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        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 19: 1873
   Creator(s): Spurgeon, Charles Haddon (1834-1892)
CCEL Subjects: All; Sermons;
   LC Call no: BV42
  LC Subjects:

               Practical theology

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

               Times and Seasons. The church year
     __________________________________________________________________

The Man Greatly Beloved

   (No. 1089)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY 5, 1873,

   BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "O man greatly beloved, fear not: peace be unto you, be strong, yes, be
   strong." Daniel 10:19.

   I ANTICIPATE an objection to my preaching from this text and using it
   in reference to any persons in this congregation. "The words were
   spoken to Daniel and we are not Daniels"--that is probably the shape
   which the objection will take in certain minds. And my reply is, If we
   are not Daniels, at least we should desire to be and we should remember
   that there are possibilities of our being such. In many parts of
   Daniel's character we can, by Divine Grace, tread in his steps. Daniel
   is not set up far above us as one who cannot be imitated--he is an
   example whom it should be our joy to follow.

   "But," cries one, "we shall never reach to Daniel's height of Grace." I
   pray God we may. Under all dispensations there have been men of the
   class to which Daniel belongs. The antediluvian period produced an
   Enoch who "walked with God and was not, for God took him," and he, like
   Daniel, prophesied concerning the coming of the Lord. In the
   Patriarchal period there was an Abraham who is called "the friend of
   God," with whom the Lord communed in a most peculiar manner. In the
   later days, under the Law, was there not a David, "a man after God's
   own heart"? And though his character was more faulty, yet still his
   nearness of fellowship with God, as we read of it in the Psalms, puts
   him in the same category.

   If you tell me that all these, and many more whom I might mention,
   belong to the olden times and to the days of miracles, and so forth, I
   would remind you that nowadays the child of God, under the Gospel, has
   privileges which were unknown to the greatest Believers in former
   dispensations! Even John the Baptist, of whom it was said that none
   born of woman was greater than he--it is said, also, he was less than
   the least in the kingdom of Heaven. With the clearer light and richer
   indwelling of the Holy Spirit, instead of being inferior to Enoch, or
   Abraham, or David, or Daniel, we ought to excel all these!

   And, further, I would also remind you that the New Testament
   dispensation produced a John--and is there a nearer facsimile of Daniel
   anywhere than John? The two, though so very different in positions and
   in circumstances, were in their disposition, in their walk with God, in
   their familiarity with the Most High, and in the extraordinary visions
   of the future with which they were indulged, so much akin that I might
   say that Daniel was the John of the Prophets and that John was the
   Daniel of the Evangelists! Now, if there is one John produced under the
   Gospel, why not another? If two, why not 2,000 or twenty thousand?

   "And why may I not be one of them?" each Christian may ask. The Spirit
   of God is not stinted. The dew from Heaven is not exhausted because it
   fell on Daniel's branch and rested on John's leaf. You may have it, my
   Brother, and under its fertilizing influence you may bud and
   blossom--and from every blossom shed around you the fragrance of
   fellowship with God! Moreover, if I waive the question of our imitating
   Daniel I would add that from another consideration I feel justified in
   using my text most freely--for every true Christian is, in some
   sense--and that a very deep and true sense, too, a "man greatly
   beloved."

   Though there are differences in the manifestation of the love of God,
   so that we may say there are elect ones out of the elect, yet all the
   elect are "greatly beloved." There are choice spirits among the chosen,
   such as the 70 who were selected from the disciples, the 12 out of the
   70, the three--Peter, James and John--out of the 12, and John out of
   the three. Election rises out of itself again and again, ascending like
   a pyramid. Yet, for all that, the common disciples, at the base of the
   pyramid, are "greatly beloved," loved with an infinite love. The
   weakest babes in Grace are as truly loved as those who have come to the
   fullness of the stature of men in Christ Jesus.

   There are delicious spots where the sun's light seems to rest most
   constantly, yet the sun of God's love shines on all the field which He
   has chosen. The goodly land owned the superior excellency of its Carmel
   and Sharon, yet from Dan to Beersheba, every acre was blessed of the
   Lord. Every heir of Heaven is purchased with the same blood, written in
   the same roll of life, called by the same Spirit, preserved by the same
   Divine power and is ripened under the same spiritual influences for the
   eternal Glory--surely, then, every Believer is "beloved," and "greatly
   beloved," too! Great love has been shown in the salvation of each one
   of us and in our preservation to this day.

   Therefore, if none of us should be bold enough to hope that the
   expression of the text could be applied to us in any peculiar and
   eminent sense, yet our faith, without presumption, dares to know that
   we are men greatly beloved, seeing we have been saved by the Sovereign
   Grace of God and made near to God by the blood of Jesus Christ. We
   shall, however, expect every Christian, as he recognizes the great love
   which he has enjoyed, to recognize, also, the great obligations which
   spring out of it. This is but common honesty--if we eat the bread of
   children, we must render the obedience of sons.

   Now let us proceed to the words themselves. In them I see, first, a
   choice title, "O man, greatly beloved." Secondly, a common infirmity
   very gently rebuked--"fear not." And then, thirdly, certain very
   gracious consolations given to meet that infirmity--"peace be unto you,
   be strong, yes, be strong."

   I. To begin then, the text glitters with a CHOICE TITLE. Daniel is said
   to be a "man greatly beloved," or as some read it, "a man of
   desires"--a desirable man towards God whom God desired to commune
   with--in whose society the Lord delighted. He was a "man greatly
   beloved." Now the great love of God to Daniel is very conspicuously
   seen in his character. I shall not describe his character as the reason
   why God loved him, far from it, but I shall mention his character as
   being the effect of God's great love to him.

   God loved him greatly and therefore He made him this and that. The
   first token of the Lord's great love to Daniel which we shall consider
   was this--God gave him early piety. From his very youth Daniel feared
   God. We do not know the time at which he was brought fully to know the
   Lord, but it must have been in his boyhood, for while he was yet a
   stripling we find him playing the man for the Lord God of his fathers.
   It is true his early days were spent in captivity. He was of the royal
   house of Judah and he was carried away to Babylon. But there is
   something significant in the fact that he was carried captive at the
   same time that the holy vessels were taken from the temple of
   Jerusalem. What if I say that he was, himself, one of the holy vessels?
   For he was, indeed, a vessel fit for the Master's use and he and the
   golden vessels of the house of the Lord were in captivity together, yet
   still under the Divine care, so that they should not be profaned to
   unholy use.

   My dear Friends, no one can ever overestimate the great privilege of
   being brought to God in childhood or youth! If it were only to be saved
   from the injury which a course of sin brings upon the mind. If it were
   only to escape from the regrets for the past which will arise when the
   conscience is in later days purged from sin. If it were only to have
   saved those precious hours of the early morning of life and to have
   used them in the Master's cause. If it were only for those three
   reasons--and they are but part of a great cluster--they are something
   for which eternally to bless the special love of God!

   I appeal to those who have been brought to love the Lord in riper days
   and those especially who have come to know him in old age. Beloved
   Brothers and Sisters, you love the Lord who has called you to Himself,
   but have you not often said in your heart, "would to God I had known
   Him like Timothy, at my mother's knee"? And is it not at this time the
   dearest desire of your soul, that your children should not delay a
   decision for God so long as you did, but that they should cast in their
   lot with the people of God while yet the ruddy hue of youth is on their
   cheeks? I know I speak your very hearts. You, therefore, are witnesses
   to the fact that early piety is a choice blessing and he who has
   received it may think that he hears an angel say to him this morning,
   "O man, greatly beloved, when you were a child the Lord delighted in
   you."

   But, secondly, the great love of God to Daniel appeared in his early
   and thorough nonconformity to the world. He was placed in circumstances
   of peculiar peril, removed from every godly association, taken away
   from every sacred influence of holy hearth or gracious guardianship. He
   was carried into an idolatrous country and trained in an idolatrous
   court for a superstitious pursuit. Everything was done that could be
   done to make the young Hebrew forget the God of his fathers. His very
   name was changed as well as those of the three right worthy companions
   of his captivity.

   They had grand names in the Hebrew, each one significant of some
   gracious Truth of God, but they were changed into mere Babylonian
   titles that they might forget that they were Jews and forget the name
   of God Himself!

   Everywhere around them they saw idolatry, lust, and crime. There was
   nothing when they went abroad or when they stayed at home but what
   would suggest to them the abominations of the heathen. Yet here it was
   that while yet a mere lad, "Daniel purposed in his heart that he would
   not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the
   wine which he drank; therefore he requested of the prince of the
   eunuchs that he might not defile himself." The meat and wine that would
   be brought to Daniel would not have been of the kind that should have
   been eaten or drank by an Israelite. The meat might have been defiled
   with blood or killed by strangling, in violation of the legal
   precept--and frequently the meat eaten by the Babylonians would be the
   flesh of an unclean animal.

   The wine, also, would probably have been dedicated to the false gods by
   a libation of a part of it, and the meat would have been offered to
   idols--therefore Daniel determined to go too far rather than not far
   enough--and would not defile himself with the king's meat, nor the
   king's wine at all. It is always safest if you are at war with a deadly
   enemy to have a very high wall between you and him. There will be no
   fault in its being too high if he aims at destroying you. Any division
   which we establish between us and sin will never be too broad or too
   deep. Daniel, with surprising decision, determined that he would not
   defile himself with the king's meat.

   Now, this was rather a strong position for a child to take up--a mere
   school-boy shall I call him?--for he was then at the college of the
   soothsayers, being taught in the wisdom of the Chaldeans. He was but a
   scholar and yet upon this he was very resolute. Being resolute he was
   not imprudent--he did not court persecution, but he went to work with
   that gentle courtesy which is always so becoming a companion of
   firmness. The "Suaviter in modo" should always go with the "Fortiter in
   re." Gentle manners are a fit robe for firm principles. We read,
   therefore, that Daniel "requested of the prince of the eunuchs, that he
   might not defile himself."

   Now, "God had brought Daniel into favor and tender love with the prince
   of the eunuchs." So that after expressing a fear that he might be
   injured in health by not eating the food provided, he allowed him to
   make a trial of it. The trial of a diet of vegetables and water turned
   out most satisfactorily. Daniel and his friends were found to be both
   better in health and stronger in mind than the rest of the young
   students in the college. Was it not a grand thing for this young hero
   to have taken such a stand? We may hope that he who begins well will go
   on well--but, oh, abhor, young Christian, all faltering at the
   beginning, all bargaining with the world, all trying to parley with
   evil, all attempting to see how near you can go to sin! If you are not
   at the outset thorough for God, I fear you never will be.

   Christians ought to grow in Grace, but I am sorry to say that with many
   of them they go from weakness to weakness. And all, I fear, because
   there is not a sound beginning. Every builder will tell you the
   necessity of having the foundation laid well. Let the foundation of
   your religion be decision, resolution, sincerity, and thoroughness.
   Your half-and-half Christian makes a fine pretense at godliness, builds
   very rapidly and daubs with his untempered mortar only to secure a
   fall. But may God make us deep Christians, those who know what they
   know and mean what they mean--and mean for God and for His Truth to be
   decided by His help.

   Daniel was a man greatly beloved because even early he was
   distinguished for his nonconformity to the world. In later life we find
   another sweet result of God's love in his courageous trust in God. He
   was called on two occasions, at any rate, in his life, to exhibit the
   utmost conceivable courage. Nebuchadnezzar had dreamed a dream. Daniel
   had before interpreted a dream for him and therefore on this occasion
   he obtained admittance to the king. He heard the king's dream, but the
   interpretation of it was one which foretold the most grievous ill to
   the tyrant! How should he tell him the dreadful tidings? Only let the
   monarch lift his finger and Daniel's head would roll upon the floor!

   All the empire of Babylon was under the absolute sway of the despot,
   Nebuchadnezzar, and yet Daniel did not hesitate to tell him that he
   would be insane and that his hair would grow like eagles' feathers and
   his nails like birds' claws--and that he would be driven from the
   abodes of men! I think I see him, with fearless manner and voice,
   bidding the monarch break his sins by righteousness and his iniquities
   by showing mercy to the poor, that his tranquility might be lengthened.

   Now, in these days, it needs no great courage to speak the Truth of God
   because no sudden death awaits the boldest messenger of Christ. We live
   in days of liberty in which we may believe what we please and say
   almost what we will, but it needed heroic courage, then, to come like a
   Nathan, saying, "You are the man," not to a David, with Grace in his
   heart, but to one who had no fear of God before him--a Nebuchadnezzar
   who thought himself a God! And that was a brave deed on that dread
   night, when Daniel stood up in the presence of Belshazzar and all his
   court--while the princes and lords of the different provinces were
   gathered together--and there interpreted the handwriting on the wall.
   Remember, he was surrounded by a soldiery who could, in a moment, have
   put him to death.

   And he stood before a young and proud monarch, licentious and
   imperious, who would make no account of human blood. And Daniel had to
   say to him, "You are weighed in the balances and found wanting; your
   kingdom is given to the Medes and Persians." It needed no small spirit
   to be able to be the stern interpreter of a monarch's final doom! When
   he had been young he had faced Nebuchadnezzar, and when he had grown
   gray with years, with the same calm and brave spirit he faced
   Belshazzar and rebuked him for his sins and for his proud defiance of
   the Lord God of Israel. He was a man greatly beloved to be such a lion
   as he was in the midst of all his foes.

   Coupled with this, as another evidence of God's love to him, was his
   wonderful endurance of prosperity. If I have already said that early
   piety is a great proof of God's peculiar affection to a man, I think I
   may say that the power to endure popular esteem, success in life,
   wealth and rank is also a very special and peculiar token of the Divine
   favor. He was but a youth at the time when he went to Nebuchadnezzar
   and told him his dream and the interpretation. I suppose he was about
   17 years of age when he sat in the king's gate and was the head of all
   the king's wise men in Babylon! Scarcely that number of years had
   rolled over his head when Ezekiel spoke of him as being well-known as
   the wisest man of his time.

   Addressing the King of Tyre, Ezekiel said, "Are you wiser than Daniel?"
   Now, for a young man to be elevated to that position, we all know, or
   think we do, the dangers that must surround him. Even a man that has
   experience does not always find the lofty places of power furnish easy
   foothold for him--but for the young and inexperienced man to stand
   there he must be a man greatly beloved of God. And then remember that
   through 43 years or more of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, Daniel was one of
   the great men of the kingdom! All through the reign of Belshazzar, on
   through the time of Darius the Mede we still find Daniel one of the
   greatest men in the Government.

   Belshazzar had made him the third man in the kingdom, there being, I
   suppose, at that time two kings and, therefore, he could not be made
   the second--but he was made the next to the kings in all the empire.
   Yet never do you see him betraying any sense of his own greatness. His
   book is singularly free from any desire to set forth himself. Have not
   you often wondered where he was when the three holy children were put
   into the burning fiery furnace? I think if I had had the writing of the
   book of Daniel I should have wished to insert a verse or two to explain
   where I was. But Daniel is so forgetful of himself he does not
   exculpate himself or try to avert suspicion and leaves it open to us to
   think whatever we like.

   We may be sure he was acting nobly, but he does not try to make us
   think so. He is nothing, the service of his people and of his God--this
   it was which absorbed all his thoughts. O, it is noble to see a man
   lifted up into the high places of wealth and position--made to wear a
   crown and scarlet robe--and yet, for all that, walking humbly with his
   God and fulfilling his duty without a flaw, even as those do who have
   not such high things to try them! I read this week of a vessel at sea
   which was overtaken by a storm and a mountainous wave, a very alp of
   water, went right over it, putting out the engine fires at once and
   sweeping away the wheel and the steering house, so that the vessel lay
   like a log in the trough of the sea.

   Now many a man has been like that--a great mass of wealth and
   prosperity has come upon him, put out the fires of his former zeal,
   taken away all the steerage of his soul--and he has lain like a log
   tossed up and down between the waves of worldliness and pride and has
   become a total wreck. But Daniel was a man greatly beloved, for God set
   him on his high place and made his feet like hind's feet. A further
   instance of God's great love to him comes out in his firmness under
   trial. There will come to most men some special time in which they will
   be tested and it happened to Daniel in his old age. There were those
   who could not bear that he should always be in the front in political
   affairs and they plotted against him--but they found nothing against
   him except concerning his God.

   They obtained a decree that none should pray during 40 days except to
   the king. But Daniel cared little for decrees--it was his custom, three
   times a day, to bow before his God with his window opened towards that
   dear country which still he loved, though he had been an exile from it
   these many years. And he, with that stern simple-heartedness which was
   so prominent in him, went to pray at the time he would have prayed if
   there had been no decree. He did not alter the window--neither to the
   putting of it up nor the putting of it down--and as he had been
   accustomed to do before, he bowed his knees and prayed.

   The lion's den was nothing to him--his duty was all and if the way of
   duty lay through the jaws of wild beasts, Daniel pursued it, still. And
   you know the result and how God vindicated His servant. Truly, I might
   have said, when he was thrown into the pit where the lions were raging,
   that the martyr was a man greatly beloved! And all confess that fact
   when they see him honored by Darius, brought up alive out of the pit
   where God had sent His angel to preserve him--then all who saw him
   confessed that he was a man greatly beloved! Let me add that here we
   ought not to forget that God's Grace and love shone conspicuously in
   making Daniel a man of such continuous devotion. Every day witnessed
   his constant regularity in prayer. Not that he was a Pharisee and
   thought that one time was better than another, but because he probably
   felt what most of us have--that if we have not a time for prayer we may
   neglect it altogether.

   Three times a day, whatever might occur--notwithstanding the immense
   pressure of business upon the statesman's mind--three times a day he
   cried unto his God! And then he had his special times. Three weeks we
   find him spending in prayer and fasting. The top of his house witnessed
   to his regular devotions, but his special pleadings were by the lonely
   willows of the brook where he cried and wrestled with his God. And we
   find that as the result of this he was favored with manifestations from
   on high which he would never have received had his devotion been less
   regular or continued. It is no small token of God's love to a man if
   the man lives in the spirit of prayer--if he delights himself in prayer
   and if year after year prayer has not become a monotony to him. It is
   by God's Grace if prayer is real to him, yes, and if he so much hungers
   after more of it that he devotes lengthened seasons to its more intense
   exercise. If God privileges him to become mighty in prayer, then is he
   a man greatly beloved.

   Power in prayer is one of the most Divine of the Lord's gracious gifts.
   I could mention here, today, the name of one, a name well known to you,
   of one whose prayers God has heard these many years and helped him to
   feed thousands of orphans and send forth scores of missionaries.
   Whenever we think of him, we think of him as a man greatly beloved. And
   whenever I look upon a man who is powerful in prayer, who, by
   supplication, brings down blessings on his own family and the Church
   and his neighborhood, I know that there is to be found a man who is,
   indeed, greatly beloved.

   I think that I have shown you that the outward signs of God's love to
   Daniel were such as many of us have enjoyed, in a measure, and may
   enjoy still more, for there are some here who were saved in youth--some
   who early began to be decided for God. There are some here who have
   been brave for Christ and have not denied the faith--who have sustained
   prosperity and have endured trial, too--and who have, by Divine Grace,
   been taught to plead with God. Perhaps they will not recognize
   themselves, but we may be able to recognize them and call them men
   greatly beloved. In one word, there was one crowning token of God's
   love to Daniel and that is the perfect consistency of his life.

   Daniel seems to me to be as nearly as possible a perfect character. If
   anyone should ask me for what peculiar virtue I count him to be famous,
   I should hardly know how to reply. There is a combination in his
   character of all the excellencies. Neither do I think I could discover
   anything in which he was deficient. Sinner he was, doubtless, before
   the eyes of God--but he is faultless towards man. His was a
   well-balanced character. There is an equilibrium maintained between the
   different Graces, even as in John's character, which is also
   exceedingly beautiful. There is, perhaps, a touch of loveliness about
   the character of John--a tender softness that we do not find in Daniel.
   There is somewhat more of the lion in the Prophet and of the lamb in
   the Apostle, but still they are, each of them, perfect after his kind.

   All through Daniel's life you do not find a flaw--there is no breakdown
   anywhere. There was a great occasion in which he might have broken
   down, but God helped him through it. There he was, a business man for a
   long lifetime, a man bearing the burden of State and yet never once any
   accusation could be brought against him of any wrongdoing. A man of
   large transactions will usually be chargeable with something or other
   of wrong performed through his subordinates, even if he, himself,
   should be strictly upright. But here was a man rendered by Grace so
   upright and so correct in all that he did that nothing could be, even
   by his enemies, brought against him except concerning his religion! A
   great mark of Grace was this--an ensign of piety far too rare.

   Many are Christians and will, we hope, creep into Heaven, but, alas!
   alas! Alas--the less said about their inconsistencies the better! It is
   a special mark of a man greatly beloved, when he is consistent from the
   beginning to the end through the Grace of God.

   II. But my time will fail me and therefore I must hasten, in the second
   place, to notice that Daniel became the subject of a COMMON INFIRMITY.
   He was full of fear on one occasion and therefore an angel said to him,
   "Fear not." I am glad of this, because it teaches us that even the best
   of men may be subject to very great fears! I was pleased to read in our
   lesson, just now, of Daniel on his face and of Daniel dumb and so on,
   for it shows that he was touched with our infirmities and that great as
   God made him, he was nothing in himself and owed all his greatness to
   the Grace of God.

   Those fears on the part of Daniel were not the result of personal trial
   just then. They came to him, indeed, when he had been highly honored by
   revelations from God. But his fears sprang from a sight of his Lord and
   from a sense of his own unworthiness! Just a word on that. You may be a
   man greatly beloved and, therefore, you may have a clearer sight of the
   Lord Jesus than other men have--and for that very reason you may feel a
   greater shame and confusion of face whenever you think of yourself.
   Remember how Daniel says concerning himself, "There remained no
   strength in me, my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I
   retained no strength."

   O Beloved, if the Lord ever favors you with much love and with nearness
   of access to Himself, you must expect the other side of it--that is to
   say, you must feel your own nothingness, baseness, unworthiness--and
   while you feel that I do not wonder that you almost wish you had never
   been born and feel as if the sooner this life was ended the
   better--feel as if you were unfit to do anything for God's people,
   unfit even to bear Christ's name! And yet, all the while you may be a
   man greatly beloved and may be eminently blessed.

   Look at Job--when he is covered all over with sores he justifies
   himself in some measure--but the moment he sees his God what does he
   say? "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes
   see You; therefore I abhor myself." It is sure to be so--great love
   from God will make you have great humbleness of soul and lay you low in
   the dust. Do I address a Brother who has been finding out, lately, more
   of the deformity of his own heart than he ever did before? Did he come
   up here this morning crying, "Alas! Woe's me?" No, dear Brother, not,
   "woe's you," but, "O man greatly beloved." Though you have found this
   out through a sight of your Lord, yet fear not, this is a blessing to
   you and not a curse!

   Perhaps, too, Daniel's great fears had been awakened by the disclosures
   that had been made to him of the history of the nations and especially
   of his own people. He had a peculiar anxiety for his own people. Did
   you ever get into that state and begin to look upon the world and upon
   the country and upon the Church--and then fall into a fit of trembling?
   I do assure you it is wonderfully easy to put on the garb of Jeremy,
   the weeping Prophet. If you look abroad even on this little island of
   ours, you see mischief everywhere coming to the front and error
   prevailing--and the cause of the Truth of God seems to be like a
   tempest-tossed ship--almost a wreck. Truly one might find plenty of
   room for weeping and lamentation!

   And if we look at the world at large and see how infidelity spreads,
   "Woe is me!" we may well say. Yes, Daniel had seen the history of the
   world for a long period to come--therefore he was full of fear. And are
   you full of fear, too? Well, it is a part of the lot of men whom God
   greatly loves that they should bear the troubles of the times--that
   they should be like Christ on the behalf of their age--and should bear
   the sins of men upon their hearts and plead concerning them before the
   living God. I think, too, that Daniel's sorrow was occasioned, partly,
   by the repetition of those words to him--"The vision is true, but the
   time appointed is long." It seemed to come over and over to Daniel.
   "The time is long." I do not know any trouble that presses more heavily
   on my heart than that.

   It seems to be a dreadful long while since God has worked a
   miracle--such a while since the Church has had any great thing done in
   the midst of her. Christianity only holds under its power a miserable
   minority of mankind--the number of evangelical Christians in the world
   is a contemptible fraction as compared with the mass of idolaters and
   Muslims, Catholics and the like. The true Churches do not seem to be
   growing and meanwhile the challenges of the infidel come to us and we
   do not seem to have the pluck to reply to them as they ought to be
   replied to. One thousand and eight hundred years and more have gone
   by--and no progress or scarcely any!

   O Lord, how long! How long! How long! How long! And yet Jehovah is the
   Lord. Yes He is the only God and He could, in a moment, enlighten the
   darkness of mankind. And His Spirit could raise up men who should flash
   like flames of fire amidst the midnight of the times. Why does He
   tarry? This is the cry which the Church universally sends up wherever
   she lives near to God. And if any here have been favored to be beloved
   of God, I am sure this will weigh upon them, "How long Lord, how long?
   Why do You tarry?"

   III. Now we close, in the third place, by noticing THE CONSOLATIONS
   which the angel brought to Daniel and which, in proportion as we are
   greatly beloved and the subject of like fears, he brings to us. He said
   to him first, "Peace be unto you." So he says to every one of the
   beloved here--"Peace be unto you. Why are you fretting, worrying,
   tossed up and down in your mind? Peace be unto you." Let peace be yours
   first because you are "greatly beloved." Whatever is happening or not
   happening, you are greatly beloved. The Lord loved you before the earth
   was. He redeemed you with the blood of His own Son. He has called you
   into fellowship with Jesus--Peace! You are beloved--does not that give
   you peace? "Hush, my Babe," says the mother, "lie still and slumber."
   And the sweetest hush in all her lullaby is the mention of her own
   love. So, dear child of God, be still, be calm! You are beloved of
   Heaven!

   And next, fear not, peace be unto you, God is still ruling--He ruled
   the world before you were born and accomplished all His will--He will
   rule it when you are dead and He will fulfill His own decrees. Why do
   you worry yourself? What use can your fretting serve? You are on board
   a vessel which you could not steer even if the great Captain put you at
   the helm, of which you could not so much as reef a sail, yet you worry
   as if you were captain and helmsman! O be quiet! God is Master--do you
   think that all this din and hurry-burly that is abroad means that God
   has left His Throne? No, man, His coursers rush furiously on and His
   chariot is the storm--but there is a bit between their jaws and He
   holds fast the reins--and guides them as He wills! Jehovah is still
   Master--believe it! Peace be unto you--be not afraid!

   And whereas you are disturbed about the length of time--with what do
   you measure? With your own age of 70 years, or with days and weeks--do
   you measure so? Have you ever seen the measuring line of the Eternal
   and do you know that if this world were to last through millions of
   millions of years, yet it would be but a speck between the two
   eternities that should precede and follow? God's life is not made up of
   ticks of the clock! He can wait, He can wait. He can let generations of
   wicked men follow one another, yes, He could for 10,000 years 10,000
   times told, permit the devil to trail his chain around the world and
   yet at the end be more than conqueror, and the more glorious a
   conqueror because of the length of the battle!

   It is a child's fight that lasts but for an hour, but vast is the
   conflict of nations when they struggle with each other from year to
   year--when a campaign does but open the war, when another campaign does
   but kindle the strife and a third does but inflame the passions--and
   another brings forth all the fury of the combatants and only far on at
   the close comes the grand crash which ends all! Shall the wars of God
   be less in length than the battles of men? You have seen but one
   campaign, or perhaps but the first flight of the artillery which
   commences the fight--you have not seen the crossing of the bayonet that
   may yet be to come--for time of tribulation such as the world has never
   seen is yet in reserve. But rest you sure of this--it is all short to
   Him with whom a thousand years is as one day--and one day as a thousand
   years! Come down from the measuring place, child, come down! It is God
   that weighs and measures. Leave that alone and sit down at His feet and
   be still. Be still! It is all well! It shall surely end well. God is
   still Master!

   Then he adds "be strong," as if these fears of Daniel made him weak and
   as if it was important that he should be strong. Now, if there is any
   importance in us at all, and there is not much, certainly anything that
   we can do in our present place will require of us all our strength. And
   since our fears decidedly weaken us, for all practical purposes they
   should be shaken off. Therefore the angel says twice, "Be strong, yes,
   be strong." And, Beloved, we ought to be strong in faith, for God
   deserves it. He has given us promises of our own security, of His own
   ultimate conquest and the triumph of His own cause--and God has never
   lied. Why, then, should we doubt Him? They that trust in Him have never
   been confounded. He deserves that we should rely upon Him and if things
   grew blacker--and the times were worse and true religion were almost
   crushed out and lived only in one solitary man's heart--that man ought
   yet to believe that God would be conqueror, yet, and have no doubts,
   for why should even he distrust the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
   the Infallible, the Immutable and true!

   O Brothers and Sisters, while you have this ground and foothold for
   your strength, remember your work demands all your strength! How can
   you pray with these doubts about you? How will you teach others while
   you are doubting yourself? How can you perform your service when sighs
   come from you? Soul, sweet Soul, is that what should stream from the
   worker for the Lord God of Israel? Be strong, then! Fall before the
   Lord in earnest prayer and ask Him to take away your fretfulness and
   make you, as you are greatly beloved, to be strong. Remember, Beloved,
   specially those of you who are at all prominent, that others will take
   their cue from you and if you speak with bated breath, with trembling
   language, others will be weak, too. Therefore, fear not--be strong,
   yes, be strong.

   And remember, there is no cause for alarm. Have you not lived long
   enough to see that always when men have judged that things went worst
   they have been going best? There is an undercurrent which the eyes see
   not which is often stronger than the upper flow. And besides, if it
   were not so, have you never seen it, have not your fathers told you,
   that the darkest part of the night is that which precedes the dawning
   day? Have you never perceived that when true religion, either in your
   own soul or in the world, seems to have gone back that suddenly it
   makes a leap again? There will come waves upon the beach and each one
   will seem stronger than its fellow--but then there will follow one that
   sucks them all back and you might think the sea was retiring from its
   strength--yet the flood tide is coming in, coming even while that wave
   recedes so far.

   All is working for progress, though there may seem to be a delay here
   and there. The stream rushes on like a mighty Niagara and you are there
   by the shore in a little eddy, revolving round and round in a tiny
   vortex. And you say the stream is rushing in the wrong direction--it
   has made no progress--"I am weary with this circular motion." Ah, but
   you have never been in the broad current, or if your eyes have gazed
   upon it, it has been dazed with the sight of its breadth and length and
   you have not understood it! The Lord reigns! The Lord God Omnipotent
   reigns and Jesus sits at His side, while Truth, like His angel, follows
   at His heels, still mighty! The zeal of the Lord of Hosts shall yet
   perform His Word!

   And the Spirit that for a while has hidden His great might and
   concealed Himself in the secret chambers of His Church shall come forth
   and the day shall be in which the Lord's Truth shall be declared among
   the people with power! Even with such power that the world shall bow
   before it and the song shall go up unto the Lord God Almighty--and He
   shall be worshipped from the rising of the sun unto the going down of
   the same! O you virgin souls that have followed the Lamb up to now
   where ever He goes, follow Him still! Keep your garments unspotted from
   the world! Be rigidly faithful to the Truth of God and conscience. You
   are men greatly beloved, let not your spirits fail you. Let no man's
   heart fail him because of Goliath that stalks before us! He is but a
   creature and will fade and die. Fear not, peace be unto you, be strong,
   yes, be strong! The Lord strengthen you. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Daniel 10.
     __________________________________________________________________

For The Troubled

   (No. 1090)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY 12, 1873,

   BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Your wrath lies hard upon me, and You have afflicted me with all Your
   waves." Psalm 88:7.

   IT is the business of a shepherd not only to look after the happy ones
   among the sheep, but to seek after the sick of the flock and to lay
   himself out right earnestly for their comfort and succor. I feel,
   therefore, that I do rightly when I, this morning, make it my special
   business to speak to such as are in trouble. Those of you who are happy
   and rejoicing in God, full of faith and assurance, can very well spare
   a discourse for your weaker Brothers and Sisters--you can be even glad
   and thankful to go without your portion that those who are depressed in
   spirit may receive a double measure of the wine of consolation.

   Moreover, I am not sure that even the most joyous Christian is any the
   worse for remembering the days of darkness which are stealing on apace,
   "for they are many." Just as the memories of our dying friends come
   over us like a cloud and "dampen our brainless ardors," so will the
   recollection that there are tribulations and afflictions in the world
   dampen our rejoicing and prevent its degenerating into an idolatry of
   the things of time and sense. It is better, for many reasons, to go to
   the house of mourning than to the house of feasting--the quassia cup
   has virtues in it which the wine cup never knew--wet your lips with it,
   young man, it will work you no ill. It may be, O you who are today
   brimming with happiness, that a little store of sacred cautions and
   consolations may prove no sore to you, but may, by-and-by, stand you in
   good stead.

   This morning's discourse upon sorrow may suggest a few thoughts to you
   which, being treasured up, shall ripen like summer fruit and mellow by
   the time your winter shall come round. But to our work. It is clear to
   all those who read the narratives of Scripture, or are acquainted with
   good men, that the best of God's servants may be brought into the very
   lowest estate. There is no promise of present prosperity appointed to
   true religion so as to exclude adversity from Believer's lives. As men,
   the people of God share the common lot of men and what is that but
   trouble? Yes, there are some sorrows which are peculiar to
   Christians--some extra griefs of which they partake because they are
   Believers. But these are more than balanced by those peculiar and
   bitter troubles which belong to the ungodly and are engendered by their
   transgressions, from which the Christian is delivered.

   From the passage which is open before us we learn that sons of God may
   be brought so low as to write and sing Psalms which are sorrowful
   throughout and have no fitting accompaniment but sighs and groans. They
   do not often do so--their songs are generally like those of David
   which, if they begin in the dust, mount into the clear heavens before
   long. But sometimes, I say, saints are forced to sing such dolorous
   ditties that from beginning to end there is not one note of joy. Yet
   even in their dreariest winter night the saints have an aurora in their
   sky and in this 88th Psalm, the dreariest of all Psalms, there is a
   faint gleam in the first verse, like a star-ray falling upon its
   threshold--"O Jehovah, God of my salvation."

   Heman retained his hold upon his God. It is not all darkness in a heart
   which can cry, "My God," and the child of God, however low he may sink,
   still keeps hold upon his God. "Though He slays me, yet will I trust in
   Him," is the resolution of his soul. Jehovah smites me, but He is my
   God. He frowns upon me, but He is my God. He tramples me into the very
   dust and lays me in the lowest pit, as among the dead, yet still He is
   my God and such will I call Him till I die. Even when He leaves me I
   will cry, "my God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" Moreover, the
   Believer, in his worst time, still continues to pray, and prays,
   perhaps, the more vigorously because of his sorrows. God's red flags
   drive His children not from Him, but to Him. Our griefs are waves which
   wash us to the Rock.

   This Psalm is full of prayer. It is as much sweetened with supplication
   as it is salted with sorrow. It weeps like Niobe, but it is on bended
   knees and from uplifted eyes. Now, while a man can pray he is never far
   from light--he is at the window, though, perhaps, as yet the curtains
   are not drawn aside. The man who can pray has the clue in his hand by
   which to escape from the labyrinth of affliction. Like the trees in
   winter, we may say of the praying man, when his heart is greatly
   troubled, "his substance is in him, though he has lost his leaves."
   Prayer is the soul's breath and if it breathes it lives and, living it
   will gather strength again. A man must have true and eternal life
   within him while he can continue, still, to pray, and while there is
   such life there is assured hope.

   Still, the best child of God may be the greatest sufferer and his
   sufferings may appear to be crushing, killing and overwhelming. They
   may also be so very protracted as to attend him all his days and their
   bitterness may be intense--all of which and much more this mournful
   Psalm teaches us. Let us, in pursuit of our subject, first give an
   exposition of the text. And then a brief exposition of the benefits of
   trouble.

   I. I will endeavor, in a few observations, to EXPOUND THE TEXT. In the
   first place, its strong language suggests the remark that tried saints
   are very prone to overrate their afflictions. I believe we all err in
   that direction and are far too apt to say, "I am the man that has seen
   affliction." The inspired man of God, who wrote our text, was touched
   with this common infirmity for he overstates his case. Read his
   words--"Your wrath lies hard upon me." I have no doubt Heman meant
   wrath in its worst sense. He believed that God was really angry with
   him and wrathful with him, even as He is with the ungodly, but that was
   not true. As we shall have to show, by-and-by, there is a very grave
   difference between the anger of God with His children and the anger of
   God with His enemies.

   And we do not think Heman sufficiently discerned that difference, even
   as we are afraid that many of God's children even now forget it--and
   therefore fear that the Lord is punishing them according to strict
   justice--and smiting them as though He were their executioner. Ah, if
   poor bewildered Believers could but see it, they would learn that the
   very thing which they call wrath is only love, in its own wise manner,
   seeking their highest good! Besides, the Psalmist says, "Your wrath
   lies hard upon me." Ah, if Heman had known what it was to have God's
   wrath lie hard on him, he would have withdrawn those words, for all the
   wrath that any man ever feels in this life is but as a laying on of
   God's little finger!

   It is in the world to come that the wrath of God lies heavy on men.
   Then, when God puts forth His hand and presses with Omnipotence upon
   soul and body to destroy them forever in Hell, the ruined nature feels
   in its never-ending destruction what the power of God's anger really
   is! Here the really sore pressure of wrath is not known and especially
   not known by a child of God. It is too strong a speech if we weigh it
   in the scales of sober truth. It outruns the fact, even though it were
   the most sorrowful living man that uttered it. Then Heman adds, "You
   have afflicted me with all Your waves," as though he were a wreck with
   the sea breaking over him and the whole ocean--and all the oceans were
   running full against him as the only object of their fury.

   His boat has been driven on shore and all the breakers are rolling over
   him. One after another they leap upon him like wild beasts, hungry as
   wolves, eager as lions to devour him--it seemed to him that no wave
   turned aside, no billow spent its force elsewhere--but all the long
   line of breakers roared upon him, as the sole object of their wrath.
   But it was not so. All God's waves have broken over no man, save only
   the Son of Man! There are still some troubles which we have been
   spared, some woes unknown to us. Have we suffered all the diseases
   which flesh is heir to? Are there not modes of pain from which our
   bodies have escaped? Are there not, also, some mental pangs which have
   not wrung our spirit? And what if we seem to have traversed the entire
   circle of bodily and mental misery, yet in our homes, households, or
   friendships we have surely some comfort left and therefore from some
   rough billow we are screened. All God's waves had not gone over you, O
   Heman! The woes of Job and Jeremiah were not yours.

   Among the living none can literally know what all God's waves would be.
   They know, who are condemned to feel the blasts of His indignation!
   They know in the land of darkness and of everlasting hurricane! They
   know what all God's waves and billows are--but we know not. The
   metaphor is good and admirable, and correct enough poetically, but as a
   statement of fact it is strained. We are all apt to exaggerate our
   grief--I say this as a general fact. Those who are happy can bear to be
   told, but I would not vex the sick man with it while he is enduring the
   weight of his affliction. If he can calmly accept the suggestion of his
   own accord, it may do him good, but it would be cruel to throw it at
   him. True as it is, I should not like to whisper it in any sufferer's
   ear because it would not console, but grieve him.

   I have often marveled at the strange comfort persons offer you when
   they say, "Ah, there are others who suffer more than you do." Am I a
   demon, then? Am I expected to rejoice at the news of other people's
   miseries? Far otherwise! I am pained to think there should be sharper
   smarts than mine and my sympathy increases my own woe. I can conceive
   of a

   Fiend in torment finding solace in the belief that others are tortured
   with a yet fiercer flame, but surely such diabolical comfort should not
   be offered to Christian men! It shows our deep depravity of heart, that
   we can decoct comfort out of the miseries of others--and yet I am
   afraid we rightly judge human nature when we offer it water from that
   putrid well.

   There is, however, a form of comfort akin to it, but of far more
   legitimate origin--a consolation honorable and Divine. There was ONE
   upon whom God's wrath pressed very sorely. There was ONE who was, in
   truth, afflicted with all God's waves. That One is our brother, a Man
   like ourselves, the dearest lover of our souls. And because He has
   known and suffered all this, He can sympathize with us, this morning,
   in whatever tribulation may beat upon us. His passion is all over now
   but not His compassion. He has borne the indignation of God and turned
   it all away from us--the waves have lost their fury and spent their
   force on Him--and now He sits above the floods, yes, He sits King
   forever and ever! As we think of Him, the Crucified, our souls may not
   only derive consolation from His sympathy and powerful succor, but we
   may learn to look upon our trials with a calmer eye and judge them more
   according to the true standard. In the Presence of Christ's Cross our
   own crosses are less colossal. Our thorns in the flesh are as nothing
   when laid side by side with the nails and spear.

   But, secondly, let us remark that saints do well to trace all their
   trials to their God. Heman did so in the text-- "Your wrath lies hard
   upon me, You have afflicted me with all Your waves." He traces all his
   adversity to the Lord his God. It is God's wrath. They are God's waves
   that afflict him and God makes them afflict him. Child of God, never
   forget this--all that you are suffering of any sort, or kind, comes to
   you from the Divine hand! Truly, you say, "my affliction arises from
   wicked men," yet remember that there is a predestination which, without
   soiling the fingers of the Infinitely Holy, nevertheless rules the
   motions of evil men as well as of holy angels. It were a dreary thing
   for us if there were no appointments of God's Providence which
   concerned the ungodly--then the great mass of mankind would be entirely
   left to chance--and the godly might be crushed by them without hope.

   The Lord, without interfering with the freedom of their wills, rules
   and overrules, so that the ungodly are as a rod in His hand with which
   He wisely scourges His children. Perhaps you will say that your trials
   have arisen not from the sins of others, but from your own sins. Even
   then I would have you penitently trace them still to God. What though
   the trouble springs out of the sin, yet it is God that has pointed the
   sorrow to follow the transgression--to act as a remedial agency for
   your spirit. Look not at the second cause, or, looking at it with deep
   regret, turn your eyes chiefly to your heavenly Father and, "hear you
   the rod and who has appointed it."

   The Lord sends upon us the evil as well as the good of this mortal
   life! His is the sun that cheers and the frost that chills! His the
   deep calm and His the fierce tornado. To dwell on second causes is
   frequently frivolous, a sort of solemn trifling. Men say of each
   affliction, "It might have been prevented if such-and-such had
   occurred. Perhaps if another physician had been called in the dear
   child's life had still been spared. Possibly if I had moved in such a
   direction in business I might not have been a loser." Who is to judge
   of what might have been? In endless conjectures we are lost and, cruel
   to ourselves, we gather material for unnecessary griefs.

   Matters happened not so--then why conjecture what would have been had
   things been different? It is folly! You did your best and it did not
   answer--why rebel? To fix the eyes upon the second cause will irritate
   the mind. We grow indignant with the more immediate agent of our grief
   and so fail to submit ourselves to God. If you strike a dog he will
   snap at the staff which hurts him, as if it were to blame. How doggish
   we sometimes are, when God is smiting us we are snarling at His rod!
   Brothers and Sisters, forgive the man who injured you--his was the sin,
   forgive it, as you hope to be forgiven--but yours is the chastisement
   and it comes from God, therefore endure it and ask Grace to profit you
   by it. The more we get away from intermediate agents the better, for
   when we reach to God, Grace will make submission easy. When we know "it
   is the Lord," we readily cry, "let Him do what seems good to Him."

   As long as I trace my pain to accident, my bereavement to mistake, my
   loss to another's wrong, my discomfort to an enemy and so on, I am of
   the earth, earthy--and shall break my teeth with gravel! But when I
   rise to my God and see His hand at work, I grow calm, I have not a word
   of repining, "I open not my mouth because You did it." David preferred
   to fall into the hands of God--and every Believer knows that he feels
   safest and happiest when he recognizes that he is in the Divine hands.
   Quibbling with man is poor work, but pleading with God brings help and
   comfort. "Cast your burden on the Lord" is a precept which will be easy
   to practice when you see that the burden came originally from God.

   But now, thirdly, afflicted children of God do well to have a keen eye
   to the wrath that mingles with their troubles. "Your wrath lies hard
   upon me." There is Heman's first point. He does not mention the waves
   of affliction till he has first spoken of the wrath. We should labor to
   discover what the Lord means by smiting us--what He purposes by the
   chastisement--and how far we can answer that purpose. We must use a
   keen eye clearly to distinguish things. There is an anger and an anger,
   a wrath and a wrath. God is never angry with His children in one sense,
   but He is in another. As men, we have all of us disobeyed the Laws of
   God and God stands in relationship to all of us as a Judge. As a Judge,
   He must execute upon us the penalties of His Law and He must, from the
   necessity of His Nature, be angry with us for having broken that Law.
   That concerns all the human race.

   But the moment a man believes in the Lord Jesus Christ his offenses are
   his offenses no longer--they are laid upon Christ Jesus, the
   Substitute--and the anger goes with the sin. The anger of God towards
   the sins of Believers has spent itself upon Christ. Christ has been
   punished in their place. The punishment due their sin has been borne by
   Jesus Christ. God forbid that the Judge of all the earth should ever be
   unjust--it were not just for God to punish a Believer for a sin which
   has been already laid upon Jesus Christ. Therefore the Believer is
   altogether free from all liability to suffer the judicial anger of God
   and all risk of receiving a punitive sentence from the Most High. The
   man is absolved--shall he be judged again? The man has paid the
   debt--shall he be brought a second time before the Judge as though he
   were still a debtor?

   Christ has stood for him in his place and therefore he boldly asks,
   "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that
   justifies. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yes,
   rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who
   also makes intercession for us." Now, then, the Christian man takes up
   another position--he is adopted into the family of God--he has become
   God's child. He is under the Law of God's house. There is in every
   house an economy, a law by which the children and servants are ruled.
   If the child of God breaks the law of the house, the Father will visit
   his offense with fatherly stripes--a very different kind of visitation
   from that of a judge.

   There are felons in prison today who, in a short time, will feel the
   lash on their bare backs--that is one thing--but yonder disobedient
   child is to receive a whipping from his father's hand--that is quite
   another thing. Wide as the poles asunder are the anger of a judge and
   the anger of a father. The father loves the child while he is angry and
   is mainly angry for that very reason. If it were not his child he would
   probably take no notice of fault. But because it is his own boy who has
   spoken an untruth or committed an act of disobedience, he feels he must
   chastise him because he loves him. This needs no further explanation.
   There is a righteous anger in God's heart towards guilty impenitent
   men. He feels none of that towards His people. He is their father and
   if they transgress, He will visit them with stripes--not as a legal
   punishment, since Christ has borne all that--but as a gentle paternal
   chastisement, that they may see their folly and repent of it--and
   awakened by His tender hand, they may turn unto their Father and amend
   their ways.

   Now, child of God, if you are suffering today in any way
   whatever--whether from the ills of poverty or bodily sickness, or
   depression of spirits--remember there is not a drop of the judicial
   anger of God in it all. You are not being punished for your sins as a
   judge punishes a culprit--never believe such false doctrine! It is
   clean contrary to the Truth of God as it is in Jesus. Gospel doctrine
   tells us that our sins were numbered on the Great Scapegoat's head of
   old and carried away once and for all, never to be charged against us
   again. But we must use the eyes of our judgment in looking at our
   present affliction to see and confess how richly, as children, we
   deserve the rod.

   Go back to the time since you were converted, dear Brother and Sister,
   and consider--do you wonder that God has chastened you? Speaking for
   myself, I wonder that I have ever escaped the rod at any time! If I had
   been compelled to say, "All the day long have I been plagued and
   chastened every morning," I should not have marveled, for my
   shortcomings are many. How ungrateful have we been! How unloving and
   how unlovable! How false to our holiest vows! How unfaithful to our
   most sacred consecrations! Is there a single ordinance over which we
   have not sinned? Did we ever rise from our knees without having
   offended while at prayer? Did we ever get through a hymn without some
   wandering of mind or coldness of heart? Did we ever read a chapter
   which we might not have wept over because we did not receive the Truth
   in the love of it into our soul as we ought to have done? O, good
   Father, if we smart, richly do we deserve that we should yet smart
   again!

   When you have confessed your sins, let me exhort you to use those same
   eyes zealously to search out the particular sin which has caused the
   present chastisement. "Oh," says one, "I do not think I should ever
   find it out." You might.

   Perhaps it lies at the very door. I do not wonder that some Christians
   suffer--I should wonder if they did not! I have seen them, for
   instance, neglect family prayer and other household duties and their
   sons have grown up to dishonor them. If they cry out, "What an
   affliction," we would not like to say, "Ah, but you might have expected
   it. You were the cause of it"--but such a saying would be true. When
   children have left the parental roof and gone into sin, we have not
   been surprised when the father has been harsh, sour and crabbed in
   temper. We did not expect to gather figs from thorns, or grapes from
   thistles. We have seen men whose only thought was, "Get money, get
   money," and yet they have professed to be Christians! Such persons have
   been fretful and unhappy, but we have not been astonished. Would you
   have the Lord deal liberally with such surly ill-tempered persons? No,
   if they walk stubbornly with Him, He will show Himself stubborn to
   them. Brother, the roots of your troubles may run under your doorstep
   where your sin lies. Search and look!

   But sometimes the cause of the chastisement lies further off. Every
   surgeon will tell you that there are diseases which become troublesome
   in the prime of life, or in old age, which may have been occasioned in
   youth by some wrong doing, or by accident--and the evil may have lain
   latent all those years. So may the sins of our youth bring upon us the
   sorrows of our riper years--faults and omissions of 20 years ago may
   scourge us today. I know it is so. If the fault may be of so great an
   age, it should lead us to more thorough search and more frequent
   prayer. Bunyan tells us that Christian met with Apollyon and had such a
   dark journey through the Valley of the Shadow of Death because of slips
   he made when going down the hill into the Valley of Humiliation.

   It may be so with us. Perhaps when you were young you were very
   untender towards persons of a sorrowful spirit. You are such yourself
   now--your harshness is visited upon you. It may be that when in better
   circumstances, you were known to look down upon the poor and despise
   the needy--your pride is chastened now. Many a minister has helped to
   injure another by believing a bad report against him and, by-and-by, he
   has, himself, been the victim of slander. "With what measure you mete,
   it shall be measured to you again." We have seen men who could ride the
   high horse among their fellow creatures and speak very loftily--and
   when they have been brought very, very low--we have understood the
   riddle. God will visit His children's transgressions. He will
   frequently let common sinners go on throughout life unrebuked--but not
   so His children!

   If you were going today and saw a number of boys throwing stones and
   breaking windows, you might not interfere with them. But if you saw
   your own lad among them, I will be bound you would fetch him out and
   make him repent of it. If God sees sinners going on in their evil ways,
   He may not punish them now--He will deal out justice to them in another
   state. But if it is one of His own elect, He will be sure to make him
   rue the day. Perhaps the reason of your trouble may not be a sin
   committed but a duty neglected. Search and look--and see where you have
   been guilty of omission. Is there a sacred ordinance which you have
   neglected, or a doctrine you have refused to believe? Perhaps the
   chastisement may be sent by reason of a sin as yet undeveloped--some
   latent proneness to evil. The grief may be meant to unearth the sin,
   that you may hunt it down.

   Have you any idea of what a devil you are by nature? None of us know
   what we are capable of if left by Divine Grace. We think we have a
   sweet temper, an amiable disposition! We shall see!! We fall into
   provoking company and are so teased and insulted--and so cleverly
   touched in our raw places that we become mad with wrath--and our fine
   amiable temper vanishes in smoke, not without leaving blacks behind! Is
   it not a dreadful thing to be so stirred up? Yes it is, but if our
   hearts were pure, no sort of stirring would pollute them. Stir pure
   water as long as you like and no mud will rise. The evil is bad when
   seen, but it was quite as bad when not seen. It may be a great gain to
   a man to know what sin is in him, for then he will humble himself
   before his God and begin to combat his propensities. If he had never
   seen the filth he would never have swept the house! If he had never
   felt the pain the disease would have lurked within, but now that he
   feels the pain he will fly to the remedy. Sometimes, therefore, a trial
   may be sent that we may discern the sin which dwells in us and may seek
   its destruction.

   What shall we do, this morning, if we are under the smiting of God's
   hand, but humble ourselves before Him and go as guilty ones desiring to
   confess most thoroughly the particular sin which may have driven Him to
   chastise us, appealing to the precious blood of Jesus for pardon and to
   the Holy Spirit for power to overcome our sin? When you have so done
   let me give one word of caution before I leave this point. Do not let
   us expect, when we are in the trouble, to perceive any immediate
   benefit resulting from it. I have tried, myself, when under sharp pain
   to see whether I have grown a bit more resigned or more earnest in
   prayer, or more rapt in fellowship with God--and I confess I have never
   been able to see the slightest trace of improvement at such times--for
   pain distracts and scatters the thoughts. Remember that word,
   "Nevertheless, afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of
   righteousness."

   The gardener takes his knife and prunes the fruit trees to make them
   bring forth more fruit. His little child comes trudging at his heels
   and cries, "Father, I do not see that the fruit comes on the trees
   after you have cut them." No, dear child, it is not likely you would,
   but come round in a few months when the season of fruit has come and
   then shall you see the golden apples which thank the knife. Graces
   which are meant to endure require time for their production and are not
   thrust forth and ripened in a night. Were they so soon ripe they might
   be as speedily rotten.

   II. Now, as time is failing me, I will take up the second part of my
   discourse and handle it with great brevity. I want to give a very short
   EXPOSITION OF THE BENEFITS OF TROUBLE. This is a great subject. Many a
   volume has been written upon it and it might suffice to repeat the
   catalog of the benefits of trial, but I will not so detain you. Severe
   trouble in a true Believer has the effect of loosening the roots of his
   soul earthward and tightening the anchor-hold of his heart heavenward.
   How can he love the world which has become so dear to him? Why should
   he seek after grapes so bitter to his taste? Should he not, now, ask
   for the wings of a dove that he may fly away to his own dear country
   and be at rest forever?

   Every mariner on the sea of life knows that when the soft zephyrs blow,
   men tempt the open sea with outspread sails. But when the black tempest
   comes howling from its den, they hurry with all speed to the haven.
   Afflictions clip our wings with regard to earthly things so that we may
   not fly away from our dear Master's hands but sit there and sing to
   Him! But the same afflictions make our wings grow with regard to
   heavenly things--we are feathered like eagles, we catch the soaring
   spirit--a thorn is in our nest and we spread our pinions towards the
   sun. Affliction frequently opens Truths of God to us and opens us to
   the Truth of God--I know not which of these two is the more difficult.

   Experience unlocks Truths which otherwise were closed against us. Many
   passages of Scripture will never be made clear by the commentator--they
   must be expounded by experience. Many a text is written in a secret ink
   which must be held to the fire of adversity to make it visible. I have
   heard that you see stars in a well when none are visible above ground
   and I am sure you can discern many a starry Truth when you are down in
   the deeps of trouble which would not be visible to you elsewhere.
   Besides, I said it opened us to the Truth as well as the Truth to us.
   We are superficial in our beliefs--we are often drenched with Truth and
   yet it runs off us like water from a marble slab!

   But affliction, as it were, plows us and sub-soils us and opens up our
   hearts so that into our innermost nature the truth penetrates and soaks
   like rain into plowed land. Blessed is that man who receives the Truth
   of God into his inmost self--he shall never lose it, but it shall be
   the life of his spirit. Affliction, when sanctified by the Holy Spirit,
   brings much glory to God out of Christians through their experience of
   the Lord's faithfulness to them. I delight to hear an aged Christian
   giving his own personal testimony of the Lord's goodness. Vividly upon
   my mind flashes an event of some 25 years ago. It is before me as if it
   had occurred yesterday, when I saw a venerable man of 80, gray and
   blind with age, and heard him in simple accents--simple as the language
   of a child--tell how the Lord had led him and had dealt well with him
   so that no good thing had failed of all that God had promised. He spoke
   as though he were a Prophet, his years lending force to his words. But
   suppose he had never known a trial? What testimony could he have borne?
   Had he been lapped in luxury and never endured suffering he might have
   stood there dumb and have been as useful as if he had never spoke. We
   must be tried or we cannot magnify the faithful God who will not leave
   His people!

   Again, affliction gives us, through Grace, the inestimable privilege of
   conformity to the Lord Jesus. We pray to be like Christ, but how can we
   be if we are not men of sorrows and never become the acquaintance of
   grief? Like Christ and yet never traverse through the vale of tears?
   Like Christ and yet have all that heart could wish? Like Christ and
   never bear the contradiction of sinners against yourself? Like Christ
   and never say, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death"? O,
   Sir, you know not what you ask! Have you said, "Let me sit on Your
   right hand in Your kingdom?" It cannot be granted to you unless you
   will also drink of His cup and be baptized with His Baptism! A share of
   His sorrow must precede a share of His Glory. O, if we are ever to be
   like Christ, to dwell with Him eternally, we may be well content to
   pass through much tribulation in order to attain to it!

   Once more, our sufferings are of great service to us when God blesses
   them, for they help us to be useful to others. It must be a terrible
   thing for a man never to have suffered physical pain. You say, "I
   should like to be the man"? Ah, unless you had extraordinary Grace, you
   would grow hard and cold--you would get to be a sort of cast-iron
   man--breaking other people with your touch. No, let my heart be tender,
   even be soft if it must be softened by pain, for I would rather know
   how to bind up my fellow's wounds. Let my eyes have a tear ready for my
   brother's sorrows even if in order to that I should have to shed 10,000
   of my own. An escape from suffering would be an escape from the power
   to sympathize and that were to be deprecated beyond all things!

   Luther was right when he said affliction was the best book in the
   minister's library. How can the man of God sympathize with the
   afflicted ones if he knows nothing at all about their troubles? I
   remember a hard, miserly churl who said that the minister ought to be
   very poor so that he might have sympathy with the poor. I told him I
   thought he ought to have a turn at being very rich, too, so that he
   might have sympathy with the very rich! And I suggested to him that
   perhaps, upon the whole, it would be handiest to keep him somewhere in
   the middle that he might the more easily range over the experience of
   all classes. If the man of God who is to minister to others could be
   always robust, it were, perhaps, a loss. If he could be always sickly
   it might be equally so--but for the pastor to be able to range through
   all the places where the Lord suffers His sheep to go--is doubtless to
   the advantage of His flock.

   And what it is to ministers, it will be to each one of you according to
   his calling, for the consolation of the people of God. Be thankful
   then, dear Brethren, be thankful for trouble! And above all be thankful
   because it will soon be over and we shall be in the land where these
   things will be spoken of with great joy. As soldiers show their scars
   and talk of battles when they come, at last, to spend their old age in
   the country home, so shall we in the dear land to which we are
   hastening, speak of the goodness and faithfulness of God which brought
   us through all the trials of the way! I would not like to stand in that
   white-robed host and hear it said, "These are they that come out of
   great tribulation, all except that one." Would you like to be there to
   see yourself pointed at as the one saint who never knew a sorrow? O no,
   for you would be an alien in the midst of the sacred brotherhood! We
   will be content to share the battle, for we shall soon wear the crown
   and wave the palm.

   I know that while I am preaching some of you have said, "Ah, these
   people of God have a hard time of it." So have you. The ungodly do not
   escape from sorrow by their sin. I never heard of a man escaping from
   poverty through being a spendthrift. I never heard of a man who escaped
   from headache or heartache by drunkenness--or from bodily pain by
   licentiousness. I have heard the opposite! And if there are griefs to
   the holy there are others for you. Only mark this, ungodly ones, mark
   this--for you these things work no good! You pervert them to
   mischief--but for the saints, they work eternal benefit! For you your
   sorrows are punishments. For you they are the first drops of the red
   hail that shall fall upon you forever. They are not so to the child of
   God. You are punished for your transgressions--he is not.

   And let us tell you, too, that if this day you happen to be in peace,
   prosperity, plenty and happiness--yet there is not one child of God
   here, in the very deeps of trouble, that would change places with you
   under any consideration whatever! He would sooner be God's dog and be
   kicked under the table, than be the devil's darling and sit at meat
   with him. "Let God do as He pleases," we say, "for while here we
   believe our worst state to be better than your best." Do you think we
   love God for what we get out of Him and for nothing else? Is that your
   notion of a Christian's love to God? We read in Jeremiah of certain
   ones who said they would not leave off worshipping the Queen of Heaven.
   "For when," they said, "we worshipped the Queen of Heaven, we had bread
   in plenty, but now we starve."

   This is how the ungodly talk and that is what the devil thought was
   Job's case. Said he--"Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not set a
   hedge about him and all that he has?" The devil does not understand
   real love and affection, but the child of God can tell the devil to his
   face that he loves God if He covers him with sores and sets him on the
   dunghill. And by God's good help he means to cling to God through
   troubles ten-fold heavier than those he has had to bear, should they
   come upon him. Is He not a blessed God? Yes, let the beds of our
   sickness ring with it--He is a blessed God! In the night watches, when
   we are weary and our brain is hot and fevered, and our soul is
   distracted, we yet confess that He is a blessed God! Every ward of the
   hospital where Believers are found should echo with that note!

   "A blessed God?" "Yes, that He is," say the poor and needy here this
   morning and so say all God's poor throughout all the land. "A blessed
   God?" "Yes," say His dying people, "as He slays us we will bless His
   name. He loves us and we love Him and, though all His waves go over us
   and His wrath lies sorely upon us, we would not change with kings on
   their thrones if they are without the love of God."

   O, Sinner, if God smites a child of His so heavily, He will smite you
   one day! And if those He loves are made to smart, what will He do with
   those who rebel against Him and hate Him? "Praise the Son, lest He be
   angry and you perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a
   little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him." The Lord
   bless you and bring you into the bonds of His Covenant, for Christ's
   sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON-Psalm 88.
     __________________________________________________________________

Prayer Certified Of Success

   (No. 1091)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY 19, 1873,

   BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you
   shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that
   asks receives and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall
   be opened." Luke 11:9-10.

   To seek aid in time of distress from a supernatural being is an
   instinct of human nature. We say not that human nature unrenewed ever
   offers truly spiritual prayer, or ever exercises saving faith in the
   living God. But still, like a child crying in the dark with painful
   longing for help from somewhere or other, it scarcely knows where, the
   soul in deep sorrow almost invariably cries to some supernatural being
   for succor. None have been more ready to pray in time of trouble than
   those who have ridiculed prayer in their prosperity--and probably no
   prayers have been more true to the feelings of the hour than those
   which atheists have offered under the pressure of the fear of death.

   In one of his papers in the Tattler, Addison describes a man, who, on
   board ship, loudly boasted of his atheism. A brisk gale springing up,
   he fell upon his knees and confessed to the chaplain that he had been
   an atheist. The common seamen who had never heard the word before,
   thought it had been some strange fish, but were more surprised when
   they saw it was a man and learned out of his own mouth, "that he never
   believed till that day that there was a God." One of the old sailors
   whispered to the boatswain that it would be a good deed to heave him
   overboard, but this was a cruel suggestion, for the poor creature was
   already in misery enough--his atheism had evaporated and he, in mortal
   terror, cried to God to have mercy upon him!

   Similar incidents have occurred, not once nor twice. Indeed, so
   frequently does boastful skepticism come down with a run at the last
   that we always expect it to do so. Take away unnatural restraint from
   the mind and it may be said of all men that, like the comrades of
   Jonah, they cry, every man, unto his God in their trouble. As birds to
   their nests, hinds to their coverts, so men in agony fly to a superior
   being for succor in the hour of need. God has given to all the
   creatures He has made some peculiar form of strength--one has such
   swiftness of foot that at the baying of a hound it escapes from danger
   by outstripping the wind. Another, with outspread wings, is lifted
   beyond the fowler. A third, with horns, pushes down its enemy and a
   fourth, with tooth and claw, tears in pieces its adversary.

   To man He gave but little strength compared with the animals among
   which He placed in Eden and yet man was king over all because the Lord
   was His strength. So long as he knew where to look for the source of
   his power, man remained the unresisted monarch of all around him. That
   image of God in which he shone resplendent sustained his sovereignty
   over the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field and the fish of the
   sea. By instinct man turned to his God in Paradise and now, though he
   is, to a sad degree, an uncrowned monarch, there lingers in his memory
   shadows of what he was and remembrances of where his strength must
   still be found. Therefore, no matter where you find a man, you meet one
   who, in his distress, will ask for supernatural help.

   I believe in the truthfulness of this instinct and that man prays
   because there is something in prayer. And when the Creator gives His
   creature the power of thirst, it is because water exists to meet its
   thirst--and as when He creates hunger there is food to correspond to
   the appetite. So when He inclines men to pray it is because prayer has
   a corresponding blessing connected with it. We find a powerful reason
   for expecting prayer to be effectual in the fact that it is an
   institution of God. In God's Word we are over and over again commanded
   to pray. God's institutions are not folly. Can I believe that the
   infinitely wise God has ordained for me an exercise which is
   ineffectual and is no more than child's play?

   Does He bid me pray and yet has prayer no more result than if I
   whistled to the wind, or sang to a grove of trees? If there is no
   answer to prayer, prayer is a monstrous absurdity and God is the Author
   of it--which it is blasphemy to assert! No man who is not a fool will
   continue to pray when you have once proved to him that prayer has no
   effect with God and never receives an answer. Prayer is a work for
   idiots and madmen, and not for sane persons, if it is, indeed, true,
   that its effects end with the man who prays! I shall not, this morning,
   enter into any arguments upon the matter--rather, I am coming to my
   text, which to me, at least, and to you who are followers of Christ, is
   the end of all controversy.

   Our Savior knew right well that many difficulties would arise in
   connection with prayer which might tend to stagger His disciples and
   therefore He has balanced every opposition by an overwhelming
   assurance. Read those words, "I say unto you," I--your Teacher, your
   Master, your Lord, your Savior, your God--"I say unto you, Ask, and it
   shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be
   opened unto you." In the text our Lord meets all difficulties--first by
   giving us the weight of His own authority, "I say unto you." Next by
   presenting us with a promise, "Ask, and it shall be given you," and so
   on. And then by reminding us of an indisputable fact--"everyone that
   asks receives." Here are three mortal wounds for a Christian's doubts
   as to prayer.

   I. First, then, OUR SAVIOR GIVES TO US THE WEIGHT OF HIS OWN AUTHORITY,
   "I say unto you." The first mark of a follower of Christ is that he
   believes his Lord. We do not follow the Lord at all if we raise any
   questions upon points whereupon He speaks positively. Though a doctrine
   should be surrounded with 10,000 difficulties, the ipse dixit of the
   Lord Jesus sweeps them all away, so far as true Christians are
   concerned. Our Master's declaration is all the argument we need. "I say
   unto you," is our logic. Reason? We see you at your best in Jesus, for
   He is made of God unto us Wisdom. He cannot err, He cannot lie and if
   He says, "I say unto you," that is the end of all debate.

   But, Brothers and Sisters, there are certain reasons which should lead
   us the more confidently to rest in our Master's Word upon this point.
   There is power in every Word of the Lord Jesus, but there is special
   force in the utterance before us. It has been objected to prayer that
   it is not possible that it should be answered because the laws of
   Nature are unalterable and they must and will go on whether men pray or
   not. Not a drop of water will change its position in a single wave, or
   a particle of infectious matter be turned from its course though all
   the saints in the universe should plead against tempest and plague.

   Now, concerning that matter, we are in no hurry to make an answer--our
   adversaries have more to prove than we have--and among the rest they
   have to prove a negative. To us it does not seem necessary to prove
   that the laws of Nature are disturbed. God can work miracles and He may
   work them yet again as He has done in days of yore, but it is no part
   of the Christian faith that God must work miracles in order to answer
   the prayers of His servants. When a man, in order to fulfill a promise,
   has to disarrange all his affairs and, so to speak, to stop all his
   machinery, it proves that he is but a man and that his wisdom and power
   are limited. But He is God, indeed, who, without reversing the engine
   or removing a single cog from a wheel, fulfils the desires of His
   people as they come up before Him!

   The Lord is so Omnipotent that He can work results tantamount to
   miracles without, in the slightest degree, suspending any of His laws.
   He did, as it were, in the olden times, stop the machinery of the
   universe to answer prayer, but now, with equally godlike glory, He
   orders events so as to answer believing prayers and yet suspends no
   natural law. But this is far from being our only or our main
   comfort--that lies in the fact that we hear the voice of One who is
   competent to speak upon the matter and He says, "I say unto you, Ask
   and it shall be given you." Whether the laws of nature are reversible
   or irreversible, "Ask and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall
   find."

   Now, who is He that speaks thus? It is he that made all things, without
   whom was not anything made that was made! Cannot He speak to this
   point? O You eternal Word, You who were in the beginning with God,
   balancing the clouds and fastening the foundations of the earth, You
   know what the laws and the unalterable constitutions of Nature may be
   and if you say, "Ask and it shall be given you," then assuredly it will
   be so, be the laws of Nature what they may! Besides, our Lord is by us
   adored as the Sustainer of all things and, seeing that all the laws of
   Nature are only operative through His power and are sustained in their
   motion by His might, He must be cognizant of the motion of all the
   forces in the world--and if He says, "Ask and it shall be given
   you"--He does not speak in ignorance, but knows what He affirms. We may
   be assured that there are no forces which can prevent the fulfillment
   of the Lord's own Word. From the Creator and the Sustainer the Words,
   "I say unto you," settles all controversy forever.

   But another objection has been raised which is very ancient, indeed,
   and has a great appearance of force. It is raised not so much by
   skeptics, as by those who hold a part of the Truth. It is this--that
   prayer can certainly produce no result because the decrees of God have
   settled everything and those decrees are Immutable. Now we have no
   desire to deny the assertion that the decrees of God have settled all
   events. It is our full belief that God has foreknown and predestinated
   everything that happens in Heaven above or in the earth beneath--and
   that the foreknown station of a reed by the river is as fixed as the
   station of a king--and "the chaff from the hand of the winnower is
   steered as the stars in their courses." Predestination embraces the
   great and the little, and reaches unto all things--the question is, why
   do we pray?

   Might it not as logically be asked why we breathe, eat, move, or do
   anything? We have an answer which satisfies us, namely, that our
   prayers are in the predestination and that God has as much ordained His
   people's prayers as anything else. And when we pray we are producing
   links in the chain of ordained facts! Destiny decrees that I should
   pray--I pray. Destiny decrees that I shall be answered and the answer
   comes to me. Moreover, in other matters we never regulate our actions
   by the unknown decrees of God, as, for instance, a man never questions
   whether he shall eat or drink because it may or may not be decreed that
   he shall eat or drink--a man never enquires whether he shall work or
   not on the ground that it is decreed how much he shall do or how
   little. As it is inconsistent with common sense to make the secret
   decrees of God a guide to us in our general conduct, so we feel it
   should be in reference to prayer and therefore we still pray.

   But we have a better answer than all this. Our Lord Jesus Christ comes
   forward and He says to us this morning, "My dear Children, the decrees
   of God need not trouble you. There is nothing in them inconsistent with
   your prayers being heard. 'I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given
   you.'" Now, who is He that says this? Why it is He that has been with
   the Father from the beginning--"the same was in the beginning with
   God"--and He knows what the purposes of the Father are and what the
   heart of God is, for He has told us in another place, "the Father
   Himself loves you." Now, since He knows the decrees of the Father and
   the heart of the Father, He can tell us with the absolute certainty of
   an eyewitness that there is nothing in the eternal purposes in conflict
   with this Truth of God, that he that asks, receives, and he that seeks
   finds. He has read the decrees from beginning to end--has He not taken
   the Book and loosed the seven seals thereof and declared the ordinances
   of Heaven?

   He tells you there is nothing there inconsistent with your bended knee
   and streaming eyes and with the Father's opening the windows of Heaven
   to shower upon you the blessings which you seek. Moreover, He is
   Himself God--the purposes of Heaven are His own purposes and He who
   ordained the purpose here gives the assurance that there is nothing in
   it to prevent the efficacy of prayer. "I say unto you." O you that
   believe in Him, your doubts are scattered to the winds--you know that
   He hears prayer!

   But sometimes there arises in our mind a third difficulty which is
   associated with our own judgment of ourselves and our estimate of God.
   We feel that God is very great and we tremble in the Presence of His
   majesty. We feel that we are very little and that, in addition, we are
   also vile--and it seems an incredible thing that such guilty nothings
   should have power to move the arm which moves the world! I wonder not
   if that fear should often hamper us in prayer. But Jesus answers it so
   sweetly. He says--"I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you." And
   I ask again, who is it that says, "I say unto you"? Why, it is He who
   knows both the greatness of God and the weakness of man! He is God and
   out of the excellent Majesty I think I hear Him say, "I say unto you,
   Ask, and it shall be given you."

   But He is also Man, like ourselves, and He says, "Dread not your
   littleness, for I, bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, assure
   you that God hears man's prayer." The words come to us with the harmony
   of blended notes! The God, the Man, both speak to us--"Dread not My
   majesty, your prayer is heard. Fear not your own weakness. I as a Man
   have been heard of God." And yet, again, if the dread of sin should
   haunt us and our own sorrow should depress us, I would remind you that
   Jesus Christ, when He says, "I say unto you," gives us the authority,
   not only of His Person, but of His experience. Jesus was known to pray.
   Never any prayed as He did! Nights were spent in prayer by Him, and
   whole days in earnest intercession--and He says to us, "I say unto you,
   Ask, and it shall be given you."

   I think I see Him coming fresh from the heather of the hills, among
   which He had knelt all night to pray, and He says, "My disciples, Ask,
   and it shall be given you, for I have prayed and it has been given unto
   Me." I think I hear Him say it with His face all bloody red and His
   garments as if He had trod the wine vat, as He rises from Gethsemane
   with His soul exceedingly sorrowful even unto death. He was heard in
   that He feared and therefore He says to us, "I say unto you, knock and
   it shall be opened unto you." Yes, and I think I hear Him speak thus
   from the Cross, with His face bright with the first beam of sunlight
   after He had borne our sins in His own body on the tree--and had
   suffered all our griefs to the last pang. He had cried, "My God, My
   God, why have You forsaken Me," and now, having received an answer, He
   cries in triumph, "It is finished," and in so doing, bids us, also,
   "ask, and it shall be given you." Jesus has proven the power of prayer!

   "Oh but," says one, "He has not proven what it is to pray in trouble
   like mine." How grossly you attest the Savior's trouble was worse than
   yours! There are no depths so deep that He has not dived to the bottom
   of them! Christ has prayed out of the lowest dungeon and out of the
   most horrible pit. "Yes, but He has not cried under the burden of sin."
   How can you speak so thoughtlessly!? "Was ever such a burden of sin
   borne by any man as was laid on Him?" True, the sins were not His own,
   but they were sins and sins with all their crushing weight in them,
   too! Yet was He heard and He was helped unto the end. Christ gives you,
   in His own experience, the Divine proof that the asking shall be
   followed by the receiving, even when sin lies at the door.

   Thus much is certain, if you, who are Believers, cannot believe in the
   efficacy of prayer on the very Word of Christ, it has come to a strange
   pass, for, O Beloved, you are leaning all your soul's weight on Jesus!
   If He is not true, then you are trusting a false Savior! If He speaks
   not Truths of God, then you are deceived! If you can trust Him with
   your soul, you must of necessity trust Him with your prayers! Remember,
   too, that if Jesus our Lord could speak so positively here, there is a
   yet greater reason for believing Him now, for He has gone within the
   veil--He sits at the right hand of God, even the Father, and the voice
   does not come to us from the Man of poverty, wearing a garment without
   seam, but from the enthroned Priest with the golden girdle about His
   loins, for it is He who now says, from the right hand of God--"I say
   unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you."

   Do you believe in His name? How, then, can a prayer that is sincerely
   offered in that name fall to the ground? When you present your petition
   in Jesus' name, a part of His authority clothes your prayers. If your
   prayers are rejected, Christ is dishonored--surely, you cannot believe
   that? You have trusted Him, then believe that prayer offered through
   Him must and shall win the day. We cannot talk longer on this point,
   but we trust the Holy Spirit will impress it upon all our hearts.

   II. We will now remember that OUR LORD PRESENTS US WITH A PROMISE. Note
   that the promise is given to several varieties of prayer. "I say unto
   you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock
   and it shall be opened unto you." The text clearly asserts that all
   forms of true prayer shall be heard, provided they are presented
   through Jesus Christ and are for promised blessings. Some are vocal
   prayers men ask--never should we fail to offer up every day and
   continually the prayer which is uttered by the tongue, for the promise
   is that the asker shall be heard.

   But there are others who, not neglecting vocal prayer, are far more
   abundant in active prayer, for by humble and diligent use of the means
   they seek the blessings which they need. Their heart speaks to God by
   its longings, strivings, emotions and labors. Let them not cease
   seeking, for they shall surely find. There are others who, in their
   earnestness, combine the most eager forms, both acting and speaking,
   for knocking is a loud kind of asking and a vehement form of seeking.
   If our prayers are vocal speech with God, or if they are the practical
   use of means ordained, which is real prayer--or if they should, best of
   all, be the continued use of both--or if they are expressed only by a
   tear or a sigh, or even if they remain quite unexpressed in a trembling
   desire, they shall be heard. All varieties of true prayer shall meet
   with responses from Heaven.

   Now observe that these varieties of prayer are put on an ascending
   scale. It is said first that we ask--I suppose that refers to the
   prayer which is a mere statement of our needs in which we tell the Lord
   that we need this and that and ask Him to grant it to us. But as we
   learn the art of prayer we go on further to seek--which signifies that
   we marshal our arguments and plead reasons for the granting of our
   desires--and we begin to wrestle with God for the mercies needed. And
   if the blessings come not, we then rise to the third degree which is
   knocking--we become importunate--we are not content with asking and
   giving reasons, but we throw the whole earnestness of our being into
   our requests and practice the text which says, "the kingdom of Heaven
   suffers violence and the violent take it by force."

   So the prayers grow from asking--which is the statement, to
   seeking--which is the pleading, and to knocking-- which is the
   importuning. To each of these stages of prayer there is a distinct
   promise. He that asks shall have--what did he ask for? But he that
   seeks, going further, shall find, shall enjoy, shall grasp, shall know
   that he has obtained. And he who knocks shall go further still, for he
   shall understand--and to him shall the precious thing be opened--he
   shall not merely have the blessing and enjoy it, but he will comprehend
   it! He shall "understand with all saints, what are the heights and
   depths."

   I want, however, you to notice this fact, which covers all--whatever
   form your prayer may assume it shall succeed. If you only ask you shall
   receive. If you seek you shall find. If you knock it shall be opened.
   In each case, according to your faith, shall it be unto you. The
   clauses of the promise before us are not put, as we say, in law,
   jointly--he that asks and seeks and knocks shall receive--but they are
   put severally--he that asks shall have, he that seeks shall find, he
   that knocks shall have it opened. It is not when we combine the whole
   three that we get the blessing, though doubtless if we did combine them
   we should got the combined reply. But if we exercise only one of these
   three forms of prayer, we shall still get that which our souls seek
   after.

   These three methods of prayer exercise a variety of our Graces. It is a
   gloss of the fathers upon this passage that faith asks, hope seeks and
   love knocks--and the gloss is worth repeating. Faith asks because she
   believes God will give. Hope, having asked, expects, and therefore
   seeks for the blessing. Love comes nearer, still, and will not take a
   denial from God, but desires to enter into His house and to sup with
   Him and, therefore, knocks at His door till He opens. But, again, let
   us come back to the old point--it matters not which Grace is
   exercised--a blessing comes to each one. If Faith asks it shall
   receive. If Hope seeks it shall find. And if Love knocks it shall be
   opened to her.

   These three modes of prayer suit us in different stages of distress.
   There am I, a poor mendicant at Mercy's door. I ask and I shall
   receive--but I lose my way so that I cannot find Him of whom I once
   asked so successfully. Well, then, I may seek with the certainty that I
   shall find. I am told if I am in the last stage of all, not merely poor
   and bewildered, but so defiled as to feel shut out from God like a
   leper shut out of the camp, then I may knock and the door will open to
   me. Each of these different descriptions of prayer is exceedingly
   simple. If anybody said, "I cannot ask," our reply would be, you do not
   understand the word. Surely everybody can ask! A little child can ask.
   Long before an infant can speak it can ask--it need not use words in
   order to ask for what it wants--and there is not one among us who is
   incapacitated from asking.

   Prayers need not be fine. I believe God abhors fine prayers. If a
   person asks charity of you in elegant sentences he is not likely to get
   it. Finery in dress or language is out of place in boggles. I heard a
   man in the street, one day, begging aloud by means of a magnificent
   oration. He used grand language in very pompous style and I dare say he
   thought he was sure of getting piles of coppers by his borrowed speech.
   But I, for one, gave him nothing. I felt more inclined to laugh at his
   bombast. Is it not likely that many great prayers are about as useless?
   Many Prayer Meetings' prayers are a great deal too fine. Keep your
   figures and metaphors and parabolic expressions for your fellow
   creatures! Use them for those who want to be instructed, but do not
   parade them before God! When we pray, the simpler our prayers are the
   better--the most plain, most humble language which expresses our
   meaning is the best.

   The next word is seek and surely there is no difficulty about seeking?
   In finding there might be, but in seeking there is none. When the woman
   in the parable lost her money she lit a candle and sought for it. I do
   not suppose she had ever been to the university, or qualified as a lady
   physician, or that she could have sat on the School Board as a woman of
   superior sense--but she could seek. Anybody who desires to do so can
   seek--be they man, woman, or child--and for their encouragement the
   promise is not given to some particular philosophical form of seeking,
   but simply, "he that seeks finds."

   Then there is knocking--well, that is a thing of no great difficulty.
   We used to do it when we were boys--sometimes too much for the
   neighbors' comfort! And at home, if the knocker was a little too high,
   we had ways and means of knocking at the door even then--a stone would
   do it, or the heel of a boot--anything would make a knocking! It was
   not beyond our capacity by any means! Therefore, it is put in this
   fashion by Christ Himself, as much as to tell us, "You need have no
   scholarship, no training, no talent and no wit for prayer--ask, seek,
   knock--that is all, and the promise is to everyone of these ways of
   praying. Will you believe the promise? It is Christ who gives it! No
   lie ever fell from His lips. O doubt Him not! Pray on if you have
   prayed, but if you have never prayed before, God help you to begin
   today!

   III. Our third point is that JESUS TESTIFIES TO THE FACT THAT PRAYER IS
   HEARD. Having given a promise He then adds, in effect--"You may be
   quite sure that this promise will be fulfilled, not only because I say
   it, but because it is and always has been so." When a man says the sun
   will rise tomorrow morning, we believe it because it has always risen.
   Our Lord tells us that, as a matter of indisputable fact, all along the
   ages true asking has been followed by receiving! Remember that He who
   stated this fact knew it. If you state a fact you may reply, "Yes, as
   far as your observation goes, it is true." But the observation of
   Christ was unbounded. There was never a true prayer offered unknown to
   Him! Prayers acceptable with the Most High come up to Him by the way of
   the wounds of Christ. Therefore the Lord Jesus Christ can speak by
   personal knowledge and His declaration is that prayer has
   succeeded--"Everyone that asks receives and he that seeks finds."

   Now here we must, of course, suppose the limitations which would be
   made by ordinary common sense and which are made by Scripture. It is
   not everyone that frivolously or wickedly asks or pretends to ask of
   God that gets what he asks for. It is not every silly, idle,
   unconsidered request of unregenerate hearts that God will answer. By no
   manner of means--common sense limits the statement so far. Besides,
   Scripture limits it again, "You have not because you ask not, or
   because you ask amiss"--there is an asking amiss which will never
   obtain. If we ask that we may consume the good things upon our lust we
   shall not have them. If we ask for that which would not be to our good
   we shall be heard by receiving no such answer as we desired. But those
   things being remembered, the statement of our Lord has no other
   qualification--"everyone that asks receives."

   Let it be remembered that frequently, even when the ungodly and the
   wicked have asked of God, they have received. Full often in the time of
   their distress they have called upon God and He has answered them. "How
   can you say that" asks one. No, I say not so, but so says Scripture.
   Ahab's prayer was answered and the Lord said, "see you how Ahab humbles
   himself before Me? Because he humbles himself before Me, I will not
   bring the evil in his days: but in his son's days will I bring the evil
   upon his house." So, also, the Lord heard the prayer of Jehoahaz, the
   son of Jehu, who did evil in the sight of the Lord. (2 Kings 13:1-4).
   The Israelites, also, when for their sins were given over to their
   foes, cried to God for deliverance and they were answered--yet the Lord
   Himself testified concerning them that they did but flatter with their
   mouth.

   Does this stagger you? Does He not hear the young ravens when they cry?
   Do you think He will not hear man, that is formed in His own image? Do
   you doubt it? Remember Nineveh! The prayers offered at Nineveh--were
   they spiritual prayers? Did you ever hear of a Church of God in
   Nineveh? I have not, neither do I believe the Ninevites were ever
   visited by converting Grace--but they were, by the preaching of Jonah,
   convicted that they were in danger from the great Jehovah--and they
   proclaimed a fast and humbled themselves! And God heard their prayer
   and Nineveh, for a while, was preserved. Many a time in the hour of
   sickness and in the time of woe, God has heard the prayers of the
   unthankful and the evil. Do you think God gives nothing except to the
   good? Have you dwelt at the foot of Sinai and learned to judge
   according to the Law of merit? What were you when you did begin to
   pray? Were you good and righteous? Has not God commanded you to do good
   to the evil? Will He command you to do what He will not do Himself?

   Has He not said that He "sends rain upon the just and upon the unjust"
   and is it not so? Is He not daily blessing those who curse Him and
   doing good to those who despitefully use Him? This is one of the
   glories of God's Grace and when there is nothing else good in the man,
   yet if there is a cry lifted up from his heart, the Lord deigns full
   often to send relief from trouble. Now, if God has heard the prayers
   even of men who have not sought Him in the highest manner and has given
   them temporary deliverances in answer to their cries, will He not much
   more hear you when you are humbling yourself in His sight and desiring
   to be reconciled to Him? Surely there is an argument here!

   But to come more fully to the point with regard to real and spiritual
   prayers, everyone that asks receives without any limit whatever. There
   has never been an instance, yet, of a man really seeking spiritual
   blessings of God without his receiving them. The publican stood afar
   off and so broken was his heart that he dared not look up to
   Heaven--yet God looked down on him. Manasseh lay in the low dungeon. He
   had been a cruel persecutor of the saints. There was nothing in him
   that could commend him to God, but God heard him out of the dungeon and
   brought him forth to liberty of soul. Jonah had, by his own sin,
   brought himself into the whale's belly and he was a petulant servant of
   God at the best--but out of the belly of Hell he cried and God heard
   him. "Everyone that asks receives and he that seeks finds; and to him
   that knocks it shall be opened." Everyone!

   If I needed evidence I should be able to find it in this Tabernacle. I
   would ask anyone here who has found Christ to bear witness that God
   heard his prayer. I do not believe that among the damned in Hell there
   is one who dares say, "I sought the Lord and He rejected me." There
   shall not be found, at the last day of account, one single soul that
   can say, "I knocked at Mercy's door, but God refused to open it." There
   shall not stand before the Great White Throne a single soul that can
   plead, "O Christ, I would have been saved by You, but You would not
   save me! I gave myself up into Your hands, but You did reject me. I
   penitently asked for mercy of You, but I had it not." Everyone that
   asks receives. It has been so until this day--it will be so till Christ
   Himself shall come. If you doubt it try it and if you have tried it try
   it again.

   Are you in rags?--that matters not--everyone that asks receives. Are
   you foul with sin?--that matters not--"everyone that seeks finds." Do
   you feel yourself as if you were shut out from God altogether?--that
   matters not, either--"knock, and it shall be opened unto you, for
   everyone that asks receives." "Is there no election there?" Yes, yes,
   doubtless there is! But that does not alter this Truth of God which has
   no limit to it whatever--"everyone." What a rich text it is! "Everyone
   that asks receives." When our Lord spoke thus, He could have pointed to
   His own life as evidence--at any rate we can refer to it now and show
   that no one asked of Christ who did not receive. The Syro-Phoenician
   woman was at first repulsed when the Lord called her a dog. But when
   she had the courage to say, "Yet the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from
   the table," she soon discovered that everyone that asks receives.

   She, also, who came behind Him in the crowd and touched the hem of His
   garment--she was no asker, but she was a seeker--and she found. I think
   I hear, in answer to all this, the lamentable wail of one who says, "I
   have been crying to God a long while for salvation. I have asked, I
   have sought and I have knocked, but it has not come yet." Well, dear
   Friend, if I am asked which is true, God or you, I know which I shall
   stand by and I would advise you to believe God before you believe
   yourself! God will hear prayer, but do you know there is one thing
   before prayer? What is it? Why, the Gospel is not--"he that prays shall
   be saved"--that is not the Gospel! I believe he will be saved, but that
   is not the Gospel. I am told to preach to you. "Go you into all the
   world and preach the Gospel to every creature; he"--what?--"he that
   believes and is baptized shall be saved."

   Now, you have been asking God to save you--do you expect Him to save
   you without your believing and being baptized? Surely you have not had
   the impudence to ask God to make void His own Word! Might He not say to
   you, "Do as I bid you. Believe My Son. He that believes on Him has
   everlasting life." Let me ask you, do you believe Jesus Christ? Will
   you trust Him? "Oh, I trust Him," says one. "I trust Him wholly." Soul,
   do not ask for salvation any more--you have it already--you are saved!
   If you trust Jesus with all your soul, your sins are forgiven you and
   you are saved. And the next time you approach the Lord, go with praise
   as well as with prayer and sing and bless His name.

   "But how am I to know that I am saved?" asks one. God says, "He that
   believes and is baptized shall be saved." Have you believed? Have you
   been baptized? If so, you are saved. How do I know that? On the best
   evidence in all the world--God says you are--do you need any evidence
   but that? "I want to feel this." Feel! Are your feelings better than
   God's witness? Will you make God a liar by asking more signs and tokens
   than His sure Word of Testimony? I have no evidence this day that I
   dare trust in concerning my salvation but this--that I rest on Christ
   alone with all my heart, soul and strength. "Other refuge have I none,"
   and if you have that evidence, it is all the evidence that you need
   seek for this day. Other witnesses of Divine Grace in your heart shall
   come, by-and-by, and cluster about you and adorn the doctrines you do
   profess--but now your first business is to believe in Jesus.

   "I have asked for faith," says one. Well, what do you mean by that? To
   believe in Jesus Christ is the gift of God, but it must be your own act
   as well. Do you think God will believe for you, or that the Holy Spirit
   believes instead of us? What has the Holy Spirit to believe? You must
   believe for yourself or be lost! He cannot lie--will you not believe in
   Him? He deserves to be believed! Trust in Him and you are saved, and
   your prayer is answered! I think I hear another say, "I trust I am
   already saved, but I have been looking for the salvation of others in
   answer to my prayers." Dear Friend, you will get it. "He that asks
   receives and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be
   opened." "But I have sought the conversion of such an one for years
   with many prayers."

   You shall have it, or you shall know one day why you have it not and
   shall be made content not to have it! Pray on in hope. Many a one has
   had his prayer for others answered after he has been dead. I think I
   have reminded you before of the father who had prayed for many years
   for his sons and daughters and yet they were not converted. In fact,
   all of them became exceedingly worldly. His time came to die. He
   gathered his children about his bed, hoping to bear such a witness for
   Christ at the last that it might be blessed to their conversion--but
   unhappily for him he was in deep distress of soul. He had doubts about
   his own interest in Christ. He was one of God's children who are put to
   bed in the dark--this being, above all, the worst fear of his mind,
   that he feared his dear children would see his distress and be
   prejudiced against religion.

   The good man was buried and his sons came to the funeral--and God heard
   the man's prayer that very day--for as they went away from the grave
   one of them said to the other, "Brother, our father died a most unhappy
   death." "He did, Brother. I was very much astonished at it, for I never
   knew a better man than our father." "Ah," said the first brother, "if a
   holy man such as our father found it a hard thing to die, it will be a
   dreadful thing for us who have no faith when our time comes." That same
   thought had struck them all and drove them to the Cross--and so the
   good man's prayer was heard in a mysterious manner.

   Heaven and earth shall pass away, but while God lives, prayer must be
   heard. While God remains true to His Word, supplication is not in vain!
   The Lord give you Divine Grace to exercise it continually. Amen.

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Luke 11:1-13; Psalm 107:1-31.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Holy Celebration

   (No. 1092)

   A SERMON DELIVERED BY

   REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "It is a night to be much observed unto the Lord." Exodus 12:42.

   OF course you will understand that our text relates to the Passover.
   This is its first meaning. The Israelites were enjoined never to forget
   that they were once slaves in Egypt and that God, with a strong hand,
   brought them forth. To help their memories an ordinance was instituted
   which was to be celebrated every year by every person in the nation.
   The young children were to be taught the meaning of that ordinance so
   that never in time should it be forgotten that God passed over His own
   people when He smote His enemies in the land of Egypt.

   To this day the Israelites continue to hold this epoch in their
   national history among their most cherished traditions--and although
   the rites with which they observe the Passover are so distorted that we
   might well say they cannot sing the Lord's song in a strange land--yet
   the Passover is still Israel's celebration. And so long as there exists
   a Jew, there will not lack a man to tell how his fathers came out of
   Egypt in that night which is to be much observed.

   But, dear Friends, the Passover was a type of our Lord's passion. He is
   the Lamb of God's Passover. It is by His blood that we are preserved.
   It is by virtue of His Sacrifice that God passes over us who, through
   faith, have received the sprinkling of that blood. Never let us forget
   that night which is to be much remembered--that night when the Lord was
   taken from prison and from judgment--when there was none to declare His
   generation. Let us not forget that night when, for the transgression of
   His people, He was smitten.

   It was a dark night when He arose from the table where He had supped
   for the last time with His disciples, and went to Gethsemane, there to
   begin to suffer and in the very beginning to be sorrowful, even unto
   death. Then to be taken off to Pilate and to Herod, and to Caiaphas--to
   be condemned to die--to be lifted high upon the Cross, to bleed, to
   suffer physical pain, mental anguish and spiritual grief unknown--never
   to be estimated by us. It was a night to be remembered in all our
   generations. Let it never be forgotten. Whatever we do not know, my
   Brothers and Sisters, let us know the Cross. Whatever subject may have
   a second place in our estimation, always let the ransom paid on Calvary
   be first and foremost.

   I would have you study much the four records of the Evangelists. Dwell
   upon them. Christians ought to be familiar with every little incident
   of their Savior's death. There is teaching in every nail. The sponge,
   the vinegar and the hyssop all have a meaning in them--and the spear
   that pierced His side is full of instruction. We ought to study
   them--study them again and again, and again. Here is the very essence
   of our confidence! This is the pillar upon which our souls lean! If
   there is any hope for sinners; if there is any consolation for
   sufferers; if there is any cleansing for the guilty; if there is any
   life for the dead, it is here. In Your words Emmanuel--it is here and
   only here. O, dwell at the Cross, then! Whatever your minds may forget
   to consider, let them never lose the savor of this, or leave the
   meditation of Christ Crucified!

   Keep to this. Remember, that to help our frail memories, God has given
   us an ordinance. Even as He gave to Jews the Passover, He has given to
   us the Lord's Supper. "This do you, as often as you drink it, in
   remembrance of Me." It is important beyond everything that you should
   remember a bleeding Savior! Therefore He gives you the wine cup to
   symbolize His blood and that blood separated from the flesh--and,
   therefore, He gives you the bread as the emblem of flesh without the
   life-blood in it--that the two together might be the symbols to you of
   a violent death suffered by your Lord on your behalf!

   Instructive are the symbols--do not miss the main intention of them,
   namely, to draw you with cords of love and bands of a man, to the
   Person of your vicarious Sacrifice--Jesus Christ bleeding for you! And
   while you harbor this much in your own thoughts, speak much of it to
   others. Let your testimony be full and frequent. If you are ministers,
   preach much about the "Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the
   world." If you are teachers of others in the Sunday school, or anywhere
   else, make this the main head and front of your teaching--Christ in the
   sinner's place; Christ bearing the sinner's sin; Christ smitten with
   the sinner's stripes--and by His stripes healing sinners and putting
   away their sin.

   Insist upon this again and again, and again. Make it plain to all, so
   that if they reject it they may reject that which was evidently set
   forth before them. Unveil the mystery, the sacred mystery of the
   Incarnate God bleeding in the sinner's place. Yes, should men upbraid
   you as foolish because you have nothing else to teach but this--keep
   on, and be thus foolish, still! Let them say that you have nothing but
   a monotony to repeat concerning the blood! Let them have that monotony
   again sounded in their ears! To that, to that, to that bend all your
   strength--to that direct all their attention, for, surely, the night of
   the passion--or call it day if you will, for though it was day,
   naturally, it was more nearly night in many senses--surely, that "is a
   night to be much observed unto the Lord for bringing them out from the
   land of Egypt: this is that night of the Lord to be observed of all the
   children of Israel in their generations."

   This, however, is not exactly the subject to which we propose to direct
   your meditation this evening. It is the night of our regeneration. It
   is the night of our conversion--(night or day, it matters not
   which)--the time in which we actually received salvation and were made
   partakers of this Passover that we would just now admonish you to
   remember. At that particular time important events transpired for us.
   The most important events, to us, that ever occurred in our history
   happened on that occasion! There was a point in our life up to which we
   were dead--then we were made alive! There was a point up to which we
   were condemned--then, in an instant, we were acquitted! There was a
   moment up to which we were enemies to God by wicked works--and at once,
   by an act of God's Grace--we were reconciled and were made to be God's
   children and were God's enemies no more!

   I want to look back upon that. Our first birth would have been a hurt
   to us if it had not been for this second birth. Our being in this world
   would be a calamity--it had been better for us that we had never
   been--if it had not been for this second creation, which gives us our
   well-being! O, it was a night to be observed before the Lord, in which
   we came out of Egypt, passed from death unto life and were saved! Now,
   what events transpired on that occasion? Well, the first was it pleased
   God, then, to show us the blood of Jesus and to apply it to our souls.
   Do you remember it? I remember well when this came to my heart. You had
   heard the doctrine of the Cross before, but you felt it, then. You knew
   that the blood could save, but at that moment you had faith in that
   blood and it did save you!

   It was applied to you by the hyssop of faith, which sprinkled it upon
   the lintel and doorposts of your house and you were saved! Do you
   remember the place--the spot of ground? Some of us remember and never
   can forget it. O, happy day that brought us to the Savior's feet, took
   all our guilt away and banished all our fears--removed the enmity and
   made us friends--prostrated, conquered and subdued us--then cheered,
   comforted, and blessed us! No man has anything in the incidents or the
   records of his life that can compare in importance with that moment in
   which the blood was applied to his guilty conscience!

   "Well," says one, "I think nothing of it." No, because you never felt
   it. If you had ever felt it, you would. He that has ever felt the
   weight of the Law's great whip upon his conscience--has ever had those
   lashes laid about him till he hated his very life and longed to die--he
   will know what it is to have that whip taken away, to have oil and wine
   poured into those wounds, to have them healed in a moment and to find
   himself ready to leap for very joy because of the wondrous things which
   God has done for him! They that know it not, ought not to say anything
   about it. They are strangers to it. I know some who are constantly
   prone to speak lightly of conversion. Why should they? If they do not
   know anything about it, let them hold their tongues until they do.

   But those that have been converted--those that have been regenerated
   and know it--if they are honest men and I believe they are accepted as
   such in other matters--let them be believed here, also, when they
   declare that there is nothing like it under the sun for joy to a man's
   soul! This application of the blood of sprinkling is the thing above
   all others to be remembered! Whatever else happened that night, let us
   remember this, that the old leaven was purged out of our hearts. At
   once, as soon as ever we believed in Jesus, we found ourselves hating
   the things we loved before. We did not hear the Law which said, "You
   shall not do this, and you shall do that"--but we felt our heart
   changed, so that we did not want to do the evil and we longed to do the
   right.

   And now, though since then we have found another Law in our members
   warring against the law of our mind and causing a frequent
   conflict--yet the true man, the I, the real I--longs after holiness!
   And it is no sorrow, now, to be obedient. It is bliss to obey! And it
   is no joy now to be sinful, but it brings a thorn into the eyes, a
   palpitation to the heart and a trembling into the soul to stain the
   hands or defile the conscience with sin. That is a thing to be
   remembered! Where such a thing as that has happened, it never can be
   forgotten. And, thank God, this has not occurred merely to those who
   were amiable before and honest before, but it has occurred to some of
   the very worst of mankind. O, we could tell stories, tonight, which
   have come under our own observation, of some of the most abandoned
   transgressors who have become some of the purest characters, full of
   "sweetness and light," from the very moment of their conversion!

   The more they were formerly known to delight in sin, the more they have
   subsequently humbled themselves before God. And the more they had lent
   themselves to do iniquity, the more they have addicted themselves to
   works of righteousness, seeking to perfect holiness in the fear of the
   Lord. O Beloved, it is a night to be observed of the Lord in which the
   leaven is put away and we are made to keep the feast in godly
   sincerity! That night, too, or that day, whichever it may have been, we
   do remember that we enjoyed a feast upon our Savior. The blood was
   sprinkled and so we were saved, and then we sat down at the table and
   began at once to feast upon the precious things stored up in the Person
   of Christ.

   I remembered one thing that troubled me. It was that it did seem too
   good to be true. That I was absolved forever from all my sins, I did
   believe, for God said it. "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses
   us from all sin." But this used to stagger me, "Am I really, now, in
   the condition of a child of God--as much a child of God as I am a child
   of my own father? And has He loved such an insignificant worm as I am?
   And will He surely bring me into the promised rest and give me a place
   and a name among His beloved, at His right hand?" O, how I revolted in
   such thoughts as that, when faith was strong, when first I knew the
   Lord!

   Do you remember it, dear Brothers and Sisters? I want you to let your
   souls fly back to those early mornings with Christ, when the dew was
   upon your soul, when the birds began to sing in your hearts and their
   notes had not yet grown stale to you. O, the delicacies of the first
   days with Christ! O, the sweetness of the love of our espousals! Do you
   not remember how you fed upon Christ to the very full and did rejoice
   in Him? Well, look back and say it is a time to be observed before the
   Lord. And then it was that for the first time in your life, dear
   Friends, you felt that you were free! Israel in Egypt was free from
   that night. They were slaves and brick makers, but the moment that
   blood was over the door and God had sent forth the angel to smite the
   Egyptians, the Israelites were free.

   They were even pressed to go away! O, do you remember how free you
   felt? You could sing with John Kent--

   "Now freed from sin, I walk at large, The Savior's blood's my full
   discharge, At His dear feet my soul I lay, A sinner saved, and homage
   pay." You remember how you rejoiced in the liberty in which Christ had
   made you free? You wanted to tell other people about it. You could not
   hold your tongue. You could have sung as we have been singing tonight--

   "Now, oh joy, my sins are pardoned, Now I can, and do believe."

   You were free! But finding yourself so, you also discovered, for the
   first time, that you were a pilgrim, for the Israelites, as they ate
   that paschal supper, had to do so with their loins girt and staves in
   their hands--like men that were to leave that country. You found that
   now you were a stranger. If you had an unconverted parent, you could
   not talk to him or her about your soul. If you had old companions, you
   felt you must bid them farewell, for they would not understand you. If
   you did not know you were a pilgrim before, you found it out the very
   next day when you began to talk with them.

   Your speech betrayed you and they began at once to scoff and jeer at
   you, as a Presbyterian or a Methodist, or by some other name they
   called you--thus you soon found that because you were not of the world,
   therefore the world would hate you. Perhaps you were surprised at it,
   but you plucked up courage and you took up Christ's Cross, and you have
   carried it till now. At length you begin to love it, to esteem it an
   honor and to count it to be greater riches than all the treasures of
   Egypt which you left behind you.

   O, it is a time to be remembered and I want you to remember it
   now--those blessed days when we began to live! I think we might date
   our existence from that time. When we count up our birthdays, we ought
   always to reckon that among them. To leave that out seems to be leaving
   out the one that makes all the others worth having! I remember a man's
   tombstone on which was inscribed--"Here lies one who died a child three
   years old at the age of eighty." You are only as old as the number of
   years you have lived unto God! All the rest you might wish to be wiped
   out--yes, and the blood of Christ has wiped them out and you are alive
   from the dead, new-born souls. O, let the time of your second birth be
   a season to be remembered before the Lord!

   Important results will flow to you from the preservation of this
   memorial. It will humble you and foster the Grace of humility. Have you
   become an old experienced Christian, my Brother? Go back to the hole of
   the pit from which you were dug. While I stand here, tonight, preaching
   to a great many of you, I feel brought down to my proper bearings when
   I remember how I sat, at about the age of 16, a poor trembling sinner
   under the galleries of a Primitive Methodist meeting house and heard
   Christ preached, and came to Him. O, that ever I should live to preach
   the Gospel to you! I feel humbled at the very thought of it. Get back,
   you great professors--get back to the Cross again! There is nothing
   about which to vaunt yourselves after all. Look to the hole of the pit
   from which you were dug--remember what you were when God met with
   you--and remember what you would have been if He had not met with you!

   Israel would have died like the Egyptians if it had not been for the
   blood--and you might have been dead and damned at this hour, instead of
   sitting here to praise God--if it had not been for special Grace. It
   was no goodness of yours that made you God's child. You know it, for
   when the Lord cast an eye of love on you, He could not see anything in
   you to love. You were all unholy and unclean. You were according to
   Isaiah's description--"From the sole of the foot to the crown of your
   head you were all wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores"--and yet
   He looked upon you! Remember that, and be humbled within you.

   Remember your conversion, also, and let your faith be refreshed. It
   does us good to remember--especially some of you, my dear Brothers and
   Sisters, that are now a long way on the road--it does you good to
   remember what peaceful hours you had at first. O, what lively joy you
   had then! Well, I daresay you have purer joy now, deeper peace, more
   unruffled calm. There was a good deal of flesh about you then. But
   still, for all that, as a man never will forget the honeymoon, so can
   we never forget that honeymoon with Christ. There was a certain
   exquisite sweetness in it that lingers on our souls still. We have the
   flavor of that honeycomb in our mouths up to this moment and we shall
   never get it out. Well, it will revive our faith to remember it and it
   will bring back our love, too.

   We shall begin chiding ourselves and saying, "Why haven't we done more
   for His dear name?" O, what we thought we should do when we first began
   to serve Jesus! We have not been true to those vows and promises, but
   yet what a mercy that, if we have not been true, He has! He has never
   failed us, but has kept every promise and never left us in any
   emergency. We have been held up till now and who could have held us up
   but our Lord? We have sometimes been in a very perilous
   condition--temptation has almost overcome us, but--

   "We know the arm on which we lean, The name in which we trust,"

   and we will bless that name! I am sure if we were to live in
   recollection of our conversion, we should have our zeal kindled for the
   conversion of others. Ah, you get altogether away from your first
   standing-point, some of you! You used to be willing to run anywhere to
   talk of Jesus and if you had half a hope of impressing anyone, you had
   no fear about speaking of Him.

   Now, perhaps, you have become so familiar with the Gospel that, though
   it ought to have more charms, through the hardness of your heart it has
   fewer charms with you than it had. Oh, be ashamed and be confounded
   about it! And get back, get back, to your first love and you will feel
   the first zeal come again! I sometimes wonder what old churches would
   do if it were not for new converts. The new converts put fresh blood
   into the veins of the Church. The Church would die of sheer imbecility
   were it not that great sinners come in with their great love! They do
   what Simon would not do--they not only wash the Savior's feet and
   perform the common acts of piety--but they begin to anoint His head
   with an extraordinary zeal. And they set the Church an example of doing
   great things--and in this way keep us somewhat alive.

   But I would like to be a young convert always! I would like to be green
   in old age with young love to Jesus and would not you, too, Brothers
   and Sisters? Well, if you would have it so, go back to the night to be
   observed and remember it this evening with tears of gratitude. Cannot
   some of you picture that young man--(yes, you have got boys as old as
   you were then)--cannot you remember the young man that dropped into
   Park Street and heard the Word of God there? Don't you remember your
   experience at that time, young woman? You do not call yourself a young
   woman now, but do you remember when you sat and wept and your heart
   broke--and when the very thing happened that we have been singing of in
   our hymn--that first look and that second look from Him that hung upon
   the Cross?

   You have not forgotten that. Many days have passed over some of you and
   you are getting near to the end of life, but will you not remember and
   lift now a new song for the old mercies and magnify God whom you have
   tried and proved this score of years, and so tried Him that you can
   speak well of His name? Maybe there is a question which will naturally
   arise in some minds. Do not I hear someone say, "I trust I am a
   Christian. I believe I have experienced a great change of heart, but I
   do not remember the time"? Beloved Friend, there is an old legal maxim
   that, "possession is nine points of the Law," and as long as you have
   Christ, I am not going to raise many questions about when you got Him.

   Surely, if the hold you have is equivalent to nine points of the Law,
   it represents all the points of the Gospel! If you have Christ He will
   never be taken away from you. If you are resting upon His blood and
   righteousness, it is well enough. And, if you are producing the fruits
   of the Spirit and your life is what it should be, by your fruits you
   are to be known. We shall ask you no more questions. "But I should like
   to know exactly when I was converted," says one. Well, I do not wonder
   that you should. But suppose you do not know and cannot ascertain, what
   then? Suppose there is a person here who does not exactly know his age
   and he wants to find the register of his birth? And suppose he has
   tried and cannot find it?

   Now, what is the inference that he draws from his not being able to
   tell the day of his birth? Well, I do not know what the inference may
   be, but I will tell you one inference he does not draw. He does not
   say, therefore, "I am not alive." If he did he would be an idiot, for
   if the man is alive he is alive, whether he knows his birthday or not.
   And if the man really trusts in Jesus and is alive from the dead, he is
   a saved soul whether he knows exactly when and where he was saved or
   not. At the same time, do not let me be misunderstood. "You must be
   born-again." There is, and must be, in every man that will enter
   Heaven, a time--a point and a place, too--in which he did pass out of
   the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God's dear Son.

   I believe that in many cases it is not easy to tell the precise point,
   for with them it is like the rising of the sun. Sometimes the sun is up
   before you know whether he has risen or not because a long morning
   twilight precedes his actual appearance above the horizon. So it may be
   that spiritual life begins by slow degrees before we quite perceive it
   there. But there is a time when it begins. There is a point--there is a
   place in which the unsaved become saved and the unregenerate become
   regenerate--and there is a broad line between the two characters. A
   great gulf, indeed, is fixed between them, which only the supernatural
   Grace of God can enable any one to cross. Do not doubt that! Do not
   imagine that I call it in question, for I would not deceive you.

   I believe there are many people who think they have been converted, who
   are not--who have experienced a change, but not the change--who have
   made a change of life and a very good change, too, but still it is not
   being born-again. A man may change from a drunkard to a sober man and
   that is a noble thing--but that will not save him. He may change from
   being a thief to being honest and that is a grand thing--but that will
   not save him. He may change from being a habitual violator of the
   Sabbath to being a constant attendant upon the means of Grace--and that
   is a good thing--but that will not save him. It is not the washing of
   the stain--it is the washing of the soul that is effected in
   regeneration. The man's love must be different. The man's whole
   affections must run in another channel--in the direct opposite channel
   from that which they pursued before. In a word, "Except a man is
   born-again from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

   There must be a time of your new birth, or else, as the Lord lives, you
   shall never see His face with joy. You must pass under the hand of the
   Holy Spirit and nothing short of that will enable you to enter Heaven.
   "It troubles me," says one. Does it? I am glad of that. It is a great
   mercy when there is enough life to be troubled--a real blessing when
   that trouble leads to Christ, for if you have ever been to Christ, you
   have found the Savior and if you are now looking to Christ you are
   saved. Do you say, "But how about that great change?" I reply that
   every Believer must have experienced that change, for the greatest of
   all worlds is faith. What does Christ say?--"This is the work of God
   (or the God-like work), that you believe on Jesus Christ whom He has
   sent." To believe in Jesus is the climax of virtue and the surest
   evidence of a new heart that can possibly be given.

   Have you that evidence? If you have not, be troubled. The Lord trouble
   you more and more lest you be troubled in the world to come with a
   grievous trouble from which there is no relief! To full many here
   present the personal enquiries we suggest are momentous and urgent. You
   say that our preaching is inquisitorial. Be it so, but you, yourselves,
   are the sole inquisitors--each one of you into his own estate and his
   own pedigree. Murmur not, therefore, if I press you to be strict and
   rigid. Whatever verdict you pass, it will be referred to a higher
   court, there to be affirmed or annulled. I felt, before I came into
   this pulpit, that I might never speak to you again, or that at any
   rate, some of the hearers now present, would, before my return, be sure
   to be in another world.

   We do not speak to a "perhaps," because, from long familiarity with
   this great congregation, we note how regularly some die each week. Of
   our membership we lose so many in the year as to make a weekly item of
   names to be removed from the roll because they have joined the Church
   triumphant above, and, in the congregation, we know that it is a rare
   thing that ever there should pass a week without someone, who has been
   our hearer, being transferred to stand before the Judgment Seat of
   Christ. Now, if I never speak to you again, or you shall never hear
   this voice again, I would like to put it to you, my dear Friend--might
   not this night become to you a night to be observed unto the Lord for
   bringing you out of the land of Egypt? Might not this be a night much
   to be observed with you as long as ever you should live?

   "Oh," says one, "I do not know. I am hopeless about ever being saved."
   Where does the hopelessness lie? It does not lie in your character, for
   have we not told you a thousand times over, that, "though your sins are
   as scarlet they shall be as wool," if you will but believe in Jesus? I
   know that you are not tied up with the notion that you have got to do
   some works to save yourself. If so, I must have spoken very strangely,
   or you must have listened to me very oddly, for have we not every
   Sunday told you that it is, "not by works, lest any man should boast,"
   but by the Grace of God and the free favor of God towards the most
   undeserving of men?

   God saves no man for his goodness! However bad you are, God is willing
   to forgive and to accept you and receive you as His child. "No," you
   say, "it is not that, but still I despair of ever being saved. I cannot
   come up to the point." Then whose fault is that, I want to know? Whose
   fault is that? I will ask you. You say, "I have tried to be saved and I
   am not." Did you ever go to God in the silence of your chamber, alone,
   and confess to Him that you were guilty? Did you ever lie at the foot
   of His throne, and say, "O God, I deserve Your wrath. I have broken
   Your Law. I justly deserve Your anger"? Have you done that?

   Now, He has said, "he that confesses his sin shall find mercy." If you
   have not confessed your sins, whose fault is it that you have not got
   the mercy? Well, then, have you ever believed in Jesus?--that is, have
   you trusted in Him who, being God, became Man that He might suffer
   instead of you what was due from God on account of your sins? "Ah, that
   is the point. I break down there," says one. "I cannot believe." In
   what can you not believe? Cannot you believe what God tells you? Do you
   believe the Bible to be God's Word? "Yes!" Then, I ask, how dare you
   say, "I cannot believe it"? In believing that Book to be true, you
   believe what it contains to be true! And God's own testimony concerning
   His Son is this--that, "He is able to save to the uttermost them that
   come unto God by Him," and that whoever trusts in Him is saved, and his
   sins are forgiven him at once.

   "Oh, but I do not feel that I am forgiven." Who says you are to feel
   yourself forgiven? God says you are sinful and admonishes you to
   confess your sins--to renounce your sins, to supplicate pardon for your
   sins--to believe in the remission of your sins by the Atonement offered
   once. It is enough for you that the witness of God is what you are to
   believe. It is not your feeling that is to furnish the rule of your
   faith. You shall feel happy by-and-by. You shall feel a change of heart
   by-and-by. But the first thing is to believe God's witness concerning
   His Son. "But oh, somehow or other I cannot attain to faith." Say, have
   you ever tried? "Well, I have sat down and tried to believe."

   Now, be a reasonable man. Were I to tell you a something that had
   occurred to your immediate advantage, you would sit down and try to
   believe it, looking at the possibilities of its being true with many a
   wishful thought. Or suppose you were compelled to doubt it and thought
   that I was mistaken, yet if you had an interest, you would go and look
   at the papers--you would go and inquire at offices where there are
   telegrams of fresh news. You would ask persons who were likely to judge
   whether such an event was at all possible. And in that way you would
   never rest till you could satisfy yourself about the truth of the
   statement.

   Did you ever search God's Word in that way? Have you read the story of
   the four Evangelists, to see whether it is so? Have you gone to hear
   sermons with this in your mind--"I desire to hear in order that I may
   believe"? Have you been really anxious to try and believe it? I speak
   to you as a believer in the Bible--and to me it seems monstrous that I
   should believe what is in the Bible, and yet not trust in Jesus Christ!
   But have you ever sought to trust Him? "Well, I don't know." No, but I
   do know. You are not in earnest! That is the point. You are earnest
   sometimes, if you are stirred up. But you go to sleep again. The fact
   is, there is some private sin you don't like to give up, or else there
   is some old companion that you like to keep on with--and you know you
   cannot go with him and enjoy his conversation--and yet be a Christian.

   Ah, there is something that keeps you back, for when the Lord makes a
   man resolute to be saved, all the devils in Hell cannot daunt His
   resolution. When once the soul says, "I must be reconciled to God. I
   must have peace. I must have the Savior. I must be cleansed by the
   precious blood"--who is there to stop him? Will God stop him? He
   delights in mercy! Will Jesus stop him? His flowing wounds invite him!
   Will the Holy Spirit stop him? It were blasphemy to suppose it! Who is
   to stop him, then? "Why, Satan." But is Satan by force or fraud to be a
   match for Christ? "Well, his own heart will stop him." Yes, but God is
   greater than his heart and is able to withstand his temptations and to
   help his infirmities. I charge you, Soul, if you would be saved, get to
   your chamber and tell God so! Go and speak to Him in the simplest
   language--"My God, I have offended You. Have mercy upon me. I have
   followed my own will, but now I desire to be obedient to You. Change my
   heart. Give me Your Holy Spirit. I have no merits of my own, but You
   have given Jesus to die for sinners. Lord, I am a sinner. I put my
   child-like trust in You. Save me, Lord."

   Do you think you will ever be cast away? Why, you will be the first
   sinner that ever was, who sincerely came to Jesus that way. It cannot
   be! Do not be afraid, Soul. If you cast yourself on Christ, you can no
   more be sent to Hell than Christ can! If you have cast in your lot with
   Christ and have linked yourself to Him by faith, because He lives you
   shall live, also. Perhaps you know how Mr. Ryland put it? When his wife
   was dying and she was deeply desponding, though she had been for years
   a Christian, he said to her--"Well, where are you going, Betsy?" She
   had been saying to the nurse that she felt she was going to Hell and
   she said to her husband, "Oh, my Dear, I am going down to Hell."

   "Betsy," he said, "what do you mean to do when you get there?" "Oh,
   John, don't talk so," she said. "But do you think you will pray, Betsy,
   when you get there?" "Pray? Yes," she said, "I will never leave off
   praying." "And do you think you will praise God when you get there?"
   "Ah, yes, I will never, never leave off praising God, whatever He does
   to me." "Why," he said, "they would say, 'Here is praying Betty Ryland
   and she is beginning to praise God. Turn her out--we can't bear to have
   her here." Of course, if any soul were sent there that really believed
   in Jesus, it would make a revolution in Heaven and Hell. It cannot be!
   God must change before He will let a sinner perish who trusts in
   Christ!

   O, it is wonderful what power faith has! I remember standing at the
   Mansion House one day waiting to cross over to the other side when the
   omnibuses were coming from all the corners of the compass and I was
   looking for an opportunity to run in and out between them. A blind man
   came up and said, "I am sure you will lead me across. I am sure you
   will lead me across." I am sure I did not want the job, but I was quite
   sure that, if the blind man was sure I would do it, I could not decline
   to do it--and I did it accordingly. I did not like to have a blind
   man's confidence thrown away. It seemed as if his confidence was my
   compulsion. And, oh, blind Sinner, lay hold upon the garment of Christ
   tonight and say, "Jesus, I believe You will lead me into Heaven. At any
   rate, I mean to trust You to do it. I have done with saving myself and
   I mean to rely on You, and You only."

   I tell you, your faith will compel Him--your trust shall hold Him fast.
   He will do anything for faith! Was He not overcome at the brook Jabbok
   by Jacob's faith? Did not faith in the woman that touched the hem of
   His garment win a cure? And when He spoke to the Syro-Phoenician woman
   and called her a dog--did she not win healing for her daughter by the
   brave stand she made by her faith? The Lord waits to be gracious! Trust
   Him, Sinner! The Lord help you to do so and He shall have the glory,
   forever and ever!

   And let me just add, here, that it is a night to be much observed among
   saints in their fellowship one with another. It does us good to listen
   as well as to talk when the mighty arm and the gracious hand of God,
   stretched forth on our behalf, furnishes the theme of conversation.
   There seems to me somehow or other to be a bias given to the whole life
   by the first call a man receives, as though it tinted the character
   with a purer hue than most of the subsequent incidents that belong to
   individual experience. Besides, dear Friends, in recalling the
   circumstances there will spring up a tender sympathy as well a devout
   gratitude, like that to which Paul bears witness--"and they glorified
   God in me." What love feasts those are in which we commemorate the dawn
   of spiritual life! How free from conflicting opinions and turbulent
   passions!

   As Cowper sings--

   "Hearts may be found that harbor, at this hour, The love of Christ in
   all its quickening power And lips unstained by folly or by strife,
   Whose wisdom, drawn from the deep well of life Tastes of its healthful
   origin, and flows A Jordan for the ablution of our woes. O days of
   Heaven, and nights of equal praise, Serene and peaceful as those
   heavenly days When souls drawn upward in communion sweet, Enjoy the
   stillness of some close retreat; Discourse, as if released and safe at
   home, Of dangers past and wonders yet to come, And spread the sacred
   treasures of the breast Upon the lap of covenanted rest."

   Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Exodus 12.
     __________________________________________________________________

Questions of the Day and THE Question of the Day

   (No. 1093)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY 26, 1873,

   BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "What do you think of the Christ?" Matthew 22:42.

   IT was a custom among the Jews before the Paschal Lamb was killed to
   shut it up for several days for examination. It was at first selected
   with great care, for it must be "a lamb without blemish, a male of the
   first year," and lest at the first choice some blemish should have been
   overlooked it was continually inspected from day to day. It was meet
   that the Lamb of God's Passover should pass through a similar ordeal.
   It is remarkable that our Savior, during the days which preceded His
   being offered up for us on Calvary was examined and questioned, both by
   friends and foes. The sharpest eyes were brought to bear upon Him--eyes
   made preternaturally keen through the malice of wicked hearts. He
   passed under the scrutiny of Pharisees, of Herodians, of Sadducees, and
   of lawyers. They tested Him in all parts and tried Him from all points,
   yet they found no fault in Him. "They marveled, and left Him, and went
   their way." And, like Pilate, they found no fault in Him.

   Read the chapter before us in that light and it becomes singularly
   interesting, as exhibiting the unassailable perfection of our Divine
   Redeemer. Let us pray that when we are proved and tested we, also, may
   endure the fiery trial and be found to be pure gold. As they tried our
   Master, so will they also try us--may we, through His triumphant Grace,
   endure even to the end. As I looked upon our text in my study, another
   current of thought passed through my mind. The text stands in a
   remarkable connection. The chapter which contains it opens with the
   parable of the wedding feast. The marriage banquet was spread, the
   guests were invited--they would not come--and therefore special
   messengers were sent to compel as many as they could find to partake of
   the feast. Then as to warn ministers in all generations that the
   greatest hindrances they would ever meet with would arise from the
   quibbling, critical spirit of mankind, we have in the same chapter a
   long account of the various cavilers that assailed our Lord.

   When we preach the Gospel, men do not repel us point blank by telling
   us that there is no importance in our message--instead they suggest
   difficulties, propound frivolous enquiries, or fly off at a tangent
   upon some other less important topic. They evade the pursuit of the
   Gospel by plunging into the mists of debate. Like the cuttle-fish,
   which escapes by clouding the water all around it, so do they avoid the
   invitations and declarations of the Word of God by raising questions of
   a secondary character. It was so in Christ's day. His adversaries met
   His arguments with quibbles, or with wrangling. It is certainly so now.
   We cannot get at men--they stave us off, they parry our home thrusts
   and baffle us by hiding behind the shields of evil questions.

   We cannot get close to them--they lie entrenched behind the ramparts of
   disputation. With other questions they push off the main question and
   keep far from them the soul-saving Truth of God. The Lord Jesus Christ
   here teaches His ministers the art of leaping over the sinner's
   defenses, dashing into the center of his stronghold and smiting him
   with the edge of the sword by means of the enquiry--"What do you think
   of the Christ?" We should deal with matters of disputation as He
   did--answer them, as far as they are to be answered, with wisdom and
   prudence. But then He would have us carry the war into the enemy's
   country and attack the human conscience with the demand, "What do you
   think of the Christ?"

   This morning I purpose, first, to speak upon questions of the day and
   then to press home upon you the question of the day--the question of
   all questions in which life and death are wrapped up.

   I. First, a little upon some of the QUESTIONS OF THE DAY, not with any
   intent of interesting you in them, but rather of calling you somewhat
   away from them lest they too much engross you. The first question of
   the day is nearly akin to that which was proposed to our Lord by the
   Pharisees and the Herodians. It deals with the connection between
   politics and religion, the vexatious question of Church and State. How
   far does Caesar's rule go? Where does it end? And where are we amenable
   to God alone?

   This enquiry, in a very practical shape, presses upon the Dissenters of
   England. I very largely attribute the partial decline of religious
   prosperity in some of our churches to the interest which has been taken
   in the questions which naturally arise out of the unscriptural and
   adulterous connection at present existing between the Church and the
   State in this land. We have, each of us, a certain amount of mental
   power, of time, of energy and no more--and if it is a necessity, as it
   is a necessity--that every Nonconformist should contend for his rights
   and liberties and should never rest till perfect religious equality is
   established in the land--then so much of our strength is taken away
   from higher and better matters to attend to that which, nevertheless,
   it is unavoidable that we should consider. It is not possible for us to
   cease from our efforts to obtain deliverance from the degrading yoke
   which now burdens us.

   We are told that we enjoy toleration--the very word is insult! What
   would the members of the dominant sect think if we talked of tolerating
   them? We shall never be satisfied until all religious communities stand
   upon an equal footing before the Law. Caesar has no right to demand of
   us that we shall support the religion or the superstition which he
   chooses to select. An Established Church is a spiritual tyranny! We
   wear no chains upon our wrists, but on our spirits our oppressors have
   thrust fetters which gall us worse than bands of steel. We are
   compelled, as a part of the nation, to support, through taxation, a
   church whose business it is to pull down that which with prayers and
   tears we live to build up and would even die to maintain.

   As Protestant lamenters, we see the Truths we preach assailed by an
   army of Anglican Papists whom we are compelled to support that they may
   oppose our most cherished designs! Popery is this day installed and
   endowed among us and we are compelled to acknowledge its puppets as the
   clergy of our own national Church! That which our fathers died to
   overthrow we are compelled to support! We cannot help being
   indignant--we should be less than men if our blood did not boil within
   us at such injustice! If men want Popery, or any other form of error,
   let them pay for it themselves and call it their own--but to foist
   their superstition on us as part of the nation is an oppression against
   which we appeal to the Judge of all the earth! Men cannot long bear to
   be saddled with the maintenance of a superstition which they
   abhor--least of all can the descendants of the Ironsides endure it,
   who, though they have laid aside all carnal weapons, cannot quite
   forget the fields on which their fathers made the Cavaliers feel the
   weight of their right arms!

   The insult to our consciences which is embodied in the present Church
   and State is a daily provocation to us as men and Christians. Of the
   present unrighteous domination I would say, Down with it! Down with it,
   all you who have a spark of justice left in your souls! As for us, we
   will never rest till we are free from this excuseless injustice and
   free we will be, as sure as God, the God of righteousness yet lives!

   Now, we cannot think about all this and be earnest about it--we confess
   it and are grieved it is so--without very much of our strength running
   in that direction. And that is strength which we would rather spend
   upon pure, spiritual religion. We desire to be always and alone
   preaching Christ. We desire to be building up His Church and living at
   peace with all our brethren. We need, in all things, to be giving unto
   God all our heart and soul and strength. But this altercation
   concerning God and Caesar will come in. It imperatively demands our
   attention and so it distracts us in a measure from our higher work and,
   therefore, the sooner it is done with the better. We cannot be always
   taken up with this matter. We count the Gospel to be worth 10,000 times
   as much.

   The Savior, when the Caesar question was brought forward, answered it
   most completely. They said, "Shall we pay tribute to Caesar?" "Whose
   money is this?" said He. "Caesar's money." "Very well. You have
   evidently submitted to Caesar's government, you are under his sway.
   Therefore pay to him the tax which he demands of you, but still by no
   means forget that you are under God's government. Therefore render unto
   God the things that are God's." He drew a line of distinction here
   which always ought to be maintained. "To Caesar the things that are
   Caesar's." To maintain order, to repress crime, to preserve individual
   liberty, to protect each man's rights--this is Caesar's business.

   To teach us religion? Is Caesar to do that? God forbid, for what
   religion will Caesar teach us? Is he a Pagan? He will enforce idolatry!
   Is he a Papist? He will ordain Popery! Is he an atheist? He will
   establish infidelity. Remember the days of Queen Mary and see what
   Caesar is capable of when he meddles with religion! It is none of
   Caesar's business to deal with our consciences! Neither will we ever
   obey Caesar in any matter which touches conscience. He may make what
   laws he will about religion, but by our loyalty to God we pour contempt
   on Caesar when he usurps the place of God! He is no more to us than the
   meanest beggar in the street if he goes beyond his own legitimate
   authority.

   To Caesar, Caesar's politics to politicians. Obedience, cheerful and
   prompt, to civil rulers. To God, and to God only, things that are
   God's! And what are these? Our hearts, our souls, our consciences. Man
   himself is the coin upon which God has stamped His image and
   superscription (though, alas, both are sadly marred!), and we must
   render to God our manhood, our wills, our thoughts, our judgments, our
   minds, our hearts. Consciences are for God. Any law that touches a
   conscience is null and void, ipso facto, for the simple reason that
   kings and parliaments have no right to interfere in the realm of
   conscience. Conscience is under law to none but God. We do not believe
   in liberty of conscience towards God. We are bound towards Him--to
   believe what He tells us and to do what He bids us--but liberty of
   conscience in respect to all mankind is the natural right of every man
   of woman born and it ought to be tenderly respected. Our Lord, here,
   lays the controversy to sleep by telling us to render unto Caesar the
   things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's.

   Now, if there is any person here who is unconverted, but whose mind is
   much occupied with the Church and State dispute, whichever side of the
   question he may take up, I would earnestly say to him--important as
   this is and to some of us it is the question which, next to our soul's
   salvation, weighs most heavily on our hearts--yet still, first of all,
   attend to the more serious enquiry--"What do you think of the Christ?"
   Is He the Wonderful, the Counselor, the Mighty God, in your esteem? Are
   you saved by Him? If not, I would bid you waive the topic upon which we
   have just now spoken until the higher question is answered.

   When a man is at the point of death the question is, what can we do to
   restore him? When the vessel is going down, the one thing necessary for
   every man is, "how can I get to the boat?" Sometimes in a desperate
   case, as that of sudden shipwreck, the love of life may drive men to do
   even more than they should do for themselves and tempt them in their
   mortal terror to become forgetful of the claims of others. O, I wish
   that something like that excess of diligence, if such could be, would
   come upon men's hearts with regard to their souls. There are enough
   saved men who can fight out the ecclesiastical dispute--you unsaved
   ones had better go to the Cross--and there seek and find salvation. The
   question has, doubtless, vast importance, but with you the far more
   important matter is to believe in Christ!

   Suppose you were to die tonight? It would then be a small matter to you
   what may be done in the next session of Parliament with the question of
   the separation of Church and State. If you have to stand before the bar
   of God before this year is out, the Established Churches will be of
   small account to you if you are banished from Heaven and hope!
   Therefore, see to it, I pray you, that no business interferes with the
   business of your soul!

   A second problem of the age also crops up in this chapter--the enquiry
   into the details of the future state. I think none of us remember a
   time in which so many strange theories have been brought forward with
   regard to the doom of the ungodly and the condition of the righteous.
   Some are teaching, and teaching with great vehemence that Believers, as
   well as others, die at the time when they depart out of this world and
   that there is no more existence for the righteous until the day of the
   resurrection! They teach that there are no such things as immortal
   souls, but that even the godly dissolve into dust and cease to be until
   the resurrection raises them out of the grave.

   Now these are solemn topics and I believe that it is highly necessary
   to be orthodox upon them. I do not think any man wastes his time who
   stands up to defend the old faith with regard to these things. I am
   persuaded that the generally received views are truthful and healthful
   and that the novelties which swarm around us will breed abounding
   mischief. Still, for all that, there are other matters to be thought
   about besides that carnival of errors which comprises soul-sleeping,
   annihilation, universal restoration and the like. There is a prior
   question, and that is, "What do you think of the Christ?"

   However, since the facts of the future ought to be known, our Savior
   dealt with the Sadducees' heresy. The Sadducees, believing in pure
   materialism and denying the resurrection, the Savior declared to them
   the certainty of a future state and took out of their hands a weapon of
   fancied difficulty. In answer to their question about the woman married
   seven times, He declared that in the next world men are neither married
   nor given in marriage--where death's ravages are unknown there is no
   need of reproduction. Since the Sadducees denied that there were
   angels, our Lord, without noticing their skepticism, declared that the
   risen ones are as the angels of God--thus killing two birds with one
   stone. He corrected their views as to what men would be in the other
   world and quietly confirmed that there are spirits called angels.

   Then the great Teacher proved beyond question the continuous existence
   of the saints by reminding the Sadducees of the Voice that spoke out of
   the bush to Moses. The Pentateuch was the great authority of the
   Sadducees--they did not reject the other Inspired Books--but they held
   the writings of Moses in superior veneration. Therefore our Lord, with
   wisdom, selects from the book of Exodus and quotes the Words of the
   Lord's address to Moses out of the bush, "I am the God of Abraham, and
   the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." He then added a well-known
   Jewish axiom, "God is not the God of the dead but of the living," and
   routed the skeptics in one battle! It followed clearly enough that
   Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were not alive in Moses' day. They were in
   their graves--that was certain--therefore it was equally certain that a
   something which was truly Abraham was not in the grave, but was
   somewhere else. That is to say, that the souls of Abraham, Isaac and
   Jacob were living, and living in the possession of God, though their
   bodies had been consumed by the worm.

   There was the Savior's argument. The Patriarchs, as to their bodies,
   had been dead for some generations. Yet God called Himself their God!
   Therefore, in the truest sense, they could not be really dead, but must
   still exist. It has been said that the nerve of this argument lies in
   the fact that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were, as to their bodies, dead
   at the time--that is true, and yet the argument would be strong if
   Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been alive at the time. Note this well,
   and consider the point. When God says to a man, "I am your God," what
   an infinite blessing He bestows and how much the words imply! As long
   as God exists He belongs to that man and, therefore, the man himself
   must exist as long as God does--for that which does not exist cannot
   possess anything! That which possesses anything must itself
   exist--therefore it follows that as Abraham and all other saints must
   forever possess God, as their God, according to the Word--"I am your
   God"--therefore they must eternally exist.

   In order to receive and experience the sum and substance of the Divine
   promise, nothing less than eternity will suffice. When God bestows a
   blessing upon a man, He gives him such a range of being as shall give
   him the capacity for enjoying that blessing. Temporal blessings have
   attached to them a natural being. The vast spiritual blessing of
   possessing God is infinite and needs an everlasting existence for its
   enjoyment. The saints are still living or else God could not be their
   God--and the saints are still conscious, for God is not the God of
   unconscious things that by hundreds of years together neither think nor
   feel. He is the God of those who are living in the sense of being
   active. They still worship and adore. They still love and serve. Their
   rest with Jesus is not that of unconsciousness. They are living--not
   merely existing--but living unto the living God.

   This was our Savior's proof and it is one which is overwhelmingly
   convincing. The doctrine of the continued existence of the righteous is
   bound up with that of the resurrection. Immortality and the
   resurrection are kindred Truths of God. When God said, "I am the God of
   Abraham," He did not say "I am the God of Abraham's soul." If He had,
   the existence of Abraham's soul would have fulfilled the promise. But,
   "I am the God of Abraham," includes the whole of his person and Abraham
   was body as well as soul--it was necessary, therefore, that Abraham's
   body should rise to enjoy the fullness of God. There was, as a learned
   writer observes, an advance all the way. God was the God of Abraham
   while he was in the body of this death. He was the God of Abraham when
   unclothed and He will be the God of Abraham when he is clothed with his
   house which is from Heaven.

   Now, my dear Hearers, I would at once call you back to the main point.
   These questions ought to be thought of and you should receive the
   teaching of Christ about them and yield to none of the inventions of
   these evil days. Yet is there for you this more pressing
   question--"What do you think of the Christ?" Have you a part and a lot
   in Him? Are you saved by Him? It seems to me mere folly for an
   unconverted man to be asking, "What is the nature of Heaven? What is
   the form of the resurrection body?" Did you ever see a poor, shivering,
   miserable beggar in the street, starving for lack of food, and yet
   curious about the exact details of the imperial revenue for the current
   quarter of the year? What business can that be of his? Is not this his
   first business--to win a morsel of bread? And should it not be your
   first concern, as a man, that you should be pardoned? That you should
   be accepted before God? That you should be saved from Hell?

   Speculations upon the Second Advent and the prophecies of Ezekiel and
   Daniel--what have they to do with you while you are without Christ? Are
   you mad, you unsaved ones? Will you gratify curiosity while your souls
   are perishing for lack of the knowledge of Christ? The wrath of God
   abides on you! You are like a man in a condemned cell waiting for the
   day of execution! Is this a time to be puzzling your head about things
   which concern others, but which as yet certainly do not concern you?
   "What do you think of the Christ?" Put other things aside till that is
   settled. Then you shall attend to them in order, according as God shall
   help you.

   There are, however, other questions which will arise--questions upon
   theology. One of these was asked of our Savior by the Pharisees. They
   wanted to know which was the first and chief Commandment. They believed
   that Moses had given them 365 Commandments, corresponding to the number
   of days in the year and that he had given them 248 prohibitions. They
   made a great point of knowing the exact numbers. Among them there were
   great disputes as to which entailed the more sin--the breaking of this
   or the breaking of the other command. Some maintained that the
   ceremonial ordinances were more important than the moral commands.
   Another party held that the ceremonial precepts were very secondary as
   compared with the moral Law.

   Scribes and lawyers wrangled without end. Our Savior answered their
   question by telling them that the love of God and the love of their
   neighbor were the two great Commandments and so He ended that matter.
   But He did not permit their thoughts to stay there. He pushed on to the
   more vital question, "What do you think of the Christ?" At the present
   day, if you speak to a man about his soul, he will ask you, "Are you an
   Arminian or a Calvinist?" To this we reply, "Dear Fellow, are you
   saved? That is your matter. We will tell you what we are another time.
   For the present you need a Savior and there ought your mind to settle."
   "Well," he says, "what is your opinion in reference to Baptism?" Our
   answer is ready enough, for we see the Lord's will plainly enough in
   His Word, but we beg you to think more of Jesus than of ordinances.

   "But," says the quibbler, "are you Presbyterian in church polity, or do
   you favor Episcopacy?" Dear Friend, what has that to do with you? Have
   you passed from death unto life? That is the point. A man is drowning
   and I put out my arm to rescue him, but he will not grasp my hand till
   I can assure him that I pronounce a certain Latin word correctly--is he
   not an idiot? My dear Fellow, right quantities or false quantities are
   inconsiderable things compared with your being drowned--let us get you
   on dry land, first, and then we will talk about long vowels and short
   ones. So also we cannot afford to split hairs while souls are being
   lost. We are far from saying that any doctrine is inconsiderable and
   that any Truth of God is unimportant--a grain of Truth is worth dying
   for--still, there are solemn facts to be thought of before we come to
   controversial doctrines.

   There are persons who will say, "But how would you celebrate the Lord's
   Supper?" I reply, "We do not celebrate it at all with such as you are.
   Until you know the Savior we have no Lord's Supper for you whatever."
   "But," he says--and he begins to question you whether there should be
   an altar of stone or a table of wood, and whether the elements should
   be dispensed by a priest or by a minister, or by a common
   Christian--"These are very weighty matters, and I must have them all
   solved at once." Dear Friends, we also think them weighty and our
   testimony about them never hesitates, but we are not going to dispute
   with you, for we earnestly entreat you, first of all, to know Christ
   and Him Crucified! Make your calling and election sure and then we will
   be ready to give you reasons from the Word for our faith and practice.
   At present, "What do you think of the Christ?" is the one sole enquiry
   which demands your care.

   I think I spoke out plainly enough, just now, upon the first question
   referring to politics and religion to let you know that I am by no
   means lukewarm on minor points. And I would speak with equal
   definiteness here about doctrines and ordinances if it were necessary
   to show you that I do not undervalue them. But for all that, "What do
   you think of the Christ?" is far above all other questions for a man
   who is unredeemed. And I do beseech you not to let those other points
   destroy you, as they may do by taking away your thoughts from the one
   thing necessary. Till you are saved you need your mind concentrated on
   the one essential point. After that we will teach you to observe all
   things whatever the Lord has spoken.

   Just now, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved,"
   is the most important text in the Bible for you to consider.

   II. Now let us come to the second part of our subject--THE QUESTION OF
   ALL QUESTIONS, the question of the day, the question of all days until
   days shall end--"What do you think of the Christ?" Observe that it is
   an enquiry which concerns the Savior. "What do you think of the
   Messiah, the Sent One, the Christos, the Anointed One of God?" Do you
   think His errand was necessary? Was there a need for such a Person to
   come here? Was a Savior necessary in your case? He came to save men
   from their sins--have you any sins? Have you sins from which you cannot
   escape of yourself, for which you can make no atonement yourself? Have
   you felt this? Do you feel it now?

   If you say you have no sin, your thoughts of Christ will be that He was
   a needless commissioner from Heaven as far as your case is concerned.
   He came not to call those who need not to be saved--why should He do
   such a work of supererogation? Have you felt sin? Do you confess it? Do
   you believe, therefore, that God, in sending Christ to save His people
   from their sins, has done a gracious and merciful act? Do you accept
   the Person whom He has sent? Are you willing to be saved by Him? Are
   you willing to be saved on His terms, which are that you yield yourself
   up to Him, that He shall be your ONLY Savior, that He shall have all
   the glory of your salvation, that you shall not be saved by any merit
   of your own, but be pardoned through His blood and righteousness? Do
   you agree to that? Does your soul say, "Yes," to that before the living
   God? If so, your thoughts of Christ are right. But if not, if you kick
   at His sacrifice and say, "I see no need for it." If you think it
   insufficient to put away sin and if, therefore, you do not trust in
   Him, then you have made God a liar by not believing His testimony
   concerning His Son!

   But I trust that this morning your thoughts of Christ are just
   these--"I am a sinner deserving punishment from God. I see that God has
   punished sin in Jesus Christ and I trust myself in Christ, the atoning
   Sacrifice, wholly and alone. I give myself up to Christ Jesus that He
   may save me, that He may rule me, that He may make me holy even as He
   is holy. If He will but have me, I have no opposition to Him. No, I
   feel, on the contrary, a complete yielding of my soul to His Divine
   will, happy to be saved by such a Savior."

   I am favored, indeed, to be addressing persons who feel this in their
   very souls! Whatever else you have to perplex you, Beloved, always hold
   to that and let your thoughts of our dear Savior ever be humble, ever
   sweet, and ever pleasant to your hearts. Then shall you be strong for
   sacred service! But never, never, never cease to think well of Jesus.
   Please notice that this question not only concerns the Savior, but it
   concerns the Person of the Savior and this is a point too often
   forgotten. We speak of the Lord's teachings and doings, but we ought,
   more often, to remember that He is a real Person--not a name, or a
   fiction--not a shadow that has passed across the historic page, but a
   Man of whom we may ask the question--"Whose Son is He?" as the Master
   asked it here.

   Now, shall I put the question to you? What do you think of the Person
   of Christ? Do you understand how Sonship and Lordship blend in Him? Do
   you understand Him to be the Son of David and, therefore, yielding
   obedience on earth, both to man and to God, He became the Servant of
   servants for our sake? Do you believe He was obedient, even unto
   death--and yet do you comprehend that He is Lord of all, that the
   government is upon His shoulders? Is Christ your Savior and yet your
   Master? Has He washed your feet and yet do you bow down and kiss His
   feet? Has He done all for you and now do you feel that He is enthroned
   in your heart's best love and that you would do anything and everything
   for Him?

   Jesus bleeding on the Cross and yet exalted on the Throne--can you
   reconcile these two things? The crown of thorns and the crown of
   universal monarchy--have you seen how these two are united in His
   blessed Person? What do you think of Christ--Sonship and Lordship
   blended? And have you seen, and does your faith know that He is both
   Human and Divine--Son of David, truly such by natural descent--Son of
   God, also by Nature and Essence? It is no use our mincing words--we
   cannot believe in the salvation of a man who does not believe in the
   Deity of Christ! We would have the utmost charity possible, but we must
   have honesty, too, and it seems to us that the rejection of Christ as
   God is the rejection of His salvation altogether!

   Beloved, have you accepted Christ, the whole Christ, the Man Christ,
   the God Christ, Immanuel, God with us? Is He your trust? If not, may
   the Lord bring you to look the question in the face before any other.
   Put all the rest in the background and consider this--Have you thought
   rightly concerning God in Christ Jesus, the Savior of men? Have you
   thought rightly of Him, too, in the matter of the opposition which is
   rendered to His kingdom and yet of the sure conquest He will gain?

   Notice how the Holy Spirit has led David to write concerning it, "The
   Lord said unto my Lord, sit you at My right hand, until I make Your
   enemies Your footstool." Christ is opposed. Do you see it? Do you also
   lament it? Does your faith, at the same time, grasp the thought that
   all this opposition will be overcome, that Christ will yet sit upon the
   Throne of His Father David and will sway His scepter over the most
   fierce of all His adversaries? Oh, it is well when we can get to
   this--Christ in my own soul fighting with sin! Christ resisted by my
   depravity and corruption! And yet Christ sure to reign and sit as King
   when all my sins are overcome and all my corruptions overthrown! It is
   a blessed sight to see the struggling and soon the triumphing of the
   Savior and to think of Him in that respect! I exhort you to make sure
   work about the Divine Person of our dear Lord Jesus Christ and to let
   all other things go or wait their turn for many a long day until you
   know Him and are found in Him--and are saved with a complete salvation
   in Him!

   But I must pass on a little further. This question is not only about
   the Redeemer and His Person, but it is about thoughts. "What do you
   think of the Christ?" It has been said that we shall not be hanged for
   our thoughts. It may be. But many have been damned for their thoughts.
   Indeed, this is the source of damnation--that men will think amiss--and
   from thinking amiss go on to speak and act amiss. "What do you think of
   the Christ?" This is a searching enquiry to some, for their relations
   to Christ consist of anything else you like except thinking. Many who
   attend a place of worship never give themselves the trouble of
   thinking. They say a prayer night and morning, but as to thinking, that
   is out of the question. They go to their "sacraments" and they do not
   mind how often, but they never think. What is a priest but an invention
   to think for me, to do my religion for me? But the question is, "What
   do you think of the Christ?"

   If there is no thought in your religion, there is no life in it! Man
   invents mechanical forms and modes in order to get away from the
   horrible necessity of thinking, but in so doing he destroys his soul.
   Every man should do his own thinking and do it at home, too, and not
   need to put it out for somebody else to perform it for him. The mind
   must exercise itself towards God and if it does not, our worship is
   dead worship. Our Savior suggests to us that we must think and think of
   Him--"What do you think of the Christ?" Is it a pleasure to you to
   think of Christ? Do you so love Him, is He so comely in your esteem
   that you delight to think of Him? Do you frequently think of Christ,
   just as you often think of those you love? And do you naturally think
   of Christ just as we naturally think of food without being reminded of
   it, seeing we have to live upon it and therefore inward appetites
   render impossible to forget?

   Have you a passion for Christ? These are the kind of enquiries which
   try a man. Is your nature so changed that Christ has become your Friend
   and therefore you delight in Him? Has He become your food and therefore
   you inevitably long for Him and must do so because of new appetites and
   cravings within your nature? Do you think of Christ joyfully? Can you
   say--

   "In the heavenly Lamb

   Thrice happy I am,

   And my heart it does leap

   At the sound of His name?"

   Do you think of Christ, desiring still nearer access and a clearer view
   of Him, sighing out with sacred love-sickness, saying, "O that I were
   with Him where He is, or that He were with me where I am"? Do you think
   of Him with admiration, wondering at the Altogether Lovely One? Do you
   think of Him with an ardent wish to be conformed to His image, saying,
   "Gracious Savior, make me like Yourself"? Do you think of Him with
   practical love, so that you help His cause, succor His poor people,
   proclaim His Truth, aid His Church and pity sinners for whom He shed
   His blood?

   Do you so think of Christ as to speak well of Him and commend Him to
   the love of mankind? Do thoughts of Jesus keep you back from sin and
   incite you to continue in the paths of holiness for His name's sake? Do
   you so think of Christ that you pray for Him, that you give to Him,
   that you work for Him? "What do you think of the Christ?" Is He worthy
   of your actual, practical, diligent service, or is it to be all talk
   and idle chat and broken resolutions and vain professions? "What do you
   think of the Christ?"

   Then notice, the question is about your own thoughts. How pleased we
   all are with the work of judging other people. There are certain
   persons to whom, if you will speak against all Churches and all
   religious people, and say, "How all are departing from the Truth and
   all going aside," you are furnishing them with the sweetest possible
   nuts. They delight in sacred scandal! Now it may be true that everybody
   is very bad, but I do not particularly see what I have to do with that.
   The main thing, at any rate, for the most of you to consider is--"What
   do you think of the Christ?"--you! "Ah," says one, "I like to see
   abuses exposed." Very well, come here and let us turn your heart inside
   out. "What do you think of the Christ?" "I like a searching ministry,"
   says one. Very well, then let this question search you and go right
   through your soul like a hurricane--"What do you think of the Christ?"

   "Alas, my neighbors are great Sabbath-breakers." What are you, Sir?
   Cannot you break the Sabbath and yet attend a place of worship? Do you
   not carry burdens in your soul on Sunday--and is it not ordained to be
   a day of rest for the mind as well as for the body? "Ah, but some of my
   neighbors are very erroneous in their doctrine." What are you the
   better for your orthodoxy? That is the point. May it not involve more
   sin to have the light and not to act upon it than to be in the dark
   altogether? I beseech you, each man, each woman for himself--put the
   question to your own soul, "What do you think of the Christ?" How many
   times after a sermon have you said, "I wonder how So-and-So could sit
   still and listen to that part of it. I thought as I was sitting there
   what a home-thrust the preacher gave So-and-So"?

   Were such thoughts right? Is that the way to hear the Gospel? Are we
   not to hear for ourselves? Should there not be a personal application
   on all matters? I push home this demand with vehemence--with leave or
   without leave, I beseech each one of you to answer to this
   enquiry--"What do you think of the Christ?" And here let me close by
   saying that this question, though it only deals with thoughts, is
   entangled with every other spiritual subject. If you are not right
   here, you are right in nothing. The hymn says correctly--

   "You cannot be right in the rest

   Unless you think rightly of HIM."

   I never knew a man think little of the Savior but what he thought
   little of sin. There was never a man who thought little of the Mediator
   but what he had very strange ideas of the Godhead. Never a man went
   astray in his thoughts about Christ but he also was going wrong in his
   thoughts of himself. If you know Jesus to be a Savior to the fullest,
   putting away all sin by the Sacrifice of Himself--then you will know
   yourself to be a sinner, with sin to put away--and soon you will know
   yourself to be a saint with sin put away and so you will get right
   ideas of everything else.

   Go to the Fountainhead, I pray you! Make heart-work of that essential
   question--"What do you think of the Christ?" If you would allow me to
   catechize you upon your spiritual state, I shall not treat of any
   peculiarity of creed or sect, but I shall begin and end with this one
   thing--"What do you think of the Christ?" If a man has a disease in the
   vitals, the mere adornment of his person will avail little--the inward
   parts must be set right. And if you are wrong in reference to the Lord
   Jesus, the evil must be remedied by the Grace of God or you will die
   eternally! Remember, if our views of Christ are wrong, our state is
   wrong. When a man is born-again he knows Christ. He may think he knew
   Him before, but he did not, for only the spiritual man understands
   spiritual things. If your present state is wrong, your future state
   will be wrong unless you are set right in reference to the Lord Jesus,
   so that the question before us encompasses both time and eternity.

   Do I address any Brother or Sister here who is already saved, but who
   possesses a scant measure of joy? Dear Brother or Sister, I should not
   wonder but what the reason of your despondency may be mean, unworthy
   thoughts of Christ Jesus! If you knew more about your union with the
   living Savior, about the perfection that is given to all His people
   through His blood and righteousness, surely your joy would overflow and
   your despondency would cease! If we permit groveling ideas of our Lord
   to dwell in our minds, our whole spiritual nature will decline in
   consequence. Narrow notions of the Redeemer narrow our love to Him and
   our enterprise for His glory. Low thoughts of Christ will palsy the
   strongest arm, but a great Savior greatly loved, leads to great deeds.

   See Him to be lovely beyond all things and let Him engross your heart
   and fire your spirit and He will make a man of you to the fullness of
   your manhood so that you shall serve God to purpose. Let not Jesus be a
   shadow to you, or your religion will be unsubstantial. Let Him not be
   just a name to you, or your religion will be nominal. Let Him not be
   just a myth of history, or your religion will be mere fancy. Let Him be
   not just a teacher, or you will lack a Savior! Let Him be not alone an
   exemplar, or you will fail to appreciate the merit of His blood. Let
   Him be the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last, the All in
   All of your spirits.

   As He is God's Beloved, so let Him be your Beloved! As He is Lord of
   lords, let Him be your Lord and when any enquire of you, "What do you
   think of the Christ?" tell them, "He is all my salvation and He is all
   my desire." Amen and amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SEASON--Matthew 22.
     __________________________________________________________________

Always and for All Things

   (No. 1094)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 2, 1873,

   BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the
   name of our Lord Jesus Christ." Ephesians 5:20.

   THE position of our text in the Epistle is worthy of observation. It
   follows the precept with regard to sacred song in which Believers are
   bid to speak to themselves and one another in Psalms and hymns and
   spiritual songs, singing and making melody in their hearts to the Lord.
   If they cannot be always singing they are always to maintain the spirit
   of song. If they must, of necessity, desist at intervals from outward
   expressions of praise, they ought never to refrain from inwardly giving
   thanks. The Apostle, having touched upon the act of singing in public
   worship, here points out the essential part of it which lies not in
   classic music and thrilling harmonies, but in the melody of the heart.
   Thanksgiving is the soul of all acceptable singing.

   Note, also, that this verse immediately precedes the Apostle's
   exhortations to Believers concerning the common duties of ordinary
   life. The saints are to give thanks to God always and then to fulfill
   their duties to their fellow men. The Apostle writes, "Submitting
   yourselves one to another in the fear of God," and then he adds the
   various branches of holy walking which belong to wives and to husbands,
   to children and to parents, to servants and to masters--so that it
   would seem that thanksgiving is the preface to a holy life, the
   foundation of obedience and the vestibule of sanctity. He who would
   serve God must begin by praising God, for a grateful heart is the
   mainspring of obedience. We must offer the salt of gratitude with the
   sacrifice of obedience--our lives should be anointed with the precious
   oil of thankfulness. As soldiers march to music, so while we walk in
   the paths of righteousness we should keep step to the notes of
   thanksgiving. Larks sing as they mount, so should we magnify the Lord
   for His mercies while we are ringing our way to Heaven.

   My text is a very appropriate one for this cold morning when wind and
   snow conspire against our comfort. Let it peep up like the golden cup
   of the crocus out of the wintry waste. When the weather is unusually
   dull and dreary we should resolve to set a stout heart against the
   pelting storm and determine that if we shiver in body we will at least
   be warm in heart. Our thanksgiving is not a swallow which is gone with
   the summer. The birds within our bosom sing all year round and on such
   a morning as this their song is doubly welcome. The fire of gratitude
   will help to warm us--heap on the big logs of loving memories! No cold
   shall freeze the genial current of soul--our praise shall flow on when
   brooks and rivers are bound in chains of ice.

   Let us see which among us can best rejoice in the Lord in ill weather!
   This morning I shall ask you to think over the pleasant duty
   prescribed. Then I shall lead you to think of its spiritual
   prerequisites, or what is necessary to help a man to give thanks always
   for all things. And we will close by dwelling upon the eminent
   excellencies of the duty, or rather of the privilege which is here
   described.

   I. First, let us think of the PLEASANT DUTY which is here both
   prescribed and described. Think what it is-- giving thanks. By this is
   meant the emotion of gratitude and the expression of it either by song,
   by grateful speech, by the thankful look--which means far more than
   words can express--or by any other method. We have, sometimes, been so
   overcome by the devout emotion of gratitude to God for His mercy that
   we could not help but weep. And strange it is that the same sluices
   which furnish vent for our sorrows also supply a channel for the
   overflow of our joys. We may weep to God's praise if we feel it to be
   most natural. We are to give thanks in our spirit, feeling not only
   resigned, acquiescent, and content, but grateful for all that God does
   to us and for us.

   We are bound to show this gratitude by our actions, for obedience is at
   once the most sincere and the most acceptable method of giving thanks.
   To go about irksome and laborious duty cheerfully is to thank God. To
   bear sickness and pain patiently, because it is according to His will,
   is to thank God. To sympathize with suffering saints for love of Jesus
   is to bless God. And to love the cause of God and to defend it for
   Christ's sake, is to thank God. The angels, when they praise God, not
   only sing, "Hallelujah, hallelujah," but they obey, "doing His
   commandments, hearkening to the voice of His Word." We must give thanks
   to God in every shape that shall be expressive of our hearts and
   suitable to the occasion. And although changing the mode, we may thus
   continue without cessation to give thanks unto God, even the Father.

   Beloved, after all it is but a light thing to render to our heavenly
   Father our poor thanks, after He has given us our lives, maintained us
   in being, saved our souls through the precious redemption of Jesus
   Christ, given us to be His children and made us heirs of eternal Glory!
   What are our thanks in the presence of all these priceless favors? Why,
   if we gave our God a thousand lives and could spend each one of these
   in a perpetual martyrdom, it were a small return for what He has
   bestowed upon us! But to give Him thanks is the least we can do and
   shall we be slack in that? He gives us breath, shall we not breathe out
   His praise? He fills our mouth with good things, shall we not speak
   well of His name?--

   "Words are but air and tongues but clay,

   And His compassions are Divine."

   Shall we fail even with words and tongues? God forbid! We will praise
   the name of the Lord, for His mercy endures forever. None of us will
   say, "I pray You have me excused." The poorest, weakest and
   least-gifted person can give thanks! The work of thanksgiving does not
   belong to the man of large utterance, for he who can hardly put two
   words together can give thanks. Nor is it confined to the man of large
   possessions, for the woman who had but two mites--which make a
   farthing--gave substantial thanks. The smoking flax may give thanks
   that it is not quenched and the bruised reed may give thanks that it is
   not broken. Even the dumb may give thanks--their countenance can smile
   a Psalm! And the dying can give thanks--their placid brow beaming forth
   a hymn. No Christian, therefore, can honestly say, "I am unable to
   exercise the delightful privilege of giving thanks." We may one and all
   at this moment give thanks unto God our Father. Brothers and Sisters,
   let us do so!

   Now, as we have considered what it is we are to do, let us notice when
   we are to do it, for the pith of the precept lies very much in the two
   "alls" which are in the text--"always for all things." We are to give
   thanks always. To give thanks, sometimes, is easy enough. Any mill will
   grind when the wind blows. Brethren, we scarcely need exhorting to do
   this when the wine and oil increase, for we cannot help it. There are
   glad days when, if we did not thank God, we should be something worse
   than fallen men and should be only fit to be compared with devils.
   Anyone can give God thanks when the harvests are plentiful, the stalls
   full of fat cattle and the meadows covered with increasing herds. When
   the fig tree blossoms and the fruit is in the vines, when the labor of
   the olive fails not and the fields yield abundance of meat, then it is
   but natural to give thanks. When health enjoys life and wealth adorns
   it, who will not say, "I thank God"? When the wind blows soft on the
   merchant's cheek and wafts home his fleets of treasure, how can he do
   other than say that God is good?

   But, to give thanks to God always is another matter. To bless the Lord
   in all winds and weathers and praise Him for losses and pains--this is
   a work of quite another character. "O," you say, "we cannot be always
   praising God with our lips." I have already said that and explained
   that vocal thanksgiving is not essential. Perhaps the most doubtful
   form of praising God is that which is performed by the tongue and the
   most sure and truthful way of giving thanks is that which is found in
   the actions of common life. But we are to be always praising God under
   some shape or other--the heart is always to be full of gratitude. At
   all times of the day we should be grateful--our first waking thought
   should be, "Bless the Lord." Our last, before we drop to sleep, should
   be, "Praise be the God of love, who gives a pillow for my weary head."

   At all times of life we should give thanks. In youth we should praise
   God for godly parents and for early Grace. In our mid-life we should
   give thanks for strength, for household joys and for the experience of
   the Divine loving kindness. And, certainly, in those mature days, when
   the head, like the golden grain, bows down with ripeness, the aged
   saint should commence the employment of Heaven and should be always
   giving thanks. We should give God thanks when our wealth increases and
   also when it melts away--when it flows in and when it ebbs out. We must
   bless Him in success and also in disaster. We must give Him thanks when
   health departs. We must give Him thanks when, by gradual decay, the
   tabernacle falls about our ears. We must give Him thanks in those
   expiring moments when the sigh of earth is hushed by the song of
   Heaven.

   It is easy to stand here and tell you this, but I have not always found
   it easy to practice the duty. I confess this to my shame. When I was
   suffering extreme pain some time ago, a Brother in Christ said to me,
   "Have you thanked God for this?" I replied that I desired to be patient
   and would be thankful to recover. "Ah, but," he said, " 'in everything
   give thanks,' not after it is over, but while you are still in it and,
   perhaps, when you are enabled to give thanks for the severe pain, it
   will cease." I believe that there was much force in that good advice.
   It may have sounded rather strange at the time, yet if there is Grace
   in our hearts, we acknowledge the correctness of it. We struggle after
   the holy joy of heart which it depicts and at last, by God's Grace, are
   able to attain to it, so as to give thanks unto God unceasingly.

   We shall never come to a time in which we shall say, "I will thank God
   no more." No. No! A thousand times No! We could sooner cease to live
   than cease to give thanks. This solemn determination enables Believers
   to play the man right gloriously. Was not it grand on Job's part to
   say--"The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name
   of the Lord," even when he had torn his mantle and shaved his head for
   grief? Was not it noble on the part of Paul and Silas, when they were
   thrust into the inner dungeon, to sing praises there? None of us knows
   how foul the air was in an inner Roman dungeon--how full of fever the
   dismal vault, how dank the dripping walls--how foul the stony floor.

   Yet, here were two poor creatures who had been beaten till their backs
   were bleeding. They were fastened in the stocks, probably made to lie
   upon their backs upon the floor! But, at midnight they sang praises
   unto God so loudly that the prisoners heard them. This, it is, to
   praise God aright--to bless Him in the dead of night! To bless Him with
   bleeding backs! To bless Him with feet in the stocks! Oh, to feel that
   nothing in this life and nothing in death shall make us cease to bless
   the Lord while thought and being last! This is Divine Grace, indeed!

   The text next tells us the why of our gratitude--"Giving thanks always
   for all things unto God." "For all things"-- for whatever may happen to
   us. For the things which are of greatest moment we should always be
   grateful--for the new birth, for pardon of sin, for the indwelling of
   the Holy Spirit, for all Covenant mercies, for all the blessings of the
   Cross and of the Crown. Dear Friends, a Christian has infinite cause
   for gratitude! When I first looked to Christ and was lightened, I
   thought that if I never received another mercy except that one of being
   delivered from my load of guilt, I would praise God if He would but let
   me, forever and ever! To have the feet taken out of the miry clay and
   to feel them set on the Rock of Ages is a subject for eternal
   gratitude! But you have not received one spiritual mercy only, beloved
   Brothers and Sisters--nor two, nor twenty--you have had them strewn
   along your path in richest profusion! The stars above are not more
   numerous, nor the sands beneath more innumerable.

   Every hour, yes, every moment has brought a favor upon its wings. Look
   downward and give thanks, for you are saved from Hell! Look on the
   right hand and give thanks, for you are enriched with gracious gifts!
   Look on the left hand and give thanks, for you are shielded from deadly
   ills! Look above you and give thanks, for Heaven awaits you! Nor is it
   alone for great and eternal benefits, but even for minor and temporary
   benefits we ought to give thanks. There ought not to be brought into
   the house a loaf of bread without thanksgiving. Nor should we cast a
   coal upon the fire without gratitude. We eat like dogs if we sit down
   to our meals without devoutly blessing God! We live like serpents if we
   never rise to devout recognition of the Lord's kindness! We ought not
   to put on our garments without adoring God, or take them off to rest in
   our beds without praising Him! Each breath of air should inspire us
   with thanks and the blood in our veins should circulate gratitude
   throughout our system.

   O, how sacred would our temporal mercies be to us if we were always
   thanking God for them! Instead of that, we too often complain because
   we have not somewhat more. We have a position which, in God's sight, is
   the best for us. We could not have been better off than we are now, all
   things being considered--eternal things as well as present things-- and
   yet we murmur and groan as though God had dealt harshly with us. The
   worst of all is that sometimes the poorest are the most thankful--those
   dear souls that are always sick and never have a waking moment free
   from pain are often the happiest and most grateful--while persons with
   wealth, health, strength and surrounded by every comfort are often of
   such a crooked disposition that they complain, they know not why, and
   are most disagreeable companions. God save you, who are His saints,
   from ever falling into a murmuring spirit! It is clean contrary to what
   God can approve of. Give thanks always for all things. Whenever the
   salt is put on the table let us see in it a lesson to us to season our
   conversation with thanks, of which salt we cannot use too much.

   We ought, also, to thank God for the mercies which we do not see, as
   well as for those which are evident. We receive, perhaps, 10 times as
   many mercies which escape our notice as those which we observe--mercies
   which fly by night on soft wings and bless us while we sleep. You have
   heard, perhaps, of a Puritan who met his son, each one of them
   traveling some 10 or 12 miles to meet the other? And the son said to
   his father, "Father, I am thankful to God for a very remarkable
   Providence which I have had on my journey here. My horse has stumbled
   three times with me and yet I am unhurt." The Puritan replied, "My dear
   Son, I have to thank God for an equally remarkable Providence on my way
   to you, for my horse did not once stumble all the way."

   If we happen to be in an accident by railway we feel so grateful that
   our limbs are not broken. But should we not be thankful when there is
   no accident? Is not that the better thing of the two? If you were to
   fall into poverty and someone were to restore you to your former
   position in trade, you would be very grateful. Should you not be
   grateful that you have not fallen into poverty? Bless God for His
   unknown benefits! Extol Him for favors which you do not see--always
   giving thanks to God for all things. Still, this is easy--the difficult
   point is to give thanks to Him for the bitter things, for the disguised
   blessings, for the love tokens which come to us from Him in black
   envelopes--for those benefits which travel to us via crucis, by the way
   of the cross, which are generally the most heavily laden wagons that
   ever come from our Father's country.

   We are to give thanks for the dark things, the cutting things, the
   things which plague and vex us and disquiet our spirits--for these are
   among the "all things" for which we ought to praise and bless God.
   Doubtless, if our eyes were opened, like those of Elijah's servant, we
   should see our trials to be among our choicest treasures! If we
   exercise the farseeing eyes of faith and not the dim eyes of sense, we
   shall discover that nothing can be more fatal to us than to be without
   affliction and that nothing is more beneficial to us than to be tried
   as with fire. Therefore we will glory in tribulations! We will bless
   and magnify the name of the Lord that He leads us through the
   wilderness that He may prove us and that He may fit us for dwelling
   by-and-by in the Promised Land. "Giving thanks always for all things."

   I should like to be towards God of the mind that John Bradford was
   towards Queen Mary. When reviled as a rebel, that saint and martyr
   said, "I have no quarrel with the queen. If she releases me I will
   thank her. If she imprison me I will thank her. If she burns me I will
   thank her." We should say of the Lord, "Let Him do what seems good to
   Him. If He will give us health we will thank Him. If He will send us
   sickness we will thank Him. If He indulges us with prosperity or if He
   tries us with affliction, if the Holy Spirit will but enable us, we
   will never cease to praise the Lord as long as we live."

   Augustine tells us that the early saints, when they met each other
   would never separate without saying, "Deo gratias! Thanks be to God."
   Frequently their conversation would be about the persecutions which
   raged against them, but they finished their conversation with, "Deo
   gratias!" Sometimes they had to tell of dear Brothers and Sisters
   devoured by the beasts in the amphitheatre, but even then they said,
   "Deo gratias!" Frequently they mourned the uprise of heresy, but this
   did not make them rob the Lord of His, "Deo gratias." So should it be
   with us all the day long. The motto of the Christian should be, "Deo
   gratias!" "Giving thanks always for all things."

   But the text has another word which is important--to whom is this
   gratitude to be rendered? "Giving thanks for all things to God the
   Father." To God. To man we are bound to render thanks in proportion as
   he benefits us. God does not require that in order to be grateful to
   Him we should be ungrateful to our fellow men. To keep the first table
   it is never necessary to break the second. Gratitude to parents and
   friends is but gratitude to God if it is properly rendered with a view
   to the highest Benefactor. To neglect the lower would be to spoil the
   higher gratitude. Yet we should never end with gratitude to men--that
   were to thank the clouds for rain instead of blessing the Lord who
   sends both clouds and showers. Remember, if you have benefactors, God
   inclined their hearts towards you. Give thanks to God for He is good
   and does good. Give thanks to God. Let not your gratitude stop short of
   the Source from which the streams of mercy come.

   Think of the Lord, also, under the relation which the text sets before
   you--namely as the Father--as your Father. Remember that God is the
   Creator. It is He that made us and not we, ourselves. As the Father, He
   is the Sustainer and Preserver of men. As the Father He has elected His
   people, for it is the Father who has chosen His people in Christ Jesus.
   And, as the Father, He is the Progenitor of the spiritual seed, for He
   has begotten us, again, unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus
   Christ from the dead. Think of God the Father in those various
   capacities and you will have so many reasons for giving thanks always
   unto Him. Never give thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ in such a way as
   to dishonor the Father. You owe much to Jesus, but Jesus did not make
   the Father gracious to you since, "the Father Himself loves you,"

   Jesus is the gift of His Father's love and not the cause of it. Bless
   the Father, then, and, give honor and praise unto Him who has made us
   meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.

   There is an old Jewish tradition that when God had made this world and
   the six days' work was over, He called the angels to behold it and it
   was so very beautiful that they sang for joy. Then the Lord asked them
   what they thought of this work of His hands. One of them replied that
   it was so vast and so perfect that there should be created a clear,
   loud, melodious voice which should fill all the quarters of the world
   with its sweet sound and, both by day and night, offer thanksgiving to
   the Creator for His incomparable blessings. We ought to be of the same
   mind as the angel--not that there is a defect in creation--but that
   everywhere in creation intelligent beings should be that voice of
   ceaseless song which the angel desired.

   Once more, in describing this duty the text tells us how to give
   thanks, namely, "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." Now here we
   have directions to present our praises always through the Mediator,
   Jesus, our great High Priest, who stands between us and God. We are to
   put our thanks into His sacred hands, that He may present them before
   the Father with something of His own, "not to our loss," even with His
   precious merit which shall sweeten all. But the text means more than
   that. We are to give thanks to the Father in the name of Jesus, that
   is, because Jesus bids us to do so and we are commanded and
   commissioned by Christ. We have His example as well as His precept for
   blessing God for all things.

   I think the text means more than this--we are to give thanks to God in
   the name of Jesus as though we did it in Jesus' stead--as though we
   stood where Jesus once stood when He said on earth--"I thank You, O
   Father." You Christian people are sent into the world as Christ was
   sent into the world. Christ's office was to glorify God and such is
   your office for His sake and in His name. Think--how would Jesus have
   given thanks? How would He have praised God? In what sort of spirit
   would the ever adorable Son, whose meat and drink it was to serve His
   Father, have praised God? After that fashion and in that same way you
   are to give thanks unto God and the Father. It is a high position for a
   poor son of man to occupy, but if the Lord has called you to it--by His
   Grace be not slack in the performance of the heavenly service! The day
   will come when we shall fulfill our text in the widest sense--then we
   shall give thanks to God at the winding up of the drama of human
   history, for everything that has happened--from the Fall even to the
   destruction of the wicked.

   We may not be able to do so now. Our eyes see the gigantic evil and do
   not see the overruling good which, like a boundless sea, rolls over
   all. The dreadful mysteries of evil make us tremble as we think of
   them. But the day will come when, with the Lord Jesus, we will not only
   bless God for electing love, but will even say, "I thank You, O Father,
   Lord of Heaven and earth, that You have hid these things from the wise
   and prudent." The day will come when even the darkest side of the
   Divine decrees and the most profound depths of the Divine action shall
   cause us to adore with gratitude. And then that which can least be
   understood in Providence shall no longer be the subject of awe-struck
   wonder, but of unspeakable delight.

   We shall trace the line of perfection along the course of the Divine
   decrees and workings and though the way of the Lord may have seemed to
   us to be inscrutable, we shall then adore Him for that wondrous display
   of all His attributes-- Justice, Love, Truth, Faithfulness,
   Omnipotence--which shall blaze forth with tenfold splendor! In Heaven
   we shall give thanks unto God always for all things, without
   exception--and throughout eternity we shall magnify His holy name
   through Jesus Christ our Lord! Let us do it as best we can today, God's
   Spirit helping us. Thus I have expounded the duty itself.

   II. Now, briefly, let me speak to you upon THE SPIRITUAL PREREQUISITES
   which are necessary for the performance of this very pleasant work. And
   let it be solemnly remembered that no man can give thanks always to God
   through Jesus Christ till he has a new heart. The old heart is an
   ungrateful one and even if a man should try with an unrenewed nature to
   give thanks to God, it would be like the impossible supposition of the
   dead struggling to make themselves alive, which cannot be. The old
   heart is a putrid fountain. It cannot send forth sweet streams. It is
   opposed to God and it cannot bless Him in a way that He can accept.
   Looking at this fair and lovely duty, I would say to all who wish to
   practice it, "you must be born-again." Unless you are made new
   creatures in Christ Jesus, you can never give thanks to God always for
   all things.

   And next I would remind you that in order to perform this duty aright a
   man must have a sense of God. To give thanks to God aright a man must
   believe that there is a God. He must go further than that--he must feel
   that God is the Author of the good things which he receives and, to
   give thanks always, he must advance yet further and believe that even
   in seeming evil love is at work. He must also come to believe in God as
   present to hear his thanks, or he will soon tire of presenting them.
   "You God see me" must be printed on the new-born heart, or else there
   will be no constant giving of thanks to God. Let me ask you, dear
   Friend, you believe in God and you do well, but have you done better
   than the devils who also believe in God? They tremble--have you gone as
   far as that?

   There are some who have not. Devils cannot, however, love God and give
   Him thanks--have you gone beyond the trembling of a devil up to the
   giving thanks and the adoration of a truly loving heir of Heaven?
   Answer that question-- is God as real to you as your wife or child? As
   real as yourself? He must be so and you must know Him to be always
   present with you or else you will never continue praising Him. A man
   who gives thanks to God always, for all things, must have a sense of
   complete reconciliation to God. You cannot bless God till you have
   heard Him say, "I have blotted out your sins like a cloud, and like a
   thick cloud your transgressions." Lean and false are the thanks which
   come from an unforgiven heart. A soul condemned for its unbelief is not
   a soul that can be accepted for its gratitude--it cannot be condemned
   for one thing and accepted for another.

   As I came here, this morning, I was thinking very joyfully of another
   morning many years ago, which was, as to snow and cold, precisely like
   it. I remember when the family to which I belonged felt unable to go up
   to the House of God, for the snow was deep and falling heavily as it is
   now. I, also, was unable to go up to the place of worship where our
   household usually attended and, by reason of the snow, was drifted into
   the little Methodist Chapel where I heard of Jesus and found peace with
   God! I have learned to bless His name since then--but before that,
   though I could have sung as others sing--there was no giving thanks
   unto God by Jesus Christ in my heart. I wondered, as I came along,
   whether God might not lead to this House someone whom He would bring to
   Himself this morning--to whom this cold day should become as memorable
   as that day of snow was to me!

   That morning in that Methodist Chapel there was a good work done, for
   though there were but few of us, one at least was called, and that one
   God has made the spiritual parent of many thousands of His children. I
   am surprised to find this House so full today, it is clear proof that
   you love to hear the Gospel and it encourages me to hope that there may
   be one here whom God shall make eminently useful when He has saved him.
   This we shall be sure of--whoever it may be, if he is reconciled to God
   by the death of God's dear Son--he will give thanks to God, indeed, and
   of a truth! If nobody else does so, he will, from this day forward,
   sing--

   "I will praise You every day

   Now Your anger's turned away.

   Comfortable thoughts arise

   From the bleeding Sacrifice."

   We cannot give thanks to God through Jesus Christ unless we have
   accepted the Mediator! All the thanks commanded in the text are to come
   up to God through Jesus Christ. If we reject Him, or if we associate
   Him as a Mediator with somebody else, we have gone contrary to God's
   way and we cannot praise God.

   Virgins and saints and martyrs must never be made rivals to Jesus. To
   praise God, even the Father, does it not strike you that we must feel
   the spirit of adoption? Who could praise a person as father whom he
   does not recognize as father? But he who feels--"Yes, I am the Lord's
   child, erring though I am, and my heart says, 'Abba,' " he can praise
   God, indeed! To the fullest performance of this duty there must be a
   subordination of ourselves to the will of God. We must not desire to
   have our own way. We must be content to say, "Not my will, but Yours be
   done." I cannot give thanks to God always for all things till my old
   self is put down. While self rules, the hungry horseleech is in the
   heart and that is fatal to gratitude. Self and discontent are mother
   and child. But when you say in your heart, "I am perfectly resigned to
   the will of God, my will consents to His will," then shall your praise
   be as the continual sacrifice and your thanksgiving shall rise before
   Him as incense.

   III. I only want your attention a few minutes more while I speak upon
   THE EMINENT EXCELLENCIES of continually giving thanks to God, even the
   Father. And the first excellency is, it honors God. A thankful spirit
   glorifies the Most High. "Whoever offers praise glorifies Me," says the
   Lord. We might have imagined that whether we grumbled or complained it
   would make no difference to God. It would be of no consequence to any
   one of us what might be the opinion of a little community of ants about
   us. But God is infinitely more superior to us than we are to ants! He
   considers that our praising and blessing Him renders glory to His name.
   Let us render it to Him, then, without stint.

   There is no higher commendation for any course of action or for any
   virtue to a Christian man than to tell him that it will honor God. Will
   it dishonor God? He will shrink from it though mines of gold should
   tempt him. Will it honor God? The Believer rushes forward to it though
   floods and flames lie in his way. A grateful spirit is a blessed and
   yet a cheap way of honoring God, for it brings to us its own return.
   Like mercy, it is "twice blessed." It blesses us in the giving and
   honors God in the receiving. Let the Christian see to it that he
   abounds in it. Obedience to our text will tend to check us from
   sin--"Giving thanks always for all things."

   Very well, then, there are some places that we must not enter, for it
   would be blasphemous to be giving thanks there. There are some things
   which I must not do, for I could not give God thanks for them. Suppose
   I have ground down the poor--how can I give God thanks for the
   miserable shillings which are the blood of these men? Suppose I have
   gained my living by an evil trade--how can I give thanks to God for the
   gold as I hear it chink in my bag? Suppose every day my prosperity
   brings misery to others--how can I give thanks for it? To give thanks
   for the fruit of sin were practically to blaspheme the thrice holy God!
   O, no! If the Christian is always to give thanks, he must always be
   where he can give thanks--and if he is to give God thanks for all
   things, he must not touch that which he cannot give God thanks for. I
   must never grasp the fruit of covetousness, the gain of dishonesty, the
   profit of Sabbath-breaking, the result of oppression--for if I do, I
   have that for which I may weep and howl before God--but certainly not
   that for which I can give Him thanks.

   Brothers and Sisters, I say that if we looked well to our text, it
   would, by the power of God's Holy Spirit, restrain us from sin. But one
   of the truest excellencies of a spirit of perpetual thanksgiving is
   this, that it calms us when we are glad and it cheers us when we are
   sorrowful--a double benefit! It allays the feverish heat at the same
   time that it mitigates the rigorous cold. If a man is rich and God has
   given him a thankful spirit, he cannot be too rich. If he will give
   thanks to God, he may be worth millions and they will never hurt him.
   On the other hand, if a man has learned to give thanks to God and he
   becomes poor, he cannot be too poor--he will be able to bear up under
   the severest penury. The rich man should learn to find God in all
   things. The poor man should learn to find all things in God and there
   is not much difference when you come to the bottom of these two causes!

   One child of God will be as grateful and as happy, as blessed and as
   rejoicing as another, if he is but satisfied, still, to give God
   thanks. There is no overcoming a man who has climbed into this spirit.
   "I will banish you," said a persecutor of the saints. "But you cannot
   do that," the saint said, "for I am at home everywhere where Christ
   is." "I shall take away all your property," he said. "But I have none,"
   said the other, "and if I had any you could not take away Christ from
   me, and as long as He is left I shall be rich." "I will take away your
   good name," cried the persecutor. "That is gone already," said the
   Christian, "and I count it joy to be counted the off-scouring of all
   things for Christ's sake." "But I will put you in prison." "You may do
   as you please, but I shall be always free, for where Christ is there is
   liberty." "But I shall take away your life," said he. "Yes, well," said
   the other, "then I shall be in Heaven which is the truest life, so that
   you cannot hurt me."

   This was a brave defiance to throw down at the feet of the foe! It is
   not in the power of the enemy to injure the men of God when once self
   is dethroned and the heart has learned to be resigned to the will of
   God! O, you are great, you are strong, you are rich, you are mighty
   when you have bowed yourselves to the will of the Most High! Stoop that
   you may conquer! Bow that you may triumph! Yield that you may get the
   mastery! It is when we are nothing that we are everything--when we are
   weak that we are strong! It is when we have utterly become annihilated
   as to self--and God is All in All--it is then that we are filled with
   all the fullness of God! May the Holy Spirit conduct us into this
   spirit of perpetual thankfulness.

   One thing I am sure of, that the more we have of this, the more useful
   we shall assuredly become. Nothing has had a greater effect upon the
   minds of thoughtless men than the continued thankfulness of true
   Christians. There are sick beds which have been more fruitful in
   conversions than pulpits. I have known women confined to their chambers
   by the space of 20 years whose remarkable cheerfulness of spirit has
   been the talk of the entire district! And many there have been who have
   called to see poor Sarah in her cottage--knowing that she has scarcely
   been a single day without distressing pain-- and have heard her voice
   and looked into that dear smiling face and have learned the reality of
   godliness. The bedridden saint has been a power throughout all the
   district and many have turned to God, saying, "What is this which
   enables the Christian to give thanks, always, to God?"

   Beloved, our crusty tempers and sour faces will never be evangelists!
   They may become messengers of Satan but they will never become helpers
   of the Gospel. To labor to make other people happy is one of the grand
   things a Christian should always try to do. In little things we ought
   not to be forever worrying, fidgeting, finding little difficulties and
   spying out faults in others. I believe that to a faulty man everybody
   is faulty. But there are better people in the world than you have
   dreamed of, Sir, and when you are better you will find them out! If you
   were always grateful to God, you would thank Him that people are as
   good as they are. If you would be thankful when you meet, even, with
   bad people-- thankful that they are not worse than they are--and try to
   get hold of the best points in them and not their worst points, you
   would be much more likely to gain your purpose, if your purpose is to
   glorify God by doing them good.

   If you want to catch flies, try honey--they will be more readily caught
   with that than with vinegar--at least if they are human flies. Put into
   your speech, love, rather than bitterness and you will prevail. There
   are times when you must speak with all the sternness of an Elijah.
   There are proper seasons when there must be no holding back of the most
   terrible Truths of God. But, for all that, let the general current of
   your life, the natural outflow of your entire being, be a thankfulness
   to God which makes you loving towards men. I am sure in this way, when
   you come to speak of Jesus, you will get a more attentive ear. And when
   you tell your experience you will recommend the Gospel by your own
   conversation.

   Beloved, I pray the Lord will give us a thankful spirit always and when
   we talk to each other, let it not be our habit as it is ordinarily with
   Englishmen--to complain of this and of that--but let us thank God and
   testify of His goodness. I have heard that farmers are greatly given to
   grumbling. Well, if they are more apt at complaining than trades people
   are, they are very far gone in it, for generally wherever I go I hear
   that trade is bad--it always has been ever since I have been in London
   and commerce has been constantly going to ruin! I have known some who
   have lost money every month and yet are richer every year! How is this?
   Had not we better change our way of talking and dwell not upon our
   miseries but our mercies? Let us speak much of what God has given
   rather than of that which He has in love withheld from us. Let us bless
   Him rather than speak ill of our neighbors, or complain of our
   circumstances.

   But alas, there are some to whom I speak who will never undertake this
   duty, till, as I have already said, they have new hearts and right
   spirits and have become reconciled to God by Jesus Christ. Now, to you,
   this one word--You are guilty and must be punished unless you find
   forgiveness! There is before you, this morning, an Altar of Sacrifice
   in the Person of Jesus Christ! There are four horns on the altar,
   looking either way, and whoever touches the horns of this altar shall
   live and live forever! Jesus Christ is the great Altar of Sacrifice, a
   touch of Him at this moment will save you! It is the whole
   Gospel--believe, trust and live, for "whoever believes that Jesus is
   the Christ is born of God"--whoever trusts in Christ shall be saved!

   Come to the Altar, where His blood was spilt! Come, now, and lay your
   hands upon its horn--you can but perish there. No, I must correct
   myself--you cannot perish there--you must perish anywhere else! Come,
   then, and rest in Jesus and the Lord bless you for His dear name's
   sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Ephesians 5:1-21.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Monster Dragged to Light

   (No. 1095)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 9, 1873,

   BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is
   good, that sin by the commandment might become exceedingly sinful."
   Romans 7:13.

   "Philosophers have measured mountains

   Fathom'd the depths of seas, of states, and kings,

   Walked with a staff to Heaven and traced fountains:

   But there are two vast, spacious things,

   The which to measure it does more behoove:

   Yet few there are that sound them--Sin and Love."

   So sang George Herbert, that sweet and saintly poet, and of one of
   those "two vast spacious things" we are about to speak on this
   morning--namely, sin. May the Holy Spirit direct us in thought and
   speech while into the very center of our subject we plunge at once,
   keeping to the words of our text.

   I. Our first point to consider this morning shall be that TO MANY MEN
   SIN DOES NOT APPEAR SIN. Yes, and in all men in their natural blindness
   there is an ignorance of what sin is. It needs the power of the Divine
   Omnipotence, the voice of that same Majesty, which said, "Let there be
   light," and there was light to illuminate the human mind, or else it
   will remain in darkness as to much of its own actual sin and the deep
   and deadly evil which belongs to it. Man, with wretched perverseness of
   misconception, abides content in a wrong idea of it. His deeds are evil
   and he will not come to the light lest he should know more concerning
   that evil than he wishes to know.

   Moreover, such is the power of self-esteem that though sin abounds in
   the sinner he will not readily be brought to feel or confess its
   existence. There are men in this world, steeped up to the throat in
   iniquity, who never dream that they have committed anything worse than
   little faults. There are those whose souls are saturated with it till
   they are like the wool that has been lying in the scarlet dye--and yet
   they conceive themselves as white as snow. This is due in part to that
   dullness of conscience which is the result of the Fall. Though I have
   heard 10,000 times that conscience is the deputy of God in the soul of
   man, I have never been able to subscribe to that dogma.

   It is no such thing! In many persons conscience is perverted. In others
   only a fragment of it remains and in all it is fallible and subject to
   aberrations. Conscience is in all men a thing of degrees dependent upon
   education, example and previous character. It is an eye of the soul,
   but it is frequently partly blind and weak and always needs light from
   above or else it does but mock the soul. Conscience is a faculty of the
   mind, which, like every other, has suffered serious damage through our
   natural depravity and it is by no means perfect. It is only the
   understanding acting upon moral subjects and upon such matters it often
   puts bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter, darkness for light and
   light for darkness. Therefore it is that men's sins do not appear to
   them to be sin.

   In all probability there is not one, even among renewed men, who fully
   knows the evil of sin nor will there be until in Heaven we shall be
   perfect. And then, when we shall see the perfection of Divine holiness,
   we shall understand how black a thing was sin. Men who have lived
   underground all their lives do not know how dark the mine is, nor can
   they know it until they stand in the blaze of a summer's noon. In a
   great measure, our inability to see sin arises from the exceedingly
   deceitfulness both of sin and of the human heart. Sin assumes the
   brightest forms even as Satan attires himself as an angel of light.
   Such a thing as iniquity walking abroad in its own nakedness is seldom
   seen--like Jezebel it attires its head and paints its face. And,
   indeed, the heart loves to have it so and is eager to be deceived.

   We will, if we can, extenuate our faults. We are all very quick-sighted
   to perceive something, which, if it does not quite excuse our fault, at
   all events prevents its being placed in the first-class of atrocities.
   Sometimes we will not understand the Commandment. We are willing not to
   know its force and stringency. It is too keen and sharp and we try to
   blunt its edge. If we can find a milder meaning for it we are glad to
   do so, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
   wicked"--therefore it invents a thousand falsehoods. As the
   deceivableness of sin is very great, so that it adorns itself with the
   colors of righteousness and makes men believe that they are pleasing
   God when they are offending Him, so is man, himself, an eager
   self-deceiver and, like the fool in Solomon's Proverbs, he readily
   follows the flatterer.

   In most men, their not seeing sin to be sin arises from their ignorance
   of the spirituality of the Law. Men read the Ten Commandments and they
   suppose them to mean nothing more than the superficial sense. If they
   read, for instance, "You shall do no murder," straightway they say, "I
   have never broken that Law." But they forget that he that hates his
   brother is a murderer and that unrighteous anger is a distinct
   violation of the command. If I willfully do anything which tends to
   destroy or shorten life, either my own or my neighbor's, I am breaking
   the Commandment.

   A man finds it written, "You shall not commit adultery." "Well, well,"
   he says, "I am clear there." Straightway he plumes himself upon the
   supposition that he is chastity itself. But if he is given to
   understand that the command touches the heart and that a licentious
   look is adultery, and that even a desire to do that which is evil
   condemns the soul, then straightway he sees things in a very different
   light and sees that to be sin which had never troubled him before.
   Commonly--yes, universally--until the Spirit of God comes into the soul
   there is a total ignorance as to what the Law means. Men say, with a
   light heart, "Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep
   this Law." But, if they did but know it, they would say, "Lord, have
   mercy upon us, and cleanse us of our innumerable infractions of a Law
   which we cannot keep and which must forever condemn us as long as we
   abide under its power."

   Thus you see a few of the reasons why sin does not appear in its true
   light to the unconverted, but cheats impenitent and self-righteous
   minds. This is one of the most deplorable results of sin. It injures us
   most by taking from us the capacity to know how much we are injured. It
   undermines the man's constitution and yet leads him to boast of
   unfailing health. It makes him a beggar and tells him he is rich. It
   strips him and makes him glory in his fancied robes. In this it
   resembles slavery, which, by degrees eats into the soul and makes a man
   content in his chains. Bondage at length degrades a man so that at last
   he forgets the misery of slavery and the dignity of freedom and is
   unable to strike the blow when a happy hour offers him the chance of
   liberty.

   Sin, like the deadly frost of the northern regions, benumbs its victim
   before it slays him. Man is so diseased that he fancies his disease to
   be health and judges healthy men to be under wild delusions. He loves
   the enemy which destroys him! He warms at his bosom the viper whose
   fangs cause his death. The most unhappy thing that can happen to a man
   is for him to be sinful and to judge his sinfulness to be
   righteousness! The Papist advances to his altar and bows before a piece
   of bread--but he does not feel that he is committing idolatry--no, he
   believes that he is acting in a praiseworthy manner! The persecutor
   hounded his fellow creatures to prison and to death, but he thought he
   verily did God a service! You and I can see the idolatry of the Papist
   and the murder committed by the persecutor--but the guilty persons do
   not see it.

   The passionate man imagines himself to be rightly indignant. The greedy
   man is proud of his own prudence. The unbeliever rejoices in his
   independence of mind. These are the aspects under which iniquity
   presents itself to the spiritually blind. There is the mischief of
   sin--that it throws out of gear the balances by which the soul discerns
   between good and evil! What horrible beings those must have been who
   could run down a vessel crowded with living souls and then, while
   hearing them shriek and cry for help, could go steaming away from them,
   leaving them all to perish in the overwhelming waters! To what a state
   of inhumanity must they have sunk to be able to do such a thing! The
   wreck of the vessel is hardly more dreadful than the wreck of the moral
   sense and common humanity in those who left the hundreds to die when
   they might have saved them.

   To be able to stab a man would be horrible. But, to be so bad that
   after stabbing him you felt no sense of wrong doing would be far worse.
   Yet with every act of sin there goes a measure of heart-hardening, so
   that he who is capable of great crimes is usually incapable of knowing
   them to be such. With the ungodly this pestilential influence is very
   powerful, leading them to cry, "peace, peace," where there is no peace
   and to rebel against the most Holy God without fear or compunction.
   And, alas, since even in the saints there remains the old nature, even
   they are not altogether free from the darkening power of sin, for I do
   not hesitate to say that we all unwittingly allow ourselves into
   practices which, clearer light would show to be sins.

   Even the best of men have done this in the past. For instance, John
   Newton, in his trading for slaves in his early days, never seemed to
   have felt that there was any wrong in it. And Whitefield, in accepting
   slaves for his orphanage in Georgia, never raised or dreamed of raising
   the question as to whether slavery was in itself sinful. Perhaps
   advancing light will show that many of the habits and customs of our
   present civilization are essentially bad and our grandsons will wonder
   how we could have acted as we did. It may need centuries before the
   national conscience, or even the common Christian conscience, will be
   enlightened up to the true standard of right--and the individual man
   may need many a chastisement and rebuke from the Lord before he has
   fully discerned between good and evil.

   O you demon, Sin! You are proved to be sin with a vengeance, by thus
   deluding us! You do not only poison us, but make us imagine our poison
   to be medicine--you defile us and make us think ourselves the more
   beautiful! You slay us and make us dream that we are enjoying life! My
   Brothers and Sisters, before we can be restored to the holy image of
   Christ, which is the ultimatum of every Christian, we must be taught to
   know sin to be sin! And we must have a restoration of the tenderness of
   conscience which would have been ours had we never fallen. A measure of
   this discernment and tenderness of judgment is given to us at
   conversion--for conversion, apart from it--would be impossible. How can
   a man repent of that which he does not know to be sin? How shall he
   humble himself before God concerning that which he does not recognize
   to be evil in God's sight? He must have enlightenment. Sin must be made
   to appear as sin to him.

   Moreover, man will not renounce his self-righteousness till he sees his
   sinfulness. As long as he believes himself to be righteous, he will hug
   that righteousness and stand before God with the Pharisee's cry, "God,
   I thank You that I am not as other men are!" As long as it is possible
   for us to swim on the bladders of our own righteousness we will never
   take to the lifeboat of Christ's righteousness. We can only be driven
   to Free Grace by sheer stress of weather and as long as our leaky boat
   of self-will only keeps us above the flood, we will hold to it.

   It is a miracle of Grace to make a man see himself so as to loathe
   himself and confess the impossibility of being saved by his own works.
   Yet, till this is done, faith in Jesus is impossible--for no man will
   look to the righteousness of another while he is satisfied with his own
   righteousness--and everyone believes he has a righteousness of his own
   till he sees sin in its native hideousness. Unless sin is revealed to
   you as a boundless evil, whoever you may be--where God and Christ are
   you can never come! You must be made to see that your heart reeks with
   evil--that your past life has been defiled with iniquity--and you must
   also be taught that this evil of yours is no trifle, but a monstrous
   and horrible thing!

   You must be made to loathe yourselves as in the presence of God or else
   you never will fly to the atoning blood for cleansing. Unless sin is
   seen to be sin, Divine Grace will never be seen to be Divine Grace, nor
   Jesus to be a Savior. And without this, salvation is impossible! Here,
   then, we leave this important point--bearing witness, again, that to
   the natural man sin does not appear as sin--and, therefore, a work of
   Grace must be worked in him to open his blind eyes, or he cannot be
   saved.

   These are no soft speeches and fair words, but hard Truths of God--may
   the Holy Spirit lead many hearts to feel how sorrowfully true they are.

   II. This leads us to our second consideration--WHERE SIN IS MOST
   CLEARLY SEEN, IT APPEARS TO BE SIN. Its most terrible aspect is its own
   natural self. Sin at its worst appears to be sin. Do I seem to repeat
   myself? Does this utterance sound like a mere platitude? Then I cannot
   help it, for the text puts it so. And I know you will not despise the
   text. But, indeed, there is a depth of meaning in the expression, "Sin,
   that it might appear sin"--as if the Apostle could find no other word
   so terribly descriptive of sin as its own name. He does not say, "Sin,
   that it might appear like Satan." No, for sin is worse than the devil
   since it made the devil what he is. Satan as an existence is God's
   creature and this, sin never was. Its origin and nature are altogether
   apart from God.

   Sin is even worse than Hell, for it is the sting of that dreadful
   punishment. Anselm used to say that if Hell were on one side and sin on
   the other, he would rather leap into Hell than willingly sin against
   God. Paul does not say, "Sin, that it might appear madness." Truly it
   is moral insanity, but it is worse than that by far. It is so bad that
   there is no name for it but itself. One of our poets who wished to show
   how evil sin looks in the presence of redeeming love, could only say--

   "When the wounds of Christ exploring,

   Sin does like itself appear."

   If you need an illustration of what is meant, we might find one in
   Judas. If you wanted to describe him, you might say he was a traitor, a
   thief and a betrayer of innocent blood. But you would finish up by
   saying, "he was a Judas"--that gives you all in one--none could match
   him in villainy.

   If you wished a man to feel a horror of murder, you would not wish
   murder to appear to him as manslaughter, or as destruction of life, or
   as mere cruelty, but you would want it to appear as murder--you could
   use no stronger expression. So here, when the Lord turns the strong
   light of His eternal Spirit upon sin and reveals it in all its
   hideousness and defilement, it appears to be not only moral discord,
   disorder, deformity, or corruption, but neither more nor less than SIN.
   "Sin," says Thomas Brooks, "is the only thing that God abhors. It
   brought Christ to the Cross. It damns souls. It shuts Heaven and it
   laid the foundations of Hell."

   There are persons who see sin as a misfortune, but this is far short of
   the true view and, indeed, very wide of it. How commonly do we hear one
   sort of sinner called, "an unfortunate." This indicates a very lax
   morality. Truly it is a calamity to be a sinner, but it is much more
   than a calamity--and he who only sees sin as his misfortune has not
   seen it so as to be saved from it! Others have come to see sin as folly
   and so far they see aright, for it is essentially folly--and every
   sinner is a fool. A fool is God's own name for a sinner--commonly used
   throughout the book of Psalms. But for all that, sin is more than
   folly. It is not mere lack of wit or mistaken judgment--it is the
   knowing and willful choice of evil--and it has in it a certain
   maliciousness against God which is far worse than mere stupidity. To
   see sin as folly is a good thing, but it is not a gracious thing, nor a
   saving thing.

   Some, too, have seen certain sins to be crimes and yet have not viewed
   them as sins. Our use of the word, "crime," is significant. When an
   action hurts our fellow men, we call it a crime. When it only offends
   God, we style it a sin. If I were to call you criminals, you would be
   disgusted with me. But if I call you sinners, you will not be at all
   angry because to offend man is a thing you would not like to do, but to
   offend God is to many persons a small matter, scarcely worth a moment's
   thought. Human nature has become so perverted that if men know that
   they have broken human laws they are ashamed--but the breach of a
   command which only affects the Lord Himself causes them very little
   concern.

   If we were to steal, or lie, or knock another down, we would be ashamed
   of ourselves, and so we ought to be. But, for all that, such shame
   would be no work of Divine Grace. Sin must appear to be sin against
   God--that is the point. We must say with David, "Against You, You only,
   have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight." With the prodigal we
   must cry, "Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before You, and am
   no more worthy to be called Your son." That is the true view of it. May
   the Lord bring us to confess our transgressions after that sort.

   And here lend me your ears a minute or two. Think how odious a thing
   sin is. Beloved, our offenses are committed against a Law which is
   based upon right. It is holy and just and good--it is the best Law
   which could be conceived. To break a bad Law we may be more than
   excusable, but there can be no excuse for transgression when the
   Commandment commends itself to every man's conscience. There is not one
   command in God's Word which is either harsh, arbitrary, or unnecessary.
   If we, ourselves, were perfect in holiness, infinitely wise and had to
   write a Law, we should have written just the Law which God has given
   us.

   The Law is just to our fellow men and beneficial to ourselves. When it
   forbids anything, it does but set up danger signals where real danger
   to ourselves exists. The Law is a kind of spiritual police to keep us
   out of harm's way. Those who offend against it injure themselves. Sin
   is a false, mean, unrighteous thing. It does evil all round and brings
   good to nobody. It has not one redeeming feature. It is evil, only
   evil, and that continually. It is a wicked, wanton, purposeless,
   useless rejection of that which is good and right in favor of that
   which is disgraceful and injurious. We ought, also, to remember that
   the Divine Law is binding upon men because of the right and authority
   of the Lawgiver. God has made us, ought we not to serve Him?

   Our existence is prolonged by His kindness, we could not live a moment
   without Him--should we not obey Him? God is superlatively good. He has
   never done us any harm. He has always designed our benefit and has
   treated us with unbounded kindness. Why should we willfully insult Him
   by breaking laws which He had a right to make and which He has made for
   our good? Is it not shameful to do that which He hates when there can
   be nothing to gain thereby and no reason for doing it? How I wish every
   heart here could hear that plaintive lamentation of the Lord--it is
   wonderful condescension that He should describe Himself as uttering
   it--"The ox knows his owner and the ass his master's crib, but Israel
   does not know--My people do not consider."

   That other word of pleading is equally pathetic where the Lord
   expostulates and cries "O, do not this abominable thing that I hate!"
   After all His tenderness in which He has acted towards us--as a father
   to his child--we have turned against Him and harbored His enemy. We
   have found our pleasure in grieving Him and have called His commands
   burdens and His service weariness. Shall we not repent of this? Can we
   continue to act so basely? This day, my God, I hate sin not because it
   damns me, but because it has done You wrong! To have grieved my God is
   the worst of grief to me. The heart renewed by Grace feels a deep
   sympathy with God in the ungrateful treatment which He has received
   from us. It cries out, "How could I have offended Him? Why did I treat
   so gracious a God in so disgraceful a manner? He has done me good and
   no evil, why have I slighted Him?"

   Had the Eternal been a tyrant and had His Laws been despotic, I could
   imagine some dignity in a revolt against Him. But seeing He is a Father
   full of gentleness and tenderness, whose loving kindnesses are beyond
   all count, sin against Him is exceedingly sinful! Sin is worse than
   bestial, for the beasts only return evil for evil. Sin is devilish--for
   it returns evil for good. Sin is lifting our heel against our
   Benefactor--it is base ingratitude, treason, causeless hate, spite
   against holiness and a preference for that which is low and groveling.
   But where am I going? Sin is sin and in that word we have said it all.

   It would appear that Paul made the discovery of sin as sin through the
   light of one of the Commandments. He gives us a little bit of his own
   biography which is most interesting to notice. He says, "I had not
   known lust except the Law had said you shall not covet." It strikes me
   that when Paul was struck down from his horse on his way to Damascus,
   the first thought that came to him was, "this Jesus whom I have been
   persecuting, is, after all, the Messiah and Lord of all! Oh, horror of
   horrors, I have ignorantly warred against Him. He is Jesus the Savior
   who saves from sins, but what are my sins? Where have I offended
   against the Law?"

   In his lonely blindness his mind involuntarily ran over the Ten
   Commandments. And as he considered each one of them with his poor
   half-enlightened judgment, he cried to himself, "I have not broken
   that! I have not broken that!" till at last he came to that command,
   "You shall not covet," and in a moment, as though a lightning flash had
   cut in two the solid darkness of his spirit, he saw his sin and
   confessed that he had been guilty of inordinate desires. He had not
   known lust if the Law had not said, "you shall not covet." That
   discovery unveiled all the rest of his sins--the proud Pharisee became
   a humble penitent and he who thought himself blameless cried out--"I am
   the chief of sinners."

   I pray God by some means to let the same light stream into every soul
   here, where as yet it has not penetrated. O my Hearers, I beseech the
   Lord to let you see sin as sin and so lead you to Jesus as the only
   Savior!

   III. I shall need your best attention to the third point which is
   this--THE SINFULNESS OF SIN IS MOST

   CLEARLY SEEN IN ITS PERVERTING THE BEST OF THINGS TO DEADLY PURPOSES.
   So the text runs--"Sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me
   by that which is good." It is evident that we are atrociously depraved
   since we make the worst conceivable use of the best things. Here is
   God's Law, which was ordained to life, for, "He that does these things
   shall live in them," is willfully disobeyed and so sin turns the light
   into an instrument of death!

   It does worse! The sin that is in us, when it hears the Commandment,
   straightway resolves to break it. It is a strangely wicked propensity
   of our nature, that there are many things which we should not care for
   otherwise, which we lust after at once--as soon as they are forbidden.
   Have you ever noticed, even in regard to human law, that when a thing
   is prohibited, persons long after it? I do not remember, in all the
   years I have lived in London, any cravings of the populace to hold
   meetings in Hyde Park till an attempt was made to keep them out--and
   then, straightway, all the railings were pulled down and the ground was
   carried by storm. The park has been a field of battle ever since. Had
   liberty of speech in the park never been interfered with as it was,
   most unwisely, nobody would have cared to hold forth at the Reformer's
   Tree or any other tree. They would have said, "What's the use of
   dragging up there all through the mud for miles when we can meet more
   comfortably in a hall under cover," but because they must not do it,
   they resolve to do it!

   That is the way with our common nature--it kicks at restraint--if we
   must not do a thing, then we will do it! Even before she fell, our
   mother Eve felt drawn to the forbidden tree and the impulse in her
   fallen sons and daughters is far more forcible! As by one common
   impulse we wander from the road appointed and break hedges to leap into
   fields enclosed against us. Law to our depraved nature is but the
   signal for revolt! Sin is a monster, indeed, when it turns a preventive
   Law into an incentive to rebellion. It discovers evil by the Law and
   then turns to it and cries, "Evil, you are my good." This is far from
   being the only case in which good is turned to evil through our sin. I
   might mention many others.

   Very briefly then, how many there are who turn the abounding mercy of
   God, as proclaimed in the Gospel, into a reason for further sin! The
   preacher delights to tell you, in God's name, that the Lord is a God
   ready to forgive and willing to have mercy upon sinners--and that
   whoever believes in Jesus shall receive immediate pardon! What do men
   say, "O, if it is so easy to be forgiven, let us go on in sin! If faith
   is so simple a matter, let us put it off until some future time!" O,
   base and cruel argument! To infer greater sin from infinite love! What
   if I call it devilish reasoning--for so it is--to make of the very
   goodness of a gracious God a reason for continuing to offend! Is it so
   that the more God loves the more you will hate? The better He is the
   worse you will be? Shame! Shame!

   Then, again, there are individuals who have indulged in very great sin
   and have very fortunately escaped from the natural consequences of that
   sin--and what do they gather from this forbearance on God's part? God
   has been very long-suffering and compassionate to them and, therefore,
   they defy Him again and return presumptuously to their former habits!
   They dream that they have immunity to transgress and even boast that
   God will never punish them, let them act as they may! Sin appears sin,
   indeed, when the long-suffering which should lead to repentance is
   regarded as a license for further offending! What a marvel that the
   Eternal does not crush His foes at once when they count His gentleness
   to be weakness and make His mercy a ground for further disobedience!

   Look again at thousands of prosperous sinners whose riches are their
   means of sinning. They have all that heart can wish and instead of
   being doubly grateful to God they are proud and thoughtless! They deny
   themselves none of the pleasures of sin. The blessings entrusted to
   them become their curses because they minister to their arrogance and
   worldliness. They war against God with weapons from His own armory!
   They are indulged by Providence and then they indulge their sins the
   more. Fullness of bread too often breeds contempt of God. Men are
   lifted up and then look down upon religion and speak loftily against
   the people of God and even against the Lord Himself! With His meal in
   their mouths they blaspheme their Benefactor and with the wealth which
   is the loan of His charity they purchase the vile pleasures of
   iniquity.

   This is horrible, but it is so, that the more God gives to man the more
   man hates His God, and he to whom God multiplies His mercies returns it
   by multiplying his transgressions! I remember in our Baptist
   martyrologies the story of one of the Baptists of Holland escaping from
   his persecutors. A river was frozen over and the good man crossed it
   safely, but his enemy was of greater bulk and the ice gave way under
   him. The Baptist, like the child of God he was, turned round and
   rescued his persecutor just as he was sinking beneath the ice to
   certain death. And what did the wretch do? As soon as ever he was
   safely on the shore, he seized the man who had saved his life and
   dragged him off to prison, from which he was taken to be put to death!

   We marvel at such inhumanity! We are indignant at such base
   returns--but the returns which the ungodly make to God are far more
   base! I marvel, myself, as I talk to you--I marvel that I speak so
   calmly on so terribly humbling a theme! And remembering our past lives
   and our long ingratitude to God, I marvel that we do not turn this
   place into one vast Bochim or place of weeping--and mingle our tears in
   a flood with expressions of deep shame and self-abhorrence for our
   dealings towards God! The same evil is manifested when the Lord reveals
   His Justice and utters threats. When a threatening sermon is delivered,
   you will hear men say, as they go out from hearing such a discourse,
   although the preacher has spoken most affectionately, "We will have no
   more of this Hell-fire preaching! We are wearied and worried with these
   threats of judgment."--

   "Your judgments, too, unmoved they hear,

   Amazing thought! Which devil's fear Goodness and wrath in vain combine,

   Their heart betrays no feeling sign." Try the same man with God's
   tenderness and speak of God's love--and he will be hardened by it--for
   the Gospel hardens some men and becomes a savor of death unto death
   unto many.

   O Sin, you are sin, indeed, to make the Gospel of salvation a reason
   for deeper damnation! When great judgments are abroad in the land, not
   a few of the ungodly become more insolent against God and even rail at
   Him as a tyrant. The fire which ought to melt them only makes them
   harder! The terrors of God they defy and like Pharaoh they demand, "Who
   is the Lord?" We have known persons in adversity--very poor and very
   sick--who ought to have been led to God by their sorrow. But instead,
   they have become careless of all religion and cast off all fear of God.
   They have acted like Ahaz of whom it is written, "In the time of his
   distress did he trespass yet more against the Lord: this is that king
   Ahaz."

   The rod has not separated them from sin, but whipped them into a worse
   state. Their medicine has become their poison. The more the tree has
   been pruned, the less fruit it has yielded. Plowing has only made the
   field more barren. That which has often proved so great a blessing to
   Believers has been utterly lost upon them. Why should they be smitten
   any more? They will revolt more and more. One very singular instance of
   the heart's perversity is the fact that familiarity with death and the
   grave often hardens the heart and none become more callous than
   grave-diggers and those who carry dead men to their graves.

   Men sin openly when graves are open before them. It is possible to work
   among the dead and yet to be as wild as the man possessed of a devil in
   our Lord's day who dwelt among the tombs. The Egyptians were accustomed
   to hold their riotous festivals in the presence of a corpse, not to
   sober their mirth, as some have said, but to make them the more wanton,
   gluttonous and drunk because they should so soon die. Coffins and
   shrouds should be good sermons, but they seldom are so to those who see
   them every day. In times when cholera has raged--and in seasons when
   the pest, in the olden times, carried off its thousands--many men have
   not been at all softened, but have grown callous in the presence of
   God's grim Messenger. Hervey finds holy "meditations among the tombs,"
   but unholy men are as far off from God in a churchyard as in a theater.

   Another strange thing I have often noticed--as a proof of sin's power
   to gather poison from the most healthful flowers--I have observed that
   some transgress all the more because they have been placed under the
   happy restraints of godliness. Though trained to piety and virtue, they
   rush into the arms of vice as though it were their mother. As gnats fly
   at a candle as soon as ever they catch sight of it, so do these
   infatuated ones dash into evil. Young people who are placed in the
   Providence of God where no temptations ever assail them--in the midst
   of holy and quiet homes where the very name of evil scarcely
   comes--will often fret and worry themselves to get out into what they
   call, "life," and thrust their souls into the perils of bad company.

   The sons and daughters of Adam long to eat of the tree of the knowledge
   of good and evil. Their very preservation from temptation grows irksome
   to them. They loathe the fold and long for the wolf! They think
   themselves hardly done by that they have not been born in the midst of
   licentiousness and tutored in crime. Strange infatuation and yet many a
   parent's heart has been broken by this freak of depravity, this
   reckless lust for evil! The younger son had the best of fathers and yet
   he could never be quiet till he had gained his independence and had
   brought himself to beggary in a far country by spending his living with
   harlots.

   Observe another case. Men who live in times when zealous and holy
   Christians abound are often the worse for it. What effect has the zeal
   of Christians upon such? It excites them to malice! All the while the
   Church is asleep the world says, "Ah, we do not believe your religion,
   for you do not act as if you believed it yourselves." But the moment
   the Church bestirs herself, the world cries, "They are a set of
   fanatics! Who can put up with their ravings? We could have believed
   their religion had it been brought to us with respectful sobriety, but
   accompanied by enthusiasm it is detestable." Nothing will please
   sinners but their sins! And if their sins could be made into virtues
   they would fly to their virtues at once, so as to remain in opposition.
   Contrary to God man will go--his very nature is enmity against his
   Creator.

   The quaint poet with whose verse we commenced our sermon, has truly
   said--

   "If God had laid all common, certainly

   Man would have been the encloser:

   But since now God has impal'd us, on the contrary

   Man breaks the fence, and every ground will plow.

   O what were man, might he himself misplace!

   Sure to be cross he would shift feet and face."

   Sin is thus seen to be exceedingly sinful. That plant must possess
   great vitality which increases by being uprooted and cut down. That
   which lives by being killed is strangely full of force. That must be a
   very hard substance which is hardened by lying in the blast furnace, in
   the central heat of the fire where iron melts and runs like wax. That
   must be a very terrible power which gathers strength from that which
   should restrain it and rushes on the more violently in proportion as it
   is reined in.

   Sin kills men by that which was ordained to life. It makes Heaven's
   gifts the stepping stones to Hell. It uses the lamps of the temple to
   show the way to Perdition and makes the Ark of the Lord, as in Uzzah's
   case, the messenger of death. Sin is that strange fire which burns the
   more fiercely for being dampened, finding fuel in the water which was
   intended to quench it. The Lord brings good out of evil, but sin brings
   evil out of good! It is a deadly evil--you judge how deadly! O that men
   knew its nature and abhorred it with all their hearts! May the Eternal
   Spirit teach men to know aright this worst of ills, that they may flee
   from it to Him who alone can deliver.

   Now, what is all this about, and what is the drift of this discourse?
   Well, the drift of it is this. There is in us by nature a propensity to
   sin which we cannot conquer and yet conquered it must be, or we can
   never enter Heaven. Your resolutions to overcome sin are as feeble as
   though you should try to bind Leviathan with a thread and lead him with
   a string. As well as hope to bind the tempest and rein in the storm as
   to govern yourself by your own reservations as to sin! Nor is sin to be
   overcome by philosophy. It laughs at such a spider's web. Nor can it be
   prevented. Nor will the soul be cleansed from it by any outward
   observances. Genuflections, penances, fasting, washing are all in vain.

   What, then, must be done? We must be newly created! We are too far gone
   for mending. We must be made afresh! And for cleansing there is no
   water beneath the skies, nor any above them that can remove our stain.
   But there is a fountain filled with the blood of God's own Son. He that
   is washed there shall be made white. And there is an all-creating Holy
   Spirit who can fashion us anew in Christ Jesus into holiness! I would
   to God you all despaired of being saved except by a miracle of Grace. I
   would to God you utterly despaired of being saved except by the
   supernatural power of the Holy Spirit!

   I would to God you were driven to look away from self, each one of you,
   to Him who on the bloody tree bore the wrath of God, for there is life
   in a look at Him and whoever looks at Him shall be saved--saved from
   the power of sin as well as its guilt! That which the bronze serpent
   took away was the burning poison in the veins of the men who had been
   bitten by the serpents. They were diseased with a deadly disease and
   they looked, and they were healed. It was not filth that was taken from
   them--it was disease that was healed by their simple look.

   And so a look at Christ does not merely take away sin, but it heals the
   disease of sin--and, mark you--it is the only possible healing for the
   leprosy of iniquity! Faith in Jesus brings the Holy Spirit with His
   sacred weapons of invincible warfare into the field of the human
   heart--and HE overthrows the impregnable strongholds of sin, makes lust
   a captive and slays the enmity of the heart. Sin, being made to appear
   sin, Grace is made to appear Grace--God's Holy Spirit gets the victory
   and we are saved!

   God grant that this may be the experience of us all. Amen and Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Romans 7.
     __________________________________________________________________

Divine Love and Its Gifts

   (No. 1096)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 16, 1873,

   BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, which
   has loved us, and has given us everlasting consolation and good hope
   through Grace, comfort your hearts, and establish you in every good
   word and work." 2 Thessalonians 2:16,17.

   THE Thessalonians had been much disturbed by the predictions of
   different persons that the day of Christ was at hand. There always have
   been pretenders to prophetic knowledge who have fixed dates for the end
   of the world and, by their fanaticism, have driven many into lunatic
   asylums and disturbed the peace of others. Some of this band had
   worried the saints at Thessalonica. The Apostle, after beseeching them
   not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled by such follies, went on to
   beg them not to be deceived by forged letters or pretended prophets and
   then prayed for them that they might possess abiding consolation which
   would keep them calmly persevering in holiness.

   His prayer is singularly emphatic. He cries to the Lord Jesus Christ,
   Himself, and to God, even our Father, to comfort their hearts, that by
   such consolations they may be so confirmed that nothing may cause them
   to decline from any holy enterprise or testimony. Perhaps, during their
   fright, some of them had ceased from service, reckoning it vain to go
   on with anything when the world was so near its end. Therefore Paul
   would have them calmed in spirit that they might diligently persevere
   in their Christian course. That which frightens us from duty cannot be
   a good thing--true comfort establishes us in every good word and work.

   It is an ill wind which blows no one any good. We owe to the needless
   alarms of the Thessalonians this prayer, which, while it was useful for
   them, is also instructive for us. And I pray that while we look into it
   we may be led into deep thoughts of the love of God and not into
   thoughts only, but into a personal enjoyment of that love, so that this
   morning the love of God may be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
   Spirit which is given unto us. To hear of the love of God is sweet--to
   believe it most precious--but to enjoy it is Paradise below the skies!
   May God grant us a taste this morning.

   I shall first call your earnest attention to the blessed fact recorded
   in our text, that "our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our
   Father, loved us." Then we will dwell upon the past manifestations of
   that love--"He has given us everlasting consolation and good hope
   through Grace." And then we shall dwell for a while upon the prayer
   which Paul based upon this love and its manifestation, "that God would
   comfort your hearts, and establish you in every good word and work."

   I. First, then, dear Brethren, let me ask your hearts, as well as your
   minds, to consider THIS GLORIOUS FACT--"Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself,
   and God, even our Father, has loved us." I cannot help repeating my
   frequent remark that the love of God is a theme more fit for the
   solitary contemplation of each person than for public utterance or
   explanation. It is to be felt, but it never can be uttered. Who can
   speak of love? In what language shall we sing its sweetness? No other
   word, nor set of words, can utter its meaning. You may go round about
   and make a long definition, but you have not defined it--and he who
   never felt his heart glow with it will remain an utter stranger to
   it--depict it as you may.

   Love must be felt in the heart. It cannot be learned from a dictionary.
   "God has loved us." I want you not so much to follow what I shall have
   to say upon that wonderful fact as to try and think over this thought
   for yourselves. God has loved us! Drink into that Truth of God! Take
   the Word, lay it under your tongue and let it dissolve like a wafer
   made with honey till it sweetens all your soul. God has loved us! Let
   me remark that it does not say, "He pitied us." That would be true,
   for, "like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them
   that fear Him." Pity is one degree below love and often leads to it,
   but it is not love--you may pity a person whom, apart from his
   sufferings, you would heartily dislike. You cannot endure the man, yet
   you are sorrowful that he should be so pained.

   Nor does the text declare that God has had mercy upon us. I could
   comprehend that, yes, and bless God forever, because His mercy endures
   forever. It is, to my mind, quite understandable that the good and
   gracious God should be merciful towards His creatures--but it is a far
   greater thing that He should love them. Love is a feeling vastly more
   to be valued than mere mercy. Merciful is a man to his beast, but he
   does not love it. Merciful has many a man been to his enemies for whom
   he has had no degree of affection. But God does not merely pity us and
   have mercy upon us, He loves us! Neither can this word be bartered for
   that of benevolence. There is an aspect under which God is love to all
   His creatures because He is benevolent and wishes well towards all
   things that He has made, but Paul was not thinking of that when he
   said, "God has loved us, and given us everlasting consolation."

   A mother is not said to be benevolent towards her child, nor a husband
   coldly benevolent towards his bride--benevolence would be a poor, poor,
   substitute for love. Love is as infinitely beyond benevolence as the
   gold of kings in value exceeds the stone of the quarry. We have
   frequently heard theologians declare that the love of God towards His
   elect is the love of complacency and the statement, though perhaps
   true, is most frosty. One would not like to strike out the word,
   "love," and put in its place the word, "complacency." It would be like
   setting up a globe of ice in the place of the sun. Love glows with
   sunlight--complacency has, at best, but cold moon-like beams.

   No, we must hold to the words, "has loved us." Truly, the Lord has a
   complacency in His people as He sees them in Christ, but He has much
   more than that. He is benevolent towards His people and towards all
   creatures, but He is much more than that towards us. He is merciful, He
   is pitiful, He is everything that is good, but He is more than that--He
   "has loved us." You know, Mother, how you look upon that dear child of
   yours as you hold it in your arms. Why, it seems a part of yourself!
   You love it as you love yourself and your thoughts of it do not differ
   from your thoughts about your own welfare--the child is intertwisted
   with your very being.

   Now God also has united us to Himself by cords of love and bonds of
   affection. And He thinks of us as He thinks of Himself. I can express
   this, but I cannot explain it. Even now I feel much more inclined to
   sit down and weep for joy of heart that God could ever love me than to
   try and speak to you. He made the heavens and I am less than the
   smallest speck--yet He loves me! It is His eternal arm that has held up
   the universe in all ages and I am as a leaf of the forest, green
   awhile, but soon to grow yellow and to be buried with my fellows, yet
   the Eternal loves me and always will love me! With His great Infinite
   heart He loves me! As a God He loves me! Eternal loves me! It is a
   conquering thought, it utterly overcomes us and crushes us with its
   weight of joy. It bows us to the ground and casts us into a swoon of
   ecstasy when it is realized by the mind, "God, even our Father, has
   loved us."

   Now, permit the other side of the thought to shine upon your minds. The
   marvel is not merely that God has loved, but that he has loved us! And
   we are so insignificant, so frail, so foolish, let us add--for this
   increases the marvel--so sinful and therefore so uncomely, so
   ungrateful. We are so provoking, so willfully obstinate in returning to
   old sins again and so deserve to be abhorred and rejected! I can
   imagine the Lord's love to the Apostles. We can sometimes think of His
   love to the early saints without any great wonder, and of His love to
   the Patriarchs and to the confessors and the martyrs, and to some
   eminently holy men whose biographies have charmed us--but that our Lord
   Jesus Christ, Himself God, even our Father, should have loved us is a
   world of wonders! And if I put it into the singular number and say,
   "Who loved me and gave Himself for me," it shall ever stand first of
   all miracles to my soul's apprehension that I should be the object of
   Divine affection! Dear Brothers and Sisters, I leave this meditation
   with you. I cannot speak of it anymore. I beseech you to baptize your
   souls into it and to let this one thought overwhelm you this day--"God,
   even our Father, has loved us."

   Let me carry your minds onward a little further. Remember that the
   eternal love of God is the great Fountain and Source from which proceed
   all the spiritual blessings which we enjoy. If you stand at the source
   of a great river like the Thames you see nothing there but a tiny
   rivulet--the fact being that we do but by courtesy speak of that little
   brook as the source of the river--it is only a very partial source. A
   great river derives its volume of water from a thousand streams and is
   sustained by the whole of the watershed along which it flows. The
   imaginary fountainhead of a river is therefore but a small affair. But
   suppose the Thames had never borrowed from a single stream in all its
   course, but welled up at once a full-grown river from some one
   fountainhead--what a sight it would be!

   Now the mercy of God to us in Christ Jesus owes nothing to any other
   stream. It leaps in all its fullness from the infinite depths of the
   love of God to us and if in contemplation you can travel to that great
   deep, profound and

   unfathomable, and see welling up all the floods of Covenant Grace which
   afterwards flow on forever to all the chosen seed, you have before you
   that which angels wonder at! If it would be marvelous to see one river
   leap up from the earth full-grown, what would it be to gaze upon a vast
   spring from which all the rivers of the earth should at once come
   bubbling up, a thousand of them born at a birth? What a vision it would
   be! Who can conceive it? And yet the love of God is that Fountain from
   which all the rivers of mercy which have ever gladdened our race--all
   the rivers of Grace in time and of glory hereafter--take their rise! My
   Soul, stand at that sacred Fountainhead and adore and magnify forever
   and ever, "God, even our Father, who has loved us."

   Now please notice the words of the text, for they are full of
   instruction. When speaking of this love, the Apostle joins our Lord
   Jesus Christ Himself with, "God, even our Father." He honored the Deity
   of Jesus by speaking of Him side by side, and on terms of equality,
   with God the Father. But there is more here than this, for the words
   remind us that our Lord Jesus Christ and God, even our Father, act in
   holy concert in the matters which concern our welfare. Jesus Christ is
   the Gift of the Father's love to us, but Jesus Himself loved His own
   and laid down His life for His flock. It is true that the Son loves us,
   but the Father Himself loves us, too. The love of God does not come to
   us from one Person of the blessed Trinity alone, but from all.

   We ought to make no distinctions by way of preference in the love of
   either Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. One love dwells in the breast of
   the one undivided Three. We must adore and bless our Lord Jesus Christ
   and God, even our Father, with equal gratitude. Still notice that Jesus
   Christ is here put first and if the reason is requested, we find it in
   His mediatorial office. He is first to us in our experience. We began
   our dealings with Heaven, not by going to the Father, but to His Son,
   Jesus Christ. Our Lord has truly said, "No man comes unto the Father
   but by Me." All attempts to get to commune with the Father, unless
   through the Son, will be futile. Election by the Father is not first to
   us, though it stands forth in order of time--redemption by the Son is
   our starting point.

   Not at the Throne of Sovereignty, but at the Cross of dying Love our
   spiritual life must date its birth. Look to Jesus first, even our Lord
   Jesus Christ, and then follow after the Father. I am sure every
   converted soul here knows that this is the truth and I would exhort
   everyone who is seeking salvation to take care to observe God's order.
   You must remember that the love of the Father will never be perceived
   by us, nor felt in our hearts, till first of all we go to Jesus Christ,
   who is the one Mediator between God and man.

   Note the words of the text again--The love of God to us gives to us the
   Lord Jesus to be our own Savior, Friend, Husband and Lord. By Grace we
   obtain possession of Jesus Christ--Christ is ours. Observe the Lord,
   "Our Lord Jesus Christ." The Apostle might have written, "The Lord
   Jesus Christ," but when he was testifying of the great love of God, the
   article would not have sufficed--he must use a word of possession.
   Faith looks to Jesus and finds salvation in that look. Then she grows
   into Assurance and having used her eyes to look with, she next employs
   her hands to grasp with. She takes hold of Jesus and says: "He is all
   my salvation, He is all my desire, He is my Christ." And from then on
   Assurance speaks not of the Lord Jesus Christ, but of our Lord Jesus
   Christ!

   I want you to drink into the love of God this morning from the silver
   pipe of this thought--Jesus Christ the Son of the eternal God, who is
   also a Man like yourself, is yours, altogether yours. If you are
   believers in Him He is from head to foot entirely yours! In all His
   offices, in all His attributes, in all that He is, in all that He has
   done, in all that He is doing, in all that He shall do, He is your
   Savior! Though you cannot take Him up in your arms as Simeon did, yet
   your faith can embrace Him with the same ecstasy and feel that you have
   seen God's salvation! Behold what manner of love is revealed in this,
   that God should give His only Son to us. God commends His love to us by
   this unspeakable Gift. Here love has reached its climax. Blessed be the
   love of God this morning and forevermore!

   Observe that this love displays itself in another shape, for the text
   goes on to say, "And God, even our Father." He might have said, "God,
   even the Father." I have no doubt the text does refer to the Father as
   one Person of the blessed Trinity, but it runs thus--"even our Father."
   A father! There is music in that word but not to a fatherless child--to
   him it is full of sorrowful memories. Those who have never lost a
   father can scarcely know how precious a relation a father is. A father,
   who is a father, indeed, is very dear! Do we not remember how we
   climbed his knee? Do we not remember the kisses we imprinted on his
   cheeks? Do we not recall, today, with gratitude the chidings of his
   wisdom and the gentle encouragements of his affection? We owe, ah, who
   shall tell how much we owe to our fathers according to the flesh--and
   when they are taken from us we lament their loss--and feel that a great
   gap is made in our family circle.

   Listen, then, to these words, "Our Father, who is in Heaven." Consider
   the Grace contained in the Lord's deigning to take us into the
   relationship of children and giving us, with the relationship, the
   nature and the spirit of children, so that we say, "Abba, Father." Did
   you ever lie in bed with your limbs vexed with sore pains and cry,
   "Father, pity Your child?" Did you ever look into the face of death and
   as you thought you were about to depart, cry, "My Father, help me!
   Uphold me with Your gracious hand and bear me through the stream of
   death"? It is at such times that we realize the glory of the Fatherhood
   of God and in our feebleness learn to cling to the Divine strength and
   catch at the Divine love. It is most precious to think that God is our
   own Father!

   There, now, I cannot talk about it. Upon some themes it would be hard
   to be silent, but here it is hard to speak. I can but exclaim, "Behold,
   what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be
   called the children of God!" And, having said that, what more remains?
   Before I turn from this gracious and fruitful topic of the love of God,
   I beg you to notice that it is no new thing, no affair of yesterday.
   "Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God, even our Father, has loved us."
   He does not tell us when this began and he could not have done so had
   he tried! He has loved us. Loved us when first we came to Him
   repenting. Loved us when we were spending our living with harlots.
   Loved us when we were at the swine trough. Loved us when from head to
   foot we were one mass of defilement.

   O God, did You love me when I played the rebel? Did You love me when I
   could blaspheme Your name? What manner of love is this? Yes, and He
   loved us before we had a being! Loved us and redeemed us long before we
   existed! Loved us before this world had sprung out of nothingness!
   Loved us before the daystar first proclaimed the morning! Loved us
   before any of the angels had begun to cover their faces with their
   wings in reverent adoration! From everlasting, the Lord loved His
   people!

   Now, again I say, drink into this Truth of God--feed on it. Expect us
   not to speak at length about it, but contemplate the fact--"Jesus
   Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, has loved us."

   II. Now we shall turn to the second point which is THE MANIFESTATIONS
   OF THIS LOVE. They divide under two heads--"everlasting consolation"
   and, "good hope through Grace." First, God's love has given us
   everlasting consolation. The Lord found us wretched. When the arrows of
   conviction were sticking in our hearts we were bleeding to death and
   what we needed, first of all, was to have these wounds staunched.
   Therefore the Lord came to us with consolations. Do you remember the
   time when the blood of Jesus Christ flowed warm over your wounds and
   made them cease to bleed? Have you forgotten the hour when you heard
   the voice of the Lord saying in the Word, "Whoever believes in Him is
   not condemned," and you were enabled to see Jesus Christ as your
   Substitute suffering in your place--and you knew that your sins were
   forgiven for His name's sake? You have not forgotten that, have you?

   Well, that was one of the everlasting consolations which He gave you in
   the time of your distress. Since that day you have had your
   sorrows--perhaps you have seldom been long without them--but
   consolation has always followed on the heels of tribulation and your
   main consolation has continued to be where it was at the first--you
   still find the sweetest joy on earth to be looking unto Jesus! When sin
   rebels you put it down by the same Grace which overthrew it at the
   first. Conscience starts and accuses you and you answer its accusations
   with that sweet word, "Jesus died for our transgressions, and rose
   again for our justification."

   The greatest delight of all is that this consolation is an everlasting
   one--other sources of comfort dry up--friends have called to visit you
   in times of distress and have suggested pleasant thoughts that have
   whiled away a mournful hour. But your griefs have returned again and
   the passing comfort has been of no further service to you. When a man
   sees that Jesus Christ took all his sins and was punished for them so
   that the man, himself, can never be punished again--when he understands
   that wondrous mystery of Substitution--then he gets a consolation which
   serves him at all times and in all weathers! Whatever may occur to him
   he flies to this Refuge--and even though he may have fallen into great
   sin, he knows that the Atonement was not made for sham sin, but for
   real sin--and he resorts again to that same Fountain filled with blood
   where he was once washed, resting fully assured that it will be equal
   to the washing of him as long as he shall be capable of sin.
   "Everlasting consolation!"

   There are some here present who have tried this consolation for 40 or
   50 years--dear Brothers and Sisters, I am sure you do not find it is
   any the weaker, but, on the contrary, you understand more of its
   strength! You are more happy today in falling back upon the love of God
   than you were. And at this moment you feel that in the absence of all
   other comforts it would suffice you to know that everlasting
   consolation which is given you in Christ Jesus. Let us run over, for a
   moment, some of our consolations. The first one is, as I have already
   said, that God has forgiven us all our transgressions because Jesus
   died in our place. The next consolation is that God loves us and can
   never change in His love--"Whom once He loves He never leaves, but
   loves them to the end."

   Then we have the grand consolation that the promises of God do not
   depend upon our faithfulness for their fulfillment, but are all
   established and made yes and amen in Christ Jesus. We have this
   consolation--that our salvation does not depend upon ourselves! As we
   fell and were lost by the first Adam's unrighteousness, so we have
   risen and are saved through the second Adam's righteousness, beyond all
   risk and fear of perishing. We stand upon a firm Foundation, not on the
   shifting sand of creature obedience and faithfulness, but upon the
   eternal Rock of a world which Christ has completed and over which He
   sang that joyous paean--"It is finished"--before He entered into His
   rest.

   We have, also, this consolation, that all things work together for good
   for us who love God and are the called according to His purpose. And
   again, this other consolation, that as long as Christ exists we are as
   safe, for He has said, "Because I live, you shall live also." We also
   have this consolation, that even though we shall sleep in the dust for
   awhile, yet He has said it, "I will that they, also, whom You have
   given Me, be with Me where I am that they may behold My Glory." In
   fact, to tell you all the consolations which God has given us would
   need many an hour! And fully to enjoy them will occupy your entire
   lives, for everlasting consolation is not to be spread out before you
   and done with in the short space of a discourse. Thus much upon one of
   the first manifestations of Divine love.

   The next is, He has given us "good hope." Consolation for the present,
   hope for the future. "Good hope," the hope when days and years are past
   we all shall meet in Heaven. The hope that whatever the future may be,
   it is full of bliss for us. The hope of immortality for our souls and
   of resurrection for our bodies, for when Christ shall come, we, also,
   that sleep in Jesus, shall come with Him. The hope of reigning with
   Jesus Christ on earth in the days of His triumph and reigning with Him
   forever and ever in endless felicity. This is our hope, a good hope,
   for it is based and founded on a good foundation. A fanatic's hope will
   pass away with the vapors which produced it, but the hope of the true
   Believer is good because it is founded in Truth and in Divine Grace.

   "A good hope in Grace," is the Greek. If I believed in my own merit and
   based my hopes on them, I should be only self-deceived and blinded, for
   what merit have I? But if my hope is fixed, alone, in Grace and that is
   the sphere in which my consolation and hope are found, then, since God
   is assuredly gracious, since He has made a Covenant of Grace with all
   Believers. Since He has ratified the Covenant by the gift of His own
   Son and since He has sworn by His holiness, ours is a good hope. Since
   God will be as good as His Word, our hope in Grace is good. Here stands
   the fact--it is written, "he that believes in the Lord Jesus has
   everlasting life." God has covenanted with that man that He shall be
   saved eternally, and since God cannot lie, the believing man must and
   shall be saved.

   Why is it, do you think, that some Believer's hopes flicker? Because
   they get away from a hope in Grace and look towards themselves and
   their own merits. "Oh," they say, "I have not prayed as I did. I do not
   feel as I did, therefore, my hope declines." Friend, was your hope
   founded on your prayers? Was your hope grounded in part upon your
   feelings? If so, it may well quiver and tremble! One of these days it
   will go down altogether, for the foundation is not able to bear its
   weight. But if my hope is fixed on this--that God has promised and
   cannot change His promise--I have a good foundation to build on. He
   will not alter the thing that has gone forth out of His lips. He has
   said, "he that believes and is baptized shall be saved," and He cannot
   change His own Word! Therefore every Believer has the promise of
   eternal life.

   "But," says one, "it surprises me to hear you talk so," Does it? It
   much more surprises me that I may so speak! It is marvelous to the last
   degree that God, even our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ should have
   given us such a hope as this! I never feel at all astonished at some
   people's hope when I find that it is this--the hope that if they behave
   themselves they will get to Heaven--the hope that if they are faithful,
   God will be faithful. Why! Any simpleton might have imagined such a
   hope as that! But a Divine Revelation was needed to set before us the
   great hope of the Gospel and it needs Grace-given faith to believe that
   God will not change nor lie and, therefore, must save all those who
   have believed in His Son Jesus Christ. He cannot suffer one of the
   sheep of Christ to perish, or His promise will be of no effect.

   "If I believed that," says one, "it would cause me to lead a careless
   life." Perhaps it would, but it does not lead true Believers to do so.
   On the contrary, we feel that if God loves us so and deals so
   generously with us, and takes us right away from the whips of Sinai and
   the Covenant of the Law, and places us entirely under Grace, we love
   Him as we never loved before! And because of that love, sin is hateful
   to us and we shun it as a deadly thing! The Law which you think would
   drive men to holiness has never done it, while the Grace which you
   imagine would lead us to licentiousness binds us with solemn bonds of
   consecration to serve our God 10 times more than before!

   Suppose some one were to tell my children that the continuance of my
   love to them will depend entirely upon their good behavior. My children
   would repel the suggestion with indignation. They would answer, "we
   know better! You speak falsely! Our father will always love us." Even
   so, the Lord's children know that their Father's love is Immutable. For
   our transgressions, our heavenly Father will visit us with the rod, but
   never with the sword. He will be angry with us and chide us, but He
   will love us just as much when He is angry as He did before. And as
   long as ever we are His sons--and that we always must be, for sonship
   is not a relationship which will ever change--so long will He love us.

   Do you think that children become disobedient because their
   relationship is unchangeable? I never heard of such a thing! They have
   many reasons for being disobedient within their own little wayward
   hearts, but no child disobeys his father because he always must be his
   father's child, or because his father loves him! I have heard of one
   child who said to another, "Come with me, John, and rob such an
   orchard. Your father is so kind he will not beat you if you are found
   out." The little lad drew himself up and said, "Do you think because my
   father is kind to me that, therefore, I will go and vex him?" This is
   the holy reasoning of love--it draws no license from Grace, but rather
   feels the strong constraints of gratitude leading it to holiness.

   It may be that in unregenerate hearts the love of God, if it could come
   there, would be turned into an excuse for sin, but it is not so to us,
   my Brothers and Sisters. Since the Grace of God has made us new
   creatures in Christ Jesus, the love of God constrains us not to sin but
   to walk in holiness all our days. Blessed be His name, then! We are not
   ashamed to rejoice that God, even our Father, has loved us, and given
   us everlasting consolation and good hope in Grace.

   III. The last thing is THE PRAYER flowing out of all this. The Apostle
   prays, and we pray this morning, that God would comfort your hearts.
   This is not spoken of everybody, but of such as believe in the Lord
   Jesus. It is of the utmost importance that your hearts should be
   comforted. Cheerfulness, habitual calm, peace of mind, content of
   spirit--these ought to be the very atmosphere you breathe--and Paul
   thinks it so important that he prays that God Himself, and Christ
   Himself, may comfort your hearts.

   I know you have many troubles--how very few are altogether without
   them! Some of you are very poor, others suffer heavy losses in business
   and exercises of soul, with much trial in the world and in the Church.
   I pray the good Lord comfort your hearts, speaking not to your ears
   only, but to your innermost nature. "Let not your heart be troubled,
   neither let it be afraid." Why, surely, if you believe that God loves
   you, it ought to make your heart glad! And if He gives you everlasting
   consolation you cannot be otherwise than happy!

   I remember well when I was under a sense of sin looking at a dog and
   wishing I were such as he, that I might die without fear of judgment
   hereafter, for it seemed so awful a thing to live on forever as a
   sinner. But now, on the other hand, I have sometimes looked at the
   happiest animals and I have said to myself, "Ah, but yonder poor
   creature does not know the love of God and how thankful I am to God
   that He has given me the capacity to know Him. Why, if I could hear of
   an angel in Heaven who did not know the love of God I should pity him!
   There are kings and mighty emperors who know not the Lord's love and
   what poor, pitiable creatures they are! But as for you who rejoice in
   Divine love, I would have you go into the darkest alley, if you are
   forced to live there, and undergo the most wearisome toil if that is
   your lot--yes, and go home to a persecuting husband, or a churlish
   father and yet hear melodious music ringing in your hearts for--"God,
   even our Father, which has loved us, has given us everlasting
   consolation and good hope through Grace." This is enough to make the
   wilderness rejoice and blossom as the rose.

   The next part of the prayer is that the "Lord would establish us in
   every good word and work." I see that the most approved editions of the
   original have it, "in every good work and word," putting the best
   first, and the thought is this, that God would make His people so happy
   that they would never have an inclination to leave off any good work or
   word. Depression of spirit often leads to slackness of hand. No doubt
   many, through sad hearts, have ceased to labor for Christ. A lack of
   gladness has restrained their activity.

   Now, the Apostle would not have any one of us cease from serving God in
   good works or in good words through a lack of consolation. Does God
   love you? Do you know it? How, then, can you cease from any good work?
   Did enemies abuse you for speaking the Truth of God? Did you say it
   because you felt you loved God? Say it again, Man! Say it again! Did
   you work in your class without success? Did you do it because God loved
   you and you wanted to show that you loved Him? Go on, Brother! Go on,
   Sister! Success or no success! God loves you and He has given you
   everlasting consolation, therefore be established in your good work.

   Have you been accustomed to sing His praises and has the devil said,
   "Leave off! Leave off!" Have you been accustomed to rebuke sin and to
   tell others about the Savior in your own poor way, and are you getting
   low in spirit? Do you doubt your own interest in Christ? Have you lost
   the comfort you once enjoyed? O, dear Brother, come back to the old
   original source of happiness--"Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our
   Father, which has loved us, and given us everlasting consolation and
   good hope through Grace." After refreshing yourself with this blessed
   Truth of God, you will return with renewed energy to good words and
   works and continue in them steadfast, unmovable--till life's allotted
   service shall come to a close.

   Now and then we become greatly disheartened about the condition of the
   Church. I know I do, I see everywhere Popery spreading, or else
   rationalism--these rival evils are devouring our country. There is far
   too little prayerfulness and too little Gospel preaching. And at times
   one is apt to cry out, like Elijah, that no one is left who is faithful
   to Jehovah--all knees are bowed to Baal! We must not give way to this
   feeling, dear Friends, for, "God, even the Father, has loved us." When
   the disciples were too much elated with their success and came back to
   Jesus and said, "Lord, even the devils are subject unto us," Jesus
   said, "Notwithstanding, in this rejoice not, but rather rejoice because
   your names are written in Heaven."

   And today, when we are depressed with great anxieties and come back to
   our Master, and say, "Lord, the devil is getting the upper hand over
   us," He repeats to us the same admonition, "Nevertheless do not be
   depressed about this, but rather rejoice because your names are written
   in Heaven and your Father has given you everlasting consolation and
   good hope through Grace." Establish your hearts, then, beloved Brothers
   and Sisters! Be "steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of
   the Lord." Things are not what they seem. Dark nights are but the
   prelude to bright days. The rain shall be followed by the clear
   shining. When the Truth of God retreats, she only retires to leap to a
   greater victory! Though each wave, as it comes up upon the shore, may
   die and you may think that there is no progress, yet the tide is coming
   in--even Jehovah's tide of everlasting Truth which shall cover all the
   earth!

   Be not discouraged! Go to your God. Get away, every man, from your
   circumstances and from your selves and get to your Savior and your
   Shepherd! And there, like sheep in the pasture, lie down to feed. And
   then, like sheep obedient to the Shepherd, rise up and follow Him where
   ever He goes. God bless you in this. Perhaps while I have been
   preaching, some unconverted person here has been saying--"There is
   nothing for me." Do you remember, dear Friend, what the Syro-Phoenician
   woman said? She was called a dog by the Savior and that is what you
   think you are, but she said, "The dogs eat the crumbs that fall from
   the Master's table."

   Now, if I called myself a dog, would there be anything in this subject
   that I might dare to lay hold upon, because, like a crumb, it fell from
   the table? Yes. It seems to me there is. Evidently God deals with His
   own people in a way of Grace, for it is said, He has "given" us--it is
   altogether of His free love and it is added--"through Grace," or
   absolute favor. The consolations of the Lord are the gifts of mercy and
   love. Well, then, if He is gracious to one, why should He not be
   gracious to another? And if those who sit at His table were once
   unclean, filthy and depraved, and yet the Sovereign Grace of God called
   them and brought them into the banquet of love, why should it not light
   on me also?

   If it is not of him that wills nor of him that runs, but of God that
   shows mercy--why should He not show mercy to me, whoever I may be? Why
   not to me? But is there a door through which I can come to the gracious
   Lord? Yes, there is, and it is the other crumb in the text, for it
   begins with, "our Lord Jesus Christ." My Soul, that is where you must
   begin this morning! There is the Lord Jesus Christ! I see Him hanging
   on the Cross bleeding for the sins of others, with hands stretched wide
   that He may receive sinners to His heart. And that heart has a channel
   made down to it by the spear, that prayers and tears may find an easy
   way into His sympathies.

   Come, my Soul, come now and tell your case to Jesus. Fellow Sinner,
   come and confess your sins to Jesus and then throw yourself at His feet
   with this upon your heart and lips--"If I must perish, I will perish
   clinging to the Cross, declaring to all men that my hope is stayed on
   Him whom God has set forth to be the propitiation for the sins of man."
   You will never perish there, Sinner! Go there at once and be safe! God
   help you for Christ's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--2 Thessalonians 2, 3.
     __________________________________________________________________

Good Cause for Great Zeal

   (No. 1097)

   A SERMON DELIVERED

   BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Now because we have maintenance from the king's palace, and it was not
   meet for us to see the King dishonored, therefore have we sent and
   informed the king." Ezra 4:14.

   THE facts of the case were these. Under Zerubbabel, the Jews, who had
   returned from Babylon, commenced to rebuild Jerusalem. There were in
   the land certain half-and-half persons, somewhat like the Samaritans,
   who were neither Jews nor Gentiles and they asked, at first, that they
   might join in the building of Jerusalem. This was refused, the Jews
   determining to keep themselves pure from all association with the
   heathen or semi-heathen. So indignant were these people at this that
   they wrote Artaxerxes, the king, to tell him that he was very little
   aware of what was going on in Judea, for the Jews had always been, from
   time immemorial, a troublesome people, and now they were beginning to
   build their city again. And as soon as it was built they would, in all
   probability, revolt against King Artaxerxes and give him much trouble,
   as their fathers had done to kings before him.

   Now, in writing that letter they showed themselves wise in their
   generation, for they told the king in the words of our text that they
   were moved by gratitude to write to him. It was false--but hypocrites
   often use the best of words and employ the best of sense to cover their
   deceit. They said that they, themselves, were sustained from the king's
   palace and, therefore, they could not bear that the king should be
   dishonored--for this reason they had written to tell his majesty that
   the Jews were building this wall and they trusted that, for his own
   honor's sake, and for his subjects' sake, he would stop them.

   Now let me take these words right out of those evil mouths and put them
   into my own and into yours. They will suit us well if we turn them to
   the great King of kings. We may truly say, "Now because we have
   maintenance from the King's palace, and it was not meet for us to see
   the King dishonored, therefore have we sent and informed the King." The
   text will enable me to speak on three points. First, here is a fact
   acknowledged--"we have maintenance from the King's palace." Here is,
   secondly, a duty recognized--"it was not meet for us to see the King
   dishonored." And, thirdly, here is a course of action
   prescribed--"therefore have we sent and informed the King."

   I. Now, beloved fellow Believers, the words of our text may be used by
   us while we acknowledge a very gracious fact--WE HAVE MAINTENANCE FROM
   THE KING'S PALACE. How true this is of all God's people, in all
   respects, you will be abundantly ready to acknowledge. Both the upper
   and the nether springs from which we drink are fed by the eternal
   bounty of the great King. Up to now we have been supplied with food and
   raiment. Sometimes we may have been reduced to a pinch, no doubt, and
   the question has arisen, through the infirmity of our nature and
   fermented with the irritability of our unbelief, "What shall we eat,
   what shall we drink, and with what shall we be clothed?"

   But we have dwelt in the land and verily we have been fed and I have no
   doubt that to many of you it has been peculiarly gratifying to receive
   the loaf, as it were, immediately from your Father's hands. You have
   known what poverty has meant and then there has been to you a peculiar
   sweetness in the daily bread which, in answer to prayer, has been sent
   to you. Although we do not drink of the water from the Rock, or find
   the manna lying at our tent door every morning, yet the Providence of
   God produces for us quite the same results. We have been fed and
   satisfied and, at any rate, many of us, in looking back, can say, "my
   cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days
   of my life."

   Therefore we have to now, even in temporal things, been made to feel
   that we have been maintained from the King's palace. But it has been in
   spiritual things, Beloved, that our continual experience of the King's
   bounty has been most notable. We have a new life and therefore we have
   new needs and new hunger and a new thirst--and God has maintained us
   out of His own palace as to this new life of ours. O Beloved, we have
   had great hunger at times, after heavenly things,

   and He has "satisfied our mouth with good things," and our youth has
   been "renewed like the eagle's." We have had huge needs--bottomless
   deeps of need we have had. And yet, great God, the treasures of Your
   Grace have been everlasting mines, deep as our helpless miseries were,
   and boundless as our sins.

   Why, sometimes we have been drawn aside from our steadfastness and we
   have needed mighty Grace to set us on our feet again--and to make us
   once more, "strong in the Lord and in the power of His might"--and we
   have had it, have we not? We have sought it and we have found it! Our
   shoes have been iron and brass and as our days so has our strength
   been. Up till this moment we have found that underneath us are the
   everlasting arms. In looking back upon all the way wherein the Lord our
   God has led us, we can sing of the beginning of it, we can sing of the
   middle of it and we believe we shall sing of the end of it--for all
   through we have been maintained out of the King's palace. This is
   matter of fact both as to things temporal and things spiritual.

   Beloved, it is a great mercy that you and I have been maintained out of
   the King's palace as Believers because, where else could we have been
   maintained? Where else, I ask you? As to spiritual things, to whom
   could we go but unto Him who has been so good to us? What empty wells
   ministers are if we look to them! If we look to their Master, "the rain
   also fills the pools," and we find that there is supply in the preached
   Word for our consolation. But have you not often known what it is to
   find that even God's servant under whom you have been fed does not meet
   your case? He is meeting the case of hundreds of others, perhaps, but
   somehow he misses you--there is no food for your soul!

   Yes, and the books you once read with so much comfort appear to have
   lost their flavor, their aroma and their sweet savor, and, I may add,
   even the Word of God itself, though it is unchanged, appears to be
   changed sometimes to you. But God, the God of Israel, your God, oh, how
   graciously has He still supplied you! "All my springs are in You," my
   God. And had they been elsewhere they long ago would have failed. Who
   else could supply our needs but Jehovah? As the king of Israel said to
   the woman in the famine of Samaria, "If the Lord does not help you, how
   can I help you out of the barn-floor or out of the winepress?"

   There is no help for the child of God if his heavenly Father should
   shut the granary door. If out of the King's palace there came no
   portions of meat in due season, we might lay down and die of despair!
   Who could hold us up but God? Who could guide us but God? Who could
   keep us from falling into Perdition but God? Who could, from hour to
   hour, supply our desperate needs but God? Is it not, then, right well
   for us--abundantly well--that we have had our maintenance from the
   King's palace?

   While we turn over this very sweet thought, we may remember that our
   maintenance from the King's palace has cost His Majesty dearly. He has
   not fed us for nothing. We do not know what was the expenditure in gold
   of King Solomon, every day, to supply all his court with wine and oil,
   with meal and fine flower, with sheep and fat oxen, harts and roebucks,
   venison and fatted fowl. But we do know that Solomon's cost was nothing
   at all compared with the vast expense at which we are sustained by the
   munificence of God! It cost Him His own dear Son at the very first. We
   should not have begun to live if He had spared His Son and kept Him
   back from us!

   But the choicest treasure in Heaven, the Koh-i-noor of God's regalia,
   He was pleased to spend for our sakes that we might live! And ever
   since then we have been fed upon Jesus Christ Himself. No other food
   would be adequate to our necessities. His flesh is meat, indeed! His
   blood is drink, indeed! This is the most royal dainty conceivable, for
   a soul to feed upon the Son of God! And yet we have fed upon Him these
   many years. Let us bless and magnify our bounteous God, whose infinite
   favor has thus supplied our needs.

   And while He spares nothing for us, but gives everything to us, let us
   not keep back anything from Him. With such a generous God, generosity
   seems to be so natural that it ought to be spontaneous. The
   highest--the most ardent--form of service would seem to be but a
   trifling recompense for the immense expense which the Lord has been at
   in supporting us these many years. May I ask you to think over the kind
   of portion and maintenance you have had from the King's palace? Such
   thoughts will stir your gratitude. Beloved, we have had a bountiful
   supply! God has never stinted us. As the sun throws out his wealth of
   heat and light and does not measure it by the consumption of men, but
   throws it broadcast over all worlds--even so does God flood the world
   with the sunlight of His goodness and His saints are made to receive it
   in abundance.

   If you have ever been stinted it is not by God--you have stinted
   yourself. Our receptive faculty may be small, but His giving
   disposition is abundant. Floods of mercy, oceans of love has He poured
   out for us. O, what a bountiful

   maintenance have we had! Enough and to spare. Our imagination could not
   have conceived greater wealth than is ours in the Covenant of
   Grace--for all things are yours--the gifts of God! God being ours, the
   Infinite is ours! The Omniscient is ours! The Omnipotent is ours! O,
   what a bountiful portion we have! And we have had an unfailing portion.
   As there has been much of it, so it has always come to us in due
   season. Times of need have come, but the needed supply has come, too.

   If there is any Believer here that has reason to testify against his
   God, let him do it. Have you ever rested on Him and found Him fail you?
   Did you ever trust Him in vain? Are His promises false? Has He left you
   in the deep waters? When you passed through the fires did the flames
   kindle upon you? Have you found your God a wilderness? Has He been
   barrenness in the day of your extremity? No, Beloved, our God has been
   bountiful and He has continued His bounty-- not good by fits and
   starts, but ever gracious to us. I am desirous, if this were the proper
   place, to stop and tell what I know of this. But then, surely, many
   older saints here might interrupt me and say, "Let me speak of it."

   I remember once trying to speak of the great goodness of God in the
   pulpit, when my venerable grandfather, who is now in Heaven, was
   sitting behind me. He pulled my coattail and bid me stop, for he
   thought he could talk upon that better than I could! And, indeed, he
   could, because of his deep experience of the faithfulness of the living
   God! It is a great delight and benefit to younger men to hear their
   gray-headed sires stand up and say what they have known and what they
   have proved of God's eternal goodness! But I think we can say, whether
   young or old, if we have known His name a few years--

   "When trouble, like a gloomy cloud,

   Has gathered thick and thundered loud,

   He near my soul has always stood,

   His loving kindness, oh, how good!" He has been a faithful Friend to
   us--we have been right well maintained from the King's table.

   While the supply has thus been bountiful and continuous, it has
   ennobled us. For consider how great a thing it is, to be supported from
   a king's palace--but it is the greatest of all privileges to be living
   upon the bounty of the King of kings--and "Such honor have all the
   saints." Even the feeble Mephibosheths that are lame in their feet
   shall eat at the King's table! The Lord Jesus, the Good Shepherd, makes
   all His little ones to be like the ewe lamb of the parable which was
   fed out of the man's own cup and did lie in his bosom! Even those that
   are weakest and meanest have this high honor--to be supplied by
   Royalty, itself, with all that they need!

   Lift up your heads, you that hang them down. You poor desponding saints
   that think yourselves less than the least of all, you are, every one of
   you, King's sons! You are all gentlemen commoners upon the King of
   kings! Your diet is better than that of the angels! God will sooner let
   Gabriel starve than you--

   "Never did angels above, know

   Redeeming Grace and dying love" Yet that is your daily bread, your
   morning meal and evening feast! Be glad! Have you little of temporal
   good? Well, but your Father sends it to you. Do you mourn that you have
   so little spiritual good? Bless Him that you have any, for it is God
   that sends it to you! You would have had none if it were not for His
   Infinite Grace! Therefore praise Him for what you have and confidently
   ask Him for more.

   And there is reason for good cheer in this, dear Friends, that we have
   such a soul-satisfying portion in God. A soul that gets what God gives
   him has quite as much as he can hold and as much as he can need. He has
   got a portion that might well excite envy! If the world did but know
   how happy and blessed Christians are, they would count them up in the
   royal family and they would envy them beyond all others. There is
   nothing in the worldling's estate to envy. The more he has, the worse
   it will be for him to leave it. His fine gardens and lawns and parks
   will make it hard to die. The greater his earthly honor the worse will
   be his eternal dishonor. It must be to him a horrible thing to have had
   such a high flight and then to have all the greater fall because of it.

   "Fret not yourself because of evildoers, neither be you envious because
   of the prosperity of the wicked." What, after all, becomes of him that
   prospers in his way? "I have seen the wicked in great power, and
   spreading himself like a green bay tree; yet he passed away, and lo, he
   was not: yes, I sought him, but he could not be found." The place that
   has known the ungodly and the lands they have called by their own name,
   soon become oblivious of their memory. Their record has perished
   quickly and they, themselves, have gone back "to the vile dust from
   where they sprang." But you have eternity

   to be your heritage! You have Heaven to be your portion! The few drops
   of gall that are in your cup today shall soon be rinsed out and it
   shall be full of the nectar of celestial thrones!

   Be content, now, with your brown bread and hard fare a little while,
   for you shall eat the delicacies of angels! Yes, and by faith you do
   even now feast upon the fat things full of marrow and the wines on the
   lees well-refined, which your God sends to you from the King's palace!
   Let us rejoice, dear Brothers and Sisters, if we are, any of us,
   downcast tonight, for our maintenance is from the King's palace and
   what can we need more?--

   "Father, I wait Your daily will.

   You shall divide my portion still.

   Grant me on earth what seems You best,

   Till death and Heaven reveal the rest." Thus we acknowledge the fact
   with lively interest and devout gratitude--"We have maintenance from
   the King's palace."

   II. Now, secondly, here is A DUTY RECOGNIZED--"It was not meet for us
   to see the King dishonored." No doubt you will see the force of the
   argument without need of much explanation. It is good reasoning. If
   they were fed from the king's palace it was not right that they should
   stand by and see the king dishonored. The reasoning comes home to us.
   If we are so favored--we, who are Believers--with such a choice
   portion, it is not right for us to sit down and see our God dishonored.

   And here I will notice some things which dishonor God and which we are
   bound not to put up with. By every sense of propriety we are bound not
   to see God dishonored by ourselves. It is well to begin at home. Are
   you doing anything that dishonors your God, Believer--anything at home,
   anything in your daily avocation, anything in the way of conducting
   your business? Is there anything in your conversation, anything in your
   actions, anything in your reading, anything in your writing, anything
   in your speaking that dishonors God? Seeing that you are fed from the
   King's table, I beseech you, let it not be said that the King got
   damage from you! If there is a traitor, let him be found somewhere
   else, but not among the Lord's own chosen!

   You are bought with blood--will you trample on that blood? The
   Crucified One died for you--will you crucify Him afresh and put Him to
   an open shame? You will soon be where Jesus is. Would you blush to see
   His face and to stand in His Presence? What? And shall it ever be said
   that you bring dishonor upon Jesus? God has given you a portion above
   the angels and will you fill the devils' mouths with laughter and cause
   them to have a reason to glory against God? May that be far from you,
   my Brother! The Lord grant us Grace to feel that if we are maintained
   from the King's palace it is not right for us to cause the King
   dishonor!

   Perhaps that dishonor may come from those who dwell under our roof and
   live in our own house. I charge you that are parents and masters, to
   see to this! Do not tolerate anything in those over whom you have
   control that would bring dishonor to God. Remember Eli--he did not
   restrain his sons and they behaved shamefully. They were the minister's
   sons and because they were not restrained, God overthrew Eli's house
   and did such terrible things that the ears of him that hears might well
   tingle! Joshua said, "And for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
   We cannot impart to our children new hearts, but we can see to it that
   there shall be nothing within our gates that is derogatory to the
   religion of Jesus Christ. I charge you, see to it!

   But you cannot control your children, you say. Then the Lord have mercy
   upon you! It is your business to do it and you must do it, or else you
   will soon find they will control you! And no one knows what judgment
   will come from God upon those who suffer sin in children and servants
   to go unrebuked. No, if we are maintained from the King's palace, let
   us not see the King dishonored. Let the same holy jealousy animate us
   among those with whom we have influence--as, for instance, among those
   who wish to be united with us in Church fellowship. It is the duty of
   every Church to try, as far as it can, to guard the honor and dignity
   of King Jesus against unworthy persons who would intrude themselves
   into the congregation of the saints, of those who are called, chosen,
   and faithful.

   We are deceived, and always shall be, for the Church never was
   infallible. But still let no negligence of our practice supplement the
   infirmity of our judgment. Because ungodly men will creep in unawares,
   we are not, therefore, to cooperate at their entrance. To allow persons
   to come to the Communion Table who do not even profess to be born-again
   is a clear act of treason against the King of kings! To receive into
   our membership persons of unhallowed life, unchaste, unrighteous--of
   licentious life and lax doctrine, such as know not the Truth of God as
   it is in Jesus--would be

   to betray the trust with which Christ has invested us! That must not be
   and every Church member is bound to do his best to guard the Church
   against that which would render her unclean in the sight of God! If you
   are maintained from the King's table, it is not meet that you should
   see the King dishonored. We are under sacred obligations to maintain
   the Statutes and Testimonies of the Lord. And, oh, how the King is
   dishonored by the mutilation and misrepresentation of His Word!
   Therefore, dear Brothers and Sisters, we are always bound to bear our
   protest against false doctrine.

   I am sometimes accused of saying sharp things. The charge does not come
   home to my conscience with very great power. If anybody said I spoke
   smooth things I think it would oppress me a great deal more. As long as
   there are evils in this world, God's ministers are bound to protest
   against them! That man who, as he goes through the world, can say,
   "Hail, fellow, well met!" with everybody and extol the modern Diana of
   charity--universal charity, false charity, charity towards the
   false--that man, when he comes to stand before his Maker, will find it
   hard to give his account. In these days, when nobody believes anything,
   when everybody has subscribed to the belief that black is white and
   white is black, and colors are nothing at all but imaginary
   distinctions, it is time that somebody should believe something! And a
   little sharpness of speech might not only be excused, but commended, if
   we had but men who spoke what they did know and testified honestly to
   the Truth of God which they had received.

   Everyone here present who is maintained from the King's palace, is
   bound to fight against every doctrine which insults the King. When I
   see a man pretending to be a priest and assuming that he has power to
   forgive sins and to dispense pardons and indulgences, I do my best to
   unmask the deceiver and to speak against his imposition, less I might
   be accounted accessory to his crime, chargeable with his guilt and be
   made partaker of his condemnation! Therefore, let every Englishman, let
   every Protestant and, above all, let every Christian denounce
   priestcraft of every sort and in every Church, whether among Romanists,
   Anglicans, or Dissenters. Down with it!

   There is only one Priest and He is in Heaven!! And none of us have any
   power to offer any sacrifice for sin, or any power to absolve our
   fellow men. Whether you accuse us of being censorious or not, the
   profanity appalls us, the duplicity that is taken ill by it amazes us
   and the sincerity with which we love the Gospel inflames us to make our
   protest heard! If we do not speak out about this crying perversion of
   the Truth of God, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves!

   Then there are some in these days who deny the divinity of Christ and
   there can be no terms of peace between us and them. I remember a remark
   of a Unitarian doctor, which I thought eminently correct. He said of a
   certain Calvinist, who was accused of speaking sharply against
   Unitarians, "Quite right and so he ought, because if the Calvinist is
   right the Unitarian is not a Christian at all. But if the Unitarian is
   right the Calvinist is an idolater, because he worships one who is a
   man and is not the Son of God."

   If what we hold is true, it is not possible that the man who denies the
   Deity of Christ can be a Christian, nor can there be for him a hope of
   salvation. He deliberately refuses the only way of escape from the
   wrath to come. I can understand a man getting to Heaven as a Roman
   Catholic, notwithstanding all his errors, because he believes in the
   Divinity of Christ and relies on the expiatory Sacrifice of His death,
   with whatever superstitions his creed may be overlaid. But I cannot
   understand, nor do I believe, that any man will ever enter those pearly
   gates who, in doubting or discrediting the Deity of our blessed Lord
   and Savior Jesus Christ, renounces the sheet-anchor of our most holy
   faith and dares to face his maker without a Counselor, without an
   Advocate, without a plea for mercy!

   It is time we said so, and spoke out plainly. This is no theme for
   trifling. Courtesies are thrown away upon antagonists whose cause is
   treason! Nor are we the men who should practice reserve, for if we are
   maintained from the King's palace, we are cowards if we do not stand up
   for our King! Then there have been attacks made in modern times upon
   the doctrine of Substitution. If the doctrine of Substitution is not
   true, I am a lost man--therefore, tooth and nail, will I fight for it!
   No other hope beneath the skies have I, except in the expiatory
   Substitution of the Lord Jesus Christ. If He did not suffer in my
   place, the Just for the unjust, then flames of Hell must be my portion.
   Therefore I can never give up that Truth of God, for it is giving up my
   own salvation. But it has been revealed, and I cling to it with the
   most implicit credit.

   Do you tell me that "modern thought" assails it? How, and with what
   weapons, I ask? Is it with argument, with proof, or with any
   counter-suggestion? Oh, no, it is merely met with vague questionings,
   idle quibbles and impertinent sneers--a style of answer that affects
   much, though it affirms nothing! I pray you, Brothers and Sisters,
   wherever you are, defend this fundamental doctrine of our most holy
   faith--that the Lord Jesus Christ has laid down His life to make

   atonement for the sins of His people. Or should we be confronted with
   any other form of false doctrine, or should we be haunted with any kind
   of skepticism--(skepticism! An anomalous thing, which is without form
   and void)--are we to stand with mealy mouths and say, "Yes, Brethren,
   you are of that opinion, and I am of the other"?

   No, but opinion is light as a bubble when judgment is pronounced by the
   supreme court from which there is no appeal. What do you think? Is
   there no fact? Is there no Truth? Is the Word of God, "yes," and, "no"?
   Has it come to this, that it is to be shuffled like a pack of cards, or
   shaped like a nose of wax as every man may please? Oh, no! By the
   ever-living God there is Truth somewhere and that Truth we will find
   out if we can! And, having found it, we will hold it fast. Let us, in
   the day of battle, use our standard--and if our arm is torn off, we
   hope the standard will not fall but that others will be found to hold
   it up as there were in the brave days of yore--when our fathers burned
   at the stake for these things, or went to the galleys, or perished
   amidst the Alps sooner than the Truth of God's own Word should be
   without witnesses among the sons of man!

   Hear none of these things in your hearts with tolerance, but hold fast
   to the things which you have been taught and hold them fast in faith
   and love to Christ Jesus! Those who have their maintenance from the
   King's palace ought not to allow the Lord to be dishonored by a neglect
   of His ordinances. Brothers and Sisters, I remind you, who are
   Believers, the Lord Jesus has given you only two symbolic ordinances.
   Take care that you use them well. Follow Him in what He did, when He
   said, "Thus it becomes us to fulfill all righteousness." Be baptized in
   His name! Follow Him to the Communion Table. He said, "This do you, as
   often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." Be obedient, I pray you,
   to His gracious Word, and suffer not the King's precept to be trifled
   with!

   Again, if we are, indeed, His courtiers, let us take care that He is
   not dishonored by a general decline of His Church. When churches go to
   sleep when the work of God is done deceitfully--for to do it formally
   is to do it deceitfully--when there is no life in the Prayer
   Meeting--when there are no holy enterprises afloat for the spread of
   the Redeemer's kingdom, then the world says, "That is your Church! What
   a sleepy set these saints are!" O, let not the King be thus dishonored!
   Brothers and Sisters, bestir yourselves! May this Church never settle
   upon its lees, or fall into slumber as it grows older. May God grant it
   may grow more earnest! May there be ever here regiments of stalwart men
   who shall fight for King Jesus and not be ashamed--and may the Church
   be full of life and vigor till Christ Himself shall come.

   When we sleep with our fathers, may there be others found better than
   we are to maintain the cause and crown rights of King Jesus. And oh,
   dear Friends, how can we tolerate it that so many should dishonor
   Christ by rejecting His Gospel? We cannot prevent their doing so, but
   we can weep for them! We can pray for them! We can plead for them! We
   can make it uncomfortable for them to reflect that Believers are loving
   them and yet they are not loving the Savior! If you are fed from the
   King's palace it is not right that you see, with dry eyes, the King
   dishonored!

   If you hear a man swearing in the streets, mourn and lament it! If you
   see the Sunday desecrated, grieve over it! If you behold drunkenness,
   do not laugh at it! If you hear lascivious songs, do not smile at them!
   Everything that is evil should be painful to a Believer and it ought to
   be an incessant sorrow to us that souls are perishing!--

   "Did Christ over sinners weep, And shall our cheeks be dry?"

   Privileged as you are, Beloved, you ought to love your Master so that
   the slightest word against Him should provoke your spirit to holy
   jealousy.

   III. Our last point is this--A COURSE OF ACTION PURSUED--"Therefore,"
   says the text, "have we sent and

   informed the king." How shall we do that? Doubtless we act as it well
   becomes us, when we go and tell the Lord all about it? "Informed the
   king"!--but does He not know? Are not all things open to Him from whom
   no secrets are hid? Ah, yes, but when Hezekiah received Rabshakeh's
   blasphemous letter He took it and spread it before the Lord! It is a
   holy exercise of the saints to report to the Lord the sins and the
   sorrows they observe among the people--the griefs they feel and the
   grievances they complain of--to spread before Him the blasphemies they
   have heard and appeal to Him concerning the menaces with which they are
   threatened.

   Yes, you may report to the Lord the false doctrine that is preached and
   the foul sophistry that is printed in these days. Such plain statements
   might become mighty pleas with God that He should arise, assert His
   cause and do His own work. Lord, You know that this day the Deity of
   your Son has been insulted--the Inspiration of Your Word has been
   denied. You know the power of Your Holy Spirit has been ridiculed, Your
   eternal love has been denied, Your infinitely

   blessed Sovereignty has been scoffed at! O Father, You know the atoning
   blood has been made a subject of contempt! Arise, O God, plead Your own
   cause! Behold, all over the world men are mad upon their idols! They
   give themselves to falsehoods and to lies.

   O God of Truth, arise and avenge Yourself! Have You not said, "Ah, I
   will ease Me of My adversaries"? Do this, then. Give glory to whom
   glory is due and let not the name of Jesus be forever cast out as evil
   by ungodly men! This ought to be the constant pleading of the
   Church--"Shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night
   unto Him?" O, it ought to be! Day and night cry about all this! The sin
   of this London, oh, if we felt it, it would weigh us down--the
   drunkenness of London, the lust of London, the oppression of London,
   the wickedness of every shape that reeks, as from a dunghill, from this
   great city--O God, will You always bear it? Will You not rise and
   change all this? Will You not give power to Your Gospel that a gracious
   reformation may be made?

   Tell the Lord about it! Inform the King! After those people had
   informed the king, they took care to plead with him. As I have already
   told you, they apprized him that the city of Jerusalem was a very
   troublesome city and therefore it ought not to be rebuilt. Plead with
   God! Plead with God! Plead with God! That praying is poor shift that is
   not made up of pleading. "Bring forth your reasons," says the Lord.
   Bring forth your strong arguments. O, what prayers were those of John
   Knox, when he seemed to say to God, "Save Scotland for this reason--for
   that reason--for another reason--for yet one more reason"--the number
   of his motives still multiplying with the fervor of his heart! So did
   he labor with God as though he pleaded for his life and would not let
   Him go until he had gained his suit for Scotland!

   Why, Scotland's knowledge of the Truth of God is due, doubtless, beyond
   everything else to John Knox's prayers, which even now are ringing in
   Heaven! He, "being dead, yet speaks." O, for men of that caliber and
   that mind in this country, thus to plead for London! O, what a gem
   would London be in Christ's crown! If Christ had but London, surely out
   of this great city, which is the very heart of the world in many
   respects, there would go streaming forth rivers of health and life and
   blessing to the utmost ends of the earth! Spread London's case, then,
   before God, and plead with the Most High!

   And when you have done it, do not go away and make your prayers into a
   lie by contrary actions, or by refraining from any action at all! He
   that prays hard must work hard, for no man prays sincerely who is not
   prepared to use every effort to obtain that which he asks of God. We
   must put our shoulder to the wheel while we pray for strength to put it
   in motion. All success depends upon God--yet He uses instruments, and
   He will not use instruments that are useless and unfitted to the work!
   "And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward. Not that we are
   sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves. But our
   sufficiency is of God, who has made us able ministers"--therefore let
   us be up and be stirring, for if we are maintained from the King's
   palace, it is not meet that we see the King dishonored, but it is due
   to Him that we should seek His Glory.

   Now, I would that every one of you knew what it was to be maintained
   from the King's palace, but alas, there are some here that have never
   eaten the King's bread and will be banished from the King's Presence if
   they die as they are. But, O remember, the King is always ready to
   receive His rebel subjects and He is a God ready to pardon. "Kiss the
   Son lest He be angry, and you perish from the way when His wrath is
   kindled but a little." "Blessed are all they that put their trust in
   Him." That is the way of reconciliation--to put your trust in Him. And
   if you do put your trust in His dear Son, you are reconciled to Him!
   You shall be maintained out of His palace, and then, I trust, you will
   live to His Glory. Amen and amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 119:49-64.
     __________________________________________________________________

Wonders

   (No. 1098)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 23, 1873,

   BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And praise the name of the Lord your God, that has dealt wondrously
   with you." Joel 2:26.

   IN the case which is particularly mentioned in this chapter, the nation
   of Israel had very grievously gone astray and therefore they were
   visited by a very remarkable chastisement. An unusual plague of locusts
   devoured all the fruit of the field and the people were vexed with a
   sore famine. The day of the Lord was very terrible and none of them
   could abide it. The Prophet Joel was commissioned to exhort them to
   repentance and if, indeed, they listened to his earnest entreaties
   their later history was bright with mercy. By God's good hand upon
   them, they were brought to repentance--they wept and cried to God and
   then the same God who with His left hand had been wondrous in
   chastisement, was, with His right hand, equally wonderful in blessing
   and enriching them.

   He loaded their floors with wheat and made their vats to overflow with
   wine and oil. He restored unto them the years which the locust had
   eaten, so that they ate in plenty and were satisfied and praised the
   name of the Lord, who had dealt wondrously with them. He dealt with
   then by way of wonders when He smote them and by way of wonders when He
   returned to them in mercy. It was no unusual thing for the nation of
   Israel to meet with wonders--they were cradled in prodigies, they grew
   up amid miracles, they dwelt among marvels--the history of the favored
   tribes is a long list of miracles.

   Do you not remember how the Lord brought them out of Egypt with a high
   hand and with an outstretched arm, what marvelous things He did among
   the sons of Ham and what wonders He worked in the fields of Zoan? By
   wonders they were led out of Egypt and brought through the Red Sea,
   upon whose shore they sang triumphantly, "Who is like unto You O Lord,
   among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, fearful in
   praises, doing wonders?" Their course in the great howling wilderness
   for 40 years was a march of wonders!

   When the manna dropped from Heaven and the water leaped from the Rock,
   the Lord dealt wondrously with them. There was not a single day of the
   40 years which did not open and close with wonders--the day was shaded
   by the cloudy pillar and the night glowed with the light of the fiery
   cloud! Nor when the desert journey was over did God's wonders cease.
   The river was divided before them. What ailed you, O Jordan, that you
   were driven back? They entered into their land and began its conquest
   by a wonder, for the walls of Jericho fell flat to the ground--and they
   continued its conquest by the same marvelous power, for mighty kings
   fled before them and the sun and the moon stood still while they smote
   the hostile armies!

   When they had driven out the Canaanites and were established in the
   land of promise, they sinned greatly, but what wonders of deliverance
   God worked for them when they cried to Him in their trouble! You have
   but to remember the names of Gideon and of Barak, of Jephtha and of
   Samson and you see before you wonder after wonder! The Lord dealt
   wondrously with them! In all this the Israelites were a type of true
   Believers, for with all His chosen ones the Lord has dealt wondrously.
   We frequently hear the complaint that we live in an age of dullness--we
   have no adventures now and events are few. Happy are we that it is so,
   for it has been well said--"Blessed are the times which have no
   history."

   If peace and prosperity are commonplace, long may the commonplace
   continue! But, indeed, no thoughtful man's life is uninteresting or
   barren of marvels. A life real and earnest cannot be devoid of
   memorable occurrences. He who thinks so must either be unspiritual or
   he must be oblivious of his own inner history--he must be like the
   tribes in the wilderness, of whom it is written, "They forget the works
   of the Lord, and the wonders which He has showed them." Foolish people
   run to fiction for wonders, but gracious men can tell far greater
   wonders, upon which the words, "NO FICTION," might be written in
   capital letters.

   The wonders which we can speak of far surpass the inventions of
   imagination--when we recount them we may appear unto men to dream, but
   in very truth no dreamer could dream after such a fashion! Speak of
   "Arabian Nights," English days and nights have far exceeded them in
   marvel! "God does great things past finding out, and wonders without
   number." I have seen a volume entitled, "The World of Wonders," and
   another named, "Ten Thousand Wonderful Things." The Believer is within
   himself a world of wonders and his life reveals 10,000 wonderful
   things. Mysteries, riddles, paradoxes and miracles make up Christian
   experience!

   God has dealt wondrously with us! Of these wonders I shall try and
   speak at this time, according to that precept of David--"Talk you of
   all His wondrous works," and I shall dwell upon them after the
   following manner--first, we shall testify that God's dealings toward us
   have been full of wonder and lead us to praise Him as Jehovah, our God.
   Secondly, we shall remark that because of this, we ought to look for
   wonders in the future, and if I may speak so paradoxically, it should
   not be wonderful to us to see wonders. And, then, thirdly, we shall
   close by observing that in a future state we shall yet more clearly see
   that Jehovah has dealt wondrously with us.

   I. THE LORD'S DEALINGS WITH US UP TILL NOW HAVE BEEN FULL OF WONDER AND
   LEAD US TO PRAISE HIM. Let us speak of what we know and have tasted and
   handled. The Lord has dealt wonderfully toward us. Begin at the
   beginning. It was no small wonder that He should love us before the
   earth was. There were many other things to exercise Jehovah's thought
   besides thinking upon man--"What is man, that You are mindful of him?"
   And if He must think of man there were many kinds of thoughts that the
   Lord might have had towards man besides thoughts of love. Yet the Lord
   was mindful of us and though we are poor and needy, the Lord thinks
   upon us.

   "How precious also are Your thoughts unto me, O God; how great is the
   sum of them!" Why were they thoughts of love? Admiring gratitude gives
   us the only reply. And if they must be thoughts of love, yet it is a
   wonder of wonders that they should be thoughts of love to me! Each
   Christian will feel it to be so in his own personal case--"Why did
   Divine love settle itself upon me?" Well might we say of our God what
   David said of Jonathan, "Your love to me was wonderful." The song of
   the Virgin may be upon each one of our lips, "He has put down the
   mighty from their seat, and has exalted them of low degree." He has
   thought of us who were inconsiderable, while the great ones of the
   earth have been passed by.

   Eternal love in its sovereignty is a marvel and comes from the Lord of
   Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working. That
   Divine love should have continued faithful notwithstanding our
   unworthiness of it and the provocations by which we have tried it, is
   another wonder! The immutability of His counsel calls for adoring
   wonder. Has there been a day since we have been responsible for our
   actions in which we have not tested the faithfulness of God by our
   transgressions? The children of Israel for 40 years provoked God in the
   wilderness--were they not most sadly the prototypes of ourselves? Yet
   never, never has the Lord paused or changed in His love. As it is said
   of our blessed Redeemer, "Having loved His own who were in the world,
   He loved them to the end." And so is it true that the "Father Himself
   loves you," and rests in His love.

   If the Divine love is, in itself, a wonder, Brothers and Sisters, it is
   equally a wonder that, in consequence of this love, God should enter
   into Covenant with us. He has promised us a thousand mercies and He has
   engaged Himself to the performance of those promises in a remarkable
   way which increases the consolation of the promise. He has given us His
   oath--"I have made a covenant with My chosen; I have sworn unto David,
   My servant." Now, by David is meant the Lord Jesus Christ, and God has
   entered into covenant with us in the Person of the Son of David--a
   covenant ordered in all things and sure, confirmed by oath, and sealed
   by blood--by which He has bound Himself, by His own word and oath, that
   in blessing, He will bless us and glorify His Son in us.

   Behold and wonder--the Infinite enters into covenant with the
   finite--the Holy engages Himself to sinners! We well may sit before the
   Lord as David did, in astonishment, and then say from our heart of
   hearts, "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house that You have
   brought me up to now?" It is equally wonderful that a part of the
   Covenant should run thus--"I will be a Father unto them, and they shall
   be My sons and daughters, says the Lord God Almighty." If God wanted
   sons, beside the Only-Begotten, He might have chosen yon bright seraphs
   who outshine the sun! Why did He look here, upon this ant hill, to
   elect a seed out of such ants as we are? Why did He come down in the
   Person of His Son to make a match with our frail humanity?

   O, matchless Grace, that God should adopt for His children those who
   were heirs of wrath even as others! Behold, of these stones He has not
   only raised up children unto Abraham, but unto Himself also--"Behold,
   what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be
   called the sons of God." Beloved, let us admire and wonder, that being
   His sons and daughters, the Lord should stake His honor upon the
   bringing of us securely to Heaven. For in the Covenant He has pledged
   all His attributes for His people's security. He cannot be a glorious
   God unless His people ultimately are a glorified people! He cannot be
   true unless His people are kept to the end, for He has pledged His
   honor for their safety.

   Jesus has said, "I give unto My sheep eternal life, and they shall
   never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of My hands." Yes, the
   Lord Himself has declared that, "Israel shall be saved in the Lord with
   an everlasting salvation, they shall not be ashamed nor confounded
   world without end." Heaven and earth shall pass away, but God's Word
   shall not fail. Sun and moon shall cease their shining, but He will not
   alter the thing which has gone forth from His lips. Has He said, and
   shall He not do it? Has He spoken, and shall He not make it good? By
   shifting the kaleidoscope we shall get another view of the same
   matchless wonders. The Lord has acted wondrously for us. Having loved
   us and covenanted with us, He gave us His Only-Begotten Son to be born
   in our nature and, in that nature, to suffer even unto death!

   I will not attempt to show you that this is a wonder. I believe that
   the angels, though they have known of the Incarnation nearly these
   1,900 years, have never ceased from astonishment for one single moment.
   That God, the Word, should be made flesh and should dwell among us and
   that He, at last, should bleed and die, excels everything that is
   wonderful besides! That Jesus Christ, the King of kings, should be a
   Servant of servants! That He who wrapped the earth in the swaddling
   bands of ocean and spread upon the firmament its vesture of blue should
   gird Himself with a towel and wash His disciples' feet, is, beyond
   measure, a wonder!

   Yet this sacred office He is virtually fulfilling every day in His
   perpetual intercession for His people and in all His acts of love
   towards them. This is, indeed, dealing wondrously with us! In the gift
   of the Lord Jesus we have obtained pardon, justification,
   sanctification and eternal life--all of which contain a mine of
   wonders! Perhaps to penitent hearts the chief of all these is the
   forgiveness of sin and of such sins as ours--

   "Great God of wonders! All Your ways

   Are matchless, God-like, and Divine!

   But the fair glories of Your Grace

   More God-like and unrivalled shine.

   Who is a pardoning Godlike You?

   Or who has Grace so rich and free?

   In wonder lost, with trembling joy

   We take the pardon of our God

   Pardon for crimes of deepest dye

   A pardon bought with Jesus' blood

   Who is a pardoning Godlike You?

   Or who has Grace so rich and free?" Having given us His Son, the Lord
   has also, in Him, given us all things!

   I put these things into words and sum them up, but, indeed, there is an
   ocean of thought in every syllable I utter, for the Lord has given us
   this world and worlds to come! He has given us earth and Heaven! He has
   given us time and eternity! "All are yours, and you are Christ's, and
   Christ is God's." Believer, there is nothing in Providence but what is
   yours, for, "All things work together for good to them that love God,
   to them that are the called according to His purpose." That which looks
   like evil is good to you and the good has a goodness in it which you do
   not yet perceive--an inner core of excellent mercy which will be opened
   up for you in due time through the abounding wisdom of God.

   Walk now abroad like Abraham of old and lift up your eyes to the north
   and to the south, and to the east and to the west, for all this has God
   given you in giving you His Son! He has dealt wondrously with us in
   this respect. He has made the angels to be our servitors, glad to wait
   upon us and to bear us up in their hands lest we dash our feet against
   a stone. Making the angels to be our servants, He has made the angels'
   home to be our home, only He has brightened it with special glory for
   us. It is not written that many mansions are prepared especially for
   angels, but Jesus our Lord has gone

   before to prepare a place for us, made ready especially for our
   delight. Has He not said it--"I go to prepare a place for you?" To
   crown all, He has not given us merely the angels of Heaven, and Heaven
   itself, and Jesus to prepare a place for us, but He has given us
   Himself to be our God, for, "The Lord is my portion, says my soul," and
   He has confirmed it--"I will be their God, and they shall be My
   people." He has dealt wondrously for us, then.

   Beloved, I shall now ask you to look at your own experience a little,
   you that know the Lord, when I remind you that the Lord has worked
   wonders in us. A little while ago we were dead. He made us live! We
   were loathsome lepers and He made us whole! We were blind and He gave
   us sight! We were lame and He made us leap! We were prisoners and He
   set us free! We were condemned and He justified us by His Grace!
   Marvelous were the changes which He worked in us--we marveled while we
   felt them! We wondered to feel the hardness of our heart removed! Years
   ago, nothing could move us, neither terrors nor love could stir us, but
   the Lord came and smote us as Moses smote the rock and straightway the
   waters of penitence gushed out--no, the rock itself became a standing
   pool!

   What a change the Grace of God makes in the matter of repentance! The
   very man who was like adamant one day, becomes like wax the next. And
   he who never cared for God, nor wept for sin, loathes and abhors
   himself in the deepest and most humble contrition! Then, blessed be
   God, another wonderful change comes over him, for the man whom you saw
   broken in heart for sin, unable to derive a grain of comfort from
   anything around him, all of a sudden believes on the name of Jesus as
   it is brought home with power to his soul by the Holy Spirit! And
   straightway he wipes his eyes and his mourning is turned to dancing! He
   becomes supremely happy through faith and breaks forth with such songs
   as this--

   "I will praise You every day,

   Now Your anger's turned away;

   Comfortable thoughts arise,

   From the bleeding Sacrifice."

   Have not your souls, at times, been as hard and cold as marble and yet
   all of a sudden they have dissolved as ice melts in the sun? Has not
   your soul been tossed up and down like the Atlantic in a rage and yet
   been suddenly made smooth as a "molten looking glass" by God's wondrous
   hands? Your experience within you, I am sure, is a verification of the
   statement that Jehovah your "God has dealt wondrously with you." What
   wonderful conflicts our souls have known! What wonderful victories we
   have won through Divine Grace! Immortal sins, as they seemed to be,
   have received their deadly wound--unconquerable lusts have been made to
   bite the dust. Our victories shall never be forgotten, but the crown of
   them shall be put upon the head of Him who enabled us to be more than
   conquerors.

   And what wonderful Revelations God has granted to us! Has He not full
   often poured a flood of light upon a Truth we saw but dimly before and
   made our spirit leap for joy? He has opened our eyes to behold wondrous
   things out of His Law. Why, I bear witness that sometimes when my Lord
   Jesus Christ, Himself, has been revealed in my soul, I have been unable
   to collect my thoughts of joy, much less to put them into language that
   should make them intelligible to other people, for the glory and the
   beauty are transcendent, and the love and the fellowship of Christ are
   transporting, ecstatic, ravishing--they bear the soul away!

   These wonders of Revelation bring with them wonders of consolation.
   Have we not seen Christians dying full of life? Have we not seen them
   sinking in body, but soaring in soul--sick, weak, feeble, panting for
   their breath--and yet full of glory, ready to burst with the near wine
   of the kingdom that has been poured into their frail vessels? Have we
   not heard some of them sing between their groans such songs as only
   God's sweet love could have taught them? The angels could sing no
   sweeter songs and assuredly they know no sweeter themes! Yes, Beloved,
   our inner experience has been full of wonders. We have committed
   terrible sins and suffered awful sorrows, but we have received
   wonderful pardons and enjoyed wonderful raptures!

   We have passed through bloody fights, but we have gained wonderful
   victories! Black has been our darkness, but we have seen marvelous
   light! Coleridge has said, "that in wonder all philosophy begins, in
   wonder it ends, and wonder fills the inner space." Truly I may say the
   same of all vital godliness! Another has said that, "the wise man only
   wonders once in his life, but that is always." The same may be affirmed
   of the man made wise unto salvation! It may be true that our first
   wonder is born of ignorance and, at any rate, much of ignorance mingles
   surprise with it. But certainly, afterwards, our wonder becomes the
   parent of adoration. We wonder when we grow in Grace, not because we do
   not know, but we wonder at what we do know of amazing love and Grace.

   Our little children look up to the stars and think them little pinholes
   in the sky and they say--

   "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are."

   But when the astronomer fits his glass to his eye and peers upon those
   mighty orbs, he says with greater truth, "How I wonder what you are!"
   Man's wonder grows with his knowledge! As he wades into the river of
   wisdom he is less and less able to keep the foothold of calm reason and
   is more and more liable to be lifted up and carried off his feet by the
   current. It is so with Christian experience--the more we know of God,
   the more wonderful His dealings to us appear.

   Now, Beloved, I must ask you, once again, to consider that, as the Lord
   has dealt wondrously towards us, wondrously for us, and wondrously in
   us, so He has also dealt wondrously by us. What a field of battle, what
   a throne of victory the person of a poor child of God often becomes!
   Why, in this narrow plot of human clay, this little Isle of Man, this
   United Kingdom of soul and body, the powers of Heaven and Hell have
   mustered all their armies on many a day for conflict and God and His
   Grace and Truth have fought with Satan in our hearts, and, blessed be
   God, on that battlefield God has won many a victory over the allied
   armies of the world, the flesh and the devil!

   In the plains of Mansoul, Michael and his angels have fought against
   the dragon and his angels--and the old dragon has been defeated and led
   captive. We have been garrisoned against besieging sins, delivered by
   force of heavenly arms from the power of our corruptions and brought
   forth by Sovereign Grace to delight in the Lord our God. When we get to
   Heaven we shall be "men wondered at," set for signs and wonders
   forever, immortal witnesses of boundless Grace! We shall publish
   abroad, in the celestial streets, the "deeds of infinite love," to the
   intent that now unto the principalities and powers in the heavenly
   places should be made known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God,
   according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our
   Lord.

   Will they not--the angels--say to one another, "Here are men and women
   who were tempted in a thousand ways, who carried about with them bodies
   of sin and death, who were tried with all sorts of afflictions and
   passed through much tribulation--but see what they are! See how God has
   triumphed in them! See how He has defeated the Evil One and overcome
   the powers of evil--for these tempted ones have come through great
   tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the
   blood of the Lamb! There is not one in whom God has been defeated!
   There is not one in whom the eternal purpose has failed! There is not
   one in whom electing love has been baffled! There is not one in whom
   the power of Christ's blood has been ineffectual! There is not one unto
   whom the Spirit came without winning a complete victory! Let us praise
   our God anew and sing--'Worthy is the Lamb.' "

   Our God has also worked wondrously by some of us, fulfilling His
   promise, "the people that do know their God shall be strong and do
   exploits." His strength has been perfect in our weakness. There be some
   among us whose lips have fed many and yet they confess themselves to be
   emptiness itself--their word has brought life to the dead, yet in
   themselves they have no might--they have scattered the King's enemies
   although they are by nature weak as water. God's ministers are but
   trumpets of rams' horns, yet when God has blown through them the blast
   has made the walls of Jericho to rock, and reel, and even fall to the
   ground! They are but lamps enclosed in earthen pitchers and yet by them
   Midian has been routed. Glory be to the name of Jehovah our God for
   this!

   Thus you see God has done wondrously by us. Praise Him! Praise Him!
   Shall we pause and sing a Psalm of praise now? Our time would fail for
   that, but O, you people, praise Him! O you that know His wonders praise
   Him! Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has redeemed out of
   the hand of the enemy! Let them sacrifice the sacrifices of
   thanksgiving and bless the name of the Lord--"You shall bless Jehovah
   your God, for He has dealt wondrously with you."--

   "Let the redeemed of the Lord The wonders of His Grace record How great
   His works! How kind His ways! Let every tongue pronounce His praise."
   II. Our second and practical point is this--THEREFORE WE OUGHT TO
   EXPECT WONDERS. I shall but be able to give hints here. Do you labor
   this morning, any of you, under a horrible sense of your sinfulness? Do
   you seem, to yourselves, to be the blackest of all unpardoned souls,
   the nearest to being damned, already, of all living beings? Do you
   think that it would be the greatest wonder that was ever worked since
   the world began if you were saved?

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, I have a most precious thought to drop into
   your ear (may the Holy Spirit drop it into your heart)--"The Lord is a
   God of wonders: He only does wondrous things." He delights to find in
   our sin and misery,

   room and opportunity for wonders of Grace. Cast yourself upon the mercy
   of our matchless God and He will make you as much a wonder of Grace as
   you have been a wonder of sin! Possibly some are saying, "I do not feel
   my sin as I should. I wish I did. I feel stupid and insensible--if I
   feel anything, it is only a sort of regret that I do not feel at all."

   My dear Brothers and Sisters, you will be a wonder, too, if God
   quickens you and makes you tender of heart. In you, too, He finds room
   for Divine Grace. He quickens the dead. He kills and makes alive. He
   wounds and He heals. Cry to the Lord to make you sensitive through His
   wounding and killing work. If your heart is cold as ice, ask Him to
   melt it, for it is written, "He sends out His Word and melts them." Is
   it not promised in His own Covenant, "I will take away the stony heart
   out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh?" The Lord of
   Love delights to work these transformations!

   Do you feel dreadfully depressed in spirit? Have you been long so? Are
   you one of those who mourn without the light of the sun? Would it not
   be a great marvel if you should become one of the happiest of God's
   people? It would. Therefore I believe you will be, for God delights to
   work wonders. Out of the innermost prison He can bring His servants. He
   made Paul and Silas sing in the inner dungeon and then he brought them
   out! He can make you sing now and bring you out into clear full
   liberty, and that on a sudden and today--"The Lord looses the
   prisoners; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord raises them
   that He bowed down." The prisoners of the Lord shall not be prisoners
   forever. There is a jail delivery coming and they shall leap for joy.

   Are you lying at death's door? Do you cry like Heman, "My soul is full
   of troubles and my life draws near unto the grave"? Perhaps you are
   sick in body. Possibly you are distracted in mind and you are ready to
   die--and therefore you think that it is all over with you. What a
   desperate case yours seems! It would be a wonderful thing if you should
   yet obtain light and comfort, would it not? Again, let me remind you
   that if it would be wonderful, it is all the more probable with the
   Lord. He is full of compassion and He delights in mercy! The Lord heals
   the broken in heart and binds up their wounds. Wonderful are His ways
   of consoling His mourners--great is His wisdom and prudence in devising
   ways to bring back His banished ones. Therefore, ascribe you greatness
   unto our God and look for much mercy. Believe in God for boundless
   loving kindnesses.

   If I preached a little Christ for little sinners, some of you would be
   wise to go somewhere else. But since I have Divine warrant for
   preaching a great Savior for great sinners who is able to help us
   through great difficulties, and to overcome great sins--why, He is the
   very Savior for you! O, bless Him and love Him! Trust Him and He will
   work wonders in your spirit. Possibly I speak this morning to one who
   has desperately backslidden. It is years ago since you knew the Truth
   and you have, by your sins, fastened upon your soul fetters of iron.
   Well, the Lord whom you have grieved is full of compassion and can take
   those fetters off! Yes, He can break the gates of brass and cut in
   sunder the bars of iron. Wonders of deliverance can the Lord work for
   His imprisoned children!

   "Ah," cries another, "but my case is merely a commonplace one! There is
   nothing remarkable about me." My dear Friend, would not it be a
   wonderful thing if God were to save such a commonplace and
   insignificant person as you are? Well, rest in Him! Trust in Him and
   there shall be wonderful works worked for you, also--you shall be one
   of the men wondered at--in whom God's Grace shall be fully revealed.
   Let me say in one word, if there is anything about any of you, Beloved,
   at this time which seems to render your salvation difficult and even
   impossible. If there is anything in your case that renders it hopeless
   and desperate--whether it be in your temporals or your spirituals--I
   would recommend you go with your case to the God of Wonders and see
   whether or not He does not, before long, make you say, "The Lord has
   dealt wondrously with me."

   To sinners who believe in Jesus, salvation is promised! And they shall
   have it! And to saints who trust in the Lord, deliverance is
   promised--and delivered they must be! God will work 10,000 wonders and
   He will never allow His promise to fall to the ground! I would
   earnestly remind all God's servants that we ought to expect wonderful
   answers to prayer and we should pray as if we expected the God of
   Wonders to hear us. We ought to expect, in times of trouble, to see
   wonderful deliverances! If we seem quite shut up, we should then be
   sure of escaping, for it would be a wonder if we did, and therefore God
   will work it. We have grounds for expecting wonderful consolations if
   we are about to endure great troubles. We should look for wonderful
   joys between here and Heaven--we ought to be on our watchtower looking
   for wonderful discoveries of Christ's beauties and His love. In fact we
   should always be looking for wonders and should wonder if wonders do
   not happen!

   In the Church we are permitted to expect wonders. We are too much in
   the habit of going to the assembly for worship and sitting down and
   hearing sermons--and if half-a-dozen are converted we are
   astonished--but we ought to expect thousands to be converted! If the
   Church ever has faith enough to expect great things, she will see great
   things. When the Church falls upon dark times and error mars her
   beauty, we may expect God to work wonders to purify and exalt her. In
   the darkest medieval times God found His witnesses--and when the light
   threatened to die out, then Luther came--a man raised up of God, and a
   train of glorious men followed behind him. Never tremble, never
   despair, never be afraid. "The God of Hosts is with us, the God of
   Jacob is our refuge."

   Why, Brothers and Sisters, we worship the God of wonders, "Who only
   does wondrous things." We have a Savior of wonders! Is not His name
   called The Wonderful? And did not Stephen say of Him, "Jesus of
   Nazareth, a Man approved of God among you by signs and wonders"? Then
   the Holy Spirit also works wonders! He came at first with rushing wind
   and cloven tongues and miraculous gifts--and even now His wonders have
   not ceased--they have only become spiritual, instead of physical! But
   the Spirit of God is working mightily! I bear my own personal witness
   that God has worked wonders for us, far beyond all human
   ability--wonders which we could not perform--no, wonders that we did
   not deserve!

   What is more, He has worked wonders that we could not have expected.
   And what is more, wonders that we could not have imagined! What is
   more, wonders which even now that they have happened we cannot
   comprehend! And I may add, wonders which throughout eternity we shall
   never be able to praise God sufficiently for, though we spend our whole
   existence in wondering and adoring the wonder-working God! "How great
   are His signs! How mighty are His wonders! His kingdom is an
   everlasting kingdom and His dominion from generation to generation."

   III. Our last remark is this, that IN THE FUTURE STATE THESE WONDERS
   WILL BECOME MANIFEST TO

   US. If we were to read our Bibles attentively, we should be astonished
   to find how much there is about Heaven in them and how, after all, it
   is not true that we have mere gleams and glimpses. Studiously
   investigated, the Word of God tells us wondrous things concerning the
   world to come. Beloved, we shall, in the better land, wonder more than
   we do here, for we shall there understand far more than we do now and
   shall have clearer views and wider prospects.

   Our present capacities are narrow. There is scant room within our mind
   for great things. But in yon bright world the veil shall be taken off
   and we shall know even as we are known, seeing no more in part and
   through a glass darkly-- in the heavenly mansions our growing knowledge
   will excite in us increasing wonder--and we shall sing, there, the
   praise of Him who has dealt wondrously with us. I believe the poet was
   right when he said--

   "And sing with wonder and surprise Your loving kindness in the skies."
   In the abodes of endless bliss we shall see what we escaped. We shall
   look down from Abraham's bosom and see the sinner afar off in torment!
   It will be a dreadful sight, but O, with what hearts of gratitude shall
   we bless redeeming Love, knowing, each one of us, that were it not for
   Divine Grace that fate so desperate had been ours!

   In the Heaven of perfect holiness we shall know the true character of
   sin. When we shall see the brightness of God's Glory and the splendor
   of His holiness, sin will appear in all its hideousness and we shall
   adore that matchless Mercy which pardoned us. And we shall bless the
   precious blood which cleansed us though we had been defiled with such
   pollution. We think we praise God for forgiving our iniquities, and no
   doubt we do, in some measure, but, compared with the blessing that
   saints in Heaven render to God for deliverance from sin, our praise is
   as nothing! We do not know sin as they know it--we do not understand
   its blackness as they perceive it. Up in Heaven, too, we shall see our
   life as a whole and we shall see God's dealings with us on earth as a
   whole. A great many matters which now appear mysterious and complex
   concerning which we can only walk by faith, for our reason is baffled,
   will be so clear to us as to excite joyous songs in Heaven.

   "Now I see why I was laid aside when I wanted to be busy in God's work.
   Now I see why that dear child, whom I hoped to have had spared to me as
   a stay for my old age, was taken away. Now I understand why my business
   was suffered to fail. Now I comprehend why that foul mouth was allowed
   to be opened against me. Now I comprehend why I was assailed with
   inward fears and was allowed to go tremblingly all my days." Such will
   be our confessions when the day dawns and the shadows flee away. Then
   we shall say and sing--"He has dealt wondrously with us." We shall feel
   that the best was done for us that even Eternal Wisdom could devise and
   we shall bless the name of the Lord. Reflect a moment,

   dear Friends and see further reasons for everlasting wondering. In
   Heaven we shall see what God has lifted us up to be. We talk of being
   sons of God. Did we ever realize that? We speak of Heaven being
   ours--but do we know what we mean by that language? Truly, "it does not
   yet appear what we shall be," neither has eye seen nor ear heard the
   things which God has prepared for them that love Him.

   When we shall stand on the sea of glass and hear the harpers and join
   their endless music. When we shall see Him who laid down His life for
   us--yes, see Him as He is--when we shall behold the Lamb of God, who by
   His bowing to death, lifted us up from our deadly fall. When we shall
   see Him, who by stripping Himself of His royalties robed us with
   splendors--we shall be amazed, astounded and overwhelmed with wonder!
   Above all, when we shall see God Himself, what will be our wonder!

   When our minds shall be able to behold the Infinite Jehovah and hear
   His voice. When we shall be brought to speak with God similarly and bow
   before that Throne whose brightness today would blind us if we could
   gaze upon it. When we shall know Him who fills all in all, I will not
   say we shall be amazed to think He loved us, there is no need to say
   that--I will not say we shall be filled with astonishment to think He
   ever saved us! I need not say that--but that He should permit us to be
   His sons and daughters and should, at such an expense, bring us to
   dwell with Him forever and make us partakers of His own Nature, one
   with His own Son--this will plunge us in adoring wonder forever and we
   shall, "praise the name of Jehovah our God, who has dealt wondrously
   with us."

   I beg you to begin the music here. I long, myself, to spend my time
   perpetually in adoring the God of wonders! I want, Brothers and
   Sisters, that we should rise above the spirit of discontent, the spirit
   that finds fault and mourns, and moans, and laments, and makes Massahs
   and Meribahs by which to provoke the Lord our God. Let it not be said
   of us, "They soon forget His wonders," but let us go on singing unto
   Him, "who only does wondrous things," speaking to one another of all
   His wondrous works and in our souls day by day and hour by hour
   admiring our God, world without end. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Man Of Sorrows

   (No. 1099)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 2, 1873,

   BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "A Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." Isaiah 53:3.

   POSSIBLY a murmur will pass round the congregation, "This is a dreary
   subject and a mournful theme." But, O Beloved, it is not so, for great
   as were the woes of our Redeemer, they are all over now and are to be
   looked back upon with sacred triumph! However severe the struggle, the
   victory has been won! The laboring vessel was severely tossed by the
   waves, but she has now entered into the desired haven. Our Savior is no
   longer in Gethsemane agonizing, or upon the Cross dying--the crown of
   thorns has been replaced by many crowns of sovereignty! The nails and
   the spear have given way to the scepter!

   Nor is this all, for though the suffering is ended, the blessed results
   never end. We may remember the travail, for the Man Child is born into
   the world. The sowing in tears is followed by a reaping in joy. The
   bruising of the heel of the woman's Seed is well recompensed by the
   breaking of the serpent's head. It is pleasant to hear of battles
   fought when a decisive victory has ended war and established peace. So
   that the double refection that all the work of suffering is finished by
   the Redeemer and that, from now on He beholds the success of all His
   labors, we shall rejoice even while we enter into fellowship with His
   sufferings! Let it never be forgotten that the subject of the sorrows
   of the Savior has proven to be more efficacious for comfort to mourners
   than any other theme in the compass of Revelation, or out of it.

   Even the glories of Christ afford no such consolation to afflicted
   spirits as the sufferings of Christ. Christ is in all attitudes the
   consolation of Israel, but He is most so as the Man of Sorrows.
   Troubled spirits turn not so much to Bethlehem as to Calvary--they
   prefer Gethsemane to Nazareth. The afflicted do not so much look for
   comfort in Christ as He will come a second time in splendor of state,
   as to Christ as He came the first time, a weary Man and full of woes.
   The passion flower yields us the best perfume. The tree of the Cross
   bleeds the most healing balm. Like in this case cures like, for there
   is no remedy for sorrow beneath the sun like the sorrows of Immanuel.

   As Aaron's rod swallowed up all the other rods, so the griefs of Jesus
   make our griefs disappear. Thus you see that in the black soil of our
   subject, light is sown for the righteous--light which springs up for
   those who sit in darkness and in the region of the shadow of death. Let
   us go, then, without reluctance to the house of mourning and commune
   with "The Chief Mourner," who above all others could say, "I am the Man
   that has seen affliction." We will not stray from our text this
   morning, but keep to it so closely as even to dwell upon each one of
   its words. The words shall give us our divisions--"A Man." "A Man of
   sorrows." "Acquainted with grief."

   I. "A Man." There is no novelty to anyone here present in the doctrine
   of the real and actual Manhood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But, although
   there is nothing novel in it, there is everything important in it.
   Therefore, let us hear it again. This is one of those Gospel Church
   bells which must be rung every Sunday--this is one of those provisions
   of the Lord's household, which, like bread and salt, should be put upon
   the table at every spiritual meal. This is the manna which must fall
   every day round about the camp.

   We can never meditate too much upon Christ's blessed Person as God and
   as Man. Let us reflect that He who is here called a Man was certainly
   "very God of very God." "A Man," and, "a Man of sorrows," and yet at
   the same time, "God over all, blessed forever." He who was "despised
   and rejected of men" was beloved and adored by angels! And He, from
   whom men hid their faces in contempt, was worshipped by cherubim and
   seraphim! This is the great mystery of godliness. God was "manifest in
   the flesh." He who was God and was in the beginning with God, was made
   flesh and dwelt among us.

   The Highest stooped to become the Lowest. The Greatest took His place
   among the least. Strange, and needing all our faith to grasp it, yet it
   is true that He who sat upon the well of Sychar and said, "Give Me to
   drink," was none other

   than He who dug the channels of the ocean and poured into them the
   floods! Son of Mary, You are also Son of Jehovah! Man of the substance
   of Your mother, You are also essential Deity! We worship You this day
   in spirit and in truth! Remembering that Jesus Christ is God, it now
   behooves us to remember that His Manhood was none the less real and
   substantial. It differed from our own humanity in the absence of sin,
   but it differed in no other respect.

   It is idle to speculate upon a heavenly Manhood, as some have done, who
   have, by their very attempt at accuracy, been borne down by whirlpools
   of error. It is enough for us to know that the Lord was born of a
   woman, wrapped in swaddling bands, laid in a manger and needed to be
   nursed by His mother as any other little child. He grew in stature like
   any other human being and as a Man we know that He ate and drank, that
   He hungered and thirsted, rejoiced and sorrowed. His body could be
   touched and handled, wounded and made to bleed. He was no phantom, but
   a Man of flesh and blood even as ourselves. He was a Man needing sleep,
   requiring food, and subject to pain--and a Man who, in the end--yielded
   up His life to death.

   There may have been some distinction between His body and ours, for
   inasmuch as it was never defiled by sin, it was not capable of
   corruption. Otherwise in body and in soul, the Lord Jesus was perfect
   Man after the order of our manhood, "made in the likeness of sinful
   flesh," and we must think of Him under that aspect. Our temptation is
   to regard the Lord's humanity as something quite different from our
   own. We are apt to spiritualize it away and not to think of Him as
   really bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. All this is akin to
   grievous error--we may fancy that we are honoring Christ by such
   conceptions--but Christ is never honored by that which is not true. He
   was a Man, a real Man, a Man of our race, the Son of Man.

   Indeed, He was a representative Man, the second Adam--"As the children
   are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself took part of the
   same." "He made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of
   a Servant, and was made in the likeness of Man." Now this condescending
   participation in our Nature brings the Lord Jesus very near to us in
   relationship. Inasmuch as He was Man, though also God, He was,
   according to Hebrew Law, our goel--our kinsman, next of kin. Now it was
   according to the Law that if an inheritance had been lost, it was the
   right of the next of kin to redeem it. Our Lord Jesus exercised His
   legal right--seeing us sold into bondage and our inheritance taken from
   us--He came forward to redeem both us and all our lost estate.

   A blessed thing it was for us that we had such a Kinsman! When Ruth
   went to glean in the fields of Boaz, it was the most gracious
   circumstance in her life that Boaz turned out to be her next of kin.
   And we who have gleaned in the fields of Mercy praise the Lord that His
   Only-Begotten Son is the next of kin to us. He is our Brother, born for
   adversity. It would not have been consistent with Divine Justice for
   any other substitution to have been accepted for us, except that of a
   Man. Man sinned, and man must make reparation for the injury done to
   the Divine Honor. The breach of the Law was caused by man and by man
   must it be repaired--man had transgressed--man must be punished.

   It was not in the power of an angel to have said, "I will suffer for
   man"--for angelic sufferings would have made no amends for human sins.
   But the Man, the matchless Man, being the representative Man and of
   right by kinship allowed to redeem, stepped in, suffered what was due,
   made amends to injured Justice and thereby set us free! Glory be unto
   His blessed name! And now, Beloved, since the Lord thus saw in Christ's
   Manhood a suitableness to become our Redeemer, I trust that many here
   who have been under bondage to Satan will see in that same human Nature
   an attraction leading them to approach Him.

   Sinner, you have not to come to an absolute God. You are not bid to
   draw near to the consuming fire. You might well tremble to approach Him
   whom you have so grievously offended. But, there is a Man ordained to
   mediate between you and God, and if you would come to God, you must
   come through Him--the Man Christ Jesus. God out of Christ is terrible
   out of His holy places. He will by no means spare the guilty--but look
   at yonder Son of Man!--

   "His hand no thunder bears,

   No terror clothes His brow;

   No bolts to drive your guilty souls

   To fiercer flames below."

   He is a Man with hands full of blessing, eyes wet with tears of pity,
   lips overflowing with love and a heart melting with tenderness! See you
   not the gash in His side? Through that wound there is a highway to His
   heart and he who needs His compassion may soon excite it.

   O Sinners! The way to the Savior's heart is open and penitent seekers
   shall never be denied! Why should the most despairing be afraid to
   approach the Savior? He has deigned to assume the Character of the Lamb
   of God--I have never known even a little child that was afraid of a
   lamb! The most timorous will approach a lamb and Jesus used this
   argument when He said to every laboring and heavy-laden one, "Take My
   yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." I
   know you feel yourselves sad and trembling, but need you tremble in His
   Presence? If you are weak, your weakness will touch His sympathy, and
   your mournful inability will be an argument with His boundless mercy!

   If I were sick and might have my choice where I would lie, with a view
   to healing, I would say, place me where the best and kindest physician
   upon earth can see me! Put me where a man with great skill and equal
   tenderness will have me always beneath his eyes--I shall not long groan
   there in vain--if he can heal me he will. Sinner, place yourself, by an
   act of faith, beneath the Cross of Jesus! Look up to Him and say,
   "Blessed Physician, You whose wounds for me can heal me. Whose death
   for me can make me live. Look down upon me! You are Man. You know what
   man suffers. You are Man, will You let a man sink down to Hell who
   cries to You for help? You are a Man and You can save, and will You let
   a poor unworthy one who longs for mercy be driven into hopeless misery
   while he cries to You to let Your merits save

   him?"

   Oh, you guilty ones, have faith that you can reach the heart of Jesus!
   Sinner, fly to Jesus without fear! He waits to save! It is His office
   to receive sinners and reconcile them to God. Be thankful that you have
   not to go to God at the first, and as you are, but you are invited to
   come to Jesus Christ and through Him to the Father! May the Holy Spirit
   lead you to devout meditation upon the humility of our Lord and so may
   you find the door of life, the portal of peace, the gate of Heaven!

   Then let me add, before I leave this point, that every child of God
   ought, also, to be comforted by the fact that our Redeemer is one of
   our own race, seeing that He was made like unto His brethren that He
   might be a merciful and faithful High Priest. And He was tempted in all
   points, like as we are, that He might be able to succor them that are
   tempted. The sympathy of Jesus is the next most precious thing to His
   Sacrifice. I stood by the bedside of a Christian Brother the other day
   and he remarked, "I feel thankful to God that our Lord took our
   sicknesses." "Of course," said he, "the grand thing was, that He took
   our sins, but next to that, I, as a sufferer, feel grateful that He
   also took our sicknesses."

   Personally, I also bear witness that it has been to me, in seasons of
   great pain, superlatively comfortable to know that in every pang which
   racks His people, the Lord Jesus has a fellow feeling. We are not
   alone, for one like unto the Son of Man walks the furnace with us! The
   clouds which float over our sky have aforetime darkened the heavens for
   Him, also--

   "He knows what temptations mean, For He has felt the same."

   How completely it takes the bitterness out of grief to know that it
   once was suffered by Jesus! The Macedonian soldiers, it is said, made
   long forced marches which seemed to be beyond the power of mortal
   endurance--but the reason for their untiring energy lay in Alexander's
   presence. He was accustomed to walk with them and bear the same
   fatigue.

   If the king himself had been calcified like a Persian monarch in a
   palanquin in the midst of easy, luxurious state, the soldiers would
   soon have grown tired. But, when they looked upon the king of men
   himself, hungering when they hungered, thirsting when they thirsted,
   often putting aside the cup of water offered to him and passing it to a
   fellow soldier who looked more faint than himself, they could not dream
   of repining. Why, every Macedonian felt that he could endure any
   fatigue if Alexander could!

   This day, assuredly, we can bear poverty, slander, contempt, or bodily
   pain--death itself--because Jesus Christ our Lord has borne it! By His
   humiliation it shall become pleasure to be abased for His sake! By the
   spit that ran down His cheeks it shall become a fair thing to be made a
   mockery for Him! By the buffeting and the blindfolding it shall become
   an honor to be disgraced, and by the Cross it shall become life,
   itself, to surrender life for the sake of such a cause and so precious
   a Master! May the Man of Sorrows now appear to us and enable us to bear
   our sorrows cheerfully! If there is consolation anywhere, surely it is
   to be found in the delightful Presence of the Crucified--"A Man shall
   be a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest."

   II. We must pass on to dwell awhile upon the next words, "A MAN OF
   SORROWS." The expression is intended to be very emphatic. It is not "a
   sorrowful Man," but, "a Man of sorrows," as if He were made up of
   sorrows and they were

   constituent elements of His Being. Some are men of pleasure, others men
   of wealth, but He was "a Man of sorrows." He and sorrow might have
   changed names. He who saw Him, saw sorrow, and he who would see sorrow,
   must look on Him. "Behold, and see," He says, "if there was ever sorrow
   like unto My sorrow which was done unto Me." Our Lord is called the Man
   of Sorrows for peculiarity, for this was His peculiar token and special
   mark.

   We might well call Him, "a Man of holiness," for there was no fault in
   Him. Or a Man of labors, for He did His Father's business earnestly.
   Or, "a Man of eloquence," for never man spoke like this Man. We might
   right fittingly call Him in the language of our hymn, "The Man of
   Love," for never was there greater love than glowed in His heart.
   Still, conspicuous as all these and many other excellencies were, yet
   had we gazed upon Christ and been asked afterwards what was the most
   striking peculiarity in Him, we should have said His sorrows.

   The various parts of His Character were so singularly harmonious that
   no one quality predominated so as to become a leading feature. In His
   moral portrait, the eyes are perfect, but so, also, is the mouth. The
   cheeks are as beds of spices, but the lips, also are as lilies,
   dropping sweet-smelling myrrh. In Peter you see enthusiasm exaggerated
   at times into presumption. And in John, love for his Lord would call
   fire from Heaven on his foes. Deficiencies and exaggerations exist
   everywhere but in Jesus! He is the perfect Man, a whole Man, the Holy
   One of Israel. But there was a peculiarity, and it lay in the fact that
   "His visage was so marked more than any man, and His form more than the
   sons of men," through the excessive griefs which continually passed
   over His spirit.

   Tears were His insignia and the Cross His escutcheon. He was the
   warrior in black armor and not as now, the rider upon the white horse.
   He was the Lord of Grief, the Prince of Pain, the Emperor of Anguish, a
   "Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief."--

   "Oh! King of Grief! (A title strange, yet true, To You of all kings
   only due) Oh! King of Wounds! How shall I grieve for You, Who in all
   grief prevent me?"

   Is not the title, "Man of Sorrows," given to our Lord by way of
   eminence? He was not only sorrowful, but pre-eminent among the
   sorrowful! All men have a burden to bear, but His was heaviest of all!
   Who is there of our race that is quite free from sorrows? Search the
   whole earth through and everywhere the thorn and thistle will be
   found--and these have wounded everyone born of woman.

   High in the lofty places of the earth there is sorrow, for the royal
   widow weeps her lord. Down in the cottage where we fancy that nothing
   but content can reign, a thousand bitter tears are shed over dire
   penury and cruel oppression. In the sunniest climates the serpent
   creeps among the flowers. In the most fertile regions poisons flourish
   as well as wholesome herbs. Everywhere, "men must work and women must
   weep." There is sorrow on the sea and sadness on the land. But in this
   common lot, the "First-Born among many brethren" has more than a double
   portion! His cup is more bitter, His Baptism is more deep than the rest
   of the family! Common sufferers must give place, for none can match
   with Him in woe.

   Ordinary mourners may be content to tear their garments, but He,
   Himself, is torn in His affliction--they sip at Sorrow's bowl, but He
   drains it dry. He who was the most obedient Son smarted most under the
   rod when He was stricken of God and afflicted! No other of the smitten
   ones have sweat great drops of blood, or in the same bitterness of
   anguish, cried, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" The reasons
   for this superior sorrow may be found in the fact that with His sorrow
   there was no mixture of sin. Sin deserves sorrow, but it also blunts
   the edge of grief by rendering the soul untender and unsympathetic. We
   do not start at sin as Jesus did. We do not tremble at the sinner's
   doom as Jesus would. His was a perfect Nature which, because it knew no
   sin, was not in its element amid sorrow, but was like a land bird
   driven out to sea by the gale.

   To the robber, jail is his home and the prison fare is the meat to
   which he is accustomed. But to an innocent man a prison is misery and
   everything about it is strange and foreign. Our Lord's pure Nature was
   peculiarly sensitive of any contact with sin. We, alas, by the Fall,
   have lost much of that feeling! In proportion as we are sanctified, sin
   becomes the source of wretchedness to us. Jesus, being perfect, every
   sin pained Him much more than it would any of us. I have no doubt there
   are many persons in the world who could live merrily in the haunts of
   vice--could hear blasphemy without

   horror, view lust without disgust--and look on robbery or murder
   without abhorrence. But to many of us, an hour's familiarity with such
   abominations would be the severest punishment.

   A sentence in which the name of Jesus is blasphemed is torture to us of
   the most exquisite kind. The very mention of the shameful deeds of vice
   seizes us with horror. To live with the wicked would be a sufficient
   Hell to the righteous. David's prayer is full of agony where he cries,
   "Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men." But the
   perfect Jesus! What a grief the sight of sin must have caused Him! Our
   hands grow rough with toiling and our hearts with sinning--but our Lord
   was, as it were, like a man whose flesh was all one quivering wound--He
   was delicately sensitive of every touch of sin.

   We go through thorn brakes and briars of sin because we are clothed
   with indifference, but imagine a naked man, compelled to traverse a
   forest of briars--such was the Savior as to His moral sensitiveness. He
   could see sin where we cannot see it--and feel its heinousness as we
   cannot feel it. There was, therefore, more to grieve Him and He was
   more capable of being grieved. Side by side with His painful
   sensitiveness of the evil of sin was His gracious tenderness towards
   the sorrows of others. If we could know and enter into all the griefs
   of this congregation, it is probable that we would be of all men, most
   miserable. There are heartbreaks in this house this morning, which,
   could they find a tongue, would fill our heart with agony.

   We hear of poverty here, we see disease there, we observe bereavement
   and we mark distress. We note the fact that men are passing into the
   grave and, (ah, far more bitter grief), descending into Hell! But,
   somehow or other, either these become such common things that they do
   not stir us, or else we gradually harden to them. The Savior was always
   moved to sympathy with another's griefs, for His love was ever at
   flood-tide. All men's sorrows were His sorrows. His heart was so large
   that it was inevitable that He should become "a Man of sorrows." We
   remember that besides this, our Savior had a peculiar relationship to
   sin. He was not merely afflicted with the sight of it and saddened by
   perceiving its effects on others, but sin was actually laid upon Him
   and He was, Himself, numbered with the transgressors.

   And therefore He was called to bear the terrible blows of Divine
   Justice and suffered unknown, immeasurable agonies! His Godhead
   strengthened Him to suffer, else mere Manhood had failed. The wrath
   whose power no man knows spent itself on Him--"It pleased the Father to
   bruise Him, He has put Him to grief." Behold the Man, and marvel how
   vain it would be to seek His equal sorrow!

   The title of "Man of Sorrows," was also given to our Lord to indicate
   the constancy of His afflictions. He changed His place of abode, but He
   always lodged with Sorrow. Sorrow wove His swaddling bands and Sorrow
   His winding sheet. Born in a stable, Sorrow received Him and only on
   the Cross at His last breath did Sorrow part with Him. His disciples
   might forsake Him, but His sorrows would not leave Him. He was often
   alone without a man, but never alone without a grief. From the hour of
   His Baptism in Jordan, to the time of His Baptism in the pains of
   death, He always wore the sable robe and was "a Man of sorrows."

   He was also "a Man of sorrows," for the variety of His woes. He was a
   Man not of sorrow, only, but of "sorrows." All the sufferings of the
   body and of the soul were known to Him. The sorrows of the man who
   actively struggles to obey. The sorrows of the man who sits still and
   passively endures. The sorrows of the lofty He knew, for He was the
   King of Israel. The sorrows of the poor He knew, for He "had not where
   to lay His head." Sorrows relative and sorrows personal. Sorrows mental
   and sorrows spiritual. Sorrows of all kinds and degrees assailed Him.
   Affliction emptied his quiver upon Him, making His heart the target for
   all conceivable woes.

   Let us think a minute or two of some of those sufferings. Our Lord was
   a Man of sorrows as to His poverty. Oh, you who are in need, your need
   is not so abject as His--He had not where to lay His head, but you have
   at least some humble roof to shelter you. No one denies you a cup of
   water, but He sat upon the well at Samaria, and said, "I thirst." We
   read more than once that He hungered. His toil was so great that He was
   constantly weary and we read of one occasion where they took Him, "even
   as He was," into the boat--too faint was He to reach the boat
   Himself--but they carried Him as He was and laid Him down near the helm
   to sleep. But He had not much time for slumber, for they woke Him,
   saying, "Master, do You not care that we perish?"

   A hard life was His, with nothing of earthly comfort to make that life
   endurable. Remember, you who lament around the open grave, or weep in
   memory of graves newly filled--our Savior knew the heart-rending of
   bereavement. Jesus wept as He stood at the tomb of Lazarus. Perhaps the
   bitterest of His sorrows were those which were connected

   with His gracious work. He came as the Messiah sent of God on a mission
   of love and men rejected His claims. When He went to His own city where
   He had been brought up, and announced Himself, they would have cast Him
   headlong from the brow of the hill! It is a hard thing to come on an
   errand of disinterested love and then to meet with such ingratitude as
   that.

   Nor did they stay at cold rejection--they then proceeded to derision
   and to ridicule. There was no name of contempt which they did not pour
   upon Him. No, it was not merely contempt, but they preceded to
   falsehood, slander, and blasphemy. He was a drunk, they said--hear
   this, you angels, and be astonished! Yes, a wine-bibber did they call
   the blessed Prince of Life! They said He was in league with Beelzebub
   and had a devil, and was mad--whereas He had come to destroy the works
   of the devil!! They charged Him with every crime which their malice
   could suggest. There was not a word He spoke but they would wrest it.
   Not a doctrine but what they would misrepresent it. He could not speak
   but what they would find in His words some occasion against Him.

   And all the while He was doing nothing but seeking their advantage in
   all ways. When He was earnest against their vices it was out of pity
   for their souls. If He condemned their sins it was because their sins
   would destroy them. But His zeal against sin was always tempered with
   love for the souls of men. Was there ever Man so full of good-will to
   others who received such disgraceful treatment from those He longed to
   serve? As He proceeded in His life His sorrows multiplied. He preached
   and when men's hearts were hard, and they would not believe what He
   said, "He was grieved for the hardness of their hearts."

   He went about doing good and for His good works they took up stones to
   stone Him! Alas, they stoned His heart when they could not injure His
   body. He pleaded with them and plaintively declared His love and
   received, instead thereof, a remorseless and fiendish hatred. Slighted
   love has griefs of peculiar poignancy--many have died of hearts broken
   by ingratitude. Such love as the love of Jesus could not, for the sake
   of those it loved, bear to be slighted. It pined within itself because
   men did not know their own mercies and rejected their own salvation!
   His sorrow was not that men injured Him, but that they destroyed
   themselves! This it was that pulled up the sluices of His Soul and made
   His eyes overflow with tears--"O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How often would
   I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her chickens
   under her wings, and you would not."

   The lament is not for His own humiliation, but for their suicidal
   rejection of His Divine Grace! These were among the sorrows that He
   bore. But surely He found some solace with the few companions whom He
   had gathered around Him. He did, but for all that He must have found as
   much sorrow as solace in their company. They were dull scholars, they
   learned slowly. What they did learn they forgot. What they remembered
   they did not practice and what they practiced at one time they belied
   at another. They were miserable comforters for the Man of Sorrows. His
   was a lonely life, I mean that even when He was with His followers He
   was alone.

   He said to them once, "Could you not watch with Me one hour," but,
   indeed, He might have said the same to them all the hours of their
   lives, for even if they sympathized with Him to the utmost of their
   capacity, they could not enter into such griefs as His. A father in a
   house with many little children about him cannot tell his babes his
   griefs. If he did they would not comprehend him. What do they know of
   his anxious business transactions, or his crushing losses? Poor little
   things, their father does not wish they should be able to sympathize
   with him--he looks down upon them and rejoices that their toys will
   comfort them and that their little prattle will not be broken in upon
   by his great griefs.

   The Savior, from the very dignity of His Nature, must suffer alone. The
   mountainside with Christ upon it seems to me to be a suggestive symbol
   of His earthly life. His great soul lived in vast solitudes, sublime
   and terrible, and there, amid a midnight of trouble, His Spirit
   communed with the Father, no one being able to accompany Him into the
   dark glens and gloomy ravines of His unique experience. Of all His
   life's warfare He might have said in some senses, "of the people there
   was none with Me" and at the last it became literally true, for they
   all forsook Him--one denied Him and another betrayed Him, so that He
   trod the winepress alone.

   In the last crowning sorrows of His life, there came upon Him the penal
   inflictions from God--the punishment of our sin which was upon Him. He
   was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane by God's officers before the
   officers of the Jews had come near to Him. There on the ground He knelt
   and wrestled till the bloody sweat poured from every pore, and His soul
   was "exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." You have read the story
   of your Master's woes and know how He was hurried from bar to bar and
   treated with mingled scorn and cruelty before each judgment seat. When
   they

   had taken Him to Herod and to Pilate, and almost murdered Him with
   scourging, they brought Him forth and said, "Ecce Homo"--"Behold the
   Man."

   Their malice was not satisfied. They must go further, yet, and nail Him
   to His Cross and mock Him while fever parched His mouth and made Him
   feel as if His body were dissolved to dust. He cries out, "I thirst,"
   and is mocked with vinegar. You know the rest, but I would have you
   best remember that the sharpest scourging and severest griefs were all
   within--while the hand of God bruised Him and the iron rod of Justice
   broke Him, as it were, upon the wheel. He was fitly named a "Man of
   sorrows!"

   I feel as if I have no utterance, as if my tongue were tied, while
   trying to speak upon this subject. I cannot find goodly words worthy of
   my theme, yet I know that embellishments of language would degrade
   rather than adorn the agonies of my Lord. There let the Cross stand
   sublime in its simplicity! It needs no decoration. If I had wreaths of
   choicest flowers to hang about it, I would gladly place them there, and
   if instead of garlands of flowers, each flower could be a priceless
   gem, I would consider that the Cross deserved the whole. But as I have
   none of these I rejoice that the Cross, alone, in its naked simplicity,
   needs nothing from mortal speech. Turn to your bleeding Savior, O my
   Hearers. Continue gazing upon Him, and find in the "Man of Sorrows"
   your Lord and your God!

   III. And now the last word is, He was "ACQUAINTED WITH GRIEF." With
   griefHe had an intimate acquaintance. He did not know merely what it
   was in others, but it came home to Himself. We have read of grief. We
   have sympathized with grief. We have sometimes felt grief--but the Lord
   felt it more intensely than other men in His innermost soul--He, beyond
   us all, was conversant with this black letter lore. He knew the secret
   of the heart which refuses to be comforted. He had sat at Griefs table,
   eaten of Griefs black bread and dipped His morsel in her vinegar.

   By the waters of Sarah He dwelt and knew right well the bitter well. He
   and Grief were bosom friends. It was a continuous acquaintance. He did
   not call at Griefs house, sometimes, to take a tonic by the way.
   Neither did He sip, now and then, of the wormwood and the gall, but the
   quassia cup was always in His hand and ashes were always mingled with
   His bread. Not only 40 days in the wilderness did Jesus fast--the world
   was always a wilderness to Him and His life was one long Lent. I do not
   say that He was not, after all, a happy Man, for down deep in His soul,
   benevolence always supplied a living spring of joy to Him.

   There was a joy into which we are one day to enter--the "joy of our
   Lord"--the "joy set before Him" for which "He endured the Cross,
   despising the shame." But that does not at all take away from the fact
   that His acquaintance with Grief was continuous and intimate beyond
   that of any man who ever lived. It was, indeed, a growing acquaintance
   with Grief, for each step took Him deeper down into the grim shades of
   sorrow. As there is a progress in the teaching of Christ and in the
   life of Christ, so is there, also, in the griefs of Christ. The tempest
   lowered darker and darker, and darker. His sun rose in a cloud, but it
   set in congregated horrors of heaped up night, till, in a moment, the
   clouds were suddenly torn in sunder and, as a loud Voice proclaimed,
   "It is finished," a glorious morning dawned where all expected an
   eternal night!

   Remember, once more, that this acquaintance of Christ with Grief was a
   voluntary acquaintance for our sakes. He need never have known Grief at
   all, and at any moment He might have said to Grief, Farewell. He could
   have returned in an instant to the royalties of Heaven and to the bliss
   of the upper world, or even tarrying here He might have lived sublimely
   indifferent to the woes of mankind. But He would not--He remained to
   the end, out of love to us--Grief's acquaintance. Now, then, what shall
   I say in conclusion, but just this--let us admire the superlative love
   of Jesus. O Love, Love, what have You done! What have You not done!

   You are Omnipotent in suffering! Few of us can bear pain. Perhaps,
   fewer still of us can bear misrepresentation, slander and ingratitude.
   These are horrible hornets which sting as with fire--men have been
   driven to madness by cruel scandals which have distilled from venomous
   tongues. Christ, throughout life, bore these and other sufferings! Let
   us love Him, as we think of how much He must have loved us! Will you
   try, this afternoon, before you come to the Communion Table, to get
   your souls saturated with the love of Christ? Soak them in His love all
   the afternoon, till, like a sponge, you drink into your own selves the
   love of Jesus! And then come up tonight, as it were, to let that love
   flow out to Him again while you sit at His Table and partake of the
   emblems of His death and of His love. Admire the power of His love and
   then pray that you may have a love somewhat akin to it in power.

   We sometimes wonder why the Church of God grows so slowly, but I do not
   wonder when I remember what scant consecration to Christ there is in
   the Church of God. Jesus was "a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with
   grief," but many of His disciples who profess to be altogether His are
   living for themselves. There are rich men who call themselves saints
   and are thought to be so, whose treasures are hoarded for themselves
   and families! There are men of ability who believe that they are bought
   with Christ's blood, yet their ability is all spent on other things and
   none upon their Lord! And let us come nearer home--here are we, what
   are we doing? Teaching in the school, are you? Are you doing it with
   all your heart for Jesus? Preaching in the street? Yes, but do you
   throw your soul into it for Him?

   Maybe you have to confess you are doing nothing--do not let this day
   conclude till you have begun to do something for your Lord! We are
   always talking about the Church doing this and that--what is the
   Church? I believe there is a great deal too much said, both of bad and
   good, about that abstraction. The fact is, we are individuals. The
   Church is only the aggregation of individuals and if any good is to be
   done it must be performed by individuals. And if all individuals are
   idle there is no Church work done! There may be the semblance of it,
   but there is no real work done!

   Brothers and Sisters, what are you doing for Jesus? I charge you by the
   nail-prints of His hands, unless you are a liar unto Him, LABOR for
   Him! I charge you by His wounded feet--run to His help! I charge you by
   the scar on His side-- give Him your heart! I charge you by that sacred
   head, once pierced with thorns--yield Him your thoughts! I charge you
   by the shoulders which bore the scourges--bend your whole strength to
   His service! I charge you by Himself, give Him yourself! I charge you
   by that left hand which has been under your head and that right hand
   which has embraced you, by the roes and by the hinds of the field, by
   the beds of spices and the banquets of love, render yourself, your
   heart, your soul and strength to Him!

   Live in His service, and die in His service! Lay not down your harness,
   but work on as long as you shall live. While you live let this be your
   motto--"All for Jesus, all for Jesus! All for the Man of Sorrows, all
   for the Man of Sorrows!" O you that love Him and fight for Him, you are
   summoned to the front! Hasten to the conflict, I pray you, and charge
   home for the "Man of Sorrows!" Make this your battle cry today! Slink
   not back like cowards! Flee not to your homes as lovers of ease, but
   press to the front for the "Man of Sorrows," like good men and true. By
   the Cross which bore Him, and by the heavy Cross He bore. By His deadly
   agony and by the agony of His life, I cry, "Forward, for the Man of
   Sorrows!"

   Write this word, "for the Man of Sorrows," on your own bodies, wherein
   you bear the marks of the Lord Jesus! Brand, if not in your flesh, yet
   in your souls, for from now on you are servants of the Man of Sorrows!
   Write this on your wealth! Bind this inscription on all your
   possessions--"This belongs to the Man of Sorrows." Give your children
   to the "Man of Sorrows," as men of old consecrated their sons to
   patriotism and to battle with their country's foes! Give up each hour
   to the "Man of Sorrows!" Learn, even, to eat and drink and sleep for
   the "Man of Sorrows," doing all in His name. Live for Him and be ready
   to die for Him and the Lord accept you for the "Man of Sorrows'" sake.
   Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Isaiah 53.
     __________________________________________________________________

Good News for the Lost

   (No. 1100)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 9, 1873,

   BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For the Son of Man is come to seek and to sa ve that which was lost."
   Luke 19:10.

   THE promises of God are like stars, there is not one of them but has in
   its turn guided tempest-tossed souls to their desired haven. But as
   among the stars which stud the midnight sky there are constellations
   which above all others attract the mariner's gaze and are helpful to
   the steersman, so there are certain passages in Scripture which have
   not only directed a few wise men to Jesus, but have been guiding stars
   to myriads of simple minds who have, through their help, found the port
   of peace. I could mention a number of texts this morning which I might
   compare to the pointers of the Great Bear or to the Southern Cross
   because they have directly pointed the penitent eye to Jesus, the Pole
   Star, and by looking to Him, sinners have found "the way, the truth,
   and the life."

   This text is one of the notable stars, or rather, its words form a
   wonderful constellation of Divine love, a very Pleiades of mercy. The
   words and syllables seem to glisten to my eyes with a supernal
   splendor. I bless God for every letter of this thrice blessed
   text--"The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."
   But as stars are of small service when the sky is all beclouded, or the
   air dense with fog, so it may be even such a bright Gospel light as our
   text will not yield comfort to souls surrounded with the clinging mists
   of doubts and fears. In such times mariners cry for fair weather and
   ask that they may be able to see the stars again.

   So let us pray the Holy Spirit to sweep away, with His Divine wind, the
   clouds of our unbelief and enable each earnest eye in the light of God
   to see the light of peace. O that many awakened minds may find pardon
   and eternal life in the Savior this morning! God grant that in answer
   to the prayers now silently breathed by many, the blessing of salvation
   may come to this House.

   I. There are four things I shall try to set forth this morning for the
   comfort of seeking sinners. The first is this--I would have all anxious
   hearts consider HOW THE OBJECTS OF MERCY ARE HERE DESCRIBED--"The Son
   of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." I feel
   inexpressibly grateful for this description--"that which was lost!"
   There cannot be a case so bad as not to be comprehended in this word,
   "lost." I am quite unable to imagine the condition of any man of woman
   born so miserable as not to be contained within the circumference of
   these four letters--

   "lost."

   The man may have gone to a perfect extravagance of vice. He may have
   ruined himself body and soul. He may be upon the very verge of Hell and
   feel as if he were slipping into the pit--but this word descends to the
   lowest depth of his misery, for he is "lost." Here and there upon our
   iron-bound coasts there are harbors of refuge, but, unfortunately, some
   of them are only available for large vessels at certain times of the
   tide. At high-water, a vessel of large tonnage may enter them and find
   security, but if the tide runs out strongly, even though the harbor is
   there, there is not enough water to enable vessels of great weight to
   enter.

   Behold, my text is a harbor of refuge available at all tides and even
   at the lowest ebb the biggest ships of heaviest tonnage may enter here!
   No matter, though the sinner should need a fathomless ocean of mercy to
   boat in, there is depth enough for him here! If the wind is blowing
   horribly this morning and the storms are out, and all the fiends out
   with the storms, yet, if the tempest-tossed soul can but make sail for
   this Divine Harbor--there is no sandbar at the mouth, no shallow water
   in the channel--there is no fear of its being able to enter! This
   harbor's mouth is exceedingly deep in mercy, for the text speaks of,
   "that which was lost." Souls lost through sin and folly are sought and
   saved by the Son of Man.

   Let us consider how men are lost. We know, first, that they are lost by
   nature. However much men may rebel against the doctrine, it is a truth
   of Inspiration that we are lost even when we are born, and that the
   word, "lost," has to do, not

   only with those who have gone into sin grossly and wickedly, but even
   with all mankind. Did you ever notice the other place where this text
   occurs? It is in the 18th chapter of Matthew and the 11th verse, and it
   occurs there in a very significant relationship. Let me read you the
   words. Christ is speaking about little children, and He says, "Take
   heed that you despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you,
   That in Heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father
   which is in Heaven. For the Son of Man is come to save that which was
   lost."

   The Lord had placed a little child in the midst of the disciples and
   had declared that they must be converted and become as little children.
   And yet He uttered these words in that connection. From that passage it
   is clear that, by nature, little children are lost and they owe their
   salvation to the Lord Jesus, when God is pleased to carry them to
   Heaven in infancy. Jesus is come to seek and to save those who are lost
   by nature--and it is most certain that no man now perishes through
   Adam's sin, only, and no man is cast into Hell because of natural
   depravity alone--his own personal sin and unbelief cast him there.

   A far more terrible matter for us, practically, is this, that we are,
   apart from Divine Grace, lost by our own actions. Our nature has
   revealed itself in our character. Our inward inclinations have
   developed themselves in our conduct and we have lost ourselves by our
   own acts and deeds. We have erred and strayed from God's ways willfully
   and wickedly like lost sheep--and now the word, "lost," belongs to us
   by our own overt acts, as well as through Adam's Fall. And in addition
   to that, we are lost because our actual sin and our natural depravity
   have co-worked to produce in us an inability to restore ourselves from
   our fallen condition. We are not only wanderers, but we have no will to
   come home-- we are prodigal sons, but we never say, "I will arise, and
   go to my Father," until the Grace of God puts it into our hearts to do
   so. We are like sheep which wander and wander and wander, but will
   never, by any chance, return unless the Good Shepherd of souls shall
   seek us.

   If this world of ours could suddenly be left to itself, could forget
   the centripetal force which holds it in alliance with the sun and could
   set out upon a fearful journey into the darkness of far-off space--if
   it should travel so far away that no longer could a single beam of
   light reach it from the sun and it were altogether in darkness--it is
   quite certain that it could never find the sun again, for who could
   light a candle upon the earth wherewith we might search for the sun?
   The sun can only be seen by its own light. Where upon earth would be
   found the bands and cords with which to draw us back to the sun? The
   world could only be drawn by an influence from the sun itself--the
   central orb must give the motive power.

   So, when a soul wanders from God, it has no light in it with which to
   see God and no force in it to draw God to itself. God must enlighten
   and draw the soul to Him. So that, in this three-fold sense, we are
   lost by nature, by practice, and by an utter inability to find out our
   God and to return to Him. Yet, terrible as this lost estate is, "The
   Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." In
   addition to this, we are all lost by the condemnation which our sin has
   brought upon us. We are sometimes told by inaccurate talkers that we
   are in a state of probation. My Brothers and Sisters, nothing can be
   more unscriptural than such a statement! We have long ago been proved
   and found wanting. Our probation is over. We are now, if unrenewed, in
   a state of condemnation!

   The trial is not now pending--it is over and we are condemned, already,
   for our sins. The fearful sentence of condemnation hangs over every man
   here who has not believed in the Lord Jesus. The sinner is lost in that
   sense. It is but a matter of time and that time in God's hands--and the
   condemned man will be taken out to execution--and the punishment of
   Divine wrath will fall upon his guilty head. We are lost because we are
   under legal sentence and are unable to escape from it. We cannot make
   atonement to God for the wrong we have done, nor avoid His righteous
   jurisdiction. No mortifications of the body, no lamentations of the
   spirit, can wipe out a single sin--

   "Could my tears forever flow; Could my zeal no respite know: All for
   sin could not atone, Christ must save, and Christ, alone." So that,
   being before the bar of God regarded as condemned criminals,
   unregenerate men are lost, indeed.

   More than this, there are certain persons in the world who are lost in
   a more apparent sense than others are--I mean that they are lost to
   society, to respect and perhaps to decency. That was the case with
   Zacchaeus, in connection with whom our text was spoken. I do not know
   what may have been his parentage. Possibly he was born of most
   reputable folk, but he showed a vicious mind and he turned aside from
   the good old paths. He loved low company and despised his

   father's seriousness. There was great grief in that household on his
   account. Zacchaeus was lost to his parents--they had hoped he would
   have been a credit to their name--but instead he was a dishonor. They
   trusted that he would be the staff of their old age, but now he was a
   scourge to them.

   They scarcely dared to whisper his name in any company, for he had
   joined with the men of Belial and mingled with the lewdest sort in the
   city. And by-and-by, as men go from bad to worse, Zacchaeus had taken
   up with the low and infamous trade of a tax-gatherer. He so pushed his
   way in it by his sharpness and hardness of heart that he became chief
   of the odious band of the extortionate oppressors of the people. The
   Pharisees, of course, never looked at him--they passed him by as though
   he were a dog--while the ordinary people of Jericho, when he was out of
   hearing, cursed him. Had he not exacted upon one--had he not oppressed
   another? His very name had a ban set upon it. He was lost to society.

   But the Son of Man sought him and saved him, lost as he was! Society,
   to this day, has its rules, by the breach of which persons become
   outcasts. These rules are, some of them, commendable, but others are
   arbitrary, one-sided, cruel and hypocritical. We have sometimes heard
   men of the world ridicule what they are pleased to call the cant of the
   Church, but we take leave to say that there is no cant so desperately
   canting as the cant of the world. There occurred, not long ago, an
   instance of the world's relentless cruelty to those whom it is
   fashionable to brand with dishonor. A person who had, perhaps, fallen
   into sin in her earlier days, was restored to a respectable
   position--she was received in society among the noblest, but all of a
   sudden, dastardly lips revealed a secret--and a sin committed far back
   was raked up against her. From that day the world put away the woman,
   never asking her if she had repented, or taking her after-conduct into
   consideration.

   The world is so pure and chaste and immaculate, that it shut out the
   erring one as if she had been a leper. Though itself reeking with
   foulest abominations, society feigns a virtuousness pure as the lily
   and chaste as the snow. The world is cold, hard, cruel towards a
   certain class of offenders. It receives into its embraces men who are,
   every inch of them, unclean--but a betrayed, deceived, broken-hearted
   woman the world shakes off as if she were a viper. This is the society
   which boasts its gallantry! This is the just, fair-dealing world! It
   caresses its noble rakes, but casts off the most penitent among the
   betrayed. Ah, hypocritical, canting world! Ah, hollow, lying world, to
   pretend to a virtue which you do not know! Rail not at the
   inconsistencies of religious men while your own are so glaring! Cruel
   tyrant, learn mercy and do justice before you become a judge of the
   servants of the Lord!

   Now, the Son of man is come to seek and to save those whom the world
   puts outside its camp. The world says, "No." "Shame on her." "We will
   not speak to her." But Christ Jesus says, "I have come to pardon her,
   and to restore her, and she shall love Me much because much has been
   forgiven her!" There are other cases in which men, by their crimes,
   most justly place themselves outside the pale of society and for the
   preservation of order they are separated from the company of honest
   men. Now even these should have a door of hope left to them and a way
   of return. The cry, too often is, "Down with him! Down with him! He has
   sinned against his fellow men. Put him aside! What do we care what
   becomes of him?"

   But the Son of Man who is infinitely pure and holy, who has a genuine
   horror of sin so that He really hates it and loathes it, yet does not
   loathe sinners, but has come to seek and to save them! The sweep of
   Divine compassion is not limited by the customs of mankind! The
   boundaries of Jesus' love are not to be fixed by Pharisaical
   self-righteousness! "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that
   which was lost." Putting all that we have said into a few words, we
   would thus speak--I may be addressing persons here who feel that they
   have broken God's Laws, perhaps by no means publicly or in any of the
   grosser vices, but they have broken the Laws of God.

   They may feel that they have and are sorrowing in their hearts because
   of it. They fear, also, that they have sinned in such a way that it
   cannot be possible for them to be forgiven. At the same time the
   hardness of their hearts astounds them--they feel themselves to be
   altogether bad and that no good thing dwells within them. They,
   therefore, despair of being saved. Beloved Friends, "The Son of Man is
   come to seek and to save that which was lost." Does not the description
   suit you? Are you not among the lost? Well then, you are among such as
   Jesus Christ came to save! And if perchance there should be one here
   who has fallen into the grosser vices, someone who has sullied his name
   and degraded himself to the very lowest degree, I am bound not to
   restrict the text and I do not desire to do so--"The Son of Man is come
   to seek and to save that which was lost."

   O you lost ones! O you ruined and destroyed ones! The Son of Man is
   come to seek and to save you! The Greek word here used for lost is a
   form of that word which has, by certain modern discoverers, been
   translated, "annihilated," with a

   view to buttressing their unscriptural theory of the annihilation of
   the wicked. It is one of those instances in which the absurdity of such
   an interpretation ought to be evident even to themselves! The Son of
   Man has not come to seek and to save that which is annihilated--that
   would be rank nonsense! But the word is very forcible and signifies a
   destruction very terrible, a ruin of the most solemn kind. To be lost
   is to be fallen altogether, to be destroyed as to all good, to be
   utterly undone, yet the Lord Jesus Christ is come to seek and to save
   such as are in this wretched plight!

   Why, this text sounds to me like the ringing of joyful Sunday bells
   which sometimes mariners have heard at sea! Ships are sometimes
   surrounded with a dense fog and the mariners know not whether they are
   near the land or on the wide ocean--they lie becalmed with no stir in
   the air, no stir in the sea--the ship is like a lost thing without
   power of motion or knowledge of her whereabouts. And then suddenly the
   mariners have heard bells ringing on the blessed Sunday and as the
   silver sounds have pierced the gloomy mist the mariners have known that
   they were somewhere near Old England's happy shores!

   My text rings out most sweetly through the fogs of your soul's despair
   and doubt and I trust the glad message-- "The Son of Man is come to
   seek and to save that which was lost"--will reach you!

   II. Now, let us turn to another point. There is very much of
   consolation in our text for the guilty, in the second place, if they
   notice HOW THE SAVIOR IS HERE DESCRIBED, "The Son of Man is come to
   seek and to save that which was lost." As the Son of Man He is come.
   And here note, first of all, His Deity. You say, "Deity, how is that?
   The text says 'the Son of Man.'" Yes, and that is the point upon which
   I ground my remark. No Prophet or Apostle needed to call himself by way
   of distinction the son of man. It would be ridiculous for any one of us
   to speak of himself emphatically as the son of man--it would be an
   affectation of condescension supremely absurd.

   Therefore, when we hear our Lord particularly and especially calling
   Himself by this name, we are compelled to think of it as contrasted
   with His higher Nature and we see a deep condescension in His choosing
   to be called the Son of Man, when He might have been called the Son of
   God. O my Soul, He who is come to save you, is so plainly God that He
   sees reason to remind you that He is also the Son of Man, lest you
   should doubt it! No angel's arm is stretched out for your help, but the
   arm of Him who created all worlds!

   In speaking of Himself as the Son of Man, our Lord shows us that He has
   come to us in a condescending Character. Not in flames of fire has
   Jesus descended from Heaven. Not in His chariot of wrath, girt with the
   sword of vengeance, does Jehovah Jesus come to men. He is come upon His
   errand of mercy as One who has lain upon a woman's breast, who has
   known weakness, suffering and need. He is come as One who knows, by
   personal experience, the lowliness of your estate. Oh, Sinner, is it
   not joy to know that the Son of God has come to save you as the Son of
   Man? "The Son of Man"--that describes also the tenderness of His
   Character.

   A man can sympathize with a man. Jesus, the tender-hearted One, was
   full of sympathy and in loving gentleness He is come to save sinners.
   He is no stern Rhadamanthus, no judge of severe countenance, no Draco
   with bloody edicts, but Jesus, the Man of Sorrows and the acquaintance
   of grief. It is as your Brother, touched with a feeling of your
   infirmities, that Jesus comes to you. He has, moreover, come in His
   mediatorial Character, for, "There is one Mediator between God and man,
   the Man Christ Jesus." He can put His hand upon you, and, at the same
   time, lay His hand upon God. He who bridges the gulf between the misery
   of fallen manhood and the eternal dignity of the unsullied God is come
   to save the lost! What a joy is this!

   Our Lord is come in His representative Character, for He calls Himself
   the Son of Man, as if to note that He is Man for men, the
   representative Man, the Son of Man. He is come as the Covenant
   Substitute, representing Man. He has suffered in our place, died in our
   place, paid our debts in our place, risen in our place, and gone to
   Heaven as our Forerunner! It is the Son of Man who, in all things, has
   acted for men, who is, "come to seek and to save that which was lost."
   Now, it seems to me, dear Friends, if the Spirit of God would only help
   poor troubled hearts to see it, that the wording of this part of my
   text, though very simple, is full of the richest consolation.

   Soul, what an attractive Savior have you to deal with! God is a
   consuming fire--you cannot, O guilty one, go to Him--but Jesus is your
   Brother, your Friend. He is the Friend of Sinners who received them and
   ate with them. And He it is, great as He is, who is "come to seek and
   to save that which was lost." I tell you what I would have you do. Go
   to Him without fear or trembling before yon sun goes down and ends this
   day of mercy. Go and tell Him you have broken

   the Father's Laws--tell Him that you are lost and you need to be saved.
   Tell Him that He is a Man, and appeal to His manly heart and to His
   brotherly sympathies.

   Pour out your broken heart at His feet--let your soul flow over in His
   Presence--and I tell you He cannot cast you away! Though your prayers
   are feeble as the spark in the flax, He will not quench them! And
   though your heart is bruised like a reed, He will not break it! May the
   Holy Spirit bless you with a desire to go to God through Jesus Christ.
   And may He encourage you to do so by showing that Jesus is meek and
   lowly of heart, gentle, and tender, and full of pity.

   III. I pass on to our third point and that, also, is full of comfort,
   though I will only touch upon it. You that seek salvation should
   joyfully observe HOW OUR LORD'S PAST ACTION IS DESCRIBED--"The Son of
   Man is come." Note, not, "shall come," but, "IS come." His coming is a
   fact accomplished. We could not have said this before the days of
   Bethlehem's wondrous birth. We would have had to say the Son of Man
   "will come," and then you would have needed extraordinary faith to
   believe that the Son of God would become the Son of Man to save you.
   But He "is come." That part of the salvation of a sinner which is yet
   to be done is not at all so hard to be believed as that which the Lord
   has already accomplished.

   That Jesus Christ, after being Incarnate, and after having suffered for
   sin, should pardon sinners for whom He has died does not seem to me to
   be extraordinary--the extraordinary matter lies in this, that He should
   come from Heaven, that He should be born in Bethlehem, that He should
   tarry here on earth, that He should go up to the Cross and down to the
   grave and bear and suffer in the sinner's place--yet, our Lord has done
   all that. The greatest part of the work He has accomplished! Your
   salvation, if you believe in Jesus, is comparatively an easy matter--He
   has but to apply that which is already prepared and hand over to your
   faith that which He has laid by in store.

   The state of the case since Jesus has come may be illustrated
   thus--Certain of our fellow countrymen were the prisoners of the
   Emperor Theodore, in Abyssinia, and I will suppose myself among them as
   a captive. I hear that the British Parliament is stirring in the
   direction of an expedition for my deliverance and I feel some kind of
   comfort, but I am very anxious, for I know that amidst party strifes in
   the House of Commons many good measures are shipwrecked. Days and
   months pass wearily on, but at last I hear that Sir Robert Napier has
   landed with a delivering army. Now my heart leaps for joy! I am shut up
   within the walls of Hagdala but in my dungeon I hear the sound of the
   British bugle and I know that the deliverer is come! Now I am full of
   confidence and am sure of liberty! If the general is already come, my
   rescue is certain!

   Mark well, then, O you prisoners of hope, that Jesus is come! Do you
   not hear it? The Gospel bugle is sounding! Blessed are the people who
   know the joyful sound! The Captain of our salvation is come! He is at
   our dungeon gates! He has come to our rescue! He is come! He is come!
   Jesus has come and by His Holy Spirit He is still here! And we may
   depend upon it, that if He has actually come to the work, He means to
   go through with it, for He never draws back His hand. When He said He
   would save men, it was certain He would do so. And now He has come to
   do it, it is more than certain!

   Behold the Lord of Glory has disrobed Himself for work. He has hung up
   His royal robes and put on a workman's garb, a human toiler's garments!
   He means work, stern, persevering work. He has cast His azure mantle
   across the sky and come down here to the city of David robed in mortal
   clay to wear the garment without seam. O, Sirs, He means to do His
   Father's business! He is in real earnest, be sure of that--He has come
   to do it and means to accomplish His design of love. Besides, He is not
   like a foolish one who comes to His work and leaves His tools behind
   Him--Jesus would not come unprepared! The Son of Man is an infinitely
   wise Savior and you may depend upon it, having come with His Father's
   consent and anointed with the Holy Spirit, He is come with everything
   that is needed to accomplish His purpose.

   He is come to do a work which He can do and will do, and in which He
   will not be baffled though all the powers of earth and Hell should
   contend with Him. "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that
   which was lost." My heart rejoices as I feel how sure it is that the
   lost ones will be saved. If we had heard the sons of the morning sing
   in solemn symphony, "God Himself has come to scatter the primeval
   darkness, to bring order out of chaos, and to create life in the earth
   which lies without form and void," we should have felt certain of the
   result! If God had come to create, He would create--and it would have
   been no matter of surprise to us to have seen the round earth glowing
   in the morning light, verdant with new-born vegetation and populous
   with variety of life.

   We are sure that what God comes to do He will do. In the night when
   Israel was pursued by the Egyptians and overtaken at the sea, even at
   the Red Sea, it was a sign of victory when the Lord came to deliver His
   people. The pillar of cloud went to the rear, turning its black side on
   the foe and its bright side on the chosen. God was come to smite
   Pharaoh and to rebuke the proud tyrant! And oh, you might be sure He
   would do it--failure was out of the question. When, next morning, the
   placid deep swept over the angry armies and all was peace where Pharaoh
   and his hosts had raged so furiously--and instead of the shouts of
   men-at-arms--were heard the sweet voices of damsels, singing, "Sing
   unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously," it was but natural it
   should be so, for if God came to avenge His Israel! Who could stand
   before Him?

   The Son of Man is come to save. Rejoice, you heavens, and be glad, O
   earth! He will do all His pleasure! Neither earth nor Hell can stand
   against Him! Seeking, He will save! Yes, He will save that which is
   lost! All glory be unto His name!

   IV. The last point is to be this--there is much of deepest comfort in
   THE DESCRIPTION WHICH IS HERE

   GIVEN OF OUR LORD'S WORK. He is come "to seek and to save." The
   enterprise is one, but has two branches. I would have you first notice
   what our Lord has not come to do. He has not come to aid those who, in
   their own esteem, are almost as good as they ought to be, to become a
   little better and so to enter Heaven by their own efforts. I believe
   that such is the general persuasion of mankind. If they were to put
   their beliefs into plain English their notion is as nearly as possible
   what I have said. According to them you are to attend a place of
   worship regularly, say prayers, give to the poor and be as good as ever
   you can. And then, inasmuch as there will be a little bit in which you
   will be lacking, you are to trust to Jesus Christ to make up the rest.

   Now, mark my word, this is a gross and fatal delusion! There is not
   between the two covers of this Bible one single word of hope held out
   to any man who believes in that manner--no, but there is the solemn
   utterance that Christ has not come to save people of that sort at all,
   for thus it is written--"The whole have no need of a physician, but
   they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to
   repentance." As many as are of the works of the Law are under the
   curse. If any of you are very good people and have no sins. If you have
   done no wrong and are nearly as good as you ought to be. If you only
   need just to say a little about the blood of Christ, Christ has not
   come to save such as you are-- He has "come to seek and to save that
   which was lost." If you are not lost you have no part nor lot in this
   matter!

   Moreover, the Lord Jesus has not come to aid us in self-sufficient
   endeavors to save ourselves. I wonder how Christian people can sing
   that verse--

   "A charge to keep I have,

   A God to glorify;

   A never-dying soul to save,

   And fit it for the sky."

   It might suit a Jew at the foot of Sinai, but a Christian should have
   none of it! If we have to save our own souls it is all over with us.
   What? Can we fit our souls for the sky? We, save our own souls? Why,
   this is the clean opposite of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! The theory of
   some is that there is much natural goodness in men and they have only
   to work it out and gradually improve themselves into a state of Grace.
   No, Sir, you are on the wrong tack. Do you know what is the very first
   ceremony of the Christian religion?

   "Yes," you say, "Baptism." So it is. And what is Baptism? "Buried with
   Christ in Baptism." Who are buried, then? Living people? No! Dead
   people. The very first lesson of the Gospel, after believing in Christ,
   is that you are, before the Law, dead, through having been crucified
   with Christ, and therefore you must be buried. There is no improving
   your old nature, mending it up and beautifying it into perfection--the
   thing is hopeless, and it must die and be buried! The Scripture does
   not say, "You must be improved." "You must be born-again"--that is
   quite another thing. You must be made new creatures in Christ Jesus.
   "Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." A new
   creation is needed--not an improvement of the old creature.

   What does the Apostle say?--"The carnal mind is enmity against God, and
   is not reconciled to God, neither, indeed, can be." There he ends
   it--"Neither, indeed, can be." It is all over with the flesh, for
   corruption has seized upon it. This the Believer accepts as fact,
   "because," says the Apostle, "we thus judge, that if One died for all,
   then all died." The death of Jesus, as a punishment for sin, was our
   death and we died in Him so that we now live as new men, and risen men,
   and not as though the old life had been improved into something better!
   The old nature is put into the place of death and

   then the man receives life in Christ--that is how we are saved--not by
   improving ourselves into something better, but by being newly created
   by the Divine power of the Holy Spirit.

   "Very discouraging," says one. Yes! And such discouragement is much
   needed now-a-days. If I saw a man trying to climb to the top of a
   mountain by a path which was quite impassable and full of dangers, I
   should be his true friend if I discouraged him from dashing himself to
   pieces. The way to Heaven is not by our own works. You who think that
   you can climb to Heaven by the way of Sinai should look to the flames
   that Moses saw--and sink and tremble, and despair! There is no road to
   God by the way of Sinai! There, at Calvary, is the way--all crimson
   with the Savior's blood. Salvation is ours through His atoning
   Sacrifice--"For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which
   was lost."

   Now, having cleared away the rubbish, let us come to the Truth of God.
   Jesus is come to seek the lost. He did that personally. There was a
   lost woman at Samaria and Jesus said He must go through Samaria. There
   was a lost man at Jericho and Jesus said He must abide in that man's
   house. What He did personally He now does under the dispensation of the
   Holy Spirit, in His Providence. Sometimes Providence takes away a
   child, lays a man on a bed of sickness, deprives him of his wealth--and
   all these trials are intended to bring him to Jesus. It is Jesus
   seeking him. It is an odd thing, my Friend, that you should be here
   this morning--you did not reckon upon being here. Strange circumstances
   brought you.

   Suppose the Lord means to save you this morning? Then the Providence
   which brought you to this spot is Jesus seeking you. As our Lord seeks
   souls by His Providence He also seeks them by the Word. It is very
   wonderful how the Word of God will come home to people. It is a part of
   every preacher's business, who is sent of God, so to preach that
   persons in the congregation may perceive that he speaks of them. What
   remarkable things have happened in our ministry and in the ministries
   of all who are sent of God.

   Why, they speak to people as if they knew them! Though they never saw
   them before, they tell their case and picture their state. God guides
   His servants and gives them words that they never thought of till the
   time came to utter them, so that on the spur of the moment they pick
   out the character as well as if they had known the man from childhood!
   Thus Jesus seeks the sinner. If there is anything in this sermon which
   suits your case, dear Friend, do not talk about what relation it may
   have to anybody else, but be sure Jesus is seeking you! Are you a lost
   one? Have you come here in such a condition of heart that you cannot
   deny your lost state? Jesus is seeking you!

   Look how the Lord saved Zacchaeus. It seemed an odd thing that when the
   Lord was under the tree, He should look up and say, "Zacchaeus, make
   haste and come down." But Jesus does the same thing, still, in the
   preaching of the Gospel. He applies the Word with power to individual
   consciences and makes men perceive that He speaks of them. God has a
   message of love to their souls and they are compelled to hear it--they
   cannot shut their ears to it--they must receive it for the Spirit of
   God comes with it and sends it home with power to their soul. That is
   Jesus seeking sinners. And whom Jesus seeks He saves.

   There is the second part of it--"To seek and to save." And how is the
   saving done? That is done, first of all, by the complete pardon of all
   the sinner's sins. The very instant that a man trusts Christ with all
   his heart, the past is blotted out as if it had never existed--all the
   sins he has ever committed in thought, in word, in deed, however
   crimson in color, go at once--they are sunk as in the sea, never to be
   found again. And this is done upon this one solitary condition--that
   the sinner believe in Jesus! And even that is not a condition, for He
   that bade him believe enables him to believe and gives him the faith
   which saves his soul!

   Then the sinner is saved in another way. From the moment that a person
   believes in Jesus his nature becomes different from what it was
   before--he receives a new heart--another influence takes possession of
   him. Another love engrosses him. When a man is absorbed by some
   master-passion, what a different man he becomes! The passion for wealth
   will work marvels! We have known idle persons become very diligent and
   profuse voluptuaries become even self-denying and mortifying to their
   flesh in their ambition to acquire riches. Now, God gives us another
   passion--the passion of gratitude to Christ, and love to the God that
   saved us--and that becomes a master-principle and rules the entire man.

   He who loved self now loves God and lives for Him. And is that change
   possible to the most degraded? Yes, possible with God. If a man has
   committed every crime in the whole catalog of villainy and his heart
   has become hard as the nether millstone--and his disposition altogether
   base, mean, groveling, sensual and devilish--the Spirit of God can turn
   that man, in a single moment, into a lover of that which is true and
   right and just! He can break his heart

   concerning the past, make him angry with himself for having lived as he
   has done and can passionately inflame him with the desire to be
   perfectly holy!

   And that passion within the man can carry him on until he loves his
   fellow creatures as himself and makes great sacrifices for them--and
   all for the sake of Jesus, that blessed, crucified Son of Man, who came
   "to seek and to save that which was lost." We do not preach that Christ
   forgives men and then lets them live as before. But we assert that the
   moment He gives the pardon of sin, He gives the new nature, too. The
   Gospel hospital is not merely a place where lepers are harbored, but
   where lepers are healed-- "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save
   that which was lost."

   Brothers and Sisters, let us cry to Jesus this morning to save us! I
   will put myself down among the lost by nature and by practice. If there
   is no one else here that is lost by nature, I am such, and I bless my
   Lord that He is "come to seek and to save" me, a lost man. Brothers and
   Sisters, some of you have known His love for many years. Did you not
   come at first to Him as lost ones? And will you not confess, this
   morning, that were it not for His infinite mercy you would still be as
   lost as ever? What a mercy it is to know we are lost and to trust to
   Christ who saves the lost! What a blessing to be among the dead who
   died in Christ, whose life is a new life in Him--"for you are dead, and
   your life is hid with Christ in God."

   Martin Luther speaks in his book on Galatians of cutting the devil's
   head off with his own sword--"There," says Martin to the devil, "you
   say I am a great sinner. I thank you for that, for Jesus Christ came
   into the world to save sinners, and so I feel He came to save me." And
   if the devil says to any one of you this morning, "You are lost
   altogether," off with his head, my Brother, my Sister--with his own
   sword, and this very day rejoice that "the Son of Man is come to seek
   and to save that which was lost."

   Is there anyone here who is not lost? Anyone in this congregation who
   does not need saving? Well, then, I cannot say, in God's name, a single
   word of consolation to you. You are rich and increased in goods and
   have need of nothing, so you say. But this is what the Lord says to
   you--"He has put down the mighty from their seat, and He has exalted
   them of low degree: He has filled the hungry with good things, and the
   rich He has sent empty away." That is the only Gospel for you! But
   every poor, heavy-laden, troubled heart--and every soul that feels
   itself to be lost by nature has this gracious word--"The Son of Man is
   come to seek and to gave that which was lost."

   The last word is this--Let us who are saved seek the lost ones. Jesus
   did it. O follower of Jesus, do likewise! Is there any work that you
   could undertake among the worst of people? Undertake it! Never be
   ashamed of mingling with the poorest of the poor and the vilest of the
   vile, for Christ's sake. I always feel intense satisfaction at the
   remembrance of such useful members of our Church as Brother Orsman,
   engaged as he is from day to day in the very worst part of London, in
   Golden Lane, seeking that which is lost.

   I hope there are many here imitating him. I know there are some. There
   is room for many more laborers in that department to seek those that
   are lost--pre-eminently lost. You need not, however, go to Golden Lane,
   or Seven Dials--there are plenty of lost people around you--lost people
   who come to the Tabernacle, lost people who go to Church and lost
   people who go nowhere on Sunday. Go and seek them! If you are saved
   yourself, I beseech you by the blood that bought you, by the Christ who
   loved you, and by the Christ whom you love, go out this very day to
   seek and to save that which was lost! Amen and Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE, SERMON--Luke 19:1-27.
     __________________________________________________________________

An Old-Fashioned Conversion

   (No. 1101)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 16, 1873,

   BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Lo, all these things works God oftentimes with man, To bring back his
   soul from thepit, to be enlightened with the light of the living." Job
   33:29,30.

   SOME people are wonderfully enamored of anything that is old. An old
   coin, an old picture, an old book, or even a piece of antique rubbish
   they will almost worship. The jingle of a rusty medal is music to them,
   and "auld nick-nackets" are as precious as diamonds. It is wonderful
   what a little mold and a few worm-holes will do in the way of
   increasing values! I confess I do not very greatly share in the
   feeling, at least it is no craze of mine but, nevertheless, all things
   being equal, antiquity has its charms. Old, old stories of the days far
   past, when time was young, have a special interest. They are as windows
   which permit us to gaze down the dim aisles of ages long gone by--we
   look through them with mingled curiosity and awe.

   I am about, this morning, to speak to you concerning an old conversion.
   We shall rehearse an ancient story of the renewal and salvation of a
   soul. In our day we meet with professors who cry down everything of the
   present and cry up everything of the former days, which they call the
   good old times. Such persons talk much about old-fashioned conversions
   and hold in great admiration the lives of Believers of the old school.
   I shall, this morning, introduce you to an old-fashioned conversion and
   explain the way in which men were brought to God not only hundreds, but
   thousands of years ago. I suppose that Elihu delivered this description
   of conversion about the time of Moses, or at the period when Israel was
   in Egypt, for almost general consent appropriates one of those dates to
   the Book of Job.

   The record we shall read this morning, and study carefully, refers to
   the very, very oldest of times. Let this fact give additional interest
   to our meditation--and if it does I am sure that we shall not lack for
   earnest attention, for the subject is of great intrinsic value. Kindly
   keep your Bibles open. We have already read the chapter, but it will be
   necessary to refer to it verse by verse.

   I. The matter in hand is to compare an old-fashioned conversion with
   those of the present time. And the first note we shall strike is
   this--it is quite certain from the description given in this 33rd
   chapter of Job that THE SUBJECTS OF CONVERSION WERE SIMILAR and men in
   the far gone ages were precisely like men in these times. The passage
   tells us nothing about the stature of men's' bodies, but as far as they
   were concerned spiritually the photograph which Elihu took is the
   portrait of many of those who are brought to Jesus now.

   Reading the passage over, we find that men in those times needed
   converting, for they were deaf to God's voice (verse 14). They were
   obstinate in evil purposes (verse 17) and puffed up with pride. They
   needed chastening to arouse them to thought and required sore distress
   to make them cry out for mercy (verses 19-22). They were very slow to
   say, "I have sinned," and were not at all inclined to prayer. Nothing
   but sharp discipline could bring them to their senses and even then
   they needed to be born-again. Men in those days were sinful and yet
   proud--sinful self and righteous self were both in power--it was one
   part of conversion to withdraw them from their purposes of sin and
   another part of their conversion to "hide pride" from them.

   Though they were sinful, they thought that they were righteous, and
   though they were condemned by the Law of God they still entertained the
   fond hope that they should, by their own merits, obtain the favor of
   the Most High. They were then, as they are now, poor as poverty and yet
   proud of their wealth. They were Publicans in sin, and yet Pharisees in
   boasting. It appears that in those days God was accustomed to speak to
   men and to be disregarded by them. We are told that God spoke "once,
   yes, twice," and men perceived Him not. Their presumptuous slumbers
   were too deep to be broken by the call of love. Samuel said, "Here am
   I, for You did call me," but they slept on in defiance of the Lord.

   O, how frequently does the Lord speak now to deaf ears! He calls and
   men refuse. He stretches out His hands and men do not regard Him. But
   they are desperately set upon their sins and sod in carnal security,
   therefore they do despite to His Grace and ruin their own souls! In
   those ancient times, when a man was converted, the Lord Himself must
   turn him--Omnipotence itself was necessary to divide man from his
   folly. God's speaking to the ear was not enough unless He followed it
   up with a powerful application to the heart. Man was too far gone to be
   healed by remedies less than Divine--he was utterly past hope unless
   Almighty love would come to the rescue!

   Verily, the case is the same at this day and each man repeats his
   fellow. As the fish still bites at the bait, as the bird still flies
   into the snare, as the beast is still taken in the pit, so is man still
   the dupe of his sins and only the Lord can save him! Salvation was only
   worked by the gracious influences of God's Spirit in the days of
   Job--and it is only so accomplished at this present hour! Men were lost
   then as now! Men thought they were not lost then, and they are equally
   conceited now! Into the house of the Divine Physician the same class of
   persons enter as were welcomed and healed by Him ages ago. He has the
   same blind eyes and deaf ears to open--hearts still require to be
   transformed from stone to flesh--and leprosies to be exchanged for
   health by His Sovereign touch.

   The Spirit from the four winds breathed on a valley covered with dry
   bones in the days of the fathers and He comes forth, still, to work
   upon the like scene of death. Man has not outgrown his sins! As it was
   in the beginning it is now and so it ever will be while that which is
   born of the flesh is flesh. As were the sires such are their sons, and
   such will our sons be in their turn--so that the process of conversion
   needs to be the same--and "all these things God works oftentimes with
   man."

   II. The second note we shall strike is this, that in those olden times
   THE WORKER OF CONVERSION WAS THE

   SAME--"all these things God works." The whole process is by Elihu
   ascribed to God and every Christian can bear witness that the Lord is
   the great Worker now. He turns us and we are turned. We read in verse
   14 that, at first, the Lord worked upon men by speaking to them, once,
   yes, twice--He also brought Truth home to their minds and instructed
   them and so changed their purposes and humbled their hearts. In the
   same manner the Lord works now.

   Conversion is a change which concerns the mind, the affections, the
   spirit--it is not a physical manipulation as some foolish persons
   fancy--who appear to think that God converts men by force and turns
   them over as a man would roll a stone. The Lord operates upon men as
   men, not as blocks of wood! God speaks to them, instructs them, reveals
   Truth to them, encourages them to hope and graciously influences them
   for good. Man is left free, for, "God speaks once, yes, twice, yet man
   perceives it not," and yet in God's own wise and suitable manner, he is
   at length led to cry, "I have sinned and perverted that which is right
   and it profited me not."

   But in those times, as now, it was necessary that God should do more
   than speak to the outer ear. He, therefore, came still nearer and by
   His Holy Spirit led men to really hear what He spoke. He did not leave
   men to their wills, neither did He trust their conversion to the
   eloquence of preachers, or to the cogency of arguments. But He Himself
   came and opened men's ears and pressed the Truth of God home upon their
   understandings and made it operative upon their entire nature. Man was
   so proud that no one else could humble him but God--and he was so
   willful, that no one could withdraw him from his purpose but the Lord,
   alone!

   And the Lord, in condescension, did the deed and made the man obedient
   and humble. Indeed, the Lord is described in this chapter as the main
   cause of all the work accomplished. Whereas a ransom was needed to
   deliver men from going down to the pit, it is the Lord's voice which
   cried, "I have found a Ransom." Whereas, even when the Ransom was
   found, men did not know it and would not receive it, it was God who
   sent a messenger, one of a thousand, to show unto man His uprightness
   and to proclaim the great provision made for restoring man to his
   primeval state. It is the Lord who delivers the soul from the pit, that
   man's life may see the light.

   In this chapter it is God that visits, that speaks, chastens,
   instructs, enlightens, consoles, renews and saves--from first to
   last--God works all in all. Salvation is of the Lord, it is not of man,
   neither by man. Neither is it of the will of man, nor of the flesh, nor
   of blood, nor of birth, but of the will of God. The purpose of God and
   the power of God work salvation from first to last. What a blessing
   this is for us, for, if salvation were of ourselves, who among us would
   be saved? But He has "laid help upon One that is mighty." God is also
   our strength and our song, for He Himself has become our salvation. He
   who has begun the good work will carry it on. Christ is the Alpha.
   Christ is the Omega. Christ is the "Author and the Finisher of our
   faith."

   So we have two points in this ancient conversion in which it was just
   like our own--the same men to be operated upon and the same God to work
   the miracles of Grace.

   III. The most interesting point to you will probably be the third--THE
   MEANS USED TO WORK CONVERSION

   IN THOSE DISTANT AGES WERE VERY MUCH THE SAME AS THOSE EMPLOYED NOW.
   There were

   differences in outward agencies, but the inward modus operandi was the
   same. There was a difference in the instruments, but the way of working
   was the same. Kindly turn to the chapter, at the 15th verse. You find
   there that God, first of all, spoke to men, but they regarded Him not,
   and then He spoke to them effectually by means of a dream--"In a dream,
   in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, in slumbering
   upon the bed."

   Now, this was an extraordinary means of Grace, seldom used now. In this
   the distant ages differ from the present. A dream, though it is, in
   itself, but the mirage of sleep, may be employed by God to arouse the
   mind towards eternal things. Dreams of death and judgment to come have
   frequently had a very alarming effect upon the conscience, while
   visions of celestial Glory have impressed the heart with desires after
   infinite bliss. As Dryden says of some men--

   "In sleep they fearful precipices tread Or, shipwrecked, labor to some
   distant shore," so others have in their slumbers shivered at the gates
   of Hell, or even been tossed upon its fiery waves--and the thoughts
   consequent upon such dreams have, by God's Grace, occasionally been
   rendered permanently useful, though I fear it is not often so.

   In the days of Elihu, however, dreams were much more frequently the way
   in which God spoke, for there were few messengers from God to interpret
   His mind--no openly declared Gospel and few assemblies for instruction
   by hearing the Word. And what is more, there was then no written Word
   of God. In those early times they had no Inspired books at all, so
   that, lacking the Bible and lacking the frequent ministrations of God's
   servants, the Lord was pleased to supply their deficiencies by speaking
   to men in the visions of the night. I say again, we must not expect the
   Lord to return to the general use of so feeble an agency now that He
   employs others which are far more effectual. It is much more profitable
   for you to have the Word in your houses which you can read at all times
   and to have God's ministers to proclaim clearly the Gospel of Jesus
   than it would be to be dependent upon visions of the night!

   The means, therefore, outwardly, may have changed, but still, whether
   it is by the dream at night, or by the sermon on Sunday, the power is
   just the same--namely, the Word of God. God may speak to men in dreams
   and if so, He speaks to them nothing more and nothing different from
   what He speaks in the written Word. If any come to you and say, "I have
   dreamed this or that," and it is not in the Scriptures, away with their
   dreams! If anything should occur in your own mind in vision which is
   not already revealed in the Book of God, put it away, it is an idle
   fancy not to be regarded. Woe to that man whose religion is the
   baseless fabric of dreams--he will one day wake up to find that nothing
   short of realities can save him!

   We have the more sure word of testimony unto which we do well if you
   take heed as unto a light that shines in a dark place. Conversions,
   then, in the old times, used to be by the Word of God. It came in a
   different way, but it was the same Word and the same Truth. At this
   time faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God--and at
   bottom that was precisely the way in which faith came to men in those
   distant periods. Now, observe, that in addition to the external coming
   of the Word, it seems from the chapter before us in the 16th verse,
   that men were converted by having their ears opened by God. Alas, men's
   ears are still stopped up!

   An old Puritan has mentioned seven forms of what he calls, "ear
   stoppers," which need to be taken out of the human ear. They are
   frequently blocked up by ignorance--they know not the importance and
   value of the Truth of God and, therefore they refuse to give earnest
   heed to it. Judging it to be an idle tale, they go their way to their
   farms and to their merchandise. Some ears are stopped up by
   unbelief--they have heard the glad tidings of salvation but they have
   not received it as an Infallible Revelation from Heaven, a message
   backed by Divine authority. Skepticism and philosophy, falsely so
   called, barricade Eargate against the assaults of Emmanuel's captains
   so that even the great battering rams of the Gospel prove powerless to
   force an entrance. "He could not do many mighty works then because of
   their unbelief!"

   Others ears are stopped up by impenitence--the hardness of the heart
   causes a deadness of the ear. You may discharge the great cannons of
   the Law in the ears of some men, but they will not stir. The thunders
   of God startle the wild beasts of the wood but impenitence is not moved
   thereby. The Gospel, itself, sounds upon such ears with no more

   effect than upon a marble statue--the groans of Calvary are nothing to
   them. Some ears are stopped by prejudice--they have made up their minds
   as to what the Gospel ought to be and they will not hear it as it is.
   They have set up for themselves a standard of what the Truth of God
   should be and that standard is a false one, for they have put bitter
   for sweet and sweet for bitter, darkness for light and light for
   darkness.

   Prejudices against the preacher, or against the denomination are but
   forms of the same evil--they make men to be as Ulysses was when his
   ears were sealed with wax, for they are even as deaf men. The entrance
   into many ears is also effectually barred by the love of sin. He who
   loves vice will not hear of repentance--the lover of pleasure detests
   holy mourning. The licentious think holiness to be another name for
   slavery. The man who finds delight in sin is a deaf adder whom the
   wisest charmer cannot charm--the poison of asps is under his tongue and
   he cannot renounce his deadly hate of a Gospel which rebukes his evil
   ways. It would be vain to teach cleanliness to the sow which wallows in
   the mire--it loves uncleanness and after uncleanness will it go.

   Some ears are stopped through pride--the plain, unflattering, humbling
   Gospel of the sinner's Savior is not to their taste. The Gospel for
   lost sinners, they think, is not addressed to them, for they are almost
   good enough and are by no means worthy of any great blame, or in danger
   of any great punishment. When they acknowledge their sinnership in
   words they feel it not in their hearts, therefore they hear not the
   Truth of God in the love of it. If the Gospel-pipe could be tuned to
   notes of flattery, to praise the dignity of man, they would attend to
   its music--but a Gospel for vulgar sinners! How can their noble souls
   endure it? With their fine feathers all ruffled in disdain, they turn
   away in a rage.

   Alas, how many ears are stopped through worldliness? If you stand in a
   street where the traffic is abundant--where the constant thunder of
   rumbling wheels creates a din--it would be difficult to preach so as to
   command an audience, for the abundant sound would prevent all hearing.
   And, to a great extent, the mass of mankind are just in that position
   as to the joyful sound of the Gospel--the rumbling of the wheels of
   commerce, the noise of trade and the cries of competition, the whirl of
   cares and the riot of pleasures--all these drown the persuasive voice
   of heavenly love so that men hear no more of it than they would hear a
   pin fall in the midst of a hurricane at sea. Only when God unstops the
   ear is the still small voice of Truth heard in the chambers of the
   heart.

   Now it is clear to every thoughtful person that all these ear-stoppers
   existed in the olden times as well as now and therefore the same work
   of opening the passage to the heart was necessarily performed. Dreams
   did not convert sinners of the Patriarchal age, however vivid they
   might be. Nor did prophetic warnings by themselves arouse them--the
   hand of Him who created the ear was needed to cleanse and circumcise it
   before the Truth of God could find admission. Note the next sentence,
   He "seals their instruction." That was the means of conversion in the
   olden times. God brought the Truth down upon the soul as you press a
   seal upon wax--you bear upon the seal to make the impression and even
   thus the power of God pressed home the Word.

   Truth is heard by men, but they forget it unless the Holy Spirit takes
   the Truth and puts it home and lays His force upon it and then it makes
   a stamp upon the conscience, upon the memory, and upon the entire
   manhood. Perhaps, also, by sealing here is meant confirming. A thing is
   sealed when it is established by testimony and witness--under hand and
   seal, as we say. Now the Holy Spirit has a way of making Truth to
   become manifest to men and cogent upon their minds by bearing His
   witness with it, so that they cannot help feeling that it is true. He
   sets it in such a light that they cannot dispute it, but yield full
   consent to it, their conscience being overwhelmingly convinced.

   Dear Friends, I pray God the Holy Spirit in this sense to seal home the
   Word we speak to each one of you, that from Hearers you may grow into
   Believers. I know you will remain Hearers, only, unless that sacred
   sealing shall take place, but let that come upon you and your soul will
   have the Gospel stamped into its very texture, never more to be
   effaced. If the Spirit of God thus seals you, you will be sealed,
   indeed! By sealing is also sometimes meant preserving and setting
   apart, as we seal up documents or treasures of great value that they
   may be secure. In this sense the Gospel needs sealing up in our hearts.
   We forget what we hear till God the Holy Spirit seals it in the soul
   and then it is pondered and treasured up in the heart--it becomes to us
   a goodly pearl, a Divine secret, a peculiar heritage.

   This sealing is a main point in conversion. What thousands of sermons
   many of you have heard, but the instruction has never been sealed to
   you and, therefore, you remain unsaved! I cannot bear to think of your
   unhappy case and I beseech those who love the Lord to pray that our
   discourses, or the sermons of someone else, or the Bible itself, may be
   sealed of the Lord upon these, my unhappy Hearers, that they may be
   converted and saved! O for the Lord's sealing hand

   upon men's hearts! Send, Lord, by whomever You will send, and by Your
   servant, also! Give the hearing ear and then engrave your Gospel upon
   an understanding heart. You are able to do this and in faith we seek it
   at Your hands, O Lord God of our salvation! In this manner men were
   converted in the olden times--ears were opened and hearts were sealed.

   It appears, also, that the Lord, in those days, employed Providence as
   a help towards conversion--and that Providence was often of a very
   gentle kind, for it preserved men from death. Read the 18th verse--"He
   keeps back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the
   sword." Many a man has had the current of his life entirely changed by
   an escape from imminent peril. Solemn thoughts have taken possession of
   his formerly careless mind and he has said to himself, "Has God
   preserved me from this danger? Then let me be grateful to Him. He must
   have had a purpose in my preservation. Let me find out what it is and
   thankfully endeavor to answer to it."

   Have any of you, my Hearers, escaped from shipwreck? Is there one here
   who has escaped from an accident upon the iron way? Are you one of a
   handful who were snatched from between the very jaws of death? Have you
   risen up from a fever which laid you very low? Are you now almost the
   only survivor of a family, all the members of which, except yourself,
   have been taken away by consumption, or some other hereditary disease?
   Are you a remarkable monument of sparing mercy? Then, I pray you, let
   the long-suffering of God lead you to repentance, for it has led many
   before you and it is intended that it should do the same for you!

   Yield to the gentle pressure of loving kindness, even as the flowers
   that yield their perfumes to the sunshine do not need to be crushed and
   bruised like Oriental spice beneath the pestle. Tenderly does the Lord
   call you to Himself, and says, "I have spared you from the grave. I
   have also kept your guilty soul from going down to Hell. I have placed
   you, today, under the sound of the Gospel. I am, by My servant, calling
   upon you to turn unto Me and live. Will you not hear Me? You are still
   on praying ground and pleading terms with Me--will you not consider all
   this?" Thus God speaks now by actions, which speak more loudly than
   words, and it seems that in the same way He was known to speak to men
   in the days gone by, so that Providential circumstances were often the
   means of conversion.

   But, further, it seems that, as Elihu puts it, sickness was a yet more
   effectual awakener in the common run of cases. Observe the 19th verse,
   "He is chastened, also, with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of
   his bones with strong pain: so that his life abhors bread, and his soul
   dainty meat." Severe pain destroyed appetite and brought on extreme
   lassitude and distaste of life--but all this was sent in mercy to fetch
   the wanderer home. Yes, men get space for thought when they are shut up
   in the chamber of sickness. While the mill-wheel went on and on and on,
   they could not hear God speak, but when its hum is hushed the warning
   voice sounds forth clearly.

   There in silence the patient tosses on the bed, wakeful at night and
   fearful by day. And then conscience lifts up its clamor and is
   heard--then, too, the Spirit of God seizes the opportunity to speak to
   an awakened conscience--and He convicts the man of sin. How much some
   of us owe to a bed of sickness! I do not desire for any unconverted
   person here that he should be ill, but if that would be the way to make
   him think, repent and believe, I could earnestly pray for it! I believe
   the Lord has often preached to men in hospitals who never heard Him in
   churches or chapels. Fever and cholera have been heard by those whom
   ministers could not reach.

   If we could banish pain and sickness from the world, it may be we
   should be robbing Righteousness of two of her most impressive
   Evangelists. What Jonah was to Nineveh, sickness has been to many a
   man. Like Elijah, also, it has cried in the soul, "Choose you this day
   whom you will serve." Disease has been a grim orator for God and with
   an eloquence not to be resisted, it has made the hearts of men to bow
   before its message. If there are any here who have lately been thus
   afflicted, I would ask them whether God has blessed it to their souls.

   I earnestly pray that they may not be hardened by it, for in that case
   there is fear that God will say, "Why should you be smitten anymore,
   you will revolt more and more!" and He may add, "I will let them alone,
   they are given unto idols. I have smitten them till their whole head is
   sick and their whole heart is faint. I have made them to be so near
   death's door, that from the crown of the head even to the foot they are
   all wounds and bruises through the chastening of My rod. I will give
   them up, and no more will I deal with them in a way of Grace." Great
   God have pity, still, and make Your chastisements effectual to their
   souls!

   Now, note well that we do not assert that all persons who are saved are
   awakened by sickness--far from it! All that we are now taught is that
   many are so aroused and that such was the case in the instance
   described by Elihu. In addition to this sickness, the person whom God
   saved was even brought to be apprehensive of death--"Yes, his soul
   draws near

   unto the grave, and his life to the Destroyer." When a man is made to
   lie upon his bed on the brink of Hell and look into another world, that
   sight may be sacredly blessed to him. O, it is no small thing to peer
   into eternity and to make out, amid the horrid gloom, no shape of hope
   but ghastly forms of hideous woe! To have behind one the memory of a
   mix-spent life, to have above one an angry God, to have within one the
   aches of the body and the pangs of remorse and to have beneath one the
   bottomless pit, yawning with its lurid fires--what can be worse?

   This side of Hell, what can be worse than the tortures of an awakened
   conscience? This has sometimes made men wake up from a life-slumber and
   compelled them to cry, "What must we do to be saved?" I wish that every
   man here, who has remained unmoved by gentler means, might have some
   such an experience! It were better for you to be saved so as by fire
   than not to be saved at all. But, now, notice that all this did not
   lead the person into comfort. Although he was impressed by the dream
   and sickness, and so on, yet the ministry of some God-sent ambassador
   was needed.

   "If there is a messenger with him," that is a man sent of God--"an
   interpreter," one who can open up obscure things and translate God's
   mind into man's language--"one among a thousand," for a true preacher,
   expert in dealing with souls, "is a rare person" to show unto man his
   uprightness, "then He is gracious unto him." God could save souls
   without ministers, but He does not often do it. He could bring men to
   Jesus without the call from the lips of His sent servants, but as a
   general rule, conversion in the olden times needed the messenger and
   the interpreter, and it needs them still--"How shall they believe on
   Him of whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a
   preacher, and how shall they preach except they be sent?"

   I pray that many of you, dear Brothers, who know the Lord, may become
   preachers to others. That you may be such successful messengers of
   mercy to poor broken hearts that you may be to them picked and choice
   men like one out of a thousand! I entreat you to pray for me, also,
   that I may have a share and a large share, in this blessed employment,
   and that to many God may say through me, "Deliver him from going down
   to the pit, for I have found a Ransom."

   IV. Fourthly, and with too much brevity, THE OBJECTS AIMED AT IN THE
   OLD CONVERSIONS WERE JUST THE SAME as those that are aimed at
   now-a-days. Will you kindly look at the 17th verse? The first thing
   that God had to do with the man was to withdraw him from his purpose.
   He finds him set upon sin, upon rebellion, upon carnal pleasure, upon
   everything that is selfish and worldly--and conversion turns him away
   from such evil purposes--it was so then, it is so now. This turning of
   an obstinate will towards God and holiness is, however, no easy
   matter--to stay the sun in his course, or reverse the marches of the
   moon would not be a harder task.

   The next object of the Divine work was to hide pride from man, for man
   will stick to self-righteousness as long as he can. Never does limpet
   adhere to its rock more firmly than a sinner to his own merits,
   although, indeed, he has none! Like the old Greek hero in the
   mythology, the natural man sits down upon the stone of self-esteem and
   Hercules, himself, cannot tear him from it. When he is vile even in
   outward character, he still fancies that there is some good thing in
   him and to that fancy he will tenaciously cling! So that it is a work
   of Divine power, an effort of the august Omnipotence of Heaven--to get
   a man away from his innate and desperate pride.

   Beloved, another great object of conversion is to lead man to a
   confession of his sin. Hence we find it said in the 27th verse, "He
   looks upon man, and if any say I have sinned, and perverted that which
   was right, and it profited me not, He will deliver his soul from going
   into the pit." Man hates confession to his God, I mean humble,
   personal, hearty confession. He will go to a priest and answer all his
   filthy questions, but he will not confess to the Lord! He will gabble
   over words which he calls a "general confession," but true, heart-felt
   confession he shrinks from--he will not come to the publican's cry if
   he can help it. He will not say, frankly, from his heart, "I have
   sinned." He will not own or confess the perverseness of his nature and
   say, "I have perverted that which is right." Nor can you get him to
   admit the folly and stupidity of his sin, so as to say, "it profited me
   not."

   But conversion brings him to his knees. Conversion pulls up the sluices
   of his soul and makes him pour out his confessions before the Most
   High. And when this is done, then salvation has come to the man's soul,
   for God desires man to put himself into the place of condemnation in
   order that He may be able to say to him, "I forgive you freely." The
   Lord shuts us up to hopelessness and helplessness in order that He may
   come as a God of Grace and display His abounding mercy. All our hope
   lies in Him and all other hopes are delusions. The great work in
   conversion is not to make people better, so that they may come to God
   on a good footing--it is to strip them completely and lay them low so

   that God may come to them when they are on a bad footing, or rather on
   no footing at all, but down in the dust at His

   feet.

   The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost, but it
   needs God Himself to convince men that they are lost. And the Spirit's
   work of soul-humbling is just this--to get man to feel so diseased that
   he will accept the Physician--to get him to feel so poor that he will
   accept the charity of Heaven. To get him to know that he is so stripped
   that he will no longer be proud of his fig leaves, but will be willing
   to take the robe of righteousness which Christ has worked out.
   Conviction is sent to kill the man, to break him in pieces, to bury
   him, to let him know his own corruption--and all this as a preliminary
   to his quickening and restoration.

   We must see the bones in the valley to be dead and dry, or we shall not
   hear the Voice out of the excellent Glory, saying, "Thus says the Lord,
   'You dry bones live!'" May God in His mercy teach us what all this
   means and may we all experience an old-fashioned conversion!

   V. Fifthly, the process of conversion in days of yore exactly resembled
   that which is worked in us now as to ITS SHADES. The shadowy side wore
   the same somber hues as now. First of all, the man refused to hear. God
   spoke once, yes twice, and man regarded Him not--here was obstinate
   rebellion. His heart was as an adamant stone. How true is that today!
   Then came the chastening till the man's bones were made to ache and he
   was full of misery. It is often the same now. I acknowledge that I was
   brought to God by agony of soul. I have often said from this pulpit
   that no man ever steers his boat towards the port of peace till he is
   driven there by stress of weather.

   We never come to Christ till we feel we cannot do without Him. We must
   feel our poverty before we shall ever come and beg at the door of His
   mercy for help. The shades are the same, for the same imminence of
   danger which Elihu spoke of comes upon every sinner's consciousness,
   more or less, before he resorts to Jesus for refuge. The same bitter
   sense of sin still comes over men and the same wonder at their own
   folly in having continued in it. The same darkness still covers the
   sinner's pathway and the same inability to procure the light for
   himself. The same need of light from above, the same need of help from
   Him who is mighty to save. If any of you are passing, just now, through
   great darkness of soul because you have not yet come to the light--and
   God is revealing yourselves to yourselves--be comforted, for the same
   dark road has been traversed by many of the saints before you and it is
   a safe pathway, leading to comfort in Jesus Christ!

   VI. But now, sixthly and very briefly, again, THE LIGHTS ARE THE SAME,
   even as the shades were the same. You will note in Elihu's description
   that the great source of all the light was this--"Deliver him from
   going down to the pit, for I have found a Ransom." There is not a gleam
   of light in the case till you come to that Divine Word--and is it not
   so now? Did you ever get any comfort for your troubled souls until you
   were led to see the ransom found by God in Jesus Christ? Did you ever
   know the value of the Ransom for yourselves till God spoke it home to
   you--"Deliver him from going down to the pit, for I have found a
   Ransom!"

   This is the central point of the sinner's hope--a bleeding Savior
   paying our ransom price in drops of blood--the dying Son of God
   achieving our redemption by His own death! Oh, dear Souls, who are in
   the dark, if you want light, there is light nowhere but at the Cross!
   Do not look within for light--the only benefit of looking within is to
   be more and more convinced that all is dark as midnight apart front
   Jesus. Look within if you want to despair! But if you wish for hope,
   look yonder to Calvary's mountain, where the Son of God lays down His
   life that sinners may not die! Hear from Heaven the Voice which says,
   "I have found a Ransom." That is the only reason why God delivers
   you--not because He has seen any good thing in you, but because He has
   found a Ransom for you. Look where God looks and your comfort will
   begin.

   Then this precious Gospel being announced to the sinner, the comfort of
   it enters his soul in the exercise of prayer-- "He shall pray unto God,
   and he will be favorable unto Him." O, you can pray when you get to the
   Cross! Our prayers, before we see Christ, are poor poor things, but
   when we get to Calvary and see the utmost Ransom paid and the full
   atonement made, then prayer becomes the utterance of a child to a
   father and we feel quite sure it will speed. Next, it appears that the
   soul obtains comfort because God gave it His righteousness--"for He
   will render unto man His righteousness." That righteousness which God
   expected God bestows! That righteousness which man ought to have worked
   out but could not, Christ works out and God treats the believing man as
   if he were righteous, making him righteous in the righteousness of
   Christ! Here is another source of joy.

   And then is the man led to a full confession of his sin. In the 27th
   verse the last cloud upon his spirit is blown away and he is at perfect
   peace. God was gracious to the man described by Elihu. God Himself
   became his light and his salvation and he came forth into joy and
   liberty. There is nothing more full of freshness and surprise than the
   joy of a new convert! Though thousands have felt it, yet each one, as
   he feels it, is himself amazed. I did really think, when God forgave
   me, that I was the most extraordinary instance of His Sovereign love
   that ever lived and that I should be bound even in Heaven, itself, to
   tell to others how God's infinite mercy had pardoned, in my case, the
   biggest sinner that ever was forgiven. Now, every saved soul is led to
   feel just that and to exult and rejoice, and magnify the Lord with
   extreme surprise because of His goodness!

   It seems it was so in Job's day and it is so now! The old conversions
   are the conversions of the period--the shades are the same and the
   lights are the same.

   VII. And last of all, which is the seventh point, THE RESULTS ARE THE
   SAME, for I think I hardly know a better description of the result of
   regeneration than that which is given in the 25th verse--"His flesh
   shall be fresher than a child's: he shall return to the days of his
   youth." He who was an old wrinkled man in sin and looked yet older
   through his sorrow, becomes born-again! He starts upon a new career
   with a new life within him! The health which had departed from his soul
   comes back! The spring of spiritual juvenility wells up in him because
   God has begotten him afresh and made him a new creature--"Old things
   have passed away, behold all things are become new!"

   And with this change comes back joy. See the 26th verse--"He shall see
   His face with joy; for He will render unto man His righteousness." And
   the 30th verse--"To bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened
   with the light of the living." So that the new spirit finds itself in a
   new world in which it goes forth with joy and is led forth with peace.
   The mountains and the hills break forth before it into singing and all
   the trees of the forest do clap their hands. It was so then--it is just
   the same now!

   O that the same blessed thing may happen to many here present at this
   time! I have endeavored to give a description of conversion, that you
   may see what it is to be renewed in heart, but I shall have failed of
   my intention unless many a knee shall be bent to God with this prayer,
   "O Spirit of God, renew my nature, change my heart! Make my flesh to be
   fresher than a child's! Make me a new creature in Christ Jesus."

   Time is passing--we are getting now almost one-fourth through another
   year and the year itself will soon fly away. I would speak to careless
   and thoughtless ones, again, and ask them, will it never be time to
   think upon these things? Will it never be time to consider your ways?
   Will it never be time to seek the Lord? You know not how near you are
   to the grave's brink. Do consider, I beseech you, and remember that the
   Lord waits to be gracious--that He delights in mercy and if you seek
   Him He will be found of you!

   And this great conversion and regeneration, of which we have spoken at
   such length, shall be yours, and you shall see the face of God with joy
   even as they did of old! The Lord grant it to you for the Redeemer's
   sake. Amen.

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 32; Job 33:14-30.
     __________________________________________________________________

Royal Homage

   (No. 1102)

   A SERMON DELIVERED

   BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And cast their crowns before the Throne." Revelation 4:10.

   THERE are a great many things we should like to know about Heaven. Our
   curiosity has been excited full often to ask a vast number of
   questions, but after being excited it has never been gratified, for
   God's Word has told us little about the details of that happy realm. I
   suppose the Lord thought it better to leave the future shrouded in
   mystery that we might think more of the common everyday duties of the
   life that now is. Therefore the Revelation He has made directs our
   faith to Himself and to His dear Son--and does not distract our
   attention with descriptions of scene and circumstance into which our
   imagination would fondly rise.

   He has thus saved the details about the next world until we get there,
   to make surprises of them, so that Heaven might be all the brighter
   because it so infinitely exceeds anything that we had conceived. We are
   not told, for instance, where Heaven is. There have been very learned
   conjectures about certain stars and constellations which are supposed
   to be the center of all the celestial system and therefore may be the
   center of the universe and, therefore, the place where the Throne of
   God is absolutely located and the Presence of God peculiarly revealed.
   When all is said, it is only, "it may be," and it is just as unlikely
   as it is likely.

   I regard such speculations as stargazing to be idle and unseemly,
   impertinent and unprofitable--a pure waste of time and perhaps worse.
   We are not told anything even about the social communion of Heaven. We
   do know, or at least we think we have abundant reason for believing,
   that saints know each other--that they are not like men in a great
   mass, indistinct and undistinguishable--but that there is fellowship
   among the saints. We think that Abraham is Abraham, and Isaac is Isaac,
   and Jacob is Jacob--and the redeemed ones from among men sit down with
   Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as such--in the kingdom of God.

   The New Jerusalem is said to have its streets, and streets imply
   intercourse, but there is little said about that--just an outline, as
   it were, such as an artist might make with charcoal--none of the
   filling up and the bright colors. We are told little of the food of
   Heaven, or whether there is any--whether the bodies need food to feed
   on for their nourishment and nectarous draughts for their refreshment,
   albeit, when the manna once dropped from Heaven men did eat angels'
   food. And we are told little of the celebrations of Heaven, whether the
   worship will be uniform, or whether there will be certain days joyous
   above the rest, high days, feasts and festivals, jubilees and glorious
   times of the unveiling of God's Presence in sevenfold splendor when the
   harps shall pour forth more melodious tunes!

   Of all these things we should like to have known something, but our
   heads cannot hold much. One thing would have pushed out another.
   Passages like this we could not spare--"The Son of Man came to seek and
   to save that which was lost." Concerning such a sentence I will venture
   to say every single syllable in the verse is worth more than whole
   volumes about Heaven might have been, though the Spirit of God might
   have inspired them--worth more for present and practical purpose to us
   who are yet among the sons of men.

   Are there any dear Brethren who understand the Book of Revelation, the
   Book of Ezekiel and the Book of Daniel? I am pleased to hear it. But if
   the Lord will help me to understand Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, I
   shall be perfectly satisfied to go on preaching the Gospel of Jesus
   Christ, for I think I shall get up to them by-and-by, in their
   knowledge of prophecy and mystery, when I come into clearer light and
   see the Master face to face! Meanwhile, there are sinners to be saved!
   We must go about doing this soul-saving business in His name, with the
   simple means put before us in the Gospels and Epistles which we are
   enabled to understand by the Spirit of God through our own personal
   experience of the revealed Truth of God.

   Now, tonight, let us take a glimpse, just a glimpse, within the veil,
   such as our text affords us. We find the 24 elders, (who, without
   straining the passage, we might conceive to be and who doubtless are,
   the representatives of the Church), sitting on their thrones before the
   august Majesty of God. They have crowns upon their heads and they are
   represented as casting those crowns before the Throne of God. From this
   sublime picture I gather two things--first, that these representative
   men, representatives of the Church of God, will all be crowned--they
   have crowned heads. And secondly, that they all cast their crowns
   before the Throne of God. When we have talked of these things, we will
   gather a few lessons of practical moment for this present life.

   I. Brethren, THE SAINTS IN HEAVEN ARE ALL CROWNED. I say, "all," for
   these represent the whole. The 24 elders are represented as saying,
   "You have redeemed us out of every people, and language, and nation,"
   so that they represent all. It may be that there are degrees in Glory.
   It may be that there are none. I do not attempt to solve the question.
   But if there are, yet there is no degree below a crowned head in
   Heaven. All the saints have their crowns--"A crown of life that fades
   not away" is the very lowest portion of the very least saint who is
   admitted into Glory!

   Now, how is it they come to be crowned? Our answer will be six fold.
   They are all kings Dei Gratia. You know how our monarchs like to put it
   on their coins, "Dei Gratia"--"by the Grace of God," though I don't
   know with what propriety--for on the whole they are about as graceless
   a lot of individuals as are to be found anywhere--kings and emperors
   and all hereditary rulers. If one were to take promiscuously
   half-a-dozen kings and half-a-dozen paupers, I think, in respect to
   moral character, the paupers would probably not have the most cause to
   blush. And I am sure there is a larger percentage of the poor on earth
   than of the richest among men who are heirs of the kingdom of Heaven.

   But what they take for themselves as being by the Grace of God,
   everyone in Heaven may say of himself. Truly, they are all kings by the
   Grace of God. Ah, ask them and they will tell you it was the sovereign
   will of God, alone, that set them apart--it was the Lord, their
   heavenly Father--who chose them from among the sons of men that they
   should be His sons and daughters! And it was the Grace of God which
   first led them to know anything about reigning with Christ. Grace came
   and enlightened their understanding. Grace influenced their wills.
   Grace changed their affections. Grace made them to be heirs of Heaven
   and they will tell you it was Grace that kept them where Grace brought
   them--that they did not merely begin in the spirit to be afterwards
   made perfect in the flesh--but that as Grace was Alpha, it was Omega.

   The Spirit of God which worked in them mightily, made them diligent in
   every good word and work and willing to be and to do according to God's
   good pleasure. And every crowned head there will tell you that the very
   last act of faith, before he entered into fruition, was as much based
   upon Grace and as much the fruit of Grace as was the first act of
   believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is not a king in Heaven that
   has his crown on any other terms than this, "by the Sovereign Grace of
   God." But, though it may seem astonishing, in the second place they are
   all kings by hereditary descent! "How?" you say, "They were born in sin
   and shaped in iniquity! They are of the fallen Adam, heirs of eternal
   misery."

   Quite so, but they have been born-again, and it is in their new nature
   that they are before the Throne of God. They have been "begotten,
   again, unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
   dead." "Beloved, know you not that they are the sons of God," and
   though, "it does not yet appear what they shall be," yet they are truly
   God's sons and, therefore, when Christ shall appear they, also, will
   appear with Him in Glory? There are none in Heaven but God's sons! The
   angels, it is true, are there, and they are His ministering servants.
   But there are none of the human race there that are merely servants.
   They are all sons.

   Some were prodigal sons and some, at times, had got into the bad temper
   of the elder brother in the parable. But they are all sons and they are
   there because they are sons. They have come to their crown by
   inheritance, as much as any Prince of Wales ever succeeded in this
   country to his crown. There is born in the image of God's Son a new and
   peculiar race with Heaven as their inheritance--an inheritance which
   Hell can never spoil. They are kings, then, by hereditary descent. But,
   thirdly, they are kings by another right. They are kings by marriage
   alliance. There are some that come to royal dignity by being affianced
   and betrothed to kings.

   There is many a crowned head that would not have been so by descent,
   but has come to be so by being given in wedlock to a royal consort. Now
   the Church of God is the Bride, the Lamb's wife and, because Jesus is
   crowned, therefore He will have it that His Church shall be crowned,
   too. He gave her Himself--He gave her everything that He

   had--He relinquished Heaven for her sake. He suffered on earth for her,
   bled on the Cross for her, went into the grave for her and now He will
   make her partaker of all He has. As He took all her shame, so she shall
   take her share in all His Glory. He went to the Cross for her and she
   shall come to the crown with Him!

   Therefore are they before the Throne of God and serve Him day and night
   in His Temple, because they are one with Jesus. Because He lives, they
   also live. And because He, as the only begotten Son, stands always in
   His Father's love, therefore do they stand in the same. But fourthly
   (and you will think surely that all the rights in this world meet in
   these crowned heads, and so they do), they are kings by right of
   conquest and of victory. A crown should signify and did signify, in the
   olden times, struggling, battling and contending. The first crowns, I
   suppose, were given to those who were the strongest men and had fought
   best in the day of battle.

   Well, we have already said that the crowns in Heaven are all the gifts
   of Divine Grace and yet at the same time it is true that those who have
   the crowns have fought for them--"These are they that came out of great
   tribulation." It was not that tribulation procured them their crowns,
   still it seems to be a rule--the usual rule in God's Church--that those
   of His servants who are to be rewarded should work, and those who are
   to be crowned should fight. At any rate, if you and I suppose we shall
   get the crown without contending for it, we shall find ourselves
   mistaken! Canaan belonged to the Israelites--it was theirs by a
   Covenant of Salt--but they had to fight for it and dispute every inch
   with the Hittite and the Canaanite and the Jebusites, and so must we.

   We shall get to Heaven by God's Grace, but we must go on pilgrimage to
   get there. There is no chariot to carry us all along the road. We must
   foot it. We must climb the Hill of Difficulty and go down to the Valley
   of Humiliation. And he that endures to the end--the same shall be
   saved. Master Bunyan's picture of the bright spirits on the top of the
   palace who sang, "Come in! Come in! Eternal Glory you shall win"--would
   not have been complete if he had not pictured the armed men at the
   bottom of the stairs who stood there to keep back any who sought to
   enter the house--would not have been complete without the description
   of the man of the grave countenance.

   The man with the ink-horn said, "Set down your name," and when he had
   put down his name, he drew his sword and fought desperately until he
   seemed to die--yet by-and-by he was seen on the top of the palace for
   he had won the day--

   "Lord, I must fight if I would reign, Oh bear me safely through."

   They are kings, then, because they have fought with sin and with
   temptations! They are not crowned without having contended for the
   victory. And you know how sharply some of them have had to contend,
   even unto blood have they resisted, striving against sin. Yes, the
   brightest and fairest of them have had to bear the brunt of most fierce
   persecutions, fights with lions--even to die at the stake and through
   sufferings that cannot be told have they entered into rest.

   Then, fifthly, the crowned heads in Heaven have their crowns and their
   crowns befit them well, because of the nobility of their character. If
   honors were fairly distributed among men, we should not so often see
   the meanest spirit in the loftiest place. It is always one of the
   hardships of this life. Of this the wise man complained--that he had
   seen servants on horseback and masters walking in the mire--the great
   spirits in the world in rags and the mean spirits clothed in
   scarlet--the men that deserved well lying at the gate licked by dogs
   and the men that deserved ill faring sumptuously every day and clothed
   in scarlet and fine linen!

   Now it is not so in Heaven. There, in Heaven, nobility is given to the
   noble and to the upright in character the reward of the righteous, for
   though it is not of debt, but of Grace, yet the pure in heart shall see
   God and they that are undefiled in the way shall inherit the blessing.
   O how bright those spirits are that are crowned! The crowns do well
   demean them--they are without fault before the Throne of God. There is
   no infirmity about their character or imperfection about their
   constitution. If you should dwell with them a thousand ages you would
   never hear them speak an idle word and if you could inspect their
   hearts with Omniscient eyes you would not read therein one godless
   thought. They are sanctified perfectly, delivered from every taint of
   corruption and now they are like their Lord Himself in holiness of
   character! Well should they be crowned whose character has thus been
   made glorious by the work of the Spirit of God within them!

   And, once more, they have another right to their crowns, because those
   crowns represent real possessions. There are little princes in this
   world whose principalities are about as large as ordinary kitchen
   gardens and they account themselves very great, indeed. The man of
   great esteem is like John R. in English history, who had not a foot of
   ground.

   The less the man's possession, often the man's greater self-possession.
   But in Heaven there are no pauper princes. There they are rich to all
   the intents of bliss. They have their crowns, and they have their
   kingdoms. All things are theirs--the gift of God--and God is theirs and
   Christ is theirs. They are clothed with honor and majesty--not
   outwardly, only, but inwardly--and they have all the accompaniments
   that should go with royal dignity.

   Does it not seem, however, like a dream, as one thinks it over and
   tries to realize it? Let us pause a moment and follow the reverie, to
   which a well assured faith gives substantial reality. You and I, if we
   believe in Jesus, will soon sit with Jesus where we shall be crowned!
   We are poor today, obscure and ignoble--we have no influence, it may
   be, and possibly are of little account among our fellows--but within a
   short time, perhaps before this year or even this month shall have run
   out its anxious days, we shall be with crowns upon our heads
   spiritually. We shall be before the Throne in spirit, and then,
   by-and-by, when the Lord shall come, we shall in body, as well as in
   spirit, sit there raised from the dead and made perfect, forever
   enjoying the rank of kings and priests unto our God, for we shall reign
   forever and ever!

   Can you conceive of it? Bunyan represents Mercy as laughing in her
   sleep. Truly, as we think this over, one feels inclined to laugh for
   very joy of heart! Shall I wear a crown? Those who were despised and
   rejected of men and counted fools--will they be kings? Those saints
   that were made to lie in prison for their Master's sake and no names of
   ignominy were thought base enough for them--will they be kings? Will
   the angels be courtiers while these humble ones, raised and changed,
   but yet the same, sit as kings in the midst of the courts of Heaven,
   there to abide forever? Even so it will be!

   Come! If the head aches tonight, let the reflection that it will soon
   be crowned be a consolation to you. Come! If you have had much to worry
   you throughout the day, let the sweet thought that you will soon be
   where not a wave of trouble shall ever cross your peaceful breast be a
   rich consolation to you. There is a throne in Heaven that no one can
   occupy but you! And there is a crown in Heaven that no other head can
   wear but yours! And there is a part in the eternal song that no voice
   can ever compass but yours! And there is a glory to God that would be
   missing if you did not come to render it! And there is a part of
   infinite majesty and glory that would never be reflected unless you
   should be there to reflect it!

   Therefore comfort one another with this, that before long you shall be
   there! Because the Grace of God has elected you, you have an hereditary
   right through the new birth. You have a marriage right by reason of
   union with Christ. You have rights of conquest as a warrior. You shall
   have the rights of character, for your character will be perfect before
   long. And you have the rights of possession, for God has given you all
   that which goes with the crown.

   II. Well, now, secondly we come to a department of our subject which
   seems more easy to believe. Though they all have crowns, THEY ALL CAST
   THEM BEFORE THE THRONE. We can well conceive that, for to many of us
   that would he the first impulse of our minds. If ever we get to those
   sacred heights we will do adoring homage and if ever we receive any
   honors we will present them to Him to whom all the honor is due!

   Why, then, you ask now, do they cast their crowns at the foot of the
   Throne? There are four answers which may very properly be given. The
   first, no doubt, is for the reason of solemn reverence. They see more
   of God than we do, therefore are they more filled with awe and thrilled
   with admiration. From what we--who worship, as it were, in His outer
   courts and get but distant glimpses of His majesty and His mercy--from
   what we at present know of God we should be constrained to say, "Not
   unto us, not unto us, but unto Your name give glory for Your mercy and
   Your Truth's sake." But where God more gloriously reveals Himself and
   where His attributes are more clearly seen, no doubt there is more
   overwhelming emotion and more intense reverence--therefore at once, and
   of spontaneous impulse--the soul pays all the homage that it can before
   the Throne of God.

   I think it would seem to them as though it could not be that they could
   sit with crowned heads in the Presence of the King of kings! That head
   that once was crowned with thorns, when we see it adorned with the
   royal diadem, surely we should not bear to be crowned in the Presence
   of such an One! For what are we, and what is our Father's house? God
   has done all He can for us, yet what shall we be as compared with Him,
   the Infinite and Eternal! And as compared with Christ, the ever-blessed
   who died for us? O, our reverence will always make us feel in the
   lowest state of self-abasement at the foot of the Throne!

   Moreover, they are, no doubt, actuated by sincere humility. Reverence
   to God always brings a humble opinion of one's own self. Here below,
   Beloved, we sometimes murmur at the Divine will when His appointments
   cross and foil our inclinations. Were we more humble and less
   self-opinionated we should utterly distrust ourselves and put implicit
   confidence in Him. We should at once cast our wills at the Lord's feet.
   Here we set up our own opinion in opposition to

   the revealed will of God. We would not do that if we knew ourselves,
   but we should lay our judgment at the foot of the Throne. But up there
   they judge righteous judgments and, knowing God and beholding His
   Glory, they shrink into nothing and lay themselves at His feet--much
   more do they renounce their will.

   They feel, they know, they confess that any honor or desert they have
   has been obtained through the Grace of God-- that they must fully,
   heartily, unreservedly ascribe to Grace that which they dare not
   arrogate to themselves. Doubtless, also, they do this for another
   reason, namely, because of their profound gratitude. They bless God
   that they are where they are and what they are. If you ask those before
   the Throne, they will tell you that not only do they owe their crowns
   to Grace, but every single gem in their crowns. They have not one
   single star in their diadem but what the Lord put there and there is
   not a single sparkle of any crystal sapphire that is in their coronet
   but what they may trace the flashing gleam to the Sovereign Grace of
   God.

   Therefore, how could they keep anything to themselves? Gratitude
   constrains them to lay their crowns where their crowns came from. And,
   above all, they are actuated by intense affection. They love their
   Lord, and loving their Lord they do anything to adore Him. Self-denial
   is the name we give on earth to that Grace which not only ignores but
   consumes one's self in the fervor of zeal, in the passion of love. What
   word would answer for the like?--Though the greater vehemence of those
   in Heaven I cannot tell. They are glad to fling their richest goods,
   their choicest trophy, their most cherished treasure at His feet--they
   love Him so. Here we love ourselves and cherish some fond attachment to
   our fellow creatures, also. And our hearts are stolen away by some
   earthly object. But there they love God intensely, continually,
   undividedly, without a flaw--and consequently they cast everything down
   before Him--and they lay their crowns at His feet.

   As we see what they do, let us consider what we should do, and
   anticipate what we shall do when we join that august assembly. I would
   like to have a bright crown, bright with many gems of souls turned to
   righteousness, for they that turn many to righteousness shall shine as
   stars forever. But I think the sweetness will be to have a bright crown
   to lay at His feet, not for the sake of wearing it but giving it, if
   thereby a saved one might give honor to His Savior. You will notice
   they do not attempt to put the crown upon the Lord's head. No, we
   cannot add to His splendor! He is infinitely glorious! Without
   creatures, without servants, without saints He is glorious--we cannot
   add to His Glory--we can but lay our crowns at His feet. We cast them
   at the feet though we cannot put them on the monarch's head.

   And would not we wish to have as bright a crown as possible for the
   sake of placing it there? O, fight, you soldier of Christ, and bear
   hardness that your crown may be a precious one! Pray, minister of God,
   that you may preach with all your heart and soul and strength, that
   your diadem may be a sparkling one! Dear Sister in your tent, or dear
   Brother out in the battle, be valiant for God, for we all agree in
   this, that whatever the crown shall be, at His dear feet we cast it!

   III. Now I come to the practical lessons which these simple facts
   should teach us. There is at first sight a simple, obvious reflection
   which will readily occur to the thoughtful Hearer. By this text, we can
   know whether we are on the way to Heaven or not, because no man goes to
   Heaven to learn for the first time heavenly things. We must be scholars
   in Christ's school here, or else we cannot be taken into Christ's
   college above.

   If you and I should walk into some great cathedral where they were
   singing and ask to be allowed to sing in the choir, they would ask
   whether we had ever learned the tune, and they would not let us join
   unless we had. Nor can we expect that untrained voices should be
   admitted into the choirs above. Now, dear Brothers and Sisters, have
   you learned to cast your crowns at the Savior's feet already? Have you
   been professors of religion for some years and been honored in the
   Sunday school class, or in the ministry, and have you been enabled to
   maintain an upright character? Well, in some measure, you have a crown.
   Are you in the habit continually of casting that at His feet?

   Let me put it to you--have you anything that you call your own to boast
   of? Have you some good things that you have done that you could speak
   of? Could you say, like one of old, "Lord, I thank You that I am not as
   other men"? Have you been very good and industrious, very consistent
   and persevering and do you feel you deserve a good deal of esteem and
   honor as an acknowledgment of your distinguished services? My dear
   Friend, I am afraid you are learning a music that will never answer in
   Heaven! There is no one in Glory that ever says--"I have done well. I
   deserve credit and honor." Quite the reverse! There, the one music is,
   "Non nobis Domine!" "Not unto us, Lord! Not unto us!" Have you learned
   that? Is that your spirit every day?

   O, I think I hear one say, "Yes, indeed it is, for I have nothing
   whatever that I can boast of. I cannot say that I lay my crown at His
   feet--I do not seem to have any." Yet, very likely, the person who is
   saying that is the one who is serving God more zealously than any of
   us, for, it is the mark of God's children that the more beautiful they
   are the more uncomely they think themselves. They that are very lovely,
   themselves, all unconscious of their own attractions, can see a
   loveliness in others, while they perceive nothing to recommend their
   own character. When you, yourself, are mourning and lamenting that you
   are so deformed or so deficient, it is a mark that you are better than
   you think. The spirit that gives all glory to God and takes no glory to
   itself, is the spirit that is on the road to Heaven! May you judge
   yourselves by that!

   The next lesson, Beloved, is a lesson of unanimity. Our text says they
   all cast their crowns before the Throne of God. There are no divided
   opinions in Heaven, no denominations and parties, no schisms there.
   They are all in perfect harmony and sweet accord. What one does, all
   do. They cast their crowns, without exception, before the Throne. Let
   us begin to practice that unanimity here. As fellow Christians, let us
   get rid of everything that would divide us from each other, or separate
   us from our Lord. I do not read that there was a single elder who
   envied his brother's crown and said, "Ah, I wish I were such an one as
   he is, and had his crown." I do not read that one of them began to find
   fault with his Brother's crown, and said, "Ah, his jewels may be
   bright, but mine have a peculiar tint in them, and are of greater
   excellence."

   I do not read anything of dissension. They were all unanimous in
   casting their crowns at Jesus' feet. They were all unanimous in
   glorifying God. And it is high time we gave over congratulating
   ourselves, or censuring our fellow Christians! Rest assured there is
   something in the man you condemn, if he is a child of God, which
   condemns you--and you might do well to become a scholar of his in some
   respects. If any honorable rivalries occur among Brethren, let both
   cast their crowns at the foot of the Cross, or at the foot of the
   Throne and ascribe all to Him who gave them. Those that have obtained
   the prize are unanimous in their ascription of praise.

   Do you ask the reason? I suppose, first, it is because their
   understanding is alike transparent. Here our understandings are
   divided--one cannot see this, and another cannot see that. There are a
   great many differences of opinion, though there is only one Truth of
   God, after all. The fault must be in our perception and, doubtless, the
   blame may be distributed among us. But none the less, our allegiance to
   Truth demands that we stand by our own convictions, or rather, by God's
   Revelation. We cannot all be right--it is no use our professing that we
   are. When a person says, "You must give up this, and you must give up
   that for the sake of charity," they do but ask us to practice
   benevolence at the expense of honesty. What right have I to give up a
   Truth of God? Truth is Truth and we must fight for it, and die for it,
   if need be.

   Every effort to promote union among Christians by compromise is
   treachery to the Most High. If you are right and I am wrong, contradict
   me. Or if I am right and you are wrong, I will contradict you. Yet I
   will not outrage charity, I will rather cherish it. Is my opponent
   poor, I would supply his need without regard to his creed. Be he a Jew
   or a Papist, give him his civil rights. Let them benefit by our good
   works, but let us never connive at their evil. The way to unity is to
   find the Truth of God out and acknowledge it together. When we come to
   the Word of God, all of us, we shall come together. But any patching
   up, making this compromise and that unwarrantable concession is all
   wrong! If it did lead to a unity, the unity would be worse than a
   division!

   In Heaven the understandings are clarified and purified. They
   understand that their salvation is of Grace alone and they all cast
   their crowns at Jesus' feet. Wesley does it. So does Toplady. The
   Arminian that preached doctrines that sounded like the will of the
   flesh casts his crown as freely as the Antinomian who was known to say,
   "It is of Grace. It is of Grace, alone." There are no differences
   there! They have come to see eye to eye because they see with the eyes
   of the pure in heart who have been made to see God. But then they are
   all agreed in heart as well as in understanding. They love each other
   and they love God--all their affections flow in one channel and in one
   direction. Therefore they cast their crowns before the Throne.

   Brethren, let us stick together closely in unity of judgment and heart.
   We have done so many a year to my marvel and astonishment. May the same
   Spirit of God who has made us a three-fold cord in our unity with
   Christ, keep us so in years to come, if it please Him to spare our
   lives. May we in this Church be like the 24 elders, always casting our
   crowns before the Throne. Once again, these redeemed ones in Heaven
   teach us the true way of happiness. They set before us what

   perfect bliss is. You observe, it does not consist in selfishness.
   Never believe that possible. If a man says, "I shall make myself
   happy," he will rather mar than make happiness for himself. But when he
   seeks the Glory of God he will be happy in the pursuit as well as in
   the attainment of his object.

   Did you ever go out for a day to enjoy yourself? If you went out with
   that intent I am sure you would find yourself hard to please. But if
   you went out to enjoy the society of other people, or to help them to
   enjoy themselves, you will most likely have been very well rewarded.
   There is no happiness beneath the clouds like the happiness of
   unselfishness. Strip yourself and you clothe yourself. Throw money away
   and you grow rich--I mean in a spiritual sense. To scatter is to
   gather. To give is to grow rich. It is a hard lesson for some minds to
   learn, but it is a lesson which Christ taught us. He saved others but
   Himself He could not save. And yet He has glorified both Himself and
   His Father by that very Sacrifice of Himself!

   Happiness, again, consists in adoration, for these blessed spirits find
   it to be their happiness to adore God. The happiest days you ever spent
   are those in which you worshipped God most. If you are doing a great
   deal, but have your minds far off from God, your labor will be irksome,
   your spirits will flag and you will lack the stimulus of His
   approbation. Mary was happy at her Master's feet because she was there
   adoring Him. Mind you have much of Mary's spirit and adore God all day
   long, for that is the vestibule of Heaven! But then they were not
   merely happy because they were self-denying and adoring, but because
   they were practical. They took off their crowns and laid them before
   the Throne. And our joy on earth must lie in practically carrying out
   our principles.

   The best religion in the world laid by will is of no good. You shall
   only get joy out of it when you throw it into the winepress in clusters
   and tread it in practical service. Cast your ability to do and to
   suffer, as well as the crown of your labor and patience, at the feet of
   your God--serve Him with all your heart and wisdom and strength, and
   thus your self-denial and adoration being mixed, you shall realize on
   earth as much as possible a foretaste of what the joy of Heaven may be.
   O, that our souls may be always aspiring towards this blessed place
   where we are to dwell! May we be granted Grace to always prove the
   sincerity of our faith by fighting under God's banner for the crown!
   May we always live in the spirit of adoption whereby we prove our right
   to our crown by cultivating daily communion with Christ! May we be
   granted Divine Grace to prove our union with Him by always ascribing
   all honor, power and blessing to the Lord our God! May we always
   anticipate the homage of Heaven.

   Brothers and Sisters, be not slack in worship. I am afraid we are. We
   are sometimes told that in the Church of England the most prominent
   thing in worship is prayer, but that we do not come together so much to
   pray as to hear a sermon. There may be some truth in the charge that is
   thus preferred against us, and if there is truth in it, do not let it
   be so any longer. But I hold that hearing a sermon is worship. If it is
   practically heard it is worship and if it is applied to the soul, there
   is no higher adoration on the part of the entire man than listening to
   the Truth which God will speak through the minister to our ear and
   heart. It is a part of worship, and a very blessed part, too.

   But mind you make it so, and let it be so to us that while some worship
   within walls we worship everywhere, live worshipping, live adoring!
   Remember, sermons are, as it were, but the wet block, but adoration is
   the great end of preaching. "Praying is the end of preaching," says
   Herbert. So it is, but praising is the end of praying--the result which
   is to come out of it all. It is that for which praying exists, that God
   may be glorified! Pray God to help you to do so in every breath you
   draw, in every act you do! Let your common actions be a part of your
   holy, priestly life and be priests and kings in your doings in the
   house, in the shop, in the barn, and in the field.

   The Lord bless you, dear Friends. And as to those here present who know
   not Christ, you will never be crowned if you abide in ignorance of Him,
   or in enmity against Him. Oh, that the Lord would change your hearts
   and lead you to the Savior! May you see Him crowned with thorns and
   trust in Him, and then you shall come to be crowned with the royal
   diadem hereafter. The Lord grant it for His name's sake. Amen!

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Revelation 4 and 7.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Conditions Of Power In Prayer

   (No. 1103)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 23,

   BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And whatever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His
   commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And
   this is His commandment, That we should believe on the name of His Son
   Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment. And he
   that keeps His commandment dwells in Him, and He in him. And hereby we
   know that He abides in us, by the Spirit which He has given us." 1 John
   3:22-24.

   I THOUGHT of addressing you this morning upon the importance of prayer
   and I designed earnestly to stir you up to pray for me and for the
   Lord's work in this place. Truly, I do not think I could have had a
   more weighty subject, or one which weighs more upon my soul. If I were
   only allowed to offer one request to you it would be this--"Brethren,
   pray for us." Of what use can our ministry be without the Divine
   blessing and how can we expect the Divine blessing unless it is sought
   for by the Church of God? I would say it even with tears, "Brethren,
   pray for us." Do not restrain prayer--on the contrary, be abundant in
   intercession, for so, and so only, can our prosperity as a Church be
   increased, or even continued.

   But then, the question occurred to me, what if there should be
   something in the Church which would prevent our prayers being
   successful? That is an important question and one which ought to be
   considered most earnestly even before we exhort you to intercession. As
   we have already been taught by the first chapter of Isaiah, the prayers
   of an unholy people will soon become abominations to God. "When you
   spread forth your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; yes, when you
   make many prayers, I will not hear." Churches may fall into such a
   state that the devotions will be an iniquity. "Even the solemn meeting"
   will be a weariness unto the Lord. There may be evils in the heart of
   any one of us which may render it impossible for God, in consistency
   with His own Character and attributes, to have any regard to our
   intercessions.

   If we regard iniquity in our hearts the Lord will not hear us.
   According to our text there are some things which are essential to
   prevalence in prayer. God will hear all true prayer, but there are
   certain things which the people of God must possess or else their
   prayers will fall short of the mark. The text tells us, "Whatever we
   ask we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those
   things that are pleasing in His sight." Now, this morning the subject
   of consideration will be the essentials to power in prayer--what we
   must do, what we must be, what we must have--if we are to prevail
   habitually with God in prayer, as a matter of constant fact. Let us
   learn how to become Elijahs and Jacobs.

   I. I shall begin, first, by considering THE ESSENTIALS OF POWER IN
   PRAYER. We must make a few distinctions at the outset. I take it there
   is a great difference between the prayer of a soul that is seeking
   mercy and the prayer of a man who is saved. I would say to every person
   present, whatever his character, if you sincerely seek mercy of God
   through Jesus Christ you shall have it. Whatever may have been your
   previous condition of life, if you now penitently seek Jehovah's face
   through the appointed Mediator, He will be found of you.

   If the Holy Spirit has taught you to pray, hesitate no longer but
   hasten to the Cross and there rest your guilty soul on Jesus. I know of
   no qualifications for the sinner's first prayer except sincerity, but
   we must speak in a different way to those of you who are saved. You
   have now become the people of God and while you shall be heard just as
   the sinner would be heard, and shall daily find the necessary Grace
   which every seeker receives in answer to prayer, yet you are now a
   child of God and you are under a special discipline peculiar to the
   regenerated family. In that discipline answers to prayer occupy a high
   position and are of eminent use.

   There is something for a Believer to enjoy over and above bare
   salvation. There are mercies, blessings, comforts and favors which
   render his present life useful, happy and honorable. And these he shall
   have irrespective of character. They are not vital matters with regard
   to salvation--the Believer possesses them unconditionally, for they are
   Covenant blessings. But we now refer to the honors and the dainties of
   the house which are given or withheld according to our obedience as the
   Lord's children. If you neglect the conditions appended to these, your
   heavenly Father will withhold them from you. The essential blessings of
   the Covenant of Grace stand unconditioned--the invitation to seek for
   mercy is addressed to those who have no qualifications whatever, except
   their need.

   But come inside the Divine family as saved men and women and you will
   find that other choice blessings are given or withheld according to our
   attention to the Lord's rules in His family. To give a common
   illustration--If a hungry person were at your door and asked for bread,
   you would give it to him whatever might be his character. You will also
   give your child food whatever may be his behavior--you will not deny
   your child anything that is necessary for life. You will never proceed
   in any course of discipline against him, so as to deny him his
   necessary food, or a garment to shield him from the cold. But there are
   many other things which your child may desire which you will give him
   if he is obedient, which you will not give if he is rebellious to you.
   I take it that this illustrates how far the paternal government of God
   will push this matter and where it will not go.

   Understand, also, that the text refers not so much to God's hearing a
   prayer of His servants now and then, for that He will do, even when His
   servants are out of course with Him and when He is hiding His face from
   them. The power in prayer, here intended, is continuous and absolute
   power with God, so that to quote the words of the text, "whatever we
   ask of Him we receive." For this prayer there are certain prerequisites
   and essentials of which we have now to speak, and the first is
   child-like obedience--"Whatever we ask, we receive of Him, because we
   keep His commandments." If we are destitute of this the Lord may say to
   us as He did to His people Israel, "You have forsaken Me, and served
   other gods, therefore I will deliver you no more. Go and cry unto the
   gods which you have chosen."

   Any father will tell you that for him to grant the request of a
   disobedient child would be to encourage rebellion in the family and
   render it impossible for him to rule in his own house. It is often
   incumbent upon the parent to say, "My Child, you did not listen to my
   word just now, and, therefore, I cannot listen to yours." Not that the
   father does not love, but that he does love the child, and because of
   his love he feels bound to show his displeasure by refusing the request
   of his erring offspring. God acts with us as we should act towards our
   refractory children. And if He sees that we will go into sin and
   transgress, it is a part of His kind paternal discipline to say, "I
   will shut out your prayer, when you cry unto Me; I will not hear you
   when you entreat of Me; I will not destroy you, you shall be saved, you
   shall have the bread of life, and the water of life, but you shall have
   no more: the luxuries of My kingdom shall be denied you, and anything
   like special prevalence with Me in prayer you shall not possess."

   That the Lord deals with His own people is clear from the 81st
   Psalm--"Oh that My people had hearkened unto Me, and Israel had walked
   in My ways! I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned My
   hand against their adversaries. I should have fed them, also, with the
   finest of the wheat: and with honey out the rock should I have
   satisfied you." Why, if the disobedient child of God had the promise
   put into his hands--"Whatever you ask in prayer, you shall receive," he
   would be sure to ask for something that would bolster him up in his
   rebellion! He would be asking for provision for his own lust, and aids
   for his rebellion. This can never be tolerated! Shall God pander to our
   corruptions? Shall He find fuel for the flames of carnal passion?

   A self-willed heart hankers after greater liberty that it may be the
   more obstinate. A haughty spirit longs for greater elevation that it
   may be prouder still. A slothful spirit asks for greater ease that it
   may yet be more indolent. And a domineering spirit asks for more power
   that it may have more opportunities of oppression. As such the man is,
   will his prayer be--a rebellious spirit offers self-willed and proud
   prayers. Shall God listen to such prayers as these? It cannot be! He
   will give us what we ask if we keep His commandments, but if we become
   disobedient and reject His government He, also, will reject our prayers
   and say, "If you walk contrary to Me, I also will walk contrary to you.
   With the stubborn, I will show Myself stubborn." Happy shall we be if,
   through Divine Grace, we can say with David, "I will wash my hands in
   innocence; so will I compass Your altar, O Lord." This will never be
   perfect innocence, but it will at least be innocence of the love of sin
   and of willful revolt from God.

   Next to this is another essential to victorious prayer--child-like
   reverence. Notice the next sentence. We receive what we ask, "because
   we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His
   sight." We do not allow children, when they have a command from their
   father, to question its propriety or wisdom. Obedience ends where
   questioning begins. A child's standard of its duty must not become the
   measure of the father's right to command--good children say, "Father
   has bid us to do so-and-so, and therefore we will do it, for we delight
   to please him always." The weightiest reason for a loving child's
   action is the persuasion that it would please his parents. And the
   strongest thing that can be said to hold back a gracious child is to
   prove that such a course of action would displease his parents. It is
   precisely so with us towards God, who is a perfect Parent, and
   therefore we may, without fear of mistake, always make His pleasure the
   rule of right, while the rule of wrong may safely remain that which
   would displease Him.

   Suppose any of us should be self-willed and say, "I shall not do what
   pleases God, I shall do what pleases myself." Then, observe, what would
   be the nature of our prayers? Our prayers might then be summed up in
   the request, "Let me have my own way." And can we expect God to consent
   to that? Are we to be not only lords over God's heritage but over God
   Himself? Would you have the Almighty resign His Throne to place a proud
   mortal there? If you have a child in your house who has no respect,
   whatever, for his father, but who says, "I want to have my own way in
   all things," if he comes to you with a request, will you stoop to him?
   Will you allow him to dictate to you and forget the honor due you? Will
   you say, "Yes, my dear Child, I recognize your importance. You shall be
   lord in the house and whatever you ask for you shall have"?

   What kind of a house would that be? I fear there are some such houses,
   for there are foolish parents who suffer their children to become their
   masters and so make a rod for their own backs. But God's house is not
   ordered so! He will not listen to His self-willed children, unless it
   is to hear them in anger and to answer them in wrath! Remember how He
   heard the prayer of Israel for meat, and when the meat was yet in their
   mouths it became a curse to them? Many persons are chastened by
   obtaining their own desires, even as backsliders are filled with their
   own devices. We must have a child-like reverence of God, so that we
   feel, "Lord, if what I ask for does not please You, neither would it
   please me. My desires are put into Your hands to be corrected. Strike
   the pen through every petition that I offer which is not right and,
   Lord, put in whatever I have omitted even though I might not have
   desired it had I remembered it. Good Lord, if I ought to have desired
   it, hear me as if I had desired it. 'Not as I will, but as You will.' "
   Now I think you can see that this yielding spirit is essential to
   continual prevalence with God in prayer. The reverse is a sure barrier
   to eminence in supplication. The Lord will be reverenced by those who
   are round about Him. They must have an eye to His pleasure in all that
   they do and all that they ask, or He will not look upon them with
   favor.

   In the third place, the text suggests the necessity of child-like
   trust--"And this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name
   of His Son Jesus Christ." Everywhere in Scripture faith in God is
   spoken of as necessary to successful prayer. We must believe that God
   is and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, or
   else we have not prayed at all. In proportion to our faith will be the
   success of our prayer. It is a standing rule of the kingdom, "According
   to your faith, so be it unto you." Remember how the Holy Spirit speaks
   by the mouth of the Apostle James? "If any of you lack wisdom, let him
   ask of God, that gives to all men liberally, and upbraids not; and it
   shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he
   that wavers is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
   For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord."

   The text speaks of faith in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, which I
   understand to mean faith in His declared Character, faith in His
   Gospel, faith in the Truth concerning His Substitution and Salvation.
   Or it may mean faith in the authority of Christ, so that when I plead
   with God and say, "Do it in the name of Jesus," I mean, "Do for me as
   You would have done for Jesus, for I am authorized by Him to use His
   name. Do it for me as You would have done it for Him." He that can pray
   with faith in the name of Jesus cannot fail, for the Lord Jesus has
   said, "If you ask anything in My name, I will do it." But there must be
   faith and if there is no faith we cannot expect to be heard. Do you
   understand

   that?

   Let us come back to our family similitudes again. Suppose a child in
   the house does not believe his father's word and is constantly saying
   that he finds his mind full of doubts as to his father's truthfulness?
   Suppose, indeed, that he tells his brothers and sisters that his faith
   in his father is very weak? He mentions that wretched fact and is not
   at all shocked that he should say such a thing, but he rather feels
   that he ought to be pitied, as if it were an infirmity which he could
   not

   avoid. Somehow or other he does not believe that his father speaks the
   truth and he declares that though he tries to believe his father's
   promise, yet he cannot.

   I think a father so basely distrusted would not be in a very great
   hurry to grant such a son's requests. Indeed, it is very probable that
   the petitions of the mistrustful son would be such as could not be
   complied with, even if his father were willing to do so, since they
   would amount to a gratification of his own unbelief and a dishonor to
   his parent! For instance, suppose this child should take it into his
   head to doubt whether his father would provide him with his daily food?
   He might, then, come to his father and say, "Father, give me enough
   money to last for the next 10 years, for I shall then be a man and
   shall be able to provide for myself. Give me money down to quiet my
   fears, for I am in great anxiety." The father replies, "My Son, why
   should I do that?"

   And he gets for a reply, "I am very sorry to say it, dear Father, but I
   cannot trust you. I have such a weak faith in you and your love that I
   am afraid one of these days you will leave me to starve. And therefore
   I should like to have something sure in the bank." Which of you fathers
   would listen to a child's request if he sought such a thing? You would
   be grieved that thoughts so dishonoring to yourself should pass through
   the mind of one of your own beloved ones! And you would not and could
   not, give way to them. Let me, then, ask you to apply the parable to
   yourselves. Did you never offer requests which were of much the same
   character? You have been unable to trust God to give you, day by day,
   your daily bread, and therefore you have been craving for what you
   call, "some provision for the future."

   You want a more trusty provider than Providence, a better security than
   God's promise! You are unable to trust your heavenly Father's Word. A
   few bonds of some half-bankrupt foreign government you consider to be
   far more reliable. You can trust the Sultan of Turkey, or the Viceroy
   of Egypt, but not the God of the whole earth! In a thousand ways we
   insult the Lord by imagining "the things which are seen" to be more
   substantial than His unseen Omnipotence. We ask God to give us, at
   once, what we do not require at present and may never need at all! At
   bottom, the reason for such desires may be found in a disgraceful
   distrust of Him which makes us imagine that great stores are necessary
   to ensure our being provided for.

   Brothers and Sisters, are you not to blame, here, and do you expect the
   Lord to aid and abet your folly? Shall God pander to your distrust?
   Shall He give you a heap of cankering gold and silver for thieves to
   steal and chests of garments to feed moths? Would you have the Lord act
   as if He admitted the correctness of your suspicions and confessed to
   unfaithfulness? God forbid! Expect not, therefore, to be heard when
   your prayer is suggested by an unbelieving heart-- "Commit your way
   unto the Lord; trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass." The
   next essential to continued success in prayer is child-like love--"that
   we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one
   another as He gave us commandment."

   The great commandment after faith is love. As it is said of God, "God
   is Love," so may we say that, "Christianity is love." If we were, each
   one, incarnations of love we should have attained to the complete
   likeness of Christ. We should abound in love to God, love to Christ,
   love to the Church, love to sinners and love to men everywhere! When a
   man has no love to God, he is in the condition of a child without love
   to his father. Shall his father promise absolutely to fulfill all the
   desires of his unloving, unfilial heart? Or, if a child has no love to
   his brothers and sisters, shall the father trust him with an absolute
   promise, and say, "Ask and it shall be given you?" Why, the unloving
   son would impoverish the whole family by his selfish demands!
   Regardless of all the rest of the household, he would only care to
   indulge his own passions. His request would before long be--"Father,
   give me all the inheritance." Or, "Father, regulate the home to suit me
   and make all my brothers submit to my wishes."

   Vain of his personal appearance, like Absalom, who was proud of his
   hair, he would soon seek the kingdom for himself! Few Josephs can wear
   the garment of many colors and not become household tyrants. Who would
   allow a prodigal to run off with the estate? Who would be so unwise as
   to install a greedy, domineering brother in the seat of honor, above
   his brothers and sisters? Therefore, you see that selfishness cannot be
   trusted with power in prayer. Unloving spirits, that love neither God
   nor men, cannot be trusted with great, broad, unlimited promises. If
   God is to hear us we must love God and love our fellow men for, when we
   love God, we shall not pray for anything that would not honor God and
   shall not wish to see anything happen to us which would not also bless
   our brethren. Our hearts will beat true to God and to His creatures and
   we shall not be wrapped up in ourselves. You must get rid of
   selfishness before God

   can trust you with the keys of Heaven. When self is dead, then He will
   enable you to unlock His treasuries and, as a prince, shall you have
   power with God and prevail.

   Next to this, we must have child-like ways as well. Read the next
   verse. "He that keeps His commandments dwells in Him, and He in him."
   It is one of a child's ways to love its home. The good child to whose
   requests its father always listens loves no place so much as the dear
   old house where its parents live. Now he who loves and keeps God's
   commandments is said to dwell in Him--he has made the Lord his dwelling
   place and abides in holy familiarity with God. In him our Lord's words
   are fulfilled, "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you
   shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you." Faith and
   love, like two cherubic wings, have borne up the Believer's soul above
   the world and carried him near to the Throne of God. He has become like
   God and now it is that his prayers are such as God can answer--but
   until he is thus conformed to the Divine mind there must be some limit
   to the potency of his pleadings. To dwell in God is necessary to power
   with God.

   Suppose one of you had a boy, who said, "Father, I do not like my home,
   I do not care for you and I will not endure the restraints of family
   rule. I am going to live with strangers, but mark, Father, I shall come
   to you every week and I shall require many things of you. And I shall
   expect that you will give me whatever I ask from you"? Why, if you are
   at all fit to be at the head of the house, you will say, "My Son, how
   can you speak to me in such a manner? If you are so self-willed as to
   leave my house, can you expect that I will do your bidding? If you
   utterly disregard me, can you expect me to support you in your cruel
   unkindness and wicked insubordination? No, my Son, if you will not
   remain with me and own me as a father, I cannot promise you anything."

   And so is it with God. If we will dwell with Him and commune with Him,
   He will give us all things. If we love Him as He should be loved, and
   trust Him as He ought to be trusted, then He will hear our requests.
   But if not, it is not reasonable to expect it. Indeed, it would be a
   slur upon the Divine Character for Him to fulfill unholy desires and
   gratify evil whims. "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will
   give you the desires of your heart," but if you have no delight in God
   and He is not your dwelling place, He will not answer you. He may give
   you the bread of affliction and the water of affliction and make life
   bitter for you, but certainly He will not give you what your heart
   desires.

   One thing more--it appears from the text that we must have a child-like
   spirit, for, "Hereby we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit which
   He has given us." What is this but the Spirit of adoption--the Spirit
   which rules in all the children of God? The willful who think and feel
   and act differently from God must not expect that God will come round
   to their way of thinking and feeling and acting! The selfish who are
   actuated by the spirit of pride, the slothful who are actuated by the
   love of ease must not expect that God will indulge them! The Holy
   Spirit, if He rules in us, will subordinate our nature to His own sway
   and then the prayers which spring out of our renewed hearts will be in
   keeping with the will of God--and such prayers will naturally be heard.

   No parent would think of listening to a willful child, to a child that
   said, "I know my father does not wish me to have this, but I will have
   it." Why, as a man you would not thus be twisted about by an upstart
   youngster! Shall God grant us that which we ask for when it is contrary
   to His holy mind? It must not be! Such a possibility is not
   conceivable! The same mind must be in us which is also in Christ Jesus,
   and then we shall be able to say, "I know that You hear me always." But
   we must pass on and occupy your attention, for a few minutes, with
   another branch of the same subject.

   II. In the second place we shall notice THE PREVALENCE OF THESE
   ESSENTIAL THINGS. If they are in us and abound, our prayers cannot be
   barren or unprofitable. First, if we have faith in God, there is no
   question about God's hearing our prayer. If we can plead, in faith, the
   name and blood of Jesus, we must obtain answers of peace. But a
   thousand arguments are suggested. Suppose these prayers concern the
   Laws of Nature? Then the scientific men are against us. What of that? I
   will glory in giving these scientific men scope enough--I had almost
   said scope enough.

   I do not know of any prayer worth praying which does not come into
   contact with some natural Law or other and yet I believe in prayers
   being heard! It is said that God will not change the Laws of Nature for
   us, and I reply, "Whoever said He would?" The Lord has ways of
   answering our prayers irrespective of the working of miracles or
   suspending laws. He used to hear prayer by miracle, but as I have often
   said to you, that seems a rougher way of achieving His purpose--it is
   like stopping a vast machine for a small result--He knows how to
   accomplish His ends and hear our prayers by I know not what secret
   means.

   Perhaps there are other forces and laws which He has arranged to bring
   into action just at times when prayer, also, acts. Laws just as fixed
   and forces just as natural as those which our learned theorizers have
   been able to discover. The wisest men know not all the laws which
   govern the universe, no, nor a tenth of them! We believe that the
   prayers of Christians are a part of the machinery of Providence, cogs
   in the great wheel of destiny--and when God leads His children to pray,
   He has already set in motion a wheel that is to produce the result
   prayed for and the prayers offered are moving as a part of the wheel.
   If there is but faith in God, God must either cease to be, or cease to
   be true, or else He must hear prayer!

   The verse before the text says, "If our heart condemn us not, then have
   we confidence toward God; and whatever we ask, we receive of Him." He
   who has a clear conscience comes to God with confidence and that
   confidence of faith ensures to him the answer of his prayer. Childlike
   confidence makes us pray as none else can. It makes a man pray for
   great things which he would never have asked for if he had not learned
   this confidence. It makes him pray for little things which a great many
   are afraid to ask for, because they have not yet felt towards God the
   confidence of children. I have often said that it needs more confidence
   in God to pray to Him about a little thing than about great things. We
   fancy that our great things are somewhat worthy of God's regard, though
   in truth they are little enough to Him! And then we imagine that our
   little things must be so trifling that it would be almost an insult to
   bring them before Him, whereas we ought to know that what is very great
   to a child may be very little to its parent--and yet the parent does
   not measure the thing from his own point of view but from the child's.

   You heard your little boy the other day crying bitterly. His mother
   called him and asked what ailed him? It was a splinter in his finger.
   Well, that was a small affair. You did not want to call in three
   surgeons to extract it, or raise a hue and cry in the public press!
   Bring a needle and we will soon set it right. Oh, but what a great
   thing it was to that pretty little sufferer as he stood there with eyes
   all wet with tears of anguish. It was a great concern to him! Now, did
   it occur to that boy that his pain was too small a thing for his mother
   to attend to? Not at all! What were mothers and fathers made for but to
   look after the little needs of little children? And God, our Father, is
   a good Father. He pities us as fathers pity their children and
   condescends to us. He knows the number of the stars, and calls them all
   by their names, yet He heals the broken in heart and binds up their
   wounds. The same God who kindles the sun has said, "I will not quench
   the smoking flax." If you have but confidence in God, you will take
   your great things and your little things to Him and He will never belie
   your confidence--for He has said they that trust in Him shall never be
   ashamed or confused, world without end. Faith must succeed!

   But next, love must succeed, too, since we have already seen that the
   man who loves, in the Christian sense, is in accord with God. If you
   confine your love to your own family, you must not expect God to do so,
   and prayers narrowed within that circle He will disregard. If a man
   loves his own little self and hopes everybody's crop of wheat will
   fail, that his own produce may fetch a higher price, he certainly
   cannot expect the Lord to agree with such mean selfishness! If a man
   has heart enough to embrace all the creatures of God in his affection
   while he yet prays specially for the household of faith, his prayers
   will be after the Divine mind. His love and God's goodness run side by
   side. Though God's love is like a mighty rolling river and his is like
   a trickling brook, yet they both run in the same direction and will
   both come to the same end. God always hears the prayers of a loving man
   because those prayers are the shadows of His own decrees.

   Again, the man of obedience is the man whom God will hear because his
   obedient heart leads him to pray humbly and with submission, for he
   feels it to be his highest desire that the Lord's will should be done.
   Therefore it is that the man of obedient heart prays like a
   Prophet--his prayers are prophecies. Is he not one with God? Does he
   not desire and ask for exactly what God intends? How can a prayer shot
   from such a bow ever fail to reach its target? If your soul gets into
   accord with God's soul, you will wish God's own wishes! The difficulty
   is that we do not keep, as the word is, in rapport with God. But if we
   did, then we should strike the same note as God strikes and though His
   would sound like thunder and ours as a whisper, yet there would be a
   perfect unison--the note struck by prayer on earth would coincide with
   that which sounds forth from the decrees in Heaven.

   Again, the man who lives in fellowship with God will assuredly prevail
   in prayer because, if he dwells in God, and God dwells in him, he will
   desire what God desires. The Believer in communion with the Lord
   desires man's good and so does God. He desires Christ's Glory and so
   does God. He desires the Church's prosperity and so does God. He
   desires himself to be a pattern of holiness and God desires it, too. If
   that man at any time has a desire which is not according to

   God's will, it is the result of ignorance, seeing that man is but man
   and not God. Even when he is at the best he must err, but he provides
   for this defect by the form of his prayer which always has this
   addendum at the end of it--"Lord, if I have asked in this, my prayer,
   for anything which is not according to Your mind, I beseech You, do not
   regard me. And if any wish which I have expressed to You--even though
   it is the desire which burns in my bosom above all other wishes--is a
   wish that is not right in Your sight, regard me not, my Father, but, in
   Your infinite love and compassion, do something better for Your servant
   than Your servant knows how to ask."

   Now, when a prayer is after that fashion, how can it fail? The Lord
   looks out of the windows of Heaven and sees such a prayer coming to
   Him, just as Noah saw the dove returning to the ark, and He puts out
   His hand to that prayer. And as Noah plucked the dove into the ark, so
   does God pluck that prayer in unto Him and puts it into His own bosom,
   and says, "You came out of My bosom, and I welcome you back to Me--My
   Spirit composed you, therefore will I answer you." And here, again, let
   us say, our text speaks of the Christian man as being filled with God's
   Spirit--"We know that He abides in us, by the Spirit which He has given
   us." Who knows the mind of a man but the spirit of a man? So, who knows
   the things of God but the Spirit of God? And if the Spirit of God
   dwells in us, then He tells us what God's mind is. He makes
   intercession in the saints according to the will of God!

   It is sometimes imagined that men who have prevalence in prayer can
   pray for what they like, but I can assure you any one of these will
   tell you that that is not so. You may call upon such a man and ask him
   to pray for you, but he cannot promise that he will. There are strange
   holdings back to such men when they feel they know not how or why that
   they cannot pray effectual fervent prayers in certain cases, though
   they might desire to do so. Like Paul, when he essayed to go into
   Bithynia and the Spirit suffered him not, so there are requests which
   we would naturally like to put up, but we are bound in spirit. There
   may apparently be nothing objectionable about the prayer, but the
   secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him and He gives secret
   intimations when and where His chosen may hope to prevail. He gives you
   the promise that He will hear your believing prayer, you being a man
   that walks with Him, filled with His Spirit. But He does not, at the
   same time, give you faith about everything that everybody likes to put
   before you--on the contrary He gives you a discretion, a judgment and a
   wisdom--and the Spirit makes intercession in the saints according to
   the will of

   God.

   Thus I think I have laid down the doctrine pretty clearly. Now a few
   minutes of practical improvement, as the old Puritans used to say. I
   only wish it may be of improvement to many of us. The first is, we want
   to pray for a great blessing as a Church. I think I should command your
   votes if I said we intend to pray God to send a blessing on the Church
   at large. Very well. Have we the essentials for success? Are we
   believing in the name of Jesus Christ? Well, I think we are. I do not
   think fault could be found with the soundness of our faith, though much
   is to be confessed about the weakness of it.

   Let us pass on to the next question. Are we full of love to God and one
   another? The double commandment is that we believe on the name of Jesus
   Christ and that we love one another. Do we love one another? Are we
   walking in love? There are none of us perfect in it. I will begin to
   confess by acknowledging I am not what I should be in that respect.
   Will you let the confession go round and each one think how often we
   have done unloving things, thought unloving things, said unloving
   things, listened to unloving gossip, held back our hand unlovingly when
   we ought to have rendered help and put forth our hand unlovingly to
   push down a man who was falling? If in the Church of God there is a
   lack of love, we cannot expect prayer to he heard, for God will say,
   "you ask for prosperity. What for? To add more to a community which
   does not already love itself? You ask for conversions. What? To bring
   in others to join an unloving community?"

   Do you expect God to save sinners whom you do not love and to convert
   souls whom you do not care a bit about? We must love souls into Christ
   for, under God's Holy Spirit, the great instrument for the conquest of
   the world is love! If Christians will love more than Muslims do, and
   Jews do, they will overcome Muslims and Jews! And if they show less
   love, Muslims and Jews will overcome them! The sword of the Spirit,
   which is the Word of God, is the master weapon. But next to that is the
   loving carriage and generous conversation of Christians towards their
   fellow men. How much of that have we got? Shall I say, how little?

   Next, are we doing that which is pleasing in God's sight? We cannot
   expect answers to prayer if we are not. Put the enquiry to yourselves
   all round. Let each Church member, especially, answer that question.
   Have you been doing, lately, that which you would like Jesus Christ to
   see? Is your household ordered in such a way that it pleases God?
   Suppose Jesus

   Christ had visited your house this week, uninvited and unexpected--what
   would He have thought of that which He would have seen? "Oh," says one,
   "I know so-and-so acts very inconsistently." Sir, I pray you think
   ofyourself. That is the point. Correct yourself. Unless the members of
   God's Church do that which is pleasing in His sight, they bar the door
   against prosperity--they prevent the prayers of the Church from
   succeeding. Who wishes to be the man that stands in the way of the
   prosperity of God's Church through inconsistency of conduct? Who would
   be so guilty? God forgive some of you. We could speak of some even
   weeping, for, alas, though they profess to be the followers of Christ,
   they are so inconsistent that they are not friends, but enemies of the
   Cross of Christ.

   The next question is, do we dwell in God? The text says that if we keep
   His commandments God dwells in us and we in Him. Is that so? I mean,
   during the day do we think of God? In our business are we still with
   God? A Christian is not to run unto God in the morning and again at
   night, and use Him as a shelter and a makeshift, as people do of an
   arch or a portico which they run under in a shower of rain. We are to
   dwell in God and live in Him from the rising of the sun until the going
   down thereof, making Him our daily meditation, and walking as in His
   sight, feeling evermore, "You God see me." How is it with you, dear
   Friends. O, let the question go from pew to pew and heart to heart, and
   mind--let each one answer for himself.

   Lastly, does the Spirit of God actuate us, or is it another spirit? Do
   we wait upon God and say, "Lord, let Your Spirit tell me what to say in
   this case, and what to do. Rule my judgment, subdue my passions, keep
   down my baser impulses and let Your Spirit guide me. Lord, be You to me
   better than myself. Be soul and life to me and in the triple kingdom of
   my spirit, soul, and body, good Lord, be You supreme Master that in
   every province of my nature Your Law may be set up and Your will may be
   regarded"? We would have a mighty Church if we were all of this mind.
   But the mixed multitude are with us, the mixed multitude that came out
   of Egypt and these fall a-lusting. The mischief always begins with
   them. God save us as a Church from losing His Presence.

   The mixed multitude must be with us to try us, for the Lord has said,
   "Let both grow together till the harvest," and if we try to root up the
   tares we should root up the wheat, also--yet, at any rate, let us pray
   God to make the wheat be the stronger. One of two things always happens
   in a Church. Either the wheat chokes the weeds or the weeds choke the
   wheat. God grant that the wheat may overtop the weeds in our case. God
   grant Grace to His servants to be strong enough to overcome the evil
   which surrounds them and, having done all, to stand to the praise of
   the glory of His Grace, who also has made us accepted in the Beloved.
   The Lord bless you, and be with you evermore. Amen and Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--1 John 3; Isaiah 1:10-20.
     __________________________________________________________________

Spring

   (No. 1104)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 30, 1873,

   BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "As the earth brings forth her bud, and as the garden causes the things
   that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause
   righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations."
   Isaiah 61:11.

   DURING the past week the air has been balmy with the breath of spring
   and all Nature has felt the influence of the "ethereal mildness." The
   earth, of which, through the long winter, we might have said, "she is
   not dead, but sleeps," has now awakened and she begins already to put
   on her garments of glory and beauty. Wild flowers are springing up in
   the hedgerows, buds upon the trees are hastening to burst, the time of
   the singing of birds is come and if the voice of the turtle is not
   heard in our land, yet we trust the winter is past--the rain is over
   and gone.

   Now, Nature is not at work to amuse and please us merely--its mission
   is instruction. Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter are God's four
   Evangelists, bringing each one a different version of the self-same
   Gospel of Divine love. Spring has its own peculiar testimony and it is
   for us to read it, and to interpret it, by the light of God's Spirit. A
   close analogy is often hinted at in the Old and New Testaments between
   the springtime and the work of God in the hearts of men. As God has
   promised in the outward world, that there shall be seed time and then a
   harvest-winter and a following summer, so He declares, over and over
   again, that His Word, which, when it goes forth, is like unto the
   sowing, shall not return unto Him void, but shall prosper in the thing
   for which He has sent it.

   As surely as in due season the earth brings forth her buds and the
   garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so shall
   God's great purposes be accomplished and righteousness and praise shall
   spring forth before all the nations. The teaching of this morning is
   that there is a spiritual springtime appointed of God and it will
   surely come! As certainly as spring comes to the earth physically, so
   surely will it come to the Church spiritually! As certainly as God
   keeps His Covenant with the elements, so will He keep His Covenant with
   His Church and with His Son.

   I. I shall need you, this morning, first to CONTEMPLATE THIS TRUTH IN
   REFERENCE TO THE BROAD FIELD OF THE WORLD. Let our meditations go
   abroad and let them range through history and into prophecy. God will
   surely, in the great world at large, cause the principles of
   righteousness which bring praise to His name to spring forth before all
   mankind. This leads us, first of all, to expect that there may be, in
   God's work, and in our work for God, a period of unrequited labor. The
   analogy between the processes of Nature and God's work in the Church
   holds good not only as to the revivals of spring, but as to the
   depressing incidents of winter.

   There is a time when the farmer is occupied with the plow and with the
   scattering of the seed, while from day to day he sees no result from
   his labor. He trusts to the earth his golden grain and buries it in
   hopes of a future springing up, but month after month he has no return.
   He watches patiently, he sees the dreary months go round but not a
   single ear is brought loose to give him promise, much less do ample
   sheaves reward his toil. "Dread winter reigns tremendous over the
   conquered year." The vegetable world lies dead. As it is in the natural
   world we must expect it to be in the spiritual world--there will
   ordinarily be a time of unrequited sowing for the Lord's laborers. To a
   great extent this was so with the Church of God in her early history.
   Then she was fitly imaged in these words--"a sower went forth to sow."

   True, through the infinite compassion of the great Farmer, there were
   souls saved at once by the preaching of the Gospel, but yet the wide
   spread of the Gospel was not a work of a few months--years of
   self-denial were needed. Good men had to toil throughout the whole of
   their lives, yes, and to lay down those lives, too, by painful and
   bloody deaths. And yet, at the first, Christ's kingdom did not come.
   Generation after generation of holy martyrs and confessors went to
   prison and to death to bear testimony to the Truth of God as it is in
   Jesus. It was the Church's time of sowing and her seed was steeped in
   tears and blood. God's Presence and power did not so much reveal
   themselves in immediate success as in patient endurance, heroic
   fortitude, and boundless self-sacrifice.

   Holy hymns were not sung by assembled thousands where passers-by could
   hear them, but in the crypts and in the catacombs the righteous praised
   the Lord. The Word of God was in those days hidden away like a buried
   thing, concealed like the seed-corn beneath the clods. The Church
   parted with her holiest sons, who died that she might live and grow,
   and multiply, and subdue the earth--but for many years it seemed as if
   the sacrifice had been made in vain, for her Truths were still the
   scoff of the age, the butt of perpetual ridicule. It looked as if her
   principles, as well as her martyrs, would be buried. Imperial tyrants
   boasted that they would exterminate Christianity and leave to the
   Church neither root nor branch, nor place, nor name.

   This was but the Lord's winter, with its bitter chills and driving
   tempests and stormy winds, fulfilling His Word and we, also, must
   expect to see the great sowing work of the Church proceed under the
   same trying conditions. We must not always reckon to see nations
   converted the moment the Gospel is preached to them. And especially
   where new ground has been broken up, where countries have just received
   the Gospel message, we must not be disappointed if neither today nor
   tomorrow we are rewarded with abundant results. God's plan involves
   plowing, sowing, waiting--and after these the springing up and the
   harvest. "Be patient, therefore, Brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.
   Behold the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, and has
   long patience for it, until he receive the early and the latter rain."

   While the seed is under the ground, a thousand adversaries present
   themselves, all apparently in array against its ever rising from the
   earth. The seed might look up from the soil and say of the frosts and
   storms of winter, "all these things are against me." It was but a few
   weeks ago that the earth where the farmer had sown his grain was frozen
   as though it were of iron. Beneath his foot it was hard as the share
   with which he had formerly plowed it. Then came the snow and buried the
   green blades beneath its fleecy showers. Who could imagine that
   harvests would spring forth from frost-bound clods or from beneath so
   thick a shroud of snow?

   Then came the rain, again and again. It deluged everything. The weeping
   months followed each other in mournful procession. It has rained this
   year as our forefathers have seldom seen it and yet, despite frost,
   snow, rain and flood, seeds are peeping forth in the garden! The almond
   blossom is in its beauty! The golden cup of the crocus is brimmed with
   sunshine and the trees are bursting into leaf! So we must expect to see
   in the Church of God. Desperate obstacles will obstruct the spread of
   the Gospel. Fearful disappointments will wither hope. Solemn calamities
   will overthrow success. Iniquity will abound and the love of many will
   wax cold! When we survey the condition of affairs apart from faith in
   God, it may even seem to us that our cause is hopeless and the further
   persecution of it a foregone conclusion. We must expect to see it so.
   If it is so in Nature so may it also be in Grace, and I sometimes think
   that we have fallen upon such times even now.

   Probably there never was a period less favorable to the advance of true
   religion than the present one. I admit that there is a tendency among
   men advanced in years to depreciate the present and to say that the
   former times were better than now. With that feeling I think I have
   little or no sympathy, neither my age nor my temperament lead me in
   that direction, yet I fear, that in some respects, the present era is
   peculiarly trying to the Christian Church in this country. Our nation
   has grown enormously rich. Unequalled prosperity has continued with us
   for several years and out of this has grown a worldly and luxurious
   spirit. Pride and fullness of bread have taken men's thoughts off God
   and His salvation. Boundless luxury has bred indifference to the
   Gospel.

   The lower classes, as they are called, are less than ever within the
   reach of the Gospel. In some districts working men appear to have no
   mind for anything but their beer cans, their dogs, and their sports.
   Even politics do not stir them as once they did and religion they
   regard as a matter of perfect indifference. Extra wages, which should
   mean mental elevation and increased family comfort, are converted into
   increased self-indulgence and profligacy. The enormous amount derived
   by our national revenue from the sale of strong drink largely
   represents excesses of riot and drunkenness. God's great mercy to us,
   of leading us gratefully to serve Him, is perverted into an occasion
   for greater sin. Alas that it should be so!

   But those who love the cause of God and Truth must not be discouraged,
   as though some new thing had happened unto us. Dark times and wintry
   seasons there have been before. Sharp frosts and drenching rains are no
   novelties. We are passing through a spiritual winter, but the spring
   shall surely come and with it spiritually--

   "A season of refreshing, A waking as from sleep,

   A longing and a singing That make the pulses leap! A sense of
   renovation Of freshness and of health, A casting off of worldliness A
   love for heavenly wealth."

   While our text leads us to expect a time of unprofitable sowing, it
   excites the hope of a sacred spring time. God's Gospel cannot perish,
   His kingdom cannot fail, His Truth cannot be overcome! And that for
   many reasons, among which are these--That which is sown in the garden
   springs up from out of the ground because there is vitality in it. The
   life is dormant for a while, but it displays itself in due season.
   There is at the appointed hour for all the buried seeds a bursting of
   grave clothes, a rending of sepulchers and an upheaval of the earth.
   And then in resurrection freshness comes forth the blade, to be
   succeeded by the ear and that by the full corn in the ear.

   Even so the Truth of God is a living and incorruptible Seed which lives
   and abides forever! Or, to use another figure, it is as the teil tree
   and as the oak, whose substance is in them when they lose their leaves.
   It is not possible that the Truth of God should perish. Even if it is
   cut down, at the scent of water it will bud and send forth new shoots!
   Life in garden seeds may be destroyed--under certain influences the
   life-germ may perish--but the living Truth of God is immortal and
   unconquerable! The Lord has Himself declared that it abides
   forever--"The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God
   shall stand forever." Therefore do we assuredly look for a blessed
   spring time! We wait to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the
   living--yes, we expect to see the universal reign of the everlasting
   Gospel!

   But seed springs up not only because of its own vitality, but because
   of its surrounding circumstances. Put the seed away in the mummy's hand
   and hide it in the pyramid, and though it may be vital, still it is not
   quickened into growth. The seed under a clod waits awhile till all its
   surroundings become propitious and then it begins to germinate. The
   moisture and the warmth cooperate and the soil begins to yield its
   nourishment to the little life-germ. So we may rest assured that God
   will make all things propitious in His Providence to the growth of His
   own Truth. He knows under what conditions religious thought will spring
   up in the minds of men and He can create those conditions. He has
   created them and He will! The dews, are they not in His hand? The
   rains, does He not pour them forth from His palm? The sunlight, is it
   not the smiling of His face and the heat, is it not the breath of His
   love? Is not the residue of the Spirit with Him? Can He not open the
   bottles of Heaven? Is He not the Father of Lights also, who can pour
   forth the brightness of His Grace upon men's hearts?

   We may rest assured that because all conditions are in the hand of God
   and He can order them according to His own will, He will cause the Seed
   which He has sown in the earth to spring up. Why, I think I may say of
   the Gospel, that, under the Divine superintendence, everything is in
   league with it! They fight from Heaven--the stars in their courses
   fight for the Gospel of Jesus! For it winds blow, and tempests rage! It
   is in league with the stones of the field and the beasts of the field
   are at peace with it. The stupendous wheels of Providence, as they
   revolve, are full of eyes and all those eyes are fixed upon Christ and
   upon His Cross. And as they turn upon their mystic axles, they revolve
   forever with one design--I thought I heard them speak as they moved
   onward--and a voice from among them said, "let the nation of God be
   glorious, and let the Christ of God be king among the people."

   The Gospel must spread, therefore. It is, in itself, vital and
   energetic and the Lord of Hosts orders all things to secure its growth.
   But the corn comes not up out of the earth because it is vital, or
   because of its surroundings merely, for, as we believe, there is the
   actual power of God at work throughout Nature. We have never been able
   to agree with the theory that Nature, once started, works of itself,
   like a clock which has been wound up. We believe that its operations
   conform to certain laws, but there must be some power to carry out the
   laws, or else that would be a dead letter. Everything that exists is a
   continuous emanation from the Most High and everything that is done
   anywhere in the world, God lends the strength and gives the power
   whereby it is done.

   If we were to see performed upon this stage, in a single moment, the
   turning of one grain of wheat into a full-grown ear, we should exclaim,
   "wonderful!" and regard it as a miracle! But if God is pleased to take
   some few months in performing the same operation, is it not the less
   wonderful? If Spring came but once in a century, what wonder it would
   excite in all hearts! If it had never happened but once, it would be
   considered to be the crown of miracles and skeptics would ridicule
   those who believed in its possibility! Yet God creates our harvests as
   surely as if there never had been a

   harvest before and He forms our ripe fields by His Omnipotence as truly
   even as He fashioned man in the garden of Eden, perfect at once! God is
   alive and God is at work--He has not betaken Himself into His secret
   chambers and shut the door behind Him and left us orphans in the
   world--and the earth without a Ruler and without a Friend!

   He works everywhere. In the deepest caverns of the sea and among the
   highest pinnacles of the heavens--and He works there among the violets
   of yonder bank and the primroses which peer forth from amidst the sere
   leaves around the under wood of the copse--and there also, where the
   bees begin to hum, the lark to sing and the lambs to play. It is God
   that sends "Spring, the Awakener," to fill earth's bosom with flowers.
   He does it all! And it is because of this that we expect the Gospel to
   flourish--not merely because the Word of God is vital and because God
   will order Providence on its behalf, but because He is at work in
   it--mysteriously at work, it is true, but certainly at work, for the
   Spirit of the living God which was given at Pentecost has never gone
   back to Heaven. He is here still and He that worked among the crowds of
   the streets of Jerusalem and made them cry out "Sirs, what must we do
   to be saved?" is working in our cities even at this day!

   Where Jesus Christ is preached, His Spirit is pledged to be present.
   God's Spirit works always. He is breaking hard hearts as the winter
   pulverizes the clods. He is melting stubborn wills into obedience as
   the vernal showers soften the hard earth. And He is awakening the young
   germs of hope, prayer and desire, just as the warm sunlight is calling
   up the green blades and the flowers. The Spirit of God works always! O
   you adversaries of the Gospel, it is not the Gospel, alone, that you
   have to stand against, but the God over all, blessed forever,
   Omnipotent and Eternal, is engaged in the battle! If the Gospel is His
   sword, you may well tremble at its edge, but you may be much more
   afraid when you remember the arm which wields that deadly weapon--which
   can divide asunder soul and spirit! The Gospel is His arrow and His
   bow, and He who draws that bow and directs that arrow is the same God
   who launches thunderbolts in the day of tempest and touches the hills
   and they smoke. The God of the Gospel is He who wheels the earth in its
   orbit and marshals all the stars. Jehovah invisible, but also almighty.
   He is engaged to show Himself strong for the Gospel and therefore do we
   expect victory.

   Despite the times of depression and of sorrow, days of refreshing must
   come from the Presence of the Lord. The spring must follow the
   winter--"As the earth brings forth her buds, and as the garden causes
   the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God will
   cause righteousness and peace to spring forth before all the nations."
   If at any time our mind should grow desponding concerning the progress
   of the Gospel and I confess mine is very heavy at times, it ought to
   encourage us to remember that the Gospel will conquer, not because it
   looks as if it would, but because God has declared and decreed that it
   shall do so! I know of no efforts which have been made to promote the
   advent and progress of spring. We have had a blustering March. We had a
   cold February. We were deluged with rain and swathed in mist all
   through November, December, and January. I saw nothing in the
   atmosphere or the sky to help on Spring.

   Did it need any helping? Did it need human aid? No. The earth pursued
   its ordained orbit and every hour it neared the point where Spring,
   laden with flowers, lay in kind ambush, longing to scatter her garlands
   over the glad earth. God needs no helpers to create Spring--He sends it
   in His own time, and lo it comes! Even thus the Lord stands in no need
   of creature help to effect the designs of His Grace. Spring has never
   lingered until assembled Parliaments have permitted and commanded its
   coming. Neither has it waited for Emperors to smile, and say--"Let the
   buds come forth." Far away in the dense forest and here in merry
   England in a thousand woods the sap is flowing in the trees, and
   myriads of buds are swelling, but not by man's art or aid!

   The daffodils are blooming in the meadows where no man planted them and
   the bluebells in the dells where gardener's spade has nearer come. Yes,
   and I know right well that the dew of Divine Grace and the showers of
   regenerating love tarry not for man, nor wait for the sons of men. If
   there had been a general revolt against Spring it would not have been
   delayed. If the kings of the earth had set themselves and the rulers
   taken counsel together, no single gleam of sunlight would have
   hesitated to shine forth. If the Pope himself, in his so-call
   infallibility, had issued a bull forbidding the sun to re-cross the
   equator and advance to the northern tropic, I venture to predict that
   it would have pursued the even tenor of its way, despite the bidding of
   his Holiness! None can stay the marches of the year, or turn the
   seasons from their course! Who is he that can fight against the Lord,
   or withstand the power of the Most High? Our help comes from the Lord
   who made Heaven and earth!

   We do not reckon upon the progress of the Gospel because we have a
   company of rich men to help us, a goodly fellowship of eloquent divines
   to advocate the cause and a considerable number of respectable persons
   to support the good work! No, Sirs, our Master has not come to such a
   beggarly state of dependence that He needs a mortal's help! He has told
   us that "cursed is he that trusts in man and makes flesh his arm," and
   He has not come to trust in man Himself and make flesh His arm--"Not by
   might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts." As comes
   the Spring by God, Jehovah's own arrangement, so shall come the time of
   the Church's triumph and the victory of Truth, by God's appointment!
   Let men say what they will, let it never be forgotten that the
   disheartening circumstances of the Winter may have been, all of them,
   promotive of the success of the Spring!

   I cannot tell what connection there may have been between the sharp
   frost and the coloring of the cowslip, but I have no doubt that if the
   flowers could speak they could tell. I do not know what is the
   connection between the drenching showers and the gushes of song from
   the woodlands, but doubtless the larks and the thrushes hold the secret
   among them. Neither do I know how howling winds are linked with leafy
   bowers, but what the oak or the elm could say if they were permitted to
   prophesy for a while it is not for me to guess. There is an intimate
   intermarriage and commingling of the dark and of the bright, the chill
   and the warm--all from this has come forth the joy of Spring. Every
   child knows that March winds and April showers bring forth the sweet
   May flowers, so all the sorrows and troubles which the Church has
   borne, and shall yet bear, are mothers of the victories she shall yet
   achieve! Her days would never be so bright if her nights had not been
   so dark!

   Believe, therefore, that the worst times are working on towards
   something better. Beloved, we have God's promise to sustain us in all
   our efforts to spread abroad His kingdom. He has, Himself, declared
   that, "As the rain comes down, and the snow from Heaven, and returns
   not there, but waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud, that
   it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall My Word
   be that goes forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void,
   but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in
   the thing where I sent it." The Lord God cannot lie! He must keep His
   promise and He cannot be disappointed by unforeseen difficulties. His
   power is irresistible, therefore we feel quite sure that His Word must
   win the day!

   Think for a moment, you who are growing weary through the long night,
   whose watches seem as if they would never end--I hear you cry, "when
   will the day break, and the shadows flee away"--be not dispirited, but
   encourage yourselves with these thoughts. Remember what a sowing has
   already gone before. Christ sowed the earth with Himself! A Sower went
   forth to sow and as He sowed, He passed by the garden of Gethsemane and
   cast a precious handful there, steeped in His own bloody sweat. Then He
   went up to Golgotha and sowed full handfuls there, where the plowers
   made deep furrows. Then He went up to the Cross and you know how He
   sowed there, for there He was that grain of wheat which fell into the
   ground and died and therefore cannot abide alone, but must bring forth
   much fruit!

   Did God, Himself, become Man to save men and shall not men be saved?
   Did Christ, Himself, come from Heaven to fight with the dread enemy and
   did He fight him and return victorious with dyed garments from Bozrah,
   and shall the enemy win the day, after all? Is Calvary nothing? Is
   Gethsemane nothing? The Son of God in anguish and in death--is He
   nothing? Yet so it must be if the Gospel does not conquer and the world
   is not converted to God--"He shall see of the travail of His soul and
   shall be satisfied." Remember, too, who is the Farmer of this field. He
   has not bid His Church till the world without Divine help. "My Father
   is the Farmer."

   God Himself is watching over the broad field of the world to promote
   the growth of what the Savior sowed and shall He fail? Shall it be said
   at the close of the great Farmer's work, there is no result from it?
   The idols are still firm on their pedestals--Antichrist sits upon her
   seven hills in pompous state, and the simple Gospel is still in the
   minority! Will the Almighty fail? What do you think, Sirs? Can
   Omnipotence be defeated? No! It cannot be! As Jehovah lives, it cannot
   be! The living God must conquer. The right hand of the Lord shall be
   exalted, for it does valiantly. He may, for a while, permit the
   conflict to tremble in the balances, but Divine power must overcome! We
   cannot dream otherwise.

   Moreover, there is the Spirit of God, Himself, as well as the Father
   and the Son, and He has designed to dwell in the midst of the Church.
   The Spirit of God is here and is specially at work. He moved upon chaos
   and turned it into order. He it is, also, that quickens the dead, and
   shall He be defeated and disappointed in the conversion of this world?
   Let the thought be accursed, for it is near akin to blasphemy, if it is
   not blasphemy itself! The Triune God must make the knowledge of Himself
   to "cover the earth as the waters cover the sea." God's honor is
   engaged in the matter! On this

   battle-field of the world He has flung down the gauntlet to the powers
   of Hell. Satan has taken up the glove of battle and the fight has raged
   long, but it must end in victory for God, it cannot be otherwise!

   My soul loathes the theory of some that this world will get worse, and
   worse, and worse, and never will be won to obedience to the Lord God!
   Scripture is against that theory--a theory so desponding, so fitted to
   make God's soldiers fling away the sword! Surely there shall come a
   time when the nations shall know the Lord and the multitude of the
   people shall worship before the most High God. The Winter shall be
   succeeded by its Spring! Therefore be you steadfast, unmovable, always
   abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as you know that your labor
   is not in vain in the Lord.

   II. Now, I shall spend just a minute or two upon the same topic,
   setting it in another light. Dear Brothers and

   Sisters, I want you to CONTEMPLATE THIS TRUTH IN REFERENCE TO THE
   GARDEN COMMITTED TO

   YOUR OWN PERSONAL CULTIVATION. As God's people you have all something
   to do for Him. I want you to do it and to do it in the best possible
   manner. But I am sure you will not do so unless you are of good heart
   and full of comfort. Be not impatient with regard to the result of what
   you are doing. A little child puts his seed into the ground and he goes
   in an hour or two and stirs the ground to see whether the seed is
   growing. That is because he is a little child--if he were a man he
   would know better.

   You go and teach your Sunday school class and you expect to see all the
   children converted then and there. It may be God will grant you your
   desire in a measure, but if He does not, do not be impatient--go on, go
   on, go on! Do not wonder if your seed does not spring up immediately!
   Work on and do not be disheartened! Never listen to any voice which
   says to you, "leave off work." If such a voice should ever whisper in
   your ear, know it to be the voice of Satan and redouble your diligence,
   because Satan is likely to put such a thought into your mind when you
   are nearest to success. Be of good comfort--your seed will come
   up--Grace insures the harvest. If you want your seed to come up more
   quickly, water it again with your tears and your prayers, but never
   despair, success will come to it. Work on! Work on! And never be
   unhappy about it.

   Remember that if a farmer were to sigh every morning, it would not make
   his wheat or his barley grow faster. And if he were to stand and weep
   all day because he could not see a harvest, it would not become one
   whit more visible in spite of his tears. Love souls and do all you can
   for them, but be not unbelieving. Exercise faith as to results. Anxiety
   may be good, but it is only so to a degree--beyond that it unfits us
   for duty and dishonors God. Take heed of being unbelieving. "But," you
   say, "what a poor worker I am." Beloved, why do you despair on that
   account? The trees in a man's garden do not bring forth less fruit
   because the owner is a sickly man. The fruit depends upon the trees and
   the season. A harvest will not be bounded by the sower's feebleness. I
   saw some little children in the fields the other day and they were
   putting in the seeds, but the result will be none the smaller because
   the children were little.

   If God's work were as weak as God's workers are, it would be weak,
   indeed, and if the kingdom of Jesus depended upon the strength of His
   disciples it would soon come to nothing! The garden causes the seeds
   that are sown in it to spring forth though a consumptive hand may have
   dropped them into their places! My dear fainting Brethren, work on,
   wait on, pray on, watch on! You shall have your reward before long--"He
   that goes forth and weeps, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come
   again rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." I may not linger
   longer upon this point.

   III. I beg you, in the third place, to CONTEMPLATE THIS SAME TRUTH IN
   REFERENCE TO THE

   BELIEVER'S SPIRITUAL STATE. Do you not sometimes fall into a wintry
   condition? I mean you who love the Lord. I think I need hardly ask you,
   for one of us may generally serve as specimen of the rest. There are
   times when we feel as if we had no life at all. We hope we love God and
   our faith is fixed in Christ, but we cannot see much evidence of it. We
   read the Bible and it is dull. We try to pray and we get through a sort
   of exercise which we hope is prayer, but it does not refresh us. And
   even the prospect of going up to the House of God on Sunday makes us
   groan out, "Lord send us a blessing," but we hardly think He will. We
   feel so dull and dead and cold.

   Well, it is not to be wondered at. We are living in a world whose
   influences are never helpful to Divine Grace and we bear about us a
   body of sin and death which never will aid us in the way to Heaven. At
   such times we are like the earth in the winter. The seed is there but
   it lies hidden. The sap is in the tree, but it has gone down to the
   root and is not actively flowing and revealing itself. Now, in such
   times as these we cannot make any change in ourselves. "All the king's
   horses and all the king's men," as we have already said, could not turn
   winter into spring. Neither can we warm ourselves into energy. We say,
   "I will read the Bible and I will pray." Well, we do it, but it is no
   better than a dead form. We are none

   the better for it. But there is comfort in store for us, for what we
   cannot do in that we are weak through the flesh God can do!

   How sweetly He has appeared for some of us! "Or ever I was aware," says
   the sweet singer in the Canticle, "My soul made me like the chariots of
   Amminadib." We could not move or stir, yet, all of a sudden, we found
   ourselves borne onward, like the swiftly driven chariots of
   Amminadab--we were full of life, full of love, full of joy, full of
   strength-- and all in a moment! Just as in a moment God sends the thaw
   and melts the ice--and the frozen brooks leap on their way in living
   rills--so will our soul leap with holy joy in the Presence of God
   because the Lord has come to us and has revived us! Are you not
   conscious that such things have happened to you many times, my Brothers
   and Sisters?

   "Oh, yes," you say. Very well, expect them again! Even now ask for them
   and look up to God for them. Anything is better than everlastingly
   poring over yourself and your own frames and feelings. The cold of the
   winter will not, by being thought of, give a man any warmth. All the
   frosts that ever were will not create heat by our meditating upon them.
   Neither does any man rise into life and joy through merely meditating
   upon his own spiritual death and misery. Turn away from the darkness
   and look at the light! Spring comes from yonder sun and so must our
   revival in religion, and our restored joy and peace come from God our
   Father. Blessed be His name, it has come from Him before and it will
   come from Him again! Let us wait upon Him in solemn confidence that He
   has not left us forever, but will return to us in mercy--

   "In all the years that ha ve been The spring has greened the bough. The
   gladsome, healthful spring time Keep heart, it comes now."

   Do not suffer Satan to get an advantage over you by saying, "God has
   forsaken us. We shall backslide from bad to worse, we shall fall from
   Grace, we shall perish." You shall do no such thing! You shall be
   restored, you shall be revived! Yes, perhaps you came here this very
   morning with the intent that God might work a wonder of Grace in you,
   that again you should abound in fruits of righteousness and your tongue
   should sing to His praise--and from this day forth you shall be one of
   the happiest and most useful of Christians instead of being as you have
   been for some months past, one of the dullest and least useful of the
   holy brotherhood.

   IV. Now the last point shall be this--WE WILL CONTEMPLATE ALL THIS IN
   REFERENCE TO THOSE WHO ARE NEWLY AWAKENED. I may have some present,
   this morning, who are saying, "Oh, that I could be saved! Oh, that I
   knew where I might find Christ! What would I give if I could but have a
   good hope through Grace!" Dear Brother. Dear Sister. Those very desires
   of yours show that there is some good seed sown in you! God's Grace has
   taught you to desire and to long. We never knew a man sincerely desire
   Christ till Christ had first worked in Him, by the Spirit. No sinner
   can be beforehand with Christ.

   If you want Christ, He has wanted you long ago and has already come to
   you. "Ah," you say, "but I feel so dull. I cannot pray as I used to do.
   I do not feel my sins as I ought. In fact, I feel nothing at all as I
   ought to feel it." It is winter time with you, dear Friend, may that
   winter do you good. "It is very painful," you say, "and very
   dangerous." Yes, and God means to make you see what a poor thing you
   are and to make you know what a wretched sinner you are, and how lost
   you are! Do you not know that He will strip you before He will clothe
   you? It is always His way to kill before He makes alive! He will not
   begin filming over proud flesh--He will take the knife and cut it
   out--and with many a cruel gash, too, as it may seem, for He means to
   effect a lasting cure. Therefore, you must pass through these winters.

   But let me remind you, now, that your only hope of anything better than
   what you are passing through lies in Christ. You cannot save yourself.
   As long as you have any lingering idea that you can do so you never
   will be saved. You can no more save yourself than the arctic regions
   can turn themselves into the torrid zone. "Why," you say, "that could
   never be done, except God were to reverse the poles." Ah, and He must
   do as great a thing for you as that would be or else you will always be
   in the cold winter you are now in! And, worse, you will perish utterly
   unless He appears for you. You do not deserve that He should appear for
   you--you deserve to be left to be what you now are-- and to go from
   hardness to greater hardness, still, till you make your own destruction
   sure.

   The power to save you lies wholly with Him. What shall I say to you,
   then? Why, look to Him! Cry to Him! Ask Him to visit you! If you want
   the full light of God's love you will see it yonder, on the Cross,
   where hangs the Son of God bleeding out His life for the sins of men!
   God's love is concentrated there as the beams of the sun are focused by
   a

   burning-glass. If you want to feel the full heat of God's love, go to
   the Cross! And if you will look up to Jesus dying there, to your own
   surprise you will feel that spring has come to your heart and your
   winter is over and gone!--

   "Your mercy is more than a match for my heart

   Which wonders to feel its own hardness depart.

   Dissolved by Your goodness I fall to the ground

   And weep to the praise of the mercy I've found." O, what a wonderful
   passage that is, from darkness to light, from death to life, from
   damnation to salvation, from being an enemy of God to friendship with
   Him! Yet that passage does not occupy a moment. It is effected in an
   instant! One look, and it is done! A glance of the eyes at a dying
   Savior and the sinner is saved! The garden has caused the things that
   were sown in it to spring forth! The earth has brought forth her bud,
   for God has visited the earth and the garden, and the miracle of Grace
   is performed!

   I pray that these thoughts may bring comfort to many. I have labored
   earnestly to encourage workers, but I would be yet much more earnest to
   encourage seekers. Do not let the devil tell you, my dear Hearer, that
   the Lord will never appear for you. He will--He must! There was never a
   soul that humbled itself at His feet and cried for mercy through His
   Son that He left to perish--not one! There has never been a year
   without its spring and its summer and there is never a poor soul that
   has sorrowed for sin that has been left to end its life without
   consolation. The Lord must appear to you. He must come and bless you.

   And I pray He may do it for you now! And when He is gracious to you,
   mind that you give Him the glory of it. Come and tell His people and
   join with them. As long as you have breath in your body praise Him and
   then in Heaven forever shout His praises who has done great things for
   you. The Lord add His blessing for Christ's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Isaiah 62, 63.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Heart Of Jesus

   (No. 1105)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 6, 1873,

   BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I am meek and lowly in heart." Matthew 11:29.

   WE have preached upon the whole of this passage several times before,
   therefore we do not intend to speak upon it in its full teaching, or
   enter upon its general run and connection. But we select for our
   meditation this one expression, which has greater depth in it than we
   shall be able to fully explore--"I am meek and lowly in heart." I have
   felt very grateful to God for the mercy of the past week during which
   the ministers educated in our College have been gathered together as a
   devout convocation and have enjoyed a flood-tide of the Divine
   blessing. Unusually great and special joy has filled my soul and,
   therefore, I have asked myself, "What can I do to glorify the Lord my
   God who has been so gracious to me and has so prospered the work
   committed to me and my Brethren?"

   The answer which my heart gave was this--"Endeavor to bring sinners to
   Jesus. Nothing is sweeter to Him than that, for He loves the sons of
   men." Then I said to myself, "But how can I bring sinners to Christ?
   What means will the Holy Spirit be likely to use for that purpose?" And
   the answer came, "If you would preach sinners to Christ you must preach
   Christ to sinners, for nothing so attracts the hearts of men as Jesus
   Himself." The best argument to bring sinners to believe in Jesus is
   Jesus. Has He not, Himself said, "I, if I am lifted up, will draw all
   men unto Me?" Then I said, "But what shall I preach concerning Jesus?"
   And my soul replied, "Preach the loving heart of Jesus. Go to the
   center of the subject and set forth His very Soul, His inmost Self, and
   then it may be that the heart of Jesus will draw the hearts of men."

   Now it is very remarkable that the only passage in the whole New
   Testament in which the heart of Jesus is distinctly mentioned is the
   one before us. Of course there are passages in which His heart is
   intended, as for instance when the soldier, with a spear, pierced His
   side, but this passage is unique as to the actual mentioning of the
   kardia or heart of Jesus by a distinct word. There are several passages
   in the Old Testament which refer to our Divine Lord, such as--
   "Reproach has broken My heart, and I am full of heaviness." And that
   notable one, in the 22nd Psalm, "My heart is like wax, it has melted
   within Me." But in the New Testament this is the only passage which
   speaks of the heart of Jesus Christ and therefore we will weigh it with
   all the more care.

   Without further preface we shall have two things carefully to do.
   First, to consider the description here given of the heart of Jesus.
   And then, secondly, we will labor to obey the exhortations which are
   connected with this description. For both these matters we shall need
   the rich assistance of the Holy Spirit and I pray that it may be
   vouchsafed, since it is the Spirit's office to take of the things of
   Christ and show them unto us. We may confidently expect that He will
   shine upon so choice a subject as the sacred heart of our loving Lord!

   I. LET US MEDITATE UPON THE DESCRIPTION OF THE HEART OF THE LORD JESUS,
   which is presented

   to us in the text. It consists of two adjectives--"I am meek and lowly
   in heart." There is no pomp or display in either of the qualities
   mentioned. They both belong to the gentle order of virtues and are but
   little esteemed among the princes of this world and their warriors. The
   first is the word, "meek." It is used in the New Testament in the third
   Beatitude-- "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
   And by Peter, when speaking of "the ornament of a meek and quiet
   spirit." Of our Lord it is also said--"Behold your King comes to you,
   meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass."

   The original word has the significations of "mild, gentle, soft, meek."
   Such is the heart of Christ. And you will observe that Jesus Christ
   says this concerning Himself--"I am meek in heart." There are points of
   character which a man could not fitly declare concerning himself, or it
   might savor of self-praise. But the virtue of meekness was of old so
   little esteemed that a man might claim it without being suspected of
   seeking approbation. It is remarkable that Moses, also,

   has recorded in the 12th chapter of the Book of Numbers the fact that
   he was remarkable for meekness--"Now the man Moses was very meek above
   all the men that were upon the face of the earth."

   It has been thought by some that the verse must be an interpolated one
   and could not have been written by Moses, but I strongly object to the
   supposition of interpolations, although that method of removing
   difficulties is now so very fashionable in certain quarters. But I
   think we ought never to fall back upon that suggestion unless we are
   absolutely forced to do so. I believe that Moses, guided by Infallible
   Inspiration, wrote that description of himself for our example, and was
   utterly free from any vainglory in so doing, just as our blessed Lord,
   in all lowliness, here spoke concerning Himself, and said, "I am meek
   and lowly in heart."

   Meekness seeks not its own, and when it asserts itself, it is always
   with an eye to the benefit of others. Therefore none can bid it be
   silent. For a man to boast before his adversaries, "I am wise," or, "I
   am strong," would be vainglory, but to say to them, "I am meek," would
   be not boasting, but a sacred argument for peace--a plea for gentleness
   and quiet. Our Savior, who never sought the praise of man, says of
   Himself, "I am meek," because He desired to remove the fears of those
   who trembled to approach Him and would win the allegiance of those who
   feared to become His followers, lest His service should prove too
   severe. He, in effect, cried, "Come to Me, you offending men, you who
   feel your unworthiness, you who think that your transgressions may
   provoke My anger. Come to Me, for I am meek."

   It would be no pride for a man to say, "I am strong," if he would
   thereby induce a drowning person to trust him for the saving of his
   life. Neither would it be wrong for a person to say, as a physician
   practically says, "I am wise in medicine," in order to lead a dying
   person to take the medicine which he felt sure would heal him. We may
   and must assert ourselves and avow those qualities which are truly
   ours, if, by doing so, a great benefit can be bestowed upon others. And
   Jesus, therefore says, "I am meek," because this gentle attribute would
   silence fear and lead the timid to approach Him and learn of Him.

   The other adjective is, "lowly." "I am meek and lowly in heart." This
   is the word which is translated in the memorable song of the Virgin
   Mary, "low degree." "He has put down the mighty from their seat, and
   exalted them of low degree." It is also used in Romans, where Paul
   says, "Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate." So
   again in Second Corinthians, seventh chapter and sixth verse, where it
   is rendered differently--"God that Comforts those that are cast down."
   While in the Epistle of James it is translated, "humble." "He resists
   the proud, but gives Grace to the humble," and it is so rendered in the
   First Epistle of Peter.

   If you turn to any Greek lexicon you will find that the word does not
   signify merely what the Scriptures translate it by, but since the
   Greeks were a war-like people, a proud people, an intimidating people
   and thought it foul scorn to patiently endure an insult, the word which
   we translate by, "lowliness," they would understand to mean, "baseness,
   or meanness." And in this sense Xenophon uses it. The word to the
   heathen Greeks meant, "keeping near the ground, vile,
   contemptible"--and our Savior has deigned to describe His own heart by
   a word which unregenerate men would thus misinterpret.

   Even now a man who will not fight, but has learned to suffer wrong
   without resenting it, is thought by certain people to be destitute of
   spirit and worthy of contempt. That lowly Grace which the world calls
   base and mean-spirited, Jesus claims as being His own peculiar quality!
   He is not lofty, ambitious, proud, and haughty. He dwelt with the
   humble and contrite. He associated with men of low estate, such as the
   ungodly would look down upon as utterly beneath regard. He made Himself
   of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a Servant. When He was
   reviled, He reviled not again. He did not strive, nor cry, nor cause
   His voice to be heard in the streets--a bruised reed He did not break,
   and the smoking flax He did not quench. Thus have we weighed the words
   themselves.

   Now, this description of the heart of Christ may be understood as
   opposed, first, to quickness or anger. Meek men bear many provocations.
   Some men take fire at a single spark--if you do but even seem to pay
   them disrespect they are indignant in a moment. But Christ says, "I am
   meek--I can pardon your ingratitude and disrespect, yes, and forgive
   your profanity, your blasphemy, your insult, your scorn, your enmity,
   your malice--for I am meek." Even when put to a cruel death He muttered
   no curse and threatened no revenge. "Slow to anger and plenteous in
   mercy," like His Father, is the Son of the Highest.

   Meekness and lowliness are also opposed to haughtiness of spirit. Jesus
   did not seek the empty glories of pomp and State. Neither did He desire
   honor from men. He did not speak proudly to those around Him and
   domineer over them, or

   exercise lordship over them as the princes of the gentiles do. He was
   affable, easily to be reached and ready to be entreated. The poor and
   the sick could readily move His heart to pity and His hands to help. He
   was called the Friend of publicans and sinners, and of Him it was said,
   "This Man receives sinners and eats with them." As a teacher Jesus was
   meek and lowly in heart and therein was the very opposite of the
   scribes.

   If you saw a Pharisee in Christ's day you would have seen the
   incarnation of pride--he professed, by his very name, to be a select
   being--and in dress, manner and conversation, he set himself up to be
   some great one. He would not come to the windward of a sinner if he
   could help it--he passed him in the street as though he were a dog. But
   Christ was gentle and willing to associate with the vilest of the vile
   and the lowest of the low, for He was "lowly in heart." The expression
   of the text is also opposed to that pretended meekness and mock
   lowliness which has at times imposed upon the world. It is true our
   Savior was meek and lowly in appearance, for even in His greatest pomp
   He rode upon a colt, the foal of an ass, and not upon a horse which
   indicated state.

   He was ever lowly in manner and deportment and though He could flame
   and flash with sacred boldness and speak words that burn in His holy
   indignation against hypocrisy, yet when He uttered the glad message of
   the Gospel He was very gentle, even as a nurse with her child. Yet the
   meekness and lowliness of Christ were not things of manner and of word
   alone--He was so in His heart. He was not of those who fake humility to
   secure power--of whom an almost forgotten poet said--

   "There are some that use Humility to serve their pride, and seem Humble
   upon their way, to be prouder At their wish'd journey's end."

   It is said of Thomas A'Becket that he affected the greatest lowliness
   and humility and for this reason he washed the feet of 13 beggars every
   morning--but yet he was arrogance itself--and lorded it over his king.
   He was the proudest of the proud, though he pretended to be the
   humblest of the humble.

   Many men have concealed inordinate pride beneath a crouching manner,
   mimicking humility while harboring arrogance. While their spirit has
   been full of imperial despotism they have pretended to be the friends
   of the people and have talked like the most truthful demagogue. Not so
   our truthful Master. He was "meek and lowly in heart." To Him
   association with the poor and sinful was no affectation of
   condescension--He was already on their level in intense sympathy with
   their sorrows. His heart was with the common people. He did not force
   Himself down from a natural haughtiness to a constrained contact with
   the lowly, but He became a real Friend of sinners and a willing
   Companion of the needy.

   He rejoiced in spirit when He said, "Father, I thank You, that You have
   hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto
   babes." His heart was meek and lowly--it was His very Nature to be
   clear of anger and pride, passion and enmity. Thus from its opposites
   we see more clearly the meaning of our text. It will further help us if
   we consider that the words employed here include, first, a readiness on
   the part of Christ to pardon all past offenses. "Come unto Me," He
   says, "you sinners, for however much you may have offended in the past,
   I am meek and easily to be entreated. I am ready to forgive, to forget
   and cast behind My back all your provocations. I do not say this to
   cajole you. My very heart says it, for My heart is full of tenderness
   and compassion for you.

   "I have borne much from you and can bear still more. I will be mindful
   of your infirmities and forgetful of your transgressions. And I will
   not be so grieved by your rebellions as to cast you out if you come to
   Me." Jesus is longsuffering, compassionate and ready to forgive. Like
   His Father He passes by transgression, iniquity and sin because He
   delights in mercy. But the words include also a willingness to endure
   yet further offenses. "I am meek" means, "not only do I forget the past
   but I am ready to bear with you, still, though you should still offend
   Me. Though you should still be ungrateful. Though you should treat Me
   as I ought not to be treated and give unkindness for My love, I will
   endure it all.

   "Come to Me although you cannot hope that your future character will be
   perfect. I will help you to struggle into holiness and be patient with
   your failures. If you come to Me I am prepared to forgive you unto 70
   times seven, yes, as often as you shall err so often will I restore
   you. And as frequently as you shall grieve Me, as frequently will I
   forgive you. If you take My yoke I will not be angry if sometimes it
   appears heavy to you. If you learn of Me I will not be vexed if you

   prove but dull scholars. I am meek in heart, ready to forgive the past
   and willing to bear with you in the present and in the future." Beloved
   Brothers and Sisters, what a heart Jesus has to receive sinners in this
   Divine manner!

   And then as to the second word, "I am lowly in heart." That means, "I
   am willing to receive the lowest and the poorest among you--the most
   obscure, despised, and ignorant, I welcome to My salvation. O you
   laboring and heavy-laden ones, I shall not feel, in your coming to Me,
   that you are presuming and that your company is a dishonor to Me. I
   shall not say to you, 'Get you gone, I have chosen the company of kings
   and princes, of philosophers and divines, of the wealthy and the
   witty.' " No, Jesus covets not the so-called aristocracy but seeks
   after men of all ranks. The poor have the Gospel preached unto them.
   Some of His professed ministers have looked down upon the toiling
   masses, but their Master said, "Come unto Me all you that labor."

   Stand not back, you people, because you are of low estate, for Jesus is
   of a lowly heart! Come to Him, you who are like the Soodras, of whom
   the Brahmins say that they came from God's foot, while the Brahmins
   came from the head of deity--Jesus thinks not so! Come to Him, you who
   are the pariahs of society, outcasts and men of no caste at all, for
   Jesus, also, was rejected by His brethren. You whom men despise, come
   to Him who was despised of men. You homeless, come to Him who had not
   where to lay His head. You needy, come to Him who hungered and
   thirsted. Yes, you lost, draw near to the Son of Man, who is come to
   seek and to save that which was lost, for, "He is lowly in heart."

   His lowliness means this, also, that as He is willing to receive the
   lowest so He is willing to do the very lowest and most menial service
   for those who come to Him--willing to bear their burdens, willing to
   wash their feet--willing to purge them from their sins in His own
   blood. Jesus waits to be gracious and delights to save to the uttermost
   them that come unto God by Him. For sinners He has performed feats of
   lowly love, for He has borne their sin and their shame, their
   iniquities and their sicknesses. He willingly stooped to the lowest
   position to save the lowest of men. You see I am talking very calmly
   and in a quiet manner, but my heart glows within me while I am telling
   you these things about my own dear Lord and Master, whose shoe lace I
   am not worthy to unloose.

   He has, in these two words, as with two masterly strokes of the pencil,
   given us a perfect picture of His dear, gentle, face. No, not of His
   face, but of His inmost heart. How I wonder that we are not all in love
   with Him! "Meek and lowly in heart!" These are two beauties, which to
   sinners' eyes, when sinners know themselves, are the most lovely and
   fascinating attributes such as charm their fears and chain their
   hearts. He that has eyes to see let him look here and looking, let him
   love--

   "Jesus who ga ve Himself to us, Upon the Cross to die, Unfolds to us
   His sacred heart. O, to that heart draw near! You hear how kindly He
   invites, You hear His words so blest-- All you who labor come to Me,
   And I will give you rest."

   To set forth these words a little more, I beg you to remember that they
   are enhanced in value if we reflect who it is that speaks them of
   Himself. Remember it is the Lord God, the Son of the Highest, who says,
   "I am meek and lowly in heart." As I listened to this text, at first it
   spoke to me with a still small voice and made me very glad. Then, like
   Moses at the bush, I drew near unto it. But, lest I should be too bold
   and grow irreverent, it changed its tone and I heard peal upon peal of
   thunder issuing from it, as I listened to the words, "I am." Hear you
   not in those words the incommunicable name, JAH, Jehovah, the
   Self-Existent One?

   Yet, as I listened awe-struck to that thunder's crash and feared lest
   it might forbade a tempest and precede destruction, I felt the soft
   drops of eternal mercy fall upon my brow and heard, again, the gentle
   voice of the Mediator saying, "Meek and lowly in heart." Jehovah Jesus
   is gentle, tender and condescending! What a Divine blending of Glory
   and Grace! Oh, it is marvelous! Words cannot set it forth! Omnipotent,
   yet lowly! Eternal God, yet a patient Sufferer! King of kings, and Lord
   of lords, yet "meek and lowly in heart!" Remember, well, that He who
   spoke these words is He who said in the 27th verse, "All things are
   delivered unto Me of My Father." Yes, He is possessor of all things and
   yet says, "I am meek and lowly in heart."

   You know, Brothers and Sisters, it is difficult to be a man of power
   and yet to be meek--to be a king and to order things after your own
   will and yet to be lowly--to be master of all and to suffer with
   patience the scoffs and reproaches of those who are not worthy to be
   put among the dogs of your flock. But our Master had all things
   delivered to Him by God and yet He was so meek as to endure all manner
   of contradiction of sinners against Himself. He allowed sinners to spit
   in His face, to pluck His hair and scourge Him cruelly--this is
   matchless and unparalleled meekness and lowliness of heart! Yet such
   was Jesus Christ--as God, Almighty and as Man most lowly. Having an
   infinite mediatorial power, with all things delivered to Him, yet our
   Redeemer was "meek and lowly in heart."

   And remember one thing else. He has told us elsewhere that, "the Father
   has delivered all judgment unto the Son." If it were your business and
   mine, as it is not, to exercise judgment and to be the universal
   censors, I guarantee you it would be a superlative difficulty to be
   able to retain a meek and lowly heart! But Jesus Christ is universal
   Judge! His eyes, like flames of fire, discern between the precious and
   the vile, burning up the stubble and purifying the gold! And yet,
   though Ruler of all mankind and soon to come upon His Throne to judge
   both angels and men, He could say in the days of His flesh, "I am meek
   and lowly in heart."

   These are very wonderful words! I do not know whether you catch the
   contrast. If you do not, it is my fault in not being able to put it,
   for it is surpassingly striking. A Divine Being, superlative in power
   and commissioned to judge mankind, and yet, for all that, "meek and
   lowly in heart." It is most possible that the very reason of His
   meekness and lowliness may lie somewhere in His glorious greatness,
   though it may seem a paradox, for who are the meekest in the world but
   those who are truly strong? You shall pass down the street and a
   yelping dog will bark at you, but yonder powerful mastiff takes no note
   of you. A cackling goose will follow you upon the village green, while
   the powerful ox feeds on in peace.

   Real strength is the backbone of meekness. The angry are weak, the
   patient are strong. The Infinite heart of Jesus is a meek heart partly
   because it is Infinite. And I have noticed too, that really great men
   are lowly men. At any rate, they are only great as far as they are
   lowly. When a man is fond of dignity, pomp and show, he is a
   second-rate man and an essentially little man. Those who stick out for
   minute points of honor and respect are the very small men. The man who
   must have all his titles written after his name shows that he feels he
   needs them. The more eminent a man becomes, the more plain his name
   becomes in men's mouths. The greatest men among us in the State are
   seldom or never called even by their full names and honors, but are
   known by the shortest designations.

   The greater a man is the less state he cares for. Look into the army.
   Every petty officer is bedizened to the fullest, but the
   commander-in-chief is plainly dressed and scarcely wears an ornament at
   all simply because he is great. All the world over the man who needs to
   be thought great is essentially little, and he, who for the good of
   others is ready for any service, has the elements of greatness in his
   character. The Lord Jesus Christ is so infinitely great that none can
   add to His Glory and therefore He is surpassingly lowly, too. We are
   too proud to seek the conversion of a harlot but He was not. He went to
   Samaria to find her and talk to her. We are too great to speak to the
   babes, but He said, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and
   forbid them not." It is a delightful thought that He should be so great
   and yet so lowly-- and there is an intimate connection between the two
   great facts.

   Now to close this exposition, let me notice that our blessed Lord
   proved throughout His life the truth of what He asserted, for when He
   said, "I am meek and lowly in heart," He stated what His biography, if
   it is studied rightly, most fully bears out. When He came to earth His
   first advent was to a stable and to a humble woman's breast. His youth
   was spent in a carpenter's shop and when some gleaming of His
   superlative wisdom were seen in the Temple, yet He went back with His
   mother and His reputed father, and was subject unto them. Throughout
   His life His associations were with the poor. He never put on soft
   raiment, or affected the courts of princes.

   Herod might be anxious to see something of Him, but Christ never went
   to the palace to flatter Herod or to amuse his curiosity--He was quite
   content to be with Peter and James and John--humble fishermen as they
   were. His tenderness towards children was always remarkable. His
   gentleness towards all that approached Him was most memorable. Whom did
   He ever spurn? To whom did He ever speak in tones of pride? When was He
   ever irritated? Did He not bear insults in silence? Did He not answer
   craftiness with wisdom? Was not mercy His only reply to malice?

   Even in His death His silence before His enemies was His lowliness. And
   His prayer for His murderers was His meekness. While "despised and
   rejected of men," He was evermore their friend and lover, returning
   good for all their ill. He was, indeed, "meek and lowly in heart." Thus
   I have led you to consider the description given of the heart of
   Christ.

   II. Now, I want your earnest attention while I EXHORT YOU TO CARRY OUT
   WHAT IS COMMANDED IN

   THE CONTEXT. There are three commands--"Come unto Me." "Take My yoke
   upon you." "Learn of Me." First, I have great pleasure in declaring
   that all of you who are heavy-laden and are laboring, are invited to
   come to Christ and you are persuaded to do so because He is meek. I
   know what you will say. "How can I come to Jesus? I have neglected Him
   so long. I am now getting on to 70 years of age--can I expect that He
   will receive me after so long a despising of

   Him?"

   "Come unto Me," He says, "for I am meek of heart; ready to forgive your
   70 years' neglect. However great your transgressions, My love to you
   shall be greater, still." Perhaps you add, "But I have most obstinately
   rejected Christ. Sermons have impressed me, but I have shaken off
   impression. I have been almost persuaded but I have said, 'Go Your way
   for this time. When I have a more convenient season I will send for
   You.' After I have let the Lord Jesus knock at my door so long without
   opening to Him, will He still enter? I have refused him a thousand
   times, will He still come to me?" Yes, He will, for He says--"I am meek
   in heart, bearing all your misbehavior, kind and loving to the end."

   But I think I hear one say--"I have spoken evil against You, O Lord. I
   have been a doubter of Your Divinity. I have had an ill word to say
   against Your Substitution." All this, also, He will forgive, for He is
   meek and He invites all guilty sinners to look into His face--no, to
   look into His heart and see if they can discover anything like
   vengeance, anything like implacable wrath. He does not repel even
   blasphemers! Even to them the Savior does not say, "Depart," but He
   invites them to come and says to them, "Him that comes to Me I will in
   no wise cast out."

   It is true that many of you have sought another savior. You have tried
   to save yourselves. You have set up your own righteousness in
   opposition to His righteousness, which is a dire insult to His blessed
   Person. Nevertheless, forsake your pride, poor Sinner, and come, for
   Jesus is ready to forgive you even this. Do you say, "But, ah, even
   while I think of coming to Him I feel so unworthy. My very prayers must
   be offensive to Him. I do not feel my sin as I ought. I have not that
   tenderness of conscience I ought to have"? Nevertheless, Jesus says,
   "Come unto Me, for I am meek. I will not judge you with a spirit of
   censure, nor be harsh towards you. I give liberally and upbraid not.
   Come as you are. You are unfit and unworthy, yet still come, for I am
   meek and lowly in heart."

   Oh, dear Hearers, why do you hesitate? What hardness of heart is this
   that makes you linger? And if you add, "But I am afraid if I did come
   to Christ I might sin again in the future. I might again go back and
   prove unfaithful to Him." Yet, says Jesus, "I am meek and lowly in
   heart. I know what you are. I have considered you. I know that your
   frame is dust and that your very nature is sinful, yet still I say,
   come, for I am able to keep you from falling." "Alas," you say, "I have
   a foul leprosy upon me and my forehead is white with it." "Come," says
   Jesus. Notwithstanding your pollution, "Come, even as you are." Sinner,
   delay no longer! Trust Jesus now!

   Do I hear you objecting still? "But I have a great gangrened wound
   which means death and at this moment it is offensive to myself. How
   much more loathsome will it be to Him?" Nevertheless, come, for Jesus
   invites most lovingly. He loves all who come and loathes none. If you
   yet cry out, "O, but I am black and foul, and vile! None can tell how
   disgusting I seem to be to my own self!" Nevertheless, "Come," says He,
   "for I am meek in heart." And then to meet another set of objections
   which do not so much arise from sinfulness as from a sense of
   insignificance, Jesus declares, "I am lowly in heart." "I am," says
   one, "very poor." What does Christ care about riches? What are they to
   Him? He loves the poorest!

   The woman of Samaria was quite as welcome to Christ as were those
   honorable women who ministered unto Him of their substance. "But I am
   so ignorant." Did you ever hear of Christ rejecting a disciple because
   he was ignorant? Did not that prove how necessary it was that he should
   become a learner? Does not Jesus receive just such scholars and teach
   them wisdom? "Ah, but I am insignificant. Nobody will care for me. I am
   unknown and unobserved!" What does that matter? Christ knows you and it
   has pleased Him to choose the things that are not before the things
   that are, that no flesh should glory in His Presence.

   I know it is a common temptation of Satan to make men and women think,
   "Well, but there is something about my birth and rank which
   disqualifies me." Perhaps the individual was a child of shame, yet the
   meek and lowly Jesus will not

   be ashamed of him. It may be there are circumstances about the man's
   past life which are too disgraceful to be mentioned--but Jesus can blot
   it all out! Jesus cures not the whole, but the sick. And He calls to
   Himself not the righteous, but sinners. You may think yourself to be,
   in constitutional tendencies, one of the very worst of mortals and you
   may even think it better not to have existed than to be such a wretched
   thing as you are, but I pray you fear not to come to Jesus--for He is
   "meek and lowly in heart," and He rejects no seeking soul. None are
   beneath Him--His love can descend lower than you have ever fallen--

   "Buried in sorrow and in sin At Hell's dark door we lay. But He
   descends in love Divine, And lifts us into day."

   If you lie between the jaws of Hell, Jesus can pluck you out! It is
   delightful to my soul to tell these glad tidings to you! The only
   sorrow I have is the thought that many of you do not take an interest
   in them. Even now I do not see about you the solemn attention I desire
   to see and a trifling noise makes you turn your heads. O Sirs, do you
   despise the heart of Jesus? Has His tender love no beauty in your eyes?
   Alas, if you knew how near the grave some of you are and how precious
   His salvation is to those who possess it, I should have all eyes and
   ears and hearts engrossed with such a subject as this. O Sinners,
   Sinners! There is never a sweeter word in all Scripture than this, "I
   am meek and lowly in heart."

   Nothing should charm you and encourage you more! Jesus, by these lips,
   speaks to you this morning and says-- "Come unto Me all you that labor
   and are heavy-laden." Oh, may His Spirit lead you! Come and trust the
   Savior! Come and bow at His dear pierced feet! Come and take from His
   wounded hands the boundless mercies which He delights to give! Come,
   and look into His face, for it beams with love! Accept Him as your
   Savior now! "If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of
   the land." If you accept Him and bow at His feet, He will save you now,
   and save you in the day of His coming. This is the first
   exhortation--an exhortation to sinners to come.

   The second is an exhortation to obey--"Take My yoke upon you, for I am
   meek and lowly in heart." Oh, Christian people, this is for you! Obey
   Christ, for He is no tyrannical Master. It is very easy to serve a man
   who is lowly and meek. It is very difficult, I should think, to be
   continually employed by a person who is too haughty to speak to
   you--whose commands are intolerant--and who, if you do not fulfill them
   to the letter, will upbraid you in furious language. It must be hard to
   be a servant to a hard master.

   But, O, to serve Jesus is to serve One whose service is perfect
   freedom, who is ever lenient towards our faults, who forgives as soon
   as we offend and if grieved by us is only grieved because we injure
   ourselves. "Take My yoke upon you," He says, "for I am meek and lowly
   in heart." Who would not obey Jesus? Who would not wait upon so kind a
   Prince? But I cannot dwell upon that, for time fails me. I want,
   however, a minute or two upon the third exhortation.

   "Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." I feel this is a
   lesson which I want to learn and a lesson which most here present need
   to learn, also, to be "MEEK AND LOWLY IN HEART." To be meek! We are not
   all meek and some of us who may appear to be meek, perhaps owe it
   rather to a softness of nature than to a sweetness of Grace--the true
   meekness is that which Grace gives. Matthew Henry says that there are
   only three men in the Bible whose faces are said to have shone--Moses,
   Jesus and Stephen--and all these were meek men.

   God will not make angry men's faces shine--rather do they gather
   blackness. If anything can put a Divine glow on a Christian's face, it
   is a readiness to forgive. If you are ready to forgive, you possess one
   of the sweetest beauties of the Redeemer's character. It is wonderful,
   the power of meekness, if we would but believe it. There is, after all,
   no power in anger. "The wrath of man works not the righteousness of
   God." Stoop to conquer, submit to overcome. Holy Mr. Dodd, when
   reproving a profligate, was assailed by him in his anger and two of the
   good man's teeth were dashed out. When simply wiping the blood from his
   mouth, the man of God said, "And I will cheerfully allow you to knock
   out all the rest if you will but mind what I have said and seek the
   salvation of your soul."

   His opponent felt that there was something in the good man which he did
   not possess and he was won to a better mind. A woman who had before
   been a terrible shrew was converted. Her husband persecuted her cruelly
   for her religion and one day, in his passion, he struck her on her face
   so as to knock her to the ground. When she simply rose and said, "But,
   my Husband, if it would do you any good and bring you to Christ, I
   would be willing to be struck again." "Woman," he said, "these
   religious people have made a wonderful change in you, or you would not
   have spoken so gently. Go where you will from now on."

   Nothing conquers like meekness--not the meekness which is feigned--but
   real gentleness. Of all things in the world, I think the most foul and
   sickening is the pretense of forgiving a person when you, yourself, are
   the individual who committed the offense. The sanctimonious presence of
   meekness when you are justly upbraided is detestable! May God grant us
   Grace to find peace by getting rid of anger, for only by meekness shall
   you find peace unto your souls. You cannot be at peace while you are
   harsh and severe--and ready to resent every trifling injury.

   The other word is, "lowly in heart." Now this is one of the things
   every Christian ought to learn of Christ. Augustine was once asked what
   was the most essential thing in religion. I do not quite agree with his
   answer, but there was much truth in it. He said, "The first essential
   thing is humility, the second is humility and the third is humility."
   There is more essential than that, but at the same time, in a perfect
   Christian character one of the rarest but at the same time one of the
   most precious pearls is humility. Quaint old Secker says, "The lowliest
   Christian is the loveliest Christian."

   A vessel that is empty lifts itself aloft! Go down to the Thames and
   see how it displays itself. The empty boat rides high and exposes
   itself completely to view. It stands out of the water seeming to say to
   everybody, "Look at me! What a size I am!" But as soon as that vessel
   is filled and has its cargo on board, its bulk sinks out of sight under
   the stream--it hides a great part of its hull in the water. A full man
   is a humble man--a proud man is an empty man. Conceit means
   weakness--lowliness of heart is strength.

   Jesus Christ, as I have shown, was strong and yet meek. He was great
   and yet lowly. Oh, that we might learn the lesson from Him and be,
   "meek and lowly in heart!" I have thus preached the Gospel to the
   sinner and bid him come and find rest. I have also preached Christ to
   the saint and bid him find a yet further rest in imitating the
   Character of his Lord. May God bless these words according to His own
   infinite love by His mighty Spirit! And His shall be the praise
   evermore. Amen and Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Matthew 11.
     __________________________________________________________________

"The Lord Is Risen, Indeed"

   (No. 1106)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 13, 1873,

   BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Why seek you the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!
   Remember how He spoke unto you when He was yet in Galilee." Luke 24:5,
   6.

   THE first day of the week commemorates the Resurrection of Christ and,
   following Apostolic example, we have made the first day of the week to
   be our Sabbath. Does not this intimate to us that the rest of our souls
   is to be found in the Resurrection of our Savior? Is it not true that a
   clear understanding of the rising again of our Lord is, through the
   power of the Holy Spirit, the very surest means of bringing our minds
   into peace? To have a part in the Resurrection of Christ is to enjoy
   that Sabbath which remains for the people of God. We who have believed
   in the risen Lord do enter into rest, even as He also, Himself, is
   resting at the right hand of the Father. In Him we rest because His
   work is finished, His Resurrection being the pledge that He has
   perfected all that is necessary for the salvation of His people and we
   are complete in Him.

   I trust, this morning, that some restful thoughts may, by the power of
   the Holy Spirit, be sown in the minds of Believers while we make a
   pilgrimage to the new tomb of Joseph of Arimathea and see the place
   where the Lord lay.

   I. And, first, this morning, I will speak to you upon certain
   INSTRUCTIVE MEMORIES which gather around the place where Jesus slept
   "with the rich in His death." Though He is not there, He assuredly once
   was there, for "He was crucified, dead, and buried." He was as dead as
   the dead now are and though He could see no corruption, nor could be
   held by the bands of death beyond the predestined time, yet He was in
   very deed most assuredly dead. No light remained in His eyes, no life
   in His heart. Thought had fled from His thorn-crowned brow and speech
   from His golden mouth. He was not, in mere appearance, but in reality
   dead--the spear-thrust decided that question once and for all.

   Therefore in the sepulcher they laid Him, a dead Man, fit occupant of
   the silent tomb. Yet as He is not there now, but is risen, it is for us
   to search for memorials of His having been there. Not for the "holy
   sepulcher" will we contend with superstitious sectaries, but in spirit
   we will gather up the precious relics of the risen Redeemer. First, He
   has left in the grave the spices. When He rose He did not bring away
   the costly aromatics in which His body had been wrapped, but He left
   them there. Joseph brought about one hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes,
   and the odor remained. In the sweetest spiritual sense, our Lord Jesus
   has filled the grave with fragrance. It no longer smells of corruption
   and foul decay, but we can sing with the poet of the sanctuary--

   "Whyshould we tremble to convey These bodies to the tomb? There the
   dear flesh of Jesus lay, And left a long perfume."

   Yonder lowly bed in the earth is now perfumed with costly spices and
   decked with sweet flowers, for on its pillow the truest Friend we have
   once laid His holy head! We will not start back with horror from the
   chambers of the dead, for the Lord, Himself, has traversed them--and
   where He goes no terror abides. The Master also left His grave clothes
   behind Him. He did not come from the tomb wrapped about with a
   winding-sheet. He did not wear the burial clothes of the tomb as the
   garments of life, but when Peter went into the sepulcher he saw the
   grave clothes lying carefully folded by themselves. What if I say He
   left them to be the hangings of the royal bedchamber wherein His saints
   fall asleep?

   See how He has curtained our last bed! Our dormitory is no longer bare
   and drear, like a prison cell, but hung around with fair white linen
   and comely tapestry--a chamber fit for the repose of princes of the
   blood! We will go to our last bedchamber in peace, because Christ has
   furnished it for us! Or if we change the metaphor, I may say that our
   Lord has left those grave clothes for us to look upon as pledges of His
   fellowship with us in our low estate and reminders that

   as He has cast aside the death garments, even so shall we. He has risen
   from His couch and left His sleeping robes behind Him in token that at
   our waking there are other vestures ready for us, also.

   What if I again change the figure and say that as we have seen old
   tattered flags hung up in cathedrals and other national buildings as
   the memorials of defeated enemies and victories won, so in the crypt
   where Jesus vanquished death His grave clothes are hung up as the
   trophies of His victory over death, and as assurances to us that all
   His people shall be more than conquerors through Him that has loved
   them? "O Death, where is your sting? O Grave, where is your victory?"
   Then, carefully folded up and laid by itself, our Lord left the napkin
   that was about His head. Yonder lies that napkin now. The Lord needed
   it not when He came forth to life.

   You who mourn may use it as a handkerchief with which to dry your eyes.
   You widows and you fatherless children-- you mourning brothers and you
   weeping sisters--and you, you Rachels, who will not be comforted
   because your children are not here, take this which wrapped your
   Savior's face and wipe your tears away forever! The Lord is risen,
   indeed, and therefore thus says the Lord, "Refrain your voice from
   weeping and your eyes from tears, for they shall come again from the
   land of the enemy." "Your dead men shall live." O mourner--together
   with the Lord's dead body shall they arise! Why, sorrow not as they
   that are without hope, for if you believe that Jesus died and rose
   again, even so they, also, which sleep in Jesus will the Lord bring
   with Him!

   What else has the risen Savior left behind Him? Our faith has learned
   to gather up memorials sweet from the couch of our Lord's tranquil
   slumber. Well, Beloved, He left angels behind Him, and thus made the
   grave--

   "A cell where angels use To come and go with hea venly news." Angels
   were not in the tomb before, but, at His Resurrection, they descended!
   One rolled away the stone and others sat where the Body of Jesus had
   lain. They were the personal attendants and bodyguard of the Great
   Prince and, therefore, they attended Him at His rising, keeping the
   doorway and answering the enquiries of His friends. Angels are full of
   life and vigor, but they did not hesitate to assemble at the grave,
   gracing the Resurrection even as flowers adorn the spring!

   I read not that our Master has ever recalled the angels from the
   sepulchers of His saints. And now, if Believers die as poor as Lazarus
   and as sick and as despised as he, angels shall convey their souls into
   the bosom of their Lord and their bodies, too, shall be watched by
   guardian spirits, as surely as Michael kept the body of Moses and
   contended for it with the foe. Angels are both the servitors of living
   saints and the custodians of their dust. What else did our Well-Beloved
   leave behind Him? He left an open passage from the tomb, for the stone
   was rolled away--doorless is that house of death! We shall, in our
   turn, if the Master comes not speedily, descend into the prison of the
   grave. What did I say?--I called it a "prison," but how can it be a
   prison--it has no bolts or bars!

   How can it be a prison, that has not even a door to close upon its
   occupants? Our Samson has pulled up the posts and carried away the
   gates of the grave with all their bars! The key is taken from the belt
   of Death and is held in the hands of the Prince of Life! The broken
   signal and the fainting watchmen are tokens that the dungeons of death
   can no more confine their captives! As Peter, when he was visited by
   the angel, found his chains fall off him and iron gates opened to him
   of their own accord, so shall the saints find ready escape at the
   Resurrection morning! They shall sleep awhile, each one in his resting
   place, but they shall rise readily, for the stone is rolled away!

   A mighty angel rolled away the stone, for it was very great--and when
   he had done the deed he sat down upon the stone. His garment was white
   as snow and his face like lightning. And as he sat on the stone he
   seemed to say to Death and Hell, "Roll it back, again, if you can."
   "Who shall rebuild for the tyrant his prison? The scepter lies broken
   that fell from his hands. His dominion is ended--the Lord is arisen!
   The helpless shall soon be released from their bands." One thing else I
   venture to mention as left by my Lord in His forsaken tomb. I visited,
   some few months ago, several of the large grave vaults which are to be
   found outside the gates of Rome.

   You enter a large square building, sunk in the earth, and descend by
   many steps. And as you descend you observe on the four walls of the
   great chamber, innumerable little pigeonholes in which are the ashes of
   tens of thousands of departed persons. Usually in front of each
   compartment prepared for the reception of the ashes stands a lamp. I
   have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of these lamps, but they are all
   unlit and, indeed, do not appear ever to have carried light. They shed
   no ray upon the darkness of death. But now our Lord has gone into the
   tomb and illuminated it with His Presence--"the lamp of His love is our
   guide through the gloom."

   Jesus has brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel! And now
   in the dovecotes where Christians nestle, there is light--yes, in every
   cemetery there is a light which shall burn through the watches of
   earth's night till the day breaks and the shadows flee away--and the
   Resurrection morn shall dawn! So, then, the empty tomb of the Savior
   leaves us many sweet reflections which we will treasure up for our
   instruction.

   II. Our text expressly speaks of VAIN SEARCHES--"Why seek you the
   living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!" There are places
   where seekers after Jesus should not expect to find Him, however
   diligent may be their search, however sincere their desire. You cannot
   find a man where he is not, and there are some spots where Christ never
   will be discovered. At this present moment I see many searching for
   Christ among the monuments of ceremonialism, or what Paul called, "the
   weak and beggarly elements," for they, "observe days and months and
   times and years." Ever since our Lord arose, Judaism and every form of
   symbolic ceremony have become nothing better than sepulchers.

   The types were of God's own ordaining, but when the Substance had come,
   the types became empty sepulchers and nothing more. Since that time men
   have invented other symbols which have not the sanction of Divine
   authority and are only dead men's graves. At this present period the
   world has gone mad after its idols, deluded and deceived by those who
   have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Surely there never
   was a period, even when Rome was most dominant, in which men heaped
   unto themselves ceremonies at such a rate as at the present day! They
   have made Christianity to be a greater yoke of bondage than was
   Judaism, itself--but in vain shall any sincere and awakened soul hope
   to find Jesus among these vain performances!

   You may stumble from one holy day to another, and from one holy place
   to another, and from one hocus-pocus to another, but you shall not find
   a Savior in any of them, for thus has He Himself declared, "Neither in
   this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem shall men worship the Father, but
   the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the
   Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such to worship
   Him." Jesus has torn the veil and abolished ceremonial worship and yet
   men seek to revive it, building up the sepulchers which the Lord has
   broken down. This day He repeats in our ears the warning, "Take you
   good heed unto yourselves, for you saw no manner of similitude on the
   day that the Lord spoke unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire;
   lest you corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the
   similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female."

   Yet certain men among us go about to set up the altars which our godly
   forefathers broke down, and the work of Reformers and of Protestants
   must now be done over again! God send us a Knox or a Luther with a
   mighty hammer to break in pieces the idols which the priests of Baal
   are setting up! They seek the living among the dead! Jesus is not in
   their masses and processions! He is risen far above such carnal
   worship! If He were a dead Christ, such a worship might, perchance, be
   a suitable pageant over His tomb. But to one who always lives, it must
   be insulting to present such materialistic services!

   Alas, there are many others who are seeking Christ as their Savior
   among the tombs of moral reformation! Our Lord likened the Pharisees to
   whitewashed sepulchers--inwardly they were full of dead men's bones,
   but outwardly they were fairly garnished. Oh, the way in which men,
   when they get uneasy about their souls, try to whitewash themselves!
   Some one gross sin is given up, not in heart, but only in appearance,
   and a certain virtue is cultivated, not in the soul, but only in the
   outward act--and thus they hope to be saved though they still remain
   enemies to God, lovers of sin and greedy seekers after the wages of
   unrighteousness! They hope that the clean outside of the cup and the
   platter will satisfy the Most High and that He will not be so severe as
   to look within and try their hearts.

   O, Sirs, why do you seek the living among the dead? Many have sought
   peace for their consciences by their moral reforms--but if the Holy
   Spirit has truly convicted them of sin--they have soon found that they
   were looking for a living Christ amidst the tombs. He is not there, for
   He is risen! If Christ were dead, we might well say to you, "Go and do
   your best to be your own saviors," but while Christ is alive, He needs
   no help of yours--He will save you from top to bottom, or not at all.
   He will be Alpha and Omega to you and if you put your hands upon His
   work and think in any way that you can help Him, you have dishonored
   His holy name--and He will have nothing to do with you! Seek not a
   living salvation among the sepulchers of outward formality.

   Too many, also, are struggling to find the living Christ amidst the
   tombs which cluster so thickly at the foot of Sinai. They look for life
   by the Law, whose ministry is death. Men think that they are to be
   saved by keeping God's Commandments. They are to do their best and they
   conceive that their sincere endeavors will be accepted--and they will

   thus save themselves. This self-righteous idea is diametrically opposed
   to the whole spirit of the Gospel! The Gospel is not for you who can
   save yourselves, but for those who are lost! If you can save
   yourselves, go and do it, but do not mock the Savior with your
   hypocritical prayers! Go and stumble among the tombs of ancient Israel
   and perish as they did in the wilderness, for Moses and the Law can
   never lead you into rest.

   The Gospel is for sinners who cannot keep the Law for themselves--who
   have broken it and incurred its penalty! The Gospel is for those who
   know that they have done so and confess it. For such, a living Savior
   has come that He may blot out their transgressions. Seek not salvation
   by the works of the Law, for by them shall no flesh living be
   justified. By the Law is the knowledge of sin and nothing more!
   Righteousness, peace, life, salvation come by faith in the living Lord
   Jesus Christ and by no other means! "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
   and you shall be saved," but if you go about to establish your own
   righteousness, you shall surely perish because you have rejected the
   righteousness of Christ.

   There are others who seek the living Jesus among the tombs by looking
   for something good in human nature--in their own natural hearts and
   dispositions. I can see you now, for I have known you a long time and
   this has always been your folly--you will go into the morgue of your
   own nature and say, "Is Jesus here?" Beloved, you are sad and depressed
   and I do not wonder. Look at yonder dry bones and bleaching skeletons.
   See that heap of rottenness, that mass of corruption, that body of
   death--can you bear it? "Ah," you say, "I am a wretched man, indeed,
   but I long to find some good thing in my flesh!"

   O Beloved, you search in vain! You might as well rake Hell over to find
   Heaven in it as look into your own carnal nature to find consolation!
   Behold this day, God has abandoned the old nature and given it up to
   death. Under the old Law, circumcision was the putting away of the
   filth of the flesh, as though after this filth were gone the flesh
   might perhaps be bettered, but now, under the New Covenant, we have a
   far deeper symbol, for, "know you not, that so many of us as were
   baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we
   are buried with Him by Baptism into death: that like as Christ was
   raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we, also,
   should walk in newness of life." "The old man is buried as a dead thing
   out of which no good can come." "Knowing this, that our old man is
   crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed, that from
   now on we should not serve sin."

   God does not attempt to renew the old carnal mind, but to make us new
   creatures in Christ Jesus. If any man continually practices
   introspeculation with a view to consolation, he might as well pile up
   blocks of Wenham ice with a view to burn down a city! If you are
   turning over your frames and feelings, your thoughts and imaginations,
   to discover comfort, you might far sooner hope to find precious
   diamonds in the sweepings of the roads. "He is not here," says the
   whole of our old nature. He is not here, He is risen! And for
   consolation you must look alone to Him, as He is enthroned above the
   skies.

   Yet again, too many have tried to find Christ amidst the gloomy
   catacombs of the world's philosophy. For instance, on Sunday they like
   to have a sermon full of thought--thought being, in the modern meaning
   of it, something beyond, if not opposite to, the simple teaching of the
   Bible. If a man tells his people what he finds in the Scriptures he is
   said to "talk platitudes." But if a man amuses his people with his own
   dreams, however opposed they may be to God's thoughts, he is a
   "thinking man," a "highly intellectual preacher." There are some who
   love, above all things, the maundering of daydreamers and the crudities
   of skeptics. If they can hear what an infidel Professor has said
   against Inspiration--if they can be indulged with the last new
   blasphemy--some hearers feel that they are making advances in that
   higher culture which is so much vaunted nowadays!

   But, believe me, the bat-haunted caves of false philosophy and
   pretended science have been searched again and again, and salvation
   dwells not in them! In Paul's day there were Gnostics who tracked all
   the winding passages of vainglorious learning, but they only discovered
   "another gospel which was not another." The world by wisdom knew not
   God. After roaming amid the dreary catacombs of philosophy, we come
   back to breathe the fresh air of the living Word and concerning the
   mazes of science, we gasp out the sentence--"He is not there." Reason
   has not found Him in her deepest mining, nor speculation in her highest
   soaring, though, indeed, He is not far from any one of us! Athens has
   her unknown God, but in the simple Gospel God is known in the Person of
   Jesus.

   Socrates and Plato hold up their candles, but Jesus is the soul. Our
   moderns quibble and dispute and yet a living Christ is among us
   converting sinners, cheering saints and glorifying God! If the Lord
   were a dead question for debate, philosophy might help us. But as He is
   a living power, a grain of faith in Him is better than mountains of
   philosophy. O

   you who know not the inner life and the quickening Spirit, what have
   you to do with the risen Lord? As well might corruption's world become
   the judge of cherubim as you become the arbiters of the Truth of God
   concerning Jesus our

   Lord!

   How anxiously do I wish that you who have been searching for salvation
   in any of these directions would give up the hopeless task and
   understand that Christ is near you--and if you, with the heart, believe
   on Him, and with the mouth confess Him, you shall be saved. "Look unto
   Me and be you saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and
   beside Me there is none else." This is His cry to you. "Faith comes by
   hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." "Believe in the Lord Jesus
   Christ and you shall be saved." Jesus is still living and able to save
   to the uttermost! All you have to do is simply turn the glance of your
   faith towards Him--by that faith He becomes yours--and you are saved!
   But oh, seek not the living among the dead, for He is risen!

   III. We will again change our strain and consider, in the third place,
   UNSUITABLE ABODES. The angels said to the women, "He is not here, but
   is risen!" As much as to say--since He is alive He does not abide here.
   The living Christ might have sat down in the tomb--He might have made
   the sepulcher His resting place--but it would not have been
   appropriate. And so He teaches us today that Christians should dwell in
   places appropriate to them. You are risen in Christ--you ought not to
   dwell in the grave!

   I shall now speak to those who, to all intents and purposes, live in
   the sepulcher though they are risen from the dead. Some of these are
   excellent people, but their temperament, and perhaps their mistaken
   convictions of duty, lead them to be perpetually gloomy and desponding.
   They hope they have believed in Christ, but they are not sure. They
   trust that they are saved, but they would not be presumptuous enough to
   say so. They do not dare to be happy in the conviction that they are
   accepted in the Beloved! They love the mournful string of the harp.
   They mourn an absent God. They hope that the Divine promises will be
   fulfilled--they trust that, perhaps, one of these days they may come
   forth into light and see a little of the brightness of the Lord's
   love--but now they are ready to quit, they dwell in the valley of the
   shadow of death and their soul is sorely burdened.

   Dear Friend, do you think this is a proper condition for a Christian to
   be in? I am not going to deny your Christianity for a moment, for I
   have not half so much doubt about that as you have. I have a better
   opinion of you than you have of yourself! The most trembling Believer
   in Jesus is saved and your little faith will save you. But do you
   really think that Christ meant you to stay where you are, sitting in
   the cold and silent tomb amid the dust and ashes? Why keep underground?
   Why not come into the Master's garden where the flowers are breathing
   perfume? Why not enjoy the fresh light of full assurance and the sweet
   breath of the Spirit's comforting influences?

   It was a madman who dwelt among the tombs--do not imitate him. Do not
   say I have been such a sinner that this is all I deserve to enjoy. If
   you talk of deserving, you have left the Gospel altogether. I know you
   believe in Jesus and you would not give up your hope for all the world.
   You feel, after all, that He is a precious Christ to you. Come, then,
   rejoice in Him though you cannot rejoice in yourself. Come, Beloved,
   come out of this dreary vault, leave it at once! Though you have lain
   among the pots, yet now you shall be as the wings of a dove covered
   with silver and her feathers with yellow gold. Your Master comes to you
   now and says, "O My Dove, that are in the clefts of the rocks, in the
   secret places of the stairs, let Me see your countenance, let Me hear
   your voice; for sweet is your voice, and your countenance is comely."

   Members of the body of a risen Savior, will you still lie in the grave?
   Arise and come away! Doubt no longer! O Believer, what cause have you
   to doubt your God? Has He ever lied to you? Question no longer the
   power of the precious blood. Why should you doubt it? Is it not able to
   cleanse you from sin? No longer enquire as to whether you are saved or
   can be--if you believe, you are as safe as Christ is! You can no more
   perish than Christ can if you are resting in Him-- His word has pledged
   it, His honor is involved in it--He will surely bring you unto the
   promised rest! Therefore be glad. Why, I have known a Brother live down
   in the catacombs and vaults so long that he has condemned his Brethren
   for living in the sunlight, and has said, "I cannot understand a man
   speaking so confidently, I cannot understand it."

   My dear Brother, because you cannot understand it, it is not,
   therefore, wrong. There is a great deal about eagles that owls do not
   understand. You that are always fretting and worrying in that way are
   sinning against God--you are grieving His Spirit! You are acting
   inconsistently with your Christian profession and yet you judge others
   who believe God to be true and take Him at His Word and therefore get
   joy and comfort out of His promise! Never do that--it would be wicked,
   indeed, for you to set yourselves up as judges. Instead, pray the Lord
   to lift up the light of His

   Countenance upon you, to give you joy and peace in believing, for this
   He says, "Rejoice in the Lord you righteous, and shout for joy all you
   that are upright in heart." Come out of the tomb, dear Brothers and
   Sisters, for Jesus is not there and if He is not there why should you
   be? He is risen! O rise into comfort, too, in His Spirit's power!

   Another sort of people seem to dwell among the tombs--I mean
   Christians--and I trust real Christians. They are very, very worldly.
   It is no sin for a man to be diligent in business, but it is a grievous
   fault when diligence in business destroys fervency in spirit--and when
   there is no serving of God in daily life. A Christian man should be
   diligent so as to provide things honest in the sight of all men, but
   there are some who are not content with this. They have enough, but
   they covet more, and when they have more, they still stretch their arms
   like seas to grasp in all the shore. Their main thought is not God, but
   gold--not Christ, but wealth.

   O Brothers and Sisters, Brothers and Sisters, permit me earnestly to
   rebuke you lest you receive a severe rebuke in Providence in your own
   souls. Christ is not here! He dwells not in piles of silver. You may be
   very rich and yet not find Christ in it at all--and you might be poor,
   and yet if Christ were with you, you would be happy as the angels. He
   is not here, He is risen! A marble tomb could not hold Him, nor could a
   golden tomb have contained Him. Let it not contain you! Unwrap the
   grave clothes of your heart--cast all your cares on God who cares for
   you. Let your conversation be in Heaven. Set not your affection on
   things on the earth, but set it upon things above where Christ sits at
   the right hand of

   God.

   Once more on this point, a subject more grievous still--there are some
   professors who live in the house of sin. Yet they say that they are
   Christ's people! No, I will not say they live in it, but they do what,
   perhaps, is worse--they go to sin to find their pleasures. I suppose we
   may judge of a man more by where he finds his pleasure than by almost
   anything else. A man may say, "I do not habitually frequent the
   gaieties of the world. I am not always found where sin is mixed with
   mirth and where worldlings dance upon the verge of Hell--but I go there
   now and then for a special treat." I cannot help quoting the remark of
   Rowland Hill, who, when he met with a professor who went to the
   theater--a member of his Church--said to him, "I understand you attend
   the theater." "No," he said, "I only go for a treat now and then."

   "Ah," said Mr. Hill, "that makes it all the worse. Suppose that
   somebody said, 'Mr. Hill is a strong being, he eats carrion,' and I am
   asked, 'Is it true, Mr. Hill, that you live on carrion?' 'No, I do not
   habitually eat carrion, but I have a dish of it now and then just for a
   treat.' Why, you would think I was nastier than I should have been if I
   had eaten it ordinarily." There is much force in the remark. If
   anything that verges on the unclean and lascivious is a treat to you,
   why then, your very heart is unclean and you are seeking your pleasure
   and comfort among the dead!

   There are some things that men take pleasure in nowadays that are only
   fit to make idiots laugh, or else to cause angels to weep. Do be
   particular, Christian men and women, in your company. You are brothers
   to Christ--will you consort with the sons of Belial? You are heirs of
   perfection in Christ. You are, even now, arrayed in spotless linen, and
   you are fair and lovely in the sight of God--you are a royal
   priesthood, you are the elect of mankind--will you trail your garments
   in the mire and make yourselves the sport of the Philistines? Will you
   consort with the beggarly children of the world? No, act according to
   your pedigree and your newborn nature and never seek the living among
   the dead. Jesus was never there--go not there yourselves. He loved not
   the noise and turmoil of the world's pleasures. He had meat to eat of
   another kind. God grant you to feel the Resurrection life strong within
   your spirits.

   IV. But I pass on from that. In the fourth place, I want to warn you
   against UNREASONABLE SERVICES. Those good people to whom the angels
   said, "He is not here, but is risen!" were bearing a load, and what
   were they carrying? What is Joanna carrying, and her servants? And
   Mary, what is she carrying? Why, white linen--and what else? Pounds of
   spices, the most precious they could buy. What are they going to do?
   Ah, if an angel could laugh, I should think he must have smiled as he
   found they were coming to embalm Christ!

   "Why He is not here and, what is more, He is not dead! He does not need
   any embalming, He is alive!" You might have seen all over England, on
   Good Friday, and also on this Easter Sunday, crowds of people--I have
   no doubt very sincere people--coming to embalm Christ. They tolled a
   bell because He was dead and they hung crepe over what they call their
   altars because He was dead, and they fasted and sung sad hymns over
   their dead Savior! I bless the Lord my Redeemer is not dead--and I have
   no bells to toll for Him, either! He is risen, He is not here! Here
   they come, crowds of them with their white linen and their precious
   spices to wrap a dead Christ up in!

   Are they mad? But they say, "We were only acting it over again." Oh,
   was that it? Practical charades, was it? Acting the glorious Atonement
   of Calvary as a play! Then I accuse the performers of blasphemy before
   the Throne of the eternal God who hears my words! I charge them with
   profanity in daring to rehearse in mimicry that which was once done and
   done forever and is never to be repeated! No, I cannot suppose they
   meant to mimic the great Sacrifice, and, therefore, I conclude that
   they thought their Savior to be dead. And so they said, "Toll the bells
   for Him! Kneel down and weep before His image on a cross."

   If I believed Jesus Christ died on Good Friday, I would feast all day
   long because His death is over! As He has ordained the high festival of
   the Lord's Supper to be His commemoration, I would follow His bidding
   and keep no fast. Who would sit down and whine over a Friend once dead
   if you know Him to be restored to life and exalted in power? Why toll a
   bell for a living Friend? However, I condemn not the good people any
   more than the angels condemned those holy women, only they may take
   their spices home and their white linen, too, for Jesus is alive and
   does not need them!

   In other ways a great many fussy people do the same thing. See how they
   come forward in defense of the Gospel. It has been discovered by
   geology and by arithmetic that Moses was wrong. Straightway many go out
   to defend Jesus Christ. They argue for the Gospel and apologize for it,
   as if it were now a little out of date and we must try to bring it
   round to suit modern discoveries and the philosophies of the present
   period. That seems to me exactly like coming up with your linen and
   precious spices to wrap Him in. Take them away! I question whether
   Butler and Paley have not, both of them, created more infidels than
   they ever cured--and whether most of the defenses of the Gospel are not
   sheer impertinences. The Gospel does not need defending! If Jesus
   Christ is not alive and cannot fight His own battles, then Christianity
   is in an evil case.

   But He is and we have only to preach His Gospel in all its naked
   simplicity, and the power that goes with it will be the evidence of its
   dignity. No other evidence will ever convince mankind. Apologies and
   defenses are well intended, no doubt--so was the embalming well
   intended by these good women--but they are of small value. Give Christ
   room, give His preachers space and opportunities to preach the Gospel
   and let the Truth of God be brought out in simple language! And you
   will soon hear the Master say, "Take away the spices, take away the
   linen! I am alive, I do not need these." We see the same kind of thing
   in other good people who are sticklers for old-fashioned, stereotyped
   ways--they must have everything conducted exactly as it used to be
   conducted 100 or 200 years ago. Puritan order must be maintained and
   there must be no divergence.

   The way of putting the Gospel must be exactly the same way in which it
   was put by good old Dr. So-and-So, and in the pulpit there must be the
   most awful dreariness that can possibly be compassed. And the preacher
   must be devoutly dull and all the worship must be serenely proper--lots
   of spices and fine linen to wrap a dead Christ up in! I delight to
   break down conventional proprieties. It is a grand thing to put one's
   foot right through merely human regulations--life cannot be strapped
   down by regulations fit only for the dead! Death lies wrapped up like a
   mummy in the museum--it will always do the proper thing, or rather
   won't do anything at all. But Life, reality, will show itself
   unexpected ways. Life will say what Death could not say. It will break
   out where it was not expected and break all your laws and regulations
   into a thousand pieces!

   But still I see the good people holding up their hands in horror, and
   crying out, "Bring here the Arabian gum, the myrrh and the aloes. Bring
   here the linen--we must take care of our dear, dead Master." Leave Him
   alone! Leave Him alone, Man, He is alive and does not need your
   wrapping up. I do not hesitate to say that a great deal of Church order
   among Dissenters and Episcopalians, Presbyterians and all sorts of
   denominations--and a great deal of propriety and decorum, and
   regulation, and,
   "As-it-was-in-the-beginning-is-now-and-ever-shall-be-isms"--are only so
   much spices and knell for a dead Christ. But Christ is alive and what
   is needed is to give Him room!

   I do not say this for my own sake--am I not always proper?--but I say
   it for the sake of earnest Brother Evangelists who, in preaching to the
   poor, use extravagance of language and perhaps of action. Let them use
   it. Scoffers say they are histrionic. Was ever anybody ever half so
   histrionic as Ezekiel? Did not all the Prophets do strange things to
   get the attention of the people? Why, the same charge was brought
   against Whitfield and Wesley--"These people are breaking through all
   rules," and so on. What a blessed thing it is when men can do it! Mr.
   Hill went to Scotland to preach the Gospel and they said he rode on the
   back of all order and decorum.

   Then said he, "I will call my pair of horses by those names, and make
   it true." It was true! No doubt he did ride on the back of order and
   decorum, but then he drew souls to Christ with those two strange steeds
   and his breaking through rules enabled him to get at men and women who
   never would have been got at in any other way. Be ready to set Christ
   at liberty and give His servants liberty to serve Him as the Spirit of
   God shall guide them.

   V. I wanted to speak, last of all, upon THE AMAZING NEWS which these
   good women received--"He is not here, but is risen!." This was amazing
   news to His enemies. They said, "We have killed Him--we have put Him in
   the tomb-- it is all over with Him." Aha! Scribe, Pharisee, Priest!
   What have you done? Your work is all undone, for He is risen! It was
   terrifying news for Satan. He, no doubt, dreamed that he had destroyed
   the Savior--but He is risen! What a thrill had gone through all the
   regions of Hell! What news it had been for the grave!

   Now it was utterly destroyed and Death had lost his sting! What news it
   was for trembling saints. "He is risen, indeed." They plucked up
   courage and they said, "The good cause is still the right one and it
   will conquer, for our Christ is still alive as its Head! It was good
   news for sinners! Yes, it is good news for every sinner here. Christ is
   alive! If you seek Him He will be found of you. He is not a dead Christ
   to whom I point you today. He is risen! And He is able to save to the
   uttermost them that come unto God by Him. There is no better news for
   sad men, for distressed, desponding and despairing men than this--the
   Savior lives--able, still, to save and willing to receive you to His
   tender heart!

   This was glad news, Beloved, for all the angels and all the spirits in
   Heaven! Glad news, indeed, for them. And this day it shall be glad news
   to us, and we will live in the power of it by the help of His Spirit.
   And we will tell it to our Brethren that they may rejoice with us, and
   we will not despair any longer. We will give way no more to doubts and
   fears, but we will say to one another, "He is risen, indeed: therefore
   let our hearts be glad." The Lord bless you, and in coming to His
   table, as I trust many of His people will come, let us meet our risen
   Master. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Luke 24.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Call To Worship

   (No. 1107)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 20, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go
   speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of Hosts: I will
   go also." Zechariah 8:21.

   THIS prophecy may relate to the Jews, literally, and it is referred to
   by their learned doctors as to the days of the Messiah. We believe,
   also, that it refers to the days of the Messiah and we look for times
   when again the Holy Land shall be fully inhabited and the people shall
   rejoice to meet together to worship the Lord their God. We do not see,
   however, that this prophecy has yet been accomplished, and we look for
   it to be fulfilled in the latter days. Spiritually it teaches just
   this, that when God returns to bless His Church there are certain signs
   and marks of His return. Just as the coming back of the sun when he
   advances north of the Equator and again cheers us with his warmth, is
   marked by the springing up of flowers and the singing of birds, so the
   return of God's Holy Spirit to bless His Church is marked by certain
   signs and tokens.

   The text tells us what those signs and tokens are, but before I mention
   them, let me suggest that every Believer should pray that these
   cheering indications may be manifest in our midst--that in these, our
   days, the Lord may return unto His Jerusalem and be jealous for her
   with a great jealousy--that we may see glad seasons such as our fathers
   have told us of, which happened in their days and in the olden times
   before them. As far as shall lie in the ability of any one of us, may
   we help towards such revivals by our prayers, by our efforts and by our
   consistent obedience to the Gospel. And may the Lord visit us according
   to the desire of our hearts.

   I. One of the first signs of God's Presence among a people is that THEY
   TAKE GREAT INTEREST IN DIVINE WORSHIP. "The inhabitants of one city
   shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the
   Lord, and to seek the Lord of Hosts." It is clear from this that they
   no longer despise assemblies for worship and no longer count Divine
   service to be a weariness. On the contrary, they begin to value the
   means of Grace and desire to make good use of them. The first solemn
   assembly mentioned here is the Prayer Meeting and certainly one of the
   surest tokens of a visitation of God's Spirit to a community is their
   delighting to meet for prayer.

   The first cry of the people mentioned in our text was, "Let us go
   speedily to pray before the Lord." It is no statement of mine,
   suggested by unreasonable zeal, but it is the result of long-continued
   observation when I assert that the condition of a Church may be very
   accurately gauged by its Prayer Meetings. If the spirit of prayer is
   not with the people, the minister may preach like an angel, but he
   cannot expect success. If there is not the spirit of prayer in a Church
   there may be wealth, there may be talent, there may be a measure of
   effort, there may be an extensive machinery, but the Lord is not there.
   It is a sure evidence of the Presence of God that men pray as the
   rising of the thermometer is an evidence of the increase of the
   temperature.

   As the Nilometer measures the rising of the water in the Nile, and so
   foretells the amount of harvest in Egypt, so is the Prayer Meeting a
   "Graceometer," and from it we may judge of the amount of Divine working
   among a people. If God is near a Church it must pray. And if He is not
   there, one of the first tokens of His absence will be slothfulness in
   prayer. God's people, by their saying one to another, "Let us go
   speedily to pray," manifest that they have a sense of their needs--they
   feel that they need much, much that Nature cannot yield them--they feel
   their need of Divine Grace, their need of quickening, their need of
   God's help if sinners are to be converted. They feel their need of His
   help if even those who are saved are to be steadfast--their need of the
   Holy Spirit that they may grow in Grace and glorify God. He who never
   prays surely does not know his own needs and how can he be taught of
   the Lord at all? God's people are a people sensible of their needs and
   therefore the absence of a sense of poverty is a sad token.

   Moreover, the love which God's people have for prayer shows their
   desire after heavenly things. Those who frequently meet together for
   importunate, wrestling prayer, practically show that they desire to see
   the Lord's Kingdom come. They are not so taken up with their own
   business that they cannot afford time to think of God's business. They
   are not so occupied with the world's pleasures that they take no
   pleasure in the things of God. Believers in a right state of heart
   value the prosperity of the Church and, seeing that it can only be
   promoted by God's own hand, they cry mightily unto the Lord of Hosts to
   stretch out His hand of mercy and to be favorable to His Church and
   cause.

   Church members who never pray for the good of the Church have no love
   for it. If they do not plead for sinners they have no love for the
   Savior and how can they be truly converted persons? Such as habitually
   forsake the assembling of themselves together for prayer may well
   suspect the genuine character of their piety. I am not, of course,
   alluding to those who are debarred by circumstances, but I allude to
   those who, from frivolous excuses, absent themselves from the praying
   assemblies. How dwells the love of God in them? Are they not dead
   branches of the vine? May they not expect to be taken away before long?
   Earnest meetings for prayer, indeed, not only prove our sense of need
   and our desire for spiritual blessings, but they manifest most our
   faith in the living God, and our belief that He hears prayer, for men
   will not continue in supplication if they do not believe that God hears
   them. Sensible men would soon cease their prayers if they were not
   convinced that there is an ear which hears their petitions. Who would
   persevere in a vain exercise?

   Our united prayers prove that we know that God is, and that He is a
   rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. We know that the Lord is
   able to work according to our desires and that He is willing to be
   entreated of us. I have never known a thirsty man by a well who would
   not use the bucket which was there ready to hand unless, indeed, he was
   of the opinion that the well was dry. I have never known a man who
   wanted wealth and had a good trade, who would not exercise his trade.
   And so I have never known a man who believed prayer to be really
   effectual and felt his great needs who did not engage in prayer.

   It is an ill token to any community of Christians when prayer is at a
   low ebb, for it is clear evidence that they do not know their own
   needs, they are not anxious about spiritual things and neither do they
   believe that God will enrich them in answer to their petitions.
   Beloved, may we never, as a Church, deserve censure for neglecting
   prayer! Our meetings for prayer have excited general astonishment by
   their number, but they are not all they might be. I shall put it to the
   conscience of each one to say whether you are as prayerful as you
   should be. Did you ever hear of a Church member who had not attended a
   Prayer Meeting for a month? Do you know of Church members who never
   assemble with the Brethren so much as once in a quarter of a year? Do
   you know of any who have not been to a Prayer Meeting in this place for
   the last six months? Do you know such?

   I will not say I know any such. I will do no more than hint that such
   people may exist. But ifyou know them will you give them my Christian
   love and say that nothing depresses the pastor's spirit like the
   absence of Church members from the public assemblies of prayer, and
   that if anything could make him strong in the Lord, and give him
   courage to go forward in the Lord's work, it would be if all of you
   were to make the prayer meeting your special delight? I shall be
   satisfied when I see our prayer meetings as crowded as the services for
   preaching. And it strikes me if ever we are fully baptized into God's
   Spirit, we shall arrive at that point. A vastly larger amount of prayer
   ought to be among us than at present and if the Lord visits us
   graciously He will set us praying without ceasing.

   But next, these people also took an interest in meetings for
   instruction. I find that the Chaldee translates the second sentence,
   "Let us seek the doctrine of Jehovah of Hosts." The Lord's coming near
   to any people will be sure to excite in them a longing to hear the
   Word. God sends impulses of enquiry over men's minds and suddenly
   places of worship become crowded which were half empty before.
   Preachers, also, who were cold and dead become quickened and speak with
   earnestness and life. No doubt waves of religious movement pass over
   nations and peoples--and when God comes to a people the crest of that
   wave will be seen in this form--that the kingdom of Heaven becomes an
   object of interest and men press unto it!

   During the revival under John the Baptist, the people went in crowds
   into the wilderness to hear the strange preacher who bade them repent.
   The revival under the Apostles was marked by their everywhere preaching
   the Word and the people listening. This was the great token of the
   Reformation--meetings were held under Gospel Oaks, out upon the commons
   and away in lone houses--and in glens and woods men thronged to listen
   to the Word of God! The professionals of popery were forsaken for the
   simple preaching of the Truth of God! This also marked the last grand

   revival of religion in our own country under Whitfield and Wesley. The
   Word of the Lord was precious in those days. And whether the Gospel was
   preached among the colliers of Kingswood or the rabble of Kennington
   Common, tens of thousands were awakened and rejoiced in the joyful
   notes of Free Grace.

   Men loved to hear the Word--they said to one another, "Let us seek the
   Lord." It is said that Moorfields would be full of light on a dark
   winter's morning at five o'clock when Mr. Whitfield was to preach
   because so many people would be finding their way to the rendezvous,
   each one carrying a lantern. And so also over there in Zoar Street, in
   Southwark, when Mr. John Bunyan was out of prison and was going to
   preach, a couple of thousand would be assembled at five o'clock in the
   morning to enjoy his honest testimony.

   It is a token for good when people press to hear the Word. I think we
   have in a measure the first token--a love for prayer, but we need far
   more of it. As for the second token, namely, an earnest love for
   listening to the Word of God, we have that in abundance. See you not
   how the crowds rush in like a mighty torrent as soon as the doors are
   open? Putting the two together, it seems that both these forms of
   meeting were loved by the people because they sought salvation therein,
   or as the margin has it, they, "entreated the face of the Lord." They
   came to pray with a view to be saved! They came to hear preaching with
   a view to Divine favor! They wanted reconciliation with God--they had
   wandered from Him, but now they sought Him! They wanted fellowship with
   God!

   They had said to God, "Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of
   Your ways." But now they said, "Reveal Yourself unto us, O God, as You
   do not unto the world." They longed to promote God's Glory, even as
   before they dishonored Him. Yes, when Prayer Meetings and Preaching
   Meetings shall be attended with this end and object--that we may get
   near to God and that we may glorify God--there shall be happy days,
   indeed, for us! Master Fox in his, "Acts and Monuments," speaking of
   the time when the Reformation was breaking out, uses language something
   to this effect--"It was lovely to see their travels, earnest seeking,
   burning zeal, Bible reading, watching, sweet assemblies, resort of one
   neighbor to another for conference and mutual confirmation." And, he
   adds, "All which may make us now to blush for shame in these, our days,
   of free profession."

   We may take the good man's hint and feel shame for neglected
   opportunities, cold devotions and disregard of the Word of God. Our
   fathers loved to meet for prayer and to hear the preaching of the Truth
   of God. And when they came together it was with an intensely earnest
   desire to obtain the Divine blessing. To get this they risked life and
   liberty, meeting, even, when fine and imprisonment, or perhaps the
   gallows might be their reward. O to see the like earnestness among
   ourselves as to the means of Grace! May the Lord Jesus send it to us by
   the working of His Holy Spirit.

   II. Another sign of God's visiting a people in mercy is that THEY STIR
   EACH OTHER UP TO ATTEND UPON THE MEANS OF GRACE, for "the inhabitants
   of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to pray
   before the Lord." That is to say, they did not merely ask one another
   to go if they casually met. They did not bring in the subject
   accidentally if they could do so readily in common conversation--but
   the inhabitants of one city went to another on purpose to exhort them!
   They made a journey about it. As men go to market, from town to town,
   so did these people try to open a market for Christ--and not only one
   messenger, but many of the inhabitants of one city went on purpose all
   the way to another city, with set design, to induce them to join in
   worship, saying, "Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord."

   They put themselves out of the way to do it. They had such a desire
   that great numbers might come together to worship the Most High that
   they took much trouble to invite their neighbors. God will be with us,
   indeed, if each one of us shall be anxious to bring others to Jesus,
   and to that end shall try to bring them to hearken to the Word of God.
   Why were these men so earnest? The reply will be, they persuaded others
   to come to the meetings for worship out of love to God's House, to
   God's cause, and to God Himself. God's House is honored and beautified
   when great numbers come together. The ways of Zion do mourn and
   languish when but few assemble for prayer. Christ has promised to be
   where two or three are met together in His name. Still, it is not
   helpful to comfortable fellowship for a mere handful to meet in a large
   house. We feel like sparrows alone on the housetop when such is the
   case.

   A great space and only a sprinkling of people to occupy it is like a
   big barn with only one bundle of straw in it--the winds howl in and out
   of it very miserably. I am sure if any of you attend a place of worship
   where there are very few beside yourselves, you must feel unhappy. And
   if you do not, why surely your hearts cannot be in the right place.
   Warm

   hearts are not easily kept alive among empty pews. A coal must be very
   lively to burn alone, but many glowing coals laid together help to keep
   each other alight.

   No one can doubt, moreover, that full houses give opportunity to the
   preacher to glorify God. It is hopeful work to throw the net where
   there are great shoals of fish. Where men are hearing, we may hope that
   God will be blessing and therefore earnest Christians love to see the
   aisles and seats crowded. Besides, God is glorified when great numbers
   come together with earnest minds to celebrate His worship. In early
   days, in the Jewish Church, the men of Israel did not come by twos and
   threes and meet together in scant numbers, but from all parts of
   Judea's land--north, south, east, and west--they came together in
   companies, singing through the glades of the forest, singing through
   the dells, and singing over the hills! And when they reached the city
   of Jerusalem in their hundreds of thousands, their praise was a great
   shout, like the voice of thunder and the smoke of their sacrifices rose
   up in clouds to Heaven.

   Those were grand days! Does not David seem to relish the service of the
   Lord his God all the more because of the multitude that kept holy day?
   Therefore the saints love to see many come to pray and to listen to the
   Word of God because the multitude honors the house and God thus honors
   God Himself. O Brothers and Sisters, we think the cause is sadly
   declining when hearers are like the gleanings of the vintage, when
   service time comes and sees vacant seats by the score because
   professors shrink at the weather, or hunt up an excuse for staying at
   home, being too idle, too indifferent to cross the threshold of their
   houses unless some eloquent preacher or fresh comer shall attract them.
   But we reckon that God's cause prospers when the people come joyfully
   in their bands to listen to the Truth of God and God's Spirit applies
   it to their hearts with power, leading them to prayer and praise.

   Moreover, Believers love to bring others to the House of God because
   they wish to do good to them. Did you ever notice how the little birds,
   when they find a heap of corn, begin to chatter and twitter as if they
   would call all the other birds to come and feast, also? Grace is
   generous and is never akin to churlish Nabal. Misers would rather keep
   all their wealth to themselves, but a man who is rich in faith feels
   his happiness increased when others have faith, too! As soon as we
   drink of the Water of Life, a sacred instinct within us bids us cry,
   "Come." "Ho, everyone that thirsts, come you to the waters." He knows
   not the Grace of God who has no desire that others should know it,
   also. You will assuredly long for the souls of others if God has saved
   your soul. Natural humanity, let alone our alliance to the Divine
   Nature, leads us to bid others come to Christ.

   Besides, the love of company in the Christian makes him invite his
   neighbors to Gospel worship. Believers are like sheep in this among
   other things, namely, that they are gregarious. A man who loves to keep
   his religion to himself must surely be a stranger to the religion of
   Christ! Communion is one of the sweetest joys of the spirit. Fellowship
   with saints above will be one jewel of our everlasting crown and
   fellowship with saints below is one of the sweetest cordials of our
   mortal cares. "I went to the House of God in company," says David, as
   if it made the house so much the sweeter to go in company with others
   who went there. "I had gone with the multitude. I went with them to the
   House of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that
   kept holy day." For the sake of communion we long to see many going
   upon the heavenly pilgrimage.

   Observe in our text there does not appear to have been any minister or
   missionary employed to go from one city to another, and to say, "Let us
   go and pray," but the inhabitants, themselves, undertook the duty of
   invitation and persuasion, and said, "Let us go and pray unto the
   Lord." The people, themselves, attended to mutual provocation to love
   and to good works! How I wish they did so now! They did not wait for
   the exhortations of one specially set apart to be a prompter and an
   organizer. But their own hearts were so warm that they did it
   spontaneously among themselves! My Brothers and Sisters, may you thus
   be pastors to one another! There are far too many of you for me to look
   after personally, therefore I pray you stir one another up to every
   good word and work.

   I believe that when a man stirs others up it is good for himself, for a
   man cannot, in common decency, be very cold, himself, who bids others
   be warm. He cannot, surely, unless he is an arrant hypocrite, be
   negligent of those duties which he bids others attend to! Beloved, I
   commit this charge to you, and then I have done with this point. This
   morning I ask you to visit one another and to say, "Come, let us not as
   a Church lose the Presence of God after nearly 20 years' enjoyment of
   it. Let not our minister's hands grow weak by our neglect of prayer.
   Let not the work of the Church flag through our indifference, but let
   us make a brotherly covenant that we will go speedily to pray before
   the Lord and seek the Lord of Hosts, that we may retain His Presence
   and have yet more of it, to the praise of the glory of His Grace."

   III. I must pass on to notice that it appears from our text that it is
   a sure mark of God's visiting a people, when THEY ARE URGENT TO ATTEND
   UPON THESE HOLY EXERCISES AT ONCE. The text says, "Let us go speedily
   to pray," by which is meant, I suppose, that when the time came to
   pray, they were punctual, they were not laggards. They did not come
   into the assembly late. They did not drop in, one by one, long after
   the service had begun--but they said, "Let us go speedily." They looked
   up to their clocks and said, "How long will it take us to walk so as to
   be there at the commencement? Let us start five minutes before that
   time lest we should not be able to keep up the pace and should, by any
   means, reach the door after the first prayer."

   I wish late comers would remember David's choice. You remember what
   part he wished to take in the House of God? He was willing to be a
   doorkeeper and that not because the doorkeeper has the most comfortable
   berth, for that is the hardest post a man can choose. But he knew that
   doorkeepers are the first in and the last out and so David wished to be
   first at the service and the last at the going away! How few would be
   of David's mind! It has been said that Dissenters in years gone by
   placed the clock outside the Meeting House so that they might never
   enter late. But the modern Dissenters place the clock inside, that
   their preachers may not keep them too long! There is some truth in the
   remark, but it is not to our honor.

   This was, however, a fault with our forefathers, for quaint old Herbert
   said--"O be drest, stay not for th' other pin: why you have lost a joy
   for it worth worlds." Let us mend our ways and say, one to another, in
   the language of the text, "Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord."
   Let us go with quick feet. If we go slowly to market, let us go quickly
   to Prayer Meeting. If we are slow on week days, let us go quickly on
   Sunday. Let us never keep Jesus Christ waiting and we shall do so if we
   are not on time, for He is sure to be punctual, even if only two or
   three are met together in His name. The expression, however, means more
   than this. "Let us go speedily" means, let us go heartily--do not let
   us crawl to prayer, but let us go to it as men who have something
   before them which attracts them.

   When the angels serve God they never do it as though they were half
   asleep. They are all alive and burning like flames of fire. They have
   six wings and, I guarantee you, they use them all! When the Lord says,
   "Gabriel, go upon My bidding," he outstrips the lightning! O, to
   exhibit some such ardor and zest in the service of God! If we pray, let
   us pray as if we mean it! If we worship, let us worship with our
   hearts. "Let us go speedily," and may the Lord make our hearts to be
   like the chariots of Amminadib for swiftness and rapidity--glowing
   wheels and burning axles may God give to our spirits--that we may never
   let the world think we are indifferent to the love of Jesus. "Let us go
   speedily."

   The words, "Let us go speedily," mean--let us go at once, or instantly.
   If any good thing has been neglected and we resolve to attend to it
   better, let us do it at once. Revivals of religion--when is the best
   time for them? Directly! When is the best time to repent of sin? Today!
   When is the best time for a cold heart to grow warm? Today! When is the
   season for a sluggish Christian to be industrious? Today! When is the
   period for a backslider to return? Today! When is the time for one who
   has crawled along the road to Heaven to mend his pace? Today! Is it not
   always today?

   And, indeed, when should it be? "Tomorrow," you say. Ah, but you may
   never have it! And, when it comes, it will still be today. Tomorrow is
   only in the fool's almanac--it exists nowhere else. Today! Today, let
   us go speedily! I beseech the Church of God here to be yet more alive
   and at once to wake up. Time is flying--we cannot afford to lose it.
   The devil is wide awake, why should we be asleep? Error is stalking
   through the land, evil influences are abroad everywhere! Men are dying,
   Hell is filling, the grave is gorged and yet is insatiable--and the man
   of destruction is not yet satisfied. Shall we lie down in wicked
   satisfaction, yielding to base laziness? Awake, arise, you Christians!
   Now, even now, lest it be said of you, "Curse you Meroz, says the Lord,
   curse you bitterly the inhabitants thereof, because they came not to
   the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty."

   I know we are all apt to think that we live in the most important era
   of history and I admit that under certain aspects every day is a
   crisis, but I claim liberty to say that there never was a period in the
   world's history when Christian activity, and prayerfulness, and genuine
   revival were more needed than just now. Where is our nation? Is it not
   on the very verge of becoming, once again, a province of the Pope's
   dominion? Are not the modern Pharisees compassing sea and land to make
   proselytes? Does it not seem as if the people were gone mad upon their
   idols and were altogether fascinated by the charms of the Whore of
   Babylon, and drunken with her cup? Do you not see everywhere the old
   orthodox faith forsaken, and men occupying Christian pulpits who do not
   believe, but even denounce the doctrines which they have sworn to

   defend?

   Might I not say of Christendom in England, that "her whole head is sick
   and her whole heart faint"? The daughter of Zion staggers in the street
   for weakness--there is none to help her among all her sons--all her
   friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her
   enemies. Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper. Her
   Nazarites were purer than snow and their separation from the world was
   known of all men--but now they are defiled with worldliness until they
   are blacker than a coal! From the daughter of Zion her beauty is
   departed. O you that love her, let your hearts sound as a harp for her!
   O you that love her, weep day and night for her hypocrisy, for unless
   the Lord returns unto her the time of her sore distress draws near.
   Thus says the Lord, "Arise, cry out in the night season, pour out your
   hearts like water before the Lord, and then the Lord will return and be
   gracious to His inheritance."

   IV. For a moment I shall call your attention to another point. When God
   visits a people they will not only attend to prayer and preaching, and
   stir each other up to do so at once, but THEY WILL HAVE A SPECIAL EYE
   TO GOD IN THESE DUTIES. Observe, they shall say, "Let us go speedily to
   pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of Hosts." Alas, many go to
   religious meetings to be seen of men! I am afraid there is a great deal
   too much exhibition of dress in some quarters, and there certainly
   cannot be a greater abomination than to make the House of God a show
   room for our finery. Jesus might say, "Take these things away. It is
   written My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made
   it an exhibition wherein to display yourselves."

   Some go to worship because it is the custom and it would not be
   respectable to stay away. "We must have a pew in Church, you know, or
   we should be remarked upon in society." I am glad that people attend
   Divine worship for any reason, but mere custom is a poor motive and is
   no sign of Divine Grace. The people in the text did not say, "We will
   go that we may see our neighbors, and that our neighbors may see us."
   No, they went to "pray before the Lord." They did not assemble to seek
   a man. They did not go to hear Mr. So-and-So preach. Of course they
   would sooner hear one who preached all the Gospel and preached it
   plainly, than another who preached half the Gospel and fired over their
   heads. But, still, they looked through the man to the man's Master and
   they did not think that the Master was tied up to any one man.

   May we cultivate in our midst the desire to worship for God's sake, not
   for the preacher's sake, whoever he may be. I believe it is not wrong
   for a Christian man to feel that he is better fed by one minister than
   by another and therefore to be most glad when God's servant is in the
   pulpit. But if that feeling grows so that if he cannot hear his
   favorite preacher he will stay at home, it is most mischievous. I thank
   God that my Master has other preachers besides Paul. There is Apollos,
   there is Cephas, and beyond these I see a great company of them that
   publish the Good News. I will hear what God will speak through them. I
   would have you note, Beloved, how different is my text from that formal
   worship into which it is so easy to fall. "I have been to the Prayer
   Meeting. I have done my duty and I can go home satisfied. I have taken
   a seat at the Tabernacle and listened to two sermons on Sunday--I feel
   I have done my duty."

   Oh, dear Hearer! That is a poor way of living! I need a great deal more
   than all that or I shall be wretched. At the Prayer Meeting I must see
   God, I must pour out my soul before Him! I must feel that the spirit of
   prayer has been there and that I have participated in it, otherwise
   what was the good of my being there? I must, when in the assembly on
   Sunday, find some blessing to my own soul! I must get another glimpse
   of the Savior! I must come to be somewhat more like Him! I must feel my
   sin rebuked, or my flagging Graces revived! I must feel that God has
   been blessing poor sinners and bringing them to Christ! I must feel,
   indeed, that I have come into contact with God, or else what is my
   Sunday worth, and what is my having been in the assembly worth? If God
   shall bless you, indeed, you will worship spiritually and you will
   count nothing to be true worship which is not of the spirit and of the
   heart and soul. May God quicken us all up to that point, and He shall
   have the praise.

   V. The last thing is this--it is a blessed sign of God's visiting a
   people when EACH ONE OF THEM IS

   RESOLVED, PERSONALLY, THAT HE WILL, IN A SPIRITUAL MANNER, WAIT UPON
   GOD. Notice the last

   four words. "I will go also." "Let us go speedily to pray before the
   Lord, and to seek the Lord of Hosts: I will go also." That is the
   point--"I will go also." The Christian man should neither be content,
   when he goes to worship, to leave others behind, nor should he be
   content to drive others before him and stop behind himself. It is said
   of Julius Caesar that he owed his victories to the fact that he never
   said to his soldiers, "Go," but always said, "Let us go." That is the
   way to win. Example is mightier than precept!

   We read of the Pharisees of old that they laid burdens on other men's
   shoulders, but they themselves did not touch them with one of their
   fingers--true Christians are not so. They say, "I will go also." Was
   not that bravely spoken of poor old Latimer, when he was to be burnt
   with Ridley. Ridley was a younger and stronger man, and as he walked to
   the stake, old Latimer, with his quaintness about him to the last,
   cried to his Brother, Ridley, "Have after, as fast as my poor old legs
   can carry me." The dear old saint was marching to his burning as fast
   as he could--not at all loath to lay his aged body upon the altar for
   his Lord! That is the kind of man who makes others into men--the man
   who habitually says, "I will go also; even if I am called to be burned
   for Christ. Whatever is to be done or suffered, I will go also."

   I would be ashamed to stand here and say to you, "Brothers and Sisters,
   pray. Brothers, preach. Brethren, labor," and then be an idler myself.
   And you, also, would be ashamed to say to others, "Let us pray. Let us
   be earnest," while you are not praying and not earnest yourselves.
   Example is the backbone of instruction! Be, yourself, what you would
   have others be and do, yourself, what you would have others do. "I will
   go also," because I need to pray as much as anybody else. I will go to
   hear the Word, for I need to hear it as well as others. I will go and
   wait upon God, for I need to see His face. I will cry to Him for a
   blessing, for I need a blessing. I will confess my sin before Him, for
   I am full of sin. I will ask mercy through the precious blood of Jesus,
   for I must have it or perish.

   "I will go also." If nobody else will go, I will go. And if all the
   rest go I will go also. I do not want to pledge any of you this
   morning. I shall not, therefore, ask you to hold up your hands, but I
   should like to put it very personally to all the members of this
   Church. We have enjoyed the Presence and blessing of God for many years
   in a very remarkable manner and it is not taken from us. But I am
   jealous, I believe it is a godly jealousy and not unbelief--lest there
   should be among us a slackness in prayer and a lack of zeal for the
   Glory of God. I am fearful of a neglecting of the souls of our
   neighbors, and a ceasing to believe to the full in our mission and in
   the call of God to be, each one of us, in this world as Christ was,
   saviors of others.

   My Brothers and Sisters, knit together as we are in Church fellowship
   and bound by common cords to one blessed Master, let each one say
   within himself, "I will go also." The Church shall be the subject of my
   prayer. The minister shall share in my petitions. The Sunday school
   shall not be forgotten. The College shall be remembered in
   supplication. The Orphanage shall have my heart's petitions. I will
   plead with God for the Evangelists. I will consider the congregation at
   the Tabernacle and pray that it may gently melt into the Church. I will
   pray for the strangers who fill the aisles and crowd the pews that God
   will bless them. Yes, I will say unto God this day, "My God, You have
   saved me, given me a part and lot among Your people and put me in Your
   garden where Your people grow and flourish. I will not be a barren
   tree, but abound in fruit, especially in prayer. If I cannot do
   anything else I can pray. If this is my one mite, I will put that into
   the treasury. I will put You in remembrance and plead with You, and
   give You no rest until You establish Your cause and make it praise in
   the earth."

   I am not asking more of you than Jesus would ask, nor do I exact
   anything at your hands--you will cheerfully render that which is a
   tribute due to the infinite love of your Lord. Now, do not say, dear
   Brother, "I hope the Church will wake up." Leave it alone and mind that
   you wake up yourself. Do not say, "I hope they will be stirred up this
   morning." Never mind others! Stir up yourself. Begin to enquire, "Which
   Prayer Meeting shall I go to, for I mean to join the people of God and
   let them hear my voice, or at least have my presence. And if I cannot
   go to the Tabernacle I will drop in near my own house. And if there is
   no meeting there I will open my own house--the largest room of any
   cottage shall be used for a Prayer Meeting--or my parlor if I have one.
   I will have a share in the glorious work of attracting a blessing from
   the skies. I will send up my electric rod of prayer into the clouds of
   blessing to bring down the Divine force."

   Do it! Do it! Let each one say, "I will go also." May God bless this
   Word to His people, and I am sure it will result in benediction to
   sinners. For, remember, you ungodly ones, that all this noise is about
   you. What we need the blessing of God for is that you may be saved! We
   cannot bear that you should remain as you are, unconverted! And I am
   asking God's people to pray specially with an eye to your salvation.
   Shall we think about your souls and will you not think about them
   yourselves? Are we inclined to move Heaven and earth that you might be
   saved and will you sit still and perish? May the Lord awaken you to
   say, "If others are going to pray unto the Lord and seek His face, I
   will go also," and the Lord bless you, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Zechariah 8.
     __________________________________________________________________

Plenary Absolution

   (No. 1108)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our
   transgressions from us." Psalm 103:12.

   WE shall aim at no novelty tonight, nor shall we try to serve up the
   old Truths of God in any new and attractive forms. Upon your tables you
   always require bread and generally you account salt to be
   indispensable. Some kinds of food are presented to us over and over
   again and it would foretell ill for our health if they were not always
   relished. It was an evil lusting which made Israel tire of the manna.
   An Israelite in his right mind found it to be still a dainty, though he
   ate of it every day of his 40 years' pilgrimage. Who tires of the
   verdure of the fields, the light of the sun, or the air we breathe?
   These things are ever fresh and new, and ever necessary to us. The
   doctrine of forgiving love is one of those necessities of daily life
   concerning which it may be affirmed that if we should set them before
   you every day we should not be guilty of vain repetition.

   None need fear of tiring man, or vexing God's Spirit by harping too
   much on this string. Therefore come we to our favorite theme tonight.
   To speak of the great Gospel truth of the forgiveness of sin in the
   simplest manner we possibly can is the purpose we have immediately in
   view. To babes, to young men and to fathers in Christ, this
   all-important Truth will be equally precious, while the poor trembling
   sinner who cannot yet claim to be one of the sacred family may be
   encouraged by it. Our text has in it a word of peculiarity, and to this
   I call your attention at the outset. It is not every man in the world
   that could truly use the language of this verse, for it does not refer
   to all mankind--"As far as the east is from the west, so far has He
   removed our transgressions from us."

   A people separated and set apart, a people upon whom there has been a
   peculiar world of Divine power, a people whose experience of the Grace
   of God towards them has melted their hearts with devout gratitude--such
   as these can sing this joyous stanza--but none beside. I will describe
   these people to you. I should gather from the ninth verse that they are
   a people who have been made truly, deeply, painfully conscious that
   they are sinful and have felt the chidings of God in their
   conscience--therefore it is that they say, "He will not always chide."
   They know that God is angry with sin. They have felt some biting of
   that wrath upon their spirit and they have been humbled into
   contrition, repentance and confession--therefore do they now say,
   "Neither will He keep His anger forever."

   They are a people who have keenly realized the desperate condition they
   were reduced to--who know that if forgiven it must be through
   mercy--and through mercy only. They know that they have no claim upon
   God. They understand that they deserve to be cast away from His
   Presence--therefore they say, "He has not dealt with us after our sins,
   nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." They are a people who
   have tasted of that surprising mercy which baffles all human thought
   and excites the adoring wonder of all who contemplate this darling
   attribute of the Most High. They have gone to Jesus, in whom the mercy
   of God is treasured up. They have believed in Him and they have
   received mercy through Him, for mercy comes to men through the atoning
   sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

   And having tasted of that mercy, they say, "As the Heaven is high above
   the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him." Then they
   go on to sing, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He
   removed our transgressions from us." Oh, priceless gift! Oh, matchless
   blessing! Say now, out of this vast throng, how many of us have been
   made to feel that sin is sinful, to loathe it and to confess it with
   bitterness of heart? How many of us have fled to the great atoning
   Sacrifice and have believed in Jesus to the saving of our souls? So
   many may repeat this verse and affirm it of themselves, with truth, but
   no more. Separate yourselves, then--let the force of conscience now be
   exercised, and let this text be to you, for a moment, like the Throne
   of Jesus before which He exercises the prerogatives of His Gospel
   sovereignty and divides the sinners from the saints, making men either
   tremble or rejoice.

   Our text has a word of positiveness. In this song the Psalmist speaks
   of the pardon of sin as a positive fact. He celebrates it in grateful
   strains as a matter of certainty to himself and to others associated
   with him. David was an

   optimist of the right sort. Ifs and perhapses would not suit him. "As
   far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our
   transgressions from us." He does not indulge in fond hopes, or express
   vague wishes, or point in hesitant tones to some favorable omens--he
   speaks of his sins being forgiven, knowing it to be a matter of fact
   which there was no room to question. Now there are many professing
   Christians who do not think that you ever can know that you are
   forgiven while you remain in this world. They are not of this mind
   merely because they are ignorant of the Gospel, but because their
   gospel is beclouded with errors.

   Their teachers throw dust into their eyes, or envelope them in mist.
   They see men as trees walking and no more. They are brought up in
   orthodox fashion to repeat a mournful litany and to call themselves,
   "miserable sinners," in stereotyped phrases. They are taught to go on
   forever asking for pardon as if they had never received it. They are
   made to look upon themselves still as needing to be dealt with as lost
   sheep and reconciled as rebels. Their standing is always at the foot of
   Sinai. They are not taught that the Lord has forgiven us all our
   trespasses. Their church, as if to chasten it for its alliance with the
   State, has lost the jubilant tone of faith and made its daily service
   rather a wail for sinners than a song for saints.

   Now the Gospel of Jesus Christ tells us that there is pardon! That we
   may have it and that when we believe in Jesus, we have obtained full
   remission--that we are pardoned when we believe in Jesus--and that our
   iniquities are forgiven us! It is a matter signed, sealed, and
   delivered! It is a fact accomplished before the Lord and infallibly
   ascertainable by us. Sin is put away. Though we shall never be in such
   a condition, here, that we shall not have need to confess daily
   sin--for new sins will rise--yet, at the same time, the moment we
   believe in Jesus, no condemnation is upon us, nor ever can be! "There
   is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who
   walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." We are forgiven! Pardon
   is a fact--a fact most certain in the history of Believers. There is
   nothing more sure to them than this, that they are certainly forgiven
   inasmuch as they have believed in Jesus Christ!

   I know there are many professed Christians who shrink with morbid
   apprehension from claiming this great act of God's love as a benefit
   which they really enjoy. They venture to hope it may be so, but still
   they dare not speak with confidence of their own pardon. This, to their
   view, would be presumption. But is it not far more presumptuous to pay
   so much respect to your own misgivings as to totally ignore the
   blessedness of knowing that you are forgiven? Is it not awful
   presumption to settle down as so many do while their eternal state is a
   matter of question to them? Do you tell me that you do not know whether
   you are forgiven? Why, Sir, you are, indeed, in a wretched
   bewilderment! You do not know if you were to die at this moment whether
   you would be in Heaven or Hell!

   How dare you sit in comfort in that seat? Dare you go to your bed in
   doubt about whether you are saved or not? How can you sleep? It seems
   to me to be profane presumption for a man to dare to be at peace till
   he is sure about his reconciliation to God. The presumption lies in
   settling on your lees, in resting short of the inheritance and in
   saying, "Peace, peace" to one's soul when you know not that you are a
   saved man! Oh, I beseech you, if you have any doubts do not play with
   them! Do not trifle with your soul's affairs! This is a matter about
   which there should be no doubt whatever! No man would like to have a
   doubt as to whether there is a thief in the house when he goes to his
   bed at night. You would not like to be in doubt as to whether a mortal
   disease is upon you.

   You are anxious to be sure of your safety and your health--will you not
   desire to be as sure about your soul's safety and the health of your
   inner nature? Surely you ought to be! But can a man be sure? Yes,
   assuredly. See right here--the best evidence in all the world is the
   witness of God, who cannot lie. Any number of men in the world bearing
   witness to a thing can never be equal to the testimony of God! What He
   says none may dare to question. God's witness is much more reliable and
   has much more weight in it than the most exact observations and the
   most delicate inferences that can be drawn from them.

   Suppose I can see a thing with my eyes. Men say, "Seeing is believing."
   Yes, but eyes deceive, as everybody knows. There are many things we
   think we see which we do not see, after all. Eyes may deceive--God's
   witness, therefore, is better than the sight of our eyes. "But surely,"
   says one, "feeling will not deceive you." Alas, there is nothing in the
   world more deceptive as to a man's state than his feeling. Those who
   are worst will often imagine themselves to be best and some of the best
   of God's children have often felt in their humiliation as though they
   were the worst. I say, God's witness is to be preferred above our
   feeling, our eyesight, or the witness of men!

   What does God say? He says, "He that believes and is baptized shall be
   saved." Do I believe in Jesus? Have I been obedient to the other part
   of the command? God says I shall be saved and therefore I shall be,
   despite all the devices of Satan, despite all the sins I ever have
   committed or shall commit, despite anything and everything however
   unlooked for which may occur in time to come--for God's witness must be
   true! "Let God be true and every man a liar." God says it! "He that
   believes in Him is not condemned." Have I believed in Him, then? To
   believe is to trust--have I trusted my soul with Jesus? Yes, yes, I am
   sure of that. Then I am equally sure that I am not condemned, equally
   sure that sin is forgiven, because as sure as I possess faith, so sure
   is it that, "as far as the east is from the west, so far has God
   removed our transgressions from us."

   Who wants better evidence than God's Word? O, we may live on it! We may
   die on it! And we may stand before the Judgment Seat with it as our
   strong consolation. God has spoken it and His Word cannot be impugned,
   or His counsel invalidated. But, because we sometimes are troubled and
   vexed within, there is another assurance which God is pleased to give
   to His children. Over and above His written Word, He gives them the
   inward witness. The man who has believed in Jesus feels a deep peace in
   his soul. "Jesus died for me," he says. "Then if Jesus died in my
   place, my sin is put away. God will not be so unjust or inconsistent as
   to punish me for the sin for which He put Christ, my Substitute, to
   grief. If Jesus suffered in my place, I shall not suffer.

   It were not just, that two should suffer for the same sin. The
   Believer, knowing this, finds satisfaction, smells a savor of rest and
   feels peace. O, what a peace! Believe me, there is nothing like it in
   this world--it is the peace of God which passes all understanding--a
   peace like that which rules amid angelic thrones. Then, in the midst of
   that deep calm the Holy Spirit comes down like the dove brooding over
   the waters, the calm and quiet waters of the Believer's soul, and bears
   witness with the man's own spirit that he is born of God. The man's own
   spirit bears witness in the peace it feels. Then God's Spirit comes and
   sets a seal and the man knows and is persuaded by the witness of God in
   the Word--and the living witness of God in his soul--that as far as the
   east is from the west, so far has God removed his transgressions from
   him!

   Some of us remember the very day and hour wherein our sins were put
   away and can look back to the date and call it our spiritual birthday.
   It shall be to us the beginning of days, even as was that day in which
   Israel came out of Egypt. And others, who have not so distinct a
   recollection of the time--yet as they look to yonder Cross and see the
   Incarnate God bleeding on it--feel that their transgressions are
   blotted out, and as they look they get a renewed assurance of complete
   absolution. There are some, I know, who think it best always to gaze
   upon their crucified Lord, as if they had never before looked upon Him.
   They stand and hug the Cross, kiss those bleeding feet, look up to that
   dear face bedewed with drops of grief and that dear brow crowned with
   thorns, and say, "You are my Savior! Dear lover of my soul, I rest in
   You! Your side riven for me yields me my pardon. Your death is my life.
   Your life in Heaven is the guarantee of my immortality."

   O happy they who can so stand at the foot of the Cross and always feel
   that as far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed their
   transgressions! None can sing so heartily and joyfully the high praises
   of God--

   "Since I have found a Savior's love,

   To Him my hopes are clinging.

   I feel so happy all the time

   My heart is always singing.

   A light I never knew before

   Around my path is breaking

   And cheerful songs of grateful praise

   My raptured soul is making.

   I feel like singing all the time,

   I have no thought of sadness

   When Jesus washed my sins away

   He turned my heart to gladness." Now, Brothers and Sisters, as we
   return to our text, I would have you notice the comprehensiveness of
   it. I do not find any list of sins here. All I find about sin is
   contained in these two words, "our transgressions." I am not skillful
   in matters of common Law, but I remember hearing a lawyer make this
   remark about a man's will, that if he were about to

   leave all his property to some one person, it would be better not to
   make a recapitulation of all that he had, but merely to state that he
   bequeathed all to his legatee, without giving a list of the goods and
   chattels, because in making out the catalog he would be pretty sure to
   leave out something and that which he left out might be claimed by
   someone else. Indeed he gave us an instance of a farmer, who, in
   recounting the property he left to his wife, intending her to have had
   all, actually omitted to mention his largest farm and the very house in
   which they lived. Thus his attempt to be very particular failed, and
   his wife lost a large part of the property.

   We do not want too many particulars, and I am thankful that in this
   verse there is a broad way of speaking which takes in the whole compass
   of enumeration. "He has removed our transgressions." That sweeps them
   away all at once-- "our transgressions." If it had said "our great
   transgressions," we should have been crying out, "How about the little
   ones?" We should have been afraid of perishing by our lesser faults
   even if the huge crimes were pardoned. Suppose it had said "our
   transgressions against the Law"? "Oh, but," we would have asked, "What
   shall we do with our transgressions against the Gospel?" Suppose it had
   said, "our willful transgressions"? That would have been very gracious.
   But we would have said, "Ah, but what will become of our sins of
   ignorance?" Suppose it had said, "our transgressions before we were
   converted"? Then we should have exclaimed, "Ah, but how shall we escape
   from our sins since our conversion?"

   But here it is--"our transgressions"--He has removed them all, all,
   ALL! From the cradle to the tomb--they are all gone! Sins in private
   and sins in public! Sins of thought, word, deed--they are all removed!
   The moment you believe in Jesus they are all, all, all gone! I cannot
   help giving you a picture I have sketched before, when Miriam the
   Prophetess, Aaron's sister, with her timbrel in her hand went forth,
   the women of Israel following her, dancing by the Red Sea. As they
   looked over the dark waters of that mighty sea, there could not be
   discovered the crest of a single Egyptian captain. Not one solitary
   horse straggling for its life, nor a chariot, nor a banner, nor any
   implement of war. Nor one solitary champion that had borne arms!
   Therefore she struck the timbrel, and the damsels sounded it out
   aloud--"The depths have covered them. There is not one of them
   left--not one! Not one! Not one! Not one of them left!"

   I think I hear their song. I think I see their feet twinkling like
   stars as they dance forth their joy and Jehovah's praise--"There is not
   one, not one, not one of them left!" Even thus do I look upon Jesus'
   precious atoning blood and think of all my sins and yours, my Brothers
   and Sisters, who have believed in Him, and I shout with equal, if not
   greater joy, "The depths have covered them! There is not one, not one
   of them left! He has removed our transgressions from us." "The blood of
   Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin." Another thing which
   claims special note in the text is the perfection--the absolute
   perfection of the pardon. The text says, "As far as the east is from
   the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us." Can
   anybody tell how far the east is from the west? You begin to calculate,
   perhaps, upon the surface of the globe, but I say, "No, not so. The
   east is farther off than any distance you can travel on this globe.
   Look to yon sun."

   Then you begin to measure within the bounds of the solar system towards
   the east. But I say, "No. The solar system is but a speck in the
   universe. I must have larger measurement than that." "We will measure
   space, then," says one. Space! What do you mean by that? Do you mean
   all that has ever been seen by the optic glass of the astronomer when
   he has gazed at night upon the milky way? Ah, but that is only a corner
   of boundless space! I must have the infinite measured and you shall go
   that way with your line to the east, and I will go this way with my
   line to the west--and you shall tell me how far the two are asunder.
   Why, the interval is boundless! It means an infinite distance!

   Now God has taken His people's sins away from them to an infinite
   distance, that is to say, there is no fear that their sins should ever
   return to them--they are gone, gone, gone, gone completely! I do not
   know how it is, but some of our friends of a certain school of theology
   believe that after men are pardoned they may yet go to Hell. I will
   never quarrel with them about that doctrine. If it gives them any
   comfort, they are welcome to it. It does not seem to me worthy of a
   God, or even of a man! Poor is that pardon which may yet be followed by
   eternal torment! If God has pardoned His people, surely no fresh
   proceedings can be opened, no subsequent indictment preferred against
   them! "Who lays anything to the charge of God's elect?" "There is
   therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus."

   I have heard of the Duke of Alva pardoning a man and then hanging him.
   But I do not believe God ever trifles, thus, with mercy. If He has
   pardoned my soul, then I am saved. If He has done it once, He has done
   it forever. He has removed my transgressions not a little way, but, "as
   far as the east is from the west." I think that means just this, that
   the pardon of our sin is so complete that when a man is pardoned he
   never can be punished for his sin--not in any measure or degree.

   He becomes a child of God and, as a child, he may be chastened, but he
   will never have to stand before God as his Judge and be called to
   account for those sins--for they are not--they do not exist! "Strong
   language," you say. I say it again, they do not exist, for Jesus Christ
   has "finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in
   everlasting righteousness."

   What does that mean? "Made an end of sin"? Why, it means what it says
   and sin is made an end of! No soul, then, for whom Jesus bled, who has
   believed in Jesus, being redeemed from sin can ever be punished for his
   sin before the bar of Divine Justice. Christ has been punished for him
   and his sins are gone. "But, though not punished for sin, may not a man
   suffer some disadvantage? If God will not send me to Hell, yet, at any
   rate, it may be He will not love me so much because I have been a
   sinner. He will not treat me as if I had never fallen." Yes, but when
   God wipes out sin, He puts away all the consequences of sin. "But do we
   not feel the consequences in our bodies?" Yes, assuredly, but it is for
   a season only and for loving reasons. Our mortal bodies are doomed to
   death and they are full of pain, sometimes, but they shall not always
   be so. Our bodies shall rise again and there shall be no detriment
   through sin upon those bodies!

   They will be just as glorious as they would have been had God made them
   perfect in the garden of Eden. Man, they will be even more so, for they
   shall be fashioned like unto the glorious body of our Lord Jesus! But
   upon that I will not stay. At this day God loves us and He will love us
   forever. He loves us infinitely and He could not love us more than that
   if we had never fallen. At this time, in Christ Jesus, we are brought
   near--I will say it--as near as if we had never sinned, yes, and
   nearer! I do not see how, if we had never sinned, we could have been so
   near as we now are for, had we never sinned, there would never have
   been a Mediator and Jesus might never have been, "Immanuel, God with
   us." But now we poor sinners have One who is our Brother, who is very
   God of very God, even Christ, the Son of Mary, and yet the Son of
   Jehovah!

   This is a wonderful nearness which God has given us! We are made His
   children. We are made to come into His immediate Presence and to taste
   of His love! Our sins are so effectually removed that we shall not
   ultimately suffer any loss or damage through having sinned. That
   detriment was laid on Christ. His was the loss--ours is the gain. His
   was the tremendous suffering--ours is the unutterable joy--

   "Your blood, not nine, O Christ,

   Your blood so freely spilt,

   Has blanched my blackest stain

   And purged away my guilt.

   Your righteousness

   My soul does beautify,

   Wrapped in that glorious robe

   Your Father I draw nigh."

   And, dear Brothers and Sisters, this is what the Lord means, also, when
   He tells us He has put sin away "as far as the east is from the west."
   He means that He has forgotten it. Can God forget? Well, we speak of
   the Nature of God, sometimes, after the manner of men, and rightly so
   if we adopt those forms of Revelation which have been vouchsafed to us.
   We rightly regard everything as in His remembrance, because He dwells
   in all ages and everything is present with Him. And yet if He tells us
   He forgets we may not venture to disbelieve Him.

   But I do not inquire just now what our conceptions of God may
   be--enough that we should cordially receive what He would have us
   believe. Here is a text--"Their sins and their iniquities will I
   remember no more forever." That is God's own assertion. He knows His
   own memory and He has put it so. Let me repeat those words. They melt
   my own heart while I speak them, and therefore I hope every child of
   God will feel the sweetness of them. What inconceivable love! What
   force, what pathos, what Grace there is in every syllable!--"And their
   sins and their iniquities will I remember no more forever." O,
   blessings, blessings on His dear name for such a Word as that!

   Has He not said, "I have blotted out, like a cloud, your
   transgressions"? Has He not said, in another place, "Though your sins
   are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow: though they are red
   like crimson, they shall be as wool"? That is, they shall vanish as
   colors fade--they shall disappear and shall no longer exist. These are
   glorious Truths of God. I want every child of God to endeavor to
   realize the fact that at this very moment his sins are
   gone--effectually, completely, perfectly gone--through the sacrifice of
   Jesus Christ! Beloved, there is in the text a ray of Divinity full of
   hope to us-- "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He
   removed our transgressions from us." God is the great Remover of sin!

   There are some who, when they feel the guilt of sin weighing heavily on
   their conscience, go to a priest and ask him to remove the burden. The
   theory they act upon is this--that the priest is ordained of God and
   has received power from the Most High to declare and pronounce
   absolution in God's name. They think it too great a thing for God
   Himself to deal personally with men and, therefore, He employs some
   ordained person to speak in His name. Now, I have no doubt that there
   are many persons who get a good deal of comfort from the declaration of
   the priest that they are forgiven. I cannot understand how they can be
   so wretchedly duped, but I suppose the manner of administering a
   sacrament may be so imposing as to stifle any enquiry into the
   prerogative which the "Father Confessor" pretends to exercise.

   And yet I know, on the other hand, that there are some who, after they
   have obtained that kind of absolution, are not so comfortable as they
   expected to be. They feel somehow or other as if it did not quite meet
   the case. Perhaps such a person may have dropped in here. You want to
   know that your sin is forgiven by a greater authority than the lips of
   any mortal can impart. O may the Lord Himself put away your sins and
   your heart will know it and be at rest! To some people these scruples
   will cause the most agitation just when they looked for the most
   tranquility--and if they are God's people and God is working in their
   hearts, I am sure of this--that 50,000 priests could never give them an
   assurance that could make them feel true peace or heart's ease.

   They would still be disquieted, still be troubled, even if Bishops and
   Popes should pronounce them absolved. God's voice, alone, can still the
   tempest of their souls. See how the Romanist is pursuing phantoms all
   the while that he is following the directions of his church and
   observing her laborious ordinances. He never reaches the goal of peace!
   He can never be free from anxiety in life or apprehension in death
   because his church never speaks to him of perfection through the one
   Sacrifice offered once and for all. And when he dies he does not know
   where he may go. He conceives himself to be really forgiven, after a
   sacerdotal fashion, but he is not so divinely pardoned but that he has
   to go to "purgatory" for a time, to be purged from spots which still
   remain!

   He is never certain where he is with regard to the bar of Divine
   Justice. His pardon, at the best, is not worth having as a guarantee of
   Heaven. In most cases the most religious Papist only goes to
   "purgatory," a place which certain of their ablest writers say is so
   cold on one side that they are all frozen like the inhabitants of the
   arctic regions--and then the victims are tossed to the other side,
   which is so extremely hot that it is as though they were being baked
   alive! So they are tossed about from one side to another till sin is
   either frozen or dried out of them. This is a fine prospect for good
   religious Romanists! The statements of Romish theologians as to the
   purgatorial regions are even more grim and terrible, for in some such
   imaginary place the remainder of sin is to be put away!

   But, Beloved, we have it in the text that God is to remove our
   transgressions! O what a removal is that! Hands off, you priests! You
   are too feeble for such weights as ours! Our sins are too stupendous
   for your puny strength! But the Lord comes with His own right hand of
   majesty, puts away our sins and lifts them on to Christ--and Christ
   comes and flings them into His sepulcher and they are gone and buried
   forever--"As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed
   our transgressions from us."--

   "He seized our dreadful load, our guilt sustained; And hea ved the
   mountain from a guilty world." Our transgressions were against the Lord
   our God--to Him, therefore, belongs the right to pardon them! These
   transgressions had done dishonor to His Holy Name. He has a right, if
   He wills, to put them away if He can do so without tarnishing His
   Glory.

   By the Substitution of Jesus, Justice is satisfied and God Himself
   blots out our sins. And here is the beauty of it-- since the Lord has
   removed our transgressions from us, the thing is done completely and it
   is done forever and forever! What a man does, he may undo. You know how
   some men are like children--they will give a thing and take a thing
   back, and so play fast and loose with you. They will speak well of you
   today, and say, "Yes, they forgive," but they cannot forget! They
   remember again tomorrow, revive their old resentments and, in their
   anger, call up, again, past grievances. Not so, our God. "I am Jehovah!
   I change not," says the Lord, "therefore you sons of Jacob are not
   consumed." When God removes transgression, the work is so done that it
   never shall be undone--certainly not by Himself--and if not by Himself,
   who, then, can do it? My Brothers and Sisters, what consolations you
   have since you have believed in Jesus! I pray you, feast upon them and
   be satisfied to the fullest!

   Our text has in it also a touch of personality for each one of us. I
   has pondering upon this passage the other day and it came to me with a
   peculiar sweetness--not on account of any of the thoughts I have given
   you, but on account of this--"As far as the east is from the west, so
   far has He removed our transgressions from"--himself [David]? Yes, that
   is true, but it is "from us," from us. And this was what passed through
   my mind--then my sins are gone away from me, from me! Here am I,
   fretting that I am not what I should be, and groaning, and crying
   before God about a thousand things! But, for all that, there is no sin
   upon me for, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He
   removed our transgressions from us."

   From ourselves the sins have gone! From us, as well as from His eyes.
   From His book and from His memory--they have gone from us. "But I
   committed them," says one. Ah, that you did. Your sins were yours,
   yours with a vengeance! It was like that fiery tunic which Hercules put
   on, which he could not drag from him, let him do what he might, but
   which ate into his flesh and bones. Such were your sins. You could not
   tear them off! But God has taken them off, every one of them, if you
   have believed in Jesus. And where is that tunic of fire now, which
   would have devoured you forever? Where is it? You shall search for it,
   but it shall not be found, no, it shall not be, says the Lord. It is
   gone away from you! I sometimes see Believers troubling themselves as
   if all their sins were laid up in an iron safe in some part of the
   Lord's house. It is not so! It is not so!

   They are fretting as though somewhere or other there were a horde of
   sins in ambush which would accuse them and bear witness against them
   before God's bar, and so they would be condemned after all. It is not
   so! It is not so! They are all gone! They are all gone. Satan may stand
   and howl for accusers and say, "Come, gather together, and accuse the
   child of God!" And you yourself may tremblingly fear that they will
   come and therefore you will put on your filthy garments and come in
   before God, and stand there like a poor wretched criminal about to be
   tried. But what does Jesus say when He comes into the court? He says,
   "Take away his filthy garments from him! What right has he to put them
   on, for I have taken them away from him long ago by My Substitution?
   Take them off! Set a fair miter on his head. This is one whom I have
   loved and cleansed--why does he stand in the place of condemnation when
   he is not condemned and cannot be condemned, for there is now no
   condemnation since I have died?"

   Ah, we many times go down into the hold of the vessel and there we lie
   among the baggage. And our doubts and fears fasten down the hatches and
   there we are--half stifled--when we might as well come up upon the
   quarter deck and walk there, full of delight and peace! We are moaning
   and fretting ourselves and all about what does not really exist. I saw
   two men, yesterday, handcuffed and marched to the carriage to be taken
   off to prison. They could not move their wrists. But, suppose I had
   walked behind them, with my wrists close together and had never opened
   my hands, nor stirred them, and said, "Alas! I committed, years ago,
   some wrong, and have handcuffs put upon me"? You would naturally say,
   "Well, but are they not taken off?" And I reply, "Yes, I have heard
   they are, but somehow, through habit, I go about as if I had them on."

   Would not everybody say of me, "Why, that man must be insane!"? Now
   you, child of God, once had the handcuffs on--your sins were upon
   you--but Jesus Christ took them off. When you believed in Him, He broke
   all your fetters and now they are not there. Why do you go about
   trembling and saying, "I fear!--I am afraid!" What do you fear, O Man?
   What do you fear? Are you a Believer and afraid of your old sins? You
   are afraid of foes which do not exist! Your sins are so gone that they
   cannot be laid to your charge. Do you not believe this? Can you not
   rise to something like the true estimate of your position? You are not
   only pardoned, but you are a child of God! Go to your Father with joy
   and thankfulness and bless Him for all His love to you. Wipe those
   tears away, smooth those wrinkles from your brow--take up the song of
   joy and gladness and say with the Apostle Paul--"Who shall lay anything
   to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Who is he that
   condemns? It is Christ that died, yes rather, that is risen again, who
   is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us."
   Be glad in the Lord, you pardoned ones!--

   "Shout, Believer, to your God! He has once the winepress trod. Peace
   procured by blood Divine, Cancell'd all your sins and mine. In your
   Surety you are free, His dear hands were pierced for you. With His
   spotless vesture on,

   Holy as the Holy One. Oh the heights and depths of Grace! Shining with
   meridian blaze; Here the saved records show Sinners black but comely
   too."

   As for you who have never received that pardon, does not the mention of
   it make you long for it, cry for it and beg for it? O that you would,
   above all, believe for it--for it is to be had by you. The guiltiest of
   the guilty shall have forgiveness if they believe in Jesus! Whoever
   among you will trust in the crucified Savior shall be pardoned this
   night! The moment you trust Him you shall have a full acquittal for all
   your sins and crimes. Yes, all transgressions, and you shall sing, as
   our poet Kent does--

   "Here's pardon for transgressions past, It matters not how black their
   cast, And O my Soul, with wonder view, For sins to come here's pardon
   too." God be praised! Let His Word be believed! Let His name be trusted
   and then He shall be praised! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 103.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Light of the World

   (No. 1109)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 27, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "You are the light of the world." Matthew 5:14.

   THIS title had been given by the Jews to certain of their eminent
   Rabbis. With great pomposity they spoke of Rabbi Judah, or Rabbi
   Jochanan, as the lamps of the universe, the lights of the world. It
   must have sounded strange in the ears of the Scribes and Pharisees, to
   hear that same title, in all soberness, applied to a few bronzed-faced
   and rough-handed peasants and fishermen who had become disciples of
   Jesus. Jesus, in effect, said--not the Rabbis, not the Scribes, not the
   assembled Sanhedrim, but you, My humble followers, you are the light of
   the world! He gave them this title, not after He had educated them for
   three years, but at almost the outset of His ministry. From this I
   gather that the title was given them, not so much on account of what
   they knew, as on account of what they were. Not their knowledge, but
   their character made them the light of the world.

   They were not yet fully trained in His spiritual school and yet He says
   to them, "You are the light of the world," the fact being that wherever
   there is faith in Christ there is light, for our Lord has said, "I am
   come a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not
   walk in darkness." "The entrance of Your Word gives light." Genuine
   faith in Christ turns a man from darkness to marvelous light and
   transforms him into "light in the Lord"--his aims and objects, his
   desires, his speech, his actions become full of Divine light which
   illuminates all the chambers of his soul--and then pours forth from the
   windows so as to be seen of men. The Believer is appointed to be a
   lighthouse to others, a cheering lamp, a guiding star.

   It is true that his light will be increased as he learns more of
   Christ. He will be able to impart more instruction to others when he
   has received more, but even while he is yet a beginner, his faith in
   Jesus is, in itself, a light--men see his good works even before they
   discover his knowledge. The man of faith who aims at holiness is a
   light of the world, even though his knowledge may be very limited and
   his experience that of a babe. I mention this at the outset in order
   that every Christian may see the application of the text to himself. It
   is not spoken to the Apostles, or to ministers, exclusively, but to the
   entire body of the faithful--"You are the light of the world." You
   humble men and women whose usefulness will be confined to your
   cottages, or to your workshops. You whose voices will never be heard in
   the streets, whose speech will only be eloquent in the ears of those
   who gather by your firesides--you, even you, noiseless and unobserved
   as your lives will be--you are the true light of the world!

   Not alone the men whose learned volumes load our shelves. Not alone the
   men whose thundering tones startle the nations, or who, with busy care
   for God's Glory, compass sea and land to find subjects for the kingdom
   of Jesus, but you, each one of you who are humbly resting upon the
   Savior and lovingly carrying out your high vocation as the children of
   God and followers of his dear Son! Let us never forget that light must
   first be imparted to us, or it can never go forth from us. We are not
   lights of the world by nature--at best we are but lamps unlit until the
   Spirit of God comes. Enquire, therefore, my Hearer, of yourself whether
   God has ever kindled you by the flame of His Spirit.

   Have you been delivered from the power of darkness and translated into
   light? Has the immortal flame of the Divine Life touched you? If so,
   you have light in yourself and light towards others--and your light
   will work effectually in many ways. It will reveal the darkness of
   those who are round about you. Your light will show the darkness how
   dark it is. Even as Christ's life judged upon the men of His age, so
   does the faith of Christians expose the evils of unbelief. And the
   holiness of Believers reveals the wickedness of sin. Our light also
   reproves the deeds of darkness and condemns them. Even though we were
   never to use a severe word, a godly life would be a stern rebuke of
   sin.

   Therefore it comes to pass that we must expect to be opposed, for "he
   that does evil fears the light." The world does not understand us, "for
   the light shines in darkness, and the darkness understands it not."
   And, therefore, it

   misrepresents us and rages against us. In a certain sense the saints
   are, day by day, the judges of mankind. They avoid all censoriousness,
   for they know who has said, "judge not, that you be not judged," but
   unconsciously to themselves their godly, holy and devout lives accuse
   and condemn the wicked. And the Spirit of God, through them, full often
   convicts the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. The
   Believer's light makes manifest great and important Truths of God. We
   are light-bearers by bearing testimony to the Lord Jesus and His Divine
   Gospel.

   "You are My witnesses says the Lord." We have believed and therefore
   speak--we have felt the healing power of the Gospel and therefore we
   proclaim it. It is the great object of our lives to make known the
   Gospel of Christ in every place, holding forth the Word of God in
   meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves and laboring to
   enlighten every man as to the things which make for his peace. In this
   way we become instruments of comfort, for as light chases away gloom
   and it is a pleasant thing to behold the sun, so are Believers the
   gladdeners of the world. The wilderness and the solitary place are glad
   for them. Believers are to those who sit in the region of the shadow of
   death, a light. When they come to the dying sons of men in the power of
   the Spirit their feet are beautiful upon the mountains, for they
   publish salvation.

   Saints are sons of consolation, lamps which cheer the night. Their
   light is a guiding light which leads wanderers to the place of rest and
   a saving light, for it manifests Jesus to sinners. See your calling, my
   Brethren! Admire it, be humbled that you have not fulfilled it better
   and ask for Grace that, as the lights in the world, you may be all that
   such a figure signifies. Many wide subjects are opening up before us,
   but I will not venture upon the open sea, for a narrow strait is before
   me through which I would steer your meditations with a practical
   purpose. The channel which your thoughts should follow is the
   enquiry--why is it that God has been pleased to make His people the
   lights of the world? He might have been the light of the world Himself
   without instrumentalities.

   Or, if He must use agents, flaming seraphim would surely have been
   majestic golden lamps with which to illuminate the nations! For what
   purpose has Christ been pleased to make His disciples the light of the
   world? Why has He put this honor upon His Church, and upon each one of
   His followers? That is the question we will talk of, but as even this
   is too wide a subject, we must narrow it down to one line of thought.
   God has purposes with regard to Himself to be answered by using men as
   His agents--these we will not touch upon. We will only think of those
   reasons which have reference to ourselves. We look at the question
   manward. Why does God make men to be lights to other men?

   There are three answers. First, it averts from the light-givers
   themselves many evils. Secondly, it bestows upon them many benefits.
   And, thirdly, it has an encouraging aspect towards the
   light-receivers--those who are, meanwhile, sitting in darkness and
   needing the light.

   I. At the outset we observe that, for God to make His people
   light-givers is THE MEANS OF AVERTING FROM

   THEM MANY EVILS. You will see this in a moment. In the first place it
   purges true godliness from the taint of selfishness. The very first
   thing we want a man to feel is a deep concern for his own personal
   salvation--we would have him think of his own sins and repent of
   them--think of Jesus and personally believe on Him. Men love to hide in
   crowds, but Grace brings them to be units--men are satisfied to condemn
   sin in the gross, but true conviction makes each man condemn sin in
   himself.

   God's minister aims to come home to the conscience with the words of
   Nathan, "You are the man." More and more we want to see our careless
   hearers anxious that they themselves should be saved, for what will it
   profit them to hear the Gospel if they are only hearers? What will it
   profit them if their neighbors are converted and they remain
   unregenerate? Of what value is a national religion if we have not a
   personal religion? It is necessary that men think about their own
   souls. Now this necessary anxiety might degenerate into selfishness and
   a man might come to ask with Cain, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

   Observe, then, how the truth of our text counteracts this tendency to
   selfishness. It shows that our personal salvation operates at once upon
   others. The lighted candle shines upon all comers. You get light--it is
   necessary to yourself--but you cannot have that light at all without
   its becoming immediately useful to those around you, for light is
   essentially diffusive and shines not for itself. If light could be kept
   to itself it would cease to be light. Grace which you can keep under a
   bushel or under a bed, is not a candle of the Lord's lighting. "Believe
   in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved, and your house," is
   the full Gospel.

   The salvation which comes to the man personally affects his house,
   also, and he is to look at it as a treasure with which he is put in
   trust for the benefit of those about him. If the Believer grows in
   Grace, his obtaining more light involves the giving of more light. If
   yonder light on the tower of the House of Commons could be made ten
   times more brilliant tomorrow, it would be brilliant for us and we
   should share in its radiance. When the moon is at her fullest, her
   fullness is for us rather than for herself. Increase the light of even
   a penny candle and you have increased the light which everybody enjoys
   who looks at the candle. Strengthen the illuminating power of the
   gas--it is not to itself, alone, that it is so strengthened, but to all
   the eyes which are enlightened by it. It must be so.

   If a man should advance to the highest stage of Christian holiness, it
   is inevitable that his progress should be an increase to the means of
   enlightenment for others. Holy example in the world lifts the standard
   of morality. Holy example in the Church raises the platform of
   spirituality. Good men even unconsciously do much towards illuminating
   others, even as the watchman's lantern shines while the watchman
   sleeps. But above this, the better a man is the more he longs and
   labors to benefit his fellow men. Therefore there is no selfishness in
   a man's desiring to be holy, for intertwisted with his own personal
   holiness, so as to be inseparable, is his usefulness to those among
   whom he lives.

   To do good we must be good. The warp and woof cannot be separated here.
   To confer good you must possess good. If a man were divested of the
   last rag of selfishness and lived alone for others, it would be his
   highest wisdom to look well to his own personal condition before
   God--he must himself see or he will be a sorry guide--he must himself
   be strong or he will be a feeble helper. The using of the saints,
   therefore, as lights of the world is a most effectual remedy for
   selfishness.

   A second evil thus averted is this, it prevents the personality of
   religion from becoming isolation. It is very important that religion
   should be a personal thing. On one of the foremost banners of our host
   is written this word, "Personality in religion." We as Baptists bear
   that testimony by our very peculiarity. We do not believe a person
   should be baptized unless it is by his own wish and request. We
   consider all religion by proxy to be an unmitigated farce, if not
   worse. The man must do it himself--it must be his personal repentance,
   his personal faith, his personal Baptism, his personal everything, or
   else it is good for nothing. The tendency of that principle, if
   exaggerated, is towards isolation so that a man forgets that he has any
   connection with other people.

   Now, our Lord says, "You cannot live alone, you are the light of the
   world." From that fact arises connections which look backwards, for we
   ourselves were brought into the family of light through the light of
   others. To most of us it is a spiritual father. To many of us a nursing
   mother. We came into the Church not as orphans into an asylum, to find
   no relative there, but we found in the Church brethren and fathers,
   true helpers of our weakness and instructors of our ignorance. We are
   linked to other Christians by the good which we frequently receive from
   them, for lights as we are ourselves, we also rejoice in the light of
   our Brothers and Sisters who are more bright than we are.

   Today we have also other links which bind us to our Brethren in Jesus,
   for many of us have given light to others. We look with loving eyes
   upon those who are our spiritual children and they look back to us with
   affectionate esteem, as having received great benefit by our means.
   Throughout the Church this process is going on--men and women, by
   teaching in the Sunday school, by preaching in the street--and in a
   thousand other ways are putting forth their light and finding others
   who become members of the illuminated family. And so the use of the
   members of the Church by God, the one for the ingathering of the other,
   prevents each man from being a separate stone by himself and aids in
   building us up together a spiritual house for a habitation of God
   through the Spirit. Therefore blessed be the Savior for making us
   lights in the world, since though we now maintain each man for himself,
   his personality before his God, yet we are linked in sacred brotherhood
   by the common service which our Lord has appointed us.

   In the next place this preserves our separateness from the world from
   souring into mistrust. As Christians we are essentially Nonconformists.
   The radical precept of our conversation is, "Be not conformed to this
   world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your minds." We are in
   the world, but we are not of it. In a certain sense we love not the
   world, neither the things that are in the world. If we loved the world,
   the love of the Father would not be in us. Now, one might soon
   misunderstand this position and by degrees look down from a Pharisaic
   elevation, and say, "I do not belong to this world, I am superior to it
   and utterly despise it. I take no interest in its welfare, it is too
   base a thing for me to care about."

   We should soon grow to be man-haters, and say, "The world lies in the
   Wicked One, therefore let it seethe in its own fat, and rot in its own
   corruption. If we can but hurry through its Vanity Fair and get away,
   it is all we desire." I think I have seen something of this sort in
   certain Brethren who promulgate the theory that a few are to be rescued
   from the wreck which is breaking up and going to pieces on the
   beach--just a few may be brought to shore, and all hope that the vessel
   itself will ever float again is gone--all idea that it will bear at its
   masthead the blood red banner of the Cross is sheer delusion. We have
   nothing to do but to load the lifeboats with here and there a one and
   pull away from the wreck with all speed.

   Now I do not believe in this theory, and I hope I never shall. I feel a
   yearning towards the blinded sons of men. I cannot take complacency in
   them, but I feel a love of benevolence towards them and every Christian
   who has realized the love of Christ must, I think, feel the same. I
   believe that the kingdoms of this world will yet become the kingdom of
   our Lord and of His Christ. "You are the light of the world," is a sure
   remedy for all man-hating, for now we feel such love to the world as
   that which the nurse has towards her foster child. It may be a very
   tiresome child, but she is entrusted with it and because its hunger
   cannot be appeased except she shall feed it and its nakedness cannot be
   clothed except she shall wrap it up, its needs and its weaknesses
   appeal to her pity and she cares for it till by degrees her heart warms
   into an intense affection towards it.

   That is the sort of feeling which our Lord would have us cultivate
   towards mankind. Poor world, poor world, it is dark and gropes in
   midnight--and it cannot get light except it receives it through us!
   Poor world, it is sick and none can give it healing medicine but the
   Lord's own people! It is dying and only through us will God say to it,
   "Live." Do you not feel an interest in sinners when you know that the
   way in which sinners are saved is by a saved sinner going after a lost
   sinner and bringing him to Jesus? When you feel that the Holy Spirit
   works by you to the salvation of men, will you not love them? I am sure
   some of us would give up preaching if we did not feel that God, in some
   way or other, has made our ministry necessary to the calling out of His
   chosen.

   He has given His Son power over all flesh and He has divided, as it
   were, that all flesh into parts and made us princes over a portion of
   it. And thus He has given to me power over some flesh and He has given
   to my Brother minister power over another portion, that, through us,
   eternal life may be given to as many as God has given to His Son. This
   forbids us to look out upon mankind with the proud feeling of disgust,
   or the miserable feeling of despair. No, as the stars look down upon
   the night and cheer it, so we look upon our benighted race. As the
   disciples of Jesus looked on the hungry thousands who were to be fed by
   their hands, so we look on the masses around us. How can we frown on
   them, for we are lights to them! God means to bless them through us,
   therefore are they dear to us. Thus have we learned how to be separate
   from sinners as light is separate from darkness, and yet to be their
   best friends even as the moon is the best benefactor of the night.

   Again, this arrangement delivers our confidence in God's purposes from
   sinking into the indolence of fatalism. We firmly believe that God will
   save His own elect--that Christ will never lose one whom His Father
   gave Him--and that the purposes of God will all be accomplished. No
   fatalist can go further than I will go in the full and distinct
   averment that God's decrees shall be fulfilled! There are, however,
   persons who argue from this that therefore we may sit down and do
   nothing as to the salvation of others. Such persons are very foolish,
   because they must be aware that the same logic which would drive them
   to do nothing spiritually would require them to do nothing in other
   matters, so that they would neither eat, nor drink, nor think, nor
   breathe--do nothing, in fact, but lie like logs, passive under fate's
   iron sway!

   This is too absurd to need an answer. Believers are cured of that
   tendency by the belief that they are the lights of the world! God will
   effect His purposes and give light to men, but we are the light of the
   world. He will effect His purposes of Grace through His Church. He will
   enlighten the Gentiles, He will give sight to the blind eyes, but He
   intends to do it through those whom He has already saved. Therefore,
   with the calm courage which a reliance upon eternal purposes has given
   to us, we mingle a stern determination to be active in season and out
   of season, because we are predestinated by the eternal God to be the
   light of the sons of men. The tendency of the one doctrine, if looked
   at exclusively, might have been dangerous if it had not been balanced
   by the second doctrine!

   Once more, the natural longing of the Believer to be with Christ is
   prevented from running to extremes by the truth now before us. There is
   not a Christian here who has not in high, holy, and happy times sung
   with Dr. Watts--

   "Father, I long, I faint to see

   The place of Your abode;

   I'd leave Your earthly courts and flee

   Up to Your seat, my God."

   As a holy man of old was known to count each year of his life a year of
   banishment from Christ, so have we reckoned that every hour we linger
   here is so much taken from our heavenly rest and sometimes we have
   said, "Woe is me that I dwell in Mesech and tabernacle in the tents of
   Kedar." But when we have heard the Master say, "You are the light of
   the world," ah, then we have understood it all. And we have felt
   content to stay if there is darkness which needs enlightenment by our
   means. Let us talk, good Master--we do not wish to be gone if You have
   need of us here, for this is so honorable a position that we do not
   envy the angels their celestial seats while we have the privilege of
   enlightening the benighted sons of men. If you, O Lord, can do anything
   good through us, extend our banishment and make our 70 years into 70
   centuries, if so it please You!

   Our Heaven is where we can best glorify our God. I believe that the
   hope of usefulness is often a very effectual stay to the longings of
   Believers, so that cheerfully they are enabled to wait their appointed
   time in this land of the dying. So you see a great many evils are
   averted through the use which Christ makes of His people in setting
   them in their places as the light of the world.

   II. Now, secondly, and concisely--IT BESTOWS MANY BLESSINGS UPON THE
   WORKERS THEMSELVES. For, first, to be a light to others keeps us
   constantly in mind of the benefits which we have received. We see
   sinners in darkness and we remember when we were in darkness, too. We
   hear their penitential cries and we remember when we wept and mourned
   before the Lord. We note their struggles and observe their doubts and
   fears, suspicions and misgivings--and we see as in a glass our own
   early history reproduced. When at last we are enabled to point them to
   the Savior and they can say, "Christ is mine," we feel our youth
   renewed in them! We live over again our early days and the love of our
   espousals is restored.

   Just as many a grandparent grows young again as his grandchildren climb
   his knee, so do we remember the joys of our youth in those dear ones
   who are begotten unto God, by His Grace, through our labor of love. We
   are made to see ourselves in them and so to return to those dear
   banquets of love which marked the dawning of our life in Christ. The
   sight of new-born babes warms our cold blood!--

   "Blessed be the love that saved me! Blessed be the love that washed me!
   Blessed be the love that renewed me!" Thus we cry when we see others
   saved, washed, and renewed. Working for others makes us tenaciously
   hold to the Gospel. I have frequently remarked that the inventors of
   heresies are mostly editors of newspapers, essayists, writers for
   magazines and other theorists who do very little or nothing of
   practical work among the fallen and degraded.

   It is the rarest thing in the world to find city missionaries,
   Evangelists, or working pastors up to their necks in work among the
   poor and sinful, who have any sympathy with modern intellectualism.
   Find a man who is pleading with sinners--really practically engaged in
   the work and is bringing souls to Jesus Christ--and I will guarantee
   you that he will be orthodox! He believes in the doctrine of human
   depravity, for he sees it to be a fact! He believes in the work of the
   Holy Spirit, for he often sees his own work to be good for nothing! He
   believes in Sovereign Grace, for he often observes that some are saved
   whom he least expected to see--and those whom he looked for are left
   behind! There is nothing like work to keep a man soundly evangelical!

   When a fellow has nothing to do, the devil puts it into his head to
   write an essay against the orthodox faith. The man is a practical
   ignoramus and, therefore, he is wiser than seven men that can render a
   reason. His hands are unemployed and, therefore, he wanders about in
   Christ's halls, whittling the doctrines of the Truth of God and
   inventing new notions to please his fancy. Get to work and you will be
   healthy! If God makes you a light to others you will be bright
   yourself. As you are giving the light your shining will burn off the
   spots and blots. When iron is red hot the blackness disappears.
   Streams, as they run, let fall their impurities and filter
   themselves--and so the working Christian is enabled, by God's Spirit,
   to purge himself from errors. He does God's will and therefore he knows
   his doctrine.

   To work for Jesus also arouses all a man's faculties. Nobody knows what
   is in him till he is fired with a lofty ambition and moved by a
   glorious impulse. Many servants of God think they have but one talent
   but they would soon discover 10 if they would but bestir themselves. No
   man knows in business, or in trade, or in any department of science,

   what he is capable of till he has commenced the pursuit. When he has
   commenced he finds that what was difficult becomes easy, that what was
   impossible becomes only a little difficult, and by-and-by is achieved.
   And so the Christian calls forth all his mental and spiritual faculties
   by diligently working for his Lord. Marvelous is the manner in which
   men will develop when they fall in love with souls! When a great
   passion seizes us, we are carried beyond ourselves.

   Look at those great bounds and mighty springs which yonder hound makes
   while in hot pursuit of the stag. He ran not thus at the first, but now
   that you would expect him to drop from very weariness, he is more
   impetuous than ever! Every muscle and sinew are in full play. His
   eagerness makes him alive with an intensity which you had not guessed
   before. So, in pursuing souls, men are marvelously quickened and filled
   with energy. They seemed dull in ordinary conversation--you could not
   imagine that they would have spoken so. Who dreamed that there was such
   fire in these flints? They are arguing for Jesus and they do it well.
   Their wits are all awake. They give the right answer to an objection.
   They are so intensely worked up that they seem more than they ever were
   before and they are so, indeed, for the Spirit makes all of us what we
   never could have been apart from His Divine influences!

   And so, in serving others, we rise to the fullness of manhood
   ourselves. Giving light to others also develops and matures all our
   Divine Graces. If some of you had to preach every Sunday morning, it
   would exercise your faith. You would get, sometimes, to Saturday and
   say, "What shall be the subject? How shall I again go before that mass
   of people? How shall I win their interested attention once again?" You
   would find that you have preached upon the easiest of the texts, and
   if, as in my case, you have had your sermons printed, you will say,
   "Where's the new subject to come from?" And you will look up, and say,
   "My God, Your message I have received before, and I shall receive it
   again, but help me, I pray you."

   Every kind of service for Christ exercises and strengthens faith. I
   only mention preaching as an instance of a general truth. Christian
   work also tries patience, love, hope, zeal and all our Graces, and in
   trying them, it perfects them. I do not know a worse thing that could
   happen to a Christian than to have nothing to do. It is enough to kill
   a man to be doomed to inaction. Many a man, in retiring from business,
   has retired into misery. He had better to have still gone to the shop,
   even if he had not taken a penny out of its earnings. I have heard of
   men who have given up all their avocations and have, afterwards,
   desired to hire themselves out to their successors in order to have
   some occupation for their minds.

   A man cannot do better than retire from his business when he can, if he
   will then make it his business to serve Christ with all his might. But
   if he has nothing at all to do, not only will Satan lead him into
   mischief, but he will be quite sure to make a great deal of misery for
   himself. Faculties rust and Graces wither in indolence. God has made us
   on purpose for service and we must bow our neck to the yoke, or the
   Load will be in our flanks. Though the candle is consumed by shining,
   yet its shining is its truest life--all the light which lies concealed
   in it is fetched out and manifested by the process of light-giving. To
   be the light of the world surrounds life with the most stupendous
   responsibilities and so invests it with the most solemn dignity.

   Hear this, you humble men and women, you who have made no figure in
   society, you are the light of the world! If you burn dimly, dim is the
   world's light and dense its darkness. How wretched is a city at night
   if the lamps are unlit! How cheerless is a room when the candle is
   blown out! What would earth be without the sun? Shall we deny the lamp
   of life to men? Shall the world be left in darkness through our
   idleness? You are the lights not merely of your own households and your
   own neighborhoods, but collectively you make up the entire light of the
   whole wide world. To you the present age must look, and upon you even
   future ages depend.

   For good or ill every man among us will affect all time. If any one man
   knows a Truth of God and does not tell it to his fellows, there will be
   so much less light in the world and consequences little dreamed of may
   follow his traitorous silence. If any Christian man here is not living
   consistently, his follies will lessen the brightness of the Church and
   the operation of that mischief may never be stayed. We are links of an
   endless chain--each man affects all the rest. If there is one man
   within my reach from whom I withhold instruction, and upon whom I
   exercise no holy influence, the loss may be far more than I
   imagine--for he in his turn might have taught others--and so on without
   end. I may shine afterwards, but all the shining which should have come
   from me during the period in which I was dim is a dead loss--an
   irretrievable loss to the world--so much less light forever through my
   neglect for immortal souls.

   I will not enlarge upon illustrations so hackneyed as those which might
   be gathered from the lighthouse-keeper who must keep his lantern
   trimmed or vessels will be wrecked. Nor would I do more than remind you
   of the Cornish wreckers

   whose false lights have lured so many to destruction, but pray remember
   that you are practically the lighthouse-keepers of the world, or else
   you are wreckers of the souls of men! You are either your brother's
   keeper or your brother's murderer. Your failure to be lights will not
   end with you--it will endlessly curse others. A solemn sermon earnestly
   preached may affect not merely the people who hear it, but through them
   their children, and their children's children. A good thought dropped
   into a child's heart may change the child's entire career and that boy
   may afterwards influence a nation for good.

   You never know how far a spark of holy fire will burn. The
   responsibilities and the possibilities of the most humble among us are
   incalculable. Since we are the lights of the world, to this world we
   are more important than cherubim or seraphim. I reckon that the
   responsibilities of emperors, kings, members of Parliament and judges
   are trifling compared with the responsibilities of Christians, for
   these great ones are not the lights of the world--they do but sweep its
   house and arrange its furniture--but ours is the light without which
   men cannot truly live! Ours is light for immortality and for
   Heaven--without it men fall into judgment and Hell. Therefore
   responsibilities press upon us which are beyond all measure.

   Furthermore, out of this it arises that the light-giver, feeling his
   responsibility, flies to the Lord Jesus Christ for help and anything
   that drives us to Jesus is a great blessing to us. The tremendous need
   which the Christian's position puts upon him makes him cry out to the
   Strong for strength, saying, "Who is sufficient for these things?" And
   by that very cry a blessing comes into his soul. But more, the desire
   to win souls to Christ drives men to self-denial, for they feel that if
   the world is to be blessed by them they can do anything in order to
   accomplish the purpose--they can put up with rough usage, with
   misrepresentations, with slanders, with ingratitude, with malice, yes,
   and endure imprisonment and death, itself, if they can but fulfill
   their destiny and be lights to the world.

   By such self-denials and abounding love they are educated into the
   likeness of Christ. They are called lights of the world and that name
   is all His own. You have seen the marvelous picture by Holman Hunt, and
   noted its masterly teachings--he calls it, "The light of the world." It
   is the Master who stands there and that same sorrowful king bearing the
   mystic lantern speaks to us now, and says, "You are this lantern, you
   are the light of the world." O take care, Beloved, since such an honor
   is put upon you, that you discharge your mission aright! And if you
   live for that end it will create in you all those qualities which make
   the saints like the great Father of Lights, with whom is no
   variableness neither shadow of turning.

   III. I had much more to say, but there is no time, therefore I must
   close with the last reflection, that for God to use

   men to give light to other men has AN ASPECT OF ENCOURAGEMENT FOR
   SINNERS. Beloved Hearers, you who

   know not Christ, it ought to encourage you to believe that God means
   well towards you, since He sends your fellow men to say to you,
   "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." Ambassadors
   are not usually chosen from the offending side. A great king will
   generally send one of his own friends, not one of the rebel race, to
   negotiate peace. But God has chosen us, who were rebels, ourselves, and
   has sent us to you, who were our fellow rebels, and we say, "Turn unto
   the Lord and live." Does it not look as if He meant love and kindness
   and tenderness to you?

   Note, also, that every Christian who speaks to you about Jesus is,
   himself, an example of God's power as well as His love. He can save you
   from your sins, for He has saved these men and women. Those who speak
   to you about the Savior bear witness that they were lost in sin as you
   are--as little able to shake off the chains of sin as you are--yet are
   they set free! Yet are they turned from darkness unto light! And He who
   has saved them thus gives you a pledge that He can save you! If He does
   this to one, why can He not do it to another?

   It shows His tenderness with you. He thought that if He sent an angel
   to preach to you, you might be afraid. Perhaps as you saw the glitter
   of his countenance you might have started back with alarm. When the
   face of Moses shone, the Israelites could not bear to look upon
   it--therefore are there no glories upon the face of ministers now--and
   those who talk to you about your souls are just like yourselves, that
   they may give you confidence and win your hearts. We cry to you, "Come
   with us to the Cross! Come with us to the great Father! Come with us
   and say, "Father, I have sinned." It was a tender thoughtfulness of God
   that there should be nothing to scare His sheep away, but that the
   shepherds who seek them should come in humble, tender guise to them.

   Frequently there is a special suitableness in the light-bearers whom
   God sends to men. For instance, your mother has pleaded with you. Your
   father has spoken to you about your soul. Will you reject such an
   embassy? If my God chooses my

   father to plead with me to be reconciled to Him, I will think of the
   message for my father's sake as well as for the sake of my God. Some of
   you have lately received letters of entreaty from your sisters--you
   have been earnestly pressed by converted brothers--and other kind
   friends not related to you have shown very special desire for your
   conversion. Now that these good people should so disinterestedly care
   about you, ought it not to affect your mind? It will not deprive them
   of Heaven if you are lost. If you are saved, I do not know that one of
   the trials of their life will be softened to them, yet they love your
   soul.

   Give them a patient hearing. Think over what they have to say. Do not
   treat them harshly. I think it could not be in the heart of a true man
   to act unkindly towards one who meant him well, even if he reckoned
   that the friend was mistaken. Remember, if your counselors are God's
   people and are living by faith in Jesus, there is a sacred authority
   about the poorest and meanest of them--and in rejecting their message
   you may be rejecting Christ. I claim no priesthood, neither would I
   tolerate it in any man, save only this, that every Christian is a
   priest before God. Listen to the priests of God, then, as they speak to
   you! God, by them, would draw you to Himself. By their hands He would
   cast around you the bands of love and the cords of a man.

   Lastly, remember if God speaks to you by honest, earnest hearts which
   care for your soul and, if you put the message of salvation far from
   you, you will be without excuse, both now and at the last day. And
   among the witnesses at your judgment whom you will most blush to see,
   will be the men and women who earnestly sought your good. I see your
   mother coming, and if she is asked, "Did this son of yours know the
   Gospel? Did he sin against light and knowledge?" What can she say but,
   Amen, to your condemnation? Against many of you I fear I shall be
   forced to be a swift witness at the last. I have told you the Gospel in
   words as plain as I could find. I have often flung away a metaphor and
   given up a period which might have sounded well because I thought it
   would not have been understood, or would have missed your consciences.

   I have tried to keep to the greatest plainness of speech that none
   might misunderstand me. I have kept back no unpalatable Truth of God
   from you. I have not hesitated to speak with great boldness. I have
   told you that if you believe in Jesus you shall live--if you will not
   believe in Him you must be lost. If you will not trust in my Lord Jesus
   Christ, your blood is on your own heads. I am clear of you. In the last
   day this shall be a terrible part of your reflections, that not only
   God will be clear and Christ will be clear, but even your fellow men
   who loved you best will have to admit that you deserved your doom. God
   grant it may never be so, for Christ's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Matthew 5:1-32.
     __________________________________________________________________

Miracles Of Love

   (No. 1110)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 4, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "You have loved my soul out of the pit of corruption." Isaiah 38:17

   (Marginal reading).

   THE means used for the restoration of Hezekiah's body to health was a
   lump of figs laid as a plaster upon the boil, but the means used for
   the renewal of his soul from the disease of despondency was something
   equally effectual and far sweeter--what if I say that the Lord laid to
   the sore of Hezekiah's heart some of the leaves of the Tree of Life
   which are for the healing of the nations? The fact is that Hezekiah,
   under such a mass of troubles, had sunk very low in doubts, fears and
   dark forebodings until he almost despaired and, therefore, the Lord
   shed abroad in his heart a sense of Divine love-- deep, true and
   mighty--and as Hezekiah's body recovered, so Hezekiah's spirits also
   rose. And instead of chattering like a crane, he began to sing the
   praises of the Host High. The remedy for his soul's sickness was love.
   His heart was fetched up from the grave of its despair by love--love
   was the hand of power that drew him up and love the cords by which he
   was lifted.

   Now, what was true of Hezekiah with regard to his sickness and
   depression is true in the fullest sense of all Believers. See, dear
   Brethren, where we lay by nature--in the grave of death. Yes, and
   more--in the pit of corruption. We were so destroyed by sin that we
   were like men who had rotted in a pit and were corrupt, for sin is a
   foul putrefaction of our nature and it has worked in us to the most
   dreadful degree. We are like the slain upon the battlefield, rotting
   with foul decay--obnoxious to God, corrupt and abominable. At this
   present moment, by Sovereign Grace, those of us who have believed in
   Jesus have been brought up out of the horrible pit. Our standing, now,
   is a blessed one, for our feet are upon the Rock of Ages--immutable
   promises and eternal purposes are now the bases of our confidence.

   Now shall our head be lifted up above our enemies round about us and,
   therefore, with joy will we offer in His tabernacle sacrifices of joy!
   We will sing, yes, we will sing praises unto the Lord! It is hardly
   necessary that I remind you that it was the love of God which moved Him
   to have compassion upon us when we were in the pit of corruption. The
   Lord loved us even when we were in that loathsome condition. This is a
   deep mystery of love. Well does the Apostle speak of "His great love
   wherewith He loved us even when we were dead in trespasses and sins."
   To love us when there was no good in us, but every evil in us--to love
   us when we were unlovable and even hateful--this is not after the
   manner of man, but is worthy of the infinite heart of God.

   Now we know that this ancient, primeval love which had no cause except
   itself, devised the way of lifting us up out of the pit. We were to be
   brought up by Substitution, by the sacrifice of Another in our place.
   We were to be brought up by the operations of the Divine energy--that
   same power which brought our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead was to
   bring us up from our death in sin. Love planned this admirable method
   of mercy and we are equally ready to admit, this morning, and to exult
   as we admit it, that it was love which supplied all the provisions
   necessary for carrying out the plan. Love brought the Savior to the
   Cross. Love made Him bear our sins in His own body on the tree. Love
   led Him to give up His precious life on our behalf and to become a
   hostage in the tomb. Love sent the Holy Spirit to quicken us, to
   illuminate us, to strengthen us and to dwell in us forever. Love found
   the materials for our redemption and love applied the redemption when
   it was completed. Love led us to the Savior's Cross. Love regenerated
   us. Love has supported us till this day and will keep us to the end.

   I shall not, however, call your attention to this great Truth of God,
   but to one of the same order. The text sets forth a charming fact which
   I desire to insist upon as God's Spirit shall help me. It is this--not
   merely that love desired our salvation, planned it, provided it, and so
   on--but that the instrument which love has used has been love. In order
   to get us out of the pit we have not been drawn out of it by power, nor
   driven out of it by terror, but we have been loved out of it. "You have
   loved my soul out of the pit of corruption." The other Sunday morning
   [DIVINE LOVE AND ITS GIFTS

   NO. 1096] I spoke to you upon our loving souls into Christ and tried to
   show in a few sentences the power of love to lead sinners to Jesus. Now
   that is what the text means--that God's love has loved us out of the
   pit of corruption--it has been the energetic means which has brought
   the saved ones to be what they are.

   This subject has carried my own soul away in my private contemplations,
   but I fear I cannot set it forth to you as I would wish. I am like the
   child which said to its mother, "Mother, I will bring the sea to you,"
   and the little one went down to the shore and filled its little palm
   with the water, but before it reached its mother it had spilt ten times
   as much as it had carried and if it had carried all it had taken up, it
   would only have brought a few drops and left behind it the great and
   wide sea altogether undiminished. I am hopeless of being able to convey
   to your souls a tenth of what I feel! I could have danced with David
   before the ark while I was drinking the new wine out of the golden cup
   of the text. I am hopeless of transferring my joy to you and if I could
   succeed in it, I should have accomplished little compared with the
   glory of the text before me.

   I pray that many of you may, however, get enough out of this sermon to
   make you sing--

   "In the heavenly Lamb Thrice happy I am, And my heart it does dance At
   the sound of His name."

   May the Spirit of God love you, this morning, into a sense of the
   Savior's love--love you into a ravishing enjoyment of the love of God.
   We shall consider, first of all, that we were loved into an entrance
   into Grace. Secondly, we are loved into advance in Grace and thirdly we
   shall be loved from Grace into Glory.

   I. We were, in the beginning, LOVED INTO GRACE. What brought us to be
   converted men and women? We know it was the power of the Holy Spirit,
   but of that we shall not now speak. Our question is--what
   instrumentality did the Spirit use? The answer is, in most cases--in
   mine, certainly, and I do not doubt in the case of you all, in some
   degree-- love was the constraining power. The love of Christ to sinners
   was the topic which arrested our solemn attention to the Gospel. That
   Jesus Christ should die, "the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God,"
   is a thought which commands attention and compels men to hear. As the
   ancient mariner laid hold upon the wedding guest and held him
   spell-bound by his strange story, so have myriads of men been held fast
   by the wondrous news of the love of God in Christ Jesus.

   If we desire attention from sinners we must preach Christ to them--all
   else will be flat and mindless compared with Christ Crucified. The
   first missionaries to Greenland thought that the natives were too
   debased to understand at once the doctrine of Atonement. Therefore they
   began to tell them of the existence of a God and so on. The effect
   produced stale information, but when translating the chapter of John in
   which the passage occurs, "God so loved the world that He gave His
   only-begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but
   have everlasting life," a Greenlander said, "Is that true?" When the
   missionary affirmed that it was, "Why then," said he, "did you not tell
   us that at first, for that is good news, indeed!"

   That there is a God the heavens are telling us! That God will punish
   injustice and wrong, conscience affirms. The visible creation and the
   inner consciousness of man sufficiently declare that there is a God and
   that He is just. But that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto
   Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them--this is a novelty, a
   thing which never was spelt out yet by the wisdom of human nature! And
   so, if attention is to be arrested, it must be through the news, the
   blessed news, of redeeming love! It was so with many of us. We were
   loved out of indifference, loved into attentive hearing--Love won our
   ears to her sweet tale.

   Having come to listen with interest, we were, nevertheless, but little
   anxious to become doers of the Word of God. To be saved did not seem to
   us to be very important. But when we heard, again and again, from our
   minister and from our Bibles of the "great love wherewith He loved us,"
   we began to feel awakened. Love touched our hearts as well as our ears!
   When the sun visits the flowers which have hid themselves away in the
   cold earth to escape from hungry winter, he begins to call them out of
   their hiding places by shining upon them. And then by-and-by they say
   unto themselves, "Let us break our bands of sleep! Let us lift up the
   mold which covers us and let us peep forth that we may see the blessed
   sun, for full surely he is calling us."

   Even so, when the warm beams of Love began to fall upon us in the form
   of invitations, expostulations, entreaties, and instructions, we felt
   their sweet influence and at last we said, "We will arise and seek Him
   who loves our souls, if haply we may be saved by Him." The Lord loved
   us out of our neglect of salvation! Our face was set towards sin and
   our

   back was towards Him, but He loved us right round till we could not
   help turning our faces towards Jesus and our backs upon our sins. Do
   you remember, Brothers and Sisters, when you began to seek the Lord?
   Love had brought you as far as that, but you were hampered with the
   idea that it was of no use to hope for mercy--doubt hung like a head
   shroud upon you--you sat in the region of the shadow of death and you
   would have remained there had you not been loved into faith!

   You were bid to believe in Jesus--it was the Gospel's standing
   message--"Believe and you shall be saved." But how did you come to
   believe, my Brother? I know your answer will be, "He loved me into
   faith." As for myself I saw the great Lover of men hanging on a tree in
   agony and blood--they told me it was love to miserable sinners, love to
   those who hated Him, love to His murderers which made Him bleed--and as
   I understood that it was God who hung there to die a felon's death for
   unworthy men--I know not how it was, my Brothers and Sisters, but all
   of a sudden I felt that I could not help believing! Love compelled me
   to believe!

   Unbelief in the presence of a dying Savior, if that dying Savior's love
   is really understood, must surely be impossible. He, the Lord of
   Heaven, without whom was not anything made that is made, humbling
   Himself to become a Servant unto God and man--and then laying down His
   life a Substitute for the ungodly--and all out of love! What a miracle
   is here! Who can disbelieve in the presence of such love? Savior, we
   must believe You! It is inevitable that we do so! Your love has loved
   us into faith and at the foot of the Cross we hope and trust in You. At
   the time when faith came into our hearts, there came with it the sister
   Grace which always attends it, namely, repentance.

   Beloved, you must remember, I think, the days of your hardness of
   heart. Some of us were very hard--adamant itself is wax compared with
   what our nature was. A mother's tears could not melt us, nor a father's
   careful anxiety. How could we repent of sin? How could a millstone
   feel, or a flint weep? Why, when we heard the Gospel say to us,
   "Repent, and be converted," that command might as well have been spoken
   to dry bones or to marble statues! We could not repent. We were in love
   with our sins! We thought them sweet--we could not turn from them. But,
   oh, do you remember when you did repent? Can you tell how it was
   brought about?

   I remember when my soul was like the rock in Horeb, for it gushed with
   living streams. Yet it was not because Moses' rod had struck it, but
   because Christ's voice of love spoke to it and the rock dissolved into
   floods at once! See the summer's sun assail and vanquish the iceberg
   which has floated from its northern home! Winter's rudest storms could
   not dissolve the monstrous mountain of ice, nor could a thousand
   hurricanes and storms break it in pieces--but the sun shot a strange
   tremor through its heart as soon as he smiled on it and every beam that
   fell from the fair orb of day shot through it like a dart, till at
   last, yielding to the mysterious glow, the iceberg lost its hardness of
   heart, bowed itself from its chilly loftiness, fell into the warm gulf
   stream and was no more to be found!

   Was it not so with you when the eyes of Jesus darted love into your
   heart? How irresistible were His blissful arrows! How deadly to your
   sins! How mortal to your pride! You were soon vanquished! Well does
   John Newton describe our case in his hymn--

   "Lord, You have won, at length I yield. My heart, by mighty trace
   compelled, Surrenders all to You. Against Your terrors long I strove
   But who can stand against Your love? Love conquered even me! If You had
   bid Your thunders roll, And lightning flash, to blast my soul, I still
   had stubborn been. But mercy has my heart subdued, A bleeding Savior I
   have viewed, And now I hate my sin.'

   Truly we were loved into repentance! There were other agents used, of
   course. The Law thundered and conscience smote us, but still the master
   weapon in all the armory of God against our unregenerate hearts was
   love. We admit that it is more than a match for us--we confess that we
   are conquered by its might! The Lord has loved our souls out of the pit
   of corruption into that state of salvation in which we are now found!

   II. Secondly, let us consider that we have been LOVED INTO GROWTH IN
   GRACE. The great motive power

   urging us onward has always been the same love of God. Let us turn
   aside for a few minutes to meditate upon the love of God to us. Our
   hearts will burn within us while we think upon it. It is quite certain,
   my dear Brethren, that you who believe in Jesus are personally the
   objects of the love of the Triune Jehovah. You are loved as much as you
   love your children, or as the bridegroom loves his bride--no, those are
   very feeble images--for you are loved by God infinitely. The heart of
   God never does anything weakly--His love is strong and powerful, for it
   is the affection of an Omnipotent Spirit.

   Remember the words of the Lord Jesus--"As the Father has loved Me even
   so have I loved you." Do you know how much the Father loves His Son?
   Can you form any conception? Are you not baffled in the attempt? "Even
   so," says Jesus, "have I loved you." There is another text from which I
   never expect to preach till I get to Heaven, and I would like to preach
   from it there if a pulpit might be had. It is this--"That the love
   wherewith you have loved Me may be in them and I in them." O, you are
   not dealing with trifles when you are dealing with the love of God to
   you! It is not a spare corner of the heart of God that He gives to
   you--as you may give a little love to the poor Arabs in the street or
   the criminals in the jails--the great, inconceivably vast heart of God
   belongs as much to every Christian as if there were not another being
   in the world for God to love! Even as Jehovah loves His Only-Begotten,
   so does He love each one of His children.

   Remember, too, for this is sweet to think of, the Lord always did love
   you. It is no novelty for God to love His people. He loved you before
   you were born--in the glass of His purposes He saw you--in His book all
   your members were written, which in continuance were fashioned when as
   yet there were none of them. Is it not written, "The Lord has appeared
   of old unto me, saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting
   love"? Divine love had no beginning! Yon stars are babes whose eyes but
   yesterday were opened to the light and yonder mountains are infants
   newly born! But as for God's love, it is coeval with His own Existence
   and the objects of it are always the same.

   Beloved, the love of God to you has never changed! He could not love
   you more. He will not love you less. The Lord's love wild never vary.
   O, believe it, my Brothers and Sisters, it is still the same! Whatever
   may happen to you, or through whatever trials you may pass, with the
   same love while He has loved you He will love you world without end! In
   life, in death and in eternity you are the beloved of the Lord who
   changes not! That same love which had no beginning shall never know an
   end! If it were in my power only to make my Brethren realize the fact
   that they are thus loved, it would elevate them, comfort them and set
   them all in a blaze with love to God! Think it over, and then say, each
   one to himself, "Jehovah, the Eternal, Self-Existent One loves me.
   Jesus, the King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, The Wonderful, Counselor,
   The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace loves me!
   The Holy Spirit, The Wonderworker, The Comforter, The Illuminator loves
   me! What bliss is this!" O, you would not need a sermon if you realized
   this--you would far rather need a place to weep and to sing, and mix
   tears and songs together as you bathed in unspeakable delight!

   Having thus brought the love of God to your remembrance, I want to come
   back to the text and consider, again, that a sense of this love has up
   to now been the cause of all our advances in the Divine life, for
   first, after we were saved, we were still in the pit of corruption in
   the sense that our natural depravity struggled with us for the mastery.
   It would have made us captives to the love of sin if Divine Grace had
   not stepped in. Our hearts were tempted by vanity and wantonness and
   the pleasures of sin, like Sirens, tried to fascinate us to our sure
   destruction. Have you never been in such a condition as a Christian
   that you were compelled to doubt whether you were a Christian at all
   because of the seething and raging of your innate depravity?

   It may be you have never looked, yet, into the crater of that volcano
   of sin which, believe me, is not extinct in any one of us--but if you
   have ever peered into its horrid depths and seen the blackness, and
   heard the boiling up of murders, envy, and lusts, you have said--"O
   wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?" Now, I ask you, how have
   you, up to now, escaped from the love of sin and its enchantments? I
   think I can tell you. God has loved you out of them--loved you right
   away from sin's beauties and temptations! When the dear love of God
   comes into the soul, the man has no more heart for sin--"Sin! How can I
   love you? I cannot endure you, you hateful thing! My God, I want
   perfection! I pine after holiness now that I know that I am Your child,
   Your blood-bought one, a member of the body of Your dear Son, as dear
   to You as He is--I feel that I hate every false way. Away sins! I cry
   revenge against you! I would gladly slaughter you

   all!"--

   "When the wounds of Christ exploring Sin does like itself appear."

   Sin becomes black and hideous and abhorred in proportion as Jesus
   becomes lovely in our eyes. If you love sin, it is because you do not
   feel the love of God, for when that love fills your soul you must hate
   sin. Thus the Lord loves you out of that love to sin. Again, we get
   into the pit of corruption through the tendency of our souls to go
   after idols. Who among us has not been tempted to idolatry? It may be
   the partner of our bosom or a dear child has engrossed our hearts.
   Sometimes our life's ambition or the pursuit of our business has almost
   become our God. Our feet have almost gone--we have set up Dagon or
   Mammon in our heart. It is not easy to live in this world--especially
   to enjoy prosperity--and yet be clear from worshipping idols. How have
   you and I been saved from idols? Not always by having them broken--that
   is a remedy which God is slow to use though He will use it if we are
   obstinate.

   The most effectual, as well as the most delicious medicine to cure
   idolatry is to have the love of God shed abroad in the heart by Jesus
   Christ! Get a sight of the Glory of God in the face of Christ and then
   you will say--

   "Farewell all you mean creatures For in Him is every store. Wealth, or
   friends, or darling beauty, Shall not draw me any more. In my Savior I
   have found a glorious whole." "He is the chief among ten thousand, and
   the altogether lovely." We cannot see the stars when the sun is
   shining. Our dear ones are dear still, but Christ is far dearer. I am
   not afraid for you, dear Brothers, that you will get worldly if you
   know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. I am not afraid for
   you, dear Sister, that the marriage bond will lead you away from
   holiness or that your maternal love will ever rival your love to Jesus
   if you know how sweet and dear He is. Relationships are precious
   things, but they are nothing compared with Him! We love them, but as
   compared with Him we could hate father and mother, and sister and
   brother for His name's sake.

   When a certain martyr was about to be burned, they brought out his wife
   and his 11 little children and bade them kneel in one long row to ask
   their father, for their sakes, to consent to deny the faith and live.
   But as he kissed them one by one and lingered longest over the dear
   mother of them all, he said, "I would do anything for your sakes, my
   dear Ones, that I might live with you. But since it is for Christ, my
   Lord's sake, I must tear myself away even from you." When Jesus is in
   the soul, the idols leave their thrones. He loves us out of the pit of
   idolatry! There is another pit of corruption into which children of God
   sometimes fall, namely, that of sluggishness. We do not always feel
   equally alive towards the Lord and Divine things. Indifference is very
   apt to steal over us.

   There is a portion of the road to Heaven which John Bunyan describes as
   the Enchanted Ground, where a tendency to sleep is very strong upon all
   pilgrims. Some pilgrims of my acquaintance are pretty constantly
   traversing that part of the road and are never quite awake. Very few
   Christians are quickened into diligence and fervor by the scourge! I do
   a little bit of whipping, sometimes, and I think I do right, for my
   Master would not clear me if I suffered Believers to sleep without
   waking them. But I am certain that the only effectual cure for a
   slumbering Christian is to let him have the love of Christ shed abroad
   in his heart--and here I speak by experience--for I have found that it
   is the only thing which can quicken me. I think over my duties, but I
   am none the more in love with them. I look over my responsibilities,
   but I am scarcely the more impressed by them. But when I feel that my
   Lord has chosen me from before the foundation of the world, loved me
   and given Himself for me, then am I awakened!

   When I have a sight of His thorn-crowned brow. When I see His majesty
   of misery. When He shows me His hands and feet and side, and says, "I
   have done all this for you and I am prepared to do yet more, for you
   shall be with Me where I am, that you may share My Glory"--then I need
   neither scourge nor spur to awake me--then for the love I bear His name
   my heart becomes like the chariots of Amminadib, swift in duty, with
   axles red hot with fervor! Then my soul would fly like the chariot of
   God when He rides on the wings of the wind! Have you not felt it? What
   blessed preaching it is when the heart glows with a sense of love! What
   happy Sunday school teaching it is when you know that Jesus loved you!
   What a delightful thing it is to make sacrifices, to give your
   substance, to bear and to suffer if once you feel the love of Christ
   burning within your soul!

   The same is true of that abominable pit of selfishness, self-esteem,
   pride and self-seeking into which our feet so easily glide. Beloved, we
   are always something when Christ is nothing. We are always nothing when
   Christ is All-in-All to us.

   We cannot do Christ's work when our base hearts are puffed up with
   conceit! But when we once see His beauty, then we feel that the laces
   of His shoes we are not worthy to unloose. We know right well that we
   have no business to be proud nor to shirk hard work and seek our own
   ease. We know that and we condemn ourselves for this wrong--but we go
   on with it till the moment the love of God enters the soul--and then we
   are rid of it! Then we do, indeed, hate ourselves for ever having
   imagined that anything that could be done for Christ was difficult.

   I am ashamed to be speaking to you coolly on a theme which is like fire
   within my own bones. I pray the Master, however, to make it like fire
   in your souls, also. The love of Christ is the very best cure for
   selfishness. And it is equally a cure for despondency and unbelief.
   What a pit of corruption unbelief is--a pit in which we hear strange
   noises of terrors to come, while unseen fears as to the present rush to
   and fro with horrible sounds. "I cannot believe, I cannot trust," says
   the man, but when God's love is shed abroad in his heart it is easy
   enough to believe. He asks himself, "How can I distrust? I know what
   Jesus did for me upon the Cross--how can I doubt? The Lord cannot be
   unkind to me in Providence, for it is impossible that He can forsake
   those whose names are engraved upon the palms of His hands."

   God does not chide His people out of their unbelief, but loves them out
   of it! He indulges them with such sweet festivals in the banqueting
   house of communion--He does so sweetly stay them with flagons and
   comfort them with apples that they soon shake off the sickness of
   unbelief. Many a child of God can bear witness that the Lord has loved
   him out of his impatience. When he has been full of pain he has thought
   that God dealt harshly with him--but when Love has told him that all
   things work together for his good, he has endured pain with
   cheerfulness and gloried in his infirmities! In one word, are any of
   you suffering today under any spiritual malady? Is any sin too strong
   for you? Does any virtue appear to be so high that you cannot attain to
   it?

   Behold I will be a guide to you this morning and point you out a path
   by which you may escape from your sin and rise to the greatest heights
   of Grace! Do you see that narrow line, that blessed pathway? It is a
   path which Love has made. Follow it and you shall come where you should
   be. Not there, not there where Moses says you go! Not there, not there
   where fear says if you do not you will be destroyed! Not there where
   conscience alarms and terrifies! But here where Jesus shows Himself to
   you and says, "I am married to you. You are My spouse, you are all My
   own. I love you better than I love Myself, for I did not spare
   Myself--but I died for you. I will love you whatever your infirmity and
   sin may be. I will love you till I have washed you and made you clean.
   And then I will present you to Myself without spot or wrinkle, or any
   such thing. I am drawing you, but you do not come as you should.
   However, I will still draw you till I have drawn you away from
   yourself, your sin and your folly. I will draw you, and draw you, and
   draw you till I draw you up to My right hand and there you shall be
   with Me forever!"

   Beloved, you can do anything when you feel this! You can do nothing if
   you do not feel it. Lose your sense of Jesus' love and the power of
   your religion is gone. You have stolen the life if you have taken away
   the love. Oh, believe it! Know it! Pray for it! Spirit of God, make
   them feel it and anything shall be possible, whether of sin slain or
   duty worked! I have often felt myself to be a mere expanse of foulness,
   like the mudflats by the seashore when the tide is out. As far as the
   eye can see is a continent of mud, with black rocks, rotting seaweed,
   pieces of wreck, creeping things innumerable and such foul matters as
   the eye might never wish to see again. What is to be done with this
   dismal region? Here lie the fisher boats embedded in the mud, what
   shall float them? It would be impossible to drag them down to the
   sea--must they lie there and decay? What is to be done with this mud
   and weed?

   Wait and lo, at the appointed time, the sea advances from its bed!
   Ripple by ripple, wave by wave it rises, spreading out itself like a
   molten looking glass, where just now all was foul. And lo, yonder ships
   are lifted--they walk the waters like things of life--while all that
   rotted in the noonday sun is forgotten and the waves follow each other
   with continuous flashes of silver sheen! O Lord, You are that sea of
   love--Your mercies are Your waves of lovingkindness! Let them come up
   and flood my soul! With infinite power of love, arise and cover all my
   nature. I hope the Lord will deal so with all of you, if not by means
   of this sermon, yet by some other agency. Never rest until you enjoy
   this love, and when you do enjoy it, keep it.

   If you find my Beloved, hold Him and do not let Him go till you bring
   Him into His mother's house among His brethren. When it is well with
   you, I pray you speak for me to the King, that He would keep me, His
   servant, for the sake of His people to whom I minister, living ever in
   the light of His countenance, for there is strength and there is power
   for ministry and everything else beside.

   III. That love which loved us out of nature into Grace has yet another
   work to do. The Lord will LOVE US OUT OF GRACE INTO GLORY. I know what
   troubles you in your quiet moments. You are thinking about the passage
   of that "narrow stream of death," as we call it in our hymn. You are
   advanced in years and you know that death must come very soon. The
   thought of death depresses you and you need not be surprised that it
   should, for God has planted a Law of self-preservation in us all which
   makes us love life. Nature shudders at the grave, but whenever your
   nature starts back from dying, think of your faithful God and be
   assured that He will love you through death. You shall be carried
   through it by the force of love.

   One of the points about death which alarms you is this--you dread pain.
   Now, remember there is no pain in death--the pain is in life--when a
   man dies there is an end of life's pain! Death is the pain killer, not
   the pain maker! Do you fear the pains associated with death? Have you
   not already endured pain and been made to forget it through being
   divinely sustained by love? The love of God, I do avow it, has often
   acted as a Sovereign remedy for anguish. The bitter has been forgotten
   in the sweetness of fellowship with God. Who says that there is no God,
   no Christ, no Heaven? We have seen them all! Our eyes have seen
   them--not these poor optics which were only meant to spy out a few
   things in this dark world--but our inner eyes which see best in the
   blessed sunlight of eternity! With those eyes we have seen God and the
   enjoyment of the ravishing vision has subdued all the feebleness of the
   flesh and removed the pangs of the body.

   Now Christian, that is what God will do with you when you come to
   die--He will bear you up on eagles' wings, so that you will say with
   one of the old saints, "Is this dying? Why it is worth while to live
   only to enjoy the pleasure of such a death as this," and yet he was not
   free from pain--he was loved above pain. But you say, "My trouble is
   about parting from dear friends." You think it will be a very sharp
   pinch to be separated from the wife and from your friends. So it would
   be--but when Jesus shall stand at your bedside and reveal Himself in a
   more apparent manner than He has ever done before--you will turn away
   from wife and children and friends and say, "O Lord, let me be with You
   where You are, for my soul is taken up with You rather than with
   these."

   You had a little medicine to give your boy the other night and it had a
   bad flavor, but you mixed it with some sweet confection and he never
   tasted the bitter. Thus the pangs of separation will be mixed up with
   the sweetness of seeing Christ, so that you will not mourn. That is a
   blessed passage, "Death is swallowed up in victory," as though it were
   dropped like one black, cruel drop into the cup and then Victory was
   poured in as generous wine--and you drank the bitter drop right up
   before you knew it! Saints shall not know that they die, but only that
   they have gained the victory! "O, but I am afraid of death, itself,"
   says one, "it is not parting with friends, or the pain, but I dread
   death, itself." O, Soul, when Jesus comes to meet you, you will know
   nothing at all about death. He will love you into Heaven! In a moment
   He will embrace you and you shall be with Him!

   Those dear lips which are like lilies dropping sweet smelling myrrh
   shall kiss you away and you will be among the songs of angels in an
   instant! You shall not see death--you shall only see your Master! There
   shall be no skeleton with a scythe to cut you down--but a dear hand of
   love to gather you and place you in the Father's bosom--

   "One gentle sigh, the fetter breaks, We scarce can say he's gone,
   Before the ransomed spirit takes Its mansion near the throne."

   The Rabbis say that God took Moses' soul away with a kiss. So it was I
   doubt not, for so He does with all His saints--He kisses them into
   Heaven. "You have loved my soul out of the pit of corruption." Now,
   when you and I stand in Heaven, with these poor heads enriched with the
   crown and waving the palm branch in these hands, what bliss will be
   ours! Here, let us stand upon this crystal rock a moment and gaze adown
   the precipice of light. There, lean over, my Brother spirit, and look
   steadily down.

   See where stars and suns are glistering like glow-worms far below? How
   small their grandeur compared with ours in these sublime abodes! Look
   further down and peer into that awful darkness, that profound abyss,
   across which flash the flames of infinite wrath, kindling evermore
   afresh the fires of punishment. Oh, as we stand upon these heavenly
   heights and gaze upon the Eternal without fear--and then see far below
   us the outer darkness and the unquenchable fire, shall we not sing
   aloud unto Him who has "loved our soul from the pit of corruption"?
   Yes, we will sing louder and louder and louder and louder, and no
   cherubim or seraphim shall ever excel us in the fullness of our
   grateful praise! Blessing and

   honor and glory and power be unto Him whose name is Love, who has
   poured forth all His love upon us, His chosen, and saved us from the
   abyss of woe!

   To His name be praise forever and ever! O, Sirs, will you all know this
   love? Will you all sing of it? Will you all be able to say, "He loved
   me out of the pit of corruption"? You may say it--you shall say it if
   you believe in Jesus! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Isaiah 38.
     __________________________________________________________________

Motives for Steadfastness

   A Sermon

   (No. 1111)

   Delivered on Lord's Day Morning, May 11, 1873, by

   C.H. SPURGEON,

   At the [1]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always
   abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor
   is not in vain in the Lord."— 1 Corinthians 15:58.

   THE apostle had been putting forth all his strength to prove the
   doctrine of the resurrection, yet he was not diverted from his habitual
   custom of making practical use of the doctrine which he established. He
   proves his point, and then he goes on to his "therefore," which is
   always an inference of godliness. He is the great master of doctrine:
   if you want the Christian creed elaborated, and its details laid out in
   order, you must turn to the epistles of Paul; but at the same time he
   is always a practical teacher. Paul was not like those who hew down
   trees and square them by rule and system, but forget to build the house
   therewith. True, he lifteth up a goodly axe upon the thick trees, but
   he always makes use of that which he hews down, he lays the beams of
   his chambers, and forgets not the carved work thereof. He brings to
   light the great stones of truth, and cuts them out of the live rock of
   mystery; but he is not content with being a mere quarryman, he labors
   to be a wise master builder, and with the stones of truth to erect the
   temple of Christian holiness. If I shift the figure I may say that our
   apostle does not grope among the lower strata of truth, hunting out the
   deep things and spending all his force upon them, but he ploughs the
   rich upper soil, he sows, he reaps, he gathers in a harvest, and feeds
   many. Thus should the practical ever flow from the doctrinal like wine
   from the clusters of the grape. The Puritans were wont to call the end
   of the sermon, in which they enforced the practical lessons, the
   "improvement" of the subject; and, truly, the apostle Paul was a master
   in the way of "improvement." Hence in this present chapter, though he
   has been dealing with the fact of resurrection, and arguing with all
   his might in defense of it, he cannot close till he has said,
   "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, umnoveable, always
   abounding in the work of the Lord."

   My brethren, this is a lesson for us; let us never reckon that we have
   learned a doctrine till we have seen its bearing upon our lives.
   Whatever we discover in God's word, let us pray the Holy Spirit to make
   us feel the sanctifying influence of it. You know not a man because you
   recognize his features, you must also know his spirit, and so the mere
   acquaintance with the letter of truth is of small account—you must feel
   its influence and know its tendency. There are some brethren who are so
   enamored of doctrine that no preacher will content them unless he gives
   them over and over again clear statements of certain favourite truths:
   but the moment you come to speak of practice they fight shy of it at
   once, and either denounce the preacher as being legal, or they grow
   weary of that which they dare not contradict. Let it never be so with
   us. Let us follow up truth to its practical "therefore." Let us love
   the practice of holiness as much as the belief of the truth; and,
   though we desire to know, let us take care when we know that we act
   according to the knowledge, for if we do not our knowledge itself will
   become mischievous to us, will involve us in responsibilities, but will
   bring to us no effectual blessing. Let everyone here who knoweth aught,
   now pray God to teach him float he would have him to do, as the
   consequence of that knowledge.

   This morning our subject will be the practical outflow of the
   resurrection, the great inference which should be drawn from the fact
   that death is swallowed up in victory. There should be fine flour from
   the grinding of such choice wheat.

   The text has in it two things: first, it mentions two great points of
   Christian character—"stedfast, unmoveable," and "always abounding in
   the work of the Lord;" and, secondly, it gives us a grand motive for
   the cultivation of these two characteristics—inasmuch as the doctrine
   of the resurrection being true, "ye know that your labor is not in vain
   in the Lord."

   I. First, then, let us consider THE TWO GREAT POINTS OF CHRISTIAN
   CHARACTER here set before us.

   1. The first one is "be ye stedfast, unmoveable." Two things are wanted
   in a good soldier, steadiness under fire, and enthusiasm during a
   charge. The first is the more essential in most battles, for victory
   often depends upon the power of endurance which makes a battalion of
   men into a wall of brass. We want the dashing courage which can carry a
   position by storm—that will be used up in the second
   characteristic—"always abounding in the work of the Lord;" but in the
   commencement of the attack, and at critical points all through the
   campaign, the most essential virtue for victory is for a soldier to
   know how to keep his place, and "having done all to stand."

   The apostle has given us two words descriptive of godly firmness, and
   we may be sure that as Holy Scripture never uses a superfluity of
   words, each word has a distinct meaning. "Stedfast" alone would not
   have sufficed, but "unmoveable" must be added. Let us look at the word
   "stedfast" first. Beloved, be ye stedfast. By this the apostle means,
   first, be ye stedfast in the doctrines of the gospel. Know what you
   know, and, knowing it cling to it. Hold fast the form of sound
   doctrine. Do not be as some are, of doubtful mind, who know nothing,
   and even dare to say that nothing can be known. To such the highest
   wisdom is to suspect the truth of everything they once knew, and to
   hang in doubt as to whether there are any fundamentals at all. I should
   like an answer from the Broad Church divines to one short and plain
   question. What truth is so certain and important as to justify a man in
   sacrificing his life to maintain it? Is there any doctrine for which a
   wise man should yield his body to be burned? According to all that I
   can understand of modern liberalism, religion is a mere matter of
   opinion, and no opinion is of sufficient importance to be worth
   contending for. The martyrs might have saved themselves a world of loss
   and pain if they had been of this school, and the Reformers might have
   spared the world all this din about Popery and Protestantism. I deplore
   the spread of this infidel spirit, it will eat as doth a canker. Where
   is the strength of a church when its faith is held in such low esteem?
   Where is conscience? Where is love of truth? Where soon will be common
   honesty? In these days with some men, in religious matters, black is
   white, and all things are whichever color may happen to be in your own
   eye, the color being nowhere but in your eye, theology being only a set
   of opinions, a bundle of views and persuasions. The Bible to these
   gentry is a nose of wax which everybody may shape just as he pleases.
   Beloved, beware of falling into this state of mind; for if you do so I
   boldly assert that you are not Christian at all, for the Spirit which
   dwells in believers hates falsehood, and clings firmly to the truth.
   Our great Lord and Master taught mankind certain great truths plainly
   and definitely, stamping them with his "Verily, verily;" and as to the
   marrow of them he did not hesitate to say, "He that believeth shall be
   saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned;" a sentence very
   abhorrent to modern charity, but infallible nevertheless. Jesus never
   gave countenance to the baseborn charity which teaches that it is no
   injury to a man's nature to believe a lie. Beloved, be firm, be
   stedfast, be positive. There are certain things which are true; find
   them out, grapple them to you as with hooks of steel. Buy the truth at
   any price and sell it at no price.

   Be ye stedfast also in the sense of not being changeable. Some have one
   creed to-day and another creed to-morrow, variable as a lady's
   fashions. Indeed, we once heard a notable divine assert that he had to
   alter his creed every week, he was unable to tell on Monday what he
   would believe on Wednesday, for so much fresh light broke in upon his
   receptive intellect. There are crowds of persons nowadays of that kind
   described by Mr. Whitfield when he said you might as well try to
   measure the moon for a suit of clothes as to tell what they believed.
   Ever learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth. Shifting as
   sandbanks are their teachings and as full of danger. The apostle says
   to us, "Be ye stedfast." Having learned the truth hold it, grow into
   it, let the roots of your soul penetrate into its center and drink up
   the nourishment which lies therein, but do not be for ever
   transplanting yourselves from soil to soil. How can a tree grow when
   perpetually shifted? How can a soul make progress if it is evermore
   changing its course? Do not sow in Beersheba and then rush off to reap
   in Dan. Jesus Christ is not yea and nay; he is not to-day one thing and
   tomorrow another, but the "same to-day, yesterday, and for ever." True
   religion is not a series of guesses at truth, but "we speak what we do
   know, and testify what we have seen." That which your experience has
   proved to you, that which you have clearly seen to be the word of God,
   that which the Spirit beareth witness to in your consciousness, that
   hold you with iron grasp. Skin for skin, yea, all that a man has, will
   he give for his life, and to us the holding of the truth is essential
   to our life. The Holy Ghost has given his unction unto the people of
   God, and they know the truth, and moreover they know that no lie is of
   the truth. Were it not for this anointing the very elect would have
   been deceived in this age of falsehood. Brethren, be ye stedfast.

   But the apostle meant much more, he intended to urge us to be stedfast
   in character. Right in the middle of the chapter upon the resurrection
   he speaks about character. He shows that a change of view upon the
   doctrine of the resurrection would legitimately lead to a change of
   action; for if the dead rise not, then it is clearly wisdom to say,
   "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die:" but inasmuch as the
   resurrection doctrine is true, he urges us to keep to that holy living
   which is the natural inference from belief in eternal life and the
   judgment to come. As ye have looked to the recompense of the reward
   hereafter, and have sought to order your conversation by a sense of the
   coming judgment, so do ye still, and be ye stedfast. Alas, we might
   preach tearful discourses to many Christians upon stedfastness of
   behavior, for they have started aside as a deceitful bow. There was a
   time when their integrity was unquestioned, but now they have learned
   the ways of a faithless world; truth was on their lip, but now they
   have learned to flatter. They have lost the pure speech of the New
   Jerusalem, and speak in the Babylonian tongue. How many professors were
   once exceeding zealous, but are now careless! the fire of their love
   burns dimly, its coal is all but quenched. Prayer was their delight,
   but now it wearies them. The praises of God were perpetually in their
   mouth, but now they forget their Benefactor. They labored abundantly in
   the Redeemer's service, but now they can scarce be stirred out of their
   luxurious indolence. Beloved, if God has sanctified you by his Spirit,
   be ye stedfast in character. Suffer not your divinely-wrought sanctity
   to be stained. Be ye not sometimes watchful, but be ye always so, by
   the help of the good Spirit. Whereunto ye have attained in the things
   of God, walk by that rule still. Be ye not corrupted by evil
   communications. Make your private and public life of a piece. Let not
   the worldling peep into your house and discover that your godliness is
   an article intended for foreign consumption only. Be ye such that if ye
   be watched anywhere, and at any time, your sincerity will be
   manifested. O for consistency among professors! Its absence is the
   weakness of the church, and its restoration will bring to us unnumbered
   blessings.

   In addition to being stedfast in doctrine and character, we need to be
   exhorted to stedfastness in attainments. O brethren, if we were now
   what we sometimes have been, how ripe for glory should we be! If we
   could but keep the ground which we conquer, how soon would all Canaan
   be ours! But is not Christian life with a great many very like the
   condition of the sea? The sea advances, it gains gradually upon the
   beach—you would think it was about to inundate the land; but after it
   has reached its highest point it retires, and so it spends its force in
   perpetual ebb and flow. Are not ebb-and-flow Christians common as
   sea-shells? Life to them is the unprogressive change of advance and
   recede: to-day all earnest, to-morrow all indifferent; to-day generous,
   to-morrow mean; to-day filled with the fullness of God, to-morrow
   naked, and poor, and miserable. What they build with one hand they pull
   down with the other. Sad that it should be so. I must confess I find it
   far easier to climb the greatest heights of grace, and especially of
   communion, than to maintain the elevation. For a flight now and then
   our wings are sufficient; we mount, we soar, we rise into the spiritual
   regions, and we exult as we rise; but our pinion droops, we grow weary
   of the heights, and we descend to earth like stones which have been
   thrown into the air. Alas! that it should be so. Be ye stedfast. When
   ye climb ask for grace to keep there; when your wing has borne you up
   ask that there you may be poised till the Lord shall call you to your
   nest in heaven. Is your faith strong? Why should it decline again? Is
   your hope vivid? Why should that bright eye of yours grow dim, and look
   no more within the golden gates? Is your love fervent? Why should it be
   chilled? Cannot the breath of the Eternal Spirit keep the fire at full
   blaze? Wherefore is it that we do run well and then are hindered? We
   are short-winded, we cannot watch with our Lord one hour, we grow weary
   and faint in our minds. Alexander could not thus have won a world if
   after fighting the battle of Issus he had stopped short of the
   Granicus: if the Macedonian hero had said, "I have done enough, I will
   go back to Greece and enjoy my victories," his empire had never become
   universal. Nor would Columbus have discovered a new world if he had
   sailed a little way into the unknown ocean and then had turned his
   timid prow towards port. "Onward!" is the motto of the earnest, all the
   world over, and should it not be the watchword of the Christian? Shall
   we be content with a wretched poverty of grace? Shall we be satisfied
   to wear the rags of inconsistency? God forbid. Let us bestir ourselves,
   and when we make headway along the river of life, may God grant us
   grace to cast anchor and hold our place, lest we drift back myth the
   next tide, or be blown back by the next change of wind. "Be ye
   stedfast."

   We shall not have brought out the full force of the text unless we say
   that the apostle evidently refers to Christian work, for he says, "be
   ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord." So
   that he means be stedfast in your work which the Lord has laid upon you
   to do. Perseverance is at once the crown and the cross of service. It
   is very easy to preach for a little while, but I can assure you that
   preaching to a congregation year after year involves no little toil;
   yet are we bound to be stedfast in this ministry. A spurt, a leap, a
   bound—these are easy, but to press on continually is the difficulty.
   Have you taken a class in the Sabbath-school? The novelty of it may
   carry you through a month or two, but, dear friend, be stedfast and
   hold on year after yea, for therein will lie your honor and success. If
   you should be discouraged, because you meet with no present success,
   yet persevere, yea, endure to the end. If God has given you any work to
   do, it is yours to press—forward in it, whether you prosper in it or
   not. The negro said, you remember, that if God bade him jump through a
   wall, whether he could go through it or not was no business of his.
   "Here I go," says he, "right at it." We may rest assured that the Lord
   never did command us to leap through a wall without causing it to give
   way when our faith brought us to the test. We have to obey the precept,
   and leave the consequences. If God says, "Do it," the command is both
   the warrant for our act and the security for our being aided with all
   necessary help. Noah preached for one hundred and twenty years, and
   when his term of warning ministry was over, where were his converts? He
   may have had a great many, but they were all dead and buried, and with
   the exception of himself and family, after one hundred and twenty
   years' ministry, there remained not one that God would preserve alive;
   and into the ark he went, the grandest unsuccessful preacher that ever
   lived, faithful unto death, to be rewarded of his God as much as if he
   had induced half the world to flee from the wrath to come. Let us,
   therefore, remain stedfast in doctrine, in character, in attainment and
   in labor. To this end help us, O Holy Ghost.

   But the apostle adds, "unmoveable." He supposes that our stedfastness
   will be tried, and he bills us remain unmoveable. Be "stedfast" in
   times of peace, like rocks in the midst of a calm and glassy sea; be ye
   unmoveable if ye are assailed like those same rocks in the midst of the
   tempest when the billows dash against them. Brethren, when you are
   assailed by argument, be unmoveable. I say, "argument," but I am
   complimenting our adversaries, their objections do not deserve the
   name. It will never be possible for any man living to answer all the
   queries which others can raise, or reply to all objections which may be
   brought against the most obvious facts. If any person here were
   sceptical as to my standing at this present moment upon this platform,
   I am not certain that I should be able to convince him that I am here.
   I am quite sure of it myself, but I have no doubt a sceptic would be
   able to advance objections which would require a keener wit than mine
   to remove, notwithstanding that the matter would be plain enough if the
   objector would throw away his logic and use his common sense. Now the
   arguments against the resurrection which the apostle mentions, were
   such as he could easily remove. Such a one as this, for instance: How
   are the dead raised up? Paul seems to have lost his patience in
   answering it, and he called the man a fool; and you may depend upon it
   he was a fool, or else the apostle would not have called him so.
   Granted the existence of a God, you need never ask "How?" If there be
   omnipotence, there is no room for the question, "How?" God the Almighty
   can do what he wills, and he is a fool who asks "How?" after once he
   has believed in God. Most of the objections against the articles of our
   holy faith are contemptible, yet none the less difficult to answer
   because contemptible, for an argument is not always apparently strong
   in proportion to its reasonableness. It may be easier to obviate an
   objection which has some force in it than to overthrow another which
   has positively no force at all; in fact, the most difficult arguments
   to answer are thou which are insane at the core, for you must be insane
   yourself before you can quite catch the thought which insanity has
   uttered, and as you do not wish to qualify for controversy with fools,
   by becoming a fool yourself, you may not be able to reply to your
   antagonist. It will be your right course to be stedfast, unmoveable,
   that your adversary may see that his sophisms are of no avail. Whatever
   may be said against our faith we can afford to despise it, since we
   know that our Lord Jesus Christ has risen from the dead: the evidence
   of that fact is beyond dispute, and that being proved our faith rests
   on a rock. Prove the resurrection (and we say it is proved by the best
   witnesses, and plenty of them), then our faith is true, and we will
   hold it in the teeth of all opposition. Do not be carried away,
   therefore, by the sophistry of cunning men, neither be ye cast down.
   When it is rumoured at any time that a learned man has found out some
   very wonderful thing which is to put an end to the Bible, do you calmly
   reply—let him find out another wonderful thing, if so it pleases him.
   If our wise men have discovered a new origin for the human race, or if
   they have invented a new way of making a world, we hope their new toy
   will please them, but such things are not to our mind, we have other
   and weightier concerns besides fiddling or philosophizing. We have no
   more reverence for these profane dreamers than they have for the Bible;
   they are nothing to us. Christ has risen from the dead; nothing in
   physiology or geology can ever contradict that, and if he be risen from
   the dead them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him, and in
   that faith we abide.

   We shall be met in addition to argument by what is far more powerful,
   namely, by surrounding example. The world never overcame the church in
   argument yet, for it has always refuted itself. When let alone the
   unbelieving world has eaten its own words, like Saturn devouring his
   own children. Whenever any smith in the world's armoury has forged a
   weapon against the truth, there has always been another smith at work
   in the same smithy preparing another weapon wherewith to break the
   first in pieces: the man has done it not in the interests of the
   gospel, but in his own interest, and with desire only for his own
   honor, but he has done the work of the Lord, not knowing what he did.
   The bad example of the world has often told upon the soldiers of Christ
   with far more powerful effect. What the arms of Rome could not do
   against Hannibal, his Capuan holidays are said to have accomplished;
   his soldiers were conquered by luxury, though invincible by force. When
   the church lies down at ease, she is apt to feel the diseases of
   abundance. The current of the world runs furiously towards sin, and the
   fear is lest the Lord's swimmers should not be able to stem the flood.
   It is sad when professors of our holy religion do as others do. It is
   folly to be singular, except when to be singular is to be right, but it
   often happens that we forget the rightness of the thing in the fear of
   being singular. Brethren, care nothing about custom, for custom is no
   excuse for sin. Be ye stedfast, and if all men are turned to this or
   that, listen not to their "Lo, heres" and "Lo, theres," but stand
   inflexible for holiness, and God, and truth. "Be ye stedfast,
   unmoveable."

   As you are not moved by the world's custom, so take care not to be
   moved by its persecutions. To-day the persecutions which we meet with
   are very petty; they amount to little more than here and there the loss
   of a situation, the denial of trade, the being turned out of a farm, or
   more commonly they go no further than a sneer, a bad name, or a
   slander. But be ye stedfast, unmoveable whatever may betide. Never let
   a man, who is but a worm, frown you away from your God. Bid defiance to
   his fierce looks and angry words, and like a man of God continue in the
   right way whether you offend or please.

   And equally be unmoveable to the world's smiles. It will put on its
   sweetest looks and tempt you with its painted cheeks and artful
   fascinations. Like Jezebel it will tire its head and look out of the
   window, but like Jehu do you say, "Fling her down! "No peace or truce
   are you to hold with this crooked and perverse generation. If God
   prospers you in business let not your riches make you proud; if you
   have to toil, and there should come in your way an easy escape from
   hard labor by some crooked path, accept it not, be unmoveable. Let
   neither the soft south wind nor the boisterous north wind stir you from
   your foothold. God help you to be faithful unto death.

   If ever there was a period in the Christian church when professors
   needed to be exhorted to be "stedfast, unmoveable," it is just now, for
   the foundations are removed and all things are out of course. Men
   remove the old landmarks, they break down the pillars of the house. All
   things reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man, and only he who
   keepeth the feet of his saints can preserve our uprightness. I see the
   tacklings loosed and the mast unstrengthened, and the brave vessel of
   the church is in an evil case. Many have left their moorings and are
   drifting hither and thither, their helmsmen all amazed. No longer does
   the squadron of the Lord sail in order of battle, but the lines are
   broken and the vessels yield to the tossings of winds and waves. Alas,
   that it should be so. O where is he that trod the sea? The pilot of the
   Galilean lake! I see him walking the waters, and he cries to us who
   still stand true to the one Lord, the one faith, and the one baptism,
   "Be ye stedfast, unmoveable." Whatever other denominations of
   Christians do, be ye true to your Lord in all things, for those who
   forsake him shall be written in the dust. Beloved, never stir away from
   the truth! Some are changeable by constitution like Reuben, "unstable
   as water, they shall not excel." A mind on wheels knows no rest, it is
   as a rolling thing before the tempest. Struggle against the desire for
   novelty, or it will lead you astray as the will-o'-the-wisp deceives
   the traveler. If you desire to be useful, if you long to honor God, if
   you wish to be happy, be established in the truth, and be not carried
   about by every wind of doctrine in these evil days. "Be ye stedfast,
   unmoveable."

   2. The second characteristic of a Christian, however, we must speak
   upon. He is described as "always abounding in the work of the Lord," in
   which we will briefly show that there are four things.

   First, dear brethren, every Christian ought to be engaged "in the work
   of the Lord." We should all have work to do for our divine Master.
   True, our everyday labor ought to be so done as to render honor to his
   name, but in addition to that, every Christian should be laboring in
   the Lord in some sphere of holy service. I shall not enlarge, but I
   shall pass the question round to each one." What are you doing for
   Jesus Christ?" I pray each one here who makes a profession of faith in
   Jesus to answer the question, "What am I doing in the work and service
   of the Lord?" If you are doing nothing, I pray you bewail your
   slothfulness and escape from it, for talents wrapped in napkins will be
   terrible witnesses against you.

   Then the apostle says, secondly, we are not only to be "in the work of
   the Lord," but we are to abound in it. Do much, very much, all you can
   do, and a little more. "How is that?" says one. I do not think a man is
   doing all he can do if he is not attempting more than he will complete.
   Our vessels are never full till they run over. The little over proves
   our zeal, tries our faith, casts us upon God and wins his help. That
   which we cannot do of ourselves, leads us to call in divine strength,
   and then wonders are wrought. If you are only aiming at what you feel
   able to accomplish, your work will be a poor one, lacking in heroism,
   deficient in the noble element of confidence in the unseen Lord.
   Abound, then, and super-abound in the work of the Lord.

   Next note that the apostle says, "always abounding." Some Christians
   think it enough to abound on Sundays: Paul says, "always abounding."
   That has reference to Mondays: to which day does it not refer? When you
   are young and in your vigor, abound in service. I recommend all young
   men to work for God with all their might while they can, for all too
   soon our energies flag, and the sere and yellow leaf forbids any more
   young shoots. I would equally urge every man of middle age to use all
   his time, gifts, and energies at once for the Lord—"always abounding."
   Nor should the old man retire; he is to bring forth fruit in old age.
   The apostle says nothing about retiring from the work of the Lord, but
   "always abounding." "Oh, but we must give the young people an
   opportunity of doing something for God!" Do you mean that you will give
   the young people an opportunity of doing your work, because if you do I
   am in arms against so gross an error, for Christian work can never be
   done by proxy. Throw such an idea away with abhorrence. This is the age
   of proxy. People are not charitable, but they beg a guinea from
   somebody else to be charitable with. It is said that charity nowadays
   means that A finds B to be in distress, and therefore asks C to help
   him. Let us not in this fashion shirk our work. Go and do your own
   work, each man bearing his own burden, and not trying to pile a double
   load on other men's shoulders. Brethren, from morn till night sow
   beside all waters with unstinting hand.

   The text calls this service "the work of the Lord," and we must ever
   bear this in mind; so that if we are enabled to abound in Christian
   service we may never become proud, but may remember that it is God's
   work in us rather than our own work, and whatever we accomplish is
   accomplished rather by God in us than by us for God. Jesus tells us,
   "Without me ye can do nothing." "Always abound," my brethren, not only
   in work for the Lord, but in the work of the Lord in yourselves, for
   only as he works in you to will and to do will you be able to work in
   his name acceptably.

   Put these two things together, the man is to be stedfast, and to abound
   in work. To come back to my figure of a soldier, these two things are
   wanted—we want a soldier who can hold his position under a galling
   fire, but we want him also to dash to the front and lead on a forlorn
   hope. We need many spiritual Uhlans who can ride ahead and pioneer for
   others with dauntless courage, but we cannot dispense with the heavy
   armed infantry who hold their own and wait till the battle turns. It is
   said that the French had courage enough on the spur of the moment to
   have rushed up to the cannon's mouth, but that the German was the
   victor because he could quietly abide the heat of the battle and when
   affairs looked black, he doggedly kept his post. In the long run stay
   is the winning virtue; he that endureth to the end the same shall be
   saved. He who can wait with hope is the man to fight with courage. He
   crouches down until the fit moment comes, and then he leaps like a lion
   from the thicket upon the foe. God grant that we may have in this place
   a body of Christian people who shall be stedfast and unmoveable, yet at
   an times as diligent as they are firm, as intensely zealous as they are
   obstinately conservative of the truth as it is in Jesus. "Stedfast,
   unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord."

   II. Our last point is THE MOTIVE WHICH URGES US TO THESE TWO DUTIES.
   There are a great many other motives, but the one mentioned in the text
   is "forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."
   If we derive our motives for Christian labor or stedfastness from the
   things which we see, our spirit will oscillate from ardor into
   coldness, it will rise and fall with the circumstances around us. It is
   comparatively easy for a successful man to go on preaching or otherwise
   laboring for the Lord, but I admire the perseverance of the man who
   remains faithful under defeat. To get such a faithfulness we must
   disentangle ourselves from the idea of being rewarded here; we must be
   stedfast and unmoveable though nobody praises us, and abound in the
   work of the Lord though no fruit should come from it, because we have
   looked beyond this present realm of death, and have gazed into another
   world where the resurrection shall bring with it our reward.

   Dear brethren, let us be stedfast, for our principles are true. If
   Christ has not risen from the dead, then we are the dupes of an
   imposition, and let us give it up. Why should we credulously adhere to
   that which is false? But if Christ hath risen from the dead, then our
   doctrines are true, and let us hold them firmly and promulgate them
   earnestly. Since our cause is a good one, let us seek to advance it.
   Only that which is true will live, time devours the false; the
   death-warrant of every false doctrine is signed. A fire is already
   kindled which will consume the wood and hay and stubble of error, but
   our principles are gold and silver and precious stones, and will endure
   the flame. "Therefore, let us be stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding
   in the work of the Lord." Jesus Christ is risen from the dead,
   therefore what we do is not done for a dead Christ. We are not fighting
   for a dead man's cause; we are not contending for an effete dynasty, or
   a name to conjure by, but we have a living captain, a reigning king,
   one who is able both to occupy the throne and to lead on our hosts to
   battle. Oh, by the Christ in glory, I beseech you, brethren, be ye
   stedfast! If it could be proved to-morrow that Napoleon still lived,
   there might be some hope for his party, but with the chieftain dead the
   cause faints. Now Jesus lives; as surely as he died he rose and lives
   again, and his name shall endure for ever, his name shall be continued
   as long as the sun, and men shall be blessed in him, all generations
   shall call him blessed. The colors of that grand old red-cross flag, to
   defend which your fathers bled, have not in any degree become faded. It
   has braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze, but its history
   is as yet in its infancy. Our grand cause is imaged this day, not by a
   baby in the Virgin's arms, nor by a dead man in the hands of his
   enemies, but by a living, reigning, triumphant, glorified Christ, full
   of splendor and of majesty. Let us rally to his call; for he must reign
   till he hath put all enemies under his feet. Behold, he cometh! Even
   now flee angels bring forth the white horse caparisoned for the
   conqueror, he who is called the faithful and True One shall ride
   thereon at the head of his elect armies. Even at this moment we see the
   ensign gleaming above the horizon. The Lord is on his way. Our Captain
   putteth on his Gesture dipped in blood, while on his head are many
   crowns. He shall smite the nations, and rule them with a rod of iron,
   and he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF
   KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. Let us continue true to him, for evil would be
   our case if we were to desert his cause, and then should see him come
   in the glory of his Father, attended by cohorts of angels. It would be
   a dreadful thing to have deserted the army just when the shout of
   "victory" was about to be raised. Be ye stedfast, unmoveable, for he is
   risen, and he ever liveth to secure the victory.

   Our work of faith is not in vain, because we shall rise again. If what
   we do for God were to have its only reward on earth, it were a poor
   prospect. Strike out the hope of the hereafter, and the Christian's
   reward would be gone; but, beloved, we shall rise again. Our work is
   ended when our eye is closed in death, but our life is not ended with
   our work. We shall preach no more, we shall no more teach the little
   children, are shall no more talk with the wayfarer about the Savior;
   but we shall enjoy better things than these, for we shall sit upon our
   Savior's throne even as he sits upon his Father's throne. Our heads
   shall have crowns to deck them, our hands shall wave the palm of
   victory; we shall put on the white robe—the victors apparel; we shall
   stand around the throne in triumph, and shall behold and share the
   glories of the Son of God. O brethren, shrink not, for the crown is
   just within your reach. Never think of diminishing your service, rather
   increase it, for the reward is close at hand. And remember that as you
   will rise again, so those whom you come in contact with will also rise
   again. When I have preached the gospel on a Sunday I have thought,
   "Well, I shall never see many of these people again," and the
   reflection has flashed across my mind, "Yes, I shall; and if I have
   faithfully, as God's servant, preached the truth, I shall not need to
   be afraid to see them either." It they have received benefit and found
   Christ through the witness I have borne, they shall be my reward
   hereafter in the land of the living, and even if they reject the
   testimony, yet shall they bear their witness to my faithfulness in
   having preached to them the word of God, for they shall rise again. O
   beloved, what is this poor world? There, shut your eyes to it, for it
   is not worth your gaze. What is there here below? What see I but
   fleeting shadows and dreams, and phantoms? What shall I live for? What
   is there worth living for beneath you stars? What, if I hoard up
   wealth, I shall have to leave it to ungrateful heirs! What if I get
   fame, yet how can the breath of man add to my comfort when I lie
   tossing on the verge of eternity? What is there worth living for, I
   say, beneath yon stars? But there is a something that makes it worth
   while existing and makes life grand and noble. It is this: if I may
   crown with praise that head which for my sake was crowned with thorns,
   if I may honor him who was dishonored for my sake, if to the
   manifestation of the glories of Jehovah I may have contributed a share,
   if at the reading of the records of all time it may be found that I put
   out my talent as a faithful servant, and gained interest for my Master,
   it shall be well. Saved not of debt-far hence the thought!—but of grace
   alone, yet shall it be no small thing, out of a sense of indebtedness
   to grace, to have lived and loved and died for Jesus.

   What more can I say? are there no ambitions among you? I know there
   are. Young men, consecrate yourselves to God this day. If you have
   rooked to Jesus and trusted him, serve him for ever. Preach him if you
   can; go abroad into the foreign field if you may. If you cannot do
   that, make money for him that you may give it to his cause. Open your
   shop for his sake, let everything be done for Jesus. Take this
   henceforth for your motto—All for Jesus, always for Jesus, everywhere
   for Jesus. He deserves it. I should not so speak to you if you had to
   live in this world only. Alas, for the love of Jesus, if thou wert all
   and nought beside, O earth! But there is another life—live for it.
   There is another world—live for it. There is a resurrection, there is
   eternal blessedness, there is glory, there are crowns of pure
   reward—live for them, by God's grace live for them. The Lord bless you,
   and save you. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Soul-satisfying Bread

   (No. 1112)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 18, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that comes to Me
   shall never hunger; and he that believes on Me shall never thirst."
   John 6:35.

   OUR Savior used expressions concerning Himself which might be turned to
   another meaning than He intended. He did not guard His words by saying,
   "I am like bread, and faith is like eating and drinking," but He said,
   "I am the bread of life," and, "except a man eat My flesh and drink My
   blood there is no life in him." He did this not only because from His
   own sincerity of heart it was not in Him to be forever fencing around
   all His speeches, but also with a set purpose, because His speech was
   so plain that if any man misunderstood Him it would be the result of
   his own perversity of mind and not the effect of any obscurity in the
   Lord's language. Thus by fixing a low and sensual meaning upon elevated
   spiritual language the men of His time would be discovered to be none
   of the Lord's chosen--and the thoughts of many hearts would be
   revealed.

   While He was preaching, His words were like a refiner's fire, bringing
   out the pure metal, but separating it from the dross and making that
   dross to appear the worthless thing which it really was. It would
   clearly appear that men hated the light when they perverted the
   clearest expressions of the Lord of Light into foolishness or mystery.
   Our Lord's mission was not so much to save all whom He addressed as to
   save out of them as many as His Father gave Him. And He used His mode
   of speaking as a test--those who were His understood Him. Those who
   were not His and were not taught of the Father, viciously put a literal
   meaning upon His spiritual words and so missed His Divine teaching. To
   this day the memorable expressions of our Lord in this chapter remain a
   stumbling block to some, while they are full of glorious instruction to
   others!

   We see the world every day parting more and more definitely into two
   camps--the camp of the chosen of God, to whom is made known the mystery
   of the kingdom, the babes in Grace who read the simple teaching of the
   Gospel and rejoice in it--and on the other side the carnal host who
   hear the Word, but look no deeper than its outward letter, to whom it
   becomes a "savor of death unto death," because they pervert the Lord's
   spiritual Word to a carnal meaning and straightway heap unto themselves
   abounding ceremonies and pierce themselves through with deadly errors.
   I scarcely think that the prominence of Sacramentarianism nowadays is
   to be altogether regretted--it is only a more clear and manifest
   severing of the precious from the vile.

   There is a division as marked as between death and life, and as deep as
   Hell, between the spiritual Church which believes in Jesus and the
   carnal Church which believes in sacraments--between the regenerate who
   look to Christ upon the Cross--and the twice dead who believe in a
   piece of bread and pay reverence to a wine cup. The Savior spoke in
   symbols, that the proud might hear in vain--that hearing they might not
   hear and seeing they might not perceive-- executing upon that
   self-conceited generation which rejected Him the judicial sentence of
   the Lord, for their hearts were waxen gross, their ears were dull of
   hearing and their eyes had they closed.

   But now, speaking to those to whom the Lord has given to understand His
   meaning, let me say our Savior uses very simple figures. Think of His
   calling Himself bread! How condescending, that the most common article
   upon the table should be the fullest type of Christ! Think of His
   calling our faith an eating and a drinking of Himself! Nothing could be
   more instructive! At the same time nothing could better set forth His
   gentleness and humility of spirit that He does not object to speak thus
   of our receiving Him. God be thanked for the simplicity of the Gospel!
   The longer I live the more I bless God that we have not received a
   classical Gospel, or a mathematical Gospel, or a metaphysical Gospel!
   It is not a Gospel confined to scholars and men of genius, but a poor
   man's Gospel, a plowman's Gospel--and that is the kind of Gospel which
   we can live upon and die upon.

   It is to us not the luxury of refinement, but the staple food of life.
   We need no fine words when the heart is heavy, neither do we need deep
   problems when we are lying upon the verge of eternity, weak in body and
   tempted in mind. At such times we magnify the blessed simplicity of the
   Gospel! Jesus in the flesh made manifest becomes our soul's bread.
   Jesus bleeding on the Cross, a Substitute for sinners, is our soul's
   drink. This is the Gospel for babes--and strong men need no more.

   Again, it strikes me as being very noteworthy, and especially very
   worthy of thanks, that our Savior has taken metaphors of a very common
   character so that if our hearts are but right we cannot go anywhere but
   what we are reminded of Him. At our tables we are very apt to forget
   the best things. The indulgence of the appetite is not very promotive
   of spirituality, yet we cannot sit down to table but what the piece of
   bread speaks to us and says, "Poor Soul, you need even bread to be
   given you. You are so needy that your bread must be the gift of
   heavenly charity. Jesus has come down from Heaven to keep you from
   absolute starvation. He has come down to be bread and water to you." As
   you take up that loaf and think of the processes through which it has
   passed before it has become bread, it preaches a thousand sermons to
   you!

   The sowing of Jesus as a grain of wheat in the earth. His grinding
   between the millstones of Divine wrath. His passing through the fiery
   oven. We see the sufferings of Jesus in every crumb we put into our
   mouths. Why, the Lord has hung the heavens with His name and made them
   tell of His love! Yon sun proclaims the Sun of Righteousness and every
   star speaks of the Star of Bethlehem. You cannot walk your garden, or
   go into the streets, or open a door, or put on your clothes without
   being reminded of the Lord Jesus!

   I remember once visiting a poor Christian in the hospital who had often
   attended my ministry, and he said, "Why, Sir, you have given us so many
   illustrations, that as I lie in bed everything I see, or hear, or read
   of, brings to mind something in your sermons." How much more true is
   this of our Great Teacher! We are glad that He has hung up the Gospel
   everywhere till every dewdrop reflects Him and every wind whispers His
   name. Day and Night talk to each other of Him and the hours commune
   concerning things to come.

   With this as a preface, let us come to our subject. Our text in a very
   simple way tells us, first, that Jesus Christ is to be received. That
   reception is here described--"I am the bread of life: he that comes to
   Me shall never hunger; and he that believes on Me shall never thirst."
   The second doctrine of the text is that when Jesus Christ is received,
   he is superlatively satisfying to the soul--"Shall never
   hunger"--"Shall never thirst."

   I.THE LORD JESUS CHRIST IS TO BE RECEIVED BY EACH ONE OF US PERSONALLY
   FOR HIMSELF. An unappropriated Christ is no Christ to any man. Bread
   which is not eaten will not stop our hunger. The water in the cup may
   sparkle like purest crystal, but it cannot slake thirst unless we drink
   it. To get a personal hold of the Savior is the main thing and the
   question is how is this to be done. How is Jesus Christ to become a
   Savior to me? You will observe that in this chapter and, indeed,
   everywhere else, the mode of obtaining an interest in Christ is never
   mixed up with the idea of fitness, merit, preparation, or worth.

   The text says, "He that comes to Me." It says nothing of preparation
   before coming, nor of any meritorious actions. It is a simple coming,
   as a beggar for alms, or a child for its father's help. The other
   description is, "He that believes on Me." There is nothing there of
   merit. In fact, faith stands in direct opposition to meritorious
   working. And if we read of eating Christ and drinking Christ, the act
   is entirely a receptive one, nothing given forth, but everything
   received, reminding us of that memorable passage, "To as many as
   received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to
   them that believed on His name." It is all a matter of receiving, not
   of bringing to Christ! We come to Him empty-handed. We believe in Him
   without any deserving of our own and in that way, and in that way only,
   Jesus Christ becomes our Savior.

   Let us dwell on these expressions for a few minutes. The first is, that
   we come to Him. "He that comes unto Me shall never hunger." I suppose
   this represents the first act of faith by which men enter into
   spiritual life--we are alienated from Christ, but after hearing the
   Gospel we are, by the Holy Spirit, led to think of Him, to consider
   Him, to study Him and to judge that He is the Savior whom we need. Our
   alienation from Him is turned into desire for Him and we come to Him
   beseeching Him to be our Savior. We come to Him. It is a motion of the
   heart towards Him, not a motion of the feet, for many came to Jesus in
   body and yet never came to Him in truth. They were close to Him in the
   crowd, but they never touched Him so that virtue came out of Him. The
   coming here meant is performed by desire, prayer, assent, consent,

   trust, obedience. It means that I hear what Christ is and learn what
   God says He is--that He is God and that He is Man--that He came into
   the world to take the sins of men upon Himself and to be punished in
   their place.

   I hear all this and assent to it. I believe in Jesus and I say, "If He
   died for all those who trust Him, I will trust Him. If He has offered
   so great a Sacrifice upon the tree for guilty men, I will rely upon
   that Sacrifice and make it the basis of my hope." That is coming to
   Jesus Christ! The term is very simple, yet it is not so very easily
   explained to others because of its being so simple. If you are taught
   of the Father you will know full well what it is, but if not I fear
   that the most plain words will not make you understand. Perhaps I may
   illustrate coming to Jesus by an incident connected with the hymn which
   we sang just now.

   I think I have read somewhere that Mr. Wesley was one morning dressing.
   His window looked out towards the sea and there was a heavy wind
   blowing. The waves were very boisterous and the rain was falling
   heavily. Just then a little bird, overtaken by the tempest, flew in at
   the open window and nestled in his bosom. Of course he cherished it
   there, and then bade it go on its way when the storm was over.
   Impressed by the interesting occurrence, he sat down and wrote the
   verse--

   "Jesus, lover of my soul, Let me to your bosom fly While the raging
   billows roll, While the tempest still is high. Hide me, O my Savior,
   hide me Till the storm of life is past."

   Imitate that poor little bird if you would have Christ--fly away from
   the wrath of God, fly away from your own convictions of sin, fly away
   from your dark forebodings of judgment to come--right into the bosom of
   Jesus which is warm with love to sinners--

   "Come, guilty souls, and flee away Like doves to Jesus' wounds; This is
   the accepted Gospel day Wherein free Grace abounds."

   The second description given us of the way in which Christ becomes ours
   is by believing on Him. Here, again, I have to explain a word which
   needs no explanation except one flash of light from the Holy Spirit.
   And I question whether any other light was ever sufficient to make it
   clear. And that not because of any real obscurity, but because of the
   willful blindness of unrenewed nature. To believe on Christ means to
   believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of men. But
   it includes far more than that. You may be very orthodox in your
   notions about Christ. In fact, you may believe what the Bible states
   about Him and yet you may not have saving faith in Him. "He that
   believes on Me." What if I put the word "trusts" instead? "He that
   trusts in Me." Or he who leans all his weight on Me, who, knowing such
   and such things to be true, acts as if they were true and shows the
   reality of his belief by the simplicity of his reliance.

   Knowing that Christ came to save sinners, the Believer says, "Then I
   depend upon Him to save me." Knowing that Jesus was the Substitute for
   human guilt, he says, "He is the Substitute for my guilt. If He came
   and took sin upon Himself, then I trust Him and therefore know that He
   took my sin, that He bore, that I might never bear, His Father's
   righteous ire." And is Christ really a man's Savior the moment he
   believes? Yes, the moment he believes! But suppose his former life has
   been scandalous? It is forgiven him for Christ's name sake. But suppose
   that the moment before he so trusted Christ there was no good thing in
   him whatever?

   Jesus Christ died for the ungodly and He is "able to save to the
   uttermost them that come unto God by Him." But suppose he should be
   imperfect afterwards? It is no supposition, he will be! But, "the blood
   of Jesus Christ, God's dear Son, cleanses us from all sin." A very
   blessed text assures us that, "There is a fountain opened for the house
   of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for
   uncleanness." It is not a fountain merely for common sinners, but for
   those who are God's people and yet sin. They still find cleansing where
   they found it at the first. "If any man sins, we have an Advocate with
   the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous." Faith is an act of reliance
   upon Christ's great Sacrifice and wherever the Holy Spirit works it in
   men it makes Christ to be theirs--so that they shall never hunger and
   shall never thirst.

   But I pass on to the third way in which we are said to receive Christ.
   It is not in the text in so many words, but we must consider it,
   because, though not there literally, it is there spiritually. It is
   eating and drinking. We are to eat Christ and to drink Christ. Oh, it
   is monstrous, it is monstrous that out of bedlam there should live men
   who should dream that Jesus taught us literally to eat His flesh and to
   drink His blood! I am more and more astounded at this 19th century. I
   have heard it praised for its enlightenment and progress till I am sick
   to death of the 19th century and am right glad that it is nearing its
   close. I hope the 20th century will be something better. Surely no
   period of time has been more given to superstition!

   Even the age of witchcraft bids fair to be outdone by the age of
   Ritualists. Here you have idiots in high places-- absolute, stark,
   staring idiots--who preach to men that they are to turn cannibals in
   order to be saved. Surely such an act, if it could be perpetrated, must
   rather be the nearest way to be damned! What greater crime could there
   be than for men literally to eat the flesh of their own Savior? I
   cannot speak too strongly against so extraordinary, so monstrous a
   perversion of the teaching of our Lord. What He meant by our eating His
   flesh and blood is just this--we believingly receive Him into our
   hearts and our minds feed upon Him. We hear of Jesus Christ as the Son
   of God and as the Substitute for sinners--we believe it and so receive
   the Truth of God as men receive bread into the mouth.

   Now, in eating we first put the food into our mouths. As a whole it
   goes into the mouth and even thus, as a whole, Christ Jesus is received
   into our belief and trust. The food being in the mouth, we proceed to
   chew it. It is broken up, it is dissolved. Our taste finds out its
   secret essence and flavor--and even in this way the believing mind
   thinks of Jesus, contemplates Him, meditates upon Him and discovers His
   preciousness. We see far more of our Lord after conversion than we did
   at first. We have believed in Him knowing but little of Him. But
   by-and-by we comprehend with all the saints what are the heights and
   depths and know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. Jesus
   becomes more comforting, and more delightful as we comprehend more
   clearly who and what He is. Our faith, which we placed implicitly upon
   Him, now sees a thousand reasons for a yet fuller confidence and so is
   strengthened.

   For instance, the ordinary Believer believes in Jesus Christ because He
   is a Divine Savior. But the instructed Believer sees in Jesus Christ
   fitness, fullness, variety of offices, glory of Character, completeness
   of work, Immutability and a thousand other things which endear Him. In
   this way the Truth concerning the Lord is, as it were, masticated and
   enjoyed. But the process of eating goes further--the food descends into
   the inward parts to be digested--and there is a further breaking up and
   dissolving of it. So the great Truths of Incarnation and Sacrifice are
   made to dwell in the memory, to lie upon the heart, to rest in the
   affections till their essence, comfort and force are fully drawn forth.
   Oh, it is unbelieveably refreshing to let these grand Truths of God
   dwell in us richly, to be inwardly digested!

   Have you ever chewed the cud with the Truths of the Gospel, turning
   them over, and over, and over again as delicious morsels for your
   spiritual taste? Can you say with David, "How precious, also, are Your
   thoughts unto me, O God"? If so you know what spiritual eating is. When
   that is done the food is next assimilated and taken into the substance
   of the body. It passes from the digesting organs to those which
   assimilate it. Each portion of the body draws forth, in its turn,
   proper nutriment from the food and so the whole man is built up. It is
   just so with the great Truths, that Christ became Man and died in man's
   place--these are inwardly received by us till our whole nature draws
   from them a satisfying and strengthening influence. By a sort of mystic
   sympathy the Truth of God is being fitted to the mind and the mind
   requiring just such Truth, our whole nature drinks in Christ, and His
   Person and work become our mind's joy, delight, strength, and life. As
   a man thinks in his heart so he is, and therefore our thoughts of
   Jesus, and faith in Him, build us up into Him in all things.

   Now, as a man who has feasted well and is no more hungry, rises from
   the table satisfied, so we feel that in Jesus our entire nature has all
   that it needs. Christ is All and we are filled in Him, complete in Him.
   This is to receive Christ. Beloved, if you want to have Christ
   altogether your own, you must receive Him by this process. Merely to
   trust Him gives you Christ as food in your mouth. To contemplate, to
   meditate, to commune with Him is to understand Him, even as food is
   digested and is ours. Further prayer and fellowship and meditation
   assimilate Christ so that He becomes part and parcel of our very
   selves. Christ lives in us and we in Him! We ought not to forget, as we
   are dwelling upon this, that the two points about Jesus Christ which He
   says are to us meat and drink, are His flesh and his blood.

   We understand by His flesh, His Humanity--our soul feeds upon the
   literal, real, historical fact that "God was in Christ." That, "the
   Word was made flesh and dwelt among us"--and men beheld His Glory, the
   Glory as of the Only-

   Begotten of the Father, full of Grace and Truth. My soul's main comfort
   today is not a doctrine. I get a great deal of comfort out of many
   doctrines, but the bottom comfort of my soul is not a doctrine but a
   fact. And it is this fact--that He who made the heavens and the earth,
   and without whom was not anything made that was made, was born of the
   Virgin Mary at Bethlehem and for 30 years and more did actually, not in
   fiction or romance, but in very deed, dwell as a Man among men! That
   fact is my soul's food!

   The historical fact that Christ Jesus was flesh and blood, bone of our
   bone, flesh of our flesh, a Man like ourselves-- this, I say, is
   nourishment to our spirits, and believing it we feel a joy unutterable,
   for we know that He who sits upon the Throne of God is a Man. Jesus was
   made "a little lower than the angels," but now, in the Person of
   Christ, He is crowned with glory and honor! We now know that God cannot
   hate manhood, because Christ is a Man. Christ has reconciled God to
   manhood because He represented manhood and the thoughts of God towards
   man are, for Christ's sake, thoughts of love and not of evil!

   The other point in which Jesus is food to our mind is His blood. This
   most clearly refers to His sufferings and to His vicarious death. Bread
   and wine are put upon the communion table as separate symbols--not
   bread and wine mixed together--that would destroy the teaching. The
   wine is distinct from the bread, because when the blood is separated
   from the flesh there is before you the sure evidence of death. Now the
   true drink of a thirsty sinner is the fact that Christ died in his
   place. I will repeat what I said--my great hope as a sinner does not
   lie in a doctrine and my consolation as a trembling criminal before the
   bar of God is not founded in any opinion or doctrinal statement--but in
   a FACT.

   He who is very God of very God did hang upon a Cross of wood, upon the
   little mount of Calvary just outside the gates of Jerusalem, and there
   in unutterable agonies beneath the wrath of God made expiation for the
   sins of all who believe in Him! There is my hope! There is yours, my
   Brothers and Sisters. Yes, there is all our hope. Very well, then, do
   you not see that the way to obtain the benefits of the Lord Jesus
   Christ is to believe in His being God and Man, to believe in His dying
   as the God-Man, and to rest upon this, and to contemplate this, and to
   turn to it again and again and again, so that, having marked and
   learned, you may also inwardly digest those unspeakably glorious
   mysteries of Incarnation and of Sacrifice?

   I have set the Gospel before you now, for if any man among you will do
   this, Christ is yours! Here is Christ to be had for nothing! Christ to
   be had simply by trusting Him, by coming to Him! As the vessel obtains
   its fullness by its emptiness being placed under the flowing stream. As
   the beggar's needs are relieved by putting out his empty hand to accept
   an alms, so you are to obtain Christ by coming to Him as empty sinners.
   He is given to you for nothing--freely given to you of God--and whoever
   will, may have Him! And if you have Him not, it is not because He has
   rejected you, for He has never rejected one that has come to Him, but
   because you have rejected Him. Dear fellow Sinners, may God the Holy
   Spirit grant you Grace to receive Jesus and to be saved by Him!

   II. The second part of our subject is this. WHERE JESUS IS RECEIVED HE
   IS SUPREMELY SATISFYING. He is supremely satisfying, mark you, to our
   highest and deepest needs, not to mere fancies and whims. Christ
   compares the needs of men to hungering and thirsting. Now hungering is
   no sham. Those who have ever felt it know what a real need it indicates
   and what bitter pangs it brings. Thirst, also, is not a sentimental
   matter, it is a trial, indeed. What pain can be worse beneath the skies
   than thirst?

   Now Jesus has come to meet the deep, real, pressing, vital needs and
   pains of your nature. Your fear of Hell, your terror of death, your
   sense of sin--all these Jesus has come to meet and all these He does
   meet in the case of all who come to Him--as everyone who has tried Him
   will bear witness. Jesus Christ meets the hungering of conscience.
   Every man with an awakened conscience feels that God must punish him
   for sin, but as soon as he perceives that the Son of God was punished
   instead of him, his conscience is perfectly appeased and will never
   hunger again. Until men know the Truth of the Substitution of Jesus you
   may preach to them what you will and they may go through all the
   sacraments, and they may suffer many bodily mortifications--but their
   conscience will still hunger.

   My God, whom I offended, became a Man and for my sake He suffered what
   I ought to have suffered. Therefore my conscience rests gratefully
   contented with so divinely gracious a way of satisfying justice. Men,
   when once awakened, have a hunger of fear. They look forward to the
   future and they scarcely know why, but they feel a dread of something
   indefinable and full of terror. And especially if they are near to die,
   horror takes hold upon them, for they know not what is yet to come--but
   when they find that Jesus Christ, who is God, became Man and died for
   men, that whoever

   trusts Him might be saved--then fear expires and love takes its place.
   The dove in the cleft of the rock feels no more rude alarms. Terror
   cannot live beneath the Cross, for there hope reigns supreme. Nor shall
   fear ever return, for the work of Jesus is finished and, therefore, no
   hiding place for fear is left.

   The heart, also, has its hunger, for almost unknown to itself it cries,
   "O that someone loved me and that I could love someone whose love would
   fill my nature to the brim." Men's hearts are gluttons after love. Yes,
   like death and the grave they are insatiable. They hunt here and there,
   but are bitterly disappointed, for earth holds not an object worthy of
   all the love of a human heart. But when they hear that Jesus Christ
   loved them before the world was, and died for them, their roving
   affections find rest. Like as Ruth found rest in the house of a
   husband, do we come to peace in Jesus. The love of Jesus casts out all
   hankering for other loves and fills the soul! He becomes the Bridegroom
   of our heart, our best Beloved, and we bid the meaner things depart.

   In the love of the Father and the Son we dwell in sweet content,
   hungering and thirsting no more. If the ocean of Divine Love cannot
   fill us, what can? What more can a man need or wish for?--

   "My God, I am Yours.

   What a comfort Divine,

   What a blessing to know

   That my Sa vior is mine!

   In the Heavenly Lamb

   Thrice happy I am,

   And my heart it does dance

   At the sound of His name."

   The heart's hunger is removed eternally by Jesus. Then there are vast
   desires in us all and when we are quickened those desires expand and
   enlarge. Man feels that he is not in his element and is not what he was
   intended to be. He is like a bird in the shell, he feels a life within
   him too great to be forever confined within such narrow bounds. Do you
   not, dear Friends, feel great longings? Does not your soul seethe with
   high ambitions? Our immortal nature frets beneath the burden of
   mortality! Its spiritual nature is weary of the chains of materialism.

   That hungering will never be hushed into content till we receive
   Christ, but when we have Him we learn that we are the sons of God,
   heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ and that it does not yet appear
   what we shall be, but when He shall appear we shall be like He is, for
   we shall see Him as He is. This opens up before us a splendid future of
   unfading glory and unbounded bliss--and we feel that we need no more.
   Since we are Christ's and Christ is God's, all things are ours and our
   hunger is forever over. The only contented man in the whole world is he
   who has believed in Jesus and he is contented just because he has
   obtained all that his nature needs--

   "Let others stretch their arms like seas,

   And grasp in all the shore,

   Grant me the blessings of Your Grace,

   And I desire no more." Because I could not desire more than all and
   Christ is All in All.

   My Beloved, this perfect satisfying of our nature is to be found
   nowhere else but in Christ. Some have tried to be satisfied with
   themselves and their own doings. They have despised the bread of
   Heaven, for they dreamed that they could live without bread--they would
   be self-contained men--they would make themselves happy with
   themselves. But it is a wretched failure. The poor Bushmen, when they
   have nothing to eat, tie a girdle around them and call it the hunger
   belt. And when they have gone a few days they pull it tighter and
   tighter still, in order to enable them to bear hunger--so any man who
   has to live upon himself will have to draw the hunger belt very tight,
   indeed. A soul cannot be persuaded by philosophy to content itself
   without its necessary food. Eloquence may try all its charms to that
   end, but it will be in vain.

   Who can convince a hungry man that he needs not eat? Some have gone to
   Moses for bread and, mark you, the two greatest bread-givers in the
   world are Moses and Christ. Moses fed the tribes in the wilderness for
   40 years and Jesus feeds His people always. But Moses' bread never
   satisfies. Those who eat it, before long call it light bread. And if
   they have been satisfied with it for a time, yet there is the mournful
   reflection that their fathers did eat it and are dead. There is no life
   in the bread of the Law. But he who gets Christ has a bread of which he
   shall eat forever and ever, and shall never die.

   I am told that there is country--I think it is Patagonia--where men in
   times of need eat clay in great lumps. They fill themselves with it, so
   as to deaden their hunger. I know that many people in England do the
   same.

   There is a kind of yellow clay which is much cried up for staying
   spiritual hunger--heavy stuff it is, but many have a vast appetite for
   it. They prefer it to the choicest dainties. When a man fills his heart
   with it, it presses him down to the very earth and prevents his rising
   into life. Some have tried to stay their hunger by the narcotics of
   skepticism and have dosed themselves into lethargy. Others have
   endeavored to get ease through the drugs of fatalism. Many stave off
   hunger by indifference, like the bears in winter which are not hungry
   because they are asleep. Such persons come to the House of God asleep.
   They would not like to be aroused, for if they were to do so they would
   wake up to an awful hunger. I wish they could be awakened, for that
   hunger which they dread would drive them to a soul-satisfying Savior.
   But, depend upon it, the only way to meet hunger is to eat bread, and
   the only way to meet your soul's need is to get Christ in whom there is
   enough and to spare, but nowhere else.

   I shall close by saying that all Believers bear witness that Jesus
   Christ is satisfying bread to them. When do you get most satisfied on a
   Sunday, Beloved? I do not know whom you may happen to hear, but what
   Sundays are the best to you? When your minister rides the high horse
   and gives you a splendid oration, and you say, "Dear me, it is
   wonderful"--have you ever felt satisfied to think it over on Monday?
   Have you ever felt satisfied with sermons composed of politics and
   morality, or very nice essays which would suit the Saturday Review if
   they were a little more caustic? Do you enjoy such meat? I will tell
   you when I enjoy a Sunday most--when I preach Christ most--or when I
   can sit and hear a humble village preacher exalt the Lord Jesus.

   It does not matter if the grammar is poor, so long as Jesus is there!
   What some call platitudes are dainties to me if they glorify my Lord
   Jesus Christ. Anything about Him is satisfying to a renewed
   spirit--cannot you bear witness to that? When I have preached up Jesus
   Christ--and I think I generally do so, for the fact is, I do not know
   anything but Him, and I am determined not to know anything among you
   save Jesus Christ and Him Crucified. Then, I say, I know you go away
   and say, "After all, that is what we need--Christ Crucified, Christ the
   sinner's substitutionary Sacrifice, no sham Christ, no mere talk about
   Christ as an example, but His flesh and blood, a dying, bleeding,
   suffering Christ--that is what we need." Now I have the witness of
   every Christian here to that! You are never satisfied with anything but
   that--are you? No matter how cleverly the doctrine might be analyzed,
   or however orthodox it might be, you cannot be content with it--you
   must have the Person of Christ, the flesh and the blood of Christ--or
   else you are not content.

   And, Beloved, those who have once eaten and drunk Christ never seek
   additional ground of trust beyond Christ. They never say, "I am resting
   upon Christ, but still I should like to be able to depend a little on
   my Baptism." I never heard a Christian talk in that fashion in my life!
   I never heard a man say, "I rest in the blood of Jesus, but still, I
   wish that I could have a bishop's hands put upon my head so as to give
   me a confirmation of my faith." I never heard that in my life and I do
   not expect I ever shall! We are perfectly satisfied without priests,
   and without sacraments! Jesus Christ is the one sole Foundation upon
   which we build!

   Again, I have never found those who rest in Christ needing to shift
   their confidence. Those who need something new every Sunday are those
   who know not the Savior. Truly, if you have not the bread from Heaven,
   you may well cry out for all manner of dishes, for each one will soon
   spoil. But if you have the bread of Heaven, you need Christ on the
   first of January and every day till the last of December. I have never
   heard a Christian assert that Christ did not satisfy them in the days
   of sickness or in the hour of death. I came to you this morning fresh
   from the sick bed of a venerable Christian man, close upon his 80th
   year, and I said to him, "Now, dear Sir, here are three or four young
   people around your bed. We are going forth on our pilgrimage relying on
   Christ, believing that He is faithful and true. You have gone a great
   deal further than we have. Will you, therefore, kindly correct us if we
   are under a mistake? Have you found that the Lord has not fulfilled His
   Word? Have you found that He has not been true?"

   It was a blessed sight to see the man of God and hear him say, "Not one
   good thing has failed of all that the Lord God has promised." And then
   he added, "I will sing of mercy, for it has been mercy, all mercy, all
   the way through." "Do you feel any fear about departure?" I said to
   him. "Oh! dear, no," he said. "I am willing to wait, or willing to go.
   But I am full of the expectation of beholding Him who loved me and gave
   Himself for me." Ah, the bridge of Grace will bear your weight,
   Brothers and Sisters! Thousands of big sinners have gone across that
   bridge, yes, tens of thousands have gone over it! I can hear their
   tramping, now, as they traverse the great arches of the bridge of
   Salvation.

   They come by the thousands, by the myriads! Ever since the day when
   Christ first entered into His Glory, they come, and yet never a stone
   has sprung in that mighty bridge. Some have been the chief of sinners
   and some have come at the very last of their days, but the arch has
   never yielded beneath their weight! I will go with them trusting to the
   same support! It will bear me over as it has borne them! They who have
   eaten Christ and drunk Christ shall not hunger or thirst in their last
   hour, trying as it will be.

   Saints have died saying, "Yes, though I walk through the valley of the
   shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for You are with me. Your rod and
   Your staff they comfort me. You prepare a table for me in the presence
   of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over." God
   grant us Grace to live upon Christ evermore. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--John 6:26-63.
     __________________________________________________________________

Romans, But Not romanists

   (No. 1113)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON, [PROBABLY NEAR FIRST OF YEAR, 1873]

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant of the Church
   which is at Cenchrea: that you receive her in the Lord, as becomes
   saints, and that you assist her in whatever business she has need of
   you: for she has been a succorer of many, and of myself also. Greet
   Priscilla and Aquila my helpers in Christ Jesus: who have for my life
   laid down their own necks: unto whom not only I give thanks, but also
   all the Churches of the Gentiles. Likewise greet the Church that is in
   their house. Salute my well-beloved Epaenetus, who is the first fruits
   of Achaia unto Christ. Greet Mary, who bestowed much labor on us.
   Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow prisoners, who
   are of note among the Apostles who also were in Christ before me. Greet
   Amplias my beloved in the Lord. Salute Urbane, our helper in Christ,
   and Stachys my beloved. Salute Apelles approved in Christ. Salute them
   which are of Aristobulus 'household. Salute Herodion my kinsman. Greet
   them that are of the household of Narcissus, which are in the Lord.
   Salute Tryphena and Tryphosa, who labor in the Lord. Salute the beloved
   Persis, which labored much in the Lord. Salute Rufus chosen in the
   Lord, and his mother and mine. Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermas,
   Patrobas, Hermes and the brethren which are with them. Salute
   Philologus, and Julia, Nereus, and his sister, and Olympas, and all the
   saints which are with them. Salute one another with an holy kiss. The
   Churches of Christ salute you." Romans 16:1-16.

   THIS chapter contains Paul's loving salutation to the various
   Christians dwelling at Rome. Remember that it is an Inspired passage.
   Although it consists of Christian courtesies addressed to different
   individuals, yet it was written by an Apostle and written not as an
   ordinary letter but as a part of the Inspired volume. Therefore there
   must be valuable matter in it and though, when we read it, it may
   appear to be uninstructive, there must be edifying matter beneath the
   surface because all Scripture is given by Inspiration and is meant to
   benefit us in one way or another. It shows to us one thing, at any
   rate, that Paul was of a most affectionate disposition and that God did
   not select as the Apostle of the Gentiles a man of a coarse, unfeeling,
   selfish turn of mind. His memory, as well as his heart, must have been
   in good condition to remember so large a number of names and these were
   but a few of his many beloved Brethren and spiritual children all over
   the world whom he mentions by name in his other Epistles.

   His warm heart, I doubt not, quickened his memory and secured to his
   remembrance the form, condition, history, character and name of each
   one of his friends. He loved them too well to forget them! Christians
   should love one another and should bear one another's names upon their
   hearts, even as the great High Priest wears the names of all His saints
   upon His jeweled breastplate. A Christian, because of the love he bears
   to others, is ever anxious to please by courtesy and desires--never to
   pain by rudeness. Grace makes the servant of God to be, in the highest
   sense, a true gentleman. If we learn nothing more from this passage
   than the duty of acting lovingly and courteously, one to the other, we
   shall be all the better for it, for there is none too much tender
   consideration and gentle speech among professors at this time.

   I. Beyond this, our text is singularly full of instructive matter, as I
   shall hope to show you. Without preface, let us notice, first, that
   THIS PASSAGE REMARKABLY ILLUSTRATES THE VARIOUS RELATIONS OF FAMILIES
   TO THE CHURCH. Note in the third verse that the Apostle says, "Greet
   Priscilla and Aquila my helpers in Christ Jesus." Here you have a
   household in which both the father and the mother, or say, the husband
   and the wife, were joined to the

   Church of God. What a happy circumstance was this! Their influence upon
   the rest of the household must have been very powerful, for when two
   loving hearts pull together they accomplish wonders. What different
   associations cluster around the names of "Priscilla and Aquila" from
   those which are awakened by the words, "Ananias and Sapphira"!

   There we have a husband and a wife conspiring in hypocrisy, and here a
   wife and a husband united in sincere devotion. Thrice happy are those
   who are not only joined in marriage, but are one in the Lord Jesus
   Christ! Such marriages are made in Heaven. This couple appears to have
   been advanced Christians, for they became instructors of others--and
   not merely teachers of the ignorant, but teachers of those who already
   knew much of the Gospel, for they instructed young Apollos--an eloquent
   man and mighty in the Scriptures. They taught him the way of God more
   perfectly and therefore we may be sure were deep-taught Christians
   themselves.

   We must usually look for our spiritual fathers and nursing mothers in
   those households where husband and wife are walking in the fear of God.
   They are mutually helpful and therefore grow in Grace beyond others. I
   do not know why Paul, in this case, wrote, "Priscilla and Aquila," thus
   placing the wife first, for in Acts we read of them as, "Aquila and
   Priscilla." I should not wonder but he put them in order according to
   quality rather than according to the rule of sex. He named Priscilla,
   first, because she was first in energy of character and attainments in
   Divine Grace. There is a precedence which, in Christ, is due to the
   woman when she becomes the leader in devotion and manifests the
   stronger mind in the things of God. It is well when Nature and Grace
   both authorize our saying, "Aquila and Priscilla," but it is not amiss
   when Grace outruns Nature and we hear of, "Priscilla and Aquila."

   Whether the wife is first or second matters little if both are truly
   the servants of God! Dear Husband, is your wife unconverted? Never fail
   to pray for her! Good Sister, have you not yet seen the partner of your
   joys brought in to be a partaker in Grace? Never bow your knee for
   yourself without mentioning that beloved name before the Throne of
   Mercy. Pray unceasingly that your life companions may be converted to
   God.

   Priscilla and Aquila were tentmakers and were thus of the same trade
   with the Apostle, who for this reason lodged with them at Corinth. They
   had lived in Rome at one time, but had been obliged to leave owing to a
   decree of Claudius which banished the Jews from the imperial city. When
   that decree was no longer carried out they seem to have gone back to
   Rome, which from the vast awnings used in the great public buildings,
   must have afforded a fine sphere for the tent-makers' craft. It is very
   likely that their occupation of tent making necessitated their having a
   large room in which to carry on their work, and therefore they allowed
   the Christians to meet in it. Paul spoke of the Church that was in
   their house. It is a great privilege when a Christian family can
   accommodate the Church of God. It is well when they judge that the
   parlor will be honored by being used for a Prayer Meeting and consider
   that the best room in the house is none too good for the servants of
   God to meet in. Such a dwelling becomes like the house of Obededom,
   where the ark of God tarried and left a permanent blessing behind.

   To pass on. In the seventh verse you have another family. "Salute
   Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow prisoners, who are of
   note among the Apostles who also were in Christ before me." Now, if I
   understand this passage right, we have here a case of two men, perhaps
   they are both male names, Andronicus and Junia, or else a husband and
   wife or a brother and sister--Andronicus and Junia--but at any rate
   they represent part of a household, and part of a very remarkable
   household, too, for they were kinsmen of Paul and they were converted
   to God before Paul was, which interesting fact slips out quite
   incidentally.

   I have wondered in my own mind whether the conversion of his relatives
   helped to irritate Paul into his murderous fury against the Church of
   Christ--whether when he saw Andronicus and Junia, his relatives,
   converted to what he thought to be the superstition of
   Nazareth--whether that excited in him the desperate animosity which he
   displayed towards the Lord Jesus Christ. I may leave that as a matter
   of question, but I feel certain that the prayers of his two relations
   followed the young persecutor and that if you were to look deep into
   the reason for the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, on his way to
   Damascus, you would find it at the Mercy Seat in the prayers of
   Andronicus and Junia, his kinsmen, who were in Christ before him.

   This should act as a great encouragement for all of you who desire the
   salvation of your households. Perhaps you have a relative who is very
   much opposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For that very reason pray
   the more importunately for him! There is none the less hope for him
   because of his zealous opposition--the man is evidently in a thoughtful
   condition--and the Grace of God is able to turn his ignorant zeal to
   good account when his heart has been

   enlightened and renewed. There is something to be made out of a man who
   has enough in him to be opposed to the Gospel--a good sword will make a
   good plowshare! Out of persecutors God can make Apostles.

   Nowadays the world swarms with milksops of men who neither believe in
   the Gospel nor thoroughly disbelieve it. They are neither for nor
   against, neither true to God nor the devil. Such men of straw will
   never be worth their salt even if they should become converted. An
   out-and-out honest hater of the Gospel is the man who with one touch of
   Divine Grace may be made into an equally sincere lover of the Truth of
   God which once he despised! Pray on, pray hard, pray believingly for
   your relatives and you may live to see them occupy the pulpit and
   preach the faith which now they strive to overturn! It is a happy and
   hopeful token for good to a family when a part of the household is
   joined to the Church of

   God.

   Passing on again, we meet with a third family in relation to the
   Church, but in this case the master of the house was not a Christian--I
   suppose not, from the 10th verse, "Salute them which are of
   Aristobulus' household." Not, "Salute Aristobulus," no, but they that
   are of his household. Why leave Aristobulus out? It is just possible
   that he was dead, but far more likely that he was unsaved. He was left
   out of the Apostle's salutation because he had left himself out. He was
   no Believer and therefore there could be no Christian salutation sent
   to him. Alas for him, the kingdom of God was near to him, yes, in his
   house, and yet he was unblessed by it! Am I not speaking to a man in
   this condition? Where are you, Aristobulus? That is not your name,
   perhaps, but your character is the same as that of this unregenerate
   Roman whose family knew the Lord. I might speak in God's name good
   words and comfortable words to your wife and to your children, but I
   cannot so speak to you, Aristobulus!

   The Lord sends a message of Grace to your dear child, to your beloved
   wife, but not to you--for you have not given your heart to Him. I will
   pray for you and I am happy to know that those of your household who
   love the Lord are interceding for you both day and night. It is a
   hopeful connection that you have with the Church, though, perhaps, you
   do not care much about it. Yet be sure of this--the kingdom of God has
   come near unto you! This fact will involve dreadful responsibility if
   it does not lead to your salvation, for, if like Capernaum, you are
   exalted to Heaven by your privileges, it will be all the more dreadful
   to be thrust down to Hell.

   It is a sad thing in a family when one is taken and another left. Oh,
   think how wretched will be your condition if you continue in unbelief,
   for when your child is in Heaven and your wife is in Heaven, and you
   see your mother who is there, already--and you, yourself, are cast far
   off into Hell--you will remember that you were called but refused, were
   bid, but would not come! You shut your eyes to the light and would not
   see! You rejected Christ and perished willfully, a suicide to your own
   soul.

   Another instance of this, and I think a worse one, is to be seen
   further on in our text where the Apostle speaks of the "household of
   Narcissus" in the 11th verse--"Greet them that are of the household of
   Narcissus, which are in the Lord." Now I fancy that Narcissus was the
   master of the house and that the converts in the house were his
   servants or his slaves. There was a Narcissus in the days of Nero who
   was put to death by Nero's successor. He was Nero's favorite and when I
   have said that, you may conclude that he was a man of no very
   commendable character. It is said of him that he was extremely rich and
   that he was as bad as he was rich. Yet while the halls of the house of
   Narcissus echoed to blasphemous songs and while luxurious gluttony
   mingled with unbridled licentiousness and made his mansion a very Hell,
   there was a saving salt in the servants' hall and the slaves'
   dormitory!

   Perhaps under the stairs, in the little place where the slave crept in
   to sleep, prayer was made unto the living God. And when the master
   little dreamed of it, the servants about his house sang hymns in praise
   of one Jesus Christ, the anointed Savior, whom they adored as the Son
   of God. Wonderful are the ways of electing love which passes by the
   rich and great to have respect unto the man of low degree! It may be
   there is some bad master within reach of my voice. He is, himself,
   utterly irreligious, but yet in his house there are those who wait upon
   the Lord in prayer. He who blacks your shoes may be one of the beloved
   of the Lord, while you who wear them may be without God and without
   hope in the world. The little maid in your house fears the Lord, though
   you are forgetful of His praises. An angel received unawares waits upon
   you at table.

   There was a good man some years ago who used to sit up for a certain
   king of ours of wretched memory--let his name rot! This king was called
   a gentleman, but other titles might better describe him. While his
   master would be rioting, this man was communing with God and reading
   Boston's, "Crook in the Lot," or some such blessed book, to

   while away the weary hours. There are still at this day in the halls of
   the great and wicked, and in the abodes of transgressors of all
   classes, God's hidden ones who are the salt of the earth. They cry unto
   God day and night against the iniquity of their masters. There shall be
   an inquisition concerning all this--the godly shall not always be
   forgotten--the golden nuggets shall not always lie hidden in the dust.
   Think, O Masters, how will it fare with you when your humblest menials
   shall be crowned with glory and you, yourselves, shall be driven into
   the blackness of darkness forever! Seek you, also, the Lord, you great
   ones, and He will be found of you.

   We cannot afford to stay with Narcissus. Let us turn to the 12th verse.
   Here we have another instance of a family in connection with Christ's
   people. "Salute Tryphena and Tryphosa, who labor in the Lord." I
   suppose two sisters, the names sound like it. Where were their
   brothers? Where was their father? Where was their mother? "Tryphena and
   Tryphosa." How often have I seen them in the Church--two humble,
   earnest, faithful women--the lone ones of the family and all the rest
   far off from God! O Brother, let not your sister go to Heaven alone!
   Father, if your daughters are children of God, do not, yourself, remain
   His enemy! Let the examples of your godly children help you, O Parents,
   to be yourselves decided for the Redeemer! Hail to you, you gracious
   women who keep each other company on the road to Heaven! The Lord make
   you a comfort to one another! May you shine both here and hereafter
   like twin stars shedding a gentle radiance of holiness on all around.
   There is work for you in your heavenly Father's House and though you
   may not be called to public preaching, yet, in spheres appropriate, you
   may with much acceptance, "labor in the Lord."

   Further down, in the 15th verse, we have a brother and his sister,
   "Nereus, and his sister." It is pleasant to see the stronger and weaker
   sex thus associated. "They grew in beauty side by side" in the field of
   nature, and now they bloom together in the garden of Divine Grace. It
   is a sweet relationship, that of a godly brother and sister--they are
   as the rose and the lily in the same bouquet--but had they no other
   relatives? Were there no others remaining of their kindred? Had they no
   trouble in spirit concerning others dear to them? Depend upon it, they
   often prayed together and sighed because their relatives were not in
   Christ, for concerning all the rest of the family the record is blank.
   God hear your prayers, my dear Friends, when you, like Nereus and his
   sister, unite in brotherly prayer and sisterly intercession.

   One other very beautiful instance of a family connection with the
   Church is in the 13th verse. "Salute Rufus chosen in the Lord, and his
   mother and mine." Now, this is a case of a mother and her son. I would
   not wish to say anything that is far-fetched, but I think there is no
   vain conjecture in supposing that this good woman was the wife of Simon
   the Cyrenian, who carried the Cross of Christ. You will remember he is
   said by Mark to be the father of Alexander and Rufus, two persons who
   evidently were well-known in the Church of God at that time. And here
   we have familiar mention of Rufus and his mother. Whether she was the
   wife of Simeon, or not, she seems to have been a kind, good, lovable
   soul--one of those dear matrons who are at once an ornament and a
   comfort to the Christian Church. And such an excellent woman was she
   that Paul, when he calls her the mother of Rufus adds, "and mine"--she
   had been like a mother to him.

   I do not wonder that such choice mothers have choice sons--"chosen in
   the Lord." If those whom we deeply love carry their religion about with
   them set in a frame of affectionate cheerfulness, it is hard to resist
   the charms of their lovely piety. When a godly woman is a tender
   mother, it is no wonder if her sons, Rufus and Alexander, become
   believers in Jesus Christ, too, for their mother's love and example
   draw them towards Jesus. There is a legend connected with Rufus and
   Alexander. I have never read it, but I have seen it set forth in
   glowing colors by an artist in a cathedral in Belgium. I saw a series
   of paintings which represented Christ bearing His Cross through the
   streets of Jerusalem. Among the crowd the artist has placed a
   countryman looking on and carrying with him his pick and spade, as if
   he had just come into the town from laboring in the fields.

   In the next picture this countryman is evidently moved to tears by
   seeing the cruelties practiced upon the Redeemer and he shows his
   sympathy so plainly that the cruel persecutors of our Lord who are
   watching the spectators, observe it, and gather angrily around him. The
   countryman's two boys are there, too--Alexander and Rufus. Rufus is the
   boy with the red head. He is ardent and sanguine, bold and outspoken,
   and you can see that one of the rough men has just been cuffing him
   about the head for showing sympathy with the poor Cross-bearing Savior.
   The next picture represents the father taken and compelled to bear the
   Cross, while Alexander holds his father's pick, and Rufus is carrying
   his father's spade--and they are going along close by the Lord Jesus,
   pitying Him greatly. If they cannot bear the Cross, they will at least
   help their father by carrying his tools.

   Of course it is but a legend. But who marvels if Alexander and Rufus
   saw their father carry Christ's Cross so well that they, too, should
   afterwards count it their glory to be followers of the Crucified One?
   And that Paul should say, when he wrote down the name of Rufus, that he
   was a choice man, for so we may translate the passage, "Chosen in the
   Lord," or, "The choice one of the Lord"? He was a distinguished
   Christian with great depth of Christian experience and in all respects
   a fit descendant of a remarkable father and mother.

   Thus have we observed the different ways in which families come in
   contact with Christ. And I pray God that every family here may make up
   a part of the whole family in Heaven and earth which is named by the
   name of Jesus. May all your sons and your daughters, your brothers and
   your sisters, your servants and kinsfolk, but chiefly yourselves, take
   up the Cross of Jesus and be saved in the Lord with an everlasting
   salvation!

   II. The interesting passage before us shows WHAT ARE POINTS OF INTEREST
   AMONG CHRISTIANS. Now,

   among worldly people points of interest are very many and
   characteristic. In any worldly community one very important point of
   interest is how much is a man worth. That is an important point with
   Christians, too, in the right sense, but the worldly man means by that,
   "How much money has the man scraped into his till?" He may have gained
   his riches in the worst way in the world, but nobody takes account of
   that--the one all-important question among Mammonites is-- "What is his
   balance at the bankers?"

   Now Paul does not, in his salutation, make a single reference to anyone
   on account of his wealth or poverty. He does not say, "To Philologus,
   our brother, who has 10,000 pounds a year, and Julia, our sister, who
   keeps a carriage and pair"--nothing of the sort! He makes no account of
   position or property, except so far as those may be implied in the
   service which each person rendered to the cause of God. Neither is
   there any allusion made to their holding important offices under
   government, or being what is called exceedingly respectable people or
   persons of good family. The points of interest with Paul, as a
   Christian, were very different from those.

   The first matter of which he made honorable mention was their service
   for the Church. Phebe, in the first verse, is, "a servant of the
   Church, which is at Cenchrea. She has been a succorer of many, and of
   myself also." It is a distinction and honor among Christians to be
   allowed to serve. The most menial employment for the Church of God is
   the most honorable. Every man who seeks honor after God's fashion seeks
   it by being abased, by undertaking that ministry which will involve the
   most self-denial and will secure the greatest reproach. Foremost in the
   ranks of the Divine peerage are the martyrs, because they were the most
   despised. They suffered most and they have the most of honor. So Phebe
   shall have her name inscribed in this golden book of Christ's nobility
   because she is the servant of the Church and because, in being such,
   she succored the poor and needy.

   I doubt not she was a nurse among the poorer Christians, or as some
   call them, a deaconess, for, in olden times, it was so, that the elder
   women who had need were maintained by the Church. And they, in return,
   occupied themselves with the nursing of sick Believers. And it were
   well if such were the case, again, and if the old office could be
   revived. Another special point for remark among Christians is their
   labor. Kindly refer to your Bibles and read the sixth verse: "Greet
   Mary, who bestowed much labor on us." This is the sixth Mary mentioned
   in the Bible. She appears to have been one who laid herself out to help
   the minister. "She bestowed much labor on us," says the Apostle, or,
   "on me"--she was one of those useful women who took personal care of
   the preacher because she believed the life of God's servant to be
   precious--and that he should be cared for in his many labors and
   perils.

   What she did for Paul and his fellow laborers we are not told, but it
   was something which cost her effort, amounting to "much labor." She
   loved much and therefore toiled much. She was "always abounding in the
   work of the Lord." Sister Mary, imitate your namesake! Then follow the
   two good women, Tryphena and Tryphosa, of whom it is said, "who labor
   in the Lord," and Persis, of whom it is written she "labored much in
   the Lord." I do not suppose Tryphena and Tryphosa were angry because
   the Apostle made this distinction, but it is certainly a very plain and
   explicit one--the first two "labored"--but Persis "labored much." So
   there are distinctions and degrees in honor among Believers and these
   are graduated by the scale of service done!

   It is an honor to labor for Christ, it is a still greater honor to
   labor much. If then, any, in joining the Christian Church, desire place
   or position, honor or respect, the way to it is this--labor, and labor
   much! Persis had probably been a slave and was of a strange race from
   the far-off land of Persia. But she was so excellent in disposition
   that she is called, "the beloved Persis," and for her indefatigable
   industry she receives signal mention. Among Believers the rewards

   of affectionate respect are distributed according to the self-denying
   service which is rendered to Christ and to His cause. May all of us be
   helped to labor much, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

   At the same time, another point of interest is character, for as I have
   already said, Rufus in the 13th verse is said to be "chosen in the
   Lord," which cannot allude to his election since all the rest were
   chosen, too, but must mean that he was a choice man in the Lord, a man
   of peculiarly sweet spirit, a devout man, a man who walked with God, a
   man well instructed in the things of God--and a man whose practice was
   equal to his knowledge. "Salute" him, says the Apostle. He who would be
   noted in the Church of God must have real character--there must be
   holiness unto the Lord, there must be faith--a man must have it said of
   him, "he is full of faith and of the Holy Spirit." This shall get him
   commemoration, but nothing else will do it.

   Apelles is described as "approved in Christ," a tried, proved and
   experienced Believer. Christians value those who have been tested and
   found faithful. Tried saints are had in honor among us. Character, you
   see, is the one noteworthy point in the society of the Church and
   nothing else. Yes, there is one thing else. I find one person here
   noted in the Church as a person around whom great interest centered,
   because of the time of his conversion. It is in the fifth verse.
   "Salute my well-beloved Epaenetus, who is the first fruits of Achaia
   unto Christ." You know what that means. When Paul began to preach in
   Achaia, Epaenetus was one of his first converts, and while every
   minister feels a peculiar attachment to all his converts, he has the
   most tender memory of the first ones. What parent does not prize, above
   all others, his first child?

   I can speak from experience. I remember well the first woman who
   professed to be brought to Christ when I began to preach the Gospel. I
   have the house in my mind's eye at this moment. And though I cannot say
   that it was a picturesque cottage, yet it will always interest me.
   Great was the joy I felt when I heard that peasant's story of
   repentance and of faith! She died and went to Heaven a short time after
   her conversion, being taken away by consumption, but the remembrance of
   her gave me more comfort than I have ordinarily received by the
   recollection of 20 or even a hundred converts since then. She was a
   precious seal set upon my ministry to begin and to encourage my infant
   faith.

   Some of you were the first fruits of my ministry in London, in Park
   Street, and very precious people you are. How gladly would I see some
   of you in this Tabernacle become the first fruits of this present
   year--there would be something very interesting about you--for it would
   encourage us all through the year. If you are brought to seek the Lord
   just now, I shall always view you with love and think of you as I read
   this chapter so full of names. I shall be as thankful for those born to
   God tonight as for those regenerated at any other time, for my heart is
   earnestly going out after you.

   So I have shown you that there are points of interest about individual
   persons in the Church of God and what they

   are.

   III. But as time has fled, though I have much to say, I must close with
   the third point, which is this. This long passage REVEALS THE GENERAL
   LOVE WHICH EXISTS (must I say which ought to exist?) IN THE CHURCH OF
   GOD. For, first, the whole passage shows the love of the Apostle
   towards the saints and Brethren at Rome. He would not have taken the
   trouble to write all this to them if he had not really loved them. And
   it shows that there were Christians in those days who were full of love
   for each other. Their salutation, the holy kiss, marked their fervor of
   love, for they were by no means a people given to use outward signs
   unless they had something to express thereby.

   O that Christian love reigned among all Christians now to a greater
   extent! "Ah!" says one, "there is very little of it." I know you, my
   Friend, very well, indeed. You are the man who is forever grumbling at
   others for lack of love, when the truth is that you are destitute of it
   yourself! I always find that those who say there is no love among
   Christians, judge by what they see at home in their own hearts--for
   those who love Christians believe that Christians also love one
   another. You shall find the man of a loving heart, though he will say,
   "I wish there were more love," will never be the man to say that there
   is none. Brothers and Sisters, it is a lie that there is no love among
   Christians! We love each other, still, and we will show it, by the
   Grace of God, even more if the Spirit of God shall help us!

   Note according to this passage the early Christians were accustomed to
   show their love to one another by practical help. In the second verse
   Paul says of Phebe, "Receive her in the Lord, as becomes saints, and
   assist her in whatever business she has need of you, for she has been a
   succorer of many, and of myself also." I do not think that the Apostle
   alluded to any Church business, but to her own business, whatever that
   may have been. She may have had moneys to gather in, or some complaint
   to make at headquarters of an exacting tax-gatherer. I do not know what
   it was and it is

   quite as well that Paul did not tell us. It is no part of an Apostle's
   commission to tell us other people's business. But whatever business it
   was, if any Christian in Rome could help her he was to do so.

   And so if we can help our Christian Brethren in any way or shape, as
   much as lies in us we are to endeavor to do it. Our love must not lie
   in words alone or it will be unsubstantial as the air. Mark you, you
   are not called upon to become sureties for your Brethren, or to put
   your name on the back of bills for them--do that for nobody, for you
   have an express word in Scripture against it--"He that hates suretyship
   is sure," says Solomon, and, "he that is a surety shall smart for it."
   I could wish that some Brethren had been wise enough to have remembered
   the teaching of Scripture upon that point, for it might have saved them
   a sea of troubles.

   But for your fellow Christians do anything that is lawful for you to
   do. Do it for one another out of love to your common Lord, bearing one
   another's burdens and so fulfilling the Law of Christ. We are bound to
   show our love to each other even when it involves great sacrifices. In
   the fourth verse the Apostle says of Priscilla and Aquila that for his
   life "they laid down their own necks." They went into great peril to
   save the Apostle. Such love still exists in our Churches. This is
   denied, but I know it is so. I know Christians who could say honestly
   that if their minister's life could be spared they would be willing to
   die in his place. It has been said by some here and I have heard it,
   and have felt that they who said it meant what they said. I know the
   prayer has gone up from some lips here that they might sooner die than
   I should. When your pastor has been in danger, many of you have
   lovingly declared that if your life could stand for his life it should
   be freely rendered before God. Christians still love each other and
   they still make sacrifices for one another. I speak this to the honor
   of many of you, that your love to your pastor has not been in word
   only, but in deed and in truth, and for this may the Lord reward you.

   Christian love in those days had an intense respect for those who had
   suffered for Christ. Read the seventh verse. Paul says that Andronicus
   and Junia were his fellow prisoners and he speaks of them with special
   unction because of that. No one was thought more of among the early
   Christians than the prisoner for Christ, the martyr, or the almost
   martyr. Why there was even too much made of such sufferers, so that
   while Christians were in prison, expecting to be martyred, they
   received attentions which showed almost too great a reverence for their
   persons. Now, Brethren, whenever any man in these times is laughed at
   for fully following Christ, or ridiculed for bearing an honest
   testimony for the Truth of God, do not be ashamed of him and turn your
   backs upon him. Such a man may not expect you to give him double honor,
   but he may claim that you shall stand shoulder to shoulder with him and
   not be ashamed of the reproach which he is called to bear for Christ
   his Lord.

   So was it with the Church in the olden times--the men who went first in
   suffering were also first in their love and esteem. They never failed
   to admit that they were Brothers in Christ to the man who was doomed to
   die. On the contrary, the Christians of the Apostolic times used to do
   what our Protestant forefathers did in England. The young Christian
   people of the Church, when there was a martyr to be put to death, would
   go and stand with tears in their eyes to see him die--and why, do you
   think? To learn the way! One of them said, when his father asked him
   why he stole out to see his pastor burned, "Father, I did it that I
   might learn the way." And he did learn it so well that when his turn
   came he burned as well, and triumphed in God as gloriously as his
   minister had done!

   Learn the way, young man, to bear reproach! Look at those who have been
   lampooned and satirized, and say, "Well, I will learn how to take my
   turn when my turn comes, but as God helps me I will speak for the Truth
   faithfully and boldly." Again, that love always honored workers. For
   Paul says, "Mary, who bestowed much labor on us." And he speaks of the
   laborers over and over again with intense affection. We ought to love
   much those who do much for Christ, whether they are Christian men or
   women. Alas, I know some, who, if anybody does a little more than
   another, straightway begin to pick holes in his coat. "Mr. So-and-So is
   very earnest, but, ah, yes! And Mrs. So-and-So, yes--God blesses her,
   but, but, yes." For lack of anything definite to say, they shrug their
   shoulders and insinuate. This is the reverse of the spirit of Paul, for
   he recognized holy industry and praised it.

   Dear friend, do not become fault-finders--it is as bad a trade as a
   pickpockets. Till you can do better, hold your tongue! Did you ever
   know a man or woman whom God blessed that was perfect? If God were to
   work by perfect instruments, the instruments would earn a part of the
   Glory. Take it for granted that we are all imperfect--but when you have
   taken that for granted--love those who serve God well and never allow
   anybody to speak against them in your

   hearing. Silence cavilers at once by saying, "God honors them. And whom
   God honors, I dare not despise!" We cannot be wrong in putting our
   honor where God is pleased to place His.

   Still, Christian love in Paul's days--though it loved all the
   saints--had its specialties. Read down the chapter and you will find
   Paul saying, "my well-beloved Epaenetus." "Amplias my beloved in the
   Lord." "Stachys my beloved." And "Urbane our helper in Christ." All
   these were persons whom he especially esteemed. There were some whom he
   liked better than others and you must not blame yourself if you judge
   some Christians to be better than others--and if you therefore love
   them better--for even the Lord, Himself, had a disciple whom He loved
   more than the rest. I desire to love all the Lord's people, but there
   are some of them whom I can love best while I know the least about them
   and feel the most comfort in them when I have not seen them for a month
   or so. There are Christian people whom you could live with in Heaven
   comfortably enough, but it is a severe trial to bear with them on
   earth, although you feel that they are good people--and since God puts
   up with them--so ought you. Since there are such peculiar people, do
   not be always getting in their way to irritate them--leave them alone
   and seek peace by keeping out of their way. Brothers and Sisters, let
   us love one another! By all means let us love one another, for love is
   of God. But let us all try to be loveable, so as to make this duty as
   easy as possible for our Brethren.

   Once more, love among Christians in those early days was known to
   respect seniority in spiritual life, for Paul speaks of some who were
   in Christ before himself. Among us I hope there always will be profound
   esteem for those who have been longest in Christ, for those who have
   stood the test of years, for our aged members, the elders and the
   matrons among us. Reverence to old age is but a natural duty, but
   reverence to advanced Christians is a privilege as well. Let it always
   be so among us. And the last word is this--love to all Christians
   should make us remember even the most obscure and mean members of the
   Church. When the Apostle Paul wrote, "Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon,
   Hermas," why, many of us say, "Whoever were these good people?"

   And when he goes on to mention, "Patrobas, Hermes," we ask, "And who
   were they? What did these men attempt or perform? Is that all?
   Philologus, who was he? And who was Olympas? We know next to nothing
   about those good people." They were like the most of us, commonplace
   individuals--and they loved the Lord--and therefore, as Paul remembered
   their names he sent them a message of love which has become embalmed in
   the Holy Scriptures! Do not let us think of the distinguished
   Christians exclusively so as to forget the rank and file of the Lord's
   army. Do not let the eyes rest exclusively upon the front rank, but let
   us love all whom Christ loves! Let us value all Christ's servants. It
   is better to be God's dog than to be the devil's darling. It were
   better to be the meanest Christian than to be the greatest sinner. If
   Christ is in them and they are in Christ, and you are a Christian, let
   your heart go out towards them.

   And now, finally, may Divine Grace, mercy and peace be with all them
   that love our Lord Jesus Christ. And may we labor to promote unity and
   love among His people. The God of peace shall bruise Satan under our
   feet shortly. May we, therefore, in patience possess our souls. O that
   those who are not yet numbered among the people of the Lord may be
   brought in through faith in Jesus Christ to His Glory! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Romans 16.
     __________________________________________________________________

Onward!

   (No. 1114)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 25, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I
   do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto
   those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of
   the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:13,14.

   SO far as his acceptance with God is concerned, a Christian is complete
   in Christ as soon as he believes. Those who have trusted themselves in
   the hands of the Lord Jesus are saved--and they may enjoy holy
   confidence upon the matter, for they have a Divine warrant for so
   doing. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in
   Christ Jesus." To this salvation the Apostle had attained. But while
   the work of Christ for us is perfect and it were presumption to think
   of adding to it, the work of the Holy Spirit in us is not perfect--it
   is continually carried on from day to day--and will need to be
   continued throughout the whole of our lives.

   We are being "conformed to the image of Christ," and that process is in
   operation as we advance towards Glory. The condition in which a
   Believer should always be found is that of progress. His motto must be,
   "Onward and upward!" Nearly every figure by which Christians are
   described in the Bible implies this. We are plants of the Lord's field,
   but we are sown that we may grow--"First the blade, then the ear, then
   the full corn in the ear." We are born into the family of God, but
   there are babes, little children, young men, and fathers in Christ
   Jesus. Yes, and there are none who are perfect or fully developed men
   in Christ Jesus. It is always a growing process.

   Is the Christian described as a pilgrim? He is no pilgrim who sits down
   as if rooted to the place. "They go from strength to strength." The
   Christian is compared to a warrior, a wrestler, a competitor in the
   games--these figures are the very opposite of a condition in which
   nothing more is to be done. They imply energy, the gathering up of
   strength and the concentration of forces in order to the overthrowing
   of adversaries. The Christian is also likened to a runner in a race and
   that is the figure now before us in the text. It is clear that a man
   cannot be a runner who merely holds his ground, content with his
   position--he only runs aright who each moment nears the mark. Progress
   is the healthy condition of every Christian and he only realizes his
   best estate while he is growing in Divine Grace, "adding to his faith
   virtue," "following on to know the Lord," and daily receiving Grace for
   Grace out of the fullness which is treasured up in Christ Jesus.

   Now, to this progress the Apostle exhorts us--no, he does more than
   exhort--he allures us. He stands among us. He does not lecture us, "ex
   cathedra," standing like a learned master far above his disciples, but
   he puts himself on our level. And though not a whit behind the very
   chief of the Apostles, he says, "Brethren, I count not myself to have
   apprehended." He does not give us the details of his own imperfections
   and deficiencies, but in one word he confesses them in the gross. And
   then he declares that he burns with eager desire for perfection, so
   that it is the one passion of his soul to press onward towards the
   great goal of his hopes, the prize of his high calling in Christ Jesus.
   We cannot desire to have a better instructor than a man who sympathizes
   with us because he humbly considers himself to be of the same rank as
   ourselves. Teaching us to run, the Apostle, himself, runs. Wishing to
   fire our holy ambition, he bears testimony to that same ambition
   flaming within his own spirit.

   Paul's statements in the text call us to look at him under four
   aspects--first, as forming a just estimate of his present
   condition--"Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended."
   Secondly, as placing his past in its proper position-- "forgetting the
   things which are behind." Thirdly, as aspiring eagerly to a more
   glorious future--"reaching forth unto those things which are before."
   And fourthly, as practically putting forth every exertion to obtain
   that which he desired--"I press toward the mark for the prize of the
   high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

   I. First, admire our Apostle as PUTTING A JUST ESTIMATE UPON HIS
   PRESENT CONDITION. He was not one of those who consider the state of
   the Believer's heart to be a trifling matter. He was not indifferent as
   to his spiritual condition. He says, "I count"--as if he had taken
   stock, had made a careful estimate and had come to a conclusion. He is
   not a wise man who says, "I am a Believer in Christ and therefore it
   little matters what are my inward feelings and experience." He who so
   speaks should remember that keeping the heart with all diligence is a
   precept of Inspiration and that a careless walk usually comes to a very
   sorrowful ending.

   The Apostle took account. And when he had done so he was
   dissatisfied--"I count not myself to have apprehended." Nor was that
   dissatisfaction to be regretted. It was a sign of true Grace, a
   conclusion which is always arrived at when saints judge themselves
   rightly. Most weighty is that word of Chrysostom, "He who thinks he has
   obtained everything, has nothing." Had Paul been satisfied with his
   attainments he would never have sought for more. Most men cry, "hold,"
   when they think they have done enough. The man who can honestly write,
   "I press forward," you may be quite sure is one who feels that he has
   not yet apprehended all that might be gained. Self-satisfaction rings
   the death-knell of progress. There must be a deep-seated discontent
   with present attainments, or there will never be a striving after the
   things which are yet beyond.

   Now, Beloved, mark that the man who in our text tells us that he had
   not apprehended was a man vastly superior to any of us. Among them that
   were born of women there has never lived a greater than Paul the
   Apostle. In sufferings for Christ, a martyr of the first class. In
   ministry for Christ an Apostle of foremost degree. Where shall I find
   such a man for Revelations? He had been caught up into the third Heaven
   and heard words which it was not lawful for him to utter! Where shall I
   find his match for character? A character splendidly balanced, as
   nearly approximating to that of his Divine Master as we well expect to
   see in mortal men. Yet, after having duly considered the matter, this
   notable saint said, "I count not myself to have apprehended."

   Shame, then, on any of us poor dwarfs if we are so vain as to count
   that we have apprehended! Shame upon the indecent self-conceit of any
   man who congratulates himself upon his own spiritual condition when
   Paul, himself, said, "Not as though I had already attained, either were
   already perfect." The injury which self-content will do a man would be
   hard to measure--it is the readiest way to stunt him and the surest
   method to keep him weak. I should be sorry, indeed, if I should be
   addressing one who imagines that he has apprehended, for his progress
   in Divine Grace is barred from this time forth! The moment a man says,
   "I have it," he will no longer try to obtain it. The moment he cries,
   "It is enough," he will not labor after more.

   Yet, Brothers and Sisters, far too often, of late, have I come across
   the path of those who speak as if they have apprehended--Brethren whose
   own lips praise themselves, who sing upon their own fullness of Grace
   with an unction rather too exaggerated for my taste. I am not about to
   condemn them. I cannot say I am not about to censure them, for I intend
   to do so, from a deep sense of the necessity that they should be
   censured. These friends assure us that they have reached great heights
   of Grace and are now in splendid spiritual condition. I should be very
   glad to know that it is so if it were true. But I am grieved to hear
   them act as witnesses for themselves, for then I know that their
   witness is not true. If it were so, they would be the last men to
   publish it abroad.

   There are Brethren abroad whose eminent graciousness is not very clear
   to others, but it is very evident to themselves--and equally as vivid
   is their apprehension of the great inferiority of most of their
   Brethren. They talk to us, not as men of like passions with ourselves
   and Brethren of the same stock, but as demigods, thundering out of the
   clouds--giants discoursing to the little men around them! If it is true
   that they are so superior, I rejoice! Yes, and will rejoice. But my
   suspicion is that their glorying is not good and that the spirit which
   they manifest will prove a snare to them. I meet, I say, sometimes with
   Brothers and Sisters who feel content with their spiritual condition.
   They do not ascribe their satisfactory character to themselves, but to
   the Grace of God. But for all that, they feel that they are what they
   ought to be and what others ought to be but are not.

   They see in themselves a great deal that is good, very much that is
   commendable and a large amount of excellence which they can hold up for
   the admiration of others. They have reached the "higher life" and are
   wonderfully fond of telling us so--and explaining the phenomena of
   their self-satisfied condition. Though Paul was compelled to say, "In
   me, that is, in my flesh, there dwells no good thing," their flesh
   appears to be of a better quality. Whereas he had

   spiritual conflicts and found that without were fights and within
   fears, these very superior persons have already trod Satan under their
   feet and reached a state in which they have little else to do but to
   divide the spoil.

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, whenever we meet with persons who can
   congratulate themselves upon their personal character, or whenever we
   get into the state of self-content ourselves, there is an ill savor
   about the whole concern. I do not know what impression it makes upon
   you, but whenever I hear a Brother talk about himself, and how full he
   is of the Spirit of God and all that, I am distressed for him. I think
   I hear the voice of that stately professor, who said, "God, I thank you
   that I am not as other men are." I feel that I would prefer to listen
   to that other man, who said, "God be merciful to me a sinner," and went
   down to his house justified rather than the other.

   When I hear a man crow about himself, I think of Peter's
   declaration--"Though all men should deny You, yet will not I," and I
   hear another cock crow. Self-complacency is the mother of spiritual
   declension. David said, "My mountain stands firm: I shall never be
   moved." But before long the face of God was hidden and he was troubled.
   In the presence of a professor who is pleased with his own attainments,
   one remembers that warning text--"Let him that thinks he stands, take
   heed lest he fall." Great I! Great I! Wherever you are, you must come
   down! Great I is always opposed to great Christ. John the Baptist knew
   the Truth when he said, "He must increase, but I must decrease." There
   is no room in this world for God's Glory and man's glory. He who is
   less than nothing magnifies God, but he "who is rich, and increased in
   goods, and has need of nothing," dishonors God. And he "is naked and
   poor and miserable."

   Furthermore, we have observed that the best of men do not talk of their
   attainments. Their tone is self-depreciation, not self-content. We have
   known some eminently holy men, who are now in Heaven, and in looking
   back upon their lives we note that they were never conscious of being
   what we all thought them to be. Everybody could see their beauty of
   character except themselves. They lamented their imperfections while we
   admired the Grace of God in them. I remember a minister of Christ, now
   with God--I will not mention his name--if I did, it would be as
   familiar to your ears as household words. It was proposed by some of
   us, when he left the ministry in his old age, that we should hold a
   meeting to bid him farewell and testify our esteem for him.

   It was my duty to propose the fraternal act, but I hesitated as I saw
   the blush mantle his cheek and I paused when he rose and besought us
   never to think of such a thing, for he felt himself to be one of the
   most unworthy of all the servants of the Lord. Every man of the
   associated ministers, that day assembled, felt that our venerable
   friend was by far the superior of us all--and yet his own estimate of
   himself was lowest of the lowly. He had sacrificed much, but I never
   heard him speak of his sacrifices. He lived in habitual fellowship with
   God, but I never heard him declare it, much less glory in it. Shallow
   streams brawl and babble, but deep waters flow on in silence! Of all
   the departed saints whom it has been my lot to esteem highly in love
   for their works' sake, I do not remember one who dared to praise
   himself, though I can remember several poor little spiritual babes who
   did so to their own injury.

   If ever true saints speak of what God has done by them, they do it in
   such a modest way that you might think they were talking of someone 500
   miles away, rather than of themselves. They have scrupulously laid all
   their crowns at the Savior's feet, not in word only, but in spirit.
   When I remember these sacred names of the great departed, I feel it
   hard to have patience with the unspiritual, unholy boastings of
   personal holiness and high spirituality which are getting common in
   these days. Drums make much noise, but we know by observation that it
   is not their fullness which makes the sound.

   Again, we have noticed that we, ourselves, in our own holiest moments,
   do not feel self-complacent. Whenever we get near to God and really
   enter into fellowship with Him, the sensations we feel are the very
   reverse of self-congratulation. Job, in this, was the type of every
   believing man. Till he saw God he spoke up for his innocence and
   defended himself against the charges of his friends. But when the Lord
   revealed Himself to him, he said, "My eyes see You, therefore I abhor
   myself and repent in dust and ashes." We never see the beauty of Christ
   without, at the same time, perceiving our own deformity. When we
   neglect prayer and self-examination we grow into mighty vain fellows,
   but when we live near to God in private devotion and heart-searching,
   we put off our ornaments from us. In the light of God's Countenance we
   perceive our many flaws and imperfections, and instead of saying, "I am
   clean," we cry out, "Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips!"

   Now if this is our own experience, we infer from it that those who
   think well of themselves must know little of that revealing light which
   humbles all who dwell in it. My observation of personal character has
   been somewhat wide and I

   cannot help bearing my testimony that I am greatly afraid of men who
   make loud professions of superior sanctity. I have had the misfortune
   to have known, on one or two occasions, superfine Brethren, who were,
   in their own ideas, far above the rest of us and almost free from human
   frailties. I confess to have felt very much humbled by their eminent
   goodness until I found them out. They talked of complete
   sanctification, of a faith which never staggered, of an old nature
   entirely dead until I wondered at them. But I wondered more when I
   found that all the while they were rotten at the core, were negligent
   of common duties while boasting of the loftiest spirituality and were
   even immoral while they condemned others for comparative trifles.

   I have now become very suspicious of all who cry up their own wares. I
   had rather have a humble, timid, fearful, watchful, self-depreciating
   Christian to be my companion than any of the religious exquisites who
   crave our admiration. These great-winged eagles who fly so loftily
   will, I fear, turn out to be unclean birds. The excessive verdure of a
   super finely flourishing religiousness often covers a horrible bog of
   hypocrisy. Let me add, once more, that whatever shape self-satisfaction
   may assume--and it bears a great many--it is at bottom nothing but a
   shirking of the hardship of Christian soldierhood. The Christian
   soldier has to fight with sins every day and if he is a man of God and
   God's Spirit is in him, he will find he needs all the strength he has,
   and a great deal more, to maintain his ground and make progress in the
   Divine

   life.

   Now, self-contentment is a shirking of the battle, I do not care how it
   is come by. Some people shirk watchfulness, repentance and holy care by
   believing that the only sanctification they need is already theirs by
   imputation. They use the work of the Lord Jesus for them as though it
   could thrust away the necessity of the Spirit's work in them. Personal
   holiness they will not hear of--it is legal. If they come across such a
   text as, "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord," or, "Be not
   deceived, God is not mocked, whatever a man sows that shall he also
   reap," they straightway force another meaning upon it, or else forget
   it altogether.

   Another class believe that they have perfection in the flesh, while a
   third attain to the same complacent condition by the notion that they
   have overcome all their sins by believing that they have done so--as if
   believing your battles to be won was the same thing as winning them!
   This, which they call faith, I take the liberty to call a lazy,
   self-conceited presumption. And though they persuade themselves that
   their sins are dead, it is certain that their carnal security is
   vigorous enough and highly probable that the rest of their sins are
   only keeping out of the way to let their pride have room to develop
   itself to ruinous proportions. You can reach self-complacency by a
   great many roads. I have known enthusiasts reach it by sheer
   intoxication of excitement, while Antinomians come at it by imagining
   that the Law is abolished and that what is sin in others is not sin in
   saints.

   There are theories which afford an evil peace to the mind by throwing
   all blame of sin upon fate. And others which lower the standard of
   God's demands so as to make them reachable by fallen humanity. Some
   dream that a mere dead faith in Jesus will save them, let them live as
   they like. And others that they are already as good as need be. Many
   have fallen into the same condition by another error, for they have
   said, "Well, we cannot conquer all sin and therefore we need not aim at
   it. Some of our sins are constitutional and will never be gotten rid
   of." Under these evil impressions they sit down and say, "It is well, O
   Soul, you are in an excellent condition. Sit still and take your ease,
   there is little more to be done, there is no need to attempt more."

   All this is evil to the last degree. I have used few theological terms,
   because it does not matter how we get to be self-satisfied, whether by
   an orthodox or a heterodox mode of reasoning--it is a mischievous thing
   in any case. The fact is, my Brothers and Sisters, the Lord calls us to
   this high calling of contending with sin within and without until we
   die! It is of no use of our mincing the matter--we must fight if we
   would reign--our sins will have to be contended till our dying day and
   probably we shall have to fight upon our death-bed. Therefore, every
   day we are bound to be upon our watchtower against sin around and
   within us. It is of no use our deluding ourselves with pretty theories
   which act only as spiritual opium to cause unhealthy dreams.

   Sin is a real thing with each one of us and must be daily wrestled
   with--there is an evil heart of unbelief within us and the devil
   without us--and we must watch, and pray, and cry mightily, and strive,
   and struggle, and admit that we have not yet apprehended. If we dream
   that we are at the goal already, we shall stop short of the prize. The
   full soul loathes the honeycomb. A man full of self cares for nothing
   more. Shake off these slothful bands, my Brethren! Be strong. You are
   as weak as others and as likely to sin. Watch, therefore, and pray lest
   you enter into temptation.

   What is it, at bottom, that makes men content with themselves? It may
   be, first of all, a forgetfulness of the awful holiness of the Law of
   God. If the Law of the Ten Commandments is to be read only as its
   letter runs, I could imagine a man's judging himself and saying, "I
   have apprehended." But when we know that the Law is spiritual, how can
   we be self-complacent? My dear Brothers and Sisters, if you think you
   have reached its perfect height, I ask you to hear these words--"You
   shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
   with all your mind, and with all your strength, and your neighbor as
   yourself."

   Can you say, in the sight of a heart-searching God, "I have fulfilled
   all that"? If you can, I am staggered at you and think you the victim
   of a strong delusion which leads you to believe a lie! Brethren who can
   take delight in themselves must have lost sight of the heinousness of
   sin. The least sin is a desperate evil--an assault upon the Throne of
   God--an insult to the majesty of Heaven. The simple act of plucking the
   forbidden fruit cost us Paradise. There is a bottomless pit of sin in
   every transgression, a Hell in every iniquity. If we keep clear of sins
   of action and if our tongue is so bridled that we avoid every hasty and
   unadvised speech, yet do we not know that our thoughts and
   imaginations, our looks and longing of heart, have in them an infinity
   of evil?

   If, after having learned that sin can only be washed out by the death
   of the Son of God, and that even the flames of Hell cannot make
   atonement for a single sin, a man can then say, "I am content with
   myself," it is to be feared that he has made a fatal mistake as to his
   own character. Is there not a failure, in such cases, to understand the
   highest standard of Christian living? If we measure ourselves among
   ourselves, there are many Believers here who might be pretty well
   satisfied. You are as generous as other Christians are, considering
   your income. You are as prayerful as most other professors and as
   earnest in doing good as any of your neighbors. If you are worldly, yet
   you are not more worldly than most professors, nowadays, and so you
   judge yourself not to be far below the standard. But what a standard!
   Let us seek a better!

   Brothers, it is a very healthy thing for us who are ministers to read a
   biography like that of M'Cheyne. Read that through, if you are a
   minister, and it will burst many of your windbags. You will find
   yourselves collapse most terribly. Take the life of Brainerd among the
   Indians, or of Baxter in our own land. Think of the holiness of George
   Herbert, the devoutness of Fletcher, or the zeal of Whitfield. Where do
   you find yourself after reading their lives? Might you not peep about
   to find a hiding place for your insignificance? When we mix with dwarfs
   we think ourselves giants. But in the presence of giants we become
   dwarfs. When we think of the saints departed and remember their
   patience in suffering, their diligence in labor, their ardor, their
   self-denial, their humility, their tears, their prayers, their midnight
   cries, their intercession for the souls of others, their pouring out
   their hearts before God for the glory of Christ--why, we shrink into
   less than nothing and find no word of boasting on our tongue!

   If we survey the life of the only perfect One, our dear Lord and
   Master, the sight of His beauty covers our whole countenance with a
   blush. He is the lily and we are the thorns. He is the sun and we are
   as the night. He is all good and we are all evil. In His Presence we
   bow in the dust, we confess our sins and count ourselves unworthy to
   unloose His shoe laces. It is to be feared that there is springing up
   in some parts of the Christian Church a deceitful form of
   self-righteousness which leads even good people to think too highly of
   themselves. It is a fashionable form of fanaticism, very pleasing to
   the flesh, very fascinating and very deadly. Many, I fear, are not
   really living so near to God as they think they are--neither are they
   as holy as they dream.

   It is very easy to frequent Bible readings, conferences and excited
   public meetings, and to fill one's self with the gas of self-esteem. A
   little pious talk with a sort of Christian who always walks on high
   stilts will soon tempt you to use the stilts yourself. But indeed, dear
   Brothers and Sisters, you are a poor, unworthy worm and a nobody--and
   if you get one inch above the ground you get just that inch too high.
   Remember, you may think yourself to be very strong in a certain
   direction because you do not happen to be tried on that point. Many of
   us are exceedingly good-tempered when nobody provokes us. Some are
   wonderfully patient because they have a sound constitution and have no
   racking pains to endure. And others are exceedingly generous because
   they have more money than they need.

   A ship's seaworthiness is never quite certain till she has been out at
   sea. The grand thing will be to be sound before the living God in the
   day of trial. I pray every Believer here to get off his high horse and
   to remember that he is, "naked and poor and miserable" apart from
   Christ--and only in Jesus Christ is he anything at all! And if he
   thinks himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself,
   but does not deceive God.

   II. In the second place, look at Paul as PLACING THE PAST IN ITS TRUE
   LIGHT. He says, "Forgetting those

   things which are behind." What does he mean? Paul does not mean that he
   forgot the mercy of God which he had enjoyed. Far from it! Paul does
   not mean that he forgot the sins which he had committed. Far from
   it--he would always remember them to humble him. We must follow out the
   figure which he is using and so read him.

   When a man ran in the Grecian games, if he had run half way and passed
   most of his fellows, and had then turned to look round and to rejoice
   over the distance which he had already covered, he would have lost the
   race. Suppose he had commenced singing his own praises and said, "I
   have come down the hill, along the valley, and up the rising ground on
   this side. See, there are one, two, three, four, five, six runners far
   behind me." While thus praising himself he would lose the race. The
   only hope for the runner was to forget all that was behind and occupy
   his entire thoughts with the piece of ground which lay in front! Never
   mind though you have run so far--you must let the space which lies
   between you and the goal engross all your thoughts and command all your
   powers.

   It must be so with regard to all the sins which we have overcome.
   Perhaps at this moment you might honestly say, "I have overcome a very
   fierce temper," or, "I have bestirred my naturally indolent spirit."
   Thank God for that! Stop long enough to say, "Thank God for that," but
   do not pause to congratulate yourselves as though some great thing had
   been done, for then it may soon be undone. Perhaps the very moment you
   are rejoicing over your conquered temper it will leap back upon you
   like a lion from the covert, and you will say, "I thought you were dead
   and buried, and here you are roaring at me again." The very easiest way
   to give resurrection to old corruptions is to erect a trophy over their
   graves--they will at once lift up their heads and howl out, "We are
   still alive!"

   It is a great thing to overcome any sinful habit, but it is necessary
   to guard against it, still, for you have not conquered it so long as
   you congratulate yourself upon the conquest. In the same light we must
   regard all the Grace we have obtained. I know some dear friends who are
   mighty in prayer and my soul rejoices to join in their supplications.
   But I should be sorry, indeed, to hear them praise their own prayers.
   We love yonder Brother for his generosity, but we hope he will never
   tell others that he is liberal. Yonder dear friend is very humble, but
   if he were to boast of it, that would be the end of it. Self-esteem is
   a moth which eats the garments of virtue. Those flies, those pretty
   flies of self-praise, must be killed, for if they get into your pot of
   ointment they will spoil it all.

   Forget the past! Thank God who has made you pray so well. Thank God who
   has made you kind, gentle, or humble. Thank God who has made you give
   liberally. But forget it all and go forward since there is yet very
   much land to be possessed! And so with all the work for Jesus which we
   have done. Some people seem to have very good memories as to what they
   have performed. They used to serve God wonderfully when they were
   young! They began early and were full of zeal! They can tell you all
   about it with much pleasure. In middle life they worked marvels and
   achieved great wonders. But now they rest on their oars. They are
   giving other people an opportunity to distinguish themselves! Their own
   heroic age is over.

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, as long as ever you are in this world forget
   what you have already done and go forward to other service! Living on
   the past is one of the faults of old Churches. We, for instance, as a
   Church, may begin to congratulate ourselves upon the great things God
   has done by us, for we shall be sure to put it in that pretty shape,
   although we shall probably mean the great things we have done
   ourselves. After praising ourselves thus, we shall gain no further
   blessing, but shall decline by little and little. The same is true of
   denominations. What acclamations are heard when allusion is made to
   what our fathers did! Oh, the name of Carey, Knibb, and Fuller! We
   Baptists think we have nothing to do now but to go upstairs and go to
   bed, for we have achieved eternal glory through the names of these good
   men! And as for our Wesleyan friends, how apt they are to harp upon
   Wesley, Fletcher, Nelson and other great men!

   Thank God for them! They were grand men! But the right thing is to
   forget the past and pray for another set of men to carry on the work.
   We should never be content, but, "On, on, on," should be our cry! When
   they asked Napoleon why he continually made wars, he said, "I am the
   child of war. Conquest has made me what I am and conquest must maintain
   me." The Christian Church is the child of spiritual war. She only lives
   as she fights and rides forth conquering and to conquer. God deliver us
   from the self-congratulatory spirit, however it may come, and make us
   long and pine after something better!

   III. And now the third point. Paul, having put the present and past
   into their right places, goes on to the future,

   ASPIRING EAGERLY TO MAKE IT GLORIOUS, for he says, "reaching forth unto
   those things which are before."

   Does he not here give us the picture of a runner? He reaches forth. The
   man, as he runs, throws himself forward, almost out of the
   perpendicular. His eyes are already at the goal. His hands are far in
   advance of his feet. His whole body is leaning forward--he runs as
   though he would project himself to the end of the journey before his
   legs can carry him there. That is how the Christian should be--always
   throwing himself forward after something more than he has yet
   reached--not satisfied with the rate at which he advances. His soul
   always going at 20 times the pace of the flesh.

   John Bunyan gives us a little parable of the man on horseback. He is
   bid by his master to ride in a hurry to fetch the physician. But the
   horse is a sorry jade. "Well," says Bunyan, "if his master sees that
   the man on the horse's back is whipping and spurring, and pulling the
   bridle and struggling with all his might, he judges that the man would
   go if he could." That is how the Christian should always be, not only
   as devout, earnest and useful as he can be, but panting to be a great
   deal more so--spurring this old flesh and striving against this laggard
   spirit--if perhaps he can do more. Brothers and Sisters, we ought to be
   reaching forward to be like Jesus! Never may we say, "I am like
   So-and-So, and that is enough." Am I like Jesus? Perfectly like Jesus?
   If not--away, away, away from everything I am or have been! I cannot
   rest until I am like my Lord.

   The aim of the Christian is to be perfect--if he seeks to be anything
   less than perfect, he aims at an object lower than that which God has
   placed before him. To master every sin and to have and possess and
   exhibit every virtue--this is the Christian's ambition. He who would be
   a great artist must not follow low models. The artist must have a
   perfect model to copy--if he does not reach to it, he will reach far
   further than if he had an inferior model to work by. When a man once
   realizes his own ideal, it is all over with him. A great painter once
   had finished a picture and he said to his wife with tears in his eyes,
   "It is all over with me. I shall never paint again, I am a ruined man."
   She enquired, "Why?" "Because," he said, "that painting contents and
   satisfies me. It realizes my idea of what painting ought to be and
   therefore I am sure my power is gone, for that power lies in having
   ideals which I cannot reach, something yet beyond me which I am
   striving

   after."

   May none of us ever say, "I have reached my ideal, now I am what I
   ought to be, there is nothing beyond me." Perfection, Brothers and
   Sisters, absolute perfection--may God help us to strive after it! That
   is the model, "Be you perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven
   is perfect." "Shall we ever reach it?" asks one. Thousands and millions
   have reached it--there they are before the Throne of God--their robes
   are washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb! And we shall
   possess the same, only let us be struggling after it by God's good
   help. Let every Believer be striving that in the details of common
   life, in every thought, in every word, in every action, he may glorify
   God. This ought to be our objective--if we do not reach it, it is that
   which we must press for--that from morning light to evening shade we
   shall live unto God. Whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we
   should do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.

   This is what we are to seek after, praying always in the Holy Spirit to
   be sanctified wholly, spirit, soul and body. "It is a wonderfully high
   standard," says one. Would you like me to lower it, Brother? I should
   be very sorry to have it lowered for myself. If the highest degree of
   holiness were denied to any one of us, it would be a heavy calamity. Is
   it not the joy of a Christian to be perfectly like his Lord? Who would
   wish to stop short of it? To be obliged to live under the power of even
   the least sin forever would be a horrible thing! No, we never can be
   content short of perfection! We will reach forward towards that which
   is before.

   IV. And now the Apostle is our model, in the fourth place, because he
   PUTS FORTH ALL HIS EXERTIONS TO REACH THAT WHICH HE DESIRES. He says,
   "This one thing I do," as if he had given up all else and addicted
   himself to one sole object--to aim to be like Jesus Christ! There were
   many other things Paul might have attempted, but he says, "this one
   thing I do." Probably Paul was a poor speaker--why did he not try to
   make himself a rhetorician? No. He came not with excellency of speech.
   But you tell me Paul was busy with his tent making. I know he was--what
   with tent-making, preaching, visiting and watching night and day, he
   had more than enough to do! But all these were a part of his pursuit of
   the one thing--he was laboring to serve his Master perfectly and to
   render himself up as a whole burnt offering unto God.

   I invite every soul that has been saved by the precious blood of Christ
   to gather up all its strength for this one thing--to cultivate a
   passion for Divine Grace and an intense longing after holiness. Ah, if
   we could but serve God as God should be served, and be such manner of
   people as we ought to be in all holy conversation and godliness, we
   should see a new era in the Church. The greatest need of the Church at
   this day is holiness. Why did Paul pursue holiness with

   such concentrated purpose? Because he felt God had called him to it. He
   aimed at the prize of his high calling. God had elected Paul to be a
   champion against sin. Selected to be Jehovah's champion, he felt that
   he must play the man.

   Moreover, it was "God in Christ Jesus" who was the choice, and as the
   Apostle looked up and saw the mild face of the Redeemer and marked the
   crown of thorns of the King of Sorrows, he felt he must overcome sin.
   He could not let a single evil live within him and, though he had not
   yet apprehended, he felt he must press forward till he had apprehended
   that to which God in Christ had called him. Moreover, the Apostle saw
   his crown, the crown of life that fades not away, hanging bright before
   his eyes. "What," said he, "shall tempt me from that path of which yon
   crown is the end? Let the golden apples be thrown in my way, I cannot
   even look at them, nor stay to spurn them with my feet. Let the sirens
   sing on either side and seek to charm me with their evil beauty to
   leave the holy road, but I must not, and I will not. Heaven! Heaven!
   Heaven! Is not this enough to make a man dash forward in the road
   there? The end is glorious, what if the running is laborious? When
   there is such a prize to be had, who will grudge a struggle?"

   Paul pressed forward towards the mark for the prize of his high calling
   in Christ Jesus. He felt he was a saved man and he meant, through the
   same Grace, to be a holy man. He longed to grasp the crown and hear
   the, "Well done, good and faithful servant," which his Master would
   award him at the end of his course. Brothers and Sisters, I wish I
   could stir myself and stir you to a passionate longing after a
   gracious, consistent, godly life! Yes, for an eminently, solidly,
   thoroughly devoted and consecrated life. You will grieve the Spirit if
   you walk inconsistently. You will dishonor the Lord that bought you.
   You will weaken the Church. You will bring shame upon yourself. Even
   though you are "saved so as by fire," it will be an evil and a bitter
   thing to have in any measure departed from God. But to be always going
   onward, to be never self-satisfied, to be always laboring to be better
   Christians, to be aiming at the rarest sanctity--this shall be your
   honor, the Church's comfort and the glory of God!

   May the Lord help you to perfect holiness in the fear of God. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Philippians 3.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Good Shepherdess

   (No. 1115)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 1, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Tell me, O You whom my soul loves, where You feed, where You make Your
   flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turns aside by
   the flocks of Your companions? If you know not, O you fairest among
   women, go your way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed your
   kids beside the shepherds' tents." Song of Solomon 1:7,8.

   THE bride was most unhappy and ashamed because her personal beauty had
   been sorely marred by the heat of the sun. The fairest among women had
   become swarthy as a sunburn slave. Spiritually it is so full often with
   a chosen soul. The Lord's Grace has made her fair to look upon, even as
   the lily, but she has been so busy about earthly things that the sun of
   worldliness has injured her beauty. The bride, with holy
   shamefacedness, exclaims, "Look not upon me, for I am black, because
   the sun has looked upon me." She dreads alike the curiosity, the
   admiration, the pity and the scorn of men. She then turns herself,
   alone, to her Beloved, whose gaze she knows to be so full of love that
   her swarthiness will not cause her pain when most beneath His eyes.

   This is one index of a gracious soul--that whereas the ungodly rush to
   and fro and know not where to look for consolation, the believing heart
   naturally flies to its beloved Savior, knowing that in Him is its only
   rest. It would appear from the preceding verse that the bride was also
   in trouble about a certain charge which had been given to her, which
   burdened her, and in the discharge of which she had become negligent of
   herself. She says, "They made me the keeper of the vineyards," and she
   would wish to have kept them well, but she felt she had not done so,
   and that, moreover, she had failed in a more immediate duty--"My own
   vineyard have I not kept." Under this sense of double unworthiness and
   failure, feeling her omissions and her commissions to be weighing her
   down, she turned round to her Beloved and asked instruction at His
   hands.

   This was well. Had she not loved her Lord she would have shunned Him
   when her comeliness was faded, but the instincts of her affectionate
   heart suggested to her that He would not discard her because of her
   imperfections. She was, moreover, wise to appeal to her Lord against
   herself. Beloved, never let sin part you from Jesus. Under a sense of
   sin, do not fly from Him. That were foolishness! Sin may drive you from
   Sinai--it ought to draw you to Calvary. To the Fountain we should fly
   with all the greater alacrity when we feel that we are foul. And to the
   dear wounds of Jesus, where all our life and healing must come, we
   should resort with the greater earnestness when we feel our soul to be
   sick, even though we fear that sickness to be unto death.

   The bride, in the present case, takes to Jesus her troubles, her
   distress about herself and her confession concerning her work. She
   brings before Him her double charge, the keeping of her own vineyard
   and the keeping of the vineyards of others. I know that I shall be
   speaking to many, this morning, who are busy in serving their Lord and
   it may be that they feel great anxiety because they cannot keep their
   own hearts near to Jesus--they do not feel themselves warm and lively
   in the Divine service. They plod on, but they are very much in the
   condition of those who are described as "faint, yet pursuing." When
   Jesus is present, labor for Him is joy, but in His absence His servants
   feel like workers underground, bereft of the light of the sun.

   They cannot give up working for Jesus, they love Him too well for that,
   but they pine to have His company while they are working for Him. And
   like the young Prophets who went to the woods to cut down, every man, a
   beam for their new house, they say to their Master, "Be content, we
   pray You, and go with Your servants." Our most earnest desire is that
   we may enjoy sweet communion with Jesus while we are actively engaged
   in His cause. Indeed, Beloved, this is most important to all of us. I
   do not know of any point which Christian workers need more often to
   think upon than the subject of keeping their work and themselves near
   to their Master.

   Our text will help us to this under three heads. We have here, first, a
   question asked--"Tell me, O You whom my soul loves, where You feed,
   where You make Your flock to rest at noon?" Secondly, an argument
   used--"Why should I be as one that turns aside by the flocks of Your
   companions?" And, thirdly, we have an answer obtained--"If you know
   not, O you fairest among women, go your way forth by the footsteps of
   the flock, and feed your kids beside the shepherds'

   tents."

   I. Here is A QUESTION ASKED. Every word of the enquiry is worthy of our
   careful meditation. You will observe, first, concerning it, that it is
   asked in love. She calls Him to whom she speaks by the endearing title,
   "O You whom my soul loves." Whatever she may feel herself to be, she
   knows that she loves Him. She is black, and ashamed to have her face
   gazed upon, but still she loves her Bridegroom. She has not kept her
   own vineyard as she ought to have done, but still she loves Him. Of
   that she is sure, and therefore boldly declares it. She loves Him as
   she loves none other in all the world. He only can be called, "Him whom
   my soul loves."

   She knows none at all worthy to be compared with Him, none who can
   rival Him. He is her bosom's Lord, sole prince and monarch of all her
   affections. She feels, also, that she loves Him intensely--from her
   inmost soul she loves Him. The life of her existence is bound up with
   Him--if there is any force and power and vitality in her, it is but as
   fuel to the great flame of her love which burns for Him, alone. Mark
   well that it is not, "O You whom my soul believes in." That would be
   true, but she has passed further. It is not, "O You whom my soul
   honors." That is true, too, but she has passed beyond that stage. Nor
   is it merely, "O You whom my soul trusts and obeys." She is doing that,
   but she has reached something warmer, more tender, more full of fire
   and enthusiasm, and it is, "O You whom my soul loves."

   Now, Beloved, I trust many of us can speak so to Jesus. He is to us the
   Well-Beloved, "the chief among a myriad." "His mouth is every
   sweetness, yes, all of Him is loveliness," and our soul is wrapped up
   in Him, our heart is altogether taken up with Him. We shall never serve
   Him aright unless it is so. Before our Lord said to Peter, "Feed My
   lambs," and "Feed My sheep," He put the question, "Simon, son of Jonah,
   do you love Me?" And this He repeated three times, for until that
   question is settled we are unfit for His service. So the bride, here,
   having both herself and her little flock to care for, avows that she
   loves the Spouse as if she felt that she would not dare to have a part
   of His flock to look after if she did not love Him--as if she saw that
   her right to be a shepherdess at all depended upon her love to her
   Spouse. She could not expect His help in her work, much less His
   fellowship in the work, unless there was first in her that
   all-essential fitness of love to His Person.

   The question, therefore, becomes instructive to us, because it is
   addressed to Christ under a most endearing title. And I ask every
   worker here to take care that he always does his work in a spirit of
   love and always regards the Lord Jesus not as a taskmaster, not as one
   who has given us work to do from which we would rather escape, but as
   our dear Lord, whom to serve is bliss and for whom to die is gain. "O
   You whom my soul loves," is the right name by which a worker for Jesus
   should address his Lord. Now note that the question, as it is asked in
   love, is also asked of Him. "Tell me, O you whom my soul loves, where
   You feed." She asked Him to tell her, as if she feared that none but
   Himself would give her the correct answer--others might be mistaken,
   but He could not be. She asked of Him because she was quite sure that
   He would give her the kindest answer.

   Others might be indifferent and might scarcely take the trouble to
   reply, but if Jesus would tell her Himself, with His own lips, He would
   mingle love with every word and so console as well as instruct her.
   Perhaps she felt that nobody else could tell her as He could, for
   others speak to the ear, but He speaks to the heart. Others speak with
   lower degrees of influence--we hear their speech but are not moved. But
   Jesus speaks and the Spirit goes with every word He utters and
   therefore we hear to profit when He converses with us. I do not know
   how it may be with you, my Brothers and Sisters, but I feel, this
   morning, that if I could get half a word from Christ it would satisfy
   my soul for many a day! I love to hear the Gospel and to read it, and
   to preach it--but to hear it fresh from Himself, applied by the energy
   of the Holy Spirit! O, this is refreshment! This is energy and power!
   Therefore, Savior, when Your workers desire to know where You feed,
   tell them Yourself. Speak to their hearts by Your own Spirit and let
   them feel as though it were a new revelation to their inmost nature.
   "Tell me, O You whom my soul loves." It is asked in love. It is asked
   of Him.

   Now, observe what the question is. She wishes to know how Jesus does
   His work and where He does it. It appears, from the eighth verse, that
   she, herself, has a flock of kids to tend. She is a shepherdess and
   would feed her flock. Therefore her question, "Tell me where You feed?"
   She desires those little ones of hers to obtain rest as well as food
   and

   she is troubled about them. Therefore she says, "Tell me where You make
   Your flock to rest," for if she can see how Jesus does His work and
   where He does it, and in what way, then she will be satisfied that she
   is doing it in the right way, if she closely imitates Him and abides in
   fellowship with Him.

   The question seems to be just this: "Lord, tell me what are the Truths
   with which You do feed Your people's souls. Tell me what are the
   doctrines which make the strong ones weak and the sad ones glad. Tell
   me what is that precious meat which You are known to give to hungry and
   fainting spirits to revive them and keep them alive, for if You tell
   me, then I will give my flock the same food. Tell me where the pasture
   is where You feed Your sheep and straightway I will lead mine to the
   same happy fields. Then tell me how You make Your people rest. What are
   those promises which You apply to the consolation of their spirit so
   that their cares and doubts and fears and agitations all subside?

   You have sweet meadows where You make Your beloved flock lie calmly
   down and slumber. Tell me where those meadows are that I may go and
   fetch the flock committed to my charge--the mourners whom I ought to
   comfort, the distressed ones whom I am bound to relieve, the desponding
   whom I have endeavored to encourage--tell me, Lord, where You make Your
   flock to lie down, for then, under Your help, I will go and make my
   flock to lie there, too. It is for myself, but yet far more for others
   that I ask the question, 'Tell me where You feed, where You make them
   to rest at noon.' " I have no doubt that the bride did desire
   information for herself and for her own good, and I believe Dr. Watts
   had caught some of the spirit of the passage when he sang--

   "Gladly would I feed among Your sheep, Among them rest, among them
   sleep."

   But it does not strike me that this is all the meaning of the passage
   by a very long way. The bride says, "Tell me where You feed Your
   flock," as if she would wish to feed with the flock. "Where You make
   Your flock to rest," as if she wanted to rest there, too. But it
   strikes me the very gist of the thing is this, that she wished to bring
   her flock to feed where Christ's flock feeds and to lead her kids to
   lie down where Christ's little lambs were reposing. She desired, in
   fact, to do her work in His company. She wanted to mix up her flock
   with the Lord's flock, her work with His work, and to feel that what
   she was doing she was doing for Him. Yes, and with Him and through Him.

   She had evidently met with a great many difficulties in what she had
   tried to do. She wished to feed her flock of kids, but could not find
   them pasture. Perhaps when she began her work as a shepherdess she
   thought herself quite equal to the task, but now the same sun which had
   bronzed her face had dried up the pasture, and so she says, "O You that
   know all the pastures, tell me where You feed, for I cannot find grass
   for my flock." And suffering herself from the noontide heat, she finds
   her little flock suffering, too. And she enquires, "Where do You make
   Your flock to rest at noon? Where are cool shadows of great rocks which
   screen off the sultry rays when the sun is in its zenith and pours down
   torrents of heat? For I cannot shade my poor flock and give them
   comfort in their many trials and troubles. I wish I could. O Lord, tell
   me the secret art of consolation, then will I try to console my own
   charge by the same means."

   We would know the groves of promises and the cool streams of peace,
   that we may lead others into rest. If we can follow Jesus we can guide
   others and so both we and they will find comfort and peace. That is the
   meaning of the request before us. Note well that she said most
   particularly, "Tell me." "O Master, do not merely tell Your sheep where
   You feed, though they want to know, but tell me where You feed, for I
   would gladly instruct others." She would desire to know many things,
   but chiefly she says, "Tell me where You feed," for she wished to feed
   others. We want practical knowledge, for our desire is to be helped to
   bring others into rest--to be the means of speaking peace to the
   consciences of others--as the Lord has spoken peace to ours.

   Therefore the prayer is, "Tell me." "You are my Model, O Great
   Shepherd. You are my Wisdom. If I am a shepherd to Your sheep, yet am I
   also a sheep beneath Your Shepherdry, therefore teach me that I may
   teach others." I do not know whether I make myself plain to you, but I
   wish to put it very simply. I am preaching to myself perhaps a great
   deal more than to you. I am preaching to my own heart. I feel I have to
   come, Sunday after Sunday, and weekday after weekday, and tell you a
   great many precious things about Christ, and sometimes I enjoy them
   myself. And if nobody else gets blessed by them, I do, and I go home
   and praise the Lord for it. But my daily fear is lest I should be a
   handler of texts for you, and a preacher of good things for others, and
   yet remain unprofited in my own heart.

   My prayer is that the Lord Jesus will show me where He feeds His people
   and let me feed with them, that I may conduct you to the pastures where
   He is, and be with Him, myself, at the same time that I bring you to
   Him. You Sunday

   school teachers and Evangelists, and others--my dear, earnest comrades
   for whom I thank God at every remembrance-- I feel that the main point
   you have to watch is that you do not lose your own spirituality while
   trying to make others spiritual. The great point is to live near to
   God. It would be a dreadful thing for you to be very busy about other
   men's souls and neglect your own. Appeal to the Well-Beloved and
   entreat Him to let you feed your flock where He is feeding His people.
   Pray that He would let you sit at His feet, like Mary, even while you
   are working in the house, like Martha.

   Do not do less, but rather more, and ask to do it in such communion
   with Him that your work shall be melted into His work and what you are
   doing shall be really only His working in you and you rejoicing to pour
   out to others what He pours into your own soul. God grant it may be so
   with you all, my Brothers and Sisters.

   II. Secondly, here is AN ARGUMENT USED. The bride says, "Why should I
   be as one that turns aside by the flocks of Your companions?" If she
   should lead her flock into distant meadows, far away from the place
   where Jesus is feeding His flock, it would not be well. As a
   shepherdess would naturally be rather dependent and would need to
   associate herself for protection with others, suppose she should turn
   aside with other shepherds and leave her Bridegroom--would it be right?
   She speaks of it as a thing most abhorrent to her mind and well might
   it be.

   For, first, would it not look very unseemly that the bride should be
   associating with others than the Bridegroom? They have each a
   flock--there is He with His great flock--and here is she with her
   little one. Shall they seek pastures far off from one another? Will
   there not be talk about this? Will not onlookers say, "This is not
   seemly. There must be some lack of love here, or else these two would
   not be so divided"? Stress may be put, if you like, upon that little
   word, "I." Why should I, your blood-bought spouse. I, betrothed unto
   You, before the earth was, I, whom You have loved--why should I turn
   after others and forget You?

   Beloved, you had better put the emphasis in your own reading of it just
   there. Why should /, whom the Lord has pardoned, whom the Lord has
   loved, whom the Lord has favored so much. /, who have enjoyed
   fellowship with Him for many years. /, who know that His love is better
   than wine. /, who have aforetime been inebriated with His sweetness--
   why should I turn aside? Let others do so if they will, but it would be
   uncomely and unseemly for me. I pray You, Brothers and Sisters, try to
   feel that--that for you to work apart from Christ would have a bad look
   about it. That for your work to take you away from fellowship with
   Jesus would have a very ugly appearance--it would not be among the
   things that are honest and of good repute.

   For the bride to feed her flock in other company would look like
   unfaithfulness to her Husband. What? Shall the bride of Christ forsake
   her Beloved? Shall she be unchaste towards her Lord? Yet it would seem
   so if she makes companions of others and forgets her Beloved. Our
   hearts may grow unchaste to Christ even while they are zealous in
   Christian work. I dread very much the tendency to do Christ's work in a
   cold, mechanical spirit. But above even that I tremble lest I should be
   able to have warmth for Christ's work and yet should be cold towards
   the Lord Himself. I fear that such a condition of heart is
   possible--that we may burn great bonfires in the streets for public
   display--and scarcely keep a live coal upon our hearth for Jesus to
   warm His hands.

   When we meet in the great assembly the good company helps to warm our
   hearts and when we are working for the Lord with others they stimulate
   us and cause us to put forth all our energy and strength. And then we
   think, "Surely my heart is in a healthy condition towards God." But,
   Beloved, such excitement may be a poor index of our real state. I love
   that quiet, holy fire which will glow in the closet and flame forth in
   the chamber when I am alone--and that is the point I am more fearful
   about than anything else--both for myself and for you, lest we should
   be doing Christ's work without Christ. Lest we should be having much to
   do but not thinking much of Him. Lest we should be involved in much
   serving yet forgetting Him.

   Why, that would soon grow into making a Christ out of our own
   service--an Antichrist out of our own labors! Beware of that! Love your
   work, but love your Master more! Love your flock, but love the Great
   Shepherd better, still, and always keep close to Him, for it will be a
   token of unfaithfulness if you do not. And mark again, "Why should I be
   as one that turns aside by the flocks of Your companions?" We may read
   this as meaning, "Why should I be so unhappy as to have to work for You
   and yet be out of communion with You?" It is a very unhappy thing to
   lose fellowship with Jesus, and yet to have to go on with religious
   exercises. If the wheels are taken off your chariot it is no great
   matter if nobody wants to ride. But what if you are called upon to
   drive on? When a man's foot is lame he may not so much regret it if he
   can sit still, but if he is bound to run a race he is greatly to be
   pitied.

   It made the spouse doubly unhappy even to suppose that she, with her
   flock to feed and herself needing feeding, too, should have to turn
   aside by the flocks of others and miss the Presence of her Lord. In
   fact the question seems to be put in this shape--"What reason is there
   why I should leave my Lord? What apology could I make? What excuse
   could I offer for doing so? Is there any reason why I should not abide
   in constant fellowship with Him? Why should I be as one that turns
   aside? Perhaps it may be said that others turn aside, but why should I
   be as one of them? There may be excuses for such an act in others, but
   there can be none for me. Your rich love, Your free love, Your
   undeserved love, Your special love to me has bound me hand and
   foot--how can I turn aside?

   "There may be some professors who owe You little, but I, once the chief
   of sinners owe you so much, how can I turn aside? There may be some
   with whom You have dealt harshly who may turn aside. But You have been
   so tender, so kind to me, how can I forget You? There may be some who
   know but little of You, whose experience of You is so slender that
   their turning aside is not to be wondered at. But how can I turn aside
   when You have shown me Your love and revealed Your heart to me? Oh, by
   the banqueting house where I have feasted with You. By the Hermonites
   and the hill Mizar where You have manifested Your love. By the place
   where deep called to deep and then mercy called to mercy. By those
   mighty storms and sweeping hurricanes in which You were the shelter of
   my head, by ten thousand thousand mercies past which have been my
   blessed portion, why should I be as one that turns aside by the flocks
   of Your companions?"

   Let me address the members of this Church and say to you, if all the
   churches in Christendom were to go aside from the Gospel, why should
   you? If in every other place the Gospel should be neglected and an
   uncertain sound should be given forth. If Ritualism should swallow up
   half the churches and Rationalism the rest, yet why should you turn
   aside? You have been peculiarly a people of prayer. You have also
   followed the Lord fully in doctrine and in ordinances and consequently
   you have enjoyed the Divine Presence and have prospered beyond measure.
   We have cast ourselves upon the Holy Spirit for strength and have not
   relied upon human eloquence, music, or beauties of color, or
   architecture.

   Our only weapon has been the simple, plain, full Gospel and why should
   we turn aside? Have we not been favored for these many years with
   unexampled success? Has not the Lord added unto our numbers so
   abundantly that we have not had room enough to receive them? Has He not
   multiplied the people and increased the joy? Hold fast to your first
   love and let no man take your crown! I thank God there are still
   Churches, a few in England and yet more in Scotland, which hold fast
   the doctrines of the Gospel and will not let them go. To them I would
   say, why should you turn aside? Should not your history, both in its
   troublous and its joyous chapters, teach you to hold fast the form of
   sound words?

   Above all, should we not try to live as a Church and individually,
   also, in abiding fellowship with Jesus? For if we turn aside from Him
   we shall rob the Truth of God of its aroma, yes, of its essential
   fragrance. If we lose fellowship with Jesus we shall have the standard,
   but where will be the standard-bearer? We may retain the candlestick,
   but where shall be the light? We shall be shorn of our strength, our
   joy, our comfort, our all, if we miss fellowship with Him! God grant,
   therefore, that we may never be as those who turn aside.

   III. Thirdly, we have here AN ANSWER GIVEN by the Bridegroom to His
   Beloved. She asked Him where He fed, where He made His flock rest, and
   He answered her. Observe carefully that this answer is given in
   tenderness to her infirmity--not ignoring her ignorance, but dealing
   very gently with it. "If you know not"--a hint that she ought to have
   known, but such a hint as kind lovers give when they would forbear to
   chide. Our Lord is very tender to our ignorance. There are many things
   which we do not know, but ought to know. We are children when we should
   be men and have to be spoken to as unto carnal--unto babes in Christ,
   when we should have become fathers.

   Is there one among us who can say, "I am not faulty in my knowledge"? I
   am afraid the most of us must confess that if we had done the Lord's
   will better we should have known His doctrine better. If we had lived
   more closely to Him we should have known more of Him. Still, how very
   gentle He rebuke us. The Lord forgives our ignorance and condescends to
   instruct it. Note next that the answer is given in great love. He says,
   "O you fairest among women." That is a blessed cordial for her
   distress. She said, "I am black," but He says, "O you fairest among
   women."

   I would rather trust Christ's eyes than mine. If my eyes tell me I am
   black I will weep, but if He assures me I am fair I will believe Him
   and rejoice. Some saints are more apt to remember their sinfulness and
   grieve over it, than to believe in their righteousness in Christ and
   triumph in it. Remember, Beloved, it is quite as true today that you
   are all fair and without spot as that you are black, because the sun
   has looked upon you. It must be true, because Jesus says so. Let me

   give you one of the sayings of the Bridegroom to His bride--"You are
   all fair, My Love; there is no spot on you." "Ah, that is a figure,"
   you say. Well, I will give you one that it not a figure.

   The Lord Jesus, after He had washed His disciples' feet, said, "He that
   is washed needs not except to wash his feet, for he is clean every
   whit." And then He added, "And you are clean." If you desire an
   Apostolic word to the same effect, let me give you this-- "Who shall
   lay anything to the charge of God's elect?"--anything--any little thing
   or any great thing! Jesus has washed His people so clean that there is
   no spot, no wrinkle, nor any such thing upon them in the matter of
   justification before God--

   "In your Surety you are free,

   His dear hands were pierced for you!

   With His spotless vesture on, Holy as the Holy One."

   How glorious is this! Jesus does not exaggerate when He thus commends
   His Church. He speaks plain, sober Truth. "O you fairest among women,"
   says He. My Soul, do you not feel love to Christ when you remember that
   He thinks you beautiful? I cannot see anything in myself to love, but
   He does, and calls me, "all fair."

   I think it must be that He looks into our eyes and sees Himself, or
   else this--that He knows what we are going to be and judges us on that
   scale! As the artist, looking on the block of marble, sees in the stone
   the statue which he means to fetch out of it with matchless skill, so
   the Lord Jesus sees the perfect image of Himself in us, from which He
   means to chip away the imperfections and the sins until we stand out in
   all His splendor! But still it is gracious condescension which makes
   Him say, "You are fairest among women," to one who mourned her own
   sunburn countenance. The answer contains much sacred wisdom.

   The bride is directed where to go that she may find her Beloved and
   lead her flock to Him. "Go your way forth by the footprints of the
   flock." If you will find Jesus, you will find Him in the way the holy
   Prophets went, in the way of the Patriarchs and the way of the
   Apostles. And if your desire is to find your flock and to make them lie
   down--very well, go and feed them as other shepherds have
   done--Christ's own shepherds whom He has sent in other days to feed His
   chosen. I feel very glad, in speaking from this text, that the Lord
   does not give to His bride in answer to her question some singular
   directions of great difficulty, some novel prescriptions singular and
   remarkable. Just as the Gospel, itself, is simple and homely, so is
   this exhortation and direction for the renewal of communion. It is
   easy, it is plain. You want to get to Jesus and you want to bring those
   under your charge to Him? Very well, then, do not seek out a new road,
   but simply go the way which all other saints have gone! If you want to
   walk with Jesus, walk where other saints have walked. And if you want
   to lead others into communion with Him, lead them by your example where
   others have gone.

   What is that? If you want to be with Jesus, go where Abraham went in
   the path of separation. See how he lived as a pilgrim and a sojourner
   with his God. If you would see Jesus, "Come you out from among them, be
   you separate, touch not the unclean thing." You shall find Jesus when
   you have left the world. If you would walk with Jesus, follow the path
   of obedience. Saints have never had fellowship with Jesus when they
   have disobeyed Him. Keep His statutes and observe His testimonies. Be
   jealous over your conduct and character, for the path of obedience is
   the path of communion. Be sure that you follow the ancient ways with
   regard to the Christian ordinances--do not alter them, but keep to the
   good old paths.

   Stand and enquire what Apostles did, and do the same. Jesus will not
   bless you in using fanciful ceremonies of human invention. Keep to
   those which He commands, which His Spirits sanctions, which His
   Apostles practiced. Above all, if you would walk with Jesus, continue
   in the way of holiness and persevere in the way of Grace. Make the Lord
   Jesus your Model and Example, and by treading where the footprints of
   the flock are to be seen you will both save yourself and them that hear
   you. You shall find Jesus and they shall find Jesus, too.

   We might have supposed that the Lord would have said, "If you want to
   lead your flock aright, array yourself in sumptuous apparel. Or go get
   your music and fine anthems. By these fair things you will fascinate
   the Savior into your sanctuaries." But it is not so. The incense which
   will please the Lord Jesus is that of holy prayer and praise. And the
   only rituals which are acceptable with Him are these--to visit the
   fatherless and the widow, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
   This is all He wants. Follow that and you shall go right and lead
   others right.

   Then the Spouse added, "Feed your kids beside the shepherds' tents."
   Now, who are these shepherds? There are many in these days who set up
   for shepherds, who feed their sheep in poisonous pastures. Keep away
   from them! But there

   are others whom it is safe to follow. Let me take you to the 12
   principal shepherds who came after the great Shepherd of All. You want
   to bless your children, to save their souls and have fellowship with
   Christ in the doing of it--then teach them the Truths which the
   Apostles taught. And what were they? Take Paul as an example. "I
   determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ, and Him
   Crucified." That is feeding the kids beside the shepherds' tents--when
   you teach your children Christ, much of Christ, all of Christ and
   nothing else but Christ! Mind you, stick to that blessed subject.

   And when you are teaching them Christ, teach them all about His life,
   His death, His Resurrection. Teach them His Godhead and His Manhood.
   You will never enjoy Christ's company if you doubt His Divinity. Take
   care that you feed your flock upon the doctrine of the Atonement.
   Christ will have no fellowship with a worker unless he represents Him
   fairly and you cannot represent Christ truthfully unless you see the
   ruddy hue of His atoning blood as well as the lily purity of His life.
   "Feed your kids beside the shepherds' tents." Then will you teach them
   the atoning Sacrifice, and Justification by faith, and imputed
   righteousness, and union with the risen Head, and the coming of the
   Great One, wherein we shall receive the adoption, to wit, the
   redemption of the body from the grave.

   I speak the truth and lie not when I say that if we want to teach a
   congregation so as to bless them and keep in fellowship with Christ at
   the same time, ourselves, we must be very particular to teach nothing
   but the Truth of God-- not a part of it, but all of it. Preach that
   blessed doctrine of Election! Oh, the deeps of Divine love which are
   contained in that blessed Truth of God! Do not shirk it, or keep it in
   the background. You cannot expect Christ's Presence if you do. Teach
   the doctrine of man's depravity. Lay the sinner low. God will not bless
   a ministry which exalts men. Preach the doctrine of the Holy Spirit's
   effectual calling, for if we do not magnify the Spirit of God we cannot
   expect that He will make our work to stand.

   Preach regeneration. Let it be seen how thorough the change is, that we
   may glorify God's work. Preach the final perseverance of the saints.
   Teach that the Lord is not changeable--casting away His people, loving
   them today and hating them tomorrow. Preach, in fact, the Doctrines of
   Grace as you find them in the Book. Feed them beside the shepherds'
   tents. Yes, and feed the kids there--the little children. I begin to
   feel more and more that it is a mistake to divide the children from the
   congregation. I believe in special services for children, but I would
   also have them worship with us. If our preaching does not teach
   children, it lacks some element which it ought to possess. The kind of
   preaching which is best of all for grown-up people is that in which
   children, also, will take delight.

   I like to see the congregation made up not all of the young, nor all of
   the old, not all of the mature, nor all of the inexperienced, but some
   of all sorts gathered together. If we are teaching children salvation
   by works and grown-up people salvation by Grace, we are pulling down,
   in the classroom, what we build up in the Church and that will never
   do! Feed the kids with the same Gospel as the grown-up sheep, though
   not exactly in the same terms. Let your language be appropriate to
   them, but let it be the same Truth of God. God forbid that we should
   have our Sunday schools the hotbeds of Arminianism, while our churches
   are gardens of Calvinism! We shall soon have a division in the camp if
   that is so. The same truth for all--and you cannot expect Christ to be
   with you in feeding your little flocks unless you feed them where
   Christ feeds us. Where does He feed us but where the Truth grows?

   Oh, when I read some sermons, they remind me of a piece of common by
   the roadside, after a hungry horde of sheep have devoured every green
   thing! But when I read a solid Gospel sermon of the Puritans, it
   reminds me of a field kept for hay which a farmer is, at last, obliged
   to give up to the sheep. The grass has grown almost as high as
   themselves and so they lie down in it, eating and resting. Give me the
   Doctrines of Grace and I am in clover! If you have to feed others, take
   them there! Do not conduct them to the starved pastures of modern
   thought and culture. Preachers are starving God's people nowadays. Oh,
   but they set out such beautiful China plates, such wonderful knives and
   forks, such marvelous vases and damask tablecloths! But as for food,
   the plates look as if they had been smeared with a feather, there is so
   little on them.

   The real Gospel teaching is little enough. They give us nothing to
   learn, nothing to digest, nothing to feed upon. It is all slop and
   nothing substantial. O for the good old corn of the kingdom! We need
   that! And I am persuaded that when the Churches get back to the old
   food again--when they begin to feed their flocks beside the shepherds'
   tents and when, in practical living Christians, the saints get back to
   the old Puritan method and follow, once again, the tracks of the sheep
   and the sheep follow the tracks of Christ--then we shall get the Church
   into fellowship with Jesus and Jesus will do

   wonders in our midst! But to get that, each individual must aim at
   winning it for himself--and if the Lord shall grant it to each one of
   us--then it will be granted to the whole, and the good times which we
   desire will certainly have come.

   My Beloved, do you desire to work with Christ? Do you want to feel that
   Jesus is at your right hand? Then go and work in His way. Teach what He
   would have you teach, not what you would like to teach. Go and work for
   Him as He would have you work, not as your prejudices might prescribe
   to you. Be obedient. Follow the footsteps of the flock. Be diligent,
   also, to keep hard by the shepherds' tents and the Lord bless you more
   and more, you and your children, and His shall be the glory.

   I have spoken only to God's people. I wish there had been time to speak
   to the unconverted, too, but to them I can only say this--may God grant
   you Grace to know the beauties of Jesus, for then you will love Him,
   too. May He also show you the deformities of yourselves, for then you
   will desire to be cleansed and made lovely in Christ. And remember, if
   any one of you wants Christ, He wants you. And if you long for Him, He
   longs for you. If you seek Him, He is seeking you. If you will now cry
   to Him, He is already crying after you. "Whoever will, let him come and
   take of the water of life freely." The Lord save you for His name's
   sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Song of Solomon 1.
     __________________________________________________________________

Medicine For The Distracted

   (No. 1116)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 8, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "In the multitude of my thoughts within me Your comforts delight my
   soul." Psalm 94:19.

   GODLY people are thoughtful people. Indeed, it is often a sign of the
   beginning of Grace in a man when he begins to consider. Lack of thought
   has to do with the ruin of most of those who perish--it is not so much
   that they despise as that they neglect the great salvation. They have
   no time for thinking. They fly through life like mere butterflies and
   they rush upon destruction like wanton moths. Alas, that they should be
   so brutish! It is shameful and grievous that men whose noblest
   attribute is an intellect akin to angels should live like "dumb, driven
   cattle." Even men who call themselves religious often seek for priests
   or ministers to do their thinking for them. They cannot be induced to
   give personal heed to their eternal welfare.

   Good men are, none the less, full of thought because they are men of
   faith--believing is not the death of thinking, it is the sanctification
   of it. When our Savior said, according to our version, "Take no
   thought," He was very far from meaning what those words would seem to
   imply. He meant take no carking care, no anxious thought. It was
   anxiety, not prudence, which He condemned. Christians are among the
   most thoughtful and contemplative of men. It is the foolish man who
   leaps before he looks and therefore often looks backward with vain
   regret after he has leaped. Men of Belial hate meditation, but men of
   God delight in it. The Gospel excites thoughts and perfumes them. It
   does not allow the mind to lie fallow, but sows it with heavenly seed
   from which spring meditations of the Truth of God, contemplations of
   purity and purposes of virtue.

   Believing in God opens up to us the stores of Divine wisdom and then,
   by holy meditation, we feed on them. Faith gathers the handfuls of
   sacred corn from which contemplation threshes out the ears and prepares
   soul-sustaining bread. Gracious men take much account of their thoughts
   and make a conscience of them. Other men are scarcely alarmed in
   conscience by their actions unless they happen to commit some glaring
   crime. But the saint has lost his heart of stone and his heart of flesh
   is conscious of God's displeasure and trembles at it when an impure
   thought has defiled his soul. Regenerates have sensitive minds so that
   a word wrongly spoken grieves them sorely. And if it should never go so
   far as a word, but only an evil thought like an unclean bird flits
   through their mind, they are troubled lest they should have invited or
   secretly entertained so foul a lodger.

   They dread the sparks of desire, for they know what flames may be
   kindled by them. They have a horror of sin in any shape--it is a deadly
   poison--and they dread the very odor of it. If they thought that they
   had lost their sensitiveness in any degree it would grieve them and
   make them pray--

   "Quid as the apple of an eye, O God, my conscience make; Awake my heart
   when sin is near, And keep it still awake."

   They judge their thoughts severely and cannot be induced to imagine
   that they are mere trifles. In this they are fully justified, for
   thought is the foundation and formation of character. "As a man thinks
   in his heart so is he." If you had not thought of evil you had never
   spoken it. If your thought had never conceived, your hand had never
   executed. Thoughts lie upon the anvil like rough iron and time hammers
   them into actions. If there were no plastic clay of evil thoughts there
   were no potters' vessels of evil deeds. The thought is the man, the
   essence of himself, the core of his humanity. The outward act is but
   the bone--the marrow lies in the motive intent and design--therefore he
   who desires to be right looks mainly at his thoughts.

   And as thought makes character--and therefore good men cannot afford to
   trifle with it--so thought makes happiness or woe. In the present life
   it is certainly so. Many a man never possessed a diamond or a chain of
   gold, and yet he is not unhappy, because he wears the pearl of content
   and his thoughts of future bliss are as an ornament about his neck. Men
   who have their breasts made brilliant with stars and gems might well
   envy those whose jewels flash within their bosoms and light up the
   secret chambers of their souls. Thoughts have more to do with true
   wealth than all the miser's stores. The soul makes the estate. He is a
   poor man who ranks with emperors and yet is a stranger to inward peace.
   And he is rich who has not a foot of land to call his own, whose
   heritage is altogether in another world, but who nevertheless can say--

   "My God, You are mine,

   What a comfort Divine,

   What a blessing to know

   That my Jesus is mine! In the heavenly Lamb,

   Thrice happy I am,

   And my heart, it does leap,

   At the sound of His name."

   Thought does it all. If thoughts are full of faith in Jesus, confidence
   in the great Father, hope of Heaven and love to his follow men, the man
   has a young Heaven within the boundaries of his manhood! But if his
   thoughts are full of sadness, despondency, ambition, prim, selfishness,
   revenge, discontent and the like, the man is and must be unhappy--he
   creates his own Hell and is his own tormentor. We must, then, look well
   to our thoughts and keep our heart with all diligence, for out of it
   are the issues of life. We must watch thought, think upon thought and
   pray about thought--and happy shall we be if we can say, in the
   language of the text--"In the multitude of my thoughts within me Your
   comforts delight my soul."

   Now, as I may be helped to do it, I shall this morning first speak upon
   the Psalmist's declarations, setting it out in some of the different
   lights in which he intended it to be seen. And, secondly, I shall dwell
   for a little upon the subject in this declaration upon which he lays
   the greatest stress, "Your comforts delight my soul."

   I. First, then, let us look at THE PSALMIST'S DECLARATION. We shall set
   it forth under five aspects. The first

   will be this--May we not, without twisting the text, understand David
   to mean that when passing many subjects in review before him, he
   selected the joys of true religion, or the comforts of God as the
   subjects which he preferred beyond all others?

   The poet-king sees marching before him in procession a thousand themes
   for thought, many of them exceedingly attractive and fascinating. And
   after looking at them all with the fixed eyes of contemplation, he
   says, ''Notwithstanding the multitude of all these subjects for
   thought, none of them charm me like the testimonies of my God: they
   afford me pleasure for awhile, but my deepest pleasure, that which
   delights my very soul, is found in the comforts of God." It is worthy
   of note that David was a man whose contemplations could take a wide
   range because his experience had been a singularly varied one. He knew
   the joys of quiet meditation, for in his early youth he had been a
   shepherd's boy and had kept his father's flock. There are some who
   fancy that if happiness is to be found on earth, it may be discovered
   in rural scenes--in quietude and peace--and I am inclined to think that
   they are not far off the mark. To the mind which is rightly attuned,
   there are sacred charms in solitude. Well might our poet praise God for
   quiet and sing--

   "The calm retreat, the silent shade, With prayer and praise agree, And
   seem by Your kind bounty made For those that worship You."

   In the quietude in which he fed his flocks, David had not been a
   soulless clown, but a poet, a student, a Divine. At midnight he
   surveyed the heavens and gave us that wonderful eighth Psalm in which
   he says, "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the
   moon and stars, which You have ordained; what is man, that You are
   mindful of him; and the son of man that You visit him?" He had
   considered objects upon earth as well as those in the skies. Many
   Psalms will show that he was a careful observer of all the works of
   God's hands. He loved to ramble where he startled the

   hind of the morning and glanced at the eagle renewing his youth. He
   delighted to sit down by the brooks which ran among the hills, to watch
   the wild goats and the conies and listen to the birds which sang among
   the branches of the trees.

   He noted the fir trees where the storks have their nests and the cedars
   of Lebanon so full of sap. He knew the joys of observing the works of
   God's hands and they are by no means small. If we all observed Nature
   more it would be well for us. An eminent physician of the insane has
   said that he has never met with an insane naturalist. The observation
   of the works of God in the animal and vegetable kingdoms is so amusing
   and entertaining to the mind that it affords relaxation from the
   severer studies and ruder cares of life. David knew something of
   natural history and something of astronomy. Indeed, he knew something
   of every natural science and, besides, he was acquainted with the
   charms of music and the delights of poetry, for he was, himself, a poet
   of transcendent genius.

   I think of all purely intellectual joys, there is none greater than to
   be able to pour fourth sublime truths in fitting words. Surely if the
   new-born child gives pleasure to its mother, the new-born poem gives
   even more rapturous joy to its author--"this is my own thought; it has
   sprung from my own soul." The author feels a fuller joy in every stanza
   than the reader is ever likely to do, for who admires the child
   one-half so much as does the parent? And then to wed an immortal hymn
   to celestial music, as David often did, is not this delight? To sit
   beneath some spreading oak and there, with skillful fingers, wake the
   harp to ecstasy and sing, "My hands shall find You, O my God, and every
   string shall have its tribute to sing"--is not this pleasure?

   David knew, beyond all others of his times, the united charms of the
   Divine arts of poetry and music. Yet in looking back, the royal
   Psalmist exclaims, "In the multitude of all these charming subjects,
   rich beyond all price, You, my God, even You, are the chief of my
   delights and the comforts You have revealed to me and applied, by Your
   Spirit, to my heart--these are the summit of my joy! In all the rest I
   may take a measured solace, but Your comforts fill my heart to the
   brim. They not only sustain and cheer me, but they delight my soul."
   Remember, Beloved Friends, that David not only knew the joys of
   retirement, but he had felt the delights of active life and they are
   not few to a man who is in vigorous health and mental force.

   There is rapture in being able to serve one's country by noble deeds.
   When the cowards were flying before Goliath, it was no small joy for
   the stripling of Bethlehem to come to the front to do battle for his
   country in heroic fashion. It is no mean thing to be stirred by--

   "That stern joy which warriors feel In firemen worthy of their steel."

   When he came back with the grizzly head of the champion in his hand, it
   was no trifling joy that flushed the young warrior's bosom. He had
   slain the enemy of his country and now would the daughters of Israel
   rejoice in the dance and say--"Saul has slain his thousands and David
   his ten thousands." He knew the joys of battle and of victory!

   Moreover, the Psalmist knew the splendors of a court and the glory of a
   throne, for he was the chosen king of Israel. He was an absolute
   monarch of a people glad to serve him. He knew the pleasures of power
   and the sweets of eminence. David's history was the epitome of all
   human experience. It was not so much one life as all our lives
   condensed in one. "He seemed to be not one but all mankind's epitome."
   That Book of Psalms--to which of us does it not belong? Is there not a
   portion there for each man among us? Whereas we each have had a
   separate way, David appears, like his greater Lord, to have trodden all
   our ways and to have known the sorrows and the happiness of us all.

   Yet, reviewing all his thoughts, he says, "In the multitude of my
   thoughts within me, of all I have suffered, and all I have enjoyed; all
   I have gained, and all I have lost, all I have desired, and all I have
   attained, the delight of my soul is in my God, and in nothing else;
   Your comforts, O my God, delight my soul." I feel sure that we are not
   going away from David's words and certainly not from David's sense, if
   we give this meaning to the text.

   Now I say to every Christian here, should not this be your assertion,
   that although all desirable things should pass before you in
   procession, yet nothing to you is like your God, nothing is comparable
   to His comforts? Perhaps some of you are now growing gray, having, in
   your time, passed through many phases of life. You were rich once, you
   have also been poor. You have been in company, you have been in
   solitude. You have been a wife. You have been a widow. You have been a
   child. You have been a parent. You have been a master. You have been a
   servant. You have been honored.

   You have been slandered. You have gone through most conditions of
   life--and now--what is your verdict? Your answer is concerning
   everything else except the love of Christ, "vanity of vanities, all is
   vanity."

   But concerning the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, you confess
   that it delights your souls as much as it did in your youth when you
   consecrated your first energies to God! The Gospel still delights us,
   now that we begin to miss the strength from the arm and the spring from
   the footstep! It still delights us now that gray hairs are on us and we
   are descending to the grave. it delights us, yes, and delights us in
   our last hours as much as it did in our first. Blessed be the name of
   the Lord for this!

   But we cannot linger. A second sense of the text will now come before
   us. David also means that when he was exercised with many cares in life
   he found his solace in the comforts of his God. David had many reasons
   for care. Probably the first part of his life was the happiest, when he
   had only his sheep. Afterwards, when he was called to court, his evil
   days began. Then was he persecuted by Saul and hated without a cause.
   His cares were many when he roamed the wilderness with that rough
   warrior band around him, so eager for vengeance, so apt to censure
   their leader's actions. Then his thoughts must have been many and
   perplexed. We find passages in David's life full of bewildering
   trouble, like the scene at Ziklag when the city was burned with fire
   and all his property and the possessions of his followers was taken
   away, and their wives and children, too.

   The rough soldiers, in the bitterness of their spirits, spoke of
   stoning David, and David was much distressed. His own dear ones were
   missing and thus he had to bear his own share in the common calamity,
   and the blame of all his followers besides. At that time, "David
   encouraged himself in his God." He does not appear to have talked to
   Joab and Abishai about it, but his heart went away to his God so that
   in the multitude of his cares his resort was to the Lord. After he
   assumed the throne, David's cares multiplied. The care of the Church of
   God, as well as of the State, was upon him. His own sins also
   multiplied his cares, for when he had transgressed against his God, his
   family became to him a constant source of distress and even to the last
   he had to say, "My house is not so with God."

   He had cares heavier than yours or mine, because we are not kings and
   have neither armies at home, nor foes abroad to look after. However
   much we may have to think of, we can scarcely claim to be quite so
   burdened as David must have been. And I thank God we have not such
   rebellious children to deal with as David found in Amnon, Absalom and
   the rest. What, then, did David do when he was beset with thoughts of
   trouble and distress? He went always to the Lord and delighted in the
   comforts of his God!

   Ah, Brothers and Sisters, this age is an age of care. We live too fast
   by half. We do too much and accomplish, therefore, too little. Our good
   sires could afford time for lengthened family devotions of a character
   which seem impossible to us. They could listen to sermons which would
   altogether tire us and snap the bands of our patience because their
   minds were of a more solid order and their lives were vexed with fewer
   cares. We are all hack and hurry. We ride the whirlwind--we are
   scarcely satisfied with the speed of lightning! Today Christian people
   cannot rush at this pace without serious injury to themselves unless
   they often refresh themselves with the comforts of God.

   Sunday is the great safeguard for the sanity of merchants and business
   men--and those who break the Sabbath to bring business cares into the
   one day in seven act a suicidal part. If more often, in the other six
   days, Christian men would get alone with God, pour out their hearts
   before Him, tell Him their cares and unveil to Him their souls, they
   would have more ease of mind, be more strong for the struggle of life
   and less likely to fail through an over-worked brain. "In the multitude
   of my thoughts within me Your comforts delight my soul."

   Londoners, in olden times, went into the fields on May Day morning to
   bathe their faces in the dew, for they thought it made them fair. I
   would that every morning we bathed our faces in the dew of Heaven, so
   should we be comelier to look upon when mingling with men in the
   business of the day. If every night before we went to sleep we dipped
   our foot in the ocean of Divine love, our sleep would be more sweet to
   us and care would not corrode and eat into the heart and even into the
   bodily constitution, as I fear it does in a great number of cases in
   this weary age. Get away to your God, O Christian! You see the rooks by
   day flying over the fields, searching for food--but as the sun goes
   down they congregate around their nests and offer their evening hymn
   together among the treetops. Beloved, let us fly away to our God, when
   the cares of the day are over, and praise and magnify His name! And
   then let us nestle down beneath the shadow of His wings.

   A third meaning of the text is this--when oppressed with evil thoughts
   the Psalmist found his shelter in God. I may be speaking upon a subject
   which will be novel to some here, but it is one in which others of you
   have had too much experience. There are times when the thoughts within
   us are terrible and horrible. If all the thoughts of the most chaste
   and holy here could now be unveiled to all, a life-enduring blush would
   crimson every cheek. Some evil thoughts arise from our own depraved
   hearts and these are bad enough. Others are excited by the unholy world
   around us and these are equally as evil. But there are some of still
   darker form which are not thoughts of ours at all, but which are
   injected into the soul by Satan.

   How horrible they are and how desperate is the conflict of a gracious
   soul when it is tortured with them! Satan will make you think that
   there is no God, no Savior, no Holy Spirit. There is not a doctrine of
   the Gospel which he will not tempt you to doubt! There is not a holy
   thing which he will not urge you to blaspheme. I know some who have
   been forced to put their hands to their mouths for fear they should
   utter the accursed thoughts which have rushed through their minds. Do
   you suppose that these were drunks and swearers? No, I am not speaking
   of such! I am speaking of the purest and most holy men and women it was
   ever my lot to know, who have, nevertheless, been tormented by the
   devil with the most hideous and horrible suggestions with regard to the
   things of God. If you have never felt this temptation I hope you never
   may, but the probabilities are you will, for there is scarcely a child
   in God's family that the dog of Hell has not barked at. I have known
   such seasons, have known them to my horror.

   Now in such times, when obscene, profane and blasphemous thoughts swarm
   in the brain like so many flies, as though Beelzebub, the god of flies,
   had taken possession of the whole mind and made it swarm with every
   filthy thing-- at such times the only consolation is to fall back upon
   your God. In the multitude of my thoughts within me, when they fret and
   wear me, like moths, or rather tear and rend me like wolves, I will fly
   to You, my God, to the splendor of Your love, to that Fountain filled
   with blood which washes even these sins away and to the mighty Spirit
   whose strong hands can chase these evil ones far away and give peace to
   my spirit. Your comforts shall lift me right away from all this
   tempestuous weather into the clear sky of communion wherein Your
   comforts shall delight my soul.

   Let me give a fourth rendering, upon which I will be very brief. When
   the mind is worried with thoughts which cannot be dissipated, it is
   well to turn unto the Lord. Thoughtful men will have periods in which
   they do not seem so much to have a subject for thought as to be
   prisoners of war to 10,000 subjects at once. They are carried away as
   with a flood. Their thoughts leap over one another. They press and
   struggle like a raging mob. They surge like the billows of the sea.
   They overflow the brain as though some mountain torrent had burst its
   banks and rushed down with devastating force into the valleys beneath.
   There are riots of thoughts--not one is well formed--or if well formed,
   it jostles its neighbor and is jostled in return. The motions of the
   mind are at such times quick, hurried, impetuous--as though a whole
   lifetime of thought could be lived through in a few minutes.

   Have you ever been borne away by thoughts which you long to be rid of?
   Have you not put your hand to your weary brain and wished it would
   leave off thinking? Have you not envied the country boy who swings upon
   a gate, scares the birds, eats bacon and is as happy as a king? Have
   you never wished you could turn into a flower and shut yourself up for
   the night as a flower does? O those nights of weary watching and
   longing for rest that will not come! Now there is no sleeping nectar
   that I know of like contemplation of the love of God! I know nothing
   which can give the jaded spirit rest like drawing near to God.

   When God smites me with pain I love to tell Him, "O God, I would not
   smite a child of mine like this. If I did, if there were some necessity
   for it, I should pity him. My heart would yearn over him. I could not
   be untender to my dear boy. And I am Your child and You are a better
   Father than I am--why, then, do you strike me?" Lay hold of the Lord.
   No, Brothers and Sisters, in His relationship of Father lay hold upon
   His heart! Draw near to Him and wrestle with Him in this way, and pain
   will often give way before your pleading, and trouble of heart will fly
   when you thus come to close grips with the Covenant Angel and rise to
   really child-like, believing dealings with your Father which is in
   Heaven. If you know the Law of mental storms you may reach peace, and
   that Law may be summed up in one line--Steer to God right away. Fly to
   Him and you will find a peaceful shelter where--

   "You shall smile at Satan's rage, And face a frowning world."

   The last meaning I shall give the text is this--that if ever we are
   beset by a multitude of thoughts of a doubting kind, we shall find our
   best solace in flying to our God. Do you ever fall into this state? Do
   you thus speak--"No doubt there is a Savior, and a Savior for sinners,
   but is there a Savior for me? He can forgive sins, but will He forgive
   mine? He is able to renew the heart, but has He renewed mine? May I not
   prove, after all, to be a hypocrite? Is not my experience imaginary? Is
   not my faith presumption? May I not be self-deceived? Can I hope to
   hold out to the end? Shall I not, after all, fall by the hand of the
   tempter? Above all what shall I do when I come to die--will not the
   waves of death overflow me? Will not its chill floods swallow me up?
   What shall I do in the world to come if God forsakes me? Alas, may He
   not have forsaken me already?

   "My present circumstances are grievous, may I not expect to be deserted
   in my future distresses, and if so, what shipwreck shall I make and
   what a byword will my character be? Will He not leave me to my own
   devices because I have, in former times, been so worldly and unholy?
   Alas, if He does, shall I become like others, who were at their outset
   flaming professors and ended in being apostates from the Lord?" Now, my
   Brothers and Sisters, whenever such thoughts assault your soul,
   remember David's declaration--"In the multitude of my thoughts within
   me Your comforts delight my soul." Come and anchor close by your God
   and the storms of unbelief will no more affect you.

   Francis Quarles, in his quaint, "Emblems," represents a man with a
   flail who is dealing heavy blows all round. And the only one who
   escapes is a person who, with much daring, comes close to him. The way
   to escape the heavy blows of Providence is to close in with Him who
   wields the rod, for the further off the heavier is the blow! In all
   dark times run home! Return unto your rest. If you cannot come to the
   Lord as a saint, come as a sinner! If the past should have been
   altogether a delusion, yet begin again! Do not discuss with Satan the
   question as to whether you are a saint or not, but fly to Christ Jesus!
   Cease all your questions about whether or not you are saved, and say--

   "A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,

   On Christ's kind arms I'll fall.

   He'll be my strength and righteousness,

   My Jesus, and my All."

   Thus will you quickly end a fray and begin a feast, for God's comforts
   will delight your soul.

   II. We will spend a few minutes on the second point, which is
   this--WHAT IS THIS SUBJECT UPON WHICH DAVID LAYS SUCH STRESS? He says,
   "Your comforts delight my soul." What are God's comforts? They are very
   many--they are certainly as many as the multitudes of our thoughts. And
   they are very weighty--they are certainly as weighty as our thoughts
   can be, so that the one may be set over against the other. The comforts
   of God are those refreshing Truths which surround the Person and the
   offices of the blessed Three in One.

   First there is the Father, Oh, is there no comfort in the thought that
   He is our Father, and not a stranger? Not a taskmaster, as some like to
   call Him, but our Father, and "like as a father pities his children, so
   the Lord pities them that fear Him." Can a woman forget her suckling
   child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Can
   I be His child and will He take delight in my misery? He may chasten me
   for my sins, but will He always chide, will He keep His anger forever?
   If He is, indeed, a Father and the best of fathers, my Soul why are you
   cast down, why are you disquieted in me? Hope in His eternal love, for
   He will yet comfort you and be the light of your countenance.

   Then comes Jesus, Jesus the Son of God. What comforts there are in Him!
   A Man, of the substance of His mother, suffering just as we suffer and
   touched, therefore, with a feeling of our infirmities, with a heart
   that always beats true to us. Jesus, God as well as Man, and therefore
   able to succor. Is not that case well-cared for which is in His hands?
   Is not a soul safe when it is under His protection? Look up, you
   troubled heart, into the eyes of Jesus, and see if they are not as
   stars to chase away the midnight of your spirit! Look at the crown of
   thorns of Jesus and see if it does not pluck the thorns out of your
   spirit! Behold Him suffering for you as Son of Man and Son of God and
   find your richest consolation there.

   Does my sin trouble me? It was laid on Jesus, why should it trouble me?
   Does God's wrath distress me? It has spent itself on Jesus, how can it
   fall on me? Where are fears about the future? Is it not written,
   "Because I live, you shall live also"? Can we be burdened by fears of
   death? Jesus Himself has died, perfumed the grave in which we shall
   sleep and then removed its door so that none shall be imprisoned there.
   Shall we be dismayed concerning the Judgment? "Who is he that condemns?
   It is Christ that died, yes, rather that has risen again." What room is
   there for distress of mind if we think upon the Person and the work of
   Jesus Christ?

   Nor let us forget the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has already
   regenerated us and, in some degree, sanctified, illuminated and
   comforted us. And He at this time "helps our infirmities." Shall we not
   in all times of our distress think of Him? What if I cannot pray? He
   "makes intercession in the saints." What if I cannot feel? He can
   quicken me. What if I feel utterly dead to Divine things in my own
   apprehension? Cannot He make me like the chariots of Amminadib and
   that, too, in a single moment? Has He not coals of fire with which to
   kindle on the cold altar of my spirit another flame such as burned
   there in the day of my espousals? O blessed Spirit, You can do
   everything! Deal graciously with me.

   Thus from the Father, Son, and Spirit we obtain fullness of comfort.
   But these consolations also spring from the whole work and system of
   Divine Grace. Old Christians, as a rule, become more and more
   Calvinistic because they need more comfort. And having had more
   experience, they have an appetite for the more solid and
   soul-satisfying Doctrines of Grace which they were strangers to in
   their youth. The idea that we are to preserve ourselves and that our
   salvation hinges upon our own future endeavors may be very pleasant for
   a summer-weather sailor--but for navigating the wintry seas we need
   something more cheering.

   The idea that we have not an Immutable God to deal with may be put up
   with when the birds are singing in the sun, but it will not be
   tolerated when the owls are hooting in the night! A tried Believer must
   have an Immutable God or he will feel his case to be hopeless. At this
   moment my richest comforts are summed up in the verse--"Whom He did
   foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His
   Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover,
   whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them
   He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified."

   That whole system begins in Divine Grace, goes on in Grace and ends in
   Grace. That system makes the creature nothing and the Creator
   everything! That system says to self-righteousness, "Begone, for if you
   remain here men will boast." But that system says to Divine Grace,
   "Come in and dwell with guilty, worthless, helpless sinners and save
   them from first to last, that Christ may wear the crown"--that entire
   system is my consolation. In times of spiritual gloom I cling more
   tenaciously than ever to the old faith of my fathers, the faith which I
   have taught you from the beginning-- that salvation is of the Lord, not
   of man, neither by man, but is the entire and sole work of God. I am a
   lost man if it is not so! If there is anything for me to do to complete
   the Savior's work, I shall never accomplish it! And if the Grace of God
   is not effectual to save the very worst of men, then where God's face
   is seen in splendor I shall never come. Salvation is all of Grace, rich
   Grace, triumphant Grace, and therefore it delights my soul.

   Again, in times when many thoughts assail us, the attributes of God
   are, each one of them, the delight of our soul if we are enabled to see
   them aright, though, alas, Satan too often makes us see them in a wrong
   light and tempts us to extract sorrow instead of joy from them. Is God
   Omniscient? Then my heavenly Father knows what things I have need of
   before I ask Him. Is God Omnipotent? Then He is able to save to the
   uttermost them that come to Him. Is God Immutable? Then from His
   purpose He will never turn, but will certainly perform the work of
   Grace. There is light in every Divine attribute for the Believer.

   God is Love! Oh, what a jewel that sentence is! What a mountain of
   light! God is Love! Child of sorrow, sing of that God and let your
   sorrows flee! God is Love, Infinite, Immutable, Omnipotent, Eternal
   Love! Love even to you--rejoice in it! It is also most comforting to
   remember that God is just, for He is not unrighteous to forget your
   work and labor of love. He is not unrighteous to forget His promises or
   break the bonds of the Covenant, frustrate His oath and discard the
   many solemn engagements under which He has laid Himself to His only
   Son. Furthermore, dear Friends, at such times the promises of God are
   still before us--and what a field of comforts to delight the soul one
   has opening up before him!

   "I will never leave you nor forsake you." "Fear not, you worm Jacob,
   and you men of Israel; I will help you, says the Lord." "The mountains
   shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not
   depart from you, neither shall the Covenant of My peace be removed says
   the Lord that has mercy on you." "For a small moment have I forsaken
   you; but with great mercies will I gather you." "I have engraved you
   upon the palms of My hands." "Your shoes shall be iron and brass, and
   as your days, so shall your strength be." "When you pass through the
   waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not
   overflow you: when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned;
   neither shall the flame kindle upon you."

   "I give unto My sheep eternal life; and they shall never perish,
   neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand." "My Father, which
   gave them to Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them
   out of My Father's hand."

   "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." "Who shall separate
   us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord"? "I am the
   Lord, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed." "He
   will keep the feet of His saints." "The righteous, also, shall hold on
   His way, and he that has clean hands shall be stronger and stronger."
   "No good thing will He withhold from them that walk upright."

   But, oh, if I had a thousand mouths, I could not repeat and dwell upon
   a thousandth part of the promises as they should be dwelt upon! This
   Bible is a great honeycomb and it drips with honey. Come and taste its
   virgin sweetness, O you whose mouths are full of bitterness, and the
   next time the multitude of your thoughts shall make your mouth taste of
   gall and wormwood, come to these comforts of the Lord, for they shall
   delight your soul. It is worth while to taste the bitters that the
   sweets may be the sweeter. Thank God for winters--we should not value
   summers half so much without them! Blessed be God there are nights as
   well as days, or we might grow weary of the sun himself. Blessed be God
   for trouble, for depression of spirit, for adversity, for waves and
   billows to go over us one after another, for here in the midst of all
   these, His comforts delight our soul!

   The gist of the whole matter is this--the way to comfort is the way
   where God is to be found. Christian, the way for sustenance, strength,
   hope and consolation is the way which leads you to your God. Trust in
   the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah there is everlasting
   strength. And oh, poor Sinner, the same way is open to you! Do not look
   within for comfort, for you will find none. As well go to the Arctic
   regions and pierce icebergs to discover warmth, as look to yourselves
   for consolation. Away, away, away, away from your own thoughts to God's
   thoughts! Away from your own judging and weighing, and computations,
   and speculations, and expectations to the firm promises of a God that
   cannot lie, who has said, "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast
   out," and, "Whoever believes in Christ Jesus is not condemned."

   Come and throw yourself at the foot of the Cross though you are the
   blackest sinner out of Hell! You who are half-damned already in your
   own apprehension, come where the bleeding hands are streaming priceless
   blood and put your confidence in the propitiation God Himself has
   provided for such as you are! You can never perish if you will come
   there, and in the multitude of your thoughts within you the comforts of
   Jesus shall delight your soul. God bless you, dear Friends, for
   Christ's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 94.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Father's Will

   (No. 1117)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And this is the Father's will which has sent Me, that of all which He
   has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the
   last day. And this is the will of Him thatsentMe, that everyone which
   sees the Son, and believes on Him, may have everlasting life; and I
   will raise him up at the last day." John 6:39,40.

   SUCH is our impertinent curiosity that we would gladly peer between the
   folded leaves of the Divine purposes. The eager thirst of man to
   discover secrets, to solve mysteries, to draw aside the folded curtains
   and to ascertain that which is past finding out, tempts him full often
   to the wildest conjecture and the most adventurous speculation. How
   many would rush to any part of the earth were it possible to light upon
   a spot from which they could reconnoiter the times and the seasons to
   get a sight of the future? To know that which God conceals seems to be
   one of the depraved desires of the human heart. This presumptuous
   enquiry is both foolish and sinful. What have you to do, O man, with
   God's councils? To obey Him is your work, not to attempt to know what
   He does not please to reveal.

   But let us understand that the Gospel is an extract from the will of
   God and such an extract that it contains the very essence thereof.
   Certainly there is nothing in the will of God contrary to the Gospel.
   Among the unrevealed things there cannot be anything in conflict with
   the revealed things. None of the secrets can possibly contradict those
   Truths of God which He has seen fit to unfold. O then, you that want to
   know the will of God, here is something of it for you closely to
   observe and diligently to study! If you want to read that will, here it
   is given to you in two forms--"This is the Father's will, (the will of
   Him which has sent Jesus, His only-begotten Son, to be our Savior),
   that of all which He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should
   raise it up again at the last day."

   And here is that same will, again, opened up before you, if you have
   but hearts to receive it--"This is the will of Him that sent Me, that
   everyone which sees the Son, and believes on Him, may have everlasting
   life: and I will raise him up at the last day." The will of God is our
   salvation. It was from the will of God that the very thought of
   salvation first arose. Had we been left to our own wills, we should
   have been willing to wander further and further from God. No man
   originated the idea of restoration for our race--God Himself willed it
   and it is from the purpose of His Grace that all our hopes begin--and
   the will which originated salvation shaped and formed it. It was God's
   will that ordained salvation by faith, salvation through an atoning
   Sacrifice, salvation by the way of the new birth, salvation by the way
   of perseverance up to perfection.

   God cast in His own mold the way and modus of salvation and it has been
   His will that has shaped it. Like a vessel revolving upon the wheel
   before Him, His fingers have made the form and fashion of it. According
   to His own will He begat us that we might be a kind of first fruits of
   His creatures. It is His will that has brought those of us who are
   saved into the knowledge of the Truth, by which will, also, we are
   sanctified and upon which will we rely as the motive force which shall
   bear us onward throughout the entire of our lives. It will bear us over
   the regions of death and bear us into the land of the perfect where we
   shall see the face of God without sin.

   Now, it is about this will of God that we are going to speak, taking
   the two phrases as setting forth the Divine side of salvation and the
   human side of salvation. You know, beloved Friends, that the general
   custom is, with the various denominations of Christians, to take up one
   part of the Bible and preach that part. And then it is the duty of all
   divines on that side of the question not to preach anything but that.
   Or if they find a text that looks in rather a different direction,
   these gentlemen are expected to twist it round to suit their creed--it
   being supposed that only one set of truths can possibly be worth
   defending. It never having entered into the heads of some people that
   there can be two apparently irreconcilable Truths which, nevertheless,
   are equally valuable.

   Think not that I come here to defend the human side of salvation at the
   expense of the Divine! Nor am I desirous to magnify the Divine side of
   it at the expense of the human. Rather would I beseech you to look at
   the two texts which are together before us and to be prepared to
   receive both sets of Truths as Truths of God. I think it a very
   dangerous thing to say that the Truth lies between the two extremes. It
   does not--the Truth lies in the two, in the comprehension of both-- not
   in taking a part from this and a part from that. Not in toning down one
   and modulating the other, as is too much the custom of today, but in
   believing and giving full expression to everything that God reveals
   whether we can reconcile the things or not.

   We must open our hearts as children open their understandings to their
   father's teaching, feeling that if the Gospel were such that we could
   make it into a complete system, we might be quite sure it was not God's
   Gospel. For any system that comes from God must be too grand for the
   human brain to grasp at one effort--and any path that He takes must
   extend too far beyond the line of our vision for us to make a nice
   little map of it and mark it out in squares. This world, you know, we
   can readily enough map. Go and get charts and you shall find that men
   of understanding have indicated almost every rock in the sea, almost
   every hamlet on the land. But they cannot map out the heavens in that
   way, for albeit that you can buy the celestial atlas, yet as you are
   well enough aware, there is not one in 10,000 of the stars that can
   possibly be put there.

   When they are resolved by the telescope they become altogether
   innumerable and so far exceed all count that it is impossible for us to
   reckon them up in order and say that is the name of this, and this is
   the name of that. We must leave them--they are beyond us. There are
   deeps into which we cannot peer. Even the strongest glass cannot show
   us much more than a mere corner of the starry worlds. Thus, too, is it
   with the doctrines of the Gospel--they are too bright for our weak
   eyes, too sublime for our finite minds to scan except at a humble
   distance. Be it ours to take all we can of their solemn import, to
   believe them heartily, accept them gratefully and then fall down before
   the Lord and pour out our very souls in worshipping Him.

   I. Well, now we come to our two texts. The first is the DIVINE SIDE OF
   THE WORK OF SALVATION. It needs to come first--such is its dignity.
   "This is the Father's will which has sent Me, that of all which He has
   given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the
   last day." Mark attentively the announcement, how Sovereign its
   character--"This is the Father's will." Majestic words--"This is the
   Father's will." No, "if." No, "but." No asking and requesting of men.
   No bending the knee to their choice or caprice. No asking them if they
   will please to have it so. But--"This is the Father's will."

   That is the will which is altogether absolute and independent,
   revolving on its own axis, the will that called creation out of
   nothing, the will which cannot be thwarted, for it is Omnipotent. This
   is the will which none may stand against, for it proceeds ever on its
   eternal course. It is a fixed will, for God is not fickle as we are. He
   does not will this today and that tomorrow. "I am God," He says, "and
   change not." He is "the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness,
   neither shadow of a turning"--a fixed, irresistible will, standing the
   same from everlasting to everlasting--not subject to change.

   Would you have it change for the better? How could that be? Can God be
   better? Would you have it change for the worse? Would God be God if He
   could be worse than He is? How can it be that perfection can change? It
   must ever remain perfection--a change were to bring in imperfection
   into that which is complete. To God's eternal mind there is no past,
   there is no future--

   "He fills His own eternal now, And sees her ages past."

   Looking as He does, from Heaven, He takes in at one glance all those
   periods of time which we are accustomed to call ages and cycles. They
   are all as the twinkling of an eye to Him, for "a thousand years in His
   sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the
   night." Let me, then, again read these words. They concern the
   salvation of His people. "This is the Father's will."

   I say again, how grand they are! "This is the Father's will." O God, I
   trembled at Your will until I read those lines! I knew not what Your
   will might be and since I knew it must be accomplished I cowered down
   at Your feet in terror until I read that mercy is the Father's will,
   that love is the Father's will, that salvation is the Father's
   will--and then my heart

   flew into Your bosom with ecstasy and joy to think that Your
   Omnipotent, unchangeable will should be such goodwill! So full of
   benevolence, so full of love!

   Following the current of this testimony, we are introduced to the
   obedient Servant of that will. "This is the Father's will, which has
   sent Me." Read the 38th verse--"For I came down from Heaven, not to do
   My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me." Christ, then, is the
   obedient Servant of His Father's will. But why does He say, "not to do
   My own will"? The meaning, I doubt not, as Dr. Owen well interprets it,
   is first or primarily in reply to the malicious charge of the Jews,
   "that He was not intent to accomplish or bring about any private
   purposes of His own, distinct or different from those of His Father."
   But more than this, "the will of God, which Christ came to fulfill, is
   sometimes taken for the commandment which He received from the Father."

   So He says in the 40th Psalm, "I delight to do Your will, O My God:
   yes, Your Law is within My heart." As though He should proclaim, "all
   that You require at My hand as Mediator I am ready to perform." Was it
   not to this end that He did verily "take on Him the form of a Servant"?
   And for the same cause did not the Father expressly call Him His
   Servant, as you read in the 42nd chapter of Isaiah--"Behold My Servant,
   whom I uphold, My Elect, in whom My soul delights; I have put My Spirit
   upon Him: He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles"? Thus is He
   the Servant of the Father in the accomplishment of that work for which
   the Spirit was put upon Him.

   Moreover, "will of God" may be taken for His purpose, His decree, His
   good pleasure to fulfill, which Christ came into the world. It is thus,
   little by little, that the full sense of the words breaks on our minds.
   Now, as I turn that over in my mind, "not to do My own will, but the
   will of Him that sent Me," I am prone to reflect, "It is for me to lay
   down my will at God's feet." Well, it is but fit and right for all of
   us to do so. For every one of us to say, "I came not to do my own
   will," seems natural and proper. But Christ, Beloved--His will is
   perfect! His will is as complete as the will of God, Himself! It is, in
   fact, coincident, must be coincident, with the will of God. But He
   speaks as God-Man--Mediator--and He puts it so that He may be to us the
   pattern of complete resignation and perfect obedience.

   "I, even I, who have no difference with God, who am God, who wills as
   God wills, yet I came not to do My own will, but the will of Him that
   sent Me." Why do you think it was necessary that He should say that? It
   was necessary, as I have already said, as an example to us, but further
   necessary that every one of us may know that Christ is no amateur
   Savior come into the world to save without a commission and without
   authority. He has come here willingly enough, but still, the reason of
   His coming is His Father's will. When Christ forgives a sinner it is
   His Father's will! When Christ receives a rebel to His bosom, it is His
   Father's will!

   He does not save us clandestinely or in any manner inconsiderate of or
   contrary to the Divine purposes, nor yet in some such way as though by
   the tenderness of a Friend He would rescue us from the sternness of a
   Judge. No, no, in no wise--for all that Jesus does is the Father's
   will, as He would say of us--"I say not that I will pray to the Father
   for you, for the Father Himself loves you." The will which Christ is
   doing is the Father's will! All that He is engaged to bring about is
   according to the will of the Father. Let us bless His name for that.

   Well now, it would appear that God, in His Divine will, was pleased to
   give to Jesus, His obedient Servant, a number of men out of mankind who
   were to be His. Is not that the plain meaning of the passage, "This is
   the will of Him that sent Me, that of all which He has given Me I
   should lose nothing"? The Father gave to the Son, then, a number. I
   believe it is a number that no man can number--a number far beyond the
   bounds of our thought. But He did give a certain number whom He,
   Himself, had chosen from before the foundation of the world--and these
   became the property of the Lord Jesus Christ.

   They were put under a different government, being placed under the
   mediatorial sway of the Son of God. They became disciples--not by their
   own natural inclination, but by His gracious calling. They became
   Christ's flock. He their Shepherd. They were to become Christ's body.
   He was to be the Head. In due time they were to be Christ's bride. He
   was to be the Husband. They were to be Christ's Brethren and they were
   to be conformed to Him that He might be the first-born among many
   Brethren. Now this is a great transaction full of sublimity--let us not
   forget it or slight it. There was a day before all days when there was
   no day but the Ancient of Days. And then the Ancient of Days, in His
   eternal wisdom transferred a number of men whom He had chosen into the
   hands of Jesus Christ. It is of no use quibbling at it! It is true! It
   was so and it is so, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. God's
   eternal and electing purpose severed from the mass of mankind a people
   who were to belong to Jesus. Let us say "Amen" to the record.

   The next thing we learn here is that all these persons Jesus Christ
   undertook to keep. It was the Father's will that of all who were given
   to Christ He should lose--what?--"lose nothing." This is a very
   remarkable expression! It does not say He should lose none--that is
   true--but lose no thing, "nothing." The Lord Jesus Christ, therefore,
   has taken all those who were given of the Father to Him, into His
   custody. He is the Surety, He is responsible for them and He keeps
   them. In what way does He keep them? Seeing they were lost, He redeemed
   them. Seeing they were far from Him, He fetches them back BY His Grace,
   by the power of His Spirit. Seeing that they are still prone to wander
   He restores their souls. Seeing that they are imperfect He sanctifies
   them and He continues the work of sanctification. And He will make
   them, one day, to be without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.

   But the text says He will, "lose nothing," by which He means that while
   He will certainly not lose one that His Father gave Him, He will not
   lose any part of one of them. For look at that child of God who died a
   few months ago. We laid him in the grave with many tears, and we
   believe his spirit is taken up to the right hand of God. But where is
   his body? Ah, we should not like to exhume it--it would be a terrible
   spectacle if we should take it out of that coffin, or open the lid and
   look at all that mass of putridity! Surely this is part of one of
   Christ's people that has been lost! Ah, but it is not His Father's will
   that Christ should lose anything of what was given Him--and therefore
   He adds, "I will raise it up at the last day."

   When the trumpet sounds, the dead shall come forth from their graves
   and there shall not be left in the grave a bone, nor a piece of a bone,
   of one of the Lord's redeemed--they shall come again from the land of
   the enemy--and leave nothing behind them. When Israel came out of Egypt
   the great Master did not bring some of the people out and leave some
   behind. Oh, no! Neither did He bring all the people and leave their
   property behind. Did not Moses say to Pharaoh, "There shall not a hoof
   be left behind"? Not a solitary lamb of all the flocks--there shall not
   one be left behind. And so out of the entire company that God the
   Father has given into the custody of Jesus, there shall not only not be
   one soul lost, but no part of any one of them--neither of their body,
   of their soul, nor of their spirit. Death shall yield up its captives,
   they shall be completely free--

   "Then all the chosen race

   Shall meet around the Throne,

   To bless the conduct of His Grace

   And make His glories known." That is the Divine side of salvation, and
   that is the Truth of God which this first part of our text teaches. Do
   I hear somebody say, "I think that doctrine is dangerous"? My dear Sir,
   who is it dangerous to but fools? If God has taught it there can be no
   danger in it! At the same time there never was a Truth of God which
   foolish persons could not distort and turn into mischief. Ropes are
   good things, but many people have hung themselves with them. And there
   is many a grand doctrine which men wrest to their own destruction. We
   cannot be shaping the Truth of God down to consult the folly and sin of
   man. The question is, is it in the Bible? If it is there, let none of
   us ever say it is dangerous.

   "Well, but," you say, "is it not all about secret things?" Is it so?
   Then you need not be at all alarmed at our talking about it, for none
   of us can divulge anything which is secret--therefore you need not be
   under any concern that we shall do it. If it is secret, then so far as
   it is secret we cannot intermeddle with it. But we do say
   this--whatever of it has been revealed is for us and for our
   children--and we are not ashamed to speak of what God was not ashamed
   to declare. Moreover, we have proved it to be a good, comfortable,
   solid, soul-sustaining, sanctifying doctrine, for if there is anything
   in this world that can put force, life, energy into a man--it is the
   belief that God has chosen him unto eternal life--has put into him an
   unconquerable nature which is engaged to bring him safely to the right
   hand of the most High! Why, the gratitude of a man that believes this
   becomes the master power of his life!--

   "Loved of my God, for Him again

   With love intense I burn.

   Chosen of Him before time began

   I choose Him in return."

   Slaves are whipped to the battle, but the free man goes cheerfully to
   fight for the cause dear to his heart. The man that only lives a good
   life because he is afraid of being damned is a mere hireling in the
   House of God. But the man who knows that he is God's child and never
   will be anything else--that God loves him and must love him--says now,
   out of no desire of reward and no fears of punishment, being saved,
   forever saved, "I love my Lord with all my heart and soul and

   strength, and I will render to Him the obedience of a child which is
   infinitely superior to the obedience of a slave." I question the
   possibility of virtue to a man who cannot say--"I am saved." He that
   does good works in order to his being saved, or in order to keep
   himself from the peril of being lost, acts from a selfish motive and
   believes in himself rather than his God.

   But he, on the other hand, who feels that he is bought with a price and
   is delivered, is saved, is a child of God, can say, "Now I have not
   myself to consider but my God. Now will I live for Him. Now will I
   spend and be spent, that I may glorify His name." The Lord grant to us
   to be brought into that condition in which we can understand and enjoy
   this doctrine and may we then, by our lives, prove our gratitude for
   the great benefits we have received of Him.

   II. Now I am going to take the HUMAN SIDE, and I think I hear somebody
   say--"Though I liked the first part, I know I shall not like the
   second." Dear Hearer, what right have you to quibble at anything that
   is true? Somebody on the other hand may say, "I do not believe in this
   first part, perhaps I may in the second." My dear Friend, I wish you
   would give up that notion of picking and choosing parts of God's Word
   that are agreeable to your taste, but rather take the whole, from the
   beginning of it to the end of it, so you shall find pleasure and profit
   all the way through.

   Truly, Brothers and Sisters, it is shocking to think of the theoretical
   difficulties that people make for themselves by a kind of smart
   criticism that seems clever but lacks common sense! In this very
   chapter, at the 27th verse, you read-- "Labor not for the meat which
   perishes, but for that meat which endures unto everlasting life, which
   the Son of Man shall give unto you." The fact is, you get here two
   paradoxes in one sentence. You are told not to labor for that meat
   which no man can procure without labor, and you are told to labor for
   that bread which no man can procure by labor, because it is a free
   gift.

   Nevertheless, the thing needs no explanation. It is clear as daylight
   to every discerning heart. Here, then, is the human side of
   salvation--"This is the will of Him that sent Me, that everyone which
   sees the Son, and believes on Him, may have everlasting life, and I
   will raise him up at the last day." Observe, there is no lowering of
   the tone. The same august words strike us on the threshold of each
   announcement. "This is the will of Him that sent Me." The freest
   proclamations of the Gospel that can ever be given are as much Divine
   as are the plainest declarations of distinguishing Grace. Listen, then,
   with equal attention to this second part, for this has the same
   imprimatur, the same Divine stamp upon it--"This is the will of Him
   that sent Me."

   Notice again that there is the same obedient Servant engaged on this
   occasion as before. Whether you look at the Divine side or the human
   side of salvation, the most conspicuous object is still Christ Jesus.
   If God looks down on men it is through His Anointed, or if men look up
   to God, it is through God's Christ whom He has sent. The points of
   difference we will therefore dwell upon. In this second verse the
   persons described as partakers of the benefit of salvation are thus
   described--"Everyone which sees the Son, and believes on Him." What are
   we to understand by these words-- "Everyone which sees the Son"? We
   cannot see the Son now with our natural organs of sight, for Jesus has
   gone up to Heaven. With these optics we cannot scan His features or
   perceive His Presence.

   But when we read of Him in the Evangelists, and when we hear of Him
   from the mouths of His servants, we do, in effect, see Him evidently
   set forth before us. The eyes of our understanding discern Him. The
   sense offaith recognizes Him. Now if by that sight, that knowledge,
   that information, we are led to believe on Him, then we have
   everlasting life. Whoever he may be--"Everyone," it says--"Everyone
   which sees the Son, and believes on Him," comes in for the same
   privilege. This includes the man with great faith, but it equally
   includes the babe with little faith. This includes the man of reputable
   character, but it equally includes the man whose character has been, up
   till now, disreputable. "Everyone that believes on Him."

   Does it mean that if I believe on Him I have eternal life? Yes, whoever
   you are. You may listen to it in the dark, I do not want to look at you
   to discriminate between one individual and another. The assertion is
   wide enough for all of you. Are you a black man, or a white man? Are
   you a yellow man, or a brown man? It matters not. Are you rich, or are
   you poor, one in the higher ranks, or one obscure and despised? It
   matters not. Whoever you may be, every child of man that is born of
   woman that sees the Son, and believes on Him, shall have eternal life.
   Are there no exceptions? None whatever! Can it not be supposed that
   some characters may be excluded? None are excluded, therefore, but
   those who exclude themselves. The learned and polite, the ignorant and
   rude--"everyone which sees the Son, and believes on Him, may

   have everlasting life." That is to say, to go over the same matter yet
   again, every man, woman, child--every one of the human race that trusts
   his soul with the Son of God has everlasting life.

   "Well, but," says one, "suppose I should not have been given by God the
   Father to the Son?" You have no right to suppose that. If you believe
   in Jesus Christ you have everlasting life. I could explain, I think, a
   little to you, at least I have a way of explaining it to myself, how
   these two meet. I do not care to explain it. I do not think it is
   necessary at all, for it is so. There never was a soul that believed in
   Jesus, yet, but God the Father had given that soul to Christ. There
   never was a soul that trusted the Savior but it turned out that, after
   all, that soul had been ordained to do so from before the foundation of
   the world! We will not attempt to answer objections. There is the Truth
   of God, the plain, naked Truth of God! This is the will of Him that
   sent the Savior into the world, that everyone that sees the Son, and
   believes on Him, should at once have eternal life. O what a splendid
   Gospel that is!

   Now, when I go out to preach I have not to say, "I am going to preach
   to God's elect"--not at all--"Everyone which sees the Son, and believes
   on Him, may have everlasting life!" Nor have I to say to myself, "Now I
   shall pick out certain characters that I think must be a delineation of
   God's chosen." I have no right to make any picking or choosing. There
   is the Gospel--"Go you into all the world and preach the Gospel to
   every creature. He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." And
   this, again, is the Gospel--"That everyone which sees the Son, and
   believes on Him, may have everlasting life." There let it stand, then.
   We will not clip its wings but we will rejoice in its simple Truth!

   Now it appears that these persons who believe in Jesus, whoever they
   may be, are already in a present state of safety, for as soon as they
   believe on Him they have everlasting life. They are made alive unto
   God. They receive a spiritual life which they never had before. The
   Holy Spirit comes into them and quickens them. Whereas they were up to
   then dead in trespasses and sins, the Holy Spirit makes them alive unto
   God by Jesus Christ. And this is true of everyone that sees the Son and
   believes on Him. This life which is thus given is a life that cannot
   die, for it is everlasting. Everlasting life is freely and sovereignly
   bestowed, so that every Believer has in him a vital principle which
   cannot be destroyed any more than God Himself can. For as God's life is
   everlasting life, so the life of every Believer is called "everlasting
   life."

   O see the blessedness of this, "that everyone which sees the Son, and
   believes on Him, may have everlasting life." We do not seem to want to
   preach upon that. I like to roll it over under my tongue. I should like
   everybody here that is perplexing himself about the doctrines of the
   Gospel and saying, "Perhaps I am shut out from the mercy of God," to go
   home repeating these words. Therefore I will repeat them again--"that
   everyone which sees the Son, and believes on Him, may have everlasting
   life." And since notwithstanding this gift of everlasting life the
   bodies of Believers die, Jesus Christ has added here that it is the
   will of the Father that He should "raise him up at the last day." It
   seems, then, Beloved, that no Believer shall be lost and nothing of a
   Believer, for if his body must be put into the ground-- corruption,
   earth and worms shall but refine his flesh till at the sound of the
   last trumpet he shall put it on afresh!

   "I will raise him up at the last day." Then it seems that if I am a
   Believer in Jesus I may conclude that God the Father gave me to Christ
   to save me and that Christ will save me and keep me until He, Himself,
   shall descend from Heaven with a shout and call His own redeemed out of
   the graves. Thus the two truths are reconciled--may they be reconciled
   in our experience as well as in our faith!

   Now then, to close, let me say to any troubled person here
   present--beloved Friend, never fear that there is anything in the
   secret purposes of God which can contradict the open promises of God!
   Never dream, if you are a Believer, that there can be any dark decree
   that shuts you out from the benefits of Grace. Decrees or no decrees,
   "this is the will of Him that sent Me, that everyone which sees the
   Son, and believes on Him, may have everlasting life." Lay hold,
   therefore, on Christ with all your heart, poor Sinner! Ask not to know
   whether your name is in the Book of Life. Come just as you are, by
   God's own invitation, and lay hold on Jesus Christ!

   The woman in the crowd could not tell whether it was written in the
   book of the decrees that she should be healed, but she came behind the
   Savior and touched the hem of His garment and was made whole. The dying
   thief did not stop to enquire, "Was I chosen of God before time began?"
   But he said, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom." Now
   you, in like manner, act upon your present crisis and fit your prayer
   to the present opportunity. The doctrine of decrees never operates upon
   a man's ordinary life. What hungry man would stop, or hesitate and say,
   "I cannot tell whether it is the purpose of God that I should eat"? But
   when the provision is spread out before him he eats.

   Would the weary man vex his soul with misgivings and say, "I need to
   know whether it is the purpose of God I should sleep?" No, but he acts
   like a sensible creature and goes to his bed at the time of rest,
   grateful for the interval of deep repose that can renew his strength
   and freshen his vital powers. Now you go and do likewise. Do not rebel
   at the purposes, or deny them, but act upon the precepts and rejoice in
   them! They are the guide for you. Rely upon the promises! That is the
   way for you to realize them. And inasmuch as the clear promise rings
   out from the Eternal Throne, "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise
   cast out," go and see if He will cast you out.

   Come, you vile Sinner, you foul Sinner, you devilish Sinner--come you
   who are stained with every sin--come and see if Christ will reject you!
   And remember that the text that should encourage you stands hard by
   that which may embarrass you--close to it--where Jesus says, "All that
   the Father gives Me shall come to Me; and him that comes to Me I will
   in no wise cast out. For I came down from Heaven, not to do My own
   will, but the will of Him that sent Me." I do pray that those words may
   encourage many souls to come!

   And once more, fear not that if you believe, your believing will end in
   failure. If you believe in Jesus Christ, the text says, "It is the
   Father's will" that you should "have eternal life" and be "raised up at
   the last day." The question sometimes comes to one's mind--"After I
   have believed in Jesus and placed all my hope in Him, may I not, after
   all, perish? Is there not something expected of me in which I may fail?
   If I rest upon Him as a rock, yet still, are there not some other props
   and buttresses needed, and if I shall not supply them shall I be safe
   at last?" Well, I frankly confess if there is anything needed as the
   ground of a sinner's hope beyond the blood and righteousness of Jesus
   Christ, I, who preach to you, must certainly perish, for I can sing the
   hymn we sang this morning with all my heart--

   "Other refuge have I none, Hangs my helpless soul on You. Leave, oh
   leave me not alone, Still support and comfort me."

   We desire to abound in good works. We desire to destroy every vice and
   forsake all falsehood and all evil. But we cannot depend on these
   things! We cannot mix them up with the blood and righteousness of Jesus
   Christ! Our one hope lies here, that Jesus died, and God has said it,
   "He that believes on Him has eternal life, and shall be raised up at
   the last day." Now, suppose, after all, you should believe on Him and
   find, at last, that you are not saved! Beloved, the supposition cannot
   be entertained for a moment, for it is written, "It is the Father's
   will." Is that will to be thwarted? It is written that He has sent
   Christ--has Christ come in vain? God must be false to all His promises,
   belie His oath, degrade His Son before He can suffer a soul that sees
   the Son and believes on Him to perish!

   You are all safe enough if you are resting there. Do not let a doubt
   disturb you. Go your way full of peace and consolation, and the Lord be
   with you! But, oh, if you have never believed in Jesus, may your
   spirits never know any rest till you do! May you never be content till
   you flee to Him and rest on Him! The Lord grant it, for His dear name's
   sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--John 6:22.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Way To Honor

   (No. 1118)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Whoe ver keeps the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof: so he who
   waits on his master shall be honored." Proverbs 27:18.

   IF a man in Palestine carefully watched his fig tree and kept it in
   proper condition, he was sure to be abundantly rewarded in due season,
   for it would yield him a large quantity of fruit of which he would
   enjoy the luscious taste. So, according to Solomon, good servants
   obtained honor as the fruit of diligent service. In those early days,
   when there were far better relations between servants and masters than,
   unhappily, there are nowadays, if a servant carefully waited upon his
   master he was sure to be honored for his faithfulness.

   The Bible is full of such cases. Eleazar, the servant and steward of
   Abraham, met with much honor at his master's hands. Deborah was a
   faithful nurse and what sorrow there was for her at Allonbachuth, or
   the oak of weeping. Elisha poured water upon the hands of his master
   Elijah and became, himself, a Prophet, endowed with a double portion of
   his master's spirit. In the New Testament we read of the centurion who
   so honored his servant that in his sickness he sent to the Lord Jesus,
   earnestly entreating Him to come and heal him. There were exceptions,
   of course. There were faithful servants who met with ungenerous
   treatment. But what rule is there without an exception? The rule was
   that he who was faithful to his master received honor.

   I could wish it to be more general for there to be intimate friendly
   relationships between men and their servants. I would gladly see a
   restoration of family loyalty between heads of households and their
   dependents. In these times, servants, and persons in the employ of
   others, are looked upon as hands to be worked rather than as souls to
   be cared for. It may be that servants have degenerated, but it may also
   be the truth that masters have degenerated, too. I believe that every
   Abraham will be likely to find an Eleazar and every Rebekah a Deborah.
   Good masters make good servants. Good servants make good masters. Happy
   is the family where, without forgetting the proper distinctions of
   position, all are knit together in firm friendship.

   Alas, the bonds of society have been too much loosened. Oppression on
   the one hand and discontent on the other have split the commonwealth.
   Yet there still survive among us instances of personal attachment where
   servants have served the same masters from their youth up. They have
   continued with them in sickness--and in misfortune have remained
   faithful to the family when the master has been scarcely able to
   remunerate them for their services, and have continued faithful even
   unto death. I am sure when we have read such stories, or see such
   servants, ourselves, we have felt that they deserved to be held in
   honor and there is a general respect, still, which is manifested by
   mankind to the servant that waits upon his master.

   However, I am not going to speak about the duties of masters and
   servants this evening. At other times we have not hesitated to speak
   our mind upon that matter and we shall not fail to do so as occasion
   requires. But now we shall speak of a higher Master who was never
   unfaithful to a servant, yet, and never will be. And we shall speak of
   a superior service which brings to those who are engaged in it the
   highest possible degree of honor. Blessed are they who are servants of
   the King of kings! Happy is he who takes even the lowest place and
   fulfils the meanest office for the Lord Jesus, if any service can be
   mean that is rendered to our all-glorious Immanuel!

   We will begin by considering the relation of the Lord Jesus Christ to
   us and ours to Him. Then we shall consider the conduct which is
   consistent with that relation. And then the reward which is promised to
   such conduct.

   I. And, first, the RELATION WHICH SUBSISTS BETWEEN OURSELVES AND OUR
   LORD. He is our Master--our Master. I speak now, of course, only to you
   who are converted, to you who are true Believers and are saved by faith
   in Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus is, to you, your Master in the sense of
   contrast to all other governing powers. You are men and naturally moved
   by all that which moves other men, but still the master motive power
   with every one of

   you who is a Christian is the supremacy of Christ. There are some among
   your fellow servants to whom you render respect, just as in a large
   firm there are foremen, set over different parts of the work, to whom a
   measure of deference is fitly rendered.

   Still, as the overseer is not the chief authority, so your earthly
   superiors are not in the highest sense masters over you. The highest of
   your fellow workmen in your Lord's service is far, far, far below the
   Master. Ministers and fathers in Christ are not the ultimate
   authorities to whom you bow and whatever esteem you may pay even to
   such glorious names as those of Peter, James and John, you still regard
   them but your fellow servants. "One is your Master, even Christ, and
   all you are brethren." In this sense we are not servants of men--no, we
   know no man after the flesh. We are in subjection to the Father of
   Spirits, not to a Pope in Rome, nor bishops at home. We are the Lord's
   free men and cheerfully obey those whom He sets over us in His
   Church--but we yield to none who claim lordship over us and would
   divert us from obeying only the Lord Jesus.

   The Christian man has, of course, to attend to the concerns of this
   life. And while he is attending to them he must throw a measure of his
   heart into them, or he cannot do them properly. Still, the master of
   our heart is not our business, but our Savior. A Christian man is
   thoughtful and he studies, and reads, and investigates. Still, for all
   that, philosophy does not rule him, nor the news of the day, nor the
   science of the times. Christ is our Master--master of our thoughts and
   meditations--the great Leader and Teacher of our understanding. We are
   His disciples and disciples of none else besides. We are affected by
   the love of family, the love of friendship, the love of country--but
   there is a love that is higher than all these--a master love, and this
   is love to Jesus our Well-Beloved, the Bridegroom of our souls.

   That text is frequently misread--"No man can serve two masters." The
   stress is not to be laid upon the word "two." In reality, a man might
   serve three or half-a-dozen, or twenty. The stress is to be laid upon
   the word "masters"--"No man can serve two masters." Only one thing can
   be the master passion. Only one power can completely master us, so as
   to be supremely dominant and exercise imperial lordship over us. No man
   can have two imperial master faculties, master motives or master
   ambitions. One is our Master, and that one is Christ.

   Brothers and Sisters, as I have said before, we are compelled while we
   are in this body to yield to this impulse and to that, we are urged
   forward by this motive and by that. We pursue this end and that, and
   subordinately none of these things may be sinful, but the master
   impulse must be the love of Christ. The master aim must be Christ's
   Glory. And the master power that possesses us, as the Spirit took
   possession of the Prophets of old and carried them away, must be
   loyalty to Jesus Christ our Lord. He is our Master and we stand before
   Him as servants who desire to obey His bidding.

   What is, then, the reason why the Lord Jesus Christ has become to us a
   Master? If we were contending with the ungodly who challenge us for
   calling Christ, "Master," we could give them a ready enough answerer by
   telling them that He is the Master Man of all men. We would ask them to
   turn over the pages of history and find a man it was worthwhile to
   serve in comparison with the Man, Christ Jesus. We would appeal to His
   Character and ask, was there ever a character which could compel homage
   as His Character does? Why, He is a right royal Man in all
   respects--there is nothing about Him of meanness or weakens. To know
   Him is to become enthusiastic in His cause.

   We would then point to His kingdom and the nature and character of it,
   and ask whether there was a kingdom for which men ought to fight, for
   which men ought to strive and be willing to die, compared with His
   kingdom. We would point to the benefits which He confers upon mankind,
   the blessings which the faith of Jesus Christ has scattered among the
   nations, and ask if there ever was a cause so worthy of zeal as the
   cause of Christ which is the cause of humanity, the cause of truth, the
   cause of right, the cause of God! His are the principles which alone
   can redeem men from their degradation and misery. We count it easy
   enough to answer the ungodly in this matter. Whoever their leader may
   be, he is not fit to loosen the shoe lace of our Master's sandal.
   Whoever he may be, and however they may lift him up, he is only fit to
   lie in the dust beneath the feet of our Immanuel. Christ is so
   excellent and in His Nature so pre-eminent, that we defy anyone to call
   us foolish for choosing Him to be our Master!

   But behind all this, deep down in our souls, we have other reasons for
   calling Him our Master, namely, that we belong to Him by the purchase
   of His blood, by the rescue of His Grace. And again, by the surrender,
   the willing surrender, which we have made to Him. Christ is our Master
   because He bought us. When we were sold under sin. When by the justice
   of God we were condemned to die. When we were utter slaves, He
   purchased us and redeemed us from all iniquity with a cost which
   sometimes has seemed to us, for His sake, to be too great. What were
   10,000 times 10,000

   sinful worms compared with the Son of God? Yet that glorious Son of God
   laid down His life for us! He loved His Church and gave Himself for
   it--a matchless price, indeed, to pay!

   And now we are not our own, but are bought with a price. We feel that
   we should be unjust to Jesus, base to our best Benefactor, if we were
   to ignore the solemn obligations under which His redemption has placed
   us. We had been on the road to Hell if it had not been for His
   blood--shall we not walk in the way of His commands? After what He has
   done for us, nothing is too great for us to do for Him. Our body, our
   soul, our spirit, we cheerfully render up to His dominion! Neither do
   we count anything of our nature to be our own. As He has redeemed us
   entirely, so in the entirety of our manhood we belong altogether to
   Him. And if there is a part of our nature which has not been subdued to
   Him, we desire Him to conquer it by force of arms--for its rebellion
   against Him is sorrow to ourselves. Jesus is our rightful Lord. His
   wounds attest it and if any other lord has dominion over any other
   portion of our nature, that lordship is usurped and ought to be cast
   down.

   I said, moreover, that Christ has won us by His power as well as by His
   blood. There are two redemptions-- redemption by price and redemption
   by power--redemption by price was typified in the paschal lamb and the
   Passover. Redemption by power in the passage of the Red Sea when the
   children of Israel went through it dry shod and the Egyptians were
   drowned. Remember how Jacob spoke to his son Joseph and said, "I have
   given to you one portion above your brethren, which I took out of the
   hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow"? Now, the Lord Jesus
   Christ claims us in the same way as Jacob claimed that particular
   portion, for we are His spoil, taken in battle. Almighty Grace bowed us
   down when we were stiff-necked. Almighty Grace delivered us from our
   habits of sin when we were fast bound by them. Almighty Grace broke the
   iron bars of our despair and led us into liberty.

   Let all the Glory be ascribed unto the Almighty Redeemer! With a high
   hand and an outstretched arm He brought us forth from the Egypt of our
   lusts and taught our willing feet the way to the heavenly Canaan. And
   now we grace His chariot wheels as servants, not in manacles of iron,
   but in silken fetters of love--

   "As willing captives of our Lord We sing the triumphs of His Word," and
   confess Him to be our Master and none beside. Remember that I also said
   we are His servants and He our Master because we have willingly
   surrendered ourselves to Him. Recall to your memories that blessed time
   when you gave yourselves up to Jesus under the sweet constraint of His
   love. Was it not a good day in which you said--

   "Now, Lord, I would be Yours alone Come, take possession of Your own,
   For You have set me free! Released from Satan's hard command, See all
   my members waiting stand, To be employed by You."

   And now at this day, remembering the love of your espousals when you
   went after your Lord into the wilderness, would you have it otherwise?
   You were married to Him--do you now wish to sue for a divorce against
   your glorious Bridegroom? No, but you can sing with Doddridge--

   "High Heaven, that heard the solemn vow,

   That vow renewed shall daily hear:

   Till in life's latest hour I bow,

   And bless in death a bond so dear." Now, Beloved, as I have shown that
   Christ has a right to be our Master from the very dignity of His
   Character and that we yield Him service because of His love to us, it
   only remains for me to add that our position of servants to Christ is
   an irreversible one. The servant of old, when he might go out from
   bondage, sometimes said, "I love my master and I love his children, and
   I love his house. I desire to be his bondsman forever." And after the
   same manner would I speak this day. And then, you remember, they took
   an awl and they bored the man's ear and fastened it to the doorpost,
   that he might be a servant as long as he lived. Even after that fashion
   would I say, "My ears have You opened, and I was not rebellious." Who
   among us would not wish to bear in our body the marks of the Lord
   Jesus, to receive the brand which would betoken the irretrievable
   confiscation of all sinful liberty?

   Do we not wish to be forever bound to Christ and crucified with Him?
   This was the teaching of our Baptism. When we were baptized we were
   buried in the water. The teaching was that we were from that time
   forward to be dead and buried to the world and alive, alone, to Jesus.
   It was the crossing of the Rubicon--the drawing of the sword and the
   flinging away of the scabbard. If the world should call us, we now
   reply, "We are dead to you, O world!" One of the early saints, I think
   it was Augustine, had indulged in great sins in his younger days. After
   his conversion he met with a woman who had been the sharer of his
   wicked follies.

   She approached him winningly, and said to him, "Augustine," but he ran
   away from her with all speed. She called after him, and said,
   "Augustine, it is I," mentioning her name. He then turned round and
   said, "But it is not I. The old Augustine is dead and I am a new
   creature in Christ Jesus." That to Madam Bubble and to Madam Wanton, to
   the world, the flesh and the devil, should be the answer of every true
   servant of Christ--"I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. You are
   the same, O fair false world--you are the same, but not I! I have
   passed from death unto life, from darkness into light. Your siren
   charms can fascinate me no more. A nobler music is in my ears and I am
   drawn forward by a more sovereign spell towards other than yours. My
   boat shall cut her way through all seas and waves till it reaches the
   fair haven and I see my Savior face to face."

   It is irretrievable, then, this step which we have taken, the absolute
   surrender of our whole Nature to the sway of the Prince of Peace! We
   are the Lord's. We are His forever and forever. We cannot draw back,
   and blessed be His name, His Grace will not suffer us to do so. "The
   path of the just is as the shining light, that shines more and more
   unto the perfect

   day."--

   "Leave You? No, my dearest Savior,

   You, whose blood my pardon bought? Slight Your mercy, scorn your favor?
   Perish such an impious thought! Leave You--never!

   Where for peace could I resort?" II. The second point of our reflection
   is to be this. Seeing that we are servants to Jesus, there is A CONDUCT

   WHICH IS CONSISTENT THEREWITH. What conduct is consistent in a servant?
   Is it not, first, that he should

   acknowledge himself to be his master's? Such a servant as is mentioned
   in the text does not call himself his own, or his time his own. No
   person who is a servant can say during his work hours--"This time is my
   time, I can do what I like with it." No, he is a false servant if,
   having sold his time for a reward, he takes it to himself.

   Servants of Jesus have no time at their own disposal. We have no wealth
   of our own. We are only stewards. We have no talents, they are our
   Lord's. When we have traded with our stock and have multiplied it
   diligently, we shall say to our Lord, "Your pound has gained 10
   pounds." We dare not call the talent ours. If we are true servants, we
   are always about our Master's business. If we eat or drink, or rest or
   sleep, we desire to do all to the Glory of God. We are never off duty.
   A policeman may be, but we never are. A soldier may have a furlough,
   but a Christian, never-- he must wear both night and day the whole
   armor of God. We are always to bear the shield, and the sword is always
   to be in our hands.

   Even in our recreation we are to remember that our Master may come at
   any hour and therefore we are still to be looking for His coming. As
   servants it is our duty to learn our Master's will. I am grieved to
   observe that some of my fellow servants do not want to know their
   Lord's will. There would not be so many divisions in the Church if we
   all came to Holy Scripture and searched the Law and the Testimony to
   know the Lord's will. The Lord's will is fully set forth there and no
   other book is of the slightest authority among saints. The Lord's will
   is not in the Prayer Book, it is in the Bible. The Lord's will is not
   in the canons.

   The Lord's will is not in the creed of the Baptist Church, or the
   Wesleyan Church, or the Congregational Church, or the Episcopalian
   Church. His will is in the Scriptures--and if we searched them more and
   more and were determined, irrespective of anything that may have been
   done by the Church, or the world, or by government, or by anybody
   else-- that we would follow our Lord's will, we should come to closer
   union. We are divided because we do not study the Lord's will as we
   should. Brothers and Sisters, we ought to be prepared to give up any
   doctrine, however venerable, any institution, however comely, if we do
   not see it to be the Divine will. Obedience is the path of the servant,
   obedience is his safety and happiness. What have I, as a servant, to do
   with anybody but my Master?

   I am set to do a certain thing and if passersby make a remark that I am
   not doing it according to the usual rules of the trade, what is that to
   me? Rules and customs are of small consequence. My Master's will must
   be everything to me if I am a true servant. Somebody will sneeringly
   remark, "You are acting very singularly." Well, the Master must be
   accountable for the singularity of conduct which He prescribes. If we
   are true servants we obey even in the jots and tittles at all hazards.
   But we must search the Word, for unread Bibles are evidences against
   rebels and are unbecoming in Believers. When his master's will is
   known, every true servant is bound immediately to do it. A servant is
   not to say, "Sir, I will attend to that tomorrow."

   If the command is ascertained, it will be as surely disobedience to
   postpone obedience as to reject the duty altogether. If delay is a part
   of the command, the delay is justifiable, but, if not, the servant must
   not tarry. "But surely you forget that the consequences of obedience
   may be costly and involve great sacrifices?" Servants have nothing to
   do with consequences--those belong to their masters. "But, perhaps, if
   I were to follow out the Master's command, I might place myself in a
   position where I should not be as useful as I now am." You have nothing
   whatever to do with that except as it may prove a test of your
   faith--it is a lame obedience which only follows the Master where
   carnal judgment approves. A servant of God is not to use his judgment
   as to the rightness of his Master's command--he is to do as he is bid,
   for his Lord is Infallible.

   What if the heavens fell through our doing right? God does not want us
   to sin in order to prop them up! His Throne is not rotten so as to need
   buttresses of iniquity! Consequences of true principles ought never to
   be considered. There is nothing more vicious in the world than
   policy--it may be admired in the House of Commons--but it should be
   detested in the Church of God. Far from our minds is every question of
   policy. If an act is right, let it be done! If Christ bids it, let it
   be done! And let there be no hesitation in the matter. It is ours,
   also, if we are servants, to obey the Master willingly and for love of
   His Person. The text says, "He that waits upon his master shall be
   honored." Suppose I, as a minister, know something to be God's will,
   yet, nevertheless, attend to it with the view of serving you and doing
   you good as God's Church?

   I shall possibly receive honor from you whom I serve, but that is not
   the honor which a Christian minister ought to seek. The Church is not
   his master--his Master is in Heaven--and if he desires real honor, he
   must earn it by waiting upon his Master for his Master's sake. Suppose
   any of you are children and are doing right in order to please your
   parents--I will not censure the motive--you will get honor from your
   parents. But the right honor is gained by seeking to please God. You
   must labor as Believers to wait upon your Master--to come to the House
   of God, for instance, not because it is the custom, but because you
   would honor the Lord in prayer and praise. You must give to the poor,
   not because others have given so much, but because Jesus loves His
   people to be mindful of poor saints. You must do good, not that others
   may say, "See what a zealous man he is!" but for your Master's sake.

   I am afraid we sometimes serve ourselves even in our holiest things
   and, in carrying out our judgment of the Lord's will, we are often the
   victims of prejudice or whim, and are not so much determined to do the
   Lord's will as to have our own, or to carry out what we call our
   "principles" in order to show that we are not to be cowed by human
   opposition. Ah, Brothers and Sisters, there must be no motive with us
   but our Master's honor! "He that waits on his master shall be honored."
   Wait on your Master. Take care that you have an eye always to Him. Do
   your duty because He bids you. Then you shall win the honor of which
   the text speaks. Then observe that this waiting upon the Master is to
   be performed personally by the servant. It is not, "The servant who
   employs another to wait upon his master shall be honored," I do not so
   read the text. But "He who waits upon his master" himself, doing
   personal service to a personal master--he shall have honor.

   Jesus Christ did not redeem us by proxy. He, Himself--His own
   Self--bore our sins in His own body on the tree. Let us not attempt to
   serve God by merely contributing to the Foreign Missions, or City
   Mission, or helping to support the minister, or something of that sort.
   We should do that, but we should not put it in the place of the other.
   Let us constantly give our personal service, speaking for Christ with
   our lips, pleading for His kingdom with our heart, running on His
   errands with our feet and serving Him with our hands. "He that waits on
   his master shall be honored," even though the waiting is almost
   passive. Sometimes our Master may not require us to do anything more
   than stand still. But you know John, the footman, behind his master's
   chair--if his master bids him stand there--he is as true a servant as
   the other attendant who is sent upon an errand of the utmost
   importance.

   The Lord, for wise reasons may make us wait awhile. Having done all, we
   may yet have to stand still and see the salvation of God and find it to
   be the hardest work of all. In suffering, especially, is that the case,
   for it is painful to be laid aside from the Master's service. Yet the
   position may be very honorable. There is a time for soldiers to lie in
   the trenches as well as to fight in the battle. David made a Law that
   those who tarried with the baggage were to share the spoil with those
   who went down to the fight. This is the rule of the Church militant to
   this day. Some cannot march to the battle, yet are they to share in the
   spoil. They are waiting on their Master and they shall be honored.

   On the whole, summing all up in a word, it is ours to abide near to
   Christ. Servants wait best when they can see their master's eyes and
   hear his wishes. We are to wait upon our Master humbly, reverently,
   feeling it an honor to do anything for Him. We are to be
   self-surrendered, given up always to the Lord--free men--and yet most
   truly serfs of this Great Emperor. We are never so truly free as when
   we admit our sacred serfdom. We are always the body servants of the
   Lord Jesus Christ. Often Paul calls himself the servant of the Lord and
   even the slave of Christ. And he glories in the branding iron's marks
   upon his flesh. "I bear," says he, "in my body the marks of the Lord
   Jesus; therefore let no man trouble me." We count it liberty to bear
   the bonds of Christ! We reckon this to be the most supreme freedom, for
   we sing with the Psalmist, "I am Your servant; I am Your servant. You
   have loosed my bonds." "Bind the sacrifice with cords, even with cords
   to the horns of the altar." Such is the conduct which our servitude to
   our Lord requires.

   III. The third point is THE REWARD WHICH SURELY COMES TO FAITHFUL
   SERVANTS. "He that waits on his master shall be honored." You will
   observe that he finds his honor in waiting on his master. Now, the
   Christian may have other honors besides the one of waiting on his
   Master. He may have poor, wretched, miserable, heavy honors. I am
   always sorry when I see a Christian making himself some great one in
   the world's esteem. I knew one and I esteemed him much. He was an
   earnest Christian man, but his great ambition was to be the chief
   magistrate in a certain city which I shall not name.

   He lived to reach that post and his heart exulted greatly. But I
   noticed that the very night he attained the honor the hand of the Lord
   went forth against one whom he greatly loved and in a short time he,
   himself, sickened and went home to his Father and his God. No joy came
   with the honor, for he had looked at it too long, and with too keen an
   eye. Not I alone, but those who knew him, judged so, too, and we almost
   thanked God that he did not suffer the child of God, whose crown was in
   Heaven, to be satisfied with being a magistrate here. I have seen men
   grow very eager after gold, they have had a good business, but have
   clutched at more and got it. And then sought after still more. And when
   I have seen chastening come, and sorrow in the household, I have not
   marveled at it for I have understood that Christ meant His servant not
   to take honor from Him, and if he would look after other honor he would
   find it but a bittersweet.

   There is a law, I believe, that no subject of Our Majesty may take
   princely rank from any foreign potentate, and it is a Law in the
   kingdom of Christ. What honor can this world confer upon a servant of
   Christ? I count that to be a dishwasher in Christ's kitchen would be a
   greater honor than to be the Czar of all the Russias, or to exercise
   imperial sway over all the kingdoms of the earth at once. Honor? You
   confer honor upon the servant of Christ--you worldlings? As well might
   ants upon their anthills hope to confer dignity upon an angel! Already
   infinitely superior, it is but degradation to a saint to be honored by
   the sons of men! The servant of Christ finds his honor in the service
   itself. The cultivator of the fig tree looks for figs from the fig
   tree. The servant of the Master looks for honor from the Master and he
   covets no honor besides. Every faithful servant of Christ is honored in
   his Master's honor.

   If you serve Christ aright you will have to bear His reproach. You must
   take your share of the Cross, for you have already your share of the
   crown. Thanks be to God, who always causes us to triumph in every
   place! Paul and the other Apostles, when they were suffering for
   Christ, were always triumphing in Christ at the same time. If there is
   any honor in the cause of Truth and righteousness, and the salvation of
   men, Christ has it all, but He reflects some of it upon those of His
   servants who serve His righteous cause and propagate His Truth. "He
   that waits on his Master is honored" by being permitted to wait upon
   such a Master.

   The honor of the Master falls upon the servant who is honorably
   distinguished by wearing the livery of the great Prince. He is honored,
   too, with his Master's approval. Did you ever feel that Christ approved
   of you? You did some little act of love which nobody knew of but your
   Lord. He smiled on you--you knew He did--and you felt superabundantly
   rewarded! You served Him and you were reviled for it, but you took it
   very joyfully, for you felt that He knew all about it, and as long as
   your Master was satisfied it did not matter what man could do to you.
   For the true

   Christian his Lord's approval is honor enough. Sometimes the Lord
   honors faithful servants by giving them more to do. If they have been
   faithful in that which is least, He tries them in that which is great.
   If they have looked after a few little children and fed the lambs, He
   says, "Come here and feed My sheep."

   If they have trimmed a vine, or a fig tree in a corner, He calls them
   out and sets them among the chief vines of the vineyard and says to
   them, "See after these clusters." Many a man would have been called to
   wider fields of labor if he had not been discontented or slothful in
   his narrow sphere. The Lord watches how we do little things and if
   great care is taken in them He will give us greater things to do.
   Elisha poured water upon the hands Elijah and then the Lord said,
   "Elijah's mantle shall fall upon his faithful servant, and he shall do
   even greater miracles." God also honors the faithful in the eyes of
   their fellow servants. When I take down from my library shelf the
   biography of a holy man, I honor him in my soul. I do not care whether
   he was a bishop or a Primitive Methodist preacher, a blacksmith or a
   peer. I do him honor in my heart. If he served his Master, he will be
   sure to be elevated into a position of honor in the memory of
   succeeding ages.

   There are some men whose doctrines you and I could not endorse, who yet
   were faithful to the light they had and therefore we number them among
   the honored dead. And we are glad to remember how bold they were
   against the foe, how meek they were with the little ones, how faithful
   they were in believing their God and how courageous in rebuking sin. If
   you would have honor from your fellow servants, you will never get it
   by seeking honor from them. You must go to your Master and honor Him by
   waiting upon Him and then there will come to you honor in the eyes of
   your fellow men. But, Beloved, the chief honor of a faithful servant
   comes from the blessed Trinity. "If any man will serve Me, him will my
   Father honor."

   Does it not appear too good to be true that a poor man should be
   honored of God the Father, the Creator, the great I Am!? I will not
   speak about it, but leave you to think it over. And then Jesus Christ
   will honor us, for He says that when the Master comes and finds the
   servant waiting for Him, He will gird Himself and serve him! Can you
   understand that? There was a certain festival among the Romans which
   was observed once a year, in which the masters changed places with the
   servants entirely and the servants sat at the table and commanded their
   masters as they liked, while the masters served them. It has been
   thought by some that our Savior has drawn the figure from that singular
   celebration. I hardly think that it can be so, for He would scarcely
   have cared to use such an illustration.

   To think of the great Master serving us is strange, indeed, yet He has
   done it! He did so when He took a towel and washed His disciples' feet.
   And He will do it again--He will gird Himself and serve us. The Holy
   Spirit will honor us, too, for the Holy Spirit often puts great honor
   upon a faithful man in a way that I cannot explain to you except by a
   figure. Moses had been a faithful servant and the skin of his face
   shone when he came down from the mountain. Stephen was a faithful
   servant and when he stood up to confront his adversaries, he was full
   of the Holy Spirit, and a glory gleamed from his face. When the Spirit
   of God is richly in a man and that man is faithful to his Master, some
   gleaming of a supernal splendor will come from him--not visible to
   human eyes but potent over human hearts. Believers will feel its power,
   for as one of our poets says, when a good man is in company 'tis even
   as though an angel shook his wings. You feel the influence of the man
   and almost without a word from him, he has honor in the eyes of them
   that sit at meat with him, for the Holy Spirit is upon him.

   Now, dear Brothers and Sisters, I close by saying we ought faithfully
   to serve, for we have before us the greatest conceivable reward, a
   reward which Grace enables us to gain. That precious blood which
   cleanses us, cleanses our service also. It makes us white as snow and
   it makes our service white, too. We and our work are both accepted in
   the Beloved. A Christian's works are good works--let no one say they
   are not, for they are the work of the Spirit of God--and who shall say
   they are not good? It is an encouragement to go forward when we know
   that "he that keeps the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof." And that
   "the servant who waits on his master shall be honored."

   There is a black side to this, upon which I must speak one word. He who
   does not serve Jesus Christ will not be honored. In the day when the
   Lord comes many that sleep in the dust shall awake--some to Glory--but
   some to shame and everlasting contempt. Oh, the contempt that will be
   poured upon ungodly men at the Last Judgment! When God holds up the
   mirror and they see themselves, they will despise their own image. And
   when God holds up their characters to men and angels, revealing to all
   created beings their secret deeds, their evil motives, their base
   designs, their filthy imaginations--there will go up against such men,
   dying without faith in Christ, a universal hiss of general cursing to

   think that they would not believe God, but made God a liar--would not
   accept the Sacrifice of Christ, but trod the blood of the Covenant
   under foot as an unholy thing!

   Redeemed men will cry, "Shame!" Unfallen angels will cry, "Shame!" Holy
   spirits from a thousand worlds will cry, "Shame!" And it will be
   everlasting contempt. Nothing stings a man like contempt. The poorest
   among us does not like to be despised, however poor he may be. You do
   not like to be pointed at and be made the object of derision, yet,
   Sinner, this will be your portion. If you die without believing in
   Jesus, you will wake up to shame and to everlasting contempt. "Shame
   shall be the portion of fools"--such shame! Oh, be ashamed today, that
   you may not be ashamed then! Penitent shame will lead you to fly to
   Christ and put your trust in Him--and then your transgressions shall be
   blotted out forever!

   May the Spirit lead each one of you to repentance for Jesus' sake.
   Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 25.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Spur

   (No. 1119)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with allyour might; for there is
   no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, where you
   go." Ecclesiastes 9:10.

   I FIND that these words, and those which precede them, have been
   considered by some to be a sarcastic address to those persons of an
   epicurean spirit who consider this world to be everything and will not
   believe that there is a world to come. They are bidden to eat the fat
   and drink the sweet, and enjoy life while they can--and if they have
   anything that they wish to do, to get it done as quickly as they
   can--because there is no work nor device in the grave. If this is the
   meaning, we must regard it as spoken to them from their own standpoint
   and so it is tantamount to their favorite maxim, "let us eat and drink,
   for tomorrow we die."

   It is possible that the royal preacher intended our text to be a
   sardonic sarcasm, but I do not think so. I think the common
   interpretation is the true one and that would make it run parallel with
   the saying of our Lord, "Work while it is called day, for the night
   comes wherein no man can work." It is an address to men, commending to
   them promptness, determination and practical earnestness. Inasmuch as
   they have but one life here on earth, they should give diligence to
   accomplish all the right purposes which they have formed for this
   world. Because once dead they cannot return, nor in the grave can they
   carry out any of their resolves, they should do quickly what they mean
   to do. May God give us Grace to make a right use of this exhortation.

   First, we shall give this passage an evangelical voice to the
   unconverted. Secondly, we shall find in it a stimulating voice to the
   people of God.

   I. First, we shall give it AN EVANGELICAL VOICE TO THE UNCONVERTED and
   it will be necessary for us to say that there is nothing for the
   unconverted man to do, by way of work or device with his hand in order
   to his being saved. And, therefore, we do not address him and say to
   him, "Do what your hand finds to do, in order that you may be saved by
   it." That would be false doctrine and would tend to put the anxious
   seeker upon the wrong track. The Gospel regards the unconverted man as
   dead in trespasses and sins and it tells him that, first of all, he
   must be quickened by a new life--he must be born-again, in fact--or
   else he is not capable of those actions which would be acceptable with
   God.

   Neither if he were capable of them would the performance of them be the
   way of salvation, for we are expressly told that our salvation is not
   of works. Salvation from sin, and justification before God, come to us
   in connection with the work of the Holy Spirit within us leading us to
   faith in Jesus. And so salvation is entirely and alone of the Grace of
   God. Repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ are the
   evidences of saving Grace, and are at once the gifts of God and the
   works of the renewed mind. Looking at this present moment upon faith,
   repentance, prayer and the seeking of the Lord as being our works when
   God's Grace has worked them in us, we would say to every unconverted
   person, "It is high time that you should begin to think about the
   solemn interests of your soul, for you will soon pass from the place of
   saving knowledge and heavenly wisdom into the shades of forgetfulness."

   Repentance is not a feeling which you may have, or may not have, and
   yet be equally saved. You must repent of your sins or there can be no
   forgiveness for you. Faith in Jesus Christ is not an optional thing, so
   that a man may perhaps fare well at last, whether he believes or not.
   "He that believes not shall be damned" is the emphatic declaration of
   Christ Himself, not an invention of His disciples, but our Lord's own
   declaration. You must have faith or you cannot be saved. And you must
   be men of prayer, for without prayer no man shall be saved. The
   sinner's first evidence of salvation is-- "Behold he prays!" If there
   is no prayer, there is no Grace. These things are indispensably
   essential.

   Note well, also, that it is essential that they be done with all our
   might. The text says, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all
   your might." Nobody ever truly repented who repented in a half-hearted
   way. We cannot repent in our sleep and so go to Heaven dreaming. Eve
   was taken out of Adam when he was asleep, but our sins will not be
   removed in

   a like manner. Neither does any man believe in Jesus without thought
   upon the matter--faith does not grow spontaneously and without our own
   consent, like nettles in the sluggard's garden. Faith is not the fruit
   of a swoon--it requires the exercise of the faculties. It is a simple
   thing, but it is an earnest thing, a hearty thing. "If you believe with
   all your heart," said Philip to the eunuch, "you may be baptized." It
   is with the heart that man believes, and that sort of believing which
   does not exercise the heart will never save the soul.

   A prayer, too--a prayer accepted in Heaven, is not a dull, cold thing.
   It is not a saying of prayers, a using of certain holy words, just as
   wizards of old were accustomed to mutter their enchantments. Oh, no! It
   is the yearning of the spirit after God, the passionate longing of the
   creature to get to the Creator and to be reconciled to Him. "The
   kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force."
   And without a holy violence we shall not gain entrance at the gates of
   mercy. Prayer is no child's play, but requires all our might. In order
   to eternal life there must be faith, there must be repentance, there
   must be prayer--and these must all be real, deep, fervent--or else they
   are not such as God gives and they are not true evidences of salvation.

   Moreover, the text urges us to immediate action because death is
   coming. Now I feel quite sure that the bulk of the unconverted part of
   my congregation is made up of persons who have fully resolved one day
   to repent. If I were now sent as a commissioner from Satan and were
   wickedly to ask you to make a contract with the powers of darkness that
   you never would repent, that you never would believe in Jesus and that
   you never would pray, you would start back from so dreadful a compact!
   You would feel as if a most profane bargain were proposed to you. You
   would suspect the presence of Mephistopheles or some other form of the
   arch-deceiver. And yet your actions practically come to the same thing.
   For how many years have you lived without attending to your souls?

   "Oh, but we mean to!" Yes, and you meant to 20 years ago. "Oh, but we
   really do mean it, now!" Yes, and you were quite as earnest when you
   were but children in Sunday school. Since then you have had different
   times of awakening and you have resolved and re-resolved--but you
   remain the same. Will it always be so? If so, why do you start back
   from promising to let it be so? If you think it right to continue as
   unbelievers, what is right today will be right tomorrow and what has
   been convenient today will be as convenient tomorrow! And though you
   say, "Go your way for this time: when I have a more convenient season I
   will send for you," it will come to pass with you as with Felix--the
   convenient season will never come and you will remain unsaved. And yet
   you are dying men and women!

   As I look you in the face, I read, "Mortality!" written across your
   brows. There is not a body here but what, unless the Lord shall come,
   will lie in the cold grave and turn to dust! And there is not a soul
   here but what shall pass into the disembodied state and by-and-by,
   after the Resurrection, shall stand before the Judgment Seat of God!
   Yet all this while you are trifling about your best interests--not
   about your purses, nor about your property--but about your souls! About
   yourselves, your truest selves! Sirs, is this wise? You are not short
   of wit in other things--how are you, then, so short of it in this? If
   you must play at hazard, let it be with something cheaper than your
   souls! If there must be risks, go risk your houses and risk your
   health--but risk not your souls and their everlasting interests!

   The voice of Wisdom says today--you must repent! You must believe! You
   must seek God in prayer! Therefore, since death is near you, do it, do
   it with all your might and do it now, for before long you will be where
   these things never can be done! In a very short time every unconverted
   person here will be in the land where there are no Sabbaths. You can
   waste them now--they hang heavy on some men's hands--but you will not
   be galled with Sabbaths there, or worried with calls to go up to the
   House of God and think about your souls. We who are preachers of the
   Gospel are very troublesome to you and often make your consciences
   uneasy-- soon you will no longer be troubled with us.

   There will be none to cry to you to have mercy on yourselves. There
   will none whose loving importunity shall be a weariness to you. None
   will annoy you with their expostulations, or burden you with
   invitations. You will be in the land where there are no Sabbaths and no
   preachers. And there will be no Bibles there. You will not say there,
   as you did this afternoon, "It is dry reading--that Bible." You will
   not be tired of hearing promises there. No promise and no Gospel will
   ever salute your ears in that dark realm of despair! And there will be
   no Mercy Seat there. You do not pray now, though God will hear you--but
   in a future state prayer will be altogether out of season. God hears
   not the ungodly when once they are cast away from His Presence.

   They may call, but He has said, "I will not answer. They refused Me,
   and therefore I will mock at their calamity, I will laugh when their
   fear comes." I pray you remember that there will be no Jesus there, no
   Fountain filled with blood

   in which to wash away crimson stains. There will be no Redeemer to
   cover a naked soul with His righteousness, no Savior to say, "Be of
   good cheer, your sins are forgiven you." There will be no Spirit of God
   there to plead with your conscience and to be resisted. There will be
   no Grace of God there to show you your sins and to show you the atoning
   Sacrifice. I pray you, have a little patience with us who preach to
   you, for our time is short and you will soon be rid of us. Have a
   little patience with your Bible--it will soon enough be out of your
   way! Have a little patience with your poor Christian mother who tries
   to bring you to the Savior--she will be far from you soon!

   We, who now trouble you by desiring to do you good, will soon be out of
   your way. Ah, poor Souls! Poor Souls! Soon you will be out of God's
   way, and out of Christ's way, and out of Mercy's way--banished from the
   Savior's Presence--and that because the kingdom of God came near to
   you, but you put it away from you, for you would have none of the
   Lord's reproofs. You turned, every one to his own way, and rejected the
   counsels of God against yourselves. Beloved Hearers, may none of you
   stand in that plight! While I breathe the prayer that it may not be so,
   may I ask you to pray for yourselves that it will not be so? Will you
   let me whisper in your ear, as though I stood close by each one of you
   now, and I will softly and lovingly say--Repent, and believe in Jesus,
   now, with all your might. God help you, "for there is no work, nor
   device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave where you go."

   II. But now I have another task, and that is to set forth my text as A
   STIMULATING VOICE TO GOD'S OWN

   PEOPLE. Beloved Brothers and Sisters, our text reminds you that you
   have a work to do. You have not the work to do of saving yourselves.
   That is done--the dear Redeemer has finished it. "It is finished," says
   the Savior, and that is joy for you. But now you have another work to
   do because you are saved. Man was not created to be idle. He was not
   elected to be idle. He was not redeemed to be idle. He was not
   quickened to be idle and he is not sanctified by God's Grace to be

   idle.

   Every Christian, while resting in Christ's work for justification is,
   himself, a worker, ordained to bring forth fruit unto God's Glory. Have
   we been bought with he blood of Jesus and can we be idlers in our
   Redeemer's vineyard? The love of Jesus to us must provoke love in our
   heart to Jesus and that love must show itself by deeds of service for
   His name. I am sure we feel that. Do you not feel, Brothers and
   Sisters, as members of the Christian Church, that you have each a work
   to do? You love the Church and you would not like to be idle members of
   it. As soldiers in one great army you eagerly desire to promote the
   prosperity of the host--as members of the body of Christ you wish to
   perform your office to your Head and your fellow members. I know you
   do.

   The vows of Christ are on you and the vows of the Church of God are on
   you, too. Moreover, I know that my dear Brethren have a love for the
   Truth of the Gospel. Does it not grieve you when you hear false
   doctrines and when you see the idols set up again--the idols which your
   fathers abhorred, set up in the national temples of God? Your heart is
   provoked to jealousy--I know it is--and you feel, each one of you, that
   you have the Truth of God committed to your charge and that you are
   bound to bear testimony to it. This you wish to do most completely. In
   addition, you feel that you should seek the souls of others. Here is a
   great city of three millions and more of people, perishing for lack of
   knowledge--and if you are God's people you would, if it were possible,
   snatch them from the flames and deliver them from the wrath to come.

   Do you not feel that each one of you, according to his position, has a
   work appointed him? I know I have mine. There are times without number
   in which I have wished that I could become the pastor of some little
   country Church with two or three hundred hearers, over whose souls I
   could watch with incessant care, about whose circumstances I could
   fully inform myself and with whom I could plead individually. Here are
   so many, so very, very many! You are counted by thousands. What can I
   do with you? My soul is burdened with the weight of the work to which
   the Lord has called me! Yet I know it is my work and it must be done.

   You are parents, some of you. Do you not feel that you are called to
   bring up your children in the fear of God? Are you doing it? Few
   Christians in these days feel as they ought to--that as parents they
   are bound to instruct their children in the things of God. You are
   masters--do you care for your servants? Have you no desire to see your
   households ordered aright? Oh, I trust you are not such heathen men and
   publicans that you care not for your own households! You live in
   neighborhoods where you are brought into contact with your fellow men
   of all sorts. Do you not know that you are put there as lights in dark
   places--as handfuls of salt in the midst of putrefaction?

   Have you never felt that you are debtors? Do you not feel it your duty
   to battle against error? Isn't it your duty to coming generations to
   stand steadfast to the Truth of God today, which if it falls today, may
   not rise again for many a century? Have you felt that your obligations
   extend as far as your influence extends and that if you are not serving
   God with your influence you are doing harm with it? If you are a
   Christian you are like an oil lamp, which, if it does not yield light,
   gives forth a foul smell as its wick smokes. You are doing mischief if
   you are not doing good. You set an example of idleness and indifference
   to the things of God to sinners which will make them say, "There is
   nothing in religion! Why should we make any stir about it, when even
   these who profess to enjoy it do not live as if they were in earnest,
   and care not whether our souls are lost or saved?"

   Each woman here as well as each man, if converted, should feel, "I have
   a work to do for God." If you are converted as a child, sing your
   hosannas to the King. And if you are born to God in your declining
   years, still bring forth fruit in old age. Even if you are confined to
   the bed of weakness there is a something to be done by you before you
   enter Heaven and the voice of the text says, "Whatever your hand finds
   to do, do it with all your might." That is a most weighty point and
   none may question it. All Believers have a work to do.

   The second thing is this--Our text indicates the wisest course to
   follow. It is--Do it, do it at once, do not talk about it, do not
   regret that you have not done it and sit down and fret because you have
   done so little in the past. It is little use crying over the spilt milk
   of your past life. If you have not done what you should, up, Man, and
   do what you can! "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it." Many prefer
   to find fault with the way in which other people do their work. Yes,
   and if you look round the Tabernacle, you will see a great many
   imperfections in the preacher, in the deacons, in the elders and in the
   members--and possibly none of the workers among us do their work
   exactly as your superior wisdom would dictate.

   There are persons here who have done a great deal of good, but you have
   a notion that you could tell them how to do it in a better fashion
   though you do nothing yourself! Oh, Sir, have done with it! Go, Sir,
   and do your own work and I will do mine in my own way. I do not suppose
   you will do my work better than I do it if you try, and I do not
   suppose I can do yours better than you can do it, if I take your place.
   "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it." Our text exhorts us to do our
   work now. Do not talk about doing it tomorrow, do it at once! The
   impetus of the text carries the thought as far as that, seeing that
   death may come tonight--do it now, even now. What wonders would have
   been done if tomorrows were todays!

   What great achievements have passed through that young man's
   imagination! He has often pictured how useful he will be. His daydream
   has been so very vivid that he has mistaken the will for the deed and
   complacently reviewed his fine resolutions as if they had already been
   carried out! He has felt himself to be somebody on the strength of what
   he was going to do. What draughts men make upon the future and how
   hopefully they reckon upon meeting them when the time comes. Like
   insolvent traders they maintain their present position by discounting
   bills which they will never honor and live as if they were rich--when
   all their wealth is represented by the wretched forgeries of their own
   false promises!

   Oh, Sirs, do not promise to do anything tomorrow--leave off promising
   and come to real actions! Never mind what you wild do next year! What
   will you do now? "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it," and do it at
   once and on the spot. If I knew that my hearers had resolved to be very
   diligent next week or next month, I should conclude that my sermon was
   wasted upon them. The fact is, if the sermon quickens, a man feels
   uneasy and begins to put his fingers into his pocket and his thoughts
   into his heart, and he says, "What can I do before I sleep tonight? I
   do not feel comfortable in idleness. Is there not some poor person I
   could visit? Is not there some poor sinner who is going the wrong road
   whom I might, perhaps, lead aright?" An inward impulse makes the man
   feel as though he walked on hot coals till he has done something for
   the Lord. Do not quench these impulses, if the thing is good, do it--do
   it now!

   But Solomon says, "Do it with all your might." There are several ways
   of doing the same action. One man will do a thing and he has done it.
   Another has performed the same action, but has practically done
   nothing. What a difference there is in preaching! Words may be uttered
   in a lukewarm manner and produce no result, while by another preacher
   nothing better shall be said, but it shall be said earnestly and the
   effect will be marvelous. One hates to see a workman finnicking with a
   hammer, touching the nails as though he loved them too well to hurt
   them, but one likes to see a workman driving his nails home, working as
   though he meant it.

   The masters of assemblies should remember this. If a thing is worth
   doing, let it be done well. If it is not worth doing, let it alone.
   Every man who preaches should aim at preaching his best sermon every
   time he mounts the pulpit. Every Sunday school teacher ought to teach
   his best. Every Evangelist in the street ought to preach up to his
   highest level, if it is only to a dozen. Jesus Christ ought never to
   have our second best--never! Our best is all too poor for Him. Let us
   never put Him off with our inferior fruits. Do it--"do it with all your
   might." And, once more, do it all, for the text says, "Whatever your
   hand finds to do, do it." That is to say, do it all.

   Do not pick it over and say, "All these things I could do for Christ,
   but I shall only do a part of them. Here is a duty which I could
   perform with my gloves on, like a gentleman. I could do this without
   trouble, labor, or expense and earn a good deal of credit by it. This
   is the kind of thing I will do." Do you think God will accept such
   obedience as that? Man, do it, if it stains you from head to foot with
   mire, if it brings contempt upon you and the universal hiss of all your
   fellows. Whatever--whatever God appoints you to do, do it right
   straight through. Servants, like beggars, must not be choosers, but
   what their masters appoint, they must do. And with such a Master, who
   never can appoint us a dishonorable task, it is a shame that we should
   think any service too hard. "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it,"
   and do it at once.

   The meat of the text lies in the next thought, namely, that there is an
   argument to every earnest Christian for intense zeal in the fact of the
   certain approach of death--"for there is no work, nor device, nor
   knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, where you go." Unless the Lord
   shall come, we shall all die and that quickly. Life at the longest is
   very short. When I consider how many claims there are upon a Christian
   and how much a loving heart desires to do--and then think how short is
   the space of time into which we must need crowd all--I am depressed in
   spirit, but sternly resolute to condense much work into a small space.
   The heathen said, "Work is long, and life is short." But I will venture
   to alter the sentence and say, "The service of God is long and life is
   short"--far too short for us to perform all our desires.

   What, then, is the argument from the shortness of life but just
   this--work for God with all your might! If you have so little time,
   waste none of it. If there is so small a space entrusted to you, suffer
   no wastes and by-ends, but fill up the narrow space with precious
   things--gold, silver and precious stones--holy works done in earnest
   for Jesus Christ! The work girl sat in her little room and her fingers
   flew as she passed the needle rapidly--because she had but that tiny
   bit of candle and feared her task might prove longer than her light.
   May we not also fear that our work for Jesus may prove greater than the
   time in which we may perform it? At any rate, we cannot afford to throw
   away a moment.

   Remember solemnly that life may end in a single moment. How suddenly
   death comes across our path! It came almost into my house this morning,
   for I was scarcely risen from my bed before I was told that a little
   child belonging to my coachman had died in an instant, though she had
   seemed to be in perfect health the moment before. The thought came to
   me with power, "It might have been the master instead of the servant's
   child." I know no more reason why it should have been the little one
   than myself. Sudden death has, perhaps, come as near to you lately. It
   is not a very unusual thing to see death in the street in such a city
   as this, or to hear of it in the common talk of the day.

   My Friend, would you like to die at this moment? "No," you say, "I have
   many things I would wish to finish." Finish them, Brothers and Sisters,
   finish them at once! Set your house in order, for you must die, and not
   live. "I should like to have prayed with my children more earnestly
   than I have ever done." Go home and do it, for you may never have
   another opportunity! "I should like to have my Sunday school class
   around me once more before I die, to tell them about the Savior more
   earnestly than I did this afternoon." Dear Brother, dear Sister, take
   advantage of your next opportunity in the class--teach as though you
   might never teach again!

   Say to yourself, "What is there I have left undone? I will do it
   immediately. What is there that is half done that needs finishing? I
   must finish it at once. What is there that I have done so badly, that
   if I went to Heaven I might almost wish to come back to set it right?
   Let me finish it now. What is there that I should like to amend? Let me
   make amends now." I have read of Dr. Chalmers that one evening he
   stayed with a company of friends at a gentleman's house and they spent
   the evening, as we are, too, much in the habit of doing, very
   pleasantly, but not very profitably, talking upon general subjects, not
   at all to be forbidden, but at the same time not much to be commended.
   There was among the number a Highland chief, who had attracted Dr.
   Chalmers' notice, and he had talked with him, but nothing was said
   about the things of God.

   In the middle of the night a bitter cry was heard in the hospitable
   habitation and there was a rush to the bedroom, where it was found that
   the Highland chief was in the agonies of death. Dr. Chalmers expressed
   (and he was not a man whom we could blame for laxity in that direction)
   his bitter regret that he had allowed that last evening of the man's
   life to pass over without having spoken to him concerning the things of
   God. The regret was most proper, but it had been better if it had never
   been necessary. Such a regret may have occurred to ourselves--do not
   let it occur again. If you do not die, the person whom you are
   concerned about may die--therefore, "whatever your hand finds to do, do
   it"--for death may come on a sudden.

   Remember solemnly that while we have been speaking in this Tabernacle
   we have been spending a part of our allotted time. Every time the clock
   ticks our time grows less and less, and less. I have a great love for
   old-fashioned hourglasses because they make you see the time go, as the
   sands run. I remember in Milan Cathedral seeing the sun travel along
   the ecliptic line on the floor of the cathedral and I realized time's
   ceaseless motion. Every minute our life-candles are shorter! Every
   pulse makes the number of pulses less. Quick, then, man! Quick! Quick!
   Quick! Death is behind you. Can you not hear his footfall? He pursues
   you as the hound its prey. Quick! Quick with your work and your
   service, for soon may his skeleton hand be laid upon your shoulder to
   palsy your hand of skill and silence your tongue of eloquence forever.

   And let us remember that when we die there is no return to the field of
   labor. I have known persons (and this is talking about a very
   commonplace thing, but it may be a very useful thing). I have known
   husbands who meant to make their wills in a proper way and to provide
   for their wives as they should do, but they have died and the will has
   been unmade, and the future life of the wife has been full of a sorrow
   which might have been avoided by the proper use of the pen. Do not
   leave anything undone which ought to be done! Leave nothing undone
   which may be for the good of others, for you cannot come back to do it.
   Anything you have to do for the glory of God, get it done at once, for
   you will not be able to return.

   I fancy, for a moment, how I should preach to you if I should die
   tonight, and should be allowed to come back to preach to you once more.
   I know how you would listen! It would be a very strange sermon, but you
   would catch every word, I am sure. I know how I should preach. I should
   say, "Blessed be God for letting me come back to have one more trial
   with my unconverted hearers, for perhaps they may yet be led to Jesus."
   I do not think I would have anything to say to you who are converted,
   that morning, if I had that opportunity. I should leave the 99 and go
   after the sheep that is gone astray. I should preach to the lost one
   and salt my words with tears and burn my lips with flaming love. Yet
   that is exactly how we ought to preach always!

   Now put it to yourselves. If you had to die and were permitted to come
   back to speak once more to your children, to your neighbors, to your
   Sunday school class, or to anyone else committed to your care, how
   would you address them? Do it just that way now--with the same ardor,
   zeal, and tenderness. Do you say you cannot? That is very likely. Ask
   God to help you. His Grace waits to aid you--it is what you need and
   what you must have in order to succeed. Seek it, seek it at His hands
   who gives liberally and upbraids not. In such fashion must every one of
   us go about the work allotted to us, because there is no work nor
   device in the grave to which we are journeying.

   Our text has a peculiar bearing upon some persons. May I be happy
   enough to catch their ears. There are persons here present, perhaps,
   who have a very heavy charge upon them and to them the text speaks. I
   am one of that company. With the heavy charge of this Church, the
   College and the Orphanage, and I know not what besides, I hear a voice
   saying to me, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your
   might." It would ill become me to loiter--above all men I must labor.
   Some of you have wealth. Permit the text to speak to you
   also--"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might," for
   you can not take your money with you, neither can you serve God with it
   when you are gone, "for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge,
   nor wisdom, in the grave, where you go."

   Some of you possess much influence, for you are large employers. And I
   know some--I need not go into details-- whom God has placed in peculiar
   positions where they lead and guide the minds of others. I charge you
   by the living God, do not let the blood of any man's soul be on your
   hands! Go with holy diligence before Him who will weigh you in the
   scales before long, lest it be said of you, "You are weighed in the
   balances and found wanting." By the blood that bought you, I beseech
   you, if the Lord has trusted you with 10 talents, put them out to
   interest, lest a tenfold judgment come upon you!

   I know not how to speak as I should, but I feel I am speaking most of
   all to myself here. I charge you, O my Heart, be faithful to your
   trust! It were better for me that I had never been born than that I
   preach to these people carelessly, or keep back any part of my Master's
   Truth! Better to have been a devil than a preacher playing fast and
   loose with God's Word and by such means working the ruin of the souls
   of men. To other preachers I say what I have said to myself, and to
   each one of you whom God has put in solemn charge--see to it that what
   He gives you to do, you do with all your might.

   Next, I speak to those of you who are advanced in years. If you have up
   to now done much for Christ, be thankful for it. But if you have
   not--if you have loitered--oh, my dear Brothers and Sisters, may I, who
   am, as it were, but a youth compared with you, may I take an old man by
   the hand and say--Dear Brother, there can be for you here, in the order
   of nature, but a short time to serve God. Do immediately, with all your
   might, what you can. Let your last days, if they have not the vigor of
   your youth, at any rate have a yet more eager desire for God's Glory.
   It would seem a strange thing for a man to get nearer to Heaven and to
   be less heavenly minded, to be more ripe for Glory as to his age, and
   to be less mature in Grace. O that you may live while you live and bear
   a good testimony during life's eventide!

   Do I speak to those who have been lately converted and are past middle
   age? At what a rate, my dear Brothers and Sisters, ought you to live!
   Remember, Martin Luther was converted in middle life, but he did a
   great work before he died and many a distinguished servant of God has
   begun late, but has worked well and made a good day's work of it before
   his sun went down. There is no reason why you should not copy the
   example. God can do much by you, though your time is short. Then I also
   address myself to those of delicate constitutions who may be here. Some
   of you must often be reminded of death by the trembling you feel in
   your own bodies. I do not exhort you to do anything that would injure
   your constitutions by imprudence, for God does not require us to be
   suicides. But whatever service it is in your power to do, do it, so
   that there may not be mingled with the sorrow of your future sickness
   any reflection upon yourself because when you had the power to serve
   God you did not use it.

   I would also speak to those who have been the subjects of high impulses
   and noble thoughts. There are choice spirits in the world, into whose
   ears the Holy Spirit whispers grand designs such as He does not reveal
   to all men. Here and there He finds a soul that He makes congenial to
   Himself and then He inspires it with great wishes, deep longings and
   grand designs for glorifying God. Do not quench them, Brothers and
   Sisters! Do not starve them by holding them back, but as death is
   coming, do what is in you, and do it with all your might! No man knows
   what God means to do through his agency, for oftentimes the very
   feeblest have conceived the greatest purposes. John Pounds and his
   ragged-school-- who was John Pounds? A poor cobbler. Robert Raikes,
   with his Sunday school--who was Robert Raikes? Nobody in particular,
   but nevertheless Sunday schools have come to something.

   You may have a sublime conception in your soul. Do not strangle
   it--nurse the Heaven-born thought for God-- and the first opportunity
   you can find, carry out the idea to its practical issues and throw your
   might into it. I think there must be some young Christian here who
   loves his Master and who means to do something for Him before he dies.
   Brother, what you do, do quickly. Do I not address some young man of a
   noble spirit who feels, "I could be wealthy, I could gain a position in
   my profession, I could become famous and get honor for myself, but from
   this hour I will lay all down at the foot of the Cross and lay myself
   out for the good of souls and the glory of God"? Give me your hand, my
   Brother, for you and I are of one mind in this. But I charge you go and
   do it! Do not dream, but work! Do not listen to the sirens which would
   enchant you by their music and draw you from the rough sea of duty.
   Launch forth in God's name, yield yourself up to the winds of Heaven
   and they will bear you straight on in the course of devoted service.
   The Lord help you to do with all your might what you find to do.

   And, lastly, there is a peculiar voice in the text to those who will
   die in the next few days--those here present, I say, who will die
   within the next few days. "Well," you say, "and who are they?" "Ah,"
   say I, "that I cannot tell you." It may be the speaker and it may be
   you into whose eyes the speaker's eyes are gazing now. Here are within
   this house tonight not less, I suppose, than 6,000 persons. And,
   according to the averages of human life, a certain number of us will,
   in all probability, be in another world within a very short space of
   time--say, within a year. Yes, and to some one of us the angel may be
   sent tonight! Now, to that man or to that woman the voice of the text
   is very strong--"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your
   might." You have only three days to live. You have only a week to live.
   You have only a fortnight to live. You have only three weeks to live.
   Finish, then, your labor for your Lord.

   "Ah," you say, "if I were that man, I should be very busy the next
   three weeks and very earnest in prayer." As you do not know but what
   you may be that man, go act in such a manner! Set your house in order,
   draw near to God. Seek to glorify His name. Live in the bosom of Christ
   and whether you die or not, it will make no difference to you, for you
   to live will be Christ, and to die will be gain--and so you will be
   satisfied whichever way it may be! O Brothers and Sisters, we have not,
   most of us, begun to live yet! I feel very often like the chicken in
   the shell, which has chipped its shell a little and begun to see that
   there is a great world outside.

   We have not as yet begun to serve God as He ought to be served. The
   divinely born manhood within us, the Divine life which God infuses, is
   it not sadly clogged and hampered? May God set us free and raise us up
   to the highest standard of a consecrated life and His shall be the
   praise for evermore. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Ecclesiastes 9.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Apple Tree in the Woods

   (No. 1120)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 6, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "As the apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my Beloved among
   the sons." Song of Solomon 2:3.

   BY the apple tree would probably be intended by the oriental writer
   either the citron, or the pomegranate, or the orange. I suppose he did
   not refer to the apple tree of our gardens, for it would scarcely be
   known to him. The word would not, however, be properly rendered if we
   confined it to any of the three fruit trees we have mentioned, or if we
   excluded our own apple from it, for the term apple comprehends all
   large round fruit not enclosed in a shell. And so we may, without
   making any mistake, think of the apple tree of our own English orchards
   and the metaphor will stand good, except that the shadow of our apple
   tree at home is hardly so excellent a retreat from the sun as the
   shadow of the other trees included under the term.

   Our own apple tree will suffice us, however, and we shall not need to
   enter into any minute distinctions, or to carry you away to Palestine.
   We can sit at home in England and can say with great propriety, if we
   love the Lord Jesus Christ, "As the apple tree among the trees of the
   woods, so is my Beloved among the sons." The point of the metaphor is
   this. There are many trees of the forest and they all have their uses,
   but when one is hungry, faint and thirsty, the forest trees yield no
   succor, and we must look elsewhere. They yield shelter, but not
   refreshing nutriment. If, however, in the midst of the woods one
   discovers an apple tree, he there finds the refreshment which he needs,
   his thirst is alleviated and his hunger removed.

   Even so the Church here means to say that there are many things in the
   world which yield us a kind of satisfaction-- many men, many truths,
   many institutions, many earthly comforts--but there are none which
   yield us the full solace which the soul requires. There are none which
   can give to the heart the spiritual food for which it hungers. Jesus
   Christ, alone, supplies the needs of the sons of men. As the apple tree
   is the exception to the forest trees in bearing its fruit. As it stands
   on that account in contrast to the trees of the woods, so does Jesus
   our Beloved contrast with all others and transcendently excel them--

   "An apple tree in simple beauty stands,

   And waves its juicy treasure gracefully,

   Among the barren trees which eroded the woods,

   Of lofty form, but destitute of fruit.

   So Jesus, 'midst the failing sons of men

   Bears for my use the fruits of covenant love,

   And fills my heart with rare delight and rest." Wandering, as I have
   been, during the last few days, up and down in the New Forest, the only
   real forest of our country, and finding rest in its vast solitudes,
   often has this text occurred to me and therefore I can do no other than
   speak of it to you--"As the apple tree among the trees of the woods, so
   is my Beloved among the sons." We shall at the outset speak of the tree
   which the fainting soul most desires. We shall then remark that it is
   no small wonder that the needy one finds an apple tree in so singular a
   position. And, thirdly, we shall note her very natural conduct when she
   found so desirable a tree in such a position--she sat down under its
   shadow with great delight and feasted upon the delicious fruit.

   I. First, then, our text speaks of THE TREE WHICH THE FAINTING SOUL
   MOST DESIRES. Imagine yourself upon some sultry day in autumn as a
   wanderer in the leafy lanes of a great forest. The grand cathedral
   aisles reach before you to lengths immeasurable, or huge domes of
   foliage rise above you like a second sky. Imagine yourself roaming
   amidst the ferns and brakes, trampling on the briars and hollies, or
   sitting down on mossy banks and knolls soft with layers of

   leaves. Suppose, also, that you are hungry and thirsty and that no
   rippling streams offer their cooling floods while you are so far away
   from human ears that, hungry though you might be even to death, there
   would be no eyes to see you and consequently no hands outstretched for
   your help.

   In such a plight it needs no imagination to conceive you as glancing to
   the trees, your only companions, and silently appealing to them for
   aid. Some of them look as if their bowing branches would sympathize if
   they could, others grotesquely grin at you and the most of them sternly
   refuse you succor by their solemn silence. You will ask in vain of oak,
   or ash, or elm. Suppose you appeal to yonder stately tree which is the
   greatest of them all, the king of the forest, unequalled in greatness
   or girth? Admire its stupendous limbs, its gnarled roots, its bossy
   bark, the vast area beneath its boughs. You look up at it and think
   what a puny creature you are and how brief has been your life compared
   with its duration. You try to contemplate the storms which have swept
   over it and the suns which have shone upon it.

   Great, however, as it is, it cannot help you. If it were a thousand
   times higher and its topmost boughs swept the stars, yet it could
   minister no aid to you. This is a fit picture of the attempt to find
   consolation in systems of religion which are recommended to you because
   they are greatly followed. Here is a religion which has been patronized
   by kings and nobles for centuries--a religion which has the support of
   the great and fashionable at the present hour--will not this content
   you? Is it not enough to belong to the same religion as the majority,
   especially when that majority includes the aristocrats of the land? Is
   not the religion of the people the voice of God? What more do you need?
   Why should you be singular?

   Alas, the great tree is not the fruit-bearing tree. The true Christian,
   believing in Jesus Christ with all his heart, counts it no desirable
   thing to be found in the broad road where the many go, for he remembers
   that his Master spoke of it as leading to destruction. Majorities are
   nothing to him, for he remembers that, "strait is the gate and narrow
   is the way which leads unto life, and few there are that find it." He
   does not reckon that the greatness of the company will make right
   wrong, or overawe the Judge of All, or make eternal punishment one whit
   the less intolerable. We desire not the way of the multitude--the way
   of the Crucified we delight to follow. It is not the mightiest tree of
   the forest that we look to with hope, but to the Lord Jesus, our
   Beloved, who is the apple tree among the trees of the woods!

   His fruit is sweet to our taste. He is the way, the truth, and the life
   to us. His Person is most dear to us and His teachings are the food of
   our spirits. Happy are you who dare to be singular with Christ! Blessed
   are you who have found the narrow way which leads unto eternal life!
   Blessed are you because you are not carried away with the strong
   current and fashion of the age, but have heard the voice that says, "Be
   not conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of
   your minds." Wisdom tells the hungry man to prefer the solitary apple
   tree to whole groves of the largest oaks or beeches. And wisdom given
   from above has brought you, O Believer in Jesus, to prefer your
   Redeemer to all the great ones of the earth.

   Suppose that in your wanderings to and fro you come upon another tree
   which is said to be the oldest in the forest. We, all of us, have a
   veneration for age. Antiquity has many charms. I scarcely know if
   antiquity and novelty should run a race for popular favor, which might
   win. Nowadays we are pestered by a class of men who would gladly
   fascinate our nation to error by the charms of antiquity. They will
   tell us that a certain ceremony, though no trace of it is to be found
   in Scripture, must be venerable because practiced in the fourth
   century. And they imagine that worship in buildings which were founded
   by Saxons and garnished by Normans must be peculiarly acceptable with
   God! To be ancient--is it not a great advantage? As cleanliness is next
   to godliness, surely antiquity must he next to orthodoxy!

   Yet if there is no Scripture to warrant it, an ancient ceremony is only
   an ancient farce! There are some things which are so old as to be
   rotten, eaten of worms and fit only to be put away. Many things called
   ancient are but clever counterfeits, or when they are true they are but
   the bones and caresses of that which once was good when life filled it
   with energy and power. There is an "old way which wicked men have
   trod," as well as a good old way in which the righteous walk. We cannot
   be certain that a thing is right because it is old, for Satan is old,
   and sin is old, and death is old, and Hell is old--yet none of these
   things are right and desirable on that account.

   No, Jesus Christ our Lord, since the day in which we have known Him by
   faith, has quieted our conscience, has calmed our fears, has given us
   joy and peace through believing. And we are not to be seduced from Him
   by all the antiquated falsehoods which may weave their spells around
   us. Old even to decay may be the trees in which other travelers
   delight, but as for us, we choose the tree of heavenly fruit--the apple
   tree is our choice, Jesus is our Beloved.

   Ritualists may glory in their fourth century doctrines, their fathers,
   their councils and their ancient customs. The Bible is primitive enough
   for us! The Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is venerable enough for us!
   We are content with Him and need no more. To us the main thing is to
   find food for our souls, the bread that never perishes, the fruit which
   will quench our desperate thirst. We have found it in the Savior and
   from the Savior we will not depart.

   It may be that in the midst of the forest, while you are hungry and
   thirsty, you come upon a strangely beautiful tree. Its proportions are
   exact and as you gaze upon it from a distance you exclaim--"How
   wonderful are the works of God!" And you begin to think of those trees
   of the Lord which are full of sap, the cedars of Lebanon which He has
   planted. You stand under it and look up among the majestic boughs and
   the spreading branches and you again admire the beauty of Nature as it
   comes from the hand of the Most High. But beauty can never satisfy
   hunger and when a man is dying of thirst it is vain to talk to him of
   symmetry and taste. He needs food. This reminds us that nowadays there
   are some who try to satisfy the souls of men with beauty. Look at their
   processions--who would not be charmed with their varied costumes, their
   spangled banners, their gilded crosses and their melodious hymns?

   Listen to their choir--is not the singing perfection? If you want a
   concert on Sunday and do not like to attend a theater, you can find it
   in the cathedral and in many a parish Church. If you want to have your
   senses gratified and cannot conscientiously attend an opera on Sunday,
   you can have ears and eyes gratified at Church, yes and the nose as
   well in some places--and these amusements they mistake for religious
   exercises! Compared with the plainness of worship which we follow, our
   casting out of everything like symbol, our abhorrence of everything
   that would take away the mind from God Himself and fix it upon
   secondary objects--compared with all this their worship is enchanting,
   indeed, to the carnal mind--and we do not wonder that those who are led
   by taste should follow after it.

   But oh, if a man once hungers after the bread of Heaven, his taste for
   finery will be reduced to a very secondary position as a governing
   power of his mind. If once the soul craves after God, after peace,
   pardon, Truth, reconciliation, holiness--it will seek the Lord Jesus,
   the Apple Tree--and forget the other trees, however shapely they may
   be. "These bear no fruit for me," says the hungry soul. The awakened
   conscience listens to the chant as it is echoed among the massive
   pillars and watches the smoke as it rises like a cloud among the arches
   of the roof, and he cries, "What are chants and smoke to me? I need a
   Savior!" He sees the procession and after he has gazed upon it he says,
   "What are these mummeries to me? I need washing in the blood of
   Christ."

   As the incense smokes to Heaven he says to himself, "O for the incense
   of the Savior's merit! What are these gums of Araby to me if they
   should burn all day long?" He turns away, sick and faint in heart, from
   all the gew-gaws and outward trappings of modern Popery and he cries,
   "O God, You are a Spirit, and they that worship You must worship You in
   spirit and in truth. I need You, O my God! I need spiritual life within
   myself that I may commune with You! And where can I find it but in my
   Savior? He gives it to me! He is the only fruit-bearing tree among the
   trees of the woods."

   We will pursue our investigations in the forest and while we are doing
   so we shall come upon some very wonderful trees. I have seen, just
   lately, instances in which branches are curiously interlaced with one
   another. The beech sends forth a long drooping bough and lest it should
   not be able to support itself, another bough strikes up from below to
   buttress it, or descends from above and clasps it and the boughs
   actually grow into one another. Strange things may be observed in the
   undisturbed woods which are not to be seen in our hedgerow trees, or
   discerned in our gardens. Trees have odd habits of their own and grow
   marvelously if left to their own sweet wills.

   I have stood under them and said, "How can this be? This is singular,
   indeed! How could they grow like this? What wondrous interlacing,
   intertwining, gnarling and knotting!" Yes, but if a man were hungry and
   thirsty, he would not be satisfied with curiosities. So is it with some
   preaching that I know of. If you regard it from the standpoint of
   literary excellence you confess that it is wonderful. There are great
   orators and deep thinkers to be found to whom I would not presume to
   hold a candle--whose performances are really wonderful. I have felt,
   after I have heard their essays, like the Primitive Methodist who went
   to dinner with the squire and then pronounced the blessing
   afterwards--"Lord, we thank you that we do not have such a good dinner
   as this every day, for it is too rich to agree with us." I have felt
   just like that after hearing the fine oration, though, mark you, I did
   not remember a bit of it after it was over and my heart was none the
   better.

   How many sermons are published nowadays, as well as preached, which are
   full of what is called thought? By the cant word, "thought," is
   generally meant contradicting the plain meaning of Scripture and
   starting new notions. A man

   who preaches plainly what God reveals is said to be an echo of the
   Puritans, a dealer in platitudes, a repeater at secondhand or exploded
   dogmas. But to find out some new lie every week to tell your people, to
   shake their faith in Inspiration every time you open your mouth--and
   make them believe that there is nothing certain, but that everything is
   a mere matter of opinion--that is "thought and culture" in these days.
   And there are in certain dissenting pulpits the most miserable
   specimens of this school and in the pews a number of their silly
   admirers.

   Brothers and Sisters, some of us are too old-fashioned ever to be led
   astray in that way, and what is more, we have such an awful
   appetite--we are possessed of such a dreadful hunger, and such
   insatiable thirst that we dare not go away from the Apple Tree--because
   we need to be always eating. We dare not go away from Jesus Christ,
   because we are always needing pardon, always needing peace, always
   needing fresh life. And provided we can retain our hold on Jesus we are
   not particular about the way in which some of these wonderful trees
   twist their boughs. We do not feel concerned about the marvels of
   modern thought, or the resurrection of ancient errors--

   "Should all the forms that men devise,

   Assault my soul with treacherous art,

   I'd call them vanities and lies,

   And bind the Gospel to my heart.

   For if we search the globe around,

   Yes, search from Britain to Japan,

   There shall be no religion found,

   So just to God, so safe to man." But as we are wandering in the forest
   and are still hungry I hear someone saying, "Ah, here is the place for
   food. You need not boast of your Apple Tree--the ground is covered with
   meat beneath this noble tree." I look up--it is autumn time--and I see
   a huge tree loaded with beech nuts which fall from it like rain. "Here
   is the place for food." Was that a human voice I heard? No, it was the
   grunts of a herd of swine! See how content they are--how happy--how
   they are munching the meat as it falls from the trees. Yonder is a
   grove of oaks, all shedding their acorns--and how delighted the swine
   are! How they fatten upon the spoil! "Will you not come here?" they
   seem to say, as they munch in comfort! "Will you not come here? Do not
   tell us about trees which bear no fruit--there is surely fruit enough
   here."

   Even thus I hear a voice from the Exchange--"Here are the trees which
   bear us golden apples! Come here and be filled." I hear it from those
   who cater to public amusements--"Here are the fruits which can delight
   the soul! Here is the place to spend a happy day." And so I hear it
   from the gay followers of vice--"This dalliance, this dance, this
   flowing bowl, this sweet-sounding viol, these are real joys." Yes, to
   you, to you who choose them! Beech nuts and acorns are good enough for
   swine. To you who can find comfort, solid comfort, in the gain of
   merchandise, or in the pleasures of sin, or in the delights of pomp,
   these things are good enough! But a man, a God-made man, a man into
   whom God has put a new heart--not a swine's heart, but a man's
   heart--needs apples, not acorns--needs spiritual food!

   He needs food for an immortal Nature and there is no such food to be
   found short of the Lord Jesus Christ, for He, and He only, is the Apple
   Tree among the trees of the woods! I might enlarge, but I will not. I
   will simply say what every child of God here knows that the Lord Jesus
   Christ has given to us, ever since we found Him, everything we have
   needed. When we came to Him we were worn out with faintness, we were
   hungry to get rid of our sins, but we are now rid of them, every one of
   them. We went up to His Cross and as we saw Him hanging on it, the
   strings which bound our burden to our shoulders began to crack. Our
   load rolled off into His sepulcher and we have never seen it since. We
   have half fancied we have felt it again, but we never have, for if our
   sins are searched for they cannot be found! No, they shall not be, says
   the Lord.

   You remember when you first came to that precious tree where the Savior
   died? There you discovered that your sin was blotted out and that you
   were accepted in the Beloved. And there you were made to be forevermore
   an heir of Heaven! Oh, the lusciousness of the fruit which you tasted,
   then! Oh, the delightful quiet of that shadow under which you sat that
   day! Blessed be His name! You had searched among the other trees, but
   you found no fruit there. You tried to rest in the shadow of other
   boughs, but you never rested till on that blood-stained tree of the
   Cross you saw your sins put away and your salvation secured! And then
   you rested and were satisfied. But the Lord Jesus Christ has not only
   satisfied us as to the past, see what He has done for us as to the
   present!

   My dear Hearers, there are some of you who have never known, yet, what
   it is to be perfectly happy. I do not call it being perfectly happy to
   be full of excitement, laughter and apparent joy--and then to go home
   in the evening and sit down and feel disgusted with it all. That is the
   froth of fancy and not the true wine of joy. But to be perfectly happy
   is to be able to think about all things on earth and all things in
   Heaven, and yet to say, "I lack nothing! There is nothing I desire,
   nothing I pine after! I am saved! I am a child of God--the eternal God
   is my own Father! I am on my way to His own glorious house. If death
   should strike me now it would not matter, or if I am spared for another
   50 years it will make no difference to me, for all is well and could
   not be better! If there are crosses in my lot, they are God-sent
   crosses. If I have troubles, they work my lasting good. If I lose, I am
   a gainer by my losses. If I have all things, I see God in all things.
   And if I have nothing, yet I see all things in my God. Nothing more can
   I desire. Christ is all and Christ is mine and, therefore, I have all
   things."

   Now, that is the position of the Christian this day. He sits down under
   the shadow of Christ and Christ's fruit is sweet to him. Let me ask
   you, can you imagine any other place where such peace of mind or such
   happiness can be enjoyed? Why, I know sick people who are far more
   happy in their sickness than worldlings are in their health! And I know
   poor men who are infinitely more at peace and more content than rich
   men who have not the Savior. Jesus Christ, alone, satisfies us for the
   past and delights us for the present. And then as to the future. The
   man who has found Christ looks forward to it not merely with
   complacency, not simply without a dread, but with a joyous expectancy
   and hope! Those things which make others tremble make us glad.

   There is such a thing as dying--thank God, there is! Who wants to live
   here always? That narrow stream which separates this country from the
   better land must be forded by each of us. Who would have it otherwise?
   Instead of being afraid to cross it, we have sometimes said--

   "O Lord of Hosts, divide the waves, And land us now in Heaven."

   The judgment? The Christian quails not at the thought. Who shall lay
   anything to his charge? The coming of the Lord? The Believer fears it
   not, no, it is his grandest hope! Eternity and its never-ending cycles?
   He dreads it not, for it is to him the climax of his joy that it is to
   be everlasting. O, happy people who have Christ! Happy souls who rest
   in Jesus! They may say what none others can--"As the apple tree among
   the trees of the wood, so is my Beloved among the sons."

   Dear Hearer, is He your Beloved? Can you claim Him as your own? If you
   can, then I am sure you will bear witness, as the text does, to the
   satisfying power of the Savior and declare with Ralph Erskine--

   "What fool soever disagrees, My sweet experience proves

   That Jesus is the tree of trees Among a thousand groves."

   II. The spouse spoke of the tree which she most desired--THE WONDER WAS
   THAT SHE FOUND IT. It was an apple tree, but it was not in a garden, a
   fruit tree but not in a vineyard--it was "among the trees of the
   woods." Who would know of so great a rarity as an apple tree in a
   forest if he were not first told of it? So Jesus Christ, at this
   present day, is not known to all mankind. It is a most unhappy thought
   that probably the majority of the human race have not heard of the
   Savior at all--and a very large proportion have never heard of Him
   except through misrepresentations. Only a small minority of our fellow
   men know anything about the Savior--

   "What millions never knew the Lord! What millions hate Him when He's
   known."

   Even in our own country you will not find it a difficult thing to meet
   with persons who are totally ignorant of Christ. Try it and you shall
   find in country towns and in hamlets men grown up who could not give
   you an answer to this question--"How is it that the death of Jesus
   saves the soul?" No, they do not even know the fact that Jesus Christ
   came into the world to save sinners! "Well," you say, "we know the
   rural districts are ignorant." Yes, but they are far superior in light
   to parts of London. You can readily find children in our streets, and
   what is worse, artisans in our workshops, to whom the bare name of
   Jesus may be known, but anything like the doctrine of His
   substitutionary Atonement is a thing of which they have not heard.

   Living in the light they abide in darkness! Amid a thousand lamps they
   see not. One of the problems which may most surprise us is the
   existence of such dense ignorance in persons who live in intimate
   connection with instructed people. If

   you want the grossest ignorance, probably you would not find it in
   Pekin or Timbuktu, but in London or New York. Where the greatest light
   is, there the shadows are deepest. Men nearest to the Church are often
   furthest from God. You cannot easily find an apple tree in a great
   forest. If you were put down in the middle of a forest and told there
   was an apple tree there, you might wander for many a day before you
   discovered it--and often go over your own footsteps, lost in endless
   mazes--and you may not find the object of your search.

   And so, though there is a Savior, men have not found the Savior--and
   there may even be souls here present who long for that which Jesus is
   able to give and yet have not discovered Him. You know all about Him in
   the letter of His Word but you cannot find Him spiritually. And I hear
   you cry, "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him." I know I am speaking
   to some such. You have been going up and down for months with your
   prayers and your tears and your good works. You have been trying to do
   all you can to save yourselves, but you find your own actions to be
   barren trees and you know that there is an apple tree somewhere, but
   you cannot find it. Ah, poor Soul, you are like the Ethiopian eunuch,
   when he was asked if he understood what he read, he gave the answer,
   "How can I, unless some man should guide

   me?"

   Do you not wonder that the spouse found her apple tree among the trees
   of the woods? The fact is, none ever find it except they are led there!
   And none can lead a soul to that Apple Tree but the eternal Spirit of
   God. He can make use of His ministers and He does. And therefore,
   Brothers in the ministry, let us always be preaching about this Apple
   Tree. Let us preach up Jesus Christ, let us make tracks to the Tree of
   Life! Whatever we do not preach, let us preach Jesus Christ! I have
   found, wherever I have been during the last month, that though there
   might not be a road to this place or that, there was sure to be a
   London road.

   Now, if your sermon does not happen to have the doctrine of Election,
   or the doctrine of Final Perseverance in it, let it always have Christ
   in it. Have a road to London, a road to Christ, in every sermon. Still,
   the most plain preaching will require the Spirit of God to go with it,
   or else the soul will hear about this glorious tree and about the
   sweetness of the fruit, but will never find the shadow--and will never
   eat the dainty apples. Have you come to Christ, dear Brothers and
   Sisters? Then give God the glory for it! Jesus led you. His Spirit
   guided you. Praise and bless His holy name. Now, is it not a strange
   place for an apple tree to be found in--in a forest? We seldom hear of
   such a thing. An apple tree should grow in a garden. How should it be
   found in a forest?

   And is it not a strange thing that a Savior should be found for us
   among men--not among angels? You shall search for a Savior among "the
   helmed cherubim and worded seraphim" as long as you will, but there is
   none there. The Savior is found in a manger at Bethlehem, in a
   carpenter's shop at Nazareth. Among the poor and needy is He seen while
   He sojourns among the sons of men. As I was turning this text over in
   my mind, I thought, "Ah, and what strange trees this tree grew among,
   for there it stands with a gallows tree on either side, and two thieves
   hanging upon them. "He was numbered with the transgressors."--

   "Not among you, O you cedars,

   Not among you, O mighty oaks,

   But among the bushes of the desert,

   Among the trees accursed was Jesus found!" "He made His grave with the
   wicked."--

   "As in some sere and unproductive wood

   One lovely, fruit-producing apple tree,

   Bright contrast to the ruined thousands round;

   So in this populous but vicious world

   O You Desire of nations, did You stand." Now, there is something very
   sweet about this, because a forest is the very place where we most love
   to find Christ growing. If I had come, the other day, upon an apple
   tree in the forest and it had happened to be the time of ripe fruit, I
   should have felt no compunction of conscience in taking whatever I was
   able to reach, for a tree growing in the forest is free to all comers.
   Should there be a hungry one beneath its bough, he need not say, "May
   I?" when his month waters at the golden fruit! He need not say, "It
   would be stealing. I am unfit to take it. I am unworthy of it." Man, if
   there is an apple tree in the forest, no man can keep it for himself or
   deny your right to it, for each wanderer has a right to what

   fruit he can gather! The animals have rights of pasturage. And the
   birds have rights of nesting. And you have rights of feeding. Pluck
   away, Man, and eat to your full!

   The shadows and the fruits of forest trees are free to all who need
   them. This ought to delight any seeking soul here this morning. Jesus
   Christ is not hedged about in the Scriptures, as some theologians would
   desire to guard Him from coming souls. The Lord has planted no
   protection of thorns and hollies by saying, "You must bring with you
   preparations for Grace. You must feel this and feel the other, and only
   then may you dare to come to Christ." It is a gross error to tell a man
   to do something and be something before he believes in Jesus. No! There
   He stands with no hedge about Him and whoever will, may partake freely!
   If you hear the Gospel call, your reply to it should be--

   "Just as I am, Your love unknown

   Has broken every barrier down.

   Now to rely on You alone,

   O Lamb of God, I come."

   Christ has no barriers around Him to keep you from Him. If there are
   any they are of your own making--

   "None are excluded but those Who themselves exclude Welcome the learned
   and polite, The ignorant and rude."

   Whoever shall come shall be welcome to this priceless Apple Tree! There
   is some comfort, therefore, in thinking that He grows among the trees
   of the woods.

   III. It was little wonder that when the spouse, all hungry and faint,
   did come upon this apple tree in the forest SHE ACTED AS SHE DID.
   Straightway she sat down under its shadow with great delight. And its
   fruit was sweet unto her taste. She looked up at it--that was the first
   thing she did and she perceived that it met her double need. The sun
   was hot, there was the shadow. She was faint, there was the fruit. Now,
   see how Jesus meets all the needs of all who come to Him? God's anger,
   like the hot noon-day sun, falls on me--how can I escape it? There is
   no escape from the anger of God except by an Interposer.

   What is a shadow? Is it not caused by the interposition of the bough,
   or the rock, or whatever it may be which comes between us and the sun?
   If we sit under a tree in the shadow, it is because the tree receives
   the heat and so we escape from it. Jesus Christ's great office is the
   Interposer, the Mediator, the Substitute, the Atonement, the
   Sacrifice--and when we hide beneath Him we are screened. God's wrath
   cannot come on us because it has come upon Him on our behalf--

   "When Christ my Screen is interposed

   Between the sun and me

   My joyful heart and lips unclosed,

   Adore the glorious Tree."

   That is a beautiful picture in Solomon's Song where the king is said to
   ride in his chariot of love. He takes his spouse with him and they ride
   together in his palanquin, and it has over it a canopy. Did you ever
   notice what it is made of? It is said, "The covering thereof was of
   purple," for truly the only interposition between us and the sun of
   God's wrath is the purple canopy of the atoning blood! Is it not
   delightful to sit down beneath the scarlet canopy of the Savior's blood
   and feel, "God cannot smite me--He has smitten His Son. He cannot
   demand payment a second time. If Jesus suffered in my place, how can
   God make me suffer, again, for my sin? Where were the justice of the
   Most High to punish an Immaculate Substitute and then punish men for
   whom that Substitute endured His wrath?" This is the cool, calm, holy
   shadow under which we abide!

   But then, the spouse also found that she was thirsty and that the fruit
   of the tree exactly met her case. Our inner life needs sustenance and
   food. Now, in the Lord Jesus is life and the bread of life. He is that
   Bread which came down from Heaven, of which if a man eats he shall live
   forever. O, to get a heart full of Christ, to get a whole Christ into
   one's inmost soul, to have Him abide in you--this is bliss! Then your
   soul feels, "It is enough--I have all things, for I have Jesus." Let
   us, therefore, seek at this time, and especially this afternoon in our
   meditations--and when we come to the communion table this evening--to
   abide under the shadow of Jesus and there to be found abundantly eating
   of His fruit.

   One thing more is to be noted--the spouse, when she had begun to enjoy
   the provision and the shade, and had sat down under it as if she
   intended to say, "I never mean to leave this place. In this delicious
   shadow I mean to repose

   forever," then she also began to tell of it to others. In the text she
   describes Christ as the Apple Tree and gives her reason for so calling
   Him--"I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit was
   sweet to my taste." Experience must be the ground upon which we found
   our descriptions. If a preacher wants to preach with power, let him
   tell what he has felt, tasted and handled. It is of little use to say
   Christ is precious, unless you can add, "I have found Him so."
   Therefore the Church brings in her own experience--"Sweet shade! I
   there sat down as one at home and there regaled my soul with most
   delicious fare."

   She could not hold her tongue about her Beloved! She must speak! She
   could not retain the secret of this Apple Tree and say to herself,
   "Others may go to it, and so perhaps when I go another time there may
   be nothing left for myself." No, she spread the news. She set it down
   in black and white in the Inspired Volume for an everlasting testimony
   that there is an Apple Tree among the trees of the woods of which she
   had eaten--so that others might eat of it, too--and enjoy the same
   sweetness for themselves. This morning every renewed heart desires that
   every other heart should know the Savior. I can speak well of my Lord
   and Master. I do not know that I can say anything better of Him than
   most of His people can, for the experience of the saints is much alike.
   But I can say this, if there is happiness beneath the sky, Jesus can
   give it to you! If there is peace and rest to a jaded soul, Jesus can
   give it you!

   If there is a delight, a brimming delight, an overflowing delight, if
   there is that which can make the eyes sparkle and the pulse to beat
   right merrily--and the blood to leap in the veins--it is when Jesus
   Christ is consciously ours and we are resting in Him. I am sure, if
   there were an apple tree in any forest and it were once found out,
   everybody would be taken to see it, it would be such an attraction!
   There would be many paths to it and everybody who had been in the
   forest and seen it would tell his neighbors. Now, I beseech you, who
   have found the Savior, to be telling others what you know about Him and
   try to lead others to look at Him. You cannot make them feed upon Him,
   but God can, and if you can lead them to the Tree, who knows but God
   will give them spiritual hunger and will lead them to feed as you have
   fed.

   O you silent Christians, you silent Christians, who neither by your
   tongue, nor your pen, nor by any other way, ever tell about Christ, I
   do not know what to make of you! I wonder the seats you sit on do not
   push you off and speak instead of you, and that the stones of the
   street do not cry out against you as you pass over them. Why, what can
   you be made of, to be saved from going down to Hell and not want others
   to be saved, too? Shame on you! Shame on me, also, whenever I am silent
   about such a blessed salvation, such a Divine redemption. I would
   gladly set your tongues going about this blessed Apple Tree among the
   trees of the woods!

   There is nothing about which you can speak so freely without fear of
   exaggeration. All the world has been talking about the Shah of Persia.
   I wish they would talk half as much about the Christ of God! All the
   good you will ever get out of the Shah you may see with your eyes shut.
   But the benefit that will come from the King of Heaven to your own
   souls and ten thousands of other souls is unlimited! Cry the Savior up,
   Beloved! Set Him on a high throne! Give Him the best of your thoughts,
   the best of your words, the best of your actions! Give Him of your time
   and your substance. He deserves to have honor above all the sons of
   men, for He is the best of all.

   As the apple tree to the hungry man excels all other trees, so does
   Jesus excel all other loves. Let us give Him, today, our hearts'
   warmest love and praise Him forever and forever. God grant it, for His
   name's sake. Amen.

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 23. Isaiah 12.
     __________________________________________________________________

Christ Asleep in the Vessel

   (No. 1121)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 13, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Master, care You not that we perish?" Mark 4:38.

   THE day had been a very illustrious one. Our Lord had remarkably
   displayed His teaching and healing powers. Great crowds had been
   attracted and He had both delivered to them most precious parables and
   worked among them most marvelous cures. Grand as the day was, it could
   not come to a close without a storm. After the same manner you will
   find it in the history of the Church of God, that intermingled with
   great successes will be great afflictions. Pentecost is followed by
   persecution--Peter's sermon by Peter's imprisonment. Though today a
   Church may flourish abundantly, in a very short time it may be visited
   with stern adversities. It may be tried, none the less, but all the
   more, because God is in its midst and is blessing it.

   When our Lord took ship the weather appears to have been very fair and
   many little boats which scarcely would have tempted the sea had its
   surface been ruffled, put out upon the lake under the convoy of the
   great Teacher's vessel. His was the admiral's flag ship and they were
   the happy fleet. They made a gay flotilla sailing softly like sea birds
   when the ocean is in a gentle mood. All hearts were happy, all spirits
   were serene and the sleep of the disaster was but a type of the general
   peace. Nature reposed. The lake was as a molten looking glass,
   everything was quiet. And yet all of a sudden, as is the custom with
   these deep-lying inland seas, the Storm-Fiend rushed from his haunt
   among the mountains, sweeping everything before it. The little vessel
   was hard put to it, she was well-near filled with water and ready to
   sink through the force of the driving hurricane.

   Thus may our loveliest calms be succeeded by overwhelming storms. A
   Christian man is seldom long at ease. Our life, like April weather, is
   made up of sunshine and showers--

   "We should suspect some danger near When we perceive too much delight."
   Nothing beneath the moon can be depended upon. All things are
   invariably variable. "Boast not yourself of tomorrow," says the wise
   man. And he might have added, "Boast not yourself of today, for you
   know not how the evening may close, however brightly the morning may
   have opened." Let us learn this lesson at the outset. Let us not reckon
   upon the continuance of present ease, nor fix our happiness upon the
   fickle weather of this world. Let us be ready for changes, so that,
   come when they may, we shall not be afraid of evil tidings--our heart
   being fixed--trusting in the Lord.

   It would seem that when the storm began the disciples did not at first
   arouse the Master. They had some consideration for His extreme
   weariness, for He had spent the whole day in very severe toil and His
   human strength was exhausted. They thought, perhaps, that the
   hurry-burly of the storm would wake Him. How could He sleep amid the
   howling winds and roaring waves? They little knew how deeply calm His
   heart was, so that amid the tempest He could sleep right well, for the
   tempest came not near His soul. When at last they found that they were
   in great jeopardy, for their boat would surely sink, they began to
   judge their Lord and to think of Him unbelievingly and unkindly. They
   thought they should perish and they wondered how He could allow them to
   do so.

   Therefore they went to Him, crying, as Luke says, "Master, Master, we
   perish!" Or as Mark gives it, "Master, care You not that we perish?"
   Many of them cried out. One said one thing and one another, but their
   general spirit was one of complaint to their Lord. They knew He loved
   them and yet half-thought Him cruel. They trusted Him and yet had
   grievous doubts. They called Him Master and yet they were in a sort of
   semi-rebellion against Him. They owned His sway, but were ready to
   mutiny against Him because He did not exercise His power for their
   rescue.

   We shall take the text as the keynote of our subject. And first we
   shall think upon the apparent indifference of the Lord to His people.
   But we shall note, secondly, that it is only apparent. Thirdly, that He
   has a real care for them at times when He seems indifferent. And,
   fourthly, they shall see this to be the case by-and-by.

   I. First, then, we, as well as the disciples on the Galilean lake,
   sometimes complain of THE INDIFFERENCE OF THE LORD TO US. It is but an
   apparent indifference. Sometimes the complaint takes this shape. God
   suffers natural laws to proceed in their prescribed course, even when
   His own children will be crushed by them. There is a vessel out at sea.
   It is enveloped in dense fog. Prayers are offered up by godly men on
   board for the right guidance of the vessel, but if it continue to be
   steered as it now is, it will come upon a rock and on a rock it does
   come, notwithstanding the prayers. Does not God care that a vessel
   should perish with people on board it who pray for direction and
   deliverance?

   At another time the rough winds are out and the vessel flies before
   them. She will soon sink, she cannot long live in the storm. Many
   supplications and entreaties are sent up to God, yet the tempest does
   not abate one jot of its fury. The laws of Nature at such times appear
   to be as grim and heartless as if they were managed by the Prince of
   the power of the air! As God has ordained, so does Nature move. For us
   the floods do not stand upright as an heap, neither do the waters
   refuse to drown. Whether it is martyr or murderer, the fire devours
   with equal fury and the sword falls with an equally deadly blow. "One
   event happens to the righteous and to the wicked." From this fact
   arises many a complaint and we cry, "Care You not that we perish?"

   Our dear one, whom Jesus loves, is sick. Day and night we plead for his
   recovery, but the fever takes its course, or the broken limb requires
   its full time to heal. God does not alter the physical laws of the body
   for the convenience of His chosen. To them poison is poison and disease
   is disease. Full often the Lord permits those whom we love to suffer
   long and He does not seem to pay attention to our prayers and
   entreaties. No, rather the case grows worse and worse. We are very apt,
   when we are under a trying dispensation, to judge the laws of Nature to
   be very pitiless ordinances without hearts of mercy, and we say,
   "Master, care You not that we perish?" It is well to remember, however,
   what we may all too easily forget that the present complaint is based
   upon an error, for the laws of Nature do nothing whatever and are no
   more to be blamed than the Commandments on the Church wall.

   There is no such power as a law of Nature acting by itself. All power
   lies in God and a law of Nature is neither more nor less than a
   description of the way in which the Lord usually works. The vessel,
   badly steered, strikes upon the rock because usually God causes ships
   to obey their helms, and rocks to retain their hardness. And the man
   who dies of sickness does not die because of some unforgivable force in
   Nature, but because God continues to give energy to destructive
   agencies. The ways of Nature are but a powerless letter--God works all
   things. What has He, Himself, said-- "I create the light, and I create
   darkness." Not a seed swells beneath the soil. Not a bud bursts into
   beauty. Not an ear of corn ripens for the harvest without God. He is in
   the dew and the sunshine, the light and the warmth which nourish and
   perfect the plant.

   Happy is he who in all things beholds a present Deity. I see laws of
   Nature and I know that God acts according to them, but I see best the
   God who is behind the law. Law, what force has that? It is God working
   by the law. He does it all. This Truth of God sets matters in another
   light, for if the Lord brings the trial upon us we open not our mouths,
   but yield to His will. His days of action must be right and if they
   cause us grief, we nevertheless feel that He is not afflicting us
   willingly, or grieving us without design. When we perceive His hand we
   kiss the rod. Instead of asking, "Master, care You not that we perish?"
   we cry out in resignation, "It is the Lord, let Him do what seems Him
   good."

   Sometimes our lament assumes another shape. We view the troubles which
   come upon us as the result of the stern decrees of fate and shudder
   because it seems to our unbelief that God has made small account of us
   and arranged affairs with slight reference to the weakness, sorrow and
   infirmity of His people. Brethren, the most of us now present believe
   in predestination and are persuaded that the Lord works everything
   according to the counsel of His will. We believe that all things, great
   and small, are fixed in the eternal purpose and will surely be as they
   are ordained. This doctrine becomes the lurking place of a temptation.
   We gaze upon the ponderous wheels of predestination in their awful
   revolutions and fear that they will grind us to powder. In the
   forebodings of our trouble, we fear that we may be entangled in the
   terrible machinery and that as it will not pause for our crying, it
   will tear us to pieces.

   Like the Prophet, only with far greater dread, we cry--"O wheel!" But
   we ought to reflect that there is no such thing as blind
   fate--predestination is a far different thing. Fate is a blind man who
   rushes madly on because he must.

   Predestination is foil of eyes and proceeds in one line, because it is
   the best path which could be taken. Fate is a tyrant declaring that
   such a thing shall be because he wills it. Predestination is a father
   ordering all things for the good of his household. God has His purpose
   and His way--and His purposes are both for His own Glory and for the
   good of His people. Who among us would wish the Lord to turn aside from
   His holy and gracious designs? He has ordained the best, would we have
   Him vary? He has determined all things wisely, would we have Him
   determine otherwise?

   That which happens to us occurs because in the judgment of Infinite
   Wisdom and Goodness it is on the whole best that it should be so. Would
   we wish the Lord to arrange otherwise? Will you tempt the Holy One of
   Israel? Will you ask Him to do other than that which is wise and just,
   and good and holy, and for His own Glory? Instead of crying out against
   destiny, let us cheerfully accept it because the Lord is in it! Do not
   say--"Care You not that we perish?" but believe that instead of
   perishing, your complete salvation will be promoted by all the events
   of Providence. It may be that we are in a different state of heart and
   are worrying ourselves today because it seems to us that affliction is
   sent upon men altogether irrespective of their character--and the godly
   are made to suffer even more than the wicked.

   If you read the Apostles' question with an emphasis, "Care You not that
   we perish?" it will show you my meaning. They did as much as say, "We
   are Your Apostles. We love You. We spend our lives for You--care You
   not that we perish? We could understand that the vessel which carries a
   load of publicans and sinners should go to the bottom. But care You not
   that we perish?" Sometimes, under trouble, we have wondered why we are
   so afflicted, for we have felt that the Lord has kept us from known sin
   and led us in the way of holiness. And therefore we have seen no
   special cause for His scourging. Our cry has been, "Show me why You
   contend with me!" And if any have been cruel enough, like Job's
   comforters, to say that we were suffering because of special sin, we
   have held fast our integrity and declared that we were not wicked in
   the sense in which they accused us.

   Now let us look one minute at this and we shall discover that God does
   send affliction according to character, after all, but not after the
   rule which flesh and blood would prescribe. It is not written, "As many
   as I hate I chasten," far from it! He permits the wicked to spring as
   the grass and allows them to flourish like a green bay tree. As oxen
   they are well fed that they may be prepared for the slaughter! They are
   pampered, but their end is near. No, it is written, "As many as I love
   I rebuke and chasten." The favorites of Heaven are inheritors of the
   rod! It is not said, "The branches which bring forth no fruit shall be
   pruned." No, they shall be utterly taken away in due season--and cast
   into the fire. But it is written, "Every branch that bears fruit, He
   purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit."

   And, therefore, when affliction comes upon our beloved relative who has
   lived a most exemplary life, or when a painful death happens to an
   unusually gracious man, we must not judge the Lord unkindly, as though
   He were unjust, but see His loving hand in it all and bless Him that He
   deals with our beloved ones as He is known to deal with sons--for what
   son is there whom the Father chastens not? He scourges every son whom
   He receives! The gold is put into the furnace because it is gold--it
   would have been of no use to put mere stones and rubbish there. The
   corn is threshed because it is corn--had it been weeds it would have
   been untouched by the flail. The great Owner of Heaven's jewels thinks
   it worth His while to use a more elaborate and sharp cutting machine
   upon the most valuable stones. A diamond of the first water is sure to
   undergo more cutting than an inferior one, because the King desires
   that it may have many facets which may, throughout eternity, with
   greater splendor, reflect the light of the Glory of His name!

   Perhaps, dear Brothers and Sisters, we have thought that Jesus did not
   care for us because He has not worked a miracle for our deliverance and
   has not interposed in any remarkable way to help us. You are at this
   time in such sore distress that you would almost cry, "O that He would
   part the heavens and descend for my deliverance!" But He has not opened
   the heavens. You have read in biographies of holy men the details of
   very extraordinary Providences, but no extraordinary Providence has
   come to your rescue. You are getting gradually poorer and poorer, or
   you are becoming more and more afflicted in body--and you had hoped
   that God would have taken some extraordinary method with you--but He
   has done nothing of the sort.

   My dear Brothers and Sisters, do you know that sometimes God works a
   greater wonder when He sustains His people in trouble than He would if
   He brought them out of it? For Him to let the bush burn on and yet not
   to be consumed is a grander thing than for Him to quench the flame and
   so save the bush. God is being glorified in your troubles and if you
   realize this you will be ready to say, "Lord, heap on the loads if it
   is for Your Glory! Give me but

   strength equal to my day, and then pile on the burdens! I shall not be
   crushed beneath them, but I shall be made to illustrate Your power. My
   weakness shall glorify Your might."

   Possibly the hard suspicion that Jesus does not care for you takes
   another form. "I do not ask the Lord to work a miracle, but I do ask
   Him to cheer my heart. I need Him to apply the promises to my soul. I
   need His Spirit to visit me, as I know He does some good people, so
   that my pain may be forgotten in the delight of the Lord's Presence. I
   need to feel such a full assurance of the Savior's Presence that the
   present trial shall, as it were, be swallowed up in a far more
   exceeding weight of joy. But, alas, the Lord hides His face from me and
   this makes my trial all the heavier." Beloved, can you not believe in a
   silent God? Do you always need tokens from God? Must you be petted like
   a spoiled child? Is your God of such a Character that you must mistrust
   Him if His face is veiled? Can you trust Him no further than you can
   see

   Him?

   Besides, you are losing what you have while pining for what you have
   not. You say, "I need promises," and I ask you--

   "What more can He say to you than He has said,

   You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?" You say you need a token for
   good--what greater tokens do you require than He has already given you
   in your past experience, or that He has presented to you in the flowing
   wounds of a dying Savior? The tokens for good which Jesus gave on the
   Cross ought to be enough and to spare. Still, says one, "If He does not
   come to me and break the darkness with some light from His Presence, I
   wish He would lessen the pain I bear. If He will not take it away
   altogether, yet surely He will not let me utterly perish through its
   severity."

   Ah, "perish"--that is the point and I pray you observe the
   distinction--"That He may try us we can understand. But that He should
   let us perish, we cannot comprehend." No, my dear Brothers and Sisters,
   you are not asked to understand it, for you have not perished yet. Bad
   as your case is, it might be worse. You are brought very low, but you
   might be lower--you might be in the dungeons of Hell! What a mercy it
   is that you never can sink lower than the grave! You shall never make
   your bed in Hell--thank God for that. When you come to the lowest, God
   interposes. The tide turns when you reach the full point of ebb and the
   darkest part of the night is that which preludes the rising of the sun.
   Be of good courage! You have not perished yet, and let this be a wonder
   to you--

   "Lord, and yet I am alive,

   Not in torment, not in Hell!"

   Why should a living man complain? Should he not still have hope and
   expect that in his extremity God will appear for him? Thus we have
   mentioned various forms in which the temptation to charge the Lord
   foolishly presents itself to the soul.

   II. But now, secondly, THE INDIFFERENCE OF GOD TO HIS PEOPLE AT ANY
   TIME MUST BE APPARENT, IT CANNOT BE REAL. Meditate a little. Consider
   the Character of the Triune God of whom we are speaking. The
   Father--can He be unkind? "His mercy endures forever." His name, His
   Essence, is Love. It is said of Him that He "delights in mercy," and we
   know that He is an unchangeable God and therefore we are not consumed.
   Can you, O Heir of Heaven, believe that He is indifferent to you, His
   child? You being evil, are careful for your children, how much more
   shall your Father who is in Heaven pity His own? Can you stand by and
   see your child tortured with pain and not wish to relieve him? Have you
   not sometimes felt, O Mothers, that you would take your children's
   pangs upon yourselves right joyfully if you could set your dear ones
   free?

   And have you, poor fallen creatures, such hearts of compassion and has
   your heavenly Father none? O judge Him not so! Say not to Him, "Care
   You not that we perish?" Think of the Second Person of the blessed
   Trinity in Unity, Jesus, the Son of God, your Brother as well as God's
   dear Son--can He forget His people? Has He not taken upon Himself your
   nature? Was He not tempted in all points like as you are? Has He not
   engraved your name upon the palms of His hands and written the dear
   memorials of His love on His side nearest to His heart? Can you look
   into the face of the Crucified and believe that He is indifferent to
   you? O, there was a time in the love of your espousals when His left
   hand was under your head and His right hand did embrace you, when you
   would not have thought so harshly of Him!

   When He has kissed you with the kisses of His mouth and you have known
   His love to be better than wine, you could not have said such a
   barbarous thing concerning your Well-Beloved! No, it cannot be that
   Jesus should ever be indifferent to His people's woes. And the Spirit,
   the dear and ever-blessed Holy Spirit, who dwells in us--can He be

   without pity? He condescends to dwell in us and to take upon Himself
   the peculiar office of the Comforter--this is matchless condescension!
   Do you think that He is the Comforter and yet does not sympathize? A
   Comforter without sympathy would be a strange Being, indeed--He would
   be a mocker of human woes! But He is full of tender pity. Think of the
   love of the Spirit and never, for a moment, suspect that He is careless
   as to whether you shall perish or not! The Triune God is Love. "Like as
   a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him."
   He cannot be indifferent to the condition of His own.

   Consider next, Beloved, the ancient deeds of Divine love, of which the
   Scriptures speak expressly, and you will see that the Lord cannot be
   careless as to your welfare. Know you not that the eternal Jehovah
   loved you before the earth was? Have you forgotten that the mountains,
   with their hoary heads, are but newborn babes compared with His love to
   you? He chose you! He might have passed you by, but He chose you to be
   His own. "The Lord has appeared of old unto me," says the Prophet,
   "saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with
   lovingkindness have I drawn you." And has He loved you these myriads of
   ages to be indifferent to your groans, now? Can it be? If He had meant
   to cast you away He would have done so long ago! If He needed reasons
   for rejecting you He had reasons from all eternity, for He knew what
   you would be! No sin in you has been a surprise to Him. He foresaw the
   hardness of your heart and the waywardness of your disposition and if
   He could now reject, He would never have chosen you--He would never
   have taken you to Himself at all! O, then, let eternal love forbid you
   to dream that He can ever be careless as to whether you perish or not!

   Next, I pray you think of what He has done for you. I will only put it
   in brief. Do you think that Christ came from Heaven to earth to save
   you and now is indifferent about you? Do you think that He lived here
   30 years of toil and weariness for your redemption and will now cast
   you away? And do you believe that He went up to the Cross for you,
   having endured Gethsemane's terrible garden and its bloody sweat for
   you, and yet has no concern about you? Do you think He bore all the
   wrath of God on your behalf and now thinks your salvation such a
   trifling thing that He cares not whether you perish or not? Do you
   believe that He slept in the grave for you and rose again for you, and
   is gone within the veil for you, and pleads before God for you, and is,
   after all, a hypocrite, and has no real love to you? Man, if what
   Christ has done does not convince you, what can?

   Many waters could not quench His love, neither could the floods drown
   it. Will you not confide in Him for the present and the future, after
   what He has done for you? Consider, yet again, what He has worked upon
   you personally and what you have known and felt within yourself. Years
   ago you were His enemy and He saved you and made you His friend. Do you
   remember when, in the agony of your soul, you did cry to Him as from
   the lowest pit and He came to your rescue? Will He leave you now?
   Remember how our poet makes a plea out of his past history and urges it
   with God--do you the same--

   "Once a sinner near despair Sought your Mercy Seat by prayer. Mercy
   heard and set him free-- Lord, that mercy came to me. Many days ha ve
   passed since then, Many changes I have seen.

   Yet have been upheld till now--

   Who could hold me up but You?

   You have helped in every need,

   This emboldens me to plead, After so much goodness past

   Will you let me sink at last?"

   There is the point! If God had not done so much for us already we might
   question His intentions concerning us. But after the goodness and the
   mercy He has manifested, surely He will go through with it and perfect
   the work which He has begun. He has spent too much upon His work to
   relinquish it now. Remember, too, Beloved--and this is a sweet
   refreshment to the spirit--remember the relationship which exists
   between you and your God. Fatherhood and sonship are full of comfort.
   Can the Lord be an untender Father? Will the Lord cast away His own
   children? "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not
   have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet will
   I

   not forget you." Remember, also, that between you and Christ, O
   Believer, there is the relationship of Husband and of spouse. "I am
   married unto you says the Lord." And the Prophet tells us that the
   Lord, the God of Israel, says, "He hates putting away."

   "Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement?" says He, as if He
   defied any to prove that He had ever put away His Beloved. "I will
   betroth you unto Me forever," is the language of our Immutable God. The
   Lord has not cast away His people whom He did foreknow. Why, then,
   mistrust Him? Oh, by the fond relationship which exists between our
   hearts and God, let us not suspect Him of indifference! Remember, also,
   the Divine promises. Will He be a liar and let you perish? Remember His
   oath! It is base profanity to think that He can ever forego His oath!
   Remember the solemn seal of the blood of reconciliation--how can the
   Lord treat the blood of Jesus with indifference--or renounce the
   Covenant which was made sure and ratified by the death of His own Son?
   Let a Believer perish? Be indifferent to whether His redeemed is saved
   or not? Impossible! It cannot be! Far from it! Horrible thought! Let
   the storm rage as it may and let Christ sleep as He may, He must feel
   for His people! His indifference is but imaginary.

   III. Thirdly and briefly. THERE IS IN OUR LORD A REAL CARE FOR HIS
   PEOPLE IN THE MIDST OF HIS

   APPARENT INDIFFERENCE. It was certainly so on the Galilean sea. Observe
   in the narrative that though Christ was asleep He was in the ship. He
   had not left His disciples--and however God may seem to deal with His
   people He is still with them. "Fear you not," He says, "for I am with
   you." If there is nothing more, the Presence of the Lord ought to be
   enough to cheer us. Our heavenly Father knows our needs. To be banished
   from the Presence of God would be Hell. But however tossed with tempest
   our vessel may be, we cannot despair so long as the Lord is our
   Companion.

   Remember, again, that although Christ was asleep, He was tossed about
   as much as the disciples were and in the same peril. They might well
   say, "Care You not that we perish?" putting Him with themselves, for
   they would have gone down together, both He and they. If we are
   persecuted, Jesus is persecuted. If we suffer, the Head suffers in the
   members. Our cause is His cause. This should encourage us. When Caesar
   said to the frightened captain, "Fear not, you carry Caesar and all his
   fortunes," he did but afford us an earthly type of the great heavenly
   Truth that the vessel of salvation carries Christ and His honor in it,
   as well as His people.

   Remember, too, that our Lord was benefiting His people when He was
   asleep, for He was setting them a good example, an example of sacred
   restfulness in times of trouble. He slept not merely because of His
   fatigue as a Man, but because He felt safe in His Father's hands. When
   the Master put His foot on board that vessel He knew there would be a
   storm. The tossing did not take Him by surprise and yet He went to
   sleep because He knew that all was right. No one could have slept with
   such foreknowledge but one whose heart was full of confidence in God.
   The Lord would have His people restful and not fretful, "So He gives
   His Beloved sleep." We have never read of our Lord's sleeping except on
   this occasion, this majestic occasion, when He was asleep in a
   storm-tossed boat, with His head on a pillow, because His heart was on
   the bosom of God!

   He did as good as say to all His servants, "Rest in troublous times and
   leave all in the hands of Him who cares for you." His sleeping was an
   acted sermon upon, "let not your hearts be troubled." Moreover, He was
   testing them and revealing themselves to themselves. Perhaps many of
   them were in the same state as Peter and thought they could bear
   anything, and they would never mistrust the Lord. He let the storm blow
   till they got into a doubting frame of mind, that they might see the
   evil heart of unbelief which lurked within them, still. By this trial
   He was strengthening them. They were to be fishers of men all their
   lives and fishermen must encounter storms--this was one of the storms
   of their apprenticeship, when their Captain was with them--that when
   they came to be captains, themselves, no strange thing might happen to
   them if a tempest overtook them.

   If they had enjoyed all fair weather when Christ was with them,
   hurricanes would have startled them afterwards when He was gone. But
   now they will say, one to the other in the time of persecution and
   trial, "Did He not aforetime show us this, on that very day when He
   took us to Gennesaret? He was in the vessel with us and yet we were in
   a storm." Best of all, Christ was caring for them because He was making
   their danger an opportunity for the display of Himself. He wanted to
   show them His Omnipotence, but how could He do so if there were no
   difficulties for His Divine power to encounter? He had shown them how
   He could baffle devils and overcome disease--but now He desires them to
   see how winds and waves are subservient to His will and so He lets
   loose the raging tempests.

   For a man to beard a chained lion is little, but let the monster loose,
   and then only a hero will encounter him. The hurricane is loosed, the
   waves are raging, they devour the boat--now shall you see how great the
   Master is as He stands at the bow, and cries, "Peace, be still," and
   all is hushed beneath Him! Without the storm they could not have seen
   the glory of the Peacemaker and so the trial was absolutely necessary
   that they might learn His Deity to the fullest.

   IV. We come now to our last thought, which is this. IN DUE TIME ALL
   THOSE WHO TRUST SHALL SEE

   THAT GOD DOES CARE ABOUT THEM. When Jesus was awakened He was not
   angry. He might have walked away from His disciples if He had pleased.
   It was quite in His power to traverse the billows and to have left them
   in disgust. And after the hard things we have said and thought of God,
   He might leave us to perish if He would, but He will do no such thing.
   Jesus did not reject the unworthy prayers of His feeble followers. He
   might have taken offense and have said, "Is that what you think of Me?
   Is this the way in which you speak of Me?"

   But not thus did He upbraid them. He did check them gently, out of very
   love to them, but there was no anger. He accepted their prayers and He
   awoke--and what an awaking it was! How mighty were His works! There was
   no trace of storm another moment after He had been awakened. The most
   blustering of the conflicting winds slept like a babe in its mother's
   bosom. The waves were as marble. Troubled one, you will enjoy calm,
   yet. Poor tried and tempted child of God, you will see days in which
   you will wonder where your troubles are! You will say to yourself,
   "They are quite gone. I have nothing left to be troubled with. Christ
   has chased my griefs away." Perhaps you will enjoy a long, unbroken
   calm--not an ordinary one, but such a calm, so deep, so profound, that
   you will say to yourself--"It is worthwhile to have gone through a
   storm to enter upon a peace like this."

   After traversing the wilderness you will enter Canaan. The angels will
   visit you when the devils have ended their temptation. You will leave
   the battlefield for the land of Beulah where you shall hear the choirs
   of Heaven sing and the angels will bring you spices from the gardens of
   the blessed. Only have courage! Stand to your post! Trust in your Lord!
   Think well of Him and rest in Him, for as the Lord lives, no vessel
   that has Christ on board shall suffer shipwreck! He who has faith is
   insured against destruction. Wait on the Lord, even if the vision
   tarries, and fair sunlight and smooth sailing shall be your reward.

   I shall leave the subject when I have hinted at its application in two
   ways. The first is this. I think this is very applicable to the state
   of the Church at this present time. There is great trouble in some
   minds about the Church, for everything is going badly, all things are
   in commotion. The signs of the times are dark. To me the worst trouble
   is that Jesus seems to be asleep. There is nothing doing, no great
   revival of religion and but little power with the ministry. I am,
   however, comforted by the reflection that Jesus sleeps, but He never
   oversleeps. When we fall asleep we do not know how to awake, but Jesus
   Christ does--He sleeps, but He does not oversleep. Glory be to His
   name, He sleeps, but He is not dead! And as long as He is alive our joy
   is alive! While there is a living Christ there will always be a living
   Church. There may be both a sleeping Christ and a sleeping Church, but
   neither Christ nor His Church can perish. If our Lord is asleep, He is
   asleep near the helm--He has only to put His hand out and steer the
   vessel at once. He is asleep, but He only sleeps until we cry more
   loudly to Him.

   When we get into such trouble that we cannot help ourselves and feel
   our entire dependence on Him, then He will reveal His power. Perhaps
   during the next 20 years the state of religion in England will grow
   worse, and worse, and worse. Very possibly for another 10 years
   infidelity will abound and superstition will abound, and then His
   Church will be in a desperate state and she will cry, "O God, the
   candle is all but quenched! The light is nearly withdrawn!" And then
   there will go up such an exceedingly great and bitter cry that Christ
   will hear it and come and revive His work right gloriously! It may be
   He will let the battle go against us for many a day, yet, and our
   slender strength will be broken into utter weakness--and we shall
   almost despair of the fight. Then will He send His trumpeter to us!
   Then will His Spirit come and the loud and clear Voice shall be heard,
   "Be of good courage! When you are weak then are you strong!"

   Then, on a sudden, in our utter impotence, we shall rush upon the foe
   once more, and, like Gideon's barley cake, which smote the tents of
   Midian and made them lie along, so shall the Lord's people do great
   exploits, because the Lord has awaked as a mighty Man out of His sleep.
   A sudden and glorious victory shall make Heaven and earth ring with His
   praise. Be not discouraged nor discomforted! The storm is not at its
   worst yet. The vessel is not filled with the waves yet. The water is
   not up to her bulwarks yet--she still floats. When she can scarcely
   keep from sinking and is almost going down by the head, then the
   Captain will stand in the front of the vessel and calm the seas. When
   the roaring waves nearly

   overwhelm her, He will say to them, "Peace, be still!" The calm, the
   long millennial calm, it may be, is close ahead--we know not how near
   it may be, but let us hope on.

   The other application is to the sinner. It may be that there is someone
   here who is in a desperate plight. He feels his sins, like hungry
   waves, ready to devour him and he does not know how to escape. But he
   has been praying and I am glad of it. Dear Friend, never give up
   praying! The poor soul has been crying, "Lord help me!" It is the right
   prayer. Brother, keep on at it. But it seems to him that Jesus is
   asleep and he says, "Does He not care for a poor sinner? Will He let me
   go down to Hell and think nothing of it?" What do you say, Friend?
   Would you let a praying sinner go to Hell if you could save him? "Oh,
   no!" you say, "If he cried to me I would help him."

   Do you think you are kinder than Christ? I tell you that--

   "His heart is made of tenderness, His heart melts with love."

   Believe in His love. Cast yourself upon His Grace. And when you believe
   in Him you are saved. Do not think hard thoughts of Him. Touch the hem
   of His garment and you shall be made whole! Trust your guilty soul with
   Him and it is well with you now and forever! May God give you His
   blessing, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Mark 4.
     __________________________________________________________________

Fresh Grace Confidently Expected

   (No. 1122)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 20, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I shall be anointed with fresh oil." Psalm 92:10.

   DAVID IS very positive. He does not say, "I hope I shall be anointed
   with fresh oil and I have a pleasing expectation that it may be so."
   But he speaks of his future as absolutely certain--"I shall be anointed
   with fresh oil." Nor will it appear at all wonderful that he should be
   so positive if you read the Psalm, for his subject there is the
   ever-living and all-sufficient God. And when we get near to God we get
   into the region of positive certainty. While we depend upon man we are
   in the realm of, "maybe," and, "hope," and, "perhaps"--but when we come
   to rest in God we are far removed from everything that is of chance and
   conjecture. Our God is the God of Truth and Righteousness. "He is my
   rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him."

   Man is but a treacherous quicksand where confidence is shipwrecked, but
   the Lord is a haven of security. We do well neither to boast in
   ourselves nor to place our reliance on the promises of our fellow
   creatures. But we may wisely boast in the great "I AM," and rest our
   souls securely upon His Word and His love. He can neither change nor
   fail. "He is not a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that He
   should repent." David, therefore, felt quite at his ease about the
   future. He felt certain that God, who had given him a measure of Grace,
   would give him more Grace. He entertained no suspicion that God's great
   resources would run out, or that God would withhold them from His own.
   He says, "I shall be anointed with fresh oil."

   Beloved, let us draw near to God and so let us drink at the wellhead
   which can never be dried up. Let us give up looking to the broken
   cisterns which do but mock us and let us turn to the inexhaustible deep
   which lies under, which is always ready to overflow for our need. Let
   us think, at this time of the confidence of David and we shall remark
   upon it thus. First, it was a confidence full of meaning--"I shall be
   anointed with fresh oil," is a most expressive utterance. Secondly, it
   was a confidence exceedingly well-grounded. Thirdly, it was a
   confidence which calmed his fear. And fourthly, it excited his hopes.
   And in the last place, if we possess it, it is a confidence which will
   lead us to pity those who are destitute of it.

   I. THE CONFIDENCE HERE EXPRESSED IS FULL OF MEANING. What did he intend
   by saying, "I shall be anointed with fresh oil"? He meant, first, that
   his strength should be renewed. It was a common belief among the
   Orientals that anointing with oil added to a man's vigor. They regarded
   it as the symbol of renewed strength. So David felt and knew that God
   would, whenever it was required, renew his strength. Times of weakness
   will happen to us all. A great strain may be put upon us and we may
   become exhausted. Or, under severe depression of spirit, we may imagine
   ourselves to be ready to die. But at all such times God will supply
   strength to us--our extremity will be His opportunity--our time of
   famine will be His hour of plenty.

   Is not His strength made perfect in weakness? Is it not written that
   "He gives power to the faint, and to them that have no might He
   increases strength"? David sung in the 103rd Psalm, "He satisfies my
   mouth with good things; so that my youth is renewed like the eagle's,"
   and he expected it always to be so. "He restores my soul," he says in
   the 23rd Psalm. Often do his Psalms, which commence in painful
   depression, conclude with exultation because heavenly love had poured
   fresh life into his swooning soul. From many a soul-sickness had the
   son of Jesse been recovered. From many a sinking had he been lifted up
   into holy joy. He here expresses his conviction that the Lord would
   always deal thus graciously with him. Expect this, then, my Brothers
   and Sisters, that God will give you new strength as you shall require
   it. "As your days, so shall your strength be." "He gives more Grace."
   Go to Him in the time of your weakness, in the confidence of this
   text--"I shall be anointed with fresh oil."

   David meant, in the second place, that he should be afresh assured of
   the Divine favor. To anoint a man with oil was a token of his welcome
   to your house. His feet were washed that he might be refreshed and then
   the notable guest, worthy of special honor, was anointed with perfumed
   nard. So David says that as he had received tokens of Divine favor
   before, he should receive them yet again. O Beloved, you know what it
   is to revel in the smiles of God and find a Heaven in His manifested
   love! You have basked in the sunlight of your Father's love many a time
   and felt an ecstasy such as worldlings cannot imagine! Has not the Lord
   been pleased to make the name of Jesus to your souls "like ointment
   poured forth"? Oftentimes has He brought you into His banqueting house
   and His banner over you has been love. He has made for you a feast of
   fat things, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees
   well-refined.

   You look back upon these seasons with inexpressible delight and perhaps
   at this moment you are saying, "Oh, that it were with me as in months
   past." Pluck up courage, my Brothers and Sisters--you shall be
   "anointed with fresh oil." There are more tokens of love awaiting you.
   Further signs of your Master's love shall be afforded you. You need not
   cry with Esau, "Have you but one blessing? Bless me, even me, O my
   Father," for the Lord abounds in blessings and He delights to bestow
   them upon His Beloved. Yes, there are even richer mercies yet to come!
   The past, though full of blessedness, shall be eclipsed by the happy
   future. David had the favor of God as a shepherd boy. He found it anew
   as a warrior and he had yet other tokens when he became king in Israel.
   Every favor received is a pledge of more to follow.

   Dawn is the earnest of noon. Within the sacred circle of fellowship to
   which you have already penetrated, there is a holy of holies of yet
   closer communion and there you shall soon enter. "Friend, come up
   higher," is your Lord's sweet invitation. Have faith and be of good
   cheer, for you shall see greater things than these. You shall be
   baptized again into the Holy Spirit. You shall receive anew the spirit
   of adoption and your joy shall be full. Therefore lift up your head.

   But again, David meant that he should be confirmed in his estate. It is
   noteworthy that David was anointed three times. First of all by Samuel,
   in prospect of his ultimately becoming king. A second time by the men
   of Judah, when he reigned over a part of the nation. And a third time
   at Hebron, when the whole Israelite nation came together and David was
   solemnly elected to be their king. Perhaps he remembered this, and
   looking upon those various anointings as confirmations of his kingly
   state, he felt that God would yet further confirm him upon his throne
   all his days. Many were the rebellions against David's authority, but
   they were all futile. When his throne was shaken by his rebellious son,
   Absalom, and his government almost annihilated, yet God restored him to
   the throne again, and in fact, anointed him once more.

   Now this day, Beloved, you and I, who are Believers in Jesus, are kings
   and priests unto God. But if Satan could do it, he would soon bring our
   kingdom and priesthood to an end. He is plotting and devising by all
   manner of means to work our destruction. But it is written, "You
   maintain My lot." The great Keeper of our Head is one who can never be
   overcome. The Lord, who has set us on the throne with His Son, will
   neither suffer His Son nor us to be driven from it. The Lord reigns and
   while the Lord reigns His people shall also reign. "Because I live, you
   shall live, also," is the Word of Jesus, and upon that Word He has
   caused our souls to hope. He will confirm you again, my Brothers and
   Sisters, in your sonship. He will make you again to say, "Abba,
   Father," with an unfaltering tongue. He will confirm you in your
   position as a member of His body. He will make you feel that the
   anointing of the Head is still descending upon you and you shall thus
   rejoice again and again in full assurance that what God has made you,
   you shall be even to the end. Thus, again, you see, the Lord anoints
   His people with fresh oil, by confirming them in their estate.

   Furthermore, David meant that he should be qualified for his office by
   the bestowal of fresh Grace. This was, no doubt, the meaning of the
   anointing of a king. It was the type and token of his receiving royal
   wisdom and authority. So, too, in the anointing of a priest, it was the
   symbol of the Spirit of God being given to him that he might discharge
   his sacred office. David felt that he should frequently need to be
   taught of God, guided, enlightened and instructed, so that he might, as
   king and leader in Israel, act rightly. Therefore he says, "I shall be
   anointed with fresh oil." Beloved, this is a very sweet confidence for
   us. If you are a minister of the Gospel you will have a thousand times
   for feeling yourself to be incompetent. And you might well throw down
   the staff of your pastorate and leave work if you were not sure that
   your sufficiency is of God.

   In such work as the instruction of the young, the visitation of the
   sick and the reclaiming of the fallen, or whatever it is that God has
   called you to, you will frequently tremble as you discover, more and
   more, your own unfitness to be used of God. But this will be
   counterbalanced by learning more and more the Divine faithfulness. Do
   not relinquish your

   work because of your feebleness, for you shall be anointed with fresh
   oil! Do you need wisdom? Ask it of the Lord, for He gives liberally. Do
   you need a warm and zealous spirit? Are you conscious of growing cold?
   Some drops of His dear love falling into your heart will set it on a
   blaze and make you as earnest as you would desire. Do you need more
   power in prayer? Go to Him who understood the art of wrestling on the
   mountainside at midnight and He will teach you how to pray. Is there
   anything you lack in order to the full discharge of the ministry to
   which God has called you? Wait upon the Lord for it with unwavering
   faith and He will grant it to you, and you "shall be anointed with
   fresh oil."

   Once more, I think David meant that he should also have new cause for
   delight. Anointing with oil was intended to give pleasure. The element
   of joy in religion is looked upon with indifference by some, but they
   are unwise. There are some, nowadays, who would like to strike out
   everything from mortal life which gives pleasure. We have societies,
   now, which are anti to every mortal thing that is pleasant and
   agreeable. And if there remains one solitary enjoyment to mortal men in
   this vale of tears which has not some society opposed to it, I have no
   doubt some genius will commence a crusade against it tomorrow. The
   theory is that all wholesome things are nasty and that all
   gratifications are deadly. I wonder they do not make the parish pump
   run with wormwood tea and paint the meadows a dun color.

   Then, when we have abstained from all that is either beautiful or
   agreeable and reduced ourselves to the condition of the savage who eats
   acorns and lives in a cave, we shall have climbed somewhat near
   perfection. Now I do not believe in this theory for ordinary life, much
   less for spiritual life. Men used, of old, to anoint the heads of their
   guests to give them pleasure and they were never blamed for it. And the
   Lord intends that His people should have the richest pleasures in their
   souls. He is the happy God and would have those round about Him happy.
   He never intended this world to be a great workhouse, a vast
   drill-shed, or a convict settlement so arranged that labor should
   banish joy and a crushing sense of subjection should chase away love.
   He has made this world to be a happy lodging for His dear children till
   He shall call them Home. And He has provided for their delight many
   enjoyments, lawful and commendable, beneficial and spiritual.

   I believe the Lord intended His people to be the happiest people under
   the sun. When I see certain of them repining, complaining, fretting,
   worrying and calling that state of mind, "experience," I pray, "Lord,
   save me from that experience, and give me to have Your joy fulfilled in
   me." Our Lord Jesus was sorrowful, not as our example, but as our
   Substitute. He was put to grief that we might be joyous. He bore our
   load that we might have no load to carry. He was full of cares for us,
   that we might have no care but might rejoice in Him all our days. "Let
   the children of Zion be joyful in their King." "Rejoice in the Lord
   always, and again I say, Rejoice." The atmosphere we breathe should be
   fragrant with thankful joy. Like flowers, we ought to load each breeze
   with the sweet perfume of holy gratitude.

   We which have believed do enter into rest, and in that rest we discover
   new joys each day. The banks of the river, the streams which make glad
   the city of God are not dark with weeping willows, or dreary with a
   jungle of thorns and thistles, but they are lovely with the rose of
   Sharon and the lilies of the valley! And among their shady groves the
   righteous lie down at peace and sing their song of loves touching their
   Well-Beloved. Yes, we did rejoice, we have rejoiced, and we mean to
   rejoice again! "I shall be anointed with fresh oil."

   Put all those five thoughts together and you have a great text before
   you, too big for me to preach from, but it may furnish you with many a
   theme for thought. It is a bough with many clusters--eat thereof and be
   glad!

   II. THE CONFIDENCE OF OUR TEXT IS WELL-GROUNDED because it is grounded
   upon God. We could not

   reckon upon having supplies all our lives if we depended upon the
   granaries of Egypt, or upon the storehouses of the wealthiest of the
   land. But when we rest in God we may boast ourselves as we may. I stood
   the other day, as you have often done, by a spring, pleased to see it
   constantly bubble up with cool, refreshing water. One who came there to
   fetch water for her house, said to me, "It is always the same, Sir,
   always the same. I never knew the sharpest frost to freeze it, or the
   most burning summer to dry it. The stream is equally full at all times
   in the year."

   This was very different from a fountain which I often pass, which more
   than half the year bears the notice, "This drinking fountain is closed
   during the winter." And very different from those brooks in our own and
   other lands which live upon the rains and therefore do not contain a
   drop of water in time of drought. Why does the spring always remain the
   same? Because it has tapped the great fountains. There is a deep that
   couches beneath. There are vast secret reservoirs in the heart of the
   earth and if you can set these abroach you are sure of a perpetual
   supply. Many a man has his water laid on, as it were, from the water
   company--his dependence is on man--and therefore it fails him. Or he
   depends on the circumstances which surround him and therefore he finds
   his confidence to be as a deceitful brook. But if you live upon

   God and say, "All my fresh springs are in You," you have tapped the
   eternal deep, and you never need be afraid of drought. You shall drink
   draughts of living water--you shall be anointed with oil.

   Beloved, it is a grand thing to be thrown flat on God, however hard the
   fall! It is a glorious thing to hang upon the eternal arm with nothing
   else to hold you up. Just as yon unpillared arch of Heaven never starts
   or quivers, notwithstanding that it is without a buttress, so does
   faith, when it is built on God, stand gloriously serene in its mighty
   strength. "Trust you in the Lord, and do good; so shall you dwell in
   the land, and verily you shall be fed." We are quite sure of fresh
   supplies because of our union to Christ. Every Christian is a part of
   Christ, for we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.
   Now there can be no fear that my little finger will not be supplied so
   long as the head is nourished. If the head shall have sufficient
   nutriment, so shall the meanest member of the body and because we are
   one with Christ we shall therefore receive daily Grace.

   Christ was anointed with the Holy Spirit above measure and the sacred
   oil descends to the very skirts of His garments. And because, without
   measure, the Spirit rests upon Him, therefore every one of us who
   belong to Him shall be anointed with fresh oil. Why does the branch of
   the tree expect to live? It sends out no roots into the earth. It makes
   no search for nourishment among the rocks and stones. No, but the
   branch expects to live because the sap flows into the stem and from the
   stem to itself. And we expect Grace because it pleased the Father that
   in Him should all fullness dwell. Oh, if we had a pinched and
   starveling Christ, we might expect to run short! But with One in whom
   dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, bodily we can have no cause for
   fear. If I have such a Christ as this, I must be anointed with fresh
   oil!

   Again, we have another reason. We must have fresh Grace because the
   Holy Spirit dwells in us. It was a good day for the poor widow of
   Zarephath upon which Elijah came to live with her. If I had been in her
   place I should have felt that I was safe enough, for if God did not
   think of me He would think of Elijah, and if Elijah lived in my house
   and went shares with me, I should not need to cry over that little meal
   in the barrel or that drop of oil in the cruse. I should feel, "Since
   Elijah lives with me, I shall share with Elijah. Elijah's God will take
   care of him, and I shall be taken care of also." O child of God, who is
   it that lives in your body along with you? Know you not that your
   bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit? And while the Holy Spirit
   lives within shall there ever be famine in the soul? Shall the cruse of
   oil fail? Shall the barrel of meal be entirely empty while the Holy
   Spirit is in us? It cannot be! Beloved, how many forget that precious
   doctrine of the indwelling of the Spirit in every Believer. And yet, if
   we did but realize it, we should feel that while He who is the
   anointing oil dwells in our hearts, we must be anointed with fresh oil.
   There can be no fear about that.

   Moreover, look at the promises of God's Word and they will, at once,
   assure us that we shall have fresh supplies of Grace according to our
   need. You do not need that I quote them to you this morning--they are
   legion--but I will tell you what I experienced, myself, in reference to
   those promises. They are to me a gradual Revelation. Not but what they
   are all in the Book, now, but I cannot realize and grasp, and
   understand them except by degrees. I find a promise exactly suitable
   for me today, but there is another. I love it and bless God for it
   already, but I cannot get the sweetness of it today, it is reserved for
   days to come. I shall find it open to me tomorrow. Another is laid up
   for me in six months' time and another in five years' time. The
   promises are fruits laid up to ripen in time to come and as most fruits
   become ripest and sweetest in the winter, so have we found that God's
   promises have a peculiar mellowness in our times of distress and
   affliction, such a sweetness as we did not perceive in the summer days
   of our prosperity.

   The train which starts from London to go to the North continues to
   traverse the distance day by day--how is it supplied with water? Why,
   there are trenches between the rails in several different places and
   from these the engine drinks as it rushes along its iron pathway. It is
   supplied as it runs! That is just what our heavenly Father has done for
   you. You are just like an engine on the road to Heaven and between here
   and Heaven there are many stores of Grace awaiting you. You will take
   up fresh water without slacking your speed and so will be able to keep
   on to your journey's end. To use another illustration, when the Eastern
   nations used to trade across the desert in the olden times, in
   Solomon's days for instance, there were stations built, wells sunk and
   provisions stored at convenient halting places, so that the caravans
   might pause and take in fresh provisions. The caravans reached their
   journey's end because the long way was broken up by a series of resting
   places. Now, the promises are resting places for us between here and
   Heaven. There is a long line of them at well-ordered intervals and as
   we journey through this desert world we shall be constantly coming,
   first to one, and then to another, and then another, and another, and
   so we shall find fresh provision stored up that we may not fail.

   The manna will fall daily till we come to Canaan. The promises of God
   are so numerous that we are sure we "shall be anointed with fresh oil."

   Once more, Beloved, up till now our experience has proved that we shall
   be anointed with fresh oil because we have been so anointed many a time
   already. I appeal to you who have gone for many years forward in the
   pathway where Jesus leads you. Have you not known many times of
   refreshing from the Presence of the Lord? You have had times of great
   depression, for changes are appointed us as long as we are here. Men
   may promise themselves they shall never see a change, but they are
   greatly mistaken. David said, "My mountain stands firm. I shall never
   be moved," but in a very little time he sang another hymn. When I hear
   Brothers and Sisters so very confident that they shall never doubt
   again, I am reminded of a story I have heard of the olden times, when a
   young gentleman who had never traveled before went over Hounslow Heath
   and was accosted by another gentleman who rode by his side, and joined
   in an interesting conversation.

   Our friend said at last, "I have always been told by my father that
   this is a very dangerous heath, but the old gentleman, I think, was
   exceedingly nervous, for we have come all this way without being
   molested by highwaymen." "Yes," said the other, "but now is the time
   for you to stop and deliver." And he clapped his pistol to his ear. It
   often happens, when we say, "I shall have no more temptations," that
   our very confidence is, in itself, a temptation! O yes, there have been
   times of sore trial, but the Lord has appeared for us. Up to this
   moment not one good thing has failed of all that the Lord God has
   promised--

   "Thus far we prove the promise good Which Jesus ratified with blood."

   We have no fault to find with our God. Jehovah Jireh, the Lord has
   provided to this day. In the mount of the Lord shall it be seen. Up to
   now, the Lord has helped us. Well, then, if He has done so up till now,
   so will He, for He is an unchangeable God. Therefore let us be assured
   that we "shall be anointed with fresh oil."

   III. THIS CONFIDENCE CALMS ALL OUR FEARS. Sometimes, when we are not
   quite as we should be, we are

   filled with fear on account of our soul poverty. What a poor thing I
   am. How little Grace I have. How weak in prayer. How slow in service.
   How frequently depressed. How easily tossed to and fro. How shall I
   hope to hold on to the end? Where is the answer to it--"I shall be
   anointed with fresh oil." I am poor, but I shall receive my daily
   pension. I am weak and I have no strength in reserve, but my strength
   is laid up in God!

   Imagine two Israelites talking together one day, and one of them says
   to the other, "Your cupboard seems to be very empty, I fear you are
   imprudent." "But," says the other, "do you know we gathered this
   morning an omer full of manna and it exactly supplied my family. I have
   a wife and a troop of boys with mighty appetites and very soon the omer
   which had been full was empty, but we look for more tomorrow." "Nothing
   in the house?" said the other. "Do you not feel distressed?" "No, not
   at all." "Why not?" "Because I believe the manna will fall tomorrow
   morning and that there will be just as much as I shall need, so that I
   have no need to lay by any in store."

   "Very imprudent," said the other. "I believe we ought to make hay while
   the sun shines. If you will come to my house, I will show you the good
   stock of manna which I have carefully laid by." "No," said the other,
   "I do not care to see it just now. But I will tell you what I will do,
   I will come down tomorrow at dinner time and see it." So the man
   gathered in the morning his own fresh manna and his family was
   satisfied with it and delighted. And after they had eaten, he said, "I
   will go down and see my rich friend's manna. He was much better off
   last night than I was." He goes to his friend's door, but his friend
   does not seem pleased to see him. "I have come to see your manna that
   you stored up so carefully."

   But the other blushes and admits that he has none to show. "Why not?"
   his friend enquires. "Well, the fact is, I do not want you to come into
   my tent at all. I must come forth from it myself. There is a most
   detestable smell all through the tent. I had to take away the manna and
   bury it, for it bred worms and stank." "Ah," said the other, "then,
   after all, I did well to live upon daily manna and to have no stock in
   hand. And you did foolishly to lay by a store." Now there may be some
   professors here who want to feel that they are strong enough for
   tomorrow, or that they have Grace enough for next week--they want to
   have such a proportion of Divine strength given them that they shall
   feel confident about themselves for years to come. All that will breed
   worms and stink--all human confidence, glory and pride must rot!

   But if you remain a poor sinner and nothing at all, daily depending on
   the bounty of God, you will have Grace from Heaven fresh and fresh,
   smelling of the hand which gives it every morning. Beloved, it calms
   our fears about our poverty

   when we remember that the granary of Heaven is not exhausted and that
   as each morning breaks we shall find the dew of Grace lying about our
   tent. This also removes our fears concerning violent temptations. We
   must, all of us, have felt afraid of being tempted. We are taught to
   pray, "Lead us not into temptation." Sometimes our unbelief says, "If I
   am tempted in a certain way I shall certainly perish."

   My Brothers and Sisters, you should remember that you will be anointed
   with fresh oil! When the temptation comes there will be a way of escape
   for you. What a happy circumstance it is for Christians that it is not
   often that the temptation and the opportunity come together. Have not
   you noticed that when wrong desires stir in your mind, they come to you
   at times when you cannot carry them out? And at other times when you
   have the opportunity to sin fairly before you, you have no desire for
   it whatever! That is often a way of escape for God's people. Do not be
   distressed about temptations. There will be such in this world. Lay
   hold on the shield of your faith and you shall be able to quench all
   the fiery darts of the Wicked One.

   But it may be you are afraid not merely of temptation, but of
   backsliding, and that is a very blessed fear, but do not let it depress
   you, for you will be anointed with fresh oil. If you had to keep
   yourself, you would certainly perish. If you had to sustain your own
   spiritual vigor, it would not be long before you would faint. But since
   you depend upon God and He has to preserve you, He will not suffer you
   to leave Him. Or if for a while you should depart from His way, He will
   bring your wandering heart back and set you in the King's highway once
   more. Or it is possible you are afraid of some great and grievous
   affliction. I know dear Sisters who are aware that a certain disease is
   upon them which will one day come to such a point that either there
   will be a painful operation or else they may die.

   Dear Sisters, do not fret about it. You have not sufficient strength
   for what is coming, but you will be anointed with fresh oil! Nobody
   needs tomorrow's Grace today. When you are only up to your ankles in
   trouble you do not require the Grace which you will have when you are
   up to your neck in it. You shall have Grace in proportion. You shall
   have ballast for your sail, and sail for your ballast, for He is a good
   Captain who intends to steer you into port. Do not be cast down,
   therefore. Some of us, it may be, have been troubled about the future
   death of some dear one upon whom we depend, or whose life is very
   precious to us. We have buried them a hundred times over in our fears.
   Let us remember that when the trouble comes it will be time enough for
   us to be cast down by it--no, we shall not be cast down--for God, who
   helps those who are cast down, will comfort us. "I shall be anointed
   with fresh oil."

   And perhaps, dear Brothers or Sisters, you have entered upon a new
   state of sorrow. You wear today the name of widow, which you never wore
   before. Or, you are now called an orphan for the first time. In this
   new state resort to God to be anointed with fresh oil! He who made you
   a good wife will help you to bear well the trial of losing your
   husband. He who made you a dutiful child will be a Father to you and
   help you to sustain the position of an orphan well. You shall be
   anointed with fresh oil whenever affliction comes. I feel as if I could
   sit down now and say to myself, "Cheer up, Heart, cheer up. Whatever
   ails you, you shall be anointed with fresh oil. Look into the
   future--no, do not care to look into it--do not wish to look into the
   book of fate and see--

   'What gloomy lines wait for you, Or what bright scenes arise.'

   You shall be anointed with fresh oil." This is a heavenly forecast of
   our nativity. We shall be anointed with fresh oil right to the end of
   our journey and when death comes, if come it ever shall--for Christ may
   come and we may not die--we shall be anointed with fresh oil!

   Very wonderful is the way in which God takes His people to Himself! Two
   good men have lately gone to Heaven in a manner which rebuked their own
   prayers. They were taught in their Church to say, and did say twice
   every Sunday for more than 50 years, "Lord, deliver us from sudden
   death." Dear good men, the Lord knew it was a stupid prayer and Mr.
   Robert Aitken, who had for many years served his Lord, fell down dead
   on the railway platform and Mr. Pennefather dropped from his chair into
   Heaven! The Lord seemed to say to them, "Why did you ask Me to save you
   from sudden death? It was the best for you and I gave it to you."

   To die in the pulpit preaching--to go straight from testifying about
   Christ below to seeing Him above--what better thing could be desired?!
   Do not be afraid of dying--either you will be taken away gently,
   perhaps in your very sleep, and will never know you died at all--or, if
   you have to lie a little while and linger, you will be anointed with
   fresh oil and you will turn your dying bed into a chariot of fire! You
   will be transfigured there in the presence of your family

   and they will wonder that the Grace of God could do such great things
   for a poor, weak, trembling mortal. "I shall be anointed with fresh
   oil."

   IV. Now I must pass over the next point very briefly--THIS ASSURANCE
   TENDS TO RAISE OUR HOPES. We

   tremble lest we should not hold on to the end, but now we know we shall
   be anointed with fresh oil we are filled with hope. Sometimes, when we
   meet with Believers who are full of Grace, full of patience, full of
   courage, full of zeal, full of love, we say, "I can never get where
   they are." Yes, we can, for we shall be anointed with fresh oil and if
   we obtain fresh Grace there is no place of eminence we cannot reach.
   What Abraham was, what David was, what Isaiah was, what Paul was, we
   may be. There is nothing in the whole range of Christian attainment
   from which we are debarred.

   This raises our hope for useful service. Perhaps we have not done much
   for the Lord yet, or, having done something in our youth, are growing
   dull now and do not honor Him as we once did. Come, we won't give up
   and say, "I shall never serve the Lord," but we will rejoice that we
   shall be anointed with fresh oil! We have seen trees bear very little
   fruit for years, but they will have a splendid year, by-and-by, and
   then they will be loaded with fruit. Sometimes an old tree feels dead
   and yet at the scent of water it does bud and bring forth fruit once
   more. So some of you may be like a dry, barren tree, but the Lord means
   to visit you and you shall bring forth fruit to His name. I would say
   to every Brother here who is conscious that he has neglected a great
   deal of what he ought to have done and has not been as useful as he
   should, "Come, Brother, mend your ways and have good hope of brighter
   times to come for you shall be anointed with fresh oil."

   Once more, this gives us hope of the fullest fellowship with Christ.
   Where John was when he leaned his head on His Master's bosom, I may be.
   Where Mary was when she sat at the Master's feet, I may be, if "I shall
   be anointed with fresh oil." Come, lift up your heads, you birds of
   Heaven! Do not sit moping! Lift up your heads, I say, and look the sun
   in the face, the glorious Sun of Righteousness, and rise with all your
   wings towards Him. He will bear you up! He will draw you to Himself!
   Does He not even now attract you by His own superlative beauties? "Come
   with Me from Lebanon, My Spouse," says He, "with Me from Lebanon: look
   from the top of Amana." Up, up Christian! Higher, higher, higher! The
   Lord will help you, He will give you new strength and the highest place
   of devotion, the loftiest elevation of piety shall be attained by you.

   V. Lastly, THIS MAKES US FEEL GREAT PITY FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT HOPE TO
   BE ANOINTED

   WITH FRESH OIL. And such are all who are destitute of faith. You have
   your choice. You who do not believe in the unseen, you have your choice
   in the seen things which you can see and hear. They are before you and
   you are very fond of them, and you think they fill your spirit. So they
   may for the present, but there are evil times coming. The young man's
   youth will not last forever. Eyes grow dim, as every old man will tell
   you. The joys of youth will not come to your rescue then! The
   remembrance of those early joys, as past and gone forever, will only
   make your cup more bitter.

   And going down gradually to your grave, discontented and fretful,
   striving, still, to gratify passions for which you have no strength.
   Looking again to broken cisterns and finding only a little mud at the
   bottom where once you found what you thought crystal waters, you will
   begin to cry out for fresh comforts. But you will not find them. It is
   a blessed thing to be so rich that there is no end to your wealth and
   nobody can say that but a Christian! It is a blessed thing to have a
   stream at your feet which will never fail--and nobody has such a river
   but a Christian!

   If you believe in God, God is yours and all that your soul can ever
   need is treasured up in the Infinite God, for life, for death, for
   judgment, for eternity. Without God you are naked, poor and miserable
   already in the highest sense, but what will you be hereafter? Oh, the
   poverty of a man who lives without Christ! But oh, the poverty of the
   man who dies without Christ! Oh, the utter, utter poverty of a man who
   will live throughout eternity without Christ! He is a naked soul and
   the blasts of wrath shall smite upon him without pause. He is a thirsty
   soul--oh, how he thirsts! But no drop of consolation will ever come to
   him.

   He is a crushed and broken soul, but there is no one to heal his broken
   heart, nor stanch his ghastly wounds. He is forever destroyed and
   banished from the Presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.
   And to that destruction no restoration can ever come! To that agony no
   relief! To that death no resurrection! Today Christ is to be had! Today
   all that your soul needs is to be had! And to be had for nothing! To be
   had for the asking! To be had for the accepting, for whoever believes
   in Him receives Him, and so is saved--

   "But if your ears refuse

   The language of His Grace, And hearts grow hard like stubborn Jews,
   That unbelieving race. The Lord in vengeance dressed, Will lift His
   hand and swear, You that despised My promised rest Shall have no
   portion there!" God grant it may not be so, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Isaiah 40.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Welcome Discovery

   (No. 1123)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went and
   filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink." Genesis 21:19.

   You know the story of Hagar--of her being sent out from Abraham's tent
   with her son Ishmael. It was necessary that they should be sent away
   from the child of promise. God, nevertheless, had designs of good
   towards Ishmael and his mother. Still He tried them. Whether we are
   saints or sinners, we shall meet with tribulation. Whether it is Sarah
   or Hagar, no life shall be without its affliction. To Hagar the
   affliction came in a very painful manner, for the little water that she
   had brought with her in her bottle was spent. She must give her child
   drink, or it would die and then she, by-and-by, must follow. She laid
   the boy down, giving him up in despair and began to weep what she
   thought would be her last flood of tears.

   Still there was no real cause for her distress. She need not have
   thirsted. She was close by a well! In her grief she had failed to see
   it. The distraction of her spirit had made her look everywhere except
   the one place where she would have found exactly what she needed. God
   therefore spoke to her by an angel, and after having done that He
   opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water, which, I suppose, had
   always been there. When she saw it, she went at once to it, filled her
   bottle, gave her child a drink and all her sorrows were over. It seemed
   a very simple remedy for a very sad case. It is but an illustration of
   what is often happening in human life.

   Men and women come into sore trouble, and yet, if they could see all
   around them they need not be in trouble. They actually come to death's
   door, in their own judgment, and yet there really is, if they
   understood all things, no cause for their distress. They will escape
   out of their present trial as soon as ever their eyes are opened, for
   they will see that God has made provision for their necessities,
   prepared comfort for their griefs and made such a way of escape from
   their fears that they need by no means give way to despair.

   I desire to speak to persons who are in trouble. There are three things
   I shall bring before them. The first is that it often happens with
   seeking persons and troubled persons, that, as in Hagar's case, the
   supply of their necessities is close at hand--the well is near.
   Secondly, it often happens that that supply is as much there as if it
   had been provided for them and for them only, as this well seemed to
   have been. And, thirdly, no great exertion is needed to procure from
   the supply already made by God all that we need. She filled her bottle
   with water--a joyful task to her--and she gave the lad drink.

   I. It often happens that when we are in trouble and distress THE SUPPLY
   OF OUR NEED AND THE CONSOLATION FOR OUR SORROW ARE VERY NEAR AT HAND.
   There is a well close at our feet, if we could but see it. We miss it,
   perhaps, not because it is far away, but because our eyes are not open.
   There is no necessity for God to make a well--that has been done. What
   is necessary is that He should open our eyes that we may see what is
   already there. How true this often is in Providence with Christian
   people. We have known them to be in sore alarm at some approaching ill,
   or in the most fearful distress on account of some troublous
   circumstances which already surround them. They have said, "We don't
   know what we shall do tomorrow." They have inquired. "Who shall roll
   away the stone?"

   They know not that God has already provided for tomorrow and has rolled
   the stone away. If they knew all, they would understand that their
   trial is purely imaginary. They are making it by their unbelief. It has
   no other existence than that which their distrust of God gives to it.
   While they are inquiring, "Where shall I find a friend? Who will come
   to the rescue?" the friend is already in the house, or, perhaps, will
   never be needed at all. While they are saying, "How can I get out of
   this dilemma?" God has already solved it. The riddle has been answered,
   the enigma has been explained. They are troubled about an enemy whose
   head is already struck off--they are repining about a difficulty which
   has already been disentangled by the Divine hand.

   We have known persons to be utterly surprised when God has delivered
   them. This proves that their faith was small. With calm trust there is
   quiet waiting. They might well have expected that He would do it. Among
   the surprises such persons have expressed has been this--that, after
   all, He should have delivered them by a means so simple. "How could it
   have happened," they ask, "that I could not have thought of this? That
   I should actually have the blessing I crave hard by me, and yet not
   perceive it? That I should be thirsty and crying out to God, in hope
   that perhaps He will rend the heavens and send a shower of rain, and
   all the while there is the well bubbling up with fresh water?" We have
   only to look to find, and having found it, we have only to stoop down
   to take and drink for our refreshment!

   Children of God--you that are troubled about Providence, pray God to
   help you to trust when you cannot trace your God. Ask Him to give you,
   not what you wish for, but resignation to His wishes. Ask to have His
   will casting its shadow over your soul and let that shadow be your will
   from now on. O that we had learned, in whatever state we are, to be
   content, basing our confidence on this sure promise--He has said, "I
   will never leave you nor forsake you." This is the best foundation for
   contentment that will ever be found. Oh, for Grace to feel that if we
   cannot tell how God will deliver us, it is no business of ours to be
   able to tell! That if God knows, that is enough.

   God has not set us to be the providers. He does not intend us to hold
   the helm and to pull the leading strings. 'Tis ours to follow, not to
   lead. 'Tis ours to obey and not to prescribe for God. Your deliverance
   is near, O child of sorrow, or if it tarries for awhile, it shall be
   but the richer blessing when it comes. Ships that are long upon the sea
   are, perhaps, the more heavily freighted. And when they come to the
   port, they will bring home a double cargo of blessing. Those plants
   that come up quickly when they are sown in the ground last but for a
   little while. Perhaps the blessing that is so long in springing out of
   the soil of your expectancy will last you all your life. Therefore, if
   the vision tarries, wait for it with patience.

   Though this is true of Providence, I prefer rather to deal with the
   matter of spiritual blessings. It often happens that souls are
   disturbed in spiritual matters about things that ought not to disturb
   them. For instance, a large proportion of spiritual distresses are
   occasioned by a forgetfulness or an ignorance of the doctrines of the
   Bible. We have frequently met with young persons who have made the
   astounding discovery that their hearts are desperately wicked. They
   were converted some time ago and made a profession of their faith. They
   did, then, really repent of sin and they laid hold on Christ, but their
   experience was comparatively superficial.

   After awhile the Holy Spirit was pleased to show them more of the
   hidden evils of their nature and to permit the fountains of the great
   deep of their original depravity to be broken up--and they have been in
   perfect consternation, as though some strange thing had happened to
   them, and they have said, "Where is the comfort for this?" Now, if they
   had known, at first, that our nature is hopelessly bad and that the
   Scripture describes it as such, they would not have been surprised when
   they discovered that Truth of God.

   And had they understood that the work of the Spirit is not to improve
   our nature--that He never tried to do it and never intends to do
   it--but that He leaves the old nature to die, to see corruption, to be
   buried with Christ and gives us a new Nature which comes into conflict
   with the old nature. And causes an eternal war and strife within the
   Spirit--had they been acquainted with those Truths of God when they
   found sin breaking loose in them, and felt the conflict within, they
   would have said, "This is just what I was told would happen. This is
   the experience of the children of God. This is what Paul speaks of in
   the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and I am, after all,
   in the same way as the saints

   of God."

   Forgetting this, they think there is no comfort for them in what seems
   to them to be the strangest of all human experiences, but which,
   indeed, is an experience common to the people of God! They are looking
   for the well of water when that very doctrine they have forgotten would
   furnish them with the refreshment they stand in need of. We meet with
   others whose trouble is about their perseverance. They believe they are
   the people of God, but they tremble lest they should fail to hold on
   and maintain the good profession. Their trials are so severe and they
   feel their own weakness to be so extreme, may they not one day slip
   with their feet to a foul and final fall and be utterly destroyed?

   Ah, if they understood what I feel sure is the indisputable Truth of
   God, that "the righteous shall hold on his way, and he that has clean
   hands shall wax stronger and stronger!" they would not have been
   troubled about that question, provided they could answer the other
   one--are they righteous? Do they belong to those made righteous in
   Christ? "I give unto My sheep eternal life, and they shall never
   perish; neither shall any pluck them out of My hand." What a

   magnificent assurance of the safety of all the sheep of God! If I am
   but one of them, may I not feel a perfect confidence that Christ, who
   cannot lie, will make good His word?

   There are, besides this, innumerable other promises to the same effect
   and oftentimes a man distressed about that, might be relieved of
   anxieties at once by the knowledge that it is a perfectly unscriptural
   apprehension that is agitating him. We are all too prone to judge by
   our feelings rather than to take counsel at the Fountainhead and rely
   on the oracle of Inspiration. I used to know an excellent Christian
   woman whose trouble was of a somewhat strange character, for she said
   she knew she loved the Savior. And I think all who knew her felt that
   she did. But though she knew she loved the Savior, she was afraid that
   the Savior did not love her! Nor was it easy to comfort her about that.

   Now, truly, if she could have grasped the thought that, "We love Him
   because He first loved us," the snare would have been broken. Had she
   perceived that all that is in us must be first put into us if it is of
   any good. That the Grace of God prevents us (goes before us) that it is
   the root and origin of any good thing in us. That the everlasting and
   eternal love of God is the fountain out of which our love to God must
   flow--had she known that--she would not have been troubled on that
   head. I wonder, sometimes, how those friends who do not receive what is
   commonly called Calvinistic doctrine manage to be comforted.

   I certainly never have any quarrel with those on the other side of the
   opinion, for if the tenets of Arminianism have any sweetness to them, I
   am delighted to hear that any have tasted it. I am always glad that
   everything in the world should be eaten up and if anybody can find any
   food and comfort there, I am glad to hear it. I could not, and
   therefore I do not, envy them. I would not wish to deprive them of any
   comfort they could find there, as I have never been able to find any
   myself. If I believed that my own final perseverance rested with
   myself--if I thought that I might have a love to God that sprang up
   because of my own will rather than as a work of Grace--I do not know,
   but I might be driven to utter distraction.

   Some persons need solid food and must have it, or their health would
   fail. So the firm belief that salvation is of Grace from first to last,
   and that where God begins a good work He will carry it on, is essential
   to my Christian existence and therefore I cannot give it up. Those who
   can do without it, let them, but as for me, I cannot. I have not any
   comfort left me if anyone shall prove that these things are not the
   Truths of Holy Scripture. They are the Truths of Scripture, however,
   and let any who are distressed remember them. May God open their eyes
   to see them and they need to be thirsty no more!

   Sometimes, Beloved, Holy Scripture has its well near to the troubled
   heart, not so much in the form of doctrine, as in the form of promise.
   There was never a trouble yet in human experience among God's people,
   but what there was a promise to meet it. You have only to look long
   enough, and you shall find the counterfoil. You shall discover that God
   has in His Book that which exactly meets your case. "Oh," said
   Christian, in Bunyan's Pilgrim, "what a thousand fools have I been to
   lie rotting in this stinking dungeon all these weeks when I have a key
   in my bosom which, I am persuaded, would fit the locks of all the doors
   in Doubting Castle. Come, good Brother, let us try it." And so
   Christian plucked up courage and he found his key of promise, though it
   grated a little. And Bunyan says that one of the doors went, as he puts
   it in his old edition, "damnably hard." He did not know how to put it
   strong enough until he used that word. Yet the key did open every
   single door and even the iron gate itself, the external gate of the
   castle, opened by the help of that key.

   O, dear Hearts, some of you have laid, fretting and worrying yourselves
   about things which God has dealt with already in His own Word. You have
   said, "Would God He would do that!" And He has done it. You have asked
   Him to give you something and you have got it. I have used, sometimes,
   the simile of a man in the dark dying of hunger and yet he is shut up
   in the pantry. There is food all round him, if he could only put out
   his hand and take it. Did he know it to be there, and would he grasp
   it, there is just what he needs. I am persuaded, Beloved, if you search
   the Scriptures well, there is not one child of God here that need
   despair of finding that the Master has opened a well of promise for
   him.

   At other times the well appears in the form neither of a doctrine nor
   of a promise, but in the shape of an experience of someone else.
   Perhaps nothing more effectually comforts, under the blessing of God,
   than the discovery that some undoubtedly good man has passed through
   the same state of heart in which we are found. When we see the
   footsteps of the flock, we hope that we are in the Shepherd's path.
   Now, if you are in deep trouble, may I invite you to read the 88th
   Psalm? What a Psalm that is--that prayer of David's! Was ever man so
   cast out from God's sight and banished from all hope as he? Yet there
   was no brighter saint in the olden times than that renowned sufferer!

   If you have deep castings down of spirit, I would invite you to consort
   with Job. Read that book through. See how terrible are some of his
   utterances, yet who shall doubt that Job was not only saved from his
   sins and redeemed from all adversity, but that he holds a name among
   the most illustrious of those who by faith have overcome the world?
   Turn, if you need other examples, to the sighs of king Hezekiah, or to
   the lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet. Surely there you shall find
   your own case in some chapter or another! And if it is a matter of
   inward contention, read the Epistle to the Romans, especially that part
   where Paul, in wondrous paradox, describes himself as doing that evil
   which he would not, and not doing that good which he would, and yet
   that which he did, he did not allow--till he cries, "O wretched man
   that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

   You would find, my dear Christian Brother or Sister, that instead of
   your present pinch and trial being a strange thing, you are only
   suffering what God's children have the most of them suffered. You
   imagine yourself to be sailing over unknown seas, when you are but
   following the ordinary track-way of the saints around that cape of
   storms which, when it is better known, will be to you a Cape of Good
   Hope. Be of good comfort! Be of good cheer, for the experience of
   others may refresh you, as well as the promises and the doctrines which
   abound in the Word of God. And, Beloved, sometimes it pleases the Holy
   Spirit to open a well of living waters for us in the Person, and work,
   and life, and sympathy, and love, of our Well-Beloved, the Lord Jesus
   Christ.

   Full often when I have found myself depressed in spirit, I have
   challenged my soul, as it were, with this question-- "Why are you cast
   down? Did not Jesus feel this?" And the depression has vanished. The
   thought that Christ has sympathy in this particular trial is an
   inexpressibly sweet one. When the Holy Spirit brings it home to the
   soul, we can bless the Savior's name that He did not merely carry our
   sins, but that He carried our sorrows. That He was not merely a
   Substitute, which is the greatest of all consolations, but a
   Sympathizer, which is also inexpressibly delightful to us. Jesus
   suffers with you, O child of God--suffers in you. You are a member of
   His body and therefore He endures in you.

   You are making up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ for
   His body's sake, which is the Church. There is so much of suffering
   allotted to the entire mystical body of Christ that there is some of it
   left behind as yet, and you will have your share of it. Be thankful
   when you have it, that it is a part of the suffering of the body of
   Christ. And, oh, to look into His face by faith, and to feel that He is
   not hard or pitiless, whatever others may be! To look into His face,
   when we are distressed by reason of the wrongs of others and the
   dishonor done to Christ's Church, and to feel that He knows it, notices
   it, and has sympathy with us in our sorrow over declining zeal, or over
   the worldliness of His people-- why that nerves us with new strength!
   Does Jesus feel what we feel? Does He sympathize in it? Are we bearing
   it for His sake? Then we will welcome the trouble and be glad to bear
   it, that He may be honored thereby. Beloved, if you have forgotten your
   Lord--(and perhaps some of you may, during this week, have been
   forgetting Him--it is no unusual thing)--think of Him again and you
   shall find a well of water close to you.

   Besides, once more, our sorrows often arise from our not observing the
   Holy Spirit. He is in us and He shall be with us forever. We are
   troubled about the little progress of the kingdom of God in the world,
   but if we believe in the Holy Spirit we shall soon get our courage back
   again. There is no reason why the simplest sermon, preached in the
   humblest place, should not at any time be the commencement of a great
   revival. There is no reason known to us why the simple preaching of
   Jesus Christ, on any Sunday, should not prove to be the conversion of
   all the hearers, and, through the hearers, very speedily of an entire
   nation! We do not know as yet--we have none of us, probably, any notion
   of--the great power of the Spirit of God.

   Some years ago there left this coast a convict vessel full of the
   lowest class of men that could be got together-- convicts sent out for
   long periods of exile. On board that vessel was a surgeon
   superintendent who loved the Savior-- who believed in the Gospel and
   prayed mightily. He called the convicts together, stated to them that
   he had an intense desire for the good of their souls--that he intended
   during the time of their voyage that such-and-such rules for their good
   should be observed--that he particularly wished that they should all
   learn to read that they might be able to read the Scriptures--that he
   should hold meetings each day--that he should pray for them
   individually. Within a very short time a few convicts were converted to
   God.

   There came a storm in which a companion vessel containing two hundred
   men went to the bottom and this alarmed and aroused the consciences of
   the ungodly on board this vessel, made them more susceptible of
   impression and rendered the task of teaching them the Gospel much more
   easy than it had been before. Of course the terror was transient and

   being but a natural shock, wore away. Still, in the meanwhile, the good
   man had availed himself of the opportunity. There suddenly broke out in
   that vessel a Divine work and all over it might have been heard, at
   almost any hour of the day or night, hardened men, criminals exiled
   from their country, crying out, "What must we do to be saved?" When
   they landed there was not one man or child out of all on board who did
   not profess to have found the Savior, for the Spirit of God had worked
   strangely among them.

   They had become, before they reached the distant clime of their
   destination, instead of a nest of swearing beings, whose very talk was
   profanity and whose breath was blasphemy, a Church of the living God!
   Such results were produced by the power of God's Spirit in answer to
   prayer. And if the Spirit of God were to come upon anyone here, be he
   who he might, a like transformation would be worked! Though he were the
   most abandoned character, though his infidelity might have entrenched
   itself, as he imagines, behind a thousand arguments, the Spirit of God
   would pull those down, convince him of sin, renew him and change his
   heart at once. Oh, would to God the Church could say, "I believe in the
   Holy Spirit," for today she is like Hagar in the wilderness crying, and
   the angel says, "What ails you, Hagar?" And she says, "I need more
   ministers, more missionaries. I need more zeal, more earnestness."

   Good God, open her eyes, I pray You! Were her eyes opened she would see
   that in the possession of the Holy Spirit there is a well of water
   close to her hand and all she craves is there--more, indeed, than she
   craves--a great deal more than she yet knows that she needs. Oh, for
   faith in the eternal Spirit, and the griefs we feel for the Church of
   God would come to an end.

   II. But I must pass on. I think I hear someone say, "I have no doubt,
   Sir, that God has provided a supply for necessities, but may I partake
   of that supply? May I participate in the provisions of Divine love?" I
   will answer you by saying, in the second place, that THIS SUPPLY IS FOR
   YOU. Need I remind you that there are passages of Scripture which lay
   the provisions of the Gospel singularly open? There are invitations in
   the Word which are not confined to any spiritual character. "The spirit
   and the bride say, Come. And let him that hears say, Come. And whoever
   will, let him take the water of life freely." If there are any
   invitations there, it is, "whoever will." Well, but you "will." O poor
   Soul, you would give your eyes to have Christ. You know you would! You,
   poor troubled seeking one, if you had a thousand worlds you would
   freely forfeit them, if you could but say, "I am pardoned. My sin is
   blotted out." What, then, hinders you? What keeps you back? "Whoever
   will, let him come," and you will--therefore come!

   We are told to "preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believes
   and is baptized shall be saved." Are you a "creature"? If so, if you
   believe and are baptized you shall be saved. That is God's own Word to
   you. Prove that you are not a creature. Then I cannot speak to you. But
   if you are a creature, to you as a creature is that Gospel sent. "Ah,"
   I hear some say, "I was reading the other day--

   'All the fitness He requires Is to feel your need of Him,'

   but I don't feel my need as I ought, so I have not got the fitness." My
   dear Friend, do you ever like to be interrupted in the middle of a
   sentence? "Oh," you say, "no! That makes me say what I did not mean.
   Let me finish my sentence." Well, then, let that good poet, Hart,
   finish his verse without your interrupting him. He says--

   "Let not conscience make you linger,

   Nor of fitness fondly dream;

   All the fitness He requires

   Is to feel your need of Him.

   This He gives you!

   'Tis the Spirits rising beam."

   You never have any sense of your need of Christ unless He gives you
   that sense of need. That is as much His work as full assurance is. The
   first breath, the first pang that indicates life, is as much the Divine
   work as the songs of angels or perfect saints before the Throne of God.
   There is another passage that has often yielded comfort to the
   downcast. "Come unto Me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I
   will give you rest." You are "laboring," are you not? Why, you have
   been laboring self-righteously to make a righteousness of your own!
   Give up that laboring and come to Christ "heavy laden." You are loaded,
   are you not? Loaded with troubles, loaded with sins, loaded with
   weaknesses, loaded with doubts.

   Jesus says, "Come unto Me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I
   will give you rest." Does not that describe you? The water is for you,
   then. You "labor." You are "heavy laden." You are "willing." You are a
   "creature." "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was
   lost." Not long ago I tried to show you that there could not be a case
   of sin and misery that could not slip in there. "Lost, lost." Is that
   what you say of yourself? The Son of Man is come to seek and to save
   such! If we were to open tomorrow a free dining house, I believe it
   would be necessary to put up at the door, before long, some kind of
   prohibition to prevent everybody's coming. We should have to draw a
   line somewhere. But I am quite certain that there is no poor man in
   London that was hungry who would refuse to go in if he saw no
   prohibition there.

   He would say, "If there is no special invitation for me, yet I mean to
   go in and try it on till there is a special prohibition against me." I
   am sure that is the way with most of us. If there were a distribution
   to be made of gold and silver, I think most of us would go and begin to
   take some until there was a special order that we were not to have any.
   I wish that any sinner who is troubled about election, for instance,
   would wait till God tells him he is not elected, or, if he has any
   misgiving about whether he may come to Christ, he would wait till he
   finds a passage which tells him that he may not come. If he would find
   that, then there might be some cause for disquiet. Will you also find
   somewhere in this world a sinner that did try to come to Christ, yet
   Christ would not have him? If you have ever found one of the sort,
   bring him here, for we have been boasting here very loudly that none
   ever did come to Christ whom He cast away.

   If you will find one who did come and to whom Christ said, "No, no! You
   are not one of those I died for, not one of those I chose"--if you will
   find us one of the sort, we shall be sorrowfully glad to see him--glad
   because we would be glad to know the truth, but very sorrowful to think
   that that should be the truth. No, we defy Satan to find one in Hell
   that cried to Christ for mercy and cast himself upon the Savior, and
   yet was rejected! All the demons of the Pit, if they search to all
   eternity, cannot find such an instance! There never was, there never
   shall be one!

   Stand not back, then, you who are athirst. When you see the water, the
   living water, stand not back, but freely come and take! For whoever
   takes of it God will make him freely welcome and the angels will
   rejoice concerning him. The water is for you--assuredly for you.

   III. Now to our last point. IT IS AVAILABLE WITHOUT ANY EXTRAORDINARY
   EXERTION. Hagar went and filled her bottle with water and she gave her
   child a drink. No hydraulic inventions were required. No exceedingly
   difficult pumping, no mechanical contrivances to obtain the water when
   the spring was perceived. She did a very simple thing--she held her
   bottle in the water till it was full, poured it into the child's
   mouth--and the dilemma which had imperiled her life was over.

   Now, the way by which we get a hold of Christ is faith. A great many
   questions are asked about what faith is and there are large books
   written about it. If you want to study the philosophy of faith till you
   are bewildered, read a book about faith. But if you really would know
   its latent power and its potent charm, put your trust in Christ now,
   and you have got all the faith that is needed, and that, too, in vital
   energy. There are some who hold that the intrinsic virtue lies in the
   personal appropriation, so they say that faith is to believe that
   Christ died for me. These same persons tell us, "He died for everybody,
   consequently he must have died for me."

   I do not see anything of a saving character in that belief at all. That
   does not appear to me to be in any degree the faith of God's elect.
   Properly, faith is a belief of God--what God says and what God
   promises. Its practical outcome is a reliance upon the ipse dixit of
   the Almighty. "Thus says the Lord" is the warrant of faith. What is it?
   It is trust and whoever trusts Christ is saved. I am leaning here now,
   all my weight, and if this rail gives way I must go down. I am leaning
   here. Well, now, that is like faith in Christ. Lean right on Him, lean
   on Him with all your weight. Lean hard. Have no other confidence, throw
   yourself on Him.

   It is not faith to put one foot on Christ as the angel put one foot on
   the land, and then to put the other foot on our works as the angel put
   his other foot on the sea. To rest both feet on Christ--that is faith.
   It is to do as the slave said he did--he fell right down flat on the
   promise--"And den, massa," he said, "when I am down there I can't fall
   not no lower." Nor you, if you are flat on the promise. God has said
   it--that is the Truth of God and I believe it. And I expect Him to
   fulfill it. This is the testimony that God has given concerning His
   Son--that we have everlasting life in Him and if we trust Him we are
   saved.

   "But I cannot believe," says one. "Cannot believe" what? Do you say you
   cannot believe God? No, but Man, when has God ever lied? Find me once
   when He has forfeited His Word. Find me once when He has broken His
   promise! If you say, "I cannot believe Him," do you not see that in
   that incredulity of yours you have maligned God? You have blasphemed
   Him! You have made Him a liar! That is exactly what the Scripture
   says--"He that believes not has made God a liar." "But it seems too
   good to be believed," says one, "that God, for Christ's sake, forgives
   men simply on their trusting Christ."

   Yes, it is good. But then we have a good God, a great God. Can you not
   believe it when God says it? Do you feel in your heart, "Why I must
   believe it if God says it." Then, Beloved, if you trust on Christ
   because God has said it, you have the faith which is the gift of God!
   The faith which is the work of the Holy Spirit! For this is the work of
   God, the greatest work that He does in us--that you believe in Jesus
   Christ whom He has sent. "It is so simple," says one. Yes, and that is
   the reason why it is so difficult. If it were difficult, people would
   do it. But because it is so simple they won't have it. It was a very
   hard thing for Naaman to go and wash in the Jordan. And why hard?
   Because it was so easy! If it had been a difficult thing it would not
   have been hard and he would have done it.

   "If the Prophet had bid you do some great thing, would you not have
   done it?" But when he says, "Wash, and be clean," oh, that is hard--and
   so it is here because we are proud--THAT is the hardness of it. It is
   hard to trust Christ because we are self-righteous! Because we need to
   have a finger in this, ourselves. But, oh, when the Spirit of God cuts
   us down to the ground, takes away all power, strength, merit, boasts
   and glorying, then it seems a blessed thing to have nothing to do but
   just to put the bottle in the water and let the blessed Water of Life
   go gurgling into it till it fills up to the brim!

   I think I hear another person say, "Well, but surely there is
   repentance. We must repent if we would be saved." Truly so, but I would
   put it rather thus--he that is saved always repents--repentance and
   faith go together--they are born at the same time. They will accompany
   every Christian as long as he is in this life, but take care that you
   do not make a mistake about what repentance is. There is a Law-work
   which some Believers feel--but that is not repentance--it is quite
   another thing over and above repentance. There are dark thoughts and
   horrid forebodings, but those are not repentance. They may or they may
   not be of advantage to the Christian after he has passed through them,
   but they are not repentance.

   Repentance is simply the consciousness of sin and the loathing of sin.
   And if you have these--and they are the gift of God, always the gift of
   God--then do not chastise yourself because you have not all the dark
   feelings of all the good men that ever lived. Why should you need more
   midnight? You are dark enough, poor Soul, without fretting for more
   darkness! Better far that you pray for more light! You have already, I
   will take leave to say, the repentance you are sighing after, for I
   know you hate sin and you do loathe yourself to think you should be a
   sinner at all, and you would do anything to be rid of sin--to escape
   from it. Would not you be glad to suffer anything if you could be
   perfect? I know you would. Well, that is repentance--that is the sign
   of repentance within your soul.

   "Well," says one, "but we must pray, you know." Yes, granted. Every
   saved soul prays. But look here, do you know what prayer is? Do you
   think that prayer consists in the attitude of the body, or the ordering
   of the speech, or the utterance of petitions for a quarter of an hour,
   as I may have done in the course of the present service? I grieve to
   say that I may have done all that custom required in that fashion and
   not have prayed at all! It is true prayer if you can only look up to
   God and sigh, or if your heart does but groan before Him. Do not think
   that it is necessary to use fine expressions. Far from it! "God be
   merciful to me a sinner" was the prayer that brought justification to
   the publican--and some of the best prayers that have ever reached God's
   ears are the shortest prayers that ever escaped man's lips.

   Do not measure prayers by their length, I beseech you. God will help
   you to pray. Prayer is His gift. If you do cast yourself on Christ,
   sink or swim, throwing everything away, even your own prayers and your
   own repentance--if you do come and rest on what Christ is and what He
   has done, you cannot perish! Look not within yourself! There is nothing
   but blackness there. If you look within you, expect to despair. But
   look yonder to that Cross on Calvary. There is life in a look at Him!
   O, my dear Hearers, how I wish we all looked at Him this moment! I have
   no hope but what I find there in those dear wounds, and in that head
   bowed down with anguish--

   "All my hope in You is stayed, O Christ of God, made sin for me, my

   Substitute and Ransom!"

   And every eye that is now looking to that Christ, and every heart that
   is trusting in that Christ, has salvation. There is salvation in none
   other. "There is none other name given under Heaven whereby you must be
   saved." There is life for a look at Him. God grant you Grace to look at
   Him.

   "The Word is near you," on your lip and in your heart. "If with your
   heart you do believe in the Lord Jesus, and with your mouth you do make
   confession of Him, you shall be saved." Oh, that God would open the
   eyes of many a Hagar! Let her see that there is the water, that the
   water is free to her and that she has but to dip in her bottle and fill
   it to the full. I have used an illustration here before, but I cannot
   think of a better one. At the risk of repetition, I will give it to you
   again. It just illustrates the case of many persons here present.

   I heard that a vessel, after having crossed the Atlantic, had arrived
   in the mouth of the great river Amazon without being aware that it was
   there. The water was all spent and they were ready to die of thirst.
   They sighted another vessel, and ran up the signal. And when the vessel
   came within hail of them she said, "What do you need?" The answer went
   back, "Water! We are dying for water." And you may imagine their
   surprise when there came across the waves this sound--"Dip it up. You
   are in a fresh-water river." They had nothing to do but to throw the
   bucket overboard and get as much as ever they would.

   So likewise there is many a sinner crying, "What must I do to be saved?
   Oh, what hard thing shall I bear? What sharp thing shall I feel? What
   expensive thing shall I give? What tedious work shall I do?" God's
   answer is, "Throw the bucket of faith overboard, Man. It is all round
   you. It is near you. You are floating on a stream of mercy. You are in
   a shoreless river of Grace. If you believe that Jesus is the Christ,
   you are born of God. If you trust yourself with Jesus, your sins, which
   are many, are forgiven you."

   Go in peace, and God grant you Grace to give to Him the glory through
   all your remaining days. May God bless these wandering words of mine to
   the consolation of some of His mourners, and my heart shall give Him
   praise, and your hearts shall overflow with gratitude! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Genesis 21.
     __________________________________________________________________

God Beseeching Sinners by His Ministers

   (No. 1124)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 27, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus
   Christ, and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit,
   that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not
   imputing their trespasses unto them, and has committed unto us the word
   of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though
   God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be you
   reconciled to God. For He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no
   sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." 2
   Corinthians 5:18-21.

   MAN became God's enemy wantonly, without the slightest offense given on
   God's part. But man did not make advances towards reconciliation, or
   express regret because peace was broken. The first overtures for peace
   are not made by man, the offender, but by our aggrieved and offended
   God. Therefore our text begins with the declaration, "All things are of
   God." Reconciliation of man to his Maker is never achieved by man, but
   is the work of God from first to last, and to God must be all the
   glory. The text enforces this Truth by giving us a brief summary. The
   Lord first finds the messengers of reconciliation by reconciling some
   men to Himself. He chooses His ministers, having called them into a
   state of reconciliation.

   Read the verse--"All things are of God, who has reconciled us to
   Himself by Jesus Christ, and has given to us the ministry of
   reconciliation." The ambassador is sent, not from man to God, but from
   God to man. Then the matter of the ambassador's message is altogether
   of God, for it is God who has "reconciled the world unto Himself
   through Jesus Christ." He gave His Son to be the atoning Sacrifice by
   the ordained method of substitution--thus it is He, alone, who has made
   a way of access between fallen man and Himself. Furthermore, the method
   by which this Atonement is applied to the reconciling of men is also of
   God. It is not man who beseeches God, but God who beseeches man to be
   reconciled.

   It is not man who cries to Christ, but Christ prays man, through His
   ministers whom He places in His stead, to be reconciled to God. So that
   from the first thought of reconciliation, right on through the
   provision of the Atonement, to the conclusion of the solemn league and
   Covenant between the heart and God, all things are of God. I am glad to
   commence my sermon with such a weighty doctrine. I am glad to have such
   a theme with which to stir the hearts of the reconciled. You owe it all
   to God, my Brothers and Sisters, therefore render thanks unto the Most
   High and never attribute to your own wills or to any natural goodness
   in yourselves, your present friendship with the Lord. For all this is
   of God who has reconciled you unto Himself.

   In the process of reconciling the sinner to Himself the Lord uses
   means. He might, if He had pleased, have influenced all human hearts by
   His Spirit, without a pleading ministry selected from among men, but He
   has not chosen to do so. God exercises His power over the human mind
   not miraculously, but in conformity with the laws of the mind. The
   Spirit of God beseeches and prays men to be reconciled. He deals with
   us not as with marble or wood, carving and shaping us by mere power.
   Acting upon the mind of man He does not act according to the laws of
   matter, but deals with mind after the mode in which minds must be dealt
   with. And therefore His Divine Grace operates upon human wills by
   persuasion--"as though God did beseech you by us." And by pleading--"we
   pray you, in Christ's stead, be you reconciled to God."

   But the means used of the Lord are always such as will ensure that all
   the glory shall be to Him alone--if God beseeches, there can be no
   honor to man in yielding to the Divine persuasion, but great glory is
   due to Him who in infinite condescension prayed to His own creatures
   and stooped from the loftiness of His Glory to beseech His own
   rebellious subjects to have mercy upon themselves.

   This morning I shall try to drive at the heart and conscience with all
   my might, depending upon the Spirit of God to make my appeals
   effectual. And with that aim, and no other, I shall first of all speak
   upon the ambassadors of reconciliation. Secondly, upon the matter of
   their embassy, the message they have to deliver. And, thirdly, upon the
   manner in which they are to deliver their message.

   I. First, then, dear Friends, we will begin with THE AMBASSADORS OF
   RECONCILIATION. It appears, from the text that they, themselves, were
   once enemies to God. "All things are of God, who has reconciled us to
   Himself." Yes, Beloved, when we beseech you to be reconciled to God, we
   give to ourselves no airs as though we were superior to you by nature,
   or had been superior in our former conduct before conversion. No,
   rather we are bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. Are you
   sinful? Such were we. Are you rebellious against God? Such were we. Are
   your hearts hard? Such were ours. We do not look down upon you from an
   elevated platform of affected dignity, for we recognize our own nature
   in yours. Therefore we come to you as to fellow sinners and, albeit it
   is a sorrowful thing ever to have sinned, we are glad to think that we
   can speak to you of an evil which has vexed us, the power of which we
   have painfully felt and penitently mourned, as you must yet do.

   We hope that our former condition as sinners and unbelievers will make
   us speak to you more tenderly and will enable us to reach your hearts
   the better. God might have sent angels to you and you would, perhaps,
   at first have been awed by their glory. But their sermons would have
   been cold and unsympathetic compared with ours, for they could not know
   your misery and degradation as we do. They would have felt a horror of
   you and would not have cared to come near you--their purity would have
   made them regard you as a healthy man regards a leper--it must have
   done so, kind as, no doubt, they would have tried to be.

   But we have no such feelings. We have a horror of your sin but not of
   you. And looking at you as being what we once were, we say to you,
   Brothers and Sisters by nature, we trust you will yet become Brothers
   and Sisters by Grace, and that the blood of Christ, which has made
   peace between us and God, may also reconcile you to the great Father in
   Heaven! From the text we gather that though those who are now God's
   ministers were once His enemies, they are now reconciled. They are no
   strangers to the reconciliation which they have to preach, for they
   have been reconciled themselves. Yes, we were by Divine Grace made to
   feel the evil of sin. We were led to know its bitterness in our inmost
   souls and we were led to the Cross, and led to look to the Savior
   nailed there for human sin. Our guilt disappeared, our burden rolled
   from our shoulders and we were free!

   And now we feel no enmity towards God, but, on the contrary, a love to
   Him which we desire you to feel. We have no quarrel, now, with our
   Maker. We desire that He should always do what seems good to Him, for
   we are sure that His will is always kindness, wisdom and love towards
   His people. And now as God's friends we speak to you and tell you that
   He is a good Friend and a kind Father, that He is willing to forgive
   and does forgive, most freely, all those who come to Him by Jesus
   Christ. We have been reconciled and therefore can speak to you, not
   theoretically, but experimentally. We can tell you what we have tasted
   and handled of the good Word of God and our hope is that, perhaps, you
   will be influenced by our testimony as that of men like yourselves who
   have ourselves been saved.

   Moreover, it seems that the ambassadors of God were reconciled to God
   by Jesus Christ in the same way as other sinners. How very different is
   this confession from the boastings of priests and prelates nowadays!
   They are not of the same order as the people whom they address, but are
   reverend and right reverend, and fathers in God. They speak not as
   sinners saved, called to be servants to their fellow sinners, but as
   Brahmins, who by the imposition of Episcopal hands have obtained
   magical powers wherewith to perform potent ceremonies which shall
   purify men from their sins. These are not such men as we are, but are
   very far above us, a superior race of beings--a sacred caste! Do you
   not observe how they fence off wherever they can, one end of the Church
   for themselves? That pen of theirs is holier than the place where the
   common people sit.

   Do you not observe how they array themselves in white, blue and
   scarlet, and fine linen, because they are the depositories of
   mysterious powers which reside in none else? It is not that they are
   any better in character, nor that they have more zeal for the Truth as
   it is in Jesus, nor that even the bishops excel in clearness of
   doctrine, or courage to defend the Truth of God. Brethren, it is
   preposterous that these men should claim so much when they have so
   little to show for it! Here are bishops who can bestow the Holy Spirit
   and yet have not the manliness to speak out while the Church is

   being Romanized and even the abominable confessional is being set up! I
   could show tailors and cobblers who are more earnest for the Gospel
   than the occupants of the Episcopal bench!

   We are taught to believe that these wonderful beings, the bishops and
   priests, are God's clergy or heritage, and all the rest of us are mere
   stony laypersons who ought to do them reverence. I suppose the day will
   come when our fellow countrymen will bow their heads in the dust before
   a priest and count themselves thrice blessed if they are but spit upon
   by their reverences. Not thus was it with ministers sent of God in
   Paul's day! Here is a man who is an Apostle and an Inspired man and all
   he has to say of himself and other ambassadors is this--"All things are
   of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ."

   No, dear Hearers, we speak to you as Brothers in one common Fall,
   hoping that we may also be Brothers in the great salvation. If ever I
   enter Heaven I shall owe my cleansing to the blood of the Lamb--not one
   among you will owe more to the rich, free Grace of God than I shall.
   No, there is not one among you who shall bow in humbler, lower
   gratitude than I shall before the Throne of Infinite Mercy as he
   remembers his forgiven sins. Having sinned much and had much forgiven,
   we feel we cannot love enough and cannot too plainly tell the story of
   our dear Master's Grace! And we feel that this is better for you than
   that we should be something superior to you, for we hope you will be
   won by a Brother's testimony--by the story of one who has received the
   Grace of God just as you must--and is cleansed just as you must be.

   Again, Paul tells us that the ministers of Christ, having been
   themselves reconciled to God, have a message to deliver which has been
   given to them--"has given to us the ministry of reconciliation." And he
   repeats it--"has committed unto us the word of reconciliation." You
   see, we have nothing to tell you but what God has told us! We have not
   to stand in our pulpits and utter original ideas, or to invent a Gospel
   for you! No, we are simply the bearers of a message which God would
   have us deliver to you and it is at our peril that we add to it or take
   from it! In these days there is a great deal said about, "thinkers,"
   and by "thinkers" they mean men who startle their people with a fresh
   heresy every three months! God save us from such thinkers!

   I send my servant to the door with a message and if on the way, she, in
   her wisdom, deliberates and alters my message to suit her own views, I
   must discharge her, for I need someone who will bear my message and not
   make one of her own. God would have His ministers be like transparent
   glass which lets the rays of the sun pass through unchanged--and not
   like painted windows which color all the rays after their own nature.
   Through infirmity we all give some amount of coloring to the Gospel,
   but he is the man according to God's order of ministry who longs to let
   the Gospel shine right through him and does not send upon the people
   anything of his own except the earnestness which the Gospel works in
   him as it streams through him. As some glass adds heat to light by
   concentrating the rays, so should the minister add heat to the Gospel,
   but woe unto him if he adds anything beyond! Brothers and Sisters, we
   have nothing to tell you which we have invented--so if you are saved by
   it, it will not be due to our skill! We have nothing to tell you but
   what God commits to us and therefore God will have all the glory if
   your souls are saved.

   Once more, and we add it with all sincerity. When we plead with
   sinners, our expectation of their being reconciled to God does not lie
   in our pleading, but in the work of the Holy Spirit. I never did expect
   a sinner to be saved because of anything I said or the way in which I
   said it. I have expected God to bless the Word and I have seen it
   blessed ten thousand times, glory be to His name! But I never reckoned
   that there was any force in my word, or that there could be any potency
   in the manner in which I spoke the Truth of God. No, it is God
   beseeching you by us, who performs the work when He speaks through our
   lips, makes His own mind to rush like a torrent through our mind and
   bears our mind away by its force. When He gives the utterance and then,
   by His Spirit, applies it to the conscience and the soul, then are men
   reconciled to God, but by no other means!

   Therefore do we feel a trembling when we speak to you lest our Master
   should leave us to ourselves and so we should fail to bless you. And
   therefore do we never come to beseech you for God without first
   beseeching God for you. We know that you will not be saved except the
   Spirit of God shall bless the Word, therefore do we ask the prayers of
   our Brothers and Sisters as well as send to Heaven our own, that the
   Lord will be pleased to take of the things of Christ and by the Holy
   Spirit apply them to your souls.

   So you see, the ambassadors of God are your Brothers. Though I might in
   some respects magnify our office, for it is no small thing to be an
   ambassador for God, yet after all we are as nothing in the matter. We
   cannot stand between you and God to take any share of praise--"we
   preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord." We direct you to the
   Lord

   and the Lord alone for, "all things are of God, who has reconciled us
   to Himself by Jesus Christ, and has given to us the ministry of
   reconciliation."

   II. The second point of consideration is THE SUBJECT MATTER OF OUR
   MESSAGE--And first the faithful minister's message to the sons of men
   is this, that reconciliation is only to be obtained towards God on the
   ground of Substitution. "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto
   Himself." "For He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that
   we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." You cannot reconcile
   yourself to God by weeping and lamenting on account of your past sins.
   There is no efficacy in regret to blot out transgression. You cannot
   reconcile yourselves to God by any future arduous service. All that you
   can do is already due to God--you will have done no more than you ought
   to have done if you should be perfect all the rest of your days.

   Neither can you be reconciled to God by any ceremony of man's
   invention, or even of God's ordaining--He has not made rites and
   outward forms to be the way of Grace. And if you choose them, God will
   not choose you. There were many in the olden times who went about to
   establish their own righteousness and would not submit themselves to
   the righteousness of Christ. And therefore they failed of all
   reconciliation with God. But this is the plan of reconciliation-- men
   were all lost and condemned, for there was no difference between the
   Jew and the Greek. They all lay under condemnation. Jesus came into the
   world, the eternal Son of God, and He took upon Himself our manhood in
   all its feebleness, that He might be our Brother. He lived here for 30
   years and more in poverty, obscurity, sorrow and persecution, until at
   last He died.

   In His death He bore the whole burden of human sin. God laid upon Him
   the iniquity of His people and on the Cross Jesus suffered what His
   people ought to have suffered. What God's justice must have inflicted
   upon man for sin He inflicted upon Christ. He laid the whole weight of
   His wrath upon Jesus. And now, this day, whoever will come to God by
   the way of the Cross may come. Whoever will hide himself in the wounds
   of Jesus shall be free from the arrows of vengeance. "Whoever believes
   that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." "He that believes in Him is
   not condemned." "Look unto Me and be you saved, all you ends of the
   earth," is the voice from the Cross of Calvary. And a true voice it is.
   And whoever heeds it shall find eternal life!

   Reconciliation by the blood, by the substitutionary Sacrifice of the
   Infinite Son of God--this is the message of our ministry. If we do not
   testify this, it were better for us that we had never been born! If we
   do not preach this constantly and incessantly, we have missed our main
   topic, we have failed in the great commission which our Master sent us
   to execute. We do declare it this day, in the name of the Eternal
   God--O Sinners, there is forgiveness through the blood of Jesus! There
   is mercy, Grace, pardon, Heaven, for as many as believe in Jesus, the
   great Substitute for sin! And there is no other mode of reconciliation
   under Heaven.

   Then we are to tell men that this reconciliation, which was made by
   Christ through His Substitution, was not apart from God, but that God
   was in Christ. We often tell you that Jesus Christ's sufferings removed
   the wrath of God from His people, and that saying is true, though
   sometimes it is stated in inaccurate language. Yet a great Truth is
   intended by it. But mark this, you must never fall into the idea that
   God is revengeful and angry and that the death of Jesus Christ, His
   Son, was necessary to pacify the Father. Beloved, you know better than
   this! You know that God was Love before Jesus died--always Love, always
   full of Grace and Truth towards His people. The act is that the
   Substitution made on Calvary was a Substitution provided by God's Love,
   for the Lord, Himself, gave His own Son to die as a manifestation of
   Love as well as a vindication of Justice.

   God was in Christ. God came on earth to reconcile men. God made the
   Atonement for us. God was not made to love us by the death of His Son,
   but because He loved us and had mercy on us--therefore He gave His Son
   Jesus that the dishonor done to His Law might be wiped out--that the
   difficulty which stood in the way of His mercy might be removed. That
   so He might be just and yet the Justifier of the ungodly. Look at the
   Cross in this light, O Sinner, and I trust it may reconcile you to God!
   It is by that bloody sweat, that crown of thorns, that shame and
   suffering--it is by those five dear wounds, those extreme agonies--that
   God has removed all hindrance to your reconciliation. God Himself has
   given to you His Son and He suffered in His Son that you might be
   reconciled to Himself. It is not Jesus, a stranger, who hangs there to
   gratify the Father's vengeance, God forbid--it is God who, in one of
   His Divine Persons, bears the penalty which the inflexible laws of
   right and justice demanded of sinful men. Oh, that you would come to
   Him and be reconciled to Him by the death of His Son!

   And now the third announcement of our message is this, that in
   consequence of God's having reconciled the world to Himself in Jesus
   Christ, He is able, now, to deal with sinners as if they had never
   sinned, for that is the long and the short of the expression, "Not
   imputing their trespasses unto them." He treats sinners as if their
   sins were not theirs. They have sinned and they do sin, but He does not
   put their sins down to their account. When He looks upon them in mercy,
   and they are reconciled to Him, there are the sins--but He lays them
   upon His Son. "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."

   We are a mass of sin but He does not account us such, for He has made
   Him to be sin for us, although He personally knew no sin. Substitution
   is a plan arranged by Wisdom for the joint display of Justice and Mercy
   and by its means the Lord comes near to us to commune with us and gives
   us countless blessings. Having absolved and pardoned us, He blesses us
   as if we had never sinned. Yes, and there is something more wonderful
   than that! God treats poor sinners who are reconciled to Him as if they
   were full of good works, for what does the text say? "He has made Him
   to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the
   righteousness of God in Him." What a grand expression! He makes us
   righteous through the righteousness of Jesus! No, not only makes us
   righteous, but righteousness! No, that is not all--He makes us the
   righteousness of God!

   That is higher than the righteousness of Adam in the garden! It is more
   divinely perfect than angelic perfection! He makes the guilty sinner,
   when he believes in Jesus, to be the "righteousness of God in Him."
   Never did lips have a sweeter message to deliver than mine! And I
   murmur not if my speech should seem feeble this morning and if I cannot
   garnish my message with the flowers of oratory. God forbid I should try
   to do so! To you who are guilty there was never a more important
   message delivered at any time and, having heard it, I charge it on your
   conscience that you value it and think it over and accept it! God grant
   you may.

   We are, moreover, bid to tell man that the Atonement of Christ is not
   confined to the Jew. That God has not reconciled the Jewish nation to
   Himself, but the, "world." That is to say, Christ has died for all
   nations, classes, sorts and sizes. The Atonement was not made for a
   class, but for all classes. Not for the old exclusively, but for the
   young, too. Not for the young only, but for the old as well. This is
   such an Atonement made by Christ upon the Cross that it presents a
   warrant for every sinner born of woman to come to God and say, "Lord,
   forgive me, for Christ has died." When we preach the Gospel it is in no
   stinted terms, looking about and thinking that perhaps there might be
   half a dozen in the building to whom the Gospel might honestly be
   spoken. But looking every man and woman in the face, we preach
   reconciliation by Jesus Christ to them and point them to the atoning
   blood. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,
   that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting
   life."

   Let no man, woman, or child here say, concerning himself, that there is
   a difficulty with God which Christ has not removed. The difficulty is
   in your own soul and if you are willing to be reconciled, as sure as
   you live and as sure as God's Book is true, there is a reconciliation
   provided for you in Jesus Christ, the Son of God! Oh what gladness it
   is to be allowed to speak thus! And now we are to tell men that there
   is nothing whatever needed in order to their reconciliation and
   acceptance with God except what Christ has already worked out, for God
   was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself! Not reconciling it
   by some other means, but reconciling it by Christ, doing the work in
   Christ. You have not to bring Him your good works, or your tears, or
   your mortifications, or your feelings, or emotions, or anything of the
   sort--you have only to accept what God has provided!

   There is the Propitiation and if you say in your heart, "My God, I take
   it," you are reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Oh, go not
   abroad to heap together your vanities, for they cannot appease Him!
   Bring none of your vain oblations to Him! The incense of your
   self-righteousness will be an abomination to Him! Come as you are,
   defiled and filthy, polluted and wretched, and put your trust in what
   He has done in the Person of His only-begotten Son--and you are
   reconciled unto God! This, then, is the Gospel message with which we
   are sent.

   III. And now, thirdly, and very earnestly, I would speak to you a
   little upon THE MANNER IN WHICH THIS MESSAGE IS TO BE DELIVERED. The
   text tells us very plainly--First, it is to be delivered by beseeching
   men and praying to men. "As though God did beseech you by us we pray
   you." Then if I should merely tell you, dear Hearers, the Gospel,
   though God might bless it, I have not done all my duty. To inform the
   intellect is not the minister's sole work. We are to proclaim, but we
   are to do far more--we are to beseech and to pray! We are not merely to
   convince the

   intellect, but to beseech the heart. Neither are we only to warn and
   threaten, though that has its place, yet it is not to be our main
   work--we are to beseech.

   You know how a beggar bows his knees and implores you, when he is
   starving, that you will give him bread? With like earnestness are we
   bound to beseech you to be saved! You know how you will pray a fellow
   creature to help you when you are in sore distress? In that same way
   are we to pray you to be reconciled to God! As I ponder this I feel
   self-condemned. I have besought you and I have prayed you sometimes,
   but not as I ought to have done. Oh, to be taught how to beseech men,
   how to pray them! God forbid we should fall into the error of those who
   think beseeching and praying to be unlawful--it is the Christly
   principle which leads God's ministers so to do--it is the main part of
   a minister's business and he who neglects it will have to answer for it
   before God's great bar!

   The text goes on to say that we are to beseech men as though God did
   beseech them. Now how does God beseech them? Read one of the Lord's
   beseechings in the 1st chapter of Isaiah--how imploring it is! He says,
   "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: I have nourished and brought
   up children, and they have rebelled against Me." For several verses the
   Lord expostulates, and then pleads--"Come now, and let us reason
   together, says the Lord: though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be
   as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as
   wool." Oh the tenderness of that invitation to reason together! There
   was first a burst of righteous indignation to arouse the mind and then
   came the voice of most tender pity to allure the heart. What matchless
   pleading!

   If this is how ministers are to beseech, we have a high standard set
   before us. We are to plead with men with a boundless freedom of
   invitation and gentleness of expostulation, so I gather from the 55th
   of Isaiah, where you have another of God's pleadings--"Ho, everyone
   that thirsts, come you to the waters, and he that has no money; come
   you, buy, and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and
   without price." Oh, think of God's talking like this to His creatures,
   and arguing with them--"Why do you spend money for that which is not
   bread? And your labor for that which satisfies not? Hearken diligently
   unto Me, and eat you that which is good, and let your soul delight
   itself in fatness." Oh what freeness is there, what concern for their
   welfare, what regret at their mistakes! What gentle upbraiding, as
   though it were not for His sake but for theirs! "Why do you spend money
   for that which is not bread?" Why disappoint yourselves and waste your
   strength? It is after this fashion that we are to beseech men to be
   reconciled to

   God.

   Then take another instance of matchless pleading. Turn to Ezekiel
   33:11--"As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death
   of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live." And
   then He says to them, "Turn you, turn you from your evil ways; for why
   will you die, O house of Israel?" He swears first, to show his deep
   sincerity that He has no joy in a sinner's death, and then turns to
   entreaty--"Turn you, turn you, why will you die?" There is a passage in
   Jeremiah 44:4 where the Lord is represented as sending His Prophets to
   say to the people in His name--"Oh, do not this abominable thing that I
   hate." There is something so appealing, so pathetic about these words
   that I dare not attempt to open them up to you! Their condescension and
   tenderness are unspeakable.

   Perhaps if there is one passage in Scripture in which the entreaties of
   God are set in a more tender light than in any other, it is to be found
   in the book of Hosea, 11:8, where the Lord cries, "How shall I give you
   up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver you, Israel? How shall I make you as
   Admah? How shall I set you as Zeboim? My heart is turned within Me, My
   repentings are kindled together." Oh, how God beseeches men and He
   means His ministers to beseech them in the same way, with weeping
   tenderness and melting pathos, if perhaps the stony heart may be
   softened and the iron sinew be bowed!

   Do I hear some strong doctrine Brother say, "I do not like this"? My
   dear Brother, I am not careful to answer you in this matter. If the
   Lord appoints it, you ought to approve it and if you do not, you are
   wrong, and the Scripture is not. If God beseeches and bids me beseech
   as He does, I will do it. And though I am counted vile for it by you,
   then so must it be. Besides, it is no derogation for God to beseech His
   creatures. You say we make God beg to His creatures. Assuredly that is
   how the Lord represents Himself--"All day long have I stretched out My
   hands to a disobedient and gainsaying generation." It is in the
   Scripture that He represents Himself as crying like a chapman at a
   fair, "Ho, everyone that thirsts, come you to the waters," and bids the
   passersby to buy His wine and milk. It is wonderful condescension--if
   He had not so represented it, we dare not have done so! But as He has
   said it, we do but follow His footsteps and quote His Words.

   Besides, remember these entreaties of God, in which He stoops to our
   littleness, even when they do not prevail with man, do mysteriously
   affect the Divine purpose. They are a savor of death unto death
   wherever they are not a savor of life unto life. But then, blessed be
   God, in thousands of cases they are the means by which His power works
   on men's hearts! They do bring men to be reconciled to Him. But I must
   pass on. Our text, speaking of the manner of ministers, tells us that
   we are to pray souls in Christ's stead. That is to say, we are to
   preach as if Christ were preaching. Oh, what a model for the minister!
   "We pray you in Christ's stead!"

   I am to say to you who are not reconciled to God--"Be reconciled to
   Him," and I am to say it as if Jesus said it. That would not be in a
   light or trifling manner. That would not be in a cold official style.
   That would be with melting eyes and burning heart. How was Jesus Christ
   accustomed to implore men? Why, sometimes He prayed them by setting
   before them the evil of their ways. "For which of these works do you
   stone Me?" He asked. And so I am to enquire, "For which of God's works
   are you His enemy? Are you His enemy because He keeps you in life?
   Because He has raised you from the bed of sickness? Are you His enemy
   because He gives you your bread and your water? Are you His enemy
   because He sends you the Gospel? For which of these works do you hate
   Him?" Oh, wanton malice, to be at enmity with the infinitely good God!

   Sometimes Christ would plead with men on account of the uselessness of
   their rebellion. "What king," He asked, "will go to make war with
   another king without first sitting down to see whether he is able, with
   10,000 to meet him that comes against him with twenty thousand?" Why
   will you be God's enemy when you cannot win the battle? The flax may
   sooner contend with the flame, or the wax with the fire, than you with
   God! Oh, why, then, are you not reconciled to Him? Sometimes Jesus
   pleaded with men on account of the result of their sin, as He did when
   He stood on the brow of the hill and looked down on Jerusalem and said,
   "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill the Prophets, and stone them
   which are sent unto you, how often would I have gathered your children
   together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you
   would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate."

   Remember that wonderful chapter in Matthew where He speaks of His
   coming with all the holy angels and dividing the sheep from the goats?
   Remember the passages where He treats of the virgins who had no oil in
   their vessels with their lamps? Whoever puts the doctrine of Hell into
   the background, Jesus never did. It is thought in these days that we
   had better not say much concerning the terrors of the Law, but so
   thought not the Christ of Galilee! His ministry was full of the honest
   warning which proves a tender heart. Oh, Sinners, you will be lost
   unless you lay hold on Christ! And to be lost is something unutterably
   terrible! Oh the wrath to come! The wrath to come! Who among you will
   endure the devouring fires? Who will dwell in everlasting burning?

   Thus the Savior invited. Thus He besought men. And so are we to beseech
   them. And then you know in what style Jesus pleaded the love of God. I
   do not say He put it into words that I can quote, but remember the
   parable of the Prodigal Son--"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." Was not that an eloquent discourse upon the abounding
   mercy of the great Father in Heaven and did not Jesus then tell how
   willingly God receives the penitent, and how gladly He puts away every
   sin? And, oh, how He implored man to be reconciled in such sweet words
   as these--"Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I
   will give you rest." And what a word was that when He said, "Him that
   comes to Me I will in no wise cast out." Never such a pleader as Jesus!

   His birth among men and dwelling here on earth, was a plea! His actions
   were pleas! His death was the master plea! Each groan seemed to say,
   "Man, be reconciled to God!" And His last expiring cry of, "It is
   finished," what was it but saying, "I have put away everything that
   separates a sinner and his God"? Be reconciled to God was the true
   meaning of that consummatum est with which He closed His agony. Once
   more, it is taught us in the text that the duty of the true minister is
   to bring this matter home and press it. We pray you in Christ's stead,
   be you reconciled to God. It comes to this with you, my Friend--God
   says to you this morning, "Throw down your weapons. Why do you contend
   with your Maker? What have I done that you should despise Me? Poor
   creature that I made, what have I done that you should hate

   Me?

   "I breathed into your nostrils your breath. What have I done that you
   should spend it in speaking against Me? That throbbing heart of yours,
   I give it every pulse. What have I done that you should forget Me, that
   My day should be a weariness and My worship should be an abhorrence to
   you? I have raised you from the bed of sickness, I have given you

   many comforts. I spared your child when she was sick. I have prospered
   your efforts in business. I have done a thousand things for you--do I
   deserve to be forgotten? Is it right that your heart should be warm to
   your wife and your child, and cold to Me?" My God, my soul is in
   sympathy with You that You should be forgotten of your creatures! There
   is not one of us that loves to be treated unkindly by those to whom we
   have been kind. Ingratitude is one of the worst of ills. It bites like
   an adder's fang and as an unkind child wounds to the quick--and will
   you be such to your Maker? Will you be such to your Creator?

   Come, be quiet for a moment and let the Lord speak with you, and let
   your honest conscience answer Him. What has He done that you should be
   His enemy? What has Christ done--look at His wounds!--that you should
   not love Him? What has the Holy Spirit done that you should resist Him?
   What will you gain by it? What will be the benefit in time or in
   eternity? I have been almost every week to the grave lately with some
   one or other of my congregation. Soon I may have to be there with you,
   if I am not carried there myself. Well, and what will be the wisdom,
   when you are dead, of having lived without God? What will be the profit
   of having gained the whole world and having neglected your Maker?
   "Come, O Man, hear you His words, and be reconciled to Him!"

   I said throw down your weapons, but I have, now, another message.
   Accept the Lord Jesus. "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish
   from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little." There is life in
   a look at the Crucified One. Jesus asks no hard thing of you. God your
   Father does not ask you to do impossibilities, or to prepare yourself
   by a long round of performances. His command is most simple and plain.
   Trust in Jesus and you shall be saved. And, being saved, you shall love
   your God and then all war between you and God will be over. God, the
   Eternal One, will bend from Heaven to embrace His once erring child and
   you shall feel the kisses of His love, while in your heart there shall
   be music, dancing, joy and feasting because you have come back to God.

   I do not know how to say more, nor how to plead more strongly. I would
   God that He would beseech you, and that Jesus Christ would pray you,
   and that the Spirit of God would sweetly touch the secret springs of
   your will that you might say--

   "I yield, by Sovereign Grace subdued, Who can resist its charms? And
   throw myself, by lo ve pursued, Into my Sa vior's arms."

   God be thanked for it. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Isaiah 1.
     __________________________________________________________________

The World On Fire

   (No. 1125)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 3, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the
   which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements
   shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are
   therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be
   dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy con
   versation and godliness?" 2 Peter 3:10,11.

   MEN have frequently inferred liberty to sin from the apparent absence
   of God from the world. Because the Lord, in His infinite
   long-suffering, has suffered transgression to go for awhile unpunished,
   therefore they have wickedly said, "How does God know? The Almighty
   does not regard us. He will neither interfere to punish men nor to
   reward them, whether they break or keep His Commandments." When for a
   long time no great changes have occurred in the world, no remarkable
   judgments, no visitations of famine, pestilence, or war, men are very
   apt to grow carnally secure and to take license to sin from the
   merciful respite which ought to halve led them to gratitude, and
   through gratitude to obedience. At certain periods it has seemed to the
   Most High to be imperatively necessary to send great calamities upon
   mankind lest pride, oppression and profanity should cause society
   utterly to rot.

   The fall of dynasties, the overthrow of empires, devastating wars and
   dire famines have been necessities of God's moral government, bits in
   men's mouths, bridles for their arrogance, checks to their
   licentiousness. The Lord is slow to smite the wicked, for His tender
   mercy is great and He delights not in the sufferings of men. And
   therefore He keeps His arrows in His quiver and hangs up His bow. But,
   alas, men take advantage of His love to grow grossly sinful and to
   blaspheme His name! Against this spirit the Apostle is arguing in this
   chapter. The profanely secure had said, "Since the fathers fell asleep
   all things continue as they were; where, then, is the evidence of God's
   existence? The world goes on like a clock, needing no hand to move its
   wheels or guide its action. There is no God," they say, "to interfere,
   and we may live as we like."

   "No," says the Apostle, "but God has interfered." And though he might
   have quoted a thousand lesser instances which I have already hinted at,
   he preferred to forego them for the present, and to put his finger upon
   the great event of the flood, and say, "Here, at least, God did
   interfere." He could no longer bear the transgressions of mankind and
   therefore He pulled up the sluices of the great deep and opened the
   floodgates of Heaven. He bade the angry floods leap forth from their
   lairs and they swallowed up the earth right speedily. Thus it is plain
   that all things have not continued in one course--there have been
   interpositions of Divine Justice. The Apostle then tells the scoffer
   that there will be another interposition before long. But instead of
   water, fire shall be the instrument of destruction.

   God's mill grinds slowly, but it grinds to powder. Justice loiters to
   commune with Mercy, but it speedily makes up for its lingering. Long is
   the blow withheld, but when it falls it cuts to the soul. God's wrath
   is long in kindling, but in the end it shall burn as an oven. We shall
   speak this morning upon the general conflagration foretold in our text.
   "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the
   which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements
   shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are
   therein shall be burned up."

   Then, secondly, we shall discourse upon the practical inferences which
   the Apostle draws from it--"What manner of persons ought you to be in
   all holy conversation and godliness?"

   I. Let us turn our thoughts to THE LAST GENERAL CONFLAGRATION.
   Information as to the future in Scripture is generally very indistinct
   in arrangement and though many attempts have been made to form a
   consistent scheme of prophecy, not one has been even moderately
   successful. There are, in the Word of God, many clear testimonies as to
   distinct events in the future, but these cannot easily be arranged in
   order so as to harmonize with other events.

   Neither will the most accurate observer, as I believe, ever make a
   consistent series of them, so as to map them down. They are perfectly
   consistent and their order is Divine--but we shall need the actual
   fulfillment to make the plan clear.

   So intricate is the architecture of future history that only the
   Architect Himself knows where this stone and that and the other are
   ordained to stand. It is not for us to fling any one of the stones
   away, or censure it as ill-fashioned. We are but children and our
   little plans of house-building, like children with their toy bricks,
   are very simple and elementary, indeed. But God's architecture is of a
   high class and we cannot, therefore, conjecture where this event will
   come in, or where that marvel will find its place. But we may rest
   quite assured that each one will follow in an orderly manner upon the
   other and, instead of puzzling our brains over projects of
   interpretation, we may be quite satisfied to take each of the facts
   separately as we find them, believingly expect them and, above all,
   deduce from them their legitimate practical conclusions.

   The right way of knowing anything is to know how to act in consequence
   of it. And in spiritual things a man knows nothing until he lives what
   he knows. If you and I know the Truths with regard to the future, each
   one as we find them in Scripture, and then act according to the
   inferences fairly to be drawn from them, we shall be wiser men than if
   we became inventors of elaborate schemes. In this Epistle of Peter
   there is one Truth of God very plainly taught, namely, that this
   present world is to be consumed by fire. We learn, also, that this
   conflagration will take place in connection with the Judgment, for,
   "the heavens and the earth which now are, are kept in store, unto fire,
   against the Day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men."

   The former destruction of the world by water was in consequence of sin
   and was a declaration of God's wrath against it. It did not happen as
   an accident, or occur without design. Man sinned, was warned and sinned
   again, until God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.
   The amalgamation of the people of God with the world was the crowning
   offense of all, for, "the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that
   they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose." Thus
   were Church and State set up and the Church and the world were blended
   till the Lord's Spirit was grieved and would no longer strive with man.
   Floods of sin called for floods of destruction. So will it be with the
   last fire. It will not happen as an inevitable result of physical
   causes, but because God intends to purge this material world from all
   traces of sin.

   It has been defiled and whenever He makes it into a new Heaven and a
   new earth, He will cleanse it as by fire. Under the Levitical
   dispensation the cleansing of vessels which had been defiled was
   effected by passing them through the fire, as a type of the intense
   energy needed to remove sin and the Lord's abhorrence of it. Even thus
   shall this earth dissolve with fervent heat and thus the Lord shall
   proclaim to the whole universe that He hates even the garment spotted
   by the flesh. When a house was defiled with leprosy it was destroyed
   and so must this earth be, for the plague of sin has polluted it. We
   gather, also, from our text that this fire will burn up all the works
   existing upon the earth--everything which man has constructed shall
   perish. We have heard architects speak of building for eternity! Aha!
   Aha! They have built but for an hour and their noblest fabrics will
   disappear like children's castles of sand upon the sea beach.

   Down will go the vast cathedrals and the towering palaces in one common
   crash! Whole cities will flame upon earth's funeral pyre, while forests
   and melting mountains blend their smoke. The pride of power, the pomp
   of wealth, the beauty of art, the cunning of skill--all, all, must go!
   The sea of flame will overwhelm and devour everything without
   exception. The massive masonry and rock-like foundations of our vast
   engineering works shall run like wax in the tremendous heat! So fierce
   will be the flames that everything capable of being burned will be
   utterly consumed and the elements, or the solid portions of the earth
   shall be liquefied by the intense heat--rocks, metals, everything shall
   dissolve--and the atmosphere, itself, shall burn with fury when its
   oxygen shall unite with the hydrogen and other gases liberated by the
   intense heat.

   Chemists tell us that the great noise which Peter speaks of would
   certainly accompany such a combustion. The whole world shall become one
   molten mass, again, and this terrestrial firmament shall cease to be.
   "The heavens shall vanish away like smoke and the earth shall wax old
   like a garment." God has impressed Nature with His seal today, but He
   will melt it down, and then, as we hope, pour out the molten matter and
   stamp upon it a yet more lovely image than it has ever borne before. We
   may here, note, that the prophecy that the earth will thus be consumed
   with fervent heat is readily to be believed, not only because God says
   it, but because there are evidently the means at hand for the
   accomplishment of

   the prophecy. Pliny was known to say that it was a miracle that the
   world escaped burning for a single day and I do not wonder at the
   remark, considering the character of the district in which he spent
   much of his time.

   In visiting the country around Naples, the same thought constantly
   occurred to me. Yonder is Vesuvius ready at any moment to vomit fire
   and continually sending up clouds of smoke. Ascend the mountainside,
   clambering over ashes and masses of lava--all beneath you is
   glowing--thrust in your staff and it is charred. Then go across to the
   Solfatara on the other side of Naples. Stand at the vent of that
   ancient volcano and listen to the terrible rumblings which attend the
   rush of steam and sulfur. Then stamp your foot or dash a stone upon the
   ground and hear how the earth resounds--it is evident that you are
   standing over a vast cavern! Look around you and remark how the earth
   steams with sulfuric exhalations. Observe, also, how the earth in some
   places has risen and fallen, again and again.

   Down there at Puteoli in the Temple of Serapis there are pillars which
   have sunk below the tide mark and then have risen above it several
   times, as you can see for yourself by the mark of the sea worms. In a
   single night vast hills have risen in one place like bubbles upon the
   baker's dough, while in other localities there have been equally sudden
   subsiding of the surface. Yet this volcanic region around Naples is but
   one of the many vent holes of the great fires which are in the bowels
   of the earth--300 or more burning mountains have already vomited flame.
   According to the belief of many geologists, the whole center of the
   earth is a mass of molten matter and we live upon a thin crust which
   has cooled down, and is probably not so much as one hundred miles
   thick.

   When the miner descends no further than 45 feet he finds that the heat
   has increased one degree of Fahrenheit, so that it is easy to see how
   small a distance down the solid shell extends. There is no known rock
   which would not be entirely liquefied by the heat produced at 60 miles
   depth. The probabilities are that the whole internal mass is in a
   liquid and, perhaps, in a gaseous state. It is well known that the
   earth is flattened at the poles, just to the amount it would be by
   rotation on its axis had it been a liquid mass, and therefore there is
   every probability that it was once liquid and is cooling down. Everyone
   who is at all acquainted with the condition of the globe knows that it
   only needs the Lord's will and the fiery sea, of which yonder volcanoes
   are but the safety valves, would burst forth and flood the earth with
   flame. Or, if God so willed it, the thin crust which divides the ocean
   of water from the ocean of fire might soon be broken through and the
   result would be disruption and destruction.

   Astronomers tell us that within the last 200 or 300 years some 13 fixed
   stars have disappeared and, according to their belief, they have been
   burned up. They have watched them blaze up in clear flames in quarters
   of the heavens where no star had ever been seen before and then they
   have disappeared forever, being, as it is wisely conjectured, burnt
   out. If such things happen in other worlds, is there anything
   improbable in the belief that the like will occur to us? But if there
   were no internal sea of fire and no instance of other worlds being
   consumed by fire, who can guess the power which lurks in electricity
   and other subtle forces? Faraday said that there was enough latent
   electricity in a single drop of water for an ordinary flash of
   lightning. What reserves of destructive force there must be in and
   around the globe!

   God's dreadful armies lie in ambush everywhere. What if I say God's
   bodyguard is sleeping in His guard chamber? He has but to speak the
   word and the servants of His Omnipotence will rise, terrible in their
   destructive power. He spoke to His ancients of the sea and they marched
   in gigantic might till they had covered the mountain tops and laid the
   race of men dead at their feet! Let Him speak to His ministers of
   flaming fire and they will at once subdue the globe by quenchless
   burnings. Earth is as a pile of wood and the torch-bearers stand ready
   to kindle it at any moment! There has always been a cry of fire among
   men and the cry grows louder every century, for the burning is near.
   But if there were no such arrangements as these, we should still be
   bound to believe what God has said--and it is His solemn declaration
   that the day shall come when the Lord Jesus Christ shall appear as a
   thief in the night. And the heavens, that is the atmosphere, shall pass
   away with a great noise, while the elements, or rudimentary substances
   of the globe, shall melt with fervent heat. The earth, also, and the
   works that are therein, or thereon, shall be burned up.

   We gather from our text that this will happen at a time when it will be
   very little expected. The dread hour will come as a thief in the night.
   It was not expected in Noah's day that the world would be destroyed.
   That was not for any lack of warning, but because men could not
   conceive it possible. They argued against Noah that all things had
   continued as they were from the days of their first father, Adam, and
   that so they would be. They thought Noah a fool for going up and down
   the world proclaiming an absurdity and frightening people with a
   bugbear. Thus speak they now, when God's Word declares that the whole
   world will be destroyed by fire. They reject the testimony and continue
   in sin, in

   worldliness and in rebellion against God! And so will they do up to the
   very moment when the shrill sound of the trumpet shall convince them
   that the Lord has come and that the Day of Judgment and perdition of
   ungodly men has arrived.

   No preaching will, of itself, avail to make ungodly men expect the
   coming of Christ, however clear, bold, consistent and long continued it
   may be. The world is mad upon its idols. Its ears are too dull to hear
   the Truth. Charm we never so wisely, this adder will never listen to
   warning. Men's eyes are blinded. They will not see and so they hurry on
   to their doom. And then, "when they shall say, 'Peace and safety,'
   sudden destruction shall come upon them, as pain upon a woman with
   child, and they shall not escape." It is well for us to remind you,
   again, that the long time which has intervened since Peter foretold the
   destruction of the world by fire is to be understood in the sense of
   Infinite Mercy. We are not to interpret it according to the wicked
   suggestion of unbelief, for the Lord will surely be revealed in flaming
   fire. We are to read it with the eyes of faith and gratitude.

   God waits that men may be saved. He tarries that, in this long time of
   waiting, hundreds everywhere may believe in Jesus and enter into
   eternal life. And while we may consistently desire to hasten the coming
   of the Lord, we may be equally content that Mercy's day should be
   lengthened. While I have prayed, "Come quickly," I have often felt
   inclined to contradict myself and cry, "Yet tarry for awhile, good
   Lord! Let Mercy's day be lengthened! Let the heathen yet receive the
   Savior." We may desire the coming of the Lord, but we ought, also, to
   be in sympathy with the tarrying of the Most High, to which His loving
   heart inclines Him. Although we read of the world being burned with
   fire, we are not told that it will be annihilated. We know that nothing
   has been annihilated yet. No fire has yet been able to destroy a single
   atom of matter. There is upon the face of the earth, at this moment,
   just as much matter as when God created it-- fire changes form, but
   does not obliterate substance.

   This world, so far as we know, will not cease to be. It will pass
   through the purifying flame and then it may be the soft and gentle
   breath of Almighty Love will blow upon it and cool it rapidly--and the
   Divine hand will shape it as it cools into a Paradise more fair than
   that which bloomed upon the banks of Hiddekel. We believe from various
   things which are hinted at in Scripture, though we would not dogmatize,
   that this world will be refitted and renovated. And in that sense we
   expect new heavens and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness. Luther
   used to say that the world is now in its working clothes and that,
   by-and-by, it will be arrayed in its Easter garments of joy. One likes
   to think that the trail of the old serpent will not always remain upon
   the globe and it is a cheering thought that where sin has abounded
   God's Glory should yet more abound.

   I cannot believe in that world being annihilated upon which Jesus was
   born and lived and died. Surely an earth with a Calvary upon it must
   last on! Will not the blood of Jesus immortalize it? It has groaned and
   travailed with mankind, being made subject to vanity for our sake.
   Surely it is to have its joyful redemption and keep its Sabbaths after
   the fire has burned out every trace of sin and sorrow. Whether or not
   it shall be so matters little to the saints, for we shall be with
   Christ where He is, and behold His Glory! And, as to the
   future--"Forever with the Lord" may well satisfy us!

   II. The Apostle has drawn PRACTICAL INFERENCES. "Seeing, then, that all
   these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be
   in all holy conversation and godliness?" What does he mean by this?
   What connection can there be between the burning of the globe and holy
   conversation and godliness? The first connection is this. Our position
   as Christians is, at this moment, like that of Noah before the
   destruction of the world by water. What manner of person ought Noah to
   have been? He said to himself, "This fair and beautiful world in which
   I dwell will soon be covered with the ooze and slime of a tremendous
   deluge."

   He looked upon his fellow men and he thought and said of them, "Except
   these men fly to the ark and are sheltered with me, they will, every
   one of them, be drowned." He saw them marrying and given in marriage,
   feasting and trifling at the very hour when the flood came and he felt
   that if they would believe as he did they would find something other to
   do than to be engrossed in carnal pleasures. When he saw them heaping
   up money he would almost laugh yet weep to think that they should hoard
   up gold to be submerged with themselves in the general flood. When men
   added to their estates acre after acre, I have no doubt the Patriarch
   said to himself, "The flood will sweep away all these landmarks and as
   it carries away the owner so will it destroy all vestige of his barn
   and his farm and his fields."

   I should suppose such a man, daily expecting the rain to descend and
   the flood to burst up from beneath, would lead a life very free from
   worldliness, a life the very reverse of the rest of his fellow men.
   They would reckon him to be very

   eccentric. They would be unable to understand him. And, indeed, his
   conduct would be such that no one could understand it except upon the
   theory that he believed in the destruction of all around him. Now our
   life ought to be like that of Noah. Look around on the beauties of
   Nature and when you enjoy them, say to yourself, "All these are to be
   dissolved and to melt with fervent heat." Look up into the clear blue
   and think that yonder sky, itself, shall shrivel like a scroll and be
   rolled up like a garment that has seen its better days and must be put
   aside.

   Look on your fellow men, your own children and your household, and
   those you pass in the street or meet with in transacting business, and
   say, "Alas, alas, unless these men, women and children fly to Jesus and
   are saved in Him, they will be destroyed with the earth on which they
   dwell, for the day of the Lord is surely coming and judgment awaits the
   ungodly." This should make us act in a spirit the opposite of those who
   now say, "Go, let us buy and sell and get gain. Let us heap together
   treasure. Let us live for this world. Let us eat and drink, and be
   merry." They are of the earth, therefore is their conduct and
   conversation earthy. They build here, on this quicksand, and after
   their own sort they find a pleasure therein--but you whose eyes have
   been opened know better--and you, therefore build upon the Rock.

   You understand that the things which are seen are but a dream, that the
   things unseen are, alone, substantial. Therefore set loose by all
   things below the moon and clutch as with the grasp of a dying man the
   things immortal and eternal which your God has revealed to you! Such
   conduct will separate you from your fellow men, as there is down deep
   in your heart an objective different from theirs. And as you set a
   different estimate on all things, your conduct will be wide apart from
   theirs. Being swayed by different motives, your life will diverge from
   theirs and they will misunderstand you. And while trying to find
   motives for you, as they do not know the true motive, they will ascribe
   ill motives to you.

   But so it must be. You must come out from among them, be separate and
   touch not the unclean thing. And the fact that all these things are to
   be dissolved should make it easy for you to do so, no, natural for you
   to do so, as it must have made it both easy and natural to the
   Patriarch Noah. I will, however, not dwell longer upon that thought,
   but remark further that the nearness of the Lord as suggested by the
   fact that the world is to be destroyed, according to His Word, suggests
   holiness. The sinner finds a reason for sin when he says, "God is not
   here. Everything goes on in the ordinary way. God does not care what
   men do." "No," says the Apostle, "He is not away, He is here, holding
   back the fire. He is reserving this world a little while, but by-and-by
   He will let the fires loose and the world will be destroyed. He is not
   far off. He is even at the door."

   If I give the Greek rendering, it should be, "All these things are
   dissolving." They are even giving to dissolve. They are in the process
   of dissolution. God is close upon us, can you not hear His footsteps?
   Christ is returning. He is on His journey now. Faith hears the tramp of
   His steeds as they hurry on the chariot of His vengeance. "Behold, I
   come quickly," is the word which rings over the mountains of division.
   The King is coming! He is coming to His Throne and to His judgment. Now
   a man does not go up to a king's door and there talk treason! And men
   do not sit in a king's audience chamber, when they expect Him to enter
   any moment, and there speak ill of him! The King is on His way and
   almost here. You are at His door. He is at yours. What manner of people
   ought you to be? How can you sin against One who is so close at hand?
   How can you rebel against One whose eyes of fire behold and whose hand
   of vengeance is uplifted to smite the sinner?

   The words of the text are very forcible. The Apostle says, "What manner
   of persons ought you to be? "Remember he was talking to saints and be
   teaches us that even saints ought to be more saintly than they are. He
   is not saying to the ungodly, "What manner of persons ought you to be"!
   He might have so spoken, but with how much greater force does he
   address those who profess to be loved with the everlasting love of God,
   to have been bought with the precious blood of Jesus, to be affianced
   unto Christ in eternal wedlock, to be members of His body, parts of
   Himself? "What manner of persons ought you to be?" He implies that they
   are not what they should be and I am afraid there is no man of God but
   what will grant the truth of the implication in his own case. We have
   not attained to what we ought to be and I may say to the best child of
   God here this morning, "Dear Brother and Sister, there is a lot
   beyond."

   Yes, Brethren, and the text is so broad in its expression that it
   plainly teaches the limitless nature of Christian holiness. "What
   manner of persons ought you to be?" As if he could not tell what sort
   of persons they ought to be. As if holiness had in it no Ultima Thule,
   no pillars of Hercules beyond which the adventurous mariner might not
   go. There is a lot beyond for us all, if we are to be holy as God is,
   His is infinite holiness and where can a limit be imagined? He does not
   say, "You ought to be kind, just, loving, prayerful, truthful," and the
   like. But as if he held up his hands in wonder

   and could not express the obligations of the Christian, he cries,
   "Because these things are all passing away, what manner of persons
   ought you to be?"

   And then he goes on to specify two branches of holy life. "In all holy
   conversation," that is to say, all holy behavior towards men. "And
   godliness," that is, all pious dealing towards God. True religion, by
   no means, depreciates the duties of the second table of the Law. Some
   professors think very little of the common virtues of daily life, but
   they err greatly, and will find themselves in an evil plight at last.
   My Brother, if the grace you possess does not make you honest, God have
   mercy on you and take such grace away from you. If you have a kind of
   grace which does not keep you chaste and make your behavior decent. If
   you have a sort of grace which lets you cheat and lie. Which allows you
   to take undue advantage in trade--away with such grace! It is the grace
   of the devil and not the Divine Grace of God, and may you be saved from
   it! If our religion does not make us moral, it is a millstone about our
   necks to destroy us! If you have not reached morality, how can you dare
   to talk about holiness, which is a far higher and loftier thing? The
   best morality in the world will not prove a man to be a Christian! But
   if a man has not morality, it proves that he is not a child of God.

   And then as to God--the duties of the first table are not to be
   neglected. We are to fulfill all manner of godliness. God is to be
   worshipped by us devoutly and we are to take pains to worship Him in
   His own way. How many people have a kind of--what shall I call it?--a
   happy-go-lucky religion? Whatever their mother or their father was,
   that are they. A great many of you go to certain places of worship, not
   because you have ever enquired whether the denomination you belong to
   is right or not, but because you have drifted that way and there you
   stick! How few take the Bible and search for themselves. Yet no man has
   obeyed God aright who has not done so. If I could not honestly say, "I
   am a member of this denomination because I have weighed the Truths of
   God which are held by my Brethren and I believe them to be according to
   God's Book," I could not feel that I had done right towards the Most
   High.

   The idea that there are good people in all denominations is well
   enough, but a great many have perverted it into an excuse for never
   caring what God's Truths or ordinances are. Rest assured that he who
   neglects one of the least of Christ's ordinances and teaches men so,
   the same shall be least in the kingdom of Heaven. Every Truth of God is
   important. Trifling with conscience is the sin of the present age. Men
   have even come to occupy pulpits in churches when they do not believe
   the fundamental doctrines of the Church. We have heard them even claim
   a right to retain their pulpits after they have denied the doctrines of
   the denomination to which they belong. From any power to believe in
   such a conscience may God deliver every one of us! Be right even in
   little things! Be precise--you serve a precise God. Charity towards
   others is one thing, laxity for yourselves is quite another thing.

   Believe that your brother is conscientious though he may be in error,
   but as for yourself use your conscience and practice your judgment in
   the careful study of the Truth of God, and then whatever your
   conclusions, carry them out at all hazards. Though you should lose
   everything thereby--you will lose nothing in the long run! If you count
   the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt,
   you have made a wise choice and will rejoice in having made it! Oh,
   when I think that all I see about me is to be consumed, there remains
   nothing worth living for but to glorify God! If we were to live here
   forever and this world were all, we might, perhaps, think it some gain
   to sin. But if we are soon to pass away and all around us is to
   dissolve in smoke, there is nothing to do, if we are wise, but to do
   our duty in the station in which God has placed us, both towards God
   and man, resting in the precious blood of Christ for our pardon, and in
   His righteousness for our acceptance.

   For these things will endure when we are dead, according as it is
   written, "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, yes, thus says the
   Spirit, for they rest from their labors and their works do follow
   them." The evanescence of all things around us suggests our looking
   away to eternal things. I saw yesterday with much solemnity of mind the
   spot where the Bishop of Winchester met with sudden death. A cross is
   cut in the turf to mark the place. The spot is in the midst of the most
   lovely scenery conceivable. I have often walked hard by, full of
   delight at the fair prospect. It is a spot too fair to be darkened by
   so dark a cloud. Death seems hardly congruous with the beauty which
   everywhere charms the eye. I could only imagine if anyone knew that he
   should die just at that moment, what would be his conversation? Riding
   over the downs what would be the conversation of a man of God who
   expected to die in the valley below?

   Such ought to be our constant conversation. We should live always as if
   we might die in a moment. Mr. Wesley once said, "Now, if I knew I
   should die tomorrow morning, I would do exactly what I have planned to
   do. I should take the class meeting at such an hour, preach at such an
   hour, and be up at such a time in the morning to pray." That good man's
   life was spent in prospect of sudden departure and it was therefore
   active and holy. Is ours the same? The motive for holiness becomes
   stronger,

   still, if the thought is not merely that I shall die, but that all
   these things around me shall be dissolved. That breezy down, that
   towering hill, yonder lofty trees and this overhanging cliff, these
   rich meadows, the ripening harvest, all, all will, in a moment, be on a
   blaze!

   Am I ready to be caught away to be with my Lord in the air? Or shall I
   he left to perish amidst the conflagration? How ought I to live! How
   ought I to stand, as it were, on tiptoe, ready when He shall call me,
   to be away up into the Glory, far off from this perishing world! It
   makes us look upon all these things in a different light and upon
   eternal things with a more fixed eye--and a more stern resolve to live
   unto God. Observe, if sin, even on the inanimate world, needs such a
   purging by fire as this--if the fact that sin committed here makes it
   necessary that God should burn it all up--what a horrid thing sin must
   be! O to be purged from it! Refining fire, go through my heart! Spirit
   of the living God, sweep with all Your mighty burnings through and
   through my body, soul and spirit till You have purged me of every
   tendency to sin.

   This ought to be the prayer of the Christian. If all these things will
   have to be purged, what manner of persons ought we to be in daily
   purging ourselves by a holy jealousy and a sacred revenge from every
   unclean wish, every false word and everything that would be
   inconsistent with that life of God which is in our nature? And if,
   again, God is so angry with sin that when He comes to judge it He will
   come with flaming fire and if the terrors of God against the wicked
   will be utterly overwhelming, what gratitude ought you and I feel for
   pardoned sin? What joy for safety in the Lord Jesus Christ?

   And then, again, as the result of that, what a detestation of the sin
   which made it necessary that Christ should die to save us from the
   wrath to come! Oh, Believer, you will never have to say--"Rocks hide
   me, mountains fall on me." Believer in Jesus, you will never have to
   escape from those tongues of flame which will lick up the sea! You will
   not be alarmed at the melting mountains--you will be safe--not a hair
   of your head shall be singed! Oh, what do you owe to Sovereign Grace
   for such an escape as this? Bless the Lord Jesus! Fall down at His dear
   feet and adore Him! And then, rising up, say, "What can I do to glorify
   You? O Lord, keep me clear of the sin which would have destroyed me and
   help me to live such a life as becomes one who has been saved from the
   wrath to come." Is there not much force in the Apostle's inference? I
   only trust we may all feel it.

   Once more, he meant us to feel that the suddenness of all this ought to
   keep us on our watchtower. This conflagration will come with no signs
   to herald it which the ungodly will observe. You who are on the watch
   will observe them. You will see the tokens of His coming. You will
   rejoice to go forth to meet Him. But to the ungodly His coming will be
   as much unawares as was His first Advent which happened in the night,
   when all the world was wrapped in sleep. Men will still be buying and
   selling, and getting gain, and thinking of nothing so little as of the
   last Advent. And then the Lord will appear. Christian, let not that day
   come upon you as a thief! Stand ever watching. Live as if you said to
   yourself, "Today everything I have may be burned up. Today all my lands
   may run like lava. All my gold may melt like molten lead. Today I,
   myself, may have done with this world and the world may be consumed."
   Live such a life as that.

   "Why," says one, "then we should be pilgrims and strangers." That is
   just how you should be! "Then," says another, "we should not be minding
   much about the stock in the bank and laying in for the future." Just
   so. That is how the Master would have you live--He would have you duly
   prudent and provident, but not covetous or anxious. If you feel that
   all these things are to be dissolved, you will then do all things as in
   the Presence of God. You will wish to use everything you have as not
   abusing it and as reckoning that it will perish in the using. God grant
   you, Brothers and Sisters, so to live.

   I would to God that all here present were prepared for the future. You
   remember John Bunyan makes Christian sit in the City of Destruction at
   ease until he hears from one called Evangelist, that the city was to be
   burned up. And then he cries, "Alas, alas, woe is me, and I shall be
   destroyed in it." That thought set him running and nothing could stop
   him. His wife bade him come back, but he said, "The city is to be
   destroyed, and I must be away." His children clung about his garments
   to hold him, but he said, "No, I must run to the City of Safety, for
   this city is to be burned up." Man, it will all go! If all you love is
   here below, it will all go! Your gold and silver will all go!

   Will you not have Christ? Will you not have a Savior? For if you will
   not, there remains for you only a fearful looking for judgment and of
   fiery indignation! Tempt not the anger of God! Yield to His mercy now!
   Believe in His dear Son. I pray that you may this day be saved and God
   be glorified in your salvation. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--2 Peter 3.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Song Concerning Loving Kindnesses

   (No. 1126)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 10, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I will mention the loving kindnesses of the Lord, and the praises of
   the Lord, according to all that the Lord has bestowed on us, and the
   great goodness toward the house of Israel, which He has bestowed on
   them according to His mercies, and according to the multitude of His
   loving kindnesses." Isaiah 63:7.

   THE chapter opens with a declaration of our glorious Lord, as to His
   ultimate overthrow of His foes. He declares that He will tread down all
   the enemies of His people, as grapes are trod in the winepress. The
   chapter, as you know, begins with that remarkable exclamation, "Who is
   this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?" The
   Prophet, having beheld the glorious vision, and heard the proclamation
   of the victorious Hero, felt his soul stirred within him. It is usual
   for saints' hearts to burn within them when Christ is near. The glowing
   flames of his heart unloosed the bonds of his tongue--he could not but
   speak--and the theme which suggested itself to him was the loving
   kindness of the Lord.

   He was ravished with what he saw coming in the future, with the future
   triumphs of Emmanuel and the overthrow of Israel's foes, but he felt
   that he must not forget the glorious victories of the bygone ages and
   the triumphs of the days that were. And so with determination he
   declares, "I will mention the loving kindnesses of the Lord." There
   were some in the Prophets' days whose business it was to make mention
   of the Lord. Do you not remember how He says, "You that make mention of
   the Lord keep not silence?" Those were persons who publicly spoke of
   Him--"they that feared the Lord spoke often one to another." They were,
   also, persons who spoke to Him, who kept the Lord in remembrance and
   made mention of His mercies to them, as it is written--"You that make
   mention of the Lord keep not silence, and give Him no rest till He
   establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth."

   It was in both senses that Isaiah resolved to mention the loving
   kindnesses of Jehovah--to the people that they might love God--and to
   God that He might not forget His people, but might continue to smile
   upon them in the days to come, as He had done in days of yore. This
   morning we have the same task as that which was set before the Prophet.
   May the same Spirit rest upon us as rested upon him. And, first, we
   shall have to give you a delightful catalog of the mercies to be
   mentioned. Then, as time serves us, we shall call your attention to the
   special points in these mercies which are to be mentioned. And we will
   close by noticing the practical good results of mentioning the loving
   kindnesses of Jehovah.

   I. First, then, we have to give you a list of THE MERCIES TO BE
   MENTIONED. A complete summary we cannot give, for who can count the
   sands of the sea or the stars of the sky? Let him, when he has
   accomplished that task, attempt to count the mercies of the Lord! I
   have no need, my Brothers and Sisters, to make a catalog of my own, for
   I have one before me made to hand and written by an Inspired pen in the
   verses which follow the text. The list commences with special electing
   love. In the Hebrew the eighth verse runs thus, "For He said, they only
   are My people." He had chosen them, alone, of all the nations of the
   earth to be His portion and the lot of His inheritance. As He said in
   another place, "You only have I known of all the families of the
   earth."

   He had chosen Israel to be a people near unto Him. Though they were a
   small nation and insignificant among the kingdoms, yet He set them
   apart for Himself. He chose their father, Abraham, and called him from
   an idolatrous family, even from Ur of the Chaldees, that he might
   dwell, alone, in the land of promise. Having chosen the Patriarch, He
   bound Himself by Covenant to favor his seed after him, not because of
   any goodness in then, but of His own sovereign will and good pleasure.
   This, therefore, the Jewish Prophet dwells upon as a first instance of
   love--and when we are mentioning

   the loving kindnesses of the Lord it is well to begin at the beginning,
   or rather to magnify that favor which had no beginning.

   Praise the stream but forget not the wellhead. He loved His people from
   everlasting--

   "Long before the sun's refulgent rays Primeval shades of slackness
   drove, They on His sacred bosom lay Loved with an everlasting love."
   How ravishing is the thought of eternal love! Try to drink it in--if
   you are a Believer in Christ you were loved before time began its
   cycles--in that old eternity, before the earth was born, you were
   Beloved of the Lord! You were dear to Jehovah's heart when this great
   world, the sun, the moon, the stars slept in the mind of God like
   unborn forests in an acorn cup! He loved you with an everlasting and
   infinite love. Rejoice in this and let your souls be glad. Never forget
   that Election is the source of every favor, for the God and Father of
   our Lord Jesus Christ has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in
   heavenly places in Christ, according as He has chosen us in Him before
   the foundation of the world.

   Pass on to the next sweet token of Divine loving kindness which is
   found in the fatherly confidence which the Lord has manifested towards
   His people. Read the verse again. "He said, surely they are My people,
   children that will not lie: so He was their Savior." This has sometimes
   been thought to represent, after the manner of men, a mistaken
   confidence which God placed in His people, but I think it is not so. It
   is not intended to set forth what the Lord secretly thought and knew
   concerning us, but it is the apparent language of His dealings towards
   them. It represents the trustful manner in which the Lord actually
   treats His people. There can hardly be much love where there is no
   confidence and confidence is often a great token of affection. When,
   for instance, the wife reposes her entire reliance upon her husband, it
   is because she loves him with all her heart. She proves her love by her
   restfulness in him.

   When a father loves his child he may see many imperfections and much of
   fickleness, but he does not look on his child with suspicion and
   mistrust, but in many ways treats him with confidence. Now the Lord
   trusted His ancient people Israel. Did He not commit to them the Law
   and the Revelation of His will? Whose were the oracles? To no other
   nation did He give the Truth concerning Himself to lay up as a precious
   deposit. All the prophecies concerning Christ and the types which spoke
   of Him, were placed in their custody, and He said, "They are children
   that will not lie." Yes, and how sweetly God has trusted us, also, for
   He has put us in trust with the Gospel! He has trusted us with
   influence over other men's souls. He has trusted some of us with little
   ones whose mortality will feel our influence. He has trusted us with
   His name and honor, for according as we live in holiness will He be
   honored among the sons of men.

   He has placed wondrous confidence in us. Often does it humble me in the
   dust when I think that "unto me, who am less than the least of all
   saints, is this Grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles
   the unsearchable riches of Christ." It is a wonderful instance of
   affection that God should pitch upon a poor fallible being and say to
   him, "I have made you a chosen vessel to bear My name unto the
   Gentiles." All Believers are, in their measure, trusted in this way.
   Such honor have all the saints. You have all some charge to keep, some
   talent is entrusted to your stewardship, some jewel is placed in your
   custody and the Lord says of you in loving trustfulness, "Surely they
   will not lie." Alas, how unworthy have we been of the trust reposed in
   us! He knew what we should be, yet He has acted towards us as
   trustfully as if we had been truth itself.

   Some of us feel the tears in our eyes as we remember how the Lord has
   honored us with great responsibilities and how far we have fallen
   short! The Holy Spirit has put us into positions which, in our youth,
   we could not have dreamed of occupying. And He has said to us, "Be My
   servant and be faithful," and so has given us a sweet proof of His
   loving kindness and tender mercies. Think that over, Beloved. I know
   that there are here present many Christian people who are trusted with
   the teaching and training of young minds. Look upon it as a special
   favor that you are used of the Lord to shape the immortality of
   precious souls! If you are, indeed, His people, you will see much love
   in this and this will make you the more anxious to be found faithful.

   But the Prophet goes on to notice another sweet instance of love,
   namely, His great sympathy with us. There has been much dispute about
   the interpretation of the first clause of the ninth verse, but I hope
   our authorized version is the right one and I feel sure it must be. It
   is such a Divine sentence, it must be Inspired. "In all their
   affliction He was afflicted." Was there ever anything more worthy of
   being mentioned as a part of the loving kindness of Jehovah than this,
   that He deeply sympathizes with all His tried and afflicted people? He
   does not merely sympathize as one man with

   another, but as if His people were one with Him, as indeed, is the
   case, so that He suffers when they suffer. In "all their affliction,"
   not in some of their trials, but in all they have to bear, whether
   little or great, "He was afflicted."

   There is never a cross upon a believing shoulder but what the Lord
   Jesus carries one end of it. There is never a cup put upon a saint's
   table but what the Lord Jesus sips at it and sweetens it by His Divine
   fellowship. "I am with you, Israel, passing through the fire; if
   nowhere else, I am with you; I will be with you in the furnace, and
   when the coals glow seven times hotter, there will I, the Son of God,
   tread the coals with you, and give you strength through My Presence."
   Was ever love like this? Beloved, you are poor worms of the dust and
   you never could have dreamed of having fellowship with God, and yet He
   deigns to be afflicted in your affliction! Are you not glad? Will you
   not bless His name? Or are your hearts turned to stone? No, we will
   make mention of the loving kindnesses of the Lord and the praises of
   the Lord because He knows our sorrows and pities us in our griefs.

   The next mercy mentioned is His intimate union with us, for the text
   adds, "The Angel of His Presence saved them." The children of Israel in
   the wilderness were led and guided by the Messiah Himself! Invisible to
   them, He was none the less present. The Schekinah which blazed between
   the cherubim was the type of the Presence of redeeming love in the
   midst of the people. The messenger of God's Presence saved them--who
   could that have been but He of whom it is written, He "is the
   brightness of the Father's Glory, and the express image of His Person,
   in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily"? Who but He is
   the "Messenger of the Covenant whom we delight in," anointed of the
   Lord to come forth as the Savior of men?

   Now, Beloved, think of this, that Jesus the Son of God abides with us
   spiritually even unto this day! He has been here in body--"the Word was
   made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His Glory, the Glory as
   of the Only-Begotten of the Father." He is here in spirit, still. Yes,
   we are in Him, for we are "members of His body, of His flesh, and of
   His bones." Our fellowship with this "Angel of His Presence" is very
   near and very dear. He does not make Himself strange unto His own
   flesh--He manifests Himself to us as He does not unto the world. Have
   you ever seen Him? Have you ever felt His shadow falling upon you when
   alone? Did you ever look up into His face and see Him regarding you
   with deepest tenderness? Have you ever walked with Him in the cool of
   the day? Have you ever taken His arm in the rough places of your
   pilgrimage, that you might come up from the wilderness leaning upon
   your Beloved? Oh, I know you have and of all the delightful tokens of
   love which you have received, the Presence of the Covenant Angel of God
   has been the most consoling! But we can only say a little upon each, we
   cannot dwell long upon any one.

   Next the Prophet records the gracious interpositions of God on the
   behalf of His people--"In His love and in His pity He redeemed them."
   Brothers and Sisters, we have been saved! Those of us who believe in
   Jesus do not only expect to be saved at the last, but we rejoice that
   we are saved already! Already we have come up out of Egypt and our sins
   are drowned in the Red Sea--we shall see them no more, forever. Christ
   has forever put away our sins, so that if they are sought, they shall
   not be found, no, they shall not be, says the Lord. What a wonderful
   deliverance ours has been! Forget not, Beloved, the destroying angel
   and how he passed us by! Forget not the Paschal Lamb and the sprinkling
   of the precious blood! Forget not the deep sea through which you passed
   when you were baptized unto the Lord in the blood of His great atoning
   Sacrifice--yourself saved while all your sins were drowned, like
   Pharaoh, in the flood.

   Forget not all these wonders, I pray you. Many other deliverances have
   you experienced since then. Which of us could not tell of choice and
   crowning mercies? Some of us have newly come up from the sick bed,
   where we thought we should see men no more in the land of the living,
   and yet we are still living to praise God. Perhaps you have come up
   from the deeps of poverty where you thought surely you should famish,
   but you have known no lack. The Lord has set your feet in a large room
   and given you bread enough and to spare. Or, it may be you have come up
   from soul conflict, wherein you were thrown down by the enemy, so that
   he put his foot upon you, but you had Grace to say, "Rejoice not over
   me, O my adversary; though I fall, yet shall I rise again," and you
   have risen again, and this morning you are remembering the loving
   kindnesses of the Lord!

   Sing you, then, of the hill Mizar and the Hermons. Anoint anew those
   ancient Ebenezers, when you said, "Up to now has the Lord helped me"--I
   will mention the loving kindnesses of the Lord. Have you not many to
   mention? Cannot you, also--

   "Arise and tell The wonders of Immanuel.

   He plucked your feet from the miry clay, And set you upon the King's
   highway." I know you can thus speak! Take care that you do and often
   make mention of the great goodness of the Lord to His people. This is
   not all, however. Let us go back to our catalog. The Prophet tells you
   God provided for, led, protected and upheld His people by a wondrous
   special Providence while they were in the wilderness. "He bore them and
   carried them all the days of old." Like a nurse who carries her little
   child--it cannot walk, it can only take a few tottering footsteps--and
   she carries it. Or like an eagle, which is said to take its young upon
   its back and fly aloft, bearing the eaglets towards the sun--even so
   did God carry His people in the wilderness--and in like fashion He has
   carried us.

   Unto this day what have you lacked, O Believers? You fretful people of
   God, what cause have you had for murmuring? Has He not given His angels
   charge concerning you, to bear you up in their hands lest you dash your
   foot against a stone? Has he not been your refuge up to now? Has He not
   covered you with His feathers and made His wings to be your shelter?
   Have you not received daily bread and water? Has not your raiment been
   given you? Have you not been housed? To this hour where has the Lord
   failed you? Has He been a wilderness unto you? Has He broken one of His
   promises? I challenge you to prove a single instance in which He has
   been untrue! My own witness is that, "Surely goodness and mercy have
   followed me all the days of my life."

   This is the verdict of all the saints. They can tell of the great
   goodness of the Lord and record His loving kindnesses. Let us join with
   them. If these blessings were to cease for a moment, where would we be?
   What if the Lord were no longer to be the God of Providence? What if He
   would no longer hold us up? What if He shuts up the granaries of His
   Grace? What if His tender mercies should be removed and the heart of
   His compassion should be changed into wrath--where would we be? But as
   it is not so and never shall be so, let us make mention of the loving
   kindnesses of the Lord and the praises of the Lord!

   Nor is this all. The Prophet goes on further to mention the Lord's
   chastening, for I do verily believe he puts it down as a thing for
   which to bless him. It is to be sorrowed over, that we need chastening,
   but God is to be praised that He does not withhold it from us. "But
   they rebelled, and vexed His Holy Spirit: therefore He was turned to be
   their enemy, and He fought against them." Yes, but He loved them, even
   then, blessed be His name! The mother gives her child a pat, but she
   loves it, still. It often grieves her more that her child should be
   chastened than it can ever grieve the child. And this is one way in
   which, in all our afflictions, the Lord is afflicted, because He "does
   not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men." He does not take
   delight in the sorrows of His people, but His heart relents towards
   them when He sees their tears and hears their cries.

   I bless God this day with all my heart that I have not been left
   unchastened--and every child of God, in looking back upon his life will
   say the same. "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I
   kept Your Word." O, my Brothers and Sisters, how much we owe to the
   hammer and the anvil and the file and the fire! Thanks be to God for
   the little crosses of every day, yes, and for the heavy crosses which
   He sends us at certain seasons. He does not gather the twigs of His rod
   on the mountains of wrath, but He plucks them in the garden of love.
   And though He sometimes makes blue marks upon us as He smites us
   heavily, yet--

   "His strokes are fewer than our crimes And lighter than our guilt."

   Love bathes all the wounds which it makes and kisses away the smart.
   Blessed be a chastening God! Set down your chastening among your
   choicest mercies and mention the loving kindnesses of the Lord.

   Notice that the next thing the Prophet sings about is God's
   faithfulness, for though He did smite His people, yet in a very short
   time we find that, "He remembered the days of old, Moses, and his
   people, saying, "Where is He that brought them up out of the sea with
   the shepherd of His flock? Where is He that put His Holy Spirit within
   them? That led them by the right hand of Moses with His glorious arm,
   dividing the water before them, to make Himself an everlasting name?
   That led them through the deep as an horse in the wilderness, that they
   should not stumble?" He recollected what He had done and He resolved to
   do the like again. He was smiting them, but it came to His thoughts, "I
   have loved them of old, I have aforetime blessed them, I have kept
   them, I have delivered them for My name's sake, and therefore will I do
   it again." If God reasons thus with Himself, well may we say--

   "And can He ha ve taught me To trust in His name,

   And thus far have brought me To put me to shroud?" If He had meant to
   destroy me, would He have done so much for me?

   "His love in time past Forbids me to think, He'll leave me at last In
   trouble to sink: Each sweetEbenezer Ihave in review, Confirms His good
   pleasure To help me quite through."

   We will close this catalog with one more choice mercy, for the Prophet
   tells of God's giving His people rest, after all. He describes Him
   first as leading them through the deeps like a horse in the wilderness,
   where the horse would not stumble. A horse on our stony streets or on
   rugged roads may stumble, but a horse out on the smooth expanse of
   desert sand is quite another creature and he flies like the wind in
   ecstasy of freedom, fearing no fall. Thus the Lord has made His people
   to enjoy liberty and standing safe in an even place. The Prophet next
   uses another figure. He says, "As a beast goes down into the valley,
   the Spirit of the Lord caused him to rest." This is an exceedingly
   delightful metaphor. As the cattle descend into the vales to feed under
   the shady trees by the flowing brooks, so God makes His people to rest.

   Have you ever seen the cattle and horses make their way to the stream
   in the heat of the day and stand there knee deep in the water? They
   merrily swing their tails to chase away the flies, looking as they lick
   their foals or calves, or drink long draughts of the pure liquid, so
   perfectly content with all around them that we may well conclude that
   they there find all the Heaven which cattle can desire! Even so, we
   that have believed, when we trust our God, when we rest in Jesus, leave
   the sun's heat and find the cool brooks of the Spirit's gracious
   influences where we bathe ourselves, and rest in sweet content, for we
   that have believed do enter into rest!

   Jesus is our peace and He has given to us the peace of God which passes
   all understanding, which does keep our heart and mind through Jesus
   Christ. What a catalog have I laid before you! If you begin to sing
   according to this musical score, when will you get to the end of it?
   Oh, prepare your voices, get your harps! Let every string be well
   tuned! Here is noble music for you--music which will last you till you
   get to Heaven--and then I think you may go over it again, for what
   sweeter, nobler work shall you require than to make mention of the
   loving kindnesses of the Lord!

   II. But now we must turn to the second head. Isaiah calls our
   particular attention to CERTAIN POINTS WORTHY OF SPECIAL MENTION. And,
   first, in the text he directs our thoughts to the fact that whatever
   has been bestowed upon us by God reveals His loving kindness, His
   goodness, His mercy, His compassion. In fact, all that we have received
   has come to us by the way of free Grace. Do we need to be told this? I
   fear we do, but if our sense of our own unworthiness is clear--if we
   know what worse than nothings we are, what a mass of sin and corruption
   we are by nature--we shall never think that we receive anything from
   God by the way of merit.

   Still our proud hearts need to be told over and over again that all the
   blessings we enjoy come to us by the free and Sovereign Grace of God.
   Therefore the Prophet heaps up words. Notice them--"The loving
   kindnesses of the Lord." "The great goodness of the Lord." The
   "mercies" of the Lord. O Believer, nothing of all this goodness is
   deserved by you! The bread on your table is flavored with Grace. Your
   meat has Mercy for its sauce. Every drop of water which cools your
   tongue tastes of Mercy. Charity clothes you. Infinite Love feeds you.
   And as for your spiritual blessings, where are your streams found, from
   where do they gush but from the inexhaustible Fountain of Eternal Love?

   Let others boast, if they dare, of what they have done for themselves.
   Let others talk of the dignity of human nature. Let them glory in the
   worthiness of their own actions. God forbid that we should glory save
   in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the love which shone from
   that Cross to such poor, unworthy ones as we are. Those are charming
   bells, indeed, free Grace and dying Love! Through the ivory gate of
   Grace all mercies come to sinners. Through this window of agate, this
   gate of carbuncle, every good gift is handed out to men. That is the
   first noticeable thing.

   The next is the consequent praise which is due to God on account of
   this. Does Isaiah not say, "I will mention the loving kindnesses of the
   Lord and the praises of the Lord"? O praise the Lord, praise Him for
   every mercy you possess! We ought to keep count of God's goodness, keep
   account, I say, by rendering new notes of praise for each new favor. If

   we did this we should never leave off singing. We should never have
   time for complaining if we gave to God due praise for every mercy
   received. Oh for a praising heart! For a praising heart is a happy
   heart! The occupation of Heaven should be the occupation of heavenly
   men, even while they are here. God help us to keep to this!--

   "I will praise You every day

   Now Your anger's turned away.

   I will magnify Your name

   As long as Ilive,

   For as long as I live

   Your mercies magnify me."

   The third thing to be noticed is the uniform nature of all God's
   dealings with us. Observe, "according to all that the Lord has bestowed
   on us." We are to praise God in all and for all. "In everything give
   thanks" is a Christian precept. I do not like, when I am looking back
   on my past life, to consider exclusively two or three remarkable
   mercies, and say, "I will bless the Lord for these." No, I will bless
   Him for my whole career. Did He take away my comforts? Did He send me
   that which I judged to be evil? Shall we pick and choose the subjects
   for our praise? Shall we bless the Lord who gives and not the Lord who
   takes? "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away," said Job, "and
   blessed be the name of the Lord." Mention His Providences altogether,
   for all things work for good. No man knows which is the best part of
   his life. Perhaps that portion which we think to be the worst has been
   of the most service to us. God knows what is best for us. Let us praise
   Him according to all that the Lord has bestowed upon us, blessing Him
   for bitters and sweets, for blacks and whites, for storms and calms,
   blessing Him alike for all. That should be a special note in our song.

   The next notable point is the grandeur of the goodness which is shown
   in every mercy. Observe the words, "The great goodness toward the house
   of Israel," as if we had received no little goodness, but all was great
   goodness. Is there a favor that we enjoy from God which we can dare to
   despise? Ingratitude makes little of much, but gratitude sees much in
   little. Whatever comes to us is great goodness. But oh, Beloved, we
   need not continue to talk about it, for surely upon the very surface we
   can see the great goodness of electing love, the great goodness of
   redeeming love, the great goodness of converting love, the great
   goodness of pardoning love, the great goodness of upholding love, the
   great goodness of sanctifying love, the great goodness which has sent a
   Savior to prepare Heaven for us, and the great goodness which is
   preparing us that we may enter into the Heaven!

   God's goodness is all great! Nothing little comes from our gracious
   God. O great Sinner, is there not a gleam of hope for you in this? A
   great God full of great mercies for a great sinner! Why, that is the
   very God you need! Fly to Him by the way of the great Savior! Yet
   again, we ought to take peculiar note in our song, of the condescending
   tenderness and pity of God, for such is the force of the next
   expression, "which He has bestowed on them according to His mercies"--a
   clearer rendering would be, "according to His compassion." You know a
   man may be very good to another, but he may not be tender. There is a
   way of pitching a shilling to a beggar in the street just as if he were
   a dog. God never gives His mercies to us in that way. A doctor may cure
   us, but be so rough about it that we may be glad to get rid of him. But
   the Lord heals lovingly and tenderly.

   I have often said in this place, and I venture to repeat it, that I do
   not know any word in any language which can be compared with that word,
   "loving kindness." Thank God, we are Anglo-Saxons, and therefore can
   say, "loving kindness." Unrivalled word! It is marrow and fatness.
   Loving kindness! What a mouthful it is! How it seems to sweeten the
   soul as it goes down. The Lord has always dealt graciously with us. He
   has been as tender as a nurse with her child. He has given us the mercy
   suitable to our condition. When He has been teaching us He has not
   taught us too much at once, but little by little as we have been able
   to bear it, for He knows our frame. He screens off a strong light from
   weak eyes. He feeds the famished with convenient food. We received the
   Gospel at first, not in the glory of its sublime doctrines, but in the
   simplicity of the plainer Truths. With tenderness did God instruct us,
   and in every other part of His dealing towards us, the like tenderness
   is seen wherein He has abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence.
   For this we extol Him.

   One other special note demands to be heard, and that is the
   multitudinous displays of His love. "According to the multitude of His
   loving kindnesses," of all shapes, and at all times, and in all ways,
   and from all points of the compass! "The multitude of his loving
   kindnesses." Now I am lost. I cannot call in the arithmetician. It is
   not possible for him to calculate here. Sometimes we have before us a
   long line of figures which must be multiplied and the brain aches in
   the

   very attempt. But you shall never calculate the multitude of the Lord's
   tender mercies--this is an endless task! Look over the fields in spring
   when they are covered with the yellow kingcups and white daisies, and
   green grass in abundance till the meadows look as though God had spread
   a field of the cloth of gold for a celestial coronation. Count these
   flowers if you can. Count their petals, their leaves, the blades of the
   green grass and the drops of dew which hang upon them.

   Then look upwards to the trees. Count the myriad leaves which make the
   forest. Detain the dust which stirs in the summer's gale, count all the
   grains which make the mountains, all the sands which form the seashore
   and all the drops which compose the sea. Have you done? Ah, then, you
   have but begun to estimate the multitude of the loving kindnesses of
   the Lord! O, my Soul, bless the Lord! Why be silent? "Why should the
   mercies He has worked be lost in silence and forgot?" Break forth, my
   Spirit! Break forth my whole Nature! All that is within me be stirred
   up to magnify and bless His holy name, for He is God and His mercies
   are unsearchable! Past finding out are His favors! Glory be unto His
   name!

   III. We close after occupying two or three minutes in hinting at the
   PRACTICAL REASONS WHY WE SHOULD THUS MENTION THE LOVING KINDNESSES OF
   THE LORD. First, we should do this that we may have pleas in

   prayer. This is the best way of praying. "Lord, you have done this for
   Your servant. You have done that for Your servant, therefore I beseech
   You, do more!" This is not after the manner of men, for when we once
   relieve a man's necessities we say to him, "Do not come again." But
   every gift which God gives is an invitation to come again and the best
   way in which we can show our gratitude is to seek for further gifts--

   "The best return for one like me,

   So wretched and so poor,

   Is from His gifts to draw a plea,

   And ask Him still for more."

   You will pray well when you can mention the loving kindnesses of the
   Lord.

   Next, these memories will act as stays to your faith. When you grow
   doubting and troubled and I suppose you do, sometimes, then you can
   remember the Lord's former favors. And since He cannot change, you will
   be confident that He will do the same again. Oh, rest in Him, of what
   He has been to you He will be to the end. As long as the world stands,
   trust Him and He will bring your desires to pass. Then, next, these
   remembered mercies will minister to your present happiness and comfort.
   The thought of what God has done for us is enough to make us happy now.
   If the Lord were not to give me another mercy, I am bound to praise Him
   for what He has given me already. Blessed be His name, since first I
   stood a beggar at His door and He stayed my soul's hunger with
   Himself--and gave me His own flesh to eat and blood to drink--the
   sacred nutriment of my hungry spirit, I scarcely have been able to ask
   for anything before it has come to me!

   O Lord, You daily load us with benefits till we sink under the burden
   of obligation and yet we are so happy. The thought of all this, dear
   Brothers and Sisters, should have the other practical influence of
   making us love God more and obey Him better. Duty becomes pleasure when
   gratitude rules the hour.--

   "It is love that makes our willing feet In swift obedience move."

   Has He done so much for me? Then what is there that I could not do for
   Him if His Grace would help me? To mention the Lord's goodness enables
   us, dear Friends, to cheer others, for when we make mention of the
   loving kindnesses of God to ourselves we do not know who may be
   standing by. There may be some mourner there for whom the gates of
   consolation have been long closed--but when he hears what God has done
   for one of His people, he plucks up heart and says, "I will even see
   whether He would not do the same for me."

   Tell of God's loving kindness! Be not slow in speech about these
   things--this will render your conversation such as becomes an heir of
   Heaven. Do you not use much idle talk? I am afraid we all do. Do you
   not often complain when there is nothing to complain about? Do you not
   murmur? Are you not far too ready to break forth in words of
   lamentation? Waste not your breath on such base uses, but consecrate it
   all on praise! Tell what His hands have given, what His lips have
   spoken. Tell how He has blessed you with countless mercies and it will
   make the daughters of despondency rejoice, and the sons of mourning
   lift up their heads!

   Last of all, make mention of the loving kindnesses of God, because it
   will glorify Him and this should always be your master motive. The
   Christian lives to honor his God. Oh tell what the Lord has done, that
   men may praise Him! The sons of men are apt enough to forget Him. Keep
   them in remembrance of Him. They are apt enough to speak hard things
   concerning Him. Tell them of His loving kindnesses and make them know
   what a good Master He is whom you serve.

   Shout it into their ears! Make them hear it! Tell them again and again
   and again of the great goodness of the Lord to you! Can you give me any
   reason why you should not mention the loving kindnesses of the Lord?
   Can you tell me any company in which you ought to be in which you could
   not mention the loving kindnesses of the Lord? I know some persons who
   have hobbies and you cannot be long with them before they will
   introduce them. They may be very inappropriate but somehow or other
   they bring the conversation round to their favorite theme.

   I would have you ride this hobby without fear. Rather I would have you
   take this noble steed and ride it through all companies--make them feel
   that it is your manner and habit to tell of God's goodness--and that
   you cannot help it! Bring it in somehow. I think you never need be
   short of reasons for praise. Tell men of His goodness in sending the
   cool wind in this hot summer, or tell them of His goodness in sending
   the heat to ripen the harvest. Tell them of His mercy which sends the
   rain that the grass may spring up again, or of His love which withholds
   the rain till the reapers' work is done. If all this congregation went
   out today to tell of the loving kindness of the Lord towards His
   people, we should have such Gospel preaching throughout all London as
   was never known before!

   The Lord rinse your mouths out, Brothers and Sisters, if you have a
   bitter way of talking about other people, or about His Providence--and
   lead you, from now on, to glory in His holy name. Amen and Amen!

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 106.
     __________________________________________________________________

Harvest Men Needed

   (No. 1127)

   A SERMON DELIVERED OF LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 17 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Then said He unto His disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but
   the laborers are few, pray you therefore the Lord of the harvest, that
   He will send forth laborers into His harvest. And when He had called
   unto Him His twelve disciples, He ga ve them power against unclean
   spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all
   manner of disease." Matthew 9:37,38; 10:1.

   THE circumstances under which our Lord uttered these words are
   instructive. He saw the people thronging Him whenever He stood up to
   preach and He perceived that the regular instructors of the people,
   those who thought that they were commissioned to teach the nation,
   were, many of them, leading them into error. And the rest were either
   shamefully neglecting their duty, or were performing it without heart,
   zeal, or even sincerity. The poor people fainted and were scattered
   abroad like sheep without a shepherd, harassed by different fears and
   cast down by many anxieties. I do not think that the circumstances
   under which our Lord spoke these words have passed away, but rather
   that we are living under precisely the same conditions. I would not
   willingly be guilty of uncharitableness and I bless God that there are
   many left in our land who are preaching the Gospel in all its purity,
   and with great earnestness.

   But still, it is lamentably true that those who profess to be the only
   authorized teachers are, a very great number of them, leading the
   people into spiritual bondage by reviving the old popish and pagan
   rites. And those who do preach a measure of the Truth of God too often
   do not preach it boldly nor simply as they should. Neither is there
   enough of life and earnest concern for the souls of men among them. How
   many, even, of our own Churches, where we think the Truth is held, have
   their pulpits so ill-occupied that they might almost as well be empty
   as filled as they are, for there is a manifest need of zeal, love and
   spiritual power, while the clear testimony concerning Jesus is sadly
   lacking.

   At this time the people of many towns and villages are shepherdless
   sheep, for whose souls no man cares. They are fainting and ready to die
   and no man lays it to heart. If the circumstances are the same--and he
   would be a bold man who would dare dispute it--then the text urgently
   demands our prayerful attention. Our Savior looked upon the people
   among whom He moved in a manner worthy of our imitation. He was a Man
   of great feeling. He was "moved with compassion," as the Greek word has
   it. "His heart yearned." His sympathies were awakened. He could not
   look upon a mass of men with an indifferent countenance--His inmost
   soul was stirred.

   But at the same time He was no mere enthusiast. He was as calmly
   practical as if He had been a cool calculator. If He sighed, He did
   something more than sigh--He proceeded to aid those He pitied. He had
   practical compassion on the crowd and, therefore, He turned to His
   disciples and said, "Pray you the Lord of the harvest, that He will
   send forth laborers into His harvest." He did not go about among the
   masses with all undiscerning admiration of them. I do not hear Him
   praising them as, "the finest peasantry," or, "the sinew of the
   nation," as such will do. But neither do we see in Him any trace of
   aversion to them, as though He felt out of place in their society. He
   was often saddened by their follies and grieved by their sins, but He
   never loathed them or spoke contemptuously of them. The common people
   heard Him gladly because they saw that He had sympathy with them.
   Though in character grandly aristocratic, He was in manner and life
   profoundly democratic. He was the King, and yet, "One chosen out of the
   people." He loved them with all His heart.

   It is clear, also, that He never grew discouraged in laboring for their
   good. You never hear Him say that it is useless to preach to the
   multitude, that they are too degraded, too priest-ridden, or too
   ignorant. No discouragement ever dampened His ardor. He persevered till
   His work was done. A brave, glorious heart was that of Jesus, always
   melted to tenderness, but, at the same time, always practical. He was
   never influenced either by admiration, or aversion, or discouragement,
   so as to cease from practical methods of bettering the condition of the
   people among whom He dwelt.

   Take note, therefore, that we are about to speak upon a practical
   matter and I trust it may become so this morning that many may be
   influenced to pray according to the bidding of their Lord and, that the
   sincerity of their prayers may be proven by their subsequent endeavors
   to obtain their petitions.

   At the outset, this morning, we shall see how our Lord states the
   case--"The harvest is plenteous." Secondly, that He indicates the
   service needed--more "laborers" were required to gather in the harvest.
   Thirdly, that He directs us how to obtain the supply of laborers--by
   prayer. And, fourthly, He answers their prayers in a remarkable manner.

   I. First, our Lord STATES THE CASE of men of His time and ours. The
   people who gathered around Him He likens to harvest fields--wherein lay
   the similarity? First, He thought of the great multitudes. The thought
   of multitudes rises naturally from the sight of a harvest field and
   when the crop is plenteous the idea of multitude forces itself upon you
   at once. You cannot count the ears of corn, neither will you be able to
   count the sons of men. I suppose our Savior alluded, first of all, to
   the crowds around Himself, but His mind, being much more capacious than
   ours, He remembered all the thousands of Israel. No, I think He could
   not have restricted His heart to the little country of Israel. He
   glanced across the seas and beyond the mountains to the myriads of
   mankind swarming upon this globe!

   Brothers and Sisters, it crushes one to think of the millions of our
   species. Nobody, yet, has been able to obtain an idea of the vast
   extent of this one city of London. You shall traverse it from end to
   end as long as you will, and you shall study its statistics, but you
   have no conception what the population of London is and you never will
   have--the mass is too great. But what is London compared with our
   nation and with the millions that speak our mother tongue all over the
   world? Yet even these are but a small portion of the innumerable host.
   We never shall be able to obtain even a fringe of a conception of China
   with its teeming millions, or of that other populous nation which owns
   our scepter, Hindustan.

   Multitudes are in the valley of existence, as the drops from the rain
   cloud and as the leaves upon the forest trees-- such are the sons of
   men. You might as well count the stars in the heavens or the waves of
   the sea as hope to reckon the myriads which have sprung from the loins
   of Adam. All these must be reaped and gathered into the Gospel garner
   or they must perish. All these must have laborers sent of God to gather
   them in or they will miss a blissful immortality. Well did our Savior
   compare the myriads of the sons of men with the multitude of the ears
   of corn in the harvest field.

   Our Lord intended to set forth a second idea, which dwelt, perhaps,
   still more prominently in His mind and it was that of value. He did not
   speak of blades of grass, mark you, in His comparison, but of ears of
   corn. He did not talk of tares as He did in other parables. He did not
   speak of loose pebbles by the sea coast, or worthless grains of
   sand--He compared the multitude to wheat--and what is there more
   precious than corn? Is it not to us most valuable, because it is the
   sustenance of our life? Do we not, for this cause, gather it in with
   shouts? Harvest-home is always gladsome because we prize its sheaves!
   Much toil and care have been spent to secure the production of the
   harvest and when the yellow fields wave before our eyes we cannot
   despise them--we know that they are more precious than anything else
   that comes up out of the earth.

   So is it to God and to Jesus, God's Son. He did not look upon men of
   any sort as things to be despised. He would not have the least among
   them treated as chattels nor regarded with contempt. He knew the wisdom
   which was displayed in the creation of the fabric of their bodies and
   in the faculties of their souls. He knew how God takes delight in men
   and how good men, sanctified men, give to God's heart a joy like the
   joy of harvest--and how men who have gone astray, when they are
   restored, make the great Father's heart leap within Him with a joy
   which angels cannot give! Of all creatures under Heaven, the most
   precious thing to God is man. He cares nothing for gems of the mine or
   pearls of the sea, but men He values so much that He gave His
   only-begotten Son to bleed and die that they might not perish, but have
   everlasting life.

   The souls of the multitude are precious in the sight of the Lord, even
   as corn is precious to the farmer. But when the Lord spoke of them as a
   harvest, He had before His mind the idea of danger to them. The harvest
   in our own country is just now ripe and ready for the sickle. But
   suppose the owner of some large estate should walk through his broad
   acres and should say, "I have a great harvest--look at those
   far-reaching fields. But the country has become depopulated, the people
   have emigrated and I have no laborers. There are one or two yonder.
   They are reaping with all their might. They make long days and they
   toil till they faint--but over yonder there are vast ranges of my farm
   unreaped and I have not a sickle to thrust in. The corn is being wasted
   and it sorely grieves me. See how the birds are gathering in troops to
   prey upon the precious ears! Meanwhile the season is far advanced, the
   autumn damps are already upon us and the chill, frosty

   nights which are winter's vanguard are on their way. Mildew is spoiling
   the grain and what remains sound will shell out upon the ground, or
   swell with the moisture and become of no service."

   Behold in this picture the Redeemer! He looks upon the world today and
   He says within Himself, "All these multitudes of precious souls will be
   lost, for there are so few reapers to gather them in. Here and there
   are men who, with prodigious energy, are reaping all they can and all
   but fainting as they reap. And I am with them and blessed sheaves are
   taken home, but what are these among so many?" Look, Brothers, can your
   eyes see it? Can even an eagle's wing fly over the vast fields and
   unreaped plains without growing weary in the flight? There are the
   precious ears--they decay, they rot, they perish, they are ruined--to
   the loss of God and to their own eternal injury! And it grieves the
   Great Farmer that it should be so.

   That is still the case today and it ought to grieve us that it should
   be so, for His sake, and for the sake of our fellow men! A multitude of
   precious souls were perishing and this, the Savior lamented. The Savior
   had yet another thought, namely, that the masses were accessible, for
   He used the same expression when the people came streaming out of
   Samaria to the well to hear Him, drawn out by curiosity created by the
   woman's story. He said to His disciples, "Lift up now your eyes, behold
   the fields are white already to the harvest." Now, when people are
   ready to hear the Word, then it is that the fields are ripe--and our
   Lord meant that as the wheat ears do not oppose the sickle, but stand
   there, and a man has but to enter into the field and use the sickle and
   the result will surely follow, so there are times when nothing is
   needed but to preach the Gospel and the souls which otherwise would
   perish, will surely be gathered in.

   I do not believe, my Brothers, that at any time the world has had a
   dull ear to the Gospel. Who have gathered the crowds? Such men as
   Augustine and Chrysostom! And what was their preaching but the Gospel
   of Jesus Christ? Who have gathered them? Such men as John Buss, Jerome,
   Luther, Calvin, and the like, about whom there was ever a sweet savor
   of Christ. Who have gathered them in this land? Who but our Wycliffe
   and our Knox? Who gathered them in later days but our Whitfield and our
   Wesley--men who spoke the common language of the people and who had no
   theme but Jesus Crucified! They will not go to hear your
   philosophers--they leave you and your philosophers to the spiders and
   the dry rot! But preach Jesus and His precious blood, and tell men that
   whoever believes in Christ shall be saved, and they will hear you
   gladly!

   I heard but last week from a missionary who spends nights in working
   for his Lord in gin palaces and the lowest resorts of the people, that
   he has scarcely ever met with an insult. The people received his tracts
   and thanked him for his kind words. I find it continually asserted by
   our city missionaries and those who visit cab ranks, or omnibus yards,
   or work among other public servants, that in general there is a willing
   attention to the Gospel. The fields stand asking us to reap them--but
   there are not reapers enough--the grain perishes for lack of laborers!
   The people are accessible. What country is there where the Gospel
   cannot be preached? Fast closed was China, but you may go throughout
   the length and breadth of the land and talk of Christ, if you will.

   Japan is open to you and Africa has laid bare her central secret.
   Spain, fast shut as with a seal, is this day set free and Italy
   rejoices in the same liberty. All the world lies before the reapers of
   the Most High, but where are they? "The harvest truly is plenteous, but
   the laborers are few." The idea of immediate need is contained in the
   figure, for the reaping of the harvest is, to a considerable extent,
   with the farmer a matter of now or never. "Ah," he says, "if I could
   postpone the harvest. If I could let it be gathered in by slow degrees.
   If we could work on till the harvest moon has gone and then through
   November and December till winter closes the year--then the scantiness
   of laborers would be a small evil! But there is a limited time in which
   the wheat can be safely housed and it must be harvested before winter
   begins, or it is lost

   to us."

   Ah, my Brothers and Sisters, there is no time for us to waste in the
   salvation of the sons of men! They will not live forever! Yon gray head
   will not tarry till you have told him the Gospel if you postpone the
   good news for the next 10 years. We speak of what we hope may be
   accomplished for our race in half a century, but this generation will
   be buried before that time. You must reap yon harvest at once, or it
   will be destroyed! It must be gathered in speedily, or it will perish.
   Today, today, today the imperative necessities of manhood appeal to the
   benevolence of Christians. Today the sure destruction of the unbeliever
   speaks with pleading voice to the humanity of every quickened heart.
   "We are perishing! Will you let us perish? You can only help us by
   bringing us the Gospel now! Will you delay?" Thus we have indicated the
   design of the Master in selecting the figure of a harvest.

   II. And now, secondly, I desire to point out to you THE SERVICE NEEDED.
   The world being represented as a harvest, the need was for "laborers."
   I have never seen in any commentary or sermon I have yet met with, any
   working out of the metaphor of laborers in the harvest field, and yet
   the meaning lies upon the very surface--I will call your attention to
   it in a moment, when I have noticed, first, that our Savior tells us
   that laborers are needed. There are certain persons in the world who do
   not believe in instrumentalities and habitually depreciate them. Our
   Savior was not of their mind. He did not say, "The harvest truly is
   plenteous, and the laborers are few, but that matters not, God can
   bless a few and make them accomplish as much as many."

   He believed in His Father's Omnipotence, but He also believed that the
   Lord would work by means, and that many laborers were required to
   gather in a plenteous harvest--and therefore He told us to pray for
   them. He believed in results being proportionate to means used and He,
   therefore, bid us go to the root of the matter practically. Neither did
   our Lord say, "The laborers are few, therefore pray God to do the work.
   He can do it alone and has no need of men. You think too much of men.
   Your one-man ministry ought to be put away." No, Jesus did not talk so.
   We do not see any trace of such sentiments in our Savior's
   teaching--our Master never made too much of men but He made a very
   great deal of men anointed of the Spirit and sent to preach--in fact He
   taught us to pray for them.

   And the very last thing He did for us when He went to Heaven was to
   give us men, for it is written, "He received gifts for men; and gave
   some Apostles, some Evangelists, some pastors and teachers." If we
   despise what Christ evidently prizes as His Ascension gift, we may
   fancy we are honoring God, but we shall grieve His Spirit. He would
   have us attach great importance to the instrumentality. He bids us know
   that though God could reap His harvest without men, He will not do it.
   Could He not bring forth a spiritual reaping machine? Modern invention
   has done this for the farmer and the same idea could be carried out in
   spiritual things--and so thousands would be converted in an hour
   without human agency!

   But the Lord asks for no such inventions. He does not direct us to ask
   for spiritual reaping machines, but to pray the Master to send laborers
   into the harvest. And what kind of men does the Master mean to use?
   This is indicated in the text. First, they must be laborers. The man
   who does not make hard work of his ministry will find it very hard work
   to answer for his idleness at the Last Great Day. A gentleman who wants
   an easy life should never think of occupying the Christian pulpit. He
   is out of place there and when he gets there the only advice I can give
   him is to get out of it as soon as possible, and if he will not leave
   the position voluntarily, I call to mind the language of Jehu
   concerning Jezebel, "Fling her down," and think the advice applicable
   to a lazy minister.

   An idler has no right in the pulpit! He is an instrument of Satan in
   damning the souls of men. The ministry demands brain labor. The
   preacher must throw his thought into his teaching and read and study to
   keep his mind in good trim. He must not weary the people by telling
   them the Truth of God in a stale, unprofitable manner, with nothing
   fresh from his own soul to give force to it. Above all, he must put
   heart work into his preaching. He must feel what he preaches--it must
   never be with him an easy thing to deliver a sermon--he must feel as if
   he could preach his very life away before the sermon is done. There
   must be soul work in it--the entire man must be stirred up to
   effort--the whole nature that God has endowed him with must be
   concentrated with all its vigor upon the work in hand. Such men we
   need.

   To stand and drone out a sermon in a kind of articulate snoring to a
   people who are somewhere between awake and asleep must be wretched
   work. I wonder what kind of excuse will be given by some men at last
   for having habitually done this? To promulgate a dry creed, go over
   certain doctrines and expound and enforce them logically, but never to
   deal with men's consciences, never to upbraid them for their sins,
   never to tell them of their danger, never to invite them to a Savior
   with tears and entreaties? What a powerless work is this! What will
   become of such preachers? God have mercy upon them! We need laborers,
   not loiterers! We need men on fire and I beseech you, ask God to send
   them. The harvest can never be reaped by men who will not labor--they
   must off with their coats and go at it in their shirt-sleeves--I mean
   they must doff their dignities and get to Christ's work as if they
   meant it, like real harvest men. They must sweat at their work, for
   nothing in the harvest field can be done without the sweat of the face,
   nor in the pulpit without the sweat of the soul.

   But what kind of laborers are required? First, they must be men who
   will go down into the wheat. You cannot reap wheat by standing a dozen
   yards off and beckoning to it. You must go up close to the standing
   stalks. Every reaper knows that. And you cannot move people's hearts
   and bring men to Christ by imagining yourself to be a superior being
   who condescends wonderfully when he shakes hands with a poor man. There
   is a very genteel order of preaching which is as ridiculous as reaping
   with a lady's ivory-handled pocket knife, with kid gloves on! And I do
   not believe in God's ever blessing it. Get among the wheat, like men in
   earnest! God's servants ought to feel that they are one with the
   people.

   Whoever they are, they should love them, claim kinship with them, be
   glad to see them and look them in the face and say, "Brother." Every
   man is a Brother of mine. He may be a very bad one, but for all that I
   love him and long to bring him to Jesus. Christ's reapers must get
   among the wheat.

   Now, see what the laborer brings with him. It is a sickle. His
   communications with the corn are sharp and cutting. He cuts right
   through, cuts the corn down and casts it on the ground. The man whom
   God means to be a laborer in His harvest must not come with soft and
   delicate words and flattering doctrines concerning the dignity of human
   nature, and the excellence of self-help, and of earnest endeavors to
   rectify our lapsed condition and the like. Such mealy mouthedness may
   God curse, for it is the curse of this age. The honest preacher calls a
   sin a sin and a spade a spade, and says to men, "You are ruining
   yourselves! While you reject Christ you are living on the borders of
   Hell and before long you will be lost to all eternity. There shall be
   no mincing the matter, you must escape from the wrath to come by faith
   in Jesus, or be driven forever from God's Presence and from all hope
   ofjoy."

   The preacher must make his sermons cut. He is not to file off the edge
   of his scythe for fear it should hurt somebody. No, my Hearers, we mean
   to hurt you! Our sickle is made on purpose to cut. The Gospel is
   intended to wound the conscience and to go right through the heart with
   the design of separating the soul from sin and self, as the corn is
   divided from the soil. Our object is to cut the sinner right down, for
   all the comeliness of the flesh must be slain, all his glory, all his
   excellence must be withered and the man must be as one dead before he
   can be saved. Ministers who do not aim to cut deep are not worth their
   salt. God never sent the man who never troubles men's consciences. Such
   a man may be an ass treading down the corn, but a reaper he certainly
   is not! We need faithful ministers.

   Pray God to send them! Ask Him to give us men who will preach the whole
   Truth of God. Who will not be afraid of certain humbling doctrines, but
   will bring out, for instance, the doctrine of Election and not be
   ashamed of it. Who will tell men that salvation is of the Lord and will
   not go about to please them by letting them have a finger in salvation,
   as though they were to share in the glory of it! Oh for laborers who
   can use sharp cutting sickles upon ungodly hearts! But then a laborer
   has only begun when he cuts the corn--much more is needed. As he cuts,
   he lets the corn fall onto his arm, and then he lays it along in rows.
   But afterwards he binds it together and makes it into bundles, that it
   may be gathered in.

   So the laborer whom God sends into the field must be a gathering
   laborer. He must be one who brings God's people together, who comforts
   those that mourn and picks up from the earth those who were cut down by
   the sharp sickle of conviction. He must bind the saints together,
   edifying them in their most holy faith. Alas, how many have been
   scatterers, rending Churches to pieces? Pray the Lord of the harvest to
   give His Church binders who can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, unite
   men's hearts! Remember, also, that the laborer's work is never done in
   harvest time till he sees the corn housed--until it is made into a
   stack or put into a barn, his toil is not over. And the Christian
   minister, if God has truly anointed him to His work, never leaves
   caring for souls till they get to Heaven. He is like Mr. Greatheart,
   with Christiana and Mercy and the children--he goes with them from the
   City of Destruction, right up to the River Jordan--and if he could, he
   would go through the river with them.

   It is his business to march in front with his shield--to meet the
   dragons and giants with his sword--and protect the little ones. It is
   his to be tender to them as a shepherd with the lambs and a nurse with
   her children, for he longs to present them at the last to his Master
   and say, "Here am I, and the children that You have given me." Brother
   minister, ours is a great work and it never ceases from the first
   moment when our sickle touches the conscience and wounds it, to the
   last moment when we are enabled to present our people before the Lord,
   saved, by His Grace, forever! The Church needs men sent of the Holy
   Spirit who can do all this, by God's help, for though the Lord works
   all things, He does it by men and men are needed everywhere that the
   work may be accomplished. Thus have we described the service required.

   III. The third thing is, our Lord DIRECTED HIS DISCIPLES HOW TO OBTAIN
   A SUPPLY. He bids them pray for such men. Every word here is
   instructive. "Pray you." Brothers and Sisters, do you ever pray God to
   send such workers into His vineyard? How long since you heard that
   prayer prayed, except from this pulpit? Pray you, every one of you! Are
   you in the habit of doing so every morning and night? Why is there such
   a dearth of really warm-hearted, loving, earnest Evangelists in
   England? It is because they are not asked for! God will not give them
   to us if we do not ask for them. If there is one thing noticeable in
   this Church it is our continual prayer that God may be pleased to raise
   up among us men who will work for Him, and He has done it! And He
   continue will to do it if we continue to pray for it.

   But if you do not pray that God would send forth the laborers and the
   laborers do not come, who is to blame? "Pray you." "Pray you
   therefore," He says, as if the very fact that there are so many
   precious souls perishing should be our argument for praying, "Lord, it
   is not a few score that are left untaught and unsaved, but millions in
   our own land and hundreds of millions in other lands! Therefore, Lord,
   we do pray You send forth laborers." We are to pray to the Lord, for it
   is the Lord's business. Only the Lord can send us the right men. He has
   a right to send whom He pleases, for it is His own harvest and a man
   may employ whom he wills in his own field.

   It would be all in vain to appeal to anybody else. It is of no use to
   appeal to bishops to find us laborers. God alone has the making of
   ministers and the raising up of true workers. And therefore the
   petition must be addressed to Him. "Pray you therefore the Lord of the
   harvest." The Lord's Prayer, in its first three petitions, contains
   this prayer--"Our Father which are in Heaven, hallowed be Your name.
   Your kingdom come, Your will be done, in earth as it is in Heaven."
   Does not that mean, "Lord, send forth men who may teach this world to
   hallow Your name, that they, through Your Spirit's power, may be the
   means of making Your kingdom come and causing Your will to be done in
   earth as it is in Heaven"? We ought to pray continually to the great
   Lord of the harvest for a supply of earnest laborers.

   And do you notice the expression used here, "that He would send forth
   laborers." Now the Greek is much more forcible. It is that He would
   push them forward and thrust them out. It is the same word which is
   used for the expulsion of a devil from a man possessed. It takes great
   power to drive a devil out--it will need equal power from God to drive
   a minister out to His work. I always say to young fellows who consult
   me about the ministry, "Don't be a minister if you can help it,"
   because, if the man can help it, God never called him! But if he cannot
   help it, and he must preach or die, then he is the man! May the Lord
   push men out, thrust them out, drive them out and compel them to preach
   the Gospel! For unless they preach by a Divine compulsion, there will
   be no spiritual compulsion in their ministry upon the hearts of others.
   "Pray you therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He would thrust out
   laborers into His harvest."

   And notice, Beloved, that our Lord said, "into His harvest." I like
   that, because the harvest is not ours. If that harvest shall perish, it
   is our heavenly Father's harvest that perishes. This makes it weigh
   upon my soul. If they told me that the harvest of some harsh,
   overbearing tyrant was perishing, I might say, "Let it! If he had it,
   what good would it be to him or anybody else? He grinds the faces of
   the poor. Who wants to see him rich?" But when it is our gracious God,
   our blessed loving Father--one cannot bear the thought--and yet Jesus
   puts it before us that it is God's harvest which is perishing for need
   of reaping!

   Suppose an angel should take you upon his wing and poise you in
   mid-space some hundreds of miles above the earth where you could look
   down on the globe with strengthened eyesight? Suppose you rested there
   and the world revolved before you 24 hours? You would see the sun and
   gradually all portions of it. And suppose that with the sunlight there
   should be rendered visible certain colors which would mark where there
   was Divine Grace, where there was idolatry, where there was atheism,
   where there was popery? You would grieve to see only here and there
   upon our globe, like little drops of dew, bright marks of the Grace of
   God--and many shades of darkness would show you that the whole world
   still lies in the Wicked One.

   And if the vision changed and you saw the two hemispheres spread out
   like a map and transformed into a corn field with corn all white for
   the harvest. How sad would you be to see here and there men reaping
   their little patches, doing the best they can, but the great mass of
   the corn untouched by the sickle. You would see leagues of land where
   never an ear was reaped, that we know of, from the foundations of the
   world. You would be grieved to think that God's corn is spoiling--men
   whom He has made in His own image, and made for immortality, perishing
   for lack of the Gospel. "Pray you," that is the stress of the whole
   text--"Pray you therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He would thrust
   forth laborers into His harvest," that these fields may not rot before
   our eyes.

   Will you pray it, my Brothers and Sisters? This text is laid on my
   heart. It lies more on my heart than any other in the Bible. It is one
   that haunts me perpetually and has done for many years. What can one
   voice, one tongue, do? That is why we instituted the College, that men
   might be instructed in the way of God more perfectly, and you, my
   beloved people, have helped me these many years, for which I thank you,
   thank you lovingly and with all my heart! You have never ceased from
   that best of works and therefore you, as a Church, can honestly pray
   because you work as well as pray. Some Churches cannot do so--they
   despise the teaching of a simple man of utterance--but they love him
   that can read the Scriptures in the original tongue and speak his own
   language correctly.

   But you have taken tenderly and generously to the work and God has
   blessed you, and at this very moment some 300 of your sons, nursed at
   your knees, are preaching the same Gospel which we are preaching here,
   for which let God be praised! While we give let us pray and when we
   have prayed, let us give, that God may send forth laborers into His
   harvest.

   IV. The last point is this--THE LORD JESUS HEARD THEIR PRAYERS--He did
   sent forth laborers. I feel vexed

   with the fellow who chopped the Bible up into chapters. I forget his
   name just now and I am sure it is not worth remembering. I have heard
   that he did the most of his carving of the new Testament between London
   and Paris, and rough work he made of it. Surely he was chaptering the
   Gospel of Matthew while he was crossing the Channel, for he has divided
   it in such strange places. He has chopped this passage in two. "Pray
   you therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers
   into His harvest."

   Down comes the meat axe, right across a bone! Let us put the bones
   together, and read what is next. "And when He had called unto Him His
   twelve disciples, He gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast
   them out." It appears, then, that the Lord told them to pray that God
   would raise up laborers and then called them to be the laborers
   themselves! "You have been praying for men," he said, "and you are the
   very men yourselves." He puts His hands upon them one by one. "You
   prayed God to send out laborers, come here Matthew, come here Peter,
   James, John. I heard you pray as I told you, and behold I send you
   forth to work for Me." What if God, this morning, should move some of
   you to feel that men are perishing and you cannot let them perish? What
   if you should pray, "Lord, send out men to save souls," and then He
   should put His hands on you and say, "You are the man yourself. Behold
   I send you"?!

   I do not suppose the 12 dreamed for a moment that they would be sent
   forth to be reapers, but so the Lord of the harvest had decreed. Have I
   not some men here who, if they thought it over, would say, "Lord, I am
   of uncouth speech and I cannot serve You as I would, but such as I
   have, I give You"? And, dear Brother, when you begin to talk about the
   Savior, you do not know how well you will succeed. And if you do not
   please yourself, that does not matter if you please God. There is
   another, a man who has been dumb half his life, and yet, if he did but
   know it, has force and power in him. "But I shall never preach," says
   one. If you do not preach you can serve God another way. Could you not
   start a Prayer Meeting in your house? Some of you live in different
   parts of London, could you not commence such interests?

   Do something for Jesus! Some of you good women, could you not get young
   women together and talk to them about the Savior? Yes, but perhaps I
   have some Brother here who has been smothering in his heart a desire to
   go into the missionary field. Brother, do not quench the Spirit! You
   may be missing your vocation while trying to suppress that desire. I
   would sooner you should burst into fanaticism, some of you, and become
   right down fools in enthusiasm rather than remain as the Church now is,
   in a dead coolness, caring little for the souls of men. What do
   Christian people nowadays think of? If they hear about Japan, they say,
   "Oh, we shall have a new trade there!" But do they say, "Who among us
   can go to Japan to tell them of the Gospel?"

   Do you not think that merchants, and soldiers, and sailors and such
   like people who trade with distant parts of the world are the very
   persons to spread the Gospel? Should not a Christian man say, "I shall
   try and find a trade for myself which will bring me into contact with a
   class of persons that need the Gospel. And I will use my trade as the
   stalking horse for Christ. Since hypocrites use religion as a stalking
   horse for gain, I will make my trading subservient to my religion."
   "Oh," says one, "we can leave that to the Society." God bless the
   Society and, I was going to say, smother the Society rather than alloy
   it to smother personal effort! We need our godly merchants, working
   men, soldiers and sailors everywhere to feel, "I cannot go and get a
   proxy in the shape of a Society to do this for me. In the name of God I
   will do it myself and have a share in this great battle."

   If you cannot labor, yourself, the Society is the grandest thing
   conceivable, for you may help others. But still the main cry from
   Christ is that you, yourself, should go into the highways and hedges
   and as many as you find, compel them to come in to the Gospel feast.
   The world is dying! The grave is filling! Hell is boasting and yet you
   have the Gospel! Can it be that you do not care to win souls, do not
   care whether men are damned or saved? The Lord wake us from this
   stony-hearted barbarity to our fellow men and make us yearn over them,
   care about them, pray about them and work for them till the Lord shall
   arise and send forth laborers into His harvest!

   But I remember that some of you may very well be unconcerned about
   others, for you are unconcerned about yourselves. Oh, I do implore you,
   remain so no longer! Live not upon the brink of the grave without a
   Savior! Sport not between the jaws of Hell, but fly to Him, to Him who
   never did reject a sinner that came to Him and never will. God hear
   you, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Matthew 9:9-38; 10:1.
     __________________________________________________________________

Love's Crowning Deed

   (No. 1128)

   A SERMON DELIVERED OF LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 24, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for
   his friends." John 15:13.

   I HAVE lately in my ministry very much detained you in the balmy region
   of Divine lovingkindness. Our subjects have frequently been full of
   love. I have, perhaps, repeated myself, and gone over the same ground
   again and again, but I could not help it. My own soul was in a grateful
   condition and therefore out of the abundance of the heart the mouth has
   spoken. Truly I have little reason to excuse myself, for the region of
   love to Christ is the native place of the Christian. We were first
   brought to know Christ and to rest in Him through His love, and there,
   in the warmth of His tenderness, we were born to God. Not by the
   terrors ofjustice, nor the threats of vengeance were we reconciled, but
   Divine Grace drew us with cords of love.

   Now, we have sometimes heard of sickly persons, that the physician has
   recommended them to try their native air, in hopes of restoration. So
   we, also, recommend every backsliding Christian to try the native air
   of Christ's love and we charge every healthy Believer to abide in it.
   Let the Believer under decays of Grace go back to the Cross--there he
   found his hope, there he must find it again. There his love to Jesus
   began--we, "love Him because He first loved us"--and there must His
   love be again inflamed. The atmosphere around the Cross of Christ is
   bracing to the soul. Get to think much of His love and you grow strong
   and vigorous in Grace.

   As the dwellers in the low-lying Alpine valleys become weak and full of
   disease in the close, damp atmosphere, but soon recover health and
   strength if they climb the hillside and tarry there, so in this world
   of selfishness, where every man is fighting for his own and the mean
   spirit of caring only for one's own self reigns predominant, the saints
   become weak and diseased, even as worldlings are. But up on the
   hillsides, where we learn Christ's self-denying, disinterested
   affection to the sons of men, we are braced to nobler and better lives.
   If men are ever to be truly great they must be nurtured beneath the
   wing of Free Grace and dying love.

   The grandeur of the Redeemer's example suggests to His disciples to
   make their own lives sublime, and both furnishes them with motives for
   doing so and with forces to constrain them thereto. Moreover, we may
   well tarry for many a day in the region of the love of Christ because
   not only is it our native region and full of bracing influences, but it
   has an outlook towards the better shore. As shipwrecked mariners upon a
   desert island have been known to linger most of the day upon that
   headland which pushes farthest out into the main ocean, in the hope
   that, perhaps, if they cannot catch a glimpse of their own country
   across the waves, they may possibly discern a sail which had left one
   of the ports of the well-beloved land, so it is that while we are
   sitting on the headlands of Divine Love we may look across to Heaven
   and become familiar with the spirits of the just.

   If ever we are to see Heaven while we are yet tarrying here, it must
   surely be from Cape Cross or Mount Fellowship--from that jutting piece
   of holy experience of Divine Love which runs away from the ordinary
   thoughts of men and approaches the heart of Christ. There, at any rate,
   do I long to sit for many an hour till the eternal day shall break and
   the shadows flee away. And I shall dwell with all the chosen in the
   land where there is no more sin--for if there can be found a Heaven
   below, it is where Heaven came down from Heaven to die for sinful men,
   that sinful men might go up to Heaven to live eternally.

   Our subject this morning, then, is Divine Love, and we have chosen the
   highest hill in all the goodly land for you to climb. We shall take
   you, today, to Love's most sacred shrine, to the Jerusalem of the holy
   land of Love, to the labor of Love where it was transfigured, and put
   on its most beautiful garments. Where it became, indeed, too bright for
   mortal eye fully to gaze upon it, too lustrous for this dim vision of
   ours. Let us come to Calvary where we find Love stronger than death,
   conquering the grave for our sakes!

   We shall speak, first, upon Love's crowning act--"Greater love has no
   man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." But,
   then, since the text, grand as it is, and high, so that we cannot
   attain unto it, yet seems to fall short of the great argument--though
   it is one of the Master's own sayings--we shall speak upon the
   sevenfold crown of Jesus' Love. And when we have done so, we shall have
   some royal things to say which befit the place whereon we stand when we
   are gathered at the foot of the Cross.

   I. First, then, LOVE'S CROWNING DEED. There is a climax to everything
   and the climax of love is to die for a beloved one. "Free Grace and
   dying love" are the noblest themes among men and when united they are
   sublimity itself. Love can do much, can do infinite things, but greater
   love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
   This is the ultima thule of love--its sails can find no further shore,
   its deeds of self-denial can go no further. To lay down one's life is
   the most that love can do. This is clear if we consider, first, that
   when a man dies for his friends, it proves his deep sincerity.
   Lip-love, proverbially, is a thing to be questioned--too often is it a
   counterfeit. Love which speaks can use hyperbolical expressions at its
   will, and when you have heard all you can hear of love's speech, you
   are not sure that it is love, for all are not hunters that blow the
   horn, all are not friends who cry up friendship.

   There is much among men of a feeling which bears all the likeness of
   that priceless thing called love, which is more precious than the gold
   of Ophir, and yet for all that, as all is not gold that glitters, so it
   is not all love that walks delicately and feigns affection. But a man
   is no liar when he is willing to die to prove his love. All suspicion
   of insincerity must then be banished. We are sure he loves who dies for
   love. Yes, it is not bare sincerity that we see in such a case--we see
   the intensity of his affection.

   A man may make us feel that he is intensely in earnest when he speaks
   with burning words and he may perform many actions which may all appear
   to show how intense he is, and yet for all that, he may but be a
   skillful player, understanding well the art of simulating that which he
   does not feel. But when a man dies for the cause he has espoused, you
   know that his is no superficial passion! You are sure that the core of
   his nature must be on fire when his love consumes his life. If he will
   shed his blood for the object loved--there must be blood in the veins
   of his love--it is a living love. Who can question the solemn vehemence
   of a man's love when he passes through the sepulcher and yields his
   soul up for the thing he professes to love? So that "greater love has
   no man than this," because he can give no greater proof of the
   sincerity and intensity of his affection than to lay down his life for
   his friends.

   And, again, it proves the thorough self-abnegation of the heart when
   the man risks life, itself, for love. Love and self-denial for the
   object loved go hand-in-hand. If I profess to love a certain person and
   yet will neither give my silver nor my gold to relieve his needs, nor
   in any way deny myself comfort or ease for his sake, such love is
   contemptible. It wears the name, but lacks the reality of love--true
   love must be measured by the degree to which the person loving will be
   willing to subject himself to crosses and losses--to suffering and
   self-denials. After all, the value of a thing in the market is what a
   man will give for it, and you must estimate the value of a man's love
   by that which he is willing to give up for it. What will he do to prove
   his affection? What will he suffer for the sake of benefiting his
   beloved? Greater love for friends has no man than this, that he lay
   down his life for them.

   Even Satan acknowledged the reality of the virtue which would lead a
   man to die, when he spoke concerning Job to God. He made little of
   Job's losing his sheep, and his cattle, and his children and remaining
   patient. But he said, "Skin for skin; yes all that a man has will he
   give for his life; but put forth now Your hand, and touch his bone and
   his flesh, and he will curse You to Your face." So if love could give
   up its cattle and its land, its outward treasures and possessions, it
   would be somewhat strong, but comparatively it would fail if it could
   not go further and endure personal suffering. Yes, and the laying down
   of life, itself.

   No such failure occurred in the Redeemer's love. Our Savior stripped
   Himself of all His glories and by a thousand self-denials proved His
   love. But the most convincing evidence was given when He gave up His
   life for us. "Hereby perceive we the love of God," says the Apostle
   John, "because He laid down His life for us." As if John passed by
   everything else which the Son of God had done for us and put his finger
   upon His death and said, "Hereby we perceive the love of God towards
   us." It was majestic love that made the Lord Jesus lay aside, "His
   attire and rings of light," and lend their glory to the stars. He
   stripped off His azure mantle and hung it on the sky and then come down
   to earth to wear the poor, mean garments of our flesh and blood--in
   which to toil and labor like ourselves. But the masterpiece of love was
   when He would even put off the garment of His flesh and yield Himself
   to the superlative agonies of death by crucifixion!

   He could go no further. Self-abnegation had achieved its utmost. He
   could deny Himself no more when He denied Himself leave to live.

   Again, Beloved, the reason why death for its object is the crowning
   deed of love is this, that it excels all other deeds. Jesus Christ had
   proven His love by dwelling among His people as their Brother, and
   participating in their poverty as their Friend, till He could say,
   "Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but I, the Son
   of Man, have not where to lay My head." He had manifested His love by
   telling them all He knew of the Father, unveiling the secrets of
   eternity to simple fishermen. He showed His love by the patience with
   which He bore with their faults, never harshly rebuking, but only
   gently chiding them--and even that but seldom. He revealed His love to
   them by the miracles He worked on their behalf and the honor which He
   put upon them by using them in His service. Indeed, there were ten
   thousand princely acts of the love of Jesus Christ towards His own, but
   none of them can, for a moment, endure comparison with His dying for
   them--the agonizing death of the Cross surpasses all the rest!

   These life-actions of His love are bright as stars, and, like the
   stars, if you gaze upon them, they will be seen to be far greater than
   you dreamed, but yet they are only stars compared with this clear,
   blazing sun of Infinite Love which is to be seen in the Lord's dying
   for His people on the bloody tree. Then, I must add that His death did,
   in effect, comprehend all other acts, for when a man lays down his life
   for his friend he has laid down everything else. Give up life, and you
   have given up wealth--where is the wealth of a dead man? Renounce life
   and you have relinquished position--where is the rank of a man who lies
   in the sepulcher? Lay down life and you have forsaken enjoyment--what
   enjoyment can there be to the denizen of the morgue? Giving up life,
   you have given up all things, therefore the force of that reasoning,
   "He that spared not His own Son but freely delivered Him up for us all,
   how will He not with Him also freely give us all things?"

   The giving of the life of His dear Son was the giving of all that His
   Son was. And as Christ is Infinite, and All in All, the delivering up
   of His life was the concession of All in All to us--there could be
   nothing more. Beloved, I speak but too coldly upon a theme which ought
   to stir my soul, first, and yours afterwards. Spirit of the living God,
   come like a quickening wind from Heaven and let the sparks of our love
   glow into a mighty furnace just now, even now, if it may so please You!
   Beloved, we now remark that for a man to die for his friends is
   evidently the grandest of all proofs of his love in itself. The words
   glide over my tongue and drop from my lips very readily--"lay down his
   life for his friends," but do you know or feel what the words mean?

   To die for another! There are some who will not even give of their
   substance to the poor. It seems like wrenching away a limb for them to
   give a trifle to God's poor servants. Such people cannot guess what it
   must be to have love enough to die for another, any more than a blind
   man can imagine what colors can be like--such persons are out of court
   altogether. There have been loving spirits who have denied themselves
   comfort and ease, and even common necessities, for the sake of their
   fellow men. Only such as these are in a measure qualified to form an
   idea of what it must be to die for another. But still, none of us can
   fully know what it means. To die for another! Conceive it! Concentrate
   your thoughts upon it! We start back from death, for under any light in
   which you may place it, human nature can never regard death as
   otherwise than a terrible thing.

   To pass away into the Glory-land is so bright a hope that death is
   swallowed up in the victory, but the death itself is a bitter thing,
   and therefore needs to be swallowed up in the victory before we can
   bear it. It is a bitter pill and must be drowned in a sweet potion
   before we can rejoice in it. I am certain that no person, apart from
   sweet reflections of the Presence of God and the heavenly future, could
   regard death other than as a dreadful calamity. Even our Savior did not
   regard His approaching death without trembling! The thought of dying
   was not, in itself, otherwise than saddening, even to Him. Witness the
   bloody sweat as it streamed from Him in Gethsemane, and that man-like
   putting away of the cup with, "If it is possible let this cup pass from
   Me"!

   As you think of that soul-conflict let it increase your idea of the
   God-like Love which took the cup resolutely, with both its hands, and
   drank right on, and never stayed its dreadful draught till the Lord had
   drank damnation dry for all His people, swallowing up their deaths in
   His own most comprehensive death! It is no light thing to die. We speak
   too flippantly of death, but dying is no child's-play to any man--and
   dying as the Savior died--in awful agonies of body and tortures of
   soul, it was a great thing, indeed, for His love to do. You may
   surround death, if you please, with luxury. You may place at the
   bedside all the dear assuagements of the most tender love. You may
   alleviate pain by the art of the

   apothecary and the physician. And you may decorate the dying couch with
   the honor of a nation's anxious care--but death, for all that, is, in
   itself, no slight thing--and when borne for others it is the
   masterpiece of Love.

   And so, closing this point of Love's crowning action, let me say that
   after a man has died for another, there can be no question raised about
   his love. Unbelief would be insane if it should venture to intrude
   itself at the foot of the Cross, though, alas, it has been there and
   has there proved its utter unreasonableness! If a man dies for his
   friend, he must love him, nobody can question that! And Jesus, dying
   for His people, must love them--who shall cast a doubt upon that fact?
   Shame on any of God's children that they should ever raise questions on
   a matter so conclusively proven! As if the Lord Jesus knew that even
   this masterpiece of Love might still be intruded upon by unbelief, He
   rose again from the dead and rose with His love as fresh as ever in His
   heart--and went to Heaven leading captivity captive--His eyes flashing
   with the eternal Love that brought Him down!

   He passed through the pearly gates and rode in triumph up to His Great
   Father's Throne, and though He looked upon His Father with Love
   ineffable and eternal, He gazed upon His people, too, for His heart was
   still theirs. Even at this hour, from His Throne among the seraphim,
   where He sits in Glory, He looks down upon His people with pitying love
   and condescending Grace--

   "Now, though He reigns exalted high, His love is still as great.

   Well He remembers Calvary, Nor let His saints forget."

   He is all Love and altogether Love. "Greater love has no man than this,
   that a man lay down his life for his friends."

   II. THE SEVEN CROWNS OF JESUS' DYING LOVE are our second point. I hope
   I shall have your interested

   attention while I show that above that highest act of human love there
   is a something in Christ's death for love's sake still more elevated.
   Men's dying for their friends--this is superlative--but Christ's dying
   for us is as much above man's superlative as that could be above mere
   commonplace. Let me show you this in seven points. The first is
   this--Jesus is immortal, therefore the special character of His death.

   Damon is willing to die for Pythias. The classic story shows that each
   of the two friends was anxious to die for the other. But suppose Damon
   dies for Pythias, he is only antedating what must occur, for Damon must
   die one day and if he lays down his life for his friend, say ten years
   before he otherwise would have done so, still he only loses that ten
   years' life--he must die sooner or later. Or if Pythias dies and Damon
   escapes, it may be that only by a fear weeks one of them has
   anticipated the departure, for they must both die eventually. When a
   man lays down his life for his friend, he does not lay down what he
   could keep altogether. He could only have kept it for a while. Even if
   he had lived as long as mortals can, till gray hairs are on their head,
   he must, at last, have yielded to the arrows of Death.

   A substitutionary death for love's sake in ordinary cases would be but
   a slightly premature payment of that debt of Nature which must be paid
   by all. But such is not the case with Jesus. Jesus needed not die at
   all! There was no ground or reason why He should die apart from His
   laying down His life in the place of His friends. Up there in Glory was
   the Christ of God forever with the Father, eternal and everlasting. No
   age passed over His brow. We may say of Him, "Your locks are bushy and
   black as the raven, You have the dew of Your youth." He came to earth
   and assumed our Nature that He might be capable of death, yet remember,
   though capable of death, His body need not have died. As it was it
   never saw corruption, because there was not in it the element of sin
   which necessitated death and decay.

   Our Lord Jesus, and none but He, could stand at the brink of the grave
   and say, "No man takes My life from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I
   have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again." We poor
   mortal men have only power to die, but Christ had power to live! Crown
   Him, then! Set a new crown upon His beloved head! Let other lovers who
   have died for their friends be crowned with silver, but for Jesus,
   bring forth the golden diadem and set it upon the head of the Immortal
   who never needed to have died, and yet became a mortal, yielding
   Himself to death's pangs without necessity, except the necessity of His
   mighty love!

   Note, next, that in the cases of persons who have yielded up their
   lives for others they may have entertained and probably did entertain
   the prospect that the supreme penalty would not have been enacted from
   them. They hoped that they might yet escape. Damon stood before
   Dionysius, the tyrant, willing to be slain instead of Pythias. But you
   will remember that the tyrant was so struck with the devotion of the
   two friends that he did not put either of them to death and so the
   proffered substitute escaped. There is an old story of a pious miner
   who was in the pit with an ungodly man at

   work. They had lighted the fuse and were about to blast a piece of rock
   with the powder, and it was necessary that they should both leave the
   mine before the powder exploded.

   They both got into the bucket, but the hand above which was to wind
   them up was not strong enough to draw the two together, and the pious
   miner, leaping from the bucket, said to his friend, "You are an
   unconverted man, and if you die your soul will be lost. Get up in the
   bucket as quickly as you can! As for me, I commit my soul into the
   hands of God, and if I die I am saved." This lover of his neighbor's
   soul was spared, for he was found in perfect safety arched over by the
   fragments which had been blown from the rock--he escaped. But remember
   well that such a thing could not occur in the case of our dear
   Redeemer. He knew that if He was to give a ransom for our souls He had
   no loophole for escape. He must surely die. It was either He die, or
   His people must--there was no other alternative. If we were to escape
   from the pit through Him, He must perish in the pit Himself. There was
   no hope for Him. There was no way by which the cup could pass from Him.

   Men have bravely risked their lives for their friends. Perhaps had they
   been certain that the risk would have ended in death they would have
   hesitated. Jesus was certain that our salvation involved death to
   Him--the cup must be drained to the bottom--He must endure the mortal
   agony and in all the extreme sufferings of death He must not be spared
   one jot or tittle. Yet deliberately, for our sakes, He espoused Death
   that He might espouse us. I say again, bring forth another diadem! Put
   a second crown upon that once thorn-crowned head! All hail, Immanuel!
   Monarch of Misery, and Lord of Love! Was ever love like Yours? Lift up
   His praises, all you sons of song! Exalt Him, all you heavenly ones!
   Yes, set His throne higher than the stars! And let Him be extolled
   above the angels, because with full intent He bowed His head to Death.
   He knew that it behooved Him to suffer, it behooved that He should be
   made a Sacrifice for sin, and yet for the joy that was set before Him,
   He endured the Cross, despising the shame.

   Note a third grand excellency in the crowning deed of Jesus' love,
   namely, that He could have had no motive in that death but one of pure,
   unmingled love and pity. You remember when the Russian nobleman was
   crossing the steppes of that vast country in the snow, the wolves
   followed the sledge in greedy packs, eager to devour the travelers. The
   horses were lashed to their utmost speed, but needed not the lash, for
   they fled for their lives from their howling pursuers. Whatever could
   stay the eager wolves for a time was thrown to them in vain. A horse
   was loosed--they pursued it, tore it to pieces, and still followed,
   like grim Death.

   At last a devoted servant, who had long lived with his master's family,
   said, "There remains but one hope for you. I will throw myself to the
   wolves and then you will have time to escape." There was great love in
   this, but doubtless it was mingled with a habit of obedience, a sense
   of reverence to the head of the household, and probably emotions of
   gratitude for many obligations which had been received through a long
   course of years. I do not depreciate the sacrifice, far from it. Would
   that there were more of such a noble spirit among the sons of men! But
   still, you can see a wide difference between that noble sacrifice and
   the nobler deed of Jesus laying down His life for those who never
   obliged Him, never served Him--who were infinitely His inferiors and
   who could have no claims upon His gratitude.

   If I had seen the nobleman surrender himself to the wolves to save his
   servant, and if that servant had in former days tried to be an assassin
   and had sought his life--and yet the master had given himself up for
   the undeserving menial--I could see some parallel. But as the case
   stands, there is a wide distinction. Jesus had no motive in His heart
   but that He loved us, loved us with all the greatness of His glorious
   Nature--loved us, and therefore for love, pure love, and love alone--He
   gave Himself up to bleed and die--

   "With all His sufferings full in view And woes to us unknown, Forth to
   the tack His spirit flew, 'Twas love that urged Him on."

   Put the third crown upon His glorious head! Oh angels, bring forth the
   immortal coronet which has been stored up for ages for Him alone, and
   let it glitter upon that ever-blessed brow!

   Fourthly, remember, as I have already begun to hint, that in our
   Savior's case it was not precisely, though it was, in a sense, death
   for His friends. Greater love has no man than this towards his friends
   that he lay down his life for them. Read the text so, and it expresses
   a great truth--but greater love a man may have than to lay down his
   life for his friends, namely--if he dies for his enemies! And here is
   the greatness of Jesus' love, that though He called us "friends," the
   friendship was all on His side at the first. He called us friends, but
   our hearts called Him enemy, for we were opposed to

   Him. We loved not in return for His love. "We hid, as it were, our
   faces from Him, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not." Oh the
   enmity of the human heart to Jesus! There is nothing like it! Of all
   enmities that have ever come from the Pit that is bottomless, the
   enmity of the heart to the Christ of God is the strangest and most
   bitter of all!

   And yet for men polluted and depraved, for men hardened till their
   hearts are like the nether millstone, for men who could not return and
   could not reciprocate the love He felt, Jesus Christ gave Himself to
   die! "Scarcely for a righteous man one will die, yet perhaps for a good
   (benevolent) man one could even dare to die, but God commends His love
   to us in that while we were yet sinners in due time Christ died for the
   ungodly."--

   "O love of unexampled kind! That leaves all thought so far behind;
   Where length, and breadth, and depth, and height, Are lost to my
   astonished sight." Bring forth the royal diadem again, I say, and crown
   our loving Lord, the Lord of Love, for as He is King of kings
   everywhere else, so is He King of kings in the region of affection!

   I shall not, I hope, weary you when I now observe that there was
   another glorious point about Christ's dying for us for we had,
   ourselves, been the cause of the difficulty which required a death.
   There were two brothers on board a raft once, upon which they had
   escaped from a foundering ship. There was not enough food, and it was
   proposed to reduce the number that some, at least, might be able to
   live. So many must die. They cast lots for life and death. One of the
   brothers was drawn and was doomed to be thrown into the sea. His
   brother interposed and said, "You have a wife and children at home. I
   am single and therefore can be better spared. I will die instead of
   you." "No," said his brother, "not so. Why should you? The lot has
   fallen upon me." And they struggled with each other in mutual arguments
   of love, till at last the substitute was thrown into the sea.

   Now, there was no ground of difference between those too brothers
   whatever. They were friends and more than friends. They had not caused
   the difficulty which required the sacrifice of one of them. They could
   not blame one another for forcing upon them the dreadful alternative.
   But in our case there would never have been a need for anyone to die if
   we had not been the offenders, the willful offenders. And who was the
   offended one? Whose injured honor required the death? I speak not
   untruthfully if I say it was the Christ that died who was, Himself, the
   offended One. Against God the sin had been committed, against the
   majesty of the Divine Ruler! And in order to wipe the stain away from
   Divine Justice it was imperative that the penalty should be exacted and
   the sinful one should die. So He who was offended took the place of the
   offender and died, that the debt due to His own Justice might be paid.
   It is the case of the judge bearing the penalty which he feels
   compelled to pronounce upon the culprit!

   Like the old classic story of the father who, on the judgment bench,
   condemns his son to lose his eyes for an act of adultery, and then puts
   out one of his own eyes to save an eye for his son--the judge himself
   bore a portion of the penalty. In our case, He who vindicated the honor
   of His own Law, and bore all the penalty, was the Christ who loved
   those who had offended His Sovereignty and grieved His holiness! I say
   again--but where are the lips that shall say it aright?--Bring forth,
   bring forth a new diadem of more than imperial splendor, to crown the
   Redeemer's blessed head anew, and let all the harps of Heaven pour
   forth the richest music in praise of His supreme love!

   Note, again, that there have been men who died for others, but they
   have never borne the sins of others. They were willing to take the
   punishment, but not the guilt. Those cases which I have already
   mentioned did not involve character. Pythias has offended Dionysius,
   Damon is ready to die for him, but Damon does not bear the offense
   given by Pythias. A brother is thrown into the sea for a brother, but
   there is no fault in the case. The servant dies for his master in
   Russia, but the servant's character rises--it is in no degree
   associated with any fault of the master--and the master is, indeed,
   faultless in the case. But here, before Christ must die, it must be
   written, "He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin
   of many." "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." "He made
   Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the
   righteousness of God in Him." "He was made a curse for us, as it is
   written, Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree."

   Now, far be it from our hearts to say that Christ was ever less than
   perfectly holy and spotless, and yet there had to be established a
   connection between Him and sinners by the way of substitution, which
   must have been hard for His perfect Nature to endure. For Him to be
   hung up between two felons. For Him to be accused of blasphemy. For Him
   to be numbered with transgressors. For Him to suffer, the Just for the
   unjust, bearing His Father's wrath as if He had been

   guilty--this is amazing and surpasses all thought! Bring forth the
   brightest crowns and put them on His head, while we pass on to weave a
   seventh chaplet for that adorable brow! For remember, once more, the
   death of Christ was a proof of superlative love, because in His case He
   was denied all the helps and alleviations which in other cases make
   death to be less than death.

   I marvel not that a saint can die joyously. Well may his brow be placid
   and his eyes bright, for he sees his heavenly Father gazing down upon
   him and Glory awaiting him! Well may his spirit be rapt in joy, even
   while the death-sweat is on his face, for the angels have come to meet
   him and he sees the far-off land, and the gates of pearl growing nearer
   every hour! But ah, to die upon a Cross without a pitying eye upon you,
   surrounded by a scoffing multitude--and to die there appealing to God,
   who turns away His face! To die with this as your requiem, "My God, My
   God, why have You forsaken Me!" To startle the midnight darkness with
   an, "Eli, Eli, lama Sabachthani" of awful anguish such as never had
   been heard before--this is terrible!

   The triumph of Love in the death of Jesus rises clear above all other
   heroic acts of self-sacrifice! Even as we have seen the lone peak of
   the monarch of mountains rise out from all adjoining alps and pierce
   the clouds to hold familiar converse with the stars, so does this love
   of Christ soar far above anything else in human history, or that can be
   conceived by the heart of man! His death was more terrible, His passing
   away more grievous by far. Greater love has no man than this, that He
   lay down such a life in such a fashion, and for such enemies so utterly
   unworthy! Oh, I will not say, Crown Him--what are crowns to Him?
   Blessed Lamb of God, our hearts love You! We fall at Your feet in
   adoring reverence, and magnify You in the silence of our souls.

   III. Lastly, and I must be very brief, as my time has fled, MANY ROYAL
   THINGS OUGHT TO BE SUGGESTED

   TO US BY THIS ROYAL LOVE. And first, dear Brothers and Sisters, how
   this thought of Christ's proving His love by His death ennobles
   self-denial. I do not know how you feel, but I feel utterly mean when I
   think of what Christ has done for me. To live a life of comparative
   ease and enjoyment shames me. To work to weariness seems nothing. After
   all, what are we doing compared with what He has done? Those who can
   suffer, who can lay down their lives in mission fields and bear
   hardships, and poverty, and persecution for Christ--my Brethren, these
   are to be envied--they have a portion above their Brethren!

   It makes us feel ashamed to be at home and to possess any comforts when
   JESUS so denied Himself. I say the thought of the Lord's bleeding love
   makes us think ourselves mean to be what we are. It makes us nothing in
   our own sight, while it causes us to honor before God the self-denial
   of others and wish that we had the means of practicing it. And oh, how
   it prompts us to heroism! When you get to the Cross you have left the
   realm of little men--you have reached the nursery of true chivalry.
   Does Christ die?--then we feel we could die, too! What grand things men
   have done when they have lived in the love of Christ! That story of the
   Moravians comes to my mind, and I will repeat it, though you may often
   have heard it, how in the South of Africa there was, years ago, a place
   of lepers into which persons afflicted with leprosy were driven.

   There was a tract of country surrounded by high walls, from which none
   could escape. There was only one gate and he who went in never came out
   again. Certain Moravians looked over the wall and saw two men--one,
   whose arms had rotted off with leprosy, was carrying on his back
   another who had lost his legs--and between the two they were making
   holes in the ground and planting seeds. The two Moravians thought,
   "They are dying of a foul disease by hundreds inside that place. We
   will go and preach the Gospel to them. But," they said, "if we go in,
   we can never come out again. There we will die of leprosy, too." They
   went in and they never did come out till they went home to Heaven. They
   died for others for the love of Jesus.

   Two others of these holy men went to the West Indian Islands, where
   there was an estate to which a man could not go to preach the Gospel
   unless he was a slave. And these two men sold themselves for slaves, to
   work as others worked, that they might tell their fellow slaves the
   Gospel. Oh, if we had that spirit of Jesus among us we should do great
   things! We need it bad, and must have it. The Church has lost
   everything when she has lost her old heroism! She has lost her power to
   conquer the world when the love of Christ no longer constrains her. But
   mark how the heroics in this case is sweetly tinctured and flavored
   with gentleness. The chivalry of the olden times was cruel. It
   consisted very much in a strong fellow cased in steel going about and
   knocking others to pieces who did not happen to wear similar suits of
   steel.

   Nowadays we could get a good deal of that courage back, I dare say, but
   we shall be best without it. We need that blessed chivalry of love in
   which a man feels, "I would suffer any insult from that man if I could
   do him good for Christ's sake. And I would be a doormat to my Lord's
   temple gate, that all who come by might wipe their feet upon me, if
   they could thereby honor Christ." The grand heroism of being nothing
   for Christ's sake, or anything for the Church's sake-- that is the
   heroism of the Cross, for Christ made Himself of no reputation and took
   upon Himself the form of a Servant, and being found in fashion as a
   Man, He became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. O
   blessed Spirit, teach us to perform heroic acts of self-abnegation for
   Jesus' name's sake!

   And, lastly, there seems to come to my ears from the Cross a gentle
   voice that says, "Sinner, Sinner, guilty Sinner, I did all this for
   you, what have you done for Me?" And yet another which says, "Return
   unto Me! Look unto Me and be you saved, all you ends of the earth." I
   wish I knew how to preach to you Christ Crucified. I feel ashamed of
   myself that I cannot do better than I have done. I pray the Lord to set
   it before you in a far better way than any of my words can. But, oh,
   guilty Sinner, there is life in a look at the Redeemer! Turn, now, your
   eyes to Him and trust Him! Simply by trusting Him you shall find
   pardon, mercy, eternal life and Heaven. Faith is a look at the Great
   Substitute. God help you to get that look for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--John 15.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Heart Of Flesh

   (No. 1129)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 31, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give
   you an heart of flesh.'' Ezekiel 36:26.

   IT is a peculiar feature in our holy religion that it begins its work
   within and acts first upon the heart. Other religions, like that of the
   Pharisees, begin with outward forms and ceremonies, perhaps hoping to
   work inwardly from without, although the process never ends, for though
   the outside of the cup and of the platter is made clean, the inside
   still remains full of rottenness as before. No Truth of God is more
   sure than this concerning all the sons of men, "You must be born
   again."

   There must be an entire and radical change of man's nature or else
   where God is he can never come--the Gospel does not flinch from this,
   but enforces the declaration. The Holy Spirit does not attempt to
   improve human nature into something better, but lays the axe at the
   root of the trees and declares that we must become new creatures--and
   that by a supernatural work of the Omnipotent God.

   Scripture does not mince matters, or say that some men may be better
   than others, naturally, and by an improvement of their excellencies may
   at last become good enough for God. Far from it! It declares concerning
   all, "Except you are converted and become as little children, you shall
   in no wise enter into the kingdom of Heaven." True religion begins,
   then, with the heart, and the heart is the ruling power of manhood. You
   may enlighten a man's understanding and you have done much, but as long
   as his heart is wrong, the enlightenment of the understanding only
   enables him to sin with a greater weight of responsibility resting upon
   him. He knows good to be good, but he prefers the evil. He sees the
   light, but he loves the darkness and turns from the Truth of God
   because his heart is alienated from God.

   If the heart is renewed, the judgment will, before long, follow in the
   same track. But as long as the heart is wrong, the affections govern
   the will and bias the character of the man towards evil. If a man loves
   evil he is evil. If he hates God he is God's enemy, whatever his
   outward professions, whatever his knowledge, whatever his apparent good
   qualities. "As a man thinks in his heart so he is." This is more nearly
   the man than any other of the faculties and powers which God has
   bestowed upon our nature. What if I say that the heart is the Eve in
   the little garden of our nature and she it is that first plucks the
   evil fruit? And though the understanding follows the affections, even
   as Adam followed Eve, yet the first power for good or evil lies in the
   affections.

   The heart, when renewed by Grace, is the best part of manhood.
   Unrenewed, it is the very worst. Aesop, when his master ordered him to
   provide nothing for a feast but the best things in the market, brought
   him nothing but tongues, and when, the next day, he ordered him to buy
   nothing but the worst things in the market, still brought nothing but
   tongues. And I would venture to correct or spiritualize the story by
   exchanging hearts for tongues, for there is nothing better in the world
   than hearts renewed, and nothing worse than hearts unregenerate. It is
   a great Covenant promise that the heart shall be renewed and the
   particular form of its renewal is this--that it shall be made living,
   warm, sensitive, and tender. It is naturally a heart of stone--it is to
   become, by a work of Divine Grace--a heart of flesh. Therefore, very
   much of the result of regeneration and conversion will be found to lie
   in the production of a tender spirit.

   Tenderness, the opposite of that which is stout, obstinate, cold,
   hard--tenderness is one of the most gracious signs in a man's
   character. And where God has given fleshiness, or living sensitiveness
   instead of stoniness, or dead insensibility of heart, there we may
   conclude that there is a real work of Grace and that God has created
   vital godliness within. Concerning this tenderness I am about to
   speak--"I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will
   give you a heart of flesh."

   I. Our first remark is that THE TENDERNESS HERE INTENDED IS ABSENT IN
   THE UNREGENERATE. They frequently have a natural sensitiveness--some
   persons who are not converted are very tender, indeed, as mothers to

   their children, as fathers to their offspring, as friends to friends.
   And God forbid that we should say anything amiss concerning that which
   is good in human nature after its kind! But that is widely different
   from the spiritually tender heart. Some there are who have a tenderness
   which arises from timidity, a tenderness which sometimes inclines them
   to good, not because they love the good, but because they are easily
   ruled by their company--so that they would be just as easily led
   towards evil if they fell in with bad companions. They have no
   principle, no root in themselves.

   Such a tenderness Rehoboam had, who was tender, and therefore followed
   evil advisers to his own injury. Such an unmanly softness as this is to
   be strived against, for we need to have some grit in our constitution,
   some firmness and resolution--and that sort of pliability which unman's
   a man and makes him a puppet for others to handle is a great evil.
   There is also a tenderness which arises mainly from legal terror and
   fear which is very different from the evangelical or saving softness of
   heart which is described in our text. I know some who exhibit a sort of
   counterfeit tenderness. When they hear a sermon they are excited by it
   and if it is about the world to come, the lifting up of the curtain of
   the future, they are affected for the time being. But then their
   goodness soon departs from them. They forget the next moment that which
   affected them a moment back--they are soon hot and soon cold--they are
   inconstant as the wind. That is a not the kind of tenderness to be
   desired--goodness which is as the morning cloud and the early dew which
   passes away.

   In all unregenerate men there is a lack of the real spiritual
   tenderness of which I have to speak, though all are not equally
   hardened. In all, for instance, there is a natural stoniness of heart.
   We are not born into this world perfect, so that when sin meets us it
   receives a kindly reception and is not dreaded and shunned as it should
   be. Those who notice children in their first acts will not have
   discovered any strong aversion in them to children's sins, or horror at
   the sight of them. How early does the little child give way to
   unrestrained passion and practice little acts of deceit? As the Prophet
   said, "We go astray from the womb, speaking lies." Our children's poet
   was correct when he said--

   "True, you are young, but there's a stone Within the youngest breast,
   Or half the sins which you have done Would rob you of your rest."

   The heart by nature is like the nether millstone and its hardness is
   increased by contact with the world. A youth's flesh from a godly
   household is not one-half so hard as he who has been for some time in
   the midst of ungodly company and has seen the ways of the debauched and
   the profane. Custom has a great power over us and what we see others do
   with impunity we by-and-by come to think, (unless the Grace of God
   prevents it), it cannot be quite so bad as our parents and guardians
   taught us that it was. Familiarity with sin does not breed contempt for
   it, but often causes a measure of contempt for the law which forbids
   it. We see the sparkling eye of the drunk. We hear his hilarious shout
   and imagine that there is pleasure in the bowl. Or we hear men speak of
   the delights of their transgressions and the sweets of lust, and unless
   we are held back by Providence and Grace, we are apt to think lightly
   of those things which once we regarded with abhorrence. This world is a
   petrifying spring and all who are of the world are being putrefied in
   it and are growing harder and harder as the years roll on.

   Moreover, men harden themselves by their own sins. Every time a man
   sins it becomes more easy for him to sin again. Like a stone falling,
   sin gains impetus and increased velocity. The man who sins once has a
   stronger tendency to sin again and there are some sins which almost
   necessitate a succession of sins. The man who lies, for instance,
   thinks he must lie a second time to conceal the first. And some
   transgressions which root themselves in the flesh breed a hunger and a
   thirst for the sin so that the flesh craves to be indulged again--and
   those who cannot bridle their passions are thus carried away by them
   with great force. As labor renders the hand hard, so sin makes the
   heart callous, and each sin makes the stony heart yet more like
   adamant.

   At the same time, all the circumstances around an unregenerate man will
   be perverted to the same result. If, for instance, a man prospers,
   nothing is more hardening to the heart than long prosperity. Find me an
   ungodly man whose course has been one of perpetual gain and you shall
   find me, almost certainly, a man who is ready to say unto the Lord,
   "Who is Jehovah that I should obey His voice?" Pride is often begotten
   of fullness of bread. If the man had known what need is, he might,
   perhaps, have been humbled before God. But now he boasts in his broad
   acres and his large estates and, like Nebuchadnezzar, he says, "Behold
   this great Babylon that I have built."

   It is also a dangerous thing to be for many years in good health
   without a sickness. This also hardens a man. The sickness which brings
   a man to the borders of the grave is often sanctified to the breaking
   of the heart. To be without

   ache or pain for a long time is so far from being a blessing from God
   to the wicked, that I scarcely know anything which may turn out to be a
   greater curse to an ungodly man. Never chastened? Then you are no child
   of God! Left to find pleasure in sin? Then surely it must be that God
   will let you have what pleasure you may in this world because He knows
   a terrible future awaits you! O soul in prosperity, disturb yourself,
   for you are in solemn danger! Hardness of heart will almost inevitably
   come upon you. You are at ease from your youth--you have not been
   emptied from vessel to vessel-- therefore your scent remains in you,
   and that scent is pride and carnal security.

   The opposite condition of circumstances will, through sin, produce the
   same result. Affliction hardens those whom it does not soften. There
   are men who have been in many storms at sea and, though once they
   feared, they never tremble now. If the mast had to be cut away and the
   vessel were almost to go down, they have grown so desperate they would
   curse and swear in the teeth of the tempest! Those who have escaped
   many accidents and dire diseases, who have passed unscathed by the hot
   furnace of fever, or have risen from between the jaws of cholera, are
   too often men whom nothing can move. What the fire does not melt it
   anneals as steel. Alas, of how many may it be said, "Why should you be
   stricken any more? You will revolt more and more."

   They resemble Ahaz of old, who, the more he was afflicted, the more he
   sinned--of whom the Spirit of God has written, "This is that king
   Ahaz." This is obduracy, indeed, comparable to that of Pharaoh, whom
   the Lord hardened by judgments which ought to have melted him to
   repentance. And alas! Alas, that we should have to add it--holy
   influences will come in to complete this hardening and carry it, still,
   to a higher degree! The Gospel has a wonderfully hardening power over
   those who reject it. The sun shines out of the heavens upon wax and
   softens it, but at the same time it shines upon clay and hardens it.
   The sunlight of the Gospel shining upon hearers either melts them into
   repentance or else hardens them into greater obstinacy. You cannot be
   hearers of the Gospel without its having some effect upon you.

   Some of you have attended this place ever since it was built [12 years
   earlier] and if you are not the better for it, you certainly are the
   worse. If the Gospel is not a savor of life unto life to you it will be
   a savor of death unto death. Among hardened sinners the Gospel-hardened
   sinner is one of the worst. Yet, further, when an unregenerate man
   dares to put on a Christian profession, this is perhaps the most rapid
   and certain process for consummating the devil's work, for if a man
   will be audacious enough to join himself with the saints while he is
   indulging in private sin--if he will continue to come to the Communion
   Table when he knows that his base lusts are still indulged--and if,
   moreover, he has the face to boast of being a child of God when he
   knows that he is an utter stranger to Divine Grace, why, such a man is
   the raw material out of which Satan can make a Judas!

   The devil himself could not make a Judas till he had found a false
   Apostle. You must look among hypocritical professors of religion if you
   would find the worst of men! And I must add, you may succeed best in
   your search if you can find a false-hearted minister. The higher the
   place in God's garden the more the weeds stink. The hardest-hearted men
   of all are not those who have been guilty of crimes against society and
   have been put away into our jails--often a little kindness will melt
   these savages down. No, the worst of all are those demons in human
   shape who make a profession of being the people of God and all the
   while know that they are sinning wickedly with both hands! To cover a
   vile life with the coverlet of a Christian profession is a sign of
   reprobation. Take men, however, at any stage, this is still true--that
   the heart of flesh is not to be found in any unregenerate man.

   II. WHEREVER TRUE TENDERNESS IS FOUND, IT IS A SPECIAL GIFT OF THE NEW
   COVENANT. A

   heart of flesh is a gift of Sovereign Grace and it is always the result
   of Divine power. No heart of stone was ever turned into flesh by
   accident, nor by mere Providential dispensations, nor by human
   persuasions. You might argue with a rock a long while before you would
   persuade it into flesh. Neither is such a change worked by a man's own
   actions. How shall a stone, being a stone, produce in itself flesh?

   A power from above the man must work upon him. According to the
   language of the Scriptures, "Except a man be born from above he cannot
   see the kingdom of God." The Spirit of God must change the nature, or
   the heart of stone will never become a heart of flesh! Note that the
   first works of the Spirit of God upon the soul tend towards this
   tenderness, for when He comes to a man He convinces him of sin and so
   softens him. The man convinced of sin does not laugh any longer at sin,
   neither does he despise the wrath of God on account of it. When the
   Spirit of God darts the arrows of conviction into the soul, then the
   heart begins to bleed and the man is conscious of feelings and emotions
   to which he was a stranger before.

   I trust there are some of you who understand this first work of the
   Spirit in the heart--He has begun to make you feel the guilt of sin, He
   has compelled you to tremble before an angry God and to dread the wrath
   to come--this early work of Grace has already made you sensitive as you
   never were before. And the further the Spirit's work proceeds, the more
   tender will you become. When the soul comes to be really saved and to
   obtain peace through Jesus Christ, one great mark of its salvation is
   tenderness in heart. Oh, what a place for tenderness the Cross is! When
   for the first time our eyes behold the Savior, we weep! We look and
   live, but we also look and mourn that we pierced the Lord. Who can
   behold a bleeding Savior suffering for his sin without being melted
   down? No heart of stone can bear contact with the Cross.

   Let but Jesus dart a look of love and we are dissolved, as once Peter's
   heart was melted and made to flow out in penitential tears. Only let us
   hear the accents of our Redeemer's voice and we shall cry, "My soul
   melted while He spoke to me." The fact that He loved us and gave
   Himself for us is enough to dissolve a heart of iron, if it could once
   know it. Now as these first works of the Spirit of God in conviction
   and conversion lead to tenderness, so it is true of all the Divine
   operations which follow in due course. The whole tenor of the Gospel is
   towards tenderness. I cannot remember a promise, I cannot recall a
   doctrine, I cannot remember a fact connected with the Gospel which
   could make a Believer hard-hearted. Can you? I think, if you will turn
   over all that you know and all that God has revealed concerning
   salvation, you will find nothing to make you stubborn and willful, but
   everything to make you tender and sensitive.

   Oh, to think that salvation should be of the Sovereign Grace of God!
   How it humbles us. How it lays us in the dust. No more talking about
   man's rights as a creature, man's claims and what God ought to do! We
   are broken down and feel that the Lord may do exactly what He wills and
   thus we are made tender before His face. Oh, to know that there is no
   pardon except by faith in a Substitute! To understand that God must and
   will punish sin--how it makes us feel that sin is no trifle! How it
   leads us to abhor sin as a great evil and makes us jealous lest we
   should offend again! When we read that all our help was laid on Jesus
   Christ, how it cuts away, by the roots, all our self-confidence and
   makes us lie low at the foot of the Throne of God!

   I might go through all the Truths of God and Doctrines and promises, if
   we had time, and I think I could prove to a demonstration that their
   legitimate effect is to render the heart tender, wherever they operate.
   So it is with every Christian Grace. All the Christian virtues promote
   warmth and tenderness of heart. Have you zeal for God? I know you will
   be fearful of sinning. You will hate the very garment spotted by the
   flesh. Have you patience under the Divine rod? That patience is only
   softness of heart in one of its sweetest forms. Have you much love?
   Then I am sure you have much tenderness, for in proportion as the heart
   is stony it is destitute of affection. Every one of the Divine circle
   of Graces has an intimate connection with the heart of flesh. And I
   also venture to say that the more tender a man is the more advanced in
   Grace he is--and that the more callous and unconcerned he is the
   further is he from what he should be. Let the unfeeling professor know,
   and rest assured that if he is a child of God at all, he is certainly
   in a weak and backsliding state, or his insensibility would be a great
   burden and grief to him.

   Every Grace leans towards tenderness, and the whole current of the
   Divine life sets that way. You cannot be strong in piety unless you are
   tender in heart. Are you a child? Can a child be good if it is
   indifferent, haughty, obstinate and stony-hearted towards its parents?
   Are you a servant? Who is a good servant but he that is tender of his
   master's reputation and anxious to fulfill his lord's command? Are you
   a soldier? Where is there a good soldier that is not jealous of his
   captain's honor and careful, lest by any means, he should break the
   martial law? There must be tenderness. It is an essential point. Unless
   it is melted down the hard metal cannot be poured into the mold and
   fashioned for use and beauty. The Lord Jesus will never set His seal
   upon cold wax. He stamps His image on hearts of flesh and not on
   stones. A tender conscience is an essential ingredient in the perfect
   Christian character and where it is not, neither is the life and work
   of

   God.

   III. Let us dwell upon another point, that THIS TENDERNESS, WHEN IT IS
   GIVEN, IS OBSERVABLE UNDER SEVERAL ASPECTS. The man who has a heart of
   flesh given him becomes sensitive to fear. He trembles at the thought
   of a holy God in arms against him. He no longer jokes about Hell and
   eternity, as so many do, but he says, "My heart stands in awe of You
   and I am afraid of Your judgments." He no longer argues that the Lord
   is too severe, but he admits that He is just when He judges and clear
   when He condemns. The renewed heart is afraid of what other men call
   little sins and flees from them as from a serpent. The regenerate man
   knows that there is death in every drop of sin's wine and he

   will not venture to sip thereof, nor taste a mouthful of sin's most
   royal dainties. He fears the Lord and dreads to offend because he is
   made alive, so as to know the Lord's holiness and perceive His justice.

   The stony heart neither knows nor fears and therefore abides in death.
   I have little fear for a soul that fears, but I tremble for those who
   never tremble. I have sometimes wished that certain, very-assured
   Christians, as they think themselves, who are, I fear, in very truth
   presumptuous pretenders--I wish they could and would have a dash of
   fear about them. Fear of the kind we now mean is a holy salt to a man's
   character. Fear and trembling well become even the most eminent saint.
   "God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of His saints." "Serve the
   Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling." "Work out your own
   salvation with fear and trembling." Though I greatly deplore all doubts
   of God's truthfulness, I do not equally deprecate doubts concerning our
   own condition, for there is such a thing as holy anxiety and I charge
   you never to think little of it, but remember the poet's lines--

   "He that never doubted of his state, He may, perhaps, he may, too
   late."

   self-examination will often suggest holy fear and deep searching of
   heart--and it will reveal so much of sin in us that we shall be sent to
   our knees, with weeping and supplication, to cry out for help and
   pardon. To live without fear is to live in sin, for one mark of a
   Believer is that he has the fear of God before his eyes. In this sense,
   "blessed is the man that fears always." Again, a tender heart becomes
   sensitive as to the decisions of its enlightened conscience. The heart
   changed by Grace begins to weigh its own actions towards God and it
   comes to the conclusion--"I have acted unjustly towards my Creator and
   Benefactor. He has been all goodness to me. I have received, at His
   hands, countless benefits and yet I have ungratefully forgotten Him.
   When I heard of Him I treated Him slightingly. I have lived for myself
   but not for my good and gracious Creator." The quickened conscience
   holds a daily court and its sentences are heard and respected by the
   heart of flesh.

   In the ungodly man there is a conscience, but it is asleep and needs a
   cannon fired to wake it up, so that the stony heart is never troubled.
   Let our prayer be--

   "Quick as the apple of an eye, O God, my conscience make. Awake my soul
   when sin is near, And keep it still awake."

   The Christian feels that it is a horrible thing to sin against God,
   against the Savior's love and against the influence of the indwelling
   Spirit. He starts back from sin--he is not only afraid of the
   punishment but he is wounded by the sin, itself. As smoke to the eyes,
   as thorns to the flesh and as gall to the palate, such is sin to the
   heart of flesh.

   Then, again, the new heart, the fleshy heart, becomes sensitive of the
   Divine love. Is it not one of the most amazing things in the world that
   the story of Calvary does not flood with tears every eye that reads it?
   Was there ever such touching, affecting love as that shown by the Son
   of God towards His enemies when He left the dignities of Heaven for the
   shame and suffering of earth? Silly stories of love-sick maids, or the
   improbable plots of three-volume romances will bring showers of tears
   from those who read them--while this grand narrative, this wondrous
   tragedy of love--is as a thrice-told tale and the Book which contains
   it is often put upon the shelf as far too dry for reading! Though it
   concerns us all and we are lost without it--and with it are lifted up
   to be near akin to God--yet this dying love of Christ is disregarded.

   How can it be otherwise while the heart is made of stone? When his
   heart is turned to flesh, then the love of God affects the man, humbles
   him, melts him, woos him, wins him, captivates him, enchants him,
   enamors him, inflames him with ardent thankfulness and draws him up
   towards Heaven! Divine Love begets in the renewed man a sensitiveness
   to gratitude. "Has Jesus done all this for me? Then what can I do for
   Him? Has He bought me with His blood? Then I am His and not my own, or
   the world's. What can I do for Him who died to save my grateful soul?"
   The renewed heart feels that the love of Christ constrains it and it
   judges "that if Christ died for all, then were all dead and that He
   died for all, that they which live should not live from now on to
   themselves, but unto Him that died for them and rose again."

   Moreover, the heart becomes sensitive, from now on, to holy grief. When
   it has erred, it chastens and humbles itself for having grieved the
   Savior. It takes revenge upon itself if sin has been indulged. It
   becomes sensitive to joy and oh, what a joy a Christian feels--a joy to
   which the ungodly man must forever be a stranger! The renewed heart
   sings at the sound of the Savior's footsteps and when His love is shed
   abroad, no precious ointment can be half so sweet! Oh, the

   exhilarations and delights we have known when we clearly see our
   acceptance in the Beloved! Oh, the feasts and the banquets when we have
   fellowship with the Crucified One! Oh, the ravishments and ecstasies
   when we look through the open gates of pearl and behold our eternal
   inheritance, the crowns of gold and the palms of victory!

   By regeneration we are made capable of an unknown fullness of joy.
   Every power and faculty is so quickened as to be able to quiver with
   delight! Heaven itself seems to flash along every nerve when the heart
   is steeped in fellowship with Jesus! And so we become sensitive with
   pity for others. I would give nothing for your religion if you do not
   desire others to share in it. If you can, without emotion, think of a
   soul being damned, I fear that it will be your own lot. If you can look
   upon the ignorant, the perverse, the rebellious and think of their
   destruction with complacency, you are no child of God! Your Savior, who
   is the first-born of the Divine family, wept over Jerusalem. Have you
   no tears? Then you are not a member of the family of which He is the
   Head!--

   "Did Christ over sinners weep,

   And can our cheeks be dry?

   Let drops of sympathetic grief

   Distil from every eye."

   A heart of stone says, "Let them go where they will: am I my brother's
   keeper?" But a heart of flesh says, "Lord, help me by any means to save
   some; it shall be a delight to me to turn sinners from the error of
   their ways." Where this tenderness of heart is carried to a high point,
   as it ought to be in every Christian, the Believer becomes delicately
   sensitive concerning the things of God. I have seen an instrument for
   weighing of so exceedingly delicate a nature that it has been affected
   by a particle of dust quite imperceptible by the naked eye. An
   invisible atom has turned the scale! We have different kinds of
   weighing machines. Some are so rough that they would hardly yield to
   the pressure of an ounce, but others quiver if the smallest particle
   falls upon them. The Believer's heart should be like this last. A
   Christian's heart should resemble the sensitive plant, which the moment
   it is touched, folds up its leaves as a sailor reefs his canvas, or
   like a wound in a man's flesh which is pained by the faintest brush.

   Spiritual sensitiveness is fullness of life--insensibility is death. To
   feel the slightest motion of the Holy Spirit is a sign of high
   spirituality. I would not wish to be, in my heart, like the Great
   Eastern upon the sea, needing an Atlantic roller to stir it. I would
   rather desire to be as the angler's float which mounts or sinks by the
   force of the least ripple. Spirit of the Lord, thus act upon my willing
   heart! I want to be so sensitive of the Spirit of God that I may be
   like the aspen leaf which trembles even when the breeze is not
   perceptible to others. We should watch to do God's will and not need
   His whip and bridle to force us to obedience.

   Yet I have known professors who have clearly seen a certain duty to be
   taught in the Bible, but they have said, "Well, we think it is
   Scriptural, but we need to have it brought to us by a deep impression
   on our mind and our way pointed out by Providential circumstances."
   This is a disobedient spirit and ought to meet with grave censure! The
   Lord's Word is our guide, not our impressions or our circumstances! And
   to the renewed heart it should be enough to know the Lord's will and
   our obedience should be prompt. On the other hand, if anything is
   forbidden in the Word, or is clearly wrong, nothing can justify our
   continuance in it. We are bound, at once, to forsake it. The great need
   of this age is sensitiveness about revealed Truth and the Divine will.

   We have a Church in our land in which there are three distinct classes
   of men who all declare that they believe the whole of the Book of
   Common Prayer--and it is clearly impossible that they should do so,
   since these parties have no points of agreement with one another and
   wage incessant war with each other. Yet they each one receive it all ex
   amino, all of it, when no man living, nor angel, nor devil could
   believe it all--the book itself being self-contradictory! This,
   however, is of small consequence to supple consciences trained to play
   with language. Some ministers of this Church know their position to be
   a doubtful one and yet retain it on the plea that their usefulness
   might be impaired if they left the Church--is this reasoning fit for
   Christians?! Are we to seek a supposititious usefulness by continuing
   where our conscience is ill at ease? Surely not! Our rule of conduct is
   the Divine will, and that only.

   Oh, I long to see a race of men born among us like the old Covenanters
   who would die for the least word of Jesus and would give their blood
   for the smallest jewel of His crown! But now we are to be charitable
   and if any of us speak out for God, straightway we are hounded down for
   lack of charity--whereas it is our great charity for souls that makes
   us speak out and run all risks! We have charity for dying men and
   charity for the age to come! We see deadly error propped up by
   temporizers and we cannot be silent. If ministers of the Gospel set the
   example of wresting words and trifling with the

   Truth of God, where will this nation's morals be in the next
   generation? Brothers, we who preach the Gospel must follow the highest
   conceivable standard of strict Truth, for God's sake, for our office
   sake and for the people's sake. We cannot afford to be lax in our
   solemn declarations, for we shall have to answer for them to our Lord
   at the Last Great Day.

   If we are to be teachers of other men we must, ourselves, be beyond
   suspicion. We must be inflexible in the Truth of God and sooner die
   than be false of faith, or preach anything that savors of dishonesty or
   is tainted with equivocation. We shall never lead God's troops to
   victory against error and falsehood if we vacillate ourselves! Oh, for
   great tenderness of heart towards the Truth of God! Even though
   scrupulosity could beget the revival of a fierce sectarianism, it were
   infinitely more to be desired than the soul-deceiving charity which is
   the Diana of this age and the destroyer of souls! Translated into plain
   English, the current charity of the times only means that it matters
   not one atom what God has said! Let us make our own systems and
   mutually agree to shelve all the inconvenient parts of Revelation. Let
   us be liberal to our fellow men out of our Lord's estate--what matters
   our Lord's honor so long as we make things pleasant all round? In the
   teeth of this, the sensitive heart will be faithful and will bear the
   censure of all men sooner than incur the displeasure of the Lord.
   Tenderness towards God we must have!

   Oh, for the old Elijah spirit of stern determination, tempered with the
   John spirit of love to those whose errors we condemn! Jehovah must be
   King in this land and the idols must be utterly abolished!

   IV. I shall close with a few reflections on the same subject.
   TENDERNESS OF HEART IS TO BE GREATLY PRIZED AND EARNESTLY CULTIVATED.
   Some among you may, for the first time, be distressed on account of
   sin. I rejoice because of it! Some of you are not what you used to
   be--gay and light-hearted. You are now thoughtful and, with that
   thoughtfulness, sorrowful. You came here this morning praying that God
   would give you peace, but you have not obtained it. I pray God to give
   you your wish, but may you never find peace unless it is the peace of
   God, peace through Jesus Christ. May your resolution be, "I will never
   rest until I rest in God's rest, even in His own dear Son."

   Beloved, do not try to get rid of soul alarms, conviction, or sin
   except in God's way. There are physicians of no value who would heal
   your wound if you would let them--do not endure them, for they will
   only film it over and leave an ulcer beneath which will cost you your
   soul. Ask the Lord to make your minister faithful to you, allow him to
   use the lance to open the wound and cut out the proud flesh. Yes, ask
   the Spirit of God to probe you to the quick sooner than allow you to be
   flattered into the conception that you are healed when you are not!

   Go to the Lord for healing--all other healing is worthless. Say, "Lord,
   make sure work of it in me. Save me Yourself. Save me thoroughly.
   Deliver me from trusting in myself or my fellow man and bring me to
   rely, alone only Yourself and Your dear Son." Do not go to amusements
   which will help you to forget your true condition. Don't be danced or
   fiddled, or play-acted, into indifference. Be anxious that this
   bruising and breaking should go on further, that you may be even more
   conscious of the exceeding guilt of sin. You will never prize the
   Savior until you loathe yourself. You will never love His blood until
   you have been ashamed of the crimson of your own sin. Jesus will never
   be to you a Savior till you are in your own eyes a poor, lost, ruined
   sinner. Go to Jesus and put your trust in Him and harden not your heart
   against Him.

   Next, I speak to you, O child of God. Cultivate tenderness of heart
   more and more. I would say to you who are Christians, do not believe
   anything, the legitimate result of which would be to make you callous
   in your spiritual feelings, or lax in your dealings with your follow
   men, or careless with your God. I dread lest any of the Truths of God
   which we profess should come to be so held in unrighteousness as to
   make us feel easy in sin. Whenever I find a Brother perfectly content
   with himself, I am afraid for him. I know he does not see the sin that
   God sees in him, or he would rather bemoan himself than give way to
   boasting. I delight to hear men preaching up a high standard of
   holiness--the higher the better! But if any man should say that he has
   reached it, I blush and tremble for him. He had better begin again upon
   the ladder of sanctification, for he has not put his foot on the first
   step of it yet--for that is humility.

   Be very humble, lie very low. Be more and more conscious of your
   natural guilt and repent more earnestly each day. I proclaim before you
   all that I believe the very best place for a man to stand in is with
   his arms around the Cross, saying--

   "I the chief of sinners am, But Jesus died for me."

   I am nothing, but Christ is everything. I am a mass of loathsomeness in
   myself, but nevertheless accepted in the Beloved. Daily may we fear
   lest we should fall into a routine religion without life and power. We
   can sing without real joy or

   praise. We can pray without any earnestness or fervency. We can read
   the Bible without feeding on its Truths. And we can know the doctrines
   of the Gospel without proving their influences upon the heart. Pray
   against this, yes, pray against all lifeless religion! I would have my
   soul vital all over and as sensitive towards God as though it were
   flayed of all earth-hardened skin upon it--every Truth, every promise,
   every Word of God should make me feel intensely, acutely and at
   once--tenderness of heart.

   I beseech you who are Believers to strive after this. Remember how
   tender the Savior was. There was no stone about His heart. May you be
   as tender as He was and you will then be fashioned into the likeness
   for which God is preparing you by His eternal Spirit. Dread growing
   hard in your thoughts of sin! Dread growing cold in your thoughts of
   Christ! Dread growing stony in your thoughts of your fellow sinners!
   And let this promise be pleaded in your prayers before God, "I will
   take away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a
   heart of flesh." The Lord fulfill it to you for His Truth's sake and
   His name's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Ezekiel 36.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Christian's Great Business

   (No. 1130)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 7, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation; and uphold me with Your
   free Spirit. Then will I teach transgressors Your ways; and sinners
   shall be converted unto You." Psalm 51:12-13.

   BELOVED Brothers and Sisters, sinners are all around us living in their
   sins. Tens of thousands in our great cities and our country towns and
   villages are abiding in the densest spiritual darkness. They do not
   know their right hand from their left as to eternal things. And an
   equally numerous class who do know something of the letter of the
   Gospel are yet as men who see but perceive not, who hear but understand
   not. Some of these wandering ones are in great misery everyday, as the
   result of their sins, and if we knew what they suffered we would
   greatly pity them. It would be impossible for us to remain indifferent
   if we heard their secret groans. And all these sinners, whether they
   are suffering or not, are living to the dishonor of God, robbing God of
   the Glory which is due Him as Creator, and more or less dishonoring the
   Lord Jesus who receives no reward from them as Redeemer. If we were in
   a right state of heart we could not live where we are without feeling
   daily anguish on account of abounding sin.

   Meanwhile, all around us there are potent agencies at work to hold
   these sinners in their present condition and prevent their escape into
   a better life. We may be idle, but the powers of darkness and their
   agents are busy--busy in working mischief, leading men into one form of
   error or another, or casting one or other of the nets of infidelity
   around them. Hell from beneath is stirred at this moment! If there is
   no revival in the Church of God, there is certainly a revival among her
   enemies! They are compassing sea and land to make proselytes, though,
   when they make them, they will be tenfold more the children of Hell
   than they were before. The activity of the hosts of the Evil One should
   act as the sound of the alarm to awake the slumbering army of the
   living God! What are you doing, O sleepers? Arise, for the Philistines
   are at your gates!

   Meanwhile, the case is still graver. Sinners are dying! Every hour
   hurries a company of them into eternity. They are carried away as with
   a flood! They fall like grass before the mower's scythe! And where do
   they go? Alas, we know, but how little do we consider! They are driven
   from the Presence of God and from all hope of restoration. Their woe is
   such as cannot be described in language, though in the Book of God the
   Holy Spirit has employed terms of extreme expressions, whose meaning it
   would be hardly possible to exaggerate. I might say, eye has not seen,
   nor has ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the doom
   which awaits all those who perish in impenitence!

   Beloved, the thought of souls sinking into everlasting woes stirs me
   with the desire to awake you. I feel that if my heart is cold I may
   share the responsibility of any lack of zeal in you, but if I shall be
   helped to be earnest, I shall hope that the sacred contagion will
   spread and that Believers in Christ all around will be deeply concerned
   for the souls of others. Our topic, then, is the life business of the
   Christian--to teach transgressors God's ways--that sinners may be
   converted unto Him.

   We shall handle our subject thus--first, we shall show who are to teach
   others. Secondly, what they are to aim at in their teaching. Thirdly,
   why they should thus seek the conversion of others. And, fourthly, how
   they can do this, for there may be some who will need a little
   practical guidance as to what they shall attempt.

   I. First, dear Brethren, WHO ARE TO TEACH TRANSGRESSORS THAT THEY MAY
   BE CONVERTED UNTO GOD? The reply is easy. The text is found in a Psalm
   which is deeply penitential all through, but ends in the joy of
   forgiven sin. The words before us relate to joy restored by a sense of
   pardon--therefore the men who should teach others the ways of God are
   those who have, themselves, been pardoned. Who else can tell of the
   guilt of sin but men upon whom the burden of sin has pressed, who have
   felt the arrows of conviction in their own soul, who have been bowed
   into the dust because they have felt that the wrath of God rested upon
   them?

   They can speak with authority concerning what they have personally
   felt. When such men speak of pardoning love and of the blood which
   cleanses, how sweetly do they tell of that blessed moment when their
   transgressions were forgiven and their sins were covered! These are not
   the men to descant upon the dignity of human nature, the excellencies
   of virtue and the merit of moral reformation. Their story is of quite
   another kind. They cry, "We have destroyed ourselves and all our help
   is found in Jesus! We are condemned and have no means of
   self-justification! But there is a precious blood that speaks better
   things than that of Abel, which pleads for us!"

   Pardoned Sinners, go and publish the story of what God's Grace has done
   for you! You are the men, and none others in the world, who can tell it
   to advantage. Tell it with the hope that your fellow men will hear it
   and live. While, however, all pardoned sinners ought to do this, we
   should remember that we are most fit for the doing of it when we are
   full of the joy of God's salvation. Notice the prayer--"Restore unto me
   the joy of Your salvation. Then will I teach transgressors Your ways."
   If you are doubtful as to whether you are saved or not. If the sword of
   the Spirit is rusted in your hand, or hidden in a scabbard, you cannot
   wield the weapons of your holy war with any force while your arm is
   trembling with doubt. You must know in yourself that you are forgiven
   and that you have proved the power of the precious blood, before you
   can speak to others with the hope that they will believe your message.

   When Luther lay sick and sorrowing, before he had found peace with God,
   a truly gracious monk came to his bedside and said, "I believe in the
   forgiveness of sins." Luther looked at him, for he had often repeated
   those words in the creed, but had never felt their power before. The
   man of God said, "You believe in the forgiveness of David. You believe
   in the forgiveness of Peter. Believe you in the like forgiveness of
   your own sins through the precious blood of Jesus." And Luther did
   believe it--and from that time he spoke like a man whom God had
   sent--speaking mightily because he believed confidently. In preaching
   justification by faith he roared like a lion in the glory of his
   strength, for the joy of the Lord in his own soul had become his
   strength to bear testimony to others!

   I wonder not that some men doubt, and waver, and vacillate in their
   doctrinal sentiments and teachings, and talk about views and opinions.
   O Sirs, if they had once felt a broken heart and the terrors of a
   broken Law--if they had once known the power of the blood to bind up
   the wounds of the heart--they would speak of certainties and soon would
   come to be accused, as some of us are, of being positive and dogmatic!
   Who can help being dogmatic about a thing which is his very life and is
   as sure to him as his existence itself? While we believe in the joy of
   the Lord we shall not come to sinners with, "ifs" and "buts," but with
   a faith which will, by God's Grace, help them, also, to believe! To
   prepare us to win souls, we must have the Holy Spirit resting upon us,
   for the text says, "Uphold me with Your free Spirit."

   The Spirit of God in the Church is the standing miracle which proves
   that she is of God. Were the Spirit of God gone from her, it would be
   impossible for the Church to hold her ground. But the Holy Spirit
   abiding in the Church is the testimony of God to His Church and the
   strength of her testimony for her God. Beloved, if the Holy Spirit
   shall come upon you and rest on you continually, you will sweetly tell
   of your Lord's Grace and of His dying love. The right words will come,
   for it shall be often given you in the same hour what you shall speak!
   The right emotions will attend the words, for the Spirit of God creates
   tenderness and pity! The ice will melt in your spirit, the hard frosts
   of your long backsliding winter will yield to the returning Sun of
   Righteousness--the season of cold and death shall be over and gone--and
   the time of the singing of birds shall have come to your soul. Then
   will you be able to teach transgressors God's ways. O Brothers and
   Sisters, pray for a revival in your own souls! Beseech the Holy Spirit
   to come upon you! Entreat the Lord to send the Breath from the four
   winds, not only upon the dry bones, but also upon the men who have to
   prophesy in the valley of the dead!

   Note, also, that if we would bear good testimony for God to the
   conversion of souls, we must, by the Spirit of God, be upheld in
   consistency of life, "Uphold me with Your free Spirit." Brethren, if
   you are inconsistent in your own daily lives, how can you hope to be
   useful to others? The old proverb is a true one, "Actions speak louder
   than words." If we speak to men upon the evil of sin and yet indulge in
   it, what can they infer from our conduct? If we tell them of the wrath
   of God against evil and yet find pleasure in it ourselves, will they
   believe us? If we speak of a Savior's dying love and yet are,
   ourselves, unloving, how will they believe us to be Christ's disciples?
   Vain must it be for us to converse upon the power of Grace when it
   never appears in our own conduct! Inconsistency will mar the most
   eloquent testimony and make it no better than silence.

   If we are unholy we shall pull down with our right hand dexterously
   what we in a clumsy manner attempt to build up with our left. We must
   be consistent and our prayer must be--"Uphold me with Your free
   Spirit," or we cannot teach transgressors. Then, Brethren, we shall not
   say, "Stand by, for I am holier than you!" But feeling that we owe our
   preservation entirely to Divine Grace, we shall not reckon it any
   condescension on our part to come down to teach even the most guilty
   transgressors God's ways so that the most notorious sinners may be
   converted unto God. Brethren, the text plainly shows us that pardoned
   sinners, possessed of the Holy Spirit, rejoicing in salvation and
   upheld in consistency of life, are the chosen instruments of God for
   the conversion of their fellow men. Let us note this and act
   accordingly.

   I see nothing in the text and, indeed, nothing in the Scriptures, about
   a certain class of officials being set apart to convert sinners to the
   exclusion of others. One of the most deadly injuries ever inflicted
   upon the Church of God was the invention of the distinction of clergy
   and laity--there really is no such distinction in the Word of God. On
   the contrary, the Apostle says to the saints, "You are God's
   clems"--you are God's clergy--you are God's heritage, all of you! And
   another Apostle tells you that the Lord Jesus has made you kings and
   priests unto God, not some of you, but all His people. God forbid that
   we should ever arrogate any superiority over our fellows! The ministry
   is not ours, alone--you, also, are all to minister according as you
   have gifts and Grace.

   All the members of Christ's body have a ministry to discharge--not the
   tongue alone, but the hand and the feet. Even those parts of the body
   which are least observable and even less comely, are all necessary for
   the health of the entire system and therefore should occupy themselves
   in their own peculiar service. Do not excuse yourselves, therefore, by
   saying, "We will pray for you, that you may teach transgressors, and
   sinners may be converted unto God." Do it, my Brothers and Sisters, for
   greatly do I need your prayers, but do not, when you have prayed for
   me, forget that you, also, are bought with the blood of Christ! And
   therefore use all your strength to His service. Neither does the text
   suggest that persons of superior abilities are the only persons who
   should addict themselves to teaching transgressors. The least in
   ability--the man of one talent--should as diligently serve his Lord as
   the servant whose talents are more numerous.

   Neither does it appear that men, because of the pressure of business,
   are to think themselves excused, for David was a king and kings have
   much to do. In any kingdom much thought and activity must be required
   and David might, therefore, have claimed exemption from spiritual work.
   But he knew that he had been a sinner and he knew that he had been
   saved--therefore he was ready to help others. Have you been saved?
   Then, dear Brother, though you are up to your throat in business cares,
   still, nevertheless, say, "I will teach transgressors Your ways, and
   sinners shall be converted unto You." For, Beloved, if the saved ones
   do not communicate the Gospel to the unconverted, who will?

   Will the devil try to save them? Will the devil's servants try to save
   them? Will the men who are, themselves, in error or in unbelief try to
   convert others to Jesus? You know they will not! Who else ought to do
   so? "Unto the wicked God says, What have you to do to declare My
   statutes." Nobody ought to teach the things of God but the
   regenerate--and these are bound by a thousand ties to give themselves
   to the service. My Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ--if there are
   no bonds laid upon us to seek the wandering souls of men, upon whom can
   the labor be laid? Who else can do it? Shall the blind lead the blind?
   Shall the dead prophesy to the dead? What other heart but that which
   has, itself, been renewed, can tell of regeneration and the Spirit's
   quickening power?

   Remember, if the tongues of the saints speak not for Jesus, then the
   testimony for Jesus has ceased from among men. If the saints do not
   preach the Gospel, the angels cannot, for no such ministry has been
   assigned to them--therefore sinners must perish for lack of knowledge!
   O Church of God, to you is this commission given! Be not faithless in
   it, but be clear of the blood of all men!

   II. We will consider WHAT THE BELIEVER OUGHT TO AIM AT IN HIS WORK WITH
   SOULS. Brethren, our great aim is conversion--the conversion of
   transgressors. "I will teach transgressors Your ways; and sinners shall
   be converted unto You." We are to aim at the conversion of all men--of
   whatever sort they may be--for Christ has a people redeemed by blood in
   all ranks of society. We should seek for the conversion of our children
   and of those who sit constantly with us under the shadow of the means
   of Grace. Still, lest it should be forgotten, I will mainly dwell upon
   this point--that if there are any in the world who peculiarly and above
   all others are transgressors, these are the persons whom our own sense
   of love to Christ should induce us to teach God's ways--for if there is
   glory brought to God by one person more than another when he is
   converted, it is by one who was a notorious sinner.

   The forgiveness of great sin, the reclaiming of a man from gross habits
   of vice, the deliverance of a woman who has fallen--these are the
   things which make the Grace of God illustrious. The Church of God
   should remember that the light is most needed where the darkness is
   darkest--that the physician is most required where disease is most
   rife. Therefore should she spend her utmost strength against the most
   fully developed sin. The point to aim at is the conversion of sinners,
   not merely their reformation. It is a good thing to improve a man by
   reforming him--he is all the better for being sober, honest, and
   industrious. It was a good thing that the beasts, when they were in
   Noah's ark, were so tame. But they came out as they went in--lions were
   lions and vipers were still vipers.

   The work we long to see accomplished is far greater than mere restraint
   or education, it is a thorough transformation. We pray that the lions
   may become lambs and the serpents become doves. Less than this it is
   not worthwhile for the Christian to live for, for there are
   philanthropic minds abroad apart from the Church who will look after
   moral reformation and sufficiently discharge the service. Let us help
   them if we can, but it is a side issue--our business is a more radical
   one--the one of the axe to the root of the tree by the change of the
   nature. Our object is more lasting. We have to do with immortal souls
   and their eternal future. Beloved, we must keep to this and be content
   with nothing short of the conversion of men. But it must be their
   conversion to God--"Sinners shall be converted unto You."

   I am very glad to convert a Brother to Scriptural views upon Baptism,
   Church government and the higher doctrines. It is always desirable to
   see Brethren learn the Truth--but what will be the use of it if the
   individual is not, first, converted to God? The main object of all
   Christian work should be that sinners may be converted unto God--that
   they may love the God whom they have forgotten. That they may adore the
   Christ whom they have despised. That they may feel the power of the
   Holy Spirit whom they have grieved. This is what we desire, O Sinners!
   It is not your outward washing to make you appear as Christians--it is
   your inward renewing--it is your possession of a new heart and right
   spirit that we desire. "You must be born again." It will not do for us
   to mince matters with you--our prayer is that you may be turned to God,
   as the prodigal son was when he said--"I have sinned against Heaven and
   before you." May such a blessed turning as this come to you, for this,
   and only this, can fit you for Glory. Except you are converted and
   become as little children, you can in no wise enter the kingdom of
   Heaven.

   This work is to be accomplished by teaching. "Then will I teach
   transgressors Your ways; and sinners shall be converted." It cannot be
   done by processions, pictures, incense and performances after the
   manner of the Romanist and the Anglican. And it cannot be accomplished
   by excitement, bawling, stamping and shouting, after the manner of
   certain brethren of our acquaintance, who cry, "Believe! Believe!
   Believe!" but who do not tell the people what they are to believe, nor
   instruct them in the faith. Teaching is needed. All the earnestness
   possible should go with the teaching, but there must be sound doctrine,
   real instruction, solemn Truths of God made known. It is by such means
   that sinners will be converted to God.

   The most important teaching is that which dwells upon the Lord's
   ways--God's way of punishing sin, God's way of forgiving sin, God's way
   of mercy through a Sacrifice. God's way of pardon through faith in
   Jesus. God's ways of wounding, of healing, of killing, of making alive.
   God's ways of sending forth the Eternal Spirit and working as He wills
   among the sons of men, neither waiting for man nor tarrying for the
   sons of men. The more of God's ways we proclaim, the more likely is it
   that sinners will be converted unto God! You see, then, Brothers and
   Sisters, what you are to aim at and you are not to be satisfied without
   it. Did we not, at the beginning of this year, propose the one to the
   other--that we would, each one, seek for the conversion of at least one
   soul? Brethren, we have now passed into September! Has your desire been
   fulfilled? Has your labor of love been blessed?

   I know that some of you have been the means of bringing several to
   Jesus. I could point, at this moment, if I chose, to one who would
   blush to have his name known--who during the last few months has led
   several to Jesus and that by inducing them to attend here, lending them
   his seat, and taking care that they were comfortably accommodated. He
   has also a kind, encouraging word for them and he looks after them with
   much anxiety--and therefore he has had the joy of bringing them to
   Jesus! God be thanked for this! May this be the joy of you all!
   Brothers and Sisters, are you doing something of that sort, or striving
   for Jesus in some other way? If not, God grant that in the few weeks of
   the year we have left you may yet accomplish something for the Lord, by
   the power of His Spirit.

   III. And now, thirdly, gathering up all my strength for it, let me try
   to show you, my beloved Brothers and Sisters,

   WHY WE SHOULD SEEK THE CONVERSION OF SINNERS. And it should be done
   first--and I will begin with the

   lowest motive--because it will save us from many ills. I believe that
   the not seeking to win souls brings many spiritual maladies upon
   Christian men. The lepers outside the gates of Samaria found that the
   Syrians had fled. They went from tent to tent and feasted and at last
   they said, "We do not well. Let us go and tell this to the king's
   household, lest some mischief befall us." They felt that if they did
   not reveal the good news some evil might happen to them. And I tell you
   solemnly, God, in discipline, often brings sorrow upon His own people
   because of their unholy silence as to gracious things.

   An eminent surgeon, who was also an eminent Christian, visited a lady
   who was a professed Believer in Christ, but who, like some ladies I
   have heard of, was frequently troubled with imaginary diseases. The
   good doctor was frequently called in, until at last he said to her,
   "Madam, I will give you a prescription which I am certain will make a
   healthy woman of you, if you will follow it." "Sir," she said, "I shall
   be so glad to have good health that I will be sure to follow it."
   "Madam, I will send you the prescription this evening." When it arrived
   it consisted of these words, "Do good to somebody." She roused herself
   to relieve a poor neighbor and then sought out others who needed her
   help, and the Christian woman, who had been so constantly desponding,
   nervous and fanciful, became a healthy, cheerful woman, for she had an
   objective to live for and found joy in doing good to others!

   I can recommend that medicine to many whose lives are subject to
   bondage, for I know Brothers and Sisters who are never a day free from
   pain who are, nevertheless, full of happiness because they live to
   serve the Lord with their substance. Some of you might do great good
   with articles which you might very readily spare. You have ornaments
   which Christian men and women are better without, which, if broken up
   or sold, would aid the good cause. I wish many would follow the example
   of Oliver Cromwell when he went into Exeter Cathedral and saw 12
   massive images of the Apostles in silver. "Oh, oh," he said, "why are
   these gentlemen here?" "They are the 12 Apostles," was the reply. "Very
   well," he said, "melt them down and send them about doing good." I wish
   Christians would do that with some of their gold and silver jewelry.
   Anyway, for our own sakes, lest the canker get into our gold and the
   rust into our silver, use it for doing good. Yes, by all means, seek
   the souls of men for God. Some evil will befall you if you keep the
   Gospel to yourselves.

   Secondly, it will greatly add to your joy. Who does not like to be the
   bearer of good news? The pleasant tale of redeeming Grace and dying
   love. The pleasant story of a Savior who came from Heaven to earth to
   lift us up from earth to Heaven. The story of our own conversion, the
   story of God's goodness since our conversion--why, it must be
   delightful to tell it! And when you have spoken for Jesus, if you
   succeed in converting a sinner to God, then comes the pleasure! Great
   is the mother's joy when she looks upon her first-born child. She
   remembers no more her travail for joy that a man is born into the
   world! I am sure, however, there is more pleasure looking upon a
   new-born child of God and remembering no more your anguish over that
   soul--and your care in seeking to bring it to Jesus--because you have
   such bliss in knowing that there is one soul the more to decorate the
   Redeemer's crown!

   Happy are our lives who can win souls! I am very apt to be cast down
   and distressed in soul, but, next to fellowship with my Lord, my
   greatest consolation is found in receiving glad tidings of souls saved.
   Here comes a letter of loving thanks from Ceylon and another from the
   north of Norway, saying, "Blessed be God that I read your sermons and
   found a Savior." From America I hear of an eminent Jewish Rabbi who has
   become a Baptist minister through reading one of my discourses. And
   recently I received a letter from Havana from a sailor who had just
   left the hospital. He told me how the man who died in the next bed told
   him that he had a treasure which he would give him if he would take
   care of it. And he then handed him a number of my sermons stitched
   together. "They have saved my soul," he said, "and I hope they will
   save yours." The sailor who writes blesses God in a warm-hearted way
   that it is so and the sermons have led him to Jesus!

   Is this not joy? Would you not like to share it? From almost every
   quarter of the globe the good news comes to me-- comes like manna,
   almost every day, and my heart is glad within me! I want you to know
   the same gladness, all of you in your measure. This honey is so sweet
   that I would have your mouths filled with it! You are, each one,
   helping me in the work of the College which aims at helping our young
   Brothers to preach and, therefore, I do not speak as if I found fault,
   but still, dear Brothers and Sisters, you may personally be engaged in
   the Master's work and so, in a larger degree, have a share in the joy
   of seeing transgressors converted unto God. I have, however, better
   reasons than these. We will get out of these selfish motives into
   something higher. Unless you tell abroad the Gospel, how will you prove
   the sincerity of your

   prayers? You bow your knees and say, "Your kingdom come; Your will be
   done in earth as it is in Heaven." How can it be if you never try to
   speak a word for Jesus and never seek to bring new subjects into His
   kingdom?

   Your prayers--what can they be but hypocritical if they are not
   supported by your actions? Again, what proof is there of the sincerity
   of your love to Christ? You say you love Him and I believe you do. I
   believe there are thousands here to whom Christ is dearer than all
   besides. Show, then, a proof of your love! Do you ask, "How?" Out of
   your Master's mouth shall you receive the answer, "Simon, son of Jonas,
   do you love Me?" Do you answer, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You"?
   Here, then, is the proof which He demands--"Feed My sheep. Feed My
   lambs. Distribute unto others the heavenly food which you receive from
   Me. What I tell you, speak upon the housetops!" Abundantly yield to
   your Lord this proof of your affection!

   Indeed, Beloved, is there any proof of the sincerity of any man's
   religion who does not try to spread it? You have found this good
   thing--if it is, indeed, good--you will wish others to have it. What a
   disgrace it is that Christians should be so indifferent to the spread
   of the Truth of God in these days! There has been, lately, a revival
   among Muslims. We had all thought that the crescent was waning and that
   Muslims would never endeavor to make converts again. Instead, there
   appears to have been, in many parts of the world, a singular awakening
   of the old enthusiasm which marked the early days of Islam. What? And
   shall the false prophet command the zeal of his followers and shall not
   the Son of God possess the souls of His people? Let it not be said
   Christians are cold! Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets
   of Ashkalon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice over us! Can
   lies and falsehoods lead men to martyrdom, as popery has done full many
   a time--does it lead men and women to seclude themselves and give all
   their lives to the service of Antichrist--and is there no zeal left
   among the Believers in Jesus? Followers of God, is there no zeal left
   among you? The Lord help us to answer this question, as we shall wish
   to have answered it when the Judge sits upon His Throne!

   I will go further and say that if we do not try to bring sinners to
   Christ, let alone our religion, where is our humanity? If I believed
   that sinners could be annihilated I should have no particular reason
   for preaching to them. In fact, I should have a very urgent reason for
   never doing anything of the kind! Certain heretics teach that if men do
   not hear the Gospel at all they will be annihilated at death--but if
   they do hear it and reject it--they will live and be punished for a
   time. Then, I say, let them die, they will be better without hearing
   the Gospel--and he is a traitor who preaches it to them and makes them
   run so great a risk! But we, Beloved, who believe the solemn Truth of
   God which has often made us tremble from head to foot--that the wrath
   of God abides upon the ungodly forever--if we do not attempt their
   salvation, we are demons!

   That was a harsh word, but I will not change it. I leave it where it
   stands. I care not what pretensions you are making to Christianity--if
   you are doing nothing in any way for the souls of men--you act like
   demons! If there is a wreck at sea and a mariner refuses to aid in
   saving when he is strong and able, men cry shame of him. A man is dying
   for need of bread at your door. If you have plenty, but refuse to give
   him a crust and let him die on your doorstep, the whole neighborhood
   will censure you! But a soul perishing, a soul perishing for lack of
   knowledge! For lack of the Bread of Life and you have it and do not
   hand it to him--O Sirs, how dwells the love of God in you? Is there a
   spark left? You are without Grace, for you have fallen below the
   humanity of Nature! In vain your years of profession, your long prayers
   and loud professions, if neither your substance nor your tongue is
   consecrated to God!

   Beloved, there is one argument which ought to touch us all, and it is
   this. Can any of us refuse to teach the sons of men if he has really
   seen and known the Savior? There, stand a minute and look at Him upon
   the Cross. Do you see His wounds and the blood distilling from them? Do
   you mark the traces of agony in that dear face, so lovely and yet so
   marred? Have you caught a glimpse of your Master's shoulders, where the
   plowers made deep furrows with their scourges? Can you gaze through His
   body into His heart and see the deeps unknown of anguish which He
   endured for sinners--guilty, lost, and ruined sinners--and have you no
   love for them? Does He come to you this morning and put His pierced
   hand upon you, and say, "I laid down My life for you--and as My Father
   has sent Me into the world, even so, I send you"--and can you look into
   His face and say--"My Master, I have never done anything for poor
   sinners, and I never shall"?

   I think you will say, "My Lord, forgive the past and help me in years
   to come." The seraphic Summerfield, just before he died, said to those
   around him, "I have been looking into eternity and if ever I should
   rise from this bed I shall

   preach very differently from what I have done." And yet he had preached
   most fervently the Gospel of Christ! Some of us might well say, "I have
   looked at Jesus. I have seen His disinterested love. I have marked His
   agonies and groans and I must preach differently. I must live
   differently. I must teach differently from anything I have ever done
   before." O, Holy Spirit, make it so and Yours shall be the praise!

   IV. And now we have to close with the last point, which is to be most
   practical. The question will arise--HOW, THEN, ARE WE TO TEACH
   TRANSGRESSORS GOD'S WAYS that sinners may be converted unto God? I
   would say to you, dear Brothers and Sisters, "wait upon the Lord for
   direction." But one of the directions you need not wait for is this,
   "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might." Some of
   you who could not speak, at least not to many, can assist those who do.
   If your own tongue will not serve your heart, get other men's tongues
   to help you--in connection with our College there are always needs--and
   by helping others into the ministry you may have a tongue to speak for
   you if you cannot speak for yourself.

   Still, at your own house talk about the Savior or write about Him, or
   in some other directly personal way try to serve your Lord. To all
   Believers far and near, be it known at this time, that almost all our
   Missionary Societies are in need, not so much of money, as of men. The
   Baptist Missionary Society has sent out a circular requesting the
   prayers of the Churches that God will raise up men who will go abroad.
   Our older Missionaries are dying off. Many are coming home through
   sickness--and very few come forward to fill their places. Surely some
   brave young men whose hearts God has touched, who have been doing work
   at home, will cheerfully surrender all they are and all they have to go
   and proclaim among the heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ! I
   would be a recruiting sergeant this morning and I pray the Lord that
   some of the right kind may join the noble army of Missionaries.

   At home we greatly need Evangelists to travel throughout the land. I do
   not see where funds will come from for their maintenance, but if men of
   some small property who can preach would retire from business and go
   from town to town preaching the Gospel it would be the grandest work
   they could undertake! If we had 100 such men in our own denomination,
   who would go from place to place like the Apostles--the missing link in
   the Church would be supplied-- and we would see many sinners converted
   to God. When any of you move into the country, as you do when you
   increase in wealth, should you not feel that you ought to seek the good
   of the people? And if there is no Church of your own faith and order
   near, should you not commence one? Rest not till you see the Gospel
   preached in the neighborhood--and that fully--that sinners may be
   converted to God!

   Ministers also are needed, and especially ministers who can support
   themselves. How much good might be done if the many merchants in
   London, men of education, would, on Sunday, go into the villages and
   preach the Gospel, bearing their own expenses and helping to find their
   own preaching room! It is impossible, in a poor community like the
   Baptist denomination, that we can ever cover the country with the
   Gospel if all ministers must be supported. We need a body of men who do
   not need support--who can do without it--who would think it their
   highest honor, like Paul the Apostle, to be no burden to the Churches.
   I feel that if I were a business man I should like to make money for
   Jesus. And with a prosperous business, such as some of you have, it
   would be delightful to me to be the father of a Church in some
   destitute locality where it would be a pleasure to give rather than to
   take.

   Whereas by our present mode of action a poor little Church must need be
   presided over by a Brother who is pretty nearly starved and does not
   obtain a stipend equal to the average wages of a common
   artisan--therefore the cause of God is spoken of evilly. The fault does
   not always lie with the Church, which may be too poor to do better, but
   with rich Brethren who ought to be preaching the Gospel, themselves,
   instead of hearing it. Many here, I daresay, among my own hearers,
   possess latent talent which only needs to be dug out of the earth and
   delivered from the napkin. Lord, stir them up and set their tongues on
   fire! If the Lord hears that prayer and touches your lips with a live
   coal from off His altar, you will say, "Here am I! Send me!"

   Then there is our own Sunday school. Do you know that because I am
   constantly urging our friends to go out and teach anywhere, the result
   has been that a large number of the Sunday schools in our neighborhood
   are well supplied by our people and our own schools are often short of
   teachers? I do not desire to narrow your spirit which prompts you to
   work in the schools of other Churches, but do not forget your own home
   work! Thanks be to God for the zeal of our young people, but the best
   women in the Church, and the best men ought to be in the Sunday school,
   teaching there what

   they experimentally know! I pray you see to it that our Sunday schools
   are well sustained--there are enough of you to do this.

   Then, again, time was when we had in our Evangelist Society, for
   preaching in the streets, many young men and some, probably, who had
   better have learned a little more before they began. Now we have not so
   much of that. Is zeal for preaching the Gospel diminishing among us?
   Brothers, it ought not to be! That Society needs many more who will
   proclaim the Gospel of Jesus by the wayside, or in the lodging houses.
   Let me say to every man who can speak for Jesus, do not let that
   excellent work flag, no, not for a moment! And the Visiting Societies,
   and the Tract Societies--all these need helpers. Are there not some
   here who will come to their rescue?

   I love to see our Brothers and Sisters opening little Prayer Meetings
   in back streets, in places where the Gospel is not proclaimed, or among
   people who do not go to hear it. Try to start fresh places of worship
   in regions remote from others. For all this kind of service Christ
   needs you, Brothers and Sisters. Shall He call in vain? We wish those
   we love to show their love to us. Do, therefore, by the love of
   Jesus--by the blood of Jesus--if there is any love in you towards Him
   and any gratitude for what He has done for you, go forth from this day
   forward and teach transgressors His ways, that sinners may be converted
   unto Him!

   The Lord seal this address with His blessing. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Luke 5.
     __________________________________________________________________

Clearing the Road to Heaven

   (No. 1131)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Gather out the stones." Isaiah 62:10.

   "GATHER out the stones"--that is to say, out of the King's highway.
   Clear the road. Make room for coming sinners. Take away all stumbling
   blocks. Make the Gospel plain and simple and come to the help of those
   who find hindrances and impediments in their progress to the Savior.
   Such stones are there and Satan tries to increase their number. The
   Lord's servants must gather them out. That is my object. I do not
   intend to attempt anything beyond that. I shall only try, with great
   simplicity of thought and speech, to deal with those things which
   prevent sinners from getting to Christ, for perhaps while we are trying
   to do this the Eternal Spirit may bring them to Jesus and they may find
   salvation on the spot. To that end let all who are already saved cry
   mightily to the Lord for His saving health and consoling Grace.

   Beloved Friends, when poor souls are coming to Jesus they are
   generally, themselves, their own worst enemies. They have a singular
   ingenuity in finding out reasons why they should not be saved. A
   strange infatuation seems to possess them so that they ransack Heaven,
   earth and Hell to find discouragements. They become inventive of
   difficulties where difficulties are not and often the pastor, whose
   business it is to look after the little ones, finds himself,
   notwithstanding his former experience with persons of like character,
   utterly bewildered. He is often put to a nonplus with the strange and
   novel difficulties which awakened sinners will imagine and the reasons
   which they invent why they should not believe in Jesus Christ.

   One would hardly think that the human mind could twist itself into such
   knots. So many sinners, so many new arguments--for each one has a logic
   of his own by which he labors to prove the impossibility of his own
   salvation. Upon consideration, this will not appear very remarkable,
   for they have long been living in sin and it is no wonder that when
   they begin to see aright they should be bewildered with fear. Who would
   not be full of fear if all of a sudden he saw Hell opening right under
   his feet? They have been eating nothing lately but unsatisfying husks
   which may nourish swine, but cannot support men. No wonder that they
   are very weak and scarcely can stagger towards the Father's house! Poor
   souls, their hearts are in their mouths, for they cannot tell what is
   to come next--only a dreadful sound is in their ears, as of the
   destroying angel pursuing them with vengeance!

   They know that God is angry with them and they do not yet understand
   His great love to penitent sinners. And so they are like men in an
   upper chamber who start up in the night when a cry of fire is
   raised--they know not which way to turn. Or I may compare them to
   mariners in great jeopardy at sea, when they reel to and fro, and
   stagger like a drunken man and are at their wit's end. I wonder not, I
   say, that they refuse the comforts which we offer them, for it is one
   of the effects and symptoms of great sickness that the patient refuses
   all manner of meat--he has lost his appetite--he is too ill to eat and
   his soul draws near unto the gates of death.

   Moreover, in addition to fear and weakness, seeking sinners are
   generally the prey to severe assaults of the great enemy of souls. When
   Satan sees a soul coming to Christ, he hastens to aggravate that
   sinner's doubts and fears. He raises a double tempest in his spirit. It
   is "now or never" with the devil--he perceives that if he does not tear
   poor souls in pieces, now, and drive them to utter desperation--they
   will soon be in Christ's fold where he will never be able to touch them
   again. They are just escaping from the old slaveholder's hand and if he
   does not bring them back and chain them up with fresh irons he will
   lose his captives, for they will follow the Morning Star and enter the
   land of Liberty where his whip cannot reach them. Therefore he uses
   double craft and cruelty to oppress and puzzle poor seeking sinners.
   They are in a state of mind in which they are ready to believe anything
   which he will tell them, and therefore, upon this string the
   arch-deceiver plays right horribly.

   What with a troubled conscience and with Satan, it is no wonder that
   the seeking sinner falls into a maze and scarcely knows which way to
   turn! He sees no ground for hope, but a thousand reasons for despair!
   It is therefore a holy and necessary work to endeavor to remove some of
   the stumbling blocks out of the poor beginner's way. When I have
   attempted this good work, I shall do far better still, for I shall
   point the coming sinner to Him who in His own Person has effectually
   removed every real stumbling block, so that there is nothing, now, that
   can keep a sinner from his God, if that sinner is but ready to repent
   and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

   I. First, then, by way of LIFTING SOME OF THE STONES OUT OF THE ROAD,
   let us begin with a very old and very common difficulty--I refer to the
   doctrine of Election. Many will say, "Perhaps I am not one of God's
   chosen. It may be that my name is not written in the Lamb's Book of
   Life." Unbelief hammers away at this! It is a favorite topic with
   doubters. And think not, my dear Friends, that I am about to attempt an
   explanation of the mysteries of predestination, or mean to deny the
   doctrine of Election for an instant! I believe the doctrine of Election
   to be as certainly true as the doctrine of the existence of God!

   I am not about to attempt to clear up the metaphysical difficulties
   which could be suggested, world without end, by a subtle thinker. Those
   I leave to others and I wish them joy in their task. If I were to
   venture upon such a labor I should only be like Sisyphus who rolled a
   stone uphill which always rolled down again. The difficulties about
   free agency and predestination have existed, do exist and will exist to
   the world's end--yes, and through eternity, too. Both facts are, to my
   mind, certain, but where they meet none knows but God, Himself. Here is
   the way John Bunyan met the difficulty in his, "Grace Abounding," which
   book I earnestly recommend to every tempted soul. In that
   autobiography, which he entitles, "Grace Abounding," he says that he
   was perplexed for many days together over the doctrine, till at last
   this thought came into his mind--Search in the Book of God and see
   whether ever there was a sinner that trusted in Jesus who was refused.

   So the good man set to work and read the Book through from the first of
   Genesis to the last of Revelation, but he could not find an instance of
   a sinner that ever did come to Christ that was rejected because he was
   not elect. And the snare was broken, and he said, "I will go, even I.
   He will not reject me." There is a practical, common sense way out of
   the difficulty. I know not any better way of practically treating the
   matter, than of saying, "I will go to Jesus because He bids me and
   because He has said, 'Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out.'
   If I go to Him and He casts me out, then He has broken His promise. But
   that He can never do, so now I venture to rest upon His blood and leave
   my soul's salvation in His hands."

   In other matters you act so--when you are ill you do not know whether
   you are ordained to get well, but you send for the doctor. You cannot
   tell whether you are predestinated to be rich, but you endeavor to make
   money. You do not know whether you will live through the day, but you
   work to provide yourself with bread. Thus common sense cuts the knot
   which mere theory can never untie. Leave the subtleties of argument
   alone and act as sensible men. Go to Jesus and try whether He will
   reject you and you will be saved. Another difficulty which is very
   common is a deep sense of sin. In some persons, conviction of sin and
   terror concerning the wrath to come arise out of the recollection of
   one glaring sin. I have known persons more troubled about one atrocious
   offense than about all the transgressions of the rest of their lives!
   The one great blot has appeared to stare them in the face both day and
   night and to burn its way into their souls.

   In others, however, it is the whole series of their iniquities, the
   indefinite but most crushing weight of a life of careless unbelief.
   They could not count their sins, they know that, and they do not try to
   do so. But all their sins together surround them like raging waves of
   the sea, or a pack of hungry wolves howling for their prey, or the
   dense clouds and fierce winds of a gathering tempest hastening to
   overwhelm a half-shipwrecked vessel. They can hardly conceive that
   salvation is possible in their case. Gave me your hand, my Brother, and
   let me say to you, Do you think Christ died on the Cross for nothing?
   There must have been some great reason for His being put to such a
   cruel and shameful death! That reason was great sin. If there had not
   been great sin there would not have been need of a great Savior. Know
   assuredly that the Savior is greater than your sin and His merit is
   greater than your guilt--

   "If all the sins that men have done,

   In will, in word, in thought, in deed,

   Since worlds were made, or time begun,

   Were laid on one poor sinner's head,

   The stream of Jesus 'precious blood,

   Applied, removes the dreadful load."

   If the blackest sinner outside the gates of Hell would believe in
   Jesus, in that moment all his sins would cease to be, for there is, and
   there must be an infinite efficacy in the blood of such an One as Jesus
   Christ, who "counted it not robbery to be equal with God." Does the Son
   of God smart beneath the lash of Justice? Then, Beloved, that
   substitutionary suffering must have a merit in it which it is not in
   your power or mine to measure. Does sin trouble you? Then remember that
   it is written, "All manner of sin and of blasphemy shall be forgiven
   unto men." Remember, this, again, "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son,
   cleanses us from all sin." And hear, yet again, this Word, "Come now,
   and let us reason together: though your sins are as scarlet, they shall
   be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as
   wool."

   Do you know, I feel right happy to have to talk to you about this, and
   yet I feel a dart going through me lest I should not speak of it as I
   ought to do, for, oh, I would that poor troubled sinners would see that
   sin need not deter them from coming to a reconciled God! The blood of
   Jesus Christ has already removed from before the Throne of Justice all
   the transgressions of all those who come and rest in Jesus! If you
   believe in the Savior sent of God, your sin is already gone and you are
   accepted in the Beloved!

   Another stone in the road, in the case of some, is a fear that the day
   of Grace has passed. Probably there may only be one or two in this
   place who have ever fallen under that trouble, but those one or two are
   precious and I must seek them. Read again Bunyan's, "Grace Abounding,"
   and you will find him recording that he said to himself, "Oh, that I
   had given my heart to God seven years ago, but now it is certainly too
   late." And then he remembered that there had been a large addition to
   the little Baptist Church at Bedford and he said to himself, "Now God
   has saved all the people He means to save in Bedford, and as for the
   poor tinker, He will never save him. My day of Grace is over." I do not
   quite know where that notion of, "a day of Grace," came from. I am not
   quite sure about the truth of that doctrine and if it means that any
   man who repents and believes will find it too late in this life, I deny
   it altogether!

   But without controversy I will tell you one thing for certain--there
   never was a sinner that believed in Jesus who believed in Him too late
   for salvation! There never was a man in this world who cried to God for
   mercy through the blood of Jesus and who had for his answer, "Your day
   of Grace is past." No such thing! How dare I say, how dare any man say
   that a fellow creature's day of Grace is past? When the thief's hands
   were nailed to the cross and the cross was lifted up, and he hung
   bleeding there, soon to die, and to be devoured by the carrion crows,
   it did look as if his day of Grace were past and yet his day of Glory
   had dawned! For the Savior said, "Today shall you be with Me in
   Paradise." The Lord's Grace can come to a man at any time and at any
   hour! It is never too late to believe in Jesus!

   Dear Heart, it is not too late for you. Do not believe the suggestion
   of Satan, but come, and welcome! Mercy's gate is not shut. Mr. Bunyan
   escaped from that temptation by this excellent method--he read the
   Scriptures diligently, and he came upon that verse, (you remember
   hearing our friends, the Jubilee Singers, sing it), "Yet there is
   room!" "Oh!" thought he, "then my day of Grace is not past." "Yet there
   is room." Lay hold on that, I pray you--you who think your time of hope
   is over. "Yet there is room."--

   "Don't stay away, Brothers, don't stay away. For the angel says There's
   room enough in Heaven for you."

   Let not the demon of unbelief tempt you to limit God's mercy and set
   bounds to His power! Come and learn the infinite compassion of your
   gracious God!

   Here and there I have met with persons who have stumbled at a very
   terrible stone in the road. It may never have occurred to some of you
   and I hope it never may, but it is this--they have a tendency to
   blasphemous thoughts. The more earnest a man is about religion the more
   likely he is to meet with this peculiar temptation, especially if there
   is some bodily disease about him. I should never have believed it if I
   had not experienced it--what intolerably wicked, atheistic and profane
   thoughts will come into the minds of pure-minded people--against their
   will and without their consent-- to their utter horror and dismay! I
   can remember as a child hearing a man swear. I think it was the first
   time in my life I had heard such profanity and I felt as if I had been
   cut by a whip. It was the only word of blasphemy I think that had ever
   passed my ears, then, and yet, when I was under conviction of sin,
   seeking the Lord, thoughts that I dare not even think

   of, now, would thrust themselves upon me when I tried to get alone in
   prayer. And I rose astonished, as though I was scared from my knees.

   When I attempted to cry for mercy there would be sure to come some
   hideous sentence which I had never heard from anyone else, and
   certainly thought I could never have invented in my heart, which would
   well near drive me from the Mercy Seat. Well, now, Beloved, it may be
   you cannot grapple with these thoughts, and I would advise you not to
   try. I believe they are works of Satan who is darting his thoughts into
   your soul in a secret manner. They are not thoughts of yours. They
   should lead you to go and tell Jesus Christ about it, but they should
   not drive you to despair. Tell the Lord that these thoughts, if they
   are yours, are hateful to you and pray Him to remove them. If they are
   not yours, but come from Satan, ask Jesus to rebuke the evil spirit
   that you may have a little peace. And I will tell you another thing. If
   these thoughts are yours and you are guilty of them, do Christ the
   honor to believe that He can pardon even these, and throw yourself,
   with all the defilement of your thoughts, black as you are, right down
   at His feet and He will save you notwithstanding all.

   A little sinner can, as it were, only give to Christ little glory by
   trusting Him. But, if you feel yourself the greatest of sinners, give
   Jesus the great glory of believing that His precious blood can cleanse
   you--that He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God
   by Him! O Soul, let these blasphemous thoughts drive you to Jesus, and
   the devil will find that they do not answer his purpose and will cease
   to assail you with them. Stand at the foot of the Cross, and resolve
   never to depart from it, and Satan will depart from you. Another stone
   which frequently stumbles others is the need, or rather the absence, of
   anything like a horrible thought, or a terror, or an alarm. I have
   known some who have believed in Jesus Christ as soon as ever Christ has
   been preached to them and, consequently, they have found joy with but
   little difficulty. And then, a little while afterwards they have said,
   "this cannot be real conversion because I did not suffer the terrors
   and distresses which some others have experienced."

   There is a numerous class to whom we have preached Christ who have
   replied to all encouragements, "Oh, but we don't feel the terrors of
   the Lord. We are not plunged in despair. We are not haunted with
   horrible forebodings and therefore we are not in the right road, and
   cannot expect to be saved." Oh, my dear Friend, if you are allowed to
   come to Jesus without being so molested by the Evil One, do not fret
   about that, but rather rejoice! If you have not those horrors, be
   thankful you don't! Be thankful to God that He brought you to Christ
   without your first having run into all excess of outward sin and wicked
   unbelief. Repentance of sin is necessary, but to doubt the mercy of God
   and to run into despair are not necessary--are even injurious and
   sinful.

   Do you think that Christ needs the devil to prepare you for Him?
   Unbelief cannot conduce to salvation! If you do not happen to be hunted
   about by the hell hounds of remorse and despondency, you quite as much
   need the Good Shepherd and are quite as welcome to Him. There is no
   need to go round by Hell's gate to get to Heaven! Trust in Jesus just
   as you are and you are saved. Those who have those dreadful thoughts
   would be glad enough to be rid of them--do not you be asking for
   needless vexations--but come to Jesus. Rest in His atoning blood just
   as you are and He will give you all that is necessary to fit you for
   His kingdom.

   There are some, again, who are troubled because they think they have a
   lack of sensibility with regard to their sins. They argue thus--"I
   understand that whoever believes in Jesus shall be saved, but I must
   feel my sinfulness. I hear you, Sir, describe sometimes the deep
   contrition and brokenness of spirit which many have felt and I fear I
   have not felt anything of the kind. May I hope that Jesus is able to
   save me notwithstanding my insensibility?" Our answer to that is that a
   broken heart is a gift of God's Grace--it is not a ground or reason why
   Jesus Christ should save you--but it is a part of salvation. A man is
   saved by having his heart broken and being led to cast himself upon
   Jesus--and if you have not yet received this part of salvation, your
   business is to come to Jesus for it--not to stay away till you get it
   of yourself and then come to Christ with your feelings as a
   recommendation.

   If you were to come to Jesus and say, "Lord, I have broken my heart
   down to the right state. Now I will believe that You can save me," I
   think He would say to you, "If you have done so much, go and do the
   rest. If you can make yourself fit for Grace, go and make yourself fit
   for Glory." No, but if you have not a broken heart, come to Jesus
   Christ for it--

   "True belief and true repentance, Every Grace that brings you near,
   Withoutmoney

   Come to Jesus Christ and buy."

   You have not to do something for yourself and then look to Jesus for
   the rest. Shame upon you for thinking of such a thing! To melt your
   heart in the furnace of love is a Divine work and Christ must do it.
   Come, you stony-hearted Sinner, come with the flint and the granite
   still within you. Come, though you cannot feel, and believe that Christ
   can make you feel. Come, you who have been annealed like steel in the
   furnace of transgression and familiarity with sin. Come to Him, for He
   is able to give you a heart of flesh and take away your heart of stone.
   I am fully persuaded that those who mourn their need of feeling are the
   most feeling people in the world, but I will not dwell upon that truth.
   It is the greatest mistake for us to imagine that we are to make
   ourselves feel something and then Christ will save us. Feelings of
   contrition are as much His work as is the Atonement for the remission
   of sins. Christ is Alpha as well as Omega in salvation. You must begin
   with Him--and go on with Him, and end with Him if end there ever can
   be.

   Now I hear another say, "Ah, but the stone in my road is that I cannot
   believe. I have not the faith I need to have." Well, beloved Seeker,
   perhaps you have made a mistake about your faith. Do you think that you
   need to believe with full assurance before you can be saved? If so,
   listen. The smallest grain of saving faith will save a man. To embrace
   Christ in your arms like Simeon is a grand act for a full-grown saint,
   but to touch the hem of His garment is as surely saving as to embrace
   His Person. If you have faith but as a grain of mustard seed, God will
   recognize that faith and make it grow-- and that faith will save you.
   It is not quantity, but quality that the Lord looks at. Do you believe
   in Jesus Christ? That is the point. For, remember, the whole of your
   salvation rests not on your believing, but on the merits of Jesus
   Christ!

   Some sinners look too much to their own faith and not enough to the
   Object of their faith. Now, it is the Object of faith we should look
   to, and if we did, our faith would grow. You may look at faith till you
   think you have none. But, on the other hand, you may look at Christ
   till you feel you cannot help believing in Him. How many a time in my
   little vestry behind there have I charged this Truth of God home upon
   those who have said they could not believe. I have said, "What cannot
   you believe? Cannot you believe God? Is He a liar?" "Ah!" say I to
   these enquirers, "suppose you said to me when I told you something, 'I
   can't believe you,' should I not at once say, 'Why not? What do you
   know of my character which leads you to think that I am untruthful?' "

   And they say at once, "Oh, Sir, I should not say that to you. I should
   feel sure if you told me that you knew a thing to be true that it was
   so. I would believe you." "Well, then," I have said, "how dare you tell
   me you cannot believe Jesus Christ and cannot believe God the Eternal
   One! What reason on earth can there be why you should not believe God
   is speaking the Truth and believe what Jesus Christ says? We will not
   have it that you cannot believe." Awakened, quickened Sinner! At the
   same moment that God gave you spiritual life to feel that you were a
   sinner, He gave you the principle in which dwells power to believe in
   Jesus Christ, the sinner's Savior! And we charge you to exercise that
   power and to cast yourself, once and for all, upon the finished
   Sacrifice of Christ the Lord!

   Again, we have heard persons say, "But I do not think I can be saved
   because I am not like So-and-So." Well, who is this So-and-So? "Why, my
   dear grandmother, who died so triumphantly." Ah, and you are a little
   babe and you expect to be like your grandmother? You are only just born
   into the heavenly life and yet you expect to know and to do all that an
   old experienced Christian would know and do? I am sure that no man who
   has planted an apple tree in his garden goes the next autumn and
   expects a crop of apples as if the trees had been in his orchard for 20
   years. Besides, the Lord is not looking for fruit on you in order to
   recommend you to His mercy, nor ought you to be looking for it. Your
   fruit must grow on another tree, on that tree where the Savior
   died--from Him is your fruit found! You be content to have nothing good
   in yourself, and to be nothing good, but to take all your good from
   Jesus Christ!

   "Ah," says one, "but you don't know how bad I am." No, nor yet do you.
   You are 10 times worse than you think you are. Yes, you are a thousand
   times worse than you think you are! You are so bad that you are good
   for nothing! You are neither fit for the land nor yet for the
   dunghill--but it is good-for-nothing people that Jesus Christ came to
   save! Not the worthy, the excellent, the valuable, but those that are
   humble in their own eyes--those who think themselves nothing and feel
   they never can be anything unless a miracle is worked for them. These
   are they whom the Lord loves to look upon. "He has put down the mighty
   from their seat, but He has exalted them of low degree. He has filled
   the hungry with good things and the rich He has sent away empty." This
   is the way He always deals with men. The worse you feel yourself to be,
   the more you need God's mercy and the more likely you are to get it.
   Come and lay hold on Eternal Life by a simple faith in Jesus Christ.
   May the Spirit of God lead you to do so!

   I will only speak once more about these difficulties. "Oh!" says one,
   "but I never have any joy and peace. And I hear those who are saved say
   they are so happy and so glad." Ah, there is the door of the house of
   mercy wide open, and you are outside in the frost and snow. Inside that
   house--(there, can't you see through that window pane?)--there are
   happy children sitting round a fire and they are singing merrily as
   they eat their evening meal. And you stand out in the cold, and you
   murmur, "How can I ever enter? I am so cold. I am shivering in this
   winter's blast. They are so happy in there. How can I be one of the
   family and yet stand shivering here?"

   Now, you need not ask that question. There is the door and it stands
   wide open. When Christ's hands were nailed, He set that door wide open
   and the devil cannot shut it. And if you enter in you shall have the
   same joy as those who are sheltered within. But if you stand outside
   and expect to get the warmth enjoyed by those within--and hope to sing
   their cheerful song in the cold--you are greatly mistaken. You shall
   receive the joy when you exercise the faith! Oh, believe in Jesus, or,
   in other words, trust in Him! That is the Grace which enters in by the
   door and participates in the blessings of mercy. Trust in Him wholly,
   solely, entirely and in Him, alone, and, "being justified by faith,"
   you shall "have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord." The Lord
   grant it and He shall have the praise!

   One of our friends at the Prayer Meeting prayed that I might give God's
   people, this morning, a thick slice such as he gave his hungry
   children. Now that was a very quaint and suggestive prayer, and I
   sometimes try to act up to it. But tonight I have been trying to cut a
   thin slice because I have sometime heard of schools where the slice was
   too thick for the children's mouths. And therefore I have tried to cut
   mine thin, that if there is a babe here, he might be able to feed, too.
   I would even crumb down the subject and mix it with the milk of the
   Word that it might suit those who cannot feed upon strong meat as yet.
   My anxious prayer is that the Holy Spirit may help the weaklings to
   feed and be glad!

   II. But I said that in the second part I would do better than remove
   the stones, and so I will, for I will POINT YOU TO HIM WHO IS "THE WAY,
   THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE" who has already cleared the stumbling blocks
   out of the road! Traveler to Heaven, Pilgrim of the night, cast your
   eyes upon the Captain of our salvation, even Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
   the Son of God, and see how He has cast up the highway in the desert
   and prepared a path through the wilderness! Looking unto Him, the
   crooked will grow straight and the rough places plain. And you shall
   see the salvation of God!

   Let me ask you to look at Him, first, as He was on earth, the Son of
   Man. In order that men should be saved, it was necessary that God,
   Himself, should take into union with His Godhead the nature of the
   poor, feeble creature called man. Now, I must confess that had I never
   known by Revelation that the mysterious, Divine, Omnipotent Spirit who
   made all things, did actually alight upon this earth and take to
   Himself a body of flesh and blood--had I never known it by Revelation,
   I could never have imagined it possible! It would never have crossed my
   mind! But now I do know it, and am sure of it, and it still utterly
   astounds me! The angels, when they saw God in human flesh, wondered,
   (it is a mystery that He was seen of angels), and they have never left
   off wondering since.

   Sinner, in order that you might be saved, God must dwell here in human
   flesh! He has been here! He has been here! He has been here! The fact
   is as certain as it is strange! He nursed on a woman's breast at
   Bethlehem. He was swaddled as other babes have been. God has been with
   us! As Man He worked in a carpenter's shop! He has been here! He ate
   and drank among men and slept and suffered as men do! He has been here!
   God has become Man to save sinners! Is anything impossible after that?
   It was necessary that Jesus Christ should abide here for a while,
   should work miracles of love. We read some of them just now in the
   lesson of the evening. He healed the sick. He opened blind eyes. He
   raised the dead. Yes, the Savior has been here and raised the dead! Can
   He not raise you? He has not lost His power. If anything, He is
   greater, now, in Heaven than He was here below.

   Can He not open those eyes of yours and those ears of yours, and
   unloose that stammering tongue of yours and make your lameness to
   depart till you leap like a hart? Yes, He can do it, can do it tonight!
   And from that pew, though you came into it heavy-laden, you will, I
   hope, go out like one who is ready to dance for ecstasy, because you
   will cry, "The Lord Jesus has saved me, even me!" I say that Christ
   Incarnate and Christ working on earth are two grand sights, or they are
   two phases of the same glorious sight--and they take away the stones
   out of a sinner's pathway! But ah, Beloved, I want you, most of all, to
   give the eyes of your heart to the strangest sight of all. It was
   necessary, before you could be saved, that in the Person of Man, the
   Son of God should die!

   I can conceive Him living on earth, but who shall conceive Him dying?
   God was in Christ as He died upon the accursed tree! He who spread the
   heavens and made the earth, and piled the mountains--He was here, here
   in the form of man--and the soldiers came and seized Him in the garden
   as though He had been a thief! And they took Him away to Pilate's Hall
   and there they scourged Him! There they spit in His face! There they
   crowned Him with a crown of thorns and then condemned Him to bear His
   Cross. They hounded Him--Him, the Eternal God, I say, in human flesh!
   They hounded Him along Jerusalem's streets, then flung Him down upon
   His back upon the transverse wood and drove cruel nails through His
   blessed and tender hands and feet!

   Then they lifted up the Cross and dashed it into its socket in the
   earth till all His bones were dislocated and He cried, "I am poured out
   like water: all My bones are out of joint." It was He who but a little
   while before had heard the songs of angels and at whose feet the
   seraphim and cherubim adored. He, on that bloody tree, was fastened and
   lifted up. And there He died in infinite agonies--it is not possible to
   describe them, for none know their terror. God forsook Him! His Father
   turned away His face and in the bitterness of His anguish He cried, "My
   God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Thus on the tree He died and in
   that death He took the punishment due on account of the sin of all who
   shall believe on Him. He suffered in their place an equivalent for all
   that they would have had to suffer had they been cast into the pit of
   Hell.

   This being done, salvation is not only possible, but it is achieved!
   Believe in it, Sinner! What stone remains, now that Jesus has died? God
   has made Atonement--the eternal God, Himself, has put away human sin!
   Why do you doubt? Come, I say, hasten to the Cross! Gaze upon this
   wondrous spectacle of Divine Love--and as you gaze you shall live-- for
   "there is life in a look" at Jesus--life for everyone who rests in Him!
   But I want you to see a lovelier sight than this. The other is Divinely
   encouraging, but this is more encouraging, still. Look there! Look
   there! There is the sepulcher where He lay! They took Him from the
   Cross. They wrapped Him in spices and fine linen, and they laid Him
   there. Look there! Christ is not there, the tomb is empty! There is the
   napkin. There are the grave clothes, but He is not there! Where

   is He?

   Why, He has come forth in the full glory of Resurrection and is saying
   to the women, "Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended." He died for
   human guilt, but He lives, again, for the justification of His people!
   Why does He live? It is because no human guilt remains to keep Him as a
   hostage in the grave! All the guilt which He took upon Himself, He has
   put away. He has buried it--it is gone! It went from us when He
   died--it has gone from Him now that He has risen! The risen Lord has
   "finished transgression, made an end of sin and brought in everlasting
   righteousness." Who would not believe in a risen Christ? If God has set
   my Surety free, I am sure that I am clear! If Christ laid as a Hostage
   for my sins in the cold prison of Joseph of Arimathea's tomb, I bless
   Him for it. But when I see Him set free, I bless Him yet more, for I
   know that my sins are gone! There remains no wreck or relic of them--

   "Covered is my unrighteousness, From condemnation I am free,"

   for Christ has risen from the dead! O, Sinner, I pray God to lead you
   sweetly to read the mystery of the Resurrection and to give you peace
   tonight.

   But this is not all. Now lift up your eyes away from the garden, to the
   top of Olivet, and away from the top of Olivet, for, lo, He mounts the
   skies! His disciples gaze and as they gaze, He ascends. He rises higher
   and higher, till a cloud receives Him out of their sight. But though
   that cloud has come between us, faith's eyes can pierce it, and we can
   see the angels meeting Him on the way--

   "They brought His chariot from on high

   To bear Him to His Throne,

   Clapped their triumphant wings, and cried,

   'The glorious work is done!'

   'Hail! Prince,' they cry, 'forever hail,

   Whose unexampled love

   Moved You to quit these glorious realms,

   And royalties above.' "

   Don't you hear their song as they approach the golden gates of the New
   Jerusalem? They sing, "Lift up your heads, O you gates, and be you
   lifted up, you everlasting doors, that the King of Glory may come in!"
   Can you hear the watchers

   from above the gate as they challenge the cavalcade, "Who is the King
   of Glory?" Can you hear, yet again, the song of those who answer, "Lift
   up your heads, O you gates, and be you lifted up, you everlasting
   doors, that the King of Glory may come in!"

   He enters! His Father receives Him. "Well done," He says, "well done."
   He sits at His Father's right hand, for His life-work is finished. No
   more Sacrifice is needed! No other will ever be offered! But while He
   sits there, mark what He does--He intercedes. He pleads! He pleads! And
   for whom does He plead? For sinners bought with His blood! He pleads
   for all that come to God by Him--for you, if now you trust Him. You
   blackest sinner out of Hell--He pleads for you, if you trust Him!
   Utterly lost, ruined, condemned, dissolute, debauched as you may have
   been, yes, all but damned--but if you will trust Him, there is Infinite
   Mercy in His heart and in His plea there is Infinite Power! Oh, that I
   knew how to preach the Gospel! Oh, for a great trumpet to blow such a
   blast that every ear should hear it!

   Oh, will you reject Christ? I pray you may not! At your peril you will
   do it! If I were called, at this moment, from this pulpit to the bar of
   God, I could dare to say that I have tried to tell you all the
   comforting Truths that I know about my Master. If I could weep you to
   the Savior, I would do it! If my arms about your necks would bring you
   to His feet, I would be glad, my Brothers and Sisters, to try the
   affectionate embrace! But what more can a mortal do? Do you reject my
   Master, or will you receive Him? I would do as the Roman ambassadors
   did to the eastern king, when they made a ring in the sand, and said,
   "Pass that ring, and you proclaim war, or you make peace. You must
   stand and decide within that circle."

   I draw such a circle around you tonight and say, "Do not stir from that
   pew till Christ or sin, Heaven or Hell, faith or unbelief, is chosen by
   you." And may the Holy Spirit help you to such a gracious decision that
   you may say, "I will believe! Lord, help my unbelief! I cast myself
   now, whether I am saved or lost, upon the finished work of the risen
   Lord." The Lord grant it, for Jesus' sake. Amen!

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Mark 5:25-34; 7:24-30;
   10:46-52.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Seed Upon Stony Ground

   (No. 1132)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 14, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth, and
   immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: but when
   the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it
   withered away." Mark 4:5, 6.

   THE Gospel seed, according to the parable, falls upon all kinds of
   soil. Some of its precious grains drop upon the hard pathway, some upon
   the rock, some among the thorns and only a portion, perhaps a smaller
   proportion than one in four, falls upon good ground in which it finds a
   congenial abiding place. The preacher, therefore, will not meet with
   unmixed success in all directions. He may look for a full recompense
   from his work as a whole, but he must not fondly suppose that
   everywhere the good Word will become effectual, for in many it will be
   a savor of death unto death and not of life unto life. Even when Jesus
   preached, only few received Him, and of Paul's ministry it is recorded
   that "some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed
   not." It is for the beginner in holy service to go forward with
   reasonable expectations, lest he should, before long, weary of the work
   and leave it because of his bitter disappointments.

   Mark, with care that the sower in the parable is not blamed for having
   scattered his seed upon soil which proved to be unproductive. Not a
   word of censure is recorded against him on that account, from which it
   is fair to infer that he did no more and no less than his duty, and
   that the minister of Christ is to scatter the seed of the Gospel
   broadcast among all mankind. It is God's work to direct the saving Word
   into the chosen hearts which He has prepared to receive it. But as for
   us, we are to preach the Gospel to every creature--and going out into
   the streets and lanes of the city--as many as we find we are to bid to
   the supper. Many are called but few are chosen! It was never intended
   that the external call should be as narrow as the election, yet there
   are some ministers whose preaching consists far more of an analysis of
   soils than of a sowing of seed.

   Leaving the analyzing of the soil to God, I take my commission from His
   hands and desire to fulfill it. Stony-ground Hearer, there is a handful
   of seed for you. You who are hard like the trodden road, there is a
   handful for you. And even among the thorns, which are plentiful enough
   in this age, shall the good seed fall like a heavenly shower. And if
   God shall graciously direct it to His own chosen, and they, like the
   good ground, shall receive it, it will be His doing! It will never be
   effected by any skill of mine. It is mine to sow beside all waters and
   His to give the increase. The best shot that was ever made with bow and
   arrow was taken at a venture as Ahab the king was pierced between the
   joints of his harness. So also, while drawing my bow to preach the
   Gospel to every creature, my faith feels confident that the Lord will
   direct the arrow and effect His purposes of Divine Grace.

   I feel that I have very solemn work on hand. I have always pleasure in
   preaching upon encouraging topics, but this morning my themes are for
   sifting and testing. We have to deal with certain apparently good
   people and to show that they are not what they seem. We have to put
   corn from the barn floor into the sieve and it may be there will be
   much chaff to be blown away. This is an operation not pleasant to the
   flesh and one which needs much of the Spirit of God that we may perform
   it aright lest the weak ones be sorely troubled, which is far from what
   we desire. Solemn discourse should have a solemn heart to utter it--and
   solemn hearts to hear it. May God grant it may be so at this time, that
   the sermon may be greatly profitable to every one of us, whether
   professors of the Gospel or not.

   First, we shall read the history of stony-ground hearers. Secondly, we
   shall mark the radical defect of their character. And, thirdly, we
   shall try to learn a lesson from the whole.

   I. First, we have here A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF CERTAIN PROFESSORS OF
   RELIGION. Let us read it carefully. It is said of them, first, that
   they heard the Word. "These are they which are sown on stony ground;
   who, when they have heard the Word, immediately receive it with
   gladness." They enjoyed the great privilege of hearing God's

   Word. They heard the real Gospel--they did not attend upon ritualistic
   falsehoods, or philosophic speculations--it was the Word of God which
   they heard. The sower did not sow tares, but he sowed good corn. How
   happy are those who sit under a downright Gospel ministry! May God be
   pleased to multiply such ministries everywhere--and the lovers of them!

   How can we expect salvation to come to us if we do not hear the
   soul-saving Gospel? If we are listening merely to opinions and notions
   and philosophies and superstitions--and not to the very Word of God--we
   cannot expect to find salvation. The Holy Spirit does not save men by
   means of lies. But if we hear the Truth as it is in Jesus, we may hope
   that He will make it effectual to our conversion. Remember, next, that
   hearing is not enough. "Hearers only" will not enter Heaven--there must
   be a doing of the Word as well as a hearing of it. These people were
   good hearers, capital hearers, for they went further than hearing--they
   received the Word--not in the Divine power or supernatural efficacy of
   it, but they nevertheless received it. That is to say, they never
   quibbled at it. They assented to it as they heard it and recognized it
   as God's Truth. Receiving it, it produced an effect upon them. They
   were, in a measure, impressed by it.

   If the sermon spoke of the wrath of God on account of sin, they were
   alarmed. If it told them of the love of God in Christ Jesus, they were
   encouraged. They did not always hear with dry eyes. They were not
   always like the seats they sat upon--unmoved and stolid. But they
   received the Word of God. It stirred their affections and their
   emotions, they felt its moving effects and were thus led to many
   changes of life. They went home and swept the chambers which had been
   full of filthiness. They cleansed, at any rate, the outside of their
   cups and platters, and took care that the sepulcher, if not cleansed of
   the dead men's bones, should be decently whitewashed so as to shock no
   passersby. They were improved and reformed externally by what they
   heard, and so far they received it.

   And there is this said about them, in the third place, that they
   received it immediately. In them it excited no questions, doubts, or
   conflicts. The preacher said, "This is the Word of God," and they were
   content to believe him, though they knew not why. While other minds
   were asking for the Authority of the message and then, having
   recognized the authority, were battling hard with a thousand
   difficulties, these persons saved themselves a world of trouble by
   never thinking at all. It was their father's religion and their
   mother's religion, therefore they believed it, they swallowed the pill
   with their eyes shut, caring nothing whether it was God's Truth or
   Satan's lie. Anything like spiritual mastication of the doctrine they
   did not attempt. They endorsed, wholesale, whatever they were taught.
   Priests, themselves, could not desire more plastic material!

   These hearers had no hard struggles to get at the Savior, no sense of
   sin to hold them back, no horrors of conscience to make them afraid, no
   alarms lest they should not be the Lord's own people. They had no tests
   and sifting to see whether they possessed real repentance and
   acceptable faith. They sprang into religion as a man may leap into a
   bath, head over heels! They said, "Surely this is the right thing and
   we will have it." And after a certain sort they did have it-- not with
   any depth of consideration or weight of judgment--but they immediately
   received the Word. It is added they received it with gladness. The
   immediate effect of receiving the Word of God was to make them very
   happy. And there are not a few who suppose that to be made very happy
   is a sure sign of being converted. But believe me, it is a very dubious
   sign, indeed!

   No doubt, one grand effect of the reception of the Gospel into the
   heart is to bring joy and peace through believing, but there are many
   kinds of joy and many sorts of peace. There is a joy which is not the
   fruit of Grace, but the growth of Nature. And there is a peace which
   comes from delusion and not from the Spirit of God. We must take care
   we do not conclude that we are safe because we are "so happy." The rich
   man who went to Hell was happy when he fared sumptuously everyday! The
   farmer, who said he would pull down his barns and build greater, was
   happy when he surveyed his grain! And so was the prodigal son happy
   while he was spending his living riotously--but theirs was a very
   different kind of joy from that which is the fruit of the Spirit!

   The characters in our text looked exclusively at the happy side of
   religion. "There," said the stony-ground hearer, "there is my mother!
   What a happy Christian she is! I have seen her in deep trial borne up
   by the Spirit of God. I have marked her when we have had deaths in the
   house and seen how peaceful and quiet she has been. I will lay hold on
   Christ, for then I shall be as happy as she is." These stony-ground
   hearers think what a happy thing it must be to be forgiven and so,
   indeed, it is, but they dwelt upon that alone. To be pardoned, to be a
   child of God, to be accepted in the Beloved, what precious things these
   must be! And what a delightful thing to be numbered with God's saints,
   to go to the

   Communion Table and to be thought much of in the Church! Are not all
   these ways of pleasantness? And to go to Heaven at last, to die
   triumphantly, to be taken up to dwell where Jesus is amidst the
   Glory--what joyful things! Who doubts it?

   But these people dwelt only upon this view of the matter and did not
   remember that between this and Heaven there are temptations to be
   combated and to be overcome. There are trials to be endured, stern
   trials, too, through which we can only be brought by Divine help. Right
   arms must be cut off and right eyes must be plucked out. There are
   costs to be counted and reckonings to be made as to whether the future
   will repay for the labors of the present. Young Hopefuls vow that they
   will have the brave country of Canaan, but they do not remember the
   roughness of the road there. Like Pliable, they set out for the
   Celestial City but they have not reckoned upon the Slough of Despond.
   And therefore after the first mouthful of mud they are ready to turn
   back and let those have the brave country who care for it--as for them,
   if they can keep whole bones in their body--they will be well content
   to let the future go as it may.

   These people, then, immediately received the Word with joy. How hopeful
   all this must have looked to the sower! Do you not see how easily
   ministers may be deceived? When you have only to preach and men are
   willing to hear--only to preach and men are willing to receive--to
   receive the Gospel at once, without causing you any difficulty in
   arguing with them! When they receive it with gladness and you have not
   the trouble to cheer them up, and to meet their doubts and anxieties
   with a thousand promises selected out of the Word of God--is not this
   splendid work which will richly repay the sower? Alas, we must not
   reckon our fruit by the buds! All is not gold that glitters and it is
   not every egg that will be hatched.

   We read further that these characters made rapid progress--they sprang
   up because they had no depth of earth. Because of their shallow soil
   they were very rapid in their growth. These people heard the Gospel one
   day, received it, and felt sure that they were saved. At once they were
   full of joy and transport, and hastened to make a profession! They did
   not require time to sit down and see whether they could bear out that
   profession, or seek Grace that they might not run before they were
   called. No, away they went, just as if a spark had been dropped into so
   much powder. They made a profession and the next week they were
   teaching in the Sunday school! They were so sure they were on the right
   road that they were very vexed with other pilgrims who did not travel
   so rapidly. When they heard of Christians being anxious as to their
   condition, they said, "What nonsense! What reason is there for it?" If
   they saw a deep-taught Christian tremblingly examining himself, they
   said, "Oh, you must not look at all at yourself! Never consider what is
   going on within."

   They had received a one-sided Gospel, only, and that quite contented
   them. And as to anything like the work of the Spirit of God in the soul
   and the holy jealousy which is one of the best fruits of vital
   godliness, these they quite dispensed with. They were going to drag the
   Church behind them and drive the world before them--and very soon they
   would distance even the ministry which had been the means, as they
   said, of their conversion! They grew from hyssops on the wall to cedars
   of Lebanon in about a week! They were THE men, and wisdom would die
   with them! Grand work to have to deal with these men, is it not? We
   shall see, by-and-by, and shall have to learn that not every stem that
   puts forth leaves is a fruit-bearing branch. In due time, according to
   the parable, came the trial.

   The seed was up and soon the sun was up, too, and began to scorch it.
   None will get to Heaven without being tried on the road. Ask,
   concerning those who stand in their white robes before the Throne of
   God, who are those, and from where did they come? And the answer will
   be, "These are they that came out of great tribulation and have washed
   their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." There is not
   a fragment of gold in all God's temple but what has passed through the
   fire. Untried faith is no faith. Untried Grace is no Grace. God will
   try His people and discern between the precious and the vile. According
   to the Savior's explanation of the text, the trial came in the form of
   persecution. Ah, how many there are who have received the Word with
   gladness, who, if there were a stake in Smithfield, would very soon
   drop the profession of Christianity, for it would be too hot for them!
   Or if there were a prison ready for them in which they must lie till
   the moss grew on their eyelids, they would soon forsake the Truth of
   God and turn aside to error.

   We need not be much afraid of the revival of such tests, but there are
   other forms of persecution which mere professors are equally unable to
   bear. A sneer in society. A remark against Christianity from a person
   whom you are accustomed to respect. A look from someone who is above
   you in wealth, as he despises you for professing to be a follower of
   Christ. Unkind remarks from a father. Opposition from a husband. The
   desertion of some young companion with whom you hoped your life would
   be linked. Such matters--nothing like the stake or the prison--are yet
   quite

   sufficient to overcome flimsy professors so that they are offended and
   turn their backs upon the religion which they once so quickly espoused!

   In many instances, to follow principle would involve a great loss in
   business. They could not afford to incur such a loss. If Christ could
   be had at a cheaper rate, they would have Him, but to lose all the
   treasures in Egypt! No, they could not do that--and so they renounce,
   again, that Christ whom they once called their All-in-All. With others
   it has not been such a trial as that, but Providential affliction. I
   painfully remember a man and his wife who were members of this Church
   for some time. And it was certainly true, as they affirmed that from
   the very hour they made profession of religion they began to be in
   trouble. And therefore they renounced the consolation because of the
   affliction, for they drew the conclusion that surely they could not be
   the people of God, or else God would not have so tried them--a
   conclusion which is the reverse of the teachings of Scripture!

   Many will have Christ if He will pat them on the cheek, but not if He
   flogs them with the rod! They will follow the Lord while He is on the
   giving hand, but they cannot believe in a God who takes away. They can
   bless Him while He enriches them, but they know nothing of that
   Job-like faith which exclaims, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken
   away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Or, perhaps, it may be that
   when they first made a profession of religion they did not know much
   about the temptations of life. But now they have moved from home. They
   have obtained a situation where there are young men who tell them of
   haunts of pleasurable vice. Or they have left the circle of godly
   people in which they once moved and are cast among ungodly ones and,
   alas, their mouths are watering for the sweets of the world--the
   serpent of sinful pleasure has cast a spell over them--and now Christ
   may go for Belial, true religion for worldliness and following God for
   the indulgence of the flesh.

   Ah, how often is this the case! Or, perhaps, another shining of the sun
   has come upon them. They thought they believed the Gospel, but they
   have fallen among debaters. They are surrounded by a skeptical circle
   where they have heard arguments they never heard before and never
   having weighed anything, or considered the reasons why they believed in
   God and in Christ, they are quite staggered. They have no depth of
   earth, no root-hold of the Truth of God by conviction and solemn
   judgment of it. And so as soon as they meet with an atheist or a deist,
   or a skeptic of any form, they are like thistledown before the wind.
   Having no ballast in their vessel, the first breeze oversets them and
   they are lost. What a grand thing it is to be established in the faith,
   rooted, grounded, settled! I remember reading of one who said, "When I
   read the arguments brought by infidels against the Gospel, I laugh them
   to scorn because they are nothing like the deep, cunning arguments
   which my own heart has brought against the Lord in years gone by--which
   having answered and overcome--I feel myself more than a match for the
   puny oppositions of ungodly men."

   It is a grand thing not to be moved in these skeptical times, but to
   know the Lord by secret communion with Him, to know His Truth by inner
   consciousness and by a devout reading of His Word with eyes opened from
   above. Alas, many hearers and receivers of the word have been destroyed
   by carping infidels! They knew nothing thoroughly and so were readily
   deceived. It is said of the stony-ground people that immediately they
   were offended. They were just as soon out of love with the Gospel as
   they were in with it. "Immediately they were offended." They did not,
   at first, stop to enquire why they should be Christians and now they do
   not stop to argue why they should renounce their profession. They took
   their religion hot from the oven and dropped it before it was cool
   enough to feed on. Somebody said, "Believe, believe, believe!" And they
   were excited. And now another speaker says, "Do not believe! Do not
   believe!" And they are excited the other way. They went in with a crowd
   of others all of a sudden during a revival--and now they are going out
   with the crowd during a season of lukewarmness.

   The minister took them in at the front door and now he has to let them
   out at the back door. They have disappointed him. They have brought
   scandal upon the Church and double responsibility upon themselves. And
   now they are just as earnest to give up religion as they were to
   profess it. Unhappy souls, volatile in everything, frivolous about the
   solemnities of eternity, ready to be right if rightly led and as ready
   to be wrong if wrongly driven. Having no mind of their own, they are
   molluscous creatures--without a backbone, mere jellyfish--nothing solid
   or consistent can be found in them. Their sand-built houses are no
   sooner up than they are washed down by the tide. They have no rocky
   foundations, no strong grips of the Truth of God, no principles. Their
   motive powers are submission to persuasion, admiration of eloquence and
   desire of approbation. Unhappy! Unhappy! Unhappy! God grant that we may
   not belong to such a class!

   II. I shall show THEIR RADICAL DEFECT. Their radical defect, in the
   first place, lays in an unbroken heart. The parable does not refer to
   ground with stones in it, such as we commonly call stony ground, for
   that will grow corn well enough--but to soil where there was a hard
   rock underneath--and only a very thin covering of earth. A hard pan of
   iron rock was at the bottom and it was barely hidden by a little mold
   created by the lichens and mosses--enough to catch the seed and make it
   germinate--but not enough to feed its roots for any length of time.

   In these people their hearts have never been broken. "Is not My Word
   like a hammer, says the Lord?" They do not know, for it never hammered
   them. They got their joy and peace without a blow. What is to be done
   with a piece of ground which has the rock so close to the surface?
   Nothing can be done with it by man. The only thing that can be done is
   for God to come in--and when God, in His infinite mercy changes the
   rock into good soil--then the wheat will grow, but not till then. "A
   new heart also will I give you, and a right spirit will I put within
   you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will
   give you an heart of flesh." There must be a work of the Holy Spirit by
   which the natural rock of Nature shall be turned into the good soil of
   Grace, or else all the sowing in the world will never produce a
   harvest!

   These people skipped over that and, in fact, they did not like to hear
   of it. They liked preachers who always preached simple faith in the
   work of Jesus but never mentioned the work of the Holy Spirit--lopsided
   preachers, messengers whose legs are not equal, who deliver half God's
   message and no more--and under such teaching they found peace without
   soul-trouble and comfort without the new birth. As for repentance, that
   old-fashioned Grace, they despised it! Weeping before God on account of
   sin? Terror under a sense of God's wrath? Or fear lest the sentence of
   His Law should be executed? They never knew. They passed into the land
   of Hope without going round by Weeping Cross--and every day I grow more
   and more suspicious of a man's religion if he has not gone round by
   that road. A man who was healed before he was wounded, clothed before
   he was stripped, filled before he was empty, made alive before he was
   slain, has good reason to suspect whether Sovereign Grace has ever laid
   its hand upon him!

   These people with the unbroken heart had gladsome hopes and joyful
   confidences, but they all came to an end, as they will do in your case
   and mine if we are strangers to contrition. Always be it remembered
   that true as it is that whoever believes in Jesus Christ shall be
   saved, it is equally true, "You must be born again." "Except you are
   converted and become as little children, you shall in no wise enter the
   kingdom of Heaven." "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that
   which is born of the Spirit is spirit." And "flesh and blood cannot
   inherit the kingdom of God." It is only the birth of the spirit, the
   spiritual nature, that can enter into spiritual matters and become a
   possessor of truly spiritual joys. An unbroken heart is a fatal defect!

   This led to a second fault, namely, lack of depth. The stony-ground
   hearer was all surface. Everything about him was superficial. The rock,
   never having been broken, provided no depth of earth to plow. So in
   many men who profess to be converted, there has been no real estimate
   of sin. "Yes, we are sinners," they say. "Oh yes, yes, of course we are
   all sinners." But to feel what it is to be a sinner is quite another
   thing. To be crushed down to the earth under a sense of having violated
   the thrice holy Law of God--many have never felt this. And Jesus
   Christ--yes, He is a Savior, and they will say they take Him for a
   Savior--but what it is to be saved, why it was He suffered, why He
   needed to suffer--what was the tremendous guilt that compelled such a
   Sacrifice they have never considered. In fact, they have never thought
   at all and they do not mean to think.

   Bees descend into the flowers and suck out the honey, but butterflies
   alight on the lilies for a moment and are away again--true emblems of
   flippant pretenders to Grace. Many persons who profess to be Christians
   seem to have no acquaintance with the plague of their own hearts. They
   believe that there is something amiss within, but they do not know that
   their heart is "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked."
   Consequently, though they admit they need Divine Grace, they do not
   know how much they need it. They would subscribe to the Truth, "Without
   Me you can do nothing," but they do not know it experimentally. They
   are strangers to those failures and inward disappointments which lead a
   man to feel his nothingness. It is surface work--nothing is deep about
   them. When they became professors of the religion of Christ they never
   weighed the Truth, or searched the Scriptures to see whether these
   things are indeed, so.

   They were Calvinists because the preacher was a Calvinist. They would
   have been Arminians quite as readily if the preacher had been Arminian.
   In fact, they would have been anything they were taught to be--they
   never judged, weighed

   and considered for themselves. In espousing the Truth as it is in Jesus
   they never calculated the difficulties of a religious life. It did not
   strike them that they would have to fight with sin without and sin
   within. They never looked at that mighty trinity--the world, the flesh
   and the devil--with which they would have to wage a life-long combat.
   They took the sweets and thought not of the bitter herbs. They were
   volatile and are still volatile. They cannot think, neither can you
   persuade them to attempt it. This is a fault, indeed.

   And then there was a third defect--the secret part of their religion
   was a failure. The seed on the stony ground did not fail in the
   sprouting, nor in the blade which appeared above--it had no root. If
   you were to trace some professors home, you would find no secret
   prayer. Let that word go through this congregation if there are any of
   you living in the neglect of secret prayer! No secret prayer, no secret
   reading of the Word of God, no chewing of it to get the essence and the
   juice out of it, no vital contact with Christ in private, no communion
   of the soul in secret with the living God? This is a deadly sign! They
   were at the public meeting. They were fussy enough about committees.
   They could be first and foremost if there were any singing to be done,
   or if there were any preaching required! But oh, the secret prayer, the
   secret living with God, the soul-searching, the trying of the reins to
   see whether they were right or wrong--they had given this all up!
   Taking it for granted that they must be right because they have a sort
   of faith, they look upon every question as to their safety as so much
   unbelief and the work of Satan. And so they wrap themselves up in their
   delusions. They think they must be the people of God because they
   profess themselves to be such, but they have never looked for the fruit
   which must be borne by every branch of the true vine.

   And fourthly, there was another thing--which I do not think you will
   find in Mark--but you will see it in one of the other Evangelists--they
   lacked moisture. Now, a plant must have moisture. Dew, rain, or some
   sort of watering must come to it. On that little soil with a hard rock
   at the bottom there was plenty of heat when the sun shone and so the
   little moisture it had made the seed sprout at once. But it had no
   further moisture and therefore became parched. So certain hearers get a
   little moisture, as it were, by contact with an earnest preacher. They
   come under that Word which drops as the dew and distils as the
   rain--but they have not the vitalizing Holy Spirit at their root to be
   the perpetual source of life. They have their lamps, but they have no
   oil in their vessels to keep them trimmed. They lack the moisture of
   the Holy Spirit! He it is that comes to His own people secretly, at the
   roots of their life, so that from Him they suck up the life of God and
   so they live!

   But the mere stony-ground convert has not the Holy Spirit. And oh,
   permit me to say most solemnly to everyone here, if we have no more
   than Nature gave us under its best conceivable circumstances, we have
   no more than the Pharisees--and that landed them in Hell! We must have
   the Spirit of God--and from first to last the religion of our hearts
   must be worked of the Spirit, sustained by the Spirit--and if it is
   not, the sooner we are rid of such a religion the better, for it will
   only deceive us! I feel the necessity of preaching such a sermon as
   this because I perceive Church members going aside into open sin and
   others turning aside to one or another of the new delusions of the
   present age. There seems to be a new one every month. Some foolish
   people stand with their mouths open ready for any novelty to fly down
   their throats. They are as dry straw, only wanting for some impostor to
   apply the spark to them--and yet they call themselves Christians!

   There are so many, nowadays, who do not know what they believe and so
   become the prey of Romanists, Ritualists, Atheists, or some other
   deceivers. There is a little plant in the garden and a thief comes
   along and takes away root and all--he will not do so with a well-rooted
   oak, I guarantee you--and if we were well-rooted like the oak, we would
   believe what we believe and know what we know, and would have principle
   to keep us steady. The old Nonconformists might have been dragged to
   prison or to the stake without difficulty--but to get them to yield
   their nonconformity, or put aside their principles was not possible!
   Alas for the degenerate sons of such sturdy fathers! If what you
   believe is not true, fling it away! But if it is true, let your faces
   be like flints and your natures like iron against all the temptations
   of this wicked, ever-changing age which flies this way and that, but
   always away from its God! Oh, when shall it be that those who know the
   Lord shall stand fast and having done all, shall still stand?

   III. Thirdly, I must close by trying to teach THE LESSON OF THE TEXT.
   That lesson is four-fold. It says to each one of us, be deeply in
   earnest. Do not play at religion. Do not think of a religious
   profession as a garb which you can put on and take off. Pray God to
   make sure work in your soul, sure work for eternity. You have to die.
   You have to face the

   Judgment Seat--have a religion that will bear those ordeals. Pray to
   have such a work of the Spirit in your soul that neither death nor
   judgment can alarm you.

   Cry to God that repentance may be cut deep into you, making lasting
   marks in you. Pray that your faith may be no sham faith, but a giving
   up of your soul entirely into the hands of Christ. That your love to
   Christ may be no rhapsody, but a matter of real heart-affection. That
   your religious walk may not be for other people to see, but a walk
   before God. Pray that all your actions may be the result of principle
   and that you may not be swayed by company, but rather may sway company
   and may have a vital force within yourself of God's implanting that
   will bear you on in the straight road, whichever way others may take. I
   say again, be awfully in earnest about everything that concerns
   religion and pray God to forgive you if in any measure you have been
   flippant concerning it.

   Secondly, watch the effect of your own daily trials. See how they
   affect you. If a boat is ready to sink in the Thames, it ought never to
   be trusted at sea. If your religion already begins to fail you, what
   will it do, by-and-by? You were laughed at and you were half inclined
   to give it all up--what would you do if you were more sternly
   persecuted? You have already been willing to go back, your heart has
   faltered--what will you do if fiercer temptations assail you? You have
   already been terribly put to it by the arguments of a fool--what would
   you do if some of the deep thinkers were to argue with you? "If you
   have run with the footmen and they have wearied you, how will you
   contend with horsemen? And if, in the land of peace wherein you have
   trusted, they have wearied you, what will you do in the swellings of

   Jordan?"

   I do not object to your growing slowly if you grow surely. If my house
   takes a long time in building, I would rather give the builder his time
   than tell him to run it up in a week or two and make it so frail that
   the first wind would blow it away like cardboard. You have to live in
   this house eternally, pray God to build it surely. As to building fast,
   that little matters. O you that can hardly go a step towards Heaven
   without question and dispute, I do not so much tremble concerning you
   as about some who never have any questions or doubts, because they have
   never any thought at all, but pass it all by with a heedless
   carelessness, taking things for granted. See, then, how you stand in
   your present trials. You have grown richer--do you love the Lord as
   much as you did? You transact more business--can you still keep the
   world out of your heart? You have received more praise of late--can you
   still cling to Christ as you used to do when you had but few friends?
   You have been in health lately--have you lived as near to God as when
   you were ill?

   Or you have come down in the world and are numbered with the poor? Do
   you love the Lord as much as you did when He enriched you? You have
   lately heard the remarks of a cunning hater of the Gospel--were you
   able to feel that though you could not answer him in words, yet your
   heart answered him and threw off his falsehood as the roof throws off
   the rain? If not, look to it! If your vessel is ready to go down in
   smooth water, what will she do in a storm? If you cannot keep the water
   out of her, now, what will you do when the hurricane overtakes her? It
   will be all over with you then, I fear.

   Another lesson is constantly examine yourself. A great many persons get
   into the Bankruptcy Court, but as far as I remember never one came
   there through too much attendance to his business. I never heard of a
   farmer losing his crop through being too diligent in husbandry and of
   all the souls that are lost not one has perished through being too much
   in earnest as to self-examination. Dear Brothers and Sisters, choose a
   faithful, testing ministry. Do not look after a smoothtongued preacher
   who will always cry, "Comfort You, comfort You, my people." You need
   comfort and should have it, but you need searching as well, and you
   must have it. Pray that you may be faithfully dealt with, that there
   may be no glazing over matters, no filming of wounds, but that there
   may be honest dealings between you and the minister, and between you
   and your God. God grant that we may be willing to be searched, for when
   we are unwilling to be searched we may reckon it quite certain that
   there is something amiss with us. When we say, "I am afraid I am a
   hypocrite," there is very little fear of it--but presumption is fatal.

   Now, lastly, let all this show us how necessary it is that we cast all
   the stress and burden of our salvation entirely upon the Lord Jesus
   Christ, because whenever a man does that, there is honest and good
   ground in his soul and the seed has sprung up aright. Whenever a man
   can truly say--

   "I rest alone in Jesus, Nothing in my hand I bring: Simply to Your
   Cross I cling,"

   that is the great secret of a true hope. Jesus lived and died for
   us--and if we do entirely depend upon Him, alone, it is well with our
   souls. It is well to live continually at the foot of the Cross, looking
   up to Jesus, finding all our hope in Him and none in ourselves.
   Beloved, it is the work of the Spirit of God to bring us there and keep
   us there! If we search ourselves in the light of the Cross we shall be
   willing to judge ourselves that we be not judged. In the presence of
   those dear wounds from where distils the atoning blood, we shall cry,
   "Try my reins and my heart."

   But if any man says, "I believe in Jesus, therefore I will not search.
   I trust in Jesus, therefore I will live as I like," that man's religion
   is vain! He has profaned the Cross by his reckless reasoning! Let him
   take heed how God shall judge him, for of all judgments, surely that
   will be the heaviest which shall come upon the man who dared to take
   the doctrine of the Cross as a reason for careless living and made the
   mercy and the cleansing power of the Redeemer, Himself, an excuse for
   walking heedlessly before God, and continuing in vain presumption.

   God grant us Grace to receive the seed into good ground, for Jesus'
   sake.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Mark 4:1-34.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Fatal Deficiency

   (No. 1133)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 21, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "If any man ha ve not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." Romans
   8:9.

   THIS is one of the most solemn texts in the whole Bible. It is so
   sweeping--it deals with all of us. "If any man have not the Spirit of
   Christ, he is none of His." And it deals with the most important point
   about us, for to belong to Christ is the most essential thing for time
   and eternity. But we are not Christ's unless we have His Spirit. The
   text does not treat of external rites and ceremonies. It does not
   discuss a vexed question in doctrine. It does not speak of rare
   attainments and unusual virtues--but it lays its axe at the root of the
   tree--it points its sword at a vital part. The text probes to the
   quick--it pierces to the dividing asunder of the joints and
   marrow--dealing with the thoughts and intents of the heart. It speaks
   to the soul and though it is the voice of the Gospel, yet is its sound
   as terrible as the thunderclaps of Sinai. "If any man have not the
   Spirit of Christ, he is none of His."

   Since the subject leads us to think upon the Spirit of Christ, let us
   entreat Him to help us at this hour, so that our thoughts shall be
   honest, heart-searching, and therefore profitable to us. The preacher
   has prayed that he may be helped to discourse upon the text. Let each
   hearer pray that what shall be rightly said may also rightly affect his
   heart and conscience. Do we not all earnestly desire to belong to
   Christ? Do we not tremble at the bare idea of its being said of us that
   we are "none of His"? With such desires and fears, I trust we shall
   come with the greater readiness under the influence of the
   heart-searching text before us.

   I shall, at the outset, try to lead you to consider the remarkable
   title which is here given to the Holy Spirit. When we have considered
   that point, we will next observe the absolute necessity of possessing
   the Spirit. And, thirdly, meditate upon the evidences which may help us
   to discover whether we have the Spirit. Then we will close by weighing
   well the consequences of being found without the Spirit of Christ--"We
   are none of His."

   I. First, then, let us consider, well, THE REMARKABLE TITLE WHICH IS
   HERE GIVEN TO THE HOLY SPIRIT--for certainly it is the Holy Spirit who
   is here intended by, "the Spirit of Christ." He is called, in the first
   part of the verse, "the Spirit of God." And then He is styled, "the
   Spirit of Christ." Christ and God are essentially One. The Holy Spirit
   stands in intimate relationship to both the Father and to the Son and
   is rightly called by either name. Inasmuch as He is here called the
   Spirit of Christ, we may rest assured that a deep mystery is here dimly
   revealed. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as well as from the
   Father. Upon this we will say but little, for we know but little.

   There was a great dispute, many centuries ago, between what are now
   called the Eastern and Western Churches, upon this question--whether
   the Spirit of God proceeded from the Father only, as said the Greek
   Church--or proceeded from the Father and the Son--as said the Latin
   Church. I think, if we must have an opinion upon such a subject, that
   our text decides the point by declaring that the Holy Spirit is not
   only the Spirit of God but the Spirit of Christ and proceeds,
   doubtless, both from the Father and from the Son. But when we have said
   that, what do we mean? Does any theologian know what he means by these
   words? Will anybody ever know what is meant thereby? Can any of us, by
   searching, find out God or know the Almighty to perfection? Is not this
   a mystery into which our eyes will never be able to see? And,
   therefore, is it not better to leave it among the inscrutable things
   which belong to the blessed Trinity in unity, where understanding is
   swamped, but where faith finds waters to swim in?

   Leaving that deep matter, we pass to notice that the title, "the Spirit
   of Christ," signifies, first, that the Spirit peculiarly and especially
   rested upon Christ. The Holy Spirit had much to do with the Person of
   our blessed Redeemer. The Manhood of Christ was begotten of the Spirit
   of God when the power of the Highest overshadowed the Virgin Mary. When
   our Lord first appeared in public to be recognized as the Son of
   God--when He went down into the waters of Jordan and came up from
   them--the Spirit descended upon Him like a dove, and rested upon Him
   while the Divine

   Voice proclaimed out of Heaven, "This is My Beloved Son." No sooner had
   the Son of God passed from Jordan's brink than He was, "led of the
   Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil"--guided by the
   Spirit of God to undergo those processes of trial which were necessary
   to make Him perfect as the great High Priest, enabling Him to
   sympathize with our infirmities, because He was "tempted in all points
   like as we are."

   We read that He returned into Galilee in the power of the Spirit. When
   He began to preach, the first chapter that He read in public was, "The
   Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach
   the Gospel to the poor." His ministry was not a dead ministry of the
   letter, but it stood in the power of the Spirit of God! He spoke not
   according to the flesh, with the garnishing of human eloquence and
   winning flatteries, but with those forcible words of wisdom which the
   Holy Spirit teaches. He taught the people as One having authority and
   not as the scribes. All through the life of Christ you see that the
   Spirit of God rested upon Him in fullness of power, for God "gives not
   the Spirit by measure unto Him." In Him "dwelt the fullness of the
   Godhead bodily," and all the sacred gifts of the Holy Spirit were
   treasured up in His blessed Person that out of His fullness we, also,
   might receive Grace for Grace.

   Was it not so written of Him in the Psalm, "You love righteousness and
   hate wickedness: therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil
   of gladness above Your fellows"? Because upon Christ, the Anointed One,
   the Holy Spirit rests in fullness, the term, "the Spirit of Christ," is
   most instructive. A second explanation is equally to the point. The
   Holy Spirit is called the "Spirit of Christ," because our Lord Jesus
   gives us the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist said concerning Him, "I,
   indeed, baptize you with water unto repentance, but He that comes after
   me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to wear. He shall
   baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire."

   The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is a choice result of our Lord's work
   among men. Jesus spoke of giving to men Living Water which should be in
   them as a springing well, and this spoke He of the Spirit which was
   given when Jesus was glorified. After His Resurrection He breathed on
   His disciples and said, "receive you the Holy Spirit." But indeed, the
   whole ministry of Jesus was a Revelation of the things of the Spirit.
   He did not preach upon points of ritual and ceremonial observation, but
   He went into inward matters and with the fan in His hand, thoroughly
   purged His floor. His precepts concern not the washing of hands, the
   straining out of gnats, the wearing of phylacteries and the observance
   of holy days-- they deal with the heart, the affections, the spiritual
   nature of man--and thus are far removed from the traditions of
   superstition and the frivolities of false philosophy.

   Beyond all this, Beloved, our Lord Jesus Christ, at His Ascension,
   procured for us the descent of the Holy Spirit. "It is expedient for
   you that I go away," He said, "for if I go not away, the Comforter will
   not come unto you." He rose to His Father, but when the fullness of
   time was come, the rushing, mighty Wind was heard and the cloven
   tongues, as if were fire, were seen sitting upon the disciples! And
   from that moment the Church of God was baptized into the Holy Spirit.
   God grant that she may never forget that day of days, but walk in the
   power bestowed upon her at Pentecost! On that glorious day, the Word of
   the Lord by the Prophet Joel was fulfilled--"I will pour out My Spirit
   upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your
   old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also
   upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out
   My Spirit."

   This being so gloriously fulfilled, we are waiting for that other
   promise, "I will pour upon the house of David and the inhabitants of
   Jerusalem the Spirit of Grace and of supplications, and they shall look
   upon Me whom they have pierced, and shall mourn for their sins."
   Therefore the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ because He is the
   choice gift of our ascended Lord. Mark a third explanation of the
   passage--the Holy Spirit may be called, "the Spirit of Christ," because
   Christ lived peculiarly in the power of the Spirit. Understand the
   "Spirit," as used in the text, in opposition to the "flesh," and you
   will see my meaning. Never did the flesh rule Christ. Never in one
   solitary moment did bodily cravings and appetites master Him. No, He
   even forgot to eat bread, finding meat to eat which even His disciples
   knew not of. Love sought not its own, but made Him lay down His life
   for His friends.

   The Spirit of God shone forth upon Him in full luster of unsullied
   light, revealing Him as pure and spotless, a glorious Person in whom
   the Prince of Darkness could find nothing. Our Lord Jesus Christ was
   never moved by any passion of a sensual kind or swayed by a motive of a
   fleshly tendency. It would be blasphemous to think of such a thing in
   connection with so Divine a Character. Some cry aloud and strive for
   mastery, but not He. Some have high ambitions and would thrust down
   others, but not He. Some unite on the right hand and on the left, for
   their spirit is full of

   vengeance, but not He. The flesh that lusts for vengeance and that
   cries after power had no rule in Him. He was meek and lowly of heart.
   The Spirit of holiness and love was in Him--that Spirit which brings
   power and peace.

   Always was the Holy Spirit to be seen in connection with the Character
   and work of our blessed Lord. His life was a life in the Spirit. His
   teaching was a teaching of spiritual things. The objects that He aimed
   at in His teaching were all spiritual. There was nothing carnal,
   nothing gross, nothing earthy about Him--every thought, desire and aim
   were of the highest, noblest, and most spiritual order. And therefore
   it is, I think, that the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ.

   Mark, also, that the Holy Spirit is He who quickens the entire mystical
   body of Jesus Christ. All the saints are members of Christ's body and
   all the members of that body are distinguished from other men by
   this--that they are spiritual men and seek after spiritual things.
   "There is one body and one Spirit, even as we are called in one hope of
   our calling." It is the Spirit that quickens the entire mystical body,
   and by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we are
   Jews or Gentiles, whether we are bond or free. The true Church of
   Christ, being in herself a spiritual body, acts in a spiritual manner
   and strives after spiritual objects. Yonder Church which is wrapped up
   in formalism, which cannot speak a word of prayer without her book--is
   she moved of the Spirit, or may it not be said of her sons-- "Are you
   so foolish; having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the
   flesh?"

   Yonder Church, which bows before images and pictures and flaunts her
   banners and uplifts her crucifixes, burning her candles in the
   sunlight--is she the spiritual Church of Christ? I think not. You shall
   find the Church of Christ where faithful men worship God in the Spirit
   and have no confidence in the flesh--men who, if they speak, seek to be
   moved by the Holy Spirit, or else had rather keep silent--who desire
   not the wisdom that comes of man, nor the teaching which is the
   fabrication of human reason--but desire to wait upon the Scriptures for
   instruction and upon the Spirit of God to show light upon the
   Scriptures. This is the Church of God.

   O Beloved, the times are just now very dangerous and require of all
   Christians to bear their testimony as to the spirituality of true
   religion. True religion consists not in outward forms, peculiar garbs,
   or modes of speech, or anything that is ritualistic and external. "The
   kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and
   joy in the Holy Spirit." Men are again becoming subject to human
   ordinances after the commandments and doctrines of men, saying, "Touch
   not, taste not, handle not." But the true faith stands not in
   will-worship, nor in the inventions of the flesh. Neither is that
   acceptable worship which men's fancies have devised that they may
   display the beauty of carved stone and wood, and the glory of gold and
   silver and copper together with blue and scarlet and fine linen, and
   glass of many colors, and sweet odors of the merchants. The true
   worshippers of God worship in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks
   such to worship Him.

   Therefore is the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Christ, because, wherever
   the faith of Christ and the mystical body of Christ are found, there
   you will find spiritual worship--worship rendered by mind and
   heart--the worship of love, the worship of humility, adoration and
   obedience. The Church of God brings not to Him rivers of oil, or the
   blood of ten thousands of fat beasts. She seeks to do justly, to love
   mercy and to walk humbly with her God. Sacrifices and burnt offerings
   are abolished--broken and contrite hearts are still, in the sight of
   the Lord, of great price. Therefore the Spirit of God is rightly called
   the Spirit of Christ.

   II. Now, secondly--and may the Lord help and guide us in our thoughts
   and utterances--let us OBSERVE THE

   NECESSITY OF POSSESSING THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. Notice that, according to
   the text, it is necessary in every

   case--"If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." It
   does not say, "If any minister be destitute of the Holy Spirit he is
   unfit for his calling." That is quite true, but the text is not dealing
   with any supposed divisions of laity and clergy--it speaks not to a
   class, but utters its warning voice to men as men. "If any man have not
   the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His."

   It may be urged that some have an especially amiable nature and
   disposition. They were never known to speak an untruth, or to do an
   unkind action, from their youth up. They grow up in the garden of the
   family like lovely flowers, the admiration of all. Yes, I admit that it
   is even so, but I cannot help it, I must speak the truth as I have it
   in my text. "If any man," however amiable he may be, "have not the
   Spirit of Christ," I must say the same of him as of the drunk and of
   the thief, "he is none of Christ's." The fairest flowers, as surely as
   the foulest weeds, are none of Christ's if they are not of the Spirit's
   own planting.

   But we meet with instances in which, in addition to a natural
   amiability, the refinements of good society have exercised their best
   influence. The man has lived among Christian people. He has a title to
   birthright membership, if such a right can be. He has never mingled
   with the coarser sort of sinners, or learned the vulgarities of vice.
   The man is lovely to look upon. Yes, and as I repeat the words of my
   text, I say the Truth of God and lie not, I feel a love to such an one,
   even as Jesus did to that young man who said, "All these things have I
   kept from my youth up. What lack I yet?" But we must not shirk the
   Truth even in this case. This one lack, the lack of the Spirit of
   Christ, is fatal to the noblest character and Christ disowns utterly
   every man who has not His Spirit in him.

   But can we not, by adding outward religiousness to moral somehow or
   other, rise, by our own efforts, to be true Christians without the Holy
   Spirit? Can we not be baptized and kneel as God's people kneel, and
   sing as they sing, and take the sacrament as they do? Yes, you can
   readily do all these, but you will still be condemned, for the text
   will still remain true, "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he
   is none of His." And if it were possible (which it is not) for you to
   produce the same virtues in yourself which are produced by the Holy
   Spirit, yet even those would not suffice, for the text is absolute and
   it does not say, "If any man have not the worlds of the Spirit," or,
   "the influences of the Spirit," or, "the general results of character
   which come of the indwelling of the Spirit." No, it goes deeper and
   declares, "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of
   His."

   The difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate is not one
   of degree, but of kind. A dead soul cannot develop into a living one,
   nor can the carnal mind improve into a spiritual mind. Almighty power
   is needed to bridge the separating gulf! This ought to lead every
   rational man to utterly despair of saving himself by any strength of
   his own! You must resort to Divine agency. You are driven to the Holy
   Spirit because without Him, whatever you may do or be, my text, like
   the cherubic sword which kept the entrance to Eden, prevents your
   hoping to obtain eternal life by your own power. "Except a man is born
   of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
   Note well that the text does not make any sort of exception, or so much
   as hint at any--for some might have said, "But, surely, those who have
   long been members of the Christian Church, and those who are officers
   in her midst, and those in high esteem, surely they are Christ's, and
   will be saved in any case, right?"

   No, by no means! If they have not the Spirit of Christ, even these are
   none of His! We are all on a par here. The doorkeeper in our assemblies
   is, in this respect, exactly on the same footing as the presiding elder
   of the Church. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of
   His." I might even have said that the officers of the Church are in a
   worse position than other men, for their responsibility is so terribly
   great and their temptation to mere official religion so immense.
   Chrysostom said in his day, "I wonder if any of the rulers of the
   Church will be saved?" And had he lived in these times he might, with
   equal force, have said the same. Can't you see how the great ones of
   the Church, who call themselves the bishops and shepherds of the flock,
   are suffering this nation to drift away to Rome?

   They are leading this nation into all the devilries of Rome's idolatry
   and superstition, and yet they neither lift a finger nor speak a word
   to stop the evil. Hirelings as they are, what do they care for the
   sheep? They sit in worldly state among the peers of the realm and it
   frets them not though the whole land reeks and rots with superstition!
   God have mercy on them! Well did you say, O John of the golden mouth,
   "I wonder if any of the rulers of the Church will be saved?" If in any
   other position men so shamefully neglected their master's business they
   would be discharged in disgrace! I speak thus in solemn soberness
   grieving that the charge is all too true.

   Nor is this all. What must be the lot of those of us who are ordinary
   ministers if we have not the Spirit of Christ? And is it clear that all
   of us have? How many there are who occupy the pulpit, the object of
   whose preaching is the display of their own eloquence or learning, by
   the giving out of well-turned periods and pretty essays upon
   philosophical subjects instead of striking at men's consciences and
   dealing with their souls in the name of God! The world is perishing and
   the Church is going to sleep over it! God have mercy upon all of us who
   are Church officers and make us faithful! Instead of needing less of
   the Spirit, we need a double portion--and if there are any men about
   whom it may be said, "If they have not the Spirit of Christ, they are
   none of His"--it must be said with the greatest solemnity concerning
   the ministers, deacons, and elders of our Churches! If they have not
   the Spirit of Christ they are worse than other men! Their position puts
   them under extraordinary responsibility and if they are false to it, it
   will bring them under terrible condemnation. "If any man have not the
   Spirit of Christ, he is none of His."

   Now observe that this is put in opposition to everything. For instance,
   there are some who glory in the name of Christians as if the name were
   some great thing. We have a certain unbrotherly company who call
   themselves "Brethren," and certain others who disapprove of
   denominations, and therefore in the name of Christian amity set up a
   denomination of their own, infinitely more exclusive than any before
   known. These frequently claim to be especially denominated
   Christians--I suppose because they would insinuate that they, alone,
   are Christians. Brothers and Sisters in Paul's day said, "I am of
   Paul." Others said, "I am of Apollos." A third group said, "I am of
   Christ." Now there was not a pin to choose between them--they were all
   equally sectarian. It is not wearing the name of Christ, but having the
   Spirit of Christ which will prove us to be accepted. Probably none were
   ever further off from Christ than those who called themselves by His
   name, namely, the Jesuits. Little enough has Jesus to do with the
   Society of Jesus!

   The Christian Church has never been more pure or more earnest than when
   it has been known by an opprobrious name. There was far more power and
   life among the despised, "Quakers," than among the respected, "Society
   of Friends." I liked the "Ranters" better than the more quiet,
   "Primitive Methodists." And the detested "Anabaptists" were men of far
   more courage and principle than the modern "Baptists." Give me the man
   who can render a reproachful name illustrious--there is no shame in
   being disgraced! The reproach soon wears away and if it did not,
   blessed are they that are reproached for Christ's sake.

   But, Beloved, you may wear the literal name of Christ and you may keep
   on pushing yourself adrift from everybody into a state of external
   peculiarity if you like--but if you have not the Spirit of Christ, you
   are none of His for all that. You may take to yourself very precise
   notions of how you should act, how you should speak, what you should
   eat, what you should drink, what you should wear--and you may become a
   very strait-laced Puritan, indeed. But remember, after you have done
   all that, "the kingdom of God is not meat or drink." And, "if any man
   have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." Nothing short of
   this will suffice, however commendable, however much admired among men.
   We shall fare ill at the Last Great Day if the Spirit of God is not in
   us.

   But the text is expressly in opposition to "the flesh." There is the
   point of its meaning. What does it mean, then, to have the Spirit of
   Christ in opposition to being in the flesh? Observe carefully there are
   two states--in one or the other every man is found. There is no middle
   place. We are either in the flesh or in the Spirit. Every man is born
   in the flesh and if left alone he will follow the desires and devices
   of his fleshly nature as every unregenerate man does. Some follow their
   fleshly nature coarsely and run into vice. Others follow it in a more
   refined manner and live to gain wealth, to gratify taste, or to gain
   the approbation of their fellow men--all which is of the flesh. There
   is another state and that is called being in the Spirit. Into this
   condition we are admitted by the new birth. When a man walks in the
   Spirit he recognizes something higher than that which can be touched by
   the hand, seen with the eyes, or heard with the ear.

   He has entered into a new world and is a citizen of a spiritual realm.
   He has come where God is real to him, where Christ is real to him,
   where truth is real, where sin is hateful, where holiness is lovely.
   Judge, my Brothers and Sisters, whether you know anything concerning
   this. Many are in the flesh. They are, as yet, the mass of mankind. But
   there is a remnant who walk after the Spirit because the Holy Spirit
   has renewed them. He who is in the flesh is ruled by the flesh--the
   animal in him is the master of the man--the mere conscious mind in him
   is dominant over the higher nature, the Spirit.

   The man who is in the Spirit tramples down the flesh and labors to keep
   it under. When the flesh, for awhile, prevails, he laments his fault
   and weeps concerning it, for he is not the willing servant of the
   flesh, but the Spirit in him strives for the mastery and he greatly
   delights in its sway. The man who is in the flesh trusts to the flesh.
   He looks to his own works for salvation. His prayers, his tears, his
   almsgivings--these are to save him. But the man who has the Spirit of
   Christ counts all his good works to be dross and dung. He trusts in the
   Lord through the Spirit. He trusts in the blood and righteousness of
   Jesus Christ and builds his hope upon the mercy of God in his Redeemer.
   The man who is in the flesh worships in the flesh. His eyes must be
   pleased with the peculiar dress of the minister and the architectural
   beauty of the place of assembly, while his ears must be regaled, if not
   with sound of flute, harp, sackbut and psaltery, yet with the swell of
   organs!

   His nose, also, must be gratified with sweet incense. He worships in
   the flesh, looking to crosses, altars and priests. While the man who
   has the Spirit utterly abhors these idols and desires not to see, but
   to believe, not to smell, but to think. The sound of the Truth of God
   is better to the spiritual man than tinkling bells and the noise of
   pipes and bellows.

   He wants something for his soul to think upon, something to love,
   something to stir his affections, something to strengthen him for
   goodness and to cast down the power of evil in his nature. Being a
   spiritual man, he worships God in the Spirit. To him the hillside is as
   holy as the meeting house. He counts one place as sacred as another.
   Neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, does he worship the
   Father, but he worships God in spirit and in truth.

   He will not yield to be judged by others in meats, drinks, new moons
   and holy days. He scorns to stoop to priests, but believes himself and
   each Believer to be a priest unto God. He makes each garment a vestment
   and every meal is, to him, a sacrament. To him all things are
   sanctified by the Presence of the eternal God. He lives in the Spirit
   and, wherever he moves, he abides in fellowship with the unseen Lord.
   He recognizes spiritual things where others see them not. He is swayed
   by spiritual motives. He seeks after spiritual objects. And while the
   poor creatures of the earth, like so many moles, toil to bury
   themselves under its surface and heap up gold and silver, and say,
   "These are your gods, O Israel," this man is thankful for his food and
   raiment, and the comforts of life. But he feels that these are not his
   God, nor is anything which can be seen worthy to be the object of his
   pursuit.

   He derives his pleasure from springs above and drinks in draughts of
   life, not from this poor dying world, but from the ever-living and
   Eternal God. Blessed is the man who has come to this! We must all come
   to it, or we are none of Christ's. Do not think I am setting up some
   sublime standard. I am not. I am keeping to the level of the text. "If
   any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His."

   III. And now I want you, for a few minutes only, to meditate upon THE
   EVIDENCES OF HAVING THE SPIRIT,

   for some will say, "Have I the Spirit?" Yes, I trust all will make the
   enquiry. My Hearers, you either have the Spirit or you have not. See to
   it! If you have the Spirit, in the first place, as it is the Spirit of
   Christ, it has led you to Christ. Have you, then, been clean delivered
   from all confidence in yourselves? Have you been brought to the foot of
   the Cross and made to see that there hangs your only salvation? And are
   you trusting solely and entirely in the blood and righteousness of
   God's crucified Son? If you are, you have the Spirit of Christ, for the
   Spirit that leads a man to faith in Christ is the Spirit of Christ. You
   could not have come to Christ if you had not been drawn, and none will
   draw you but the heavenly Father by His Spirit. If you are resting
   wholly upon Jesus you have His Spirit.

   I will ask you another question. Do you feel in your soul a desire to
   honor the Lord Jesus? Do you love to hear Him extolled? Can you say
   that you hate everything which robs Him of His Glory? Do you love that
   sermon best which most exalts Jesus? Have you ever felt that you could
   die to crown our Lord's most blessed head? Do you now fall at His feet
   and adore Him with your heart's truest love? Then you have the Spirit
   of Christ, for He delights to glorify Christ by taking of the things of
   Christ and showing them to us!

   Again. If you have the Spirit of Christ it will make you like Christ.
   Like Christ, first, in relation to God. Christ lived for God. When He
   was but 12 years old, He said, "Know you not that I must be about My
   Father's business?" And all His life long He could say that the zeal of
   God's House had eaten Him up. His meat and His drink were to do the
   will of His Father who had sent Him. Beloved, is that how you feel
   towards God? Then you have the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ
   is a Spirit of prayer. It kept the Son in constant communion with the
   Father. You constantly find the Lord Jesus in converse with God. If you
   have the spirit of sonship as Christ had, you will be much in prayer,
   too, and you will thus prove that you have the Spirit of Christ.

   Christ's worship of God was always spiritual. You never find Him
   worshipping otherwise than with His whole heart and soul. The
   traditions of men, their different watches and observances were nothing
   to Him--He walked with God and dwelt in Him--and needed not these
   childish ordinances. His was a spiritual life. Is yours so? Our Lord
   Jesus Christ towards God was always true. He was a faithful witness.
   You never find Him flinching a word. He was full of love, but how He
   could thunder against false-hearted men! "Woe unto you, Scribes and
   Pharisees, hypocrites!" Elijah was never more terrible against Baal
   than was the loving Savior against ritualistic Phariseeism--for towards
   His Father glowed a holy zeal and a sacred detestation of everything
   that would dishonor His beloved name.

   Have you the Spirit of Christ in you? The Spirit of Christ was towards
   men a fullness of love. He was ready to do good to all. He fed the
   hungry. He healed the sick. He never considered Himself but spent His
   life for others, laying Himself out for them. They would have made Him
   a king in their momentary enthusiasm, but He needed no kingdom. It was
   kingdom enough for Him to help the miserable and succor the wretched.
   Do you feel in your soul a love to men for God's sake? Can you forgive
   them when they do you wrong? Can you pray for your enemies? Can you
   follow His

   command who said, "I say unto you, That you resist not evil, but when
   they smite you on the one cheek, turn to them the other also"? Then I
   trust you have Christ's Spirit.

   But on the other hand, are you indignant when you are insulted? Are you
   pettish and ready to resent every little thing? You have not the Spirit
   of Christ if it is so! The Spirit of Christ is a gentle, forbearing,
   tender Spirit--stern, as I have told you, for God and for His
   Truth--but tender as a child towards the infirmities, sorrows and
   weaknesses of mankind. The Spirit of Christ is upright for that which
   is true and holy, but bending down towards that which is ready to die.
   Do you know the Spirit of Christ? Read His life and you will see it
   there. Have you such a Spirit? Do you long to be perfect, like Jesus?
   For if you have not the Spirit of Christ, you are none of His.

   My time will fail me if I continue much longer and therefore I will
   close this head by saying that if we have the Spirit of Christ it will
   show itself by its operations in our hearts. We shall feel it moving
   within us. It will make us hate everything that is evil, false, unholy.
   It will move us to repentance of all that we have done amiss towards
   God or man. It will make us brave and courageous for God and for His
   Truth. If the Spirit of God is in us, it will move us to joy in God, to
   hope in God, to delight in God. Fellowship with God will become
   necessary to us. Prayer to God will be one of our most delightful
   exercises and the praise of God will be our dearest enjoyment. The
   indwelling Spirit within us will make us spiritual, move us in
   spiritual directions after spiritual things and we shall thus be
   spiritual men to the praise of God! But if we are not this, we are none
   of Christ's.

   IV. The last point is THE SAD CONSEQUENCES OF NOT HAVING THE SPIRIT.
   These are consequences for

   which nothing in this world can compensate. "If any man have not the
   Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." Everything is gone if we are
   "none of His." Supposing it had said, "He is not a favored disciple."
   Well, one would have been sorry to miss the opportunity of the place
   nearest to the Master. But this is far worse--it says, "he is none of
   His." The Lord does not own him at all! "No disciple of Mine," says
   Christ. "No, if he has not My Spirit he is none of Mine." He is a lost
   sheep, but Jesus says he is "none of His." Whoever he may belong to, he
   does not belong to Christ. If he has not Christ's Spirit in him, he is
   "none of His."

   Whatever body he may be a member of, he is no member of Christ's body,
   for the Spirit dwells in all the members of that body--and he who has
   not that Spirit is none of His. "None of His." The words wound my
   heart! They are like a dagger to my soul! "None of His!" "None of His!"
   Ah, if I am none of His because I have not the Spirit, whose am I? I
   beseech the man who has not the Spirit of Christ to look that question
   in the face! He who died upon the Cross disowns you. He who is risen
   into His Glory disowns you! What misery is this! When He comes in the
   Glory of the Father and calls His sheep to His right hand, that they
   may enjoy eternal blessedness in His company, He will say, "I never
   knew you." If you, dear Hearer, are none of His, then whose are you?

   YOU are the devil's! Awful thought! Terrible words to use. But it must
   be so. There are two proprietors of men, two rulers whom they serve.
   "You are of God, little children," says the Apostle. But of others he
   says they lie in the Wicked One and are heirs of wrath. There are two
   classes of men--the heirs of wrath and the heirs of God--if you are
   none of Christ's you are the prisoner of condemnation! My dear Hearer,
   what are you if you are not Christ's? You are a waif, a stray, a wreck
   drifted out to sea, soon to sink forever! And where are you if you are
   not Christ's? On the way to judgment, on the road to eternal
   condemnation! If you are not His, you are going as fast as time can
   carry you away, away, away to the gloomy land where ray of hope will
   never pierce the midnight darkness! Away, away, away, where despair
   lasts for eternity!

   O God, it is a dreadful thing to live a moment in an unforgiven state.
   "He that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed
   upon the Son of God." If you were set up for an instant upon the top of
   St. Paul's Cathedral, poised in the air upon the cross with none to
   hold you up, how dreadful would be your feelings as you looked beneath
   you and knew that the next gust of wind would sweep you down to sure
   destruction! Sinner, you are now in a similar position! If you are none
   of His you are now in awful peril! You stand over the mouth of Hell
   upon a single plank and that plank is rotten! You hang over the jaws of
   Perdition by a slender thread and the angel of Justice is ready to cut
   that thread in two. "None of His! None of His!"

   Oh, how dreadful to live none of His and to die none of His, and to
   have this for your epitaph--"NONE OF HIS!" And then to wake up on the
   Resurrection morning and see the King in His beauty on the Throne and
   to know that you are none of His! To cry to the rocks to hide you, and
   to the hills to cover you, for you are none of His! Then to be

   brought out before the Great White Throne resplendent in its holiness
   and hear the fact announced so that all may hear, that there is a
   Savior but you are none of His! Ah, what will it be to see the pit open
   her mouth to devour you and, descending forever, to understand that you
   are none of His!--

   "You sinners, seek His face,

   Whose wrath you cannot bear.

   Bow to the scepter of His Grace,

   And find salvation there."

   If you look to Jesus by faith, the Spirit is with you as you look.
   There is life in a look at the crucified Redeemer. Trust Him! Trust
   Him! Trust Him!

   And may the Lord constrain you, now, to live as you have never lived
   before. May you now begin the spiritual life, for if you have not the
   Spirit of God, you are none of His!

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Romans 8:1-23.
     __________________________________________________________________

Paved With Love

   (No. 1134)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 28, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The midst thereof being pa ved with love, for the daughters of
   Jerusalem." Song of Solomon 3:10.

   THIS portion of the Song describes the royal bridegroom as traveling up
   from the wilderness in an eastern palanquin, attended by his bodyguard
   and by those who bear torches and burn perfumes. We have a description
   of the sumptuous chariot-bed in which this great monarch traveled,
   describing it as being made of cedar, with pillars of silver, a bottom
   of gold, curtains of purple, and within it a patterned floor, with
   pavement, not of precious stones, but of priceless love. Metaphor is
   suddenly dropped in this last item and the result is a complicated, but
   very expressive form of speech. Some regard the expression as
   signifying a pavement of stone, engraved with hieroglyphic emblems of
   love which made up the floor of this traveling chariot. But this would
   surely be very uncomfortable and unusual, and therefore others have
   explained the passage as referring to choice embroidery and dainty
   carpets, woven with cost and care, with which the interior of the
   traveling chair was lined.

   Into such embroidery sentences of love poetry may have been worked.
   Needlework was probably the material of which it was composed--skillful
   fingers would therein set forth emblems and symbols of love. As the
   spouse in the second chapter sings, "His banner over me was love,"
   probably alluding to some love word upon the banner, probably tokens of
   love were carved or embroidered, as the case may have been, upon the
   interior of the chariot, so that "the midst thereof was paved with
   love, for the daughters of Jerusalem." We need not, however, tarry long
   over the metaphor, but endeavor to profit by its teaching.

   This palanquin or traveling chariot in which the king is carried
   represents the Covenant of Grace, the plan of salvation and, in fact,
   the whole system by which the Lord Jesus comes down in mercy among men,
   and by which He bears His people along with Himself through the
   wilderness of this world, onward to the rest which He has prepared for
   them. It is, in a word, the mediatorial work of Jesus. The ark was
   carried through the wilderness preceded by the pillar of cloud and
   fire, as the symbol of the Divine Presence in mercy, and here we have a
   somewhat similar representation of the great King of Grace, borne in
   regal splendor through the world and bearing His elect spouse with Him.

   May it be ours to be made to ride like Jeshurun, upon the high places
   of the earth in happy fellowship with Him whose goings forth were of
   old, even from everlasting.

   I. I shall beg you to notice, first, this morning, THE GROWTH WHICH IS
   INDICATED HERE AS TO OUR VIEWS OF THE COVENANT OF GRACE. The
   description advances step by step, each sentence mentioning an
   additional and far-enhanced preciousness. Thus do those who study the
   work of salvation prize it more and more. At the first glance the sweet
   singer who speaks in this song perceived that the chariot was made of
   cedar, a costly wood. A closer view revealed "the silver pillars,
   beauteous to behold." Further observation showed "the bottom all of
   burnished gold." From cedar to silver, and from silver to gold we have
   a clear advance as to precious material.

   On looking again, the observer remarks "the top of princely purple,"
   which is yet more precious as the type of imperial dignity and the
   token of that effectual Atonement which was worked out by the bloody
   stream of Calvary. The blood, which dyed that purple canopy, is much
   more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tried with fire.
   And then, though one would think there could be no advance beyond the
   precious blood, the song proceeds yet one step further, for we find
   that "the midst thereof being paved with love, for the daughters of
   Jerusalem." Beloved, the whole way of salvation was devised by the Lord
   Jesus Christ! It is all His own planning and all His own carrying out.
   Therefore the Song says, "King Solomon made himself a chariot of the
   wood of Lebanon."

   Jesus is the sole Author and Finisher of our faith--salvation is His
   from first to last--every part of the Covenant reveals His master hand.
   This is the glory of the whole and this, the believing eye perceives at
   the very first glance, and is

   thereby made glad. But further knowledge reveals other bright and
   glorious facts. And as the matter is considered, wonder and gratitude
   increase. Let us, then, take a brief survey of this glorious Gospel
   chariot, that wondrous thing-- Jehovah's Covenant of Grace.

   The first item is that it is made of "the wood of Lebanon." The finest
   wood upon the earth was that of the cedar, and the finest cedars were
   those which grew upon the Lebanon range. The Lebanon cedars, indeed,
   appear to have possessed qualities not found in the common cedar with
   which we are acquainted. That which was reckoned the best wood is used
   as the token of the super excellence of the Covenant of Grace. Cedar,
   moreover, was not only the most costly wood, and most esteemed, but it
   is one of the most lasting. London says that it is particularly valued
   for its durability--fit type of that "Covenant ordered in all things
   and sure," of which not one jot or tittle shall ever fail. Heaven and
   earth shall pass away, but the Word on which we trust shall abide
   forever.

   In addition to its other excellencies, cedar wood exhales a sweet
   perfume, so that a chariot of cedar would not only be very lasting but
   very delightful to ride in, even as at this day we joy in God's
   salvation and are filled with peace through believing. When we look at
   the Covenant of Salvation, at the very first glimpse of it we see that
   there is none like it. Many schemes have been imagined and preached up
   as ways of salvation, but not one of them can be likened to the method
   of Atonement by blood, reconciliation through a substitutionary
   Sacrifice, redemption by the Incarnate God-- salvation all of Grace
   from first to last!

   When this is compared to a chariot, no timber less noble than the
   sweet-scented fir, cut from the monarch of Israel's royal forest, could
   worthily set it forth. Lies and vanity make up all other plans, but
   this is royal Truth. Other ways of salvation have been tried, but they
   have soon proved to be failures. The worm of human depravity has eaten
   into the choicest wood that was ever felled in the forests of human
   merit. Decay has seized upon all the goodly oaks of unaided human
   endeavors. Rottenness has devoured all carnal boasts, but the cedar
   wood of our hope in Jesus has shown no sign of crumbling to decay and
   it never will. There is, in the Atonement made by Christ, a perpetuity
   of prevalence. It has paid for sin and will pay to the very end of
   time, so that whoever confides in it has a hope which will not deceive
   him.

   I dare await the test of a long and afflicted life, or of a sudden and
   painful death--for the ground of my hope is undisturbed by outward
   circumstances. Like the cedar, it is adapted to abide all weathers. As
   surely as the Body of the Lord saw no corruption, so surely shall my
   hope never turn to despair--and even if it is buried it shall rise
   again. What consolation such a hope affords us! And for this reason, as
   perfume comes forth from cedar wood, so do fragrant comforts come
   pouring forth from the salvation which Jesus Christ has worked out for
   us. It is a pleasant, as well as a safe thing, to rest in what Christ
   has done. Our joy is greatest when our faith in Him is most simple--the
   bare cedar wood is most fragrant. We derive from every part of His work
   some joy, every part of it smells most sweetly. He is all happiness,
   all consolation, all bliss to us--and when our spirit casts itself in
   perfect simplicity upon Him it breathes a perfumed atmosphere,
   delicious and reviving.

   If such is the first and lowest item in the description of the chariot,
   what will the richer portions be? We will now look more closely at the
   royal chariot and note well the four pillars which support the canopy.
   And as we gaze we find that they are of' silver--something more
   precious than cedar, for the salvation of Jesus grows upon us and unto
   us, who believe, He is more and more precious. There are some pictures
   so well painted that you may examine them with a magnifying glass and
   instead of detecting defects you will perceive yet greater beauties--so
   may you examine the work of our blessed Lord microscopically, if you
   choose, and the more you look the more you will marvel! He is so really
   glorious, so intrinsically precious, so infinitely to be admired!

   And what are these pillars, do you think, which support the canopy and
   add such beauty to the chariot? What are they but Divine holiness and
   infinite purity? Silver is constantly used in Scripture as the type of
   that which is precious and pure--"As silver tried in a furnace of
   earth, purified seven times." And O Beloved, how holy the Gospel is!
   The Lord's Word is very pure in itself, and very purifying for those
   who receive it. Wherever the true Gospel is preached it promotes
   holiness and in so doing acts according to its nature, creating its
   like. There is not a doctrine of the Gospel which is not according to
   godliness, none of its blessings make provision for the flesh, none of
   its precepts encourage sin, none of its promises wink at iniquity.

   The spirit of the Gospel is always the spirit of holiness. It wages
   determined war against the lusts of the flesh and consequently the
   Gospel is abhorred by the unclean. It lays the axe at the root of sin
   and like a fire devours all evil. As for

   the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, is He not Immaculate Holiness? If you
   would see Holiness embodied, where can you look but to the Person of
   our Well-Beloved Master? Where are His imperfections? Can you find a
   flaw either in His language or in His actions, in Himself or in the
   Spirit that moved Him? Is He not altogether perfect? Look, then, at the
   Gospel, the way of salvation and the Covenant of Grace, and you shall
   see holiness conspicuous everywhere, but especially when you come to
   deal with the center of the Gospel, the great atoning Sacrifice.

   Four silver pillars hold up this crimson canopy. The blood-red
   Propitiation covers us from the wrath of God, and the holiness of God
   holds up this interposing medium. He is not unrighteous to forget the
   blood of the Atonement. Because He is a just God, He is now the Savior
   of those who are sheltered beneath the reconciling blood of Calvary.
   The Lord could not forgive sin till first the honor of His Law had been
   vindicated. And that being done, the same honor requires that the
   Atonement should be respected and the believing sinner saved. When we
   see Christ upon the Cross we learn how God's inflexible Justice, like
   unbending pillars of pure silver, holds up aloft the crimson shelter of
   vicarious death, beneath which the saints are secure.

   Even to save His own elect, Jehovah would not mar His integrity, nor
   suffer His Great White Throne to be stained with injustice. He is no
   respecter of persons and when sitting on the Throne of Judgment, even
   His own chosen, whom He loves with everlasting love, must be treated
   with the same impartiality as His enemies. This He has effected by
   accepting His Son in their place and exacting from Him those penalties
   which were due from them, but might be justly received at the hands of
   their federal Head. There is no injustice in the salvation of the
   Believer. There is not even an abatement of the claims of just
   retribution--all is done openly--and so as to challenge the most severe
   examination. Conspicuously before the eyes of all, the silver pillars
   of purity bear up the sacred Atonement. Is not this a matter for
   superlative delight?

   But we look more closely and discern what would not have been perceived
   at a distance--"the bottom" of the chariot bed "is of gold"--the most
   precious metal of all. This is to indicate that the foundations of
   salvation are imperishable and unchangeably precious. The bottom of
   Grace is laid in the Immutable purpose and unchanging decree of
   God--and in the everlasting, undiminished, unchangeable love of God
   towards His dear Son--and to those who are in Him. Blessed be God for a
   salvation which will not yield under pressure, or fail us in our hour
   of peril! It is no base metal, but gold tried in the fire. I cannot
   understand those who think that God loves His people one day and hates
   them the next! That though He knew what they would be, and knew that
   they would fall into sin, yet He resolved to take them to Himself as
   His children for a little while, and then afterwards to disinherit
   them.

   God forbid I should ever understand a doctrine so dishonoring to the
   Lord who changes not! My own love to my children makes me feel that
   they must be my children as long as they live and I live. And surely
   God's children must and shall be His children while God Himself shall
   live and His people shall exist. Beloved, the bottom on which we rest
   as saved sinners is not the shifting foundation of our own feelings,
   works, prayers or resolves. If our salvation depended upon our good
   behavior, we might as well build on the clouds and pile up bubbles as
   our cornerstones! Yes, and if it rested upon our own unaided faith--if
   there were no guarantee of Grace to keep that faith alive, but all
   rested on the exercise of faith by us--it were better never to have had
   a hope of salvation, at all, than to have had such a wretched,
   unsubstantial mockery--certain to end before long in fatal
   disappointment.

   You and I have not so learned Christ. We have left the miry clay for
   the solid rock. God has made an eternal purpose concerning His people
   and that will never be changed. Infinite Love ordained their salvation
   and will never reverse its decree, though day and night should cease.
   Infinite power guarantees the fulfillment of the Divine purpose and
   what can stand against Omnipotence? A complete Atonement has already
   been made and it will never lose its efficacy--therefore those for whom
   it was worked out must be saved.

   There is, moreover, an indwelling Spirit who has come into God's people
   to abide with them forever, according to the Covenant promise, "I will
   dwell in them, and I will walk in them. I will be their God, and they
   shall be My people." Our spiritual life does not hang on a thread, as
   it would do if it were in our own keeping, but it depends upon Jesus,
   for has He not said, "Because I live you shall live also"? Nothing can
   be more secure than the salvation of the soul that believes in Jesus,
   for it rests in God alone. Of the chariot of salvation we may say with
   quaint Ralph Erskine--

   "Its bottom is a groundwork sure Of pure and solid gold,

   From bankrupt beggary to secure, From falling through to uphold."

   Let us view the royal canopy of the chariot--"the covering thereof is
   of purple." As the king and his bride traveled they needed to be
   screened from the sun's baleful rays. Lo, over the head of the spouse
   hangs a regal covering of purple. Look up, my Soul, and see what
   interposes between your God and you! He must smite you, for you are a
   sinner. But you are covered and sheltered, and are living happily. What
   is it that shields you? What, indeed, but the atoning blood!--

   "Ah, who can view that purple covering And turn away unmoved,
   insensible? Who can discern it, and forget that day When impious
   greetings shouted forth disdain, When, crowned with thorns, the Man of
   sorrows stood In purple robes of cruel mockery? Despised, rejected, yet
   a King indeed, Whom they shall see hereafter on His Throne." The
   Atonement shelters us--never was a soul injured by the rays of God's
   Justice when hidden beneath this purple--and never shall there be.
   There is no repose for the conscience anywhere else, but there is
   perfect repose here.

   I often hear theories about what Christ did which remind me of Dr.
   Duncan's description of Robertson, of Brigh-ton--"Robertson believed
   that Christ did something or other, which somehow or other had some
   connection or other with salvation." This may suit others, but is of no
   sort of use to me! I feel that if Christ did not actually and literally
   die as my Substitute, the Just for the unjust, I am not saved and never
   can be at rest in my heart again. I renounce all preaching whatever if
   Substitution is not the leading feature of my theme, for there is
   nothing worth preaching when that is gone. I regard that doctrine as
   the fundamental Truth of the Gospel, which, denied, you have slain the
   Gospel and which, cast into the background, you have covered the Gospel
   with a cloud.

   That Jesus Christ was made sin for us that we might be made the
   righteousness of God in Him. That though He was just, He was treated as
   a sinner, and in our place suffered the wrath of God due to us--this is
   the kernel and vital heart of the Gospel! Conscience tells every man
   that God must punish sin. Its voice, more or less loudly, always
   proclaims that sin must be punished. This is no arbitrary arrangement.
   It is inevitable. Sin and suffering have a natural relationship. If God
   is just, sin must bring evil consequences upon the man who commits it
   and until conscience understands that this evil was borne by Christ,
   that He suffered what ought to have been suffered by the sinner and
   that He was justly a Substitute because He was the head and Adam of
   those for whom He died--until, I say, the conscience knows this, it
   cannot find rest!

   Get under the blood-red canopy and then you are at peace, but not till
   then. Therefore you find that whenever God revealed Himself to His
   people, the most apparent thing was always the blood. Abel must bring a
   bleeding lamb and Noah a slaughtered beast. When the King feasted with
   His chosen in Egypt, the blood adorned the lintel and the two
   side-posts of every house wherein He revealed His saving power. When He
   marched through the wilderness, one of the coverings of His tabernacle
   was made of rams' skins dyed red. And all within and around the holy
   courts, themselves, were perpetual sprinklings of blood, for almost all
   things were, under the Law, purified by blood. The voice of the Law was
   always proclaiming what the Gospel proclaims, too, that, "without
   shedding of blood there is no remission of sin."

   Our Savior's life must end in blood upon the tree. And before that
   closing scene--His last feast of love, His communion with His
   disciples--had for its most conspicuous provision the cup of red wine
   in which His blood was symbolized. Every time He sets forth, visibly,
   His communion with His people here below the wine must be poured forth.
   God cannot and will not reveal Himself to man except through the medium
   of the perfect satisfaction by the pouring out of the life of the
   Substitute in the place of the sinner. "The covering thereof is of
   purple." Oh, it is not for these lips to tell how precious that purple
   is! It is not possible, even, for this heart to know how precious is
   the blood of the Son of God, the vital blood which out of love to us He
   poured out freely for our redemption. Sit at your ease, my Brothers and
   Sisters, in the blood of salvation, rejoicing as you look upward, and
   let no doubts, fears, mistrusts, nor suspicions vex you, for beneath
   the blood-red canopy you are secure!

   There is yet one more step--we rise from the blood to the love which
   caused it to flow and we read of the royal chariot--"The midst thereof
   was paved with love, for the daughters of Jerusalem." Not merely the
   bottom covered with it, but, as in a carriage, the whole vehicle lined
   with something soft to sit upon, and lean upon. So the whole Covenant
   of

   Grace is, within, garnished and beautified and made delightful to the
   Believer's soul by the sweet love of God in Christ. The Covenant is
   love in its secret places, all love, unalloyed love, invisible love,
   nothing else but love. When one comes to know most of the Covenant and
   admires the wisdom, the power, the purity, the eternity of all that God
   has done, yet the most striking characteristic of it to the advanced
   Christian is the love, the mighty love of God, by which he is brought
   by Jesus Christ into eternal salvation! You have crowned me with loving
   kindness. You have loved my soul out of the Pit! You have loved me and
   given Yourself for me. Your love has redeemed me with a price most
   precious. Your love has made me what I am. Your love carries on the
   work and Your love will complete it, and present me to You in its own
   perfect image, for "the midst of it is paved with love, for the
   daughters of Jerusalem."

   The point we have proved is this, that everything in the study of the
   Gospel grows upon you. I earnestly exhort you, therefore, to meditate
   much in the Scriptures, to consider much the Person and Character of
   your Lord, to meditate full often upon His beauties and upon all the
   work which He has done on your behalf. Do not be satisfied with a
   superficial survey, as many Christians are. These are not the days of
   contemplation as the old Puritan times were--we are too apt to be
   superficial. But remember that while there are nuggets of gold upon the
   very surface of Scripture, yet the most valuable mines of gold are far
   down and you must dig into them. Pray God that you may be well taught
   in the things of Christ.

   There are some sciences in which you can master all that is worth
   knowing in a short time and the further you go in the study the more
   you perceive that nothing is very certain, and you soon get weary of
   it. But the science of Christ Crucified grows upon you. You get more
   assured of the facts of it and more intensely delighted in them. I
   exhort you, therefore, to sit constantly at the Master's feet with
   Mary, and I pray that each one of us may know, by following on to know
   the Lord, what are "the heights and depths, and to know the love of
   Christ, which passes knowledge."

   II. We shall now NOTE THE POSITION FROM WHICH THE LOVE MENTIONED IN OUR
   TEXT IS BEST SEEN. "The midst thereof is paved with love." It is not,
   therefore, to be seen from the outside. The mere outsider understands
   nothing of the love of God to His people as displayed in the Covenant
   of Grace. I am certain that there are many of you here present who have
   heard the Gospel for years and yet no more know the sweetness of it
   than the floor I am standing upon. A man may pass the door of the
   London Tavern or the Mansion House for years and yet have no notion of
   the banquets within, for these are indoors, and you must enter to
   partake of them.

   Savory vapors floating from the festive board may awaken a transient
   imagination, but no more. The cock on the dunghill turned over the
   diamond and, according to the fable, remarked that he cared very little
   for it--he would sooner have found a grain of barley. And so many hear
   of the sweetness of true religion, but they have not the taste or the
   ability to perceive its sweetness. Oh, unregenerate Hearer, you will
   never know how sweet the Gospel is--it is impossible you should while
   you remain in the state you now are in! But I tell you, if you could
   get half a glimpse of the joy which even the poorest Christian has, you
   would never rest content until you enjoyed it, too. If men have said
   concerning Naples, "See Naples and die," because of its beauty, I might
   say to you it were worthwhile dying a thousand deaths to get a glimpse
   of Christ! When once your faith has perceived His beauty you will
   wonder how you could have been satisfied to be blinded so long.

   What must it be to be forgiven all your sins and to know it? What must
   it be never to be afraid of death, to be able to look forward to
   departing from this world as a thing to be longed for, and not to be
   dreaded? What must it be to be able to look up and say, "God is my
   Father, and I feel that I am His child"? What must be the joy and bliss
   of having familiar communion with God so that you are called His
   friends, as Abraham was of old? I wish I could set your mouths watering
   after these things! If you had but a little taste of them you would
   long for more! But until the Lord shall grant you that taste, all we
   can say of the love of Christ will have no charm for you. The love
   which lines the chariot of salvation is not to be known by those who
   remain outside. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and
   He will show them His Covenant."

   And so note, next, that when the Christian, himself, stands apart from
   his Lord and judges by outward appearances, he cannot perceive, as once
   he did, the lovingkindness of the Lord. Providence grows dark as a
   winter's day. The tried Believer cries, "My wife has been taken from
   me! My property is melting away, my business fades. I am sick in body
   and weary in soul. I cannot see a trace of the love of God to me in all
   this." Brother, the description in the Song does not say that the
   chariot is plated with love on the outside, but it is paved with love
   within, "in the midst of it." Oh that you had

   faith to believe that the heart and real core of every Providence is
   love! The exterior of it may be as a thorn hedge, but sweet fruit
   ripens within. "Oh," you say, "but I have looked at the Bible lately,
   and as I have glanced over its once-cheering promises they appear to
   smile at me no more. Some of the words grate very harshly on my ears
   and almost condemn me."

   I do not wonder, for although I can, at this moment, see love in the
   very outside of Scripture, yet there are times when I cannot--when I
   can only feel as if every text thundered at me--and out of God's own
   mouth came heavy sentences against me. Beloved, it does not say, I
   repeat it, that the exterior part of this palanquin was adorned with
   self-apparent love, but that love was in the midst. If you stand
   examining the exterior of Providence and the mere letter of the Word,
   and begin to judge and try your God, I should not wonder if little
   enough of love should be conspicuous to you! Look into the heart of God
   and read what He has written there. When faith takes a step upward and
   mounts to the inside of the chariot of Grace, she finds that it is
   paved with love for the daughters of Jerusalem.

   Come and sit side by side with Jesus in His chariot of Grace, His bed
   of rest. Come and recline with Him in hallowed fellowship. There is
   room enough for you and strength enough to bear your weight. Come, now,
   and be carried with Him who carried your cross. Sit down with Him, who
   on His hands, and on His side, bears the memorials of His dying love to
   you. What Company you have and what royal accommodation is provided for
   you! I think I sit in the chariot with the Beloved, now, and I begin to
   look around me. I catch a glimpse of the purple above my head and
   remember the unspeakable Love which bled and died for sinners! I look
   at the silver pillars which support the covering and how Infinite
   Holiness stands fast, and in love to me secures my perfection! I place
   my foot on the golden floor of the chariot and know that Divine power
   is pledged by love to preserve and bear me through. I see above me, and
   around me, and beneath me, nothing but love--the free, unbounded love
   of God!

   Now, Beloved, indulge yourselves with a glance around you for a minute.
   Look back to old eternity. Let your eyes peer through the mists which
   hide that ancient age before the ages began! What do you see there but
   love, "according to His eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ
   Jesus or ever the earth was"? Look a little closer. See the Garden of
   Eden and the Fall--what strikes your eyes there, but love? The Seed of
   the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. Look to the Cross and at God
   Incarnate here below! Behold Jesus living in suffering and dying in
   shame! Here Love comes to her climax and lays bare all her matchless
   charms. Look to the time of your own life. Was not Love present at your
   birth, perfuming your first breath? Were you not nursed in love,
   cradled in love and swaddled in love? Have you not, since then, even in
   your sinfulness, been loved with an exceedingly great and wondrous
   love?

   Did not Love turn your heart of stone into flesh? Has not Love dwelt in
   you since then, even to this day? Have not even your trials been sent
   in love? Blind Unbelief called it severity. Look, now, as Jesus sits at
   your side and say, was it not the wisest form of love that smote you
   and made you cry out in bitterness? Oh, I do remember at this day
   nothing in the dealings of God to me but love! I sat down last night,
   as this text charmed my spirit, and tried to think over my whole life,
   if, perhaps, I might light upon some unkindness of my God to me. But my
   solemn witness is that from the first day my life began to beat, from
   the first hour I knew anything of the Lord whatever, all His dealings
   have been love, love, love, love, love, love alone--nothing else but
   love!

   Of my life I can and must say, "the midst thereof has been paved with
   love." Look at the patterned pavement of love beneath your feet for a
   moment. Can't you see the Father's love--that golden mass of uncreated
   love--for the Father, Himself, loves you! Look at Jesus' love, another
   diamond pavement beneath your feet! Jesus loved you to the death with a
   love that many waters could not quench, nor floods drown! Look at the
   love of the Spirit, too. Equally precious is the tender affection of
   the loving Comforter. Think how the Holy Spirit has borne with you, has
   striven with you and endured your ill manners in the wilderness, and
   blessed you still! Look at those delightful embroideries from the
   Divine needle--the precious promises. A thousand promises there are,
   but they are all love. Look down and see how all the attributes of God
   are engaged for you--and they are all in league with Love.

   Look, then, at all the Providences of God towards you, at all the
   exercises of His Grace in your heart, and you will see many and strange
   colors of varied beauty, all blending in one wondrous pattern of deep,
   unsearchable love! I cannot talk this morning, my tongue fails me, but
   I feel the love of Jesus in my own soul and I pray that you may feel it
   in yours. This one thing be assured of, that as it was in the
   beginning, it is now and ever shall be, love, love, love, right on,
   forever

   and forever. The Lord who has begun to love you will never cease from
   doing so. The midst of the Covenant of Grace is paved with love for the
   daughters of Jerusalem.

   III. I want you to notice THE PECULIAR POSITION OF THE PAVEMENT OF LOVE
   DESCRIBED IN THE

   TEXT. It is "in the midst" of the chariot and only from the midst is it
   to be seen. It is in the midst of it and, therefore, Jesus rides upon
   it and His espoused ones ride upon it. It is a very simple thought, but
   it richly deserves to be beaten out a little. Jesus is represented here
   as the King in the chariot. And as the chariot is lined with love, we
   are taught that Jesus dwells in love. Where is He now? Among the
   thrones and principalities above, but He still abides in love. Love
   brought Him down from Heaven to earth. Love conducted Him in all His
   weary journeys over the acres of Palestine. Love led Him to the garden,
   the death-sweat and the Cross. And equally, at this hour, does Love
   attend Him. He loves in Heaven as He loved below.

   Whatever He is doing, whatever He is feeling, whatever He is saying we
   know this one thing about Him--He dwells in love to us. He is in His
   chariot and all around Him in that chariot is Love. The chariot was a
   royal one and as the king rode along he was reigning, but he was
   reigning in love, and so it is with Jesus. All things are in His hands
   and He governs all things in love to His people. Heavenly
   principalities serve Him and angels are His willing messengers. But
   there is no power which Jesus has which He does not wield in love to
   us. Has His power seemed, sometimes, to be exercised harshly? It is not
   so--it cannot be so! He reigns in love. Our Joseph is lord over all
   Egypt and since Joseph loves His Brethren, the good of all the land of
   Egypt is theirs. Jesus rules all the world for His people's
   benefit--all things are theirs, whether things present or things to
   come--all are theirs. Jesus reigns in love. And Jesus rests in love.

   This chariot was a place for the traveler to rest in. He reclined as he
   was carried along. Nothing gives Jesus such rest as His love for His
   people. It is His solace and His joy. It is almost inconceivable by us
   that Jesus should derive joy from the fact that He loves us, but it is
   so. That text in Zephaniah which we read on Monday evening comes,
   again, to our recollection--"He will rest in His love, He will joy over
   you with singing." It is a joy to Christ to love His people! His own
   heart finds a joy in their joy, a Heaven in their Heaven! To see them
   saved is bliss to Him! Oh, how glad we ought to be of this! Jesus rests
   in love.

   But as the traveler rested, he also proceeded on his way. The bearers
   carried the palanquin from place to place and the traveler made
   progress, but always with the same surroundings within his curtained
   bed. So Jesus, in all His glorious matching, in everything He does or
   is to do, still marches on in love. Read the Book of Revelation and
   think of the trumpets and the falling stars, and the opened vials full
   of judgments, and you may well tremble--but then fall back upon the
   Doctrine of the Scriptures, and say, "These are the goings forth of my
   Lord the King, but He always rides in a chariot which is paved with
   love for the daughters of Jerusalem. So let Him come with earthquake
   and with flame, if so He chooses. Let Him come. Let Him even loose
   destroying angels to smite the earth and let the whole world, before
   His coming, rock and reel and all men's hopes depart like visions of
   the night--I will not fear, for I am sure that He cannot come except in
   love to me. No judgment can bear wrath to His people! No overturning
   can overturn their hopes! No rod of iron can shatter their bliss! This
   is surely a thought which should make your spirit glad!

   Now notice that as Jesus rides in this chariot, so do you, O Believer,
   and at this moment your standing is upon love. You stand up in this
   palanquin upon love. You are accepted in the Beloved. You are not
   judged according to the Law, but you are judged according to Grace. You
   are not judged at the Judgment Seat by what you have done, but
   according to His abounding mercy. Recline, this morning, in the love of
   God! Ah, take your rest in it! As the rich man tries to find solace in
   his riches, and the strong man in his strength, and the great man in
   his fame, so stretch yourselves and lie at ease upon this glorious bed
   of almighty love!

   And, Beloved, take care that when you labor to make progress, you make
   it in the power and energy of His love. Do not strive after virtue and
   Grace by the Law, for you will never get them. The chariot in which you
   rest is also the chariot in which you are to be carried forward towards
   perfection. Grow in Grace, but keep to the Cross. Cling to the love of
   God in Christ Jesus, for that always keeps you safe. You sleep in it.
   You wake in it. You eat and you drink in it. Wherever you are, Love
   surrounds you. It is in the atmosphere you breathe. It is to be found
   in every place, wherever you roam. You are never out of the Love which
   is in the midst of the chariot. These are things not to be talked of so
   much as to be thought over. Carry them home, and if you have leisure
   this afternoon, try to mark, learn and inwardly digest this precious
   truth--"The midst thereof is paved with love for the daughters of
   Jerusalem."

   IV. To close, DWELL ON THAT LOVE itself just for a moment. Remember it
   is special love. It is not love for all men. There is some consolation
   in universal benevolence, but here we go deeper and rejoice in love for
   the daughters of Jerusalem. There is an electing, discriminating,
   distinguishing love which is settled upon a chosen people--a love which
   goes forth to none beside, but only to them. And it is this love which
   is the true resting place of the saint. It is love undeserved, for what
   daughter of Jerusalem ever deserved that our glorious King should fall
   in love with her? It is a love, therefore, which is a theme for eternal
   wonder.

   Why did You love me, Redeemer? Why did You make a Covenant of Grace
   with me and line that Covenant with Immutable Love? This Love is
   everlasting and eternal. It never had a beginning, it never will have
   an end. Simply as I have stated the Truth, it is a nut with Heaven for
   its kernel. You were always loved, O Believer, and you always shall be,
   come what may! It is Love unrivalled, for never was there such
   affection as that which Christ has for His chosen. Love unexampled, to
   which none of us shall ever reach. We should seek to love as God has
   loved us, but to the infinite, the boundless degree, we shall never
   arrive. There is no love like the Love of God in Christ. It is love
   which to us has become this day our brightest thought, our truest
   comfort and our most potent incentive.

   Law rules the slaves of this world, but Love rules the freemen of the
   world to come. The ungodly, if they do right after a fashion, do it
   from fear of punishment or hope of reward. But the true-born children
   of God find in the love of Christ their sole motive--they are obedient
   not because they are afraid of being lost--they know they never shall
   be! Not because they hope to get to Heaven by their good works--they
   have Heaven already by the works of Another guaranteed to them by the
   promise of God! They serve God out of pure gratitude for what they have
   received, rejoicing as they work in the service of One they love so
   well!

   Beloved, may the love of God be shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy
   Spirit this morning, and all the days of your lives! And O that many
   who have never tasted of that love may be made to long for it, that
   they may be made alive by it, and unto God shall be the Glory! Amen and
   Amen.

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Song of Solomon 3; 1 John 5.
     __________________________________________________________________

Signs Of The Times

   (No. 1135)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 5, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And He said also to the people, When you see a cloud rise out of the
   west, straightway you say, There comes a shower; and so it is. And when
   you see the south wind blow, you say, There will be heat; and it comes
   to pass. You hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky and of the
   earth; but how is it that you do not discern this time? Yes, and why
   even of yourselves judge you not what is right?" Luke 12:54-57.

   THESE words were addressed by our Savior to the common people who had
   gathered around Him. He appealed to their common sense. They were able
   to foretell the weather from the signs which they saw in the heavens
   and if they could do this, the signs of His coming were even more clear
   and manifest, so that if they would but use their eyes they might see
   that He was the Messiah. That they did not do so was an instance of
   hypocrisy of heart--they did not see the Savior because they would not.
   Our Savior's coming had been very clearly foretold by the Prophets. The
   people were generally acquainted with the Prophetic writings and there
   had been, consequently, a general expectation of the coming of the
   Messiah at the time. Above all, the scepter had departed from Judah and
   they knew by this sure signal that the set time for the coming of
   Shiloh had arrived.

   Beyond this, our Savior's Character and miracles attested His
   Messiahship, for He worked among the people such works as no other man
   had ever done and taught them with a Divine authority which they could
   not resist. Did not the blind see? Did not the deaf hear? Did not the
   lame walk? Were not lepers cleansed and the dead raised? And was not
   the Gospel preached to the poor? What other tokens could they ask? Were
   not these the ensigns which their great Prophet, Isaiah, had left on
   record for their guidance? As certainly as a cloud in the western sky
   predicted rain and a wind from the south was the sign of heat, so
   assuredly there were infallible tokens, visible to all who chose to see
   them, that the Messiah had come!

   He charges them to use their common sense and not submit themselves to
   be hoodwinked by their leaders. He asked, "Judge you not even of
   yourselves what is right?" Why bow yourselves down that scribes and
   Pharisees may go over you? Think and judge for yourselves like men! The
   Lord, here, declares the duty of private judgment and exhorts the
   people to use it, urging them to yield no more a slavish obedience to
   the mandates of their false leaders, but to use their own wits as they
   would upon ordinary matters--and even of themselves judge what was
   right. The people needed awakening from spiritual slumber. They
   required to be exhorted to manliness of spirit, for they had so
   completely surrendered their judgments to their blind leaders that the
   most conspicuous signs of the time were unperceived by them.

   I believe that the passage before us might have been spoken by our Lord
   at the present moment with quite as much appropriateness as when He
   spoke it then, and therefore have I taken it for a text, hoping that,
   perhaps, God might bless it to this crooked and perverse generation
   which scorns the yoke of Christ, but willingly bows its neck to the
   thralldom of a loathsome priestcraft! First, we shall consider our own
   times, religiously, on a broad scale. And then, secondly, we shall
   speak of the times within the little world of ourselves, and both to
   Believers and unbelievers we shall have to say, "You can discern the
   face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that you do not discern
   this time? Yes, and why even of yourselves judge you not what is
   right?"

   I. First, then, let us carefully CONSIDER THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF OUR
   OWN AGE. At the outset, it must be evident to every Christian man and
   woman that the times are sadly darkened with superstition. The eastern
   sky is generally cloudless and when a cloud was seen to arise from the
   Mediterranean, which lay to the west, the Jews, very naturally, looked
   for rain, and it came. Innumerable clouds have arisen in these latter
   days, to the surprise and alarm of

   all lovers of our nation. Popery, which we thought to be dead and
   buried, as far as England was concerned, has displayed wonderful signs
   of vitality and has come back to us--not as a foreign plant, but as a
   home-grown upas tree--nurtured upon the fattest soil of our country in
   the enclosure of the National Church.

   The clouds of Sacramentarianism, priestcraft, and idolatry are hanging
   over our nation like a pall. The heavens are darkened by their shadow.
   When clouds cover the sky we look for showers and we may rest assured
   that the almost universal tendency of our countrymen towards Popery
   forebodes evil. Idolatry in a nation always brings down upon it the
   judgments of God. Look at the pages of history and see whether any
   once-enlightened nation has ever set up idol gods, Virgin Marys,
   saints, holy wafers--and followed the superstitions of
   Antichrist--without sooner or later being chastened of the Lord.
   Remember the glories of Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella! See what a
   nation it was in old times and what it has now become! Priestcraft is
   the Delilah through whose means the Spanish Samson has been shorn of
   his strength!

   Read the story of France and all her late trials, and see if the great
   bane of the land has not been superstition and the unbelief which is
   the recoil from it. What good can come to a nation whose peasants are
   the dupes of the priests and whose statesmen are servile to the Pontiff
   of Rome? Have the Jesuits ever laid their hands upon a throne without
   eventually shaking it to its foundations? Have they ever secured power
   among a people without demoralizing them to the uttermost? Are they not
   the common enemies of mankind? Are they not a thousand times more
   dangerous to men than wolves or serpents? And is not their religion,
   whether it takes the Roman or the Anglican shape, under all its
   disguises, the "abomination of desolation," provoking God beyond
   measure wherever it comes?

   They bring in its train that bestial, or rather, devilish thing, the
   confessional, with all the shameless vice and infamous uncleanness of
   which it is both mother and nurse! It was but yesterday I read a little
   book for the young, edited by a committee of clergy of the Church of
   England, in which children are urged to confess to the priest--meaning,
   thereby, the parish clergyman--every immodest word they may have spoken
   and every indecent act they may have committed! They are taught, thus,
   to repeat filthiness and to become unblushing in vice. The young girl
   is told to confess to a man every sin against purity and modesty, and
   she is told, (and I will quote the very words), that, "however painful
   it is to acknowledge a fault of this kind, it must be bravely
   confessed, without lessening it. It is almost always sins of impurity
   that weak penitents dare not tell in confession." That is to say, young
   women have a natural shame about them and the object of the
   confessional is to make their faces brazen enough to speak of immoral
   acts in the ear of a man!

   This black cloud which hovers over my country warns of great evil to
   her. As surely as Spain and France have been humbled, and as nation
   after nation has crumbled down to anarchy, or been altogether
   destroyed, so surely will this land sink from her greatness and lose
   her rank among the nations if this deadly evil is not, by some means,
   stamped out! May God in His infinite mercy take up the gage of battle
   and go forth and fight His foes on this soil which is wet with the
   blood of martyrs and still glows with the fires of Smithfield! Oh,
   children of God, I pray you, discern the times before the threatening
   shower descends upon our country! And learn to play your parts as men
   of God, ordained to defend the

   Truth of God.

   What is your duty at the present crisis? It is clearly your business to
   walk constantly in separation from everything which savors of the
   abominations of Rome! I do not see this among my fellow Christians and
   therefore I am ashamed and grieved at heart. I observe among many
   evangelical churchmen an increased leaning to ritualistic practices--
   they are even are tinctured with this gall and show it by evident
   tokens. I see, also, among those who claim to be furthest apart from
   sacerdotalism, namely, Nonconformists--many leaning in the direction we
   have indicated. Their buildings are growing more ornate and are pitiful
   mimicries of the ecclesiastical architecture most congenial to Popery.
   More and more are they studying to attract, by music, chants and sham
   liturgies. The Meeting House is now a Church, and in the Church the
   simplicity of Scriptural worship is overlaid with the inventions of
   human wisdom.

   I hate sensuous worship quite as much in a Meeting House as in a
   cathedral, and rather more. But I see many of my Brethren eager after
   it and gradually introducing it, as the people will bear it. Again may
   it be said, "And so we went towards Rome." It is the imperative duty of
   every Christian man to say decisively, "I will have no union with this
   abomination! I declare for God, for Christ, for His Truth--and to this
   vile Antichrist I will not yield the smallest point! I will not be a
   sharer of Babylon's sins, lest I be a partaker of her plagues." Happy
   are those who have not the mark of the beast either on their hands or
   on their foreheads, but keep the simple way of spiritual worship. In
   evil times they will feel

   the same quietude of conscience as Job did when he could say that he
   had never been enticed to adore the sun or the moon, or to kiss his
   hand in imitation of the worshippers of the hosts of Heaven.

   Watchfully and earnestly should we avoid all communion with the great
   apostasy. It is also high time for us all, as Christians, to work more
   carefully in precise obedience to the Word of God. Brothers and
   Sisters, we should never have had the errors of Rome back among us if
   the Book of Common Prayer had been, from the first, conformed to the
   Word of God. There were temporizers abroad of old who gained a present
   peace for themselves by leaving to their descendants a heritage of
   error. We need to return to the pure Word of God. Conform the Church to
   the Scriptures and quicken her with God's Spirit, and she will resist
   the encroachments of error. But fetter her with compromises and she
   will become captive to falsehood before long.

   Luther did grand service by his Reformation, but he stopped
   half-way--he left the Church with her face half-washed--and in
   consequence her whole visage has again become foul. O for a thorough
   reformation! So long as words stood in the Anglican Prayer Book which,
   to the common reader, taught baptismal regeneration, they were an
   invitation and an encouragement to the Popish party to return! And
   having returned, they are, for them, a castle and high tower! I shall
   give great offense as I now go further and say, as in the sight of God,
   that I am persuaded that so long as infant baptism is practiced in any
   Christian Church, Popery will have a door set wide open for its return.
   It is one of those nests which must come down, or the foul birds will
   build in it again. We must come to the Law and to the Testimony, and
   any ordinance which is not plainly taught in Scripture must be put
   away!

   As long as you give Baptism to an unregenerate child, people will
   imagine that it must do the child good, for they will ask, "If it does
   not do it any good, why is it baptized?" The statement that it puts
   children into the Covenant, or renders them members of the visible
   Church, is only a veiled form of the fundamental error of Baptismal
   Regeneration. If you keep up the ordinance, you will always have men
   superstitiously believing that some good comes to the baby thereby, and
   what is this but sheer Popery? Since the child cannot understand what
   is done, any good which it receives must come to it after the occult
   manner so much in vogue with the superstitious--is it any wonder that
   Popish beliefs grow out of it? And not only as to infant Baptism, but
   as to every other doctrine, ordinance, or precept--we must each seek to
   get back to this Book and follow closely the Word of God.

   The Wesleyan, the Presbyterian, the Baptist, the Independent, the
   Episcopalian must each be eager to put away everything, however
   esteemed among them, which is founded upon denominational tradition and
   not upon Inspired Authority. To the Law and to the Testimony must the
   Church of God return if she would escape future outbreaks of the
   Anti-Christian evil. Great errors spring from lesser errors. To favor
   falsehood is to injure Truth. God give to His people to feel that the
   utmost care becomes them in obeying the Lord and walking after His
   commands, lest evil come of negligence. And, dear Brothers and Sisters,
   as the voice of this evil abounds, let us abound in our testimony to
   the Truth of God as it is in Jesus! The more the priests set up their
   idols, the more let us lift up Christ and Him Crucified! The more they
   compass sea and land to make proselytes, the more earnestly let us
   plead with men that they will believe in the true Savior. Let the
   diligence of our enemies shame our indolence--let their earnestness
   rebuke our lethargy! Let us abundantly distribute the antidote while
   they industriously disseminate the poison--let us pour out light and so
   scatter their darkness. This is God's message to us and let every
   Christian man and woman read it in the signs of the times.

   Furthermore, anyone with half an eye can see that a parching wind of
   unbelief is sweeping over the churches. Where superstition does not
   rule, skepticism has fixed its seat. "When you see the south wind blow,
   you say there will be heat"--this was a well-known weather sign among
   the Jews, for the south wind blew from the desert, like a blast from
   the mouth of a furnace. Even so, there will be a burning up of
   spiritual life wherever the wind of infidelity speeds its course. Alas,
   in how many of our pulpits are the great Truths of the Gospel kept back
   and regarded as mere platitudes, unfit for men of culture to repeat!
   These Truths of God may be believed in by the preacher, but he treats
   them as worn-out truisms. There are many ministers, nowadays, whom it
   would be premature to condemn, but whom it is unavoidable to suspect.
   They profess, by their very position, to be preachers of the Gospel,
   but their indistinct utterance upon vital points leads us to question
   whether they know anything of the Truth in their own souls, or do
   really and heartily believe any one of the articles of our faith. These
   are the men who cry up freedom of thought and denounce all dogmas and
   creeds.

   Knowing this to be the case, and we do know it, for we cannot look
   abroad without seeing it on all sides, is there not a voice to us out
   of this evil? When unbelief abounds in the churches, is it not time for
   true Believers to have done with all reliance upon human wisdom?
   Gradually the churches have a thicket to look upon of clever preachers,
   intellectual gentlemen, men of thought, great thinkers and the like, as
   the necessity of the times, and they have idolized them. And, now, what
   have these intellectual gentlemen done for their churches? To what have
   the "men of thought" brought their brethren? Our churches under men who
   preached Jesus Christ and nothing else were the bulwarks of
   Protestantism, and no dissenters deserted to the foe. But under the
   care of these wonderful thinkers, the rich among Nonconformists see
   their families hurrying off to the superstitions which their fathers
   abhorred!

   It has come to this, that in one of the conferences about to be held
   there is a paper to be read upon the "Infrequency of Conversions in the
   Churches," a paper grievously needed. The Lord grant that the words
   spoken on the subject may burn like flames of fire! Who could expect
   conversions to be worked under many of the sermons which are now
   preached? I once heard a sermon, most philosophic and metaphysical,
   which was prefaced by a prayer that God would convert sinners by it, a
   prayer which seemed a sarcasm upon the discourse! We have had enough of
   intellectualism and oratorical polish--let them both be thrown out of
   window, as Jezebel was, with her painted cheeks--and let something
   better take their place--even the plain preaching of Christ Crucified!

   Since there is such infidelity abroad, is it not time for Christians to
   rise above the atmosphere of doubt and walk in the light of God? If you
   merely attain to the theory of religion you may always live in question
   as to every Truth of God. But if you rise above the theory, and walk
   with God continually, doubts will vanish. I never doubt whether there
   is a sun when it shines on me and makes me warm. I can never doubt the
   existence of bread when I am eating it. He who feels the life of God
   gets beyond the reach of philosophic questioning which is the very
   atmosphere of the age. Brothers and Sisters, you will not question
   whether prayer is a reality if every day you receive answers to your
   petitions! You will never doubt the Atonement of Jesus Christ, or His
   Deity, if sin is your daily grief and Jesus your abiding Companion. You
   will look the scoffers of the age in the face and say to them, "Get
   away from me! Our eyes have seen, our ears have heard and our hands
   have handled of the good Word of Life."

   When we have this faith, let us battle with the unbelief of others. The
   voice of God is to you, O Believers, "Arise, and let your faith exhibit
   itself." When Pharaoh said, "Who is the Lord?" then was the moment for
   Moses to cast down his rod and let it become a serpent. And when Jannes
   and Jambres cast down their rods and they became serpents, too, then
   was the opportunity for Moses' rod to swallow up their rods! In
   proportion to the unbelief of the age ought to be the energy of God's
   saints in working wonders of faith! Do and dare for God, my Brethren!
   Be bold for Him! Out-cry the clamor of the multitude--put it down with
   the strong voice which proclaims, "There is a God in Israel, and men
   shall hear it, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear."
   Men of faith, gird on your harness and use the strength of God to
   oppose the strength of unbelief.

   Again, is it not clear to every observer who watches this age, that
   religious apathy abounds? Like that lull which heralds the tempest, a
   dead calm rests over many of the churches just now. And what is the
   voice of the terrible sleep of Death but this, "O you that make mention
   of the Lord, keep not silence, and give Him no rest till He awakens His
   Church"? In your private prayers, I charge you, O men of God, make your
   wrestling with the Most High far more intense. While the Church sleeps,
   be on your watchtower. Neither day nor night refrain from supplicating
   God to arise and bless His Zion. Meanwhile, the Churches which are
   awake should, in their assemblies for prayer, be more importunate in
   their pleading. Come together, every one of you, in the time appointed
   for prayer and cry mightily unto God, for who knows, He might turn and
   repent, and leave a blessing behind? Now, beyond all times gone by,
   there is solemn need for supplication. See, my Brethren, that you
   abound in it.

   These times of lethargy require something of us besides prayer, namely,
   personal activity. I would charge each Christian to be doing everything
   that he can for his Lord, for his Church and for perishing sinners. Let
   each man do his own work in God's sight and in God's strength--each one
   taking care that the Church does not suffer through any neglect on his
   part. Personal consecration is the demand of the age. These days of
   lethargy are times when living saints should feel intensely for
   sinners, when they should feel for them an anguish and an agony. In
   proportion as others grow callous, we must become sensitive. If ever we
   are to see better times, they must come through the intense earnestness
   of

   each separate Believer crying out in pain for the souls of men--as one
   that travails in birth--till men are saved from everlasting burning.

   May each Christian here feel this sacred anguish and in addition may
   there be more intense and vigorous religious life in all. If we want to
   awaken others, we must be awake ourselves! If we would urge the Church
   forward, we must quicken our pace! If we would stimulate a laggard
   Church, we must, ourselves, throw our whole soul into the cause of God!
   Personal consecration, deepened daily, is the nearest way to promote
   the quickening of the entire Church of God to a sense of her high
   calling. May the Holy Spirit invigorate us to the full force of Grace
   that we may be the means of awakening the whole Church!

   Once again, there is another sad sign of the times which the watchman
   must sorrowfully report. There is an evident withdrawal of the Holy
   Spirit from this land. The spots where God is blessing the Word are few
   and far between. A man may count them on his hand. Where is the pouring
   forth of the Holy Spirit as in days gone by? Our fathers were known to
   tell us of the days of Whitfield and Wesley, when the Gospel spread as
   fire running among the stubble, for men's minds seemed prepared to obey
   the impulses of God's Spirit. We, ourselves, have seen something of
   these visitations. And in this place they have been almost continuous.
   But take the bulk of the churches all round and where is the Spirit of
   God at this time? Where are the converts that fly as a cloud? The earth
   has her harvest, but where is the harvest of the Church? Where are
   revivals now? The Spirit is grieved and is gone from the Church. And,
   Brothers and Sisters, why?

   Have Christian men become worldly? Is it true that you can scarcely
   tell a Christian from a worldling nowadays? O for more holiness, then!
   This is the demand which the times make upon us. You men of God be
   holy, yes, be perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is
   perfect. Has unbelief restrained the dew and rain of the Spirit? Is it
   true that He cannot do many mighty works among us because of our
   unbelief? O for more faith, then! Put up the prayer, "Lord increase our
   faith," and rest not, day or night, till the prayer is heard! Or, my
   Brothers, are we in this evil case because the Gospel has been veiled
   with wisdom of words? Is it not a fact that too often the Gospel has
   been preached with high-sounding elocution and not with simplicity of
   speech?

   The poor have left many of our places of worship because they cannot
   understand the speaker's cumbrous sentences. Many have forgetter that
   the power of God does not lie in elegance of diction. Is that the cause
   of the Spirit's withdrawing? If so, let Gospel simplicity be cultivated
   so that the common people may again hear our preachers gladly! Or, is
   it that Jesus Christ and His atoning blood have been kept in the
   background? In many pulpits doctrine is preached, but not the Cross.
   Precepts are preached, but not the blood. Philosophy is preached, but
   not the Crucified Savior. If it is so, in God's name let us come back
   to Jesus Christ and Him Crucified! And if we do so the Spirit of God is
   sure to be present, for never is Christ preached aright without the
   Spirit of God, more or less, attending to set His seal to the
   testimony! He will always honor those who honor the Son of God.

   Beloved, we pause for one moment, here, to add, with much gratitude,
   but far more of jealous trembling, that this little spot does not
   always wear the same signs as to spiritual weather as the great Church
   outside, for we have been much favored and just now the tokens with us
   are those of a more than ordinarily copious shower of Grace. Many of
   the spiritual have told me that of late they have felt God's Presence
   among us in a special degree. And if it is so, the voice of God to us,
   which I trust we shall hear, is, "Servants of God, continue in prayer!
   Watch for the blessing! Cleanse yourselves from the sins which defile
   you! Be up and doing in order to win it! Prove the Lord by all holy
   actions and enterprises, according to His mind, and see if He will not
   open the windows of Heaven and pour you out a blessing such that you
   shall not have room enough to receive it!

   II. Now, I have to use the text in reference to THE TIMES WITHIN US.
   There is a little world within our bosom which has its winds and its
   clouds and if we are wise we shall watch. First, I shall speak to
   Believers. Believers, there are times with you when the "cloud rises
   out of the west, and straightway you say, There comes a shower." Times
   of refreshing--you have had them--look back upon them, they are choice
   memories. The Holy Spirit bedewed your souls and bestowed on you the
   excellence of Carmel and Sharon--

   "What peaceful hours you then enjoyed, How sweet their memory, still."

   Perhaps you have lost them--then sigh for their speedy return! Perhaps
   you are enjoying them now--be very grateful if you are. Brethren, you
   need such visitations! How can the vineyard of the Lord flourish and
   bring forth fruit to Him if it is not watered from on high?

   Sometimes you need refreshing so grievously that you are painfully
   conscious of the need. Your praises languish and your prayers almost
   expire. You need to be visited from on high and you feel it. Beloved,
   since these refreshing are so precious and so much needed, you should
   eagerly watch for them. You should go up to the top of Carmel, like
   Elijah's servant, and with anxious eyes look towards the sea. And
   whenever you have to say, "There is nothing," you should go back to
   your knees. But you should rise, yet again, with expectancy, even to
   seven times, and still watch until the cloud appears! You must have the
   Spirit of God, or how can you live? Much more, how can you bring forth
   fruit unto perfection? Watch for these showers, then, and when they
   come, use them! Open your heart, as the earth opens her furrows after a
   long drought, when there are great gaping cracks in the soil ready to
   drink in the shower. Let your heart be receptive of the Divine
   influence. Wait upon the Lord and when the Lord comes to bless you, be
   like Gideon's fleece, ready to imbibe and retain the dew till you are
   full of it.

   Alas, I fear that many professors are dead to the visitations of the
   Spirit of God. They have no changes--their Christian profession knows
   neither drought nor rain. Like the statues in St. Paul's Cathedral,
   unaffected by heat or cold, they stand all the year round in rigid
   propriety. They have a dead religion and having a dead religion they
   are not at all conscious of any spiritual power or weakness. No
   droughts desolate them and no falling showers cheer them--they are as
   unaffected by heavenly influences as the deep caverns of Adullam.
   Brethren, above all things beware of a religion altogether destitute of
   the changes, feelings, sorrows and joys which are inevitably connected
   with life. If you have passed into a cast-iron state, may the Lord be
   pleased to break your profession to shivers--for the heart of flesh out
   of the heart of iron--is the result of Grace.

   I fear that some professors are not grieved at the absence of the Holy
   Spirit from themselves or others. If God does not bless the ministry
   upon which they attend, it does not concern them one half so much as a
   rise in the price of wheat. And if they, themselves, never experience
   spiritual joy, they never expected it and are not so much troubled as
   they would be if they lost a shilling! As to godly sorrow, they avoid
   it, they call it unbelief and improper anxiety. Whether blessed or
   unblessed, they remain stupidly contented, drugged into indifference.
   When God places some professors in the center of blessing they make no
   use of it. They are not sensible of the Spirit's approach and set no
   store by His operations. If they are not dead they are in such a swoon
   that God, alone, can discern the difference between them and those who
   are "dead in trespasses and sins." Beloved, may we never fall into that
   state--God save us from it! We ought to be sensitive to the approach or
   removal of the Spirit of God--walking in His power and dwelling under
   His shadow--and never satisfied unless we daily feel the going forth of
   His strength.

   Believers, we have to speak to you, also, about spiritual drought, for
   you have such seasons. "You see the south wind blow, and you say, There
   will be heat; and it comes to pass." You have your times of drought--at
   least I have mine. They may be sent in chastisement. We do not value
   the blessing of the Spirit enough and so it is withdrawn. Sometimes
   they may be intended to try our faith, to see whether we can strike our
   roots deep down into rivers of waters which never dry and tap the
   eternal springs which lie beneath, and yield not to the summer's
   drought. Perhaps our times of drought are sent to drive us to our God,
   for when the means of Grace fail us and even the Word no longer
   comforts us, we may fly to the Lord Himself, and drink at the Wellhead.

   Perhaps, however, this drought has been occasioned by ourselves.
   Worldliness is a south wind which soon brings a parching condition upon
   the spirits of men. If Christian people lie and act as worldly people
   do--go to worldly amusements and follow worldly maxims--there is no
   wonder if they become as parched up as the Eastern land when the hot
   wind has swept over it! There is a tendency, even in our necessary
   associations with ungodly men, to wither our spiritual verdure--and
   unless we resort to God, in whom are all our fresh springs--we shall
   soon find a parching heat burning up our religion. And, ah, Brothers
   and Sisters, if worldliness does not do it, there is the wind of carnal
   security which will soon bring barrenness into the soul. Begin to think
   that you are perfect and the dew of Heaven will forsake you! Fancy that
   matters are so right with you that you have no need to watch, no call
   to abound in prayer, no need to walk humbly with God, and your Lord
   will surely punish you for this by bidding the clouds rain no more upon
   you!

   And if you become proud and haughty and domineering over your Brethren,
   and talk loftily concerning God's trembling ones, then, again, will the
   wind from the south turn your garden into a wilderness and make your
   fruits to perish. Or if you neglect the means of Grace and forsake the
   assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is, you will
   soon be dry as the desert sand. Keep away from the Communion Table,
   neglect secret prayer, forget reading the Word of God, and you will
   find that your Lebanon and Bashan will languish and all your flowing
   brooks will be dried up. Then the lilies of fellowship will droop and
   the roses of joy will pine away and die for lack of heavenly moisture.
   Yes, your fat pastures shall be a wilderness and your plenteous
   harvests shall turn to desolation. May God save us from this! My
   Brothers and Sisters, if any of the signs of the times in the little
   world within you betoken such a drought, cry mightily to God and give
   Him no rest till once again He bids the showers of His mercy gently
   distil upon your soul, that you may bring forth fruit to His name.

   My last and most solemn work is now to come. I have to speak to
   sinners. Ungodly men are fools before God, but they are very often the
   reverse of fools in common life. They know what weather there will be.
   They can read the signs of the skies. Now I ask them to use the wit
   they have and, of themselves, judge that which is right. If you lived
   in Palestine, when you saw a cloud you would expect a shower. When you
   see sin, do you not expect punishment? Can the righteous God permit His
   laws to be violated and forever sit still? How, then, can He rule the
   world? Does it stand to reason that the Judge of all the earth will
   deal out, eventually, the same measure to the righteous and to the
   wicked? As you are reasonable men, I beseech you answer that question!
   God has not punished you yet. He has spared you though you are still
   opposed to Him and His holiness. What does this cloud of the
   long-suffering of God mean?

   I will tell you. It bears drops of gentle mercy in its bosom. The
   long-suffering of God is salvation. It leads you to repentance. If the
   Lord had been anxious to destroy you, would He have spared you so long?
   Does it not look as if He had designs of Grace toward you? You have
   been rescued from shipwreck, spared from fearer, preserved in battle or
   accident--and why? Listen to the oath of God, "As I live, says the
   Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies, but had rather
   that he should turn unto Me and live." Let the very fact of God's
   long-suffering be to you an inducement to seek mercy, for where there
   is such a cloud of long-suffering you may expect a rain of Grace!

   The preaching of the Gospel to you, today--does it not argue showers of
   mercies waiting for you? Why does the Lord commission ministers without
   number to proclaim His mercy to sinners if He does not wish to save
   them? The very fact that you are in the House of Prayer and not in
   Hell--that you are listening to a Gospel warning and not listening to
   the blast of the Judgment trumpet--seems to me like a hopeful cloud
   betokening a gracious rain! Come to Jesus, Sinner! By the love that
   spared you, I entreat you, come to Jesus! We urge you to come to Him by
   the love which sent the Savior, and which now declares to you that if
   you believe in Him you shall live. May God grant that you may read
   these blessed signs of the times and hope in God because of them!

   Perhaps at this moment you feel some quickening of your conscience,
   Sinner! You say, "I wish I were saved! Oh, that I knew where I might
   find my Lord!" Take these desires as marks of favor to you. Yield to
   the mysterious impulse. Quench not the Spirit of God! Bow down, now,
   while there is some life in you, before evil days of hardness come, and
   kiss the Son lest He be angry! Trust your soul in Jesus' hands,
   according to the Gospel command, and you shall live. Listen to me! Do
   you say, "I will put it off till a more convenient season"? That is the
   parching wind from the south! Do you not know what it will work upon
   you? It will dry up all the waters of feeling--it will parch in you all
   plants of hope. Your soul is hopeful, now, and like the field in spring
   when the young grass is coming up--but if you delay, this wind of
   sluggishness will blast all expectation of your salvation--and leave
   you without hope.

   Ah, how many have I seen in this condition! How I have tried to speak
   with them, but have failed, for they have told me, "I was hopeful once,
   I was impressible once, but now the harvest is passed and the summer is
   ended, and I am not saved. I cannot feel, I cannot repent, I cannot
   desire, I am perfectly dead--sun burnt, parched, and dried up." One has
   been obliged to fear that they spoke the truth and to turn away from
   their death-beds with this feeling--"You did call them, O God, and they
   refused. You did stretch out Your hands and they would not regard them.
   And now, not even a sense of fear or terror is left to them."

   Have any of you been abroad in the fields during the past week? If so,
   you must have marked the waning year. The leaves are fading all around
   us, clothing the departing year with a wonderful beauty. As they fade
   away one by one, they preach to us and say, "You, too, O Men, will soon
   fall to earth and wither." Have you heard the sermons of the falling

   leaves? You say to yourselves, "Winter will soon be here." You begin to
   lay in your stocks of fuel to meet the coming cold. And do you not see
   those gray hairs upon your head--are they not wintry tokens, too? Do
   you not note those decaying teeth, those trembling limbs, those
   loosened sinews, that furrowed brow? Do not these betoken that your
   winter is hastening on? Have you made no provision for eternity? Will
   you be driven forever away, away, away, where there shall be no hope?
   Have you laid by no stores of comfort for another world?

   O fools, and slow of heart! Let even the birds of the air rebuke you!
   The other day I saw the swallows gathering, holding assemblies, as
   though they were enquiring and answering questions. And then, when the
   time was come, away they flew across the sea to sunnier climes! They
   did not wait here till all their food was gone and they must famish.
   No, they took to themselves wings and followed the sun. Has all the
   wisdom entered into birds and have men none? "The stork in the Heaven
   knows her appointed times, and the turtle and the crane and the swallow
   observe the time of their coming; but My people know not the judgment
   of the Lord."

   You will wait in this world and linger among its dying joys till you
   die and perish forever. Oh, that you would take the wings of faith and
   fly where the Sun of Righteousness points the way! There, where the
   Cross is the guiding constellation--there steer your course--and you
   will reach the land of everlasting summer where fading flowers and
   withering leaves are never known! Believe in Jesus, Sinner! Set your
   hopes on Him, or if not, I must say to you as Christ did to the people,
   "When you see the south wind blow, you say, There will be heat; and it
   comes to pass. You hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky, and
   of the earth; but how is it that you do not discern this time? Yes, and
   why even of yourselves judge you not what is right?"

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Luke 12:13-21; 30-59.
     __________________________________________________________________

"Forever With The Lord"

   (No. 1136)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 12, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "To be with Christ, which is far better." Philippians 1:23.

   THE Apostle was confined in the guardroom of the Praetorian. It is very
   probable that he had a soldier chained to his right hand and another to
   his left. And it is very possible that this position suggested to him
   the expression, "I am in a strait betwixt two." He was literally held
   by two forces and he was mentally in the same condition--exercised with
   two strong desires--influenced by two master passions, and he did not
   know to which he should yield. He says, "Between the two I am in
   perplexity," or, as some render it, "I am straitened by the pressure of
   the two things." Picture yourself sitting in a gloomy dungeon, a
   captive in the hands of the cruel tyrant, Nero, and under the
   supervision of the infamous prefect, Tigellinus, the most detestable of
   all Nero's satellites.

   Conceive yourself as expecting soon to be taken out to death--perhaps
   to such a horrible death as the refined cruelty of the monster had
   often devised--as, for instance, to be smeared over with bituminous
   matter and burned in the despot's garden to adorn a holiday. What would
   be your feelings? If you were not a Christian I should expect you to
   tremble with the fear of death. And even if you were a Believer, I
   should not marvel if the flesh shrunk from the prospect. Paul was an
   utter stranger to any feeling of the kind. He had not the slightest
   dread of martyrdom. He calls his expected death a departure, a loosing
   of the cable which holds his ship to the shore and a putting forth upon
   the main ocean.

   So far from being afraid to die, he stands fully prepared. He waits
   patiently and even anticipates joyfully the hour when his change shall
   come. On the other hand, I can readily imagine that amidst the miseries
   of a wretched prison, subject to frequent insults from rude soldiers,
   you might be seized with a desire to escape from life. Good men have
   felt the power of that feeling. Elijah said, "Let me die: I am no
   better than my fathers." Job sighed to be hidden in the grave and
   oftentimes under far less afflictions than those which vexed the
   Apostle, good men have said, "Would God this life were at an end and
   these miseries over. I am weary, I am weary--when will Death release
   me?"

   I see nothing of that feeling in the Apostle. He is not restive under
   the chain. There is not a trace of impatience about him. He admits, and
   joyfully admits, that to be with Christ is far better. But upon
   consideration he sees reasons for his remaining here and, therefore, he
   cheerfully submits to whatever may be the Lord's will. He does not
   choose. His mind is so wrapped up with God and free from self, that he
   cannot choose. What a blessed state of heart to be in! One might be
   willing to wear Paul's chain on the wrist to enjoy Paul's liberty of
   mind! He is a free man whom the Lord makes free and such a man, Nero,
   himself cannot enslave. He may confine him in the military prison, but
   his soul walks at liberty through the earth, yes, and climbs among the
   stars.

   Paul, instead of being either weary of life or afraid of death, sits
   down and coolly considers his own case as calmly, indeed, as if it had
   been the case of someone else. Do you observe how he weighs it? He says
   to depart and to be with Christ is, in itself considered, far
   better--he therefore desires it. But looking round upon the numerous
   churches which he had formed, which in their feebleness and exposure to
   many perils needed his care, he says, on the other hand, "To abide in
   the flesh is more necessary for you." He holds the balance with
   unquivering hands and the scales quietly vibrate in equilibrium--one
   rises and then the other--gently swaying his heart by turns. He is in a
   strait, a blessed strait betwixt two, and he does not say that he knew
   not which of two things to avoid, or which to deprecate, but his mind
   was in such a condition that either to live or to die seemed equally
   desirable, and he says, "What I shall choose I know not."

   It is a poor choice, to choose to live in a dungeon, and an equally
   poor business, as men judge it, to choose to die, but the Apostle
   regards both of them as choice things, so choice that he does not know
   which to select! He deliberates as coolly and calmly as if he were not
   at all concerned about it, and, indeed, it is fair to say he was not at
   all concerned about it. He was moved by a higher concern than any which
   had to do with himself, for his main object was the Glory of

   God. He desired the Glory of God when he wished to be with Christ. He
   desired the same when he was willing to remain with Christ's people and
   to labor on.

   His mind, as we have seen, hung in an equilibrium between two things,
   but he is clear enough upon one matter, namely, that considering his
   own interests, only, it would greatly increase his happiness to depart
   and to be with Christ! He had said the same before, when he declared
   that, "To die is gain." He had no doubt that to be loosed from the body
   and allowed to fly away to Jesus would be a great blessing to him. Of
   that assurance we will now speak.

   I. The first thing to which I shall call your attention is THE
   APOSTLE'S CERTAINTY CONCERNING THE DISEMBODIED STATE--"Having a desire
   to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better." Now, the Apostle
   was an eminently conscientious man. At the time when he was a Jewish
   teacher, whatever else he might not be, he was very conscientious--he
   verily thought that he did God service in persecuting the Christians.
   And throughout the whole of his subsequent career, in every incident of
   his history we mark him as pre-eminently a man guided by conscience. If
   he believed a thing to be right, he attended to it. And if anything
   struck him as being wrong, he could not be persuaded to countenance it.
   He would not do or say that which he did not fully believe to be right
   and true.

   It is a grand thing to meet with a witness of this order, for his
   testimony can be relied on. What such a man affirms we may be quite
   certain is correct, so far as he knows. And also, the Apostle was
   eminently cool. He was a man of well-balanced reason. I should think
   that logic greatly preponderated among his faculties. John has a warm
   and glowing heart and one does not wonder that he is rather a warm
   lover of Jesus than a systematic unfolder of doctrine. Peter is
   impulsive and when he writes he writes with force, but it is not the
   force of reasoning. Paul is calm, collected. You never find him excited
   beyond the bounds of reason. He is as orderly, correct and
   argumentative as a Grecian sage. He is enthusiastic to a white heat,
   but regardless, he still holds himself well in hand.

   The coursers of his imagination can outstrip the wind, but he always
   holds the reins with a strong hand and knows how to turn them, or to
   make them stand still at his pleasure. It is a great thing to receive
   the testimony of a man who is both conscientious to tell what he
   believes to be true and calm and logical to form a clear judgment as to
   what is really fact. Now this man, Paul, was convinced that there is a
   future state for Believers. He was quite sure about it and he believed
   it to be a future conscious state which commenced the moment one died,
   and was beyond measure full of blessedness. He did not believe in
   purgatorial fires through which Believers' souls must pass--much less
   did he believe the modern and detestable heresy which some have
   endorsed that, like the body, the soul of the saint dies until the
   Resurrection.

   No, but he was known to speak of being "absent from the body and
   present with the Lord," and here he speaks about departing not to sleep
   or to lie in the cold shade of oblivion till the trumpet should awaken
   him, but to depart and immediately to be with Christ, which is far
   better. What had made this very conscientious and very collected man
   come to this conclusion? I suppose he would have replied, first, that
   he had been converted by a sight of the Lord Jesus Christ. On the road
   to Damascus, while desperately set against the religion of Jesus, the
   Lord Himself had appeared to him, so that he had seen Jesus with his
   own eyes and had heard Him speak.

   About that sight and sound he had no question. He was sure that he had
   seen the Lord Jesus and heard His voice. He was so certain of this that
   he was led to give up his position in society, which was a very
   elevated one; to lose his reputation, which he greatly valued; to be
   rejected by his countrymen whom he loved with more than ordinary
   patriotism and to run continual risk of death for the sake of the Truth
   to which he was a witness. He was content to be made the offscouring of
   all things for the love of that once-despised Savior who, out of the
   windows of Heaven, had looked down upon Him in mercy.

   Now, he was quite sure that Jesus Christ came from somewhere and went
   back to some place or other. He felt sure that there must be a place
   where the Man, Jesus Christ, dwelt, and he felt quite certain that
   wherever that might be it would be a place of happiness and glory.
   Recollecting the prayer of the Lord Jesus, which John had recorded,
   "Father, I will that they, also, whom You have given Me be with Me
   where I am, that they may behold My glory," he was quite certain that
   as soon as saints died they would be where their glorious Lord Jesus
   was and would share His honors. Remember, also, that this judicious and
   truthful witness tells us that he had, on other occasions, distinct
   evidence of the disembodied state. He informs us that he was caught up
   into the third Heaven and there heard things which it was not lawful
   for a man to utter.

   He observes that he does not understand how he went there, but of the
   fact, he is quite sure. His body was here on earth still alive and yet
   his spirit was caught away into Heaven. The question with him was
   whether he was in the body or out of the body, and I dare say his
   metaphysical mind often tried to untie that knot. His soul must have
   remained in the body to keep the body alive, and if so, how could it go
   up to Heaven? And yet into Heaven he was quite clear that he had
   entered. At last the Apostle came to the conclusion that whether in the
   body or out of the body he could not tell, but God knew. This, however,
   he was sure of--that he had been caught up into Paradise, or the third
   Heaven--and therefore there was a Paradise! He had heard words which it
   was not possible for him to utter, therefore there was a place where
   glorious words were to be heard and glorious words to be said! And he
   was quite sure, not merely as a matter of belief, but as a matter of
   observation, that there was a place into which disembodied spirits
   go--where they are with Jesus, their Lord--which is far better.

   It is clear that it would not be far better for a saint to die and
   sleep till the Resurrection than it would be to work on here. It would
   be evidently, by far, a better thing for saints to continue in life
   till Christ came, than to lie dormant in oblivion. Yet he says it is
   far better for them to depart--and the ground of his judgment lies in
   the fact that there is a place of real happiness--of intense joy--where
   it is far better for the disembodied spirit to be than for it to remain
   here in the body! About this Paul expressed no sort of doubt. There was
   such a state. It was a state of great joy, so that even to him who was
   one of the greatest Apostles, the most useful of the saints and the
   most honored with his Master's blessing--even to him to depart and to
   be with Christ would be far better!

   I want you to notice, also that he does not express any sort of doubt
   about his own entrance into a state of felicity so soon as he should
   depart. He does not say, as I am afraid many here would have done, "It
   would be far better, certainly, for me to die if I were sure I should
   be with Christ." Oh, no! He had risen above such hesitation. Dear
   Brothers and Sisters, it is a wretched state to be in to be saying, "It
   would be sweet for me to depart if, indeed, these glories were for me."
   He had got beyond all doubt as to whether eternal bliss would be his!
   He was sure of that, and why are we not sure, too? Why do we hesitate
   where he spoke so confidently? Had Paul something to ground his
   confidence upon which we have not?

   Do you suppose that Paul reckoned he should be saved because of his
   abundant labors, his earnest ministry and his great successes? Far from
   it! Don't you know that he, himself, said, "God forbid that I should
   glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ"? As for anything that
   he had ever done, he declared that he trusted to be found in Christ,
   not having his own righteousness, which was of the Law, but the
   righteousness which is of God by faith. Now, where Paul built we build,
   if we build aright. Our hope is founded upon the righteousness of
   Christ, upon the Grace of God, upon the promise of our heavenly Father.
   Well, I dare to say it--he, the chief of the Apostles, had not a
   solitary grain of advantage over any one of us as to the basis and
   essence of his hope! Mercy, Grace, atoning blood, the precious
   promise--these, alone, he built on--for other foundation can no man
   lay.

   If Paul was sure of eternal bliss, I should be sure of it, too. No, I
   am! Are you, Beloved? Are you equally as sure of being with Christ as
   Paul was? You should be, for you have the same reason for certainty as
   the Apostle had, if, indeed, you are believing in the Lord Jesus. God
   is not a God of perhapses, and ifs, and buts--He is a God of shalls and
   wills, of faithful Truth and everlasting verities. "He that believes on
   Him is not condemned." "There is, therefore, now no condemnation to
   them that are in Christ Jesus." "He that believes and is baptized,
   shall be saved." "Who shall lay anything to the charge
   of"--whom?--Paul, the Apostle? No, but "of God's elect"?

   Of all of them, of any one of them whom you shall please to select,
   however humble, however obscure--they are ALL safe in Jesus! He was
   made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him,
   and we may, each one of us, cry, "I know whom I have believed, and am
   persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him
   until that day." So much, then, concerning the Apostle's certainty as
   to the disembodied state, its happiness and his own possession of it
   before long.

   II. It is very interesting to notice THE APOSTLE'S IDEA OF THAT STATE.
   He says, "To be with Christ." It is a one-sided idea and it is almost a
   one-worded description of it. "To be with Christ." I have no doubt Paul
   had as enlarged ideas as to what the state of disembodied spirits would
   be as the most intelligent and best-read Christian that ever lived. I
   have no doubt he would have said, "Yes, there is fellowship among the
   saints--we shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac

   and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven. It will certainly be as true in
   Heaven as it is on earth that we have fellowship one with another."

   I have no doubt he believed that Heaven was a place of a far clearer
   knowledge than any we possess below. He said so once--"Here I know in
   part, but there shall I know even as I am known." Some Christians have
   entertained the idea that they shall gaze upon the various works of God
   in distant parts of His universe and enjoy infinite happiness in
   beholding the manifold wisdom of God--very possible, and if it will
   conduce to their happiness--very probable. Perhaps Paul believed all
   that, but we do not know whether he did or not. Here it is plain that
   he gives us only one idea. He was a man of great mind and much
   information, but here he gives us only one idea--for my part, one that
   perfectly satisfies me and I think one which charms and fills to
   overflowing the heart of every Believer.

   He describes the disembodied state as "to be with Christ." A very
   exclusive idea! No, a very inclusive idea--for it takes in all the
   Heaven which the largest mind can conceive! It does seem to omit a
   great many things, but I dare say Paul felt that they were such trifles
   that it did not matter about forgetting them. Being with Christ is so
   great a thing that he mentioned only it. I think he did this, first,
   because his love was so concentrated upon Christ that he could think of
   nothing else in connection with going away to Heaven.

   There is a wife here, perhaps, and her husband has accepted an
   appointment in India. He has been gone a long time and the years of his
   forced absence have been weary to her. She has had loving messages from
   him and kind letters, but often she has sighed and her heart has looked
   out of the windows towards the east, yearning for his return. But now
   she has received a letter entreating her to go to her husband and,
   without hesitation, she has resolved to go. Now, if you ask her what
   she is going to India for, the reply will be, "I am going to my
   husband." But she has a brother there. Yes, she will see him, but she
   does not tell you that--her great thought is that she is going to her
   husband! She has many old friends and companions there, but she is not
   drawn to the far-off land by desire for their company--she crosses the
   sea for the sake of her beloved.

   But her husband has a handsome estate there and he is wealthy. He has a
   well-furnished house and many servants. Yes, but she never says, "I am
   going to see my husband's home," or anything of that kind. She is going
   to her husband. That is the all-absorbing object. There may be other
   inducements to make the voyage, but to be with her beloved is the
   master reason of her journey. She is going to the man she loves with
   all her soul and she is longing for the country, whatever that country
   may be, because he is there. It is so with the Christian, only enhanced
   in a tenfold degree! He does not say, "I am going to the songs of
   angels and to the everlasting chorales of the sanctified," but, "I am
   going to be with Jesus!" It would argue unchastity to Christ if that
   were not the first and highest thought.

   To come back to the figure--and it is one which Christ, Himself, would
   approve of, far He continually uses the metaphor of marriage in
   relation to Himself and the soul--if that woman did regard as the first
   thing in that journey out to the East, the sight of some other person,
   or the mere enjoyment of wealth and possessions--it would argue that
   she had little love to her husband. It would mean that she was not such
   a wife as she ought to be. And if it could be so that the Christian
   should have some higher thought than being with Christ, or some other
   desire worth mentioning in the same day with it, it would look as if he
   had not presented himself as a chaste virgin to Christ, to be His and
   His alone.

   I see, therefore, why Paul calls the disembodied state a being with
   Christ, because his love was all with his Lord. And, no doubt, there
   was this further reason among others--he was persuaded that Heaven
   could not be Heaven if Christ was not there. Oh, to think of Heaven
   without Christ! It is the same thing as thinking of Hell. Heaven
   without Christ? It is day without the sun! Existing without life,
   feasting without food, seeing without light. It involves a
   contradiction in terms. Heaven without Christ? Absurd! It is the sea
   without water, the earth without its fields, the heavens without their
   stars. There cannot be Heaven without Christ! He is the sum total of
   bliss! He is the fountain from which Heaven flows, the element of which
   Heaven is composed! Christ is Heaven and Heaven is Christ!

   You shall change the words and make no difference in the sense. To be
   where Jesus is is the highest imaginable bliss and bliss away from
   Jesus is inconceivable to the child of God. If you were invited to a
   marriage feast and you were, yourself, to be the bride, and yet the
   bridegroom were not there--do not tell me about feasting. In vain they
   ring the bells till the Church tower rocks and reels. In vain the
   dishes smoke and the red wine sparkles. In vain the guests shout and
   make merry. If the bride looks around her and sees no bridegroom, the
   dainties mock her sorrow and the merriment

   insults her misery. Such would a Christless Heaven be to the saints. If
   you could gather together all conceivable joys and Christ were absent,
   there would be no Heaven to His beloved ones. Therefore it is that
   Heaven is to be where Christ is--

   "To dwell with Christ, to feel His love,

   Is the full Heaven enjoyed abo ve.

   And the sweet expectation now,

   Is the young dawn of Heaven below." And, Beloved, just to be with
   Christ is Heaven--that bare thing. Excuse my using such words, I only
   want to make the sense stronger. That bare thing--just to be with
   Christ is all the Heaven a Believer needs! The angels may be there or
   not, as they will. And the golden crowns and harps present or absent as
   may be. But if I am to be where Jesus is, I will find angels in His
   eyes and crowns in every lock of His hair. To me the golden streets
   shall be my fellowship with Him and the music of the harpers shall be
   the sound of His voice. Only to be near Him, to be with Him--this is
   all we need. The Apostle does not say, "to be in Heaven, which is far
   better." No, but, "to be with Christ, which is far better," and he adds
   no description--he leaves the thoughts just as they are--in all their
   majestic simplicity. "To be with Christ, which is far

   better."

   But what is it to be with Christ, Beloved? In some sense we are with
   Christ now, for He comes to us. We are no strangers to Him. Even while
   we are in this body we have communion with Jesus and yet it must be
   true that a higher fellowship is to come, for the Apostle says that
   while we are present in the body we are absent from the Lord. There is
   a sense in which, so long as we are here, we are absent from the Lord.
   One great saint used to say upon his birthday that he had been so many
   years in banishment from the Lord. To abide in this lowland country, so
   far from the ivory palaces, is a banishment at the very best. All that
   we can see of Christ here is through a glass darkly. Face to face is
   true nearness to Him and that we have not reached as of yet.

   What will it be, then, to be with Christ? Excuse me if I say it will
   be, first of all, exactly what it says, namely, to be with Him. I must
   repeat that word--it is Heaven only to be with Him! It is not merely
   what comes out of being with Him--His company is Heaven. Why, even to
   have seen Jesus in his flesh was a privilege--

   "I think when I read that sweet story of old, When Jesus was here among
   men, How He took little children like lambs to His fold I should like
   to have been with Him then. I wish that His hands had been placed on my
   head, That His arms had been thrown around me, And that I might have
   seen His kind look when He said, 'Let the little ones come unto Me.'" I
   think I should have found a little Heaven in gazing on that blessed
   form!

   But our text speaks of a different sort of being with Him, for there
   were people near Him here in body who were a long way off from Him in
   spirit. The text speaks of being with Him in the spirit when the soul
   shall have shaken itself loose of the flesh and blood--and left all its
   slough behind it--and gone right away to bask in the Glory of Jesus, to
   participate in the Nature of Jesus and, best of all, to abide near His
   Person, with the God-Man Mediator, who is Lord of all! Still, there
   will flow out of that nearness the following things among many others.
   We shall enjoy, first of all, a clearer vision of Him. Oh, we have not
   seen Him yet! Our views of Him are too dim to be worth calling sights.
   The eyes of faith have looked through a telescope and seen Him at a
   distance and it has been a ravishing vision. But when the eyes of the
   soul shall really see Him--Him, and not another--Him for ourselves, and
   not another for us, oh, the sight!

   Is not the thought of it a burning coal of joy? The sight of His very
   flesh will charm us. His wounds, still fresh, the dear memorials of His
   passion, still apparent. The perception of His soul will also delight
   us, for our soul will commune with His soul and this is the soul of
   communion! The sight of His Godhead, so far as created spirit can see
   it, will also ravish us with joy. And then we shall have a brighter
   knowledge of Him. Here we know in part--we know the names of His
   offices, we know what He has worked, we know what He is working for
   us--but there those offices will shine in their splendor and we shall
   see all that He did for us in its real weight and value! We shall
   comprehend, then, the height and depth and know the love of Christ
   which passes knowledge, as we do not know it at this hour.

   And with that will come a more intimate communion. Our soul will lean
   her head on Jesus' bosom, our heart will get into His heart and hide
   herself in His wounds. What must it be to speak to Him, as our soul
   will speak to Him, as our spirit nature will commune with His inmost
   Nature--His spirit speaking to our spirits without a veil between? We
   shall not see Him looking down from the windows, but we shall rest in
   His arms, in a far more intimate communion than any we can enjoy this
   side the grave. Today I see Him through the grating of my prison
   windows and my heart is ready to leap out of my body! What will it be
   when His left hand shall be under my head and His right hand shall
   embrace me?

   And then, Beloved, when we shall be with Him it will be unbroken
   fellowship. There will be no sin to blind our eyes to His charms, or to
   entice us away from His love. Blessed be God, there will be no Monday
   mornings to call us back to the world, but our sacred Sunday will last
   on forever! Doubts, backslidings and spiritual chills will then be gone
   forever. No more shall we cry, "Have you seen Him whom my soul loves?"
   but we shall hold Him and never let Him go. There will be no need,
   ever, for the spirit to fall asleep and so suspend its joy--it will
   find its true rest in constant communion with Jesus! It is possible to
   live in fellowship with Jesus here always--possible, but, oh, how few
   ever reach it! But there we shall all have reached it! The very lowest
   among us--we shall be with the Lord forever!

   And then we shall have a sight of His Glory and though I put this after
   a sight of Himself, yet, remember, our Lord thinks much of it. He
   prayed, "Father, I will that they, also, whom You have given Me be with
   Me where I am, that they may behold My Glory." We have seen something
   of His shame and have been partakers in the reproach that is poured
   upon His Gospel. But we shall see Him, then, with silver sandals on the
   feet that once were mired by the clay of earth and a crown of gold upon
   the once thorn-pierced brow! We shall see Him when His hands shall
   gleam as with gold rings set with beryl, and look no more like a
   malefactor's hand nailed to the cruel wood--

   "Then shall we see His body like bright ivory With sapphires overlaid,
   His limbs like marble pillars In golden sockets stayed."

   Then, looking on His face we shall understand Solomon's Song, when he
   said, "His countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars; His
   voice is most sweet, yes, He is altogether lovely." One would wish to
   leap right away out of this body to behold Him in His Glory!

   And then, Beloved, we shall share in the Glory, too, for His joy will
   be our joy. His honor will be our honor. Our spirits which wrestled
   hard here below and had to strive against a thousand outward enemies
   and inward doubts and fears, will then be all light, joy, gladness,
   full of the life of God and beaming with ecstatic bliss! The Lord grant
   us to know this in due season, and so we shall, if, indeed, we are
   Believers in Jesus! So you see Paul's one idea was that he should be
   with Jesus. That was all. He cared little for anything else.

   III. Very briefly, let us consider THE APOSTLE'S ESTIMATE OF THIS
   DISEMBODIED STATE. He says, "To be

   with Christ, which is far better." Now, the Greek has a triple
   comparative. We could not say, "far more better," in our language, but
   that would be a fair translation. We will therefore read, "It is far
   rather preferable," or it is much better to be with Christ away from
   the body, than it would be to abide here. Now, you must remember that
   Paul does not claim that the disembodied state is the highest condition
   of a Believer, or the ultimate crown of his hopes. It is a state of
   perfection so far as it goes--the spirit is perfect--but the entire
   manhood is not perfect while the body is left to mold in the tomb.

   One half of the saint is left behind in the grave. Corruption, earth
   and worms have seized upon it, and the grand concluding day of our
   manifestation can only come when the redemption of the body is fully
   achieved. The fullness of our Glory is the Resurrection, for then the
   body will be united to our spirit and perfected with it. At present the
   saints who are with Jesus are without their bodies and are pure
   spirits. Their humanity is in that respect maimed--only half their
   manhood is with Jesus--yet even for that, half of their manhood to be
   with Christ is far better than for the whole of their being to be here
   in the best possible condition!

   Now, the Apostle does not say that to be with Christ is far better than
   to be here and to be rich, young, healthy, strong, famous, great, or
   learned--Paul never thinks of putting those petty things into contrast
   with being with Christ! He had got above all that. There he was sitting
   chained in the dungeon, the poorest man in the emperor's dominions, and
   often, I have no doubt--for he was getting on to be, "such an one as
   Paul the aged," and wrote particularly about an old cloak he had left
   at Troas--often he felt rheumatic pains shooting through him. And he
   did not find this life to have

   many attractions of wealth or ease, though he might have had them if he
   had chosen them as his portion. He had given them all up and counted
   them as insignificant trifles, not to be mentioned at all, for Jesus'
   sake.

   He is not speaking of the low joys of this world--he is far above such
   considerations. He means that to be with Christ is infinitely superior
   to all the joys of Christians. Anything that the most of Christians
   know about Christ and heavenly joys and heavenly things is very poor
   compared with being with Christ. But he meant more than that. He meant
   that the highest joys which the best taught Believer can here possess
   are inferior to being with Christ. For, let me say, Paul was no obscure
   Believer. He was a leader among the followers of Christ. Could he not
   say. "Thanks be unto God, who always makes us to triumph in every
   place"?

   He knew the graces of the Holy Spirit, he had them abundantly. He was
   head and shoulders above the most brilliant Christian here. He had the
   highest experience of any man out of Heaven and it was that which he
   contrasted with being with Christ. And he said that the most that we
   could get here of heavenly things was not to be compared with being
   with Christ. That was far, far, far better. And truly, Brothers and
   Sisters, so it is. Thanks be to God for all the mercies of the
   pilgrimage, for all the dropping manna and the following stream, but
   oh, the wilderness with all its manna, is nothing compared with the
   land that flows with milk and honey! Let the road be paved with
   mercy--it is not so sweet as the Father's house of the many mansions to
   which it leads.

   It is true that in the battle our head is covered, the wings of angels
   often protect us, and the Spirit of God, Himself, nerves our arm to use
   the sword. But who shall say that the victory is not better than the
   battle? The warrior who has won the most of victory will tell you that
   the best day will be when the sword rattles back into the scabbard and
   the victory is won forever. Oh, the wooing of Christ and the soul, this
   is very sweet--the rapturous joys we have had in the love-making
   between Christ and us, we would not exchange with emperors and
   kings--even if they offered us their crowns! But the marriage day will
   be better by far--the glorious consummation of our soul's highest
   desire when we shall be with our Well-Beloved where He is.

   Far better, said the Apostle, and he meant it. Far better it is. He did
   not say--and I want you to notice this again-- though he might have
   said it, "We shall be better in condition. No poverty there, no
   sickness there." He did not say, "We shall be better in character." He
   might have said it--there will be no sin, no depravity, no infirmity,
   no temptation there. He did not say, "We shall be better in
   employment," though surely it will be better to wait on the Master,
   close at His hand, than to be here among sinners and often among
   cold-hearted saints. He did not say, "We shall have better society
   there." Though, truth to tell, it will be better to be with the perfect
   than with the imperfect. Neither did he say we should see fairer sights
   there, though we shall see the city that has foundations of jasper,
   whose light is the light of the Lamb's own Presence! But he did say,
   "To be with Christ." He summed it up there. The bare being with Christ
   would be far better. And so it will be. Our spirit longs for it!

   Yet mark you, for all that, he said he felt a pull the other way. He
   had a twitch towards staying on earth, as well as a pull towards going
   to Heaven, for he said, "To abide in the flesh is more necessary for
   you." How I love Paul for thinking of the churches here when he had
   Heaven before him! Anthony Farindon says it is like a poor beggar woman
   outside the door and she carries a squalling child, and someone says,
   "You may come in and feast, but you must leave the babe outside." She
   is very hungry and she needs the feast. But she does not like to leave
   the baby and so she is in a strait betwixt two.

   Or, he says again, it is like a wife who has children at home, five or
   six little ones, and her husband is on a journey. And suddenly there
   comes a letter which says that he needs her and she must go to him, but
   she may do as she thinks best. She desires to go to her husband, but
   who will take care of the last little baby and who is to see to all the
   rest? And so she is in a strait betwixt two. She loves him and she
   loves them. So stood the Apostle, and oh, it is blessed to think of a
   man having such a love for Christ that for Christ's sake he loves poor
   souls well enough to be willing to stay out of Heaven awhile! "Oh," he
   says, "it is all gain for me to go to Heaven. For me to die is far
   better. Yet there are some poor sinners who need to be called, some
   poor trembling saints to be comforted and I do not know which is the
   best." And the Apostle stands puzzled. He does not know which it shall
   be. There we leave him.

   May we get into the same blessed predicament ourselves! The last word
   shall be this. Concerning our beloved friends gone from us, we do not
   sorrow as those who are without hope. What is more, we do not sorrow at
   all. If we chance to sorrow, it is for ourselves, that we have lost
   their present company. But as for them it is far better with them and
   if the

   lifting of our little finger could bring them back again, dear as they
   are to us, we would not be so cruel as to subject them, again, to the
   troubles of this stormy sea of life. They are safe! We will go to them.
   We would not have them return to us.

   Then, with regard to ourselves, if we have believed in Jesus we are on
   our journey Home and all fear of death is now annihilated. You notice
   the Apostle does not say anything at all about death. He did not think
   it worth mentioning. In fact, there is no such thing to a Christian! I
   have heard of people being afraid of the pains of death. There are no
   pains of death--the pain is in life! Death is the end of pain. It is
   all over. Put the saddle on the right horse. Do not blame Death for
   what he does not do. It is Life that brings pain! Death to the Believer
   ends all evil. Death is the gate of endless joy and shall we dread to
   enter there? No, blessed be God, we will not!

   And this points us to the Fountain of bliss while we are here, for if
   Heaven is to be with Christ, then the nearer we get to Christ, here,
   the more we shall participate in that which makes the joy of Heaven! If
   we want to taste Heaven's blessed dainties while here below, let us
   walk in unbroken fellowship with Him--so we shall get two heavens, a
   little Heaven below, and a boundless Heaven above when our turn shall
   come to go Home! Oh, I wish you were all on the way to being with
   Christ! If you do not go to be with Christ, where can you go? Answer
   that question and go to Jesus, now, by humble faith, that afterwards He
   may say, "Come, you did come on earth, now come again, you blessed of
   My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the
   foundation of the world."

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Philippians 1
     __________________________________________________________________

To Sunday School Teachers And Other Soul-winners

   (No. 1137)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 19, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one converts him,
   lethim know, thathe which converts the sinner from the error ofhis way
   shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins."
   James 5:19,20.

   JAMES is pre-eminently practical. If he were, indeed, the James who was
   called, "The Just," I can understand how he earned the title, for that
   distinguishing trait in his character shows itself in his Epistle, and
   if he were "the Lord's brother," he did well to show so close a
   resemblance to his great Relative and Master who commenced His ministry
   with the practical Sermon on the Mount.

   We ought to be very grateful that in the Holy Scriptures we have food
   for all classes of Believers and employment for all the faculties of
   the saints. It was right that the contemplative should be furnished
   with abundant subjects for thought--Paul has supplied them--he has
   given to us sound doctrine, arranged in the symmetry of exact order. He
   has given us deep thoughts and profound teachings. He has opened up the
   deep things of God. No man who is inclined to reflection and
   thoughtfulness will be without food so long as the Epistles of Paul are
   extant, for he feeds the soul with sacred manna.

   For those whose predominating affections and imagination incline them
   to more mystic themes, John has written sentences aglow with devotion
   and blazing with love. We have his simple but sublime Epistles,
   Epistles which, when you glance at them, seem in their wording to be
   fit for children, but when examined, their sense is seen to be too
   sublime to be fully grasped by the most advanced of men. You have from
   that same eagled-eyed and eagle-winged Apostle the wondrous visions of
   the Revelation where awe, devotion and imagination may enlarge their
   flight and find scope for the fullest exercise.

   There will always be, however, a class of persons who are more
   practical than contemplative, more active than imaginative. And it was
   wise that there should be a James, whose main point should be to stir
   up their pure minds by way of remembrance and help them to persevere in
   the practical Graces of the Holy Spirit. The text before me is perhaps
   the most practical utterance of the whole Epistle. The whole Epistle
   burns, but this ascends in flames to Heaven! It is the culmination as
   it is the conclusion of the letter. There is not a word to spare in it.
   It is like a naked sword, stripped of its jeweled scabbard and
   presented to us with nothing to note but its keen edge.

   I wish I could preach after the fashion of the text, but if I cannot, I
   will at least pray that you may act after the fashion of it. Downright
   living for the Lord Jesus is sadly needed in many quarters. Christian
   garnishing we have enough of, but solid, everyday, actual work for God
   is what we need. If our lives, however unornamented they may be by
   leaves of literary or polite attainments, shall, nevertheless, bring
   forth fruit unto God in the form of souls converted by our efforts, it
   will be well. They will then stand forth before the Lord with the
   beauty of the olive trees, which consist in its fruitfulness.

   I call your attention very earnestly to three matters. First, here is a
   special case dealt with--"If any of you do err from the truth, and one
   converts him." While speaking of that special case the Apostle declares
   a general fact, "He who converts the sinner from the error of his ways
   shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins." When
   I have spoken of these two points, I mean, thirdly, to make a
   particular application of the text--not at all intended by the Apostle,
   but I believe abundantly justified--an application of the text to
   increased effort for the conversion of children.

   I. First, then, here is A SPECIAL CASE DEALT WITH. Read the verse and
   you will see that it was that of a backslider from the visible Church
   of God. The words, "If any of you," must refer to a professed
   Christian. The erring one had been named by the name of Jesus and for
   awhile had followed the Truth of God. But in an evil hour he had been

   betrayed into doctrinal error and had erred from the Truth. It was not
   merely that he fell into a mistake upon some lesser matter which might
   be compared to the fringe of the Gospel, but he erred in some vital
   doctrine--he departed from the faith in its fundamentals. There are
   some Truths of God which must be believed--they are essential to
   salvation--and if not heartily accepted the soul will be ruined. This
   man had professed orthodoxy, but he turned aside from the Truth on an
   essential point.

   Now, in those days the saints did not say, as the sham saints do now,
   "We must be largely charitable and leave this Brother to his own
   opinion. He sees the Truth of God from a different standpoint and has a
   rather different way of putting it--but his opinions are as good as our
   own--and we must not say that he is in error." That is at present the
   fashionable way of trifling with Divine Truth and making things
   pleasant all round. Thus the Gospel is debased and another gospel
   propagated. I should like to ask modern Broad Churchmen whether there
   is any doctrine of any sort for which it would be worth a man's while
   to burn or to lie in prison. I do not believe they could give me an
   answer, for if their latitudinarianism is correct, the martyrs were
   fools of the first magnitude!

   From their writings and their teachings, it appears to me that the
   modern thinkers treat the whole compass of revealed Truth with entire
   indifference and, though perhaps they may feel sorry that wilder
   spirits should go too far in free thinking, and though they had rather
   they would be more moderate, yet, upon the whole, so large is their
   liberality that they are not sure enough of anything to be able to
   condemn the reverse of it as a deadly error. To them black and white
   are terms which may be applied to the same color, as you view it from
   different standpoints. Yes, and so are equally true in their esteem.
   Their theology shifts like the Goodwin Sands and they regard all
   firmness as so much bigotry. Errors and truths are equally
   comprehensible within the circle of their charity.

   It was not in this way that the Apostles regarded error. They did not
   prescribe large-hearted charity towards falsehood, or hold up the
   errorist as a man of deep thought whose views were "refreshingly
   original." Far less did they utter some wicked nonsense about the
   probability of there living more faith in honest doubt than in half the
   creeds. They did not believe in justification by doubting, as our
   neologians do. They set about the conversion of the erring
   professor--they treated him as a person who needed conversion--and
   viewed him as a man who, if he were not converted, would suffer the
   death of his soul and be covered with a multitude of sins.

   They were not such easy-going people as our cultured friends of the
   school of "modern thought," who have learned, at last, that the Deity
   of Christ may be denied, the work of the Holy Spirit ignored, the
   Inspiration of Scripture rejected, the Atonement disbelieved and
   regeneration dispensed with! They say the man who does all this may be
   as good a Christian as the most devout Believer! O God, deliver us from
   this deceitful infidelity which, while it does damage to the erring
   man, and often prevents his being reclaimed, does yet more mischief to
   our own hearts by teaching us that Your Truth is unimportant, falsehood
   a trifle and so destroys our allegiance to the God of Truth and makes
   us traitors, instead of loyal subjects, to the King of kings!

   It appears from our text that this man, having erred from the Truth,
   followed the natural logical consequence of doctrinal error and erred
   in his life as well, for the 20th verse, which must, of course, be read
   in connection with the 19th , speaks of him as a "sinner converted from
   the error of his way." His way went wrong after his thought had gone
   wrong. You cannot deviate from Truth without being wrong, in some
   measure--at any rate, deviating from practical righteousness. This man
   had erred from right acting because he had erred from right believing.
   Suppose a man shall imbibe a doctrine which leads him to think little
   of Christ? He will soon have little faith in Him and become little
   obedient to Him and so will wander into self-righteousness or
   licentiousness.

   Let him think lightly of the punishment of sin and it is natural that
   he will commit sin with less compunction and burst through all
   restraints. Let him deny the need of the Atonement and the same result
   will follow if he acts out his belief. Every error has its own
   outgrowth, as all decay has its appropriate fungus. It is in vain for
   us to imagine that holiness will be as readily produced from erroneous
   as from truthful doctrine! Do men gather grapes off thorns, or figs off
   thistles? The facts of history prove the contrary.

   When the Truth of God is dominant, morality and holiness are abundant.
   But when error comes to the front, godly living retreats in shame. The
   point aimed at with regard to this sinner in thought and deed was his
   conversion--the turning of him around, the bringing him to right
   thinking and to right acting. Alas, many professed Christians do not
   look upon backsliders in this light--neither do they regard them as
   hopeful subjects for conversion. I have known a

   person who has erred hunted down like a wolf. He was wrong to some
   degree, but that wrong has been aggravated and dwelt upon till the man
   has been worried into defiance! The fault has been exaggerated into a
   double wrong by ferocious attacks upon it. The manhood of the man has
   taken sides with his error because he has been so severely handled. The
   man has been compelled, sinfully, I admit, to take up an extreme
   position and to go further into mischief, because he could not stand to
   be denounced instead of being reasoned with.

   And when a man has been blameworthy in his life, it will often happen
   that his fault will be blazed abroad, retailed from mouth to mouth, and
   magnified until the poor erring one has felt degraded--and having lost
   all self-respect--has given way to far more dreadful sins. The object
   of some professors seems to be to amputate the limb rather than to heal
   it. Justice has reigned instead of Mercy. Away with him! He is too foul
   to be washed, too diseased to be restored! This is not according to the
   mind of Christ, nor after the model of Apostolic Churches. In the days
   of James, if any erred from the Truth and from holiness, there were
   Brethren found who sought their recovery and whose joy it was, thus, to
   save a soul from death and to hide a multitude of sins.

   There is something very significant in that expression, "Brethren, if
   any of you do err from the truth." It is akin to that other word,
   "Considering yourself, also, lest you also be tempted," and that other
   exhortation, "Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." He
   who has erred was one ofyourselves, one who sat with you at the
   Communion Table, one with whom you took street counsel. He has been
   deceived and by the subtlety of Satan he has been decoyed. But do not
   judge him harshly. Above all do not leave him to perish unpitied. If he
   never was a saved man, he is still your Brother and it should be your
   business to bring back the prodigal, and so to make glad your Father's
   heart. "Still, for all his slips," he is one of God's children.

   Follow him up and do not rest till you lead him home again. And if he
   is not a child of God. If his professed conversion was a mistake, or a
   pretence--if he only made a profession, but had not the possession of
   vital godliness--yet still follow him with sacred importunity of
   love--remembering how terrible will be his doom for daring to play the
   hypocrite and profane holy things with his unhallowed hands. Weep over
   him if you feel compelled to suspect that he has been a willful
   deceiver, for there is sevenfold cause for weeping. If you cannot
   resist the feeling that he never was sincere, but crept into the Church
   under cover of a false profession, I say, sorrow over him the more, for
   his doom must be the more terrible and, therefore, the greater should
   be your commiseration for him. Seek his conversion, still.

   The text gives us clear indications as to the persons who are to aim at
   the conversion of erring Brethren. It says, "If any of you do err from
   the truth, and one converts him." One what? One minister? No, anyone
   among the Brethren. If the minister shall be the means of the
   restoration of a backslider, he is a happy man and a good deed has been
   done. But there is nothing said here concerning preachers or pastors,
   not even a hint is given--it is left open to any member of the Church.
   And the plain inference, I think, is this--that every Church member
   seeing his Brother err from the truth, or else in practice, should set
   himself, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to this business of
   converting this special sinner from the error of his way.

   Look after strangers by all means, but neglect not your Brothers and
   Sisters. It is the business, not of certain officers appointed by the
   vote of the Church hereunto, but of every member of the body of Jesus
   Christ, to seek the good of all the other members. Still there are
   certain members upon whom in any one case this may be more imperative.
   For instance, in the case of a young Believer, his father and his
   mother, if they are Believers, are called upon by a sevenfold
   obligation to seek the conversion of their backsliding child. In the
   case of a husband, none should be so earnest for his restoration as his
   wife--and the same rule holds good with regard to the wife. So, also if
   the connection is that of friendship, he with whom you have had the
   best acquaintance should lie nearest to your heart--and when you
   perceive that he has gone aside, you should, above all others, act the
   shepherd towards him with kindly zeal.

   You are bound to do this to all your fellow Christians, but doubly
   bound to do it to those over whom you possess an influence which has
   been gained by former intimacy, by relationship, or by any other means.
   I beseech you, therefore, watch over one another in the Lord and when
   you see a Brother overtaken in a fault, "you which are spiritual,
   restore such an one in the spirit of meekness." You see your duty--do
   not neglect it! Brethren, it ought to cheer us to know that the attempt
   to convert a man who has erred from the Truth of God is a hopeful one.
   It is one in which success may be looked for and when the success comes
   it will be of the most joyful character.

   Verily it is a great joy to capture the wild, wandering sinner, but the
   joy of joys is to find the lost sheep which was once really in the fold
   and has sadly gone astray. It is a great thing to transmute a piece of
   brass into silver, but to the poor woman it was joy enough to find the
   piece of silver which was silver, already, and had the king's stamp on
   it, though for awhile it was lost. To bring in a stranger and an alien
   and to adopt him as a son suggests a festival--but the most joyous
   feasting and the loudest music are for the son who was always a son,
   but had played the prodigal--and yet after being lost was found, and
   after being dead was made alive again!

   I say, ring the bells twice for the reclaimed backslider! Ring them
   till the steeple rocks and reels! Rejoice doubly over that which had
   gone astray and was ready to perish, but has now been restored. John
   was glad when he found poor backsliding, but weeping Peter, who had
   denied his Master. He cheered and comforted him, and consorted with him
   till the Lord, Himself, had said, "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love
   Me?" It may not appear so brilliant a thing to bring back a backslider
   as to reclaim a harlot or a drunk--but in the sight of God it is no
   small miracle of Grace--and to the instrument who has performed it, it
   shall yield no small comfort.

   Seek, then, my Brothers and Sisters, those who were of us but have gone
   from us! Seek those who still linger in the congregation but have
   disgraced the Church and are put away from us, and rightly so, because
   we cannot countenance their uncleanness. Seek them with prayers, tears
   and entreaties, if perhaps God may grant them repentance that they may
   be saved. Here I would say to any backsliders who are present, let this
   text cheer you if you have a desire to return to God. Return, you
   backsliding children, for the Lord has bid His people seek you! If He
   had not cared for you He would not have spoken of our search after you.
   But having put it so and made it the duty of all His people to seek
   those who err from the faith--there is an open door before you--and
   there are hundreds who sit waiting like porters at the gate to welcome
   you!

   Come back to the God whom you have forsaken, or if you never did know
   Him, O that this day His Spirit may break your hearts and lead you to
   true repentance, that you may in real truth be saved! God bless you,
   poor Backsliders! If He does not save you, a multitude of sins will be
   upon you and you must eternally die. God have mercy upon you, for
   Christ's sake.

   II. We have opened up the special case and we have now to dwell upon a
   GENERAL FACT. This general fact is important and we are bound to give
   it special attention, since it is prefaced with the words, "Let him
   know." If any one of you has been the means of bringing back a
   backslider, it is said, "Let him know." That is, let him think of it,
   be sure of it, be comforted by it, be inspirited by it. "Let him know"
   it, and never doubt it. Do not merely hear it this morning, beloved
   fellow Laborer, but let it sink deep into your heart.

   When an Apostle Inspired of the Holy Spirit, says, "Let him know," I
   evoke you, do not let any indolence of spirit forbid your ascertaining
   the full weight of the Truth. What is it that you are to know? To know
   that he who converts a sinner from the error of his way shall save a
   soul from death! This is something worth knowing, is it not? To save a
   soul from death is no small matter. Why, we have men among us whom we
   honor every time we cast our eyes upon them, for they have saved many
   precious lives! They have manned the lifeboat or they have plunged into
   the river to rescue the drowning. They have been ready to risk their
   own lives amid burning timbers that they might snatch the perishing
   from the devouring flames. True heroes, these, far worthier of renown
   than your bloodstained men of war. God bless the brave hearts! May
   England never lack a body of worthy men to make her shores illustrious
   for humanity.

   When we see a fellow creature exposed to danger our pulse beats quickly
   and we are agitated with desire to save him. Is it not so? But the
   saving of a soul from death is a far greater matter! Let us think what
   that death is! It is not non-existence. I do not know that I would lift
   a finger to save my fellow creature from mere non-existence! I see no
   great hurt in annihilation--certainly nothing that would alarm me as a
   punishment for sin. Just as I see no great joy in mere eternal
   existence if that is all that is meant by eternal life, so I discern no
   terror in ceasing to be. I would as soon not be as be, so far as mere
   colorless being or not being is concerned.

   But eternal life in Scripture means a very different thing to eternal
   existence. It means existing with all the faculties developed in
   fullness of joy--existing not as the dried herb in the hay, but as the
   flower in all its beauty. To die, in Scripture, and, indeed, in common
   language, is not to cease to exist! Very wide is the difference between
   the two words to die and to be annihilated. To die as to the first
   death is the separation of the body from the soul--it is the resolution
   of our nature into its component elements. To die the second death is
   to separate the man, soul and body, from his God,

   who is the life and joy of our manhood. This is eternal destruction
   from the Presence of the Lord and from the Glory of His power. This is
   to have the palace of manhood destroyed and turned into a desolate ruin
   for the howling dragon of remorse and the hooting owl of
   despair--forever.

   The descriptions which Holy Scripture gives of the second death are
   terrible to the last degree. It speaks of a "worm that never dies." A
   "fire that never can be quenched." Of "the terror of the Lord" and
   "tearing in pieces." Of the "smoke of their torment which goes up
   forever and ever." And of "the pit which has no bottom." I am not about
   to bring all these terrible things together, but there are words in
   Scripture which, if pondered, might make the flesh creep and the hair
   stand on end at the very thought of the Judgment to come. Our joy is
   that if any of us are made, in God's hands, the means of converting a
   man from the error of his ways, we shall have saved a soul from this
   eternal death! That dreadful Hell the saved one will not know. That
   wrath he will not feel. That being banished from the Presence of God
   will never happen to him! Is there not a joy worth worlds in all this?

   Remember the addition to the picture. If you have saved a soul from
   death you have introduced it into eternal life. By God's good Grace
   there will be another chorister among the white-robed host to sing
   Jehovah's praise! Another hand to smite eternally the harpstrings of
   adoring gratitude. Another sinner saved to reward the Redeemer for His
   passion. Oh, the happiness of having saved a soul from death! And it is
   added, that in such case you will have "covered a multitude of sins."
   We understand this to mean that the result of the conversion of any
   sinner will be the covering up of all his sins by the atoning blood of
   Jesus. How many those sins are, in any case, none of us can tell, but
   if any man is converted from the error of his ways, the whole mass of
   his sins will be drowned in the red sea of Jesus' blood and washed away
   forever.

   Now remember, your Savior came to this world with two objects--He came
   to destroy death and to put away sin. If you convert a sinner from the
   error of his ways you are made like He in both these works. After your
   manner, in the power of the Spirit of God, you overcome death by
   snatching a soul from the second death, and you also put away sin from
   the sight of God by hiding a multitude of sins beneath the Propitiation
   of the Lord Jesus. Observe here that the Apostle offers no other
   inducement for soul-winners. He does not say if you convert a sinner
   from the error of his ways you will have honor. True philanthropy
   scorns such a motive!

   He does not say if you convert a sinner from the error of his ways you
   will have the respect of the Church and the love of the individual.
   Such will be the case, but we are moved by far nobler motives! The joy
   of doing good is found in the good itself--the reward of a deed of love
   is found in its own result. If we have saved a soul from death and
   hidden a multitude of sins, that is payment enough, though no ear
   should ever hear of the deed and no pen should ever record it. Let it
   be forgotten that we were the instrument, if good is but effected. It
   shall give us joy even if we are not appreciated and are left in the
   cold shade of forgetfulness. Yes, if others wear the honors of the good
   deed which the Lord has worked by us, we will not murmur--it shall be
   joy, enough, to know that a soul has been saved from death--and a
   multitude of sins have been covered.

   And, dear Brothers and Sisters, let us remember that the saving of
   souls from death honors Jesus, for there is no saving souls except
   through His blood. As for you and for me, what can we do in saving a
   soul from death? Of ourselves nothing, any more than that pen which
   lies upon the table could write "Pilgrim's Progress!" Yet let a Bunyan
   grasp the pen and the matchless work is written. So you and I can do
   nothing to convert souls till God's eternal Spirit takes us in
   hand--but then He can do wonders by us and get Himself glory by us--and
   it shall be joy enough for us to know that Jesus is honored and the
   Spirit magnified! Nobody talks of Homer's pen. No one has encased it in
   gold, or published its illustrious achievements. Nor do we wish for
   honor among men--it will be enough for us to have been the pen in the
   Savior's hand with which He has written the Covenant of His Grace upon
   the fleshy tablets of human hearts. These are golden wages for a man
   who really loves his Master--Jesus is glorified--sinners are saved.

   Now I want you to notice, particularly, that all that is said by the
   Apostle, here, is about the conversion of one person. "If any of you do
   err from the truth, and one converts him, let him know that he who
   converts the sinner from the error of his ways shall save a soul from
   death." Have you ever wished you were a Whitfield? Have you ever felt,
   young man, in your inmost soul, great aspirations to be another
   McCheyne, or Brainerd, or Moffat? Cultivate the aspiration, but at the
   same time be happy to bring one sinner to Jesus Christ, for he who
   converts one is bid to know that no mean thing is done! He has saved a
   soul from death and covered a multitude of sins. And it does not say
   anything about the

   person who is the means of this work. It is not said, "If a minister
   shall convert a man, or if some noted eloquent Divine shall have worked
   it."

   If this deed shall be performed by the least babe in our Israel. If a
   little child shall tell the tale of Jesus to its father. If a servant
   girl shall drop a tract where some one poor soul shall find it and
   receive salvation. If the most humble preacher at the street corner
   shall have spoken to the thief or to the harlot, and such shall be
   saved, let him know that he that turns any sinner from the error of his
   ways, whoever he may be, has saved a soul from death and covered a
   multitude of sins! Now, Beloved, what comes out of this but these
   suggestions? Let us long to be used in the conversion of sinners! James
   does not speak concerning the Holy Spirit in this passage, nor of Jesus
   Christ, for he was writing to those who would not fail to remember the
   important Truths of God which concern both the Spirit and the Son of
   God. But yet it may be right, here, to remind you that we cannot do
   spiritual good to our fellow creatures apart from the Spirit of God.
   Neither can we be blessed to them if we do not preach to them "Jesus
   Christ and Him crucified." God must use us, but oh, let us long to be
   used! Pray to be used and cry to be used!

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, let us purge ourselves of everything that
   would prevent our being employed by the Lord! If there is anything we
   are doing, or undoing, any evil we are harboring, or any Grace we are
   neglecting which may make us unfit to be used of God, let us pray the
   Lord to cleanse, mend and scour us till we are vessels fit for the
   Master's use. Then let us be on the watch for opportunities of
   usefulness. Let us go about the world with our ears and our eyes open,
   ready to take advantage of every occasion for doing good. Let us not be
   content till we are useful and make this the main design and ambition
   of our lives. Somehow or other we must, and will, bring souls to Jesus
   Christ!

   As Rachel cried, "Give me children, or I die," so may none of you be
   content to be barren in the household of God! Cry and sigh until you
   have snatched some brand from the burning and have brought at least one
   to Jesus Christ, that so you, also, may have saved a soul from death
   and covered a multitude of sins.

   III. And, now, a few minutes, only, to the point which is not in the
   text. I want to make A PARTICULAR APPLICATION of this whole subject to
   the conversion of children. Beloved Friends, I hope you do not
   altogether forget the Sunday school. And yet I am afraid a great many
   Christians are scarcely aware that there are such things as Sunday
   schools at all. They know it by hearsay but not by observation.
   Probably in the course of 20 years they have never visited the school,
   or concerned themselves about it. They would be gratified to hear of
   any success accomplished, but though they may not have heard anything
   about the matter, one way or the other, they are well content.

   In most Churches you will find a band of young and ardent spirits
   giving themselves to Sunday school work. But there are numbers of
   others who might greatly strengthen the school who never attempt
   anything of the sort. In this they might be excused if they had other
   work to do. But, unfortunately, they have no godly occupation but are
   mere killers of time--while this work which lies ready to hand, and is
   accessible and demands their assistance--is entirely neglected. I will
   not say there are any such sluggards here, but I am not able to believe
   that we are quite free from them, and therefore I will ask Conscience
   to do its work with the guilty parties.

   Children need to be saved! Children may be saved! Children are to be
   saved by instrumentality! Children may be saved while they are
   children. He who said, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and
   forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven," never intended
   that His Church should say, "We will look after the children by-and-by
   when they have grown up to be young men and women." He intended that it
   should be a subject of prayer and earnest endeavor that children, as
   children, should be converted to God! The conversion of a child
   involves the same work of Divine Grace and results in the same blessed
   consequences as the conversion of an adult.

   There is the saving of the soul from death, in the child's case, and
   the hiding of a multitude of sins. But there is this additional matter
   for joy--that a great preventive work is done when the young are
   converted. Conversion saves a child from a multitude of sins. If God's
   eternal mercy shall bless your teaching to a little prattler, how happy
   that boy's life will be compared with what it might have been if it had
   grown up in folly, sin, shame and had only been converted after many
   years! It is the highest wisdom and the truest prudence to pray for our
   children that while they are yet young their hearts may be given to the
   Savior--

   "It will save them from a thousand snares, To mind religion young.
   Grace will preserve their following years, And make their virtues
   strong."

   To reclaim the prodigal is well, but to save him from ever being a
   prodigal is better! To bring back the thief and the drunk is a
   praiseworthy action, but so to act that the boy or girl shall never
   become a thief or a drunk is far better!

   Therefore Sunday school instruction stands very high in the list of
   philanthropic enterprises and Christians ought to be most earnest in
   it. He who converts a child from the error of his way prevents, as well
   as covers, a multitude of sins. And, moreover, it gives the Church the
   hope of being furnished with the best of men and women. The Church's
   Samuels and Solomons are made wise in their youth. Davids and Josiahs
   were tender of heart when they were tender in years. Read the lives of
   the most eminent ministers and you shall usually find that their
   Christian history began early. Though it is not absolutely necessary,
   yet it is highly propitious to the growth of a well-developed Christian
   character, that its foundation should be laid on the bottom of youthful
   piety.

   I do not expect to see the churches of Jesus Christ ordinarily built up
   by those who have, through life, lived in sin, but by the bringing up
   in their midst, in the fear and admonition of the Lord, young men and
   women who become pillars in the House of our God. If we want strong
   Christians we must look to those who were Christians in their youth.
   Trees must be planted in the courts of the Lord while yet young if they
   are to flourish well and long. And, Brothers and Sisters, I feel that
   the work of teaching the young has, at this time, an importance
   superior to any which it ever had before, for at this time there are
   abroad those who are creeping into our houses and deluding men and
   women with their false doctrine. Let the Sunday schools of England
   teach the children well!

   Let them not merely occupy their time with pious phrases, but let them
   teach them the whole Gospel and the Doctrines of Grace intelligently.
   And let them pray over the children and never be satisfied unless the
   children are turned to the Lord Jesus Christ and added to the
   Church--and then I shall not be afraid of Popery. Popish priests said
   of old that they could have won England back, again, to Rome, if it had
   not been for the catechizing of the children. We have laid aside
   catechisms, I think with too little reason, but at any rate, if we do
   not use godly catechisms we must bring back decided, plain, simple
   teaching--and there must be pleading and praying for the conversion of
   the children--the immediate conversion of children unto the Lord Jesus
   Christ.

   The Spirit of God waits to help us in this effort. He is with us if we
   are with Him. He is ready to bless the most humble teacher and even the
   infant classes shall not be without a benediction. He can give us words
   and thoughts suitable to our little auditory. He can so bless us that
   we shall know how to speak a word in season to the youthful ear. And
   oh, if it is not so, if teachers are not found, or, being found, are
   unfaithful, we shall see the children that have been in our schools go
   back into the world like their parents--hating religion because of the
   tedium of the hours spent in Sunday school--and we shall produce a race
   of infidels, or a generation of superstitious persons! The golden
   opportunity will be lost and most solemn responsibility will rest upon
   us. I pray the Church of God to think much of the Sunday school. I
   beseech all lovers of the nation to pray for Sunday schools. I entreat
   all who love Jesus Christ and would see His kingdom come, to be very
   tender towards all youthful people and to pray that their hearts may be
   won to Jesus.

   I have not spoken, this morning, as I should like to speak, but the
   theme lies very near my heart. It is one which ought to press heavily
   upon all our consciences, but I must leave it. God must lead your
   thoughts into it. I leave it, but not till I have asked these
   questions--What have you been doing for the conversion of children,
   each one of you? What have you done for the conversion of your own
   children? Are you quite clear upon that matter? Do you ever put your
   arms around your boy's neck and pray for him and with him? Father, you
   will find that such an act will exercise great influence over your lad.
   Mother, do you ever talk to your little daughter about Christ and Him
   Crucified? Under God's hands you may be a spiritual as well as a
   natural mother to that well-beloved child of yours.

   What are you doing, you who are guardians and teachers of youth? Are
   you clear about their souls? You weekday schoolmasters, as well as you
   who labor on Sunday--are you doing all you should that your boys and
   girls may be brought, early, to confess the Lord? I leave it with
   yourselves. You shall receive a great reward if, when you enter Heaven,
   as I trust you will, you shall find many dear children there to welcome
   you into eternal happiness! It will add another Heaven to your own
   Heaven, to meet with heavenly beings who shall salute you as their
   teacher who brought them to Jesus. I would not wish to go to Heaven
   alone--would you?

   I would not wish to have a crown in Heaven without a star in it because
   no soul was ever saved by my means--would you? There they go, the
   sacred flock of blood-bought sheep! The great Shepherd leads them. Many
   of them are followed by twins, and others have, each one, their lamb.
   Would you like to be a barren sheep of the great Shepherd's flock? The

   scene changes. Hearken to the tramping of a great host! I hear their
   war music. My ears are filled with their songs of victory! The warriors
   are coming home and each one is bringing his trophy on his shoulder, to
   the honor of the great Captain. They stream through the gate of pearl!
   They march in triumph to the celestial Capitol, along the golden
   streets, and each soldier bears with him his own portion of the spoil.
   Will you be there? And being there will you march without a trophy and
   add nothing to the pomp of the triumph? Will you bear nothing that you
   have won in battle, nothing which you have ever taken for Jesus with
   your sword and with your bow?

   Again, another scene is before me: I hear them shout the "harvest home"
   and see the reapers bearing, everyone, his sheaf. Some of them are
   bowed down with the heaps of sheaves which load the happy
   shoulders--these went forth weeping, but they have come again
   rejoicing--bringing the sheaves with them. Yonder comes one who bears
   but a little handful, but it is rich grain--he had but a tiny plot and
   a little seed corn entrusted to him--and it has multiplied well
   according to the rule of proportion. Will you be there without so much
   as a solitary ear? Never having plowed nor sown, and therefore never
   having reaped? If so, every shout of every reaper might well strike a
   fresh pang into your heart as you remember that you did not sow--and
   therefore could not reap.

   If you do not love my Master, do not profess to do so! If He never
   bought you with His blood, do not lie to Him and come to His Table and
   say that you are His servant! But if His dear wounds bought you, give
   yourself to Him and if you love Him feed His sheep and feed His lambs!
   He stands here unseen by my sight, but recognized by my faith! He
   exhibits to you the marks of the wounds upon His hands and His feet,
   and He says to you, "Peace be unto you! As My Father has sent Me, even
   so I send you. Go you into all the world and preach the Gospel to every
   creature, and know this, that he that converts a sinner from the error
   of his ways shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of
   sins."

   Good Master, help us to serve you! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--James 5.
     __________________________________________________________________

Morning And Evening Songs

   (No. 1138)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "To show forth Your loving kindness in the morning, and Your
   faithfulness every night." Psalm 92:2.

   IT is a notion of the Rabbis that this Psalm was sung by Adam in
   Paradise. There are no reasons why we should believe it was so and
   there are a great many why we should be sure it was not. It is not
   possible that Adam could have sung concerning brutish men and fools,
   and the wicked springing as grass, while as yet he was the only man,
   and himself un-fallen. Still, at least the first part of the Psalm
   might have fallen as suitably from the lips of Adam as from our
   tongues, and if Milton could put into Adam's mouth the language--

   "These are Your glorious works, Parent of good, Almighty, shine this
   universal frame. Thus wondrous fair, Yourself how wondrous then!" He
   might with equal fitness have made him say, "It is a good thing to give
   thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto Your name, O Most High:
   to show forth Your loving kindness in the morning, and Your
   faithfulness every night; for You, Lord, have made me glad through Your
   work: I will triumph in the works of Your hands."

   The Jews have, for a long while, used this Psalm in the synagogue
   worship on their Sabbath and very suitable it is for our Sunday--not so
   much in appearance, for there is little or no allusion to any Sabbatic
   rest in it--but because on that day, above all others, our thoughts
   should be lifted up from all earthly things to God Himself. The Psalm
   tunes the mind to adoration and so prepares it for Sunday worship. It
   supplies us with a noble subject for meditation--the Lord, the Lord
   alone, lifting us up even above His works into a contemplation of
   Himself and His mercies toward us. Oh, that always on Sunday, when we
   come together, we might assemble in the spirit of praise, feeling that
   it is good to give thanks unto the name of the Most High--and would God
   that always when we were assembled we could say, "You, Lord, have made
   me glad through Your work: I will triumph in the works of Your hands."

   There is no doubt that in this second verse there is an allusion to the
   offering of the morning and the evening lambs, for, in addition to the
   great Paschal celebration, once a year, and the other feasts and fasts,
   each of which brought Christ prominently before the mind of those Jews
   who were instructed by the Spirit of God, a lamb was offered every
   morning and every evening, as if to remind them that they needed daily
   cleansing for daily sin. For then there was always a remembrance of
   sin, seeing that the one great Sacrifice which puts away sin forever
   had not yet been offered, though now, in these, our days, we need no
   morning or evening lamb. The very idea of a repetition or a rehearsal
   of the Sacrifice of Christ is, to us, most horribly profane and
   blasphemous, yet we should remember continually the one Sacrifice and
   never wake in the morning without beholding "the Lamb of God which
   takes away the sin of the world," nor fall to sleep at night without
   turning our eyes anew to Him who, on the bloody tree, was made sin for
   us.

   Our text, however, is meant to speak to us concerning praise. Praise
   should be the continual exercise of Believers. It is the joyful work of
   Heaven--it should be the continual joy of earth. And we are taught by
   the text, I think, that while praise should be given only to the One
   who is in Heaven, and we should adore perpetually our Triune God, yet
   there should be variety in our unity. We bless the Lord and the Lord
   alone. We have no music but for Him, but we do not always praise Him
   after the same fashion. As there were different instruments of
   music--the ten-stringed instrument or decachord, the psaltery, the
   harp--so, too, there are different subjects--a subject for the morning
   and a subject for the evening--loving kindness to be shown forth at one
   time and faithfulness to be sung at another.

   I wish that men studied more the praise they profess to present unto
   God. I sometimes find, even in our own public song, simple as it is,
   that there evidently is a lack of thought among us--for time is not
   maintained with the precision which would grow out of thoughtfulness.
   There is a tendency to sing more slowly, as if devotion were wearying,
   if not wearisome. And too frequently I fear the singing gets to be
   mechanical, as if the tune mastered you and you did not gov-

   ern the tune by making those inflections and modulations of voice which
   the sense would suggest if you sang with all your hearts and with all
   your understandings.

   The very posture of some people indicates that they are going through
   the hymn, but the hymn is not going through their hearts, nor ascending
   to God on the wings of soaring gratitude. I have also noticed with sad
   reflections the way in which, if there happens to be a chorus at the
   close--a "Hallelujah," or "Praise God"--some will drop into their seats
   as if they had not thought enough to remember that it was coming, and
   then, with a jerk, all in confusion, they stand up again, being so
   asleep in heart that anything out of the common is too much for them.
   Far am I from caring for postures or tones, but when they indicate lack
   of heart, I do care, and so should you. Remember well that there is no
   more of music to God's ear in any service than there is of heart-love
   and holy devotion. You may make floods of music with your organ if you
   like, or you may make equally good music--and some of us think
   better--with human voices, but it is not music to God, either of
   instrument or of voice, unless the heart is there. And the heart is not
   fully there--the man, the whole man, is not fully there--unless the
   soul glows with the praise.

   In our private praise, also, we ought to think more of what we are
   doing and concentrate our entire energies for the sacred exercise.
   Ought we not to sit down, before we pray, and ask our understanding,
   "What am I going to pray for? I bow my knee at my bedside to
   pray--ought I not to pause and consider the things I ought to ask for?
   What do I need, and what are the promises which I should plead? And why
   is it that I may expect that God should grant me what I want?" We would
   pray better if we occupied more time in consideration. And so when we
   come to praise we ought not to rush upon it, helter skelter, but engage
   in it with prepared hearts.

   I notice that when musicians are about to discourse sweet music there
   is a tuning-up. There is a preparation and there are rehearsals which
   they perform before they go through their music in public. So our soul
   ought to rehearse the subject for which it is about to bless God and we
   ought to come before the Lord, both in public and in private, with
   subjects of praise which our thought has considered, not offering unto
   the Lord that which has cost us nothing, but with a warm heart pouring
   out before His Throne adoration grounded upon subjects of thanksgiving
   appropriate to the occasion.

   So it seems the Psalmist would have us do--"To show forth Your loving
   kindness in the morning, and Your faithfulness every night." It is not
   mere praise, but varied praise, praise with distinct subjects at
   appointed seasons. Upon this we are about to speak for a little while.
   And we shall speak first--here is a subject for morning worship.
   Secondly, here is another for evening devotion. And this last, before
   we close our discourse, we shall try to practice.

   I. First, then, notice MORNING WORSHIP--"To show forth Your loving
   kindness in the morning." "In the morning." There cannot be a more
   suitable time for praising God than in the morning! Everything around
   is congenial to it. Even in this great wilderness of brick the gleams
   of sunlight in these summer mornings seem like songs, songs without
   words--or rather music without sounds. And out in the country where
   every blade of grass twinkles with its own drop of dew, and all the
   trees glisten as if they were lit up with sapphire by the rising
   dawn--and when a thousand birds awake to praise their Maker, making
   harmonious concerts, all with all their hearts casting their entire
   energies into the service of holy song--it seems most fit that the key
   of the morning should be in the hand of praise--and that when the
   daylight lifts its eyelids it should look out upon grateful hearts.

   We ourselves have newly risen from our beds and if we are in a right
   state of mind we are thankful for the night's sleep--

   "The evening rests our wearied head, And angels guard the room. We
   wake, and we admire the bed That was not made our tomb."

   Every morning is a sort of resurrection. At night we lay us down to
   sleep, stripped of our garments, as our souls are of their bodies when
   we come to die. But the morning wakes us and if it is a Sunday morning
   we do not put on our workday clothes, but find our Sunday dress ready
   to hand. Even thus shall we be satisfied when we wake up in our
   Master's likeness, no more to put on the soiled raiment of earth, but
   to find it transformed into a Sunday robe in which we shall be
   beautiful and fair, even as Jesus our Lord, Himself!

   Now, as every morning brings to us, in fact, a resurrection from what
   might have been our tomb, and delivers us from the image of death which
   through the night we wore, it ought to be saluted with thanksgiving. As
   the great Resur-

   rection morning will be awakened with the sound of the trumpet's
   far-sounding music, so let every morning, as though it were a
   resurrection to us, awaken us with hymns of joy!--

   "All praise to You who safe have kept,

   And have refreshed me while I slept!

   Grant, Lord, when I from death shall wake,

   I may of endless life partake."

   "To show forth Your loving kindness in the morning." We are full of
   vigor then! We shall be tired before night comes round--perhaps in the
   heat of the day we shall be exhausted. Let us take care, while we are
   fresh, to give the cream of the morning to God. Our poet says--

   "The flower, when offered in the bud, Is no mean sacrifice." Let us
   give the Lord the bud of the day, its virgin beauty, its unsullied
   purity.

   Say what you will about the evening, and there are many points about it
   which make it an admirable season for devotion, yet the morning is the
   choice time. Is it not a queenly hour? See how it is adorned with
   diamonds more pure than those which flash in the crowns of eastern
   potentates! The old proverb declares that they who would be rich must
   rise early. Surely those who would be rich towards God must do so! No
   dews fall in the middle of the day and it is hard to keep up the dew
   and freshness of one's spirit in the worry, care and turmoil of midday.
   But in the morning the dew should fall upon our fleece till it is
   filled and it is well to wring it out before the Lord, and give Him our
   morning's vigor, our morning's freshness and unction!

   You will see, I think, without my enlarging, that there is a fitness in
   the morning for praising God. But I shall not merely confine the text
   to the morning of each day. The same fitness appertains to the morning
   of all our days. Our youth, our first hours of the day of life, ought
   to be spent in showing forth the loving kindness of God. Dear young
   Friends, you may rest assured that nothing can happen to you so blessed
   as to be converted while you are young! I bless God for my having known
   Him when I was 15 years of age, but I have often felt like that
   Irishman who said that he was converted at 20 and he wished it had been
   21 years before. I have often felt the same desire.

   Oh, if it could have been so, that the very first breath one drew had
   been consecrated to God, that it had been possible for the first
   rational thought to be one of devotion--that the first act of judgment
   had been exercised upon Divine Truth and the first pulsing affection
   had been towards the Redeemer who loved us and gave Himself for us!
   What blessed reflections would fill the space now occupied with
   penitent regrets! The first part of a Christian life has charms
   peculiar to itself. In some respects--

   "That age is best which is the first, For then the blood is warmer."

   I know the after part is riper, it is more mellow. There is a sweetness
   about autumn fruit, but the basket of early fruit-- the first ripe
   fruit--this is what God desires! And blessed are they who, in the
   morning, show forth the loving kindness

   of God!

   Or the words may be explained mystically to signify those periods of
   life which are bright like the morning to us. We have our ups and
   downs, our ebbs and flows, our mornings and our nights. Now, it is the
   duty and the privilege, of our bright days, for us to show forth God's
   loving kindness in them. It may be some of you have had so rough a life
   that you consider your nights to be more numerous than your days.
   Others of us could not, even in common honesty, subscribe to such a
   belief. No, blessed be God, our mornings have been very numerous. Our
   days of joy and rejoicing, after all, have been abundant--infinitely
   more abundant than we might have expected they could be, dwelling as we
   do in the land of sorrows. Oh, when the joy days come, let us always
   consecrate them by showing forth God's loving kindness!

   Do not as some do, who, if they are prospering, make a point of not
   admitting to it. If they make money, for instance--well, they are
   "doing pretty well." "Pretty well," do they call it? Time was, when, if
   they had done half so well, they would have been ready to jump for joy!
   How often the farmer, when his crop could not be any larger, and when
   the field is loaded with it, will say, "Well, it is a very fair crop."
   Is that all? Oh, what robbery of God! This talk is far too common on
   all sides and ought to be most solemnly rebuked! When we have been
   enjoying a long stretch of joy and peace, instead of saying that it is
   so, we speak as if--well, well, God has dealt very well with us upon
   the whole, but at the same time He has done for us nothing very
   remarkable.

   I saw a tombstone the other day which pleased me. I do not know that I
   ever saw an epitaph of that kind before. I think it was for a person of
   the age of 80, and it said of her, "who after a happy and grateful
   enjoyment of life, died," and so on. Now, that is what we ought to say,
   but we talk as if, really, we were to be pitied for living--as if we
   were little better off than toads under a hallow, or snails in a tub of
   salt! We whine as if our lives were martyrdoms and every breath a woe.
   But it is not so! Such conduct slanders the good Lord! Blessed be the
   Lord for creating us. Our life has mercies, yes, innumerable mercies.
   And, notwithstanding the sorrows and the troubles of it, there are joys
   and benedictions past all count. There are mornings in which it becomes
   us to show forth the loving kindness of the Lord.

   See, then, the season, the morning of each day, the morning of our days
   and the morning of our brightness and prosperity. The Psalmist suggests
   that the best topic for praise on such occasions is loving kindness.
   And truly I confess that this is a theme which might suit nights as
   well as days, though doubtless he saw an appropriateness in allotting
   this topic to the morning. Verily it might suffice for all the day
   long! Was there ever such a word in any language as that word loving
   kindness? I have sometimes heard Frenchmen talking about their language
   and I have no doubt it is a very beautiful tongue. And Germans glorify
   the speech of the Fatherland and I have heard our Welsh friends
   extolling their unpronounceable language and crying it up as the very
   tongue that was spoken in Paradise! Very likely, indeed!

   But I venture to say that no language beneath the sky has a word in it
   that is richer than this--loving kindness. It is a duplicate
   deliciousness. There are, within it, linked sweetnesses long drawn out.
   Loving kindness. It is a kind of word with which to cast spells which
   should charm away all fears! It was said of Mr. Whitefield that he
   could have moved an audience to tears by saying the word,
   "Mesopotamia." I think he could have done it better with the word,
   "loving kindness." Put it under your tongue, now. Let it lie there.
   LOVING KINDNESS. Kindness. Does that mean kinned-ness? Some say that it
   is the root-sense of the word--kinned-ness, such feeling as we have to
   our own kin, for blood is always thicker than water and we act towards
   those who are our kindred as we cannot readily do towards strangers.

   Now, God has made us of His kin. In His own dear Son He has taken us
   into His family. We are children of God-- "heirs of God and joint-heirs
   with Christ Jesus." And there is a kinned-ness from God to us through
   our great Kinsman, Jesus Christ. But then the word is only half
   understood when you get to that, for it is loving-kindness. For a
   surgeon to set a man's limb when it is out of joint or broken is
   kindness, although he may do it somewhat roughly and in an offhand
   manner. But if he does it very tenderly, covering the lion's heart with
   the lady's hand--then he shows loving kindness. A man is picked up on
   the battlefield and put into an ambulance and carried to the hospital.
   That is kindness. But oh, if that poor soldier's mother could come into
   the hospital and see her boy suffering, she would show him
   loving-kindness, which is something far more!

   A child run over in the street outside yonder, and taken to the
   hospital, would be cared for, I have no doubt, with the greatest
   kindness. But, after all, send for its mother, for she will give it
   loving kindness! And so the Lord deals with us. He gives us what we
   need in a fatherly manner. He does to us what we need in the most
   tender fashion. It is kindness. It is kinned-ness, but it is loving
   kindness. The very heart of God seems written out in this word. We
   could hardly apply it in full force to any but to our Father who is in
   Heaven!

   Now here is a subject for us to sing about in the morning! How shall I
   begin with the hope of going through this subject? It is an endless
   one. Loving kindness begins--ah, I must correct myself--it never did
   begin. It had no beginning. "I have loved you with an everlasting love;
   therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you." Everlasting love,
   therefore, is what we must begin to sing of! And that everlasting love
   was infinite in its preparations, for before we had been created the
   Lord had made a Covenant on our account and resolved to give His
   only-begotten Son, that we might be saved from wrath through Him. The
   loving kindness of God, our Father, appeared in Jesus Christ. Oh,
   Brothers and Sisters, let us always be talking about this!

   I wonder why it is, when we meet each other, that we do not begin at
   once to say, "Brother, have you been thinking over the loving kindness
   of the Lord in the gift of His dear Son?"--for, indeed, it is such a
   marvelous thing that it ought not to be a nine-days' wonder with us. It
   ought to fill us with astonishment every day of our lives!. Now, if
   something wonderful happens, everybody's mouth is full of it and we
   speak to one another about it at once, while like the Athenians, all
   our neighbors are greedy to hear. Let our mouths, then, be full of the
   marvelous loving kindness of God! And for fear we should leave the tale
   half untold, let us begin early in the morning to rehearse the eternal
   love manifested in the great gift of Jesus Christ.

   If we have already spoken about these things, and wish for variety, let
   us speak concerning the loving kindness of God to each one of us in
   bringing us to Jesus. What a history each man's own life is! I suppose
   that if any one of our lives should be fully written, it would be more
   wonderful than a romance. I have sometimes seen a sunset of which I
   have said, "Now, if any painter had depicted that, I should have
   declared that the sky never looked in that way, it is so strange and
   singular." And in the same way, should some of our lives be fully
   written, many would say, "It could not have been so!" How many have
   said of Huntingdon's, "Bank of Faith," for instance, "Oh, it is a bank
   of nonsense"? Yet I believe that it is correct and bears the marks of
   truth upon its very face. I believe that the man did experience all
   that he has written, though he may not always have told us everything
   in the best possible manner.

   Many other people's lives would be quite as wonderful as his if they
   could be written. Speak about, then, the loving kindness of God to
   yourself in particular. Rehearse, if to no other ear, to your own ear,
   and to the ear of God, the wondrous story of how--

   "Jesus sought you when a stranger Wandering from the fold of God," how
   His Grace brought you to Himself and so into eternal life. And then,
   Brethren, sing of the loving kindness of God to yourselves since your
   new birth. Remember the mercies of God! Do not bury them in the grave
   of ingratitude. Let them glisten in the light of gratitude! I am sure
   that you will find this a blessed morning portion--it will sweeten all
   the day.

   The Psalmist would have you begin the day with it, because you will
   need all the day to complete it! Indeed, you will need all the days of
   life and all eternity! And I am half of Addison's mind--though the
   expression is somewhat hyperbolical--

   "But, oh, eternity's too short To utter half Your praise."

   What a blessed subject you have before you--the loving kindness of the
   Lord. Not yourself--not yourself. That is a horrible subject to speak
   upon. When I hear Brethren get up and glory in their own attainments
   and graces, I remember the words of the wise man, "Let another praise
   you, and not your own lips." Above all things, when a man says that he
   has made great advances in sanctification it is sickening and clearly
   proves that he has not learned the meaning of the word "humility." I
   hope the eyes of our friends will be opened and that they will come to
   loathe the devil's meat which now deceives them. May we no longer see
   spiritual self-conceit held up among us as a virtue, but may it be
   shunned as a deadly evil. No, let my mouth be filled with God's praise,
   but not with my own!

   My Brothers and Sisters, let not our tongues be always occupied with
   our griefs! If you have a skeleton in your house, why should you always
   invite every friend who calls upon you to inspect the uncomely thing?
   No! Tell what God has done for you! Tell of His loving kindness! I have
   heard--and I repeat the story because it ought to be repeated, simple
   as it is--of a pastor who frequently called upon a poor bedridden woman
   who, very naturally, always told him of her pains and her needs. He
   knew all about her rheumatism. He had heard of it 50 times and at last
   he said to her, "My dear Sister, I sympathize with you deeply, and I am
   never at all tired of hearing your complaints. But could you not, now
   and then, tell me something about what the Lord does for you--something
   about your enjoyments, how He sustains you under your pain, and so on?"
   It was a rebuke well put and well taken. And ever afterwards there was
   less said about the griefs and more heard about the blessings! Help us
   from now on to resolve, Great God, "To show forth Your loving kindness
   in the morning."

   Thus we have considered the time and the topic. And now we are bound to
   observe the manner in which we are to deal with the subject. The
   Psalmist says we are to show it forth, by which I suppose he means that
   we are not to keep to ourselves what we know about God's loving
   kindness. Every Christian in the morning ought to show it forth, first
   in his own chamber before God. He should express his gratitude for the
   mercies of the night and the mercies of his whole life. Then let him,
   if it is possible, show it forth in his family. Let him gather them
   together and worship the Lord and bless Him for His loving kindness.

   And then when the Christian goes into the world, let him show forth
   God's loving kindness. I do not mean by talking of it to everyone he
   meets, casting pearls before swine, as it would be to some men, but by
   the very way in which he speaks, acts and looks. A Christian ought to
   be the most cheerful of men, so that others should say, "What makes him
   look so happy? He is not rich. He is not always in good health. He has
   his troubles, but he seems to bear all so well and to

   trip lightly along the pathway of life." By our cheerful conversation
   we ought to show forth in the morning God's loving kindness.

   "Ah," says one, "but when you are depressed in spirit?" Do not show it
   if you can help it. Do as your Master said-- "appear not unto men to
   fast." Do not imagine that the appearance of sadness indicates
   sanctity. It often means hypocrisy. To conceal one's own griefs for the
   sake of cheering others betokens a self-denying sympathy which is the
   highest kind of Christianity. Let us present the sacrifice of praise in
   whatever company we may be, but when we get among God's own people,
   then is the time for a whole burnt offering. Among our own kith and kin
   we may safely open our box of sweets. When we find a Brother who can
   understand the loving kindness of the Lord, let us tell it forth with
   sacred delight.

   We have choice treasures which we cannot show to ungodly eyes, for they
   would not appreciate them. But when we meet with eyes which God has
   opened, then let us open the jewelry case and say, "Brother, rejoice in
   what God has done for us. See His loving kindness to me, His servant,
   and His tender mercies which have been ever of old." Thus, beloved
   Friends, I have set before you a good morning's work and I think, if
   God's Spirit helps us to attend to it, we shall come out of our
   chambers with our breath smelling sweet with the praises of God! We
   shall go down into the world without care, much more without anger. We
   shall go calmly to our work and meet our cares quietly and happily.

   The joy of the Lord will be our strength. It is a good rule never to
   look into the face of man in the morning till you have looked into the
   face of God--an equally good rule is to always to have business with
   Heaven before you have any business with earth. Oh, it is a sweet thing
   to bathe in the morning in the love of God! To bathe in it so that when
   you come forth out of the ivory chambers of communion where you have
   been made glad, your garments shall smell of the myrrh and aloes and
   cassia of holiness! Do we all attend to this? I am afraid we are in too
   much of a hurry, or we get up too late. Could we not rise a little
   earlier? If we could steal even a few minutes from our beds, those few
   minutes would scatter their influence over the entire day.

   It is always bad to start on a journey without having looked to the
   harness and to the horse's shoes. And it often happens that the time
   saved by omitting examination turns out to be a dead loss when the
   traveler has advanced a little on his journey. Not one minute, but a
   hundred minutes may be lost by the lack of a little attention at first!
   Set the morning watch with care if you would be safe through the day.
   Begin well if you would end well. Take care that the helm of the day is
   put right. Look well to the point you want to sail to, then whether you
   make much progress or little, it will be so far in the right direction.
   The morning hour is generally the index of the day.

   II. Now, let us turn to the second part of our subject very briefly.
   The Psalmist says, "To show forth Your faithfulness EVERY NIGHT. Now,
   the night, Beloved, is a peculiarly choice time for praising God's
   faithfulness. "Oh," says one, "we are very tired." Well, that may be,
   but it is a pity that we should be reduced to such a condition that we
   are too tired to praise God! A holy man of God always used to say, when
   they said to him, "Can you pray?" "Thank God, I am never too tired to
   pray." If anything can awaken us, the service of Christ should do it!
   There should be, within us, an enthusiasm which kindles at the very
   thought of prayer!

   Have you ever known an army on the march, weary and ready to drop, and
   the band played some enlivening tune which has bestirred the men
   afresh? They have gone over the last few miles as they could not have
   done if it had not been for the inspiration of the strain! Let the
   thought of praising God wake up our wearied energies and let not God be
   robbed of His Glory at the close of the day! The close of the day is
   calm, quiet and fit for devotion. God walked in the garden in the cool
   of the day, before man fell, and Adam went forth to meet Him. Isaac
   walked in the fields at eventide and there he received a blessing. The
   evening is the Sunday of the day and should be the Lord's.

   Now, notice the topic which is set for the evening. It is faithfulness.
   Why? Why, because we have had a little more experience of our God! We
   have a day's more experience than we had in the morning--therefore we
   have more power to sing of God's faithfulness. We look back, now, upon
   the day and see promises fulfilled. May I ask you to look over today,
   my dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ? Can you not notice some
   promises which God has kept towards you? Show forth His faithfulness,
   then. Provision has been given you--He promised to give it--He has
   given it. Protection has been afforded you--more than you know of,
   infinitely more! Guidance, also, has been given in points where you
   otherwise would have gone very much astray.

   Illumination has been granted you. Comfort, also, in a season of
   depression, or upholding in a time of temptation. God has given you
   much, today. If He has taken anything away from you, yet still bless
   His name! It was only what He had given and He had a right to take it.
   Look through the day and you will find that God has acted towards you
   as He promised that He would act. You have had trouble, you say. Did
   not He say, "In the world you shall have tribulation"? Has He not
   spoken concerning the rod of the Covenant? Affliction only illustrates
   His faithfulness. Carefully observe the fulfilled promises of each
   day--it is a good custom to conclude the day by rehearsing its special
   mercies. I do not believe in keeping a detailed diary of each day's
   experience, for one is very apt, for lack of something to put down, to
   write what is not true, or at least not real.

   I believe there is nothing more stilted or untruthful, as a general
   rule, than a religious diary--it easily degenerates into self-deceit.
   Still, most days, it not all our days, reveal singular instances of
   Providence if we will but watch for them. Master Flavel used to say,
   "He that notices Providences shall never be without a Providence to
   notice." I believe we let our days glide by us unobservant of the
   wondrous things that are in them and so miss many enjoyments. As in
   Nature the uneducated person sees but little beauty in the wild
   flowers--

   "The primrose by the river's brim, A yellow primrose is to him, And it
   is nothing more,"

   so we, for lack of thought, let great mercies go by us. They are
   trivial to us, and nothing more. Oh, let us change our ways and think
   more of what God has done, and then we shall utter a song concerning
   His faithfulness every night!

   Do you notice, in the text, that word, "every." It does not say, "to
   show forth His loving kindness every morning," though it means that.
   But concerning the nights it is very distinct. "And His faithfulness
   every night." It is a cold night. Did He not promise winter? And now it
   has come, the cold only proves His faithfulness. It is a dark night,
   but then it is a part of His Covenant that there should be nights as
   well as days. Supposing that there were no nights and no winters--
   where were the Covenant which God made with the earth? But every change
   of temperature in the beautiful changes of the year, and every
   variation of light and shade only illustrate the faithfulness of God!

   If you happen, now, to be full of joy, you can tell of Divine
   faithfulness in rendering love and mercy to you, but if, on the other
   hand, you are full of trouble, tell of God's faithfulness, for now you
   have an opportunity of proving it! He will not leave you. He will not
   forsake you. His Word is, "When you pass through the rivers I will be
   with you: the floods shall not overflow you." Depend upon it, that
   promise will be faithfully fulfilled. Beloved Friends, you who are
   getting old are nearing the night of life, you are peculiarly fitted to
   show forth the Lord's faithfulness. The young people may tell of His
   loving kindness, but the old people must tell of His faithfulness. You
   can speak of 40 or 50 years of God's Grace to you! And you can
   confidently affirm that He has not once failed you. He has been true to
   every Word that He has spoken.

   Now, I charge you, do not withhold your testimony! If we, young people,
   should be silent we would be guilty, but we might speak, perhaps,
   another day. But for you advanced Christians to be silent will be
   sinful, indeed, for you will not have another opportunity in this world
   of showing forth the faithfulness of God. Bear witness now, before your
   eyes are closed in death! The faithfulness of God every night is a
   noble subject for His gray-headed servants. And this it is your great
   business to show forth. O Beloved, let us publish abroad the
   faithfulness of God! I wonder, sometimes, that there should be any
   doubts in the world about the doctrine of the Final Perseverance of the
   saints--and I think the reason why there are any is this--those
   professors who fall are very conspicuous, everybody knows about them.

   If a high-flying professor makes a foul end of his boasts, why, that is
   talked of everywhere! They speak of it in Gath and publish it in the
   streets of Askelon! But, on the other hand, those thousands of true
   Believers that hold on their way, they cannot, of course, say much
   about themselves. It would not be right they should, but I wish they
   would, sometimes, say more about the unfailing goodness and immutable
   truthfulness of God--to be a check to the effect produced by
   back-sliders--so that the world may know that the Lord does not cast
   away His people whom He did foreknow, but that He gives strength to
   them even in their fainting and bears them through.

   If there is any one topic that you Christians ought to speak about
   thankfully, bravely, positively, continuously, it is the faithfulness
   of God to you! It is that upon which Satan makes a dead aim in the
   minds of many tempted ones and,

   therefore, to that you should bring the strength of your testimony,
   that tried saints may know that He does not forsake His people.

   III. And now, to close, I desire in the name of God's people here
   present, TO SHOW FORTH GOD'S FAITHFULNESS THIS VERY NIGHT. My Brothers
   and Sisters, as a Church, let us declare how faithful God has been to
   us! Our

   history as a Church has been very wonderful. When we were few and
   feeble, and brought low, God appeared for us. Then we began to prosper
   and we began, also, to pray. And what prayers they were! Surely the
   more we prayed the more God blessed us. We have now had almost 20 years
   of uninterrupted blessing. We have had no fits and starts. We have not
   sponsored revivals and retreats--but onward has been our course, in the
   name of God, a steady, continued progress-- like the growth of a cedar
   upon Lebanon.

   Up to this time God has always heard prayer in this place. This very
   building was an answer to prayer. There is scarcely an institution
   connected with it but what can write upon its banner, "We have been
   blessed by a prayer-hearing God." It has become our habit to pray and
   it is God's habit to bless us. Oh, let us not waver! Let us not
   hesitate! If we do, we shall be straitened in ourselves, but not in
   God. God will not leave us while we prove Him in His own appointed way.
   If we will but continue mighty in earnest intercession, we may, as a
   Church, enjoy another 20 years, if it so pleases God, of equal or
   greater prosperity! If ever there was a spot on earth where it became
   men to speak well of a faithful God, it is the spot where I stand, and
   I do speak of it to His Glory!

   We have used no carnal attractions to gather people together to worship
   here. We have procured nothing to please their taste by way of
   elaborate music, fine dress, painted windows, processions and the like.
   We have used the Gospel of Jesus without any rhetorical embellishments,
   simply spoken as a man speaks to his friend--and God has blessed
   it--and He will bless it still! Now, dear Friends, each one of you can
   say of yourselves, as well as of the Church, that God has been faithful
   to you. Tell it to your children. Tell them God will save sinners when
   they come to Him, for He saved you! Tell it to your neighbors. Tell
   them He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins if we confess them
   to Him, and to save us from all unrighteousness, for He forgave you.

   Tell every trembler you meet with that Jesus will in nowise cast out
   any that come to Him. Tell all seekers that if they seek they shall
   find, and that to everyone that knocks, the door of mercy shall be
   opened. Tell the most desponding and despairing that Jesus Christ came
   into the world to save sinners, even the very chief. Make known His
   faithfulness every night. And when your last night comes and you gather
   up your feet in the bed, like Jacob, let your last testimony be to the
   Lord's faithfulness! And like glorious old Joshua, end your life by
   saying, "Not one good thing has failed of all the Lord God has
   promised, but all has come to pass."

   The Lord bless you, dear Friends, and give you all to know His loving
   kindness and His faithfulness. Amen and Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 92.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Minister's Plea

   (No. 1139)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 2, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ."
   Philippians 1:19.

   THE Apostle was in prison, in great jeopardy of his life. He was much
   troubled by many who had begun to preach Jesus Christ but did not
   preach Him in a proper spirit. He was often depressed by that which
   came daily upon him, the care of all the Churches. Yet, while he looked
   in the face the evils which surrounded him, he was able to see beyond
   them and to believe that the consequences of all his trials would be a
   real and lasting good. He felt sure that it was a good thing for him to
   be in prison, that it would be a good thing even if he had to die
   there. He felt that it was well that many were preaching Christ--even
   though some did it for the wrong reasons--for Christ was still being
   preached and the result could not be evil. And he felt that the
   troubles and trials of the Churches were good, for somehow or other
   they would be overruled for God's Glory.

   Let us learn from him to look at the end as well as at the beginning of
   things. The bud of our present trouble may have no beauty in it, but
   fair will be the flower which will ultimately develop from it. The
   clouds hang heavily above our heads, but let us not, like little
   children, be alarmed at their blackness, but remember that they are--

   "Big with mercy and will break With blessings on our head."

   Whatever happens to the true servant of the Lord will turn out for the
   furtherance of the Gospel. Therefore will we rejoice in tribulations
   and accept God's will, whatever it may be. But observe that the Apostle
   did not expect that good would arise out of everything, apart from
   prayer. He believed that it would be through the prayer of his beloved
   friends at Philippi, and the supply of the Spirit, that everything
   which happened to him would work to promote his salvation, his
   spiritual advantage and his success as a minister of Christ.

   He looked for the transformation of the evil into good by that sacred
   alchemy of Heaven which can transmute the basest metal into purest
   gold. But he did not expect this to happen apart from the ordained
   methods and ordinary institutions of Grace. He counted upon the result
   because he saw two great agents at work, namely, prayer and the supply
   of the Spirit. Whoever else may be foolish enough to look for effects
   apart from causes, the Apostle was not of their mind. This morning my
   sermon will be mainly upon my own behalf and on the behalf of my
   Brothers in the ministry. We ought, sometimes, to have a sermon for
   ourselves, for we preach a great many for others. And we may the more
   boldly become pleaders on our own account, inasmuch as what we ask for
   is really intended for the profit of our people and for the good of
   Christ's cause.

   My real subject will be, "Brethren, pray for us." The end to which I
   shall drive at will be to excite you to be much in prayer, both for
   myself and all ministers of Christ Jesus, so that everything that is
   occurring abroad and happening personally to any one of us may be
   turned to the best account, "Through your prayer, and the supply of the
   Spirit." Let us speak, first of all, upon the prayer of the Church. And
   then concerning the supply of the Spirit. The two matters are closely
   connected and cannot be separated.

   I. THE PRAYER OF THE CHURCH. The Apostle evidently expected to be
   prayed for. He had the fullest confidence that his Brothers and Sisters
   at Philippi were praying for him. He does not ask for their prayers so
   much as assumes that he is already receiving them. And truly I wish
   that all pastors could always, without doubt, assume that they enjoyed
   the perpetual prayers of those under their charge. Some of us are very
   rich in this respect and this is our joy and comfort, the reward of our
   labor and the strength of our hands. We have abundant evidence that we
   live in the hearts of our people.

   But I am afraid that there are many of my brother ministers who are sad
   because they hear not their people's loving intercessions. They are
   weak because they are not prayed for and unsuccessful because they have
   not so gained their

   people's affections that they are borne upon their hearts at the Mercy
   Seat. Unhappy is that minister who dares not take it for granted that
   his people are praying for him! Paul exceedingly valued the prayers of
   the saints. He was an Apostle, but he felt he could not do without the
   intercessions of the poor converts at Philippi. He valued Lydia's
   prayers and the prayers of her household. He valued the jailer's
   prayers and the prayers of his family. He desired the prayers of
   Euodias and Syntyche, and Clement and the rest--the most of them,
   probably, persons of no great social standing as the world has it--yet
   he valued their supplications beyond all price--and he was as grateful
   for their prayers as for those temporal gifts whereby the Philippians
   had again and again ministered to his necessities.

   If the Apostle thus felt indebted to the pleadings of the brethren, how
   much more may we, who are so far inferior to him! He expected great
   results from the prayers of the Church. That is certain from the text.
   He expected evil to be turned to good and himself to be helped onward
   in the Divine life. Beloved, my heart has no deeper conviction than
   this, that prayer is the most efficient spiritual agency in the
   universe next to the Holy Spirit. He is Omnipotent and does as He
   wills. But next to the Omnipotence of the in-dwelling Spirit is the
   power of prayer. "Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find;
   knock, and it shall be opened to you."

   This great charter of the Church of Jesus Christ confers upon her
   powers which are almost, if not quite, Omnipotent. And if a Church will
   but pray, it shall set in motion the second most potent agent under
   Heaven. The Apostle knew the power of prayer and we know it, too, and
   hope to prove it more and more. Paul expected the people at Philippi to
   be praying for him all the more because his troubles were, just then,
   more heavy than usual. He was sure that this would excite their
   sympathy and so make them plead more eagerly. Truly, if ever there were
   times when the people of God should pray for their ministers, these are
   the times, for the minister of Christ is beset by legions of evils of
   all kinds and has to cut his way through perpetual opposition. The
   Church is sailing, now, like a vessel in the Arctic Sea when the frost
   is setting in and is turning the sea into plates of iron--and each wave
   into an iceberg to block up the vessel's path. These are evil days,
   almost beyond any age that has gone before, and therefore we may exhort
   the Church to pray more importunately, because her prayers are more
   than ever needed.

   Plunging into the middle of my subject, I would say, first, that
   ministers may justly claim the prayers of their Brethren. Every
   Christian should be prayed for. We have each a claim upon the other for
   loving intercession. The members of the body of Christ should have a
   care for one another, but especially should the minister receive the
   prayers of his flock. I have, sometimes, heard his duties called
   arduous, but that word is not expressive enough. The works in which he
   is occupied lie quite out of the region of human power. The minister is
   sent to be God's messenger for the quickening of the dead. What can he
   do in it? He can do nothing whatever unless the Spirit of God is with
   him through the prayers of his Brothers and Sisters.

   He is sent to bring spiritual food to the multitude, that is to say, he
   is to take the loaves and fishes and with them, few as they are, he is
   to feed the thousands! An impossible commission! He cannot perform it.
   Apart from Divine help, the enterprise of a Christian minister is only
   worthy of ridicule. Apart from the power of the Eternal Spirit, the
   things which the preacher has to do are as much beyond him as though he
   had to weld the sun and moon into one, light up new stars, or turn the
   Sahara into a garden of flowers. We have a work to do concerning which
   we often cry, "Who is sufficient for these things?" and if we are put
   to this work but have not your prayers, and in consequence have not the
   supply of the Spirit, we are, of all men, the most miserable.

   Remember, also, that in addition to extraordinary duties, the minister
   is burdened by remarkable responsibilities. All Christians are
   responsible for their gifts and opportunities, but peculiar
   responsibilities cluster around the preacher of the Word. "If the
   watchman warns them not, they shall perish; but their blood will I
   require at the watchman's hands." When I look at Paul laboring night
   and day, weeping, praying, pleading, pouring out his soul in his
   ministry, I feel his example to be such that I cannot attain to it, and
   yet I shall never feel satisfied with anything below that standard. The
   responsibilities resting upon one minister are the same as those which
   press upon another, in proportion to his sphere and capacity of
   service. Oh, unhappy men, if we are found unfaithful!--of criminals,
   the chief--murderers of immortal souls! If we have not preached the
   pure Gospel, we shall be wholesale poisoners of the bread of men, the
   bread which their souls require! We, if we are not true to God, are the
   choice servants of Satan. Judas, himself, was not more the Son of
   Perdition than the man who calls himself an ambassador for Christ and
   yet dares to be unfaithful to the souls of men! Brothers and Sisters,
   we claim your prayers by the solemnity of the responsibility which
   rests upon us!

   Remember, too--what I think is not often noticed--that every true
   minister of Christ who is sent to men's souls, has an experience
   singular and by itself. A physician who has to treat the diseases
   incident to our flesh need not have personally suffered from the
   sicknesses with which he deals. But a physician of souls never handles
   a wound well unless he has felt a like wound himself. The true
   shepherds who really feed the sheep, must, themselves, have gone
   through the experiences of the flock. Did you ever read the life of
   Martin Luther? Then you must have observed the mental storms and
   spiritual convulsions which shook the man. He could not have been so
   influential with his fellow men if he had not felt within himself a
   sort of aggregation of all their sorrows and their struggles.

   You can not bring forth God's living Word to others till first you have
   eaten the roll and it has been in your own stomach like gall for
   bitterness, and yet at times like honey for sweetness. Every successful
   farmer in the Lord's vineyard must, first, have been a partaker of the
   fruit. Yes, and of each kind of fruit, too. Therefore it often happens,
   that to comfort yonder desponding heart, we must have been, ourselves,
   despondent. To console yonder downcast, despairing spirit, we must have
   been despairing, too. To direct the perplexed we must, ourselves, have
   been in dilemma. To ride the whirlwind and come as God's messenger to
   the help of those who are in the storm, we must have, ourselves, been
   tossed with tempest and not comforted.

   David could not have written his Psalms, which, as in a mirror, reflect
   all changes of the human mind, if he had not, himself, been the epitome
   of the lives of all men. And in proportion as God qualifies His
   minister, really and effectually, to feed the souls of His people, that
   minister must go through the whole of their experience. And I ask you,
   whether in such a case, he does not have a claim, and should not have,
   the prayers of the Church of God? Remember, too, that the temptations
   of those who serve God in the public ministry are subtle, numerous and
   peculiar. Do you suppose that when a man attracts thousands to listen
   to him. That when he conducts large agencies successfully. That when he
   wins souls to Christ and edifies the household of faith, that the
   temptation to pride never crosses his soul? Have you not seen men who
   have been set upon a pinnacle of eminence, and their heads have been
   turned, fall, to their own disgrace and to the Church's sorrow?

   Do you wonder at it? If you do, you know not what is in men. And do you
   wonder that ministers are often tempted to grow formal in service?
   Here, so many times in the year, must I come and speak to you, whether
   I am fit to do so or not. How can I always be zealous when even the
   weather has an effect upon nerves and brain? Are you always earnest in
   your hearing? Do you wonder, therefore, that sometimes the preacher
   does not find it easy to be earnest in his speaking? And yet he would
   loathe himself if he dared speak to you what he did not feel and would
   think himself accursed if he dared to preach with cold and chilly lips
   those matchless Truths of God which have been bedewed by the bleeding
   heart of Jesus! We, who would instruct others, must keep up our
   spiritual life to a high point! And yet the temptation is, from our
   familiarity with holy things, to become mechanical in our service and
   to lose the freshness and ardor of our first love.

   I might give many instances of temptations which are peculiar to us,
   but the recital might be of no benefit to you. Suffice it to say that
   there are such. And if by your choice, you place any man, in the name
   of God, in a place where he is so peculiarly assailed by the enemy,
   surely you will not be so ungenerous as to leave him without the
   perpetual support of your extraordinary prayers! Fail not your
   standard-bearer, but form around him a bodyguard of valiant
   intercessors!

   EOD And then, mark you, if any man shall lead the way in the Church of
   God, he will be the main object of the assaults of the enemy. The
   private Christian will have some persecution, but the minister must
   expect far more. His words will be misrepresented and tortured into I
   know not what of evil. And his actions will be the theme of slander and
   falsehood. If he shall speak straight out and boldly, fearless of man,
   and only fearful lest he should grieve his God, he will stir the
   kennels of Hell and make all the hounds of Satan howl at his heels! And
   he may count himself happy if he shall do so, for who is he that wants
   to be on good terms with this evil generation which cares nothing
   whatever for God's Truth, but sets up, for its own church, a church
   which has made a league with Antichrist and a compromise between the
   Gospel and idolatry, so that it may drag down this nation into the
   deeps of Romanism?

   I say, who cares to have honor from this adulterous generation? And
   yet, if a man once dares to provoke its wrath by his faithfulness, he
   needs the prayers of those who believe with him, that he may be
   sustained. Many are the archers who sorely shoot at us and grieve us.
   Pray, therefore, that our bow may abide in strength and that the arms
   of our hands may be made strong by the Mighty God of Jacob! One plea
   more and I will not further add to the points of my argument. Among the
   worst trials of the ministry are the discouragements of it. I do not,
   just now, refer to discouragements from

   the outside world. We expect opposition from that quarter and are not
   discouraged by it. If the world hates us, we remember that it hated the
   Lord before it hated us.

   But our saddest discouragements arise from within the Church and
   congregation. There are those whom we hoped to see converted who go
   back to their old sins and disappoint us. And others who are a little
   impressed, relapse into their natural indifference. There are those who
   are, we hope, right at heart, who nevertheless live inconsistently--for
   many walk so far from Jesus that they pierce us with sorrow. And then
   there are others who were great things and united themselves with the
   Church of God, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even
   weeping, that they are the enemies of the Cross of Christ! They shame
   us! They make the world ask, "Is this your religion?" They open the
   mouths of atheists and infidels and ungodly men of all sorts against
   the precious Christ, Himself, so that He is wounded in the house of His
   friends and put to an open shame by those who ought rather to have laid
   down their lives to promote His cause and Kingdom.

   Oh, if you are called of the Lord to shepherd His flock. And if you
   bear in your bosom the Church of God and the cause of Christ, and live
   for it with all your heart and soul, you shall not live many days
   without many heartbreaking trials! And you will greatly need the supply
   of the Spirit in answer to the prayers of the people of God! Now,
   having stated the case and pleaded not for myself, only, but for all my
   Brothers, let me say, next, that the prayers which are needed are the
   prayers of the entire Church. From some other labor some of you might
   be exempted, but from this service not a single one can be excused.
   "Your prayer," says the Apostle, and he means the prayer of all the
   faithful. My Brothers and Sisters, my fellow worker, you of the Sunday
   school, you of the Evangelistic Society, you who visit from house to
   house--I need your prayers, my Brethren!

   You can sympathize with us. You know something of this way. You can,
   therefore, bear us up with hands that have been exercised in the same
   warfare. We need your prayers, also, who are not workers in any public
   capacity--you who feel you have not the ability or the opportunity. If
   there are such among us, you ought to pray doubly for those who are
   working, and so, in some measure, make amends for your own lack of
   energy. If you feel laid aside from actual service yourselves, so that
   you have to abide by the staff, let your prayers go up doubly for those
   who go down to the battle. Hold up their hands, I pray you, if you can
   do nothing else! We ask the prayers of all who profit by our ministry.
   If you feed upon the Word, pray to God that we may feed others, also.
   If your hearts are ever made glad within you by the Word of God we
   speak, do plead for us that we may have the power of God resting upon
   us yet further.

   If you do not profit we have an equal claim upon you. We beseech you
   pray that you may profit. If we are not suited to teach you, pray the
   Lord to make us suitable. If you discover some lack or deficiency which
   mars our ministry, do not unkindly go and speak of it everywhere, but
   tell the Lord about it. You will be doing more good and acting more
   after the mind of Christ. And--who knows?--the very ministry which is
   flat and unprofitable to you, now, may yet become a great blessing to
   you when you have prayed concerning it.

   Some of you are our spiritual children, begotten unto God by us. Surely
   we don't need to take you by the hand and say, "Brothers and Sisters,
   children, pray for us"? There is between us and you a tie which neither
   life nor death can break. We shall recognize it in eternity. When
   fathers, mothers, husbands and wives will find all human relationship
   forgotten, the relationship which exists between the spiritual father
   and his children shall last on! Therefore, as you feel the tie, yield
   to its gentle persuasions and let your pastor have a very warm place in
   your prayers. You aged men and matronly women, you of experience, you
   of power with God, you who are mighty in your private wrestling--we
   need your prayers! And you young Christians with your new-born zeal--in
   the freshness and vigor of your spiritual life--we need your
   entreaties, too.

   My little children, you who have been added to the Church while yet you
   are boys and girls, there are no intercessions more precious than
   yours! Do not forget your minister when you say, "Our Father which are
   in Heaven." God will hear the petitions of little children who love
   Him. As for those who are not, and could not be here this morning, my
   voice will reach them through the press, and therefore let me say to
   them--You cannot come up to the House of God, but are appointed to lie
   tossing upon the bed of pain. And yet, from you, also, we ask
   intercessory prayer. You are, especially, set to do this service for
   the Church. If you cannot appear in the public assembly, you may in
   secret wrestling bring down power upon that assembly. You keep the
   watches of the weary night when pain forbids your eyelids to find
   rest--let each weary hour be cheered for yourselves and enriched for
   us--by prayers for the Church of God and prayers for us.

   Perhaps to this end some among the Saints are always sick, that
   pleaders for the hours of night may not be lacking. The sleepless
   sufferers change guard before the Mercy Seat, lest, perhaps, there
   should be an hour in the night

   unhallowed by a prayer in which the world should pass away beneath the
   unrestrained wrath of God. Prayer must be kept up like the quenchless
   fire on Israel's altar. We must belt and girdle the world with
   prayer--and the sick ones are they to whom much of the sacred work is
   allotted. I believe in the efficacy of united prayer, but each one must
   pray.

   There would be no clouds unless the drop of dew from each blade of
   grass were exhaled by the sun. Each drop ascending in vapor falls,
   again, in the blessed shower which removes the drought. So the Grace
   that trembles upon each one of you, my Brothers and Sisters, must
   exhale in prayer, and a blessing will come down upon the Church of God.
   Let me suggest for a moment, in passing on, that the prayers of God's
   people ought to go up for the minister in many forms. I think it should
   be daily work. I was pleased to hear one of our Brethren say, the other
   day, what I am sure was true, and true of a great many beside himself,
   that he never did pray for himself without praying for me. That he
   never bowed his knee, morning or night, without remembering the work
   carried on in this place. It ought to be so with us all.

   Besides that, if we expect a blessing on our families through the
   ministry, we should, as a family, ask God to bless that ministry. When
   we come around the family altar, among the petitions never to be
   forgotten should be this--that he who is set to feed our souls may,
   himself, receive the bread of Heaven. Then there are our Prayer
   Meetings, our public gatherings for intercession. Ah, Beloved! I may
   well glory in our Prayer Meetings, for I know not where the like have
   been found continuously, year after year!

   Still, though I may glory, I am not sure that all of you could. For as
   I look around upon you today I cannot help remarking that I see some
   faces on the Sunday which I have never had the pleasure of seeing on
   the Monday evening. Or, if ever I did, I remember it very well, because
   it has not been so common an occurrence that it is likely to slip out
   of my mind. I know there are some who could not come and would be
   neglecting family duties if they did. Their duty and their calling keep
   them from it. At the same time, there are others to whom a gentle hint
   may be serviceable. Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together
   for earnest prayer, as the manner of some is. Beside the Prayer
   Meetings, there ought to be meetings very frequently of Christian
   friends who gather by appointment for this very purpose.

   When they come together, professors often waste time in idle talk which
   would be used to great profit if they spent it in prayer. When two
   Christians meet together for united prayer, among their other
   supplications should be one that the Lord would bless throughout all
   England the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus. Oh, dear Friends, we
   need, more than anything else, to have the Gospel preached with power!
   God forbid we should criticize severely those who may be doing their
   best, but how much preaching is utterly powerless? We need a telling
   ministry. We need a ministry which cuts like a two-edged sword and goes
   through into the very heart! O God, send us thousands of men armed with
   Your Spirit's own sword, endowed with the muscle of Divine Grace and
   gifted with manliness to use the celestial weapon! Pray for such,
   often, not at set times only, but at all convenient seasons.

   And here, let me remark, should there not be special prayer by each
   Christian for his own minister before every service, before going up to
   the House of the Lord, and when he arrives there? Many people have a
   habit of looking into their hats to see the name of the maker whenever
   they get inside a place of worship. They are, themselves, the best
   judges whether it is not a piece of Pharisaic formalism or fashionable
   hypocrisy. There is a formalism about it and we are the very last to
   care about outward forms. Still, what can be a better beginning for a
   service than secret prayer? Then, during the service, how much of
   prayer there should be for the preacher--"Lord, help him to speak Your
   Truth outright. Put Your power into it to send it home to the hearts
   and consciences of the hearers." It is well to pick out someone in the
   congregation, and pray, "Lord, bless the Word to him."

   You would often find God hearing you in that respect. Then, after the
   whole service is done, what can be better than to rake in with earnest
   prayer the good seed which has already been sown? I must not keep you
   longer on this point. Suffice it to add that the prayers of the Church
   of God must always be true prayers to be good for anything, and if they
   are true prayers they will be attended with consistent lives. The man
   who says, "I pray for the Church and pray for the minister," and then
   is a thief in his business, or is guilty of some secret vice--why, he
   is pulling down, not building up! Can unclean hands ever be acceptable
   in prayer? Consistent living there must be, or prayer will be a vanity
   of vanities!

   And there must be consistent effort, too. If I want God to bless the
   Church, I must try to bless it myself, by the gift of my substance, by
   the consecration of my talents, by the laying out of my time for the
   glory of God. To pray one way and to act another is to be a hypocrite!
   When the wheel sticks in the mire--to pray to God to help the cart out
   of it--and never to put my shoulder to the wheel is to mock the Most
   High. We must act as well as pray. And we must believe as well

   as act. We must have faith in the Gospel and faith in prayer! And if,
   beloved Friends, such prayer as this shall go up from this Church, we
   shall continue to enjoy the prosperity we have had for many years! And
   we may hopefully look for an increase of it, though sometimes, I must
   confess, I can hardly look for an increase, for God has blessed us so
   much that we have rejoiced and wondered as we have seen that His hand
   is still stretched out!

   II. The Apostle has put in connection with your prayer THE SUPPLY OF
   THE SPIRIT. "The Spirit of Jesus Christ," does he not say? Yes, because
   the Spirit we need is the Spirit that rested upon Jesus Christ, the
   Spirit which gave power to His ministry, for He said, "The Spirit of
   the Lord is upon Me." That same Spirit we need, even the Spirit who
   represents Christ on earth, for Jesus is gone, but the Comforter abides
   with us as His vicegerent. He moves at Jesus Christ's will and operates
   upon human thought and heart and will, subduing all to God.

   Now the Holy Spirit is essential to every true minister. We must have
   Him. A preacher may save souls without being learned--it is a pity but
   what he should possess a good education--but he can be useful without
   it. The preacher can save souls without eloquence--it is well if he is
   fluent--but even stammering lips may convey the message of life from
   God. But the man of God is nothing without the Spirit of God. It is the
   sine qua non of a ministry from God that it should be in the power of
   the Spirit. The preacher must be, himself, first taught of the Spirit,
   else how shall he speak? And being taught, he must be led as to which
   shall be the proper theme for each occasion, for much of the power of
   true ministry lies in the fitness of the Word to the case of the
   hearer, so that the hearer perceives that his experience is known and
   is met at the time by the ministry.

   The Spirit of God must teach us the Truth and then guide us as to which
   Truth of God is to be spoken. Then the Holy Spirit must inflame the
   minister. The man who never takes fire--how is he sent of God? He who
   never glows and burns--what knows he of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit,
   which is also the Baptism of fire? Pray, therefore, for the supply of
   the Spirit! Without the Spirit every ministry lacks that subtle--I was
   about to say indescribable--something which is known by the name of
   unction. Nobody here can tell what unction is. He knows that the Spirit
   of God gives it and he knows when it is in a discourse and when it is
   absent. Unction is, in fact, the power of God.

   There is an old Romish story, that a certain famous preacher was to
   preach on a certain occasion, but he missed his way and was too late.
   And the devil, knowing of it, put on the appearance of the minister,
   took his place and preached a sermon to the people, who supposed they
   were listening to the famous Divine whom they had expected. The devil
   preached upon Hell and was very much at home, so that he delivered a
   marvelous sermon in which he exhorted persons to escape from the wrath
   to come. As he was finishing his sermon, in came the preacher, himself,
   and the devil was obliged to resume his own form. The holy man then
   questioned him, "How dare you preach as you have done, learning to
   escape from Hell." "Oh," said the Devil, "it will do no hurt to my
   kingdom, for I have no unction."

   The story is grotesque, but the truth is in it. The same sermon may be
   preached and the same words uttered, but without unction there is
   nothing in it. The unction of the Holy One is true pourer. Therefore,
   Brothers and Sisters, we need your prayers that we may obtain the
   supply of the Spirit upon our ministry--otherwise it will lack
   unction--which will amount to lacking heart and soul! It will be a dead
   ministry and how can a dead ministry be of any service to the people of
   God? The supply of the Spirit is essential to the edification of the
   Church of God!

   What if the ministry should be the best that ever was produced, its
   outward form and fashion orthodox and ardent? What if it should be
   continued with persevering consistency? Yet the Church will never be
   built up without the Holy Spirit. To build up a Church, life is
   needed--we are living stones of a living temple. Where is the life to
   come from but from the Breath of God? To build up a Church, there is
   needed light, but where is the light to come from but from Him who
   said, "Let there be light"? To build up a Church, there is needed love,
   for this is the cement which binds the living stones together. But from
   where comes true genuine love, but from the Spirit who sheds abroad in
   the heart the love of Jesus?

   To build up a Church, we must have holiness, for an unholy Church would
   be a den for the devil, and not a temple for God! But from where comes
   holiness but from the Holy Spirit? There must be zeal, too, for God
   will not dwell in a cold house. The Church of God must be warm with
   love, but from where comes the fire except it is the fire from Heaven?
   We must have the Holy Spirit, for to build up a Church there must be
   joy--a joyous temple God's temple must always be! But only the Spirit
   of God produces the fruit of heavenly joy. There must be spirituality
   in the members, but we

   cannot have a spiritual people if the Spirit of God, Himself, is not
   there. For the edification of the saints, then, we must have, beyond
   everything else, the supply of the Spirit.

   And, O Brothers and Sisters, we must have it for the salvation of
   sinners! Here comes the tug of war, indeed! Who can enlighten the blind
   eye? Who can bring spiritual hearing into the deaf ear? Yes, who can
   quicken the dead soul but the eternal, enlightening, quickening Spirit?
   There it lies before us, a vast valley full of bones. Our mission is to
   raise them from the dead. Can we do it? No, by no means, of ourselves.
   Yet we are to say to those dry bones, "Live." Brothers and Sisters, our
   mission is absurd--it is worthy of laughter unless we have your prayers
   and the supply of the Spirit with us--and if we have those, the bones
   shall come to their bones, the skeleton shall be fashioned, the flesh
   shall clothe the bony fabric, the Holy Spirit shall blow upon the
   inanimate body and life shall be there and an army shall throng the
   charnel house!

   Let us but invoke the Spirit and go forth to minister in His might and
   we shall do marvels! And the nation and the world, itself, shall feel
   the power of the Gospel of Jesus! But we must have the Spirit. And, oh,
   we must have the Spirit of God just now, I am sure! It is essential to
   the progress of the Gospel and to the victory of the Truth of God. At
   this moment the Gospel is on trial. It has had its trials before and
   has come out of them like gold from the furnace, purified by the heat.
   But just now they are telling us on all hands that the old-fashioned
   Gospel is effete. I have found myself dubbed in the public prints by
   the honorable title of Ultimus Puritanorum--"the Last of the
   Puritans"--the last preacher of a race that is nearly extinct, the mere
   echo of a departed creed, the last survivor of a race of antiquated
   preachers!

   Ah, my Brothers and Sisters, it is not so! They come, they come, a
   mighty band, to bear on the Truth of God to future ages and even yet
   there are among us men who hold the Truth of God and preach it! Yet
   everywhere we encounter the sneer of the servants of error. They dress
   themselves out in many colors--in blue and scarlet, and fine linen, and
   I know not what-- and they tell us that the day of our stern, gaunt
   religion has passed. Then your wise men, the philosophers, the men of
   thought, the men of culture--they sneer at us. Such preaching of the
   Gospel as ours might have been fine 200 years ago-- might even,
   perhaps, have sufficed for Whitefield and Wesley and the Methodists who
   followed at their heels. But now? In this enlightened 19th century? We
   do not need any more of it!

   From this insult we make our appeal to the God of Heaven. O God, the
   God of Israel, avenge Your own Truth! O You whose mighty hammer can yet
   break rocks in pieces, You have not changed your hammer. Strike and
   make the mountains fall before You. O You whose sacred fire burns in
   Your Word, forever the same flame, You have forbidden us to offer
   strange fire upon Your altar. And we have not done so, but kept, by
   Your Grace, the faith and held to Your Truth. Acknowledge it, we
   beseech You, and prove that it is the Gospel of the blessed God! Let
   the sacrifice that is now before You in the midst of this great nation
   be consumed with the flame from Heaven and let the God that answers by
   fire be God!

   The fact is, the Church only lives in the esteem of men by what she
   does. If she does not convert sinners she has not a reason for
   existing. The proof of the Gospel is not to be found in theories and
   problems, or propositions in catechisms or creeds, or even in
   Scriptural texts alone! The proof of the Gospel lies in what it
   does--and if it does not raise the depressed, if it does not save the
   sinful, if it does not send light into the dark places of the earth--in
   fact, if it does not make sinners into saints and transform the nature
   of men--then let it be thrown on a dunghill, or cast away, for if the
   salt has lost its savor it is therefore good for nothing! But we cry to
   God that the savor of our salt may continue in all its pungency,
   penetrating and preserving power. I ask you to pray that it may be
   so--that God will bring to the front the old Gospel, the doctrines of
   Whitefield and Calvin and Paul, the old Gospel of Christ, and once and
   for all by a supernatural working of the Holy Spirit give an answer to
   those who, in this age of blasphemy and of rebuke, are reviling the
   Gospel of the living God, and would have us cast it behind our backs!

   By the name of Him who never changes, our Gospel shall never change! By
   the name of Christ who is gone to Heaven we have nothing to preach but
   Christ and Him Crucified! By the name of the Eternal Spirit who dwells
   in us, we know nothing but what the Holy Spirit has revealed. To your
   knees, my Brothers and Sisters! To your knees and win for us the
   victory! Feeble as we are and unable as we are to cope with our
   antagonists in any other field but this, we will vanquish them by the
   power of prayer through the supply of the Spirit of God! With you I
   leave it, my own beloved Friends. Through your prayers and the supply
   of the Spirit all will be well. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Philippians 2.
     __________________________________________________________________

Let Him Alone

   (No. 1140)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone." Hosea 4:17.

   TO what purpose these vast assemblies Sunday after Sunday? Why do you
   crowd these aisles and galleries till every seat is occupied, and every
   foot of standing room is filled? Have you, all of you, a zeal to
   worship? Do you all thirst to hear the Word of the Lord? Ah me! I am
   beset with fears and misgivings. My heart is troubled for full many of
   you. Many persons entertain the evil notion that preaching sermons and
   hearing sermons is a light matter. When the occasion is past, the
   exhortation closed, the congregations broken up and the Sunday over,
   they think that all is done and ended. The doors are shut and what they
   have heard they no longer heed any more than if they had been at the
   theater, and the curtain had fallen, and the lights were out.

   To them the Sunday is but as any other day and the preacher but an
   orator who helps them to while away an hour. But it is not so. Whether
   we look for a result from the proclamation of God's Word or not, you
   may be sure God looks for it! No man in his senses sows a field without
   looking for a harvest. No man engages in trade without expecting
   profit. Oh, Sirs, God is not mocked! He does not send His Word that it
   may return unto Him void. Neither does He think that it is enough when
   His servants have been as those who make pleasant music, or sing a
   sweet song and the audience may repair to the sanctuary as they would
   go to a theater--content to be pleased and careless about being
   profited.

   Listen, then, to this solemn lesson! For every Sunday that I occupy
   this place I shall have to give an account before God. My fidelity to
   my congregation is of such solemn moment that were it not for the
   infinite mercy of God in Christ Jesus, I feel it had been better for me
   that I had never been born than to have to render in that account. Oh,
   the faults of which I am, myself, personally conscious! They fill me
   with shame, though they are, I fear, but few compared with what God,
   Himself, beholds in the service I attempt to render!

   But, then, you also will have to answer for every sermon you have heard
   or may yet hear. Dare any of you imagine that an opportunity of hearing
   the Gospel is given to you that you may tread it under foot? Oh, what
   would dying men give to hear the Gospel again! What would lost souls in
   Hell give if they could have the opportunities of Grace again! They are
   priceless beyond all estimate and, as they are so precious, a strict
   account will be taken of them! The hearer who went his way and said, "I
   heard the sermon and I formed a judgment of the preacher's style," and
   flippantly quoted this or that, will find that another view of the
   service has been taken by Almighty God--and another form of reckoning
   will be carried out before His Judgment Seat!

   Do you suppose that the preaching of the Gospel is no more than the
   performance of a play? Or shall men come and listen to the Truth of
   God, as it is in Jesus, preached earnestly to them with less concern
   than to an orator in Parliament? Are death and judgment, Heaven and
   Hell, to be looked upon as common themes which awaken nothing but a
   passing interest? You may judge so if you will--but God's servants dare
   not think so, nor does God, Himself, think so.

   The text suggests these enquiries. It appears that the Ephraimites, or
   rather the whole people of Israel, the 10 tribes, had been warned again
   and again and again--and because they did not turn at the warning, but
   refused the message of God and continued in their sin--at last God was
   provoked with them and He said to His servants, "Ephraim is joined to
   idols: let him alone." No longer waste your powers on careless minds.
   On such a rock as that it is vain to plow. The case is become utterly
   hopeless! Cease your labor. Go somewhere else where your hallowed
   occupation will be more remunerative, where hearts will be touched and
   ears will be opened to the Word. "Ephraim is joined to idols: let him
   alone."

   Fearing lest there may be some in this congregation--no, being
   persuaded that there are some on the verge of being such, I shall try
   to speak, first, upon the sin which provoked this punishment. Then I
   will speak upon the strange punishment. And thirdly, upon such
   practical reasoning as arises out of the whole subject.

   I. WHAT THEN, IS THE SIN WHICH PROVOKES THIS UTTERANCE, "Let that man
   alone"? The sin appeared to be, in Ephraim's case, continuance in
   idolatry. Israel had set up idols. They knew the Lord, but when they
   separated from the tribe of Judah, Jeroboam, in order to keep them from
   going up to Jerusalem, set up golden calves. It was not intended that
   they should worship other gods, but the theory was that they would
   worship God, the true God, through the representation of an ox, which
   represented power.

   It was a symbol which they conceived to be appropriate and instructive,
   just as they tell us nowadays, "We do not want people to worship idols,
   but they are to worship Christ through a representation of a cross, or
   of a man hanging on a crucifix. This will teach them and assist their
   devotions. They are not to worship the image, itself, but to worship
   God through the image. Now, be it never forgotten that this method of
   devotion is expressly forbidden in the Law and is contrary to one of
   the Ten Commandments. "You shall not make to yourself any graven image,
   nor the likeness of anything which is in Heaven above, or in the earth
   beneath, or in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to
   them nor worship them."

   This command was disregarded, and the 10 tribes became practically the
   representatives of the Papist or Ritualist of the present day. They
   worshipped God through images and after a while they went further, (as
   this kind of superstition always does go further)--they began to set up
   false gods and goddesses--Baal, Ashtaroth and the like. Thus at length
   they went aside altogether from the Most High. Prophet after Prophet
   came and said, "If you do this you will be visited with judgments for
   it. The Lord our God is a jealous God and can only be worshipped in the
   manner which He has, Himself, ordained. If you decide to worship Him in
   these new-fangled ways, with these devices and superstitious ordinances
   of your own, He will be angry with you, and will smite you."

   They listened not to these Prophets. Even Elijah, that mightiest of
   God's messengers, gained but a slender hearing from them. Elisha, his
   successor, was equally disregarded. Servant after servant of God's
   household came to them and admonished them in the name of the Lord. It
   was all to no purpose. They despised the message, persecuted those who
   delivered it and in the sequel put many of them to evil deaths. So, at
   last, the Lord said, "They are bound to their idols; they cling and
   cleave to them with a morbid infatuation. Their heart is callous. Their
   purpose stubborn, they will never give them up. Let My servants,
   therefore, return and refrain themselves, and go no more to them.
   Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone."

   I fear the like judgment will come upon the Ritualists of our time, but
   I prefer to deal rather with you who hear me this day. To you, also,
   this bitter foreboding is addressed, or ever your ears are deaf to
   counsel and your conscience numb to reproof. Any vice deliberately
   harbored, any one sin persistently indulged may bring about this
   fearful result. God will speak of you, then, not as an erring creature
   whom it is possible to reclaim, but as a wretched outcast whom it is
   necessary to abandon! A man may be overtaken with a fault. If he has
   been guilty of drunkenness, his conscience rebukes him. Falling into
   that sin once or twice, he has felt, (as well he may), that he has been
   degraded by it. Let that man con-tinue--and I might especially say,
   "Let that woman continue," (for the common use or the constant abuse of
   intoxicating drinks exerts its baneful spell over both sexes)--let
   anyone continue to violate the laws of sobriety--and before long that
   sin will become a rooted habit. Then conscience will cease to accuse
   and God will practically say, "Ephraim is given to his cups: let him
   alone!"

   Or let a man begin some practice of fraud in his business. At first it
   will trouble him--he will feel uneasy. By-and-by his systematic
   dishonesty will bring him no compunction. He will become so familiar
   with crime that he will call it custom and wonder how he could have
   ever been so chicken-hearted as to feel any trouble about it at all!
   God will let him alone and leave him to eat the fruit of his own ways.
   He is given to his sin and his sin will bind him with iron chains and
   hold him a captive.

   I cannot, of course, pick out the special sin of any here present, but
   whatever your sin is, you are warned against it! Your conscience tells
   you it is wrong. If you persevere in it, it may come to be your eternal
   ruin. God will say, "The man is joined unto idols: let him alone!"
   Continuance in sin provokes sentence--especially when that continuance
   in sin is perpetrated in the teeth of many admonitions. A person who
   continues in sin, unwarned, may, comparatively, have but little fault
   compared with another who is frequently and faithfully rebuked.

   The child, who in his early sinfulness was affectionately admonished by
   a gracious mother, who felt the hot drops of her tears fall on his brow
   because his offense had grieved her. The child who was again and again
   admonished when he

   had grown somewhat older, by a faithful father, but laughed to scorn
   paternal teaching and went further and further astray, does not sin at
   all so cheaply as the Arab of the streets who has been poisoned by bad
   example from his youth up. Some of you who have sat under the sound of
   the Gospel, where the Word of God is preached in awful earnestness,
   will sin 10 times more grievously if you despise the exhortations of
   the Lord, than those whose Sundays were wasted by listening to sermons
   which never touched their conscience and were never intended to do
   other than lull the moral sense and charm the taste.

   You, young man, cannot have been warned as you have been of late by
   that kind friend. You cannot have been admonished as you have been,
   lately, by that Bible you have been reading, which has deeply impressed
   you. You cannot have been impressed as you have recently been by the
   example and especially by the dying words, of your departed sister and
   then go on as you used to do, without incurring seven-fold guilt!
   Continuance in sin after admonition is that which provokes God to say,
   "He is joined to his idols: let him alone."

   Remember, too, that where a man becomes guilty of despising the
   chastisements of God and perseveres in his wickedness after having
   suffered for it, there, again, the guilt assumes a double dye. For
   instance, the sailor has been profane, a common swearer. At whatever
   port he has touched he has spent his time in riotous living. But the
   other day he was at sea in a tremendous storm and he cried unto God. He
   escaped, as it were, by the skin of his teeth, and while he was being
   saved from impending death, his heart trembled on account of his guilt.
   Now, if that man, after being saved from shipwreck, goes back to
   blasphemy and debauchery--there will be sharp reckoning with him.

   That soldier who has been in the hospital, laid aside by sickness
   brought on by his own folly, who, after his life was despaired of, has
   nevertheless recovered--if he shall return like a dog to his
   vomit--every sin that he will commit will count for many times as much
   as those sins he rebelled in before that warning. That young man who
   left his father's house in the country, where he had been trained to
   virtue, and came to London, and plunged into its whirlpool of vice, but
   who, in the infinite mercy of God has been snatched like a brand from
   the burning for a while and is able, again, to come up to worship with
   God's people--if he should go back like the sow that was washed to her
   wallowing in the mire--woe be unto him!

   It may be that he will never have God's rod to make him smart again.
   The rod will be put up and the axe of justice will be used before long.
   You know how the Roman lictors, as they went through the street with
   the consul, carried a bundle of rods. And when a culprit was brought
   before the consul, he would say sometimes, "Let him be smitten with
   rods," and they began to unbind the bundle. It was a rule that the
   "fasces," as they were called, should be tightly bound so that it would
   take a long time to unbind them. This was to give time for the criminal
   to make confession, or to plead something as a mitigating circumstance.

   Sometimes, where the case was one of treason, which perhaps the culprit
   repented and confessed, he would be forgiven. They would be, for a
   while, untying the knots, and the consul would look the man in the
   face, to see if there were any signs of relenting, or if he were
   altogether stubborn. Then when the rods were unbound, it was a good
   thing for the criminal if the lictors began to smite him with the rods,
   because that might be a token that he was not to die. But if the rods
   were laid aside and the axe brought forth, then it was known that he
   must die.

   So God has smitten you in mercy. Fever and disease have been God's
   lictors that have used the rods upon you. By-and-by He will say, "Let
   him alone," because He is reserving you for the axe of future and
   inevitable doom. Oh, Sirs, the Lord knows all your hearts! Where are
   you? I may be speaking right into the face of some of you who have
   endured many afflictions and been brought low by poverty and need, or
   by disease and sickness, so that you have come to death's door. And all
   this has been the milder chastisement of God by which He has been
   saying to you, "My Child, do not destroy yourself!" It has been the
   hand of Mercy put upon the bridle of that wild horse of yours, to draw
   him back, that he may not leap with you over the precipice! But if you
   spur him on in defiance of the hand of Mercy, you will be permitted to
   take the leap to your own destruction, for God may say, "He is joined
   to his idols: let him alone."

   Once again. This punishment may be brought, and generally is brought,
   upon men when they have done distinct violence to their conscience.
   Before sin has come to its worst there is a great deal of struggling in
   men's minds. Conscience will not be quiet. It cries out against the
   maltreatment which it suffers from ungodly lives. Many a young man,
   especially if he has been well brought up, and many a young woman, too,
   if she has been trained in religious ways, will have times in which
   they are pulled up short and it comes to this--"I have been wrong. If I
   go further in this wrong I shall suffer for

   it. There is a way of Grace. I see the door of Mercy open to me." They
   have stood hesitating, as if a hand had been laid on their shoulder,
   and they have felt as though they were turned from the wrong and drawn
   into the right way.

   But some have fought against Mercy, and the evil spirit has set before
   them all the sparkle of fleshly lust and worldly pleasure. And at last,
   with a desperate effort, they have dragged themselves away to their
   sins. Now, the next time they do that they will not suffer half the
   compunction. And the next time after that they will have less, still,
   for every time Conscience is violated it becomes less vigorous and is
   more easily tranquillized. I remember an earnest Christian man telling
   me how, before conversion, he used to spend his nights in shameful ways
   and frequently would be in the streets-- though the son of a most
   respectable man--in a state of half intoxication.

   As he stood under a lamp one night, with his brain confused and his
   mind bewildered, he put his hand into his pocket and took out a letter.
   By some strange impulse he was induced to begin to read it. It was a
   tender appeal from a loving, pious sister. Unknown reflections cast
   their shadows across his breast. Taking counsel with himself he
   thought, "Well, what is it to be?" He was sober enough, even then, to
   feel as if he had come to a point. Thinking over the matter, and
   deliberating upon it, it pleased God to lead him to put that letter
   back into his pocket, and say, "I will go home, and I will seek my
   sister's God."

   That resolution proved to be the first step to his conversion--

   "He left the hateful ways of sin, Turned to the fold and entered in."
   Ever afterwards he came to regard this as the crisis of his soul's
   history. He said to me, "If that night I had gone elsewhere and God's
   Spirit had not graciously led me there and then to something like
   decision, it may be that it would have been the very last time my
   conscience ever would have troubled me. And I should have gone headlong
   to destruction." I wonder whether such a time as that may have come to
   some of my hearers! If it is so, O Eternal Spirit, throw in the weight
   of Your Omnipotent influence to decide the will of man for that which
   is good and right--and let not evil win the day!

   Do you not see in the pictures I have drawn and the descriptions I have
   given, some delineation of that aggravated guilt which provokes the
   withering blast of incensed Mercy turned into Wrath which wails forth
   the woe of my text, "Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone"?

   II. Now, I crave your earnest attention to THE SINGULAR
   PUNISHMENT--"Let him alone." Is there anything in this to excite our
   surprise? The calamity is so dire that we may well shudder at it! But
   the sentence is so just and the issue so reasonable that we can only
   acknowledge it to be such as might have been expected. What can be more
   natural? There is a piece of ground. Last year it was fertilized and it
   was sown with good seed, but nothing has come up from it. The year
   before the like pains were bestowed upon it.

   They trenched it, and it has been thoroughly drained. There could not
   have been better seed cast upon it than has been used. Yet nothing grew
   last year. No harvest rewarded the laborer's toil. Year after year its
   hopeless barrenness has vexed the farmer's soul. Farmer, what will you
   do this year? "Do?" he asks. "Why, I will do nothing! What can be done
   with it? Let it alone." Is he not right in his verdict? Here is a man
   grievously sick. The doctor called upon him, but they shut the door in
   his face. He called again and he gained access to the patient--but the
   patient cursed him. He called again and gave him a prescription. The
   sick man took the prescription, tore it in pieces and flung it away.
   What do you mean to do, Doctor? "What can I do?" he says. "I must let
   him alone! What can I do? My services are rejected. I am treated with
   insult! What more remains for me?"

   And here is a sinner in danger of being lost. The Lord says to him,
   "Behold My Son! I have anointed Him to be a Savior. If you trust Him,
   He will save you." This counsel is despised. It is thought nothing of,
   forgotten, neglected, put off--in some cases scoffed at, made a matter
   of ridicule, treated with hatred--and perhaps the deliverer of the
   message is made the subject of persecution. What will God say? Why,
   "That is a case in which I will let him alone! I sent his mother to him
   when he was a child. I sent his Sunday school teacher to him. I sent a
   godly friend to him. I have sent My servant, the minister, to him,
   times out of mind. I have put good books in his way scores of times. It
   is all in vain!"

   Brothers and Sisters, is there anything that can be more reasonable or
   more just than for God, on His part, to say, "Let him alone"? The tree
   never has brought forth any fruit! What need is there to waste any more
   time upon it? It seems right on God's part that He should say, "Let him
   alone." You judge if it is not so! Well, but what happens when a man is

   thus let alone? Why, he is as a great many people would like to be.
   Liberty is given him! No. Let me correct myself--he takes license to
   pursue his own course. He is no more "pestered and bothered about
   religion."

   He is no more fretted and worried in his conscience about duties and
   obligations. God's people begin to let him alone, for, if they speak to
   him, he only growls at them and returns an answer which grieves their
   hearts. So they keep out of his way, or if they do speak to him, their
   word, though given in earnest, is taken in jest. Like water on a slab
   of marble, the warning does not penetrate the surface or affect his
   heart. He has got out of the way of being impressed. Now he has no
   mother to trouble him. She has long slept under the green ward.

   He has no poor old father, now, to talk to him about his sins--he has
   long been carried to Heaven. No minister disturbs him, now, for he
   gives the servant of God a wide berth and keeps clear of him. No books
   come in his way that can at all alarm him--he will not open them if he
   thinks they might. Give him the Sunday newspaper, that is enough for
   him! Give him a book of science, or something that has to do with this
   time. Having put his faith in infidelity, he fortifies his heart
   against fear--he takes care not to trouble himself about religion. No
   qualms or questioning. No doubts or disputes disturb him. No fierce
   temptations or fiery trials distract his peace.

   Everything seems to go merrily and smoothly with him. He is the man to
   make money. He is the jolly fellow that can indulge in sin with
   impunity--put his hand into the fire and take it out again without
   being hurt--where another would be badly burned. He seems to wear a
   charmed life. God has said, "Let him alone!" Those about him envy him--
   but if they knew! If they knew! If they knew! If they knew that God had
   "set him in slippery places," and that "his foot will slide in due
   time," they would no more envy him his prosperity and peace than they
   would envy the bullock that is fattening for the Christmas show, or the
   full-fleshed sheep that is driven to the shambles. His end is
   destruction!

   Perhaps I am speaking to some who are wrapping themselves up quite
   complacently in the idea that the lines have fallen to them in pleasant
   places, that fortune smiles on them and their reputation is in the
   ascendant. They would not wish to have their course altered and yet the
   terrible sentence has gone out against them, "Ephraim is joined to
   idols: let him alone." O men, I pity you from my soul, but I fear you
   will ridicule my sympathy. Alas! Alas, I can but mourn in secret, for I
   see that your day is coming! I have shown you, then, what it is to be
   let alone by God.

   Do you ask, now, "What is the general result of it?" Why, let me tell
   you. For the most part it leads the man into greater sin than he had
   ever committed before. It leads him to become more defiant and more
   boastful than before. Very frequently he becomes a scoffer and a
   skeptic. And not infrequently he becomes intolerant to the poor and a
   persecutor of those who fear the Lord and observe His ordinances.
   Restraints are taken off from him--those moral obligations which curbed
   him and that respect for public opinion which induced him to practice a
   little decency--he has renounced. They are nowhere to be found.

   Vain conceits fill the place of virtuous counsels. He violated
   Conscience and Conscience has left him. He wearied out those who
   rebuked him and they have ceased to reprove him. Or if they rebuke him,
   he turns a deaf ear to their admonitions. He has become like the adder
   that cannot, and will not, hear the wisest charmer. So the man goes
   from bad to worse, still with the full conceit that he is among the
   happiest and most highly favored of mortals! But here is the evil of
   it! The dreadful sound is in my ears! God has said to all the agents
   that might do that man good, "Let him alone!" But wait awhile! He will
   not say that to the agents which can do him harm.

   God has not said to the Devil, "Let him alone!" He will not say to
   Death, "Let him alone!" He will not say to Judgment, "Let him alone!"
   Nor will He say to the devils of Hell, "Let him alone!" He will not say
   to infinite Misery, "Let him alone!" On the contrary, He will let loose
   all the destroying angels against him and the man who was let alone in
   sin shall not be let alone in punishment! I cannot speak of this as I
   could wish. These are things to be thought of and weighed in the soul.
   I pray that you may so weigh them, that, if you have fallen into a
   state of indifference, you may be awakened out of it and resolve that
   it shall not be so any longer. Oh, that you would cry out in terror,
   "God helping me, I will not be one of those of whom God shall say, 'Let
   him alone!' "

   III. THERE ARE SOME PRACTICAL INFERENCES FROM THIS VERY SAD SUBJECT to
   which I must now

   draw your attention. It becomes the preacher, so long as he does not
   know the individual--and this he never can know--to whom God has said,
   "Let him alone!" to try and use the utmost endeavor to awaken every
   careless and indifferent man within his reach. I pray the Spirit of God
   to help me while I try to do so. Some of you are living in this world
   entirely for your own pleasure or your own gain. I do not deny that it
   is right that you should seek gain, or that it is

   natural that you should desire pleasure. Neither do I think that
   attention to the things of God will deprive you of any gain that is
   worth having, or of any pleasure that is desirable. But the sad thing
   is that many of you are living as if there were no hereafter.

   Now, do you really believe that there is no future in reserve for you?
   If you are quite persuaded that you are no better than a dog. If you
   are quite certain that you are nothing but an animal and that in due
   time, when you die, and the worms eat you, that will be the end of
   you--why, Sirs, if I were of the same mind I should have but little to
   say to you! I should wish you to be as virtuous as may be in this
   life--for that is the best way to be happy and to benefit the
   commu-nity--but I do not know that this is any particular business of
   mine. I would leave that matter to the policeman and the magistrate.

   But do you really suppose that you have no higher origin than the flesh
   and no further destiny than to mingle your dust with the mold of the
   earth? Would you like me to speak to you as to a dog? Would you like
   anybody to treat you as a dog? Being, as you say, only a dog, why
   should you not be treated as such? Can you, in your heart of hearts,
   really believe that the cemetery and the shroud, and the sexton's spade
   will be the last of you? You do not believe it! You cannot believe it!
   You may try to persuade yourself that the terrors of judgment to come
   are merely bugbears of the imagination--but there is something within
   you--an irrepressible consciousness of immortality which tells you you
   will live after death.

   God has fixed the conviction of a future state as a kind of instinct in
   men, so that where the Gospel has never come, a future state has been
   conjectured, though for the most part but dimly inferred rather than
   distinctly expected. There has scarcely been a heathen tribe so abject
   but they have had glimmerings of the fact that there is another state
   after death. Well, my dear Sir, I cannot conceive that you have
   degraded yourself into the notion that you are a beast! At any rate, I
   will not allow myself to think that you are a beast. You will live
   somewhere or other after your present career is closed. Does it not
   stand to reason that if you have lived entirely for self there must be
   a reckoning with you?

   Somebody made you! God made you! If you keep a horse or a cow you
   expect some service of it and, if God made you, He must expect you to
   render Him some service. But you have rendered Him none. Though He has
   winked at your disobedience in this life, do you think He will always
   wink at it? Well, if you think so, you are grossly mistaken, for, as
   the Lord lives, there is a Day of Judgment coming when the Lord Jesus
   Christ shall descend from Heaven with a shout and all the dead shall
   rise out of their graves! And all the living shall appear before His
   Great White Throne. You will as certainly be there as you are here!

   And when you are there, you will discover that every secret thought of
   yours has been written down against you and will be read out and
   published before mankind. Then and there, for every idle word you have
   spoken, you will be brought into judgment! Can you think of this as
   possible, even though you may not admit that it is certain? Can you yet
   remain callous, indifferent, unconcerned? Is there not a something in
   your heart that says, "If this is so, it is terrible--it is terrible
   for me! What must I do to be saved?" I am bound to answer you, (and
   cheerfully do I answer you), "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you
   shall be saved."

   Whoever you may be. However far you may have gone astray, trust Jesus,
   dying and bleeding for sinful men, and now gone into the highest
   heavens to plead at the right hand of the infinite Majesty--trust Jesus
   and you shall live! But if you have not Christ to put away your sin, to
   espouse your cause and to plead for you in that Last Great Day--as
   surely as you live, whether you believe it or not, this is true--the
   Judge will say, "Depart from Me you cursed, into everlasting fire in
   Hell, prepared for the devil and his angels."

   And that may happen to you within much less time than you dream. Not
   many Monday nights ago, there came a beloved Christian Sister, here,
   who joined with us in prayer. She was taken ill. She did not leave this
   house conscious. She was taken home with death upon her. Her disease
   proved to be past human aid and in an hour or two she died. I hope
   there will never be another death in this Tabernacle, but more than
   once individuals have been thus called away from our very midst. Before
   this congregation shall have broken up, some of you may have gone to
   the world of spirits! In all probability within this week, one of you
   will be summoned before the Great Judge. If it is you, Sir, or if it is
   you, good Woman, are you ready?

   Are you ready? Do you feel no trouble about that question? Then I think
   you may be among those whom God has given up. But if the question rings
   through your soul like a knell and cuts like a sharp knife, then I pray
   you do not think God has given you up--and do not give yourself up--but
   fly to Jesus! Yes, before you lay your head upon the pillow and

   fall asleep, cry mightily unto the living God to save you so that you
   may be His in the day when the earth and the heavens will be in a blaze
   and ungodly men will sink into Hell! That is the first practical
   inference--it is the preacher's duty to continue to warn men.

   Another practical thought is--if any of you are awakened, be obedient
   to the voice of Conscience and the calling of the Spirit. Oh, if you
   have any life, do not attempt to stifle it! Rather fan it to a flame!
   If you do but feel a little of the pain of penitence, pray God that it
   may deepen into true contrition and sincere repentance. If you feel
   anything, do not, I pray you, repress the feeling if it is anything of
   a spiritual kind. I knew when I was seeking the Lord what it was to
   feel that. I would have given everything I had to be able to repent.
   When on my knees, I felt that if I could but have shed a tear for sin,
   I would have been willing to be poor and blind my whole life long!

   To have a hard heart is an awful thing! It is well, however, when it
   can repent and when the man can smite upon his bosom, with tears, and
   sobs, and groans, and cry, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" If there
   is any tenderness in you, oh, do not crush it out! Do not despise it!
   Look well to it and, above all, fly away to Christ at once! With many a
   man it is, "now or never." Whenever you hear the clock tick, this is
   what it says to you, "Now or never." "Now or never." "Now or never."
   "Now or never." Ah, if some would hear that, it might be the means of
   driving them to the Cross of Christ at once, where they would find
   eternal life!

   Dear young people, especially, do not postpone the thought of eternal
   things while you are young and tender. Do not say, "When I have a more
   convenient season I will send for you." When Grace comes into the heart
   while the heart is yet young and tender, there is less struggling
   against it in most cases. And it is a more cheerful task for the soul
   to submit itself to the power of Christ. The Lord bless that thought to
   you and make it a converting power to your souls.

   And, last of all, if there should be an unhappy individual here who
   says, "I believe God has given me up"--let me ask you a question.
   Friend, does the suggestion of such a thing make you very sad? Then the
   Lord has not given you up! Do you say, "I feel alarmed lest I am given
   up"? Then you are not given up! He is more likely to be given up of God
   who says, "I do not care whether I am or not! Give me my jolly
   companions. Give me my amusements. Give me plenty of money to spend,
   and good health and strength to enjoy myself, and you may have Heaven
   if you like--I will run the risk of the future."

   Ah, Sir, though you talk big, I do not believe in your bravado, for I
   know that many braggadocio sinners are cowards at heart, and I hope,
   notwithstanding what you say, there is something in you that answers to
   the appeals I have made. But there may be some who really mean, down
   deep in their souls, that they have steeled themselves against reproof
   and are prepared to dare all consequences. They stand like oaks I have
   seen shivered from top to bottom by lightning, never to send forth a
   shoot again. Ghastly and grim amidst the forest, they lift up their
   heads as though they were huge deer with antlers, glorying in their
   desolation.

   There are such withered souls, defiant in awful desperation. Oh, if
   there are such here, if they were friends of mine, I would say, "O Man,
   be in pain and travail like a woman with child rather than be damned! O
   Man, better for you that you should, from this moment, begin a life of
   torment and agony, and never look up to God's sun again, and never see
   the fields, nor hear the birds sing with joy, nor ever have a hopeful
   thought of this world again, so that you may but be saved, rather than
   go on with all your mirth and jollity, and then lift up your eyes in
   that eternity to come where you shall be forever, forever, forever
   lost! For, let those say what they will, who are the enemies of your
   soul--I speak the Truth of God before the Lord--if you are lost, you
   will be lost forever!

   And if God once pronounces that word, "Depart, you cursed!" back to Him
   you can never come, but departing, and departing, and departing into
   blacker night, and into denser glooms, you must forever and forever
   continue. This is the dread inscription over the gate of Hell--"All
   hope abandon, you who enter here!" This is branded on their chains and
   stamped upon their fetters! This is the worm that never dies and the
   fire that never can be quenched! The letters of fire that burn overhead
   in the dungeon of eternal despair spell out this word, "Eternity!
   Eternity! Eternity!" O my fellow Men and Women, as I shall meet you at
   the Judgment Seat, I implore you to fly away to Jesus lest you perish
   eternally!

   When your eyes and mine shall meet again in the next state. When we
   have passed through the grave and the resurrection, do not say I did
   not tell you of sin and of punishment and of the Savior! You will not
   dare to say it! But as I, poor guilty sinner as I am, stand there, this
   shall not be one of the sins laid to my charge--that I was not in
   earnest with you--and that I did not speak all that I felt to be the
   Truths of God. To Jesus Christ I fly, myself, on my own account,

   for if I am not washed in His blood, unhappiest of mortals surely am I,
   for I have preached to more men for a larger number of years than any
   other man, perhaps, that lives! And if I have played with souls, I have
   their blood upon me and the most accursed of men am I!

   But I shelter my soul beneath the purple canopy of my Savior's atoning
   blood! My Hearers, come under that same shelter, all of you! There is
   room enough for you! That blessed purple covering will hang between us
   and God even though there were millions of us, and it will cover us
   all! Nor can there be any fear that the dart of Divine Vengeance shall
   smite any of us who will cower down beneath the blood-red Propitiation!
   God save you, Friends, who are strangers here! God save you, Friends,
   who frequent these courts! God save you all for Jesus Christ's sake!
   Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Proverbs 1:20-33.
     __________________________________________________________________

Good News for the Destitute

   (No. 1141)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 9, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their
   prayer." Psalm 102:17.

   OBSERVE that the verse which precedes the text describes the Lord as
   appearing in His Glory. His Zion is to be built up and therefore her
   King puts on the robes of His splendor. The imagery sets forth the Lord
   as a great Monarch, superintending with great pomp and state, the
   building of a sumptuous palace. We see Him commanding the architects
   and the workmen, and passing from point to point amid attending
   courtiers. Trumpets are sounding, banners are displayed, princes and
   nobles glitter in their array and the King appears in His Glory.

   But who is this, whose mournful wail, disturbs the harmony? From where
   comes this ragged beggar who bows before the Prince? Surely he will be
   dragged away by the soldiers, or cast into prison by the wardens for
   daring to pollute so grand a ceremony by such wretched presumption!
   Were there not streets, lanes and dark corners enough for beggars? Why
   need he thrust himself in where his rags are so much out of place? But
   look! The King hears him! The sound of the trumpet has not drowned the
   voice of the destitute.

   His Majesty listens to him while he asks for an alms and in matchless
   compassion pities all his groans. Who is this King, but Jehovah? Of
   Him, only, is it said, "He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and
   not despise their prayer." The verse is enhanced in its beauty by its
   connection, even as a fair jewel receives an added beauty from the
   lovely neck upon which it sparkles. Let us read the verse, again, in
   this soft silver light. "When the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall
   appear in His Glory. He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and
   not despise their prayer."

   It is clear that the heart of the Lord delights in the cries of needy
   souls and nothing can prevent His hearing them. No occupation is so
   sublime as to distract the Lord's attention from the prayer of the most
   humble of His mourners. The songs of seraphs, the symphonies of angels,
   the ceaseless chorales of the redeemed are not more sweet in the ears
   of the all-merciful Jehovah than the faint breathings of poor dying
   wretches who confess themselves condemned by His Justice and,
   therefore, appeal to His lovingkindness and tender mercy!

   This morning I am going to preach about the destitute. I hope there are
   many of them here. At any rate many are here who once were destitute,
   and would be so now, if it were not for the riches of Divine Grace.
   Hear me, you poor in spirit, and may the Lord comfort you by my words.
   Our first work, this morning, shall be to speak about a spiritual
   pauper, the "destitute." Then we will talk of his special
   occupation--it is clear that he has taken to begging, for the text
   speaks twice of his "prayer," and prayer is the essence of begging.

   Then, thirdly, here is a very natural fear of this spiritual beggar,
   namely, that his prayer will not be regarded and will even be despised.
   And then, fourthly, the whole text is a most comfortable assurance to
   this spiritual mendicant that his begging will be successful, for the
   Lord of whom he begs will regard his prayer and will not despise his
   supplication.

   I. First, then, let us go down among the beggars and look upon THE
   SPIRITUAL PAUPER. It will do you good to have your spiritual gentility
   shocked for a while. And it will be a lasting benefit if you are made
   to feel, anew, your own poverty, and to cry, "I am poor and needy, yet
   the Lord thinks upon me." The spiritual pauper is, in our text,
   described as destitute. And you may take the word in its extreme
   sense--the spiritually poor man is not only positively--but utterly,
   thoroughly--terribly destitute!

   He is destitute of all wealth of merit or possession of righteousness.
   Time was, years ago, when he was as good as anybody else, in his own
   esteem, and perhaps a little better. He was rich and increased in
   goods, and had need of nothing. True, he had some faults, but he
   considered them to be outweighed by his excellences. And if he fell,
   sometimes, into error and sin, he had most ingenious excuses with which
   to shift the blame--either some companions beguiled him, or else his
   circumstances necessitated the fault.

   He was a sinner, he admitted that, but he put his own meaning upon the
   title, so that he did not feel degraded by it. He was no vagrant or
   pauper in the universe of God, but rather a fellow citizen with the
   worthy, and of the household of self-satisfaction. He was at least as
   good as the average of men and possibly better than, under present
   circumstances, men may generally be expected to be. And if he did not
   actually claim anything of God by way of merit, it was because he
   deferred to the crotchets of the Protestant religion. But in his inmost
   soul he really thought he could have maintained a decent position on
   the score of good works--and have shown up a very presentable
   righteousness had it been asked for.

   He never did, in his heart, see anything amiss in the Pharisee's
   prayer, "God I thank You that I am not as other men are." He, himself,
   reflected with a very great deal of comfort upon the fact that he had
   never been a drunk, that no profane word had dropped from his mouth,
   that he had been upright in his business and that to all intents and
   purposes he was a reputable and respectable man, worthy of the Divine
   regard. This, however, is all changed.

   The man has come down from an emperor to a penniless beggar. His
   outward character may not have changed, but his own estimate of himself
   is as different as light from darkness. Now he sees the hollowness of
   an outward morality which does not proceed from a renewed heart. Now he
   knows that the sins which he has committed are exceedingly sinful and
   that the religious professions he has made, being nothing better than
   mere pretences--the heart not going with them--were a mockery of God
   and an insult to the Most High.

   Look at him, then, you rich men! Here was one of yourselves, richer
   than most, and far superior to the majority! But now he is as poor as
   the unfeathered bird which cruelty has flung from its nest. He has no
   good work that he dares bring before his God, but he admits to ten
   thousands of sins--every one of which accuses him before the Most High
   and demands punishment at the hands of Justice. He feels this and
   shivers in his wretched rags. Do you inquire, "Where is he?" Is he not
   here at this moment? Can I not see his tears and hear his groans? "God
   be merciful to me, a sinner," is his cry! He is so far from claiming
   anything like merit that he loathes the very thought of
   self-righteousness, feeling himself to be guilty, undeserving,
   ill-deserving, and Hell-deserving--meriting, only to be banished from
   the Presence of God forever!

   There is a kind of destitution which is bearable. A man may be quite
   penniless, but he may be so accustomed to it that he does not care. He
   may even be more happy in rags and filth than in any other condition.
   Persons of this order are well known to the guardians of our
   workhouses. Have you ever seen the lazzaroni of Naples? Notwithstanding
   all their attempts to move your compassion, they generally fail after
   you have once seen them lying on their backs in the sun, amusing
   themselves the livelong day. You feel sure that beggary is their
   natural element. They are perfectly satisfied to be beggars, like their
   fathers, and to bring up their sons to the profession. The ease of
   poverty suits their constitutions.

   But the spiritual pauper is not a member of this free and easy
   lazzaroni club by any manner of means--he is destitute of contentment!
   The poverty which is upon him is one which he cannot endure, or for a
   moment rest under. It is a heavy yoke to him. He sighs and cries under
   it. His is hungering and thirsting after righteousness. He knows there
   is something better than the state into which he has fallen and he
   pines for it. He knows that if he does not escape from his present
   condition he will fall into woes infinitely worse--and he trembles at
   the grim prospect of it. Therefore he sighs and cries before God in
   bitterness of spirit, "Have mercy upon Your poor destitute creature!
   Have mercy upon Your undeserving servant."

   He has no contentment in his poverty. His penury is irksome to the last
   degree and he cannot complacently endure it. A man, however, if he is
   without money, is still not utterly destitute if he has strength--a
   stout pair of limbs can work and earn wages. Such a man will soon get
   out of his destitution. Only give him a chance and those rags will be
   exchanged for decent attire. He will no longer be skin and bones. He
   will improve into good condition--only give him employment and fair
   pay. But this is not the case with the spiritual pauper. He has no
   merit and he cannot earn any. His strength is gone.

   Once he was so strong that he used to think if Heaven were to be
   merited by good works he could do it, or, if not, if eternal life were
   to be had by conversion and by believing in Christ, he could be
   converted at any time, and believe in Jesus just whenever he liked.
   Religion appeared to him to be a very easy matter. "Only believe and
   you shall be saved"-- could that be managed in the twinkling of an eye?
   If ever he heard a sermon about, "Strait is the gate and narrow is the
   way, and few there are that find it," he disliked the doctrine and the
   preacher. He could not agree with such narrow-

   minded views. He felt that he had all requisite spiritual power within
   himself and he did not believe either in natural depravity or spiritual
   inability.

   He had done well in business and was a self-made man. He had worked
   himself up from the lowest ranks into an honorable position--surely he
   could do the same in the matters of his soul as in the affairs of the
   world! That gentleman is not one of the destitute, you clearly see--and
   I have nothing to say to him except that I pray God to take away his
   fancied power from him and make him feel himself to be weak as water.
   The spiritual pauper feels that he can do nothing right and that he
   cannot even think a good thought without the help of Divine Grace. As
   to believing in Jesus, simple as that matter is, he has come to this
   pass--

   "I would, but can't believe, Then all would easy be. I would but
   cannot, Lord, believe, My help must come from Thee."

   He is so staggered with doubts and fears, and so bemisted and beclouded
   with dark remembrances of his past sins that he does not seem able to
   fix his eyes upon the atoning Sacrifice and to find comfort there. He
   is destitute, in the very worst sense, because he is "without
   strength." Still, a man may be very poor at present and he may have no
   power to earn his bread, but he may not be utterly destitute, for he
   may have an estate in reserve. When his long-lived uncle dies he may
   come into a fortune. It may be that in some years' time, if the steed
   can live till then, the grass will be up to its knees. Many a man
   pressingly needs present help, though, by-and-by, he will have enough
   to spare.

   The spiritual pauper has nothing to look forward to which can at all
   alleviate his soul's distress. His future is even gloomier than his
   present. Well do I remember when I looked out upon eternity and saw
   nothing but a fearful prospect of judgment and fiery indignation for
   me! I peered into the future and I could not expect to live a better
   life. I had so often tried and failed that I feared I might be left to
   a callous conscience and go from bad to worse. In fact I knew I would
   unless Christ would interpose and save me. And as for my hope in
   another world, alas, alas, I saw nothing but the Great White Throne, an
   angry Judge and everlasting fire in Hell!

   I had no hopes, but numberless fears. Such is the outlook of every man
   whom God really convinces of sin. He is stripped of hope, itself, and
   the man who has lost hope has lost all--He is destitute with a
   vengeance--for him there remains neither in Heaven nor on earth any
   hope, whatever, unless he can obtain one as the gift of Grace. He has,
   indeed, reason to cry unto his God. A man who is spiritually destitute
   is destitute of all friends who can help him, for those who love him
   best can only pray for him--they cannot save him. We who would help
   him, if we could, can only point him to the Savior. But he has blind
   eyes and how shall he see while he is in the dark?

   He is also destitute of all plans for doing better. Schemers sometimes
   manage to live by their wits when they can no longer subsist by their
   hands, but the poor soul who is really destitute before God has not
   even a plan by which to help himself! All his schemes have turned into
   mere wind bags and his hopes from his own wisdom have altogether failed
   him. He has, in fact, nothing left. Nothing whatever. He is as naked as
   Adam and Eve beneath the trees of the garden when God, their offended
   Maker, met them, and they sought to cover themselves with fig leaves.
   He has come to the very lowest degree of spiritual penury--it is only
   necessary for death to put an end to his present misery for him to be
   in the ruin that will never end.

   Such is the case of the spiritually destitute. I do not know whether I
   have managed to depict, in any way, the state of any really distressed
   conscience here. I have tried to do so, but if I have failed, suffer me
   to add another sentence or two. If any in this place feel that they are
   sinful, feel that they deserve the wrath of God, feel that they cannot
   help themselves. If any feel that unless Infinite Mercy shall interpose
   they must forever be lost. If, moreover, they cannot find any reason
   why they should be saved, cannot find any argument which could move the
   heart of Justice to have pity on them--they are just the very persons
   intended by my description and by the text! I pray them not to put away
   from them the comfort which the text contains, but listen to it as we
   read it again--"He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not
   despise their prayer."

   So much, then, for the spiritual pauper.

   II. Secondly, here is HIS SUITABLE OCCUPATION--he has taken to begging
   and it is a very fitting occupation for him. Indeed, there is nothing
   else he can do! When a man is shut up to one course, it is useless to
   raise objections to his following it, for necessity has no law and
   hunger will break through stone walls. The man can do nothing else but
   beg!

   And so, since we cannot let him perish and he will not, himself, perish
   through lethargy, he turns to do the only thing he can do, namely, to
   begging and praying.

   Blessed is that soul which is shut up to prayer! It thinks itself
   accursed, but, indeed, now the blessing is come upon it. If you feel
   you cannot do anything but pray, and equally feel that you must pray, I
   have hopes for you. If now you dare not appeal to Justice, but simply
   cry, "Mercy, Lord! Mercy, mercy! I have no merits, but, oh, forgive me
   for Your mercy's sake!" I am right glad of it. Why, dear Friends, you
   are shut up in the very same place where David was shut up when he
   could only say, "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your
   lovingkindness; according unto the multitude of Your tender mercies
   blot out my transgressions."

   You are shut up where every soul has been shut up that ever was saved,
   for unless you are driven to admit that nothing can save you but
   undeserved mercy, pity, and free Grace--you have not come to the place
   where God can meet with you in pardon. But when you stand as a
   condemned criminal at the bar and plead, "Guilty, guilty, guilty," then
   you stand where God can look upon you with an eye of pity and can save
   you. The trade of begging is one which is most suitable for a spiritual
   pauper, because, if he cannot do anything else, I guarantee you he can
   do this right well!

   They say in London that many of our beggars are mere actors, they mimic
   distress. If so, they do it uncommonly well and are splendid imitators.
   But I will venture to say that nobody will ask for help so well as the
   man whose distress is real. He needs no one to teach him--starvation is
   his tutor. Take away his diffidence and give him enough courage, and
   his distress will make him eloquent! You may, by chance, have been
   accosted by a man who sought alms with awful eagerness--starvation
   looking out of his eyes--and speaking from his pinched countenance. He
   has held onto you with terrible vehemence and at last has said, "I have
   not eaten anything for many hours."

   You can see by his very looks that it is true. And he adds, "I could
   bear to famish myself, but I have seven little children at home, and
   unless I take them bread they will be crying about me and, therefore, I
   do entreat you to help me." Now, if all this is true and you look into
   the case and find it so, the man's case speaks for itself and he is the
   man to move your heart. He does not need to go to a boarding school to
   learn elocution--need schools his tone--the words drop into their right
   places of themselves and, as to his gestures and postures, they are all
   apt and telling, though no teacher of rhetoric ever gave him a lesson.
   He will be sure to plead rightly, the suit lies heavy on his heart.

   Nobody prays before God like a man who feels his sins. He cries, "God
   be merciful to me, a sinner," and says it as it ought to be said. Ah,
   Brothers and Sisters, some of us have to pray often in public, but we
   never pray so well as when we feel our needs--and the needs of the
   times and of the country--pressing urgently upon our hearts. You,
   yourselves, pray best when your own sense of sin and need most burden
   your souls. You are the men to pray, I say, you destitute people! You
   make the best of beggars, for you are most in need! You pray best who
   feel that you must have mercy or die! There is this to be said about
   the spiritual beggar--he is begging where he is permitted to beg.

   I remember being in Paris on a certain day in the year, I forget the
   name of the festival, and I was astonished at the immense number of
   beggars--and at their perseverance and daring. I had not observed them,
   before, in such swarms and such force, but I found that on one special
   day license was given to the poor, the lame, and the blind to persecute
   everybody for alms! I guarantee you they made good use of the
   permission and needed no pressing or inviting! Spiritual paupers! This
   day, even this day, is a day of Grace! A warrant has come from the
   King's court that you may ask and it shall be given you! You may seek
   and you shall find! You may knock and it shall be opened unto you!

   Yes, every day is a Free-Grace Day! A festival for prayer! As long as
   you live and are in need, you have the King's permit to open your mouth
   wide and He will fill it! You have His royal authority that you may
   come to His Mercy Seat and ask in every time of need right boldly for
   whatever you want! Well may the spiritual pauper take to a trade which
   is permitted by the King of Heaven! He is beggar by appointment to the
   King's Most Excellent Majesty! Yes, more-- spiritual begging is
   commanded by supreme authority--"Men ought always to pray, and not to
   faint." It is the privilege of a sinner to be allowed to ask for
   Grace--it is also the duty of the sinner to seek mercy at the Savior's
   hand!

   "Acquaint, now, yourself with Him and be at peace." "Seek you the Lord
   while He may be found, call you upon Him while He is near." "Let the
   wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let
   him turn unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him, and to our
   God, for He will abundantly pardon." These are promises, but they are
   also precepts, precepts with the weight of commands! Oh, who that is
   poor will be slow to beg when the Lord of Love, Himself, commands him
   to ask? At the back of this there is an implied certainty. There is a
   sacred promise that he

   who asks shall surely receive, for God would not tantalize us by
   commanding us to pray if He had not, at the same time, intended to
   give.

   Let me further remind every spiritually destitute man here that he may
   pray with confidence, because begging has been the source of all the
   riches of the saints. Some of them are rolling in heavenly wealth, for
   all things are theirs! Their mouths are satisfied with good things and
   their hearts are filled with gladness. You may see their riches, for
   the joy of their countenances and the bliss of their daily work are
   visible to all. Do you not envy them, for they feed on Christ every day
   and have the Bread of Heaven always on their tables, and the Water of
   Life always flowing at their feet? Do you know how they became so rich?
   I will whisper it in your ear. They gained all they have by begging.

   "Not very creditable to them," you say. No, but wonderfully creditable
   to HIM who gave them all they have! And they are accustomed to give all
   the honor and the glory to that dear and blessed, and generous Savior
   who has never denied them their requests. If the richest saint on earth
   were to take you into his spiritual mansion, he would say to you, "Do
   you see this treasure and that Covenant blessing, and yonder priceless
   gifts? I obtained all these by begging! I asked and I received. All
   that I have came to me in that way." The Lord has said, "For this will
   I be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them."

   Now, since all the saints on earth have grown rich by begging, I
   recommend you poor, destitute souls to take to the business and you
   will find it the most remunerative one that ever you undertook! You
   cannot dig--do not be ashamed to beg. Your digging will dig your own
   grave, that is all you will do by your self-righteous efforts. But you
   will obtain Grace for the asking, pardon for the asking and Heaven for
   the asking! Who would not be a spiritual beggar when he may be thus
   enriched? One thing more I will say and leave this point--you may begin
   begging at once. You, who are poor in spirit, may begin begging right
   now!

   I could not start in some trades tomorrow morning--I would need the
   capital and should need to go to the wholesale traders and get what I
   needed to stock me in the trade. But a beggar needs neither stock nor
   capital to begin with--all his capital lies in his need of capital! He
   never makes a good beggar till he has nothing left, and then, when his
   clothes are rags and his shoes are old and worn out, and he himself
   looks sick and wan--then he is the man for his business! And you,
   Sinner, you need no preparations in order to ask for mercy! Nothing
   need be done in you, or for you, in order to prepare you for the mercy
   of Christ! You may come to Him just as you are. Tarry not to mend, or
   wash, or cleanse--come in your foulness! Come in your rags! Come in
   your loathsomeness!

   Come just as you are--the worse you are, the more room for the display
   of the wonders of Divine Grace!--

   "Cast your guilty soul on Him,

   Find Him mighty to redeem.

   At His feet your burden lay

   Look your doubts and cares a way.

   Now by faith the Son embrace,

   Plead His promise, trust His Grace." Still, perhaps, there will be some
   here who say, "I do not feel in a fit state to ask for mercy." My dear
   Friends, it is your unfitness that is your fitness! Your poverty fits
   you for alms, your sickness fits you for the physician, your being
   nothing fits you to have Christ made All in All to you! Your emptiness
   is all He wants, that He may fill it with all the fullness of His
   Grace! Take to begging--that is the way to be rich towards God.

   III. But now, thirdly, here is THE BEGGAR'S VERY NATURAL FEAR. He is
   afraid that the great King will

   despise his prayers, or will not regard them. And he is afraid of this,
   first, from the greatness and holiness of that God to whom he addresses
   himself. He is thrice holy--can He regard the cry of one who has been a
   drunk or a harlot? He is infinitely great and fills immensity--can He
   listen to the prayers of a poor little boy, or of a gray-headed old
   rebel, whose only inheritance is a place in the workhouse? Can He look
   on such an insignificant worm as I am, the creature of a day, whose
   non-existence would make no flaw in the universe--whose damnation would
   be no loss to Him?

   Can He look on worthless me? Infinite God and yet listen to my sigh?
   Eternal and yet catch my tears? Can it be? Beloved, many are a long
   while in distress of soul because they do not remember that there is a
   Mediator between God and man--the Man Christ Jesus. God is thus
   glorious, but He is not far from any of us, for there is One who is God
   and at the same time a Man like ourselves, even Jesus, who has
   compassion on the ignorant and on those that are out of the way. Stop,
   then, your fearing, for the gulf is bridged! You may approach the Lord,
   for Jesus has paved the way! The same fear

   takes another shape. Trembling souls are afraid that God can never look
   upon them in love because their prayer itself, is so unworthy of
   notice.

   "I should not wonder if God despised my prayer," says one, "for my
   fellow men despise it. I should not like them to hear it, it is such a
   broken, disconnected affair. I could not expect my own parents to have
   patience with it! And when I get up from my knees I despise my own
   prayer and hardly dare think I have prayed. I feel I have tried and
   failed. I have only groaned because I could not groan and mourned
   because I could not mourn." Ah, yes, but the Lord looks at the heart
   and He does not regard the eloquence nor the style of prayer after the
   manner of man. The Pharisee's was a very fine prayer, I dare say, and
   very well delivered. The poor Publican's prayer was a very poor affair
   by the side of it, and rather undelivered than delivered, for he would
   not so much as lift his eyes towards Heaven, but the Lord heard it and
   had mercy upon him!

   Go and groan before God, that is praying! Go and weep before Him, that
   is praying! You need not get the book down and turn up a liturgy! I do
   not know of one that would quite suit a sinner in utter destitution.
   Men seldom use book prayers when they come before God in real earnest.
   Forms will suffice for playing at praying, but when you come to real
   earnest work with God, you have to put your books away. And you have to
   plead with the Lord with the first words that fly forth from your soul
   like sparks from a piece of hot iron beaten with the hammer. When the
   heart boils and swells with grief, then prayers roll down from the soul
   like lava from Vesuvius, because it cannot help running over and
   burning its way! That is the way to pray! May God help us to pray out
   of our very souls--and then it matters not what form the prayer
   takes--it is beautiful before the Most High.

   "Yes," says one, "but I am afraid my prayer may be disregarded, because
   my needs are so great. If a beggar in the street asks for a copper, he
   may get it. If he were even to venture to ask for silver, he might gain
   it. But if he asked for thousand pound notes he might stand a long time
   in the street corner before he would find one who would supply him.
   Now, Sir, my prayer is for great things--I need the Savior's blood upon
   my conscience! I need the Holy Spirit, Himself, to renew my nature! I
   need the whole Godhead to come and bless me! I need Heaven,
   itself--nothing short of that will satisfy me--and how can I hope that
   such a great prayer as mine will be answered?"

   Ah, dear Soul, you are dealing with a great God, and a great Savior and
   great promises. Do not be afraid to ask for great things, rather be
   afraid of limiting the Holy One of Israel! Open your mouth wide and He
   will fill it! Ah, and I think I hear one exclaim, "He may well despise
   my prayer, for my faith is so weak! If I had more faith, I think, then,
   He would listen to me." Well, but the Lord has never said anywhere that
   He despises little faith. Can you find a passage of Scripture in which
   He says, "I will trample on the bruised reed, and I will quench the
   smoking flax"? If you have ever read a passage of Scripture like that,
   I never have--the whole run of the Bible goes the other way. "He shall
   feed His flock like a shepherd, He shall gather the lambs with His arms
   and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with
   young."

   It seems that the poor and the weak are the chief objects of His care,
   and are not, therefore, rejected. Suppose He bruised and crushed the
   mustard seed--where would be the tree that is to grow out of it?
   Suppose He despised the day of small things--where would the day of
   great things be? "Behold your King comes, meek and lowly, riding upon
   an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass." And as He comes, the little
   children gather round Him and they say, "Hosanna!" Look, He does not
   rebuke them! Rather does He say, "Out of the mouth of babes and
   sucklings have You ordained strength, because of Your enemies." Now,
   your faith is like a little child--God will grant you full manhood
   eventually--but even now He does not despise your feebleness. He looks
   upon it with favor and He hears your prayers.

   Now, somewhere in this place there is a young man in the same condition
   as that in which I was found some 23 years ago. He has learned to weep
   in secret before God and pray for mercy. But he has not found it
   yet--and he is tempted to give it all up. Hearken, dear Brother, to
   this word--"He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise
   their prayer." Cry on and look to Jesus, and you shall find all your
   destitute soul needs! And one of these days you who have learned to
   pray shall learn to praise and bless the prayer-answering God who did
   not suffer the soul of the destitute to perish!

   The Lord visit you at this moment and give you peace!

   IV. Our last head is to be this--our text affords to the destitute
   beggar A MOST COMFORTABLE ASSURANCE.

   "He will regard the prayer of the destitute." Now, Beloved, whatever is
   in Scripture we accept as the Infallible Truth of

   God. We dare not doubt when God speaks--if He says it is so, it is so.
   Others may doubt the Inspiration of Scripture, but we have not gone
   that length yet. Now, poor destitute Sinner, if you believe the
   Scripture to be Inspired, believe this passage--"He will regard the
   prayer of the destitute, and will not despise their prayer."

   Now, there is something about this text I want you to notice, namely,
   that God, in order that destitute sinners should never doubt His
   willingness to hear their prayers, has left this on record with a very
   special note appended to it. I will read you the note, which is in the
   18th verse. "This shall be written for the generation to come, and the
   people which shall be created shall praise the Lord." You see the Lord
   not only said that He would regard the prayer of the destitute, but He
   added, "This shall be written," because, when a poor soul is in doubt
   and fear, there is nothing like having it in black and white. God has
   said it, but, says He, they shall not merely go by their ears, they
   shall see with their eyes.

   "This shall be written." Look at it. There it stands before you,
   written by the pen of Inspiration, no doubt about it. "This shall be
   written for the generation to come," that is, for you! It was not
   merely true in David's time, or in Hezekiah's time, but this shall be
   written for the generation to come--written for you and for your
   children--that God will hear the prayer of the destitute! Blessed be
   His name for that! I recommend, the next time you kneel down to pray,
   to put your finger on this verse and say, "Lord, I have Your Word for
   it. No, more--I have your writing for it. Behold I put it to You--You
   have said, 'This shall be written.' O fulfill this written pledge to
   me!"

   When a man brings my own handwriting to me and says, "You promised me,
   and there is the writing," I cannot get away from it. And how shall the
   Lord draw back from what He has said, "This shall be written for the
   generation to come"? Oh, it must stand true! Be of good courage, poor
   seeking Sinner, God will hear you! Remember, too, that when the Lord
   Jesus Christ was on earth, He used to choose for His associates the
   destitute. "This man receives sinners," they said, "and eats with
   them." "Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to
   hear Him." He would sometimes sit in the house of the Pharisee, but
   while He was there His heart was after the poor woman that came behind
   Him and washed His feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of
   her head--for His heart was always with needy sinners.

   Upon the self-righteous He looked with an eye of indignation. "Woe unto
   you, Scribes and Pharisees," He said-- but to poor guilty sinners He
   always looked with eyes of tenderness. He was ready and glad to receive
   them. In fact, it was His life's work to seek and to save that which
   was lost! Do not be afraid to come, then! Jesus has made a feast and
   has not called in His rich friends nor acquaintances--He has brought in
   the poor, the lame and the blind--for they cannot repay Him, but will
   forever love Him! And such are you. Come, and welcome! Come, and
   welcome! Jesus cast out none when He was here--He will cast out none
   that come to Him now.

   Remember, in the matter of praying, that God loves to hear sinners
   pray. We may be quite sure of that, because He teaches them how to
   pray. There are passages in Scripture where God even puts the words
   into sinners' mouths. He says, "Take with you words, and say unto Him,
   'Receive us graciously, and love us freely, so will we render the
   calves of our lips.' " God must be very fond of prayer when He teaches
   us how to pray! Do not be afraid, therefore, to pour out those broken
   sentences which God the Holy Spirit has taught you. He has never
   despised a sinner's prayer yet! Search and look down the chronicles of
   His Word and see what sinner He ever rejected. Look round among your
   kinsfolk and acquaintance, and find out one who ever fled to Him for
   mercy and was repulsed!

   I appeal to those who are saved on earth and they will tell you that it
   was infinite love and mercy that accepted them. If I could appeal to
   the white-robed hosts in Heaven, they would all tell you that, like
   yourselves, they were destitute. They had to come in forma pauperis
   before the Lord and He did not despise them, nor disregard their
   prayers. I wish I could take a poor trembler by the hand and say, "Dear
   Brother, come with me." Gladly would I do it! I have a hope of Heaven
   this morning and I will tell you what it is. I am as destitute, this
   day, of all righteousness of my own as anyone here can be! My eyes are
   fixed upon the Lord Jesus on the accursed tree. There He is, my
   Substitute, and I trust in Him and in Him, alone.

   Now, if you are enabled by the Spirit of God to look right away from
   yourself and your misery to Christ Jesus, the sinner's Savior, you
   shall have, this very morning, the peace of God which passes all
   understanding to keep your heart and mind--and you shall know that you
   are saved! I am going to close with a remark upon another subject. You
   will have noticed, I dare say, that the whole of this verse is
   connected with the building up of Zion. Therefore there must be

   some connection between the two--and it is just this--the Church of God
   must never expect to see great revivals, nor to see the world converted
   to Christ till she comes before the Lord as destitute!

   I am afraid that when we plead the most with God, we still feel we are
   a very respectable community of Christians with a large number of
   ministers and a number of wealthy laymen, a large amount of Chapel
   property and a good deal of power and influence. You say, "I am rich
   and increased in goods." It may be that all this is the sign of your
   poverty--and we may be naked, and poor, and miserable. But when we get
   right down and feel we are nothing and nobody--and we could not save a
   soul if our lives depended upon it. When we know, by His Grace, that we
   are weak as water and must come to God as utterly impotent apart from
   the power of the Spirit of God--then will the Lord appear in His Glory!
   And then His destitute Church shall become rich in His riches, strong
   in His strength, and victorious in His might!

   We must be brought down! I see among the various denominations too much
   emulation as to their position. We stand in this position and they in
   the other, and the voluntaries are doing such wonders. But, Brothers
   and Sisters, we are just a lot of poor unworthy sinners who owe
   everything we have to the Sovereign Grace of God! And what we are to do
   for God must be accomplished, not by might nor by power, but by His
   Spirit! When we feel this, the building of Zion will come, and not till
   then. The Lord send it!

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 102.
     __________________________________________________________________

Free Pardon

   (No. 1142)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I, even I, am He that blots outyour transgressions for My own sake,
   and will not remember your sins." Isaiah 43:25.

   THIS extraordinary passage is rendered the more remarkable from its
   connection, for it follows a description of the sins of God's people, a
   description which mentions their sins of omission in that they had
   neglected the service of the Most High--and their sins of commission in
   that they had gone so far in breaking God's Law that they had even
   wearied Him with their iniquities. There is the charge--a thousand
   facts prove it--and nothing can be urged by way of extenuation. We
   might expect that the next utterance would be the sentence. And the
   next motion of the Divine hand would be the execution, but, instead of
   that, O wonder of wonders! (Who is a pardoning God like unto You, O
   Jehovah?)--there comes a full remission, a complete absolution--"I,
   even I, am He that blots out your transgressions."

   The verse is succeeded, moreover, by other sentences which go on, still
   further, to convict the people of great sins. The Lord asks them to
   come and plead with Him, if they can. If they have anything to say in
   extenuation of their faults, He gives them an opportunity of speaking
   for themselves. And then He tells them that they had sinned as a nation
   from their very beginning and had continued, still, to sin. Though the
   Lord knew that He would add those words of expostulation, He made a
   break and a pause in the very middle of His righteous accusation, and
   before He had concluded His charge against them, He had already
   forgiven them, and said, "I, even I, am He that blots out your
   transgressions for My own sake."

   The remarkable point is not merely that the absolution contained in the
   text is preceded and succeeded by verses of accusation, but that it
   breaks in upon the connection and cleaves the sense right in the
   middle. The King's messenger of mercy rides through the ranks of the
   men-at-arms in hot haste, sounding his silver bugle as he clears his
   way. He cannot linger, his message is too precious to be made to tarry.
   Sooner may sun and moon stand still than mercy be hindered! Such breaks
   as those, of which the text is a specimen, are very precious to me
   because they show the intense love of God to deeds of Grace and His
   eagerness to perform them. I love these soft showers of Grace and mercy
   all the more because they so abruptly interpose between the tremendous
   peals of thunder of well-deserved wrath.

   It will be our wisdom not only to weigh the text, but to notice the
   practical lesson of its connection, namely, that since God is sure to
   reveal His mercy when it will be most valued, we may conclude that men
   know and prize Divine Mercy most when they most feel the weight of
   their sins. Until a man is consciously condemned and pleads guilty, he
   will not ask for mercy. And if mercy were to come to him, he would
   treat it with disdain. He would look upon the offer of forgiveness as
   an insult, for what better would it be than an insult to pardon an
   innocent man? As well send medicine to a man who was never sick, or
   alms to a millionaire!

   We must be proven guilty, and confess it, before we can be forgiven. We
   must know that we are sick and we must distinctly recognize that our
   sickness is a mortal disease, or else we shall never value the Divine
   Medicine which Jesus came to bring. A sense of sin, although it is
   exceedingly painful, is a most blessed thing, and I pray God, if you
   have never felt how guilty you are, that you may be made to feel it at
   once. If you have never been broken down before the awful majesty of
   Divine Justice, may the Holy Spirit break you down now--for Jesus will
   never clothe those who are not stripped. He will never wash those who
   are not foul, nor will He attempt to heal those who are not wounded.
   Others may spend their strength in flattering human goodness--the Lord
   Jesus has come on another errand and deals only with our sin and
   misery. If you are not poverty-stricken, you will have no dealings with
   the blessed soul-enriching Savior!

   Having thus considered the connection, let us notice two other points.
   The first is the nature of the pardon which is here so graciously
   proclaimed. The second is the effect which this pardon produces upon
   the minds of those who are enabled to receive it.

   I. First, dear Friends, let us carefully notice THE NATURE OF THE
   PARDON WHICH IS HERE SO GRACIOUSLY ANNOUNCED. "I, even I, am He that
   blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and will not remember
   your sins." Note, first, it is a pardon from God Himself, whereupon we
   further observe that it is a pardon from Him who is offended. Sin is
   mainly an attack upon God. It is an offense against His own most
   excellent Person.

   It is treason against His most glorious Sovereignty. God therefore
   feels more, sees more and is more thoroughly affected by the evil of
   sin than anyone else. And the connection of the text shows that He does
   not treat sin as a trifle as some do--that He does not regard it as a
   thing which can be readily passed over--but takes solemn note of the
   sinful omissions and commissions of His people and in due time calls
   them to account, mentioning their sins in a way which shows that He is
   sorely displeased.

   Sin is, in Jehovah's eyes, exceedingly sinful,. It is an abominable
   thing which His soul hates. And yet, notwithstanding this, it is the
   very same God who has such a hatred of sin who, nevertheless, says, "I,
   even I, am He that blots out your transgressions." We have offended God
   and the same offended God forgives us! We have violated His Law and yet
   the Lawgiver, Himself, pardons us! We have insulted His majesty and yet
   the King, Himself, deigns to say, "I, even I, am He that blots out your
   transgressions." This is the more delightful because we know that only
   He could forgive.

   What is the use of forgiveness from one who has not been offended? How
   can I forgive you for a transgression which you have committed against
   another person? He, alone, whose Law has been broken and who is both
   the fountain of justice and the executive of the lair, is able to
   forgive offenses committed! Power to forgive resides nowhere but in the
   great Supreme. And if you obtain pardon from Him, it is pardon beyond
   all question! If some man, like yourself, who takes upon himself to say
   that he has received a commission from Heaven, shall absolve you, it is
   not worth the breath he spends in uttering the mimic absolution, or the
   time you waste in listening to it!

   But if the Lord, Himself, out of His excellent Glory, says, "I, even I,
   am He that blots out your transgressions," then, indeed, the pardon is
   divinely precious and effectual! There is reality in Divine
   Forgiveness--it is no dream or fiction of the imagination. Whom God
   forgives who can condemn? This led the Apostle Paul to say, "Who shall
   lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies;
   who is he that condemns?" Deep is the peace which the Lord's own
   absolution brings to the soul! If He has said to the greatest offender,
   "I forgive you," what more is needed? What is the use of adding
   ceremonies and rituals, and the like, if the Lord, Himself, has spoken?
   One word from the lips of Jehovah, the great forgiving God, is worth
   millions of "masses," and billions of indulgences from the Pope,
   himself!

   Our conscience demands no more than pardon from the Lord and it will
   never rest satisfied with anything less. O Lord, against whom we have
   erred, Your own sure Word of Grace contents us, but without that Word,
   spoken home to us by Your Spirit, our heart continues to condemn us and
   we pine away in our sins. Brothers and Sisters, there is something
   about the Character of God which is not always dwelt upon as it should
   be. It is something which tends to make His forgiveness more full of
   consolation to the soul.

   There are many idolaters in the world besides those who worship blocks
   of wood and stone. There are men who would scorn to be called
   idolaters, who, nevertheless, are not worshippers of the true God, but
   votaries of a deity of their own making. They have not made him with
   wood, or clay, or gold, or silver, but they have fashioned him out of
   their own conceptions. They believe in a god such as they think God
   ought to be. And according to the general rule and fashion nowadays,
   the god whom men invent for themselves is a being entirely devoid of
   justice. They say that the God of the Bible, (who is the real, living
   and true God who made the heavens and the earth), is vindictive because
   He severely punishes rebellion against His Law, because, being at the
   head of all moral government, He will not suffer His Law to be trampled
   on with impunity, and will by no means spare the guilty.

   The God who executes vengeance and terribly rewards the proud doer is
   not the God for men of the modern school--they want an easier deity--a
   far less stringent governor. They want a god of as easy virtue as
   themselves. The Lord God of Elijah will never suit the fair-spoken
   Ahabs of this age who cry, "Peace, peace," where there is no peace. He
   never was beloved by proud and carnally-minded men. They set up an
   effeminate deity of their own who is like themselves, who cares nothing
   about the evil of sin and will wink at it, and will suffer sinners to
   go unpunished--a god who does their bidding, for he quenches the fires
   of Hell, or renders it only a transient punishment for a few years.
   Theirs

   is a god who gives them license to think as they like and treat his
   word as a roll of wax for them to cut according to their own fashion.

   The god of modern thought is not the God of the Bible, neither is he
   any more the true God than Baal or Ashtaroth, Jupiter or Apollo. The
   true God is the God who is revealed in the Scriptures and manifested in
   the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is known only to those to whom
   He reveals Himself, and the rest, by their own carnal wisdom, are
   blinded so that they have not seen Him, neither know Him. Now, I say it
   here, that if there were a god whose nature was nothing else but
   gentleness, and who, therefore, winked at sin, his pardon would never
   have satisfied my conscience, for when my conscience was awakened to
   know the evil of sin, I felt that if God did not punish me, He ought
   to!

   There was about my heart this feeling that my sin ought not to go
   unpunished. In fact, I punished myself for my sin by the deep
   convictions, fears and trembling of my soul. And if anyone had said God
   blots out the sin and thinks no more of it, the assurance would have
   given me no peace. I should have felt that there was an injustice
   involved in my being pardoned! My sin would still have cried for
   vengeance and therefore my conscience would have had no peace.

   And when I came to understand that the God of the Bible would not pass
   by sin without first vindicating the honor of His moral government.
   That He would not permit sin to be trifled with and to go unpunished
   and that, therefore, He, Himself, in the Person of His own Son, had
   suffered the penalty for my sin--then I said, "This is the kind of
   pardon which I need--a pardon which satisfies God's justice and,
   therefore, satisfies my own instincts of right. The bearing of my sins
   by the Lord Jesus in His own body on the tree makes me feel perfectly
   content, for now God, Himself, can bring no charge against me, since He
   cannot punish me for that which He laid upon His own Son."

   Shall He demand payment twice for one debt, or punish twice for one
   offense? If my sins were laid upon His Son, then is His justice
   abundantly satisfied and my soul accepts the free pardon which He
   gives, without a fear that the strictest justice will ever pronounce my
   pardon null and void. Now, when God, even Jehovah, the Jehovah of this
   Book, says, "I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions. I who
   thundered from the top of Sinai. I who drowned Pharaoh and his host in
   the Red Sea. I who smote Sennacherib with all his armies. I, the just
   and terrible God, who revenges and is furious, and whose anger burns
   like fire against sin, I, even I, am He that blots out your
   transgressions," this is a glorious word, indeed!

   "A just God and a Savior." "Just and yet the justifier of him that
   believes." Oh, here is a solid foundation for the heart, the
   conscience, the entire man to rest upon! This is pardon which weighs
   well in the scales of judgment and is not mere wind. This is pardon
   which acts as balm to the wounds of conscience and breathes life into
   hearts dying of despair! So, you see, there is much in the fact that
   the pardon comes from God--but I have not brought it all out yet, for
   remember, Beloved, that inasmuch as it comes from God, He, alone, knows
   the full extent of sin--and there can be no pardon given for a sin
   which has not been recognized somewhere or other. It might be that
   pardon would only reach to a part of the offense through the ignorance
   of the person offended, supposing him to be a fallible, finite being.
   And though he forgave the wrong done, as far as he knew it, yet he
   might soon wake up to a fuller sense of the offense committed against
   him and feel new anger at the transgressor.

   A king can only forgive a rebel for those acts of which he knows him to
   be guilty. Now the Lord knows all our sins. There is not a sin that has
   ever escaped His eyes. Those committed in the secret chamber, in the
   darkness of the night-- those which never struggled into action. Sins
   of the heart and imagination, those which have never been whispered
   into any human ear, God has known. What does He not see? And this is a
   blessed thing for us because it causes the pardon to cover fully the
   whole extent of the sin! A priest once said that if we did not remember
   all our sins, and confess them, they would never be forgiven. Well,
   then, certainly they never will be forgiven, for no man can ever
   remember one thousandth part of his transgressions!

   But blessed be God the pardon does not rest with our knowledge of the
   sin, but with God's knowledge of the sin! And therefore that pardon is
   complete which comes from the all-seeing God. "I, even I, am He"--the
   Omniscient who is everywhere present, who saw you in the darkness and
   heard your heart in all its evil speeches against the Most High--I, the
   all-knowing One, "I am He that blots out your transgressions." Oh, this
   unrivalled pardon, how full of consolation it is! Every attribute of
   God adds to its splendor! Every beam of the Divine Glory heightens its
   grandeur! When we think it is our Father, Himself, our Father whom we
   have offended--who now kisses us with the kisses of His lips and
   presses His

   penitent children to his bosom and says--"I, even I, am He that blots
   out your transgressions," the pardon is rendered inestimably precious
   by the Person from whom it comes.

   II. Notice, next, the reason why it is given, the grounds upon which it
   is based, for they are profoundly comforting. "For My own sake." The
   entire motive of God for forgiving sin lies within Himself--"For My own
   sake." No man has his sins forgiven because they are little, for the
   smallest sin will ruin the soul, and every sin is great, however little
   it may seem to us. Each sin has the essence of rebellion in it and
   rebellion is a great evil before God. No man, therefore, will have God
   say to him, "I have blotted out your sins because of the littleness of
   them." Never!

   Again, no man's sin is forgiven on the ground that his repentance is
   meritorious. There is nothing in Scripture to warrant such an idea.
   Repentance precedes a sense of forgiveness in some measure, but it
   follows forgiveness in a larger measure. It is not the cause, though it
   is the attendant, of remission. God's motive for pardoning a sinner is
   not because that sinner repents, for repentance of itself is no
   recompense to God. There is a repentance--I think I had better call it
   remorse--which the lost feel in Hell--but it changes not their doom.
   And had it not been for a Savior we might have known the repentance
   which Esau felt when he went out and wept, but, nevertheless, lost the
   blessing--lost it irretrievably.

   Neither does our text tell us that God forgives men's sins because He
   trusts that after they are forgiven they will do better. By His Grace,
   forgiven men are made to do better--but it is not the foresight of any
   betterness on their part which leads God to the forgiveness. That
   cannot be a motive, for if they do better, their improvement is His
   work in them. Left to themselves they would do even worse after they
   were pardoned than they had done before. And from the mercy of God they
   would argue immunity to sin, as, alas, too many who hold the truth in
   unrighteousness have already done! No, the only motive which God has
   for pardoning sinners, according to the text, is one which lies within
   Himself--"for My own sake."

   And what, I pray you, is that motive? Brothers and Sisters, the Lord
   knows all His motives and it is not for us to measure them. But is it
   not, first, that He may indulge His mercy? Mercy is the last exercised,
   but the most pleasing to Himself, of all His attributes. Therefore,
   because He is full of mercy, He blots out sin. He has this motive, too,
   which is within Himself, that He may glorify His Son, who is One with
   Himself. His Son has made an Atonement--has offered and presented
   it--and now, in order that He may have His full reward, the Lord
   delights to blot out the sins of those who come to Him. It is within
   Himself that the motive lies. And what a comfort this is, for if, when
   looking into my soul, I cannot see any reason why God should save me, I
   need not look there, since the motive lies yonder, in His own gracious
   bosom!

   According to the multitude of His lovingkindnesses will He blot out my
   transgressions. I may look to all my past life and not discover a
   solitary action out of which I could make a plea for mercy. I may look
   to my present condition and perceive not even a glimpse of improvement,
   or even a ray of hope that I shall be better in the future, but rather
   a dreadful fear that I shall grow worse and worse! And when I have seen
   these discouraging facts, I have only seen what is the truth, for in
   itself, my case is deplorable, indeed! But this is my comfort--I may
   look right away from myself to God, yes, it is my duty to do so. O Man,
   if God is to save you, it will not be because of anything you are, or
   ever will be--He must do it for His own sake!

   And, oh, how splendidly this sets the door of Mercy open! It does not
   stand, now, upon the latch, that those may enter who are little
   sinners--but the great gate of Grace stands wide open--what if I say
   nailed back to the wall? For what sinner is there whom God cannot
   pardon if He pardons for His own sake and not for the sinner's sake?
   What if the man were black with lusts which we dare not mention? What
   if he were red with murder? What if every crime in the catalog of guilt
   had been committed by him? Yet if God pardons, not because of anything
   He sees in the man, but because of what He finds in Himself, it remains
   a possibility for God to pardon the vilest of the vile--and the truth
   revealed in the Bible makes it certain that God will forgive such if
   they turn to Him, confess their transgressions, believe in His dear
   Son--and so pass from death unto life.

   How blessed, then, it is to look not only at the God who gives the
   pardon, but at the reason why He gives it--for His own sake!

   III. And now, thirdly, it is noteworthy in this glorious text how
   complete and universal the pardon is. He does not say, "I, even I, am
   He that blots out some of your transgressions and will not remember a
   certain number of your sins."

   No, the Lord makes a clean sweep of the whole dreadful heap of our
   sins! They are all driven away at once by one stroke of Almighty Mercy.
   The text includes all the sins which the Lord had mentioned
   before--their buying Him no sweet cane with money--their refusing to
   attend to His sacrifices. Our sins of omission are all gone.

   Beloved Friends, can any of us number our sins of omission? Those are
   the sins which ruin men. At the Last Great Day the Judge will say, "I
   was hungry and you gave Me no meat. I was thirsty and you gave Me no
   drink; sick, and you visited Me not." Those on the left hand were not
   condemned for what they did do, but for what they did not do! And the
   things which we have not done--the things which we have left undone
   which we ought to have done--these are the majority of our sins! Who
   shall count them? They outnumber the sands of the ocean! Yet the Divine
   Pardon cleanses us from them all. No spot nor wrinkle remains.

   And then He mentions actual sins. He says, "You have made Me to serve
   with your sins." [You have burdened Me with your sins.] But He declares
   that He blots them out, transgressions and sins, both forms of evil.
   They are both gone, all gone, wholly gone. Now, I know not what
   particular sins may have been committed by the members of this
   congregation. Suppose we were to begin at yonder aisle, and each one
   had to stand up and acknowledge his sins? Well, it would take much time
   and we should have sinned a great deal more before we had come to the
   end of the confession! What a pile of sin there would be on this
   threshing floor if every man were compelled to bring his own mass of
   sin and pour it out upon the common heap!

   Yet the Lord does not set bound or measure, but says, "I, even I, am He
   that blots out your transgressions, and will not remember your sins."
   All the Believer's sins are gone--and all are gone at once. And this is
   the very joy and glory of Gospel absolution! The Believer knows that
   his sins are not in the process of being pardoned, but are actually
   pardoned at this moment! No remnant of our sins remains to be dealt
   with in the future--the whole mass is put away. However black the
   guilt, however aggravated the criminality, however repeated the crime,
   however heinous because committed against light--however enormous
   because perpetuated despite the Holy Spirit--they are all forever made
   an end of, annihilated, and forever gone when we believe in Jesus
   Christ!

   Sins against God's Law and Word and His Day. Sins against Christ's
   blood. Sins against His love. Sins against His Person. Sins against His
   crown. Sins against Himself in all His offices--an infinite variety of
   sins--they all vanish before that gracious declaration, "I, even I, am
   He that blots out your transgressions." Once more upon this point. The
   pardon is noteworthy on account of its being most effectual. It is
   described as blotting out. Now, blotting out is a very thorough way of
   settling a thing. If an account has been standing in the ledger a long
   time and the pen is drawn through it, it remains no longer. Whether it
   is a large account or a small one, the same stroke of the pen will do
   it.

   If you owed a creditor a thousand pounds and another owed him only 10,
   the word, "paid," takes as many strokes of the pen to write for the one
   account as for the other. And it is just as easily done if the creditor
   is satisfied. Whatever sin there may have been in God's people when
   they come before Him, He writes, "Acquitted," at the bottom of the page
   which is against them, and its condemning power is gone! What a joy it
   is to see the long catalog of my sins blotted by the bleeding hands of
   Jesus so that it cannot be read in the court of heavenly Justice! What
   bliss to see it nailed to the Cross of the dying Savior! Heavy as my
   soul's debts were, I doubt no longer! Now I see the grim reckoning
   fastened to the bloody tree!

   And then mark the wonderful expression, "I will not remember those
   sins." Can God forget? Forgetting with God cannot be an infirmity as it
   is with us. We forget because our memory fails, but God forgets in the
   blessed sense that He remembers, rather, the merit of His Son than our
   sins. Indeed, God forgets sin in the sense of remembering that it is
   forgiven! I think it was Augustine who had been, once, a great sinner.
   After he was converted he was met in the street by one with whom he had
   often fallen into sin. When she spoke to him and said, "Augustine, it
   is I," he said, "Ah, but it is not I, I am dead, and made alive again."
   Now, when God's Justice meets a man who believes in Jesus, that man is
   no longer the I that sinned, for that I is dead in Christ!

   "Know you not that we were crucified with Him? "The Believer was buried
   with Christ, so that, as he that is dead is free from the Law which
   condemned him--for how shall the Law arrest a dead man?--so we, being
   dead in Christ and risen again in Him, are new creatures, and do not
   come under the Divine sentence. And God knows us not as sinners, but
   only, now, knows us as new creatures in Christ Jesus! He knows and
   recognizes in us the new life, having "begotten us again unto a lively
   hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."

   That is one of the instructive features of the ordinance of Baptism.
   The Believer, there, sets forth the doctrine of salvation by death and
   burial. That was Noah's salvation. He went into the ark as one dead to
   the world. He was buried in the ark and then he floated out from the
   old world into the new. "The like figure," says Peter, "whereunto
   Baptism does also now save us, (not the putting away of the filth of
   the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God), by the
   Resurrection of Jesus Christ." That is to say, Baptism is a like figure
   of salvation, for it sets forth in a figure, and only in a figure, our
   death with Christ, our burial with Christ, our resurrection with
   Christ.

   Therefore where there is true faith and the soul has communion with
   Christ, we are buried with Him in Baptism unto death, "that like as
   Jesus rose from the dead by the Glory of the Father, even so, we also
   may rise to newness of life." Death has passed upon us, "for we thus
   judge," says the Apostle, "that if one died for all, then all
   died"--(for such is the literal Greek)--and that He died for all, that
   they which live should not live from now on unto themselves, but unto
   Him that died for them and rose again." Well, then, Beloved, if we are
   dead, I do not wonder that God says He does not remember our sins, for
   we are new creatures! We have passed from death to life!

   We have come into a new life and God looks upon us from a new point of
   view. He regards us under a new aspect as members, not of the first
   Adam condemned and dead, but of the second Adam, the Lord from Heaven,
   the living and the quickening Spirit. Well may He say to men who are
   new creatures, "I will not remember your sins." Every word of the text
   is delightful and I cannot attempt to go into the fullness of it. May
   the Lord lead each one of you into it, and especially you young people.
   As for those who are not converted--oh, that they would long for the
   precious things here set forth! May God speak to some who came in here
   vile sinners, and say to them, "For My own sake I forgive you."

   Oh, how you will leap for joy! What a thrill will go through your
   heart! You will not doubt the existence of God any more, I will
   guarantee you! You will have no more questions and quibbles. The Spirit
   of God will speak to your heart and that will convince you, though
   nothing else will--and you will go away to glorify the Grace you once
   despised.

   IV. Now I come to the consideration of the second point very
   briefly--THE EFFECT OF THIS PARDON WHEREVER IT COMES WITH POWER TO THE
   SOUL. Timid persons have thought that the free pardon of sin would lead
   men to indulge in it. No doubt some are base enough to pervert it to
   that use, but there was never a soul that did really receive pardon
   from God who could find in that pardon any excuse for sin or any
   license to continue any longer in it. For all God's people argue
   thus--"Shall we sin that Grace may abound? God forbid! How shall we,
   that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?"

   And again, the Apostle says, "Shall we sin because we are not under the
   Law but under Grace? God forbid!" He utters a most solemn disclaimer
   against the idea that the amazing mercy of God can lead the regenerate
   into sin. The first effect of pardon upon the man who receives it is
   surprise. The man has been lying at the foot of the Cross looking for
   mercy and all of a sudden he glances at the bleeding Savior and he is
   forgiven! And he feels something like Peter when he was brought out of
   prison. "He knew not that it was true that was done unto him by the
   angel, but thought he saw a vision."--

   "When God revealed His gracious name, And changed our mournful state,
   Our rapture seemed a pleasing dream-- The Grace appeared too great." I
   remember how overjoyed I was when I received pardon. I did not know how
   to contain myself for delight! But after a while this thought assailed
   me--such great mercy is too good to be true! My surprise at it
   staggered me. How could it be that I was actually forgiven and through
   the blood of Jesus made clean in the sight of God? The goodness of God
   astounded me! It reminds me of an illustration I have used before, but
   it is a good one. If you have a dog at the table and you throw him a
   scrap of meat, he swallows it directly. But if you were to set the
   whole joint down on the floor before him, he would turn away. He would
   feel that you could not mean to give a fine joint of meat to a dog!

   He would not think of touching it--at least, few dogs wouldn't. And it
   seemed to me as if the Lord could not have meant all the wonders of His
   love for such a dog as I was. I was ready to turn away from it through
   the greatness of it! But then I remembered that it would not do for God
   to be giving little mercy. He was too great a God to spend all His
   power in pardoning little sinners and granting little favors. And I
   came back to this--if His Grace was not too big for Him to give, I
   would not be such a fool as to refuse it because of its greatness!

   You remember how Alexander told a soldier that he might have whatever
   he asked? The man went to the royal treasury and demanded such a vast
   sum that the officer refused to let him have it, and said to him, "How
   can you be such an unconscionable fellow as to ask for so much?" When
   Alexander heard of it he said, "It is much for him to receive, but it
   is not too much for Alexander to give--he has a high opinion of my
   greatness. Let him have what he has asked for. I will not fall short of
   his expectations." God is a great God and to forgive great sins is just
   like Him. We cannot forgive at this rate, but God can! To forgive great
   sins, tremendous sins, unspeakably black sins, adds to His Glory and
   makes men say, "Who is a God like unto You, passing by iniquity,
   transgression, and sin?"

   At first, then, Mercy fills us with surprise. The next thing it does is
   to fill us with holy regret. We feel, "What? And is this the God I have
   been standing out against so long? Is this the God whom I have despised
   or neglected, whose Gospel I put away from me, saying that there was
   time enough for me to attend to it when I grew old and had seen a
   little of life? Is this the God whom I have been slighting, who has
   loved me at this rate, and given His dear Son from His own right hand
   to bleed and suffer in my place?"

   It has been said--I think by Aristotle--that a person cannot know that
   he is loved without feeling some degree of love in return. I am quite
   certain that you cannot know in your soul, by the experience of pardon,
   that God loves you, without feeling at once, "I am ashamed that I did
   not love my gracious God. I am disgusted with myself that I could have
   acted in such a disgraceful way towards Him. Did He love me before the
   world began? Did He write my name in the roll of His electing love? Did
   He ordain me to a crown of life and to a harp of gold? Did He
   predestinate me to be conformed to the image of His Son? When the
   Savior bled, did He think of me as He was dying, and did He especially
   lay down life for me? Am I one whom He has betrothed unto Himself
   forever in faithfulness and love and mercy--and yet have I been foolish
   enough to live all this while a stranger and an enemy to Him?"

   When a sense of dying love comes mightily into the heart, we feel that
   we cannot be enough revenged upon our cruel hearts for having treated
   so, such a generous, such a forgiving God! As this sense of pardon
   first breeds surprise and then intense regret, it next creates in us
   fervent love. "We love Him because He first loved us," and we love Him
   best of all for having pardoned us. No one loves God so much as the man
   or woman who has had much forgiven. Scripture tells us this in the case
   of the woman who was a sinner--she, alone, washed the Savior's feet
   with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head.

   Commonplace Christians have never experienced any deep sense of sin,
   and consequently, Christ is a very commonplace Savior to them. Ah, but
   when a man feels that he is a vile sinner and that he should have been
   in Hell, and in the hottest part of it, if it had not been for
   Sovereign Grace, I tell you, Sir, if the Lord lifts that man up out of
   the Pit and gives him a place among His servants, that is the man who
   will feel the water in his eyes when he talks about the Savior's Grace.
   That man cannot speak about redeeming Grace and dying love without
   feeling that there is charming music in those precious words and the
   best of all music in their precious sense! The viler the sinner the
   more love has he to the Lord when he is forgiven. As he feels his sin,
   so He loves his Redeemer.

   "The burnt child dreads the fire," but I will tell you the child that
   dreads the fire most--if there could be a child which had burnt itself
   in the fire and then all its sores and blisters were taken off it and
   laid upon its mother, and that child saw its mother's face all scarred
   and marred with the burning, and saw her body in pain on her dear one's
   account--I am sure the child would hate all idea of playing with fire
   as long as it lived. Many suffer for sin in their own persons, but do
   not hate it. They will go back to the very sin which injured them, as
   moths fly again to the candle. But to see another suffering for my
   fault--such a One as Emmanuel, God With Us--to see His hands fastened
   to the Cross, and His feet pierced, and His heart gashed, and all His
   life flowing out in blood, and Himself bearing agonies unutterable for
   my sins--it makes me feel that the very name of sin is accursed and I
   abhor it utterly!

   We would, if we could, be perfect! We long and sigh, and cry to be
   delivered from everything that has one murderous spot of the Savior's
   blood upon it! If yonder knife had killed your friend, would you hoard
   it up and think a great deal of the deadly instrument? You would hurl
   it out of your sight as an accursed thing! Yet sin slew Jesus! Sin slew
   Jesus! Away with it, then! Away with it! Away with it! My precious
   Christ was murdered by sin! From now on I am dead to sin! This is the
   spirit which Divine Grace breeds in every Christian--and the more sure
   he is of his pardon--the more intensely, by God's Grace, he hates his
   sin.

   Therefore our Gospel is a reforming Gospel, a sanctifying Gospel. It is
   a Gospel that delivers men from the power of sin and brings them
   through the power of love into the blessed liberty of the children of
   God. In closing, I would say to every unconverted person--your state
   before God is here in this picture--Many years ago in Russia a regiment
   of troops mutinied. They were at some distance from the capital and
   were so furious that they murdered their officers and resolved never to
   submit to discipline. But the emperor, who was an exceedingly wise and
   sagacious man, no sooner heard of it than, all alone and unattended, he
   went into the barracks where the men were drawn up, and, addressing
   them sternly, he said to them, "Soldiers, you have committed such
   offense against the Law that every one of you deserves to be put to
   death. There is no hope of any mercy for one of you unless you lay down
   your arms immediately, and surrender at discretion to me, your
   emperor."

   And they did it, then and there, though the heads of their officers
   were lying at their feet. They threw down their arms and surrendered,
   and he said at once, "Men, I pardon you. You will be the bravest troops
   I ever had." And they were, too! That is just what God says to the
   sinner--"Now, Sinner, you have done that which deserves My wrath. Down
   with your weapons of rebellion! Ground arms at once. I will not talk
   with you until you submit at discretion to My Sovereign Authority." And
   then He says, "Believe in My Son. Trust Him. Accept Him as your Savior.
   This done, you are forgiven, and from now on you will be the most
   loving creatures that My hands have made. You will love Me better than
   the angels, for though they never sinned, they never had a God to
   become Incarnate and to bleed and die for them.

   "You know what sin is and will hate it. And you know what goodness is,
   for you have seen it in My Son, and from now on you will strive to be
   like He is, and among the sweetest notes that shall come up to My
   Throne will be your grateful songs."--

   "Blessings, forever on the Lamb,

   Who bore the curse for wretched men!

   Let angels sound His sacred name,

   And e very creature say, 'Amen!'" None will more loudly sing the
   praises of God than those who have been washed in the precious blood
   and have had their transgressions blotted out! The Lord bless you and
   give every one of you to know and taste all this, and that, too, at
   this very hour if it is His will, for Jesus' sake! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Isaiah 43:22-28, 44:1-22.
     __________________________________________________________________

Death for Sin and Death to Sin

   (No. 1143)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 16, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we,
   being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes
   you were healed." 1 Peter 2:24.

   PETER, in this chapter, exhorted Christians to holiness and dwelt upon
   that branch of holiness which consists in the patient endurance of
   wrong. He could find no better argument with which to plead with the
   saints than the life and example of their Lord, and, indeed, who could
   find a better? Since the Lord Jesus is all our salvation, He is also
   all our desire. And to be like He is, is the highest object of our
   ambition. If, therefore, we find Him patient under wrong, it is to us a
   conclusive argument that we should be patient, too. I admire the
   Apostle Peter, because in using so good an argument he selected from
   the life of his Lord that particular portion of it which must have been
   most vividly written upon his own soul.

   Judge you, my Brothers and Sisters, if I am not correct in this. Which
   hour do you think, of the sufferings of the Lord, from Gethsemane to
   Golgotha, would be most deeply engraved upon the memory of Peter?
   Surely it would be that space of time in which He was mocked and
   buffeted in the hall of the High Priest, when Peter sat and warmed his
   hands at the fire--when he saw his Lord abused and he was afraid to
   admit that he was His disciple, and by-and-by became so terrified that,
   with profane language, he declared "I know not the Man."

   So long as life lingered, the Apostle would remember the meek and quiet
   bearing of his suffering Lord. He alluded to it in the 23rd verse,
   "When He was reviled, He reviled not again; when He suffered, He
   threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judges righteously."
   Many a tear had Peter to brush out of his eyes as he wrote that verse.
   He remembered having seen the Lord with his own eyes and so he
   mentioned, as an argument with others, that which was the most forcible
   upon his own mind--in the hope that whenever they were misjudged, or
   falsely accused--they might remember their Lord, and like He, be dumb
   as a sheep before her shearers, and silent as a lamb led to the
   slaughter.

   Lest, however, we should think that the patience of our Lord was
   intended to be our example and nothing more, the Apostle goes on to
   speak expressly of the expiatory nature of the sufferings alluded to.
   He has held up the Savior in all His woes as our example, but knowing
   the evil tendency of skeptical minds, by any means, to becloud the
   Cross, he now puts aside the example, for a moment, and speaks of the
   Redeemer as the great Sacrifice for sin. The sacred writers are always
   very clear and distinct upon this Truth of God and so must we be. There
   is no preaching the Gospel if the Atonement is left out. No matter how
   well we speak of Jesus as a pattern, we have done nothing unless we
   point Him out as the Substitute and Sin-Bearer. We must, in fact,
   continually imitate the Apostle and speak plainly of Him, "Who His own
   self bore our sins in His own body on the tree."

   It is to Christ, then, this morning, the Sin-Bearer, that I am about to
   direct your attention. It may not be many times longer that I may have
   the opportunity to preach the Gospel, for bodily pain reminds me of my
   mortality. How soon are the hale and the strong, as well as the sickly,
   carried off! So many, during the last few days, whom we knew, have been
   borne from among us to the silent tomb! We are reminded how feeble our
   life is--how short our time for service. Let us, then, Brothers and
   Sisters, deal always with the best things and attend to the most
   necessary works while yet our little oil suffices to feed the lamp of
   life.

   Rising newly from the sick bed, I have felt that if any theme in the
   Scriptures has an importance far above all the rest, it is the subject
   of the atoning blood. And I have resolved to repeat that old, old story
   again and again. Though I may be guilty of needless repetition, I shall
   keep on sounding this silver trumpet, or ringing this golden bell
   again, and again, and again! And so, when I am dead and gone the way of
   all flesh, you will, perhaps, say, "His fault was that he dwelt too

   much on his favorite subject, the Substitution of Christ." Ah, may I
   have no other fault to account for, for that shall be accounted to be
   one of my highest virtues!

   I would know nothing among men save Jesus Christ and Him Crucified! At
   the same time, we shall try to make our subject practical, because the
   second half of our text suggests the way by which the great Sacrifice
   for sin leads us to make a slaughter of sin and tells us that when
   Christ puts sin away for us, we are moved to put away sin from us. Two
   things this morning, then--first, Christ's death for sin. Secondly, our
   death to sin.

   I. First, then, we will consider OUR LORD'S DEATH FOR SIN. May the Holy
   Spirit help us to behold that wondrous sight of the Redeemer dying in
   our place, a Sacrifice for our sins. And here, before we approach to
   behold the great sight, let us take our shoes from off our feet and bow
   down in lowest reverence of repenting grief, for, remember, if Jesus
   had not died for sins, we must have died, and died eternally, too. The
   pangs of the Savior on the Cross surpassed all estimate. But, such as
   they were, they would have tormented us if they had not put Him to
   anguish.

   That cup which made Him sweat in the garden was bitter beyond
   imagination, but to your lips and to mine it must have been placed and
   unable as we would have been to drain it dry, we would have continued
   to drink thereof forever and forever! "In the day you eat thereof you
   shall surely die" is the great sentence against sin and for a soul to
   die is a terrible doom, indeed. Our great father, Adam, felt the first
   drops of the dreadful shower of death in the moment that he ate of the
   forbidden fruit. He died to God, holiness, virtue and true happiness in
   that same hour--and stood aghast before his God--before that very God
   whom at other times he had met with rapture, and adored with delight.

   We, his children, share in his spiritual death in our depraved natures.
   And we would soon have passed away from the present death of this time
   state to that corruption which naturally follows upon death in the
   world to come when restraining and preserving influences are removed
   and the worm begins its work--"where their worm dies not, and their
   fire is not quenched." Yes, were it not for Him "who His own self bore
   our sins in His own body on the tree," we should not have been here to
   speak to one another, or look each other in the face.

   Or if the forbearance of God had allowed us a brief existence on earth,
   I might have stood here compelled to tell you that there remained
   nothing for any of us but to die and to endure the wrath of God in body
   and soul, world without end! Oh, the bitterness of our souls had we
   been in such a state! With my hands upon my loins this morning, in
   anguish of spirit, I might have been compelled to utter more woes than
   ever fell from the lips of Jeremiah, from whom all joy was gone, while
   I declared to you, and to your children, that there was no hope here or
   hereafter--that we had offended God and He had given us over to utter
   destruction! Blessed be His name, we have another message to deliver!
   We may rather imitate Isaiah, today, than Jeremiah, and tell of
   redeeming Grace and dying love instead of having to sound the dreadful
   knell of every hope and to proclaim the birth of legions of sorrows.

   With this fact upon our minds, let us come lovingly to the blessed
   place of Calvary, once cursed on our account. Jesus died for me, that
   is the uppermost feeling of each one. There was a Substitution for our
   sins and by that Substitution Believers are saved. There was a
   Substitution! "He His own self bore our sins in His own body on the
   tree." A Substitute intervened--the sins which would have crushed us
   were borne by Another--actually and literally borne by Another! "He His
   own self bore our sins." The sentence means that He bore the punishment
   which was due to our sins--we are sure it means that.

   But surely it means more! I cannot divest myself of the conviction that
   it means more, for it does not say, "He bore the punishment of our
   sins," which would be the most natural expression if that were the
   meaning intended, but, "He bore our sins." In that wonderful Gospel
   chapter of Isaiah we are told, "The Lord has made to meet on Him the
   iniquity of us all." And again, "He bore the sin of many." It does seem
   as if the bearing of the punishment, great as that is, would not
   exhaust the meaning of such phrases. The expression is so compact, so
   concise, so definite--it must mean what it says.

   At any rate, I am content to believe that God knows how to speak and to
   express His own meaning and that the less we twist the Scriptures, or
   get away from the simple sense which they would suggest to a child, the
   more likely we are to understand them. "He His own self bore our sins."
   In some wondrous sense He bore the sin, as well as the punishment. I
   know not how. This I know--He was never a sinner, for, "in Him was no
   sin." This I know--He never was defiled. It could not be--reject the
   blasphemy with indignation! He, the Son of God, the Immaculate Man,
   stained with sin? Never! We abhor the thought! And yet, "He bore our
   sins" is still a Truth of God and we must not flinch from it.

   Does it not mean that He was a representative Person? He was the Second
   Adam and therefore He stood for His people. And therefore the Lord
   dealt with Him as if the sins of all He represented had been His own
   sins. He was the Shepherd and the Lord bade Him give an account for the
   flock--and all the wanderings of all the sheep and all their
   transgressions. Divine Justice visited upon the Shepherd's head,
   because He was, by office and by Nature, the Representative of all
   those for whom He died, and so could justly be called to account for
   all that they had done. Sin was laid upon the Lord Jesus, for He was
   forsaken of His God.

   The Lord did not merely chasten Him and scourge Him, and put Him to
   grief by the use of agencies which were suitable for such a purpose in
   an innocent Person. He went further and hid His face from Him, which
   was a sorrow fitting only for One upon whom sin was laid. Why should
   God forsake Him, unless He had first laid sin upon Him? When Jesus
   asked, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" there was no answer
   to that inquiry except this one, (at least I cannot imagine another),
   "I have laid sin upon You, and therefore I must forsake You." If He
   were merely suffering for others in the sense of doing others good by
   His sufferings, the Father might surely have looked upon Him with
   complacency, and even, if possible, with increased delight and have
   encouraged Him in the benevolent disinterestedness which made Him stoop
   to such sufferings.

   But inasmuch as He was not only enduring for others, but enduring in
   the place of others and bearing their sins, it became necessary that,
   despite the love of the Father and the admiration which glowed in His
   bosom towards His dear Son who was, then, above all things magnifying
   the Nature of God, the Father, regarding Him as bearing sin--I say the
   Father must hide His face from Him, and smite Him with the blows of a
   cruel one till He cried out, "Eloi, Eloi, lama Sa-bachthani." Yes,
   there was a Substitution, and that Substitution went mysteriously far!
   It was not merely a transfer of punishment from one to Another, but
   there was a transfer of sin in some deep sense, or else the Scripture
   speaks not what it means--"He bore our sins in His own body on the
   tree."

   Now, I want you to pause a minute, again, having noted the fact of
   Substitution, to consider the Substitute. "He His own self bore our
   sins." And who was "He"? Beloved, I want you to feel a personal love to
   our dear Lord and Master. I want your souls, at this moment, to realize
   the actual Character of His existence and His true Personality. He is
   not here, this morning, in Person, to show Himself to you, else might I
   very well withhold my words, for His Presence would have an infinitely
   superior power over you. But remember that He lives and is as real as
   you are--and at this moment bears in His body the scars of His
   sufferings for you. Think, then, who He was, and let your spirits kiss
   His feet in humble contrite love.

   He who bore our sins in His own body on the tree was God over all,
   blessed forever, of whom and through whom and by whom are all things!
   Without whom was not anything made that was made. Less than God could
   not have borne your sins so as to put them away. But the infinitely
   glorious Son of God did actually stoop to become a Sin-Bearer! I wonder
   how I can talk of it as I do. It is a Truth of God scarcely to be
   declared in words. It needs flame and blood and tears with which to
   tell this story of an offended God--the Heaven-Maker and the
   Earth-Creator--stooping from His Glory that He might save the reptiles
   which had dared to insult His honor and to rebel against His Glory!
   And, becoming one of them, to suffer for them, that without violation
   of His Law He might have pity upon the offending things--things so
   inconsiderable that if He had stamped them all out, as men burn a nest
   of wasps, there had been no loss to the universe!

   But He had pity on them and became one of them, and bore their sins.
   Oh, love Him! Adore Him! Let your souls climb up to the right hand of
   the Majesty above, this morning, and there bow down in lowest reverence
   and adoring affection, that He, the God over all, whom you had
   offended, should, His own self, bear our sins! Though God over all, He
   became a Man like unto ourselves! A body was prepared for Him and that
   body, mark you, not prepared, alone, and made like man but of man. No,
   He was not otherwise fashioned than ourselves. He came into the world
   as we come-- born of a woman, a Child of a mother--to hang upon a
   woman's breast! Not merely like man, but Man, born in the pedigree of
   manhood, and so bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, yet without a
   taint of sin.

   And He, in that double Nature but united Person, was Jesus, Son of God
   and Son of the Virgin. He it was who "bore our sins in His own body on
   the tree." Here we call to your remembrance the fact stated in the text
   so positively--that the Substitution of Christ was carried out by Him,
   Personally--not by proxy. "He His own self bore our sins in His own
   body." The priest of old brought a substitution, but it was a lamb. He
   struck the knife and the warm blood flowed down it. But our Lord Jesus
   Christ had no substitute for Himself! He, "His own self bore our sins
   in His own body."

   O Priest of God! The pangs are to be Your own pangs! The knife must
   reach Your own heart! No lamb for You, You are, Yourself, the Lamb! The
   blood which streams at Your feet must be Your own blood. There must be
   wounds, but they must be wounds in Your own flesh. Oh, turn your loving
   eyes to your Lord, and remember that everything He did for you He did
   Himself! You sometimes say that another voice may speak for Jesus--you
   are often willing to serve God through the energy of another--and I
   will not chide you. But oh, remember His personal sacrifice for you!
   Remember the griefs which Jesus bore put His own soul into a tempest of
   grief--and made His own heart to boil like a cauldron within Him. The
   heart which was broken for our sins was His own heart! And the life
   given up was His own life! Not by another, though he were an angel,
   could Christ have redeemed mankind, but He, "His own self bore our sins
   in His own body on the tree."

   Notice, also, that the Substitution of Christ is described in our text
   in a way which suggests consciousness, willingness and great pain. "He
   His own self bore our sins." They were upon Him. They pressed Him. The
   Greek word for "bore" suggests the idea of a great weight, "He bore our
   sins"--stooped under them, as it were--they were a load to Him. There
   are men in the world who may be bearing in their bodies the result of
   the sin of their parents, but they are not aware of it. And even if
   they were, they are voluntary bearers, just the same. But our Lord
   assumed our sins as one takes a weight upon his shoulders--and when the
   sins were there He knew that He was carrying our burdens--and still
   consented to do so.

   There was not a moment in Christ's life in which the pressure of our
   sin was unfelt. Though the wrath of God, on account of sin, was more
   especially felt by Him at Gethsemane, and up to the tree, yet at all
   times He was stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. What a weight was
   this! The solid earth cannot bear the weight of sin! It groans and
   travails in pain together, even now, like a creaking chariot whose
   axles are unable to bear up under the stupendous weight. Yet on Jesus
   was the burden laid--a far weightier one than the fabled Atlas
   bore--and He sustained it to the tree. The text, in our English
   version, might seem to teach that our Lord bore our sins only on the
   tree--and that erroneous dogma has been drawn from it.

   No inference could have been more feebly sustained, for the original
   does not necessarily set forth anything of the kind. The word
   translated "on" is precisely the same word which in the next verse is
   translated "to," or, "unto"--"We are now returned 'unto' "--and might
   have been just as correctly read, "unto," in this case. I have not the
   slightest doubt that the meaning of the text is, "He His own self bore
   our sins in His own body to the tree," so that when He reached the tree
   He left our sins there, condemned and crucified forever and ever.
   Instead of the doctrine being deduced that Christ was a Substitute only
   on the tree, the fact is He always was a Substitute up to the tree, and
   then and there that Substitution culminated in His dying as a
   Sin-Offering. Let us, this morning, know that consciously, from the
   time He was a babe in Bethlehem till the moment when He bowed His head
   and gave up the ghost, "He His own self bore our sins in His own body"
   to the tree.

   And, Brothers and Sisters, He bore those sins manifestly. I think that
   is the mind of the Spirit--when He says, "in His own body," He means to
   give vividness to the thought. We are so constituted that we do not
   think so forcibly of mental and spiritual things as we do of bodily
   things. But our Lord bore our sins "in His own body." If you had looked
   at Him, had you been instructed by the Spirit, you would have seen in
   His body that He was a Sin-Bearer. Listen to this verse--"As many were
   astonished at you, so His visage was more marked than that of any man,
   and His form more than the sons of men." Remember another text--"Yet we
   did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God."

   Think of that! Those who looked into the Savior's face thought Him
   "smitten of God." First they thought Him stricken or demented, like one
   who has passed through such an awful sorrow that the mind has quailed
   beneath it. And then they looked at Him as smitten of God! Even the
   Jews judged Him to be near to 50 when He was scarcely 30 years of age,
   so worn and haggard did He look, that "Man of Sorrows and acquainted
   with grief." He smiled and He cheered others. He wore a cheerful
   countenance among the sons of men that He might not make those who saw
   Him, sorrowful, and deep down in His heart there glowed a secret
   fire--a wondrous joy that He was redeeming His own chosen--but still
   imponderable, incomprehensible infinite griefs perpetually rolled over
   Him, so that all His lifetime He might have said, "All Your waves and
   Your billows have gone over Me."

   "Who His own self bore our sins in His own body," so that His visage
   seemed to tell of it. And when He came to the tree, oh, how His body
   bore our sins, then, in communion with His sinless soul! I do not care
   who it is that speaks against

   descriptions of the Crucifixion, or who would have us keep in the
   background the bodily sufferings of Jesus--I am persuaded that the
   highest, most intense and forceful piety that ever existed among men
   has arisen out of contemplations of the agony of Gethsemane and the
   death throes of Calvary.

   The Romish Church, with all her errors, and they are countless, has
   always had in her midst a band of loving, adoring spirits who have
   entered into the Redeemer's passion and whose meat and drink have been
   the flesh and blood of Christ in their silent contemplations. And if
   Protestant Christians ever fall into the idea that we must not think
   too much of the blood and wounds of Jesus, they will lose the richest
   spiritual sustenance and we shall cease to have eminent saints among
   us. I shall not be ashamed at any time to talk to you of the bodily
   griefs of Jesus, when I remember that Peter, or rather the Holy Spirit
   by Peter, puts it so in the text--"Who His own self bore our sins in
   His own body to the tree."

   There is the Cross and there is the body--there are the visible things,
   as well as the spiritual and the unseen. We will not forget the second,
   but we will, by no means ever despise the first! We will speak lovingly
   and tenderly of the Body and of the bodily sufferings of the Lord. Oh,
   see, then, the Lord of Life and Glory taken outside the city gate of
   old Jerusalem and there, amidst a ribald throng, treated as a common
   criminal! It was the Tyburn, the Old Bailey of the city, where felons
   were usually executed--and they took our Master, malefactors being with
   Him, and treated Him as a felon! They nailed His hands! Look! The cruel
   iron is driven through His feet!

   They lift Him up, a spectacle of shame! They have stripped Him! They
   have gambled over the few garments which He had--and there He hangs.
   They gather round Him and they mock Him, as if the Cross were a pillory
   as well as a gallows! They insult Him with studied sarcasm and He has
   no reply to make except to bless them with His prayers and to appeal to
   His God! All His friends have fled and when they timidly return they
   can only share His sorrow, but they cannot alleviate it. He must
   die--die in extreme pain of body--and die with unknown inward agonies,
   the veil of which we will not attempt to lift. "He His own self bore
   our sins in His own body on the tree." Blessed are You, O Savior, and
   blessed are the eyes that have seen You and have looked to You by
   faith.

   Our Lord Jesus Christ, let it be remembered, never ceased to bear our
   sins till He had taken them right up to the tree. And when He had taken
   them to the tree, there He hung them forever as a spectacle of eternal
   scorn. He, Himself, dying while He made our sins die. Himself crucified
   while He crucified our sins once and for all. O you who use a cross as
   an ornament, why do you do it? It is a gallows whereon our sins were
   hung up in shame! Will you wear a gallows around your neck? Will you
   make an adornment of that which was your Master's death! I had as soon
   wear about my neck a butcher's knife which had killed my mother, as a
   cross on which my Savior was murdered!

   It looks as if you had sided with His murderers and gloried in the
   instrument of His torture! It was a shameful thing to die the death of
   the cross--and the Lord knew it to be so--and yet He "His own self bore
   our sins in His own body to the tree." Mark the tree of the Cross for a
   moment with much attention. It was the place of pain. No death could be
   more full of agony than that of crucifixion. When the headsman's axe
   falls on the neck the head is severed and the pain is over--even to
   stand burning at the stake is a shorter, if at the time a sharper, way
   to Heaven. But the pains of crucifixion may last for days!

   Cases have been known in which men have actually lived after a three
   days' nailing to a cross. The pain, itself, is inconceivably great. The
   most tender parts of the hands and feet, where they are most liable to
   bring on lockjaw, being torn by the nails--and the strain of the body
   continued tearing at the wounds. Yet our Savior bore that pain. Ah, it
   is not till you suffer pain that you begin to know the love of Christ
   to the fullest. You may thank Him, you sons of sorrow and daughters of
   suffering, for all your pangs, for now you have fellowship with Him.
   Blessed be Your love, O Jesus, that You could bear pain and death for
   us!

   But the cross was not the place of pain merely, it was the place of
   scorn. To be fastened to the cross! Why they would not put the meanest
   Roman there though he committed murder--it was a death for slaves and
   menials. When scorn mingles with pain you know what a compound of grief
   it makes. To be laughed at when you suffer is to suffer seven-fold. But
   more, it was the place of the curse, for, "cursed is everyone that
   hangs on the tree," and the Word of God has told us, "He was made a
   curse for us." Last of all, it was the place of death, for Jesus must
   not merely bleed, but bleed to death. He must not only suffer, but
   suffer till life, itself, was gone. O dying Savior, Your love to me was
   wonderful, for death, itself, could not turn it aside, and therefore
   blessed, forever blessed, be Your name!

   Before we leave the Cross, let the Believer sit down and see on the
   Cross his sins hanging up as dead. Christ carried them up to the Cross
   and slew them. The Law comes to me and says, "I arrest you for sin,"
   but I reply, "I have no sin. What would you do with my sins if I had
   any?" "I would put them to a shameful death." "Lo, they are yonder,
   executed upon the accursed tree by Jesus Christ." Look, then, at your
   sins hanged up on the gallows--abhor and loathe them-- but rejoice
   that, loathsome as they are, they are dead! The Lord put them all to
   death and put sin away forever by His death upon the tree. The death of
   Jesus is the death of our sins.

   I fear I am addressing some who never knew what it was to have sin
   pardoned. Dear Hearer, all your hope of pardon lies in what I have been
   telling you this morning. You cannot make recompense to God for your
   sin either by repentance or by future reformation. Your only hope is to
   look to Jesus Christ, who bore the sins of His people in His own body
   on the tree. And if you will come and put your trust in Jesus, your sin
   shall be put away from you and you shall be accepted. Oh, I pray that
   at this hour you may be enabled to believe in Jesus and find peace
   through the Cross, and to Him shall be all the Glory!

   II. And, now I hope I shall not strain your attention while I bid you
   consider the second part of the text--OUR DEATH TO SIN. "Who His own
   self bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to
   sin, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed."
   Now, observe right well that we are dead to the condemning power of
   sin. No sin can condemn a Believer in Jesus Christ. For what reason?
   Because Christ has suffered what we ought to have suffered on account
   of sin--He has rendered a full recompense to Divine Justice.

   You bring me a large file full of bills and you say to me, "Are not
   these bills against you?" I answer, "No doubt they are all correct in
   every item, and they might take me many a month to examine." You ask
   me, "Can you pay them?" "No, and I do not need to try." "But do they
   not trouble you?" "No. I can make a pillow of them if that is all, and
   sleep, notwithstanding their number and greatness." You are
   wonder-struck to think that I should have such a mass of bills and take
   the matter so coolly. I ask you to take off these bills from the file
   one by one, and as you do so you see that they are all paid for--there
   is a red mark at the bottom of every one. Who troubles himself about a
   bill when it is paid?

   "But did you pay those debts?" "No, not I. I have not paid a penny."
   "Did you not pay part of them?" "Not I. I never contributed a rusty
   farthing towards them." "Did you not offer a composition?" "No, not a
   farthing in the pound." "Yet you are perfectly easy?" "Yes, because He
   who bore my sins in His own body on the tree, took all my debts and
   paid them for me, and now I am dead to those debts--they have no power
   over me. I am dead to my sins. Christ suffered instead of me. I have
   nothing to do with them. They are gone as much as if they had never
   been committed--

   "Now freed from sin, I walk at large; My Sa vior's blood's my full
   discharge." From now on I have nothing to do but to live as a righteous
   man, accepted in the Beloved--to live by His righteousness and rejoice
   in it--blessing and magnifying His holy name!

   Beloved, hear the text again! As many of you as have looked to Jesus
   Christ bearing your sins in His own body on the tree, you are dead to
   sin as to its reigning power! Dead, first, because we have seen its
   detestable nature. The sin which was so base that it required the Son
   of God, Himself, to die before it could be pardoned, is too awful and
   desperate an evil for us to dally with any more. It had its charms, but
   now we have perceived its hypocrisies. The false Prophet Mo-kanna, who
   wore the silver veil upon his brow, deceived many, for he said that
   should that veil be lifted, the light which would gleam from under it
   would strike men blind, the glory was so great.

   But when one had once perceived that the man was leprous and that on
   his brow, instead of brightness, there were the white scales of a
   leper, nobody would become his disciple. And so, O Sin, at the Cross I
   see your silver veil removed and I mark the desperate leprosy that is
   on you! I am dead to you! Begone, you foul blood-stained traitor! I
   cannot harbor you in my heart. The death of Christ, then, is, to us,
   the death of sin. We are dead to sin, again, because another passion
   has absorbed all the forces of our life. Have you ever seen men dead to
   other things because some one passion has eaten them up? Look at the
   miser--ask him why he does not eat a full meal. He is dead to appetite.
   Tempt him with rich wines. Bring before him the dainties of the season.

   They will cost him money and he wants them not. He tells you he has no
   taste nor love for such things. But you tell him that there is sweet
   music to be heard and there are pleasures to be enjoyed. Yes, but there
   must be money doled out for them and therefore he has no ear and no
   eye. His own dear gold is everything! He is dead to all else. But there
   is rent

   due from a poor widow with many children and he will pounce upon her
   and turn her out upon the cold stones of the street. Tell him of the
   widow and her tears, of the orphans and their woes--what does he care?
   He asks you whether you ever had any house property and assures you
   that if you had, you would soon have as hard a heart as he has. But has
   the man no heart at all? No, Sir, he has no life except that which
   pulsates to the chink of his money bags. The zeal of his gold has eaten
   him up!

   Now, it is just so with us as to Christ. We have no eyes or ears for
   anything but for our dear Lord who bled and died, and who is gone up
   into His Glory. Now sin may charm, but we have the adder's ear. Sin may
   put on all its allurements, but we are blind as bats to its beauty and
   wish to be. We are dead to sin--so says the text. Another passion has
   sucked up our life--and our life for sin is all dried up. And yet
   again, sin appears to us now to be too mean and trivial a thing for us
   to care about. Picture Paul going along the Appian way towards Rome. He
   is met by some of the Christians far away at Puteoli, and afterwards by
   others at the Three Taverns.

   Can you imagine what was their conversation as Paul walked chained
   along the highway? Why, they would commune concerning Jesus and the
   Resurrection and the Spirit--and saints converted, and souls in Heaven!
   I can conceive that the soldiers and others who would come up with them
   along the Roman road, stopping at the taverns, and so on, would have
   many things to talk of. One of them would say, "There will be a grand
   fight at the amphitheatre next week." And another would say, "Oh, but
   over at such a theater there is a splendid show--a hundred beasts are
   to be slain in a single night, and the famous German gladiator is to
   exhibit his prowess tomorrow evening."

   And others would say, "Who is to be commander in Spain next year?" "Who
   is appointed over the Praetorian Guard?" And the babble would be about
   a thousand things--but the Apostle would be supremely indifferent to it
   all. Not a topic that any one of those soldiers could bring before him,
   or any one of the people around him, could interest him. He was dead to
   the things to which they were alive and alive to the things to which
   they were dead. So is the Christian! The Cross has killed him and the
   Cross has quickened him! We are dead to sin that we should live unto
   righteousness--and now our very power to enjoy sin, if, indeed, we are
   resting in Christ, is gone from us!

   We have lost, now, by God's Grace, the faculty which once was gratified
   with these things. They tell us we deny ourselves many pleasures. Oh,
   Sirs, there is a sense in which a Christian lives a self-denying life,
   but there is another sense in which he practices no self-denial at all,
   for he only denies himself what he does not need and what he would not
   have if he could! If you could force it upon him it would be misery to
   him, his views and tastes are now so changed. Have you ever looked at a
   green field and marked the sparkling dew drops, and thought how bright
   they are? Did you ever then turn your eyes on the sun and look at him
   and try to stare him out of countenance?

   If you have, I know what has happened, for when you looked down upon
   the landscape again, you could not see it-- you seemed to have lost
   your eyes--they had been put out by the brightness on which you gazed.
   So you may look on the world of sin and see some beauty in it till you
   look at HIM--and then the brightness of His Glory puts out your eyes!
   The world is dark and black, after that, and you wish it to be so. Let
   these eyes be forever sightless as the eyes of night, and let these
   ears be forever deaf as silence, rather than sin should have a charm
   for me, or anything should take up my spirit save the Lord of Love who
   bled Himself to death that He might redeem me unto Himself! This is the
   royal road to sanctification! The death of Christ becomes the death of
   sin. We see Him bleed for us and then we put our sin to death.

   And it seems to me, Brothers and Sisters, and listen to it, as if the
   last sentence of our text told us this--"By His stripes you were
   healed." It is as good as if the Spirit said, "There is the recipe for
   sanctification. If you want to know how to be dead to sin and alive
   unto righteousness, there it is--His stripes will heal you." The welts,
   the blue marks of His scourging--these will take out the lines of sin.
   The wounds, the sweat, the death throes of the Savior--these will cure
   you of sin's disease. You go to a physician and ask him to heal you. He
   gives you what we commonly call a recipe. What does "recipe" mean?
   Take. Ah, there is the cure for sin! We think that the cure for sin is
   to give something out from ourselves and to do some good thing. But in
   truth the cure for sin is, "Take."

   Take what? Take your dear Lord's wounds and trust them! Take His griefs
   and rest in them! Take His death and believe in it! Take Himself and
   love Him! And by His stripes you are healed! Sanctification is by faith
   in Jesus Christ! We overcome through the blood of the Lamb. And oh, as
   the topmost stone is stained with the blood, so must the foundation be.
   And I say, in parting, to every man and woman to whom I have spoken--as
   you and I shall meet at the Great White

   Throne at last, in the general assembly which shall be the last meeting
   of the sons of men, and the last parting--if you would be found at the
   right hand of God, believe the message I have brought you, for it is
   the very Truth of God!

   Do not only hear it, but act upon it, and before you leave this house I
   do pray that the Spirit of God may show you what it is to believe in
   Him, alone, "who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the
   tree." And if you do, though your sins have been as scarlet, they shall
   be as wool. Though you have been the most atrocious offender existing
   on the face of the earth, you shall be clean every whit from every sin!
   You may have come here as black as Hell, but you shall go out pure as
   the white-robed hosts in Heaven, if you will but believe in Jesus. This
   is the washing in the fountain, the Fountain which alone can make us
   clean.

   God help us to wash immediately, lest the time for washing be past and
   the time for judgment be today. God bless you, for His name's sake.
   Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--1 Peter 2.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Mighty Plea

   (No. 1144)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 23, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "You have been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me." Psalm 27:9.

   IN times of distress it is somewhat a difficulty to have a choice of
   helpers, because while we are making our selection, the danger may have
   overtaken us. While the fox was considering which way to run, the
   hounds had seized him. While the sick man was selecting the physician
   and considering the medicine, his disease carried him off. It is well
   to be shut up to one sole help, if that help is all we need. It is for
   our good, in such a case, to have no alternative, but to have, as the
   old proverb has it, Hobson's choice--that or none.

   The Believer is exactly in that condition. He must trust in his God or
   remain without hope. He dares not look to others as he once did, for he
   has discovered their incompetence. He cannot rely upon himself as once
   he was foolish enough to do, for he has learned, by bitter experience,
   the folly of self-confidence. He is compelled to look to the Lord,
   alone. Blessed is that wind which drives the ship into the harbor.
   Blessed is that wave which washes the mariner upon the rock of safety,
   and blessed is that distress which forces a man to rest only in his
   God! Such was the condition of the Psalmist when he wrote the text. His
   spirit looked to God, alone.

   In his past experience the goodness of the Lord shone forth as the pole
   star of his life's voyage and, therefore, as to the future, he fixed
   his eyes steadily on that one sure guiding light, and trusted in the
   God of his salvation. In supplicating the Lord it is well to have a
   plea ready for use, a plea available under all circumstances and
   conditions--a plea of our own--not borrowed from the mouths of other
   men and perhaps but half suitable to ourselves. We need a plea which
   wells up from our inner consciousness and is our own personal plea,
   felt to be weighty in our own souls and therefore confidently urged
   before the Throne of Grace.

   It is well to have a simple plea and one which we can understand,
   ourselves, for when we are in doubt we are like men in a mist and must
   have plain directions or we miss our way. If we have a chart in a fog
   we want it to be a very clear one, or else we shall not be able to see
   it. And when we plead with God in trouble we want the plea to be a very
   plain one, or else our minds may be so confused we shall not be able to
   urge it. A soul in sore distress is in no fit condition to puzzle
   itself over deep and dark reasonings--it needs a child's plea, just as
   Dr. Guthrie, when near dying, needed "Bairn's hymns.''

   Blessed, then, is it, if we have a plea like this of the text, "You
   have been my help," for this is a homely, personal, suitable, simple
   argument not fetched from afar by subtle wit, but grown at home in our
   own experience. He that runs may read it, and poor wayfaring men may
   comprehend it. The illiterate can use it as well as the learned. "You
   have been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me." Besides, this
   plea is good and full of real power. And I hope, before we have done
   this morning, we shall be able to show that there is much heavenly
   logic in it and that it is eminently full of that kind of argument
   which is most sure to prevail with the Host High.

   Perhaps it may be well, here, to confess that the plea before us is not
   one which would ordinarily be available with our fellow creatures, for
   if they have helped us before, they generally conclude that the next
   time we ought to knock at some other door. Francis Quarles has well
   compressed the usual manner of men--

   "Man'splea to man is, that he never more

   Will beg, and that he never begged before--

   Man'splea to God is, that he did obtain

   A former suit, and therefore sues again.

   How good a God we serve, that, when we sue,

   Makes His old gifts the examples of His new!"

   Yet there are exceptions to the general custom of mankind, for I read
   the other day a case in point, in Mr. Moody Stuart's, "Recollections of
   Dr. John Duncan, of Edinburgh," who was a beautiful character, and a
   famous Hebrew scholar, and has lately gone to Heaven, much to the loss
   of the Free Church.

   In that book I met with the following passage--"He was easily imposed
   upon, but the imposition never soured him, and he was willing to submit
   to it for the chance of doing good. He said, 'I find they know how to
   get round me. They say, "You helped me before," and I can never resist
   that. It teaches me how to pray.' " And now I think of it, many of us
   like to help our old pensioners, and they come up very boldly to our
   door remembering the many times in which they have succeeded. If you
   grant a man a favor several times, he becomes very free in seeking it
   again. So it seems that even among men it may be a plea, "You have been
   my help," and most assuredly it is most prevalent argument with God. No
   man shall be repulsed from the gate of Mercy who comes with this upon
   his lips--

   "You have helped in every need, This emboldens me to plead. After so
   much mercy past, Will You letme sink atlast?"

   I shall speak this morning thus--First, I shall try and depict
   Experience gratefully telling her tale--"You have been my help." Then
   Necessity urgently pleading with Experience--"Leave not, neither
   forsake me." And then Experience soundly instructing Faith--teaching
   her how to pray and how to expect an answer--"You have been my help;
   leave me not, neither forsake me."

   I. First then, dear Friends, let us listen to EXPERIENCE GRATEFULLY
   TELLING HER TALE, "You have been my help." I, the preacher, can say,
   and must say, with all my heart, "O God, You have been my help." Rest a
   minute and let the testimony be repeated by all who can declare it. I
   know that many of you, if this were the fitting time, would rise up and
   say, "O God, You have been my help." What would we have done without
   the help given us in time of need, given us from the Lord, Himself? How
   grandly has our God displayed His power and His mercy on our behalf!

   Many of you whose heads are adorned with the silver locks of age will
   say, with troubling, tearful emphasis, "You have been my help." Yes,
   and those of you in middle life, battling with its cares and trials,
   can do no otherwise but cheerfully confess, "The Lord is my helper, and
   has long been such." And the younger ones among us, who have lately put
   on the harness would not like to be left out, for even in their short
   conflict they have received such aid that they gladly admit, "You have
   been our help." If hands had to be held up now, that we might see at a
   glance those who could say that God has been their help, what a forest
   of hands would go up in this Tabernacle this morning! Yes, Lord, we
   Your servants, assembled here in thousands, do solemnly confess that
   You have been our help.

   Now, as I cannot describe the individual experiences of everyone here
   present, I will just say a little concerning the man who wrote these
   words. As we find them in this Psalm, and as his experience is
   singularly like that of every other saint, we may, perhaps, touch most
   of you in some point or other. David could very early say, "You have
   been my help," for while he was yet a youth the son of Jesse sought the
   Lord and struggled into spiritual life. I should think that his early
   experience was a very distinct and marked one--and one in which much
   saving help was displayed. He had deep convictions of sin, a clear view
   of the great Substitutionary Sacrifice that was to be offered, and in
   the end he obtained a very joyful sense of justification by faith.

   David could look back to the days of his boyish conversion, when he
   fought hard with doubt and fear, and sin committed and sin dwelling
   within him, and yet was able to put his trust in the great Sacrifice,
   so that he said in retrospect, "You have been my help." I invite every
   converted person here to look back upon that trying time when he was
   seeking the Lord with a burden of sin upon his back, assailed by a
   thousand sins and hindered by ten thousand temptations. You were, then,
   most wonderfully helped! You were helped to fall at the foot of the
   Cross and helped to look up and view the perfect Atonement there,
   presented by the Redeemer.

   You were helped to leave your burden in your Savior's sepulcher and
   helped to come away with a new song in your mouth--the sweet flavor of
   which is there to this hour. You were helped to repent and helped to
   believe--helped out of self-righteousness and helped out of despair. In
   memory of that matchless help you may well resolve to trust in the Word
   all the days of your life. "Because You have been my help, therefore in
   the shadow of Your wings will I rejoice." David, however, soon after
   his conversion, entered upon a scene of severe trial--at least, so I
   suspect.

   He appears to have been sent from home to serve as a shepherd boy in
   the wild places of Judea. I fancy that his condition with regard to his
   brothers was very much like that of Joseph--they either envied or
   despised him. When Samuel went to Bethlehem to anoint him, you will
   remember that all the rest of the family were at home and the youthful
   David was not summoned until the Prophet especially required it. But,
   as though he were not worth noticing, he was required to be away
   watching the flocks. And so, also, when he went, at his father's
   request, to the battle against the Philistines, his brothers treated
   him with great scorn, as though he had no business to come near them,
   or to associate with great men like themselves, in battle for their
   country.

   Poor David, therefore, was the marked one of the family, a speckled
   bird, the butt of household ridicule. But he could say, in looking back
   upon the times of his loneliness, "You have been my help." Sweet were
   the songs which he sang among the sheep, such as, "The Lord is my
   Shepherd, I shall not want." Happy were the quiet hours which he spent
   amidst the hills and vales of his native land, and by the rivers and
   the brooks where he made his flock to lie down. Many a time that harp
   of his, upon which he had learned to play so skillfully, had borne up
   his devout spirit on wings of music to the Throne of God, when his
   young heart sang in solitude the praises of the Most High.

   Perhaps some of you look back upon your early troubles as among the
   bitterest you ever knew. We are always hearing people say that our
   young days are the happiest we shall ever see. It may be true with
   many, but there are others whose young days were darkened with sorrow.
   They had to bear the yoke in their youth and they can say, in looking
   back, that it was good for them it was so, for in those times the Lord
   was their helper. David's father and mother had, in a measure, forsaken
   him, but God took him up. The Lord had regard to him when others
   despised him. He was the Lord's Anointed when he was an alien from his
   mother's children.

   What joy it is if our early sorrows have left this inscription upon the
   tablets of our hearts, "You have been my help." But David did not
   merely suffer when he was young, but did work for God--yes, he did
   grand exploits for his God and for his country while yet a youth--of
   which he could say with great fervor, "You have been my help." It was
   no little thing when the shepherd lad rushed against the lion and took
   him by his beard and slew him. And when the bear had taken the lamb, it
   was no slight matter for a raw youth to battle with the monster of the
   woods and slay it in the name of God, that he might deliver his sheep
   from destruction.

   The Lord was his helper that day, and grandly did he feel it, when he
   went with his sling and his stone to meet the gigantic Philistine! And
   openly did he confess his faith when he came back with the giant's
   head, all dripping with gore, to magnify the Most High, who had
   delivered him and delivered Israel out of the hand of this mighty
   adversary. "You have been my help." "The Lord delivered me out of the
   mouth of the lion and from the paw of the bear, and the Lord has
   delivered me from the hand of this uncircumcised Philistine."

   Now, my Brothers and Sisters, I do not ask you to look back upon what
   the Lord enabled you to do in your younger days by way of
   self-congratulation. I do not ask the old soldier to "shoulder his
   crutch and show how fields were won" that he may command admiration
   from younger warriors. But, that God may be glorified, I ask you to
   remember how the Holy Spirit came upon you in those early days and
   enabled you to be valiant for the Truth of God! Perhaps you had more
   zeal than knowledge in those days! Perhaps you possessed more
   confidence than prudence--but you did grand things for God and God was
   with you! He was with you, and so you might be content to go back to
   all the mistakes of youth if you might win back, again, its simple
   trust and burning love!

   At any rate, stand here today and admit that whatever you may have
   accomplished which will bless your fellow men and honor your God, the
   glory of it is all due to the help given you by the Lord. David, after
   those first trying times, passed through another series of afflictions.
   He was called to court, but the king was jealous of him and very soon
   he had to escape from Saul's murderous attacks. What continuous help
   did David receive from the God of his salvation! He was almost a
   prisoner in the caverns of Engedi but God delivered him. He was
   well-near captured among the hills, but Jehovah called off his
   pursuers. Many a time did he hold his life in his hand, for he was
   hunted like a defenseless partridge upon the mountains--but always, by
   some means or other, the Lord delivered him as a bird out of the snare
   of the fowler--the snare was broken and he escaped.

   Look back upon the troubles through which God has brought you, my
   beloved Brothers and Sisters! Remember the times in which your feet had
   almost gone and your steps had well-near slipped, and say with grateful
   emotion, "You have been my help." God helped David by raising him up
   many true friends. When he was in the cave brave spirits came to

   him, valiant and faithful men, who loved David as they loved their own
   souls. And when he asked for a drink of water from the well of
   Bethlehem, they went, their lives in their hands, to gratify his wish
   and let him drink of the water which he was accustomed to taste in his
   boyish days, for they were denoted to him.

   Now, it is no small thing to have good, kind, faithful, earnest friends
   and adherents. And if you have had such, or have been favored with
   parents, brethren and friends who have been greatly attached to you, be
   sure to praise the Lord for them this morning, as I, myself, joyfully
   do in the midst of many tried and attached supporters, and say, "You
   have been my help." On one or two occasions David found the Lord to be
   his help when he was in positions where he might scarcely have expected
   Divine aid. When we plunge ourselves into trouble through our own
   fault, it is but natural to fear that we may be left to suffer for our
   folly. And it is peculiarly gracious on the part of our heavenly Friend
   to come to our rescue.

   David had unwisely sought refuge with the king of Gath and there was
   placed in great jeopardy of his life, so that he had to play the madman
   in order to escape. But escape he did, through God's gracious help. Yet
   another time, in his unbelief, he went and joined the army of this
   heathen king--and if the lords of the Philistines had not spoken
   against his going down to the battle, he world have been placed in a
   very awkward position, in having been called to fight against his own
   countrymen--but God delivered him, even then. With what regret may some
   of us look back upon our own follies! And with what thankfulness may we
   survey the mercy which plucked our feet out of the net. Where others
   would have left us in anger, because of our waywardness and
   ingratitude, You, O Lord, have been our help.

   David obtained help under very strong temptations. It was a very strong
   temptation when he saw his adversary in the cave all alone, and might
   with one stroke of his sword have taken off his head. He was helped of
   God to spare his foe and he only cut off the hem of the king's robe to
   let him see how completely he was in his power. Help also did he need
   when, in the dead of night, he went with Abishai, his captain, through
   the sleeping hosts of Saul and came to the place where lay his cruel
   enemy asleep. His spear stood temptingly near his pillow and a deep
   sleep was on him. And Abishai said, "Let me smite him, let me smite him
   but once, one stroke shall end it all."

   Who among ordinary men of war must not have wished to let that one
   single blow be struck? In what surer manner could a bitter quarrel be
   ended? But no, "I will not lift up my hand against the Lord's
   Anointed." David must have felt that God was superlatively his Helper
   that night to keep back his hand from blood. You, too, dear Friends,
   have been in such a position that you were strongly tempted to do
   wrong. Impulses both of your own nature and of Satan were strong upon
   you and you had almost put forth your hand unto iniquity. But you have
   been kept with an unblemished character to this day and you are
   compelled to say, this morning, "You have been my help."

   Yes, and David could remember, again, when God helped him in times of
   direst distress. Perhaps the greatest sorrow of David's life, before he
   fell into sin with Bathsheba, was the destruction of Ziklag. He came
   back from the Philistines' country to his own town of Ziklag and found
   the town totally sacked, everything taken away. And, what was worse,
   his own wives and children, and those of all his men, carried away
   captive. David might have borne up under this had his friends cheered
   him, but they were so exasperated that they fell angrily upon him and
   spoke of stoning him! He was their leader--he was not to blame in any
   respect for their loss--but merely in the bitterness of their hearts
   they spoke in foolish anger and hot haste.

   Generally, at such times, men need a victim and in this case they would
   have made their noble leader the object of their wrath. It is written,
   "David encouraged himself in the Lord his God," and sorely did he need
   to do so. God brought him out of it, for he never lost a farthing by
   the sack of Ziklag, nor any of his men. They recovered their wives and
   their children, and, beside that, not only all their own goods, but all
   the spoil the plundering band had taken from other places. David could
   have sung, and no doubt did sing, "Ebenezer, up to now the Lord has
   helped us!" Or, in the words of the text, "You have been my help."

   Have not you had your Ziklag, you businessmen, when things were going
   all to the bad? You could not help yourself and bankruptcy stared you
   in the face. You did what you could, but it seemed as if you must be
   ruined. That was your Ziklag and the Lord helped you. Or perhaps there
   was disease in your house--one child had gone, another was
   sickening--your wife was laid by. You were unable, yourself, to lift
   hand or foot to help, all things were against you--it was your Ziklag.
   Or perhaps you are a minister of the Gospel and there was, in your
   Church, spreading disaffection and

   cruel ill will--and no one was found to stand up for you. Though you
   had been faithful before the Lord God of Hosts, you seemed quite left
   and deserted. It was your Ziklag, but you were helped through it.

   And therefore, I beg you, do not, for the glory of God and for the
   comfort of tried saints, keep back your testimony, but say, "I was
   brought low, and He helped me, and, therefore, blessed be His name." We
   do not talk enough about our deliverances! When you get home this
   afternoon, after dinner, if a friend or two should call, you will go
   over your bad times and your troubles, but you will not recapitulate
   your mercies. Have we not had enough of complaining? Let us touch
   another string and bless the Lord for all His lovingkindness! What a
   tale some of us could tell of His mercies! No novel that was ever
   composed could possibly equal, in interest, my own experience of God's
   goodness, and I think there are many here of whose lives the same could
   be said.

   Rich with incident, crowded with wonders, crammed full of miracles have
   our lives been, for God has dealt so well with us that we often stand
   astonished at what He has done. "You have been my help." Oh, yes, I
   will sum up the whole of my life in the one sentence, and, as we have
   seen a portrait sketched in a few lines, so will I give you my whole
   career in miniature--"You have been my help." Listen, then, to the song
   of Experience, and hasten to join in it! It is most charming and
   cheering--"You have been my help."

   II. Our second point is NECESSITY PLEADING EXPERIENCE. "You have been
   my help; leave me not, neither

   forsake me." First, You have been my help, therefore it is consistent
   with Your holiness to help me. Lord, I am a poor sinner, unworthy to be
   noticed, and my doubts and fears sometimes tell me that it would not be
   fit for Your infinitely holy Majesty to look upon such a rebellious
   worm as I am. But, Lord, You have done it already! You have been my
   help and if it were not wrong for You to help me once, it will not be
   wrong for You to help me twice. If it did not stain Your spotless robe
   to hold out your hand to a fallen and condemned soul in years gone by,
   it will not stain Your purity to lend me Your hand again.

   I therefore bless Your condescending goodness and ask You not to leave
   me! You have been my help. Therefore, in the second place, it is within
   Your power to help me, for, Lord, my case today is not worse than it
   was when You did help me before, or, if it is, You are All-Sufficient.
   Lord, help me out of this affliction, for You did redeem me on a former
   occasion. I was weak and friendless then, and could not help myself.
   But Your own arm of mercy was fully equal to the emergency. Lord, I
   know it is quite sufficient now. If You had never delivered my soul out
   of such a puzzling, perplexing and intricate case as mine, I might have
   doubted, but as You have already been my help in times of great strait,
   when no way of relief was visible, You are able to help me again.
   Therefore I lay hold upon the hands of Your power and the arms of Your
   strength.

   You have been my help. Therefore You can help me again, O Jehovah! I
   know You can! Again, my appeal is to Your Wisdom. Lord, You have been
   my help and if You do not help me now, all that help will go for
   nothing! It is of no use to have helped me so far, if You do not help
   me to the end. Now, Lord, I know You do not begin to build, and then
   leave the world incomplete, so that they that go by may say, "He began
   to build, but was not able to finish." You have made an investment in
   me, good Lord. You have gone deep in expenditures of mercy and love
   with a poor worm like I, and if You stop Your hand, Lord, You will lose
   all you have invested. You must go right through with it, Lord, or else
   You will have lost all the works of Your love and Your power and Your
   goodness which You have already so lavishly spent upon me.

   Is not that good pleading? "You have been my help"--Lord, if it were
   wise to help me so far, it must be wise to go through with it. Would it
   have been wise to bring Israel into the wilderness and feed them with
   manna for 40 years and then to let them die of starvation? What would
   the Egyptians say? Would they not ask, "Why did He bring them into the
   wilderness? Why did He conduct them so far and afterwards suffer them
   to perish?" Well does our poet put it--

   "The work which wisdom undertakes, Eternal mercy never forsakes."

   For, if it is wise to begin with, it must be wise to carry it on. Lord
   Jesus, You have loved my soul as Jacob loved Rachel, and he was bound
   to serve for seven years to win her. And if he had served six and a
   half years, and then left off, he would never have had his Rachel. And
   You have, in Your infinite love, served for me these years, but if You
   leave off now, I shall never be Yours at last--my poor soul must perish
   unless, till the last hour of life, You shall still wait upon me in
   mercy, and refresh me with Your Grace.

   To my own soul at this moment this plea, "You have been my help," is a
   very powerful hold upon Divine Wisdom, and is an urgent reason why I
   may ask for Grace, still, to be given me. Perhaps the backbone of the
   argument lies in the attribute of Immutability. "You have been my help,
   if You can change, then can You leave me. But if You are, indeed,
   Jehovah, "I Am that I Am," the same forever and forever--if You have
   once blessed, You are bound by the force of Your Nature to bless right
   on--as long as You are God and I require Your blessing. Have you not
   said, "I am God, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not
   consumed"? What blessed notes that text contains! He who has kept you
   to this day, if He changed, might leave you. But since He cannot
   change, He will bear you right through!

   How wicked we are to doubt our faithful God! The sun rose yesterday and
   nobody doubted but what it would be up this morning. And there is not a
   man living but what believes the sun will shine tomorrow. Do you trust
   the sun and will you not trust the God who kindles its light? The tide
   comes up to the shore and then recedes according to the regular motion
   of the moon, and everybody trusts the tide and is prepared for its
   coming in and its going out. And can you trust the unstable sea, and
   its fickle wave, and not rest upon the Immutable God?

   You say the thing that was shall be, and surely God was forever and
   ever, and has kept His promises to His people-- and therefore the thing
   shall be. If Heaven above can be measured, or the earth searched out.
   If the ordinances of the sun and of the moon can be changed, then may
   God forsake His people, but it can not, shall not be while He is still
   the same. I think there is one more argument here, namely, a plea to
   God's love. "You have been my help." Lord, surely if You did love me
   enough to help me before, You love me enough to help me still. It is
   the plea of a child to a father. "Father, you have always fed me, will
   you let me starve? You have always clothed me, will you let me be
   naked?" It is the argument of a spouse to her husband as she says to
   him, "My Husband, you have never failed me yet. Whatever I have needed
   you have supplied to me. Leave me not, neither forsake me."

   You know how the plea has power with a heart which is touched with true
   affection. It is with us and our God as thought He had guided us
   halfway through a wilderness. We did not know one inch of the road and
   had no provision for it, but He has helped up to now. If, when He had
   brought us right into the center of the waste, He should say to us,
   "Now I am going to leave you"--if we were in such a plight that on
   desert sand, where there was no pathway and no shelter, our guide
   should say, "Now I must leave you to yourselves"--we would clutch him
   by the sleeve and say, "Leave me not! I pray you do not leave me, else
   why have you brought me here at all?

   "All the kindness of the past will be but cruelty, a studied
   tantalizing of me, if you leave me. Why did you bring me here? All the
   way I have come, I have depended upon you for everything. I could not
   have found my way so far, alone, and will you leave me now?" Oh, I
   think no man would be so brutal as to resist such an argument. He would
   say, "If in my kindness I have undertaken the conduct of this poor
   ignorant creature and brought him so far, I cannot leave him till I
   have landed him safely at home." Shall the Lord be less kind than man?
   Imagine that a child has fallen into the sea and you are a strong
   swimmer and have swam from the boat and clasped the child, and you are
   bearing him on your shoulders and swimming to land.

   Suppose you should suddenly say, "My child, I have done something for
   you, but will do no more. I must drop you into the sea." Would not the
   little one say, "Sir, you picked me up when I was sinking. I should
   have been dead long ago but for you. Do not throw me off, Sir. Strike
   out again, Sir! Let me still cling to you." We may reason in the same
   manner with God. "My God, my God, if You had meant to let me be lost,
   why did You not do it years ago, and let me go down to Hell without
   hope? But now You have given me a hope of Heaven! You have let me know
   something of the joy of holiness. Some love to You and some longings
   after You have stirred my soul. Will You leave me now, O my God? It
   cannot, must not be."

   The pleading is mighty, Brothers and Sisters, I know of none
   better--"You have been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me."

   III. Now, thirdly, and briefly, here is EXPERIENCE INSTRUCTING FAITH.
   My venerable Brothers and Sisters,

   the first word of this instruction is to you. Experience says to Faith,
   "Trust God, for He has been your help so long." How long? Fifty years
   for some of you. How old are you? Seventy, eighty? God has been your
   help, then, all that time! How long do you expect to live? To be
   eighty. You are 70 now. All you have seen through seven-eighths of life
   is that He is a faithful God. Can you not trust Him for the other
   eighth?

   Your sun is going down, its shadows are lengthening, but from early
   dawn all through the hot noontide He has been good to you. Can you not
   trust Him for the last few hours of eventide? Surely, surely God
   deserves that such long-continued kindness should not be received with
   ungrateful doubts! If He had meant to be a liar to you, you would have
   found Him out before this. If His promises were intended to be
   failures, they surely would have been failures to you before you had
   gone so far! Oh, believe Him for the rest of life and go singing into
   Heaven, "You have been my help." May the Holy Spirit, the Comforter,
   enable you to put down all unbelief! The Lord has been our help so
   constantly that the fact confirms our faith.

   If, in looking back upon our lives, we could find a point or two where
   God had failed us, we might, then, let our faith flag. I can only speak
   as I find--I cannot find one instance in all my life in which God was
   untrue or unkind to me. If we ever doubt God till we have cause for it.
   We shall never entertain any doubts so long as we live. Yesterday, as I
   looked at some little birds in a cage, I thought to myself, "These poor
   little creatures are entirely dependent upon those who feed them. If
   seed and water are not supplied to them, they cannot help themselves
   and must die. And yet there they sit and sing with all their might!
   Their state of dependence never distresses them. They have perfect
   confidence in their keepers."

   And, I thought, that is just my position. I am God's singing bird.
   Perhaps I wonder where I shall get my bread from, or my sermon for next
   Sunday--and a great many cares and troubles come to me. But why should
   I be troubled? Instead of mistrusting my Keeper, who has fed me these
   many years, had I not better sit and sing as loudly as I can? Would not
   that be the best thing to do? The bird does it, and why should not a
   man do it, who is supposed to have more brains than a bird, but who
   sometimes does not seem to have half as much? Come, Brothers and
   Sisters, come! The Lord has constantly been true, let us not doubt!

   And then He has helped us so singularly. Some here present have been in
   very remarkable tribulations--trials the like of which have not
   befallen other people--at least, so they think! They have fallen to
   their lot and yet they have had singular rescues and helps. Well, then,
   when you come into the singular predicament of dying, you shall have
   the singular Grace of being able to rejoice when you die! Or, if any
   other remarkable trial should waylay you between here and Heaven, you
   shall find extraordinary deliverance from Him who has been your help.

   And I might say, in closing, God up to now has helped us in such a way
   that He has glorified Himself. We could not have believed that He could
   have so delightfully illustrated His Divine attributes as He has done
   in our past biography! There have been such flashes of light out of His
   excellent Glory that we have been astounded! So it will be to the last.
   God will be glorified in our mortal bodies while we live and when we
   come to die. He has been our help and He will be our help till, like a
   scroll, this world is rolled up and time itself expires, and we have
   reached eternity.

   I have two or three more thoughts to utter and I have done. To
   self-righteous persons our text can have no sweetness. You have always
   done your best and have been very religious. You have believed that you
   deserve eternal life, and you have been on very good terms with
   yourselves. God has not been your help. You did not want Him--you have
   done very well without Him. You do not need washing in the blood of
   Jesus--you were never a very great sinner. You do not require help from
   the Holy Spirit--you have always been able to attend to the formalities
   of religion without assistance from supernatural power. And so this is
   your secret judgment of your condition.

   You cannot say, "You have been my help." And I dare say you do not
   pray, "Leave me not, neither forsake me." You do not see the need of
   it. Well, your fancied salvation is such an one that the sooner you are
   rid of it the better! It is such an one that if you can put a millstone
   about its neck and sink it in the sea, you will do well, for if you do
   not do that, it will sink you in Hell forever! That hope of salvation
   which is not grounded upon Christ and the power of God, but which rests
   in self, is nothing but counterfeit--it is damnation gilded, nothing
   better. Away with it! Away with it! And oh, may you be made to go as
   guilty, as helpless, as entirely dependent upon mercy and Divine
   strength--and then you will be in the way of salvation, but not till
   then.

   Oh, may the Spirit of God teach you this! I have, here, some poor
   trembling soul who is seeking Christ and he says, "O Sir, I could not
   use the plea of the text this morning." Well, beloved Friend, perhaps
   not in the strong sense in which the Christian can, but you may still
   use it in a measure. For instance, you need to be forgiven. You need to
   be saved. You can say to your heavenly Father, "O God, You have
   preserved my miserable life. You have bid the sun to shine upon the

   evil as well as the good. You have sent the showers and the harvest for
   me as well as for the best of Your servants. Oh, if You have done this,
   do more and send me the gifts of Your Grace!"

   Besides, poor Heart, you can say, "You have given me this Sunday. You
   have permitted me to go and sit with Your servants. Though the meanest
   of them all, You permit me to hear the voice of Gospel invitation. You
   speak to me, and say, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall
   be saved.' Oh, crown these gifts by giving me faith, by granting me
   life--the life of Your Holy Spirit! Save me, save me with a great
   salvation!" I think that is good pleading and especially if you can
   add, "O God, You have set forth Your Son Jesus to be a Propitiation for
   sin, and declared that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but
   have everlasting life. By Your Grace I do trust in Him and rest my soul
   upon Him, alone. Do not reject me! Let me know Your great salvation, or
   I languish, faint, and die."

   You shall not be long in such a case as that. If you believe, all
   things are yours! If your only hope is in Him who bled on the Cross,
   your transgressions are already blotted out! Go, and sin no more! Peace
   be unto you! Be of good courage! The Lord has looked upon you already
   with an eye of love! You are His and He will never leave you nor
   forsake you, world without end. God bless you all, dear Friends, and He
   shall have the honor and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 27, 28.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Great Jail--and How To Get Out Of It

   (No. 1145)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 30, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by
   faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe." Galatians
   3:22.

   IN every work which we undertake it is most important that we should
   act upon right principles, for if we are misled upon essential points,
   our efforts will be wasted since success cannot possibly be the result.
   A man may study the stars as long as he pleases, but he certainly will
   not come to right conclusions if he calculates their courses upon the
   theory that they daily revolve around the earth as a center. The
   alchemists were earnest even to enthusiasm, but the object of their
   pursuit was unattainable and the theories which guided their
   investigations were absurd, and, therefore, they exhibited a sorrowful
   spectacle of misapplied perseverance and labor thrown away.

   In mechanics the most ingenious contriver must fail if he forgets the
   Law of gravitation. You must proceed upon right principles, or
   disappointment awaits you. If a man in London believed that he would
   reach the city of York by traveling rapidly to the south, he would
   certainly fail, even though he had a special express attached to his
   carriage. If another should be sincerely of the opinion that by
   drinking a strong poison he would restore himself to health, his
   friends and survivors would have to regret his infatuation. The
   earnestness of his belief will not alter the fact--the principles which
   make the deadly drug so murderous will not yield because the man is
   sincere--and he will certainly die for his obstinacy.

   Now, the greatest matter of concern for any one of us is the eternal
   salvation of our soul. We need to be saved, and, according to the
   Scriptures, there is but one way of salvation--but that way does not
   happen to be in favor among the sons of men. The great popular
   principle, popular all over the world, no matter whether the people
   happen to be Protestant or Catholic, Parsee or Muslim, Brahminist or
   Buddhist, is self-salvation--they would reach eternal life by merit!
   There are differences about what is to be done, but the great universal
   principle of unregenerate man is that he is, somehow or other, to save
   himself. This is his principle, and the further he goes in it, the less
   likely is he to be saved.

   My objective, this morning, is to bring before you the much despised
   principle which God has revealed as the only true one, namely,
   salvation by the Grace of God, through Jesus Christ, by simple faith in
   Him. We preach, at God's command, the way of salvation by mercy, not by
   merit--by faith, not by works--by Grace, not by the efforts of men. May
   God help us so to set forth that principle that many may accept it! I
   do not care one snap of my finger about preaching so that the style
   shall please your ears! I long to reach your hearts. I want you to
   receive the only sure method of salvation, and I pray the Holy Spirit
   to baptize my words in His own mighty fire and make them to burn their
   way into your hearts and subdue you to the obedience of faith.

   The text divides itself into two parts, but my sermon will not end
   there, for I shall try to enforce its great Truths of God. Upon two
   points we will speak at once. The first is a crowded prison--"The
   Scripture has confined all under sin." And the second is a glorious
   jail delivery--"that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be
   given to them that believe." After that we will try to show how
   excellent is that plan which God has marked out--the plan of
   deliverance from sin by the promise of faith in Christ Jesus.

   I. Behold THE CROWDED PRISON--"The Scripture has confined all under
   sin." The Jailer is the Scripture--a lawful Authority, for the
   Scripture is not the word of man, but of the Spirit of God. If any man
   reject the Scripture, I have little to say to him at this moment, for I
   am speaking mainly to those who accept the Bible as having been written
   by an Infallible pen. If the Scriptures, then, which you admit to be
   written by God, confine you in sin, you are shut up by a lawful
   Authority against which you cannot rebel! God has done it! God's own
   voice has declared you to be a prisoner under sin.

   No Authority is more powerful than that of Scripture, for it is not
   only true, but it has force to support it. Where the Word of the God
   is, there is power. The Scripture, when it comes home to the heart like
   a hammer, breaks in pieces, and like a fire burns its way. We need not
   be alarmed when judged of men, but the voice of the Lord is full of
   terrible majesty and awes the spirit which it condemns. But how does
   the Scripture confine all men under sin? I reply, first, it has been
   well observed by Martin Luther that the very promises of Scripture
   confine all mankind under sin.

   To begin with the first--that morning star of promise which shone over
   this world when first our parents left the gates of blighted Eden--"The
   Seed of the women shall bruise the serpent's head." Since such a
   promise was needed, it is clear that the blessing could only come to
   men through the Redeemer, the Seed of the woman. And that in the case
   of all men the serpent's head must be broken, or they would remain
   under his dominion. When a blessing is promised, there must have been a
   need for it. Where a Deliverer is predicted, there must have been a
   necessity for Him. If a blessing could come to men by the way of merit,
   or in the course of Nature, there would be no need of a promise--a
   promise implies a need and the very first promise of deliverance by the
   woman's Seed from the power of the serpent implies that men were under
   that evil power.

   The promise of Grace is clear in the Covenant with Noah, in which the
   Lord declared that He would no more destroy the earth with a flood. Had
   the race of man been holy, God would not have destroyed it with a
   flood, for He would have violated Justice by destroying an innocent
   race. To a pure race there could be no necessity for a Covenant of
   preservation, for there would be no conceivable reason for the
   destruction of the innocent. The very making of a Covenant that the
   earth should not again be swept with an overwhelming flood implies
   that, apart from such a gracious Covenant, the earth might justly be
   destroyed at any time.

   The lovely rainbow, while it comfortably reminds us of the Divine
   faithfulness, is also a memorial of that universal depravity of our
   race which necessitated a Covenant of Grace to stand as a barrier for
   our protection lest the righteous wrath of God should break forth upon
   us. The yet more explicit Covenant which God made with Abraham plainly
   shows men to be shut up under sin, because it runs thus, "In your seed
   shall all the nations of the earth be blessed," proving that the
   nations were not originally in a blessed state and could only be
   blessed through the promised seed. If some of them were blessed,
   already, or could be blessed by their works, then the words of the
   promise would not be true.

   The Covenant blessing comes to the nations only through Jesus Christ,
   the Seed, and, consequently, it is clear that the nations were in need
   of a blessing. The fact is that the very existence of the Gospel, and
   its provisions of Grace, pardon, and so on--the coming of a Savior, His
   death upon the tree and His intercession in Heaven--all prove that men
   were confined in sin. If you had not been so, what need of you, O
   Cavalry? What need of Your five wounds, O Son of God? Surely all this
   vast machinery for redemption is ridiculous if men are not slaves! This
   wondrous filling of a fountain with blood is a vain superfluity if men
   are not foul. So the very Scripture which is brightest with life to the
   sons of men carries within it convincing evidence that men, apart from
   the Grace of God, are shut up under sin.

   I have no doubt the Apostle alluded more immediately to that part of
   Scripture which deals with Law. Turn, I pray you, to the 20th chapter
   of Exodus, which I hope you carry in your memories. Let me ask you to
   read those Ten Commandments with deep solemnity, and see whether they
   do not shut you up under sin. What man can read them and then say, "I
   am clear of all these"? The Ten Commandments surround us on all sides
   and encompass all the movements of body, soul, and spirit--comprising
   under their jurisdiction the whole range of moral action. They hold us
   under fire from all points and nowhere are we out of range.

   These 10 precepts are condensed into two comprehensive precepts, "You
   must love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your
   soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength, and your
   neighbor as yourself." Can you listen to those two precepts, which are
   the essence of the 10, without feeling that you have not loved God with
   all your heart and soul and mind and strength, but very far from it,
   and that you have not loved your neighbor as yourself, but have gone
   far aside? A man who can read the Law and not tremble, if he is out of
   Christ, must be dead in his sin! He must be ignorant, altogether, of
   its meaning, or else he must have hardened his heart against its
   terrible import.

   The awakened conscience knows that the Law curses every one of us,
   without exception, for we have broken it. The Law as given on Sinai
   does that--and let us remember that the Law as repeated by Mosaic
   command upon Mounts Ebal and Gerizim, at the time of the entrance of
   Israel into the Holy Land, is not less express than the thunders of the
   mount which might not be touched. Read the passage in Deuteronomy
   27:26. Perhaps of all the verses of the Word of God this

   is the most sweeping and utterly crushing to self-righteous hopes.
   "Cursed be he that confirms not all the Words of the Law to do them.
   And all the people shall say, Amen."

   The Apostle quotes in another form, in the New Testament--"Cursed is
   everyone that continues not in all things which are written in the Book
   of the Law to do them." The Law roars like a lion upon us in this
   sentence! If there is, in any one of us a solitary violation of the
   command of God, we are cursed by Him! If we have, at any time
   throughout life, in any measure or degree, in deed, word, or thought,
   by omission or commission, diverged from absolute perfection, we are
   cursed! Such is the statement of God, Himself, by the mouth of His
   servant Moses, in this book of Deuteronomy! There is no exception made
   whatever--all sins are included in it, and we are, all of us,
   included--"Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things that are
   written in the Book of the Law to do them."

   Right well does our text say that the Scripture has shut all of us up
   under sin. We are putting no strain upon the Scripture, for such was
   the understanding of the Law by the saints of old. Turn to Psalm 143:2
   and remember, while I quote this, that this is by no means a solitary
   passage, but only selected as one of many. There David says, "Enter not
   into judgment with Your servant, for in Your sight shall no man living
   be justified." He stood before God, a man whose heart was sincere and
   true, but he did not dare to bring his works into judgment. And,
   speaking by the Spirit of God as a Prophet, he declared that in God's
   sight no man could be clear of guilt.

   And yet further, Brothers and Sisters, the Law of God shuts us up, not
   only as it was delivered from Sinai, as it was repeated at Gerizim, as
   it was understood by the saints, but especially as it was expounded by
   the Savior. He did not come to break the bars of this prison, nor to
   remove this Jailer from being its marshal--His deliverance is not by
   violence, but by fair legal process. He came to strengthen, rather than
   to weaken the Law, for what does He say concerning it? He does not
   merely forbid adultery, but He expounds the command by saying, "He that
   looks upon a woman to lust after her commits adultery with her already
   in his heart."

   He shows what had been so much forgotten by the Jews, that the
   Commandments are spiritual and that they reach infinitely further than
   mere outward actions. That, for instance, "You shall not kill," does
   not merely mean, "You shall do no murder," but is to be understood in
   the sense given it by the Lord Jesus--"I say unto you that whoever is
   angry with his brother without shall be in danger of the judgment." As
   Christians understand it, the Law forbids our doing anything whereby
   the natural or spiritual life of another may be placed in jeopardy.
   Now, since the Law is to be so understood, its commandments are
   exceedingly broad. Since it touches our thoughts, our imaginations, and
   our casual wishes, who among us can stand before it?

   Verily the Law confines us as in a terrible Bastille and we are, each
   one of us, prisoners under sin. Here will be the time for us to say
   that not only do the Scriptures of promise and the Scriptures of Law
   shut us up, but so do all the Scriptures of the old ceremonial Law of
   the Jews. "Oh," you say, "how is that?" I reply, "When the destroying
   angel went through Egypt on that memorable night, not one man, woman,
   or child was delivered except through the sprinkling of the blood upon
   the doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they dwelt. What did
   that mean? Why, that they were all under sin--and had it not been for
   the blood, the same angel who smote the first-born of Egypt must have
   smitten every one of them, God's people, as they were, for they were
   all under sin!

   When they reached the wilderness, there were different rites and
   ceremonies, but it is remarkable that everything under the Law was
   sprinkled with blood, because the people and all that they did were
   polluted with sin before God and needed to be cleansed by an atonement.
   When an Israelite came to worship God at the Tabernacle, he could not
   come without a sacrifice. Atonement for sin was the way to God--the
   altar and the slaughtered lamb were the way of approach. There must be
   blood to cleanse the comer because every comer was, in himself,
   unclean.

   Note, also, that the Holy Place in the Tabernacle in the wilderness was
   closed, and into it no man went but the High Priest, and he but once
   every year. This was a most solemn declaration of God that no man was
   fit to come near to His infinite holiness--that every man, even of the
   chosen people--was so polluted that there must be hung up a veil
   between him and God. And the one man who did come near at all must
   approach with sprinkled blood and smoking incense, typical of the
   coming Sacrifice of the Lord Jesus! There was nothing about the Mosaic
   economy to say to man, "You are good, or you can be good, and you can
   save yourself." But everywhere the declaration was--"You have rebelled
   and have not served the Lord. You cannot come near unto Him until you
   are purged by the blood of the great Sacrifice. God cannot accept you
   as you are, you are polluted and defiled."

   The sinfulness of all men is abundantly taught in Scripture. Indeed, it
   is to be found on every page of it. I have spoken of the Jailer. Now
   notice His prisoners. "The Scripture has concluded all under sin"--all,
   all. The heathen? Yes, for the first chapter of the Epistle to the
   Romans tells us, that though they have not God's written Law, they have
   sufficient of it upon their consciences to accuse them if they do
   wrong, and every heathen has violated the Law of God by sinning against
   the light of Nature. To us who have heard that Law the, "all," of the
   text is very emphatic.

   But you have been very moral, you say. Yes, but you are shut up under
   sin, for, outwardly moral as you have been, you dare not say that you
   have never thought of evil so as to long for it. That you have never
   indulged wrong imaginations. That you have never a rash word, that you
   have never sinned in action. Surely you dare not say that you have
   loved God with all your heart and all your soul, and all your strength?
   Nor that you have always loved your neighbor as yourself? My Friend,
   you, who are so fair to look upon when you look in the glass of your
   own self-adulation--if you could see yourself as God sees you, would
   discover that you are leprous from head to foot--your sins are abundant
   and loathsome though you perceive them not!

   And this is true of the most religious of those men who are resting in
   outward observances. They have prayed every night and morning since
   they were children. They have never absented themselves from assemblies
   for worship. They have attended to Baptism and Communion, and the like.
   Ah, Sirs, but the Law takes no account of this! If you have not kept
   its Ten Commandments perfectly, it accepts no ceremonies as a
   recompense. God requires of His creatures that they obey His Law
   completely, without flaw--and one sin of omission or commission will
   bring down that dreadful sentence which I have already quoted, "Cursed
   is everyone that continues not in all things that are written in the
   Book of the Law to do them." Religious or irreligious, the broken Law
   confines all men in the same prison!

   Now, notice for a minute, the prison itself. It is one from which we
   cannot escape by any efforts of our own. Brothers and Sisters, if we
   say, "We will never sin again," we shall sin. And our never sinning
   again would make no atonement for past offenses. Suppose we were to
   resolve, from this time forth, that we would suffer mortifications of
   body and sorrow of heart, to make atonement for sin? It would be
   useless, for the Law speaks nothing of repentance. When a man has
   broken the Law, he must he punished for it--there is no space left for
   repentance under the Law--and the sure result of our being shut up in
   the prison of the Law, apart from the Grace of God, is to be taken from
   that prison to execution--and to be destroyed forever by the wrath of
   God.

   There is the prison of the text. There is the Jailer and his prisoners.

   II. It is our great happiness to know that we are not shut up in this
   way with a view to our hopeless destruction, but in order that the
   Grace of God may come to us, and so we have to speak of A GLORIOUS
   JAIL-DELIVERY. The jail-delivery which I have to speak of is evidently
   of those who are shut up in the prison. "The Scripture has concluded
   all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given
   to them that believe." Christ came into this world to save those who
   have broken the Law, those whom the Law curses and those who have no
   means, whatever, of escaping from the curse, unless Jesus opens the
   way.

   He has not come to save the righteous. If there are any among you who
   will not believe that you are shut up in the prison of the Law, I have
   no Gospel to preach to you. Why send a physician to a man who is not
   sick? And why offer alms to a man who is not poor? If you can save
   yourselves by your works, go and do so, fools that you are, for you
   might as well hope to drink dry the Atlantic! If you believe in
   self-salvation, I am hopeless of doing you any good till you are
   exhausted of your strength. When you are weak and sick, and ready to
   die, then will you be willing to accept the free salvation of Christ!
   Remember, Christ came to save the ungodly--the guilty, alone, are
   objects mercy.

   The Lord Jesus Christ has come to bring to all those who believe in Him
   a complete deliverance from the bondage of the Law. The man who
   believes in Jesus is forgiven. The very moment he believes, all his
   transgressions are blotted out and from that moment he is just in the
   sight of God. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through
   Jesus Christ our Lord." Having believed, he becomes, at once, a child
   of God, a son of the Most High. And since God will never cast away His
   children, nor reject those whom He has loved, the man is then and there
   saved, and saved eternally. He was a slave before, and deserved the
   lash and felt it. He is a child now, and is no longer under the Law,
   but under Grace.

   The principle which guides him now is not, "This do and you shall
   live," but this--"I am saved and now I love to serve my God." Now he
   does not work for wages and expect to win a reward by merit--he is a
   saved man and he has all

   that he needs--for Christ is his and Christ is All. Now a higher
   principle burns within his bosom than that of self-salvation! He loves
   God and is selfish no longer. Observe that this jail-delivery comes to
   men by promise. It is salvation according to promise. The promise is
   given, says the text. Now, if any man is saved on the Bible plan of
   salvation, it is not the result of anything he has done--he has never
   deserved it--it is not the result of a bargain between him and God.

   No, the Lord says freely, "I will blot out your sins. I will accept
   you. I will hear your prayer. I will save you." He does this because He
   chooses to do it of His own Sovereign good will and pleasure. "I will
   have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on
   whom I will have compassion." "So, then, it is not of him that wills,
   nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy." The promise is not
   made to works, but only to faith. It is "the promise of faith by Christ
   Jesus." If God had made His promise to a certain measure of holiness,
   or a certain amount of feeling, then, Brothers and Sisters we might
   have despaired--but the promise is to faith. If you believe, you are
   saved!

   You poor harlot, if you believe, you are saved! You thief, you
   murderer, you vilest of wretches, however far you may have gone, if you
   believe in Jesus Christ, your transgressions are forgiven you and you
   are a child of God. It is your believing, not your doing. Your
   trusting, your relying upon Christ, not your prayers, tears, preaching,
   hearing, or anything else you can do, or be, or feel! You are saved by
   giving up self, entirely, and resting wholly on Him whom God has set
   forth to be a Propitiation, namely, the crucified Redeemer.

   Observe that the faith spoken of in the text is faith in Christ Jesus.
   It must not be faith in yourself, nor faith in a priest, nor faith in
   sacraments, nor faith in a set of doctrines--the praise is to faith in
   Christ Jesus. That is to say, you must believe that Christ, the Son of
   God, came on earth and became a Man, took your sins upon His shoulders,
   bore them up to the tree and suffered what was due for your sins in His
   own Person on the Cross--and you must trust yourself with Him, with Him
   fully, with Him, alone, and with all your heart--and if you do, the
   promise is given to faith in Christ Jesus, and it will be fulfilled to
   you, and you shall be blessed and saved! This promise of faith in
   Christ Jesus is given to all Believers, weak as well as strong, young
   as well as old.

   Dear Friend, if you have only believed in Jesus during the present
   service, you are as certainly forgiven as if you had been a Believer 50
   years! If you only believed in Jesus when the last word escaped my
   lips, yet still your faith has saved you! Go in peace. Faith is the
   vital matter. "But there must be works," says one, "to follow."
   Brother, there will be works to follow. There was never a true faith
   which did not produce works--but the works do not save us--faith,
   alone, saves! How strong is the Apostle Paul upon this point! Read the
   Epistle to the Romans, carefully, and the Epistle to the Galatians, and
   you will see that they come down like a Nasmyth hammer upon all notion
   of salvation by our own doings.

   No reasoning could be more cogent, no expressions more plain. "Not of
   works, lest any man should boast," says the Apostle! And he puts it
   over again--"If by Grace, then it is no more of works: otherwise Grace
   is no more Grace. But if it is of works, then it is no more Grace:
   otherwise work is no more work." He will have it that we are saved as
   poor sinners by the Sovereign Grace of God, through faith in Christ
   Jesus, and not by works, or forms, or ceremonies, or anything whatever
   of our own doing! Now, there is the plan of salvation! I put it before
   you, and I pray through Jesus Christ that many may receive it, for it
   is not a matter of human opinion, but of Divine ordinance. I am not
   setting up the dogma of a sect--I am preaching to you the very Truth of
   God. If there is salvation by any other way than by Jesus Christ I am a
   false prophet among you, and this Bible, also, is false. But if there
   is salvation to Believers in Jesus, I am a saved man, and all of you
   who have believed in Jesus are saved, also, effectually and eternally!

   Having thus spoken upon the text itself, I desire to say a few things
   upon the subject in general. Objections are continually raised to this
   plan of salvation. The world's plan of salvation is, "Do." The Bible
   plan of salvation is, "It is all done. Accept it as a free gift." The
   Gospel way of salvation is, Christ has saved His people and as many as
   trust in Him are His people, and are saved. Just think for a minute--is
   not this way of salvation which we have preached to you the only one
   which would be suited to all sorts and conditions of men? Dear Sir,
   you, yourself, may be a man of excellent disposition and of admirable
   habits. I will suppose that the salvation to be preached by us was
   exactly such as would be suitable to such a person as you believe
   yourself to be--would not this be a very misfortunate thing for many
   others?

   Are there not living within your observation many persons who are far
   below you in moral character? Do you not know of whole swarms of your
   fellow creatures whose outward life is utterly defiled? Some of these
   are conscious of their degradation and would gladly rise out of
   it--would you have them left to despair? A way of salvation suited to
   the righteous, it is clear, would not suit them--are they to be
   overlooked? Would you have salvation put up to an examina-

   tion like a place in the Civil Service and only those allowed to pass
   who are as good as you are? Are all beneath your level to perish? I am
   speaking to you on your own ground--I feel sure that you love your
   fellow men enough to say, "No, let the plan of salvation be such as to
   save the most reprobate of men."

   Then, I ask you, what plan could there be but this one, that God freely
   forgives for Christ's sake, even the greatest offenders, if they turn
   to Him and put their trust in His dear Son? We have here a Gospel which
   reaches to the lowest depths and saves to the uttermost. But I shall
   put another argument. Would any other salvation than that which I have
   preached suit any man? O excellent Sir, would any other, after all,
   suit you? I admit, and I admire your excellences. I would that all men
   were such as you are rather than dissolute and depraved. But, Sir, can
   you really sit down in the quietude of your chamber and as a thoughtful
   man weigh your own character in the scales, and say that it is so
   perfect that you could die with it in perfect peace and stand before
   your Maker without fear?

   I am sure it is not so! It is very remarkable that some persons who
   have been exceedingly moral have never seen their sinfulness till they
   have been on the borders of the grave--and then they have realized
   eternity--and have abhorred themselves in dust and ashes! I have heard
   of some, who, in the very hour of imminent peril of death by drowning,
   have in the act of sinking seen the whole panorama of their lives pass
   before them and they have seen, as they never saw before, the evil
   nature of that which they before thought so excellent. Then they have
   said, "I must be saved by the merits of Jesus! I cannot be saved by my
   own."

   My dear Friend, whoever you may be, I am not about to condemn you, but
   I must believe God's Word before I believe your estimate of yourself!
   And as God's Word has declared that you have sinned and are condemned,
   I am sure that for you, as well as for the rest of your fellow men,
   there is no plan of salvation at all available but that of salvation by
   the free mercy of God through Jesus Christ His Son. Now, observe a few
   of the beauties of the plan of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. It
   prevents men from having low thoughts of sin, because if a man says, "I
   have not kept this Law of God perfectly, but I still have done very
   well. And any mistakes I have made are little sins--God is merciful--He
   will wipe them out," he is sure to be a believer in self-salvation. It
   is always connected with narrow thoughts of sin.

   A man knows he has sinned, but he thinks little of the wrong. He cannot
   believe that sin is such a great evil that men should be cast into Hell
   for it. He kicks against the doctrine of damnation. He will not believe
   it just because he does not know and will not admit that sin is a great
   and tremendous evil. So long as the idea of self-salvation exists, sin
   is lightly thought of. But oh, when we see that sin could not be put
   away till the Incarnate God, Himself, did hang upon the tree and bleed
   to death for men--then we see sin in its true colors and loathe it as a
   deadly thing--and with our joy for pardoned guilt we mingle abhorrence
   of the sin which required such an atoning Sacrifice.

   The plan of salvation by Grace has this beauty about it, that it gives
   men high thoughts of God. In the other system, their idea of God is
   that He is very much like themselves. Look at the Catholic's god. He is
   pleased with candles and delights in incense--he is a god who likes
   show and gewgaws, garments of blue and scarlet, and dolls dressed up,
   and flowers on his altars. I know not what kind of god to call him.
   However, that is their notion of him. They try to save themselves, and
   they pull down their god to their standard. And every man who is a
   self-saver, even if he is a Protestant, lowers God in some manner.

   He fancies that God will accept something short of perfection. Each man
   has a different standard. That miserly old gentleman--his standard is
   that he will build a row of almshouses with his moldy leavings and that
   will content the Most High. Another says, "I never open my shop on
   Sunday." Perhaps he cheats enough on Monday to make up for it, but
   Sunday's rest--that will do for his god. Another, who is living a
   wicked life in private, believes the doctrines of Grace and that will
   satisfy his god.

   But the man who is saved by the Grace of God says, "My God is
   infinitely just. Nothing will content Him but a perfect righteousness.
   As a moral Lawgiver, He will not put away sin till He has laid
   punishment upon One who stood in the sinner's place. He is so loving
   that He gave His Son. He is so just that He slew His Son on my behalf."
   All the Divine attributes flame with splendor before the eyes of the
   man who is saved by faith and he is led to reverence and to adore God.
   The way of salvation by Grace, Beloved, is the best promoter of
   holiness in all the world. "There," says yonder gentleman, "I went to
   hear Spurgeon in the Tabernacle this morning and he was crying out
   against salvation by good works. Of course, the worst results will come
   of such teaching."

   Ah, that has been the cuckoo-cry from the very first, whereas salvation
   by Grace promotes good works far better than the teaching of salvation
   by works ever will--for those who hope to be saved by their works have
   generally very scanty works to be saved by--and those who put works
   aside altogether as a ground of hope, and look to Grace, alone, are the
   very people who are most zealous to perform good works and I will tell
   you why! Who loved Christ best at the Pharisee's feast? Simon, the
   Pharisee, who had kept the Law? Ah, no! He was to be saved by his
   doings, and yet Jesus said to him, "You gave Me no kiss. You gave Me no
   water to wash My feet."

   Simon did not love the Master. He did what he did because he thought he
   ought to do it and must do it. But there was a poor woman there who was
   a sinner. And she had had much forgiven--and she, it was, that washed
   His feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head.
   Simon shows how the self-righteous, then, love the Savior--they do not
   even wash His feet or kiss His cheeks--but those who are saved by Grace
   love Jesus, and therefore kiss His feet and bathe them with their
   tears--and would willingly lay down their lives for Him.

   Law! There is no power for holiness in it! Law drives our spirits to
   rebellion, but love has magic in it. Has God forgiven me? Did Christ
   die for me? Am I God's child? Has He forgiven me, not because of
   anything I did, but just because He would do it out of love to my poor
   guilty soul? O God, I love You! What would You have me to do? There
   speaks the man who will perform good works, I guarantee you, Sir, and
   while he will tread under foot with the deepest detestation any idea
   that he can merit anything of God's, he is the man who will lay himself
   out, as long as he lives, for the honor of that dear Lord and Master by
   whose precious blood he has been redeemed.

   The Law does not furnish me with a constraining principle, but the
   Gospel does. The Law treats me like a mere hireling, and a hireling can
   never serve with the zeal which is born of love. There is a better
   place with double wages, and naturally enough, the servant leaves your
   house, but your child will not. You do not give your child wages and
   you do not bind him by indentures or agreements. He loves you and his
   sense of your love leads him to a tender obedience, and what he does is
   doubly sweet to you. Missionaries and martyrs have done and borne, for
   love's sake, what Law could not have forced from them.

   Oh yes, the doctrine of salvation by Grace, by teaching men to love,
   transforms them and makes new creatures of them. I have seen it
   hundreds of times. There are some here, but I will not speak of them,
   but of cases parallel to theirs. They have been to a place of worship
   and they have been preached to about their duty. And they have read the
   Bible and have thought it was all about what was required from their
   own efforts. But all the while they have felt no obedience of heart, no
   love to Christ and no joy in God. But those same persons have heard the
   Gospel and found that there is nothing to do, that Jesus Christ has
   done it all! That sin was put away by His death and righteousness was
   worked out. And they have taken what God has presented to them and
   believed in Jesus and been saved!

   And from that very moment the difference has been evident. They have
   cried, "I never felt any love to God before, but now I do. I love Him
   with all my soul for what He has done for me." You hear them say, "I
   used to go to the House of God as a matter of duty, and I might almost
   as well have been away, for it was no enjoyment to me. But now I go as
   a matter of privilege and I take my Bible with me and sing God's
   praises, with all my soul, because He has done so much for me." Those
   people will tell you that whereas they resolved to be good, and to give
   up vice, and to practice virtue, they never did it till they believed
   in Jesus--and when they believed in Him, love to Him made service easy,
   and sin hateful-- and they became new creatures in Christ Jesus by the
   Spirit's power.

   There is the heart of it all. If you want to get rid of the guilt of
   sin, you must believe in Jesus. But equally, if you would be rid of the
   chains of sin, the tyranny of your passions, the domination of your
   lusts, you must believe in Him. From His side there flows not merely
   blood but water--blood to take away your criminality, and water to take
   away your tendencies to sin--so that from now on you shall not serve
   sin, or live any longer in it. It is all there in that pierced heart.
   It is all there in that crimson fount opened on Calvary's bloody tree.
   Look to Jesus and you shall be saved! This is it in a nutshell. "There
   is life in a look at the crucified One."

   I may never have an opportunity of preaching this Gospel to some of you
   again. It may be the first time you have heard it, and perhaps the
   last. O Sirs, I charge you accept it, and may the Spirit of God
   constrain you to do so! We will meet in Heaven if it is so, but if you
   put it from you, you are like a man who flings away the only lifebelt
   that can keep him alive in the angry flood. You put from you the only
   medicine under Heaven that can heal your soul, for I am holding up
   before you the only Gospel in the world! If any man preaches any other
   Gospel, let him be accursed! Intolerant? I am

   content to be as intolerant as my Master and He bade me say, "He that
   believes and is baptized shall be saved. He that believes not shall be
   damned."

   "But may I not be saved some other way?" No, Sir. "But may I not reject
   with impunity this which you have preached?" No, Sir. At your peril is
   it and before God I will put it right plainly before you. You must
   believe in Jesus, and if you reject Him your blood is upon your own
   head, for there are no other ways of salvation. The Lord grant that you
   may receive it, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Galatians 3.
     __________________________________________________________________

Consolation For The Despairing

   (No. 1146)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, DECEMBER 7, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Your eyes,
   nevertheless You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried unto
   You." Psalm 31:22.

   I DESIRE at this time to speak to those who are much depressed in
   spirit, the sons of despondency and daughters of mourning who dwell
   upon the dreary confines of despair. It may seem objectionable among so
   large an audience to address my discourse to a class so comparatively
   small, but I must leave it to your compassion to excuse me. No, I think
   I hardly need do that, but may urge as my apology the nature of my
   calling. When the shepherd comes in the early morning to his flock, do
   not his eyes single out the sick, and does he need forgiveness if, for
   a while, he devotes all his skill and his care to those sheep which
   need it?

   He does not reason with himself that because of the largeness of the
   flock and his anxious care that all should be fed, renders it
   impossible for him to bind up that which is broken and heal that which
   is diseased, but, on the contrary, his attention to all is proved by
   his special interest in the particular cases which most require his
   tenderness. Or take another parable--the watcher on the beach, with his
   telescope in his hand, paces to and fro and keeps guard for his
   appointed time. He looks through the glass again and again, but a
   glance contents him so far as most of yonder gallant vessels are
   concerned, which are now in the offing.

   But by-and-by his glass remains steadily at his eye--his gaze is fixed
   and in a few moments he gives a signal to his fellows and they haul the
   boat to the sea and launch her. What has there been so peculiar about
   this craft that it has gained the watcher's attention and stirred him
   to action? He saw signals of distress, or by some other token he knew
   the ship's need, and therefore he bestirred himself and engaged every
   willing hand to lend her help. I, too, remain upon the lookout, and
   surely it is right that my eyes should rest most anxiously where the
   distress signals are visible, and where souls bound for eternity are
   floundering in doubt and ready to perish in despair!

   I feel deeply for the mourners in Zion and I pray the Lord to cause His
   Word, through my ministry, to be as the oil of joy to them. Surely we
   may expect the Divine help of the Holy Spirit in our endeavor to
   console them, for the special office of the Holy Spirit under the
   present dispensation is to be "the Comforter," who is to abide with us
   forever. While we bring forth the oil and wine from His own stores, we
   may hope that He will pour them into the wounds of the afflicted, for
   this is His office and it would be blasphemy to imagine that He will
   neglect it. He comforts effectually in an all-sufficient and Omnipotent
   manner.

   I feel, too, that I have a Scriptural warrant for introducing such a
   subject as this into the midst of a congregation where there are many
   joyous hearts, because this Psalm, which is, to a large extent,
   sorrowful, was, nevertheless, intended for public worship, for it bears
   the inscription, "To the chief Musician," as do several others which
   are even more full of grief. As, for instance, the 22nd which is the
   Psalm of the Passion, and, nevertheless, is committed to the chief
   leader of sacred song in the house of the Lord. If, therefore, griefs
   which to the fullest could only be known by a few, were nevertheless to
   be made the subject of public psalmody, I am quite sure they ought not
   to be passed over in public ministry, but we ought to consider the
   cases of the ones and twos whose garments are sackcloth and whose drink
   is wormwood.

   It is our bounden duty to sympathize with them and speak with them for
   their good. Nor need we fear that the rest of the assembly will suffer,
   for the 99 sheep in the wilderness never come to any ill because the
   shepherd is seeking the one lone wanderer. I do not intend considering
   the text strictly in its connection, but shall use it as a suitable
   expression of the mental grief of those I would benefit. Notice that it
   indicates an inward sorrow, it speaks of a rash expression--"I

   said in my haste, I am cut off from before Your eyes." It mentions a
   pleading cry and it bears witness to a cheering result to that cry--
   "nevertheless You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried unto
   You."

   I. At the outset, note that there is implied in the text a deep,
   bitter, INWARD SORROW. The man who wrote the verse before us was pained
   in his heart. There are many in like case at this moment. Their soul
   faints with heaviness and their life is a burden. How came they are so?
   Verily, there are many causes for melancholy. Some have their spirit
   pitched upon a low key constitutionally--their music may never reach
   the highest notes till they are taught to sing the new song in another
   world. The windows of their house are very narrow and do not open
   towards Jerusalem but towards the desert. Something is wrong with their
   bodily frame--the tacklings are loosed, they cannot strengthen the
   mast--and the vessel labors terribly. When there is a leak in the
   vessel, it is little wonder that the waters come in even unto the soul.

   With other mournful ones depression began through a great trial. As we
   have heard of some that their hair turned gray in a single night
   through grief, so doubtless many souls have aged into sorrow in a
   single trying hour. One blow has bruised the lily's stalk and made it
   wither. One touch of a rude hand has broken the crystal vase. Suns have
   been shaded in the midst of the brightest summer days and a morning of
   delight has been followed by an evening of lamentation. In some cases,
   God knows how many a secret sin, unconfessed to the Father, has
   festered into misery. There may have been wanton presumption, or pride
   of heart, or discontent, or inward rebellion against the will of God.
   There may have been willful negligence of the means of Grace, or
   despising of the value of the fellowship and joy of the Holy
   Spirit--and therefore the Lord may have hidden Himself for a while in
   chastisement.

   Or it may be that there has been a gradual fretting of the spirit with
   minor vexations, long-continued and wearisome, which have worn the
   heart, even as constant dripping wears away stones. Incessant
   opposition or neglect from those we love may, at last, cause the spirit
   to yield. And when that takes place, life becomes bondage. "The spirit
   of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can
   bear?" I have also known an unwise ministry add to the sorrower's woe.
   A legal ministry will do it and so, also, will that teaching which bids
   men look within for comfort--and sets up one uniform experience as the
   standard for all the people of God.

   The causes are various but the case is always painful. O you who are
   walking in the light, deal gently with your Brothers and Sisters whose
   bones are broken, for you may also suffer from the same! Lay yourselves
   out to comfort the Lord's mourners. They are not good company and they
   are very apt to make you unhappy as well as themselves, but for all
   that, be very tender towards them, for the Lord Jesus would have you
   so. Remember what woes Ezekiel pronounces upon the strong who roughly
   push the weaker sort. God is very jealous over His little children, and
   if the more vigorous members of the family are not kind to them, He may
   take away their strength and make them, even, to envy the little ones
   whom once they despised.

   You can never err in being tender to the downcast. Lay yourself out as
   much as may be in you to bind up the brokenhearted and cheer the
   faint--and you will be blessed in the deed. When the natural spirits
   sink in those men who have no God to go to, their depression takes its
   own particular shape. Any physician can tell you of instances of mental
   distress in which persons have surrounded themselves with imaginary
   ills and made themselves martyrs to fancied disorders. We have seen
   cases which might almost compel an observer to laugh if they had not
   been so terribly serious to the patients, themselves.

   If a man is a Christian, it is very natural that his troubles should
   assume a spiritual form. The only shades which can effectually darken
   his day are those which arise from sacred things. The fears which haunt
   him are not fears about his daily bread, but fears about the Bread of
   Life and fears as to his entrance into the Eternal Kingdom. The
   disease, from the physical side, is at bottom probably the same in the
   Christian as in the ungodly man, but, as his main thoughts are set upon
   Divine things, he, in his depression, naturally dwells most upon his
   soul's affairs.

   At such times the spiritually afflicted are filled with horrible
   apprehensions. What, let me ask you, is the most horrible apprehension
   that a Christian man can have? Is it not that of the text, "I am cut
   off from before Your eyes"? Nothing distresses a Christian so much as
   the fear of being a castaway of God. You shall find no real Christian
   in despair because he is becoming poor. You shall not find him utterly
   cast down because worldly comforts are taken away. But let his Lord
   hide His face and he is troubled. Let him doubt his sonship and he is
   overwhelmed. Let him question his interest in Christ and his joy has
   fled. Let him fear that the life of God never was in his soul and you
   shall hear him mourn like a dove.

   How can he live without his God? Yet this bitter sorrow has been
   endured by not a few of the best of men. If it could be said that only
   those Christians who walk at a distance from Christ, or those who are
   inconsistent in life, or those who are but little in prayer have felt
   in this way, then, indeed, there would be cause for the gravest
   disquietude. But it is a matter offact that some of the choicest
   spirits among the Lord's elect have passed through the Valley of
   Humiliation and even sojourned there by the months together. Saints who
   are now among the brightest in Heaven, have yet, in their day, sat
   weeping at the gates of despair and asked for the crumbs which the dogs
   eat under the Master's table.

   Read the life of Martin Luther. You would suppose, from what is
   commonly known of the brave Reformer, that he was a man of iron,
   immovable and invulnerable. So he was when he had to fight his Master's
   battles against Rome. But at home, on his bed, and in his quiet
   chamber, he was frequently the subject of spiritual conflicts--such as
   few have ever known! He had so much joy in believing that at times he
   was carried away with a tumult of boisterous exultation. But on other
   occasions he sank to the very deeps and was hard put to it to bear up
   at all. And that happened, too, even in his last moments, so that the
   worst battle of his life was fought upon that mysterious country which
   stretches towards the gates of the Celestial City.

   Do not condemn yourself, my dear Sister. Do not cast yourself away, my
   dear Brother, because your faith endures many conflicts and your
   spirits sink very low. David, himself, said in his haste, "I am cut off
   from before Your eyes," yet there sits David in the blessed choir in
   Heaven! And even here on earth he was a man after God's own heart.
   There are great benefits to come out of these severe trials and
   depressions. There is a need that for a season we should be in
   heaviness. You cannot make great soldiers without war, or train
   skillful seamen upon shore. It appears necessary that if a man is to
   become a great Believer, he must be greatly tried. If he is to be a
   great helper of others, he must pass through the temptations of others.
   If he is to be greatly instructed in the things of the Kingdom, he must
   learn by experience. And if he is to be a loud singer to the tune of
   Sovereign Grace, he must hear deep calling unto deep at the noise of
   God's waterspouts.

   The uncut diamond has but little brilliance. The unthreshed corn feeds
   none and so the untried professor is of small practical use or beauty.
   Many have a comparatively smooth pathway through life, but their
   position in the Church is not that which the experienced Believer
   occupies, neither could they do his work among the afflicted. The man
   who is much worked and often harrowed may thank God if the result of it
   is a larger harvest to the praise and glory of God by Jesus Christ. The
   time shall come with you, whose faces are covered with sorrow, when you
   shall bless God for your sorrows! The day will come when you shall set
   much store by your losses and your crosses, your troubles and your
   afflictions, counting them happy which endure--

   "From all your afflictions His Glory shall spring, And the deeper your
   sorrows the louder you'll sing."

   II. I will speak no more upon this inward sorrow, a handful of bitter
   herbs is enough. I shall now pass on to notice THE RASH EXPRESSION of
   the Psalmist's aching heart, "I said in my haste." We have in the
   Psalms other instances in which David spoke hastily. He had better have
   bitten his tongue. We may speak, in a moment, words which we would give
   the world to recall. Oh, if some rash speeches could be unsaid! The
   price would be too dear to purchase their unsaying--unkind, provoking,
   cutting things towards men--and unbelieving, fretful, petulant,
   injurious words towards God. Better count to 10 before we speak, when
   we are in an agitated state of mind.

   It is a common sin for persons whose hearts are in bondage to allow
   their tongues too great a liberty. David said, "I am cut off from
   before Your eyes." And many have not only said this in haste, but they
   have continued to repeat it for a long time, which is much worse. Some
   have spoken in this fashion by the months together--yes, and some for
   years! Sorrowful is it that they should have done so, but so it has
   been. Now this rash speech rests altogether on insufficient grounds.
   Why does a man in despondency argue that God has cast him away? He
   reasons, first, that his circumstances show it. He is surrounded with
   much difficulty and tribulation and therefore he infers that God is
   angry with him.

   But is there any force in that argument? You might as well say that God
   had cast away His own dear Son when He allowed Him to say, "Foxes have
   holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but I, the Son of Man have
   not where to lay My head." You might as well say that God had cast away
   the martyrs when He left them to lie in prison, or suffered them to be
   burned. Many of the Lord's dearest children have a rough passage to
   Glory. After all, your circumstances are not so bad as those of far
   better men. It would be most unfair to argue that you are, therefore, a
   castaway. Is it not written, "In

   the world you shall have tribulation"? Do you not know that affliction
   is a Covenant blessing? Therefore no argument derived from
   circumstances is worth listening to.

   But others argue from their feelings. They feel as if God had cast them
   away. Can there be anything more uncertain to argue from than our
   feelings? I might be quite sure that I am safe for Heaven today if I
   judged by my feelings. Tomorrow I might be equally as certain that I am
   a reprobate if I judged by the same rule. Judged by changeful feelings,
   one might be lost and saved a dozen times a day! The wind does not veer
   more fitfully than does the current of our emotions. Draw inferences
   from the waves before you reason from your feelings! Do you not know
   that many persons who are full of very confident feelings are
   nevertheless deluded and deceived? "Peace, peace, where there is no
   peace" is a very common cry. These persons judge themselves by
   feelings, and consider that they are safe for Heaven, but their lives
   show the contrary. And, on the other hand, others judge themselves to
   be castaways, who are true Christians.

   Apply these facts to your own case. Feelings are a very uncertain and
   erroneous gauge, indeed, and are not to be relied upon. And to build
   such a terrible inference as that of your being lost upon a few gloomy
   feelings, or even a great many of them, is absurd to the last degree!
   Have you ever heard the story of the man who, traveling in the dark
   over a new country, suddenly came to a place where the earth crumbled
   under his feet and he felt sure that he was slipping over an awful
   precipice? Clutching at the roots of a tree which grew out of the bank,
   he maintained his hold in desperation, feeling that if he let go he
   should be dashed into a thousand pieces.

   There he hung till his hands were unable to bear the strain any longer,
   and, giving all up for lost, he fell but alighted upon a soft couch of
   green sward which was just an inch or two beneath his feet! So do great
   dreads frequently arise from nothing at all! Fancy, with her magic
   wand, is busy at creating sorrows. In many and many a case, if the
   patient would believe the truth, or at least would cease to believe in
   his own unreasonable surmises, he might drop into perfect peace at
   once. The foundation of the mental troubles of very many lies nowhere
   but in their own settled determination to be miserable. They have
   resolved to believe that everything is wrong with them and that
   obstinate resolution stands to them instead of reason.

   They are deaf as adders to all comfort but are not silent as to their
   woes. They ask to see the minister, but they will not give him
   opportunity to do them good. Did you ever have an interview with a
   despairing woman? If you have been able to get in six words edgeways
   between her incessant talk, you must have been a very clever person,
   for it is by no means an easy thing. They ask for advice, but do not
   mean to listen to it or to follow it, for they know better than their
   advisers--they only want the opportunity of pouring out their
   lamentations--they are not prepared to receive consolation. Their soul
   abhors all manner of meat, and they draw near to the gates of death. In
   vain do you argue! They cannot be reasoned with--it would be as wise to
   try and argue away a typhus fever, or reason a broken bone into
   soundness.

   Instead of reasoning, their stand is solemn decision not to be
   comforted. If they saw such a resolve in other people, they would call
   it absurd and perhaps be vexed with them. Oh, that they would see their
   conduct in the same light! But while they remain in their present mind,
   what can we do for them? We quote a promise and they tell us it does
   not apply to their case, though it is as plain as the nose on their
   face that it is for them. You shall next remind them of a doctrine
   which contains a general principle applicable to themselves. They
   cannot deny the Truth of God, but by dexterous devices they escape from
   its cheering influences. It is amazing how exceedingly learned and
   profound, despairing people are in their own esteem!

   I met, the other day, with a person who insists upon it that he has
   committed the unpardonable sin. Now, I know as much about the
   Scriptures as he does, yet upon the subject of the unpardonable sin he
   is fully informed and I am in the dark. I can prove that, according to
   the Scriptures, my desponding friend has not committed the unpardonable
   sin. But he knows he has and is as sure of it as if he could prove it
   rationally. Scriptural proof he cares little about, but says over and
   over again that he knows, and is quite sure, and nobody shall ever
   convince him to the contrary. You might as well argue with a bottle of
   vinegar, in the hope of turning it into wine.

   It is nothing to him that all the divines in Christendom who have ever
   written about this sin have regarded it as a dark subject--he is wiser
   than seven men that can render a reason. In neatly instances the cause
   of their distress is impalpable, ghost-like, misty--they cannot
   describe it--and you cannot deal with it. It is unreasonable and
   preposterous, else might a little calm conversation be a means of Grace
   to them. As I have already remarked, instead of

   reason stands this declaration of theirs--they will not be comforted,
   but prefer to nestle down in hopeless melancholy. Poor souls--poor
   souls! What a choice they make!

   Here let us say that the declaration that God has forsaken us, or
   forsaken any man who seeks him, is diametrically opposed to Scripture.
   There is not, in all the pages of Inspiration, one single text which
   advises any man to despair of the mercy of God. I challenge the most
   diligent reader to find one solitary passage in which any seeking soul
   is bid to believe that there is no mercy for him. I shall even go
   further and say that there is not one solitary passage of Scripture
   which warrants any soul to give itself up in despair, no matter though
   it may be a strong passage upon election, or a terrible threat of
   Divine wrath against sin! There is no text, nor anything like a text,
   which would warrant a soul in saying that there is no mercy in God for
   him.

   Further than that, there is not a text in Scripture which gives an
   excuse to any man to despair. If God Himself were to appear and say to
   the despairing, "You have dared to doubt My mercy, and to declare
   yourself to be finally given up--bring me a solitary Word out of my
   Book which can excuse you for saying this"--no such text could be
   brought. Indeed, the whole of Scripture condemns unbelief. Faith is the
   Grace which Scripture commends--it never urges men to despair. It is
   full of promises to the most sinful. It reaches to the greatest
   extremity of our need and cries in generous love, "He is able to save
   to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him." The Lord Jesus
   declares, "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out." And in
   summing up the testimony of Scripture it is fair to say with Dr.
   Watts--

   "No mortal has a just pretense To perish in despair."

   "Oh, but still I know there is no hope for me." My dear Friend, you
   know nothing of the kind! It is a dream, a horrible nightmare and there
   is no truth in it. This blessed Scripture sounds from the Cross to you,
   like sweet music, "Come unto Me all you that labor and are heavy laden,
   and I will give you rest." As long as you breathe, the blessed lamp of
   Grace still burns to light your joy! "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son
   cleanses us from all sin." And remember, O my despairing Friend, that
   your belief that God has cast you away is very derogatory to God,
   Himself. Do you know how merciful He is? Will you think harshly of Him?
   Did He not save Manasseh? Did He not blot out the sins of Saul of
   Tarsus?

   Has He not declared, "As I live, says the Lord, I have no pleasure in
   the death of him that dies, but had rather that he turn unto Me and
   live"? Will you snatch the pen out of the hand of Mercy and write your
   own death warrant with it? Why be so ill-advised? Will you dishonor God
   rather than receive salvation through Jesus Christ? Why do you madly
   yield to despair? Do you not know how much you grieve the Spirit of
   God, and how sadly you dishonor Jesus? None of all the pangs He bore on
   Calvary grieve Him like that unkind, ungenerous thought that He is
   unwilling to forgive.

   What? Your hating your sin and yet Jesus hating you? Impossible! What?
   You with a strong desire after eternal life, yet left to perish?
   Impossible! What? Your casting yourself upon His mercy, hoping to touch
   the silver scepter of His Grace, and yet driven from His Presence?
   Impossible! Among the damned in Hell there is not a soul that ever came
   and rested upon the blood of Christ, and there never shall be such!
   Heaven and earth shall pass away, but it never shall be said that
   seeking ones were cast off, or that those who gave themselves up to the
   Covenant mercy of God were rejected. Do not, then, I pray you, dishonor
   the love and glory of the Lord of Mercy!

   One thing I would like to put in here by way of interjection--this
   giving of one's self up to despair is so very unlike what we generally
   do in other things that it appears all the less defensible. Yonder
   vessel has been broken in a collision. She will soon sink to the
   bottom. The sea rushes in most furiously. Let us take to one of the
   boats. This boat cannot be stirred, what then? We will fly to another.
   We will seize a lifebelt, or clasp a spar. At any rate, we will leave
   no means unused, if, by any possible way we may escape. A sensible man
   does not fling himself down on the deck and give all up for lost. His
   fears awaken him and he bestirs all his faculties with the utmost
   energy. He seizes anything which promises deliverance.

   Look at a person sick with a deadly disease. He has tried his family
   physician and he is no better. But he hears of another practitioner and
   he goes straight to him. Yes, and if 50 quacks were recommended to him,
   he would sooner try them than die! Even a forlorn hope he will pursue
   sooner than utterly perish. Yet here are persons who know and cannot
   deny that they know it--that Christ is able to save to the uttermost
   them that come unto Him--and yet, because they unreasonably conclude
   that their case is hopeless, they will not go to Jesus, but prefer to
   die in their sins! Oh, madness,

   madness, to doubt the infinitely loving One! Insanity reaching its very
   height to dare to think that He who died on Calvary will repulse a
   coming sinner!

   I should like an artist to attempt to draw a picture of Jesus Christ
   scorning a sinner who asks mercy at His hands. How would the man
   proceed? He must cover the face of the Lord, for that lovely visage
   could not look unkindly. He must leave out the scars from the hands and
   the nail prints from the feet, for these could not repel a sinner.
   There is not a part of Jesus' body or soul which could be made to
   reject a lost sinner--His whole Nature would revolt against being so
   represented! Oh, if you could but know Him as some of us know Him, you
   would fly into His arms! Poor guilty one, if He had two swords, one in
   each hand, you would sooner fly on the points of His swords than not
   come to Him, for you would perceive that He is such a gracious
   Redeemer, and so mighty to save that you must rely upon Him, and cry
   with the patriarch of Uz, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."

   I am bound to add that this despair, to a very large extent, involves
   sinful unbelief--and of all sins this is the most damning. It amounts
   to this--that Jesus says, "I can save"--and the sinner says, "You
   cannot." And so he makes Christ a liar! God says, "Jesus is able to
   save to the uttermost." But the sinner denies it, point blank. Now if
   the sinner will make God a liar, what can he expect? When the Lord
   comes to judge the quick and dead, what will be the portion of the
   unbelieving? God save us from it! May that rash expression be withdrawn
   and may we say no longer, "I am cut off from before Your eyes."

   III. Thirdly and briefly, we have before us the interesting topic of A
   PLEADING CRY. When David feared that he was cut off from God, he was
   wise enough to take to crying. He calls prayer, crying, and it is a
   very significant word. Crying is the language of pain--pain cannot
   cumber itself with letters and syllables and words--and so it takes its
   own way and adopts a piercing mode of utterance, very telling and
   expressive. Crying yields great relief to suffering. Everyone knows the
   benefit of having a hearty good cry--you cannot help calling it, "a
   good cry," for, though one would think crying could never be especially
   good, it affords a desirable relief.

   Red eyes often relieve breaking hearts. Madness has been prevented by
   the soul's finding vent. Prayer is the surest and most blessed vent for
   the soul. In prayer the heart runs over, as the eyes do in crying. To
   pray is just as simple a matter as to cry. Do not get down that
   book--bishops and other prayer-makers can write good prayers for people
   who have no particular trouble upon them--but when you really need to
   pray, no ready-made prayers will suit your case! You never heard of a
   form of common crying. I never remember seeing in my life a form of
   crying for a bereaved woman, a form for a babe to cry when it is
   hungry, and another form for a child to cry when it is put to bed in
   the dark.

   No, no! Forms are out of the question when we cry. Men and women, and
   children--when in trouble--cry without a book. And so when a man really
   needs the Savior, he does not require book-prayers. Never say, "Oh, I
   cannot pray!" My dear Friend, can you cry? You need to be saved--tell
   the Lord that. If you cannot say it in words, tell it with your tears,
   your groans, your sighs, your sobs. Prayer, like crying, is a natural
   utterance and an utterance available on all occasions. As sure as a
   child is in trouble, it can cry without putting on its best frock--and
   so can we without gowns and capes and surplices.

   No child needs to be educated in Greek and Latin in order to know how
   to cry. Neither is learning needed in order to effectual prayer. God
   teaches all His little ones to pray as soon as they are born. They have
   but to confess their sins and plead their needs and they do really
   pray. Never is a child in such a bad plight that it cannot cry. It
   never says, "Mother, it is so dark I cannot see to cry." No, no, the
   child cries in the dark! And are you in the dark and in terrible doubt
   and trouble? Then cry away, my dear Friend, cry away, cry away! Your
   Father will hear and deliver you!

   Now, crying is by no means a pleasant sound to hear. There is no music
   in it, except, I suppose, it is the crying of the very little ones in
   their mothers' ears. A cry is a kind of music one would be glad to have
   ended and yet our poor prayers--which might be thought to grate in the
   ears of God, for He must note their imperfections--are, nevertheless,
   regarded by Him. Though a cry is an unpleasant sound, it is very
   powerful. If you were walking the streets and heard or saw a poor child
   crying, you would be far more affected by it than by the oration of the
   pretended beggar who is eloquently stating his needs to the dwellers on
   both sides of the way. A poor child crying in the dark, under your
   window, in mid-winter, in the snow--would move your pity and obtain
   your help. Even if it were a foreigner and knew not a single word of
   English, you would fully feel its pleading.

   The eloquence of a cry is overwhelming--Pity owns its power and lends
   her aid. There is a chord in human nature which responds to a child's
   cry and there is something in the Divine Nature which is equally
   touched by prayer. The Lord will not suffer a young raven to cry in
   vain and much less will He suffer men who are made in His own image to
   cry to Him in the bitterness of their hearts and find Him deaf to their
   entreaties! According to our text this cry was addressed to the Lord.
   David thought the Lord had cast him away, and he did not cry to anyone
   else. He felt that if God did not help him, nobody else could. To whom
   or where should I go if I should turn from You? It is important to
   observe that he cried to the Lord, even though he thought himself cut
   off from hope. "I am cut off from before Your eyes," says he, yet he
   cries

   to God!

   Ah, Soul, if you are in despair, yet resolve to pour out your heart
   before your God. Do you fear He will refuse you? Cry on. Has He been
   angry with you long? Cry on! Has He, up to now, shut out your prayers?
   Cry on! Do you think He has reprobated you altogether? Nevertheless cry
   on! Have you said, "His mercy is clean gone forever, and He will be
   favorable no more"? Yet cry on! For David felt in his soul that he was
   cut off from before God's eyes, yet still he cried. Do so, poor Heart!
   Yes, the more sad you are, cry the more, for if a little child's mother
   were to say, "Now go along with you, I will never love you again. I
   will put you out of doors and you shall never be my child again," what
   would the little one do? Would she say, "Therefore I will not cry"? Oh
   no, but she would sob her little heart out and the more she believed
   the severe words of her parent, the more she would cry!

   O despairing Soul, the more you despair, the more you should pray--and
   then it will be well with you. The Psalmist cried to a God concerning
   whom he entertained unbelieving thoughts. You, poor Mourner, do not
   believe as you should believe. Your faith, if you have any, is like a
   spark smoldering in the smoking flax. Yet pray on! I was about to say,
   when your faith seems dead, cry, "Lord enable me to believe. I am a
   poor, dead, lost, ruined, sinner, but do have pity upon my misery."
   That is good crying, and good will come of it.

   IV. This is my last point, THE CHEERFUL RESULT. This poor soul in
   despair continued to cry and the Lord heard him. "You heard the voice
   of my supplication when I cried unto You." This blessing went beyond
   the promise. The promise is that God will hear believing prayer, but
   the Lord in mercy goes beyond His promises--such is the Infinite
   Sovereignty of His Grace that He meets, even, with unbelieving
   ones--and when they are crying in their unbelief He gives them faith
   and saves their souls.

   Now, if this is not guaranteed in the promise, yet the action is quite
   consistent with the Divine Character. Indeed, it is like the God whose
   name is Love to listen to the cries of the wretched! We are like lost
   children in the forest, all scratched by the briers, weary with having
   lost our way and ready to die from cold and hunger. All we can do is
   cry-- and will God leave us to die in the dark? Oh, do not believe it!
   Do not let the devil make you believe it--that God will hear you cry
   and yet not come to your help! I will never believe of God what I would
   not believe of man! I cannot dishonor Him so!

   Do but cry, dear Heart, out of your soul's despair, and the Lord's
   infinite goodness will constrain Him to come to you! He has taught you
   to cry and He will assuredly answer your prayers. Inasmuch as David
   says that God heard him, how encouraged you ought to be, for He who has
   heard one will hear another. Let me tell you one thing--you are in a
   position, poor, despairing Soul--to be made the means of honoring
   Christ more than anybody else. Are you the vilest sinner that ever
   existed? Do you think that your case is the most desperate that ever
   was on the face of the earth? Are you just the one person who is least
   likely ever to be saved? Do you think so?

   Oh, what a splendid specimen you will make for Christ's Grace to
   triumph in! There is no honor to Him in washing those sinners who have
   only a few pale spots upon them if there are such people. But, O you
   foul and altogether polluted Sinner--your washing and cleansing will
   bring Him Immortal renown! The angels tune their harps for new songs
   when an unusual sinner is reclaimed. You cannot conceive your own
   salvation to be possible, you say? Oh that you would believe it
   possible! Oh that you would come, now, to the foot of the Cross and
   say, "Dear Savior, You have never saved such a soul as I am! This day
   You shall have greater glory than You have ever had before, for I cast
   myself at Your dear feet, believing that you will save even me, for You
   have said, 'Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out.' "

   Do you not see that the badness of your case gives you a glorious
   opportunity to glorify Christ by greater faith than other men, and by
   putting it in His way to do a more splendid act of Grace than, to your
   apprehension, He has ever done before? I hope to be most importunate in
   prayer with God the Holy Spirit that He may bring just such cases as
   yours

   under the power of mighty Grace. One Truth of God remember and take
   away with you. If you are in the dark, the only light for you is in the
   Sun of Righteousness. If you are lost, the only help for you is in
   Jesus, the Lord. If you want to see the Savior where His light is
   brightest and His salvation clearest, think of His Cross! Look at those
   dear hands and feet, and bleeding side--those wounds are windows of
   hope for the prisoners of despair!

   There is no hope for you, whoever you may be, except in Jesus! Look at
   His thorn-crowned head and His face more marred than that of any man!
   Look at His emaciated body, and at the spear gash in His side! Look at
   Him in the agonies of death, with shame and scorn waiting upon Him!
   Gaze till you hear Him cry, "It is finished!" before He gives up the
   ghost--and I pray you believe it to be finished, so that there is
   nothing for you to do, since everything is done. All that is needed to
   render you acceptable with God is fully accomplished--there is nothing
   for you to do but to accept what Christ has completed.

   Weave no more garments, there is the robe! Fill no more cisterns, there
   is the Fountain! Lay no more foundations, there is the precious
   Cornerstone! Come, you despairing! The Lord help you to come and find
   peace, at this hour, through Jesus Christ your Lord. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 31.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Gentleness Of Jesus

   (No. 1147)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, DECEMBER 14, 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear His voice in
   the streets. A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall
   He not quench, till He sends forth judgment unto victory. And in His
   name shall the Gentiles trust." Matthew 12:19,20,21.

   EVERY single fragment of Scripture is precious. Short texts culled here
   and there, as subjects of meditation, are useful. At the same time the
   practice of discoursing upon disconnected extracts may be carried too
   far, and sometimes the meaning of a passage may be entirely lost by not
   regarding its connection. The Bible ought to be treated in the reading
   of it as any other book is treated, only with much more of reverential
   regard. Suppose that Milton's "Paradise Lost" were used as a
   textbook--and that its general mode of usage were to take separate
   lines disconnected from the rest of the great poem--and consider them
   as positive statements and suitable topics of meditation?

   It would be a dangerous experiment! The great poet might well stir in
   his grave at the proposal. There are grand lines in that matchless epic
   which would bear the process, and glow like diamonds upon a regal brow,
   but nobody would form any worthy idea of the glory of the "Paradise
   Lost" by having it presented in portions, lines and selected passages.
   Such a mode of study reminds me of the Grecian student, who, when he
   had a house to sell, carried a brick about the streets to show what
   kind of a house it was.

   The Bible ought not to be torn limb from limb and its joints hung up
   like meat in the shambles. Beyond all other books it will bear
   dissection, for it is vital in every sentence and word. Since it is a
   mosaic of priceless gems, you will be enriched even if you extract a
   jewel here and there--but to behold its Divine beauty you must
   contemplate the mosaic as a whole. No idea of the magnificent design of
   the entire Scriptures can enter the human mind by reading it in
   detached portions, especially if those separated passages are
   interpreted without reference to the run of the writer's thoughts. Let
   Scripture be read according to the rules of common sense and that will
   necessitate our reading through a book and following its train of
   thought.

   Thus shall we be likely to arrive at the mind of the Holy Spirit. I say
   this because I may have to disturb your idea of the meaning of a
   passage of Scripture, this morning, for a short time, but you need not
   be alarmed, for after I have disturbed, I shall, most probably, confirm
   it. I shall pull down to build up again! The main force of our sermon
   will be spent over the well-known words, "A bruised reed shall He not
   break, and smoking flax shall He not quench, till He send forth
   judgment unto victory." We have all our own opinion of the meaning of
   this verse. We rejoice that the Lord Jesus will deal tenderly with the
   weak and the gentle in heart, in Grace. And we are thankful that the
   text appears to us to express that consoling Truth of God.

   Now we admit that the verse does teach us that. Does it teach us that
   directly and mainly? I think not. Read the connection and judge for
   yourselves. The Pharisees endeavored to discover faults in the Lord
   Jesus, but they could find nothing against Him except in reference to
   His disregard of their notions of the Sabbath. They blamed the
   disciples for plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath and the Lord,
   Himself, for performing a miracle of healing on that day. Our Lord met
   them boldly and so utterly routed them that one almost pities them,
   while rejoicing over their ignominious defeat! They were beaten
   outright and covered with shame. Our Lord overwhelmed them with five
   arguments, any one of which completely swept the ground from under
   their feet.

   As, for instance, that question, "What man shall there be among you,
   that shall have one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath,
   will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much, then, is a man
   better than a sheep?" Our Lord's victory was complete and tended very
   much to weaken their authority. But He did not push His advantage so as
   to overturn the sway of these religious teachers--they were before Him
   as lamps so nearly blown out that nothing but a

   smoldering smoke remained. He did not proceed to quench them. In
   argument He had proved their folly and had crumpled them up till they
   were like so many bruised bulrushes--but there He paused.

   He did not pursue the conflict further, but retired to Galilee, into
   the lone places and rural districts of the country, and preached the
   Gospel. Lest a popular controversy and public tumult should arise,
   every time He worked a miracle He bade the healed one conceal the fact
   in order that it might be fulfilled, "A bruised reed shall He not
   break, and smoking flax shall He not quench, till He sends forth
   judgment unto victory." And here let me ask, Do not the last words of
   this passage imply that the smoking flax will be quenched and the
   bruised reeds will be broken when He shall "send forth judgment unto
   victory"?

   How will this be true if the passage refers to feeble saints? The first
   meaning looks in quite another direction and points to the Lord's
   enemies. Now is the season of His patience, but a day of His wrath is
   on the way. He refrained from overthrowing His antagonists in the days
   of His flesh, but in the time of His second coming He will break His
   foes in pieces with a rod of iron! He will dash them in pieces like
   potters' vessels. Now His voice is not heard in the streets, but soon
   that voice shall be heard by all living and shall resound through the
   abodes of the dead! Now He strives not for the mastery, but then shall
   He go forth conquering and to conquer. Today is the time of patience,
   gentleness and meekness-- so with humble reverence let us meditate
   thereon.

   The subject of this morning will be the gentleness and long-suffering
   of the Lord Jesus. Secondly, the outcome of it, "In His name shall the
   Gentiles trust," because they find Him so meek and tender. And, lastly,
   the termination of it, for though He is, at this present time, so
   merciful that He does not break the bruised reed, yet there is a limit
   set to it--"till He sends forth judgment unto victory."

   I. THE SAVIOR'S FORBEARANCE. The passage wonderfully sets forth the
   Redeemer's gentleness and we shall contemplate it, first, in His own
   life on earth. What a quiet, unobtrusive life was that of Him whom they
   called, "the carpenter's son"! True, it was wonderfully energetic.
   There is a sense in which it must not only be admitted, but gloried in,
   that our Lord did both strive and cry, for spiritually He fought
   against sin even unto agony and blood. And with thrilling eloquence and
   plenteous tears He did cry out against evil and warn men to escape.

   He lifted up His voice like a trumpet and cried and spared not so that
   His persuasive voice was heard in the streets and throughout all the
   land His Gospel was made known. But the passage teaches us that while
   others were contentious for power, or, clamorous for gain and eager for
   notoriety, Jesus was not so. He raised no party, He fomented no strife,
   He sought no honor, He courted no popularity. He left the arena of this
   world's contests to others--His was another field of conflict. Born, as
   He was, amidst the acclamations of the angels. Reverenced by strangers
   from a distant land. Foretold by Seers and Prophets, one marvels that
   He did not, even in early youth, shine forth as a "bright particular
   star." But for 30 years He retires to the workshop of Joseph and is
   there patiently occupied with "His father's business."

   We catch a glimpse of Him in the Temple, but, as in a moment, He
   vanishes, again, into obscurity. Had we been in His place, young men of
   mettle and of warm blood, would we have waited 30 years and more? What
   hand could have held us back from the battle? Like the war horse, we
   would have champed the bit and pawed the ground, eager for conflict!
   Jesus was meekly quiet, neither striving, nor crying, nor causing His
   voice to be heard in the streets. When the time is come for Him to
   appear in public, He goes quietly to the banks of the Jordan. John is
   baptizing a multitude in the river--He does not press forward and claim
   the Baptist's immediate attention, but He waits till all the people
   have been baptized--and then He tells John that He desires to be
   baptized by him.

   The deed is done and the Holy Spirit descends upon Him in the river,
   but He does not come up out of the Jordan at once to plunge into the
   midst of conflict and preach a sermon with the fiery zeal of Peter on
   the day of Pentecost. Neither does He, at once, go up to Jerusalem and
   proclaim Himself the Anointed of the Lord. Instead, He is led of the
   Spirit into the wilderness. His zeal was intense, but He had His spirit
   well in hand and not a grain of self-seeking ever defiled His ardor.
   The zeal of God's House had eaten Him up, yet He went quietly to the
   wilderness, and afterwards to Cana and Capernaum and the more remote
   spots by the sea.

   He did not need excitement from the outside world to maintain the fires
   of His zeal--there was an inexhaustible fount of fire within--therefore
   He was ardent but not noisy, intense but not clamorous. His first
   labors were very private--His Kingdom came not with observation. He did
   not seek to entrap men into discipleship by arts which are commonly
   employed. His first disciples were urged to follow Him by John, who
   said, "Behold the Lamb of God, which

   takes away the sin of the world." And then the disciples asked Him,
   "Master, where do You dwell?" He gathered them one or two at a time. He
   did not raise an excitement and lead hundreds captive to enthusiasm.
   Instead of stirring the metropolitan city at once with His ministry, He
   went away to Nazareth and Cana, little paltry towns away among a rustic
   population.

   He went about healing the sick and teaching, calling John, James,
   Peter, Andrew and Matthew, but not making very great headway, as we
   say--spending a whole day talking with a woman at a well--perfectly
   satisfied to be doing what violent spirits would call commonplace
   mission work. When He comes up to the feast at Jerusalem to preach, He
   stands there and declares the Word of God, but when He is opposed He
   disappears and is back, again, in His retirement in Galilee, still
   pursuing His lowly work of love. Our Lord came among us in meek and
   lowly guise--and so He continued among us. You shall not find Christ
   pushing His way among the politicians, crying, "I claim leadership
   among the sons of men."

   He never marches at the head of an admiring mob to assert His supremacy
   by their aid and alarm His foes by terror of their numbers. But He
   gently glides through the world, seen by His light rather than heard by
   His sound. He was content to shun fame and avoid applause. He
   frequently forbade the grateful patients whom He had healed to mention
   His name or publish the cure. His modesty and love of quiet shrank from
   notoriety. It was abundantly true of Him, He did not strive nor cry,
   neither did any man hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He
   did not break and a smoking flax He did not quench.

   The meaning of what I have said is this--Jesus never became a party
   leader. He was no place-hunter or demagogue. There arose many in His
   day who claimed to be great ones and drew many people after them by the
   pretence that they were the promised deliverers. And by-and-by their
   clamors created strife, for the troops of the Romans were after them,
   and tumult and bloodshed were the lamentable sequel. Never did our Lord
   bid His servants fight, for His kingdom was of another order. When, for
   once in His life, He rode in state as a king through the streets of
   Jerusalem, the shouting was only that of children who said, "Hosanna"
   in the temple, and of a willing, peaceful company of disciples, whose
   only weapons were palm branches and boughs of the trees.

   For a war horse to ride, He chose the lowly ass. As compared with those
   who clamored for place and power, He was like a dumb man all His days,
   though able to have awed or charmed the multitude to do His bidding. He
   loved the lonely mountain better than the throng of the crowd. He could
   not help being popular--such a speaker as He was must attract His
   thousands, for, "Never man spoke like this Man." And such a
   miracle-worker as He was, how could it be but that the people would
   follow to witness His wonders and eat of His loaves and fishes? And
   such a generous spirit--so noble and so free-hearted--it was little
   marvel that the people would have made Him a king, but He tore Himself
   away. They sought Him and found Him not.

   He came to endure, not to enjoy--to be despised, not to be crowned. How
   often did He escape the congratulating crowds! He took a boat and
   passed over to the other side. Rough waters were more to His mind than
   hot-brained mobs of transient admirers who could be bought by bread and
   fish! His design was not to be the idol of the populace, but to break
   their idols and lead their hearts back to God. Therefore He did not
   strive nor cry, nor run in the world's race, nor battle in her wars. As
   He shunned popularity, so He made no use of the carnal forces which lay
   ready at His hands. No doubt the priests and scribes were sometimes
   afraid to oppose Him for fear of the people--but they had no need to
   fear that He would shelter behind the populace.

   He asked neither the rich nor the strong nor the many to protect Him,
   but felt quite secure till His hour was come. He spoke openly before
   them, unguarded by His friends and with neither weapon nor armor of
   defense. He never appealed to human passions, or egged on the people
   against the tyrants of the hour. No sentence of His can be construed
   into a desire to meet force by force. One of His followers, who loved
   Him much, said, "Let us call fire from Heaven upon these Samaritans."
   But Jesus said, "You know not what spirit you are of."

   In the garden of Gethsemane He might have summoned legions of angels to
   the rescue, but He agonized alone. Not a single seraph came from the
   Throne of Heaven to drive away the Son of Perdition, or the
   bloodthirsty priests. No destroying angel smote the men who spat in His
   face. No devouring flame burned up those who scourged Him. The force of
   His life was the Omnipotence of gentle goodness. He did not lay the
   weight of His little finger upon the minds of men to compel them to
   involuntary subjection. His conquests were such as led men in willing
   captivity. Only think of what He

   might have done! Only think of what you and I would have done if we had
   been in His position, having such a work to do and such opponents!

   Have you ever felt, when you have seen the sin of this world, as if you
   wanted to put it down and stamp it out by force? Your indignation has
   been stirred within you and you have said, "I cannot bear it." When I
   stood in Rome and saw the idolatries of that city and its swarms of
   priests, I could not help exclaiming, "How is it that the eternal
   thunderbolts lie still? Had I one hour of the Lord's power I would
   sweep away the whole of this filth with the bosom of destruction." But
   Christ, with these same thunderbolts in His hands, never used them at
   all. He had no curses for His foes. No blows for His enemies. The only
   time He did use the semblance of violence was when He took the scourge
   of small cords and chased the buyers and sellers out of His Father's
   House, a deed in which the awe inspired by His Presence appears to have
   been the principal instrument employed.

   Such was His gentleness that when He might have shaken the earth and
   rocked the thrones of tyrants--and made every idol god totter from its
   bloodstained throne--He put forth no such physical power--but still
   stood with melting heart and tearful eyes inviting sinners to come to
   Him. He used no lash but His love, no battleaxe and weapon of war but
   His Grace. Has it ever struck you that it was strange He should have
   stopped in Palestine, a little, miserable strip of country, almost too
   insignificant to be noticed on the map? Why did He confine Himself to
   Israel? Why sojourn in the remotest parts of the land?

   Why did He not at once go down to Greece and there, at Athens, meet the
   philosophers and convince them of His superiority? They must, before
   long, have admitted that there was majesty about His teaching and have
   acknowledged Him as the wisest of men. Why not march to Rome and face
   proud Caesar--and if He must die--die in some conspicuous place where
   all the world would ring with it? Ah, no, He courted no notoriety. We
   are always saying, "Let us push and get to the front," but when the
   world's march is in the wrong way, the true leader is behind! Jesus
   made no desperate attempts to reach leadership. He relied upon the
   power of His Spirit and the force of love.

   The power of the Truth of God would, He knew, penetrate in quietness
   the prepared heart. He knew that the Gospel, like fire, could burn its
   way without noise of drum or sound of trumpet. He was satisfied to pick
   out His few fishermen and His other disciples in whom His Grace would
   be placed like a sacred deposit--and let the work go on like the silent
   growing of the corn in the ground which springs up, man knows not how.
   I leave the question of His whole life, for I do not think it is
   necessary to say more to make you see how exactly the Prophet has
   pictured Him here.

   Now, secondly, the same has been true with regard to the spread of the
   Gospel. The passage does not refer merely to Christ, Personally, but to
   Christ's entire work. And it is still true of Him, "He shall not
   strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets."
   No violence has been employed in the spread of the Gospel. No carnal
   weapon has been lifted to promote Messiah's reign. He does not strive
   nor cry. When Mohamed would spread his religion, he bade his disciples
   arm themselves and then go and cry aloud in every street, and offer to
   men the alternative to become believers in the prophet, or to die.
   Mohamed's was a mighty voice, which spoke with the edge of the
   scimitar. He delighted to quench the smoking flax and break the bruised
   reed--but the religion of Jesus has advanced upon quite a different
   plan.

   Other forces, more mighty, but not so visible, have been employed to
   promote the sway of Jesus. Never has He invoked the secular arm--He has
   left that to Antichrist and the seed thereof. No demand has been made
   by Him upon human governments to patronize or enforce Christianity. On
   the contrary, wherever governments have patronized Christianity at all,
   they have either killed it, or else the infinite mercy of God, alone,
   has preserved it from extinction. Jesus would not have the unbeliever
   fined, or imprisoned, or cut off from the rights of citizenship. He
   would not allow any one of His disciples to lift a finger to harm the
   vilest blasphemer, or touch one hair of an atheist's head. He would
   have men won to Himself by no sword but that of the Spirit--and bound
   to Him by no bands but those of love.

   Never, never, in the Church of God has a true conversion been worked by
   the use of carnal means--the Lord will not so approve of the power of
   the flesh. You do not find the Lord calling in the pomp and prestige of
   worldly men to promote His kingdom, or see Him arguing with
   philosophers that they might sanction His teaching. I know that
   Christian ministers do this and I am sorry they do. I see them taking
   their places in the Hall of Science to debate with the men of boastful
   wisdom. They claim to have achieved great mental victories there and I
   will not question their claim, but spiritual triumphs I fear they will
   never win in this way.

   They have answered one set of arguments, and another set has been
   invented the next day! The task is endless. To answer the allegations
   of infidelity is as fruitless as to reason with the waves of the sea,
   so far as soul-saving is concerned. This is not the way of quickening,
   converting and sanctifying the souls of men. Not as a book of science
   will you triumph, O Bible, though your every Word is Wisdom itself! Not
   as a great philosopher will You conquer, O Man of Nazareth, though You
   are, indeed, the possessor of all knowledge! But as the Savior of men
   and the Son of God shall Your kingdom come! The power which Christ uses
   for the spread of His kingdom is exercised in conversion and is as
   different as possible from compulsion or clamor.

   Conversion is the mysterious work of the Spirit upon the soul. That
   great change could not be produced by the fear of imprisonment, the
   authority of Law, the charms of bribery, the clamor of excitement, or
   the glitter of eloquence. Men have pretended to conversion because they
   hoped that a religious profession would benefit their trade or raise
   their social position, but from such conversions may God deliver us!
   Men have been startled into thoughtfulness by the excitement which
   arises out of Christian zeal--but any real spiritual benefit they may
   have received has come to them from another source--for the Lord is not
   in the wind, or the tempest, but in the still small voice. That which
   is worked by noise will subside when quiet reigns--as the bubble dies
   with the wave which bore it.

   Hearts are won to Jesus by the silent conviction which irresistibly
   subdues the conscience to a sense of guilt and by the love which is
   displayed in the Redeemer's becoming the great substitutionary
   Sacrifice for us, that our sins might be removed. In this way
   conversions are worked, not by displays of human zeal, wisdom, or
   force. "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord."
   Nor, Beloved, has Christ caused His Gospel to spread by any
   manifestation of the terrors of His Deity. Oh, if today this guilty
   land of ours were bruised beneath the feet of a destroying angel, or
   we, ourselves, were made to sit in darkness that might be felt or found
   our chambers filled with frogs and loathsome insects, and our fields
   devastated by devouring locusts--then we dream that our countrymen
   would be struck down in terror at the power of Jesus--but such is not
   His mode of warfare!

   Plagues are more suited for the armory of the Law than for the hospital
   of the Gospel. He might, if He pleased, send down upon the worshippers
   of false gods such terrible judgments that they would cry to the rocks
   to hide them and to the hills to cover them. While they are bowing
   before their demon gods, He might cause the earth to open and swallow
   them up. Or He could smite every priest at this hour with the leprosy,
   and richly would they deserve the doom! At this hour every deceiver of
   the people might suddenly be torn in pieces and appointed his portion
   with the tormentors--and Divine justice would exonerate the deed.

   But the Son of Man does not so determine. With wonderful patience He
   sits still and bears the insults of succeeding generations. Were He not
   Almighty, He could not so restrain Himself. He allows men, still, to
   chant hymns to gods of wood and stone. He still allows priests to
   insult Him by pretending to manufacture the flesh and blood of His
   Humanity! He allows this blinded nation to follow its wicked priests
   and to forsake Himself, the only Priest. And all this He does while His
   saints are crying daily, "O Lord, how long?" and the souls under the
   altar are day and night petitioning for justice. He pauses in pity,
   waiting to be gracious--not willing that any should perish--unwilling
   to destroy.

   This smoking flax of heathendom, abominable as it is in His nostrils,
   He will not yet quench. And those broken reeds of ritualistic
   confidence on which men rely, He will not as yet break, for He is
   magnifying His patience and long-suffering. By-and-by He will "send
   forth judgment unto victory" and men shall see that the patient Lamb is
   also the mighty Lion of the Tribe of Judah! And He who was Omnipotent
   to bear offenses will also be Omnipotent to recompense His foes--and to
   ease Him of His adversaries!

   We will now note another illustration of the same Truth of God. We have
   observed His life and the spread of the Gospel. Now note that the same
   Truth appears in the experience of every unconverted man. I may be
   addressing one who has denied the existence of God. Wonder, O Man, that
   you still live, since you deny the existence of your Maker! You are to
   Him no better than smoking flax or a bruised reed, but despite your
   insolence, He neither quenches nor crushes you! You enjoy the bounties
   of Providence. You are permitted to inhale the air which afterwards you
   send forth in blasphemy! Is it not a marvel that you are not destroyed?

   Perhaps you have become openly profane as well as a secret doubter. You
   have insulted God to His face and dared Him to destroy your body and
   your soul. Why did He not, at once, accept your profane challenge? Why?
   Because He is too great to be in haste to quench such a smoking flax as
   you are--too kind to deal hastily with you! Justice will close

   her accounts with you by-and-by, but for the present the Lord lets such
   a bruised reed as you are, alone. Crush you? Yes, that He could! One
   word from Him, one look from His eyes and you would lie a corpse--and
   your putrid carcass would need to be hidden away in the dust.

   He spares you, not in indifference but in wonderful patience. He will
   not quench nor crush you. The Socinian says that Christ is not the Son
   of God and so robs Him of His greatest glory. But Jesus does not smite
   him. Hard and cruel things are said against the Lord and His great
   Sacrifice, but He hurls no flames of fire upon the synagogues of the
   heretics. He suffers men to live in ease and comfort, even to old age,
   though every day they have insulted His Majesty and rebelled against
   His Throne. Nothing provokes Jesus more than injuries done to His
   people. There was a time when He saw Saul persecuting His Church and He
   chided him from Heaven.

   His eyes flashed fire upon the Apostle and he fell to the ground--but
   even then mercy had moved the Savior, and not fury. "Saul, Saul, why do
   you persecute Me? It is hard for you to kick against the pricks," was a
   reproof such as only the gentle Jesus could have given! But, oh, how is
   it that He endures to see His people despised, rejected, slandered? How
   could the Lord Jesus sit still while the Papists were murdering the
   Vaudois in the valleys of the Alps? How could He be still on St.
   Bartholomew's Eve while the alarm was sounding and His own dear sheep
   were being slaughtered? How could He be quiet when Smithfield was black
   with the ashes of His saints?

   In His forbearance we find the answer. His long-suffering is intended
   for the salvation of men, and it is amazing! I put it to any here,
   present, who have been provoking Christ for years--could you have borne
   with your fellow creatures as Christ has borne with you? You,
   especially, who hear the Gospel from day to day and yet put off
   obedience to its commands and indulge in private sins, and partake in
   evil lusts, in defiance of your conscience and the rebukes of the
   Spirit of God--I ask you, do you not wonder how Jesus bears with you?

   Why, I know men who, if but half a word is spoken to provoke them, will
   fall to blows! And I know very few who would quietly bear six or seven
   provocations--but yet here is the Lord Jesus Christ able to destroy
   you, His adversary-- and yet, for the space of 30, 40, 50, perhaps 60
   or 70 years, still does His patience wait. Oh, the mercy of the Lord!
   The mercy of the Lord!! He will not break the bruised reed nor quench
   the smoking flax! One more remark should be made here. Our present view
   of the text proves beyond all question His compassion to those who are
   weak and feeble, but are of a right spirit. We generally understand the
   passage to mean that wherever there is a spark of Grace, Christ will
   not quench it, and wherever there is any brokenness of heart, Christ
   will not destroy it.

   Now, observe, that instead of denying that this is the meaning of the
   passage, while I do assert that it is not the first meaning, I have
   helped you to see how forcibly this Truth of God may be inferred from
   the text. For if Christ would not quench those Pharisees and Sadducees
   who were so obnoxious. If He does not put down cruel kings and great
   potentates. And if He bears with infidels and skeptics, and with
   persecutors and profane persons--how much more will He deal gently with
   those who are truly seeking Him, but whose spiritual life is feeble--so
   that they are comparable to bruised reeds and smoking flax?

   Instead of setting aside, we have rather confirmed and brought into
   clearer light the meaning which is usually given to the text. O poor
   Heart, are you seeking Jesus? Is it a poor, trembling search as yet?
   Are you afraid that He will reject you? Have you begun to pray, but
   does that prayer seem too feeble to enter the gates of Heaven? Be of
   good courage! He who has patience with His proudest foe will not be
   hard and censorious to a trembling penitent! It cannot be that He who
   is too tender to destroy the howling beast which snarls at Him, should
   be so severe as to slay the lamb which pines at His feet! Weak and
   trembling One, be of good courage!

   As for you who are converted to Him and can say that all your hope is
   placed in Him, it may be you are depressed because you do not grow in
   Grace as you would wish to do. And there are times when your anxiety to
   be right leads you to make rigid self-examination--and then you are
   grieved because there does not appear to be more Grace in you than fire
   in a dying candlewick--nor more true life in you than there is of
   strength in a bruised reed. Well, never mind. Jesus has a special care
   for the weak and is tender to the utmost degree towards such as need to
   be gently handled. Has He not said, "He carries the lambs in His bosom,
   and does gently lead those that are with young"?

   Only let your faith be sincere and if it is but as a grain of mustard
   seed it shall bring you into the Kingdom. Though you can but look with
   a bleared eye at the Cross and scarcely see it by reason of the tears
   of your sorrow, yet, if you do

   but trust in the great Sacrifice, you are saved, for Jesus is no rough
   taskmaster towards seeking souls. He is no stern judge or heartless
   driver of the weak. He is very pitiful and full of compassion.

   And you, Backslider, where are you? Your light, once so brilliant, has
   waned into a mere spark and your only sign of possessing the heavenly
   fire is the smoke of your desire. You are saying, "Would God I had the
   life of Grace in my soul! I cannot be happy in the world and yet I fear
   I have no share in the world to come." Backslider, you have been broken
   and rendered useless by sin--you have fallen from your
   steadfastness--you are not fit to be a pillar in the house of your God,
   but only to be thrown on the dunghill like a broken bulrush. Yet Jesus,
   when men reject you, will receive you. And when your conscience
   reprobates you, His love will not discard you. Be of good cheer! He who
   affords His direst foes a thousand opportunities to repent will not, in
   His fierce anger, cast out those who crave mercy at His hands!

   II. THE OUTCOME OF THE GENTLENESS OF CHRIST. "In His name shall the
   Gentiles trust." What does this mean? Why, power, violence, harshness,
   severity are never to be trusted. You cannot win men's hearts by such
   means. The Parisians wrote upon the wall of the Imperial Palace,
   "Infantry, cavalry, artillery"--these were the basis of the imperial
   power. But an empire founded upon such things melted away like snow in
   summer. If there had been loyal affection between the ruler and the
   ruled, a thousand German invasions could not have dissolved the tie.

   When the old Napoleon was on the rock of St. Helena, he said gloomily
   to one of his attendants, "My empire has passed away, because it rested
   upon force, but the empire of Jesus still lasts, and will last forever,
   because it is based upon love." What has Jesus done for His subjects
   but loved them better than anyone else could have done, suffered for
   them beyond all and conferred greater blessings upon them than all the
   universe besides could have bestowed? By such things has He captured
   their hearts. You may tempt away Christ's followers from Him when you
   can find them a better master, or a more loving friend--but not till
   then.

   You shall win us to a new leader when you can show us a better. But you
   cannot even imagine one who could compare for an instant with the Chief
   among ten thousand, the altogether Lovely! We who are descendants of
   the Gentiles trust Him, and trust Him implicitly, because He is so
   Divinely gentle, so Omnipotently tender. Savior, You are no tyrant! You
   do not trample on the poor and needy, or oppress the weak and
   trembling! You are Mercy itself, Love embodied, Grace
   Incarnate--therefore do the people flock to You and in Your name do the
   Gentiles trust! The power of Jesus over men lies in the fact that He
   has taught them to trust Him. The firm faith of His followers
   consolidates His Kingdom.

   When His Word comes home to us in its own soft and gentle manner and He
   manifests Himself to us as He does not unto the world. And when He
   permits us to put our finger into the print of the nails and our hand
   into His side. And when He says, "You are Mine and I am yours," oh,
   then we feel burning in our soul like coals of juniper--that grand
   enthusiasm which is the terror of the adversaries of Christ--and the
   power of the Church! More potent than the edge of the sword is the
   intense love of saints. As the might of the north wind when it chases
   away the mist, such is the Divine force of love for Jesus when it fills
   the heart--it chases away all lethargy and sin.

   When we truly trust our Lord we feel that we can do anything for Him!
   Impossibilities have ceased and miracles have returned. When we trust
   Christ, self-sacrifice becomes a joy and holy daring is but a natural
   impulse. By trust in Christ the weakest have been made strong, feeble
   women have routed their persecutors and humble men have confronted the
   proudest despots without fear! O Lord Jesus, the Gentiles trust You
   because You are meek and lowly--and their trustful love is the strength
   of Your growing dominion!

   III. The last thing is this--THE TERMINATION OF THIS GENTLENESS. Our
   jaded spirits think the end long in

   coming. Read an account of the Popish Confessional, or stand, as I have
   done, by the confessional box and read, printed before your eyes, the
   subjects which are to be matters of question between the priests and
   the young girls who confess to him. And if you do not feel as if you
   could invoke a curse upon each shaven head, you are something more or
   less than man! It makes one's blood boil to think that such wretches
   should be in a position to insult and corrupt the modesty of
   maidenhood.

   Why does not the Lord's anger flash forth against them and consume them
   as stubble? So would our hasty justice deal out righteousness, but the
   Lord is slow to anger and gives His patience room. Yet if men will not
   alter. If they will not be won by love. If even the wounds of Christ
   cannot wean them from their lusts. If reason is lost upon them and they

   make beasts of themselves, there must come an end of it. A God who is
   all mercy and no justice would, in the long run be a dreadful calamity,
   just as a judge who never punished crime would be the worst possible
   magistrate for any nation.

   Ah, yes, the very instincts of our Nature make us feel that sin must be
   punished in due time. The best emotions of the most saintly spirit
   coincide with the belief in future retribution. There must come a time
   when the foes of God shall not rule and error shall not dominate over
   men. It must be so. Jesus, the Friend of man, will "send forth judgment
   unto victory." He will do this in a certain sense at the death of every
   ungodly man and woman. With what surprise will they open their eyes in
   the next state and see the Christ, whom they despised, sitting upon His
   Throne!

   With what unutterable dismay have some been seized, even before they
   have been quite dead! While the curtain was just rising and was not
   fully drawn up, they have howled with horror! And, ah, their dreadful
   doom! Those who denied that Jesus was God shall see Him as Divine.
   Those who persecuted His people shall see His people glorified at His
   side. Those who opposed the Truth He taught shall feel how sure that
   Truth is and shall learn how dreadful a thing it is to neglect the
   great salvation and fall into the hands of the living God!

   But this is not all. There is a day appointed, an hour of which no man
   knows, when the Lord Jesus shall descend from Heaven with a shout. Yes,
   He who was nailed to the Cross, who died and rose, and ascended,
   leaving the last print of His feet upon Olivet--He shall descend to
   earth again! He shall come, not to suffer, but to judge! And with Him,
   as co-assessors, shall come His own beloved followers. Then shall the
   dead rise from their graves and sea and land yield up the trophies of
   the grave! Then shall stern Justice take the place of gentleness and
   pity--for as He Himself repeats the words, "I was hungry and you gave
   Me no meat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink; sick and in
   prison, and you visited Me not"--His Words shall roll like thunder and
   smite like lightning, "Depart you cursed into everlasting fire in Hell,
   prepared for the devil and his angels."

   You rejected mercy, and Mercy will plead with you no more! You
   challenged power, and Power shall break you like potters' vessels. You
   despised love, and Love grown angry now despises you! You rejected the
   Truth of God, and now Truth shall bind you in chains of fire forever!
   You would have none of God, and God will have none of you! You would
   not have the Savior, and He shall say, "I never knew you: depart from
   Me you workers of iniquity." He will not, today break the bruised reed,
   or quench the smoking flax--but He will by-and-by--when He "sends forth
   judgment unto victory." He will sweep out of His Kingdom every
   offensive thing. God grant that we may not be obnoxious to His anger
   when He shall be among the sons of men as a refiner's fire and like
   fullers' soap. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Matthew 12:1-30.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Parent's and Pastor's Joy

   (No. 1148)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, DECEMBER 21 1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." 3
   John 1:4.

   JOHN speaks of himself as though he were a father and, therefore, we
   concede to parents the right to use the language of the text. Sure am I
   that many of you here present, both mothers and fathers, can truly say,
   "We have no greater joy than to hear that our children walk in truth"
   [the Truth of God.] But John was not after the flesh, the father of
   those of whom he was writing--he was their spiritual father. It was
   through his ministry that they had been brought into the new life. His
   relationship to them was that he had been the instrument of their
   conversion and had afterwards displayed a father's care in supplying
   them with heavenly food and gracious teaching.

   Therefore, this morning, after we have used the words as the expression
   of parents, we must take them back again and use them as the truthful
   utterance of all real pastors, "We have no greater joy than to hear
   that our children walk in the Truth of God."

   I. First, then, one of THE PARENT'S highest joys is his children's
   walking in the Truth of God. He has no greater joy. And here we must
   begin with the remark that it is a joy peculiar to Christian fathers
   and mothers. No parents can say from their hearts, "We have no greater
   joy than to hear that our children walk in the Truth of God, or even
   truth" unless they are, themselves, walking in truth. No wolf prays for
   its offspring to become a sheep. The ungodly man sets small store by
   the godliness of his children since he thinks nothing of it for
   himself.

   He who does not value his own soul is not likely to value the souls of
   his descendants. He who rejects Christ on his own account is not likely
   to be enamored of Him on his children's behalf. Abraham prayed for
   Ishmael, but I never read that Ishmael prayed for his son Nebajoth. I
   fear that many, even among professors of religion, could not truthfully
   repeat my text--they look for other joy in their children and care
   little whether they are walking in the Truth of God or not. They joy in
   them if they are healthy in body, but they are not saddened if the
   leprosy of sin remains upon them. They joy in their comely looks but do
   not inquire whether they have found favor in the sight of the Lord.

   Put the girl's feet in silver slippers and many heads of families would
   never raise the question as to whether she walked the broad or the
   narrow road. It is very grievous to see how some professedly Christian
   parents are satisfied so long as their children display cleverness in
   learning, or sharpness in business, although they show no signs of a
   renewed Nature. If they pass their examinations with credit and promise
   to be well-fitted for the world's battle, their parents forget that
   there is a superior calling, involving a higher crown, for which the
   child will need to be fitted by Divine Grace and armed with the whole
   armor of God.

   Alas, if our children lose the crown of life, it will be but a small
   consolation that they have won the laurels of literature or art! Many
   who ought to know better think themselves superlatively blessed in
   their children if they become rich, if they marry wealth, if they
   strike out into profitable enterprises in trade, or if they attain
   eminence in the profession which they have espoused. Their parents will
   go to their beds rejoicing and awake perfectly satisfied, though their
   boys are hastening down to Hell, if they are also making money by the
   bushel. They have no greater joy than that their children are having
   their portion in this life and laying up treasure where rust corrupts
   it. Though neither their sons nor daughters show any signs of the new
   birth, give no evidence of being rich towards God, manifest no traces
   of electing love or redeeming Grace or the regenerating power of the
   Holy Spirit, yet there are parents who are content with their
   condition.

   Now I can only say of such professing parents that they have need to
   question whether they are Christians, and if they will not question it
   themselves, they must give some of us leave to hold it in serious
   debate. When a man's heart is really right with God and he, himself,
   has been saved from the wrath to come and is living in the light of his
   heavenly Father's

   countenance, it is certain that he is anxious about his children's
   souls, prizes their immortal natures and feels that nothing could give
   him greater joy than to hear that his children walk in the Truth of
   God. Judge yourselves, then, Beloved, this morning, by the gentle but
   searching test of the text.

   If you are professing Christians, but cannot say that you have no
   greater joy than the conversion of your children, you have reason to
   question whether you ought to have made such a profession at all! Let
   us then remark, in the next place, that the joy which is mentioned in
   the text is special in its object. The expression is a thoughtful one.
   John did not write those words in a hurry, but he compressed a great
   deal into them. He says, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my
   children walk in truth." Now, beloved parents, it is a very great joy
   to us if our children learn the Truth of God. I hope you will not
   suffer one of them to grow up and leave your roof without knowing the
   doctrines of the Gospel-- without knowing the life of Christ and the
   great precepts of Scripture--without having as clear an understanding
   as it is possible for you to give them of the great principles and plan
   of salvation.

   When we perceive that our children, when we question them, thoroughly
   understand the Gospel and are well rooted and grounded in its
   doctrines, it is a great joy to us, and well it may be! It is, however,
   far more a joy when those same children feel the Truth of God for,
   alas, we may know it and perish unless we have felt its power within!
   Parent, was not your heart glad when you first saw the tears of
   repentance in your daughter's eyes? Did you not rejoice when your son
   could say, "Father, I trust I have believed and am saved by the Grace
   of God"?

   Yes, it is a greater joy that they should feel the power of the Truth
   of God than that they should know the letter of it. Such a joy, I hope,
   none of you are content to forego. It should be the holy ambition of
   every parent that all his house should be renewed by the Holy Spirit.
   It is a great joy when our children avow their sense of the Truth of
   God, when, knowing it and feeling it, they at last have the courage to
   say, "We would join with the people of God, for we trust we belong to
   them." Oh, happy as a marriage day is that day in which the parent sees
   his child surrendered to the people of God, having first given his
   heart to the Christ of God!

   The Baptism of our believing children is always a joyous occasion to us
   and so it ought to be. Our parents before us magnified the Lord when
   they heard us say, "We are on the Lord's side," and we cannot but give
   thanks abundantly when the same privilege falls to us in the persons of
   our children. But, Beloved, there is anxiety about all this. When you
   teach your children, there is the fear that perhaps they will not learn
   to profit. When they feel, there is still the fear lest it should be
   mere feeling and should be the work of Nature and not the work of the
   Spirit of God. And even when they profess to be the Lord's, there yet
   remains the grave question, Will this profession last? Will they be
   able to stand to it and be true to the faith until life's last hour?

   But the joy of the text is higher than these three, though these have
   to come before it, and it grows out of them. "I have no greater joy
   than this, to hear that my children walk in truth." That is the
   point--their practical religion--their actual exemplification of the
   power of the Gospel upon their lives. This proves that the teaching was
   well received, that the feeling was not mere excitement, that the
   profession was not a falsehood or a mistake, but was done in the Truth
   of God. What bliss it would be to us to see our sons grow up, and with
   integrity, prudence, uprightness and Grace, walk in the Truth of God!
   What a joy to behold our daughters springing up in all their beauty,
   lovely with the adornment of a meek and quiet spirit, becoming in their
   homes while with us, or in the new homes which speedily grow up around
   them, patterns of everything that is tender, gracious, kind and true!

   "I have no greater joy than this," says John. And all of you to whom
   such joy as this has been allotted can say, "Amen. Amen. It is even
   so." The joy before us has, therefore, a special possessor and a
   special object. It is a healthful joy, Beloved, in which we may indulge
   to the fullest without the slightest fear, for it is superior in its
   character to all earthly joys. "Not too much," is a good rule for
   everything which has to do with time. But this joy in our children's
   walking in the Truth of God we may indulge in as much as we will, for,
   first, it is a spiritual joy and therefore of a superior order. We do
   not joy to the fullest in the things which are seen of the eyes and
   heard of the ears, for these are things of the flesh which will
   decay--such as the garment which is eaten by the moth and the metal
   which is devoured by rust.

   We rejoice in the work of the Spirit of God--a work which will abide
   when this world shall have passed away. Hannah had some joy in the new
   coat which she made for young Samuel, but a far higher delight in the
   new heart which early showed itself in his actions. Our son promoted to
   be a king might cause us some delight, but to see our children made
   "princes in all the earth," according to that ancient promise, would be
   a greater delight by far. Rejoice in it, then,

   without trembling, for spiritual joy will never intoxicate. Such joy
   arises from love to God, and is therefore commendable.

   We love to see our children converted because we love God. Out of love
   to Him, by His Grace, we gave ourselves to Him and now, in later years,
   the same love prompts us to present our children. As Barzillai in his
   old age prayed David to accept the personal service of his son,
   Chimham, so would we, when our own strength declines, present our
   offspring to the Lord that they may supply our lack of service. We have
   said--

   "Had I ten thousand thousand tongues,

   Not one should silent be.

   Had I ten thousand thousand hearts,

   I'd give them all to Thee."

   Now as we have only one tongue of our own, we are intensely earnest
   that our children's tongues should sound forth the praises of the
   Savior. We have not another life on earth to call our own, but here are
   lives which the Lord has given us-- and we are delighted that He should
   have them for Himself.

   We cry, "Lord, take this child's life and let it all be spent to Your
   service, from his earliest days till gray hairs shall adorn his brow."
   It is like the old soldier coming up to his king and saying, "I am worn
   out in your service, but you are so good a monarch that I have brought
   my son that he may serve you from his youth up. Let him take his
   father's place, and may he excel him in valor and in capacity to serve
   his king and country."

   Now, when our children walk in Truth and love to God, it makes us
   rejoice that another heart is consecrated to His service. We may well
   rejoice in the salvation and in the sanctification of our sons and
   daughters because this is the way in which the kingdom of Christ is to
   be extended in the world. The hand which has held the standard aloft in
   the midst of the fury of war is at last palsied in death--happy is that
   standard-bearer who, with expiring eyes, can see his own son springing
   forward to grasp that staff and keep the banner still floating above
   the host. Happy Abraham to be followed by an Isaac! Happy David to be
   succeeded by a Solomon! Happy Lois, to have Eunice for a daughter, and
   happy Eunice to have Timothy for a son!

   This is the Apostolic succession in which we believe and for which we
   pray. How, in years to come, are we to see a seed of piety flourishing
   in the land and the world conquered to Christ? How, indeed, but by
   means of the young men of Israel? We shall be sleeping beneath the
   green ward of the cemetery in peace--other voices will be heard in the
   midst of the assemblies of the saints--and other shoulders will bear
   the ark of the Lord through the wilderness. Where are our successors?
   From where shall come these succeeding voices, and from where those
   nestled shoulders of strength? We believe they will come from among our
   children! And if God grants it shall be so, we shall need no greater
   joy.

   I will tell you why this is peculiarly the great joy of some Christian
   parents--it is because they have made it a subject of importunate
   prayer. That which comes to us by the gate of prayer comes into the
   house with music and rallying. If you have asked for it with tears, you
   will receive it with smiles! The joy of an answer to prayer is very
   much in proportion to the wrestling which went with the prayer. If you
   have felt, sometimes, as though your heart could break for your
   offspring unless they were soon converted to God, then, I will tell
   you, when they are converted you will feel as though your heart would
   break the other way out of joy to think that they have been saved! Your
   eyes, which have been red with weeping over their youthful follies,
   will one day become bright with rejoicing over holy actions which will
   mark the work of the Grace of God in their hearts!

   No wonder that Hannah sang so sweetly, for she had prayed so earnestly!
   The Lord had heard her and the joy of the answer was increased by the
   former anguish of her prayer. We have no greater joy then this--that
   our children walk in the Truth of God--and it is a right and allowable
   joy. It springs from good sources and we need not be afraid to indulge
   it. This joy is quickening in its effect. All who have ever felt it
   know what an energy it puts into them. Those of you who have never yet
   received it, but are desiring it, will, I trust, be quickened by the
   desire.

   This is what it means. Is one son in the family converted to God? In
   that fact we rejoice. But we cannot linger over joy for one--we are
   compelled to think of the others. If God has been pleased to call half
   a household to salvation, there is a hunger and thirst in the parent's
   heart after this luscious delight, and that parent cries, "Lord, let
   them ALL be brought in, let not one be left behind!"

   Are some of you, this morning, so happy as to see all your children
   converted? I know some of you are. Oh how holy and how heavenly ought
   your families to be when God has so favored you above many of His own
   people! Be very

   grateful and while you are joyous, lay the crown of your joy at your
   Savior's feet. And if you have now a church in your house, maintain the
   ordinance of family worship with the greater zeal and holiness--and
   pray for others that the Lord, in like manner, may also visit them.

   Beloved, have you some of your children converted while others remain
   unsaved? Then I charge you, let what the Lord has done for some
   encourage you concerning the rest. When you are on your knees in
   prayer, say to your heavenly Father, "Lord, You have heard me for a
   part of my house, I beseech You, therefore, to look in favor upon it
   all, for I cannot bear that any of my dear children should choose to
   remain Your enemies and pursue the road which leads to Hell. You have
   made me very glad with the full belief that a portion of my dear ones
   walk in Your Truth, but I am sad because I can see from the conduct of
   others that they have not yet been changed in heart, and therefore do
   not keep Your statutes. Lord, let my whole household eat of the Paschal
   Lamb, and with me come out of Egypt, through Your Grace."

   I am sure, Beloved, this is how you feel, for every true Christian
   longs to see all his children the called of the Lord. Suppose it could
   be put to us that one child of our family must be lost and that we
   should be bound to make the dreadful choice of the one to be cast away?
   We should never bring ourselves to it, it would be too terrible a task!
   God will never appoint us such a misery. We have heard of a poor Irish
   family on shipboard, very numerous and very needy. A kind friend
   proposed to the father to give up entirely one of the little ones to be
   adopted and provided for. It was to be entirely given up, never to be
   seen again, or in any way claimed as their own--and the parents were to
   make the selection.

   It is a long story, but you know how the discussion between the parents
   would proceed. Of course they could not give up the eldest, for the
   simple reason that he was the first-born. The second was so like the
   mother. The third was too weak and sickly to be without a mother's
   care. So the excuses went on throughout the whole family, till they
   came to the last--but no one dared even to hint that the mother should
   be deprived of her darling. No child could be parted with-- they would
   sooner starve together than renounce one.

   Now, I am sure if the bare giving up a child to be adopted by a kind
   friend would be a painful thing, and we could not come to a decision as
   to which to hand over, we could far less be able to surrender one
   beloved child to eternal destruction! God forbid we should dream of
   such a thing! We would cry day and night, "No, Lord, we cannot see them
   die. Spare them, we pray You!" We could almost rival the spirit of
   Moses--"Blot my name out of the Book of Life sooner than my children
   should be castaways. Save them, Lord! Save every one of them without
   exception, for Your mercy's sake!" We should make no differences in our
   prayers between one child and another.

   Now, I am sure that we should be quite right in such desires and
   emotions, and very wrong if we were able to sit down and contemplate
   the eternal ruin of our own offspring with calm indifference. God has
   made you parents and He does not expect you to act otherwise than as a
   parent's relations require you to act. That which would be unnatural
   cannot be right. As a Father, Himself, the Lord yearns over His erring
   children and He can never be grieved with us if we do the same. Nowhere
   do you meet with rebukes of natural parental love unless it unwisely
   winks at sin.

   Even David's bitter lamentation, "O Absalom, my son, my son, would God
   I had died for you! O Absalom, my son, my son!" is not censured by the
   Lord. Neither do we find Him rebuking Abraham for saying, "O that
   Ishmael might live before You!" These desires are so consistent with
   the natural instincts which He has, Himself, implanted, that, even if
   they are not always granted, they are never reprehended. Even if our
   child should turn out to be an Esau, or an Ishmael, or an Absalom, yet
   the prayers of the father for him are not forbidden. How could they be?

   Do not be afraid at any time when pleading for the souls of your
   children! Be importunate, be eager, be earnest not for the child's
   life--that you must leave with God. Not for the child's health--that,
   also, you may make a secondary matter--but for the child's soul. Stint
   not yourself in this, but wrestle as hard as you will, and say, "I will
   not let go except You bless my children, every one of them! Their
   unregenerate state is my deepest sorrow! O Lord, be pleased to recover
   them from it." Once more, this high joy of which we have spoken is very
   solemn in its surroundings, for it involves this alternative--"What if
   my children should not walk in the Truth of God?"

   Well, that means for us, during this life, many sorrows, nights of
   sleeplessness and days of anxiety. I have seen good men and great men
   crushed beneath the daily trouble caused by their children. "Children,"
   said one, "are doubtful blessings," and he was near the truth.
   Blessings they are, and they can be made by God the choicest of
   blessings--but if they shall grow up to be dissolute, impure,
   ungodly--they will make our hearts ache--

   "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is

   To have a thankless child."

   No cross is so heavy to carry as a living cross. Next to a woman who is
   bound to an ungodly husband, or a man who is unequally yoked with a
   graceless wife, I pity the father whose children are not walking in the
   Truth of God, who is yet, himself, an earnest Christian. Must it always
   be so, that the father shall go to the House of God and his son to the
   alehouse? Shall the father sing the songs of Zion, and the son and
   daughter pour forth the ballads of Belial?

   Must we come to the Communion Table alone, and our children be
   separated from us? Must we go on the road to holiness and the way of
   peace, and behold our dearest ones traveling with the multitude the
   broad way, despising what we prize, rebelling against Him whom we
   adore? God grant it may not be so, but it is a very solemn reflection.
   More solemn, still, is the vision before us if we cast our eyes across
   the river of death into the eternity beyond! What if our children
   should not walk in the Truth of God and should die unsaved? There
   cannot be tears in Heaven, but if there might, the celestials would
   look over the bulwarks of the new Jerusalem and weep their fill at the
   sight of their children in the flames of Hell, forever condemned,
   forever shut out from hope!

   What if those to whom we gave being should be weeping and gnashing
   their teeth in torment while we are beholding the face of our Father in
   Heaven? Remember the separation time must come. O you thoughtless
   youths! Between you and your parents there must come an eternal
   parting! Can you endure the thought of it? Perhaps your parents will
   first leave this world--oh, that their departure might touch your
   consciences and lead you to follow them to Heaven! But if you go first,
   unforgiven, impenitent sinners--your parents will have a double woe in
   their hour!

   How sadly have I marked the difference when I have gone to the funeral
   of different young people. I have been met by the mother who told me
   some sweet story about the girl and what she did in life and what she
   said in death, and we have talked together before we have gone to the
   grave with a subdued sorrow which was near akin to joy! I have not
   known whether to console or to congratulate! But in other cases, when I
   have entered the house, my mouth has been closed. I have asked few
   questions and very little has been communicated to me.

   I have scarcely dared to touch upon the matter. By-and-by the father
   has whispered to me, "The worst of all is, Sir, we had no evidence of
   conversion. We would have gladly parted with the dear one might we have
   had some token for good. It breaks my wife's heart, Sir. Comfort her if
   you can." I have felt that I was a poor comforter--for to sorrow
   without hope is to sorrow, indeed. I pray it may never be the lot of
   any one of us to weep over our grown-up sons and daughters dead and
   twice dead. Better were it that they had never been born! Better that
   they had perished like untimely fruit, than that they should live to
   dishonor their father's God and their mother's Savior--and then should
   die to receive, "Depart, you cursed," from those very lips which to
   their parents will say--"Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the
   kingdom prepared for you."

   Proportionate to the greatness of the joy before us is the terror of
   the contrast. I pray devoutly that such an overwhelming calamity may
   never happen to anyone connected with any of our families. So far I
   have conceded the text to parents. Now I am going to take it for myself
   and my Brothers.

   II. You may view, dear Friends, the text as specifying the PASTOR'S
   greatest reward. "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children
   walk in the Truth of God." The minister who is sent of God has
   spiritual children. They are as much his children as if they had
   literally been born in his house, for to their immortal Nature he
   stands under God in the relationship of father. It would seem we shall
   have but faint memories in Heaven of earthly relationships, seeing they
   are there neither married nor given in marriage, but are as the angels
   of God.

   Therefore, the relationship of son and father will not exist in Heaven,
   though I cannot but think that spirits which were grouped on earth will
   be associated in Glory. But the duties and bonds of relationship will
   be ended. Relationships which relate to soul and spirit will last on. I
   may not look upon my sons in Heaven as my children, but I shall
   recognize many of you as such, for it is through your soul, or rather
   your new-born spirit, I am related to you. No minister ought to be at
   rest unless he sees that his ministry brings forth fruit, and men and
   women are born unto God by the preaching of the Word.

   To this end we are sent to you, not to help you to spend your Sundays
   respectably, nor to quiet your conscience by conducting worship on your
   behalf. No, Sirs, ministers are sent into the world for a higher
   purpose! And if your souls are not saved, we have labored in vain as
   far as you are concerned. If in the hands of God we are not made the
   means of your new birth, our sermons and instructions have been a mere
   waste of effort and your hearing has been a mere waste of

   time to you, if not something worse. To see children born unto
   God--that is the grand thing! Therefore every preacher longs to be able
   to talk about his spiritual sons and daughters.

   John did so. Those who are the preacher's children are often known to
   him. They were to John, else he could not have spoken of them as, "my
   children," and could not have had joy in them as his children. From
   this I draw the inference that it is the duty of everyone who receives
   spiritual benefit, and especially conversion, from any of God's
   servants, to let them know of it. John speaks about his children, but
   supposing there had been persons converted and John had never heard of
   it? Suppose they had never made any profession, never joined the
   Church? John might have lived and died without the comfort of knowing
   them--and without the joy of hearing that they walked in the Truth of
   God.

   Therefore, permit me to remind some of you who, I trust, know the Lord,
   but have never confessed His name, that you do us grievous wrong! We
   have sought your good and God has blessed us to you. But you deny us
   the fruit of our labor, which is that we should hear that God has owned
   our ministry in your consciences! Do not continue to defraud the
   laborer of his hire! You know how refreshing to the preacher is
   information that he has won a soul for Jesus. As cold water to a
   thirsty soul in a parching desert is such good news to us! I have had
   many such cups of water, but I am growing thirsty for more. I am
   grateful when the Lord works as He did only the other day, and I hear
   of it.

   I preached to you, one morning, a sermon to despairing souls [#1146
   Consolation for the Despairing.] I said there might be few, then,
   present to whom it would apply. It was very grateful to me to find, a
   day or so after, that a friend from a considerable distance had been
   moved to come here that morning, and, after many years of despair, was
   brought into light and liberty through the sermon. Oh, how glad I felt!
   You cannot help preaching when you know that saving results follow! If
   God's Holy Spirit has blessed our word to you, do not refrain from
   acknowledging the blessing! Put on Christ publicly in Baptism,
   according to His command--unite yourself with His Church and commune
   with the people among whom you have been born unto God.

   It seems from our text that John was in the habit of hearing about his
   spiritual children--"I have no greater joy than to hear"--mark
   that--"than to hear that my children walk in the truth." That implies
   that if you make a profession of your faith, people will talk about
   you. John could not have heard if others had not spoken. The man who
   makes a profession of religion, especially in a Church like this, will
   be watched by all the world's eyes, and not by very friendly critics,
   either. There are those at home, who know not the Savior, who, if they
   can find any fault in your character, will throw it at you, and say,
   "That is your religion, is it?"

   You will be men much spoken of, and reports of you will come to us--bad
   or good, we shall be sure to hear of them. We practice no spy system
   among the members of our Church and yet somehow or other in this large
   Church of 4,500 members, it very rarely happens that a gross act of
   inconsistency is long concealed. Birds of the air tell the matter. The
   eagle-eyed world acts as policeman for the Church, and with no good
   intent becomes a watchdog over the sheep, barking furiously as soon as
   one goes astray. I assure you, I have no greater joy than when I hear
   that the members of the Church are walking in the Truth of God.

   When, for instance, a young Christian man dies, and his master writes
   to me, saying, "Have you got another member in your Church like
   So-and-So? I never had such a servant before. I deplore his loss, and
   only wish I might find another of equally excellent character." Very
   different is our feeling when we hear it said, as we do sometimes, "I
   would sooner live with an ungodly man than with a professor of
   religion, for these professing Christians are a great deal worse
   tempered and more cantankerous than mere worldly people." Shame, shame
   on anybody who makes the world justly bring up so evil a report! Our
   joy is that there are others against whom no accusation can justly be
   brought.

   You notice that he speaks of their "walk." The world could not report
   their private prayers and inward emotions. The world can only speak of
   what it sees and understands. So John heard of their "walk," their
   public character and deportment. Be careful, be careful of your private
   lives, my Brothers and Sisters, and I believe your public lives will be
   sure to be right. Remember that it is upon your public life that the
   verdict of the world will very much depend-- therefore watch every
   step, action, and word lest you err in any measure from the Truth of
   God.

   What is it to "walk in the Truth of God"? It is not merely resting in
   the Truth of God, or else some would suppose it meant that John was
   overjoyed because they were sound in doctrine and cared little for
   anything else. His joyous survey did include their orthodoxy in
   creed--it reached far beyond. We will begin at that point and grant
   that it is a great joy

   to see our converts standing fast in the Truth of God, and, Brothers
   and Sisters, I am glad, indeed, when I hear that you hold fast the
   essential, fundamental, cardinal Truths of our holy faith.

   I rejoice that the nonsense of the so-called "modern thought" has no
   charms for you! You have not turned aside to doubt the Deity of Christ,
   or the fall of man, or the substitutionary Sacrifice, or the
   authenticity and Inspiration of Scripture, or the prevalence of prayer.
   I am thankful that you hold fast the grand old Doctrines of Grace and
   refuse to exchange them for the intellectual moonshine so much in vogue
   just now. It is a great thing to hear of our people that they are
   abiding in the Truth as they have been taught. But to walk in the Truth
   of God means something more--it signifies action in consistency with
   Truth.

   If you believe that you are fallen, walk in consistency with that Truth
   of God by watching your fallen nature and walking humbly with God. Do
   you believe that there is one God? Walk in the Truth of God and
   reverence Him and none beside. Do you believe in Election? Prove that
   you are elect--walk in the Truth of God as the chosen, peculiar people
   of God, zealous for good works. Do you believe in Redemption? Is that a
   fundamental Truth of God with you? Walk in it, for "you are not your
   own, you are bought with a price." Do you believe in Effectual Calling
   and Regeneration as the work of the Spirit of God? Then walk in the
   power of God and let your holy lives prove that you have, indeed, been
   renewed by the supernatural work of God's Grace. Walk in consistency
   with what you believe!

   But walking in Truth means yet more, it signifies "be real." Much of
   the walking to be seen in the world is a vain show, the masquerade of
   religion, the mimicry of godliness. In too many instances the man wears
   two faces under one hat and possesses a duplicate manhood. He is not
   real in anything good--he is a clever actor and no more. Alas, that one
   should have to say it, very much of the religiousness of this present
   age is nothing more than playing at religion! Why, look at the
   Christian year of the Ritualistic party in our national Church, look at
   it, and tell me, what is it? It is a kind of practical charade, of
   which a sort of Passion Play is one act!

   The life of Christ is supposed to be acted over again, and we are asked
   to sing carols as if Jesus were just born, eat salt fish because He is
   fasting, carry palms because He is riding through Jerusalem, and
   actually to hear a bell toll His funeral knell as if He were dying! One
   day He is born and another day He is circumcised, so that the year is
   spent in a solemn make-believe, for none of these things are happening!
   The Lord Jesus sits in Heaven, indignant to be made a play of! Have
   nothing do with such things! Leave the shadows and pursue the
   Substance. Worship Christ as He is and then you will regard Him as "the
   same yesterday, today, and forever."

   When men see you, let them see that what you believe you believe in
   downright earnest, and that there is no sham about you. Then they might
   call you a bigot--for which be thankful! Take the word home, keep it as
   an honorable title, far too good to be flung back upon your foe. They
   may call you a wild enthusiast--in return pray God to make them
   enthusiastic, too--for in such a cause one cannot be too much in
   earnest. Do not go through the world like respectable shades, haunting
   the tomb of a dead Christ, but be alive with the life of God--alive
   from head to foot to Divine realities! So will you walk in the Truth of
   God!

   See how truly the Apostles bore themselves. They were ready to die for
   the Truth of God they held, and all their lives they were making
   sacrifices for it. Let your truthfulness be so powerful a force that
   others can see that you are carried away by its force and governed by
   its impulses. "I have no greater joy than this." Why, when a preacher
   sees men thus walk in the Truth of God, does he make it his great joy?
   Because this is the purpose of our ministry! It is this we aim at. We
   do not live to convert people to this sect or that, but to holy living
   before God and honest dealing with men. This is the grand thing and
   when we see this achieved, we have no greater joy. This is the designs
   of the Gospel, itself! Christ loved His Church and gave Himself for it,
   that He may present it to Himself, a perfect Church without spot or
   wrinkle or any such thing.

   A holy people are the reward of the Redeemer's passion! Well may they
   be the joy of those friends of the Bridegroom who stand and rejoice
   greatly because the Bridegroom's joy is fulfilled. The holiness of
   Christians is the great means of spreading the Gospel. Beyond all other
   missions I commend the mission of holiness. They preach best for Christ
   who preach at the fireside, who preach in the shop, whose lives are
   sermons, who are themselves priests unto God, whose garments are
   vestments and whose ordinary meals are sacraments. Give us a holy,
   consecrated people, and we will win, for these are the Omnipotent
   legions with which the world shall be conquered to Christ!

   We joy in a holy people because they bring glory to God. Mere
   professors do not do so. Inconsistent professors dishonor God, of whom
   I tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the Cross of
   Christ! A people walking in the Truth of God crown the head of Jesus.
   They compel even blasphemers to hold their tongues, for when they see
   these holy men and women they cannot say anything against the Gospel
   which has produced such characters. Beloved, if you love your pastor,
   if you love the Bible, if you love the Gospel, if you love Christ, if
   you love God--be a holy people!

   You who profess to be saved, be true, be watchful. If you would not
   grieve us, if you would not dishonor the Gospel, if you would not
   crucify Christ afresh and put Him to an open shame, walk as Christ
   would have you walk--abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is
   good. Be in your speech and in your temper, in your business
   transactions with your fellow men and in your communications in the
   family circle--men approved of God--such as you will wish to have been
   when your Lord shall come, for He is at the door and blessed are those
   servants who are ready for His coming. If you are not what you ought to
   be, I beseech you do not make a profession! And if you have made a
   profession, and have dishonored it, humble yourselves in the sight of
   God and go once more to the fountain filled with blood, for there is
   still forgiveness and mercy for you.

   Jesus will willingly receive you, even though you have done Him such
   despite. Return as a prodigal son to the Father's house and you shall
   find the fatlings killed for you, and the best robe put upon you. As we
   are getting near the close of the year, earnestly pray that if anything
   in the time past has been evil, it may suffice us to have worked the
   will of the flesh. And now, from now on, in the new year may we live in
   newness of life and enjoy together the sweet privilege of hearing that
   our children walk in the Truth of God, while we ourselves, through
   Grace, are walking in it, too, and the Church is built up and
   multiplied by the Spirit of Truth. May the Lord bless you all, for
   Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--John's Second and Third
   Epistles.
     __________________________________________________________________

My Restorer

   (No. 1149)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, DECEMBER28,1873,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He restores my soul." Psalm 23:3.

   THIS sweetest of the Psalms sings of many mercies which the happy soul
   of the Believer receives--and it traces all those benefits to one
   Source--namely to the Good Shepherd, Himself. "I shall not want." Why?
   Because the Lord is my Shepherd. I lie down in delicious repose in
   green pastures. Why? Because "He makes me." I march onward making holy
   progress beside the still waters. Why? Because "He leads me." In the
   prospect of death I am calm and free from fear. Why? Because He is with
   me, His rod and staff they comfort me. The crown is composed of many
   costly things--gold, pearls and rare gems from the land beyond the
   river--they are all blended in one diadem--and that diadem is, without
   a question, joyfully placed upon the head of the Great Shepherd of
   Israel. The poet laureate of Scripture sings surpassingly in this
   Psalm, and every line is dedicated to the Beloved of his soul, in whom
   were all his fresh springs.

   My object, while handling a part of one of his verses shall be the same
   as his own--I also would speak of "things which I have made touching
   the King," with the view of extolling His name. I desire to glorify Him
   from one particular point of view, namely, as The Restorer who,
   Himself, brings back our wandering spirits when we forsake His ways. I
   would just now write the first word of the text in capitals, capitals
   as large as you can find. "HE restores my soul." He, He alone, He and
   not another. Unto Him be praise!

   I. The text is full of lessons and reminders, and reminds us, in the
   first place of OUR TRUE POSITION as Believers. Let us dwell upon it in
   that light. What is the true position of every Believer? It is that of
   a sheep abiding close to its Shepherd. The text suggests that the sheep
   has gone astray and the Shepherd brings it back in order to put it into
   the position which it ought never to have left. The fittest condition
   of a Believer is in communion with Christ. It ought not to be a
   privilege occasionally enjoyed--it should be the everyday life of the
   soul. We are to abide in Jesus, walk with Him and live in Him.

   Paul did not say, "For me to specially rejoice is Christ," or, "For me
   to feast on holydays is Christ." No, he said, "For me to live is
   Christ." Christ is the ordinary bread of the common meal as well as the
   fat things full of marrow for the banquet. He is water from the rock as
   well as wine on the lees well-refined. To us, His name is the watchword
   of earth as we expect it to be our passport into Heaven. We need
   fellowship with Jesus, not as a luxury for red-letter days and
   Sabbaths, but as the necessary provision of every day of our lives.
   "Abide in Me" is His Word to us for all seasons, and we ought to strive
   to realize it, so that always, by night and by day, on the Sunday and
   equally on the weekdays--in our joys and in our cares--we should abide
   in Him.

   Christ is not merely a harbor of refuge, but a port for all weathers.
   Do not think, Beloved, that I am setting up too high a standard when I
   say this. I am so sure I am not that I will repeat what I have
   said--the proper condition of a child of God at all times is that he
   should sit with Mary at the Master's feet, or, with John, should lean
   his head upon the beloved Redeemer's bosom. I think this will be clear,
   first, if we remember our obligations to Jesus. When we were newly
   converted and first knew our sins to be blotted out, if we had been
   asked how we should, in the future, act towards our Lord, we should
   have set up a very high standard.

   "Did He die for me, bearing all my sins in His own body? Then I will
   forever view His death as the grandest miracle of love! And my grateful
   heart shall have communion with Him by love and praise. Has Jesus
   really forgiven me? Am I clean through being washed in His most
   precious blood, clean every whit, and made a child of God, and accepted
   in the Beloved? Oh, then, I will praise Him and bless Him, and magnify
   Him, and live to Him all my days! As to ever being weary of
   Him--impossible! As to ever growing cold and indifferent towards
   Him--better my heart should cease to beat than that it should ever be."

   Do I not accurately describe what you thought at the first? Have I not
   truthfully described the ardor of your espousal love? You have not
   realized your ideal, but that is what you rightly judged to be, and,
   Beloved, it is what you ought to have been. It is not a higher
   condition than your solemn obligations to Christ really demand. If an
   angel had never heard of men before, and should suddenly alight upon
   this earth and meet with one of our race--and hold talks with him--he
   would be filled with wonder at what he discovered. Suppose that we
   should tell him that we fell into sin and were condemned to die, but
   that the great Maker of Heaven and earth condescended to take upon
   Himself our Nature, and died in our place? Can you imagine the angel's
   astonishment at the condescension of the Son of God?

   After his first amazement had passed away, he would say to us, "And do
   you not love Him infinitely? Are you able, within the limits of your
   little heart, to hold all the love you feel for such unutterable Grace?
   How do you live? Do you not feel that you cannot do half enough for
   Him? You certainly will never fail in obedience to Him! In trust of
   Him. In zeal for Him--that would be quite impossible!" How deeply would
   we blush and strive to cover our faces as we confessed to our angelic
   questioner that for such surprising love we have made but a poor
   return.

   I am quite sure, however, that we should quite agree with the angel as
   to what was due to our Lord--our conscience and our heart awarding Him
   the highest affection and the most constant service. Such deeds of love
   as Jesus has performed for us can never be adequately requited, but at
   the very least they ought not to be insulted by lukewarm and casual
   communion! They demand our heart, our soul, our all. With Him who has
   healed us we desire evermore to remain. With our Ransomer we would live
   in lifelong discipleship and be His servants, to go no more out
   forever.

   Moreover, our relationships to the Lord Jesus require perpetual
   communion with Him. Know you not that you are the friends of Christ?
   And if you are friends, will you not show yourselves friendly? But how
   can you be friendly if by the space of a week you have no converse with
   Him in the house, or in the field, or by the way? Is this your kindness
   to your Friend? You are more than friends--you are His brothers and
   sisters. "The same is my brother, and sister, and mother," said He, and
   can you treat a Brother so indifferently as to walk towards Him as if
   He were a stranger and a foreigner-- and scarcely exchange a token of
   affection by the months together? Is this brotherly? Did David treat
   his Jonathan thus?

   More than that, in wondrous love Jesus has called Himself your Husband
   and taken you to be His spouse. Is not that strange love, or the lack
   of it, which would allow a married pair to walk together week by week
   without the fellowship or affection? Surely, their marriage bands would
   be bonds, and their unity would be misery! I can conceive of scarcely
   any worse torment than conjugal union without affectionate communion!
   Shall I be the bride of Jesus and my love never be displayed in
   converse with Him? Shame upon me, a thousand times shame, if I allow a
   day to pass unblest with thoughts, and words, and deeds of love!

   Yet more, the Lord has been pleased to call us members of His body.
   Now, every member of the body must carry on vital fellowship with the
   head. It must exercise inevitable, though not always conscious,
   fellowship. In the spiritual body communion should be consciously
   enjoyed at all times. Shall the hand become indifferent to the head, or
   the foot refuse commerce with the brain? If we are in good health, no
   such schism in the body will ever occur--but with the head all the
   members will abide in affectionate, unbroken communion. We may suspect
   paralysis if life ceases to flow through the entire corporate body, and
   so communion is suspended. It is clear to all who are taught of God
   that our relationships certainly require of us that we abide in the
   Lord Jesus.

   Moreover, Beloved, this case ought to need no pleading, for if we would
   have happiness, where is happiness to be found but in walking near to
   Jesus? I speak what I know, and the common testimony of all the saints
   is with me--we say that out of Heaven there is no Heaven but nearness
   to Christ! Fellowship with Him is Paradise without a serpent in it. It
   is Canaan, itself, without the Canaanite foe. Communion with Jesus is
   the porch of Glory. It is the Saturday night of the eternal Sunday. It
   is the dawn of the heavenly day. Communion with Christ, if it is not
   actually Heaven, is certainly the choicest suburb of the new Jerusalem!

   Did not our poet cry--

   Where can such sweetness be, As I have tasted in Your love, As I have
   found in Thee?"

   Now, men do not ordinarily need to be stirred up to that which is their
   delight! Their spirits fly after their joys as eagles to the spoil.
   Where their heart moves with pleasure, it draws all their powers after
   it. And if, indeed, it is so, (and who

   shall contradict it?), that fellowship with Christ is the richest of
   all joys, the most intense of all delights, why are we so hard to move?
   Oh, how sluggish are our hearts, how dull our spirits, that we do not
   fly after Jesus with rapture of desire and do not labor perpetually to
   abide in Him!

   While this should draw us, another consideration should drive us,
   namely, that our daily necessities demand that we should live in
   fellowship with Him. If we are foolish and ignorant, where should we
   dwell, but with the Teacher? If always weak, to whom should we resort
   but to the Strong for strength? Let the child abide by its parent, the
   scholar with the master, the patient by his physician, the poor man
   with his helper. To whom should we go in our hourly needs but to Him
   who has, up to now, been our All in All? Israel could not afford to be
   a single day without the manna, nor can we be satisfied for an hour
   without the Bread of Life. "Without Me, you can do nothing," says our
   Lord, and we have proven His words to be true. Do we need more
   humiliating evidence? Are we willing to fall into a condition in which
   we can do nothing else but sin? I hope not. We ought never be satisfied
   except when, abiding in Jesus, we are clothed with His power and are
   bringing forth much fruit to His praise.

   Remember, yet further, that when out of fellowship with Christ our
   perils are infinite. When unfaithful to His love we are readily seduced
   by every temptation. Without His love in our hearts we become victims
   to other loves which lead us into idolatry, plunge us into hurtful
   lusts and poison the wells of our joy. We must either be enthralled by
   the surpassing love of Jesus, or we shall be fascinated by the world's
   deceits. One of the two masters must rule us, either the Prince of the
   power of the air, or the King of Kings! When Christ is with us we are
   safe, for what wolf can rend a sheep when it is close to the Shepherd's
   hand? When we are away from Jesus, we are not only in peril, but are
   already despoiled--to lose fellowship with Jesus is loss enough, in
   itself--even if no further calamity occurs.

   Ships without a pilot, cities without watchmen, babes without a nurse,
   are we without Jesus. We cannot do without Him. The less we attempt it
   the better. Samson without his locks is the sad type of a Believer out
   of fellowship. How dare we go forth to business on any day without the
   Presence of the Lord? As well might the warrior go to battle without
   shield and buckler! Should we not daily pray, "If Your Presence go not
   with me, carry me not up there"? How can we go to our beds till He has
   kissed us with the kisses of His mouth? May not even the dreams and
   visions of the night prove our downfall if our souls are not committed
   to His keeping?

   For my part, I love to murmur to myself, as I place my head on my
   pillow, those charming lines--

   "Sprinkled afresh with pardoning blood, I lay me down to rest, As in
   the embraces of my God, Or on my Sa vior's breast."

   The benefits of fellowship with Christ should constrain us to abide in
   it. If any man would grow in Grace. If he would be filled with the
   Spirit. If he would know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge.
   Especially if he would be made like to Him in all things who is the
   Head, he must abide in Christ. The whole compass of a Christian's
   permissible ambition is to be realized in fellowship with Jesus and
   nowhere else. All that I ought to be, or can desire to be--when I am in
   a right state--I can be in my Lord, by walking near to Him. Nothing
   good can any Believer obtain by forsaking his Master. Following Christ
   afar off is evil, only evil! And that continually abiding in Him is
   peace, joy, holiness, Heaven!

   Therefore, Beloved, I say again, let us strive after that which ought
   to be the habitual position of every Christian, namely, abiding in
   Christ--this is for babes in Grace as well as men in Christ Jesus, for
   the obscure as well as the famous.

   II. Our text, in the second place, reminds us of OUR FREQUENT SIN. "He
   restores my soul"--He often does it. He is doing it now. Now, the Lord
   would not do what is unnecessary and, therefore, this shows me that I
   often wander from Him, or else I would not need to be brought back.
   Beloved, I grieve to say that with man's professors of godliness,
   suspended communion is the chronic state of things. I must confess my
   inability to comprehend the Christian life of many who are called
   Christians. It is not for us to judge their real condition before God,
   nor will we attempt to do so, but we cannot help observing the
   inconsistency of their acts.

   They have believed in Christ, let us hope. Let us hope, also, that
   their faith produces enough good works to prove itself to be a living
   faith. But, for all that, their religion is cold, joyless, passionless.
   There are thousands of Christian people whose religion seems to lie
   entirely in attending religions services on Sunday, and occasionally,
   perhaps, coming out on a weekday to a lecture. They observe private
   devotions of a very stereotyped order and keep a Bible somewhere or
   other, and this is about it. To them prayer is a formality, praise is
   forgotten, the reading of the Bible is a drudgery,

   meditation a mere memory and their whole Christianity more like a mummy
   than a thing of life. With them the complaint that they are out of
   communion with Jesus is superseded by the question, "Were they ever in
   it?"

   I am afraid we have in this Church and in all Churches, scores and
   hundreds of members whose highest emotions in reference to love to the
   Person of the Lord Jesus Christ reaches no higher than the inquiry--

   "Do I love the Lord or not? Am IHis, or am Inot?"

   Conscious enjoyment of the love of Jesus and familiar communion with
   Him they know nothing of, and indeed, they look upon such things as the
   luxuries of a high class of saints, very pleasant to read of in
   biographies, but not matters of daily possession. They heartily admire
   the good people who can attain to such eminent positions, but to dwell
   there, themselves, has never occurred to them as at all possible.
   Beloved, this is a sad state of things! It is a condition of life in
   which I tremble for you, because you are starved in the midst of
   plenty, you are willfully pinching yourselves with penury while
   infinite wealth is all around you.

   You live as hired servants and not as sons! You get the duty of
   religion without the enjoyment of religion. You wear its yoke but do
   not feed in its pasture. You seem to me to forego all the cream of our
   holy faith and to partake of nothing but its skimmed milk. You leave
   the sunny plains of communion for the frozen regions of negligent
   living and therefore you shiver with fear while others exult with
   gladness. You have chosen your position in the outer courts of the
   temple. You never enter into the holy of holies. You do not pass within
   the veil to behold the Glory of the Lord. You are sailing to Heaven,
   but you are stowed away in the hold in the dark.

   You appear to me in your religion to live like the beggars who come
   round to our back doors for the bones and the stale crusts. And
   therefore I am not very much surprised when I hear that some of you
   feel a craving for amusements and say that you are very dull, and need
   lively company and gaiety to make life bearable. If my child were to
   say that he must go continually to the confectioner's or to the
   eating-house, I should say to myself, "Surely the food on my table is
   sufficient for him." But if upon inquiry I found that he did not eat at
   my table except occasionally, and that he always made choice of the
   barest bones and driest crusts, I should be at no loss to comprehend
   why he was so frequently seen at other places of supply. If you are not
   living upon Jesus, and rejoicing in the measureless bliss which He is
   capable of bestowing upon you, I do not marvel if you go off to the
   world for your sweetmeats and feel a leaning towards the leeks and the
   garlic and the onions of Egypt!

   Oh, dear Brothers and Sisters, if you are, indeed, His people, may the
   Holy Spirit save you from the dull religion in which you live and bring
   you into that condition in which you shall see your Lord, abide in Him,
   and rejoice in Him! A miner who lives the most of his days underground
   is not doing his country justice when he speaks of it as dourly, close,
   and suffocating. It is so down below, but it is not so up above!
   Religion wears but a grim aspect to those who know nothing of its
   secret joys, its sacred banquets, its ecstasies, and its calm
   satisfactions.

   There is a bleak side and a sunny side to every hill. Those who are
   careless in their fellowship will know the worst side of things. The
   bright-eyed dweller in the sunny south is a very different man from the
   Eskimo who drive their dogs among the ice fields and hide away through
   long months of winter in which the sun never sends forth a glimmer to
   cheer the earth. Who cares to be one of the Eskimos of Christianity, or
   the Laps and Fins of the Church? Yet, alas, these abound on all sides!
   We have to confess that others of us, in whom this departure from
   Christ is not chronic, are, nevertheless, subject to acute attacks of
   declension--and there are seasons when it is, indeed, well for us that
   He restores our souls.

   How soon are we turned out of the way! How little a thing may mar our
   joyful fellowship with Christ! Have you been in worldly company in the
   evening? Did you marvel that you could not enjoy communion at evening
   prayer? Have you become fond of your possessions, or have you been
   eager to increase them? Then your idols have grieved your Lord. Have
   you been unreconciled to your losses and fretted against God for His
   dark Providences? "If you walk contrary to Me," He says, "I will walk
   contrary to you." When our proud spirits chafe and fret against our
   heavenly Father, we cannot expect smiles and caresses from Him. We may
   easily lose fellowship with Christ by pride and self-esteem--if He
   indulges us with happy hours of sacred joy, we are very apt to think
   that we are somebody--and straightway we hold our heads very high. And
   whenever that happens we are very likely to fall into the mire and be
   there until our own garments abhor us and we cry for help like the
   sinners we are.

   Christ delights to meet us on terms of Grace. He is to be fullness and
   we emptiness! He the mighty Helper and we the fainting sinner. He the
   Savior and we the lost ones. While we say that we are rich and
   increased in goods, He knows that we are false and He leaves us. But
   when we see that He has the gold and the white raiment, and we the
   nakedness and the beggary, then are we arrived at terms which befit
   both Him and us. Vain is it to boast, for we have no beauty! His are
   the eyes which are as a flame of fire. His the countenance goodly as
   Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. His the crown of light and the mantle
   of glory.

   Unto Him must all honor be ascribed. Those who honor Him, He will
   honor. Humility sits at Jesus' feet and that is the chosen place of
   loving fellowship. We may lose the Presence of Christ by forgetfulness
   of duty, or of His Truth. We may, on the other hand, lose it by evil
   thoughts and absorption in fleeting cares. We may lose the company of
   Christ by inconsistent actions or by idle conversations. "Oh," some of
   you say, "is that so? Will Jesus be gone from us so soon?" It is even
   so. Those who know Him best have found out that He is like His Father
   and there is a trait in His Father's Character which is very
   conspicuous in the Son. It is written, "The Lord your God is a jealous
   God," and Jesus is a jealous Lover. He will not cast away His
   people--He is faithful to the worst of them--but if we do not walk with
   Him in holiness He will withdraw Himself from us for a while.

   Can two walk together unless they are agreed? If we grieve Him He will
   make us grieve. Cold, unloving, irreverent walking will soon cause the
   beams of the Sun of Righteousness to glance no more upon us. Blessed be
   the name of our Beloved, He comes back before long, and He says, "For a
   small moment have I forsaken you, but with great mercy will I gather
   you." But even the small moments of His forsaking are all too long! A
   little of His absence is painful for a true spirit to bear. But I leave
   this mournful point for something more consoling.

   III. The text reminds us, also, of OUR LORD'S FAITHFUL LOVE. "He
   restores my soul." This is not what He might have done, or would have
   done had He been changeable as we are. There are some who teach that
   Jesus leaves His roaming sheep to perish. As a punishment for their
   wanderings He gives them up to the wolf. I hope that very few believe
   that doctrine now--it is so dishonoring to the Good Shepherd that I
   hope all God's people will give it up once and for all. Yet such was
   the belief of many at one time.

   Ah, I do not wonder that some believed it, for I have often been hard
   pressed with the fear that it would turn out to be so in my own case.
   But I am here this morning to say concerning my Lord, "He restores my
   soul." He has not cast me off, or left me to myself, or abandoned me to
   my own devices--but in love to my soul He has plucked my feet out of
   the net, drawn me up from the horrible pit and set my feet upon the
   Rock of His immutable love. To leave His sheep to perish is not like
   our Savior. The heart refuses credence to such an idea, it so unlike
   He. My witness is that, "He restores my soul." He has done this so
   often that He may well be described as always doing it.

   The Psalmist puts it in the present tense, as if the Lord were in the
   habit of doing so, and were even at this moment in the act of restoring
   his soul. Truly I must confess that I wander and He restores me. Child
   of God, as numerous as your sins have been, so numerous have His
   restorations been! After a hundred times erring, you might have
   provoked Him to say--"He is given unto his idols, let him alone; My
   Spirit shall no longer strive with him." But no, He turns His hands
   again upon you and once more leads you in the paths of righteousness
   for His name's sake.

   The mother forgets not her suckling, though it is often fretful and
   peevish. She still has compassion upon the son of her womb--and even
   thus it is with Jesus. We are too deeply engraved on the palms of His
   hands to be, at last, left to die. We have cost Him too dearly for Him
   to relinquish us. Having restored our soul a hundred times, He still
   restores it. It is the way of Him--it is the habit of His love. The
   text lovingly insinuates that He is ready to restore us now. He is at
   His old work again. Even now, "He restores my soul."

   Where are you, dear Brother? Dear Sister? Have you grown very dull and
   cold of late? Jesus is waiting to make your heart burn within you. Do
   you feel half-dead spiritually? Your Lord and Master is even now ready
   to quicken you by His Word and to restore unto you the joy of His
   salvation! If you ask me why the Lord is thus quick to restore His
   people, I can find no answer in them or their merits, but a little
   further on the Psalmist gives you the reason why Christ thus acts in
   faithfulness and tenderness. "He leads me in the paths of righteousness
   for His name's sake." He would not restore us for our sakes. There is
   nothing in us which could be pointed out to the eye of Justice as a
   claim for restoration, though much might be remembered which, on the
   footing of the Law, would ensure our ruin!

   Here is our safety. The Lord Jesus has willed to save us, and He stands
   to His purpose and decree. He has put forward His own veracity and
   immutability as guarantees of the Covenant! His own honor would be in
   jeopardy should one of His people be lost. Therefore for His own name's
   sake He restores the wanderer, lest His enemies should say, "God has
   forsaken His people," and lest the hosts of Hell should boast, saying,
   "The Lord began to save them, but He was not able to finish the work."
   "For His name's sake." Deep and blessed reason! Immutable, immovable
   foundation of comfort! For His name's sake He restores our souls when
   we wander from His way.

   Strange are the means He uses. Sometimes it is a most heavy rod. At
   other times a sweetly fascinating love call. Singular are the modes of
   dealing with His people. He will break them in pieces and crush them
   beneath His feet, apparently in hot displeasure, but all with the view
   of making them sick of sin and eager after Himself. He will tear them
   as a lion tears his prey, and this not to destroy, but to save them. Is
   it not written, "I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal"? Often by
   dispensations of terror He leads us into ways of Grace and frequently
   that which appears to be our utter destruction ends in our complete
   restoration, according to His Grace. Let the text stand as a type and
   testimony of His immutable love. "He restores my soul."

   IV. During the short time which remains for me to discourse to you, I
   want to throw my whole strength into the last consideration. Our text,
   emphasized as I have emphasized it, reminds us of HIS SUPREME POWER.
   "HE restores my soul." HE, HE, HE alone restores my soul! From first to
   last my revivals and refreshing come from Him. He Himself first made my
   soul to live--yes, He was Life itself to me. You had no life, Beloved,
   till Jesus passed by and saw you lying dead in sin and said to you,
   "Live." You were like Lazarus in the tomb. You were beginning to stink
   with corruption and sin, and His voice, when it said, "Lazarus, come
   forth," was life to you.

   You did not help the Savior in your quickening--how could you? You
   exercised no concurrent action--He took the first step and quickened
   you when you were dead in sin. He began to save you because He will
   have mercy on whom He will have mercy. He will have compassion on whom
   He will have compassion. You owe your regeneration entirely to Him and
   it is not surprising that your revival should come from the same
   source. Surely He who regenerated can restore! He who created can
   renew! Restoration is not a more difficult work--no, it is but a
   secondary work compared with the new creating of the soul. The Lord,
   even Jesus Christ, who did at the first give you life, can revive you
   again--and He can do it by Himself--being to your soul her medicine as
   well as her physician.

   All the evils under which a Christian smarts arise from the absence of
   Jesus, or else obtain their power to injure from the fact of the Lord's
   being away. There are corruptions which dwell always in us, but these
   do not dare to show their faces when Jesus reigns within in revealed
   Glory. The traitors lurk in their holes when the King is in the
   city--they will not venture forth till they hear that He is offended
   and is gone. While the flag flies on the castle to mark that my lord is
   at home, His enemies are on their best behavior, for they have a dread
   of His sword. When our fellowship with Jesus is active, sin lies
   dormant, or is so thoroughly subdued that it makes but a struggling
   gasp for life.

   So, then, if at this time I have become proud, or petulant, or idle, or
   cannot pray, or will not submit to the Divine will, or have fallen into
   spiritual sickness--it is quite certain that all the mischief is
   occasioned by the loss of my Lord's company--and it is clear that His
   coming back to me will restore my soul. If His absence has developed
   all this evil, then His Presence can surely put it away. Should it
   happen that the temptation is outward, still no outward temptation has
   any force when Christ is present. Let all the world's charms attempt to
   seduce us, they are horrible distortions when contrasted with the
   loveliness of Jesus. Only let us see His face and all earthly
   witcheries have lost their enchantment.

   Suppose that we were tempted to skepticism? Christ is the antidote for
   that venom. No man doubts when Christ is present with him. At the sight
   of Him even Thomas cries, "My Lord and my God." Can we despond while He
   consoles? Can the children of the bride chamber mourn while the
   Bridegroom is with them? On the other hand, pride cannot live where
   Jesus is seen. "When I saw Him I fell at His feet as dead," said the
   beloved Apostle. His Presence is the death of every sin, the life of
   every Divine Grace. Therefore it is that the text says, "He restores my
   soul."

   The hunger, famine, and disease of war need but one cure, and that is
   peace. The woes of the Believer's soul need but one remedy, and that
   lies in the words, "Abide in Me." The Presence of Christ has everything
   in it that the soul can possibly need. I see the green leaves of a
   plant most dear to all who love the woods in spring. It is now nestling
   under a hedge upon a shelving bank, just alone a trickling stream. I
   ask it why it does not bloom and it whispers to me that it will

   bloom by-and-by. "But, sweet primrose, why not put forth your lovely
   flower at once and gladden us with your beauty?" She answers, "I am
   waiting for him."

   For whom do you tarry, you herald of spring?--

   "All love on you to rest their weary eyes, Rending therein a history of
   dearest ties." She meekly answers, "I am waiting for my lord, the sun."
   Do you not need other friends and helpers? "No," she says, "the coming
   of my lord will be enough, and when he puts forth his strength I shall
   put on my beauty." But will you not need soft, pearly drops of dew to
   glisten on the leaves? Are not your blossoms most frail to gaze upon
   when all around keeps time and tune therewith, when the violet and
   harebell are in your company, when the buds are swelling and "the
   green-winged linnet sings"? To which she replies, "He will bring them,
   he will bring them all." But are you not afraid of the killing frosts
   and the dreary snowstorms? "He will chase them all away," says the
   little plant. "I shall be safe enough when he brings on the spring."

   Believer, you are that plant and Jesus is your Sun! He will bring you
   healing beneath His wings and joy in the light of His Countenance. He
   restores our entire manhood--every regenerated faculty grows strong
   when He is near. Every Grace drinks in new life from communion with
   Christ! Faith triumphs, love burns, hope prophesies, patience becomes
   strong for endurance and courage is bold for conflict. Christ is such
   fare that all the Graces can feed on Him, and all grow strong upon the
   sacred viands. The best of all is that He is a restoration which is
   available now, available at once. I felt, the other day, heavy at
   heart, dull, dead. I thought of myself as though I were a branch of a
   tree cut off and so I meditated thus with myself--"If I am a branch of
   the vine, and have been removed from my stem, my only hope is to get
   back into the place from where I came and be grafted in again, and
   begin to suck the sap again, and feel the life flowing through me,"

   Then was it sweet to remember that there is no possible state into
   which a Believer could fall, even if it were the most desperate that
   could be conceived, but what Christ can restore him perfectly and at
   once! Then for my own comfort and renewal I began with my Lord thus--I
   looked at Him upon the Cross. I stood before Him as a sinner and
   wondered at Him that He should die for sinners. And I trusted Him and I
   said to Him, "Lord, You know I trust You. I have no hope but in You and
   I cling to You as a limpet clings to the rock. With all my heart and
   soul I cling." I began to feel the sap flow from the stem into my
   branch at once as soon as I had got into contact with my Lord! By a
   simple faith, I felt that virtue went out of Him to heal my soul.

   Once having established the flow of the sap, it flowed more, and more,
   and more, for as I thought about my salvation through Him, being myself
   guilty, and He my Righteousness, I began to love Him and my soul began
   to glow with a passion towards Him. And I wanted to be telling others
   what a dear, good Savior He was, and in a few moments after I had
   bemoaned myself as dead to Him and a castaway, I felt as much warmth of
   love to Him as ever I had done in all my life, and could say in the
   language of the spouse, "Or ever I was aware, my Soul made me like the
   chariots of Amminadib"!

   Now, I believe that this is the natural process to go through for the
   restoring of your soul. Some of you professors may be feeling, "I do
   not know how it is, but I am not what I ought to be, I am out of gear
   with Christ. I wish to act into a better state of heart, to be more
   pleasing to God them I am, by walking nearer to Him." If such is your
   state, mind what you do. Try what I have described, or, unless you are
   wide awake, there will come to you Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, and tell you
   there are other ways of getting your souls restored.

   First, he says, you should repent bitterly of all this wandering of
   heart. That is correct enough, but who is to give you this repentance?
   And then, says he, you must be more attentive to the outward means of
   Grace, you must set aside longer times for prayer and be more diligent
   in searching the Scriptures privately. That also is all correct.
   Whatever he bids you, that observe and do, as Christ said of the
   Pharisees, but that is not the way to obtain restoration of soul! The
   way to Heaven is never round by Sinai! Always be afraid of directors
   who lead you in that direction. All our healing lies in Christ. Christ
   is the Physician, and Christ is the Medicine, too.

   The way to get your soul restored is not to try to restore it yourself,
   nor to undergo any processes by which it may work itself right. No, but
   go straight away to Christ and lay hold on Him, just as you are,
   whatever your condition may be. Coming into contact with Him, you shall
   soon have to sing in the words of the text, "He restores my soul." Let
   others

   talk of their sacraments, "He restores my soul." Let men boast and
   glory of special ways of raising their souls to Heaven, "He restores my
   soul." Let some rejoice because their souls need no restoring, but are
   always strong, I cannot say that, but I can say, "He restores my soul."

   I hope this morning I shall have many Beloved Brothers and Sisters of
   like mind, who will go out of this house saying not only, "I knew He
   could restore my soul," but, "He restores my soul. I was very cold when
   I came in here, as cold as the weather itself, but Jesus has thawed the
   ice of my heart." Perhaps you have to confess that you were in a very
   bad state of mind--ugly-tempered--and I do not know what besides.
   Perhaps you were worried out of anything like peace and rest. Now,
   then, is the time to try the great Restorer. Before you leave your
   seat, labor to get into contact with Christ by the power of His Holy
   Spirit.

   Do, I pray, return to Him as at the first. O Branch, come back to the
   Stem! Let the sap flow again. "But I am not in a fit condition," you
   say. What? Have you gone back to that old Sinai idea of fitness? Have
   you gone back to that legal demand? Come as you are! Come as you are to
   Jesus. I mean you saints. Are you going to play the fool as sinners do?
   Sinners say they are to get ready for Christ, and fools they are for
   saying it. Are you about to say the same? You will be worse fools
   still! Come just now. Whatever you have been, let the connection
   between you and Christ be consciously felt and quickened by an
   immediate application to Him by simple faith, and you shall yet say, as
   you rise into more than your former vigor, "He restores my soul."
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Indexes
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture Commentary

   Genesis

   [2]21:19

   Exodus

   [3]12:42

   Ezra

   [4]4:14

   Job

   [5]33:29-30

   Psalms

   [6]23:3   [7]27:9   [8]31:22   [9]51:12-13   [10]88:7   [11]92:2
   [12]92:10   [13]94:19   [14]102:17   [15]103:12

   Proverbs

   [16]27:18

   Ecclesiastes

   [17]9:10

   Song of Solomon

   [18]1:7-8   [19]2:3   [20]3:10

   Isaiah

   [21]38:17   [22]43:25   [23]53:3   [24]61:11   [25]62:10   [26]63:7

   Ezekiel

   [27]36:26

   Daniel

   [28]10:19

   Hosea

   [29]4:17

   Joel

   [30]2:26

   Zechariah

   [31]8:21

   Matthew

   [32]5:14   [33]9:37-38   [34]10:1   [35]11:29   [36]12:19-21
   [37]22:42

   Mark

   [38]4:5-6   [39]4:38

   Luke

   [40]11:9-10   [41]12:54-57   [42]19:10   [43]24:5-6

   John

   [44]6:35   [45]6:39-40   [46]15:13

   Romans

   [47]7:13   [48]8:9   [49]16:1-16

   1 Corinthians

   [50]15:58

   2 Corinthians

   [51]5:18-21

   Galatians

   [52]3:22

   Ephesians

   [53]5:20

   Philippians

   [54]1:19   [55]1:23   [56]3:13-14

   2 Thessalonians

   [57]2:16-17

   James

   [58]5:19-20

   1 Peter

   [59]2:24

   2 Peter

   [60]3:10-11

   1 John

   [61]3:22-24

   3 John

   [62]1:4

   Revelation

   [63]4:10
     __________________________________________________________________

            This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
               Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
                   generated on demand from ThML source.

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  63. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons19/cache/sermons19.html3?scrBook=Rev&scrCh=4&scrV=10#xiv-p0.1