 16. That, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel, son of
   Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with her pitcher upon her
   shoulder And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither
   had any man known her And she went down to the well, and filled her
   pitcher, and came up. And so on--I need not read the rest of

   the story, because we now find that, through earnest prayer, the good
   servant has been rightly led. We will now turn to another passage where
   we shall have another instance of a difficult case--where another
   person put his case before the Lord--sought guidance and found it.

   1SAMUUEL 30:1-13.

   Verses 1, 2. And it came to pass, when David and his men were come to
   Ziklag on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the south, and
   Ziklag, and smitten Ziklag, and burned it with fire. And had taken the
   women captives, that were therein: they slew not any, either great or
   small, but carried them away, and went on their way. What a singular
   Providence! There was a blood-feud between Amalek and Israel since
   Israel endeavored to exterminate the Amalekites, and it is written,
   "The Lord shall have war with Amalek forever and ever." Yet God holds
   in these tigers and will not let the lions devour their prey!

   3, 4. So David and his men came to the city, and behold, it was burned
   with fire; and their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, were
   taken captives. Then David and the people that were with him lifted up
   their voice and wept, until they had no more power to weep.They were
   tired and weary after a long march with Achish, and then another long
   march home. Oh, how they longed for their couches! How they desired to
   sit down and converse with their wives and their little ones! Tears did
   not seem a sufficient expression for their sorrow, and yet when a
   strong man weeps--a burly warrior like Joab, a rough, coarse man like
   Abishai, or a strong young man like Asahel--there must be deep grief.
   They wept till they had no more power to weep.

   5, 6. And David's two wives were taken captives, Ahinoam the
   Jezreelitess and Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite. AndDavid was
   greatly distressed; for thepeople spoke of stoning him, because the
   soul of all thepeople was grieved, every man for his sons and for his
   daughters. But David encouraged himself in the LORD his God. He had not
   only his own personal sorrow, but that of all his people. And then,
   instead of comforting him, every friend had turned into a foe! His
   house was a heap of ashes--he might have said--"Ahinoam is not, and
   Abigail is not, and my children have You taken away. All these things
   are against me!" But he had more faith than Job, and so he encouraged
   himself in the Lord his God.

   7. And David said to Abiathar, the priest, Ahimelech's son, Ipray you,
   bring me here the ephod. And Abiathar brought there the ephod to David.
   Ah, that's the thing! Bring here the old family Bible! Let us go to
   prayer about it! Down on our knees and tell the Lord the case.

   8. And David inquired ofthe LORD, saying, Shall I pursue after this
   troop? Shall I overtake them? And He answered him, Pursue: for you
   shall surely overtake them, and without fail recover all But it is
   easier said than done! Where are they? How shall they find these fleet
   Amalekites who fly away so rapidly?

   9. 10. So David went, he and the six hundred men that were with him,
   and came to the Brook Besor, where those that were left behind stayed.
   But David pursued, he and four hundred men: for two hundred stayed
   behind, which were so faint that they could not go over the Brook
   Besor. Worse and worse you see! But the case is in God's hands and no
   matter what the circumstances may be, all's well that ends well, and
   God always has the enemy in His hands!

   11-13. And they found an Egyptian in the field, and brought him to
   David, and gave him bread, and he did eat; and they made him drink
   water. And they gave him a piece of a cake of figs, and two clusters of
   raisins: and when he had eaten, his spirit came again to him; for he
   had eaten no bread, nor drunk any water, three days and three nights.
   AndDavid said unto him, To whom do you belong? And from where didyou
   come? Andhe said, Iam a young man ofEgypt, servant to an Amalekite; and
   my master left me, because three days ago I fell sick Shame on his
   master, I say, and yet there are some who stop their men's wages as
   soon as they get a little ill! Shame on them, I say! It might be fit
   for an Amalekite to do this, but certainly not for an Israelite! So
   this young Egyptian tells David all about what they had done. And David
   follows them, kills them with the sword, takes away their plunder and,
   moreover, gets a great spoil to himself, and so the Lord hears the
   voice of David. Now Abraham's servant and David were men in like
   difficulties with us, but they asked guidance of God and received it!
   Let us be sure in every time of difficulty to do the same.

   1 JOHN 1:1-3

   Verse 1. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which
   we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands
   have handled of the Word of life--The fact that Christ was really in
   the flesh, that He was no phantom, no shadow mocking the eyes that
   looked upon Him, is exceedingly important, and hence John (whose style,
   by the way, in this Epistle is precisely like the style which he uses
   in his Gospel)--John begins by declaring that Jesus Christ, the Son of
   God, who in His eternity was from the beginning, was really a
   substantial Man, for he says, "We have heard Him"--hearing is good
   evidence. "Which we have seen with our eyes"--eyesight is good, clear
   evidence certainly. "Which we have looked upon"--this is better still,
   for this imports a deliberate, careful, circumspect gaze. But better
   still, "Which our hands have handled"--for John had leaned his head on
   Jesus Christ's bosom, and his hands had often met the real flesh and
   blood of the living Savior. We need have no doubt about the reality of
   Christ's Incarnation when we have these open eyes and hands to give us
   evidence!

   2. For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness,
   and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was
   manifested unto us. That same eternal Being who is Very God of Very
   God, and is worthy to be called essentially Life, was made flesh and
   dwelt among us, and the Apostles could say, "We beheld His Glory."

   3. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you. See how he
   hammers this nail as if he will drive it fast! How he rings this bell
   that it may toll the death-knell of every doubt!

   3. That you also may have fellowship with us. But John, what is the
   value of fellowship with you, you and your brethren, a parcel of poor
   fishermen? Who wants fellowship with you--hooted, despised, mocked and
   persecuted in every city--who wants fellowship with you?

   3. And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus
   Christ. What a leap from the fisherman to the Father's Throne, from the
   poor, despised son of Zebedee up to the King of Kings! Oh, John, we
   would have fellowship with you now! We will have fellowship with your
   scorn and spitting, that we may have fellowship with you, and with the
   Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.
     __________________________________________________________________

Praise Comely to the Upright

   (No. 3460)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 27, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING JUNE 18,
   1868.

   "Praise is comely for the upright." Psalm 33:1.

   THE Psalmist was full of praise and, therefore, felt that he could not
   fully express the Glory of God, but desired to enlist others in the
   sacred service. You hear him often calling upon sea and land, upon
   earth and Heaven, upon mountain and valley, upon plants and creeping
   things, upon living creatures, upon the heavens and the heavens that
   are above the heavens, to assist him in magnifying the name of the
   Infinite Jehovah, whose praise still exceeds all the honor that can be
   given to Him by all His creatures. Praise has a blessed contagion in
   it. It is like fire--if it burns its way in one place, it will be
   spreading itself if it can. A man cannot praise God alone. There will
   always be within him a high ambition to teach others to take up the
   strain. He will always be longing and desiring to lead others in the
   same sweet employ. Now let us seem to hear across these ages the voices
   of those who are with their God as they cry to us, "Rejoice in the
   Lord, you righteous, for praise is comely to the upright."

   I have taken for a text that one sentence--and I will speak of it under
   four short words which may serve as headings--four words of question.
   The first is--

   I. WHAT?

   What is it which is so comely, so comely to the upright? It is praise,
   the praise Of God! And this praise of God, though it is always the same
   thing, the same spiritual thing produced by the Spirit of God, yet
   takes different forms, and in each form it is still comely to the
   upright. It is so in that delightful form of music in which we express
   with accord, hearts and voices keeping tune together, in the great
   congregation our sense of united adoration. I think there is nothing
   more comely than the sweet songs of the sanctuary, and what our friends
   of the Society of Friends do without singing I scarcely know! I think
   they will have to recant that one thing at least when they enter
   Heaven, for surely they cannot be silent there, where all shall join in
   songs like unto great thunder, and like the mighty rolling of the sea
   in praise of the Infinite Majesty of Him who was slain, but who always
   lives! I think we could not, anyhow, give up our song. We would feel as
   if the Sabbath were shorn of its bloom, as if you had plucked the
   flowers out of the garden of the soul! Our soul must sing, yes, she
   will sing praises unto the Lord! So natural does it seem to the renewed
   heart to join in praise with others, that even when lying in the
   dungeon, after having been beaten sore with stripes, and with their
   feet fast in the stocks, Paul and Silas did not only pray, but they
   sang praises unto God, and praise was comely there! It has been comely
   in many a prison where no one has heard the sound but God. It has been
   comely among the glens of Scotland when the Covenanters lifted up the
   Psalm. It has been comely in nooks and corners of England when
   Puritans, in fear of their lives, nevertheless magnified the name of
   the Lord. It has been comely at the stakes at Smithfield! Comely from
   Anne Askew's lips, when she was on the rack, stretched to the utmost!
   It has been comely anywhere when the voice has poured out itself with
   musical rhythm in the praise of the Most High!

   But there is a second form of vocal praise which is equally comely to
   the upright--the spoken praise of God. I allude to those praises which
   consist of commendation of the name, and Person, and service, and
   goodness of the Lord by private Christians to their fellow men. Think
   not that all praise is gathered up in singing! It is the praise of God
   when the mother tells her child of the goodness of Him who made the
   stars, and who spread the world with flowers. It is praise when the
   young convert tells of the joy of his heart to his companion and bids
   him fly to the Fountain where he has washed and been made clean. It is
   praise, praise of a high order, too, when the advanced Believer in his
   old age tells of the

   faithfulness of God, and how not one good thing has failed of all that
   the Lord God has promised! And while praise seems to sit in such a
   comely manner upon the young convert, so that it seems to be the most
   natural thing in all the world for him to praise, it is equally comely
   in the aged Christian, for he seems to feel that if such a man as he,
   preserved so long, did not praise God, the very stones in the street
   would cry out against him!

   That praise which consists in living, loving, personal testimony to the
   goodness and faithfulness of the Lord is always comely to the upright.
   I wish that some Christians would remember that murmuring is not
   comely. That envying others, that finding fault, that ambition, that
   desiring greater things--that all these are not comely, but the
   speaking well of His name, the testimony to His faithfulness in
   Providence and to His goodness in Grace--this is comely to the upright.

   But the truest praise, perhaps, is that which is not expressed in
   language, because it could not be--meditative praise. I fear there is
   but little of this in London. I am not sure that there is any more of
   it in the country, though there ought to be a great deal more of it in
   both. I mean such praise as this--when, like David, we sit before the
   Lord and think of His exceeding bounty and then say, "What am I, and
   what is my Father's house that You have brought me here?" I mean the
   praise that makes the tear unbidden come to the eyes--not the tear of
   sorrow, but the tear of overwhelming gratitude for the goodness of God,
   so that the soul, without making use of words, seems to say--

   "When all Your mercies, O my God,

   My rising soul surveys,

   Transported with the view,

   I'm lost In wonder, love, and praise." When thoughts become too heavy
   for words to carry them--when they break the backs of words, as it
   were. When "expressive silence," as the poet calls it, has to come to
   the rescue and the man is compelled rather to fall prostrate before the
   Infinite Majesty and goodness than to venture on a sonnet that would
   fall flat in the presence of such emotions!--

   "Words are but air, and tongues but clay,

   But Your compassions are Divine." Where, then, shall it be found
   possible for words and for tongues to worthily express our praise? I am
   sure it would be a very refreshing thing to us all--acceptable to God
   and very blessed to ourselves--if we had more of this quiet praise! It
   would be refreshing if we could get to some of those cool retreats,
   those silent shades that with prayer and praise agree, and seem, by
   God's kind bounty, made for those who would worship Him. Such praise is
   comely to the upright. I like to think of George Herbert and those
   other holy men who led meditative lives walking through the Parsonage
   Garden and up and down by the banks of the brook, singing within
   themselves of their God. It seems to fit them as a beautiful vest that
   is comely upon their shoulders when they are engaged in the meditative
   praise of God!

   But one more remark. Sometimes praise does not even fall into the form
   of meditation, much less of conversation or of song. It becomes--what
   shall I call it?--habitual praise--the spirit of praise. I will
   indicate one or two Brothers and Sisters in this congregation who, if
   it were the depth of winter, would create a smile in my vestry if they
   would but enter it--who, whenever I meet them, their eyes sparkle like
   stars, their lips drop pearls, they never seem to be unhappy, never
   doubting, never distrustful. They are sure to speak every Sabbath
   morning, "We shall have a good day today. There has been much prayer
   about it and God always answers prayer. You will be graciously helped
   through it. Be of good courage." And on Sunday night it is, "This has
   been a good Sunday." In fact, they say they never have anything but
   good Sabbaths! They always seem to be fed and they are always
   rejoicing. And if you talk to them, they are not the youngest people in
   the congregation, perhaps--they may not be the richest, they may not be
   in the best circumstances, but they are always the most cheerful,
   always the most happy and they can say--

   "We would not change our blest estate

   For all the world calls good and great." Now, believe me, I think this
   is most comely to the upright when men or women shall get into the
   spirit of praise so that they shall always be blessing God. Why, it is
   such a beautiful dress to wear that they shine in the family, they
   shine in business, they shine in the church, they shine in the eyes of
   angels who think that they must be angels, too, they have got into such
   an angelic frame of mind! Such a man was Bernard Gilpin, who always
   said "it was all for the best." If it was fair, it was all for the
   best. Or if there had been any rain, it was all for the best. Were it
   hot or were it cold, it was all for the best! Bernard was arrested by
   the Queen's order to be brought to London to be burned, but he said it
   was all for the

   best. The soldiers, knowing of this expression of his, jeered him all
   along the journey with blasphemies, and when his horse fell and he
   broke his leg, they laughed, but he said it was all for the best. He
   was laid upon the road for a surgeon to set his bones, but he said it
   was all for the best, and so it proved to be, for this delayed
   them--and when they got just within sight of London they could hear the
   bells ringing and, on enquiry, they learned that Queen Mary was dead
   and Queen Elizabeth had succeeded--so that Mr. Bernard Gilpin had
   arrived in London just three days too late to be burned--and he was
   quite correct in saying that it was all for the best! But I have no
   doubt that if he had gone to the stake he would have said it was all
   for the beat, and certainly his emancipated spirit, as it left its
   charred ashes behind, would have sung, "Yes, it is all for the best."
   Now that state of heart, not the act of praise, but the spirit of
   praise, in which the soul seems to swim in praise as the fish swims in
   the river, and to bathe and perfume itself with thanksgiving, as Esther
   perfumed herself in Ahasuerus's palace. Such a state of heart as this
   is extremely comely to the upright! That is the answer to the
   question--What? The next question is--

   II. WHY?

   Why is praise so befitting and becoming to the upright? We answer that
   it is so, and you will soon see it, from thenature of things. Wings are
   most becoming to an angel. You would not think of drawing one of those
   spirits that are like flames of fire without giving it wings. What for?
   Why, to mount with, to make him ethereal, to quicken his motions. Well,
   and the Christian without praise would be without his wings! What is he
   to mount with? He does not wish to grovel here below, fond of these
   earthly toys, but how is he to mount? Prayer gives him one wing, but
   praise must give him the other--and when he gets prayer and praise, oh,
   how he seems to leave sublunary things behind and away he flies, borne
   by the strong help of the eternal Spirit up to--

   "Where eternal ages roll, Where solid pleasures never die, And fruits
   immortal feast the soul." Take away the Christian's power of praising
   God and you make him a poor earthworm, bound here with doubts, fears
   and cares. But let him but kindle in his soul the flame that burns in
   Heaven of seraphic love to God and away he mounts!

   Praise is comely to the upright, in the next place, from the office of
   the Believer. When Aaron put on his breastplate, his belt, his ephod
   and his bells, everyone said that the garment was comely to Aaron. It
   would not have been comely to us because we would have no right to wear
   it, but the office of Aaron made it comely to him. You would not think
   it comely if I were to come here to preach to you tonight with a red
   coat on. You would have said, "No, that red coat is exceedingly comely
   to the soldier--it suits him--but it does not suit the minister." Now
   the Christian is a priest and praise is a part of the garment of a
   priest that he must wear. Praise is the employment of a priest.
   Inasmuch as we are kings and priests unto God, it becomes us that we
   should swing that golden censor that is full of thanksgiving, and that
   we should stand before the golden altar and continually offer sacrifice
   and praise acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. It suits our nature and
   suits our office and, therefore, it is comely to the upright.

   Praise is comely to the upright as flowers and fruits are comely to a
   plant. There never was a plant but what the fruit it bore suited it and
   the greatest comeliness to the apple tree in the garden is to see it
   loaded with its wondrous blossoms, the most beautiful things in all the
   world--and then afterwards to see the boughs hanging down with luscious
   fruit! The comeliness of a plant lies in its coming to perfection and
   bearing its fruit. So with Christians. The barren Christian has no
   comeliness, but the comeliness of the Christian, his
   spiritualcomeliness, lies in his bringing forth fruit unto God-- and
   what is this but praise? "Whoever offers praise, glorifies Me," says
   the Lord. Man is made on purpose to glorify God. It is his chief end.
   Then his chief end is comely to him. If he answers his end, he is
   comely to Him who made him, and inasmuch as our chief end is to glorify
   God, praise becomes comely to the upright.

   Once again, praise is comely to the upright as a crown is comely to a
   king. It is his highest honor, his chief dignity. It is one of our
   highest honors to praise God--praise Him that we are His elected, His
   begotten--that we are His redeemed, His sanctified, His preserved
   people. When we get to this, we occupy as high a stand as we well can
   do short of Heaven! And in Heaven I know not if we shall ever seem more
   comely than when we are, with all the hosts of angels, praising and
   magnifying the name of the Lord! When we praise God, we do, as it were,
   put on our crowns, as when they, before the Throne of God, praise God.
   They also come with their crowns, but make it part of their praise to
   take them off, again, with, "Not unto us, not unto us, O Lord, but unto
   Your name be glory!"

   Now, Christian, just treasure up this thought, that praise is comely to
   the upright. There are a great many people in the world who think a
   great deal of their personal appearance. How they will look in that
   mirror! How they will turn that hair again! How they arrange that
   dress! There must not be a pin awry. What does it really matter? After
   you have dressed yourselves as best you may, flies, bees, and insects
   of all kinds still excel you! When you have glorified yourselves to the
   pitch of Solomon, yet you cannot match the lilies--they still excel
   you! But that idea of comeliness ought to be turned into a better
   channel. If I want to make myself comely, why should I not desire to be
   comely in the esteem of those whose opinion is worth the having, and
   comely in the eyes of God? How can this be, then? Well, if I have,
   first of all, been covered with the blood and righteousness of Jesus
   Christ, which are the true beauty of the Christian, then the next thing
   to make me comely is to praise God, to keep His praises continually on
   my lips! If I begin complaining and mourning when I am harshly treated,
   I am, as it were, but scratching my own face! It is not comely to me--I
   am putting on rags! I am soiling my garments. I am pulling off my gold
   rings. I am stripping myself of my ornaments. But if I praise God, then
   I am acting according to my better nature, according to my office--I am
   acting in the most honorable capacity possible and I am answering the
   end for which God made me. Do, therefore, you who want to be thought
   comely, be continually praising God!

   And now, in the third place, another little word to help your memories,
   and that shall be--

   III. WHEN?

   "Praise is comely to the upright." But when? Now-a-days that which is
   comely one day is not comely the next, for the fashions change so
   continually. But let me tell you that the spiritual fashions never
   change, and that which God declares to be comely, today, will be comely
   next year, and comely forever! Praise is never out of fashion, never
   out of season, never out of date. You may praise God and utter even the
   same sentiments as came from the lips of Enoch and there shall be
   nothing stale therein--it shall still be comely. When is it comely for
   Christians to praise God? My answer is always. I must comprehend all
   seasons and all places. It is never uncomely to praise God. When the
   congregation has met and the service has commenced, it is the time to
   lift up the voice unanimously! Oh, it is then comely to the Believer to
   praise the Most High God! If there are but two or three who are met
   together in some lowly schoolroom, or a shed, or a barn, or under the
   forest trees--or half a dozen on the deck of a vessel, or down in the
   cabin or the forecastle--it matters not where, let us pitch our tent
   and sing one of the songs of Zion! Praise is comely to the upright from
   half a dozen in some back-wood settlement, or out in the bush at a
   settler's log hut. Sweet everywhere, it is unacceptable nowhere! Praise
   is comely in all such places when the saints come together. And,
   Brothers and Sisters, praise is comely from the Christian at any
   season. If he wakes in the morning, he sings--

   "Awake! Lift up yourself, my heart And with the angels bear your part,
   Who all night long unwearied sing High praises to the Eternal King."
   His morning praise, glistening with dew, is comely. And if in the night
   watches he tosses restlessly on his bed, why, praise at night again is
   sweet--and so will it be from the Believer if he can then sing the
   praises of the Lord. When you are cracking your whip, you that drive a
   cart in the streets, why, you can sing one of the songs of Zion there!
   There is many a light and frothy song sung there--why should not ours
   be sung, too? It will be comely to the upright. When you are in the
   field digging, plowing, hay making, harvesting. When you good girls are
   at work at the needle, or the sewing machine, or book folding, or
   whatever it is! You mothers, rocking your cradles, or whatever it may
   be--praise will not seem out of place if you are upright in heart.
   Praise will be comely to you on all occasions!

   But there are certain occasions when praise has a peculiar beauty. For
   instance, praise is comely to the upright when you are in poverty. It
   is easy to praise God when you have all you need. Who would not? A dog
   will follow you when you feed him. But to praise God when He takes away
   those gifts that you prize the most--oh, this is comely praise, indeed!
   To say, with Job, "Though He slays me, yet will I trust in Him. Shall
   we receive good from the hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive
   evil?"--that is praise! Let me just say that when we lie upon the bed
   and pain shoots through us, some of us men who are a great deal more
   impatient than women are, do not find it very easy to praise God, then,
   and yet oh, it is blessed when we can tighten the heartstrings at last
   and get them right, and bless the Lord that lives, who will yet bring
   us up from languishing and restore us from the gates of the grave.
   Praise in the midst of bodily pain-- headache, heartache, or any form
   of disease, is very comely to the upright! And to praise God when some
   beloved one on

   whom your heart is set is sickening--that is difficult, but it is very
   comely. To see him on whom all your earthly dependence is fixed,
   sickening and pining, and yet to say, "The Lord's will be done, and
   blessed be His name," oh, 'tis so comely that I do not know that the
   angels in Heaven have, any of them, such a piece of praise, so rich and
   rare as that of the song of resignation when Beloved ones are going!
   And when the earth rattles on the coffin lid of a dear child, or a
   friend, or a beloved wife, then to be able to say, "The Lord gave, and
   the Lord has taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord"--such
   praise as that is very comely to the upright. And when these things
   meet--when deaths, sicknesses and poverty come like many seas meeting
   at one place--let me tell you that the harder it is to sing, the more
   comely it is to do it! There is no music, perhaps, that we relish so
   much as the song of the nightingale, and that is because it sings in
   the night. And there is no praise more acceptable to God than the songs
   of His people in the night when they can praise Him under distress. I
   have read a saying by an old writer that God's birds sing best in
   cages, and so they do when the cages have in them some affliction and
   trial. Then do they pour out their notes sweetly, magnifying the name
   of the Lord! If I am asked, then, when should the Believer praise God,
   I say, especially in the time of trial!

   I may say yet again, that we never praise God, I think, so acceptably
   as when others are blaspheming and profaning His name. For the Believer
   then to venture his testimony in the teeth of all defiance, to thrust
   himself in the way of jeers and sneers for Christ's sake, to bless God
   when others curse Him--this is very comely to a cross-bearer, to a
   servant of Him who laid down His life for His Father's Glory. And in
   times when you come to be slandered and your name is evilly spoken of,
   and your religion is said to be worthless, and your actions
   misrepresented, and your motives misconstrued--it is a grand thing,
   then, to praise God, and say--

   "If on my face, for Your dear name,

   Shame and reproach shall be,

   I'll hail reproach and welcome shame,

   If You remember me." At such times, again, praise is sweet.

   But, Beloved, there is an hour coming when praise will be comeliest of
   all--I mean when this mortal frame shall dissolve and our spirits shall
   be entering upon an unseen world. It is not every Believer that dies
   singing. It is not necessary to his safety that he should do so, but
   oh, it is so comely if he can do it! As it is said to sound very
   sweetly over the water, so certainly over the billows of death the song
   of the triumphant Christian comes with special sweetness! I shall
   always remember with great delight one verse of a hymn which I heard
   from a dying Christian who had become blind just before his death--and
   which has always since been invested in my memory with a melody I never
   heard in it before--

   "And when you see my eye strings break,

   How sweet my minutes roll!

   Mortal paleness on my cheek,

   But glory in my soul!" Ah! it is comely to the upright to be praising
   God when heart and flesh are failing! But I must leave that. I shall
   finish with another little word, and that is-- IV. WHOM?

   Praise is comely--not to everybody--but to the upright. It is a very
   sad reflection that during this week some of the most glorious music
   that ever was composed--some of the noblest words that have ever been
   written, has been sung-- and I do not altogether disapprove of it--but
   sung, I fear, by some who have no part nor lot in what they are
   singing! I refer to Handel's glorious music--the noblest sounds, I
   think, next to the songs of angels, and one of the highest and holiest
   enjoyments of earth to listen to! But there are singers there who know
   nothing of God, or of His praise. It is very sad to think of it, but
   then it is just the same here on Sundays--just the same. You sing, but
   you do not sing. The sound is there, but not the heart in the song. As
   for your professional singing on Sabbath--I believe that that is
   earthly, sensual, outright devilish! We have heard say of our friends
   in America that in some of their churches the choir is so much esteemed
   and so highly esteemed by itself, that if the congregation were to
   sing, they would almost frown upon them to put them out of tune, and
   that there is very little sound of the congregation's singing heard
   compared with those half a dozen perhaps as wicked singers as the music
   halls could find, stuck up there to glorify God by insulting Him! There
   has been a good deal of that done in England, too. Some of our churches
   have gone and picked up people according to their

   www.spurgeongems.org

   5

   sweet voices and have said, "Now you praise God at so much per week."
   But the thing won't do--every conscience is convinced that it is wrong
   and the text utterly condemns it, for praise is comely to the
   upright--it is not comely to anybody else!

   The upright. Did you notice that word? It is a grand word, that word,
   upright. It is not the man who goes out of his way here and there. It
   is not the crooked man. It is the upright man. Nobody praises God like
   the man that stands upright. God will have a straight musical
   instrument--He will not have it crooked. If we are to praise Him, we
   must be upright. And mark, being upright consists in perfect
   independence of all, except God. The upright man does not lean on

   anything else, but stands right straight up. Now when a man says, "I
   would like to be a Christian, but_"--he is not

   upright. "I would be honest, but_"--he is not upright. "I would make a
   profession of religion, but_"--he is not

   upright. He who has two objectives, two ends--who holds with the world
   and holds with God--is not upright and he cannot praise God! But when a
   man has been created anew in Christ Jesus. When he has been taught what
   the right path is and Grace given him to follow it, and who says, "Now,
   come fair or come foul, my trust is in the living God. I would not lie,
   though it were to gain a world. Nor would I cheat, though it were to
   win Heaven itself. I am independent of these things, seeing that God
   has promised that He will never leave me, nor forsake me"--when a man
   thus stands upright, he makes very blessed music--and such us God can
   accept! But your crooked tradesmen, your merchants who can cheat, your
   sneaks, your fraudulent bankrupts and I know not what besides--God
   wants no music out of them! It is no credit to a man to be praised by a
   rogue, and it is no credit to God to be praised by a man who has no
   character. When a man has character and lives up to it as a Christian,
   then it becomes honorable to God to be praised by him. If I heard a bad
   man speak well of God, I would say, "Ah, I do not like that! As a jewel
   of gold set in a swine's snout, so is a good word from such a man as
   that." I am sure, if I lived near any of you, and esteemed your
   character very highly and I heard all the blacklegs in London say what
   a good soul you were, I would begin to ask if you had not done
   something amiss, if you had not done something wrong. Said one of the
   philosophers when he was praised by a bad man, "What have I done wrong
   that I should deserve to be praised by such a man as this?" And when
   ungodly men praise God, we might almost say, "What has God done that
   such an one as this should praise Him?" Praise is not comely to
   such--it does not seem right at all. It is either a mere form without
   life and, consequently, a dead thing that God cannot accept, or else it
   is hypocritical, and God will not accept that. Or else it is a
   downright insult and that is to be avoided above all things! Praise is
   only comely to the upright.

   Then, my dear Friends, are you upright? Have you, first of all, been
   laid flat and brought to the horizontal? If so, then you will soon come
   to the perpendicular! A man must be brought to lie flat before the
   Throne of Grace, confessing his own nothingness. And he must look up to
   the Cross of Christ and rest there, or else he has not yet learned what
   it is to stand upright, for this, alone, can produce stability of
   principle--faith in the living God--and the believing man stands where
   all others fall! Oh, to have this uprightness of heart. If you have it,
   then go and praise God. It is comely to you. Cease not from it, but
   say, in the words of our hymn--

   "I'll praise Him in life, I'll praise Him in death!

   I'll praise Him as long as He lends me breath;

   And say when the death-dew lies cold on my brow,

   'If ever Iloved You, my Jesus, 'tis now.

   Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 130; 1 JOHN 1:4-7.

   PSALM 130.

   Verse 1. Out of the depths have I cried unto You, O LORD. The most
   eminent of God's saints have been in the depths. Therefore, then,
   should I murmur if I have to endure trials? What am I that I should be
   exempt from warfare? How can I expect to win the crown without first
   carrying the Cross? David saw the depths--and so must you and I. But
   David learned to cry to God out of the depths. Learn, therefore, that
   there is no place so deep but prayer can reach from the bottom of it up
   to God and then God's long arm can reach to the bottom and bring us up
   out of the depth! "Out of

   the depths have I cried unto You, O Lord." Do not say, "Out of the
   depths have I talked to my neighbors and sought consolation from my
   friends."--

   "Were half the breath thus vainly spent, To Heaven in supplication
   sent, Your cheerful song would often be, 'Hear what the Lord has done
   for me!'"

   2. Lord, hear my voice: let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my
   supplications. Now a main part of prayer must be occupied by confession
   and the Psalmist proceeds, therefore--

   3. If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?That
   is to say, apart from Christ, if God exercises His justice to its
   utmost severity, the best of men must fall, for the best of man, being
   men at the best, are sinners even at their best estate.

   4. But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared. If there
   were no mercy, there would be no love in any human heart--and there
   would be an end to religion if there were an end to forgiveness! Here
   let us observe that the best of men dare not stand before an absolute
   God, that the holiest of God's saints need to be accepted on the
   footing of a Mediator, to receive forgiveness of sins.

   5. I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait, and in His Word do I hope.
   There is a waiting of expectancy--we believe that He is about to give
   us the mercy, and so we hold out our hand for it. There is a waiting of
   resignation. We know not what God may do, nor when He may appear, but
   we wait. Aaron held his peace--'tis a great virtue to wait for God when
   we know not what He does, but to wait for His explanations and be
   content to go without explanations if He does not choose to give them!

   6. My soul waits for the Lord more than they that watch for the
   morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.And many a
   mariner has watched for the morning with an awful anxiety, for he could
   not know where his vessel was until the day should break. Many a weary
   patient, tossed upon the bed of pain, has waited for the morning,
   saying, "Would God it were morning, for then, perhaps, I might find
   ease." And you know that sometimes the watchers upon the castle top,
   who have to be guarding the ramparts against the adversary by night,
   watch for the morning. So does David's soul watch. Lord, if I may not
   have You, permit me to watch for You. Oh, there is some happiness even
   in waiting for an absent God! I recollect that Rutherford said, "I do
   not see how I can be unhappy, for if Christ will not love me, if He
   will but permit me to love Him, and I feel I cannot help doing that,
   the loving of Him will be Heaven enough for me." Waiting for God is
   sweet, inexpressibly delightful--

   "To those who call, how kind You are, how good to those who seek But
   what to those who find? Ah, this, nor tongue nor pen can show The love
   of Jesus, what it is, none but His loved ones know." Happy are they
   who, having waited patiently, at last behold their God!

   7. 8. Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy,
   and with Him is plenteous redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from
   all his iniquities. He shall do this in a double and perfect way--He
   shall redeem us from the effect of all our iniquities through the
   atoning Sacrifice--and from the presence of all iniquity by His
   sanctifying Spirit. They are without fault before the Throne of God. I
   will purge their blood that I have not cleansed, says the Lord that
   dwells in Zion. May my soul have a part and lot in this precious
   promise!

   1 JOHN 1:4-7.

   4. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full Some
   Christians have joy, but there are only a few drops in the bottom of
   their cup. But the Scriptures were written, and more especially the
   Doctrine of an Incarnate God is revealed to us that our joy may be
   full! Why, if you have nothing else to make you glad, the fact that
   Jesus has become a Brother to you, arrayed in your flesh, should make
   your joy full.

   5. This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare
   unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.Not a
   light, nor the light, though He is both, but that He is Light.
   Scripture uses the term, light, for knowledge, for purity, for
   prosperity, for happiness, and for truth. God is Light, and then in his
   usual style John, who not only tells you a Truth of God, but always
   guards it, adds, "in whom is no darkness at all."

   6. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we
   lie, and do not speak the truth. Mark here, this does not mean walking
   in the darkness of sorrow, for there are many of God's people that walk
   in the darkness of doubts and fears, and yet they have fellowship with
   God. No, they sometimes have fellowship with Christ all the better for
   the darkness of the path along which they walk. But the darkness here
   meant is the darkness of sin, the darkness of lies. If I walk in a lie,
   or walk in sin, and then profess to have fellowship with God, I have
   lied and do not speak the truth.

   7. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light--Not to the same
   degree, but in the same manner.

   7. We have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ,
   His Son, cleanses us from all sin. So you see that when we walk the
   best--when we walk in the light as He is in the light, when our
   fellowship is of the highest order--we still need daily cleansing. It
   does not say--mark this, O my Soul--it does not say, The blood of Jesus
   Christ "cleansed," but, "cleanses." If guilt returns, His power may be
   proved again and again! There is no fear--all my daily slips and
   shortcomings shall be graciously removed by this precious blood. But
   there are some who think they are perfectly sanctified and have no sin.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Welcome Visitor

   (No. 3461)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 3, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And when she had so said, she went her way, and secretly called Mary,
   her sister, saying, The Master is come, and calls foryou. As soon as
   she heard that, she arose quickly, and came unto Him. Now Jesus was not
   yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met Him. The
   Jews who were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw
   Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She
   goes unto the grave to weep there. Then when Mary was come where Jesus
   was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying unto Him, Lord, if
   You had been here, my brother had not died." John 11:28-32.

   IT seems that Martha had heard of Christ's coming, and Mary had not.
   Therefore Martha rose up hastily and went to meet the Master, while
   Mary sat still in the house. From this we gather that genuine Believers
   may, through some unexplained cause, be at the same time in very
   different states of mind. Martha may have heard of the Lord and seen
   the Lord. And Mary, an equally loving heart, not having known of His
   Presence, may, therefore, have missed the privilege of fellowship with
   Him. Who shall say that Martha was better than Mary? Who shall censure
   the one, or approve the other? Now, Beloved, You may be tonight,
   yourselves, though true Believers in Jesus, in different conditions. I
   may have a Martha here whose happiness it is to be in rapt fellowship
   with Christ. You have already gone to Him and told Him of your
   grief--you may have heard His answer to your story and you may have
   been able by faith to say--"I believe that You are the Christ, the Son
   of God, which should come into the world." And you may be full of peace
   and full ofjoy. On the other hand, sitting near you may be a person
   equally gracious as yourself who can get no farther than the cry, "Oh,
   that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come even to His
   seat!" Dear Martha, condemn not Mary. Dear Mary, condemn not yourself!
   Martha, be ready to speak the word of comfort to Mary. Mary, be ready
   to receive that word of comfort and, in obedience to it, rise up
   quickly and, in imitation of your sister, go and cast yourself, as she
   has already done, at the Savior's feet. I must not say, because I have
   not all the joy my brother has, that I am no true child of God.
   Children are equally children in your household, though one is little
   and the other is full grown, and they are equally dear to you, though
   one is sick and the other in good health--though one is quick at his
   letters and another is but a dull scholar. The love of Christ is not
   measured out to us according to our conditions or attainments. He loves
   us irrespective of all these. Jesus loved Martha, and Mary, and
   Lazarus. He loves all His own and they must not judge Him by what they
   feel, nor measure His love by a sense of their own lack of love.

   Hoping that the Lord will now bless the word to all of us who are His
   own people, I shall speak of two things--a visit fromthe Master--a
   visit to the master.

   I. HERE IS A VISIT FROM THE MASTER.

   Martha came and said to Mary, "The Master is come"--or as we might read
   it truly, "The Master is here and calls for you." "The Master is come."
   "The Master is here."

   Beloved Friends who are just now without the present fellowship with
   Christ, which you fondly desire, permit me to whisper this in your
   ear--"The Master is here! The Master is here!" We cannot come round and
   whisper it secretly as Martha did, but take the message, each one of
   you, to yourself--"The Master is here."

   He is here, for He is accustomed to be where His Word is preached with
   sincerity of heart. He is accustomed to be wherever His saints are
   gathered together in His name. We have His own dear word for this--the
   best pledge we can

   have--"Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." We
   have met in His name, we have met for His worship, we have met to
   preach His Gospel--and the Master is here! We are sure He is here, for
   He always keeps His word. He never fails any of His promises!

   He is here, for some of us feel His Presence. Had Mary said to Martha,
   How do you know that the Master is come? she would have answered, "Why
   I have spoken with Him and He has spoken to me." Well, there are some
   among us who can say, "He has spoken to us." Did we not hear Him
   speaking when we were singing that hymn just now?--

   "My God, the spring of all my joys,

   The life of my delights.

   The glory of my brightest days,

   The comfort of my nights." Did not we perceive Him to be near some of
   us, when we were singing--

   "Oh, see how Jesus trusts Himself

   Unto our childish love,

   As though, by His free ways with us,

   Our earnestness to prove"?

   I, for one, did, if none besides! I can bear good witness to you that
   are languishing for His company--"The Master is

   here!"

   And mark, He is here none the less surely because you have not, as yet,
   found it out, for a fact does not depend upon our cognizance of it,
   though our comfort may be materially affected thereby. The Master was
   at Bethany, though Mary had not heard an inkling of the good tidings.
   There she sat, her eyes red with weeping, and her whole soul in the
   grave with her brother Lazarus. Yet Jesus was there for all that. Make
   the case your own--though you may have come here troubled with all the
   week's cares--though while you have been sitting here the thought of
   something that will happen tomorrow has been depressing you--though
   some bodily weakness has been holding you down when you would lift up
   your spirit towards God, yet that does not alter the fact--"the Master
   is come." The Master is here. Oh, there was Mary sighing, "If only
   Christ had been here! Oh, if only Christ would come." And there He was!
   And perhaps you are saying, "Oh, that He were near me!" He is near you
   right now! You sigh for what you have, and pine for that which is near
   you! You think not, like Mary Magdalene, that He stands in this garden.
   You are asking, "Where have you laid Him?" While your joy and comfort
   seem to you dead, He, whose absence you mourn, stands present before
   you! Oh, that He would but open those eyes of yours, or rather that He
   would open your heart, by saying to you, "Mary!" Let Him but speak one
   word right home to you, personally, and you will answer with gladness,
   "Rabboni!" The Master is come here, though you as yet have not
   perceived Him.

   That word, " The Master," has a sweet ring about it. He is the Master.
   He that is come is earth's Master. What are your cares? He can relieve
   them! What are your troubles? He can overcome them and sweep them out
   of the way! The Master has come. "Cast your burden on the Lord: He will
   sustain you." He is Hell's Master. Are you beset with fierce
   temptations and foul insinuations of the arch-fiend? The Master has
   come! Oh, lift your head, you captive daughter of Zion, for your bands
   are broken! The Breaker is come up before them. Their king shall pass
   before them and the Lord on the head of them. He who has come is no
   menial servant, but the right royal Master, Himself. The Master is
   come! What does it matter though your heart now seems cold as a stone
   and your spirit is cast down within you? What if death has set up its
   adamantine throne in your breast? The Master has come and His Presence
   can thaw the ice, dissolve the rock, bring you all the Graces of the
   Spirit and all the blessings of Heaven that your soul can possibly
   require! "The Master is come"--does not that touch your soul and fire
   your passions? Whose Master is He but your own? And what a Master! No
   taskmaster, no slave's master, but such a Master that His absolute
   Sovereignty inspires you with the sweetest confidence, for He binds you
   with the bonds of love and draws you with the cords of a man. Master,
   indeed, is He! Yes, Lord and sole Master of your soul's inmost care if
   you are what you profess to be. The Master whose scepter is the scepter
   of reed which He carried in His hand when He was made a scorn and
   scoffing for you! The Master whose crown is the crown of thorns which
   He wore for your sins when He accomplished your redemption! Your
   Master! You shall call Him no more Baali, but Ishi shall His name be
   called! He is only Master in that same sense in which the tender loving
   husband is the master of the house. Love makes Him supreme, for He is
   Master in the art of love and, therefore, Master of our loving

   hearts. How sweetly does, "My Master," sound! "My Master." Why, if
   nothing else might bestir us to get up and run to meet Him, it should
   be the sound of that blessed word, "The Master is here: the Master has
   come."

   But Martha added--and it is a very weighty addition (may the Holy
   Spirit make application of it to your heart)-- "and calls for you."
   "But is that true?" asks one, "does He call for me?" Dear Brother, dear
   Sister, I know that if I say He does, I shall not speak without His
   guarantee, for when He comes into a congregation, He calls for all His
   own! He speaks, and He says to all whom He loves, "Rise up, my Love, my
   Fair One, and come away." I know He does because love always delights
   in fellowship with the object that is loved! Jesus loved you before the
   earth was! His delights were with the sons of men from old eternity! He
   loved you so well that He could not stay in Heaven without you, so He
   came here to seek you and to save you! And now it gives His heart joy
   to be near you. He says, "Let Me hear your voice. Let Me see your face,
   for sweet is your voice and your countenance is comely." I tell you it
   is Christ's Heaven to hear the voices of His people! It is that for
   which He left Heaven--that He might give them voices with which to
   praise Him. Do you think He loved you so and will live without you? No,
   He calls for you!

   What is His Word, indeed, all through, but a call to His own Beloved to
   come to Him? What are Sabbaths but calls in which He says, "Come away!
   Come away, My Beloved, from the noise and turmoil of the city, and come
   into the quiet places where My sheep lie down and feed"? What are your
   troubles but calls to you in which, with somewhat of harshness as it
   seems to you, but with an inner depth of love, He says, "Away My
   Beloved, from all earthly delights, to find your All in Me"? What is
   the Communion of the Lord's Supper but another call to you, "Come unto
   Me"? The bread which you shall eat, and the wine which you shall
   drink--these are for yourself--but the call which is encompassed by
   them as by symbols, is for each one of you! The Master is here, and
   calls for you--for each one! "Oh, but" says Mary, "my eyes are bleared
   with weeping." He calls for you, you red-eyed mourner! "Yes, but my
   heart is heavy with a sad affliction." He calls for you, you burdened
   sufferer! "Yes, but I have been full of levity all the week and have
   forgotten Him."He calls you that He may cleanse you yet again! "Ah, but
   I have denied Him." What says He but, "Go, and tell My disciples, and
   Peter"? He calls for you, that He may forgive you yet again, and may
   say to you, "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love Me?" I care not who you
   are, if you are one of His, the Master is come and calls for you!

   "Why," says one, "no Christian has spoken to me for a long while." But
   the Master calls for you! "But I seem so solitary in this great
   metropolis, and though I know my Master, I do not know any of His
   people." Never mind His people! The Master is come, and calls for you.
   "Yes, but I think if I am one of His, I must be at the very tail end of
   the catalog, and the last of all." He calls for you--for you. Oh, may
   that Word now come home and may each one feel, "If He calls for me,
   there is such condescension in that call, such tender memories of my
   weakness, such consideration for my distance and my forgetfulness, that
   I will loiter no longer. Is the Master come? Lo, I am ready for Him!
   Does the Master call? Lo, my spirit answers, 'Come, Master, my heart's
   doors are flung wide open! Come and sit on the throne of my heart!
   Enter in and sup with me and I with You, and make this a gladsome
   season of intimate fellowship between my soul and her Lord.'" Turning
   now to our second part, let us talk awhile of--

   II. A VISIT TO THE MASTER.

   It follows on the first as a fit sequence. We never come to Christ till
   Christ comes to us. "Draw me--I will run after You." That is the order.
   It is not, "We will run after You, Lord--draw us." When a soul is
   saying, as we sung in the hymn just now--

   "If You have drawn a thousand times, Oh, draw me yet again"

   --then, Beloved, He is drawing us! When we are praying to be drawn, we
   are being drawn all the while!

   In answer to the Lord's visit, you will notice the conduct of Mary. She
   rose up quickly. She bestirred herself. Oh, let each one of our souls
   now say, "Has the Lord called for me? Why, then, should I loiter or
   linger for a single moment? I will get up this very moment. I will say,
   'My Lord, I have come to You. You have called me, and here I am.'" Oh,
   for Grace to shake off the sorrow that makes some hearts sit still!
   Mary's dear brother was newly laid in the tomb, but she rose up quickly
   to go and meet her Master. Dear Mother, forget for a few minutes that
   dear unburied child still in the house. Forget awhile, dear Husband,
   that sick wife of yours towards whom your heart so naturally flies.
   Forget, Beloved, just now, all that you have suffered, all that you
   expect to suffer, all that you have lost or may be losing. The Master
   is come, and calls for you! Rise up quickly! Let not these things
   constrain you to inactivity of spirit, but rise up, now,

   and, by His Grace, come away from them! Mary bestirred herself. She put
   on her best efforts, that she might not tarry when He called. And then
   she went, we find, just as she was. She rose up quickly, it is said,
   and she went. She came unto Him. No sooner said than done! She arose
   and she came. Well, but should she not have washed her face? Tears add
   but little beauty to the maiden's visage. And that hair of hers, I
   doubt not, all disheveled--might she not have arranged that a little,
   and prepared her dress, and made herself trim for the Lord? Ah, that is
   a temptation for the mass of us--"I cannot expect to have fellowship at
   the Table because I have not come prepared." Brothers and Sisters, you
   ought to have come prepared, but, at the same time, if you have not,
   rise up quickly and come to the Master as you are! The Master had seen
   Mary with tears, before, for He had felt her tears upon His feet. He
   had seen her with disheveled hair before, for she had wiped His feet
   with the hairs of her head! If you are out of order, it is not the
   first time Christ has seen you so. I do not think a mother's love
   depends upon seeing her child in its Sunday clothes. She has seen it, I
   guarantee you, in many a trim in which she would not wish anybody else
   to see it, but she has loved it none the less!

   Come, then, you unprepared one! Come to Him who knows just what you are
   and in what state you are--He will not cast you out--only make brave to
   believe that when Christ calls, His call is a call to come, however
   unfit we may be! And oh, how promptly she left all other comforters to
   come to Christ! There were the Jews that came to comfort her. I dare
   say they did their best, but she did not stay for the Rabbi to finish
   his fine discourse, nor for the first scholar of the Sanhedrim to
   complete that dainty parable by which he hoped to charm her ears and
   reliever her sorrow! She went straight away to the Master, then and
   there! So would I have you forget that there are other
   comforters--forget your joys as well as your griefs--leave all for Him
   and let your soul be only taken up with that Great Master of yours who
   calls for you, for all your faculties, for all your emotions, for all
   your passions, for your entire self! Come right away, by His help, from
   everything else that would absorb any part of your being. Rise up and
   draw near to Him!

   But it seems, Beloved, that when Mary had reached the Master's feet,
   she had done all she could, for it is said that she fell at His feet.
   Ah, you remember she had once kneltat His feet when she washed them.
   She had once satat His feet when she heard His Words. This time she
   fllat His feet. She could neither kneel to do Him service, nor sit to
   pay Him the reverence of a disciple. She fell all but in a swoon, life
   gone from her. She fell at His feet. Never mind, if you are at His
   feet, if you do but fall there! Oh, to die there--it were life itself!
   Once get to Jesus and you may say, like Joab at the altar when Benaiah
   said, "Come away, for Solomon has sent me to slay you." "No," said
   Joab, "but I will die here"--and there at the horns of the altar he
   died! And if we must die, we will die there at His feet! Fall down at
   His feet! Beloved, if you do not feel you have strength for Communion
   tonight, never mind--it does not need any!--

   "Oh, for this no strength have I-- My strength is at His feet to lie."
   Some of us know what it is to be scarcely able to get together two
   consecutive thoughts--not to be able to master a text or lay hold of a
   promise--still we would say, "Though He slays me, yet will I trust in
   Him." We could lie down at the feet that were pierced and feel how
   sweet it is to swoon at the Savior's feet. Only get there! Let your
   will and heart be good to get at Him now, for the Master is here and
   calls for you! Come, though in the coming you should utterly fail to
   get enjoyment, come and fall at His feet!

   Do I hear any of you saying, "Ah, but I have a heavy thought pressing
   at my heart, and if I come to Him, there is not much that I can say in
   His honor. I feel but little love, and gratitude, and joy. I could not
   pour out sweet spikenard from the broken box of my heart." Be it so,
   only pour out what you have! For what did Mary do? She said--and the
   Master did not chide her, though He might have--"Lord, if You had been
   here, my brother had not died." Oh, it was half cruel, for she seemed
   to say, "Why were You not here?" It was unbelieving in part, and yet
   there is a deal of faith in it--a sweet clinging to Him. Martha had
   said the same and it shows how often those two sisters had said to one
   another, "Would God the Master was here." When the brother was very
   sick and near to death, they were saying to one another, "Oh, if we
   could get the Master here!" That had been the great thought with them,
   so they pour it out. Beloved, when you are at Jesus' feet, if you have
   an unbelieving thought, if you have something that half chides Him,
   pour out your heart like water before the Lord--

   "Let us be simple with Him then-- Not backward, stiff, and cold, As
   though our Bethlehem could be What Sinai was of old."

   Tell Him the weakness. Tell Him the suspicion. Tell Him all the sin
   that has been, and all the sin that is haunting you. Tell it all to
   Him--and at His feet is the place to tell it! You will then be eased of
   your burden. Beloved, you know how Mary received consolation. It was a
   great day for her when she got to Christ's feet, and then the Master
   began to do wondrously, and very soon Lazarus was restored! So now,
   your first business, my Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, is to
   get to Jesus! "Oh, but Lazarus is dead." Never mind Lazarus! You get to
   Jesus and He will see to Lazarus! "Oh, but my business fails me." Never
   mind the business just now! Get to Jesus. "Oh, but there is sickness in
   my house." Leave the sickness for awhile now. The one thing is to get
   to Jesus and to His feet! "Oh, but my own heart is not as it should
   be." Forget your own heart, too, and remember Jesus! He is to you all
   that you need! He is made of God, unto you, "wisdom, and righteousness,
   and sanctification, and redemption"--come to Him quickly, and you shall
   have all you need! "Ah," says one, "I cannot bear to think of God, for
   I do not love Him." "Ah," says another, "but I can bear to think of
   Him, for though I did not love Him, He loved me." And now you may say,
   "I cannot bear to think of coming to Jesus, for I do not love Him as I
   should." Ah, but think of Him, for He loves you! His Grace to you is
   boundless! Now let yourself be put aside awhile, and remember this
   "faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus has
   come into the world to save sinners." Come, then, in the strength of
   that!

   I must close by saying a few words to those here whom I have not
   addressed. Perhaps there are some here to whom this message has never
   come--"The Master is come and calls for you." If it were to reach them
   tonight, it would be the first time they ever heard it. O dear Heart, I
   pray it may come to you, that this may be the beginning of days with
   you! The Master has come. This is certain. From the highest Throne in
   Glory to the Manger, to the Cross and to the grave, the Master has
   come! That He calls for you, I think this is also certain. Let me give
   you a text in which, I think, He calls for you. "Whoever will, let Him
   come and take of the water of life freely." "Whomever believes on the
   Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved." Calls He not for you, too, in this
   text, "Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his
   thoughts, and let him turn unto the Lord, for He will have mercy upon
   him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon"? Calls He not for
   you in this verse, where He bids all that labor and are heavy-laden
   come unto Him, that they may rest? Or in that other, "Come now, let us
   reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are as scarlet, they
   shall be as wool; though they are red like crimson, their shall be as
   snow"?

   He calls for you! Believe Him! It is certainly matchless Grace, but He
   is God and none is like He. "As high as the heavens are above the
   earth, so high are His thoughts above your thoughts." But does your
   heart say, "Why, if I thought Jesus called for me, I would come"? Then
   He does call you! That speech of yours, "I would come," proves it! It
   is He that makes you feel willing! Do you long for Him? Oh, He is
   putting His hand in at the door of your heart and making your heart
   yearn for Him! Does a tear drop on the floor, and do you say, "It
   cannot be that such an one as I should ever live and be saved, and be
   Christ's"? Why, your very admiration at His Grace shows that some of
   His Grace is at work upon you. Trust in Him! Trust in Jesus whether you
   sink or swim! Trust that that arm can save! Trust that those pierced
   hands can grasp you! Trust that that Heart that was gashed with a spear
   can feel for you! Trust yourself wholly to Him! "Go your way, your sins
   which are many, are forgiven you." If you have trusted Him, you are
   saved!

   Come and cast yourself at Jesus' feet tonight! Is there no young man
   here to whom this shall be Christ's voice? You say you cannot believe
   and cannot repent--and cannot do anything? Then fall like dead at
   Jesus' feet and look up to Him--to Him, alone, and you shall have life!
   Is there no young woman here burdened in heart, to whom the Savior's
   feet may become a place of refuge from all her fear? I trust there is.
   And if I speak to someone far advanced in years, who imagines that he,
   at least, must be given up by mercy, it is not so! You have but a few
   days more to live, but the Master calls for you! Rise up quickly! May
   tonight witness your forsaking of your sins and your clinging to His
   Cross! And one day you shall see His face in Heaven without a veil
   between!

   The Lord bless you, Beloved, for Christ's sake Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN 16.

   Verse 1. These things have Ispoken unto you, thatyou shouldnot be
   offended. That you should not be scandalized when you are put to
   suffering on My account--that you should not dread the offense of the
   Cross and turn aside because

   of it. How considerate our Master is! It seems as if He might be angry
   at us if He suspected that we could be offended by anything that He did
   or suffered, or that we had to suffer for Him--but He knows the
   weakness of our flesh and, therefore, He speaks with so much
   elaboration of comfort.

   2-4. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yes, the time comes that
   whoever kills you will think that he does God service. And these things
   will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father nor Me.
   But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, you
   may remember that I told you of them. When you meet with rebuke, and
   slander, and jesting, and jeering against you for Christ's sake, He has
   told you of them--

   "Temptation orpain--He has told you no less.

   The heirs of salvation, you know from His Word

   Through much tribulation must follow their Lord."

   4. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was
   with you. While they had His Presence, He was like a wall of fire round
   about them. They did not need to be protected, then, from dangers which
   had not come. And the Lord has not told us yet some of the things which
   He will reveal to us, by-and-by, because the trial has not come. You
   feel as if you could not die at peace just now. You dread death. You
   shall have dying Grace in dying moments! Do not be questioning yourself
   as to whether you have dying Grace now. You do not need it now. You
   shall have it when the time comes!

   5, 6. But now I go My way to Him that sent Me. And none of you asks Me,
   Where are You going? But because I have said these things unto you,
   sorrow has filled your heart.It often happens, that if we were to
   inquire a little more into the sorrow, it would vanish. They did not
   ask Him why He went away. They fretted because He was going. Now He
   tells them to whom He was going.

   7. Nevertheless I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go
   away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but
   if I depart, I will send Him unto you. It is a better thing for us in
   this world to have the Holy Spirit in us than to have the corporeal
   Presence of Christ with us. We are better helped by the Holy Spirit
   than we would have been if Jesus had remained on earth.

   8-12. And when He is come, He willreprove the world ofsin, and of
   righteousness, and of judgment: ofsin, because they believe not on Me:
   of righteousness, because I go to My Father, and you see Me no more; of
   judgment because the prince of this world is judged. I have yet many
   things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now.Partly because
   their sorrow incapacitated them from hearing anymore; partly because
   their spiritual infancy did not permit them, as yet, to learn the
   deeper doctrines which are rather meat for men than milk for babes. O
   you that are teachers of others, imitate the prudence of Jesus! Do not
   teach people too much at once. Do not try to make a little child
   understand all that an advanced and experienced saint knows! Say, as
   your Master did, "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot
   bear them now."

   13, 14. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide
   you into all Truth; for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatever He
   shall hear, that shall He speak; and He will show you things to come.
   He shall glorify Me. Now that is a sure mark of the Holy Spirit! If
   there is any spirit which does not glorify Christ, it is not the Holy
   Spirit! It is not the Comforter. If you hear any Doctrine which
   detracts from the dignity of Christ's Nature, from the glory of
   Christ's Person, from the perfection and the necessity of Christ's
   Sacrifice, you may depend upon it that it is not the Doctrine of God.
   Reject it at once! It may poison you. It cannot build you up. "He shall
   glorify Me."

   14, 15. For He shall receive ofMine, and shall show it unto you. The
   things of the Father are Christ's. We learn them as Christ's. The
   Spirit brings them to us as Christ's and so Christ is glorified and we
   are comforted.

   16-19. A little while, and you shall not see Me: and again, a little
   while, and you shall see Me, because I go to the Father. Then said some
   of His disciples among themselves, What is this that He says unto us, A
   little while, and you shall not see Me: and again, a little while, and
   you shall see Me: and Because I go to the Father? They said therefore,
   What is this that He says, A little while? We cannot tell what He says.
   Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask Him And that is a very
   sweet thing. Sometimes we are afraid to pray. Sometimes we feel as if
   we could not bring ourselves to prayer. But it is so sweet. "Now Jesus
   knew that they were desirous to ask Him." There is the essence of
   prayer in the desire to pray! There is really a request which Jesus
   Christ can read in the heart that longs to make a request and scarcely
   dares do it.

   19, 20. And said unto them, Do you inquire among yourselves of that I
   said, A little while, and you shall not see Me: and again, a little
   while, and you shall see Me? Verily, verily, I say unto you, That you
   shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and you shall be
   sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. Not merely shall
   your sorrow be taken away, but it shall be transformed! As the
   alchemist thought that he turned baser metal into gold, so in very
   truth by a heavenly alchemy does Christ turn the sorrow of His people,
   not in this case only, but in many others, into joy.

   21-24. A Woman when she is in travail, has sorrow, because her hour is
   come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembers no
   more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And you
   now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart
   shall rejoice, and your joy no man takes from you. And in that day you
   shall ask Me nothing. Verily, verily Isay unto you, Whatever you
   shallask the Father in My name, He will give it t o you. Up to now you
   have asked nothing in My name. They had asked so little that it came to
   nothing, and they had not yet learned the art of using His name in
   prayer--and a great many Christians have not learned it either! Often
   they say, and they say very properly, "for Jesus Christ's sake." That
   is good, but there is something better! Suppose a person calls at my
   door and asks me to relieve him, out of love to some friend of mine.
   That is very well. But suppose he says, "I come from that friend of
   yours, and he told me to use his name, and to put whatever you did for
   me to his account. Why, that is a stronger plea altogether! Happy are
   they who know how to use the name, the authority, the claims, the
   rights of Jesus as an argument with which to back their prayers!

   24. Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full.You have got
   some joy, but there is room for more. Brothers and Sisters, has your
   joy ever been full? Full? Could not you be more joyous? Oh, there have
   been times with some of us when we could not be more joyous than we
   were. We have asked, and we have received, and we have been so glad
   that we hardly knew how to live under the blessed delirium of gladness.
   We have seemed to be carried away with an intense delight because God
   has heard our prayers. "That your joy may be full."

   25. These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs. In short,
   parabolic sentences.

   25-27. But the time comes, when Ishall no more speak unto you in
   proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father. At that day you
   shall ask in My name and I say not unto you, that I will pray the
   Father for you: For the Father Himself loves you, because you have
   loved Me, and have believed that I came from God.That is a very
   precious Truth of God! While Jesus does pray the Father for us, yet we
   are not to look upon that as if Christ's prayer made the Father love
   us. No! Not only is it not Christ's prayer that makes the Father love
   us. It is not even Christ's death that makes the Father love us. Often
   do we repeat that verse--

   '''Twas not to make the Father's love Towards His people flame, That
   Jesus, from the realms above, On the kind errand came. 'Twas not the
   pangs that He endured, Nor all the woes He bore, That God's eternal
   love procured, For God was love before."

   It is an exposition and display of the Father's love--and the prayer of
   Christ, though blessedly useful, does not make the Father love us, or
   willing to grant the request. "For the Father Himself loves you."
   Notice the blessed condescension of Christ that He should mention His
   people's virtues. He says to these men that had been with Him, who
   really do not seem as if they had loved Him very much, and certainly
   were not very strong in faith, but were often in such a state of
   unbelief that He had to say, "Where is your faith?" Yet He says, "The
   Father Himself loves you because you have loved Me, and have believed
   that I came from God."

   28-31. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again,
   I leave the world, and go to the Father His disciples said unto Him,
   Lo, now you speak plainly, and speak no proverb. Now are we sure that
   You know all things, and need not that any man should ask You: by this
   we believe that You came forth from God. Jesus answered them, Do you
   now believe?Are you at this moment full of faith? Do not trust
   yourselves. Do not begin to glory in the strength of your faith.

   32. Behold, thee hour comes, yes, is now come, that you shall be
   scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone: and yet I am
   not alone, because the Father is with Me. Oh, you that say you believe
   tonight, beware lest tomorrow you should be scattered in unbelief and
   fear! Whatever faith we have is God's giving, and if it remain with us,
   it will be because God keeps it there! There is not one among us that
   has any faith to spare. We do not know but that the very hour is come,
   even now, that will try us and make us ask whether we have any faith at
   all.

   33. These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me you might have
   peace. In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer: I
   have overcome the world. There is a blessed word of good cheer for us,
   everyone!
     __________________________________________________________________

To the Rescue

   (No. 3462)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive be
   delivered?" Isaiah 49:24

   IN the days when this prophecy was written, there were certain great
   nations of the earth that sought and obtained their wealth, not by
   commerce, but by force--not by fair trading, but by fiercely invading
   their richer neighbors. The Babylonians and the Chaldeans gathered
   together great armies and then pounced upon small territories, such as
   those at Israel and Judea, and carried off all the substance of the
   inhabitants as a prey. When the marauding host, flushed with victory,
   was returning home with its booty, it would have been a very dangerous
   thing to attempt to rescue the spoil. "Shall the prey be taken from the
   mighty?" What a great king has captured and what his mighty hosts have
   fought for-- shall this be taken from them? Where are the warriors that
   have strength and numbers enough to attack the victors as they return
   with the spoil? Sometimes treaties were broken and then the Babylonians
   made that a pretext for taking the people away captive. They were
   "lawful captives," as they had broken certain conditions and made
   themselves subject, according to the articles of war, to be lawfully
   taken prisoners. Now where such is the case, when enraged kings and
   princes have taken cities which have proved traitorous to them, shall
   anybody deliver the prisoners? Who shall step in between the monarch
   and his righteous captive? That is the literal meaning of the verse,
   "Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive be
   delivered?" It was first applicable to the Jewish people. They were
   taken into captivity in Babylon. Shall they ever be set free?

   God declared that they should be delivered, and so they were. In due
   time they came up without price or reward into their own land. God had
   promised it by His Word, and by His Providence He performed it.
   Leaving, however, this primary literal interpretation, we intend to
   draw your attention to the spiritual sense, and to ask the question
   concerning some of you whom it most intimately concerns. If it should
   appear that you are "prisoners," and that, according to the conditions
   of your captivity, you are "lawful captives," you will see and feel the
   urgency of the matter! "Is it possible for you to be set free?" Is
   there any arm that has strength enough to tear off your fetters? We
   will begin by describing--

   I. THE NATURAL CAPTIVITY IN WHICH EVERY UNREGENERATED MAN IS HELD.

   Every creature of Adam born, who has not been saved by Grace, is a
   prisoner to sin. He is a lawful captive to God's Law. His nature is in
   thralldom under the power and dominion of sin, for that nature is evil.
   The man does not sin by accident--he sins because he wills to sin! He
   wishes to do it--he takes delight in it--he casts his heart into it. As
   the fish naturally swims in the stream, so the unconverted man finds
   sin congenial to his depraved instincts. He chooses to do that which is
   evil, and revels therein! He omits to do that which is good, and
   recoils from it. Who shall set free the man whose nature is thus
   enslaved? Moreover, the chains of habit become more and more highly
   riveted on those who indulge their lusts, but never restrain their
   passions. Time was when you hesitated whether to follow the pleasure
   that allured you, or to heed the conscience that would restrain you.
   Then you chose the wrong--and now the Ethiopian might sooner change his
   skin, or the leopard his spots, than you can change your guilty
   propensities--so hard is it for the man accustomed to do evil to learn
   to do well! As well try to reverse the course of the sun, or make the
   waters of Niagara return to their source, or check the north wind in
   its fury, or stop the rising tide, as hope to make men cease from ways
   which by constant repetition and steady accumulation over a long course
   of years have acquired the force of a natural disposition and produced
   an unmistakable type of character! Unhappily, too, custom, of which it
   has been well said that it is the law of fools, gives sanction to vices
   which would otherwise be abhorrent. A man will willingly consent to be
   the slave of sin because his fellow man sins after the same fashion. He
   must do this and that because his neighbors or his comrades do the

   same. Why should he be different? Why should he swim against the
   general current? If others see no harm, feel no compunction and find it
   pleasant sport, why should he not join them? Is it not always more
   lively to follow the multitude? What road is better than the broad road
   where all sorts of good company may be met with? And, brethren, the
   less scrupulous men are, the more self-complacent they become. Mirth,
   it would seem, extracts the venom from sin, and wit can robe ribaldry
   in innocence. But be not deceived! The customs you adopt and the habits
   you cherish combine with the depravity of your own nature to weld a
   chain which the strength of Hercules could not snap--a chain that makes
   the creature an abject slave to the flesh, instead of a liege subject
   of his adorable Creator.

   Each man, according to his own order, has some peculiar chain to bind
   and chafe him. There are aberrations to which the constitution is
   prone. There are temptations to which one's business or employment
   expose him. And there may be entanglements in the social relationships
   and the home circle that involve a heavy bondage. Raging passions,
   restless anxieties and rigorous circumstances carry men far out to sea
   and leave them to the tender mercy of the waves and breakers. They seem
   to be as powerless to resist as the chaff in the wind that blows from
   side to side on the summer threshing floor. Like some bird borne out to
   sea by an impetuous hurricane, they cannot stem the torrent! They are
   hurried away whether they will it or not. But, alas, alas, their will
   concurs! They do not struggle or contend for the right, but where their
   passions bear them, there do they float! 'Tis so with some men. The
   slavery of other men consists in their self-righteousness. They do not
   hold themselves guilty of any crime. They have always acquitted
   themselves to their own satisfaction. As for their transgressions, they
   are trifles! They account themselves as good as their neighbors in all
   respects and in some points better. And because of this, is their
   conceit. Repentance they will not practice! Remission they will not
   seek! In vain the Gospel tells them that they are lost! To them the
   Gospel is a fiction--a thing scarcely consonant with the delicacy of
   their feelings. They will try to find a way to Heaven by their merits!
   Why need they cry, "God be merciful to me, a sinner"? What need for
   them of scalding tears of penitence? What occasion for them to fly to
   the blood of sprinkling to be cleansed? They are not conscious that
   they are foul! Others may say--

   "Black, I to the Fountain fly." But they are not conscious that they
   are black and, therefore, to no fountain will they resort. This is
   another chain and how heavy an one it is! How difficult to take it off!
   Some of the victims of self-flattery are faster bound and harder to set
   free than the most reckless and profligate of their neighbors, with
   whom they would count it an insult to compare them!

   So it was in Christ's days. Publicans and harlots, the dregs of the
   town, the refuse of the population, entered into the Kingdom of God,
   hailed it with joy and were received into it with welcome, while
   Scribes and Pharisees, the upper circle of society, the chief and
   representative men of the synagogue, clogged and bound with their
   self-righteousness, scorned the sinner's hope, refused the Savior-King,
   and perished in their infatuation! And oh, how many are there upon
   whose hearts a willful unbelief lays its icy chains. They ask for
   evidences and proofs, only to rebut them. They are shown signs and
   wonders, but they merely cast discredit on them till their hearts grow
   more callous. No reasons will weigh with them. To give reasons may be
   easy enough for us, but to impart reason to them is difficult. Indeed,
   to furnish motives that would suffice to move their understanding to
   discern Him were a miracle! Cut the ground from under their feet. Let
   them look confused. No, let them acknowledge themselves non-suited--

   "Convince a man against his will, He is of the same opinion still." His
   conversion is as far off as ever. A new difficulty and a fresh dilemma
   will they start. Making sport of matters too weighty to be trifled
   with, they raise another question and argue another point. So perverse
   do they become that they could argue themselves into Hell! At issue
   with their own mercies, they contend with all the might of logic
   against the Cross of Christ. Unwilling to yield obedience to the
   precepts, they cast discredit on the promises of the Gospel. How hard
   it is to rescue men that are thus manacled and fettered, whose heads
   and hearts are alike enslaved! We have known sad cases--and those not
   among the most hopeless--of persons carried away and led a prey to
   despair because they are too guilty in their own apprehensions to
   obtain mercy, therefore they will not repent! Supposing that there can
   be no pardon for them, they sit down in sullen rebellion against
   God--they will not believe in Jesus Christ whom He has sent. Because
   they have sinned so much, therefore they will even sin more! And
   because the disease is so dreadful, they will, therefore, decline to
   adopt the remedy. Oh, miserable souls! To what a plight do such
   arguments reduce you! Yet how many unhap-

   py creatures are subject to such thralldom, we, who have to deal with
   them, find out! And how hard it is to take the prey from the mighty and
   to deliver these lawful captives, we know too well.

   And are not full many of you chained hand and foot--fastened, as it
   were, in the stocks--your spirits so crushed that you cannot move? You
   have forgotten the meaning of spiritual liberty, if you ever had an
   idea of it. By nature, lost, by practice, lost, by custom, led astray,
   by evil habits, bound and fettered, by all manner of vice, enslaved,
   you are under the dominion of Satan! But the worst remains to be told.
   That which aggravates the horror of the situation is this--that such
   persons are lawful captives to the Law of God. They have violated the
   precepts, transgressed the ordinances, offended the Divine
   Majesty--therefore, they must be punished! It is inevitable that every
   offense against God's Law should ensure the penalty due to the
   offender. God will by no means spare the guilty! From Sinai's summit
   there sounds no note of mercy. Justice and judgment hold undisputed
   sway. "Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things that are
   written in the Book of the Law, to do them." That curse falls on
   everyone of us by nature--it leaves us bruised and mangled, and
   incapable of rescue! Who can deliver the man who is God's lawful
   captive? Who can claim exemption for him that has broken God's Law?
   Such is the helpless, hopeless case of the sinner! Believe me, I do not
   overstate it. Though my words may sound rough, they do not fully
   describe the state that you are in, my unconverted Friend. You are in
   such a state, that unless One interpose for you whom I will tell you of
   soon--you will have but a short reprieve! From the haunts of your
   folly, from the scenes of your toil, from the home of your affections,
   you will, before long, be taken to the place where hope will never dawn
   upon you! You are lost--now you are already condemned! If Infinite
   Mercy prevents not, the Pit will soon shut its mouth upon you. Although
   my words were never so weighty, they could not be weighty enough to
   fitly describe your momentous peril! It is not possible for human
   language to set out the horror of an impenitent soul, the terrible
   condition of a sinner at enmity with his God! Oh, you may dress up your
   person, you may make merry and spend your little day in frivolity, but
   you cannot avert the summons that awaits you! Were you wise, you would
   consider this and you would heed the voice that says, "God is angry
   with the wicked every day." Nor would you ever rest till that anger was
   appeased and you were reconciled to God by the only method through
   which reconciliation can be found!

   The more we consider this question before us, the more does the
   hopelessness of finding any answer to it, apart from the Revelation of
   the Gospel, appear "Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the
   lawful captive be delivered?" Answer--no, no, most emphatically no! The
   thing is beyond all human power. Look first at the man, the hapless
   victim-- he has lost the will to be delivered--like you may have seen,
   sometimes, in the Zoological Gardens, a small creature given to a
   voracious serpent for food. The reptile fixes its eyes upon its prey,
   which seems to be quite unconscious of what is coming. Calm, still,
   motionless, it is fascinated--charmed either by the brightness of the
   serpent's eyes, or by some kind of influence unknown to us exercised
   over it--until the monster darts at him and devours him! Even so does
   the unconverted man offer no resistance to the Destroyer! It has been
   said that birds have been so fascinated by serpents as to fly to their
   foe and put themselves within his reach. Who can save the man that is
   determined to venture life and soul upon a hazard that every onlooker
   sees must end in death? Sitting, sometimes, in your little chamber with
   an open window on a summer's evening, you may have watched a moth that
   has dashed into your candle. In vain you have taken it up and put it
   away, but no sooner has it recovered strength enough than it darts back
   again to the flame! You put your hand out and stop it--it is but for a
   little while that you can keep it from its destruction, for it is
   desperately set on mischief and bent on suicide! So it is with man.
   Either with naked overt sin, or else with covert lust and ill pretense,
   he is so besotted and fascinated that he will plunge his soul into
   ruin! Who can deliver the man who resists deliverance? Who can save the
   man who will not avail himself of succor? Can the prey be taken from
   the mighty? Will eloquence avail? It has been tried and it has failed
   over and over again! There was never a soul divorced from his sins by
   the blandishments of rhetoric! You cannot persuade men to give up their
   favorite passions by goodly words. The trembling pathos or the
   withering scorn of your address will prove, alike, unavailing.

   Beza once preached to a heap of stones, and, I doubt not, that the
   result was quite as happy as any that I could anticipate from an
   audience like the present, unless the Spirit of God shall move upon the
   hearts of those who lend their ears. Melancthon thought that he might
   convert everybody by the force of his argument and the fervor of his
   manner, but after a while he said that old Adam was too strong for
   young Melancthon. The devil is not to be driven out of his stronghold
   by music's melting mystic lay, nor yet by the declaimer's subtle art,
   though he is like one that plays well upon an instrument. "Cannot evil
   be dislodged," some will ask, "and cannot the captive be set free by
   sacred rites and ceremonies?" The experiment is attempted in our day
   all over this country! With what success judge you? We are told that
   men can be regenerated by baptism--and we have seen these regenerated
   infants develop into what, to our minds, was nothing more than
   "baptized heathens, washed to deeper stains." All the ceremonies that
   can possibly be practiced, with the sanction of antiquity or the
   invention of modern priestcraft to recommend them, can have no effect
   in changing the bias of the human will, or in renewing the qualities of
   human nature! The disease is too deep and too irritant for the
   prescription to grapple with as a remedy. As well hope to vanquish
   Leviathan with a straw as to drive out the devil with a ceremony! Oh,
   no, the captive is not delivered thus. But could not a man deliver
   himself from his sins if he were to desperately strive? Yes, Brothers
   and Sisters, there is the pinch--that, "iff" Therein--in that,
   "if"--you touch the seat of the delinquency! Men do not, will not,
   cannot strive! They are so held by the morbid vein and malevolent
   propensity of their own nature, and by the fatal obstinacy of their own
   disposition, that they treat the Gospel of the Grace of God with the
   most bitter aversion--and the "if" becomes the master! They do not,
   will not, cannot be induced to strive! What says Christ about it? "You
   will not come unto Me that you might have life." Well, but could not
   they have come if they would? Yes, but there is the rub--they wouldnot
   if they could! "How often would I have gathered your children together
   as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, but you would not."
   There, Sinners, is the pith of the indictment! Were it said you
   couldnot, you might find an excuse, but it is charged against you that
   you willnot, and this is damnable!

   Did man sin by compulsion, I see not how he could be blamed, but since
   his sin is voluntary and he recklessly chooses the evil, clings to it
   and will not give it up, the slavery becomes the more obnoxious! When
   the iron enters into the soul and the man becomes a slave, not merely
   through misfortune, but through very baseness of heart and prostitution
   of his nature till he is ground down to be a serf of Satan and a drudge
   of sin, his wretchedness entitles him to little pity! The man is so far
   sunk that he cannot, will not deliver himself! No others can deliver
   him. Bound hand and foot, the prey of the mighty and the lawful
   captive--oh, Lord, what can be done for him? Do I hear anyone say,
   "Perhaps as he grows older the power of sin will grow weaker"? I have
   heard that suggestion many times but my solemn conviction is that if
   you want the worst of man, you will find them among the oldest of men!
   And if you seek a confirmed criminal, you most generally find him with
   gray hairs upon his head. Have you never noticed in the annals of the
   Church who were the men that fell most grievously? I never read in all
   of God's Book of such instances of foul defection among young Believers
   as I do among the venerable sires whose names have come to be like a
   tower of strength in their generation! The youths were weak and knew
   it--and God kept them. But Lot was an old man when he committed incest,
   even as Noah before him had long years, ripe experience, and rich
   honors on his side when he defiled himself with drunkenness! David was
   far past the prime of life when he coveted Bathsheba and slew Uriah,
   her husband, with the sword of the children of Amman. Peter, when he
   denied his Master, was no raw recruit! His Master had pronounced on him
   high encomiums and endowed him with rich blessings. The fact is, when
   we begin to lean on experience, we grow weak! Temptation, instead of
   getting weaker with our age, gets stronger. The passions which we
   thought would expire when the heat of youth had evaporated, become more
   fierce as we grow more infirm till some lusts are more rampant in those
   who have the least power to gratify them! In whose breast does avarice
   rage with the most unquenchable ardor but in that of the man who is
   lingering on the margin of life, about to quit the world? He, indeed,
   in the course of nature, is the most loath to part with the gold that
   he has scraped together! Portray the miser. Do you not picture to
   yourselves the skeleton with bald scalp, wan visage, and withered
   fists, knocking at death's door? Ah, no, the devil does not release his
   grasp because our eyes wax dim and our senses grow dull. Instead,
   thereof, he seems to hold the victim more tightly. The thralldom of a
   man does not slacken as his vital powers wane. If one passion expires,
   another takes its place. Could we imagine that the power of evil might
   sometimes sleep, we might imagine that the man might escape! Thus we
   read of Giant Despair in the Pilgrims Progress, that in the night
   Christian and Hopeful, when the Giant was taken with a shivering fit,
   made their escape. Yes, but they were children of God, and not mere
   natural men! In the case of the sinner there is no sleeping of the foe.
   The power of evil has the sinner under its control and never refrains
   its dreadful watch. He is held whether he is alone or in public--he is
   watched by night and by day, nor is it possible by accident or
   stratagem that the captive should get free.

   So far the story is all black, and, like Ezekiel's roll, it is written
   within and without with lamentation. Remember, Friend, that while I
   speak to you, it is of you I speak, if you are not a Believer in Jesus!
   Unconverted men and women, to you I address these solemn words of God's
   own Truth! You are the prey of the Mighty, and the captive of God's
   Law!

   Can you be delivered? Can you be redeemed? We now turn to the brighter
   side of our picture--to the more cheerful aspect of our text--

   II. CAN THE PREY BE RESCUED? CAN THE CAPTIVE BE DELIVERED? WE ANSWER,
   HE CAN.

   Yes, Sinner, you can! Your nature can be radically changed. Your habits
   can be snapped. Custom can lose its spell. Your besetting sins can be
   put under your feet and those vices which you now cling to with
   tenacity, you can be made to hate with deepest abhorrence! And this can
   be done for you, done now, done without preparation. But where is He
   that can achieve it? Ah, He is present with us here, though not to be
   seen by the eye--the Holy Spirit of God! Be You worshipped, O most Holy
   Spirit! There is one whom God has been pleased to give to His Church,
   who has the power to enlighten the understanding, to renew the will, to
   change the affections--in a word, to make us "new creature in Christ
   Jesus." That Holy Spirit is God! Know that unless the same God who
   first made Adam and Eve in the Garden comes and makes us new, we can
   never be saved! There must be as great a miracle performed upon you,
   dear Friend, as if you should be killed, put into the grave, and then
   be raised up again to live anew. God must create you a second time! He
   must quicken you in Christ Jesus unto good works! "Is that ever done?"
   asks one. It is often done! There are hundreds here on whom that
   strange transformation has passed, so that they are no longer what they
   were. "Old things have passed away, and all things have become new."
   You cannot work this of yourself. No priest can effect it, but the Holy
   Spirit can produce it. He can complete it NOW, so great is His
   power--so Divine!

   I could give you many living proofs. Memorable, however, is one that
   the New Testament history will not suffer you to doubt. There was Saul,
   the hater of Christ! The persecutor of Christians--a Pharisee,
   desperately resolved to oppose and efface the Christian faith! He had
   hunted out the Brethren in Jerusalem. He had forced them to blaspheme
   by his cruelty. He had obtained letters from the high priest and he was
   on his road to Damascus, saying to himself, "I will harass them. I will
   make these professors of the Christian religion bite their tongues! I
   will scourge them in the Synagogues. I will weary them of trusting in
   the Nazarene." He is proudly on his horse--it is about the noon of
   day--the orange groves of Damascus are just coming into view, when
   suddenly a light brighter than the meridian sun, shines round about
   him! Astonished and blinded, he falls to the ground. Soon a Voice rings
   in his ears, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?" That Voice pierced
   his heart and entered into his understanding. He soon perceived that
   the Christ whom he was persecuting was God's own Son and he quickly
   answered, "Who are You, Lord" To this question the Voice replied, "I am
   Jesus, whom you persecute. It is hard for you to kick against the
   pricks." Thus he found out his mistake! He had been persecuting the
   Christ, the Messiah, ignorantly supposing that he had been hunting down
   an impostor! It was all he needed--he arose, blind, it is true, yet he
   saw more than he ever beheld before! So they led him by the hand and
   brought him into Damascus.

   Oh, what a change had passed over him! What an altered man was he!
   Within three days, Ananias, an obscure Christian Brother, is
   instructing him in the faith and saying to him, "Brother Saul, receive
   your sight." He is baptized, and not many days after you find him in
   the synagogue, not to persecute, but to proselyte! Not to betray the
   saints, but to testify of the Savior! Through all his later life you
   can discern the sincerity of his profession, the fervor of his spirit,
   the unwavering attachment of his soul to the Person of Christ--and the
   steadfast confidence of his faith in the Atonement! "God forbid," he
   says, "that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."
   For Him he could say, "I have suffered the loss of all things, and do
   count them but dung that I may win Christ and be found in Him." A like
   change must be worked in you! It can be worked in you! It has been
   worked in many of us! It can be worked in you at this good hour! "Oh,"
   says one, "I wish it were. What can I do towards it?" I will tell you.
   I spoke of a lawful captive. Now you are in the condition of a lawful
   captive. Since you have broken God's Law, justice demands that
   punishment in full measure should be meted out to you. This is
   inevitable. Every sinner stands accountable for his sins and every
   sinner must receive its due recompense! But listen. Listen to this and
   believe it--God, Himself, in the Person of His dear Son, out of pure
   love to you, came down into this world and He suffered what you ought
   to have suffered! For all who believe in Jesus, Jesus Christ suffered
   the penalty due for them! "What?" says one, "If I trust Jesus Christ to
   save me, do I understand you to say, then, all that is due to me on
   account of sin, Christ has already borne?" I do say that! I say, you
   are immediately forgiven and, henceforth, secure against the wrath of
   God--if you can trust Jesus Christ with your whole heart! Because He
   lived, and loved, and died for such as you are, you are forgiven! God
   loves you! The past is blotted out of His Book.

   "Oh," you say, "is that true?" Most certainly true! Only put your trust
   in Christ, now, and this is true to you. Your sins are gone, your
   iniquities are blotted out!

   Now I think I hear some dear soul say, "Well, I do believe it. Yet I
   can hardly realize it--the mercy seems so great. Oh, what love God must
   have to me! What tender melting pity the dear Son of God must have had
   towards me, that He should give Himself to die for me!" Are you
   favorable to this? Then it is done! You are changed! Already you are
   talking as you did not use to talk--your heart is now towards God, as
   it was not before--the Holy Spirit has blest the story of the love of
   Christ to you, and that love of Christ has been the key that has turned
   your heart right around! Have you believed this with all your heart?
   Then you will be a new man from this time forth! You will not love what
   you loved before. The people of God whom you once despised, you will
   honor, for you will say, "I am one of them! Christ has washed me in His
   blood. I was, I know not what in wickedness, but it is all gone! God
   has blotted out my transgressions. My God is reconciled. His love I
   feel within my heart! Oh, how I repent of all my sins against Him!
   Lord, help me to give up everything that is impure in thought, or word,
   or deed. The dearest thing I have, if it stands against You, O Lord, I
   will renounce it and away with it! Down with you, my sins! Down with
   you, my lusts! Away, you drunkard's cups! Away, far away, be the
   company of the profane and the songs of the lascivious! From this time
   forth, be gone from me!--I cannot bear you any longer! My God has made
   me to love Him because He first loved me! Now, from this day on, I am a
   new creature, pardoned, purified, welcomed, accepted in Christ. Take
   me, Lord! Declare me to be Your own! You have bought me with Your
   blood, anointed me with Your Spirit, acknowledged me as Your child.
   Take me and make use of me to Your Glory. Whether I live or die, may I
   praise Your dear name."

   I recollect hearing an old sailor say, "I have had the devil's black
   flag at my masthead for 60 years, but, by the Grace of God, I have run
   it down, tonight, and I put up the red Cross flag of the Lord Jesus."
   Oh, Holy Spirit, come work this wonder in many hearts! So shall the
   "prey be taken from the mighty, and the lawful captive be delivered."
   Oh, would not some of your neighbors be surprised if you were to go
   home a Christian? Others of you, who have always been moral and
   outwardly religious--were you to declare to your companions the great
   things God has done for you, and show them the reality and power of
   saving Grace--they might laugh at you, and say, "Well, but where have
   you been? You must have been among the Methodists, I should think, and
   learned their cant." How thunderstruck they would be at you! To this
   end is our preaching! May such miracles be worked in the name of Jesus.
   Let the sot become sober, let the churl grow kind, let the covetous man
   be generous, let the careless turn prayerful, let the formalist seek
   after that which is spiritual! Transformations of character like these
   tell their own story! And while the change is transparent, your
   kinsfolk and acquaintances will take care that it fails not to be
   talked about!

   Glory to God! He can break chains of adamant and He often does deliver
   just those very people that we do not think He would take. I believe
   that in Infinite Mercy He often looks round to find out a ringleader.
   There he is! Conspicuous for his vice, proclaiming his own shame! The
   Gospel musket is leveled at him and down he comes! When an officer in
   the devil's army falls there is a great cry! God is glorified, the man
   is saved, and the ranks of the enemy are weakened! Oh, that some such
   might be brought to Christ tonight--some proud formalist, some mere
   churchgoer or chapelgoer, whose whole religion lies in conforming to a
   few paltry sacraments, or in adopting a few Non-Conformist sentiments!
   Oh, that God would strike such an one's heart right through and make
   real heart-work of it with him from this day forth, even forever!

   I do hope, as I beat the recruiting drum, there will be some that will
   come to the standard that have been bold soldiers of the devil, and
   that they will be quite as bold soldiers of Jesus Christ! My heart
   longs to know if it is so! Be not slow at once to tell what Grace has
   done for you, and be not slack afterwards to fight for Him who lived,
   and loved, and died for you!

   God bless the Word to everyone of you for His name's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS 4:1-20.

   Verses 1-3. What shall we say, then, that Abraham our father,
   aspertaining to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham were justified by
   works, he has whereof to glory, but not before God. For what says the
   Scripture? Abraham believed

   God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. He stands as the
   great Father of Believers, and this is the charter given to him, and
   given to all Believers in him. "Abraham believed God, and it was
   counted to him for righteousness."

   4. Now to him that works is the reward not reckoned of Grace, but of
   debt That is to say, to him who hopes to be saved by his works, to whom
   salvation is of merit, he has worked for the reward--has earned it--do
   not talk about Grace in that case!

   5. But to him that works not, but believes on Him that justifies the
   ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. This is the man who
   does not go upon the line of works--who does not rest in his works at
   all, or bring them as a price to God. "His faith is counted for
   righteousness." It is a very wonderful thing that faith should stand in
   the stead of righteousness, and should make righteous all those that
   believe in God by Jesus Christ!

   6-8. Even as David also describes the blessedness of the man unto whom
   God imputes righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose
   iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man
   to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Instead of being a worker, this
   man had been an offender--a sinner. God did not impute it to him. He
   was a Believer, and God imputed righteousness to him on account of his
   faith, and did not impute sin to him. Then comes a very important
   inquiry.

   9. Comes this blessedness, then, upon the circumcision only, or upon
   the uncircumcision also?Is circumcision so necessary that a man is
   justified by faith after he is circumcised, and could not be so
   justified if he were an uncircumcised man?

   9, 10. For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness.
   How was it then reckoned? When he was in circumcision, or in
   uncircumcision?'Look back to the history. See in what condition Abraham
   was when faith was reckoned to him for righteousness. Was it when he
   was in circumcision or in uncircumcision? The answer is--

   10, 11. Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. And he received the
   sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he
   had yet being uncircumcised. But the sign is to follow the thing
   signified. He is, first of all, justified by his faith, and then
   afterwards he receives the token of the Covenant.

   11, That he might be the father of all them that believe, though they
   are not circumcised: that righteousness might be imputed unto them
   also.It is a very remarkable fact. A great many readers of the Book of
   Genesis would never have noticed it if the Holy Spirit had not called
   attention to the fact that father Abraham was justified by his faith
   before he was circumcised! And this is the reason of it--that he might
   be the father of allBelievers, whether they are circumcised or
   uncircumcised. "That righteousness might be imputed to them also."

   12, 13. And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the
   circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our
   father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised. For the promise,
   that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his
   seed, through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith. For the
   law was not even given when that Covenant promise was made! The Law was
   400 years afterwards. The Covenant of Grace was the oldest Covenant of
   all, and it shall stand fast, whatever shall happen.

   14. For if they which are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void. And
   the promise made of none effect. If you are upon that tack of salvation
   by the Law, then what have you to do with faith? And what have you to
   do with promise, and what have you to do with Christ? You are on a
   different line altogether!

   15. Because the Law works wrath: for where no Law is, there is no
   transgression. That is plain enough. You cannot break a law if there is
   not any. And thus, through our sinfulness, the Law becomes a cause of
   sin, and never does it become the cause ofjustification.

   16. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by Grac Salvation is by
   faith, alone, that it may be seen to be of the free favor of God, that
   we may not look to merit or look to human strength, but may look always
   to the abounding mercy of God in Christ Jesus.

   16, 17. To the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to
   that only which is of the Law, but to that also which is of the faith
   of Abraham; who is the father of us all What a God we trust in--a God
   who quickens the dead! We have no faith unless we believe in such a God
   as this. We shall need such a God in order to bring us safely to His
   right hand at last.

   18-20. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the
   father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall
   your seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own
   body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the
   deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise of God
   through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. Men
   seem to think that only workers can give glory to God, but there is
   more glory given to God by one drachma of faith than by a ton of works!
   After all, works usually generate conceit and pride in us. But faith
   lays itself low before its God and gives to Him all the glory. God is
   never more glorified than He is by the believing confidence of His
   people when difficulties seem to come in the way. He was "strong in
   faith, giving glory to God."
     __________________________________________________________________

Why Men Do Not Believe

   (No. 3463)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   OCTOBER 11, 1868.

   "How can you believe, who receive honor one of mother" John 5:46.

   THE Pharisees in our Lord's day were very fond of high-sounding titles.
   They had their diplomas, like our modern doctors of divinity, and they
   took good care to pride themselves upon them. Some were called "Rab,"
   others, "Rabbi," others, "Rabbini." They had their various degrees of
   respect--degrees which signified the respect due to them, and the
   attainments to which they had reached. In fact, they would not listen
   to a teacher unless he came with the title of, "Rab," or, "Rabbi," or,
   "Rabbini." He must be one who had about him a great air of
   self-importance. He must be a witness of himself and that very
   abundantly, too, or else the confraternity of the Scribes and Pharisees
   turned away from him.

   Now our Lord asked no testimonials from anybody. He stood up and spoke
   very simply, but very earnestly, the Truth of God and He did not quote,
   as these old Rabbis did, authors far gone back, one upon another, and
   make glosses upon them. He took the authority derived from God and
   constantly said, "Verily this is the case," and, "Verily I say unto you
   that this other is the case." And when these mighty Scribes and
   Pharisees turned upon their heels and would not receive Him, He replied
   to them, "It was not at all likely that you would. You gentlemen are so
   given to complimentary phrases and to grandiloquent titles, that there
   was no likelihood that you would listen to a Man who came with Truth on
   His lips, and still further, in His heart." Perhaps there could be
   nothing more clear than that the position which the Scribes and
   Pharisees occupied was most dangerous. They were prejudiced. They
   considered that they had the key of knowledge. They already knew by
   far, too much to be taught anything more and, consequently, while
   publicans and harlots heard Christ and rejoiced to listen to Him, out
   of all those who were continually caviling and finding fault, how few
   ever won the blessing!

   Now this is an illustration of a general rule upon which I wish to
   speak tonight. The moral character has a great effect upon the faith.
   These men, through being proud, stilted and fond of titles, were unable
   to believe in Christ--but there are other faults more common than these
   which effectually prevent men from becoming the disciples of our
   blessed Master. Of some of these I intend to speak this evening. And
   when I have done so, I shall have a few words to address to the
   individuals here who cannot believe in Christ because there is a
   something within their hearts that very effectually prevents their
   coming to the faith of God's elect. First, then, it is very clear
   that--

   I. IT IS NOT BECAUSE A TRUTH IS PLAIN THAT, THEREFORE, ALL MEN SEE IT.

   There are some men in such a condition of mind, of such a blinding
   sort, that even if the Truth of God could be still more plain, it would
   be the most unlikely thing in all the world that they would receive it!
   We will suppose for a moment that teetotalism is based upon the surest
   Truth of God and cannot, for a moment, be disputed. Some earnest
   Brother is endeavoring to convince a man. He belabors him with the most
   potent arguments--he brings before him the most astonishing facts and
   some of those wonderful "statistics" which the more we look at, the
   less we believe! And after bringing all these to bear upon the man, he
   is still unmoved. You are surprised, but somebody whispers in your ear,
   "He owns a gin palace," and now you are not surprised at all! It would
   be a very unlikely thing that he should be convinced of the propriety
   of total abstinence while he, himself, gets his gain by selling the
   pernicious evils! But take another case of the same sort. A young
   gentleman, in conversation with a bishop, was endeavoring to show his
   lordship the unscriptural character of the Episcopal body as now held
   in the Church of England. His lordship was observed to smile and when
   he was asked the reason, he replied, "Why, I wonder at the courage of
   this young gentleman that he should imagine he could ever convince me
   out of 3,000 a year!" And, indeed, it was not very likely that he would
   be converted from the errors of Episcopacy, if these are errors, any
   more than our friend of the gin palace was likely to be converted to
   anti-alcoholic

   principles! There is a something in both instances about the position
   of the men which renders them, probably, impervious to the Truth of
   God! These two illustrations just bring that point before your mind's
   eye.

   Now there are some men who do not believe in Jesus. They have godly
   parents. They have lived to see others who have believed and though,
   perhaps, they have never been quite able to cast away the recollections
   of their early days, yet for all that, they are almost and would be
   quite infidels if it were not for a slender thread which is still held
   in the hands of God. Now the question comes to us--Why are not these
   people Believers? Under so many good influences, why are they not
   decidedly Believers in Christ? The answer may be found by the light of
   the Truth which I have brought to your minds. There may be a something
   about their characters which renders it impossible for them to be
   Believers in Christ, no, which even reflects credit upon the Gospel of
   Jesus, that they should not be able to believe it, for if, being as
   they are, they could receive it, it might prove that Gospel to be a
   thing devoid of the power of God!

   Let me just mention some of the things which effectually prevent men
   from believing in Christ, and one is a self-righteous idea of one's
   self. Exceedingly common, this! The man thinks that he is not as other
   men are and though he does not say so, he is rather proud of himself.
   Though he is so humble as not to say it, yet at the bottom of his heart
   he is convinced that nobody is worthy of greater respect than he is! He
   has been scrupulously honest and has brought up his family, to the best
   of his knowledge, in the ways of integrity. He is a good fellow,
   generous to the poor and if he should have a fault or two, yet who has
   not his faults? As for himself, if the world were picked, he would at
   least take his place somewhere near the first! Now you cannot expect
   thatman to believe the Gospel, for that Gospel tells him that he is
   fallen, that his sins have been so many that God has condemned him
   forever, that he must escape from that condemnation or, if not, he must
   sink forever into misery and that for him there is no salvation except
   upon the footing of pure Grace apart from merit! The Gospel denies that
   he has any merit. It pulls off from him all those finely woven raiments
   of his, in which he boasted himself, and makes him stand naked before
   the bar of God--and the man does not like that. "No," he says, "I will
   not be treated so! The Gospel gives me so ill a character that I will
   take my chances and not believe the Gospel, but still hope to be saved
   by my own natural goodness."

   Well, dear Hearer, if this is your case, I should not advise you to run
   the risk, for if you are to look at yourself, you will find many
   omissions and, above all, this glaring omission--that you have not
   loved the God who made you and you have not served Him! He supplies you
   with life, but you do not reverence Him. If it had not been for His
   will, you had long ago been among the dust that sleeps in the grave, or
   among the lost that howl in the Pit and yet, despite His long-suffering
   goodness, you have not thanked Him, but gracelessly gone up and down
   the world with no more thought of your Maker than the brute that dies
   and so comes to its end! I do pray you look at yourself in the light of
   God's Law, that spiritual Law which judges your thoughts and which
   comes home to your imaginations. What if your outward life is pure, yet
   can you stand such a test as that? You know you cannot! Believe not,
   then, yourself to be rich and increased, for you are poor, you are
   penniless in the Presence of God. Oh, that you could feel this! Then
   would you come to Jesus and put your trust in Him, but, alas, this
   self-righteousness of yours is that which holds you back from Christ.
   How can you believe while you take honor to yourselves and flatter
   yourselves? You must be humbled! You must be brought low, or else faith
   in Christ can never reside in your bosom.

   A second remark may come closer home to others, and I do desire to come
   very close home to you. There are men who never will believe in Jesus
   because their very idea of religion is a mistake. You ask them what
   their religion is and, if they spoke very plainly, they would say that
   they like good music, excellent music, and they like the best of
   architecture, and they like floral decorations, and they like
   millinery, and some of them like images on altars, and I know not what
   other devout and admirable things besides! They take religion to be
   simply the indulgence of their tastes, the pleasing of the eyes, the
   gratification of the senses and, if they can sit while the pealing
   organ pours forth floods of music and they are charmed thereby, they
   call that adoration! True, as excellent music might be heard at the
   theater or the opera, but that would be an abomination! The ears are
   tickled with the same sounds, precisely the same, and yet in the one
   case it is sin, and in the other case it is holiness! I confess I
   cannot quite see the difference--I can perceive none whatever! The
   gratification of the senses, of the ears and the eyes cannot be
   devotion! It is for the heart to draw near to God! It is to learn that
   God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit
   and in truth. It is to learn that the broken heart is the best
   sacrifice, that the tears stealing down the cheek is that which is
   received by the great Father who is in Heaven. That to come humbly and
   confess our sins, to come with lowly reverence and trust in the great
   Lamb of God is acceptable worship, not the mere chanting or singing of
   the lips, or the bending of the knees, or the joining in a liturgical
   service--but for the inner man to bow itself before the unseen God--the
   vital part of our nature to come into contact with Him who lives and
   who hears prayer! Now, you cannot expect a man who has imbibed his
   notions of religion from a

   thing that is theatrical and full of show, to accept the simple
   teaching of Jesus Christ. How can they believe while they are duped by
   these gewgaws? How can they believe in Jesus while they are taken up
   with these mere externals, these fancies, these sweet perfumes and
   sounds which can never be acceptable to the great God who is in Heaven?
   There is something greater, something deeper about salvation than this!

   There are not many here who will come under that head, but they will
   come under another. There are many who cannot believe in Jesus
   because--now let them themselves estimate the force of this--they
   cannot believe in Jesus because they have a besetting sin that they
   cannot give up! There is the bottom of most men's doubt! They would not
   doubt if they did not sin. If they could have their sins and be
   Believers, they would be Believers fast enough, but there is that
   company that must be given up, that company which, instead of
   sanctifying the soul, depraves it. There are those amusements which are
   not merely recreations which might invigorate the jaded mind, but which
   are, in truth, a sort of debauchery which turns aside the mind from its
   true force and vigor. Oh, how many things there are in this great
   London that we know nothing of, and which it were better not to know,
   which are the secret source of the doubts and skepticism that come up
   on the surface of society! It were a very curious thing to follow these
   men home, to follow those home, I say, who say they doubt this and
   doubt that! Yes, when you see them drunk, you do not wonder that they
   doubt a sober Gospel-- it were a pity but what they did. When you see
   them cheat, you do not wonder that they doubt an honest Gospel--it were
   a great pity that they should believe it! When you hear them swear, you
   do not wonder that they doubt a sacred Gospel! Why, to keep up any
   appearance of consistency, not to say, sanity, they must doubt it!
   There is a kind of honesty about this professed doubt which I like, for
   it is better for a man to doubt those things which contradict his life
   than that he should be such a damnable hypocrite as to pretend to
   believe in them--better than that he should stand to them in theory,
   and yet deny them in his life!

   But to return to the subject, there lies the secret spring that makes
   up the non-belief in Jesus in many hearts. It is because they feel that
   His service is too hard, and exacts too much, too great a self-denial,
   too much of coming out from the world, and so they cannot believe in
   Him. And yet Jesus asks us to give up nothing that is really for our
   good. Jesus, I say, takes away from us no pleasure that is a true
   pleasure, no enjoyment that exalts the mind or that makes a man truly
   blessed. 'Tis true He takes away that poisoned cup. Who would permit
   you to drink it who had a care for you? 'Tis true He takes away from
   you that dagger of sin, that poisoned viper that is only nestling in
   your bosom to destroy you! Who that loved you would let you have these
   dangerous things about you? Jesus Christ asks us only for such
   self-denial as shall promote our everlasting welfare. Ah, men and
   women, you will find your sins won't pay you when you come to die--and
   I suppose you intend to do that. I hope you think not that you shall
   live forever! Then that little drink will seem sour enough when you
   come to leave it for the last time. Then the giddy merriment of this
   world will seem foolishness enough when the curtain begins to be drawn
   and you look from side to side on the river of death into an eternity
   that is dark, unlit by a single star of hope! You know that you will
   not perish like brutes. You know, for God has put a trembling
   conscience within you, that you will start upon a voyage that is never
   to end! Oh, Sirs, how is it that you thus wreck your vessels for a
   little joy, and for a paltry pleasure give up the welfare of your souls
   forever?

   There are some men, too, who are kept from believing in Jesus Christ
   because they are lovers of gain. How could they believe in Jesus when
   their whole life is spent in money-grabbing? Mammon, "the least erect
   of spirits," says Milton, but he is the god of London! Does not Mammon
   rule and reign abundantly, and do not men fall down and say their
   prayers to him?" All hail, thrice glorious Mammon! Fill our pockets
   full and help us to blow out our bubble-companies and cheat the
   public!" Are not these the prayers offered by many? Yes, and among you
   in sober trade, how many spend their whole lives in getting and
   scraping for themselves alone--no consideration for the Church of
   Christ, or for the poor and needy, but only for themselves? Now when
   Christ comes and says, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon Earth,
   where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal;
   but lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor
   rust corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal," you do
   not wonder that they do not like that. "No," they say, "it is contrary
   to social economics!" When He tells them that this world will pass
   away, and the fashion of it, and bids them seek another and a better
   portion, where things endure without end, they will not have it. This
   world is quite enough for them and they are gone from Christ. How can
   they believe in Him if they live for gain?

   So, too, there are some others who never can believe in Jesus because
   they are so downright cowardly that it would be very difficult for them
   to believe in anything which involves the slightest oppositions. Yes,
   many a man and many a woman has been influenced by that mean thought,
   "I would be laughed at. I would be ridiculed if I became a real
   Believer

   in Jesus Christ. Why, how could I meet my old companions? What would
   they say to me if they heard that I had become a saint? How could I
   stand the sneers of the commercial room? How could I run the gauntlet
   down that long workshop where all the benches are?" "How," says the
   young woman, "could I have it known in that book-folding room that I
   have been baptized?" And among your upper circles it is just the same.
   How men are afraid of one another, afraid of poor worms, afraid of poor
   sinners like themselves who shall wither before the face of the
   terrible Judge of all the earth! Oh, that men should be so afraid of
   men, and not afraid of God, that they will consent to be His enemies
   and lose His good opinion! The good opinion of a drunk or of an arrant
   fool is thought to be of more weight to them than the good opinion of
   their God! Sirs, I scarcely like to talk to you on this subject because
   it is not manly for you to be ashamed of your convictions. If you do
   love Christ, say so, and if the world hisses, what does it matter to
   you, as long as you get Christ's smile? Are we the sons of those brave
   old sires who at Edgehill met sword with sword and feared not? What
   have we to do to cringe before the world's frown, or to court its
   smile? God grant it may be otherwise, and may you rise into the full
   stature of spiritual manhood and be not ashamed to follow Jesus through
   good report and through ill-report.

   Now I might enlarge, but I shall not. You clearly see that there are
   many moral faults which keep men back from believing in Jesus. Now
   for--

   II. A FEW PLAIN, EARNEST WORDS WITH THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE NOT BELIEVED.

   There have been many arguments which have been used at different times
   to bring over the skeptical to the faith. I will just tell you what has
   often strengthened my own mind, so that, my dear Friends, if God
   inclines you to overcome the moral difficulty, you may not have a
   mental difficulty. In the first place, the Doctrine that we are called
   upon to be-lieveis, that having sinned we are condemned, but that God,
   full of mercy, had pity upon us and that His Son, God Himself, came
   down on earth to suffer what was due on account of our sins. In order
   that the Justice of God might not even seemto be robbed of its due,
   Jesus, God's only-begotten Son--

   "Bore that we might never bear His Father's righteous ire."

   Now I have turned that over, and it looks to me as if it must be true
   because I cannot conceive where else it came from but from the realm of
   facts. A God condescending to bleed and die for His own enemies out of
   respect to Justice, and moved by love--where in all heathen mythology
   is there anything like it? Where have the most refined of men ever hit
   upon anything that at all approaches to it? Their gods are usually
   lustful and the highest honors of their gods are crimsoned with blood.
   But if this is not true, it ought to be, for it is the grandest
   conception that ever flashed upon the human mind! The superlatively
   Just, the superlatively Great must suffer sooner than that His creature
   should suffer, and sooner than that the laws of His Kingdom should for
   a moment be dishonored? I do not know how it is, but I never need
   arguments about it, myself. It seems to me so plainly a Divine thing,
   so standing out of all conceptions of poetry, so distinctly rising out
   of all the realms of philosophy that it must be true!

   Then, again, another thing which often helps me is this--ever since I
   have trusted in the Son of God to save me, I have been conscious of a
   very remarkable change that has passed over my entire nature. Now I
   desire to speak very soberly and I claim to be believed. I have as good
   a claim to be believed as any other man. I do not wish to distort the
   truth, but now this I know, I look up to the starlit sky at night and I
   think, "The God who made this great universe and orders it all, I
   really love. I would not do a thing contrary to His will if it were not
   for my poor infirmities. I would do and I would wish to be whatever
   that great invisible God would wish me to do and to be. I feel I
   would." Now I know there was a time when I did not think about Him at
   all, or if I did, I never could say, "I am reconciled to Him. I am one
   with Him. His will is my will and I desire to do whatever He bids me
   do." Now I know that that same thing that has made me love God has made
   me desire to be truthful, to be honest, to be kind, to be generous--and
   when I have not done right, I feel a pricking within my heart that I
   did not feel once, so that I do know that there is set up in me a
   wonderful standard which was not there before. Now a thing that makes
   me love God and makes me live and feel so, cannot be a lie! If so, it
   is a very wonderful kind of lie which produces holiness and goodness.
   And indeed, my Brothers and Sisters, if you would try this for
   yourself, you would get the same evidence--it would produce in you the
   same change. There would be your old nature, and you would have to
   grapple with it, to your own shame and sorrow, but still there would be
   a new nature with better desires and feelings--and with this new nature
   within me I am convinced, for myself at any rate--that this thing is
   true.

   Moreover, knowing a great many of those who have believed in Jesus, I
   am obliged to say of them that they are all imperfect--I wish they were
   not. I wish they were what God Himself is for purity, and gentleness,
   and love--but for all that, if I had to pick the people I should like
   to live with, I would choose them. And with all their faults, I am
   persuaded

   that you would sooner have the world full of them than you would of any
   other sort. If you were going down a dark lane tonight, and you did not
   know what sort of people were going along it, I would be bound to say
   it would be a wonderful consolation to you to be told that they were
   Believers in Christ--you would feel pretty safe, and though there are
   professors, rotten professors who are a very stench both to the Church
   and to the world--it is but natural that there should be hypocrites.
   There never was a good thing in the world but what people did make
   shams of it. When people say, "They are all hypocrites," I say, "Then I
   suppose all our sovereigns are bad ones." Why, if there were no good
   sovereigns, people would not make bad ones, for it is the good ones
   that pass off the bad ones! And if there were not some real, genuine
   children of God, people would not pretend to be so--it would not pay!
   It is because the world, after all, knows that faith in God makes men
   happier and nobler, that men make pretense of having what they have
   not! Now when I see the effects of the Gospel upon God's people, making
   than patient under pain, joyful in the hour of trouble, making them
   pray to God and receive answers as indisputable facts, I am able to
   receive Jehovah's Word and believe the Gospel of Jesus as sent from
   God.

   Now a word with regard to you, dear Friend, who are still a doubter. We
   are driven to believe two things about you and about everybody like
   you, namely, that you will never come to know Christ unless the Holy
   Spirit deals with you, for all the arguments in the world do not
   convince the human heart unless the Spirit of all Grace shall come and
   change the nature! And we believe another thing of you, that you must
   first give up that belief in yourself before you are ever likely to
   believe in Jesus. How simple it all seems! God has punished Jesus, His
   dear Son, instead of those who trust Him. Those who trust Him are
   forgiven. That trust, that sense of forgiveness operates upon the mind,
   leads the mind to gratitude, influences it to love. The man loves God,
   chooses what he once rejected, and runs now in the ways of God which
   were once tedious to him. There is the whole theory of salvation and
   the experimentally acting out of it. It does seem to me hard that you
   turn from it. If it were a Gospel full of superstitions, like Roman
   Catholic teachings--if we asked you to believe in certain miracles that
   were so strange, so weird that you could not conceive them to be true,
   I could well excuse your unbelief! But when it is simply to trust the
   Incarnate God who did hang on Calvary and bleed for sinners, a thing
   which looks so true, and which to tens of thousands has been proved to
   be true in their lives and in their hearts--oh, I would that you would
   doubt no longer, but close in with Christ and find safety in Him! These
   reflections will do to close with, namely, that--

   III. IF WE DO NOT BELIEVE IN JESUS, OUR NON-BELIEF WILL NOT CHANGE THE
   FACTS.

   If a man says, "I am no sinner," he remains a sinner. If he says, "I do
   not believe that God will punish sin," the punishment will be just as
   sure. If he says, "There is no hereafter," the future will not end for
   him. If he shall doubt as to the punishment of the wicked, his
   skepticism shall not mitigate God's wrath. The facts remain. Oh, think
   not, when you have blotted out your own recollection, that you have
   blotted out God's determination! There it stands.

   And then think again--those facts are coming nearer every hour. We
   shall soon be into another year. How these years do fly! How the
   multitudes of men fly, too! They were dying last year when the
   snowflakes fell upon their tombs. They died while the sweet flowers
   were blossoming from the sod as though to remind us of resurrection.
   They fell when the mower's scythe laid the grass in the net--and they
   are dying now--dying fast while the sere leaves are descending and
   heaping up their sepulchers. How is it that we presume that we shall
   not die? Persons well a week ago are gone, and our own hearts are
   merely like muffled drums which beat sad funeral marches to the tomb,
   and here are still the facts-- the fact of sin and a tortured
   conscience! The fact of punishment and no forgiveness! The fact of
   eternity and no hope! The fact of Hell and no escape! Oh, you who have
   doubted, if you push these off by your doubting, let alone annihilating
   them, there might be some excuse for you--but they come! They come like
   some huge express train thundering down the line, and there are you,
   like children playing on the tracks, and you tell us that your games
   are full of merriment and there is time enough, and you will think
   about it! Or you do not believe the express is coming, though there it
   is with its great red eyes and its great mouth of fire, and it comes
   rushing on and crushing everything that shall be in its pathway! Fly,
   in God's name, Man! This may be the last hour you may have in which to
   fly! Think not that you can postpone it, or that you can stop it. Over
   you with a crash will the Divine vengeance come! He shall tear you in
   pieces and there shall be none to deliver you. But this is not yet! And
   meanwhile be wise and escape! Lay hold on eternal fife. Trust Jesus and
   the Infinite Mercy of God shall blot out the past and secure the future
   and you shall be saved in Christ Jesus with an everlasting salvation!

   I talk thus somewhat strongly because I feel strongly, and I often
   puzzle myself with this question--why do I feel concerned about some of
   your souls when you are not concerned about them at all? Why, you came
   and heard me to-

   night, and it only seems like a little kind of music. Well, it may be
   sport to you, but it is none to me! I have to answer for this, and if I
   speak not so that you understand, and speak not earnestly, I know I
   shall have to account to my Master! I would not be some that occupy the
   pulpit for all the worlds that God ever made if they were threaded on
   one string! To get a sermon and read it coldly, to read out statements
   which do not concern your hearers and deliver them as if it did not
   matter whether they were true or not--to be an iceberg in the midst of
   an assembly--how will God call us to account if such is our way of
   ministry! But I beseech you, men and women, if you have not believed in
   Christ, to remember that that is the only door of safety according to
   God's own Revelation. "Other foundation can no man lay than that which
   is laid, Jesus Christ, the Righteous." To deny Him, to neglect Him, is
   to perish! To trust Him, to accept Him, is to be saved! May God's
   blessed Spirit move you to trust Him this very night, and as there will
   be on earth, so will there be joy in Heaven, and God's shall be the
   Glory world without end! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN3:1-21.

   We can scarcely find a Chapter in which the Gospel lies so compact and
   so plainly stated.

   1. There was a man of the Pharisees, namedNicodemus, a ruler of the
   Jews. Christ's door is open at all hours. You may come to Christ by
   day. You may come to Christ by night. There is never a time when Christ
   is not home. He that seeks finds, and, to him that knocks, it shall be
   opened. "The same came to Jesus by night." Perhaps he was timid. It is
   just as likely that he was prudent and did not wish to commit himself
   till he had seen what it was that Jesus taught. Perhaps, too, he was
   busy and had no time except at night. Better come at night than not
   come at all! "The same came to Jesus by night."

   2. The same came to Jesus by night, 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. The miracles were accepted as a
   proof of Christ's mission, and if they do not seem to be such a proof
   to us at this distance, they were a most marvelous and necessary proof
   at the first. Perhaps they have ceased because that first work being
   done, the testimony can now stand upon its own strength, and men
   reading it may judge it to be of God if they will. But to Nicodemus it
   was quite clear that Christ could not have worked His miracles, except
   God were with Him.

   3. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
   Except a man is born-again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.Here is a
   greater miracle than I have worked in the outside world. Here is a
   spiritual miracle. This is what you must receive as well as others. You
   cannot even understand My Kingdom, and know what it means--you cannot
   see it, except you are born-again.

   4. 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?Thus do
   men interpret Christ's figures literally, and this has been the basis
   of much mischief and false doctrines. When He is using metaphors to
   make the thing plain, they straightway use the metaphor rather as a
   cloak to hide the meaning than as a glass through which to see it! This
   is the reason why the false doctrine of transubstantiation has come up.
   Because our Savior said, "This is My body," men have not been able to
   understand that He meant, "This representsmy body. This is a figure."
   Truly "the letter kills." It is the inner spirit that gives life.

   5. Jesus answered, Verily, verily, Isay unto you, Except a man be born
   ofwater and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. He
   cannot be Christ's professed disciple unless he receives the Spirit and
   unless he is baptized-- if the water here relates to Baptism at all,
   which we judge it does not. He must be renewed, washed and purified.
   That must be the water--and he must have the Holy Spirit dwelling in
   him, or else, as he cannot see, so he cannot enter into the Kingdom of
   God.

   6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh: and that which is born of
   the Spirit is spirit. A man may have the best parents that ever lived,
   but all that is born of the flesh is flesh, at the very best. Your
   father may be a saint and your mother a saint, but you are born in sin,
   for that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and unless you are born
   of the Spirit, you cannot understand or see spiritual things--and you
   cannot enter into the spiritualKingdom, for you have no spiritual
   capacity. "The carnal mind discerns not the things that are of God, for
   they are spiritual, and must be spiritually discerned." Therefore we
   must be born-again so as to receive that Spirit by which spiritual
   things are discerned and entered into.

   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. There are

   mysteries in Nature. There are mysteries in Grace. Every new-born soul
   is a mystery. He cannot explain himself. He can scarcely understand
   himself.

   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 simple things--these elementary
   principles--these rudiments of the school book of Believers.

   11. Verily, verily, I say unto you, We speak what We know, and testify
   what We have seen: and you receive not Our witness. This was an
   additional hint to Nicodemus of the unbelief that still lingered in
   him. "You receive not Our witness."

   12. If I have told you earthly things--Things that have to do with men
   while here below.

   12. And you believe not, how shall you believe ifI tell you of heavenly
   things?If I lift the veil and talk to you about still greater
   mysteries, if you do not believe about regeneration, where will you be
   if I begin to talk of My Godhead and of all the inner secrets?

   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. A riddle, doubtless, to
   Nicodemus, which in later days he understood.

   14. 15. 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. Oh, that blessed, "whoever"! Hear
   it, you sons of men, and tell it to your neighbors--"That whoever
   believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."

   16-18. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
   that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting
   life. For God sent 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--he may be very faulty. His conscience may accuse him,
   but he is not condemned.

   18. But he that believes not is condemned already. Hear that!
   "Condemned already"--not in a state of probation. Never was there a
   greater mistake than to say that men are in a state of probation! That
   probation has passed long ago. They have been proved in the world and
   if they are unbelievers, they are condemned already. "Condemned
   already."

   18-19. Because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son
   of God. And this is the condemnation--the head and front of it.

   19, 20. That Light is come into the world, andmen loved darkness rather
   than Light, because their deeds were evil For everyone that does evil
   hates the Light, neither comes to the Light, lest his deeds should be
   reproved. This is the secret of infidelity. This is the reason of all
   opposition to Christ. It is love of sin! Trace it home to its den and
   lair, and you shall find that it is love of sin that breeds hatred of
   Christ. Men do not see because they do not want to see. They do not
   want to see too much lest they should be uneasy in their present state
   of life. So they kick against Christ and try to put out the Light of
   His Gospel, lest they be reproved by it.

   21. But he that does truth comes to the Light, that his deeds may be
   made manifest, that they are worked in God. God give us the heart that
   seeks His Light, and sooner or later we shall find it. We shall find it
   in Christ!
     __________________________________________________________________

True Worship

   (No. 3464)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 1, 1870.

   "Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay your vows unto the Most High: and
   call upon Me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you shall
   glorify Me." Psalm 50:14,15.

   EVEN in the Christian Church we have great diversities of opinion as to
   what is the true form of worship. One stoutly cries, "Lo here," and
   another as earnestly says, "Lo there!" There are some who think that
   the more simple and plain the outward worship can be, the better.
   Others think the more gorgeous and resplendent it can be, the better.
   Some are for the quietude of the Friends' meeting house--some are for
   the stormy music of the cathedral. Some will have it that God is best
   praised in silence--others that He is best honored with flute, harp,
   sackbut, psaltery and I know not what kinds of music! Is it so
   difficult, then, to know what kind of worship God will accept? It is
   very difficult if it is left to the guesses of men, but it is not at
   all difficult if we turn to the Word of God. There we shall find, I
   think, great room for diversities of mode, but we shall find ourselves
   shut up by a consecrated intolerance to a few matters of spirit. We
   shall there be told what is not essential, but we shall certainly be
   assured of what is essential to the true worship of God. And I suppose
   it will be enough for any of us who are sincerely anxious to worship
   God, ourselves, if we find out for ourselves, by the teaching of God's
   Spirit, the way to do it. And we shall be content to let others, also,
   find out the way for themselves, satisfied if we, ourselves, are
   approved of God--for we have very little to do with sitting on the
   throne of judgment and either condemning or approving others. Now, on
   turning to this Psalm we shall find out what worship is not acceptable
   with God. And we shall find out what is. And these will make the main
   points of our sermon this evening. In reading this Psalm to you, you
   must all have noticed--

   I. WHAT SORT OF OFFERINGS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE TO GOD.

   You noticed with me, I dare say, that first, those are not accepted in
   which men place the reliance upon the form, itself, and are contented
   when they have gone through the form, though their hearts have had no
   communion with God. And they have brought to the Most High no spiritual
   sacrifice whatever. Lay it down, then, beyond all question, that formal
   worship which is not attended with the heart--which is not the worship
   of the spirit--can never be acceptable with the Most High!

   And here we will remind ourselves, too, that even when the form is
   actually prescribed of God, yet without the heart, it is not a worship
   of God at all in the true sense of language. With what indignation of
   eloquence does God here speak to the Israelite people who imagined that
   when they had brought their bulls and their goats--when they had kept
   their holy days, consecrated their priests, presented their offerings,
   been obedient to the ritual--then that all this was enough. He puts it
   to them--He inquires of them whether they can be so foolish as to think
   that there is anything in sacrifices of bulls and rams that could
   content the mind of the Most High! If He wanted bullocks and rams, He
   says, He has enough of them--all living creatures are His--and He has
   infinite power to make as many more as He would! Do they fancy that if
   He wanted bulls and goats, He would come to them for them? That the
   Creator would crave and turn beggar to His own creatures and ask for
   bullocks out of their houses and goats out of their field? He puts it
   to them, do they really think that He, the Infinite God, who made the
   heavens and the earth, the great I AM, actually eats the flesh of bulls
   and drinks the blood of goats? And yet their idea was that the mere
   outward sacrifice contented Him! Was God as gross as that? And what was
   involved in that? Now I shall put it to you, you who profess to be
   Christians and yet in your worship, whatever it may be, rest in it. Do
   you really believe that God is honored by your eating a piece of bread
   and drinking a few drops of wine? The thousands of creatures that He
   has in the world eat more bread and drink more wine. Do you really
   believe that your sitting at a table brings any satisfaction to Him who
   is in the company of angels, and who has choicer spirits than you are
   to enter into fellowship with Him? No, Sirs, if you rest in the outward
   form, what you do can bring no

   amount of entertainment to Him! He might say to those priests who think
   that they offer unto God a sacrifice in the "Mass," "Do I eat bread
   that is made by the baker, leavened or unleavened? Do you think that I
   drink wine pressed from the grape?" Fancy you, you that find
   satisfaction in these things--oh, fools, and slow of heart--that the
   Infinite Jehovah takes any delight in these matters? And if you come to
   Baptism as God, Himself, commands it--if you trust in that, might He
   not say to you, "Do you think that I am pleased with water, when the
   rivers, the lakes, the seas, and the deeps that lie beneath are all My
   own? Does that immersion in water bring any satisfaction to Me, in
   itself considered? What can there be in it that can delight My infinite
   mind or satisfy My soul? If we rest in any outward form, though God
   prescribes it, we must have a very gross and carnal idea of God,
   indeed, if we conceive that He is served or glorified thereby! It
   cannot be so. If men were not idiotic, they would shake off from
   themselves all idea of sacramental efficacy and everything that is akin
   to it! They would see that what God wants is the heart, the soul, the
   love, the trust, the confidence of rational, intelligent beings--not
   the going through of certain forms! The forms are useful enough when
   they teach us the Truth of God of which they are the emblems. The forms
   are precious and, as ordained of God, to be reverently used by those
   who can see what they mean and who are helped by the emblem to see the
   inner meaning, but by none besides. The mere outward thing is but the
   shell, the husk--useless unless there is within it the living kernel,
   the embryo which the shell protects! The mere form of outward worship
   is nothing--it is not acceptable with God!

   Now if this is true--and we know it is--of even ordinances ordained of
   God, how much more must it be true of ceremonies that are not of God's
   ordaining? I am not about to judge, but I will say of all ceremonies
   and absence of ceremony, if there is no Divine prescription, we feel
   certain that there cannot be a Divine acceptance! And even if that
   could be supposed, yet if the heart were not there, and there were
   reliance in these outward things of man's devising, it were utter folly
   to suppose that God accepts them! For instance, there are certain
   people who think that God is glorified by banners, by processions, by
   acolytes, by persons in white, in blue, in scarlet--(I know not what
   colors)--by golden crucifixes, or brass, or ivory--by very sweet music,
   by painting, by incense. Now what an idea they must have of God! What a
   thought they must have of Him! I remember standing on Monte Cenis one
   afternoon on a very broiling summer's day, in a cool place where I
   could look all over the wide plains of Italy and see the blue sky--such
   a blue as we never see, and the innumerable flowers, and all the land
   fair as a dream--and then I Looked to my right and there stood a
   shrine--a shrine to which there came a worshipper. There was a doll.
   They called it "the Blessed Virgin." It was adorned with all sorts of
   trinkets--just such things as I have seen sold at a country fair for
   children. It had little sprigs of faded artificial flowers--little bits
   of paint. And I said to myself, "The God that made this glorious
   landscape in which everything is true and real--do they fancy that He
   is honored by this kind of thing--these baubles? What an idea they must
   have of God." Sirs, if He wanted banners, He would deck His escutcheon
   with the stars! If He wanted incense, ten thousand thousand flowers
   would shed their sweet perfume upon the air! If He wants music, the
   wind shall sound it, the woods shall clap their hands, every forest
   tree shall give out its note and angelic harpers standing on the glassy
   sea shall give such music as your ears and mine have never conceived!
   If He wants an alb, behold the snow! If He wants your many-colored
   raiments, see how He decks the meadows with flowers and strews, with
   both His hands, rainbow hues on every side! If He wanted garments, He
   would bind the sky's azure round Him with a belt of rainbows and come
   forth in His Glory! But your dolls and your boys and men, and all their
   millinery--Sirs, do you know what you are doing? Have you got souls? If
   you worshipped a calf, calves, like you, might well worship him in such
   in style, but the great I AM that built Heaven and earth dwells not in
   temples made with hands! That is to say, in these buildings--and He is
   not worshipped by such trumpery as this. All this, of men's inventing,
   can never be acceptable to the Most High. Common sense tells us so--
   much more the Revelation of God!

   But, mark you, my censure does not count alone against them. Suppose a
   man should say, "Well, I am far enough from that. On the morning of the
   first day of the week I resort to a meeting house--whitewashed, a few
   forms, a raised desk at the end of it--and I sit down there. I have not
   any minister--nobody to speak unless he believes the Spirit moves him.
   We all sit still. Many times we sit still the whole morning. We worship
   God." Do you believe you have? If your heart was there--if your soul
   was there--I am the last man to complain of the absence of form. I love
   your simplicity, I admire it. But if you trust it, I believe your
   simplicity will as certainly ruin you as the gorgeousness that goes to
   the opposite extreme, for if there is any reliance in that sitting
   still--if there is any reliance in that waiting--(take our own case) if
   there is any reliance in your coming up to these pews and listening to
   me--do you think you have served God merely by coming here to sing
   hymns, and cover your faces during prayer, and so on? I tell you, you
   have not worshipped God! You are mistaken if you suppose the mere act
   counts for anything! You know not what you think--you know not what
   your mind is drifting to. It is the heartthat gets to God--it is the
   eye that pours out penitential tears--it is the

   soul that loves and blesses and praises--this is the sacrifice! But all
   the outward, whether God, Himself, ordained it, or man devised it--or
   whether it is a matter of mere convenience--it cannot be received by
   the Most High!

   So let me add, beloved Friends, a matter which may touch some of you.
   The mere repetition of holy words can never be acceptable sacrifices to
   God. There are some who from their childhood have been taught to say a
   form of prayer. I shall neither commend nor censure, but I will say
   this--you may repeat that form of prayer for twenty, forty, 50 years,
   and yet never have prayed a single word in all your life! I am not
   judging the words. They may be the best you could possibly put
   together. They may be the words of Inspiration, but the mere saying of
   words is not prayer, neither does God receive it as such! You might
   just as well say the Lord's Prayer backwards as forwards for the matter
   of its acceptance with God, except you say it with your heart! I
   believe some people fancy that the reading of prayers in the family,
   and especially that the reading of prayers at the bedside of the sick,
   has a kind of charm--that it somehow or other has a mysterious
   influence and helps to prepare men for life or for death. Believe me,
   no grosser error could exist! When the soul talks with God, it matters
   not what language it uses. If it finds a convenient form and it uses it
   with its heart, let it use it if so it wills. But if, on the other
   hand, the words come bubbling up and come ever so strangely and
   irregularly, yet if the heartspeaks, God accepts the prayer--and that
   is worship! So, too, in singing. If we have the sweetest hymn that ever
   was written--yes, though it were an Inspired hymn, and if we sang it to
   the noblest tune that ever composer wrote, yet we do not praise God by
   the mere repetition of the words and the production of those sounds!
   Ah, no--the whole of it lies in the soul after all! "God is a Spirit,
   and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth, for
   the Father seeks such to worship Him." Let there be good music, by all
   means, and noble words, for these are congruous to noble thoughts--but
   oh, let the thoughts be there! Let the song be there! Let the flames of
   love burn on the altar of the heart! Be the outward expression what it
   may, let the praise be winged by the ardent affections of the
   soul--otherwise far from you be the thought that you have worshipped
   God when you have used solemn words with thoughtless hearts! Does not
   this touch some of you? You have never prayed in all your lives! You
   have said a prayer, but never talked with God. You have been to the
   House of God, perhaps, from your infancy, but never worshipped God!
   Though oftentimes the preacher said, "Let us worship God," yet you have
   never done so. O Sirs! What? All these formalities, all these routines,
   all these outward forms and yet no heart, no soul?--nothing acceptable
   with God? Alas for you! And will you go on so forever? You will, so
   long as you rest contented with the outward! I pray that God may put in
   you a sacred discontent with the merely outward worship and make you
   long and cry that you may offer unto Him the sacrifice of a broken and
   a contrite heart through Jesus Christ the Savior, by the power of the
   Eternal Spirit--for that will the Lord accept!

   Thus I have mentioned one form of sacrifice that God does not accept,
   namely, that of formalists. Now this Psalm shows us that--

   II. THERE ARE OTHER SACRIFICES WHICH GOD REJECTS, namely, those offered
   by persons who continue

   their wicked lives. Now some will preach and yet live in an ungodly
   manner. Some can lead prayers in the Prayer Meeting and yet can lie and
   steal. There are those who, for a pretense, make long prayers. Their
   minds are occupied upon the widow's house, and how they shall devour
   it, while their lips are uttering consecrated words! Now observe no
   man's praying is accepted with God who is a hater of instruction. Turn
   to the 17th verse of the Psalm--"Seeing you hate instruction, and cast
   My Words behind your back." Let me look a man in the face who never
   reads the Bible--who does not want to know what is in it--who has no
   care about what God's Word is--I see there a man that cannot worship
   God! If he says, "Oh, I am sincere in my own way"--Sir, your "own
   way"--but that way is sure to be the way of rebellion! A servant does
   not have his own way, but his master's way! You are not a servant of
   God while you think that your will and your fancy are to settle what
   God would have you do. "To the Law and to the Testimony." Every devout
   mind should say, "I will search and see what God would have me do."
   What does He say to me? Does He tell me that I am, by nature, lost and
   ruined? Lord, help me to feel it! Does He tell me that only by faith in
   a crucified Savior can I be saved? Lord, work that faith in me! Does He
   tell me that they who are justified must also be sanctified and made
   pure in life? Lord, sanctify me by Your Spirit and work in me purity of
   life! The really accepted man desires to know the Divine Will and to
   that man there is not one part of Scripture that he would wish not to
   know, nor one part of God's teaching that he would wish to be ignorant
   of! The Lord does not expect you, Beloved, while you are in this world
   at, any rate, to know everything, but He does expect that you who call
   yourselves His people should also be as little children, who are quite
   willing to learn! Oh, it is an ill sign with us when there are some
   Chapters that we would like to see pasted over--when there are some
   passages of Scripture that grate on our ears--when we do not want to be
   too wise in what is written--do not want to know too well what the
   Lord's will is! If you willfully shut your ear to God's instruction and
   will not listen

   to His will, neither will He listen to your prayer, nor can you expect
   that your sacrifice will be received by the Most High! Such things are
   not acceptable, and yet, how large a proportion of Christendom has
   never recognized the duty of learning the will of God from God's own
   Spirit! They take it from their party leaders--one borrows from this
   body of divinity, another from his Prayer Book! One borrows from his
   parents and must be what his father was--and another borrows from his
   friend, or thinks that the National Church must necessarily be the
   right one! But the genuine spirit says, "Lord, I would have that which
   is Your mind--not mine, nor man's. Oh, teach me!" And though he judges
   not others, he desires always to be judged of God, Himself--to stand
   before the Most High and say, "Search me, O God, and try me, and know
   my way, and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the
   right way everlasting."

   The Psalm goes on to say that God does not accept the sacrifices of
   dishonest men. "When you saw the thief, you consented with him." When a
   man's common trade is dishonesty--when frequently he excuses himself,
   as some servants do, in little pilfering--as some masters do in false
   markings of their goods. When the man knows he is not walking uprightly
   before his fellow men, he comes to the altar of God and brings a
   sacrifice which he pollutes with every touch of his hand! No, Sir! No!
   Say not that you have fellowship with God when your fellowship is with
   a thief! Do you think you can have God on one side, and the thief on
   the other? Surely you know not who He is! If we are not perfect, yet at
   least let us be sincere! And if there are sins into which we fall
   through inadvertence and surprise, yet at least uprightness before our
   fellow men is one thing that must not be lacking--cannot be lacking in
   a gracious soul--in a true child of God whom God accepts.

   So next, the sin of impurity prevents our worshipping God. You come and
   say, "Lord, have mercy upon us! Christ have mercy upon us!" Or you say,
   "We praise You, O God. We acknowledge You to be the Lord." Or you stand
   up here and sing, "All hail the power of Jesus' name," and you have
   come from lascivious talking--perhaps from worse than talking! You have
   even, now, upon your mind some scheme of what is called, "pleasure,"
   and you think that "life" means what in this assembly and in the
   assembly of God's people it were best not to mention, for you count it
   no shame to do what Believers count it shame even to think of! Polluted
   hands! Polluted hands! How can they be lifted up before God? Use what
   forms you may, your praises are an abomination! Your prayers, while you
   continue as you are, are a loathing and a stench in the nostrils of
   God! Turn! Repent! Seek washing in the Savior's blood--and then you may
   offer acceptable praises, but not till then!

   The Psalmist goes on to say that so it is with slanderers. Slanderers
   cannot be accepted with God--those (and oh, how many there are) who
   count it sport to ruin other people's characters--who seem to take a
   joy and a delight in finding fault with the people of God! How can you
   expect that God will bless you when you are cursing your fellow men!
   And while your mouth is full of bitterness, how can it also be full of
   praise? Now these are not things that will cheer and comfort the people
   of God. I trust it is a main point in my own ministry to comfort God's
   people, but the axe also must be laid to the root of the tree! And let
   it be known to all who come into these courts that if they come here
   with defilement in their spirits and with lust or unrighteousness in
   their daily practice, and love to have it so, from this pulpit they
   shall find no apologies and gather no comfort! And from God's Word,
   too, they shall have denunciation, but not consolation! They shall have
   threats and judgment, but not the promised blessing! Now we must have a
   few minutes on the next part of our subject, on which I hope to enlarge
   on another occasion, which is-- III. WHAT SACRIFICES ARE ACCEPTABLE
   WITH GOD?

   The text tells us, first, thanksgiving. "Offer unto God thanksgiving."
   Let us come and worship, then, Brothers and Sisters--let us come and
   worship! We were lost, but Jesus came to seek the lost. Blessed be His
   name! We were foul and filthy, but His mercy brought us to the fountain
   filled with blood. "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive
   honor, and glory, and majesty, and power, and dominion, and might."
   Since that very day in which He washed us, He has given us all things
   richly in His Covenant. "He makes us to lie down in green pastures. He
   leads us beside the still waters." "Bless the Lord, O my Soul, and all
   that is within me, bless His holy name." Now if that is your spirit. If
   you can keep up that spirit even when the husband sickens, when the
   child dies, when the property melts away--if you can say, "The Lord
   gave, and the Lord has taken away: blessed be the name of the
   Lord"--what if there is no hymn from your lips? What if there is no
   bull on the altar? Yet these are the calves of your lips--the offering
   of your heart--and they are a sacrifice of a sweet smell if they are
   presented through Jesus Christ, the great atoning High Priest! This is
   a sacrifice that God accepts, and I dare say it is often offered to Him
   in an attic--often presented to Him in a cellar--often, I hope, by you
   when your hands are grimy at your work and, perhaps, even when your
   cheeks are scalding with tears! You can yet say, "I am His child. I
   have innumerable mercies. When He smites me, yet it is in tenderness.
   Glory be to His name! Blessed be His name!" That is the sacrifice for a
   spiritual God! That is spiritual worship! Have you ever offered it,
   dear Hearer, or

   have you been living on God's favor and yet never thanked Him? Have you
   had your life preserved and your daily food constantly given, and yet
   have you never blessed God for it? Oh, then you have never worshipped
   Him! I do not care though you are a good singer--although you put on a
   vestment, or whatever else you have done--if you have not thanked Him
   from your soul, devoutly and intensely, you know not what the worship
   of Jehovah is!

   Next the text tells us that performance of our vows is worship. "Pay
   your vows unto the Most High." Now I shall interpret that not after the
   Jewish form, but adapt it to our own. You, Beloved, profess to be a
   Christian. Live as a Christian! Say, "The vows of the Lord are upon me.
   How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? I am a servant
   of Jesus. I am not my own--I am bought with a price. What can I do to
   praise Him today? How can I win another soul for Him who bought me with
   His precious blood? I declared myself, when I joined His Church, to be
   one of His and, therefore, a cross-bearer. Let me take up my cross,
   today, whatever it is, though I may be ridiculed, separated and laughed
   at. Let me do it--bear it cheerfully for His truth! And let me say--

   "If on my face, for Your dear name, Shame and reproach shall be, I'll
   hail reproach, and welcome shame, If You will remember me."

   Let me do everything as in His sight. I was in outward form buried in
   Baptism--I profess, then, to be dead to the world. Oh, let me try to be
   so! Let not its pleasures cheat me! Let not its gains enchant me! I
   even profess to be risen with Christ. Oh, God, help me to lead a risen
   life--the life of one who is risen from the dead with Jesus Christ and
   quickened with His spirit! Now if that is your thought, that is true
   worship! That is real sacrifice to the Most High--when a soul desires
   to walk before the Lord in conformity with its vows and gracious
   obligations, not with a view of merit--for it lays all its hope upon
   Jesus and finds all its merit there, and simply cries, "I am His, and I
   wish to live as one that bears a blood-bought name."

   We are told, too, in the text--and that is a very sweet part of it--(I
   wish I had an hour or two to talk of it)--that prayer in time of
   trouble is also a very sweet form of worship. Men are looking for
   rubrics, and they are contending whether the rubric is "so-and-so
   according to the use of Sarum." Now here is a rubric according to the
   use of the whole Church of God bought with Jesus' blood--"Call upon Me
   in the day of trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me."
   You are in great distress of mind--now you have an opportunity of
   worshipping God! Trust Him with your distress! Call to Him as a child
   calls to its mother! Show how you honor Him--how you love Him--how you
   trust Him! You shall honor Him even in that--but when you get the
   answer to your prayer, which will be a sure proof that God has accepted
   your offering--then you will honor Him again a second time by devoutly
   thanking Him that He has heard your prayer! O Sinner, this is a way in
   which you can worship God! Does your sin lie heavy upon your
   conscience? Call upon God in the day of trouble, "God, be merciful to
   me, a sinner!" That is true worship! Have you brought yourself to
   poverty for your sin? Say, "Lord, help me." That is prayer! Worship,
   then, can never go up from all the pealing organs in the world if men's
   hearts go not with them! Are you a Christian just now under a cloud?
   Have you lost the light of Jesus' face? Call upon Him now in the day of
   trouble. Believe that He will appear for you. Say, "I shall praise Him.
   His Countenance is my aid," and you will be bringing better sacrifice
   than if you brought he-goats, bullocks and rams! This is what the Lord
   loves--the trust, the child-like confidence, the loving seeking after
   sympathy which is in His children's hearts. Oh, bring Him this!

   Then he adds--if you will turn to the last part of the Psalm, which I
   must incorporate in the text--"Whoever offers praise, glorifies Him."
   True praise glorifies God. I must confess that I do not particularly
   like to hear voices that are off-key in the singing, but I should not
   like to stop one voice, certainly not if it stopped one heart! I think
   it is said of Mr. Rowland Hill, that an old lady once sat upon his
   pulpit stairs who sang so very badly--she had a voice that the good
   gentleman really could not feel that he could worship while he heard
   her voice in his ears--and he said, "Do be quiet, my good Soul." She
   answered, "I sing from my heart, Mr. Hill." "Sing away!" he said, "and
   I beg your pardon. I will not stop you." And I think I would beg the
   pardon of the most cracked voice I ever heard if it is really
   accompanied with a real loving, grateful heart! God gets some of His
   richest praise amidst dying groans--and He gets delightful music from
   His people's triumphant cries. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in
   Him." "O Death, where is your sting? O Grave, where is your victory?"
   To praise God--to sing an excelsis in extremis--to give Him the highest
   praise when we are in the deepest waters--this is acceptable with Him!
   The best worship comes from the Christian that is most tried--at least
   in this case. When the soul is most bowed down with trouble, if he can
   say, "I will praise Him: I will praise Him in the fire: I will praise
   Him in the jaws of Death, itself--ah, these are sacrifices better than
   hecatombs of bulls, and better than the blood of fed beasts! Not your
   architecture, not your music, not your costumes, not your ordinations
   or your forms, but your prostrate hearts, your souls with veiled faces,
   worshipping the mysterious, the unseen but everywhere present--the
   great I AM--this is worship! Through Jesus Christ, it is accepted. It
   is of the Spirit's own creation. It only comes from truly spiritual,
   regenerate men and women, boys and girls--and wherever it comes, it
   reaches the Majesty on high--and God smiles and accepts it!

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, I send you home with this reflection. Some
   of you have never worshipped God. Then think of that, and God help you
   to begin! Others of us who have worshipped Him ought to consider how
   large a proportion of our worship is good for nothing. Oh, how often
   you come and hear now on Thursday night! Why, have not you sometimes
   built a ship in the pew--mended a plow--darned your husband's
   stockings--seen to the sick child--done all sorts of things when you
   should be worshipping God? Now these distracting thoughts mar worship!
   And I do pray God that you, as a people, may never get to think that
   coming here is of any use if you do not bring your hearts with you!
   Thomas Manton said that if we sent on the Sabbath a man stuffed with
   straw to sit in our pews for us, and thought that was worshipping God,
   it would be very absurd! But not one whit more than when we bring
   ourselves stuffed with evil thoughts or dead, cold thoughts that cannot
   rise to God! I cannot always get to God, I know, but I at least hope I
   may groan until I do. Oh, it does seem an awful thought that some of us
   may have no more feelings than the pews we sit on-- no more worship of
   God than those iron columns and those lamps! Oh, may you never be that
   sort of slumbering congregation with whom it is all form! We have read
   a strange poem of one who has pictured a ship manned by all dead men.
   Dead men pulled the sails. A dead man steered and a skeleton eye kept a
   look-out. I am afraid there are congregations like that--where all is
   dead and all is form. Oh, may it not be so with you or me, but may we
   all realize, through Jesus Christ, who stands at the Throne of God, and
   through the power of the Holy Spirit, we "have fellowship with the
   Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ," and that evermore to God's
   glory! Amen.

   I speak on this theme but very feebly, but I do feel it from my very
   heart. I do pray that we may all be accepted worshippers because the
   heart is found in us. It was always a bad sign--by the Roman seers it
   was pretended to be the worst sign--when they found no heart in the
   victim. It is a dreadful sign when in all our worship there is no
   heart. God forbid that it may be so! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 50:1-10. A Psalm of Asaph.

   Whether this means that Asaph wrote it, or that it was committed to him
   to sing, we do not know. Certainly Asaph did write some Psalms. There
   are 12 ascribed to him in the Book of Psalms. He wrote some and it is
   equally certain that some others were dedicated to him. He had the
   leadership of the choir who sang the Psalms in the Temple. This is a
   very marvelous Psalm. If we only consider the poetry of it, it is one
   of the chief of the Psalms, but its matter is very deep-- august. It
   should be read with great reverence of spirit. The Psalm begins with a
   prologue in which the scene is introduced. God is represented as coming
   forth out of Zion to judge those who profess to be His people--to
   discern between the precious and the vile--to separate between mere
   professors and pretenders. The first six verses represent God as
   coming.

   Verse 1. The mighty God, even the LORD, has spoken, and called the
   earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. The
   Hebrew has it, "El Elohim, Jehovah has spoken"--three names of
   God--great and myste-rious--the strong God, the only God, the
   self-existent God. He speaks--calls upon the whole earth from the east
   to the west to listen to His voice.

   2. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shined. There He
   dwelt. Now in this scene He is represented as shining forth from it. As
   he had described the earth as being lighted by the sun from the east to
   the west, so now God, Himself, who at first speaks and demands a
   hearing, now shines forth with beams of Glory which altogether eclipse
   the brightness of the sun. "Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God
   has shined."

   3. Our God shall come and shall not keep silent: a fire shall devour
   before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous roundabout Him. The voice
   was heard saying that God would come and then the beams of Glory which
   warned men that He was coming--and here His people stand attentive,
   expecting Him to come. "They expect Him to speak." Fire and rushing
   wind are usually used in Scripture as attendants of the Throne of
   God--fire representing justice in action, and the tempest representing
   His power when it is displayed. Think of God's coming thus. The poet
   here pictures it, but it

   will be so in very deed. "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven
   in flaming fire, taking vengeance upon you that know not God." He will
   even come after this manner, "for our God is a consuming fire."

   4. He shall call to thee heavens from above, and to the earth, that He
   may judge His people. Do you catch the thought? There comes the great
   Judge with the fire burning before Him. He rides upon a cherub--yes,
   rides upon the wings of the wind, and then He calls Heaven, with all
   the angels and glorified spirits--and He calls to earth, with all its
   inhabitants, to stand and witness what He does while He judges His
   people.

   5. Gather My saints together unto Me: those that have made a covenant
   with Me by sacrifice. God has a separated and chosen people. It will be
   a part of the proceedings at the Last Great Day to gather these
   together unto God. There will be a day when He will make up His
   jewels--a time when He will gather His wheat into His garner. And as
   this Psalm stands, this is a large gathering. It refers to a picture of
   all professing saints being brought before the Throne of God-- true
   saints that made a covenant with God by sacrifice. They see Jesus
   Christ, who ratifies the Covenant of Grace by blood, and they have laid
   their hands on Chris, and the covenant made between them and God. But
   there were others in the Psalmist's day who had offered sacrifice and
   pretended to have made a covenant with God--and there are their
   representatives in these days. They are now to be gathered before the
   Throne of Judgment, for God has come to judge them.

   6. And the heavens shall declare His righteousness: for God is Judge,
   Himself Selah. The very heavens, as they look down upon the august
   assize where God, Himself, not by deputy, but in the Person of His dear
   Son, shall sit and judge-- the heavens shall declare His righteousness.
   Now I doubt not the heavens often wonder how it is that God permits the
   ungodly to be mixed with the righteous in His Church. But ah, when the
   fan shall be in His hand and He shall thoroughly purge His floor--when
   He shall lay justice to the line and righteousness to the plummet--the
   angels shall wonder at the exactness and accuracy of the Divine
   Judgment! "Selah." Pause, rest, consider, admire, adore, humble
   yourself, pray. It is good to have a pause when such a scene as this is
   before us. Now from the 5th verse down to the 15th verse you have God's
   dealing with His people. The Judge is sitting on the Throne. He begins
   to speak thus--

   7. Hear, O My people, andI will speak: O Israel, and I will testify
   against you: I am God, even your God. It is with His nominal people,
   the Jews. It is with His visible Church, God is now dealing. He Himself
   has seen the ways of His professing people--He need not, therefore,
   call any witnesses. He who cannot err will testify against us! And He
   declares, Himself, here not only as God, but under that name, "Your
   God." It was thus the Law began. "I am the Lord Your God that brought
   you up out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage." It is
   thus the judgment and rebuke begin--"I am God, even Your God."

   8. I will not reprove you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings,
   to have been continually before Me. He is going to deal with weightier
   matters than that! Whether they have, or have not, offered abundant
   sacrifices, that is not the thing which God looks at. "I will not
   reprove you for your sacrifices. No, I have done with your sacrifices."

   9. I will take no bullock out of your house, nor he goats out of your
   folds. "Do you think that these things in themselves are of any value
   to Me, O you formalists? I will not even take them."

   10. For every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle upon a
   thousand hills. Though men call them theirs, yet they are your God's.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Suffering Christ Satisfied

   (No. 3465)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 1, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH 29, 1888.

   "He stall see ofthe travail of His soul and shall be satisfied. By His
   knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many." Isaiah 53:11.

   IN these words we have God the Father speaking concerning His Son and
   declaring that since He had endured a soul travail, He would guarantee
   to Him a satisfactory reward. How delightful it is to observe the
   co-working of the various Persons of the sacred Trinity in the matter
   of salvation! It was so in the Creation. It was the Father who said,
   "Let there be light," and there was light. But we read concerning the
   Eternal Son that, "without Him was not anything made which was made,"
   and we find express mention of the Spirit of God, who moved upon the
   face of the waters and created order out of chaos. Father, Son and
   Spirit worked together to make the world and, in the making of man, we
   all remember that gracious word, "Let Us make man in Our own image with
   Our own likeness." Even so is it in our salvation. The Father has
   chosen a people unto Himself. These people He has given unto the Son.
   To these people He has also given the Only-Begotten to be their
   salvation. It is through the abounding Grace of the Father that
   salvation comes to the chosen, but only through Jesus Christ, for
   everywhere He is the Savior. We are redeemed by His precious blood. He
   it is that will bring the many sons unto glory and is the Author and
   the Finisher of their faith. Yet not without the Holy Spirit, for the
   blessed Spirit graciously condescends to take of the things of Christ
   and show them unto us. What God ordains, the Spirit executes. What the
   Son purchases, the Holy Spirit bestows. 'Tis He who makes us meet to be
   partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light--and when we are so
   meet--we are introduced to the inheritance by the hand of the glorious
   Son, and are led up to the Throne of the Eternal Father. Christians,
   live much in contemplation upon the God of your salvation! Magnify
   Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Shun that ministry which dishonors either
   of these blessed Persons and seek to be fully built up and instructed
   in the Gospel teaching which glorifies Father, Son and Spirit in Divine
   equality, and leads your own hearts into "the Grace of our Lord Jesus
   Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy
   Spirit."

   With that by way of preface, we shall now come to the text at once,
   taking the words as well as the sense of them.

   The Father says of the Son that, "He shall see of the travail of His
   soul and shall be satisfied." The first point of consideration, very
   briefly, is--

   I. OUR LORD'S PAINS AND SUFFERINGS, BY WHICH HE MADE AN ATONEMENT FOR
   OUR SINS.

   These are described in the text as "the travail of His soul." You know
   the meaning of the word, "travail." I will not explain it--I will the
   rather do with it as the painter who drew the picture of Agamemnon and
   the sacrifice of his daughter, Iphigenia. He painted Agamemnon, but he
   threw a veil over his face, for he felt he could not express the grief
   that was in the father's face and, therefore, the face was delicately
   concealed. Let us do the same. It may suffice for us to say that
   whenever in Holy Scripture a forcible word is needed to express fear,
   overwhelming pain, distraction and confusion, the word, "travail," is
   used. For instance, when the kings looked upon Mount Zion and saw how
   safe it was from their attacks, "fear took hold upon them, there, and
   pain as of a woman in travail." And in the description which is given
   by the Prophet of the men of Babylon when their city was overthrown--he
   represents them as being "full of pain as if they were in travail." It
   is an unutterable amount of inward grief and trouble and a swelling of
   the inner man until it seems as if the whole fabric of nature, being
   delicately convulsed, would be utterly broken up to its ruin.

   Observe the text says, "The travail of His soul." We are not to
   depreciate the bodily sufferings of Christ, but still it has been well
   said that "the soul-sufferings of Christ were the soul of His
   sufferings." Brothers and Sisters, there was so much in the outward
   agony of Christ, that my ears have tingled and my heart burned with
   wrath when I have heard certain theologians speak lightly of it! Speak
   lightly of the sweat of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane? Speak
   lightly of the flagellations by Herod and Pilate when the bloody
   scourges made the sacred drops to roll? Think lightly of the

   shame, spitting and the crown of thorns? Oh, Sirs, dare you think and
   speak lightly of the piercing of His hands and of His feet, and of the
   fever which those wounds engendered, and that thirst which the fever
   and the broiling sun together brought on, and the rending of those
   hands when the feet could no longer support the body and the iron tore
   through the nerves? Is nothing or little to be said of all this? God
   forbid, Brothers and Sisters! We believe that the body of Christ took
   its full share of the chastisement. By His stripes we are healed! By
   His scourging and bodily chastisements we get at least a portion of the
   healing balm which cures the disease of sin! Our sin was with the body
   and Christ's Atonement was with the body. Our flesh was sinful and,
   therefore, His flesh must suffer. Had we been simply spirits and as
   spirits, alone, had sinned, a spirit might have made atonement for
   us--and a soul bereft of a body might have been a perfect
   substitute--but we are Sons of Adam and still wear this red earth about
   us! And as we sin in the body, so must the Savior, with hands, feet,
   brow and every member of His blessed frame, be made to suffer to make
   atonement for our guilt! Still, still, the travail of His soul was the
   chief matter and it is that the text speaks about! Where shall I find a
   golden reed with which to measure this city, or where shall I find a
   plumb line with which to fathom the depths of agony which I now see
   before me? Jesus Christ suffered so that I despair of conceiving His
   sufferings, or of conveying them to you by any form of words.

   And yet there are two lines of thought which might help us. And the
   first is this--the perfection of our Lord's Nature. Just think of this
   for a minute. Our Lord was utterly and altogether free from sin or any
   tendencies to sin--and yet He came into this world and He lived in the
   midst of sinners--and He must, in consequence of this, have suffered a
   torture to which you and I are utter strangers, except in some small
   measure! Now think for a while--inasmuch as Christ was perfect, He was
   capable of an amount of sympathy at which you and I have only made a
   guess. What a dreadful thing it is for us, sometimes, to have to go and
   walk through a hospital. I know I would feel it to be one of the most
   painful days in my life if I had to spend a day in the operating room
   of a hospital. I think I would have to be taken out within the first
   five minutes! But to be obliged to stay on and see my fellow creatures
   suffer beneath the knife, even when used most carefully, and tenderly,
   and wisely, would, I think, be too much! Some of you who have never
   seen the depths of poverty, if you were obliged to go to those parts
   and places where men are dying of starvation--if you were taken away
   just now to Orissa, or made to stop in the famine-stricken districts of
   Algeria, or even compelled to live for a while in some of the very
   poorest districts of this great, but just now, poverty-beaten city, you
   would feel it to be a great pain. I tell you, when sometimes there are
   half a dozen poor cases before us and we have to help them, and then
   there come half a dozen more, and we cannothelp them, it is one of the
   pains of life! It is one of the worst ills a man can have to bear, to
   be so public as to have all this evil gathered round his feet, and yet
   be unable to relieve it! Now we will not say that our Savior was unable
   to relieve it, but some sufferings which men had brought upon
   themselves by their sin came before Him perpetually, and they must have
   pierced and penetrated His tender and sympathetic heart, riddling it,
   as it were, with the barbed arrows of grief. Still, He took upon
   Himself our infirmities and carried our sorrows all His lifetime.

   But there was worse than this. Our Lord, being perfect, must have
   shuddered as He came into daily contact with sinners. Shut a good man
   up in a den with drunks, unchaste person, and swearers--and what worse
   Hell could you devise for him? Might not one prefer to be enclosed in a
   den of tigers or vipers sooner than with some classes of society? Now
   that kind of shuddering which comes over a chaste man when he is
   obliged to listen to the lascivious song, or the holy heart when it is
   compelled to hear blasphemy and horrid libels against the Most
   High--that existed to a pre-eminent degree in the pure and sensitive
   heart of Christ! Wherever He went, He either saw the profligacy of the
   publican, or the hypocrisy of the Pharisee, or the infidelity of the
   Sadducee, or the formalism of the Scribe. There was not a step that He
   took but there was something to grieve Him! Even His own disciples--not
   merely by ignorance, but by worse than that--pierced Him to the very
   quick, so that He endured a soul travail in some respects during the
   whole of His life!

   But the point I want to bring you to is this. He was such a perfect
   Being and yet sin was actually laid upon Him, and what must this have
   been! I would like to express myself cautiously and carefully. Jesus
   Christ never was a sinner, never could have been one, never was guilty
   of sin. In Him was no sin. Yet the sin of His people was imputed to
   Him, for so I understand the words, "The Lord has laid upon Him the
   iniquity of us all." What a word! "And He bore the sin of many." This
   Chapter has the expression, I think, three or four times over that God
   actually laid upon Christ, human sin! Now what a load for Him to carry!
   What a pain for sin thus to come into contact with the perfectly holy
   soul of the blessed Jesus! You do not know what a very Hell is included
   in the thought that sin came to be laid upon Christ. Think of it
   yourselves. You are perfectly innocent, tonight, of anything like
   murder. Suppose yourselves arraigned tomorrow morning at the police
   court and accused of it? How would you feel? You may tell me that your
   innocence might and would, sustain you. I have no doubt it would, but
   still, what a shame it would be to stand before the vulgar crowd and to

   be pointed at as having been guilty of an infamous deed! And suppose
   that, although you had not committed the deed, you were, nevertheless,
   unable to plead guiltless, for, for certain reasons, it was necessary
   that the guilt of the action should lie upon you? Can you now conceive
   what strength you would need to keep your tongue from speaking so as to
   deny it--and to stand there like the sheep before the shearers--dumb to
   your own confusion?

   Can you imagine yourselves being condemned to die, though the sin was
   not yours, yet out of some great love which you bore to another, you
   are condemned? And you can add another supposition--condemned to die
   justly, too, although you, yourselves, had not personally been guilty.
   Can you picture yourselves coming shuddering up the gallows stairs to
   face that dreadful throng assembled around the gallows, with no eye to
   pity you among them all, but the whole assembled multitude thrusting
   out the tongue, pointing, mocking, jeering and saying, "He trusted in
   God that He would deliver him. Let Him deliver him, seeing he delights
   in Him." Now the mere dying you could bear, as martyrs have done, but
   not the dying with all that weight of sin legally placed upon you! Oh,
   who can tell what must have been the horror which took hold upon the
   Savior, and how true must have been His expression when He said, "My
   soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death"? The Holy One in the
   sinner's place! An angel in a dungeon! The God of Heaven veiled in
   human flesh to be hung upon the gallows as a malefactor--start as you
   think of it and then try to conceive, if you can, what must have been
   the horror of His soul!

   But I have got another plumb line with which, perhaps, if the Holy
   Spirit helps us, we shall be able to fathom the depth better. Think,
   Beloved, of what our sins deserved. It is undoubtedly the teaching of
   Scripture that a single sin deserves death from God's hand. The very
   sparks of sin set Hell on a blaze but what do you deserve who have
   transgressed ten thousand times ten thousand times told? And Christ did
   not die for you, alone--He died for a multitude that no man can number!
   Will you multiply, then, the desert of the sin of one human being by
   that of all the countless myriads who are now before the Throne of God
   and the yet greater numbers that shall yet be brought there? Now I will
   not say that Christ suffered precisely and exactly what all these ought
   to have suffered as the result of their sin, but I will say that what
   He offered to God was certainly not a less vindication of His justice,
   but a greater one than all that would have been, for if all the myriads
   of the elect had laid in Hell forever and ever, their debt would have
   been no nearer payment after ten thousand times ten thousand years than
   at the first! And yet this Man, by His one offering of Himself, has put
   away all the sin and all the punishment to all the multitudes for whom
   He shed His blood! Transcendent mystery! Angelic minds shall fail to
   explore the heights, and depths, and lengths, and breadth of this
   atoning Sacrifice! Can you now guess at it? You can, yet you cannot
   tell it, for it surpasses language--the travail of the Redeemer's soul!

   I ask you now to think of your Lord in His bitter pangs and tormenting
   griefs. View Him prostrate in the Garden. See Him sweating great drops
   of blood for you. Behold Him tortured by Pilate and Herod, and then see
   Him, with broken heart, going up to the accursed tree and there being
   made a curse for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in
   Him! We must now pass on to observe that there are--

   II. CERTAIN RESULTS GUARANTEED FROM THE SUFFERING OF THE LORD.

   The Eternal Father says, "He shall see the fruit of the travail of His
   soul." That is, He shall see the fruit of it. Jesus is not dead! The
   travail was enough to kill Him, but He remembers no more His travail
   for the joy of the blessed fruit which is brought into the world
   thereby. He looks down from Heaven, tonight, as He has been looking
   down ever since He ascended there and He beholds the sweet results of
   all His pains and griefs. Now attentively observe one thing. It has
   always seemed to us, and I think it will seem reasonable to you, that
   if Jesus Christ is to see of the travail of His soul, and to be
   satisfied, then whatever was His intention when He laid down His life
   will be given Him. This is not far-fetched because if it is written,
   "He shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied," how
   is a man satisfied if he does not have the result, the full result of
   his labor, above all such labor--labor even unto death? If a man does
   not achieve by his dying all that he died for, then he cannot be
   satisfied--unless his first intention is amended, which would imply
   that he had been in error. Do you see the drift of this observation?
   Jesus Christ did not, then, on the Cross, intend to save every man! It
   is not true that Jesus Christ died with the intention of saving every
   man of the human race. But this is true--Christ died that every man
   might be spared--and they are spared. You are here tonight as the
   result of His death. And in that sense He "tasted death for every man."
   He died that every man might have the Gospel preached to Him, that
   there should be an honest declaration that whoever believes in Jesus
   Christ shall be saved. I this night, for the ten thousandth time,
   announce to you that Gospel--that if you believe in Jesus Christ, you
   shall be saved! And this Gospel is to be preached not to some, but to
   every creature under Heaven! And the proclamation of this Gospel comes
   universally to all mankind as the result of Christ's death--and in that
   sense He tasted death for every man.

   But, mark you, He stood as a Substitute for none of you unless you
   believe in Him, or shall believe in Him. He suffered for those who
   trust Him, but if you trust Him not, you have no part nor lot in this
   matter! He had no design to save you. If He had, neither you nor the
   devil in Hell could have frustrated that design. But this is His
   design, "God so loved the world that whoever believes in Him has
   everlasting life." This is the mark of the people for whom Christ
   died--that they come and trust in Jesus! By this "broad arrow" are the
   blood-bought known, and the blood-redeemed discerned from the
   unregenerate mass--by their trusting in Jesus! He has redeemed us from
   among men. He loved His Church and gave His Son for it. The Good
   Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. All that the Father gives
   Him shall come to Him, and him that comes unto Him, He will in no wise
   cast out. We know and feel, then, that what was Christ's intention by
   His death, He will certainly accomplish! And oh, what a blessed thought
   this is for those of us who have to preach the Gospel, that the Gospel
   will not be preached in vain, that we do not preach it at haphazard, or
   perhaps, or casting dice, as it were, for men's souls! He bought them
   and He will have them! They were given Him of old in the decree, and He
   will have them, snatching them from between the lion's jaws by the
   power of His own Irresistible Grace. Christ sees of the travail of His
   soul whenever a sinner touches the hem of His garment and receives the
   virtue that comes out of Him. He is satisfied as saints advance in
   Grace, as they make progress in the Divine Life. He is most of all
   satisfied as, one by one, they go up the glittering pathway to the
   gates of pearl and enter into rest. He will be completely satisfied
   when all the chosen company shall be on the streets of gold like unto
   transparent glass and shall, without the lack of a single voice in the
   Divine Choir, sing, "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our
   sins in His blood, unto Him be glory forever and ever."

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, comfort one another with these words, that
   Christ will have His own! He shall see of the travail of His soul and
   shall be satisfied. Up with the red flag once again! Sound the trumpet,
   you heralds of the Cross! Defy the hosts of Hell! You may defy modern
   rationalism and modern Popery, too. You may despise the sneers of the
   critics and the banter of the ignorant, and the threats of the
   persecutors! None of these can trample that flag beneath their feet.
   The King sits upon the Throne of God in Zion, working His way and
   having His will. Has He said and shall He not do it? Shall He purpose
   and shall it not come to pass? Over your heads there sounds, like the
   trumpet of doom, the sound of Jehovah's words, "I will have mercy on
   whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion upon whom I will
   have compassion." He does as He wills among the armies of Heaven and
   among the inhabitants of this lower world! He shall see His seed! He
   shall prolong His days and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
   His hands!

   But again we must pass on. One of the results of the Savior's passion
   is now specified in the text, "By His knowledge shall my righteous
   Servant justify many."

   The former part of my discourse has been addressed to Believers. I
   should now like to catch the ear of the unbeliever. Do you know what it
   means to be justified? It means, very simply, to be made just--to be
   accepted by God--as if you were always just. You have not been just,
   but a very long way from it! You have done the things you ought not to
   have done. Now if ever you are to be saved, you must be, before God,
   righteous. How can you be made righteous? The only way is the way
   mentioned in the text--by the knowledge of Christ shall Christ justify
   many. "What?" says one, "I thought we were to be made holy through what
   we do!" No, not by what you do, but through what you know! "But I know
   a great many things," says one. Do you know Jesus Christ? You know
   about Him, you say. Do you know this about Him--that He came into the
   world to save sinners? Do you know that you are a sinner and do you
   know that, therefore, if you cast yourself upon Him, He will save you?
   "Well," you say, "we do know that." Well, I want to know whether you
   know it in your heart, not merely as a common piece of news, but
   whether you know it by experience in your soul? In other words, do you
   trust in Him? Do you know Him so as to believe Him? When you know a man
   well, if he is a good man, you trust him. You cannot help trusting him
   when you know him. So do you know Christ so as to trust Him? If you do,
   you shall be justified--that is, God will treat you as if you were
   perfectly just and look upon you as if you never did wrong in all your
   life! And He will bless you and take you to Heaven as if you had been
   an innocent from your mother's breast. "But am I not to do something?"
   Nothing. "But am I not to felsomething?" Nothing. The doing and the
   feeling will come afterwards--the way to be justified is by knowing.

   "How can I know, then?" asks one. Well, listen. Incline your ears and
   come unto me. Listen, and your souls shall live, for faith comes by
   hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Attend much where the Gospel
   is preached, and when you hear it, do not reject it, but accept it! Oh,
   my dear Hearer, I wish you would accept the Gospel now--tonight! It all
   lies in a nutshell. It is just this--Jesus Christ put Himself into the
   sinner's place and whoever will trust Him, Christ put Himself into that
   man's place. And that man's sins are not his sins any more. They were
   put on Christ and Christ's righteousness belongs to that man. "What?
   Even if he has been a drunk?" Yes, if he has been a drunk ever so deep.
   "What? If

   he has been a swearer?" Yes, yes! If he trusts Christ, his blasphemy
   shall not be imputed to him. It was laid on Christ. Christ suffered on
   the red Cross where He poured out His life's blood, suffered for that
   man's blasphemies. "Well, but he has been in sin all this afternoon." I
   care not if he has been in sin up till the last tick of the clock--if
   he comes and casts himself upon what Christ has done, with a simple,
   hearty, earnest faith--he may come in, for his sins, which are many,
   are all forgiven him. "Will he go and do as he did before?" Not if his
   sins are forgiven him, for he will love God and he will so love God
   that he will hate the things he once loved. He will turn his cups
   bottom upwards. And his oaths he will vomit forever. And he will begin
   now, once and for all, to walk in the ways of holiness, serving God
   whom once he despised. Yes, yes--it is by knowing Christthat men are
   justified, and only by this!

   "Oh," says one, "I wish I were justified so!" Well, look at the text,
   "By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many." Justify
   many! Then why not you? "Lord, are there few that shall be saved?" And
   the answer comes, "He shall justify many." Oh, that He would justify
   all in this Tabernacle! And why not? The justifying righteousness of
   Christ has an unbounded efficacy about it, just as His blood has--and
   He will justify not only many--but all who know Him and rely upon Him
   shall be found just in the sight of God!

   The last clause of the text explains the reason of it all, "For He
   shall bear their iniquities."Three or four sentences upon this will be
   enough, for the clause is so very plain that it needs no explanation.
   The reason why Jesus Christ is able to forgive sin and to make unjust
   men, just, is this--because He bears their iniquities. My dear Brothers
   and Sisters, you know that in these modern times it is thought to be
   very old-fashioned and very ignorant to teach the literal Substitution
   of Christ in the place of sinners! And to say that Christ actually bore
   our sin and that we bear Christ's righteousness is thought to be an
   absurdity! Well then, absurdity or not, God is responsible for it, for
   these are His very words, "By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant
   justify many, for"--for this very reason--"for He shall bear their
   iniquities." Then if Christ did not bear their iniquities, there is no
   justifying sinners! This is the very top, and bottom, and basis of
   Christ's power to justify--that He, Himself, took the iniquity of those
   whom He justifies! There are gentlemen we sometimes meet with who bring
   forth new theories of the Atonement--very pretty and very philosophical
   ones--and I have sometimes felt inclined to endorse those theories, for
   there was a great deal of attractiveness and glitter about them. But I
   now tell you my own experience in the matter. I never find my
   conscience made peaceful by any theory of the Atonement, except this,
   that my sins were actually laid upon Christ and that His righteousness
   is put upon me--and it is only when I firmly believe in that Divine
   exchange and blessed Substitution that I find quiet and rest within!
   And as long as this is the case, I shall cling to the old anchorage and
   let who will, try new-fangled ways! If Christ really did suffer for
   sinners, then God is just in not punishing sinners. But if He did not
   actually suffer for sinners, then there is no Atonement, the justice of
   God is not satisfied and there is no basis for a sinner to rest upon at
   all!

   Now what say you, my Hearers? Can you look to Christ upon the Cross,
   with a load of sin upon Him, and can you say, "I lay my guilt there"?
   Can you look to Him in the throes of death, bruised beneath His
   Father's rod, and can you say, "He was bruised for me--my sins I have
   confessed and laid them upon Him"? Then are you happy! But if there has
   been none to bear your sins, then remember, I beseech you, that you
   will have to bear them yourselves! And if they gave Christ a travail,
   oh, what will they give you? Oh, impenitent ones, if the imputed sins
   that were laid on Christ made Him sorrowful, even unto death, what will
   your actual sins do with you when you are made drunk with the wormwood
   and God makes you to break your teeth with gravel--when you are cast
   out into outer darkness, where there is weeping and wailing, and
   gnashing of teeth? If the veil were lifted, we might hear, tonight, the
   cries of spirits that are banished far from God without a hope. Within
   an hour that may be your portion, unconverted Hearer! In a few more
   years, which will seem as short as an hour when you have looked back
   upon them, that will be your portion if you die impenitent! And if you
   do not repent tonight, what cause have you to hope that you will repent
   tomorrow? Hearts do not soften by delay! Spirits are not rendered more
   susceptible of gracious influences by procrastination! Christ's word
   is, "now." Cast it not off with the devil's word--"tomorrow." You must
   suffer, or Christ must be your Surety. What shall it be? Shall it be
   the hands fastened to the wood, yonder, or shall yourhands be tormented
   in the flame? Shall it be that tongue which said, "I thirst," or shall
   it be yourtongue which shall long for a drop of water in vain? Shall it
   be those feet that were fastened to the tree, or shall it be
   yourmembers which have been servants to unrighteousness, and which
   shall be partakers in the Divine Wrath? As the Lord lives who once was
   crucified, I ask you to remember that I bade you this night in His
   name, close in with Him and trust Him! There is no door of hope for you
   but this--believe and live! So stands the Scripture. But if you laugh
   at this, if you despise this, if you forget this, if in any shape--

   "Your ears refuse

   The language of His Grace

   And hearts grow hard like stubborn Jews,

   That unbelieving race.

   The Lord, in vengeance,

   Will lift His hand and swear--

   'You that despised My promised rest

   Shall have no portion there.

   If you believe not, it will be because you are not of His sheep, as He
   said unto you. But think not that you will make void His purpose, or
   disappoint the bleeding Lamb! Ah, no! If you will not come, others
   will. If you perish outside the ark, others shall enter and shall be
   saved. Perhaps your own wife, your own child shall be made willing,
   while you still reject. Oh, then, I pray you pause awhile this Sabbath
   evening, when the year is going on apace. When we have not long since
   passed, as it were, through the gates of the spring, and all the
   flowers are beginning to bloom, and the buds to burst forth, just ask
   whether it is not time for your hearts to open and your souls to
   bud--and your spirits to bring forth some hope, some love, some
   obedience to your Lord! And oh, may you do it! His shall be the praise,
   but yours shall be the great joy! And He shall have joy, too, as He
   shall thus see of the travail of His soul!

   I could wish, and I do wish, that some of you would believe in the Lord
   Jesus Christ before you go home tonight. You may not have many more
   times to go home. This may be the very last time that you shall ever
   come here. It will not make you wretched on earth. It will increase
   your happiness here. It will help you to live and help you to die. It
   will make those eyes brighter and put that heart at greater ease. And
   as for eternity, this is the true Lamp for its darkness, this is the
   true Light for all its gloom! What will you do without Christ? Oh, get
   Him and you shall be eternally blest! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 72:1-16.

   "A Psalm for Solomon"--much more for one who is greater than Solomon,
   the true Prince of Peace!

   Verse 1. Give the king Your judgments, O God, and Your righteousness
   unto the king's Son. So it is decreed, and so it has been accomplished,
   that Jesus, who is both a King and a King's Son, should have all
   judgment delivered into His hands. And now, at this time, Christ is the
   Judge. It is He who discerns between the precious and the vile. He sits
   as King in the midst of Zion.

   2. He shall judge Your people with righteousness, and your poor with
   judgment The Kingdom of Christ has a special eye to the poor. They are
   generally passed by and forgotten in the scope of legislature among
   men, but Christ makes even His poor people--the poor in spirit,
   also--to be the objects of His judgment.

   3, 4. The mountains shall bringpeace to thepeople, and the little
   hills, by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people, He
   shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the
   oppressor In the reign of Christ there shall be no treading down of the
   little by the great--no pressure put upon the feeble by the strong--but
   His right hand shall get to the weakest cause, the victory!

   5. They shall fear You as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout
   all generations. For the Kingdom of Christ renews itself. It is never
   broken in pieces by the power of the enemy, but every piece becomes a
   new root, and it springs up again. There are some plants of which they
   say that the more you tread upon them, the more they will spread, and
   certainly it is the case with the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. As
   long as there is a sun in the heavens, and a moon to gladden the night,
   so shall the Kingdom of Christ endure!

   6. He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that
   water the earth Christ shall not come like fire to burn up and to
   destroy, for His Kingdom is one of mercy and Divine Grace. When the
   grass has just been wounded with the scythe, He shall come down to
   bring it refreshment that it may spring up again. In plenteous showers
   of Grace shall He visit wounded spirits.

   7. In His days shall the righteous flourish: and abundance of peace so
   long as the moon endures. There have been empires which have been
   propitious to the flourishing of great wrongs. Some of the worst and
   vilest of men have flourished under certain empires which have but
   lately passed away. But in the Empire of Christ, the righteous alone
   shall flourish. Everything about Him and about His power shall make it
   go well for them, and His Empire is the most truly peace --"abundance
   of peace so long as the moon endures."

   8. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto
   the ends off the earth. Universal monarchy is to be the Monarchy of
   Christ! This is the fifth great Monarchy, and there shall never be
   another! No king or potentate that shall ever rise can possibly have
   universal dominion again. We need not fear that, for the fifth Empire
   is that of the Christ of God, and behold He comes to claim it!

   9. They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before Him and His
   enemies shall lick the dust. The most distant tribes--those that wander
   and have no settled dwelling place--shall, nevertheless, bow before
   Him. The Arab boasts that he never knew a master--that even Caesar
   could not penetrate into his deserts and subdue him! But Christ shall
   be his Lord, and he will be glad to acknowledge Him!

   10. The kings off Tarshish and off the isles shall bring presents: the
   kings off Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. We need not be afraid if
   this Psalm refers to Christ--and we do not doubt that it does. He must
   reign. The end of the world is not coming until there shall be a
   conquest for Him. He may come before that time, but certainly there
   shall be no winding up of history until this shall be literally true!
   "The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents."

   11. 12. Yes, all kings shall fall down before Him: all nations shall
   serve Him. For He shall deliver the needy when he cries; the poor also,
   and he that has no helper. The Psalmist seems glad to dwell upon that.
   It seems to be the joy note in his mind--that the Great King--the
   greatest of all kings--will care for the lowly and the humble. Let us
   rejoice in this, dear Friends. Christ is chosen out of the people and
   exalted by God--and He is the Christ not only ready to save the
   highest, but to save the lowest! From His Kingdom we may say--

   ''None are excluded hence but those Who do themselves exclude! Welcome
   the learned and polite, The ignorant and rude."

   13-15. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of
   the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence:
   andprecious shall their blood be in His sight. And He shall live. They
   say, "O king, live forever." It can never happen to their kings, but to
   our King it will happen! "He shall live."

   15. And to Him shall be given off the gold off Sheba--He shall have the
   best the world can find willingly given to Him. I am sure that we who
   know His love think that we have nothing good enough for Him. We would
   render to Him all that we have.

   15. Prayer also shall be made for Him continually. With the gold shall
   come the golden prayer--the prayer for Christ. But how can we pray for
   Him? Why, that He may have the reward of His sufferings and see of the
   travail of His soul--that His Kingdom may come and that His name may be
   dear in the hearts of men!

   15. And daily shall He be praised. He shall have praise as well as
   prayer and gold.

   16. There shall be an handful off corn in the earth upon the top off
   the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they off
   the city shall flourish like grass off the earth. It was corn--good
   seed corn, but there was only a handful of it. So there were saints in
   the world, but there were very few of them. And where were they? On the
   tops of the mountains! A strange place for corn--not a likely place for
   a harvest. So have God's servants been pushed into the corners of the
   earth. There they were in the valleys of Piedmont for many a year
   fighting for dear life. And in all lands, those that have been faithful
   to God have been put away into the corners--driven, as it were, to the
   mountaintops. But what has come of it, and what will come of it? Why,
   the fruit shall shake like Lebanon. The golden corn, standing upright
   in its strength, adorned with its ear, shall wave in the breeze as
   pleasing a sight even as the cedar of Lebanon!
     __________________________________________________________________

A Warning to Believers

   (No. 3466)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 8, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE
   16, 1870.

   "Let no man beguile you of your reward." Colossians 2:18.

   THERE is an allusion here to the prize which was offered to the runners
   in the Olympic games. And at the outset it is well for us to remark how
   very frequently the Apostle Paul conducts us by his metaphors to the
   racecourse. Over and over again he is telling us so to run that we may
   obtain, bidding us to strive and, at other times, to agonize, and
   speaks of wrestling and contending. Ought not this make us feel what an
   intense thing the Christian life is--not a thing of sleepiness or
   haphazard, not a thing to be left, now and then, to a little
   superficial consideration? It must be a matter which demands all our
   strength, so that when we are saved there is a living principle put
   within us which demands all our energies and gives us energy over and
   above any that we ever had before! Those who dream that carelessness
   will find its way to Heaven have made a great mistake. The way to Hell
   is neglect, but the way to Heaven is very different. "How shall we
   escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" A little matter of neglect
   brings you to ruin, but our Master's words are, "Strive to enter in at
   the straight gate, for many, I say unto you, shall seek"--merely
   seek--"to enter in, and shall not be able." Striving is needed more
   than seeking! Let us pray that God the Holy Spirit would always enable
   us to be in downright, awful earnest about the salvation of our souls.
   May we never count this a matter of secondary importance, but may we
   seek first and beyond everything else, the Kingdom of God and His
   righteousness. May we lay hold on eternal life--may we so run that we
   may obtain.

   I would press this upon your memories because I observe--observe it in
   myself as well as in my fellow Christians, that we are often more
   earnest about the things of this life than we are about the things of
   the life to come. We are all impressed with the fact that in these days
   of competition, if a man would not be run over and crushed beneath the
   wheels of the Juggernaut of poverty, he must exert himself. No man now
   seems able to keep his head above water with the faint swimmer strokes
   which our forefathers used to give. We have to strive--and the bread
   that perishes has to be labored for. Shall it be that this poor world
   shall engross our earliest thoughts and our latest cares, and shall the
   world to come have only now and then a consideration? No! May we love
   our God with all our heart, and all our soul, and all our strength--and
   may we lay our body, soul and spirit upon the altar of Christ's
   service--for these are but our reasonable sacrifices to Him.

   Now the Apostle, in the text before us, gives us a warning which comes
   to the same thing, however it is interpreted. But the passage is
   somewhat difficult of rendering and there have been several meanings
   given to it. Out of these there are three meanings which have been
   given of the text before us which are worthy of notice. "Let no man
   beguile you of your reward" The Apostle, in the first place, may mean
   here--

   I. LET NO MAN BEGUILE ANY OF YOU who profess to be followers of Christ,
   of the great reward that will await the faithful at the last.

   Now, my Brothers and Sisters, we have, many of us, commenced the
   Christian race, or we profess to have done so-- but the number of the
   starters is far greater than the number of the winners! "They that run
   in a race, run all, but one receives the prize." "Many are called, but
   few are chosen." Many commence, apparently, in the Christian career,
   but after a while, though they did run well, something hinders them
   that they do not obey the Truths of God and they go out from us because
   they were not of us, or if they had been of us, doubtless they would
   have continued with us. Now we may expect, now that we have commenced
   to run, that some will come and try to turn us out of the racecourse
   openly--not

   plausibly and with sophistry--but with an open and honest wickedness.
   Some will tell us plainly that there is no reward to run for, that our
   religion is all a mistake, that the pleasures of this world are the
   only things worth seeking, that there are delights of the flesh and the
   lusts thereof, and that we should do well to enjoy them. We all meet
   the Atheist with his sneer and with his ringing laugh. We shall meet
   with all kinds of persons who will, to our faces, tell us to turn back,
   for there is no Heaven, there is no Christ, or, if there is, it is not
   worth our while to take so much trouble to find Him. Take heed of these
   people! Meet them face to face with dauntless courage. Mind not their
   sneers. If they persecute you, only, reckon this to be an honor to
   you--for what is persecution but the tribute which wickedness pays to
   righteousness? And what is it, indeed, but the recognition of the Seed
   of the woman when the seed of the serpent would gladly bite His heel?

   But the Apostle does not warn you so much against those people who
   openly come to you in this way. He knows that you will be on the alert
   against them. He gives a special warning against some others who would
   beguile you--that is to say-- who will try to turn you out of the right
   road, but who will not tell you that they mean to do so. They pretend
   that they are going to show you something better than what you have, to
   teach you something that you knew not before, some improvement upon
   what you have here learned. In Paul's day there were some who took off
   the attention of the Christian from the worship of God to the worship
   of angels. "Angels," they said, "these are holy beings. They keep watch
   over you--you should speak of them with great respect." And then, when
   they grew bolder, they said, "You should ask for their protection." And
   then after a little while they said, "You should worship them. You
   should make them intermediate intercessors!" And so, step by step, they
   went on and established an old heresy which lasted for many years in
   the Christian Church--and which is not dead, even now--and thus the
   worship of angels crept in.

   And now-a-days you will meet with men who will say, "That bread upon
   the Table--why, it represents the body of Jesus Christ to you when you
   come to the Lord's Supper. Therefore you ought to treat that bread with
   great respect." By-and-by they will get a little bolder, and then they
   say, "As it represents Christ, you may worship it, pay it respect as if
   it were Christ." By-and-by it will come to this, that you must have a
   napkin under your chin, lest you should drop a crumb. And they will say
   it would be very wicked if a drop of the sacred wine should cling to
   your moustache when you drink! And there will be the directions which
   are given in some of the papers coming out from the High Church party--
   absurdities which are only worthy of the nursery--about the way in
   which the holy bread is to be eaten and the holy wine is to be
   drunk--bringing in idolatry--sheer, clear idolatry, under the pretence
   of improving upon the too bare simplicity of the worship of Christ! Be
   careful of the very first step, I pray you.

   Or, perhaps, it may come to you in another shape. One will say to you,
   "The place in which you worship--is it not very dear to you? That seat
   where you have been accustomed to sit and listen, is it not dear?" And
   your natural instincts will say, "Yes." Then it will go a little
   farther. "That place is holy--it ought never to be used for anything
   but worship." Then a little farther it will be, "Oh, that is the House
   of God," and you will come to believe that, contrary to the words which
   you know are given to you by the Holy Spirit, that God dwells not in
   temples made with hands--that is to say, in these buildings--and you
   will have, by degrees, a worship of places, and a worship of days, and
   a worship of bread, and a worship of wine! And then it will be said to
   you, "Your minister, has he not often cheered you? Well then, you
   should reverence him--call him, 'Reverend.'" Go a little farther and
   you will call him, "Father." Yet a little farther and he will be your
   confessor! Get a little farther and he will be your infallible Pope! It
   is all done step by step! The first step seems to be very harmless,
   indeed. Indeed, it is a kind of voluntary humility! You look as if you
   were humbling yourselves and were paying reverence to these things for
   God's sake--whereas the objective is to get you to pay reverence to
   them, instead of to God--and here the Apostle's words come in, "Let no
   man beguile you of your reward." They will often attack you in that
   insidious manner by setting up other objects of reverence besides those
   which spiritual men worship!

   So, too, they will, by slow degrees, try to insinuate a different way
   of living from that which is the true life of the Christian. You who
   have believed in Jesus are saved. Your sins are forgiven you for His
   name's sake. You are accustomed to go to Jesus Christ constantly to
   receive that washing of the feet of which He spoke to Peter when He
   said, "He that is washed needs not except to wash his feet, for he is
   clean every whit." You go to Him with, "Forgive us our trespasses as we
   forgive those who trespass against us." But there will be some who will
   come in and tell you that to live in that way by a simple faith in
   Jesus Christ is not, perhaps, the best way. Could you not get a little
   farther? Could you not lead the life of those recluses who mortify the
   flesh in such a way that at last they come to have no sins, but
   commence to be perfect in

   themselves? Could you not begin, at least in some degree, to commit
   your soul's care to some priest, or to some friend? And instead of
   making every place holy and every day a holy day, would it not be well
   to fast on such-and-such days in the week, to scrupulously observe this
   rule and the other rule and walk by the general opinion of the ancient
   Church, or by the Anglicanum Directorium, or some one of those books
   which profess to show how they used to do it a thousand years ago? All
   this may have a great show of wisdom, antiquity and beauty--there may
   be a semblance of everything that is holy about it and names that
   should never be mentioned without reverence may be appended to it
   all--but listen to the Apostle as he says, "Beware lest any man beguile
   you of your reward," for if they get you away from living upon Christ
   as a poor sinner from day to day by simple confidence in Him, they will
   beguile you of your reward!

   There is another party who will seek to beguile you of your reward by
   bringing in speculative notions instead of the simple Truths of God's
   Word. There is a certain class of persons who think that a sermon is a
   good one when they cannot understand it and who are always impressed
   with a man whose words are long! And if his sentences are involved,
   they feel, poor souls, that because they do not know what he is talking
   about, there is no doubt that he is a very wise and learned man! And
   after a while, when he does propound something that they can catch at,
   though it may be quite contrary to what they have learned at their
   mother's knee or from their father's Bible, yet they are ready to be
   led off by it! There are many men, now-a-days, who seem to spend their
   time in nothing else but in spinning new theories and inventing new
   systems. They gut the Gospel, taking the very soul and heart out of it,
   and leave nothing but the mere skin and outward bones. The life and
   marrow of the Gospel is being taken away by their learning, by their
   philosophies, by their refinements, by their bringing everything down
   to the test of this wonderfully enlightened 19th Century, to which we
   are all, I suppose, bound to defer! But a voice comes to us, "Let no
   man beguile you of your reward." Stand fast to the old Truths of
   God--they will outlast all these philosophies! Stand fast to the old
   way of living--it will outlast all the inventions of men! Stand fast by
   Christ, for you need no other object of worship but Himself!

   The Apostle gives us this warning, "Let no man beguile you of your
   reward," reminding us that these persons are very likely to beguile us.
   They will beguile us by their character. Have I not often heard young
   people say of such-and-such a preacher who preaches error, "But he is
   so good a man!" That is not the point. "Though we, or an angel from
   Heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have
   preached unto you, let him be accursed." If the life of the man should
   be blameless as the life of Christ, yet if he preaches to you other
   than the Gospel of Jesus Christ, take no heed of him! He wears but the
   sheep's clothing, and is a wolf, after all. Some will plead, "But
   such-and-such a man is so eloquent." Ah, Brothers and Sisters, may the
   day never come when your faith shall stand in the words of men! What is
   a ready orator, after all, that he should convince your hearts? Are
   there not ready orators caught any day for everything? Men speak, speak
   fluently, and speak well in the cause of evil! And there are some that
   can speak much more fluently and more eloquently for evil than any of
   our poor tongues are ever likely to do for the right! But words, words,
   words, flowers of rhetoric, oratory--are these the things that saved
   you? Are you so foolish that having begun in the spirit by being
   convicted of your sins, having begun by being led simply to Christ and
   putting your trust in Him--are you now to be led astray by these poetic
   utterances and flowery periods of men? God forbid! Let nothing of this
   kind beguile you!

   Then there will be added to these remarks that the man is not only very
   good and very eloquent, but that he is very earnest--he seems very
   humble-minded. Yes, and of old they wore rough garments to deceive, and
   in the context of the text we find that those persons were noted for
   their voluntary humility and their worship of angels! Satan knows very
   well that if he comes in black, he will be discovered, but if he puts
   on the garb of an angel of light, then men will think he comes from God
   and so will be deceived. "By their fruits you shall know them." If they
   give you not the Gospel--if they exalt not Christ, if they bear not
   witness to salvation through the precious blood, if they do not lift up
   Jesus Christ as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness--have
   nothing to do with them, speak they as they may! "Let no man beguile
   you of your reward." Through it should happen to be your relative, one
   whom you love, one who may have many claims on your respect--let no
   man, let no man, however plausible may be his speech or eminent his
   character--beguile you of your reward!

   Recollect, you professors, you lose the reward if you lose the road to
   the reward. He that runs may run very fast, but if he does not run the
   course, he wins not the prize. You may believe false Doctrine with
   great earnestness, but you will find it false, for all that! You may
   give yourself up indefatigably to the pursuit of the wrong religion,
   but it will ruin your souls! A notion is abroad that if you are but
   earnest and sincere, you will be all right. Permit me to remind you
   that

   if you travel ever so earnestly to the north, you will never reach the
   south. And if you earnestly take prussic acid, you will die! And if you
   earnestly cut off a limb, you will be wounded. You must not only be
   earnest, but you must be right in it! Hence is it necessary to say,
   "Let no man beguile you of your reward." "I bear them witness," said
   the Apostle, "that they had a zeal for God, but not according to
   knowledge, but went about to establish their own righteousness, and
   have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God." Oh, may we
   not be beguiled, then, so as to miss the reward of Heaven at the last!

   But I must pass on, especially as the light fails us this evening--I
   hope it is prognostic of a coming shower. Here is a second rendering
   which may be given to the text-- II. LET NO MAN DOMINEER OVER YOU.

   This rendering, or something analogous to it, is in the French
   translation. One of the great expositors in his commentary upon this
   passage refers it to the judges at the end of the course who sometimes
   would give the reward to the wrong person, and the person who had
   really run well might thus be deprived of his reward. Now, however
   close a man may be to Christ, the world, instead of honoring him for
   it, will, on the contrary, censure and condemn him--and hence the
   Apostle's exhortation is, "Let no man domineer over you."

   And, my Brothers and Sisters, I would earnestly ask you to remember
   this, first, as to your course of action. If you conscientiously
   believe that you are right in what you are doing, care very little who
   is pleased or who is displeased. If you are persuaded in your own soul
   that what you believe and what you do are acceptable to God, whether
   they are acceptable to man or not is of very small consequence! You are
   not man's servant, you do not look to man for your reward and,
   therefore, you need not care what man's opinion may be in this matter.
   Be just and fear not! Tread in the footsteps of Christ, follow what
   may. Live not on the breath of men. Let not their applause make you
   feel great, for perhaps then their censure will make you faint. Let no
   man in this respect domineer over you, but let Christ be your Master,
   and look to His smile.

   So not only with regard to your course of action, but also with
   reference to your confidence, let no man domineer over you. If you put
   your trust in Jesus Christ, there are some who will say it is
   presumption. Let them say it is presumption! "Wisdom is justified of
   all her children," and so shall faith be. If you take the promise of
   God and rest upon it, there will be some who will say that you are
   hare-brained fanatics. Let them say it! They that trust in Him shall
   never be confounded. The result will honor your faith. You have but to
   wait a little while and, perhaps, they that now censure you will have
   to hold up their hands in astonishment and say with you, "What has God
   worked?" Your confidence in Christ, especially my dear young Friend, I
   trust does not depend upon the smile of your relatives. If it did, then
   their frown might crush it. Walk with your Savior in the lowly walk of
   holy confidence, and let not your faith rest in man, but in the smile
   of God!

   Let no man domineer over you, again, byjudging your motives. Men will
   always give as bad a reason as they can for a good man's actions. It
   seems to be innate in human nature never to give man credit for being
   right if you can help it, and often tender minds have been greatly
   wounded when they have been misrepresented and their actions have been
   imputed to sinister and selfish motives--when they have really desired
   to serve Christ. But do not let your heart be broken about that. You
   will appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ--do not care about the
   petty judgment seats of men! Go on with your Master's work dauntlessly
   and fearlessly. Let them say, as David's brothers said of him, "Because
   of your pride and the naughtiness of your heart have you come to see
   the battle." You go and get Goliath's head and bring it back--and that
   shall be the best answer to these sneering ones. When they see that God
   is with you and that He has given you the triumph, you shall have
   honor, even in the eyes of those who now ridicule you! I think
   sometimes the Christian should have very much the same bravado against
   the judgment of men as David had when Michal, the daughter of Saul,
   came out and said, "How glorious was the King of Israel, today, who
   uncovered himself today in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants."
   And he said, "It was before the Lord, and I will yet be more vile than
   thus." Let your eyes be to God and forget the eyes of men! Live so that
   whether they know what you do, or do not know, you will not care, for
   your conduct will bear the blaze of the great Judgment Day and,
   therefore, the criticisms of earth do not affect you! Let no man
   domineer over you.

   So may I put it in another light--let no man sway your conscience so as
   to lead you. I am always anxious, my dear Hearers, that whatever
   respect I may ever win from you--and I trust I may have your esteem and
   your affection--yet

   that you will never believe a Doctrine simply because I utter it!
   Unless I can confirm it from the Word of God, away with it! If it is
   not according to the teaching of the Lord and Master, I beseech you
   follow me not. Follow me only as far as I follow Christ! And so with
   every other man. Let it be God's Truth, God's Word, the Holy Spirit's
   witness to that Word in your soul that you are seeking after! And rest,
   I pray you, never short of that, for if you do, your faith will stand
   merely in the wisdom of men--and when the man who helped you to believe
   is gone, perhaps your faith may be gone, too-- when you most need its
   comforting power! No, let no man domineer over you, but press forward
   in the Christian race, looking unto Jesus, and looking unto Jesus only!

   But now a third meaning belongs to the text. A happy circumstance it
   is, this dark night, that the preacher does not need to use his
   manuscript, for if he did, his sermon would certainly come to an end
   right now. But here is this point, "Let no man beguile you of your
   reward." It may mean this--

   III. LET NO MAN ROB YOU OF THE PRESENT REWARD WHICH YOU HAVE IN BEING A
   CHRISTIAN.

   Let no man deprive you of the present comfort which your faith should
   bring to you. Let me, just for a few minutes, have your attention while
   I speak upon this. Dear Brothers and Sisters, you and I, if we are
   believers in Christ, are this day completely pardoned. There is no sin
   in God's book against us. We are wholly and completely justified! The
   righteousness of Jesus Christ covers us from head to foot and we stand
   before God as if we had never sinned! Now let no man rob you of this
   reward. Do not be tempted by anything that is said to doubt the
   completeness of a believer in Christ. Hold this, and as you hold it,
   enjoy it! Do not let the man whom you have most to fear, beguile you.
   Even though conscience should upbraid you and you should have many
   grave reasons for doubt, as you imagine, yet if you believe in Jesus,
   stand to it--"There is, therefore, now no condemnation to me, for I am
   in Christ Jesus! He that believes in Him is not condemned! I have
   believed and I am not condemned. Neither will He permit condemnation to
   be thundered against me, for Christ has borne my sin for me and I am
   clear in Him." Let no man beguile you of the reward of feeling that you
   are complete in Christ!

   Further, you who have believed in Jesus Christ aresafe in Christ.
   Because He lives, you shall live also. Who shall separate us from the
   love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord? He has said, "I give
   unto My sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall
   any pluck them out of My hands." Now there are some who will tell you
   that you are not safe and that it is dangerous for you to believe that
   you are. Let no man beguile you of this reward! You are saved. If you
   are believing on Him, He will keep you, and you may sing, "Now unto Him
   who is able to keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before
   His Presence with exceedingly great joy, unto Him be glory." Hold to
   that blessed Truth of God that you are in Jesus--safe in Jesus Christ!

   There is a third blessed Truth, that not only are you pardoned and safe
   in Christ, but you are accepted at this moment in the Beloved. Your
   acceptance with God does not rest upon anything in you. You are
   accepted because you are in Christ, accepted for Christ's sake. Now
   sometimes you will get robbed of this reward if you listen to the voice
   which says, "Why, there is still sin in you! Your prayers are
   imperfect! Your actions are stained." Yes, but let no men beguile you
   of this conviction that, sinner as you are, you are still accepted in
   Christ Jesus!

   The Lord grant that you may feel this within and let no man beguile you
   of your reward as long as you live! May you live and die in the
   enjoyment of it, Beloved, for Christ's sake. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: EPHESIANS 4; 6:1-15.

   EPHESIANS 4.

   Verses 1, 2. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that
   you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. With all
   lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in
   love. It is a loving call. Walk lovingly. It is the condescension of
   God that called you. Be, therefore, lowly. It is God in tenderness who
   has loved you. Be, therefore, meek, "forbearing one another in love."

   3-6. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
   There is one body, and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope
   of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father
   of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.Therefore,
   strive for unity. Woe unto those who divide Believers--who rob them of
   love to one another--who set up another Gospel which is not another, or
   in any way detract from the unity of the body of Christ.

   7. But unto everyone of us is given Grace according to the measure of
   the gift of Christ It does not mean that God gives stingingly, but that
   He gives according to our capacity to receive. We are not all made with
   the same measure of capacity because we are not all intended to fill
   the same office--and God gives everyone of us as much Grace as we are
   prepared to receive. The Lord enlarge our hearts that we may hold more
   of His Grace, "according to the measure of the gift of Christ."

   8-10. Therefore He said, When he ascended up on high, He led captivity
   captive, andgave gifts unto men. Now that He ascended, what is it but
   that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that
   descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that
   He might fill all things. Now what were the gifts He gave? He rode up
   to Heaven in triumph. And in Roman triumphs they scattered gold and
   silver among the people to show the greatness of the trophies which the
   warriors had brought home. So Christ, when He ascended up on high,
   scattered gifts among the sons of men. And what were these? Why they
   were men, for men are God's possession--the Man, Christ Jesus, first,
   and then those whom He uses for Himself afterwards.

   11-13. And he gave some, Apostles, and some, Prophets; and some,
   evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the
   saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of
   Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the
   knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of
   the stature of the fullness of Christ.We have not come to that yet.
   Therefore we need instruction. We need edifying or building up, and so
   the Lord gives to His Church according to His own mind and will,
   evangelists, pastors and the like. Sometimes there are pastors whom God
   never sent--and a man may take upon himself the voice of an evangelist
   who was never called--and consequently they are not gifts of God to the
   churches and is a waste of their strength. But if we have those whom
   God gives, we shall find a priceless gift in the bestowal of such men
   upon the Church of God!

   14-16. That we henceforth are no more children, tossed to and fro, and
   carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and
   cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, but speaking
   the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the
   Head, even Christ: from whom the whole body fitly joined together and
   compacted by that which every joint supplies, according to the
   effectual working in the measure of every part, makes increase of the
   body unto the edifying of itself in love. You see then, Brothers and
   Sisters, where we are. We are each one put into his place to do
   something for the entire body. No limb of the body lives to itself. It
   is only healthy when it ministers to the health of the whole body. We
   are nothing, except as we are joined to the rest of God's people, and
   especially joined to Him who is our glorious Head.

   17-19. This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you
   henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their
   mind. Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life
   of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness
   of their heart Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto
   lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.This, the
   member of the body of Christ will never do! The Head is holy, so will
   the members be by that Holy Spirit who sanctifies us!

   20. But you have not so learned Christ.What a beautiful expression this
   is! It does not say, "Learned the Doctrine of Christ," or, "the precept
   of Christ," though that were a grand Truth, but we learn Christ,
   Himself! Our school book is Christ! The copy by which we write is
   Christ! The image to which we desire to be conformed is Christ! "You
   have not so learned Christ."

   21, 22. If so be that you have heard Him, and have been taught by Him,
   as the truth is in Jesus: That you put off concerning the former
   conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful
   lusts--You have done with it. You put it off as a beggar puts off his
   rags when he has fresh garments given him!

   23-25. And be renewedin the spirit ofyour mind; And thatyouput on the
   man, which after Godis createdin righteousness and true holiness.
   Therefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor:
   for we are members one of another You know the eye will not deceive the
   head. There is no part of the body that will deceive the rest. If the
   foot perceives that there is a trap, it tells the body and it does not
   lead it astray. If the nostril perceives an evil smell, it tells the
   body, that it may escape from the noxious odor. The body is true to
   itself. So if we are members, one of another, lying must be abhorrent.
   Every thought of it in any shape must be detestable to us.

   26. Be you angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.
   Be angry sometimes. A man that is never angry, surely has no strong
   convictions in him, for he that is not angry at evil can scarcely be
   thought to rejoice in that which is good. But anger is a dog that is
   very apt to bite the wrong persons. Therefore, be you angry, and sin
   not. Anger is like fire. Let it always be put out at night. "Let not
   the sun go down upon your wrath," but if it lights during the day, keep
   it in the grate--keep it in its proper place, for if fire takes hold
   where it should not, the house may be destroyed and the man, himself,
   may perish in the fire. If you are angry, as you sometimes must be, "be
   angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down on your wrath." They say
   that the stings of some obnoxious creatures will not die until the sun
   goes down. Well, let the sting of anger die when the sun goes down.
   Rake out the fire when the sun is down. Do not keep it blazing all
   night long, ready for the morning. Let it go out, lest our anger become
   hatred and become malice.

   27. Neither give place to the devil.He is standing at the door. If you
   give him a seat, he will come in and it is very easy to do so--to make
   an opportunity for the devil to come in. "Neither give place to the
   devil." Idle persons tempt the devil to depart by being busy--by being
   prayerful, and by being much with God. Give no place to the devil.

   28. Let him that stole, steal no more: but rather let him labor--Honest
   industry is the cure for dishonesty.

   28. Working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to
   give to him that needs.What a splendid change from a thief, up to one
   that gives to him that needs! Now, between them, we should have put,
   "Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor with his
   hands"--a thing which is good--"that he may be able to provide things
   honest for himself." A very good idea, too, but the like Christian
   thought is that he may labor, working with his hands that he may have,
   to give. I wonder how many, even of professing Christians, think of
   this--that the objective of labor should be that they may have to give?
   There are some who think the objective is that we may have, to
   keep--that we may have, to hoard--but I say Christ, by His Apostle,
   teaches us that we should labor that we may have, to give to him that
   needs.

   29. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.Putrid is
   the word--"no putrid communication"-- no word, therefore, which tends
   to do harm to the purest mind--nothing which is unsavory. Therefore,
   also, nothing that is untrue--nothing that is slanderous--nothing that
   would injure my neighbor. "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of
   your mouth." "You may as well say it as think it," says one. By no
   manner of means! If you think it, it will do you harm--if you say it,
   it will do hurt to others! You may have a bottle of poison and it is
   much better to keep the cork in, for if somebody should drink it, then
   they will die. No, "let no corrupt communication proceed out of your
   mouth."

   30-31. But that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may
   minister Grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God,
   whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness,
   and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking be put away from
   you, with all malice. Why does the Apostle say "clamor"? Why, because
   when people are angry they generally talk very loud, and I believe that
   if persons would correct their tone of voice and resolve, they will not
   speak above their usual tone! When they feel heated and provoked, it
   would greatly assist to check the abolition of passion. So the Apostle
   puts in, "Let all bitterness and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and loud
   talking--all clamor and evil speaking--be put away from you with all
   malice."

   32. And be you kind, one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one
   another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.

   EPHESIANS 6.

   Verse 1. Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.
   Fitting by nature and pleasing in the sight of God.

   2-4. Honor your father and mother; which is the first commandment with
   promise: that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the
   earth. And you fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring
   them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.For the duties are
   like birds with two wings, or like a pair of scales--balance for each
   side. There is the child's duty, but there is the parent's duty, too.

   5-9. Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to
   the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness ofyour heart, as unto
   Christ. Not with eye service, as men pleasers, but as the servants of
   Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. With good will doing
   service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatever good
   thing any man does, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he
   is bond or free. And, you masters, do the same things unto them. Mind
   that! We may hear a good deal about the duties of servants. Let us hear
   something about the duties of masters and mistresses. "You masters, do
   the same things unto them."

   9. Forbearing threats: knowing that your Master also is in Heaven;
   neither is there respect of persons with Him. Very beautifully balanced
   is the whole system of Gospel morals. There is no undue advantage given
   by the fact of our being rendered equal in Christ, so that the servant
   is to be less obedient to the master, or the child to the
   parent--neither is there any undue power given to those who are in
   authority! But the Grace of God teaches all to do unto all as we would
   that they should do unto us.

   10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord. You cannot do right if
   you are not strong. Unless you have the backbone of principle--unless
   you have spiritual muscle and sinew by the indwelling of the Holy
   Spirit in you, you cannot continue to do that which is right. "Finally,
   my brethren, be strong in the Lord."

   10, 11. And in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of
   God.First, be strong, and then put on armor. It is no use putting armor
   on a weak man, or else it will be what James I said it was--a capital
   invention, he said, because he who wore it would come to no harm and
   certainly do no harm, for he could not stir in it. Now you must be
   strong, first, but then not trust in your strength, but put on the
   armor which is here described. And yet it would be useless to have the
   armor unless you are first strong. "Put on the whole armor of God."

   11-13. That you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil For
   we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
   against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
   against spiritual wickedness in high places. Therefore take unto you
   the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil
   day, and having done all, to stand.To keep your ground, not to give way
   in any respect! And blessed is that man whose name is Stand-Fast, and
   whose practice is to hold fast--"having done all to stand."

   14. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth.Nothing
   will so tighten up your garments and keep them right as a belt of
   sincerity and truthfulness. If we are not true, whatever else we are,
   we are but loosely arrayed. We shall come to mischief. "Having your
   loins girt about with truth."

   14. And having on the breastplate of righteousness.A grand protection
   when God has given you to be holy, and when the principle which covers
   your heart and shields your members is righteousness!

   15. And your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace.
   Peace in your own heart, peace with God, peace with man. Peacefulness
   and peace. No shoes like these! A man that has a merry heart makes many
   a mile fly beneath him, but a heavy heart is a slow traveler. "Your
   feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace."
     __________________________________________________________________

A New Creation

   (No. 3467)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1915.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He who sat upon the throne said, Behold I make all things new."
   Revelation 21:5.

   Men generally venerate antiquity. It were hard to say which has the
   stronger power over the human mind-- antiquity or novelty. While men
   will frequently dote upon the old, they are most easily dazzled by the
   new. Anything new has at least one attraction. Restless spirits
   consider that the new must be better than the old. Though often
   disappointed, they are still ready to be caught by the same bait and,
   like the Athenians of Mars Hill, spend their time in nothing else but
   either to tell or to hear some new thing. And as for ourselves, dear
   Friends, as we sometimes mournfully think of the flight of time, we are
   known to cheerfully look out upon the new epochs as they begin to dawn
   upon us. If our calendar suggests some dismal memories in the past, our
   calculation predicts some happier prospects in the future! And it will
   sometimes happen that we leave so much anxiety, adversity and
   chastisement behind us, that it is a relief to hope that the tide has
   turned, and that a course of comfort, prosperity and mercy lies before
   us. One weeps over the past and the lost. I suppose the best of men
   must do so at times. I am sure those of us who are not the best, feel
   often constrained to pour out some such a lamentation as this--

   "Much of our time has run to waste-- Our sins, how great the sum! Lord,
   give us pardon for the past And strength for days to come."

   I do not know but it is sometimes as well, when one has been plunged in
   sorrow, or feels ashamed of his past life-- after having regretted that
   which is bygone and repented of it, and over it--to feel as if he
   breathed another atmosphere and had started on a fresh career. Having
   thrown away the old sword, he is now about to see what he can do with
   the new. Having put off an old garment, he is desirous to walk more
   worthily of his vocation with fresh ones that are provided for him.
   Perhaps the thought of freshness, the fact of new times having dawned
   on our path, may be a little help to those of us who are dull and
   heavy. And we may be stirred up to action, or, if not to action, it may
   awaken earnest hope that the infusion of a new start into our lives,
   new vigor instead of the old lethargy, new love instead of the old
   luke-warmness, new zeal instead of the old death-likeness--new,
   pertinacious, persevering industry for Christ instead of the old
   idleness, may result. God grant that it may be so!

   Looking at the text in this light, I think it speaks to everyone here
   present. Would you begin anew, lo, there is One who can help you to do
   so! From the Throne of God where sits the once Crucified but now
   Glorified Savior, there comes a whisper of hope to each and every soul
   who would be made new and would begin life anew. "Behold I make all
   things new." In trying to bring out the thoughts contained in this
   exclamation from the Throne--from the Emperor of the Universe, from the
   court of the King of Kings--we shall first speak, very briefly, of the
   new creation. Secondly, we should bid you adore the great Regenerator
   And, in the third place, we shall ask you to behold with attention, the
   fact before you, with a view of receiving benefit from it Observe the
   text speaks of--

   I. A NEW CREATION.

   "I make." That is a Divine Word. "I make all things." That, also, is
   Divine. "I make all things new." That seems to reach the third stage,
   wherein the thrice holy God appears glorious in the highest degree! "I
   make all things new." This our Lord Jesus Christ has done upon the
   greatest scale! We must view His purpose. It is the purpose and
   intention of the Lord Jesus to make this world entirely new. You
   recollect how it was made at first--pure and perfect. It sang with its

   sister spheres the song ofjoy and reverence. It was a fair world, full
   of everything that was lovely, beautiful, happy, holy. And if we might
   be permitted to dream for a moment of what it would have been if it had
   continued as God created it, one might fancy what a blessed world it
   would be at this moment! Had it possessed a teeming population like its
   present one, and if, one by one, those godly ones had been caught away,
   like Elijah, without knowing death, to be succeeded by pious
   descendants--oh, what a blessed world it would have been! A world where
   every man would have been a priest and every house a temple, and every
   garment a vestment, and every meal a sacrifice, and every place
   holiness to the Lord, for the Tabernacle of God would have been among
   them and God, Himself, would have dwelt among them! What songs would
   have hailed the rising of the sun--the birds of paradise caroling on
   every hill and in every dale their Maker's praise! What songs would
   have ushered in the stillness of the night! Yes, and angels, hovering
   over this fair world, would oft have heard the strain of joy breaking
   the silence of midnight, as glad and pure hearts beheld the eyes of the
   Creator beaming down upon them from the stars which stud the vault of
   Heaven!

   But there came a serpent and his craft spoiled it all. He whispered
   into the ears of Mother Eve--she fell, and we fell with her--and what a
   world this now is! If a man walks about in it with his eyes open, he
   will see it to be a horrible sphere. I do not mean that its rivers, its
   lakes, its valleys, its mountains are repulsive. No, it is a world fit
   for angels, naturally, but it is a horrible world morally! As I walked
   the other day down the streets of Paris and saw the soldiers with their
   pretty dresses--and the knives and forks which they carried with them
   to carve men and make a meal for death--I could not help thinking this
   is a pretty world, this is. Only let one man lift his finger and a
   hundred thousand men are ready to meet a hundred thousand other men,
   all intent upon doing--what? Why, upon cutting each other's throats!
   Upon tearing out each other's bleeding hearts and wading up to their
   knees in each other's gore till the ditches are full of blood, horses
   and men all mingled, and left to be food for dogs and for carrion
   crows! And then the victors on either side in the fray, return, beat
   the drums and sound the trumpets and say, "Glory! Glory! Look what we
   have done!" Devils could not be worse than men when their passions are
   let loose. Dogs would scarcely tear each other as men do. Men of
   intellect sit down and put their fingers to their foreheads, racking
   their brains to find out new ways of using gunpowder, and shot, and
   shell--so as to be able to blow twenty thousand souls into eternity as
   easily as 20 might be massacred by present appliances! And he is
   considered a clever man, a patriot, a benefactor of his own nation,
   who, by dint of genius, can discover some new way of destroying his
   fellow creatures. Oh, it is a horrible world, appalling to think of!
   When God looks at it, I wonder why He does not stamp it out, just as
   you and I do a spark of coal that flies upon our carpet from the fire!
   It is a dreadful world.

   But Jesus Christ, who knew that we would never make this world much
   better, let us do what we would with it. He designed from the very
   first to make a new world of it. Truly, truly, this seems to me to be a
   glorious purpose! To make a world is something wonderful, but to make a
   world new is something more wonderful still! When God spoke and said,
   "Let there be light," it was a fiat which showed Him to be Divine. Yet
   there was nothing, then, to resist His will. He had no opponent--He
   could build as He pleased and there were none to pluck down. But when
   Jesus Christ comes to make a new world, there is everything opposed to
   Him. When He says, "Let there be light," Darkness says, "There shall
   not be light." When He says, "Let there be order," Chaos says, "No, I
   will maintain confusion." When He says, "Let there be holiness, let
   there be love, let there be truth," the principalities and powers of
   evil withstand Him and say, "There shall not be holiness, there shall
   be sin! There shall not be love, there shall be hate! There shall not
   be truth, there shall be error! There shall not be the worship of God,
   there shall be the worship of sticks and stones--men shall bow down
   before idols which their own hands have made!"

   And yet, for all that, Jesus Christ, coming in the form of a Man,
   revealing Himself as the Son of God, determines to make all things new!
   And be assured, Brothers and Sisters, He will do it! Though He pleases
   to take His time and to use humble instrumentalities to effect His
   purposes, yet do it He will! The day shall come when this world shall
   be as fair as it was at the primeval Sabbath. When there shall be a new
   Heaven and a new Earth, wherein shall dwell righteousness. The ancient
   prophecy shall be fulfilled to the letter! God shall dwell among men.
   Peace shall be domiciled on earth and Glory shall be ascribed to God in
   the highest! This great work of Christ, this grand design of making
   this old world into a new one shall be carried into effect!

   In order to accomplish this, it has come to pass that Christ has made
   for us a New Covenant The Old Covenant was, "Do this and live." That
   Covenant was a sentence of death upon us all. We could not do,
   therefore we could not live, and

   so we died. The New Covenant has nothing in it contingent upon
   creature-doing, but it bases all its provisions upon Christ having done
   the work! "I will, and you shall," this is the language of the New
   Covenant? The Covenant of Law, in which we were weak through the flesh,
   left us mangled and broken. The Covenant of Grace reveals God's
   kindness towards us and our part, thereof, has been fulfilled for us by
   our Surety, Christ Jesus. Thus it runs, "Their sins and their
   iniquities will I remember no more forever; a new heart also will I
   give them, and a right spirit will I put within them." The old world is
   still under the old Covenant of Works and its children perish, for they
   cannot carry out the conditions of the Covenant--they cannot keep God's
   Law--they break it constantly, and they die. But the children of Grace
   are under the New Covenant of Grace, and through the precious blood,
   which is the penalty of the old broken Covenant, and through the
   spotless righteousness of Christ, which is the fulfillment and
   magnifying of the old Covenant, the Christian stands secure and
   rejoices that he is saved! Christ has thus made His people dwell under
   a New Covenant, instead of under the old one.

   In addition to the New Covenant, Christ has been pleased to make us new
   men. His saints are "new creatures in Christ Jesus." They have a new
   nature! God has breathed into them a new life. The Holy Spirit, though
   the old nature is still there, has been pleased to put within them a
   new nature. There is now a contending force within them--the old carnal
   nature inclining to evil and the new God-given nature panting after
   perfection. They are new men, "begotten again unto a lively hope, by
   the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." This new nature is
   moved by new principles. The old nature needed to be awed with threats,
   or bribed with rewards--the new nature feels the impulse of love!
   Gratitude is its mainspring--"We love Him because He first loved us."
   No mercenary motive now stirs the new creature--

   "My God, I love You not because

   I hope for Heaven thereby,

   Nor yet because who love You not

   Must burn eternally."

   I love You, O my Savior, because on the Cross You did bear shame, and
   spitting, and manifold disgrace for me. New principles stir the new
   nature which God has given! And this new nature is conscious of new
   emotions. It loves what once it hated--it hates what once it loved. It
   finds blight where once it sought for bliss, and finds bliss where once
   it found nothing but bitterness. It leaps at the sound which was once
   dull to its ears--the name of a precious Christ! It rejoices in hopes
   which once seemed idle as dreams. It is filled with a Divine enthusiasm
   which it once rejected as fanatical! It is now conscious of living in a
   new element, breathing a fresh air, partaking of new food, drinking out
   of new wells not dug by men or filled from the earth. The man is
   new--new in principles and new in emotions!

   And now the man is also new in relationship. He was an heir to
   wrath--he is now a child of God. He was a bondslave--he is now a free
   man. He was the Ishmael who dwelt in the wilderness--he is now the
   Isaac, and dwells with Sarah after the tenor of the New Covenant. He
   rejoices in Christ Jesus and feasts to the full! He was once the
   citizen of earth-- he is now a citizen of Heaven. He once found his all
   beneath the clouds, but now his all is beyond the stars! He has new
   relationships. Christ is his Brother. God is his Father. The angels are
   his friends and the despised people of God are his best and nearest
   kinsfolk! And therefore the man has new aspirations. He now pants to
   glorify God! What cared he about the glory of God once? He now pants to
   see God--once he would have paid the fare, if it had cost his life,
   that he might escape from the Presence of the Lord! Now he hungers and
   thirsts after the living God. Yes, if his soul had wings, and he could
   break the fetters of this mortality, he would mount at once to dwell
   where Jesus is! Dear Friends, are you new men and women? If you are,
   you understand what it is. If you are not, I know I cannot explain it
   to you. Oh, to be born-again is a great mystery! Blessed is the soul
   that comprehends it! But he that knows it not will never learn it by
   the lips--he can only know it by the Spirit of God causing him to also
   be made a new creature in Christ Jesus.

   Thus far I have said that the objective of Christ was to make a new
   world, and He began by making a New Covenant. Then, through His Spirit,
   He goes on to make new men under the New Covenant, and you will see
   that by this means He makes a new society. Swelling words have been
   spoken and great attempts taken in hand to renovate society, but you
   can never renovate society till you have renovated the individual
   members who compose society! You may build a brick house, if you
   please, but, build it as you like, it will be a house of brick upon
   whatever principles of architecture it may be constructed! Not until
   that brick shall be transformed to marble can you hope to "dwell in
   marble halls." So men may launch their divers theories and patent their
   social inventions, but after they have reshaped the society of sinners,
   it will

   still be a sinful society! It is otherwise with Christ. By making new
   men, He makes a new society, which society He calls His "Church." That
   Church He sends into the world to act upon the rest of mankind. Verily,
   the day will come-- whether it shall be at His Second Advent or before
   His Second Advent, I do not know--the day will come when, from the east
   to the west, and from the north to the south, there shall be a new
   world as far as men are concerned! There shall be no injustice towards
   the poor. There shall be no envying of the rich. There shall be no law
   to make men slaves. There shall be no power to oppress because there
   shall be no will to do it! Our Lord Jesus Christ shall put a new heart
   into earth's kings and then He shall come Himself to take their thrones
   and their crowns, and to be, Himself, our Universal King, and in His
   day shall the righteous flourish!

   Now I believe the way for us to regard that happy day in which He will
   make all things new--that happy day when the lion shall eat straw like
   the ox and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, when the sword
   shall be turned into the sickle, and the spear into the pruning
   hook--the way for us to regard that day, I think, is not standing with
   our mouths open expecting it, but by setting to work after the Master's
   own fashion, seeking to bring it about! To gather out the elect from
   mankind, to illustrate the Gospel practically in our lives and so to do
   as Jesus did among the sons of men-- promoting light, and peace, and
   truth, and holiness and happiness as God may help us!

   I wish we had more time to enter fully into this part of the subject.
   We have not and, therefore, we must leave it, but may you and I have a
   part in this new creation! Turning to our second point, I want you to--

   II. ADORE THIS GREAT REGENERATOR.

   He says, "Behold I make all things new." Behold Him! He is a Man
   dressed in the common garments of the poor! He has no form nor
   comeliness and when you shall see Him there is no beauty in Him that
   you should desire Him. He has come to make the world new. He has no
   soldiery, no book of laws, no new philosophy. He has come to make the
   world new and to do this He has brought with Him--what? Why, Himself He
   spends a life of weariness and sorrow among those who despise Him--and
   if you want to know first and foremost how He makes all things new, you
   must see Him sweating great drops of blood in the Garden--that is the
   blood of the new world which He is pouring forth! You must see Him
   bound, scourged, spat upon, led to the accursed tree! While God's wrath
   for sin is yet unspent, the world cannot be new, but when that wrath on
   account of sin is all poured upon the head of the great Substitute,
   then the world stands in a new relation to God and it can be a new
   world! See the Savior, then, in groans and pangs which cannot be
   described, bearing the curse of God, for He made Him to be sin for us,
   though He knew no sin. The curse fell on Him, as it is written, "Cursed
   is every one that hangs on a tree." It pleased the Father to bruise
   Him. He has put Him to grief. He has made His soul to be an offering
   for sin." That dolorous pain, then, of the Master, was the world's
   new-making! It was then and there that the world was born-again. No
   mother's pangs, when she brought forth a man-child, were such as those
   of Christ when He brought forth the new creation! It was there in the
   travail of His soul--did you ever catch that idea, "the travail of His
   soul"?--it was there that the new world was born! "Behold I make all
   things new" is a mysterious voice from the broken heart of a dying
   Savior! From the empty tomb, as He rises, I hear it come in silvery
   notes, "Behold I make all things new." You must trace the birth of the
   New Creation up to the grave of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the place
   where the Cross stood and where His body lay.

   But the actual operations of new-making the world takes place through
   the truth which Christ promulgated. After the relation of the world to
   God had been changed by the sufferings of Jesus, the world's thought
   concerning God came to be changed by the preaching of Jesus. He came
   and revealed God to man as man had never before seen God. It was
   through Him we learned that "God is Love." It was through Him that we
   understood that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
   Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have
   everlasting life." It is the preaching of the Cross of Jesus that is to
   make the world new! It is not the philosophies of men, but the Wisdom
   of God which effects the change! In the Presence of Christ your
   philosophies must sink into darkness as stars in the presence of the
   sun!

   And it is also by the giving of the Holy Spirit, as the result of the
   Ascension of Christ on high, that the world is made new. Thus He gives
   power to the ministry. There were 3,000 new creations in one day when
   Peter preached the Gospel under the influence of the Holy Spirit! And
   that blessed Spirit of God is here tonight! Oh, I would that there
   might be some new creations toni