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        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 16: 1870
   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
     __________________________________________________________________

Assured Security In Christ

   (No. 908)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY 2, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep
   that which Ihave committed unto Him against that day." 2 Timothy 1:12.

   IN the style of these Apostolic words there is a positiveness most
   refreshing in this age of doubt. In certain circles of society it is
   rare nowadays to meet with anybody who believes anything. It is the
   philosophical, the right, the fashionable thing, nowadays, to doubt
   everything which is generally received. Indeed, those who have any
   creed whatever are by the liberal school set down as old-fashioned
   dogmatists, persons of shallow minds, deficient in intellect, and far
   behind their age. The great men, the men of thought, the men of high
   culture and refined taste consider it wisdom to cast suspicion upon
   Revelation, and sneer at all definiteness of belief.

   "Ifs" and "buts," and "perhaps" are the supreme delight of this period.
   What wonder if men find everything uncertain--when they refuse to bow
   their intellects to the declarations of the God of Truth? Note then,
   with admiration, the refreshing and even startling positiveness of the
   Apostle--"I know," says he. And that is not enough--"I am persuaded."
   He speaks like one who cannot tolerate a doubt. There is no question
   about whether he has believed or not. "I know Whom I have believed."
   There is no question as to whether he was right in so believing. "I am
   persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him."
   There is no suspicion as to the future. He is as positive for years to
   come as he is for this present moment. "He is able to keep that which I
   have committed to Him against that day."

   Now there is a positiveness which is very disgusting--when it is
   nothing but the fruit of ignorance and is unattended with anything like
   thoughtfulness. But in the Apostle's case, his confidence is founded
   not on ignorance, but on knowledge. "I know," says he. There are
   certain things which he has clearly ascertained, which he knows to be
   fact. And his confidence is grounded on these ascertained Truths of
   God. His confidence, moreover, was not the fruit of thoughtlessness,
   for he adds, "I am persuaded." As though he had reasoned the matter out
   and had been persuaded into it--had meditated long upon it, and turned
   it over--and the force of Truth had quite convinced him, so that he
   stood persuaded.

   Where positiveness is the result of knowledge and of meditation, it
   becomes sublime, as it was in the Apostle's case. And being sublime it
   becomes influential. In this case it certainly must have been
   influential over the heart of Timothy, and over the minds of the tens
   of thousands who have, during these nineteen centuries, perused this
   Epistle. It encourages the timid when they see others preserved. It
   confirms the wavering when they see others steadfast. The great
   Apostle's words, ringing out with trumpet tone this morning, "I know,
   and I am persuaded," cannot but help to cheer many of us in our
   difficulties and anxieties. May the Holy Spirit cause us not only to
   admire the faith of Paul, but to imitate it, and to attain to the same
   confidence!

   Some speak confidently because they are not confident. How often have
   we observed that brag and bluster are only the outward manifestations
   of inward trembling? They are but concealments adopted to cover
   cowardice! As the schoolboy, passing through the Churchyard, whistles
   to keep his courage up, so some people talk very positively because
   they are not positive. They make a pompous parade of faith because they
   desire to sustain the presumption which, as being their only comfort,
   is exceedingly dear to them.

   Now in the Apostle's case, every syllable he speaks has beneath it a
   most real weight of confidence which the strongest expressions could
   not exaggerate. Sitting there in the dungeon, a prisoner for Christ,
   abhorred by his countrymen, despised by the learned, and ridiculed by
   the rude, Paul confronted the whole world with a holy boldness which
   knew no quailing. A boldness resulting from the deep conviction of his
   spirit. You may take these words and put what emphasis you can upon
   each one of them, for they are the truthful utterance of a thoroughly
   earnest and brave spirit. May we enjoy

   such a confidence ourselves, and then we need not hesitate to declare
   it--for our testimony will glorify God and bring consolation to others.

   This morning for our instruction, as the Holy Spirit may help us, we
   shall first consider the matter in question, that which Paul had
   committed to Christ. Secondly, the fact beyond all question, namely,
   that Christ was able to keep him. Thirdly, the assurance of that fact,
   or how the Apostle was able to say, "I know and am persuaded." And
   fourthly, the influence of that assurance when it rules in the heart.

   I. First, then, dear Friends, let us speak for a few minutes upon THE
   MATTER IN QUESTION.

   1. That matter was, first of all, the Apostle's deposit of all his
   interests and concerns into the hands of God in Christ. Some have said
   that what Paul here speaks of was his ministry. But there are many
   reasons for concluding that this is a mistake. A great array of
   expositors, at the head of whom we would mention Calvin, think that the
   sole treasure which Paul deposited in the hands of God was his eternal
   salvation. We do not doubt that this was the grandest portion of the
   priceless deposit--but we also think that as the connection does not
   limit the sense, it cannot be restricted or confined to any one thing.
   It seems to us that all the Apostle's temporal and eternal interests
   were, by an act of faith, committed into the hands of God in Christ
   Jesus.

   To the Lord's gracious keeping the Apostle committed his body. He had
   suffered much in that frail tabernacle-- shipwrecks, perils, hunger,
   cold, nakedness, imprisonments, beatings with rods and stoning had all
   spent their fury upon him. He expected before long that his mortal
   frame would become the prey of Nero's cruelty. None could tell what
   would then happen to him--whether he should be burned alive to light up
   Nero's gardens, be torn to pieces by wild beasts to make a Roman
   holiday--or become the victim of the headsman's sword. But in whatever
   way he might be called to offer up himself a sacrifice to God, he
   committed his body to the keeping of Him who is the Resurrection and
   the Life.

   He was persuaded that in the day of the Lord's appearing he would rise
   again, his body having suffered no loss through torture or
   dismemberment. He looked for a joyful resurrection and asked no better
   embalming for his corpse than the power of Christ would ensure it.

   He gave over to Christ at that hour his character and reputation. A
   Christian minister must expect to lose his reputation among men. He
   must be willing to suffer every reproach for Christ's sake. But he may
   rest assured that he will never lose his real honor if it is risked for
   the Truth's sake and placed in the Redeemer's hands. The day shall
   declare the excellence of the upright, for it will reveal all that was
   hidden and bring to light that which was concealed. There will be a
   resurrection of characters as well as persons. Every reputation that
   has been obscured by clouds of reproach for Christ's sake shall be
   rendered glorious when the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in
   the kingdom of their Father. Let the wicked say what they will of me,
   said the Apostle, I commit my character to the Judge of the quick and
   the dead.

   So also his whole lifework he delivered into the hands of God. Men
   said, no doubt, that Paul had made a great mistake. In the eyes of the
   worldly wise he must have seemed altogether mad. What eminence awaited
   him had he become a rabbi! He might have lived respected and honored
   among his countrymen as a Pharisee. Or if he had preferred to follow
   the Grecian philosophies, a man with such strength of mind might have
   rivaled Socrates or Plato! But instead, he chose to unite himself with
   a band of men commonly reputed to be ignorant fanatics who turned the
   world upside down. Ah, well, says Paul, I leave the reward and fruit of
   my life entirely with my Lord, for He will at last justify my choice of
   service beneath the banner of His Son. And then the assembled universe
   shall know that I was no mistaken zealot for a senseless cause.

   So did the Apostle resign to the hands of God in Christ his soul,
   whatever its jeopardy from surrounding temptations. However great the
   corruptions that were within it, and the dangers that were without, he
   felt safe in the great Surety's hands. He made over to the Divine
   Trustee all his mental powers, faculties, passions, instincts, desires
   and ambitions. He gave his whole nature up to the Christ of God to
   preserve it in holiness through the whole of life. And right well did
   his life-course justify his faith.

   He gave that soul up to be kept in the hour of death, then to be
   strengthened, sustained, consoled, upheld, and guided through the
   tracks unknown--up through the mysterious and unseen--to the Throne of
   God, even the Father. He resigned his spirit to Christ, that it might
   be presented without spot or wrinkle or any such thing in the Last
   Great Day. He did, in fact, make a full deposit of all that he was, and
   all that he had, and all that concerned him, into the keep-

   ing of God in Christ, to find in his God a faithful Guardian, a sure
   Defender and a safe Keeper. This was the matter, then, about which the
   Apostle was concerned.

   2. But next to this, the matter in question concerned the Lord's
   ability to make good this guardianship. The Apostle did not doubt that
   Christ had accepted the office of Keeper of that which he had committed
   to Him. The question was never about Christ's faithfulness to that
   trust. The Apostle does not even say that he was confident that Jesus
   would be faithful. He felt that assertion to be superfluous. There was
   no question about Christ's willingness to keep the soul committed to
   Him--such a statement Paul felt it unnecessary to make. But the
   question with many was concerning the power of the once crucified
   Redeemer to keep that which was committed to Him.

   Oh, said the Apostle, I know and am persuaded that He is able to do
   that. Mark, my dear Friends, that the question is not about the
   Apostle's power to keep himself. That question he does not raise. Many
   of you have been troubled as to whether you are able to endure
   temptation. You need not debate the subject. It is clear that apart
   from Christ you are quite unable to persevere to the end. Answer that
   question with a decided negative at once, and never raise it again. The
   enquiry was not whether the Apostle would be found meritorious in his
   own righteousness in the Day of Judgment, for he had long ago cast that
   righteousness aside.

   He does not raise that point. The grand question is this, "Is Jesus
   able to keep me?" Stand to that, my Brethren, and your doubts and fears
   will soon come to an end. Concerning your own power or merit, write,
   "despair," straightway upon its forehead. Let the creature be regarded
   as utterly dead and corrupt, and then lean on that arm, the sinews of
   which shall never shrink. And cast your full weight upon that
   Omnipotence which bears up the pillars of the universe. There is the
   point--keep to it, and you will not lose your joy. You have committed
   yourself to Christ. The great question now is not about what you can
   do, but about what Jesus is able to do. And rest assured that He is
   able to keep that which you have committed to Him.

   3. The Apostle further carries our thoughts on to a certain set
   period--the keeping of the soul unto what he calls "that day." I
   suppose he calls it, "that day," because it was the day most ardently
   expected and commonly spoken of by Christians. It was so usual a topic
   of conversation to speak of Christ's coming and of the results of it,
   that the Apostle does not say, "the advent," he simply says, "that
   day." That day with which Believers are more familiar than with any
   other day beside. That day, the day of death if you will, when the soul
   appears before its God. The Day of Judgment, if you please--that day
   when the books shall be opened and the record shall be read.

   That day, the winding up of all, the sealing of destiny, the
   manifestation of the eternal fate of each one of us. That day for which
   all other days were made. Christ Jesus is able to keep us against that
   day. That is to say, He is able to place us, then, at the right hand of
   God, to set our feet upon the Rock when others sink into the pit that
   is bottomless. To crown us when others shall be accursed. To bring us
   to eternal joy when sinners shall be cast into Hell.

   Here was the matter of consideration--can the Great Shepherd of souls
   preserve His flock? Ah, Brethren, if you have never searched into that
   question, I should not wonder but what you will! When you are very low
   and weak, and heart and flesh are failing. When sickness brings you to
   the borders of the grave and you gaze into eternity, the enquiry will
   come to any thoughtful man--Is this confidence of mine in the Christ of
   God warranted? Will He be able in this last article, when my spirit
   shivers in its unclothing, will He be able to help me now?

   And in the more dreadful hour, when the trumpet peal shall awake the
   dead, shall I, indeed, find the Great Sin Bearer able to stand for me?
   Having no merit of my own, will His merit suffice? From ten thousand
   sins will His blood, alone, cleanse me? Nothing can ever equal this
   matter in importance. It is one of most pressing urgency of
   consideration.

   II. It is a happy circumstance that we can turn from it to our second
   point, to dwell for a while upon THE FACT BEYOND ALL QUESTION, namely,
   that God in Christ is able to keep that which we have committed to Him.

   The Apostle's confidence was that Christ was an able Guardian. So he
   meant, first, that Jesus is able to keep the soul from falling into
   damning sin. I suppose this is one of the greatest fears that has ever
   troubled the true Believer. Have you ever prayed that you might rather
   die than turn aside from Christ? I know I have, and I have sung
   bitterly in my soul that verse--

   "Ah, Lord! With such a heart as mine,

   Unless You hold me fast, I feel I must, I shall decline, And turn from
   You at last."

   Now, troubled Christian, remember that your Lord is able to keep you
   under every possible form of temptation. "Ah," you say, "the Apostle
   Paul had not the trials I have. I think he had. But if he had not,
   Jesus had. And Christ has ability to keep you under them. Do I hear one
   say, "I am the only one of my household that has been called by Grace,
   and they all oppose me. I am a lonely one in my father's house"? Now,
   Paul was precisely in your condition. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews,
   and he was regarded by his people with the most extreme hate because he
   had come out from among them to follow the Crucified One.

   Yet Paul felt that God was able to keep him, and you may depend upon
   it--though father and mother forsake, and brothers and sisters
   scoff--He whom you trust will keep you also firm in the faith. "Ah,"
   says another, "but you do not know what it is to strive with the
   prejudices of an education hostile to the faith of Jesus. When I seek
   to grow in Grace, the things I learned in my childhood force themselves
   upon me and hinder me." And was not the Apostle in this case? As
   touching the Law he had been a Pharisee, educated in the strictest
   sect, brought up in traditions that were opposed to the faith of
   Christ. And yet the Lord kept him faithful even to the end.

   None of his old prejudices were able so much as to make him obscure the
   simplicity of the Gospel of Christ. God is able to keep you, also,
   despite your previous prejudices. "Ah," says one, "but I am the subject
   of many skeptical thoughts. I often suffer from doubts of the most
   subtle order." Do you think that the Apostle never knew this trial? He
   was no stranger to the Greek philosophy, which consisted of a bundle of
   questions and skepticisms. He must have experienced those temptations
   which are common to thoughtful minds. And yet he said, "I know that He
   is able to keep me." Believe me, then, the Lord Jesus is equally able
   to keep you.

   "Yes," says another, "but I have so many temptations in the world. If I
   were not a Christian, I should prosper much better. I have openings now
   before me by which I might soon obtain a competence, and perhaps
   wealth, if I were not checked by conscience." Do you forget that the
   Apostle was in like case? What might he not have had? A man of his
   condition in life--his birth and parentage being altogether
   advantageous--a man of his powers of mind and of his great energy! He
   might have seized upon any attractive position. But those things which
   were gain for him, he counted loss for Christ's sake. And he was
   willing to be less than nothing, because the power of Divine Grace kept
   him true to his profession.

   But you tell me you are very poor, and that poverty is a severe trial.
   Brothers and Sisters, you are not so poor as Paul. I suppose a few
   needles for his tent-making, an old cloak, and a few parchments made up
   all his wealth. A man without a home, a man without a single foot of
   land to call his own, was this Apostle. But poverty and want could not
   subdue him--Christ was able to keep him even then. "Ah," you say, "but
   he had not my strong passions and corruptions." Most surely he had them
   all, for we hear him cry, "I find, then, a Law, that when I would do
   good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the Law of God after
   the inward man: but I see another Law in my members, warring against
   the Law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the Law of sin
   which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me
   from the body of this death?"

   He was tempted as you are, yet he knew that Christ was able to keep
   him. O trembling Christian, never doubt this soul-cheering fact--that
   your loving Savior is able to keep you. But the Apostle did not merely
   trust Christ thus to keep him from sin--he relied upon the same arm to
   preserve him from despair. He was always battling with the world. There
   were times when he had no helper. The Brethren often proved false, and
   those that were true were frequently timid. He was left in the world
   like a solitary sheep surrounded with wolves. But Paul was not
   faint-hearted. He had his fears, for he was mortal--he rose superior to
   them, for he was Divinely sustained. What a front he always maintains!
   Nero may rise before him--a horrible monster for a man even to dream
   of--but Paul's courage does not give way.

   A Jewish mob may surround him, they may drag him out of the city--but
   Paul's mind is calm and composed. He may be laid in the stocks after
   having been scourged, but his heart finds congenial utterance in a song
   rather than a groan. He is always brave, always unconquerable,
   confident of victory. He believed that God would keep him, and he was
   kept. And you, my Brothers and Sisters, though your life may be a very
   severe conflict and you sometimes think you will give it up in
   despair--you never shall relinquish the sacred conflict. He that has
   borne you onward to this day will bear you through, and will make you
   more than conqueror, for He is able to keep you from fainting and
   despair.

   Doubtless, the Apostle meant, too, that Christ was able to keep him
   from the power of death. Beloved, this is great comfort to us who so
   soon shall die. To the Apostle, death was a very present thing. "I die
   daily," said he. Yet was he well

   assured that death would be gain rather than loss to him, for he was
   certain that Christ would so order all things that death should be but
   like an angel to admit him into everlasting life. Be certain of this,
   too, for He who is the Resurrection and the Life will not desert you.
   Do not, my Brothers and Sisters, fall under bondage through fear of
   death, for the living Savior is able to keep you, and He will.

   Do not, I pray, look too much at the pains, groans, and dying strife.
   Look rather to that kind Friend, who, having endured the agonies of
   death before you, can sympathize with your sufferings, and who, as He
   ever lives, can render you available assistance. Cast this care on Him,
   and fear no more to die than you fear to go to your bed when night
   comes.

   The Apostle is also certain that Christ is able to preserve his soul in
   another world. Little is revealed in Scripture by way of detailed
   description of that other world. Imagination may be indulged, but
   little can be proved. The spirit returns to God who gave it, this we
   know. And in the instant after death the righteous soul is in Paradise
   with Christ. This, too, is clear. Yet whether we know the details or
   not, we are assured that the soul is safe with Christ. Whatever danger
   from evil spirits may await us on our journey from this planet up to
   the dwelling place of God. Whatever there may be of conflict in the
   last moment, Jesus is able to keep that which we have committed to Him.

   If I had to keep myself, I might, indeed, tremble with alarm at the
   prospect of the unknown region. But He that is the Lord of death and of
   Hell, and has the keys of Heaven, can surely keep my soul on that dread
   voyage across a trackless sea. It is all well. It must be well with the
   righteous--even in the land of death--for our Lord's dominion reaches
   even there--and being in His dominions we are safe. Paul believed,
   lastly, that Christ was able to preserve his body. Remember my
   statement that Paul committed all that he had, and was, to God in
   Christ?

   We must not despise this body. It is the germ of the body in which we
   are to dwell forever. It shall be raised from corruption into
   incorruption, but it is the same body. Developed from weakness into
   power, from dishonor into glory, it never loses its identity. The
   marvel of the resurrection will not fail of accomplishment. It may seem
   an impossibility that the body which has rotted in the tomb, and,
   perhaps been scattered in dust over the face of the soil--which has
   been absorbed by vegetables, which has been digested by animals, which
   has passed through countless circles of change--should be raised again.
   Yet impossible as it seems, the Lord Jesus Christ will perform it.

   It must be as easy to construct a second time as to create out of
   nothing at the first. Look at creation and see that nothing is
   impossible with God. Think of the Word, without whom was not anything
   made that was made, and straightway you will talk no longer of
   difficulties. With man it may be impossible, but with God all things
   are possible. In your entirety, my Brethren, in the integrity of your
   manhood, spirit, soul, and body--all that is essential to your nature,
   to its happiness, to its perfection. Every part of you and every power
   of you--you having placed all in the hands of Christ--shall be kept
   until that day, when in His image you shall stand, and prove in your
   own persons the power which in your faith you do, this day, devoutly
   trust.

   III. We shall, in the third place, pass on to notice THE ASSURANCE OF
   THAT FACT, or how the Apostle Paul attained to it.

   "I cannot talk like that," says one. "I cannot say, 'I know, and I am
   persuaded,' I am very thankful that I can say, I hope, I trust, I
   think." Dear Friends, in order to help you to advance, we will notice
   how the Apostle Paul attained to such assurance. One main help to him
   was the habit, as seen in this text, of always making faith the most
   prominent point of consideration. Faith is twice mentioned in the few
   lines before us. "I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He
   is able to keep that which I have committed to Him." Paul knew what
   faith was, namely, a committal of his precious things into the custody
   of Christ.

   He does not say, "I have served Christ." No. He does not say, "I am
   growing like Christ, therefore I am persuaded I shall be kept." No. He
   makes most prominent in his thought the fact that he believed, and so
   had committed himself to Christ. I would to God, dear Friends, that you
   who are subject to doubts and fears, instead of raking about in your
   hearts to find evidences and marks of growth in Grace and likeness to
   Christ, and so on, would first make an investigation concerning a point
   which is far more vital--namely this--have you believed?

   Dear anxious Heart, begin your search on this point. Do you commit
   yourself to Christ? If you do, what though marks should be few and
   evidences for awhile should be obscure, he that believes on Him has
   everlasting life. He that believes and is baptized shall be saved. The
   evidences will come, the marks will be cleared in due time. But all the
   marks and

   evidences between here and Heaven are not worth a single farthing to a
   soul when it comes to actual conflict with death

   and Hell.

   Then it must be simple faith that wins the day. Those other things are
   good enough in brighter times. But if it is a question whether you are
   safe or not, you must come to this, "I have rested with all my heart on
   Him that came into the world to save sinners, and though I am the very
   chief of sinners, I believe He is able to save me." You will get to
   assurance if you keep clear about your faith.

   The next help to assurance, as I gather from the text, is this. The
   Apostle maintained most clearly his view of a personal Christ. Observe
   how three times he mentioned his Lord. "I know Whom I have believed,
   and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to
   Him." He does not say, "I know the doctrines I believe." Surely he did,
   but this was not the main point. He does not say, "I am certain about
   the form of sound Words which I hold." He was certain enough about
   that, but it was not his foundation. No mere doctrines can ever be the
   stay of the soul. What can a dogma do? What can a creed do?

   Brethren, these are like medicines--you need a hand to give them to
   you. You want the physician to administer them to you--otherwise you
   may die with all these precious medicines close at hand. We want a
   person to trust. There is no Christianity to my mind so vital, so
   influential, so true, so real, as the Christianity which deals with the
   Person of the living Redeemer. I know Him, I know He is God, I know
   that He is mine. I trust not merely in His teaching, but in Him. Not on
   His laws, rules, or teachings am I depending so much as on Himself, as
   a Person. Dear Brothers and Sisters, is that what you are doing now?

   Have you put your soul into the keeping of that blessed Man who is also
   God? He who sits at the right hand of the Father? Can you come in faith
   to His feet and kiss the prints of the nails? Can you look up into His
   dear face and say, "Ah, Son of God, I rely upon the power of Your arms,
   on the preciousness of Your blood, on the love of Your heart, on the
   prevalence of Your plea, on the certainty of Your promises, on the
   immutability of Your Character. I rest on You, and on You alone"? You
   will get assurance readily enough, now. But if you begin to fritter
   away your realization of the Person of Christ and live merely on dogmas
   and doctrines, you will be far removed from real assurance.

   Brothers and Sisters, the Apostle attained this full assurance through
   growing knowledge. He did not say, "I am persuaded that Christ will
   save me, apart from anything I know about Him." But he begins by
   saying, "I know." Let no Christian among us neglect the means provided
   for obtaining a fuller knowledge of the Gospel of Christ. I would that
   this age produced more thoughtful and studious Christians. I am afraid
   that apart from what many of you gather from the sermon, or from the
   reading of the Scriptures in public, you do not learn much from the
   Word of God, or from those innumerable instructive books which godly
   men have bequeathed to us.

   Men are studious in various schools and colleges in order to obtain
   knowledge of the classics and mathematics. But should we not be even
   more diligent that we may know Christ? That we may study Him, and all
   about Him--and no longer be children, but in knowledge may be men? Many
   of the fears of Christians would be driven away if they knew more.
   Ignorance is not bliss in Christianity, but misery. Knowledge
   sanctified and attended by the Presence of the Holy Spirit is as wings
   by which we may rise out of the mists and darkness into the light of
   fall assurance. The knowledge of Christ is the most excellent of
   sciences. Seek to be masters of it, and you are on the road to full
   assurance.

   Once, again, the Apostle, it appears from the text, gained his
   assurance from close consideration as well as from knowledge. "I know
   and am persuaded." As I have already said, persuasion is the result of
   argument. The Apostle had turned this matter over in his mind. He had
   meditated on the pros and cons. He had carefully weighed each
   difficulty, and he felt the preponderating force of Truth swept every
   difficulty out of the way. O Christian, if you made your mind more
   familiar with Divine Truth, you would, under the guidance of the Holy
   Spirit, have much more assurance! I believe it is the doctrine which we
   have least studied in the Word which gives us the most trouble in our
   minds. Search it out and look.

   The divisions among Christians, nowadays, are not so much the result of
   real differences of opinion as of want of accurate thought. I believe
   we are getting closer and closer in our theology, and that on the
   whole, at least among the Nonconforming Churches of England, very much
   the same theology is preached by all evangelical ministers. But some
   are not careful of their terms and words, and use them incorrectly. And
   so they seem to preach wrong doctrines when in their

   hearts they mean rightly enough. May we come to be more thoughtful,
   each of us, for a thousand benefits would flow from there.

   Thinking of the Deity of Christ, considering of the veracity of the
   Divine promises, meditating upon the foundations of the Everlasting
   Covenant, revolving in our minds what Christ has done for us--we should
   come at last, by the Spirit's teaching--to be fully persuaded of the
   power of Christ to keep the sacred charge which we have given to Him.
   Doubts and fears would vanish like clouds before the wind. How many
   Christians are like the miser who never feels sure about the safety of
   his money, even though he has locked up the iron safe and secured the
   room in which he keeps it--and locked up the house--and bolted and
   barred every door?

   In the dead of night he thinks he hears a footstep, and tremblingly he
   goes down to inspect his strong-room. Having searched the room and
   tested all the iron bars in the windows, and discovered no thief, he
   fears that the robber may have come and gone, and stolen his precious
   charge. So he opens the door of his iron safe. He looks and pries, he
   finds his bag of gold all safe, and those deeds, those bonds--they are
   safe, too. He puts them away, shuts the door, locks it, bolts and bars
   the room in which is the safe and all its contents. But even as he goes
   to bed he fancies that a thief has just now broken in! So he scarcely
   ever enjoys sound, refreshing sleep.

   The safety of the Christian's treasure is of quite another sort. His
   soul is not under bolt and bar, or under lock and key of his own
   securing. He has transferred his all to the King eternal, immortal,
   invisible--the only wise God, our Savior--and such is his security that
   he enjoys the sleep of the Beloved, calmly resting, for all is well. If
   Jesus could fail us, we might wear sackcloth forever! But while He is
   Immutable in His love and Omnipotent in his power, we may put on the
   garments of praise. Believing as we do that eternal love neither can,
   nor will desert a soul that reposes in its might, we triumph in heart
   and find glory begun below.

   IV. Now to close. What is THE INFLUENCE OF THIS ASSURANCE when it
   penetrates the mind? As time fails me, I shall but say that, as in the
   Apostle's case, it enables us to bear all the disgrace which we may
   incur in serving the Lord. They said Paul was a fool. "Well," replied
   the Apostle, "I am not ashamed, for I know Whom I have believed. I am
   willing to be thought a fool." The ungodly may laugh at us now, but
   their laughs will soon be over, and he will laugh that wins forever.

   Feel perfectly confident that all is safe and you can let the world
   grin at you till its face aches. What does it matter what mortals
   think? What difference does it make what the whole universe thinks if
   our souls are beloved of God? You will, my dear Friends, as you live in
   full assurance of God's love, grow quite indifferent to the opinions of
   the carnal. You will go about your heavenly service with an eye only to
   your Master's will--and the judgment of such as cavil and carp will
   seem to you to be too inconsiderable to be worth a thought.

   If you doubt and fear, you will be hard put to it. But if you are
   serenely confident that He is able to keep you, you will dare the
   thickest of the fray--fearless because your armor is of God. Assurance
   will give you a serenity within which will qualify you for doing much
   service. A man who is always worrying about his own soul's salvation
   can have little energy with which to serve his Lord. But when the soul
   knows the meaning of Christ's words, "It is finished," it turns all its
   strength into the channels of service out of love to such a blessed
   Savior.

   O you that doubt, and therefore fret and care, and ask the question,
   "Do I love the Lord or not? Am I His or am I not?"--how I wish this
   suspense were over with you! O you who fear daily, lest, after all, you
   will be castaways--you lose your strength for serving your God! When
   you are sure that He is able to keep what you have committed to Him,
   then your whole manhood, excited by gratitude, spends itself and is
   spent in your Master's cause. God make you men to the fullness of vigor
   by giving you a fullness of assurance.

   Those who are unsaved in this place may well envy those who are. That
   which attracted me to Christ--I have not heard of others brought in
   this way, but this brought me to Christ mainly--was the doctrine of the
   safety of the saints. I fell in love with the Gospel through that
   Truth. What, I thought, are those who trust in Jesus safe? Shall they
   never perish and shall none pluck them out of Christ's hands? Everybody
   esteems safety. One would not insure his life where he thought there
   was a doubt as to the safety of the insurance. Feeling that there was
   perfect safety if I gave myself up to the Redeemer, I did so. And I
   entertain no regrets to this day that I committed my soul to Him.

   Young people, you cannot do better than early in life entrust your
   future with the Lord Jesus. Many children at home appear to be very
   excellent. Many lads, before they leave their father's house, are
   amiable and commendable in

   character. But this is a rough world--and it soon spoils the Graces
   that have been nurtured in the conservatory of the home. Good boys very
   often turn out very bad men. And girls who were so lovely and pure at
   home have been known to become very wicked women.

   O children, your characters will be safe if you trust them with Jesus!
   I do not say you will be rich if you trust Christ, nor that you will
   prosper after the manner of men. But I do say that you shall be happy
   in the best sense of that word, and that your holiness shall be
   preserved through trusting yourself with Jesus. I pray that you may be
   led to desire this, especially any of you who are leaving your father's
   house, or are setting up in business on your own account. Commit
   yourselves to God!

   This first Sunday of a new year. What time more suitable for beginning
   aright? O may the Holy Spirit softly whisper in your ears reasons that
   shall persuade you to give yourselves to Christ! I say again, my
   testimony is that you cannot do a wiser or a better thing. Oh, the
   happiness my soul has known in resting on my Lord! I wish you knew it.
   I would not cease to be a Christian if I might be made a king or an
   angel. No character can be to me so suitable or so happy as that of a
   humble dependant upon the faithful love of my redeeming Lord.

   O come and trust Him, dear young Friends! You older ones--do you need
   that I should speak to you, when you are getting so near your grave?
   You are now out of Christ--how soon may you be in Hell? You younger
   ones, I say, embrace this flying hour and let this be the day of which
   you shall sing in after years --

   "It is done! The great transaction's done!

   Iam my Lord's, and He is mine--

   He drew me, and by His Grace I followed on,

   Charmed to confess the voice Divine.

   High Heaven, thatheard 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."
     __________________________________________________________________

Voices from the Excellent Glory

   (No. 909)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY 9, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water:
   and, lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God
   descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him: and lo a voice from
   Heaven, saying, This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I am well-pleased."
   Matthew 3:16,17.

   "While he yet spoke, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and
   behold a Voice out of the cloud, which said, This is My Beloved Son, in
   Whom I am well-pleased; hear Him."

   Matthew 17:5.

   "Father, glorify Your name. Then came there a Voice from Heaven,
   saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." John
   12:28.

   THAT our Lord was the true Messiah of God was proved by His answering
   to all those prophecies which described the promised Messenger of the
   Covenant. His miracles also proved that God was with Him, and from
   their character they marked Him out as the ordained Deliverer. To open
   blind eyes and unstop deaf ears were works foretold as denoting the
   Messiah. His teachings were equally clear proofs of His mission--there
   is about them an authority found nowhere else. The words which He spoke
   are Spirit and Life. They are self-evidencing in their elevation,
   purity, perfection. "Never man spoke like this Man."

   His Testimony is unique and bears a majesty of Deity about it which
   bespeaks itself. His resurrection also was a clear proof that he was
   sent of God. He was "declared to be the Son of God with power, by the
   resurrection from the dead." But in addition to all this and a great
   deal more, the Divine Father was pleased, also, to speak out of Heaven
   with an audible voice to declare that Jesus of Nazareth was no other
   than the Son of God and the promised Christ for whom the faithful were
   watching. Thrice did the majesty of Heaven break its sublime silence
   and bear witness to the Incarnate God. The three occasions, as
   mentioned in our texts, are most instructive, and shall command our
   attention this morning. May the Holy Spirit instruct us.

   Without any further preface, let us consider the three Testimonies
   given to our Lord by the voice of the Most High. If time permits we
   will then notice one or two instructive circumstances connected with
   them. And we will close by drawing a great practical lesson from them.

   I. In endeavoring to bring before your attentive minds THE THREE
   OCCASIONS ON WHICH THE FATHER, BY A VOICE FROM HEAVEN, BORE WITNESS TO
   HIS SON, I would invite you to observe, first, when these voices were
   heard.

   Angels had proclaimed His birth, and wise men had seen His star, but
   the Divine Voice was not heard during the first thirty years of His
   sojourn. The three celestial utterances were reserved for the brief
   period of His public life. The first came at the commencement of His
   public ministry--at His Baptism. The second some little time after the
   central point of His ministry. And the last, just before He closed His
   work, by being offered up. It is a fit thing to pray that all our works
   may be begun, continued, and ended under the Divine blessing.

   Certainly our Lord Jesus Christ, as to His public work, both began it,
   continued it, and ended it with the publicly declared witness of the
   Most High. How cheering a thing it is at the beginning of a great
   enterprise to have from God clear Testimony that He has sent you upon
   it! Such was the Testimony given to the Master in the waters of Jordan,
   when He was first announced as "the Lamb of God that takes away the sin
   of the world."

   How sweetly encouraging it is to the soul when the labor is heavy, the
   opposition vehement, and the spirit faint, to receive another affirming
   word from the excellent Glory! Such was that which came to Jesus on the
   Holy Mount, when retiring from the multitude He sought the refreshment
   of prayer and fellowship with God. Then, as He prayed, the fashion of
   His countenance was altered and His raiment was white and glistering,
   and a Voice came out of the cloud, "This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I
   am well-pleased, hear Him."

   And best of all, when our work is almost done, and the shadows of
   evening are lengthening--when we are about to depart into the land of
   spirits--what a consolation it is to receive another refreshment from
   the Divine mouth! Such our Savior had a little while before He was
   lifted up from the earth. In answer to His fervent cry, "Father,
   glorify Your name," there came a Voice from Heaven saying, "I have both
   glorified it, and will glorify it again."

   In our departing hours we are most anxious about that which was our
   life's dearest object. The lifework of Christ was to glorify His
   Father's name. Concerning that He prayed, and concerning that the Voice
   gave full assurance. The result of the Lord's lifework was declared to
   be ensured, and therefore, wrapping Himself about with that heavenly
   Testimony, the great Redeemer went bravely to His death. It is to be
   noted, then, that at the beginning, the middle, and end of our Master's
   work, the Divine Voice was heard.

   The first celestial witness was uttered after He had lived for thirty
   years in comparative obscurity. It seemed meet that when He first
   appeared, there should be some token that He was what He professed to
   be. That heavenly declaration, be it also remembered, came just before
   His memorable temptation. He was to be forty days in the wilderness
   tempted of the devil, and among the horrible suggestions hissed forth
   from the serpent's mouth would be the doubt, "if you are the Son of
   God." What better forearming of our great Champion than the witness,
   "This is My Beloved Son"?

   How in the recollection of that paternal Testimony would the Son be
   made strong to overcome all the temptations of the Fiend, or to endure
   the hunger which followed the forty days of lonely fast! Thus ever, my
   Brethren, it is not with the Master, only, but with the servants.
   Before temptation there comes spiritual sustenance which makes the
   heart strong in endurance. Like Elijah of old, the Believer falls
   asleep. Being awakened, he eats bread of Heaven's own providing and in
   the strength of that meat he journeys forty days through the wilderness
   without weariness. Expect that when the Lord tries you He will also
   send you strength to sustain you under it.

   The second occasion of the heavenly utterance was when our Lord was
   about (according to Luke) to send out other seventy disciples to preach
   the Word. The twelve had healed the sick, cast out devils and done many
   mighty works. But now the laborers were to be increased and the harvest
   more rapidly ingathered. The seventy Evangelists were to carry the
   Divine Crusade through all the Holy Land.

   Brethren, it is instructive that Heaven gave to our Savior, before
   extending His agencies of mercy, a fresh token for good. And we also,
   when the Lord calls us to wider service, may go up to the mountain to
   pray. And while we are there we, too, may expect to enjoy the
   comforting and strengthening witness of the Spirit within. The heavenly
   Voice shall whisper, "You are Mine," and we shall descend with radiant
   countenance to fight anew the battles of the Lord.

   The third heavenly Testimony came to our Lord just before His
   sufferings and death. I need not say to you how well-timed was that
   witness. With such a death before Him, with such circumstances
   surrounding Him--all tending to make His agony sharper, and His death
   more terrible than any which had fallen to the lot of man before. With
   Gethsemane, with Gabbatha, with Golgotha all before Him. With such
   words as these yet to be uttered, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful,
   even unto death." And these, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken
   Me?"--it was meet that the oppressed Sufferer, who must tread the
   winepress alone--should receive at the outset a Word from the Throne of
   the Highest, meeting exactly the point about which His soul was most
   concerned, namely, the glory of the Father's name.

   While still enlarging upon the times when the Divine Voice was heard,
   we may also note that the first came to our Lord when He was in the
   attitude of obedience. Why needed He to be baptized? It is a sinner's
   ordinance--Jesus is no sinner and needs no washing, no death, no
   burial! But He takes the sinner's place, and therefore comes to be
   buried in Jordan, for, "Thus," says He, "it becomes us to fulfill all
   righteousness." It was to Christ an act of obedience. He took upon
   Himself the form of a servant, and being found in fashion as a Man, He
   became obedient to every ordinance of God, and hence He yielded Himself
   to Baptism. Then came the Voice, "This is My Beloved Son."

   Brothers and Sisters, learn that when you are in the path of filial
   obedience you may expect the Spirit to bear witness with your spirit
   that you are born of God! But if you live in neglect of any known
   duty--if you are willfully unobservant

   of any command of Christ--you may expect that there shall be withheld
   from you the sweet assuring tokens of Divine love. But if you are
   scrupulously obedient on desiring to know what is the Lord's will, and
   then promptly do it--not asking the reason why, nor using your own
   tastes, or indulging your own whims--then in the path of obedience,
   especially if it costs you much, you may expect to have the witness in
   yourself that you are a child of God.

   The second attestation came to our Master in His devout retirement. He
   had gone up to the mountain to pray. His desire was to be alone. He had
   taken with Him His accustomed bodyguard of three--Peter, James, and
   John--that they might be with Him while His soul communed with God. I
   doubt not that, as in the garden, they were bid to remain a stone's
   cast distance off, for surely Jesus poured out His soul before God
   alone. And then it was that suddenly the Glory of God shone upon Him.
   Then, in His retirement, Moses and Elijah appeared, coming forth from
   the spirit-world to commune with Him. Then did the Father utter a
   second time the Testimony, "This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I am
   well-pleased."

   Brothers and Sisters, you too, like your Master, may expect to receive
   Divine Testimonies when you are on the mount of communion alone, when
   your fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. The
   neglect of retirement will probably rob you of such assurances. If your
   prayer should be, "Show me a token for good," the answer will be, "Get
   you to the top of Tabor, get you away to your retirement. There will I
   give you the token which your heart desires." But to live evermore
   spending our strength in public, wasting ourselves in the turmoil of
   this world, and to neglect the soul-refreshing ordinance of private
   devotion is to deprive the inner man of the richest of spiritual
   delights.

   The third Testimony came to our Lord in His ministry. He was preaching
   in the temple when the Father responded to His prayer. Now while I have
   spoken a good word for obedience, and also have sought to magnify
   retirement, let it never be forgotten that public service is equally
   acceptable to God. Our Lord had been conversing with certain enquiring
   Greeks and declaring the living power of His death to all who chose to
   hear Him. In that same hour the Father gave an audible answer to His
   prayer. If you, my Brethren, are called to any form of service, I
   beseech you, under no pretext neglect it. The neglect of anything for
   which you have the talent, and to which you have the call, may deprive
   you of the inward witness.

   Bear much fruit--so shall you be His disciples consciously so. Keep His
   Commandments--so shall you abide in His love and know it. Forget not to
   be obedient, forget not to be prayerful in retirement, but forget not,
   also, that you are meant to shine as a light in this world. Forget not
   that you must work while it is called today. Forget not that you are
   not sent into this life merely to enjoy spiritual recreation or even
   celestial refreshment--but to do a work which no other can do--and for
   which you must give a personal account.

   We must now dismiss the question of the times, and briefly consider to
   whom the attestations were given. The first at Baptism, came to John
   and to our Lord, and most probably to them, only. We do not think the
   Voice from the opened Heaven was necessarily heard by anyone but John
   and our Lord. The token of the descending dove was given to John as the
   sign by which he should discern the Christ. "And I knew Him not. But He
   that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom
   you shall see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is
   He which baptizes with the Holy Spirit."

   John probably gathered from all that he had heard of Jesus that He was
   the great Bridegroom to whom he stood as a friend. But he was not to
   follow his own judgment--he was to receive a token from God
   Himself--and till that token came he could not act as one fully and
   indisputably convinced. When he had immersed our Lord he saw the
   heavens opened, saw the Spirit descending upon Him, and heard the
   confirming Voice. And then he knew beyond all doubt that Jesus was the
   Christ. To the Baptist, alone, that Voice was audible. And then through
   him it was published to all Judea.

   The second Testimony had a somewhat wider range--it came not to one,
   but to three. Peter, James, and John were present. What if I say to
   five? For there were with them Moses and Elijah. They represented the
   Law and the Prophets. The three Apostles were the representatives of
   the Christian Church--as if to show that Law and Gospel meet in Jesus--
   and the things in Heaven and the things on earth are gathered together
   in one in Him. The Testimony enlarges, you see. At first one opened ear
   hears it, next five are assured.

   The third time the Voice was heard by many. How many I cannot say, but
   the crowd in the temple heard it. Many heard it who did not understand
   it, for they said it thundered--perhaps perversely determining not to
   believe in the Presence of God--but to ascribe that articulate Voice
   rather to a rumbling thunder than to the Divine mouth. Others

   who confessed that they heard words, averred that an angel spoke--men
   will have anything but God! Thunder, or cherubim, or even devils they
   will welcome--but Divine interpositions are irksome to them.

   Many, we say, heard the third Voice. It was a Testimony to
   hundreds--may we not learn from this that God's Testimony to Christ is
   evermore a growing one? If at first He was revealed to one, then to
   more, then to a numerous band, expect, my Brethren, the fulfillment of
   that promise, "the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh
   shall see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it." If the
   glory of Jesus is today seen by thousands, it shall yet be unveiled to
   tens of thousands, and in the latter days the Voice which spoke once
   and again to our fathers, shall so speak as to shake not only earth,
   but also Heaven. And in that day, if not before, every knee shall bow,
   and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God
   the Father!

   The heavenly Testimony grows and spreads. Jesus is proclaimed as Lord
   in many hearts. Look not on the present littleness of His visible
   kingdom, despise not the day of small things. The witness of Jesus is
   but a spark of fire. But the conflagration thereof shall yet belt the
   world with holy flames. The three Testimonies were given in this wise.
   The first, to the greatest of men--for "among those that are born of
   women there was not a greater Prophet than John the Baptist." Yet the
   voice revealed a greater than he, whose shoelaces he was not worthy to
   untie.

   The second was heard by the best of men--the great Lawgiver, the chief
   of the Prophets, and the noble of the Apostles--yet the Voice bore
   witness to a better than they. The third time the Voice echoed in the
   holiest place in the tem-ple--and there it testified to a holier than
   the holiest shrine. Jesus is everywhere magnified beyond all others as
   the only Beloved Son of the Father. I need not however enlarge. There
   is far more of teaching than either time or ability allow me to open up
   to you.

   We come, in the next place, to notice to what God bore Testimony. God
   never sets His seal to a blank. What was it, then, which He attested?
   First, at the Jordan, witness was borne to Christ's miraculous origin.
   "This is My Beloved Son." He comes not here as the Pharisees, and
   soldiers, and others have done, a mere son of man. Son of man He is,
   but He is also Son of the infinite, eternal God. And now on His
   introduction to His work He receives a spiritual anointing and a
   recognition from the Father. The seal was set that day to His Godhead
   and His relation to the Father was acknowledged.

   By the second audible declaration it seems to me that the Father sealed
   the Son's appointment as the great Prophet, and the anointed Servant of
   God. For in the second Testimony these memorable words were added,
   "hear Him." Here God commands us to accept Him as the great Teacher, to
   acknowledge Him as the Head of the dispensation, to yield to Him our
   loyal attention and obedience. When the Lord appears, it is necessary
   that men should know who He is. When He is actually engaged in His work
   it may be needful to confirm His authority.

   This was done on the Holy Mount, for so Peter understood it, as he
   writes in his second Epistle, "For we have not followed cunningly
   devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our
   Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He
   received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a
   Voice to Him from the excellent Glory, This is my Beloved Son, in Whom
   I am well-pleased. And this voice which came from Heaven we heard, when
   we were with Him in the Holy Mount."

   The third Testimony bore witness to the success of His work. "I have
   both glorified My name," says the Father, "and will glorify it again."
   "What," you say, "what if Jesus should not succeed? He has come into
   the world to vindicate the justice of God, and reveal His love, and so
   to glorify God--what if He should miss the mark? What, if after all His
   life of labor and His death of agony, He should be unsuccessful?"

   The Father's Word declares that the results anticipated shall certainly
   be produced. "I have glorified it," says the Father--"all Your past
   life has glorified My name. Your coming down from Heaven, Your life of
   thirty years' obedience, all the works which You have done in Your
   three years of toil. All these have brought renown to the infinite
   Majesty.

   And "I will glorify it again," in the most supreme sense. Amidst the
   glooms of the garden, amidst the terrors of Pilate's hall, and amidst
   the sorrows of the Cross, I will glorify My name yet again. Yes, and in
   Your resurrection, in Your ascension, in Your majesty at My right hand,
   in Your judgment of the quick and the dead I will glorify My name
   again." The three Voices may be viewed as attesting the Son's Person,
   work, and success.

   Some have thought that the three Voices attested our Lord in His
   threefold offices. John came proclaiming the kingdom--Jesus was in His
   Baptism proclaimed as the Chief of the new kingdom. On the second
   occasion, the Voice which

   said, "Hear Him," ordained Him as the Prophet of His people. And on the
   third occasion Jesus was owned as a Priest. Standing in the midst of
   priests--in the Temple where sacrifice was offered--Himself about to
   offer the true sacrifice. And praying that His sacrifice might glorify
   God, He receives the witness that God has been glorified in Him, and
   will be yet again.

   My Brethren, in this threefold witness receive into your hearts the
   Testimony of God who cannot lie. Behold your Savior, well-pleasing to
   His Father. Let Him be well-pleasing to you. Hear Him proclaimed as
   God's Beloved. O let Him be the Beloved of your hearts! Hear the
   Testimony born to Him that He has glorified God, and remember that His
   further glorifying God in some measure depends on you--for it is by
   your godly conversation, by your holy patience, by your zealous
   exertions for your Master's praise that God in Christ Jesus is to be
   glorified until He comes. Let these three Testimonies, as they make up
   a complete and conclusive code of evidence, have force upon your hearts
   and minds, and win you to a solemn confidence in your Lord and Master.

   I shall now ask your attention to the question, How were the
   Testimonies given? Observe that when our Lord was baptized, the heavens
   were opened and the Spirit descended. What if this proclaims to us that
   by His obedience our Lord procured the opening of Heaven for us--that
   our prayers might ascend to God, and all blessings might descend to us,
   and especially that the Holy Spirit might come down and rest forever
   upon the Church of God?

   The Master's Baptism was the type of His death. Buried beneath the
   waters of Jordan, He pictured there His being buried in the deeps of
   agony and in the darkness of the tomb. Rising from the Jordan, He
   typified His resurrection. Ascending its banks He represented His
   Ascension into Heaven. God sees in figure all righteousness fulfilled,
   and answers the type by the relative type of Heaven opened and the dove
   descending.

   Heaven was not beheld as opened when a second time the Voice was heard.
   In Luke 9 we read that the Voice came out of the cloud. The
   overshadowing cloud is a beautiful representation of the Mediatorship
   of Christ. He, like a glorious cloud, veils the excessive brightness of
   the Godhead. He shields us, so that when God speaks, He may not speak
   as from the top of Sinai--with a voice of trumpet and sound of
   thunder--but may speak through an interposing Medium, with that still,
   small voice of love which we can hear with delight.

   Out of the cloud, my Brethren, God speaks to His people. That is to
   say, He speaks to us in Christ Jesus. That was a strong utterance of
   Luther, but it was strictly true, "I will have nothing to do with an
   absolute God," meaning I will have nothing to do with God out of
   Christ. If, indeed, we had to do with God out of Christ, what misery
   were it for us, my Brethren! We should stand in the same terror as
   Israel did when bounds were set about the Mount. Even Moses said, "I do
   exceedingly fear and quake." It is a great mercy that the heavenly
   Voice, as it reaches us, comes out of the cloud.

   In reading the narrative of the third Divine Testimony, our mind rests
   neither upon the opening of Heaven nor the cloud, but upon the Voice
   alone. It is as if the glory of God in the work of Christ put every
   other thought aside. The opening of Heaven, or the interposition of a
   Mediator are but means to the great end of glorifying God. O that this
   one great object may absorb all our souls! But, alas, the Voice, plain
   as it was, was misunderstood, and the clearest Revelation that God ever
   gave to mortals has been misunderstood by many. There will always be
   those who think of thunder and the so-called grandeur of nature--and
   others who see only angels or second causes.

   Once more, consider what was it that was spoken on those three
   occasions. There was a difference in each case, though in the first two
   but slight. The first time the heavenly Voice preached the Gospel,
   "This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I am well-pleased." The old fathers
   were likely to say, "Go to Jordan if you would see the Trinity," and we
   may add, go to Jordan if you would hear the Gospel. "This is My Beloved
   Son, in Whom I am well-pleased." Observe the Gospel in this sentence!
   The Gospel is tidings concerning a blessed Person sent of God. Such
   tidings the Lord here utters.

   This Man rising dripping from the water. This Man is pointed out as the
   Hope of the world! The Gospel is never preached except where the Person
   of Jesus Christ is exhibited to men. "I, if I am lifted up"--not truths
   about Me--but "I Myself, if I am lifted up, will draw all men unto Me."
   The attraction lies in the Person of Christ, because the real power to
   save lies there. We have here the Gospel revealing the acceptableness
   of the chosen Person with God--"My Beloved Son."

   What men needed was a Savior who could stand for them before God. One
   dear to the heart of God. It is good news to us that the Anointed One
   is well-beloved of the Father. Why, my Hearers, though I have not yet
   opened up the fullness of that utterance, does not Gospel light break
   in upon you already? Here is a Person sent of God to save--a Man of
   your

   own race, but yet right well-beloved of God. He is so near to God as to
   be called His Beloved Son! But note, yet more earnestly, the Gospel of
   the next words, "In Whom I am well-pleased." Not, "with Whom," as hasty
   readers suppose, but, "In Whom I am well-pleased."

   This is the very Gospel--that God, as He looks upon men is well-pleased
   with all who are in Christ. God in Christ is not anger, but good
   pleasure. If I, a poor sinner, enter by faith into Christ, then I may
   be assured that God is well-pleased with me--that, if I, as His child,
   come to Him, and by a living faith link my destiny with the life and
   person of Christ--I need not fear the wrath of Heaven. Sinner, God is
   not well-pleased with you as you are. Child of God, God is not
   well-pleased with you as you are--there is enough about either saint or
   sinner to provoke the Lord to jealousy. But, Sinner, if you are in
   Christ by faith, God is well-pleased with you. And, O Heir of Heaven,
   with all your infirmities and imperfections, since you are one with
   Christ by an eternal and now vital union, God is well-pleased with you!
   Said I not well that the Gospel sounded from Jordan's waves?

   The second sound of the Voice uttered not only the Gospel itself, but
   the Gospel command, "Hear Him." Matthew Henry has some very delightful
   remarks upon this expression, "Hear Him." He remarks, in effect, that
   salvation does not come by seeing, as the Roman church would have it,
   for the disciples were not directed to behold Christ in His Glory,
   though the sight deserved all their attention. No, but they were bid to
   hear rather than see. To hear the Gospel is a most important duty, for
   faith comes by hearing. Salvation comes not by hearing the doctrines of
   men but by hearing Jesus Christ.

   There stood Moses. And those three Jewish worthies, Peter, James, and
   John, might have longed for Moses to open his Mouth--and had he spoken
   to them they would have been very attentive to Him. But the Word was
   not, "Hear Moses," but "Hear Him." There was Elijah, too. O for a
   burning word from that master among the Prophets, whose life was flame.
   But it was not said, "Hear Elijah," but "Hear Him." "They have Moses
   and the Prophets, let them hear them," is the word sent to careless
   sinners, but to sincere seekers the direction is, "Hear Him."

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, the great salvation of God comes to us
   through the Testimony of Jesus Christ--not through the moral essays or
   philosophical treatises or doctrinal discussions of men. "Hear Him,"
   the Gospel so commands you. Let not your ears be deaf when God
   communicates tidings of eternal life.

   On the third occasion the Testimony given was not the Gospel nor the
   Gospel precept, but the Gospel's result--"I have glorified it, and will
   glorify it again." I call your attention to this that you may be
   earnest in preaching the Gospel. It is through the Gospel that God is
   glorified. By the poorest Gospel sermon that was ever preached, God,
   through His Holy Spirit, gets to Himself a glory which the most pompous
   ritual cannot yield Him. You never speak well of Jesus but what you
   glorify God. No Gospel Word falls to the ground and is lost. It must
   accomplish that for which God has sent it.

   He has glorified His name by the Gospel, and He will again. Let this
   encourage those of you who are afraid that the times are very bad and
   that we are all going to the pope. Do not be at all afraid. God will
   glorify His name by the Gospel again as He did before. Martin Luther
   was not, in himself, a character so lovely that one might be
   overwhelmed with admiration of him. Where, then, lay his power? His
   power lay in this--that he grasped the true Gospel--and he was a man
   who, when he grasped a thing, gave it a "grip so firm that the devil
   himself could not wrench it away from him.

   With the Gospel in his hands he could say, "Heaps upon heaps with the
   weapon of the Gospel I have slain my thousands. Heaps upon heaps the
   foes of God are overturned." He was mighty because he declared the
   Gospel of Jesus Christ--and with this he shook the world and brought
   about the Reformation. You need not, therefore, despair.

   If the ministers of Christ will only come back to preaching the Gospel
   of Jesus Christ, plainly, simply, and with the Holy Spirit sent down
   from Heaven, we shall drive the Ritualists, those cubs of the old Roman
   monster, back to their dens, as our fathers did their mother of old.
   Never lose your faith in the Gospel. Always believe that our power is
   gone when we get away from the Cross--but know also without a
   doubt--when we come back to the Truth as it is in Jesus, God glorifies
   His name.

   II. LET US NOW OBSERVE ONE OR TWO INSTRUCTIVE CIRCUMSTANCES connected
   with these three Divine Testimonies. On each occasion Jesus was in
   prayer.

   My dear, dear young people, look at the proofs of that in your Bibles.
   You will find in one or other of the Evangelists that it is distinctly
   stated on each occasion that our Lord was in prayer. Learn, then, that
   if any child of God would

   have God speak comfortably to him, he must speak to God in prayer. If
   you would have the witness of the Holy Spirit in your soul, you must be
   much in supplication. Neglect not the Mercy Seat.

   Notice next that each time the sufferings of Christ were prominently
   before Him. John, at the waters of Jordan had said, "Behold the Lamb of
   God," plainly speaking of sacrifice. Baptism itself, the fulfilling of
   all righteousness, we have seen to be the type of His death, and of His
   immersion in suffering. On Tabor, on the second occasion, Matthew tells
   us that, "Behold, there talked with Him two men, which were Moses and
   Elijah: who appeared in glory, and spoke of His decease which He should
   accomplish at Jerusalem."

   The subject that the best of men talked about when they met was the
   death of Jesus. No better topic, then, for us when we meet. If we were
   the most talented and the wisest men that ever lived, if we met
   together and wanted the most select topic for an eclectic discussion,
   we ought to choose the Cross. For Jesus, Moses, and Elijah--three great
   representative men--talked of the Atoning death of the great
   Substitute. The third time our Lord had just spoken about the hour
   being come in which He was to be glorified, as you well remember. Learn
   then, my Brethren, that if you desire to see the glory of Christ, as
   attested of the Father, you must dwell much on His death.

   Do not talk to me about the life of Christ in all its parity, I know it
   and rejoice in it. But I tell you that the death of Christ, in all His
   misery, is the grandest point of view. The example of Jesus should be
   exalted by all means--but His Atonement is far grander. And you, Sirs,
   who take the Man Christ and offer your pretty, complimentary phrases
   about Him--but then turn round and deny His expiating Sacrifice--I tell
   you your tawdry offerings are unacceptable to Him. To be complimented
   by your lips is almost to be censured, for if you do not believe on Him
   as an Atoning Sacrifice, you do not understand His life. Thus each
   attestation came in connection with the Lord's sufferings, as if the
   glory of Christ dwelt mainly there.

   Once more--each time that Jesus received this Word from the Father He
   was honoring the Father. In Baptism He was honoring Him by obedience.
   On the mountain He was honoring Him in devotion. In the Temple the very
   words He was using were, "Father, glorify Your name." Oh, if you would
   see God's glory, and hear God's Voice in your own heart, honor Him!
   Spend and be spent for Him! Keep not back your sacrifices, withhold not
   your offerings! Lay yourselves upon His altar, and when you say with
   Isaiah, "Here am I, send me," for any service--whatever it may be--then
   shall you also feel that the Lord is with you, owning both you and your
   works, and glorifying Himself in it.

   III. Lastly, THE PRACTICAL LESSON may be found in the words, "Hear
   Him."

   Earnestly let me speak to everyone here. God has three times with
   audible Voice spoken out of Heaven to bear witness to Jesus. These are
   historical facts. I beseech you, then, receive with assured conviction
   the Truth to which God bears witness. The Man of Nazareth is the Son of
   the Highest. The Son of Mary is the Savior appointed to bear human sin.
   He is the way of salvation, and the only way. Doubt not this Truth of
   God. Accept the Savior, for God declares that He is well-pleased in
   Him. Hear Him, then, with profound reverence--accept the teaching and
   invitations of Jesus as not the mere utterances of fallible men--but as
   the instructions and the loving expostulations of God.

   I pray you have respect to every Word and command of Christ. Listen to
   Him as spirits listen to the voice of the Most High when they bow
   before the Truth of God. And if He says to you, as He does this
   morning, "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I
   will give you rest," hear Him and lovingly obey the command. Hear Him,
   I pray you, with unconditional obedience. God attests Him as being sent
   from Heaven. Whatever He says to you, do it. And since He bids you
   believe Him, be not unbelieving. He has told us to say in His name, "He
   that believes and is baptized, shall be saved." Despise not that double
   command. Attend, O Sinner, attend, for it is the Son of God who speaks
   to you! Trust and be baptized, and you shall be saved. There stands the
   Gospel stamped with the authority of Deity! Obey it now. May the Holy
   Spirit lead you to do so.

   Hear Him, lastly, with joyful confidence. If God has sent Jesus, trust
   Him. If He bears the Glory of God's Seal upon Him, joyfully receive
   Him. You who have trusted Him, trust Him better from this day forth.
   Leave your souls right confidently in the hands of Him of whom Jehovah,
   thrice speaking out of Heaven, declares that He is the only Savior.
   Receive Him, Sinner, you that would be saved! May the Lord confirm the
   Testimony which He spoke out of Heaven, by speaking in your hearts by
   His Holy Spirit, that you may rejoice in His Beloved Son, and glorify
   God in Him.
     __________________________________________________________________

Overwhelming Obligations

   (No. 910)

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me?"
   Psalm 116:12.

   DEEP emotion prompts this question. But where are the depths of love
   and gratitude that can meet its exuberant demands? You will perhaps
   remember an incident in the life of a famous soldier, who also became a
   famous Christian, Colonel James Gardiner. One night he was little
   thinking of Divine things, but on the contrary had made an appointment
   of the most vicious kind. He was waiting for the appointed hour when he
   saw, or thought he saw before him in the room where he sat alone, a
   visible representation of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the Cross.

   He was impressed, as if a voice, or something equivalent to a voice,
   had come to him to this effect--"O sinner, I did all this for you. What
   have you done for me?" Some such representation as that I would put
   before the eyes of every person in this assembly. I earnestly pray that
   the vision of the Christ of God, the mercy of God, the love of God, may
   appear to all your eyes. And may a Voice say in your conscience, both
   to saint and sinner, "I did all this for you. What have you done for
   Me?" It will be a humiliating night probably for us all, if such should
   be the case--but humiliation may prove salutary--yes, the very
   healthiest frame of mind in which we can be found.

   I. I shall first of all this evening, invite you to CAST UP A SUM IN
   ARITHMETIC. The text suggests this. "What shall I render unto the Lord
   for all His benefits toward me?" Come, let us reckon up! Though I know
   that the number will surpass all human numeration, let us try to reckon
   up His benefits toward any one of us. I wish each one of you,
   distinctly and severally, would now endeavor to think of the mercy of
   God towards yourself.

   First, let us call over the roll of our temporal mercies. They are but
   secondary, but they are very valuable. There is a special Providence in
   the endowment of life to each individual creature. David did not
   disdain to trace back the hand of God to the hour of his nativity. And
   Paul adored the Grace of God that separated him from the time that his
   mother gave him birth. Our gratitude may, in like manner, revert to the
   days when we hung upon the breast. Or in the case of some, you may
   thank the goodness that supplied the lack of a mother's tender love.

   Childhood's early days might then make our thoughts busy, and our
   tongues vocal with praise. But here we are now. We have been preserved,
   some of us, these thirty or forty years. We might have been cut down
   and punished in our sin. We might have been swept away to the place
   where despair makes eternal night. But we have been kept alive in the
   midst of many accidents. By some marvelous godsend, death has been
   turned aside just as it seemed, with a straight course, to be posting
   toward us. When fierce diseases have been waiting round to hurry us to
   our last home, we have yet escaped.

   Nor have we merely existed. God has been pleased to give us food,
   raiment, and a place where to lay our weary heads. To many here present
   He has given all the comforts of this life, till they can say, "My cup
   runs over, I have more than any heart can wish." To all here He has
   given enough, and though you may have passed through many straits, your
   bread has been given you, and your water has been sure. Is not this
   cause for thankfulness?

   You cannot think of a shivering beggar tonight in the streets, you
   cannot think of the hundreds of thousands in this unhappy
   country--unhappy for that reason--who have no shelter but such as the
   poorhouse can afford them. And no bread but such as is doled out to
   them as a pauper's meager pittance, without being grateful that you
   have been, up to now, supplied with things convenient for your
   sustenance, and defended from that bitter, biting penury which palls
   self-respect, cows industry, damps the ardor of resolution, chafes the
   heart, corrodes the mind, prostrates every vestige of manliness, and
   leaves manhood itself to be the prey of misery and the victim of
   despair.

   More than that, we have reason tonight to be very grateful for the
   measure of health which we enjoy. "It is indeed a strange and awful
   sensation to be suddenly reduced by the unnerving hand of sickness to
   the feebleness of infancy. For giant strength to lie prostrate, and
   busy activity to be chained to the weary bed." Oh, when the bones begin
   to ache, and sinews and tissues seem to be but roads for pain to travel
   on, then we thank God for even a moment's rest. Do you not

   know what it is to toss to and fro in the night and wish for the day,
   and when the daylight has come, to pine for the night?

   If there has been an interval of relief, just a little lull in the
   torture and the pain, how grateful you have been for it! Shall we not
   be thankful for health, then, and specially so for a long continuance
   of it? You strong men that hardly know what sickness means, if you
   could be made to walk the wards of the hospital and see where there
   have been broken bones, where there are disorders that depress the
   system, maladies incurable, pangs that rack and convulse the frame, and
   pains all but unbearable, you would think, I hope, that you had cause
   enough for gratitude.

   Not far off this spot there stands a dome--I thank God for the
   existence of the place of which it forms a part--but I can never look
   at it. I hope I never shall, without lifting up my heart in thanks to
   God that my reason is spared. It is no small unhappiness to be bereft
   of our faculties, to have the mind swept to and fro in hurricanes of
   desperate, raging madness, or to be victims of hallucinations that shut
   you out from all usefulness, and even companionship with your fellow
   men. That you are not in St. Luke's or Bedlam tonight should be a cause
   for thankfulness to Almighty God.

   But why do I enlarge here? Consider to what pains the human body may be
   subjected. Imagine what ills may come upon humanity. Conceive what
   distress, what woe, what anguish, we are all capable of bearing--and
   then in proportion as you have been secured from all these, and in
   proportion on the other hand as you have been blessed with comforts and
   enjoyments--"let each generous impulse of your nature warm into
   ecstasy." And then ask yourselves the question, "What shall we render
   unto the Lord for all His benefits toward us?" Cast up the sum, and
   then draw a line and ask what is due to God for even these common gifts
   of Providence.

   But, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, you who have something better
   than this life to rest upon, I touch a higher and a sweeter string--a
   chord which ought to tremble with a nobler melody, when I say to
   you--think of the spiritual blessings which you have received! It is
   not very long ago that you were in the gall of bitterness and in the
   bonds of iniquity. We look back but for a little while, some of us, and
   we were under the bondage of the Law. We had been awakened, and we felt
   the load and the guilt of sin--a grievous burden from which we feared
   we never could escape--a flagrant defilement from which we knew no
   means of cleansing.

   Do not I remember well my fruitless prayers, my tears that were my meat
   both day and night, my grief of heart! They cut me to the quick, and I
   found no kind of deliverance! How I sought the Lord then! How I cried
   for mercy, but I found none! I was shut up and could not come forth. I
   was delivered up to fear, and doubt, and despair. Bless the Lord, it is
   over now! Blessed be the name of God, my soul has escaped like a bird
   out of the net! And this night, instead of talking of sin as a thing
   unpardonable, I can stand here and say for you, as well as myself, that
   He has put away all our iniquity, and cast our transgressions into the
   depths of the sea!

   If He had never done anything for us but that, it seems to me that we
   should be bound forever and forever to extol His name with as much
   exultation as Miriam and Moses felt, when Miriam took the timbrel, and
   Moses wrote the song, "Sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed
   gloriously. The horse and his rider has He cast into the sea. The Lord
   is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation."

   Not indeed, Beloved, that forgiven sin was the total. It was but an
   item, the beginning of His tender mercies towards us. For after that He
   comforted us like as a mother comforts her children. He bound up every
   wound. He removed every blot. He covered us with a robe of
   righteousness and decked us with the jewels of the Spirit's Graces. He
   adopted us into His family, even we who were aliens by nature, foes by
   long habit, rebels and traitors by our revolt against His government.
   He made us heirs of God, joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. All the
   privileges of sonship, which never would have been ours by nature, have
   been secured to us by regeneration, and by adoption. All His benefits!

   If these were all, oh, what should we render unto Him who is the Author
   and Giver of such inestimable blessings? All His benefits! How could we
   estimate their value, even if we had to stop here? Mark you, they are
   benefits, indeed, not merely the kind intent of benevolence, or good
   wishes, which may or may not be of real service to us. But verily the
   saving effect of beneficence, or good deeds accomplished for us--the
   full advantage of which we have richly to enjoy.

   There is a vexatious uncertainty about all human philanthropy. How weak
   it often is, expending strength for nothing, and failing to mature its
   best projects! Though the physician should exhaust the resources of
   medical science while he spares no pains in watching his patient, that
   patient may die. Though the advocate pleads for his client with intense
   fer-

   vor, cogent reasoning, and a torrent of eloquence, that client may yet
   lose his cause. Though the general of an army command the troops ever
   so skillfully, and fight against the enemy ever so bravely, the battle
   may yet be lost.

   The heroic volunteer who assays to rescue a drowning man may fail in
   the endeavor and lose his own life in the attempt. The valiant crew
   that man the lifeboat may not succeed in bringing the shipwrecked to
   shore. The best aims may miscarry. Kindness, like ore of gold in the
   breast of the creature, may never be minted into the coin of benefit,
   or pass current for its real worth. Not all donations expended in
   charity are effectual to relieve distress. But the benefits of God are
   all fully beneficial. They answer the ends they are designed to serve.

   Forgetfulness on the part of God's children is without excuse, for here
   we are, monuments of mercy, pillars of Grace, living Epistles--yes, the
   living, the living to praise You, O God, as I do this day. And thus
   beholden to the Lord for all His benefits, I feel that my thoughts and
   actions of adoring gratitude should break forth, restrained by no
   shore, but be continually overflowing every embankment that custom has
   thrown up, and send out in tears of love and sweat of labor,
   fertilizing streams on the right hand and on the left.

   All His benefits! Ring that note again. His benefits are so many, so
   various, so minute, that they often escape our observation while they
   exactly meet our wants. True it is, the Lord has done great things for
   us which may well challenge the admiration of angels. But true it also
   is that He has done little things for us, and bestowed attention upon
   all our tiny needs and our childish cares and anxieties. As we turn
   over the leaves of our diary, we are lost in wonder at the keenness of
   that vision and the extent of that knowledge whereby even the hairs of
   our head are all numbered .

   O God, what infinite tenderness, what boundless compassion You have
   shown to us! You have continued to forgive our offenses--You have
   perpetually upheld us in the hour of temptation. What comforts have
   delighted our soul in the times of trouble! What gentle admonitions
   have brought us back in the times of our going astray! We have had
   preserving mercies, sustaining mercies, enriching mercies, sanctifying
   mercies. Who shall count the small dust of the favors and bounties of
   the Lord?

   My dear Brethren, it is no small benefit that God has conferred upon
   some of us that we are members of a happy Church on earth--that we are
   united together in the bonds of love. I know some of you used to be
   members of other Churches where there were periodic conflicts, and you
   are glad enough that you have come with a loving and happy people where
   you can serve the Lord to your heart's content. By His Grace you meet
   with warm-hearted fellow Christians who bid you Godspeed. My heart
   exults in the thought of all the prosperity we have enjoyed in this
   place. The Lord's name be praised! Even as a Church, over and above the
   mercies which have come to us as private Christians, I would say--and I
   would invite you to join me in saying--"What shall we render to the
   Lord for all His benefits toward us?"

   But, Beloved, we have only begun the list of those mercies that we
   strive in vain to enumerate. We shall not try to finish it, for blessed
   be God, it never will be finished. He has given us Himself to be our
   portion. He has given us His Providence to be our guardian. He has
   given us His promises to be the vouchers of our inheritance. We shall
   not die, though we must sleep, unless the Lord first comes. Yet we
   shall sleep in Jesus! Our bones and ashes shall be watched over and
   preserved until the Resurrection trumpet shall summon them by its
   voice, and our bodies shall be reanimated by Divine power.

   For our souls, we have the sure and certain hope that we shall be with
   Christ where He is, that we may behold His glory. We are looking
   forward to the blessed day when He shall say to us, "Come up higher,"
   and from the lower room of the feast we shall ascend into the upper
   chamber, nearer to the King, to sit at His right hand and feast
   forever. Oh, the depths of His mercy! Oh, the heights of His loving
   kindness! Faithfulness has followed us. Not a promise has been broken.
   Not one good thing has failed us!

   Now, my dear Brothers and Sisters, what have I just given you but a
   sort of general outline of the mercies the Lord has bestowed on us, and
   the benefits we have received at His hand? If each one would try to
   fill that outline up, by the rehearsal of his own case, and the life
   story of his own experience, how much glory God might get from this
   assembly tonight! Your case is different from mine in the incidents
   that compose it. I believe mine is different from any of yours-- but
   this I know--there is not a man in this place that owes more to God
   than I do. There is not one here that ought to be more grateful.

   There cannot be one that is more indebted to the goodness of the Lord
   than I am for every step of the pilgrimage that I have trod, from the
   first day even until now. I can, no, I must speak well of His name.
   Truly God is good, and I have

   found Him so. "The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the
   soul that seeks Him." I have proved Him so. Well, I know all your
   tongues are itching to say the same. You feel that though He has led
   you through deep waters, and through fiery trials, and sometimes
   chastened you very severely, He has not given you over to death. He has
   dealt with you as a father with His son whom He loves, and been to you
   as a Friend that never forsakes.

   You would not breathe half a word against His blessed name. Rather you
   would say, to borrow an expression which Rutherford constantly used,
   that you are, "drowned debtors to God's mercy." He meant that he was
   over head and ears in debt to God--he could not tell how deep his
   obligations were, so he just called himself, "a drowned debtor" to the
   loving kindness and the mercy of his God. Well, there is a sum for you.
   If you want to use your arithmetical faculties, sit down when you can
   get an hour's quiet, and try to identify all the precious thoughts of
   God towards you--all His benefits.

   II. Our second point shall be A CALCULATION OF THE GRATITUDE WHICH IS
   DUE TO GOD FOR ALL

   THIS. I should like to make each man his own assessor tonight, to
   assess the income of mercy which he has received, and put down what
   should be the tribute of gratitude which he should return to the
   revenue of the great King. "What shall I render unto the Lord for all
   His benefits?"

   Calculate, for a minute, what we owe to God the Father, and what we
   ought to render Him for the debt. As many as have believed in Christ
   were chosen of God the Father from before all worlds. He might have
   left them unchosen. It was His own absolute good pleasure which wrote
   them in the roll of the elect. He has chosen you, my Brothers and
   Sisters, that you should be holy, that you should be His children, that
   you should be made like your elder Brother, Christ Jesus. And because
   He chose you to this, to this you shall come--though all the powers of
   earth and Hell should withstand-- for the Divine decree abides
   immutably steadfast and shall surely be fulfilled.

   You are God's favorite one, His child, ordained to dwell forever in
   eternal bliss. What shall we render for this? O let the thought just
   stir the depths of your soul a minute, if indeed it is so, that the
   seal of the Everlasting Covenant has been set upon you! Before the sun
   began to shine, or the moon to march in her courses, God did choose me,
   in whom there was nothing to engross His love--nothing to attract His
   favor. O my God, if it is so, that I, of all the sons of Adam, should
   be made a distinguishing object of Your Grace, and the subject of Your
   discriminating favor, take me. Take my body, take my soul, take my
   spirit, take my goods, my talents, my faculties--take all I have, and
   all I am, and all I ever hope to be--for I am Yours. You have loosed my
   bonds, but Your mercy has bound me to Your service forever.

   Now think for a minute of what you owe to God the Son, to Jesus Christ.
   I mean as many of you as have believed on Him. Think for a moment on
   the habitation of the highest Glory, and consider how Jesus left His
   Father's Throne, deserted the courts of angels, and came down below to
   robe Himself in an infant's clay. There contemplate Him living in our
   nature. See Him after He has grown up, leading a life of toil and pain,
   bearing our sicknesses, and carrying our sorrows. Let your eyes look
   straight into the face of the Man who was acquainted with grief.

   I shall not ask you to trace all His footsteps, but I would bid you
   come to that famous garden, where in the dead of the night He knelt and
   prayed, until in agony, He sweat drops of blood. It was for you, for
   you, Believer, that there the bloody sweat fell to the ground! You see
   Him rise up. He is betrayed by His friend. For you the betrayal was
   endured. He is taken. He is led off to Pilate. They falsely accuse Him.
   They spit in His face. They crown Him with thorns. They put a mock
   scepter of reed into His hands--for you all that ignominy was endured!
   For you, especially and particularly, the Lord of Glory passed through
   these cruel mockings.

   See Him as He bears His Cross--His shoulders are bleeding from the
   recent lashes. See Him, as along the Via Dolo-rosa He sustains the
   cruel load. He bears that Cross for you. Your sins are laid on His
   shoulders and make that Cross more heavy than had it been made of iron.
   See Him on the Cross, lifted up between Heaven and earth, a spectacle
   of grievous woe. Hear Him cry, "I thirst!" And hear His cry more
   bitter, still, while Heaven and earth are startled by it, "Why have You
   forsaken Me, My God, My God?"

   He is enduring all those griefs for you. For you the thirst and the
   fainting, the nakedness and the agony. For you the bowing of the head,
   the yielding up the ghost, the slumber in the cold and silent tomb. For
   you His resurrection when He rises in the glory of His might, and for
   you afterwards the ascension into Heaven, when they sing, "Lift up your
   heads, O you gates, and be you lift up, you everlasting doors." For you
   His constant pleading at the right hand of the Father. Yes, all for
   YOU, and what should be done for Him?

   What tribute shall we lay at the pierced feet? What present shall we
   put into that nailed hand? Where are kisses that shall be sweet enough
   for His dear wounds? Where is adoration that shall be reverent enough
   for His blessed and exalted Person? Daughters of music, bring your
   sweetest songs! You men of wealth, bring Him your treasures. You men of
   fame and learning, come lay your laurels at His feet. Let us all bring
   all that we have, for such a Christ as this deserves more than all.
   What shall we render, Christ of God, to You for all Your benefits
   towards us?

   Let me ask you to think for a moment on the third Person of the blessed
   Godhead, namely, the Holy Spirit. Let us never forget that when we were
   like filthy rags His hand touched us. When we were like corrupt and
   rotten carcasses in the graves of sin, His breath quickened us. It was
   His hand that led us to the Cross. It was His fingers that took the
   film from our eyes. It was His eye salve that illuminated us that we
   should look to Jesus and live. Since that hour the blessed Spirit has
   lived in our hearts. Oh, what a dreadful place, I was about to say, for
   God to dwell in! But the Holy Spirit has never utterly left us. We have
   grieved Him. We have oftentimes vexed Him--but still He is here, still
   resident within the soul, never departing--being Himself the very life
   of the living incorruptible seed that abides forever.

   My dear Friends, how often the Holy Spirit has comforted you! How very
   frequently in your calm moments has He revealed Christ to you! How
   often has the blessed Truth been laid home to you with a Divine savor
   which it never could have had, if it had not been for Him! He is God,
   and the angels worship Him, and yet He has come into the closest
   possible contact with you. Christ was Incarnate, and the flesh in which
   He was Incarnate was pure and perfect. The Holy Spirit was not
   incarnate, but still He comes to dwell in the bodies of His
   saints--bodies still impure, still unholy.

   Oh, what Grace and condescension is this! You blessed Dove, You dear
   Comforter, You kind Lover of the fallen sons of men--Your condescension
   is matchless! We love You even as we love Christ Himself, and this
   night if we ask the question, "What shall we render unto the Lord, the
   Holy Spirit, for all His benefits towards us?" we know not how to
   answer, but can only say, "Take us, take us, Holy Spirit. Use us. Fill
   us with Yourself. Sanctify us to Your holiest purposes. Use us right
   up--make us living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God--for it is
   our reasonable service."

   Now perhaps, by God's Spirit, the text may come a little more vividly
   before your minds. You have had another opportunity of adding up all
   the benefits of God--another opportunity, dear Brothers and Sisters, of
   calculating what you ought to do. Give heed, then, for I intend to
   come, in closing, to be very personal and practical. I wish to speak
   very pointedly to you as individuals--but there are so many of you that
   some are sure to slip away in the crowd. I half wish I were in the
   position of the preacher who had but one hearer, and addressed him as,
   "Dearly Beloved Roger."

   I want to put the question of my text as though only one person were
   here, and that one person, yourself. "What shall I render to the Lord?"
   Never mind your neighbor, your brother, your sister, your husband, your
   wife, or anybody else just now. If you are a saved soul, the question
   for you is, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits
   toward me?" "What shall I render?" Suppose, dear Friend, you had been
   the woman bowed with an infirmity for so many years, and Christ had
   loosed you, and you had stood upright tonight? What would you render?

   Well, you HAVE been loosed from your infirmity--a much worse
   decrepitude than the physical ailment she was released from! Suppose
   you had been poor blind Bartimeus sitting by the wayside begging, born
   blind, and you had your sight given you tonight? What would you render?
   But you HAVE had such a gift bestowed on you. You were in spiritual
   blindness--worse than that which is only natural--and Christ has opened
   your eyes! What will you render? Suppose you had been Lazarus, and had
   been in the grave so long that you began to be corrupt, and Christ had
   raised you to life? What would you render? Well, you HAVE been
   quickened when you were dead in sin. You were corrupt. You were buried
   in darkness and in sin. But you can say with the Psalmist, "O Lord, You
   have brought up my soul from the grave."

   Now what will you render to Him? Suppose He stood on this platform
   tonight, and instead of this poor voice, and these unclean lips, the
   voice of the Well-Beloved should speak in music to you? And the lips
   that are like lilies dropping sweet smelling myrrh could talk to each
   of you? What would you render to Him, then? Well, do the same as though
   He were here, for He sees you! Yes, and His Spirit, hovering over this
   assembly, will accept the tribute you give as though He were here in
   the flesh--or otherwise He will grieve over you and resent the neglect
   of your heart. Think of Him as being here, and render unto Him as
   though He were visibly and audibly in our midst.

   What will you render? Let me ask you, dearly Beloved, whether you have
   ever thought of what men and women can render. You may have read the
   lives, I hope you have, of Mr. and Mrs. Judson in Burma, ready to
   sacrifice all for Christ. Or the lives of our martyrs, in Foxe's
   Martyrology, who rejoiced if they might burn for Christ. We still have
   some men

   and women among us--I wish there were more whose lives of consecration
   tell you what men can be and do. Are you anything like they are? If
   not, while they are not what they ought to be, and they fall short of
   the Master's image, how far short must you be? Oh, I pray you are
   grieved that it is so, and press the question upon yourselves the more,
   What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me?

   A side question may help you. What have you rendered? You are getting
   old now, or at least you are getting to the prime of life. What have
   you done for Christ up to this time? Come, look. Look back now, I must
   urge you to do it. Converted late perhaps, or if converted young, it
   matters not, still the question must come--What have you done up to
   now? Oh, I dare not answer the question myself--yet I am not in that
   respect the worst here--I dare not look back upon my past life of
   service for God with anything like satisfaction. After having done all
   that we could do, we are but unprofitable servants. We have not done
   what was our duty. There is no man here, I fear, who can answer the
   question, "What have I rendered?" with any self-contentment. We must
   all drop a tear, feel abashed, and say, "Good Lord, let not the future
   be as barren as the past, but by Your mercy help us to a better and a
   nobler sort of living!"

   May I ask you, as it may assist in answering the question, how old you
   are? Some of you tell me that you are far advanced in age. Then what
   must you render in the few years you can have to live? Live hard,
   Beloved, live hard--live fast in a spiritual sense, for you have little
   time to use, none to waste. Get as much done as can be done for your
   dear Lord, before He calls you to His face. You are young, others of
   you tell me. Oh, then with such a long opportunity as God may give you,
   you ought to be diligent every moment! If you are not diligent now in
   your early days, there is no likelihood that you will be afterwards.
   Since you have the special and peculiar advantage of early piety, O
   render to the Lord the more, because He has opened before you a wider
   field, and given you more time to cultivate it than full many of His
   people have known.

   Let me ask you, again, What are your capacities? That, perhaps, will
   help you to answer the question. "Oh," says one, "I cannot do much."
   Well then, my dear Friend, do the little you can. Do it all--do it up
   to the very point--do not leave an inch untouched. If you can only do a
   little, do all of that, and do it heartily. And keep at it till you
   die. Says another, "Perhaps God has entrusted some talents to me." Then
   He expects a great deal from the employment of them. O do not let your
   talents lie idle! Your talents are not meant for your gain, nor merely
   to serve the world. They are meant to serve your God, who has redeemed
   you with the precious blood of Jesus. Take care, whether you have much
   or little, to give Him all.

   I will put another question to you that may stir your mettle. How did
   you serve Satan before you were converted? What rare boys some of you
   were--not sparing body or soul to enjoy the pleasures of sin. Oh, with
   what zest, with what fervor and force and vehemence did many of you
   dance to the tune of the devil's music! I wish you would serve God half
   as well as some of the devil's servants serve him. What? Now you have a
   new Friend, a new Lover, a new Husband--shall He ever look you in the
   face and say, "You do not love Me so well as the old. You do not serve
   Me so zealously"? Shall Jesus Christ say to any man or woman among us,
   "You do not love Me so well as you did love the world. You were never
   weary of serving the world, but you do soon get weary of serving Me"? O
   my poor Heart, wake up! Wake up! What are you doing, to have served sin
   at such a rate, and then to serve Christ so little?

   Another question may be to the point. How do you serve yourselves? You
   are in business, some of you, and I like to see a man of business with
   his hands full and his wits about him. Your drones, those indolent
   fellows who go about the shop half asleep, and seem as if they never
   did wake up, what is the use of them? Men who seem to cumber the earth,
   men who never did see a snail unless they happened to meet one, for
   they could not have overtaken it, they travel so slowly-- such men are
   or little use to God or man. I know that the most of you are diligent
   in business. You never hear the ring of a guinea without being on the
   alert to earn it if possible.

   Your coats are off, and very likely your shirtsleeves are turned up
   when there is a chance of driving trade. That I commend. But oh, do let
   us have something like it in the service of Jesus Christ! Do not let us
   be drudging in the world, and drawling in the Church--lively in the
   service of mammon, and then laggard in the service of Christ! Heart and
   soul, manliness, vigor, vehemence--let the utmost strain of all our
   powers be put forth in the service of Him who was never prone to be
   slow in the service of our souls when they had to be redeemed.

   I shall not keep you much longer, but still pressing the same question,
   let me ask you, dear Friends, how do you think such service as you have
   rendered will look when you come to see it by the light of eternity?
   Oh, nothing of life will

   be worth having lived, when we come to die, except that part of it
   which was devoted and consecrated to Christ. Live, then, with your
   deathbeds in immediate prospect. Live in the light of the next world so
   your pulse will be quickened, and your heart excited in the Master's
   service.

   I now put the question, What shall we render? What shall I render unto
   the Lord? Let the question go all round the pews, and let everybody
   answer, What shall I render? Is there any new thing I can do for Christ
   that I never did before? Cannot I speak a word for Christ to somebody
   tonight? Tonight, because you cannot overtake the loss of a single
   opportunity. Tomorrow's mercies will bring tomorrow's obligations.
   Today's obligations must be discharged today. What shall I render
   tonight? Is there anybody I can speak to of Jesus before I retire to my
   chamber? It is a little thing, but let me do it! What shall I render?
   Let me give my God praise tonight somehow.

   There is the communion table around which we are about to gather. That
   may help me to render Him some homage. I will there take the cup of
   salvation, and call upon His name. Tomorrow I shall be in the world
   going forth to my labors. What shall I render? I will consecrate part
   of my substance to God, but I will try to consecrate all tomorrow and
   next day to Him. While I am at my work, if I use a saw, or use a
   hammer, or if I stand at a counter, or in the fields, or in the streets
   I will ask that my thoughts may be on God--that I may be kept from sin,
   and that by my example I may render some tribute of honor to His name
   in the sight of my fellow men. And I will try to seize every
   opportunity that comes in my way of telling--

   "To sinner round,

   What a dear Savior I have found."

   And yet, dear Friends, it is not for me to answer the question that is
   propounded for you. With these few brief hints I do put the question in
   all its touching pathos, in all its deep solemnity, in all its
   momentous gravity, before every Christian man and woman here--and I
   cite you to answer it before the Searcher of all hearts--"What shall I
   render?" Thrice happy you who respond in lip and life to the urgent
   call! "For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of
   love, which you have showed toward His name, in that you have
   ministered to the saints, and do minister. And we desire that every one
   of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the
   end that you are not slothful, but followers of them who through faith
   and patience inherit the promises."

   As for those of you, my Hearers, who are not yet converted--you who are
   not saved--this is not the question for you. Your question is, "What
   must I do to be saved?" and the answer is, "Believe on the Lord Jesus
   Christ, and you shall be saved." O believe on Him tonight! Trust
   Him--that is the point--trust Jesus Christ. You may come to Him and be
   saved at once. Then, not till then, you will begin to serve Him. May
   God bless you, my dear Friends, every one of you, for Christ's sake.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Putting Away Of Sin

   (No. 911)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY 16, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Now once in the end of the world has He appeared to put a way sin by
   the sacrifice of Himself." Hebrews 9:26.

   WHEN the old dispensation was becoming worn out, and like a vesture
   ready to be laid aside. When the end of the typical twilight had come,
   then Jesus Christ came forth from the Father and brought the dawning
   with Him. When the often appearing of the Aaronic priests had not
   availed for the putting away of sin, He came whose once appearing
   perfected the work. As it was said to the master of the feast, "You
   have kept the best wine until now," so might it be said of the great
   God of Grace, whose crowning gift to man came late, but not too late,
   to enrich the banquet of His love. There was a fullness of time before
   which the Messiah could not be cut off, but when that hour was come He
   was not slow with His sacrifice--He appeared in the appointed place to
   make Atonement for human guilt.

   We have, this morning, to proclaim in the hearing of this congregation
   an old Truth of God to which you have listened many and many a time.
   But it is a Truth which should be and will be exceedingly delightful to
   all those whose consciences are troubled with sin. If there are any
   here who are conscious of the burden of their past guilt, are quickened
   so as to be sensitive of the curse, can hear the rolling thunder of the
   impending wrath of God--to them it will be a great joy to hear of One
   who can put away sin! It is for such as you are that the great Redeemer
   in the end of the world came among men.

   He could not come to put away sin from those who had none, or from
   those who by their own efforts could put that sin away from themselves.
   It is, then, for such as you are who are hopelessly sinful. Hopelessly
   so, I say, if viewed from any aspect short of the work of Jesus Christ.
   It is for such as you that He has come. If your house were on fire you
   would rejoice to hear the fire engines coming down the street, for you
   would feel an absolute certainty that they were coming to you--because
   your house was in a blaze--if no one's else might be.

   If there were appointed, today, a commissioner for the relief of such
   traders as might be in difficulties, whose capital was little, and
   whose liabilities were great--if you were in that condition you would
   feel at once that a hope was held out to you--because the
   commissioner's office supposes a condition of circumstances in which
   you are found. The news of Christ's coming into the world to put away
   sin sounds like the joy blasts of the silver trumpets of Jubilee to
   those who know themselves to be full of sin, who desire to have it put
   away, who are conscious that they cannot remove it themselves, and are
   alarmed at the fate which awaits them if the sin is not by some means
   blotted out.

   Listen, you anxious ones, and if there are no charms of eloquence about
   the speaker, and if he seeks out no gaudy words that might draw
   attention to himself, yet let the theme, so suitable to you, so
   necessary to you, chain your ear and win your heart! And may God the
   Holy Spirit make the preaching of Christ to you to be the opening of
   the prisons to them that are bound.

   There is one thing in the text which should be sure to hold, as though
   spell-bound, the attention of every trembling sinner. It is this--the
   Christ of God, who in the end of the world has appeared, did not come
   to deny the fact of human sin--to propagate a philosophy which might
   make sin appear harmless, or define it as a mere mistake, perhaps a
   calamity, but by no means a Hell-deserving crime. I am sure that every
   sensitive conscience would loathe such teaching. It could yield no
   comfort whatever to a soul which had felt sin to be exceedingly sinful.

   Jesus Christ did not come into the world to help you to forget your
   sin. He has not come to furnish you with a cloak with which to cover
   it. He has not appeared that He may so strengthen your minds, (as men
   would have it), that you may learn to laugh at your iniquities and defy
   the consequences of them. For no such reason came the Son of Man. He
   has

   come not to lull you into a false peace, not to whisper consolation
   which would turn out to be delusive in the end, but to give you a real
   deliverance from sin by putting it away and so to bring you a true
   peace in which you may safely indulge.

   If sin is put away, then peace is lawful. Then rest of spirit becomes
   not only a blessing which we may enjoy, but which we must enjoy, and
   which, the more we shall enjoy the better shall we please our God. O
   Sinner, the tidings that I bring you this morning are not the mere
   glitter of a hope that shall delude, not a present relief for the woe
   you feel, but a real cure for all your ills, a sure and certain
   deliverance from all the danger that now hangs over you!

   I. We will proceed at once, then, to deal with our glorious text, and
   at the outset let us remember that IT IS A VERY HARD THING TO PUT AWAY
   SIN. Meditate awhile upon this Truth of God, for it will help you to
   magnify the power, the wisdom, and the Grace of Christ who has put it
   away. It is a very hard thing to put away sin, all the Jewish
   sacrifices could not do it. They were very costly--sometimes thousands
   of bullocks were slaughtered. They were ordained of God Himself.

   In the tabernacle everything was done according to the pattern seen in
   the Holy Mount by Moses. In the Temple no sacrifice was presented but
   according to Divine command. The whole Aaronic ritual was very
   impressive. The priests in their holy robes, pure white linen garments,
   the golden altar, candlesticks, and table, the fire, the smoke, the
   incense. The whole thing was calculated very much to impress the mind.
   The first Covenant provided a very magnificent service, such as never
   will be excelled, but for all that--costly, Divinely arranged,
   impressive--it could not put away sin. And the evidence of this is
   found in the fact that after one Day of Atonement they needed another
   atonement next year.

   Now, if sin had been put away, there would have been an end of
   sin-offering. There is an end of paying when the debt is discharged--an
   end of punishment when penalty is fulfilled. There is an end of
   propitiation when God is satisfied. Why need the fuller cleanse the
   garment if it is already immaculately white? Why need the refiner cast
   on fresh fuel if the gold is already rid of all alloy? What need, then,
   of a further sacrifice for sin if sin is effectually removed?

   My Brethren, sin was still there. After all the sin-offerings it was
   not washed away, and such men as David felt this when they cried, "You
   desire not sacrifice; else would I give it: you delight not in burnt
   offering." Here were thousands of years, then, of the shedding of the
   blood of bulls and goats according to Divine command, and yet sin still
   remained, for its removal was a harder thing to achieve than the blood
   of bulls and goats could compass. Nor could sin be put away by
   ceremonies. There were those in our Lord's days who, not content with
   doing what God had commanded, invented rites and ceremonies of their
   own, or carried out those commanded in a manner never intended by God.

   These men practiced washings of all kinds. They fasted and genuflected.
   They broadened the borders of their garments. They wore phylacteries,
   they paid tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and so on--and hoped, by
   carrying out these minutiae and by adding to the traditions of the
   fathers obediently observed--they might succeed in getting up a
   righteousness which should cover their sin. But our Lord expressly
   tells us that this was a complete failure, for though they succeeded in
   making clean the outside of the cup and the platter, their inward parts
   were very wickedness. And while they were as outwardly clean as
   sepulchers that had been newly white-washed, yet their inward parts
   were full of rottenness. There had been no cleansing of themselves by
   all that they had done.

   And it is so now, my dear Hearers--no outward forms can make you clean.
   The leprosy of sin lies deep within. Not even rites that God has
   given--I repeat it--not even rites that God has given, can avail,
   however reverently observed, to remove so much as one single sin. More
   than this, repentance itself cannot purge a man from sin. If anything
   could do it, surely this might. Let me not be mistaken--wherever God
   gives real repentance of sin, there sin is forgiven--for repentance and
   remission go together. But no man is pardoned because of any merit in
   his repentance. Repentance is a gift given to us graciously at the same
   time as remission of sins, but it is not the cause of remission. It
   comes with it, and is one of the outward evidences of it, but it is by
   no means the cause of it.

   Now observe the proof of this in the case of David. David was as
   penitent as a man could well be. His Penitential Psalms remain forever
   the most wonderful expressions of a broken heart, yet David nowhere
   claims forgiveness because of his contrition. Take the fifty-first
   Psalm as a specimen. David nowhere concludes that he is forgiven
   because he repents, or that his tears can wash him white. His petition
   is, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean"--alluding to the
   sacrificial blood which was sprinkled by a piece of hyssop. "Wash me,
   and I shall be whiter than snow."

   Nothing about, "/ have washed my couch with tears, and therefore I am
   whiter than snow. I have made my bed to swim with my heart-sorrow for
   my transgression, and therefore I am pure." His remorse was very acute,
   but he never

   rests on that. He looks to the hyssop. He turns himself to the sacred
   Fountain of the atoning blood, and there he hopes for cleansing. Ah,
   dear Hearer, and so must you!--

   "Could your tears forever flow, Could your grief no respite know, All
   for sin could not atone-- Christ must save, and Christ alone."

   Be it also known that no form of suffering in this world can put away
   sin. There is a notion, especially among the poorer classes of London,
   based very much upon a mistaken interpretation of the parable of the
   rich man and Lazarus, that in the next world those who have been very
   poor, and have suffered a great deal, will as a sort of recompense be
   taken up to Heaven--while the rich, simply because they were rich, will
   be sent down to Hell. Such was by no means the teaching of Christ! It
   is as wide as the poles asunder from His meaning.

   No, my dear Hearer, you might be as poor as Lazarus, you might even lie
   as he did on the dunghill with the hounds to lick your wounds--but this
   would not win you a place in Heaven. Your sufferings here by no means
   make an atonement for sin. You remember that man who suffered more in
   body and in estate than any other man that we have ever read of? I mean
   Job. You remember how all his children were taken away at a stroke? How
   his property was all destroyed? How he then found himself covered from
   head to foot with a horrible disease?

   It was a disease so dreadful that he could not sit in the house, and he
   betook himself to a dunghill, and laid hold upon a piece of a pot to
   scrape himself with. Now after he had passed through all that misery
   and a great deal more, what was his condition? God appeared to him in a
   whirlwind, and spoke to him--do you find that Job, because of his
   sufferings stood up before the Lord, and said, "I have suffered all
   this, and am now clear of all sin"? No, no! He cried in great humility,
   "I abhor myself in dust and ashes." His sufferings had not made him
   meritorious. He did not claim anything of the kind, but in the Presence
   of the Most High he abhorred himself, he humbled himself into the very
   dust.

   His confidence was not placed in himself, but in the Savior, for you
   hear him say, "I know that my Redeemer lives." His hope looked to the
   Redeemer, and not to the sufferings which he had himself endured.
   Believe me then, my Friend, you may carry many grievous diseases about
   you, and endure great poverty and all kinds of afflictions--you might
   even torture yourself as Romanists and idolaters do--but all that will
   be of no service to you in the matter of Divine forgiveness. Sin is not
   to be put away by anything of this sort.

   Nor, my dear Friends, can any form of self-denial, however terrible it
   might be, put away sin. Some have fancied that when they have repented
   of sin after a sort, and forsaken it, that then by denying their
   bodies, by enduring much physical suffering, they might make atonement.
   But it is not so. You remember how the Prophet asks what man shall give
   that he may be accepted with God. "Wherewith shall I come before the
   Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before Him with
   burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased
   with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I
   give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the
   sin of my soul?"

   That last question reaches far into the realm of self-sacrifice. "Shall
   I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the
   sin of my soul?" Yet even this would be of no avail. We read of fathers
   and mothers in heathen countries who give their children up to idols.
   Our hearts are shocked by the story of Moloch--believed to have been a
   huge image of hollow brass in which a great fire was lighted until it
   became red hot--and then parents brought their first-born babes and
   placed them in the red hot arms of this God--that they might there be
   consumed to ashes. I say when you hear of this, you think what cruel
   monsters they must have been!

   Ah, it was not so! Many of those fathers were as loving to their
   children as you are, and the mothers as affectionate as mothers now
   present. But they felt an awful sense of sin and believed that this
   would please God and put away sin. Therefore doing violence to all that
   was affectionate and tender within their nature, they gave the fruit of
   their body for the sins of their soul. And what a thought it is that
   when they had performed this hideous self-denial and made themselves
   wretched for life, desolating their family hearth by giving up their
   dearest ones to die--still no sin had been put away even then, not one!
   The spot remained indelible though washed with the blood of their own
   child. No, my Hearer, sin is not easily put away.

   It may impress our minds if we remember further that holy living does
   not put away past sin. If from this day forth we should live after the
   commandments of the Law blamelessly, and walk before the Lord with all
   devotion, and before men with all uprightness, yet it would not put
   away past sin. And the proof of this is to be found in the fact that
   those

   men who have lived after the best fashion, undoubtedly the best men in
   the world, have declared that their consciences were not satisfied with
   themselves, and that until they looked away from themselves they did
   not experience anything like satisfaction.

   More memorable, still is the fact that death does not put away sin.
   Death puts away a great deal. A man dies, and if he has no estate his
   debts die with him. And many a hard thought that we had of our fellow
   man we bury in his tomb. But death never kills a single sin. Sin is
   immortal until the immortal Christ comes to deal with it. Sin stands
   like the everlasting hills and will not move from its place till He
   that made Heaven and earth casts the mountain into the sea of His
   Atonement. No, the rich man died and was buried, but no sin of his was
   buried, for in Hell he lifted up his eyes, and his sins were there to
   torture and to condemn him.

   Another thought is equally solemn--namely, that Hell itself cannot put
   away sin. There are the devil and his angels for whom Hell was made,
   for whom the fire was first kindled, and its pit first dug. But they
   are as great sinners after these six thousand years as they were when
   first they were cast down from Heaven. And so those lost ones whose
   spirits have been in Hell since the time of Noah's flood--they are
   still sinners--and after all the ages of suffering they have endured
   not a sin less is upon them now than there was at first. Ah, dreadful
   thought! If you and I are ever cast into Hell, though ages on ages may
   lapse and the wrath of God is poured out upon us to the uttermost,
   there will never be the destruction of a single sin or particle of a
   sin by it all.

   Sin cannot be put away until the penalty is borne to the end, and that
   can never be by finite man. What a work was here, then, for the only
   begotten Son of God to do! Speak of the labors of Hercules! They were
   nothing compared with the labors of Emmanuel. Speak of miracles! To
   tread the sea, to hush the billows, to heal the sick, to raise the
   dead-- these are all bright stars--but their light is hid when compared
   with this miracle of miracles--when the Sun of Christ's righteousness
   arises with healing beneath His wings, and thick clouds of sin are put
   away by Him. Think of the difficulty, then, and adore the Christ who
   accomplished the task.

   Before I leave this point I beseech each one here to consider the
   difficulty of putting away sin in his own case. In any case difficult
   enough, in mine, in yours, my Brethren, how peculiarly so! Our sins
   trail their horrid length from side to side for many years. Our sins
   are aggravated, they are piled-up sins. Ours are sins against light and
   knowledge, against conscience, against vows and resolution. Our sins
   are sins repeated after we had tasted of their bitterness--foul sins,
   sins it may be of the sort which bring the blush to the cheek--sins
   that made us toss on our beds as we remembered them with dread, and yet
   sins that we returned to as the dog returns to its vomit. Oh, our
   monster sins! Our horrible sins! Our damnable sins! There was a
   difficulty, indeed, in putting these away. May you feel this deeply in
   your hearts, and you will be the more heartily ready to appreciate our
   next doctrine.

   II. The second great Truth is one that is full of joy, namely, that
   Christ HAS PUT AWAY THE SIN OF ALL HIS PEOPLE. You notice that the word
   "sin" is in the singular, and for that reason, standing as it does,
   alone, without a qualifying word, it is the more comprehensive. Sin is
   regarded as one great evil, and Christ has put it away. When the Lord
   Jesus Christ appeared at the end of the world, all the sins of His
   people were made to meet in one tremendous mass. Jesus Christ suffered
   all this to be imputed to Him. "The Lord has laid on Him the
   iniquity"--as if it were but one-- "the iniquity of us all."

   There it was, and He was accounted as if He had committed it all. In
   Gethsemane, and on the Cross He endured the penalty due for all the sin
   of His people, or rather the death which God had stipulated should
   stand as an equivalent for the sufferings of all the guilty ones for
   whom He stood. He suffered all that--and by that suffering He put away
   the sin, the whole mass, the whole mountainous mass of the sin of all
   those for whom He stood as a Substitute--and for whom He suffered the
   penalty. Sin was completely put away, everlastingly put away, when
   Jesus gave up the ghost, rose from the dead, and entered into His
   Glory.

   I beg you to notice the expression used by our translators. The
   expression in the Greek is more forcible, and I will deal with that
   directly. He has "put away" sin. This phrase in the English version is
   used in reference to an unfaithful wife when she was "put away." Her
   husband gave her a bill of divorcement, and she was no longer his.
   Until that deed of divorcement was made she was his lawful wife, bone
   of his bone, flesh of his flesh, and under the Law they were regarded
   as one--their property and estate one. But as soon as ever a lawful
   divorce was given, she had no relation to him any

   more than any other woman. She was utterly disowned, she had no further
   claim on him whatever. The separation was complete.

   Now, sin before Christ comes, is, as it were, married to us. The foul
   thing pollutes us. For its filthiness we are responsible, we have
   committed it. It is linked with us so as to be, as it were, bone of our
   bone and flesh of our flesh. But, oh, the blessedness of the fact!
   Christ has proclaimed an everlasting divorce between our souls and our
   sins! He has put our sins away so that we are no longer knit to them,
   and their dread responsibility lies no longer upon us. He stands to
   bear the responsibility of our sin on our behalf, and our personal
   liabilities cease.

   Be they what they may, they are not charged on us. "Blessed is the man
   unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity." He had iniquity, but it is no
   longer imputed to him. His sins are now no longer his, any more than a
   man's wife when lawfully divorced is any longer his. There is a total
   separation between the Believer and all his old sins, a legal
   separation too, fully justified and complete.

   "Putting away" is used in another sense. Jacob commanded his sons to
   put away the false gods that were among them. We find Josiah putting
   away Baal and all the false gods of Israel. Now you know how they acted
   when they put away false gods. There was a search throughout all the
   house to find out every teraphim, and every image, and every symbol
   that had been an object of reverence. I think I see Jacob if he had
   found a teraphim, throwing it out of the tent door with indignation.
   And if he saw it lying at a distance, for fear lest any of his sons or
   his servants should take it up and reverence it again, the Patriarch
   would go and spurn it with his foot.

   Or perhaps he would take it up, and finding his hammer, dash it in
   pieces, and throw the very dust of it away, as Moses ground the golden
   calf to pieces and threw the fragments in the water. Or as the young
   Josias did, who, not content with breaking down the altars, broke the
   images, themselves--utterly destroyed them. Now in this way has Christ
   put away His people's sins. He has utterly demolished them, made a
   clean sweep of them all, thrown them right away, broken them, destroyed
   them, and so put them away.

   "Putting away" may be illustrated in yet another manner. The Israelites
   were commanded on the feast of the Passover to put away all leaven out
   of their houses, and to this day they are very scrupulous about the
   fulfillment of that command at the time of that great festival. The
   house is very carefully swept lest a crumb of common leavened bread
   should remain. The cupboards are ransacked, drawers emptied carefully
   and swept with a little brush. And then the master of the house will go
   through every department of the house to see that no trace of leaven
   should remain. All leaven must be put away that they may keep the feast
   with unleavened bread.

   Now Jesus Christ, in this same way, has put away sin. There might have
   been a sin left in some secret region of my heart, or soul, or
   conscience, or memory--hidden in a dark department of my nature--and
   that little sin would have ruined me. But Jesus put it all away--every
   crumb and particle of the horrible leaven Christ has swept right out.
   He altogether and utterly put away sin by His once appearing. If you
   are a Believer in Christ, my dear Friend, the putting away of sin for
   you does not consist in the forgiveness of here and there a great
   sin--in the plunging into the Red Sea of His blood of here and there a
   monster iniquity. But all your sins--every size, shape, form, hue,
   degree, or fashion--are altogether gone.

   Crimson sins, black sins, crying sins, every sort of iniquity from your
   childhood until now, and right on till you enter into the rest of the
   Beloved--they were all taken and laid upon Christ. He made an end of
   them all when He offered up His great expiatory Sacrifice. He has put
   away sin as a whole for His chosen. This is a glorious Truth! If we
   know that it belongs to us and that our sin was put away--it is enough
   to make us anticipate the joy of Heaven, and sing the new song--"Unto
   Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and
   has made us kings and priests unto God and His Father. To Him be glory
   and dominion forever and ever."

   The Greek word, however, is more expressive than the English. I believe
   it is only used in one other place in the New Testament. And as far as
   Greek works extant are concerned, it is never used in any other volume.
   It is a word coined by the Apostle, a perfectly regular word, but still
   made by himself to suit his theme. Though the Greek was a copious
   language, yet when the Holy Spirit was in the Apostle there were not
   sufficient words extant to express all His meaning. This word is used
   in another place, in Hebrews 7:18, and is there translated
   "disannulling," to signify an abrogation, a total abolition, an
   annihilation. That word will do. Christ was revealed in the end of the
   world to abrogate, to annihilate, utterly to abolish sin.

   Now we all know what it is to have a thing abrogated. Certain laws have
   held good up to the first of January of this year with regard to the
   hiring of public carriages. But now we are under a new law. Suppose a
   driver complies with the new Law, gets his license, puts up his flag,
   gives the passenger his card of prices, and afterwards the passenger
   summons him before the magistrate for asking a fare not authorized by
   the old law? The magistrate would say, "You are out of court, there is
   no such law. You cannot bring the man here, he has not broken the old
   law, for he is not under it. He has complied with the requisition of
   the new law, by which he declares himself no longer under the old
   rules, and I have no power over him."

   So he that believes in Christ Jesus may be summoned by conscience when
   misinformed before the bar of God, but the answer of peace to his
   conscience is, "You are not under the Law, but under Grace." "Christ is
   the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone that believes." "All
   that believe are justified from all things, from which you could not be
   justified by the Law of Moses." In this way Christ has abrogated the
   sin of his people. By what image shall I set forth the abolishing of
   sin? I do not know what metaphor to use about it, but one suggests
   itself which is far from complete, but may help somewhat.

   When Pompey was killed, Julius Caesar obtained possession of a large
   casket which contained a vast amount of correspondence which had been
   carried on with Pompey. There is no doubt whatever, that in that casket
   were many letters from certain of Caesar's followers making overtures
   to Pompey, and had Caesar read those letters it is probable that he
   would have been so angry with many of his friends that he would have
   put them to death for playing him false. Fearing this, he magnanimously
   took the casket and destroyed it without reading a single line.

   What a splendid way of putting away and annihilating all their offenses
   against him! Why, he did not even know them! He could not be angry, for
   he did not know that they had offended. He consumed all their offenses
   and destroyed their iniquities, so that he could treat them all as if
   they were innocent and faithful. The Lord Jesus Christ has made just
   such an end of your sins and mine. Does not the Lord know our sins,
   then? Yes, in a certain sense, and yet the Lord declares, "their sins
   and their iniquities will I remember no more." In a certain sense, God
   cannot forget, but in another sense, He Himself declares that He
   remembers not the sins of His people, but has cast them behind His
   back.

   "The iniquities of Israel," says He, "shall be sought for, and there
   shall be none. And the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found." An
   accusing spirit might have said to Caesar, "Do you not know that Caius
   and Florius were deeply involved with your enemy, Pompey?" "No," he
   replies, "I know nothing against them." "But in that casket there is
   evidence." "Ah," rejoins the hero, "there remains no casket, I have
   utterly destroyed it!" The metaphor fails because it does not set forth
   the perfectly legal way in which Jesus has made an end of sin by
   suffering its penalty. Justice has been satisfied, punishment has been
   meted out for every sin of mine and yours if we are Believers. And the
   whole matter has been accomplished, not by an evasion of Law, but by a
   fulfillment of it, meeting justice face to face and satisfying
   vengeance and putting away sin.

   Take another illustration, common enough, but quite to the point. A
   debt is annihilated when it is paid, so the debts that we owed to
   justice were abrogated, annihilated and ceased to be because Jesus
   Christ, to the utmost farthing, paid whatever His people owed. Now,
   child of God, I want you to turn this Truth over and over in your mind.
   Jesus Christ has put away your sin, all of it, all of it, in all
   respects. Before God you are accepted as if you were innocent. You are
   even regarded as if you were something more than innocent, namely,
   actively righteous. Your sin is so put away that now you are deprived
   of nothing that sin deprived you of. You have the access which sin once
   prohibited. You enjoy the favor of God, and nearness to God, and
   relationship to God, even as if you had never fallen.

   When sin was put away, all the effects of sin, in detriment and loss to
   us before God, were virtually put away from the pardoned one. Think of
   that and rejoice. Moreover, your sin is put away forever. Do not fall
   into the idea it ever can return. "The gifts and calling of God are
   without repentance," that is to say, on His part. The eternal God never
   says and unsays, never plays fast and loose with a soul. If you are
   pardoned, then you are so pardoned that none ever can condemn you in
   time or in eternity. "As far as the east is from the west, so far has
   He removed our transgressions from us." Oh, what bliss is this! Do not
   so much listen to me as let your heart suck out the sweetness of this
   Truth.

   If it is indeed so, what peace you ought to have! Are you tried and
   afflicted? Remember how Luther said, "Lord, strike, for I am forgiven,"
   as if he thought it mattered little what he suffered now that his sin
   was gone. Nothing ought to make you suspend your song of praise, O
   pardoned Sinner! You can never go down into the pit. God can never be
   so

   wrath with you as to forsake you utterly. You are saved! You have an
   entailed estate beyond the river--there is a crown in the King's palace
   which no head but yours can ever wear. And a harp that your fingers
   must strike with seraphic joy. O you banished ones, in the midst of
   your exile still sing the songs of Zion in anticipation of the time
   when you shall sing them without groans to mar their melody!

   III. We shall open up to you, dear Friends, with very much brevity, HOW
   SIN WAS PUT AWAY. The text tells us that our Lord put it away by a
   Sacrifice. It is that cardinal doctrine of the Christian religion that
   sin is pardoned through a Sacrifice. Substitution is the very essence
   and marrow of the Revelation of God. The Lord Jesus Christ stood in the
   place of the sinner and was made a bloody Sacrifice for sin. Even as
   the sacrificed lamb poured out its life-blood, so did He give up His
   life to redeem our lives.

   Now, dear Friends, you who are seeking peace today, remember that the
   place where you will find light for your darkness is where Christ made
   Himself a Sacrifice for sin. Your comfort will not arise from studying
   His most pure and admirable life, but by considering His painful
   substitutionary death. He was made sin for you, though He knew no sin,
   that you might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He was made to
   die a death of pain, ignominy, and anguish, and to pour out His blood
   that you might not feel the sword of vengeance on account of your sins.
   Notice that the text tells us what His sacrifice was--it was Himself.
   Sin was not put away by the offering of His living works, nor by the
   incense of His prayer, nor by the oblation of His tears--nor even by
   the presentation of His pains and groans before God-- but by the
   sacrifice of HIMSELF.

   The Lord Christ gave up for you His human Body and Soul and Spirit--all
   that constituted "Himself" was given up freely to the death--that the
   punishment due to our sin might be borne. Dwell on this thought--the
   sacrifice of Himself. This leads you to remember who He was. He was God
   over all, blessed forever. The Maker of all worlds, but He gave
   Himself. See the majesty of His sacrifice! He gave Himself And then
   behold the infinite merit that there must be in that Sacrifice. Had He
   been a mere man--the death of one innocent man for another may be
   supposed to have been an atonement for one man. But because He was
   infinite in His nature, there was infinite merit in His sufferings.

   Doubts, however black they may be, ought to subside when we perceive
   that the Atonement made must have been infinitely meritorious, because
   it was not an Atonement of mere tears and blood and works, but an
   Atonement made by the Lord's giving up Himself, His very Self, that He
   might put away sin. Ah, my Brethren, I can trust an infinite Savior to
   put away my sin. If I were told that there was this and that to be done
   by some human priest to put away my sin, I should be afraid that
   perhaps their efforts would not answer the designed end. But if my sin
   is put away because God Himself dwelt among men, and suffered in human
   flesh in my place, I can believe, and will believe, and rest in peace--

   "My soul can on this doctrine live, Can on this doctrine die."

   Here is solid ground work for the most guilty, heavy-laden sinner to
   build a cheerful hope for eternity!

   Note well that there is not a word here or anywhere else in Scripture
   about any renewed and repeated sacrifice. The Roman Catholic church
   tells us that they continue to present the sacrifice of Christ in the
   unbloody sacrifice of the "mass." But this is a mere invention of their
   priests! Our Lord once appeared to put away sin, and thereby perfected
   forever them that are sanctified. What are you doing, you pretenders to
   His name? Would you add to what is perfect? Do you put sin away again
   after the great High Priest has put it away once and for all? Away, you
   sons of Antichrist!

   Observe, also, that nothing is said about sins ever coming back again.
   He has put sin away, there is no hint given that it will ever want
   putting away a second time. He has appeared and put it away finally,
   totally, eternally. Where, then, is the sin of His people? It is so put
   away that it is not possible to find it, even if it is searched for,
   nor can it ever return. Moreover, not a syllable is uttered concerning
   anyone helping the Lord Jesus to put away sin. He came to put away sin,
   but it is not added that others joined in the work--neither is it said
   that it is done if the sinner's tears should flow, or if he should feel
   deeply, or if he should act worthily, or if he should be obedient. Not
   at all! It is nakedly and boldly declared that He has put it away.

   Now, on the Cross, my dear Hearer, Christ either put all your sins
   away, or He did not. If He did not, you will live and die in
   unbelief--if He did--nothing of yours is needed to make the Atonement
   perfect. All you have to do is to ascertain your part and lot in the
   great Atonement. "And," says one, "How can I ascertain my portion in
   it?" You may know by this one thing--Do you believe in Jesus? Do you
   trust Him? This is the evidence that your sin has ceased to be,

   and that before you were born, Christ put it away forever. If so, you
   need not this day be bowed down about it, or go mourning and troubled
   as though it even now condemned you.

   If you believe, rest assured that God loved you from before the
   foundations of the world. You are viewed in Christ Jesus as clear
   before the Law. In the Person of the Only Begotten you are accepted in
   the Beloved. The love of God looked on you in Christ ages ago, before
   you could look on it or understand it, and in the fullness of time your
   sins were foreseen, and their penalty endured by your Redeemer.
   Methinks I hear, then, this enquiry put, How may I share in this
   blessed result of the putting away of sin? The answer is, Brethren, the
   way for us to enjoy a share in it must evidently be one in which we do
   not, even by implication, seem to claim a part in the putting away of
   sin.

   If you think you can get a part in this gracious result by your own
   feelings or doings, you dishonor the perfect work of Christ, and so you
   make a gulf between you and Christ. The only test as to whether Christ
   put your sin away is this-- Have you done with all idea of putting the
   sin away yourself? Are you willing that He should have the whole, sole,
   and entire glory of putting it away? Will you now trust Him with your
   whole heart to put your sin away? Well, Soul, there never was a man yet
   who gave up confidence in everything but Christ, and relied completely
   and heartily upon Christ, but who had, in that fact an assurance that
   Jesus loved him, and gave Himself for him!

   "Oh," says one," I have done that, then, years ago." Rejoice, then! Be
   glad, and out of love to Jesus go and perform works of holiness to
   honor Him by Whom you are saved. Rejoice all your days, and praise the
   name of Him that has washed you. Do not, O you pardoned ones, kneel
   down every Sunday morning and night, and wail out the cry that you are
   "miserable sinners"! You ought not to be miserable sinners, now that
   you are forgiven, justified, adopted, and made one with Christ! You are
   sinners, but why miserable? To those Believers who call themselves
   "miserable sinners," the Lord might well reply, "You do not, then,
   believe Me. Have I not pardoned you, and declared that there is no
   condemnation for you? Is this your only gratitude? Is there no joyful
   thankfulness? Nothing but sullen misery?"

   Blessed be God, such a form of service is little suitable for Believers
   in Jesus, though very fitting for those who trust their baptismal
   regeneration! Our gladsome lips have learned--

   "Oh, how sweet to view the flowing Of ourSa vior'sprecious blood, With
   Divine assurance knowing He has made our peace with God." Sin is gone,
   gone forever! Go, Believer, and rejoice! But do I hear another say, "O
   that I could know assuredly that my sin was put away. I gladly would
   trust the Savior, but the question is, may I trust Him?" That, my
   Friend, need not be a question. He commands you to trust Him. "Believe
   in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." "He that believes
   and is baptized shall be saved. But he that believes not shall be
   damned."

   You are threatened if you do not believe, therefore take courage, Man,
   and trust Christ now. "What? And having lived a sinful life up till
   now, if I, indeed trust Him, will that sinful life be blotted out? Must
   I not at least go home and begin to read my Bible and spend a month in
   preparation?" Delay not! Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not
   your heart. Trust Him now! Saul of Tarsus was struck down at once, in
   the midst of sin, and saved. The dying thief had not to be taken down
   from the Cross and laid up in hospital till he passed through a
   probation. He prayed the prayer, "Lord, remember me!" And he received
   the answer, "Today shall you be with Me in Paradise." The pardon of sin
   is instantaneous. It is not a matter of even minutes or seconds.

   "There is life in a look at the Crucified One."

   One glance of your soul's eye at a crucified Savior and the simple
   reliance of your spirit upon Him, and you are saved beyond all risk.
   The Lord grant you, by His Holy Spirit's aid, to do this today, and I
   know you will go away to be among the dearest lovers of my Master, and
   among the most careful of His servants, for you will love Him too well
   to disobey Him. And it will be your joy from this time forth, even
   forever, to honor Him.

   Methinks I hear you say, "I who was the chief of sinners was met with
   when I least expected it by my gracious Savior, while listening to the
   Gospel. And I was forgiven in a moment through a simple act of faith.
   And now here I am, my Lord's servant, to live and to die for Him if He
   will but give me Grace to do so." The Lord grant it, for His name's
   sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Glorious Hereafter and Ourselves

   (No. 912)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY 23, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Now He that has worked us for the same thingis God, who also has given
   unto us the earnest of the Spirit." 2 Corinthians 5:5.

   IT is a very comforting thing to be able to see the work of God in our
   own hearts. We can clearly enough perceive the effects of the Fall--the
   workings of our inward corruption are always sufficiently perceptible.
   We have not to search long for the foul handiwork of Satan within us,
   for his temptations vex us day by day, and too often wound us to our
   dismay. The evil influences of the world are also exceedingly apparent
   to the eyes of self-examination. It is, therefore, consoling to the
   highest degree when, amidst all this disfiguring of the vessel by the
   hands of evil, we can see growing traces of the Great Artist's hand
   still fashioning the clay upon the wheel and undoing the mischief of
   His enemies.

   It is a sweet thing to be able to say with the Apostle that God has
   worked us to the most grand of all designs. When the Creator of the
   world puts His all-wise hands to the work of our new creation, we are
   favored in the highest degree, and ought to be filled with gratitude.

   It appears from the text that the Apostle found the indications of the
   Divine work in a groan. Observe, "We that are in this tabernacle do
   groan, being burdened." In that groan of his burdened soul he saw the
   working of the eternal God, and he exclaimed, "He that has worked us
   for the same thing is God." Believers may trace the finger of God in
   their holy joys when the soul, like the lark, mounts up towards Heaven
   and carols her song of gratitude. But, just as surely is the Holy
   Spirit present in their sorrows for sin, their inward conflicts, their
   hungering and thirsting after righteousness, their deep-fetched sighs,
   and their groans which cannot be uttered.

   My Brethren, so long as it is the work of God it is comparatively a
   small matter to us whether our hearts' utterance is song or sigh. Let
   us be assured that it is worked by the Spirit, and either the one or
   the other is a token for good. If it is but proven that "the Lord is
   there," we hear a voice which says, "It is I, be not afraid."

   Our text brings before us a great work of God with a distinct
   object--our being "clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven."
   And looking at the words minutely, we see that the one design is
   accomplished by three great processes. The Lord has worked in us
   desires after the heavenly Glory. "He that has worked us for the same
   thing is God." The Apostle had twice over spoken of groaning after the
   heavenly House, and we understand him here to affirm that this groaning
   was worked in him by God.

   Secondly, the Lord has worked in us a fullness for the eternal world,
   for so the text may be understood. "He that has fitted us for" the
   heavenly inheritance of which the Spirit is the earnest. Then thirdly,
   God has given to Believers, in addition to desires after and fitness
   for an earnest of the Glory to be revealed, which earnest is the Holy
   Spirit. Let us speak of these three things as the Holy Spirit may
   instruct us.

   God's work is seen in our souls in causing us exciting, vehement
   DESIRES AFTER being "clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven."

   This earnest desire, of which the Apostle has been speaking in the
   preceding verses, is made up of two things--a painful groaning and
   sense of being burdened while we are in this present life, and a
   supreme longing after our promised portion in the world to come.
   Dissatisfaction with the very idea of finding a continuing city here,
   amounting even to groaning, is the condition of the Christian's mind.
   "We look not at the things which are seen," they are not worth a
   glance. They are temporal and therefore quite unfit to be the joy of an
   immortal spirit.

   The Christian is the most contented man in the world, but he is the
   least contented with the world. He is like a traveler in an inn,
   perfectly satisfied with the inn and its accommodation, considering it
   as an inn, but putting quite out of all consideration the idea of
   making it his home. He waits by the way, and is thankful, but his
   desires lead him ever on-

   ward towards that better country where the many mansions are prepared.
   The Believer is like a man in a sailing vessel, well content with the
   good ship for what it is, and hopeful that it may bear him safely
   across the sea, willing to put up with all its inconveniences without
   complaint.

   But if you ask him whether he would choose to live on board in that
   narrow cabin, he will tell you that he longs for the time when the
   harbor shall be in view, and the green fields, and the happy homesteads
   of his native land. We, my Brethren, thank God for all the appointments
   of Providence--whether our portion is large or scant we are content
   because God has appointed it--yet our portion is not here, nor would we
   have it here if we might!--

   "We've no abiding city here,

   Sad truth were this to be our home." No thought would be more dreadful
   to us than the idea of having our portion in this life, in this dark
   world which refused the love of Jesus, and cast Him out of its
   vineyard. We have desires which the whole world could not fulfill. We
   have insatiable yearnings which a thousand empires could not satisfy.
   The Creator has made us to pant and long after Himself, and all the
   creatures put together could not delight our souls without His
   Presence--

   "Hopeless of joy in anything below,

   We only long to soar,

   The fullness of His love to feel,

   And lose His smile no more."

   In addition to this dissatisfaction, there reigns within the regenerate
   heart a supreme longing after the heavenly state. When Believers are in
   their right minds, their aspirations after Heaven are so forcible that
   they despise death itself. When faith is weak, then the pains and the
   groans of dying make a black cloud of forebodings which darken the
   spirit, and we shrink from the thought of departing.

   But when we know that our Redeemer lives, and look forward to the
   Resurrection and to the Glory to be revealed, we cry--

   "Oh, if my Lord would come and meet,

   My soul should stretch her wings in haste,

   Fly fearless through death's iron gate, Nor fear the terrors as she
   passed." Whatever the separation of the soul from the body may involve
   of pain or mystery, the Believer feels that he could dare it all to
   enter at once into the unfading joys of Heaven. Sometimes the heir of
   Heaven grows impatient of his bondage. Like a captive looking out of
   the narrow window of his prison beholds the green fields of the
   unfettered earth, and marks the flashing waves of the ocean, ever
   free--and hears the songs of the free tenants of the air--he weeps as
   he views his narrow cell and hears the clanking of his chains.

   There are times when the most patient of the Lord's banished ones feel
   the home sickness strong upon them. Like those beasts which we have
   sometimes seen in our menageries, which pace to and fro in their dens,
   and chafe themselves against the bars--uneasy, unhappy, bursting out
   every now and then into fierce roars--as though they yearned for the
   forest or the jungle. Even so we also chafe and fret in this, our
   prison, longing to be free. As by the waters of Babylon the sons of
   Zion sat down and wept, even so do we. Dwelling in Kedar's tents and
   sojourning with Mesech, we long for the wings of a dove that we might
   fly away and be at rest--

   "O my sweet home, Jerusalem,

   Would God I were in you!

   Would God my woes were at an end,

   Your joys that I might see."

   Having thus seen that the groaning worked in us by God is made up of
   dissatisfaction with this world and anxious desire for the world to
   come, we may profitably consider it yet a little further. What is it
   that makes the Christian long for Heaven? What is that within him which
   makes him restless till he reaches the better land? It is, first, a
   desire for the unseen. The carnal mind is satisfied with what the eyes
   can see, the hands can handle, and the taste enjoy. But the Christian
   has a spirit within him which has passions and appetites which the
   senses cannot gratify.

   This spirit has been created, developed, enlightened, and instructed by
   the Holy Spirit, and it lives in a world of unseen realities of which
   unregenerate men have no knowledge. While in this sinful world and
   earthly body, the spirit feels

   like a citizen exiled from his native land. It stands upon the outmost
   borders of its own region and longs to penetrate into the center of
   spiritual things. Hampered with this body of clay, the spirit, which is
   akin to angels, cries after liberty. It longs to see the Great Father
   of Spirits, to commune with the bands of the pure spirits forever
   surrounding the Throne of God, both angels and glorified men.

   It longs, in fact, to dwell in its true element. A spiritual creature,
   begotten from above can never rest till it is present with the Lord.
   Oh, to see the things which we have heard of in metaphor and simile, to
   enjoy them really with our spirits! The harps, the crowns, the
   palms--what must it be to possess such joys? The streets of transparent
   gold, the river of the water of life, the glassy sea, the Throne of the
   Great King--what must all these be? Until these joys and glories be all
   our own, our souls will always cry and sigh.

   Moreover, the Christian spirit pants after holiness. He who is born
   again of incorruptible seed finds his worst trouble to be sin. While he
   was in his natural state he loved sin, and sought pleasure in it. But
   now, being born of God and made liken to God, he hates sin. The mention
   of it vexes his ears. The sight of it in others causes him deep
   sorrow--the presence of it in his own heart is his daily plague and
   burden. If he could be rid of sin, this mortal body might not be to him
   a load. But because the tendencies of the animal passions are always
   towards evil, he longs to be rid of this vile body so that he may be
   clothed with his House which is in Heaven--from which all these
   passions will be expelled.

   Oh, to be without the tendency to sin, without the possibility to sin!
   What bliss the prospect affords! My Brethren, if we could be placed in
   the meanest and most destitute condition, and yet could be perfect, we
   would prefer it to being sinful, even though we should reign in the
   palaces of kings. Our spirit, therefore, cries after the immortal
   state, because sin will be forever banished from it.

   In the Christian's spirit there is also a sighing after rest. "There
   remains a rest for the people of God," as though God had put in us the
   longing for what He has prepared. We labor daily to enter into that
   rest. Brethren, we long for rest, but we cannot find it here. "This is
   not our rest." We cannot find rest even within ourselves. Wars and
   fights are continuous within the regenerate spirit. The flesh lusts
   against the spirit, and the spirit wars against the flesh. As long as
   we are here it must be so. We are in the camp of war, not in the
   chamber of ease. The trumpet must sound, and the clash of arms must be
   heard. We must go to our watchtower and continue there both night and
   day, for we are militant as yet, and not triumphant.

   Our soul pines to be at rest. When shall the rowers of our spirit
   indulge themselves to the full without the fear of falling into sin?
   When shall my memory remember nothing but what will glorify God? When
   shall my judgment always rightly balance all events? When shall my
   desires be after nothing but my Lord? When shall my affections cling to
   nothing but Him? O when shall I possess the rest of the sinless, the
   rest of the satiated, the rest of the secure, the rest of the
   victorious? This longing for rest helps to inflame the Christian's
   desires for the House not made with hands.

   This Divinely-worked desire is made up of another element, namely, a
   thirst for communion with God. Here, at the nearest, our state is
   described as being "absent from the Lord." We do enjoy fellowship with
   God, for, "Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son
   Jesus Christ," but it is remote and dark. "We see through a glass
   darkly," and not as yet face to face. We have the smell of His garments
   from afar, and they are perfumed with myrrh, and aloes, and cassia--but
   as yet the King is in His ivory palaces--and the gate of pearl is
   between us and Him.

   O that we could come to Him! O that He would even now embrace us, and
   kiss us with the kisses of His mouth! The more the heart loves Christ,
   the more it longs for the greatest possible nearness to Him. Separation
   is very painful to a bride whose heart is burning for the bridegroom's
   presence. And such are we--longing to hear the most sweet voice of our
   Spouse and to see the countenance which is as Lebanon, excellent as the
   cedars. For a saved soul to long to be where its Savior is, is no
   unnatural desire! To be with Him is far better than earth's best, and
   it would be strange if we did not long for it.

   God, then, has worked in us this in all its forms. He has made us to
   dread the thought of having our portion in this life. He has created in
   us a supreme longing for our heavenly Home, has taught us to value
   unseen and eternal things, to pant after holiness, to sigh after
   sinless rest, and to yearn after closer fellowship with God in Christ
   Jesus. My Brethren, if you have felt a desire such as I have described,
   give the glory of it to God! Bless and love the Holy Spirit who has
   worked this same thing in you, and ask Him to make the desires yet more
   vehement, for they are to His glory.

   Bear with a word in praise of this God-worked groaning. This desire
   after the world to come is above ordinary nature. All flesh is grass,
   and the grass loves to strike its root deep into the earth. It has no
   tendrils with which to clasp the stars. Man by nature would be content
   to abide on earth forever. If you long for a holy and spiritual state,
   your desire is not of nature's creation. God has worked it in you. Yes,
   I will venture to say that the desire for Heaven is contrary to nature.
   For as there is an inertia in matter which makes it indisposed to move,
   so is there in human nature an indisposition to leave the present for
   the future.

   Like the snail, we stick to the rock on which we crawl. We cling to
   earth like the ivy to the wall. We are afraid to set sail upon that
   unknown sea of eternity, and therefore shiver on the shore. We dread to
   leave "the warm precincts of this house of clay," and hovel as this
   body is, we count it dear. It is the Lord who forbids our lying among
   the pots and gives us the wings of a dove to mount aloft. As soon would
   a clod seek the sun as a soul seek its God, if a miracle of Grace were
   not worked upon it.

   While they are contrary to the old nature, such aspirations prove the
   existence of the new nature. You may be quite sure that you have the
   nature of God in you if you are pining after God. And if your longings
   are of a spiritual kind, depend upon it--you are a spiritual man. It is
   not in the animal to sigh after mental enjoyments, neither is it in the
   mere carnal man to sigh after heavenly things. What your desires are,
   that your soul is. If you are really insatiably hungering after
   holiness and after God, there is within you that which is liken to God,
   that which is essentially holy. There is, indeed, a work of the Holy
   Spirit within your hearts.

   I shall detain you awhile to notice the means by which the Holy Spirit
   quickens these desires within our spirits. This desire after a portion
   in the unseen world is first infused in us by regeneration.
   Regeneration begets in us a spiritual nature, and the spiritual nature
   brings with it its own longings and desires. These longings and desires
   are after perfection and God. Imagine an angel imprisoned in a
   stable--it is perfectly certain that it would be discontent with the
   place where the horned oxen lay. If it felt that the Divine will
   commanded it to tarry there for awhile, I doubt not that the bright
   visitant would contentedly put up with the confinement.

   But if it had liberty to leave the society of beasts, how gladly would
   the bright spirit ascend to its native place! Yes, Heaven is the place
   for angels, the true abode of holy spirits and we, too, since our
   spiritual nature is born from above, long to be there--nor shall we be
   content until we are. These desires are further assisted by
   instruction. The more the Holy Spirit teaches us of the world to come
   the more we long for it. If a child had lived in a mine it might be
   content with the glimmer of candle light. But if it should hear of the
   sun, the green fields and the stars, you may depend upon it--the child
   would not be happy until it could ascend the shaft and behold for
   itself the brightness of which it had heard. And as the Holy Spirit
   reveals to us the world to come we feel longings within us, mysterious
   but mighty, and we sigh and cry to be where Jesus is.

   These desires are further increased by sanctified afflictions. Thorns
   in our nest make us take to our wings. The embittering of this cup
   makes us earnestly desire to drink of the new wine of the kingdom. We
   are very much like our poor who would stay at home in England and put
   up with their lot, hard though it is. But when at last there comes a
   worse distress than usual, then straightway they talk of emigrating to
   those fair and boundless fields across the Atlantic where a kindred
   nation will welcome them with joy.

   So here we are in our poverty, and we make the best of it we can. But a
   sharp distress wounds our spirit and then we say we will run away to
   Canaan, to the land that flows with milk and honey. For there, we
   think, we shall suffer no distress, neither shall our spirits hunger
   any more. Heavenly desires are still farther inflamed by communion with
   Christ. The sweets as well as the bitters may be made to increase our
   longings after the world to come. When a man has once known what
   fellowship with Jesus is, he then pines to enjoy it forever. Like the
   Gauls on this side the Alps, who, when they had once drank the Italian
   wines, said one to another, "It must be a fair land where they grow
   such wine as this. Come, Brethren, let us draw our swords and cross the
   Alps and take the vineyards for ourselves." Thus does the love of Jesus
   set us longing to be with Him--

   "Since I have tasted of the grapes, I oftentimes long to go Where my
   dear Lord the vineyard keeps, And all the clusters grow."

   Communion with Christ sharpens the edge of our desire for Heaven. And
   so, to close this vein of thought, does elevation of soul. The more we
   are sanctified and lifted above the grossness of earthliness into
   conformity with Jesus, the more we long for the world to come.

   A peasant at the plow is quite content to mix with his fellow
   laborers--but suppose he forms a passion for the study of the stars,
   feels a poet's frenzy, develops mathematical powers, learns the science
   of flowers--or in any way discovers the treasure hidden in the field of
   learning? He will be sure to be uneasy in ignorance, and will pine for
   books and education. He dreams of schools, and colleges, and libraries.
   His fellow plowmen laugh at him and count him but a fool. If they have
   enough to eat and drink and clothe themselves, they are content--but he
   has wants for which the village has neither sympathy nor supply.

   His elevation of mind has brought with it groans--desires to which, had
   he no more ambition than his fellows--he would have been a stranger. So
   is it with the regenerated man--in proportion as he is elevated by the
   Holy Spirit by growth in Divine Grace, the higher he rises--the more he
   longs to rise. To him that has, it is given, and he desires to have in
   abundance. With a sacred covetousness he pants after yet higher degrees
   of Grace, and after Glory itself. Thus have I opened up to you the
   desire which the Holy Spirit works in us. "He that has worked us for
   the same thing is God."

   II. Our second subject of discourse is THE FITNESS FOR HEAVEN which is
   worked in us. Calvin's interpretation of the text is, "He that has
   fitted us for the same thing is God." Ah, how true this is! There is no
   fitness whatever in man by nature for communion with his God. It must
   be a Divine work within him. The Father works in us fitness for Heaven
   by separating us in the everlasting decree to be His own. Heaven is the
   place of God's own abode--we must be God's own people to be fit to be
   there. He fits us by adopting us into His family, by justifying us
   through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, by preserving us by His
   power.

   The Son of God has an equal share in the working of this fitness. He
   fits us by blotting out our iniquities and by transferring to us His
   righteousness--by taking us into marriage union with Himself. The Holy
   Spirit, forever to be blessed, has His share in this work. It is He who
   first infuses the new nature. He who gives us spiritual food for the
   new nature, giving us to feed upon the flesh and blood of Christ. It is
   He who instructs and develops that new nature, and through the blood of
   Jesus makes the man meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the
   saints in light. Glory be unto the Father, and to the Son, and to the
   Holy Spirit, who thus in blessed union "has worked us for the same
   thing."

   Now, let me describe with great brevity the work of the Holy Spirit in
   preparing us for Glory. As we have already hinted--and we must
   necessarily traverse much the same ground--fitness for Heaven, as
   worked in us by the Spirit, consists, first, in the possession of a
   spiritual nature. Heaven is pre-eminently a spiritual region and those
   who have no nature begotten from above would not by any possibility be
   able to enjoy the bliss of Heaven. They would be quite out of their
   element. It could not be a Heaven to them. A garden bee in the midst of
   the flowers is at home and gathers honey from all their cups and bells.

   But open the gate and admit a swine, and it sees no beauty in lilies,
   roses, or other flowers. Therefore it proceeds to root, and tear, and
   spoil in all directions. Such would an unregenerate man be in Heaven.
   While holy saints shall find bliss in everything in the Paradise of
   God, an ungodly sinner would be at war with everything in that holy
   region. Fitness for Heaven lies much in a holy nature--a love of Heaven
   is as contrary to fallen humanity as light to darkness. Do you not feel
   it so? Left to yourselves, O saints of God, do you not know that you
   would go back to Egypt? Do you not feel that the old nature lusts after
   evil?

   Well, then, as you cannot possibly inherit Heaven unless you delight in
   holiness, you owe this fitness for the perfect state to the Holy
   Spirit. Fitness for Heaven lies in a capacity to delight in God. I have
   always loved that first question and answer in the Assembly's
   Catechism, "What is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to
   glorify God and to enjoy Him forever." Not to enjoy yourself forever,
   not even to enjoy the harps of gold, the angelic society and the feasts
   of the beatified--but to enjoy God forever. If a man has as yet no
   delight in God and takes no solace in thoughts of Him, he has no
   fitness for Heaven, and cannot get there. But if you delight in God, it
   is God that has "worked you to the same

   thing."

   Fitness for Heaven will lie very much in love to the saints. Those who
   do not love the people of God on earth would find their company very
   irksome forever. Here the unrighteous can manage to endure the company
   of the godly because it can be diluted with an admixture of graceless
   men. But up there the people shall be all righteous and their
   conversation

   shall be all of Christ and of things Divine--such society and such
   conversation would be weariness, itself, to godless hearts. My Hearer,
   if you delight in the company of the Believers--and if the more
   spiritual their conversation the more you enjoy it--then you have been
   worked to this same thing by the work of the Holy Spirit in your soul,
   and you may bless the Lord for it.

   Joy in service is another sweet preparation for Heaven. Heaven is
   sinless service. They serve God day and night in His Temple--service
   without weariness, service without imperfection, service without
   cessation. Now do you delight to serve God? If so, you evidently have a
   fitness for Heaven. But as you once abhorred that service, and were the
   bondslave of the Prince of Darkness--if you now long and wish to
   glorify your God--you have been worked thereto by the Holy Spirit's
   power.

   Conformity to Christ Jesus, again, is another preparation for Heaven.
   Much of Heaven consists in being like Christ. It is the very object of
   Divine Grace that we should be conformed to His image, that He should
   be the first-born among many Brethren. Now, if you are growing, by His
   Grace, somewhat like Christ--if you desire to be like He is, imitating
   His tender, loving, brave, prayerful, obedient, self-sacrificing
   spirit--you have some fitness for the skies. But that fitness was not
   there by nature. You were once as unlike Christ as possible. God has
   worked all this in you.

   I am afraid that I go from one point to another rather too rapidly, but
   the gist of it all is this--Heaven is the world of spirits, the land of
   holiness, the House of God-- and if we have any capacity for the
   enjoyment of Heaven, it has been worked in us by God. The unfitness of
   unrenewed souls for Heaven may be illustrated by the incapacity of
   certain uneducated and coarse-minded persons for elevated thoughts and
   intellectual pursuits.

   When a little child, I lived some years in my grandfather's house. In
   his garden there was a fine old hedge of yew of considerable length
   which was clipped and trimmed till it made quite a wall of verdure.
   Behind it was a wide grass walk which looked upon the fields. The grass
   was kept mown, so as to make pleasant walking. Here, ever since the old
   Puritan Chapel was built, godly divines had walked and prayed and
   meditated. My grandfather was likely to use it as his study. Up and
   down it he would walk when preparing his sermons, and always on Sundays
   when it was fair, he had half an hour there before preaching.

   To me it seemed to be a perfect Paradise, and being forbidden to stay
   there when Grandfather was meditating, I viewed it with no small degree
   of awe. I love to think of the green and quiet walk at this moment. But
   I was once shocked, and even horrified, by hearing a farming man remark
   concerning this sanctum sanctorum, "It' ud grow a many 'taturs if it
   wor ploughed up." What cared he for holy memories? What were meditation
   and contemplation to him? Is it the chief end of man to grow potatoes
   and eat them? Such, on a larger scale, would be an unconverted man's
   estimate of joys so elevated and refined as those of Heaven.

   Alphonse Karr tells a story of a man servant who asked his master to be
   allowed to leave his cottage and sleep over the stable. What was the
   matter with his cottage? "Why, Sir, the nightingales all around the
   cottage make such a 'jug, jug, jug' at night, that I cannot bear them."
   A man with a musical ear would be charmed with the nightingales' song--
   but here was a man without a musical soul who found the sweetest notes
   a nuisance. This is a feeble image of the incapacity of unregenerate
   man for the enjoyments of the world to come--as he is incapable of
   enjoying them, so is he incapable of longing for them.

   But if you and I have grown out of all taste for the things of sin and
   time. If we are sighing for holy, godly joys, we have therein an
   evidence that God has worked in us, by His Grace, and will continue to
   do so till we are made perfect and immortal.

   III. The text informs us that in addition to working in us desires and
   fitness for Glory, the Lord has graciously given to us an EARNEST OF
   GLORY. An earnest, as you all know, is unlike a pledge, in some
   respects. A pledge has to be returned when the matter which it ensures
   is obtained--but an earnest is a part of the thing itself. A man has so
   much wage to take on Saturday night, he receives a part of it in the
   middle of the week, it is an earnest of the full payment--a part of the
   payment itself.

   So the Holy Spirit is a part of Heaven itself. The work of the Holy
   Spirit in the soul is the bud of Heaven. Divine Grace is not a thing
   which will be taken away from us when we enter Heaven, but which will
   develop into Glory. Grace will not be withdrawn as though it had
   answered its purpose, but will be matured into Glory. What is meant by
   the Holy

   Spirit being given to us as an earnest? I believe it signifies, first,
   that the very dwelling of the Holy Spirit within our soul is the
   earnest of Heaven.

   My Brothers and Sisters, if God Himself condescends to make these
   bodies His temples, is not this akin to Heaven's honors? Only put away
   sin, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit would make even this earthly
   state to be heavenly to us. O my Brethren, you little know what a
   weight of Glory is contained in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit! If
   you did but know it and believe in it always, the sorrows of this life
   would become trivial, and as for the frowns of men you would deride
   them. God dwells in you. You walk among the sons of men unknown and
   despised, yet as angels see you, you are the objects of their wonder!
   Rejoice that in this, then, you have an earnest of Heaven.

   But everything the Holy Spirit works in us is an earnest of Heaven.
   When the Holy Spirit brings to us the joys of hope, this is an earnest.
   While singing some glowing hymn touching the New Jerusalem, our spirit
   shakes off all her doubts and fears and anticipates her everlasting
   heritage. When we enjoy the full assurance of faith and read our title
   clear to mansions in the skies--when faith, looking simply to the
   finished work of Christ, knows whom she has believed, and is persuaded
   that he is able to keep that which she has committed to Him--this is an
   earnest of Heaven. Is not Heaven security, confidence, peace?

   The security, confidence, peace which spring from faith in Jesus Christ
   are part and parcel of the Heaven of the blessed. Heaven is the place
   of victory, and, my dear Friends, when we are victorious over sin, when
   the Holy Spirit enables us to overcome some propensity, to put down our
   anger, to crush our pride, to mortify the flesh with its affections and
   lusts--then in that conscious victory over sin we enjoy an earnest of
   the triumph of Heaven. And once more, when the Holy Spirit gives us to
   enjoy fellowship with Jesus Christ, and with one another--when in the
   breaking of bread we feel the union which exists between Christ and His
   members--we have a foretaste of the fellowship of Heaven.

   Do not say, then, that you know nothing of what Heaven is. "Eye has not
   seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the
   things which God has prepared for them that love Him." But, "He has
   revealed them unto us by His Spirit." Spiritual natures do know what
   Heaven is--in the sense of knowing from the drop what the river must be
   like--of understanding from the beam what the sun must be. Its fullness
   you cannot measure, its depth you cannot fathom, its unutterable bliss
   you cannot tell.

   But still you know of what character the Glory will be--you know that
   pure are the joys of the blessed, and all their dwellings peace. You
   know that fellowship with Christ and with holy spirits makes up much of
   Heaven, and you know this because the earnest of the Spirit is a part
   and parcel of the thing itself.

   I conclude with a practical remark or two. If these things are so, what
   emotions are most fitting for us? Answer-- first, O Believers in Jesus,
   be thankful! Overflow with thankfulness. Remember these things are not
   your own productions. They are not flowers of your own garden--they
   have been planted in your soul by another Hand--and watered by a
   superior Power. Give all the glory to His holy name, for to Him all the
   glory belongs. Not a good desire in you was self-originated, no part of
   your fitness for Paradise was self-formed. Grace has done it, Divine
   Grace has done it all!

   Adore and bless the Holy Spirit who has worked all your works in you,
   for you are "His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
   which God has before ordained that we should walk in them." Be
   thankful! As the birds created sing to pour out their song. As the
   flowers, the handiwork of God, load the air with their perfume--so
   sing-- and let your lives be all-fragrant with gratitude to Him who has
   worked you to the same thing.

   Another emotion we ought all to feel who have this worked in us is that
   of reverence. When a scholar knows that all he has learned has been
   taught him by his master, he looks up from his master's feet into his
   master's face with respectful reverence and esteem. O reverence the
   Holy Spirit! Let us, in our public ministry, and in our private
   meditations always stand in awe of Him. I am afraid we too much forget
   Him--let us, instead, reverence Him especially by obedience to His
   faintest monitions. As the leaves of the aspen tremble to the faintest
   breath of the wind, so may we tremble to the faintest breath of God's
   Holy Spirit.

   Let us prize the Word of God because He wrote it. Let us love the
   ordinances because He puts life and power into them. Let us love His
   indwelling, and never grieve Him lest He hide His face from us. "He
   that has worked us for the same thing is God." Vex not His Spirit, but
   anxiously ask that He would continue His work, and complete it in
   righteousness.

   Lastly, our heart ought to feel great confidence this morning. If the
   good thing had been worked by ourselves, we might be sure that it would
   fail before long. Nothing of mortal man was ever perfect. But if He
   that has begun the good

   work is God, there is no fear that He will forsake or leave His work
   undone. They shall never say of Him, " He began to build and was not
   able to finish." No war of His was ever undertaken and then given up
   because He had not counted the cost. God has begun, God will complete.
   His promise is "Yes and amen," and never was forfeited yet. Therefore
   let us be well assured, and let our hearts be glad.

   Dear Hearers, the unhappy thing about this is that there are so many
   who have no desires for the blessed hereafter, no fitness for it, no
   earnest of it. Ah, then, the prophecies that are within you--what do
   they foretell? No yearning for Heaven--does not that foretell that
   there is no Heaven for you? No fitness for the Presence of God. What
   does that say? Why, that in the Presence of God you shall not rest.
   Earnest of the Spirit? Why, you almost laugh at the idea. Ah, then, no
   earnest is a proof that there is no reward for you.

   But what then? Will you be annihilated? Will you pass out of this
   existence and cease to be? Dark as were that prospect--yes, dark as
   midnight--yet were it brighter than the fate which the Word of God
   allots you. There will be darkness, but you shall live in it. There
   will be death, but in it you must ceaselessly exist. For if the
   righteous are promised "life eternal," it is also written, "these shall
   go away into everlasting punishment." God save you from such woe by
   leading you to trust the Savior. Then you will confess with us, "He
   that has worked us for the same thing is God," and unto God be the
   glory. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Method and Music, Or the Art of Holy and Happy Living

   (No. 913)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY 30, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord
   Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father by Him." Colossians 3:17.

   IT is always an advantage to have the laws of a kingdom as concise as
   possible. No one will ever be able to tell how much of litigation and
   consequent calamity has been caused in this country by the confused
   condition of our laws. When Napoleon issued his celebrated "Code
   Napoleon," which is an admirable summary of French Law, he conferred
   upon the empire one of the greatest gifts and proved himself a wise
   ruler.

   We want law to be put into such a form that it can be understood, and
   that its application to many cases can be discovered at once. In the
   great moral government of God we have no room to complain in this
   matter--the precepts of holiness are few and comprehensive. First of
   all, the whole of morality was summed up in the Ten Commandments, and
   written upon two tablets. Then, as if this were not concise enough, we
   have the whole Law summarized in two commands, "You shall love the Lord
   your God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself."

   And even this is brought into shorter compass still, for that one word,
   "love," is the essence of all Divine Law. We, as Christians, find in
   the text an instance of the terseness, brevity, and clearness of Divine
   precepts. We have here a Law applicable to every Believer--to every
   action, word and thought--in every place, under all circumstances. And
   yet this comprehensive command is expressed in very few words. It is a
   great advantage to the mechanic to be able to carry with him in a small
   compass his square or rule by which he can adjust his materials,
   discover his errors, design correctly, and estimate his work when
   finished. Without such a rule he would be quite at a loss--with it he
   is ready for work.

   We have before us a compendious rule of life, a standard of morals, a
   guide to holiness which we may carry in our memories without the
   slightest difficulty. And which, if we have but the will to use it,
   will be found never to fail us on any occasion. As the mariner's
   compass or the polestar, so may the text be to us. Here is an
   infallible directory as to the way of holiness--a judge whose decisions
   in the matter of righteousness and Truth none need distrust. Read the
   text over, and then I shall ask you to observe the points in it.
   "Whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord
   Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father by Him."

   Observe, first, holy walking described. In the second part of the verse
   note holy music prescribed. And to enforce the whole text bear with me
   patiently till we close with the third head, which will be holy motive
   inscribed--inscribed, I trust, upon all our hearts.

   I. HOLY WALKING DESCRIBED. "Whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all
   in the name of the Lord Jesus." This rule is not applicable to every
   person here present. It can only be practiced by the regenerate. You
   must be in Christ before you can do anything in Christ's name. Until
   your nature is renewed, until you have submitted yourselves unto the
   righteousness of Christ, until Christ is formed in you the hope of
   Glory, you are not capable of walking after this high and hallowed
   fashion. "You must be born again."

   The precept demanding your immediate attention is not the precept of
   this text but another. The words of Peter, in the Acts of the Apostles,
   are for you, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of
   Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift
   of the Holy Spirit." Or this, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
   you shall be saved." You must begin at the beginning. It will but
   mislead you if I exhort you to walk as Believers before you have
   received the inner life. The root must be changed before the fruit can
   be bettered. You need a radical change, my unconverted Hearer, and you
   must have it or perish forever.

   Do not imagine that any imitation of Christian manners will save
   you--do not conceive that hanging upon your lifeless branches the
   semblance of fruits will transform you into a tree of righteousness,
   the planting of the Lord. Oh, no, the sap within you must be changed.
   The life of God must be infused into your soul. You must be made one
   with Christ, or you cannot serve Him. This precept, belongs, therefore,
   to none of you who have not believed in Christ Jesus! But it belongs to
   all of you, without exception, who are named by the name of Jesus
   Christ in Truth and sincerity. To all of you who have submitted
   yourselves to His government and are trusting in Him for salvation. You
   will listen, I trust, and give earnest heed to this message from your
   Beloved.

   What, then, does this mean, that we are to do everything both in word
   and deed in the name of the Lord Jesus? Answer--there are six points in
   which this precept requires reverent care. First, do all through the
   office and name of Christ as Mediator. You as a Christian are bound to
   offer daily praise. You should often lift up your heart in grateful
   songs and Psalms to God--but see to it that you do all this work of
   praise in the name of the Lord Jesus. No praise of yours can be sweet
   with God except it is presented through your great High Priest. Bring,
   therefore, your gifts of thankfulness to this altar which sanctifies
   the giver and the gift, and ever bless God through Jesus Christ.

   You are also to abound in prayer. It is your vital breath. You cannot
   flourish as a Christian unless you constantly draw near to God in
   supplication. But your supplications must always be presented through
   the name of Jesus Christ. His name gives prevalence to prayer. It is
   not so much your earnestness or sincerity as His precious blood that
   speaks in the ears of God and intercedes for you. Pray always, then,
   with your eyes upon the finished Propitiation and the living
   Intercessor. Always plead the merits of Immanuel, and Heaven's gate
   shall open to you.

   In addition to your prayers and praises, you are bound to serve Him
   according to the abilities entrusted to you in teaching the ignorant
   the way of salvation, in bringing in the unconverted, and in edifying
   the saints. But remember that your service to God in these respects can
   only be acceptable as you present it through the name of Jesus Christ.
   The hand of the Crucified One must offer for you the sweet cane which
   you have bought with money, and the fat of all your sacrifices. If you
   could give to God all the wealth that you possess, all the time of your
   mortal existence, all the talents with which you have been endowed--if
   you could do this from now on without a failure--if you did not present
   the offering through Jesus Christ it would be as though you had done
   nothing.

   Your burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings would have no acceptance
   with Jehovah, for your sinful nature pollutes them all. How necessary
   it is, then, that we should often pause in our holy work, and say, "I
   am doing this for God, but am I presenting it in the appointed way? If
   I see anything of merit in what I am doing, I am acting contrary to the
   Gospel rule and I shall be rejected. I must bring all my work to the
   High Priest of my profession and offer it through

   Him."--

   "The iniquity of all our holy things Is cleansed by His blood, which
   covers all, And adds a rich perfume divinely sweet, Winning acceptance
   at the Throne of God For broken prayers, and faulty songs, and even For
   service marred with sad infirmities." Take heed, dear Hearer, that you
   see the blood sprinkled on your service for God. Almost all things
   under the Law were sanctified by blood, and all things under the
   Gospel, without exception, must be thus made sweet to God. The atoning
   sacrifice, the prevalent intercession of the one appointed Mediator,
   Christ Jesus, must be constantly before our minds in all that we
   attempt to do for our Lord God. Let us never forget this lest we
   utterly fail.

   A second meaning of this precept is, "Do all under the authority of the
   Lord Jesus as your King." Say of such-and-such a doubtful or evil
   action, "This I cannot do. I could not feel that I was authorized to do
   it by any precept or example of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This I
   cannot do, for I should be stepping aside from the allegiance which I
   owe to Him. Therefore this I will not do, be the consequences what they
   may of loss or of suffering. I am not authorized by Christ to follow
   this course, neither will I, come fair, come foul."

   On the other hand, when the act is allowed in Scripture, and only
   forbidden by the traditions of men, you may safely say, "This I feel
   that I may do. I see my Master has laid down no restrictions, therefore
   I will submit to no human traditions or regulations. The commands which
   will-worship would inflict upon me I cast to the wind, for
   superfluities of pretended holiness are but superfluities of
   naughtiness." When positive duty is concerned, your language will be,
   "This ac-

   tion I find that I must do, for I see an express command for
   it--therefore, by His Grace, it shall be done. Be it difficult, it
   shall be achieved. Be it impossible, I will wait on Him who enables
   faith to remove mountains."

   O that every Christian were altogether and evermore obedient to
   heavenly rule! As the planet revolves undeviatingly in its orbit,
   because with the law imposed upon it there has come forth a
   constraining and impelling force--so may we also pursue our course of
   duty, because we have not only heard the Divine precept--but feel the
   sacred energy of the Holy Spirit leading us in the prescribed path.
   Brethren, how safe we feel, and how happy in our consciences, if we are
   certain that we have the authority of the Great King for all our
   actions! The business of a Christian upon earth is not an independent
   one. He is not acting on his own account, but he is a steward for
   Christ.

   What if I compare him to a commission agent who is sent abroad by his
   firm with full powers from his employer to transact business for the
   house which he represents? He is not to trade for himself, but he
   agrees to do all in the name of the firm which commissions him. He
   receives his instructions and all he has to do is to carry them out.
   His whole time and talent being by express agreement at the absolute
   disposal of his employers. Now, if this man shall lend himself to an
   opposition firm, or trade on his own account, he is not true to his
   engagements and he has to bear the responsibility of his acts. But so
   long as he acts for his firm, and does his best, his course is an easy
   and safe one.

   If he follows the instructions of his principals he is eased of all
   responsibility. Should his trade be profitable or otherwise, he need
   not be vexed with anxieties, provided he has diligently followed the
   commands received from home. His acts are authorized from headquarters,
   and they are, therefore, safe for him. He falls back on his principals
   who gave him the commands, and in whose name he acted.

   Now if we serve ourselves or the world, we must take the consequences
   of our unfaithfulness. But if we honestly serve the Lord, all is clear.
   When a Christian can say concerning any course of conduct, "I am bid to
   do this by Christ Jesus my Lord--I can find chapter and verse to
   authorize my acts." When he can feel that he is working for Christ and
   not for himself--with a single eye to the glory of God, and not with
   sinister aims and selfish motives--then he treads as on a rock, and
   defies the censures of his enemies. Let us, then, take good heed to our
   Lord's words, and walk carefully in His commands, for then His
   authority protects us, and every tongue that rises against us in
   judgment we shall condemn.

   This rule of acting under the authority of Christ is applicable in an
   emphatic sense to those who are called to special service in the
   kingdom of Christ. Every man is called to do all the good he can, but
   some men are set apart to labor in peculiar departments of Christian
   work--and these should be doubly careful to do all in their Master's
   name. If a man were sinking through the rotten ice, any one of us would
   be authorized to do all we could to save him. But the iceman, who is
   appointed on purpose that he may save lives, has a peculiar authority
   for anything that he takes upon himself to do in the way of rescuing
   the drowning. He has the name of the Royal Humane Society at his back.

   If a stranded ship were breaking up and the crew were ready to perish,
   we are all of us authorized to do all we can to save the shipwrecked.
   But the men who belong to the lifeboat's appointed crew have a right to
   come to the fore and take the oars and put out to sea. They are
   authorized to lead the way in daring and danger. So, my Brethren, those
   of you who have felt the Divine call within you, the sacred impulse
   which compels you to devote yourself to the salvation of your fellow
   men, you may do it boldly and without apology.

   Your authority is from Christ, for the Holy Spirit has set you apart
   for the work. Let no man hinder or dispirit you. Press forward to the
   front rank in self-denying labor. Call it not impertinence, O you
   carping critics! It is but holy courage which brings earliest hearts to
   the fore. Push to the very front, you men of God, filled with daring
   and self-sacrifice--for if others should impute your zeal to evil
   motives, the Lord who reads the heart understands you--and having given
   you a commission He will not fail to vindicate His faithful servants.

   A third sense of the text is important. We should do all under the
   sanction of the Lord Jesus as our Exemplar. It is an admirable course
   for us all to pursue, if when we find ourselves in circumstances of
   perplexity we ask ourselves the question, "What would Jesus Christ have
   done if He were in my circumstances?" The answer to that question is
   the solution of your difficulty. Whatever He would have done it will be
   safe enough for you to do. It is certain that He would not have been
   unbelieving. Equally certain that He would not have done a wrong thing
   to deliver Himself. We are also sure that He would not have been
   impatient, rebellious, or despairing--nor would He have grown wrathful
   or morose.

   Well then, I know what I must not be and it may be possible to learn my
   positive, as well as my negative behavior from the same Guide. I shall
   be able to discover by turning over the pages of the Evangelists some
   portion of the Savior's

   life very like my own. What He was in that situation I must pray for
   Divine Grace that I may be, and I shall certainly be led in the path of
   wisdom. The royal rule for a Christian is not what is fashionable, for
   we are not to be conformed to this world. It is not what is gainful,
   for the pursuit of gain would lead us to run greedily in the way of
   Balaam for reward.

   It is not that which is generally prescribed in society, for full often
   the prescriptions of society are antagonistic to the teachings of
   Christ. Not even the conduct of professors, for too many even among
   them walk as Paul tells us even weeping, as the enemies of the Cross of
   Christ. Alas, my Brethren, the current holiness of the Church falls far
   below the Scriptural standard! Neither are the common rules of action
   among professors such as we could safely follow. A safe example is to
   be found nowhere but in the life of Jesus Christ Himself. Even the
   holiest of men are only to be followed so far as they follow Christ,
   but no further.

   My Brethren, how calm will your hearts be, how serenely will you face
   your afflictions if you can feel, "I have done nothing but what my
   Master did before me. I have sought to tread in the footprints of His
   pilgrimage!" Why, you must be safe, you must be accepted if you do as
   Jesus did--for never can Christ's example lead a simple soul astray--

   "It is always safe for souls to follow on Where Christ their holy
   Shepherd leads the way." Furthermore, as we are to do all through the
   office of Christ as Mediator, within the authority of Christ as King,
   under the sanction of Christ as Exemplar, so we should do everything to
   the glory of the Lord Jesus as our Lord and God.

   When the Spanish mariners were traversing the seas upon voyages of
   discovery they never touched upon new land, whether an insignificant
   island or a part of the main continent, without at once setting up the
   standard of Ferdinand and Isabella, and taking possession of the soil
   in the name of their Catholic Majesties of Spain. Wherever the
   Christian goes, his first thought should be to take possession of all
   hearts in the name of the Lord Jesus, consecrating all opportunities
   and influences to the Redeemer's service. Such common things as eating
   and drinking become, by the giving of devout thanks, consecrated to
   Christ's name. There is no action which is lawful, however commonplace
   it may be, but may be sanctified by the Word of God and prayer.

   If the intense desire of our spirit shall be that we may glorify God as
   long as we are in this body, we shall find ways and means of
   accomplishing our object--and the Holy Spirit will help our
   infirmities. My dear Brethren, our soul's desires should be always true
   to Christ--most chastely faithful so as not to tolerate any carnal
   motive or self-seeking. How easily do we give place to
   self-glorification! How almost insensibly do we expect to receive honor
   of men! It is very hard to keep ourselves clear of self-seeking under
   some form or other--for even self-denial may be used with an object
   which is the reverse of self-denial.

   The old philosopher, seeing a fool in fine apparel, pointed at him, and
   said, "that's pride," but he was equally right when seeing certain
   Spartans who affected to dress meanly, he said, "and that's pride."
   Pride often stands in the doorway, but it can as readily hide in the
   corner. There is a pride of self-sacrifice and a pride of apparent
   humility, which is everyway as haughty as vainglory itself.

   Dear Friends, we must live for Christ, cost us what it may of
   watchfulness. We must not fail here. We dare not live for a party, or a
   sect, or even altogether for any one Church, however dear to us. We may
   live for the Truth, but only because God is glorified thereby. First
   and last, in the middle and everywhere, the constraining thought of
   Christian life should be, "all for Jesus."--

   "All for the Master, all without reserve, All to the utmost of our
   manhood's might Each pulse, each throb of heart and thrill of nerve,
   Each hour of busy day and silent night."

   Beloved, it is delightful to know that Christ is all mine, and I am all
   Christ's. It is a holy aspiration to desire to enjoy as much of Christ
   as our nature can receive, and then to exhibit as much of Christ as
   Divine Grace can enable us to reveal. "Everything for Jesus." "Christ
   all and in all Christ." Let these be the mottoes of every Believer.
   "Whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord
   Jesus." Aim in all you do to do if for His Glory.

   The fifth point is, do all in the strength of the Lord Jesus as your
   Helper. With Him is the residue of the Spirit. And the Spirit of God is
   the Believer's power. "Without Me you can do nothing," says our Lord.
   We know the truth of that saying by unwise attempts which have ended in
   mournful failures. But let us in the future remember this Truth of God
   practically. Never let us commence a work without seeking strength from
   on High. We go about Christian service very

   often as though we felt ourselves quite up to the mark for it. We pray
   without asking the preparation of the heart from

   God.

   We sing--ah, my Brethren, how universally is it so--without at all
   entreating the Holy Spirit to quicken our praises. And I fear some of
   us must confess sorrowfully that we preach at times as though the
   preaching were to be our work and not the work of the Holy Spirit
   through us. Do not you, as hearers, too often listen to the Word as if
   the mere hearing of it would do you good, or as if the speech of
   such-and-such a man would be certainly blessed to you? Shouldn't you,
   instead, wait upon God beforehand that your going up to the assembly
   might be profitable to your souls? Do all in the Master's strength, and
   how differently everything will be done!

   Acknowledge all the time you are at your work that your strength comes
   from the Lord alone. Never let the thought cross your mind that you, as
   an experienced Christian, have a fitness for the work peculiarly your
   own--so that you can dispense with prayers for Divine aid, so necessary
   to the young! Never imagine that because through long years you have
   performed a service with acceptance that you can therefore now do it
   without renewed help. This is the way by which we sink into routine,
   degenerate into religious automata, and become like formalists and
   hypocrites. This is the way in which the power of God and the vitality
   of godliness are rendered so rare in the Churches.

   If we do not feel conscious day by day of abiding weakness and
   consequent need of fresh strength from the Most High, we shall soon
   cease to be full of Divine Grace. Write this upon the tablets of your
   heart, "All my fresh springs are in You," and from this day forward in
   word and deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus--and you will derive
   all your spiritual energy from Him, the Source.

   Sixthly, we should do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, for He should
   be the element in which we live. It is said of the modern Greeks that
   whatever may be their faults mentally, they are faultless physically,
   for you never saw a Greek peasant in an ungraceful attitude, however
   much he might be off his guard and unconscious of your gaze.
   Gracefulness is a part of the Greek nature. So let the Lord Jesus
   Christ be so woven and intertwisted into your very self that you cannot
   be otherwise than Christ-like under any circumstances. Lord, grant us
   this. It would be a glorious thing to be saturated through and through
   with the spirit of Christ, so as to live Christ evermore.

   That eminent ornithologist, M. Audubon, who produced accurate drawings
   and descriptions of all the birds of the American Continent, made the
   perfection of that work the one object of his life. In order to achieve
   this he had to earn his own living by painting portraits, and other
   labors. He had to traverse frozen seas, forests, canebrakes, jungles,
   prairies, mountains, swollen rivers, and pestilential bogs. He exposed
   himself to perils of every sort and underwent hardships of every kind.
   Now, whatever Audubon was doing, he was fighting his way toward his one
   object--the production of his history of American birds. Whether he was
   painting a lady's portrait, paddling a canoe, shooting a raccoon, or
   felling a tree--his one goal was his bird book.

   He had said to himself, "I mean to carve my name among the naturalists
   as having produced a complete ornithological work of America." This
   resolution ate him up and subdued his whole life. He accomplished his
   work because he gave himself wholly to it. This is the way in which the
   Christian man should make Christ his element. All that he does should
   be subservient to this one thing--"That I may finish my course with
   joy, that I may deliver my testimony for Christ, that I may glorify God
   whether I live or die."

   We have thus seen what it is to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.
   Let us stop a moment to remind you that this text administers a severe
   rebuke to many professed Christians. Too many Church members do nothing
   in Christ's name. Since the day when they were baptized into the name
   of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, they have done
   nothing else in that name. Ah, hypocrites! Ah, hypocrites! God have
   mercy upon you! Alas, how many others do but very little in Christ's
   name! I noted in a letter, by a certain pastor--not, I think, given to
   speaking severely, this remark--that he did not think in his own Church
   one in three of the members were doing anything for Christ.

   I could not speak so sorrowfully as that concerning you, but I much
   fear that a large proportion of the strength of this Church is not used
   for the Lord. I believe that there is more used here than in almost any
   other Church, but still there is a great deal of wasted steam, a great
   deal of buried talent, and thereby Jesus is defrauded. I noticed in an
   American paper an observation made concerning the Baptist Churches of
   North Carolina. A man acquainted with them said, "There are a hundred
   thousand members reported in the various associations. There are a
   hundred thousand baptized persons, and seventy-five thousand of them
   are only 'baptized dead heads.' "

   It is an American term, but I am afraid we shall have to import it, for
   it is frightfully true that numbers of professors are just so many
   "baptized dead heads." They are of no use. They are not working. They
   are perhaps grumbling--the only sign of life they have--but they are
   neither giving of their substance nor laying out any other talents in
   the cause of Christ. If there are any such present, I pray that this
   text may be a thorn in your side and act as a spur to you. And may you
   from this day on do all that lies in your power in the name of the Lord
   Jesus.

   The text also rebukes those Christians who do much in the name of some
   eminent Christian man. I shall not censure any particular denomination,
   but if the Truth censures them, let them hear it. When George Whitfield
   refused to form a new sect, and said, "Let my name perish, and let
   Christ's name last forever," he acted as his Lord would have him. Paul
   was not crucified for you, neither did Apollos die for you! Therefore
   take none of these names--but let the name of Christ be named among
   you--and under that name be known!

   Though there is a Lutheran Church, it was a good saying of Luther,
   though couched in rugged words, "I desire above all things that my name
   should be concealed. That none be called by the name of Lutheran, but
   of Christian. What is Luther? My doctrine is not mine, but Christ's. I
   was not crucified for any. How comes it to pass, that I, who am but a
   filthy, stinking bag of worms, that any of the sons of God should be
   denominated from my name? Away with these schismatic names. Let us be
   denominated from Christ, from Whom alone we have our doctrine." It
   shall be well for all Churches when they are ruled by the like spirit.
   Names which indicate their difference of doctrine will probably survive
   till Christ comes, but the names of men they will do well to discard.

   Once more--what a rebuke is our text to those professors who dishonor
   the name under which they profess to live! The Spaniards in America
   acted so cruelly, and with such a dreadful lust for gold, that when
   they sent their missionaries to convert the Indians, the Indians wished
   only to know whether the religion that was taught them was the religion
   of the Spaniards--for if it were they should like to believe something
   the very opposite. And if there was no Heaven but where the Spaniards
   went, they would sooner go to Hell than be with them.

   Truly some professors' lives give much the same savor to the Christian
   religion. Men say, "Are these Christians, these mean, covetous,
   quarrelsome, domineering, boastful people? Then we will sooner be
   infidels than Christians." Out upon you, you caricatures of godliness!
   If there is one such here, may his conscience prick him. You have
   crucified the Lord afresh, and put Him to an open shame. How dreadful
   will be your punishment if you die in your present state! Repent of
   your sin and ask of God Grace to make your profession sincere.

   And if you will not do this, at least be honest enough to give up your
   false profession--for you do but degrade it and yourself. There is no
   necessity, surely, to add to your innumerable sins, this sin of
   hypocrisy. What do you gain by it? No, Sir, if you must serve mammon
   and the devil, serve them. But why with supererogation of iniquity must
   you pretend to serve Christ?

   II. We leave this first point, and find in the second part of the text,
   HOLY MUSIC PRESCRIBED. "Giving thanks

   unto God the Father by Him." Soldiers march best to battle when the
   trumpet and drum excite them with enlivening strains. The mariner
   brightens his toil by a cheery cry at every pull of the rope. And it is
   an excellent thing when Christian men know how to sing as well as to
   work, and mingle holy music with holy service. The best music of a
   Christian consists in thankfulness to God.

   Thanks should be rendered by the Believer with all the acts common to
   men. Our eating, our drinking, our social meetings, our quiet
   conversations with one with another--in all we should give thanks unto
   God the Father. This we should do in the labors peculiar to our
   vocation. Whatever your trade and calling may be, if you cannot sing
   aloud, you can sing in your hearts while your hands are busy. You can
   ring out the praises of God as well to the sound of the hammer on the
   anvil as to the peal of the organ. Your feet at the sewing machine may
   beat time to a sacred tune.

   You can as well praise God while you crack your whip as when you sing a
   Psalm. Why not? If the heart is right you can mount up to the heavens
   from any place or labor. Whatever your calling may be you shall find
   some peculiarity in it which shall help you to magnify God, if you will
   but use a spiritual eye to discover it.

   We ought especially to praise God in the exercise of our religion.
   Whenever the assemblies of God's people meet, there should be much of
   holy joy. Some people are so afraid of joy that one might suppose them
   to labor under the delusion that all who are devout must also be
   unhappy. If we worshipped Baal, to lance ourselves with knives were
   most fitting. If we were worshippers of Juggernaut or Kalee,
   self-inflicted tortures might be acceptable. If we adored the pope, it

   might be proper for us to wear a hair shirt and practice flagellation.
   But we worship the ever-blessed God, whose delight is to make His
   creatures happy!

   Holy happiness is a part of worship, and joy in the Lord one of the
   accepted Graces of the Holy Spirit. Brethren, let us be happy when we
   praise God. I have noticed with pain the way in which people will get
   rid, if they can, of happy words out of their hymns. The hundredth
   Psalm for instance, runs thus--

   "All people that on earth do dwell,

   Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice,

   Him serve with_"

   What? Well, they modernize it into--

   "Him serve with fear." But, as I believe, the older form is--

   "Him serve with mirth, His praise forth tell,

   Come you before Him and rejoice." I am amazed some other scribe did not
   cut out the word "cheerful," and put in--

   "Sing to the Lord with doleful voice." In this way the Psalm might have
   been "improved" until there would not have been a grain of worship left
   in it. I mean to sing it, "Him serve with mirth." And with a glad and
   merry heart will I praise my God. If you are His child, rejoice in your
   Father's Presence. If you are pardoned, rejoice in the mercy that
   washed away your sins. Even if you are tried and troubled, rejoice that
   your afflictions are working together for your good! "Rejoice in the
   Lord always. And again I say, Rejoice."

   The text tells us under what aspect we should regard God when we are
   thus thanking Him, "Giving thanks unto God the Father," blessing Him
   that He stands in that relation to us as well as to the Lord Jesus. The
   belief in the Divine fatherhood will surely make the sons of God happy.
   It is instructive to observe that thanks are directed to be offered
   especially to the Father. I suppose because we are most apt to forget
   to praise the Father. We love Jesus Christ for dying for us. We forget
   not the Holy Spirit because He dwells in us. But the common idea of the
   Father is dishonoring to Him.

   Is He not regarded as all Justice, and seldom as the Fountain of Love?
   Now, it is the Father who stands at the back of all in the eternal
   purpose. It is the Father who gave the Son to die. It is the Father who
   justifies us through the righteousness of Christ, and adopts us into
   His family. The Father is equally to be loved and worshipped with the
   Spirit and the Son. And through Jesus Christ we should come to God, the
   terrible God as He was to us in our ungodliness, and worship Him as the
   Father now with thankful joy, because of the mercies we have received.

   The gist of this second precept is that you stir up your hearts, my
   dear Friends, to the cultivation of a cheerful spirit. That you excite
   that cheerful spirit to the use of thankful words, telling your friends
   and neighbors of the goodness of God to you. These words should be
   oftentimes elevated into songs. These songs should, as on wings of
   flame, ascend up to where perfect spirits praise God both day and
   night. O, we that love the Savior, do not neglect this, "Whoso offers
   praise glorifies God." Glorify Him, then.

   This praise, this cheerful spirit wins others. They, marking how you
   give thanks, will be attracted to your Savior and your God--while you
   will strengthen yourselves, also--for "the joy of the Lord is your
   strength." Despondency and murmuring will hamper you in all your
   efforts to glorify Christ, but to maintain an inward spring of
   thanksgiving is one of the best ways to keep yourselves in spiritual
   health. God help you, then, to carry out both these precepts--

   "Work and praise! Hearts upraise!

   Drink your fill of joy!

   Happy they who all the day

   Spend in Christ's employ.

   For their song makes them strong,

   Ready for their toil;

   And their mirth, not of earth,

   Sorrow cannot spoil."

   III. A few words upon the third point, namely, HOLY MOTIVE TO BE
   INSCRIBED upon our hearts to secure obedience. These motives are four.
   A word on each.

   Beloved in Christ, you have received all you have from God the Father
   through Christ. That you are not in Hell is due to His longsuffering.
   That you have been spiritually quickened is due to His gracious
   operation. That you are pardoned is due to His precious blood. Owing
   all to Him, what arises in your mind but gratitude? And what is the
   dictate of gratitude? Does it not teach you that it is your reasonable
   service to surrender yourselves to Him who bought you at such a price?
   For, ah, what a return it will be--how poor compared with what He has
   done for you! If you give your body to be burned for Him, yet He
   deserves infinitely more than all the sacrifices of the most painful
   death to recompense His stoop from the highest Throne in Glory to the
   Cross of the deepest woe. Let your gratitude compel you to do
   everything for Jesus.

   Reflect, too, that the Well-Beloved for whom I plead today is worthy.
   "Him has God the Father exalted." Do you object to that exaltation?
   Should you not rather rejoice in it? Is not that song most true --

   "Worthy is He that once was slain, The Prince of Peace that groaned and
   died; Worthy to rise, and live, and reign, AtHis Almighty Father's
   side"? Will you deny, then, to Christ that which He is worthy to
   receive? He deserves the crowns of angels, and the songs of all the
   perfected! Will you not give Him the best you have, even your hearts? I
   appeal to the justice which I trust governs your judgment--should not
   Jesus Christ be the one object of your life?

   Further, many of us here present have professed to be His disciples. We
   remember well the day when we were buried with Him in Baptism unto
   death. We voluntarily came forward and we took upon ourselves to be
   immersed in His name, copying His example and obeying His command. If
   that act meant anything, it meant this--that we professed ourselves to
   be dead henceforth to the world and risen with Christ. Now, by the
   profession then made, by the communion then enjoyed, I pray you, my
   dear Brothers and Sisters, whatever you do in word or deed, do all in
   the Master's name. Let not this appeal to your honor be forgotten.

   Lastly, I need not thus plead with some of you, for your hearts are
   pleading with you. I know you love Him whose name is as ointment poured
   forth. I know how the tendrils of your heart have entwined themselves
   about His Cross. His Person fixes all your love. You are only happy
   when you are walking in communion with Him. He is the sun of your soul,
   without whom you cannot live. Well, then, do what love dictates--bring
   forth the alabaster box of ointment, break it, pour the sacred nard
   upon His head, and if any ask, "Why is this waste?" say that He is
   worthy of it--and that you love much because you have had much
   forgiven.

   This day bring forth the best that is within your store, the spiced
   wine of your pomegranate, and set it before your Lord, while Jesus sups
   with you and you with Him. Again I say arouse yourselves to live at a
   more vigorous rate, and let the whole of the force and energy that
   dwells within you, and all that you can borrow from the seventh Heaven,
   be given up to Him who loved you and gave Himself for you. May my
   Master's blessing be with these words, to all who hear or read them,
   for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Work in Us and Work by Us

   (No. 914)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 6, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Whereunto I also labor, striving according to His working, which works
   in me mightily." Colossians 1:29.

   THE Apostle Paul could very truthfully assert that he labored and
   agonized. When the Holy Spirit had anointed the Apostles they all
   became ardent enthusiasts for the spread of the Redeemer's kingdom.
   Having the whole world committed to them that they might enlighten it,
   they labored most ardently--each one in his sphere to spread abroad the
   Truth of the Gospel--but the Apostle of the Gentiles labored more
   abundantly than they all. Into how many countries did he carry the
   testimony of Christ? How often did he cross the sea, traverse
   mountains, and ford rivers?

   One sees in his career something more than an ordinary Christian life.
   He was so indefatigable in service that surely, nothing beyond could
   have been possible to humanity, even under the help of God. His public
   labors were not only abundant, but they were the cause of continual
   inward conflict. He never preached a sermon, wrote an Epistle, or
   attempted a work without earnest prayer and soul-consuming zeal. Night
   and day with tears he said of a certain Church that he had labored for
   its good. He was a man so whole-hearted and intense in all that he did,
   that we ought to remember not merely the amount of his labors, but the
   way in which he wore himself out by the intensity of his zeal in them.

   Probably no other man led a more intensely ardent life than he.
   Moreover, added to all this, he carried a weight of care enough to
   crush him. For there came upon him the care of all the Churches--to
   plant them, to defend them against rising errors, to prevent schisms
   from dividing the flock. To lead the converts from Grace to Grace, to
   instruct them, and to present everyone perfect before God. The burden
   resting upon the Apostle was greater than the cares of an empire.

   And then, as if to complete the whole, he was called to suffer
   persecutions of which he has given us a list. A list of which, as we
   read it, makes us shudder that one man should have endured so much--and
   makes us also glory in humanity that it should be possible that so much
   should be borne and done for God by a single individual.

   Yet, note it well, the Apostle takes no honor to himself. He humbly
   ascribes whatever he had done, or suffered, entirely to his Lord. He
   declares that he labored and agonized, but he confesses that it was
   through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who mightily by the Holy
   Spirit worked in him. In another place, when he had mentioned his
   abundant labors, he added, "Yet not I, but the Grace of God which was
   with me." He remembered where to put the crown. He took care not to
   steal an atom of the glory for himself. He ascribed all to the power of
   Him who loved him and gave Himself for him.

   Let us imitate the Apostle in these two things. My Brethren, let us
   live, while we live, a life of energy. But let us at the same time
   confess, when we have done all, that we are unprofitable servants. And
   if there is any glory, any praise resulting from the work which we
   achieve, let us be careful to lay it all at the Redeemer's feet.

   The doctrine of the text upon which I intend to preach this morning, as
   I may be enabled, is this--it is clear from what Paul has here said
   that the work of Christ in us and for us does not exempt as from work
   and service, nor does the Holy Spirit's work supersede human effort,
   but rather excites it. Paul speaks of an inner work, a mighty work
   worked in him, but he also declares, "whereunto I also labor,
   striving." So that the doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit is not
   intended in any degree to lull our minds into sloth, but wherever the
   Holy Spirit works He makes men work.

   He works in us to will and to do of His own good pleasure, that we also
   may work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. I shall try to
   illustrate this Truth in two respects. First, in reference to a man's
   own salvation. And secondly, in the matter of the Christian man's
   ministry for the salvation of others. The work of the Holy Spirit does
   not supersede Christian effort in either case.

   I. First, then, IN THE BELIEVER'S SALVATION. We believe, each one of
   us, and we have Scriptural warrant for it, that if any man is saved,
   the work within his soul is entirely worked by the Holy Spirit. Man is
   dead in sin, and the dead cannot raise themselves from the grave.
   Quickening and spiritual resurrection must be accomplished by Divine
   power. Man must be born again, and this birth must be effected by
   Divine power, for unless a man is born from Above, he cannot see the
   kingdom of God.

   As the commencement of salvation is dependent upon the Holy Spirit, so
   is the carrying of it on. "Without Me you can do nothing," is Christ's
   testimony. We shall never persevere except as Grace shall keep us from
   falling, nor may we hope to be presented faultless before the august
   Presence except as the Holy Spirit shall sanctify us from day to day,
   and make us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in
   light. I trust, my Brethren, I need not do more than assert this
   doctrine in your hearing, since you know how continually we insist upon
   it, and our trumpet never gives an uncertain sound as to the great
   Truth that God works all our works in us, and that salvation is of the
   Lord from first to last.

   But at this present time we intend to insist upon this further Truth of
   God--that the working of the Holy Spirit in us does not exempt the
   Believer from the most energetic labor, but rather necessitates his
   doing all that lies in him. To enforce this we remark, first, that the
   Christian life is always described as a thing of energy. Sometimes we
   read of it as a pilgrimage. That master allegorist, John Bunyan, has
   not pictured Christian as carried to Heaven while asleep in an easy
   chair. He makes Christian lose his burden at the foot of the Cross.

   He ascribes the deliverance of the man from the burden of his sin
   entirely to the Lord Jesus, but he represents him as climbing the Hill
   Difficulty. Yes, and on his hands and knees, too, Christian has to
   descend into the Valley of Humiliation, and to tread that dangerous
   pathway through the gloomy horrors of the Shadow of Death. He has to be
   urgently watchful to keep himself from sleeping in the Enchanted
   Ground. Nowhere is he delivered from the necessities incident to the
   way, for even at the last he fords the black river and struggles with
   its terrible billows.

   Effort is used all the way through, and you that are pilgrims to the
   skies will find it to be no allegory, but a real matter of fact. Your
   soul must gird up her loins. You need your pilgrim's staff and armor,
   and you must foot it all the way to Heaven, contending with giants,
   fighting with lions, and combating Apollyon himself.

   Our life is in Scripture represented as a race which is even sterner
   work than pilgrimage. In such footraces as were witnessed among the
   Greeks, in every case the man spent all the strength there was in him,
   and underwent a training beforehand that he might be fit for the
   contest. It sometimes happened, and indeed not seldom, that men fell
   dead at the winning-post, through their extreme exertions. Running to
   Heaven is such running as that--we are to strain every nerve. We shall
   require all the power we have, and more, in order to win that
   incorruptible crown which now glitters before the eyes of our faith. If
   we are so to run that we may obtain, we shall have no energy to spare,
   but shall spend it all in our heavenly course.

   Not infrequently the Apostle compares our spiritual life to a boxing
   match, and the terms in the original Greek, if they were translated
   into pure vernacular English, would remind us very much of a boxing
   ring and of the place where wrestlers strive for mastery. To wit, in
   that notable passage, "I keep under my body," we are told by scholars
   that the Greek word alludes to the getting of the antagonist's head
   under the arm and dealing it heavy blows. So the flesh must be
   mortified. Now the wrestlers in the Greek and Roman games strained
   every muscle and sinew, too--there was no part of the body that was not
   brought into action to overthrow their adversary.

   For this they agonized till often blood would spurt from the nostrils,
   and veins would burst. Such, in a spiritual sense, must be the agony of
   a Christian if he is to overcome temptation and subdue the power of
   sin. Ah Brethren, it is no child's play to win Heaven! Saved, as I
   repeat it, through the power of Christ's blood and with the energy of
   His Holy Spirit within us, yet we have no time to loiter, no space in
   which to trifle. We must labor, striving according to His working who
   works in us mightily. All the figures which represent the Christian
   life imply the most energetic exertion.

   Secondly, be it remarked that there is no illustration used in
   Scripture to set forth the heavenly life which allows the supposition
   that in any case Heaven is won by sloth. I do not remember ever finding
   in Scripture the life of the Christian described as a slumber. To the
   sluggard I find a warning always--thorns and thistles in his
   garden--and rags and disease in his person. "The hand of the diligent
   makes rich." There may be occasional opportunities by which even idle
   men may become wealthy, but such spiritual wealth I have never heard
   of. I find that wherever the Spirit of God comes upon

   men, it never leaves a saved man effortless or fruitless, but as soon
   as it descends upon him, according to his capacity he begins to work
   out his own salvation.

   Remember the question of the inspired writer, "Likewise also was not
   Rahab, the harlot, justified by works, when she had received the
   messengers, and had sent them out another way?" Her faith saved her.
   And though it was very weak and very ignorant faith, it made her
   work--and therefore she hid the spies to save their lives. Look at the
   dying thief, with his hands and feet fastened to the wood, and ready to
   expire, yet he rebuked the reviling malefactor. Thus doing all he
   possibly could for his Lord, in Whom he trusted for salvation, what
   more could he have done? It May be said of him, "He has done what he
   could." It shall be well if as much can be said for us.

   No, Brethren, you cannot be carried to Heaven on "flowery beds of
   ease." You must fight if you would reign. You must stem the flood, you
   must breast the waves if you mean to reach the further shore. Divine
   Grace will help you, else were the work an impossibility. But even with
   the aid of Divine Grace you are not permitted to slumber into Glory,
   nor sleep your way to the celestial throne. You must be up and doing,
   watching diligently, lest any man fail of the Grace of God. The trumpet
   sounds, and not the dulcimer--the call is to conflict--not to feasting.

   I would next bid you note, dear Friends, that it is natural it should
   be so. It is unavoidable in the nature of things that when the Holy
   Spirit comes He should not beget a spirit of slumber, but awaken us to
   diligent action. It is natural, I say, because one of the first results
   of the Holy Spirit's entrance into a man's heart is to let him see his
   sin and his danger. If I feel myself guilty and perceive that God is
   angry with me and that I shall be cast by-and-by into the Lake of Fire,
   what is the inevitable result? Shall I not hear a voice crying, "Escape
   for your life! Look not behind you! Stay not in all the plain"?

   Wherever the Holy Spirit works a sense of sin, the sinner is
   constrained to cry, "What must I do to be saved?" Never does the Spirit
   effectually show a man his sin and then leave him to fold his arms and
   ask for "a little more sleep and a little more slumber." No, the
   awakened soul exclaims, "I am guilty, I am accursed of God. How can I
   escape? Lord help me, help me now to find rest if rest is to be found!"
   Then the Holy Spirit farther reveals to us the excellence of the
   salvation of Christ, the happiness of those who rest in Jesus, the
   future reward of such as serve God on earth.

   And what is the result? The enlightened soul cries, "I desire to find
   this pearl of great price! I desire to be enriched by an interest in
   Christ! I too, would, with the blessed, take my everlasting heritage."
   Don't you see, then, that the Holy Spirit cannot make a man appreciate
   salvation without at the same time creating a desire to gain it? And
   out of which desire arises prayer for the promised blessing. After a
   man has found Christ to the pardon of his sin, the Holy Spirit is
   pleased to endear Christ more and more to him. It is the office of the
   spirit to take of the things of Christ and show them to us.

   Now, my Brethren, you know very well that whenever you have a sight of
   the preciousness of Christ, you are moved at once to glorify Him. Do
   you not cry --

   "Oh, for this love let rocks and hills Their lasting silence break, And
   all harmonious human tongues The Sa vior's praises speak"?

   I know it is so! It is because we think so little of Christ that we do
   so little for Him. But when Christ is brought with vivid power home to
   the mind, then at once we cry, "Lord, what would You have me to do?"
   And we, by His Grace, bestir ourselves to honor Him.

   Brethren, the fact that the Holy Spirit is working in a man never can
   be a reason for his not working. On the contrary, the moment a man
   perceives that the Spirit is helping him, he is encouraged diligently
   to labor. "Why," says he, "my work may fail, but if it is the Spirit's
   work it cannot fail." I bow my knee in prayer, and if I believe that
   all acceptable prayer is worked in me by the Holy Spirit, I am fully
   assured that God will not refuse to grant what He Himself, by His
   Spirit suggests to me to ask. If the Holy One of Israel Himself breaks
   my heart and leads me to long after a Savior, surely He does not intend
   to tantalize me.

   He will continue His work till He has saved me. Thus encouraged, a man
   is certain to give diligence to make his calling and election sure.
   Moreover every intelligent man feels that if he does not work when the
   Spirit of God is working in him, he is dishonoring that Divine Person,
   and is running the solemn peril of committing the sin against the Holy
   Spirit which shall never be forgiven him. He feels that if he should be
   slothful that text would condemn him, "How shall we

   escape if we neglect so great salvation?" Neglect--mere neglect--nobody
   ever gets to Heaven by it. But ah, how many perish by that alone!

   To conclude this point, it is most certain that all saving acts must be
   performed by the man himself. Faith is the gift of God, but the Holy
   Spirit never believed for anybody. It is not His office to believe. The
   sinner must believe. Repentance is the work of the Holy Spirit, but the
   Holy Spirit never repented. What had He to repent of? He has done no
   ill. It cannot be possible for Him to repent for us. No, we ourselves
   must repent. My Brethren, this is self-evident to every candid mind.
   There must be in every man a personal faith and a personal repentance.
   And though these are worked in him by the Holy Spirit, yet they are his
   own acts. They cannot be the acts of anybody else, or else the man has
   not believed, and has not repented, and there is no life in him.

   Right on to the end of the Christian life all those acts which bring us
   into communion with God are our own. For instance, the Holy Spirit
   helps men to pray. He helps their infirmities. But they pray. They
   themselves pray. Prove to me that the man does not, himself, pray, and
   I will be bold to tell you that he is not saved. The intercession of
   Christ is prevalent, but it will not save those who live and die
   without praying for themselves. True desires after God must be your own
   desires. The desire is worked in you, but still it is yours. And the
   expression of that desire is helped by the teaching of the Spirit, but
   still it is your own expression, or else what are you but a dead soul?
   There must be a voluntary putting forth on your part of the life which
   is quickened in you by the Spirit. This is so plain as to be
   self-evident.

   Note again, if we were not made active, but are simply acted on by the
   Holy Spirit, there is a reduction of manhood to materialism. If the man
   does not believe nor pray, and if spiritual acts are not a man's own
   acts, but the acts of another in him, then what is the man? There is no
   moral good or moral evil in a work which is not my own--I mean no moral
   good or evil to me. A work which I do not myself perform may be
   creditable or discreditable to somebody else, it is neither to me.

   Take an illustration. In the Square of St. Mark, at Venice, at certain
   hours the bell of the clock is struck by two bronze figures as large as
   life, wielding hammers. Now, nobody ever thought of presenting thanks
   to those bronze men for the diligence with which they have struck the
   hours. Of course not, they cannot help it--they are worked upon by
   machinery--and they strike the hours from necessity. Some years ago a
   stranger was upon the top of the tower, and incautiously went too near
   one of these bronze men. It was time to strike the hour and he knocked
   the stranger from the battlement of the tower and killed him.

   Nobody said the bronze man ought to be hanged--nobody ever laid it to
   his charge at all. There was no moral good or moral evil, because there
   was no will in the concern. It was not a moral act, because no mind and
   heart gave consent to it. Am I to believe that Grace reduces men to
   this? I tell you, Sirs, if you think to glorify the Grace of God by
   such a theory, you know not what you do. To carve blocks, and move logs
   is small glory--but this is the glory of God's Grace-- that without
   violating the human will, He yet achieves His own purposes, and
   treating men as men, He conquers their hearts with love, and wins their
   affections by His Divine Grace.

   I warn any here present who imagine that man is a merely passive being
   in salvation against putting their theory in practice. I am alarmed for
   you if you say, "God will save me if He so decrees, and therefore I
   will sit still and wait." My Hearer, I am afraid for you! You are
   neglecting the great salvation, and I again remind you of the
   warning--"How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" I
   confess, I have no hope for you. But on the contrary, if you cry,
   "Lord, save, or I perish," I have good hope for you, you shall not
   perish--the Spirit of God is working in you these desires and this
   longing and seeking.

   Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I pray you
   check not your aspirations. Quench not the Spirit. Led and guided by
   His mighty working, come to the foot of Christ's Cross. Trust alone to
   Him, and a voice shall sound in your heart, "Your sins which are many,
   are all forgiven you." God grant it may be so.

   II. We shall now turn to the second part of our subject in reference to
   THE MINISTRY OF THE SAINTS FOR THE CONVERSION OF OTHERS. The Holy
   Spirit alone can convert a soul. All the ministries in the world put
   together, be they what they may, are utterly powerless for the
   salvation of a single soul apart from the Holy Spirit. "Not by might
   nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord." But wherever the Holy
   Spirit works, as a general rule (so general that I scarcely know an
   exception), it is in connection with the earnest efforts of Christian
   men.

   This is clear, first, from the example of the text. The Apostle Paul
   certifies that the salvation of souls is the sole work of Christ, but
   he declares that he labored, and the next word he adds "striving," or
   as in the Greek, "agonizing." Though the Spirit did the work, it was in
   connection with the Apostle's labor and agony for souls. Now, my
   Brethren, laboring implies abundant work. No man can be said to labor
   who only does half an hour's work in a day. A man who is a thorough
   laborer makes long hours, and is ever at it. The Apostle Paul was this.

   The winning of souls was not a piece of by-play with him. It was his
   one object to which he consecrated everything. He was "in labors more
   abundant." In the morning he sowed his seed, and in the evening he
   withheld not his hand. If we are to have souls saved we must do the
   same. No tradesman expects his shop to prosper who has it open only one
   hour a day--and you must not expect to be soul-winners if you only now
   and then seek to be such. There must be, as far as time and capacity
   allow, the consecration of yourselves to this work, even to an
   abundance of effort.

   Labor, again, means hard work. It is not trifling. He is no laborer who
   takes the spade to play with it as a little child upon the sand. He
   that labors works till the sweat streams from his face. And he that
   would win souls will find that, though it is all of the Holy Spirit,
   yet it involves on his part the sternest form of spiritual work. Baxter
   used to say if any minister found his ministry easy, he would find it
   hard to answer for it at the Day of Judgment. And I add, if any one of
   you teaching in your classes, or officiating in any form of Christian
   work, find it easy, you will find it hard to give an account of your
   stewardship at the Lord's coming.

   The labor must be personal labor, for no man is a laborer who does it
   through his servants. He may be an employer, and in a certain sense he
   may be said to do the work, but he cannot say, "I labor." The Apostle
   performed personal work. Ah, Brethren, the power of the Church very
   much lies under God in the personal influence of her members. On this
   platform I feel that I am a long way off from you. I wish I could
   devise some mode of speech by which I could thrust my hand into your
   hearts and get my soul to pulsate close by yours to make you feel what
   I feel.

   Between the pulpit and the pew there is too often a great gulf fixed.
   But you who get your friends into the parlor and talk concerning
   eternal things--you have a fine opportunity. Your personal influence
   then bears with mighty force upon the person with whom you are
   speaking, and you may hope that a blessing will be the result. Learn
   from your adversaries. What is the strength of the fools of Rome? What
   but their conversing with men and women by themselves at the
   confessional? Who could not prevail, with such an instrument? We, with
   nobler ends and aims, must use personal, private conversation in all
   honest earnestness to bring men to repentance, to faith, and to the
   foot of the Cross.

   My Brethren, I do not believe that even this will suffice. Abundant
   Christian work, and hard Christian work, and personal Christian work
   must have combined with it inward soul conflict. If your soul never
   breaks for another, you will not be the means of breaking that other's
   heart. But when it comes to this, "I must have that soul saved, I
   cannot bear the thought that it should be cast away"--you are near
   winning that soul. Suppose it is your child, your unconverted husband,
   or your brother--and you are enabled to say in yourself, "I have
   continual heaviness for my kinsmen according to the flesh"--so that you
   could almost sacrifice your own soul if they might but be saved?

   When it comes to tears, the Lord will not deny you. My Brothers, when
   your heart breaks with love to souls, they shall be yours. But there
   must be conflicts. I pity that minister whose life is one of
   uninterrupted spiritual ease. What? Can we see you backslide and not
   weep till you come back to the Cross? Can I know that among these
   thousands who are listening to my voice, perhaps half are dead in
   trespasses and sins--and can I be insensible as a marble statue? Then
   God have mercy upon me as well as upon you! Unhappy souls to be
   entrusted to the care of one so utterly unfit for such a service!

   No, the heart must be stirred, there must be an anguishing and yearning
   for souls. They tell us that in the sea certain waves rise from the
   bottom, and these cause the ground swells and the breakers. There must
   be great ground swells of desire within us that souls may, by some
   means, be delivered from the wrath to come. And where these deep
   searching of the heart are found, there will be conversions. Where
   these four things of which we have spoken are the result of the Holy
   Spirit working in any of you, it is as certain that souls will be saved
   as that spring will follow when the sun returns from his southern
   tropic.

   We must further note that this is plain from the work itself. For,
   Brethren, souls are not converted as a rule without previous prayer for
   them on the part of someone or another. Well, then, we must be stirred
   up to prayer, and the praying which God hears is not that of people
   half asleep. The petitions which pierce the ears of God are not those
   that fall from

   careless lips. They must come from your heart or they will never go to
   His heart. The importunate pleader prevails with Heaven. Souls are
   saved instrumentally through teaching, but the teaching which saves
   souls is never cold, dead teaching. God may occasionally bless such
   words, for He does great wonders, but as a rule the teaching that
   convinces and enlightens is earnest and enthusiastic.

   We have heard of a traveler who, journeying onward, met with one who
   said, "Sir, the night is dark, and I should not advise you to go on to
   the river, for the bridge is broken in the middle. You will be in the
   stream before you know it." This was said in so careless a tone that
   the traveler went on. He was met sometime afterwards, fortunately for
   him, by another who again warned him--"The bridge is broken! Don't go
   on, you will be sure to lose your life if you attempt it. You cannot
   ford the stream and the bridge is broken." The traveler replied, "Why,
   I have been told that tale before, but the man who told me it spoke in
   such a tone that I could see through him, I knew it was all a hoax."

   "Oh, but Sir," said the other, "it is true! I have but now escaped
   myself. I am sure it is true!" "But," said the traveler, "I am not so
   easily scared." "Well, then," said the other, "I beseech you once
   again, do not go on, for you will perish," and rushing up to him he
   said, "I will not let you go." He grasped him and held him fast. "Now,"
   said the other, "I believe you have spoken the truth, and I will turn
   with you." So there are some who warn souls of their danger in such a
   careless tone that they create an unbelief which many an earnest tongue
   will not be able to dispel.

   But if you get hold of the soul and say to it, "I will not let you
   perish." If you say to your friends as Whitfield would say to his
   congregation, "If you perish it shall not be for want of praying for
   you. It shall not be for want of weeping over you. If you are damned it
   shall not be because my heart was cold towards you," you will win
   them--they will be led to believe, by His Grace, from your earnestness.
   Who knows how many earnest spirits you may bring to Jesus? Praying and
   teaching, if effectual, must be earnest. And therefore when the Spirit
   comes to save the sons of men He always gives us earnest praying men
   and earnest teachers.

   But, Brethren, teaching is not all. We must come to persuasion with
   men, and that persuasion must be very persevering. Certain men we must
   dog day after day with our entreaties. Some souls will not come with
   one invitation, they must therefore be plied with many. I remember a
   minister who went to see a dying laborer, and the man growled from his
   bed, "Tell him to be gone--I want none of the likes of him to disturb
   me." He called again, and received the same rude answer. He called
   again, and went halfway up the stairs. He heard an oath, and would not
   intrude. He continued to call till he had numbered twenty times, and
   the twenty-first time the man said, "Well, as you are so set on it, you
   may come in," and he did go in, and that soul was won for God!

   Humanly speaking, where had that man been but for persevering zeal?
   When the Lord means to save men by you, He will give you perseverance
   in seeking them. He will work in you mightily by His Spirit. You will
   feel a determination, that twist and turn as they may with
   indefatigable earnestness of self-destruction, you will still pursue
   them if by any means you may prevent their everlasting misery. Earnest
   zeal is a natural result of the Holy Spirit's working upon the souls of
   men. Whenever the Spirit of God comes, He sanctifies in men the natural
   instinct which leads them to wish others to be like themselves. Whether
   a man is bad or good, he seeks to make others like himself. The Holy
   Spirit lays hold of this and constrains Christians to desire to bring
   others to their state of mind.

   This done, He arouses in the Christian mind the commendable principle
   of love to our fellow men. Having experienced the blessedness of
   salvation for ourselves, we desire to see others enjoying like
   happiness. The patriot's bosom glows with the same passion as before,
   but now it is refined and purified, and he prays for his nation that
   not only it may be free, but that the Spirit of God may make it free,
   indeed. The Holy Spirit bestirs in us the impulse of gratitude, "Has
   Christ saved me?" Then the man exclaims, "I will live for Him!" The
   Spirit gives impetus to that suggestion, and we resolve that since
   Jesus has loved us so, we will give to Him all that we are, and all
   that we have.

   In addition to this, the Holy Spirit sanctifies many other natural
   emotions. Such, for instance, that which we sometimes call the esprit
   de corps, by which men are moved to desire the prosperity of the
   community to which they belong. The Holy Spirit makes us feel one with
   Christ's Church and we ardently desire her success. A holy emulation as
   to which shall serve the Master most runs through our ranks--not that
   we may get honor--but that we may honor Him. We cannot endure it that
   our Brethren should go to the war and we sit still. We begin to be
   afraid lest the denunciation should go forth against us, "Curse you
   Meroz, said the angel of 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." Inspired by such feelings we rush to the fight that we may
   rescue souls for Christ.

   Then the Spirit in some men--I pray it may be in your case, my dear
   Friends--sheds abroad the love of Christ at such a rate that the soul
   is all on fire to exalt Christ. No, in some He has made this sacred
   passion to eat them up till they have been consumed with holy zeal.
   Like men inspired, like ancient Apostles, certain choice spirits have
   lived the life of Christ on earth with an awful vehemence of
   enthusiasm. Wherever such men are raised up, God is about to save
   souls! Whenever you listen to a man who is carried away by an
   all-consuming desire for the glory of God, you may conclude that he is
   the instrument of God to thousands. His lips shall feed many, he shall
   be the spiritual progenitor of tribes of Believers. Thus where the
   Spirit of God comes, energy is evinced and souls are saved. And we do
   not find it otherwise.

   I would have you notice, once more, that the whole history of the
   Church confirms what I have stated. When the Holy Spirit descended,
   there were two signs of His Presence. The one was a rushing mighty
   wind, the other was the tongue of fire. Now if the Holy Spirit intended
   to do all the work Himself--without using us as earnest instruments--
   the first emblem would have been stagnant air. And the next might have
   been a mass of ice, or what you will, but certainly not a tongue of
   fire. The first emblem was not only wind, but it was a mighty wind, and
   not only that, but a rushing mighty wind, as if to show us that He
   intended to set every spiritual sail in the most rapid motion.

   And as birds are drifted before the gale, so would He impel His people
   forward with His mighty influences. The other emblem was fire, a
   consuming, devouring, imperial element. May we be baptized in the Holy
   Spirit, and in fire--and so we shall know what is meant by the symbol.
   Our Lord's commencement of the Gospel ministry was signalized by
   vehemence. Here is His own experience, "From the days of John the
   Baptist until now the kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the
   violent take it by force." Christ's ministry and life were notably
   earnest, He was clad with zeal as with a cloak.

   His Apostles, also, were men so vehement that in their earliest
   deliverances they were thought to be drunken with wine. Every era of
   the Church's prosperity has been marked by this same holy violence.
   Hear Chrysostom speak, he is no player upon a goodly instrument, he
   gives forth no dulcet tones for gentle ears. Listen to his denunciation
   of the Empress Eudoxia! Hear how he denounces the sins of the times!
   How vehemently he calls upon men to escape for their lives because of
   coming judgment!

   Listen to Augustine, his vehement tones you will not soon forget. Turn
   to the notable era of the Reformation. The men who worked the
   Reformation were no dullards, no men of polite speech, of elegant and
   dainty sentences. Luther was a type of them all, vehement to the
   extreme of vehemence. I say not that their natural violence was the
   power which worked the Reformation, but that the Holy Spirit made their
   hearts vehement, and so they worked marvels. And we, dear Brethren--if
   we are to see in these days a genuine revival of religion, worthy of
   the name--must return to the old enthusiasm which once made the Church
   fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with
   banners. O that we may live to see it, and the Lord's name shall be
   glorified!

   The conclusion of the whole matter is just this--let us combine the two
   things of which we have spoken. Dear Brethren, let us rely upon the
   Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit only. Let us not conduct a warfare at
   our own charges. Let us believe that without the Lord, nothing good can
   be done. But let us rest assured that Jesus is never absent where He
   gives the spirit of prayer, as He has given to this Church. And that He
   never deserts those to whom He vouchsafes holy zeal for His kingdom,
   such as He has bestowed on many here present. Let us be encouraged by
   His Presence. Gideon, when he obtained the token of the fleece wet with
   dew, and when by night he heard the story of the barley cake that
   overturned the tents of Midian--because God was with him--did not
   straightway go to his home and renounce the enterprise.

   No, but on the contrary, thus encouraged, he gathered together his
   three hundred valiant men in the darkness of the night. They broke the
   pitchers, bade the torches shine, and shouted the watchword, "The sword
   of the Lord and of Gideon! The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!" Even
   so let it be, by God's Grace, with us at this hour. Knowing that God
   the Holy Spirit is with us, let us lift the cry amid the midnight of
   our age, "The sword of the Lord and of His Son Jesus!" and we shall see
   what God will do, for He will surely put to flight the armies of the
   aliens, and get to Himself renown.

   But, Brethren, let us combine with this confidence in the Holy Spirit,
   the most earnest effort on the part of everyone to do all he can. I
   have a scene before my mind's eye at this moment. I see in this Church
   and neighborhood the counterpart of the mountainside when the multitude
   were fainting for lack of bread. They must be fed, Christ willed it.
   The dis-

   ciples must bring their barley loaves and fishes--what were they among
   so many? Christ must break and multiply. The disciples must receive
   from His hands. They must then go among the many, the fifties and the
   hundreds, and break the bread that Christ had blessed--for the hungry
   must be fed. Not only men, but women and children must be satisfied.

   Behold, my Brethren, this great city hungry and faint, and ready to
   die. Bring here, all you disciples of Christ, your loaves and fishes--I
   mean not to me but to the Master. What you have of ability, however
   slender, bring it out. Christ will not begin to multiply till you have
   brought forth all you have. Miracles are not to be expected till nature
   is brought to a nonplus. Bring out, then, whatever of talent or Divine
   Grace you have--consecrate it all to Jesus--and then as He begins to
   multiply, stand ready as your master's servants to wait upon the crowd.
   And if they push and clamor, yet weary not--break the bread till every
   soul shall have been supplied.

   Go on, go on, and do not say the toil is hard! It is so blessed to do
   good to others--it is thrice blessed--no, sevenfold blessed, to turn a
   sinner from the error of his ways, and save a soul from death! No,
   weary not, though you have been so long at it that your spirit is
   faint. My Brother, your physical frame is weary, but be of good cheer.
   Do you not hear them? Hearken, I pray you! Up yonder, there are angels
   bending from their thrones, and I think I hear them say, "How blessed a
   work to feed the hungry, and those men, how honored to be permitted to
   hand round the Master's precious gifts! Do they not whisper, "We would
   gladly be with them"?

   One bright spirit thinks he would exchange his crown with the meanest
   of the disciples, if he might share the service of Gospel teaching!
   Might they not envy you--those blessed harpers upon the sea of
   glass--because you can do what they cannot? You can tell of Jesus, you
   can fetch in the prodigals, you can find the lost jewels for the
   Master's crown!

   I charge you, my Brethren, by the living God--unless your religion is
   hypocrisy--help me this month, help my Brethren, the Elders and
   Deacons, help us everyone of you. By the blood that bought you, if you
   are, indeed, redeemed-- by the Holy Spirit that is in you, except you
   be reprobates--by everything that God in loving kindness has done for
   you--I charge you come to the help of the Master in this, the hopeful
   hour.

   So may the Lord do unto you as you shall deal with us this day. If you
   shall, indeed, consecrate yourselves to Him, and serve Him, may He
   enrich you with the increase of God, and may the peace of God that
   passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds. But if you refuse
   your service, the Lord shall judge you. He that knows his Master's will
   and does it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.
     __________________________________________________________________

                      Sinners Bound with the Cords of Sin

   A Sermon

   (No. 915)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, February 13th, 1870, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be
   holden with the cords of his sins."--Proverbs 5:22.

   THE first sentence has reference to a net, in which birds or beasts are
   taken. The ungodly man first of all finds sin to be a bait, and,
   charmed by its apparent pleasantness he indulges in it, and then he
   becomes entangled in its meshes so that he cannot escape. That which
   first attracted the sinner, afterwards detains him. Evil habits are
   soon formed, the soul readily becomes accustomed to evil, and then,
   even if the man should have lingering thoughts of better things, and
   form frail resolutions to amend, his iniquities hold him captive like a
   bird in the fowler's snare. You have seen the foolish fly descend into
   the sweet which is spread to destroy him, he sips, and sips again, and
   by-and-by he plunges boldly in to feast himself greedily: when
   satisfied, he attempts to fly, but the sweet holds him by the feet and
   clogs his wings; he is a victim, and the more he struggles the more
   surely is he held. Even so is it with the sins of ungodly men, they are
   at first a tempting bait, and afterwards a snare. Having sinned, they
   become so bewitched with sin, that the scriptural statement is no
   exaggeration: "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his
   spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil."

   The first sentence of the text also may have reference to an arrest by
   an officer of law. The transgressor's own sins shall take him, shall
   seize him; they bear a warrant for arresting him, they shall judge him,
   they shall even execute him. Sin, which at the first bringeth to man a
   specious pleasure, ere long turneth into bitterness, remorse, and fear.
   Sin is a dragon, with eyes like stars, but it carrieth a deadly sting
   in its tail. The cup of sin, with rainbow bubbles on its brim, is black
   with deep damnation in its dregs. O that men would consider this, and
   turn from their delusions. To bring torment to the guilty, there is
   little need that God should, literally in the world to come, pile up
   Tophet with its wood and much smoke, nor even that the pit should be
   digged for the ungodly in order to make them miserable; sin shall of
   itself bring forth death. Leave a man to his own sins, and hell itself
   surrounds him; only suffer a sinner to do what he wills, and to give
   his lusts unbridled headway, and you have secured him boundless misery;
   only allow the seething caldron of his corruptions to boil at its own
   pleasure, and the man must inevitably become a vessel filled with
   sorrow. Be assured that sin is the root of bitterness. Gild the pill as
   you may, iniquity is death. Sweet is an unholy morsel in the mouth, but
   it will be wormwood in the bowels. Let but man heartily believe this,
   and surely he will not so readily be led astray. "Surely in vain is the
   net spread in the sight of any bird," and shall man be more foolish
   than the fowls of the air? will he wilfully pursue his own destruction?
   will he wrong his own soul? Sin, then, becomes first a net to hold the
   sinner by the force of custom and habit, and afterwards, a sheriffs
   officer to arrest him, and to scourge him with its inevitable results.

   The second sentence of our text speaks of the sinner being holden with
   cords, and a parable may be readily fashioned out of the expression.
   The lifelong occupation of the ungodly man is to twist ropes of sin.
   All his sins are as so much twine and cord out of which ropes may be
   made. His thoughts and his imaginations are so much raw material, and
   while he thinks of evil, while he contrives transgression, while he
   lusts after filthiness, while he follows after evil devices, while with
   head, and hand, and heart he pursues eagerly after mischief, he is
   still twisting evermore the cords of sin which are afterwards to bind
   him. The binding meant is that of a culprit pinioned for execution.
   Iniquity pinions a man, disables him from delivering himself from its
   power, enchains his soul, and inflicts a bondage on the spirit far
   worse than chaining of the body. Sin cripples all desires after
   holiness, damps every aspiration after goodness, and thus, fettering
   the man hand and foot, delivers him over to the executioner, which
   executioner shall be the wrath of God, but also sin itself, in the
   natural consequences which in every case must flow from it. Samson
   could burst asunder green withes and new ropes, but when at last his
   darling sin had bound him to his Delilah, that bond he could not snap,
   though it cost him his eyes. Make a man's will a prisoner, and he is a
   captive indeed. Determined independence of spirit walks at freedom in a
   tyrant's Bastille, and defies a despot's hosts; but a mind enslaved by
   sin builds its own dungeon, forges its own fetters, and rivets on its
   chains. It is slavery indeed when the iron enters into the soul. Who
   would not scorn to make himself a slave to his baser passions? and yet
   the mass of men are such--the cords of their sins bind them.

   Thus, having introduced to you the truth which this verse teaches,
   namely, the captivating, enslaving power of sin, I shall advance to our
   first point of consideration. This is a solution to a great mystery;
   but then, secondly, it is itself a greater mystery; and when we have
   considered these two matters it will be time for us to note what is the
   practical conclusion from this line of thought.

   I. First, then, the doctrine of the text, that iniquity entraps the
   wicked as in a net, and binds them as with cords is A SOLUTION OF A
   GREAT MYSTERY.

   When you and I first began to do good by telling out the gospel, we
   labored under the delusion that as soon as our neighbors heard of the
   blessed way of salvation they would joyfully receive it, and be saved
   in crowds. We have long ago seen that pleasant delusion dispelled; we
   find that our position is that of the serpent-charmer with the deaf
   adder, charm we ever so wisely, men will not hear so as to receive the
   truth. Like the ardent reformer, we have found out that old Adam is too
   strong for young Melancthon. We now perceive that for a sinner to
   receive the gospel involves a work of grace that shall change his heart
   and renew his nature. Yet none the less is it a great mystery that it
   should be so. It is one of the prodigies of the god of this world that
   he makes men love sin, and abide in indifference as if they were fully
   content to be lost. It is a marvel of marvels that man should be so
   base as to reject Christ, and abide in wilful and wicked unbelief. I
   will try and set forth this mystery, in the way in which, I dare say,
   it has struck many an honest hearted worker for Jesus Christ.

   Is it not a mysterious thing that men should be content to abide in a
   state of imminent peril? Every unconverted man is already condemned.
   Our Lord has said it: "He that believeth not is condemned already,
   because he hath not believed on the Son of God." Every unregenerate man
   is not only liable to the wrath of God in the future, but the wrath of
   God abideth on him. It is on him now, it always will remain upon him;
   as long as he is what he is, it abideth on him. And yet in this state
   men do not start, they are not amazed or alarmed, they are not even
   anxious. Sabbath after Sabbath they are reminded of their unhappy
   position: it makes us unhappy to think they should be in such a state,
   but they are strangely at ease. The sword of vengeance hangs over them
   by a single hair, yet sit they at their banquets, and they laugh and
   sport as though there were no God, no wrath to come, no certainty of
   appearing before the judgment-seat of Christ. See a number of persons
   in a train that has broken down. The guard has only to intimate that
   another train is approaching, and that it may perhaps dash into the
   carriages and mangle the passengers; he has only to give half a hint,
   and see how the carriage doors fly open, how the travelers rush up the
   embankment, each one so eager for his own preservation as to forget his
   fellow's. Yet here are men and women by hundreds and thousands, with
   the fast-rushing train of divine vengeance close behind them; they may
   almost hear the sound of its thundering wheels, and, lo, they sit in
   all quietness, exposed to present peril and in danger of a speedy and
   overwhelming destruction. "Tis strange. tis passing strange, tis
   wonderful." Here is a mystery indeed, that can only be understood in
   the light of the fact that these foolish beings are taken by their
   sing, and bound by the cords of their iniquities.

   Be it ever remembered that before very long these unconverted men and
   women, many of whom are present this morning, will be in a stale whose
   wretchedness it is not possible for language fully to express. Within
   four-and-twenty hours their spirits may be summoned before the bar of
   God; and, according to this book, which partially uplifts the veil of
   the future, the very least punishment that can fall upon an unconverted
   soul will cause it "weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth." All
   they had endured, of whom it is written, that they wept and gnashed
   their teeth, was to be shut out into outer darkness, nothing more; no
   stripes had then fallen, they had not yet been shut up in the
   prison-house of hell, only the gate of heaven was shut, only the light
   of glory was hid; and straightway there was weeping, and wailing, and
   gnashing of teeth. What, then, will be the woe of the lost when
   positive punishment is inflicted? As for what they will endure who have
   beard the gospel, but have wilfully rejected it, we have some faint
   notion from the Master's words: "It shall be more tolerable for Sodom
   and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for them." We know that it is
   a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, for "our God
   is a consuming fire." From this platform there rings full often that
   question, "How shall ye escape if ye neglect so great salvation?" And
   yet for all this, men are willing to pass on through time into eternity
   regardless of the escape which God provides, turning aside from the
   only salvation which can rescue them from enduring "the blackness of
   darkness for ever." O reason, art thou utterly fled? Is every sinner
   altogether brutish? If we should meet with a man condemned to die, and
   tell him that pardon was to be had, would he hear us with indifference?
   Would he abide in the condemned cell and use no means for obtaining the
   boon of life and liberty? Yes, there awaits the sinner a more awful
   doom, and a more terrible sentence, and we are sent to publish a sure
   pardon from the God of heaven; and yet thousands upon thousands give us
   no deep heartfelt attention, but turn aside and perish in their sins. O
   that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I
   might weep for the folly of the race to which I belong, and mourn over
   the destruction of my fellow men!

   It often strikes us with wonder that men do not receive the gospel of
   Jesus Christ, when we recollect that the gospel is so plain. If it were
   a great mystery one might excuse the illiterate from attending to it.
   If the plan of salvation could only be discovered by the attentive
   perusal of a long series of volumes, and if it required a classical
   training and a thorough education, why then the multitude of the poor
   and needy, whose time is taken up with earning their bread, might have
   same excuse; but there is under heaven no truth more plain than this,
   "He that believeth on the Lord Jesus hath everlasting life;" "He that
   believeth and is baptised, shall be saved." To believe--that is, simply
   to trust Christ. How plain! There is no road, though it ran straight as
   an arrow, that can be more plain than this. Legible only by the light
   they give, but all so legible that be who runs may read, stand these
   soul-quickening words, "Believe and live." Trust Christ and your sins
   are forgiven; you are saved. This is so plain a precept, that I may
   call it a very A B C for infants, yet men receive it not. Are they not
   indeed holden by the cords of their sins when they refuse to obey?

   Moreover, brethren, there is a wonderful attractiveness in the gospel.
   If the gospel could possibly be a revelation of horrors piled on
   horrors, if there were something in it utterly inconsistent with
   reason, or something that shocked all the sensitive affections of our
   better part, we might excuse mankind, but the gospel is just this: man
   is lost, but God becomes man to save him, "The Son of Man is come to
   seek and to save that which was lost." Out of infinite love to his
   enemies the Son of God took upon himself human flesh, that he might
   suffer in the room and stead of men what they ought to have suffered.
   The doctrine of substitution, while it wondrously magnifies the grace
   of God and satisfies the justice of God, methinks ought to strike you
   all with love because of the disinterested affection which it reveals
   on Jesus Christ's part. O King of Glory, dost thou bleed for me? O
   Prince of Life, canst thou lie shrouded in the grave for me? Doth God
   stoop from his glory to be spat upon by sinful lips? Doth he stoop from
   the splendor of heaven to be "despised and rejected of men," that men
   may be saved? Why, it ought to win every human ear, it ought to
   entrance every human heart. Was ever love like this? Go ye to your
   poets, and see if they have ever imagined anything nobler than the love
   of Christ the Son of God for the dying sons of men! Go to your
   philosophers, and see if in all their maxims they have ever taught a
   diviner philosophy than that of Christ's life, or ever have imagined in
   their pictures of what men ought to be, an heroic love like that which
   Christ in very deed displayed! We lift before you no gory banner that
   might sicken your hearts; we bring before you no rattling chains of a
   tyrant's domination; but we lift up Jesus crucified, and "Love" is
   written on the banner that is waved in the forefront of our hosts; we
   bid you yield to the gentle sway of love, and not to the tyranny of
   terror. Alas! men must be bound, indeed, and fettered fast by an
   accursed love to sin, or else the divine attractions of a crucified
   Redeemer would win their hearts.

   Consider, my friends, you who love the souls of your fellow men, how
   marvellous it is that men should not receive the gospel when the
   commandment of the gospel is not burdensome! Methinks if it had been
   written that no man should enter heaven except by the way of martyrdom,
   it had been wisdom for every one of us to give our bodies to be burned,
   or to be stretched upon the rack; yea, if there had been no path to
   escape from the wrath of God, but to be flayed alive with Bartholomew,
   enduring present but exquisite torture, it would have been but a cheap
   price for an escape from wrath, and an entrance into heaven. But I find
   in God's word prescribed as the way of salvation, no such physical
   agonies. No austerities are commanded; not even the milder law which
   governed the Pharisee when he "fasted thrice in the week." Only this is
   written--"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;"
   and the precept of the Christian's life is, "Love thy God with all thy
   heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." Most pleasant duties these of
   love! What more sweet? What more delightful than to permit the soul to
   flow out in streams of affection? The ways of true religion are not
   irksome, her ways are pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. What,
   heaven given for believing? What, heaven's gate opened only for
   knocking, and boons all priceless bestowed for nothing but the asking?
   Yet they will not ask, they will not knock. Alas, my God, what
   creatures are men! Alas, O sin, what monsters hast thou made mankind,
   that they will forget their own interests, and wrong their own souls!

   Further, it is clear that men must be fast held by the bondage of their
   sins when we recollect that, according to the confession of the most of
   them, the pleasures of sin are by no means great. I have heard them say
   themselves that they have been satiated after a short season of
   indulgence We know how true the word is, "Who hath woe? who hath
   redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek
   mixed wine." No form of sin has ever been discovered yet that has
   yielded satisfaction. You shall look at those who have had all that
   heart could wish, and have without restraint indulged their passions,
   and you shall find them to be in their latter end amongst the most
   wretched rather than the most satisfied of mankind. Yet for these
   pleasures--I think I degrade the word when I call them pleasures--for
   these pleasures they are willing to pawn their souls and risk
   everlasting woe; and all this while, be it remembered, to add to the
   wonder, there are pleasures to be found in godliness; they do not deny
   this, they cannot without belying their own observation. We who are at
   least as honest as they are, bear our testimony that we never knew what
   true happiness was till we gave our hearts to Christ; but since then
   our peace has been like a river. We have had our afflictions, we have
   suffered grievous bodily pain, we have endured mental depression, we
   have been heavily burdened, we have borne many trials; but we can say--

   "We would not change our blest estate

   For all the world calls good or great."

   "Happy are the people whose God is the Lord!" We can set our seal to
   this experimentally. See ye then, my brethren, these poor souls will
   prefer the pleasures that mock them to the pleasures that alone can
   satisfy. If we had to die like dogs, it would be worth while to be a
   Christian. If there were no hereafter, and our only consideration were
   who should enjoy this life the best, it would be the wisest thing to be
   a servant of God and a soldier of the cross. I say not it would ensure
   our being rich, I say not it would ensure our being respected, I say
   not it would ensure our walking smoothly and free from outward trouble;
   but I do say that because of "the secret something which sweetens all,"
   because of the profound serenity which true religion brings, the
   Christian life out-masters every other, and there is none to be
   compared therewith. But think ye for awhile what the ungodly man's life
   is! I can only compare it to that famous diabolical invention of the
   Inquisition of ancient times. They had as a fatal punishment for
   heretics, what they called the "Virgin's Kiss." There stood in a long
   corridor the image of the Virgin. She outstretched her arms to receive
   her heretic child; she looked fair, and her dress was adorned with gold
   and tinsel, but as soon as the poor victim came into her arms the
   machinery within began to work, and the arms closed and pressed the
   wretch closer and closer to her bosom, which was set with knives, and
   daggers, and lancets, and razors, and everything that could cut and
   tear him, till he was ground to pieces in the horrible embrace; and
   such is the ungodly man's life. It standeth like a fair virgin, and
   with witching smile it seems to say, "Come to my bosom, no place so
   warm and blissful as this;" and then anon it begins to fold its arms of
   habit about the sinner, and he sins again and again, brings misery into
   his body, perhaps, if he fall into some form of sin, stings his soul,
   makes his thoughts a case of knives to torture him, and grinds him to
   powder beneath the force of his own iniquities. Men perceive this, and
   dare not deny it; and yet into this virgin's bosom they still thrust
   themselves, and reap the deep damnation that iniquity must everywhere
   involve. Alas, alas, my God!

   And now, once more, this terrible mystery, which is only solved by
   men's being held by their sins, has this added to it, that all the
   while in the case of most of you now present, all that I have said is
   believed, and a great deal of it is felt. I mean this: if I were
   talking with persons who did not believe they had a soul, or believe in
   the judgment to come, or believe in the penalty of sin, or believe in
   the reward of righteousness, I should see some reason why they rejected
   the great salvation; but the most of you who attend this house of
   prayer--I think I might say all--have scarcely ever had a doubt about
   these things. You would be very much horrified if any one would
   insinuate that you did not believe the Bible to be the word of God. You
   have a little Pharisaism in your soul, that you think you are not as
   scoffers are, nor infidels. I own you are not, but I grieve to say I
   think you are more inconsistent than they. If these things be a
   fiction, well, sirs, your course is rational; but if these things be
   realities, what shall I say for you when I plead with God on your
   behalf? What excuse can I make for you? If you profess to believe these
   things, act as though you believe them; if you do not, practically act
   so. Why do you profess to own them as the truth? The case is worse, for
   you not only believe these thing's to be true, but some of you have
   felt their power. You have gone home from this place, and you could not
   help it, you have sought your chamber and bowed your knee in prayer;
   such prayer as it was, for, alas! your goodness has been like the
   morning cloud and the early dew. I know some of you who have had to
   break off some of your sins, for your conscience would not let you rest
   in them. Yet you are unbelievers still, still you are undecided, still
   you are unsaved, and at this moment, if your soul were required of you,
   nothing would be in prospect but a fearful looking for of judgment and
   of fiery indignation. O my hearer, you whose conscience has been at
   times awakened, in whom the arrows of the great King have found a
   lodging place, in whom they are rankling still, yield, I pray thee,
   yield to the divine thrusts, and give up thy contrite spirit to thy
   Redeemer's hands. But if thou do not, what shall I say to thee? The
   kingdom of God has been thrust from you by yourselves. Be sure of this,
   it has come near you, and in coming near it has involved solemn
   responsibilities which I pray you may not have to feel the weight of in
   the world to come.

   Here, then, stands the riddle, that man is so set against God and his
   Christ that he never will accept eternal salvation until the Holy
   Spirit, by a supernatural work, overcomes his will and turns the
   current of his affections; and why is this? The answer lies in the
   text, because his own iniquities have taken him, and he is holden with
   the cords of his sin. For this reason he will not come unto Christ that
   he may have life; for this reason he cannot come, except the Father
   which hath sent Christ draw him.

   II. But now, secondly, I pass on to observe that though this is the
   solution of one mystery, IT IS IN ITSELF A GREATER MYSTERY.

   It is a terrible mystery that man should be so great a fool, so mad a
   creature as to be held by cords apparently so feeble as the cords of
   his own sins. To be bound by reason is honorable; to be hold by
   compulsion, if you cannot resist it, is at least not discreditable; but
   to be held simply by sin, by sin and nothing else, is a bondage which
   is disgraceful to the human name. It lowers man to the last degree, to
   think that be should want no fetter to hold him but the fetter of his
   own evil lusts and desires. Let us just think of one or two cords, and
   you will see this.

   One reason why men receive not Christ and are not saved, is because
   they are hampered by the sin of forgetting God. Think of that for a
   minute. Men forget God altogether. The commission of many a sin has
   been prevented by the presence of a child. In the presence of a fellow
   creature, ordinarily a man will feel himself under some degree of
   restraint. Yet that eye which never sleeps, the eye of the eternal God,
   exercises no restraint on the most of men. If there were a child in
   that chamber thou wouldst respect it-but God being there thou canst sin
   with impunity. If thy mother or thy father were there thou wouldst not
   dare offend, but God who made thee and whose will can crush thee, thy
   lawful sovereign, thou takest no more account of him than though he
   were a dog, yea, not so much as that. Oh, strange thing that men should
   thus act! And yet with many it is not because of the difficulty of
   thinking of God. Men of study, for instance, if they are considering
   the works of God, must be led up to thoughts of God. Galen was
   converted from being an atheist while in the process of dissecting the
   human body; he could not but see the finger of God in the nerves and
   sinews, and all the rest of the wonderful embroidery of the human
   frame. There is not an emmet or an infusorial animalcule beneath the
   microscope but what as plainly as tongue can speak, saith, "Mortal,
   think of God who made thee and me." Some men travel daily over scenes
   that naturally suggest the Creator; they go down to the sea in ships,
   and do business on great waters, where they must see the works of the
   Lord, and yet they even manage to become the most boisterous
   blasphemers against the sacred majesty of the Most High, in his very
   temple where everything speaks of his glory. But you will tell me
   perhaps, some of you, that you are not engaged in such pursuits. I
   reply, I know it. Many of you have to labor with your hands for your
   daily bread, in occupations requiring but little mental exercise. So
   much the more guilty then are you that when your mind is not
   necessarily taken up with other things, you still divert it from all
   thoughts of God. The working man often find is it very possible to
   spend his leisure hours in politics, and to amuse his working hours by
   meditating upon schemes more or less rational concerning the government
   of his country, and will he dare to tell me therefore that he could not
   during that time think of God? There is an aversion to God in your
   heart, my brother, or else it would not be that from Monday morning to
   Saturday night you forget him altogether. Even when sitting here you
   find it by no means a pleasant thing to be reminded of your God, and
   yet if I brought up the recollection of your mother, perhaps in heaven,
   the topic would not be displeasing to you. What owe you to your mother
   compared with what you owe to your God? If I spoke to you of some dear
   friend who has assisted you in times of distress, you would be pleased
   that I had touched upon such a chord; and may I not talk with you
   concerning your God, and ask you why do you forget him? Have you good
   thoughts for all but the best? Have you kind thoughts of gratitude for
   every friend but the best friend that man can have? My God! my God! why
   do men treat thee thus? Brightest, fairest, best, kindest, and most
   tender, and yet forgotten by the objects of thy care!

   If men were far away from God, and it were a topic abstruse and
   altogether beyond reach, something might be said. But imagine a fish
   that despised the ocean and yet lived in it, a man who should be
   unconscious of the air he breathes! "In him we live and move and have
   our being; we are also his offspring." He sends the frost, and he will
   send the spring; he sends the seed-time and the harvest, and every
   shower that drops with plenty comes from him, and every wind that blows
   with health speeds forth from his mouth. Wherefore then is he to be
   forgotten when everything reminds you of him? This is a sin, a cruel
   sin, a cursed sin, a sin indeed that binds men hard and fast, that they
   will not come to Christ that they may have life; but it is strange, it
   is beyond all miracles a miracle, that such a folly as this should hold
   men from coming to Christ.

   Another sin binds all unregenerate hearts; it is the sin of not loving
   the Christ of God. I am not about to charge any person here with such
   sins as adultery, or theft, or blasphemy, but I will venture to say
   that this is a sin masterly and gigantic, which towers as high as any
   other--the sin of not loving the Christ of God. Think a minute. Here is
   one who came into the world out of pure love, for no motive but mercy,
   with nothing to gain, but though he was rich, yet for our sakes he
   became poor; why then is he not loved? The other day there rode through
   these streets a true hero, a brave bold man who set his country free,
   and I do remember how I heard your shouts in yonder street, and you
   thronged to look into the lion-like face of Italy's liberator. I blame
   you not, I longed to do the same myself, he well deserved your shouts
   and your loudest praises. But what had he done compared with what the
   Christ of God has done in actually laying down his life to redeem men
   from bondage, yielding up himself to the accursed death of the cross
   that man might be saved through him? Where are your acclamations, sirs,
   for this greater Hero? Where are the laurels that you cast at his feet?
   Is it nothing to you, is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by, is it
   nothing to you that Jesus should die? Such a character, so
   inexpressibly lovely, and yet despised! Such a salvation, so
   inexpressibly precious, and yet rejected! Oh, mystery of iniquity!
   indeed, the depths of sin are almost as fathomless as the depths of
   God, and the transgressions of the wicked all but as infinite in infamy
   as God is infinite in love.

   I might also speak of sins against the Holy Ghost that men commit, in
   that they live and even die without reverential thoughts of him or care
   about him; but I shall speak of one sin, and that is the mystery that
   men should be held by the sin of neglecting their souls. You meet with
   a person who neglects his body, you call him fool, if, knowing that
   there is a disease, he will not seek a remedy. If, suffering, from some
   fatal malady, he never attempts to find a cure, you think the man is
   fit only for a lunatic asylum. But a person who neglects his soul, be
   is but one of so numerous a class, that we overlook the madness. Your
   body will soon die, it is but as it were the garment of yourself and
   will be worn out; but you yourself are better than your body as a man
   is better than the dress he wears. Why spend you then all thoughts
   about this present life and give none to the life to come?

   It has long been a mystery who was the man in the iron mask. We believe
   that the mystery was solved some years ago, by the conjecture that he
   was the twin brother of Louis XIV., King of France, who, fearful lest
   he might have his throne disturbed by his twin brother, whose features
   were extremely like his own, encased his face in a mask of iron and
   shut him up in the Bastille for life. Your body and your soul are twin
   brothers. Your body, as though it were jealous of your soul, encases it
   as in an iron mask of spiritual ignorance, lest its true lineaments,
   its immortal lineage should be discovered, and shuts it up within the
   Bastille of sin, lest getting liberty and discovering its royalty, it
   should win the mastery over the baser nature. But what a wretch was
   that Louis XIV., to do such a thing to his own brother! How brutal, how
   worse than the beasts that perish! But, sir, what art thou if thou
   doest thus to thine own soul, merely that thy body may be satisfied,
   and thy earthly nature may have a present gratification? O sirs, be not
   so unkind, so cruel to yourselves. But yet this sin of living for the
   mouth and living for the eye, this sin of living for what ye shall eat
   and what ye shall drink, and wherewithal ye shall be clothed, this sin
   of living by the clock within the narrow limits of the time that ticks
   by the pendulum, this sin of living as if this earth were all and there
   were nought beyond--this is the sin that holds this City of London, and
   holds the world, and binds it like a martyr to the stake to perish,
   unless it be set free.

   Generally, however, there also lies some distinct form of actual sin at
   the bottom of most men's impenitence. I will not attempt to make a
   guess, my dear hearer, as to what it may be that keeps thee from
   Christ, but without difficulty I could, I think, state what these sins
   generally are. Some men would fain be saved, but they would not like to
   tale up the cross and be despised as Christians. Some would fain follow
   Christ, but they will not give up their self-righteous pride; they want
   to have a part of the glory of salvation. Some men have a temper, which
   they do not intend to try to restrain. Others have a secret sin, too
   sweet for them to give it up; it is like a right arm, and they cannot
   come to the cutting of it off. Some enjoy company which is attractive,
   but destructive, and from that company they cannot fly. Men one way or
   another are held fast like birds with birdlime, till the fowler comes
   and takes them to their destruction. O that they were wise, for then
   they might be awakened out of this folly! But this still remaineth the
   mystery of mysteries, that those sins absurd and deadly, bind men as
   with cords, and hold them fast like a bull in a net.

   THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER IS THIS, a message sinner to thee,
   and saint, to thee.

   Sinner, to thee. Thou art held fast by thy sins, and I fear me much
   thou wilt be held so till thou perish, perish everlastingly. Man, does
   not this concern you? I lay last night by the hour together on my bed
   awake, tossing with a burden on my heart, and I tell thee that only
   burden that I had was thy soul. I cannot endure it, man, that thou
   shouldst be cast into the "lake that burneth with fire and brimstone."
   I believe that book as thou dost; believing it, I am alarmed at the
   prospect which awaits the unconverted. The more I look into the subject
   of the world to come, the more I am impressed that all those who would
   lessen our ideas of the judgment that God will bring upon the wicked,
   are waging war against God and against virtue and the best interests of
   men. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."
   Do not try it, my friend, I pray thee do not try it. Run not this risk,
   this certainty of endless misery, I beseech thee, dare it not! What
   sayest thou, "What then should I do?" I venture to reply in the words
   of one of old, "Break off thy sins by righteousness, for it is time to
   seek the Lord." But thou repliest, "How can I break them off? they are
   like cords and bonds." Ah, soul, here is another part of thy misery,
   that thou hast destroyed thyself, but thou canst not save thyself; thou
   hast woven the net, thou hast made it fast and firm, but thou canst not
   tear it in pieces. Bat there is One who can, there is One upon whom the
   Spirit of the Lord descended that he might loose the prisoner. There is
   a heart that feels for thee in heaven, and there is One mighty to save,
   who can rescue thee. Breathe that prayer, "O set me free, thou
   Liberator of captive souls;" breathe the prayer now, and believe that
   he can deliver thee, and thou shalt yet, captive as thou art, go free,
   and this shall be thy ransom price, his precious blood; and this shall
   be the privilege of thy ransomed life, to love and praise him who hath
   redeemed thee from going down into the pit.

   But I said the conclusion of the whole matter had something to do with
   the child of God. It has this to do with him. Dear brother and sister
   in Christ, by the love you bear to your fellow sinners, never help to
   make the bonds of their sins stronger than they are--you will do so if
   you are inconsistent. They will say, "Why, such a one professes to be a
   saved man, and yet see how he lives!" Will you make excuses for
   sinners? It was said of Judah, by the prophet, that she had become a
   comfort to Sodom and Gomorrah. O never do this; never let the ungodly
   have to say, "There is nothing in it; it is all a lie; it is all a mere
   pretense; we may as well continue in sin, for see how these Christians
   act!" No, brethren, they have bonds enough without your tightening them
   or adding to them.

   In the next place, never cease to warn sinners. Do not stand by and see
   them die without lifting up a warning note. A house on fire, and you
   see it as you go to your morning's labor, and yet never lift up the cry
   of "Fire!" a man perishing, and yet no tears for him! Can it be so? At
   the foot of Mr. Richard Knill's likeness I notice these words,
   "Brethren, the heathen are perishing, will you let them perish?" I
   would like to have each of you apply to your own conscience the
   question, "Sinners are perishing, will you let them perish without
   giving them at least, a warning of what the result of sin must be?" My
   brethren, I earnestly entreat you who know the gospel to tell it out to
   others. It is God's way of cutting the bonds which confine men's souls;
   be instant, in season and out of season, in publishing the good news of
   liberty to the captives through the redeeming Christ.

   And lastly, as you and I cannot set these captives free, let us look to
   him who can. O let our prayers go up and let our tears drop down for
   sinners. Let it come to an agony, for I am persuaded we shall never get
   much from God by way of conversion till we feel we must have it, until
   our soul breaketh for the longing that it hath for the salvation of
   souls: when your cry is like that of Rachel, "Give me children or I die
   I" you shall not long be spiritually barren. When you must have
   converts, or your heart will break, God will hear you and send you an
   answer. The Lord bless you! May none of you be held by the cords of
   your sins, but may ye be bound with cords to the horns of God's altar
   as a happy and willing sacrifice to him that loved you. The Lord bless
   you for Jesus' sake.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Proverbs 3.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Generous Proposal

   (No. 916)

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Come you with us, and we will do you good." Numbers 10:29.

   THESE ancient words, so simple, yet so sweet, fascinate us with a
   potent hallowed charm. They ring out their melody like a familiar air.
   The language of a heart full of kindness, inspired with faith, and
   inspirited with the enthusiasm of a hope so much Divine that the lapse
   of ages impairs not their force, or diminishes anything from their
   natural spontaneous freshness. This story of Hobab one can hardly read
   without remembering the Apostolic declaration that the Law was a
   "shadow of good things to come." A truly instructive shadow it was. In
   this instance the shadow is so like the image, the type so like the
   antitype, that we can almost see the Christian Church, and the convert
   as he is invited to unite with it. And we may behold in metaphor the
   blessings of which he may expect to be a partaker in so doing.

   "Come you with us, and we will do you good," seems to be quite as
   suitable an address from the lips of a Christian pastor as from those
   of the Prophet of Horeb, who was king in Jeshurun. We do not feel in
   the least degree hesitant as if we were wrenching the words from their
   natural association, or even exercising the slightest ingenuity in
   accommodating them to our own circumstances, so suitable do they seem
   for our use. The people of Israel in the wilderness were a type of the
   Church of Christ. The invitation here given was such as may be given to
   those who are proper subjects for communion with the Christian Church.

   We shall proceed accordingly, this evening, to talk to you upon four
   things. First, the nature of a true Church as it is depicted by Israel
   in the wilderness. Secondly, the obligation of such a Church to invite
   suitable persons to join it. Thirdly, the argument that the Church may
   use, and the inducements it will always have to offer in setting forth
   the benefits to be conferred on those who heartily respond. And
   fourthly, the scrupulous fidelity it behooves us, as members of the
   Church, to observe in keeping our pledge ever afterwards to seek the
   welfare of such as unite with our fellowship.

   I. First, then, WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A TRUE CHURCH AS IT IS
   PICTURED BY ISRAEL IN THE WILDERNESS? We might prolong the answer to
   this question with many minute features, but it will be unnecessary, at
   present, to do more than give you a simple broad outline. The people in
   the wilderness were a redeemed people. They had been redeemed by blood
   and redeemed by power. The sprinkling of the blood of the paschal lamb
   over their lintels and their doorposts had secured their safety when
   the first-born of Egypt was slain.

   Thus they were redeemed by blood, while wonderful miracles were worked
   throughout the whole land. And at the last, when threatened and pursued
   by their oppressors, the whole of the pride and pomp of Egypt was
   destroyed in the Red Sea. They were, indeed, redeemed by power. So, all
   the true members of God's Church understand what the blood of
   sprinkling means. They have enjoyed a Passover through it. God has
   passed over them--passed over them in mercy. Justice has executed its
   warrant upon the Person of the Lamb, and they have escaped--they have
   been redeemed by blood.

   And the Holy Spirit has entered into their hearts and made them hate
   their former sins. He has delivered them from the dominant power of
   their inward corruptions, has set them free and brought them out of the
   bondage of sin. Thus they have also been redeemed by power, and no one
   has any right to think himself a member of Christ's Church unless by
   faith he has seen himself redeemed by blood--and in his experience has
   also been redeemed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

   But, according to our text and the context, the Israelites were a
   people who were passing through a land where they found no rest,
   neither did they desire any, for they were journeying to another
   country, the promised land, the Canaan. Now, here is another
   description of the true Church of God. They are not of the world, even
   as Christ is not of the world. This is not their rest. Here they have
   no continuing city. Objects which may suit men who have no outlook
   beyond death would not be suitable to them. That which rejoices the
   heart of the mere worldling gives them but very slender solace.

   Their hope and their consolation lie beyond the river. They look for a
   city that has foundations whose Builder and Maker is God.

   Judge then, my dear Hearer, whether you are a member of God's Church,
   of the Church of Jesus Christ. If you are, you are a stranger and a
   foreigner this night here below, however pleasant the tent of your
   pilgrimage may be. Your Father's house on High is your destination. You
   are an exile from your home, albeit to your faith's foreseeing eye its
   golden gates may never so clearly appear. You have not yet come to your
   rest, but there remains to you a rest, a rest to which you shall come
   in due time, though you have not yet reached it. May I entreat you to
   put these questions to your own hearts as they arise, and judge
   yourselves.

   Israel in the wilderness, according to the text, again, was a people
   walking by faith as to the future. Remember, the words are, "They were
   going to the place of which the Lord said, I will give it to you." They
   had never seen it--no one had come from it to tell them of it. True, in
   after days some spies had returned--but they brought up an ill report
   of the land, so that the people required even more faith, then, than
   they did before. If anyone had said to them, "But, if there is a land
   that flows with milk and honey, how will you gain it? The inhabitants
   thereof are strong and mighty--how are you sure that you will ever
   obtain this goodly land?" the only reply would have been, "The Lord has
   spoken to us concerning it."

   Every true Israelite had been instructed as to the Covenant God had
   made with Abraham when He said, "To you and to your seed will I give
   this land to possess it," and every true Israelite was expecting that
   His people should find a lodgment and a portion in that land evermore
   because of the Covenant which God had made with his fathers. They were
   walking, then, in that respect, by faith--looking for a country which
   they had not seen--traversing a desert in search of a land which as yet
   they had not known. And with only God's Word for their title deed and
   nothing more.

   And such are God's people now. As for joys to come, they have not
   tasted them--but they are looking for them because God has promised
   them. "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
   heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love Him.
   But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit," and the Spirit
   reveals them only to our faith. If you ask me, "How do you know that
   there is a Heaven?" I must answer you, I believe it on God's testimony.
   I have no other warrant for it. No man has returned from that fair land
   to testify that he has heard the everlasting song, or seen the blessed
   citizens as they stand in their bright array before the Everlasting
   Throne.

   Nor want I that any such should return. God's Word is enough. Let that
   stand instead of the testimony of ten thousand angels, or of myriads of
   the white-robed host of spirits who might have returned to tell the
   tale. We walk by faith as Israel did of old. Are you walking by such a
   faith? Do you believe in the unseen future, and does the hope of an
   unseen reward make you despise the present rewards of sin? Are you
   willing to bear the reproach of Christ because you count it greater
   treasure than all the riches of Egypt? Are you willing, now, to take up
   with Christ's Cross because you believe in Christ's crown? Though you
   have not seen it, do you believe in it, and rejoice with joy
   unspeakable and full of glory?

   These people, also, as to their present circumstances were walking by
   faith. It was not merely faith which sang to them of Canaan, but it was
   faith that told them of the manna which fell day by day, and the water
   which flowed from the rock--which stream followed them in their
   journey. Why, they could not live in any other way in the wilderness
   but by faith in God, for from that arid strand there sprang nothing for
   their nourishment! Here and there a palm tree--now and then a cooling
   well. But for the most part, had it not been for the goodness of God,
   their way had been over a desert, cheerless, waste, and terrible. But
   He gladdened it for them, and made the place of His feet, and of their
   feet, too, right glorious, for His mercy and His loving kindness endure
   forever!

   Now, in this world the Christian man has to live by faith upon God as
   to present things. As to temporal necessities he must cast all his care
   on Him who cares for us, but especially as to all spiritual supplies
   the Christian has no stock of Grace. He has no inner spring within
   himself in his old nature. He has to look for everything that can
   sustain his new life from God, even the Father, who has promised not to
   forsake him. Now surely, my dear Hearer, you know whether you are
   living by present faith or not. If all your comfort is derived from
   that which you can handle, and hear, and see. And if your joys of life
   are only the outward things of the present--then you are no member of
   the Church of God.

   Whether you may have been baptized, or confirmed--whatever profession
   you may have made, or whatever sign you may have received--you do not
   belong to Christ's people--nor can you belong to them. But if you live
   by faith, I care not of what Church you are a member. If you are
   exhibiting day by day a living faith upon a living but unseen God. If

   your trust is in His Providence. If you daily resort to Christ for help
   and succor. If you have that faith which is the mark of God's elect,
   you may depend upon it that you are one of His.

   One other mark let us give among many more which might be mentioned.
   These people found, wherever they went, that they were surrounded by
   foes. In the wilderness the Amalekites were against them. When they
   crossed into the promised land all the inhabitants of Canaan were up in
   arms against them. So I think you will find it if you are a child of
   God. All places are full of snares. Events, prosperous or adverse,
   expose you to temptations. All things that happen to you, though God
   makes them work for good, in themselves would work for evil. Here on
   this earth the world is no friend to Divine Grace to help you on to
   God.

   The bias of the current is not towards Heaven. Alas, it is the other
   way! "Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves." "The
   whole world lies in the Wicked One, and you are of God, little
   children." Darkness prevails. It cannot minister to your safety or to
   your happiness. Neither can the sinful world minister light to the
   understanding, peace to the conscience, joy to the heart, or holiness
   to the life of the Believer. You will have to fight continually. The
   last step you take will be a conflict, and you will never be able to
   sheathe your sword until you are in the bosom of Christ. Thus must you
   maintain the godly warfare--

   "'Till with yonder blood-bought crowd You shall sing on Canaan's shore
   Songs oft triumph, sweet and loud War with Amalek no more."

   Here, then, are some of the marks of the Church of Christ. I hope that
   a part of that Church worships in this House of Prayer. A part of that
   Church will be found to worship in every House of Prayer where the
   disciples of our common Lord assemble, and the mystery of God and of
   the Father and of Christ is acknowledged.

   II. Let us pass on to the second word, which is this, that IT IS THE
   DUTY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH TO INVITE SUITABLE PERSONS TO JOIN WITH
   IT. As you read--"Come you with us, and we will do you good"--are not
   these the terms in which any Church should invite a suitable pastor to
   unite with it? I have always felt that they have a better application
   to a pastor than they have to the people. For it is said of Hobab, "You
   know how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and you shall be unto us
   instead of eyes."

   It was inviting a really efficient helper, who would be of great
   service to the Israelites, to come and cast in his lot with them. So
   should a Church expect to find in its pastor one who may guide them,
   because he knows how they are to encamp in the wilderness. One who may
   be to them, in some respects, instead of eyes. Their invitation should
   come in this way, not only, "Come you with us, that we may get good out
   of you"--that is one design--but it should also be, "Come you with us,
   that we may do you good. That we may hold up your hands, that we may
   sustain you by our prayers, that we may back you up by our efforts.
   That being led onward by you from one work of Christian activity to
   another, we may never fail you, never betray you, but may stand with
   you even to the last."

   I believe you will seldom get much good unless you are willing also to
   confer good. Those who are the nearest to the heart of the preacher, in
   all Christian service, will in all probability be most spiritually
   enriched under his ministry. I speak not of myself nor for myself, but
   I specially address myself now to those of you, my Hearers, who are
   members of other Churches. Do, I exhort you, love your ministers! Stand
   up for their character in all companies! Rally at their side in all
   their efforts--never let them have to regret your absence at the
   weeknight service, or at any other time, if you can help it.

   Let them see that you appreciate the men whom you have chosen to be
   over you in the Lord, and that you have said in inviting them to come
   among you, "Come you with us, and we will do you good." Not to linger
   on that view, however pertinent and seasonable, let us take the words
   as significant of the manner in which Churches should invite suitable
   persons to come among them as private members. Are there not those who
   go in and out merely as visitors worshipping with you, who have never
   joined hands with you in Covenant?

   They meet with you as mere hearers, under the same ministry, but they
   have not identified themselves with the brotherhood to sit down and
   feast with you at the Table of the Lord. To such as these the proposal
   may be made, and the welcome proffered. The conditions, of course, need
   to be thoroughly understood on our part as well as on theirs. We dare
   not invite anyone to join the visible Church who has not first joined
   the invisible Church. We do not believe that a man has any right to be
   baptized in water unless he has first been baptized in the Holy Spirit.
   Nor that anyone has a right to

   eat of the Lord's Supper, the outward signs of bread and wine, until he
   has eaten of the flesh and drank of the blood of the Son of Man, in a
   spiritual sense.

   He must have the essence of the symbol before we dare give the symbol.
   So a man must be vitally united to the living Church of Christ before
   he has any right to be professionally united there. Therefore it would
   be a sin on the part of any child of God to say to anyone whom he knew
   to be an unconverted person, "Come and unite yourself with the Church."
   No, that cannot be. First, dear Hearer, you must be one with Christ,
   reconciled to God, a Believer in the precious blood--and then
   afterwards you may come to the Church of God. But until then you have
   no part nor lot in this matter, for you are still in the gall of
   bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity.

   Moses did not thus invite any strangers or neighbors indiscriminately,
   saying, "Come you with us," but he invited Hobab as one whom he well
   knew, and of whose fitness he could no doubt feel. Was not Raguel his
   father, the priest of Midian, a servant of the Most High God? And was
   not Hobab also a worshipper of Jehovah, the God of Israel? "Come you
   with us," says he, "you are our kith and kin. Birds of a feather flock
   together. Come you with us and we will do you good. You are one of our
   Brethren, come and welcome, nothing shall stand in the way. Come you
   with us, and we will do you good."

   Now, I have heard persons speak on this wise, "I believe that my child
   has been converted, but you must not think that I have pressed him, for
   I never spoke to my child about religion." I am heartily ashamed of a
   father who can say that! And I hope that he will be equally ashamed of
   himself. I quite agree, however, that no parent and no friend should
   press another to make a public profession of faith until he is as
   assured as he possibly can be that the fruits of the Spirit are put
   forth in that child, or that friend. But, once assured of that, there
   can be no credit in holding your tongue about a Christian duty. It is
   the duty of every child of God to be associated with the Christian
   Church, and surely it is part of our duty to instruct others to do what
   the Lord would approve of! Do not, therefore, hesitate to say to such
   as serve and fear the Lord, "How is it that you remain outside the pale
   of the visible Church? Come you with us, and we will do you good." So
   Moses did to Hobab.

   As it is a very kind and tender word, "Come you with us," let it be
   spoken persuasively. Use such reasoning as you can to prove that it is
   at once their duty and their privilege. Observe, Moses does not
   command, but he persuades. Nor does he merely make a suggestion or give
   a formal invitation, but he uses an argument. He puts it attractively,
   "And we will do you good." So, look the matter up--study it--get your
   arguments ready. Seek out inducements from your own experience. Draw a
   reason, and there and then try to persuade your Christian friends.

   Do it heartily. Observe how Moses puts it as from a very warm heart.
   "Come you with us. Give me your hand, my Brother. Come you with us, and
   we will do you good." There are no "ifs," "ands," or "buts." It is not,
   "Well, you may perhaps be welcome," but "Come you with us." Give a
   hearty, loving, warm invitation to those whom you believe to be your
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ.

   Do it repeatedly if once will not suffice. Observe in this case, Hobab
   said he thought he would depart to his own land and his kindred. But
   Moses returned to the charge, and says, "Leave us not, I pray you." How
   earnestly he puts it! He will have no put off. If at first it was a
   request, now it is a beseeching almost to entreaty--"Leave us not, I
   pray you." And how he repeats the old argument, but puts it in a better
   light--"If you go with us, yes, it shall be, that what goodness the
   Lord shall do unto us, the same will we do unto you."

   I would, therefore, earnestly say to Christian Brothers and Sisters
   here, look for some among our congregation, such as you believe to be
   godly people, and put to them this matter. I am sure they are losing
   much benefit, and quite certain that they are standing in an irregular
   position. If it is right for any one Christian not to be a member of a
   Church it is right for all Christians not to be members of
   Churches--consequently it would be right for there to be no visible
   Church, and ordinances might be dispensed with--for all these things
   must either exist through the maintenance of sacred order or else
   collapse with the breach of godly discipline.

   What is not the duty of one is not the duty of any--and what is the
   duty of one is the duty of all--for we all stand alike before God. If I
   may be innocent in abstaining from union with the people of God, so may
   all of you. Or if you may, so may I. There is no more obligation upon
   me to preach the Gospel than there is upon any one of you to make a
   profession of his faith. If you are a Christian, the same rule of love
   that prompts me to speak for my Lord should prompt you in

   your way to speak for your Lord. And if I should not be excusable if I
   remained silent, and refused to bear my testimony, neither will you be
   excusable, being a Christian, if you refuse to unite yourself with the
   people of God.

   Remember our Master's word, "Whoever therefore, shall confess Me before
   men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in Heaven. But
   whoever shall deny Me before men," (which has the force there of not
   confessing), "him will I also deny before My Father which is in
   Heaven."

   Before I leave this point let me call your attention to a certain sense
   in which Christian men may address this invitation to all that they
   meet with. "Come you with us, and we will do you good." Not, "come and
   join our Church," not, "come and be members," not, "come and put on a
   profession of faith." You cannot say that to any but to those in whom
   you see the fruits of the Spirit. But you may say, and you ought to
   say, to ALL persons of all classes on all sides, "Come away from the
   seed of evildoers. Cast in your lot with the people of God. Leave the
   world, come on pilgrimage to the better country. Forsake the pursuit of
   vanities--lay hold on eternal life. Waste not all your thoughts upon
   the bootless cares of time--think about the momentous matters of
   eternity.

   "Why will you be companions of those who are upon the wrong side, and
   whose cause is the cause of evil? Why will you remain an enemy to God?
   Why will you be in an unreconciled state? We, by God's Grace, have cast
   in our lot with Christ and with His cause. We desire to live to His
   glory. Our ambition is to serve Him. If we could, we would live without
   sin, for we hate it and loathe it. If we could, we would be as the
   angels are, without a single fault. Come and cast in your lot with
   us--that is, believe. That is, trust a Savior slain. That is, put your
   soul into the custody of Christ the Intercessor. That is, press forward
   through a life of holiness on earth to a home of happiness in Heaven."
   "Come you with us, and we will do you good."

   So, then, the exhortation of our text which, strictly speaking, seems
   most applicable to the minister, becomes next suitable to the child of
   God who has not up to now cast in his lot with the company of our
   Lord's disciples. And after that, in a certain sense, it may be
   appropriately addressed to all who come under the sound of the Gospel.
   "Come you with us, and we will do you good."

   III. But now, our third observation is that THE MAIN ARGUMENT--THE MOST
   POWERFUL INCENTIVE WE CAN EVER USE IS THAT ASSOCIATION WITH THE CHURCH
   OF CHRIST WILL DO THOSE WHO ENTER

   INTO IT GOOD.

   I am sure it will, for I speak from experience. And if I were to call
   upon many scores, and even hundreds, in this House of Prayer, they
   would all bear the same testimony--that union with the people of God
   has done them good. The Church of God may say this, first, because she
   can offer to those who join with her good company. In the Church of God
   are those who are called "the excellent of the earth," in Whom David
   said was all his delight. In the Church of God are the humble, meek,
   and lowly.

   And, though in that Church there will come a traitorous Judas, yet
   there are not wanting the warm-spirited and loving John, the bold and
   daring Peter, the practical James, the well-instructed Paul in labors
   more abundant, and many of the precious sons of Zion and daughters of
   Jerusalem in like manner. Of whom, I might affirm, as the Apostle did
   of Priscilla and Aquila, they are my helpers in Christ Jesus, unto whom
   I not only give thanks, but also all the Churches of the Gentiles.
   Truly we can sing with heart-felt sincerity, Dr. Watts' paraphrase of
   David's Psalm --

   "Here my best friends, my kindred dwell, Here God my Savior reigns."

   Good company is ever a good thing, and the children of God may say to
   their Brethren who have not yet joined with them, "Come you with us,
   and we will do you good," for we will introduce you to the goodly
   fellowship of the saints. Come join a section of the general assembly
   and Church of the First-Born whose names are written in Heaven, and
   whose work of faith, patience of hope, and labors of love are spread
   abroad throughout the world.

   "Come with us," the Church of God may say, "and you shall have good
   instruction," for it is in the true Church of God that the doctrines of
   Grace are preached, that the Covenant of Grace is unfolded, that the
   Person of Christ is extolled, that the work of the Spirit is magnified.
   All the precious things, indeed, which make up the spiritual meat of
   God's servants are brought forth and put upon the table every Sunday.
   There the good stewards bring forth things both new and old. In the
   midst of the Church the Good Shepherd makes us to lie down in the green
   pastures, and leads us be-

   side the still waters. Come you with us, and the teaching of the Church
   shall do you good--you shall hear those glorious doctrines which shall
   build you up in your most holy faith.

   "Come you with us, and we will do you good," in the best sense, for you
   shall feel in our midst the good Presence of God. Where two or three
   are gathered together in Christ's name, there is He in the midst of
   them. And in the greater assemblies of His people, when the solemn hymn
   swells up to Heaven and the fervent prayer rises like a cloud of sweet
   perfume, and the ministry of the Gospel is diffused like a sweet
   smelling savor of Christ unto God--there is God. There the Father is,
   receiving returning prodigals, accepting His dear children who feel the
   spirit of adoption.

   There the Son is, manifesting Himself unto them as He does not unto the
   world. There the Spirit is, working in them to will and to do of His
   own good pleasure, and helping their infirmities as a Comforter and an
   Advocate. Have you not often felt the Presence of God, my dear Brothers
   and Sisters, in your assemblies as the people of God? Can you not,
   therefore, say with the recollections in your glowing hearts of the
   consolations you have received in association with each other, "Come
   you with us, and we will do you good"?

   "Come with us again, for you shall participate in all the good offices
   of the Church." That is to say, my Christian Brothers and Sisters, if
   you will cast in your lot with us, if there is prayer, you shall have
   your share in it. We will pray for you in your trouble, and trial, and
   anguish. If a Brother's voice can intercede for you when your tongue is
   dumb with grief, you shall certainly have such help as they that can
   minister to you. Come you with us, for in the true Church of God there
   is sympathy. Genuine Believers are taught to "weep with those that
   weep," and to "rejoice with those that rejoice." They feel that they
   are members, one of another, and partakers of the same life with Jesus
   Christ.

   If there is anything to be found in ordinances you shall have a share
   of that good thing. If the Lord reveals Himself in the breaking of
   bread, you shall not be shut out from the Table. Come you with us, and
   when we behold Him you shall see Him, too. Come you with us, and if our
   fellowship is with Christ, you shall have a share in it. And if our
   conversation of the things of God is sweet and pleasant, you, too,
   shall have your say and your good word, and we will rejoice to hear
   you. We invite you to a pure brotherly fellowship, not to one of name
   only, but in deed and in heart. "Come you with us, and we will do you
   good."

   But the good that Hobab was to get was not only on the road. He must
   have got a deal of good on the road, for he saw in the sacrifice what
   he had never seen before. While he walked among those tents of Judah he
   must have felt that God was remarkably present there as he had never
   felt it among the tents of Midian. He saw there every morning the
   pillar of cloud, and every night the pillar of fire. He heard the sound
   of the silver trumpets. He saw the uplifting of the sacred banners, and
   the marching of the chosen host of God, and he must have felt, "This is
   a place more marvelous than any I have ever trod before in that falling
   manna, in that miraculous stream. I see everywhere the marks of
   Omnipotence, love, and wisdom as I never have seen them in all my
   solitary musings or my long wanderings aforetime."

   So, in the Church of God there are the footprints of Deity, there are
   marks of the sublime Presence of the Christ of God who abides in the
   furnace with His afflicted people. Signs of God's Presence such as all
   the world besides cannot exhibit. You shall get good on the road. But
   still, the main good that Hobab got was this--he went into the promised
   land with God's people. We read of his people, the Kenites dwelling in
   the land in aftertime. He seems to have become a partaker of the same
   Covenant with Israel, to have become part and parcel with them. So, the
   main blessing that you get from being united with the invisible Church
   of Christ through being part and parcel of the Body of Christ is
   reserved for the hereafter--

   "When God makes up His last account

   Of natives in the Holy Mount;

   'Twill be an honor to appear

   As one new born and nourished there." Woe unto those who shall have no
   part with Israel in the day when the lots shall be divided and the
   portions shall be given! Woe unto such as shall be found among the
   Amalekites or Canaanites--strangers to the chosen seed! But happy shall
   all they be who have God to be their God, for their portion shall be
   bliss forever. Come you, therefore, with us, for whatever good the Lord
   shall do unto us you shall be a partaker in it.

   IV. And now, lastly. All this being seriously pondered and clearly
   understood, the last point is a matter of very serious importance. Lest
   we should be found mere pretenders, LET ALL OF US WHO BELONG TO
   CHRIST'S CHURCH

   TAKE CARE TO MAKE THIS ARGUMENT TRUE.

   I speak to many Brothers and Sisters here who have long been joined to
   the visible Church of God, and I put these questions to them--How have
   you carried out this silent compact which has been made with the
   friends of Christ? You have promised to do them good--have you
   fulfilled your pledges? I am afraid few of us have done good to our
   fellow Christians up to the measure that we might have done, or that we
   ought to have done. Some professors, I fear, have forgotten the compact
   altogether. They joined the Church, but the idea of doing good to the
   rest of the community has scarcely entered into their mind.

   "Come you with us, and we will do you good." You say this, then, to the
   poor members of the Church. Has God prospered you? Do them good. Say
   not to them, "Be you warmed and be you filled," but as far as ever your
   ability can reach, minister to them that Christ may not have to say to
   you, "I was an hungered and you gave me no meat. I was thirsty and you
   gave me no drink." Let your charity be wide as the world, for God makes
   it to rain on the just and the unjust--but remember--He has a peculiar
   people, and He would have us to be a peculiar people unto Himself. Let
   us do good unto all men, but specially to those who are of the
   household of faith. If you know a Brother in Christ whose need is
   pressing, own him as a Brother--open your hands wide unto him--do him
   good in this respect.

   You that are old members of the Church, well established and
   instructed, you have virtually promised to do good to the young
   members--will you not try to do so? Some of them, perhaps, are not all
   you would like them to be. Mind you, you are not to condemn, but to
   reform them. Can you not gently prune the luxuriance of their branches
   that are a little too wild? Would it not be possible for you, in a
   loving and an affectionate manner, to assist them in the points in
   which they are weak? To lead them in the matters in which they err? Do
   them good--do not clamor against them with reproach, censure, sneer,
   and jibe. Nor wish to bind them down to conformity with your rules,
   judging them by the som-berness of your own disposition.

   What if they are lively and cheerful--try to make them merry and wise.
   Let them be happy and rejoice--seek that their happiness may be in
   Christ, and their rejoicing in the Lord. Do them good. There are some
   of your fellow Christians who are faint-hearted--not pleasant people to
   talk to. They will never cheer you much. They always look on the black
   side. They have always some trouble. They are terribly dull company--do
   not shun them, do them good. Strengthen the weak hands, and confirm the
   feeble knees. Say to them that are of feeble heart, "Be strong. Fear
   not." Do not forsake them, but you that are spiritual bear their
   burdens, and help to make them rejoice.

   Some among your number will be backsliders--alas, that it should be so.
   Let not your coldness ever accelerate the pace at which they step
   aside--rather let your persevering care watch over them, that their
   first wandering may be soon checked. Little, alas, can be done to
   remedy backsliding when it goes far, but much may be done by nipping it
   in the bud. In the Church of God, prevention is infinitely better than
   cure. Watch over them, then. "If any man be overtaken in a fault, you
   that are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness,
   remembering yourself lest you also be tempted."

   Some in the Church may be ignorant. There always were such. No standard
   of height is set up in the Word of God for all the recruits to be up to
   that level. No bylaw prescribes that none be received unless they are
   of a certain stature. If, therefore, some you meet with are very
   ignorant, do them good. Do not set about a report of any absurd remark
   that they may make, or any misapprehension they may have upon a point
   of Divinity. You were not always so wise as you are now--probably you
   are not so wise now as you think you are. But anyhow, I shall argue
   from the wisdom you possess your duty to impart. You have said, "Come
   you with us, and we will do you good." It is not doing any man good to
   smile at him, to find fault with him for not knowing. But it is doing
   him good to hide his shortcomings and help his progress.

   Once again--there may be some in your midst who are in a good deal of
   trouble. Have they no friends to sympathize and console them? Alas,
   friends in this world are often too much like swallows that are gone as
   soon as the first frost appears. Let it not be so with you--if you
   never owned him your friend before--be his friend now. Come to his aid
   if you possibly can. Let him have your countenance. Do not pass him
   because his black coat has a rusty hue. Do not get out of his way
   because you are afraid that he is short of cash. As far as ever you
   can, let him see, now he is in his trouble, that you did not value him
   for what he had, but for himself, for his character, for his attachment
   to Christ.

   If anybody has spoken ill of him, do not be ready to jot down as true
   the slander that every fool or villain may please to hold forth against
   a Christian man. Search for yourselves, and if you are obliged to
   believe it, yet say little about it. Carry it before God, as though it
   were your own sin, and sorrow over it. Talk to your Brother, if it is
   your lot to know

   him well, and get him to leave the evil into which he has fallen, and
   lead him back again. But do not forsake him. Or if he is the victim of
   slander and scandal, be you among the first to defend him. I do hope
   that there will always be among us a spirit of true Christian
   brotherhood so that those who love Christ and have thrown in their lot
   with us may find that we really desire to do them good.

   I have thus spoken more particularly because I know that the number of
   Christians among us who are not making a profession is unusually large
   just now. I had far rather it should be so than that it should be the
   reverse--than that many should be making a profession without knowing
   or feeling the private virtue and public faith it demands. Better that
   you were outside the visible Church all your lives, and be in Christ,
   than make a profession and yet have no part nor lot with Him. All these
   outward things are nothing compared with the inward. "You must be born
   again." There must be a living faith in Christ, a real change of
   heart--an indwelling of the Spirit of God to attest the verity of your
   godliness. Where these are, the rest ought not to be neglected.

   These things ought you to have done, and not to have left the other
   undone, but still, even if they are left undone, it shall not amount to
   a total shipwreck. But if there is no faith, you may build the vessel
   as you will, and you may think that you have loaded her with precious
   treasures--but sink she must--because that alone which would have kept
   her afloat has been neglected.

   God grant us to be one with Christ, and to be one with His people in
   time and in eternity. There now--there now-- there is Christ's Church.
   And if I saw that she were in the stocks, and all were hooting her--if
   she stood in the pillory, and all were pelting her--yet it would be my
   desire to throw in my lot with her! Whatever she endured I would
   endure, because the day comes when those who were not on the side of
   Christ and His Church would give their eyes if they had been!

   Yes, would wish themselves that they had never been born to think that
   they did not take up with the reproached people, and did not side with
   the reproached Savior. O be with Christ in His sorrows, that you may be
   with Him in His joy! Be with Him in His reproach, that you may be with
   Him in His glory! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Precious, Honorable, Beloved

   (No. 917)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 20, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON

   AT THE METROTROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Since you were precious in My sight you have been honorable, and I
   have loved you." Isaiah 43:4.

   THE first reference of this text is evidently to Israel. That nation
   was precious in God's sight. He had been pleased sovereignly to make an
   election of the seed of Abraham, that they should be His portion, and
   He should be their portion evermore. They were precious in His sight
   because of the Covenant which He had made with their great forefather,
   saying, "In blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will
   multiply your seed, and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth
   be blessed."

   This word of promise elevated them to an eminent position before the
   Lord. They were precious in the Lord's sight because His honor was
   concerned in their history. If the Covenant promise could be broken,
   there would be an impeachment of the fidelity of the Most High--if by
   any means the chosen people could be crushed by their enemies, then the
   Omnipotence of their Patron and Defender would also be in question. It
   was an important point that they should be preserved, because in the
   fulfillment of His Covenant with them the name of God would be
   glorified, as the God of faithfulness and Truth.

   They were therefore precious in His sight. Many of the vast purposes of
   the Divine Being were intertwisted with the being and well-being of the
   chosen people. To them He had committed the sacred oracles--among them
   lived His holy Prophets, to them He revealed the Law--of them as
   concerning the flesh, Christ came, and out of them the first preachers
   of the Gospel were chosen. Scarcely any great event that glorifies the
   Grace of God can be dissociated from the Jewish people. Let me even
   remind you that the calling of the Gentiles is the consequence of the
   putting away of Israel for awhile because of unbelief, and that the
   future glory, whenever it shall come, will certainly be intimately
   connected with the restoration of the chosen people.

   Very precious is Israel, because like a silver thread we see her story
   running through the whole line of God's Grace as manifested to the sons
   of men. The Israelites of old were precious to God because He had done
   so much for them. He had brought them out of Egypt "with a high hand
   and an outstretched arm." He had cast out the tribes of Canaan before
   them. He had oftentimes rebuked kings for their sakes, yes, and slain
   mighty kings that they might be delivered. The results of all this the
   Lord would not lose, and they, therefore for this cause also were
   precious in His sight.

   Doubtless, one main reason of Israel's preciousness lay in the fact
   that out of Judah should arise the Royal Man, the Son of God, in Whom
   the Father is well-pleased. For the sake of that Divine Seed, which I
   may call the vital kernel of Israel's race, the Lord took pleasure in
   the descendants of Abraham, and they were precious in His sight.

   Many other reasons might be given why God, having once elected the
   little nation of Israel by an act of distinguishing Grace, should look
   upon the people as peculiarly precious. But we pass on to observe that
   He next declares them to be honorable--honorable because, or from the
   time when they had been precious in His sight. Whoever God may elect
   for Himself, he is by that very fact rendered honorable, and the Jewish
   people in being set apart as the Lord's own people, were by that very
   separation honored above all other nations on the face of the earth.

   They, moreover, received the Light while the whole world was in
   darkness. Although some stray gleams fell here and there among the
   nations, yet the brightest illumination which enlightened the early
   ages from the Throne of God came to the Israelite people. While others
   worshipped gods that were not gods, Israel adored Him whose Throne is
   in the heavens and whose kingdom rules over all. Theirs were the
   commands written with the Divine finger--theirs a sacredly instructive
   ritual--theirs a line of priests ordained to stand between man and God.
   All this made them honorable.

   Conjointly with this special privilege they were honored by being
   chosen to special service. They were to conserve the knowledge of the
   true God amid surrounding idolatry, and they were to maintain a
   testimony for holiness in the center

   of abounding wickedness. They were ordained to be a holy nation, a
   peculiar people, sanctified unto the Lord to show forth the praise of
   Jehovah. They were honored by His constant Presence with them. No other
   nation saw God go before them in pillars of cloud and fire--nowhere
   else did the Shekinah blaze forth except between the wings of the
   cherubim overshadowing the Mercy Seat.

   He had not so dealt with any other nation--only to His chosen people
   had He been pleased to reveal Himself. They were favored with special
   protections in Providence, with special guidance in all their
   difficulties, special supplies in time of famine. And if they sometimes
   had special chastisements, yet even these were but tokens of His
   peculiar regard. Israel was precious in the sight of God, and
   therefore, though small and inconsiderable, it was honorable among the
   nations, so that David could truthfully say, "What one nation in the
   earth is like Your people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem
   for a people to Himself?"

   I need not dwell upon God's special love to Israel. We believe it
   continues to this hour, and though the scattered nation is despised,
   and the precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, are esteemed as
   earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter--yet the day
   shall come when "There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall
   turn away ungodliness from Jacob." Then Judea's mountains, (Your land,
   O Immanuel), shall drop down with new wine, and the hills shall flow
   with milk. Then the glorious diadem of her former glory shall return to
   Zion's brow, and God, even her own God, shall bless her. The Covenant
   of salt shall be remembered, and it shall be soon that the Lord has not
   cast away His people whom He did foreknow.

   We must not leave this point without noticing how true it was that
   because the Israelite people were so favored of God, He gave men for
   them, and people for their life. Egypt had to see the death of all its
   first-born for Israel's sake. The Canaanites were utterly exterminated
   to make room for the tribes. And when mighty kings came against the
   chosen people, they, too, were smitten with terrible destructions.
   Sennacherib's host withered like autumn leaves when "the angel of death
   spread his wings on the blast," for Israel must be saved.

   If the people were carried captive for their sins, yet in captivity
   they became like the firebrand amidst the dry stubble, for Babylon was
   destroyed for their sakes--the hammer of the nations was broken in
   pieces that the exiles might be set free to worship the Lord at
   Jerusalem. Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba were all thrown into the scale
   together, and made nothing of in comparison with the elect nation. He
   gave men for them, or as the Hebrew reads it, he gave man for them, as
   though the whole race of man, with all its interests, were made to
   yield to the interests of the one chosen people. Thus dear was the seed
   of faithful Abraham to Jehovah's heart. I dare not take such a text as
   this is without first of all giving you its original and natural
   signification, and I doubt not that it is as I have now declared it.

   This passage may, however, without the slightest wrenching of it from
   its connection, as I believe, and certainly without any distortion of
   its meaning, be applied to the spiritual Israel, namely, to Christ's
   chosen Church, which He has redeemed with His blood. Now this Church of
   God is, and always has been, precious in God's sight. Not that there
   was anything of natural excellency in His elect why they should be
   chosen. Not that in the whole of them put together there was any value
   above the rest of the sons of men. But because the Lord, having been
   pleased to choose them, put by that very act a preciousness upon them
   which otherwise had not been there.

   They are now precious to God, because, having loved them from of old,
   that ancient love sets a stamp of preciousness upon them in the dear
   memories of the past eternity. His goings forth in love to His people
   were of old--yes, He has loved them with an everlasting love, and
   therefore they are dear to Him. The Church is precious because His
   purposes of Grace mainly relate to it, and His other purposes are made
   subservient to the glory of His Grace in them. The bounds of the
   nations has He set according to the number of His chosen. The
   arrangements of Providence have all been disposed with an eye to them.
   All things work together for their good, and for the achievement of
   their ultimate perfection.

   God is pleased to reckon them as His crown jewels--His peculiar
   treasure--because He sees in them the purchase of His Son's agonies.
   They have been bought with a price far above gold and silver. And by
   the memories of Gethsemane and Calvary, they are made most precious in
   the esteem of the Most High. They are precious, because in them, above
   all others, His Glory is to be revealed. He has displayed it in Nature.
   He manifests it in Providence. But peculiarly He intends to illustrate
   all His attributes in His Church, when she shall be conformed to the
   image of Christ Jesus her Lord.

   Exceedingly precious is the Church to God, and for this cause she is in
   the highest sense honorable. Even in her lowest estate, when despised
   and persecuted, the Church has still been honorable. In dark days and
   times of deep depression,

   when her candle was ready to go out, still was she honorable in the
   sight of the Most High. She was honorable because of her character, for
   she is holiness unto the Lord. Honorable because of her nearness to His
   Son, for is she not the "bride, the Lamb's wife"? Honorable because of
   the service entrusted to her to bear witness for the Truth of the one
   God and the glory of the one Mediator. She is honorable because of the
   destiny which awaits her, when she shall be taken up to dwell with her
   Lord forever, and reign with Him world without end.

   Brethren, the men of this world do not see as yet the excellency of the
   Church, but then they saw not the glory of Christ. They thought Him a
   "root out of a dry ground," and therefore it is not al all remarkable
   if they defame the Church as a despicable nest of fanaticism. But as He
   shall appear, and in the latter days His Glory shall strike all eyes,
   so shall His true Church be revealed also, and the nations that once
   despised her shall be glad to bow down and lick the dust of her feet.
   Let us hold in high esteem the Church of God, the secret and mystical
   Church first, and the outward and visible Church next, as her
   representative.

   I grieve when I hear some speaking as though the organized Church of
   God were a thing to be ignored or snuffed at. There have been many
   efforts made extra in the Church of God, and I would not for a moment
   have prevented one of them. But I have observed, and I think all must
   have done so, that the results of work disconnected with the Church of
   Christ have been but meager. God will bless the world, after all,
   through His Church. And your irregular efforts, though He shall own
   them, and they may be ordained by Him for a purpose, yet can never
   supersede the regular action of His people associated together in
   Church fellowship.

   Neither do I believe that operations which ignore a true and visible
   Church of Christ ever will be permanent, at least never so permanent as
   that work which springs out of a Church ordered according to the
   Apostolic rule, working under the Divine sanction, prayerfully sowing
   in the name of Christ, and carefully ingathering to the name of Jesus
   the fruits of its labors. Honor the Church, for God has honored it.
   Unite yourself with it if up to now you have stood aloof, that you may
   participate in the favor which Christ accords to His people as a body.

   "Since you were precious in My sight, you have been honorable, and I
   have loved you." This last word means, "I have taken a complacency in
   you." The Lord takes a delight in His Church. When God made the world
   he said it was good, but I do not find that He ever broke forth into
   any song of congratulation over His work. But when He views His Church,
   the new creation, we hear by the mouth of the Prophet, "He shall rest
   in His love, He shall rejoice over you with singing." There is that in
   the Church of God which makes even the august silence of God to be
   broken for awhile--the Triune Deity lifts up the voice of song over His
   chosen.

   Jesus loves His Church, His delights are with the sons of men. Of all
   that He has ever made or done, there is nothing in which God takes such
   satisfaction as in the "Church of the First-Born whose names are
   written in Heaven." Now rest assured, Brethren--that as for the Jewish
   Church, God gave up nations, threw them away as though they were but
   the common pebble stones, and His Israel the only diamond among
   them--so will it be and so has it been in reference to His own Church
   bought with the blood of Christ.

   It was remarked by the Reformers that at the time when the Catholic
   kings agreed to persecute them, they might have been crushed, but
   jealousy sprung up among the various monarchs. They were so engaged
   with wars among themselves that the Reformers were able to escape. As
   though the blood of thousands upon thousands might be shed that God
   would take care that His Gospel in the world should not be harmed. And
   now today what are empires and kingdoms but so many potters' vessels
   that shall be dashed to shivers sooner than the kingdom of Christ shall
   be moved?

   What are you, you kings, and you great ones of the earth, though you
   think yourselves to be the rulers of the times and the masters of
   events--yet of yourselves what are you? You are crushed before the moth
   if you oppose the advance of the Master's empire and the spread of His
   Truth. Do not gloomily foretell that missionary operations will be all
   in vain--it is not so, it cannot be so! Our prospects are bright,
   bright as the promises of God. Has He not said, "I will be exalted
   among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth"? God would sooner
   make the whole earth to quiver with earthquakes, like the leaf of the
   aspen in the gale, than allow one idol temple to stand fast forever.

   He would sooner unbind all the civil compacts of mankind until the
   human race became disintegrated into separate atoms, than suffer
   thrones and dominions to prevent the triumph of His Church, and the
   victory of her Lord. This line of remark seemed so naturally to spring
   out of the text that I could not but dwell upon it.

   I now beg to conduct you to the consideration which most forcibly
   strikes my own mind, namely, the application of this verse to each
   individual Believer in Christ. To every Christian I think the Master
   speaks, "Since you were precious in My sight, you have been honorable
   and I have loved you." Three things are in this text, "precious,"
   "honorable," "Beloved." O Believer, if you have Grace to suck the honey
   out of these, it shall be a happy day for you!

   I. Believer, the first wonderful adjective of the text is applicable to
   you--you are "PRECIOUS." Notice how that preciousness is enhanced
   beyond the superlative degree by the next words, "precious in My
   sight." There are mock jewels now made which are so exactly like
   rubies, emeralds, and diamonds that even those who are connoisseurs of
   precious stones are deceived--and yet these imitations are not
   precious. They are not precious in the sight of the lapidary, who is
   able to put them to severer tests--with him these mimicries are soon
   proved to be of little value.

   The degree of preciousness depends much upon the person who forms the
   judgment. And what estimate can be so accurate as that of God the
   Infallible? What judgment can be so severely exacting as that of God
   the infinitely Holy? How precious must a Believer be if he is precious
   in God's sight? For the things that are precious in man's sight, what
   are they to Him? What cares the Most High for all the diamonds of
   Golconda, or all the gold and silver that could be heaped together,
   though they should compose ranges of mountains like the Himalayas, all
   of precious ore? The golden mass would be nothing more than sordid dust
   in the sight of the Most High. He esteems not these things, but His
   poor and afflicted people are precious in His sight. It sometimes
   appears to unbelief as if it would be a comfortable thing to escape
   from-- God's sight--so that our unworthiness might be hidden.

   "Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, and whose sin is
   covered." We imagine in dark moments that it would be a great mercy to
   be ourselves covered and kindly forgotten by the Most High. But,
   Brethren, instead of that we are always in God's sight--placed as fully
   there as we shall be in the Day of Judgment. And, though His thoughts
   are not mistaken about us, and His judgment is not premature, for He
   knows precisely what we are, have been, shall be--yet He calls us
   precious!

   Ah, you humble Believers who are far from being precious in your own
   sight, and perhaps esteemed as worthless in the sight of those that
   know not the Grace of God--sit down and contentedly roll this under
   your tongue as a sweet morsel--you are precious in the sight of the
   Lord! If you are, indeed, the Lord's by faith in Christ Jesus, worked
   in you by the Holy Spirit, you are precious in the Father's sight.

   This preciousness, my Brothers and Sisters, cannot arise from anything
   essentially and intrinsically precious in us by nature, for we confess
   freely that we are even as others in our natural estate. The quarry out
   of which we were hewn was no quarry of precious things, and the pit out
   of which we have been dug was no pit in which rare stones were
   glittering. We were taken from common clay and out of the ordinary ruin
   of mankind. Yet God says we are precious, and the fact of our former
   degradation and fallen estate cannot dispute the Divine declaration.
   Fallen, depraved, and ruined, as we once were--yet for all that--we are
   precious in God's sight! How is this?

   Why, methinks it springs out of four considerations. We are precious in
   the sight of God because of the memories which cluster round each one
   of us. Jacob said of a certain portion that he would give it to
   Joseph--"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."
   Evidently the Patriarch set great store by that portion because it bad
   been won amid the hazards of actual warfare. It might not have been so
   valuable in itself as others of his possessions, but he thought much of
   it because he remembered the risks he ran in winning it to himself.

   And you, Child of God, you are the portion which Jesus took out of the
   hand of the Amorite with His sword and with His bow. For you He
   undertook the strife of battle and trod the winepress alone, that He
   might redeem you from the tyrant who held you in bondage and make you
   to be His peculiar heritage forever. You have at home today some trifle
   which, notwithstanding its little value, you would not sell for a
   thousand times its weight in gold because it belonged to a son or to a
   daughter since departed this life. That little memento is connected
   with some deed of daring, or act of generous self-denial on the part of
   your beloved child--and though in itself it is nothing--you count it
   very precious.

   Now, to the Father, you, Beloved Brothers and Sisters, are memorials of
   the Savior's condescension in taking upon Himself the form of a
   servant, and being made in the likeness of human flesh. You are a
   memorial of His being found in fashion as a Man, and becoming subject
   to death, even the death of the Cross. As God looks at each of you He
   sees what

   His Son has done, beholds in you the griefs of Calvary, bears anew the
   sighs of Olivet and the groans of Golgotha. You are to God, therefore,
   most precious, as the token and memorial of the death of Jesus Christ.

   Things become precious, sometimes, on account of the workmanship
   exercised upon them. Many an article has been in itself intrinsically
   of small account, but so much art has been exercised upon it, so much
   real work thrown into it, that the value has been increased
   indefinitely. I think I have heard of the raw material being worth
   scarcely a single penny, and yet so much skill has been used that
   occasionally even a thousand pounds in value has been attained.

   Now, the Christian is precious to God on account of the workmanship
   that has been spent upon him. Taken as we were from among the utterly
   destroyed, the Holy Spirit worked in us life from the dead, subdued our
   stubborn wills, and enlightened our darkened understandings. He has up
   till this day continued to exercise upon us all His exquisite and
   heavenly art by which we have been molded and fashioned, and made
   vessels fit for the Master's use. Look back, my dear Friends, you who
   are precious in God's sight, to what the Holy Spirit has already done
   for you.

   Remember the lines of the engraver's tool which He has made upon you in
   days of joy when he prompted you to thankfulness, to consecration, to
   communion? You are more likely, however, to remember those deeper
   strokes of the engraver's hand, made in the days of your pain and
   affliction. I do remember well when the Holy Spirit brought me to
   humiliation, to repentance, to self-purgation, to a holy vengeance
   against my sins and a sweet ardor for my Lord. In many ways the Great
   Worker has worked mightily in us and continued perseveringly to pursue
   His purpose.

   You never took such pains with a child as the Holy Spirit has taken
   with you. None of you ever took so much pains to instruct your little
   one as He has in teaching you. Your child has never grieved you, nor
   vexed you to the extent that you have grieved the Holy Spirit and
   provoked Him. Yet still He has not ceased His work, and seeing, as He
   does, so much already worked in you, you are precious in His sight--for
   He will not cast away what He has already expended.

   The Holy Spirit sees in you His own work as it will be, for being
   resolved to accomplish it, He beholds you not as you are just now, but
   as you shall be by-and-by, when "without spot or wrinkle, or any such
   thing," you shall be presented before the Eternal Throne--every
   tendency to iniquity being eradicated, and every desire that is good
   and holy, and commendable, being accomplished! Therefore, for the sake
   of what He will make you, the Holy Spirit counts you precious.

   Certain articles are precious because of their peculiar fashion. This
   was the case with the Portland vase, which to any common observer
   seemed to be of very small value, but because of the extreme beauty of
   the design, the greatest potter of the age was ready to pay his
   thousands to possess it. We are precious in God's sight, too, because
   of our fashion and form. For what, my Brethren, is to be the form of
   every Believer? We are to be made like unto Christ! There is no beauty
   like the form of Christ--nothing in Heaven or in earth can match the
   perfection of Jesus' Character.

   We are to be made like He, and God, therefore, counts us very precious
   because He sees His Son's image in every one of us. I know you prize
   and hang about your neck that dear memorial of a Beloved one now in
   Heaven. The likeness so accurately photographed recalls to your mind
   the very image of the departed one. And God views every one of His
   people as especially precious because they are, and are to be yet more
   perfectly, in the likenesses of Jesus Christ.

   Once more. Things are precious often because of their relationship. The
   most precious thing a mother has is her dear babe. We all love those
   who are near to us by the ties of nature. Precious, therefore, in the
   sight of the Lord are His saints because they are born in His
   household. By regeneration they are made to be His sons and daughters.
   Think not that God our Father has a less affection towards His sons
   than we have towards ours. Ah, no! No mother's heart ever yearned over
   her child, and no father's bosom ever rejoiced over his offspring as
   the heart of God yearns over His erring children-- and as His soul
   rejoices when they come back to Him.

   Do you call your child precious, and would you give your very life that
   you might preserve it? Even thus precious, O Believer, are you to your
   heavenly Father at this hour. I cannot preach on such a word as
   this--the theme is too sweet for language. But I wish that in your
   quietude you would silently sit down and turn this over--"I, poor,
   feeble, sinful worm as I am, yet, since I am chosen by distinguishing
   Grace and made to lay hold on eternal life in Christ Jesus, I am
   precious to God! My precious things I put under lock and key to
   preserve them. I view them with satisfaction and set great store by
   them. Even so will the great God hide me in His secret places. He
   delights to commune with me, and rejoices in me as He views me in
   Christ Jesus. I am more precious to Him than my own child is to my
   heart."

   Why, here is comfort for you, even if you are very poor, or bitterly
   persecuted. Perhaps you have, like Hannah, to suffer day by day
   sneering and bitter words from your adversary, who vexes you sorely to
   make you fret. Why, then, let this Truth of God console you--you are
   precious in the sight of the Lord, and therefore you may sing, "My soul
   does magnify the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior, for
   He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden." How it should make
   your spirit exult! How precious ought your thoughts of God to be to
   yourself, since you are precious in the sight of the Most High!

   II. But we must pass on briefly to the second choice word. Every child
   of God is, in the second place, "HONORABLE." If things go on as they do
   now, I do not know whether this word "honorable" will not be so
   degraded that a man will be ashamed to wear it. We who see lords
   dishonoring themselves will have to thank God that we are not lords,
   but men. Speak of the scum of society, it seems pretty clear that as
   the scum of every pot is on the top, so is it with the nation.

   We are reaching a pretty state of things, certainly, when the highest
   sin is to be found in the highest places. God grant that our great ones
   may mend their manners, for it is a crying shame and a detestable
   scandal when those who are accounted honorable and noble by birth
   cannot be even decently moral. God grant our nation better lights and
   ornaments than these. But, my Friends, this grand old word was written
   when it was untarnished, and in its virgin purity. If it has now come
   to be ordinarily meaningless or a mockery, let us now restore it to its
   pristine luster and see it glow on the page of Scripture as gold seven
   times purified with fire. Every Christian is in God's sight right
   honorable and excel-lent--because the Lord in His discriminating Grace
   has made him precious.

   First, every Christian is honorably born. Never mind how lowly your
   earthly parentage--you have been born unto God by the Holy Spirit--and
   therefore descended from the King of kings. It matters not though no
   blue blood may run in your veins, and you cannot trace your pedigree to
   any of the Norman invaders. If you can trace your pedigree up to the
   Lord of hosts, Himself, through being "begotten again unto a lively
   hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead," you belong to
   the blood imperial, and to the seed royal--and you may therein rejoice!
   God has made you honorable, no matter who despises you.

   The Christian is moreover honorable in rank. God has been pleased to
   take us from the dunghill to set us among princes. Rank in the order of
   Providence exists in all societies. Not only among men, but among pure
   spirits we have reason to believe there are various degrees and orders.
   But the nobility of holy men is everywhere paramount in God's sight.
   Man, redeemed by the blood of Christ, stands second to none in the
   whole range of created intelligences. Nearest to God stands a Man. "You
   have put all things in subjection under His feet, You have set Him over
   all the works of Your

   hands."

   In the Person of Jesus Christ man stands next to Deity, I mean man
   twice born--man renewed by the Holy Spirit. What lofty dignity is this,
   that even angels should be only "ministering spirits sent forth to
   minister" to us, our commissioned bodyguards commanded to pitch their
   tents around us! They are our servitors to bear us up in their hands
   lest at any time we dash our feet against a stone! Speak of lords
   spiritual--these are they--the spiritual seed of Abraham! Speak of
   kings and princes and peers of the blood royal--these are they--in whom
   Jesus Christ's Spirit dwells--who are Brethren to the august
   First-Born.

   Honorable, then, in birth, and honorable in rank, and right honorable
   in their service, are Believers. For what blessed employment is that
   which God has sent us on? He has sent us into the world to bear witness
   of the Truth. He has bid us proclaim the name of Jesus to the utmost
   bounds of the earth. He has sent us to seek after the lost sheep of the
   house of Israel. I know of no service that can be more distinguished
   than the doing of good, the scattering of blessings among the sons of
   men. Methinks the very angels before the Throne might envy us poor men
   who are permitted to talk of Christ even though it is but to little
   children. I reckon the most humble Ragged school teacher to be more
   honored than even Gabriel himself, in being commissioned to tell out
   the story of the Cross, and to win youthful hearts to the Savior's
   service!

   You are not employed as scullions in your Master's kitchen, though you
   might be content with such a service. You are not made as His hired
   servants, to toil in meanest drudgery. You are not sent to be hewers of
   wood and drawers of water, but you are His friends, the friends of
   Jesus, to do such work as He did. And even greater works than He did
   are

   you enabled to do, because He has gone to His Father. "This honor have
   all the saints," the honor of being gentlemen-at-arms under Jesus, the
   Captain of their salvation.

   Christians are honorable also in privilege. It was accounted an eminent
   honor when a nobleman had the right to go in to his king whenever he
   willed to proffer a request. Approach to the royal throne was always,
   among Orientals, considered to be the highest token of regard. O child
   of God! You have access into this Grace in which we stand--you are
   permitted to come boldly to the Throne of the heavenly Grace to obtain
   Grace in your time of need! You are especially honored, O you saints,
   for we are "a people near unto Him." Every middle wall of partition is
   broken down, and you are brought near by the blood of Christ. Oh, what
   privileges are these! You are this day priests to offer acceptable
   sacrifices, kings to rule over your corruptions. Never were men so
   privileged as you upon whom the Lord's love has descended to make you
   precious in His sight!

   And every child of God who is what he should be, becomes, through
   Grace, honorable by his achievements--and this is, in some respects,
   the highest form of honor--to be honored for what you have been enabled
   to do. To wear a coat of arms which you have fairly won in battle, and
   honors that are not merely attributed to you by the heraldic pencil,
   but which are due to you because of your victorious feats of arms!
   Every child of God shall have this honor if he is led earnestly to
   strive after it. To conquer sin is no small achievement. To keep down
   through a long life the corruptions of the flesh, to contend against
   the world and the devil--these are no deeds of carpet knights.

   And what an achievement it will be when Satan shall be bruised beneath
   our feet, as he shall be shortly, when the hosts of Hell, with all
   their craft and malice, shall find themselves utterly overthrown by the
   men and women whom they despised--those in whom God's Grace so dwelt
   that they were victorious and carried the banner of Truth and goodness
   onward to complete victory! God grant you, Brethren, as you have
   already the honor of birth and rank this day, and as you have proffered
   to you the honor of service, that you may be honorable through your
   achievements, being precious in God's sight.

   III. We come now to the last of these notable words, which is
   "BELOVED"--"I have loved you." I must decline to preach on this word.
   It is not a word for talk, but thought. I always feel that the love of
   God to His people is more fit for contemplation than public discourse.
   "I have loved you." Come, heir of Heaven, listen a moment. God has
   loved you eternally. Before the stars began to shine and before the sun
   knew his place and poured forth his oceans of light, God loved you in
   particular.

   He has loved you actively and effectually, given His Only-Begotten for
   you--an unspeakable gift--giving you everything in Him--a boundless
   dowry of love. He has loved you pre-eminently, better than the angels,
   for unto which of them has He ever said, "You were honorable, and I
   have loved you"? He has loved you unchangeably, never less, and never
   more. In all your sin the same. In all your sorrow, still the same. He
   has loved you immeasurably. You can never know the heights and depths
   of your God's love to you. O Man, plunge yourself into this river! If
   you have up to now gone wading into it up to the ankles, now get breast
   high and heart high into it--yes, commit yourself to the fathomless
   stream, and swim in it as in a sea of bliss. "I have loved you." Let
   that dwell richly in your heart, and ring out celestial music for your
   comfort and delight!

   These three things being put together, I want you, practically, this
   morning, as they are your own by faith, to make use of them in other
   senses. "Since you were precious in My sight, you have been honorable,
   and I have loved you." My Savior, do You say that? Why, those words You
   put into my mouth to give back to You! You also are precious in my
   sight. Is He not so--precious beyond comparison? Therefore is He
   honorable in our esteem. Will you not honor Him? Shall it not be the
   continual strife of your soul to get Him renown? Will you not talk of
   His fame to others? Will you not spread abroad the glory of His mighty
   acts?

   My Savior, once I knew You not, but now I prize You, and by Your Divine
   Grace my heart sees how precious You are. Now, therefore, You are
   honorable in my soul. Reign, reign over every heart, as well as over
   mine. Gladly would I seat You on a glorious high throne, and be content
   to be trampled in the mire, if I could lift You but one inch higher, or
   get to Your name but one grain more of love among the sons of men. "You
   have been honorable, and I have loved You."

   I am afraid, if you make this confession you will have to blush as you
   make it. You have loved Him, but, oh, how little have you loved Him!
   Look not back, then, except with penitence, but from now on say, "Lord,
   You have been honorable, I will love You. Forgive the past, kindle in
   my soul a fresh flame of Grace, help me to say--

   'Yes, I love You and adore,

   O for Grace to love You more!'" When you have so used those words, turn
   them in another direction. Apply them next to every child of God. Since
   you, my Brother, since you, my Sister, were precious in my sight, and
   you have been so ever since I knew how precious a child of God was, you
   have been honorable, and I have loved you.

   Let us never think of the children of God in any other way than as
   honoring them. Some of them are very poor. Many of them illiterate.
   Some of them not altogether in temper, action, or creed what we might
   desire them to be. But if they are bought with the blood of Christ,
   they are honorable. The Lord declares them so, and let us not treat
   them dishonorably. It is a very sad thing when poor saints are despised
   by those who happen to be better off. If some great noble were to come
   into this House of Prayer, how many of you would be glad to give him
   the best seat, and yet he might be one of the worst of men?

   But if a child of God should happen to be so poor that he must wear
   garments that are all but rags, and must live in a miserable cottage,
   there are many who will scarcely own him as a Brother. We who
   understand what spiritual worth is should never fall into this error.
   We should say, "You, poor as you are, have become precious in our sight
   for Jesus' sake. We see you are an heir of Heaven, and therefore we
   prize you above all kings and princes, and we love you for the Master's
   sake. Can we help your poverty? Can we cheer your sickness? Can we bear
   a part of your burden? We love you and count you honorable for the sake
   of Jesus, our Lord and yours."

   Once again. You might use these words in reference to unconverted men
   and women. There is a certain sense in which they are applicable to all
   born of woman, for they possess immortal souls. Years ago you and I
   knew nothing of the value of our own souls, and were not likely to care
   for those of others. But now the souls of men are precious in our
   sight. We believe them to be immortal. We know that they are to live
   forever in misery or forever in bliss. And therefore, let others say
   what they will, we can never think of the human soul but as a very
   precious and priceless thing.

   And now, if that is the case, how honorable all men become as objects
   of our zeal! "Honor all men," says the Apostle--a text I do not hear
   quoted half so often as that other, "Honor the king." Do not forget the
   last, but take equal care of the first. There is, because of its
   spiritual and immortal nature, a dignity about the soul of the meanest
   man--which no degree of poverty or degradation can altogether take
   away. The harlot in the streets--how few will care for her! But, O you
   tender hearts, as you look on the poor fallen one, say, "Since your
   soul was precious in my sight as an immortal spirit, you have been no
   longer despised and trampled on, but I have loved you as my Savior
   loved you, and for His sake I esteem your soul as an honorable,
   priceless thing."

   Do not think of the thousands in prison today as though they were just
   so much filth to be gotten rid of. Do not think, above all, of the
   great mass of the needy and destitute classes of society as though they
   were a mere encumbrance of the common man, the mere rubbish to be swept
   away and laid in heaps in the workhouse or on foreign shores. No, they
   are precious. As precious is their soul as yours. Think of them in that
   respect--and honor the immortal spark that is in them--the manhood that
   God has been pleased to create. Honor that, and as you honor it, love
   it--and prove your love by praying that God will save it, by using
   every instrument within your power to recover it from its ruin--and to
   bring it back to the great God to whom it belongs.

   If the woman in the Gospels who lost her piece of money had said, "It
   is only a penny, I have more, I shall not trouble about it," she had
   never lighted the candle and swept the floor, and searched diligently
   until she found it. And if the shepherd with his ninety-and-nine sheep
   had said of the hundredth which went astray, "That sheep was always
   scabbed and worthless. Its loss is no great thing, the ninety-nine are
   far more precious," he would never have left the flock to go after that
   which was lost. The less value you set upon your fellow men, the less
   earnest you will be in seeking their good.

   But if you feel that they are precious to you for Christ's sake, and
   honorable because they are men--capable, by God's Divine Grace, of
   Heaven and holiness, you will set to work in God's strength to reclaim
   them. And God will second and bless your efforts, and you will see them
   saved. Gladly would I have you give yourselves for them, and the Church
   give people for their life. May God grant to every one in this House of
   Prayer, first, to be precious in the sight of God Himself. And next, to
   seek after others whom God has loved and whom He means to save through
   them.

   May God lead you to give all you have--though it were Egypt, and
   Ethiopia, and Seba--that precious souls may be reclaimed. Send us such
   zeal, O Holy Spirit, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Two Builders And Their Houses

   (No. 918)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 27, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Therefore whosoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will
   liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the
   rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon
   that house. And it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And
   everyone that hears these sayings of Mine, and does them not, shall be
   likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and
   the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat
   upon that house. And it fell: and great was the fall of it." Matthew
   7:24-27.

   THESE were the closing words of our Savior's most famous sermon upon
   the mount. Some preachers concentrate all their powers upon an effort
   to conclude with a fine thing called a peroration, which, being
   interpreted, means a blaze of rhetorical fireworks in the glory of
   which the speaker subsides. They certainly have not the example of
   Christ in this discourse to warrant them in the practice. Here is the
   Savior's peroration, and yet it is as simple as any other part of the
   address. Here is an evident absence of all artificial oratory.

   The whole of His hill sermon was intensely earnest, and that
   earnestness was sustained to the end so that the closing words are as
   glowing coals, or as sharp arrows of the bow. Our Lord closes not by
   displaying His own powers of elocution, but by simply and
   affectionately addressing a warning to those, who, having heard His
   Words, should remain satisfied with hearing, and should not go forth
   and put them into practice. As according to usual experience, a
   preacher warms to his subject as he advances and becomes more intense
   as he nears his final sentences--so we are bound to give the more
   earnest heed to the words which are now before us--words with which the
   Lord of all preachers concluded His memorable discourse.

   Jesus had been saying many things, but these are two words to which I
   think He especially alluded when He said, "Whoever hears these sayings
   of Mine, and does them, I will liken him unto a wise man." The first of
   these words was, "Enter you in" (Matt. 7:13). And the second was,
   "Beware" (Matt. 7:15). Our Lord had spoken of the "strait gate" of the
   "narrow way," and of the few who travel it, and His urgent admonition
   was, "Enter you in." not, "Learn you all concerning it, and then be
   satisfied." Not, "Find fault with the travelers and the road." Not,
   "Seek to enlarge the gate and widen the way," but, "Enter You in."

   Be obedient to the Gospel--believe its testimony concerning
   Jesus--enter into fellowship with its mysteries, receive its blessings.
   Be travelers along its roads. "Enter you in." He who hears of the way
   to Heaven, but enters not into it is a foolish man. He, who hearing of
   the strait gate, presses to enter in, is a wise man.

   Afterwards our Lord added the other admonition, "Beware." "Beware,"
   says He, "of false Prophets." And after having dwelt for awhile on
   that, He added in other words, "Beware of false professions." Of false
   Prophets beware, for they may delude you. They may bring before you a
   salvation which will not save, a mere mirage that looks like the pure,
   cooling, refreshing stream--but which only mocks your thirst. Beware of
   all teaching which would lead you away from the one Savior of the souls
   of men.

   And then He adds, "Beware of false professions," however loudly they
   make you cry, "Lord, Lord." You may have in company with these
   professions the loftiest gifts, Such as casting out devils, and the
   greatest abilities, such as only Prophets possess. But they shall not
   avail you anything. In that day when the Master shall only accept into
   His marriage feast the companions of His warfare on earth, He will say
   to those who have not done the Father's will, "I never knew you. Depart
   from Me, you workers of iniquity." These are two of the sayings of
   Christ, and they are comprehensive of almost all He ever said--"Enter
   you in," and, "Beware." Take heed that you do them as well as hear
   them.

   I. We shall now proceed to the Master's parable, and will you please
   notice, first of all, THE TWO BUILDERS. The wise and the foolish man
   were both engaged in precisely the same avocations, and to a
   considerable extent achieved the same design. Both of them undertook to
   build houses. Both of them persevered in building. Both of them
   finished their houses. The likeness between them is very considerable.

   They were equally impressed with the need of building a house. They
   perceived the necessity of shelter from the heavy rains. They were
   alike desirous of being shielded from the floods and screened from the
   wind. The advantage of a house to dwell in was evident to both. Even
   thus, at this period, we have a large number in the congregation who
   are impressed with the conviction that they need a Savior. I am
   delighted to find that there is a stir among my hearers, and I trust it
   is a movement of God's Holy Spirit.

   And as a result very many of you feel deeply that you need a refuge
   from the wrath to come. You now admit that you must be forgiven,
   justified, regenerated and sanctified, and your desires are
   fervent--for all which I am deeply grateful, but also deeply anxious.
   You are in crowds desirous of becoming builders, and although some are
   wise and some foolish, up to this present we can see no difference in
   you. For you seem to be equally convinced that you need eternal life
   and a good hope for the world to come. Nor does the likeness end
   here--for the two builders were both alike resolved to obtain what they
   needed--a house. And their determination was not in words only, but in
   deeds--for they both resolutely set to work to build.

   In the same way there are among us at this hour many who are resolved
   that if Christ is to be had, they will have Him. And if there is such a
   thing as salvation, they will find it. They are very earnest, intensely
   earnest, and though some of them will fail, and some of them succeed,
   yet up to this point they are all alike, and none but He who searches
   all hearts can discern the slightest difference. I look with sadness
   upon the two pilgrims, with their faces zealously turned toward Zion,
   and I am sad as I wonder which one will find the Celestial City, and
   which will join with Formalist and Hypocrisy, and perish on the Dark
   Mountains. We are glad to hear of yearning hearts and resolute
   determinations, but, alas, all is not wheat that grows in wheat fields,
   all is not gold that glitters.

   Appearances are very, very hopeful, but appearances are often
   deceptive. There may be a deep sense of need, and there may be a
   determined resolution to get that need supplied. And yet out of two
   seekers, one may find and the other may miss--one may be foolish and
   the other may be wise. These two builders seem to have been equally
   well skilled in architecture. The one could build a house without
   receiving any more instruction than the other. I do not find that there
   was halt or pause on the part of either because he could not turn an
   arch, or fix a truss. Evidently they were both skilled workmen, well
   acquainted with their art.

   So is it with many here. They know as far as the theory goes, what the
   plan of salvation is as well as I do. Yet, where the knowledge is the
   same, the ultimate result may vary. Two men may be equally well
   instructed in the Scriptures, yet one of them may be wise and the other
   foolish. To know what faith is, what repentance is, what a good hope in
   Christ is may all be yours--and yet it may but increase your misery
   forever. If you know these things, happy are you if you do them. It is
   not the hearer, but the doer of the Word, that is blessed. Knowledge
   puffs up--love alone builds up.

   My dear Friends, I am most earnest that those of you who are desiring
   to find everlasting life in Christ Jesus may not be content with
   anything short of a true, deep, and real work of Divine Grace in your
   hearts. For no clearness of head knowledge, no natural earnestness of
   purpose or eagerness of desire can save you. Without an interest in
   Christ Jesus you are lost to all eternity. "You must be born again."
   You must be brought into vital union with the living Savior or your
   hopefulness will end in overwhelming destruction.

   Once more, these two builders both persevered and finished their
   structure. The foolish man did not begin to build and then cease his
   work because he was not able to finish, but, as far as I know, his
   house was finished with as much completeness as the other. And, perhaps
   furnished quite as well. If you had looked at the two structures, they
   would have seemed equally complete from basement to roof, and yet there
   was a great difference between them in a most essential point. Even
   thus, alas, many persevere in seeking salvation until they imagine that
   they have found it! They abide for years in the full belief that they
   are saved.

   They cry, "Peace, peace," and write themselves down among the
   blessed--and yet a fatal error lies at the base of all their religion.
   All their hopes are vain, and their lifework will prove to be a
   terrible failure. The builders are much alike up to this point, but yet
   in reality they are wide as the poles asunder both in work and
   character. The one builder is wise,

   the other foolish. The one superficial, the other substantial. The one
   pretentious, the other sincere. The wise man's work was honest work
   where men's eyes could not judge of it. The other's work was only well
   worked above ground--there was nothing of reality in the hidden parts.
   And therefore in due time the first builder rejoiced as he saw his
   house outlive the storm. The other, with his house, was swept away to
   total destruction.

   II. Thus much upon the two builders, let us now think upon THEIR TWO
   HOUSES. One chief apparent difference between the two edifices probably
   was this--that one of them built his house more quickly than the other.
   The wise man had to spend a deal of time in excavation work. Luke tells
   us that he dug deep and laid his foundation on a rock. Now that
   rock-blasting, that carving and cutting of the hard granite, must have
   consumed days and weeks.

   The foolish builder had not this delay to encounter. The sand was all
   smooth and ready for him. He was able to commence at once to lay his
   courses of brick and raise the walls with all rapidity. But all haste
   is not good speed, and there are some who travel too fast to hold.
   Unsound professors are often very rapid in their supposed spiritual
   growth. They were yesterday unconverted--today they become
   Believers--tomorrow they begin to teach and the next day they are made
   perfect. They appear to be born of full stature, and equipped at all
   points, like Minerva, when, according to the fable, she leaped from the
   brain of Jupiter. They come up in a night, and alas, too often, like
   Jonah's gourd, they perish also in a night!

   Now I raise not a question concerning the genuine character of sudden
   conversions. I believe that sudden conversions are among the best and
   truest forms of conversion. Take, for instance, that of the Apostle
   Paul. But still there are among those who profess to have been suddenly
   converted a sadly numerous company who answer to the description I have
   just given. They build very, very quickly--much too quickly for the
   masonry to be well constructed and lasting. It may be that some mourner
   is lamenting bitterly that he makes very slow progress in Grace.

   "I have been seeking God in prayer," says one, "these months. I have
   been humbled and broken down under a sense of sin for weeks. And I have
   only as yet had now and then a glimpse of hope when I have been able to
   turn my eye to the crucified Savior. I have as yet few consolations,
   and many doubts. I gladly would have the full light of love in my
   heart, but the dawning is slow in breaking." Well, Friend, you are
   building slowly, but if it is surely, you shall have no cause to regret
   that deep digging. Small cause will you have to mourn that it took you
   longer to arrive at peace than it did your hasty friend, if your peace
   shall last you to eternity, while his hope shall be a possession in
   cloudland, driven away by the wind.

   Of the two houses, one was built, I doubt not, with far less trouble
   than the other. Digging foundations in hard rocks, as I have said,
   takes time, and it also involves labor. Oftentimes did that wise
   builder pause to wipe the sweat from his brow. Oftentimes did he retire
   to his bed worn out with his day's work, and yet there was not a stone
   appearing above the soil. His neighbor, opposite, had run up the walls,
   had reached the gable, was almost about to put on the roof, before
   there was scarce a foot above the ground of the wise builder's
   structure.

   "Ah," said he of the sandy foundation, "your toil is needless, and you
   have nothing to show for it. See how quickly my walls have risen, and
   yet I don't slave as you do! I take things easily. I neither bore
   myself nor the rocks, and yet see how my house springs up, and how neat
   it looks? Your old-fashioned ways are absurd! You dig and hammer away
   down below there as if you meant to pierce the center of the earth. Why
   not use your common sense, and go ahead as I do? Away with your sighing
   and groaning, do as I do, and rejoice at once. Anxiety will kill you."

   After this fashion are truly awakened souls like "lamps despised of
   those who are at ease." One man jumps, as it were, into peace, and
   boasts himself secure. Whether he is correct or not in his confidence,
   he does not pause to question--he is too comfortable to have time to
   enquire into that matter. The estate is fair, why worry about the title
   deeds? The feast is rich, why tarry for the wedding garments? If a
   doubt should arise, the carnally secure man ascribes it to Satan, and
   puts it aside--whereas it is not Satan, but his own conscience and the
   warning voice of Heaven which bid him take heed and be not deceived.

   The prayer for the Lord to search and try his heart and his reins, he
   never sincerely offers. Such a man does not like self-examination, and
   cannot endure to be told that there must be fruits meet for repentance.
   He takes things as guesswork, comes to rash conclusions, and shuts his
   eyes to disagreeable facts. He dreams that he is rich and increased in
   goods, whereas he is naked, and poor, and miserable. Alas, what a
   waking will his be! His more serious companion,

   aroused at the same time is, on the other hand, far more diffident and
   self-distrustful. When he prays his heart groans before God, yet he
   fears he does not pray aright, and never rises from his knees content
   with himself.

   He is not quite so soon satisfied about the reality of his faith as the
   other. "Perhaps," he says, "after all, it is not the faith of God's
   elect." He examines himself whether he is in the faith. He trembles
   lest he should have the form of godliness without the power. He is
   afraid of shams and counterfeits, and is for buying gold tried in the
   fire. "My repentance," he says, "am I sure it is a real loathing of sin
   as sin, or did I only shed a tear or two under the excitement of a
   revival service? Am I sure that my nature is renewed by the work of the
   Holy Spirit, or is it mere reformation?"

   You see, this second man has much exercise of soul. He labors to enter
   into rest, lest by any means he should seem to come short of it. He has
   many strivings, many anxieties, many searching of heart because he is
   sincere and fears to be deceived. From him the kingdom of Heaven
   suffers violence--he finds the gate strait and the way narrow--and that
   the righteous scarcely are saved.

   Be thankful, dear Hearer, if you are among this second class--for these
   are the true sons of God and heirs of immortality. Your house costs you
   more to build, but it will be worth the cost. O beware of wearing the
   sheep's clothing without the sheep's nature! Beware of saying, "Lord,
   Lord," while you are the servant of sin! Beware of getting up
   fictitious religion--borrowing your experience from
   biographies--picking up godliness secondhand from your parents,
   friends, and acquaintances! Whatever it may cost you of heartbreak and
   agony, see to it that the sure foundation is reached, and the house so
   built that it will endure the trials which will inevitably test it. I
   would gladly saturate my speech with tears, so weighty and so needful
   do I feel this caution to be--both to myself and you.

   I should think that in the course of time, although the foolish builder
   built with so much less cost, and so much more rapidly, his walls would
   be liable to very ugly settlements. For walls that have no
   foundation--that are but piled up on the sand--would every now and then
   gape wide with hideous cracks. And stones would move here, and timbers
   would slip there, and cement and stopping would need much repair. What
   work for daubers and plasterers to make the ruinous fabric look like
   decent masonry! Very likely when a settlement crack was covered up in
   one place, another would happen in the next wall.

   For with such a foundation it would be hard to keep the structure
   together, and in the long run I should not wonder but what it would
   cost the foolish builder more pains to keep up his wretched edifice
   than it did the wise builder who labored so hard with his foundation at
   the first. Mark you well that mere formal religion and hypocrisy in the
   end become a very difficult affair to maintain. The man has to struggle
   hard to patch up his reputation, propping it up with new lies and
   bolstering it with fresh pretences. At one time an unrenewed will
   rebels fiercely and he has to feign resignation to affliction. Next an
   unconquered lust demands indulgence, and he has to conceal the sin with
   more double-distilled deceit.

   The form of prayer becomes irksome, and he has to screw himself up to
   the horrible farce. And meanwhile his outward life is always on the
   verge of a slip, and he fears detection. One way and another he is
   continually afraid, like a thief at large who fears that the police
   will find him. At every puff of wind his habitation threatens to tumble
   about his ears. He half wishes, after all, that he had taken the
   trouble of digging a foundation on the rock--but with desperate resolve
   he puts from him the voice of caution--and will have none of its
   rebuke.

   O dear Hearer, rest assured that Truth, after all, is the cheapest and
   easiest in the long run. Your gilt, your varnish, your paint, your
   hypocrisy will soon wear off, while the reality is at no expense for
   beautifying. Even as a matter of consideration for this life it will be
   more hard in the long run to keep up the pretentious than to maintain
   the true. And then in the latter case you have God at your back, and He
   abhors everything unreal. I beseech you see to it that you daub not
   your walls with untempered mortar lest they not only come down with a
   crash when most you need to shelter behind them, but even now begin to
   show alarming signs of decay.

   The higher the foolish man built, the harder work he had to keep it
   aright. For, of course, every tier of bricks that he laid made the
   weight the greater and caused the sand to give way. The nearer Heaven
   the builder went the sooner his wall bowed to its fall. A man who only
   makes it his aim to be thought a respectable man by attending a place
   of worship, may manage pretty well to keep up such a low wall even
   without a foundation. Another man who joins a worldly Church--a Church
   that makes no pretense of purity--can also succeed with ease. But if he
   joins a Church of Jesus Christ which carefully seeks to preserve purity
   in its membership, he has hard work to live up to the standard required
   of him.

   Suppose, yet further, that he should become a deacon or an elder and he
   is devoid of Grace? His higher aim will cost him more by far--for there
   are more to look at him, and there is more required of him. Now he
   prays in public. Now he speaks a word of instruction to enquirers--and
   what straits and shifts the poor man is driven to--how constantly out
   of his own mouth is he condemned! "Why," says he in his heart, "I know
   nothing about these things in my soul, and yet I have to speak and act
   as if I were taught of God." If he becomes a preacher, he is in a still
   more pitiful plight. What hard work must it be, then, to keep up the
   character!

   When the tower rises tier upon tier upon so frail a base, it leans like
   the tower of Pisa, and unlike that singular structure it threatens to
   come down with a crash. By-and-by such a trumpery thing falls in utter
   ruin, and its elevation helps to hasten the catastrophe. So, dear
   Hearers, the more spirituality you aim at, and the more usefulness you
   strive for, the worse for you, unless you have a good foundation to
   begin with, in true sincerity and real faith. So bad is the course of
   unsound religion, that the further you go in it the worse it becomes.

   The main difference, however, between the two houses did not lay in
   these cracks and settlements, nor in the cheapness or rapidity of the
   building--it lay out of sight, underground. It was all a matter of the
   foundation. How many there are who suppose that if a thing is out of
   sight it may as well be out of mind! Who do you think is likely to dig
   down and see what the foundations are? "Well," says one, "I see no need
   for being over precise. I do not believe in being so particular. What
   nobody sees cannot mean anything." Many subscribe to the graceless song
   --

   "For faith and Grace let foolish zealots fight; He can't be wrong whose
   life is in the right." "You pay twenty shillings in the pound, attend a
   place of worship, take the sacrament, are charitable and say your
   prayers, and never trouble about anything further"--that is the popular
   notion. "What is the use of fretting about your heart? That is all
   transcendental nonsense! What can it signify?" That is how the foolish
   builder comforted himself. And he doubtless sneered at the wise builder
   as a poor miserable creature who was overmuch righteous and melancholy.
   Outward appearance is everything with men, but nothing with God. The
   essential difference between the true child of God and the mere
   professor is not readily to be discovered, even by spiritual minds. But
   the Lord sees it. It is a secret mysterious something which the Lord
   prizes, "for He knows them that are His." He separates between the
   precious and the vile. He puts away the pretenders as dross, but He
   suffers no sincere heart to be destroyed.

   What, then, is this important matter? I answer it is just this--beloved
   Hearer, if you would be built on a rock, see to it that you have a true
   sense of sin. I do not say that a sense of sin is a preparation for
   Christ, and that we ought to pull men back from the Gospel till they
   feel their sin. But I do believe that wherever there is true faith in
   Jesus there goes with it a deep abhorrence of sin. Faith without
   contrition is a dead and worthless faith.

   When I meet with professors who talk lightly of sin, I am sure that
   they have built without a foundation. If they had ever felt the
   Spirit's wounding and killing sword of conviction, they would flee from
   sin as from a lion or a bear. Truly forgiven sinners dread the
   appearance of evil as burnt children dread fire. Superficial repentance
   always leads to careless living. Faith that was never bedewed with
   repentance never brings forth the flowers of holiness. Pray earnestly
   for a broken heart. Remember it is the contrite spirit which God is
   pleased with. Do not believe that you can have ground for rejoicing if
   you never saw reason for lamenting. The promised comfort is only
   secured to those who have been mourners

   (Matt. 5: 4).

   Next to this seek for real faith. Many things which men call faith are
   not the precious faith of God's elect. Sincere trust in Jesus Christ is
   counterfeited in a thousand ways--and often imitated so accurately that
   only by rigid self-examination can you discover the cheat. You must lie
   flat upon Christ, the Rock! You must depend entirely upon Him! All your
   hope and all your trust must be in Him. If you believe with the heart,
   and not nominally, you are safe, but not otherwise. You must have true
   repentance and real faith--or you are foolish builders.

   Furthermore, seek an inwrought experience of Divine Truth. Ask to have
   it burnt into you. Why is it that people give up the Doctrines of Grace
   if they fall in with eloquent advocates of free will? Why is it they
   renounce the orthodox creed if they meet with a smart reasoner who
   contradicts it? Because they have never received the Word in the power
   of the Holy Spirit so as to have it sealed in their hearts. I tremble
   for our Churches, now that false doctrine is rife, because I fear that
   many are not established in the Truth. I pray the Lord for you, my dear
   Flock, that you may know the Truth by being taught of the Lord, for
   then you will not be led aside. The thieves and robbers will come, but
   as Christ's sheep you

   will not hear them. It is one thing to have a creed. It is quite
   another thing to have the Truth engraved upon the tables of the heart.
   Many fail here because Truth was never experimentally made their own.

   Pray, moreover, that your faith may produce personal holiness. Do not
   believe yourself to be saved from sin while you are living in sin. If
   you can find pleasure in the lusts of the flesh, you are no child of
   God. If you are given to drunk-enness--and, mark you, many professors
   are so, only they drink at home and are not seen in the streets--how
   dwells the Grace of God in you? If you delight in idle songs and
   frequenting of places of vain amusement, you need not be long in
   weighing yourself--you are found wanting already. If you were renewed
   in the spirit of your mind, you would no more love these things than an
   angel would.

   There must be a newborn nature implanted, and where there is not this
   exemplified in holiness of life, you may build ever so high and prate
   ever so loudly about your building--it is a poor miserable shanty after
   all--and will fall in the last hurricane. Want of depth, want of
   sincerity, want of reality in religion--this is the want of our times.
   Want of an eye to God in religion, lack of sincere dealing with one's
   own soul. Neglect of using the lancet with our hearts. Neglect of the
   search warrant which God gives out against sin. Carelessness concerning
   living upon Christ--much reading about Him, much talking about Him--but
   too little feeding upon His flesh, and drinking of His blood--these are
   the causes of tottering professions and baseless hopes.

   Thus have I tried to open up the parable--and I have not designed to
   discourage any sincere soul. My aim has been to say to you, "Make your
   calling and election sure. Build on Christ's love, sincerity, desire,
   the work of the Holy Spirit--and be not deceived."

   III. So now I come, in the third place, to notice THE COMMON TRIAL OF
   THE TWO HOUSES. Whether your religion is true or not, it will be tried.
   Whether it is chaff or wheat, the fan of the Great Winnower will surely
   be brought into operation upon all that lies on the threshing floor. If
   you have dealings with God, you have to do with a "consuming fire."
   Whether you are really or nominally a Christian, if you come near to
   Christ, He will try you as silver is tried. Judgment must begin at the
   House of God, and if you dare to come in to the House of God, judgment
   will begin with you.

   By the way, let us note that if there are such trials for those who
   profess to be Christians, what will become of you who make no
   profession? If the righteous scarcely are saved, where will the ungodly
   and the wicked appear? If judgment begin with the House of God, what
   will the end be of them that believe not? Terrible thought! But to
   return. Trials will come to profession, whether it is true or false. If
   I do not mistake the reference in the text to rain, flood, wind--these
   trials will be of three sorts at least.

   The rain typifies afflictions from Heaven. God will send you
   adversities like showers, tribulations as many as the drops of the dew.
   Between now and Heaven, O Professor, you will feel the pelting storm!
   Like other men, your body will be sick. Or if not, you shall have
   trouble in your house--children and friends will die--or riches will
   take to themselves wings, and fly like an eagle towards Heaven. You
   must have trials from God's hand. And, if you are not relying on
   Christ, you will not be able to bear them. If you are not, by real
   faith, one with Jesus Christ, even God's rain will be too much for you.

   But there will also arise trials from earth--"the floods came." In
   former days the floods of persecution were more terrible than now, but
   persecution is still felt. And if you are a professor, you will have to
   bear a measure of it. Cruel mockings are still used against the people
   of God. The world no more loves the true Church today than it did in
   olden times. Can you bear slander and reproach for Jesus? Not unless
   you are firmly rooted and grounded. In the day of temptation and
   persecution the rootless plants of the stony ground are withered away.
   See you to this.

   Then there will come mysterious trials typified by "the winds." The
   prince of the power of the air will assail you with blasphemous
   suggestions, horrible temptations, or artful insinuations. He knows how
   to cast clouds of despondency over the human spirit. He can attack the
   four corners of the house at once by his mysterious agency. He can
   tempt us in many ways at the same time, and drive us to our wits' end.
   Woe to you, then, unless you have something to hold to better than the
   mere sand of profession!

   Where there is a good foundation trials will do no harm. But where
   there is no foundation they will frequently bring the man's profession
   down in ruin, even in this life. How many lose their religion at the
   very outset! Pliable and Christian both set out for the Celestial City,
   both aspiring to the crown of gold. But they fell into the Slough of
   Despond. And

   then one of them struggled out on the side nearest his own house, and
   went back to the City of Destruction. The other strove manfully to
   reach the further shore--the difference between the wise and foolish
   pilgrim was made manifest.

   After Christians have proceeded further they will be tried in other
   ways. Infidelities often try Christians. I mean doubts about the
   essentials of the faith and all its doctrines. And those that are not
   well cemented to the Rock are easily moved to unbelief. This is the age
   of infidelities, but they who are on the Rock by a truthful experience
   are not moved. A Negro was once told by a friend that some man had said
   the Bible was not true. Now, our poor friend had never thought anybody
   could doubt the Bible, but his quick way of disposing of the novel
   difficulty was, "Dat Book not true? Why, I take it into my house and I
   sit down and read it, and it make my heart laugh. How can it be a lie,
   dat make my heart laugh? I was a drunkard, a thief, and a liar, and dat
   Book talked to me and made me a new man--dat Book no lie." The very
   best proof in the world surely, at least to the man himself, if not to
   others.

   We who have had our hearts made to laugh by God's Word cannot be
   laughed out of our faith. We have lived on the Word and proved its
   truthfulness by experience--and are therefore invulnerable to all
   attacks--while strangers to such experience are staggered. Where the
   heart is really grounded upon the Truth, you will find that heresies as
   well as infidelities have but little effect. The sound Christian is
   like a stone--if he is thrown into the pool of false doctrine, he may
   be wet by it--but he does not receive it into his inner self. Whereas
   the unsound professor is like a sponge, he sucks it all in greedily and
   retains what he absorbs.

   How many there are who are tried by worldliness, and if their religion
   is but a mere profession, worldliness soon eats the heart of it as does
   a canker, and they become even as others! If, however, the Christian
   man's heart is right with God, he comes out and is separate, and the
   pride of life does not entrap him. In cases of backsliding, where there
   is a sound heart towards God, the backslider is soon brought back. But
   where the heart is rotten, the backslider goes from bad to worse. I was
   struck with a story of two men who were accustomed to give exhortations
   at meetings, who had fallen out with each other. One of their Brothers,
   who grieved to think two servants of God should be at differences with
   each other, went to reconcile them.

   He called upon the first, and said, "John, I am very sorry to find you
   and James have quarreled. It seems a great pity, and it brings much
   dishonor on the Church of God." "Ah," said John, "I am very grieved,
   too, and what grieves me most is that I am the sole cause of it. It was
   only because I spoke so bitterly that James took offense." "Ah, ah,"
   said the good man, "we will soon settle this difficulty, then," and
   away he went to James. "James, I am very sorry that you and John cannot
   agree." "Yes," he said, "it is a sad thing we don't, we ought to do so,
   for we are Brothers. But what troubles me most is that it is all my
   fault. If I had not taken notice of a little word John said, there
   would have been an end of it."

   The matter, as you may guess, was soon rectified. You see there was at
   the bottom a true friendship between them, so that the little
   difficulty was soon overcome. And so where there is a true union
   between God and the soul, the backsliding will soon be recovered.

   IV. To close. Haying thus mentioned the common trials and the effects
   produced in this life, let me now remind you of the DIFFERENT RESULTS
   OF THE TRIALS in reference to the life to come. In the one case, the
   rain descended very heavily, and threatened to wash the house away, but
   it was built on a rock, and not only did the house stand, but the man
   inside found great comfort in it. He could hear the pelting torrent
   beating on the roof, and sit and sing. When the gusts came against the
   windows he would only be the more happy to think he had such a shelter.

   Then came the floods. They would, if they could, have sapped and
   undermined the foundations, but they took no effect on the granite
   rock. And though the wind howled round the habitation, every stone was
   well cemented and all bound as with iron bands to the grand old
   Rock--and therefore the man was safe and happy within. And above all,
   he was grateful that he had built on such a Foundation. He could sit
   down and sing--

   "Loud may the troubled ocean roar, In sacred peace my soul abides." The
   Christian rests peacefully upon Christ. Troubles come one after
   another, but they do not sweep him away--they only endear to him the
   hope which is based upon Christ Jesus. And when at last death comes,
   that awful flood which will undermine everything that can be
   removed--it cannot find anything to shake in the wise builder's hope!

   He rests on what Christ has Done--death cannot affect that. He believes
   in a faithful God. And dying cannot affect that. He believes in the
   Covenant signed, and sealed, and ratified, in all things ordered well.
   He lays hold on the "shalls"

   and "wills" of an immutable God, all sealed with the blood of the
   Redeemer! Death cannot affect any of these. And when the last great
   trumpet sounds, and the last fire that shall try every man's work of
   what sort it is comes forth from the Throne of God, the man who in true
   sincerity and with real experience has laid hold on Christ is not
   afraid of the tremendous hour.

   What? Though the trumpet sounds exceedingly loud and long, and the dead
   awake, and the angels gather round the Great White Throne! And the
   pillars of Heaven tremble, and the earth is dissolved, and the elements
   melt with fervent heat--the man of God feels that the Rock on which he
   has built can never fail him, and the hope that Divine Grace has given
   him can never be removed. He smiles serenely amid it all.

   But look at the case of the man whose hope is built on sand! He could
   hardly endure the trials of life. He almost fell under common
   temptation. He turned his coat during the hour of persecution. But
   sorer trials now await him. Some hypocrites have been bolstered up even
   in the last moments, and perhaps have never known that they were lost
   till they felt they were. Like Dives, of whom it is written, "In Hell
   he lifted up his eyes, being in torment." He had never lifted up his
   eyes before. He did not know his condition till he actually realized it
   in all its misery. But the most of men who have come under the sound of
   the Gospel, and made a profession--if they have been deceivers find it
   out at death--and it must be a dreadful thing to make that discovery
   when pain is sharp and parting is bitter.

   Ah, dear Friend, if you are mistaken, may you find it out now, and not
   on your deathbed. May your prayer be, "Lord, show me the worst of my
   case. If my profession has been a mistake, O let me not build up and
   prop up a rotten thing, but help me to build aright upon the Rock of
   Ages." Pray that prayer, I beseech you. Remember, if death should not
   teach you the whole Truth of your case, judgment will. There will be no
   mistake there, and no opportunity for repentance. This fallen house was
   never built again. There was no salvage from the total wreck. Lost,
   lost, lost--there is no word to follow. For once lost, lost forever! O
   dear Hearer, I bid you, if you have a name to live and are dead, arise
   from the dead, and Christ shall give you life!

   I pray you, if you are a seeker, be not put off with empty hopes and
   vain confidences. Buy the Truth and sell it not. Lay hold on eternal
   life. Seek the true Savior and be not content till you have Him, for if
   lost, your ruin will be terrible! Oh, that lake! Have you ever read the
   words, "Shall be cast into the Lake of Fire, which is the second
   death"? The Lake of Fire! And souls cast into it! The imagery is
   dreadful. "Ah," says one, "that is a metaphor." Yes, I know it is, and
   a metaphor is but a shadow of the reality. Then if the shadow is a lake
   of fire, what must the reality be? If we can hardly bear to think of a
   "worm that never dies," and a "fire that never shall be quenched," and
   of a lake whose seething waves of fire that dash over undying and
   hopeless souls--what must Hell be in very deed?

   The descriptions of Scriptures are, after all, but condescensions to
   our ignorance--partial revelations of fathomless mysteries. But if
   these are so dreadful, what must the full reality be? Provoke Him not,
   my Hearers--tempt not your God! Neglect not the great salvation, for if
   you do, you shall not escape. Play not with your souls! Be not heedless
   and careless of the realities of eternity! But now, even now, may God
   hear your prayer as you breathe it from your inmost souls, and give you
   truly to be washed in the precious blood, and effectually saved by Him,
   in Whom there is fullness of Truth and Grace. Amen.

   "My God, I mark with fear How many hopes decay, And like the foolish
   builder's house Fall in the trial day. Perhaps amid this throng

   You do a soul espy

   Whose towering hopes are built on sand,

   I ask, 'Lord, is it I?'

   A thousand doubts arise,

   I bring them all to You.

   Am I unconsciously deceived?

   Lord, search my heart and see.

   O teach me deep to dig

   Down to the solid Rock,

   That when tornadoes round me sweep

   My house may bear the shock.

   Jesus, You only are

   The sure foundation stone,

   Firm as the eternal hills are You,

   I build on You alone.

   Cemented fast to You

   No stone is laid in vain,

   My hope defies the assaults of Hell,

   The flood, the wind, the rain."
     __________________________________________________________________

The King Feasting in his Garden

   (No. 919)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 6, 1870,

   BY C.H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I am come into My garden, My Sister, My Spouse: I have gathered My
   myrrh with My spice. I have eaten My honeycomb with My honey. I have
   drunk My wine with My milk: eat, O Friends; drink, yes, drink
   abundantly, O Beloved." Song of Solomon 5:1.

   I BELIEVE this text to be appropriate to the spiritual condition of our
   Church. If I am not very sadly mistaken, the Lord of Hosts is with us
   in a very remarkable manner. Our meetings for prayer have been
   distinguished by an earnest and fervent spirit. Our meetings with
   enquirers have been remarkably powerful. In a quiet manner, without any
   outward outcries, souls have been smitten down with conviction of sin,
   and have been comforted as they have received Christ by faith. By His
   Grace we are not a deserted Church, we are not left with broken hedges,
   with the wild boar of the wood committing devastations.

   The Lord has sent a gracious rain which has quickened the seed. He has
   watered the plants of His garden, and made our souls to rejoice in His
   Presence. Now if the text is appropriate, as I believe it is, the duty
   to which it especially calls us should have our earnest attention. The
   workers for Christ must remember that even if they have to care for the
   garden, their chief business must be to commune with the Lord and
   Master of that garden, since He, Himself, this morning calls them to do
   so. "Eat O friends; drink, yes, drink abundantly, O Beloved."

   In happy and auspicious times, when the Spirit of God is working, it is
   very natural to say, "We must now work more abundantly than ever," and
   God forbid that we should hinder such zeal--but more spiritual
   privilege is not to be put in the second place. Let us commune as well
   as work. For there shall we find strength for service, and our service
   shall be done the better, and become the more acceptable, and ensure
   the larger blessing. If while we serve like Martha we at the same time
   commune like Mary, we shall not, then, become cumbered with much
   serving. We shall serve and not be cumbered, and shall feel no
   fretfulness against others whose only faculty may be that of sitting at
   the Master's feet.

   The text divides itself readily into three parts. First, we have the
   Presence of the heavenly Bridegroom--"I am come into My garden, My
   sister, My spouse." We have, secondly, the satisfaction which He finds
   in His Church--"I have gathered My myrrh with My spice, I have eaten My
   honeycomb with My honey, I have drunk My wine with my milk." And,
   thirdly, we have the invitation which He gives to His loving
   people--"Eat, O friends; drink, yes, drink abundantly, O

   Beloved."

   I. The voice of the Master Himself calls us to consider HIS
   PRESENCE--"I am come." He tells us He is come. What? Could He come
   without our perceiving it? Is it not possible? May we be like those
   whose eyes were held so that they knew Him not? Is it possible for us
   to be like Magdalene, seeking Christ, while He is standing very near
   us? Yes, and we may even be like the disciples, who, when they saw Him
   walking on the water, were afraid.

   They thought it was a spirit, and cried out--and Jesus said, "It is I,
   be not afraid," before they knew who it was! Here is our ignorance, but
   here is His tenderness. He may come and yet we may not recognize
   Him--but here when He comes, He takes care to advertise us of the
   blessed fact, and calls us to observe and to consider, and to delight
   in it. He would, for our own comfort, prevent its being said of us, "He
   came unto His own, and His own received Him not."

   Let us observe, first, this coming was in answer to prayer. Our
   translators, in dividing the Bible into chapters, seem to have utterly
   disregarded the connection or the sense, so that they brought down
   their guillotine between two verses which must not be divided. The
   Church had said, "Awake, O north wind. And come, you south; blow upon
   my garden." She had also said, "Let my Beloved come into His garden,
   and eat His pleasant fruits." In answer to that prayer the Beloved
   replies, "I am come into My garden." Prayer is always heard, and the
   prayer of faithful souls finds an echo in Jesus' heart.

   How quickly the spouse was heard! Scarcely had the words died away,
   "Let my Beloved come," before she heard Him say, "I am come!" "Before
   they call, I will answer. And while they are yet speaking, I will
   hear." He is very near unto His people, and therefore He very speedily
   answers their request. And how fully does He answer them, too! You
   will, perhaps, say, "But she had asked for the Holy Spirit--she had
   said, 'Awake, O north wind. And come, you south.' And yet there is no
   mention of the heavenly wind as blowing through the garden." The answer
   is that the Beloved's coming means

   all that.

   His visit brings both north and south wind. All benign influences are
   sure to follow where He leads the way! Spices always flow out from the
   heart when Christ's sweet love flows in--and where He is, Christians
   have all things in Him. There was a full answer to her prayer, and
   there was more than an answer, for she had but said, "Let Him come and
   eat," but, lo, He gathers myrrh and spice, and He drinks of wine and
   milk. He does exceeding abundantly above what she had asked or even
   thought--after the right royal manner of the Son of God--who does not
   answer us according to the poverty of our expressions and the leanness
   of our desires, but according to His riches in Glory, giving to us
   Grace upon Grace out of His own inexhaustible fullness.

   Brethren, this Church has had a full reward for all her prayers. We
   have waited upon God often, all the day long there has been prayer in
   this house, and during this last month there has scarcely been an hour
   in which supplication has been suspended. And the answer has already
   come. We are so apt to overlook the answer to prayer. Let it not be so.
   Let us praise the Lord that prayer has not been a vain service. It has
   brought down His Presence, the chief of all blessings, and that for
   which we most interceded at His Throne. Let us exalt Him!

   We can hear Him say now, "I am come into your meetings, I am blessing
   you. I am saving souls, I am elevating some of you into nearness of
   fellowship with Myself. I am chastening some of your spirits with
   sadness to think you have lived in so groveling an estate. I am with
   you, I have heard your prayers, I have come to abide with you as a
   people."

   Now, if this is the case, let us next observe what an unspeakable
   blessing this is! If the voice had said, "I have sent My angel," that
   would have been a precious benefit. But it is not so spoken. The word
   is, "I am come." What? Does He, before whom angels adoringly bow their
   heads--does He, before whom perfect spirits cast their crowns--does He
   condescend to come into the Church? Yes, it is even so. There is a
   personal Presence of Christ in the midst of His people. Where two or
   three are met together in His name, there is He in the midst of them.
   His corporeal Presence is in Heaven, but His spiritual Presence, which
   is all we want--all it is expedient for Him as yet to grant--is
   assuredly in our midst. He is with us truly and really when we meet
   together in our solemn assemblies, and with us, too, when we separate
   and go our ways in private to fight the battles of the Lord.

   Brethren, for us to enjoy His Presence as a Church is a privilege whose
   value is only to be measured by the melancholy results of His absence.
   Where Jesus Christ is not in the garden, the plants wither, and like
   untimely figs the fruits fall from the trees. Blossoms come not, or if
   they appear, they do but disappoint when Jesus is not there to knit and
   fructify them. But when He comes, even the driest boughs in the garden
   become like Aaron's rod that budded! Yes, our older Brethren in the
   Church remember times of trouble, times when the ministry was not with
   power, when the gatherings on the Lord's-Day were joyless, when the
   voice of wailing saddened the courts of Zion. But now we rejoice, yes,
   and will rejoice! The contrast between the past and the joyous present
   should increase our gratitude till we praise the Lord on the high
   sounding cymbals with jubilant exaltation!

   Remember, too, that if He had dealt with us according to our sins, and
   rewarded us after our iniquities, we should never have heard the
   footsteps of the Beloved traversing the garden. How many have grieved
   the Holy Spirit by careless living and backsliding? How have most of us
   followed Him afar off instead of keeping step with Him in service and
   fellowship? Alas, my Lord, if You had regarded only the sins of the
   pastor of the Church, You had long ago left this flock. But You have
   not dealt with us severely, but according unto Your love and to Your
   mercy You have blotted out our sins like a cloud. And like a thick
   cloud our transgressions, and still do You condescend to come into Your
   garden.

   If you take each word of this remarkable sentence, you will find a
   meaning. "I am come." There is the personal Presence of Christ. "I am
   come." There is the certainty that it is so. It is no delusion, no
   dream, no supposition. "I am truly come." Blessed be the name of the
   Lord, at this present time it is assuredly so! Many of His saints can
   bear testimony that they have seen His face and have felt the kisses of
   His lips, and have proven, even this day, that His love is better than

   wine. Note the next word, "I am come into My garden." How near is the
   approach of Christ to His Church! He comes not to the garden door, nor
   to look over the wall, nor in at the gate and out again. But into His
   garden.

   He goes down every walk, midst the green alleys. Among the beds of
   spices He walks, watching each flower, pruning the superfluous foliage
   of every fruit-bearing plant, and plucking up by the roots such as His
   heavenly Father has not planted. His delights are with the sons of men.
   His communion with His chosen is most familiar--so that the spouse may
   sing, "My Beloved is gone down into His garden, to the beds of spices,
   to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies." Jesus Christ, the Lord,
   forgets not His Church, but fulfils the promise--"I the Lord do keep
   it, I will water it every moment. Lest any hurt it, I will keep it
   night and day."

   Brethren, this is a solemn as well as a pleasant fact. You who are
   members of this Church, remember that Jesus is come into the Church,
   that He is now going His rounds among you, and marking your feelings
   towards Him. He knows today who is in fellowship with Him, and who is
   not. He discerns between the precious and the vile. He never comes
   without the winnowing fan when He visits His threshing floor. Beware if
   you are as chaff. He has come into His garden. O you that have not
   enjoyed much of His gracious company, pray to Him to cast a look
   towards you, and be like the sunflower which turns its face to the sun
   to refresh itself with His beams. O pant and long for His Presence. If
   your soul is as dark as the dead of night, call out to Him, for He
   hears the faintest sigh of any of His chosen.

   "I am come into My garden," He says. Note here the possession which
   Christ claims in the Church. If it were not His garden, He would not
   come into it. A Church that is not Christ's Church shall have none of
   His Presence, and a soul that is not Christ's has no fellowship with
   Him. If He reveals Himself at all, it is unto His own people, His
   blood-bought people, the people that are His by purchase and by
   power--and by the surrender of themselves to Him. When I think of this
   Church as committed to my care, I am overawed, and well may my fellow
   officers be cast down under the weight of our responsibility. But after
   all, we may say, "Master, this garden is not ours. It is Your garden.
   We have not begotten all this people, neither can we carry them in our
   bosoms. But You, great Shepherd of the sheep, You will guard the fold."

   Since the garden is His own, He will not suffer even the least plant to
   perish. My Brethren who work for Christ--do not be downcast if certain
   portions of the work should not seem to succeed. He will attend to it.
   "The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand." It is more His
   work than ours, and souls are more under His responsibility than ours.
   So let us hope and be confident, for the Master will surely smile upon
   His "vineyard of red wine."

   The next word denotes cultivation. "I am come into My garden." The
   Church is a cultivated spot. It did not spring up by chance, it was
   arranged by Himself. It has been tended by Himself, and the fruits
   belong to Himself. Thankful are we if we can truly know that as a
   Church --

   "We are a garden walled around, Chosen and made peculiar ground."
   Christ, the Great Cultivator, exercises care and skill in training His
   people, and He delights to see His own handiwork in them.

   And then there are the two choice words at the close by which He speaks
   of His Church, herself, rather than of her work. As if He would draw
   the attention of His people to themselves and to Himself, rather than
   to their work. He says, "My Sister, My Spouse." There is one name for
   the garden, but there are two names for herself. The work is His work,
   the garden is His garden, but see, He wants communion not so much with
   the work as with the worker, He speaks to the Church herself. He calls
   her, "My Sister, My Spouse." "Spouse" has something in it of dearness
   that is not in the first word, for what can be dearer to the husband
   than the bride?

   But then there was a time when the spouse was not dear to the
   Bridegroom, there was a period, perhaps when He did not know her, when
   there was no relationship between the two--though they are made of one
   flesh by marriage, yet they were of different families. And for this
   cause He adds the dear name of "Sister," to show an ancient
   relationship to her, a closeness and a nearness by blood, by birth, as
   well as by betrothal and wedlock. The two words put together make up a
   confection of such inexpressible sweetness, that instead of seeking to
   expound them to you, I will leave them to your meditations, and may He
   who calls the Church, "Sister," and, "Spouse," open up their richness
   to your souls.

   Here, then, is the gist of the whole matter. The Master's Presence is
   in this Church in a very remarkable manner. Beloved, I pray that none
   of you may be like Adam, who fled among the trees to hide himself from
   God when He walked in the garden. May your business not act like an
   overshadowing thicket to conceal you from fellowship. He calls you, O

   Backslider, He calls you as once He called Adam--"Where are you?" Come,
   Beloved, come and commune with your Lord. Come away from those carking
   cares and anxieties which, like gloomy groves of cypress, conceal you
   from your Lord, or rather your Lord from you.

   Don't you hear His call? "O My Dove that is in the clefts of the rock,
   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." Let none of us be like the disciples in another garden when
   their Lord was there and He was in agony, but they were sleeping. Up,
   you Sleepers! Christ has come! If the midnight cry, "Behold, the
   Bridegroom comes," awoke the virgins, shall not, "I am come," awaken
   you? It is His own voice! It is not, "He comes," but "I am come"!

   Stand up, you Slumberers! And now, with heart and soul, seek fellowship
   with Him! It would be a sad thing if while Christ is with us any should
   be slumbering, and then should wake up and say, "Surely God was in this
   place and I knew it not." Rather may you invite Him to come into your
   souls and abide with you until the day breaks and the shadows flee
   away, and you behold Him face to face.

   II. Thus much upon the first point. And now may His Holy Spirit help us
   to view OUR LORD IN HIS CHURCH.

   The beautiful expressions of the text are capable of many holy
   meanings, and it is not possible that any expositions of mine could
   fully unveil their treasures. But let me observe, first, that Christ is
   delighted with the offerings of His people. He says, "I have gathered
   My myrrh with My spice." We may consider myrrh and spice as sweet
   perfumes offered by way of incense to God--as being indicative of the
   offerings which His people bring to Him.

   What if I say that prayer is like sweet smelling myrrh, and that the
   Beloved has been gathering the myrrh of holy prayer, the bitter myrrh
   of repenting sighs and cries in the midst of this Church, lo, these
   many months? You, perhaps, thought that poor wordless prayer of yours
   was never heard, but Jesus gathered it, and called it spice. And when
   some Brother was praying aloud, and in silence your tears fell thick
   and fast for perishing sinners, for you could not bear that they should
   die, nor endure that Christ's name should be blasphemed, the Beloved
   gathered up the precious drops and counted them as costly oil of
   sweetest smell.

   Was it not said in Psalm 72:15, "Prayer also shall be made for Him
   continually"? And you did pray for Him that His name might be as
   ointment poured forth, and that He might gird His sword upon His thigh
   and ride forth prosperously. Jesus observed and delighted in your
   heart's offering. Others knew not that you prayed--perhaps you thought,
   yourself, that you scarcely prayed--but He gathered His myrrh with His
   spice from you. No faithful prayer is lost. The groanings of His people
   are not forgotten. He gathers them as men gather precious products from
   a garden which they have tilled with much labor and expense.

   And then, may not spice represent our praises? For these, as well as
   prayer, come up as incense before His Throne. Last Thursday night when
   my brother spoke to you, if you felt as I did, I am sure your heart
   sent up praise as smoke of incense from the warm coals of a censer, as
   he cast on them handfuls of frankincense in the form of various motives
   for gratitude and reasons for praise. Oh, it was good to sing God's
   praises as we then did by the hour together. It was delightful, too, to
   come to His Table and make that ordinance in very deed a service of
   praise to God. Praise is pleasant and comely, and most of all so
   because Jesus accepts it, and says, "Whoever offers praise glorifies
   Me."

   When the Lord, in another place, speaks of offering sweet cane bought
   with money, does He not refer to other offerings which His people bring
   in addition to their prayers and their praises, when they give to Him
   the first fruits of all their increase, and present thank offerings to
   His name? He has said, "None of you shall appear before Me empty," and
   I hope none of you have been content to do so! The contributions given
   for the spread of His cause, for the feeding of His poor, and clothing
   of His naked ones are given by true hearts directly to Himself. Though
   they may be but as two mites that make a farthing, yet offered in His
   name are they not also included in this word, "I have gathered My myrrh
   with My spice"?

   The Savior's satisfaction is found, in the next place, in His people's
   love--"I have eaten My honeycomb with My honey." Shall I be wrong if I
   believe that this sweetness refers to Christian love? For this is the
   richest of all the graces, and sweetens all the rest. Jesus Christ
   finds delightful solace in His people's love, both in the inward love
   which is like the honey, and in the outward manifestation of it, which
   is like the honeycomb. He rejoices in the love that drips in all its
   preciousness from the heart, and in the honeycomb of organization, in
   which it is for order's sake stored up and put into His hand.

   Or, what if it should mean that Christ overlooks the imperfections of
   His people? The honeycomb is not good eating, but He takes that as well
   as the honey! "I have eaten My honeycomb with My honey." As He looks
   upon His people, and sees what He has done for them, His loving heart
   rejoices in what His Grace has accomplished! As a benevolent man who
   has taken a child from the street and educated it would be pleased to
   see it growing up, prospering, happy, well-informed, talented--so when
   Jesus Christ, remembering what His people were, sees in them displays
   of Divine Grace, desires after holiness, self-denials, communion with
   God, and the like--this is to Him like honey. He takes an intense
   satisfaction in the sweet fruits which He Himself has caused us to
   produce. In spite of all our imperfections, He accepts our love, and
   says, "I have eaten My honeycomb with My honey."

   Turning again to our precious text, we observe that our Lord's
   satisfaction is compared to drinking as well as eating, and that
   drinking is of a twofold character. "I have drunk My wine." Does He
   intend, by this, His joy which is fulfilled in us when our joy is full?
   Does He mean that as men go to feasts to make glad their hearts with
   wine, so He comes to His people to see their joy, and is filled with
   exultation? Isn't that what He means? Surely He does. And the milk, may
   not that mean the Christian's common, ordinary life? As milk contains
   all the constituents of nourishment, may He not mean by this the
   general life of the Christian?

   Our Lord takes delight in the graces of our lives. One has said that
   wine may represent those actions resulting from well-considered
   dedication and deep spiritual thought. For wine must be extracted from
   the grape with labor and preserved with care--there must be skill, and
   work, and forethought spent upon it. But milk is a natural
   production--it flows freely, plentifully, spontaneously. It is a more
   common and ordinary, yet precious thing. So the Lord delights that His
   people should give to Him those elaborate works which they have to tend
   with loving care and watch over with much anxiety before they are
   produced.

   These are the wine. But He would have them give Him the simple
   outgushing of their souls, the ejaculations which flow forth without
   labor, the little deeds of love which need no forethought, the everyday
   outgoings of their inner life-- these are milk, and are equally
   acceptable to Him. Well, if it is so, certain it is that Christ finds
   great pleasure is His people, and in their various forms of piety He
   drinks His wine with His milk.

   Permit me now to call your attention to those many great little words,
   which are yet but one--I refer to the word "My." Observe that eight or
   nine times it is repeated. Here is the reason for the solace which the
   Bridegroom finds in His Church. Does He walk in the Church as men do in
   a garden for pleasure? Then He says, "I am come into My garden." Does
   He talk with His Beloved? It is because He calls her, "My Sister, My
   Spouse." Does He love her prayers and praises? It is because they never
   would be prayed or praised if He had not created these fruits of the
   lips.

   He says not, "I have gathered your myrrh with your spice." Oh, no!
   Viewed as ours, these are poor things, but viewed as His they are most
   acceptable. "I have gathered My myrrh with My spice." So if He finds
   any honey in His people, any true love in them, He first put it there.
   "I have eaten My honeycomb with My honey." Yes, and if there is any joy
   and life in them to make His heart glad, He calls it, "My wine," and,
   "My milk." When I read these words, and thought of our Lord's being fed
   by us, I could almost have cried out, "Lord, when did we see You
   hungry, and feed You? Or thirsty, and give You drink? Do You find any
   satisfaction in us? Surely, our goodness extends not to You. Why should
   we give You anything to eat?"

   Yet He declares it. And we may blushingly believe Him, and praise His
   name--for surely if He found it so--it is because He made it so. If He
   has gotten anything out of us, He must first have put it in us. If He
   sees of the travail of His soul, it is because the travail came first.

   Note well, you lovers of Jesus, that our Lord in this heavenly verse is
   fed first. "I have eaten," He says. And then He turns to us, and says,
   "Eat, O Friends." If any of you seek friendship with the Well-Beloved,
   you must commence by preparing Him a feast. Remember our Lord's own
   parable--"Which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will
   say to him when he has come in from the field, 'Come at once and sit
   down to eat'? But will he not rather say to him, 'Prepare something for
   my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk,
   and afterward you will eat and drink'?"

   Even if your poverty compels you, to say, "As the Lord lives, I have
   not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a
   cruse," listen to Him as He answers, "Fear not, make Me thereof a
   little cake first." Be assured that after you have done so, your barrel
   of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail. The way
   for Believers to be fed by

   Christ is to seek to feed Him--look to His being satisfied, and He will
   assuredly look to you. "You shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn,
   nor green ears, until the same day that you have brought an offering
   unto your God." (Lev. 23:14).

   "Bring you all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat
   in My house, and prove Me now herewith, says the Lord of Hosts, if I
   will not open you the windows of Heaven, and pour you out a blessing,
   that there shall not be room enough to receive it." See, my Brothers
   and Sisters--you must find meat for your Lord, and then, but not till
   then--there shall be meat for you!

   In a feast it is remarkable how complete the entertainment is. There is
   the sweetest food and the most nourishing and exhilarating drink. Then
   over and above that there is the rarest perfume, not counted to be
   needed in ordinary entertainments, but crowning all and making up a
   right royal feast. How marvelous that our Beloved should find within
   His Church all that His soul wants! Having given Himself to cover her,
   He delights in her, He rests in His love, and rejoices over her with
   singing. For the Joy that was set before Him, He endured the Cross,
   despising the shame--and this day He continues to be filled with the
   same delight.

   III. I would gladly linger, but time forbids. We must now remember, in
   the third place, that the text contains an INVITATION. The Beloved
   says, "Eat, O Friends; drink, yes, drink abundantly, O Beloved." In the
   invitation we see the character of the invited guests--they are spoken
   of as friends. We were once aliens, we are now more like the Lord from
   whom the love proceeds. O you that stand shivering in the cold shallows
   of the river of life, why tarry there? Descend into the greater depths,
   the warmer waves, and let the mighty stream bathe you breast high.

   Yes, go farther, plunge where you can find no bottom, for it is blessed
   and safe swimming in the stream of Christ's everlasting love and He
   invites you to it now. When you are at a big banquet table, pick not
   here and there a crumb, sip not now and then a drop--He says, "Eat,"
   and He adds, "drink abundantly." The invitation to receive abundantly
   applies to both refreshments. Your eating and your drinking may be
   without stint. You cannot impoverish the Most High God, possessor of
   Heaven and earth. When you are satiated with His love, His table shall
   still be loaded. Your cups may run over, but His flagons will still be
   brimmed. If you are straitened at all, you are not straitened in
   Him--you are straitened in yourselves.

   But now let me speak to my Brethren, and especially to my fellow
   workers in the kingdom of Christ. It is for us, just now, while our
   Lord is walking in His garden--while He is finding satisfaction in His
   work and in His people--to beware of taking any satisfaction in the
   work ourselves. And equally to beware that we do not neglect the
   appropriate duty of the occasion, namely, that of feasting our souls
   with our Lord's gracious provisions. You are caring for others, it is
   well. You are rejoicing over others, it is well. Still watch well
   yourselves, and rejoice in the Lord in your own hearts.

   What did He say to the Twelve when they came back glorying that even
   the devils were subject unto them? Did He not reply, "Nevertheless
   rejoice not in this, but rather rejoice that your names are written in
   Heaven"? It is your personal interest in Christ, your being yourself
   saved, Christ being present with you--that is your main joy. Enjoy the
   feast for yourselves, or you will not be strong to hand out the Living
   Bread to others. See that you are first partakers of the fruit, or you
   will not labor aright as God's farmers. The more of personal enjoyment
   you allow yourself in connection with your Lord, the more strong will
   you be for His service, and the more out of an experimental sense of
   His preciousness will you be able to say with true eloquence, "O taste
   and see that the Lord is good!"

   You will tell others what you have tasted and handled. You will say,
   "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and delivered him from all
   his fears." I put this before you with much earnestness, and I pray
   that none of you may think it safe to work as to forget to commune--or
   wise to seek the good of others so as to miss personal fellowship with
   the Redeemer. I might now conclude, but it strikes me that there may be
   some among us who are, in their own apprehensions, outside the garden
   of Christ's Church. They are, therefore, mourning over this sermon, and
   saying, "Alas, that is not for me! Christ is come into His garden, but
   I am a piece of waste ground. He is fed and satisfied in His Church,
   but He finds nothing in me. Surely I shall perish from the way, when
   His wrath is kindled but a little!"

   I know how apt poor hearts are to write bitter things against
   themselves--even when God has never written a single word against them.
   So let me see if by turning over this text we may not find thoughts of
   consolation for the trembling ones. We were once enemies. We are made
   servants, but we have advanced from the grade of service (though
   servants,

   still) into that of friends. From now on He calls us not servants, but
   friends, for the servant knows not what his Lord does. And all things
   that He has seen of His Father He has made known unto us.

   The friendship between Christ and His people is not in name only, but
   in deed and in truth. Having laid down His life for His friends, having
   brought them to know His friendship in times of trial and of
   difficulty, He at all times proves His friendship by telling His
   secrets to them and exhibiting an intense sympathy with them in all
   their secret suffering. David and Jonathan were not more closely
   friends than Christ and the Believer, when the Believer lives near to
   His Lord. Never seek the friendship of the world, nor allow your love
   to the creature to overshadow your friendship with Christ.

   He next calls His people Beloved as well as friends. He multiplies
   titles, but all His Words do not express the full love of His heart.
   "Beloved." Oh, to have this word addressed to us by Christ! It is
   music! There is no music in the rarest sounds compared with these three
   syllables which drop from the Redeemer's lips like sweet smelling
   myrrh. "Beloved!" If He had addressed that one word to any one of us,
   it would create a Heaven within our souls which neither sickness nor
   death could mar! Let me sound the note again, "BELOVED!" Does Jesus
   love me? Does He own His love? Does He seal the fact by declaring it
   with His own lips?

   Then I will not stipulate for promises, nor make demands of Him. If He
   loves He must act towards me with loving kindness. He will not smite
   His Beloved unless love dictates the blow. He will not forsake His
   chosen, for He never changes. Oh, the inexpressible, the heaped-up
   blessedness which belong to the man who feels in his soul that Christ
   has called him Beloved!

   Here, then, you have the character in the text of those who are invited
   to commune with Christ. He calls His friends and His Beloved. The
   provisions presented to them are of two kinds. They are bid to eat and
   to drink. You, who are spiritual, know what the food is and what the
   drink is--for you eat His flesh and drink His blood. The incarnation of
   the Son of God, and the death of Jesus the Savior--these are the two
   sacred viands whereon faith is sustained. To feed upon the very Christ
   of God is what is needed. Nothing but this can satisfy the hunger of
   the spirit. He who feeds on Him shall know no lack. "Eat," says He,
   "and drink." You ask, "Where are the provisions?" I answer, they are
   contained in the first words of the text, "I am come." If He is come,
   then eat. If He is come, then drink. There is food, there is drink for
   you in Him!

   Note that delightful word, "abundantly." Some dainties satiate, and
   even nauseate when we have too much of them. But no soul ever had too
   much of the dear love of Christ. No heart did ever complain that His
   sweetness was too much. That can never be. Some things, if you have too
   much of them, may injure you. They are good to a certain point, but
   beyond that, evil. But even the smallest child of Grace shall never
   overindulge himself with Jesus' love. No, the more you have, the more
   you shall enjoy, the more blessed shall you be, and who knows? There
   may be a soft breath in the text which may fan the smoking flax, a
   tender hand that may bind up the bruised reed. I will briefly indicate
   two or three comfortable thoughts.

   Seeking Soul, should it not console you to think that Jesus is near?
   The kingdom of God is come near unto you, for He has come into His
   garden. He was in our last meeting for anxious souls, for many found
   Him there. You are not, then, living in a region where Christ is
   absent--maybe when He passes by He will look on you. Can you not put
   out your finger and touch the hem of His garment, for Jesus of Nazareth
   passes by? Even if you have not touched Him, yet it should give you
   some good cheer to know that He is within reach, and within call.
   Though you are like the poor withered lily in the garden, or worse
   still, like a noxious weed--yet if He is in the garden He may observe
   you and have pity on you.

   Notice, too, that although the text speaks of a garden, it never was a
   garden till He made it so. Men do not find gardens in the wilderness.
   In the wilds of Australia or the backwoods of America, men never
   stumble on a garden where human foot has ever been. It is all forest,
   or prairie, or mountain. So, mark, Soul, if the Church is a garden,
   Christ made it so. Why cannot He make you so? Why not, indeed? Has He
   not said, "Instead of the thorns shall come up the fir tree, and
   instead of the briers shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to
   the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut
   off"? This garden-making gives God a name. Jesus gets honor by plowing
   up the wastes, extracting the briers, and planting firs and myrtles
   there. See, then, there is hope for you yet, you barren Heart--He may
   yet come and make your wilderness like Eden--and your desert like the
   garden of the Lord.

   Note, too, that the Bridegroom gathered myrrh, and fed on milk and
   wine, and honey. Yes, and I know you thought, "He will find no honey in
   me. He will find no milk and wine in me." Ah, but then the text did not
   say He found

   them in the Church. It is said, "I have eaten My honeycomb with My
   honey. I have drunk My wine with My milk." And if He put those things
   into His Church, and then took comfort in them, why not put them into
   you, and take comfort in you, too? Be of good cheer! Arise, He calls
   you this very morning.

   Another word, perhaps, may help you. Did you notice, poor hungry Soul,
   how Jesus said, "drink abundantly"? "Ah," you say, "He did not say that
   to me." I know it. He said that to His friends and to His Beloved--and
   you dare not put yourselves among those. But do not you see how
   generous He is to His friends, and how He keeps back nothing? He
   evidently does not mean to lock anything up in the storeroom, for He
   tells them to eat and drink abundantly. Now, surely, where there is
   such a festival, though you dare not come and sit at the table with the
   guests, you might say with the Syrophenician woman, "Yet the dogs under
   the table eat of the children's crumbs."

   It is good knocking at a door where they are keeping open house, and
   where the feast reveals a lavish hospitality. Knock now, and try it. If
   it were a poor man's dinner with a dry crust and a poor herring, or if
   it were a miser's meal spread most begrudgingly, I would not advise you
   to knock. But where there is wine and milk in rivers, and the good Man
   of the house bids His guests eat and drink abundantly, I say knock, for
   God says it shall be opened!

   Another thought. Jesus finds meat and drink in His Church, and you are
   afraid He would find neither in you--I want to tell you a Truth of God
   which, perhaps, you have forgotten. There was a woman that was a
   sinner. She had had five husbands, and he with whom she then lived was
   not her husband. She was an adulteress and a Samaritan. But Christ
   said, after He had conversed with her, that He had found meat to eat
   that His disciples knew not of. Where did He get it, then? If He had
   drank that day, He did not get it from Jacob's well, for He had nothing
   to draw with, and the well was deep.

   He found big refreshment in that poor woman, to whom He said, "Give me
   to drink." The Samaritan harlot refreshed the soul of Jesus--when she
   believed in Him and owned Him as the Christ! Have you ever read that
   Word of His, "My meat and My drink is to do the will of Him that sent
   Me, and to finish His work"? And what is the will of Him that sent Him?
   Well, I will tell you what it is not-- "It is not the will of your
   Father, that is in Heaven, that one of these little ones should
   perish." The will of God and the will of Christ are these--to save
   sinners. For this purpose was Jesus born and sent into the world--He
   came into the world to seek and to save that which was lost. See, then,
   poor lost One, in saving you, Christ will find both meat and drink! I
   trust, therefore, you will look to Him and cry to Him, and cast
   yourself upon Him--and you shall never, as long as you live, have any
   cause for regretting it.

   Finally, the text represents the Lord saying, "I am come into My
   garden." It may imply that He is not always in His garden. Sometimes
   His Church grieves Him and His manifest Presence departs. But hearken,
   O Sinner, there is a precious thought for you--He is not always in His
   garden. But He is always on the Throne of Grace. He does not always
   say, "I am come into My garden," but He always says, "Come unto Me, all
   you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He never
   leaves the Mercy Seat. He never ceases to intercede for sinners.

   Come, and welcome, then. If you have not seen the Beloved's face, come
   and bow at His feet. Though you have never heard Him say, "Your sins
   are forgiven you," yet come now with a broken and a contrite heart and
   seek absolution at His hands. Come, and welcome! Come, and welcome! May
   the sweet Bridegroom with cords of love draw you, and may this morning
   be a time of love. And as He passes by, if He sees you wallowing in
   your blood, may He say unto you, "Live!" May the Lord grant it, and on
   His head shall be many crowns. Amen! Amen! Amen!
     __________________________________________________________________

Backsliding Healed

   (No. 920)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 13, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I will heal their backsliding." Hosea 14:4.

   WHICH rings with the more sonorous voice, the knell, "their
   backsliding," or the marriage peal, "I will heal"? All through the
   Scripture records there is revealed a vehement contest between man's
   sin and God's Grace--each of them striving to become more abundant than
   the other. Sin, like a dragon, pours forth floods from its mouth, and
   God's mercy, as a shoreless ocean, rolls in greater majesty. Sin
   abounds, so that none can measure its heinousness or power. But where
   sin abounds Grace does much more abound. In the text sin
   abounds--"their backsliding." There is a comprehensiveness in that
   word, a dreadful abyss of iniquity. But Grace abounds yet more, "I will
   heal their backsliding." Here is a height and depth of Grace like the
   God from whom it came--incomprehensible and infinite!

   I shall ask you, this morning, in order that we may get the full
   measure of benefit which this text may bestow upon us, under the
   teaching of God's Spirit, first, to notice the words of the text one by
   one. Secondly, to consider the blessing of the text. And then, thirdly,
   if we are led of the Holy Spirit, let us not leave this House of Prayer
   till we have gained the realization of the text.

   I. First, then, let us take THE WORDS OF THE TEXT, "I will heal their
   backsliding." We shall call your attention first, to a word of
   humiliation, "backsliding." The very sound of it ought to arouse our
   spirits. And the consciousness of having fallen into it should make us
   lay our mouths in their dust, and confess that we are unclean.
   Backsliding is among God's people very common. Not common, perhaps, in
   its highest degree--God forbid it should be--but in its earlier forms.
   From its commencement in backsliding--of thought, and heart--on to
   backsliding in act, I fear the disease is so rife among the people of
   God that there is scarcely one of us who has not at some time or other
   suffered from it.

   And I fear that the most of us might confess, if we judged our own
   hearts rightly, that in some measure we are backsliding even now. The
   proper condition for a child of God is walking in the light as Christ
   is in the light, and so having fellowship with Jesus. Our right
   condition, and our only safe standing is to abide in Him, and to have
   His Words and Himself abiding in us. But too often we follow afar
   off--we are living in very limited and remote fellowship with our
   Redeemer. These things ought not to be. There is no necessity that they
   should be, but alas! Alas! Alas! Search the whole Church through, and
   you shall find them in multitudes, and in some you shall perceive signs
   of the most sorrowful decay through an evil heart of unbelief in
   departing from the living God.

   Think, Beloved, each one of you who are Christ's, how much you may have
   backslidden of late. Have you not become lax in prayer? You maintain
   the habit of it, and you could not give that up, but you have not that
   power in prayer you once had. You still read the Word, but maybe the
   Scripture is not so sweet to you as it was before. You come now to the
   Communion Table--you have not learned to forsake the assembling of
   yourselves together there. But oh, the face of the King, in His beauty!
   Have you seen that as you once did? Perhaps you are still doing a
   little for His cause, but are you doing what you once did or all you
   might do?

   Instead of going on unto perfection, is not your growth stunted? Must
   you not confess that you are not a runner towards Heaven so much as a
   loiterer in the road there? Do these accusations evoke no confessions?
   I fear the most of us, if we came to search, would have to say, "I do
   remember when the love of my espousals was upon me, and my heart was
   warm with love to Christ. But now, alas! How slow are my passions in
   moving towards Him! O that I could feel once again the glow of my first
   love, and that my spirit did rejoice in Him as on the day of my
   conversion."

   I ask you, Brothers and Sisters, if you have to make such
   acknowledgments, whether you would have believed such things of
   yourselves when you first came to Christ? If a Prophet had told me that
   I should be so ungrateful to the dear Lover of my soul, I should have
   said, "Is your servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" Bought
   with His precious

   blood, and delivered from going down to the pit in those younger days
   of our attachment, we thought we should evermore closer and closer
   cleave to our Deliverer. No sacrifice appeared too great, no duty too
   irksome, if Jesus did but command it.

   Yes, we have sorrowfully failed in many respects, and have need to,
   with deepest sorrow of heart, confess our backsliding and bemoan
   ourselves before God. But I will not dwell longer upon that word. Such
   lamentations may end when the heart grows tender. If we see sin
   sufficiently to make us bewail it, we may then look away from it, for
   the next word which we shall consider is a word of consolation--"heal."
   "I will heal their backsliding." There is consolation in the very fact
   that the Lord, here, looks upon the grievous sin of backsliding under
   the image of a disease.

   It is not said, "I will pardon their backsliding," that is included in
   the term, but "I will heal" it--as though He said, "My poor people, I
   do remember that they are but dust. They are liable to a thousand
   temptations through the Fall, and they soon go astray. But I will not
   treat them as though they were rebels, I will look upon them as
   patients--and they shall look upon Me as a physician." Why there is
   consolation in the very fact that God should condescend, for Jesus'
   sake, thus to look upon our loathsome, abominable, ill-deserving,
   Hell-deserving sin as being, not so much a condemning iniquity in His
   sight, but as a disease upon which He looks, pitying us that we should
   endure the power of it.

   And then observe--having looked at backsliding as a disease, He does
   not say, "I will put this diseased one away." Under the legal
   dispensation he who had leprosy, or any contagious disease, must be put
   without the camp, but it is not here said, "I will banish them for
   their backsliding." O my dear Friends, if we had been put out of God's
   Church, if we had never been suffered again to come to His Table, we
   confess we have richly deserved to have it so, but it is not so written
   here. It is not, "I will put them in quarantine. I will expel them out
   of the goodly land, and from among My people." No--"I will heal their
   backsliding."

   Nor does He say, "I will destroy them, because of their backsliding."
   Some will have it that God's people may sin, partially and finally, so
   as never to be the Lord's Beloved again. They say they can sin
   themselves out of the Covenant. But we have not so learned Christ,
   neither have we so understood the Fatherhood of our God--

   "Whom once He loves, He never leaves, But loves them to the end."

   "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance," on His part
   towards His people. "The God of Israel says He hates putting away." No,
   it is not, "I will strike their names out of the Book of Life." It is
   not, "I will disinherit them, seeing they have proved unfaithful to
   Me," but, "I will heal their backsliding." That is to say, whatever
   their sin may have been I will overcome it, I will drive it out, I will
   restore them to their first condition of health. I will do more, I will
   so heal them that one day without spot or wrinkle or any such thing
   they shall see their Father's face." A word of consolation!

   The next is a word of majesty. It is the first word of the text, "I
   will heal their backsliding." "I." It is Jehovah Himself who here
   speaks, the Omnipotent, to whom nothing is difficult. The All-Wise, to
   whom nothing is secret. He has not promised that their backsliding
   shall be healed by unknown means, but that He, Himself, will heal it.
   Suppose He had said, "I will let them alone, and see to what their
   backsliding will turn. It may be, perhaps, after a period it will work
   out all its venom, and the wound will be cured." No, my Brethren, had
   we been left to ourselves, our wounds have become corrupt, and our
   spirit would have utterly perished. We have gone astray like lost
   sheep, and one of the ways in which lost sheep go astray is this--they
   never think of returning. The shepherd must seek them, or else they
   will wander further and further from home.

   Note well that the Lord does not say in the text, "My Word shall heal
   their backsliding," or, "I will send My minister to heal their
   backsliding." He does graciously use His Word--it is His ordained means
   of blessing His people--and He condescendingly employs His ministers,
   unworthy though they are, to do much service for His children. But
   after all, it is neither the Word nor the minister that can do
   anything--only when the Lord puts His hand to the work is it done
   effectually. "I will heal their backsliding."

   Just as Jesus, Himself, going among the sick folk scattered healing
   here and there, and made yonder lame man leap as a hart, and yonder
   dumb tongue to sing, opened blind eyes, drove out fevers and chased
   away devils--even so it is Your touch, Immanuel--it is Your Presence,
   You Savior of sinners, that does heal us of all our sins. He Himself
   took our sicknesses, and therefore He knows how to deliver us from
   them. Is not His name Jehovah-Rophi, the Lord that heals you?

   And has He not said, "The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the
   people that dwell there shall be forgiven their iniquity"?

   It is Jehovah that says it! Then rest assured the work will be done.
   Has He said, and shall He not do it? It is Jehovah that says it!
   However desperate our soul is in sickness, it shall be recovered. For
   is anything too hard for the Lord? "I will heal their backsliding."
   Blessed be His name! When you and I feel our backsliding, if it had
   been said that the backsliding should be healed by any ordinary means,
   we should have replied, "Not mine. No, Lord, mine is a case beyond all
   others, hopeless, helpless, incurable." But when it is said, "I will
   heal," how it takes away all power to be unbelieving, for what cannot
   the Lord do?

   What diseases cannot He chase away? He can speak even to the dead and
   make them live! Therefore let us have hope in Him, for however far we
   may have gone, and however broken our heart may be concerning it, He
   can bind up all our wounds and make each broken bone to sing--and this
   shall be the song--"Lord, who is like unto You, passing by
   transgression, iniquity, and sin, and remembering not the backslidings
   of your people?" Thus we have had three out of the five words of the
   text--one for our humiliation. The second for our consolation. And the
   third for our adoration, since it reveals the majesty of God.

   Another word is in the text, which I shall venture to lift up out of
   the background in which it dwells ordinarily, "I will heal their
   backsliding." Here is a word of certainty. "I will"--"I will heal their
   backsliding." But why will He heal? Why does He say so positively that
   He "will"? Here is no perhaps. No perhaps. The men in Nineveh went to
   God with nothing to encourage them, but, "who can tell?" But the
   children of God come to Him with "shalls" and "wills" to plead. I pray
   you, Backslider, if you desire to return to the Lord this morning,
   observe the certainty of the text, and plead it. God who says "I will,"
   is not a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that He should
   repent.

   If He says, "I will," you can say, "Lord, fulfill this word unto Your
   servant, upon which You have caused me to hope." But why will God heal
   His people? He will because He has assumed the office of physician, and
   for a physician to fail in his attempts reflects upon him no honor.
   Every patient that the physician loses is so much loss to the fame of
   his skill. "I will heal their backsliding," says God. "I have
   undertaken to save them, and I will go through with it. I have made
   with them in Christ a Covenant, ordered in all things and sure, and I
   will not suffer one of these, My little ones, to perish, and I will
   heal their backsliding."

   Are they not His children? Now, if a physician failed to exercise his
   skill on a stranger, yet surely he will not upon his own child! There
   is nothing in the whole compass of pharmacy that the child should not
   have. There is nothing in all the art of surgery which the surgeon
   would not exercise upon his own beloved child if he has need of it. Of
   ALL His children the Divine Father says, "I will heal their
   backsliding."

   Beloved, we have cost our God too dear for Him to suffer us to perish,
   and perish we must without healing-- therefore He will heal us. On
   every child of God the Father sees the marks of the Redeemer's blood.
   Every heir of Heaven carries about with him mementoes that touch the
   Father's soul, for He remembers well the bloody sweat of Gethsemane,
   and the groans and cries of the Well-Beloved. You who believe in Jesus
   cost too much--He cannot let you die. The Lord has loved you too long
   to let you perish, for before the foundation of the world His heart
   went out towards His chosen. From of old His delights were with the
   sons of men.

   Before you were fashioned and curiously worked in the lower parts of
   the earth, you lived in the heart of God, and lay upon the bosom of
   your Redeemer with Whom, even then, you were accounted as one in the
   Covenant of Grace. "I will heal their backsliding." No disease shall
   slay them, no sin shall fester in them so as to destroy them. I,
   Jehovah, who have chosen them, who have redeemed them and called them
   by My Grace, I will heal them." Heaven and earth may pass away, but
   this Word shall not pass away. Oh, the blessed certainty of the Divine
   Word!

   There is yet a fifth word in the text, and that is a word of
   personality. "I will heal their backsliding." That is to say, the
   backsliding, first, of all His Israel. He is speaking of Israel. "I
   will heal their backsliding"--His own peculiar peo-ple--His own elect
   ones. He Himself shall and will heal them. He will not suffer one of
   them to become sick with sin that it shall be fatal to them. That we
   may know whether we share in this promise we may judge from other words
   which precede the text. Those of whom He spoke were willing to come to
   Him and say, "Take away all iniquity, receive us graciously, and love
   us freely."

   If there is any man here who desires to be forgiven for Christ's name's
   sake because of the Free Grace of God. If there is any here bemoaning
   his iniquity and desirous to return unto his God. If there is any soul
   who now sincerely closes in with God's way of salvation, and would
   gladly find deliverance from every sin--such a man may be assured that
   he is one of those of whom God has said, "I will heal their
   backsliding."

   Do you hate your backsliding? Do you, like David, cry, "against You,
   You only have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight, that You
   might be justified when You speak, and be clear when You judge"? Do
   your sins pain you? Have they become a very plague to your heart? Oh,
   then He will heal your backslidings! Are you earnest in prayer? Do you
   cry out that He would have pity upon you? Can you weep the penitential
   tear? Has He looked on you as He looked on Peter, and can you go out
   and weep bitterly, if not with actual drops that distil externally from
   the eyes, yet with inward drops that fall within from the still of the
   heart?

   If so, He that breaks hearts always means to heal them. He never yet
   gave a wounded and a contrite spirit but what He was sure, before long
   to bring to it a better balm than Gilead ever knew, and to let the
   blood of Jesus speak better things than that of Abel, even peace
   eternally within that wounded spirit. "Their backsliding"--take the
   word and turn it to the singular and make it in the first person--say,
   "Lord, heal my backslidings! Heal those I know not of, 'cleanse You me
   from secret faults.' I do know some of them, and I mourn them. Deliver
   Your servant as a bird out of the snare of the fowler, and my tongue
   shall sing aloud of Your righteousness." So you see the text has a
   meaning in every one of its words. I have drawn already five lessons
   from the five words which it contains.

   II. But we pass on to try and bring out more clearly THE BLESSING OF
   THE TEXT. "I will heal their backsliding." That blessing must be
   measured, first, by the evil from which it delivers "backsliding."
   Backsliding is treated as a disease. Let us speak awhile upon that
   fact. Let us say, concerning backsliding, that it is one of the most
   dangerous things into which a child of God can fall. It endangers all
   present joy. It greatly injures usefulness. And it imperils the future.
   No professing Christian falls into the great open sin all at once--much
   backsliding has gone before.

   See the tree blown down by the strong winds. Nine times out of ten, if
   you look carefully at it, you will see that insects have been at work
   at it years before, and rotted it. And, therefore, when at last the
   trial came, it only consummated what had long been going on. When, some
   years ago, many of our greatest commercial houses suddenly collapsed,
   and bankruptcies were so terribly frequent, you do not imagine that
   they lost their money all in a day! In the investigation of their
   accounts it was proved in many cases that ten, or even twenty years
   before, the firms began to go back in the world.

   Little by little, as a rule, backsliding leads on to overt apostasy and
   sin. No, no--so mature a servant of the devil as Judas is not produced
   all at once. It takes time to educate a man for the scorner's seat.
   Take care, therefore, of backsliding because of what it leads to. If
   you begin to slip on the side of a mountain of ice, the first slip may
   not hurt if you can stop and slide no further. But, alas, you cannot so
   regulate sin! When your feet begin to slide, the rate of their descent
   increases, and the difficulty of arresting this motion is incessantly
   becoming greater. It is dangerous to backslide in any degree--for we
   know not to what it may lead.

   It is a defiling thing to backslide, for a man cannot lose the
   intensity of his love to Christ and holiness without becoming thereby
   worldly and impure in heart. You cannot be less in prayer without being
   less like God. Sin is quite certain to seek a dwelling for himself in
   any heart where the Spirit of God is not actually present. Let your God
   withdraw His manifest fellowship, and sin is sure to come in to fill up
   the vacuum. Backsliding mars the whiteness of the righteousness of
   saints and blots their beauty. And as it is defiling, so is it
   contagious. One Believer cannot be living a life of little Grace
   without weakening those Believers who come into contact with him.

   I know some holy men (I wish to be more like they) who are a blessing
   to all with whom they converse. Wherever they are, like an Oriental
   perfume, they spread a fragrance all around. Their lives are like the
   star in the east which led men to Christ. Their graciousness reminds us
   of the blessing of Asher, whose promise was that he should dip his foot
   in oil--for wherever they go they leave the tokens of the unction of
   the Holy One behind them. But the dark side to this picture is the fact
   that if we decline in Grace, our backsliding has a down-dragging
   tendency on others. The whole army is impeded by the lagging of a
   single regiment.

   The old naturalists used to speak of a creature they called a remora,
   which they believed could fasten with its suckers upon a sailing vessel
   and hinder its progress. Backsliding Christians are just such remoras
   to the good ship of the Church, they are barnacles upon her, and impede
   her voyage--

   "One sickly sheep infects the flock, And weakens all the rest."

   When there is a parliamentary train crawling along in front, even the
   limited express mail is hindered. When one professor acts in a worldly,
   careless, indifferent, or covetous spirit, he encourages others to do
   the same--and the example soon multiplies itself.

   I wish I could make you see what a backslider is. I am afraid I cannot,
   but a simple illustration may help you. Do you remember that fine,
   athletic young man who was for years among us, and was almost envied
   for his robust health and remarkable vigor? Exertion was to him a
   pleasure. He rejoiced as a strong man to run a race. Strong as an oak,
   upright as a palm tree, and comely as a cedar--you had but to see him
   to admire him. Alas, we miss him from his usual seat, and his place of
   daily service knows him no more. He cannot mix in our assemblies, and
   never will again. He rises very late in the day, and the slightest
   motion is labor to him. He has a horrible deep-seated cough, and he is
   reduced to a skeleton.

   His cheeks are sunken. There is a peculiar brightness of the eyes, but,
   with the exception of that, there is nothing about him that reminds you
   of what he was. And, if you should take a stranger to see him, you
   would say, "You cannot imagine what that young man used to be." His
   mother weeps to think that this is her son, once the image of manly
   power. It pains her inmost heart to know that this is certainly her
   boy, her once strong and healthy boy. Yet he is not dead--no, but it is
   grievous to see how near death he has come, and with what difficulty he
   breathes. How weak are his lips, how languid is his pulse, how small
   his appetite!

   The strong man is now weaker than a little child. In fact, man as he
   is, his father has to take him in his arms and carry him up and down
   stairs, for he cannot otherwise come out of his chamber. Here is a
   sadly truthful picture of what a Christian may become in spirit. He may
   suffer spiritual consumption, and decline from weakness to weakness
   till life barely retains its hold. He shall not die--for his life is
   bid with Christ in God. But he may gradually backslide until he is weak
   as water, and full of doubts and fears, and a thousand ills. The
   backslider has no strength for service. He renders nothing to the
   Church, but rather requires other Christians to watch, and help, and
   tend him.

   He wants comforts and cordials, but from them all he has little or no
   enjoyment--he lives, blessed be God, he lives--but it is a struggling,
   unhappy, meager life. His religion gives him little rapture and very
   much anxiety. Few are the promises that he feeds upon, and many are the
   threats that haunt him. He will be saved, yet so as by fire. God forbid
   that you or I should run the frightful risks that backsliders run who
   thus walk wide of Jesus Christ and dwell far below the elevated region
   where spiritual health is sustained. May our souls prosper and be in
   health. And may we follow the Lord fully and evermore abide in Him.

   What a mercy it is that, while we have to give such a distressing
   description of what backsliding leads to, we can turn to the text and
   find it written, "I will heal their backsliding"! Consumption, when it
   once comes to be really consumption, is, beyond all doubt, utterly
   incurable by ordinary medicine. And, though many remedies may assist
   the sufferer and prolong life, yet, as a rule, consumption is the
   herald of death. And so backsliding is quite incurable by any human
   means, and would be the forerunner of total apostasy were it not for
   Divine Grace. When a man's heart begins to fall from God--like a stone
   falling from a tower, it descends at an ever-increasing ratio--and none
   can call it back again to the place from which it fell. Or stop it in
   midair, except that Divine Hand which can suspend the laws of gravity,
   arrest the course of sin, and restore the falling one to his place.

   "I will heal their backslidings." I understand, then, the glory of this
   blessing to lie in this--that though backsliding is of all things most
   dangerous, most defiling and injurious, and in itself most deadly--yet
   falling into it, you need not despair. On the contrary, if we have
   fallen into it, listen hopefully to the Voice which says, "Return, O
   backsliding children," backed up as it is by the promise, "I will heal
   their backsliding."

   That we may see this blessing in a still clearer light, let us notice
   the healing itself. What is the healing of backsliding? It may be said
   to lie in two things, namely, forgiveness of its sin, and release from
   its power. That eminent man of God, Bishop Reynolds, who has written
   upon the last two chapters of Hosea, says there is a fourfold healing
   of backsliding, and I think he is correct. First, as we have said,
   backsliding is healed when all the sin of it is forgiven. Dwell on that
   a minute. You have been a backslider. Perhaps you are so now, but God,
   even the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, can purge you with hyssop, and
   you shall be clean!

   Your leprosy shall depart and your flesh shall become fresh as a little
   child. "Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord: Though
   your sins are as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they are
   red like crimson, they shall be as wool." "I will be merciful to their
   unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no
   more." "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus
   Christ the righteous: and He is the Propitiation for our sins." Oh, the
   blessedness of this! If sin returns upon you, child of God, that
   Fountain filled with blood, which washed you once, has by no means lost
   its power. You may wash again, Backslider.

   The Mercy Seat is not removed, nor is the permission to approach it
   revoked. My heart delights to think I may go to Jesus as a sinner, if I
   cannot as a saint. I want a Savior now as much as ever I did. I want
   new pardon for new sin. I thank the Master for having taught us to say
   every day, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." Even those
   who can say, "Our Father which are in Heaven," with a full assurance
   begotten in them by the filial spirit of Divine Grace, yet have need to
   ask that sin may be forgiven. We want daily pardon, and we shall have
   it. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our
   sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

   The next fact of healing is the removal of all the injurious effects
   which sin has caused. A man does not backslide without feeling a
   tendency to go further into sin--contamination is sure to ensue.
   Backsliding deprives a Christian of many of his privileges. It hides
   the face of Christ. It darkens the Sun of Righteousness, or rather
   blinds our eyes to His brightness. It robs us of all present joys. It
   grieves the Holy Spirit and causes Him to withdraw from us in a
   measure. Now when it is said, "I will heal their backsliding," it means
   this--"I will take away from them all the pollution which their sin has
   caused, all the injury which their sin has done to their moral and
   spiritual nature. I will give back to them all that they lost by giving
   way to evil."

   But, "I will heal their backsliding" means thirdly, "I will take away
   those judgments which I have sent upon them in consequence of their
   backsliding." The Ephraimites were subject to invasions by cruel
   tyrants because they had revolted from the Lord, but as soon as they
   repented, God took away the oppressors and so healed their wounds. Now
   you, perhaps, dear Brother and Sister, have been a long while under the
   rod, and you have said, "Lord, when will You comfort me?" Perhaps His
   answer is, "I will comfort you when you have fully confessed your
   wanderings, and forsaken your idols." Hear that rod and Him that has
   appointed it. Many a child of God suffers long series of losses and
   crosses, the cause of which will be found in the fact that he has not
   fully turned to the hand that smote him.

   The Lord will bring His people back. And if one blow does not do it,
   they shall have another. And if that is not enough, they shall be
   smitten with many stripes till at last, with weeping and lamentations,
   they shall return unto the Lord their God. You know not how many
   temporal griefs would vanish away like smoke before the wind if your
   heart were but more humble before the Most High. "I will heal their
   backsliding," that is, "I will take away the temporal chastisement with
   which I have visited them."

   Then, again, the fourth kind of healing is the restoration of lost
   comfort. Instead of the despondency which the Believer feels, when, day
   and night the hand of God is heavy upon him, he shall yet rejoice in
   the Lord. God's children always have to smart for sin. If they were
   ungodly they might sin and enjoy the sweet of their stolen waters. But
   if they are in very deed the Lord's own people, smart must follow sin.
   "You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I
   will punish you for all your iniquities."

   Hear how David cries out, how hoarse his voice is in that fifty-first
   Psalm, and all through those seven Penitential Psalms how he dips every
   verse in the brine of his repentance! He did not find it a profitable
   or a harmless thing to commit unrighteousness. And so, Brethren, you
   and I, if we are God's children, will be sure to find that backsliding
   is a root that bears gall and wormwood. Yet, after his mournful
   confession and deep soul travail, David received the consolation of
   God, and his tongue sang aloud of God's righteousness.

   He said, "Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation." And God did
   restore it, and the bones which had been broken were made to rejoice.
   This is conclusive healing of our backsliding--when we receive beauty
   for ashes, and the oil of joy for mourning. Do not believe, O penitent
   wanderers, that His mercy is gone forever. He is ever mindful of His
   Covenant, and He will restore your souls, and lead you in the paths of
   righteousness for His name's sake. My Brothers and Sisters, if the sin
   is once drowned, your sorrow shall be assuaged. If you remove the
   cause, the effect shall follow. Did you once leap like David before the
   ark, or like Miriam dance to the timbrel of triumph? And have your
   knees grown stiff, and do your hands hang down through sin?

   May the Lord help you to break off your sin by righteousness, and the
   weak hands shall be strengthened, and the feeble knees shall be
   confirmed. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of
   the dumb sing--for the Lord will again say unto your soul, "I am your
   salvation." Your Sun may seem to have gone down, but unto you that fear
   the Lord He shall arise with healing beneath His wings. Only return
   unto the Lord, and He will restore to you "the years which the locust
   has eaten," for He has said it, and He will make it good in its fullest
   extent--"I will heal their backsliding."

   Now, Brethren, consider the mode in which this backsliding is healed,
   for that is part of the mercy. It very frequently happens that by
   Divine Grace the healing of backsliding is brought about in God's
   Providence by severe afflictions. The previous chapters to this one all
   go to show how God can act as a lion or a leopard, or as a bear robbed
   of her whelps, when His people wander into sin. But I shall not dwell
   on that point, only I would say that the severest trial that ever
   happens to you, if it brings you to your God, is a surpassing blessing.
   I would not, and I dare not, pray that the Lord would keep me from all
   future affliction and pain.

   "It is good for me that I have been afflicted." "Before I was afflicted
   I went astray: but now have I kept Your word." This is true of all
   Believers. The Cross is our best earthly heritage. Whenever we imagine
   that we have won the crown we should remember that it would be an
   unseasonable mercy, for this is not a palace, but a battlefield. But
   when we feel the Cross it is a seasonable blessing, suitable for
   followers of the Crucified. "In the world you shall have tribulation."

   The connection of the text leads me to remark that our heavenly Father
   in Christ Jesus heals our backslidings, as a usual rule, by presenting
   to our minds a fresh sense of His great love. The next sentence seems
   to say that, "I will love them freely." I never find that my heart is
   so moved to return unto her rest as when she feels that the Lord has
   dealt bountifully with her. When I remember that I am still His child,
   my soul cries, "I will seek again my Father's love." If I believed the
   doctrine of the final falling of the saints, I fear I should feel no
   motive urging me to return unto my Lord. I fear I should feel the
   hardening effect of slavish fear, and like Hagar, flee into the
   wilderness.

   If the prodigal son had once suspected that he was disinherited and was
   no more a child, he would have given up all thoughts of return. And
   though he confessed that he was not worthy to be called a son, yet he
   knew he was a son, and so back he came, and his father received him. We
   are willing to confess that to cast us away would be just, as we are
   considered in ourselves. But the fact that He has not cast away His
   people whom He did foreknow draws us with invisible but invincible
   bonds back to our Lord.

   Yes, oftentimes the child of God, when he is cold in heart, has been
   revived and refreshed by some such thoughts as these--"He is still
   faithful to me, though I am faithless to Him. Jesus bought me with His
   blood, and He will not lose me. In His Heaven I shall dwell,
   notwithstanding all this unworthiness of mine. O my Heart, how can you
   be so like an iceberg to Him when He has loved you despite your
   innumerable faults? How can you give your eternal Benefactor so base a

   return?"

   The great furnace of Christ's love sends out sparks which fall into our
   hearts, and then they also begin to glow--

   "Depth of mercy, can there be

   Mercy yet reserved for me?

   Can my God His wrath forbear?

   Me, the chief of sinners spare?" Does He bid me return to Him, and does
   He say, "I am married unto you?" "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?" Oh, then, while God's heart of mercy is moved, our
   repentings are kindled, our soul melts while our Beloved speaks! Our
   stony heart is like the rock which gushed with water. The mountains
   flow down at His Presence! As when the melting fire burns, the fire
   causes the waters to boil.

   We feel revenge against sin, and sacred jealousy is aroused. Then we
   return unto our first Husband, and our first love! With weeping and
   with supplications we return, and with desire we desire Him in the
   night--

   "Love, mighty love, our soul subdues; We fly into our Savior's arms;
   Her former vow our heart renews, Ravished afresh with mercy's charms.
   Love is the cord that draws us home, The bond which holds our spirit
   fast;

   Forbids us over again to roam, And captivates us to the last."

   It sometimes happens that the healing of our backsliding is as sudden
   as it is gracious. When we awoke this morning we were all startled to
   find how suddenly the ground had been covered with snow. I should not
   wonder when we leave this place if we shall be almost as much startled
   to find how soon the snow has disappeared under the rapid thaw.

   The Lord who casts forth His ice like morsels can cause His wind to
   blow so that the waters flow. Have you ever found it so in the little
   world within? Your heart has been dull and dead, and by a word Jesus
   has quickened you! "Or ever you were aware, your soul made you like the
   chariots of Amminadib." Blessed be God, His cures can be worked in a
   moment! He can raise His children from their graves of backsliding and
   redeem them from death. Pray that so glorious a work may be worked in
   you, my dear Brother or Sister. Let me pause awhile to give you space
   to breathe the prayer--

   "Come, Lord, on wings of flaming love,

   My spirit to upraise;

   Fly like the lightning from above,

   And fill my soul with praise."

   Even if restoration from backsliding be gradual, Brethren, as sometimes
   it is--and attended with much mourning and much sorrow--yet is the
   blessing still so choice that no words of mine can ever express its
   value. And so I leave it with your hearts to do what my lips cannot.

   III. The third point was to be THE REALIZATION OF THE BLESSING of the
   text, but our time is gone. Therefore let me hope that you have already
   obtained it, or will not rest till you have.

   If you would be savingly and thoroughly revived from backsliding,
   earnestly desire it. "O Israel, return unto the Lord your God." Set
   your face towards God. Resolve upon obtaining renewal by His Grace.
   Then next make a confession of your fault. "You have fallen by your
   iniquity." Acknowledge your grievous fault and be humbled for it. It is
   a mark that God is recovering a soul when it is deeply, penitentially,
   humbled. I have noticed that whenever any who have been excommunicated
   from this Church have been restored, in every case they have walked in
   lowliness, and won all our hearts by their contrition and little esteem
   of themselves.

   Whenever those who have grievously transgressed apply to be received
   again, and at the same time complain of the sentence of the Church, and
   of the conduct of the members, I feel that I dare not advise my
   Brethren to loose them from the sentence. For if they were really
   penitent, they would find no fault with others, but with many tears
   would lament their own shortcomings. It is one mark of Grace when the
   backslider puts his finger on his mouth as to the fault of his
   Brethren, feeling, "It is not for me to say a word against any, I am so
   involved in fault myself, that I dare not throw a stone."

   If you would have your backsliding healed, be much in prayer. "Take
   with you words, and turn to the Lord." Backsliding begins in forsaking
   prayer, and recovery will begin in renewing supplication. If you would
   be recovered, cast away your false confidence. " Ashur shall not save
   us. We will not ride upon horses." Turn Mr. Carnal Security out of
   doors--he is your enemy and God's enemy--be rid of him! Renounce your
   idols--"We will not say any more to the work of our hands, you are our
   gods." You cannot recover from backsliding while you love any child or
   friend inordinately, or while anything stands in your heart before
   Christ. You will never be right while your money holds an undue
   position in your minds, or while your position in society is more
   precious to you than Christ. Away with your idols, or they will cry,
   "Away with Christ." Either give them up, or give up hope.

   Lastly, return again by simple faith to God in Christ, remembering that
   in Him the fatherless find mercy. If you are like an orphan, having
   none to help or to provide for you, and feel your spiritual
   destitution, then, in confidence in the abounding Grace of God, return
   to Him and live. O Brethren, let us all seek to get nearer to Christ!
   Let us all take the eagle's motto, "Higher, higher, higher." Soar yet
   beyond. Let us seek to attain what we have not as yet known. And as for
   the things which remain, let us hold them fast that no man take our
   crown. "What we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule,
   let us mind the same thing."

   Let us not decline from our first love, but rather, "not as though we
   had already attained, either were already perfect," let us forget the
   things which are behind, and press forward to that which is before,
   looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. The Lord
   bless His Church richly, and send His dew upon Israel. And make us all
   to grow in Divine Grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus
   Christ. For His name's sake we ask and expect it. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Nathanael And The Fig Tree

   (No. 921)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 20, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found Him of whom
   Moses in the Law, and also the Prophets, wrote; Jesus of Nazareth, the
   son of Joseph. And Nathanael said to him, 'Can anything good come out
   of Nazareth?'Philip said to him, 'Come and see.' Jesus saw Nathanael
   coming toward Him, and said of him, 'Behold, an Israelite, indeed, in
   whom is no deceit!' Nathanael said to Him, 'How do You know me?' Jesus
   answered and said to him, 'Before Philip calledyou, when you were under
   the fig tree, I saw you.'Nathanael answered and said to Him, 'Rabbi,
   You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!' Jesus answered and
   said to him, 'Because I said to you, 'I saw you under the fig tree,' do
   you believe? You will see greater things than these.' And He said to
   him, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see Heaven
   open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of
   Man." John 1:45-51.

   VERY often we address the Gospel to the chief of sinners. We believe it
   to be our duty to do this with the greatest frequency. For did not our
   Lord, when bidding His disciples to preach the Good News in every
   place, use the words, "beginning at Jerusalem"? Where the chief of
   sinners lived, there was the Gospel first to be preached. But at the
   same time it would show great lack of observation if we regarded all
   mankind as being equally gross, open offenders against God. It would
   not only show a want of wisdom, but it would involve a want of
   truthfulness.

   For though all have sinned, and deserve the wrath of God, yet all
   unconverted men are not precisely in the same condition of mind in
   reference to the Gospel. In the parable of the sower we are taught that
   before the good seed fell upon the field at all, there was a difference
   in the various soils. Some of it was stony ground, another part was
   thorny, a third was trodden hard like a highway, while another plot is
   described by our Lord as "honest and good ground." Although in every
   case the carnal mind is enmity against God, yet are there influences at
   work which in many cases have mitigated, if not subdued, that enmity.

   While many took up stones to kill our Lord, there were others who heard
   Him gladly. While to this day thousands reject the Gospel, there are
   others who receive the Word with joy. These differences we ascribe to
   God's prevenient Grace. We believe, however, that the subject of these
   differences is not aware that Grace is at work upon him--neither is it
   precisely Grace in the same form as saving Grace--for the soul under
   its power has not yet learned its own need of Christ, or the excellency
   of His salvation.

   There is such a thing as a preparatory work of mercy on the soul,
   making it ready for the yet higher work of Grace, even as the plowing
   comes before the sowing. We read in the narrative of the creation that
   before the Divine voice said, "Let there be light," darkness was upon
   the face of the deep, yet it is added, "The Spirit of God moved upon
   the face of the waters." Even so in the darkness of human nature,
   whereas yet no ray of living light has shone, the Spirit of God may be
   moving with secret energy, making the soul ready for the hour when the
   true light shall shine.

   I believe that in our congregations there are many persons who have
   been mercifully restrained from the grosser vices. They exhibit
   everything that is pure and excellent in moral character--they are
   persons who are not maliciously opposed to the Gospel and are ready
   enough to receive it if they did but understand it. They are even
   anxious to be saved by Jesus Christ, and have a reverence for His name,
   though as yet it is an ignorant reverence. They know so little of the
   Redeemer that they are not able to find rest in Him. This slenderness
   of knowledge is the only thing that holds them back from faith in Him.

   They are willing enough to obey if they understood the command. If they
   had but a clear apprehension of our Lord's Person and work, they would
   cheerfully accept Him as their Lord and Savior. I have great hopes that
   the Lord of Love

   may guide the Word which is now to be spoken so that it may find out
   such persons, and may make manifest the Lord's secretly chosen
   ones--those prisoners of hope who pine for liberty--but know not that
   the Son can make them free.

   O captive Soul, abhorring the chains of sin, your day of liberty is
   come! The Lord, the Liberator who looses the prisoners, is come at this
   very hour to snap your bonds!

   I. In dwelling on this narrative, I shall first say a few words
   concerning NATHANAEL HIMSELF. We are told that he was a guileless man,
   "an Israelite, indeed, in whom is no guile." That is to say, like
   Jacob, "he was a plain man," and not like Esau, "a cunning hunter."
   Some minds are naturally serpentine, tortuous, slippery. They cannot
   think except in curves--their motives are involved and intricate, and
   they are of a double heart. These are the men who look one way and row
   the other. They worship the god Janus with two faces, and are of the
   same practice, if not of the same persuasion as the Jesuits. They
   cannot speak a thing plainly or look you in the face while they talk,
   for they are full of mental reservations and prudential cautions. They
   guard their speech. They dare not send abroad their own thoughts till
   they have mailed them up to the throat with double meanings.

   Nathanael was just the very opposite of all this. He was no hypocrite
   and no crafty deceiver. He wore his heart upon his sleeve. If he spoke,
   you might know that he said what he meant and that he meant what he
   said. He was a childlike, simple-hearted man, transparent as glass. He
   was not one of those fools who believe everything. But on the other
   hand, he was not of that other sort of fools so much admired in these
   days who will believe nothing, but who find it necessary to doubt the
   most self-evident Truth in order to maintain their credit for profound
   philosophy. These "thinkers" of this enlightened age are great at
   quibbles, mighty in feigning or feeling mistrust concerning matters
   which common sense has no doubts about.

   They will profess to doubt whether there is a God, though that is as
   plain as the sun at noonday. No, Nathanael was neither credulous nor
   mistrustful. He was honestly ready to yield to the force of Truth. He
   was willing to receive testimony and to be swayed by evidence. He was
   not suspicious, because he was not a man who, himself, would be
   suspected. He was true-hearted and straightforward--a plain dealer and
   plain speaker. Cana had not within her gates a more thoroughly honest
   man. Philip seems to have known this, for he went to him directly, as
   to a man who was likely to be convinced and worth winning to the good
   cause.

   In addition to being thus a simple-hearted man, Nathanael was an
   earnest seeker. Philip went to him because he felt that the good news
   would interest him. "We have found the Messiah," would be no gladsome
   news to anyone who had not looked for the Messiah. Nathanael had been
   expecting the Christ, and perhaps had so well understood Moses and the
   Prophets that he had been led to look for His speedy coming. The time
   when Messiah would suddenly come in His temple had certainly arrived,
   and he was day and night with prayer, like all the faithful of the ten
   tribes, watching and waiting for the appearing of their salvation. He
   had not as yet heard that the Glory of Israel had, indeed, come, but he
   was on the very edge of expectation.

   What a hopeful state of heart is yours, my dear Hearer, if you are now
   honestly desirous to know the Truth, and intensely anxious to be saved
   by it! It is well, indeed, for you if your soul is ready, like the
   photographer's sensitive plate, to receive the impression of the Divine
   Light--if you are anxiously desiring to be informed if there is,
   indeed, a Savior--if there is a Gospel, if there is hope for you, if
   there is such a thing as purity and a way to reach it. It is well, I
   say, if you are anxiously and earnestly desiring to know how and when,
   and where--and determinately resolved, by God's Grace, that no exertion
   shall be spared on your part to run in the way that shall be marked
   out, and to submit yourself unto the will of God. This was the state of
   Nathanael, an honest-hearted lover of plain truth, seeking to find the
   Christ.

   It is also true that he was ignorant up to a certain point. He was not
   ignorant of Moses and the Prophets, these he had well considered. But
   he knew not that Christ as yet had come. There was some little distance
   between Nazareth and Cana, and the news of the Messiah's coming had not
   traveled there. If it had been bad news, it would have flown on eagles'
   wings, but being good news its flight was slower, for few persons are
   so anxious to tell out the good as the evil. He had not, therefore,
   heard of Jesus of Nazareth till Philip came to him. And how many there
   are even in this country who do not know yet what the Gospel means, but
   are anxious to know it, and if they did but know it would receive it?

   "What?" you say, "where there are so many places of worship and so many
   ministers?" Yes, just that. Yes, and in the very heart of our
   congregations and in the midst of our godly families, ignorance has its
   strongholds. These uninstructed ones may be Bible readers, they may be
   Gospel hearers, but as yet they may not have been able to grasp the
   great Truth

   that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. They may
   never have seen what it is for Christ to stand in the sinner's place,
   and for that sinner, by an act of trust, to obtain the blessings which
   spring out of a substitutionary sacrifice. Yes, and here in this house
   where I have tried and labored to put the Gospel in short Saxon words
   and sentences that cannot be misunderstood, there may be some who are
   still saying, "What is this all about? I hear much of believing, but
   what is it? Who is this Christ, the Son of God, and what is it to be
   saved from sin, to be regenerated, to be sanctified? What are all these
   things?"

   Well, dear Friend, I am sorry you should be in the dark, yet am I glad
   at heart, that though you do not know what I would have you know, yet
   you are simple-hearted, truth-loving, and sincere in your seeking. I am
   persuaded that light will not be denied you, you shall yet know Jesus
   and be known of Him.

   In addition to this, however, Nathanael was prejudiced--we must modify
   that expression--he was somewhat prejudiced. As soon as Philip told him
   that he had found Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph, Nathanael said,
   "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Here let us remark that his
   prejudice is exceedingly excusable, for it arose out of the faulty
   testimony of Philip. Philip was a young convert. He had only found
   Jesus the day before, and the natural instinct of every truly gracious
   soul is to try and tell out the blessed things of Christ. So away went
   Philip to tell his friend, Nathanael. But what a many blunders he made
   in the telling out of the Gospel! I bless God, blundering as it was, it
   was enough to bring Nathanael to Christ.

   But it was full of mistakes. Dear Souls, if you know only a little
   about Christ, and if you would make a great many mistakes in telling
   out that little, yet do not hold it in--God will overlook the errors
   and bless the Truth. Now observe what Philip said. He said, "We have
   found Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph," which was our Lord's
   popular name, but was in no way correct. He was not Jesus of Nazareth
   at all. He was not a native of Nazareth--our Lord was of Bethlehem. He
   had dwelt at Nazareth, certainly, but He was no more entitled to be
   called of Nazareth than of Jerusalem.

   Then Philip said, "Son of Joseph," but He was only the reputed son of
   Joseph, He was in truth, the Son of the Highest. Philip gave to our
   Lord the common and erroneous titles which the unthinking many passed
   from hand to hand. He did not say, "We have found the Son of God," or
   "the Son of David," but yet he uttered all he knew--and that is all God
   expects of you or me. Oh, what a mercy it is that the imperfections of
   our ministry do not prevent God's saving souls by us! If it were not
   so, how little good would be done in the world!

   Mr. John Wesley preached most earnestly one view of the Gospel, and
   William Huntingdon preached quite another view of it. The two men would
   have had a holy horror of each other and censured each other most
   conscientiously. Yet no rational man dares say that souls were not
   saved under John Wesley, or under William Huntingdon either, for God
   blessed them both. Both ministers were faulty, but both were
   sincere--and both made useful. So is it with all our testimonies. They
   are all imperfect, full of exaggerations of one Truth, and
   misapprehensions of another. But as long as we witness to the true
   Christ foretold by Moses and the Prophets our mistakes shall be
   forgiven, and God will bless our ministry, despite every flaw.

   So He did with Nathanael--but Nathanael's prejudice rose out of
   Philip's blundering way of talking. If Philip had not said, "of
   Nazareth," then Nathanael would not have said, "Can any good thing come
   out of Nazareth?" If Philip had said that Jesus was of Bethlehem, and
   of the tribe of Judah, and that God was His Father, then this prejudice
   would never have beclouded the mind of Nathanael, and it would have
   been easier for him to have acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah. We must,
   therefore, try to avoid mistakes, lest we cause needless prejudice. We
   should so state the Gospel that if men are offended by it, it shall be
   the Gospel which offends them, and not our way of putting it.

   It may be that you, my Friend, are a little prejudiced against Christ's
   holy Gospel because of the imperfect character of a religious
   acquaintance, or the rough manners of a certain minister. But I trust
   you will not allow such things to bias you. I hope that, being candid
   and honest, you will come and see Jesus for yourself. Revise the report
   of the disciple by a personal inspection of the Master. Philip made up
   for his faults when he added, "Come and see." And I would try to
   prevent mine from injuring you by using the same exhortation--

   "Come and see Jesus and His Gospel for yourself."

   One other mark of Nathanael I would mention. He was in all respects a
   godly, sincere man, up to the measure of his light. He was not yet a
   Believer in Jesus, but still he was an Israelite, indeed. He was a man
   of secret prayer, he did not mock God as the Pharisees did by mere
   outward worship. He was a worshipper of God in his heart. His soul had
   private

   dealings with the God of Heaven when no eye saw him. So it is, I trust,
   with you, dear Hearer. You may not yet have found peace, but you do
   pray, you are desirous of being saved. You do not wish to be a
   hypocrite. You dread, above all things, falling into formality. You
   pray that if ever you become a Christian you may be a Christian,
   indeed. Such is the character I am endeavoring to find out, and if it
   is your character, may you get the blessing that Nathanael did.

   II. Now secondly, we have seen Nathanael, let us for a moment consider
   NATHANAEL'S SIGHT OF JESUS. "Philip says unto him, Come and see." And
   so Nathanael came to see the Savior, which implies that although he was
   somewhat prejudiced against this new Messiah, yet he was candid enough
   to investigate His claims. Beloved Friend to whom I have already
   spoken, if you have any prejudice against the true Gospel of Jesus
   Christ, whether it is occasioned by your birth and education, or
   previous profession of some other faith, be honest enough to give the
   Gospel of Jesus Christ a fair hearing. You may hear it in this House of
   Prayer. You may read it in these pages. Do not dismiss it until you
   have thoroughly examined it. All that we would ask of you is
   now--knowing you to be honest, knowing you to be earnest-- seriously
   sit down and weigh the Doctrines of Grace as you shall find them in the
   Scripture. And especially the life of Christ and the blessings which He
   brings to those who believe in Him.

   Look these things over carefully. They will commend themselves to your
   conscience, for God has already prepared your conscience to judge
   righteously. And as you judge you will perceive a peculiar beauty and a
   charm about the Truths of the Gospel which will surely win your heart.
   Latimer had preached a sermon against the doctrines of the Gospel, and
   among his hearers there was a holy man who afterwards became a martyr.
   He thought, as he listened to Latimer, that he perceived something in
   his tone which showed him to be an honest opponent. Therefore he hoped
   that if light were brought to him he would be willing to see by it.

   He sought him out, obtained an interview with him, and his explanations
   entirely won honest Hugh to the Reformed opinions--and you know what a
   valiant and popular minister of the New Covenant Latimer became. So, my
   honest Friend, give to the Gospel of salvation by faith in the precious
   blood of Jesus a fair hearing, and we are not afraid of the result.

   Nathanael came to Christ, again, with great activity of heart. As soon
   as he was told to, "come and see," he did come and see. He did not sit
   still and say, "Well, if there is any light in this new doctrine, it
   will come to me." No, he went to it. Do not believe in any teaching
   which bids men sit down and find peace in the idea that they need not
   strive to enter in at the strait gate of Truth. No, Brethren, if Grace
   has ever come to you, it will arouse you from lethargy and lead you to
   go to Christ. And by His Grace you will be most earnest, with all the
   activity of your spirit, to search for Him as for hidden treasure. It
   is a delightful thing to see a soul on the wing.

   The majority of our population are, as regards religion, down on the
   ground and unwilling to rise. They are indifferent to spiritual Truth.
   You cannot get them to give earnest heed to eternal matters. But once
   get a mind on the wing with a holy earnestness and solemn
   thoughtfulness, and we do believe, with God's Grace, that it will,
   before long, be brought to a saving faith in Christ. "Come and see,"
   said Philip, and come and see Nathanael did. He does not appear to have
   expected to be converted to Christ by what he saw with his natural
   eyes--his judgment was formed from a mental view of Him.

   It is true he saw the Person of the Messiah, but he did not expect to
   see in the human form any lineaments that might guide his judgment. He
   waited until the lips of the Messiah had spoken, and then, when he had
   seen the Omniscience of that mysterious Person, and how He could read
   his thoughts and spy out his secret actions, then he believed. Now I
   fear some of you live in darkness because you are expecting some kind
   of physical manifestation. You hope for a vivid dream, or some strange
   feeling in your flesh, or some very remarkable occurrence in your
   family. Except you see signs and wonders you will not believe.

   But a saving sight of Christ is another matter! Truth must impress your
   mental faculties, enlighten your understanding, and win your
   affections. The Presence of Christ on earth is a spiritual one, and you
   will come to see Him not with these mortal optics just now, but with
   the eyes of your soul. You will perceive the beauty of His Character,
   the majesty of His Person, the all-sufficiency of His Atonement. And as
   you see these things the Holy Spirit will lead you to believe in Him
   and live. I pray God that such a sight as this may be vouchsafed to
   every honest seeker who may hear or read these words.

   III. A far greater matter now demands our attention--CHRIST'S SIGHT OF
   NATHANAEL. As soon as Jesus saw the man, He said, "Behold an Israelite,
   indeed," which shows us that Christ Jesus read Nathanael's heart. I do
   not suppose that our Lord had ever seen Nathanael with His own human
   eyes. But yet He understood Nathanael's character-- not because He was
   a great judge of physiognomy and could perceive at once that He had a
   simple-hearted man before Him. But because He was Nathanael's Creator,
   being the searcher of hearts and the trier of the reins, He could read
   Na-thanael as readily as a man reads a book which is open before his
   eyes.

   He saw at once all that was within the enquirer, and pronounced a
   verdict upon him that he was free from falsehood. And then to prove to
   Nathanael still further how clearly He knew all about him, He mentioned
   a little incident which I cannot explain, nor can you, nor do I suppose
   anybody could have explained it except Nathanael and Jesus--a special
   secret known only to them both. He said to him, "Before Philip called
   you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." What he was doing
   under the fig tree we may guess, but we cannot know to a certainty.
   Perhaps it would be true of all to believe that the fig tree was to
   Nathanael what the Hermonites and the hill Mizar had been to David.

   David says, "I will remember You from the land of Jordan, and of the
   Hermonites, and from the hill Mizar." What were those sacred
   recollections he does not tell us, and although we can form a shrewd
   guess, David and his God, alone, knew the full mystery. So between
   Christ and Nathanael there was a common knowledge connected with that
   fig tree which we cannot hope to discover. And the moment our Lord
   mentioned that hallowed spot, its remembrances were to Nathanael so
   secret and so sacred that he felt that the Omniscient One was before
   him. Here was evidence which he could not doubt for an instant, for one
   of the most private and special secrets of his life, which he had never
   whispered into any human ear, had been brought up as by a talismanic
   sign. A red-letter day in his private diary had been revived by the
   mention of the fig tree, and He who could touch so hidden a spring in
   his soul must be the Son of God.

   But what was Nathanael doing under the fig tree, according to our best
   surmise? Well, as devout Easterns are accustomed to have a special
   place for prayer, this may have been a shadowy fig tree under which
   Nathanael was accustomed to offer his devotions. And perhaps just
   before Philip came to him, he may have been engaged in personal and
   solitary confession of sin. He had looked round the garden and fastened
   the gate that none might come in--and he had poured into the ear of his
   God some very tender confession under the fig tree shade. When Christ
   said to him, "When you were under the fig tree," it brought to his
   recollection how he poured out his broken and his contrite spirit, and
   confessed sins unknown to all but God. That confession, it may be, the
   very look of Christ brought back to his remembrance and the words and
   look together seemed to say, "I know your secret burden, and the peace
   you found in rolling it upon the Lord." He felt, therefore, that Jesus
   must be Israel's God.

   It is very possible that in addition to his confession, he had under
   the fig tree made a deliberate investigation of his own heart. Good men
   generally mingle with their confessions self-examination. There it may
   be that this man who was free from guile had looked into the tendencies
   of his nature and had been enabled with holy surprise to see the
   fountains of the great deep of his natural depravity. He may have been
   taken, like Ezekiel, from chamber to chamber to see the idols in his
   heart, beholding greater abominations than he suspected to be
   there--and there humbled before the Lord. Beneath that fig tree he may
   have cried with Job, "I abhor myself in dust and ashes." This, also,
   Jesus had seen.

   Or under the fig tree he may have been engaged in very earnest prayer.
   Was that fig tree to Nathanael what Peniel was to Jacob, a spot where
   he had wrestled till the break of day, pleading with God to fulfill His
   ancient promise, to send the Promised One who should be a light to
   lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of His people, Israel? Was it so?
   We think it probable. That fig tree had been to him a Bethel, no other
   than the House of God and the very gate of Heaven.

   And what if we should suggest that, perhaps in addition to his prayer,
   Nathanael had vowed some solemn vow under the fig tree--if the Lord
   would but appear and give to him some sign and token for good, then he
   would be the Lord's and spend and be spent for Him? If the Lord would
   but send the Messiah, he would be among His first followers. If he
   would but speak to him by an angel or otherwise, he would obey the
   voice. Jesus now tells him that he shall see angels ascending and
   descending. And reveals Himself as the Messiah to Whom he had solemnly
   pledged himself. It may he so.

   Once more, it may be that under that fig tree he had enjoyed the
   sweetest communion with his God. Beloved Friends, do you not remember
   well, certain hallowed spots? I have one or two in my own life too
   sacred to mention. If my memory should forget all the world besides,
   yet those spots will evermore be green in my memory--the truly holy
   place where Jesus, my Lord, has met with me and showed me His love. One
   time it was "the King has brought me into His chambers."

   Another time I got me to "the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of
   frankincense." Once He said, "Come, My Beloved, let us go forth into
   the field. And let us lodge in the villages," and another time He
   changed the scene and said, "Come with Me from Lebanon, My Spouse. Look
   from the top of Amana, from the top of Hermon, from the lions dens,
   from the mountains of the leopards."

   Have we not sometimes had special festivals when He has broached the
   spiced wine of His pomegranate? When our joy has been almost too much
   for the frail body to endure, for our joyous spirit, like a sharp
   sword, has well-near cut through its scabbard? Ah, it is sweetly true.
   He has baptized us in the fire of His love, and we shall forever
   remember those secret spots, those dear occasions. This, then, was a
   token, a secret token between Christ and Nathanael, by which the
   disciple recognized his Divine Friend and future Master and Lord. He
   had met the Messiah in spirit before, and now he meets Him in very
   flesh and blood. And by this token does he know Him. In spirit the Lord
   set His seal upon Nathan-ael's heart, and now, by the sacred signet,
   the Israelite discerns his King.

   Thus we see the Lord had seen Nathanael in his previous engagements,
   before he became actually a Believer in Jesus. This fact suggests that
   each of you who have been sincerely seeking to be set right, and to
   know the Truth, have been fully perceived in all your seeking and
   desires by the God of Grace. When you let fall a tear because you could
   not understand the Word, Jesus saw that tear. When you groaned because
   you could not get satisfaction of heart, He heard that groan. Never
   true heart seeks Christ without Christ's being well aware of it. Well
   may He know of it, for every motion of a trembling heart towards
   Himself is caused by His own love.

   He is drawing you, though you perceive not the hands of a man which
   encircle you. He is the hidden loadstone by which your heart is moved.
   I know it is night with you, and you grope like a blind man for the
   wall. But if your heart says, "O that I could but embrace Him! O that
   He were mine! If I could but find rest in Him, I would give all that I
   have." Then be assured that Jesus is close to you--your prayers are in
   His ear, your tears fall upon His heart. He knows all about your
   difficulties, all about your doubts and fears, and He sympathizes in
   the whole--and in due time He will break your snares, and you shall
   yet, with joy, draw water out of the wells of salvation.

   This Truth is full of consolation to all who seek with sincerity,
   though as yet in the dark. Before the minister's voice spoke to
   you--when you were under the fig tree, when you were by the bedside,
   when you were in that inner chamber, when you were down in that saw
   pit, when you were in the hayloft, when you were walking behind the
   hedge in the field--Jesus saw you. He knew your desires, He read your
   longings, He saw you through and through. Even from of old He has known
   you.

   IV. So we have seen Nathanael's sight of Christ, and then Christ's
   sight of Nathanael. Now the fourth thing is, NA-THANAEL'S FAITH. I must
   go over much the same ground again under this head. Nathanael's
   faith--note what it was grounded on. He cheerfully accepted Jesus as
   the Messiah, and the ground of his acceptance lay in this--Jesus had
   mentioned to him a peculiar incident in his life which he was persuaded
   no one could have known but the Omniscient God. He concluded,
   therefore, Jesus to be the Omniscient God, and accepted Him at once as
   his King. This was very frequently the way in which persons were
   brought to confidence in Christ.

   The same thing is recorded in this very Gospel a few chapters further
   on. The Lord sat down on the well and talked to the Samaritan woman,
   and there was no kind of impression produced upon her until He said,
   "You have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your
   husband." Then it flashed upon her, "This stranger knows my private
   history! Then He is something more than He appears to be. He is the
   Great Prophet." And away she ran with this on her tongue, because it
   was in her heart, "Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I
   did: is not this the Christ?"

   The same was the case with Zaccheus. You may think, however, that this
   mode of conversion was confined to the days of our Lord's flesh, and
   the age of miracles, but it is not so. The fact is that at this very
   day the discovery of the thoughts of men's hearts by the Gospel is
   still a very potent means in the hands of the Holy Spirit of convincing
   them of the Truth of the Gospel. How often have I heard enquirers say,
   "It seemed to me, Sir, as if that sermon was meant for me. There were
   points in it which were so exactly like myself, that I felt sure
   someone had told the preacher about me. And there were words and
   sentences so peculiarly descriptive of my private thoughts, that I was
   sure no one but God knew of them. I perceived that God was in the
   Gospel speaking to my soul."

   Yes, and it always will be so. The is the great revealer of secrets. It
   is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Jesus Christ
   in the Gospel knows all about your sins, all about your seeking, all
   about the difficulties which you

   are meeting with. This ought to convince you that the Gospel is Divine,
   since its teachings lay bare the heart, and its remedies touch every
   spiritual disease. The knowledge of human nature displayed in the
   simplest passage of the Gospel is more profound than the productions of
   Plato or Socrates. The Gospel, like a silken thread, runs through all
   the windings and twisting of human nature in its fallen state. O that
   its voice may come home personally to you! May it, by the Spirit,
   convict you of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment--and bring you to
   lay hold on eternal life!

   Nathanael's faith, it must be mentioned, was peculiar not only in its
   ground, but in its clear and comprehensive character. He accepted Jesus
   at once as the Son of God. He was Divine to him, and he adored Him. He
   also accepted Him as the King of Israel. He was a royal personage to
   him, and he tendered Him his homage. May you and I receive Jesus Christ
   in this way, as a real Man, but yet certainly God--a Man who was
   despised and rejected, but yet the Man anointed above His Brethren--who
   is King of kings and Lord of lords.

   I admire Nathanael's faith, again, because it was so quick, unreserved,
   and decisive. "You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"
   Christ was glorified by the decision, the quickness of this faith.
   Delay in believing Him dishonors Him. O honest Heart, O sincere Mind,
   pray that you may as quickly come into the light and liberty of true
   belief! May the Holy Spirit work in you a ready satisfaction in the
   atoning sacrifice and Divine Person of the ever blessed Immanuel.

   V. This brings us to the last point of consideration. We have shown you
   Nathanael and his sight of Christ, and Christ's sight of him. And then
   the faith that Nathanael received. Now notice NATHANAEL'S AFTER-SIGHT.
   Some persons want to see all that there is in Christianity before they
   can believe in Jesus, that is to say, before they will go to the
   primary school they must clamor for a degree at the university. Many
   want to know the ninth of Romans before they have read the third of
   John. They are all for understanding great mysteries before they
   understand that primary simplicity, "Believe and live."

   But those who are wiser and, like Nathanael, are content to believe at
   first what they are able to perceive, namely, that Christ is the Son of
   God and the King of Israel, shall go on to learn more. Let us read our
   Lord's words, "You shall see greater things than these. Verily, verily,
   I say unto you, hereafter shall you see Heaven opened, and the angels
   of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." To full grown
   disciples Jesus promises, "Greater things than these shall you do." To
   young converts He says, "Greater things than these shall you see."

   He gives promises in proportion to our ability to receive them. The
   promise given to Nathanael was a most fitting one. He was all
   Israelite, indeed--then he shall have Israel's vision. What was the
   great sight that Israel or Jacob saw? He saw the ladder whereon angels
   ascended and descended. Precisely this shall Nathanael see. He shall
   see Jesus Christ as the communication between an opened Heaven and a
   blessed earth--and he shall see the angels ascending and descending
   upon the Son of Man!

   If you bear the character of Israel, you shall enjoy the privileges of
   Israel. If you are an Israelite, indeed, you shall have the blessing
   that made Israel glad. Nathanael had owned Jesus as the Son of
   God--here he is told that he shall see Him in His glory as the Son of
   Man. Note that last word of the chapter. It is not so much that Christ
   humbly called Himself the Son of Man--though that is true--but that to
   see the glory of Christ as God is a simple thing. To see and understand
   the glory of Christ as Man, this is a sight for faith, and probably a
   sight which, so far as our senses are concerned, is reserved for the
   day of His coming.

   When He shall appear--the very Man that suffered upon Calvary--when He
   shall appear upon the Great White Throne to judge the quick and the
   dead, if you believe in Jesus as the Son of God, you shall yet see Him
   in His glory as Man swaying the universal scepter, and enthroned as
   King of all the earth. He had called Jesus the King of Israel, if you
   remember. Now he is to see his Lord as the King of the angels--to see
   the angels of God ascending and descending upon Him. Believe, my dear
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ, as far as you know Him, and you shall
   know more of Him. Open your eyes but to the candle light of the Law,
   and you shall soon behold the sunlight of the Gospel. The Lord is very
   gracious to fulfill the Gospel rule, "To him that has, shall be given,
   and he shall have abundance."

   If you acknowledge the King of Israel, you shall see Him as the Lord of
   Hosts before whom archangels veil their faces, and to Whom seraphim are
   servitors. The great sight, I suppose, Nathanael saw as the result of
   his faith was not the transfiguration, nor the ascension as some
   suppose, but a spiritual view of Christ in His mediatorial capacity as
   the great link between earth and Heaven. This is, indeed, a sight
   transcending all others. We are not divided from the invisible. We

   are not separated from the infinite. The mortal has communion with the
   Immortal. The sinner speaks with the Holy One--prayers climb up to
   Heaven, and benedictions descend by way of the Great Substitute.

   Can you see this, O Soul? If so, the sight will make you glad. You are
   not exiled now, you are only at the foot of the stairs which lead to
   the upper chamber of your Father's House. Your God is above and bright
   spirits traverse constantly the open gangway of the Mediator's Person.
   Here is joy for all the saints--for this ladder can never be
   broken--our communion is abiding. No doubt, to Nathanael's view, the
   promise would be fulfilled as he perceived the Providence of God as
   ruled by Christ Jesus who orders all things for the good of the Church.
   Was not this intended in the figure of angels ascending and descending
   upon the Son of Man, that is, all agencies, whether living or material,
   all subject to the Law and the dominion of Christ?

   So that all things work together for good to them that love God! Do not
   go fretting to your homes and say, "Here are new doctrines springing
   up, and new gods that our fathers knew not, and ministers are slipping
   aside from the faith, and bad days have fallen upon the Church, and
   Romanism is coming up, and infidelity with it." All this may be true--
   but it does not matter one fig--for God has a great end in view. He has
   a bit for the mouth of leviathan. He can do as He wills with His most
   powerful enemies. He rides upon the wings of cherubs and rules the
   storm. The clouds are but the dust of His feet. Never believe that
   Providence is out of joint. The wheels of this great engine may revolve
   some this way and some that, but the sure result will be produced, for
   the great Artist sees the final result to be secure.

   God's glory shall arise from it all! Angels descend, but they as much
   do the will of God as those which ascend. Some events seem disastrous,
   and even calamitous. But they shall all, in the end, prove to be for
   the best. For he --

   "From seeming evil still educes good,'" And better still, and better
   still--in infinite progression. Until the crown shall come upon the
   head of Him who was separated from His Brethren, and all the glory
   shall roll in waves of mighty song at the foot of His Throne, may you
   and I continue to see this great sight more and more clearly. Until the
   Lord shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the trump of the
   archangel, and the voice of God, and once and for all we shall see
   Heaven and earth blended, may we continue to see angels ascending and
   descending upon the Son of Man.

   All this matchless glory will come to us through that little window by
   which we first saw the Savior. If we will not see Him as our Lord until
   we can see all the future, we shall perish in darkness. If you will not
   believe, neither shall you be established. But if, with simple and true
   hearts you have been seeking Jesus, and now come and accept Him as the
   Lord, the King of Israel--then greater things than these shall be in
   store for you! Your eyes shall see the King in His beauty and the land
   that is very far off.

   And the day of His pompous appearing, when Heaven and earth shall hang
   out their streamers for overflowing joy because the King has come unto
   His own. And the day the crown is put upon the head of the Son of
   David--then shall you see it and see it all--for you shall be with Him
   where He is, that you may behold His glory, the glory which the Father
   gave Him before the foundation of the world. Come Lord Jesus! Come
   quickly!
     __________________________________________________________________

Sincerity And Duplicity

   (No. 922)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH 6, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He
   that says, I know Him, and keeps not His commandments, is a liar, and
   the Truth is not in him." 1 John 2:3,4.

   THE Epistles of John possess and combine certain qualities which seem,
   at the first blush, to stand opposite as the poles to one another.
   Their style of expression is simple, chaste, and unadorned. Short words
   are used. For the most part words of one syllable--such little homely
   words as a young child might easily spell. And the sense is so clear
   and obvious, that the captious critic or the astute reasoner must be
   puzzled to distort it. Yet there is no lack of dignity in the language,
   and as for the matter of these Epistles, it is grand and sublime. Where
   would you turn in the pages of the New Testament, save only to the book
   of the Revelation, given by the pen of the same writer, for more
   notable mystery?

   The language charms our ears, while the Truth it expresses holds us in
   awe. There are deep meanings and veiled mysteries here. Albeit the
   hidden wisdom which baffles finite thought is not couched in strange
   terms, but declared in such plain speech as trips lightly off the
   tongue, and yet sinks deeply into the heart. Again, the spirit of John
   is love, all love. Every line he writes is perfumed with charity. And
   yet to what close self-examination, to what a severe testing does he
   put us! How truly may it be said that these Epistles are a touchstone
   by which we may discern between the true gold and the counterfeit!

   Generous but discriminating, glowing with affection but rigid in
   fidelity, the Apostle mingles caution with caress, and qualifies the
   most soothing consolations with such stern warnings, that in well-near
   every sentence he constrains us to deep searching of heart. The text is
   a case in point. With a wise discrimination he draws a contrast between
   him who knows that he knows Christ, and him who says that he knows
   Christ. The one he acknowledges, but the other he brands with that hard
   word, that ignominious title, "a liar," and sends him away as unworthy
   of further consideration.

   Not only in this case, but all through his Epistles, John continues to
   unravel the tangled web of hypocrisy. Ah, that deceit should steal such
   gentle shapes and seem like Truth! To show the diverging point between
   facts and sayings, between realities and professions, between those who
   have, and those who only say that they have, was his constant aim. It
   may interest you just to open your Bibles and turn to one or two of the
   passages that illustrate this. In his first chapter, at the sixth
   verse, he has been speaking of those who walk in the light and have
   fellowship with God, and he adds, "If we say that we have fellowship
   with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth."

   Then in the text he speaks of those who know Christ, and he adds, "He
   that says, I know Him, and keeps not His commandments, is a liar, and
   the Truth is not in him." And further on, in the ninth verse, speaking
   of those who have the light, he says, "He that says he is in the light,
   and hates his brother, is in darkness even until now." Not to multiply
   the instances, there is a notable one in the fourth chapter, at the
   twentieth verse, "If a man says I love God, and hates his brother, he
   is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can
   he love God Whom he has not seen?"

   So to have a thing, or to boast that you have it--to be, or to pretend
   to be such-and-such a character--are as opposite as white and black, as
   light and darkness. Indeed, we scarcely need Revelation to tell us
   this, for it is so in things secular, and it must be certainly
   applicable to religion. We meet in common life with persons who say
   that they are rich, but this does not make them so. They apply for
   credit and say that they are wealthy when they are worth nothing.
   Companies will ask for your money with which they may speculate, and
   they say that they are sound, but they are oftentimes found to be
   rotten. Though some of them make a very fair show in the prospectus,
   the result appears very foul in the winding-up of the association.

   Persons have been known to say that they were of distinguished rank,
   but when they have had to prove their title before the House of Lords,
   oftentimes has it been discovered that they have made a mistake.
   Lunatics in Bethlehem Hospi-

   tal, near here, have been found by scores to say that they were kings
   or queens. In the old houses, where madmen were confined, it often
   happened that some poor creature twisted a crown of straw, put it on
   his head, and said that he was a monarch. But that did not make him so.
   No armies arose at his bidding. No fleets crossed the ocean to do his
   will. No tribute was brought to his feet. He remained a poor pauper
   madman still, though he said that he was a king.

   Many a time you have found the difference, in your commercial
   transactions, between blank saying and positive truth. A man has said
   that he would meet that bill, or that he would discharge that debt. He
   has said that the rent should be paid when it was due. He has said a
   thousand things--and you have found out that it was easy enough for him
   to say, but it was not quite so easy for you to obtain the doing of it.
   And when the engagement has been turned to writing, registered, and
   made as fast as black and white can make it, you have not found it
   thoroughly reliable, for to say by subscribing a contract or covenant
   does not always make it certain that a man will fulfill it. To say is
   not necessarily a pledge of good faith, or a warrant against treachery.

   Rest assured, then, that if in these temporal matters to say is not the
   same thing as to be or to do, neither is it so in spiritual things. A
   minister may say that he is sent of God, and yet be a wolf in sheep's
   clothing. A man may say that he unites himself to the Church of God,
   but he may be no better than a hypocrite and an alien who has no part
   in her fellowship. We may say that we pray, and yet never a prayer may
   come from our hearts. We may say to our fellow men that we are
   Christians, and yet we may never have been born again--never have
   obtained the precious faith of God's elect-- never have been washed in
   the blood of Jesus Christ.

   And, Sirs, as you would not be satisfied with merely saying that you
   are rich. As you want the title-deeds of the broad acres. As you want
   to hear the coins chink in your box. As you want the real thing, and
   not the mere saying of it-- so, I pray you, be not put off with the
   mere profession of religion. Be not content with a bare assertion, or
   think that is enough. Seek to have your own profession verified by the
   witness of Heaven, as well as by that of your own conscience. It is not
   written, "He that says he believes shall be saved." But "he that
   believes and is baptized shall be saved." It is not said that he who
   says he has confessed shall be forgiven. But "He that confesses and
   forsakes his sins shall find mercy." Your mere sayers, though they say,
   "Lord, open to us," and aver that Christ did eat in their streets,
   shall have for an answer, "I never knew you! Depart from Me, you
   workers of iniquity."

   Let us not be gulled and deceived. Let us not be duped and taken in by
   any notion that saying so makes it so! Take heed, lest with a
   flattering tongue you do impose on your own soul. Standing in view of
   that Eye which penetrates the inmost heart, may we learn to distinguish
   between the mere profession and the full possession of real Grace and
   vital godliness.

   The matter in hand tonight, in which this distinction is to be made, is
   the knowing of Christ. Let us speak first about what it is to know Him,
   then about knowing that we know Him. And after that, solemnly
   expostulate with those who merely say that they know Him.

   I. The matter to be considered and judged tonight by each man for
   himself is THE KNOWING OF CHRIST. What, then, is it to know Christ? Of
   course we have never seen Him. Many years ago He left this world and
   ascended to His Father. Still we can know Him. It is possible. There
   have been thousands, and even millions, who have had a personal
   acquaintance with Him, Whom, though they have not seen, they loved, and
   in Whom they have rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

   To "know" is a word used in Scripture in several senses. Sometimes it
   means to acknowledge. As when we read of a certain Pharaoh, that "he
   knew not Joseph." That is, he did not acknowledge any obligation of the
   state or kingdom to Joseph. He remembered not what had been done by
   that great man. So, too, Christ says that His sheep "know" His voice.
   They acknowledge His voice as being the voice of their Shepherd, and
   cheerfully follow where their Shepherd leads. Now, it is a matter of
   the first necessity to acknowledge Christ--that He is God, that He is
   the Son of the Father, that He is the Savior of His people, and the
   rightful Monarch of the world--to acknowledge more--that you accept Him
   as your Savior, as your King, as your Prophet, as your Priest.

   This is, in a certain sense, to know Christ. That is, to own and
   confess in your heart that He is God, in the glory of God the Father.
   That He is your Redeemer. That His blood has washed you, and His
   righteousness covers you. That He is your salvation, your only hope,
   and your fondest desire.

   The word "know" means, in the next place, to believe. As in that
   passage, "By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify
   many"--where it is evidently meant that by the knowledge of Him, that
   is to say, by faith in Christ Jesus, He would justify many. To "know"
   and to "believe" are sometimes used in Scripture as convertible terms.
   Now, in this sense we must know Christ. We must believe Him, we must
   trust Him, we must accept the reports of the Prophets and Apostles
   respecting Him. And we must subscribe to them, practically, with all
   our heart, and soul, and strength, and lean the whole burden of our
   everlasting destiny upon His finished work. To know Him, then, is to
   acknowledge Him, and to believe in Him.

   This is not all. The word to "know" often means experience. It is said
   of our Lord that, "He knew no sin." That is to say, He never
   experienced sin. He never became a sinner. To know Christ, then, we
   must feel and prove His power, His pardoning power, His power of love
   over the heart, His reigning power in subduing our passions, His
   comforting power, His enlightening power, His elevating power, and all
   those other blessed influences which, through the Holy Spirit, proceed
   from Christ. This is to experience Him. And once more, to "know" in
   Scripture often means to commune. Eliphaz says, "Acquaint yourself with
   God, be at peace with Him." That is to say, commune with Him, get into
   friendship and fellowship with Him.

   So it is necessary that every Believer should know Christ by having an
   acquaintance with Him, by speaking with Him in prayer and praise--by
   laying bare one's heart to His heart--receiving from Him the Divine
   secret, and imparting to Him the full confession of all our sins and
   griefs. In a word, dear Brethren, to know Christ is very much the same
   as to know any other person. When you know a man, if he is your
   intimate friend, you trust him, you love him, you esteem him, you are
   on speaking terms with him. You not only bow to him in the street, but
   you go to his house. You sit down with him at his table. At other times
   you hold counsel with him, or you ask his assistance. And he comes to
   your house, and you hold familiar association, the one with the other.
   There is a good understanding between you and the man of whom it may be
   truly said that you know him.

   On such terms must the soul be with Christ. He must not be merely an
   historic personage of whom we read in the pages of Scripture. But He
   must be a real Person with Whom we can speak in spirit, commune in
   heart, and be united in the bonds of love. We must know Him, His very
   Person, so as to love and to trust Him as a real Lord to us. Judge,
   then, each one, yourselves--whether you really and indeed, in this
   sense, "know" Christ.

   Do distinguish, however, between knowing about Christ and knowing
   Christ. We may know very much about many of our great men, though we do
   not know them. Now it will never save a soul to know about Christ. The
   only saving knowledge is to know Him, His very Self, and to trust Him,
   the living Savior, who is now at the right hand of God. To Him it is we
   speak. With Him in very deed we commune.

   Nor does it say that if we are able to speak about Him, therefore we
   are saved. Lest the music of your own tongue beguile you, remember how
   easy some people find it to talk fluently, eloquently, properly, and
   persuasively of persons they never knew. They had read it. They had
   stored it up in their memories, and they told it out again. They may
   vindicate the reputation of some hero or statesman in company where it
   is disgraced though they never knew any more of him than the fame that
   has reached their ears. Ah, but this is not enough here.

   You may be as fluent as Whitefield. Yes, you may be eloquent and mighty
   in the Scriptures as was Apollos. But if you do not know Christ by your
   own individual, personal acquaintance with His Person, with His
   righteousness, and with His blood, you will not be saved by all your
   fine speeches. Rather are you in imminent peril, that out of your own
   mouth you will be condemned. Such knowledge as we now refer to is
   inestimably precious. Get knowledge, classical or mathematical--apply
   yourself to literature, or study the sciences, enjoy the vast hoard of
   knowledge bequeathed to us by antiquity, or endeavor to augment that
   hoard, and transmit it to future ages--but after all, there is no
   knowledge that can ever match that of the Christ once crucified, now
   risen and exalted, and expected soon to return in Glory.

   Such knowledge as this is incomparable. It dives deep into the mine of
   God's eternal purpose. It soars high into the Heaven of God's
   everlasting love. It enlarges the soul by filling it with the
   inexhaustible fullness of Christ--Christ the wisdom of God--Whom THE
   LORD possessed in the beginning of His way before His works of old. O
   Sirs, he that gets such knowledge need not seek for degrees at the
   universities. He who has Christ has the highest imaginable degree. And,
   blessed forever be the name of my God, such knowledge can never be
   lost. If you know Christ, you have that written on

   the tablet of your heart which Satan shall never erase, which time
   shall never dim, which the iron hand of death shall never be able to
   blot out. There shall it stand forever.

   You know Him, and you are known of Him, "and they shall be Mine, says
   the Lord, in the day when I make up My jewels." "The Lord knows them
   that are His." They that know Him He knows, and He will confess them to
   be His own in the day when He comes in the glory of His Father, and all
   His holy angels with Him. I speak but simply, though I feel intensely
   the importance of this subject. A great solemnity surrounds it. Life
   and death, Heaven and Hell, are here clearly legible. For if you know
   Christ, it is well with you, but if you know Him not, you are ignorant
   of the one thing which can save your soul.

   II. Having laid down the matter that is propounded, we shall advance to
   speak OF THE TWO CHARACTERS THAT ARE PORTRAYED IN THE TEXT. With
   respect to the one--those who know that they know Him. We are told how
   they know that they know Him--"We know that we do know Him, if we keep
   His commandments."

   Some Christians who do know Christ are in great doubt as to whether
   they know Him. This ought not to be. It is too solemn a matter to be
   left to chance or conjecture. I believe there are saved ones who do not
   know of a surety that they are saved. They are raising the question
   often that never ought to be a question. No man ought to be content to
   leave that unsettled, for mark you, my Hearer or Reader, if you are not
   a saved man, you are a condemned man. If you are not forgiven, your
   sins lie on you. You are now in danger of Hell if you are not now
   secure of Heaven, for there is no place between these two. You are
   either a child of God, or not. Why do you say, "I hope I am a child of
   God, yet I do not know. I hope, yet I do not know that I am forgiven"?
   In such suspense you ought not to be. You are either one or the
   other--either a saint or a sinner--either saved or lost, either walking
   in the light or walking in the dark.

   Oh, it is very urgent that we should know that we know Him! Though, as
   I have already said, to know Him is the paramount matter--next to that
   there is nothing so important as to know that we know Him. Do you ask
   what service it would render you? It would give you such comfort as
   nothing else could. To know that you know Christ is a perennial joy,
   and an unfailing consolation under the heaviest trial. This is a candle
   that will shine in the dark night, and give you all the light that you
   shall want between here and Heaven. If I know that I know Christ, then
   all things are mine. Things present and things to come are alike in the
   Covenant of Grace. I am rich to all the intents of bliss, and the
   knowledge thereof is comfort indeed!

   You who are living on "perhaps" and "maybe," are living on dust and
   ashes. A piece of bread that is full of grit and dirt will break your
   teeth if you try to eat it. But, oh, if you can but get to know, to be
   persuaded, to be assured, to be confident, then shall you eat bread
   that is better than that which angels eat, and like Jonathan, when he
   touched the honey with his rod, and put it to his lips, you shall find
   your eyes enlightened!

   Nor is it joy alone you would find from this knowledge. It would no
   less certainly bring you confidence. When a man knows that he knows
   Christ, what confidence he has in meeting temptations! "Shall such a
   man as I flee?" What confidence in prayer! He asks believingly, as
   children beloved ask of a generous parent. And what a confident air
   this assurance before God would give us with the sons of men! We should
   not stammer in the presence of their philosophers, or look abashed in
   the presence of their nobles. But knowing that we knew Him, Whom to
   know is life eternal, we should not mind though they called us
   ignorant, or frowned at us as ignoble and presumptuous. We should not
   blush to confess our faith with an elevated self-possession. Our
   courage would no more fail us in the pestilential swamps of the world,
   than our enthusiasm would subside in the fertile garden of the Church,
   knowing that we shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.

   And this certainty that you know Christ would kindle in you the very
   highest degree of love. Knowing that I am saved, knowing that I am His,
   and He is mine, I cannot but feel the flames of affection towards Him
   glowing like coals of juniper. That love leads me to obedience, and
   that obedience develops in me fervor and zeal. Knowing that you know
   Him, you will be ready to cry out with a holy passion, "What shall I
   render unto the Lord for all His benefits towards me?" You will sing
   with ecstasy of His free Grace that made you know Him, and of His
   sovereign, distinguishing love, that embraced you--

   "Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing My dear Redeemer's praise!"

   You cannot tell, dear Christians, you who are exercised with faint
   misgivings or with tormenting fears, what a great and infinite blessing
   this assurance would be to you--how it would make life seem young and
   like a thing Divine! To you who are converted, it would be like a
   second conversion. You are now bedridden with sick thoughts. Could you
   once know that you know Christ, you would leave that sick bed and pant
   no more to return to it, but enjoy the air, walk abroad, and fulfill
   joyfully your allotted tasks. I pray that the Master may say to many of
   you who are bowed with a spirit of infirmity, "Be made straight." And
   to others who have long lain on this bed of doubts and fears, "Take up
   your bed, and walk."

   Do you desire this sweet balm for an uneasy conscience? Observe the
   prescription, "Hereby we know that we do know Him if we keep His
   commandments." It is in the keeping of His commandments that this sound
   state of the soul's health is enjoyed. Do you ask for further
   explanation? It means to keep His commandments in our minds, and hold
   them fast in our memory with devout reverence. It should be the object
   of every Christian to find out what Christ's command is. And, this
   done, never to ask another question, but receive it with meekness,
   meditate upon its holy sanction, and venerate it as the Law of the
   Lord's House.

   If Christ has said it, I dare not cavil, argue, or question, much less
   rebel. It is mine to keep His commandments in my heart as a sacred
   trust. As precious treasures more to be desired than gold, and with a
   yet increasing relish, as luxuries to the taste, sweeter than honey or
   the honeycomb. But to keep them in our hearts, we must earnestly desire
   to fulfill them. By reason of the Fall we cannot perfectly keep the
   commands of Christ, but the heart keeps them as the standard of purity,
   and it would be perfect if it could. The Christian's only desire is to
   be exactly like Christ. It pains him that he falls short of His image.
   It gives him great joy if be can feel that the Holy Spirit is working
   in him anything like conformity to the Divine will.

   His heart is right towards God, sincerely so. This is not enough unless
   there is a constant, persevering aim to fulfill His commandments in our
   lives. Depend upon it, Brethren, that the want of practical obedience
   to Christ is the root of nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every
   thousand of our doubts and fears. The roots of our fears are in our
   sins. Search there, and you shall find the cause of soul trouble. I
   believe many a child of God walks in darkness because he does not obey
   the Word of the Lord. Take that sentence for your motto which the
   mother of Jesus addressed to the servants at the marriage in Cana of
   Galilee--"Whatever He says unto you, do it."

   Is it so that you often hear the precept with never a thought of
   heeding it? Then beware lest you "suddenly be destroyed, and that
   without remedy." Or does your conscience smart with sore rebuke as
   often as it is mentioned? Then it is with you as with one who gets a
   wound in battle, and the sword that made it plunges through the wound
   again and pricks it deeper. Good cause is there, my Friend, for your
   unrest. If so be, you have an open wound left to fester. Christ
   commands you, for instance, to be baptized, and do you resist His will?
   Seek you some frivolous pretext, saying, "I pray you have me excused"?

   "He that knows his Master's will and does it not, the same shall be
   beaten with many stripes." Many a stripe has fallen upon a professed
   Believer because he has not been obedient to that injunction. The
   command that we should love each other is far too lightly esteemed by
   many. Now, if you do not love your fellow Christians fervently with a
   pure heart, can you wonder that you fall into doubts? It is natural
   that it should be so. Only in proportion as Divine Grace makes you
   obedient will Divine Grace make you an assured Christian. Your holiness
   and your confidence will keep pace together if your confidence is worth
   having.

   Presumption outruns holiness, but confidence never does. It is little
   matter of surprise to me when some men doubt whether they are saved.
   There are grave reasons why they should, since their lives are so
   little saturated with the Spirit of their Master. Well may you and I
   bemoan ourselves before God in the silent watches of the night,
   because, having experienced so much mercy we do so little in His
   service, and having seen so much of His Character we are so little like
   our Lord. Depend upon it, if you want to kill your doubts and fears,
   you must kill your sins, by God's Grace, by exterminating disobedience.
   We shall also exterminate the mass of our despondency, if not the whole
   of it.

   Although, my dear Brethren, I never said, nor thought that you must be
   perfect before you could be assured that you were a Christian, I tell
   you that you will never be altogether beyond doubts and fears till you
   are altogether beyond sin. And that will not be, I think, till you
   reach the other shore. A dear Friend in Christ wanted to debate this
   question with me some time ago--whether perfection was possible in this
   world. I told him I would rather not, but if he and I both

   tried to attain it, it would be the best way to settle the controversy.
   I only trust that my friend may reach it. I am half afraid I never
   shall, but I will leave no stone unturned to try. Who knows how far God
   may enable any single, watchful, prayerful soul to go? At any rate,
   take it as a rule, that as God gives you holiness, so God will give you
   assurance. And in proportion as you mar the fidelity of your obedience,
   in that proportion you will mar your evidences and weaken your
   knowledge that you know Him.

   Let me just give you an illustration of this point before I leave it.
   When our Lord met the disciples at Emmaus, and talked with them, they
   did not know Him while He talked with them. When do you think they did
   know that they knew Him? Why, not until they performed an act of
   obedience by offering hospitality to a stranger. Then He was known to
   them in the breaking of bread. Yes, there is a blessed eye-clearing to
   many and many a child of God when he comes to give of his bread to the
   poor and needy, and when he comes to the Table of the Lord, in
   remembrance of His death. He shall then know that he knows Him.

   We are told that the cherubim have wings, but they also have hands
   under their wings. True children of God have knowledge, but they have
   under their knowledge practice. And you have no good proof that you are
   a child of God because you have the wings of knowledge, unless you have
   also the hands of practice. Would one ascertain how much a sheep had
   eaten? It could be seen in no better way than by showing how much fat,
   and flesh, and wool it had gathered. So with a Christian. If you want
   to know how much he has lived on Christ, see how much of zeal, how much
   of obedience, how much of holiness he has gathered. For "hereby we do
   know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments."

   III. We now come to the last consideration. It hurls a momentous charge
   against dissemblers. There is such a thing as saying that we know
   Christ--but if any man say that he knows Christ, and keeps not His
   commandments, such a man is a liar--plain speech is this--he is a liar,
   and the Truth is not in him.

   I would have you, my dear Friends, give earnest heed to these words,
   because, while it is an easy thing to say that you know Him, there are
   many temptations so to do in a Church like this. When many are
   impressed, and a great number of your friends and acquaintances profess
   that they know Christ, you may easily fall into the current. Indeed, it
   may be hard to resist the tide, and perhaps without really knowing Him
   in your souls, you may be led, for the sake of companionship, to say
   that you know Him. Oh, I beseech you, never do this! If you know that
   you know Him, confess that knowledge at once. But never, never, never
   be induced to say anything beyond what you know.

   To let the tongue outrun the witness of the conscience is to betray
   guile in the heart. And the man whose sin is forgiven is one in whose
   spirit there is no guile. No, no! As you love your souls, keep your
   hands off all profession unless you have true possession. A man may
   tell a story so often, that though it is not true, he may at last come
   to believe it. I can think of one or two notable stories of good old
   friends that one always listens to without raising a question--though
   never without suspecting that they have gradually accumulated
   attritions of exaggeration. We may smile at the fiction whose tangled
   threads were woven thus to please the ear and tickle the fancy. But we
   tremble at the slow, almost imperceptible growth of a dire falsehood
   which beguiles a man's own soul.

   He may first of all say he hopes that he loves Christ. Then he may say,
   "Others think I do, and therefore I feel assured I do." And soon he may
   say this and that, with an air that satisfies his friends and gratifies
   himself, until he makes his poor deluded heart believe a lie. Yes, and
   I know he may go on the dupe of his own credulity to his grave, and
   perhaps even at the Judgment Seat of Christ he may say that he knows
   Christ, only then to awaken from his treacherous dream, when he shall
   hear Christ say--"I never knew you. Depart from Me, you worker of
   iniquity." O God, save us from this! Let us never say we know Him,
   unless in very deed and truth we know Christ and are found in Him.

   Now, John says that to say we know Christ, and not to keep His
   commandments is a lie. It is a verbal lie. The man who utters it speaks
   a lie. He says, "I know Christ." But it is a falsehood. He does not
   know Him. He knows about Him-- but his heart knows nothing of Jesus. It
   is a doctrinal lie, for it would be an awful heresy to say that a man
   who lived in sin knew Christ--that one who was a drunkard, or a thief,
   or unchaste--had acquaintance with the Savior. Does Christ keep such
   company? Does He call these His friends? The men who set the taproom on
   a roar? Your merry-makers, who can sing lascivious songs--are these
   Christ's friends? I know Christ keeps better company than this. He is
   holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. It is a lie
   against the doctrines of the Gospel.

   And it is a practical lie. The man who says, "I know Him," and then
   goes and breaks the commands of Christ--every time he sins tells a lie.
   People can tell lies when they hold their tongues, as I pointed out to
   the little children when ad-

   dressing them last Sunday afternoon. There was a little girl at school
   who always held her hand up when the boys and girls were asked to show
   in this manner that they knew the answer to any question that had been
   put to them. One afternoon she held her hand up when she did not know
   the answer, and a little school fellow said to her, "Jane, you did not
   know that." And she said, "No. But I thought teacher would think better
   of me if she thought I know it." "Ah," said the other, "but that is
   telling a lie with your hand."

   Yes, and you may equally act a lie. A man who professes to be a
   Christian when he is not hangs out false colors on Sunday, and all
   through the week he plays the liar's part. Were his profession true,
   surely his conduct would be consistent with it! It is a corrosive lie,
   a lie that eats into the man's soul, corrupts and cankers it, so that,
   as John says, "The Truth is not in him." The man that begins by lying
   about his relation to God soon becomes hardened to lying in the
   community of his fellow men. Some of the greatest rogueries and
   robberies ever committed have been perpetrated by professing Christian
   men.

   How often, when we have heard of a gigantic fraud, has there been some
   canting hypocrite or other connected with it! This is very natural, it
   is scarcely surprising. For when the man had come to deceive himself,
   to dissemble in things sacred, and to lie to God, he was such a
   practiced hand that the devil could not find a fitter vassal to lie to
   men. O take care of trifling with your convictions! You may flatter
   yourself with the vain conceit that you will never cheat anybody. I am
   not so sure. If a man would rob God, he would rob his mother. If he
   once gives the lie to God by making a false profession, I know not
   where he may stay his hand. Who, who would have sold Christ for thirty
   pieces of silver? Who, but Judas, he that professed to be His follower,
   His disciple, His private secretary, and His treasurer. Though all the
   while his heart was false to his Lord! It is a traitorous profession
   that breeds gigantic sins.

   Once again, it is a damning lie. The man that says, "I know Christ,"
   and does not keep His commandments, is making his own damnation sure.
   He signs, seals, and stamps it every day. By his profession of being a
   follower of Christ he confesses that he knows what he ought to be, yet
   by his actions he proves that he is not what he ought to be. And so he
   is bearing witness against himself, judging himself, condemning his own
   soul, and challenging the dread sentence of everlasting perdition. God
   save us from such a lie as this!

   Before I conclude now, it behooves me to point out some of those
   characters upon which the brand must be fixed-- they are liars. If
   there are any such here, may their consciences be pricked. There have
   been persons who have professed their faith in Christ, but who have
   been in the habit of acting dishonestly. They have been negotiating
   fictitious bills. They have been stealing small articles out of shops.
   They have taken little sums of money out of tills. They have been
   dealing with short weights, and selling wares with wrong marks--and all
   this time they have said that they knew Christ.

   Now, one of His commandments is, "You shall love your neighbor as
   yourself," and another one is, "You shall not steal." And in not
   keeping these they have proved themselves to be liars, though they
   called themselves Christians. Some who have professed faith in Christ
   have been drunkards. Present here tonight--I do not say they are now
   members of the Church, but they have been--are those who have fallen
   into habits of intemperance. I am afraid there are some who, though
   they escape the odium of detection, as they have not to go home at
   night from the public house, manage to drink pretty hard at home.

   Depend upon it, you who secretly indulge this vicious propensity are
   not less guilty, and shall not be more lightly judged by God than those
   who sin openly--who are locked up for being drunk on the Saturday
   night--and have to pay five shillings and costs on the Monday morning.
   You may be respectable in the eyes of your fellow men, but you are
   disreputable and scandalous hypocrites in the sight of Heaven. Some,
   too, there are of good standing in society--young men who have made a
   profession of faith--who can take pleasure in haunts that are something
   more than dubious. It is a shameful thing for a professor of
   Christianity to be found in those music halls, saloons, and places of
   revelry in London where you cannot go without your morals being
   polluted. You can neither open your eyes nor your ears without knowing
   at once that you are in the outskirts of Satan's domain.

   I charge you by the living God, if you cannot keep good company and
   avoid the circle of dissipation, do not profess to be followers of
   Christ! He bids you come out from among them! Be you separate, touch
   not the unclean thing. If you can find pleasure in lewd society and
   lascivious songs, what right have you to mingle with the fellowship of
   saints, or to join in the singing of Psalms? You do not keep the
   commandments, you violate them. The Truth is not in you, you betray it.

   And what shall we say of those who, while making a profession of
   religion, have been addicted to uncleanness? Sins that ought not to be
   spoken of among us lest the cheek of modesty should be made to blush,
   have been committed in secret by such as would be accounted Christian
   men. God have mercy upon unchaste professors, for whoredom is a deep
   ditch, and the abhorred of the Lord do fall into it. If any here have
   so fallen, may they lay aside their profession, for they bear the marks
   of God's abhorrence. Let them not come into His holy place, let them
   not gather to His Table, neither let them from this day on count
   themselves His children. Such they cannot be--their profession is a
   lie.

   The covetous! The greedy! The grasping! Those who see their Brethren
   have needs and shut up the heart of their compassion! To each of you
   the Master's words are very strong--"How dwells the love of God in
   him?" Covetousness is idolatry! If you are eaten up of the world. If
   money is your God, you are as surely condemned as if you had been
   dishonest or unchaste. And are there not others whose tongue is
   perverse and unruly, and their conversation often far from pure? Alas,
   when it comes to this--that men should presume to the Supper of the
   Lord who can hurl out an oath! That men who have been known, when
   excited, to blaspheme and use profane language should yet with the same
   mouth draw near to feed upon the emblems of the Savior's passion! O
   Sirs, if you had a conscience, surely you would not dare to come! If
   your hearts had any feeling left in them, you would tremble to be found
   among the people of God while your speech blasphemes the Most High.

   Is there one virtue of superlative excellence, peculiarly Christian,
   supported by the frequent precept and the unparalleled example of our
   Lord Jesus--surely it is that of forgiving injuries. Yet I have known
   some of His disciples, as they would have us believe, who have been
   unforgiving. Christians they called themselves, yet they could not
   forgive a trespass, were it even of their own children! A resentful,
   malicious Christian--what an anomaly! Did you not lately hear of a man,
   great and high in station--was he not a bishop?--who cut his daughter
   off with a shilling, or rather without a shilling, because she had
   married against his will? Ah, these things are not fit to be whispered
   about, nor is it possible for them to be kept in secret.

   I tell you, if you love not your Brethren, if you love not your own
   child, if you cannot forgive your child--there is nothing more certain
   in the book of God than this--that you will never enter Heaven. An
   unforgiving spirit is an unfor-given spirit. First, go and forgive your
   Brother before you bring your sacrifice, or God will neither accept you
   nor your offering. Are we not taught to pray, "Forgive us our
   trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us"?

   It has been hard work for me thus to mention these inconsistencies. I
   cannot venture farther, though I might have stated more. The labor of
   my lips is a burden to my heart. If any man's conscience smite
   him--well, let it smite him hard, let it smite him till it drives him
   from his sin--let it smite him till he falls at the feet of Jesus, a
   contrite suppliant for pardon. O be thorough, be thorough! If you wish
   to be washed from sin, eschew the sin, the penalties of which you
   dread. If you profess to know Christ, have nothing to do with a sinful
   world. Shake off the viper into the fire, for it will poison you and
   destroy you. God grant that you may renounce sin, if you profess in
   very deed to be the servants of Christ.

   My last word is this. If any man now feels himself troubled on account
   of sin, let me read these words to him, and I have done. Hear them in
   faith. They are the words that come before the text. "And if any man
   sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."
   O come, you guilty ones, you guilty professors, you that have been
   false to your Lord and to His love! Come to Him notwithstanding all
   your bitter provocations. "And He is the Mercy Seat: the Propitiation
   for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole
   world."

   Look you, then, look and live! Whether saints or sinners, whatever your
   past lives may have been, look to the Propitiatory Sacrifice offered on
   Calvary's bloody tree! Look and live! The Lord grant it for His dear
   Son's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Prepare To Meet Your God

   (No. 923)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 27, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Prepare to meet your God, O Israel." Amos 4:12.

   GOD had, in the days of Amos, by different ways rebuked the sin of His
   people Israel. He had wasted them with famine and sword. He had
   withheld the rain. He had sent forth the pestilence after the manner of
   Egypt. He had smitten their fields and gardens with blast and mildew,
   and He had overthrown some of them, as Sodom and Gomorrah. But they
   still persevered in their rebellion, and therefore He declares that He
   will send them no more of His messengers, and shoot no more of His
   far-reaching arrows, but will come Himself, in His own Person, to deal
   with them.

   God's way of dealing with rebellious humanity, is, at first to upbraid
   and persuade with words--soft, gentle, tender words. These He repeats
   many times, accompanying them with tokens of tenderness and Grace.
   By-and-by He exchanges these words of tenderness for words of mingled
   threat--He begins to expostulate with them--why will they drive Him to
   this? Why will they die? Why will they bring ruin upon themselves?
   Then, if words are of no effect upon them, He turns to blows--but His
   strokes fall softly at first. Yet if these avail not, His strokes
   gather strength, till at last He smites them with the blows of a cruel
   one, and wounds them sorely.

   If after this the sinners remain obstinate, the Lord's longsuffering
   turns to wrath, and He says, "Why should you be stricken any more? You
   will revolt more and more. Already your whole head is sick and your
   whole heart faint. What shall I do unto you? What shall I do unto you?"
   Things have come to a dreadful pass when at last the Lord puts aside
   the rod, when He puts aside afflictions which He has sent as
   chastisements, and comes forth Himself to end the strife, crying, "Ah,
   I will ease Me of My adversaries, and avenge Me of My enemies."

   Such was the position of Israel in the text. They had scorned all the
   milder dealings of God, and now He says to them, "Prepare to meet Me,
   even God Himself, in all the terror of justice." The Prophet may be
   understood as in irony challenging the proud rebels to meet in arms the
   God whom they have despised. Let them prepare to fight it out with Him
   whom they have made to be their enemy, and against whose Laws they have
   so continually revolted. "Prepare," says the Prophet, "O you potsherds,
   to strive with your Maker! You worms, to battle with Omnipotence." As
   it stands, the text is an awful challenge of Almighty wrath when at
   last longsuffering vacates the throne, and Justice bares its two-edged
   sword. Woe, woe, woe to boastful scoffers in that great and terrible
   day!

   We shall not, however, dwell upon the particular position of the text,
   nor confine ourselves to the meaning of the words as the Prophet used
   them. We shall, however, hope as fully as possible to illustrate the
   natural sense of the text, in the hope that such earnest and solemn
   words may awaken in some hearts tenderness towards God, and the desire
   to be prepared to meet Him. "Prepare to meet your God." We have before
   us a most important call, and we shall consider first the many tones in
   which it may be uttered. Secondly, the heavy tidings conveyed by it to
   the ungodly. And thirdly, the weighty admonition given there.

   I. First, then, let us think of these words in THEIR DIFFERENT TONES.
   They vary from grave to gay, from dread to delight--"Prepare to meet
   your God." Why, methinks there are no more joyous words under Heaven
   than these under some aspects, certainly none more solemn out of Hell
   under others. "Prepare to meet your God." These words may have sounded
   through the green alleys of Paradise, and have caused no discord there.
   Blending with the sweet song of new-created birds, these notes would
   have but given emphasis to the harmony.

   Often from the mossy couch whereon he reclined in the happy life of his
   innocence and bliss, the great sire of men would be aroused by this
   holy summons. When the sun first scattered the shades of darkness, and
   began to gild the tops of the snow-clad hills with morning light, Adam
   was awakened by the birds amid the groves of Eden, whose earliest song
   his heart interpreted, as meaning, "Awake, O wondrous man, and prepare
   to meet your God." Then climbing some ver-

   dant hill from where he looked down upon the landscape, all aglow with
   glory and with God, Adam would, in holy rapture, meet his God.

   And in lowly reverence would speak with Him as a man speaks with his
   friend. Then, too, at eventide, the dewdrops, as they fell, each one
   would say to that blessed man, "Prepare to meet your God." The
   lengthened shadows would silently give forth the same message, and
   perhaps it is no imagination, angels would alight upon lawns adorned
   with lilies, and pause where Adam stood pruning the growth of some too
   luxuriant vine, and would with courteous speech remind him that the
   day's work was over, for the sun was descending to the western sea, and
   it was time for the favored creature to have audience with his God.

   The faintest intimation would suffice for our first parent, for the
   crown of Paradise to him was the Presence of the Lord God. And Eden's
   rivers, though they flowed over sands of gold, had no river in them
   equal to the stream whereby the spirit of Adam was gladdened when he
   had communion with the Most High. For then he drank from that river of
   the water of life which flows from underneath the throne of the Great
   Supreme. Unfallen man had no greater joy than walking with God. It was
   Heaven on earth to meet in converse tender and sublime with the great
   Father of Spirits. No marriage bells ever rang out a sweeter or more
   joyous melody than these glad words as they were heard amid the myrtle
   bowers and palm groves of Eden by our first parents in the heyday of
   their innocence, "Prepare to meet your God."

   Then, when Jehovah walked in the garden in the cool of the day, He had
   no need to say aloud, "Adam, where are you?" For His happy creature
   whom He has made to have dominion over all the works of His hands was
   waiting for Him as a child waits for his father when the day's work is
   done--watching to hear his father's footsteps, and to see his father's
   face. Oh, yes! Those were words in fullest harmony with Eden's joys,
   "Prepare to meet your God."

   But, Brethren, weep not over those withered glories as those who are
   without hope, for the words have something of a heavenly sound to those
   who have been begotten again unto a lively hope by the Resurrection of
   Jesus Christ from the dead. We, though fallen and sinful, and therefore
   naturally averse to God, have, many of us, been renewed in the spirit
   of our minds, and now oftentimes to us the welcome message comes,
   "Prepare to meet your God," in a sense most delightful and most
   entrancing. It is our summons to devotion. It is morning, and as we put
   on our garments before we go forth to the battle of life, the angel of
   the Lord whispers to us, "Prepare to meet your God."

   And on our knees we seek our Father's face, and pray that we may be
   under His guardian care throughout the day. Think not that the holy
   Voice is silent until nightfall. Oh, no, oftentimes as business gives
   us pauses, and as our avocations may allow us leisure, we hear the
   inner life, or what if I say the indwelling Holy Spirit, softly saying
   to our heart, "Prepare to meet your God." And we, in spirit, put off
   our shoes from our feet, and feel that the place whereon we stand is
   holy ground! We may be in a poor workshop, but our spirit makes it a
   cathedral as it has communion with the Most High. Our study may be
   littered over with our books, and papers, and letters. But it becomes a
   sacred oratory on a sudden, and all things fall into order as the Voice
   is heard and obeyed.

   Perhaps we may be in the cornfield, or on the barley mow, but if the
   Voice says, "Prepare to meet your God," the true heart stands as a
   priest before the altar, and worships in spirit and in Truth. Even the
   streets of busy London may become a silent temple when the heart is
   solemnly absorbed in worship. For preparation to meet our God means no
   change of vestments, nor even the washing of the hands. There is a
   cleansing of the heart, and a putting on of the white linen, which in
   the righteousness of saints is performed in a moment, and the soul
   stands before her God in happy fellowship.

   Then, my dear Brothers and Sisters, there are set times with us when we
   prepare to meet our God, as for instance, on the eve of the Lord's-day.
   It always seems to me to be so pleasant at the family altar to make
   mention of the coming Sunday and to ask the Lord that we may lay aside
   our cares. Ask Him that we may be quit of every earthly impediment, and
   may sit in the heavenly places on the Day of Rest with our Father and
   our God. I know how late some of you have to keep your shops open on
   Saturday nights, and how it almost runs into the Sunday before you can
   be done with your business--but still I hope you do before you come
   here make a point of preparing for this meeting place with God by
   meeting Him first at home.

   I would not have you come here unprepared, as though the mere coming
   into the assembly would be enough. I anxiously desire to see you come
   with prepared hearts, with longing appetites, with holy aspirations.
   Bring your harps with you already tuned. Make ready for the holy
   convocation. Lay by in store your offering, prepare your song, uplift
   your

   heart. Yes, and besides the Sundays, there are certain other times with
   us when we are especially called to meet our God. We keep no holy days
   by the almanac, but we have holy days apportioned us by Providence and
   by the Holy Spirit. I mean that there are seasons hallowed by holy
   memories, or by present circumstances when sorrow and joy, earth and
   Heaven, all without and within, bear to us a call both loud and sweet,
   "Prepare to meet your God."

   Then we set apart a special time. The hour is consecrated to secret
   communion. God has claimed His portion of the day, and we sacredly
   guard it by entering into our closet and shutting the door. Inward
   motions of the Holy Spirit frequently calls us away to loneliness--let
   us not be slow to follow the blessed bidding. The voice of the Beloved
   invites us to His banquet of wine. He allures us to the secret chambers
   where Divine Love is revealed. He bids us stand in the cleft of the
   rock, while the glory of Godhead passes by. On such happy seasons, and
   I hope they are not infrequent with us, the silver trumpets of Jubilee
   ring through our souls the notes, "Prepare to meet your God," and then
   our motto is, "Up, and away, to the beds of spices, to the garden of
   pomegranates, where the Beloved will reveal Himself and give us an
   audience with the King."

   Once again, these words, "Prepare to meet your God," have no gloomy
   significance to some of my dear Brothers and Sisters here present, even
   though we attach to them the sense of the Believer's meeting God in a
   disembodied state. Christians, especially when they grow aged, must
   often hear the angel whisper, "Prepare to meet your God." From the
   inevitable process of decay which takes place in the body--from the
   failure of eyesight, the tottering of the limbs, and the gray
   hairs--there must come subdued and tender voices, all saying, "Prepare
   to meet your God."

   The tent is being taken down, the cord is loosed, the tent pin no
   longer holds to the earth. Soon must the canvas be rolled up and put
   away. But you have a House not made with hands, eternal in the heavens!
   Look up, then, and prepare to dwell there. Prepare your spirit not to
   be unclothed, but to be clothed upon with your House which is from
   Heaven. My aged Brothers and Sisters, I can imagine how it is with you.
   The dear friends who have been the companions of your childhood and
   your manhood depart before you, and as they wing their happy flight to
   the land of the living, they look back and say, "Prepare to follow us."

   Nor are you at all grieved at such an invitation! Rather do you
   sometimes feel impatient for the gladsome time when you may join that
   cloud of doves which flock to those everlasting windows and find their
   resting places with the Well-Beloved. Friends gathering in the upper
   sanctuary beckon to you whose years are threescore and ten, and you
   feel the attractions of their blessed society on happy Sundays when the
   atmosphere of your souls is clear, and the Sun of Righteousness shines
   forth with power! You dwell in the land, Beulah, and behold so vividly
   the New Jerusalem and its royal Lord, that, as though an angel spoke,
   you hear the sound, "Prepare to meet your God."

   Often when the hymn is swelling up to Heaven, you feel as if you could
   mount upon it and pass through the gate of pearl. At the holy Supper
   Table, how loud is the call to come up higher into the excellent glory!
   Young as I am, and earthbound--to me, even to me--the Communion Table
   has made me unloose my cable, spread my sails, and long for that last
   voyage which shall make this world a foreign shore, and the glory land
   the harbor of our spirits. Surely, my aged Brethren, it must be far
   more so with you who have so many friends across the water, so many of
   your best beloved on the other side of Jordan! Your strength of
   experience and your weakness of body must both tend to give frequency
   to the message, "Prepare to meet your God." To you the tidings are
   happy. You are exiles and you long for Home, you are children at school
   and you pine for your Father's House.

   But now I must pass on to notice that those words have not always that
   sweet ring of the silver bells about them. They are words of caution to
   the vast majority of men. "Prepare to meet your God." Alas, How many of
   you to whom I now speak are unprepared! It pains me to think of it. As
   I sat last night about eight o'clock, revolving in my mind a subject
   for this hour's discourse, there came a knock at my door, and I was
   earnestly entreated by a father to hasten to the deathbed of his dear
   girl. I wanted much my time for preparation, but as the dear one was in
   such a case, and had long been a constant hearer of the Word in this
   Tabernacle, I felt it my duty to go whether I could prepare a sermon or
   not.

   Glad I was to hear that sick one's testimony. She told me with what, I
   fear was her dying breath, that she was not fully assured of her
   interest in Christ, but she left me no room to doubt when, between
   paroxysms and convulsions, she said, "I know I do love Jesus, and that
   is all I know." Yes, and I thought it is all I want to know. If any one
   of us always knows that he loves the Savior, what more does he require
   of testimony as to his state? But my mind was sore oppressed then, as
   it is now, with the thought that so many of you are not prepared to die
   at all. I see my sermons in sick rooms,

   often, and I come to think of preaching sermons in a different light
   from what many do. I will try to preach sermons which will suit your
   most solemn hours and most serious circumstances.

   I would gladly deliver sermons which shall haunt your sickbeds, and
   accuse you unless you yield to their persuasions, and believe in Jesus.
   When you lie on the borders of the spirit world, you will count all
   religious trifling to be cruel mockery. So let me say it
   affectionately, but very earnestly, to you, "Prepare to meet your God,"
   for I am afraid many of you are quite unprepared. You have seen others
   die. They preach to you from their graves, and they say, "So to the
   dust must you also come, my Friend. Be you ready, for in such an hour
   as you think not, the Son of Man will call for you."

   You have had sicknesses in your own body. You are not now the strong
   man you once were. You have already passed through many perils. What
   are all these but voices from the God of Mercy saying, "Consider your
   ways"? You are not such a simpleton as to think that you shall never
   die--you know you will. Neither are you so insane as to think that when
   you die, your death will be that of a horse or a dog. You know there is
   a hereafter and a state of being in which men shall be judged according
   to the deeds that they have done in the body, whether they are good or
   whether they are evil. May I therefore press upon your earnest
   recollection, and your intense consideration at this present moment,
   the exhortation of the text, "Prepare to meet your God!"

   Once more, let me say that this sound, as I have now put it, has little
   melody in it. It will by-and-by be heard in ungodly ears as a
   peremptory summons--and then there shall be no music in it, but a
   horrid clang that shall drive away all hope--"Prepare to meet your
   God." That summons will come to each one of you unconverted people, and
   when it comes it will admit of no postponement. Call in the wisest
   surgeon, or the most accomplished physician, and he cannot put off for
   an hour the execution of God's death-warrant. "Prepare to meet your
   God," will mean that at such a time, and such an hour, and at such a
   moment, the spirit must return to God who gave it.

   There will be no evasion of that summons. There will be no possibility,
   then, of a Substitute dying in your place. "Prepare to meet your God"
   will come to you, my Hearer, beyond all doubt. Oh, how I wish that you
   were prepared for it! You must assuredly meet your God whom you have
   forgotten all these years--your Creator, whose rights you have ignored.
   Your Preserver, to Whom you have rendered no kind of recompense. Your
   King, whose name it may be you have blasphemed. You have denied His
   existence, but you will meet Him. You have lived in open revolt against
   His righteous Laws, but you will certainly meet Him. No exemption will
   be possible. Before His judgment seat you must stand.

   Prepared or unprepared at the sound of the resurrection trumpet, you
   must appear at His bar. No words of mine, however terrible they may be,
   can by any possibility equal the horror which the judgment to come and
   the wrath to be measured out will cause to the unregenerate heart. We
   are sometimes accused, my Brethren, of using language too harsh, too
   ghastly, too alarming, with regard to the world to come. But we shall
   not soon change our note, for we solemnly believe that if we could
   speak thunderbolts, and our every look were a lightning flash--and if
   our eyes dropped blood instead of tears--no tones, words, gestures, or
   likenesses of dread could exaggerate the awful condition of a soul
   which has refused the Gospel and is delivered over to Justice.

   "He that despised Moses' Law died without mercy under two or three
   witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose you, shall he be
   thought worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has
   counted the blood of the Covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an
   unholy thing, and has done despite unto the Spirit of Grace? For we
   know Him that has said, Vengeance belongs unto Me, I will recompense,
   says the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge His people. It is a
   fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Remember His
   own words, "Consider this, you that forget God, lest I tear you in
   pieces, and there be none to deliver" (Psa. 50:22).

   Certain prophets of smooth things rise up among us, deluding the people
   with thoughts that the judgment to come will not be terrible, but will
   end in eternal sleep. Into their secret my soul comes not. I must speak
   the Master's Truth and the Master's Words. O you ungodly, your
   punishment will not end, for He has said it, "These shall go away into
   everlasting punishment." Your miseries shall have no cessation, for He
   who cannot lie, declares, "The smoke of their torment goes up forever
   and ever." From the lips of Jesus at the Day of Judgment you shall
   receive the sentence of everlasting blessedness or everlasting
   punishment, and no other.

   May God grant that you may not dare to sin under the notion that your
   sin is a mere trifle, for both you and it will soon cease to be. Nature
   itself teaches you that your soul will exist forever. O make it not
   forever a ruin! Bring not upon

   yourself everlasting destruction from the Presence of the Lord and from
   the glory of His power! Thus have you rung the changes on the tones of
   these words, and I leave them with you.

   II. Secondly, and very briefly. There are HEAVY TIDINGS in these words.
   Heavy tidings for the ungodly, for thus they run--"Prepare to meet your
   God." I wish I could take hold of every unbeliever here, of every man
   and woman whose heart is not right with God, and personally speak to
   them, just as of old the Prophet spoke to Jeroboam's wife, and said, "I
   have heavy tidings from the Lord for you." So would I speak to them, "I
   have heavy tidings, unconverted Friends, from the Lord for you." And
   the tidings are these, "You will before long have to meet your God.
   Listen to the words, "meet your God."

   You have by some means passed through this world without meeting Him.
   He is everywhere, but you have managed not to see Him. He has fed you,
   and in Him you have lived and moved, and had your being. But you have
   contrived so to stultify yourself that you have never yet perceived
   Him. You will perceive Him soon. When the flesh shall fall off from
   your spirit, your disembodied soul will see without these eyes far more
   clearly than it now does--for you will begin to see the spiritual world
   which is now hidden from you--and chief and foremost you will meet your
   God.

   Now you say in your heart "no God," because the thought of God is
   objectionable to you. You could not sin as you do if you remembered
   that the all-seeing eye is in the chamber, no, is in your heart itself.
   Remember you will not be able soon to shake off the thought of God, for
   you will meet Him face to face. Not the thought of God only, but the
   actual Being of God will confront you in your dying hour. You will be
   compelled to meet Him. It will be a close meeting, not as though He
   looked upon you from afar, or you surveyed Him from a distance. But you
   will so meet Him that all the Glory of His majesty will operate upon
   you like the fire which devours the stubble--for our God is a consuming
   fire.

   His holiness will become wrath against your sin, not wrath treasured up
   and removed far away, but wrath that shall come near to you to consume
   you. It will be an inevitable meeting, from which you will not be able
   to escape. From your fellow creature, whom you do not wish to see, you
   readily withdraw yourself, but you cannot escape from God. The rays of
   the morning's sun could not carry you so fast as the Lord's right hand
   can move. The uttermost parts of the sea cannot conceal you. The night
   shall be light about you. Neither the heights of Heaven, nor the depths
   of Hell can conceal you from Him.

   You must meet face to face with your God. And it must be a personal
   meeting. God and you will meet as if alone. God alone and you alone.
   What if there are angels? What if there are ten thousand times ten
   thousands of your kindred sinners? To you, virtually, it shall be
   solitude itself. You must meet your God! You, YOU! O my dear Hearer, it
   is a sad thing that this should be heavy tidings to you, for if you
   were what you should be, it would be joy to you to think that you shall
   be near your God, and dwell in His embrace. But, unconverted as you
   are, no tidings can have more of horror in them than these--that you,
   do as you will, and steel your heart as you may--must by-and-by
   confront your God.

   Think awhile upon Who it is that you have to meet! You must meet your
   God--your God! That is, offended Justice you must meet whose laws you
   have broken, whose penalties you have ridiculed. Justice righteously
   indignant with its sword drawn you must confront. You must meet your
   God. That is, you must be examined, by unblind Omniscience. He who has
   seen your heart, and read your thoughts, and jotted down your
   affections, and remembered your idle words-- you must meet Him. And
   infinite discernment you must meet--those eyes that never yet were
   duped. The God who will see through the veils of hypocrisy and all the
   concealments of formality.

   There will be no making yourself out to be better than you are before
   Him. You must meet Him who will read you as a man reads a book open
   before his eyes. You mast meet with unsullied holiness. You have not
   always found yourself happy on earth when you have been with holy
   men--you could not act out your natural impulses in their presence,
   they were a check upon you. But the infinitely holy God, what must it
   be to meet Him? It will be such an interview for a sinner to meet with
   the thrice holy God as for dross to meet with the refiner's fire or
   stubble with the flame.

   You will have, moreover, to meet with insulted Mercy, and perhaps this
   will be the most dreadful meeting of the whole--when your conscience
   will remind you that you were invited to repent, that you were urged to
   lay hold of Christ, that you were honestly bid to be saved--but you
   hardened your neck and would not be persuaded. O Sinner, by so much as
   God is patient with you now, by so much will He be angry with you then.
   They who slight the warnings of His Divine Grace shall feel the terrors
   of His wrath. To none shall it be so hard to meet God in justice as to
   those who would not

   meet Him in Grace--vengeance takes the place of slighted mercy. God
   grant you may never know what it is to meet insulted love, rejected
   mercy, and tenderness turned to wrath!

   O Sinner, if you have to meet your God as you now are, you will find
   Him everlasting Truth, fulfilling every threatening Word of His Law and
   Gospel. Every black Word that is in this Book shall be fulfilled over
   your head, and every dreadful syllable be verified in your loins and in
   your heart. Remember too, that you will meet with Him who has
   Omnipotent power--against whom you can no more contend than the smoke
   against the wind, or the fuel against the furnace. You shall then know
   how God can punish, and you will find Him not a weak and trembling God,
   but an Omnipotent God, putting forth His power to destroy His
   adversaries who have dared to assail against His majesty.

   Thus have I put a few thoughts together, in very feeble language, I
   confess, but they ought, of themselves, apart from mere words, to have
   power with you. I pray God the Holy Spirit that you, dear Hearer, may
   prepare to meet your God. You see who it is you have to meet, and what
   it will be to meet Him. May God make you to be prepared for what must
   occur.

   III. The last point is this. Here is A WEIGHTY PRECEPT--prepare to meet
   God. How can a man be prepared to meet God? In the text there is an
   allusion to preparing for battle, but none of you would wish to contend
   with God in the hereafter. Who is he that thinks that with a thousand
   he can meet one that comes against him with a countless host of ten
   thousand times ten thousand? O Rebel, the warfare is hopeless, ground
   your arms. It were worse than madness to dream of contending with God.
   Submit, for resistance is vain.

   Better far is it to prepare to meet God as sinners. We are today like
   prisoners who are waiting for our court date, and the news has come
   that the judge is ready, and we, the prisoners, are to prepare to meet
   him. Sooner or later it must be the lot of us all to come before the
   Judge. Now, Brethren, what is the right way to prepare to meet a judge?
   If any of you can plead, "Not guilty," your preparation is made. But
   there is not one man among us who dares think of that. We have sinned,
   great God, and we confess the sin. What preparation, then, can we make?
   Suppose we sit down and investigate our case. Can we plead
   extenuations? Can we urge excuses or mitigations, or hope to escape by
   promises of future improvement?

   Let us give up the attempt, my Brethren. We have gone astray willfully
   and wickedly--and we shall do it again--it is of no use for us to set
   up any kind of defense that is grounded upon ourselves. How, then, can
   we be prepared to meet our God? Hearken. There is an Advocate, and it
   is written, "If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus
   Christ the Righteous." Let us send for Him. We poor prisoners, lying
   waiting in the cells, send for Jesus, the Son of God, to be our
   Intercessor and Advocate. Will He undertake our cause? O that He would
   plead the cause of our souls, and be our Daysman to speak with God on
   our behalf!

   Yes! He will accept the office, and be our Advocate, for He has said,
   "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out." Then let us apply to
   Him, and say, "Jesus, undertake our case." Will you not do this? Oh, I
   pray God you may! Sitting in these pews, you may engage the services of
   the great Advocate. Cry in your hearts, "Son of David, undertake for
   me, undertake my case." Well, now, supposing we have put it all into
   His hands, and He who is called Wonderful is received as our Counselor
   to plead for us. What is next to be done?

   First He bids us prepare to meet our God by at once taking up our true
   position as sinners. Let us plead guilty. Let us make a full and
   penitent confession. We cannot be saved by Christ unless we will do as
   He bids us. Faith is only real as it is obedient. One of the first
   Gospel exhortations which Jesus gives us is this, that we confess our
   sins. O that we may honestly plead guilty, for our iniquity stares us
   in the face, and we ought heartily to make acknowledgment of it--for it
   is an evil and a bitter thing--and has worked us woeful damage. O great
   Counselor, if You bid us plead guilty, we do so with many tears and
   with broken hearts. We do confess that all our hope must lie in Divine
   mercy, for we have no merit. Lost and undone, we cry, "Have mercy upon
   us, miserable sinners!"

   But what next? Why then, the great Counselor will enter a plea for us,
   which will bar all further action against us. Though we have confessed
   that we are guilty, He knows how at the great Judgment Seat to plead a
   legal argument for the removal of all punishment. And what does He
   plead? Here is His argument, "My Father," says He, "I stood of old in
   the place of these who have committed their case to My hands, and who
   plead guilty at Your Judgment Seat. I suffered for their sins. I bore,
   that they might never bear, Your righteous ire. I satisfied Your Law on
   their behalf. I claim, My Father, that they go free."

   The infinite Majesty admits the plea. O Brothers and Sisters, if your
   case is in the hands of Christ, and you confess your guilt, do you not
   see how He sets you free so that you may be prepared to meet your God?
   Because you can plead the blood of Jesus, the Atonement of the great
   Substitute for sinners, and covered with that Substitution, you can
   stand accepted in the Beloved! "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."

   But you have not heard the Counselor through yet, for as He goes on to
   speak before the infinite Majesty, He pleads, "My Father, I obeyed the
   Law on their behalf. I kept it in its very jots and tittles. I made it
   honorable, and now the righteousness which I achieved, I have made over
   unto them, for all that I am is theirs. My righteousness is their
   righteousness, and they shall stand accepted in the Beloved." The great
   Judge of all admits the fact, and He receives into His bosom and into
   His Glory poor souls who had sinned and pleaded guilty, but who now
   have imputed to them the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and are
   justified by faith which is in Him. All their iniquities are blotted
   out.

   don't you see, dear Friends, what it is to be prepared to meet God! For
   now we have a good case, now we are not afraid of the last court
   session. Our case is in the hands of a blessed Advocate whose pleading
   must prevail. All that you and I have now to do is to prove by our
   actions that we really have believed in Christ. Let us go on to justify
   our faith if, indeed, our faith has justified us. Let us prove the
   sincerity of our confidence in Christ by the holiness of our lives, by
   the devotedness of those lives to His honor and glory. Let us wake up
   all our powers and passions that we may become His servants to the
   highest extent and manhood's energy--living, laboring, working for
   Christ--because He has undertaken our case, and will save us at the
   last.

   Thus have I set before you what it is to be prepared to meet God, in
   the hope that many here will make ready to meet Him. And now let me
   remind you that the subject on which I have spoken this morning may
   have a much nearer interest to some of you than you imagine. It has a
   very near interest to every one of us. It is but a matter of time, and
   all of us must appear at the Divine tribunal--but there are some to
   whom it may have a peculiarly close bearing. As I just told you, I did
   not select this subject, I had no idea of preaching from it--the
   subject selected me. I was dragged into this present line of thought. I
   am a pressed man in this service.

   That sick young woman's necessities forced me to this subject. Why this
   special arrangement? I believe the reason is because there are some
   here this morning who are now receiving the last warning they will ever
   have. I am solemnly persuaded that I have among my hearers and readers
   some to whom this feeble word of mine is no other than an arrow from
   the bow of the Almighty God. To others it is a final message of mercy,
   and if this does not strike them, wound them, and drive them to Christ,
   nothing ever will.

   From this day forth they shall feel no more stirrings of conscience, or
   strivings of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps before another Sunday's bell
   shall ring, some of you now listening to my voice will be in the land
   of spirits and have passed the solemn test--weighed in the balances and
   found wanting. If it is so, and it were hard for any man here to
   prophesy that it shall not be so, for where several thousands are met
   together, the very chances of mortality, as men call them, go to make
   us fear it. The fact of this subject being thrust upon me makes me feel
   as though a Prophetic impulse were in it. Then, if it is so, you and I,
   whoever you may be, fated for death this week, stand in a peculiar
   relationship to each other.

   1 may be gazing straight into those eyes which shall never look upon me
   again till we meet at the Judgment Bar, and if I am not faithful to
   your soul, you may rise up amidst that throng and say, "I strayed into
   that Tabernacle, and I listened to you, but you played with your theme,
   you were not earnest, and so I was lost." So then I will be earnest! I
   evoke you by the living God, escape from the wrath to come! As the Lord
   lives, there is but a step between you and death! Flee for your life!
   Look not behind you! Turn your whole soul to Jesus! A crucified Savior
   waits for a lost sinner, willing to receive him, willing to receive him
   now!

   Now you can not look me in the face in the next world and say I did not
   speak to you earnestly. O that the glance which we exchange at this
   moment may be succeeded in that tremendous day by a glance of
   recognition in which there shall be the soft emotions of gratitude and
   affection, as you and I shall say to each other there, "Blessed be God
   that we met on that hallowed Sunday, for now we shall meet forever
   before the throne of Him that lives and was dead, and is alive forever
   more, and has the keys of Hell and of death." God bless you, every one
   of you, richly, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                   Jesus Only

   A Sermon

   (No. 924)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, April 3rd, 1870, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus
   only."--Matthew 17:8.

   The last words will suffice us for a text, "Jesus only." When Peter saw
   our Lord with Moses and Elias, he exclaimed, "Master, it is good to be
   here," as if he implied that it was better to be with Jesus, and Moses,
   and Elias, than to be with Jesus only. Now it was certainly good that
   for once in his life he should see Christ transfigured with the
   representatives of the law and the prophets; it might be for that
   particular occasion the best sight that he could see, but as an
   ordinary thing an ecstasy so sublime would not have been good for the
   disciples; and Peter himself very soon found this out, for when the
   luminous cloud overshadowed him, and the voice was heard out of heaven,
   we find that he with the rest became sore afraid. The best thing after
   all for Peter, was not the excessive strain of the transfiguration, nor
   the delectable company of the two great spirits who appeared with
   Jesus, but the equally glorious, but less exciting society of "Jesus
   only." Depend on it, brethren, that ravishing and exciting experiences
   and transporting enjoyments, though they may be useful as occasional
   refreshments, would not be so good for every day as that quiet but
   delightful ordinary fellowship with "Jesus only," which ought to be the
   distinguishing mark of all Christian life. As the disciples ascended
   the mountain side with Jesus only, and as they went back again to the
   multitude with Jesus only, they were in as good company as when they
   were on the mountain summit, Moses and Elias being there also; and
   although Jesus Christ in his common habiliments and in his ordinary
   attire might not so dazzle their eyes as when they saw his raiment
   bright as the light, and his face shining as the sun, yet he really was
   quite as glorious, and his company quite as beneficial. When they saw
   him in his everyday attire, his presence was quite as useful to them as
   when he robed himself in splendor. "Jesus only," is after all upon the
   whole a better thing than Jesus, Moses, and Elias. "Jesus only," as the
   common Jesus, the Christ of every day, the man walking among men,
   communing in secret with his disciples, is a better thing for a
   continuance while we are in this body, than the sight even of Jesus
   himself in the excellence of his majesty.

   This morning, in trying to dwell upon the simple sight of "Jesus only,"
   we shall hold it up as beyond measure important and delightful, and
   shall bear our witness that as it was said of Goliath's sword, "there
   is none like it," so may it be said of fellowship with "Jesus only." We
   shall first notice what might have happened to the disciples after the
   transfiguration; we shall then dwell on what did happen; and then,
   thirdly, we shall speak on what we anxiously desire may happen to those
   who hear us this day.

   I. First, then, WHAT MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED to the three disciples after
   they had seen the transfiguration.

   There were four things, either of which might have occurred. As a first
   supposition, they might have seen nobody with them on the holy mount;
   they might have found all gone but themselves. When the cloud had
   overshadowed them, and they were sore afraid, they might have lifted up
   their eyes and found the entire vision melted into thin air; no Moses,
   no Elias, and no Jesus. In such a case they would have been in a sorry
   plight, like those who having begun to taste of a banquet, suddenly
   find all the viands swept away; like thirsty men who have tasted the
   cooling crystal drops, and then seen the fountain dried up before their
   eyes. They would not have gone down the mountain side that day asking
   questions and receiving instruction, for they would have had no teacher
   left them. They would have descended to face a multitude and to contend
   with a demon; not to conquer Satan, but to stand defeated by him before
   the crowd; for they would have had no champion to espouse their cause
   and drive out the evil spirit. They would have gone down among Scribes
   and Pharisees to be baffled with their knotty questions, and to be
   defeated by their sophistries, for they would have had no wise man, who
   spake as never man spake, to untie the knots and disentangle the snarls
   of controversy. They would have been like sheep without a shepherd,
   like orphan children left alone in the world. They would henceforth
   have reckoned it an unhappy day on which they saw the transfiguration;
   because having seen it, having been led to high thoughts by it, and
   excited to great expectations, all had disappeared like the foam upon
   the waters, and left no solid residuum behind. Alas! For those who have
   seen the image of the spirits of just men made perfect, and beheld the
   great Lord of all such spirits, and then have found themselves alone,
   and all the high companionship forever gone.

   My dear brethren and sisters, there are some in this world and we
   ourselves have been among them, to whom something like this has
   actually occurred. You have been under a sermon, or at a gospel
   ordinance, or in reading the word of God, for a while delighted,
   exhilarated, lifted up to the sublimer regions, and then afterwards
   when it has all been over, there has been nothing left of joy or
   benefit, nothing left of all that was preached and for the moment
   enjoyed, nothing, at any rate, that you could take with you into the
   conflicts of every-day life. The whole has been a splendid vision and
   nothing more. There has been neither Moses not Elias, nor Jesus left.
   You did remember what you saw, but only with regret, because nothing
   remained with you. And, indeed, this which happens sometimes to us, is
   a general habit of that portion of this ungodly world which hears the
   gospel and perceives not its reality; it listens with respect to gospel
   histories as to legends of ancient times; it hears with reverence the
   stories of the days of miracles; it venerates the far-off ages and
   their heroic deeds, but it does not believe that anything is left of
   all the vision, any thing for to-day, for common life, and for common
   men. Moses it knows, and Elias it knows, and Christ it knows, as
   shadows that have passed across the scene and have disappeared, but it
   knows nothing of any one of these as abiding in permanent influence
   over the mind and the spirit of the present. All come and all gone, all
   to be reverenced, all to be respected, but nothing more; there is
   nothing left, so far as they are concerned, to influence or bless the
   present hour. Jesus and his gospel have come and gone, and we may very
   properly recollect the fact, but according to certain sages there is
   nothing in the New Testament to affect this advanced age, this
   enlightened nineteenth century; we have got beyond all that. Ah!
   Brethren, let those who can be content to do so, put up with this
   worship of moral relics and spiritual phantoms; to us it would be
   wretchedness itself. We, on the other hand, say, blessing the name of
   the Lord that we can say it, that there abides with us our Lord Jesus.
   At this day he is with us, and will be with us even to the end of the
   world. Christ's existence is not a fact confined to antiquity or to
   remote distance. By his Spirit he is actually in his church; we have
   seen him, though not with eyes; we have heard him, though not with
   ears; we have grasped him, though not with hands; and we feed upon his
   flesh, which is meat indeed, and his blood, which is drink indeed. We
   have with us at this very day Jesus our friend, to whom we make known
   our secrets, and who beareth all our sorrows. We have Jesus our
   interpreting instructor, who still reveals his secrets to us, and leads
   us into the mind and name of God. We have Jesus still with us to supply
   us with strength, and in his power we still are mighty. We confess his
   reigning sovereignty in the church, and we receive his all-sufficient
   succors. The church is not decapitated, her Head abides in vital union
   with her; Jesus is no myth to us, whatever he may be to others; he is
   no departed shade, he is no heroic personification: in very deed there
   is a Christ, and though others see him not, and even we with these eyes
   see him not, yet in him believing we rejoice with joy unspeakable and
   full of glory. Oh, I trust it will never be so with us, that as we go
   about our life work our religion shall melt into fiction and become
   nothing but mere sentiment, nothing but thought, and dream, and vision;
   but may our religion be a matter of fact, a walking with the living and
   abiding Saviour. Though Moses may be gone, and Elias may be gone, yet
   Jesus Christ abideth with us and in us, and we in him, and so shall it
   be evermore.

   Now, there was a second thing that might have happened to the
   disciples. When they lifted up their eyes they might have seen Moses
   only. It would certainly have been a very sad exchange for what they
   did see, to have seen Moses only. The face of Moses would have shone,
   his person would have awed them, and it would have been no mean thing
   for man of humble origin like themselves to walk down the mountain with
   that mighty king in Jeshurun, who had spoken with God face to face, and
   rested with him in solemn conclave by the space of forty days at a
   time. But yet who would exchange the sun for the moon? Who would
   exchange the cold moonbeams of Moses and the law for the sunny rays of
   the Saviour's divine affection? It would have been an unhappy exchange
   for them to have lost their Master whose name is love, and to have
   found a leader in the man whose name is synonymous with law. Moses, the
   man of God, cannot be compared with Jesus, the Son of God. Yet dear
   brethren, there are some who see Moses only. After all the gospel
   preaching that there has been in the world, and the declaration of the
   precious doctrines of grace every Sabbath day; after the clear
   revelations of Scripture, and the work of the Holy Spirit in men's
   hearts; yet we have among us some who persist in seeing nothing but
   Moses only. I mean this, there are some who will see nothing but
   shadows still, mere shadows still. As I read my Bible I see there that
   the age of the symbolical, the typical, the pictorial, has passed away.
   I am glad of the symbols, and types, and pictures, for they remain
   instructive to me; but the age in which they were in the foreground has
   given way to a clearer light, and they are gone forever. There are,
   however, certain persons who profess to read the Bible and to see very
   differently, and they set up a new system of types and shadows--a
   system, let me say, ridiculous to men of sense, and obnoxious to men of
   spiritual taste. There are some who delight in outward ordinances; they
   must have rubric and ritual, vestments and ceremonial, and this
   superabundantly, morning, noon and night. They regard days, and
   seasons, and forms of words and postures. They consider one place holy
   above another. They regard a certain caste of men as being priestly
   above other believers, and their love of symbols is seen in season and
   out of season. One would think, from their teachings, that the one
   thing needful was not "Jesus only," but custom, antiquity, outward
   performance, and correct observance! Alas! for those who talk of Jesus,
   but virtually see Moses, and Moses only. Ah! unhappy change for the
   heart if it could exchange spiritual fellowship with Jesus for outward
   acts and symbolical representations. It would be an unhappy thing for
   the Christian church if she could ever be duped out of the priceless
   boons which faith wins from her living Lord in his fullness of grace
   and truth, to return to the beggarly elements of carnal ordinances.
   Unhappy day, indeed, if Popish counterfeits of legal shadows should
   supplant gospel fact and substance. Blessed be God, we have not so
   learned Christ. We see something better than Moses only.

   There are too many who see Moses only, inasmuch as they see nothing but
   law, nothing but duty and precept in the Bible. I know that some here,
   though we have tried to preach Christ crucified as their only hope, yet
   whenever they read the Bible, or hear the Gospel, feel nothing except a
   sense of their own sinfulness, and, arising out of that sense of
   sinfulness, a desire to work out a righteousness of their own. They are
   continually measuring themselves by the law of God, they feel their
   shortcomings, they mourn over their transgressions, but they go no
   further. I am glad that they see Moses, may the stern voice of the
   lawgiver drive them to the lawfulfiller; but I grieve that they tarry
   so long in legal servitude, which can only bring them sorrow and
   dismay. The sight of Sinai, what is it but despair? God revealed in
   flaming fire, and proclaiming with thunder his fiery law, what is there
   here to save the soul? To see the Lord who will by no means spare the
   guilty, but will surely visit transgression with eternal vengeance, is
   a sight which never should eclipse Calvary, where love makes recompense
   to justice. O that you may get beyond the mount that might be touched,
   and come to Calvary, where God in vengeance is clearly seen, but where
   God in mercy fills the throne. Oh how blessed is it to escape from the
   voice of command and threatening and come to the blood of sprinkling,
   where "Jesus only" speaketh better things!

   Moses only, however, has become a sight very common with some of you
   who write bitter things against yourselves. You never read the
   Scriptures or hear the gospel without feeling condemned. You know your
   duty, and confess how short you have fallen of it, and therefore you
   abide under conscious condemnation, and will not come to him who is the
   propitiation for your sins. Alas, that there should be so many who with
   strange perversity of unbelief twist every promise into a threatening,
   and out of every gracious word that drips with honey manage to extract
   gall and wormwood. They see the dark shadow of Moses only; the broken
   tablets of the law, the smoking mount, and the terrible trumpet are
   ever with them, and over all an angry God. They had a better vision
   once, they have it sometimes now; for now and then under the preaching
   of the gospel they have glimpses of hope and mercy, but they relapse
   into darkness, they fall again into despair, because they have chosen
   to see Moses only. I pray that a change may come over the spirit of
   their dream, and that yet like the apostles they may see "Jesus only."

   But, my brethren, there was a third alternative that might have
   happened to the disciples, they might have seen Elijah only. Instead of
   the gentle Saviour, they might have been standing at the side of the
   rough-clad and the stern-spirited Elias. Instead of the Lamb of God,
   there might have remained to them only the lion who roared like the
   voice of God's own majesty in the midst of sinful Israel. In such a
   case, with such a leader, they would have gone down from the mount, and
   I wot that if John had said, "Command fire from heaven," Elias would
   have consumed his foes; the Pharisees, like the priests of Baal, would
   have found a speedy end; Herod's blood, like Ahab's, would have been
   licked up by dogs; and Herodias, like another Jezebel, would have been
   devoured of the same. But all this power for vengeance would have been
   a poor exchange for the gracious omnipotence of the Friend of sinners.
   Who would prefer the slayer of the priests to the Saviour of men? The
   top of Carmel was glorious when its intercession brought the rain for
   Israel, but how poor it is compared with Gethsemane, whose pleadings
   bring eternal life to millions! In company with Jesus we are at Elim
   beneath the palm tree, but with Elias we are in the wilderness beneath
   the stunted juniper. Who would exchange the excellency of Olivet for
   the terrors of Horeb? Yet I fear there are many who see Elias only.
   Prophecies of future woe fascinate them rather than thoughts of present
   salvation. Elias may be taken representatively as the preparer of
   Christ, for our Lord interpreted the prophecy of the coming of Elias as
   referring to John the Baptist. There are not a few who abide in the
   seeking, repenting, and preparing state, and come not to "Jesus only."
   I am not myself fond of even using the term "preparing for Christ," for
   it seems to me that those are best prepared for Christ who most feel
   themselves unprepared; but there is no doubt a state of heart which
   prepares for faith--a sense of need, a consciousness of sin, a hatred
   of sin, all these are preparations for actual peace and comfort in
   Christ Jesus, and oh! How many there are who continue year after year
   merely in that preliminary condition, choosing the candle and refusing
   the sun. They do not become believers, but are always complaining that
   they do not feel as yet fit to come to Christ. They want Christ, they
   desire Christ, they would fain have Christ, but they stay in desire and
   longing and go no further. They never get so far as to behold "the Lamb
   of God that taketh away the sin of the world." The voice from heaven to
   them they always interpret as crying, "The axe is laid unto the root of
   the trees; bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance." Their
   conscience is thrilled, and thrilled again, by the voice that crieth in
   the wilderness, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." Their souls are rent
   and torn by Elijah's challenge, "If the Lord be God, follow him: but if
   Baal, then follow him;" but they remain still halting between two
   opinions, trembling before Elias and not rejoicing before the Saviour.
   Unhappy men and women, so near the kingdom, and yet out of it; so near
   the feast, and yet perishing for want of the living bread. The word is
   near you(ah, how near!), and yet you receive it not. Remember, I pray
   you, that merely to prepare for a Saviour is not to be saved; that to
   have a sense of sin is not the same thing as being pardoned. Your
   repentance, unless you also believe in Jesus, is a repentance that
   needs to be repented of. At the girdle of John the Baptist the keys of
   heaven did never hang; Elias is not the door of salvation; preparation
   for Christ is not Christ, despair is not regeneration, doubt is not
   repentance. Only by faith in Jesus can you be saved, but complaining of
   yourselves is not faith. "Jesus only" is the way, the truth, and the
   life. "Jesus only" is the sinner's Saviour. O that your eyes may be
   opened, not to see Elias, not to see Moses, but to see "Jesus only."

   You see, then, these three alternatives, but there was also another: a
   fourth thing might have happened when the disciples opened their
   eyes--they might have seen Moses and Elias with Jesus, even as in the
   transfiguration. At first sight it seems as if this would have been
   superior to that which they did enjoy. To walk down the mountain with
   that blessed trio, how great a privilege! How strong might they have
   been for the accomplishment of the divine purposes! Moses could preach
   the law and make men tremble, and then Jesus could follow with his
   gospel of grace and truth. Elias could flash the thunderbolt in their
   faces, and then Christ could have uplifted the humble spirits. Would
   not the contrast have been delightful, and the connection inspiriting?
   Would not the assemblage of such divers kinds of forces have
   contributed to the greatest success? I think not. It is a vastly better
   thing to see "Jesus only," as a matter of perpetuity, than to see Moses
   and Elias with Jesus. It is night, I know it, for I see the moon and
   stars. The morning cometh, I know it cometh, for I see no longer many
   stars, only one remains, and that the morning star. But the full day
   has arrived, I know it has, for I cannot even see the morning star; all
   those guardians and comforters of the night have disappeared; I see the
   sun only. Now, inasmuch as every man prefers the moon to midnight and
   to the twilight of dawn, the disappearance of Moses and Elias,
   indicating the full noontide of light, was the best thing that could
   happen. Why should we wish to see Moses? The ceremonials are all
   fulfilled in Jesus; the law is honored and fulfilled in him. Let Moses
   go, his light is already in "Jesus only." And why should I wish to
   retain Elias? The prophecies are all fulfilled in Jesus, and the
   preparation of which Elias preached Jesus brings with himself. Let,
   then, Elias go, his light also is in "Jesus only." It is better to see
   Moses and Elias in Christ, than to see Moses and Elias with Christ. The
   absence of some things betokens a higher state of things than their
   presence. In all my library I do not know that I have a Lennie's
   English Grammar, or a Mavor's Spelling Book, or a Henry's First Latin
   Exercises, nor do I regret the absence of those valuable works, because
   I have got beyond the need of them. So the Christian wants not the
   symbols of Moses, or the preparations of Elias, for Christ is all, and
   we are complete in him. He who is conversant with the higher walks of
   sacred literature and reads in the golden book of Christ's heart, may
   safely lay the legal school-book by; this was good enough for the
   church's infancy, but we have now put away childish things. "We, when
   we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: but
   when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of
   a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the law,
   that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons,
   God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying,
   Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a
   son, then an heir of God through Christ." My brethren, the principle
   may be carried still further, for even the most precious things we
   treasure here below will disappear when fully realized in heaven.
   Beautiful for situation was the temple on Mount Zion, and though we
   believe not in the sanctity of buildings under the gospel, we love the
   place of solemn meeting where we are accustomed to offer prayer and
   praise; but when we enter into perfection we shall find no temple in
   heaven. We delight in our Sabbaths, and we would not give them up. O
   may England never lose her Sabbaths! but when we reach the Jerusalem
   above, we shall not observe the first day of the week above the rest,
   for we shall enjoy one everlasting Sabbath. No temple, because all
   temple; and no Sabbath day, because all Sabbath in heaven. Thus, you
   see, the losing of some things is gain: it proves that we have got
   beyond their help. Just as we get beyond the nursery and all its
   appurtenances, and never regret it because we have become men, so do
   Moses and Elias pass away, but we do not miss them, for "Jesus only"
   indicates our manhood. It is a sign of a higher growth when we can see
   Jesus only. My brethren, much of this sort of thing takes place with
   all Christians in their spiritual life. Do you remember when you were
   first of all convinced and awakened, what a great deal you thought of
   the preacher, and how much of the very style in which he spoke the
   gospel! But now, though you delight to listen to his voice, and find
   that God blesses you through him, yet you have sunk the thought of the
   preacher in the glory of the Master, you see no man save "Jesus only."
   And as you grow in grace you will find that many doctrines and points
   of church government which once appeared to you to be all important,
   though you will still value them, will seem but of small consequence
   compared with Christ himself. Like the traveller ascending the Alps to
   reach the summit of Mont Blanc; at first he observes that lord of the
   hills as one born among many, and often in the twistings of his upward
   path he sees other peaks which appear more elevated than that monarch
   of mountains; but when at last he is near the summit, he sees all the
   rest of the hills beneath his feet, and like a mighty wedge of
   alabaster Mount Blanc pierces the very clouds. So, as we grow in grace,
   other things sink and Jesus rises. They must decrease, but Christ must
   increase; until he alone fills the full horizon of your soul, and rises
   clear and bright and glorious up into the very heaven of God. O that we
   may thus see "Jesus only!"

   II. Time hastens so rapidly, this morning, that I know not how I shall
   be able to compress the rest of my discourse into the allotted space.
   We must in the most rapid manner speak upon WHAT REALLY HAPPENED.

   "They saw no man, save Jesus only." This was all they wanted to see for
   their comfort. They were sore afraid: Moses was gone, and he could give
   them no comfort; Elias was gone, he could speak no consolatory word;
   yet when Jesus said, "Be not afraid," their fears vanished. All the
   comfort, then, that any troubled heart wants, it can find in Christ. Go
   not to Moses, nor Elias, neither to the old covenant, not to prophecy:
   go straight away to Jesus only. He was all the Saviour they wanted.
   Those three men all needed washing from sin; all needed to be kept and
   held on their way, but neither Moses nor Elias could have washed them
   from sin, nor have kept them from returning to it. But Jesus only could
   cleanse them, and did; Christ could lead them on, and did. Ah!
   brethren, all the Saviour we want, we find in Jesus only. The priests
   of Rome and their Anglican mimics officiously offer us their services.
   How glad they would be if we would bend our necks once again to their
   yoke! But we thank God we have seen "Jesus only," and if Moses has
   gone, and if Elias has gone, we are not likely to let the shavelings of
   Rome come in and fill up the vacancy. "Jesus only," is enough for our
   comfort, without either Anglican, Mosaic, or Roman priestcraft.

   He, again, was to them, as they went afterwards into the world, enough
   for a Master. "No man can serve two masters," and albeit, Moses and
   Elias might sink into the second rank, yet might there have been some
   difficulty in the follower's mind if the leadership were divided. But
   when they had no leader but Jesus, his guidance, his direction and
   command were quite sufficient. He, in the day of battle, was enough for
   their captain; in the day of difficulty, enough for their direction.
   They wanted none but Jesus. At this day, my brethren, we have no Master
   but Christ; we submit ourselves to no vicar of God; we bow down
   ourselves before no great leader of a sect, neither to Calvin, nor to
   Arminius, to Wesley, or Whitfield, "One is our Master," and that one is
   enough, for we have learned to see the wisdom of God and the power of
   God in Jesus only.

   He was enough as their power for future life, as well as their Master.
   They needed not ask Moses to lend them official dignity, nor to ask
   Elias to bring them fire from heaven: Jesus would give them of his Holy
   Spirit, and they should be strong enough for every enterprise. And,
   brethren, all the power you and I want to preach the gospel, and to
   conquer souls to the truth, we can find in Jesus only. You want no
   sacred State prestige, no pretended apostolical succession, no
   prelatical unction; Jesus will anoint you with his Holy Spirit, and you
   shall be plenteously endowed with power from on high, so that you shall
   do great things and prevail. "Jesus only." Why, they wanted no other
   motive to constrain them to use their power aright. It is enough
   incentive to a man to be allowed to live for such a one as Christ. Only
   let the thought of Christ fill the enlightened intellect, and it must
   conquer the sanctified affections. Let but Jesus be well understood as
   the everlasting God who bowed the heavens, and came down and suffered
   shame and ignominy, that he might redeem us from the wrath to come; let
   us get but a sight of the thorn-crowned head, and those dear eyes all
   red with weeping, and those sweet cheeks bruised and battered by the
   scoffer's fists; let us but look into the tender heart that was broken
   with griefs unutterable for our sakes, and the love of Christ must
   constrain us, and we shall thus "judge, that if one died for all, then
   were wll dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should
   not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them
   and rose again." In the point of motive, believers do not need the aid
   of Moses. That you ought to do such a thing because otherwise you will
   be punished, will but little strengthen you, nor will you be much aided
   by the spirit of prophecy which leads you to hope that in the
   millennial period you will be made a ruler over many cities. It will be
   enough to you that you serve the Lord Christ; it suffices you if you
   may be enabled to honor him, to deck his crown, to magnify his name.
   Here is a stimulus sufficient for martyrs and confessors, "Jesus only."
   Brethren, it is all the gospel we have to preach--it is all the gospel
   we want to preach--it is the only ground of confidence which we have
   for ourselves; it is all the hope we have to set before others. I know
   that in this age there is an overweening desire for that which has the
   aspect of being intellectual, deep, and novel; and we are often
   informed that there are to be developments in religion, even as in
   science; and we are despised as being hardly men, certainly not
   thinking men, if we preach today what was preached two hundred years
   ago. Brethren, we preach to-day what was preached eighteen hundred
   years ago, and wherein others make alterations, they create
   deformities, and not improvements. We are not ashamed to avow that the
   old truth of Christ alone is everlasting; all else has gone or shall
   go, but the gospel towers above the wrecks of time: to us "Jesus only"
   remains as the sole topic of our ministry, and we want nothing else.

   For "Jesus only" shall be our reward, to be with him where he is, to
   behold his glory, to be like him when we shall see him as he is, we ask
   no other heaven. No other bliss can our soul conceive of. The Lord
   grant that we may have a fullness of this, and "Jesus only" shall be
   throughout eternity our delight.

   There was here space to have dilated at great length, but we have
   rather given you the heads of thought, than the thoughts themselves.
   Though the apostles saw "Jesus only," they saw quite sufficient, for
   Jesus is enough for time and eternity, enough to live by and enough to
   die by.

   III. I must close, though I fain would linger. Brethren, let us think
   of WHAT WE DESIRE MAY HAPPEN to all now present.

   I do desire for my fellow Christians and for myself, that more and more
   the great object of our thoughts, motives, and acts may be "Jesus
   only." I believe that whenever our religion is most vital, it is most
   full of Christ. Moreover, when it is most practical, downright, and
   common sense, it always gets nearest to Jesus. I can bear witness that
   whenever I am in deeps of sorrow, nothing will do for me but "Jesus
   only." I can rest in some degree in the externals of religion, its
   outward escarpments and bulwarks, when I am in health; but I retreat to
   the innermost citadel of our holy faith, namely, to the very heart of
   Christ, when my spirit is assailed by temptation, or besieged with
   sorrow and anguish. What is more, my witness is that whenever I have
   high spiritual enjoyments, enjoyments right, rare, celestial, they are
   always connected with Jesus only. Other religious things may give some
   kind of joy, and joy that is healthy too, but the sublimest, the most
   inebriating, the most divine of all joys, must be found in Jesus only.
   In fine, I find if I want to labor much, I must live on Jesus only; if
   I desire to suffer patiently, I must feed on Jesus only; if I wish to
   wrestle with God successfully, I must plead Jesus only; if I aspire to
   conquer sin, I must use the blood of Jesus only; if I pant to learn the
   mysteries of heaven, I must seek the teachings of Jesus only. I believe
   that any thing which we add to Christ lowers our position, and that the
   more elevated our soul becomes, the more nearly like what it is to be
   when it shall enter into the religion of the perfect, the more
   completely every thing else will sink, die out, and Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
   only, will be first and last, and midst and without end, the Alpha and
   Omega of every thought of head and pulse of heart. May it be so with
   every Christian.

   There are others here who are not yet believers in Jesus, and our
   desire is that this may happen to them, that they may see "Jesus only."
   "Oh," saith one, "Sir, I want to see my sins. My heart is very hard,
   and very proud; I want to see my sins." Friend, I also desire that you
   should, but I desire that you may see them not on yourself, but on
   Jesus only. No sight of sin ever brings such true humiliation of spirit
   as when the soul sees its sins laid on the Saviour. Sinner, I know you
   have thought of sins as lying on yourself, and you have been trying to
   feel their weight, but there is a happier and better view still. Sin
   was laid on Jesus, and it made him to be covered with a bloody sweat;
   it nailed him to the cross; it made him cry, "Lama Sabachthani;" it
   bowed him into the dust of death. Why, friend, if you see sin on Jesus
   you will hate it, you will bemoan it, you will abhor it. You need not
   look evermore to sin as burdening yourself, see Jesus only, and the
   best kind of repentance will follow. "Ah, but," saith another, "I want
   to feel my need of Christ more." You will see your need all the better
   if you look at Jesus only. Many a time an appetite for a thing is
   created by the sight of it. Why, there are some of us who can hardly be
   trusted in a bookseller's shop, because though we might have done very
   well at home without a certain volume, we no sooner see it than we are
   in urgent need of it. So often is it with some of you about other
   matters, so that it becomes most dangerous to let you see, because you
   want as soon as you see. A sight of Jesus, of what he is to sinners, of
   what he makes sinners, of what he is in himself, will more tend to make
   you feel your need of him than all your poring over your poor miserable
   self. You will get no further there, look to "Jesus only." "Ay," saith
   another, "but I want to read my title clear, I want to know that I have
   an interest in Jesus." you will best read your interest in Christ, by
   looking at him. If I want to know whether a certain estate is mine, do
   I look into my own heart to see if I have a right to it? But I look
   into the archives of the estate, I search testaments and covenants.
   Now, Christ Jesus is God's covenant with the people, a leader and
   commander to the people. To-day, I personally can read my title clear
   to heaven, and shall I tell you how I read it? Not because I feel all I
   wish to feel, nor because I am what I hope I yet shall be, but I read
   in the word that "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners," I
   am a sinner, even the devil cannot tell me I am not. O precious
   Saviour, then thou hast come to save such as I am. Then I see it
   written again, "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved." I
   have believed, and have been baptized; I know I trust alone in Jesus,
   and that is believing. As surely then as there is a God in heaven I
   shall be in heaven one day. It must be so, because unless God be a
   liar, he that believeth must be saved. You see it is not by looking
   within, it is by looking to Jesus only that you perceive at last your
   name graven on his hands. I wish to have Christ's name written on my
   heart, but if I want assurance, I have to look at his heart till I see
   my name written there. O turn your eye away from your sin and your
   emptiness to his righteousness and his fullness. See the sweat drops
   bloody as they fall in Gethsemane, see his heart pierced and pouring
   out blood and water for the sins of men upon Calvary! There is life in
   a look at him! O look to him, and though it be Jesus only, though Moses
   should condemn you, and Elias should alarm you, yet "Jesus only" shall
   be enough to comfort and enough to save you. May God grant us grace
   every one of us to take for our motto in life, for our hope in death,
   and for our joy in eternity, "Jesus only." May God bless you for the
   sake of "Jesus only." Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Matthew 17.
     __________________________________________________________________

Individual Sin Laid On Jesus

   (No. 925)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 10, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned, every one to his
   own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Isaiah
   53:6.

   I THINK I addressed you from this text four years ago, ("Sin Laid on
   Jesus," No. 694, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit), but I feel quite safe
   in returning to it, for we shall never exhaust it. It is a verse so
   wealthy in meaning that if I had, during the whole four years, dilated
   upon it every Sunday, it would be my fault if the theme were stale. On
   this occasion I desire mainly to draw attention to a part of the text
   upon which little was said on the former occasion. The vine is the
   same, but we shall gather clusters from a bough ungleaned before. The
   jewels are the same, but we will place them in another light and view
   them from another angle. May God grant that some who derived no comfort
   from our former word may be led to find peace and salvation in Christ
   this morning. The Lord in His infinite mercy grant it may be so.

   I shall first give a general exposition of the text. Then in the second
   place I shall dwell upon the special doctrine which I wish to teach.
   And then, thirdly, we shall draw from that special doctrine a special
   lesson.

   I. First, we will GIVE A GENERAL EXPOSITION OF THE TEXT. "All we like
   sheep have gone astray. We have turned, every one to his own way; and
   the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." The text naturally
   breaks itself up into these three heads--a confession general to all
   penitents--"All we like sheep have gone astray." A personal confession
   peculiar to each one, "We have turned, every one to his own way." And
   then, the august doctrine of Substitution, which is the very soul and
   spirit of the entire Gospel, "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of
   us all."

   Our exposition, then, begins with the confession which is universal to
   all penitents--it is acknowledged here by the persons speaking who call
   themselves "all we"--that they all had, like sheep, broken the hedge of
   God's Law, forsaken their good and ever blessed Shepherd, and wandered
   into paths perilous and pernicious. A comparison is here used, and its
   use shows that the confession was a thoughtful one and not a matter of
   careless form. Man is here compared to a beast--for sin brings out the
   animal part of us. And while holiness allies us to angels--sin degrades
   us to brutes. We are not likened to one of the more noble and
   intelligent animals, but to a silly sheep.

   All sin is folly. All sinners are fools. Sheep are dishonored by the
   comparison here used, for with all their silliness they have never been
   known to rush into the fire after having felt the flame. You will
   observe that the creature selected for comparison is one that cannot
   live without care and attention. There is no such thing as a wild
   sheep. There could not long be sheep unless they were tended and cared
   for by a shepherd. The creature's happiness, its safety and very
   existence, all depend upon its being under a nurture and care far above
   its own. Yet for all that, the sheep strays from the shepherd. Man's
   happiness lies in being under the direction of the Lord, in being
   obedient to God, in being in communion with God. Departure from God is
   death to all his highest interests, destruction to all his best
   prospects. Yet for all that, as the sheep goes astray, even so does
   man.

   The sheep is a creature exceedingly quick-witted upon the one matter of
   going astray. If there is but one gap in the hedge, the sheep will find
   it. If there is but one possibility out of five hundred that by any
   means the flock shall wander, one of the flock will be quite certain to
   discover that possibility--and all its companions will avail themselves
   of it. So is it with man. He is quick of understanding for evil things.
   God made man upright, but he has sought out many inven-tions--the
   inventions being all to destroy his own uprightness and to do despise
   to the Law of God. And that very creature which is so quick-witted to
   wander is the least likely of all animals to return.

   The ox knows its owner, and the ass knows its master's crib. Even the
   swine that will wander by day will return to the trough by night, and
   the dog will scent out his master over many a mile. But not so the
   sheep. Sharp as it is to discover opportunities for going astray, it
   seems to be bereft of all wit or will to come back to the fold. And
   such is man--

   wise to do evil--but foolish towards that which is good. With a hundred
   eyes, like Argus, he searches out opportunities for sinning. But, like
   Bartimeus, he is stone blind as to repentance and a return to God.

   The sheep goes astray, it is said, all the more frequently when it is
   most dangerous for it to do so. Propensities to stray seem to be
   developed in the very proportion in which they ought to be subdued.
   Whereas in our own land a sheep might wander with some safety, it
   wanders less in the Oriental plains, where for it to go astray is to
   run risks from leopards and wolves. Those very men who ought to be most
   careful, and who are placed in positions where it is best for them to
   be scrupulous, are those who are most prone to follow after evil--and
   with heedless carelessness to leave the way of

   Truth.

   The sheep goes astray ungratefully. It owes everything to the shepherd,
   and yet forsakes the hand that feeds it and heals its diseases. The
   sheep goes astray repeatedly. If restored today it may not stray today
   if it cannot, but it will tomorrow if it can. The sheep wanders further
   and further, from bad to worse. It is not content with the distance it
   has reached, it will go yet greater lengths. There is no limit to its
   wandering except its weakness. Do you not see you own selves, my
   Brethren, as in a mirror? From Him that has blessed you, you have gone
   astray. To Him you owe your all, and yet from Him you continually
   depart. Your sins are not occasional--they are constant. Your
   wanderings are not slight, but you wander further and further--and were
   it not for restraining Grace which has prevented your footsteps--you
   would have wandered even now to the utmost extremities of guilt and
   utterly destroyed your souls.

   "All we like sheep have gone astray." What? Is there not one faithful
   soul? Alas, no! "There is none that does good, no, not one." Search the
   ranks of the blessed in Heaven and there is not one saint before the
   Throne who will boast that when on earth he never sinned. Search the
   Church of God below and there is not one, however closely he walks with
   God, but must confess that he has erred and strayed from God's ways
   like a lost sheep. Vain is the man who refuses to confess this--for his
   hypocrisy or his pride, whichever may be the cause of such a base
   lie--proves that he is not one of God's chosen. The chosen of God
   unanimously, mournfully, but heartily take up this cry, "All we like
   sheep have gone astray." A general confession, then, is uttered in our
   text.

   This confession by the mass is backed up by a personal acknowledgment
   from each one, "We have turned, every one to his own way." Sin is
   general but yet special. All are sinners, but each one is a sinner with
   an emphasis. No man has of himself turned to God's way, but in every
   case each one has chosen "his own way." The very gist of sin lies in
   our setting up our own way in opposition to the way and will of God. We
   have all done so, we have all aspired to be our own masters, we have
   all desired to follow our own inclinations and have not submitted
   ourselves to the will of God.

   The text implies that each man has his own peculiarity and special sin.
   All are diseased, but not all precisely with the same form of disease.
   It is well, my Brothers and Sisters, if each of us, in examining
   himself, has found out what is his own peculiar transgression. It is
   well to know what evil weeds flourish most readily in the soil of our
   heart--what wild beast that is most native to the forests of our soul.
   Many have felt that their peculiar sin was so remarkably evil and so
   surpassingly vile that it separated them altogether from the common
   rank of sinners. They felt that their iniquities were unique, and like
   lone peaks, lifted themselves defiantly towards the pure heavens of God
   provoking the fiercest thunderbolts of wrath. Such persons have almost
   been driven to despair under the belief that they were peculiarly great
   sinners--as Paul puts it--the very chief of sinners.

   I should not wonder if this feeling which each one imagines to be
   peculiar to himself may have come over very many of us, and the shadow
   of despair may for awhile have fallen upon very many of us. It is no
   unusual thing for an awakened conscience to feel its own sinfulness to
   be above measure and parallel, the worst that has ever defiled mankind.
   This special sin happens to be the point to which I desire to call to
   your attention. I wish to show that the atoning sacrifice of Christ not
   only applies to sin in general, since "all we like sheep have gone
   astray," but applies to special sin, for "we have turned, every one to
   his own way."

   I pass over it slightly now and introduce you further in the exposition
   of the text, to what I called the august doctrine of the Substitution
   of Christ, "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." We have
   seen the confession of sin made by the mass. We lightly touched the
   peculiar confession made by each awakened individual--put all these
   together and you see a mass of sin--did I say you see it? It is a mass
   of sin too great to be beheld by the human understanding--an enormous
   load of iniquity against God. What is to be done with the offenders?
   The only thing that can be done with

   them, in the ordinary rule of justice, is to punish them for their
   offenses. And that punishment must be such as was
   threatened--indignation, wrath, destruction, death.

   That God should punish sin is not a matter of impulse with Him. It was
   not with Him an alternative as to whether He might or might not punish
   sin. We speak always with holy awe when we speak of anything concerning
   Him, but with reverence we say it was not possible that God should wink
   at the iniquity of man. It was not possible that He should treat it
   with indifference. His attribute of Justice, which is as undoubtedly a
   part of His Glory as His attribute of Love, required that sin should be
   punished. Moreover, as God had been pleased to make a moral universe to
   be governed by laws, there would be an end of all government if the
   breaking of those laws involved no penalty whatever.

   If, after the great King of all the earth had promulgated a Law, with
   certain penalties annexed to the breach of it, He did not cause those
   penalties to be exacted, there would be an end to the whole system of
   His government. The foundations would be removed. And if the
   foundations are removed, what shall the righteous do? It is infinitely
   benevolent of God, I will venture to say, to cast evil men into Hell.
   If that is thought to be a hard and strange statement, I reply that
   inasmuch as there is sin in the world, it is no benevolence to tolerate
   so great an evil. It is the highest benevolence to do all that can be
   done to restrain the horrible pest.

   It would be far from benevolent for our government to throw wide the
   doors of all the jails, to abolish the office of the judge, to suffer
   every thief and every offender of every kind to go unpunished. Instead
   of mercy it would be cruelty. It might be mercy to the offender, but it
   would be intolerable injustice towards the upright and inoffensive.
   God's very benevolence demands that the detestable rebellion of sin
   against His supreme authority should be put down with a firm hand, that
   men may not flatter themselves that they can do evil and yet go
   unpunished. The necessities of moral government require that sin must
   be punished. The effeminate and sentimental talkers of this boastful
   age represent God as though He had no attribute but that of gentleness,
   no virtue but that of indifference to evil.

   But the God of the Bible is glorious in holiness! He will by no means
   spare the guilty. At His bar every transgression is meted out its just
   recompense or reward. Even in the New Testament, where stands that
   golden sentence, "God is Love," His other attributes are by no means
   cast into the shade. Read the burning words of Peter, or James, or
   Jude, and see how the God of Sabaoth abhors evil! As the God who must
   do right, the Lord cannot shut His eyes to the iniquities of man. He
   must visit transgression with its punishment. He has done it, has done
   it terribly, and He will continue to do it. Even to all eternity He
   will show Himself the God that hates iniquity and sin.

   What, then, is to become of man? "All we like sheep have gone astray."
   Sin must be punished. What, then, can become of us? Infinite Love has
   devised the expedient of representation and substitution. I call it an
   expedient, for we can only use the language of men. You remember,
   Brothers and Sisters, that you and I fell originally from our first
   estate by no act of our own--we, all of us, fell in the first Adam's
   transgression. Now, had we fallen individually and personally, in the
   first place, apart from another, it may be that our fall would have
   been hopeless. As the fall of the apostate angels, who having sinned
   one by one and not representatively, are reserved in chains of darkness
   forever under the condemnation and wrath of God--so might we have been.

   But inasmuch as the first fountain of evil came to us through our
   parent, Adam, there remained for God a loophole through which His
   Divine love might enter without violation of Justice. The principle of
   representation wrecked us-- the same principle of representation
   rescues us. Jesus Christ the Son of God becomes a Man and re-heads the
   race. He becomes the second Adam, obeys the Law of God, bears the
   penalty of sin, and now stands as the Head of all those who are in Him!
   And who are these but such as repent of sin and put their trust in Him?
   These get out of the old headship of the first Adam where they fell,
   and through the atoning sacrifice are cleansed from all personal guilt,
   brought into union with the second Adam, and stand again in Him,
   abiding forever in acceptance and felicity!

   See, then, how it is that God has been pleased to deliver His people.
   It has been through carrying out a principle with which the very system
   of the universe commenced, namely, that of representation. I repeat it,
   had we been always and altogether separate units, there might have been
   no possibility of our salvation. But though every man sins separately,
   and the second clause of our text confesses that fact, yet we all sin
   in connection with others. For instance, who shall deny that each man
   receives propensities to sin from his parents, and that we transmit
   peculiarities of sin to our own children?

   We stand in connection with race, and there are sins of races peculiar
   to races and to nationalities. We are never put on a probation of
   entire separation--we always stand in connection with others, and God
   has availed Himself of this,

   which I called a loophole, to bring in salvation for us by virtue of
   our union with another Man, who is also more than Man--the Son of God
   and yet the son of Mary--the Infinite who once became an Infant. The
   Eternal who lived, and bled, and died as the representative of all who
   put their trust in Him.

   Now you will say, perhaps, that still, albeit this might have been at
   the bottom of the whole system of moral government, you do not quite
   see the justice of it. The reply to that remark is this--if God sees
   the justice of it you ought to be content with it. He was against whom
   every sin was aimed. And if He pleased to gather up the whole bundle of
   the sin of His people and say to His Beloved Son, "I will visit You for
   all these," and if Jesus, our Representative, joyously consented to
   bear our sins as our Representative--who are you and who am I that we
   should enter any caveat against what God the infinitely just One
   consents to accept?

   The text does not say that our sins were laid on Christ Jesus by
   accident, but, "the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." We
   sing sometimes, "I lay my sins on Jesus." That is a very sweet act of
   faith, but at the bottom of it there is another laying, namely, that
   act in which it pleased the Lord to lay our sins on Jesus. Apart from
   the Lord's doing it, our sins could never have been transferred to the
   Redeemer. The Lord is so just that we dare not think of examining His
   verdicts. He is so infinitely pure and holy that what He does we accept
   as being necessarily right. And inasmuch as we derive such blessed
   results from the Divine plan of Substitution, far be it from us to
   raise any question concerning it!

   Jesus was accepted as the natural Substitute and Representative of all
   those who trust Him, and all the sins of these were laid on Him so that
   they were freed from guilt. Jesus was regarded as if all these sins
   were His sins. He was punished as if these were His sins. He was put to
   shame, forsaken of God, and delivered to death as if He had been a
   sinner. And thus, through Divine Grace, those who actually committed
   the sins are permitted to go free. They have satisfied justice through
   the sufferings of their Substitute.

   Beloved Brethren, the most fit Person to be a Substitute for us was
   Christ Jesus. And why? Because He had been pleased to take us, His
   people, into union with Himself. If He were our Head, and He had made
   us to be members of His Body, who more fit to suffer for the body than
   the Head? If He had, and Scripture tells us so, entered into a
   mysterious conjugal union with us, who more fit to suffer for the
   spouse than her Husband? Christ is Man, therefore His fitness and
   adaptation to be a Substitute for man. The creature that sins must be
   the creature that suffers--man breaks God's Law--and man must honor it.
   As by man came death, by Man also must come the resurrection from the
   dead--and Jesus Christ was undoubtedly Man of the substance of His
   mother.

   He was fit to be our Substitute because He was a pure Man. He had no
   offense in Him. Neither Satan, nor the more searching eye of God could
   find any evil in Him. He was under no obligation to the Law except as
   He put Himself under the Law. He owed nothing to the great moral
   Governor until He voluntarily became a subject of His moral government
   on our behalf. Therefore, being without obligation Himself--having no
   debts of His own--He was fit to take upon Himself our liabilities. And
   as He was under no obligations for Himself, He was a fitting One to
   become under obligations for us.

   Moreover, He did all this voluntarily, and His fitness much lies here.
   If a substitute should be dragged to death for us unwillingly, if such
   could be the case, an injustice would be perpetrated in the very act.
   But Jesus Christ, taking up His Cross, and going forth willingly to
   suffer for us, proved His fitness to redeem us. Once more--His being
   God as well as Man, gave the strength to suffer--gave Him the power to
   stoop. If He had not been so lofty as to be Fellow with the eternal
   God, He would not have stooped so low as to redeem us, but --

   "From the highest Throne in Glory To the Cross of deepest woe,"

   was such a descent that there was an infinite merit in it. When He
   stooped, even to the grave itself, there was an infinite merit by which
   Justice was satisfied, the Law was vindicated, and those for whom He
   died were effectually saved.

   I do not want to proceed to the other point until everyone here has got
   the thought, and grasped it, and received it. We have gone astray, but
   the straying of as many of us as believe, were laid on Christ. We have
   each chosen our own way of sin, but those sins are not ours now--they
   are laid on our great Substitute--if we are trusting in Him. He has
   paid to the utmost farthing all the debt of those sins. He has borne
   the fullness of Divine wrath, and there is no wrath against us. Just as
   the bullock was laid on the altar to be burnt, God's wrath came like
   consuming fire and burnt the bullock, and

   there was no fire left. So when the wrath of God fell on Christ, it
   consumed Him, and there was no fire left, no wrath left--it spent
   itself.

   God has no anger against a soul that believes in Jesus. Neither has
   that soul any sin, for its sin has been laid on Christ, and it cannot
   be in two places at once--Christ has carried it and the sin has ceased
   to be. The believing soul, though in itself as black as Hell, is now as
   bright as Christ Himself when He was transfigured, for Christ has
   finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in everlasting
   righteousness. Thus we conclude our general exposition of the verse.

   II. I now desire for a short time, but with all the earnestness of my
   soul, to dwell on THE SPECIAL DOCTRINE taught in the central clause of
   the text--"We have turned, every one to his own way; and the Lord has
   laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Each man and each woman, from a
   natural difference of constitution, from the variations in education,
   and from the diversities of circumstances, has sinned somewhat
   differently from every other. Two brothers educated by the same parents
   will yet display diversities of transgression. No man treads exactly in
   the same footsteps as another, and some take roads which, though
   equally wrong, are diametrically opposite. One turns to the right hand,
   and another to the left, both equally renouncing the onward path.

   Now, the glory of the text that I want to bring out is this--that if
   you believe in Jesus Christ, this special sin of yours was laid on Him,
   as well as all those other sins in which you stand on an equality with
   your fellow men. There was a publican--he had been a common, gross
   offender--rough and harsh to his brother Jews in demanding an
   inordinate tax. He was a man of low habits, indulging in drunkenness,
   fornication, and other defilements. Yet when that publican went up to
   the house of God and said, "God be merciful to me a sinner," the
   Atonement just met the publican's iniquity, and exactly took away the
   publican's transgression.

   But, on the other hand, there was a Pharisee--the opposite of the
   publican--proud and self-righteous, not submitting himself to the
   righteousness of God. He considered himself to be in all things better
   than other men. But remember that when he fell off his horse as he was
   riding to Damascus, and heard a voice that said, "Why do you persecute
   Me?" that very same Pharisee said, "God forbid that I should glory save
   in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." There was in Christ precisely
   that which met the Pharisee's sin. In our Lord's day there were
   Sadducees, too--that is, men who said there was neither angel nor
   spirit They were infidels, skeptics, free-thinkers--your Broad Church
   sinners.

   Now these men neither went into coarse transgression with the publican
   nor into superstition with the Pharisee, but they had their direct
   antagonism to the Truth of God. And I doubt not cases occurred to prove
   that in the pardoning blood of Christ the Sadducee's case was met. No
   matter in what peculiar direction any one of the Lord's sheep has gone
   astray, the Lord has laid that particular straying upon the Savior.

   I want to speak, now, so as to fetch forth some individuals here this
   morning. It may be that one here today is saying, "I sinned against an
   early Christian training. No one ever had a better mother or a more
   tender father. I knew the Word of God, like Timothy, from my youth--but
   I did despite to all this teaching and sinned with aggravation of
   infamy. I sinned against the clearest light."

   Brothers and Sisters, your sin is very great, but the Lord has laid on
   Jesus your iniquity. Look to the Cross, and see it laid there. "Yes,"
   says another, "but I have had the strivings of God's Spirit. In
   addition to an early Christian education, I have sat under an earnest
   Gospel ministry. I have often been impressed. I have been driven to my
   chamber to pray, but I have quenched the holy emotions, and have
   continued in sin." O guilty One, the Lord has laid on His dear Son your
   iniquity! Can you look to Jesus now and trust Christ--"The Lamb of God
   which takes away the sin of the world"? Then this offense of yours
   against the Holy Spirit is put away.

   "But," says another, "I am conscious of having had naturally a
   remarkable tenderness of spirit. From my early childhood I knew right
   from wrong, and when I sinned it cost me much trouble to sin. I have
   had to wound my conscience before I could speak an ill word, or commit
   an evil action." Ah, my Brethren, that is a very condemning thing, to
   sin against a tender conscience. It is a great benefit, and in this age
   a very unusual benefit, to have much sensitiveness and delicacy of
   moral constitution. And if you have violated it, it is certainly a
   great transgression. But though, "we have turned, every one to his own
   way, the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Let no
   despairing thought come upon you as though this sin were unpardonable.
   The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin." Look,
   now, by faith to Jesus, and you shall find that your sin is blotted
   out.

   There may be one in this place who says, "Sir, I committed a sin under
   certain remarkable circumstances which I would not, could not, mention.
   But the remembrance of that one sin rankles in my soul at this hour. If
   I had not deliberately, and with malice aforethought, having not the
   fear of God before my eyes, chosen that sin, there might have been
   hope--but that sin, like a millstone, is about my neck and will sink me
   forever and ever." Look, Soul! Can you see Christ on the Cross? Will
   you now confide in Him? If so, though your sins are as scarlet they
   shall be as wool, though they are red like crimson they shall be as
   snow.

   I know not what your sin may have been, but if it were murder itself,
   if you would now trust the Son of God, your sin should vanish quite
   away from you, and you should be clean, clean every whit, before the
   all-seeing Eyes of Eternal Justice. O that you would believe, and this
   should be true to you. "No," cries another, "but mine has been a life
   of peculiarly gross sin. I would not have my character unmasked before
   this congregation on any account." Consider then, my Friend, what it
   will be to have it published before a greater congregation, before the
   entire universe!

   "Ah," you say, "I fear my condemnation is certain, for my
   transgressions have not been those of thought, merely, but of act. The
   members of my body have been the instruments of uncleanness." Listen, I
   pray, "All manner of sin and of iniquity shall be forgiven unto men."
   There is no sin so black, save only one, but it may find forgiveness.
   Yes, and without exception, there is no sin that is possible to man but
   what it shall be forgiven to any man who comes to Christ, and with
   simple trust, does cast himself on Him. Your extreme evil was laid on
   Christ. Though you have turned unto your own way, yet this, too, was
   laid on Him.

   Do I not hear, here and there in the congregation, hearts sighing out,
   "He does not strike my case yet! Mine has not been gross sin, but I
   have hardened my heart. I used to feel at one time I had great drawings
   towards the Lord Jesus, but I gave Him up. I have backslidden. I have
   from time to time rejected Gospel invitations, until now, at last, the
   Lord has sworn in His wrath that I shall not enter into His rest. My
   transgressions have gone over my head like overflowing waters, I sink
   in them as in deep mire where there is no standing."

   Yes, but Soul, I must bring you back to the text. You have turned to
   your own way, but, if you believe, the Lord has laid on Jesus even this
   iniquity, also. If you will trust Him, your hardenings of heart shall
   now be forgiven you. You are not too late--the gate of Mercy still
   stands wide open. If you trust in Jesus, this iniquity shall be blotted
   out. "Alas," says another, "but I have been a hypocrite. I have come to
   the Lord's Table, and yet I have never had an interest in Christ. I
   have been baptized, but yet I never had true faith."

   Well, now, I will say this to end all matters--if you have perpetrated
   all the sins that ever were committed by men or devils. If you have
   defiled yourself with all the blackness that could be raked out of the
   lowermost kennels of Hell. If you have spoken the most damnable
   blasphemies and followed the most outrageous vices--yet Jesus Christ is
   an infinite Savior, and nothing can exceed the merit of His precious
   blood! "The blood of Jesus Christ, God's dear Son, cleanses us from all
   sin." Can you believe this? Can you do Christ the honor to believe
   this, and come and crouch at the feet that once were pierced? Ah, Man,
   you shall find mercy now, and you shall clap your hands and say, "He
   has blotted out my sins like a cloud, and like a thick cloud my
   iniquities."

   I am afraid I do not convey to you the pleasure of my own soul in
   turning over this thought, but it has charmed me beyond measure. Here
   were Lot's sins, scandalous sins. I cannot mention them--they were very
   different from David's sins. Black sins, scarlet sins, were those of
   David, but David's sins are not at all like those of Manasseh. The sins
   of Ma-nasseh were not the same as those of Peter--Peter sinned in quite
   a different track. And the woman that was a sinner, you could not liken
   her to Peter. And if you look to her character you could not set her
   side by side with Lydia. Nor if you think of Lydia, can you see her
   without discovering a great divergence between her and the Philippian
   jailer.

   They are all alike. They have all gone Astray. But they are all
   different, they have turned, every one to his own way. But here is the
   blessed gathering up of them all! The Lord has made to meet on the
   Redeemer, as in a common focus, the iniquity of all these! And up
   yonder Magdalena's song joins sweetly with that of the woman who was a
   sinner. And Lydia, chaste, but yet needing pardon, sings side by side
   with Bathsheba and Rahab--while David takes up the strain with Samson
   and with Gideon! And these with Abraham and with Isaac--all differently
   sinners--but the Atonement meeting every case.

   We always think that man a quack, who advertises a medicine as healing
   every disease. But when you come to the great Gospel medicine--the
   precious blood of Jesus Christ--you have there in very deed what the
   old doctors used to

   call a catholicon, a universal medicine. It meets every case in its
   distinctness It puts away sin in all its separateness of guilt as if it
   were made for that sin, and for that sin, alone.

   III. My time has gone, and therefore I must close with this, A SPECIAL
   DUTY ARISING OUT OF THE SPECIAL DOCTRINE. My dear Brothers and Sisters,
   if in my discourse I have at all described you, or if not having
   described you, I have yet from that very reason indicated you as an
   indescribable, look to Christ and find mercy! And then ever afterwards
   make it a rule with your soul that as you have been a special sinner
   you will have special love and special gratitude, and do your Lord
   special service.

   Oh, if it takes twenty times the Grace to save me than it does another,
   then I will render to my Savior twenty times the love and twenty times
   the service. If I am an out-of-the-way straying sheep, peculiarly and
   specially black, defiled and disgraced--then if He loves me I will go
   upon this rule--that having had much forgiven I will love much.

   Brothers and Sisters, I wish you did feel, I wish I did feel, more and
   more the peculiarity of the weight of our personal sin, for I am sure
   it is the way to drive us into manliness of Christian service. If you
   perform homage to Christ as one of a crowd, you do but little, and that
   little badly. For eminent service you need to get away from the crowd
   and serve the Lord personally by yourself, and as an individual. Get
   alone, I mean in a sense of obligation. Separate yourself, as if you
   were a marked man, and must serve Jesus Christ in a marked way. The
   separation of pride is detestable, but individuality of service is
   admirable. Those who stand steadily in the rank and file do well, but
   those who step forward to lead the forlorn hope do better.

   O for more Davids to come forth and say, "Who is this uncircumcised
   Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?" O that
   the Christian Church had more self-sacrificing men, like old Curtius,
   who, when there is a chasm to fill up, leaps into it and feels it an
   honor to be swallowed up for Christ's sake and the Truth's sake. O for
   many a Christian who, like the Roman hero, will hold his hand in the
   fire if need be, and flinch not, feeling that all suffering were little
   to bear for one who bled for us. We want more consecrated men. May God
   raise them up. And He will if you who feel your special sinnership find
   special mercy--and then render to God special returns.

   It has struck me that we need more and more in the pulpit, and in the
   pew, individuality in our Christian experience and service. You see, we
   are all individuals in sinning, we have turned, every one to his own
   way, and yet many Christian people want to have their experience
   modeled after the example of someone else. They do not like to grow
   like God's trees in the forest, with their gnarled roots and twisted
   boughs. They want to be clipped like Dutch trees into one uniform
   stiffness. Why, you lose the beauty of Christianity when you lose the
   individuality of Christians!

   In preaching and Sunday school teaching, and everything else, the
   tendency is to go too much to ill ruts and grooves. One might fancy
   that men and women were made by machinery, like pens at Birmingham, all
   of a sort. We would have every man in Grace as individual as he was in
   sin. We need the originality of saintly life as well as of sinnership.
   It were well if a Christian man would step out of the beaten track and
   carry out his individuality and be what God especially meant him to be.
   Brethren, there is a part of this world which can never get a blessing
   except through you. Christ has power over all flesh, and He has given
   His servants power over their little portions of that great mass.

   All the ministers that ever lived cannot bring to Christ those souls
   whom God has ordained that I shall be the means of turning to Christ.
   And neither I, nor my Brethren, preach as we may, can bring to Christ
   the man whom God has ordained to save through yonder obscure village
   preacher who is now standing on a log on the village green, or holding
   forth in a wooden shed in the backwoods of America. There is a place
   for every man--and the way for every man to find that out is to be
   himself and nobody else. As he used to be himself when he was a sinner,
   so let him be himself now he has become a saint, and follow out, under
   God's guidance, the movements of his own individualities, the
   singularities of his own nature.

   Do not think about planing off your edges and getting rid of the points
   God has made in you distinct from other men. It will never do. You lose
   of Christianity the very beauty and excellence if you do this. Your
   fine critics would have Rowland Hill preach like Thomas
   Chalmers--Rowland Hill must never utter a witticism in the pulpit, yet
   he could not be Rowland Hill if he did not. He must, therefore, be
   transformed into someone else, for these superfine gentlemen will not
   allow that Rowland Hill as Rowland Hill can honor God. Wisdom will be
   of all her children. Whether you speak with the learning of Apollos, or
   with the eloquence of a Paul, or with the blunt homeliness of a Cephas,
   the Lord will get to Himself honor, if you speak sincerely.

   And it is not for Paul to mimic Cephas, nor for Cephas to copy Apollos.
   As we have turned, every one to his own way, and our peculiar sin has
   been laid on Christ, so let each Believer now, in his own way, under
   the direction of Christ, seek to serve his Lord and Master. My great
   practical lesson from it is this--you are always seeing new inventions
   in the world, men are evermore bringing out some new system or scheme.
   We tunnel the earth, we split the clouds, we speak by lightning, we
   ride on the wings of the wind. But in the Christian Church how few
   inventors we have!

   Robert Raikes invented the Sunday school. John Pounds invented Ragged
   schools--have we come to the end of gracious ingenuity? Oh, if we loved
   Christ better, every man would invent something--he would have a mode
   of action growing out of his own peculiar capacities. He would feel
   that God meant to meet a case by him that would never be met by anybody
   else. Men are all alive about this world, and all asleep about the
   world to come. I would urge you each to have a mission, to espouse a
   work, to obtain a calling. Ask God not to put you into the Sunday
   school as a matter of mere Providence, but as a matter of special
   ordination.

   And if you are ordained to be a Sunday school teacher, ask Him to put
   you into some particular class, not as by an accident, but as a special
   sphere for your special character and taste, and mode of thought, and
   manner of action. Follow, as God the Holy Spirit shall help you, the
   promptings of the Divine life that God has put within you. And as you
   served Satan with all your individuality, even so serve Him upon whom
   the Lord of old did lay your iniquity. The Lord bless you for Christ's
   sake.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Sine Qua Non

   (No. 926)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 17, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Jesus answered him, If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me."
   John 13:8.

   IN matchless condescension our Lord had girt Himself as a servant, and
   was washing the feet of the disciples. Peter, struck with such a
   spectacle, would not allow his Lord to act as a menial, and flatly
   refused to have his feet washed by his Master. But he changed his mind
   at once when he was told that a refusal to receive this act of kindness
   from his Lord would be a virtual rejection of all part in Him, "If I do
   not wash you, you have no part with Me." I do not think our Lord here
   was thinking so much of the literal washing, as of that which the
   outward ablution was meant to represent. This is clear when we remember
   that our Lord replied to Peter concerning this washing, "What I do you
   know not now. But you shall know hereafter."

   Now as to the literal washing, Peter knew all about it, and there was
   nothing to be explained except its inner meaning, and spiritual
   teaching. This it was that Peter did not then know, and was afterwards
   to learn. Our Lord, therefore, evidently referred not so much to the
   actual foot-washing, as to the spiritual washing, which is absolutely
   essential to all His people. Remember, too, that the mere cleansing of
   the feet did not involve union to Christ, for the feet of Judas were
   washed, and our Lord did not at all mean that Judas should imagine that
   he had any part with the Lord whom he was resolved to betray.

   The traitor was numbered among the disciples, and therefore he partook
   of the outward ordinance, but it did not convey to him any spiritual
   interest in Christ Jesus. Therefore we conclude that the foot-washing
   was only secondarily important. Yet we deny not that our Lord did mean
   so much about this mere outward washing, that had Peter obstinately
   refused to yield to it, he would have proved himself to have had no
   true loyalty of heart, and consequently no part in Christ.

   Any act of direct and intentional rebellion against Christ's authority,
   obstinately and knowingly continued in, would be a sure token that the
   person guilty of it was no true partaker with Christ. How shall I be
   His servant if I willfully reject any one of His commands? How can I
   consider myself to be truly a Christian while my will is rebellious,
   and refuses to submit to the express orders of my Lord? Let us consider
   this as professors, and practice instant obedience. Never let us
   obstinately refuse obedience to a command because it seems to us to be
   nonessential or trivial. We are not to be judges but servants. No
   motive can excuse disobedience.

   Let us ask for Divine Grace that as soon as ever we see a sin to be sin
   we may shun it, and as soon as we perceive a duty to be a duty we may
   at once practice it, and never be guilty of any willful rebellion,
   since that might prove us to be without Christ. However, I still
   believe that Christ's main teaching in my text referred not to the
   washing with water, but to the cleansing of our spiritual nature by His
   precious blood and by His Eternal Spirit. In this sense read again the
   words, "If I do not wash you, you have no, part with Me."

   I. First suffer me to occupy your thoughts a few minutes with THE GREAT
   OBJECT OF OUR DESIRE. Our great object is to have a part in Jesus
   Christ. I am addressing myself, for the most part, to those who
   regularly hear the Word, and who have a respect for the name of Jesus,
   and a longing to be saved with His salvation. I hope there is not one
   among us who would consider it a barren honor to have a part with
   Christ, nor one who would think it to be a small calamity to be
   deprived of his part with Jesus the Son of God.

   Brethren, you and I desire to have part in the merit of His
   righteousness. We have no righteousness of our own, but we desire that
   He should be the Lord our Righteousness, that in His righteousness
   arrayed we should not be found naked in the day of the great wedding
   feast, but with the wedding garment on may sit down to the marriage
   supper. We desire to have a part in His death. Jesus died that He might
   make atonement for guilt, and we desire a part in His atoning sacri-

   fice. We are guilty. Our heart yearns to be washed in the blood, to be
   cleansed by that expiation, and to stand before the Lord accepted in
   the Beloved.

   We hope that the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world will
   give us a part in His sin-removing power. We believe in His
   Resurrection, and our prayer is that we may have part in it--because He
   rose we also may rise, and may forever, both in body and in soul, enjoy
   eternal blessedness. Our faith has seen the Crucified One ascending to
   the skies, and we desire a part in His ascension, to share in the
   blessings which He received for rebellions men when He led captivity
   captive. Yes, and before long to tread that same starry way, and enter
   into the rest where He is, and behold the Glory which God has given to
   Him.

   We aspire to share in His intercession. Before the Father's Throne He
   presents His ever-accepted supplication, and we trust that He pleads
   for us that blessings numberless may descend upon us unworthy ones. We
   were wretched, indeed, if we had not a persuasion that we share a part
   in the pleadings of our great High Priest. We trust our name is
   engraved on one of the precious stones of His breastplate, and is so
   borne before God. Moreover, we know that Christ sits at the right hand
   of God as King, all things being delivered into His hands, and we
   desire to have a part with Him in His kingdom, to be partakers of the
   peace which His scepter brings--yes, and to be ourselves made kings to
   reign with Him.

   Moreover, we expect His second advent. In the same manner as He went up
   to Heaven, in that same manner will He descend, with the trump of the
   archangel and the voice of God, in His own proper Person actually and
   really, not in myth and phantom, but in very deed. As He is gone from
   us, so shall He come again, and then will He take to Himself all power,
   and reign from the river even unto the ends of the earth. We hope to
   participate in the glory of His appearing and kingdom.

   Whatever the Millennium may be, whatever the splendor of the latter
   day, our aspiration is that we may have a part with Christ in all these
   things. We would not shun His Cross, for we desire His crown. We would
   not desert Him in His humiliation, for we hope to attend Him in His
   triumph. We would cheerfully go forth without the camp and bear the
   reproach for His sake, for we hope to stand among the camp of the
   faithful ones when the crowns of immortality shall be distributed. Our
   soul's deepest desire is that we may have a part with Christ.

   My dear Brethren, I hope most of us here present know what it is to
   have a part in Christ, for we were elect in Him from before the
   foundation of the world. We have been make partakers of His Spirit, and
   have been brought into union with Him. We have submitted ourselves to
   His government. We are looking to Him for our salvation. We have a part
   with Him as members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones--a part
   with Him as branches in the vine, as stones in the temple. We are
   serving under His banner in the same holy war, and laborers in the same
   sacred service. We have a part with Him as His friends and as His
   chosen whom He has admitted into the most familiar communion with
   Himself.

   We are much deceived if this is not the case. But if it, indeed, is so,
   we feel that the blessed fact is altogether due to Divine Grace, and it
   could never have been so if we had not first been washed. If we have
   not as yet participated in the blessings which come to us through
   Christ, we know, this morning, for the text tells us, that we must be
   washed before we can have a part with Him. Brethren, we desire to be
   sons as He is a Son. We wish to be heirs as He is an Heir. We pant to
   be accepted as He is accepted. We aspire to be, before long, glorified
   as He is glorified. This is a blessing worthy of the utmost intensity
   of desire, and it is a blessing which we must obtain or we shall sink
   miserably down to everlasting de-struction--since to be without Christ
   is to be without hope.

   II. After these few words upon what it is to have a part with Jesus, I
   come to notice, in the second place, THE ESSENTIAL QUALIFICATION FOR
   OBTAINING AND ENJOYING A PART WITH CHRIST. It is essential that He

   should wash us. Observe then, that the qualification is not one of
   merit on our part, it is one of mercy on His part. If He had said,
   "Except you obtain a superior degree of holiness, you have no part in
   Me," we might have become dispirited, desponding, and even despairing.

   But the very chief of sinners may find comfort in such a word as this.
   Here is nothing of merit but all of mercy. Whatever is your sin, O
   Sinner, Christ can wash you! The only qualification for having a part
   in all Covenant blessings is that you as a sinner are washed by Jesus.
   There is no specification of something to be given on our part. It is
   something to be received. It is not demanded that we act as servants to
   Christ and wash His feet, but that He in tender condescension should be
   servant to us and wash our feet. If there were a matter of giving
   mentioned, O you poor and needy, you who are spiritually bankrupt,
   there might be reason for you to mourn! But since the essential, the
   great sine qua non is one of

   mercy alone, you may be comforted. You have but to come in all your
   filth and all your unworthiness and be washed, and this one thing shall
   give you part and lot in Christ.

   But what is meant by this washing, which is the essential qualification
   for a man to have part with Christ? I understand it to mean one thing,
   namely, purification through the Lord Jesus--which one thing, however,
   will be best understood if we describe it as four things.

   First, no man has any part in Christ who does not receive the first
   all-essential washing in the precious blood, by which all sin is once
   and forever put away. The moment a sinner believes in Jesus Christ, his
   iniquities are seen as laid on Christ the Substitute, and the Believer
   himself is free from sin. Though he may have been up to now black as an
   Ethiopian, yet is he washed in the fountain filled from the Redeemer's
   veins, and he stands before God without spot or wrinkle, or any such
   thing. There is such a blessed fact as the instantaneous reception of a
   perfect pardon through faith in Jesus Christ, and this happens the
   moment a sinner truly looks to the great atoning Sacrifice.

   If you rely on the Substitute, and the matchless expiation which He
   made for human guilt, your sins, which are many, are all forgiven you.
   If He does not wash you, you have no part in Him--but if His blood
   atones for you, He is yours. If you do not receive His perfect,
   unrivalled, Godlike blood-washing, you are no Christian. Whatever is
   your profession, whatever your supposed experience, whatever your
   reformation, whatever you may have attempted or accom-plished--if you
   have never come as a guilty one, and seen your sin laid upon the
   bleeding Son of God, you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond
   of iniquity--you have neither part nor lot in this matter. Without
   faith in the Atonement you can have no part in Christ.

   There follows a second cleansing, which is, in some respects, but a
   branch of the first, namely, daily pardon for sin through faith in
   Jesus. As day by day we fall into sin, we are taught to pray each day,
   "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against
   us." And there is provision made in Christ Jesus for this daily pardon,
   since besides being the Paschal Lamb, our Lord is the morning and
   evening Lamb for daily guilt. This is what Christ meant, especially
   when He washed the disciples' feet, for He told them that He did not
   wash their head and their hands, because they had been washed. And,
   therefore, as being clean, they needed not to wash anything but their
   feet.

   We who have once been pardoned have no need to be pardoned again in the
   sense in which we were at first. But we do have need in another sense,
   and in another respect, to seek a daily forgiveness of recurring sin.
   To use a simile which may, perhaps, explain what I mean--the priest of
   God, when first consecrated, was washed from head to foot, and so
   baptized into the service of the sanctuary. But later, each time he
   went to offer sacrifice, he washed his feet and his hands in the brazen
   laver. No need to give the complete immersion on each occasion--that
   had been given at first--and he was ceremonially purged from pollution,
   and made a priest unto God.

   But accidental defilement, incidental to everyday life, had to be
   cleansed away, not to make the man a priest, but to keep him in proper
   condition for the right discharge of his priestly office. Even so,
   every Believer is made a priest unto God, and does not need to be made
   a priest again, but to be daily cleansed from everything that might
   prevent him from the best discharge of his sacred duties. Permit me the
   use of another simile--here is a blackamoor, black from head to foot.
   But he is washed in a miraculous bath, and so made white, white as
   snow. The man will never want another washing to remove his natural
   blackness, that is gone forever.

   But, my Brethren, he may still need frequent washings, for as a white
   man he will constantly need the removal of stains incident to his being
   in this world. A sinner does not need, again, the first washing to be
   repeated, for that has put him into a new position towards God--but he
   needs a washing as a justified man to maintain his conscience in peace,
   and his heart pure for service. The leper, once purged under the Law,
   was clean and might go into the congregation of the Lord's House. Yet
   as a clean man and as admitted into the congregation, he had the
   ordinary need to wash which was incidental to every Israelite.

   Or to put it yet in another form--I, a criminal, am forgiven. All my
   crimes against the great Judge of all the earth are blotted out. I need
   no second acquittal. The acquittal which was given me when I first
   believed in Christ included all my sins, past, present, and to come. As
   before the bar of God I am clean, and need no further washing--but now
   being made a child, I stand not at His bar, but at His table, and
   alas--I commit sins as a child! Sins which will not condemn me, for I
   am not under the Law but under Grace, but sins which require me as a
   child to go to my Father, and say to Him

   each day, "My Father in Heaven, forgive me my daily trespasses, as I
   forgive them that trespass against me." This it is which you must
   receive every day, and if you do not receive it, you have no part in
   Christ.

   If you think you do not sin at all, and have not, therefore, any need
   of washing, you have no part in Christ. If you fancy that you do not
   require this daily washing of the feet, take it for granted that you
   are too proud to understand yourself and that you have not been humbled
   as you ought to be. All those who are in Christ feel that they need
   each day that He should come and wash their feet. Though they are clean
   every whit, yet still they need their feet to be washed by

   Him.

   A third thing included in this feet-washing, I believe, is the
   continual sanctification which faith in Jesus Christ carries on within
   us by the power of the Holy Spirit. If a man professes to be a
   Christian and is not in his walk and conversation holier than other
   men, that man's profession is vain. There are some who seem to think
   that we are to come to Christ as sinners, and then after having
   believed in Him are to live as we did before.

   My Brethren, it is not so. Christ saves His people from their sins.
   When you hear the complaints of God's servants concerning their
   temptations and their indwelling sins, you are not to conclude that sin
   has dominion over them, or that they have not overcome sin, or that
   they are not the men they once were. No, my Brethren, I believe the
   holier a man becomes, the more he mourns over the unholiness which
   remains in him. But he is in very truth a far better man--he is a
   spiritual and holy man. If Jesus washes you not, so that you become
   godly and upright, you may depend upon it, you have no part in Him.

   If He does not wash that tongue, and cleanse away those angry, or idle,
   or filthy words. If He does not wash those hands, and render them
   impossible to perform a dishonest or unchaste act. If He does not wash
   your feet and render it impossible they should be able to carry you to
   the haunts of vice and criminal amusement--you have no part in Him. It
   is all worthless for unconverted persons to be baptized and come to His
   Table, for if He has not sanctified you in some measure He has not
   justified you.

   If you are not a changed man, neither are you a saved man. And if you
   do not aspire after holiness, neither need you hope that you shall have
   a part in the Heaven of the blessed. "If I wash you not, you have no
   part with Me." It includes then, you see, the first pardon, the
   successive pardons of each day, and the sanctifying work by which He
   cleanses us with the washing of water by the Word.

   Once more, I think, in this foot-washing, our Savior meant to get forth
   the daily communion which the true Christian has with Christ. It was a
   very singular thing for a disciple to be sitting there and for the
   Master to be washing his feet. It was an astounding fact, a wonder, a
   miracle, a Divine Grace which Peter could hardly think possible. But
   every Christian's life must be a series of similar wonders. Each day he
   will have to obtain from his Lord some things for which it really seems
   as if he ought not to have dared to ask. They appear too good and too
   great for him to receive.

   I know, and you know what it is to go to the Lord Jesus Christ about
   little things, about household cares, about daily trials, about the
   troubles of our spirit, the distractions of our mind. It is a mark of a
   child to be able to do so. It is, in fact, a continuance of the
   foot-washing which our Lord gave to Peter. Washing feet is not a great
   or essential act. A man may live, though his feet after a journey may
   not be cooled by the refreshing stream from the pitcher. It is a small
   act, a grateful and refreshing act, and just such things Jesus Christ
   must continue to do for you and for me, if we are His people. We shall,
   in times of need, find Jesus in our chamber still clothed with the
   towel and bearing the basin--ready still to wait on us and administer
   loving refreshments.

   And we shall often wonder, "What? Did He really help me in such a thing
   as that, and did I dare to take such a case as that to Him?" Unbelief
   will say, "I dare not do that again. Lord, You shall never wash my
   feet. I cannot, I dare not make a servant of You for such common things
   as these. I will leave the great matters of salvation with You, but I
   will not come to You each day for ordinary things." But, Beloved,
   unless we do so--unless we live this life of reception of great Grace
   for little occasions. Unless we live receiving wonders of loving
   kindness which we feel we have no right to receive--marvels of mercy
   surpassing all expectation. Unless, I say, our life is made up of
   tender mercies of which we are utterly unworthy--Jesus is not washing
   our feet--and we have no part with Him.

   Put these four things together, and I think you have caught the thought
   of our Master. It is very blessed to think that the very first portion
   of the least Believer is to be washed, and this is the most essential
   thing of all. Though we may not as yet wear those brighter Graces which
   are the ornaments of the Christian life, and cannot as yet rejoice that
   we are

   full-grown men in Christ--yet if we are only little babes whose chief
   portion is to be washed, we have sure evidence of a part with Jesus.

   We may be too little to do much service. We may be too weak to achieve
   great victories. But if our Lord has but taken us to Himself, and
   washed us, we have a part with Him. The most essential thing, you see,
   is that which the feeblest and the newest born of all the heavenly
   family possesses. Washing is for every trembling sinner who trusts in
   Christ--and it is as good proof of a part in Christ as the highest
   degree of Grace.

   III. But I must pass on now to notice, in the third place, WHY THIS
   WASHING IS SO ESSENTIAL. And I answer,

   first, unless Christ washes us we have no part in Him because the
   claims of our Lord require it. Suppose a man shall say, "I have no need
   of washing." Brethren, it is clear that he has no part in Christ,
   because Christ came on purpose to cleanse His people from their sins.
   He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. The whole
   have no need of a physician--only they that are sick.

   If a man does not take Jesus to be his Savior, he may say what he likes
   about Him, but he does not even know the meaning of His name. May not a
   very sincere person admire Christ's Character, and talk well of Him?
   Yes, and we shall be glad that he is able to go so far in the right
   way. But let not such a man deceive himself with the hope that he will
   be a partaker of any of the blessings which Christ brings unless he
   acknowledges that for which Christ is the Christ or the anointed
   One--namely, to bring the Gospel of salvation to the unworthy.

   One of old said, "Aut Caesar aut nullus"--he would be either Caesar or
   nobody. And so Jesus Christ will be either acknowledged the anointed
   Savior, or He will be nothing to you. If you will not take Him to be an
   Expiation for your sins, and the true Refiner of your life, you refuse
   Him altogether. Mere admiration of the physician gives no part in his
   healing power. The loudest praises of light give not vision to blind
   men. Jesus is either the Savior or nothing. For this He lived. For this
   He died. Alas, for those who will not receive Him in this Character! In
   the long run you shall always find that, despite their soft speeches,
   they have not received the true Christ of God.

   He who rejects Jesus as an atoning Sacrifice is sure to doubt His
   Godhead, and so to reject His grander nature. The deniers of the
   Atonement, who are supposed to be admirers of the example of Christ,
   generally turn out to be the greatest enemies to vital Christianity.
   There are no more real enemies of Christ than those who deny the
   doctrine of the Cross. If they do not accept Christ to wash them, they
   soon prove that they have no part in Him. Unless men need cleansing
   from sin, and unless His blood, alone, can cleanse them, Our Lord came
   on a frivolous errand--He descended to this world to perform an
   unnecessary work--and He was foolish enough to shed His blood with the
   most absurd of motives.

   If men need to be washed, then He came in Divine wisdom and
   philanthropy, and He lived and He died with an object worthy of His
   Divine mind--and His life was no mistake. But if men do not need
   cleansing, Christ's death was a mistake, and His whole life, I dare to
   say it, was a piece of base imposture--for He was evermore professing
   Himself to be the Savior of sinners, and the Pardoner of sin. He spoke
   of giving rest to the weary, and of saving the lost--if He could not
   save, or if men did not require saving--the life of Christ was a
   mistake, and His mission an imposition. Jesus Christ is nothing, His
   very name is ridiculous--if there are none to save, and if He is not a
   Savior anointed.

   You have no part in Christ, then, however much you applaud Him, unless
   you are washed by Him. You have rejected that for which He lived, and
   for which He died--you have despised that which He considers to be His
   noble lifework, and for the joy of which He gave Himself up to death,
   if you refuse to be washed by Him. Someone, perhaps, may say, "I
   believe I need washing, but I am confident I can purify myself. I have
   bad habits, and undesirable infirmities, but I can master the habits
   and can conquer the infirmity. I believe a man ought to be holy and
   become like God, and by diligent perseverance I conceive that I can do
   it."

   Do it, then, Sir. I challenge you to do it, but you certainly have no
   part in Christ. Whatever you may think of Christ, you can have no part
   in Him, for He comes on purpose to save His people from their sins. His
   very name is Jesus the Savior--for that same reason was He born--and if
   you can do it yourself, you are a rival to Him--you are an Antichrist.
   You will owe Him nothing, and you shall have no part in Him. Ah, see
   then, and mark it well--unless we are washed, we ignore the claims of
   Christ--we cast a slur upon the great labor of His life, and we rob Him
   of His main Glory.

   Furthermore, the Lord Jesus Christ is Himself so infinitely pure, so
   altogether holy, both as God and Man, that when we come to Him we must
   first be cleansed by Him before He can enter into fellowship with us.
   There is a fellowship with us as sinners which He graciously adopts,
   for He receives sinners and eats with them. But into fellowship with
   His

   deep thoughts, His blessed purposes, and His Divine Nature, He brings
   no man till first He has washed Him in His blood. If you refuse Him,
   then, as the Refiner who shall purify the sons of Levi, and take away
   their dross and sin, and then present them to Himself as much fine
   gold, you have refused all part in Christ.

   Again, the blessings which are in Christ are so spiritual that till we
   are cleansed we cannot enjoy them. Who can see God but those who are
   first made pure in heart? Who can have peace with God but those who are
   justified by faith? The blessings of the Covenant are not like oil and
   wine, which the ungodly man can rejoice in--neither are they like
   silver and gold, which the carnal heart can laugh over. But they are
   blessings, pure and refined, which the natural man knows not--which
   only the man renewed by the Spirit of God can ever prize--for to others
   they are far above and out of sight. You must be born again. You must
   be washed. You must be renewed in the spirit of your minds or else
   Heaven, itself, would not be a Heaven to you--and the things of the
   kingdom of God you could not know--its joys you could not enter into.
   Your lack of washing disqualifies you.

   Moreover, man's nature is such that if he did but know it, it is
   impossible for him to have part with Christ without washing. Peter did
   not see on his feet what Christ could see there. I mean not on the
   flesh of his feet, but on what they represent, namely, his daily life.
   Christ could see in Peter blots and blurs, and spots and defilement
   which made Him indeed say, "Alas, My poor Follower, you can have no
   part with Me unless I wash you. Poor Peter, if you did know yourself,
   you would see how impossible it is for Me to give you a portion with Me
   till first I have cleansed you." So, Brethren, if we had a sight of
   ourselves, a true sight in God's own light--instead of starting back
   from Christ the Purifier, we would cry to Him incessantly, "Wash me, O
   Lord, purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean--wash me, and I shall
   be whiter than snow."

   For all these reasons, then, the washing by our Master becomes a
   necessity. You cannot have a part in Christ unless you are washed by
   Him.

   IV. Just for a moment or two I shall ask you to think of some THINGS
   WHICH HAVE BEEN PUT FORWARD AS

   SUBSTITUTES for being washed by Jesus Christ.

   Peter had such a love for his Master, and such an admiration for Him
   that he very humbly said, "Do You wash my feet?" Now would not Peter's
   humble reverential estimation of Christ stand him in good place? Might
   he not be accepted even though his feet were not washed? Ah, no! "If I
   wash you not, you have no part in Me." If any of you feel your
   un-worthiness, and mourn it, and are kept back from Christ by the
   thought that you are not fit to be saved--will this humility, this
   supposed humility--save you? My Hearer, the answer is NO. Unless you
   have faith in Christ, and He washes you, you have no part in Him.

   No repentance, no remorse, no chastenings of your spirit, no humblings
   of your soul--if they exist apart from a living faith in Him--can give
   you any part in Him. O that you would give up this ruinous humility and
   trust in Jesus to cleanse you! For unless you do, though you humble
   yourself from morning to morning, and water the earth with your tears,
   and make your bed to swim with them--yet shall you have no part in
   Christ. Peter had performed distinguished service for his Master. He
   had gone with the other Apostles and preached the Gospel, and cast out
   devils. And he was one of those who returned and said, "Lord, even the
   devils are subject to us"--would not this do? Would not these
   achievements prove that Peter had part in Christ?

   He preached so boldly, he faced the crowd so nobly--would not that
   suffice? No, my dear Hearers. Though any of us should possess tongues
   of men and of angels, and give our bodies to be burned--yet if Christ
   washes us not, we have no part in Him. We must not hope that the noble
   service can stand in the place of the washing by the expiatory
   Atonement of Christ.

   But Peter had enjoyed very remarkable views of Christ's Glory. He was
   one of the three who went up the Mount of Transfiguration, and there
   saw the Lord in splendor. And at other times with the other two
   favorites of the Master, he had been admitted to sights denied to
   common eyes--would not all this prove his part in Jesus? I sometimes
   hear men and women boasting out of measure of the "coming Glory." And I
   know they give their chief attention to the prophecies of that Glory. I
   would not deny them all that they are likely to get from such studies.

   But I would remind them that it is not as glorified as the fact that
   Jesus puts away sin. He atoned for it as Christ Crucified, and as such
   He is our hope. Though a man bathe day after day in the very light of
   the Millennium, and though he understand all mysteries--yet if Jesus
   washes him not, if he has not justification through the blood, and
   holiness through

   the work of the Spirit--it profits him nothing. Visions of Glory,
   however transporting they may be, give you no part in

   Him.

   But Peter had walked on water once when his Master bade him come to
   Him! Though he did, at last, begin to sink, yet for awhile he trod the
   waves, and found the water marble beneath his feet. Did not that prove
   him to possess a part in Christ? No, my Brethren, not if Christ washed
   him not. If you had faith to remove mountains, yet if you had not this
   blood-washing, this daily washing, you would have no part in Christ.
   But this man Peter had received deep instruction! Did not his Master
   say, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood have not
   revealed it unto you"? Yes, but I add that though you possessed all
   knowledge, and could interpret all mysteries, yet if Jesus washes you
   not, you have no part in Him.

   It is not the power to occupy the pulpit. It is not the power to cast
   out a devil. It is not the power to work a miracle. It is not the
   power, even, to shake Heaven or earth that can prove you to have a part
   in Christ--it is the simply going down humbly to the fountain filled
   with blood and being washed there, which is the indispensable
   qualification--and nothing else can stand in the place of this. Peter,
   no doubt, was full of zealous enthusiasm. He could say, "Though all
   should deny You, yet will not I. I will go with You to prison and to
   death." But the greatest imaginable zeal does not prove a man to have a
   part in Christ if he is not truly washed.

   I do implore you, my dear Hearers, to do what I anxiously wish to do
   myself, namely, to make sure that you have been cleansed in the blood
   of Jesus. It is one thing to know about that blood. It is another thing
   to have it applied to the conscience. It is one thing to know you ought
   daily to be washed. It is quite another thing to get that daily
   washing. It is one thing to believe, "I ought to be holy." It is
   another thing to have the Holy Spirit dwelling in me to make me holy.
   It is one thing to see the faults of others--but quite another thing to
   confess my own and to be cleansed from them by the Savior.

   Search yourselves, I pray you. You may have but little time to do it
   in--therefore be on the alert, and examine yourself! For don't you hear
   the sentence, full of love and full of pity, and yet as stern as the
   thunderclaps which pealed from Sinai's Smoking summit--"If I wash you
   not, you have no part in Me"? If He does not justify you. If He does
   not daily forgive you. If He does not daily sanctify you. If He does
   not daily perform condescending deeds of tenderness and kindness
   towards you, you have no part in Him.

   V. So let us close with LESSONS OF WISDOM upon which I linger but a
   minute or two. The lesson of wisdom which comes first is this--let no
   supposed humility keep any of you from believing in Jesus Christ. The
   way of Grace is miracle from beginning to end. Stagger not, therefore,
   to begin with accepting a miracle of Grace. You say, "I cannot believe
   that Christ could forgive such a Hell-deserving sinner as I am. I have
   not any claims on Him. I have been such a wretch. I cannot think that
   simply on my trusting Him, He, out of His abundant mercy, will forgive
   my sins."

   My dear Friend, if you cannot believe that to begin with--it is but the
   commencement miracle--there are still greater things than these! "But I
   am so unworthy!" I know you are, it is all true--you are much more
   unworthy than you have any idea of. You do not deserve to live. You do
   not deserve to be out of Hell. But since God is gracious, and He bids
   you trust Christ and you shall live, do not be damned because you are
   too proudly humble to be saved! You tell me I speak sarcastically. I
   tell you, rather, I speak the Truth of God. It is Satan who deceives
   you by making you believe that there is any humility in doubting the
   mercy of God in Christ Jesus!

   What if you are the worst sinner out of damnation? If God tells you He
   will save you upon your believing and being baptized, why, Man, believe
   and be baptized and be saved! And may God the Holy Spirit lead you to
   do that now. What have you to do with saying it is too good a thing? If
   God chooses to give it, who are you to say it is too good? You must be
   washed by Christ or else perish! O do not stand back because it seems
   too good for you to receive! You must be washed, I say, or perish! Take
   the good that God provides you and be grateful for it.

   What if God Himself came down from Heaven and put on human flesh and
   suffered and died that you might not suffer and die? I grant you it is
   a miracle that makes the very seraphim astonished and causes the whole
   universe to tremble with amazement. But why do you draw back from it
   and say, "Because it is so great I will not receive it"? Do you refuse
   the air because a bounteous God has made it so abundant? Do you refuse
   to drink of the river because it is so deep and broad? Will you refuse
   God's mercy because that mercy is so illimitable, so vast, so Divine? O
   do not! I say again, damn not yourself under pretense of humility--but
   come as you are, and accept the mercy which is freely presented to you
   in

   Christ Jesus, in the Gospel which He has bid us preach. Remember, "He
   that believes and is baptized, shall be saved. He that believes not,
   shall be damned."

   A further lesson of wisdom is this--as you must not let a supposed
   humility keep you back, so let no other kind of feeling keep you from
   Christ. The feeling may seem to be very right and very proper, but if
   it prevents your being saved, it is a bad feeling. I know your human
   nature may excuse it and say, "Why, this is commendable for a man to
   feel his sin so great! Is it not even praiseworthy?" I answer, nothing
   is commendable which makes a man think that God cannot forgive him.
   Feel your sin to be as great as you will, but do not, therefore,
   slander God as though He were unwilling to forgive you.

   Your feeling may look pretty in the darkness of your ignorance, but in
   the brightness of the eternal light, any feeling that keeps you away
   from the Cross and away from your Father God is a damnable feeling, and
   therefore away with it! Believe at once! I charge you to believe in the
   name of Jesus of Nazareth! I, His servant charge you in His
   name--believe Him! As He spoke to the winds and they were hushed, and
   to the waves and they were stilled, so in His name I speak to you all!
   I say trust Him and you shall find peace for your spirit and joy for
   your soul, both now and forever.

   The last word shall be this--remember, my dear Friends, what you are if
   you remain unwashed. And remember what you will be if you are washed.
   If you remain unwashed you have no part in Him. The past unforgiven,
   the present unchanged, the future unsanctified. There remains for you,
   when the dread summons comes that shall separate your soul from your
   body, nothing that can comfort, nothing that can afford a ray of hope.
   Convicted before the bar of God of ten thousand offenses against His
   righteous Law, convicted of mad, insane rebellion against God in having
   refused the Gospel of His dear Son, you must be driven from His
   Presence. And I warn you that within the cover of His Book there is not
   so much as a single jot or tittle that breathes anything like
   consolation to a spirit that has once been condemned of God after
   death.

   Men have tried to contort this Bible and make it say something that
   might encourage a soul to reject Christ. But there is here nothing but
   a fearful looking for ofjudgment and of fiery indignation which shall
   devour the unbeliever. It is now or never with you! I beseech you--look
   to Jesus Christ and live! To be washed! How simple! Nothing is asked of
   you but to take what Christ has made ready for you. To be washed! How
   necessary! To be washed now! How easy! O cast not away the promise of
   God through unbelief, but accept the washing, lest you cast yourself
   into eternal condemnation!

   If you believe in Jesus now, you shall be cleansed, your life shall
   become new. The preaching of morality helps but little. Men have been
   preached at with morality till they have become drunkards and swearers.
   Vice laughs at the preaching of morality. But the preaching of Christ
   Crucified and the Gospel of Substitution is efficacious--as many here
   are testifying by their renewed lives and changed behavior.

   Trust Christ, then, and as your present life will be changed, your
   future life will be unboundedly blessed. When your turn shall come to
   depart out of the world unto the Father, you shall be with Jesus where
   He is--and you shall behold His Glory. Oh, then, be washed and have
   part in all the splendor that is to be revealed! Be washed now, and His
   shall be the glory. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Martha And Mary

   (No. 927)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 24, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Now it came to pass, as they went, that He entered into a certain
   village: and a certain woman named Martha received Him into her house.
   And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus 'feet, and
   heard His Word. But Martha was cumbered aboutmuch serving, and came to
   Him, and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has leftme to serve
   alone? Bid her therefore that she help me. And Jesus answered and said
   unto her, 'Martha, Martha, you are careful and troubled about many
   things: but one thing is needful: and Mary has chosen that good part,
   which shall not be taken away from her." Luke 10:38-42.

   IT is not an easy thing to maintain the balance of our spiritual life.
   No man can be spiritually healthy who does not meditate and commune. No
   man, on the other hand, is as he should be unless he is active and
   diligent in holy service. David sweetly sang, "He makes me to lie down
   in green pastures." There was the contemplative. "He leads me beside
   the still waters." There was the active and progressive. The difficulty
   is to maintain the two--and to keep each in its relative proportion to
   the other. We must not be so active as to neglect communion, nor so
   contemplative as to become unpractical.

   In the chapter from which our text is taken we have several lessons on
   this subject. The seventy disciples returned from their preaching tour
   flushed with the joy of success. And our Savior, to refine that joy and
   prevent its degenerating into pride, bids them rather rejoice that
   their names were written in Heaven. He conducted their contemplations
   to the glorious doctrine of election, that grateful thoughts might
   sober them after successful work. He bids them consider themselves as
   debtors to Divine Grace, which reveals unto babes the mysteries of
   God--for He would not allow their new position as workers to make them
   forget that they were the chosen of God--and therefore debtors.

   Our wise Master next returns to the subject of service, and instructs
   them by the memorable parable of the good Samaritan and the wounded
   man. And then as if they might vainly imagine philanthropy, as it is
   the service of Christ, to be the only service of Christ, and to be the
   only thing worth living for, He brings in the two sisters of Bethany.
   The Holy Spirit meant thereby to teach us that while we ought to abound
   in service, and to do good abundantly to our fellow men, yet we must
   not fail in worship, in spiritual reverence, in meek discipleship, and
   quiet contemplation. While we are practical, like the
   seventy--practical like the Samaritan--practical like Martha, we are,
   also, like the Savior, to rejoice in spirit, and say, "Father, I thank
   You," and we are also like Mary, to sit down in quietude and nourish
   our souls with Divine Truth.

   This short narrative, I suppose, might be paraphrased something after
   this fashion. Martha and Mary were two most excellent sisters, both
   converted, both lovers of Jesus, both loved by Jesus, for we are
   expressly told that He loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus. They were
   both women of a choice spirit--our savior's selection of their house as
   a frequent resort proved that they were an unusually gracious family.
   They are persons representative of different forms of excellence, and I
   think it altogether wrong to treat Martha as some have done, as if she
   had no love for good things, and was nothing better than a mere
   worldling. It was not so.

   Martha was a most estimable and earnest woman, a true Believer, and an
   ardent follower of Jesus whose joy it was to entertain Jesus at the
   house of which she was the mistress. When our Lord made His appearance
   on this occasion at Bethany, the first thought of Martha was, "Here is
   our most noble guest, we must prepare for Him a sumptuous
   entertainment." Perhaps she marked our Savior's weariness, or saw some
   traces of that exhaustion which made Him look so much older than He
   was. And she, therefore, set to work with the utmost diligence to
   prepare a feast for Him.

   She was careful about many things, and as she went on with her
   preparations, fresh matters occurred to ruffle her mind, and she became
   worried. And, being somewhat vexed that her sister took matters so
   coolly, she begged the Master

   to upbraid her. Now Mary had looked upon the occasion from another
   point of view. As soon as she saw Jesus come into the house she
   thought, "What a privilege have I now to listen eagerly to such a
   Teacher, and to treasure up His precious words! He is the Son of God, I
   will worship, I will adore, and every word He utters shall be stored in
   my memory."

   She forgot the needs both of the Master and His followers, for her
   faith saw the inner Glory which dwelt within Him. She was so
   overpowered with reverence, and so wrapt in devout wonder, that she
   became oblivious of all outward things. She had no faults to find with
   Martha for being so busy. She did not even think of Martha--she was
   altogether taken up with her Lord and with those gracious words which
   He was speaking. She had no will, either, to censure or to praise or to
   think even of herself. Everything was gone from her but her Lord and
   the word which He was uttering.

   See, then, that Martha was serving Christ, but so was Mary. Martha
   meant to honor Christ, so did Mary. They both agreed in their design,
   but they differed in their way of carrying it out. And while Martha's
   service is not censured (only her being cumbered comes under the
   censure), yet Mary is expressly commended, as having chosen the good
   part. And therefore we do Martha no injustice if we show wherein she
   came short, and wherein Mary exceeded.

   Our first observation will be this--the Martha spirit is very prevalent
   in the Church of God just now. In the second place, the Martha spirit
   very much injures true service. In the third place, the Mary spirit is
   the source of the noble form of consecration.

   I. THE MARTHA SPIRIT IS VERY PREVALENT IN THE CHURCH at this
   period--prevalent in some quarters to a mischievous degree--and among
   us all to a perilous extent. What do we intend by saying that the
   Martha spirit is prevalent just now? We mean, first, that there is a
   considerable tendency among Christian people, in serving Christ, to aim
   at making a fair show in the flesh. Martha wanted to give our Lord
   right worthy entertainment which should be a credit to her house and to
   her family--and herein she is commendable far above those careless ones
   who think anything good enough for Christ.

   So also, among professing Christians, there is at this present time a
   desire to give to the cause of Christ buildings notable for their
   architecture and beauty. We must have no more barns. Our meeting houses
   must exhibit our improving taste. If possible, our chapels must be
   correctly Gothic or sternly classical in all their details, both
   without and within. As to the service, we must cultivate the musical
   and the tasteful. We are exhorted not to be barely decent, but to aim
   at the sublime and beautiful. Our public worship, it is thought, should
   be impressive if not imposing. Care should be taken that the music
   should be chaste, the singing conformed to the best rules of the arts,
   and the preaching eloquent and attractive.

   So everything in connection with Christian labor should be made to
   appear generous and noble. By all means the subscription lists must be
   kept current. Each denomination must excel the other in the amount of
   its annual funds-- surely everything done for Christ ought to be done
   in the best possible style. Now in all this there is much that is good,
   much that is really intended to honor the Lord, so we see no room to
   censure--but yet we will show you a more excellent way. These things
   you may do, but there are higher things which you must do, or suffer
   loss.

   Brethren, there is something better to be studied than the outward, for
   though this may be aimed at with a single eye to God's Glory--and we
   judge no man--yet we fear the tendency is to imagine that mere
   externals are precious in the Master's sight. I know He counts it a
   very small matter whether your House of Prayer is a cathedral or a
   barn. To the Savior it is small concern whether you have organs or
   whether you have none--whether you sing after the choicest rules of
   psalmody or not. He looks at your hearts, and if these ascend to Him.
   He accepts the praise. As for those thousands of pounds annually
   contributed, He estimates them not by the weights of the merchant, but
   after the balances of the sanctuary.

   Your love expressed in your gifts He values, but what are the mere
   silver and gold to Him? Funds, and encouraging accounts, and
   well-arranged machineries are well if they exist as the outgrowth of
   fervent love--but if they are the end-all, and the be-all--you miss the
   mark. Jesus would be better pleased with a grain of love than a heap of
   ostentatious service. The Martha spirit shows itself in the censuring
   of those persons who are careful about Christ's Word, who stand up for
   the doctrines of the Gospel, who desire to maintain the Ordinances as
   they were delivered unto them, and who are scrupulous and thoughtful,
   and careful concerning the Truth as it is in Jesus.

   In newspapers, on platforms, and in common talk, you frequently hear
   earnest disciples of Jesus and consistent Believers in His doctrines
   snubbed and denounced as unpractical. Theological questions are scouted
   as mere impertinences. Go in for Ragged schools, certainly. Reclaim the
   Arabs of the street, by all manner of means. Pass a compulsory educa-

   tion bill, certainly. Soup kitchens, free dinners--all excellent. We
   can all join in these. But never mention creeds and doctrines. Why,
   Man, you cannot be aware of the enlightenment of our times! What
   importance can now be attached to mere biblical dogmas and ordinances?
   Why contend as to whether Baptism shall be performed upon a babe or
   upon a Believer, whether it shall be by sprinkling or by immersion?
   What matters the Law of Christ in such a case?

   These things would do for the schoolmen of the Dark Ages to fight
   about, but what can be the importance of such trifles in this highly
   enlightened nineteenth century? Yes, that is the exaggeration of
   Martha. Mary, treasuring up every word of Christ, Mary counting each
   syllable a pearl, is reckoned to be unpractical, if not altogether
   idle. That spirit, I fear, is growing in these times, and needs to be
   checked. After all, there is Truth and there is error, and charitable
   talk cannot alter the fact. To know and to love the Gospel is no mean
   thing. Obedience to Jesus, and anxiety to learn His will so as to
   please Him in all things are not secondary matters.

   Contemplation, worship, and growth in Grace are not unimportant. I
   trust we shall not give way to the spirit which despises our Lord's
   teaching, for if we do--in prizing the fruit and despising the root--we
   shall lose the fruit and the root, too. In forgetting the great
   well-spring of holy activity, namely, personal piety, we shall miss the
   streams, also. From the sincerity of faith and the fervor of love
   practical Christianity must arise. And if the food that faith and love
   feed upon is withdrawn. If sitting at the feet of Jesus is regarded as
   of secondary consequence, then both strength and will to serve the Lord
   will decline.

   I dread much the spirit which would tamper with the Truth of God for
   the sake of united action, or for any object under Heaven--the
   latitudinarian spirit, which sneers at creeds and dogmas. Truth is no
   trifle. Our fathers did not think so, when, at the stake they gave
   themselves to death, or on the brown heather of Scotland fell beneath
   the swords of Claverhouse's dragoons for truths which nowadays men
   count unimportant, but which, being truths, were to them so vital that
   they would sooner die than suffer them to be dishonored. O for the same
   uncompromising love of the Truth! Would to God we could be both active
   and studious, and both learn with Mary and work with Martha!

   The Martha spirit crops up in our reckoning so many things necessary.
   Martha believed that to entertain Christ there must be many things
   prepared. As to leaving one of those things out--it could not be. Our
   Lord would have been satisfied enough with the simplest fare--a piece
   of fish or of a honeycomb would well have contented Him. But no,
   according to Martha's judgment there must be this, and there must be
   that. So is it with many good people now. They have their ideas of
   excellence, and if these cannot be realized they despair of doing
   anything acceptable for Christ.

   I believe an educated ministry to be desirable, but none the less do I
   deplore the spirit which considers it to be essential. In the presence
   of the fishermen of Galilee we dare not subscribe to the necessity
   which with some is beyond doubt. You must not, according to the talk of
   some, allow these earnest young people to set about preaching, and your
   converted coal miners and fiddlers should be stopped at once. The Holy
   Spirit has in all ages worked by men of His own choosing. But some
   Churches today would not let Him if they could help it. Their pulpits
   are closed against the most holy and useful preachers if they have not
   those many things with which the Church nowadays cumbers her ministers
   and herself.

   Then, my Brethren, to carry on a good work it is thought needful to
   have a Society and large funds. I also approve of the Society and the
   funds. I only regret that they should be so viewed as prime necessaries
   that few will stir without them. The idea of sending out a missionary
   with a few pounds in his hands as in the day's of Carey, is set down in
   many quarters as absurd. How can you save souls without a committee?
   How can London be evangelized till you have raised at least a million
   of money? Can you hope to see men converted without an annual meeting
   in Exeter Hall? You must have a secretary--there is no moving an inch
   till he is elected.

   And know you not that without a committee you can do nothing? All these
   and a thousand things, which time fails me to mention, are now deemed
   to be necessary for the service of Jesus. It is such that a
   true-hearted soul who could do much for his Lord scarcely dares to move
   till he has put on Paul's armor of human patronage. O for Apostolic
   simplicity, going everywhere preaching the Word, and consecrating the
   labor of every Believer to soul-winning. To bring us back to first
   principles, "one thing is needful," and if by sitting at Jesus' feet we
   can find that one thing, it will stand us in better place than all the
   thousand things which custom now demands.

   To catch the Spirit of Christ, to be filled with Himself--this will
   equip us for godly labor as nothing else can. May all Christians yet
   come to put this one thing first and foremost, and count the power of
   deep piety to be the one essential

   qualification for holy work. The censurable quality in the Martha
   spirit appears in the satisfaction which many feel with more activity.
   To have done so much preaching, or so much Sunday school teaching. To
   have distributed so many tracts, to have made so many calls by our
   missionaries--all this seems to be looked at as end rather than means.
   If there is so much effort put forth, so much work is done--is it not
   enough?

   Our reply is, it is not enough. It is nothing without the Divine
   blessing. Brethren, where mere work is prized, and the inner life
   forgotten, prayer comes to be at a discount. The committee is attended,
   but the Prayer Meeting forsaken. The gathering together for
   supplication is counted little compared with the collecting of
   subscriptions. The opening prayer at public meetings is regarded as a
   very proper thing. But there are those who regard it as a mere
   formality, which might be very well laid aside, and, therefore,
   invariably come in after prayer is over. It will be an evil day for us
   when we trust in the willing and the running, and practically attempt
   to do without the Holy Spirit.

   This lofty estimate of mere activity for its own sake throws the
   acceptance of our work into the shade. The Martha spirit says, if the
   work is done, is not that all? The Mary spirit asks whether Jesus is
   well-pleased or not. All must be done in His name and by His Spirit, or
   nothing is done. Restless service, which sits not at His feet, is but
   the clattering of a mill which turns without, grinding corn. It is but
   an elaborate method of doing nothing. I do not want less activity--how
   earnestly do I press you to it almost every Sunday. But I do pray that
   we may feel that all our strength lies in God and that we can only be
   strong as we are accepted of Christ. And we can only be accepted in
   Christ as we wait upon Him in prayer, trust Him, and live upon Him.

   You may compass sea and land to make your proselytes, but if you have
   not the Spirit of Christ you are none of His. You may rise up early and
   sit up late, and eat the bread of sorrows, but unless you trust in the
   Lord your God, you shall not prosper. The joy of the Lord is your
   strength. They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.
   Without Christ you can do nothing. Has He not told you, "He that abides
   in Me, and I in Him, the same brings forth much fruit"? Was it not
   written of old, "I am like a green fir tree: from Me is your fruit
   found"?

   Once more, Martha's spirit is predominant in the Church of God to a
   considerable extent, now, in the evident respect which is paid to the
   manifest--and the small regard which is given to the secret. All
   regenerated persons ought to be workers for God and with God--but let
   the working never swamp the believing--never let the servant be more
   prominent than the Son! Never, because you conduct a class, or are
   chief man at a village station, forget that you are a sinner saved by
   Grace and have need, still, to be looking to the Crucified, and finding
   all your life in Him. You lose your strength as a worker if you forget
   your dependence as a Believer.

   To labor for Christ is a pleasant thing, but beware of doing it
   mechanically. And this you can only prevent by diligently cultivating
   personal communion with Christ. My Brother, it may be you will
   undertake so much service that your time will be occupied and you will
   have no space for prayer and reading the Word. The half-hour in the
   morning for prayer will be cut short, and the time allotted for
   communion with God in the evening will be gradually entrenched upon by
   this engagement and the other occupation--and when this is the case I
   tremble for you. You are killing the steed by spurring it and denying
   it food. You are undermining your house by drawing out the stones from
   the foundation to pile them at the top.

   You are doing your soul serious mischief if you put the whole of your
   strength into that part of your life which is visible to men, and
   forget that portion of your life which is secret between you and your
   God. To gather up all in one, I fear there is a great deal among us of
   religious activity of a very inferior sort. It concerns itself with the
   external of service. It worries itself with merely human efforts and it
   attempts, in its own strength, to achieve Divine results. The real
   working which God will accept is that which goes hand in hand with a
   patient waiting upon Christ--with heart searching, with supplication,
   with communion--with a childlike dependence upon Jesus. With a firm
   adhesion to His Truth, with an intense love to His Person, and an
   abiding in Him at all seasons. May we have more of such things!
   Martha's spirit, though excellent in itself, so far as it goes, must
   not overshadow Mary's quiet, deep-seated piety, or evil will come

   of it.

   II. Secondly, we observe that THE MARTHA SPIRIT INJURES TRUE SERVICE.
   Service may be true, and yet

   somewhat marred upon the wheel. Give your attention not so much to what
   I say, as to the bearing of it upon yourselves. It may be that you will
   find, as we speak, that you have been verily guilty touching these
   things. The Martha spirit brings the least welcome offering to Christ.
   It is welcome, but it is the least welcome.

   Our Lord Jesus, when on earth, was more satisfied by conversing to a
   poor Samaritan woman than He would have been by the best meat and
   drink. In carrying on His spiritual work He had meat to eat that His
   disciples knew not of. Evermore His spiritual Nature was predominant
   over His physical Nature, and those persons who brought Him spiritual
   gifts brought Him the gifts which He preferred. Here, then, was
   Martha's dish of well-cooked meat, but there was Mary's gift of a
   humble obedient heart. Here was Martha decking the table, but there was
   Mary submitting her judgment to the Lord, and looking up with wondering
   eyes as she heard His matchless speech.

   Mary was bringing to Jesus the better offering. With Martha, He would,
   in His condescension, be pleased. But in Mary He found satisfaction.
   Martha's service He accepted benevolently, but Mary's worship He
   accepted with complacency. Now, Brothers and Sisters, all that you can
   give to Christ in any shape or form will not be so dear to Him as the
   offering of your fervent love, the clinging of your humble faith, the
   reverence of your adoring souls. Do not, I pray you, neglect the
   spiritual for the sake of the external, or else you will be throwing
   away gold to gather iron to yourself. You will be pulling down the
   palaces of marble that you may build for yourselves hovels of clay.

   Martha's spirit has this mischief about it, also, that it brings self
   too much to remembrance. We would not severely judge Martha, but we
   conceive that in some measure she aimed at making the service a credit
   to herself as the mistress of the house. At any rate, self came up when
   she began to grow weary, and complained that she was left to serve
   alone. We also want our work to show well as our work. We like those
   who see it to commend it, and if none commend it, we feel that we are
   treated badly, and are left to work alone. Now, to the extent in which
   I think of myself in my service I spoil it. Self must sink, and Christ
   be All in All. John the Baptist's saying must be our motto, "He must
   increase, I must decrease." For Jesus' shoelace we are not worthy to
   unloose. Too much work and too little fellowship will always bring self
   into prominence. Self must be prayed down, and fellowship with Jesus
   must keep it down.

   Martha seemed to fancy that what she was doing was necessary for
   Christ. She was cumbered about much serving because she thought it
   necessary that there should be a noble entertainment for the Lord. We
   are still too apt to think that Jesus wants our work, and that He
   cannot do without us. The preacher enquires what would become of the
   Church if he were removed! The deacon is suspicions that if he were
   taken away there would be a great gap left in the leadership of the
   Church. The teacher of a class feels that those children would never be
   converted, Christ would miss of the travail of His soul but for him.

   Ah, but a fly on St. Paul's Cathedral might as well imagine that all
   the traffic at his feet was regulated by his presence, and would cease,
   should he be removed. I love you to think that Christ will do much work
   by you, and to attach as much weight as you can to your
   responsibilities, but as to Jesus needing us--the thing is
   preposterous! Mary is much wiser when she feels, "He desires me to
   receive His words, and yield Him my love. I would gladly give Him meat,
   but He will see to that. He is the Master of all things, and can do
   without me or Martha. I need Him far more than He can need

   me."

   We spoil our service when we overestimate its importance, for this
   leads us into loftiness and pride. Martha, under the influence of this
   high temper, came to complain of her sister, and to complain of her
   Lord, too, as if He were excusing her idleness. "Do You not care that
   my sister has left me to serve alone?" How it spoils what we do for
   Christ when we go about it with a haughty spirit! When we feel, "I can
   do this, and it is grand to do that"--am I not somewhat better than
   others? "Must not my Master think well of me?" The humble worker wins
   the day. God accepts the man who feels his nothingness, and out of the
   depths cries to Him.

   But the great ones He will put down from their seat, and send the rich
   ones away empty. Activity, if not balanced by devotion, tends to puff
   us up and so to prevent acceptance with God. Martha also fell into an
   unbelieving vexation. Her idea of what was necessary to be done was so
   great that she found she could not attain to it. There must be this
   side dish, and there must be that principal meat. There must be this
   meat and that wine, it must be cooked just so many minutes. This must
   be done to a turn, and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on.

   And now time flies and she fears yonder guest has been slighted. That
   servant is not back from the market. Many things go wrong when you are
   most anxious to have them right. You good housewives who may have had
   large parties to prepare for, know what these cares mean, I dare say.
   And something of the sort troubled Martha so that she became fretful
   and unbelieving. She had a work to do beyond her strength, as she
   thought, and her faith failed her, and her unbelief went petulantly to
   complain to her Lord. Have we never erred in the same way? We must have
   that Sunday school excel-

   lently conducted, that morning Prayer Meeting must be improved, that
   Bible class must be revived, our morning sermon must be a telling one,
   and so on!

   The preacher here speaks of himself, for he sometimes feels that there
   is too much responsibility laid upon his shoulders, and he is very apt
   in reviewing his great field of labor to grow desponding in spirit. But
   when the preacher confessed that he spoke of himself, he only did so
   because he represents his fellow workers, and you also grow faint and
   doubtful. Alas, in such a case the enjoyment of service evaporates, the
   fretfulness which pines over details spoils the whole, and the worker
   becomes a mere drudge and scullion instead of an angel who does God's
   commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His Word.

   Instead of glowing and burning like seraphs, our chariot wheels are
   taken off by our anxiety, and we drag heavily. Faith it is that secures
   acceptance, but when unbelief comes in, the work falls flat to the
   ground. At such times when the man or the Church shall become subject
   to the Martha spirit, the voluntary principle falls a little into
   disrepute. I believe the voluntary principle is the worst thing in all
   the world to work where there is no Divine Grace. But where there is
   Grace it is the one principle that God accepts.

   Now, Martha would have Mary made to serve Christ. What right has she to
   be sitting down there? Whether she likes it or not, she must get up and
   wait like her sister. Martha's voluntary desire to do much leads her to
   think that Mary, if she has not quite such a voluntary love for the
   work, must be driven to it--must have a sharp word from Christ about
   it. So it is with us. We are so willing to contribute to the Lord's
   work that we wish we had ten thousand times as much to give. Our heart
   is warm within us, and we feel we would make no reserve--and then are
   so grieved with others because they give so very little that we wish we
   could compel them to give!

   And so we would put their cankered money into the same treasury with
   the bright freewill offerings of the saints, as if the Lord would
   receive such beggarly pittances squeezed out by force in the same
   manner as He accepts the voluntary gifts of His people! It were wiser
   if we left those unwilling contributions to rust in the pockets of
   their owners. For in the long run I believe they do not help the
   cause--only that which is given out of a generous spirit, and out of
   love to Christ--will come up accepted before Him. Too readily do we get
   away from the free spirit when we get away from the right spirit. The
   fact is, the Martha spirit spoils all, because it gets us away from the
   inner soul of service, as I have said before, to the mere husks of
   service.

   We cease to do work as to the Lord, we labor too much for the service's
   sake. The main thing in our minds is the service, and not the Master.
   We are cumbered, and He is forgotten. Thus have I indicated as briefly
   as I could, some of the weaknesses of the Martha spirit.

   III. Now for THE MARY SPIRIT. I have to show you that it is capable of
   producing the noble form of consecration to Christ. Its noble results
   will not come just yet. Martha's fruits ripen very quickly, Mary's take
   time. When Lazarus was dead, you will remember Martha ran to meet
   Christ, but Mary sat still in the house. Martha wanted her own time,
   Mary could take Christ's time. So after awhile, just before our Lord's
   death, we find that Mary did a grand thing--she did what Martha never
   thought of doing--she brought forth a box of precious ointment and
   poured it on the Lord's head, and anointed Him with ointment.

   While she was sitting at Christ's feet, she was forming and filling the
   springs of action. You are not losing time while you are feeding the
   soul. While by contemplation you are getting purpose strengthened and
   motive purified, you are rightly using time. When the man becomes
   intense, when he gets within him principles vital, fervent,
   energetic--then when the season for work comes he will work with a
   power and a result which empty people can never attain--however busy
   they may be. If the stream flows at once, as soon as ever there is a
   shower, it must be little better than a trickling rivulet. But if the
   current stream is dammed up, so that for awhile nothing pours down the
   river bed, you will, in due time, when the waters have gathered
   strength, witness a torrent before which nothing can stand.

   Mary was filling up the fountain head. She was listening and learning,
   feeding, edifying, loving, and growing strong. The engine of her soul
   was getting its steam ready, and when all was right, her action was
   prompt and forcible. Meanwhile, the manner of her action was being
   refined. Martha's actions were good, but, if I may use the word, they
   were commonplace. She must make a great feed for the Lord Jesus, just
   as for any earthly friend. The spiritual nature of Christ she had
   forgotten, she was providing nothing for it. But Mary's estimate of
   Christ was of a truer order. She looked at Him as a Priest. She viewed
   Him as a Prophet. She adored Him as a King.

   She had heard Him speak about dying, and had listened to His testimony
   about suffering, and dimly guessing what it meant, she prepared the
   precious spikenard that before the dying should come she might anoint
   Him. The woman's deed was full of meaning and of instruction. It was,
   indeed, an embodied poem. The odor that filled the house was the
   perfume of love and elevated thought. She became refined in her actions
   by the process of musing and learning. Those who think not, who
   meditate not, who commune not with Christ, will do commonplace things
   very well. But they will never rise to the majesty of a spiritual
   conception, or carry out a heart-suggested work for Christ.

   That sitting of Mary was also creating originality of art. I tried, two
   Sundays ago, to enforce upon you the duty of originality of service as
   the right thing--that as we wandered, everyone in his own way, we
   should each serve God in his own way, according to our peculiar
   adaptation and circumstances. Now this blessed woman did so. Martha is
   in a hurry to be doing something--she does what any other admirer of
   Jesus would do--she prepares meat and a festival. But Mary does what
   but one or two besides herself would think of--she anoints Him--and is
   honored in the deed.

   She struck out a spark of light from herself as her own thought, and
   she cherished that spark till it became a flaming act. I would that in
   the Church of God we had many Sisters at Jesus' feet who at last would
   start up under an inspiration and say, "I have thought of something
   that will bring glory to God which the Church has not heard of before.
   And this will I put in practice, that there may be a fresh gem in my
   Redeemer's crown." This sitting at the Master's feet guaranteed the
   real spirituality of what she did. Did you notice when I read what the
   Master said concerning the pouring of the ointment upon Him, "She has
   kept this for My burial"?

   He praised her for keeping it, as well as for giving it. I suppose that
   for months she had set apart that particular ointment, and held it in
   reserve. Much of the sweetest aroma of a holy work lies in its being
   thought over and brought out with deliberation. There are works to be
   done at once and straightway. But there are some other works to be
   weighed and considered. What shall I do to praise my Savior? There is a
   cherished scheme, there is a plan, the details of which shall be prayed
   out, and every single part of it sculptured in the imagination and
   realized in the heart. And then the soul shall wait, delighting herself
   in prospect of the deed, until the dear purpose may be translated into
   fact.

   It is well to wait, expectantly saying, "Yes, the set time will come. I
   shall be able to do the deed. I shall not go down to my grave
   altogether without having been serviceable. It is not yet the time, it
   is not yet the appropriate season, and I am not quite ready for it
   myself. But I will add Grace to Grace and virtue to virtue, and I will
   add self-denial to self-denial, till I am fit to accomplish the one
   chosen work." So the Savior praised Mary that she had kept this--kept
   it till the fit moment came before His burial. And then, but not till
   then, she had poured out and revealed her love. Yes, it is not your
   thoughtless service, performed while your souls are half asleep--it is
   that which you do for Christ with eyes that overflow--with hearts that
   swell with emotion. It is this that Jesus accepts.

   May we have more of such service, as we shall have if we have more of
   sitting at His feet. Christ accepted her. He said she had chosen the
   good part which should not be taken from her. And if our work is
   spiritual, intense, fervent, thoughtful. If it springs out of
   fellowship. If it is the outgushing of deep principles, of inward
   beliefs, of solemn gratitude--then our piety shall never be taken from
   us--it will be an enduring thing. It will not be like the mere
   activities of Martha-- things that come and go.

   I have thus worked out my text. I shall utter but two or three words
   upon the general applications of it. I shall apply it to three or four
   things very briefly. Brethren, I believe in our Nonconformity. I
   believe if ever England wanted Nonconformists it is now. But there is a
   tendency to make Nonconformity become a thing of externals, dealing
   with State and Church and politics. The political relations of
   Nonconformists--I believe in their value--I would not have a man less
   earnest upon them. But I am always fearful lest we should forget that
   Nonconformity is nothing if it is not spiritual-- and that the moment
   we, as Dissenters, become merely political or formal--it is all over
   with us.

   Our strength is at the Master's feet, and I am afraid for our
   Nonconformity if it lives elsewhere. I mark so much conformity to the
   world, so much laxity of rule, so much love of novel opinions, that I
   tremble. I wish we could go back to Puritanism. We are getting too lax.
   There is too much worldliness and carnality among us. There is little
   fear of our being censured, even by the world, for being too
   Particular. I am afraid we are too much like the world for the world to
   hate us. As I pray that Nonconformity may always prevail in England, so
   I earnestly pray that she may stand because she abides near to Christ,
   holds His Truth, prizes His Word, and lives upon Himself.

   Now the like is true of missions. Apply the principle there. God bless
   missions. Our prayer goes up for them as warmly as for our soul's
   salvation. But the strength of missions must lie not so much in
   arrangements, in committees, in money, in men--as in waiting upon the
   Christ of God. We shall not do any more with a hundred thousand pounds
   than with a single thousand, unless we get more Divine Grace. We shall
   not have more souls won with fifty missionaries than with five, unless
   we get ten times the amount of power from the right hand of the Most
   High. The waking up in missions needs to begin in our Prayer Meetings,
   and in our Churches. In our personal wrestlings with God for the
   conversion of the heathen must lie the main strength of the workers
   that go out to do the deed. Let us remember this--Mary shall yet pour
   the box of ointment upon the head of the Anointed--Martha cannot do it.

   The same thing is true in revivals. Persons will talk about getting up
   a revival--of all things I do believe one of the most detestable of
   transactions. "If you want a revival of religion," it is said, "you,
   must get Mr. So-and-So to preach"--with him I suppose is the residue of
   the Spirit. Oh, but if you want a revival, you must adopt the methods
   so long in vogue, and so well known as connected with such-and-such a
   revival! I suppose the Spirit of God is no more a free Spirit, then, as
   He used to be in the olden times. And whereas of old He breathed where
   He wished, you fancy your methods and plans can control Him. It is not
   so. It is not so in any degree.

   The way to get the revival is to begin at the Master's feet! You must
   go there with Mary and afterwards you may work with Martha. When every
   Christian's heart is acting right by feeding on Christ's Word and
   drinking in Christ's Spirit, then will the revival come. When we had
   the long drought, some farmers watered their grass, but found it did
   but very little good. An Irish gentleman remarked in my hearing that he
   had always noticed that when it rained there were clouds about, and so
   all the air was in right order for the descent of rain.

   We have noticed the same, and it so happens that the clouds and general
   constitution of the atmosphere have much to do with the value of
   moisture for the herbs. It is no good watering them in the sun, the
   circumstances do not benefit them. So with revivals. Certain things
   done under certain circumstances become abundantly useful, but if you
   have not similar circumstances, you may use the same machinery, but
   mischief instead of good will follow. Begin yourself with the Master,
   and then go outward to His service, but plans of action must be
   secondary.

   So too, lastly, if you want to serve God, as I trust you do, I charge
   you first be careful of your own souls. Do not begin with learning how
   to preach, or how to teach, or how to do this and that. Dear Friend,
   get the strength within your own soul, and then even if you do not know
   how to use it scientifically, yet you will do much. The first thing is
   to get the heart warmed! Stir up your manhood! Brace up all your
   faculties! Get the Christ within you--ask the everlasting God to come
   upon you! Get Him to inspire you--and then if your methods should not
   be according to the methods of others it will not matter. Or if they
   should, neither will it be of consequence,

   Having the Power of the Holy Spirit, you will accomplish the results.
   But if you go about to perform the work before you have the strength
   from on High, you shall utterly fail. Better things we hope of you. God
   send them. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A New Song For New Hearts

   (No. 928)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 1, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And in that day you shall say, O Lord, I will praise You: though You
   were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me."
   Isaiah 12:1.

   THIS prophesy is said by some to relate to the invasion by Sennacherib.
   That calamity threatened to be a very terrible display of Divine anger.
   It seemed inevitable that the Assyrian power would make an utter
   desolation of all Judea. But God promised that He would interpose for
   the deliverance of His people and punish the stout heart of the king of
   Assyria. And in that day His people should say, "We will praise You
   though You were angry with us, and therefore sent the Assyrian monarch
   to chastise us. Your anger is turned away, and You comfort us."

   If this is the meaning of it, it is an instance of sanctified
   affliction--and it is a lesson to us that whenever we smart under the
   rod, we may look forward to the time when the rod shall be withdrawn.
   And it is also an admonition to us that when we escape from trial we
   should take care to celebrate the event with grateful praise. Let us
   set up the pillar of memorial, let us pour the oil of gratitude upon
   it, and garland it with song, blessing the Lord whose anger endures but
   for a moment, but whose mercy is from everlasting to everlasting.

   It is thought by others that this text mainly relates to the latter
   days, and I think it would be impossible to read the eleventh chapter
   without feeling that such a reference is clear. There is to be a time
   when the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the lion shall eat straw like
   the ox, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the cockatrice den.
   Then the Lord will set His hand again, the second time, to recover the
   remnant of His people. Then He will repeat His wondrous works of Egypt
   and at the Red Sea, so that the song of Moses shall be rehearsed again,
   "The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation: He is
   my God, and I will prepare Him an habitation; my father's God, and I
   will exalt Him."

   In that day the Jewish people upon whose head the blood of Christ has
   come, who these many centuries have been a people scattered and peeled,
   and sifted as in a sieve throughout all nations--even these shall be
   restored to their own land--and the dispersed of Judah from the four
   corners of the earth. They shall participate in all the glories of the
   millennial reign, and with joy shall they draw water out of the wells
   of salvation. In those days, when all Israel shall be saved, and Judah
   shall dwell safely, the jubilant thanksgiving shall be heard, "O Lord,
   I will praise You. For though You were angry with me, Your anger is
   turned away, and You comfort me."

   The whole people shall sing with such unanimity, with such undivided
   heart that they shall speak as though they were but one man. They shall
   use the singular where their numbers might require the plural, "I will
   praise You," shall be the exclamation of the once divided but then
   united people!

   Although both these interpretations are true, and both instructive, the
   text is many-sided and bears another reading. We shall find out the
   very soul of the passage if we consider it as an illustration of what
   occurs to every one of God's people when he is brought out of darkness
   into God's marvelous light. When he is delivered from the spirit of
   bondage beneath Divine wrath and led by the Spirit of Adoption into the
   liberty wherewith Christ makes him free. In that day I am sure these
   words are fulfilled. The Believer does then say right joyously, "O
   Lord, I will praise You: though You were angry with me, Your anger is
   turned away, and You comfort me."

   In regarding the text from this point of view, we shall first observe
   the prelude of this delightful song. And then, secondly, we shall
   listen to the song itself.

   I. First I shall ask your consideration of THE PRELUDE of this charming
   song. Here are certain preliminaries to the music. They are contained
   in the first line of the text. "In that day you shall say." Here we
   have the tuning of the harps, the notes of the music follow in the
   succeeding sentences. Much of instruction is couched in these seven
   words of prelude. Note then, first, there is a time for that joyous
   song which is here recorded. "In that day." The term, "that day,"

   is sometimes used for a day of terror, and often for a period of
   blessing. The common term to both is this--they were both days of the
   manifestation of Divine power.

   "That day," a day of terrible confusion to God's enemies. "That day," a
   day of great comfort to God's friends. The day being in either case the
   time of the making bare of God's arm and the manifestation of His
   strength. Now, the day in which a man rejoices in Christ is the day in
   which God's power is revealed on his behalf in his heart and
   conscience, and the Holy Spirit subdues him to the reign of Christ. It
   is not always that God works with such effectual power as this in the
   human heart--He has His set times. Oftentimes the word of human
   ministry proves ineffectual--the preacher exhorts, the hearer listens,
   but the exhortation is not obeyed. It sometimes happens that even
   desires may be excited, and yet nothing is accomplished, for these
   better feelings prove to be as those spring blossoms on the trees which
   do not knit and fall fruitless to the ground.

   There is, however, an appointed time for the calling of God's elect, a
   set time in which the Lord visits His chosen with a power of Grace
   which they cannot effectually resist. He makes them willing in the day
   of His power. It is a day in which not only is the Gospel heard, but
   our report is believed, because the arm of the Lord is revealed. To
   everything, according to Solomon, there is a season--a time to break
   down and a time to build up. A time of war, and a time of peace. A time
   to kill, and a time to heal. And even so, there is a time for
   conviction and a time for consolation.

   With some who are in great distress of spirit, it may be God's time to
   wound and to kill. Their self-confidence is yet too vigorous, their
   carnal righteousness is yet too lively. Their confidences must be
   wounded, their righteousness must be killed. For otherwise they will
   not yield to Grace. God does not clothe us till He has stripped us. He
   does not heal till first He has wounded. How should He make alive those
   who are not dead? There is a work of Grace in the heart of digging out
   the foundations before Grace begins to build up our hopes--woe to that
   man who builds without having the foundation dug out--for his house
   will fall. Woe to that man who leaps into a sudden peace without ever
   having felt his need of pardon, without repentance, without brokenness
   of spirit. He shall see his hasty fruit wither before his eyes.

   The time when God effectually blesses is sometimes called "a time of
   love." It is a time of deep distress to us, but it is a time of love
   with God--a time wisely determined in the decree and counsel of the
   Most High--so that healing mercy arrives at the best time to each one
   who is interested in the Covenant of Grace. Someone may enquire, "When
   do you think will be the time when God will enable me to say, 'Your
   anger is turned away'? " My dear Brother, you can easily discern it! I
   believe God's time to give us comfort is usually when we are brought so
   low as to confess the justice of the wrath which He is pouring upon us.

   Humbleness of heart is one sure indication of coming peace. A German
   nobleman some years ago went over the galleys at Toulon. There he saw
   many men condemned by the French government to perpetual toil at the
   galley oar on account of their crimes. Being a prince in much repute,
   he obtained the favor that he should give liberty to one of the
   captives. He went about among them, and talked to them, but found in
   every case that they thought themselves wrongly treated, oppressed, and
   unrighteously punished. At last he met with one who confessed, "In my
   case my sentence is a most just and even a merciful one. If I had not
   been imprisoned in this way I should most likely have long ago been
   executed for some still greater crime. I have been a very great
   offender, and the law is doing nothing more than it ought to do in
   keeping me in confinement for the rest of my life."

   The German nobleman returned to the manager of the galleys and said,
   "This is the only man in all this gang that I would wish to set free,
   and I elect him for liberty." It is so with our great Liberator, the
   Lord Jesus Christ, when He meets with a soul that confesses its
   demerit, owns the justice of Divine wrath, and has not a word to say
   for itself. Then He says, "Your sins which are many are forgiven you."
   The time when His anger is turned away is the time when you confess the
   justice of His anger, and bow down and humbly entreat Him for mercy.
   Above all, the hour of Grace has struck when you look ALONE to Christ.

   While you are looking to any good thing in yourself, and hoping to grow
   better, or to do better, you are making no advances towards comfort.
   But when you give up in despair every hope that can be grounded in
   yourself and look away to those dear wounds of His--to that suffering
   humanity of the Son or God who stooped from Heaven for you--then has
   the day dawned wherein you shall say, "O Lord, I will praise You." I
   pray earnestly that this set time to favor you may be now come--the
   time when the rain is over, and the voice of the turtle is heard in
   your land.

   Looking again at the preliminaries of this song you notice that a word
   indicates the singer. "In that day you shall say." "You." It is a
   singular pronoun, and points out one individual. One by one we receive
   eternal life and peace. "You," the individual, "you," singled out to
   feel in your conscience God's wrath. You are equally selected to enjoy
   Jehovah's love. Ah, Brethren, it is never a day of Grace to us till we
   are taken aside from the multitude and set by ourselves. Our
   individuality must come out in conversion--even if it never appears at
   any other time. You fancy, so many of you, that it is all right with
   you because you live in a Christian nation. I tell you it is woe unto
   you! Having outward privileges they involve you in responsibilities,
   but bring you no saving Grace.

   Perhaps you fancy that your family religion may somewhat help you, and
   the erroneous practices of certain Christian Churches may foster this
   delusion, but it is not so. There is no birthright godliness--"You must
   be born again." The first birth will not help you, for, "That which is
   born of the flesh is flesh. And that which is born of the Spirit is
   spirit." Still, I know you fancy that if you mingle in godly
   congregations, and sing as they sing, and pray as they pray, it shall
   go well with you--but it is not so. The wicket gate of eternal life
   admits but one at a time. Is it not written, "You shall be gathered one
   by one, O you children of Israel"?

   Don't you know that when the fountain is opened in the house of David
   for sin and for uncleanness, it is declared by the Prophet Zechariah,
   "The land shall mourn, every family apart. The family of the house of
   David apart, and their wives apart. The family of the house of Nathan
   apart, and their wives apart. The family of the house of Levi apart,
   and their wives apart. The family of Shimei apart, and their wives
   apart. All the families that remain, every family apart, and their
   wives apart"! You must each one be brought to feel the Divine anger in
   your souls, and to have it removed from you, that you may rejoice in
   God as your salvation.

   Has it been so with you, then, dear Hearer? Are you that favored
   singer? Are you one of that chosen throng who can say, "Your anger is
   turned away, and You comfort me"? Away with generals. Be not satisfied
   except with particulars. Little matters it to you that Christ should
   die for ten thousand men, if you have no part in His death. Little
   blessing is it to you that there should be joy from myriads of hearts
   because they are pardoned if you should die unpardoned! Seek a personal
   interest in Christ, and do not be satisfied unless in your own heart
   you have it satisfactorily revealed that your sin in particular is by
   an act of Grace put away.

   I like to remember that this word, "you," is spoken to those who have
   been by sorrow brought into the last degree of despair. "In that day
   you shall say, though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned
   away." You poor downtrodden Heart, where are you? You Woman of a
   sorrowful spirit, rejoice, for in that day of mercy you shall sing. You
   broken-hearted Sinner, ready to destroy yourself because of the anguish
   of conscience--in the day of God's abounding mercy you shall rejoice,
   even you--and your note shall be all the sweeter because you have had
   the most sin to be forgiven, and felt most the anger of God burning in
   your soul. Dwell on that, Mourners, and God grant it may be realized
   personally by yourselves.

   The next thing to be noted in the preliminaries is the Teacher. "In
   that day you shall say," who says this? It is God alone who can so
   positively declare, "you shall say." Who but the Lord can thus command
   man's heart and speech? It is the Lord alone. He who has made us is
   master of our spirits. By His Omnipotence He rules in the world of mind
   as well as matter, and all things happen as He ordains. He says, "In
   that day," that is, in God's own time, "you shall say." And He who thus
   declares will make good the word. Here is revealed God's will--and what
   the Lord wills shall be accomplished. What He declares shall be spoken,
   shall assuredly be spoken.

   Here is consolation to those feeble folk who fear the Word will not be
   fulfilled. "You shall say," is a Divine Word and cannot fail. The Lord,
   alone, can give a man the right to say, "Your anger is turned away." If
   any man presumes to say, "God has turned His anger away from me,"
   without a warrant from the Most High, that man lies to his own
   confusion. But when it is written, "You shall say," it is as though God
   had said, "I will make it true, so that you shall be fully justified in
   the declaration." Yet more comfort is here, for even when the right to
   such a blessing is bestowed, we are often unable to enjoy it because of
   weakness.

   Unbelief is frequently so great that many things which are true we
   cannot receive. Under a sense of sin we are so desponding that we think
   God's mercy too great for us. And therefore we are not able to
   appropriate the blessing presented to us, though it is inexpressibly
   delightful. Blessed be God, the Holy Spirit knows how to chase away our
   unbelief and give us power to embrace the blessing! He can make us
   accept the Covenant favor and rejoice in it so as to avow the joy.

   There are some of you whom I have tried to induce to believe
   comfortable truths about yourselves, but you have fairly defeated me. I
   have put the Gospel plainly to you, for I have felt sure that its
   promises were meant for you. And I have said within my heart, "Surely
   they will be comforted this morning. Certainly their broken hearts will
   be bound up by that gracious Word." But oh, I cannot make you say,
   "Lord, I will praise You." I am unable to lead you to faith and peace.
   Here, however, is my joy--my Master can do what His servant cannot! He
   can make the tongue of the dumb sing. He delights to look after
   desperate cases. Man's extremity becomes His opportunity.

   Where the most affectionate words of ours fail, the consolations of His
   blessed Spirit are divinely efficacious. He cannot merely bring the oil
   and the wine, but He knows how to pour them into the wounds and heal
   the anguish of the contrite spirit. I pray the Master that He who alone
   can teach us to sing this song may graciously instruct those of you who
   have been seeking rest these many months, and finding none. "I am the
   Lord which teaches you to profit." He can put a song into your mouth,
   for nothing is beyond the range of Divine Grace.

   Once more. "In that day you shall say." Here is another preliminary of
   the song, namely, the tone of it. "You shall say, O Lord, I will praise
   You." The song is to be an open one, avowed, vocally uttered, heard of
   men and published abroad. It is not to be a silent feeling--a kind of
   soft music whose sweetness is spent within the spirit. No. In that day
   you shall say, you shall speak it outright, you shall testify and bear
   witness to what the Lord has done for you! When a man gets his sins
   forgiven he cannot help revealing the secret. "When the Lord turned
   again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our
   mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing."

   Even if the forgiven one could not speak with his tongue, he could say
   it with his eyes--his countenance, his man-ner--his very gait would
   betray him! The gracious secret would ooze out in some fashion.
   Spiritual men, at any rate, would find it out, and with thankfulness
   mark the joyful evidences. I know that before I found the Savior, had
   you known me, you would have observed my solitary habits. And if you
   had tracked me to my chamber, and to my Bible, and my knees, you would
   have heard groans and sighs which betokened a sorrowful spirit. The
   ordinary amusements of youth had in those days few attractions for me,
   and conversation, however cheerful, yielded me no comfort.

   But that very morning that I heard the Gospel message, "Look unto Me,
   and be you saved, all you ends of the earth," I am certain that no
   person who knew me could have helped remarking the difference even in
   my face! A change came over my spirits, which as I remember was even
   indicated in the way in which I walked, for the heavy step of
   melancholy was exchanged for a more cheerful pace. The spiritual
   condition affects the bodily state, and it was evidently so with me. My
   delight at being forgiven was no ordinary sensation, I could have
   fairly leaped for joy!--

   "All through the night I wept full sore,

   But morning brought relief.

   That hand which broke my bones before,

   Then broke my bonds of grief.

   My mourning He to dancing turns,

   For sackcloth joy He gives,

   A moment, Lord, Your anger burns,

   But long Your favor lives."

   If I had not avowed my deliverance the very stones must have cried out!
   It was not in my heart to keep it back, but I am sure I could not have
   done so if I had desired. God's Grace does not come into the heart as a
   beggar into a barn, and lie hidden away as if it stole a night's
   lodging. No, its arrival is known all over the house, and every chamber
   of the soul testifies its presence! Grace is like a bunch of
   lavender--it discovers itself by its sweet smell. Like the nightingale
   it is heard where it is not seen. Like a spark which falls into the
   midst of straw it burns, and blazes, and consumes, and so reveals
   itself by its own energetic operations.

   O Soul, burdened with sin, if Christ does but come to you, and pardon
   you, I will be bound for it that before long all your bones shall say,
   "Lord, who is like unto You?" You will be of the same mind as David,
   "Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, You God of my salvation: and
   my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness." You will gladly say
   with him, "Your vows are upon me, O God: I will render praise unto You,
   for You have delivered my soul from death." Not only will you soberly
   tell what great things Divine Grace has worked for you, but it will be
   very unlikely that your exuberant joy may lead you beyond the bounds of
   solemn decorum.

   The precise and slow going will condemn you, but you need not mind, for
   you can offer the same excuse for it as David made to Michal when he
   danced before the ark. Far be it from me to condemn you, should you
   cry, "Hallelujah," or clap your hands! It is our cold custom to condemn
   every demonstration of feeling, but I am sure Scripture does not
   warrant us in our condemnation. For we find such passages as these, "O
   clap your hands, all you people! Shout unto God with the voice of
   triumph." "Praise Him upon the loud cymbals: praise Him upon the high
   sounding cymbals." What if the overflowing of holy joy should seem to
   be disorderly, what matters it if God accepts it? He who has long been
   in prison, when he gets his liberty may well take a frisk or two, and
   an extra leap for joy, and who shall begrudge him?

   He who has long been hungry and famished, when he sees the table
   spread, may be excused if he falls to with more of eagerness than
   politeness. Oh, yes, they shall say it, they shall say it, "I will
   praise You, O Lord!" In the very disorderli-ness of their demonstration
   they shall the more emphatically say, "I will praise You: though You
   were angry with me, Your anger is turned away." Thus much on the
   prelude of the song. Now let us hear the song itself.

   II. In THE SONG ITSELF I would call to your notice the fact that all of
   it is concerning the Lord. It is all addressed to Him. "O Lord, I will
   praise You: though You were angry, Your anger is turned away." When a
   soul escapes from the bondage of sin and becomes consciously pardoned,
   it resembles the Apostles on the Mount Tabor, of whom we spoke the
   other Sunday morning. It sees no man, save Jesus only. While you are
   seeking Grace you think much of the minister, the service, the outward
   form--but the moment you find peace in God through the precious blood
   of Christ--you will think of your pardoning God only.

   Oh, how small everything becomes in the presence of that dear Cross
   where God the Savior loved and died! When we think of all our iniquity
   being cast into the depth of the sea we can no more boast of anything
   that was once our glory. The instrumentality by which peace came to us
   will be always dear to us. We shall esteem the preacher of the Gospel
   who brings salvation to us to be our spiritual father--but still we
   shall never think of praising him--we shall give all the glory to our
   God. As for ourselves, self will sink like lead amidst the waters when
   we find Christ. God will be All in All when iniquity is pardoned.

   I have often thought that if some of my Brethren who preach a Gospel in
   which there is little of the Grace of God had felt a little more
   conviction of sin in being converted, they would be sure to preach a
   clearer and more gracious Gospel. Many nowadays appear to leap into
   peace without any convictions of sin--they do not seem to have known
   what the guilt of sin means. They scramble into peace before the burden
   of sin has been felt. It is not for me to judge, but I must confess I
   have my fears of those who have never felt the terrors of the Lord. And
   I look upon conviction of sin as a good groundwork for a
   well-instructed Christian.

   I observe, as a rule, that when a man has been put in the prison of the
   Law. When he has been made to wear the heavy chains of conviction, and
   at last obtains his liberty through the precious blood of Christ, he is
   pretty sure to cry up the Grace of God and magnify Divine mercy. He
   feels that in his case salvation must be of Grace from first to last.
   And he naturally favors that system of theology which magnifies most
   the Grace of God. Those who have not felt this--whose conversion has
   been of the more easy kind, produced rather by excitement than by depth
   of thought--seem to me to choose a flimsy divinity in which man is more
   prominent, and God is less regarded.

   I am sure of this one thing--that I personally desire to ascribe
   conversion in my own case entirely to the Grace of God--and to give God
   the glory of it. And I dread that conversion which could in any degree
   deprive God of being in His everlasting decrees the cause of it, by His
   effectual Spirit the direct Agent of it, by His continued working
   through the Holy Spirit the Perfecter of it. Give God the praise, my
   Brethren. You must do so if you have thoroughly experienced what God's
   anger means, and what the turning away of it means.

   The next thing in this song is that it includes repentant memories. "O
   Lord, I will praise You: though You were angry with me." There was a
   time when God was to our consciousness angry with us. When was that?
   And how did we know that God was angry with us? Outsiders think when we
   talk about conversion that we are merely talking of sentimental
   theories. But let me assure you that it is as much matter offact to us
   with regard to our spiritual nature, as your feelings of sickness and
   of recovery are real and actual to you. Time was when some of us read
   the Word of God, as we read it, believing it to be an Inspired Book, we
   perceived that it contained a Law, holy and just--the breach of which
   was threatened with eternal death.

   As we read it we discovered that we had broken that Law, not in some
   points, but in all. And we were obliged, as we read it, to feel that
   all the sentences of that Book against sinners were virtually sentences
   against us. We may perhaps have read these chapters before, but we had
   given them no serious thought until on this occasion we were led to see
   that we stood condemned by the Law of God as contained in Holy
   Scripture. Then we felt that God was angry with us. It was not a mere
   idea of ours--we had this Book in evidence of it. If that Book were
   indeed true, we felt we were condemned. We dared not think the old Book
   to be a cunningly devised fable. We knew it was not, and therefore from
   its testimony we concluded that God was angry with us.

   At the same time we learned this terrible Truth from the Book--our
   conscience suddenly awoke and confirmed the fact, for it said--"What
   the Book declares is correct. The just God must be angry with such a
   sinful being as you are." Conscience brought to our recollection many
   things which we would gladly have forgotten. It revealed to us much of
   the evil of our hearts which we had no wish to know. And thus, as we
   looked at Scripture by the light of conscience, we concluded in
   ourselves that we were in a very dreadful plight, and that God was
   angry with us. Then there entered into us at the same time, over and
   above all the rest, a certain work of the Holy Spirit called conviction
   of sin.

   "When He, the Spirit of Truth is come," He shall convict the world of
   sin. He has come. And He has convicted us of sin in a way in which the
   Scripture would not have done apart from Him--and our conscience would
   not have done apart from Him. But His light shone in upon us and we
   felt as we never felt before. Then sin appeared exceedingly sinful, as
   it was committed against Infinite Love and goodness. Then it appeared
   to us as though Hell must soon swallow us up--and the wrath of God must
   devour us. Oh, the trembling and the fear, the dismay and the alarm
   which then possessed our spirits! And yet, my Brethren, at this very
   time, the remembrance of it is cause for thankfulness.

   In the Hebrew, the wording of our text is slightly different from what
   we get in the English. Our English translators have very wisely put in
   the word "though," a little earlier than it occurs in the Hebrew. The
   Hebrew would run something like this, "O Lord, I will praise You: You
   were angry with me." Now we do this day praise God that He made us feel
   His anger. "What?" you say. "What? Is a sense of anger a cause for
   praise?" No, my Brethren, not if it stood alone, but because it has
   driven us to Christ. If wrath had been laid up for us hereafter, it
   would be a cause of horror, deep and dread. But that it was let loose
   in measure upon us here, and that we were thus condemned in conscience
   that we might not be condemned at last is reason for much thankfulness.

   We should never have felt His love if we had not felt His anger. We
   laid hold on His mercy because of necessity. No soul will accept Christ
   Jesus until it must. It is not driven to faith until it is driven to
   self-despair. God's angry face makes Christ's loving face dear to us.
   We would never look at the Christ of God, unless first of all the God
   of Christ had looked at us through the tempest and made us afraid. "I
   will praise You, that You did let me feel Your anger, in order that I
   might be driven to discover how that anger could be turned away." So
   you see the song in its deep bass note includes plaintive recollections
   of sin pressing heavily on the spirit.

   The song of our text contains in itself blessed certainties. "I will
   praise You: though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away."
   Can a man know that? Can a man be quite sure that he is forgiven? Yes,
   that he can. He can be as sure of pardon as he is of his existence, as
   infallibly certain as he is of a mathematical proposition. "No," says
   one, "but how is it?" My Brother, albeit that this is a matter for
   spiritual men, yet at the same time it is a matter of certainty as
   clearly as anything can be ascertained by human judgment. The
   confidence of a man's being pardoned, and God's anger being turned away
   from him is not based upon his merely feeling that it is so. Nor his
   merely believing that it is go.

   You are not pardoned because you work yourself up into a comfortable
   frame of mind and think you are pardoned. That may be a delusion. You
   are not necessarily delivered from God's anger because you believe you
   are--you may be believing a lie, and may believe what you like--but
   that does not make it true. There must be a fact going before, and if
   that fact is not there, you may believe what you choose, but it is pure
   imagination, nothing more.

   On what ground does a man know that God's anger is turned away? I
   answer thus, on the ground of this Book. "It is written," is our basis
   of assurance. I turn to this Book, and I discover that Jesus Christ,
   the Son of God, came into this world and became the Substitute for a
   certain body of men. That He took their sins, and was punished in their
   place in order that God, without the violation of His justice, might
   forgive as many as are washed in Christ's blood. My question then is,
   for whom did Christ die? The moment I turn to the Scriptures, I find
   very conspicuously on its page this declaration, that "Jesus Christ
   came into the world to save sinners."

   I am a sinner, that I am clear of. That gives me some hope. But I next
   find that, "He that believes on Him is not condemned." Looking to
   myself I find that I do really believe, that is, I trust Jesus. Very
   well, then, I am sure I am not condemned, for God has declared I am
   not. I read again, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." I
   know that I have believed, that is to say, trusted--I trust my
   salvation with Christ. And I have also, in obedience to His command
   been baptized--then I am saved, and shall be saved, for it says so. Now
   this is a matter of Testimony which I receive. He that believes in
   Christ receives the Testimony of God--and that is the only Testimony he
   wants.

   I know it has been thought that you get some special revelation in your
   own soul--some flash, as it were, of light-- some extraordinary
   intimation. But nothing of the kind is absolutely needed. I know that
   the Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are born of God. But
   the first essential matter is God's witness in the Word. "He that
   believes not God, has made Him a liar, because he believes not the
   record that God gave of His Son." God's witness concerning His Son is
   this--that if you trust His Son you are saved. His Son suffered for
   you. His Son bore the punishment that was due for your sins--God
   declares it--that you are forgiven for Christ's sake.

   He cannot punish twice for one offense--first His Son and then you. He
   cannot demand retribution from His Law to vindicate His justice, first
   from your Substitute and then from you. Was Christ your Substitute?
   That is the question. He was if you trust Him--your trusting Him is the
   evidence that He was a Substitute for you. Now see, then, the moment I,
   being under His anger, have come to trust my soul forever in the hands
   of Christ, God's anger is turned away from me because it was turned
   upon Christ. And I stand, guilty sinner as I am in myself, absolved
   before God--and feel that none can lay anything to my charge, for my
   sins were laid on Christ, and punished upon Christ--and I am clear.

   And now what shall I say unto the Lord, but, "I will praise You: for
   though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, and You
   comfort me." It is a matter of certainty. It is not a matter of "if,"
   "and," or "but." It is a fact. This morning you are either forgiven or
   you are not. You are either clean in God's sight or else the wrath of
   God abides on you. And I beseech you, do not rest till you know which
   it is. If you find out that you are unforgiven, seek the Savior.
   "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." But if you
   believe in Him, you are no longer guilty--you are forgiven. Do not sit
   down and fret as if you were guilty, but enjoy the liberty of the
   children of God. Being justified by faith, have peace with God through
   Jesus Christ your Lord.

   Time fails me, but I must add that our song includes holy
   resolutions--"I will praise You." I will do it with my heart in secret.
   I will get alone and make my expressive silence sing Your praise. I
   will sit and pour out liquid songs in tears of gratitude, welling up
   from my heart. I will praise You in the Church of God, for I will
   search out other Believers, and I will tell them what God has done for
   me. I will cast in my lot with Your people--if they are despised, I
   will bear the shame with them--and count it honor. I will unite myself
   to them, and help them in their service. And if I can magnify Christ by
   my testimony among them, I will do it.

   I will praise You in my life. I will make my business praising You. I
   will make my parlor and my drawing room, I will make my kitchen and my
   fields praise You. I will not be content unless all I am and all I have
   shall praise You. I will make a harp of the whole universe. I will make
   earth and Heaven, space and time to be but strings upon which my joyful
   fingers shall play lofty tunes of thankfulness. I will praise You, O my
   God! My heart is fixed, I will sing and give praise-- and when I shall
   die, or rather pass from this life to another, I who have been forgiven
   so much sin through such a Savior, will, by Your Grace, continue to
   praise You--

   "Oh, how I long to join the choir Who worship at His feet! Lord, grant
   me soon my heart's desire! Soon, soon Your work complete!"

   Note once more that this is a song which is peculiar in its character,
   and appropriate only to the people of God. I may say of it, "no man
   could learn this song but the redeemed." He only who has felt his
   vileness, and has had it washed away in the "fountain filled with
   blood," can know its sweetness. It is not a Pharisee's song--it has no
   likeness to, "God I thank You that I am not as other men." It
   confesses, "You were angry with me," and there owns that the singer was
   even as others. But it glories that through infinite mercy the Divine
   anger is turned away. And herein it leans on the appointed Savior.

   It is not a Sadducean song, no doubt mingles with the strain. It is not
   the philosopher's query, "There may be a God, or there may not be," it
   is the voice of a believing worshipper. It is not, "I may be guilty, or
   I may not be." It is all posi-

   tive, every note of it. "You were angry with me." I know it, I feel it,
   yet, "Your anger is turned away." Of this, too, I am sure. I believe it
   upon the witness of God! I cannot doubt His Word. It is a song of
   strong faith, and yet of humility. Its spirit is a precious incense
   made up of many costly ingredients. We have, here, not one virtue,
   alone, but many rare excellences.

   Humility confesses, "You were angry with me." Gratitude sings, "Your
   anger is turned away." Patience cries, "You comfort me," and holy joy
   springs up, and says, "I will praise You." Faith, hope, and love all
   have their notes here, from the bass of humility up to the highest alto
   of glorious communion, all the different parts are represented. It is a
   full song--the swell of the diapason of the heart!

   I have done when I have said just these words by way of practical
   result from the subject. One is a word of consolation--consolation to
   you who are under God's anger this morning. My heart goes out after
   you. I know what your sorrow is. I knew it by the space of five years
   at a time--when I mourned the guilt and curse of sin. Ah, poor Soul,
   you are in a sad plight, indeed. But be of good cheer! You have in your
   bosom, if you will believe me, a key which will open every lock in
   Doubting Castle wherein you are now confined. If, Man, you have but
   heart to take it out of your bosom, and out of the Word of God--and use
   it--liberty is near.

   I will show you that key--look at it, "Him that comes unto Me I will in
   no wise cast out." "Oh, but that does not happen to fit," you say.
   Well, here's another--"The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses from
   all sin." Does not that meet your case? Then let me try again--"He is
   able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him." "To
   the uttermost"--dwell on that and be comforted! I never knew God to
   shut a soul up in the prison of conviction but He sooner or later
   released the captive. The Lord will surely bring you out of the low
   dungeon of conviction. The worst thing in the world is to go
   unchastened--to be allowed to sin and eat honey with it--this is the
   precursor of damnation.

   But to sin, and have the wormwood of repentance with it--this is the
   prelude of being saved! If the Lord has embittered your sin, He has
   designs of love towards you. His anger shall yet be turned away. "When
   the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue
   fails for thirst, I, the Lord, will hear them. I the God of Israel will
   not forsake

   them."

   The next is a word of admonition. Some of you have been forgiven, but
   are you praising God as you should? I have heard say that in our
   Churches there are no more than five per cent who are doing any real
   work for Christ. That is not true of this Church. I should be very
   sorry if it were, but I fear there are more than five per cent who are
   doing nothing. Where are you who have felt His anger pass away, and yet
   are not praising Him? Come, bestir yourself, bestir yourself! Seek to
   serve Jesus! Do you not know that you are meant to be the winners of
   souls?

   The American bee keeper, when he wants to collect a hive, catches first
   a single bee. He puts it in a box with a piece of honeycomb and shuts
   the door. After awhile, when it is well fed, he lets it out. It comes
   back again after more of the sweet, but it brings companions with it.
   And when they have eaten the honey they always bring yet a more
   numerous band, so by-and-by there is a goodly muster for the hive.
   After this fashion ought you to act. If you have found mercy, you ought
   to praise God and tell others, so that they may believe. And in their
   turn lead others to Jesus. This is the way the kingdom of God grows.

   I am afraid you are guilty here. See to it, dear Brother. See to it,
   dear Sister--and who can tell of what use you may yet be? There was a
   dear servant of Christ who was just on the borders of the grave, very
   old and very ill, and frequently delirious, so that the doctors said no
   one must go into the chamber except the nurse. A little Sunday school
   boy, who was rather curious, peeped in at the door to look at the
   minister, and the poor dying servant of God saw him, and the ruling
   passion was strong in death. He called him. "David," said he, "did you
   ever close in with Christ? I have done so many a time, and I long that
   you may." Fifty years after, that boy was living and bearing testimony
   that the dying words of the good man had brought him to Jesus--for by
   them he was led to close in with Christ.

   You do not know what half a word might do if you would but speak it! O
   keep not back the good news that might bring salvation to your wife, to
   your husband, to your child, to your servant! If you have, indeed, felt
   the Lord's anger pass away this morning, go home to your chamber, and
   on your knees repeat this vow, "My God, I will praise You! I have been
   a sluggard, I have been very silent about You. I am afraid I have not
   given You of my substance as I ought. I am sure I have not given You of
   my heart as I should. But oh, forgive the past, and accept Your poor
   servant yet again. 'Then I will praise You. For though You were angry
   with me, Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me.' "

   God bless you, for Christ's sake.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Model Home Mission and the Model Home Missionary

   (No. 929)

   DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL 14, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,

   "Who went about doing good." Acts 10:38.

   In aid of the Funds of the Baptist British and Irish Home Missionary
   Society.

   OUR Lord's public ministry on earth was a Home Mission. He Himself said
   to His disciples, "I am not sent save to the lost sheep of the house of
   Israel." He went to the very borders of the Holy Land. But there He
   stayed, and north and south, east and west, in all directions, in towns
   and in villages, He itinerated preaching to His own countrymen.
   Afterwards there sprang out of His home work what may be called the
   foreign Mission, when they that were scattered abroad went everywhere
   preaching the Gospel.

   And thus the blessing of Israel became a blessing to all nations. It
   was always the Lord's intention that the Gospel should be preached to
   every creature under Heaven, but, so far as His own work was concerned,
   He began at home. And herein we see His wisdom, for it will be of
   little avail to attempt much abroad unless there is a solid basis at
   home, in an earnest sanctified Church, affording a fulcrum for our
   lever. We want to see England converted to Christ, and then shall she
   become the great herald of Christ's Gospel to other lands.

   As things now are, our soldiers and sailors are, too often, witnesses
   against the Gospel. And our travelers of all grades in foreign
   countries too frequently give an impression very unfavorable to the
   Cross of Christ. We want to have this nation saturated through and
   through with the Spirit of Jesus Christ. We want all its darkness
   chased away and the true light made to shine--then Missionary
   operations will receive a wonderful impetus. God will make His Truth to
   be known in all nations when He has first caused His face to shine upon
   His chosen.

   We shall now speak about Home Mission work under two heads. First, we
   have before us a Model Home Mission. And secondly a model Home
   Missionary. When we have talked about these two things, we shall press
   a third point, namely, the duty of imitating the works of the great
   Master.

   I. First, then, we have before us A MODEL HOME MISSION. We see sketched
   in the text the great Home Mission which was conducted by the Lord
   Jesus Christ, "who went about doing good." I am sure we shall learn
   much if we consider the way in which He conducted that enterprise.

   In commencing His work He selected as His great instrument the
   preaching of the Gospel. The Lord had anointed Him to preach the
   Gospel. He performed thousands of gracious actions. He officiated in
   many ways for the good of His fellow men, and for the glory of God. But
   His Throne on earth, if I might so speak, was the pulpit. It was when
   He began to declare the Gospel of the kingdom that His true glory was
   seen. "Never man spoke like this Man."

   Brethren, He would have His followers depend upon the same agency. The
   scattering of religious books and the institution of schools and other
   godly efforts are not to be neglected. But first and foremost it
   pleases God by the foolishness ofpreaching to save them that believe.
   The cardinal duty of the Christian Church is thus laid down, "Go you
   into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature."

   Notwithstanding all that may be said about the advance of the times,
   and the non-adaptation of the pulpit to this present age, we shall be
   very foolish if we imagine that we have found a better instrumentality
   than that which Jesus selected and which His Father so highly blessed.
   Let us stand to our preaching like soldiers to their guns. The pulpit
   is the Thermopylae of Christendom where our foes shall receive a check.
   The field of Waterloo on which they shall sustain a defeat. Let us
   preach, and preach evermore. Let us continue sounding, even if it is
   but the rams' horns, for by-and-by the

   walls of Jericho shall fall flat to the ground. Preach, preach, preach!
   The Master's life clearly tells us that if we would save souls and
   glorify God we must constantly proclaim the Gospel of the kingdom.

   In connection with His own personal preaching, we find the Master
   forming a seminary for the training of ministers. Those who have, at
   any time, thought properly conducted collegiate institutions to be
   unscriptural can hardly understand the action of our Lord in retaining
   under His own eyes a band of scholars, who afterwards became teachers.
   After He had called Peter and John, and some few others, He at first
   admitted them, as it were, into His evening classes. For they pursued
   their ordinary business, and came to Him at fitting seasons for
   instruction.

   But after awhile they separated themselves from all the pursuits of
   business, and were continual with their great Teacher. They learned how
   to preach as they marked how He preached. He even taught them to pray,
   as John also taught his disciples. Many dark subjects which He did not
   explain to the people, we are told He opened up to the disciples. He
   took them aside and gave them the mysteries of the kingdom, while to
   the rest of the people the Truth was only spoken in parables.

   Now, this has been too much forgotten in the Church, and needs to be
   brought to our remembrance. Among the Vaudois and the Waldenses, every
   pastor of the Church was always intensely earnest to find out others
   who would become pastors--therefore each one had a young Brother under
   his care. In the journeys of the shepherds of the Vaudois Church, as
   they passed from crag to crag, each one of the venerable men was
   usually accompanied by some strong young mountaineer, who, in return
   for the physical help which he gave to the venerable father, received
   instruction from him in the doctrines of the Gospel, in Church
   government, and in other things which appertained to the ministry.

   In this way the Israel of the Alps was enabled to perpetuate its
   testimony, and the office of the preacher of the Gospel never fell into
   disuse. When in the days of the blessed Reformation, Calvin and Luther
   exerted an influence over Europe, it was not only through their own
   preaching, mighty as that was--nor through their writings--though these
   were scattered broadcast like the leaves of autumn. It was also through
   the innumerable young men who swarmed at Wurtenburg and came together
   at Geneva to listen to the great Reformers' teaching and then
   afterwards went forth themselves into other lands to tell abroad what
   they had learned.

   Our Master sets before us the fact that no fitter instrument for
   spreading the Gospel can be devised than a man raised up by God to
   speak the Gospel who is able to attract to his feet others who shall
   catch his spirit, profit by his example, receive his doctrines, and go
   forth to preach the same Word.

   It would be correct to add that the Master also connected with His
   preaching and His college the invaluable agency of Bible classes.
   Indeed, I believe that the whole machinery of a zealous Christian
   Church can be found in embryo in the doings of Christ. And if His
   blessed life of holy labor were more thoroughly studied, new
   organizations for enlightening the world and for building up the Church
   would soon be thought of, and the best results would follow. Our Lord
   talked to His disciples--occasionally one by one, sometimes when He
   found them in pairs. And at other seasons He addressed the Apostles as
   a whole, " expounding unto them in all the Scriptures the things
   concerning Himself."

   The Apostles were evidently well acquainted with the Scriptures, and
   yet I do not suppose that all the population of Palestine were so well
   trained. They must, therefore, have learned of Jesus. Peter's first
   sermon shows his acquaintance with the Old Testament, and the speech of
   Stephen manifests remarkable familiarity with Scripture history. Such
   knowledge was not, I think, general, but was the result of constant
   communion with a Teacher whose references to the Inspired Volume were
   so constant. His readings of the holy Book, His interpretations, His
   quotations, His illustrations all tended to make His disciples men well
   instructed in the Law and the Prophets.

   And the inmost meaning of the Word was laid bare to them in the Person
   of their Lord Himself. If any Home Mission would see its work
   established, so as to endure the test of years, next to the ordinance
   of preaching, its ministry must be careful to exercise diligence in
   training up the converts in the knowledge of the written Word. The
   Bible must be read intelligently and its meaning clearly set forth. The
   memory must become familiar with its very words, and the heart with its
   inner spirit. We must seek gracious men and women who will labor in
   this needful ministry.

   No minister can afford to neglect the constant Scriptural tuition of
   his people, and if he is negligent of it, do not be surprised if
   grievous wolves enter into the Church and devour the flock. That our
   young men and women may not be carried about with every wind of
   doctrine, but may be steadfast, unmovable--is our bounden duty to
   instruct them in the Divine Word with laborious care and constancy.
   Notice, moreover, that our Lord's Mission work did not overlook the

   children. Our noble system of Sunday school work is not only justified,
   but even enforced by the example and precept of our Lord when he said,
   "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for
   of such is the kingdom of Heaven."

   And also by His saying to Peter, "Feed My lambs." The injunctions which
   bid us look after our adult converts who come under the denomination of
   "sheep," are no more valid than the command which bids us took after
   the young, and the tender, who are intended by the term "lambs." True
   Mission work, therefore, if any of you will undertake it, must
   carefully regard children. Moses would not leave even the little ones
   in Egypt. Even the youthful Israelites ate of the paschal lamb. Our
   work is sadly faulty if it has no bearing upon the young men and
   maidens, the boys and the girls.

   I am afraid that much of our public preaching is blameworthy in this
   respect. I feel, myself, that I do not say as much in my general
   sermons as I ought to do to the children of my congregation. I do
   insert stories and parables here and there, but if I shall ever reach
   my own ideal of preaching, I shall far more frequently let fall
   handfuls on purpose for the young. Sermons should be like a Mosaic, and
   the sparkling pieces which catch the infant eyes should abound. Our
   discourses should be as Isaiah says, "wine and milk"--wine for men and
   milk for babes. Out of our pulpits we must be the friends of the
   children, for then we trust they will grow up to be friends to us and
   to our Master. Our model Mission bends its strength to the cultivation
   of juvenile piety, and makes this department of effort second to none.

   We now proceed a step farther. Of late there has been frequently used
   by earnest Evangelists in the more populous parts of London the plan of
   free teas, free breakfasts, and free dinners--at which the poorest
   persons are brought together and fed, and are then affectionately
   exhorted to seek salvation. It is remarkable that this method has been
   so long disused, because it is, with a small difference, a plan adopted
   by our Lord. On two occasions at least, He spread a free repast for
   thousands of the famishing, disdaining not to provide food for the
   bodies of those whose souls He had blessed with the Word of Life.

   On those two occasions the generous Master of the feast gave His crowd
   of guests a good substantial meal of bread and fish. I have often
   wondered why those two viands were in each case selected, perhaps it
   was that both land and sea should be declared to be the storehouse of
   Providence. He gave not bread alone. His fare was not stingy. He would
   not merely stay their hunger, but He would afford them a relish to
   their bread, and therefore He gave them bread and fish. Agreeable,
   sufficient, healthful and satisfying refreshment the Lord dispensed at
   His table in the wilderness.

   Though many, no doubt, followed Him because they did eat of those
   loaves and fishes, yet I do not doubt that some who were first
   attracted by the earthly food remained to eat of the Bread of Heaven,
   and embraced those precious Truths which at first were foolishness unto
   them. Yes, my Friends, if we want to get at our starving people, if we
   would reach the most degraded and the poorest of the poor, we must use
   such means as these, for Jesus did.

   A Mission would also find great strength in imitating Jesus by
   combining medical aid with religious teaching. Our Lord was a medical
   Missionary--He not only preached the Gospel, but He opened the eyes of
   the blind, cured those who were afflicted with fevers, made the lame to
   leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb to sing. You may say that
   all this was miracle. I grant it, but the mode of performing the cure
   is not the point in hand. I am speaking of the thing itself. True
   enough is it that we cannot work miracles, but we may do what is within
   human reach in the way of healing, and so we may follow our Lord, not
   with equal footsteps, but in the same track.

   I rejoice to see in Edinburgh and in Glasgow, and also in London, the
   establishment of Medical Missions. I believe that in some parts of
   London nothing would be so likely to do good to the people as to make
   the vestry a dispensary, and the godly surgeon a deacon of the Church,
   if not an Evangelist. It may one day be thought possible to have
   deaconesses whose self-denying nursing of the sick poor shall introduce
   the Gospel into the meanest hovels. At any rate, there should be
   associated with the City Missionary, with the Bible-woman, and with
   Home Missions everywhere, to as great a degree as may be possible, the
   earnest aid of beloved physicians and men learned in the healing art,
   who should seek to do good to men's eyes, and ears, and legs, and feet,
   while others of us look to their spiritual infirmities.

   Many a young man who goes forth as a minister of Christ would do much
   more good if he understood a little anatomy and medicine. He might be a
   double blessing to a remote hamlet or to a district crowded with the
   poor. I pray for a closer connection between the surgeon and the
   Savior. I would invoke the aid of truly believing members of the
   faculty. May there be many who, like Luke, are both physicians and
   Evangelists. Perhaps some Christian young man walking the hospitals,
   and fearing God, may find in these hints a guide as to his future
   career.

   In addition to this, let me say that our Lord Jesus Christ also
   associated with His Mission-work the distribution of alms. He was very
   poor. Foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, but He, the
   Son of Man, had not where to lay His head. Out of the gifts of the
   faithful who ministered to His necessities there was but little to
   spare. These gifts were put into a bag and entrusted to Judas, and we
   discover, incidentally, that the Master was likely to distribute from
   this slender store to the poor around Him. Brethren, it is to be feared
   that some Churches fall behind in this matter of almsgiving, a matter
   which at the Judgment Day will occupy a very conspicuous place, "I was
   hungry and you gave Me meat."

   The Romish Church has abounded in the practice of almsgiving, and if
   her mode of distributing were as wise as her manner of contributing is
   generous, she would deserve much commendation in this respect.
   Brethren, because we feel that we are justified by faith and not by
   works, are we to cease from good works and suffer the giving of alms to
   drift into the background? Such is now the rage for centralization, and
   so eager are some for the suppression of all personal charity that it
   may one day become an indictable offense to give away a sixpence to a
   starving woman until you have consulted the police, the Poor Law Board,
   or some association for giving away paper tickets instead of bread.

   Public opinion demands the publication of all our gifts, and ignores
   the old-fashioned command, "Let not your right hand know what your left
   hand does." We are all to be made wheels in the engine of a society to
   give our alms by clock work, and relieve the poor by machinery. For
   one, I shall always recommend Christian people to be a little eccentric
   in their benevolence. Without decrying societies, I shall urge godly
   men to judge for themselves as to the poverty of each case, and to give
   for themselves, apart from those various associations which cut and dry
   benevolence till it becomes a mere skeleton.

   I am a firm believer in the Gospel of the barley loaves and fishes. I
   believe in the Gospel of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. I
   like the story that I heard the other day of a poor man who was found
   in the street one Sunday morning as he was about to commit suicide. Two
   of our Brethren met him, and led him to this Tabernacle, but they knew
   better than to bring him to hear a sermon while he was hungry. On the
   road they took him to a coffee shop, and gave him a cup of hot coffee
   and some bread and butter. And then they brought him to hear the
   discourse. I had a far more likely hearer in the man whose hunger was
   relieved than I could have had in the poor famishing sinner.

   Then, after the sermon was over, they took care to find him a good
   dinner, and so detained him till they brought him here again in the
   evening and God was pleased to bless the Word to him. Rest assured that
   the Master's opening blind eyes, the Master's feeding the multitude,
   and the Master's relief of the poor were all indications to the
   Christian Church that clothing societies and soup kitchens, and
   benevolent associations, are legitimate aids to the spread of the
   Gospel.

   Our Master's Mission had one point in it which we ought never to
   forget, namely, that it was carried on very largely through open-air
   preaching. I remember well the time when it really seemed an outrageous
   novelty for a man to preach in the streets. I remember proposing,
   twenty years ago, to my good deacons in the country that I should
   preach on the Sunday evening by the riverside, and the remark was made
   by one of them, "Ah, I do not like it, it is imitating the Methodists."
   To him as a sound Calvinist it was a dreadful thing to do anything
   which Methodists were guilty of. To me, however, that was more a
   recommendation than otherwise, and I was happy to run the risk of being
   called Methodist.

   All over England, in our cities, towns, villages, and hamlets, there
   are tens of thousands who never will hear the Gospel while open-air
   preaching is neglected. I believe that God allows us to preach in
   Churches and chapels, but I do not believe that we have any Apostolic
   precedent for it, certainly none for confining our ministry to such
   places. I believe that we are allowed, if it promotes order and
   edification, to set apart buildings for our worship. But there is no
   warrant for calling these places sanctuaries and Houses of God, for all
   places are alike holy where holy men assemble. It is altogether a
   mischievous thing that we should confine our preaching within walls.

   Our Lord, it is true, preached in the synagogues, but He often spoke on
   the mountain's side, or from a boat, or in the court of a house, or in
   the public thoroughfares. To Him an audience was the only necessity. He
   was a fisher of souls of the true sort, and not of the modern order who
   sit in their houses and expect the fish to come to them to be caught.
   Did our Lord intend a minister to go on preaching from his pulpit to
   empty pews, when by standing on a chair or a table outside the meeting
   house he might be heard by hundreds? Of course, if the crowd fills the
   house, and it is as large as the human voice can fill, there is the
   less need for us to go out into the streets. But, alas, there are
   places of worship in London by scores, not one-fourth or even one-tenth
   filled, and yet the preacher goes on contentedly!

   A minister is living in positive sin who constantly preaches to a mere
   handful within walls, while outside there are crowded courts and lanes,
   and alleys, where men are perishing for lack of knowledge. The minister
   who does his duty goes out into the highways and hedges. He goes into
   all the world. He preaches whether men will hear or whether they will
   forbear, and delights to make hills and woods ring with the message of
   peace!

   Our Lord also set an example to Home Missionaries, in the fact that He
   had pity on the villages. Small villages are often thought to be too
   insignificant for the founding of Churches in them. But the villages
   help to make the large towns, and the character of the citizens of this
   great London of ours depends very much upon the character of the
   village homes from which so many of our fellow citizens are drawn. We
   must never neglect the smallest hamlet, but seek as far as we can, to
   reach even the little knots of cottages that stand by twos and threes
   on lone heaths and desolate moors.

   At the same time, the Master also gave much attention to the towns.
   Capernaum and Bethsaida were not forgotten. Jerusalem frequently echoed
   with His voice. Where the crowds assembled at the solemn festivals,
   which were something like the gatherings at our markets and fairs,
   Christ was heard lifting up His voice, and crying, "If any man thirst,
   let him come unto Me and drink." The Home Missionary must avail himself
   of all gatherings of his fellow men for whatever objects they may have
   come together. And in every place he must proclaim the Gospel, seeking
   by any means to save some. This and much more may be gathered from the
   life of Jesus of Nazareth, "a Prophet mighty in deed and word."

   II. I shall now pass on to notice, in the second place, THE MODEL HOME
   MISSIONARY. My Brethren, after all, the success of a work depends very
   little upon the system which is adopted in carrying it out--almost
   everything rests under God--not upon the man. There have been men who,
   with systems unwise and imperfect, have, nevertheless, accomplished
   noble results, while others with admirable organizations have done
   nothing, because they were not the right men. Who, then, is the fittest
   man to be a Missionary for Christ? Who is the woman that can best serve
   her God?

   Behold the Model Missionary in the Person of the Lord Jesus. The man
   who is to serve God as a leading Missionary must be a man of teaching
   power and of personal influence. It is of no use to send out as a
   Missionary a man who cannot speak. And yet there are many places where
   the people are without a minister, if speaking power is an essential
   qualification for that office. Why, you may frequently hear the
   preacher mumble so dreadfully that you can hardly follow his words. Or
   he is a mere reader, or else a prosy reciter of very heavy matter.

   In the Established Church, the very last thing that is looked into when
   a young man enters "holy orders," as they call them, is whether he has
   gifts of utterance, or in other words, whether he is qualified by
   nature and by Divine Grace to be a preacher. That some very admirable
   and excellent persons enter the Church is cheerfully granted, but none
   the less we believe such a system to be essentially bad. If you want a
   man to spread the Gospel among his fellow men, he must be one who can
   preach. He must be apt to teach. He must have a way of making plain
   what he means, and of winning attention, so that men may be willing to
   listen to him.

   Our Lord had this grand capacity in the highest degree. He could bring
   the most sublime truths down to the level of His hearers'
   comprehension. He knew how, with a Divine simplicity, to tell a story
   that would win even a child's attention. And though the Truth He spoke
   was such that archangels might well marvel at it, yet He put it into
   such a form that the little children gathered around Him, and the
   common people heard Him gladly. Aptness to teach--this is what we need.
   Pray, my Brethren, the Lord of the Harvest to send us many who have
   this choice gift. The pulpit, the Sunday school, and every form of
   Christian service need earnest workers who have the power of
   translating their thoughts into the language of those with whom they
   come in contact, so that they may be interested and impressed.

   But there were higher qualifications than these. Our Lord as a
   Missionary was a Man who fraternized with the people. I do not think He
   ever passed a person on the road concerning whom He said to Himself, "I
   am so much above that man that I will not speak to him." I could hardly
   dare to imagine Him saying such words. It would so lower the Savior to
   imagine such a thing. And yet, and yet, and yet--some of His ministers
   have thought so! How many of us, if we had seen a poor harlot coming to
   the well would have remained sitting by it purposely to converse with
   her? If we had seen her coming, knowing her character, we should
   probably have moved off, and have eased our conscience with the notion
   that hers was a case more suitable for someone else to deal with. In
   fact, a matter to be left to an agent of the Rescue Society.

   Our Lord made no affectation of condescending or of patronizing the
   poor Samaritan sinner, but as naturally as possible, with every
   appearance of ease, He at once began to talk with her. If she had been
   a noble lady in the land He could not have fraternized more thoroughly
   with her, and yet He in no way connived at her sin. Our Lord received
   sinners and

   ate with them. They must have seen how different He was from
   themselves, but He affected no distance. He pretended to no caste. He
   drew no lines of social demarcation. He was not a Pharisee, who stood
   apart in his pious eminence--pride and assumed dignity had no
   attractions for Him. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate
   from sinners in the highest and best of senses, but in other respects
   He was the friend of publicans and sinners.

   If we are to have London blessed, it will never be by ministers who are
   too great to speak to the poorest of the people. Nor will your
   benevolent societies work much good if your lordships and ladyships
   cannot mingle with the humbler classes. We must be one with those whom
   we would bless. We must not be ashamed to call them Brethren. We must
   without being conscious of stooping, reach out a fraternal hand to the
   fallen and the degraded, that we may lift them up for Christ's sake. O
   for men and women of the true brotherly and sisterly spirit--bone of
   the people's bone and flesh of their

   flesh!

   Our Lord, again, was a man who could toil. He was by no means a
   gentleman at large, amusing His leisure with lecturing. He never
   preached a sermon without weaving His soul into it. He was by no means
   the kind of Evangelist who finds His task a light one. He could not, as
   some do, preach by the year without disturbing the placid current of
   His own emotions. No, my Brethren, never preacher worked more intensely
   than Jesus did--by day preaching, by night praying, oftentimes faint
   through weariness, and yet not finding time so much as to eat bread.
   Whoever did not labor, Christ did. He is the Master Worker of all the
   sons of men.

   If we all must eat bread in the sweat of our faces, much greater was
   His toil when He brought the Bread of Life to us by the bloody sweat of
   Gethsemane, and by the life-sweat of every day of His three years'
   ministry. His life was a scene of unrivalled labor. We can hardly
   conceive how thoroughly our Redeemer laid Himself out for us. Now, if
   the Church would see souls saved, the work will never be achieved by
   agents who are half asleep. Christ's kingdom will never be extended by
   persons who are afraid of labor. God will bless His Church by the power
   of the Holy Spirit, for all the power lies there--but He will have His
   Church travail--or the blessing will not come.

   For a Home Missionary we want a man who can pray as the Master prayed.
   What a proficient in the art of prayer was Jesus! He was as great with
   God in prayer as He was with man in preaching. I heard a Brother speak
   the other day of our Lord's coming from the mountainside with the wild
   flowers on His garments, and the smell of the heather on His vesture,
   for He came fresh from the lone spot where He had spent the night in
   prayer. Ah, my Brethren, here is the center of power! Prayer breaks
   hearts. These granite rocks will never yield to our hammers till we go
   down on our knees to smite. If we prevail with God for men, we shall
   prevail with men for God. The main work of the minister must be done
   alone. Let him do as he pleases when the multitude are listening, he
   shall not bring them to Christ unless he has pleaded for them when none
   heard him but his God. Our Home Mission needs men who can pray.

   And, Brethren, if we are to secure useful men and women we must choose
   those who can weep. That is a fine faculty, that emotional power of the
   heart which makes the passions boil, and rise within like steaming
   vapors, till at last like the waters of dropping wells, they are
   condensed and fall in showers from our eyes! I do not covet that
   moistness of the eyes which some exhibit as the result of optical
   weakness or effeminacy of constitution--but manly weeping is a mighty
   thing. Our Lord Jesus was thoroughly a Man--far too masculine to fall
   into sentimentalism and affectation--but when He beheld the city, and
   knew all the sufferings that would come upon it from the siege as a
   punishment for its sin, He could not restrain the floods. His great
   soul ran over at His eyes.

   If He had not been a man who could weep Himself, He could not, humanly
   speaking, have made others weep. You must feel yourselves if you would
   make other men feel. You cannot reach my heart till first of all your
   heart comes to meet mine. Lord, send into Your field men of strong
   emotional natures whose eyes can be fountains of tears.

   To crown all, our blessed Lord was one who knew how to die! Oh, when
   shall we have men and women sent among us who are prepared to die in
   order to accomplish their lifework? I have shuddered, and all the more
   so because I might do no better myself, when I have heard excuses for
   avoiding risks of life, and reasons for escaping hardships in foreign
   lands. It has been even questioned in some quarters, whether a man
   would be right in exposing himself to danger of life in order to preach
   the Gospel. I could say much, but would be sparing of censure. Only
   this I must say--until Divine Grace shall restore to us the ancient
   Apostolic self-sacrifice, we may not expect to see the Gospel
   conquering to any high degree.

   Zeal for God's House must eat us up. Love of life must yield to love of
   souls. Trials must be counted as nothing for Christ's sake, and death
   must be defied, or we shall never capture the world for Jesus. They who
   wear soft raiment will

   never win Ireland, or Africa, or India for Christ. The man who
   considers himself, and makes provision for the flesh, will do little or
   nothing. Christ revealed the great secret when it was said of Him, "He
   saved others, Himself He cannot save." In proportion as a man saves
   himself he cannot save others. And only in proportion as he is carried
   away with self-sacrifice, willing to renounce luxuries, comforts,
   necessities, and even life, itself--only in that proportion will he
   succeed.

   I trust that no Missionary's life may be lost, but I trust that if the
   Church can only bring the world to Christ by the deaths of her
   ministers, all our lives may be sacrificed--for what are we, my
   Brethren, what is any one of us--compared with the accomplishment of
   our Redeemer's work? Our sires went to the stake with songs upon their
   lips. Our ancestors were confessors who dared the barbarous cruelties
   of Northern hordes, and the refined persecution of Southern
   superstition. They were men who could die but could not refrain from
   witnessing for the Lord. We must quit ourselves like men for Christ.
   And though we may not all be called to make the extreme sacrifice, we
   must be ready for it. And if we shrink from it we are not the men for
   such a time as this.

   We want men who can toil, men who can pray, men who can weep, men who
   can die. In fact, we need for Christ's work men all ablaze with
   consecrated fervor, men under a Divine impulse, like arrows shot from
   the bow of the Almighty flashing straight to the target. Men like
   thunderbolts launched by the Eternal to go crashing through every
   difficulty with irresistible energy of aim. We want a Divine enthusiasm
   to fire us, an Almighty impetus to urge us on. Only men thus filled
   with the Holy Spirit shall accomplish largely the work of God.

   III. My last point was to be, if Christ lived thus, and worked thus,
   LET US HEAR HIS CALL AND IMITATE HIM. I shall say but a few sentences,
   but let them be remembered. Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, it is
   your privilege to be a worker together with God. Therefore keep close
   to the footsteps of the great Master worker.

   Remember that before He went to work He was Himself personally obedient
   to that Gospel which He had to preach. He did not bid others believe
   and be baptized, and neglect to be baptized Himself. "Thus it becomes
   us to fulfill all righteousness," said He. And in the waves of Jordan,
   the Baptist immersed Him. How little will you be fitted for service if
   you leave any command of Christ not obeyed! How can you exhort others
   to do your Lord's will if you yourself are disobedient to it? The first
   thing, therefore, before you go to that form of service which now
   invites you, is to see to it that you have obeyed the Master's will,
   for "to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of
   rams."

   This being done, let me say to you, Is there not some department of
   Mission work at home that you could undertake? Most probably you could
   not do all those things which I have mentioned as having been done by
   Christ. But you know that young artists will often be instructed by
   their masters to sketch not the whole of a great statue by Phidias, but
   one single limb, an arm, a hand, or a foot. Have you not often seen in
   the artist's studio the foot of some great masterpiece used as a model?
   Just so it shall be enough to teach you service if, being unable to
   attempt the whole of the great scheme which I have brought before you
   now, you will undertake zealously to labor in one department of it.

   But, whatever you do, do it thoroughly, do it heartily. If it is worth
   doing at all, it is worth doing well. For such a Master there must be
   no second-rate work, and with such a gracious reward before you, there
   must be no offering of that which costs you nothing. You must throw
   yourselves into whatever you undertake for Jesus.

   Will you now take one word which is often used by Mark as a motto for
   yourselves? The idiom of the Gospel of Mark is eutheos, "straightway."
   He is always saying of Christ, that straightway He did this, and
   straightway He did that. Now, if you have work for Christ before your
   eyes, straightway hasten to do it. The most of Christians miss the
   honor they might have in service by waiting till a more convenient
   season. Do something tonight before you go to bed, if it is only the
   giving away of a tract. Do something as each moment flies. If up to now
   you have not been a worker, begin now. Or if you have been a worker up
   till now, do not pause, but end the evening with another good word to
   sister, or child, or friend. Evermore breathe out consecration to
   Christ.

   And let me bid you, dear Friends, if you love my Lord and Master, to
   have comfort in trying to serve Him, because there is an all-sufficient
   power which you may obtain for this service. Our Lord is declared in
   this very verse to be One who was anointed with the Holy Spirit and
   with power. That same Holy Spirit is given to the Church, and that same
   power lingers in the assemblies of the faithful. Ask for this
   anointing, and pray that as in this verse we are told that God was with
   Jesus, so God may be with you. Remember last Sunday evening's text,
   "Fear you not. For I am with you; be not

   dismayed, for I am your God: I will strengthen you; yes, I will help
   you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of My righteousness."

   Being now a pardoned sinner, ask to be an anointed saint. As one who is
   reconciled to God, ask that you may be strengthened by God, so that
   from this day forward you may serve your Master mightily. I do not know
   that I ever felt happier in my life than I did last Tuesday night when
   I was listening to my dear Friend, Mr. Orsman, the pastor of the poor
   but gracious Church in Golden Lane, in the City. He is a good Brother,
   who, some years ago, was converted to God under our ministry, and he
   was there and then converted all over. Some of you, when you believe in
   Christ appear to have only a sprinkling conversion, but I love those
   men and women who get an immersion conversion.

   They, go down into the deeps of the love of Christ, and give themselves
   altogether up to their Lord. Why, that dear man, though working all day
   long in the Post Office, yet finds in the evening opportunity to preach
   Christ. And if you were to go to Golden Lane, you would find there all
   the forms of organization which I have described at the commencement of
   this sermon in active exercise. Among the poorest, lowest and most
   degraded of the people, Divine Grace has found out precious jewels.
   Some seven or eight who are now ministers of the Gospel, first began to
   preach to his poor people there. He has now spiritual children
   scattered all over the world by emigration, and the good man, having
   consecrated himself fully to his work, is most happy in it.

   I believe from the bottom of my soul that these single-handed men, who
   give themselves up to a special district and work it well, are the very
   greatest blessings that London can have. And if there is a young man
   here endowed with abilities, and perhaps with a little money and time,
   what better could I propose to him, as a lover of Christ, than to begin
   some such work for his Master? The same applies to Christian women. Oh,
   what good Christian women can do! There are those in this place whose
   names, if I were to mention them, would be had in honor by us all for
   what they have accomplished!

   Without obtruding themselves as preachers into public assemblies, they
   are working away for Christ privately, and bringing many into the
   Church of God. O Christian men and women, time is flying, men are
   dying, Hell is filling, Christ is waiting to see of the travail of His
   soul. I beseech you by the heart of God's mercy, by the heart of
   Christ, by His love for souls--bestir yourselves and proclaim
   salvation. May the Lord's blessing be with you. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Away With Fear

   (No. 930)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, APRIL 10, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Fear you not. For I am with you; be not dismayed; for I am your God: I
   will strengthen you; yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with
   the right hand of My righteousness." Isaiah 41:10.

   IF there should be nothing in the sermon this evening, Brethren, there
   is enough in the text to satisfy your mouth with good things, so that
   your youth may be renewed like the eagle's. May the Holy Spirit spread
   for you a table in the wilderness. And may He give you appetites to
   feed by faith upon these royal dainties, which, like the food that
   Daniel and his companions fed upon, shall make you well-favored before
   God and man.

   To whom are these words spoken? For we must not steal from God's
   Scripture any more than from man's treasury. We have no more right to
   take a promise to ourselves that does not belong to us than we have to
   take another man's purse from him. These words were evidently spoken in
   God's name by the Prophet to God's "chosen" ones. Read the eighth verse
   "But you, Israel, are My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of
   Abraham My friend."

   And again in the ninth verse--"You are My servant. I have chosen you."
   So, then, if you or I should meet with anything that is gracious and
   comfortable here it will come to us, not upon the footing of merit, but
   upon the ground of Sovereign Grace. It will not be ours because we have
   chosen Christ, but because He has chosen us. Our heavenly Father has
   blessed us with all spiritual blessings according as He has chosen us
   in Christ Jesus from before the foundation of the world. The eternal
   choice is the wellhead from which all the springs of mercy flow. Happy
   are you, my Soul, if Divine Grace has inscribed your name in God's
   eternal book! You may come to this text like a child to his father's
   own table, and you may draw from it all manner of comforts to sustain
   your spirit.

   But since, dear Friends, you and I cannot read the secret roll of God's
   electing love, we are helped to judge whether this text belongs to us
   by another description. For those who are here called "chosen," are, in
   the ninth verse, also described as being "called." "You whom I have
   taken from the ends of the earth, and called you from the chief men
   thereof." God's chosen people of old were set apart for Himself, and
   called out from all the rest of the world, and so they are now. They
   are a people called out by His special Grace--with a gracious call
   which they have not been able to resist--and they have come forth and
   declared themselves on the Lord's side.

   "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to
   the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many
   Brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called." If
   you are called, depend upon it you are chosen. I do not mean if you are
   called in the common sense with the universal call of the Gospel, for
   in that sense, "many are called, but few are chosen." But I mean if you
   are effectually called, personally called, called of the Holy Spirit,
   called as Mary was when Jesus said to her, "Mary"--and that gracious
   voice thrilled through her soul, and she responded to it, and said to
   Him--"Master!"

   Have you been so called that you have forsaken all for Christ, or are
   willing to do so? Have you left your old pleasures and your old
   companions? And are you now a separated one, set apart for Christ? Oh,
   if it is so, let nothing keep you back from enjoying the riches of my
   text, for every comfortable sentence in it belongs to you!

   Still, farther to help us to find out to whom this text belongs, notice
   that the person here described is spoken of in the eighth verse as a
   "servant." "You, Israel, are My servant," and in the ninth verse, "And
   said unto you, You are My servant." Now, are you God's servant, dear
   Hearer? A servant does not do his own will. He would soon get his
   discharge if he carried out his own whims and wishes. He takes his
   guidance from his master's mouth and his master's eyes. Have you
   submitted your will to God's will? Are you no longer governed by a
   proud and high spirit which cries, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey
   Him?" Do you desire to know what God's will is, and then to do just
   what He bids you? Do you count it your highest honor to be called a
   servant of Christ? Is it for Him that you live? Is His glory your
   highest aim? If

   so, then you who are willing to labor may come and feast upon the text,
   for every honey-dropping word of it belongs to you, since you serve the
   Lord Christ.

   One more word to help you to see whether you have a right to these
   promises. He says in the ninth verse, "I have chosen you, and not cast
   you away." Now you have, some of you, been professors of the Christian
   faith for many years. Some of the younger ones of us have now been
   twenty years maintained in His House, for it is just so long since we
   were baptized in Christ's name. Surely, my Brethren, we feel that,
   judged by the strictness of the Law, we deserved to have been cast
   away! And yet, being under Grace, we have been preserved by the Lord's
   salvation even until now.

   Still though faint, we are pursuing. We are bound to confess, "My feet
   had almost gone. My steps had well-near slipped." But we have been
   upheld even to this hour. Oh, then, we have much to be grateful for,
   and much to rejoice in, for perseverance is a great pledge and earnest
   of final salvation. "To him that overcomes, the crown of life shall
   be." And to us, as having overcome up till now, the promises of the
   text belong. He who has kept you, my Brothers and Sisters, till this
   hour, bids you now come and look into this choice cabinet and take out
   the jewels and wear them. For they are all your own to deck you, that
   you may adorn His doctrine the more. In a word, the text belongs to
   God's chosen. Those who are His by being separated from the world--who
   are distinguished by their practical service of God--and who continue
   in that service. And by God's Grace will continue in it even till the
   end.

   Come we now to the text. I will read it again, "Fear you not. For I am
   with You; be not dismayed; for I am your God: I will strengthen you;
   yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of My
   righteousness." There is here, first, a very natural disease--fear.
   There is here, secondly, a command against fear--"Fear you not." And
   there is, thirdly, God's promise to help us to overcome it. And that
   promise is given in three or four ways so that we may chase fear away
   with a whip of many thongs.

   I. First, then, we are reminded OF A VERY COMMON DISEASE OF GOOD
   MEN--FEAR AND DISMAY. This disease of fear came into man's heart with
   sin. Adam never was afraid of his God till he had broken His commands.
   When the Lord God walked in the garden in the cool of day, and Adam
   heard the Almighty's footsteps, he hastened to commune with God as a
   dear child talks with a loving father.

   But the moment he had touched the fruit that was forbidden, he ran away
   and hid himself. And when God said, "Where are you, Adam?" Adam came
   cringing and trembling, for he was afraid of God. It is sin,
   consciousness of sin, that "makes cowards of us all." Though He who
   made us is a consuming fire, and we should always have a holy awe of
   Him, yet the fear that causes bondage would never have come into our
   spirit if we had not first of all transgressed His Law. Sin is the
   mother of the fear which has torment.

   And, Brethren, fear continues in good men because sin continues in
   them. If they had attained to perfect love it would cast out fear, for
   fear has torment. But, since the flesh is still in them and the lusts
   still strive for the mastery, even the holiest of God's people are
   sometimes afflicted with the mockings of the child of the bondwoman. O
   that he were cast out, for he can never be heir with the freeborn
   nature! As Divine Grace grows and increases in power, fear declines.
   And when sin is cut up by the root and branch, then no doubt or fear
   will ever vex us again. Once strip us of these houses of clay. Once
   deliver us from all indwelling sin--and our spirits shall seek God as
   the sparks seek the sun.

   But until then, since by reason of weakness sin sometimes prevails,
   fear also prevails, and we are sadly cast down. Fear, coming in by sin
   and being sustained by sin, readily finds food upon which it may live.
   Let the Believer look within, and, my Brethren, he has only to do that
   for a moment to see abundant reasons for fear. "Ah!" says Fear as it
   looks within at the heart still prone to wander, "I shall never hold on
   my way." "Ah!" says Fear as it looks at the besetting sin, "I shall be
   tripped up yet. I shall never persevere to the end."

   Grace is there, it is true, but Fear is blind to the better nature and
   fixes his glance only on the body of this death. Looking within upon
   the old nature is seldom a very pleasant operation, especially if we
   forget that it is crucified with Christ. I suppose if any man among us
   could see his own heart as it really is, he would be driven mad. But
   Faith looks at all the ruins of the Fall and she believes that the
   blood of Christ will get the victory. She sings her poem of triumph
   even while the fight is raging, rejoicing with the Apostle, that,
   "Where sin abounded, Grace did much more abound: that as sin has
   reigned unto death, even so might Grace reign through righteousness
   unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord."

   But Fear says, "I shall one day fall by the hand of the enemy. Such a
   poor frail boat as mine will never stem the flood and weather the
   tempest, but I shall make shipwreck after all." And then, my Brethren,
   if Fear finds food within, it also

   very readily finds food without. Sometimes it is poverty, sometimes
   sickness, sometimes the recollection of the past, and quite as often
   dread of the future. Even those who have faith in God may occasionally
   be weak enough to fear and be dismayed about common circumstances to
   which they ought to be indifferent, or over which they ought by faith
   to exult.

   Desponding people can find reason for fear where there is no fear. A
   certain class of persons are greatly gifted with the mournful faculty
   of inventing troubles. If the Lord has not sent them any trial, they
   make one for themselves. They have a little trouble-factory in their
   houses, and they sit down and use their imaginations to meditate
   terror. They weave sackcloth and scrape up ashes. They know that they
   shall be bankrupt--there was a little falling off in their trade last
   week. They believe that they shall soon be too old for labor--it is
   true they are older than they were a month ago. They feel sure that
   they shall die in the workhouse--it is clear they will die somewhere.

   They feel certain about this dreadful thing and that, and fret
   accordingly. None of these things have happened to them yet, and in the
   judgment of others they are less likely to happen now than ever they
   were. But yet they convert their suspicions into realities and torture
   themselves with them though they are but fancies. Oh, it is sad that we
   should degrade ourselves to this--

   "Shall the thin cloudlets of this transient life

   Shut out the light of Lo ve Immutable?

   Shall unsubstantial mists of earthborn care

   Conceal from saints the everlasting hills,

   From which their speedy succor shall descend?

   Oh, shame, and sin most base, that heirs of Heaven,

   Enriched with all the fullness of the Lord,

   Should fret, and fume, and wear away their souls

   With childish dreams of ills which never may come;

   Or coming, shall be laden deep with good!" In certain instances the
   habit of fearing has reached a monstrous growth. Indeed, I know some of
   my acquaintances who think it the right thing to be always fearing, and
   are half suspicious of a man who has strong faith. They even call full
   assurance, "presumption," and are amazed that anybody should have
   confidence in God. But if they did but know it, there is more
   presumption in unbelief than there can be in faith. It is gross
   presumption on a child's part to disbelieve its father's word. There is
   no presumption in a child's believing what its father tells it. It,
   then, only does its duty. For me to accept the naked promises of a
   faithful God, and, despite my unworthiness, still to believe them true,
   is humility.

   But for me to take that promise from my Father's lips, and begin to
   cavil at it, and to question it, is nothing better than pride hiding
   its nakedness with the thinnest gauze of pretended modesty. Shun, I
   pray you, the unbelief that apes humility, and seek after that
   unstaggering faith which is the true meekness in the sight of God!

   Yet, I would not blame all those who are much given to fear, for in
   some it is rather their disease than their sin, and more their
   misfortune than their fault. Mr. Feeble-Mind will never make a
   Great-Heart even if you feed him on the finest of the wheat. Mr.
   Ready-to-Halt will never stand so firmly, or run so nimbly, as Mr.
   Valiant-for-Truth--do what you will with him. There are some in God's
   family who are constitutionally weak, and will probably never outgrow
   that weakness till they have entered into rest. I would do anything I
   could to encourage the fearing ones to rise above their weakness. I
   would even give just enough of the tonic of censure to make them feel
   that it is not right to be unbelieving, but I would not like to censure
   their despondency so severely as to make them think that they are not
   the people of God.

   I tell you, Sirs, I would sooner you would go to Heaven creeping on all
   fours, with never a song in your mouths, than go to Hell presuming. It
   is better to be a broken-legged lamb in Christ's bosom than to be the
   strongest ram in Satan's flock. God deliver us from being strong and
   mighty in ourselves. But yet at the same time there are many evils
   connected with fearing, and every child of God should be on his guard
   against giving way to it. In every case much may be accomplished by
   arousing ourselves to cry to the strong One for strength to overcome
   our unbelief. Gloom need not be perpetual with us.

   I know it is said that some of God's plants grow best in the shade. I
   believe they do, but I should like to try them in the sunlight a little
   and see if they would not grow better there than their best has up to
   now been. There are precious flowers of Grace which are constantly
   watered with the tears of sorrow, but methinks the dews of consolation
   would an-

   swer their purpose just as well. May the Lord visit such, and bring
   them up out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay. May they be
   of good courage, for the Lord says to them--

   "Fear not. Be not dismayed."

   Be it also remarked before we leave this point, that even the strongest
   of God's servants are sometimes the subjects of fear. David was a very
   strong man, and he overthrew Goliath. But we read that on one occasion
   when he was in battle, "David waxed faint." So the Lord's mightiest
   heroes sometimes have their fainting fits. We used to talk of our "Iron
   Duke," and there was one man in Scripture who was an Iron Prophet, and
   that was Elijah the Tishbite, and yet he sat down under the juniper
   tree, and, I had almost said, whined, "It is enough. Now, O Lord, take
   away my life. For I am not better than my fathers."

   The best of men are but men at the best, and the strongest men are weak
   if God's mighty hand is for awhile withdrawn. Some of my dear friends
   will occasionally tell me, "We have suffered from doubts, and fears,
   and troubles, of which you have no conception." They suppose that their
   minister, and others whom they love and respect, know nothing at all
   experimentally about their infirmities. I wish it were so. We have
   something better to talk of than our own follies. We do not feel bound
   to turn the pulpit into a public confessional, and all experiences are
   not to be published abroad. But, for all that, permit me to say that
   there are times with the boldest and the strongest when they would give
   all they have for the very smallest evidence of Divine Grace. They
   would count themselves happy to creep to the foot of the Cross and say,
   "God be merciful to me a sinner!"

   Yet, I do not say this to encourage anybody in fearing, for, let me
   just give you the opposite side. There is no reason why, if we lived
   nearer to God and walked more carefully, we might not, as a rule, live
   above all this fear and dismay. I once met with a dear Brother in
   Christ, who is now in Glory, about whose truthfulness I never could
   have a doubt. He told me that by the space of thirty years he had not
   felt a doubt of his interest in Jesus Christ. At the time I heard him
   say it, I thought it was quite an unusual circumstance, but I bless God
   that I have now met with several, "the excellent of the earth, in whom
   is all My delight."

   Their testimony is the same--that though they may have been shaken,
   they have never been moved from their steadfast hold on Christ. Though
   they may have had a few moments of trembling--yet they have never been
   so dismayed as to question their part in Jesus. They have stood fast,
   and they have sung year after year, "O God, my heart is fixed. my heart
   is fixed. I will sing and give praise." I hold that out as an object of
   ambition to every Believer in Christ. Do try and see if you cannot
   rinse your mouth out of all that bitter stuff which makes you sing so
   often and so dolefully--

   "It is a point Ilong to know__."

   That is a very suitable song for Christian infants, a hymn often sung
   by enquirers. But O that you would get beyond such juvenile ditties,
   and learn to sing fitter music, such as this--

   "NowIhave found the ground, wherein Sure my soul's anchor may remain--
   The wounds of Jesus, for my sin Before the world's foundation slain.
   Whose mercy shall unshaken stay, When Hea ven and earth are fled away.

   Love! You bottomless abyss! My sins are swallowed up in You; Covered is
   my unrighteousness, Nor spot of guilt remains on me

   While Jesus' blood through earth and skies, Mercy, free, boundless
   mercy cries!

   With faith I plunge me in this sea-- Here is my hope, my joy, my rest!
   Hither, when Hell assails, I flee,

   1 look into my Sa vior's breast; Away, sad doubt, and anxious fear!
   Mercy is all that's written there."

   II. We shall now occupy a little while in considering GOD'S COMMAND
   AGAINST FEAR. "Fear you not. Be not dismayed." That precept is absolute
   and unqualified--we are not to fear at all. He does not say, "Fear so
   much, but not beyond that," but He gives an unlimited exhortation,
   "Fear not." He does not say, "Do not fear so often," but, "Fear not."
   It is an exhortation without any time to it, and therefore it applies
   to all times. "Fear not." Fear not at all. "Be not dismayed." He does
   not say, "Be not utterly dismayed." There is no qualifying adverb, but
   it means, "Be not dismayed at all." This command, then, chides fear and
   forbids dismay.

   Why should not the child of God be afraid? There are several reasons
   which justify the Divine command. Let us meditate upon some of them.
   First, my Brethren, we may not fear because it is sinful. It is usually
   sinful to be afraid and dismayed, because such a state of mind almost
   always results from unbelief. Have you ever thought what a great sin
   unbelief is? No, we talk about it, and confess it, but we do not
   sufficiently consider the deep heinousness of it. We will confess
   unbelief of God without a blush, and yet nothing could make us
   acknowledge dishonesty to man. I pray you, my Brethren, tell me which
   of these two is the worst fault? Is not unbelief a robbery of God, a
   treason felony against Him?

   If I were in conversation with any one of you, and you should say to
   me, "Sir, I do not believe you," nothing you could say would sting me
   more. It is a very strong thing to say to any man, "I do not believe
   you." Why, if there were two of the lowest men or women fighting in a
   street quarrel, and one of them said to the other, "I do not believe a
   word you say," the sorriest drab would feel the insult. Every truthful
   man feels that he has a right to be believed. He speaks upon the honor
   of an honest man, and if you say, "I do not believe you," and even
   begin to lament that you have no faith in him, the reflection is not
   upon yourself, but on the person whom you cannot believe.

   And shall it ever come to this, that God's own children shall say that
   they do not believe their God? Oh, sin of sins! It takes away the very
   Godhead from God, for if God is not true, He is not God. And if He is
   not fit to be believed, neither is He fit to be adored--for a God whom
   you cannot trust you cannot worship. Oh, deicidal Traitor, you sin of
   unbelief! Oh, God-killing sin! May we be delivered from it, and not
   think it light or trifling, but shake it off from us as Paul shook off
   the viper into the fire.

   Doubts and fears also breed sin. It was said of Jeroboam that he
   sinned, and made Israel to sin--and so does unbelief. It carries a
   thousand other sins in its loins. The man who believes in God will
   fight with temptation, but the man who does not believe in Him is ready
   to fall into any snare. See yonder tradesman--he is just now in low
   water through the badness of business. He is a Believer in God, and he
   says, "I believe that God will carry me through it if I keep to the
   straight line of integrity. I trust in God, and come what may, I will
   not pawn my reputation." Now, whatever may come of it, that man's
   character will be safe, because his faith is firm.

   But here is another man. He says, "Well, I am in a very awkward
   predicament, and I must look to the main chance. I am not sure that God
   will be with me. I must help myself, for I am very likely to be
   ruined." That man will take up with one of those dodges in business by
   which men raise money. I need not tell you what those dodges are,
   because I dare say a great many of you know them, either by using them
   yourselves, or by having them used upon you. They are part and parcel
   of the art of stealing other people's money--without being locked up as
   a thief.

   Well, he avails himself of one of those schemes--of course he does--he
   who has not faith is sure to have much craft. He who cannot trust God
   soon begins to trust the devil, and he that begins to trust the devil
   soon finds himself in the mire. Faith it is that holds a man as the
   great bower anchor holds a vessel when the winds are out. Believing
   that God will not fail you enables you to defy temptation. Now see how
   the man who has faith beats the devil! There the devil

   stands. He says, "If you will serve me I will give you_." "Well, what
   will you give me?" "I will give you the whole

   world." "But I have that already, for this world is mine, given to me
   in Christ, and as much of it as is good for me I shall always have."

   "Well, but I will make you great." "I do not want to be great, my joy
   is to make Christ great, and my greatness is in Him." "But I will give
   you silver." "Oh, then!" says the Christian, "put it down." No sooner
   is the heap spread out than the Believer covers it all over with ten
   times its weight in gold, and so laughs the fiend to scorn. I mean that
   for every blessing that sin could bring, Divine Grace brings ten times
   as much of a greater blessing--and so faith checkmates Satan--and
   temptation is put away. Unbelief has no such power, but readily falls
   into the lion's jaws. Therefore, fear not, lest you in the hour of
   trial be overcome with temptation and hurried into sin.

   Fear not, again, because it injures yourself. Nothing can weaken you so
   much, nothing can make you so unhappy as to be distrusting. Nor is this
   a small thing, for Christian joy is a fruit of the Spirit, and he who
   causes it to wither robs the Lord of glory. Is it not written, "Rejoice
   evermore"? Fear weakens the Believer's influence, and so causes
   mischief to others. Converts are not brought to Christ through
   unbelieving Christians. It is faith that wins souls. Let me give you an
   example of it. There is a good woman over there who has lost her child,
   her only child. Now when her husband saw that dear child die, he was
   exceedingly mad against God, and said many a hard and bitter thing, but
   his wife did not. She loved the child with as tender a love as the
   father did, but she laid it down on the bed, and she said, "The Lord
   gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord."
   Good woman, your husband did not say anything, but he felt the
   difference between himself and you, and who can tell what good results
   will follow?

   Now, if a professed Christian under trial acts just like a worldling,
   the worldly man sums it all up and says, "There is nothing in
   religion." But, if in the time of difficulty, the time of affliction,
   the time of bereavement, the Christian man's faith makes him happy,
   resigned, content with the Lord's will--why, then, even the coarsest of
   ungodly minds see the power of Divine Grace! And it may be that they
   will be led to reflect, and to ask themselves, "If there is such a
   choice Grace as this in the world, why should I not have it?" And
   perhaps they will come to seek and find it. Oh, for your own sake, for
   your neighbor's sake, for the Church's sake, for the world's sake, for
   Christ's sake, for God's sake--fear not-- neither be dismayed!

   III. Time fails me to dwell on this, and so now I must come to the very
   heart and soul of the text--THE PROMISES WHICH GOD GIVES TO PREVENT
   FEAR AND DISMAY. Five times in this verse you get some form of the
   pronoun "you," and five times you get the pronoun "I." Whatever there
   may be of you, there shall be as much of God. Whatever there may be of
   your weakness, there shall be as much of God's strength. Whatever there
   may be of your sin, there shall be as much of God's mercy to meet it
   all. May the Holy Spirit reveal all the fullness of this wonderful
   verse to your hearts!

   "Fear you not. For I am with you." Many a man fears because he is
   afraid of loneliness. More or less we must be alone in the service of
   God. Christian companionship is a great comfort, but if a man becomes a
   leader in Israel, he becomes a lonely spirit to a certain degree. So,
   too, in suffering, there is a bitterness with which no stranger can
   intermeddle. A part of the road to Heaven every man must tread with no
   companion but his God. Now, I know some of you are getting old, and
   your friends have died one by one, and you are saving, "I shall be left
   quite alone."

   Others of you have come up to London from some country village where
   you used to have many Christian friends. And there is no place so
   desolate as this horrid London. When a man dwells in its teeming
   streets, and meets not a friend among its millions of passers to and
   fro, I know well what your state of mind is. Or perhaps you are going
   to the States, or Canada, or Australia, and the thought in your mind
   now is--"I cannot bear being separated from all I love." Now, here is
   this precious word for you, "Fear you not. For I am with you."

   The Lord of Hosts is the best of company. His society is the angels'
   delight, and the bliss of glorified spirits. Be thankful, Believer,
   that you are not alone. The Father is with you, the Son is with you,
   the Holy Spirit is with you, and what does that mean? It means that
   Omnipotence will be with you to be your strength! Omniscience will be
   with you to be your wisdom! Immutability will be with you to be your
   succor--all the attributes of God will be with you to be your treasury.
   "Fear you not. For I am with you."

   Another fear comes over men, and that is that they may lose all they
   have in the world. And they know very well that if they lose their
   property they usually lose their friends. Like the swallows which come
   to us in the springtime--and are gone when the summer has
   departed--such are our worldly friends. When our goods are gone they
   are gone. But here the second promise comes in, "Be not dismayed, for I
   am your God." Jonah's gourd was withered, but Jonah's God was not. Your
   goods may go, but your God will not. Those around you may rob you of
   your loose cash of present comfort, but your invested capital, your
   God, they cannot take from you.

   That was a sweet word of the child when he saw his mother month after
   month in her widow's weeds sitting down and weeping, because her
   husband was dead. "Mother," said he, "is God dead?" Ah, if our God were
   dead we should be poor orphans, indeed! But while it rings out from the
   precious Book, and rings in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, "Be not
   dismayed. For I am your God," we have not come to absolute poverty yet.
   "Look," said the ambassador of France to the Spanish ambassador as he
   took him into the French king's treasury, "Look at my master's gold!
   How rich he is!"

   The Spanish ambassador took his walking stick and began to thrust it
   down into the bags and into the money chest. "What do you do that for?"
   said the Frenchman. "I want to see if there is a bottom to it," said
   he. "Oh," said the French ambassador, "of course there is a bottom."
   "Ah!" said the Spaniard, "but my master's treasury has no bottom, for
   he has all the mines of Mexico and Peru." Now, what the Spaniard said
   boastfully we may say truthfully. The treasury of our God is without a
   bottom, it is fathomless. And while you can hear God say to you, "I am
   your God," you may laugh at penury and distress, at destruction and
   famine. For you shall lack no good thing. You shall be satisfied as
   with marrow and fatness, and your mouth shall praise Him with joyful
   lips.

   Another fear that every good man has at times, unless he is buoyed up
   by faith, arises from a sense of personal weakness. "I have a battle to
   fight, and I am very weak. I have a work to do for God before I die,
   and I have not sufficient power to perform it." Now, here comes the
   next word of the text, "I will strengthen you." The strength which I
   have to do my work with does not lie in me. If it did it would be all
   over with me. How little strength there is in this arm I sorrowfully
   know. But there is no man on earth who can tell me how much strength
   God might put, if He so willed, into that same arm! If He willed it, He
   could enable me, a poor, weak, trembling man, to pull down Gaza's gates
   as Samson did of old!

   He can put physical strength of the most gigantic kind into an infant's
   arm if He wills it. But, my Brethren, transfer the figure to spiritual
   strength. You have God's command to preach. Ah, it would be but poor
   preaching if you were let alone to do the preaching. But no tongue can
   tell how God can make you preach if He pleases to help you. You have to
   take a large class of boys and girls, or of young men and young women,
   and you feel you cannot do it. Of course, without His help you cannot,
   but go and try! For He has said, "I will strengthen you."

   There was a bush in the wilderness, and it was nothing to look at,
   nothing but a bush. But oh, how it glowed with splendor when God came
   into it so that it burned with fire, and yet was not consumed! God can
   come into you, my Brother, and into you, my Sister, and can make you
   blaze with glory like the bush in Horeb. He can make you so strong that
   you can endure anything. Why, He has done it up till now. If somebody
   had told you years ago that you would have passed through your last
   trouble, you would have said, "I shall never be able to bear it." But
   you have borne it. "Ah," your unbelief would have said, "that will be
   the death of me." But it has not been the death of you. You can at this
   very moment tell of the widow's God. You can sing of Him who
   strengthens the weak against the strong, who delivers them that are
   ready to perish, and makes the faint heart to sing for joy!

   Here is a word, then, for timid, trembling workers for God. "I will
   strengthen you." Then comes the next consoling promise, "Yes, I will
   help you." This is intended to meet the fear that friendly succor will
   fail. There are some who say, "I believe that God can strengthen me
   personally, but I need to have those around me who will help me. I
   desire to see raised up in the Church of God other ministers, other
   Christian workers. I want to have some at my side who will, with equal
   earnestness, and with greater talent, contend for the Truth."

   Note, then, this word, "I will help you." I will not only give you
   strength to use yourselves, but I will exert My strength both in other
   men and in My Providence to help you. Well, you know what a grand
   matter is God's help. I told you once before a story I heard from a
   minister, but I must tell it again. He said be was one day bringing his
   books up stairs into another room, for he was going to have his study
   on the first floor instead of downstairs, and his little boy wanted to
   help Father carry some of the books. "Now," said the father, "I knew he
   could not do it, but as he wanted to be doing something, to please him
   and to do him good by encouraging his industry, I told him he might
   take a book and carry it up."

   So away he went, and picked out one of the biggest volumes--Caryl on
   Job or Poli Synopsis I should think--and when he had climbed a step or
   two up the stairs, down he sat and began to cry. He could not manage to
   carry his big book any further. He was disappointed and unhappy. How
   did the matter end? Why, the father had to go to the rescue, and carry
   both the great book, and the little man. So, when the Lord gives us a
   work to do, we are glad to do it. But our strength is not equal to the
   work, and then we sit down and cry--and it comes to this--that our
   blessed Father carries the work--and carries the little man, too! And
   then it is all done, and done gloriously. It is a simple illustration,
   but may it comfort some desponding heart.

   "Yes, I will help you."

   The last word of the text is, "Yes, I will uphold you with the right
   hand of My righteousness." Many a child of God is afflicted with a fear
   that he shall one day bring dishonor upon the Cross of Christ, and in
   an unguarded moment shall slip with his feet. This is a very natural
   fear, and in some respects a very proper fear--

   "Ah, Lord, with such a heart as mine,

   Unless You hold me fast,

   I feel I must, I shall decline,

   And perish at the last."

   It only wants, we think, the temptation to take us in the weak point,
   and then it will be all over with us. But now again I beg you to grasp
   this precious Word, "I will uphold you with the right hand of My
   righteousness." That is the same hand which holds the stars in their
   place. That is the hand which bears up the unpillared arch of Heaven,
   that spans both sea and shore. Can it not bear you up?

   rest upon it, and you shall not be cast down! The right hand of His
   righteousness is the very hand that you and I once had cause to fear,
   lest our offended King should smite us with it, for we righteously
   deserved His wrath. But ever since the hand of Christ was pierced, the
   right hand of God has never smitten a Believer so as to destroy him.
   That same hand which might have crushed, is now placed under us to bear
   us up in all our afflictions.

   1 wish I could have clipped the wings of time for this last half-hour,
   that we might have tarried longer in these rich pastures. But dear
   Friends, I give you the words of the text to take away with you. Here
   you have wafers made with honey, such as Israel fed on in the
   wilderness. Here you have angels' food--no, the very Bread of Life
   itself lies within these choice words. The only fear I have is lest you
   should miss them through unbelief. "O taste and see that the Lord is
   good." Do not merely "see" that He is good as you read the text, but
   "taste" the text. Let it lie on the palate of your soul. Absorb it into
   your very nature.

   Try to know that it is true, and true to you, though you are the very
   least of God's people in your own estimation, and the most unworthy
   sinner this side of Hell. "Fear you not. For I am with you; be not
   dismayed; for I am your God: I will strengthen you; yes, I will help
   you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of My righteousness."
   Go home, and take the text with you in the hand of faith. It shall
   prove to you like the widow's barrel of meal and cruse of oil. It shall
   not fail you till the day when the Lord shall bring you out of this
   land of famine to eat bread in His kingdom with His dear Son.

   My heart mourns to think that this text does not belong to some of you,
   because you do not belong to Christ. O my dear Friend, how I desire
   that you may yet have the promises of the Covenant for your own! If you
   believe with all your heart, you may. Trust Jesus Christ, and the
   promises are yours. I tried to preach my Master's sacrifice for sin
   this morning. I have now set before you one of the sweet fruits that
   grow from the bitter tree upon which He hung. O come to the tree of the
   Cross, and look up to His sufferings, and rely upon Him! And then, when
   you have sat under His shadow with great delight, may this text, which
   is one of the fruits of that tree, be sweet unto your taste. The Lord
   bless you, for Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Three Precious Things

   (No. 931)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 8, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He is precious." 1 Peter 2:7.

   "Precious promises." 2Peter 1:4.

   "Precious faith." 2Peter 1:1.

   THESE three precious things, when put together, present to us a
   treasure of priceless things, altogether without parallel. When Moses
   was about to die he pronounced a blessing upon all the tribes, but the
   benediction which he allotted to the tribe of Joseph was remarkable for
   containing in it an extraordinary collection of precious things.

   In the thirteenth verse of the thirty-third chapter of Deuteronomy, we
   read, "And of Joseph he said, Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the
   precious things of Heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that couches
   beneath, and for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for
   the precious things put forth by the moon, and for the chief things of
   the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting
   hills, and for the precious things of the earth and fullness thereof,
   and for the good will of Him that dwelt in the bush."

   That blessing, large as it is, would, were it not for its last term,
   fall far short of the three texts which we are about to consider. The
   blessings here called by Moses "precious," were, after all, but
   temporal mercies. The dews exhale--even the deep that lies under will
   one day be dried up. The precious fruits brought forth by the sun will
   wither. The precious fruit ripened by the moon will rot. There are no
   chief metals in the ancient mountains, whether they are silver or gold,
   that are eternal, or that can make a spiritual being rich. There are no
   precious things of the lasting hills, though they are copper and iron.

   And these things are precious in the arts and sciences and employments
   of men, but will perish in the using. As for the precious things of the
   earth, are they not earthy? And the fullness thereof, is it not vanity?
   Were it not that the blessing of the great Lawgiver closed with "the
   good will of Him that dwelt in the bush," it would not have contained a
   word large enough to satisfy an immortal spirit, or give bliss to the
   heart of man.

   Before you, however, my Brethren, I spread a far choicer store of
   precious things than Moses strung together in the golden chain of his
   benediction. We have here three precious things which will outlast sun
   and moon. Precious things which are all heavenly, spiritual,
   soul-filling, and satisfactory. Precious things which, if a man has
   them, they shall make him rich and bring him no sorrow. Precious things
   that shall adorn and enrich their owners when all the peculiar treasure
   of kings shall be dissolved by the last fire.

   The three precious things of my text bear a certain relation to one
   another, which will aid your memories. "He is precious," that is, Jesus
   Christ is precious--here is the priceless gem. "Exceeding great and
   precious promises"--here is the worthy case which holds the gem. "Like
   precious faith," as Paul calls it, "like precious faith" with the
   Apostles-- here is the blessed hand by which we grasp the case and the
   gem, too. Mark well, I pray you, the precious pearl, the precious case
   to hold it, and the precious title-deed that secures it to us, or as I
   said before, the precious hand which enables us to grasp the unrivalled
   jewel, and to call it all our own.

   I. To begin then with THE PRICELESS GEM, the first, the highest of all
   precious things. Jesus Christ our Lord is in Himself to Believers most
   precious. O that I had power to speak of His preciousness as it ought
   to be spoken of! He is worthy of an angelic speaker to tell out all His
   worth. He is, first of all, essentially precious. He possesses an
   intrinsic worth. We worship Him as God. We believe Him to be "very God
   of very God," and though most assuredly Man, and in

   this respect, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, He is our Brother
   born for adversities, yet is He co-equal and co-eternal with the
   Father.

   And therefore we can never too reverentially speak of Him, nor set too
   high a value upon Him. He must be precious who is infinite God. Being,
   however, God and Man, He becomes remarkably precious to us in His
   complex Nature. His Manhood was without taint of sin. He came into this
   world with no corruption. He lived in this world with no transgression.
   His was immaculate Manhood. What a wonder that God should be willing to
   veil Himself in human flesh!

   What a miracle of miracles that the Infinite should deign to take upon
   Himself the form of a servant, and be found in fashion as a Man!
   Viewing our Lord Jesus as God, we should have adored Him at a
   distance--as perfect Man we should have reverenced His Character--but
   when we see Him as God and Man together, we mark that He is the
   connecting link between our groveling condition and the loftiness of
   the Most High. And we prize beyond measure the Incarnate God. When we
   see how by God's coming down to man, man goes up to God, Immanuel, God
   with us becomes our peace, and brings us near to God, though before we
   were afar off.

   Brethren, if we consider our Lord in the Character which is peculiar to
   Himself, and which He prizes most, and to which, indeed, He owes the
   name Jesus Christ, we shall see Him as the anointed Savior. To every
   sinner who feels his sin, Christ is precious. To every child of God who
   is saved, the Savior must forever be fairest among the fair. To every
   heir of Heaven who has experienced the sweetness of His saving Grace,
   Christ must appear to be "the chief among ten thousand, and the
   altogether lovely." A world destroyed I see if it had not been for a
   Savior born. A world forever cast into Hell I see if it had not been
   for a Savior dying on the Cross. As a Savior, O earth, you as yet know
   not His preciousness. As a Savior, O Heaven, you cannot reach the full
   merit of His praise. He is precious, then, if you think of Him as He
   is, as God and Man, and as a Savior, in which office the two Natures
   are combined in one.

   Brethren, Christ is so precious that He cannot be bought. If a man
   should give all the substance of his house to purchase an interest in
   Christ, it would be utterly condemned. Rich men might gather together
   all their goodly things, yes, India might be exhausted of its wealth,
   Peru drained of its silver, and California of its gold--but no part nor
   lot in Christ could be bought--even with sapphires and diamonds. He
   gives Himself away right freely, according to the riches of His Grace!
   But He cannot be purchased, for He is so precious that He cannot even
   be priced.

   A whole world can never weigh against Him any more than a single grain
   of dust would weigh against the universe. There is no measuring line
   with which to form a unit for calculation, with which to measure Him.
   He is infinite, and finite judgments will never be able to comprehend
   His unutterable value. He is God's unspeakable gift. Heaven itself is
   nothing as compared with Him, and if a man had to wade breast-deep
   through a thousand Hells to come to Christ, it were well worth the
   venture, if at the last he might but say, "My Beloved is mine, and I am
   His."

   Jesus is so precious that He cannot be matched. There is none like He
   is. The fairest of the fair are uncomely and deformed when compared
   with Him. As Rutherford would say, "Black sun, black moon, black stars,
   but, O bright, infinitely bright Lord Jesus." "He is the express image
   of His Father's Person, and the brightness of His Father's Glory." You
   shall find none that can be likened unto Him if you ransack time and
   space. Miss Him as your Savior, and you have lost the only salvation
   possible. Gain Him, and you will want no other, for He is made of God
   unto you "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption," and all
   your souls can want.

   Yes, He Himself is all. If Heaven and earth were sold, you could not
   match Christ in any market if you gave the price of Heaven and earth
   for His like. If you search eternity, and ransack immensity, there
   shall never be found one fit to be second to Him, He is so precious.
   Precious, Brethren, He is to us, because He cannot be lost. All the
   precious things in this world can be lost. Our jewels may be stolen,
   our house may be broken into by a thief, and the safe may be taken
   away. But Christ is such a jewel that even Satan himself can never rob
   the soul of him when once it has Him.

   My heart evermore rejoices in that precious Truth of God. Let Jesus
   Christ be once mine as the gift of God--I am safe, for--"the gifts and
   calling of God are without repentance." The Lord never repents of what
   He has done. He never plays fast and loose, or takes back a benefit
   which He has once bestowed. Is not Jesus a priceless, precious jewel,
   since He cannot be lost?!

   And what is equally as delightful to remember, He cannot be destroyed.
   Even the diamond can be dissolved, bring but sufficient heat to bear
   upon it. Focus upon it the full rays of the sun, and the sparkling
   crystal dissolves into a little gas. But though men have tried to focus
   all the heat of persecution upon the Christian, they have never been
   able to sepa-

   rate him from the love of Christ. And though earth and Hell have
   stirred up their malice, and the furnace has been heated seven times
   hotter. Though the child of God has been tossed into it, and apparently
   deserted to the fury of his enemies-- yet never in a single case has
   the precious gem of Christ Jesus in the heart been destroyed--nor the
   Believer's interest in it.

   Jesus and His servants have lived together, according to the glorious
   promise, "Because I live, you shall live also." See the preciousness,
   then, of Christ, the intrinsic preciousness, the essential preciousness
   of Christ, because He cannot be bought, He cannot be priced, He cannot
   be matched, He cannot be lost, He cannot be destroyed. Happy and rich
   beyond expression are they who can truly say, "Unto us Christ is
   precious."

   This, however, does but touch a very small corner of the field, for our
   Lord is precious from the service which He renders to us. Who shall
   tell all the benefit which Jesus confers on a Believer? As we cannot
   comprehend so wide a subject in a single discourse, I will give you but
   a bare outline. There are four precious things which Jesus is to a
   Believer--life, light, love, liberty. I will defy all mankind to find
   four more precious things than these--but they are all in Christ.

   First, life. "In him was life, and the life was the light of men." "As
   the Father raises up the dead, and quickens them, even so the Son
   quickens whom He will." What a precious thing is life! The poor
   mariner's wife rushes down to the beach in the storm, and see, the
   waves at last have washed up her lost beloved, the father of the babe
   which is hanging at her breast. He is dead. The ungenerous sea has made
   a wife a widow. Oh, what would she not give, if she had it, to restore
   life once more to that well-beloved form!

   But life is a benefit her prayers and tears cannot obtain. Herein is
   Jesus glorified, for He gives life to those who are spiritually dead,
   and if any of you are weeping today over an unconverted husband, a
   child who is dead in trespasses and sins, a sister or a brother
   unsaved, Jesus can come to you and give life to your dear ones in
   answer to your prayers. He is Himself the Resurrection and the Life.
   Moreover, He is the sole nutriment of all spiritual life.

   Yonder shipwrecked man has constructed a raft, and far out on the wild
   expanse of pitiless waters he has floated wearily day after day sighing
   for a friendly sail or for sight of land. What would he not give for a
   little water, for water has become the essential of his life. His
   tongue is like a firebrand, and his mouth is as an oven. He himself all
   dried and parched, sighs and cries to Heaven, hoping that perhaps a
   merciful shower may drop refreshment upon him.

   Now, Jesus Christ is the Water of Life and the Bread of Life to such as
   live unto God. It is absolutely necessary for the continuance of their
   spiritual life that they should live upon Him. And as they do live upon
   Him, their thirst is quenched, their hunger is removed, and their
   spirit rejoices with a "joy unspeakable and full of glory." Life and
   the food that sustains life are among the most precious things man can
   possess, and these are for your souls stored up in Jesus, "For the
   bread of God is He which comes down from Heaven, and gives life unto
   the world."

   Next to life in preciousness is light. What would not they have given
   in Egypt during those three days when the thick darkness was over all
   the land, even darkness that might be felt, if they could but have had
   light back again? It must have been a sad plight for Paul, and for his
   fellows at sea, when, for three days and nights neither sun, nor moon,
   nor stars appeared. They could not tell whether there might not be a
   rock ahead, or a quicksand upon which the vessel would be broken. Oh,
   for light! How glad they must have been, at last when the black tempest
   passed away, and once again they could look round on the horizon and
   know their whereabouts.

   Light! Oh, how precious would it be to you, if you were confined in one
   of those prisons which we have seen at Venice below the water's
   level--deep down, with winding passages, where even a refracted ray of
   light could never reach the prisoner--where he sat alone and felt for
   the wall, but could see nothing. "Truly" as Solomon says, "the light is
   sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun." Now,
   the soul has no light, no true light, no heavenly light but what Jesus
   brings. When a spirit is once made to feel its guilt, it is shut up in
   prison until Christ brings it light in the darkness of its dismay.

   There is no hope to a convicted spirit till Jesus shows His atoning
   blood. There is no clear knowledge of the way of salvation till Christ
   brings the Light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in His own face.
   You who love Him know what brightness He has given to you--what light
   has irradiated your once dark spirit since you have known Him, and how
   your heart has laughed for very joy because He has turned again your
   captivity, and given you to rejoice in the light of His countenance.
   Yes, He is precious because He raises us from the dead and gives us
   light.

   I said that another precious thing which Jesus brings is love. There
   are hard hearts that think nothing of love--but methinks those who are
   as they should be, count love to be the dearest of treasures. I had
   infinitely rather be beloved of my fellow men than own a pyramid of
   treasure! He is a rich man who has a tender wife and dear affectionate
   children-- and is surrounded by a select circle of true and faithful
   friends. Men die full often for want of love. It is wretched work to
   isolate ourselves and float like icebergs all alone, melting amid a
   desolate sea. A man will love a dog, or a bird sooner than be loveless.
   Captives have been known to fall in love with rats, and even spiders on
   the wall have been the objects of their affection--a little flower that
   could not speak, has been the prisoner's well-beloved friend.

   We must have something to love. Oh, and what wealth of love Jesus
   brings into the heart when He enters it! You feel, then, that you have
   One to love whom you can love as much as ever you will, and yet it will
   not be idolatry. You have One to love who never can betray you, One
   whom you may trust, and yet never be unwise for having told to Him the
   secrets of your soul. You have in Jesus Christ One whom you may admire
   as you love, who will still be above you though you seek to rise to
   Him, and yet not proudly above you, for He will stoop down to all your
   lowliness and be as your own brother and your own friend. Oh, the joy
   of having Christ to go to!

   All other friends will sometimes be unfriendly, and the best of them
   must part with you at your decease, or you with them when they depart
   out of this world unto the Father. But your Lord will never, never
   leave you. He will abide with you, and death shall only draw Him
   nearer--for then you shall see His face, and His name shall be in your
   forehead. And you shall be with Him where He is, to behold His Glory
   forever and ever. If you want love, you large-hearted ones, Christ is
   just the gem for such a case as your heart is! If you want a channel
   adown which the mighty streams of your pent-up affections may safely
   rush with vehemence in impetuous torrents, Christ shall be the fittest
   riverbed for your soul, and you shall find it joy and blessedness to
   love Him with all your might!

   But I added that there was a fourth preciousness in Christ--giving
   life, light, love--He gave also liberty. Oh, that magic word liberty!
   It makes men start to their feet. It is the word that made William Tell
   a hero, and the Bruce of Ban-nockburn more than a king. The thought of
   liberty makes men count jeopardy of life a small hazard if their
   country may be rid of a tyrant. May God be praised that great strides
   have been made and grand advances within these last few years, until
   even once priest-burdened Spain bears across her Sierras the trumpet
   notes of liberty, and her sons are free!

   The highest liberty is that which emancipates the soul from sin. The
   grandest liberty is that which sets free the heart from fear, which
   leaves the soul without a dread, and enables the spirit to walk even in
   God's Presence without alarm-- the liberty which delivers us from the
   felon's dread, and bids us demand who shall lay anything to the charge
   of God's elect. It is God that justifies, who is he that condemns,
   since Christ has died and risen again? What room is there for fear for
   the man who has been set free by the precious blood of Jesus? The
   liberty of the children of God--the liberty to pray, the liberty to
   talk with God as a man talks with his friend, the liberty to grasp the
   promises--the liberty to lay hold of God Himself, and say that the
   Divine attributes are all our own. This is what Christ has given us,
   and is He not therefore precious, most precious?

   One word more before we leave our meditation on the precious gem. We
   have said that Christ is precious for His intrinsic work, precious for
   the service He renders. And we must now add, He is assuredly precious,
   actually so, from the place which He holds and ever must hold in
   Believers' hearts. Go and stand at St. Bartholomew's Hospital at
   Smithfield and you will see in the wall the tablet which is erected to
   the memory of heroic men whose ashes there testified years ago that
   they loved Christ better than property, better than children, better
   than life itself, and accounted it their joy to die that they might
   hold unsullied their testimony to the Divinity, to the Sovereignty, to
   the Truthfulness, to the Salvation of Jesus Christ!

   Ah, there were brave days in those black periods! Brave days when great
   hearts proclaimed by dying how dear Christ was to them. When a certain
   martyr was led out to die, they made his wife kneel down by the way.
   With a long line of his own dear children, eleven of them, like a
   descending set of steps, they were compelled, by his enemies, to pray
   their father and husband, by the love he bare to them not to die. He
   looked on them with tears, and said, "I love you as a man, and God
   knows I would do anything to live, and succor you, and enjoy your sweet
   society, my Dear Ones. But I cannot give up Christ," and he turned away
   to die.

   It is so still, my Brethren, for if we are not called to die for
   Christ, yet I hope we could if we were called to do so. For at this
   moment nothing thrills us like Christ's name, nothing makes us so happy
   as to see His cause prosper. I have often

   asked, when I have looked upon you before me by the thousands year
   after year, and know that my speech has nothing in it remarkable, why
   it is that you gather so continually? Many others have asked the secret
   why this house is always thronged. The true answer is that I preach
   Jesus Christ to you, and it is written, "I, if I am lifted up, will
   draw all men unto Me."

   I have no other theme, and I thank God I want no other. It is not worn
   out, and never will be. Though I should stand here by the space of the
   next six thousand years, I believe the house would still be filled if
   the testimony were the same. Despite London's sin, nothing strikes
   London's heart like the name of Jesus Christ. You may preach what you
   will of your learning and your philosophy. And you may talk pretty
   things concerning God out of Christ, but you will never stir the souls
   of men as the preaching of the Son of God has done and will do. "In the
   Cross of Christ I glory, towering over the wrecks of time," and as long
   as we can make it still prominent in our ministry, we are sure that an
   enthusiastic response will be given in regenerate hearts, for unto
   those who believe He is precious still. So I must leave that point.
   There is the gem--happy are they that see it, happier they that have
   it.

   II. The second head is "PRECIOUS PROMISES," or, THE CASE IN WHICH THE
   JEWEL IS CONTAINED. "Exceeding great and precious promises." All that
   the early saints had before Christ's coming was the promise of His
   appearing, and the mere promise of His coming was very precious to
   them. We are favored both with Christ and the promises, which are yes
   and amen in Him. They had the case, but it was locked up and they could
   not plainly perceive the jewel-- we have the opened case and the jewel
   in all its glory.

   The utmost wealth of Heaven now lies at our feet. The fullness of the
   Lord is ours. Why are the promises precious? For the same three reasons
   that Christ was precious. Precious for their intrinsic worth, for they
   are Divine, the sacred utterances of God Himself. These are not the
   Words of man, but of God. I would burn my Bible tomorrow if I thought
   so meanly of it as some do. For they doubt its Inspiration, or fritter
   down its Inspiration till it means little or nothing. To me every Word
   here written is the Infallible deliverance of the Most High God, not to
   be questioned but believed.

   Not because of its reasonableness, but because it has the stamp of
   Divine authority. Every promise of this Sacred Book is God's own
   promise spoken through His Prophets and Apostles, but yet spoken by
   Himself. The signet of Heaven seals every promise. You will never know
   the sweetness of a promise till it is God's promise to you. They are
   precious promises because they are Divine. If they were the poetic
   effusions of elevated genius, where great men of old spoke but their
   own minds in happy hopefulness, they would be to us but as brass and
   iron.

   But inasmuch as these reveal to us the mind of God, they are more
   precious than all the treasures of the mine. No mention shall be made
   of coral, or of pearls, for their price is above rubies. The least
   promise of God is too rich to be valued with the gold of Ophir, the
   precious onyx or the sapphire. Being Divine, the promises are
   innumerable. No promise of God ever changes. "Forever, O Lord, Your
   Word is settled in Heaven," "His Truth endures to all generations." Has
   He said, and shall He not do it? Has He commanded, and shall it not
   stand fast?

   The Lord has not spoken in secret in the dark places of the earth, He
   has not said to the seed of Jacob, Seek you My face in vain. The Lord
   has never called back a promise yet, but He has said, "Heaven and earth
   shall pass away, but My Word shall never pass away." His promises are
   precious because they tell of exceeding great and precious things. We
   have promises in the Bible which time would fail us to repeat, which
   for breadth and length are immeasurable. They deal with every great
   thing which the soul can want--promises of pardoned sin, promises of
   sanctification, of teaching, of guidance, of upholding, of ennobling,
   of progress, of consolation, of perfection.

   In this blessed Book you have promises of the daily bread of earth, and
   of the Bread of Life from Heaven. Promises for time, promises for
   eternity--promises for yourselves, and promises for your children. All
   these are like the leaves of the tree, and Jesus is the goodly cluster.
   Or, if you will, the apple of gold hidden among the foliage of promise.
   You have so many promises that all the conditions and positions of the
   Believer are met. I sometimes liken the promises to the smith's great
   bunch of keys which he brings when you have lost the key of your chest,
   and cannot unlock it. He feels pretty sure that out of all the keys
   upon the ring someone or other will fit, and he tries them with patient
   industry.

   At last--yes--that is it, he has loosed the bolt, and you can get at
   your treasures. There is always a promise in the volume of Inspiration
   suitable to your present case. Make the Lord's Testimonies your delight
   and your counselors, and they will befriend you at every turn. Search
   the Scriptures and you shall meet with a passage which will be so
   applicable to you as to appear even to have been written after your
   trouble had occurred! So exactly will it apply that you will be

   compelled to marvel at the wonderful tenderness and suitableness of it.
   As if the armor maker had measured you from head to foot, so exactly
   shall the armor of the promise befit you!

   The promises are precious in themselves, from their suitability to us,
   from their coming from God, from their being Immutable, from their
   being sure of performance, and from their containing wrapped up within
   themselves all that the children of God can ever need. The promises are
   precious, in the second place, because of their service to us. What
   will not the promises do for us? They will comfort us in distress. Give
   a child of God a Divine promise, let him be able to appropriate it to
   himself, and you cannot make his house dark, or his heart dark!

   A promise believed in is a sun in the soul, and a song in the heart,
   marrow to the bones, and rejoicing to the spirit. He that has the
   promises, has Heaven and earth as his heritage. He shall ride on the
   high places of the earth. He shall suck honey out of the rock, and oil
   out of the flinty rock. The eternal God is his refuge, and underneath
   are the everlasting arms. He shall dwell in safety alone, his fountain
   shall be upon a land of corn and wine--also his heavens shall drop down
   dew.

   The promises of God not only comfort the Believer in adversity, but
   they strengthen him in service. Let the worker who is serving God, but
   desponds under a sense of personal weakness, receive such a cheering
   word as this, "Certainly I will be with you"--why, he flees from no
   labor, the promise makes him daring. "Fear you not, for I am with you;
   be not dismayed; for I am your God: I will strengthen you; yes, I will
   help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of My
   righteousness." Who will be afraid after that? Difficulties vanish,
   impossibilities do not exist when the Lord is enlisted on our side.

   The promises serve us in another admirable respect, for they elevate
   the soul. The man who has none of God's promises to enrich him may
   accumulate gold and silver, but he is earth-bound with his possessions.
   His soul tries to content herself with corn, and wine, and oil. But
   these things are only satisfying to our animal nature. Too often men
   grovel and hoard all the more as they increase in wealth. But he who
   grasps a promise is uplifted--his mind rises to the Hand from which
   every good and perfect gift is poured--and walking by faith in the
   promise of an unseen God, he is elevated in judgment and in taste, and
   becomes a better and a nobler man.

   The promises, let me say, while they elevate the life, greatly cheer
   and gild with glory the deathbed. Ah, how delightful it is to die with
   a promise on the lips, feeling it in the heart! It may be in a very
   lonely cottage, and the stars may come and look through the tiles. And
   the hangings of the bed may be very ragged. And all the surroundings
   may be poverty stricken--but he who can lie there and say, "I know that
   my Redeemer lives, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the
   earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my
   flesh shall I see God"--he that can rejoice in the promise of the
   Resurrection, and of the life to come, dies grandly!

   His bed is changed into a throne! His little room, despite its poverty,
   becomes a palace chamber, and the child of God, who seemed so poor
   before, is perceived to be a peer of Heaven's own blood royal, who is
   soon about to take possession of his heritage, appointed from before
   the foundation of the world. Yes, the promises have been very precious
   to us in their influence upon our minds. And I am sure I can say they
   are precious because of their dearness to our souls at this very day.
   There are passages of Scripture which are carved on our hearts. You all
   possess some little secret treasures of some kind or other at home,
   treasures which bring before your minds heart-moving memories.

   I have seen a mother go to the secret drawer to look at a certain
   little pair of wool shoes--with these in her hands, she would sit down
   and weep for the hours together. Ah, there were little feet that wore
   those shoes once, and they are laid all stiff and motionless in the lap
   of earth. I have seen a certain friend look at a ring--a little plain
   gold ring which he wears on his finger--and as he looked at it he has
   wept. There was a dear hand once upon which that ring was fondly placed
   in happier days.

   Yes, and just in that way some of the promises of God have been so rich
   to us, and so connected with family memories and with personal trials
   and personal mercies, that they are unutterably precious. A poor old
   Christian woman was accustomed to make marginal notes in her Bible, and
   she placed against one text a "T" and a "P." The minister asked her
   what that meant, and she said, "It meant Tried and Proved, for I tried
   that promise on such-and-such an occasion, and found it true." "But, my
   dear Sister," said he, "I see up and down these pages, whenever there
   is a choice verse a great 'P' put against it. What does it mean? "That
   means precious, Sir, for I have found it precious, and have therefore
   set my seal

   to it."

   We, too, have our Bible spiritually, if not literally marked after the
   same fashion, and often does the letter "P" appear against "exceeding
   great and precious promises" of God which have been sweet in our
   experience. We hope to die with a promise on our lips, and enter into
   Heaven to enjoy their full fruition.

   I have now shown you that the jewel is of the first water, without a
   flaw, with none to match it, and that the case is of superior
   workmanship, worthy of the gem it holds. We must now turn to the third
   thing.

   III. Faith IS THE PRECIOUS HAND which grasps the case and holds the
   gem. As time has gone, I shall not enlarge upon this third head, but
   shall briefly observe that faith is a most precious Grace because it
   opens and reveals the treasure hid in the promises. Until a man has
   faith he does not see the value of the promises. "Tush," says he, "the
   Bible is a dry book." Till a man has the faith of God's elect, he
   thinks very little of Christ. He may confess that he is a good example
   and a wise teacher, but, he does not say with Thomas, "My Lord and my
   God."

   Faith is to our souls what our eyes are to our bodies. Without eyes
   light would not be valued--without faith Christ is not dear. Without a
   mouth food would not nourish--faith is our mouth, and without faith
   Christ does not nourish us. A man might have a plank close to him when
   sinking but it would be of no service to him until he could lay hold of
   it-- faith is the hand that lays hold, and thus it becomes precious.
   Faith first reveals to us what there is in Christ and in the Word, and
   then it appropriates the whole. A soldier might be in the midst of a
   city where there was much spoil, but if his hands were cut off, how
   could he take to himself the booty?

   Faith puts out its hands, and says, "This is mine, and that is mine."
   And what is more, faith carries right with it as well as might. Faith
   not only says, "I will take it," but faith says, "I have a right to
   take it," for God has made over to faith by a covenant deed, Christ and
   all the Inspired promises, too. If you have faith, your faith is the
   guarantee that the gem and the case are both rightfully yours. A mere
   piece of parchment, whatever is written on it, cannot be of any very
   great value in itself. And yet there are persons who would give large
   sums of money to recover lost documents, because upon the possession of
   those documents rests their claim to great estates.

   Now, faith in itself is like a title-deed, signed, and sealed, and
   ratified, and on the possession of faith hangs your evidence of right
   to Christ and to the Covenant of Grace. Therefore faith becomes a very
   precious Grace. It sees Christ. It grasps Christ. It claims Christ by
   right, and by faith it holds to what it claims. Faith says of the
   Well-Beloved, "I hold Him, and I will not let Him go." It gets such a
   grip of Christ, that neither life nor death can unhand it.

   Faith is precious, let me say, because it is rare. Notional faith is
   common, but the faith of God's elect is the work of the Holy Spirit,
   and is not vouchsafed to all. They are favored men, indeed, who
   exercise real faith. But, alas, "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the
   way, and few there are that find it." Wherever it is possessed, it is
   most enriching. True faith is like Midas, of whom it was fabled that
   his touch turned everything to gold. But faith has a safer joy than he,
   for his privilege became a punishment--for when he touched his meat it
   turned to gold, and he could not eat. And when he put the cup to his
   lips, the fable says the wine itself turned into gold, and so he must
   needs die.

   But faith has the power to enrich us, and add no sorrow. Faith touches
   trials and they become mercies. Faith touches affliction and she
   glories in them. Faith touches losses and they turn to gains. There is
   nothing that faith deals with but what is transmuted into good. Who
   would not wish to have this precious faith? Best of all, wherever faith
   is, it saves the soul. There never was a soul that believed in Christ
   Jesus--that rested on the merit of His precious blood--that was, or
   could be, cast into Hell. Sooner might the eternal pillars of Divine
   Truth begin to quiver, and the Throne of the Infinite Sovereignty be
   shaken from its place, than that Believers in Jesus be cast away. Has
   he not said it--"I give unto My sheep eternal life, and they shall
   never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of My hand"? Do you
   believe in Christ? Then you are saved.

   I have spoken so far of these three precious things. Just these few
   words by way of closing. Precious as these things are, they are yours,
   Christian. You have the precious faith. Then the precious promises are
   all yours, and our precious Christ is yours. How do you mean to live?
   With these precious things about you, do you intend to live like a
   beggar? I mean will you be sinful, low, groveling, worldly? Oh, rise to
   your rank, and as you are so ennobled, walk as becomes saints! Is Jesus
   Christ precious to you? Then serve Him with your best, give Him your
   precious things, give Him your lives, give Him your substance, give Him
   all that you have--do not give the Redeemer your odds and ends, such as
   you can afford to give without knowing it. Say, "He died to give me
   Himself. I will give Him myself in return--

   'And if I might make some reserve,

   And duty did not call,

   I love my God with zeal so great,

   That I must give Him all.'"

   Go and live like those who are rich to all the intents of bliss, and
   let your cheerful, your godly, your self-denying example be a protest
   to the unbelieving sons of men that you know the preciousness of
   Christ. Alas, for you who are unconverted. What shall I say to you? I
   am afraid I may preach up Christ a long time before you will believe
   me. It needs that the arm of God be revealed, before you will see these
   mysteries. The most of men remind us of the old story in Strabo, of the
   musician who thought himself very wonderfully gifted with power to
   create melody.

   Before his audience he was pouring forth his notes, and as he
   thought--holding them all spell bound. But just then the market bell,
   with its vile tinkle was heard, and all his admirers except one person
   left him--for they could not afford to lose the chance of the market.
   The musician turned to his solitary listener, and complimented him upon
   having a soul above mere merchandise, and an ear which could appreciate
   music, so that he was not drawn away by the tinkling of a market bell.
   "Master," said the man, "I am hard of hearing, did you say the market
   bell had rung?" "Yes." "Then I must be off, or I shall be too late."
   And away went the last man, unrestrained by the bonds of harmony.

   So when we preach up Jesus Christ, there will be some who will listen
   to us, and we perhaps think, "Now we shall surely win them," but ah,
   tomorrow's market bell--I will not say market bell--tomorrow's bell of
   sin, and bell of iniquity! The bell that rings to frivolities, and
   rings to transgressions--they will go after that. Anything that pleases
   the flesh will secure them. It may be there is one who has heard with
   unusual attention, and we begin to say, "This man has a nobler spirit."
   But then, perhaps, he has not yet felt the force of temptation, and
   when he feels it he will go, too.

   What urgent need there is for the Spirit of God to illuminate the dark
   judgments of the sons of men. May He do so. May He begin with you, dear
   Hearer, if up to now you have been blind. May He give you faith, and
   the promises, and Christ Jesus. It is my heart's deepest wish. The Lord
   grant it to you all, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

How God Condemned Sin

   (No. 932)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY 8, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh,
   God sending His o wn Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin,
   condemned sin in the flesh." Romans 8:3.

   EVER since man has fallen away from God, two things have been highly
   desirable. The one, that he should be forgiven all his offenses. The
   other, equally if not more important, that he should be led to hate the
   sin into which he has fallen and love the purity and holiness from
   which he has become alienated. These two disabilities must be removed,
   or, looking at the matter from a loftier point of view, these two
   purposes of Divine mercy must be accomplished together.

   It were impossible to make a man happy unless both be equally and
   simultaneously realized. If his sins were forgiven, and yet he loved
   sin, his prospects were dark. Over his future the direst portents would
   loom. If he ceased to love sin, and yet were lying under the guilt of
   it, his present condition would be deeply miserable rather than
   happy--his conscience pure and sensitive being tortured with pangs of
   remorse.

   By what process can the two requirements be met, or the double purpose
   be achieved? To use our common words, how can man be both justified and
   sanctified, obtain clearance from his guilt in the sight of God, and
   then be made holy and meet to appear in His Presence? Human reason
   suggests that a law should be given to man which he should keep. This
   has been tried, and the law which was given was the best law that could
   be framed. The Law of God written on the conscience, of which the Law
   given by Moses recorded in the book of Exodus is but a copy, is a
   perfect Law. There is not a command in it that could be omitted. There
   is not one single arbitrary precept.

   The right must be true, the true must be right, and God's Law is never
   otherwise than right and true. "Of Law," said the judicious Hooker,
   "there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of
   God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things do her homage, the
   very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempt from her
   power." If, therefore, that Law which is promulgated from Heaven should
   fail to make men what they should be, the fault will not be in the Law,
   but in the man. As the text says, it was "weak through the flesh."

   Because of our flesh and our tendency to sin, our weakness and our
   defilement of nature, it could not do what, indeed, God never intended
   it should do--but what some have thought Law might do--repair the
   breach and to renovate the depraved. The principle of Law, which is,
   "Do this and you shall be rewarded," or, "Do that and you shall be
   punished," never can by any means achieve either of these two purposes.
   The Law cannot forgive past sin. It evidently has nothing to do with
   that question. The Law says, "The soul that sins, it shall die." It can
   execute the sentence, but it can do no more. It ceases to be Law if it
   lays aside the sword and does not exact its own penalty.

   Yet it has been thought that surely Law might make men love holiness,
   albeit experience and observation prove that it never has that effect.
   Very often men have needed nothing more than the knowledge of sin to
   enamor them to it, and they have loved sin all the better for knowing
   it to be sin. The Apostle Paul tells us that he had not known lust if
   the Law had not said, "You shall not covet." There was a citizen of
   Gaunt who had never been outside the city walls. For some reason or
   other the magistrate passed an order that he should not go outside.
   Strange to tell, up to the moment that the command had passed, the man
   had been perfectly easy and never thought of passing the line. But as
   soon as ever he was forbidden to do it, he pined, and sickened, and
   even died moaning over the restriction.

   If a man sees a thing to be law, he wants to break that law. Our nature
   is so evil, that forbid us to do a thing, and at once we want to do the
   thing that is forbidden, and in many minds the principle of Law,
   instead of leading to purity has even offered opportunities for greater
   impurity. Beside, although you may point out the way of uprightness to
   a man, and tell him what is right and what is wrong with all the wisdom
   and force of counsel and caution, unless you can give him a heart to
   choose the right, and a heart to love the true, you have not done much
   for him.

   This is just the province of Law. It can write out its precepts on the
   brazen tablets, and it can brandish its fiery sword, and say, "Do this
   or else be punished," but man, carnal man, only wraps himself the more
   closely in his self-conceit, and perseveres the more doggedly in his
   obstinate rebellion. He defies God, defers to his own reprobate mind,
   goes on in sin, and waxes worse and worse, knowing the judgment
   threatened, yet committing the transgressions prohibited. And he takes
   pleasure in those that do such things as his benefit companions.
   Because of the malignity, as well as the infirmity of our flesh, the
   mere principle of Law will never do anything to purify or ennoble our
   moral nature. It has been tried by eminent teachers and social
   reformers.

   Dr. Chalmers tells us that in his early ministry he used to preach
   morality, and nothing but morality, till, he said, he had hardly a
   sober or an honest man left in the parish. The preaching of morality
   seemed to lead to immorality. Something more is wanted than merely to
   din into men's ears what they ought to be, and what they ought to do.
   Something is wanted more effectually to renovate the heart and move the
   springs of action. The water is nothing, and if you make it flow it is
   bitter. You want an ingredient to be cast into it that will heal its
   poison springs, and make them sweet and clear.

   Now, in the text, we are told how God interposed to do by His Grace
   what His Law could not do. I will read it to you again--"For what the
   Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending
   His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin
   in the flesh." There are here, then, two things. First, what God did.
   He sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh for sin. And then,
   what was the immediate result of this--He condemned sin in the flesh.
   After expounding these matters, I will try, in the third place, to show
   you how this bears upon the two desirable things I speak of, namely,
   the forgiving of the offender, and the making the offender yearn after
   holiness and purity.

   I. First, and very briefly, let me tell you WHAT, ACCORDING TO THE
   TEXT, GOD DID--He sent His Son. We believe in one God, but though we
   understand not the mystery of the Divine Existence, we accept the
   propositions declared in Scripture, clearly apprehending the obvious
   sense of the terms employed, and heartily assenting to the Truth of the
   facts revealed. Thus we believe that the Father is God, and the Son is
   God, and the Holy Spirit is God--and we worship these Three as the one
   God--the triune God of Israel.

   The second Person of that blessed unity in Trinity was sent by the
   Father to this earth. He is God the Father's Son, "the Only-Begotten of
   the Father." What that means we do not attempt to define--of the matter
   of fact, we feel no doubt of the manner thereof--but we can offer no
   explanation. We suppose that the relationship implied in the words
   "Father" and "Son" is the nearest description that the Divine Mind can
   present to our feeble intelligence of that ineffable fellowship. But we
   do not assume, therefore, that it explains to us anything, or was
   intended to explain anything as the basis of an argument or of a theory
   concerning the profound doctrine itself. It is a great mystery.

   Indeed, were there no mystery in God, He were no God to us. For how,
   then, should we fear Him with the reverence due unto His name? The fact
   of there being mysteries should never stagger us, poor worms of a day,
   when we have to think or speak of the infinitely glorious Jehovah. So,
   it came to pass, that in the fullness of time God sent His Son. He is
   called in the text, "His own Son," to distinguish Him from us who are
   only His sons by creation, or His sons by regeneration and adoption. He
   sent His own Son, and He sent Him in the flesh. Jesus Christ, the Son
   of God, was born into this world. He took upon Himself our manhood.

   The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and the Apostles declare
   that they beheld His Glory, the glory as of the Only-Begotten of the
   Father, full of Grace and Truth. The text uses very important words. It
   says that God sent His Son "in the likeness of sinful flesh," not in
   the likeness of flesh, for that would not be true--but in the same
   likeness as our sinful flesh. He was to all intents and purposes like
   ourselves, tempted in all points like as we are, though without sin. He
   was with all our sinless infirmities, with all our tendencies to
   suffer, with everything human in Him except that which comes to be
   human through human nature having fallen.

   He was perfectly Man. He was like ourselves. And God sent Him in the
   likeness of sinful flesh. Though it is eighteen hundred ears ago and
   more, the Christmas bells seem to ring on. The joy of His coming is
   still in our hearts. He lived here His two or three and thirty years,
   but He was sent, the text tells us, for a reason which caused Him to
   die. He was sent for sin. This may mean that He was sent to do battle
   with sin, or that He was sent because sin was in the world--or, best of
   all--He was sent to be a Sin-Offering. He was sent that He might be the
   Substitute for sinners.

   God's great plan was this--that inasmuch as His justice could not
   overlook sin, and sin must be punished, Jesus Christ should come and
   take the sin of His people upon Himself, and upon the accursed tree,
   the Cross of ignominious note, should suffer what was due on our
   behalf. And that through His sufferings the infinite love of God should
   stream forth without any contravention of His Infinite Justice. This is
   what God did. He sent His Son to Bethlehem. He sent his Son to
   Calvary--He sent his Son down to the grave, and He has now recalled Him
   unto the excellent Glory where He sits at the right hand of God.

   II. Do you ask you now, secondly, WHAT WAS THE IMMEDIATE RESULT OF
   THIS? Why, Brethren, the immediate result was that God condemned sin.
   Let me show you how He did it. God--I must use language which is for
   us, not for Him--must, out of necessity, if He would save men and yet
   not violate His Justice, send his Son to condemn sin. For it said,
   "This sin is such an evil, such a plague, such a curse, that it cannot
   be stamped out of the world unless God Himself comes down among the
   sons of men."

   His usual Presence among men in the power that sustains nature, it
   seemed, was not enough to put out sin. So venomous was the serpent that
   there must be born a Seed of the woman that should bruise that
   serpent's head. This world of ours was such an Augean stable, that
   Omnipotence, itself, must come down and turn the sluices of Divine
   perfection right through the hideous heap, or else washed it never
   could be. Therefore down from the highest Glory came the Savior, that
   He might achieve a task which the Law could not do in that it was weak
   through the flesh--but which He in the likeness of sinful flesh
   undertook to accomplish.

   Moreover, the life of our Lord Jesus Christ on earth condemned sin. You
   can often condemn an evil best by putting side by side with it the
   palpable contrast--the purity to which it is so thoroughly alien, so
   totally opposite. So blameless was the conduct of this most blessed Man
   of Nazareth throughout His entire career, that even those who accept
   not His Deity do homage to His integrity. We have had in our own day,
   and in our midst, we grieve to say, some who have blasphemed our faith
   with bitterest words. But even they have paused as if they stood
   abashed when they came to survey the Character of Him whose Divinity
   and Mission they refused to acknowledge. They have seen about His life
   a something that they saw nowhere else, and if they have not adored
   they have admired.

   There was a condemnation of sin in His very look. The Pharisees felt
   it. They could not meet or encounter Him without discovering and
   exposing what hypocrites they were. All sorts of men felt it. They
   could not fail to see through the purity of His life what crooked,
   ugly, deformed lives their own were in comparison with His. And thus
   the very existence of Christ, and the example of Christ, condemned sin.
   But what shall we, who are His disciples, say to that assemblage of
   Divine Grace found only in Him, each sparkling with peerless luster,
   and all blending with such exquisite gracefulness that we are at once
   moved with awe and touched with love as we contemplate Him?

   Such majesty, yet such meekness in His manner. Such solemnity, yet such
   tenderness in His speech. So impartial in judgment, yet so forgiving in
   temper. So full of zeal, yet so equally full of patience. So keen to
   detect malice, yet so slow to resent it. Such a wise Mentor in the
   inner circle of His followers, yet such a gentle sympathizing friend.
   Say, my Brethren, I think some of us never commit a trespass or betray
   an infirmity, but we say, and say it to ourselves, Would Christ have
   done this? And the remembrance of His holy, harmless life condemns sin
   in our conscience.

   God condemned sin still further by allowing it to condemn itself. The
   scoff has always been on this wise, "Oh, sin, sin! Well, it is a mere
   trifle," and the most of men disdain to allow that their particular
   transgressions are at all heinous. "No, we never killed anybody. We
   never committed adultery. We are not thieves--ours are only sins of a
   common sort. There can be no harm in us." But see now, God seemed to
   say, "I will let sin do what it can. I will let sin ripen in this
   world. I will let it grow to its perfection. And men shall see from now
   on what sin is from that sample."

   "What am I aiming at," do you ask? Why, there came into this world a
   Man perfectly innocent, harmless, gentle, meek, loving, tender. All His
   Words were love. All His actions were kindness. He raised the dead. He
   healed the sick. He spoke nothing but peace and goodwill towards men.
   And what did sin do? Sin said, "Away with such a Fellow from the earth!
   It is not fit that He should live." Sin murdered the perfect Man, as it
   would lay violent hands on all who interfere with its evil maxims and
   base habits. It would utterly destroy all goodness if it could. It
   convicted itself. Ferocious is a wild beast, it is always to be feared
   and hated, for it never can be tamed or trusted.

   That Man came into this world on an errand, and that errand was one of
   disinterested mercy and pure affection. He need not have come. He had
   nothing to gain by it. He never did gain anything while here. They
   would have made Him a

   king, but He would not be a king. His was all disinterested kindness,
   benevolence to His bitterest foes. When they nailed His hands to the
   wood, they could get nothing vindictive from His lips. He said,
   "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He came to save
   His enemies. Now, surely sin will not touch such a blessed Being as
   this! Surely sin will say, "I hate His holiness, but I reverence His
   philanthropy"!

   Not so, sin shouted, "Crucify Him! crucify Him!" Sin made a jest of His
   prayers, and mocked His tears. As we hold and believe, this Man was no
   other than God, God's Son. You know how the willfulness and atrocity of
   this sin against Christ is represented to us in the parable of a
   certain man that had let out his vineyard unto husbandmen. He sent unto
   them his servant that at the time of the crops they should pay a
   portion of the produce, but they treated him despitefully, and when he
   sent another they beat him, and stoned another.

   At last he said, "I will send my son. They will surely reverence my
   son." But they said, "This is the heir. Let us kill him, and the
   inheritance shall be ours." And so with this very God, they seemed to
   say, "Let us kill Him." And though they could not give a death blow to
   His Deity, they showed that they would if they could. And red-handed
   sin stands out before the world this day as a deicide. It would wreak
   its vengeance on Him that inhabits eternity if it could, and hurl
   destruction at the Lawgiver, to secure a triumph for its own
   lawlessness. The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God," and the
   great aim of human nature is to get rid of God in fact, as well as in
   faith. This it attempts to do, either by discoursing of Him in an
   abstraction, or by setting up blocks of wood and stone in simple
   credulity, as a correct representation of His fashion or His
   attributes.

   To the one true and glorious God men will not pay any allegiance. If
   sin had power equivalent to its purpose. Had it means to accomplish its
   menace, it would cast down the Throne of the Most High, and assail
   Jehovah Himself in the Heaven of His dwelling. Oh, you abominable
   thing, Sin! You stand convicted. God shall smite you, you accursed
   thing! You have condemned yourself by your own act and deed--even where
   your craftiness has been foiled and your desperate prowess has issued
   in defeat.

   Thus, Brethren, I have shown you that Christ's coming condemned sin,
   Christ's life condemned it, and by putting Christ to death, sin
   condemned itself. But here comes the peculiar doctrine of our faith.
   God condemned sin by bruising Christ, by suffering Him to be put to
   death, by deserting Him in the hour of nature's extremity, by
   permitting His soul to undergo an agony beyond all conception. Sirs,
   our sin--your sin, my sin--the sin of as many as do believe or ever
   shall believe in Jesus, was laid on Him, "who His own Self bare our
   sins in His own body on the tree." He was the Father's Best-Beloved. He
   had never offended, and the Father loved Him. Will He not spare Him?
   Will He not spare Him?

   Infinite love loved us, and infinite love loved Christ, but infinite
   love said, "I cannot pass by sin without punishment. What Justice
   demands, must be done." And it was love that made the Father pour forth
   the vials of His wrath upon the head of the Only-Begotten Son, till in
   the garden He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to
   the ground. Oh, there was an inner sweat, of which those outward drops
   were but the faint types! His soul was exceedingly sorrowful even unto
   death, and then on the Cross He died.

   I have often painted you that scene, but for the present I forbear. His
   inward sufferings, His soul-sufferings, were the soul of His
   sufferings--

   'Twas thus the Lord of Life appeared,

   And sighed, and groaned, and prayed, and feared.

   Bore all Incarnate God could bear,

   With strength enough, and none to spare." Then and there He made
   expiation for man's guilt. What a condemnation that was of sin!
   Methinks it were as though the righteous Judge of all the earth had
   said, "I cannot suffer sin, I cannot pass by sin, even if it lies on
   the Innocent One. I must smite even My own Son if sin is imputed to
   Him. I cannot and will not clear the guilty. The Judge of all the earth
   am I. If My Son should be spared, or My Law should be put on one side,
   the thousands of worlds I govern might well be in high revolt against
   Me."

   Poised was the cause in the impartial scales of Justice, and on His Son
   He visited our transgressions. Into His hands the cup of wrath was
   given. Against Him the sword of vengeance was unsheathed. Of Him the
   uttermost penalty was ex-acted--that we, for whom He stood as
   Surety--might be clear by His dying, justified by His rising from the
   dead, and from then on accepted in the Beloved.

   Now I know it will be said, "But why did not God exercise the sovereign
   prerogative of mercy, and at once forgive sin? Why did He not by His
   own absolute fiat condone the offense and pardon the offenders?" I
   reply, how, then, could God have condemned sin? If sin is only such a
   simple misdemeanor as an arbitrary act of God can forgive, then its
   evil were not infinite in turpitude, the prolific parent of crimes and
   curses numberless. But if there must be an atonement for it, an
   Atonement as wonderful as that which I have essayed to preach to you,
   then sin descried in the light of that altar-fire where it was
   propitiated, appears worse than felonious, worse than any word I can
   use, more hideous than any ghastly form I can depict.

   Its summary condemnation alone could vindicate the unimpeachable
   holiness of the Judge. Someone else may say, "But if the righteous Law
   is really so spiritual, and carnal man so weak, why not alter the Law
   and adapt it to the exigency?" I reply again, because such a procedure
   would not condemn the sin. On the contrary, it would condemn the Law.
   It would be an admission that the Law originally was too severe. It
   would be making an apology for sinners, and encourage them to sin
   greedily with both hands. To relax the prescript and forego the
   punishment, were to trifle with sin and make the Law to be a
   contemptible thing.

   The criminal will ask to have it altered still, and lowered to suit his
   basest passions. But would not a part-punishment have sufficed, and
   then let the rest be excused? I answer, No! That, too, would have
   condemned the Law for having asked a greater punishment than was
   absolutely necessary. Whatever was laid down as being the necessary
   punishment of sin must be enforced, or else God changes, the statute is
   set aside, and the Law breaks down altogether. The only way to condemn
   sin to the full is this--let the sin be punished, and if there is one
   found who, without a breach of justice, may be permitted to suffer in
   the place of another, let him so suffer.

   But let care be taken that it is no sham, but a reality. That sin, from
   the dignity of the sufferer, from the amount of the suffering, from the
   completeness of the atonement, is effectually and thoroughly condemned.
   Thus far have I led you. God has sent His Son into the world, and has
   thus condemned sin by His Son's life and death.

   III. Now, thirdly, I come to the main business of this evening, which
   is TO SHOW YOU HOW THIS DOES WHAT THE LAW COULD NOT DO. There were two
   desirable things, you will remember, that I started with. The first was
   that the offender should be pardoned. You can clearly see how that is
   done. If Jesus suffered in my place, from now on it becomes not only
   Mercy that absolves me, but Justice that seals my acquittal--

   "Since Christ has my discharge procured, And freely in my place,
   endured The whole of wrath Divine; Payment God cannot twice demand,
   First at my bleeding Surety's hand, And then again at mine."

   If Jesus paid the debt, it is paid, and I am clear. There is,
   therefore, now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Your
   only question, dear Hearers, is--have you a part in the sufferings of
   Christ? Was He a Substitute for you? According to this grand old Book,
   on which we fix our trust as an Infallible guide in this matter, Jesus
   died for every soul that trusts Him. So is it written--"He that
   believes, and is baptized, shall be saved." Have you these personal
   evidences? Do you without question trust Him? Then you are forgiven.
   You are this night absolved. You may rejoice in God through our Lord
   Jesus Christ, by whom you have now received the Atonement. Your sins,
   past, present, and to come, are all blotted out--

   "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."

   The red mark is drawn across the bill, it is discharged. The load of
   obligation is gone. From its burden you are released. The sin of the
   Believer has ceased to be. Christ has been punished in his place. Is
   not that simple enough for all of you to understand, and Scriptural
   enough for all of you to receive?

   But how comes the second necessity to be supplied? How does this tend
   from now on to make such a man pure in heart, and produce in his very
   soul an aversion and a total abhorrence of sin? This is not difficult
   to apprehend if you will give it a little quiet consideration. When the
   Holy Spirit comes with power into a man's heart, and renews his nature
   (oh,

   matchless miracle!)--a miracle that has been worked many times in this
   house--at that moment the unhallowed and the impure are made chaste.
   The dishonest are made honest, and the ungodly are made to love
   God--"for if any man is in Christ he is a new creature."

   Such motives as the following now begin to influence his mind--The man
   says, "Did God, instead of forgiving my sin without a penalty, make the
   anointed Substitute smart for it? Then I reverence the Lawgiver, the
   mighty Lawgiver who would not, even though He is Love itself, suffer
   His Law to be broken. I reverence that dreadful Judge of all the earth,
   who, though I am His child, yet since I had offended, would not spare
   me for my sin, but executed the penalty that was due to me upon
   Himself.

   Himself! For Christ His Son is One with Him, and dear to His Father's
   soul. Why, more than that, it makes me feel an intense love to Him.
   What? Was He so just, and yet was He so determined to save me, that He
   would not spare His only Son, but freely gave Him up to die? O blessed
   God, I tremble at Your Justice, which yet I come to admire. But oh,
   Your love--what shall I say of it? It wins my love. I must love You, my
   God--the Just and yet the Gracious One. I must love You."

   Then there comes into the heart an enmity against the sin which caused
   the suffering of Christ. "What?" says the heart, "Did sin make my
   Redeemer, who gave Himself for me, suffer? Then, away with it! It must
   be a foul, vile thing, to put such a blessed One as He to death. I will
   not tolerate it." It makes the soul cry, "Revenge" against itself--a
   blessed vengeance it decrees against all sin. "Bring out the gallows,
   and let sin be hanged. The dearest idol I have known, bring out the
   hammer and the axe, and let it be broken in pieces. The choicest
   transgression I have ever nurtured in my bosom--I see what a viper it
   is, and I shake it into the fire! Away with it! If it grieves my
   Christ, and makes Him bleed, my own Beloved Savior--away with it, away
   with it!"

   And let me tell you, there is another matter that comes in and supplies
   the basis for holiness, such a basis as cannot be found anywhere else.
   The man says, "Now I am pardoned through the love of Jesus Christ and
   the shedding of His precious blood. I have God for my Father, and He is
   my Friend. There is no one to part me from Him. My sin was laid on
   Another, it has been expiated, and it is gone--I am saved, I am
   forgiven." The man is happy. The man is cheerful. The man is joyful,
   and what springs up? "Now," says he, "there is that glorious Christ of
   God who has worked this for me, and I see Him with the eye of faith. I
   see Him in Heaven, and I am His man--body, soul, and spirit. I am not
   my own. He has bought me with His blood. I lay myself at His feet. What
   He bids me do I will do. What He asks of me I will give. What He
   forbids me, it shall be my joy never to touch."

   Here breaks forth in the soul an enthusiastic love to the Person of
   Jesus Christ, which, as it burns and glows like a refining fire,
   becomes a great motive--power to the spirit to pursue holiness in the
   power of God. When do the soldiers fight best, Sirs? When you have read
   their rules to them as to how they might keep place, and how they must
   load their guns, and fire in due order? No! Law does not inflame the
   soldier with martial ardor, though it is good in its place. But just
   when the battle lingers--take an instance from our own history--just
   when the battle was about to turn with the Ironsides, and the Cavaliers
   were coming on with one of Rupert's hot charges, ready to break the
   line, and the brave old Ironsides were half inclined to turn, up came
   the general old Noll, riding on his horse, and they passed the word
   along, "It is he, boys! Here he comes!"

   And every man grew into a giant at once. They stood like iron columns,
   like walls of granite, and the Cavaliers as they came on broke like
   waves against rocks, and dashed away, and were heard of no more. It was
   the presence of the man that fired each soldier. And so it is now with
   us. We believe in Jesus Christ. We know that He is with His Church. He
   was dead, but He rose again. He has gone to Heaven, but His spirit is
   with us--King of kings, and Lord of lords is He. If He seems to sleep
   in the midst of our ship, yet He sleeps with His hands on the helm, and
   He will steer the vessel rightly.

   And now the love that we bear His name steers our souls to holiness, to
   self-denial, to seek after God, to make full proof of the faith and the
   fellowship of the Gospel, to seek to become like God, and to be
   absorbed into God that He may be All in All. This is what was wanted--a
   stimulus potent enough, under God's Grace, to break through the
   barriers of sin. What the Law could not do in that it was weak through
   the flesh, God has accomplished by sending His own dear Son in the
   likeness of sinful flesh for sin. And having condemned sin in the
   flesh, He has now removed its guilt, and destroyed its power.

   To the best of my ability I have thus set before you a doctrine in
   which my own heart finds perfect rest. I would that you all had the
   same rest, the same sweet heart's ease in your breasts. Two words of
   counsel I must address to you before I close. One is, I do beseech you
   to receive this doctrine. It is of God. It is true. They who first bore
   witness to it were humble fishermen. Unsophisticated as they were, they
   had no motive for inventing it. Indeed, it is a theory which they had
   not the brains to invent if they had tried. They nearly all of them
   died for it. They never gained honor or emolument by professing or
   publishing it, but they endured contumely and persecution, even to the
   loss of their lives, for testifying to what they saw and heard.

   Ah, since then the Church has had long lines of martyrs. Who could help
   hearing the same witness, fortified with the same assurances, whatever
   it might cost them, however they might be ridiculed as ignorant,
   old-fashioned, and not up to the progress of the age? I pray you accept
   this--especially would I address myself to those of you whom I have
   preached to for so long, who yet are unsaved. I do not know what forms
   of speech to use with some of you, or in what shape to fashion my
   appeal. If I thought that coming round to your pews and kneeling down
   before you, and entreating you to receive Christ would have any effect
   upon you, I would gladly do it.

   I have prayed very anxiously that if perhaps my voice should not be the
   one that God would bless to your conversion, my brother's voice next
   Sunday, or that of someone else on the following Sunday on which I
   shall be absent, may have the effect of leading you to Christ. O that
   you may but be saved! I will make no terms with God if you will but
   accept Christ. I am somewhat of the mind of a dear little girl, who is
   now dying, if she has not already departed. She sent a little note in
   pencil to her minister, and it was delivered at the Prayer Meeting.

   A little Believer in Christ, nine years of age, asks the prayers of the
   people for her father, for he is an unbeliever. She was visited by her
   minister, and she said to him, "O Sir, I have asked Father to come and
   hear you preach. I thought he might get saved, but he mocks at it, and
   will not come. But, Sir, he must hear you preach one day, and that is
   when I shall be buried, for I shall soon be with Jesus. O Sir! When he
   stands at the grave, do be sure to tell him about the love of Christ,
   and say that I asked you to do so, for perhaps when I am dead that
   might help to break his heart."

   Oh, yes! If anything would break your hearts, that were a mercy if it
   happened. If the preacher himself were dead, if his interment in the
   grave could bring you to the Savior, it were a cheap price to pay. Only
   may God save you! May the Holy Spirit renew you! May the Savior wash
   you in His precious blood and I shall be well content.

   The other word is this. You that profess to be Christians, to believe
   what I have told you--take care that you do not give the lie to it. Not
   everyone that says, "I am a Christian" is so. No, no. It is a
   heathenish nation this, that has had the impudence to call itself
   Christian. "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leads unto
   life, and few there are that find it," is as true today as when Christ
   uttered it. To be a Christian in name is worth nothing. To be a
   Christian in the power of these truths, having received Christ Jesus
   the Lord, and being rooted and built up in Him, and established in the
   faith as you have been taught--that is to be a Christian in all good
   conscience.

   If your lives should be unholy, if you trades people should be
   dishonest, if you rich people should be proud and selfish, if you poor
   people should be envious, if any of you should be drunken, if you
   should be loose in speech, if you should be unclean in deed or in
   conversation, men may say--"The preacher has only laid down a theory,
   let him show us facts." Well. But I can show facts. I bless God that I
   have it in my own soul to say that I believe the most of you do so live
   as to prove these things. But even so, there are others of you of whom
   I tell you, even weeping, that you are the enemies of the Cross of
   Christ. Enemies! Of all enemies the worst of enemies, too, because
   while professing to be actuated by them, you live in opposition to the
   teachings of Jesus.

   O blessed Savior! Wounded worse by Your treacherous friends than by
   Your open foes. O holy Faith! More damaged by your professors than by
   your antagonists. The Lord grant us to walk and live in holiness, and
   in His fear, till the Master shall come, as come He will a second time
   without a sin-offering unto salvation. Finally, Brothers and Sisters,
   farewell. Let me dismiss you with a blessing.
     __________________________________________________________________

Angelic Studies

   (No. 933)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY 1, 1870

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly
   places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God."
   Ephesians 3:10.

   THE "principalities and powers in heavenly places" to whom the Apostle
   here refers, are, no doubt, the angels. These bright and glorious
   spirits, never having fallen into sin, did not need to be redeemed, and
   therefore, in the sense of being cleansed from guilt, they have no
   share in the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Yet it is interesting to
   notice how our Lord did, as it were, pass and pass again their shining
   ranks when He sped His way down to the regions of death, and when He
   came back triumphant to the realms of Glory.

   Thus in one place "we see Jesus made a little lower than the angels for
   the suffering of death," and in another place we learn, "that the
   Father raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in
   the heavenly places, far above all principality and power, and might
   and dominion." It is possible that the mediation of Christ has a
   bearing upon them, and has from now on confirmed them in their
   holiness, so that by no means shall they ever be tempted or led into
   sin in the future. It may be so, but this much seems to be evident,
   that though they had no direct share in redemption, they feel,
   nevertheless, an interest in it, and are to be instructed by its
   results.

   The sublime plan of the Gospel of the Grace of God, which is so
   entirely beyond the compass of our natural faculties that we could
   never, by searching, have found it out, appears to have been equally
   beyond the grasp of angelic intelligence. It was a mystery that excited
   their wistful enquiry--until by the Church (that is to say, by the
   Divine Counsel and conduct in forming and perfecting the Church) there
   is made known unto them the manifold wisdom of God as they have never
   learned it before. They have kept their first estate, and have been
   obedient to God's behests. They delight to be known as the servants of
   God, doing His commandments, and hearkening unto the voice of His Word.

   They are appointed to exercise some sort of power over various parts of
   God's creation, therefore they are called "principalities and powers."
   Certainly they are engaged in singing Jehovah's praise. Much of the
   music that rises up before His Throne comes from the harps of spirits,
   pure and immaculate, who have never known sin. Yet, though they are
   thus pure, thus engaged in worship, of such eminent rank in the
   universe of God, they are never represented as indifferent spectators
   of anything which our mortal race can do or suffer, but their sympathy
   with men is constant.

   Do they not watch over the saints? Is it not written, that they "encamp
   round about them that fear the Lord"? Are they not charged to take care
   of the saints, to bear them up in their hands, lest they dash their
   feet against the stones? Angels, we know, have often been messengers of
   God's will to the sons of men. They have never shown any reluctance--
   on the contrary, great has been their joy to bear God's tidings down
   from Heaven to earth. And their sympathy even with fallen men, with men
   who have grievously sinned and gone astray, is shown by the fact that
   they "rejoice over one sinner that repents, more than over ninety and
   nine just persons that need no repentance."

   They are, as it were, in yonder gilded vessel, untossed of tempest. But
   they have sympathy with us in this poor heavy-laden boat, tossed with
   tempest and not comforted. I see them there on yonder sea of glass
   mingled with fire. I hear their harps, as incessantly their joy goes up
   in music to the Throne of the Most High. But they do not look down with
   scorn on us poor denizens of this dusky planet. On the contrary, they
   delight to think of us as their Brethren, as their fellow servants, as
   it will be the consummation of their happiness when we shall all be
   gathered to the Church of the First-Born, that they shall make up the
   innumerable company of angels that surround the blood-washed throng.

   I. The subject of our meditation, which will be brief, resolves itself
   into a question, HOW EXCLUSIVELY THROUGH THE CHURCH DO ANGELS COME TO
   SEE THE MANIFOLD WISDOM OF GOD? Some other matters in connection with
   this we shall have to speak of afterwards.

   Who can doubt that the angels had seen much of the wisdom of God in
   creation? With faculties keener and more elevated than ours, faculties
   that have never been blunted by sin, they can perceive the various
   contrivances of God's skill both in the animate and the inanimate
   world. Doubtless as each new star has been minted by God, as each
   planet has been struck off like a spark from the everlasting anvil,
   angels, those sons of the morning, have lifted up their songs, and have
   poured forth their paeans of joy and gladness.

   They have seen the wisdom of God in the greatness of creation--in every
   sphere they have been able to perceive it, for their vision is far more
   comprehensive than ours. And they have also, no doubt, seen that wisdom
   in all its minuteness as manifest in the delicate structure of
   organized beings, and the skillful economy of the operations of
   creative power. For there again they are able with the singleness and
   certainty of superior optics to perceive what only after long years we
   have been able to discover--and that by reasoning from the ingenuity of
   the works to the excellence of the design.

   What a scale of survey must a seraph have! How readily can we imagine
   an eye that takes in at once the landscape of the world! He need not
   confine himself to one single spot in God's universe, but with rapid
   wings he can steer far and wide over the infinity of space. May he not
   pause here a moment and there a moment, and with a glance peer into the
   multiform wisdom of God in all the ten thousand thousand worlds that
   stud the realms of space? Yet with all that facility of observation, it
   seems that the angels have some parts of the wisdom of God to learn.
   They have some lessons of heavenly science to study which creation
   cannot unfold to their view--to be ascertained and certified by them
   only through the transcendent work of Redemption which the Lord has
   carried on in His Church.

   Fix your attention for a moment on the word "now" as it is used in the
   text. On that word, it seems to me, much of the meaning hangs. Long
   before our Lord came into the world God had been pleased to reveal
   somewhat of the wisdom of His Grace in the types of the old Law. These
   were full of significance, but at the same time not free from
   perplexity to the minds of most men. They appear not to have been very
   intelligible, even to the angels, for they are pictured as standing
   over the Mercy Seat, with wings outspread, looking down upon its golden
   lid, anxiously enquiring, but not clearly discovering the secret of the
   old Covenant dispensation.

   Peter says, I suppose in allusion to this, "which things the angels
   desire to look into." But Paul here vehemently sets forth the yearnings
   of his heart in the exercise of his ministry, "to make all men see what
   is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world
   has been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the
   intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places,
   might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God."

   May we not infer from this that though angels saw Moses and Aaron, and
   the long succession of priests that followed them. Though they
   doubtless mingled invisibly in the solemn gatherings that went up to
   Mount Zion, and heard the chants of the glorious Psalms. Though they
   saw the streams of blood that flowed at the altar of burnt offering,
   and marked the rising clouds of smoke that went up from the altar of
   incense that was in the Holy Place before the Lord, they had not as yet
   discovered the wisdom of God in its fullness and clearness, the
   spotless mirror of His power, the reflex image of His glorious
   perfection?

   But it must have remained for them to learn it from the Church! Since
   Christ has come, angels are to be students of the manifold wisdom of
   God as revealed in His work towards His people, preparing them for that
   grand climax--the espousal of the Church and the marriage of the Lamb.
   To come closer to the matter we must trace it progressively, as though
   it were step by step that the angels pursued their study, and acquired
   an insight into this manifold wisdom. It may be they do so. Certainly
   among the children of men there is much pleasure in the getting of
   knowledge. The merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of
   silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold.

   As we gradually break up fresh ground, decipher that which is obscure,
   sift out analogies, solve difficulties, and follow out the tracks of
   history in one continuous line, our enjoyment of study rises to
   enthusiasm. Do you not think that the angels perceived the manifold
   wisdom of God now that they began to understand what man was and what
   man is? They must have already seen that God had created an order of
   pure spirits who served Him faithfully and never sinned. There was one
   form of wisdom displayed in that. Other spirits, equally pure, went
   astray, and in the wisdom of God-- for there is wisdom in it--these
   were suffered to continue astray, reserved in chains until the
   judgment.

   Soon the angels perceived that God was about to make another
   intelligent creature, not altogether spiritual, but a spiritual
   creature that should be linked with materialism, a creature that should
   abide in a body of clay. And that God intended to make this creature a
   mixture of earth and Heaven--such a one that he should occupy the place
   which fallen

   angels had left vacant. They discerned in this at once the wisdom of
   God. He had formed a pure spirit. He had fashioned material substances.
   Now He was about to make a creature in which the two should be
   combined, a creature that should be spiritual, and yet should be
   material.

   But before this creature should be permitted to take his place forever
   at the right hand of God, he was to be permitted to pass the test of
   temptation. Being tempted, he was to fall into sin. Out of the
   condemnation into which he should sink he was to be elevated by an act
   of Divine Grace. From the guilt of that sin he was to be cleansed by a
   matchless system of substitutionary sacrifice. And then, after having
   been alienated in heart, he should nevertheless become as pure as if he
   had never been conscious of evil! And contaminated with it, he should
   be redeemed from it and stand in allegiance to the Most High, to serve
   Him with as absolute a perfection as if he had never transgressed or
   lost his first estate.

   Herein is manifold wisdom, that the Lord God should make so strange a
   creature, that He should be formed of the dust of the ground, and yet
   created in the image of God. A creature that should know sin, and
   whatever of pleasure there might be in it, and yet be restored to
   purity and holiness. A creature who though awhile estranged in heart,
   and guilty of rebelling with a high hand against his Creator, should
   return to its allegiance through the infinitely wise workings of God's
   Spirit, and from now on should remain forever the liege servant of God!
   And, something more, the child of God would be lifted up and exalted
   into a nearness of connection and intimacy of communion with the Great
   Father of Spirits into which no creature had ever been brought before!
   In that grand design, the angels must have seen much of the sublime
   wisdom of God, and that conspicuously through the Church.

   But, Brethren, may not the admiration of angels at the unfolding of
   this wisdom have been increased by the mystery in which it had long
   been shrouded from their apprehension? Observe that Paul was exulting
   in a revelation "which in other ages was not made known unto the sons
   of men as it is now revealed unto His holy Apostles and Prophets by the
   Spirit." What use will he make of it? First he looks round among the
   saints and sounds the note of welcome. Then he looks out among his
   fellow men and proclaims it to the Gentile world. And at length he
   looks up and descries among the angelic throng, creatures of noble mind
   and exalted rank, who could sympathize the joy and hail the solution of
   so grand a problem.

   Be it remembered that the decree had previously been proclaimed from
   the throne of the Most High, for, "when He brings the First-Begotten
   into the world, He says, "Let all the angels of God worship Him." Yet
   the means by which the counsels of God concerning Christ and the Church
   should be brought to pass had not thus far been shown. With what
   pleasing wonderment, therefore, would the principalities and powers in
   heavenly places regard the plan as it was unsealed! How well might the
   Apostle look forward to those ages to come which have yet to prove the
   reality of all that has been foreshadowed!

   The Truth of all that has been prophesied. And (the work now in
   progress being completed) the actual form and fashion of all that from
   the beginning was predestinated. Even while the mystery was
   unexplained, it was not for pure angelic minds to doubt. Still their
   thoughts must have been full of marvel, and startling questions must
   have occurred to them. Shall the Only-Begotten Son of the Father take
   the nature of man into union with the Godhead? Can it be safe to put
   such a creature as man into so sublime a relationship with the Creator?
   Will pride never inflame his breast and provoke his soul to transgress?
   By what strange process shall he be made meet to partake of the
   inheritance of the saints in

   light?

   While the details are concealed, the destiny seems incomprehensible. It
   is therefore that the Church becomes as a museum which angels may visit
   with ever-expanding interest and ever-increasing delight. Over the
   minutest particulars of the Divine workmanship in the saints they may
   pore with pleasure. For there they have open to their observation by
   the Church the manifold wisdom of God. And all this redounds to the
   glory of the Savior. That creature, man, when thus elevated, can never
   be proud, for he remembers what he was. If ever the feeling of
   exultation crosses his mind, he transfers the honor to Christ, who can
   receive it as his rightful due.

   There is not in Heaven, of all the creatures, a humbler creature,
   though none more elevated--made to have dominion over all the works of
   God's hands, with all things put under his feet. He is made to be akin
   to Deity itself by virtue of union with the Son of God, and yet safe to
   stand there, without cause to fear that he should pervert his high
   prerogative or usurp any adoration or prerogative which does not belong
   to him. The process through which he has passed--his annealing, as it
   were, in the fire of his fall and of his repentance--his deep
   obligations to Sovereign Grace, shall make it

   safe to grant that he shall sit with Christ on His Throne. Even as
   Christ also overcame, and is set down with his Father on His Throne.

   I talk of these things feebly and superficially, but I am persuaded
   that this is a subject which angels can think of with enchantment, and
   as they think it over they see transparent proofs of the manifold
   wisdom of God. But to come down to more familiar topics. Probably you
   will be more impressed with the excellence of this wisdom as you look
   at the first principles of Christianity, than if you would arrest your
   attention in any refinements of reasoning. The wisdom of God is clearly
   seen by angels in this--that though God was dishonored in this world by
   sin--that sin has redounded to His greater honor.

   Satan, when he led men astray and tempted them to rebel, thought he had
   marred the Glory of God, but he never did more palpably outwit God. As
   Augustine ventured to say of the Fall, "Happy thought," so, when we see
   how God's mercy and His love have shone resplendent through that
   dreadful breach, we can only admire the wisdom of God which has thus
   outmatched the subtlety of Hell. The serpent was exceedingly wise, but
   God was far wiser. Satan's craft was dexterous, but God's wisdom was
   infinite in its prescience. Wisdom has outmatched craft. Is it not
   glorious to think that this world where God was dishonored most is the
   world where He shall be most revered?

   There is no such display of the attributes and perfections of Godhead
   in the whole universe beside as there is here. On our blighted soil God
   has stood foot to foot with moral evil. God incarnate, the Son of God,
   has sustained the conflict, and won the victory! While the heel of
   Christ was bruised, the head of the dragon has been most effectually
   broken! A triumph that God would have us commemorate in time and in
   eternity has come through the sin that threatened the destruction of
   the world.

   This wisdom of God is to be seen in the way that our redemption was
   worked. The doctrine of Substitution is a marvel which, if God had
   never revealed, none of us could by any possibility have discovered.
   You remember how it was. We had sinned and were condemned. How could
   God be gracious and yet be just? How could He keep His Law and yet at
   the same time show His mercy towards us? Of old that problem was solved
   by the Suretyship of Christ. He who had determined to be Man put
   Himself from before the foundation of the world into our place, and
   offered Himself to God as the Head of the race in Covenant that He
   might make recompense to the broken Law.

   Angels could not have conjectured this, but when it was made known to
   them, how could they refrain to chant fresh songs to the praise of Him
   who could undertake so loving a responsibility? It became necessary
   when Christ was our Surety, that He should afterwards take upon Himself
   our nature. Oh, how it must have surprised the angels when they heard
   that the Son of God was coming down to earth to be born of a virgin!
   What marvel must there have been when the announcement was made through
   the courts of Paradise that He was going down to Bethlehem!

   One of the angelic number who had been sent to attend Him proclaimed
   His advent, but while he was making the announcement, "Suddenly there
   was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host," who now came in
   to swell the song, "Glory to God in the highest! On earth peace, good
   will toward men." The swell of that music--how grand! The cadence of
   those simple words--how charming! Yes, the angels must have discovered
   something of the wisdom of God when they saw that God thus tabernacled
   among men, that the Word was made flesh in order to be capable of
   carrying out His surety-engagements, and really become a Substitute for
   those who had offended.

   I think His whole life must have struck them with wonder. They must
   often have observed wisdom in His actions and in His prayers, in His
   speech and in His silence. But, when at last He came to die, methinks
   even cherubim and seraphim were wrapt in amazement. That He should
   stoop from Heaven and become a friend to the fallen race might surprise
   them much. But that He should stoop to die must have appeared utterly
   incomprehensible! Something more of the love and wisdom of God should
   yet be revealed to them. I think our hymn must fitly describe how they
   gathered round that Cross--

   "And could their eyes have known a tear, They must have wept it there."
   When they beheld the griefs and torments of the dying Son of God, the
   Lamb of God's Passover--when they heard Him say, "It is
   finished!"--what a door must have been opened to them! They saw, then,
   that He had finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in
   an everlasting righteousness. And then, perhaps, they saw more clearly
   than before how Christ, by suffering, put an end to our sufferings. And
   by being made a curse for us had made us the right-

   eousness of God in Him. If they marvelled during the three days of His
   slumber in the tomb, His Resurrection must have opened up another door
   to them. And, when after His forty days' sojourn, they came to meet Him
   with glad acclaim.

   When they joined Him, and with Him rode up to the gates of Heaven,
   singing, "Lift up your heads, O you gates, and be you lift up, you
   everlasting doors, that the King of Glory may come in." When they came
   in triumph with "the Lord mighty in battle, the King of Glory," in that
   procession to His Throne, they must still have been more and more
   amazed, and said one to another, "What thing is this? What mighty
   marvel! He that became Man to suffer, is the very One that now rises to
   reign. He who was born to die now lives forevermore. Behold, He is now
   the Head over all things, and made to have dominion over all the works
   of God's hands, for it has pleased the Father that in Him should all
   fullness dwell!"

   Thus, Brethren, though time and voice fail me, permit me to say the
   whole history of our blessed Lord, who is the Head of the Church, is
   making known to the principalities and powers in heavenly places the
   manifold wisdom of God in such a way as they never could have otherwise
   seen it.

   The wisdom of God is seen through the Church in the Holy Spirit's work
   as well as in the work of Christ. It is "manifold wisdom." You know the
   children's toy, the kaleidoscope. Every time you turn it there is some
   fresh form of beauty. You seldom see the same form twice. So it is with
   nature, each time and season has its special beauty. There is always
   variety in its scenery--diversities of form and color are strewn
   throughout the world. You never saw two hills molded in the same
   pattern, or two rivers that wound after the same fashion from their
   source down to the sea. Nature is full of variety. So is the work of
   the Holy Spirit.

   In calling sinners to Christ, there is singleness of purpose but no
   uniformity of means. Your conversion, my dear Friend, in the main
   outline, is very much like mine--yet your conversion has its
   distinctive incidents. God's wisdom is displayed equally in bringing
   you in that way, and in bringing me in another way. I believe there
   will be found evidence at the last of the wisdom of God in the very
   date, the very place, the very means in and by which every soul is
   brought to believe in Jesus. And angels will, no doubt, be able to
   perceive in every conversion some singular marks of beautiful
   originality proceeding from the inexhaustible Artist of Grace, the Holy
   Spirit.

   That same wisdom will be seen in the biography of every convert--how
   the Lord afflicts, or how He comforts. How He upholds us, how He keeps
   back that which cannot yet be endured. How He gently leads us, how He
   makes us to lie down. We find fault, sometimes, with the way of
   Providence because we do not understand it. When we shall get a clearer
   sight of it we shall see that every mark and line was dictated by His
   love, and ordered by His Infinite Counsel. As each Christian shall be
   conformed to the likeness of Christ, angels will see in the products of
   Grace fresh displays of the manifold wisdom of God.

   I could suppose that the death of a martyr must be such a spectacle as
   those holy watchers regard with extraordinary interest. Would they not
   have gathered around such a woman as Blandina, for instance, who was
   made to sit in a red-hot chair, after having been tossed upon the horns
   of a wild bull? Yet constant to the last, she maintained her faith in
   Christ while passing through the torture! Pure spirits as they were,
   they must have commiserated the physical anguish and admired the
   spiritual triumph of this feeble woman thus devoted in her love to
   their Lord and Master.

   Yes, you ministering spirits, you who live to serve our Eternal King,
   surely you must rejoice at the loyalty of those servants of His who die
   for His Truth. In late years, since this House of Prayer was built,
   when the martyrs of Madagascar were burned at their stakes for
   Christ--as they stood erect in the fire, and began to sing--the angels,
   celestial vocalists as they are, must have been ravished with a music
   that they could not emulate. And when they breathed the prayer, "Into
   your hands we commend our spirits," the angels must almost have envied
   them the ability of serving God in that sphere of suffering, and the
   possibility of bearing in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus.

   Yes, and when they have seen your boldness and your constancy, your
   self-denial, and your patience. And when they have heard your
   importunate prayers and groans, as you have pleaded for the souls of
   others, seeking with tears to bring others to Jesus, I do not doubt
   that they have ascribed to the manifold wisdom of God the production of
   such luscious fruits from such inferior creatures! Fruits that bring to
   His name so much of Glory, and so much of renown to His Grace. In all
   the saints, through the history of their vocation and the development
   of their sanctification, angels can discern the manifold wisdom of God.

   The subject is far too large for me. I shall leave you to think it out,
   after thus introducing you to but a few aspects of it. There is much
   room for meditation as to how these bright and happy spirits do and
   shall see the wisdom of God in the salvation of the Church.

   II. But do you now ask, DO ANGELS GAIN ANYTHING BY THE CHURCH OF GOD? I
   think they do. Certainly they acquire increased knowledge. With us
   knowledge is sometimes sorrow. To know is often to mourn. What the eye
   does not see the heart does not rue. "Where ignorance is bliss"--and it
   sometimes is--there are those who think, "it is folly to be wise." But
   ignorance is not bliss in Heaven. Knowledge increases the joy of the
   angels, and I will tell you why--because it makes them take a greater
   delight in God when they see how wise and gracious He is. If it is
   possible for the angels to be happier than natural innocence and
   honorable service can render them, they must be happier through knowing
   and seeing more of God, as His attributes are reflected and His
   perfections mirrored forth in the Church.

   Angels, methinks, will be enriched by the society of the saints in
   Heaven. Commerce always enriches, and commerce between angelic and
   human natures will be enriching to them both. They love in Heaven--they
   show their love by rejoicing over repenting men. They will be glad to
   see us there. I do believe they will make much of us, as we do if we
   have seen some poor child reclaimed, and afterwards grow up to honor.
   We like to think of such an one. It brings the tears into our eyes that
   our Father did so good a deed for the orphan, the pauper, or the
   outcast. And will not the angels rejoice over those in whom the
   Father's mercy has worked such wonderful happiness?

   Again, to my imagining (can it be illusive?) angels are gainers by the
   Church because they get nearer to the Throne of God than they were
   before. Another order of beings, our own to wit, is advanced. Surely
   when one creature gets near to God, all unfallen creatures are
   promoted. God, in vital union with the creature, was not to be
   conceived of until Christ came down to earth, and clothed Himself in
   manhood, thus raising creatureship nearer to God by just that length.
   So angels, by inference, seem to me interested in the honor that
   Jehovah has put on His works--the endowed works of His own formation.

   Do you not think, too, that perhaps they can see God better in Christ
   than even they did before? Is it not possible that even they who first
   did veil their faces with their wings in the presence of the Almighty,
   because the brightness of glory was excessive, may now stand with
   unveiled faces and worship God in Christ? I think it is so. They never
   saw much of God before until they saw God veiled in human flesh. There
   was too dazzling a splendor for them till the interposing medium of the
   manhood of Christ came in between them and the absolute Deity. It may
   be so.

   And may not there be a reflex sense of gratitude in the very heart of
   angels when they see us in Heaven, or while they see us wending our way
   there? They perceive what it would have cost to have restored them had
   they been beguiled by sin, and therefore what debtors they are to God
   that they were never suffered to fall. Does it not make their state and
   standing more and more joyful to them when they see in us how the
   righteous scarcely are saved, and at what an expense men were lifted up
   from the ruins of death and the dread doom of the damned?

   Why, methinks they say not one to another, with Phariseeism--"We thank
   You, great God, that we are not as men are." No, they say, with
   lowliness of mind--"We bless You, O God, that we were permitted to
   stand in our fidelity, and were not left to the natural weakness which
   might have succumbed to temptation, for You charged even Your angels
   with folly, but You have held us, and here we are to bless Your name."
   It may be so. It may be so.

   III. Let me detain you one minute more while we meet the question, WHAT
   IS ALL THIS TO US? Ought it not to make us prize the Gospel? If the
   angels think so much of it, oh, what should we think? If they who have
   only seen it, esteem it so, how ought we to value it who have tasted
   it? If they admire the veins that filled the Fountain, what shall we
   say who have washed in that Fountain? If they wonder at Christ, who
   took not on Him the nature of angels, how shall we admire Him who
   espoused the house of Abraham and the seed of Adam? Let us appreciate
   the Gospel beyond all price, emolument, or honor.

   How, too, should we study it, if it is the research of angelic
   intellects! Is the Church their schoolbook from where they learn
   lessons of the Divine wisdom, because no science is equal to that of
   the wisdom of God in Christ revealed in His Church? O be not, you
   converts, ignorant of the Word of God! Be not oblivious of the
   operations of God in your own souls! The angels desire to look into
   these things. Do you look into them? Blessed shall you be if you abide
   in the study of the Word of God! You shall be like trees planted by the
   rivers of water that bring forth their fruit in their season. O do
   apply every faculty you have to acquire increasing knowledge of that
   which angels love to study.

   And now take courage, you feeble-minded ones, and never fear again the
   sneer of the man who calls the Gospel folly. Account him to be the
   victim of folly who despises this manifold wisdom. Shall I set the
   judgment of a poor puny mortal against the judgment of an angel? I
   suppose that even Newton, and Kepler, and Locke, and those mighty
   master spirits, would be mere infants compared with seraphs. Those
   great men loved to study the Scriptures, and when your modern
   pretenders to a little smack of philosophy come in and sneer at our
   holy Gospel, we can well afford to sneer at them. What are their sneers
   to us?

   In proportion to a man's ignorance is generally his impudence when he
   meddles with the Gospel. I think it was Hume who confessed that he had
   never read the New Testament and said he never would. Yet he was one of
   the most glib in caviling at that of which he knew nothing. Ah, you
   skeptics, pretenders, and scoffers--we can well afford to let you rail.
   But you can ill afford to rail when angels are awed into wonder, and so
   would you be if there were anything angelic about your temper, or
   anything of right wisdom in your attainments.

   Last of all. If this is so, how we ought to love Christ, we who has a
   saving interest in it, and how they ought to tremble who have it not!
   Unsaved Men! Unsaved Women! If it needs manifold wisdom to save men,
   then men's ruin must be very great, and your peril must be very
   imminent. If it amazes angels to see how God saves, it must be a
   terrible destruction from which He saves them. That destruction is
   coming upon you--its dark shadows have already began to gather round
   you. How great your folly to refuse a salvation so wise, to reject a
   Savior so attractive as Jesus!

   Think of His loving gentleness and consider the simple way in which He
   saves--believe and live! The supplies necessary for your salvation are
   all waiting. There is nothing to be done. It is all complete. There is
   nothing to be found. It is all ready. Salvation is finished. What a
   fool must he be that will not have it! O stretch out your withered hand
   and take it! God give you power. If you say "How? "I answer
   thus--Trust, trust, trust! Come and confide in Christ. Rely upon
   Christ, and He will save you. God grant you Grace to do it at once, and
   He shall have the praise. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Bands Of Love

   (No. 934)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 5, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them
   as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto
   them." Hosea 11:4.

   GOD, by the mouth of His Prophet, is here expostulating with His people
   for their ungrateful rebellion against Him. He had not treated them in
   a harsh, tyrannical, overbearing manner, else there might have been
   some excuse for their revolt. But His rule had always been gentle,
   tender, and full of pity. Therefore, for them to disobey Him was the
   very height of wanton wickedness. The Lord had never made His people to
   suffer hard bondage in mortar and in brick as Pharaoh did, yet we do
   not find that they raised an insurrection against the Egyptian tyrant.
   They gave their backs to the burdens, and they bore the lash of the
   taskmaster without turning upon the hands which oppressed them.

   But when the Lord was gracious to them and delivered them out of the
   house of bondage, they murmured in the wilderness, and were justly
   called by Moses, "rebels." They had no such burdens to bear under the
   government of God as those which loaded the nations under their kings,
   and yet they willfully determined to have a king for themselves. No
   taxes were squeezed from them, no servile service was demanded at their
   hands. Their thank offerings and sacrifices were not ordained upon a
   scale of oppression. Their liberty was all but boundless--their lives
   were spent in peace and happiness, every man under his own vine and fig
   tree--none making them afraid.

   Yet, since other nations bowed before the rule of despotic kings, these
   foolish people were not content till they had raised up between them
   and the Divine government a ruler who would take their daughters to be
   confectioners in his kitchen, and their sons to be servants in his
   court. God bore with their ill manners, and gave them a king in His
   anger. And then, even under the reign of kings, how graciously the Lord
   their God treated them! If it was necessary for their punishment to
   give them up for awhile to foreign dominion, how He soon took away the
   affliction when they cried unto

   Him!

   Though they were chastised, yet--

   "His strokes were fewer than their crimes, And lighter than their
   guilt."

   The whole dealings of Jehovah with His people Israel were full of
   matchless tenderness. As a nursing mother with her child, so did God
   deal gently with His people. Yet, hear, O heavens, and give ear, O
   earth! The Lord has nourished and brought up children, and they have
   rebelled against Him. Did a nation ever cast away her gods, even though
   they were not gods? Were not the heathen faithful to their idols? But
   Israel was bent on backsliding--her heart was set upon idolatry, and
   the God of her fathers was disregarded.

   Jehovah was despised, and His gentle reign and government she set
   herself to destroy. This was the complaint against Israel of old. As in
   water face answers to face, so the heart of man to man. As men were in
   days of yore, so are they now. God has dealt with us who are His people
   in an unexampled way of loving kindness and tender mercy, and I fear
   that to a great extent the recompense we have rendered to Him has been
   very much like the ungrateful return which He received from the seed of
   Jacob of old.

   This morning I shall ask you to think of the tender dealings of God
   with you, my Brothers and Sisters, that you may not be as Israel was.
   But that feeling the power of the Divine gentleness, you may serve your
   God with a perfect heart, and walk before Him as those should who have
   partaken of such benefits.

   The first thing we shall have to consider is the Lords way of leading
   His people to their duty--"I drew them with cords of a man, with bands
   of love." Secondly, the Lord's Grace in giving His people rest--"I was
   to them as they that

   take off the yoke on their jaws." And, thirdly, the suitable
   nourishment which He gives to His chosen--"I laid meat unto

   them."

   I. First, then, THE LORD'S WAY OF EXCITING HIS PEOPLE TO ACTION. We who
   have believed in Jesus Christ have passed into a new condition with
   regard to God. We were once, at the very best, only His subjects, and
   having sinned we were scarcely fit to be called subjects, but rebels,
   traitors--disgraced with high treason. But now, since Divine Grace has
   renewed us, we are not only his pardoned subjects, but what is far
   better, wondrous Grace has made us his Beloved sons and daughters! we
   are now not so much subjects of His crown as we are children of His
   care.

   We are by Grace brought into an entirely different relationship from
   that of fallen nature, and we are ruled and swayed by motives and
   regulations altogether unknown to the unregenerate sons of men. The way
   in which God brings His people to serve Him is that to which I now ask
   your consideration. It is a way pre-eminently peculiar in its
   tenderness and kindness. The only cords are cords of a man, and the
   bands are bands of love. In the heroic days when Xerxes led his army
   into Greece, there was a remarkable contrast between the way in which
   the Persian soldiers and the Grecian warriors were urged to combat.

   The unwilling hosts of Persia were driven to the conflict by blows and
   stripes from their officers. They were either mercenaries or cowards,
   and they feared close contact with their opponents. They were driven to
   their duty as beasts are, with rods and goads. On the other side, the
   armies of Greece were small, but each man was a patriot and a hero.
   When they marched to the conflict it was with quick and joyous step,
   with a martial song upon their lips--and when they neared the foe they
   rushed upon his ranks with an enthusiasm and a fury which nothing could
   withstand.

   No whips were needed for the Spartan men-at-arms. Like high-spirited
   chargers they would have resented the touch thereof. They were drawn to
   battle by the cords of a man, and by the bands of patriotic love they
   were bound to hold their posts at all hazards. "Spartans," would their
   leaders say, "your fathers disdained to number the Persians with the
   dogs of their flock and will you be their slaves? Say, is it not better
   to die as freemen than to live as slaves? What if your foes are many,
   yet one lion can tear in pieces a far-reaching flock of sheep. Use well
   your weapons this day! Avenge your slaughtered sires, and fill the
   courts of Shushan with confusion and lamentation!"

   Such were the manly arguments which drew the Lacedaemonians and
   Athenians to the fight--not the whips so fit for beasts, nor the cords
   so suitable for cattle. This illustration may set forth the difference
   between the world's service of bondage, and the Christian's religion of
   love--the worldling is flogged to his duty with fear, and terror, and
   dread. But the Christian man is touched by motives which appeal to his
   highest nature--he is affected by motives so dignified as to be worthy
   of the sons of God. He is not driven as a beast--he is moved as a man.

   Let me explain. In the first place, the Christian man never works to
   obtain eternal life. He knows it to be a gift and receives it as such.
   The unconverted man thinks that there are certain things which he ought
   to do and by the doing of which he will be saved. And he selfishly, if
   he is awakened, sets to work to perform these actions with more or less
   of perseverance in the hope of obtaining pardon for sin and salvation
   for his soul. Being a son of the bondwoman, he finds his way to Sinai.

   But the Christian man knows that salvation is not the wage of service,
   but that life is the gift of God, the dowry bestowed on us by Sovereign
   Grace--and therefore he never looks for salvation from the Law. As a
   child of the promise, he wins the New Jerusalem by birthright and by
   the Covenant of Grace. Legal motives cease to affect the instructed
   Believer--while he was out of Christ he did, in his ignorance, seek to
   work out a righteousness of his own--but now he has come to Christ and
   seen everlasting righteousness finished and brought in. He is saved--he
   knows that he is saved, and he knows also that he is saved by the
   merits of Another.

   Now, being saved, he works out his own salvation with fear and
   trembling, not that he may save himself, but because he knows he is
   saved, since God Himself is working in him to will and to do of His own
   good pleasure. If that man is engaged as a minister of Christ he will
   never preach as though his salvation depended on his preaching. Let him
   be occupied in his trade or calling, he will not be honest and sober,
   conscientious and devout, because he thinks to save himself thereby.
   No, verily, he has turned his hope away from his own works to the work
   of Jesus Christ the Redeemer, and therefore that motive of trying to
   win salvation by merit is disgusting to him.

   He is so far from yielding to its power, that he utterly loathes it.
   Let such arguments affect the ungenerous spirits that can live for
   themselves, but over us it has no power. We are saved, and now being
   saved. Out of love to the Father and the Well-Beloved we are impelled
   to service.

   Neither does a Christian seek to serve God with the idea that he is to
   keep himself in spiritual life by such service. I have heard it more or
   less insinuated that although we are saved at present, and have eternal
   life in present possession, yet all depends on our own faithfulness.
   And if we are not what we should be, eternal life will die out and the
   Divine Grace given will be withdrawn. I must confess I find in the
   Bible nothing of the kind, neither do I pray, nor read the Scriptures,
   nor attend Divine worship with the remotest idea of sustaining my own
   spiritual life.

   The spiritual life which the Holy Spirit gives us cannot die. It is
   eternal as the life of God. It is a living and incorruptible seed which
   abides forever. A true Believer in Christ is most safe, for he can
   never perish, neither can any pluck him out of Christ's hands. The
   dread of being driven out of the Divine family is not a motive capable
   of stirring his heavenly nature. He knows that because Jesus lives he
   shall live also. He is not forced to holiness by dread of being
   forsaken of his God. He does not believe such a thing to be possible.
   He leaves a motive so slavish to the poor sons of Hagar who, like their
   bondslave mother, cannot dwell with the child of promise.

   As for the Christian, other and higher considerations rule him. He is
   drawn by the cords of a man and by the bands of love. Further, you will
   see the gentleness of the way in which God calls His people to duty in
   the fact that He is pleased to accept their service even when it is, in
   itself, far from being at all worthy of His smile. O my Brethren, if
   you and I had to be saved or to be preserved in spiritual life by our
   doings, then nothing but perfection in service could answer our turn.
   And every time we felt that what we had done was marred and imperfect
   we should be full of despair.

   But now we know that we are already saved, and are forever safe, since
   nothing remains unfinished in the work which justifies us. We bring to
   the Lord the loving offerings of our hearts, and if they are imperfect
   we water with our tears those imperfections. We know that He reads our
   hearts and takes our works not for what they are in themselves but for
   what they are in Christ. He knows what we would make them if we could.
   He accepts them as if they were what we mean them to be. He takes the
   will for the deed often, and He takes the half deed often for the
   whole.

   And when Justice would condemn the action as sinful, for it is so
   imperfect, the mercy of our Father accepts the action in the Beloved,
   because He knows what we meant it to be. And though our fault has
   marred it, yet He knows how our hearts sought to honor Him. Oh, it is
   such a blessed thing to remember that though the Law cannot accept
   anything but what is perfect, yet God, in the Gospel, as we come to Him
   as saved souls, accepts our imperfect things!

   Why, there is our love! How cold it often is, and yet Jesus Christ
   takes pleasure in our love! Then, again, our faith, I must almost call
   it unbelief, it is often so weak--and yet though it is as a grain of
   mustard seed, Jesus accepts it, and works wonders by it. As for our
   poor prayers, often so broken with so many distracted thoughts in them,
   and so poverty-stricken in importunity and earnestness, yet our dear
   Lord takes them, washes them in His blood, adds His own merit to them,
   and they come up as a sweet savor before the Most High. It is
   delightfully encouraging to know that in our sincere but feeble service
   the Scripture is fulfilled--"a bruised reed shall He not break, and a
   smoking flax will He not quench." Even our green ears of corn may be
   laid on the altar. If we cannot bring a lamb, our turtle doves and two
   young pigeons shall be received.

   Then, further, our gracious Lord gives us promises of help in all holy
   exercises. Under the Law it is, "Make the bricks," but there is no
   promise of straw. Under the Gospel we have help for every time of need.
   You know how it is written, "The Spirit also helps our infirmities: for
   we know not what we should pray for as we ought." Our good works are
   rather God's works than ours, in so far as they are good. He first of
   all gives us good works, and then rewards us for them, as if they were
   all our own. "You have worked all our works in us." "I am like a green
   fir tree, from me is your fruit found."

   Yes, blessed be God, all true fruit of Grace comes from Him. Is not
   this a charmingly powerful motive to service? Though it is so different
   from the reasons which drag on the sons of men, do we not feel it to be
   mightily operative? The Lord will help us in the service, and render
   unto man according to his work. He has said, "Fear you not. For I am
   with you: be not dismayed. For I am your God: I will strengthen you;
   yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of My
   righteousness."

   Furthermore, as if more fully to show how we are drawn with the cords
   of love and bands of a man, all the motives which are used to impel us
   to service appeal to that which is most honorable in our regenerated
   manhood. We have frequently heard the objection of those who oppose the
   Doctrines of Grace, "If I believed as you do, that all true Believers
   are saved, and shall never perish, I should live as I like." Our answer
   is, "It is highly probable that you, as an unconverted man, would do
   so. But if you had received a new nature, and all your tastes were
   changed, matters would stand otherwise."

   For a Christian to live as he likes would be to but live an absolutely
   pure and perfectly holy life. The Holy Spirit implants within His
   people at their new birth a dignity and nobility of character to which
   they were utterly strangers before. And they would not, and could not,
   sin as once they did. They cannot sin as before because they are born
   of God. The things which they took pleasure in before, now seem to them
   groveling and despicable. They seek after higher and nobler objects. I
   believe that Gospel motives, if they were addressed to all mankind
   promiscuously, would prove a failure as much as if we tried to excite
   enthusiasm in all men by poetic imagery or profoundly philosophical
   argument.

   But Gospel motives to God's people are as nails fastened in a sure
   place. They are suitable, and therefore effectual. You could not hope
   to govern the nation by the same ruler and methods with which, as a
   father, you order your family. In your family it may be there is not
   even a rod, certainly there is no policeman, no prison, no black cap.
   Children are ruled by a father on a scheme essentially different from
   the rule of magistrates and kings. There are maxims of courts of
   legislature which would never be tolerated in the home of love. Just
   so, within the family of God there are no penal inflictions, no words
   of threat such as must be employed by the great King when He deals with
   the mass of His rebellious subjects.

   You are not under the Law, else there would be judgment and curses for
   you. You are under Grace, and now the motives by which you are to be
   moved are such as might not affect others, but which, since you are
   renewed in the spirit of your mind, most powerfully affect you. It is a
   great thing for a man to feel that God does not now appeal to him as He
   would to an ordinary person, but that having given him a new nature, He
   addresses him on higher grounds. "I beseech you therefore, Brethren, by
   the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice,
   holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not
   conformed to this world: but be you transformed by the renewing of your
   mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect
   will of God."

   We have known of a boy in school whose conduct has been greatly
   improved when the master has had wisdom enough to appeal to his better
   qualities. When the lad has felt that his age, or superiority of
   position have demanded better things of him, he has yielded to the
   motive. In dealing with His people, the Lord appeals to their higher
   characteristics. He does not say to the regenerate man as He did to
   Adam, "Do this and you shall die." He says to him, "He that believes in
   Christ shall never die. I will never leave you nor forsake you. I have
   loved you with an everlasting love: what, then, is your return for all
   this love?"

   The really saved soul, overwhelmed with gratitude, exclaims, "My God,
   my Father, I cannot sin, I must live as You would have me, I must serve
   You. Such love as this touches my heart, it stirs everything that is
   noble that You have implanted in me. Tell me what Your will is, and
   whether I have to bear it or to do it, I will delight in it if You will
   give me all-sufficient Grace." Yes, the Lord always appeals to the
   higher points in the Christian's constitution, and thus He draws us
   with the cords of a man, with bands of love.

   Let us add that love is always the great master force in moving
   Christians. Terror is but little used--threats and wrath are laid
   aside. Gospel arguments are molded in this fashion, "The love of Christ
   constrains us; because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then
   were all dead: and that He died for all, that they which live should
   not from now on live unto themselves." Jesus seems to plead, "I have
   made you, even you, poor defiled one, to be precious in My sight. Do
   you love Me? If you love Me, keep My commandments, and feed My sheep.

   "I have bought you, even with My heart's blood have I redeemed you out
   from among the people, and from the chief men thereof. Does not My love
   constrain you? Will you not give yourself to My service, to promote My
   Glory?" All-conquering Love is master of all our forces. He is the
   Commander-in-Chief of all our powers. When the love of God is
   manifestly shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, our duty
   becomes our highest delight, and the work of God our highest joy.
   Rutherford, speaking of how his Lord encouraged him with sweet
   fellowship while he was serving Him, says in his quaint way, "When my
   Master sends me on His errands, He often gives me a trinket for
   myself."

   By which he means, as sure as ever God sent him on His errands He gave
   him a penny for reward, as we do to boys. How often have our prayers
   for others returned into our own bosom? How often do we find it a
   blessing to bless others? Have you not found it so? You have been
   trying to comfort God's people, and the comfort has been reflected upon
   your own soul. You watered others and thereby were watered yourself.
   You were trying to praise God--you were not thinking of yourself--but
   as you sang you obtained a blessing, your heart mounted higher and
   higher, and you blessed your Lord with an exhilaration of spirit you
   had not known before.

   The praises of God's people are poured forth, even as larks give forth
   their songs. They sing, not because they ought, but because they
   delight to sing. They fulfill their nature, and find in it their
   happiness. Virtue and holiness become to God's people a delight--they
   take pleasure in it--sin is hateful, but holiness is lovely to them. As
   it will be their highest Heaven to be perfect, so now their nearest
   approach to Heaven is when they are by God's Spirit sanctified and led
   into nearness to Christ.

   Thus I have, without dwelling on the mere words, given you the sense of
   the first clause of the text, "I drew them with cords of a man, with
   bands of love." The impelling, urging powers that lead Christians on to
   consecration and holiness are never those which befit slaves or carnal
   minds. They are such as are worthy of the dignity of the sons of God,
   and they are full of tenderness, and kindness, and love. For the
   gentleness of God is great towards His people.

   II. I shall now ask you to turn to the next sentence, and observe HOW
   THE LORD GIVES REST TO HIS PEOPLE--"I was to them as they that take off
   the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them."

   Sometimes a common illustration may be more forcible than a more
   refined comparison, and I shall give you in a moment a very homely one.
   The passage here means that God treated His people as farmers, when
   they are merciful, treat the bullocks with which they have been
   plowing. They lift off the yoke from them, withdraw the muzzle, and
   then give them their food. But our explanation of it shall be a sight
   more common. Out there in yonder street stand still and observe. Yonder
   inn is a common halting place. Watch it a moment. Here comes a huge,
   heavily loaded van.

   Three or four steaming, panting horses have been laboriously dragging
   along this mountain on wheels. They are greatly in need of rest. The
   word is given, and the poor animals gladly stand still. Down comes the
   driver from his box. The reins are dropped and he proceeds to take the
   bits out of the poor creatures' mouths. How pleased they seem to be to
   get rid of the bits which have been so long between their jaws. Nor is
   the rest all the horses get, they shall have a draught of water, or the
   well-filled nose bags shall be fitted upon them and they shall rest and
   feed.

   I thought of this text when I looked at that sight the other day. It is
   the exact explanation of the text, "I was to them as they that take off
   the yoke from their jaws, and I laid meat unto them." As you see
   wearied horses contentedly and happily take their rest and feed, you
   have before you precisely what the Prophet meant. God takes the bits
   out of His servants' mouths, the yoke from their backs, brings them
   their food, and bids them feed and rest and be happy.

   Let us take, then, the first point, "I was to them as they that take
   off the yoke." Now, the Lord has taken off from His people a great many
   yokes, or the same yoke under different aspects. He has taken many bits
   out of their mouths. First, there was the old yoke of
   ceremonialism--what a burden that must have been to Believers under the
   Law! There was this they must not eat, and that they must not drink,
   and the other they must not wear. There was this to be done on one day
   and that to be done on another. It was always touch not, taste not,
   handle not, and so on. They were environed and surrounded with all
   sorts of legislation, and hedged in by laws about their houses, their
   clothes, their beds, their drinking vessels. Legislation about birds
   and beasts and fishes--about everything, in fact.

   But now Christ has taken off that yoke from us, and "touch not, taste
   not, handle not," stands as an abrogated Law. We have given to us a
   liberty, a freedom from every yoke of bondage--and though there are
   some who are for bringing in new ceremonial laws, with holy places, and
   holy days, and holy things, and priests, and rites, and ceremonies--and
   I know not what--these are the children of the bondwoman, we regard
   them not. Under the Law of Liberty which Christ has proclaimed, we are
   free, indeed--

   "Wherever we seek Him He is found, And everyplace is hallowed ground."
   Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused. Now it is the
   heart that is holy or unholy, and not the thing. What our Lord has
   cleansed, we count no longer common or unclean. Carnal ordinances of
   outward things are put

   away as childish things. We worship God in the Spirit, and have no
   confidence in the flesh. "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith
   Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of
   bondage."

   Better still, He has taken from us the yoke of the Law. Oh, do you not
   remember, Beloved, when you carried that yoke because you were trying
   to save yourselves by your own works? You supposed that if this sin
   were relinquished, and that virtue were pursued, you might at length
   grow acceptable with God. But after months and perhaps years of such
   attempts, you found yourself as far off from acceptance as ever--as
   indeed you would have been if you had lived ten thousand years--for by
   the works of the Law there shall no flesh living be justified.

   All that the Law can do is to bring a knowledge of sin, but it is not
   capable of bringing acceptance with God. At that time, how the yoke of
   Divine Justice pressed upon you heavily! You felt you had sinned and
   that God must punish sin, and you did not understand that He had laid
   help upon One that is mighty to save. This yoke galled you very
   terribly, but, do you remember when He took away the yoke from you, and
   removed this bit from your mouth? Well does my soul remember it, when I
   saw Jesus put under the Law for me, that I might no more be under the
   Law.

   When I saw Him fulfill it, and satisfy all its demands that I might be
   absolved--oh, what joy to perceive that I was not condemned! The Law
   had no more dominion over me, and I was not under the Law but under
   Grace! Everyone here who has believed in Jesus has received just such
   liberty as this--and now the Law does not alarm you, neither does your
   past sin make you to tremble--the Law is satisfied, your sin is
   pardoned, and God has given you this blessed rest, this quiet
   resting-place.

   Further than this, you have also been delivered from the yoke of sin.
   Time was when we strove to be rid of sin. We had been made to see its
   evil nature, and we were sufficiently alarmed and awakened to see that
   Hell would follow upon it. Therefore we desired to escape from evil
   habits--but, alas, we found that the Ethiopian might sooner change his
   skin, and the leopard his spots--than we cease to do evil. Our works,
   though we strove to make them good, remained imperfect. The old leprosy
   tainted all.

   Sin, like an iron net, encompassed us and held us fast. Nor could we be
   free, struggle as we might, until that pierced hand which took away the
   guilt of sin also released us from its power. By Jesus' help habits
   which seemed invincible were soon overcome. Customs which bound us fast
   were broken as Samson snapped the green withes. We were free by the
   power of God's Holy Spirit from the service of Satan and were enlisted
   under the banner of Christ. Oh, what freedom is this! May the Lord
   continue to give us more and more of it till the last link of sin's
   cruel chain shall be removed and our freedom of holiness shall be
   complete.

   My dear Brothers and Sisters, I hope that to many of you God has also
   been pleased to give great rest from the yoke of care. We ought not to
   be burdened with cares, and yet some are so. Our Savior has bid us by
   the example of the fowls of Heaven, and of the lilies of the field, to
   leave care to our God. We are told by His servant, the Apostle, to be
   "careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication to
   make known our requests unto God."

   A minister was in a house where there were some five or six little
   children who were playing about and making merry noises, and their
   father said to the minister, "Yes, Sir, they may well be happy. These
   are their best days, for they have a father to care for them, they have
   no need to care for themselves." When that good man went to Church next
   Sunday he was very much surprised to hear his minister quote his words.
   He said these were the good times for God's children, for they had a
   Father to care for them, and they might be as free from care as little
   children are. Yes, when we live by faith we are just as free from care
   as the lambs in the field, or the birds in the woods--casting all our
   care on Him who cares for us. He that bore the burden of our lifelong
   sin way well bear the burden of our daily troubles. And He is in this
   respect to us as one that takes off the yoke from the jaws.

   So also, I would add, has the Lord often delivered us from the yoke of
   fear. There is fear of death which haunts too many. Fear of coming
   trial alarms others. Fear of I know not what, a sort of indefinable
   dread comes over not a few. But when we fly to our God, all terrors,
   whether palpable or impalpable, are scattered like the mists before the
   wind. When we can but once come to God in Christ, and say, "My God, my
   Father, my whole trust is in You, and my heart resigns itself to You,"
   then straightway we can sing --

   "Should earth against my soul engage, And hellish darts be hurled, Now
   I can smile at Satan's rage, And face a frowning world."

   Get near to God, Believer, and you will be calm. Commune with Heaven
   and be at rest. The peace of God passes all understanding, and it is
   this which Jesus waits to give you. There is no reason why you should
   be heavily burdened. Return unto your rest, for the Lord has dealt
   bountifully with you.

   III. And now we will take the last clause, "And I laid meat unto them."
   Here we have THE NOURISHMENT WHICH THE LORD GIVES HIS PEOPLE. Humble as
   my illustration is, I must take you back to it, and point to the

   nose-bags of the horses, for the illustration is just for our country
   what is meant by the text. The farmer would put up his fodder to the ox
   when he took off the yoke. Now observe what it is that God gives His
   people.

   First it is meat. "I laid meat unto them." Look back on your
   experience, Christian--see what meat God has made you to live on. No
   soul ever ate a morsel more dainty than this one Substitution. I do
   think that this is the grandest Truth in Heaven and earth--Jesus Christ
   the Just One died for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. It is
   meat to my soul. I can feed on it every day, and all the day. When some
   of the other Truths of God's Word seem to be too rich for me, I can
   always find appetite for this, "God so loved the world that He gave His
   only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish,
   but have everlasting life." Yes, the Lord has given us that Truth for
   meat.

   Then take the word "Covenant," what meat there is for His people there!
   He has made a Covenant with us, ordered in all things and sure. In
   Christ Jesus, God has entered into solemn league and compact with His
   people, and they are His and shall be His. There is meat for you! Every
   promise of God's Word in its turn becomes meat for faith. The doctrine
   of election--what food is that--what butter in a lordly dish! The
   doctrine of the immutability of God's purpose, and the consequent
   security of His saints! The doctrine of the union of God's people with
   Christ, their perfection with Him, their acceptance in the Beloved.
   Why, here is meat that the world knows not of--meat whereof if a man
   eats he shall live forever. Yes, Jesus Christ Himself in His blessed
   Person, what food is He? His flesh and His blood, are they not meat,
   indeed, and drink, indeed?

   But what is meant by this word in the text? "I laid meat unto them."
   You see the meat God has given us, but how does He lay it unto us? Why,
   just as with the ox, the food was not put so low down that he could not
   reach it, nor so high up that he could not get at it, nor so far away
   that he could see it but could not feed upon it. "I laid meat unto
   them." So God has a way of bringing home precious Truths to His people.
   He does not put it so low down that they may say, "I never experienced
   such trouble as that. I was never brought into such depths of soul
   agony as that, and therefore I cannot enjoy that Truth."

   No, He lays the meat to their experience, so that if they have never
   had a very deep experience, yet there shall be food convenient for
   them. Sometimes when I have heard a sermon, I have thought that the
   preacher put the food too high. I was anxious enough to get at it, but
   his experience was a happier one than mine, his knowledge of God's ways
   more extensive than mine, and his way of putting Truth more elevated
   than mine--I could not reach his teaching. But you see, God does not
   place the fodder too high or too low, but He lays meat unto us.

   Have you ever found it so? You have said, "That sermon was meant for
   me. That text, why the Lord seemed to have written it after my troubles
   happened, just to fit and suit my case." Mark you, Brethren, the
   preacher may try to lay meat unto you and yet fail, for though he may
   think he understands your experience, he may fail to touch it. But when
   He that knows all things and tries the reins of the children of
   men--when He means to give His people a feast of fat things full of
   marrow--He knows how to lay the meat where they will get at it, and to
   give them an appetite at the same time as He gives them the meat. And
   their souls shall be satisfied, and their mouths shall praise Him with
   joyous lips. See, then, the goodness of God to you--you have been set
   free from bondage, the yoke is taken off your neck--and you are fed on
   angels' food, satisfied with the bread of Heaven.

   Now what is to come out of all this? You see I am coming back to the
   point I began with--all this is the way in which God is leading you to
   serve Him. He has set you free from the old yoke, that you may take
   upon you His yoke, which is easy, and His burden, which is light. He
   has given you food, and it is in the strength of that meal you may ran
   in the ways of His Commandments, and serve Him with all your hearts. Do
   you not, as you turn over the pages of your experience, feel your love
   kindle, my Brethren? I hope you do. And if you do, I know you will
   serve God, for you cannot love Him without intending, by-and-by, and
   speedily, to put that love into the form of active service. You will
   teach better this afternoon in the school. You will do more for God
   today if you feel these tender thoughts of God exciting in your hearts
   zealous thoughts towards Him.

   Three things I am anxious to say. The first is, if God has thus dealt
   tenderly with us, we see clearly how truly He loves us. Why does a
   mother love her child? There are many reasons, but one is this--because
   she has done so much for it. It is a strange thing, in human nature,
   that if anybody does you a kindness, you may forget him, and be
   ungrateful. But if you bestow a kindness on a person, you will love him
   and remember him. It is not the receiver generally that is certain to
   give love, it is the giver of kindness who binds himself to the other.

   A mother must love her child because she has done so much for it. She
   has suffered, and she has cared so much that she must love it. The more
   you have done for a person the better you love him. Now Jesus does not
   love us because of anything good in us, but today He loves us because
   He has done so much for us. He has taken the yoke from our necks. He
   has laid meat unto us. He has drawn us with bands of love, and cords of
   a man--and having spent so much love on us-- He loves us dearly. Jesus
   who suffered so much, is bound to us by new bonds. Calvary is not only
   the fruit of His love but the root of fresh love.

   Another stream of love springs up at the Cross foot. "I," says the
   Redeemer, "can see My groans and agonies in them." He loves us because
   He has loved us. This thought ought to cheer us--God has done too much
   for us to let us perish--

   "Can He have taught me To trust in His name, And thus far have brought
   me To put me to shame?"

   Can He have loved me before the world was, and redeemed me with His own
   Son's life, and yet cast me away? It cannot be--the love of God in
   times past is a guarantee for the continuance of that love forever and
   forever.

   The second word is this--if God has done all this for us, come, my
   Brother, what do you think? Will we not try to do more in the future
   for Him? Shall it be that the Romanist, that the legalist, that those
   who serve God out of fear, do more than we? Shall they give more than
   we? Shall they love more than we? Shall they pay more than we? No, if
   there are any that should love God, we claim to take the first rank. If
   there are any that may suffer for Him, or that may work for Him, we
   feel we ought to be in the forefront. If we might make some reserve,
   and duty did not call, Jesus has loved our souls with love so great
   that we (if others do not) must give Him all. O let us prove, my
   Brethren, by our future zeal and consecration, that the motives which
   God uses, though they are gentle or strong, and though they seem to
   others to be but frail, yet to us are Omnipotence itself.

   The last word is this--all this surely that we have been saying this
   morning ought to lead those who know not God to desire to know Him.
   What if His service is conducted not on principles of slavery but of
   liberty? Will you not take up His yoke? If He takes the bit from the
   jaws, if He it is that feeds His children and gives them rest, do you
   not feel drawn to Him? You who are harnessed to the heavy van of this
   world's care and toil--will you not ask to have such rest as this? You
   who, like the laborious bullock, have been plowing to and fro in the
   furrows of your worldly toil seeking rest but finding none, working as
   the ox does for others, and scarcely having a morsel of fodder for your
   own mouth--come unto Jesus and He will give you rest.

   Take His yoke upon you and learn of Him, for His yoke is easy and His
   burden is light. O that you would seek Him this day! And if you seek
   Him He is to be found. He is to be found by the eye of faith that looks
   out of self to Him. Trust Him--that is the word--and He is yours. God
   grant you may exercise that trust today, each one of you, and a vision
   of joy and peace will open before you, the like of which, though a man
   should tell it to you, you would not conceive to be possible. He that
   believes in Jesus Christ has life eternal and has Heaven begun. May you
   have it now for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Sad Wonder

   (No. 935)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 12, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And He marvelled because of their unbelief." Mark 6:6.

   THAT Jesus marvelled was in itself a marvel. We never read that either
   science or art, Nature or Providence excited His wonder. We do not find
   that He marvelled at the grandeur of the Temple, although His disciples
   were evidently wonder-struck, for they said, "Master, see what manner
   of stones and buildings are here!" Little did His mind dwell upon the
   gigantic size of the stones, or the antiquity of the pile, or the
   grandeur of the architecture. But His sympathetic soul mourned as it
   foresaw the destruction of the whole, and of those who dwelt around
   it--and He uttered the prophetic words, "There shall not be left one
   stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down."

   I do not find the Redeemer marvelled at the force and majesty of the
   Roman empire, and yet it wielded a very remarkable power, an
   all-pervading and irresistible influence. Out of utter insignificance
   the Roman empire had developed itself into a universal monarchy which
   locked the entire world in its embrace of iron. Scarcely a dog dared
   move his tongue without the leave of Caesar. In every place, whether
   sacred or profane, the insignia of the empire were conspicuous. In
   every nation, whether polite or barbarous, the tramp of the imperial
   legionaries was heard. And the eagles of Rome were fluttering on every
   hill and in every dale.

   And yet I do not find that Jesus ever marvelled at all the pomp and
   energy of the rule of the Caesars. Neither do I find that He was ever
   struck with any wonder by the knowledge of the sages and rabbis of His
   time, or of any other. There were in His days rabbis who, according to
   the opinion of their fellow countrymen, were renowned beyond all
   others. So far as rabbinical literature was concerned, our Savior may
   be said to have lived in an Augustan period, and yet, however profound
   the doctors of the Law might be, they were very shallow as compared
   with the Christ of God. No, Jesus never saw any cause in all their
   wisdom to marvel.

   There were but two occasions when our Lord Jesus is recorded to have
   marvelled at all, and both of these were concerning faith. First, he
   marvelled at the centurion--"I have not found so great faith, no, not
   in Israel." And on the second occasion, He marvelled at the absence of
   faith where it might have been expected to be found namely, in His own
   fellow townsmen--"He marvelled because of their unbelief."

   In the case of the centurion, who said that he was not worthy that the
   Lord should come under his roof, he said he relied upon the potency of
   the Master's word spoken at any distance to chase out the fever--on the
   ground that a word from himself was sufficient to command a soldier to
   obedience--and therefore a command from Christ would call diseases to
   obedience, too. On the most slender ground comparatively, this Roman,
   this Gentile, believed in Christ to a very high degree--ascribing to
   Christ the full power of the Omnipotent God--who says to the forces of
   Nature, "Do this, and it is done." Jesus, therefore, marvelled that not
   in all Israel had He found the faith which He had discovered in this
   Gentile who had comparatively slender opportunity of knowing Him, of
   hearing His teaching, or of searching into the evidences of His mission
   as they were contained in the sacred Books.

   On the second occasion our Lord marvelled at His fellow townsmen's
   unbelief. So you see that in both instances it was faith, or the
   absence of it, that caused Christ to wonder. Ah, my Brethren, see the
   importance of faith! Never place that precious Grace in a secondary
   position. That which can make Jesus marvel! That which seems to Him to
   be both in its presence and in its absence, a thing to be marvelled at,
   ought to be a very great point of consideration with us. It should be
   frequently thought upon, and always estimated at the highest rate. Have
   you believed? No man ever asked you a weightier question. Are you still
   in unbelief? No tongue can ever suggest a more solemn enquiry.

   Do you believe on the Son of God, or are you yet in the gall of
   bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity, wrapped up in your unbelief? O
   Heart, that shall soon stand before Him that judges both the quick and
   dead, let this question judge you

   this day! Turn not aside from the Judgment Seat of the Gospel, lest you
   be bound to hear your condemnation from the Judgment Seat of the Law
   hereafter!

   Let us look for a moment or so into what it was, in the particular case
   of unbelief recorded in this chapter, which so remarkably caused the
   Savior to marvel. Were not these some of the circumstances? Our Lord
   had come into the district where He had been brought up and where He
   was well known. He had come there, no doubt, with the most generous
   intentions towards His fellow citizens, willing to make their town His
   headquarters, and to display His miraculous power in acts of
   beneficence towards all their maimed and sick.

   But He was met, on His first public appearance as a preacher at the
   synagogue, with unbelief. And after awhile was even ejected from the
   place--and they even attempted to cast Him down headlong from the brow
   of the hill where their city was built. No kindly reception awaited
   Him. Cold, stolid unbelief at last turned into cruel, murderous rage.
   His wonder must have been this--first, He had come here bringing His
   disciples with Him, each man of them was a witness to His mission. They
   were truthful men, and some of them were known in the district. They
   could all bear witness to the miracles which He had worked, to the
   holiness of His life, to the power of His prayers.

   He brings these witnesses with Him, and yet they enquire not at their
   hands as candid men should do, but under the influence of an unworthy
   prejudice they condemn the Savior and deny His claims. He was one of
   themselves, they said, and how could He be the Messiah? Thus did they
   seem to plead guilty to the opprobrious Proverb, "Can any good thing
   come out of Nazareth?" Our Lord's teaching appears to have struck
   them--they were astonished at it. And more, "they all bare Him witness,
   and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth"
   (Luke 4:22), and yet they did not believe!

   Their attention was evidently awakened and their astonishment was
   aroused. But yet merely because they happened to know Him, and because
   He preached the Gospel too boldly, they allowed their prejudice first
   to raise the question, "Is not this a carpenter, the son of Mary?" And
   next they rejected Him altogether. They went even further than being
   struck with His teaching, for they acknowledged that He had worked bona
   fide miracles. They said one to the other, "What wisdom is this which
   is given unto Him, that even such mighty works are worked by His
   hands?" They did not question the truth of His miracles, they owned
   them to be mighty works.

   These miracles should surely have proved something, and should at least
   have shielded the Worker from the influence of unreasoning prejudice.
   And yet they overlooked the overwhelming evidence of His Divine works,
   attested as they were by His disciples, and even acknowledged by
   themselves. They virtually asked, "How can this be the Christ of God,
   seeing He is one of our countrymen, and His mother, and His brothers
   and sisters are all with us?"--a reason which was, indeed, no reason,
   but a disgrace to themselves, and an ignominious witness to their own
   infamy.

   I have said that prejudice against the Lord Jesus, because He dwelt in
   His youth at Nazareth, and had been brought up among them, was very
   unreasonable. But it was the more so, because that very fact gave them
   opportunities for knowing who and what He was. If they knew Mary His
   mother, why did they not learn His pedigree? They might with but little
   trouble have discovered that Mary was of the race and lineage of David.
   They might have found, if they had asked the question, that Jesus was
   born at Bethlehem. They might readily have learned from His mother
   those circumstances which were vivid in her recollection, for we are
   told that she kept them and pondered them in her heart.

   They might have heard of the midnight song of the angels, of the visits
   of the shepherds, of the adoration of the wise men, of the dream of His
   reputed father, of the flight into Egypt, and all the other remarkable
   circumstances which went to corroborate the testimony that Jesus was
   born King of the Jews. They were just in the right place to find
   evidence if they had cared for it. But no, with the candle before them
   they shut their eyes, or, rather, in broad noonday they groped for the
   wall like blind men, because they were resolved not to see. What if
   Jesus had been brought up at Nazareth? What but prejudice could urge
   that against Him? Was it not an honor to themselves? He must be brought
   up somewhere, and being brought up there, they had all the better
   opportunities for knowing Him.

   They might have known, and must have known something of His holy
   Childhood, of that remarkable excellence of disposition, of His being
   found in the Temple, of His growth in wisdom and in favor with God and
   man, and of the prophecies of Simeon and of Anna concerning Him. Surely
   some of there matters were talked of by the well, or at the city gates!
   Certainly, we may be sure that as the early history of a young man is
   generally known in the village from which he

   sets out in life, it must have been known in Nazareth, and have been
   spoken of in many a social gathering, that John the Baptist had
   declared the Son of Mary to be "the Lamb of God that takes away the sin
   of the world."

   Surely Nazareth must have become the very focus of His fame, and the
   people there must have been placed in a position eminently advantageous
   for coming to a correct conclusion with regard to His Person and His
   office. For all these things to be set aside simply because of a silly
   prejudice arising from His being brought up among them was such a folly
   that Christ might well marvel. When all this while they were losing the
   incalculably precious blessings of healing, and when they were bringing
   upon themselves the curse of having put from them the kingdom of God
   merely for an idle prejudice, it was enough to make the Christ of God
   wonder at their unbelief.

   I shall say nothing more about these Nazarites, but shall pass on to
   remark that the unbelief of many here present is equally marvelous in
   some respects. I am afraid that most of us will come under censure.
   First I shall address myself to those who are saved, who have felt the
   power of the Holy Spirit within them renewing their natures. And then,
   secondly, I shall speak to you who are hearers of the Gospel, who,
   nevertheless, have not believed to the salvation of your souls.

   I. I shall speak to THE PEOPLE OF GOD, and I am afraid while I speak,
   there will be few of us who will be able to plead guiltless. Jesus
   assuredly marvels because of our unbelief--He marvels at the unbelief
   of His own people. Let me show first the wonderful forms of unbelief
   that are found among the professed people of God. Yes, and among the
   real people of God. At times we doubt the wisdom of Providence. We hold
   as a cardinal truth that "all things work together for good to them
   that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose."

   And yet when the circumstances of our position are dark, and our load
   of trouble is unusually heavy, the suggestion will arise, "Is this
   wise? Is this kind? Will this promote my good? Can it be that
   circumstances so unpropitious shall be overruled for my benefit?" There
   may be those who have never doubted this Truth of God, even when
   exposed to the most rigorous tribulation. But I am afraid the most of
   us have foolishly asked the question, "Has God forgotten to be
   gracious? If it is so, why am I thus? Has He turned to be my enemy,
   seeing He deals thus roughly with me?"

   Methinks this is one of the wonders of unbelief. After the many
   occasions in which God has proved to us His faithfulness, after the
   many times in which, with some of us especially, God has overruled our
   afflictions for our present and eternal benefit, it is of all unbelief
   one of the most marvelous that we should not be able to trust in the
   Providence of God. Another strange form of unbelief is mistrust of the
   Divine faithfulness. We have the written promise of God that He will
   never leave nor forsake those who trust Him. We have His guarantee that
   in His service "as our days so shall our strength be." We know beyond
   question that we never have temptations capable of making us fall away,
   but have the Divine assurance, "My Grace is sufficient for you."

   And yet there are times when, if we are put to some little stress of
   labor beyond what is usual, or visible means are straitened, our
   spirits sink! We become depressed, and the demon of unbelief suggests
   that now our defeat is certain, and the enemy will triumph over us.
   "Aha," says he, "where is your God now? Will He stand by you now? Will
   He enable you to be victorious in this terrible strife?"

   Happy is that man who can go about his Master's work as sure that God
   is with him as though he heard the wings of angels over his head and
   saw the eternal arm working visibly on his behalf. Happy is that man,
   but, alas, we are not always thus happy! We doubt because the flesh is
   weak, and unbelief enquires, "Will He make a table in the wilderness?
   Will He command the rocks to gush with water? If the Lord should open
   the windows of Heaven could such a thing be?"

   Yet, Brethren, after what we have seen, and after all that our fathers
   have seen, after what we have experienced in deliverances, in
   protections, in supplies, in upholding and in restorations, the Lord of
   Love may well marvel because of our unbelief! When we stoop to mistrust
   the faithfulness of God, who cannot lie, and think that the everlasting
   God that faints not, neither is weary, of whose understanding there is
   no searching--can fail to keep His Word and fulfill His Covenant--this
   is unbelief, indeed!

   Another very remarkable form of unbelief among God's people is with
   regard to the efficacy of prayer. If there is anything under Heaven
   that I am as sure of as I am of the demonstrations of mathematics, it
   is the fact that God hears prayer. Answers to prayer have come to some
   of us, not now and then on rare occasions, so that after a series of
   years we have a few facts to collate--but they come to us as ordinary
   circumstances of everyday life. God has heard for us prayers about
   great things and prayers about little things--prayers about things that
   we could reveal to others, and prayers

   about secret matters in which none could join us. We have had so many
   answers to prayer that the fact is far beyond any further question with
   us.

   And yet there may be a matter pressing upon our heart for God's glory,
   and it may be a subject about which we could plead a precise promise,
   such as this--"If two of you are agreed as touching anything concerning
   My kingdom, it shall be done unto you," and yet we are half afraid that
   our prayer will not be heard--the husband afraid that the conversion of
   his wife will never occur! The wife fearful that that swearing husband
   of hers will not, after all, yield to the importunate entreaties which
   she has addressed to Heaven! A teacher in a Sunday school class still
   afraid that his children, though often prayed for, will not be
   converted!

   We have many prayers, but how little faith is mingled with them! Well,
   it is strange, it is passing strange, it is amazing, when we have
   already been heard ninety-nine times that we cannot trust God the
   hundredth time! And when our whole life is as full of answers to prayer
   as it is of hours, it is strange that we should go tremblingly to the
   Mercy Seat and scarcely think that God will grant our desire again. No
   wonder if Jesus should marvel at the unbelief of many of His people's
   prayers! To kneel at the Mercy Seat where the blood of God's own Son is
   sprinkled--where Christ Himself stands as the Apostle and High Priest
   of our profession--and to fear that when we plead for His sake we yet
   may not be heard! It is a miracle of incredulity!

   Another singular form of unbelief is this--a doubt as to the power of
   the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that this is commonly creeping over
   the Christian Church. The Gospel of Jesus Christ will not, according to
   some, be found to succeed in this enlightened age, or among enlightened
   nations. It may be very effectual among South Sea Islanders with their
   dense ignorance. It may perhaps civilize degraded Bushmen in their
   kraals. But to refined, intellectual men like the Hindus, the Gospel
   avails nothing. Yes, and the fear of this has perhaps been up to now a
   great hindrance to the success of the Gospel because our unbelief has
   restrained the hand of Christ, the Holy Spirit has been grieved, and
   mighty works have been few.

   But I will not talk of nations, and of this truth on a broad scale, I
   will bring it home to you. My Brethren, have you not sometimes held
   your tongue concerning the Gospel of Jesus when you have met with very
   wicked persons? "No," you have said, "there is no hope there." Or you
   have been called to visit some sick man of profane life, and you have
   said, "There is no hope here." Or you have stumbled across some
   abandoned woman, and have not thought of preaching Christ to her, for
   you have said, "This is a case beyond the reach of the Word."

   But it is not so. I will prove it is not so. Has the Gospel saved you,
   my Brother? And you, Sister? Then whom can it not save? Ever since the
   day when I came as a burdened, desponding sinner to my Master's feet,
   and felt my load roll off me at the sight of His dear wounds. Ever
   since I saw Him as the Substitute bearing the wrath of God on my
   behalf, I have despaired of none--nor would I if they were at the very
   gates of Hell. For could we get the Gospel to their ears, and the
   Spirit of God to their hearts, they would be saved. May God grant that
   we may not doubt the power of the Gospel.

   So, too, in hours of great distress we have known true Christians
   doubtful of the efficacy of the precious blood of Christ. They would
   not confess such unbelief, but it comes to that. They have said, "I
   thought I was, indeed, one of His. I went up with the multitude that
   kept holy day, and gladsome were my songs, but I have turned aside. I
   have backslidden, I have lost the joy of my Lord, and for me there is
   no hope." We bid such persons look to the Redeemer anew, and we say,
   "There is still power in the Atonement to take away all sin, for 'the
   blood of Jesus Christ, God's dear Son, cleanses us from all sin.' "

   For awhile, these desponding ones will say, "Alas, I cannot find peace,
   I cannot get comfort. My sin is gone over my head as a heavy burden,
   and, as David said, my wounds stink and are corrupt, there is no
   healing for my sores. I thought I was a child of God, but I am driven
   from His Presence, and I shall know no hope." But, Brothers and
   Sisters, it is not so. While the Bible remains true, it becomes none of
   us ever to think that we can be beyond the reach of mercy. Jesus Christ
   came into the world not to save good people, but to save sinners, even
   the very chief. He did not come to save the virtuous, but "to seek and
   to save that which was lost." "The whole have no need of a physician,
   but they that are sick." Our sickness and our poverty, our ruin and our
   destruction are proper pleas with the Christ of God. There shall never
   come a day when His precious blood shall lose its power--

   "Till all the ransomed Church of God Are sa ved to sin no more,"

   there shall still be efficacy in the fountain for cleansing, still be
   power in Jesus to blot out iniquity.

   I might go on and mention some other forms of this unbelief, but I will
   not--we will rather consider why they are so amazing. First, it is very
   amazing in saints of God to be disbelieving because of their
   relationship to the Father and to the Lord Jesus. To doubt a stranger
   is not at all an extraordinary thing, but for a child to doubt its
   father--for a brother to doubt a tender, truthful, loving brother. For
   a bride to doubt the bridegroom who has made her blessed-- these things
   are strange. And for me, for you, for any blood-washed soul to doubt
   your Father God, to mistrust your elder Brother Jesus, to have
   suspicions of the Bridegroom of your hearts, even Jesus, the
   Well-Beloved of Heaven and earth--well may we marvel, and mingle
   sadness with the marvel! And well may you marvel, and mingle bitter
   penitence with your wonder.

   Why do I mistrust my Lord? He has never lied unto me. Blessed be His
   name, He can forgive even this sin. But it must wound Him sorely. It
   must be another crucifixion to Him, that those who are saved by Him
   should yet doubt Him. Forgive us, Jesus, and help us against this sin
   in the future.

   Our unbelief is a marvel, again, because the rightness of trust in God
   and in His Son Jesus Christ are backed up by such wonderful historical
   facts. None have ever trusted in Him and been confounded. The Jews of
   old could look back to a very memorable history, full of great wonders
   of faith. And so when they doubted God, they doubted Him against all
   the facts that stood in evidence. When the Lord brought them up out of
   the Red Sea, and made the waters stand upright as a heap. When He led
   their enemies down into the heart of the sea, where they were utterly
   destroyed by the embracing waters. When Israel sang a new song unto the
   Lord, and triumphed gloriously, was not it an amazing thing that within
   a few days they should ask, "Can He give us bread to eat?"

   And when after that they saw the manna lying around their tents, and
   drank of the rock that followed them, and marked the cloudy pillar that
   shaded them by day, and the fiery pillar that cheered and enlightened
   them by night--was it not strange that they should doubt whether He
   could bring them into Canaan, and drive out the giants with their
   chariots of iron? Israel's doubts were very strange, but so are ours.
   For we doubt not only in the teeth of all Bible history, but in
   defiance of the history of the saints ever since Apostolic times--the
   history of our own sires, and of ourselves.

   Did the Lord fail his saints at Smithfield, when they sang as they
   burned? Was He not the helper of those who, but yesterday, in
   Madagascar, went forth to die for Jesus, with hymns of triumph on their
   tongues? Did not the Lord help the covenanting fathers of His saints in
   Scotland? And was He not the guardian of our persecuted sires in this
   priest-ridden land? Let us then yield to multiplied evidences the
   credence they deserve, and let us trust a faithful God as He should be
   trusted.

   But we have, in addition to the history of the past, the personal
   experience of the present. I used to marvel at William Huntingdon's,
   "Bank of Faith"--a strange enough book, by the way--but I am sure I
   could, from my own history, write a far more remarkable, "Bank of
   Faith," than William Huntingdon has penned. And I question whether the
   life of any Christian here, with its little details of deliverance, of
   assistance, of answers to prayer, would not be very remarkable if it
   could be written. At any rate, you and I have had most singular proofs
   in our experience of the truth, goodness, faithfulness, and power of
   God and of His Christ.

   We do not speak merely what we believe, but what we know, and testify
   what we have seen. I have often said that if anyone wants to dispute
   with me about the evidences of Christianity, the mere outworks, I might
   perhaps yield the day. Perhaps I might not be inclined to accept the
   gauge of battle--for I care comparatively little about the outworks.
   But if any man will attack the real inwards of Christianity (which few
   ever do, because they do not know much about them), then the feeblest
   man among us will hold the wall against all comers.

   We have certain experiences--communion with the Christ of God,
   communion with our Father, manifestations of His face to us which we
   shall not publish in the street, nor cast before swine--but which,
   nevertheless, we would dare bring forward as witnesses, powerful to
   ourselves, at any rate, and to others who can understand them. Strange
   enough, however, is the fact that after all our inward evidence and
   indisputable personal proof, we do, nevertheless, doubt in dark times,
   and scandalously mistrust. After what our Lord has done for us, He may
   well marvel at our wicked, unreasonable unbelief.

   And there is another reason for wonder which I shall mention, namely
   this, that our unbelief is singular when we consider our own beliefs.
   You do not doubt the inspiration of Scripture, you Christian people,
   yet you doubt the Truth

   of something in Scripture. You do not doubt the Deity of Christ, yet
   you doubt whether Christ will be true to you. You do not doubt that His
   Gospel comes from Heaven, yet sometimes you doubt whether it will exert
   a conquering power among the sons of men. You do not doubt the promise,
   nor doubt the Lord, so you say, and yet you doubt whether that promise
   will be fulfilled to you.

   Too often your faith is a theory, and your unbelief a fact. O that our
   faith might be a fact, and a practical fact, too, commonly carried out
   in all the transactions of life! At home and abroad, in joy and in
   sorrow, may we still be unstag-gering Believers holding fast by the
   Truth of God, by the certainty of His promise, the infallibility of His
   purpose, the glory of His Gospel, the Deity of His Son and the triumph
   of His Word. I close this address to you who are His people by
   remarking that as you see what forms unbelief takes, it will be well to
   confess your sin with sorrow. And as you have seen how marvelous it is,
   it will be right to be ashamed that you should sin so strangely.

   Before I have done, notice that your sin is so amazing that it makes
   Jesus Christ, Himself, marvel. He is used to wonders--He is Himself the
   Wonderful, the great Wonderworker, and yet He marvels because of our
   unbelief! We often wonder at the unbelief of the Jews, that they should
   have seen so much of God in the wilderness, and yet should doubt Him.
   As in a glass behold yourselves. I have sometimes wondered at the
   unbelief of others--I have put my soul in their place, and have said,
   "I never could be disbelieving if I had such an experience as theirs."

   Ah, why could I judge others while myself guilty? No doubt these
   doubters think much the same of us, and think us inexcusable when we
   are desponding. There are times when we wonder at our own unbelief!
   When God has brought us safely through a trial, we have said, "I cannot
   think how I could mistrust Him." And in the surprising joy of some
   remarkable mercies, we have looked back with blushes and with tears,
   and said, "Have mercy upon me, O my God, for my unbelief, for I can
   never doubt You again." Yes, it is very amazing, it is very strange
   that we should be so basely incredulous. May God lift us out of this
   unbelief, and make us to hold fast His Word, and trust in Him without
   ceasing.

   II. I shall now want your earnest attention, You WHO ARE NOT YET
   CONVERTED, while I try affectionately to

   speak with you concerning your unbelief.

   Among the hearers who continually frequent this place there are a great
   number who were never infidel in the common sense of the term. And
   though they would be very grieved even to approach to that state--they
   are nevertheless infidel in another sense--they are unbelieving as to
   any saving trust in the Person and work of Jesus Christ. Now I desire
   to speak to your hearts this morning. Your unbelief is very marvelous,
   and in each form that it takes it is so!

   Perhaps you fear that your sin is too great for mercy. You profess to
   believe God's Word? "Yes." And yet you dare talk in that way, when it
   is written, "All manner of sin and of blasphemy shall be forgiven unto
   men." "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin."
   "Ah, no!" you say, "that is not the form of my unbelief--I am not in a
   fit state for the reception of Divine Grace." And you believe God's
   Word, do you? You believe the Gospel which I have preached to you so
   often, and yet dare say that?

   Do you not know that your very unfitness is your fitness? "The whole
   have no need of a physician, but they that are sick." "I have not come
   to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." You know very well
   that salvation is all of Grace, that from first to last it is all of
   pure mercy and yet you talk about being unfit to come! I think I have
   heard you sing, some of you--

   "If we tarry till we're better, We shall never come at all."

   You know that, and that your present state is the very best state in
   which you could come, and yet you dare disbelieve in such a way! Shame
   on you! Shame on you!

   But perhaps you say, "No, my doubts are of another kind. I am afraid
   mine is an excluded case." And yet after reading the Word of God you
   cannot find a single text to prove that. And you are told that there
   are no occult texts that do it, for God has not spoken in secret in a
   dark place of the earth, saying to the seed of Jacob, Seek you My face
   in vain. You know the promises. For instance, you know this--"Whosoever
   will, let him take of the Water of Life freely." "Ho, everyone that
   thirsts, come you to the waters." You are not ignorant of that text,
   "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out."

   You know how broad and unlimited those promises are made, and yet you
   dare to talk of your being excluded! Did you not sing the other Sunday,
   when I gave out the verse--

   "None are excluded therefore but those Who do themselves exclude.
   Welcome the learned and polite, The ignorant and rude. While Grace does
   not forget the prince, The poor may take their share, No mortal has a
   just pretense To perish in despair."

   I will say that over again--

   "No mortal has a just pretense To perish in despair."

   The reason for despair is a mere pretense, and an unjust one. The
   Gospel of Jesus Christ has with a sound of trumpet declared that if you
   have no goodness Christ Jesus will give you the goodness! That if you
   have no fitness you need no fitness! That you may come just as you are
   and rely upon the unsurpassed and unbounded mercy of the God that made
   the heavens and the earth--who has Himself set forth Jesus Christ to be
   a Propitiation for sin--in Whom, if you put your trust, you shall find
   instant pardon and eternal salvation, a change of heart and a renewed
   life!

   Such unbelief as these--I will not mention more, because they are all
   alike, a pack of rubbish to be thrown out at once--are all marvelous!
   It is amazing that they should be indulged in by people who hear the
   Gospel. In your case, my dear Hearers, they are more than ordinarily
   marvelous for this reason--because you already admit so much. If you
   did not believe in the Bible I could not talk so to you. If you did not
   believe Christ to be the Son of God I should not so much marvel at your
   unbelief.

   If you rejected all the testimony about the precious blood of the
   Mediator, I could understand your being unbelieving. But there are some
   of you who know that Christ is God. You know He is able to save from
   sin. You know He is able to save YOU, and yet you are unsaved. And I
   marvel at your unbelief because you confess that it leaves you in a
   state of ruin and will land you in a state of everlasting confusion!
   You know you are filthy, and that the fountain is open--why, then, do
   you not wash? You know Christ will save you if you trust Him. You know
   He is worthy of your trust. O Sirs, why do you not trust Him? In the
   name of everything that is reasonable, why not trust Him? God grant you
   may.

   Your unbelief is the more amazing because the cause from which it
   arises is so inexcusable. With some of you your unbelief is the effect
   of inconsiderateness. You do not think about it. You believe, but
   believe superficially. You do not weigh and judge. Oh, is it so? Will
   you ruin your own souls for want of thought? You look, as I gaze upon
   you, to be men and women of intelligence. And can you, with
   intelligence and education, trifle with your souls? Eternity, eternity,
   eternity! You know its meaning, and yet can you trifle with it?

   You are immortal, no flame shall ever devour your soul. You shall
   outlast the sun, and when the moon has waned for the last time, you
   still shall live. And will you dare to tempt God's anger so as to live
   forever beneath His frown? When a simple trust in Jesus will secure for
   you a happy immortality--shall you through carelessness suffer your
   soul to drift down the stream to the dark ocean of despair?

   With some of you it is little more than mere whim which your depraved
   heart pleads as a reason for keeping from Christ. Either it is the
   pride which will not let you take salvation gratis, or some prejudice
   against the preacher, or against a doctrine of the Word, or a wish for
   you scarcely know what--maybe of some sign or wonder. Alas, men are
   fools when they are wicked! Wickedness and folly are but synonymous
   terms. And for you who profess to believe so much to decline
   practically to carry it out is a folly which even the lunatics of
   Bedlam could not rival. O that you were wise and would consider this!

   I marvel at the unbelief of some of you because it causes you so much
   grief. It is many months since you had a day of real happiness, some of
   you. Your conscience is so much awakened that you cannot be quiet, and
   yet there is rest, rest to be had, and you have it not. There is the
   cup before you, and you are thirsty, yet you refuse to drink! There is
   the bread, and you are hungry, but you will not eat! I marvel at your
   unbelief, and the more because you have seen others saved. Since you
   were first impressed your daughter has found peace, your son is
   rejoicing in Christ, the friend who sits next to you in the pew has
   been long ago with his feet on the Rock, and a new song in his
   mouth--and he has told you it is all through his trusting Jesus--and
   yet you will not trust, too.

   O may God teach you to be reasonable, and cure you of this folly! May
   His Holy Spirit work wisdom of faith in you. It is marvelous that all
   this while you would be ashamed to avow that you doubt anything that
   God has said. You make God a liar, but would dread to say so. You would
   not be called an infidel, and yet what better is an unbeliever? For if
   a man believes and does not act on what he believes, is he not, if his
   soul is ruined, even more without excuse than he who had some mental
   difficulty to plead as a ground of unbelief?

   My dear Friends, some of you who have been sitting here for years and
   yet do not believe--you are marvels to me! Count you that little? You
   are marvels to many in your family who long since expected to see you
   on the Lord's side. You are a wonder to devils--even they cannot make
   it out--the power of their spells has amazed even them! You are a
   wonder to the damned in Hell--with what welcome alacrity would they
   avail themselves of an opportunity to escape from misery, and yet you
   trifle with such opportunities!

   You are a marvel to the angels who would have rejoiced over you if you
   had returned to your Father, and who wonder that you stand at the
   Cross's foot from Sunday to Sunday and yet doubt the power of Him who
   bled on it! You are marvels to the Lord Himself. One of these days,
   unless you repent, you will be a wonder to yourselves, for this text
   will come true to you if God prevents it not. "Behold, you despisers,
   and wonder, and perish." But I hope better things of you, even things
   which accompany salvation, though I thus speak.

   Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. Before the
   Redeemer was taken up and ascended to His Throne, He left this message
   to us, His disciples, "Go you into all the world and preach the Gospel
   to every creature. He that believes and is baptized shall be saved. But
   he that believes not shall be damned." Believe and be baptized, and God
   grant you His salvation for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Blessed Wonder

   (No. 936)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JUNE 12, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "When Jesus heard it, He marvelled, and said to them that followed,
   Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in
   Israel." Matthew 8:10.

   You remember that we commenced this morning's sermon by observing that
   Jesus is not reported to have marvelled either at the gigantic
   architecture of the Temple, or at the wonderful discipline of the Roman
   army, or at the profound knowledge of the rabbis. He only wondered
   twice, according to the record, and on both of those occasions he
   marvelled concerning faith--once at the absence of it, and once at its
   presence.

   In the case which we spoke of this morning, He marvelled at the
   unbelief of His fellow townsmen. In the narrative before us, He
   marvelled at the faith of the centurion. From this we learn that we
   ought not to be so engrossed with the wonders of science and of art, or
   even with the wonders of creation and of Providence, as to become
   indifferent to the marvels of Divine Grace. These should occupy the
   very highest place in our estimation. The seven wonders of the world
   are nothing when compared with the countless wonders of Grace.

   That man must be foolish who does not admire the works of God in
   Nature. He is frivolous who does not trace with awe the hand of God in
   history. And he is even more unwise who despises the masterpieces of
   Divine skill and wisdom which are to be seen in the empire of Divine
   Grace. In the kingdom of God the wise man only wonders once in his
   life, but that is always--fools think not so, but they are void of
   understanding. The museum of Grace is richer than that of Nature. A
   heart broken on account of sin is a far greater wonder than the rarest
   fossil, whatever it may tell of ancient floods of the sea or
   convulsions of the land.

   An eye that glistens with the tears of penitence is a greater marvel
   than the falls of Niagara, or the fountains of the Nile. Faith that
   humbly links itself to Christ has in it as great a beauty as the
   rainbow, and the confidence which looks alone to Jesus, and so
   irradiates the soul, is as much an object for admiration as is the sun
   when he shines in his strength. Talk not of the pyramids, the Colossus,
   the golden house of Nero, or the temple of Ephesus--for the living
   temple of God's Church is fairer far. Let others glory in the marvels
   they have seen, but it is mine to say unto my Lord, "I will praise You,
   for you have done wonderful things. Your love to me was wonderful.
   Surely I will remember Your wonders of old."

   Consider well the work of God within the human heart. Consider well the
   faith which lies at the beginning and foundation of spiritual life, and
   you will have as good cause for wonder as the Savior had when He
   marvelled at the centurion's faith. The peculiar point for admiration
   may not be the same, but all faith has in it admirable elements, and
   like its Divine Author, may be called "wonderful."

   I shall speak upon what there was that was so remarkable in the
   centurion's faith, making practical remarks in a kind of running
   comment as we pass along. And then if there should be any fragments
   that remain to be gathered up, we shall try again to apply them in the
   same style of personal application.

   I. What was there, then, about the centurion's faith so remarkable that
   Christ wondered at it? Methinks the first point was THAT THERE WAS SUCH
   FAITH FOUND IN SUCH A PERSON. The Lord seemed to imply this when He
   said, "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." As if He
   might have expected to find it in Israel, among an instructed people,
   among a people to whom the oracles had been committed--but He could not
   have expected to find it in a Gentile, in a Roman, in a soldier--in one
   who was apparently an unlikely subject for spiritual influences.

   From this I gather that the most astonishing and acceptable faith may
   be exercised by the most unlikely persons. Here was a Gentile
   believing, a Gentile believing far better than one of the seed of
   Israel. Rich Grace thus brought the far-off one into the full blessing
   of the kingdom. Here was a soldier believing, a Roman soldier believing
   in the Lord!

   Roman soldiers in Judea were not as our armies are--a guard protecting
   their native hearths and homes. They were the servants of tyrants,
   treading down the liberties of the Jewish people, and obnoxious, of
   course, in the highest degree to the Jews.

   And yet for all that, though the soldier's trade in those days was
   oppression, and his wages were plunder--here was a soldier believing in
   Jesus Christ! And, to increase the wonder, this believing legionary was
   not a common soldier merely, but one who occupied a position of
   responsibility, bringing to him no small degree of honor and of
   respect. Alas, the honors of this world are seldom helpful to belief.
   When a man receives honor of men, he too often finds it impossible to
   receive the Gospel as a little child. All these things met in the
   centurion, and yet he was not only a Believer, but a surpassing
   Believer, even to a marvel, so that Christ wondered at his faith!

   My dear Friend, though you should happen to be in the most unlikely
   circumstances of body and of mind for you to be converted and to become
   a Christian, yet I see not what hinders your being so converted if the
   Lord blesses the Word. If you have been brought up altogether apart
   from the influences of religion, yet remember, so also was this
   centurion, and he became a master Believer. Why should not you? Though
   the ground of your heart has as yet never been tilled and remains like
   the virgin soil of the primeval forest, yet my Lord may get a gracious
   crop out of your heart not many days after the tillage of the Law and
   the sowing of the Gospel shall have been tried upon you! For by His
   gracious touch He can turn a barren heath into a fruitful field.

   Though you feel tonight as waste as the moorland, yet you need not
   despair. Though now dewless as Gilboa, He can water you as plenteously
   as Hermon itself. The barren woman shall yet keep house, and the
   desolate shall rejoice in her children. Nature's death may yet yield to
   the Spirit's life.

   Perhaps you follow a calling which is supposed to be inimical to
   religion, but even then, despair not. Why should not the Master call
   you by His Grace, and constrain you to leave the calling, as Matthew
   left the receipt of custom? Or else through the power of Grace within
   you, enable you to exercise your calling without sin? You have,
   perhaps, never read the Bible--why should you not begin now? It is
   possible that you have been a disbeliever in it, yet there are such
   arguments in its favor--I am not about to trouble you with them just
   now--but there are among them living arguments which may convince you
   before you are quite aware that your prejudice is being removed.

   Some of us have tasted and handled of the Word of Life, and are
   witnesses of the power which comes with the Gospel. We are, ourselves,
   living witnesses of what it can do in breathing peace into the soul,
   and in putting sin away! And I see not why you also should not prove it
   and rejoice in it. Yes, and even distance others in the race of Grace.
   That tinker playing cat on Sunday, on Elstow Green, did not look a
   likely man to write the Pilgrim's Progress, and yet John Bunyan did it.
   That blaspheming sailor cast ashore on a slave-trade settlement on the
   coast of Africa, and there made a slave himself, did not look as though
   he would become a minister of evangelical godliness, whose name should
   be sweet and full of savor to after generations, and yet such was John
   Newton!

   There is no reason, because of the darkness of the past, why the future
   should not be bright, for there is One who can blot out sin and pass by
   transgression and iniquity. However hostile your nature may be to the
   Gospel and to spiritual Truth, there is power in Jesus Christ to change
   that nature, and to cause you, the most unlikely person, to become a
   leader in His camp--a mighty trophy of His Sovereign Grace. Is it not
   written, "I was found of them that sought Me not. I was made manifest
   unto them that asked not after Me"? "I will call them My people, which
   were not My people. And her Beloved, which was not Beloved"?

   Surely angels rejoiced when they heard the Roman legionary say, "Speak
   the word, and my servant shall be healed." Surely the disciples, as
   they clustered around the Master, said one to another, "What strange
   work of Grace is this, that this soldier should stand here and speak
   better than any of us concerning the Truth and the power of the Lord
   Jesus!" I do pray to see some in this place become equally remarkable
   trophies of Christ's power! I do expect to see throughout this, our
   country, the most unlikely persons converted. The great trumpet shall
   be blown and great sinners shall find that the day of their redemption
   has come. From the east and from the west, the far-off ones shall
   gather to the feast of love, while the astonished Church shall cry,
   "These, where have they been?"

   The Church could not have thought that Saul of Tarsus who once
   persecuted the Church would have become her chief Apostle, and yet so
   it was! And so it shall be still while the King sits on His Throne. He
   will yet come down again

   and take out of the ranks of the enemy the stoutest hearted men, and
   make them bow their knees before His majesty, and afterwards He will
   enlist them beneath His own standard, and send them forth conquering
   and to conquer.

   The prey shall be taken from the mighty, and the lawful captive shall
   be delivered. Grace shall yet more abound where sin abounded. As in the
   present case, the marvel of Grace shall be the more memorable because
   of the singularity of the person enjoying it. May God make YOU such a
   person, and such a wonder, too!

   II. The next point concerning which our Lord may have marvelled was THE
   SUBJECT OF THE CENTURION'S CONFIDENCE. He had a servant who was struck
   with palsy. This was a disease which, at that time at any rate, if not
   at present, was reckoned to be utterly incurable. In the case of this
   servant the disease was of the most aggravated kind, for he was
   "grievously tormented." The strength of his constitution battling with
   the paralysis caused an unusual agony.

   It had come to a climax, for he was at the point of death. Though a
   cure of the palsy had never been heard of, and was a most astounding
   miracle if ever worked, this man believed that Christ could heal the
   palsy and could at once restore his servant to perfect health. Yes,
   here was a faith which took an impossibility into its hand and threw it
   aside--faith which knew that all things were possible with an
   Omnipotent Savior--faith which saw in Christ that Omnipotent Savior,
   and therefore raised no question as to His ability or willingness.

   Dear Hearers, this is the kind of faith I would that we all exercised.
   I will suppose, dear Friend, that tonight your case, your sinful case,
   is like that of the centurion's servant's physical case. You believe
   your sin to be incurable, that is to say, unpardonable. You think,
   also, that if it were pardoned as to the past, yet you would be sure to
   go back to it again, as a dog returns to his vomit. You therefore look
   upon your case as being an utterly hopeless one. O not so! Not so! He
   who can heal the drunkenness that lies in one, or the tendency to lust
   that lurks in another, can cast out any and every sort of sin, and cast
   it out with a word.

   There is no transgression too black for His blood to wash out the
   stain, and there is no propensity to sin too strong for His Spirit to
   control and at last destroy. Cures of all cases of spiritual disease
   are possible with Him. The blackest sinner may yet become the brightest
   saint. At the gates of Hell you may sit tonight in your moral
   filthiness, and yet not only at the gates of Heaven may you yet stand
   in the brightness of holiness, but within those gates you may yet be
   enclosed in the perfection of spotlessness with all the rest who have
   washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb!

   The centurion's faith was this--he believed that there were no
   impossibilities with Christ--and he left his palsied servant in those
   gracious and mighty hands. And, my Friend, your faith, if it is to save
   you, must do the same. It must take your case at its worst, and yet
   believe that Christ can save even to the uttermost. Your sin has been
   aggravated-- confess it! Your sin is in its own self
   unpardonable--Justice writes it with a pen of iron--and no tears of
   repentance or endeavors after reformation can blot it out. Only
   Sovereign Grace, fresh from the altar of atoning sacrifice, can make an
   end of sin. Confess all this!

   You are far gone from hope--confess it! Your natural estate is
   perilous, no, deadly--confess it! Make out your case to be as bad as
   you can conceive it to be--it is so--and when you have done so, say,
   "But for all that, I believe that God in Christ Jesus can forgive me,
   and I rest my guilty soul at the foot of the Cross where expiation was
   made for sin. I believe that Jesus there put my guilt away, and thus I
   have peace with God." If you believe that you are a little sinner, and
   that therefore, because of the moderate degree of your guilt, Christ
   can save you, you know nothing about it. But if knowing your sin to be
   great, heinous, aggravated, damnable--and you can still come to
   Jesus--you do glorify His name.

   If you do avow yourself to be the chief of sinners, and yet do believe
   that He can save you, and rely upon Him to do it, you have a marvelous
   faith--a faith that will bring you to Heaven. Not to forget the guilt
   of our sin, and then trust Jesus--but to remember our sin with more
   shame and grief than ever, and yet to trust in the cleansing blood of
   Jesus-- this is faith, this is the wonder of the skies! Be of good
   cheer, O Sinner, if all your reliance leans on the Mediator. In spite
   of ten thousand times ten thousand accusing sins, you are a saved man!
   O that others like you would place their dependence upon the same
   sin-forgiving Savior!

   May the Eternal Spirit draw them now to Jesus, and give them immediate
   salvation by precious faith in a precious Christ. Faith is the vital
   point, the one necessary matter--may it be worked in you now. Faith can
   soon remove the diffi-

   culties which stand in your path, and make you a straight road to
   Glory, for it is a wonder-worker, and all things are possible to it--

   "It says to the mountains, Depart, That stand between God and the soul.
   It binds up the broken in heart, And makes wounded consciences whole.
   Bids sins of a crimson-like dye Be spotless as snow, and as white, And
   makes such a sinner as I As pure as an angel of light.'"

   III. Thirdly, another wonder was THE ENERGY OF THIS MAN'S FAITH WHICH
   LED HIM TO DEAL WITH THE CASE IN SUCH A BUSINESS-LIKE WAY. Alas, alas,
   the hackneyed form which most men's religion assumes!

   They take it up at second-hand, or they cut and shape it after somebody
   else's fashion. Not so this man. I do not know that he had ever had a
   religious acquaintance, but falling in probably with some of the books
   of Scripture, he read them, and he discovered that Jesus Christ was
   what He professed to be--the Son of God and the Savior of men.

   Having come to this conclusion, he at once trusted in Him as a matter
   of fact, not as a matter of profession. And having trusted in the
   Savior, he acted upon the trust in a business-like common-sense manner.
   He sat down and he considered with himself thus--"I am a captain. I say
   to a soldier, Go, and he goes. I say to another, Come--he comes. I
   appoint my servant who waits upon me to do certain business, and he
   does it. Now, this Jesus Christ is a far greater commander than I am.
   All the powers of nature must therefore be under His check and control.
   He will only have to say a thing, and it will be done.

   "If He were to bid the heavens be clothed in blackness, they would don
   the sackcloth, and if He were to command the clouds to disappear, and
   the sun to shine or to stand still, the obedient sun would know its
   Master, and yield a willing homage to Him." The centurion, according to
   the best rules of argument, was led to this conclusion--and his
   practical mind made immediate use of the inference. That Jesus can
   accomplish His will with a word is only what you and I ought also to
   infer from His nature and office, and that He is ready to exercise that
   power is clear from His Character and His promises.

   "Well, then," said the centurion, "I have but to go and ask Him, and if
   His heart is moved with my piteous story, He will only have to say it
   in one single word, and, bad as my servant's case is, he will be cured
   at once, and I shall be the happy master of a healthy servant." Now,
   that was fine reasoning. That was treating fact as fact, and not as we
   too often do, as if it were pious fiction. This godly soldier was no
   mere theorist, no superficial holder of an unpractical creed, but a
   doer of the Word, a genuine matter-of-fact Believer in what he held to
   be true.

   Now, I do pray that each one here may be able to treat the Gospel as a
   matter of business. Treat it as a matter of fact, and may none of you
   trifle and toy with it, nor think it to be a mere subtlety for the
   consideration for theologians, a theme of dispute for theorists and men
   who merely think and talk. I pray you make the one thing necessary the
   first and true business of your lives. If anything is real, surely
   eternal salvation must be. Your condition before God is not a subject
   for cloudland. It belongs to the common-sense, practical, everyday,
   life-business of men.

   See, now, how it stands. You have broken God's Law. You are guilty. God
   must punish you. Eternal Justice demands it. But the Lord Jesus came
   into the world to provide a way by which, without dishonor to God's
   Justice, sin may be forgiven. That way was Substitution. Christ stood
   in the sinner's place, was punished with the sinner's punishment, and
   bore the wrath of God for sinners. But for what sinners? For all
   sinners? No, but for such as will trust Him. I, then, being guilty,
   come and trust Him. I see good reason to do so. He is God, and He was
   appointed by God to be a Propitiation for sin.

   What God appoints, and God delights in, I may truthfully and
   confidently accept. I do accept Him. I do now trust my soul with Jesus.
   Then I am saved. My sin has gone. My iniquity has ceased to be. I am a
   saved soul. Come and reason thus with yourself. Oh, I pray the Holy
   Spirit to help you to do so. Let this be the subject of your soliloquy,
   "If I were Omnipotent, as Christ is, it would be as easy for me to move
   a mountain as a mole hill. And therefore is it as easy for Him to take
   away my great sins as another's little sins. If there is a universal
   cleansing fluid, it will take out great spots as well as little spots,
   and therefore the blood of Christ can wash out my great sins as well as
   the lesser sins of other people.

   "One stroke of the hand, and the bill is receipted. It is as easy to
   write a receipt for a bill of fifty thousand pounds as for a bill for
   ten pence. So if Jesus Christ, who has already paid Believers' debts,
   calls me pardoned and absolved, it is done. He has the power to do it,
   and I rely upon the merit of His atoning blood." O that you would now
   do so! And I will add, O that you would do so now! These Sundays, how
   they are flying! Your time, how it is passing away, and with your time
   your opportunities for finding mercy!

   It does not seem long ago since we were in the depth of winter, and now
   we are getting near the longest day in summer, and soon the wings of
   time will bear us again into months of frost and snow. How long halt
   you between two opinions? Are these delays to continue forever? Will
   you always go on hearing about these things, but never attending to
   them? I do pray you by the flight of time, by the certainty of death to
   each of you, and your ignorance of its appointed hour--seek the Lord
   while He may be found, call you upon Him while He is near. Lay hold of
   eternal life. And, like the centurion, come and put your trust in Jesus
   to save you. And though your faith will be marvelous, yet the honor
   shall be all to Him, and the glory to His blessed name.

   IV. I will pass on. Another point of wonder in the centurion's faith
   was THAT HE DID NOT ASK FOR A SIGN. Many of the great ones of old, when
   God was about to fulfill a promise, needed to be strengthened for
   service by a sign. Gideon was a man of great faith, yet he needed first
   to have the fleece wet when all was dry around, and then to have the
   fleece dry while the threshing-floor was wet. He needed to hear the
   soldiers' dream of the barley cake that tumbled upon the tent of
   Midian. He wanted signs and wonders or his heart would have fainted.

   With many others the desire for signs and wonders has been a great
   barrier to simple faith. Now the centurion did not say as Naaman did,
   "I thought He would surely come and put His hand over the place and
   recover the paralytic." No, he did not need Jesus to come to the house
   and say a word, or offer prayer, or even to touch the sick with His
   hand. "No, Master," said he, "there is no need for You to come. My
   servant is far away, lying sick and near to death. You need not stir an
   inch--say in a word, and he will be healed. Distance is nothing to You.
   Your word at a mile's distance can cure as well as your touch."

   Oh, but this was grand faith! He wants no visible sign! His spiritual
   eyes see the invisible, and his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord!
   His unstaggering faith requires no crutch. He wants nothing, but only
   prays that the Master will say the word! I do not think he expected to
   hear the Lord speak that word aloud, for in Luke he is described as
   praying Jesus not so much to say a word as to "say in a word." Perhaps
   he remembered the language of the Psalmist when he sang, "He sent His
   Word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions," and
   he looked to that same creating and almighty Word for the restoration
   of his servant.

   Now, Brethren, transfer this to yourselves. I pray the Holy Spirit that
   many here may have the faith which does not crave for signs and
   wonders. "I could believe," says one, "that I were saved, if I felt
   some marvelous work of the Law within my heart. I have heard of others
   who have been ready to despair, and have been tempted to commit
   suicide. If I felt as they felt I could then think that there was
   Divine Grace for me." Ah, poor Simpleton. You know not what you say. Be
   glad to be delivered from such dreadful things as these, for if some
   have come out of them to Christ, I am afraid that some have been
   brought by them to the halter or to some other suicidal death.

   Do not desire the terrors of Hell, but accept the tender mercy of our
   God whereby the Dayspring from on high has visited us. Horrors and
   dreads, if you felt them, would not help you! Believe me, they would do
   the very reverse. "No," says another, "I should like to feel an
   extraordinary sensation. If under the sermon tonight I should be struck
   down, as I have heard some have been in the Irish revivals. If I felt
   some remarkable physical, mental, or spiritual emotion such as I have
   never experienced before, I should say that this was the finger of
   God." My dear Hearer, why be so foolish? God's Word tells you that if
   you trust Jesus Christ you are saved. Is not God's Word enough?

   Will you not take the assurance of God without laying down this and
   that as a condition for your Savior? Some of you talk and act as if the
   great God must do what you like, or else you will not believe Him! I
   have known persons who were once in the habit of giving away roast beef
   and other gifts to the poor at Christmas time, but who have given up
   the doing of it because of the picking and choosing of those who came
   to receive the gifts. One woman actually took back her meat because she
   wanted a piece of beef for boiling, and would have a boiling piece or
   none at all.

   I have not wondered when persons who have been charitable and have not
   been allowed to do as they will with their own, that they have ceased
   to distribute their alms as before. Reason teaches us that when we
   receive benefits we are not

   to dictate to our benefactors. And is God, when He saves your soul, to
   let a beggar like you be a chooser about the way in which it is to be
   done? Are you to exact this and exact that, or else you will not
   condescend to be saved? This is infamous pride! Be ashamed, I pray you,
   be ashamed to indulge in it any longer. No longer demand new proof of
   God's truthfulness in the form of feelings and excitements. God's Word
   is worthy of your trust.

   If you had these remarkable feelings, what would their evidence amount
   to if you looked at them as a mere man and not as a fanatic? If you
   were to meet an angel tonight, and he were to tell you that you would
   go to Heaven, you would have no reason to believe him, unless you
   believe in Jesus Christ. An angel who gave you any comfort while you
   remain an unbeliever would be a devil, even though he shone like an
   angel of light. But if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and are
   baptized, you have God's Word for it that you are saved, and what do
   you need an angel's word for? Is not the word of Jehovah sufficient? Is
   a creature's testimony necessary to make the Lord's word worthy of
   credence?

   No, say others, but we should be comforted if we could dream remarkable
   dreams. Now, what could there be to assure the soul as to its salvation
   in the vain and frolicsome motions of the mind when they are free from
   the bridle of reason? Dreams may sometimes happen to come true, but
   nine times out of ten they are nonsense. If good doctrine and wise
   warning are brought home to the heart by a dream, it should have none
   the less our most earnest heed. But if presumption should have a
   thousand visions to back it, it would be none the less dangerous. It
   would be a dreadful thing to hang one's confidence upon such a fragile
   thing as a dream.

   No, no, Sir. You have God's Word, and will not believe it because you
   pretend that a dream would help you, and confirm your confidence. As if
   God were not to be trusted so well as your dreams! O be not so foolish,
   but like this centurion say, "Speak the word only." Brethren, we must
   accept the bare Word of God in Christ Jesus as the basis of faith, for
   no other foundation is to be depended on for a moment. Not your
   feeling, but His promise must sustain you. Can you not consent to this?
   If you will do so you shall have peace. If you will come to God like
   that, you shall see many signs and many wonders, before long, of a
   better sort than you have ever dreamed of.

   Your joy shall be like a river, and your peace shall overflow. But you
   must first come without these things. Come, and take God at His Word,
   and do Christ the honor to believe in Him without anything to
   corroborate what He says, and you shall find the blessing coming to you
   afterwards. This was a remarkable point in the centurion's faith--that
   he believed without demanding a sign.

   V. Fifthly--one very remarkable point in this good man's faith was HIS
   CONVICTION THAT CHRIST COULD

   CURE HIS SERVANT AT ONCE, "Say in a word, and my servant shall be
   healed." Ordinarily a successful combat with disease requires time. The
   surgeon must drive out from his strong entrenchments the fiend of
   disease, must chase him from one defense to another, and perhaps even
   then he may fail to dislodge his foe.

   It may be many months or even years before some forms of disease can be
   eradicated. But the centurion believed that the word of Christ could
   remove the palsy, and do so at once. And why not? Omnipotence knows
   nothing of time any more than of any other of the hindrances which
   impede mortal progress. To the eternal God time is nothing. To Him a
   thousand years are as one day, and on the other hand, one day is as a
   thousand years. The faith that saves lays hold on this Truth that
   Christ Jesus who is now at the right hand of God can, in a moment, save
   the soul.

   The dying thief did not imagine that his salvation would occupy a
   month. He simply said, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your
   kingdom," and the answer was, "Today shall you be with Me in
   Paradise"--saved that day, saved at once. The pardon of sin is not the
   result of weeks of fasting, and months of repentance, and years of
   mortification. The sinner's eyes look to Christ and the sinner's sin is
   gone at once--

   "The moment a sinner believes, And trusts in his crucified God, His
   pardon at once he receives, Salvation in full through Christ's blood."

   The new birth of the soul--the regeneration of our nature by the Holy
   Spirit--is not a work requiring a long period of time. It is in a
   moment that the Spirit of God visits our hearts and turns the stone to
   flesh. It may seem as though I talked without consideration, but yet I
   speak the words of Truth and soberness when I say that if the Lord puts
   forth the fullness of His power, sinners sitting in these galleries or
   in this area, might be saved before that clock ticks again. Who shall
   restrain the Lord and say what He can, or cannot, do?

   All things are possible with Him, and we will therefore add, that if
   each one of you tonight were led to put his trust in Jesus, what I said
   was possible would be literally done. You would all retire, each one
   saved, and saying, "Blessed be the name of the Lord who has taken us
   out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay, and set our feet upon
   a rock, and put a new song into our mouths, and established our
   goings!" O that You would do this, good Lord, that Your name might have
   praise!

   VI. Once more. One other point of wonder. THROUGHOUT THIS WHOLE STORY
   THE CENTURION'S DEEP

   HUMILITY WAS CONSPICUOUS, BUT THAT DEEP HUMILITY, INSTEAD OF WEAKENING
   HIS FAITH,

   ONLY STRENGTHENED IT.

   Pride is the associate of presumption, but humility is the companion of
   assurance. He who thinks that it needs but little Grace and power to
   save him, that he is, in fact, better than most, and as good as any,
   cannot believe at all. He may be able to presume, but be is unable to
   believe. Doubtless, presumption would grow well in the soil of his
   heart, but a broken heart, alone, becomes a believing heart, and an
   assured heart must first be a humble heart.

   The centurion had done good service for the Jews. He loved their nation
   and had built them a synagogue. They thought a great deal of him, but
   he thought very little of himself. He said, "Lord, I am not worthy that
   You should come under my roof." I am not only not worthy of the
   blessing I ask, but not worthy that You should come into such communion
   with me as to tread my floor. Deeply humbled was the man, and you,
   also, must have a humbled spirit to become a Believer. I have met with
   a great many who, when they have felt a sense of their sin, have said
   directly, "I cannot believe in Christ."

   Then you fancy, do you, that if you had less sin you could believe? No.
   I tell you it is not so. If your sense of sin is a hindrance to faith,
   your sense of righteousness would be infinitely more a barrier. To
   believe that I shall be saved because I am not a sinner is not faith.
   But to know that I am one of the very worst of sinners, and very guilty
   and very vile, and yet I place my trust in Jesus--this is faith. I do
   love, when I look at my sins, to look at the Cross, too. If I have been
   of service to God, and the Holy Spirit has helped me to do some good
   thing for the Church, it is scarcely faith to say that I then am at
   peace. Why, that is seeing, not believing!

   But when I see my imperfections, and bemoan my follies, and lay my
   mouth in the very dust, and, by God's Grace can say--"Notwithstanding
   all this, I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is
   able to keep that which I have committed to Him"--that is faith. And I
   pray God that you may exercise it every day. If my sins were worse than
   they are, or if I could have a deeper apprehension of them, I would
   nevertheless rejoice that He is able to save to the uttermost them that
   come unto God by Him. And, by His Grace, from that rock of confidence
   my soul should not remove.

   My Brethren, do not imagine that to have faith in Christ you have to
   work yourselves up into the idea that there is some good thing in you
   which can recommend you to Christ. You are sailing on the wrong tack
   altogether when your trust leans on self. Faith is to come to Christ
   blind, and believe that He can open your eyes. It is to come to Him
   poor, and believe that He will make you rich. It is to come to Him as
   having nothing of your own, and take what He has to be yours forever
   and ever. It is, in fact, to see death written on the creature, and to
   find life in Him--corruption written on your best righteousness, and to
   count it to be as dross and dung--and then to take Jesus Christ to be
   your wisdom, your righteousness, your sanctification, your redemption,
   and your all.

   I have thus, I trust, set forth what faith is in as simple a way as I
   know how to speak, and yet, simple as this statement is, if any of you
   do so believe, there will be glory brought to God by it--for no man
   ever did believe except the Holy Spirit led him to believe. "What?"
   says one, "such a simple thing as that?" Permit me to observe that it
   is the simplicity of faith that makes it difficult. If it were
   difficult there would be many who would attempt it. But because it is
   nothing but--"Believe and live,"--proud hearts will not yield to it. It
   is as simple as the first elements of spelling, and because it is so,
   men cannot understand it, for their pride must surround it with
   mystery.

   Men would desire to be wise, and therefore they puzzle themselves with
   that which a child may understand. What is wanted for a man to know
   Christ is for him to get his conceit of education winnowed out of him.
   I mean that what he thinks to be education must be all pulled
   away--that he may be made like a little child--to sit down at Jesus'
   feet and trust Jesus as a child believes its father's word. It is not
   going up that most of you want, but pulling down. It is not getting
   good, it is feeling you are not good which is the main matter for most
   of you to look to. It is not being better in your own esteem--it is
   being utterly undone in your own esteem--which will make you ready for
   Christ.

   This you need, and when you have it I believe you will then come and
   cheerfully lay hold on this blessed, this simple way of salvation! It
   is suitable to the vilest, and yet suitable to the most moral. It is
   fitted, as one said once, to poor old women who are on their dying
   beds, and equally fitted to the most profound of philosophers--fitted
   for the poor, fitted for the rich--fitted for me, fitted for you. O
   that you would have my Lord to be your strong refuge!

   May my Lord and Master grant that He may also marvel at your faith,
   dear Friends. And, though you had none when you came into this
   Tabernacle, may you go out rejoicing because the Lord has visited you,
   and helped you to believe in His name. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Profit Of Godliness In This Life

   (No. 937)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 19, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Bodily exercise profits little: but godliness is profitable unto all
   things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to
   come. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation." 1
   Timothy 4:8,9.

   YOUR attention will be the more readily given to this passage, because
   Paul declares it to be a "faithful"--a most true and certain
   saying--and "worthy of all acceptation," that is to say, worthy to be
   received and practiced by us all. Paul has four of these faithful
   sayings. The first, occurs in 1 Timothy 1:15, "This is a faithful
   saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the
   world to save sinners." The second is our text. The third is in 2
   Timothy 2:12, "It is a faithful saying, if we suffer, we shall also
   reign with Him." And the fourth is in Titus 3:8, "This is a faithful
   saying, that they which have believed in God might be careful to
   maintain good works."

   We may trace a connection between these faithful sayings. The first one
   lays the foundation of our eternal salvation in the free Grace of God,
   as shown to us in the mission of the great Redeemer. The next affirms
   the double blessedness which we obtain through this salvation--the
   blessings of the upper and nether springs of time and of eternity. The
   third shows one of the duties to which the chosen people are called--we
   are ordained to suffer for Christ with the promise that "if we suffer,
   we shall also reign with Him." The last sets forth the active form of
   Christian service, bidding us diligently to maintain good works. Thus
   we have the root of salvation in free Grace.

   Next, we have the privileges of that salvation in the life which now
   is, and in that which is to come. And we have also the two great
   branches of suffering with Christ and serving with Christ, loaded with
   the fruits of the Spirit. Let us treasure up these faithful sayings.
   Let them be the guides of our life, our comfort, and our instruction.
   The Apostle of the Gentiles proved them to be faithful. They are
   faithful still, not one word shall fall to the ground. They are worthy
   of all acceptation, let us accept them now and prove their
   faithfulness. Let these four faithful sayings be written on the four
   corners of your house.

   Today we consider the second of the four, and we will read the text
   again, "Bodily exercise profits little: but godliness is profitable
   unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that
   which is to come." In the days when Paul wrote this Epistle, the Greeks
   and others paid great attention to physical culture, the development of
   the muscles, the proportion of the limbs, the production of everything
   in the body which might conduce to the soundness of manhood. The
   philosophy of Greece all looked that way, and therefore at the various
   gymnasia bodily exercises of an athletic and even violent kind were
   undergone by men with the view of developing the body, and so assisting
   the soul.

   It may be that Timothy, being yet a young man, fancied that there was
   something in this philosophy. And something, indeed, there is. In the
   original the Apostle Paul admits that it is so, for the passage might
   be read thus--"Bodily exercise verily profits a little," or thus,
   "Bodily exercise profits for a short time." Physical training is of
   some service-- attention to it is not sinful nor to be condemned. It is
   of some use and has its proper place, but still it has no very eminent
   position in the Christian system. It occupies a place far in the
   background in the teaching of Christ and His Apostles. It is but a
   minor part of a complete education. It profits a little, a little, for
   a little time.

   But godliness, the worship of God, the fear of God, has a long and
   wealthy entail of blessing, having the promise both of the life that
   now is and of that which is to come. Its profiting is not little but
   great. Its benefit is not confined to the body, but is shared by the
   body and the soul. It is not limited by this mortal life, but overleaps
   the grave and brings its largest revenue of profit in the world where
   graves are all unknown.

   This morning I am about to try and speak upon the profit of godliness
   to a man in this life. We will consider its having the promise of the
   life to come, in the evening, if God spares us.

   With regard to this life, let it be remarked that the religion of our
   Lord Jesus Christ neither undervalues nor overvalues this present life.
   It does not sneer at this life as though it were nothing. On the
   contrary, it ennobles it, and shows the relation which it has to the
   higher and eternal life. It does not overvalue it by making this life,
   and the secular pursuits of it, the main object of any man. It puts it
   into an honorable but yet a secondary place, and says to the sons of
   men, "Seek you first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness. And all
   these things shall be added unto you."

   It is not, however, very easy to keep to the middle point of exact
   truth as to a due estimate of this present life--he who does so is
   taught of God. There are many who undervalue this life--let me mention
   some of them to you. Those undervalue it who sacrifice it to indulge
   their passions, or to gratify their appetites. Too many, for the sake
   of momentary gratifications, have shortened their lives and rendered
   their latter end bitterly painful to themselves. They conceived that
   the pleasures of the flesh were better than life. They were mistaken in
   their estimate. They made but a poor exchange when they chose lust and
   death, rather than purity and life.

   The drunkard has been known to take his cups, though he knew that in so
   doing he was virtually poisoning himself. The man of hot passions has
   been seen to plunge into uncleanness, though the consequences of his
   folly have been plainly set before him. Men who for a morsel of meat,
   or a flash of merriment, are selling this world as well as the world to
   come, are fools, indeed. He that would have pleasure must not pursue it
   too furiously. Temperance is the rule here-- moderation and the use,
   not excess and the abuse--will secure to us the pleasure even of this
   mortal life. Value not, I pray you, the transient joys which the animal
   appetites can bring to you. At least value them not so much as to
   shorten life for their sakes.

   Some evidently undervalue their lives because they make them wretched
   through envy. Others are richer than they are, and they think it a
   miserable thing to be alive at all while others possess more of this
   world's goods than they. They walk, they say, and toil while yonder
   person, who has no more deserts than they, is riding in his chariot.
   So, indeed, they count the chariot the main thing and not the life, and
   they will not enjoy their life because they cannot have a certain
   coveted addition which another possesses.

   Haman is not grateful for all the mercies of life while unbending
   Mordecai sits in the king's gate. He counts his honey to be bitterness
   because he cannot lord it at his will. God gets no thanks at all from
   the man for the innumerable mercies which he has. These are nothing. He
   pines for some particular supposed mercy which he has not. He considers
   that the fact of his being alive, and being favored of God in many
   respects, is nothing at all to be considered, because he has not all
   that big avarice might wish for. O poison not life by the envy of
   others, for if you do so, you miserably undervalue it!

   The slaves of avarice undervalue their lives, for they do not care to
   make life happy, but pinch themselves in order to accumulate wealth.
   The miser who starves himself in order that he may fill his bags may
   well be reasoned with in this way--"Is not the life more than the meat,
   and the body than raiment? Skin for skin, yes, all that other men have
   will they give for their lives. But you give your life for this wealth,
   this glittering dust. You are willing to forego all the enjoyments that
   this life might afford you, that you may have a heap to leave to your
   uncertain heirs, who will probably squander it, and certainly forget
   the hands that scraped the hoard together."

   Why should I throw away myself for the sake of dying rich? Is it true
   success in life to have enjoyed nothing, to have poisoned all my
   existence merely that the world might be informed in a corner of the
   Illustrated News that I died worth so many thousands of pounds? This is
   to undervalue life, indeed.

   So, also, do they undervalue it who in foolhardiness are ready to throw
   it away on the slightest pretext. He that for his country's sake, or
   for the love of his fellow creature, risks life and loses it, truly
   deserves to be called a hero. But he, who, to provoke laughter and to
   win the applause of fools, will venture limb and life without need is
   but a fool himself, and deserves no praise whatever. He undervalues
   life who will display an art which endangers it, or who will run the
   risk of it for anything whatever short of the laudable motive of
   preserving liberty to his country, or life to his fellow men.

   Holy Scripture never teaches us to undervalue our own lives. He that
   said, "You shall not kill," meant that we were not to kill ourselves
   any more than others. We ought to seek by all we can do in the
   surroundings of our habitations, by our cleanliness, by carefully
   observing sanitary laws, by never encouraging dangerous exhibitions,
   and by every other means to show our care of the life that now is, for
   it is a precious thing.

   Yet, my Brethren, there can be such a thing as overvaluing this life,
   and multitudes have fallen into that error. Those overvalue it who
   prefer it to eternal life. Why, it is but as a drop compared with the
   ocean, if you measure time with eternity. Seventy or eighty years of
   dwelling here below--what are they when compared with infinite ages of
   existence in the Presence of the Most High? I reckon that this present
   life is not worthy to be compared with the Glory that shall be revealed
   in us.

   When men in fearful moments have denied the faith for the sake of
   saving their lives, they have overvalued this life. When to preserve
   themselves from the sword, or the fire, or the tortures of the rack,
   they have denied the name of Jesus, they have made a mistake and
   exchanged gold for dross. Alas, how many of us, in like condition,
   might have fallen into the same error? They overvalue this life who
   consider it to be a better thing than Divine love, for the love of God
   is better than life--His loving kindness is better than life itself.

   Some would give anything for their lives, but they would give nothing
   for God's love. If their lives were in danger, they would hasten to the
   physician, but though they enjoy not the love of God they yet sit at
   ease, and seek not the priceless benefit. They who feel aright think it
   a cheap thing to die, but an awful thing to live apart from God. They
   recognize that life would be but death unless God were with us, and
   that death itself is but the vestibule of life while God is our joy and
   our strength! Let us never set the present life before Divine love, and
   never let it be compared even for a moment with the pursuit of God's
   Glory.

   Every Christian man is to feel that he is to take care of his life in
   comparison with any earthly glory. But if it comes to a choice between
   God's Glory and his life, he is to have no timorous hesitation in the
   matter, but at once sacrifice his life freely at his Lord's altar. This
   has been ever the spirit of true Christians. They have never been
   anxious to die, nor have they been fearful concerning the loss of life.
   They have not thrown away their lives--they have known their value too
   well--but they have not withheld their lives for Christ's sake. They
   have esteemed Him to be better than life itself. So you see the
   Scripture teaches us that there is a proper middle course in estimating
   this present life, and if we follow its instructions, we shall neither
   undervalue nor overvalue it.

   It appears from the text, that godliness influences this present life,
   puts it in its true position, and becomes profitable to it.

   I. First, let me observe that GODLINESS CHANGES THE TENURE OF THE LIFE
   THAT NOW IS. It has "the promise of the life that now is." I want you
   to mark the words--"it has the promise of the life that now is." An
   ungodly man lives, but how? He lives in a very different respect from a
   godly man. Sit down in the cell of Newgate with a man condemned to die.
   That man lives, but he is reckoned dead in Law. He has been condemned.
   If he is now enjoying a reprieve, yet he holds his life at another's
   pleasure, and soon he must surrender it to the demands ofjustice. I,
   sitting by the side of him, breathing the same air, and enjoying what
   in many respects is only the same life, yet live in a totally different
   sense. I have not forfeited my life to the Law. I enjoy it as far as
   the Law is concerned, as my own proper right--the Law protects my life,
   though it will destroy his. The ungodly man is condemned already,
   condemned to die, for the wages of sin is death. And his whole life
   here is nothing but a reprieve granted by the longsuffering of God.

   But a Christian man is pardoned and absolved. He owes not his life now
   to penal justice. When death comes to him it will not be at all in the
   sense of an infliction of a punishment. It will not be death, it will
   be the transfer of his spirit to a better state, the slumbering of his
   body for a little while in its proper couch to be awakened in a nobler
   likeness by the trump of the archangel. Now, is not life itself changed
   when held on so different a tenure? To live because I am now protected
   by the Law--is not that better than to be living at the sufferance of
   the Law?

   To live the life of an absolved man, of a free man, the life of God's
   own child even in this present life--is not that a different thing from
   living the life of one to whom each hour measures out a nearer approach
   to the capital sentence, and to the execution of well-deserved
   punishment? The first is a life of pleasure--the second, disguise it as
   you may, is death in life, a life overshadowed with the darkness of
   eternal wrath.

   "Godliness has the promise of the life that now is." That word changes
   the tenure of our present life in this respect, that it removes in a
   sense the uncertainty of it. God has given to none of you unconverted
   ones any promise of the life that now is. You are like squatters on a
   common who pitch their tents, and by the sufferance of the lord of the
   manor may remain there for awhile. But at a moment's notice you must up
   tents and away.

   But the Christian has the promise of the life that now is. That is to
   say, he has the freehold of it. It is life given to him of God, and he
   really enjoys it. He has an absolute certainty about it. In fact, the
   life that now is has become to the Christian a foretaste of the life to
   come. Do you say that it is uncertain to the Christian whether he shall
   die or live? I grant you in one sense his remaining here is uncertain.
   Yet this is certain to him--he shall never die until it is best for him
   to die. He shall never depart this life till he is ripe for the life to
   come--he shall never, in fact, be removed from his present tabernacle
   till he himself, if he knew all, would be perfectly willing to be
   removed.

   Willing! Yes, far more! Overjoyed that his tabernacle should be
   dissolved that he might enter into his "House not made with hands,
   eternal in the heavens." The tenure is very different between the
   uncertainty of the ungodly who has no rights and no legal titles, and
   the blessed certainty of the child of God who lives by promise.

   Let me add that this word seems to me to sweeten the whole of human
   life to the man that has it. Godliness has the promise of life that now
   is--that is to say, everything that comes to a godly man comes to him
   by promise. Whereas if the ungodly man has any blessing apparent, it
   does not come by promise, it comes overshadowed by a terrible guilt
   which curses his very blessings and makes the responsibilities of his
   wealth and of his health and position redound to his own destruction.
   It works as a savor of death unto death through his willful
   disobedience.

   Everything that comes to the Christian comes by promise. He sees his
   daily bread, and he says, "It has my Father's mark on it. He said my
   bread should be given me. Here comes the water from the crystal stream,
   it is flavored with the love of God. He said my water shall be sure."
   He puts on his raiment, and it may not be so comely as the dress of
   others, but be says, "This is the livery my Father promised me." He
   sleeps, and it is beneath the canopy of Divine protection. He wakes and
   he walks abroad with angels, according to the promise, bearing him up
   in their hands.

   Afflictions come to him by promise, the broad arrow of the great King
   is set on each one of them, for was it not said of old, "In the world
   you shall have tribulation, but in Me you shall have peace"? He can see
   everywhere the trace of Divine faithfulness in the keeping of the
   Covenant promise. He lives not the life of Ishmael, who by-and-by may
   be banished to the wilderness with the bondwoman, his mother. No, he
   lives the life of Isaac, the child of the promise, who is before long
   to inherit all things, and who even now is the darling child of his
   father, and rejoices in his father's love.

   There is a vast difference between having the life that now is, and
   having the promise of the life that now is--having God's promise about
   it to make it all gracious, to make it all certain, and to make it all
   blessed as a token of love from

   God.

   II. It is time that we pass on to THE BENEFIT WHICH GODLINESS BESTOWS
   IN THIS LIFE. Perhaps the fullness of the text is the fact that the
   flower of life, the crown of life, the highest blessedness and bliss of
   life, is secured to us by godliness. I have no doubt you have often
   heard interpretations of this text, very excellent--and it is not for
   me to judge or censure them--which lead to the belief that the way to
   make the best of both worlds is to be a Christian.

   I also subscribe to that, but I must demur to the way in which it is
   generally put. There is an excellent sermon by that notable Divine,
   Saurin, in which he urges this text as a proof that the best hope of
   success in the world is enjoyed by the Christian. I demur to that being
   the teaching of this text. There may be some truth in it, but I do not
   think it is much to be insisted on. It has been said that he who fears
   God has the best guarantee of health. It is true, there is nothing in
   godliness to destroy the health of the body. The true Christian is
   preserved from many of those passions, and excitements, and
   indulgences, which tend to produce disease and to bring on early death.

   That much is true, but I do not believe that godliness inevitably
   ensures good health. I believe, rather, that some godly men absolutely
   require for the highest perfection of their godliness, that they should
   be visited with sickness. It seems to me to be a very strange theory,
   to teach that godliness guarantees health, for it would lead to the
   supposition that all people who are unhealthy must necessarily be or
   have been deficient in godliness. And this is all the more untenable
   when we observe that some of the best people we have ever met have been
   those who have for years been bedridden by affliction which they
   certainly never brought upon themselves by any kind of sin.

   I would say to every young man, there is nothing in the pursuit of
   godliness that can injure your health, but I would not say to him, "If
   you are godly you have the promise of being a healthy man," for I do
   not believe it, since unhealthi-ness may come from a thousand other
   sources besides impropriety of conduct. I will go farther, and affirm
   that godliness, when carried to its highest and most honorable degree
   of excellence, might sometimes render it necessary for a man to

   place himself where he would of necessity become unhealthy. I know that
   it was the highest godliness which made our missionaries fix their
   abodes among the fever marshes of Fernando Po and Old Calabar to preach
   the Gospel.

   When I heard from one of our missionaries, as I did personally, that he
   had at last become so acclimatized that he did not have the fever
   oftener than about two days out of three, I could not think that
   godliness in his case necessarily involved health. But I gathered that
   it might so happen that an eminently godly man might feel it necessary
   to go where he might say, "Farewell, Health, you are not, after all,
   the promise of the life that now is. I can bear to suffer, I can bear
   to creep about this world sick and ready to die if I may but have what
   is better than health--the luxury of winning souls for Christ--the
   honor and joy of instructing the ignorant in the faith of the crucified
   Redeemer."

   It were wicked to think that a man has less of godliness who sacrifices
   his health for Christ's sake. He certainly would not be the man to miss
   the promise, and yet if health were such a promise he would evidently
   have missed it.

   Again, we have heard it argued that the godly man has the best prospect
   of wealth in this world. Now I will also grant that as godliness
   delivers us from a multitude of expenses into which riot and
   dissipation would lead us, and as godliness creates habits of sobriety
   and economy, as godliness begets honesty, and honesty is even in a
   worldly sense the best policy, there are some reasons why Christian
   traders should grow rich, and godly men have much in their favor.

   But I also cannot help recognizing that while trade is as it is, there
   are many things which a Christian man cannot do, and dare not do, which
   some have done, and are to this day rich for having done them--dirty
   acts, mean, low, and groveling--which have brought wealth to the
   creatures who have practiced them. And yet more--I have known the best
   of Christians, and men, too, whose outward conduct has been fully
   conformable to their profession--who have lived and died poor. Now, if
   wealth is the promise of the life that now is, I venture to say that
   godliness does not infallibly or even generally secure it. The
   God-fearing man may have as fair an opportunity as any other in the
   race of life, but all things considered, this is all we can say. It may
   be that the godly man may be a poor man, and from a dozen circumstances
   not connected with his religion or his morals, may live and may die
   poor in this world, but rich in faith.

   It has also been said that godliness has the promise of the life that
   now is, in the sense that a Christian man is the most likely to have a
   good name, fame, and reputation among his fellow men. That also is true
   in a measure. In well-regulated society, the believer in Christ,
   through the holiness of his character, will be had in esteem, and even
   among the worst of men the excellence of his conduct will command a
   measure of respect. But for all that, I do not believe that repute
   among men is the promise of the life that now is--for what is it after
   all? Good repute among men, if it is deserved, I shall not decry. But
   if by any chance slander should come and take away the good man's
   name--and it has often done so--shall I say pity the calumniated saint
   as one who has lost the promise of the life that now is?

   I dare not think it! Far rather would I bid him rejoice in that day,
   and leap for joy, for so persecuted they the Prophets that were before
   him. And who is the most likely person to be slandered? Is it not the
   man who is most consistent with his profession, and most zealous in the
   spread of the faith? The Apostle Paul certainly never accounted riches
   to be the promise of the life that now is, for he had nothing. He had
   learned to be poor, and to labor with his hands. He certainly never
   reckoned health to be the promise of the life that now is, for he was
   in such circumstances of peril by land and sea, and among false
   brethren, that his life was in jeopardy for the Gospel. And as to a
   good name, he never regarded that as the promise of the life that now
   is, for he was willingly accounted as the offscouring of all
   things--some thought him mad, others thought him base, his repute with
   the multitude was gone.

   I will repeat what I have said, lest I be misunderstood. Under ordinary
   circumstances it is true that godliness wears a propitious face both
   towards health, and wealth, and name--and he who has respect to these
   things, shall not find himself, as a rule, injured in the pursuit of
   them by his godliness. But still I disdain altogether the idea that all
   these three things together are, or even make up a part of the promise
   of the life that now is. I believe some persons have the life that now
   is in its fullness, and the promise of it in its richest fulfillment,
   who have neither wealth, health, nor fame. Being blessed with the
   suffering Master's smile and Presence, they are happier far than those
   who roll in wealth, who luxuriate in fame, and have all the rich
   blessings which health includes.

   Let me now show you what I think is the promise of the life that now
   is. I believe it to be an inward happiness, which is altogether
   independent of outward circumstances. It is something richer than
   wealth, fairer than health, and more substantial than fame. This secret
   of the Lord, this deep delight, this calm repose, godliness always
   brings in proportion as it reigns in the heart.

   Let us try and show that this is so. A godly man, my Brethren, is one
   who is at one with his Maker. It must always be right with the creature
   when it is at one with the Creator. The Creator is Omnipotent,
   All-Just, All-Holy. When the creature is out of gear with the Creator
   it will always be dashing itself against the pricks, and wounding
   itself. As the Creator will not change, if the creature runs not
   parallel to the Divine will, the creature must suffer, must be unhappy,
   must be restless. But when godliness puts our will into conformity with
   the Divine will, the more fully it does so, the more certainly it
   secures to us happiness even in the life that now is.

   I am not happy necessarily because I am in good health, but I am happy
   if I am content to be out of health when God wills it. I am not happy
   because I am wealthy, but I am happy if it pleases me to be poor
   because it pleases God I should be. I am not happy because I happen to
   be famous, but I am happy if, being all unknown, I count it my highest
   fame to be accepted in the Beloved. A heart reconciled to the Divine
   will has full possession of the promise of the life that now is, for
   such peace with God is perfect happiness where it perfectly
   exists--conformity to God's will is Heaven below. I pray that godliness
   may work in all of you a conformity to the Divine will, and then I am
   sure, whatever your outward lot may be, you will win the promise of the
   life that now is.

   The Christian man starting in life as such is best fitted for this
   life. He is like a vessel fittingly stored for all the storms and
   contrary currents that may await it. The Christian is like a soldier
   who must gladly go to battle, but he is protected by the best armor
   that can be procured. He wears the helmet and the breastplate. He wears
   the entire Divine panoply which heavenly wisdom has prepared to protect
   him from every dart of his adversaries. He has the promise of the life
   that already is, just as the man with a good sword and good armor has
   the best promise of success in battle.

   O that God may grant us Grace to know and feel that the best
   instruments and weapons of the warfare of this life are to be found in
   the arsenals of holiness, in the armories of confidence in God! In this
   sense we have again the promise of the life that now is. With a
   Christian all things that happen to him work for good. Is not this a
   rich part of the promise of the life that now is? What if the waves
   roar against him--they speed his boat towards the haven! What if the
   thunders and lightning come forth? They clear the atmosphere and
   promote his soul's health.

   He gains by his losses, he grows healthy by his sicknesses, he lives by
   dying, he is enriched by being despoiled of his goods. Do you ask for
   any better promise than this? Is it not better that all things should
   work for my good, than that all things should be as I would wish to
   have them? They might all work my pleasure, and yet might all work my
   ruin. But now if they do not always please me--yet if they always
   benefit me--is not this the best promise of the life that now is?

   The Christian enjoys his God under all circumstances. That, again, is
   the promise of the life that now is. I spoke of his being reconciled to
   God--he is much more than that--he delights himself in his God. He
   finds God in Nature. The landscape glows for him with a more Divine
   color than any other eye can see. As for the heavens, with their starry
   glories, there is a light in them which has not yet been beheld by the
   natural man. He sees God in his solitude, and peoples his loneliness
   with the spirits that are akin with the Most High. He is, wherever he
   may be, never debarred from the society he loves best. A wish will find
   his God, a tear will bring him his best Beloved.

   He has but to sigh and cry when on the bed of sickness, and God comes
   and makes his bed for him. Blessed man, he has, indeed, the promise of
   the life that now is, for in it all, and over it all, he sees the
   Divine love shining for him with a supernal splendor and making earth
   but the porch of Heaven. This is to have the life that now is in the
   fullness of the promise. I am sure you will agree with me that the
   genuine possessor of godliness has the promise of the life that now is
   in his freedom from many of those cares and fears which rob life of all
   its luster.

   The man without godliness is weighted with the care of every day, and
   of all the days that are to come--the dread remembrance of the past,
   and the terror of the future as well. The godly man knows that all the
   past is forgiven, his transgressions are blotted out. As for the
   present, he casts that burden on the Lord. As for the future, he would
   not pry into it with anxious eye, but he leaves God to rule and govern
   as He wills. He sits down, calmly content that his Father's will is
   right and good towards him. And as he is thus free from care, so is he
   free from the fear of men.

   Ungodly men, many of them, are servile to their fellow men. It is to
   them a most important question whether they are smiled upon or frowned
   at by their fellow worms. The godly man has learned to lift his head
   above the common race of mankind, and when he lives as he should, he
   neither thinks a thing the better because men praise it, nor the worse
   because they censure it. His rule is not popular opinion, nor the
   dictates of the philosophy of the hour. He believes what

   God tells him to be true, and what God prescribes he knows to be right.
   And he does this careless of man's judgment, for none can judge him but
   his Master.

   That man has the promise of the life that now is who is in full
   enjoyment of the sweets of a clear conscience. He can afford to snap
   his fingers in the face of all mankind and declare that if the heavens
   themselves should fall, he would do the right, and dare all things for
   God. Oh, to have the yoke of human judgment from off your neck, and the
   bondage of man's domineering opinion from off your spirit! This is to
   receive the promise of the life that now is.

   Moreover, the fear of death has gone from the Christian. This with many
   deprives the life that now is of everything that is happy and
   consoling. They are afraid in their merriest moments that the skeleton
   will disturb the feast. And when the dance is merriest, they think they
   hear the sound of the trumpet that will silence all. But the Christian
   is not afraid. To him the prospect of departure is rather joyous than
   grievous, and the breaking up of this mortal state is an event he looks
   for as the clearing away of multitudes of sorrows and the bringing in
   of mighty joys.

   Brothers and Sisters, to be free from the fear of death is to make life
   truly life--and he has it who leans wholly upon Christ--and knows that
   Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. Put these things
   together-peacefulness with his fellow men, peace with God, a sense that
   all things are working for his good, fearlessness of man's judgment,
   communion with the Most High--and surely you have described in a few
   words the very flower of life--the thing that makes it worth while to
   live.

   This does not lie, as I have said before, in accumulated treasure. It
   does not blush in the rosy cheek. It does not dwell in the trump of
   fame. It resides within, when the man walks with God and subdues the
   earth beneath his feet. When the soul communes with the spiritual, and
   makes the visible to glow in the light of the unseen. When the man's
   peace and joy all stream from the deep springs of God's love, and the
   man lives in God, and God lives in him. Herein lies the highest kind of
   life--it is the flower of the life that now is--and GODLINESS it is
   that has the promise of it.

   I must not detain you longer, except to make an application of the
   subject to the present assembly. Brothers and Sisters, you who have
   godliness, and live in the fear of God, let me entreat you to believe
   that there is provided for you in godliness, comfort, joy, and delight
   for the life that now is. You need not postpone your feasting upon
   Christ till you see Him face to face. Feed on Him this day. You need
   not wait for the joys of the Holy Spirit till you have shaken off this
   cumbrous clay. The joy of the Lord is your strength today. You need not
   think that your peace and rest remain as yet in the future, hidden from
   you. Eternal life with its blessings is a present possession.

   They that believe do enter into rest, and may enter into rest now. The
   clusters of Eshcol are before you, brought to you by a Divine hand
   before you cross the Jordan--

   "The men of Grace ha ve found Glory begun below, Celestial fruits on
   earthly ground From faith and hope do grow."

   We do not say that godliness has made all Believers rich, for some here
   will be content always to be poor. The whole body of the faithful
   cannot claim that godliness has brought them earthly treasure, for some
   of the greatest of them have written that if in this life only they had
   hope, they would have been of all men the most miserable. But without
   exception, the whole of us can unanimously declare that we have found
   in godliness the highest happiness, the supreme delight, the richest
   consolation.

   I pray you, therefore, who profess godliness, be not content unless you
   have the promise of the life that now is. Believe that you can not only
   make this life sublime, but make it joyous. Believe that you can now be
   raised up together and made to sit together in the heavenly places in
   Christ Jesus. You cannot find a Heaven in things below, for the moth is
   there, and the rust that corrupts. But you can, while here, if you set
   your affections upon things above, and not on things on the earth, find
   Glory begun within you, and a young Heaven already shining about your
   path. The life that now is-- claim it! Up, you sons of Israel, and slay
   the Amalekites that would take away from you your comfort! Arise, you
   men that fear the Lord, and demand that doubts and fears, like the
   accursed Canaanites, shall be chased from the land. For the promise of
   God ought to be believed, and in the believing of it, your peace shall
   be like a river, and your joy shall overflow.

   Another application of the text is this. There is a bearing of it upon
   the sinner. It is quite certain, O ungodly man, that the promise of the
   life that now is belongs only to those who are godly. Are you content
   to miss the cream of this

   life? I pray you, if you will not think of the life to come, at least
   think of this. You desire to be happy. You have intelligence enough to
   know that happiness does not consist in externals, but in the state of
   your mind. I assure you, and there are thousands of my Brethren who can
   affirm the same, that after having tried the ways of sin, we infinitely
   prefer the ways of righteousness for their own pleasure's sake even
   here, and we would not change with ungodly men even if we had to die
   like dogs.

   With all the sorrow and care which Christian life is supposed to bring,
   we would prefer it to any other form of life beneath the stars. There
   is no man like the Christian, after all. Happy are you, O Israel, a
   people saved of the Lord! We do not come to you and tell you that
   godliness will make you rich, although there is no need that it should
   make you poor. We do not tell you it will make you healthy. It
   certainly will not make you the reverse. But these are not the things
   with which we would bribe you--these are inferior blessings, which we
   dare not set before you as worthy of your seeking after in the first
   instance.

   But we do tell you that if you will but seek the Lord while He may be
   found, and put your trust in His Christ, who came to put away sin, you
   shall have the happiest, best, noble, most desirable life that can be
   enjoyed on earth! Now many of you believe this. I know you do. In your
   hearts you envy Christians--even poor Christians. You feel that you
   would gladly be as sick or as poor as yonder pious saint, if you might
   have his hope, if you might have his God. Well, if you know which is
   best, have which is best. "May I have it?" says one. Who said you might
   not? Does not the Lord invite you to taste and see that He is good?

   Has not He even commanded you, and are not these His Words, "Believe in
   the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved"? Simply to trust, and to
   rely--this is to begin the Divine life, and this will introduce you
   into a nobler sphere than mortals know of. They rejoice when corn and
   wine fill their barns and their vats, but you will say, "Lord, lift up
   the light of Your countenance upon me," and in that you will find a
   richer joy than they. "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 return unto the Lord, and He
   will have mercy upon him. And to our God, for He will abundantly
   pardon." God bless you, for Christ's sake.

   [Sermon #946, The Profit of Godliness in the Life to Come, is the
   sermon Brother Spurgeon preached in the evening of June 19, 1870, and
   is the companion sermon to this one.]
     __________________________________________________________________

A Good Soldier Of Jesus Christ

   (No. 938)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 26, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "A good soldier of Jesus Christ." 2 Timothy 2:2,3.

   MANY men, many minds. In reference to what a Christian is there have
   been very many and diverse opinions. According to the notions of some,
   a Christian is an exquisite of remarkably delicate tastes. He cannot
   worship except it be in a place whose architecture is correctly Gothic,
   otherwise his dainty soul will be shocked. He is unable to offer prayer
   aright unless his devotions are uplifted upon the wings of the choicest
   music. And, even then, scarcely will he be successful unless he is
   aided by sundry gentlemen, whose pedigree, like that of racehorses, can
   be clearly traced, and whose garments the tailor has fashioned
   according to the directions of the ecclesiastical fashion book for the
   various seasons of the year.

   If this is to be a Christian in these days, it must be confessed that
   Paul has said little concerning this delicate and artistic sort of
   creature, unless, indeed, he had reference to it in Galatians 4:9, 10,
   11, which read at your leisure--neither would Paul's Master acknowledge
   it.

   With some a Christian is a spiritual gourmet. He attends upon the
   ministry of the Word for no purpose but to be fed. He strongly
   denounces every sermon that is aimed at the conversion of sinners, for
   he looks even upon the Bible itself as a book solely intended to yield
   him personal consolation. The more any doctrinal teaching promises him
   a monopoly of good things, and the more it excludes others, the better
   he enjoys it--it being to him a particular part of the sweetness of the
   feast to believe that but a very slender company may dare to partake of
   it.

   For him to live is to enjoy and not to serve. To gratify his
   selfishness he would blot out the free invitations of the Gospel. He is
   not a hearer only, but certainly he is not also a doer. He is a hearer
   and a feeder, in a certain coarse sense, upon the Word of God, and
   nothing more. That is not Paul's ideal of a Christian. He does not
   picture him with his napkin in his hand, sitting at a banquet table,
   but rather with a sword girt upon his thigh, ready for the conflict.

   To some, the highest form of Christian is a great reader--a profound
   student of the best of books--for the purpose of composing spiritual
   riddles. He reads for no practical end. He is a picker-out of words, a
   speller-over of syllables, a magnifier of microscopic points, a
   proficient in biblical hair-splitting. The more a passage perplexes
   others the more sure he is of its meaning. He cares most for things
   which have the least practical bearing. He is a peeper through
   spiritual spyglasses, fancying that he can interpret what wiser men
   leave to God to expound. He is a hunter after spiritual conies, which,
   if caught, would never pay the huntsman for his toil, while the
   weightier matters he holds in small esteem. This does not seem to have
   been Paul's conception of a Christian. For the Apostle was no lover of
   foolish and unlearned questions which gender strife.

   And I am afraid I must add that with some the ideal of a Christian is
   that of a man who can sleep out his existence in blissful serenity--a
   man who, having believed, or professed to believe in Christ--has
   settled his lifework forever, and from now on can say, "Soul, take your
   ease, you have from now on much goods laid up for many years in your
   own security. Eat, drink, be merry in the Gospel. But as for feeding
   the hungry or clothing the naked, are you your brother's keeper? What
   is that to you? See you to yourself, and if you, yourself are right,
   let fate, or Providence, or Sovereignty, take care of the rest."

   Paul does not appear to have pictured true Believers as sluggards sound
   asleep upon the downiest beds. His description of a Christian in the
   text is that of a soldier. And that means something far different
   either from a religious fop, whose best delight is music and millinery,
   or a theological critic who makes a man an offender for a word. Or a
   spiritual glutton who cares for nothing but a lifelong enjoyment of the
   fat things full of marrow. Or an ecclesiastical slumberer who longs
   only for peace for himself. Paul represents him as a soldier and that,
   I say, is quite another thing.

   For what is a soldier? A soldier is a practical man, a man who has work
   to do, and hard, stern work. He may sometimes, when he is at his ease,
   wear the fineries of war, but when he comes to real warfare he cares
   little enough for them. The dust and the smoke, and the garments rolled
   in blood--these are for those who go soldiering. And swords all hacked,
   and dented armor, and bruised shields--these are the things that mark
   the good, the practical, soldier. Truly to serve God, really to exhibit
   Christian graces, fully to achieve a lifework for Christ, actually to
   win souls--this is to bear fruit worthy of a Christian.

   A soldier is a man of deeds, and not of words. He has to contend and
   fight. In war times his life knows little of luxurious ease. In the
   dead of night, perhaps, the trumpet sounds to boot and saddle--just at
   the time when he is most weary--and he must hurry to the attack just
   when he would best prefer to take his rest in sleep. The Christian is a
   soldier in an enemy's country always needing to stand on his
   watchtower, constantly to be contending, though not with flesh and
   blood--with far worse foes--namely, with spiritual wickedness in high
   places.

   The Christian is a self-sacrificing man as the soldier must be. To
   protect his country, the soldier must expose his own bosom. To serve
   his King, he must be ready to lay down his life. Surely he is no
   Christian who never felt the spirit of self-sacrifice. If I live unto
   myself I am living unto the flesh, and of the flesh I shall reap
   corruption. Only he who lives to his God, to Christ, to the Truth of
   God, to the Church, and to the good old cause--only he is the man who
   can reckon himself at all to be a soldier of Jesus Christ.

   A soldier is a serving man. He does not follow his own pleasure. He is
   under law and rule. Each hour of the day has its prescribed duty. And
   he must be obedient to the word of another and not to his own will and
   whim. Such is the Christian. We serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Though no
   longer the slaves of man so as to dread his frown, we are servants of
   Christ who has loosed our bonds.

   The soldier is full often a suffering man. There are wounds, there are
   toils, there are frequent stays in the hospitals-- there may be ghastly
   cuts which let the soul out with the blood. Such the Christian soldier
   must be ready to suffer, enduring hardship, not looking for pleasure of
   a worldly kind in this life, but counting it his pleasure to renounce
   his pleasure for Christ's sake. Once again, the true soldier is an
   ambitious being. He pants for honor, seeks for glory. On the field of
   strife he gathers his laurels, and amidst a thousand dangers he reaps
   renown.

   The Christian is fired by higher ambitions than any earthly warrior
   ever knew. He sees a crown that can never fade. He loves a King who
   best of all is worthy to be served. He has a motive within him which
   moves him to the noble deeds-- a Divine spirit impelling him to the
   most self-sacrificing actions. Thus you see the Christian is a soldier,
   and it is one of the main things in Christian life to contend earnestly
   for the faith, and to fight valorously against sin.

   Paul does not exhort Timothy to be a common, or ordinary soldier, but
   to be a "good soldier of Jesus Christ." For all soldiers, and all true
   soldiers may not be good soldiers. There are men who are but just
   soldiers and nothing more. They only need sufficient temptation and
   they readily become cowardly, idle, useless and worthless. But he is
   the good soldier who is bravest of the brave, courageous at all times.
   He is zealous, does his duty with heart and earnestness. He is the good
   soldier of Jesus Christ who, through Divine Grace, aims to make himself
   as able to serve his Lord as shall be possible.

   He tries to grow in Grace and to be perfected in every good word and
   work that he may be in his Master's battles fit for the roughest and
   sternest service, and ready to bear the very brunt of the fray. David
   had many soldiers, and good soldiers, too, but you remember it was said
   of many, "These attained not unto the first three." Now Paul, if I read
   him rightly, would have Timothy try to be of the first three, to be a
   good soldier. And surely I would, this morning, say to my dear comrades
   in the little army of Christ meeting here--let each one of us try to
   attain unto the first three. Let us ask to be numbered among the King's
   mighties, to do noble work for Him and honorable service, that we may
   bring to our Master's cause fresh glory. Be it ours to covet earnestly
   the best gifts, and as we have had much forgiven, let us love much, and
   prove that love by action.

   Before I proceed fully to open up this metaphor, let me say that though
   we shall use military terms this morning, and stirring speech, it
   should ever be remembered that we have no war against persons, and that
   the weapons which we use are not such as are forged for the deadly
   conflicts of mankind. The wars of a Christian are against principles,
   against sins, against the miseries of mankind, against that Evil One
   who has led man astray from his Maker. Our wars are against the

   iniquity which keeps man an enemy to himself. The weapons that we use
   are holy arguments and consecrated lives, devotion and prayer to God,
   teaching and example among the sons of men.

   Ours is battling for the peace, and fighting for rest. We disturb the
   world to make it quiet, and turn it upside down to set it right. We
   pull down strongholds that they may not pull down the Zion of God. We
   dash down the mighty that the humble and the meek may be established.
   We have no sympathy with any other war, but count it an evil of the
   direst sort, let it be disguised as it may. Now with that caution,
   whatever I shall seem to say will not sound as though I loved or
   excused ordinary warfare--for nothing can be more abhorrent to the
   Christian man than wholesale slaughter. Nothing can be more desired by
   us than the promised era when men shall beat their swords into
   ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.

   Now let us come to the work of this morning. First, we shall describe a
   good soldier of Jesus Christ, and when we have done so, we shall exhort
   you to be such.

   I. First, then, this morning, we shall endeavor TO DESCRIBE A GOOD
   SOLDIER OF JESUS CHRIST. We must begin with this fundamental--he must
   be loyal to his King. A soldier of Jesus Christ owns the Divine
   Redeemer as his King, and confesses His sole and undivided sovereignty
   in the spiritual kingdom. He abhors Antichrist in all its forms, and
   every principle that opposes itself to the reign of the Beloved Prince
   of Peace. Jesus is to him both Lord and God. The day when he enlisted,
   he did, as it were, put his finger into the print of the nails, and
   said with Thomas, "My Lord and my God."

   This was his enlistment declaration, and he remains true to it. "Christ
   is All," is his motto, and to win all men to obedience to Immanuel is
   his lifework. Till he sheathes his sword in the last victory, the
   Crucified is sole monarch of his soul. For Him he lives, for Him he
   would even dare to die. He has entered into solemn league and covenant,
   to maintain against all comers that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory
   of God the Father.

   Moreover, the Christian soldier not only acknowledges Jesus to be his
   King, but his heart is full of loving devotion to Him as such. Nothing
   can make his heart leap like the mention of that august, that more than
   royal name. He remembers who Jesus is, the Son of God, "the Wonderful,
   the Counselor, the Mighty God." He remembers what Jesus did, how He
   loved him, and gave Himself for him. He looks to the Cross and
   remembers the streams of blood whereby the elect were redeemed, even
   when they were enemies of God. He remembers Christ in Heaven, enthroned
   at the right hand of the Father.

   He loves Him there, and it ravishes his heart to think that God has
   highly exalted the once-despised and rejected One, and given Him a name
   that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall
   bow, of things in Heaven, and things in earth, and things under the
   earth. He pants for the time when the Crucified shall come in His
   Glory, and rule the nations as their liege Lord. He loves Jesus so that
   he feels he belongs to Him altogether, bought with His blood, redeemed
   by His power, and comforted by His Presence. He delights to know that
   he is not his own, for he is bought with a price. And since he loves
   his King, and loves Him with an ardor unquenchable--for many waters
   cannot drown his love, neither can the floods quench it--he loves all
   the King's Brethren and servants for the King's sake.

   He hails his Brethren in arms with hearty affection. He loves the grand
   old banner of the Gospel. He prays for the wind of the Holy Spirit to
   expand its furls, that all eyes may behold its beauties. He is
   steadfast in the faith once delivered to the saints, and rejoices so
   much at every doctrine of the Gospel that he would gladly lay down his
   life to preserve it to the world. Above all, he loves the crown of his
   King, and the cause of his Master. Oh, could he set the Captain of his
   salvation higher among men, he would be content to die in the ditch of
   neglect and scorn! Could he but see the King come to His own, and the
   Heir of all things loyally acknowledged by His revolted provinces, he
   would be satisfied whatever might become of himself. His heart is more
   than loyal, it is full of personal affection for the Chief among ten
   thousand.

   I ask you, Brethren, whether it is so with you? Believing, yes, knowing
   that it is so with many, I would to God it were thus with all.
   Brethren, I know you love Jesus well, no music sounds to your ears so
   sweetly as His charming name. No song of choicest minstrel is half so
   sweet. The very thought of Him with rapture fills your breasts.
   Assuredly you have one of the first marks of good soldiers--go on, I
   pray you, to that which lies beyond.

   The next characteristic of a good soldier is that he is obedient to his
   captain's commands. He would be no soldier at all who would not take
   his marching orders from his leader, but must needs act after his own
   mind. He would soon be dismissed from service, if not shot by order of
   a court martial for crimes which military rule cannot tolerate. Now,
   with-

   out enlarging on that illustration, let me ask every Christian here,
   and myself first of all, are we doing all the Master's will? Do we wish
   to know the Master's will? I should not like that any part of the
   Scripture should be distasteful to me. I would tremble if there were
   portions of my Lord's Testimony which I feared to read, or found it
   convenient to forget.

   It is terrible when men are obliged to pass over certain texts, or else
   to cut and square them to make them agree with their beliefs. We should
   not practice an ordinance merely because our Church teaches it, or our
   parents believed in it. We must read the Scriptures and search the
   question for ourselves, or we are not respectful to our Lord. The
   soldier who did not take the trouble to read the orders of his superior
   might justly be suspected of mutinous intentions. Disobedience rankles
   in any heart where there is carelessness about knowing the Lord's will.
   Be courageous enough always to look Scripture in the face--it is, after
   all, nothing more than your bare duty.

   Better for us that we changed our sentiments every day in order to be
   right, than that we held to them obstinately while we had some fear
   that perhaps we were wrong. To live a life of obedience is a greater
   matter than some suppose. Obedience is no second-rate virtue--"to obey
   is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." "If you
   love Me"--what does Jesus say, "Go to the stake for Me," or, "Preach
   before kings for Me"? No, neither of these things is expressly
   selected, but "If you love Me, keep My commandments," as though this
   were the surest and most accepted test of love. May you thus, then,
   being loyal to the King, be in the second place obedient to His
   commands.

   The third matter for a good soldier to mind is this--if he is, indeed,
   a first-class soldier, worthy of the service--to conquer will be his
   ruling passion. The fight is on, and the soldier's blood is up, and now
   he feels, "I must drive the enemy from his entrenchment, I must take
   yonder redoubt. I must plant our conquering standard on the castle of
   the foe, or I must die. Accursed be the sun if he goes down this day
   and sees me turn my back upon the enemy." He is resolved that he will
   win or lie cold and stark upon the battlefield. The Christian man, in
   order that he may win for Christ the souls of others, may make known
   Christ's Truth, may establish Christ's Church on fresh ground, is quite
   as ready to suffer or die as is the boldest member of the most renowned
   regiment.

   To do this he disentangles himself as much as he can from all other
   ambitions and aims, "for he that wars, entangles not himself with the
   affairs of this life." With a good soldier of Christ the master passion
   is to spread the Gospel, to save souls from perishing--and he would
   sooner do this and be poor than be rich and neglect it. He would sooner
   be useful and live unknown than rank among the great ones of the earth
   and be useless to his Lord. A truly good soldier of Jesus Christ knows
   nothing about difficulties except as things to be surmounted. If his
   Master bids him perform exploits too hard for him, he draws upon the
   resources of Omnipotence, and achieves impossibilities.

   Wellington sent word to his troops one night, "Ciudad Rodrigo must be
   taken tonight." And what do you think was the commentary of the British
   soldiers appointed for the attack? "Then," said they all, "we will do
   it." So when our great Captain sends round, as He does to us, the Word
   of command, "Go you into all the world and preach the Gospel to every
   creature," if we were all good soldiers of the Cross, we should say at
   once, "We will do it." However hard the task, since God Himself is with
   us to be our Captain, and Jesus the Priest of the Most High is with us
   to sound the trumpet, we will do it in Jehovah's name. May such
   dauntless resolution fire your breasts, my Brothers and Sisters, and
   may you thus prove yourselves "good soldiers of Jesus Christ."

   The passion for victory with the soldier often makes him forget
   everything else. Before the battle of Waterloo, Pic-ton had had two of
   his ribs smashed in at Quartre Bras, but he concealed this serious
   injury, and, though suffering intense agony, he rode at the head of his
   troops, and led one of the great charges which decided the fortunes of
   the day. He never left his post, but rode on till a ball crushed in his
   skull and penetrated to his brain. Then in the hot fight the hero fell.
   How few among us could thus endure hardness for Jesus? O that we felt
   we could suffer anything sooner than be turned aside from accomplishing
   our lifework for Him we love!

   In that same battle one of our lieutenants, in the early part of the
   day, had his left forearm broken by a shot. He could not, therefore,
   hold the reins in his hand, but he seized them with his mouth and
   fought on till another shot broke the upper part of the arm to
   splinters, and it had to be amputated. But within two days there he
   was, with his arm still bleeding, and the wound all raw, riding at the
   head of his division. Brave things have been done among the soldiers of
   our country--O that such brave things were common among the armed men
   of the Church militant!

   Would to God that in the teeth of suffering we could all persevere in
   living the holy life He bids us live, and in zealously spreading abroad
   that glorious Gospel which has saved our souls and which will save the
   souls of others. Great

   Master, by Your own example inspire us with this valor! I desire to see
   in this, our Beloved Church, more of you who are resolved that Christ's
   Gospel shall conquer this South of London. That it shall conquer the
   world! That Christ shall see of the travail of His soul and be
   satisfied. I long to witness more of that dogged perseverance among
   Christians which would make them work on and on, even without success,
   and persevere under every discouragement, until at last their Master
   shall give them their reward on earth, or else take them away to their
   reward in Heaven. To be a good soldier of Jesus Christ there must be a
   passion for victory, an insatiable greed for setting up the Throne of
   Jesus in the souls of men.

   Fourthly, a good soldier is very brave at a charge. When the time comes
   and the orders are given for the good soldier to advance to the attack,
   he does not wish himself away. Though a perfect hail of hurtling shot
   whistles all around, and the ranks of the army are thinned, he is glad
   to be there--for he feels the stern joy that flushes the face in the
   light of battle--and he only wants to be within arm's length of the foe
   and to come to close quarters with him. So is it with the genuine
   Christian when his heart is right with God. If he is bid to advance,
   let the danger be what it may, he feels he is honored by having such a
   service allotted to him.

   But are we all such? I fear not. How many of us are silent about Jesus
   Christ in private conversation? How little do we show forth our light
   before men. If we were good soldiers, such as we ought to be, we should
   select every favorable opportunity in private as well as in public
   communion with our fellow men, and prudently but yet zealously press
   the claims of Jesus Christ and His Gospel upon them. Oh, do this,
   Beloved, and good will come of it! We should each one be seeking to
   have his own special work for Jesus, and if no one else were attempting
   the task, we should, like the brave men who rush in to the storming of
   a battery, carry the flag first and plant it, knowing that there are
   hundreds of others who will follow the first brave man, who might not
   be able perhaps to lead the way themselves.

   My Beloved, may you and I be ready for anything, and bold to bear
   witness for Christ before a scoffing world. In the pulpits where we
   preach, in the workshops where we labor, in the markets where we trade,
   in every company amidst which we are called to move--wherever we may
   be, may we be brave enough to own our Lord and to uphold His cause.

   But this is not all that goes to make a good soldier. A good soldier is
   like a rock under attack. So British soldiers have been. They have
   stood in solid squares against the enemies' cavalry until their foes
   have dashed upon them madly, gnashed their teeth, fired in their faces,
   thrown their guns at them, and yet might just as well have ridden
   against granite rocks. For our soldiers did not know how to yield, and
   would not retreat. As fast as one fell another filled up the gap, and
   there stood the square of iron defying the rush of the foe.

   We want this kind of fixed, resolved, persevering godliness in our
   Churches, and we shall have it if we are good soldiers of Jesus Christ.
   Alas, too many are exhausted by the zeal at first exhibited. For a time
   they can reach the highest point, but to continue on, and on, and
   on--this is too difficult a task for them. How many young people will
   join the Church and for awhile seem very zealous and then grow cold!
   Alas, it is not always the young, there are some among yourselves who
   were once most diligent in your various forms of service. What hinders
   you that you are not diligent in your Master's business now? Has Christ
   given you leave to retire into inglorious ease? Does He exempt you from
   service?

   Take heed lest you are also exempt from reward. No, we must through all
   our Christian life maintain our integrity, resist temptation, tread the
   separated path, and seek the souls of men with undying ardor--with
   indefatigable earnestness--wrestling with God for men and with men for
   God. Oh, for more of this stern determination to stand, and having done
   all--to still stand!

   The last mark of a really good soldier of Jesus Christ is that he
   derives his strength from on High. This has been true even of some
   common soldiers, for religious men, when they have sought strength from
   God, have been all the braver in the day of conflict. I like the story
   of Frederick the Great. When he overheard his favorite general engaged
   in prayer, and was about to utter a sneering remark, the fine old man,
   who never feared a foe, and did not even fear his majesty's jest, said,
   "Your Majesty, I have just been asking aid from your Majesty's great
   Ally." He had been waiting upon God.

   This is how Christians get the victory. They seek it from the Church's
   great Ally, and then go to the conflict sure that they shall win the
   day. He is the best Christian who is the best intercessor. He shall do
   the most who shall pray the best. In the battle of Salamanca, when
   Wellington bade one of his officers advance with his troops and occupy
   a gap which the Duke perceived in the lines of the French, the general
   rode up to him, and said, "My lord, I will do the work, but first give
   me a grasp of that conquering right hand of yours." He received a
   hearty grip, and away he rode to the deadly encounter.

   Often has my soul said to her Captain, "My Lord, I will do that work if
   You will give me a grip of Your conquering right hand." Oh, what power
   it puts into a man when he gets a grip of Christ, and Christ gets a
   grip of him! Fellowship with Christ is the fountain of the Church's
   strength. Her power did never lie in her wealth, nor in the eloquence
   of her preachers, nor in anything that comes of man. The strength of
   the Church is Divine, and if she fails to draw strength from the
   Everlasting Hills, she becomes weak as water. Good soldiers of Jesus
   Christ, watch unto prayer, "praying in the Holy Spirit," for so shall
   you be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.

   II. Thus I have in a very poor way described a good soldier of Jesus
   Christ. Give me a few minutes while I EXHORT YOU TO BE SUCH. And, mark
   you, I shall speak especially to the members of this Christian Church.
   I exhort you, dear Brethren, who are soldiers of Christ, to be good
   soldiers, because many of you have been so. Paul was likely to commend
   the Churches when he could, and I feel I may honestly and from my heart
   commend many of you, for you have served your Lord and Master well.

   I know you have nothing whereof to glory, for when you have done all,
   you are unprofitable servants. But still I rejoice, and will rejoice
   when I see the work of the Holy Spirit in you. And I will venture to
   say that I have seen here instances of Apostolic ardor and
   self-sacrifice such as I have read of in ancient records, but hardly
   ever expected to see. There are those in this House this day who will
   shine as stars forever and ever, for they have turned many to
   righteousness. Dishonor not your past, I beseech you! Fall not from
   your high standing. "Forward" is your motto! Never think of declining,
   but rather advance in love to God, and in the ardor of your zeal.

   Be good soldiers still, and depart not from your first love. I am sure
   there is greater need of good soldiering now than ever. Ten years ago,
   or sixteen years ago, when first I addressed you, the power of popery
   in this land was nothing compared to what it is now. In those days the
   Church of England was more generally Protestant. Now it is so
   frequently popish that I may broadly say that now we are afflicted with
   two popish churches--that of Rome and that of Oxford. The second one is
   not one whit better than the first--only more crafty and
   insidious--inasmuch as it attracts to itself a number of godly and
   gracious men who protect the villains who bear a Protestant name and
   who are doing the Pope's work.

   I grieve to know that the evangelical clergy of England, by their
   continued union with the Church of England are acting as a shield to
   the ritualistic or popish party, and giving them every opportunity to
   work out their schemes for leading the nation back to popery en masse.
   Around this very spot a battle will have to be fought between the
   Sacramen-tarians and the lovers of the Gospel. At your very doors the
   battle is come at last. It was not so till but lately, but here it
   is--and you that are men must show your colors, and serve your Master
   against innumerable and constantly active foes. You have never failed
   me, you have always been bold and steadfast, and laborious, and so let
   it be, for the time requires it.

   I can see on all hands that many of you young men are being attracted
   by the worldly amusements which surround us, for our dangers are not
   only those of popery, but those of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
   There must be greater earnestness and a deeper piety among you, or the
   next generation will become unworthy of yourselves--your grief--and not
   your joy. I pray you see to this. Be good soldiers, for much depends
   upon it. Your country will be blessed in proportion as you are earnest.
   Nonconformity in England will lose all its power if it loses its
   godliness. I do not care much for our political strength--I was about
   to say I am almost indifferent to our political rights--I care for
   them, but only so much as to occupy a very minor place in my
   consideration.

   Our spirituality is the main matter. It is this, alone, that can make
   us a blessing to our country. Sons of the Puritans, you must walk with
   God, or your day is past--you will be swept away as Esther would have
   been, who came to the kingdom for the salvation of her nation--if she
   had not fulfilled the office for which God had exalted her. You have
   grown in numbers, grown in strength. O that you may grow in Grace, love
   the Gospel better, and love Christ better, for your country needs it,
   your children need it, you, yourselves need it! The times are perilous,
   and yet they are hopeful! By their peril, and by their hopefulness, I
   beseech you, be good soldiers of Jesus Christ! Good soldiers we ought
   to be, for it is a grand old cause that is at stake. It is the kingdom
   of God, it is the Church of Christ, it is the Word of God, the Truth,
   the doctrine of the Gospel, the crown of Jesus, that are all at stake.

   I grant you that none shall ever shake the Throne of Jesus, for though
   "the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing," yet shall His
   Throne be established. But we now speak according to the manner of men.
   God has been

   pleased to leave this matter to His Church, which is the pillar and
   ground of the Truth. Oh then! Stand up manfully, and fight earnestly
   when so much rests upon it! God grant that you may not be as the
   children of Ephraim, who being armed and carrying bows turned their
   backs in the day of battle.

   I implore you, my Brethren, and mostly myself, to be good soldiers of
   Jesus when you consider the fame that has preceded you. A soldier, when
   he receives his colors, finds certain words embroidered on them to
   remind him of the former victories of the regiment in which he serves.
   Look at the eleventh chapter of Hebrews and see the long list of the
   triumphs of the faithful. Remember how Prophets and Apostles served
   God. Remember how martyrs joyfully laid down their lives. Look at the
   long line of the reformers and the confessors. Remember your martyred
   sires and covenanting fathers, and by the Grace of God I beseech you,
   walk not unworthy of your noble lineage.

   Be good soldiers because of the victory which awaits you. Oh, it will
   be a grand thing to share in the ultimate triumph of Christ, for
   triumph He will! When all His soldiers shall come back from the war,
   and the King Himself at their head with the spoils of the victory. When
   they shall come back to the metropolitan city, to the ivory palaces of
   the great Captain. When the song is heard, "Lift up your heads, O you
   gates, and be you lifted up, you everlasting doors." When the question
   shall be answered, "Who is the King of Glory?" by the reply, "The Lord
   of Hosts, the Lord mighty in battle, He is the King of Glory," it will
   be a glorious thing to have shared the fight, for so surely you shall
   share the honors of that coronation day!

   A crown is prepared for that head though it is now made to ache with
   care for the cause. There is a palm branch for that hand which now
   toils in the fight. There are silver sandals for those feet which have
   now to march over weary miles for Christ's sake. Honor and immortality
   not to be imagined till they are enjoyed await every faithful soldier
   of the Cross!

   Besides, and lastly, if I want another argument to make you good
   soldiers, remember your Captain, the Captain whose wounded hands and
   pierced feet are tokens of His love to you. Redeemed from going down to
   the pit, what can you do sufficiently to show your gratitude? Assured
   of eternal Glory by-and-by, how can you sufficiently prove that you
   feel your indebtedness? Up, I pray you! By Him whose eyes are like a
   flame of fire, and yet were wet with tears--by Him on whose head are
   many crowns, and who yet wore the crown of thorns--by Him who is King
   of kings and Lord of lords, and yet bowed His head to death for
   you--resolve that to life's latest breath you will spend and be spent
   for His praise. The Lord grant that there may be many such in this
   Church--good soldiers of Jesus Christ.

   Two or three words and I will close. At this present time I contemplate
   exhorting you to engage in fresh efforts for Christ. I do not know that
   you are relaxing, neither have I complaints to make of any. But I would
   wish that we would commence with renewed vigor this day, if God so
   wills it. As I myself commence a new year of Sundays as to my own age,
   I desire to see a new era of greater exertion in the cause of Jesus
   Christ. And, in order that it may be successful, let not a single man
   or woman on the Church-roll be missing from his or her post in the
   spiritual conflict.

   It is a remarkable fact that on the eve of a great battle in the
   Peninsular War the officers read the muster-roll, and noted that "not a
   man was missing." They had all good stomach for the fight, and were all
   there. You that are in the Sunday school, you that distribute your
   tracts, you that preach in the streets--every man to his post! And if
   you have no post as yet, find one--let there not be one idler, not one
   single loiterer, for a single sluggard may mar the work. Then if we are
   to be successful let nothing divide us. The motto of one of our most
   famous regiments embroidered on their banner is, "Quis separavit." Who
   shall separate us?

   We are but mortals, and, therefore, little jealousies may spring up.
   And among us there may be little causes of personal vexation, but brave
   warriors in the olden times who had fallen out have been known to come
   together on the eve of battle and say, "Come, let us be reconciled, we
   may die tomorrow. Besides, we join in common hatred of the foe and love
   to the king." Let your peace be unbroken, your union indissoluble, and
   God will bless you.

   To help us to succeed now, let us lay down this one rule--let no low
   standard of work, or virtue, or spiritual attainment, content any one
   of us. Let us resolve to be as good Christians as can be found beneath
   the stars, as fond of Christ as human hearts can be, doing and giving
   as much for Christ as we can do or give consistently with other duties.
   Let us spare nothing, and keep back no part of the price. Let there be
   no Ananias and Sapphira among us, but all be as John, who loved his
   Lord. And Paul, who counted all things but loss for the excellency of
   Christ Jesus his Lord.

   Next, let me say let the present moment be seized. I should like to
   saturate this district with a mass of tracts simply teaching the Gospel
   and protesting against the bastard popery around us. Heaven and earth
   are being raised around us just now. Our poor are being bribed, the
   houses of our members are being systematically visited with the view of
   decoying them from our worship. We are told that a certain small
   building used by the Episcopal body is the parish Church, and we ought
   to attend it. I might far more truthfully assert this to be the Church
   of the parish by the choice of a far more numerous body, but I care not
   to make pretensions which prove nothing.

   The true question is--do we follow Christ, and uphold the teachings of
   Scripture? If so, our standing is unassailable. Doubtless the word has
   gone forth that Dissent must be crushed, but if we live near to God,
   and maintain our zeal, Dissent will rise invincible from every attack.
   Foreseeing the gathering storm, it is our consolation that we know
   where He dwells who is Master of the tempest, and can walk the waters
   for our help, and calm the sea around the weather-beaten boat. It
   becomes us now at this present moment to be indefatigable, to put forth
   all our strength for the Truth of God, even the Lord's pure Word in
   doctrine and in ordinance.

   Let no man's heart fail him. There is no fear of defeat. Lo, these many
   years the Lord of Hosts has been with us as a Church, and He will still
   be our Helper. We have seen the rise and fall of many who blazed for
   awhile--but are now quenched in darkness--while we have increased from
   a handful to this mass, and God who has been our trust, and is still
   our stay, will not forsake us now. He has not drawn you together, and
   held you in one body by cords of love, that after all you may prove to
   be a powerless unwieldy mass of associated Christians. He intends to
   direct and strengthen you for nobler ends and purposes!

   God, even our own God, will bless us! Immanuel, God with us, leads the
   van. The Truth, like the virgin daughter of Zion, shakes her head at
   boastful error, and laughs it to scorn. Let Falsehood put on her tawdry
   garments and think herself a queen, and say that she shall sit alone,
   and see no sorrow. Let Error come forth in her panoply and wave her
   flaunting banner before the sun. She draws near her end. Her
   armor--what is it? It is but pasteboard, and the lance of Truth shall
   pierce it through and through. Her banner, what is it but a foul rag of
   the Roman harlot? It shall be laid in the dust.

   No, let Error bring forth all her hosts, and let them stand in their
   serried ranks, and through them the faithful soldiers of Jesus will
   ride and bow the columns like reeds in the wind. In these days, the
   doctrines and traditions of men compass us about, yes, like bees they
   compass us about, but in the name of the Lord will we destroy them.
   Only let us have confidence in God, and the victory is sure. As for the
   thought of turning back, that can never be endured. A message came to
   Sir Colin Campbell at the Alma, that Her Majesty's Guards were falling
   thick and fast beneath the shot, had they not better retire for a
   little while into safe quarters? The answer was, "It were better, Sir,
   that everyone of Her Majesty's Guards should lie dead on this
   battlefield than turn their backs on the enemy."

   And it is so. Let us die, yes--it were to be devoutly wished rather
   than we lived a coward's life! Let the preacher first of all be carried
   to his grave. Let him never live to see the shame of this Israel. Let
   these eyes be sealed in death rather than behold "Ichabod" written on
   these walls! No, Brethren, it shall not be! You will serve Jesus, you
   will love Him, and "Onward to victory" shall be your watchword from
   today on. Be more in PRAYER--for this is the great matter. Seek out,
   each one, your own sphere of action--give yourselves wholly to it. And
   if any grow cold or careless, let him remember Jesus says, "I stand at
   the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I
   will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me."

   This blessed supping with Jesus will restore you! Though you are like
   Laodicea, "neither cold nor hot," fellowship with Jesus will renew the
   love of your espousals. Oh, then, my Brethren, in Jesus' name I bid you
   be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might!

   I have not preached to sinners, but you will do that if you catch the
   spirit of this sermon. There will be many thousands of words to sinners
   spoken as the result of this exhortation, if God, the Holy Spirit,
   makes it answer my design. Only this word to those who are not soldiers
   of Jesus Christ--trust Him now! Come now and kiss His silver scepter of
   Divine Grace. He will forgive the rebel, and take him to be His
   servant. God bless you. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Pilgrim's Grateful Recollections

   (No. 939)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 3, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And He humbled you, and suffered you to hunger, and fed you with
   manna, which you knew not, neither did your fathers know; that He might
   make you know that man does not live by bread only, but by every Word
   that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord does man live. Your raiment
   waxed not old upon you, neither did your foot swell, these forty years.
   You shall also consider in your heart, that, as a man chastens his son,
   so the Lord your God chastens you. Therefore you shall keep the
   commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to fear
   Him." Deuteronomy 8:3-6.

   OUR aptness to forget God's mercies, is, alas, too conspicuous. It has
   been said that the annals of a prosperous and peaceful country are
   singularly uninteresting. Does this arise from the fact that we do not
   make memoranda of our mercies, or at least if we do, they are far more
   readily blotted out than the record of our sorrows? We trace our joys
   in the sand, but we write our afflictions on marble. We forget the
   streams of mercy, never ceasing, which flow so continually parallel
   with our pathway.

   If we thus, ungratefully forget, it should cause us serious reflections
   when we see that God does not forget. Here in this Book He brings to
   His people's memories all the mercies they have received, because they
   were always present before His own mind. The child may forget the
   kindness of its mother, but the mother does not forget what she bore,
   and what she has sacrificed for her child. The friend may forget what
   he has received, but it is not likely that the benefactor will forget
   what he has bestowed. If God's memory, therefore, records all that He
   has given me, let me be ashamed to let my memory suffer these things to
   slip. What God counts worthy of His Divine recollection let me record
   on the pages of my memory, and often let me peruse the record.

   We are also far too slow to draw the inference of obligation from
   benefits received. We receive the blessing, but we do not always feel
   that a proportionate debt is due in return to God, the bounteous Giver
   of every good gift. Yet Divine Grace has its obligations as well as
   laws--obligations which honorable minds reckon to be among the first to
   be discharged. If I do not do what I ought because I fear the Law, at
   any rate let me prove that I am not so base as to be ungrateful to
   undeserved mercy and love.

   It has been said by some, and there have been others whose lives have
   almost proved it, that the driving of the Law is more effectual to
   produce works than the sweet drawings of the Gospel. But it ought not
   to be so--and if it is so, the fault is in the man acted upon, and not
   in the principle of gratitude. For with right-minded men, with men
   educated by the Spirit of God, with men who are lifted up out of the
   common mass of mankind and endowed with the higher life, the highest
   motive that can be suggested even by infinite wisdom is the motive
   which is drawn from the transcendent love and Grace of God.

   Now, Brethren, though we forget our obligations, it is clear from the
   text that God does not--for here, after giving a summary of His
   benefits--He concludes by drawing an inference with the word,
   "therefore," and He tells Israel that having received so much, they
   were bound to walk in His ways and in His fear--and to keep His
   Commandments. If He thus considers, whose wisdom none dare dispute, let
   us voluntarily, cheerfully, and practically concede that such is the
   very Truth. And let us ask that He will help us to be obedient, and
   resolve that, receiving His help, we will say in our hearts and
   lives----

   "Loved of my God, for Him again

   With love intense I burn; Chosen of Him before time began, I choose Him
   in return."

   I shall now ask your attention to the list of favors given in the text,
   with the view of enforcing the Divine conclusions from them.

   I. LET US PASS IN REVIEW THE FAVORS OF THE LORD, taking what He did for
   Israel as being typical of what He has done for us.

   1. The first blessing mentioned in our text is that of humbling--"And
   He humbled them, and suffered them to hunger." Not very highly esteemed
   among men will this favor be. And at first, perhaps, it may be regarded
   by ourselves as being more of a judgment--one of the terrible things in
   righteousness--than a great favor from the Most High. But rightly
   judged, this is one of the most admirable proofs of the Lord's loving
   kindness, that He does not leave His people in their natural pride and
   obstinacy, but by acts of Grace brings them to their right mind.

   Note in the text that the humbling was produced by hunger. What makes a
   man so humble as to be thoroughly in want? It was not hunger for
   luxury, merely--bread and water failed them. How could the soil beneath
   them of hot sand yield them a harvest? Where could they find a stream
   to slake their dreadful thirst which the broiling sun and the arid sand
   continually increased? To want bread and water is a short way of making
   a man feel that he is but a man, and that he is dependent, very
   dependent, upon the Providence of God.

   Their hunger was, no doubt, increased in its power to humble them by
   their position. They were not hungry, in Goshen, nor in Canaan, but
   hungry in a waste, howling wilderness, where, let them search as they
   would, they could find nothing available for sustenance. They were
   reduced to the most abject condition of spirit, and broken by the most
   urgent wants. And yet, I say, this was a great blessing to them, for,
   being humbled, they were put in a position where God could bless them.

   Speaking after the manner of men, there are some positions where God
   cannot bless us. If we are proud and lifted up, it is not consistent to
   the Divine honor and glory that He should smile upon us. But when we
   are laid low at the foot of the Throne, then there is an opportunity
   for God to come and deal with us in pity and Grace. It was good,
   therefore, for Israel to be placed where God's mercy could flow to
   them. Being there, and being hungry, there were opportunities given for
   Divine Grace and bounty. A man who is not hungry cannot be fed--why
   needs he, at any rate, to be fed? And if fed, he will not be grateful
   as a hungry man.

   But now when they are famishing, now will God work His miracles. The
   open windows of Heaven shall, to their astonishment, rain down their
   daily food, and up through those open casements shall their praise and
   thankfulness ascend to the Throne of God. There is room for mercy where
   there is misery--space for Grace where there is poverty. Happy was
   Israel, therefore, to he humbled by hunger, and placed where mercy
   could glorify itself. They were thus, by their being made needy,
   brought to receive superior supplies. If they had possessed the corn of
   Egypt, they would have missed the manna of Heaven.

   If beneath their feet there had sprung up crops of common wheat from
   which they could have reaped their daily supplies, they would have
   missed the angels' food which fell from Heaven around their camp.
   Absence of meals was more than compensated by the presence of manna. It
   is a blessed thing to have a famine of the creature, if thereby we are
   supplied by the Creator!

   Now, my dear Friends, just remember for a minute, that this was your
   case and mine. Years ago, in the case of some of us, the Lord met with
   us and brought us into a painful state of spiritual hunger. All our
   supplies failed us. We had thought before that time we were at feast as
   good as others, that we might somehow work our way to Heaven, and we
   were satisfied, after a fashion, with worldly joys. But the Lord
   suddenly took away our earthly comforts, or took away our rest and
   enjoyment of them, and at the same time we saw sin and its punishment
   before us--and we were brought to a condition in which we were like
   those in the wilderness, who were afflicted with fiery serpents, and
   bitten with scorpions.

   Our thoughts would not suffer us to rest. Our sins plagued and
   tormented us. We looked round for comfort, and we could find none. We
   looked and looked again, and we only found fresh cause to despair. We
   were driven right away from self. What a mercy it was that we were so
   humbled, for then the Lord could reveal His love to us! What a blessing
   it was

   that we were so wretched, for then there was room for Jesus to come
   with His pardoning blood, and the Holy Spirit to come with His Divine
   quickening, and the promise of the Father to come with all its fullness
   of Grace and Truth. And oh, how blessedly, being deprived of earthly
   consolations, were we supplied with heavenly ones!

   Our self-confidence, what a blessing it was to lose it, for we had
   confidence in Christ instead of it! Our carnal security, happy were we
   to see it wither, for we had security in Christ given us in the place
   of it and our self-righteousness. Thrice happy was it for us that it
   was totally dried up, for now we come to drink water out of the living
   Rock of Christ Jesus, and He has become our joy, our song, and our
   salvation. You remember well that humbling season--you have had such
   seasons since. You have been brought, since then, into great spiritual
   straits, when you found that all the supposed Grace which you had in
   store utterly failed you, even as the manna which the children of
   Israel unbelievingly tried to lay by in store--it bred worms and stank.

   You have been brought down to deep spiritual poverty, but that has been
   a great blessing to you, for each renewed season of soul poverty has
   been the prelude for a fresh season of Divine manifestation of Grace.
   When I find myself brought very low in spirit, and made to see the
   depravity of my heart, and to groan over my own weakness, I have
   learned to expect better things. I have been thankful for humblings
   because I have learned by experience that when I am emptied the Lord
   means to fill me. That when I am brought low it is only a preface to
   being lifted by the Divine Spirit.

   Surely for these reasons we may reckon our humblings among the choicest
   favors of Heaven. And as here the humbling stands first in the text, so
   let it not be last in our song. As it is put here as the frontispiece
   to the volume of grateful remembrances, let it be prominent in our
   minds. "He humbled you, and caused you to hunger." Oh, blessed hour in
   which he prostrated my soul at His feet! Oh, happy season when He
   stripped me of what I thought my glory, but which were filthy rags! Oh,
   thrice memorable period when He wounded me with the arrows of
   conviction, when He slew me by the Law--for this was but a preparation
   for healing me with His touch of love, and making me alive with the
   eternal life which is in Christ Jesus. The first mercy, then, is that
   of humbling the soul.

   2. I shall have to notice, in the second place, the Divine feeding. We
   shall now see ourselves mirrored in the case of Israel as in a glass.
   "He humbled you, and suffered you to hunger, and fed you." How sweetly
   that follows, "suffered you to hunger, and fed you." The light close on
   the heels of the darkness. Is there a desponding soul here who has been
   suffered to hunger? "Blessed are you that do hunger and thirst after
   righteousness, for you shall be filled." That "and" in the text is like
   a diamond rivet, none can ever take it out or break it. "He suffered
   you to hunger, and fed you." He who suffers you to hunger will be sure
   to feed you yet upon the bountiful provisions of His Grace. Be of good
   cheer, poor mourning

   Soul.

   Now let us notice what our spiritual food has been, Brethren. I said
   the first remark shall be, we have been fed spiritually every day. We
   have had day by day our souls' daily bread. As the manna fell daily, so
   has the food of our souls been given us from time to time by the power
   of the Spirit of God. Israel in the wilderness was always on the brink
   of starvation, yet never knew a want. There was nothing between the
   people's being starved except (and what a blessed exception!), except
   the Divine interposition. They could not go to their stores, and say,
   "Here are tons of food." They could not, as you may in going down the
   Thames, look at huge warehouses full of corn laid by in store.

   No, no, there was not a halfpenny worth of store in the house of any
   Israelite as he went to bed, the whole place was bare, all was gone.
   There was nothing between them and being starved, I say, but the Divine
   faithfulness. This is precisely how I have lived, by His Grace, before
   the Lord ever since I have known Him. There has been nothing between my
   soul and falling from Grace except the Divine faithfulness--no, nothing
   whatever of past experience, or all the present knowledge that could
   have stood me in any place in the time of trial. Not a man among you
   has anything spiritually to depend upon but the daily interpositions of
   Covenant Grace.

   Let the child of God remember this, and when he feels himself very weak
   in himself, and driven to his Lord in prayer, let him rejoice that he
   is just where God would have him be. When I am weak, then am I strong.
   When I have nothing, then have I all things. While I have nothing to
   depend upon of the old corn of the land, the manna will continually
   fall, and day by day my strength shall be renewed. Has that been your
   experience, dear Brothers and Sisters? If it has been, then everyday
   give a fresh song to God, who interposes between your soul and death.

   Yet though the manna came every day, it was always sufficient. I spoke
   of starvation, but Israel never had any reason even to think of it, for
   the provender which God sent was not limited so that any man could say,
   "It is not sufficient for

   me." What sufficed one man might not suffice another in ordinary food,
   but of the manna every man had enough. So to this day it has been in
   Grace with every Believer. God has given to you and to me, up till this
   hour, all the Grace we have needed, and though He has given us so much,
   there is as much more left in the infinite provision as if He had never
   drawn upon it. Go to the richest man's store, and take something out,
   and there is so much less remaining. But when the manna came from
   Heaven, there was just as much manna left after it had come as before.

   So the Grace of God is just as all-sufficient after you and I have
   received as it was at the first. The only stint the Israelite knew in
   the matter of the manna was the limit of his own capacity to receive.
   He might have as much as ever he could eat. And if we have not had more
   Grace, it has been our own fault. If we have not lived nearer to God,
   if we have not possessed more joy, or been more useful--we have not
   been straitened in our God--we have been straitened in our heart. We
   have had the provisions of His Grace day by day. We have had as much as
   we asked for, and often a great deal more. And we might have had as
   much more as we would if we had but had larger desires and greater
   confidence in God. The Lord's name be praised for daily food in this
   wilderness, and for sufficient food.

   The manna was a very mysterious thing. It is said in the text that it
   was food that they did not know, and which their fathers had not known.
   And, certainly, the Grace of God which has kept us to this day is a
   most mysterious power upon us. The worldling does not understand what
   it is to eat the flesh of Christ and drink His blood, and though we
   know what it is by sweet experience, we could not explain it. We have
   lived to this day upon the promises of God, upon the inflowing of the
   Divine Spirit into our souls, but we cannot tell from where it comes
   nor where it goes.

   Nor do our fathers after the flesh know. And though our sires, who have
   gone before us to Heaven, fed on the same food, yet it was to them
   mysterious as it is to us. Talk of wonders! The Christian man is the
   greatest wonder in the world! Speak of miracles! What is the Christian
   life but a continued miracle? A series of miracles, like links in a
   chain, one following the other--kept alive in the midst of death, and
   supported by a marvelous food--which the world knows nothing of. We are
   wonders unto many, and more so to ourselves.

   Brethren, the manna came from Heaven, and here is the very marrow of
   the Truth of God as to what we have lived upon spiritually--we have
   lived upon heavenly food. If our supplies had depended on human
   ministry, they would have failed. If they had depended upon the mere
   reading of good books, there might be times when we could read to
   profit. But the everlasting well-springs of Divine love are not
   affected by our condition of body or of mind--the Grace and love that
   are treasured up in Christ Jesus come to us when creature cisterns are
   broken, and all the help of friends is unavailing.

   From You, great God, from You we have derived the nutriment of our
   spiritual life, and it has always come in due season--up to this hour
   we have known no lack. You have made us hunger when we have looked to
   earth for supplies, but when we have turned to You our souls have been
   satisfied with marrow and fatness! Blessed be Your name forever-more!
   Dear Brothers and Sisters, do endeavor to live more and more upon
   unseen things. Let your fellowship be with the Father and with His Son
   Jesus Christ. Look not to the granaries of Egypt. Stay not yourself on
   an arm of flesh. Israel in the wilderness had no granaries, they looked
   neither to Moab nor Ammon--they looked to Jehovah, and to Jehovah
   alone. And let it he so with you, and, assuredly, even in the time of
   famine, your spirit shall be satisfied.

   The children of Israel in the wilderness were fed on the best food that
   ever fell to the lot of mortals. They did eat angels' food. Egypt and
   Assyria, with all their wealth, tasted not of bread which dropped from
   Heaven. But poor Israel in the howling wilderness was fed with royal
   dainties. Let the sons of earth be nourished as they may, and fattened
   like kings' sons, yet there are no faces that are so fair to look upon
   with holy joy and exultation as the faces of the men who feed on Christ
   Jesus who is the Bread that came down from Heaven.

   There are none who are so blessed as those who live upon God
   Himself--for they have this for their surpassing excel-lence--that
   eating as they do this bread, they live forever. He that eats other
   bread derives temporary nourishment from it, but before long he dies.
   He who feeds on Christ feeds on immortal food, and more--he becomes
   immortal himself-- the food transforms the man. Matchless is the manna
   which comes from Heaven, for it makes us heavenly and bears us up to
   the Heaven from where it came!

   They who live on Christ become like Christ. Being fed upon Him, they
   become conformed unto His image, made meet to be partakers of the glory
   of God in Heaven. I wish I could speak so as to stir your hearts with
   gratitude, but the subject ought to do it without words of mine! And,
   sitting calmly here with Jordan sparkling before us, and Canaan hard

   by on the other shore, we are bound to remember all the way whereby the
   Lord our God has led us--and the food which up to this day has never
   failed us.

   3. The third favor mentioned in the text, upon which we will pause
   awhile, is the remarkable raiment. "Your raiment waxed not old upon
   you." This has been interpreted by some to mean that they were able
   constantly to procure from the surrounding nations fresh changes of
   clothing. Others have said, and there is truth in the remark, that they
   had among them persons of great skill who were able to use the produce
   of the flocks and herds, so that they were not without clothes to
   supply their needs. Indeed, if that is all the meaning, it declares a
   great cause for thankfulness.

   The tribes never became a ragged regiment--though always on the march
   they were always well dressed--their clothes waxed not old. But I am
   not among those who like to blot out every miracle from the Word of
   God. As the history of the children in the wilderness is altogether
   miraculous, and cannot be accounted for without the introduction of
   Divine interposition, it seems to me that it is as natural to expect
   their raiment to be miraculously given as to expect their food to be.
   And the run of the text, if it were read by an intelligent child
   without any prejudice, one way or the other, would suggest a miracle.

   It stands in the midst of miracles, and is one itself. "Your raiment
   waxed not old upon you." Certainly this was the old interpretation
   which the rabbis put upon it--that by a continuous miracle their
   clothes did not wear out for the whole space of forty years. Though
   subject to the ordinary wear and tear incidental to traveling, yet
   their garments still continued to be as good at the end of forty years
   as they were when first they left the land of Egypt. I believe that to
   be what the text means. And how, spiritually it is the case with us.
   "Your garments waxed not old upon you."

   Do you remember, Brethren, when first you put your garments on? I do
   well remember when first I discovered, as Adam did in the garden, that
   I was naked, and I hid myself. I tried then, as you did, to make a fig
   leaf covering for my-self--that would have waxed old soon enough--for
   the fig leaves of our own righteousness soon wither and decay. But I
   was pointed to the righteousness which God had prepared, even as Adam
   and Eve were pointed to the coats of skins which the Lord God had made
   ready for them. And then I put on the robe of Christ's righteousness
   which He had provided, and glory be to His name--that garment has not
   waxed old upon me yet!

   Is it not so with you? You are not found naked this day. Perhaps you
   have been a Believer forty or fifty years, but that robe of Grace is
   ever new and evermore as fresh as at the first, and as suitable as at
   the beginning. All your nakedness is hidden from the face of God, and
   hidden from yourself, too. You can now rejoice in the Lord, and
   approach Him without fear. You do not want to hide yourself, but rather
   you wish to show yourself to God, and you say, "Search me, O God, and
   know my ways, try me, and know my heart." Our garment, then, which
   covers our nakedness, has not waxed

   old.

   But we have a garment for more than this, namely, to make us
   acceptable. Jacob put on his brother Esau's clothes, and he obtained
   the blessing of his father. We, too, have put on the garments of
   Christ, and have won the blessing. He who went into the feast and had
   not on a wedding garment was cast out. The wedding garment which we
   wear today is the righteousness which Christ has worked out for
   us--which He works in us by His Spirit. Now, blessed be His name, that
   which we put on many years ago, has not waxed old yet--we are still
   accepted in the Beloved.

   That robe has endured much wear and tear. What with our imperfections
   and sins, shortcomings and transgres-sions--if it had not been Divinely
   worked, it would have been worn out long ago. But blessed be His name,
   I know, and you know, that we are as acceptable to God this day, as we
   were when first we believed in Jesus. We are still dear children, still
   Beloved of the Lord, still heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ
   Jesus--our garment of acceptance has not waxed old.

   Besides, we have the garment of consolation. Men put on their clothes
   to warm and comfort them, and how often have we wrapped ourselves about
   with the promises of God's Word--and with the doctrines of
   Revelation--and made garments of them to screen us from the cold blast
   of tribulation? These, also, have not waxed old. Glory be to God for
   those everlasting promises! When we were young we trusted in them, and
   when we are old and gray-headed we shall still find them to be
   fountains of consolation as clear, and true, and sure, and precious as
   ever they were. You cannot point me to a stale promise in all God's
   Book. Neither can you find me a worn-out doctrine.

   The rabbis say that when the young Israelites grew older their clothes
   grew as they grew. I do not know how that was, but I do know that let
   us grow in mental stature as we may, the doctrines of the Gospel still
   are suitable for us. If

   they were like milk to us when we were babes, they are strong meat to
   us when we become men. They always meet our needs and conditions, and
   thus we can joyfully say that the garment which covers our nakedness,
   which adorns us before God, and affords us consolation, has not waxed
   old these forty years. Blessed be the name of the Most High for all
   this!

   4. But we pass on again. The next blessing for which we ought to be
   grateful is that sustained personal strength. Our spiritual vigor has
   not decayed during our sojourn in the wilderness, for it is written,
   "Neither did your foot swell." A swollen foot is the common ailment of
   pilgrims in the desert. Much marching over hot sand soon makes the feet
   become swollen and puffed up, or else it hardens them, and some read
   this text, "Neither did your foot become callous." In neither way in
   Israel's case was the foot deformed, nor was walking rendered painful.

   For forty years the pilgrims footed it without pain, and though it was
   a weary land, yet their strength held out till they crossed the Jordan,
   and came into the promised rest. So it has been with us. Our foot has
   not swelled these forty years. In the way of perseverance we have been
   maintained and preserved. Personally I admire the Grace which has kept
   me in my course, though assailed by many, many fierce temptations, and
   exposed to great perils in my position. If I wonder, I dare say each
   one of you have to wonder, too. There have been scores of times since
   you made a profession, when your feet were almost gone, your steps had
   well near slipped, and yet your foot has not swollen. You are still on
   the way, in the way, and nearing the end of the way, kept consistent,
   kept in godliness, even until now.

   What a blessing! Suppose you had been permitted to faint? Suppose you
   had been suffered to fall on the road, and had no longer held on your
   way? You know what the result must have been, for only to perseverance
   is the promise made. But God has helped you to hold on to this hour,
   and He will aid you even to the end. Up till now you have held on--
   have confidence--He will keep you still. Your foot has not swelled in
   the way of perseverance.

   Neither have you been lamed in the way of service. Perhaps you have
   been called to do much work for Christ, yet you have not grown tired of
   it, though sometimes tired in it. Still you have kept to your labor,
   and found help in it. If you were ever called to preach the Gospel, you
   would be compelled to see, even if you closed your eyes, how dependent
   you were upon God. Sunday after Sunday, and weekday after weekday,
   preaching still, having need to say something fresh continually, and
   often wondering where it will come from. The preacher is grateful that
   as yet his foot has not swollen.

   You, too, have gone to your Sunday school, or you have held your
   position as a solitary testifier in the family, or you have served God
   as a missionary from door to door, and you have thought, "Surely, I
   shall come to the end of all I know, and all I can do," but you have
   not. Your foot has not swollen all these years, you have kept on in the
   way of service. So, too, your foot has not swollen in the way of faith.
   Such little faith you had at first, that you might well have thought it
   would all die out by now.

   See a spark that floats in the sea, see a stone that hangs in the air,
   surely these must come to an end. The one must be extinguished, and the
   other must fall! But it has not been so. God has not quenched the
   smoking flax, nor broken the bruised reed. Still your foot has not
   swollen. You believe in Jesus yet, and notwithstanding your unbelief,
   your faith still can give forth the cry of a loving child, and say,
   "Lord, I believe, help You my unbelief."

   In addition to all this, your foot has not swollen in the way of
   fellowship. You have walked with God, and you have not grown weary of
   the holy communion. Sometimes that walking with God has cost you much
   effort, much struggling with inward corruptions, much determination to
   be clear from the customs and the ways of ungodly men. And you had long
   ago been tired had not you leaned on your Beloved. But you have leaned
   so much on Him that your foot has not swollen. You can still walk with
   Him, and hope to do so until you come to your journey's end--and sit
   down with Him forever and ever.

   Moreover, dear Brothers and Sisters, your foot has not swollen in the
   way of joy. You were happy young men in Christ Jesus, and you are happy
   fathers now. You were happy young women when first you gave your heart
   to Christ, and you have grown to be matronly now, but you are as happy
   as in younger days. The novelty has not worn off, or rather one novelty
   has been succeeded by another--fresh discoveries have broken out upon
   you--and Jesus has still to you the dew of His youth. If the old light
   has passed away, yet the new light of a still brighter sun has come,
   and you are nearing the "sacred, high, eternal noon," where the Glory
   of God and of the Lamb shed splendor all around. He who walks with God
   shall never weary, though through all eternity he continues the
   hallowed march. For all this we give to God our thanks yet again.

   5. Bear with me when I notice in the fifth place the memorable blessing
   of chastisement. I must call special attention to it because God does
   so in these words, "You shall also consider in your heart." That
   unswollen foot, and that unworn garment you need not so much value as
   this--for this you are specialty bid to consider--to meditate upon in
   your very heart. Your deepest thoughts are to be given to it, and,
   consequently, your highest praises. "Consider in your heart, that as a
   man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you." My dear
   Friends, I speak as one of the most humble of God's servants, but I
   dare not withhold my testimony.

   I can truly say of everything I have ever tasted in this world of God's
   mercy--and my path has been remarkably strewn with Divine loving
   kindness. I feel more grateful to God for the bodily pain I have
   suffered, and for all the trials I have endured of many sorts, than I
   do for anything else except the gift of His dear Son. I am sure I have
   derived more real benefit and permanent strength and growth in Grace,
   and every precious thing, from the furnace of affliction, than I have
   ever derived from prosperity. In fact, I have for years looked upon my
   great prosperity as being sent as a test and trial of my Graces.

   I regard it as the severest of ordeals which I must lay before God
   humbly, and ask for Grace to bear. But I have learned to regard
   affliction as being a sheltered nook in which I am more than usually
   screened from temptation, and in which I might expect to have the
   peculiar Presence of the Lord my God. I am not fearful of my ballast,
   but I am very anxious about my sail. Moreover, I have discovered that
   there is a sweetness in bitterness not to be found in honey--a safety
   with Christ in a storm which may be lost in a calm. I know not how to
   quite express my meaning, but even lowness of spirits and deep sadness
   have a peculiar charm within them which laughter may emulate in vain.

   It is good for me that I have been afflicted. Now I think if I were to
   take the testimony of many Christian friends here, they would have to
   say much the same. So then, as you know all this, let me say nothing
   about it but just this-- ponder and consider much the gratitude you owe
   to God for His chastening rod. Dwell much in your heart upon what God
   evidently regards as one of His distinguishing blessings. Do not pass
   over slightly what God would have you consider. Count the Cross and the
   rod to be doubly worthy of your deepest thought. "Hear the rod and Him
   that has appointed it." Remember that whenever you are chastened you
   are not chastened as a slave-master smites his victim, nor as a judge
   orders the criminal to be lashed, but as a man chastens his son, so are
   you chastened.

   Your chastisement is a sign of sonship, it is a token of love. It is
   intended for your good. Accept it, therefore, in the spirit of sonship,
   and "despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither faint when you are
   corrected of Him." Remember that chastisement is an assured token of
   the Covenant relationship. It is the Lord your God that chastens you.
   If He were not your God He might let you alone. If He had not chosen
   you to be His own, He would not take such care of you. If He had not
   given Himself to be your Treasure, He might not be so diligent in
   weaning you from all other treasures. But because you are His He will
   withdraw your love away from this poor world.

   Perhaps He will take one child after another from you, that all the
   love that was lavished on the child might flow towards Himself. Perhaps
   He will leave you a widow, that the love that ran in the channel of a
   husband may run altogether to Himself. Perhaps He will take away your
   riches, that the consolation you did derive from them may be all
   derived from Him. Perhaps He will smite you, and then lay you on His
   own bosom, faint and helpless, that you may derive a strength and a joy
   from fellowship, close, and near with Himself. A closeness which you
   would never have had if it had not been that these other joys were
   removed.

   I have seen a little plant beneath an oak tree sheltered from the
   storm, and wind, and rain, and it felt pleased and happy to be so
   screened. But I have seen the woodman come with his axe and fell the
   oak, and the little plant has trembled with fear because its protection
   was removed. "Alas, for me," it said, "the hot sun will scorch me, the
   driving rain will drown me, and the fierce wind will tear me up by the
   roots." But instead of these dreadful results, the shelter being
   removed, the plant has breathed freer air, drank more of the dews of
   Heaven, received more of the light of the sun, and it has sprung up and
   borne flowers which else had never bloomed, and seeds that never else
   had sown themselves in the soil.

   Be glad when God thus visits you, when He takes away these
   overshadowing but dwarfing comforts to make you have a clear way
   between you and Heaven. So that heavenly gifts might come more
   plentifully to you. Bless God for chas-tenings! Let the sweetest note
   of your music be to Him that lays not the rod aside, but like a father
   chastens His children for their good.

   II. Now our time is gone, but you must even be detained, for it is
   necessary to dwell upon the last thought, which is THE INFERENCE FROM
   ALL THIS. All this humbling, feeding, clothing, strengthening,
   chastening--what of it all? Why this--"therefore you shall keep the
   commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to fear
   Him." If you have not shared in these blessings, I shall not speak with
   you, for the inference would not tell upon you.

   But if in very deed and truth every line here describes to the letter
   your Christian career, then let these arguments have power with you. He
   has done thus much for you, will you not serve Him? Are you not His by
   a thousand bonds? Delivered out of deep distresses, supported under
   enormous burdens, forgiven heinous sins, saved with a great
   salvation--are you not now bound by every tie that can bind an
   honorable man to be obedient to the Lord your God? Take the model of
   the text. Let your obedience be universal. Keep the commandments of the
   Lord. Walk in His ways.

   Set your heart to the Scriptures to find out what the Commandments are,
   and then, once knowing them, perform them at once. Settle it in your
   soul that you only want to know it is His will, and you will, by His
   Grace, neither question nor delay--but whatever He says unto you, you
   will do. Shut not your eyes to any part of His teaching. Be not
   willfully blind where Christ would guide you with His Word. Let your
   obedience be entire. In nothing be rebellious. Let that obedience be
   careful. Does not the text say, "Keep the commandments," and does not
   the first verse say, "You shall observe to do"?

   Keep it as though you kept a treasure, carefully putting your heart as
   a garrison round it. Observe it as they do who have some difficult art,
   and who watch each order of the teacher, and trace each different part
   of the process with observant eye, lest they fail in their art by
   missing any one little thing. Keep and observe. Be careful in your
   life. Be scrupulous. You serve a jealous God, be jealous of yourself.
   Let your obedience be practical. The text says, "Walk in His ways."
   Carry your service of God into your daily life, into all the minutiae
   and details of it.

   Do not have an unholy room in your house. Let the bedchamber, let the
   banqueting hall, let the place of conversation, the place of
   business--let every place be holiness unto your Gold. Walk in His ways.
   Whereas others walk up and down in the name of their god, and boast
   themselves in the idols wherein they trust, you walk in the name of
   Jehovah your God, and glory always to avow that you are a disciple of
   Jesus, God's dear Son--and let your obedience spring from principle,
   for the text says, "Walk in His ways, and fear Him."

   Seek to have a sense of His Presence, such as holy spirits have in
   Heaven who view Him face to face. Remember He is everywhere. You are
   never absent from that Eye. Tremble, therefore, before Him with that
   sacred trembling which is consistent with holy faith. Serve Him with
   faith and trembling, knowing that be you who you may, He is infinite
   and you are finite. He is perfect and you are sinful, He is All in All
   and you are nothing at all. With this sacred, reverential, childlike
   fear pregnant within your spirit, you will be sure to walk practically
   in obedience to Him.

   I close by saving, we who have followed God's Word so far, and
   experienced the faithfulness of God so long, ought never to give way to
   unbelief. Your foot has not swollen, your garment has not waxed old
   these forty years--why will you then mistrust or be suspicious? If He
   meant to deceive you He would have left you long ago--

   "He cannot have taught you To trust in His name, And thus far have
   brought you To put you to shame."

   Go on! The present difficulty will melt like the past. Go on! The
   future mercy will be as sure as the mercies that have up to now come to
   you. Though winds and waves go over your head, and friends vanish from
   you, "trust in the Lord, and do good, so shall you dwell in the land,
   and, verily, you shall be fed." The heavens and the earth may pass
   away, and rocks turn to rivers, and the sun turn to a coal, but the
   eternal promise never shall fail, and the heart of infinite love shall
   never change. "Be of good comfort, and He shall strengthen your heart;
   wait, I say, on the Lord."

   What encouragement all this gives to young Brethren who are setting out
   in the Christian life, or about to engage in the Christian ministry!
   With that reflection I close. If your fathers, and your fellow
   Christians of elder years can say that their bread has been given them,
   and their supplies have been all-sufficient, then rest assured, my
   Brethren, you are entering upon a happy life, even if it is a tried and
   difficult one. For the Lord who has dealt so well with some of His
   people, gives in that fact a pledge that He will deal so with all.
   Commit yourselves wholly to God. Give up all your powers to His
   service. Work for Him with all your hearts, and He will supply your
   needs.

   Think not of this world's gain, but "seek first the kingdom of God and
   His righteousness." Lay self in the dust, and let Christ be All in All.
   Live by the rule of Truth. Walk by the way of faith. Have confidence in
   God, and your path shall be as brightness, and your glory as a lamp
   that burns. Joined on earth to the hand of Christian soldiers, you
   shall, before long, be added to the countless host of the Church
   triumphant, who at this hour bear witness that God is faithful, and
   that His promise is sure.

   O you who are not Believers, methinks your mouths must water this
   morning to come and join with God's Israel! And remember that simply
   believing on the Lord Jesus Christ will bring you to be numbered with
   Israel. If you will but with your hearts accept Christ to be your
   Savior, then His people shall be your people, His God shall be your
   God. Where He dwells and His people dwell, you shall dwell. And if for
   awhile you are buried with Him, you shall arise again to live forever
   with Him in Heaven. May the Holy Spirit seal this on your hearts. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Winnowing Fan

   (No. 940)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 10, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall
   see the Lord: looking diligently lest any man fail of the Grace of God;
   lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many
   be defiled." Hebrews 12:14,15.

   WELL did the Apostle declare that the righteous scarcely are saved. It
   is no child's play to be a Christian. The Christian life is beyond the
   poet's meaning, real and earnest. The hills of difficulty which lie
   before us are no molehills, and the giants and dragons with which we
   must contend are no phantoms of a disordered brain. When we reach
   Heaven, what monuments of Grace we shall be, and how shall we
   throughout eternity emulate one another's praises, each one feeling
   himself to be the deepest debtor to Sovereign Grace!

   It will be well for us to remember that the religion of Jesus Christ is
   not a matter of trifling, that the gaining of Heaven is not to be
   achieved by a few half-hearted efforts. And if we will at the same time
   remember that all-sufficient succor is prepared for us in the Covenant
   of Grace, we shall be in a right state of mind--resolute yet humble,
   leaning upon the merits of Christ and yet aiming after personal
   holiness. I trust that in my ministry I shall never keep back the
   doctrines of the Grace of God, but I am anxious at the same time with
   equal clearness to declare the doctrine that good works are necessary
   evidences of Grace.

   I am persuaded that if self-righteousness is deadly, self-indulgence is
   ruinous. Rowland Hill said he had spent a large part of his life in
   battling with the white devil of Arminianism, but he would now fight
   the black devil of Antinomian-ism. I desire to maintain always a
   balance in my ministry, and while combating self-righteousness to war
   perpetually with loose living. Antinomianism is a black devil, indeed,
   a devil whose smutty fingers have defiled full many of the pure truths
   of our holy faith, and made even good men shy of receiving them. We,
   must remember that though we are saved by Grace, yet Grace does not
   stupefy us, but rather quickens us into action. And though salvation
   depends upon the merits of Christ, yet those who receive those merits
   receive with them a faith which produces holiness.

   The text before us is so full of weighty matter, and my own heart is so
   full of solemn searching, that I despair of speaking to you all that
   the text has spoken to me. May the Holy Spirit, the Author of
   Sanctification, help me, and bless the Word to you. I beg you to notice
   that there are before us two living things to be followed and two
   things to be avoided.

   I. There are in the text TWO THINGS TO BE FOLLOWED. The fourteenth
   verse tells us what they are. "Follow peace with all men, and holiness,
   without which no man shall see the Lord." We are to follow peace and
   holiness. The two are consistent with each other and may be followed
   together. Peace is to be studied, but not such a peace as would lead us
   to violate holiness by conforming to the ways of unregenerate and
   impure men. We are only so far to yield for peace's sake as never to
   yield a principle. We are to be so far peaceful as never to be at peace
   with sin--peaceful with men, but contending earnestly against evil
   principles.

   "Follow peace," but let the following of it be guarded by the other
   precept, "holiness." With equal ardor we are to follow holiness. Some
   who have aimed at holiness have made the great mistake of supposing it
   is necessary to be morose, contentious, faultfinding and censorious
   with everybody else. Their holiness has consisted of negatives,
   protests, and oppositions for opposition's sake. Their religion mainly
   lies in contrarieties and singularities. To them the text offers this
   wise counsel, follow holiness, but also follow peace. Courtesy is not
   inconsistent with faithfulness. It is not necessary to be savage in
   order to be sanctified. A bitter spirit is a poor companion for a
   renewed heart.

   Let your determination for principle be sweetened by tenderness towards
   your fellow men. Be resolute for the right, but be also gentle,
   pitiful, courteous. Consider the meekness as well as the boldness of
   Jesus. Follow peace, but not at the expense of holiness. Follow
   holiness, but do not needlessly endanger peace.

   Having thus hinted at the connection between the two, and how the two
   together make up a complete character, let us now take them one by one.
   Follow peace, "peace with all" says the text--an amplification of the
   expression. Follow peace with all the Church. There should be no
   quarrels within the sacred enclosure which the electing love of God has
   made. You are one in the Divine choice, you are one by the Savior's
   purchase, you are one by the Spirit's calling, you have one Lord, one
   faith, one Baptism. You are on the way to one Heaven--see that you fall
   not out by the way. "Let brotherly love continue." Let each esteem
   others better than himself. Let each seek his brother's good to
   edification.

   Let us by no means be divided in heart, for schisms grieve the Holy
   Spirit, destroy our comfort, weaken our graces, afford occasion for
   gainsayers, and bring a thousand ills upon us. Whereas in these evil
   days the Church is so much divided into denominations, and sections,
   follow peace with all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in
   sincerity. Hold what you believe with firmness, for you are not to
   trifle with God's Truth. But wherever you see anything of Christ, there
   confess relationship, and act as a brother towards your Brother in
   Christ.

   Follow peace with all, especially with your own relatives and friends
   at home. Call we that man a Christian who will not speak with his own
   brother? We may call him such, but such he cannot be. "If he loves not
   his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not
   seen?" When we hear of strife between husband and wife, between brother
   and sister, between father and child, we are ashamed that the name of
   Christ should be connected with such unhallowed contentions. Instead of
   bidding such persons follow after holiness, I would speak to them as
   unto carnal, and bid them first bring forth fruits meet for repentance.

   Do not even publicans and sinners love their own relatives? Are they
   not often forgiving and gentle? How is it, then, that you, calling
   yourself a follower of Christ, allow enmity to reign in your spirit?
   What are your gifts and worshipping while wrath rules within your
   bosom? What have you to do with worshipping God? Leave your gift before
   the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and
   then come and offer your gift. Follow peace with all your neighbors. A
   Christian man should not make himself hated by all around him, yet
   there are some who seem to fancy that they are true to their religion
   in proportion as they make themselves disagreeable.

   Win your neighbors by your willingness to oblige. Disarm their
   opposition, if possible, by courtesy, by charitableness, by kindness.
   "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of
   God." "The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto
   all." Do not sow nettles, nor scatter thistle seeds, but let the
   peaceful honeysuckle and loving jasmine adorn your neighbor's dwelling
   with "peace be to this house." Let the peacefulness of your deportment
   shame those who delight in ill will and strife. And may the Lord of
   Peace Himself give you peace, always by all means.

   "Follow peace with all," that is, even with persecutors. Believers in
   Paul's day were commanded not to resent the evil done to them. They
   were to render to no man evil for evil, but to follow that which is
   good, both among themselves and to all. They were put in prison, they
   were robbed, calumniated, and even cruelly tormented. And yet it is
   wonderful to observe in history how meekly they endured their
   afflictions. Scarcely in any case was a word uttered by them
   inconsistent with the gentleness of their Savior. Now and then a hot
   spirit would pronounce a fiery denunciation of the cruelties practiced
   against the followers of Jesus--but as a rule the saints were led like
   sheep to the slaughter--and suffered in all the glory of patient
   innocence. Here is the patience of the saints!

   Even thus it should be at this day. We are to follow peace with the
   most infidel, the most superstitious, the most wicked, the most cruel.
   If they will fight, let the fighting be all on one side. Or if we take
   up any weapons, let the weapons be those of longsuffering and of love.
   Let us kill fire with fire, and by the flame of love overcome the flame
   of hatred. The anvil, after all, breaks the hammer, because it bears
   every stroke and returns none. So be it with the Christian. "Love your
   enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and
   pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."

   The text says, "Follow peace," and the word "follow" indicates a hunter
   in pursuit of his game. He tracks the footsteps of his prey. He follows
   it over hill and dale, by the edge of the precipice, over the dangerous
   ridge, across the brook and along the river, through the wood and down
   the glen. Follow peace in this way. That is, do not merely be peaceful
   if

   nobody irritates you, but go out of your way to be peaceful--give up
   many things that you have a right to enjoy. The respect that is due to
   you, be willing to forego. In fine, yield all but Truth for peace's
   sake.

   "Charity suffers long, and is kind." "Charity bears all things, hopes
   all things, endures all things." Often the Alpine hunter, when pursuing
   the chamois, will leap from crag to crag. He will wear out the
   live-long day. He will spend the night upon the mountain's cold brow,
   and then descend to the valleys. Then it is up again to the hills--as
   though he could never tire, and could never rest until he has found his
   prey. So perseveringly, with strong resolve to imitate your Lord and
   Master, follow peace with all.

   Stand still awhile, my Brother, and let me warn you that you can not
   follow peace with yonder burden on your back. What is it? It is a mass
   of pride. You can not follow peace if you are proud. Proud men must
   raise strife by their pride. Even if they try to exhibit good nature,
   yet pride neutralizes all, and inevitably excites envy and opposition.
   Even God Himself never sees a proud man but He resolves to pull him
   down--it is a part of the very nature of all intelligent beings to be
   offended at pride--and to desire its fall.

   What have you to be proud of? Has God given you riches? You are so much
   the deeper in His debt. Is that a thing to boast about? Has God given
   you talent? You are so much the more in danger of being led astray by
   your own presumption. Is your greater danger a cause for pride? If your
   position is higher, you have more responsibility. Think less of your
   height, and more of the responsibility which it involves. Walk humbly,
   or you can not follow peace.

   Nor can you follow peace whose heart is full of envy. It is true you
   have not the wealth of another--what would it profit you if he were as
   poor as yourself? It is true you have not the talent of another--in
   what respects would you be better if that man's gifts were taken from
   him? Why, Man, I will be bound to say, you have after all as much as
   you will make good use of, and if not, your brother's loss would not
   make you the richer. It is wrong to be proud, but it is equally wrong
   to be envious. An envious man is sure to see faults where they do not
   exist, and so he makes trouble.

   Envy paints upon the diseased eyeballs of her victims the faults of
   others. The faults they see are rather in themselves than in others,
   yet they think they see them there. Lay aside your envy. Rejoice that
   another is happier and better than you are. Rejoice in his
   happiness--it is the way to increase your own. Rejoice in his
   goodness--it will make you better. If you would double your joy, enjoy
   another's joy, and thank God that he has it.

   Nor can you follow peace, my dear Friend, you with the swift-moving
   tongue. It were not amiss that it moved so rapidly if it carried better
   burdens. But you are a tale-bearer among your Brethren. Your tongue
   speaks more than is true, and much more than is kind. If you perceive
   even a little offense in a Brother, how quick you are to spread it with
   exaggerations of your own! How can you follow peace till you have asked
   God to bridle your tongue?

   What has an untamed, unruly tongue to do with peace? It is the great
   creator and fomenter of discord. More mischief is made by idle
   tittle-tattle than by downright malice. The mischief that men resolve
   to do is very small compared with what men and women incidentally do by
   mere thoughtless love of saying something. You shall not gossip, is a
   commandment which lies in, "you shall not bear false witness," and is
   akin to, "you shall not kill." Follow peace with all, and restrain that
   busy and wicked member, which James calls a world of iniquity, that
   "sets on fire the wheel of nature, and is set on fire of Hell."

   If we would follow peace we must gird our loins with the girdle of
   forbearance. We must resolve that as we will not give offense, so
   neither will we take offense--or if offense is felt--we must resolve to
   forgive. After sundown let us never harbor remembrance of an injury. As
   even the wasp's sting dies when the sun sets, so let our resentments
   pass away. Boundless is the forgiveness of Christ, so let our
   forgiveness be. Until seventy times seven, said Christ to Peter. We
   have not yet reached that, and if we have, let us begin another seventy
   times seven, for God has forgiven us countless numbers of offenses.

   If any tell us that this is to be mean-spirited, let us tell them it is
   to be Christ-like. And if they call the Master Mean-spirited, we of His
   household will be content to be called the same. After all, what is
   grander than patience? What a holy vengeance it is to heap coals of
   fire upon an adversary's head by returning kindness for malice? O you
   who are the people of God, remember that your name is men of peace,
   that your God is the God of peace, that your Savior is the Prince of
   peace, that the Gospel is the Gospel of peace, that the ministers are
   ambassadors of peace, that your heritage on earth is your Savior's
   legacy of peace, and that your Heaven is peace. "If it is possible, as
   much as lies in you live peaceably with

   all men." This is the winning post towards which you are to run. The
   crown of olive and not the wreath of laurel is to be your coveted
   prize.

   The second object of pursuit is a still higher attainment--would God we
   had reached it. "Follow peace with all men, and holiness." The
   amplification of the term "holiness" is the solemn declaration,
   "without which no man shall see the Lord." Certain theologians are so
   averse to the preaching of practical holiness that they have tried to
   import into these words the idea of imputed righteousness. In imputed
   righteousness I glory, but it is not mentioned here. No, my Hearer, it
   is utterly impossible that the text should mean anything of the kind,
   because you will observe that we are to "follow" it, whatever it may
   be.

   Now, we do not follow imputed righteousness, for as soon as we put our
   trust in Christ we are justified through His righteousness. It is not a
   Grace to be followed, it is a benefit possessed already by every
   Christian. This text deals with inward, personal holiness, and nothing
   else. Imputed holiness is a gross misuse of terms. It is not
   Scriptural, and it is a thorough perversion of this passage to force
   such a sense upon it. This is a holiness produced in us by the Holy
   Spirit, which we progressively manifest in our hearts and lives.

   "Follow holiness, without which no man can see the Lord." I understand
   by this sentence, in the first place, that no person who is unholy can
   see or understand Christ the Lord, or God His Father. That is to say,
   he does not know who Christ is so as to have any real fellowship with
   Him. He may know His name, and know His history, and have some
   theoretical ideas of what the Redeemer did and is, but he cannot see
   with spiritual eyesight as holy men do. He cannot, in fact, discern the
   spiritual Character and teaching of the Lord.

   But perhaps the great meaning lies in this--without holiness no man can
   see the Lord in Heaven at last. He will see Him on the Throne of
   Judgment--but he cannot see Him as his Friend--he cannot see Him in
   that beatific vision which is appointed for the sanctified. He cannot
   see Him so as to find joy and delight in the sight of Him. He will not
   be able to enjoy eternal fellowship with God, he will not be permitted
   to enter Heaven--

   "Those holy gates forever bar Pollution, sin, and shame. None can
   obtain admittance there But followers of the Lamb."

   God is so holy that He never can have fellowship with unholy creatures.
   Heaven, the court of God, is so holy that never can unholy beings tread
   its hallowed pavement. An angel once became unholy, and from the
   battlements of Heaven he was hurled into the deeps of Hell. God willed
   to save His elect, but He would not bring them to Heaven until He had
   sanctified them. He, therefore, sent His Son to die, that from His
   wounded side might flow the purifying stream. Surely He who would not
   spare Satan, the bright archangel, will not admit polluted man to
   Heaven!

   And He who put His Son to death to bring His own elect to Heaven, by
   purifying them from sin, will not bring any of us there if we remain
   unholy and submit not ourselves to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is
   the object of election-- "God has chosen us from the beginning that we
   should be holy." This is the very end of our calling. "He has called to
   virtue and holiness." "As He that has called you is holy, be you holy
   in all manner of conversation." This is the work of the Holy Spirit. He
   sanctifies the soul and purifies us day by day. This is the test of
   likeness to Christ, for it is in true holiness that we are conformed
   unto the image of God's dear Son. Unholy men cannot enter Heaven, it is
   impossible. Sooner might God die than unholiness live in His Presence.

   Now, see, my dear Friends, the text says, "Follow holiness." Follow it,
   that is to say, you will not gain it by standing still. Nobody ever
   grew holy without consenting, desiring, and agonizing to be holy. Sin
   will grow without sowing, but holiness needs cultivation. Follow it, it
   will not run after you. You must pursue it with determination, with
   eagerness, with long-continued perseverance, as a hunter pursues his
   prey. You have not yet gained all the holiness which you may have and
   ought to have.

   You are in some respects holy, all of you who have believed, for you
   are sanctified and set apart by God the Father. You are also rendered
   holy, in some respects, by being dedicated to Christ and being
   consecrated as His servants. But you have need to follow the holiness
   which the Spirit of God works in you. And I do beseech you, beseeching
   most of all myself, listen to this word--"Follow holiness."

   Ah, dear Friends, this is a very high and lofty text, and almost too
   high to be addressed to some professors. For some who bear the name of
   Christ have not even followed after morality yet, much less after
   holiness. Now, holiness is far be-

   yond morality, and you cannot be holy while you are not even moral. I
   blush to confess that some professors are unchaste professors. Alas,
   even in this Church some have vexed us with uncleanness. I may not know
   who, in each particular case, may now be guilty of this sin, but such
   have been, such are, such will be, I fear, among the faithful.

   They are men who can talk well about Christ, and yet who are living in
   secret indulgence of lewdness. Persons will dare to profess the
   religion of Christ who can enjoy a lascivious song and broad talk, who
   are given to what is softly styled imprudence, which is really
   impurity. Impure familiarities, glances, and sports are the
   commencement of actual crimes. Men and women who in any way injure
   their delicacy and modesty by insensible degrees, proceed to overt sin.
   All men wonder when a professor falls into foul sin, but they would not
   wonder if they knew how long the transgressor had gone to the verge of
   the precipice.

   The wonder would be rather that the moth had not burnt its wings in the
   candle long before. Oh, hate the very thoughts of uncleanness! Your
   members are members of Christ. Your bodies are to be raised in the
   image of Christ-- defile them not, but walk with the utmost purity as
   in the sight of the thrice holy God.

   Alas, I must further confess that some professors are not yet even
   honest. Shall I talk with them about being holy, when in their trade
   they cheat, and misrepresent, and lie? Should we see so many religious
   bankrupts, so many names before the civil courts of religious knaves
   and scoundrels, if there were not good need to preach plain morality
   even in the visible Church of God? I do preach it, I dare not do
   otherwise, even at the risk of having it thrown in my teeth by the
   enemies of religion. How can I talk of holiness to those who are
   dishonest in trading? Shame upon you to couple God's name with your
   knaveries.

   Get you, therefore, away! What have you to do with Christ? You are His
   crucifiers--you put Him to an open shame. I tell such even weeping,
   that they above all others are the enemies of the Cross of Christ!
   Mournfully, I must go on and accuse some professors of being drunkards.
   There are still mingled with our Churches, even with our Nonconforming
   Churches, those who put but small restraints upon their animal
   appetites. They are overcharged with drunkenness in their parties and
   in secret. They talk like the disciples of Christ, and eat and drink
   like the followers of Epicures. Men given to wine cannot be filled with
   the Spirit!

   What? Though they are not seen staggering in the streets, is their
   excess one whit the less sinful than that of the public drunkard? "You
   have lived in pleasure on the earth, and have been wanton; you have
   nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter." Is not this living
   unto the flesh? And shall you not die? There are some, again, who have
   not yet attained to be industrious. We have those in the Church who are
   shamefully idle, who if they could but live on the alms of the Church
   would never do anything for themselves, and how the Grace of God can
   live in a lazy man I know not.

   If laziness is detestable to good men, much more must it be to God. "My
   Father works up to now, and I work," says Christ. You find no idleness
   among angels or saints, yet these men would eat other men's bread, and
   deserve to be put upon the rations appointed for such by the Apostle
   Paul, "If any will not work, neither let him eat."

   Now if I have to speak of such sins as these that are common among
   ungodly men, well may my heart ache when I see them in the Church of
   God. I am wearied with the sins of professors, and sore vexed with
   their inconsistencies. I long to present you as a chaste virgin unto
   Christ, and lo, I see sin and folly in Israel. Achan troubles the camp.
   How can we talk of holiness to men who fall short even in morality?
   Holiness is better than morality, it includes it, it goes beyond it.
   Holiness affects the heart. Holiness respects the motive--holiness
   regards the whole nature of man. A moral man does not do wrong in act.
   A holy man hates the thought of doing wrong.

   A moral man does not swear, but a holy man adores. A moral man would
   not commit outward sin. A holy man would not commit inward sin--and
   over that inward sin, if committed--he would pour forth floods of
   tears. I can hardly explain to you the word "holy," except by calling
   you to notice that it comes from the same Saxon root as the words
   "heal," "whole," and "all." A man who is made spiritually whole is a
   complete man, all the virtues are there. His heart is right as well as
   his outward acts. Heal, all, whole, wholly, holy, by these steps you
   reach the word. A holy man aims to be like God, complete in His
   Character, motives, and thoughts--renewed after the image of Him that
   created Him in righteousness and true holiness.

   Did not that word stagger you as I read the chapter this morning? Was
   not that a wonderful expression? "Partakers of His holiness"? That you
   and I should share in the holiness of God--is not this a lofty thing?
   And yet we must have no less than this, for without it we shall not see
   God. "This is a hard saying," says one, "you judge us too severely."
   Breth-

   ren, I judge you not, it is God's Word that judges, and I pray you
   regard its infallible utterance--"Without holiness no man shall see the
   Lord."

   In the Greek there are no less than three negatives in this passage, as
   though it said, "No never, no man shall see the Lord." Is he a great
   preacher? Without holiness he may preach, and he may win souls, but he
   shall never see the Lord. Is he a great giver to the cause of God? Yes,
   very liberal, but without holiness he shall not see the Lord. "He said
   he believed in Jesus Christ, and he talked a great deal about inward
   experience." That may be, but without holiness, whoever he may be, he
   shall never see God face to face. There will be no exception made for
   any one of us, we must all go into that scale and be weighed there, and
   if we are devoid of holiness, much more if we are destitute of common
   morality, we shall never see the Lord.

   Heaven and earth shall pass away, but this word shall never pass away.
   If we follow not after holiness, at the gates of Heaven we shall find
   ourselves repulsed. Hope as we may, and boast as we may--neither you
   nor I--without holiness, shall never get one joyful glimpse of God.

   II. Thus have I spoken on the two things to be followed, and now, with
   the Holy Spirit's help, I will speak on the TWO THINGS TO BE AVOIDED.
   These are in the next verse--"Looking diligently, lest any man fail of
   the Grace of God." The first thing to be avoided is failure. Even those
   who believe in the doctrine of falling from Grace have honestly
   conceded that this text does not mean that men may fall from the Grace
   of God, though the marginal reading might imply that. The Greek would
   not bear such a rendering.

   There are some persons who for a time appear to possess the Grace of
   God, and for awhile exhibit many outward evidences of being Christians,
   but at last the temptations come that are most suitable to their
   depraved tastes, and they are carried away with it. They fail of the
   Grace of God. They appear to have gained it, but they fail at
   last--like a man in business who makes money for a time--but fails in
   the end. They fail of the Grace of God--like an arrow shot from the bow
   which goes straight towards the target for a time--but having too
   little impetus, fails to reach the mark.

   There are some who did run well. What hinders them that they should not
   obey the Truth of God?--

   "The apostate soul does tire and faint,

   And walk the ways of God no more;

   He is esteemed almost a saint,

   Yet makes his own damnation sure." Perhaps a more dangerous way of
   failing of the Grace of God may be this. Some have maintained an
   admirable character to all appearance all their lives, and yet have
   failed of the Grace of God because of some secret sin. They persuaded
   even themselves that they were Believers, and yet they were not truly
   so. They had no inward holiness, they allowed one sin to get the
   mastery. They indulged in an unsanctified passion, and so, though they
   were laid in the grave like sheep, they died with a false hope, and
   missed eternal life. This is a most dreadful state to be in, and
   perhaps some of us are in it. Let the prayer be breathed, "Search me, O
   God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there
   is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

   Are you earnest in secret prayer? Do you love the reading of the Bible?
   Have you the fear of God before your eyes? Do you really commune with
   God? Do you truly love Christ? Ask yourselves these questions
   often--for though we preach the free Gospel of Jesus Christ, I hope as
   plainly as any--we feel it to be just as necessary to set you on
   self-examination and to excite in you a holy anxiety. It ought to be
   often a question with you, "Have I the Grace of God, or do I fall short
   of it? Am I a piece of rock crystal which is very like the diamond, but
   yet is not diamond? Am I like that famous wheel we have all heard so
   much of lately which had been revolving on its axis so long, but which
   had an unseen flaw in it, and therefore at last on its journey it
   snapped and destroyed many lives? Am I just that? Have I been revolving
   for years in my profession, and shall I break down at last with the
   whole weight of my eternal interests to be thereby eternally ruined?

   My dear Friends, listen earnestly to the text--it says, "Looking
   diligently lest any man fail of the Grace of God." The word is
   "episcopountes," a word which signifies overseeing, being true bishops,
   looking diligently as a man on the watchtower watches for the coming
   foe. See the sentry pace the rampart--he looks in one direction and he
   sees the brushwood stirred. He half thinks it is the foe, and suspects
   an ambush there. He looks to the front, across the sea, does he not
   discern a sail in the distance? The attack may be from the seaboard. He
   looks to the right, across the plain, and if even a little dust should
   move he watches lest the foe should be on foot.

   So in the Church of God each one should be on his watchtower for
   himself and for others, watching diligently lest any man fail of the
   Grace of God. The first person who is likely to fail in this Church is
   myself. Each one ought to feel that. The beginning of the watch should
   therefore be at home. Depend upon it, dear Friends, if there is anyone
   likely to fall into sin it is yourself. Though I say you, I mean myself
   as well. Each man is himself most in danger. If you say, "I do not
   think so," then there is the more reason that you should think so. If
   upon hearing of anyone falling into sin you have said, "I do not
   understand it, I know I never should have done so," it is very likely
   you will, before long, fall into the same or equally vile sin.

   You are just the man. Those who think they stand are the men who fall.
   "If any man thinks he stands, let him take heed lest he fall." You who
   lie low on your faces before God in self-distrust, feeling your
   liability to err, and asking to be kept every day--you are the least
   likely to fall of any. But those who say as the Pharisees, "What fools
   others are to be led astray in that way, I am not one of them," they
   are fools themselves! God help you, when you are self-reliant, for your
   feet have almost gone, if not to any other sin, at all events in the
   direction of pride. And remember a man may as easily be damned by pride
   as by dishonesty.

   Then, next, exercise watchfulness over others. How many persons might
   be saved from backsliding by a little oversight! If we would speak to
   the Brother kindly and considerately, when we think he is growing a
   little cold, we might restore him. We need not always speak directly to
   him by way of rebuke, but we may place a suggestive book in his way, or
   speak generally upon the subject. Love can invent many ways of warning
   a friend without making him angry. And a holy example will also prove a
   great rebuke to sin. The very presence of some men is a check and guide
   to others. In the Church we ought to bear one another's burden, and so
   fulfill the Law of Christ, exercising the office of bishops over one
   another, and watching diligently lest any man fail of the Grace of God.

   The second thing to be avoided is uprising evil "lest any root of
   bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled." In
   the center of my lawn horseradishes will sprout up. After the smallest
   shower of rain it rises above the grass and proclaims its vitality.
   There was a garden there once, and this root maintains its old
   position. When the gardener cuts it down, it resolves to rise again.
   Now, if the gardener cannot get it quite out of the ground, it is his
   business constantly to cut it down. We are but men, and even when
   associated in Church fellowship, each one brings his own particular
   poisonous root, and there are sure to be bad roots in the ground.

   We are to watch diligently lest any of these bitter poisonous roots
   spring up, for if they do they will trouble us. Sin and error always
   bring sorrow and division, and thereby many are defiled. Sometimes the
   root is doctrinal error, and in these days there is a world of it. We
   must watch diligently lest doctrinal error springs up in our midst. I
   must confess I have very little charity for many of the errors of
   modern times, and can never degrade this Church by tolerating all sorts
   of views in it. If men choose errors let them form their own Churches.
   They have no right to thrust their views upon our community.

   There is a certain form of doctrine which we believe to be Scriptural,
   and if any members deviate from it, their first duty is to leave the
   Church when they can no longer agree with its belief. As long as I am
   pastor I shall have no controversy about doctrines which are our
   settled basis of association, but shall bid those who differ go where
   they can hold their own views in peace. If this should not prove
   successful, our duty will be to follow peace by extirpating the root of
   bitterness, and putting the Jonah overboard. Such a case never has
   occurred, and by God's Grace I trust never will. But if it should, the
   Church must not hesitate.

   I am persuaded that doctrinal differences in a Church, by breeding the
   spirit of contention, altogether prevent that Church from serving God
   aright. If we do not agree in the same Truth we had better separate. We
   must be one or we cannot be strong. While we hold one Lord, one faith,
   one Baptism, and are moved by the same spirit, we shall advance to the
   battle as one man, knit together in the bonds of holy unity. But when
   roots of bitterness spring up they must be cut down and kept down, or
   else ultimately they will bring defilement. Doctrinal error leads to
   practical error, and a Church which treats God's doctrine as nothing,
   will soon allow His precepts to be treated in the same way. And this
   would altogether defile the Church of God.

   Another root of bitterness is when sin prevails in the Church. When
   they who preach the Gospel, or hold office in the Church, or are
   members of it, fall into gross and open sin, Hell laughs in derision.
   We should watch diligently against this. Again, I say, each man must
   watch himself most diligently, and his fellow next. Do, dear Friends,
   guard against the

   beginning of sin. Rest assured, Christian professors never go into
   great sins on a sudden. There is first a neglect of private prayer, an
   indulgence in something which looks innocent but is not, and by degrees
   it comes to open sin.

   We cannot, as professors, from the very force of our training and
   association, plunge into foul sin all of a sudden. It is by degrees
   that Satan entices us away from our steadfastness, and then at last we
   fall a prey to the foe. On your knees pray to God to crush the eggs of
   the old dragon before they are hatched. For if you are children of God
   and go into sin, it will cost you, I know not what. It may cost you
   sorrow to your grave. Poor David, poor David--up to the time of his
   great sin, what a grand singer he was! But if you read me one of the
   Psalms, I can tell you whether he wrote it before or after his
   fall--for before that sad event his songs are jubilant and dance to the
   music of the timbrel--but afterwards his voice is hoarse, and bass
   notes preponderate, and you see traces of doubt and unbelief which
   never appeared before.

   Beware of his sin lest you fall into his sorrow. And remember, sins
   which happened to some of God's people of old, who were truly God's
   people--if they happened to you would prove that you were not among the
   people of God at all. They were placed, many of them, in circumstances
   which, though they did not excuse the sin, yet somewhat accounted for
   it. You are not placed in such circumstances. You have more light given
   you and a clearer revelation of Christ, and therefore more is expected
   of you. And I tell you in God's sight, if you do not all strive after
   holiness, it is in vain for you to talk about faith in Christ, for
   there it stands and always must stand, "Be you holy, for I am holy."
   "Be you clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord."

   The Son of Man not only came to seek the lost, but to save them, and
   that saying is explained by His very name. "They shall call His name
   Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins," not IN their
   sins, but FROM their sins. Except we, as Believers, keep our Lord's
   Commandments and walk according to His will, we shall not be able to
   comfort ourselves even with the blood of Jesus. For Jesus never died to
   give us peace while we love sin and live in it. What says the
   Scripture, "If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have
   fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son
   cleanses us from all sin." See to it, then, that only as we are walking
   in the light as He is in the light, can we have evidence that the blood
   has cleansed us from sin. God grant us Grace to feel the force of this.

   If rightly moved by the Truths taught in this sermon we shall be very
   humble. When Isaiah had heard the seraphim cry, "Holy, holy, holy,"
   while the posts of the doors moved, he said, "Woe is me! I am undone,
   because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a
   people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of
   Hosts." Do you not feel the same? Let humility prevail in your spirit.
   Let it rule in your heart more and more. Do not be afraid of being
   brought very low. You are never so safe as when you are low. Do not be
   afraid of having a very humble esteem of yourself.

   I do not suppose any of us have in our most desponding moments ever
   grasped the desperate character of our own ruin by nature, and the
   terrible character of our personal sinfulness apart from Christ. You
   are undone. In your flesh there dwells no clean thing, and even your
   righteousnesses are as filthy rags. O child of God, get to the foot of
   the Cross and lie there. But what then? By all-conquering faith look up
   and say, "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, my faith is
   fixed on Him. O You precious Lamb of God, like the publican I cry, 'Be
   merciful to me, a sinner,' renew me, cleanse me, purge me. I hate my
   sins, deliver me from their power, keep me that I sin not against You.
   Hold me up and I shall be safe. On the blood which cleanses I depend. O
   let it come to me in all its purifying, sanctifying, force--and make
   and keep me pure within!"

   If there is in this house, today, any who have backslidden, I beg them
   to mourn, indeed, and put their trust in Jesus, and begin again. And if
   there is any professor, young or old, who ought not to be a professor,
   I ask him either to lay down his profession or make it real. Do not add
   to your sins this sin of pretending to be a Christian if you are not.
   Be honest. O do not wound Christ with unnecessary wounds. If you make
   no profession you will at least be free from the sin of hypocrisy. But
   I pray you do not sell your birthright for a little pottage. Do not let
   your God and Savior go for a little of this world's vanities.

   May you choose Christ! May you lay hold on Him and be laid hold of by
   Him! And may you be kept by Him even to the end, that in the Last Great
   Day Jesus may say of you, "Here am I, and the children whom You have
   given Me." If you have never been converted, and have made no
   profession, still the text has a bearing upon you. Remember, without
   holiness you cannot see the Lord. "The fear of the Lord is the
   beginning of wisdom." Faith in Jesus is the basis of holiness. God help
   you to begin at the Cross, and grant you His blessing from this time
   forth even forever. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Tender Pity of the Lord

   (No. 941)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 17, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that
   fear Him. For he knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust." Psalm
   103:13,14.

   DAVID sang of the compassionate pity of our heavenly Father who will
   not always chide, nor keep His anger forever. He had proved in relation
   to Himself that the Lord is not easily provoked but is plenteous in
   mercy. Remembering how feeble and how frail we are, the Lord bears and
   forbears with His weak and sinful children and is gentle towards them
   as a nurse with her child. Although our own observation has proved this
   to be true, and our experience everyday goes to show how truthfully
   David sang, yet assuredly the clearest display of the patience and pity
   of God towards us may be seen in the life of Him in whom dwells all the
   fullness of the Godhead bodily.

   Therefore, instead of speaking upon Providential patience, I shall bid
   you gaze upon God in Christ Jesus, and see there how human weaknesses
   and follies are pitied of the Lord. With a text from the Old Testament,
   I purpose to take you straight away to the New, and the tenderness and
   pity of the Father shall be illustrated by the meekness and lowliness
   of the Son towards His immediate disciples, the Apostles. While the
   Holy Spirit shows you thus the pity of Jesus Christ towards His own
   personal attendants, you will see as in a glass His pity towards you.

   I. At the outset let us attentively and admiringly observe THE DIVINE
   PATIENCE OF OUR LORD JESUS TOWARDS THE APOSTLES. I shall begin on this
   point by reminding you of their origin. Who, and what were these whom
   He received into intimate fellowship with Himself? They were not the
   high-born and powerful of the earth, for, "Not many wise men after the
   flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are chosen." Not a single
   nobleman was numbered with the Apostles. They were not even educated
   persons who, if poor, might still wear a gentle heart beneath a
   peasant's garb.

   There was not a rabbi nor a philosopher among them. They were as
   uninstructed and as clownish as the rest of the peasantry of Palestine.
   He selected them from the populace. They were either fishermen or
   publicans--and these He made to be the first instruments of spreading
   abroad the Gospel and establishing His kingdom. For our Lord Christ,
   who had been accustomed to the thrones, and royalties of Heaven, to
   stoop to be the familiar companion of any of the sons of men would be
   wonderful condescension! But what shall I say when He elects the weak,
   and the poor, and the despised, to be His friends? He might have
   selected for His associates the choicest spirits, the advanced
   intellects, the educated minds, but, lo, He makes foolish the wisdom of
   this world, and chooses the things that are not to bring to nothing the
   things that are.

   I do not exaggerate when I speak of the clownishness of the
   Apostles--their dullness and their ignorance. They were very honest and
   sincere, but they were far from being naturally quick of understanding.
   It was intentionally that our Lord made choice of them, on purpose, to
   illustrate the sovereignty of election, and that no flesh should glory
   in His Presence. He resolved that when He had filled them with the
   Divine Spirit, and ordained them to be the chosen vessels to bear His
   name unto the Gentiles, none should ascribe their power to
   themselves--but all the glory should evidently belong unto the Lord
   alone.

   At the same time we must not forget that it must have caused the Lord
   Jesus much inconvenience and trouble to bear with such disciples. The
   refined spirit cannot be in continual contact with the coarse without
   enduring pain. Some may call such pain sentimental, but in so doing
   they only reveal their own ignorance, for, probably, no shocks are more
   severe, no wounds more smarting than those inflicted upon the delicate,
   the pure, the holy, the refined, by association with the groveling, the
   selfish, the sinful, the unspiritual. The glory of our Master's
   patience is this--that He did not betray even the slightest disgust or
   weariness of His poor friends.

   Though He might have said to them, as well as to the multitude, "O
   faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How
   long shall I suffer you?" yet He bore with them without repining, and
   only now and then gave them a rebuke. He never looked contemptuously
   upon them as His inferiors, though they were vastly so in all respects.
   He called them friends. He told them mysteries as if they could
   understand them, though often when He explained them to them they
   missed the inner meaning. He took them into His most retired haunts. He
   familiarized them with the garden and the Mount of Olives, where He was
   likely to seek His retirement.

   He would even stay His prayers to teach them how to pray--there was
   nothing that He would not do for them. Just such as they were He
   accepted them, and resolved to train them for His service. Having once
   loved them, He loved them unto the end. He never made them feel a dread
   of His superiority, or shudder at the distance between their character
   and His own. He kept no register of their faults--He never rehearsed
   the list of their shortcomings--but, on the contrary, His main rebuke
   was His own perfect example. And He always treated them as His friends
   and Brethren. Think of this, and you will see in Christ Jesus that,
   "like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that
   fear Him."

   Much forbearance He had with their lack of understanding. The Apostles,
   before Pentecost, were very gross and un-spiritual in judgment. He
   Himself had to say to them, "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all
   that the Prophets have spoken." Until the Holy Spirit came upon them,
   and made them quick of understanding, they were sorry dunces, dull
   scholars--even though the best of masters had become their Teacher.
   They did not understand the object of His mission. They fancied that He
   came to be a king, and they expected to receive crowns and dignities,
   and even began to quarrel over the division of the spoil--disputing as
   to which of them should be the greatest peer in the kingdom which they
   expected Him to establish.

   He was thinking of suffering and death while they were dreaming of
   robes and coronets. The mother of Zebedee's children even asked for her
   sons that one might sit on His right hand and the other on His left in
   His kingdom--a gross misconception, indeed, of what that kingdom would
   be--and a piece of pride and selfishness that she should seek for her
   sons, probably with their acquiescence--a place above their fellow
   disciples. When He spoke to them concerning His sufferings, though He
   used great plainness of speech, yet they could not understand Him. Take
   this passage in the ninth of Luke, at the forty-third verse--"While
   they wondered, everyone, at all things which Jesus did, He said unto
   His disciples, Let these sayings sink down into your ears: for the Son
   of Man shall be delivered into the hands of men. But they understood
   not this saying, and it was hid from them, that they perceived it not:
   and they feared to ask Him of that saying."

   The thought that the Son of God, the King of Israel should, by-and-by,
   be proclaimed king upon a felon's Cross could not by any means find
   place in their minds. They continued to cling tenaciously to the idea
   of earthly dominion. What strange ignorance was that which led them to
   think the Savior referred to their having no bread when He said,
   "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees." Think, too, of the dullness of
   Philip when the Lord was speaking concerning the Father, and he said,
   "Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us."

   And Thomas was not much wiser when he said, "Lord, we know not where
   You go, and how can we know the way?" There were many truths which
   Christ did not clearly teach to them before the descent of the Spirit,
   for the reason which He once gave--"I have many things to say unto you,
   but you cannot bear them now." Even when He made that simple statement,
   "A little while, and you shall not see Me: and again, a little while,
   and you shall see Me, because I go to the Father," they did not
   understand Him. And He said to them, "Do you enquire among yourselves
   of that I said, A little while, and you shall not see Me: and again, a
   little while, and you shall see Me?"

   The expression was so simple that they should have understood it, but
   their prejudices blinded their eyes. Nor was this confined to the early
   days of their fellowship with Him, for even after our Lord had risen
   from the tomb, those with whom He conversed on the road to Emmaus, who
   were probably by no means inferior to the rest, did not understand the
   references of the Prophets to Christ, and were not prepared to see in
   His Resurrection the manifest fulfillment of the words which had been
   spoken of old. Their eyes were held in more senses than one. Many a
   master would have grown weary of such pupils, but infinite love brought
   to its succor infinite patience, and He continued still to teach them
   though they were so slow to learn. "Like as a father pities his
   children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him."

   Reflect again, my Brethren, upon the unevangelical spirit which these
   Apostles often showed. On one occasion even John, as mild and gentle a
   spirit as any of them, asked to be permitted to call fire from Heaven
   to destroy certain Samari-

   tans who would not receive the Savior because His face was set towards
   Jerusalem. Jesus, the friend of sinners, calling fire from Heaven? This
   might suit Elijah, but was not after the manner of the meek and lowly
   Prince of Peace. It would have been quite foreign to all His purposes,
   and contrary to His entire spirit. Yet the two sons of thunder would
   hurl lightning on their Master's foes!

   He might well have spoken to them as bitterly as David did to the sons
   of Zeruiah, when in their hot rage they would have slain their leader's
   foolish foes. He might have said, "What have I to do with you, you sons
   of Zebedee?" But He merely said, "You know not what spirit you are of."
   Read the ninth chapter of Luke, which is full of the failings of the
   disciples, and notice how John and the rest forbade the man who was
   casting out devils in Jesus' name. With the true spirit of bigoted
   monopoly that will not tolerate anything outside the pale of orthodoxy,
   they said, "We saw one casting out devils in Your name."

   And instead of rejoicing that there were some beyond our company who
   were assisted by the Master's power, and were glorifying the Master's
   name, "we forbade him because he follows not with us." Their Lord,
   instead of angrily upbraiding their intolerance, gently chided them
   with the sentence, "Forbid him not, for he that is not against us is
   for us." Remember, also, how the disciples put away the mothers of
   Israel when they brought their tender offspring to receive the Savior's
   blessing? This showed a very unevangelical spirit. They would not have
   their Lord interrupted by the cries of babes, and thought the children
   too insignificant to be worthy of His consideration.

   But, though our Lord was much displeased with the disciples, yet He
   only said, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them
   not. For of such is the kingdom of Heaven." But, my Brethren, it must
   have required great patience for our dear Lord and Master, who Himself
   would not break a bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax, to bear
   with these rough men who pushed the little ones on one side, who would
   gag the mouths of those who were doing good in their own way, and who
   would even call fire from Heaven upon poor ignorant sinners! Admire
   much His patience with their impatience, and see how, "Like as a father
   pities his children, so He pitied them," because He knew they feared
   Him in their hearts, and their faults were rather infirmities than
   rebellions.

   Again, their weakness of faith must have been, in itself, a great
   provocation to Him, and yet He bore with it most meekly. When in the
   storm, on the lake, they ought not to have been afraid, because Jesus
   was with them, though asleep. But their alarm was so great that they
   must awaken Him, not thinking of His weariness which required rest in
   sleep. And they were so ungenerously unbelieving as to insinuate that
   He was unkindly thoughtless of their danger--"Master," said they, "do
   You not care that we perish?" Oh, what unbelief was here! He might well
   have been angry, but He rather rebuked the wind than they, and sweetly
   said, "Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?"

   Not many days after, however, they found themselves in a like case, and
   after such a deliverance, they ought to have been confident, but again
   they were troubled. Let us not upbraid them, for it has been our case
   full often. Jesus came to them in the midst of the storm, walking on
   the sea, and they were afraid of Him, and thought it was a spirit, and
   they cried out. Their faith was so feeble--it was scarcely faith, but
   rather unbelief. Peter was a fair representative of them all when on
   that occasion he said, "If it is You, bid me come to You on the water."

   He had faith enough with venturous footstep to tread the wave, and to
   continue to do so until a more than usually boisterous gust made his
   heart tremble, and down he went. Jesus, as He caught him, tenderly
   said, "O you of little faith, why do you doubt?" No anger was in that
   fatherly rebuke. He spoke as a mother might, when, after teaching her
   child to walk, she saw its little feet give way and saved it from a
   fall.

   Take another instance of their unbelief. Our Lord had fed the
   multitude, if you remember, with five loaves and two fishes, and but a
   short time after, another vast crowd was in a similar hungry condition.
   Jesus declared His compassion to the Apostles in much the same language
   as He had used previously--one would have thought that after seeing Him
   feed the five thousand so short a time before, they would have had no
   fear about the four thousand then to be fed, but would have said,
   "Lord, do as You did before. Here are our seven loaves and our few
   little fishes. If five loaves fed five thousand, surely you can feed
   four thousand with seven."

   Instead of that they said, "Why should we have so much bread in the
   wilderness as to fill so great a multitude?" Alas, for such unbelief!
   How could they doubt when with all their eyes they had seen what the
   Master could do? How could they be so unbelieving as to ask, "How can a
   man satisfy these men with bread here in this wilderness?" Surely the
   Savior must have been sorely put to it to bear with this. Moreover,
   they lost, by their unbelief, a large amount of power which

   they might have exercised for good--and they exposed their Master's
   name to derision. When He came down from the Mount of Transfiguration,
   He found a company gathered at the foot of the mountain who were
   glorying over the baffled disciples, because they could not cast out a
   devil from a poor tormented child.

   There were the reviling multitude, and there the disconcerted
   disciples. The Lord Jesus immediately rectified the mischief by casting
   out the devil, and when alone with the disciples He answered their
   question, "Why could not we cast him out?" How pityingly and
   encouragingly He replied, "Because of your unbelief: for verily I say
   unto you, If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say
   unto this mountain, Remove therefore to yonder place. And it shall
   remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." Now, where unbelief
   not only makes the person fearful, but causes him to be weak where he
   should be strong--and to expose his Master's name and fame to doubt and
   distrust--it is enough to provoke anger in the holiest.

   And yet the Master was not provoked, for He pitied His disciples as a
   father pities his children. Again, I would remark that it was not only
   in the earlier period of His communion that they were unbelieving.
   There might have been some excuse at that time, but even at the close
   of His sojourn with them they still remained doubters. Take Thomas as a
   case in point and hear him obstinately declare, "Except I shall see in
   His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of
   the nails, I will not believe." Yet our gentle Lord condescended to
   grant His incredulous disciple the tokens for which he had asked.

   The rest of the Apostles do not seem to have been much stronger in
   faith, for when He appeared, "they were terrified and affrighted," and
   were not comforted even when He said, "Behold My hands and My feet,
   that it is I Myself; handle Me and see, for a spirit has not flesh and
   bones, as you see I have." How gracious it was on His part, since they
   yet believed not, to eat before them all a piece of a broiled fish, and
   of a honeycomb, to prove that He was yet alive and in a real body!

   What? Had they seen Him three years? Had they beheld the miracles which
   He worked? Had they listened to His teaching and perceived the Divinity
   which dwelt within Him--and yet when He had risen from the dead, did
   they refuse to believe the testimony of the holy women and of Peter and
   John? Did they disbelieve the evidence of the empty tomb? Oh, yes! For
   unbelief, "as in them all, and they might each have cried, "Lord, I
   believe, help You my unbelief." Yet He put up with them and pitied them
   still.

   Nor have I exhausted this matter. Their emulations of each other must
   very frequently have distressed the lowly mind of Jesus. Again and
   again we find them striving among themselves which should be the
   greatest. After James and John had so foolishly sought to sit on His
   right hand and on His left, the ten, it is said, had indignation
   against them, proving that if they did not show it in the same manner,
   yet they were actuated by much the same spirit as the sons of Zebedee.
   We find them again contending which should be the greatest when our
   Lord took a little child and set him in their midst, and said, "Except
   you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter
   into the kingdom of Heaven."

   As much as to say, "You need not choose places in the kingdom, and
   dispute as to precedence, you cannot even enter there while you are
   moved by the spirit of ambition. You must be humble, and become like
   this child before you can understand that kingdom." Perhaps the worst
   case of the Apostles' emulation is that recorded in Luke 22:24, when
   even after the blessed festival of love the apple of discord was thrown
   upon the table. Sad to think that at the Lord's Supper Satan should be
   so present. Extraordinary as it may seem, yet so it was. The question,
   "Lord, is it I?" was succeeded by the question which of them should be
   the greatest.

   Their Lord was about to die. Gethsemane's sweat of agony was almost
   gathering on His brow. His passion was close at hand, and yet His
   disciples were taken up with so contemptible a question as which of
   them should take precedence of the other. That dear rebuke of washing
   their feet was a sweet way of reproving them and revealing His own
   love.

   I must not forget that on some occasions they showed their pride in a
   very wrong and even insulting manner. Peter, who was, after all, but a
   type of the rest, when our Lord had spoken of His death, took Him and
   began to rebuke Him! Yes, he rebuked his Master!!! His Lord then turned
   Himself and rebuked the devil rather than Peter, though Peter had
   become the foolish instrument of the devil, and He said, "Get you
   behind Me, Satan: you are an offense unto Me: for you savor not the
   things that are of God, but those that are of men." Nor was this the
   only occasion, for when He had warned Peter that he would deny Him that
   night, He was contradicted point blank by His rash follower, and his
   fellow disciples joined Peter in the contradiction.

   "Likewise also said all the disciples." They were told to pray that
   they might not enter into temptation, but they were proud enough to
   believe that their Master did not know them and to think that no
   temptation could overcome them. Here was pride, indeed, and yet though
   those poor things who had needed to be humbled in the dust, spoke so
   exceeding proudly and lifted up their horn on high, yet all Jesus did
   was just pity them and to pray for them, and bear with their ignorance
   and their ill manners. Having loved them He pitied them, and remembered
   that they were but dust.

   I will only mention one other matter, and that was His patience with
   their infirmities. I mean not only their sinless weaknesses, but those
   in which sin was in some degree present. Remember their weakness in the
   garden? He was in agony, and He selected three of them to watch near
   the scene of His passion. But when, in the midst of His distress, He
   came to them, as if He would have a word of comfort from them, He found
   them sleeping. Oh, the pathos of those words, "What? Could you not
   watch with Me one hour?" And such an hour--an hour of such extremity!
   Where was their love that they could sleep while He was in agony?

   Yet how mild His language--"The spirit, truly is willing, but the flesh
   is weak." Worse than that, no sooner was He taken, than not one of all
   the band, so valiant in their own opinion, was found standing at his
   Master's side! Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled. And the
   bravest of them all, in the hall where his Master was accused as a
   criminal, stood by the fire and warmed his hands, and said, "I know not
   the Man." And then with oaths and cursing, even a third time declared,
   "I know not what you say." Here was cowardly weakness, indeed, at which
   the Savior's resentment might well have been kindled. But He showed no
   anger, He only turned and looked at Peter.

   And it was such a look of mingled sorrow and pity that the poor denier
   of his Lord went out and wept bitterly. When the Lord had risen from
   the dead, He did not upbraid Peter, but He sent a special love message
   to him, "Go, tell My disciples and Peter." And when Peter was with Him
   by the sea, the only rebuke, if rebuke it could be called, was the
   question, "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love Me?" Asked a third time in
   remembrance of the three times in which he had denied Him, and that
   three times he might have the privilege of saying, "Yes, Lord, You know
   all things. You know that I love You."

   Beloved Friends, it is meet that I should add that the pain to our Lord
   arising from these faults must be estimated by His matchless Character
   and by the end He had in view. Remember He was perfectly holy as Man,
   and, moreover, He was God. And to have to bear with such poor creatures
   as these was therefore the most wonderful condescension and pity.
   Engaged as He was in seeking their good, and not His own, it was the
   harder to endure that they should be such stubborn materials, and so
   great a hindrance to Him. Moreover, remember that He did not merely
   bear with them but treated them as His friends.

   All things that He had heard of His Father He made known unto them. He
   admitted them into His most intimate acquaintanceship, and all the
   while almost His only rebuke to them was His own perfect example. He
   taught them humility by His humility. He taught them gentleness by His
   gentleness. He did not point out their defects in words. He did not
   dwell upon their errors--He rather let them see their own spots by His
   purity, their own defects by His perfection. Oh, the marvelous
   tenderness of Christ, who so paternally pitied them that feared Him!

   II. Let us think for a short time of THE REASONS OF THIS DIVINE
   PATIENCE in the case of our Lord. Doubtless we must find the first
   reason in what He is. Our Lord was so greatly good that He could bear
   with poor frail humanity. When you and I cannot bear with other people
   it is because we are so weak ourselves. If you cannot bear with your
   imperfect brother, take it for certain that you are very imperfect
   yourself. Jesus was so free from selfishness that anything that they
   might do which was injurious to the honor due to Him did not afflict
   Him in the same way as our pride would afflict us.

   All the suffering He would feel would be grief that they should be so
   erring, that they should have learned so slowly. He would not think of
   Himself, but would only think of them. Besides, He was so gentle, so
   tender! It was no exaggeration or egotism when He said, "I am meek and
   lowly in heart." I would to God we could copy His love and borrow His
   "meekness so Divine." He bore with them and pitied them because of His
   relationship to them. He had loved them as He has loved many of us,
   "from before the foundation of the world." He was their Shepherd, and
   He pitied the diseases of His flock.

   He was their Savior, and He lamented the sins from which He was about
   to save them. He was their "Brother born for adversity," and He stooped
   to be familiar with their frailties. He had determined to bring many
   sons unto glory, and therefore, for the joy that was set before Him, He
   endured all things for the elects' sake.

   Another reason for His patience was His intention to become perfect as
   the Captain of our salvation, through suffering. You have perhaps
   enquired, "Why did not the Lord Jesus at once perfectly sanctify these
   Apostles, and deliver them from sin? He might have done so." I grant
   you He might and I have often wondered why He does not do the same with
   us. But I do not wonder when I remember that it was necessary that He
   should become a faithful High Priest, touched with a feeling of our
   infirmities by being tempted in all points, like as we are.

   Now, you and I have to bear with our imperfect brethren and if our Lord
   had never endured the same, He could not in that point have shown
   fellowship with us. In order that He might be a complete High Priest,
   and know all the temptations of all His servants, He bears with the
   infirmities and sins of disciples whom He could have perfected at once
   if He had willed, but whom He did not choose to perfect because He
   desired to reveal His tender pity towards them, and to obtain by
   experience complete likeness to His Brethren. Thus the High Priest of
   our profession became capable of sympathy with us in like condition, by
   having to bear with all the infirmities of His disciples.

   Did He not also do this, my dear Friends, that He might honor the Holy
   Spirit? If Jesus had perfected the Apostles, they would not have seen
   so manifestly the Glory of the Holy Spirit. Until the Holy Spirit was
   come, what poor creatures the eleven were! But when the Holy Spirit was
   given, what brave men, what heroes, how deeply instructed, how powerful
   in speech, how eminent in every virtue they became! It is the object of
   Jesus Christ to glorify the Spirit, even as it is the design of the
   Holy Spirit to glorify Christ in our hearts.

   Moreover, our Lord was considering the future of the Apostles, and
   therefore bore with them instead of removing all their evil. He knew
   that after His decease they would think of these things. And I can well
   conceive that in their solitude, and when they met each other, they
   would either soliloquize or say to each other, "Do you not remember how
   our Lord spoke to us on such an occasion? I do remember the very words
   He used." "Yes," says the other, blushing and with tears, "I do
   remember we did not understand Him." "And do you remember the question
   Philip put to Him?" "Yes," says the other, "but do you know I did not
   confess it, but I was just going to say the very same thing, for I was
   quite as foolish as

   Philip."

   And then they would smile to themselves, and say, "How slow of
   understanding we were in those days!" "Yes," but the other would say,
   "Did you not notice that our blessed and ever dear Master never smiled
   contemptuously upon us, and never seemed wearied by our folly? He
   evidently looked at us as being little children, and He just explained
   Himself again and again. And when we did not comprehend He was still
   ready to explain once more. Oh, how tenderly He dealt with us!" And
   then one of them would say, "How often have I lamented that I fled that
   night when He was seized. I wish I had gone with Him right up to the
   judgment seat. I wish I had stood at the foot of the Cross or hung on
   another cross side by side with Him.

   "But do you know when I met Him after His Resurrection, I thought He
   would have said a word, but there was never even a hint about my
   cowardice. He received me with just the same tranquil love He had been
   likely to show before, and He sent me on an errand just as He had been
   likely to do, to show He could trust me still." Oh, what a dear and
   tender Lord He was! They did not know when He was alive how good He
   was, but when He was gone, and had given them the Spirit, they could
   see it all.

   Just as with a photograph, when it is first taken the image is not yet
   visible to the eye, it has to be a little while in the bath, and to be
   washed before the artist brings it out. And so the picture of Christ on
   their hearts had to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, and then it was
   revealed to them. And as they looked on it, they said, "Never was there
   such a One. He was, and is, the Chief among ten thousand, and our souls
   shall love Him even unto death." If it is so on earth it will be much
   more so in Heaven--when we enter within the pearly gate we shall see
   how Jesus loved us when we were on earth.

   "I remember well," says one, "that trial which passed over me, and I
   said God has forgotten me, He will be mindful of me no more--and all
   the while He was afflicting me in very faithfulness, and in love to my
   soul." Then will another saint bear testimony, "Though I was very often
   cold of heart and forgot Him, yet He said unto me, 'Return unto Me, I
   am married unto you, says the Lord.' And when I did return I do
   remember how gently He received me and let out the

   full flood of His love into my soul once again! So that He restored
   unto me the love of my espousals, and I rejoiced in His salvation."

   You see, the Lord is thinking of our eternity. He does not sanctify us
   at once, for we should not know all the sin that is in us, and
   therefore should not know how much we owe to Him. No, He leaves us
   these thirty, forty, fifty years in the wilderness that we may see what
   is in our hearts and what is in His heart as He manifests it towards us
   in unfailing loving kindness. Blessed be His name, that thus He pities
   us even as a father does his children.

   III. I shall now close, by indicating THE TEACHING TO BE DERIVED FROM
   THIS PATIENCE. Is it not this?-- First, if the Lord has thus had pity
   upon you as He had on His Apostles, do you even so to others. I know
   there is a tendency with us to feel so grieved with the inconsistencies
   of our fellow Christians as to lose patience. Moses, the most meek of
   men, yet lost his temper with Israel, and said, "Hear now, you rebels,
   must I fetch you water out of this rock?" I do not wonder that he
   called them rebels, for they were such.

   But God would not have Moses call them so, for they were God's
   children. Their Father may call them what names He pleases, but He will
   not have the servants take liberties with the children. Sometimes when
   we see the inconsistencies of God's people, we are apt to speak
   harshly, but our Lord sets us a different example. Jesus bore with
   imperfect people, ought not you and I to do the same? Jesus must have
   borne a great deal more than we ever have borne or ever shall have to
   bear, yet He was still pitiful, still kind and loving to them--let us
   follow in His steps.

   It ought to help us when we remember that we were converted through
   imperfect preachers. I am sure if any of you have been converted
   through my ministry, you have been converted through a very imperfect
   one. While I deeply regret my imperfections, yet in one since I glory
   in my infirmities, because the power of God does rest upon me. For what
   are we? We cannot turn any to righteousness--the Lord, alone, can do
   that! But, if by imperfect instruments you are blessed to the saving of
   your souls, you ought never again to be out of patience with imperfect
   people.

   Remember, also, that you are imperfect yourself. You can see great
   faults in others, but, my dear Brother, be sure to look in the looking
   glass every morning and you will see quite as many faults, or else your
   eyes are weak. If that looking glass were to show you your own heart
   you would never dare look again--I fear you would even break the glass.
   Old John Berridge, as odd as he was good, had a number of pictures of
   different ministers round his room, and he had a looking glass in a
   frame to match. He would often take his friend into the room and say,
   "That is Calvin, that is John Bun-yan," and when he took him up to the
   looking glass he would add, "and that is the devil." "Why," the friend
   would say, "it is myself." "Ah," said he, "there is a devil in us all."
   Being so imperfect we ought not to condemn.

   Remember, also, that if we are not patient and forbearing there is
   clear proof that we are more imperfect than we thought we were. Those
   who grow in Divine Grace grow in forbearance. He is but a mere babe in
   Grace who is evermore saying, "I cannot put up with such conduct from
   my brother." My dear Brother, you are bound even to wash the disciples'
   feet! If you know yourself, and were like your Master, you would have
   the charity which hopes all things and endures all things.

   Remember that your Brothers and Sisters in Christ, with whom you find
   so much fault, are God's elect for all that, and if He chose them, why
   do you reject them? They are bought with Christ's blood, and if He
   thought them worth so much, why do you think so little of them?
   Remember, too, that with all their badness there are some good points
   in them in which they excel you. They do not know so much, but perhaps
   they act better. It may be that they are more faulty in pride, but
   perhaps they excel you in generosity. Or if perhaps one man is a little
   quick in temper, yet he is more zealous than you. Look at the bright
   side of your Brother, and the black side of yourself, instead of
   reversing the order as many do. Remember there are points about every
   Christian from which you may learn a lesson. Look to their excellences,
   and imitate them. Think, too, that small as the faith of some of your
   Brethren is, it will grow, and you do not know what it will grow to.
   Though they are now so sadly imperfect, yet if they are the Lord's
   people, think of what they will be one day!

   O Brothers and Sisters, shall we know them? Shall we know ourselves
   when we once get to Heaven, and are made like our Lord? There, my
   Brother, though you are a quarrelsome man, I will not quarrel with you.
   I am going to live in Heaven with you, and I will keep out of your way
   till then. I will not find fault with you, my Friend, if I can help it,
   because you will be one day without fault before the Throne of God. If
   God will so soon remove your faults, why should I

   take note of them? I will not peevishly complain of the rough stone,
   for I see it is under the Great Artist's chisel, and I will tarry till
   I see the beauty which He brings out of it.

   The drift of this lesson, is this--as your heavenly Father has pity on
   you, have pity on one another. He remembers that we are dust--remember
   this of others. You who live in the same house, do not fall out with
   each other. You, who are members of the same Church, do not criticize
   and judge each other so severely. Or if you are severe upon the fault,
   be gentle towards the person who commits it, and seek not his
   destruction, but his good. Preacher, mind you learn your own lesson--be
   as tender towards those who sin as the Master was.

   Another lesson, and I have done. In your own case, my dear Friends,
   have firm faith in the gentleness and forbearance of Christ. You are
   conscious, this morning, that you have been slipping, and have fallen
   short or gone beyond the mark. And I know unbelief will now whisper to
   you that you cannot expect to enjoy renewed fellowship with Christ, or
   to taste His love again. O think not so! Think of how gentle He was
   with the Apostles, and remember He is the same still. Change of place
   has not changed His Character. The exaltations of Heaven have not
   removed from Him the tenderness of His heart. He will accept you still.

   My Brother, I know that prayer of yours was not what it should be--try
   again. He will accept the prayer, despite the fault. I know, my dear
   Friend, your ministry up till now has not been so earnest as it should
   have been--but do not give it up. Preach again, preach with greater
   fervor and greater unction--He will bless you, He has not put you away.
   I know that with all of us there is nothing we have done but what we
   might weep a whole shower of tears over. But Jesus, the Pitiful, knows
   our meaning. He will not look at the flaws, but at the jewel. He will
   cover our sins with the mantle of His love, He will accept the will for
   the deed.

   Let us try again. Let us trust in Him wholly, and devote ourselves
   unreservedly to His service. Let us be persuaded that as we accept from
   our children a poor fading nosegay on our birthday, and thank them as
   much as if it were pearls and diamonds, because it shows their love,
   even so if our heart loves Jesus, He will receive our poor imperfect
   service for our love's sake. "He knows our frame, He remembers that we
   are dust." He knows we cannot bring a clean thing out of an unclean.
   He, in His infinite compassion will cover our transgressions and accept
   our heart's love. Be of good courage, then. Be of good courage, my
   Brethren, He will accept you still.

   I should think this subject ought to attract many sinners to Him, and I
   pray it may, "for him that comes to Him He will in no wise cast out." O
   that the Holy Spirit would lead many of you to fix your hope on Jesus,
   the gentle Lamb of God. Come and trust Him, O Sinner. The Lord bless
   you. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Way

   (No. 942)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 24, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Jesus said unto him, I am the way." John 14:6.

   THE most precious things lie in the smallest compass. Diamonds have
   much value in little space. Those Scriptural sayings which are fullest
   of meaning are many of them couched in the fewest words. Who shall
   measure the depth of that sentence, "God is love"? Or that other, "God
   is light"? Who shall know the lengths and breadths of this declaration,
   "Christ is all"? How clearly is the whole Gospel condensed into that
   line, "By Grace are you saved"! There are many more Divine Words of a
   like character, all short, and as sweet as they are short, precious
   beyond comparison, and as brief as precious. Our text, with its four
   words, and those all monosyllables, and none of more than three
   letters, is among the chief of these Bibles in miniature. "I am the
   way."

   It were difficult, and it were as wicked as difficult, to be otherwise
   than simple in preaching such a text as this. May God grant that some
   of you may be reached by my simple testimony, and led in the way to
   Heaven. May those who are already in the way be strengthened,
   comforted, and quickened in it. And may God be glorified and sinners
   converted-- then our hearts shall be exceedingly glad.

   I. We shall go at once to the text, and consider, in the first place,
   HOW JESUS CHRIST IS THE WAY, AND HOW HE COMES TO BE SO. How is He the
   way? A way supposes two points--from which and to which. Christ is the
   way from man's ruin to the Father. Our Lord was speaking of man's
   coming to the Father, so we know where the way leads, and we know very
   well that the way were of no service unless it came to where we are by
   nature, and that is in the place of ruin and of wrath. Christ is the
   way that leads from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City--from
   the ruin of our father Adam right up to the glory of our Father who is
   in Heaven.

   Christ is the way, then, first, from the guilt of sin to the Father.
   The great difficulty was--How is sin to be put away? Many attempts have
   been made to remove it, but there is no way of our escaping from the
   guilt of sin except by Jesus Christ. Some have hoped for pardon by
   future good conduct, but as we all know, the payment of a future debt
   can by no means discharge a past debt. So even the perfect future
   obedience of man, could he achieve it, could not touch his past sins.
   Self-righteousness, therefore, even if it could reach perfection, would
   not be "the way."

   Some hope much from the mercy of God, but the Law knows nothing of
   clearing the sinner of guilt by a Sovereign act of mercy--that cannot
   be done. For then God's Justice would be impugned, His Law would be
   virtually annulled. He will by no means clear the guilty. Every
   transgression must have its just recompense of reward so that the
   absolute mercy of God as such is not the way out of the guilt of sin.
   That mercy is blocked up by avenging Justice, and over the face of that
   star of hope called absolute mercy there passes an eclipsing shadow
   because God is righteous as well as gracious.

   There is no way by which a sinner can escape from the guilt of sin but
   that which is revealed in Jesus Christ. God has sent forth His Son, His
   only Son. The Word was made flesh and came under the Law--upon that
   mysterious Being who combined both Godhead and manhood in one Person,
   the Lord has laid the iniquity of us all. By imputation the
   transgressions of His elect have been laid upon their Covenant Head, so
   that He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of
   many. He voluntarily undertook to be the Substitute and Covenant Surety
   of His chosen.

   And in this way, by the transferring of sin from the sinner to Christ,
   the sinner ceases to be regarded as a sinner, and his guilt is removed.
   Here is the way for that sinner to approach the Father. His sin is laid
   upon Christ, who became the Substitute for all sinners that ever have
   believed or ever shall believe on Him. The whole mountain mass of the
   sins of Believers lies not on them any longer, but on Christ. He has
   taken their transgressions, He has borne their iniquities, their sins
   are moved from them and laid on Him.

   Now listen! The only way in which sin can be taken from any one of us
   is by this method. It is not imputed unto us, it is imputed unto HIM.
   But think not that the sin which was laid upon Christ of old lies upon
   Christ now. It does not, for the day came when the punishment for all
   that sin was demanded. The sword of vengeance awoke against human sin,
   and it would have destroyed all the flock, but the Shepherd came into
   the place of the flock, and He bore the strokes of the sword. And there
   upon yonder once accursed, but now forever blessed, tree, the Savior
   endured the fullness of Divine wrath on account of sin.

   Now, where is the sin of His people? He has cast it into the depths of
   the sea. By bearing its punishment He has caused it no more to exist.
   It is as though it had never been. It is annihilated, it is gone! If it
   is searched for, it cannot be found. Jesus Christ, by His taking the
   sin and then discharging all the liability that was due to God from
   that sin, has forever finished transgression--mark the word--made an
   end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness for His people.

   Now, Sinner, if you would get away from your sin, Christ is the way.
   This is the way by which you can escape from it. I have already told
   you that your future reformation cannot remove your past sins. Neither
   can the mercy of God, considered as an attribute by itself, clear you
   from your sin. But this wonderful deed of love and wisdom, this
   marvelous transaction that makes Heaven and earth ring with grateful
   songs when glorified spirits see further into it, and when angelic
   intellects are able to grasp it--this wondrous transaction can clear
   you from sin as it has cleared many of us. For we are this day before
   God justified, so that none can lay anything to our charge.

   Sinners we are in ourselves, but not sinners before God's Judgment
   Seat, for Jesus has made us clean. We are whiter than snow, our sins
   being removed from us far as the east is from the west by our great
   atoning Substitute. Here is a way consistent with Divine Justice, a way
   exactly meeting what you need. Oh, I pray God that while the words are
   used, "I am the way," your spirit may say, "Blessed be His name, Jesus
   shall be my way. I will this day believe on Him and thus escape from my
   guilt."

   The text refers to the guilt of sin, but then, "I am the way" is as
   true concerning the wrath of God on account of sin. You will see at
   once, and, therefore, I need not use many words about it, that the way
   to escape from wrath is to escape from the sin which causes the wrath.
   Remove the cause, you remove the effect. Now, when the sin of God's
   people was moved from them to Christ, the wrath of God went where the
   sin went, and it fell upon Christ, until He said, "My God, My God, why
   have You forsaken Me?"

   When that bitter cup of wrath had been drained to its dregs, it was
   emptied forever, and not one drop was left for a believing soul to
   taste. The wrath of God towards the Believer has ceased to be, and at
   this moment there is no angry thought in God's heart towards a
   justified person. Whosoever has believed in Christ, his sins were laid
   on Christ, and punished in Christ, and God is not, and cannot be angry
   with the man for whom Jesus was a Substitute--for he has no sins for
   God to be angry with.

   "Oh," you say, "but does he not sin?" He does, but it is not imputed to
   him, according to the saying of the Psalmist in the thirty-second
   Psalm--"Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is
   covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity."
   He commits sin, but it is not imputed to him, and so the wrath never
   comes on him. He is free from guilt and wrath. God has love to him,
   unbounded love, and though He may chasten him, yet this is not in
   anger, but with purposes of love to him for his spiritual and
   everlasting good. So you see, Christ is the way out of Divine wrath as
   well as out of our sin.

   And listen. There comes upon us in consequence of sin, when the Lord
   deals with us and makes us see sin, a deep and terrible depression of
   spirit. It is in some more and in some less, but in every case, "when
   the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." Sin, as soon as it is
   really felt in the soul to be sin, kills us, blasts our former hopes,
   crushes our pride, lays us like bruised and mangled things before the
   burning Throne of Justice. Oftentimes souls have been heard to cry,
   "There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your anger! Neither is
   there any rest in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities are
   gone over my head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My
   wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness."

   Many such expressions, it may be, you, my awakened Hearer, have been
   made to utter, but, oh, if you come to see that all this sin of yours
   is not yours, that in Christ Jesus God has put away your sins by your
   Savior's bearing them and enduring their punishment, I say, if you see
   this, you will speedily rejoice! In a moment those waves of wrath will
   pass

   away from you, and your spirit will sing, "Hope in God: for I shall yet
   praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God." I know a
   truly awakened conscience never will believe in the pardon of sin
   without Atonement first made.

   But when you hear that Atonement has been made, that Christ suffered
   instead of you, that His death has glorified the Justice of God more
   than your lying in Hell could have glorified Him--that His Atonement is
   to God's injured Law a better vindication than even your eternal
   destruction--do you not see it, do you not lay hold on it, and does not
   your heart leap at the sound of this glorious Gospel of the blessed
   God? Christ is the way, then, out of the guilt of your sin, out of the
   wrath of God for your sin, and out of your sense of that wrath.

   But more, Christ is the way to escape from the power of sin. The great
   object of a penitent soul is to get away from the tyranny and slavery
   of evil habits and of corrupt desires. A man may break off some of his
   sins by his own unaided efforts. For instance, no man need be a
   drunkard, common determination may have done with those intoxicating
   cups. No man need be a swearer. Let him understand what a wantonness of
   iniquity there is in that sin, and he may surely give it up. Still, sin
   dwells in fallen creatures, and the imagination of the thoughts of
   their hearts is evil, and that continually. Who can bring a clean thing
   out of an unclean?

   Man, your sinfulness is such that you can not cease from sin. But Man,
   there is a power above and beyond you which can deliver you from the
   power of sin and make you holy. It is found in Christ Jesus, in Christ
   Jesus as I have preached Him to you this day. Let me tell you my own
   experience. Whenever I feel that I have sinned and desire to overcome
   that sin for the future, the devil at the same time comes to me and
   whispers, "How can you be a pardoned person and accepted with God while
   you sin in this way?" If I listen to this I drop into despondency, and
   if I continued in that state I should fall into despair, and should
   commit sin more frequently than before.

   But God's Grace comes in and says to my soul, "You have sinned--but did
   not Jesus come to save sinners? You are not saved because you are
   righteous. For Christ died for the ungodly." And my faith says, "Though
   I have sinned, I have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
   righteous, and though I am guilty, yet by Grace I am saved, and I am a
   child of God, still." And what then? Why, then the tears begin to flow,
   and I say, "How could I ever sin against my God who is so good to me?
   Now I will overcome that sin," and, by His Grace, I get strong to fight
   with sin through the conviction that I am God's child.

   Doubts and fears, and the thought that God is angry only drive you
   further into sin. But the faith, which in the teeth of sin still
   believes in God's love, and still believes in the perfect pardon Christ
   has given, which God Himself can never take back again--that holy faith
   which still clings to the Cross with, "If I perish I perish, but to
   this atoning Sacrifice I cling." That faith, I say, makes you strong
   against sin. The saints in Glory overcame through the blood of the
   Lamb, and there is no other way of overcoming.

   The precious blood of Atonement, wherever sprinkled, kills sin, and he
   that lives in the full belief of it will be purified from sinful
   habits, as says that precious text--"If we walk in the light, as He is
   in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of
   Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." It is walking under a
   sense of Divine love as manifest in Christ. It is walking with the full
   conviction of pardon through the blood that brings to us freedom from
   the reigning power of sin. So, Soul, Jesus Christ is "the way" to
   escape from sin, its guilt, its wrath, its fear, its power.

   Now we must have a word or two upon the other end of the way. I said it
   was from sin, to what? To the Father. Now the way to the Father is
   alone by Jesus Christ. We have for this the express saying of
   Christ--"No man comes unto the Father, but by Me." We hear talk of
   getting to God the Father by Nature, but it is a ladder too short to
   reach the Infinite. God is somewhat seen in His works, but I believe
   those who have seen the grandest works of God, and have also seen God
   in Christ, will tell you that God is no more mirrored in His works than
   is the whole universe in a dewdrop.

   Earth is not broad enough to reflect the image of God. He does not
   mirror Himself in the sea--it is a glass too small to show the Deity.
   He cannot reveal His whole Glory in the materialism of this poor world
   of ours--its axles would groan and crack beneath the weight of Deity.
   It is in Christ that Jehovah reveals Himself more fully than in all
   Nature, though you summon sun, moon, and stars, and read all their
   hieroglyphs. God is revealed in Christ in a way in which He cannot be
   in anything of time or of space.

   Learn, then, that we get our best apprehensions of the Father through
   the Son. "He that has seen Me has seen the Father." It is only by
   Christ that we realize the Fatherhood of God. I do not believe any man
   has any idea of what the Fatherhood of God is till he knows Jesus
   Christ as the First-Born among many Brethren, and knows the power of
   His

   Atonement to bring us near to God. The common Fatherhood doctrine that
   God is the Father of us all because He made us all, is not true in the
   most real and tender sense of Fatherhood. A potter makes ten thousand
   vessels, but he is not the father of one of them.

   It is not everything that a man makes that he is the father of, or if
   he is so called, it is only in a modified sense. We are God's children
   when we are created anew in Christ Jesus--when regeneration has made us
   partakers of the Divine Nature. Sonship is no ordinary privilege common
   to all mankind--it is the high prerogative of the chosen. For what says
   the Scripture--"Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed
   upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world
   knows us not, because it knew Him not." When we are adopted into the
   Divine family, then, and not till then, do we know God as the Father.

   As for unbelievers, they have not known the Father, for our Lord says,
   "O righteous Father, the world has not known You." He that has seen
   Christ has seen the Father, and only he. But the very Essence of Christ
   is seen in His expiatory death, and therefore we can never grasp the
   Fatherhood of God till we have believed in the Atonement of His Son.
   "Whosoever denies the Son, the same has not the Father, but He that
   acknowledges the Son has the Father, also." May we, then, realize the
   Father through knowing in very deed the Lord, for to a knowledge of the
   Father He is the only way.

   Again, Jesus is the way to conscious acceptance with the Father. I
   know, my dear troubled Friend, you feel this morning that you would
   give anything and everything if you could know that God had accepted
   you, and loved you, and that you were His dear child. Now, you can
   never know this until first you come to the Cross and see Jesus Christ
   dying there as a Substitute for you and for all who trust Him. You
   trust Him--your sins are on Him--you are clear.

   The very next feeling of your soul will be, "I am not only pardoned in
   Christ, but I am accepted before God in Christ Jesus. For Christ's
   sake, and as one with Christ I am now dear to God. And what is very
   marvelous, I am as dear to God as Jesus Christ Himself is! I am brought
   as near as Christ is! I am what Christ is, for He who was once my
   Representative in my sin, and bore the wrath for me, is now my
   Representative in His Glory, and has obtained favor and innumerable
   blessings for me."

   This is a blessed thing. "The Father Himself loves you." "Made near by
   the blood of Christ." "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does
   not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall
   appear, we shall be like He. For we shall see Him as He is." The gift
   of Christ to us is a full proof of Divine love, and wherever it is
   received it is the proof of God's love to the receiver.

   So, too, the way to have communion with the Father is the same. "Oh how
   I long to talk with God," says one. "He seems to be a long way off, and
   the thick darkness shuts Him out from me. O that I could speak with
   Him, even though the only word I said were that of the returning
   prodigal: "Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before You."
   Beloved, when you see Jesus Christ who bore your sins in His own body
   on the tree. When you see Him ascending up to Heaven you have access
   with boldness unto God, because Christ has entered within the veil and
   stands in the Presence of God for you.

   You talk with God when you draw near in Jesus Christ. Your conviction
   that all your sin is put away through Him, that you are accepted
   through Him, that you live in Him as the member lives in the body, that
   He is your Covenant Head, and that His honors and glories are all
   reflected upon you--this assured belief brings you so near to God that
   as a man speaks with his friend, even so do you commune with Him.
   "Truly, our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus
   Christ."

   Again, we, by Jesus, come to resemble the Father. There is no way to
   get the likeness of the Father except by learning God's love in the
   Person of His dear Son. Here, too, Christ is the way. You imitate
   Christ, and so become like the Father. You commune with Jesus Christ,
   and as you talk with Him, His Character sacredly operates upon
   yourself, and you are changed from glory to glory, as by the image of
   the Lord. I do believe, dear Brethren, that the moment we forget
   Christ, and then seek after personal sanctification, we are trying to
   get to our journey's end by declining to tread the road to it.

   It is, at least I find it so, impossible to grow in Grace except by
   abiding evermore at the foot of the Cross. When I know by faith--not by
   any other evidence than by faith--that Jesus loved me, and gave Himself
   for me. When I see Grace, magnified in sin, laid on Him rather than on
   me. And when I see Justice magnified, in that sin being put away by
   Him--and when I see Grace and Justice together--clasping hands in
   solemn covenant to secure my soul against all fear of risk, then I feel
   that I am master over sin! Then I feel my soul loves God, yearns after
   God, mounts up to God--and

   then it is she becomes more like God than she was before. So Christ is
   the way from sin, with all we can say of it, to the Father, with all
   the blessed things that flow from His Throne.

   II. WHAT SORT OF WAY IS CHRIST, AND FOR WHAT SORT OF PEOPLE? First, let
   me say He is the King's highway, which means that He is the
   Divinely-appointed way from sin to the Father. If we came to you, dear
   Friends, who are seeking salvation, and told you of a way of mercy, you
   would naturally enquire, "Who said it was the way? Who appointed it?"
   And if we replied that it was appointed by the last council at Rome, I
   should not wonder if you felt serious doubts about the matter, and
   questioned whether a council of men could infallibly determine the way
   of Grace.

   But I have to tell you this day that Jesus Christ is "the way" of God's
   appointment. Thus says the word--"Being justified freely by His Grace
   through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God has set forth
   to be a Propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His
   righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the
   forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness:
   that He might be just, and the Justifier of him which believes in
   Jesus." God the Father devised this plan of salvation by the
   transference of sin to Christ, and by the punishment of Christ the
   Substitute, instead of us.

   It is clear to me that if God is satisfied with the way, I ought to be.
   If He, the aggrieved party, feels that Christ has finished the work and
   that He can now justly forgive us, why need we raise questions? O God,
   if You can look at Jesus and be well-pleased in Him, surely I can. If
   You are perfectly content with the sufferings and death of Your dear
   Son, surely I may be. Now, then, because it is the King's highway, (I
   recommend you, my Hearers, to be very clear here), if you are trusting
   in Christ who is the way of Divine appointment, if He were to fail you,
   which He cannot do, the blame would not lie with you, but with Him who
   appointed Him. I speak reverently. But He has appointed a way which
   cannot fail, for He is Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Power.

   Then, as the King's highway it is an open way, I can come to it and
   need ask no man's leave. If I am treading the King's highway I cannot
   be a trespasser there. Poor Sinner, Christ is the way from your sin to
   God, and you need ask nobody's leave to come to God through Jesus
   Christ. "He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by
   Him." "Him that comes to Me," He said, "I will in no wise cast out."
   Come and welcome! God appoints the way, and when He appoints the way,
   He puts it thus in 1 John 2:21, "And He is the propitiation for our
   sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole
   world"--in order that any sinner in the whole world who wills to come
   to the Father by Christ may pluck up courage and perceive that his sins
   have been laid on Jesus.

   Again, it is a perfect way. "I am the way." The way from sin to the
   Father by Christ is complete. It would not be complete unless it came
   down where you are, but it does. Where are you? Up to your throat in
   drunkenness? Where are you? Defiled by evil living? Soul, there is a
   road from where you are right up to the immaculate perfection of the
   Blessed Savior at God's right hand, and that road is CHRIST.

   You have not to make a road to get to Christ--Christ comes to you where
   you are. The good Samaritan did not ask the wounded man to come to him
   and promise that then he would pour in the oil and wine. No, he came
   where he was and poured it in. Christ will come where you are. Saul of
   Tarsus did not go far to meet Christ. He was riding to the devil as
   fast as he could, but he was suddenly struck down, then and there where
   he was--and as he was--and Jesus spoke life to him.

   He can do just the same with you. You think you have some preparations
   to make, some feelings to pass through, something or other to perform
   before you may believe that Christ has taken your sins. But all you can
   do to make yourself fit for Christ is to make yourself unfit. All your
   preparations are but foul lumber--put them all away. You must come as
   you are, as a sinner, for Jesus came not to call the righteous, but
   sinners to repentance--"the whole have no need of a physician, but they
   that are sick."

   And if, as you are, you will come and take God's way, and trust Jesus
   with all your heart to save you, you will find He will prove to be the
   very Savior you need, for He is so perfect a road that there is nothing
   needed at the beginning. And nothing will be needed at the end. Some
   have supposed that faith in the atoning sacrifice may carry us a
   certain way, and after that we must stand on another footing. God
   forbid I should say a single word against good works. Did I not the
   other Sunday morning address you from these words, "Without holiness no
   man shall see the Lord"?

   But good works are not the way to Heaven, in whole or in part. They are
   fruits of salvation. They are the sure products of those who are saved,
   but they do not save a man. A faith that produces no works will never
   save anybody. But that

   which saves men is not the work which comes from the faith, but the
   faith itself, the faith in Jesus Christ. The top and bottom, the
   beginning and end of salvation, lies in the Redeemer, and not in us. "I
   am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending," says the Lord.

   If you think that you are to patch up Christ's robe of righteousness,
   or that Jesus is to begin and you are to complete, you know nothing of
   Christ, and need to be taught something of yourself. It must be all
   Christ or no Christ, all mercy or no mercy. Grace must lay the
   foundation, and Grace must put on the topstone, or else there can be no
   salvation. "I am the way," then, means that Christ is the way from
   where the sinner now is right up to where God is, and he that gets
   Christ shall come to the Father.

   Christ is a free way. There is not a toll-bar at the entrance, nor
   anywhere along the road. Many are afraid to come into this road to
   Heaven because they cannot pay the charges--but there are no charges
   whatever! Whoever wills to have Christ may have Him for the taking. He
   that will pay for Christ cannot have Him at all. You may have Him for
   the asking. He is freely given. The way in which to have Christ is the
   way in which you have water, that is, by drinking. Receive Christ, for
   "unto as many has received Him, to them gave He power to become the
   sons of God, even to as many as believed on His name."

   There are no legal conditions of salvation laid down anywhere. I know
   it is sometimes said that repentance and faith are conditions--from one
   point of view, and in one aspect, I might tolerate the term--but truly
   and really there is no bargain made between God and a sinner. It is
   never you do this and I will do that. It is always, "I will do this for
   you, and then you shall believe and repent as the result." If faith,
   is, in one respect a condition, it is in another respect a gift of God,
   and though we are commanded to repent, yet Jesus is exalted on High to
   give repentance.

   So you poor sinners who have no repentance, or anything of your own, I
   bid you come to Jesus Christ for everything. He is the way, and the
   whole way. This is a free way--nothing to pay, nothing to do, nothing
   to be, nothing to bring, no merits--no deserving, no preparations. It
   is all of Grace. All the gift of God to the very vilest of the vile.
   Oh, it does sometimes seem too good to be true, that all for nothing I,
   a great sinner, shall be saved! But when I think of what the Savior
   is--that He is God--that He came from Heaven. That He became a Man for
   my sake. That He, the God-Man, Immanuel, was born and died, and bore
   the wrath of God--by His Grace I can believe it.

   And, O my Lord, I dare no more add any of my driveling merits to the
   worth of Your dear Son than of stitching some foul, infected rags from
   a dunghill to a garment made of worked gold! How could I put any
   nothingness of mine, that only my folly calls anything, side by side
   with the ever-precious merits of Your dear Son?

   Again, let me add, it is a permanent way. Jesus says, "I am the
   way--not a way for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, only, but for you. Not
   for the Apostles, and martyrs, and early saints, only, but for YOU--

   "His precious blood shall never lose its power, Till all the ransomed
   Church of God Are sa ved to sin no more."

   It is a way that never has been broken up, and never will be. All the
   floods of all His people's sins have never made a swamp or bog-hole in
   this blessed way.

   All the earthquakes and upheavals of our rebellious natures have never
   made a gap or chasm in this glorious way. Straight from the very gates
   of Hell, where the sinner is by nature, right up to the hilltops of
   Heaven, this glorious causeway runs in one unbroken line, and will,
   forever and forever, till every elect one shall be gathered safe into
   the eternal Home!

   Let me add it is a joyful way. You noted in the chapter we read that
   the redeemed are to return with songs, and everlasting joy is to be
   upon their heads. All Believers in Christ as such are a happy and
   rejoicing people. "But," says one, "I have seen Believers mourn!" That
   is because they wander from the way. If they continued simply trusting
   in the Substitution of Christ, if they kept their eye on Him, and on
   Him only, they would know no sorrow. Where there is no sin there is no
   sorrow. And when the Believer knows that he has no sin--that it is put
   away in Christ--then he also has no sorrow. Then his peace is like a
   river, because his righteousness is as the waves of the sea. Dear
   Heart, if you would be happy, come unto Christ, and abide with Him!

   Lastly, on this point, He is the only way. So is He the only way that
   you cannot be saved if you trust anywhere else. This way which God has
   planned of laying sin upon the Substitute, is such that it is the only
   possible way, and therefore

   God will not have you insult His wisdom and His Grace by trying to
   patch up another. Do not try to find a way by your own feelings or your
   own works. There is no such way. All these supposed ways will end in
   disappointment and in ruin. Jesus Christ is the one foundation, build
   on Him. God help you to say, "I will now cast myself flat upon Christ,
   having no confidence in myself. I will make Him my confidence, He shall
   be my All in All." If you have done that, you are a saved soul! Go your
   way and rejoice with joy unspeakable.

   Thus we see what kind of way it is, but for what sort of people is it
   made? Hurriedly in these two or three words, I reply, for all sorts of
   people. Christ is the way to Heaven for anybody and everybody who is
   led to walk there. Christ is the way to Heaven for you, poor Wanderer,
   though you have sought the theater and music hall, and worse places, to
   drive away your melancholy. Come to Jesus, for He is the way to peace,
   the very way for a wanderer like you. Christ is the way for exiles, for
   banished ones, for those who have not seen the face of God for many a
   day, though once they rejoiced in Him. Backslider, if you would get
   back to your God, Christ is the way.

   Christ is the way for captives. You, who bear your chains clanking
   about you today, who feel as if you never would be free--take heart,
   take heart--there is a way of escape yet, and Christ is that way! Make
   a desperate push for it, and say, "I will throw myself into His arms.
   If He reject me I shall be the first one. But I will go and rest on the
   bloody sacrifice of that dear Son of God who sweat great drops of blood
   because of my heavy sins, my heavy, heavy sins.

   Christ is the way, let me add, for the poorest of the poor. Our Master,
   when He makes a feast, sends us out to bring in men from the highways
   and hedges, highwaymen and hedge birds--those who have not a house or a
   friend of their own. You who are lowest of the low and vilest of the
   vile! You who are all but in Hell, and are condemned already, you who
   lie at Hell's dark door bound in affliction and iron, shut out from
   mercy, as you think--Christ is the way for you!

   For all who long to escape from sin. For all who would come to God. For
   all who have a desire after mercy or eternal life. The great trumpet is
   blown, and may they come that are ready to perish, may the most needy
   and abject, and lost, and self-condemned, say, "I will come now and
   trust in Jesus who died the Just for the unjust to bring us to God."

   III. The last point is, HOW WE MAKE CHRIST OUR WAY, AND WHETHER HE IS
   OUR WAY NOW. How do

   we make Christ our way? Why, as we make any other way our way. We hear
   a man say, "This is my way." How does he make that his way? Has he got
   the title-deeds of it? Has he a charter from his Majesty? No, nothing
   of the sort. The way in which I shall make the Clapham Road my way
   after I have done preaching is by getting into it.

   And the way in which Christ becomes a sinner's way is simply by going
   to Christ. That is all. You have no legal rights, no forms or
   ceremonies to go through--you have but to come to the King's highway by
   trusting Christ, and Christ is yours. "But may I," says one, "without
   any warrant, come and trust Christ?" What warrant do you want? The only
   warrant is God's permission, and you have a great deal more than
   that--you have God's command--which is more than permission. He has
   said, "Go you into all the world and preach the Gospel to every
   creature. He that believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he that
   believes not shall be damned."

   In believing you do what that Gospel warrants by its command. "Believe
   in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved," is God's Word! You
   certainly have a right to do what God commands you to do, so that your
   right to trust Christ lies in God's command. He says He will save you
   through what Christ has done. Will you believe Him? Will you believe
   Him so as to trust today in what Christ has done? If you do not, you
   make God a liar. If you do, you glorify God by believing His testimony,
   and you glorify His Son by trusting in His work--and you are saved.

   Now, in order to keep the way your own, all you do is to continue in
   it. How do you keep any other way as your own? By any charter, by any
   fresh right that you had not at first? No, not at all. "This is my
   way," say I, as long as I still keep to that way. If I turn the other
   way I cannot say that it is my way, at least nobody would believe a way
   to be my way if I went in a contrary direction. If I leap over the
   hedge and go off in another direction and say, "This is my way," I lie.
   Man alive--that is your way which you go--your possession of the way
   lies in your keeping the way.

   So now, Christian, Christ continues yours by the same way in which He
   became yours. That is by your still trusting Him, not by anything you
   do, or are by yourself, or in yourself. Because Jesus lives, you live
   also, not because of anything you do. "The just shall live by faith,"
   not by any other means. You are not to begin in the Spirit and then be
   made perfect in the flesh. You are not to begin to walk by confidence
   in Christ and afterwards go on to walk by confidence in your own
   evidences and graces. Your evidences and graces will always shine best
   when you think the least of them, and always will be brightest with God
   when you look most at His dear Son, and not at them.

   If you ever take your best virtues and sanctifications and make them a
   ground of hope, you are building on that which will crumble beneath you
   in the time of trial. But as long as you keep to this, "Still a sinner,
   but still washed in the blood. Still in myself guilty, but no guilt of
   mine imputed to me, all laid on my Substitute. Still my best prayers,
   my best hymns, my almsgivings, my preaching, my all--all defiled--but
   yet I am clean through Him that washes my feet and makes me clean in
   His most precious blood."

   This is the way to live, the way to live evermore, not only as a
   beginner, but when you are advanced in Divine Grace--the way to live
   when you are becoming a mature matron or veteran soldier, and the way
   when you come to die. It is especially, then, in those last moments,
   that we fling everything away but just what Christ has done. We might
   have been troubling ourselves a great deal before about marks,
   evidences, and so on, But when it comes to the last, we are like the
   good man who, on his dying bed, tried to pick out what was good and
   what was bad of his own doings. He said he was a long while judging
   them, but they were so much of a burden that he at last tied them all
   up in one bundle and flung them over, and rested on Christ alone. That
   is the very best thing for us all to do even now--

   "None but Jesus, none but Jesus, Can do helpless sinners good." This
   will not make you unholy but holy. If you believe this, you will seek
   to honor and glorify God with all your might, and when you have done
   all, you will feel that you are unprofitable servants. And into His
   dear arms you will cast yourselves, and pray that the hands that were
   pierced may still embrace you and keep you safe in death and in
   eternity.

   Now, the question to finish with is this, "Is Christ my way today?" Oh,
   I know many of you could rise up and say, "Yes, He is, He is all my
   salvation and all my desire--

   "Nothing in my hands I bring, Simply to the Cross I cling."

   "My God, You know all things. You know my soul's only reliance is on
   Your dying, Your risen, Your ever-living Son, who is my hope, my All."

   But, perhaps there are some here who are not in this way, because they
   do not even know it. I believe there is no doctrine so little known in
   England as the Gospel. While a great many doctrines are preached, and
   very properly so, and the precepts are preached, yet there are hearers
   who have heard for years, and yet do not know this fundamental,
   essential doctrine of the Gospel--that God laid sin on Christ that He
   might take sin off from us, and punished Him that He might be Just and
   yet the justifier of the ungodly. If you have never heard it before you
   have heard it now. You will not perish, therefore, with that excuse. If
   you put aside that way of salvation, it will not be because you have
   never heard it. If you perish, there will be no excuse for you.

   But there are some who do not believe this plan to be Divine. When they
   hear it and understand it, they scrap it. Some will say it is
   inconsistent with the pursuit of morality. Others will say it is
   fantastic or unjust. One will say this and another that. But though the
   Cross of Christ is to them that perish foolishness, to us who are saved
   it is the wisdom of God and the power of God--and God forbid we should
   preach any other Gospel to you. Some there are who even hate it. They
   will gnash their teeth at the idea of being pardoned through the merit
   of Another, their righteous self feels indignant at being insulted by
   being put right out of the market.

   Ah, cast not your soul away out of mere hate to God, but kiss Him whom
   God has made King this day, and trust in Him who is Priest forever
   after the order of Melchisedek, to put away the sin of man by His own
   great sacrifice. Come now to Him and take the Atonement and the peace
   which He brings. Some are not saved because they are too fearful to
   come this way, but to such I would speak very gently. The bruised reed
   He will not break, the smoking flax He will not quench. Let not your
   sense of sin make you think little of my Master.

   You are a great sinner, but He is a greater Savior. Do not say that you
   have matched Christ, or overmatched Him. Come, Goliath Sinner, the Son
   of David can conquer you or save you yet--"Though your sins are as
   scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like
   crimson, they shall be as wool." Think of David, how foully he had
   transgressed, yet with all the lust stains, and the murder spots upon
   him, he had faith enough to say, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be
   clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."

   And so shall you be whiter than snow, when once the bloody sacrifice of
   Christ in all its merit has become yours, as it may this very morning
   if you simply trust in Him. May my God the Eternal Spirit, may my God
   the blessed Father, may my God, even Jesus the Son, draw many reluctant
   hearts now, and His shall be the praise. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Spur

   (No. 943)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 31, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the night
   comes, when no man can work." John 9:4.

   IF this ninth chapter of John is intended to be a continuation of the
   history contained in the eighth, as we think it is, it brings before us
   a very extraordinary fact. You will observe in the eighth chapter that
   our Lord was about to be stoned by the Jews. He therefore withdrew
   Himself from the circle of His infuriated foes, and passed through the
   crowd, not, I think, in a hurried manner, but in a calm and dignified
   way--as one not at all disconcerted, but wholly self-possessed. His
   disciples, who had seen His danger, gathered round Him while He quietly
   retreated. The group wended their way with firm footsteps till they
   reached the outside of the Temple.

   At the gate there sat a man well-known to have been blind from his
   birth. Our Savior was so little flurried by the danger which had
   threatened Him that He paused and fixed His eyes upon the poor beggar,
   attentively surveying him. He stayed His onward progress to work the
   miracle of this man's healing. If it is so that the two chapters make
   up but one narrative, and I think it is, though we are not absolutely
   sure, then we have before us a most memorable instance of the marvelous
   calmness of our Savior while under danger.

   When the Jews took up stones to stone Him, He did not needlessly expose
   His life, but after He had withdrawn a very little space from the
   immediate danger He was struck by the sight of human misery and stood
   still awhile in all calmness of heart to do a deed or mercy. Oh, the
   Divine majesty of benevolence! How brave it makes a man! How it leads
   him to forget himself and despise danger, and become so calm that He
   can coolly perform the work which is given him to do!

   I think I see our Savior thus considerate for others, and unmindful of
   Himself. May I add that there is a lesson here to us not only for
   imitation but for consolation! If He, while flying from His enemies,
   still stops to bless the blind, how much more will He bless us who seek
   His face now that He is exalted on High? Now that He is clothed with
   Divine power and Glory at the right hand of the Father? There is
   nothing to hurry Him now, He is exposed to no danger now. Send up your
   prayers, breathe out your desires, and He will reply, "According to
   your faith, so be it unto you."

   Reading this cure of the blind man, one is struck, again, with the
   difference between the disciples and the Master. The disciples looked
   at this man, blind from his birth, as a great enigma, a strange
   phenomenon. And they began, like philosophers, to suggest theories as
   to how it was consistent with Divine Justice that a man should be born
   blind. They saw that there must be a connection between sin and
   suffering--but they could not trace the connection here. So they were
   all speculating upon the wonderful problem before them, which they knew
   not how to solve.

   This suggestively reminds us of theorists upon another difficulty which
   never has been explained yet, namely, the origin of evil. They wanted
   to sail upon the boundless deep, and were anxious that their Master
   should pilot them. He had other and better work to do. Our Lord gave
   them an answer, but it was a short and curt one. He Himself was not
   looking at the blind man from their point of view. He was not
   considering how the man came to be blind, but how his eyes could be
   opened. He was not so much meditating upon the various metaphysical and
   moral difficulties which might arise out of the case, but upon what
   would be the best method to remove from the man his suffering, and
   deliver him from his piteous plight.

   A lesson to us, that instead of enquiring how sin came into the world,
   we should ask how can we get it out of the world. And instead of
   worrying our minds about how this Providence is consistent with
   Justice, and how that event can tally with benevolence, we should see
   how both can be turned to practical account. The Judge of all the earth
   can take care of Himself. He is not in any such difficulties that He
   needs any advice of ours. Only presumptuous unbelief ever dares suppose
   the Lord to be perplexed. It will be much better for us to do the work
   of Him that sent us than to be judging Di-

   vine Providence, or our fellow men. It is ours not to speculate but to
   perform acts of mercy and love according to the tenor of the Gospel.
   Let us, then, be less inquisitive and more practical--less for cracking
   doctrinal nuts--and more for bringing forth the Bread of Life to the
   starving multitudes.

   Once again, as a prefatory remark, our Lord tells us the right way of
   looking at sorrow and at sin. It was a dreadful thing to see a man shut
   out from the light of the sun from his very birth. But our Savior took
   a very encouraging view of it--His view of it was nothing at all
   desponding, nothing that could suggest complaining. It was most
   encouraging and stimulating. He explained the man's blindness
   thus--"Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works
   of God should be made manifest in him."

   The man's calamity was God's opportunity. His distress was an occasion
   for displaying Divine goodness, wisdom, and power. I see sin
   everywhere--in myself, in others, in this great city, in the nations of
   the earth--and very conspicuously sin and suffering in this thrice
   accursed war. But what shall I say of it? Sit down and wring my hands
   in utter despair? If so, I shall be incapable of service. No, if I
   would do good, as Jesus did, I must take His bravely hopeful view of
   things, and so keep my heart whole, and my loins girt ready for work.

   The Master's view of it is that all this mischief furnishes, through
   the infinite benevolence of God, a platform for the display of Divine
   Love. I remember in the life of Dr. Lyman Beecher, he tells us of a
   young convert who, after finding peace with God, was heard by him to
   say, "I rejoice that I was a lost sinner." Strange matter to be glad
   about, you will say, for of all things it is most to be deplored. But
   here was her reason--"Because God's infinite Grace, and mercy, and
   wisdom, and all His attributes are glorified in me as they never could
   have been had I not been a sinner and had I not been

   lost."

   Is not that the best light in which to see the saddest things? Sin,
   somehow or other, desperate evil as it is, will be overruled to display
   God's goodness. Just as the goldsmith sets a foil around a sparkling
   diamond, even so the Lord has allowed moral and physical evil to come
   into this world to cause His infinite wisdom, Grace, power, and all His
   other attributes to be the better seen by the whole intelligent
   universe. Let us look at it in this light, and the next time we see
   suffering we shall say, "Here is our opportunity of showing what the
   love of God can do for these sufferers."

   The next time we witness abounding sin let us say, "Here is an
   opportunity for a great achievement of mercy." I suppose great
   engineers have been very glad of Niagara, that they might span it. Very
   glad of the Mont Cenis that they might bore it. Very glad of the Suez
   Isthmus that they might cut a canal through it--glad that there were
   difficulties that there might be room for engineering skill.

   Were there no sin there had been no Savior. If no death, no
   Resurrection. If no Fall, no new Covenant. If no rebellious race, no
   Incarnation, no Calvary, no Ascension, no second advent. That is a
   grand way of looking at evil, and mar-velously stimulating. Though we
   do not know, and perhaps shall never know the deepest reason why an
   infinitely gracious God permitted sin and suffering to enter the
   universe, yet we may at least encourage this practical thought--God
   will be glorified in the overcoming of evil and its consequences.
   Therefore let us gird up our loins in God's name for our part of the
   conflict.

   Thus much by way of preface. Now I shall invite you, this morning, and
   may God assist you while I invite, to consider first of all, the Master
   Worker. And, secondly, ourselves as workers under Him.

   I. The text is a portrait Of THE GREAT MASTER WORKER. We will read it
   again--"I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the
   night comes, when no man can work." And first observe, this Master
   Worker takes His own share in the work--"/ must work"--/, Jesus, the
   Son of Man, for two or three years working here on earth in public
   ministry, I, I must work.

   There is a sense in which all Gospel work is Christ's. As the atoning
   Sacrifice, He treads the winepress alone. As the great Head of the
   Church, all that is done is to be ascribed to Him. But only in the
   sense in which He used these words-- speaking of His human nature,
   speaking of Himself as living among the sons of men--there was a
   portion of the work of relieving this world's woe, and scattering
   Gospel Truth among men that He must do, and nobody else could do. "I
   must work."

   "I must preach, and pray, and heal, even I, the Christ of God." In
   salvation, Jesus stands alone. In life-giving He has no human
   co-worker. But in light-giving, which He refers to in the fifth
   verse--"As long as I am in the world, I am the Light of the world"--in
   light-giving He has many companions. Though anointed with the oil of
   gladness above His fel-

   lows in this respect, yet is it true that all His saints are the light
   of the world, even as Jesus Christ, while in the world was the world's
   light.

   There were some to be cured by Him who could not be cured by Peter, or
   James, or John. Some to have the Good News brought to them who must not
   receive it from any lips but His own. Our Lord, when He became the
   Servant of servants, took His share in the common labors of the elect
   brotherhood. How this ought to encourage us! It is enough for the
   general if he stands in the place of observation and directs the
   battle. We do not usually expect that the commander shall take a
   personal share in the work of the conflict.

   But with Jesus it is not so! He fought in the ranks as a common
   soldier. While as God-Man, Mediator, He rules and governs all the
   economy of Grace, yet as partaker of our flesh and blood He once bore
   the burden and heat of the day. As the great Architect and Master
   Builder He supervises all. Yet there is a portion of His spiritual
   temple which He condescended to build with His own hands. Jesus Christ
   has seen actual service, and actually resisted unto blood, amid the
   dust and turmoil of the strife.

   This made Alexander's soldiers valiant, it is said, because if they
   were wearied by long marches Alexander did not ride, but marched side
   by side with them. And if a river had to be crossed in the teeth of
   opposition, foremost amidst all the risk was Alexander himself. Let
   this be our encouragement--Jesus Christ has taken a personal share in
   the evangelization of the world. He has taken not only His own part as
   Head, and Prophet, and High Priest, and Apostle, in which He stands
   alone, but He has taken His part among the common builders in the
   erection of the New Jerusalem. "I must work the work of Him that sent
   Me."

   Note, next, that our Lord laid great stress upon the gracious work
   which was laid upon Him. "I must work the work of Him that sent Me"
   "Whatever else is not done I must do that. The work allotted me of God,
   I must, as His servant, faithfully do. The Jews may be close at My
   heels, their stones may be ready to fall upon Me, but I must fulfill My
   lifework. I must open blind eyes, and spread the light around me. I can
   forget to eat bread, I can forget to find for Myself a shelter from the
   dews that fall so heavily at night, but this work I must do."

   Beyond all things the Redeemer felt a constraint upon Him to do His
   Father's will. "Know you not that I must be about My Father's
   business?" "The zeal of Your house has eaten Me up." Everything in life
   yielded in the Savior's case to His master passion. There were some
   works our Savior would not do. When one asked Him to speak to his
   brother to divide the inheritance, though that might have been a useful
   thing, yet Christ did not feel a call to it, and he said, "Who made Me
   a judge and a divider over you?"

   But when it came to the work of giving light, that He must do. This was
   the specialty of His life. To this He bent all His strength. He was
   like an arrow shot from a bow, speeding not towards two targets, but
   with undivided force hurrying towards one single end. The unity of His
   purpose was never for a moment broken--no second object ever eclipsed
   the first. Certain works of Grace, works of benevolence, works of
   light-giving, works of healing, works of saving--these He must do. He
   must do them, His own part of them He must perform.

   He rightly describes this work as the "work of God." Note that. If ever
   there lived a man who as man might have taken a part of the honor of
   the work to himself, it was the Lord Jesus. And yet over and over again
   He says, "The Father that dwells in Me, He does the works." As Man He
   is particularly careful to set us the example of acknowledging
   constantly that if any work is done by us it is the work of God through
   us. And so, though He says, "I must work," notice the next words, "the
   works of Him that sent Me." They are still my Father's works when most
   they are mine. Though I must work them, yet shall they still be
   ascribed to Him, and He shall derive honor from them. My Brethren, if I
   do not say much about this in respect to Christ, it is because it seems
   so much more easy to apply this to us than to Him, and if so easily
   applied, let it be humbly and practically remembered by us today. My
   Brother, if you shall win a soul by your work, it is God's work. If you
   shall instruct the ignorant, you do it, but it is God that does it by
   you if it is rightly done.

   Learn to acknowledge the hand of God, and yet do not draw back your
   own. Learn to put out your own hand, and yet to feel that it is
   powerless unless God makes bare His arm. Combine in your thoughts the
   need of the all-working God and the duty of your own exertion. Do not
   make the work of God an excuse for your idleness, neither let your
   earnest activity ever tempt you to forget that power belongs unto Him.
   The Savior is a model to us in putting this just in the right form. It
   is God's work to open the blind eye. If the eye has been sealed in
   darkness from birth no man can open it,

   God must do it. But yet the clay and the spittle must be used, and
   Siloam's pool must be resorted to, or the light will never enter the
   sightless eyes.

   So in Grace, it is God's to illuminate the understanding by His Spirit.
   It is His to move the affections, His to influence the will, His to
   convert the entire nature. It is His to sanctify, and His to save. Yet
   you, O Believer, are to work this miracle--the Truths of God you shall
   spread will illuminate the intellect. The arguments you shall use will
   influence the affections. The reasons you shall give will move the
   will, the precious Gospel you shall teach will purify the heart. But it
   is God who does it--God indwelling in the Gospel.

   See you to this, for only as you see these two Truths of God will you
   go to your work aright. I must work personally, and this holy work must
   be my special business, but I must do it in a right spirit, humbly
   feeling all the while that it is God's work in and through me. Our
   Lord, in this portrait of Himself, as the Master Worker, is clearly
   seen as owning His true position. He says, "I must work the work of Him
   that sent Me." He had not come forth from the Father on His own
   account. He was not here as a principal, but as a subordinate, as an
   ambassador sent by His King. His own witness was, "I can of My own self
   do nothing: as I hear I judge: and My judgment is just because I seek
   not My own will, but the will of the Father which has sent Me."

   He often reminded His hearers in His preaching that He was speaking in
   His Father's name, and not in His own name. As, for instance, when He
   said, "The words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself." He took
   upon Himself the form of a servant. "The Spirit of the Lord," says He,
   "is upon Me. For He has anointed Me." God gave Him a commission and
   gave Him the Grace to carry out that commission--and He was not ashamed
   to confess His condition of service to the Father.

   Though in His Divine Nature, God over all, blessed forever, whose
   praises ten thousand times ten thousand harpers are rejoiced to sound
   upon that glassy sea, yet as the Mediator He stooped to be sent--sent a
   commissioned Agent from God, a Servant to do Jehovah's bidding. Because
   He was such, it behooved Him, as a Servant, to be faithful to Him that
   sent Him. And Jesus felt this as a part of the Divine constraint, which
   impelled Him to say, "I must work." "I am a sent Man. I have to give an
   account to Him that sent Me."

   O Brothers and Sisters, I wish we all felt this! For as the Father sent
   Christ, even so has Christ sent us--and we are acting under Divine
   authority as Divine representatives, and must, if we would give our
   account with joy, be faithful to the communion with which God has
   honored us by putting us in trust with the Gospel of Christ. No man
   shall serve God aright if he thinks he stands upon an independent
   footing. It is recognizing your true position that will help to drive
   you onward in incessant diligence in the cause of your God.

   But, dwelling very briefly on each of these points, I must remind you
   that our Lord did not regard Himself merely as an official, but He
   threw a hearty earnestness into the work He undertook. I see
   indomitable zeal glowing like a subdued flame in the very center of the
   live coal of the text. "I must work the work of Him that sent Me." Not,
   "I will," "I intend," "I ought," but "I must." Though sent, yet the
   commission was so congenial to His Nature that He worked with all the
   alacrity of a volunteer.

   He was commissioned, but His own will was His main compulsion. Not of
   constraint, but willingly the Lord Jesus became a Savior. He could not
   help it. It was within His very Nature a sacred necessity that He must
   be doing good. Was He not God, and is not God the fountain of
   benevolence? Does not Deity, perpetually like the sun, send forth beams
   to gladden His creatures? Jesus Christ, the God Incarnate, by
   irresistible instinct must be found bestowing good. Besides, He was so
   tender, so compassionate, that He must be blessing those that sorrowed.

   He felt for that blind man. If the blind man lamented his darkness, yet
   not more than the Savior lamented it for the poor sufferer's sake. The
   eyes which Christ fixed on that man were eyes brimming with tears of
   pity. He felt the miseries of humanity. He was not flinty-hearted, but
   tender, and full of compassion towards all suffering sons of men. Our
   Savior, therefore, was self-impelled to His gracious labors. His love
   propelled Him. He must do the work that He was sent to work.

   It is a right thing when a man's business and inclinations run
   together. You put your son apprentice to a trade which is not congenial
   to his tastes and he will never make much of it. But when his duty and
   his own desires run in the same channel, then surely he is likely to
   prosper. So with Jesus--sent of God, but not an unwilling
   ambassador--coming as

   cheerfully and joyously as if there had been no impetus but His own
   voluntary wish. He cries in gracious enthusiasm, "I must, I must."

   No man does a really good and great work till he feels he must. No man
   preaches well but he who must preach. The man sent of God must come
   under irresistible pressure, even like the Apostle of old, who said,
   "Though I preach the Gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity
   is laid upon me, yes, woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel." Or
   like the eloquent Eliphaz in the book of Job, who spoke last but
   best--and only spoke at all because he felt like a vessel wanting vent.

   Our Savior became so grand a Worker because within His spirit desire
   kindled and burned and flamed till His Nature was all aglow. He was
   like a volcano in full action which must pour forth its fiery flood,
   though in His case the lava was not that which destroys, but that which
   blesses and makes rich!

   Once again, another point in the Savior as a Worker--He clearly saw
   that there was a fitting time to work, and that this time would have
   its end. In a certain sense Christ always works. For Zion's sake He
   does not rest, and for Jerusalem's sake He does not hold His peace in
   His intercessions before the Eternal Throne. But, my Brethren, as a
   Man, preaching, and healing, and relieving the sick on earth, Jesus had
   His day, as every other man, and that day ended at the set time. He
   used a common Eastern Proverb which says that men can only work by day,
   and when the day is over it is too late to work.

   And He meant that. He Himself had an earthly lifetime in which to
   labor, and when that was over He would no more perform the kind of
   labor He was then doing. He called His lifetime a day. To show us that
   He was impressed with the shortness of it. We, too, often reckon life
   as a matter of years, and we even think of the years as though they
   were of extreme length, though every year seems to spin round more
   swiftly than before. And men who are growing gray will tell you that
   life seems to them to travel at a much faster rate than in their
   younger days.

   To a child a year appears a lengthened period. To a man even ten years
   is but a short space of time. To God the Eternal a thousand years are
   but as one day. Our Lord here sets us an example of estimating our time
   at a high rate on account of its brevity. It is but a day you have at
   the longest. That day, how short! Young man, is it your morning? Are
   you just converted? Is the dew of penitence still trembling upon the
   green blade? Have you just seen the first radiance which streams from
   the eyelids of the morning? Have you heard the joyous singing of birds?

   Up with you, Man! And serve your God with the love of your espousals!
   Serve Him with all your heart! Or have you known your Lord now so long
   that it is noon with you, and the burden and heat of the day are on
   you? Use all diligence, make good speed, for your sun will soon
   decline. And have you long been a Christian? Then the shadows lengthen,
   and your sun is almost down. Quick with you, Man, let both your hands
   be used! Strain every nerve, put every sinew to the stretch. Do all at
   all times, and in all places, what your ingenuity can devise, or your
   zeal can suggest to you, for the night comes wherein no man can work.

   I love to think of the Master with these furious Jews behind Him, yet
   stopping because He must do the work of healing! Because His day was
   still not ended. He cannot die, He feels, till His day is over. His
   time is not yet come, and if it were, He would close His life by doing
   one more act of mercy. And so He stops to bless the wretched, and
   afterwards passes on His way. Be you swift to do good at all times. "Be
   you steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord."

   Knowing that the time is short, redeem the time, because the days are
   evil. Press much into little by continuous diligence. Glorify your God
   greatly while the short taper of your life burns on, and God accept you
   as He accepted His Son. Thus much upon Christ, the Master Worker.

   II. Now I shall want your earnestness while I try to speak of OURSELVES
   AS WORKERS UNDER HIM. Here I must go over much the same ground, for
   first I must call to your remembrance that on us there rests personal
   obligation. Singular, distinct, personal obligation. "I must work."
   "I," "I must work the works of Him that sent me." We are in danger
   nowadays of losing ourselves in societies and associations. We had need
   labor to maintain the personality of our consecration to Christ Jesus.

   The old histories are very rich in records of deeds of personal daring.
   We cannot expect modern warfare to exhibit much of the same because the
   fighting is done so much by masses and so much by machinery. Even thus,
   nowadays, I am

   afraid our mode of doing Christian work is getting to be so mechanical,
   so much en masse, that there is barely room in ordinary cases for
   personal deeds of daring and singular acts of valor.

   Yet, mark you, the success of the Church will lie in this last--it is
   in each man's feeling, "I have something to do for Christ which an
   angel could not do for me, that the strength of a Church must lie under
   God. God has committed to me a certain work which, if it is not done by
   me, will never be done. A certain number of souls will enter Heaven
   through my agency. They will never enter there in any other way. God
   has given His Son power over all flesh to give eternal life to as many
   as He has given Him, and Christ has given me power over some part of
   the flesh. By my instrumentality they will get eternal life, and by no
   other agency. I have a work to do, and I must do it."

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, our Church will be grandly equipped for
   service when you all have this impression, when there is no casting the
   work on the minister, nor on the more gifted Brethren, nor leaving all
   to be done by distinguished sisters. But when each one feels, "I have
   my work, and to my work I will dedicate my whole strength to do it in
   my Master's name."

   Now observe, secondly, the personal obligation in the text compels us
   to just such work as Christ did. I explained to you what it was. We are
   not called meritoriously to save souls, for alone He is the Savior, but
   we are called to enlighten the sons of men. That is to say, sin is not
   known to be sin by many. Our teaching and example must make sin to
   appear sin to them. The way of salvation by the substitutionary
   Sacrifice of Christ is quite unknown to a large part of mankind. It is
   ours simply and incessantly to be telling out that soul-saving story.
   This work must be done whatever we leave undone.

   Some men are spending their time in making money, that is the main
   object of their lives. They would be as usefully employed probably if
   they spent all their lives in collecting pins or cherrystones. Whether
   a man lives to accumulate gold coins or brass nails, his life will be
   equally groveling and end in the same disappointment. Money-making,
   fame-making, and power-getting are mere pieces of play, mere sports and
   games for children.

   The work of Him that sent us is a far nobler thing. It is permanent
   gain if I gain a soul. It is lasting treasure if I win the Lord's
   approval. I am forever richer if I give a man one better thought of
   God, if I bring to a darkened soul the light from Heaven, or lead one
   erring heart to peace. If one spirit hastening downward to Hell is by
   my means directed to a blissful Heaven, I have done some work worth
   doing.

   And such work, Brethren, we must do, whatever else we leave undone. Let
   us make all else in this world subservient to this which is our life
   work. We have our callings, we ought to have them--the man who will not
   work, neither let him eat. But our earthly calling is not our lifework.
   We have a high calling of God in Christ Jesus, and this must have the
   preeminence. Poor or rich, healthy or sick, honored or disgraced, we
   must glorify God. This is a necessity. All else may be, this must be.

   We resolve, sternly resolve, and desperately determine that we will not
   throw away our lives on trifling objects, but by us God's work must and
   shall be done. Each man will do his own share, God helping him. May the
   ever blessed Holy Spirit give us power and Grace to turn our resolves
   into acts. Let us not forget the Truth which I declared to you before,
   namely, that it is God's work which we are called upon to do. Let us
   look to the text again. "I must work the work of Him that sent Me."

   I can discover no greater motive for earnestness in all the world than
   this--that the work I have to do is God's work. There is Samson--the
   strength which lies in Samson is not his own--it is God's strength. Is
   that, therefore, a cause why Samson should lie still and be idle? No,
   but it is a mighty sound of a trumpet to stir the blood of the hero to
   fight for the people of God. If the strength of Samson is not the mere
   force of sinew and muscle, but force given him of the Almighty One,
   then up with you, Samson, and smite the Philistines! Slay again your
   thousands!

   What? Dare you sleep with God's Spirit upon you? Up, man! To sleep if
   you were but a common Israelite were treason to your country, but when
   God is in you and with you, how can you be idle? No, put forth your
   strength and rout your foes! When Paul was in Corinth, and God worked
   special miracles by his hands, so that handkerchiefs which were taken
   from his body healed the sick, was that a reason why Paul should
   withdraw himself to some quiet retreat and do nothing?

   To my mind there appears to be no more potent argument why Paul should
   go from house to house and lay his hands on all around, and heal the
   sick. So with you--you have the power to work miracles, my Brother. The
   telling out of the Gospel, accompanied by the spirit of God, works
   moral and spiritual miracles. Because you can work these miracles,

   should you say, "God will do His own work"? No, Man, but right and
   left, at all times and in all places, go and tell out the soul-saving
   story, and God speed you! Because God works by you, therefore work!

   A small vessel, lying idle in dock, without a freight, is a loss to its
   owner. But a great steamship, of many hundred horsepower, cannot be
   suffered to remain unemployed. The greater the power at command, the
   more urgently are we bound to use it. The indwelling power of God is
   put forth in reply to faith and prayer--shall we not labor to obtain
   it? The fact that the Church's work is God's work rather than hers is
   no cause why she should indulge in sloth. If she had only her own
   strength, she might waste it with less of crime. But having God's
   strength about her, she dares not loiter.

   God's message to her this morning is, "Awake, awake! Put on your
   strength, O Zion. Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy
   city." Would God that this message might come to every heart so that
   all of us would arise, because God is in our midst.

   Brethren, notice in the text our obligation resulting from our
   position. We are all sent as Jesus was if we are Believers in Christ.
   Let us feel our obligation pressing upon us. What would you think of an
   angel who was sent from the Throne of God to bear a message and who
   lingered on the way or refused to go? It was midnight, and the message
   came to Gabriel and his fellow songsters, "Go and sing over the plains
   of Bethlehem, where shepherds keep their flocks. Here is your sonnet,
   'Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will towards men.' "

   Could you conceive that they halted, that they wished to decline the
   task? Impossible with such music, and with such a commission given from
   such a Lord! They sped joyously on their way. Your mission is not less
   honorable than that of the angels. You are sent to speak of good things
   which bring peace and good will to men, and glory to God. Will you
   loiter? Can you any longer be dumb? No, as the Lord Jesus sends you, go
   forth, I pray you, go at once, and with joy tell out the story of His
   love.

   I could conceive an angel being almost tempted to linger, if sent to
   execute vengeance, and to deluge fields with blood for the iniquity of
   nations. I dare not think that he would hesitate even then, for these
   holy spirits do the Lord's bidding most unquestioningly. But if the
   mission is of mercy, the loving spirit of an angel would leap for joy
   and be quickened by the sweetness of the errand as well as by the
   commission of his Lord. We, too, sent of God, if sent on hard service,
   are bound to go. But if sent on so sweet a service as the proclaiming
   of the Gospel, how can we tarry?

   What? To tell the poor criminal shut up in the dungeon of despair that
   there is liberty! To tell the condemned that there is pardon! To tell
   the dying that there is life in a look at the crucified One--do you
   find this hard? Do you call this toil? Should it not be the sweetest
   feature of your life that you have such blessed work as this to do?

   If tonight, when the day is over, when you are in your chamber alone,
   you should suddenly behold a vision of angels who should speak to you
   in celestial accents and nominate you to holy service in the Church,
   you would surely feel impressed by such a visit. But Jesus Christ
   Himself has come to you, has bought you with His blood, and has set you
   apart by His redemption. You have confessed His coming to you, for you
   have been baptized into His death, and declared yourself to be His. And
   are you less impressed by Christ's coming than you would have been by
   an angel's visit?

   Stir yourself up, my Brother! The hand of the Crucified has touched
   you, and He has said, "Go in this your might." The eyes that wept over
   Jerusalem have looked into your eyes and they have said with all their
   ancient tenderness, "My servant, go and snatch dying sinners like
   brands from the burning by publishing My Gospel." Will you be
   disobedient to the heavenly vision, and despise Him that speaks to you
   from His Cross on earth and from His Throne in Heaven? Blood-washed as
   you are, blood-bought as you are, give yourself up more fully than ever
   you have done to the delightful service which your Redeemer allots you.
   Bestir yourself and say, "I, even I, must work the work of Him that
   sent me while it is

   day."

   You little know what good you may do, my Brethren, if you always feel
   the burden of the Lord as you ought to do. I was led to think of that
   fact from a letter which I have here, which did my heart good as I read
   it. I daresay the dear friend who wrote it is present--he will not mind
   my reading an extract. He had fallen into very great sin, and though
   often attending at this Tabernacle, and being frequently stirred in
   heart, his conversion was not brought about till one day riding by
   railway to a certain town.

   He says, "I entered into a compartment in which were three of the
   students of the Tabernacle College. Although I did not know them at
   first, the subject of temperance was introduced by myself. I found two
   of them were total abstainers, and one was not. We had a nice friendly
   chat and one of the abstainers asked me if I enjoyed the pardon of my
   sins and

   peace with God. I told him I regularly attended the Tabernacle, but I
   could not give up all my sins. He then told me how, in his own case, he
   had found it very desirable to be much in prayer and communion with
   God, and how he was thus kept from many besetting sins.

   "I concluded my business in the town, and was returning homeward. I was
   rather dull, as I had no money with me to pay for my ride home, and
   consequently had to walk all the way. I heard song-singing at a little
   Chapel. I entered, and

   was invited to a seat. It was H_Baptist Chapel. It turned out that
   these three students with whom I had come in the

   train some few hours before were there, and it was an occasion of deep
   concern to many, as one of the students, who was their pastor, was
   taking his farewell of his flock that evening, and many were in tears,
   himself also.

   "I asked one of the students to pray for me. He did so, and I tried to
   lift up my whole heart to God, and, as it were, leave all my sins
   outside. But I found them a ponderous weight. At last I believed in
   Jesus and exercised a simple faith such as I never knew before. I
   became quite contrite and humiliated. I found the Lord there. He is
   sweet to my soul. God has, for Christ's sake, forgiven me all my sins.
   I am happy now. I shall ever pray for the students at the Pastors'
   College, and never, I hope, begrudge my mite for the support of the
   same. God be praised for the students!"

   See you thus that a casual word about Christ and the soul will have its
   reward. I heard once of a clergyman who used to go hunting and when he
   was reproved by his bishop, he replied that he never went hunting when
   he was on duty. But he was asked, "When is a clergyman off-duty?" And
   so with the Christian, when is he off duty? He ought to be always about
   his Father's business, ready for anything and everything that may
   glorify God. He feels that he is not sent on Sunday only, but sent
   always, not called now and then to do good, but sent throughout his
   whole life to work for Christ.

   But I must finish. The greatest obligations seem to me, to lie upon
   each one of us to be serving Christ, because of the desperate case of
   our ungodly neighbors. Many of them are dying without Christ, and we
   know what their end must be--an end that has no end--a misery that has
   no bounds. Oh, the woe which sin causes on earth! But what is that to
   the never-ending misery of the world to come!

   Our time in which to serve the Lord on earth is very short. If we would
   glorify God as dwellers on earth, we must do it now. We shall soon,
   ourselves, be committed to the grave, or they whom we would gladly
   bless may go there before us. Let us, then, bestir ourselves! I felt
   much weight on my mind yesterday, from the consideration that we, as a
   nation, are enjoying peace, an unspeakable blessing--the value of which
   none of us can rightly estimate. Now, if we do not make, as a Christian
   Church, the most earnest endeavors to spread abroad the Gospel in these
   times of peace, before long this nation may also be plunged in war. War
   is the most unmitigated of curses, and among its other mischiefs, it
   turns the mind of the people away from all religious thoughts.

   Now while we have peace, and God spares this land the horrors of war,
   ought not the Church of God to be intensely eager to use her
   opportunities? The night comes. I know not how dark that night may be.
   The political atmosphere seems heavily charged with evil elements. The
   result of the present conflict between France and Prussia may not be
   what some would hope, for it may again crush Europe beneath a despot's
   heel. Now, while we have liberty--a liberty which our sires bought at
   the stake, and sealed with their blood, let us use it. While it is day
   let us work the works of Him that sent us. And let each man take for
   his motto the succeeding verse to my text, "As long as I am in the
   world I am the light of the world."

   Take heed that your light be not darkness. Take heed you conceal it
   not. If it is light, take heed that you despise it not, for if it is
   ever so little a light, it is what God has given you, and as much as
   you will be able to give God a joyful account of. If you have any
   light, though it is but a spark, it is for the world you have it. For
   the sons of men it is lent you. Use it, use it now, and God help you.

   O that our light as a Church would shine upon this congregation! How I
   desire to see all my congregation saved! Let Believers be more in
   prayer, more in service, more in holiness, and God will send us His
   abundant blessing, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

An Encouraging Lesson From Paul's Conversion

   (No. 944)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 7, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how
   much evil he has done to Your saints at Jerusalem: and here he has
   authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on Your name.
   But the Lord said unto him, Go your way: for he is a chosen vessel unto
   Me, to bear My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of
   Israel: for I will show him how great things he must suffer for My
   name's sake." Acts 9:13-16.

   THE conversion of Saul of Tarsus was one of the most remarkable facts
   in Christian history. Perhaps there has never happened an event of
   equal importance since the days of Pentecost. It was important as a
   testimony to the power and Truth of the Gospel. When such a man, so
   violently opposed, so intelligent and well-instructed, could be
   converted to the faith of the Nazarene by the appearance of the Lord
   from Heaven, it was a testimony alike to the fact of our Lord's
   Resurrection, and to the power of His Word.

   Paul also occupied a high place among the defenders of the faith when
   the Gospel had to struggle for a footing against Judaism and
   philosophy. Being well-versed in the Scriptures of the Old Testament
   and in the traditions of the Jews, and possessing great argumentative
   powers, he became a leading apologist for the faith. In the synagogues
   and the schools he overthrew those who opposed the doctrines of Jesus.
   In addition to this, the conversion of the Apostle Paul gave a great
   impetus to the missionary spirit of the Christian Church. Here he shone
   preeminently.

   Into what lands did he not carry the Gospel? Ordained to be the Apostle
   of the uncircumcision, he proclaimed in the utmost ends of the earth
   the name of Jesus Christ. The Apostle, moreover, as a writer takes the
   highest place in the Christian canon. It pleased God to select this
   most remarkable man to be the medium of Inspiration by whose writings
   we should receive the most thorough and complete exhibition of the
   Gospel of the Grace of God. Turn to the New Testament and see with
   astonishment how large a space is occupied by the letters of one first
   called Saul of Tarsus, but afterwards Paul, the servant of Jesus
   Christ.

   It is a matter of fact that Paul not only directed the energy of the
   Christian Church of his own day, but he shaped its mode of action. In
   addition he so toned the thought of the Christian world that to this
   moment I suppose he exercises, under God, a greater influence over the
   theology of Christendom than any other man. We claim him as the great
   Apostle of the Doctrines of Grace. Heading a line of teachers, among
   whom Augustine and Calvin stand conspicuous, he remains unrivalled as
   "a wise master-builder." Even the things hard to be understood which he
   was not afraid to grapple with have continued to have their effect upon
   Christian theology.

   The Pauline mark will never be erased from the page of Church history.
   That, however, is not my business this morning. I would rather remind
   you that the conversion of the Apostle Paul was, in itself,
   instructive. It was not only operative upon the Church, but as a
   narrative it is instructive to us. We are not to look upon it as a
   strange phenomenon to be only gazed upon, and wondered at--it is a
   lesson book for all time. It contains a world of teaching within it,
   and principally teaching upon this point--the fact of the Divine
   interposition in the Church of God.

   God has been pleased by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
   believe. This is the era of instrumentality-- Christ bids His disciples
   go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. And it
   is by the communication of one earnest heart to another that men are
   usually converted. Such, however, was not the way by which Paul was
   converted. He was called into the Church by an interposition of the
   living Christ out of Heaven, speaking directly to his soul. And we
   doubt not that the same Jesus has still His own ways of reaching human
   hearts when human instrumentality is not available.

   Paul's conversion is a type, or as our version reads it, a pattern, and
   it is natural to believe that the pattern has been copied. I shall look
   upon his conversion as being typical of some others that have occurred,
   and that will occur till the last hour of the Christian dispensation.
   Certain men will be brought to God not by manifest instrumentality, but
   more secret means. The Church has reason to believe that while she
   industriously uses all the power committed to her, there will be
   interpositions of a power far higher than her own which will work for
   her great successes and bring to her great additions of strength.

   While Barak fights below, the stars in Heaven shall also fight against
   Sisera. That is the point I want to speak upon, this morning, for the
   glory of God, and the encouragement of any desponding spirits among us.

   I. Our first thought shall be, this morning, THERE ARE OTHER PRODUCTIVE
   FORCES AT WORK FOR THE CHURCH BESIDES HER TEACHING. Her teaching is her
   main source of growth. She is to look to the instruction that she can
   give through her members, and her ministers, for the birth of most of
   her sons and daughters. But she is also to remember that there are
   other forces at work over and above these appointed agencies. The
   mountain is full of horses of fire and chariots of fire round about the
   Gospel.

   And, first, let me remind you of what may be expected from the work of
   the Holy Spirit in the Church of Christ. All the success of the Church
   comes through Him. That blessed Person of the Divine Trinity in Unity
   is pleased to give power to the Truth of God whereby it operates upon
   the hearts and consciences of men. It is not to that point, however,
   that I draw your attention. I would ask you a question: Have we not
   reason to expect that the Holy Spirit will occasionally display His
   power, by working apart from the ordinary agencies of the Church?

   It is certain that the Holy Spirit can act directly upon the minds of
   men apart from human agency, for He has often done so in past ages. He
   can, if it so pleases Him, melt the stubborn heart, subdue the obdurate
   will, and purify the depraved affections. And though I believe He never
   works apart from the Truth and the things of Christ, yet He can do all
   this while acting altogether apart from any human teaching. There have
   been many cases of the kind. We have heard of persons at their labor
   who have not been accustomed to attend the house of God, nor of reading
   religious books--and yet in the middle of their work they have been
   filled with penitent and devout thoughts--and have suddenly commenced
   an altogether new life.

   We have known cases of persons not engaged in lawful pursuits, but
   intending to perpetrate vice, who have, nevertheless, found the power
   of God to be greater over them than the power of their corrupt
   affections. They have been struck with certain reflections which they
   had never recognized before, have paused, and have been led to turn
   altogether in another direction. They have, in fact, become believers
   in Christ and men of holy and ardent lives.

   Why should not the Holy Spirit do so still? If He pleases to employ us,
   it is to His honor to work by such poor instruments, but if He shall
   please occasionally to do without us, it is also to His honor, and I
   may add it is equally to our satisfaction. For we delight that He
   should display His power. We have reason to expect that He will so work
   sometimes, and this is one of the forces which may work apart from
   instrumentality.

   Think again, my Brethren, of the intercession of our Lord and Savior
   Jesus Christ. Most potent in Heaven is the plea of Him who here on
   earth offered Atonement for the sins of His people. For Zion's sake He
   does not hold His peace, and for Jerusalem's sake He does not rest. Nor
   will He till His Glory shall fill all the earth, and His elect bride
   shall share there. Now our Lord Jesus Christ not only prays for those
   whom we pray for, but He prays for those we never thought of praying
   for.

   There are some whom He mentions before the Eternal Throne whom we have
   never mentioned. They have never yet been observed by any interceding
   Christian, whose cases have never impressed a single godly heart. Yet
   Jesus knows them--and He does cry to God for them, and shall there not
   come to them Grace in due season? Yes, my Brethren, I rejoice in this,
   that where through ignorance or through the narrowness of my charity,
   my prayer has never stretched itself, the prayer of the great High
   Priest who wears the Urim and Thummim can yet reach, and the salvation
   of God shall come to such.

   I doubt not Jesus might well have said to Paul, "I have prayed for you,
   and therefore you shall be Mine," and in many other cases the same is
   true. The intercession of our Lord is a mighty power, and as it wins
   gifts for men, yes, for the rebellious also, Apostles, and preachers,
   and teachers, are called forth by Divine Grace. Not our colleges, our
   coun-

   cils, our societies, or our conferences, but the intercession of Jesus
   is the mainstay of our strength--the secret cause of the calling of men
   into the mystery of the Gospel.

   Think, too, of another force, the result of which is not altogether
   expended in connection with manifest instrumentality. I mean the daily
   and incessant intercession of the faithful in all places. Of course,
   this intercession brings success to instrumentality, the work of the
   Church would be nothing without it--true prayer is true power. But
   there are prayers, I doubt not, which go up to Heaven but are not
   offered in connection with any particular agency, and are not answered
   through any manifest instrumentality.

   There are groanings which cannot be uttered for the general cause, for
   the regeneration of the elect, for the Glory of the Redeemer in which
   we appeal directly to God, and look for Him to rend the heavens and
   arise in His might--such prayers most probably have a reply after their
   own likeness. The prayers of the Church come down in a great measure,
   as I have said, upon instrumentality, but they also drop, I doubt not,
   on solitary and uncultivated places. The prayers of God's Church are
   like the clouds which ascend from the sea, as the sun shines on the
   waves--they fall on the fields which have been sown by man, but they
   also drop upon the pastures of the wilderness--and the little hills
   rejoice on every side.

   Who shall say that Saul's conversion was not traceable to the prayer of
   Stephen, when, as he expired, he said, "Lord, lay not this sin to their
   charge"? Yet there was no distinct connection between the two such as
   could be defined and described. Who shall say that the gatherings in
   Jerusalem for earnest prayer may not have had about them power with God
   for the conversion of the persecutors, the dread of whom may have made
   them more earnest in supplication? Yet we do not see the same
   connecting link as between the famous Prayer Meeting in the house of
   John Mark's mother, and the escape of Peter from prison.

   Pray on, Beloved Brethren, for though there should seem to be no
   connection between your prayers and the salvation of the sons of men,
   yet this shall be one of the forces in operation which shall not spend
   itself in vain. God will be pleased, in answer to humble and unknown
   pleaders, to bring out His own hidden ones.

   Then remember there is another impalpable, but very potent force--the
   aroma of the Truth of God in the world. The Truth is mainly spread by
   plain earnest statements of it, but there is also a savor in Truth, an
   inherent perfume, whereby even in our silence it spreads itself. Paul
   declared that where he had preached the Gospel he was a sweet savor of
   God, both in them that were saved and in them that perished. The Gospel
   is like myrrh, and cassia, and aloes. It will make itself felt even
   where it is not sought after. Place some Oriental perfume in a room and
   all the air will be loaded with its sweetness.

   Where the Gospel of Jesus Christ comes, it impregnates the social
   atmosphere, it permeates society, it has an effect far beyond its local
   habitation. I do not doubt that many men who have not yet bowed before
   the Deity of Christ have unconsciously learned much from Him, and what
   they perhaps think to be their own is but a blessed plagiarism from the
   Jesus of Nazareth. Even the philosophies of men have been all the more
   sober, and the laws of men all the gentler, because of the existence of
   the Gospel.

   Men cannot live in the midst of Christians, and yet altogether shut out
   the influence of Christianity. There is a lavender field over yonder,
   and though a man may hate the smell of it, and block up his windows and
   keep his doors closed, somehow or other, he may count on it, when the
   wind blows in the right direction, the perfume will reach him. And so
   it is here--if a man will not listen to the preaching of the Gospel, if
   he constantly neglects attendance upon the means of Grace--yet for all
   that, the kingdom of Heaven has come near to him. And in some form or
   other the angel of mercy will frequently cross his path.

   May we not hope for results from these influences? May not these things
   be the thin end of the wedge which shall be driven home by Divine force
   until the sinner is divided from his sins? I feel sure it is so in
   cases numberless. For we may say of the Gospel as David did of the sun,
   "His going forth is from the end of the Heaven, and his circuit unto
   the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof."

   Further, remember there is at work in the world, wherever there are
   Believers, the influence of Christian life and of Christian death.
   Christian life wields a mighty power. Wherever the Christian acts up to
   his profession, and the Grace within him shines forth in holiness,
   those who observe him take knowledge of him that he has been with
   Jesus. And as example speaks more loudly than precept, we may look for
   very marked results. The eloquence of Christian holiness is more potent
   for conversion than all the speaking of Christian orators--may we not
   therefore hope for converts by it?

   So, too, there are secret forces in every real Christian's death. When
   the ungodly man stands at the bedside and sees a Christian die singing
   in holy triumph, there may not be a word addressed to him--the dying
   Christian may be so absorbed in Heaven that he may scarcely have a
   thought of the sinner who is looking on--but that happy death will be a
   potent agency to arouse, to attract, to win the heart for Christ Jesus.
   Besides that, my Brethren, we ought never to forget that all the work
   of God in Providence is on the side of those who fight for the Gospel
   of Jesus.

   I might truly say of the Church that the stones of the field are in
   league with her, and the beasts of the field are at peace with her, for
   all things work her good. Sickness, when it stalks through the land, is
   a powerful preacher to the unthinking masses. We have seen men
   impressed, in years of cholera, who despised religion before. We have
   marked them listening to us with attention when a disease has humbled
   them. When death has come into the house, and the dear babe has died,
   it has frequently happened that ears were opened which never heard the
   Gospel before. And hearts were impressed that were hard as iron until
   the fire of affliction melted them.

   I believe Death himself to be an able ally of a faithful minister. The
   funerals which break men's hearts with natural sorrow are often
   overruled for the breaking of their hearts in a spiritual sense, also,
   so that oftentimes there are brought to Jesus, by the death of beloved
   ones, men who, to all human appearance, would otherwise have been lost.
   Have courage, you that fight for Christ--disease and death itself shall
   be overruled to help you. Physical calamities and catastrophes shall
   subdue the rebellious spirits of men, and you, then, stepping in with
   consolation, shall find a welcome for the Gospel.

   As God sent the hornet before his conquering Israel to overthrow the
   Canaanites, so does He send Providences to work together, for our help,
   that the Truth may prevail. Providence, like the angel at the
   sepulcher, rolls away the stone for us. It makes straight in the desert
   a highway for God. It is the Elijah which clears the way for the coming
   Savior.

   In addition to this, I must not fail to remind you that every man has a
   conscience. And though conscience is sadly impaired, it still leans to
   the right side. Conscience is not perfect, though some assert it to be
   so. In common with all the faculties of man it was disarranged by the
   Fall, and conscience is therefore no infallible judge of right and
   wrong. Still, for all that, half-blinded as it is, it yet knows which
   is light and which is darkness. And though it puts bitter for sweet,
   and sweet for bitter, still in the violence which it puts upon itself,
   it reveals an inner sense as yet undestroyed.

   Still is it a fact that even those who have not the Law, "are a Law
   unto themselves: which show the work of the Law written in their
   hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the
   meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another." The right awakens
   still an echo in man's bosom. The pure, the good, the true still may
   count on recognition from the glimmering moral sense within. To the
   preacher this is a fact full of hope, and he ought not to forget it.

   See then, that over and above our work which ought to be constant,
   incessant, intense, we have the Holy Spirit at work. We have Christ
   pleading. We have the whole company of the faithful sending up their
   perpetual intercessions. We have the blessed savor of the Truth of God
   spreading itself abroad. We have the evidence and power of holy living
   and triumphant dying. We have the wheels of Providence revolving, and
   the consciences of men made to yield an acquiescence to the Truth of
   God. I have thus very hurriedly run over a very extensive range of
   consideration.

   II. Secondly, reflect, my Brethren, that FROM THESE SOURCES WE MAY
   EXPECT REMARKABLE CONVERSIONS. We expect to see the major part of
   conversion through the daily instruction given to the children of
   Christian people, through the constant preaching of the Gospel, the
   distribution of religious literature, and the direct efforts of the
   followers of Christ. But over and above all this, we have a right to
   expect remarkable conversions from the less manifest sources of which I
   have spoken.

   As in the case of Saul, these conversions will bring to us persons
   formerly violently opposed to the Truth through prejudice. In Paul we
   see a man opposed to Christ not because he was opposed to the Truth of
   God, but because he thought that Jesus was not the Messiah. He
   worshipped God, the God of his fathers, with a fervent heart--and
   because he conceived that Jesus of Nazareth claimed to be what He was
   not--he hunted down His disciples to the death.

   Once convinced that he was wrong, he followed the right at once. And we
   may hope that interpositions will occur in which the Holy Spirit will
   enlighten the darkness of men who are honest in their darkness, and
   that they, seeing the light, will embrace the Gospel and bow before our
   King. Be that a subject of your prayers. I doubt not there are to be
   found, this day, devoted to an evil cause, men who nevertheless would
   not willfully choose what they knew to be error. They are devoted to it
   because in their ignorance they sincerely believe it to be true.

   Many a heretic has died for his heresy, believing it to be the very
   Truth of God. Our prayers should be that these men who would do right
   if they but knew it, may receive the blessed help of Him who is the
   light of the world, and may be brought to see in His light the true
   light. In such cases I should hope for their enlightenment. They are
   seeking goodly pearls, and I trust they will find the Pearl of Great
   Price. He who has made them honest and good ground will, we trust, sow
   them with good seed.

   We may expect, too, from these sources, the conversion of persons who
   have been doing much mischief to the good cause, and who are resolved
   to do still more. Does not Ananias put it so? "He has done great evil
   to the Church at Jerusalem, and here he has authority to bind all who
   call on Your name." Yes, but do not despair of a man because he is
   industriously opposed. Do not despair of him even because he is
   furious. Anything is better than to slumber in indifference. Provoke a
   man by the Gospel till he gnashes his teeth at you and he is none the
   less likely to be converted.

   Preach to him till he says, "He plays well upon a goodly instrument, he
   makes sweet sounds to charm my ears," and you will probably lull him
   into everlasting destruction. I love to see men rather aroused to
   oppose, than made to acquiesce, because they care not whether the
   Gospel is true or false. We may expect the Lord to arrest the chief
   ones among His enemies, for it will glorify Him.

   These sources will probably produce converts from among those who are
   beyond the reach of ordinary ministries. We sometimes regret that the
   voice of a thoroughly faithful ministry is seldom heard in the courts
   of kings, and that there is little hope of the Gospel's reaching the
   great ones of the earth. No, but for all that, the Lord can reach those
   whom we cannot reach. He can in life or in the dying hour come to the
   hearts of men whose ears were never reached by any testifier to the
   Truth, and He can bring them yet to His feet. He is able of these
   stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

   Paul would not have heard a preacher of Christ. He would have hurried
   him to prison, but never have listened to him. There was no likelihood
   of Saul's conversion by ordinary means. He would not stop to examine
   any documents had they been offered to him. Apologists for Christ he
   would have rejected with scorn--but the Lord has a way where we have
   none--and He calls whom He will by His own Sovereign power.

   We may expect persons who shall be converted by these causes to become
   very earnest. A man who feels that God has had singular mercy upon him
   feels that being much loved, and having had much forgiven, he must
   render much service. If I have been brought to Christ in the Sunday
   school, or after habitual listening to the Truth, I am a great debtor
   to the mercy of God. But the probabilities are that I shall not be so
   much impressed with my indebtedness as I ought to be. But if I have
   been quite out of the way, as it were, in the wilderness of sin, and
   yet the voice of the Lord that breaks the cedars of Lebanon has sounded
   in my ears--then I shall glorify that voice--and glorifying it
   consecrate myself to the God who uttered it.

   Such men, too, become profoundly evangelical. I trace Paul's exceeding
   evangelism to the fact that he was so remarkably converted. He could
   not be content with the surface of Truth--he dived into the depths of
   Grace and Sovereignty. He saw in himself the boundless power, the
   infinite mercy, the absolute Sovereignty of God. And therefore he bare
   witness more clearly than any other to these Divine attributes. He
   spoke of election, and predestination, and the deep things of God. Who
   but he could have written the ninth of Romans, or the Epistle to the
   Galatians?

   Courage, then, my Brothers and Sisters--the noble minds will yet be
   engaged in the service of our Master. They tell us that the power of
   Popery spreads in the land, that everywhere men are going back to the
   old falsehoods from which they once were delivered. We are told that we
   are to be ground down again beneath the iron wheels of superstition.
   And on the other hand, we hear that infidelity and skepticism spread
   themselves like a plague over the land. Be not afraid. God will convert
   the priests and convince the infidel demagogue. You need not fear. The
   leaders on the enemy's side shall yet be champions in our Master's
   army.

   Reckon not your feeble bands. Count not the timid soldiers already
   enlisted. Say not, "How few we are and how weak!" You know not where
   the Lord's hidden warriors are, nor what chief among the mighties He
   has concealed. They are not merely hidden among the stuff of
   worldliness, but they are there, in open hostility to His Cross and
   Crown--the mightiest warriors against Christ. Some of these shall,
   through conquering Grace, become the servants of God. Can you not
   believe it? Have you no faith in Jesus Christ? Believing it, will you
   not pray for it? Praying for it, will you not expect

   it? All things are possible to him that believes. Above all, everything
   is possible to the might of the eternal God and His ever-blessed
   Spirit. We must say no more on that, but pass on to a third reflection.

   III. THIS OCCASIONAL SINKING OF INSTRUMENTALITY ANSWERS ADMIRABLE ENDS.
   It might be

   thought to be a dangerous thing that sometimes God should work in Grace
   apart from man. I mean dangerous to the industry of the Church, for
   some are always ready enough to clutch at excuses for leaving God's
   work alone. And there are always certain indolent spirits who would
   gladly say, "Let God do His own work, it can be accomplished without
   us, we therefore may be excused."

   These men know better. They know the falsehood of their talk. It were
   not worth the Master's while to confute them, their own hearts condemn
   them. There are admirable reasons for the Lord's sole working--for,
   first, these interpositions disclose the Presence of the living Christ.
   We, too, often forget the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet the
   power of the Church lies in Christ. He is the Wisdom of God, and the
   Power of God. Some may remember Jesus, but not in His present Personal
   Character.

   In the Roman Catholic Church its power over devout minds lies in no
   small degree in the fact that the Person of Christ is much spoken of,
   loved, and reverenced. But mark well that you seldom see the Christ of
   the Romish Church in any but two attitudes. As a rule, either He is a
   babe in His mother's arms, or else He is dead--scarcely ever is He set
   forth by them as the living King, Head, and Lord. In both of those
   first aspects let Him be reverenced, let the incarnate God and the
   dying Savior have your hearts. But there is another fact to be borne in
   mind, and that is that He ever lives! That Church which, not forgetting
   His birth, nor His sacrifice, yet most clearly recognizes that He still
   lives, is the Church that shall win the day.

   We must have a living Head to the Church, we cannot do without one. Men
   will assuredly invent a living head on their own account, if they
   overlook the living Christ. They will find some priest or other whom
   they would gladly gird with the attributes of Deity, and set up as the
   Vicar of Christ. But we have a living Christ, and when He is pleased to
   appear to any man by His Spirit--I speak not of miraculous appearances,
   but of other direct operations of His Spirit upon the spirits of
   men--when He reveals Himself apart from instrumentality to man, then
   the Church discovers yet, again, that He is in her midst fulfilling His
   promise--"Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world."
   Still the Lord Jesus walks among the golden candlesticks and exerts a
   living force in the hearts and consciences of men--and He would have us
   remember this.

   Further, dear Friends, these interpositions tend to remind the Church
   of the supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit. The tendency nowadays is
   to expunge the supernatural, to bring everything down to the rule of
   reason, and the denial of faith. But for all that, there is a Holy
   Spirit. Rest assured that that doctrine of the creed, "I believe in the
   Holy Spirit," is a matter of reality. I am as certain that there is a
   Holy Spirit as that I live, for unto my spirit He has spoken, and I
   have come into contact with Him. I know that there are men's minds, for
   those minds have affected me. I know also that there is an Eternal
   Spirit, for He has affected my spirit, and I speak concerning Him what
   I know, and testify what I have seen. In proportion as that Truth is
   made clear to the Church by her personal experience, by the Spirit's
   moving where He wishes, and working Divine wonders, the Church will be
   girt with power from on High.

   This, too, tends to unveil many of the Divine attributes. Men so
   remarkably converted are sure to display the Sovereignty of God. "I
   will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion
   on whom I will have compassion," is an utterance which rolls like
   thunder over the head of Paul when he sinks amidst the blaze of the
   light from Heaven. God is saving whom He wills, for He stops the
   persecutor in the fury of his rage. There, too, was seen God's power.

   There might have been heard as a thunderclap from Heaven, "Power
   belongs unto God," when down fell Saul, wounded beneath the arrows of
   the Prince of Peace. There, too, was seen Divine Grace. Paul looked
   upon himself as the fairest pattern of God's longsuffering, obtaining
   mercy, though he had persecuted the Church of God. The very chief of
   sinners, and yet made not a whit behind the chief of the Apostles.

   And so these remarkable conversions aid very much the faith of the
   Church. When she is beginning to droop and to sink, when holy men fancy
   that at least, for awhile, the cause must wither, and even the bravest
   spirits wait rather than press forward--then it is that these
   remarkable conversions come in and inspirit the whole band--and they
   take courage and march to the victory with willing footsteps!

   And this also startles and impresses the world. What does the world
   know of the conversion of those who have sat in these pews ever since
   they were children? What does the world care about the faith of those
   who, happily for themselves, were led to Jesus from their youth? But
   let some gross blasphemer weep the tear of penitence. Let some bold
   persecutor preach the faith which once he sought to destroy, and the
   whole city hears of it! The land is astonished and in proportion God is
   glorified, and the power of His Grace is manifested.

   Thus, you see, there are good reasons for the Lord thus working. He may
   do as He wills. He will have us see that He does not need us. He may,
   if He pleases, use us. It is His rule to do so, and we are to work
   knowing that to be the rule. But we must adore, and admire, and bless
   Him that sometimes, putting us aside, He puts His own bare arm to the
   work. Thus His glorious right arm is exalted, for the right hand of the
   Lord does valiantly.

   IV. We shall now come to our fourth point, and draw towards a close.
   ALL THIS BY NO MEANS LOWERS THE

   VALUE OF INSTRUMENTALITY. It is not so intended, and only stupidity
   would so interpret it. For, first, such cases are rare, very much rarer
   than conversions by the agency of the Church. One Saul is struck to the
   earth, only one. But Peter preaches at Pentecost, and three thousand
   are pricked in their hearts. See the difference in numbers!

   The preaching of the Gospel is God's way of converting--His usual and
   general way. "Since all His paths drop fatness," it is especially so
   with this path of the ministration of the Truth by an earnest heart to
   other hearts. One Paul, I say, one Paul on the road to Damascus--but
   three thousand saved by the preaching of the word by Peter. I read of
   one Colonel Gardner who, on the very night he was about to commit a
   great sin saw, or fancied he saw, the appearance of our Lord, and heard
   the words, "I have done all this for you, what have you done for Me?"
   There is one such case--only one--I believe most certainly a true case.

   But there were fifty thousand, perhaps, in Scotland and in England at
   that time who were brought to a knowledge of the Truth by the ordinary
   methods of mercy. So the exhibition of special interposing Grace now
   and then does not interfere with the regular work of the Church, or
   lower our esteem of it. Riding along, I see in the hedgerow a tree with
   rich fruit upon it. I am surprised, I do not know how it came there, it
   is a very unusual thing to see our garden fruit trees in public
   hedgerows. But when I have seen it I do not think any the less of my
   neighbor who over yonder is planting fruit trees in his orchard.

   That is the ordinary way to get fruit. If now and then a fruit tree
   springs up upon the heath, if we are hungry we are glad to pluck the
   fruit--we do not know how it got there, and it is of no consequence
   that we should know--there is the fruit, and we are glad of it. But
   still we do not give up our orchard. Because sometimes a man finds a
   shilling, does he give up work? Extraordinary events in nature are
   always treated as such, and are not made the rule of everyday action.
   Even thus wise men treat unusual displays of Divine power. To forego
   regular agency that we may wait for wonders were as idle as to leave
   the regular pursuits of commerce to live upon the trash washed up by
   the sea.

   Remember, next, that these very cases involve human agency somewhere.
   Saul is on his way to Damascus, and, lo, he is struck down by the
   light, and by a voice from Heaven is converted. But after the three
   days of blindness and fasting, how does he get comfort? Does that come
   by another voice from Heaven? It might have. But the Lord takes care
   that the very instrumentality which is put aside in one place shall be
   honored in another, and so Ananias must be sent forth to bless the
   penitent.

   Ananias was a plain disciple. We do not know that he was either a
   preacher or an Evangelist, but a disciple of good repute, living at
   Damascus. And he must come and say, "Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus
   that appeared unto you in the way, has sent me." So you shall always
   find in conversion that there is instrumentality somewhere or other. My
   dear Brother, if God is pleased to convert a soul without using you, He
   may honor you by employing you to comfort him after conversion.
   Conviction may be worked by the Holy Spirit without means, but in the
   full decision, in the laying hold on Christ, He may give you
   occupation. Somewhere or other God will use you--only be a vessel fit
   for the Master's use-- and you will not be long out of service.

   Further, so far from dishonoring instrumentality, the conversion of
   Saul and others of the kind is a provision of a most remarkable
   instrumentality. "I have called him"--not to be a singular article for
   exhibition--but, "to be a chosen vessel unto Me to bear My name among
   the Gentiles." Remarkable converts become themselves the most
   indefatigable servants of God. Paul put all the wheels of the Church in
   more rapid motion than they ever knew before, and became himself one of
   the greatest wheels.

   He goes everywhere preaching the Gospel, so that instrumentality is not
   silenced, but God helps it to a higher position than before. Was it not
   through Paul that men were called into the fellowship and afterwards
   into the work of Jesus Christ? Should we ever have heard of such as
   Timothy and Titus and others if Paul had not been their spiritual
   parent? So that here we have not only a master worker begotten by this
   non-instrumental work, but he also begets other workers, and so the
   work of God to distant generations receives an impetus from the
   conversion of one single man. No, God does not dishonor
   instrumentality. If He puts it by for awhile to glorify Himself, He
   brings it forward again in due season and makes it brighter and more
   fit for His purpose.

   Let us adore, dear Friends, in conclusion, the power of the All-Working
   God. Let us reverence and worship Him. In our gatherings as Christians,
   let us worship Him with whom power still dwells. Let us not look to the
   earnestness of that man, or to the wealth of this, to the judgment of a
   third, to the eloquence of a fourth--but let us look to Him who has all
   power in Heaven and in earth. "Whom having not seen we love," "in whom,
   though now we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy
   unspeakable and full of glory."

   Let us believe that the Father works up to now and Christ works. Let us
   think of Him, who "works all things according to the counsel of His own
   will." Let us never be dispirited, but believe that the everlasting
   purpose of God will be accomplished--that the success of His Church
   will never be in jeopardy--that the onward march of the armies of God
   can be in no peril. All flesh shall see the salvation of God. All the
   earth shall worship Him, and Christ shall be acknowledged to be God to
   the glory of God the Father.

   The power to accomplish this is not contained in these poor vessels of
   clay, nor limited by the capacities of manhood, nor bounded by the
   perceptions of mortals! The arm which is on the side of the Church is
   Omnipotent. The mind that works over all for the glorious cause is
   infinitely wise and prudent. "Be of good courage, and He shall
   strengthen your hearts. Wait, I say, on the Lord." Keep His way,
   delight also yourselves in Him, and He shall bring it to pass, and you
   shall see that accomplished which you would not have believed though a
   man had spoken it unto you. Go on working, there is your sphere. Pray
   much that God would work also, for prayer is another part of your
   sphere.

   Expect God to work, believe that He will surely conquer Satan. Be
   confident that evil will not win the day, that error cannot be
   permanent, that there will occur Divine surprises which will make the
   Church to wonder at what her Lord God can do! In one word, believe, and
   you shall be established. Wait upon God and you shall be strong. Never
   give way to unbelief. Believe in the unseen. Rest in the invisible.
   Have confidence in the Infinite. And the Lord send to us and to all
   Christendom a band of men whom He has chosen whom He shall call out as
   He did His Apostle--and who shall become the leaders of His Church, and
   the conquerors of the world. The Lord grant that some who are here this
   morning may be among that elect company. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Ripe Fruit

   (No. 945)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 14, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "My soul desired the first ripe fruit." Micah 7:1.

   THE nation of Israel had fallen into so sad and backsliding a
   condition--it was not like a vine covered with fruit, but like a
   vineyard after the whole vintage has been gathered--there was not to be
   found a single cluster. Not one righteous man could be found, not one
   to be trusted or found faithful to God. The whole state had become like
   a field that has been closely reaped, in which nothing remains but the
   stubble--like a vineyard that has been completely stripped, in which
   there remains no vestige of fruit.

   The Prophet, speaking in the name of Israel, desired the first ripe
   fruits, but there were none to be had. The lesson of the text, as it
   stands, would be that good men are the best fruit of a nation--they
   make it worth while that the nation should exist. They are the salt
   which preserves it, they are the fruit which adorns it and blesses it.
   Pray we then for our country, that God will continually raise up a
   righteous seed, a faithful band, who, for His name's sake, shall be a
   sweet savor unto God, for whose sake He may bless the whole land.

   But I mean to take our text out of its connection and use it as the
   heading of a discourse upon ripeness in Divine Grace. I think we can
   all use the words of Micah in another sense, when he said, "My soul
   desired the first ripe fruit." We would desire not to be merely the
   green blade, we desire to be the full corn in the ear. We would not
   merely show forth the blossoms of repentance and the young buds of
   struggling faith, but we would go on to maturity and bring forth fruit
   unto perfection, to the honor and praise of Jesus Christ.

   This morning, then, I speak about ripeness in Grace, maturity in the
   Divine life, fruit ready to be gathered--and our first point shall be
   the marks of this ripeness. The second, the causes that work together
   to create this ripeness. The third, the desirability of the ripeness.
   The fourth, the solemnity of the whole subject.

   I. First, then, let us speak upon THE MARKS OF RIPENESS IN GRACE. Let
   us begin with the mark of beauty. There is a great beauty in a fruit
   tree when it is in bloom. Perhaps there is no more lovely object in all
   nature than the apple blossom. But this beauty soon fades--one shower
   of rain, one descent of hail, one puff of the north wind--and very soon
   the blossoms fall like snow. And if they remain their full time,
   speedily, indeed, in any case, they must withdraw from view.

   Much loveliness adorns youthful piety. The love of his espousals, his
   first love, his first zeal, all make the newborn Believer comely. Can
   anything be more delightful than our first graces? Even God Himself
   delights in the beauty of the blossoming Believer. "I remember you,"
   says He, "the love of your espousals, when you went after Me in the
   wilderness." Autumn has a more sober aspect, but still it rivals the
   glory of spring. Ripe fruit has its own peculiar beauty. As the fruit
   ripens, the sun tints it with surpassing loveliness and the colors
   deepen till the beauty of the fruit is equal to the beauty of the
   blossom, and in some respects is superior.

   What a delicacy of bloom there is upon the grape, the peach, the plum,
   when they have attained perfection! Nature far excels art, and all the
   attempts of the modeler in wax cannot reach the marvelous blends of
   color, the matchless tints of the ripe fruit, worthy of Eden before the
   Fall. It is another sort of beauty altogether from that of the blossom,
   yielding to the eye of the farmer, who has the care of the garden, a
   fairer sight by far. The perfumed bloom yields in value to the golden
   apple, even as promise is surpassed by fulfillment. The blossom is
   painted by the pencil of hope, but the fruit is dyed in the hue of
   enjoyment.

   There is in ripe Christians the beauty of realized sanctification which
   the Word of God knows by the name of "the beauty of holiness." This
   consecration to God, this setting apart for His service, this watchful
   avoidance of evil, this care-

   ful walking in integrity, this dwelling near to God, this being made
   like unto Christ--in a word, this beauty of holiness is one of the
   surest emblems of maturity in Grace. You have no ripe fruit if you are
   not holy.

   If your passions are still not subdued, if still you are carried about
   by every wind of temptation--if still, "Lo here, and lo there," will
   attract you to the right hand and to the left, you have not reached to
   anything like maturity-- perhaps you are not even fruit unto God at
   all. But where holiness is perfected in the fear of God, and the
   Christian is at least striving after perfect holiness--and aiming to be
   conformed to the image of Christ--one of the marks of the ripe fruit is
   plainly present.

   Another mark is never absent in a mature Believer--namely, the weight
   which is evidenced in humility. Look at the corn in the field, it holds
   its head erect while it is green, but when the ear is filled and
   matured, it hangs its head in graceful humbleness. Look at your fruit
   trees, how their blossoming branches shoot up towards the sky, but when
   they begin to be loaded with fruit, since the riper the fruit the
   greater its weight, the branch begins to bow, until it needs oftentimes
   to be propped up and to be supported, lest it break away from the stem.
   Weight comes with maturity, lowliness of mind is the inevitable
   consequence.

   Growing Christians think themselves nothing. Full-grown Christians know
   that they are less than nothing. The nearer we are to Heaven in point
   of sanctification, the more we mourn our infirmities, and the humbler
   is our estimate of ourselves. Lightly laden vessels float high in the
   water, heavy cargo sinks the boat to the water's edge. The more Grace,
   the more the need of Grace is felt. He may boast of his Grace who has
   none. He may talk much of his Grace who has little, but he who is rich
   in Grace cries out for more, and forgets that which is behind.

   When a man's inward life flows like a river, he thinks only of the
   Source, and cries before his God, "All my fresh springs are in You." He
   who abounds in holiness feels more than ever that in him, that is in
   his flesh, there dwells no good thing. You are not ripened, my Brothers
   and Sisters, while you have a high esteem of yourself. He who glories
   in himself is but a babe in Christ, if indeed he is in Christ at all.
   When you shall see death written on the creature, and see all your life
   in Christ. When you shall perceive even your holy things to have
   iniquity in them, and see all your perfectness in Him who is altogether
   lovely. When you shall lie prostrate at the foot of the Throne, and
   only rise to sit and reign in Him who is your All, then are you
   ripening, but not till then.

   Another mark of ripeness which everyone perceives in fruit, and by
   which, indeed, the maturity of many fruits is tested, is tenderness.
   The young green fruit is hard and stone-like. But the ripe fruit is
   soft, yields to pressure, can almost be molded, retains the mark of the
   finger. So is it with the mature Christian--he is noted for tenderness
   of spirit. Beloved, I think if I must miss any good thing, I would give
   up many of the Graces if I might possess very much tenderness of
   spirit. I am persuaded that many Christians violate the delicacy of
   their consciences, and there lose much of true excellence.

   Do you not remember, my Brothers and Sisters, when you used to be
   afraid to put one foot before another for fear you should tread in the
   wrong place? I wish we always felt in that same manner. You remember
   when you were afraid to open your mouth lest, perhaps, you should say
   something that would grieve the Spirit? I would we were always so
   self-diffident. "Open You my lips"--I am afraid to open them myself.
   "Open You my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise."

   An extreme delicacy concerning sin should be cultivated by us all. When
   the Believer can listen to a song with a las-civiousness tone and does
   not feel himself indignant, let him be indignant with himself. When he
   can come across sin and feel that it does not shock him as once it did,
   let him be shocked to think that his conscience is being so seared. I
   would give you for a prayer--that verse from Wesley's hymn--

   "Quid as the twinkle of an eye,

   O God, my conscience make,

   Awake my heart, when sin is near.

   And keep it still awake."

   The sensitive plant, as soon as it is touched, begins to fold up its
   leaves. Touch it again and the little branches droop, until at last it
   stands like the bare poles of a vessel--all its sail of leaf is furled,
   and it seems as if it would, if it could-- shrink into nothing to avoid
   your hand. So should you be, so should I be, tender to the touch of
   sin, so as to say with the Psalmist, "Horror has taken hold upon me
   because of the wicked that forsake Your Law." Such tenderness is a
   prominent mark of ripeness, and it should be exhibited, not only in
   relation to sin, but in other ways.

   We should manifest tenderness towards the Gospel--glad to hear it,
   thankful even for a little of it. Glad to eat the crumbs from the
   Master's table. Tenderness towards Christ so that the heart does leap
   at the sound of His name. Tenderness towards the motions of the Spirit
   so as to be guided by His eye. The Spirit often, I doubt not, comes to
   us and we do not perceive Him because we are heavy of hearing, we are
   dull of understanding. The photographer may place his plate in the
   camera, and the object to be taken may be long before it, and well
   focused, too--and yet no impression may be produced. But when the plate
   is made sensitive, thoroughly sensitive--then it receives the image at
   once.

   that your heart and mine might be sensitive to receive the impression
   of the Holy Spirit so that on us there shall be printed at once the
   mind and will of God! Dear Friend, bear this in your memory, and forget
   not that it shall be a token of your ripeness when the hardness is
   departing, when the heart of stone is being supplanted by the heart of
   flesh, and when the soul yields promptly to the Presence of Christ, and
   the touch of His Spirit.

   Another mark of ripeness is sweetness, as well as tenderness. The
   unripe fruit is sour, and perhaps it ought to be, or else we should eat
   all the fruits while they were yet green. If pears and apples had the
   same flavor when they are but small, as afterwards, I am sure where
   there are children, very few of them would come to their full
   development. It may, therefore, be in the order of Grace a fit thing
   that in the youthful Christian some sharpness should be found which
   will ultimately be removed.

   There are certain Graces which are more martial and warlike than
   others, and have their necessary uses--these we may expect to see more
   in the young men than in the fathers. And they will be toned down by
   experience. As we grow in Grace, we are sure to grow in charity,
   sympathy, and love. We shall have greater and more intense affection
   for the Person of "Him whom having not seen we love." We shall have
   greater delight in the precious things of His Gospel. The doctrine
   which perhaps we did not understand at first, will become marrow and
   fatness to us as we advance in Grace. We shall feel that there is honey
   dropping from the honeycomb in the deeper truths of our religion.

   We shall, as we ripen in Grace, have greater sweetness towards our
   fellow Christians. Bitter-spirited Christians may know a great deal,
   but they are immature. Those who are quick to censure may be very acute
   in judgment, but they are as yet very immature in heart. He who grows
   in Grace remembers that he is but dust, and he therefore does not
   expect his fellow Christians to be anything more. He overlooks ten
   thousand of their faults, because he knows his God overlooks twenty
   thousand in his own case. He does not expect perfection in the
   creature, and, therefore, he is not disappointed when he does not find
   it.

   As he has sometimes to say of himself, "This is my infirmity," so he
   often says of his Brethren, "This is their infirmity." And he does not
   judge them as he once did. I know we who are young beginners in Grace
   think ourselves qualified to reform the whole Christian Church. We drag
   her before us and condemn her straightway. But when our virtues become
   more mature, I trust we shall not be more tolerant of evil, but we
   shall be more tolerant of infirmity, more hopeful for the people of
   God, and certainly less arrogant in our criticisms. Sweetness towards
   sinners is another sign of ripeness.

   When the Christian loves the souls of men. When he feels that there is
   nothing in the world which he cares for so much as endeavoring to bring
   others to a knowledge of the saving Truth of God. When he can lay
   himself out for sinners, bear with their ill manners, bear with
   anything, so that he might but lead them to the Savior--then is the man
   mature in Grace. God grant this sweetness to us all. A holy calm,
   cheerfulness, patience, a walk with God, fellowship with Jesus, an
   anointing from the Holy One--I put all these together--and I call them
   sweetness, heavenly lusciousness, full-flavored of Christ. May this be
   in you and abound.

   1 hope I shall not weary you with these marks and signs. I shall not if
   you can find them in yourselves. Fullness, again, is the mark of
   ripeness, seen when the fruit is plumped out and arrived at its fair
   and full proportions. The man in Christ Jesus has a fullness of Grace.
   As he advances in the Divine life, all the Graces which were in him at
   his new birth are strengthened and revealed. I suppose that in the
   newly formed ear of wheat all the kernels are present, but they are not
   yet manifested. As the ear advances to maturity these grains begin to
   solidify and become more full.

   So with the Believer. There is repentance in him, but not such
   repentance as he will have as he sees more the love of Christ in
   pardoning his sin. There is faith in him, certainly, but not such faith
   as he shall have when afterwards he shall boldly declare, "I know whom
   I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I
   have committed to Him." There is joy in him at the very first, but not
   the joy which he will possess when he will rejoice in the Lord always,
   and yet again rejoice. Experience deepens that which was there before.

   Young Christians have the first draughts, the outline of the image of
   Christ, but as they grow in Grace there comes the filling up, the
   coloring, the laying on of the deeper tints, the bringing out of the
   whole picture. This it is to grow mature when we know whom we have
   believed by acquaintance with Him, when we know sin by having struggled
   with it, when we know the faithfulness of God by having proved it, when
   we know the preciousness of the promise by having received it, and
   having it fulfilled in our own souls--this it is to be a ripe
   Christian, to be full of Grace and Truth like our Master.

   Only one other mark of ripeness, and a very sure one, is a loose hold
   of earth. Ripe fruit soon parts from the bough. You shake the tree and
   the ripest apples fall. If you wish to eat fresh fruit you put out your
   hand to pluck it, and if it comes off with great difficulty you feel
   you had better leave it alone a little longer. But when it drops into
   your hand, quite ready to be withdrawn from the branch, you know it to
   be in good condition.

   When, like Paul, we can say, "I am ready to depart," when we set loose
   all earthly things, oh, then it is that we are ripe for Heaven! You
   should measure your state of heart by your adhesiveness, or your
   resignation in reference to the things of this world. You have some
   comforts here, some of you have money, and you look upon it, and you
   feel, "it were hard to part with this"--this is green fruit. When your
   Grace is mature, you will feel that though God should give you even
   greater abundance of this world, you are still an exile longing for the
   better land.

   "Whom have I in Heaven but You? There is none upon earth that I desire
   beside You." This is the mature Believer's question. His song often is
   --

   "My heart is with Him on His Throne,

   And ill can brook delay;

   Each moment listening for the voice,

   'Rise up and come away.'"

   It is a sure token of ripeness when you are standing on tiptoe, with
   your wings outspread, ready for flight. When no chain any longer binds
   you further to earth. When your love to things below is subordinate to
   your longing for the joys Above. Oh, it is sweet to sing 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."

   When we get to this in our very hearts, we are getting ripe, and we
   shall soon be gathered. The Master will not let His ripe fruit hang
   long on the tree. Thus I have given you the marks of ripeness.

   II. Briefly, Brethren, let us notice THE CAUSES OF THIS RIPENESS. So
   gracious a result must have a gracious cause. The first cause of
   ripeness in Grace is the inward working of the sap. The fruit could
   never be ripe in its raw state were it taken away from the bough.
   Outward agencies alone may produce rottenness, but not ripeness. Sun,
   shower, whatnot, all would fail--it is the vital sap within the tree
   that perfects the fruit. It is especially so in Grace.

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, are you one with Christ? Are you sure you
   are? Are you sure your profession is connected with vital godliness? Is
   Jesus Christ formed within you? Do you abide in Him? If not, you need
   not think about maturity in Grace--you had need to do your first works
   and repent--and turn unto Him. Everything between Hell and Heaven which
   denotes salvation is the work of the Spirit of God, and the work of the
   Grace of Jesus. You not only cannot begin to live the Christian life,
   but you cannot continue in it except as the Holy Spirit enables you.

   That blessed Spirit, flowing to us from Christ--as He is the Creator of
   the first blossom--so He is the Producer of the fruit, and is the
   Ripener of it until it is gathered into the heavenly garner. Your
   sacraments, your attendance at a place of worship, your outward bowings
   of the knee in prayer--these are all vanity and less than
   nothing--unless there is this vital sap of the inward, spiritual Grace.

   When the Truth of God is present in the hidden part, outer influences
   help. Fruit is ripened by the sun. His beams impart or produce in the
   fruit its perfectness of flavor. Sunless skies cause tasteless fruit.
   How sweetly Christians grow when they walk in the light of God's
   Countenance! What a ripening influence the love of Jesus Christ has on
   the soul! When the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy
   Spirit, how rapidly the Christian advances! I believe we ripen in Grace
   more in ten minutes when we live near to God than we might do in ten
   years of absence from His Presence.

   Some fruit on a tree will not ripen fast, it is shielded from the sun.
   We have the cottagers pluck off the leaves from their vines in our
   chilly climate in order to let the sun get at the vine, and bring out
   the color and ripeness of the clusters. Even thus the great Husbandman
   takes away many of the leaves of worldly comfort from us, that the
   comfort of His own dear Presence may come at us, and ripen us for
   Himself. We cannot have too much joy in the Lord, we cannot get too
   near to Him. We may well sing--

   "When will You come unto me, Lord? O come, my Lord, most dear! Come
   near, come nearer, nearer still, I'm blessed when You are near."

   The joy of the Lord is your strength, and the joy of the Lord is your
   perfectness.

   Still, Brethren, the fruit is no doubt equally ripened, though not as
   evidently so, by the shower and by the dew. All heat and no moisture,
   and there must be scarcely any fruit. So the dew of God's Spirit
   falling upon us, the constant shower of Grace visiting us, and what if
   I add, even the trials and troubles of life, which are like showers to
   us--all these teach us by experience, and by experience we ripen for
   the skies. Some fruit I have heard of, especially the sycamore fig,
   never will ripen except it is bruised.

   It was the trade of Amos to be a bruiser of sycamore figs. They were
   struck with a long staff, and then after being wounded, they sweetened.
   How like so many of us! How many, many of us seem as if we never would
   be sweet till first we have been dipped in bitterness--never would be
   perfected till we have been smitten! We may trace many of our sharp
   trials, our bereavements and our bodily pains to the fact that we are
   such sour fruit. Nothing will ripen us but heavy blows. Blessed be the
   Lord that He does not spare us. We would be ripe even if we were struck
   again and again. We cannot be content to continue in our sourness and
   immaturity--therefore, we meekly bless Him that He will strike us and
   make us ripe.

   One idea I would correct before I pass from this--it is the notion that
   ripeness in Grace is the necessary result of age. It is not so at all.
   Little children have been ripe for Glory! Yes, there have been
   authentic cases of their ripeness for Heaven even at three years of
   age--strange things dying babes have said of Christ--and deeply
   experimental things, too. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings"
   the Lord not only brings childlike praise, but He has "perfected
   praise," or, as David has it, "You have ordained strength because of
   Your enemies." "Many an aged Christian is not an experienced Christian,
   for his experience--though it may be the experience of a Christian--may
   not have been Christian experience of an advanced kind.

   An old sailor who has never left the river is not an experienced
   mariner. An old soldier who never saw a battle is no veteran. Remember
   it is in the kingdom of God very much as it is with God Himself, one
   day may be as a thousand years. God can, as Solomon tells us, give
   subtlety to the simple and teach the young man knowledge and
   discretion. Years with Grace will produce greater maturity, but what I
   want to say is that years without Divine Grace will produce no such
   maturity. The mere lapse of time will not advance us in the Divine
   life. We do not ripen necessarily because our years fulfill their
   tale--gray hairs and great Grace are not inseparable companions.

   Time may be wasted as well as improved. We may be petrified rather than
   perfected by the flow of years. Here it may be well to note that there
   is no reason why a young Christian should not make great advance
   towards this maturity, even while young. The Lord's Grace is
   independent of time and age. The Holy Spirit is not limited by youth,
   nor restrained by fewness of days. Young Samuel may excel aged Eli. A
   holy babe is riper than a backsliding man. Timothy was more mature than
   Diotrephes.

   Jesus can lead you, my youthful Brothers and Sisters, to high degrees
   of fellowship with Himself. He can make you to be a blessing even while
   yet you are young. I pray you aspire to the nearest place to Jesus, and
   like young John, lie in the Master's bosom. Truly, the aged have the
   help of experience, and in any case they deserve our reverent esteem.
   But let neither old nor young imagine that the merely natural fact of
   age has any influence in the spiritual life. God's work is the same in
   old and young, and owes nothing to the merely natural vigor of youth,
   or equally natural prudence of age.

   III. Thus we have given you the causes of ripeness. Briefly let us show
   you THE DESIRABILITY OF RIPENESS IN GRACE. It is necessary to dwell on
   this head because many Christians appear to think that if they are just
   Believers it is enough. We do not in business think it enough if we
   barely escape bankruptcy. A man does not say, if his dear child has
   been ill in bed for years that it is quite enough so long as the child
   is alive.

   We do not think that of our own bodies, that so long as we can breathe
   it is enough. If anyone were dragged out of the Serpentine and life was
   just in him, we should not feel it sufficient to discover the vital
   spark and there leave it. No, we pursue the processes of resuscitation
   till the person is perfectly restored. To be just alive as a Christian
   is horrid work. It is a poor state to be in to be always trying to see
   whether we are alive by putting the looking glass of evidences to the
   lips to see if there is just a trace of gracious vapor on the surface.
   It is a dolorous thing to be always groaning--

   "It is a point I long to know,

   Oft it causes anxious thought,

   Do I love the Lord or no?

   Am I His, or am I not?"

   Yet too many are content to continue in this ignominious condition.
   Brethren, it is desirable that you should get out of it, and come to
   ripeness in Grace by God's Spirit, for, first, ultimate ripeness is an
   index of the health of your soul. The fruit which under proper
   circumstances does not ripen is not a good fruit--it must be an
   unwholesome production. Your soul can surely not be as it should be if
   it does not ripen under the influence of God's love and the work of His
   Grace. The gardener's reward is the ripe fruit. You desire that Christ
   should see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied--do you think He
   will find that satisfaction in sour grapes?

   Is He to find His recompense in griping apples? No, Sir. The gardener
   wants the mature productions of the soil and he does not count that he
   has a return for his labor till he gathers ripe fruit. Let the Redeemer
   find ripe fruit in you. Say with the spouse, "Let my Beloved come into
   His garden, and eat His pleasant fruits." Endeavor to imitate her when
   she said, "At our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old,
   which I have laid up for You, O Beloved." Present yourself to Him, and
   may He present you to the Father made meet to be partakers of the
   inheritance of the saints in light!

   It is the ripe fruit which proves the excellence of the tree. The tree
   may bear a name in very good repute, but if the fruit never ripens,
   very soon the gardener will remove it from the orchard. The Church's
   repute among wise men is gained not from her raw and green members, but
   from her ripe Believers--these are they by whose steadfast holiness
   those whose verdict is worth the having will be ruled. I would have men
   compelled to own that the Church is a goodly vine and her fruit most
   pleasant to the taste.

   To break the metaphor, the Church wants mature Christians very greatly,
   and especially when there are many fresh converts added to it. New
   converts furnish impetus to the Church, but her backbone and substance
   must, under God, lie with the mature members. We want mature Christians
   in the army of Christ to play the part of veterans, to inspire the rest
   with coolness, courage, and steadfastness. For if the whole army is
   made up of raw recruits the tendency will be for them to waver when the
   onslaught is fiercer than usual.

   The old guard, the men who have breathed smoke and eaten fire before,
   do not waver when the battle rages like a tempest--they can die but
   they cannot surrender. When they hear the cry of, "Forward," they may
   not rush to the front so nimbly as the younger soldiers, but they drag
   up the heavy artillery and their advance, once made, is secure. They do
   not reel when the shots fly thick, but still hold their own, for they
   remember former fights when Jehovah covered their heads.

   The Church wants in these days of flimsiness and timeserving, more
   decided, thorough-going, well-instructed, and confirmed Believers. We
   are assailed by all sorts of new doctrines. The old faith is attacked
   by so-called reformers who would reform it all away. I expect to hear
   tidings of some new doctrine once a week. So often as the moon changes,
   some "prophet" or other is moved to propound a new theory, and believe
   me, he will contend more valiantly for his novelty than ever he did for
   the Gospel! The discoverer thinks himself a modern Luther--and of his
   doctrine he thinks as much as David of Goliath's sword--"There is none
   like it."

   As Martin Luther said of certain men in his day, these inventors of new
   doctrines stare at their discoveries like a cow at a new gate--as if
   there were nothing else in all the world but the one thing for them to
   stare at. We are all expected to go mad for their fashions, and march
   to their piping. But do we give place?--no, not for an hour! They may
   muster a troop of raw recruits, and lead them where they would--but for
   confirmed Believers they sound their bugles in vain. Children run after
   every new toy. Any little performance in the street, and the boys are
   all agog, gaping at it.

   But their fathers have work to do abroad, and their mothers have other
   matters at home. Your drum and whistle will not draw them out. For the
   solidity of the Church, for her steadfastness in the faith, for her
   defense against the constantly recurring attacks of heretics and
   infidels. For her permanent advance and the seizing of fresh provinces
   for Christ

   we want not only your young, hot bloods, which may God always send to
   us, for they are of immense service and we cannot do without them. But
   we need also the cool, steady, well-disciplined, deeply-experienced
   hearts of men who know by experience the Truth of God. Those that hold
   fast what they have learned in the school of Christ. May the Lord our
   God, therefore, send us many such. They are wanted.

   IV. And now I shall close by calling your attention to THE GREAT
   SOLEMNITY OF THE SUBJECT. We have

   tried to treat it pleasantly, and to instruct after the Master's
   example by parables, but there is much of weight here, much of deep and
   solemn weight. The first is to me, to you, professor of the faith of
   Christ, a solemn question--am I ripening?

   I remember when a child, seeing on the mantel a stone apple,
   wonderfully like an apple, too, and very well colored. I saw that apple
   years after, but it was no riper. It had been in unfavorable
   circumstances for softening and sweetening, if it ever would have
   become mellow. But I do not think if the sun of the Equator had shone
   on it, or if the dews of Hermon had fallen on it, it would ever have
   been fit to be brought to table. Its hard marble substance would have
   broken a giant's teeth.

   It was a hypocritical professor, a hard-hearted mocker of little
   children, a mere mimic of God's fruits. There are Church members who
   used to be unkind, covetous, censorious, bad-tempered,
   egotistical--everything that was hard and stony--are they so now? Have
   they not mellowed with the lapse of years? No, they are worse if
   anything--very dogs in the house for snapping and snarling, rending and
   devouring. They are great men at hewing down the carved work of the
   sanctuary with their axes, or at filling up wells and marring good
   pieces of land with stones. When the devil wants a stone to fling at a
   minister he is sure to use one of them.

   Well, now, are these people Christians at all? Are they? Let your
   senses exercise themselves. I leave you each one to judge. If these are
   extreme cases, let me ask--are there not many in whom ripeness is
   certainly not very apparent? No growing downwards in humility, no
   growing upwards in fellowship with God, no doing more, no giving more,
   no loving more, no praying more, no praising more, no sympathizing
   more. Are you, then, a fruit unto God at all? Solemn question! I put it
   to myself as in the sight of God, and I ask you to do the same to
   yourselves.

   Another question also rises up. There is constantly going on in every
   man, specially in every professed Christian, some process or other. And
   I believe that one of two processes will go on in us--the one is
   ripening, the other is rotting. Now rotting and ripening are
   exceedingly like each other in appearance up to a certain stage. You
   will sometimes find upon your tree a fruit which seems perfectly ripe
   and has all the signs of ripeness a month before the proper time,
   outstripping thus all the other fruit.

   You must not think it is ripe. Cut it open, there is a worm inside.
   That noxious worm is to all appearances producing the same effect as
   the blessed sun and dew. So the worm of secret sin will eat out the
   heart of a professor, and yet it will outwardly produce in him the same
   quality of speech, the same apparent sanctity of life which the Holy
   Spirit truly produces in a real Christian--but still the fair outside
   conceals a foul interior. The whitewashed sepulcher is full of decay.
   That fruit which mimics ripeness is rotten. Leave it alone, and it will
   soon be a thing fit only for the dunghill.

   My dear Friends, I have lived long enough, young as I am, to have seen
   some turn out to be very rotten hypocrites, though once they were in
   general esteem as more than ordinarily good men. I am sure we have all
   admired and loved persons who after awhile have turned out to be
   utterly unworthy. They looked the more ripe because they were rotten--
   they were obliged to try and look like holy men because they feared
   that their real unholiness would be found out.

   Just as some failing merchants make all the greater show to conceal
   their insolvency--you will rot if you do not ripen, depend on it. He
   that in the Church of God does not grow more heavenly will become more
   devilish. It is a hard thing to be in the hot house of an earnest
   Church without growing more rank if you do not grow more fruitful. Mind
   this, and God give you to grow in Grace and in the knowledge of our
   Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

   One other reflection, and a very solemn one it is. While good fruits
   ripen, evil plants ripen, too. While the wheat ripens for the harvest,
   the tares ripen, also. They may grow together, and ripen together, but
   they will not be housed together. Dear Hearers, some of you have been
   in this place now for years, and you are not converted. Well, you are
   ripening, you cannot help that. Even weeds and tares come to maturity.
   "Let both grow together till the harvest."

   Look at these galleries and this vast area. I see before me three great
   fields of corn and tares. You are mingled while you grow. "Let both
   grow together till the harvest," that is the ripening and the dividing
   time. You are all growing, all

   ripening. Then, when all are ripe in the time of harvest, He will say
   to the reapers, "Gather together first the tares, bind them in bundles
   to burn them. Gather the wheat into My barn."

   O Sinner, your unbelief is ripening and it will ripen into despair!
   Your enmity to God is ripening and it will ripen into everlasting
   rebellion against Him. Even now your heart grows harder and more
   stubborn, and your death in sin becomes more hopeless every hour you
   live. Remember there shall be no hope that your character will undergo
   improvement in another world. Then shall be fulfilled the saying which
   is written, "He that is filthy, let him be filthy still."

   Forever and forever the processes which ripen sin will continue to
   operate on condemned spirits, "where their worm dies not, and their
   fire is not quenched." God grant you Grace to believe in Jesus Christ
   NOW--that you may receive the new nature--and having received it, may
   grow up into ripeness, so that God may be glorified. May we all be
   housed in the garner of ripe fruit in the King's own Palace above! Amen
   and Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Profit Of Godliness In The Life To Come

   (No. 946)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JUNE 19, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the
   life that now is, and of that which is to come." 1 Timothy 4:8.

   WE endeavored, this morning to prove the profitableness of godliness as
   to the life which now is, and to discriminate as to what the promise of
   this life really is. We tried to prove that "the promise" of the life
   that now is--its real and highest beauty and excellence--consists in
   peace of mind, peace with God, contentment, and happiness of spirit.
   And while we pointed out that godliness did not ensure wealth, or
   health, or even a good name--for all these, even to godly men, might
   not be granted--yet we showed that the great end of our being, that for
   which we live and were created, that which will best make it worth
   while to have existed, shall certainly be ours if we are godly.

   We did not think it an unimportant matter to expound the bearing of
   true religion upon this present state. But I trust we did not
   exaggerate that view so as to keep those in countenance who dream that
   this world is the main consideration--and that the wisest man is he who
   makes it the be-all and the end-all of his existence.

   Beloved Friends, there is another life beyond this fleeting existence.
   This fact was dimly guessed by heathens. Strange as their mythology
   might be, and singular as were their speculations us to the regions of
   bliss and woe, even barbarous nations have had some glimmering light
   concerning a region beyond the river of death. Hardly yet have we been
   able to discover a people with no idea of an after-state. Man has
   scarcely ever been befooled into the belief that death is the finis of
   the volume of his existence.

   Few, indeed, have been so lost to natural light as to have forgotten
   that man is something more than the dog which follows at his heel. That
   which was dimly guessed by the heathen was more fully worked out by the
   bolder and clearer minds among philosophers. They saw something about
   man that made him more than either ox or horse. They marked the moral
   government of God in the world, and as they saw the wicked prosper, and
   the righteous afflicted, they said, "There must be another state in
   which the GREAT AND JUST ONE will rectify all these wrongs--reward the
   righteous, and condemn the wicked."

   They thought it proved that there would be another life. They could
   not, however, speak with confidence. For reason, however right her
   inferences, does not content the heart, or give "the substance of
   things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen." That is reserved for
   faith. The best light of heathens was but twilight. Yet was there so
   much light in their obscurity that they looked beyond the stream of
   death and thought they saw shades as of creatures that had once been
   here and could not die. What was thus surmised and suspected by the
   great thinkers of antiquity has been brought to light in the Gospel of
   Jesus Christ.

   He has declared to us that we shall live again, that there will be a
   Judgment and a Resurrection both of the righteous and of the wicked,
   and that there will be awarded to the righteous a reward that shall
   know no end, while the wicked shall be driven into a banishment to
   which there shall be no close. We are not left, now, to speculate nor
   to rely upon unaided reason. We have been told upon the authority of
   God, sometimes by the lips of Prophets, at other times by the lips of
   His own dear Son, or by His inspired Apostles, that there is a world to
   come, a world of terrors to the ungodly, but a world of promised
   blessing to the righteous.

   My dear Hearer, if it is so, what will the world to come be to you?
   Will you inherit its promise? You may easily answer that question by
   another. Have you godliness? If you have, you have the promise of the
   life that is to come. Are you ungodly? Do you live without God? Are you
   without faith in God, without love to God, without reverence to God?
   Are you without the pardon which God presents to believers in Christ
   Jesus? Then you are without hope, and the world to come has nothing for
   you but a fearful looking for ofjudgment and of fiery indignation which
   will devour you.

   I. GODLINESS CONCERNING THE LIFE TO COME POSSESSES A PROMISE UNIQUE AND
   UNRIVALLED. I say a unique promise, for, observe--infidelity makes no
   promise of a life to come. It is the express business of infidelity to
   deny that there is such a life, and to blot out all the comfort which
   can be promised concerning it. Man is like a pris-

   oner shut up in his cell, a cell all dark and cheerless unless there is
   a window through which he can gaze upon a glorious landscape.

   Infidelity comes like a demon into the cell, and with desperate hands
   blocks up the window, that man may sit forever in the dark, or at best
   may have the boasted light of a farthing rush-light called
   free-thinking. All that infidelity can tell him is that he will die
   like a dog. Fine prospect for a man who feels eternity pulsing within
   his spirit! I know I shall not die like the beast that perishes. And
   let who will propound the theory, my soul sickens and turns with
   disgust from it. Nor would it be possible by the most specious
   arguments so to pervert the instincts of my nature as to convince me
   that I shall thus die, and that my soul, like the flame of an out-burnt
   candle, shall be quenched in utter annihilation.

   My inmost heart revolts at this degrading slander. She feels an innate
   nobility that will not allow her to be numbered with the beasts of the
   field, to die as they must do without a hope. Oh, miserable prospect!
   How can men be so earnest in proclaiming their own wretchedness?
   Enthusiasts for annihilation? Why not fanatics for Hell itself?
   Godliness has promise of the life that is to come, but infidelity can
   do nothing better than deny the ennobling revelation of the great
   Father and bid us be content with the dark prospect of being
   exterminated and put out of being. Aspiring, thoughtful, rational
   Men--can you be content with the howling wildernesses and dreary voids
   of infidelity? Leave them, I pray you, for the goodly land of the
   Gospel which flows with milk and honey! Abandon extinction for
   immortality! Renounce perishing for Paradise!

   Again, let me remark that this hope is unique because popery in any of
   its forms cannot promise us the life which is to come. I know that it
   speaks as positively as Christianity does about the fact that there
   will be another life. But it gives us no promise of it--for what is the
   expectation of the Romanist, even of the best Romanist? Have I not
   before remarked to you that we have heard--and therefore it is no
   slander for us to say it--of "masses" being said for the repose of the
   souls of the most eminent Romanists?

   Cardinals distinguished for their learning, confessors and priests
   distinguished for their zeal, and even Popes reputed to be remarkable
   for holiness and even infallibility, have, when they died, gone
   somewhere! I know not where, but somewhere where they have needed that
   the faithful should pray for the repose of their souls! That is a very
   poor look-out for ordinary people like ourselves. For if these
   superlatively good people are still uneasy in their souls after they
   die, and have in fact, according to their own statements, gone to
   purgatorial fires or to purgatorial chills--to be tossed, as certain of
   their prophets have informed us--from icebergs into furnaces, and then
   back again, until by some means, mechanical, spiritual, or otherwise,
   sin shall be burnt out, or evaporated from them. If that is their
   expectation, I think I should be inclined, as the Irishman said, to
   become a Protestant heretic, and go to Heaven at once, if there is so
   sorry a prospect for the Catholic.

   Godliness has the promise of the life which is to come, but it is
   altogether unique in possessing such a promise. No voice from the
   Vatican sounds one-half so sweetly as that from Patmos, which we
   unabashedly accept--"I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me, Write,
   Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the
   Spirit, that they may rest from their labors. And their works do follow
   them." Our sorrow for the departed is not embittered by the absence of
   hope, for we believe that "them also which sleep in Jesus will God
   bring with Him." Neither superstition on the one hand, nor unbelief on
   the other, so much as dares to offer a promise as to the life to come.

   No system based upon human merit ever gives its votaries a promise of
   the life to come which they can really grasp and be assured of. No
   self-righteous man will venture to speak of the assurance of faith. In
   fact, he denounces it as presumption. He feels that his own basis is
   insecure, and therefore he suspects the confidence of others to be as
   hollow as his own. He lives between hope and fear--a joyless,
   unsatisfied life. While the believer in Jesus, knowing that there is no
   condemnation to him, awaits the hour of his entrance into Heaven with
   joyful expectancy. What is never promised to man's fancied
   righteousness is secured to all who possess the righteousness of Christ
   Jesus. "Come, you blessed," is their assured welcome--to be with
   Jesus--their entailed portion.

   Godliness has a monopoly of heavenly promise as to the blessed future.
   There is nothing else beneath high Heaven to which any such promise has
   ever been given by God, or of which any such promise can be supposed.
   Look at vice, for instance, with its pretended pleasures--what does it
   offer you? It offers pleasure in the life that now is. But as it
   speaks, you detect the lie upon its face, for even in the life that now
   is vice gives but a hasty intoxication, to be followed by woe and
   redness of the eyes. It is true it satiates with sweets, but in all its
   tables there is vomit. Satiety follows its gluttony, dissatisfaction
   comes with discontent, loathing, remorse, and misery--like hounds at
   its heels.

   Vice dares not say, it never has had the effrontery yet to say, "Do
   evil and live in sin, and eternal life will come out of it." No, the
   theater at its door does not proffer you eternal life--it invites you
   to the pit. The house of evil communica-

   tions, the drunkard's settle, the gathering place of scorners, the
   chamber of the strange woman--none of these has yet dared to advertise
   a promise of eternal life as among the gifts that may tempt its
   votaries. At best, sin gives you but bubbles, and feeds you upon air.
   The pleasure vanishes, and the misery is left. Even this side of the
   tomb the hollowness of sinful mirth is clear to all but the most
   superficial, and he said truly who sang concerning merry worldlings --

   "They grin. But why? And how long the laugh?

   Half ignorance, their mirth. And half a lie

   To cheat the world, and cheat themselves, they smile.

   Hard either task! The most abandoned own

   That others, if abandoned, are undone--

   Then, for themselves, the moment reason wakes,

   Oh, how laborious is their gaiety!

   They scarce can swallow their ebullient spleen,

   Scarce muster patience to support the farce,

   And pump sad laughter till the curtain falls.

   Scarce did I say? Some cannot sit it out;

   Oft their own daring hand the curtain draws,

   And shows us what is their joy by their despair." If such is the
   failure of the mirth of fools this side of eternity, of what little
   benefit can it prove hereafter?

   So with other things not sinful in themselves--there is no promise of
   the life that is to come appended to them. For instance, birth. What
   would not some men give if they could but somehow trace their pedigree
   up to a distinguished Crusader, or up to a Norman knight reported of in
   the battle-roll of Hastings? Yet, nowhere in the world is there a
   promise of eternal life to blood and birth. "For when he dies he shall
   carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him. Though while
   he lived he blessed his soul: and men will praise you, when you do well
   to yourself. He shall go to the generation of his fathers. They shall
   never see light."

   Genealogies and pedigrees are poor things. Trace us all up far enough,
   and we are all descended from that naked sinner who tried to cover his
   shame with fig leaves, and owed his first true garment to the charity
   of offended Heaven. Let the pedigree run through the loins of kings,
   yes, and of mighty kings, and let every one of our forefathers have
   been distinguished for his valor--yet no man shall pretend, because of
   this, that eternal life will be secured thereby. Ah, no. The king rots
   like a slave and the hero is devoured by the worm as though he had been
   but a swineherd all his days. Yes, and the flame unquenchable kindles
   an earl, and duke, and millionaire, as well as a serf and peasant.

   And it is equally certain that no promise of the life that is to come
   is given to wealth. Men hoard it, and gather it, and keep it, and seal
   it down by bonds and settlements as if they thought they could carry
   some thing with them. But when they have gained their utmost, they do
   not find that wealth has the promise even of this life, for it yields
   small contentment to the man who possesses it. "Their inward thought is
   that their houses shall continue forever, and their dwelling places to
   all generations. They call their lands after their own names.
   Nevertheless man being in honor abides not."

   As for the life to come, is there any supposable connection between the
   millions of the miser's wealth and the glory that is to be revealed
   hereafter? No, but by so much more as the man lives for this world, by
   so much more shall he be accursed. He said, "I will pull down my barns
   and build greater." But God calls him a fool, and a fool he is, for
   when his soul is required of him, whose shall these things be which he
   had prepared? No, you may grasp the Indies if you will. You may seek to
   contain within your estates all the lands that you can see far and
   wide, but you shall be none the nearer to Heaven when you have reached
   the climax of your avarice. There is no promise of the life that is to
   come in the pursuits of usury and covetousness.

   Nor is there any such promise to personal accomplishments and beauty.
   How many live for that poor bodily form of theirs which so soon must
   molder back to the dust! To dress, to adorn themselves, to catch the
   glance of the admirer's eye, to satisfy public taste, to follow
   fashion! Surely an object in life more frivolous never engrossed an
   immortal soul. It seems as strange as if an angel should be gathering
   daisies or blowing soap bubbles! An immortal spirit living to dress the
   body! To paint, to dye, to display a ribbon, to dispose a pin--is this
   the pursuit of an immortal? Yet tens of thousands live for little else.
   But ah, there is no promise of the life to come appended to the most
   noble beauty that ever fascinated the eye. Far deeper than the skin is
   the beauty which is admired in Heaven.

   As for earth's comeliness, how do time, and death, and the worm
   together make havoc of it! Take up yonder skull, just upturned by the
   sexton's careless spade, "and get you to my lady's chamber, and tell
   her, though she paint an inch thick, to this complexion she must come
   at last." All her dressing shall end in a shroud, and all her washings
   and her

   dainty ornaments shall only make her but the sweeter morsel for the
   worm. There is no promise of the life to come to these
   frivolities--why, then, waste your time and degrade your souls with
   them?

   Nor even to higher accomplishments than these is there given any
   promise of the life to come. For instance, the attainment of learning,
   or the possession of that which often stands men in as good place as
   learning, namely, cleverness, brings therewith no promise of future
   bliss. If a man is clever, if he can write interesting stories, if he
   can sketch the current fashions, if he can produce poetry that will
   survive among his fellow men--it matters not. Though his pen never
   wrote a line for Christ, and though he never uttered a sentence that
   might have led a sinner to the Cross. Though his work had no aim beyond
   this life, and paid no homage to the God of the Gospel, yet even
   professed Christians will fall at the man's feet! And when he dies,
   will canonize him as a saint, and almost worship him as a Demigod!

   I reckon the meanest Christian that loved his God, though he could only
   speak with a stammer the profession of his faith, is nobler far than he
   who possessed the genius of a Byron or the greatness of a Shakespeare
   who only used his ten talents for himself and for his follow men, but
   never consecrated them to the great Master to whom the interest of them
   altogether belonged. No. There is no promise of the life that is to
   come to the philosopher, or to the statesman, or to the poet, or to the
   literary man, as such. They have no preference before the Lord. Not
   gifts but Divine Grace must save them. Humbly, penitently, and
   believingly they must find the promise of eternal life in godliness.
   And if they have not godliness, they shall find it nowhere.

   Godliness has that promise, I say, and none besides. I saw in Italy
   standing at the corner of a road, as you may frequently see in Italy, a
   large Cross, and on it were these words, which I had not often seen on
   a Cross before--"Spes unica"--the only hope, the one unique hope, the
   one only hope of mankind. So would I tell you that on Christ's Cross
   there is written this day, "Spes unica"--the one hope of men.
   "Godliness has the promise of the life that now is, and of that which
   is to come." To nothing else anywhere--search for it high or low, on
   earth or sea--to nothing else is the promise given save to godliness
   alone.

   II. I pass on to notice, in the second place, that THE PROMISE GIVEN TO
   GODLINESS IS AS COMPREHENSIVE AS IT IS UNIQUE. I have not time on this
   occasion to go into all the promises of the life that is to come which
   belong to godliness--who shall give an inventory where the treasure is
   boundless, or map out a land which has no limit? It will suffice if I
   give you the heads of this great theme. That promise is something of
   this kind. The godly man, unless Christ shall come, will die as others
   die, as to the matter of outward fact, but his death will be very
   different in its essence and meaning.

   He will pass gently out of this world into the world to come, and then,
   at that instant, he will begin to realize the promise which godliness
   gave him. For he will enter then, no, he has entered now, upon an
   eternal life far other than that which belongs to other men. The
   Christian's life shall never be destroyed--"Because I live, you shall
   live also," says Christ. There is no fear of the Christian's ever
   growing aged in Heaven, or of his powers failing him. Eternal youth
   shall be to those who wear the unfading crown of life. Yon sun shall
   become black as a coal. yonder moon shall fail until her pale beams
   shall never more be seen. The stars shall fall like withered figs--even
   this earth, which we call stable, terming it terra firma, shall, with
   yonder heavens, be rolled up like a vestment that is worn out, and
   shall be laid aside among the things that were, but are not.

   Everything which can be seen is but a fruit with a worm at the core, a
   flower doomed to fade. But the Believer shall live forever, his life
   shall be coeval with the years of the Most High. God lives ever, ever,
   ever, and so shall every godly soul. Christ, having given him eternal
   life, he is one with Jesus, and as Jesus lives forever, even so shall
   he. In the moment of death the Christian will begin to enjoy this
   eternal life in the form of wonderful felicity in the company of
   Christ, in the Presence of God, in the society of disembodied spirits
   and holy angels. I say in a moment, for from the case of the dying
   thief we learn that there is no wait upon the road from earth to
   Heaven--

   "One gentle sigh the fetter breaks--

   We scarce can say, 'He'sgone!'

   Before the willing spirit takes

   Its mansion near the Throne."

   How does Paul put it? "Absent from the body." But you have hardly said
   that word, when he adds, "present with the Lord." The eyes are closed
   on earth and opened again in Heaven! They loose their anchor, and
   immediately they come to the desired haven. How long that state of
   disembodied happiness shall last it is not for us to know, but
   by-and-by, when the fullness of time shall come, the Lord Jesus shall
   consummate all things by the resurrection of these bodies. The

   trumpet shall sound, and as Jesus Christ's body rose from the dead as
   the first fruits, so shall we arise, every man in his own order.

   Raised up by Divine power, our very bodies shall be reunited with our
   souls to live with Christ, raised however, not as they shall be put
   into the grave to slumber, but in a nobler image. They were sown like
   the shriveled seed, they shall come up like the fair flowers which
   decorate your summer gardens. Planted as a dull unattractive bulb, to
   develop into a glory like that of a lovely lily with snowy cup and
   petals of gold. Sown like the shriveled barley or wheat, to come up as
   a fair green blade, or to become the golden ear. "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."

   Come, my Soul, what a promise is given you in God's Word of the life
   that is to come! A promise for my soul, did I say? A promise for my
   body, too. These aches and pains shall be repaid. This weariness and
   these sicknesses shall all be recompensed. The body shall be remarried
   to the soul, from which it parted with so much grief, and the marriage
   shall be the more joyous because there never shall be another divorce.
   Then, in body and in soul made perfect, the fullness of our bliss shall
   have arrived.

   But will there not be a judgment? Yes, a judgment certainly. And if not
   in set ceremonial, a judgment for the righteous, as some think, yet in
   spirit certainly. We shall gather at the Great White Throne, gather
   with the goats or gather with the sheep. But there is this promise to
   you who are godly, that you shall have nothing to fear in that Day of
   Judg-ment--you shall go to it with the blood-bought pardon in your
   bosom, to be shown before the Judgment Seat. You shall go to that
   judgment to have it proclaimed to men, to angels, and to devils, that
   "there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus," none
   being able to lay anything to the charge of those for whom Jesus Christ
   has died, and whom the Father justifies.

   You need not fear the judgment, you need not fear the conflagration of
   the world, or whatever else of terror shall be attendant upon the
   coming of Christ as a thief in the night. You have the promise of the
   life that now is, and of that which is to come. Listen to me! You have
   the promise that you shall enjoy forever the high dignity of being
   priests and kings unto God. You sons of toil, you daughters of
   poverty--you shall be peers in Heaven, you shall be courtiers of the
   Prince Imperial--yourselves being princes of the royal blood!

   Your heads shall wear crowns, your hands shall wave palms of triumph.
   And as you shall have glorious rank, so shall you have companions
   suitable to your condition. The worldling's haunt, the synagogue of
   Satan, shall be far away from you. No more shall you sojourn in Mesech
   and dwell in the tents of Kedar. No idle talk shall vex you, no
   blasphemies shall inflict themselves upon your ears. You shall hear the
   songs of angels. And as they charm you, you shall also charm them by
   making known unto them the manifold wisdom of God. The holiest and best
   of men, redeemed by Jesus' precious blood, shall commune with you, and,
   best of all --

   "He that on the Throne does reign You for evermore shall He feed; With
   the tree of life sustain, To the living fountain lead."

   You shall have unbroken fellowship with God and with His Christ. What
   ravishing joy this will be! We shall better be able to experience than
   to imagine. Communion with Jesus here below uplifts us far above the
   world, but what its delights are in the unclouded skies of face-to-face
   fellowship, has not yet entered into the heart of man.

   Hearken yet more, Beloved. You shall have suitable occupation. I know
   not what you may have to do in Heaven, but I do know it is written,
   "They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads, and
   His servants shall serve Him." They serve Him day and night in His
   Temple. You would not be happy without occupation. Minds made like
   yours could not find rest except upon the wing--delightful and
   honorable employment shall be allotted you--suitable to your perfected
   capabilities. But, mark you, you shall have rest as well as service. No
   wave of trouble shall roll over your peaceful bosoms. You shall forever
   bathe your souls in seas of blissful rest--no care, no fear, no
   unsatisfied desire. For all desires shall be consummated, all
   expectations be fulfilled. God shall be your Portion, the infinite
   Spirit your Friend, and the ever-blessed Christ your elder Brother.

   Into the joy of Heaven, which knows no bounds, shall you enter,
   according to His Words, "Enter you into the joy of your Lord." And all
   this, and infinitely more than my tongue can tell you, shall be yours
   forever and forever, without fear of ever losing it, or dread of dying
   in the midst of it. "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has
   entered into the heart of man, the things that God has prepared for
   them that love Him, but He has revealed them unto us by His Spirit."

   All the kingdom which the Father has prepared, and the place which the
   Son has prepared, are yours, O Believer, by the promise of the Lord.
   For "whom He justified, them He also glorified."

   The promise goes with godliness, and if you have godliness there is
   nothing in Heaven of joy, there is nothing there of honor, there is
   nothing there of rest and peace--which is not yours. For godliness has
   the promise of it, and God's promise never fails--

   "Lo! I see the fair immortals, Enter to the blissful seats;

   Glory opens her waiting portals, And the Savior's train admits. All the
   chosen of the Father, All for whom the Lamb was slain, All the Church
   appear together,

   Washed from every sinful stain. His dear smile the place enlightens
   More than thousand suns could do; All around, His Presence brightens,

   Changeless, yet forever new. Blessed state! Beyond conception!

   Who its vast delights can tell? May it be my blissful portion,

   With my Savior there to dwell."

   Perhaps within the next ten minutes we may be there! Who knows? I had
   half said, "God grant it to me!" No doubt, many anxious spirits would
   be glad to end so soon life's weary journey and rest in the Fathers
   Home!

   III. Now, very briefly, consider another point. I have shown you that
   the promise appended to godliness is unique and comprehensive, and now
   observe that IT IS SURE. "Godliness has promise." That is to say, it
   has God's promise. Now, God's promise is firmer than the hills. He is
   God, and cannot lie. He will never retract the promise, nor will He
   leave it unfulfilled. He was too wise to give a rash promise--He is too
   powerful to be unable to fulfill it. "Has He said, and shall He not do
   it?"

   Already tens of thousands to whom the promise was made have obtained a
   measure of this bliss in the glorification of their perfect spirits. We
   are on the road to the same happy state. Some of us are on the river's
   brink. Perhaps the Lord may come suddenly, and we shall be changed, and
   so perfected without dying. Be that as the Lord wills, it is not a
   question which disturbs us. By God's Grace, our faith is strong and
   firm. We are sure that we, too, shall enter into the rest which
   remains, and with all the blood-washed multitude shall in wonder and
   surprise adore the God before whose Throne we shall cast our crowns.

   IV. But I shall not tarry upon that, for there comes a fourth thought.
   This promise is A PRESENT PROMISE. You should notice the participle,
   "having promise." It does not say that godliness after awhile will get
   the promise, but godliness has promise now--at this very moment. My
   dear Hearer, if you are godly, that is, if you have submitted to God's
   way of salvation. If you trust God, love God, serve God--if you are, in
   fact, a converted man--you have NOW the promise of the life that is to
   come. When we get a man's promise in whom we trust, we feel quite easy
   about the matter under concern. A note of hand from many a firm in the
   city of London would pass current for gold any day in the week.

   And surely when God gives the promise, it is safe and right for us to
   accept it as if it were the fulfillment itself, for it is quite as
   sure. We have the promise, let us begin to sing about it! What is more,
   we have a part of the fulfillment of it, for, "I give unto My sheep
   eternal life," says Christ--shall we not sing concerning that? Believe
   in Jesus--you have eternal life NOW. There will be no new life given to
   you after death. You have even NOW, O Christian, the germ within you
   which will develop into the Glory-life above. Grace is Glory in the
   bud. You have the earnest of the Spirit. You have already a portion of
   the promise which is given to godliness.

   Now, what you should do is to live now in the enjoyment of the promise.
   You cannot enjoy Heaven, for you are not there, but you can enjoy the
   promise of it, Many a dear child, if it has a promise of a treat in a
   week's time, will go skipping among its little companions as merry as a
   lark about it. It has not the treat yet, but it expects it. And I have
   known in our Sunday schools our little boys and girls, months before
   the time came for them to go into the country, as happy as the days
   were long, in prospect of that little pleasure. Surely you and I ought
   to be childlike enough to begin to rejoice in the Heaven that is so
   soon to be ours! I know tomorrow some of you will be working very hard,
   but you may sing--

   "This is not my place of resting, Mine's a city yet to come; Onward to
   it I am hasting On to my eternal home."

   Perhaps you will have to fight the world's battles, and you will find
   them very stern. Oh, but you can sing even now of the palm branch, and
   of the victory that awaits you! And as your faith looks at the crown
   that Christ has prepared for it, you will be much rested even in the
   heat of the battle. When a traveler who has been long an exile returns
   home, it may be after walking many miles he at last gets to the brow of
   the hill where he can see the Church of the little town, and get a
   bird's-eye view of the parish. He gazes awhile, and as he looks again
   and again, says to himself, "Yes, that is the High Street there, and
   yonder is the turning by the old inn, and there--yes, there, I can see
   the gable of the dear old house at home."

   Though his feet may be blistered, the way may have been long, and the
   sweat may be pouring from his face, yet he plucks up courage at the
   sight of home. The last mile down hill is soon over, for he has seen
   his long-loved home. Christians, you may see it, you may see the goodly
   land from Nebo even now--

   "How near

   At times to faith's far-seeing eye, The golden gates appear!"

   When the Crusaders first came in sight of Jerusalem, though they had a
   hard battle before them before they could win it, yet they fell down in
   ecstasy at the sight of the holy city. And do not you and I say,
   "Soldiers of the Cross, my fellow Crusaders in the holy war of
   righteousness, will you not in prospect of the coming glory sing--

   OO my sweet home, Jerusalem,

   Would God I were in you!

   Would God my woes were at an end,

   Your joys that I might see!'?"

   When the brave soldiers, of whom Xenophon tells us, came at last in
   sight of the sea, from which they had been so long separated, they
   cried out, "Thallasse! Thallasse!"--"The sea! The sea!" And we, though
   death appears between us and the better land, can yet look beyond it
   and see the--

   "Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood

   Arrayed in living green,"

   and bless God that a sight of what is to be revealed renders the
   burdens of the way light as we march towards Glory. Oh, live, live in
   the foretaste of Heaven. Let worldlings see that--

   "The thought of such amazing bliss

   Does constant joys create."

   V. Last of all. This promise which is appended to godliness is A VERY
   NEEDFUL ONE. It is a very necessary one, for ah, if I have no promise
   of the life that is to come, where am I? Where am I? And where shall I
   be? Where shall I be? I live, I know. I die, I know I must. And if it
   all is true as this old Bible, my mother's Bible, tells me--that there
   is a hereafter. If I have no godliness, then woe is the day to me! Oh,
   how much I want the promise of the life to come, for if I have not that
   I have a curse for the life to come.

   I cannot die, God has made my soul immortal. Even God Himself will
   never annihilate me, for He has been pleased to create me an immortal
   spirit, and on I must live forever. There are some who say, and I think
   the doctrine is full of unnumbered perils to the souls of men, that God
   made man naturally mortal, and the soul can become extinct. And they go
   on to teach that sinners are made to live after death on purpose to be
   tormented for a longer or shorter time, and then at last are
   annihilated. What a God must He be to give them a life they need not
   have--on purpose--that He might torment them! I know no such God.

   But HE, whom I adore, in His unbounded goodness, gave to mankind what
   was in itself a wondrous blessing-- immortality. And if you, my Hearer,
   choose to turn it into a curse forever, it is you that are to be blamed
   for it! Not God who gave you the immortality which, if you believe in
   the appointed Savior, will be to you an eternity of bliss. You are now
   past all recall an immortal being, and if you die without hope in
   Christ there will remain only this for you--to go on sinning in another
   state as you have gone on sinning here. But you will get no pleasure
   from it as you think you do sometimes, here--on the contrary, you will
   be tortured with remorse concerning it. And you will be vexed with
   angry passions to think that you cannot have your will, passions that
   will make you struggle yet worse against your God, and make your misery
   consequently the greater.

   The worm that never dies will be your own furious hatred of God. The
   fire that never shall be quenched is probably the flames of your own
   insatiate lust after evil. I say not that there will not be bodily
   pains, but the natural results of sin are the deepest Hell to the soul.
   Sin has made you unhappy now. It will ripen. It will increase. When
   everything that checks it shall be taken off, your true character will
   be developed, and with that development will come enlarging
   wretchedness. Separated from the company of the righteous, and placed
   among the wicked, you will go on to be worse and worse, and every stop
   in the increase of sin necessitates an increase of misery.

   It is not true that God will punish you in mere caprice. He has
   ordained, and right enough was He to ordain it, that sin should punish
   itself--that sin should be its own misery, and its own anguish. Sin
   will be to you a never-ending death. O why will you die? Why will you
   die? Why will you, by the love of sin, bring upon yourselves an
   eternity of sin, an eternity of suffering? Turn unto Christ! I pray His
   Spirit to turn you. Come now, come now, and lay hold on eternal life!

   I have been thinking while I have been preaching to you, this evening,
   of my own self, awhile, and I shall turn my thoughts to myself and any
   others who are preachers or teachers, and who try to do good to others.
   Years ago Hamburgh was nearly half of it burned down, and among the
   incidents that happened, there was this one. A large house had
   connected with it a yard in which there was a great black dog, and this
   black dog in the middle of the night barked and howled most furiously.
   It was only by his barking that the family was awakened just in time to
   escape from the flames, and their lives were spared.

   But the poor dog was chained to his kennel, and though he barked and
   thus saved the lives of others, he was burned himself. Oh, do not you,
   who work for God in this Church, perish in that fashion! Do not permit
   your sins to enchain you, so that while you warn others, you become
   lost yourselves! See to it that you have the godliness which has the
   promise of the life that is to come.

   And now, you who really desire to find godliness, remember, it is to be
   had in Christ, and only in Christ. I was in Windermere some three weeks
   ago on a hot, dusty day, and I saw a little gushing stream of water,
   and a chain with a ladle to it for the passerby to drink. I wanted to
   drink, and I went to it, but the ladle was cracked quite through, was
   very rusty, and would not hold a drop of water. Neither was the water,
   if it had been held in it, fit to drink. There are ways of salvation
   chosen by some that are equally as deceptive. They mock the traveler.

   But oh, my Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, is a river of mercy, deep and
   broad. You have but to stoop and drink, and you may drink as much as
   you will, and none shall tell you stop. Have you not His Word for it,
   "Let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the
   water of life freely"? God grant you may with your heart believe the
   Gospel of Jesus, for our heart believes the Gospel of Jesus, for
   Christ's sake.

   [Sermon #937, The Profit of Godliness in This Life, is the sermon
   Brother Spurgeon alluded to at the beginning of this sermon.]
     __________________________________________________________________

Seeking For Jesus

   (No. 947)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 21, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Seeking for Jesus." John 6:24.

   THE persons who are here described as seeking for Jesus were looking
   after Him from a very mean and selfish motive--not because of the
   gracious words which He spoke, nor to render Him thanks for benefits
   received at His hands-- but merely because they had eaten of the loaves
   and fishes, and hoped to do so again. From such sordid motives let us
   flee. May we all shun with detestation the very idea of making a
   profession of religion for the sake of worldly advantage. It is
   detestable to the last degree. Those who seek Jesus Christ with the
   groveling desire to make a gain of godliness are hypocrites of the
   meanest order.

   Like Judas they will follow the Lord while they can steal from the bag,
   and like that "son of perdition," they will sell Him when the thirty
   pieces of silver are the reward of treachery. Let them know that such
   gain will involve their souls' eternal loss.

   I shall apply the words before us to those who really and spiritually
   seek Jesus, seek Him as Jesus--the Savior who saves His people from
   their sins. Last Sunday morning I tried to speak concerning maturity in
   Grace, giving the advanced Believer a word. And as we are bound to give
   a portion of meat in due season to all classes, I will now deal with
   those who are but babes in Grace, if indeed they are babes at all. I
   shall speak to those who cannot say, "We have found Him," but who are
   earnestly "seeking for Jesus."

   I. First, let us notice THE CHARACTER OF THE STATE described as
   "seeking for Jesus." In it there is a mingling of good and evil. We see
   in it much of light, but too much of darkness. It is neither day nor
   night, a dim twilight, hopeful but overclouded. I may call it "not
   light, but darkness visible." It is one of those miry places, a marsh,
   not altogether sea, and certainly not land. Like the brackish water of
   the river's mouth, not altogether salt, but assuredly not sweet.

   "Seeking for Jesus" has a large amount of hopefulness in it. It is as
   the almond tree in blossom, though as yet there is no fruit. The seeker
   at any rate is not indifferent now. He is not a careless sluggard,
   demanding yet more sleep and folding of the hands. He is not a defiant
   rebel, daring the wrath of God with blasphemous audacity. He is no
   longer a denier of Revelation. He would not be seeking for Jesus unless
   he had some kind of faith--at any rate, a theoretical faith--in a
   Savior, and in his need of Him.

   Now it is a very encouraging sign when we see men aroused and willing
   to hear. When we can bring men to think, we are very grateful, for
   thoughtfulness lies on the road to conviction of sin, and conviction is
   on the way to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I am glad, my dear
   Friend, that you are now no longer deaf to the appeals of God's Word.
   It is well that your ears are open, and though as yet what you hear is
   far from bringing you any comfort, rest assured it is a great blessing
   to you to hear the Truth of God, even when it condemns you. I rejoice
   to see you under concern and I hope that something may come of it.

   Your face is now turned in the right direction, now that you are
   "seeking for Jesus." When you sought sinful pleasure you were facing
   the pit of Hell--now your face is heavenward. I am glad that Jesus is
   the Object of your search, for depend upon it, nothing else is worth
   seeking for--salvation from sin and Hell should be the first object of
   your soul's desire. For an alarmed and awakened sinner to seek rest in
   ceremonies will be a search for bread among ashes. To labor for
   salvation by your own righteousness will be looking for substance among
   dreams.

   Your seeking after Jesus shows that you are on the right tack, and
   though as yet you have not reached the haven, the helm is set in the
   right direction, and I am grateful to God for it and encouraged
   concerning you. I regard your present state as the little cloud which
   foretells the coming rain. But, alas, I may be disappointed, and the
   early cloud may melt into nothingness! Hope tells a flattering tale,
   but she may be deceived. What a pleasing sight it is to see a man who
   has formerly been prayerless casting himself upon his knees in secret!

   How gratifying to see the unread Bible brought out from the dust and
   carefully studied! Methinks an angel must look on with holy interest
   when he sees the fresh tear fall in the solitary chamber, and the
   unaccustomed suppliant bow before his God. Glad are those blessed
   spirits when they hear the seeker say, "O God, I will seek You until I
   find You. I will cry unto You till I receive an answer of peace."

   Intelligence of such a vow would make a Church rejoice in
   hope--trusting that the time for newborn children of God to be found in
   her midst was fully come. A heart that turns itself to Christ if haply
   it may find Him, is evidently in a hopeful condition. Yet in the state
   of "seeking for Jesus" there is much that is doubtful, for, my
   Brethren, the seeker after Christ remains disobedient to the great
   command of the Gospel. If he were obedient to the great Gospel precept,
   he would at once cease to be a seeker, and become a happy finder.

   What is the command of the Gospel? "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
   and you shall be saved." Properly speaking, Christ is not an object for
   seeking, He is not far from any of us--like the brazen serpent uplifted
   by Moses, He is not so much to be looked for as looked at. We have
   neither to clamber to Heaven to find Him in the loftiness of His Deity,
   to bring Him down--nor dive into the chambers of Hades to bring Him up
   again from the dead.

   Thus says the Lord, "The Word is near you, even in your mouth, and in
   your heart: that is, the Word of faith, which we preach. That if you
   shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your
   heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved." Jesus
   is Immanuel, God with us. A prayer will reach Him, a wish will find
   Him, a groan will pierce His heart--do but confide in Him and He is
   yours.

   The first command of the Gospel to guilty sinners is not to pray, to
   search the Scriptures, to attend upon sermons-- all these are natural
   duties--and woe unto the man who neglects any of them. But the command,
   the special command of the Gospel is, "Believe in the Lord Jesus
   Christ!" Now, the seeking sinner is disobedient to the command. He is
   going about here and there seeking, but he declines trusting. He is
   eagerly looking abroad for that which is at home.

   He is seeking for peace afar off when it is near him. He looks east and
   west to behold a wonder, while the Wonderful, the Savior, stands at his
   right hand ready to forgive. The way of salvation for me as a sinner is
   simply this, that I, being a sinner, do now put my trust in Christ
   Jesus the Substitute for sinners. God has set forth His crucified Son
   as the accepted Propitiation for sin--the way of salvation is that I
   accept Him for what God has set Him forth--namely, as the Atonement for
   my sin, in which I place my sole reliance.

   Seeing He is God, seeing He took upon Himself the nature of man, seeing
   that as Mediator He suffered in the place of as many as trust in Him, I
   trust Him, and I obtain thereby the blessed result of His sufferings--I
   am, in fact, thereby saved. Now, it is some good thing certainly to be
   a seeker, but it is also an ill thing if I follow my seeking and refuse
   God's way of salvation.

   Hear what the Apostle John says--"He that believes not God has made Him
   a liar because he believes not the record that God gave of His Son."
   This is no small sin to be guilty of, and it entails no small
   punishment, for "he that believes not is condemned already, because he
   has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

   Suppose that I have been told of a remedy for my disease. Well, it is
   very good that I desire to be cured of my deadly malady, it is so far
   hopeful that I have sent for a physician. But after being informed that
   there is the one specific remedy for my disease, and that it alone will
   certainly heal me--if I were still to continue seeking a remedy, or to
   say I am seeking this one true remedy--I shall remain sick, and
   ultimately die. I shall never be healed unless I take that which is
   pre-scribed--to seek it is not enough, I must actually take it.

   In seeking, then, there is some good, but oh, how much of evil! Here
   are gleams and flashes of light, but oh, how dense is the darkness!
   Here is a little smoke in the flax, but I dare scarcely call it a
   spark. O Seeker for Jesus, think of this, for while I would not
   discourage you, yet would I encourage you to end your seeking by
   becoming a Believer. Look not at salvation's cup, but drink of it.
   Stand not by the fountain's brim, but wash in it and be clean. O may
   the Holy Spirit lead you to cease your search for goodly pearls, for
   the Pearl of Great Price is before you! Jesus is not to be discovered
   as a secret--He stands before you openly. Behold His hands and His
   feet! Mark well His torn side, and as you look, TRUST--and from now on
   He is all your own!

   Hear, dear Friend, your true position. It is the case of a soldier on
   the battlefield, wounded, bleeding, life oozing away from him. He is
   perishing, but he is sufficiently sensible to know it and to call for
   help. The surgeon is on the field within hearing, the sufferer pleads
   for relief with many cries and entreaties. So far, so good. But I pray
   you remember that crying and weeping will not of themselves heal the
   sick man--the surgeon must actually come and bind up his wounds. And if
   he refuses to receive him, he may cry as he wills, but he will bleed to
   death.

   So remember that your prayers and seeking, of themselves, cannot save
   you--Jesus must come to you, and it is madness on your part to refuse
   Him by your unbelief. To give another similitude--you are today like
   the manslayer of old, you have done the murderous deed, vengeance is
   armed against you. Judgment, swift as lightning pursues you. You are
   not now slumbering in foolish security, or presumptuously defying the
   avenger, but happily you are so aroused that you are running towards
   the City of Refuge.

   I delight to mark your earnest running, but run as you may, you are not
   safe until you are within the city gate. The most vigorous running will
   not save you if it does not end within the walls of refuge. To enter
   that open gate, to dwell within that sheltering wall, to enjoy the
   privilege of sanctuary--this is safety. All else is but hope of escape,
   and not deliverance itself. To pray, to hear, to desire, to seek--all
   this is the roadway and the running, but Christ Himself must be laid
   hold upon by faith--or we are not saved.

   Run, Man, but oh, take care that you run in God's way--by faith in
   Jesus--and not by trusting in your resolves and feelings! You must have
   Christ to be yours by personal faith, or you must die eternally. Let me
   give yet another picture. You are like one who has been asleep in a
   burning house. At last you are awakened. The cries of those who would
   gladly save you have broken your deadly slumber. You start up in
   horror. I think I see you now at the upper window, with the flames
   drawing near to you. You clearly perceive your danger, you passionately
   clamor for aid. All your energies are aroused.

   So far, so good. But, Man, all this will not rescue you--you must get
   on the fire escape which is now uplifted to the window. Are you
   unwilling to take the one and only way of escape? It is close to you.
   It is suitable, it is efficient! Why seek another? There it is, and
   precisely what you need. Your present alarm will only be the prelude of
   your despair if you put from you the way of escape. I put these figures
   before you that you may see that while you are only seeking for Jesus,
   your best friends dare not altogether hope for you, but are led to
   tremble, too.

   We wonder which way the scale will turn--your future quivers in the
   balances. As anxious eyes watch a laboring boat making with difficulty
   for port, and in imminent danger of the rocks, so we watch you. We see
   you like Lot and his family, ready to leave the City of Destruction,
   but you have not yet reached the mountain, and our heart asks
   concerning you, "Will he linger in the plain? Will he look back? Or
   will he altogether be delivered?"

   If you remain as you are, there is no hope for you. All the supposed
   good which is now in you is vanity itself if it leaves you short of
   Christ. Remember well this verse, and I will pass on--

   "Why those fears, poor seeking sinner.9 Why those anxious, gloomy
   fears.9 Sighs and sorrows cannot save you, Healing dwells not in your
   tears; It is BELIEVING Which the soul to Christ endears."

   II. The second part of our discourse shall deal with THE PERPLEXITIES
   OF THIS STATE. "Seeking for Jesus" is a state of heart in which the
   poor soul is usually very much put to it--"tumbled up and down in his
   thoughts," as John Bunyan would say. For first, seekers are very often
   much perplexed as the result of their ignorance of the way of
   salvation. Too often, awakened souls, though they may have heard the
   Gospel, do not in their hearts understand it. Many enquirers do not
   know what faith is.

   I am persuaded millions of our fellow countrymen do not know what
   believing in Jesus means. Though every Sunday they are told, yet they
   do not catch the thought, for the Spirit of God has not illuminated
   their minds. To believe in Jesus, as we say again, and again, and
   again, is simply to trust in Jesus--to take God at His Word--to take
   Christ for what God says He is, namely, the Atonement, the satisfaction
   for sin, the Savior of sinners.

   But poor, troubled consciences think faith is a deep mystery, and they
   go about like blind men groping for the wall. They wander like
   travelers in a dense fog, not knowing which way leads to their
   homes--hoping, but hoping against hope, by reason of ignorance. Many,
   though desirous to be saved, do not understand the work of Christ, or
   know what Atonement is. Though the doctrine of Substitution, which is
   the very marrow of the Gospel, is to Believers so very plain, yet many
   seekers have not learned it.

   That Jesus bore the sin of His people--that "the Lord has laid on Him
   the iniquity of us all." That He was made sin for us. That Justice
   received its due at His hands. This precious fact many penitent sinners
   have not grasped. They still think there is so much repentance to do,
   so much feeling to endure, so much praying to go through, so much
   mystery to be experienced. But the plain, simple precept, "Believe and
   live," trust and be accepted, hide under the shadow of the Cross

   and be safe--this, through ignorance, they do not understand--and this
   involves them in trouble upon trouble, till their way is hedged up with
   thorns.

   At such times, too, to increase their perplexity, they are usually
   distracted with fear. Persons in a panic act generally in the worst
   conceivable manner for their own safety, and an awakened sinner is in
   much the same condition. A terrible sound is in his ears--he hears the
   rumbling of the everlasting tempest--he sees the gathering storm. He
   knows not what to do, nor where to flee. His sins, which once appeared
   such trifles, now rise before him like mountains of blackness. The
   wrath of God, which once he defied, makes him exceedingly fear and
   quake.

   He sees the dark record of his transgressions and anticipates the hour
   when all his sins shall be read before the assembled universe, and the
   sentence of wrath shall go forth against him. To where shall he flee?
   He scarcely knows how or where to fly. A spirit distracted with dread
   is never a wise spirit, and often is goaded on to madness. Pressed out
   of measure with forebodings of heart and threats of conscience, many a
   man refusing to believe in Jesus has laid violent hands upon himself.

   Do you wonder, then, that souls under a sense of sin and fear of wrath,
   are far from being calm and collected, but rather are like mariners in
   a storm who "reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man"? How soon
   would their bewilderment end in sweet repose if they would obey the
   Divine mandate and accept the great salvation! During these struggles
   for life the mind is usually harassed with a thousand questions. The
   newly-awakened mind is very apt to lose itself in the many spiritual
   problems which lie before it. The man cared nothing for these matters
   before, but now he has even a morbid craving after knowledge!

   He seems as if he could not learn too much or too fast. How many an
   enquirer, instead of turning to the Cross, worries himself with
   intricacies of doctrine, vexed points which belong to metaphysics
   rather than to divinity! They are fascinated by the "things hard to be
   understood," and forget the Truths of God which a wayfaring man, though
   a fool, may readily comprehend. How many ask themselves, "Are we
   elect?" when their enquiry should be, "How can a man be cleansed from
   iniquity?"

   In truth, they must learn Latin and Greek before they know their
   letters, and must fathom the doctrine of election before they will
   believe in the redemption of Jesus. They would come to the Father
   before they have come to the Son, and learn their predestination before
   their pardon. That which has perplexed the wisest of men, namely, how
   to reconcile Divine ordination with the free agency of man, they
   attempt to grapple with while they are in danger of the unquenchable
   fire.

   They philosophize at Hell's mouth, and debate in the jaws of perdition.
   You may show them how absurd it is, as absurd as a drowning man to wish
   to quibble about hydraulics, and refuse to lay hold on the friendly
   rope until he understands some mystery in hydrostatics. Or, as if a
   person sorely sick refused all surgery until he understood anatomy, and
   comprehended the secret influences of drugs upon the many parts of the
   body. Yet some enquirers will abide in this folly. I do not wonder at
   it, when I remember how foolish man is by nature.

   Men who have left the whole spiritual realms untrod are very apt, when
   they see it open up suddenly before their eyes, to aspire in their
   hearts' pride to stand upon its loftiest peaks, to climb its Himalayas,
   to swim its Bosphorus, to fathom its Atlantic, and from this cause they
   forget its green pastures and still waters. I would have every
   convicted sinner here listen to my words this morning. Friend, you have
   to do with the plain Truth of the Gospel--namely, this, "Jesus Christ
   came into the world to save sinners"--sinners such as you are, and
   faith links you to that Savior.

   When you have learned that lesson, then you shall discover that God has
   chosen you from the beginning, that He has ordained you unto eternal
   life. But as yet you can not solve that matter. Leave that glorious
   doctrine till first your soul is saved by faith in Jesus Christ. It is
   plain, however, that this appetite for strong meat takes off the babe
   from the unadulterated milk of the Word. These questions help to
   confuse, trouble, worry, and distract the seeker for Jesus.

   At this hour, too, to make confusion more confounded, Satan is quite
   sure to assail the soul with his diabolical insinuations and
   suggestions, with strong temptations and despairing thoughts. No king
   will willingly lose his subjects, and Satan, when he sees his captives
   about to turn runaways, sets extra guards around them. He will set
   others on to tempt them, or he will come himself personally and inject
   into the soul the most horrible thoughts, the most blasphemous
   suggestions, and the most despairing forebodings that can be conceived
   of.

   Having felt this, I speak tenderly to such as may now be exercised with
   them. Marvel not at them, neither be dismayed. If you can, by the Holy
   Spirit's help, resist Satan--he will flee from you. If you can assail
   him with, "it is written," he will leave you. But be not astonished if
   now, for awhile, the fiery darts fly thick as hail. He has his military
   from

   which he can vomit ten thousand shots at once upon a poor lost soul,
   and make it feel as though it were broken in pieces all asunder with
   horror and dismay.

   You will triumph over him yet if you believe--the Lord will bruise
   Satan under your feet shortly. Be of good courage! Though you fall, you
   shall rise again! Faith will lift you up in the power of Jesus. I
   marvel not that when that dog of Hell howls in your ears, your spirit
   is sorely put to it for comfort. It may be, also, that when the soul is
   seeking for Jesus, it is at the same time much grieved to find it
   cannot even now cease from sin. "My old sins," says the heart, "I would
   be rid of them, but how can I hope for forgiveness, for I have sinned
   this very day? I went to my chamber, and I bowed my knee, and said,
   'God be merciful to me, a sinner!'

   "And I came down stairs resolved to be watchful, but something vexed
   me, and I spoke unadvisedly. How can I think God will have mercy on
   me?" Or says another, "I was seeking the Savior this morning. But I
   went out to my business, and I met with worldly company, and I forgot
   my Lord--I am afraid I mingled with them so closely as to participate
   in their sinful mirth, and now how can the Lord have any pity upon such
   a hypocritical seeker as I have been?" As if that poor heart expected
   to be perfect before it had even found pardon! As if a patient expected
   to be perfectly well before he had followed the advice of his
   physician!

   My dear Hearer, if you were able to cease from all sin for a single
   day, I am sure you would be out of place on earth, for Heaven is the
   place for perfect people, and not this sinful earth. If a fountain sent
   forth nothing but pure water for one whole day, we might conclude that
   it was completely purified. The bearing of good fruit for one season
   would prove the tree to be good. If your heart abstained from sin of
   itself throughout one day, it might for another, and so on forever, and
   where would be the need of a Savior?

   What? Do you not know that Christ came to save you from your new sins
   as well as from your old transgressions? Is His arm too short to reach
   your daily needs? His blood of too little power to wash away your fresh
   pollutions? Have you still some hope of bettering yourself? Have done
   with this trifling! Confess yourself a helpless sinner, shapen in
   iniquity, conceived in sin, depraved in heart, and, therefore, needing
   the never-ceasing mercy of the Lord your God. Come, wash now in the
   fountain filled with blood, and if sin returns, ask Jesus to wash your
   feet again.

   Make Jesus your sole reliance. Cry to Him, "Purge me with hyssop, and I
   shall be clean! Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." Nothing else
   can end your perplexities. You cannot untie the Gordian knot of your
   difficulties! Cut it, then, by leaving all to Jesus. You cannot
   overcome your sins except by the blood of the Lamb. You cannot be what
   you should be, nor what you would be, except by taking Jesus to be your
   All in All. Here is a song for you--

   "At last I own it cannot be That I should fit myself for You. Here,
   then, to You I all resign; Yours is the work, and only Yours. What
   shall I say Your Grace to move? I give up every plea beside, Lord I am
   sin, but You are love-- Lord, I am lost--but You have died!"

   III. And now, in the third place, let me warn you of THE DANGERS OF THE
   STATE of "seeking for Jesus." I have already told you that there is
   much of hopefulness, but there is much of peril in your condition. Dear
   Seeker, what a sad thing it is that you should be wasting so much time,
   and losing so much comfort, by this long-continued seeking, when it
   might all end so happily even now at this present hour. Had you
   believed in Jesus at the very first, you had had light at once.

   How often would He have gathered you, as a hen gathers her chickens
   under her wings, but you would not! If you will trust Him now, the day
   star shall shine in your heart. You are like Hopeful and Christian in
   Giant Despair's Castle. They lamented and bemoaned their common sorrow
   and planned many unavailable methods of escape. But at last Christian,
   as one half amazed, broke out into this passionate speech--"What a
   fool," said he, "am I to lie in this stinking dungeon, when I may as
   well walk at liberty! I have a key in my bosom called Promise, that
   will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle." Then said
   Hopeful, "That's good news, good Brother, pluck it out of your bosom,
   and try."

   My awakened Hearer, this is your condition. You have in your bosom, and
   you have in God's Word that which will unlock every door in your
   prison. Up, Man, and try it now! Can you not believe that Jesus is the
   Christ, and that God has sent Jesus to bear your sin? Can you not trust
   in Him? If you can, you are free--your sins are forgiven you--you are
   saved!

   You have, perhaps, heard the incident of a dove, pursued by a hawk,
   which flew into the bosom of a man who was walking in the fields. And
   you remember that it was safely protected by him whom it had trusted.
   The dove would not of itself have flown there, but under the terror of
   the hawk it sought a shelter. You have been afraid of Jesus, you have
   thought He would not receive you. But now that Hell pursues you, be
   venturesome, and fly to Him! Say as our hymn puts it--

   "I can but perish if I go I am resolved to try. For if I stay away, I
   know I must forever die."

   If Christ stood with a drawn sword in His hand, you had better run on
   the point of His sword than perish without Him. O come to Him, driven
   by desperation itself, if by nothing else--come into His bosom! You
   shall have peace at once. But all the while you remain seeking, I know
   not in what distracted manner you are wasting time, you are missing
   comfort, you are losing opportunities of happiness. Cease your seeking,
   for there is the Man whom you seek. He stands revealed before you.
   Reach here your finger and put it into the print of the nails. Or if
   that is too bold, touch but the hem of His garment, and you shall be
   made whole!

   Another evil is not only the losing present peace and comfort, but the
   danger of being driven to despair. I do not doubt that some persons who
   were once sincere but unrenewed seekers, have now given up all thought
   of seeking Christ, because they continued to seek when He was near
   them, to look for Him instead of looking to Him. And they have waited
   so long in prayer and Bible reading, and so on, that now they utterly
   despair, and give all up as hopeless.

   It is no wonder. If you will try to do a thing in a wrong way, you
   cannot hope to succeed. If a man will not plow and sow, neither shall
   he reap. If you will not believe, neither shall you be established. A
   person may be very industrious, indeed, in what he does, but if he
   follows a method which never can produce the result he desires, he must
   not be surprised when he is disappointed. You are a seeker, and I am
   glad you are. But if you will not put your trust in Jesus, and lay your
   burden down at the Cross where He offered the great Sacrifice, it is no
   marvel if you continue to seek in vain.

   It will be a great sorrow, but it will not be a great wonder, if you
   become at last despairing, and are shut up in the iron cage. O Man, O
   Woman, break away from this! May God's Holy Spirit come to your rescue
   now! Give up your own ideas of how to get peace--take God's method of
   salvation--and lay hold on eternal life by trusting in the slain
   Savior.

   Another danger is that in some cases seeking at length dies out in
   indifference. Having sought after a fashion by prayer, and failing to
   find peace at once, temptations to go back to the world's pleasure
   attack the soul, and too often it becomes, from now on, impervious to
   exhortations and expostulations. The unbroken, unrenewed heart grows
   sullen, and declares, "I tried, but I did not succeed. I may as well
   have what pleasure I can have, for spiritual joys are denied me. If the
   world to come cannot be mine, I will have this world and take my fill
   of it."

   I pray you may never be driven to that, but my fear is that if you
   tarry long in this border land, seeking but yet halting between two
   opinions, undecided and unbelieving--at last you will relapse into your
   former state of spiritual slum-ber--and your last end will be worse
   than the first.

   Another danger is lest you should take up with something short of Jesus
   Christ. I have known persons who have been content to remain seekers
   all their days. They have felt comforted by the thought that they are
   seekers. Now, such comfort is daubing with untempered mortar. A man out
   of employment has been walking up and down the London streets to find
   something to do. His family is in need, and he must find a situation.
   He is quite right to seek, but he will not be satisfied with seeking,
   he wants to find.

   Tramping the street will not feed his children. He is not contented
   with having called at many shops. He will not rest till he finds what
   he is after--and he would be very foolish if he did. So to be a seeker
   after Christ, walking up and down the streets, as it were, will not
   fill your hungry soul. You must get Christ Himself. If any unemployed
   father of a family were to say, "Well, I walk about so many days in the
   week, and so many hours in the day, and I am quite satisfied, though I
   do not find anything to do," you would think him a great simpleton. And
   so with you.

   It is a good sign when there is an appetite. But a mere appetite does
   not satisfy a man--he must eat the food provided. Your seeking Christ
   will not save you, except it leads you in very deed to believe in
   Jesus. It is an ill sign when a man says, "Well, I am doing my best. I
   am always at a place of worship, I am a Bible reader, I practice prayer
   at home, I do my best." My dear Friend, if you settle down in that
   idea, you are self-righteous, and are off the road altogether. Besides,
   you are lying to your own heart, for after all you are at enmity with
   God, and the sign of that enmity is this--that you refuse to believe on
   His dear Son.

   If you were reconciled to God you would love Jesus Christ, and trust in
   Him. I see what it is--you have resolved, after all, to be your own
   savior. You still think that there is something in outward religion to
   produce salvation. I solemnly assure you that if you stand out against
   believing in Christ, if you will not fly to those dear wounds of His,
   if you will not hide beneath the shelter of the Atonement, you will go
   to Hell as well from a place of worship as from the haunts of sin, and
   will perish as certainly with a Bible read as with a Bible burned--

   "None but Jesus, none but Jesus, Can do helpless sinners good.

   "Oh, but," you say, "I feel my sins so much!" Yes, but if you trust in
   your feelings you will perish in them as much as though you wallowed in
   your sins. O Soul, resolve with Toplady --

   "He that suffered in my place, Shall my Physician be I will not be
   comforted Till Jesus comforts me."

   Never hope to be saved except by God's way of salvation. O that the
   Holy Spirit would enable you in your heart to say, "Now I come to You,
   O Jesus! Guilty as I am, I lift my eye to You, and this is my
   prayer--'Help me for Your mercy's sake. Have pity upon me and cleanse
   me in Your blood, for I put all my trust in You.' " Resolve, O Seeker,
   to have no refuge of lies--no Savior but the Lamb of God.

   I will confess to you, dear Seeker, that often and often I am myself
   personally driven to do what I trust you may be led to do today. I look
   back upon my past life, and while I have much to thank God for, much in
   which to see His Spirit's hand, yet when I feel my responsibilities and
   my shortcomings, my heart sinks within me. When I think of my
   transgressions, better known to myself than to anyone else, and
   remember, too, that they are not known even to me as they are to God, I
   feel all hope swept away and my soul left in utter despair.

   But by His Grace I come anew to the Cross and think of Who it was that
   died there, and why He died, and what designs of infinite mercy are
   answered by His death. It is so sweet to look up to the Crucified One
   again, and say, "I have nothing but You, my Lord, no confidence but
   You. If You are not accepted as my Substitute I must perish. If God's
   appointed Savior is not enough I have no other, but I know You are the
   Father's Well-Beloved, and I am accepted in You. You are all I want,
   and all I have."

   How I desire, with intense longing, that you may do the same. It would
   be a blessed day for you, and for me a joyful occasion. The Jews in the
   present chapter asked our Savior, "What shall we do that we may work
   the works of God?" and He said, "This is the work of God, that you
   believe on Him whom He has sent." The greatest of all works, the most
   Godlike work, is to leave off self-righteous seeking, and trust in
   Jesus.

   IV. Now I will conclude by delivering one or two DIRECTIONS TO THOSE
   WHO ARE "SEEKING FOR JESUS." Very brief shall these be. The first
   direction is--give attention, dear Friend, to the Object of faith. The
   only way by which you can be saved is by faith. Take that to be
   settled. Now if a man says, "I cannot believe such a thing"--what then?
   What is his wisest course?

   Suppose you find a difficulty in believing a report--what do you do?
   Why, you consider the probabilities of it. Suppose it had been rumored
   that the Emperor Napoleon had shot himself. Shall I believe the report?
   I will ask from where the rumor comes, what intelligence corroborates
   it, upon what authority it is stated--and soon, by that means--I arrive
   at a conclusion whether it is probably true, or is a mere idle tale.

   Now if you earnestly desire to believe, faith is the gift of God, and a
   work of the Spirit, but God works according to the laws of mind, and
   faith in Christ will most readily come to you in conformity with those
   laws. "Faith comes by hearing," why by hearing? Why, because by hearing
   I learn the Truth concerning Christ, and what I hear commends itself to
   my judgment and understanding, and so I come to believe.

   Faith comes to us by reading, which is another form of hearing. Read
   what the Scripture has to say about the Messiah and His work and you
   will be helped to believe God's Testimony, by knowing what it is and on
   what authority it comes to you. Let your hearing and your reading be
   accompanied with meditation--like the Virgin Mary--ponder these things
   in your heart. "Incline your ear," says the Spirit, "and come unto Me.
   Hear, and your soul shall live."

   Now, that inclining of the ear means a devout and diligent attention to
   the Good News, and a weighing of it in your inmost heart. Now look at
   it--you have sinned--and God must punish sin. These two facts are clear
   enough to your conscience. Is it not a marvelous system that God should
   be pleased to put away sin through an Atonement, by laying the sin upon
   Another, and punishing it in the Person of His Son?

   Do you know of any other system that would meet the case so well, that
   would be so suitable to you? I believe that the authenticity of
   Scripture is better proved by the very existence of this doctrine than
   by anything else--for no human mind could ever have contrived or
   conceived of a way so just to God--and yet so infinitely gracious. I
   feel sure it is true, I am certain of it.

   Then I find it promised over and over again by God Himself, that if I
   trust Christ I shall have the benefit of all His work. I therefore
   believe the thing is reasonable, it is proclaimed by Divine authority.
   I have God's promise for it, I know that the Almighty One cannot lie. I
   cheerfully accept what He provides for me, and I am saved. My dear
   Hearer, if you find it hard to believe, shut yourself up this afternoon
   in your room, and come not out again till you have pictured to your
   mind's eye the everlasting God unveiling Himself of His ineffable
   splendors, and taking upon Himself the nature of Man.

   Behold that glorious One nailed to Calvary's tree, forsaken of God,
   crying out in anguish, and dying without a friend--and all to make an
   Atonement to the Law of God! As you are fixing your eyes upon this, and
   bowing in humble prayer, faith will come to you. The Holy Spirit will
   overshadow you and beget it in your soul--faith will drop in your soul
   like the dew from Heaven! You will wonder to find the hardness of your
   heart all gone, and your unbelief all departed, and you will say,
   "Lord, I believe! Help You my unbelief."

   Another direction, however, is--take care, my dear Friend, to clear
   away as far as possible everything that would hinder your believing.
   Now you may depend upon it that going into sin hinders believing. You
   cannot continue in willful sin and yet become a Believer. Sin cherished
   in the heart is an effectual hindrance. A man cannot be tied to a post
   and yet run away at the same time. If you bind yourself to your sin,
   you cannot escape.

   Withdraw at once from evil company--it is a very deadly mischief to
   young seekers. You hear an impressive sermon, but then you go away
   talking with idle gossips and you fall into frivolous chit-chat on the
   Sunday afternoon. You cannot expect your soul to grow in the right
   direction under such influences. Get on your knees, get alone, get to
   your God, get to Jesus Christ. This it is that will roll away the stone
   which blocks the door.

   And, once again, do remember that till you have believed, your danger
   is of the most imminent kind. You are not in danger of something future
   only--you are in peril even now, for the wrath of God abides on you.
   You are not like a city which is to be attacked by troops yet at a
   distance--the Judge is even at the door. You are actually besieged. The
   foes have encompassed you round about. They lift the scaling ladders,
   they will soon scale the walls.

   Beware, O Sinner, beware! Your present state is terrible! Your future
   state will be hopeless. Today is the accepted time. Now or never it is
   with some of you--now escape for your lives--now seek, but seek in the
   right way, by BELIEVING in Him who is the Savior of the sons of men.

   How I have longed, this morning, for a tongue like the pen of a ready
   writer! How I have opened my mouth and panted to speak these things in
   passionate earnest, for I hunger for your salvation! Speak from my soul
   I do, but I cannot preach as I would, else would I saturate this sermon
   with my tears. O that the Master might bless even my weakness of speech
   to carry home the Truth of God to your hearts and consciences! I do not
   like to let one of you go unless you have thought over these things,
   and have given your hearts to Jesus.

   I shall probably never address many of you again, certainly not all of
   you. You have come across the sea and you are going to the ends of the
   earth, some of you. I speak in God's name. O now, before you have gone
   from under the sound of the Word, now let the believing look be
   given--"Look unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth." It
   is the cry of the crucified Savior! Turn not away from that dear voice
   so full of anguish! Hide not your eyes from that brow still marked with
   the crown of thorns!

   Despise not those nailed hands and feet, but yield to Him as again He
   cries in agony of love, "Look unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends
   of the earth." O Lord, turn them! And they shall be turned. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A String Of Pearls

   (No. 948)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 28, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which
   according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively
   hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an
   inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away,
   reserved in Heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through
   faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." 1 Peter
   1:3-5.

   THE persons whom Peter addressed were in great need of comfort. They
   were strangers, strangers scattered far from home. They had in
   consequence to suffer manifold trials and therefore needed plenteous
   consolations. Such is our position in a spiritual sense. We, too, are
   strangers and foreigners. We are pilgrims and sojourners below, and our
   citizenship is in Heaven. We also require the Word of comfort, for
   while our banishment lasts, we look for tribulations. The persons whom
   Peter addressed were God's chosen, "elect according to the
   foreknowledge of God the Father," and one sure result of Divine
   election is the world's enmity. "If you were of the world, the world
   would love his own: but because you are not of the world, but I have
   chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."

   So you too, my Brethren, chosen out from among men, to be the peculiar
   people of God, must expect to be partakers of the Cross--for the
   servant is not greater than his Lord. Since they persecuted Him they
   will also persecute you. Therefore to you, as to those of old by Peter,
   the Word of consolation is sent this day. The Apostle also addressed
   the sanctified. Through the Holy Spirit they had been sanctified and
   set apart. To the "obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus" they
   had been brought. They were a people who had "purified their souls in
   obeying the Truth of God through the Spirit."

   And rest assured no man can do this without encountering fiery trials.
   He who swims with the stream shall find all things go easily with him
   until he reaches the waterfall of destruction. But he who stems the
   torrent must expect to breast many a raging billow. And therefore to
   such the strong consolations of the Gospel are necessary. Speak we then
   this morning to the same characters as those addressed by Peter, even
   to you who "are not of the world," but "strangers." To you who are
   "chosen of God," and therefore the object of the enmity of man. To you
   who maintain the separated life of true holiness, and are therefore
   opposed by the profane.

   You have need of comfort, and in the Word, and by the Holy Spirit, your
   need is more than met. Our Apostle cheers these troubled hearts by
   exciting them to a song of praise. I might almost entitle these three
   verses a New Testament Psalm. They are stanzas of a majestic song. You
   have here a delightful hymn. It scarcely needs to be turned into
   verse--it is in itself essential poetry.

   Now, my Brethren, to lead the mind to praise God is one of the surest
   ways of uplifting it from depression. The wild beasts of anxiety and
   discontent which surround our bivouac in the wilderness will be driven
   away by the fire of our gratitude and the song of our praise. When the
   Psalm recounts with joyous gratitude the mercies which God has given
   us, it supplants distress by thankfulness, even as the fir tree and the
   myrtle take the place of the thorn and the brier where the Gospel works
   its wonders.

   In these three verses we have a string of pearls, a necklace of
   diamonds, a cabinet of jewels--no, the comparisons are poor--we have
   something far better than all the riches of the earth can ever typify.
   You have here the heritage of the chosen of God. Your heritage,
   Beloved, your own peculiar portion if you belong to Christ this day.

   We shall conduct you through this mine of treasure, and ask you to
   dwell upon each blessing, that your souls may be comforted, and that
   you, lifting up your hearts in blessing, and praising the God of all
   Grace, may forget your cares and sorrows, and find a young Heaven begun
   below--a Paradise blooming amid the desert. There are seven choice
   things in the text, a perfect number of perfect things. One might see
   more than seven, but these will exhaust all our time. Therefore we
   shall speak briefly upon each one.

   First, I see in the text as the source of all the rest, ABUNDANT MERCY.
   "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according
   to His abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope." No
   other attribute could have helped us had Mercy refused. As we are by
   nature Justice condemns us, Holiness frowns upon us, Power crushes us,
   Truth confirms the threat of the Law, and Wrath fulfils it. It is from
   the mercy of our God that all our hopes begin.

   Mercy is needed for the miserable, and yet more for the sinful. Misery
   and sin are fully united in the human race, and Mercy, here, performs
   her noble deeds. My Brethren, God has vouchsafed His mercy to us, and
   we must thankfully acknowledge that in our case His mercy has been
   abundant mercy.

   We were defiled with abundant sin, and only the multitude of His loving
   kindnesses could have put those sins away. We were infected with an
   abundance of evil, and only overflowing mercy can ever cure us of all
   our natural disease, and make us meet for Heaven. We have received
   abundant Grace up till now. We have made great drafts upon the
   Exchequer of God, and of His fullness have all we received Grace for
   Grace. Where sin has abounded, Grace has much more abounded. Will you,
   my fellow Debtor, stand still awhile and contemplate the abundant mercy
   of our blessed God?

   A river deep and broad is before you. Track it to its fountain
   head--see it welling up in the Covenant of Grace--in the eternal
   purposes of Infinite Wisdom. The secret source is no small spring, no
   mere bubbling fountain, it is a very geyser, leaping aloft in fullness
   of power. The springs of the sea are not comparable with it. Not even
   an angel could fathom the springs of eternal love or measure the depths
   of Infinite Grace.

   Follow now the stream--mark it in all its course. See how it widens and
   deepens, how at the foot of the Cross it expands into a measureless
   river! Mark how the filthy come and wash. See how each polluted one
   comes up milk-white from the washing! Note how the dead are brought to
   be bathed in this sacred stream, and mark how they live the moment that
   they touch its wave. Mark how the sick are laid upon the bank, and if
   but the spray of the river falls upon them they are made whole!

   See how on either bank rich verdure clothes the land! Wherever this
   stream comes, all is life and happiness. Observe along the margin the
   many trees whose leaves never wither, and whose fruits in season are
   always brought to maturity. These all draw their life from this flood,
   and drink from this river of God, which is full of water. Fail not with
   gladsome eye to note the thousand boats of fairest sail which scud
   along the mighty river with colors flying, each vessel laden with joy.
   Behold how happily they are borne along by the current of mercy to the
   ocean of infinite felicity!

   Now we reach the mighty main of mercy, dare you attempt with wings of
   faith to fly over that glassy sea? No shore gives boundary to that
   great deep, no voice proclaims its length and breadth. But from its
   lowest deeps and all along its unruffled bosom I hear a voice which
   says, "Here is Love." "Touching the Almighty, we cannot find Him out,"
   but this we know, that His love towards His elect surpasses all
   conception, even--

   "Imagination's utmost stretch In wonder dies away."

   Turn to the words of the text a moment, for there is great
   suggestiveness in them. It is God's great mercy that is spoken of here.
   "The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His
   abundant mercy." Everything in God is on a grand scale. Great power--He
   shakes the world. Great wisdom--He balances the clouds. His mercy is
   commensurate with His other attributes, it is Godlike mercy! Infinite
   mercy! You must measure His Godhead before you shall compute His mercy.
   My Soul, think for awhile--you have drank out of this exceeding great
   and wide sea, and it is all yours to drink from forever!

   Well may it be called "abundant," if it is infinite. It will always be
   abundant, for all that can be drawn from it will be but as the drop of
   a bucket to the sea itself. The mercy which deals with us is not man's
   mercy, but God's mercy, and therefore boundless mercy. But note again,
   it is the mercy of the "God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." It is
   the mercy of God in Christ. God's mercy is always special, but His
   mercy in Christ is especially special.

   I know not how else to describe it. His mercy in Nature is bright. His
   mercy in Providence is conspicuous. But His mercy in His dear Son, His
   mercy in the Incarnate God--His mercy through the perfect
   Sacrifice--this is mercy's best wine kept to the last. This is mercy's
   "fat things full of marrow." When I see Jesus descending from Heaven to
   earth, Jesus bleeding, Jesus paying all the debts of His people, I can
   well understand that the mercy of God in Christ must be abundant mercy.

   Note carefully another word, it is the mercy of "the Father." You have
   read this last week, I dare say, and felt sickened as you read, the
   fearful stories of the wounded and their sufferings on the battlefield.
   You have read also descriptions of how the wounded, when they are
   brought into the many German towns are met by their compatriots, who
   re-

   joice in their victories, but at the same time lament for the valiant
   men who are maimed for life. You stand on the platform of the railway
   station, a stranger, and you see a fine young man with an arm shot
   away, looking sickly and pale from pain and hardships, and you pity
   him.

   I know you pity him from your heart, but an elderly man rushes before
   you, it is his father. And as he looks upon his son, whom he sent to
   the war so manly, so strong, so full of health and vigor--now reduced
   to the mere ghost of what he was--he pities as a stranger cannot. His
   inmost heart is moved with compassion for his son. The mercy of the
   Lord to us is not the mercy of a stranger to a stranger, but the mercy
   of a Father towards his own dear children. Such mercy has the Lord had
   on me, and I weep for joy as I tell of it.

   "Like as a father pities his children," so has He pitied me. I know if
   He had not loved me He could not have treated me so tenderly. Such
   pity, such mercy has He had on you. And He is still the same. Do you
   not rejoice to think that you participate in abundant mercy, Divine
   mercy, the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, a Father's mercy, the mercy of
   our God and Father? O reach to the height of the text--one more step
   will do it.

   The Father who is thus tender to us, is also the "Father of our Lord
   Jesus Christ." And therefore such a Father as can be found nowhere
   else. The Father of Him who is the Perfect and the Ever-Blessed, is
   also your Father. And all His mercy belongs to you. Let us congratulate
   each other, my Brothers and Sisters in the faith. Let us shake off all
   thoughts of our poverty and all trembling because of our trials. We are
   rich and abound, for Heaven's "abundant mercy" belongs to us. "Bless
   the Lord, O my Soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name."

   II. The next great blessing in the text is that OF INCORRUPTIBLE LIFE.
   Mark that, O Believer. "The God and

   Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to His abundant mercy, has
   begotten us again unto a lively hope." One of the first displays of
   Divine mercy which we experience is being begotten again. Our first
   birth gave us the image of the first Adam--"earthly." Our second birth,
   and that alone, gives us the image of the second Adam, which is
   "heavenly."

   To be begotten once may be a curse--to be begotten again is
   everlastingly and assuredly a blessing. To be born once may be a
   subject for eternal bewailing--to be born a second time will be the
   theme of a joyful and unending song. My Brethren, saints are "begotten
   again unto a lively hope" in the hour of their regeneration, when they
   are "born again from above."

   Have we been so born? If we have, we enjoy a blessing far exceeding
   anything which the natural man can dream of. The Holy Spirit comes upon
   the chosen in the hour appointed and creates in them a new heart and a
   right spirit. In a supernatural manner a new principle is implanted, a
   new life is created within the soul. Just as assuredly as our first
   birth gives us being from our former nothingness, our new life brings
   us from utter death into the world of spirit, and into newness of life.
   We are new born by the "incorruptible seed which lives and abides
   forever." Ours is not the fancied regeneration of those who impute to a
   mere ceremony, invented by men, a change which is altogether of God's
   own working. It is not an imaginary charm worked by incantations and
   sprinkling over an unconscious baby. It is a real creation, a true
   life--not fictitious--but actual and operative, and one which is found
   to reveal itself in righteousness and true holiness.

   You shall know this new life by the faith and the repentance which
   always come with it wherever God Himself is pleased to work it. The new
   life of a Christian is Divine in its origin--God has begotten us. The
   new life comes not from man--it is worked by the operation of the Holy
   Spirit. As certainly as God spoke, and it was done, in the creation of
   the world, so He speaks in the heart of man, and it is done--and the
   new creature is born. The new life in us, as it has a Divine origin,
   has also a Divine Nature. You are made partakers of the Divine Nature.

   The life of a Christian is the life of God--God dwells in him. The Holy
   Spirit Himself enters the Believer and abides in him, and makes him a
   living man. Therefore, from its Divine Nature, the inner life of the
   Believer can by no possibility ever be destroyed. You must first
   destroy the Godhead before you can quench the spark of the eternal
   flame that burns within the Believer's bosom. Has not the Apostle told
   us it is a "living and incorruptible seed which lives and abides
   forever"?

   What a great mystery is this, but at the same time what a blessing! To
   be born again, to be born from above, to be born by the power of God
   into a discernment of spiritual truths. To hear spiritual voices, to
   see spiritual sights, and to be worshippers in spirit and in truth of
   God, who is a Spirit. God grant that if we have never known this we yet
   may be created anew in Christ Jesus.

   Observe, dear Brethren, to be begotten again is a very marvelous thing.
   Suppose a man is born into this world, as is too frequently the case,
   with a predisposition to some sad hereditary disease. There he is,
   filled with disease, and medicine cannot eject the unwelcome tenant
   from his body. Suppose that man's body could be altogether new born,
   and he could

   receive a new body pure from all sickness--it would be a great mercy.
   But, O my Brothers and Sisters, it does not approach to regeneration!

   Because our supposition only deals with the body, while the new birth
   renews the soul, and even implants a higher nature. Regeneration
   overcomes not a mere material disease, not an infliction in the flesh,
   but the natural depravity of the heart--the deadly disorder of the
   soul. We are born again, and by that means we are delivered from the
   power of corruption. The new nature having no depravity in it, nor
   tendency to sin, "it cannot sin because it is born of God."

   The moment the heavenly life is implanted it begins to war with the old
   nature, and continues to struggle violently with it--there is a deadly
   enmity between the two. The new nature will never be reconciled to the
   old, or the old one to the new, but the new will conquer and overcome
   the evil. You have smiled at the pleasant fiction of old men being
   ground young again in a mill--but that marvel would be nothing compared
   with this--the old man made young would still be the same man. And
   placed in the same circumstances, he would develop into the same
   character.

   But here is the old man crucified and a new man created in the Divine
   image! Who can estimate the privilege of receiving a Heaven-born
   Nature, which, however weak and feeble it may be at the first, is
   ever-living, and by the power of God will gain the ultimate victory?
   Let us then rejoice and be glad! We may be very poor today, but we are
   born from above. We may be much afflicted, but what of that if we are
   the twice-born sons of Heaven? We may be despised and rejected, but the
   heavenly light has shone upon our eyes. We have been regenerated, we
   have "passed from death unto life." Here is ceaseless cause for
   gratitude and joy, and if we rightly consider it, we may forget our
   griefs.

   III. A third blessing strictly connected with this new life, is A
   LIVELY HOPE. "He has begotten us again unto a lively hope." Could a man
   live without hope? Men manage to survive the worst condition of
   distress when they are encouraged by a hope. But is not suicide the
   natural result of the death of hope? Yes, we must have a hope, and the
   Christian is not left without one. He has "a lively hope," that is to
   say, first, he has a hope within him, real, true, and operative.

   Some men's hopes of Heaven are not living hopes, for they never stir
   them to action. They live as if they were going to Hell, and yet they
   coolly talk about hoping that all will be well with them at last! A
   Christian's hope purifies him, excites him to diligence, makes him seek
   after that which he expects to obtain. A student at the University
   hoping to gain a prize uses his best endeavors, burns the midnight oil,
   strains all his faculties that he may reach the mark which will ensure
   his passing the exams.

   Even thus the Christian with a lively hope devotes himself to obtaining
   the blessings which God has promised in His Word. The Lord has begotten
   us to a "lively hope," that is to say, to a vigorous, active, operating
   hope. It is a "lively hope" in another sense, namely, that it cheers
   and enlivens. The swimmer who is ready to sink, if he sees a boat
   nearing him, plucks up courage and swims with all his strength because
   now he expects that his swimming will be of effectual service to him.
   The Christian amid the waves and billows of adversity retains his hope,
   a glorious hope of future bliss, and therefore he strikes out like a
   man towards the heavenly shore. Our hope buoys up the soul, keeps the
   head above water, inspires confidence and sustains courage!

   It is also called a "living hope," because it is imperishable. Other
   hopes fade like withering flowers. The hopes of the rich, the boasts of
   the proud--all these will die out as a candle when it flickers in the
   socket. The hope of the greatest monarch has been crushed before our
   eyes. He set up the standard of victory too soon, and has seen it
   trailed in the mire. There is no unwaning hope beneath the changeful
   moon--the only imperishable hope is that which climbs above the stars,
   and fixes itself upon the Throne of God and the Person of Jesus Christ.

   The hope which God has given to His truly quickened people is a lively
   hope, however, because it deals with life. Brethren, it may be Christ
   will come while yet we live, and then we shall not die but shall be
   fitted for Heaven by a change. However, it is probable that we may have
   to depart out of this world unto the Father by the usual course of
   nature. And in expecting to do so let us not look at death as a gloomy
   matter, as though it could at all jeopardize our welfare or ultimately
   injure us.

   No, my Brethren, we have a living hope, a lively hope. Charles
   Borromeo, the famous bishop of Milan, ordered a painter who was about
   to draw a skeleton with a scythe over a sepulcher, to substitute for it
   the golden key of Paradise. Truly this is a most fitting emblem for a
   Believer's tomb--for what is death but the key of Heaven to the
   Christian? We notice frequently over cemetery gates, as an emblematic
   device, a torch turned over ready to be quenched. Ah, my Brethren, it
   is not so, the torch of our life burns the better, and blazes the
   brighter for the change of death.

   The breaking of the pitcher which now surrounds the lamp and conceals
   the glory, will permit our inner life to reveal its lofty nature, and
   before long even the pitcher shall be so remodeled as to become an aid
   to that light! Its present

   breaking is but preparatory to its future refashioning. It is a blessed
   thought that the part of us which must most sadly feel the mortal
   stroke is secured beyond all fear from permanent destruction. We know
   that this very body, though it molders into dust, shall live again!

   These weeping eyes shall have all tears wiped from them. These hands
   which grasp today the sword of a conflict shall wave the palm branch of
   triumph. My Brethren, it were not just that one body should fight and
   another body should be crowned--that one body should labor and another
   body have the reward. The same identical body shall rise from the dead
   at the Lord's coming, marvelously changed, strangely developed as the
   seed develops into the full-blown flower-- but still the same--in very
   deed the same!

   This very body shall be resplendent with glory, even the same which now
   bears sickness and pain. This is our lively hope--that death has no
   dominion over any part of our manhood. There is for awhile a separation
   between the soul and the body--it is but for awhile. There is for the
   flesh a temporary slumbering in the tomb, it is but a slumber, and the
   waking shall be in the likeness of Christ. As for the soul, it shall be
   forever with the Lord, waiting for the latter day and the coming of
   Christ, when the body itself shall be raised from corruption into the
   likeness of the Glory of Him who is the first begotten from the dead.
   Thus, I have brought you up from the abundant mercy to the new life,
   and onward, to the lively hope.

   IV. We cannot tarry, but must notice, in the fourth place, another
   delightful possession which ought effectually to chase away from all of
   us the glooms of this life, and that is A RISEN SAVIOR. "He has
   begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus
   Christ from the dead." Our best Friend is not dead! Our great Patron
   and Helper, our Omnipotent Savior, is not lying in the tomb today. He
   lives, He ever lives! No sound of greater gladness can be heard in the
   Christian Church than this--"The Lord is risen, the Lord is risen
   indeed!"

   Now, Brethren, observe the connection between a risen Savior and our
   living hope. Jesus Christ died, not in appearance, but in reality. In
   proof whereof, His heart was pierced by the soldier's spear. He was
   laid in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, truly a corpse. Not a spark of
   life remained. The only difference between His dead body and the dead
   body of any other was that still the preserving power hovered over Him,
   and as His body had been defiled by no sin, so His flesh could not see
   corruption as it would have done had it been the body of a sinful man.

   Then, at the end of the appointed time, the same Savior who was laid in
   the tomb rose from the dead--not in se-crecy--but before the Roman
   guards who watched the sepulcher. They fled in terror. He met His
   disciples sometimes one by one, sometimes two at a time. On other
   occasions, four hundred at once saw Him--credible witnesses--persons
   who had no reason for forging a falsehood. Persons who so believed that
   they saw Him that many of them died, for their belief, the most painful
   deaths.

   He rose, not in fantasy and figure, but in reality. One of the
   witnesses put his finger into the print of the nails, and thrust his
   hand into His side. And in the presence of His assembled disciples, the
   Risen One ate a piece of a broiled fish and of a honeycomb. He really
   and literally rose from the dead --the selfsame Christ who was born of
   the Virgin Mary, who suffered under Pontius Pilate--and afterwards
   ascended into Heaven. That fact is as well proved as any fact in human
   history. There never, perhaps, was any incident of human history more
   fully verified than the rising of Jesus of Nazareth from the tomb.

   Now, note you well the comfort which arises out of this fact, since it
   proves that we possess a living Advocate, Mediator and High Priest who
   has passed into the heavens. Moreover, since all Believers, being
   partakers of the incorruptible life of God are one with Jesus Christ,
   that which happens to Him virtually happens to them. They died in His
   death, they live in His life, they reign in His Glory. As in Adam all
   die who were in Adam, so in Christ shall all be made alive who are in
   Christ--the two Adams head up their dispensations--whatever happens to
   either of the Adams, happens to those represented by him.

   So, then, the resurrection of Jesus is virtually my resurrection. Were
   He dead still, then might I fear, no, I would know, that I, dying,
   should die. But He, having died, arose again in due season and lives!
   Therefore I, dying, shall also rise and live, for as Jesus is, so must
   I be. If I have within me the new life, I have the same life in me that
   is in Christ, and the same thing happens to me as happens to Christ. If
   His life dies, mine, being the same, dies also. But, as He has said,
   "Because I live, you shall live also," my life is secure.

   Here, then, is the top and bottom of the Christian's hope--"We are
   begotten again into a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
   from the dead." As we see Him alive, we rejoice that He lives, because
   He lives for us, and we live in

   Him.

   Let me give you an illustration. When Joseph was in Egypt, he was
   highly exalted and placed upon the throne. Now, while his brothers did
   not know him they were grievously afraid to go down into Egypt--they
   thought him to be an Egyptian, a haughty ruler of the land--and that he
   treated them roughly. But when once they and their father were
   persuaded that Joseph, their brother, was alive and on the throne, then
   they cheerfully joined with the old man when he said, "Joseph my son is
   yet alive. I will go and see him before I die."

   Now, into the unknown land our Elder Brother has gone--where is He and
   what? Why, He is King of the country. He sits on a Throne. O Brethren,
   with what comfort do we now go down into that Egypt! With what
   consolation will we enter the unknown country, which some think to be
   shrouded in darkness, but which, now that Jesus reigns on its Throne,
   is full of light to us!

   Or take another image. When the children of Israel went through the
   Jordan, they were told that the Jordan would divide before them, but
   they were still more fully assured when the priests went forward with
   the ark. For as soon as the feet of the priests touched the edge of the
   river, the waters began to divide. As they saw their priests march
   through the bed of the stream, and come up on the other side, all
   doubts about the security of the passage must have vanished at once!
   The priests were the representatives of the people before God, and
   where they passed safely all Israel might go.

   See you, then, my Brethren, the "Great High Priest of our profession"
   has led the van. The ark of the Eternal Covenant has gone before, death
   is dried up, so that we can say, "O death, where is your sting? O
   grave, where is your victory?" And you and I may, with perfect
   confidence, full of a lively hope, march onwards into the Glory land,
   for Jesus Christ has safely passed the flood, and even so shall we.
   Here, then, is reason for joy. We will not fear the present, we will
   not dread the future. For Christ is risen, indeed, and our lively hope
   is fixed on Him. Thus we have set before you four out of the seven
   precious things.

   V. The fifth is exceedingly rich, but we can only give a word where
   many sermons would not exhaust--AN INCORRUPTIBLE INHERITANCE--"an
   inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away." God
   has been pleased in His abundant mercy to prepare for His people an
   inheritance. He has made them sons, and if children, then heirs. He has
   given them a new life, and if a new life, then there must be
   possessions and a place suitable for that new life.

   A heavenly nature requires a heavenly inheritance, Heaven-born children
   must have a heavenly portion. Now I shall only ask you to notice that
   the inheritance which God has prepared for us has a fourfold
   description appended to it. First, as to its substance--it is
   "incorruptible." The substance of everything earthly by degrees passes
   away. Even solid granite will rot and crumble. The substance of things
   seen, I may say in paradox, is devoid of substance.

   Empires have grown great, but the inward corruption within their
   constitution has at length dissolved them. Dynasties have been wrecked,
   and thrones have tottered by internal corruption, but the inheritance
   of the saints of God has nothing within it that can make it perish.
   Forever and forever shall the blissful portion of the sanctified be
   theirs. Heaven, and the streets thereof, are all said to be of precious
   stones and pure gold, because they are imperishable.

   Next, for purity--it is "undefiled." Earthly inheritances are often
   defiled in the getting. Some men have grown rich by fraud, by violence,
   by oppression of the poor. How many a heritage is polluted all over
   with the slime of the serpent! And he that inherits the goods of such a
   one inherits therewith a curse, for God will surely avenge injustice
   and wrong doing, even to the third generation.

   But our inheritance is undefiled, for it was won by the obedience, the
   perfection, and sufferings of Jesus. No thought of wrong was used in
   the getting of the portion of the Well-Beloved of God. An inheritance
   may be defiled after it is possessed, but Heaven never shall be. Satan
   shall never enter there, nor sin of any kind pass through the gate of
   pearl. O Brethren, what a joy is this! Defilement is on everything in
   this fallen world. We cannot purge ourselves completely-- earthly
   things all bring a measure of defilement with them. But up yonder our
   portion shall not be stained with sin, we shall be perfect, and all
   around us perfect, too.

   And then it is added for its beauty, "it fades not away." The substance
   of a thing might endure after its beauty was gone, but in Heaven there
   shall be no declining in the beauty of anything celestial. Milton sings
   of the amaranth, which he describes as blossoming at the foot of the
   tree of life in the garden of Eden. It was a flower of perpetual
   sweetness, whose beauty never faded. But he says --

   "Soon for man's offense

   To Heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows And flowers aloft,
   shading the fountain of life, And where the river of bliss through
   midst of Hea ven Rolls over Elysian flowers her amber stream;

   With these, that never fade, the spirits elect Bind their resplendent
   locks, wreathed with beams." The amaranthine inheritance is yours. The
   garden of Paradise shall never cease to bloom, and the wreath of
   victory shall never wither from your brows. Oh, what joy is this for
   you! Your inheritance is for substance incorruptible, for purity
   undefiled, for beauty unfading. And then for possession, it is
   secure--"reserved in Heaven for you." How I delight to dwell upon the
   thought that Heaven is not to be scrambled for, that the portion of
   each saint in Glory is given to him by lot even as was Canaan of old to
   Judah, to Reuben, to Manasseh, and the like.

   There is a place in Heaven for me which none of you could fill. There
   is a harp which no fingers can strike but mine, and a crown which no
   brow can wear but this. And so with each of you--you shall have your
   own, your own appointed inheritance. He has begotten each one of you
   again--you are as truly begotten as any other Believer. You have the
   same hope, and you shall as surely stand in your lot at the end of the
   days. O clap your hands, you righteous! Shout for joy! Scanty is your
   portion here and hard your lot, it may be, but the undefiled
   inheritance will more than make amends. Therefore, lift up your hearts
   this day, and let not your hands hang down.

   VI. Time fails us, therefore we must mention the sixth blessing at
   once, it is INVIOLABLE SECURITY. The inheritance is kept for you, and
   you are kept for the inheritance. The word is a military one. It
   signifies a city garrisoned and defended. Think of a city
   besieged--Strasbourg, if you will--that is an emblem of your condition
   in this world. The enemy pour in their shot, they keep up the fire day
   and night, and set the city on a blaze, and even thus Satan bombards us
   with temptations, and beleaguers us with all the hosts of Hell.

   Our great enemy has determined to raze the citadel of our faith even to
   the ground. His great guns are drawn up around our bastions. His
   sappers and miners are busy with our bulwarks. Even now it may be his
   shells are tearing our hearts, and his shot is setting our nature in a
   blaze.

   Herein is our confidence--our great Captain has walled us around--He
   has appointed Salvation for walls and bulwarks. We are safe, though all
   the devils of Hell surround us, for we are garrisoned by Omnipotence.
   Each Believer is kept by that same power which "bears the earth's huge
   pillars up," and sustains the arches of Heaven. Jerusalem, you are
   besieged, but you may laugh your enemy to scorn, he shall never break
   through your ramparts--

   "Munitions of stupendous rock Our dwelling place shall be, There shall
   our soul without a shock Our vanquished foemensee."

   Our enemies shall assemble, but when they perceive that God is known in
   our palaces for a refuge, they shall be troubled and hasten away. Fear
   shall take hold upon them, and pain, as of a woman in travail. Every
   Believer is kept by the power of God, but the power of God does not
   produce in us sloth--but faith. We are commanded to watch, that is what
   we are to do. But we are told both to watch and pray, because our
   watching is not enough. We need God's watching, also, and we are to
   pray for it. Faith is the under captain of the city. God's power
   protects it--"the King is in the midst of her." But Faith is the high
   constable of the tower. He it is that goes on the walls, arms the
   warders, strengthens the bastions, and brings help out of the
   sanctuary. While the sword of the Lord and of Gideon is at work, the
   Midianites cannot prevail.

   This keeping, observe, my Brothers and Sisters, for I must leave the
   point--this keeping is complete and continuous--it will never end until
   we shall need keeping no longer. We shall be kept "unto salvation ready
   to be revealed in the last time." I believe this means that we shall
   not only be kept till our souls reach Heaven, but we shall be kept till
   the advent. You say, "Why is that necessary?" I reply, only half of our
   manhood goes to Heaven at death, the other part, namely, our body,
   waits below till the resurrection. Yet our dust is precious in God's
   sight, and therefore it is watched over until the day of Christ's
   appearing--for that is the appointed hour for the redemption of the
   body--

   "Sweet Truth to me, I shall arise, And with these eyes, my Savior see."

   Wherever my dust may be scattered, though to the four winds of Heaven
   it is divided, though it pass through every conceivable change and
   combination--yet each atom of my dust shall hear the sound of the
   archangel's trump--or if not each earthly particle of this my frame,
   yet each essential constituent shall hear the voice of God. And bone to
   bone each bone shall come, and the body shall rise intact and perfect,
   for it is kept by the power of God unto the salvation ready to be
   revealed.

   O my Brethren, what a glorious thing it is to know that the salvation
   God has given us in Christ is a perfect salvation of our complete
   manhood! There shall not a hair of your head perish. You shall go into
   the furnace, you shall walk amid the glowing coals of death, but you
   shall come forth with not a smell of fire passed upon you. At the
   Lord's appearing you shall be none the worse for the fall of Adam. You
   shall be none the worse for your own transgressions. You shall be none
   the worse for all the scars of battle. You shall be none the worse for
   dying--you shall be in Heaven as bright as God Himself could have made
   you if you had never fallen, and never sinned!

   Do I exaggerate? No, verily, for it is written, "We shall be like He,
   for we shall see Him as He is." We shall wake up in His likeness. Oh,
   the glory of complete victory over Satan's arts, and Satan's strength!
   He shall be defeated all along the line! He shall gain nothing by all
   his attacks upon our God, and upon us--but we in the image of Jesus
   shall laugh at the complete defeat of evil, and glorify God and the
   Lamb forever!

   VII. The best I have reserved for the last. Out of the seven treasures
   of the Christian the last comprehends all, is better than all, though
   what I have already spoken is everything--it is A BLESSED GOD. We left
   this to the last, though it comes first--"Blessed be the God and Father
   of our Lord Jesus Christ." It is joy to have Heaven, it is joy to
   possess a new life to fit me for Heaven--but the greatest of all is to
   have my God, my own Savior's God, my Father, my own Savior's Father, to
   be all my own!

   God Himself has said, "I will be their God, and they shall be My
   people." He has not given you earth and Heaven only, though that were
   much. He has given you the Heaven of Heaven--Himself. Herod spoke of
   giving the "half of his kingdom." But the Lord has not given you the
   half of His kingdom, nor even the whole of His kingdom only--but His
   own Self the blessed God has in Covenant made over to you. Will not
   this make you rejoice? Methinks you may go forth with those that make
   merry and rejoice before God with a joy that knows no bound--"Sing unto
   God, sing praise," sing, unto God, sing praises! Rejoice in the Lord
   always, and again I say, Rejoice."

   Brethren, the practical point is, show your gratitude and your joy by
   blessing God. You can bless Him with your voices. Sing more than you
   do. Singing is Heaven's work, practice it here. At your work, do if you
   can, quietly raise a hymn and bless the Lord. But oh, keep the fire on
   the altar of your hearts always burning! Praise Him, bless Him. His
   mercy endures forever, so let your praises endure.

   Bless Him also with your substance. He is a blessed God. Do not give
   Him mere words--they are but air--and tongues but clay. Give Him the
   best you have. In the old superstitious times the Churches used to be
   adorned with the rarest pearls and jewels, with treasures of gold and
   silver--for men then gave mines of wealth to what they believed to be
   the service of God.

   Shall the true faith have less operative power upon us? Shall the
   "lively hope" make us do less for God than the mere dead hope of the
   followers of Rome? No, let us be generous at all times, and count it
   our joy to sacrifice unto our God. Let us give Him our efforts, our
   time, our talents. Bless the Lord this afternoon, you Sunday school
   teachers. Teach those dear children under a sense of your own
   obligations to God. You who go from house to house this afternoon, you
   who will preach in the streets and lift up your voices in the corners
   of the thoroughfares--preach as those who are begotten unto a lively
   hope by the abundant mercy of God.

   Preacher, live more intensely and ardently than ever you have done.
   Deacons, serve the Church more thoroughly than you have done as yet.
   Elders, give your whole souls to the care of Christ's flock, which He
   has redeemed with His blood. Each one of you workers for Jesus Christ
   work not for Him after an ordinary sort, as men do for a master whose
   pay is no larger than he can be compelled to make it--but work with
   heart, and soul, and strength for Him who loved you to the death and
   poured out His soul to redeem you from going down into Hell.

   Thus prove that the Divine Nature is truly in you, and that you possess
   the "lively hope" implanted by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
   the dead. The Lord bless you all, for Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Unconquerable King

   (No. 949)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 4, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up my eyes unto
   Heaven, and my understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the Most
   High, and I praised and honored Him that lives forever, whose dominion
   is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to
   generation: and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as
   nothing: and He does according to His will in the army of Heaven, and
   among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand, or say
   unto Him, What do You?" Daniel 4:34,35.

   NO one has ever numbered Nebuchadnezzar with the Prophets, or believed
   his language to be inspired. We have before us simply a statement made
   by an uninspired man, after passing through the most extraordinary
   experience. He had been among the greatest and proudest of men--he
   suddenly fell into the condition of a grass-eating ox, by losing his
   reason. And upon being restored, he acknowledged publicly the hand of
   the Most High. I should not have taken his language as my text if it
   had not happened to be, as it is, a most correct and vigorous statement
   of sublime doctrines which are clearly stated by the Holy Spirit in
   different parts of Scripture.

   It is a singular instance of how, when God comes to deal with men in
   afflicting Providences, He can make them clearly see many great Truths
   concerning Himself, and can constrain them to express their convictions
   in identically the same way as they would have done if His own Spirit
   had dictated the terms. There are certain parts of the Divine Character
   which even the unspiritual man cannot avoid seeing. And after passing
   through certain processes of suffering and humiliation, the man is
   compelled to add his witness to the testimony of God's Spirit with
   regard to the Divine Character.

   Every single word that Nebuchadnezzar here utters can be backed up and
   supported by undoubtedly inspired words of men sent of God to proclaim
   infallible Truth. We shall not, therefore, need to answer the objection
   that our text is simply the statement of Nebuchadnezzar--we grant that
   it is so--but we shall show as we proceed that Babylon's humbled
   monarch herein has spoken most correctly and accurately--and in full
   accordance with the testimony of other parts of Scripture.

   Before I conduct your minds to a close consideration of the text, I
   must make one remark. Many of you will very naturally suppose that the
   chapter read during this service, the hymns and the sermon, were all
   intended to have reference to a certain great political event reported
   in the papers of last night [the surrender of Napoleon to the King of
   Prussia]. But please observe that your supposition will be unfounded,
   for my text was fixed upon yesterday morning, before any sort of news
   had reached me, and the service would have been the same if that event
   had not occurred. So that anything strikingly suggestive in the choice
   of the passage may be looked upon, if you will, as denoting the
   guidance of God's Spirit, but must not be imputed to any intentional
   reference on my part.

   We will now come first to consider the doctrinal instruction of the
   text. Secondly, we would learn the practical teaching of it. And
   thirdly, we would exhibit the spirit suitable after the contemplation
   of such a subject.

   I. First, then, let us turn to the text, and consider THE DOCTRINAL
   INSTRUCTION here given to us. We have here plainly stated the doctrine
   of the eternal Self-Existence of God. "I blessed the Most High, and I
   praised and honored Him that lives forever." If this word needed to be
   confirmed we would refer you to the language of John in the Book of the
   Revelation where we find him describing, in the fourth chapter, at the
   ninth and tenth verses, the living creatures and the four and twenty
   elders as giving glory and honor and thanks, "to Him that sat on the
   Throne, who lives forever and forever."

   Better still, let us hear the witness of our own Redeemer, in the fifth
   of John's Gospel, at the twenty-sixth verse, where He declares that,
   "the Father has life in Himself." My Brethren, you need not that I
   marshal in array a host of confirmative passages, for the eternal
   Self-Existence of God is taught throughout the Scriptures, and is
   implied in that name which belongs only to the true God, Jehovah, "I Am
   that I Am," where, note that it is not "I was," which would imply that
   in some measure or respect He had ceased to be.

   Nor is it "I will be," which would intimate that He is not now what He
   will be, but I AM, the only Being, the root of Existence, the
   Immutable, and Eternal One. "We," as a venerable Puritan observes,
   "have more of nothing than of being," but it is God's prerogative to
   BE. He alone can say, "I am God, and beside Me there is none else." He
   declares, "I lift up My hands to Heaven, and say I live forever." He is
   the One only underived, Self-Existent, Self-Sustained Being. Let us
   know of a surety that the Lord God whom we worship is the only Being
   who necessarily and from His own Nature, Exists.

   No other being could have been but for His Sovereign will, nor could it
   continue were that will suspended. He is the only light of life, all
   others are reflections of His beams. There must be God, but there was
   no such necessity that there should be any other intelligences. In all
   the future God must Be, but the necessity for the continuance of other
   spirits lies in His will and not in the very nature of things. There
   was a time when the creatures were not. They came from Him as vessels
   from the potter's wheel. They all depend upon Him for continuance, as
   the streamlet on the fountain from where it flows.

   And if it were His will, they all would melt away as the foam upon the
   water. That immortality of spirits implied in such passages as Matthew
   25:46, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the
   righteous into life eternal," is the result of His own resolve to make
   spirits whose duration should be eternal. And though He will never
   withdraw the endowment of immortality which He has bestowed, yet the
   reason for eternal existence is not in the beings, but entirely in
   Himself, for essentially, "He only has immortality"--

   "He can create and He destroy." All that is, whether material or
   intellectual, if so it had pleased God to ordain, might have been as
   transient as a sunbeam and have vanished as speedily as the rainbow
   from the cloud. If anything now exists of necessity, that necessity
   sprang from God, and still depends upon the necessity of Divine Decree.

   God is independent--the only being who is so. We must find food with
   which to repair the daily wastes of the body. We are dependent upon
   light and heat, and innumerable external agencies--and above all we are
   primarily dependent upon the outgoings of the Divine power towards us.
   But the I AM is Self-Sufficient and All-Sufficient--

   "He sits on no precarious throne, Nor borrows leave to be."

   He was as glorious before He made the world as He is now. He was as
   great, as blessed, as Divine in all His attributes before sun and moon
   and stars leaped into existence as He is now. And if He should blot all
   out as a man erases the writing of his pen, or as a potter breaks the
   vessel he has made, He would be none the less the supreme and
   ever-blessed God.

   Nothing of God's Being is derived from another, but all that exists is
   derived from Him. You hills and mountains, you seas and stars, you men
   and angels, you heavens and you Heaven of heavens--you minister nothing
   to Him who made you--you all stand up together in existence flowing
   from your Creator. God ever lives in this respect, that He undergoes no
   sort of change. All His creatures must, from their constitution,
   undergo more or less of mutation. Of them all it is decreed, "They
   shall perish, but You shall endure: yes, all of them shall wax old like
   a garment. As a vesture shall You change them, and they shall be
   changed: but You are the same, and Your years shall have no end."

   Our life is made up of changes. From childhood we hasten to youth, from
   youth we leap to manhood, from manhood we fade into old age. Our
   changes are as many as our days. "The creature" is, indeed, in our
   case, "made subject to vanity." Lighter than a feather, more frail than
   the flower of the field, brittle as glass, fleeting as a meteor, tossed
   to and fro like a ball, and quenched as a spark--"Lord, what is man?"
   There comes to us all in the time appointed the great and ultimate
   change when the spirit is separated from the body--to be followed by
   another in which the divided manhood shall be re-united. But with God
   there are no changes of this or any other kind. Has He not declared, "I
   am God, I change not"?

   God is essentially and evermore pure Spirit, and consequently undergoes
   no variableness nor shadow of a turning. Of none of the creatures can
   this be said. Immutability is an attribute of God only. The things
   created were once new--they are waxing old--they will become older
   still. But the Lord has no time, He dwells in eternity. There is no
   moment of beginning with the Eternal, no starting point from which to
   calculate age. From of old He was the Ancient of Days, "from
   everlasting to everlasting You are God."

   Let your mind retreat as far as its capacities will allow into the
   remote past of old eternity, and there it finds Jehovah alone in the
   fullness of His glory. Then let the same thought flash forward into the
   far off future, as far as imagination can bear it, and there it beholds
   the Eternal, unchanged, unchangeable. He works changes and effects
   changes, but He Himself abides the same. Brethren, let us worship Him
   with words like these--

   "Your throne eternal ages stood, Before seas or stars were made. You
   are the Ever-Living God. Were all the nations dead. Eternity with all
   its years, Stands present in Your view To You there's nothing old
   appears Great God! There's nothing new. Our lives through various
   scenes are drawn, And vexed with trifling cares, While Your eternal
   thought moves on Your undisturbed affairs."

   That He lives forever is the result, not only of His essential and
   necessary Self-Existence, of His independence, and of His
   unchangeableness, but of the fact that there is no conceivable force
   that can ever wound, injure, or destroy Him. If we were profane enough
   to imagine the Lord to be vulnerable, yet where is the bow and where
   the arrow that could reach Him on His Throne? What javelin shall pierce
   Jehovah's buckler? Let all the nations of the earth rise and rage
   against God, how shall they reach His Throne? They cannot even shake
   His footstool.

   If all the angels of Heaven should rebel against the Great King, and
   their squadrons should advance in serried ranks to besiege the palace
   of the Most High, He has but to will it, and they would wither as
   autumn leaves, or consume as the fat upon the altar. Reserved in chains
   of darkness, the opponents of His power would forever become mementos
   of His wrath. None can touch Him. He is the God that ever lives. Let us
   who delight in the living God bow down before Him, and humbly worship
   Him as the God in whom we live and move, and have our being.

   In our text we next find Nebuchadnezzar asserting the everlasting
   dominion of God. He says, "Whose dominion is an everlasting dominion,
   and His kingdom is from generation to generation." The God whom we
   serve not only exists, but reigns. No other position would become Him
   but that of unlimited Sovereign over all His creatures. "The most high
   God, possessor of Heaven and earth has prepared His Throne in the
   heavens, and His kingdom rules over all." As David said so, we say
   also, "Yours O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory,
   and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the Heaven and in
   the earth is Yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and You are exalted
   as head above all." "The Lord sits upon the flood; yes, the Lord sits
   King forever."

   The Lord is naturally the Ruler of all, but who shall pretend to rule
   over Him? He is not to be judged of man's finite reason for He does
   great things which we cannot comprehend. Amazing is the impertinence of
   man, when the creature dares to sit in judgment on the Creator! His
   Character is not to be impugned or called into question. Only the
   boundless arrogance of our pride would so dare to insult the thrice
   holy God. "Be still, and know that I am God," is a sufficient reply to
   such madness. The Lord's place is on the Throne, and our place is to
   obey. It is His to govern, ours to serve--His to do as He wills, and
   ours, without questioning, to make that will our constant delight.
   Remember, then, that in the universe God is actually reigning.

   Never let us conceive of God as being infinitely great, but not
   exerting His greatness--infinitely able to reign--but as yet a mere
   spectator of events. It is not so. The Lord reigns even now. Though in
   one sense we pray, "Your kingdom come," yet in another we say, "Yours
   is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever." The
   Throne of the universe is not vacant, nor its power in abeyance. God
   does not hold a bare title to kingship--He is actually King. The

   government is upon His shoulders, the reins of management are in His
   hands. Even at this hour He speaks to the sons of men, "See now that I,
   even I, am He, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive. I
   wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of My
   hand."

   Before your very eyes He has fulfilled His word. (Luke 1:51, 52.)
   Events appear to fly at random like the dust in the whirlwind, but it
   is not so. The rule of the Omnipotent extends over all things at all
   times. Nothing is left to its own chance happening, but in wisdom all
   things are governed. Glory be unto the Omnipresent and Invisible Lord
   of All!

   This Divine kingdom appeared very plainly to the once proud monarch of
   Babylon, to be an everlasting one. The reign of the Ever-Living extends
   as other kingdoms cannot, "from generation to generation." The
   mightiest king inherits power and soon yields his scepter to his
   successor. The Lord has no beginning of days nor end of
   years--predecessor or successor are words inapplicable to Him. Other
   monarchies stand while their power is not subdued, but in an evil hour
   a greater power may crush them down. There is no greater power than
   God--there is no other power but that which proceeds from God, for,
   "God has spoken once; twice have I heard this. That power belongs unto
   God." Therefore His monarchy cannot be subdued, and must be
   everlasting.

   Dynasties have passed away, dying out for lack of heirs, but God the
   Ever-Living asks none to succeed Him and to perpetuate His name.
   Internal corruptions have often blasted empires which stood aloft like
   forest trees, defiant of the storm--at the core the tree was rotten,
   and before long, weakened by decay--it tottered to its fall. But the
   infinitely Holy God has no injustice, error, partiality, or evil motive
   in the government of His affairs--everything is arranged with spotless
   holiness, unimpeachable justice, unvarying fidelity, untarnished truth,
   amazing mercy, and overflowing love. All the elements of His kingdom
   are most conservative, because radically right. There is no evil leaven
   in the council chamber of Omniscience, no corruption on the Judgment
   Seat of Heaven. Therefore, "His Throne is established in
   righteousness." Because His Throne is holy we rejoice that it can never
   be moved.

   Pause here, dear Hearer, and let your soul's eye behold again this view
   of things. God has reigned from the first day, God shall reign when
   days are gone. Everywhere He is the reigning God--reigning when Pharaoh
   said, "Who is Jehovah, that I should obey Him?" as much as when Miriam
   took her timbrel, and said, "Sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed
   gloriously." He was reigning when Scribe and Pharisee, Jew and Roman,
   nailed His Only Begotten Son to the Cross, as much as when the angelic
   cohorts shouted in triumph, "Lift up your heads, O you gates, and be
   you lift up, you everlasting doors, that the King of Glory may come
   in."

   He is reigning amid all the calamities which sweep the globe as much as
   He shall be in the halcyon days of peace. Never is the Throne vacant,
   never is the scepter laid aside. Jehovah is always King, and shall be
   King forever and forever. Oh, happy subjects, who have such a Throne to
   look to! Oh, blessed children, who have such a King to be your Father!
   You, as a royal priesthood, may feel your royalties and your
   priesthoods both secure for this unconquerable King sits securely on
   His Throne. Your monarch has not yielded up His sword to a superior
   foe. You have not to search for another leader. In the Person of His
   dear Son He walks among our golden candlesticks, and holds our stars in
   His right hand. He keeps Israel, and never slumbers nor sleeps.

   But we must hasten on. Nebuchadnezzar, humbled before God, uses, in the
   third place, extraordinary language with regard to the nothingness of
   mankind. "All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing."
   This is Nebuchadnezzar, but his words are confirmed by Isaiah, "Behold
   the nations are as a drop of a bucket," the unnoticed drop which
   remains in the bucket after it has been emptied into the trough, or the
   drip which falls from it as it is uplifted from the well--a thing too
   inconsiderable to be worthy of notice. "And are counted as the small
   dust of the balance." As the dust which falls upon scales, but is not
   sufficient to affect the balance in any degree whatever.

   "Behold, He takes up the isles as a very little thing." Whole
   archipelagos He uplifts as unconsidered trifles. This triple kingdom of
   ours He reckons not only to be little, but "a very little thing." The
   vast island of Australia, the gems of the Pacific, the nations of the
   Southern Ocean, all these He handles as children lift their toys. "All
   nations before Him are as nothing. And they are counted to Him less
   than nothing, and vanity." So if Nebuchadnezzar goes far, Isaiah,
   inspired of the Spirit, goes farther. The one calls the nations
   "nothing," and the other "less than nothing," and "vanity."

   You will find the passage in the fortieth of Isaiah, at the fifteenth
   and seventeenth verses. Now mark the force of each word, "all the
   inhabitants of the earth," not some of them only, not the poor ones
   among them, but the rich, the kings, the wise, the philosophers, the
   priests--all put together--"are as nothing." What an assembly would
   there be if all the

   nations could be gathered together! An impressive spectacle rises
   before my vision! One had need possess an eagle's wing merely to pass
   over the mighty congregation. Where could a plain be found which could
   contain them all? Yet all of them, says the text, are, "as nothing."

   Now, observe they are so in themselves, for concerning all of us who
   are gathered here it is certain that there was a time when we were
   not--we were then in very deed "nothing." At this very moment, also, if
   God wills it, we may cease to be, and so in a step return to nothing.
   We are nothing in ourselves, we are only what He chooses to allow us to
   be, and when the time comes and it will be a very short time, so far as
   this world is concerned, we shall be nothing. All that will remain of
   us among the sons of men will be some little hillock in a cemetery or a
   country Churchyard, for we shall have no part in anything which is done
   under the sun.

   Of what account at this day, my Brethren, are all the antediluvian
   millions? What are the hosts of Nimrod, of Shishak, of Sennacherib, of
   Cyrus? What reeks the world of the myriads who followed the march of
   Nebuchadnezzar, who obeyed the beck of Cyrus, who passed away before
   the eye of Xerxes? Where are the generations which owned the
   sovereignty of Alexander, or the legions which followed and almost
   adored the eagles of the Caesars? Alas, even our grandsires, where are
   they? Our sons forewarn us that we must die. Have they not been born to
   bury us? So pass the generations like the successive series of forest
   leaves. And what are they but at their best estate, "altogether
   vanity?"

   The nations are nothing in comparison with God. As you may place as
   many ciphers as you like together, and they all make nothing, so you
   may add up as many men, with all their supposed force and wisdom, as
   you please, and they are all nothing in comparison with God. He is the
   Unit. He stands for All in All, and comprehends all. And all the rest
   are but so many valueless ciphers till His Unity makes them of account.
   Here let me remind you that every man who is spiritually taught of God
   is made to feel experimentally on his own account his own utter
   nothingness. When his inner eye, like that of Job, beholds the Lord, he
   abhors himself, he shrinks into the earth, he feels he cannot contrast
   or compare himself with the Most High even for a single second.

   "Great God, how infinite are You! What worthless worms are we!" is the
   verse which naturally leaps to the lip of any man who knows himself and
   knows his God.

   Spiritually, our nothingness is very conspicuous. We were nothing in
   our election--"You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you." "The
   children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that
   the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but
   of Him that calls." "It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs,
   but of God that shows mercy." We were nothing in our redemption. We
   contributed nothing to that price which Jesus paid--"I have trod the
   winepress alone. And of the people there was none with Me." We are
   nothing in our regeneration--can the spiritually dead help the blessed
   God to quicken them? "It is the Spirit that quickens, the flesh profits
   nothing." "We are His workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus." We
   shall, when we get to Heaven, make it part of our adoration to confess
   that we are less than nothing and vanity, but that God is All in All.
   Therefore shall we cast our crowns at His feet, and give Him all the
   praise forever and ever.

   "The inhabitants of the earth are as nothing." It is a wonderful
   expression, and you see I do not attempt to expound it or any part of
   the text. I rather repeat words of the same meaning with the text by
   way of illustration. Before me is a great deep, and who shall fathom
   it? I would not darken counsel by words without knowledge. If there
   were an ant's nest somewhere in a farmer's estate and suppose he had
   ten thousand acres of land. That ant's nest would bear some portion,
   though a very small one, to the ten thousand acres of land. It could
   not be so strictly said to be as nothing as the whole world can when
   compared with God.

   This round earth bears a very insignificant proportion to the vast
   creation of God, even to that which is revealed to us by the telescope.
   And we have reason to believe that all which can be seen with the
   telescope--if indeed it is a mass of worlds, and all inhabited--is but
   as a pin's prick compared with the city of London, to the far-reaching
   universe. If it is so, and your mind were capable of compassing the
   entire creation of God, yet it would be only as a drop of a bucket
   compared with God Himself who made it all, and could make ten thousand
   times ten thousand as much, and then be but at the beginning of His
   power.

   This world, then, bears no such proportion to the Lord as an ant's nest
   to the estate of ten thousand acres. Now if the farmer wishes to till
   the soil, it is not at all probable that he will take any cognizance
   whatever of that ant's nest in

   the arrangement of his affairs. And in all probability will overturn
   and destroy it. This proves the insignificance of the emmet, and the
   greatness of man as compared with ants. But as it involves a degree of
   forgetfulness or overlooking on the farmer's part, the ants are great
   enough to be forgotten--but the nations are not great enough even for
   that. If it were possible for the farmer to arrange without difficulty
   all his plans so that without disturbing his proceedings, every bird,
   emmet, and worm should be cared for in his scheme, how great then would
   he be compared with the ants!

   And this is just the case with the Lord--He so arranges all things that
   apparently without effort the government of Providence embraces all
   interests, wrongs none, but yields justice to all. Men are so little in
   the way of God that He never finds it necessary to perpetrate an
   injustice even on a single man, and He has never caused one solitary
   creature to suffer one unnecessary pang. Herein is His greatness, that
   it comprehends all littleness without a strain--the glory of His wisdom
   is as astonishing as the majesty of His power, and the splendors of His
   love and of His Grace are as amazing as the terror of His Sovereignty.
   He may do what He wills, for none can stop Him. But He never wills to
   do in any case anything that is unjust, unholy, unmerciful, or in any
   way inconsistent with the perfection of His matchless Character. Here
   let us pause, and worship. I at least must do so. For my soul's eyes
   ache, as though I had been gazing at the sun.

   We turn now to the next sentence, which reveals the Divine power at
   work sovereignly. "He does according to His will in the army of Heaven,
   and among the inhabitants of the earth." This is easy to understand in
   reference to the celestial host, for we know that God's will is done in
   Heaven--we devoutly pray that it may yet be done on earth after the
   same fashion. The angels find it their Heaven to be obedient to the God
   of Heaven. Under the term, "army of Heaven," is comprehended fallen
   angels who were once numbered with that band, but were expelled from
   Heaven for their rebellion.

   Devils unwillingly, but yet of necessity, fulfill the will of God.
   "Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in Heaven, and in earth, in
   the seas, and all deep places." When we read in the text that on earth
   God's will is done, we see that it is so in a measure among the
   righteous whose renewed hearts seek after God's glory. But the Truth
   goes further, for that will is also accomplished in the unrighteous,
   and by those who know Him not. Yes, in those whose will is determined
   to oppose Him--but in some way unknown to us the will of God is still
   achieved (Prov. 19:21; Acts 4:27, 28.)

   I can understand a man taking so many pieces of wood and arranging them
   just as he pleases, nor can I see any very remarkable skill in so
   doing. But the miracle of Divine Glory lies in this--that He has made
   men free agents, has endowed them with a will with which He never
   interferes except according to the laws of mind. That He leaves them
   absolutely free to do what they will, and they will universally of
   themselves to do contrary to His will. And yet, such is the magnificent
   strategy of Heaven, such is the marvelous force of the Divine mind,
   that despite everything, the will of God is done!

   Some have supposed that when we believe with David, in Psalm 65, that
   God has done whatever He has pleased, we deny free agency, and of
   necessity moral responsibility also. No, but we declare that those who
   would do so are tinctured with the old captious spirit of him who said,
   "Why does He yet find fault, for who has resisted His will?" And our
   only answer is that of Paul, "No, but O man, who are you that replies
   against God?" Can you understand it, for I cannot-- how man is a free
   agent, a responsible agent, so that his sin is his own willful sin and
   lies with him and never with God-- and yet at the same time God's
   purposes are fulfilled, and His will is done even by demons and corrupt
   men?

   I cannot comprehend it, but without hesitation I believe it, and
   rejoice to do so. I never hope to comprehend it. I worship a God I
   never expect to comprehend. If I could grasp Him in the hollow of my
   hand, I could not call Him my God. And if I could understand His
   dealings so that I could read them as a child reads his spelling book,
   I could not worship Him. But because He is so infinitely great I find
   Truth here, Truth there, Truth multiform. And if I cannot compress it
   into one system-I know it is all clear to Him--and I am content that He
   should know what I know not.

   It is mine today to adore and obey--by-and-by when He sees fit I shall
   know more and adore better. It is my firm belief that everything in
   Heaven, and earth, and Hell will be seen to be, in the long run, parts
   of the Divine Plan. Yet never is God the Author or the accomplice of
   sin--never is He otherwise than the Hater of sin and the Avenger of
   unrighteousness. Sin rests with man, wholly with man, and yet by some
   strange overruling force, Godlike and mysterious, like the existence of
   God, His supreme will is accomplished. Observe how the two truths
   combine in practice, and are stated in the same verse in reference to
   our Lord's crucifixion, in Acts 2:23--"Him, being delivered by the
   determinate council and foreknowledge of God, you have taken, and by
   wicked hands have crucified and slain."

   Now, to deny this Truth because we cannot understand it, were to shut
   ourselves out of a great deal of important knowledge. Brethren, if God
   does not rule everywhere, then something rules where He does not, and
   so He is not Omnipresent supreme. If God does not have His will,
   someone else does, and so far that someone is a rival to God. I never
   deny the free agency of man, or diminish his responsibility, but I dare
   never invest the free will of man with Omnipotence, for this were to
   make man into a sort of God, an idolatry to be loathed.

   Moreover, admit chance anywhere, and you have admitted chance
   everywhere, for all events are related and act on one another. One cog
   of the wheel of Providence disarranged or left to Satan, or man's
   absolute freedom apart from God, would spoil the whole machinery. I
   dare not believe even sin itself to be exempt from the control of
   Providence, or from the overruling dominion of the Judge of all the
   earth. Without Providence we were unhappy beings. Without the
   universality of the Divine power, Providence would be imperfect, and in
   some points we might be left unprotected and exposed to those evils
   which are, by this theory, supposed to be beyond Divine control. Happy
   are we that it is true, "the Lord does as He wills in the army of
   Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth."

   Let us now consider the fifth part of the text--"None can stay His
   hand, or say unto Him, What do you?" I gather from this that God's fiat
   is irresistible and unimpeachable. We are told by some annotators that
   the original has in it an allusion to a blow given to a child's hand to
   make him cease from some forbidden action. None can treat the Lord in
   that manner. None can hinder Him, or cause Him to pause. He has might
   to do what He wills. So also says Isaiah--"Woe unto him that strives
   with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the
   earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashions it, What make you? Or
   your work, He has no hands?"

   Man is powerless, then, to resist the fiat of God. Usually he does not
   know God's design, although he blunderingly thinks he does--often in
   opposing that apparent design he fulfils the secret design of God
   against his will. If man did know God's design, and should set himself
   with all his might against it, yet as the chaff cannot resist the wind,
   as it is not possible for the wax to resist the fire, so neither can
   man effectually resist the absolute will and Sovereign good pleasure of
   the Most High. Only here is our comfort--it is right that God should
   have this might, because He always uses His might with strictest
   rectitude. God cannot will to do anything unjust, ungenerous, unkind,
   ungod-like.

   No laws bind Him as they bind us, but He is a Law to Himself. There is,
   "You shall," and, "You shall not," for me, for you--but who shall put,
   "You shall," to God, or who shall say, "You shall not"? Who shall
   attempt to be legislator for the King of kings? God is Love. God is
   Holiness. God is the Law. God is Love, and doing as He wills, He wills
   to love. God is Holy, and doing as He wills, He wills holiness, He
   wills Justice, He wills Truth. And though there were raised a thousand
   questions as to how is this just? How is that loving? How is that wise?
   The one sufficient answer is--

   "God is His own interpreter And He will make it plain."

   O sons of men, it is not for me to solve the enigmas of the Infinite,
   he shall explain Himself. I am not so impertinent as to be His
   apologist, He shall clear Himself. I am not called to vindicate His
   Character. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" What folly
   to hold up a candle to show the brightness of the sun! How much more
   foolish to attempt to defend the thrice holy Jehovah! Let Him speak for
   Himself if He will deign to contend with you. If you do but hear His
   thunders, how you tremble! When His lightning sets the heavens on fire,
   how amazed you are! Stand forth, then, and question Him if you dare.

   If you are at sea in a storm, when every timber of your vessel creaks,
   when the mast is broken, when the mariners stagger like drunken men,
   when overhead is the horrible tempest, and the thundering voice of God
   in the tempest, and all around you the howling winds, then cease your
   caviling, and cry unto Him in your trouble. Act, then, this day as you
   would do in such a case, for you are equally in His hands. (Psalm 99:1,
   5; 1OO:3, 4). Thus have I tried to set forth the doctrine of the text.

   II. Now, very briefly, consider its PRACTICAL INSTRUCTION. I think the
   first lesson is how wise to be at one with Him! As I bowed before the
   majesty of this text in my study, I felt within my soul, "Oh, how I
   long to be perfectly at one with this infinitely mighty, glorious and
   holy God. How can I dare to be His enemy?" I felt then if I had not
   yielded before, I must yield now, subdued before Him. I would that any
   of you who are not doing His will would give up your hopeless
   rebellion. He invites you to come. He might have commanded you to
   depart. In His infinite Sovereignty He has appointed Christ Jesus to be
   the Savior of men. Come and accept that Savior by faith.

   How encouraging this is to those who are at one with God! If He is on
   our side, who shall be against us? "The Lord of Hosts is with us, the
   God of Jacob is our refuge." We ought to be of the same mind as that
   believing woman who, during an earthquake, was observed to be very
   happy. Everybody else was afraid--houses were falling, towers were
   rocking, but she

   smiled. And when they asked her why, she replied, "I am so glad to find
   that my God can shake the world. I believed He could, and now I see
   that He can."

   Be glad that you have One to trust in to whom nothing is impossible,
   who can and will achieve His purposes. My heart feels that she would
   give Him the power if He had it not, and if it were all mine. I would
   leave all power in His hands even if I could remove it. "Great God,
   reign You supremely, for there is none like unto You." "The Lord
   reigns; let the earth rejoice. Let the multitude of isles be glad
   thereof." How joyful this thought ought to be to all holy workers! You
   and I have enlisted on the side of God and of His Christ, and, though
   the powers against us seem very strong, yet the invincible King will
   surely put them to rout before long.

   Romanism, idolatry, infidelity--these all appear mighty things. And so
   seem those pots fresh from the potter--a child thinks them to be stone.
   But when the Lord Jesus smites them with the rod of iron, see how the
   potsherds fly! This shall He do before long. He will lift the might of
   His terrible arm and bring down His iron rod! Then shall it be seen
   that the Truth of God as it is in Jesus must and shall prevail.

   How this should help you that suffer! If God does it all, and nothing
   happens apart from God, even the wickedness and cruelty of man being
   still overruled by Him, you readily may submit. How graciously and with
   what good face can you kiss the hand which smites you! The husband is
   gone to Heaven, God took him. The property has melted, God has
   permitted it. You were robbed, you say--well, think not so much of the
   second cause, look to the great first cause. You strike a dog, he bites
   the stick. If he were wise, he would look at you who use it.

   Do not look at the second cause of the afflictions, look to the great
   first cause. It is your God who is in it all, your Father God, the
   Infinitely good. Which would you desire to have done on earth, your
   will or God's will? If you are wise, you say, "Not my will, but Yours
   be done." Then accept the ways of Providence. Since God appoints them,
   accept them with grateful praise. Herein is true sacrifice to God when
   we can say, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." We have
   received good at His hands, and we have blessed Him--heathen men and
   publicans might have done that. But if we receive evil and still bless
   Him, this is Divine Grace, this is the work of His Holy Spirit!

   If we can bow before His crushing strokes, and feel that if the
   crushing of us by the weight of His hand will bring Him honor, we are
   content. This is true faith. Give us Grace enough, O Lord, never to
   fail in our loyalty, but to be Your faithful servants even to
   sufferings' bitterest end. Oh, to have the mind thus subjected to God!
   Some kick at the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty, but I fear it is
   because they have a rebellious, unhumbled spirit. Those who feel
   obedient to God cannot have God cried up too much, cannot yield Him too
   absolute an authority. Only a rebellious child in a house wishes the
   father to be tied by rules and regulations. No, my Father must do
   right, let Him do what He wills!

   III. What is THE RIGHT SPIRIT in which to contemplate all this? The
   first is humble adoration. We do not worship enough, my Brethren. Even
   in our public gatherings we do not have enough worship. O worship the
   King! Bow your heads now--bow your spirits, rather, and adore Him that
   lives forever and ever. Your thoughts, your emotions--these are better
   than bullocks and he-goats to be offered on the altar--God will accept
   them. Worship Him with lowliest reverence, for you are nothing, and He
   is All in All. Next let the spirit of your hearts be that of
   unquestioning acquiescence. He wills it! I will do it or I will bear
   it. God help you to live in perfect resignation.

   Next to that, exercise the spirit of reverent love. Do I tremble before
   this God? Then I must seek more Grace that I may love Him as He is. Not
   love Him when my thoughts have diminished Him of His splendor, and
   robbed Him of His Glory, but love Him even as an absolute Sovereign,
   for I see that sovereignty exercised through Jesus Christ, my Shield
   and His Anointed. Let me love my God and King, and be a courtier, happy
   to be admitted near His Throne, to behold the light of the Infinite
   Majesty.

   Lastly, let our spirit be that of profound delight. I believe there is
   no doctrine to the advanced Christian which contains such a deep sea of
   delight as this. The Lord reigns! The Lord is King forever and ever!
   Why, then all is well! When you get away from God, you get away from
   peace. When the soul dives into Him, and feels that all is in Him, then
   she feels a calm delight, a peace like a river, a joy unspeakable.
   Strive after that delight this morning, my Beloved, and then go and
   express it in your songs of praise.

   If you are alone this afternoon, any of you, and not engaged in
   service, be sure to bless and magnify your God. Lift up your hearts in
   His praise, for "whoso offers praise glorifies God." May the Lord bring
   us all, through faith in Jesus Christ, into harmony with this
   ever-blessed and ever-living God, and unto Him be praise and glory
   forever and forever. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Means for Restoring the Banished

   (No. 950)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 11, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Neither does God respect any person: yet does He devise means, that
   His banished are not expelled from Him." 2Samuel 14:14.

   THE woman of Tekoah, in arguing with David for the recall of his son
   Absalom, argued with great shrewdness. After craftily entrapping the
   king by her parable, she then pleaded with him in persuasive terms--the
   cleverness of which we must admire--though the end aimed at was not
   consistent with the impartial justice which every magistrate ought to
   exercise. In effect she pleaded thus--"It is true that Absalom slew his
   brother Amnon. But nevertheless spare his life, and permit him to
   return from exile. What is done cannot be undone. Death is the common
   lot of all, and one way or another we must all become like water spilt
   upon the ground which cannot be gathered up.

   "By the death of his brother the slain man cannot be brought to life
   again. Have pity, therefore, upon Absalom, and quench not the coal of
   Israel's hope by executing the death penalty on your successor. It is
   true you must have no respect to persons, neither does God have any,
   but still He has been pleased in His infinite mercy to ordain a way by
   which the refugee manslayer may be restored to his home." It was well
   known to David that on the death of the High Priest, man-slayers who
   had found shelter in the cities set apart for refuge were allowed to go
   home and take full possession of their lands, being by the High
   Priest's death absolved from further liability to revengeful kinsmen of
   their victims, and allowed to mingle with other Israelites in the
   worship of God.

   "God then," says she, "has devised means by which His banished should
   not always be expelled from Him--do you likewise. Though Absalom may
   have fled for awhile, and been in banishment, have pity upon your son,
   and restore him." Thus much concerning the woman's argument, and no
   more. She gained her point, and we hear no more of her, nor need we
   think further of her and her shrewdness.

   Last Sunday morning we addressed you upon the infinite grandeur of God,
   upon His Sovereignty, and the way in which He exercises His will,
   unaided of mortal hand. Now, from the greatness of God to His mercy is
   no step, for the two should always be blended in our thoughts as they
   are in His Nature. Great as He is, He stoops to consider His side, His
   creatures, and Sovereign though He is, His name is Love. He regards not
   the person of any man, for what is man to God? What is man that God is
   mindful of him, or the son of man that He visits him? Man is so utterly
   insignificant in comparison with God, that whole nations are as
   nothing--yes, less than nothing and vanity.

   Yet despite the greatness of God, His wisdom is put to work to devise
   means by which guilty ones who have been banished from Him may be
   restored to Him. And it is of this devising means, this blessed
   thoughtfulness and ingenuity for restoring His banished ones that I
   hope to have Divine Grace given me to speak this morning. First we
   shall talk with you upon our first outlawry, and how God devises means
   to deliver us from that. Secondly, we shall speak upon some secondary
   banishments through which certain of God's people have passed, and how
   God devises means to bring them back from those. And lastly, we shall
   have a practical lesson to gather from the subject.

   I. First, there was A GREAT AND UNIVERSAL OUTLAWRY proclaimed by God
   against us all, as members of a rebel race. We have all broken His Law.
   Willfully and wickedly have we rebelled against the majesty of Heaven.
   We are, therefore, in our natural estate, banished ones--expelled from
   His love and favor--waiting the time when the sentence of His wrath
   shall be fulfilled, and, "Depart, you cursed," shall flash its
   lightning flame into our spirits. The Ever-Blessed God has devised
   means by which we may be delivered from this state of exile. And the
   means are very similar to that which was alluded to by the woman of
   Tekoah.

   He has set apart Jesus Christ to be to us a City of Refuge and a High
   Priest, and precisely what occurred to the man-slayer occurs to us.
   Now, what did happen to the manslayer? First of all, as soon as he had
   killed a man inadvertently,

   knowing that the next of kin would be after him to avenge the death, he
   fled, hot foot, as we say, to the nearest City of Refuge. And when he
   had once reached the gates of that city, he was secure. Dear Brothers
   and Sisters, even thus the Lord Jesus Christ was to us in days gone by
   a City of Refuge, and we fled to Him. Do you not remember the moment
   when you passed the portal, and were safe within the salvation which
   God appoints for walls and bulwarks?

   It was a happy thing to feel secure from vengeance. It was delightful
   to be able to feel--"Sin may pursue me, but it cannot slay me. The
   blood of Jesus stands between me and punishment. I am now, through my
   Substitute, secured from the wrath to come." Happy day when we thus
   began to realize that we were safe in the Savior, shielded by the
   Atonement. At the first we thought this was all, and we were content
   that it should be all. But after awhile deeper Truths of God began to
   open up to us, and the type was more completely fulfilled.

   The manslayer was bound to remain within the City of Refuge. He was a
   sort of prisoner on parole within the city bounds--if he went beyond
   the liberties of the town for any purpose, or on any pretense, he did
   it at his own risk, and was liable to be slain by any kinsman of the
   person whom he had killed. The Law only protected him while he remained
   within its appointed sanctuary. This banishment might continue for
   years, and the manslayer might die away from his native village, and
   the portion of land which belonged to his family. But if it so happened
   that the High Priest died, he and all others who had been sheltered
   within the city walls required that shelter no more.

   They were clear from all further vengeance. They could return to their
   homes without risk of being slain. Their liberty was complete. So I
   trust many of us have learned that we are not only safe through the
   blood of Jesus, but what is far better--we are absolved from sin. We
   are not now as men shut up from punishment--but as acquitted men
   against whom no charge can be laid--we walk at large. We dread no
   condemnation now, for our High Priest has died. At first we felt safe,
   but that feeling was clogged with conditions and limitations. But now
   we know that, "There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ
   Jesus."

   We are certain that we are clear before the Judgment Seat of God, and
   shall stand without fear before the Great White Throne, when in full
   blaze of holiness Divine Justice shall be revealed. We are emancipated
   from the bondage of the Law through the death of our Ever-Blessed High
   Priest. The manslayer went home, and if anyone had taken possession of
   his estate during his absence, he turned him out. And if the vines and
   fig trees had been untrimmed, he put them into the right fruit-bearing
   state. And if the fields had grown cumbered with weeds, he began to
   till them afresh.

   When the holy festivals came round, he who had been an exile before
   could go up with the great company that kept holy day without fear of
   being attacked by the avenger of blood. He had no blood-guiltiness upon
   him any longer, the death of the High Priest had ceremonially made him
   clean and admitted him into the throng of worshippers. And here is the
   joy of the Believer--all that he had lost by sin is restored to him by
   Christ's death! This world is his and worlds to come. He uses the once
   forfeited blessings of this life for his Master's glory, believing them
   no longer to be common or unclean. Now he mingles with the most joyous
   of the saints.

   For him their holy song, for him their access with confidence into the
   Grace wherein we stand. He rejoices that through the death of Jesus,
   the High Priest, he is perfectly restored to all the rights and
   liberties of the Israel of God. Oh, what a blessing this is! And what a
   means has God devised for the complete restoring of His exiles! This is
   a method worthy of our God. Jesus died instead of us! Jesus suffered
   the death penalty on our behalf--our faith makes His substitu-tionary
   sacrifice to be ours, and in that moment we have no longer ground for
   fear! We are discharged from every dread! We walk in blessed liberty,
   we see our privileges and avail ourselves of them. Jesus has restored
   that which He took not away--

   "In Him the sons of Adam boast More blessings than their father lost."
   Thus has God ordained a most effectual means that His banished are not
   expelled from Him.

   Though this is the grand means for restoring exiled man to communion
   with his God, yet through the depravity of our nature it would fail to
   be of any service to us, did not God further ordain means to make us
   willing to avail ourselves of it. There was need, not only to spread a
   feast of mercy, but to constrain us to partake of it. When we hear of
   salvation by Jesus, our proud nature at once rejects Him. We listen to
   the wondrous story of a substitutionary sacrifice, but like the Jews we
   require a sign, or as the Greeks, we seek after some fancied wisdom. He
   comes unto His own, and His own receive

   him not. Therefore the Lord further devises means by which the
   sacrifice of Jesus shall be accepted by us, and shall become our
   confidence.

   The Holy Spirit is specially appointed to work salvation in us--He
   subdues the will, and converts the heart. He leads sinners to Jesus,
   and applies the cleansing blood to their consciences. He draws with
   mysterious influences till the unwilling heart relents. If we will not
   of ourselves run to the refuge city, messengers are sent to invite, to
   persuade, to compel us to come in. God wills not that His love should
   be baffled--He resolves to save. He devises means to convert the
   sinner. And now let each one of us think for a minute of his own case.
   It will be a gracious exercise for each Believer here to remember the
   special way which God devised to bring him to Jesus. Turn over now your
   life-records, and read the page which records your spiritual birthday,
   and trace the hand of God in your conversion, each one of you. I may
   help you by mentioning a few of the more prominent means which Grace
   employs.

   In most cases it is the preaching of the Gospel which restores the
   wandering. The preaching of the Word is God's great saving agency among
   mankind. How gracious is God to ordain a means so simple, yet by His
   Grace, so efficient! How wondrously does He co-work with His ministers
   so that His Word shall not return unto Him void! Many of His chosen,
   but banished ones, are so far off in their exile that they will not
   come to hear the message of Grace. God therefore devises means to bring
   them where the Truth is declared. Not a few are led to hear the Truth
   from the force of education and custom, and of these, great numbers are
   effectually called.

   But others, apparently less favored, are brought by equally successful
   methods. Some are induced by a friend to come, and they thus hear the
   Gospel out of courtesy to him who invited them. Yet in many cases the
   gracious Lord has saved by the Word those whom that feeble motive
   brought within its reach. Another class feel the stimulus of an equally
   undeserving motive. A certain preacher may be much spoken of. He may be
   a reputed eccentric, or railed at as fanatical. At any rate, he has a
   name, and therefore hundreds are drawn to his ministry out of
   curiosity. This is not commendable in them, but it is often overruled
   by God, for, like Zaccheus, they are called by Jesus, and He abides in
   their house.

   Curiosity is one of the means which God devises for bringing men to
   hear His Gospel, that thereby He may lead back His banished--that they
   be not expelled from Him. There have even been cases of persons who
   have heard the Gospel from worse motives than these. They have been
   actuated even by blasphemy and profanity, yet, strange to say it, God's
   all-conquering Grace has made even this to be the way by which His
   banished ones should be brought back to Him. The memorable case of Mr.
   Thorpe, a noted preacher of the Gospel, rises to one's mind here. He
   was, before his conversion, a member of an infidel club.

   In those days infidelity was more coarse than now. And this skeptical
   society took the name of the "Hell Fire Club." Among their amusements
   was that of holding imitations of religious services, and exhibiting
   mimicries of popular ministers. Young Thorpe went to hear Mr.
   Whitfield, that he might mimic him before his profane associates. He
   heard him so carefully that he caught his tones and his manner, and
   somewhat of his doctrines. When the club met to see his caricature of
   the great preacher, Thorpe opened a big Bible that he might take a text
   to preach from it extempore after the manner of Mr. Whitfield. His eye
   fell on the passage, "Except you repent, you shall all likewise
   perish." As he spoke upon that text he was carried beyond himself, lost
   all thought of mockery, spoke as one in earnest, and was the means of
   his own conversion!

   He was likely to say, in after years, "If ever I was helped of God to
   preach, it was that very day when I began in sport but ended in
   earnest." He was carried by the force of Truth beyond his own
   intention, like one who would sport in a river, and is swept away by
   its current. From a thousand instances I gather that a man is in the
   way of hope while hearing the Word. Who can tell? The scoffer may be
   reached by the arrows of Truth. Where shots are flying, the most
   careless may be wounded. God, who makes use of His ministers as He
   wills, can bring His banished home by His Word, even though the hearer
   had far other motives in hearing it.

   Even a minister's failures may be a part of God's ordained scheme of
   salvation. We sometimes feel, after we have finished our discourse,
   that we have done very badly, but we are poor judges of our own work.
   If we have earnestly done our best, God may have turned our thoughts in
   a direction in which our words may have failed us. But the Truth of God
   may have been, for all that, more powerful for that very reason. When
   most out of our way, we may be most in God's way. The archer who drew
   his bow at a venture, little thought of piercing the joints of Ahab's
   armor, yet his arrow did the work well.

   Holy Mr. Tennant, in America, had with great care studied a sermon,
   because he knew that an eminent skeptic was likely to attend the
   service. He hoped that a sound argument might win his hearer, but in
   his intense earnestness he became too absorbed to follow out the chain
   of his reasoning, his speech faltered, and though generally a man
   remarkable for eloquence, he came to a standstill, and concluded the
   service abruptly. This, however, was the means of the conversion of his
   skeptical friend. For as he had often heard Mr. Tennant before, and
   noticed how remarkably well he had spoken, and had now regretted his
   painful hesitation, he said within himself, "There is evidently such a
   thing as the assistance of the Holy Spirit, for Mr. Tennant has been
   helped at other times, and not on this occasion." That one gleam of
   Truth sufficed to show him other truths, and he became converted to
   God.

   Oh, blessed blundering, blessed faltering, blessed breaking-down! If it
   is a part of God's means by which His banished may be brought back,
   gladly would I be dumb and forfeit the sweet luxury of fluent speech,
   if my silence would better serve the purpose of my Lord! I have no
   doubt that the Holy Spirit often works most when our feebleness is most
   apparent. Our infirmity we may well glory in, if such is the case.
   Certainly, the wonder-working God is pleased to send us as His
   ambassadors, and by our means He brings back those whom sin had
   banished from His Presence.

   But, Beloved, besides the vocal preaching of the Gospel, the printed
   word of God, itself, is a preacher through the eye. Holy Scripture has
   often been the sole means in the hands of its Divine Author of
   converting the soul. Many texts of Scripture are notable as
   soul-winning words. God works through the sacred page, and gives light
   to the ignorant. Think how God works with His Word, how frequently the
   ungodly eye has been directed to the precise passage that should be the
   power of God unto salvation! Why did not that hand turn over another
   page, and that eye light on another verse? The Lord was there to fix
   the glance where the blessing lay!

   How frequently the Words of Scripture have seemed to the reader to be
   meant on purpose for him! The exact turn of thought and form of
   expression have been the channels of blessing. I can never refuse to
   believe in plenary inspiration while I have before me so many instances
   in which the mere tense, number and position of certain Words have been
   the instruments of quickening and consolation. In the very Words of
   Scripture I see devices for bringing home the banished. That the mind
   should be prepared for the text is equally remarkable, because there
   must have been workings of Providence and more spiritual influences in
   operation to make the mind ready for the peculiar teaching of that
   chosen text.

   I see clearly an elaborate machinery at work--wheel revolves within
   wheel, cause acts upon cause, event upon event, thought upon
   thought--and in all I see Divinely ingenious methods for restoring the
   expelled to their lost inheritance. Certain minds are best reached by
   the Truth of God as it is re-written and cast into another mold by
   godly men. There are some who believe on Jesus not so much by His Word
   as by that of His disciples. "Neither pray I for them alone, but for
   them also that shall believe on Me through their word." The value of
   religious books and tracts cannot be calculated. The modes of
   expression of some men are, I doubt not, fashioned by the Lord with a
   view to certain characters which by no other means could be reached.

   Bunyan may bless where Baxter fails. Angel James may win the attention
   where Doddridge is not successful. Cowper may attract where John Newton
   is disregarded. Even a text may miss where thoughts derived from it may
   strike and stick. The experience of the writer and his modes of thought
   are often manifestly adapted for his reader, and there God's devising
   is again seen.

   But it is not only through the direct teaching of Scripture that the
   Lord brings His banished to Himself. He has called very many by the
   casual remarks of earnest Christians, casual as from them, but all
   ordained in the eternal purpose. I wish we were more in the habit of
   speaking to our unconverted friends about the things that make for
   their peace. We might often be delighted by hearing of conversions if
   we were instant in season and out of season. Sowing beside all waters,
   our harvest would be far more abundant. God often casts us into certain
   circumstances on purpose to make us use those circumstances to His
   Glory--but we are not always awake to His design.

   Our reaching the station too late for a train. Our being cast into
   certain society on board a steamboat. Our overtaking a stranger on the
   road. Our mistaking a path--all such things as these which happen every
   day may be only indicators in God's Providence of some work that we
   have to do for Him. A Christian minister was one day sent for to visit
   a dying man, and when he reached the bedside he was gratified by
   hearing the dying man say, "Sir, I thought I should like to speak with
   you before I went to Heaven. I thank God I have a good hope through
   Grace, for I rest on Christ Jesus, and I wish to tell you that you were
   the means of my conversion."

   "How so?" said the minister, "Did you attend my ministry, I do not
   remember to have seen you?" "No, Sir, I was a hearer elsewhere, but one
   night I met you in the streets of a certain town, and I asked you
   whether I was going the right way to a certain terrace, and you told me
   I was going away from it, and had better take the next turning." And
   then you said, "I hope you are equally earnest to find the right way to
   Heaven!" I had never thought of Divine Truth, Sir, until that evening."
   Now, that is a thing any of us might have said, and ought to have said
   under such circumstances, but did we say it?

   Let seed unsown be this day steeped in tears of deep regret. The old
   Covenanters used to tell with joy the story of Mr. Guthrie, who lost
   his way one night on a moor. His companions went on, and he missed
   them. When he, at last, rejoined them, having found the way, he showed
   them that it was a blessed piece of Providence. Said he, "I wandered
   across the moor till I came to a little cottage where was a sick and
   dying woman. The priest was just administering to her extreme unction,
   and when he went out I went in. She was troubled in mind. I told her
   the Gospel, and she believed in Jesus. I found her in a state of
   nature, I preached the Gospel to her until I saw her in a state of
   Grace! And when I came away I left her in a state of Glory!"

   Yes, God will make us miss our way that souls may find theirs. He will
   put us into positions where we may find out His banished ones. He will
   bring them into contact with His earnest people in ways which will
   conduce to the saving result. Let us be on the lookout. He who observes
   his opportunities will find them plentifully given him. God devises for
   us, and we have but to follow the trail of Providence.

   But I must hasten on. Many are brought to repentance and faith by
   sickness. They have been frivolous in health, but the chamber of
   affliction has given them time and reasons for meditation. Losses,
   disappointments, poverty, and all sorts of so-called misfortunes, have
   worked for the same end. The deaths of others, too--oh, what loud calls
   have these been-- and how frequently have ears been opened to them! In
   this great city the deaths of little babes are among Heaven's most
   important missionary operations. The many who are born only to die--are
   these wasted lives? Oh, no! Mothers are beckoned to the skies by their
   departing infants, and fathers, though they may be steeped in
   indifference to the Gospel, are made to think seriously of the world to
   come.

   You infant cherubs, who in Heaven behold the face of our great Father,
   how often are you ministers of his that do His pleasure! In this sense,
   out of the mouth of babes and sucklings has God ordained strength.
   Accidents, storms, fires, wrecks, famines, wars, fevers, plagues,
   earthquakes, and I know not what beside have all alarmed sinners and
   driven them to God. Omnipotence finds servants everywhere. Grace is
   never short of devices. The Lord is wonderful in counsel, fertile in
   means. The stones of the field and the stars of Heaven are alike in
   league with Him. The armory of the Gospel is never destitute of
   suitable weapons! The artillery of Heaven strikes at all ranges, and is
   never short of ammunition.

   In addition to this, one ought to remember that there is going on in
   these happy times a great work of bringing in the banished in the
   matter of the early education of the young. It were impossible to
   overestimate the sacred influences which operate in our Sunday schools
   and in the homes where godly parents preside. Men cannot quite forget
   the teachings of a holy fireside. They may somewhat, but not utterly.
   The seed may lie buried long in dust, but the day will come when under
   ordained circumstances the hidden life will germinate. A verse of an
   old familiar hymn may lead the man of eighty to the Savior, though he
   learned it when a child.

   The holy text, which like bread was cast on the waters, shall be found
   again after many days. I believe in the Holy Spirit, and in His sacred
   care for Divine Truth. He will not suffer the Word of God to fail. His
   holy influence, like the rain and the snow, shall not return void to
   Heaven. It shall water the earth, and make it to bring forth and bud.
   It is ours to continue blessing youth with holy and godly instruction,
   and God will crown our efforts to the bringing of His banished ones to
   Himself.

   So, too, with Christian influence. Holy living perfumes the air with
   Divine Grace. They who serve God in their spheres as servants or
   masters, as rich or poor, are spreading holy health around them. We are
   told by chemists of an essence called ozone, which is given off by
   certain substances, and has in it the most purifying properties.
   Believers who are full of Grace may be said to give off a sacred ozone
   in their lives. Not only when we speak, but as we live, if our
   conversation is ordered aright, our influence is healthful. Our prayers
   bring down unnumbered blessings, and our consecrated lives become the
   channels of their communication to the sons of men.

   Nor is this all. I believe God not only uses good things, but even evil
   things, to bring His banished home. Satan sometimes outshoots himself.
   Goliath has been slain by his own sword. I have seen self-righteous
   men, callous to the appeals of the Gospel, at last fall into gross sin.
   And then they have recoiled from themselves, have shuddered at the
   depravity they have discovered in their hearts. And by the sight of the
   sin of which they did not before believe themselves to have been
   capable, they have been driven to the Savior. Sin may thus, through
   God's Grace, undermine its own dominion.

   And so with error. It is a grand thing when error works out its own
   absurdity, and discovers its own nakedness. I look with great
   thankfulness to God upon the condition of the Roman Catholic Church
   now. That infallibility dogma I believe will be, under God, the means
   of bringing some of His banished ones to see the Truth of God as it is
   in Jesus. Many credulous but intensely sincere persons could go long
   and far, and scarcely know where they were, thinking that their deadly
   error was the Truth of God--but this last stage in the blind man's
   progress has proved too much for them.

   The new dogma is too manifest a lie! It smells too strongly of the
   bottomless pit, and many, I trust, will start back from it. I have
   conversed but lately with one upon whom it has had that effect--a
   thorough believer in all the doctrines of the Church of Rome until it
   came to that, [infallibility of the pope], and now he sees his ground
   cut from under him, and I hope very speedily to baptize him as a
   Believer in Christ Jesus! Though otherwise he would have been a priest
   to preach falsehood, he will now, I trust, proclaim the Gospel of Jesus
   Christ!

   You do not know, you cannot tell, what will happen. In the world of
   mind there are revolutions of the most marvelous kind. The God of
   miracles has not ceased to do great marvels. It is ours to work and
   wait, and we shall surely see the salvation of God. Where God is in the
   field of battle, His infallible strategy turns everything to account
   against the powers of evil. He can not only unmask His own batteries,
   which as yet we know not of, but He can take the guns of His enemies
   and turn them upon themselves. When Truth seems defeated, she is
   nearest her victory. God is never mistaken. The Lord of Hosts knows
   nothing of difficulties. He has devised means to bring His banished
   ones back to Himself, and He will make those means available to His
   honor and Glory. Songs eternal shall celebrate the wisdom of God which
   achieved His purposes of love.

   II. Secondly, and I am sorry it will be so briefly, OUR SECONDARY
   BANISHMENTS. Alas, the people of God sometimes fall into sin. They grow
   careless, and they walk at a distance from their best Friend, and then
   sin prevails against them. But the Lord has provided means for bringing
   them back from their wandering. "He restores my soul." The Holy Spirit,
   though grieved, will return, convict His servants, again, of sin, and
   lead them with weeping and supplication to their Savior. He will turn
   again the captivity of His people, and heal their backslidings.
   "Return, you backsliding Ephraim," will yet be heard, and the wanderer
   will yet say, "Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation."

   Think of David for a moment. He had mournfully gone aside, and was
   banished from all consciousness of Divine favor. But the Lord sent His
   servant Nathan to find him. There could not have been a fitter parable
   than Nathan told him, and, "You are the man," was just the right word
   to fix the application. His child also died, and this deepened what
   Nathan had spoken. The king was led to weep and lament before God as he
   saw chastisement coming to his house. And though he had sinned
   grievously, yet he was brought back with tears of repentance to his
   God. The Lord, the God of Israel, says that He hates putting away,
   therefore He devises means that His banished are not expelled from Him.

   Take the case of Samson. What an unhappy fall was his! Nothing could
   have saved him from his degrading lust but his failing strength, and
   his doleful captivity. The putting out of his eyes, the making him to
   grind at the mill, the fetters and the prison were all a part of God's
   means to bring His banished back again. In his shame and degradation
   Samson had room to see his sin, though he was blind. And in his misery
   he was made to feel the bitterness of guilt, and to return unto his
   God. Take another case and a fuller one, that of Peter. Peter denied
   his Lord. Was it not remarkable that just then the cock should crow?
   That was part of the heavenly device.

   God uses very little things, and works out His designs by them. Even a
   cock's crowing can break a backslider's heart if the Lord pleases. And
   then just as the cock crew a second and a third time, the Savior turned
   and looked on Peter, and that blessed look of mingled love and rebuke
   did the work of conviction most thoroughly, for he went out and wept
   bitterly. Then when Peter was ripe for consolation. The Lord had
   provided a tender heart to cheer him--for there was John--that dear
   John so full of love, and we find him with Peter as a companion. Who
   knows how greatly that companionship helped to put the wanderer right?

   Then to crown all, the Master when He addressed the women, said, "Go
   tell My disciples and Peter." That special word for Peter completed the
   heavenly cure. All these were parts of the plan by which Peter was
   restored and converted from his sin to become again a joyful servant of
   his blessed Lord. Let us keep away from sin. But if we have fallen into
   it, let us not despair, for the Lord has devised means that His
   banished are not expelled from Him.

   There is another kind of banishment which is produced not so much by
   sin primarily as by despondency. There are some true souls whom God
   loves, who yet do not often enjoy a sunshiny day. They are very dark as
   to their hope and their joy, and some of them have perhaps, for months,
   lost the light of God's countenance. In their complaining moments they
   are tempted to say, "Lo, these many years do I serve You, and yet You
   never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends." Yet,
   what promises there are for them! The ingenuity of God has revealed
   itself remarkably in the wording of His promises to suit the conditions
   of His poor tempest-tossed and downcast people--

   "What more can He say than to you He has said, You who unto Jesus for
   refuge have fled?"

   How graciously our heavenly Father sends to His afflicted words of good
   cheer by persons who have passed through similar experiences, and can
   therefore sympathize with them. If it seems better in His sight He
   ministers comfort by those of an opposite temperament, whose cheerful
   way of talking of Jesus chides the disconsolate out of their despair.
   Giant Despair may get the child of God in the dungeon, and lock the
   door as fast as he pleases, and nail up the windows, and put iron bars
   before them--but the Lord knows how to get His children out of the
   prison after all. The Giant may say, "I shall make an end of them. I
   have bones in my castle yard of others I have slain, and I will have
   theirs, also. I will persuade them to use the knife or halter, and get
   them to put an end to themselves."

   But he does not know that God has hidden in the Christian's bosom the
   key called "Promise," and at last the key shall open the door, and out
   of Doubting Castle the prisoners shall come, escaping like birds out of
   the snare of the fowler. I believe the histories of some desponding
   ones would surprise us could we know them. I have never been able to
   doubt that almost-miracle related of Mrs. Honeywood by many of the
   Puritan divines, men of undoubted truthfulness. After many years of
   despair, she took up a Venice glass, and dashing it to the ground,
   cried, " It is of no use comforting me, for I am damned as surely as
   this glass is broken."

   To the amazement of all, it was not broken. And though nothing had
   cheered her for years, she was, if I may so say, confounded into hope.
   Oh, the stories that desponding souls might tell--of how God has
   appeared to them at last! Let us be cheered by remembering the Lord's
   wonders of old, for He is the same still. The smoking flax shall yet
   burst into a joyous flame. The third day He will raise you up, and you
   shall live in His sight. Israel shall come out of Egypt--with a high
   hand and an outstretched arm will Jehovah deliver His afflicted. Only
   look up, quietly wait, and turn your eyes to Calvary's bleeding Savior,
   and you shall yet find light arise in darkness. The Lord will not leave
   even the least of His people to perish in despair. His wisdom fails
   not, nor His love. He shall break the gates of brass, and cut the bars
   of iron in sunder, and His chosen shall come forth from the house
   ofbondage.

   III. I have thus, as best I could, set forth the abounding goodness of
   the Great God our Savior, but now there is A PRACTICAL LESSON to be
   gathered from all this, and I want you to learn it. If God thus brings
   back His banished, let us bring back ours.

   The first application of that rule is this--there may, perhaps, out of
   so many hundreds of persons here, be some-one--a father, a mother, or
   some other relative, who has been compelled, as he has thought, to deny
   and no longer to acknowledge a child or a brother. Great offenses have
   at last brought anger into your bosom, and, as you think, very
   justifiable anger. I shall not argue the point. I will however say
   this, God has devised means of bringing back His banished--could not
   you devise some means to bring back yours?

   Oh, could not the lad be tried again? Could not the daughter have
   another opportunity? Did you tell your brother never to darken your
   house? Let tomorrow's post bear him an invitation to come and see you
   again. Do you expect God to forgive you if you forgive not others? Do
   you think that He to whom you owe ten thousand talents, will excuse you
   the debt if you take your debtor by the throat who only owes you a
   hundred pence? Oh, celebrate this day by a full forgiveness of all who
   have done anything against you! And do not merely say, "Well, I will do
   it if they will ask me."

   That is not what God does, He is first in the matter, and devises
   means. Try. Consider. Devise means. "Would you have me lower myself?"
   My dear Friend, sometimes to lower ourselves is to make ourselves much
   higher in God's sight.

   There is such a thing as bowing down to rise, stooping to conquer. He
   who is first to put an end to strife is the most honorable of the two.
   Anything is better than harboring wrath and being revengeful or bitter
   of spirit. I will say no more, only God grant you may put it in
   practice if you are in the position described.

   The last application of the lesson shall be this--let every Christian
   devise means for bringing to Jesus those banished ones who surround
   him. We must, as a Christian Church, be indefatigably industrious in
   seeking out the Lord's expelled and banished ones who live in our
   neighborhood. I felt much joy of heart this week, in Liverpool, where I
   preached to an assembly of fallen women, for I felt as I spoke that the
   words dropped upon soil made ready to receive it. I hope it was so.

   O dear Christian people, if you know of any whom the world casts out,
   be diligent to bring them in! If society says to them, "We do not know
   you, you are like lepers and must be set apart," go after them, go
   after them among the first. The most sick require the physician first.
   The most fallen most need help. If you feel that you can do the work, I
   pray you will give yourself to it with diligence. There is a vast
   amount of ignorance as well as sin in this city and in all our large
   towns. I know it is hard to labor among the very ignorant and degraded,
   but it is to these we ought to go first.

   Keep up your Ragged schools. Young men and young women who have a call
   to such work, persevere in this holy service. You will meet with many
   difficulties and little apparent success--never mind--you must devise
   means to bring these banished ones back! Push on with your work. God
   will bless you. Might not more be done by some of you, by having
   classes at your houses, classes of young men and young women, or boys
   and girls? We have not always enough rooms for such purposes, and to
   build them costs money--are there not many of you who might use your
   parlors in that way on the Sunday, and do much good at no cost? That
   may be your means of bringing back God's banished ones.

   Or perhaps you have a larger room, and might get up a weekly Prayer
   Meeting, or hold a little service. There are very many who will never
   enter our Churches and Chapels who would enter cottages and private
   houses, if invited. We cannot multiply services too much in this great
   city. It may not be so in small villages, but here we have awful need
   and are literally sweltering in sin and ignorance. Devise means for
   bringing the banished ones back. Think of something suitable for your
   abilities, and get about it. Is this plan inapplicable? Try another.
   Cannot you distribute tracts? Could you not write letters to your
   associates and friends about their souls? How often are those letters
   blessed! Wisely written and much prayed over, I do not know of a better
   means for fishing for souls than godly letters. Try the plan.

   God devised means to save you. In His hands begin to devise means for
   saving others. Science and art have their fertile inventors, and shall
   we fail for lack of a little sanctified common sense? O for planners
   and plotters who will lay out all their ingenuity in plans for
   soul-winning. I thank God that there are so many of you doing good, but
   I would that all of you were. I would that everyone here felt, "I must,
   while the day lasts, work for my Lord. The night is coming on." I will
   say thus much--if there is one person here who cannot be excused from
   working, and does not wish to be, it is the preacher, for oh, I owe my
   Lord so much! I had so much sin to be forgiven, and it has been
   forgiven. And I have received so much mercy at His hands, that I would
   ask, as long as I live, to be devising means for bringing others to my
   precious Redeemer.

   Now, if He has not shown such love to you, you shall be excused. But I
   know many of you will cry out, "The preacher says he owes much, but we
   owe quite as much. We are equally in debt to the infinite mercy of
   God." Then I charge you in the name of Him who was crucified for you!
   By His precious blood and wounds! By His everlasting love, and by His
   coming to receive you to Himself, I charge you--"Be steadfast,
   immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your
   labor is not in vain in the Lord." Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Unrivalled Eloquence Of Jesus

   (No. 951)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 18, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The officers answered, Never man spoke like this Man." John 7:46.

   THE chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to lay hold upon the
   Savior lest His preaching should altogether overthrow their power.
   While the constables who had mingled with the throng were waiting for
   an opportunity of arresting the Lord Jesus, they themselves were
   arrested by His earnest eloquence. They could not take Him, for He had
   fairly taken them, and when they came back without a prisoner, they
   gave their reason for not having captured Him in these memorable words,
   "Never man spoke like this Man."

   Two or three remarks as a preface to our discourse. It is a sure sign
   of a falling Church when its leaders call in the aid of the secular
   arm. The rule of the Scribes and Pharisees must have been weakness,
   itself, when it needed to wield the truncheon of the civil magistrate
   as its only sufficient argument against its antagonist. That Church
   which has been supported by bayonets, is in all probability, not far
   off its demise. Any Church which long collects its tithes and its
   offerings by the hand of the police, and by legal process and
   distraint, is also, depend upon it, none too strong.

   The Church which is unable to maintain itself by spiritual power is
   dying, if not dead. Whenever we think of calling in an arm of flesh to
   defend the faith, we may very seriously question whether we have not
   made a mistake, and whether that which can be supported by the sword
   must not greatly differ from the Savior's kingdom, of which He said,
   "My kingdom is not of this world, else would My servants fight."

   The more a man leans on a big staff the more sure are you that he is
   feeble. In proportion as Churches rely on Acts of Parliament, human
   prestige, and legal authority--in that very degree they show their
   weakness. Call in the sheriffs officer, and you have virtually called
   in the gravedigger! In this respect it is peculiarly true, "All they
   that take the sword shall perish with the sword." A Church is buried by
   the State, and not supported, when it draws its sustenance from forced
   tithes and legalized exactions.

   Observe, next, that in the end the spiritual power will always baffle
   the temporal. The officers are fully armed and quite able to complete
   the arrest of the Preacher. He has no weapons with which to oppose
   them. He stands unarmed amid the throng--probably none of His disciples
   would lift a finger to defend Him--or if they did, He would bid them
   put up their sword into its sheath. And yet the officers cannot seize
   the non-resistant Preacher. What stays their hands? It has come to a
   combat between body and mind, and mind prevails.

   The eloquent tongue is matched against the two-edged sword, and it has
   won the day. No fears or qualms of conscience hampered the constables
   and yet they could not lay their hands on Him. They were chained to the
   spot where they stood--spellbound by the mystic power of His speech.
   His very tones fascinated them! The discourse which He poured forth so
   fluently held them fast as His willing captives. It has always been
   so--the spiritual has conquered the physical. Though at first it seemed
   an unequal conflict, yet in the long run the elder has served the
   younger.

   The club of Cain may lay Abel level with the dust, but it does not
   silence him--from the ground the blood of Abel continues still to cry.
   Martyrs may be consigned to prison, and dragged from prison to the
   stake--so that to all appearance a full end is made of the good
   men--but "even in their ashes live their wonted fires." At the stake
   they find a platform with a boundless auditory, and from the grave
   their teaching cries with louder voice than from the pulpit.

   Like seeds sown in the earth they spring up and multiply themselves.
   Others arise to bear the same witness, and if need be to seal it in the
   same fashion. As Pharaoh's mighty hosts could not combat with the hail
   and the lightning which plagued the fields of Zoan, and as all their
   chivalry could not put to flight the darkness that might be felt, even
   so when God sends His Truth with power upon a land, battleaxe and
   buckler are vain in the opposers' hands. Our appointed weapons of
   attack are not carnal, neither can they be withstood by shield or
   armor. Our bowstrings cannot be broken, or

   the edge of our sword blunted. Let but the Lord furnish His ministers,
   as he did at Pentecost, with wondrous Words instead of shields, and
   spears, and swords--and these weapons of the holy war will prove
   themselves to be irresistible.

   Fight on, O Preacher! Tell forth the story of the Cross! Defy
   opposition and laugh persecution to scorn, for, like your Master, you
   shall, as His servant, ascend above all your enemies, lead your
   captivity captive, and scatter good gifts among the sons of men! Note
   again that God can get testimonies to the majesty of His Son from the
   most unlikely places. I do not know who these constables may have been,
   or from what class of men they were drawn, but generally the civil
   authorities do not employ the most refined and intellectual persons to
   act as officers.

   They do not require much tenderness of spirit for such work--a rough
   hand, a keen eye and a bold spirit are the principal requisites for a
   constable. The priests and Pharisees would naturally select for the
   seizing of the great Teacher those who were least likely to be affected
   by His teaching. And yet these men--doubtless men of brutal habits, men
   ready enough to do their masters' bidding--showed within themselves
   sufficient mental capacity to feel the power of the matchless oratory
   of Jesus Christ.

   Those who were sent as enemies came back to rehearse His praises, and
   so to vex His adversaries. Truly the Lord can make the stones to cry
   out of a wall, and the beam out of the timber to answer it if He wills.
   He can transform the ready instruments of opposition into the willing
   advocates of His righteous cause. Not only as in the case of Saul of
   Tarsus can He direct a high character into the right path, but He can
   uplift the groveling and put a testimony into their mouths. He makes
   the wrath of men to praise Him.

   He compels His adversaries to do Him homage. Keep good heart, then, O
   you soldiers of the Cross! Let no thought of discouragement ever flit
   across your spirits. Greater is He that is for us than all they that
   are against us. He can and will glorify His Son Jesus. Even the devils
   shall acknowledge His almighty power. His Word has gone forth and His
   Oath has confirmed it--"Surely as I live, says the Lord, all flesh
   shall see the salvation of God." God will glorify Himself even by the
   tongues of His enemies! In this hope let us set up our banners.

   The text introduces to our notice the eloquence of our Lord Jesus
   Christ and upon that topic we shall try to speak. May the Holy Spirit
   enable us. We shall note first the peculiar qualities of it, which
   amply justified the praise of the constables. Secondly, personal
   recollections of it, treasured up by ourselves. And, thirdly, prophetic
   anticipations of the time when our souls shall hear His voice yet more
   distinctly, and shall say again, "Never man spoke like this Man."

   I. Let us note the PECULIAR QUALITIES of our Lord's eloquence. As among
   kings He is the King of kings. As among priests He is the great High
   Priest. As among Prophets He is the Messiah. And so is He the Prince of
   preachers, the Apostle of our profession. They who are most excellent
   as preachers are those who are most like He. But even those who by
   being most like He have become eminent, they are still far short of His
   excellence. "His lips," says the spouse, "are like lilies, dropping
   sweet smelling myrrh." He is a Prophet mighty in word and deed.

   To form a right conception of our Lord's ministry it is necessary to
   note the whole of it, and we may do so without departing from the text.
   For though the officers did not hear all that Jesus said, I have no
   doubt that the qualities which shone in His entire ministry were, many
   of them, apparent in the discourse which He delivered on that
   particular occasion. Follow me, therefore, as I note the leading
   qualities of His unrivalled eloquence.

   The most casual reader of Christ's discourses would observe that their
   style is singularly clear and easy to understand. And yet their matter
   is by no means trivial or superficial. Did ever man speak like this
   Man, Christ Jesus, for simplicity? Little children gathered around Him,
   for much of what He said was interesting, even to them. If there was
   ever a difficult word in any of Christ's discourses, it is because it
   must be there owing to the faultiness of human language. But there is
   never a hard word inserted for its own sake, where an easier word could
   have been employed.

   You never find Him, for the sake of display, speeding upon the wings of
   rhetoric. He never gives forth dark sayings that His hearers may
   discover that His learning is vast and His thinking profound. He is
   profound, and in that respect, "never man spoke like this Man." He
   unveils the mysteries of God. He brings to light the treasures of
   darkness of the ages past which Prophets and kings desired to see, but
   into which they could not pry.

   There is, in His teaching, a depth so vast that the greatest human
   intellect cannot fathom it. And all the while He speaks like the "holy
   child Jesus"--in short sentences, with plain words. He speaks in
   parables with many illustrations of the most homely kind--about eggs,
   and fish, and candles, and bushels, and sweeping houses, and losing
   pieces of money,

   and finding sheep. He never paraded the stale and mildewed metaphors of
   your mere rhetoricians--"rippling rills, verdant meads, star-bespangled
   heavens," and I know not what besides.

   The hackneyed properties of theatrical orations are not for Him--His
   speech abounds in the true and most natural of images, and is ever
   constructed not to display Himself, but to make clear the Truth which
   He was sent to reveal. "Never man spoke like this Man!" The common
   people with their common sense heard Him gladly, for even if they could
   not always grasp the full compass of His teaching, yet upon the surface
   of His plain speech there glittered lumps of golden ore well worthy to
   be treasured up.

   For this quality our Savior, then, remains unrivalled, easily
   understood, yet profound. His speech had this also about it--He spoke
   with unusual authority. He was a master dogmatist. It was not, "it may
   be so," or, "it can be proven," or, "it is highly probable." No, it
   was, "Verily, verily, I say unto you." And yet, side by side with this
   was an extraordinary degree of humility. The Master spoke dogmatically,
   but never with proud self-sufficiency, after the manner of the children
   of conceit. He never pestered you with assumptions of superiority, and
   claims to official dignity.

   He borrowed no assistance from a priestly robe, or from an imposing
   title. Meek He was as Moses, but like Moses He spoke the Words of the
   Lord with absolute authority. Lowly and gentle of heart, never
   extolling Himself, nor bearing witness of Himself, for then, as He
   says, His witness would not be true. He was nevertheless the
   unhesitating minister of righteousness, speaking with power, because
   the Lord's Spirit had anointed Him.

   Coming out of the ivory palaces, fresh from the bosom of His
   Father--having looked into the unseen and heard the infallible
   oracle--He spoke not with bated breath, with hesitancy and debate as
   the scribes and lawyers. He spoke not with arguments and reasonings as
   the priests and Pharisees, creating perplexity and pouring darkness
   upon human minds. "Verily, verily, I say unto you," were His favorite
   Words. He spoke that He did know, and testified what He had seen, and
   demanded to be accepted as sent forth from the Father.

   He did not debate, but declare. His sermons were not guesses, but
   testimonies. Yet He never magnifies Himself, He lets His works and His
   Father bear witness of Him. He asserts Truth from His own positive
   knowledge, and because He has a commission from the Father to do
   so--but never as mere dogmatists do with an extolling of their own
   selves, as though they were to be glorified and not the God who sent
   the Truth and the Spirit by whom it is applied.

   Further, in our Lord's preaching there was a wonderful combination of
   faithfulness with tenderness. He was, indeed, the Prince of faithful
   preachers. Not even Nathan, when He stood before King David, and said,
   "You are the man," could be more true to human conscience than Christ
   was. How those cutting words of His must have told, like rifle bullets
   when they were first hurled against the respectability of the age, "Woe
   unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" "Woe unto you, lawyers,"
   and so forth.

   There was no mincing matters, no winking at wickedness because it
   happened to be associated with greatness, no excusing sin because it
   put on the sanctimoniousness of religion. He neither fawned on the
   great, nor pandered to the populace. Jesus reproved all classes to
   their faces concerning their sins. It never occurred to Him to seek to
   please men. He looked to the doing of His Father's business, and since
   that business often involved the laying of righteousness to the line,
   of judgment to the plummet, He spared not to do it.

   Perhaps no preacher ever used more terrible words with regard to the
   fate of the ungodly than our Lord has done. You shall ransack even
   medieval records to find more fearfully suggestive descriptions of the
   torments of Hell. Those awful sentences which fell from the lips of the
   Friend of Sinners prove that He was too much their Friend to flatter
   them. Too much their Friend to let them perish without a full warning
   of their doom. And yet, though He thundered like His own chosen
   Boanerges, what a Barnabas the Savior was!

   What a Son of Consolation! How gentle were His Words! He did not break
   the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. For the woman taken in
   adultery He had no word of curse. For the mothers of Jerusalem bringing
   their babes He had not a syllable of reprehension. Kind, gentle,
   tender, loving--the speech which at one time sounded as the voice of
   Jehovah which breaks the cedars of Lebanon, and makes the hinds to
   calve--was at other seasons modulated to music, softened to a whisper,
   and used to cheer the disconsolate and bind up broken hearts. "Never
   man spoke like this Man," so faithful and yet so tenderly affectionate,
   so mindful of the least good which He could see in man, and yet so
   determined to smite hypocrisy wherever His holy eyes could discover it.

   You will observe in the Savior's preaching a remarkable mingling of
   zeal with prudence. He is full of ardor, the zeal of God's House has
   eaten Him up. He never preached a cold, dull sermon in all His life. He
   was a pillar of light and fire. When He spoke, His Words burned their
   way into men's minds by reason of the Sacred enthusiasm with which He
   delivered them! And yet His fervor never degenerated into wildfire like
   the zeal of ignorant and over-balanced minds. We know some whose zeal,
   if tempered with knowledge, might be of use to the Church--but being
   altogether without knowledge--it is dangerous both to themselves and to
   their cause.

   Fanaticism may spring out of a real desire for God's Glory. There is,
   however, no need that earnestness should degenerate into rant. It never
   did so in the Savior's case. His zeal was red hot, but His prudence was
   calm and cool. He was not afraid of the Herodians, but yet how quietly
   did He answer them in that trap concerning tribute-money! They would
   never forget the penny and the question, "Whose image and
   superscription is this?" He was ready to meet the Sadducees at any
   time, but He was on His guard, so that they could not entangle Him in
   His speech. He was quite sure to escape their nets, and take them in
   their own craftiness.

   If a question is asked, which for the moment He does not care to
   answer, He knows how to ask them another question which they, also,
   cannot answer--and send them about their business covered with shame.
   It is a grand thing when a man can be warm and wise--when he can carry
   about him an unexcitable temperament, and yet the force which excites
   others--unmoved himself, the man of prudence becomes the power by which
   others are moved. Such was the Savior.

   But I must not let that sentence of mine pass unchallenged--in the
   higher sense He was always more moved than the people--but I mean as to
   temper and spirit He was not readily disturbed. He was self-possessed,
   prudent, wise, and yet when He spoke He flashed, and burned, and blazed
   with a sacred vehemence which showed that His whole soul was on fire
   with love to the souls of men. Zeal and prudence in remarkable
   proportions met in Jesus, and, "Never man spoke like this Man."

   So, too, everyone who has read our Lord's discourses and marked His
   character will have perceived that love was among the leading
   characteristics of His style as a Preacher. He was full of tenderness,
   brimming with sympathy, overflowing with affection. That weeping over
   Jerusalem, whose children He would have gathered, was but one instance
   of what happened many a time in His life. His heart sympathized with
   sorrow whenever His eyes beheld it. He could not bear that the people
   should be like sheep without a shepherd, and He worked many deeds of
   kindness, and said many words of instruction, because He loved them.

   But our Savior's speech was never affected and canting. He used no
   stale honey, there was nothing of that--I do not know the word to
   use--that insincere sweetness, which in some people is disgustingly
   perceptible. He was far removed from the effeminacy which, in too many
   cases, passes for Christian love. I loathe in my very soul the talk of
   those who call everybody, "dear" this, or "dear" that, endearing those
   whom, perhaps, they never knew, and to whom they would not give a
   sixpence if they wanted it. I hate this sugar of lead, this spiritual
   billing and cooing.

   Where there is the least of the meat of true charity, we find most of
   the parsley or the fennel which are used for garnishing. The bottle is
   empty and so they label it to make it pass for full. No, give me a man,
   give me a man! Let me hear outspoken speech, not effeminate canting,
   whining, and pretended ecstasies of affection. In nine cases out of ten
   the biggest bigot in the world is the man who preaches up
   liberality--and the man who can hate you worst is he who addresses you
   in softest phrases.

   No, let a man love me, but let it be with the love of a man. Let no man
   cast aside that which is masculine, forcible, and dignified under the
   notion that he is making himself better by becoming soft and babyish.
   It was never so with the Savior. He condemned this or that evil in no
   measured terms. There was in Him no apologizing, no guarding of
   expressions, no fawning, no using of soft words. They who are shaken
   with the wind and affect flattering phrases stand in kings' palaces.
   But He, the people's Preacher, One chosen out of the people, dwelt
   among the many, a Man among men.

   He was manly all through. Love in Him abounded, love unsurpassed, but
   also manliness of the noble sort. Far above the petty arts of
   professional orators, and the shallow arguments of thinkers, His
   teaching dealt out Truth with courageous fidelity and generous
   affection. He held His own position, but trampled on none. He committed
   Himself to no man, but He was willing to bless every man. His love was
   no imitation, but a solid ingot of the gold of Ophir. No one else in
   this matter has so exactly struck the balance, and therefore, "Never
   man spoke like this Man."

   One memorable Characteristic of our Lord's preaching was His remarkable
   commingling of the excellences which are found separately in His
   servants. You know, perhaps, a preacher who is admirable when he
   addresses the mind. He can explain and expound very logically and
   clearly--and you feel that you have been instructed whenever you have
   sat under him. But the light, though clear, is cold like moonlight--and
   when you retire, you feel that you know more--but yet are none the
   better for what you know.

   It were well if those who can enlighten the head so well would remember
   that man has also a heart. On the other hand we know others whose whole
   ministry is addressed to the passions and the emotions. During a sermon
   you shed any quantity of tears, you pass through a furnace of
   sensation--but as to what is left which is calculated permanently to
   benefit you--it is difficult to discover. When the sermon is over, the
   shower and the sunshine have both departed, the fair rainbow has
   disappeared from sight, and what remains? It were well if those who
   always talk to the heart remembered that men have heads as well.

   Now the Savior was a Preacher whose head was in His heart, and whose
   heart was in His head. He never addressed the emotions except by
   motives which commended themselves to the reason. Nor did He instruct
   the mind without at the same time influencing the heart and conscience.
   Our Savior's power as a speaker was comprehensive. He aroused the
   con-science--who more than He? With but a single sentence He convicted
   those who came to tempt Him, so that beginning with the eldest, and
   ending with the youngest, they all went out ashamed.

   But He was not a mere render open of wounds--a cutter and a killer. He
   was equally great in the art of holy consolation. With intonations of
   matchless music He could say, "Go your way. Your sins, which are many,
   are forgiven you." He knew how to console a weeping friend as well as
   to confront a boisterous enemy. His superiority was felt by all sorts
   of men. His artillery struck at all ranges--His mind was equal to all
   emergencies. It was for good, like the sword of the cherubim at the
   gates of Eden for evil. It turned every way to keep the gates of Life
   open for those who would gladly enter there.

   My Brethren, I have entered upon a theme which is boundless. I merely
   touch some of the outer skirts of my Master's robes. As for Himself, if
   you would know how He spoke you must hear Him. One of the ancients was
   likely to say that he could have wished to have seen Rome in all its
   splendor, to have been with Paul in all his labors, and to have heard
   Christ when preaching. Surely it were worth worlds but once to have
   caught the round of that serene, soul-stirring voice--to have beheld
   for once the glance of those matchless eyes as they looked through the
   heart--and that heavenly Countenance as it glowed with love!

   His eloquence had, however, this, for its main aspect--that it
   concerned the greatest truths that were ever made manifest to man. He
   brought light and immortality to light. He cleared up what had been
   doubtful. He resolved that which had been mysterious. He declared that
   which is gracious, that which saves the soul and glorifies God. No
   preacher was ever laden with so Divine a message as Christ. We who
   bring the same glad tidings bring the news as second hand, and but in
   part. He came forth from the Father's bosom with the whole Truth, and,
   therefore, "Never man spoke like this Man."

   II. Secondly, let us try to awaken in the saints Some PERSONAL
   RECOLLECTIONS of the Savior's eloquence. Lend me your memories, you
   people of God. Do you remember when you first heard Him speak? We shall
   not talk of words which cleave the air, but of those spirit-words which
   thrill the heart and move the soul. Follow me, then, and recall to
   fondest memory His Words of pity, of which I may truly say, "Never man
   spoke to me like this Man."

   It was in the dim dawning of my spiritual life, before it was yet
   light, before the sun had fully risen. I felt my sin, I grieved beneath
   its weight. I despaired, I was ready to perish. And then He came to me.
   Well do I remember accents which then I scarcely could understand,
   which nevertheless cheered my spirit. They sounded like these, "Come
   unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you
   rest." "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out."

   Soft and sweet were the tones, and tremulous with fond anxiety. They
   came as from One who had bled and died. Do you remember when you also
   heard them? I do not mean when you heard them from the pulpit, from the
   minister--but in your heart--from Gethsemane, the Cross, and the
   Throne. It was sweet to know that Jesus pitied you. You were not saved,
   and you were afraid that you never might be, for the sea worked and was
   tempestuous, but He said, "It is I, be not afraid." You began to
   perceive that there was mercy if you could get it--that one tender
   heart felt for you--one strong arm was ready to help you. You could no
   longer lament, "No man cares for my soul," for you perceived that there
   was a

   Savior, and a great one. Those were sweet sounds that now and then were
   heard above the tumultuous deep which called unto deep at the noise of
   God's waterspouts. None else ever spoke as He did.

   Do you remember how in those days you heard His voice with words of
   persuasion? You had often heard Gospel invitations as the call of man,
   but then they came to you as the voice of God heard in the silence of
   your heart, saying, "Turn you, turn you, why will you die, O house of
   Israel?" "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 remember how they followed one
   another, each word suiting your particular condition and having still
   accumulated power over your mind?

   Did not Jesus often seem to say to you, "Yield now, poor Sinner, cast
   away your weapons of rebellion. Destroy not your own soul! Look unto Me
   and be saved. For I have loved you and made atonement for your sins"?
   Those were marvelous pleadings which at last won your heart by force of
   love. You had much ado to resist those persuasions, and you did resist
   them for awhile. And like the spouse in the Canticle, you permitted the
   lover of your soul to wait outside your door, and say, "Open to Me, My
   head is wet with dew, and My locks with the drops of the night." Yet
   you found it hard to resist Him, for the persuasions of His love were
   mighty upon you as He drew you with cords of love, with bands of a Man,
   until you could hold out no longer.

   Beloved, you surely call to mind when the words of persuasion were
   by-and-by followed with words of power! "Never man spoke like this
   Man," when He said to my darkened soul, "let there be light." Well do I
   remember that admonition, "Arise, shine, for your light is come. Awake,
   you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you
   light." Do you remember when He passed by and saw you in your blood,
   and said to you, "Live," and cast the skirts of covenant love over you,
   and washed you, and made you clean, and laid you in His bosom, and made
   you His forever? "Never man spoke like this Man."

   Do you remember when He made all your darkness and sorrow to pass away
   as in a moment by saying to you, "I am your salvation"? Have you
   forgotten that word of pardon? I can never forget it--even if I outlive
   Methuselah, it must still remain green in my memory! The words came
   with power when I looked to the Cross, and heard the absolving words,
   "Your sins are forgiven you." "Never man spoke like this Man."

   No priest can give an awakened conscience rest, nor any other, except
   the great High Priest, Jesus, Melchisedek, the sinner's Pardoner. No
   words of hope, nor thoughts of consolation can ever breed such peace
   within the spirit as the blood of Jesus brings when it speaks within
   the heart far better things than that of Abel. It reconciles us unto
   our God and so gives perfect peace.

   Since the time when first we heard His pardoning voice, we, many a
   time, have heard Him speaking with right royal words, and we have said,
   "Never man spoke like this Man." How sweet it has been to sit in the
   assembly of the saints when the Gospel has been, indeed, His Word to
   our souls! Oh, the marrow and the fatness, the feast of fat things, of
   fat things full of marrow which we have fed upon when the King has sat
   at the table! When our Beloved speaks His Word of promise, how has it
   revived our drooping spirit! It came as dew upon the tender herb. It
   touched our lips as a coal from off the altar. It gave us healing,
   consolation, joy.

   Beloved, cannot you look back to many instances when you had no food
   for your soul but the promise--when your soul knew no music but the
   word of His love? Blest Master, speak to me thus evermore--

   "Each moment draw from earth away

   My heart, that lowly waits Your call.

   Speak to my inmost soul, and say,

   'I am your Love, your God, your All!'

   To feel Your power, to hear Your voice,

   To taste Your love, is all my choice." And when you have enjoyed His
   Presence in your solitude, have had communion with Him, and He has
   revealed His ancient, His unchanging, His never-ending, His boundless
   love to you--have you not prized His Words far above the choicest joys
   of earth?

   When you have confessed your sins with penitent sorrow and He has given
   back the word of full remission. When you have revealed your sorrow and
   received the assurance of His tender sympathy. When you have laid bare
   your weakness and received the word that strengthens--have you not been
   ready to challenge all Heaven to compare with Him--and

   exclaimed, "Never man spoke like this Man"? To those who are
   unbelievers, and to those professors who live at a distance from
   Christ, this will sound like mere fancy, but believe me, it is not so.
   If there is anything real beneath the skies, it is the communion which
   Christ has with His people by His Spirit.

   "Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Christ." We
   hear His voice, though not with these ears, and we so hear it as to
   know it, as sheep discern their shepherd's voice. And a stranger we
   will not follow, for we know not the voice of strangers. Our ears being
   opened by the Spirit, we at this hour can say, "I sleep, but my heart
   wakes. It is the voice of my Beloved, my soul melts while He speaks."

   Now, my dear Friends, there are some words of our Savior spoken long
   ago, which, since we have known Him have been so quickened by His
   Presence that we number them from now on among personal recollections.
   That word, "I have loved you with an everlasting love." It is true it
   is written in the Bible, an old, old saying--but I can say and so can
   many of you, that it has been a new saying to me. We have by faith been
   enabled to hear it as spoken to us, and the Spirit of the blessed God
   has so brought it home to our hearts that it is as if Christ had never
   said it before, but had spoken it to us personally. Yes, "I have loved
   you with an everlasting love."

   There are many here who have heard Him say, "I have chosen you and not
   cast you away." The Spirit of God has made many an ancient saying a
   speech from the living Jesus to us. Those words of His when He said,
   "Lo, I come: in the volume of the Book it is written of Me, I delight
   to do Your will, O My God"--our faith has stood at Bethlehem's manger
   and we have seen the Body prepared for Him, and Himself putting on the
   form of a servant. His coming to seek and to save that which was lost
   has become a personal coming to us, and we have rejoiced in it
   exceedingly.

   Has not the voice which came of old from the sea when He said, "It is
   I, be not afraid," been a voice to you? And the voice from Jerusalem,
   "How often would I have gathered you"--has it never bewailed the
   perishing ones around you? The voice from Bethany, "I am the
   resurrection and the life"--has it never been heard at the burial of
   your brother? The voice from the table when He washed His disciples'
   feet--and bade them wash one another's feet--has it not excited you to
   humble service of the Brethren?

   Have we not again and again heard the cry of Gethsemane, "Not as I
   will, but as You will"? I cannot convince myself that I did not
   actually hear the Redeemer say that. At any rate, I have rejoiced when
   in the spirit of resignation the echo of it has been heard in my own
   spirit. Do I not this very day hear Him saying, though long ago He
   spoke it, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do"? His
   intercession for my guilty soul. What is it but the continuance of that
   gentle prayer? And for certain that last concluding sentence, "It is
   finished," "Consummatum est"--my ears may not have heard it, but my
   soul hears it now and rejoices to repeat the words!

   Who shall lay anything to my charge since Christ has consummated my
   deliverance from death, Hell, sin, and brought in a perfect
   righteousness for me? Yes, these old sayings of Christ heard years ago
   we have heard in spirit, and our witness is after hearing them all,
   "Never man spoke like this Man." None can be compared with Him at their
   best. His ministers cannot rival Him--they do but echo His speech.

   III. I shall close by mentioning certain PROPHETIC ANTICIPATIONS which
   lodge in our souls with regard to that eloquence in the future.
   Brethren, you have heard the voice of Jesus, but are you expecting to
   still hear it? As long as ever you live you are to speak for Jesus--but
   your hope for His kingdom does not lie in your speech but in His voice.
   He can speak to the heart, He can make the Truth which you only utter
   to the ear penetrate to the mind and heart. We expect that our exalted
   Lord will speak before long with louder voice than before.

   The Gospel chariot lags awhile. As yet He goes not forth conquering and
   to conquer, but He will yet gird His sword upon His thigh and His voice
   shall be heard marshalling His hosts for the battle. Let but Christ
   give the word, and the company of them that shall publish it shall be
   exceedingly great. Let Him send forth the Word of His might from Zion,
   and thousands shall be born in a day. Yes, nations shall be born at
   once!

   The elect of God, today apparently but few, shall come out from their
   hiding places, and Christ shall see of the travail of His soul and be
   satisfied. Despite the melancholy belief of some that the world will
   come to an end with a defeated God and with only a few saved, I
   nevertheless am certain that Scripture warrants brighter hopes. One day
   "the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover
   the sea." "The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall
   see it together," this we know, for God has said it. In all things
   Christ shall have the pre-eminence, and therefore in the matter of
   souls saved He will have the pre-eminence over Satan and the souls who
   are lost.

   for an hour of that voice of the Lord which is full of majesty, that
   voice which breaks the cedars of Lebanon, and makes them to skip like a
   calf--Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn! When shall the voice of
   the Lord shake the wilderness of Kadesh and discover the forests? It
   shall yet be heard, and in His temple shall everyone speak of His
   Glory. For the Lord sits upon the flood, yes, the Lord sits King
   forever. Have hope, then. Let your anticipations be of brighter times,
   for He will speak--He that shakes both Heaven and earth when He wills
   it. And when He speaks, you will say, "Never man spoke like this Man."

   We expect personally for ourselves, if Jesus comes not before we
   depart, to hear Him speak sweetly to us in the hour of death. Talk of
   it solemnly and softly, for put it in whatever light you may, it is
   dread work to die. But when we lie a dying, and the sounds of earth are
   shut out from the lone chamber, and the voice of affection is drowned
   in mournful sobs, then Jesus will come and make our bed, and speak as
   never man spoke, saying "Fear not, I am with you. Be not dismayed, I am
   your God. When you pass through the rivers I will be with you, the
   floods shall not overflow you." Dying Christians, by the songs which
   they have lifted up, and by the joy which has sparkled from their eyes
   have proven that the voice of Jesus is such that, "Never man spoke like
   this Man."

   Beloved, what will that voice be to our disembodied spirits when our
   souls shall leave this clay and fly through tracks unknown to see the
   Savior? I know not with what words of welcome He may address us then.
   He may reserve His choicest utterances for the day of His appearing,
   but He will not take us into His bosom without a love word, nor receive
   us into our quiet resting places without a cordial commendation. What
   must it be to see His face, to hear His voice in Heaven? Then shall we
   know that, "Never man spoke like this Man."

   And then when the time ordained of old is fulfilled, when the day comes
   that the dead shall hear the voice of God, when the Resurrection and
   the Life shall speak with trumpet tones, and the righteous shall be
   raised from their graves-- oh, then it will be seen, as they all obey
   the quickening word--that "Never man spoke like this Man." He who
   speaks the resurrection word is man as well as God. "As by man came
   death, by Man came also the resurrection from the dead." And then, when
   you and I shall be at His right hand. When the body and soul reunited
   shall receive the final award, and He shall say in inimitable tones,
   "Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you
   from before the foundation of the world," we shall not need to say,
   "Never man spoke like this Man."

   When we, with Him, shall enter into the everlasting rest, when He shall
   deliver up the mediatorial kingdom to God, even the Father, and God
   shall be All in All, we, in the retrospect of all He said on earth and
   said in Heaven--we in the constant hearing of His voice who shall wear
   His priesthood perpetually, looking still like a lamb that has been
   slain-- we shall then bear fullest witness that, "Never man spoke like
   this Man."

   Mark well, my Hearers, that in such confession every soul of you will
   have to unite. You may live enemies to Christ, and you may die
   strangers to Him, but that, "Never man spoke like this Man," you shall
   be made to feel. If today you will not acknowledge that His mercy to
   you is unbounded, that His condescension in inviting you to come to Him
   today is worthy of loving admiration. If you will not yield, but shut
   your ears to the invitation of His mercy when He says, "Come unto Me,
   and I will give you rest," yet at the last, an unwilling assent to our
   text will be wrung from you.

   When He shall say, "Depart, you cursed, into everlasting fire in Hell,
   prepared for the devil and his angels," the thunder of that word shall
   so torment you, the terror of His speech shall so shake you, and
   utterly dissolve you, that you shall feel, wondering all the while that
   it was a Man who could speak thus, that, "Never man spoke like this
   Man." You have sometimes upbraided the preacher for speaking too
   severely--you will then know that he was not severe enough.

   You have sometimes marvelled that the minister should give such fearful
   descriptions of the wrath to come--you thought he went too far. But
   when the pit opens wide her mouth and the devouring flames leap up to
   devour you at the word of the once crucified Savior, then you will say,
   for terror and for wrath, for overwhelming horror--"Never man spoke
   like this Man." The lips that said "Come, you weary," shall say,
   "Depart, you cursed," in tones which none but such lips could give

   forth.

   Love once made angry turns to wrath, intense and terrible. Oil is soft,
   but how fiercely it burns! Beware, lest His anger is kindled against
   you, for it will burn even to the lowest Hell. The Lamb of God is as a
   lion to those who reject His love. Provoke Him no longer. May the Holy
   Spirit bow you to repentance. God grant that in a far happier sense
   than this last, you may learn to say, "Never man spoke like this Man."
   But one way or other every soul here, and every soul of woman born,
   shall acknowledge that, "Never man spoke like this Man." To God I
   commend you. Farewell.
     __________________________________________________________________

Negotiations For Peace

   (No. 952)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 18, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Preaching peace by Jesus Christ; (He is Lord of all)." Acts 10:36.

   THESE words were addressed to an admirable congregation, all met with
   an earnest purpose, all conscious that they were in the Presence of
   God, all like good soil that had been plowed and prepared for the good
   seed. Happy preacher to have such a congregation! God make this
   congregation to be of the same sort. The preacher, also, was a right
   faithful messenger from Heaven. No sooner did Peter know that he was
   commissioned to the Gentile centurion and his household, than he came
   to his house. And when he found himself surrounded by the family and
   their friends, he girt up his loins for his work and gave his whole
   soul to his subject. Peter goes straight to his business. There is no
   beating about the bush, no prefatory apology--he begins to preach.

   Jesus Christ, spoken of by Prophets, seen by Apostles, hanged on a
   tree, and risen again on the third day. It is well when the preacher
   feels that preaching is no mere display, and is not intended to be an
   opportunity for him to show how excellent an orator he can be. The true
   ambassador for Christ feels that he himself stands before God, and has
   to deal with souls in God's place as God's servant. He therefore has no
   time for considering the graces of oratory and the tricks of
   rhetoric--but must speak from his inmost soul the Word of the Lord.

   Every preacher stands in a solemn place--a place in which
   unfaithfulness is inhumanity to man as well as treason to God. To be
   false to our charge will cast us into the deepest condemnation--to be
   hurled from a pulpit into Hell will be to perish, indeed! See to it,
   then, that both the congregation and the preacher are peculiarly in
   God's Presence in their solemn assemblies and feeling and acting
   accordingly. Pray for us and for yourselves that we both may so behave
   before the Lord that our assembling together may not increase our sin,
   but may prove to be a rich and lasting blessing.

   We have in the text before us the subject upon which Peter treated in
   his sermon to Cornelius and his friends. He seems to have taken it for
   granted that men are at war with God, that even the attentive
   congregation before him, though consisting of the best of men, were by
   nature at enmity with their Maker. He speaks, therefore, as an
   ambassador desirous of establishing a better state of things and tells
   them that he has come to preach peace by Jesus Christ, who is Lord of
   all.

   I shall, this evening, try to follow his example, and though I cannot
   do so with equal steps, yet have I in my bosom the same earnest desire
   for the souls of my hearers as the Apostle had. I pray that all of you
   may be brought to peace with God through Jesus Christ.

   First, this evening, I shall give some reasons why those of you who are
   not reconciled to God should desire peace with Him. When we have
   weighed these I shall, secondly, endeavor to negotiate the terms of
   peace, and then, thirdly, we shall lay before you a claim or
   proclamation which is publicly asserted, and to be universally
   maintained, namely, that Jesus Christ is Lord of all.

   I. To begin, then, I shall endeavor to offer to the unconverted REASONS
   WHY THEY SHOULD DESIRE TO BE AT PEACE. May I not urge as the first
   reason that it is not commendable to be at enmity with any of the wise
   and good? It is best to be at peace with all men, but it is incumbent
   upon us to be in friendship with holy men. I should deeply regret to
   have any one for my enemy, but if he were a godly person I should
   consider it a calamity. If the angels of Heaven were opposed to us it
   would have an ill look, even those holy beings would not needlessly
   take offense.

   But when it comes to opposition to the infinitely good, just, and holy
   God, who in his right mind can do other than bewail it, and desire to
   see it ended by a gracious peace? Strife against evil, injustice, and
   tyranny is honorable, but to contend with uprightness, goodness, and
   holiness is deplorable. No possible benefit can arise from a conflict
   in which we

   are on the wrong side. If God is for us, none can successfully fight
   against us. But to have God opposed to us is, in itself, the chief of
   evils. My hearer, "Acquaint yourself with God, and be at peace, for
   thereby good shall come unto you."

   The second reason ought to have weight with every honest man. It is
   this: that the war in which you are engaged is an unjust one. It never
   ought to have been begun. There was never any justifiable cause for its
   outbreak. God was unjustly and wickedly assailed by His ungrateful
   creature. What ought never to have been begun had better be dropped as
   soon as possible. Sin is war against right, against love, against
   happiness. Transgression of God's Law is a transgression of commands
   most equitable and beneficent.

   To love evil is dishonorable, wrong, unfair, unjust, and the conscience
   of man tells him it is so. To be at war with God is to fight against
   Truth and justice, and to contend for falsehood, unholiness, injustice,
   unrighteousness. When men love that which is right, and good, and true,
   and yield themselves up to God's will, then the war is over. But
   inasmuch as the war against God consists in our doing the wrong, and
   loving the wrong, and thinking the wrong, and clinging to the
   wrong--such a war, in the very nature of things--ought to come to a
   close.

   May the Holy Spirit set this in its true colors and convince every one
   of you that not to love God is the most shameful of evils, the most
   detestable of enormities. How can it ever be justifiable for the
   creature to contend against the Creator? Shall the clay rise against
   the potter? Will it ever become a right thing for children to rebel
   against their parents? The ox fed at the stall will serve its
   owner--shall it be right that we, being fed by God, should yet refuse
   Him our service? The natural order of the relationship between us and
   our Creator involves in all justice that we should be conformed to His
   will.

   O Men, will you choose the ways and wages of unrighteousness and cover
   yourselves with confusion? Would God there were in you an honest
   judgment to judge uprightly. Besides, what evil has our Creator done us
   that we should go to war against Him? What quality is there in God that
   we ought to hate? What is there that we can justly challenge in the
   Character of God which might righteously provoke our antagonism? Is He
   not Kindness itself? Does He not overflow with loving kindness? Sends
   He not His rain upon the just and upon the unjust? Does He not command
   His sun to rise upon the evil as well as the good?

   Has He not sent us fruitful seasons and kept His Covenant, that day and
   night, seedtime and harvest, summer and winter, should not cease? For
   which of these things should we rebel against Him? Some of you are
   possessed of riches-- should you, for that cause, forget the God that
   gave them to you? Others of you are in sound, robust health--should you
   violate the commands of Him who gives you this choicest of blessings?

   We appeal to you, Brothers and Sisters, why are you at war with your
   God? If He were a cruel tyrant, if He were unjust, if He trod you
   beneath His feet, if His government were malicious and degrading I
   could understand your warfare! But it is an evil, an unjust, a
   villainous war--because the Lord is full of mercy and His name is Love.
   O that men would end their rebellion at this hour while we summon them
   to do so in the name of God! Eternal Spirit convict them of sin, of
   righteousness, and of judgment to come, and lead them to the
   peace-speaking blood!

   A third argument for ending the war may be drawn from the fact that he
   who began it has been terribly defeated, and is at this moment a
   prisoner. He who began the war is Satan, the arch enemy. Our first
   parents did not first rebel-- man was the dupe of an older rebel.
   Apollyon, once an angel, conceived ambitious thoughts, and would gladly
   have become equal with his Maker, but he was banished from Heaven by
   just decree.

   And then resorting to this lower region, sought out our mother Eve, and
   seduced our race, hoping to maintain the war against the Lord of Hosts
   by inciting us to cast off our allegiance. Little has he gained by this
   stratagem! Overwhelming has been his defeat! Hurled from the
   battlements of Heaven at first, he has worn his chain wearily these
   many years, seeking rest and finding none, dreading that day of wrath
   when he shall be dragged at the chariot wheels of our Divine Redeemer,
   and then consigned to the Hell of old prepared for him.

   Jesus who once was slain, has led captivity captive. He whose heel was
   bitten by the old dragon has broken the serpent's head. Revolt, O Man,
   against the prince of the power of the air--follow him no longer! Take
   up arms against the demon monarch--refuse from now on to follow his
   beck and call. What right has the devil to reign over you? He neither
   made you, preserved you, or blessed you! He is only evil, and that
   continually will he do unto you. Strike for your freedom, strike at
   once, and shake off his galling yoke.

   For him the everlasting fire has been prepared--why must you share it?
   The wages of sin will be death--why continue in so unprofitable a
   service? May God grant that you may escape the wrath to come that knows
   no end, by turning against your old master and enlisting beneath the
   banner of your Savior. Down with the black, sin-stained, sulphurous
   colors, and run up the red Cross! Exchange the black Diabolus for the
   fair Immanuel, and peace shall come unto you.

   These are three good reasons, but there are many others, and among them
   is this one--the force which is brought against you is utterly
   impossible for you effectually to resist. It is well when we
   contemplate warfare to sit down and see whether we are equal to the
   combat. What man is he that with one thousand can meet him that comes
   against him with twenty thousand? Now, consider this, you that forget
   God. If you oppose God, with whom is it that you set yourselves in
   battle array?

   Can your puny arm hope to rival the right hand of Jehovah? Can you
   thunder with a voice like His? Were He a creature like yourselves, you
   might hope for victory. Were He limited in any degree, you might summon
   all your strength and hold out in the day of conflict. But who can
   contend against Omnipotence? Who shall stand against the Almighty God?
   As well might the fly hope to quench the sun when he has already burned
   up his wings in a candle! As well might you seek to dry up the
   Atlantic, or bid Niagara leap up the rock instead of down! As well
   might you hope to stay the moon in its course, or to pluck the stars
   from their places, as think to stand against God!

   No, if you had all Heaven, and earth, and Hell beneath your feet, yet
   could God overcome you, for He has made all these things and can
   overthrow both them and you with His mere will. Let not the wax contend
   with the fire, nor the stubble with the flame. Let not man, who is but
   nothingness, think that he can contend with his Maker. You know already
   how foolish it is to strive against the natural laws of God--and you
   will find it equally so to contend against His moral government.

   A man stands in the way of a steam engine rushing on at express
   speed--he knows that according to the laws of nature its weight and
   velocity effectually prevent his stopping its course. Do you call it
   courage on his part that he stands on the track and defies the iron
   horse? It is not courage--it is foolhardiness, it is madness, it is
   suicide! Yet this is nothing in comparison to what you are doing in
   placing yourself in opposition to the Lord. God will not alter His laws
   for you. Why should He? They are just and right--why should He change
   them? Fire will burn, and if a drunken madcap persists in thrusting his
   arm between the bars of a furnace, shall fire cease from its nature to
   secure him immunity from his folly?

   If a man exposes himself to the rush of an avalanche, can he expect the
   rolling mass to suspend itself in mid air for him? If a mariner will go
   to sea in a vessel worm-eaten and not seaworthy, will the waves pity
   the boat and cease from their rough play and rougher warfare? No, they
   roll around the leaking craft as they would have done around a better
   vessel. They toss it--they sink it--the careless mariner perishes. If a
   man will act contrary to natural laws, he must suffer for it. If you
   dash your head against a granite rock it will not, for your sake,
   soften into down.

   And it is just so with the moral laws of God's government--certain
   results follow from sinful courses of action-- inevitably and as a
   matter of course. Yield, then, to the Divine wisdom which has rightly
   ordained the consequences of sin. Do not necessitate your own
   destruction. Submit freely where rebellion is absurd. Against
   Omnipotence it is folly to strive. Be wise, then, and submit to the
   power of the Omnipotent God.

   Further, remember that any resistance which you may be able to offer to
   the Lord your God will be carried on at a very fearful price. You will
   have to bear the expenses of the war which you foolishly prolong. All
   the time that you resist the Almighty you are doing it at your own risk
   and hazard. And what is that risk and hazard? Why this--that even if
   you should yield to Him ultimately, so as to be saved--you will regret
   these sins and these rebellions as long as you live. Even when they are
   forgiven, your iniquities will be a source of perpetual regret to you.
   They will be a source of danger and weakness to you as long as you
   live--for though God heals the wounds of our sin--we shall carry the
   scars even to our graves.

   Moreover, if you should never receive the saving mercy of God, remember
   these rebellions of yours are noted against you, and when the Great
   Judge comes to deal with you and lays His justice to the line, and
   righteousness to the plum-met--for all this you will have to give an
   account, for all this God will levy His Law upon you--and you shall be
   made to feel the weight of His terrible hand of vengeance.

   Furthermore, let me remind you of one thing else, namely, that your
   total defeat is absolutely certain sooner or later. No man ever did set
   himself against God and prosper for long. His patience suffers long and
   is kind, but there is an

   end to it. Look at Pharaoh. If ever a man defied God thoroughly, it was
   that king of Egypt. "Who is the Lord," said he, "that I should obey
   Him?" He bore up against warnings and actual plagues--each time when he
   was broken down he defied the Lord again as soon as the pressure of
   trouble was removed.

   But when he fancied that the infinite God had emptied out His quiver,
   he found to his cost that there was yet another arrow left, and that a
   deadly shaft which would lodge in his heart and lay him prostrate. He
   said in his heart, "I have outlived the plague of the locusts, I have
   outlived the lightning, and the darkness, and the murrain that fell
   upon men and beasts. Who is Jehovah that I should care for any further
   plagues? I will defy Him to do His worst, and fight on to the bitter
   end."

   As he dashes along in his war chariots, with his mighty hosts at his
   side, hastening to pursue the captives who are fleeing from him, he
   fancies himself to be omnipotent. But when he finds his wheels dragging
   heavily in the depths of the sea, he turns to flee from the face of the
   Lord. All too late was his flight, for God gave the word and the liquid
   walls which had stood like solid masonry, leaped down upon him--and
   then the haughty king knew that Jehovah could vanquish the proud, and
   put down the stout-hearted.

   For this cause was he raised up--that he might be a standing testimony
   to all generations that whosoever rebels against the Lord shall meet
   with a final and irretrievable overthrow. O Sinner, your fate may not
   be to be drowned in the Red Sea, but worse than that, you will be shut
   in forever where hope is shut out, and where misery abounds. The
   punishment of lost souls will prove to them, beyond all controversy,
   that it is a futile, a bitter, a horrible thing to be at war with the
   Lord of Hosts.

   None can endure the terror of Jehovah's wrath--why is it that they so
   lightly dare to provoke it? Yield, Man! It is folly to stand out
   against God--you cannot hope to win. Sue for peace tonight, and may God
   send it to you. Without such peace your future is darkened with thick
   clouds, and the presages of an horrible tempest. The Lord most surely
   comes, and at His coming woe will be the portion of His enemies--

   "At His Presence nature shakes,

   Earth affrighted hastens to flee,

   Solid mountains melt like wax,

   What will then become of you?

   Who His advent may abide

   You that glory in your shame,

   Will you find a place to hide

   When the world is wrapt in flame?" Let me tell you, (and this is the
   most glad note that is in my heart tonight), let me tell you it will be
   altogether to your advantage to be at peace with God! It will be for
   your present happiness. It will be for your eternal welfare. A soul at
   war with God is also opposed to its own best interests--but a heart
   that has yielded to Divine love, that has cast down its weapons, that
   has closed in with Divine mercy--is a soul at peace, at rest, a soul
   that is ready for joy on earth, and for bliss unspeakable above! Were
   there no hereafter, it is profitable even for this present life to have
   God for our Friend. But when we think of the eternal future, even the
   most superficial consideration suffices to convince us of the urgent
   necessity of being reconciled to God.

   Be wise and consider, then, take my advice and do that which will be
   most gainful to you--namely, seek peace, and yield to Christ who is
   Lord of All. Meanwhile, my heart's desire and prayer for you is that
   you may be saved, and to that end may the Holy Spirit visit you, soften
   your heart, guide your judgment and direct your will, so that Jesus may
   from now on be yours, and be your peace.

   II. Now I shall turn, in the second place, to DECLARE THE TERMS ON
   WHICH PEACE MAY BE NEGOTIATED. I come with a white flag tonight. I ask
   for a parley, an armistice, a truce. God, meanwhile, holds back His
   thunderbolts, and bids the sinner live while mercy is proclaimed to
   him. Would you have peace, then? Are you in earnest for friendship with
   your God? Then learn that first of all, the great sine qua non is that
   peace be made through an ambassador nominated of God, namely, His only
   begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

   Here, in the text, it says, "Preaching peace by Jesus Christ." There
   will be no peace between God and any man who despises the Person, name
   and work of Jesus Christ. Reject that name and there is no other
   whereby you can be saved. This is the foundation for peace which was
   laid of old, and other foundation can no man lay. Hear, then, and let
   all diffi-

   culty vanish from your mind while we speak of that excellent, that
   all-glorious Person whom the Lord has set forth as Heaven's
   Plenipotentiary, the Ambassador of the Eternal.

   This Jesus Christ is God Himself--God over all blessed forever--knowing
   the mind of God, and able to negotiate with Divine authority. But He is
   also Man--man such as you are--Man of the substance of His mother, most
   truly and really Man, and, therefore, He is fitted to deal graciously
   with man. Oh, then, because He is your Brother, accept Him as
   Ambassador. He is fit to be a Daysman, and an Arbitrator, and a
   Mediator since He has sympathy with you, and yet has equality with God.

   If you, yourself, had the choice of an umpire you could not select one
   so every way fitted for the office. His love to you, His goodwill to
   our poor fallen race, His assumption of our Nature, His death in mortal
   form--all should lead you to commit your case into His faithful hands.
   God lead you to do so at once, for the matter is urgent. Now further,
   concerning the negotiation, I would say to you, O Enemy of God, that
   the great difficulty is put away which might have prevented peace
   between you and God!

   The Justice of God which you have provoked has been satisfied by Jesus
   Christ! The sacrifice of Jesus has made recompense for the injury done
   by human sin. There is no difficulty now on God's part--no difficulty
   in forgiving any sinner that believes in Jesus Christ. Your sin was a
   great stone which lay at the door, but it is rolled away because Jesus
   died. Let that comfort you. If you are anxious to have peace, God's
   terms are these, (I call them terms for want of a better word, but I
   mean no legality thereby).

   He asks no price of you. He demands no millions of money. No, He
   demands no pounds at your hands. If you had the wealth of the Indies,
   the Lord would despise such a bribe. If He were hungry, He would not
   tell you. If He were thirsty He would not come to you for drink, for
   Lebanon would not be sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof for a
   burnt sacrifice. He asks no gold from you, He asks no suffering from
   you--no passing through dreary penance--or horrible despairing. It
   would be no satisfaction to Him to see you suffer.

   He delights in happiness. He is pleased to see us happy when it is safe
   for others that we should be so. Neither does He ask you to achieve
   merits to bring to Him. You could not if He should demand it. You have
   sinned before and will sin again. All hope for you to make up the
   faultiness of the past by the perfection of the future is gone. You
   have broken the Law. You cannot keep it. If you shall labor after life
   under the Covenant of Works, you must perish. God, therefore, does not
   ask you to save yourself by your own works, but He graciously tells you
   that He is full of mercy, full of compassion, delighting to forgive,
   ready to pass by your sins, and that at once.

   Here is all that the Lord asks of you, and this He will enable you to
   do--trust sincerely in His only begotten Son. On the Cross Jesus
   suffered--turn your eyes to that Cross. He rose again, He ascended to
   Heaven--trust Him to save your soul, because He ever lives to make
   intercession for you--

   "All the doing is completed,

   Now it is 'look, believe, and live.'

   None can purchase His salvation,

   Life's a gift that God must give.

   Grace, through righteousness, is reigning,

   Not of works, lest man should boast.

   Man must take the mercy freely,

   Or eternally be lost."

   Down with your weapons of rebellion--surrender them, confess that you
   have erred--confess it in your Father's own bosom. Conscious of His
   love, be conscious of your sins. Confess that you have done wrong.
   Cease to do evil, learn to do well. Let the wicked forsake his way and
   the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord.
   Nurture not within your bosom the viper that will be your destruction.
   Pluck it out and hurl it from you in the strength of Him that died to
   save you.

   Now, is this hard? Are these severe demands? Is it a hardship to
   confess the wrong which you have done? Is that too much? Is it not
   reasonable that you should do it? You cannot be healed and continue to
   wound yourself. How can you hope that the poison will be extracted from
   your veins while you continue to drink it? No, Man, look to the Cross,
   and hate your sin, for sin nailed the Well-Beloved to the tree. Look up
   to the Cross, and you will kill sin, for the strength of Jesus' love
   will make you strong to put down your tendencies to sin.

   "Well, but," you say, "Is there nothing for me to bring, nothing for me
   to do?" Answer, "There is nothing for you to bring, there is nothing
   for you to do, but there is much for you to take--for you have to
   receive Jesus as your All in All." It is your duty to throw down your
   weapons of rebellion, and to say tonight, "Great God I yield. My
   wanderings now are at an end. I yield my soul to You, Jesus, come and
   save me. And when You have saved me, help me to obey You. Behold, I
   give myself up to You. Infinite Mercy of God, receive me! Precious
   Blood of Jesus, cleanse me! Holy Spirit, sanctify me! God, my Creator,
   create me new! Jesus, Lover of my soul, teach my soul to love You." In
   this way peace is found, even peace through Jesus Christ.

   III. And now, thirdly, and to conclude. I have to make public A CLAIM
   which Peter made on this occasion, when he spoke to Cornelius and his
   kinsfolk. I have a claim which ought to be urged wherever the Gospel is
   preached. "He is Lord of all." This means, first, that Jesus Christ,
   who died on Calvary, is in the mediatorial kingdom, which His Father
   has given Him, Lord of all mankind. He is Lord not of the Jew only, but
   also of the Gentile. Not of one race and nation, but of ALL the tribes
   of Adam ever born. He is Lord of all.

   Remember that text, "As You have given Him power over all flesh, that
   He may give eternal life to as many as You have given Him." The great
   object of Christ's mediatorial kingdom is the salvation of the
   elect--and in order to compass that grand result, power is given to
   Christ over all flesh--that is, over all mankind. And this last Truth
   of God is the reason why we are enabled honestly to preach the Gospel
   to every creature under Heaven. Because Christ has power over all
   flesh, we preach the Gospel to all flesh. Because He is Lord of all we
   are permitted to preach the Gospel to all, and yes, to all who come
   within its hearing, "Whosoever will, let him come and take the water of
   life freely."

   Sons of men, the Son of God is King over you! You are not ruled today
   so much by the iron scepter of an absolute God as by the silver scepter
   of the Mediator, Jesus Christ. You are under His government today. You
   may hate Him, you may rail against Him, but, "I will declare the
   decree," says the Psalmist, "Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill
   of Zion." The heathens rage, the princes take counsel together, but the
   Lord has made Jesus Christ the King of kings, and Lord of lords, and
   under His reign we dwell. This is a most gladsome Truth, for thus we
   live under the reign of Sovereign Mercy, under the reign of the
   Incarnate. God Immanuel, God with us.

   Look, O Sinner! You needed a Mediator between you and God, and Jesus
   stands in that place! You need no Mediator between you and
   Christ--approach Him as you now are, and His gracious heart will gladly
   receive you. You cannot come to God except through a Mediator! You have
   to deal with Christ, and may deal with Him now! Come to Him. You need
   no one to introduce you. Come just as you are. O may His blessed Spirit
   sweetly incline you to come, and "kiss the Son lest He be angry, and
   you perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little."

   The text, by declaring the reigning power of the Lord Jesus, shows us
   most encouragingly the most solid of reasons for yielding to Him our
   trust and obedience. If He is Lord of All. If all things are put under
   Him, then I may with safety rely upon Him. This is the Man, the exalted
   Man, whom we, unseen, adore! Of Whom it is written, "You made Him to
   have dominion over all the works of Your hands. You have put all things
   under His feet. All sheep and oxen, yes, and the fowl of the air, and
   the fish of the sea, and whatever passes through the paths of the sea."

   Now, the Apostle rightly enough says, "But now we see not yet all
   things put under Him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower
   than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and
   honor." He is reigning in Heaven, and it is ordained that at the name
   of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus
   Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Oh, then, trust Him, for
   all power is His! He is exalted on High to give repentance and
   remission of sins. All His power is linked with mercy. Grace perfumes
   all His attributes.

   Because Jesus is Lord, I pray you, my fellow Men, to yield Him
   reverence and serve Him. Obey Him, for He is your Lord and Sovereign.
   It ought to be the easier to obey Him because He is numbered with the
   human race. The old history which we learned when we were children told
   us that the Welsh could not bear the yoke of an English king. They
   wanted to have a prince born in their own country. Therefore, their
   English conqueror brought before them his own son, born in their own
   principality, and they accepted him as Prince of Wales.

   God reigns over us, but that we may love His reign He has anointed His
   own Son our own Elder Brother, Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of
   lords. Jesus the Infinite deigned to be an Infant, He who sustains all
   things was laid upon a woman's breast. There is no Man more a man than
   Jesus, and yet in no respect is He other than equal with God.

   Let us, then accept the rule of Jesus. This is the ladder that Jacob
   saw--the bottom of which rests on the earth, near to you--your feeble
   feet may reach it.

   But the top reaches to Heaven, and now between earth and Heaven,
   between man and God, there is a ladder that never can be broken--by
   which sinners may ascend to the Glory of God! O love Him, then! With
   all your hearts cherish the name and honor of the Incarnate God,
   Immanuel. Because He is so unspeakably glorious and gracious, serve Him
   with joy and gladness!

   Be it also known that Jesus the Savior must be received as Lord in the
   souls of those whom He redeems. You must obey Him if you trust Him, or
   else your trust will be mere hypocrisy. If we trust a physician we
   follow his prescriptions. If we trust a guide we follow his directions,
   and if we fully rely on Jesus, we obey His gracious commands. The faith
   which saves is a faith which produces a change of life, and subdues the
   soul to obedience to the Lord. Be not deceived--where Jesus comes, He
   comes to reign. Without submission to His will and Word, you are
   without the safety of His Atonement.

   The ship is saved from the rock because it obeys the pilot's hand as he
   moves the helm. If it were untrue to the steerage it would perish with
   the best of helmsmen on board. It is most just that He who bought us,
   sought us, found us, saved us, and preserves us should have our loving
   allegiance. And so assuredly it must be, or no peace can be established
   between us and God. Let us welcome His sway and pray Him to exert His
   power. Be this our daily prayer--

   "Almighty King of saints,

   These tyrant lusts subdue--

   Drive the old serpent from his seat,

   And all my powers renew.

   This done, my cheerful voice

   Shall loud hosannas raise;

   My soul shall glow with gratitude,

   My lips proclaim Your praise." And lastly, let me say I do not put this
   to you as a matter of choice as to whether you will or will not submit
   to the will of God and seek reconciliation with Him. Neither do I speak
   with bated breath when as a herald I hereby proclaim Jesus to be both
   Lord and God. But in the name of Him that lives and was dead and is
   alive forevermore, and has the keys of Hell and of death--I say, in His
   name--I DEMAND of you that you obey Him, and receive Him as the Christ
   of God. Yield yourselves to Him who is Lord of All. Do you refuse the
   summons that I give you now as His officer tonight?

   Then take heed what you do, for as the Lord lives you shall answer for
   this in the Great Day of His appearing. Behold He comes with clouds,
   and every eye shall see Him, and they also which crucified Him--and you
   who despise Him must be judged by Him. If you reject Him, you shall
   nevertheless see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God, and
   coming in the clouds of Heaven to judge the quick and dead.

   I say, again, then--I come to you not to flatter and deceive you. I
   come not to plead with you as though my Lord and Master were on equal
   terms with you. He summons you to surrender! He bids you throw down
   your arms and accept His mercy. He is not afraid of your opposition.
   Neither does He need your friendship. It is His Grace which leads Him
   to invite you to peace. He condescends to treat you thus, whom He might
   have sent into Hell with one word of His lips years ago. If you refuse
   Him you shall answer for it. On your heads shall be your own blood, and
   in that day when Heaven and earth shall pass away like a scroll, you,
   without a shelter--you, without an Advocate--you, without an excuse,
   shall be banished from His Presence to endure the wrath of God.

   The Lord grant His mercy that not one of you may stand out against Him,
   but this night, before another sun rises, may there be peace
   established on a sure footing between you and God, for Christ is our
   peace. May you take Him and trust Him, and be reconciled to God. And to
   God shall be the glory forever and forever. Amen and Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Done In A Day, But Wondered At Forever

   (No. 953)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 25, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. In that day, says
   the Lord of hosts. They shall call every man his neighbor under the
   vine, and under the fig tree." Zechariah 3:9,10.

   WE cull the text from one of Zechariah's most instructive visions. It
   is a stone from a diamond field. All the context is rich in precious
   things, but we cannot, though we would be very glad to do so, linger
   over them this morning. We must be satisfied with this one brilliant
   stone. Taking the text as it stands, and by itself, it is evidently
   descriptive of those long expected and happy days when God will once
   and for all forgive His Israel and restore His long-banished ones to
   their former place of favor and ofjoy. As a consequence thereof, He
   shall cause them to dwell in their own land under the happiest
   circumstances, surrounded by peace and enjoyment, praising and blessing
   the God of mercy.

   But we may, from the dealings of God with one particular case, usually
   extract the rule of the Divine procedure--for the Lord is under no
   necessity to alter His modes of action, and is not subject to change.
   As He works in one case, so may we expect Him to do in another, if the
   circumstances taken in are all similar. I purpose this morning, to
   draw, therefore, from the text nothing about Israel after the flesh,
   but much concerning the spiritual Israel--believing souls who are the
   true seed of the father of the faithful.

   Our object will be to glorify the fullness and richness of the Divine
   mercy which pardons the greatest sin and sheds abroad the most
   delightful peace. May the Holy Spirit now instruct both the preacher
   and the congregation. While all our eyes are gazing upon the promise of
   Grace, may it be fulfilled in our midst.

   I. Our first remarks will gather around the question, WHAT IS TO BE
   REMOVED? What does the text speak of? The reply is, "the iniquity of
   that land." The term "iniquity" or, in-equity, is a very comprehensive
   one--including everything that is not equitable, not right towards God,
   not just towards man. It comprehends the entire compass of sin, for a
   sin of commission is an in-equity of excess, and an omission is an
   in-equity of falling short. The text, therefore, in the term "iniquity"
   comprehends every violation of equity either by way of transgression or
   shortcoming.

   It includes sins against the first and second table, sins of the body,
   the hand, the tongue. Sins which more immediately spring from and end
   in the soul, sins against God and man, sins of youth, and sins of old
   age. Widely extended as iniquity is, God declares that He will remove
   all of it from His people in one day. The great variety of the sin to
   be removed is clear from the additional words, "that land."

   The offenses of a whole nation make up a complete catalogue of crimes.
   When high and low, old and young, rich and poor, literate and
   illiterate are considered as one body, the mass of their united sin is
   diversified, indeed. In the throng I see a despiser of parents in one
   place, and a Sabbath-breaker in another. Search the land over and you
   will be sure to find liars, slanderers, drunkards, gluttons, swearers,
   thieves, harlots, murderers, and I know not what of wickedness besides.

   The one city of Jerusalem was so sinful that Ezekiel likened it to a
   boiling pot, and said of it, "Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose
   scum is there. She has wearied herself with lies. In your filthiness is
   lewdness." In a land so large as Israel, though comparatively small,
   there must have been criminals of all kinds--wretches defiled with sins
   of the blackest dye--a more than Newgate calendar of reprobates. And
   yet it is promised that all these varieties of sin shall be removed in
   one day! From sins of thought and heart right up to blood-red murder,
   and the most desperate adulteries--all are spoken of as to be removed.

   The iniquity of a land, however, is not only that of the generation
   then dwelling in it, but the accumulated sin ofpast generations, even
   as we read that, "the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full." If
   anyone would speak correctly of the sins of Israel he would not mean
   the sins of the Israel of that particular hour, but the heaped-up sins
   of their fathers who had provoked God many long generations before. Now
   grasp the grand idea of mercy's boundless plan--in one day--

   the promise declares that God shall not only remove all the sins of one
   man, but all the sins of many men! Yes, and all the sins that have
   accumulated and laid up a store of wrath against a whole nation!

   What mercy is this which blots out the long records of the past, sweeps
   out the rotting heaps of old transgression and cleanses the Augean
   stable of a guilty nation's sin? "I will remove the iniquity of that
   land in one day." What a miracle of infinite mercy! The iniquity rises
   before us like a huge mountain whose peak defies the thunderbolts of
   God, but lo, eternal Mercy, like a sea, swallows up the mountain and it
   is gone, to be found no more. It is clear, then, from the text, that
   the Lord is able to forgive sins of every shade and form.

   What is your sin, my Hearer? Is it one peculiar to yourself? Yet can
   God forgive it. Are your sins of many sorts, so that you could not set
   them in order before your eyes because they are too varied and
   multitudinous? Yet can He remove them all in one day. No matter though
   one of your sins lie, as it were, in the far east, and another is found
   in the far west--He can cleanse the whole land of your nature. Though
   one of your sins is an attack upon the heights of Heaven, and another
   dives into the lowest blasphemies of Hell--He is both the God of the
   hills and of the valleys--and such enormities as yours He can remove.

   When a whole land is purged, sins similar to yours must have been in
   the number of those blotted out. Therefore there is hope for you, since
   what has been done can be done again. What are your sins? Are they as
   scarlet? "No," says one, "they are of another hue." Well, then, if they
   are crimson He will make one as wool and the other as snow. He will
   take away all iniquity. He will forgive all manner of sin and
   blasphemy. Whatever their tint and shade, and however double-dyed and
   ingrained our sins may be, the blood of Jesus can remove them all in
   one day.

   In addition, let every sinner here remember that the text indicates not
   only variety of sin, but vast quantities of sin-- the sin of a land
   consisting of millions of people is no light thing to remove in one
   day, yet the promise guarantees it. Eternal love takes to itself the
   new sharp threshing instrument of the Atonement, and therewith beats
   the mountains of sin till they become as chaff and the wind does carry
   them away. Learn, then, that however many your sins may be--you might
   as well count the sands on the seashore as number your
   transgressions--they can all be removed from you as far as the east is
   from the west.

   As the tide covers all the sand, so can forgiveness cover all your sin.
   As night covers all things, so can love cast a mantle over all your
   wrong doings. As the sun exhales a myriad dewdrops, so can eternal love
   cause all your sins to pass away. In the case of Israel, the iniquity
   to be removed had been continuous and aggravated. The iniquity of the
   land of Israel was an iniquity which had continued from generation to
   generation. Their first fathers rebelled in the wilderness. They sinned
   afterwards under the judges. They revolted under the kings. More and
   more they went astray, and when sold into captivity they still
   transgressed.

   If cured of one sin they became more inveterate in another. Though
   idolatry had been driven out of the Jews before our Savior's time, yet
   their heart was still apostate, for they crucified the Lord of Glory.
   So, my dear Hearer, if the continued sin of the Jews, which had for so
   long a period accumulated could be put away from the land in one day,
   so can yours. O you sinners of ripe years, O you transgressors of
   seventy or eighty years--there is hope for you!

   From the text I hear the silver trumpets ring, "I will remove the
   iniquity in one day"--the continuous iniquity-- then why not your
   continued iniquity? Though you have added stone of sin to stone till
   the mound of your transgressions stands as a memorial to God against
   you, yet He can remove the heap, and that in one single day. Is not
   this good news to sinners? I am sure it is to me! I do devoutly bless
   and thank my heavenly Father that He has put such great promises in His
   Word, and spoken so largely of His mercy to the guilty--for mine is a
   case of which I am obliged to say as Baxter did, "O Lord of Mercy, give
   me great mercy or no mercy, for little mercy will not serve my turn. I
   must have great mercy or I perish."

   See, then, in the text, the power of God to remove sin very remarkably
   set forth. The Prophet speaks of the sin of a whole land, of a most
   sinful land, a highly privileged land which had turned every privilege
   into provocation. Yet in one day the Lord would remove it all! The
   inference is clear, O penitent Sinner, that He can remove your sin,
   also. O you Hearer of the Gospel, convicted in your own conscience of
   having been a trifler with Divine things, despair not! Though you have
   gone as far as you can in sin, the Lord, through Jesus Christ, can put
   your sin away.

   I know how your mind is this morning. If you are aroused to see your
   state by nature, you are mourning that ever you had a being. O Man, it
   were, indeed, enough to make you mourn that you were born if there were
   not hope of a sec-

   ond birth, and hope in the infinite mercy of God for the removal of
   your hideous defilements! Take heart from the text, and approach your
   gracious King through Jesus the appointed Mediator--for if you believe,
   He will this day, even this day--take away all your transgressions,
   receive you graciously, and love you freely. The wayfaring man, though
   a fool, may in this text clearly see that our God is abundantly able to
   pardon, for He removes a nation's accumulated iniquity in one day.

   II. Secondly, we shall consider WHAT WAS TO BE DONE WITH IT. "I will
   remove the iniquity of that land in one day." It shall be remitted and
   forgiven. In some parts of Scripture we read of sin being "wiped out,"
   and the expression is remarkably expressive. Sometimes the wiping out
   refers to the housewife's meaning of the word--when the dish is wiped
   out and turned bottom upwards. So can God take our sinful souls and
   wipe them right out so that they shall be perfectly clean--and the pot
   which was filthy and had death in it shall be, "holiness unto the
   Lord."

   At other times the wiping out refers to the erasure of notes made upon
   tablets. Some writings were cleared off with a sponge. At other times,
   if the tablet was of wax and the marks were made with an iron pen, or
   stylus, then the wax was softened and smoothed again--and all evidence
   of the record totally disappeared. Though our sins are written with an
   iron pen and engraved with the point of a diamond upon the very horns
   of our altars, yet will the Lord make the record to disappear when His
   mercy is revealed to our faith.

   He blots out the handwriting which was against us. He puts it out of
   the way, nailing it to the Cross. He makes our sins, like clouds, to
   pass away forever. God can, O Sinner, wipe out your transgressions so
   that they shall not exist! Through the precious blood of Jesus He can
   finish your transgressions, and make an end of all your sins.

   If we take the word "remove" as it stands in the text, then it is as
   though a great stone lay at the door of God's mercy. "Sin lies at the
   door," who shall roll away the stone for us? "I," says God, "will
   remove the iniquity of this land in one day." Or it is like a burden
   pressing on our shoulders. Speak of the load which Atlas carried, when
   he is fabled to have sustained the world. it was nothing compared with
   this more than Atlantean load which crushes us down, and will crush us
   to the lowest Hell. "I will remove it," says the Savior, and He has
   kept His Word.

   He took the load upon His own shoulders and so removed it from us. And
   then He carried it right up to the Cross, and from the top of Calvary
   He hurled it into His sepulcher. And there He left it, a dead and
   buried thing. And if it is searched for, it shall not be found, "Yes,
   it shall not be," says the Lord. He has finished transgression, made an
   end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness for all His
   people.

   It is as though sin were looked upon as a substance, exceedingly heavy,
   but capable of removal. Not, however, capable of removal by any human
   hands, for it is as firmly settled in its place as the everlasting
   hills. But the Lord plucks it up by its roots, removes it, and casts it
   into the depths of the sea. Blessed be His name! He has so removed our
   sins, as Believers, that none can ever bring them back again to accuse
   or condemn us. He has fulfilled the promise, "I will remove the
   iniquity of that land." And once removed by Sovereign Grace, it shall
   never be brought back again.

   "As far as the east is from the west"--measure that, you astronomers!
   "As far as the east is from the west"--O swift-winged angel, compute
   the space! "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed
   our transgressions from us." The Lord has done it. It is finished! Our
   iniquity is removed. The depths have covered our sins, they sank like
   lead in the mighty waters.

   Listen patiently to this word. The removal of our transgressions lies
   in four things. There is the removal of the punishment. The man whom
   God pardons cannot be punished for sin. It were a mock pardon that left
   a man in the executioner's custody. The royal pardon bids every angel
   of justice hold off his hand. Your sins shall never rise against you,
   Sinner, if God forgives them. For you there is no Hell. For you no
   never-dying worm, no fire unquenchable. Forgiven! The sentence is
   stayed, no, revoked.

   The removal of transgression implies next, the taking away of the guilt
   of it as before the Lord. Sin has made God angry. It is a breach of His
   Law. It is a dishonor to His name. Yet God will forgive the believing
   sinner so that no anger shall linger in His bosom against him. He will
   cast his sins behind His back, put them out of His mind. Oh, miracle of
   miracles! Can God put anything behind His back when He sees all things?
   Can Omniscience find a corner where His eyes can never peer? Yes. He
   says, "I will cast your sins behind My back." O God, Your Word in this
   case is marvelous and strange, but we perceive right well Your gracious
   meaning--the transgressions of Your people shall not be remembered
   against them any more forever--their guilt is utterly removed.

   The removal of sin implies, thirdly, the putting away of the defilement
   of sin. Sin makes us to be polluted creatures. We are like degraded
   priests no longer clad in fair white garments, but wearing sordid, and
   filthy robes. When the sin is put away, the defilement consequent upon
   it also is cleansed and we become pure before God--personally
   acceptable with God. What a mercy is this! It is no less a mercy to be
   cleansed from personal defilement than to be delivered from future
   punishment.

   Again, the removal of sin includes, in the fourth place, the total
   destruction of the dominion of sin over our nature. Not that in us sin
   has lost all its power--but that in the Believer it has lost its
   reigning power, and is dethroned. The position of sin in a natural man
   is that of a king on his throne. The position of sin in a Christian is
   that of a bandit hiding in secret places trying to get back its old
   usurped dominion, but failing in the attempt, for "sin shall not have
   dominion over you, for you are not under the Law, but under Grace."

   Thus the promise of the text is a very full one. The removal of sin
   includes the remission of the punishment, the putting away of the
   guilt, the cleansing of the defilement, the dethronement of the evil
   power. Ah, my dear Hearers, my heart leaps within me for joy to think
   that I am able to tell you that such a fourfold, four times precious
   blessing, is to be conferred by God upon poor sinful men.

   O Sinner, how I wish you would have it this day. I love the word "this
   day." If in one day a land's iniquity could be so completely removed,
   why not yours today? Why not on this Lord's-day? How true a Sunday
   would it become to you? If you believe you have your sin removed, faith
   finds out the great Sin-Bearer and sees the transgression borne away by
   Him. O that pardoning Grace were given to everyone in this assembly, so
   that it could be safely said, "The Lord has removed the iniquity of the
   whole congregation of the Tabernacle in one day."

   Talk not of bell ringing--oh, what heart ringing, what heavenly songs,
   what soundings of the golden harps there would be if it might be so! O
   that the Almighty Spirit would apply the atoning blood, and remove the
   iniquity of all this multitude in one single day! Do it, Lord, and we
   will bless Your gracious name!

   III. But we must turn to the third point, which is this--HOW LONG IT
   TAKES TO REMOVE THE SIN. "I will

   remove the iniquity of the land in one day." It took a great many days
   to pile up the sin, but one day sees it removed. The iniquity of the
   land began when the people entered it. They had not been long in Canaan
   before Achan took of the forbidden thing, and he was but a type of the
   rest.

   They were a stiff-necked and rebellious people whose very nature was
   averse to the service of the Lord their God. Throughout the hundreds of
   years of the judges, the kings, the captivities, and so on, they
   continued to revolt from the Divine authority. They heaped up
   transgression till it stood aloft in mountainous heights. And yet when
   the dreadful pile was completed, the Lord made it to disappear in one
   day. Yes, and our sins have taken a long time to heap up--they comprise
   the sins of our youth, the sins of our manhood, the transgressions of
   our riper years--and it may be we have added to these the sins of our
   old age.

   One may say, as he looks at his sin, "That is forty years' work."
   Another may mournfully confess, "That is seventy years' accumulation."
   If each sin deserves a tear, O to be a Naomi! For we have need that
   clouds and rains dwell in our eyes. Our souls have need of all the
   watery things that nature can produce. But we may dry our tears, for
   though many days were taken for the formation of the sin, the Lord says
   He will remove it all in one day. In one single day seventy years of
   sin are forever put away by our Lord Jesus--truly for this His name
   shall be called "WONDERFUL."

   Think, dear Brethren, that this iniquity could not have been removed by
   all the repenting in the world. Though a man should repent of sin, if
   it were possible, not for one day, but for twenty thousand years, yet
   he could not remove his sin by repentance. Man tries to act as a
   bleacher to his sin--he dips the stained garment into the strong liquid
   which is to make it white, hoping that some spots will be removed.

   But when be takes it out again, if his eyes are clear, he says, "Alas,
   it seems as spotted as ever. I laid it to soak in that which I thought
   full surely would take out the stain, but so far as I can see, there is
   another stain added to the rest. I find myself worse instead of better.
   I must add a more pungent salt. I must use a stronger lye. I must make
   my tears more briny, I must fetch them up from the deep salt wells of
   my heart."

   He lays his vesture again to soak, but each time, as he takes it out,
   his own eyes become more keen and he sees more foulness in the garment
   than he had observed before. Then he goes and takes unto himself niter
   and much soap. But when he has used it all, when he has gone to his
   Church, when he has gone to his Chapel, when he has repeated his
   prayers, at-

   tended to ceremonies, done, I know not what, to prove the genuineness
   of his repentance--ah, the iniquity is still there, and will be there,
   and must be--let him do what he may. Yet what your repenting cannot do
   in thousands of years God can do for you, Sinner--and that in one
   single day!

   The people of Israel had been chastised very severely. Many times they
   were carried away captive and pillaged and robbed. But as often as they
   were chastised they so often returned to their sins, till the Lord
   said, "Why should you be smitten any more? You will revolt more and
   more." Now, what many years of chastisement could not remove, God's
   mercy removed in a single day. Oh, how some of you have been flogged
   and whipped! You have lost your property, perhaps. You have lost your
   health, it may be, through early sin. You have lost the dearest friends
   you ever had.

   You have been tried in body, tried in estate--but for all that you hug
   your sin, and the guilt of it still clings to you. Ah, but Jehovah
   Jesus can remove it in one day! What His Providence cannot do, his
   Grace can do. In one day Infinite Mercy can remove the sin. During all
   the years that Israel had sinned they had still offered sacrifices, but
   their sacrifices had never taken away sin. It is clear, since they had
   to offer the sacrifices every year, that their sins were not removed,
   for then no further sacrifice would have been needed.

   So, my dear Hearer, no sacrifice of yours or mine can ever take away
   sin. There are still men in what is called this "enlightened nineteenth
   century" who impertinently claim to be a special caste of priests, and
   will offer a sacrifice on our behalf before God. Well, let them go on
   with their worship if they will. Let the priests of Baal cry aloud and
   spare not even to the chapter's dreadful end--but no sin is ever put
   away in this fashion.

   The one sacrifice of Christ upon Golgotha, the one sin-bearing of
   transgression upon Calvary has put away sin in one day, and put it away
   forever, so that no further sacrifice is wanted, no new blood, no new
   atonement--

   "It is done, the great transaction's done," Heaven is satisfied.
   Justice is content. Mercy has a free channel. God is glorified. In one
   day, without help, alone, solitary--God, in the Person of His Son--has
   put away the transgression of His elect, and put it away forever and
   ever.

   Thus I might continue to show you the marvelous act of God in putting
   away iniquity in one day, because the pains of Hell, even, could not
   have removed sin, not even throughout eternity. Banished from God's
   Presence, the sinner at the end of ten thousand times ten thousand
   years would be as guilty as he was before--and as liable, still, to
   bear the wrath of God. For him there is no hope that suffering could
   ever make atonement. He must, forever and forever, as long as God's
   Word is true, lie under the weight of sin.

   There ought to be, among Christians, no question about the doctrine of
   the eternity of punishment. There could be none if men were not wise
   above what is written, for if Heaven is eternal, Hell must be. "These
   shall go away into eternal punishment, and the righteous into life
   eternal." The two things are put together in such a way that you must
   doubt the one if you doubt the other. No, you cannot rightly believe
   God concerning the one side without believing Him as to the other,
   also.

   But herein is the triumph of Christ. Dreadful as sin is, His Cross is
   more glorious! Awful as the transgression against God's Law is, so
   awful that none can measure its tremendous deeps, yet more glorious
   still is that most effectual Atonement which Christ has worked out and
   brought in--by which in one single day He has removed forever all the
   sin of His people. Oh, but this is a grand text! Who shall speak of it
   as he should? I wish that you would feel it, my dear Friends, and that
   would be better than my speaking upon it.

   Let it be, then, literally stated, that in one single moment all the
   sin which lies upon a sinner can be swept away! The word "one day" is
   used to show that the act of God in forgiving sin is instantaneous.
   Christ in one day put away sin by His suffering and death. Faith brings
   Christ to us, and --

   "The moment a sinner believes, And trusts in his crucified God, His
   pardon at once he receives, Salvation in full through Christ's blood."
   The dying thief had not to wait a month to get pardon, or else he would
   have died unsaved. He did but say, "Lord, remember me," and the answer
   came, "Today shall you be with Me in Paradise." You may have begun this
   morning the blackest sinner out of Hell--you may, before this service
   is closed, if God's Grace meets with you--be pure through the precious
   blood. Who shall describe that wondrous change from darkness into
   marvelous light, from death into spiritual life? May the Eternal Spirit
   work such a change as that in you!

   Remember, this change is not only possible to ordinary sinners, to such
   as have been moral and have kept within the bounds of the laws that
   regulate mankind in reference to themselves--but it is true of the very
   worst of sinners, the most degraded, depraved, abandoned--those who
   have gone to the utmost extravagance of transgression. One single day,
   faith being exercised, will put your guilt all away! One single word
   from the great King, "Absolvo te," "I absolve you," and all sin is
   gone!

   She to whom Christ said, "Your sins which are many are forgiven you,"
   received the pardon then and there. May that same voice in the power of
   the Spirit speak to some hearts today! And may they go out of this
   place justified, saying, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's
   elect? It is God that justifies--who is he that condemns?"

   IV. One would like to linger here, but I must not. For we must notice,
   in the fourth place, WHO IT IS THAT REMOVES INIQUITY IN ONE DAY. Here
   is the point of the text, "I will remove the iniquity of that land in
   one day." "I," "I," "I." That accounts for the wonder. What cannot God
   do? He can pluck the sun from his sphere, quench the lamps of night,
   shake the heavens, and dry up the sea--nothing is impossible to God,
   nor too hard for Him.

   "I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day." When Jehovah puts
   His hand to a work, then it is done. All without Him must fail. But
   when He does it, how readily is it accomplished! It is always, "I,"
   when you come to the pardon of sin. "I, even I, am He that blots out
   your transgressions."

   How He "I's" it there! "I, even I, am He that blots out your
   transgressions." Jehovah alone can say unto the soul, "I am your
   salvation. Who can forgive sins but God only." He forgives all your
   iniquities. He laid our sins on Jesus, and He, therefore, Himself takes
   them away from us. It is the Lord that pardons, the Lord that cleanses
   evermore. Hope then, O worn-out Transgressor, bowed down with sin--what
   could not be done by others--God can do!

   Tarry a moment over that word "I." Let me take it and translate it. The
   "I" of Jehovah is not one, but three. To begin, then--"May the Grace of
   our Lord Jesus Christ be with you," for it is He who says, "I will
   remove the iniquity of that land." He was laid as the one foundation
   stone of our hope, upon which seven eyes are fixed. He who was engraved
   with the graver's tool when He was fastened to the Cross, and His side
   was pierced--He it is that has removed the iniquity of His people in
   one day, by bearing it, by making a recompense to Almighty Justice for
   it all.

   See, then, the Crucified--He uplifts His pierced hands, He bares His
   open side, and He says--"Sinner, look to Me. I will remove your
   iniquity in one day." But, "May the love of God be with you," for it is
   the Father who says, "I will remove the iniquity of this land in one
   day." The returning prodigal said, "Father, I have sinned," and it was
   the father, the same offended father, who bid them take off his rags
   and kill for him the fatted calf. It was the father who rejoiced that
   his son that was lost was found, and that he who was dead was alive
   again. The Father, therefore, removes the sins of His children.

   And, "May the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you," for it is the
   Holy Spirit, also, who says, "I will remove the iniquity of the land in
   one day." He brings the blood that Jesus shed, the Jesus that the
   Father gave. He applies it to the conscience, sprinkles it upon the
   heart, and makes those to be actually and experimentally cleansed who
   in God's sight were cleansed by the death of Christ. "I will remove
   it." Oh, did you ever feel within your heart the power of the Holy
   Spirit removing your iniquity in one day?

   I shall never forget when my iniquity was removed. It was, indeed, in
   one single moment. Wretched I was, and more. My sins terrified, alarmed
   me--they haunted me day and night. They made me to sit on the doorstep
   of Hell. But how changed was the scene when I heard and understood that
   text, "Look unto Me and be you saved, all you ends of the earth." Then
   I was enabled to look to Jesus, and one look removed mountains. As I
   looked, my iniquity was forgiven, my joy was overflowing. I had to
   restrain myself and to do violence to my feelings in order to keep my
   seat.

   If the Methodists cry out, "Hallelujah," I could for once have cried
   out, "Hallelujah," with the loudest of them! Oh, the bliss of pardon,
   when it comes by the Holy Spirit! You may hear about it, my
   Brethren--you may read about it-- and both of these are well in their
   way. I hope you will continue both to hear and read, but these are not
   enough. It is essential that you receive the Word with living power
   within from God Himself, against whom you have offended.

   You can only find pardon and peace by looking to Jesus. The simple act
   of throwing yourself into His dear arms will bring it--nothing else
   will. It will come at once, come suddenly--and when it comes it will
   bring to you results of blessedness that shall know no end. "I," says
   God, "I will do it." "Give unto the Lord, then, you pardoned, give unto
   the Lord glory and strength! Give unto the Lord the glory that is due
   unto His name."

   Take now your songs and go forth and sing, "O God, I will praise You,
   for though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, and You
   comfort me." If you choose your joy in that sweet verse of our poet you
   will do well--

   "Jesus is become at length, My salvation and my strength! And His
   praises shall prolong, While I live, my pleasant song. Praise you,
   then, His glorious name, Publish His exalted fame, Still His worth your
   praise exceeds Excellent are all His deeds."

   Continue till you mount to Heaven to sing, "Unto Him that loved us and
   washed us from our sins in His own blood, to Him be glory forever and
   ever."

   V. And now to conclude. The last point of the text is, WHAT STATE
   FOLLOWS PARDON. "They shall call every man his neighbor under the vine,
   and under the fig tree." Yes, wherever pardon comes, peace follows. In
   times of war the fig trees are cut down, the vines are destroyed. And
   if not, the inhabitants are kept within doors and often are driven into
   the eaves of the earth for shelter.

   But the picture before us in the text represents the people as sitting
   at ease in their gardens and in their courtyards, where the luxuriant
   vines yield them shelter. The words admirably picture a scene of
   peace--each man under his vine and fig tree. I wonder why it is people
   cannot quote Scripture rightly in prayer, but there are very few who
   ever do. How often have I heard, "They shall sit every man under his
   vine and fig tree, none daring to make them afraid." I would like to
   find that in the Bible!

   The text in Micah is, "And none shall make them afraid." They dare do
   it, but they cannot do it. There is the point. They dare, but they
   cannot. The impudence of Satan is unlimited--he dares to do
   anything--but he cannot though he dares. Our text does not mention the
   fact, but it implies that no enemy can molest. A soul pardoned is a
   soul at peace. If God forgives me, nothing can distress me.

   "Strike," said Luther, "strike, Lord, if You will, for now You have
   forgiven me I will bear Your strokes and sing." Oh, yes! If sin is
   pardoned, nothing can harm us. For us the poison is gone, the sting is
   departed, the evil is annihilated. We have in the pardon of sin an
   antidote for all that might have distressed us. We must and shall have
   peace.

   But the text also implies neighborliness. They are not each one to sit
   under the vine, and under the fig tree, and say "Glory be to God I am a
   pardoned man, I am saved, I do not care about my neighbors one bit."
   No--he that is a gracious soul invites his neighbor, (for so it might
   run), invites him to commune with him! Grace is the most neighborly
   thing in the world. Christ's people are called sheep, sheep are
   gregarious--you do not meet sheep one by one--they go in flocks. They
   love company, good company.

   So you shall find the people of God. They are good company-keeping
   people. I do not mean that they have great entertainments, and care for
   idle chit-chat--but this is how they are described--"Then they that
   feared the Lord spoke often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and
   heard." Somebody said, "The good friends at the Tabernacle blocked up
   the steps a good deal after service by standing to talk with one
   another." Well, if you talk about Christ, and things Divine, the more
   you talk the better--of holy conversation there need be no limit.

   If you talk against your neighbor, be home with you! If you talk gossip
   and scandal, you have no right to do it on the Tabernacle steps--no!
   Where have you a right to do it? No where! Gossiping slander is at all
   times vile, but if our conversation is of Jesus, then the more we speak
   together, and the more sociable we are, the more the House of God on
   earth becomes like Heaven above. God save us from a stiff gentility
   that knows nobody because it does not know itself. May we, on the other
   hand, rejoice in what God has done for us and all His people, and,
   therefore, make ourselves familiar with the consecrated brotherhood of
   saints.

   Do not only sit under the fig tree, but call each man your neighbor.
   Say, "Rejoice with me! Come and help my joy, I cannot rejoice alone.
   Come and hear, all you that fear God, I will tell you what God has done
   for my soul." We will make even the heathen among whom we dwell to say,
   "The Lord has done great things for them." And we will say, "Yes, the
   Lord has done great things for us whereof we are glad." Christian
   sociability, Christian communion, Christian friend-

   ship, Christian communication the one with the other is a most
   desirable and fitting thing--and where sin is pardoned and peace is
   implanted it is quite sure to follow.

   But I must note again there is not only peace and neighborliness in the
   text, but there is comfort. They might sit, and they might sit together
   in misery--but in this case they sit in comfort under the vine, its
   broad leaves giving them shade. They sit under the fig tree, too,
   finding a cool retreat from the heat of the day. And oh, how Believers,
   when they meet together in communion, what comfort they have in the
   Holy Spirit! I could not help rejoicing today over a good Sister who
   has been away from here a long time.

   She had had a deal of trouble, and I praised God when she said, "Oh,
   but I should not have minded the trouble if I could have got to the
   Tabernacle on Sundays and weekdays, for there you could at least forget
   your troubles for an hour or two, and then go away strong to contend
   with them again." Yes, and when sitting under the shadow of Christ,
   under the leaves of His Truth, under the droppings of His familiar
   love, Christian fellowship becomes very sweet. One almost feels, when
   Jesus draws near to our assemblies, that if Heaven is better than this,
   it must be very good, indeed. We get such earnest anticipation of the
   joy of the glorified saints that we are fairly overcome with excessive
   delight!

   But note, it was not only comfort they had, but substantial enjoyment
   and real supply of needs. They sat under the vine--then there was wine
   for them to drink. They sat under the fig tree--then there were figs
   for them to eat. So when God gives pardon and peace, He gives to our
   souls a satisfaction with good things. We find in Jesus Christ, if we
   sit under His shadow with delight, that His fruit is sweet unto our
   taste--

   "All my capacious powers can wish In Christ do richly meet; Nor to my
   eyes is light so dear, Nor friendship half so sweet."

   Now, my Beloved Friends--you that are unsaved and remain so. I can
   understand that you seek company and that you will go and call every
   man his neighbor, "Come, let us make mirth, let us eat and drink, for
   tomorrow we die, let us break the Sabbath, let us break God's bands
   asunder, and cast His cords from us." I can understand that, and I
   think you also can understand that the company you keep on earth will
   be the company you will have to keep forever. "Bind them in bundles to
   burn them," will be the Lord's command. Like with like. They that
   depart from Christ on earth will hear Him say, "Depart, you cursed,
   forever." O that you might be led to seek God, and then to seek His
   people!

   But as for you that love God, I am sure if Grace is reigning in your
   hearts you will feel a yearning after holy company, and your company
   will be such as love what you love, such as hope to be with Jesus where
   you will be. "Oh, but God's people have many faults!" My dear Friend,
   so have you, but despite all the faults of the Church--

   "My soul shall pray for Zion still,

   While life or breath remains.

   There may best friends, my kindred dwell,

   There God my Savior reigns."

   There is no better company than the company that Christ keeps! There is
   no better house than the house that Christ inhabits. May we be willing
   to be doorkeepers in the House of God! May we, by God's Grace, be glad
   to be the least in the Church, so long as we may be numbered among the
   chosen, redeemed by the blood of Jesus! May the Lord give us perfect
   pardon, perfect peace, for His name's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Most Needful Prayer Concerning The Holy Spirit

   (No. 954)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 9, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Cast me not away from Your Presence. And take not Your Holy Spirit
   from me." Psalm 51:11.

   THIS Psalm is beyond all others a photograph of penitent David. You
   have probably seen that interesting slab of stone which bears on its
   surface indications of the fall of raindrops in a primeval shower--this
   Psalm preserves the marks of David's teardrops for the inspection and
   instruction of succeeding generations. Or what if I change the figure
   and borrow another from an Oriental fable? They said of old that pearls
   were formed by drops of spring rain falling into shells upon the shores
   of the sea. So here, the drops of David's repentance are preserved in
   inspired Scripture as precious, priceless pearls.

   This Psalm is as full of meaning as of tenderness. I know not how large
   a literature has gathered around it, but certainly writers of all
   creeds and ages have used their pens to illustrate it--and there is
   room for as many more. It is a perfectly inexhaustible Psalm. Its deep
   shaft of sorrowful humiliation leads to veins of golden ore. The stones
   of it are the place of sapphires.

   We shall confine ourselves, this morning, to this one verse--not with
   any prospect of being able to bring out all its meaning, but rather
   hoping to make use of it--and to find produced in ourselves a measure
   of the feeling which it so solemnly expresses. If we should be made to
   drink into its spirit, and then to pour out our hearts at the feet of
   our Redeemer, it will be an unspeakable blessing. We shall use the
   text, first, in its evident sense as the utterance of a penitent saint.
   Secondly, we shall employ it, as I think it may be used, as the cry of
   an anxious Church. And then, thirdly, but in a very modified sense, we
   shall put it into the mouths of awakened, but as yet unsaved souls.

   I. First, then, in its largest, widest, and primitive sense, we must
   regard this verse as THE CRY OF A PENITENT CHILD OF GOD. "Cast me not
   away from Your Presence. And take not Your Holy Spirit from me." This
   will certainly be fit language for any child of God here who has fallen
   into gross sin. I trust, my Brothers and Sisters, this may not be your
   case, but if it should be, hesitate not when you have fallen into
   David's sin, if you feel David's repentance, to offer David's prayer,
   "Cast me not away from Your Presence. And take not Your Holy Spirit
   from me."

   Backsliding Christian, you may yet return--there are pardons for sins
   of deepest dye. The Lord will heal your broken bones, and restore unto
   you the joy of His salvation. But probably far more of us will have an
   equal necessity to utter this supplication on account of gradual inward
   backsliding from the former closeness of our walk with God. One great
   sin, when committed, startles the soul into repentance.

   But a continuation of sin will be found to be even more dangerous.
   Though no one of the company of our transgressions may be a peculiarly
   striking iniquity, yet the whole together may produce an equally
   lamentable result upon the soul. White ants will devour a carcass as
   surely and as speedily as a lion. Many threads of silk twisted together
   may hold a man as fast as one band of iron.

   Come, let us consider. Many of us have been saved by Divine Grace, and
   not barely saved, but we have been made to walk in the light of God's
   Countenance. We have been somewhat like Daniel, men greatly beloved and
   highly favored. Now, have we acted in conformity with such
   distinguishing mercy? Have we manifested a holy jealousy such as Divine
   love ought to produce in us? Must not some here confess that their love
   has by degrees grown cold, or at least lukewarm? Must not many of us
   acknowledge that we have been very carnal, so as to have been overjoyed
   with worldly prosperity, or overly dampened with worldly adversity?

   Must we not acknowledge, many of us, that we have been slothful in the
   Master's service? Are there not some among you who for the last few
   months have done little or nothing for the Church and Truth of Christ?
   You were once diligent

   in your Master's business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. But
   that has gone--your former zeal and fidelity have departed from
   you--unstable as water, you do not now excel. With this there has crept
   over some hearts a listlessness in prayer, a want of enjoyment in
   reading the Word, a deadness towards spiritual things, a carelessness
   of walk, a carnal security of spirit. Dr. Watts' verse might suit some
   of you sadly well--

   "In vain we tune our formal songs,

   In vain we strive to rise.

   Hosannas languish on our tongues,

   And our devotion dies."

   Now, in such a case, my Brothers and Sisters, if you are conscious of
   an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. If you are
   obliged to confess that the former days were better than now, and to
   admit that the consolations of the Lord are small with you--I do, in
   deep and anxious sympathy with your condition--exhort you to use from
   your heart the language of the Psalmist, "Cast me not away from Your
   Presence. And take not Your Holy Spirit from me."

   You will perceive that a soul which can really pray thus has life--true
   spiritual life--still struggling within. An ungodly man does not ask
   that he may abide in nearness to God. Rather, he would say, "Where
   shall I flee from Your Presence?" He does not seek for God's Spirit. He
   is quite content that the evil spirit should rule him, and that the
   spirit of this world should be predominant in him.

   But here is life, struggling, panting, crushed, painful life--but life
   for all that. The higher spiritual life which sighs after God. I have
   seen in the corner of the garden a little fire covered up with many
   damp autumn leaves. I have watched its feeble smoke, and known thereby
   that the fire still lived and was fighting with the damp which almost
   smothered it. So, here, these desires and sighs and cries are as so
   much smoke, indicating the Divine fire within. "Cast me not away from
   Your Presence," shows a soul that loves God's Presence. "Take not Your
   Holy Spirit from me," reveals a heart that desires to be under the
   dominion of that Spirit yet more completely.

   Here are signs of life, though they may appear to be as indistinct and
   doleful as hollow groans far underground-- such as have been heard from
   men buried alive--voices from the sepulcher, choked and ghostly, but
   telling of life in the charnel house, grappling with death, and crying
   out, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me?" Let us look at
   these words closely, since I have shown you how applicable they are to
   us, and how they indicate spiritual life. I think when David used them,
   he may have looked back in his mind to that portion of sacred history
   with which he was conversant.

   He remembered when Adam and Eve, having rebelled against their Maker,
   were driven out from God's Presence, when the cherubim with flaming
   sword blocked the gate of Eden's blighted garden. "My God," he seems to
   say, "I, too, have offended. Your Presence is my Paradise, my Eden, all
   else is wilderness to me--barren, thorn-bearing wilderness. O drive me
   not out! Cast me not away from Your Presence! Let me but know You love
   me and I shall be in Eden. Let me but know that I am still Your child,
   Your favored one, and I will find in that sweet assurance my Paradise,
   my all. Let me be a courtier in Your palace, or even a doorkeeper in
   Your house, and I will be content. "But from Your Presence banish me
   not, else do You wither all my joys."

   Did he think of Cain, too, and was his mind so distressed that he was
   half afraid lest he should become like that marked man who went out
   from the Presence of the Lord to be a wanderer and a vagabond, and find
   from then on no rest for the sole of his feet? Did he feel that if he
   were exiled from God's Presence he would be just as wretched as the
   accursed Cain, himself? Did the thought of that first manslayer put an
   emphasis into the prayer, "Cast me not away from Your Presence"?

   Do you think he remembered Pharaoh, too, in that memorable night when
   the cloud that imaged the Presence of Jehovah came down between Israel
   and Egypt, and the dark side of it was towards Pharaoh? For God
   indignantly turned His back upon the haughty king, while His face shone
   lovingly upon His chosen, but afflicted people. Did he mean by our text
   to say, "Lord, turn not Your back on me. Cause not such trouble and
   confusion in my soul as ensued in Egypt's hosts when the night of Your
   wrath fell on it. O cast me not away from Your Presence"?

   Is it possible that the penitent monarch, while penning this Psalm,
   thought of Samson, too, and therefore uttered the latter part of the
   verse, "Take not Your Holy Spirit from me"? Did he remember the
   strongman who could tear a lion as though it were a kid when the Spirit
   of the Lord came upon him, or smite the Philistines hip and thigh till
   he piled them

   up in heaps when God was with him--but who, when his locks had been
   shorn, and the Spirit was gone--was ignomini-ously bound, and with
   blinded eyes was made to do a mill horse's work?

   Did he think of the hero of Gaza and say, "My God, take not Your Holy
   Spirit from me. Leave me not to be the sport of my enemies. Cast me not
   off as one whom You can no longer employ for high and honorable
   service. Take not Your Holy Spirit from me"? Or is it not very likely
   that if he thought of all these, yet his eyes were peculiarly fixed
   upon one between whom and himself there had been a very close relation?
   I mean Saul, his predecessor on the throne. That man had been chosen to
   rule God's people Israel, but he proved rebellious, and he was cast
   away from God's Presence, so that God would not hear him in the hour of
   distress.

   No Urim and Thummim would give him a Divine response. No Prophet would
   regard him. No priest could present for him acceptable sacrifices. He
   was cast away from God's Presence, and the Spirit was finally gone from
   him. Even that ordinary measure of the Spirit which he had once enjoyed
   was gone. Saul was once among the Prophets, but we find him by-and-by
   among the witches. Saul had lost all prudence in the council chamber,
   all success in the battlefield. The voice of Him by whom kings reign
   had gone forth against him, and broken his scepter.

   "Because you have rejected the Word of the Lord, He has also rejected
   you from being king." All this David remembered with a shudder, and his
   heart said to him, "What? Shall the son of Jesse be like the son of
   Kish? Shall the second anointed of Samuel be like the first, of whom
   the Lord said, 'It repents Me that I have set up Saul to be king' "? He
   became overwhelmed with dreadful apprehension and turned to the Lord
   with a bitter cry, "Oh, can it be, my God? Shall I also be cast away
   from Your Presence, and Your Spirit taken from me?" He bows himself in
   agonizing prayer with this as his petition, "Cast me not away from Your
   Presence. And take not Your Holy Spirit from me."

   Give me your patient attention, you who love the Lord, while I try to
   give you many reasons why such a prayer as this should arise out of the
   depths of your hearts, and leap from your lips. As for the first
   petition of the text, "Cast me not away from Your Presence," my
   Brethren, we have need to present it, for God's Presence is to us our
   comfort amid affliction. He is "a very present help in trouble." It is
   our greatest delight--of all our true joys it is the source and sum. We
   call Him by that name, "God our exceeding joy."

   The Lord's Presence is our strength. God with us is our banner of
   victory. When He is not with us we are weaker than water, but in His
   might we are Omnipotent. His Presence is our sanctification. By
   beholding the Glory of the Lord we become like He. Communion with God
   has a transforming power upon us. This, too, is our highest
   glory--angels have no brighter honor. And this shall be our Heaven
   hereafter--to dwell in the immediate and unveiled Presence of the Lord
   in His own Palace forever.

   I cannot, however, dwell at length on this first part of the text, and
   therefore I have summarized the reasons for its use. But the second I
   shall ask your attention to in greater detail. "Take not Your Holy
   Spirit from me." Remember, my Brethren, it was the Holy Spirit who
   first of all regenerated us. If we have, indeed, been born again from
   above, our new birth was by the Holy Spirit. "Not of blood, nor of the
   will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God," are we made
   this day spiritual men. If, therefore, we have not the Spirit, or it is
   possible that the Spirit is taken from us, the very essence of our
   spiritual life is gone. We are utterly dead, we are no longer numbered
   with the living people of the living

   God.

   The Holy Spirit is not to us a luxury, but a necessity. We must have
   the Spirit of God or we live not at all in a spiritual sense. If any
   man has not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His. Without the
   supernatural work of this Divine Person upon our nature we are not
   numbered with the family of God at all. Remember, my dear Friends, that
   into the Holy Spirit you and I, when we professed our faith in Jesus,
   were baptized. We were immersed "into the name of the Father, and of
   the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." And this day, without the Holy
   Spirit, you and I are fraudulent professors, baptized deceivers, and
   arrant hypocrites.

   If we were not, indeed, baptized into the Holy Spirit, how dare we be
   baptized into the outward symbol? As he who, if an unworthy
   communicant, eats and drinks condemnation to himself, even so does the
   unworthy participant in Baptism. This day we are bearing a false
   profession, we wear a fictitious name, we are as those who said they
   were Jews and were not, but did lie. We number ourselves with the
   people of God, but if we have not the Spirit we shall at last be
   numbered with the castaways. See to this, I pray you, and O may the
   preacher see to this himself!

   Remember, too, that the Spirit of God is to each one of us the Spirit
   of adoption. "You have not received," says the Apostle, "the spirit of
   bondage again to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption,
   whereby we cry, Abba, Father." Without the Spirit of God, then, we have
   no Spirit of adoption. We have lost that best of all blessings, the
   son-ship, which places us in possession of all the treasures of Heaven
   as joint-heirs with Christ.

   In the wilderness it was the sonship of our Lord which Satan assaulted
   when he tempted the Savior. "If You are the Son of God," said he.
   Christ the Lord, however, stood fast upon this point and was not
   moved--and therefore He conquered. Let anything come between us and the
   distinct recognition of our sonship towards God and we are undone.
   Lord, if it so pleases You, suffer Satan to rob me of all my goods, as
   Job was deprived of all his treasures. And let the desire of my eyes be
   taken from me, and my eyes, themselves, no more behold the sweet light
   of day.

   But "take not Your Holy Spirit from me," for then my very relation to
   You would vanish from my heart. While I can say, "My God, my Father," I
   have enough, though all else is gone. But if You are no Father to me,
   or I have no Spirit of adoption towards You, then I am undone, indeed.
   "Take not Your Holy Spirit from me," is a necessary prayer, for to do
   so would be to end our spiritual life, to cast us out as mere
   pretenders, to treat us as trees twice dead, plucked up by the roots.

   Further, let us not forget that it is by the Holy Spirit that we have
   access to God. "We have access by one Spirit unto the Father," says the
   Apostle. Now, access to God is among the richest of our privileges. Let
   a man be able to take his burdens to God and it little matters how
   heavy they may be. Let him be able to tell his needs to his Father, and
   it little signifies how great those needs may be, for God will supply
   them all according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. But take
   away the Mercy Seat, or block up the road by which the Believer reaches
   it. Withdraw his power in prayer, and his faith in the promise--and all
   this you do if you take away the Holy Spirit from him--then is the
   Believer ruined, indeed.

   Praying in the Holy Spirit is the only true praying. O may we never
   cease from it! "He helps our infirmities: for we know not what we
   should pray for as we ought." Without His teaching, then, what
   stammering prayers, what wandering prayers, what prayers that are not
   prayers at all we should offer! We must have the Spirit or else our
   great resource and remedy of prayer becomes unavailable. On your knees,
   then, you that have wandered and deserve to be forsaken and deserted of
   the Holy Spirit! I beseech you cry mightily, "Take not Your Holy Spirit
   from me," and let your plea be in the name and merit of Christ Jesus
   the Savior.

   Moreover, Brethren, the Holy Spirit is our great Instructor. In these
   times, when errorists of all kinds are anxious to mislead us, some from
   the side of credulity, and others from the side of skepticism, we have
   need to pray every day, "Take not Your Holy Spirit from me." One says,
   "Lo, here!" Another, with equal vehemence, cries, "Lo, there!" We have
   not only, "another gospel," but we have fifty other gospels now
   preached. Though there is but one foundation and one salvation, yet
   there are those among us who proclaim with earnestness this, and that,
   and other doctrines as fundamental, though their teaching is of the
   flesh, and not of God.

   The young and unwary must often have cause, in great bewilderment, to
   enquire, "How shall I know the Truth? By what means shall I discern the
   way?" Now, the Spirit of God is given to "lead us into all Truth," and
   reverently sought, He will be given to all who lack wisdom--to teach
   them the things of Christ, by taking those precious things and
   revealing them unto their hearts.

   But oh, without the Holy Spirit our patient and Infallible Teacher, we
   should be like a child in the woods when the sun has gone down,
   wandering here and there, torn with briers and fearful of the wolf,
   crying in the dark for its father. Or like a traveler lost on one of
   our southern downs, surrounded by a clinging mist, not knowing which
   way he goes, and in constant danger of falling from some lofty cliff
   into the sea. "Take not Your Holy Spirit from me." You puzzled and
   bewildered children of God, here is a prayer for you--and God fulfill
   it to you according to His infinite mercy.

   Again, I pray that I may be helped to magnify the Holy Spirit in your
   esteem, making you to love Him and worship Him more than ever. Dear
   Brethren, we want the Holy Spirit as our Comforter. This is one of His
   names, the Paraclete, the Comforter. He has come on purpose to appease
   the griefs of His children, and bring peace into their minds. Now,
   whatever our troubles may be, if we have such a Comforter, we can
   afford to welcome them.

   Our adversities may be innumerable, but with the Holy Spirit's
   Presence, we rise above them all. But, O my God, if the Comforter is
   gone, then my brain reels, my spirit sinks, I give up the conflict, I
   cannot endure to the end--for only by His consolations shall I in
   patience possess my soul.

   Though I might enlarge, I must not, for time reproves me. The Holy
   Spirit is our Sanctifier, and when we feel sin raging within, how can
   we hope to conquer without His aid? If He should leave us, if He who
   began the work does not keep His hand to it, how will it ever be
   complete? Holiness is too Divine a work to be worked in us by any
   inferior hand. He who made the first rough draft must put in the
   perfecting stroke, or all will remain incomplete.

   And He, also, is our power for practical service--the "power from on
   high" for which Apostles tarried of old. If the Holy Spirit is not with
   the preacher, vain are his pleadings with men. If He is not with the
   teacher in his class, with any worker for God--what is their labor but
   beating the air, or reasoning with the waves? If no other person can
   pray this prayer from his inmost soul, at least the preacher can.

   It rises up, as the Lord knows, from the very center of my heart. I
   dread beyond all things the Spirit's withdrawal. Death has not half the
   terror of that thought. I would sooner die a thousand times than lose
   the helpful Presence of the Holy Spirit. I will just one moment allude
   to a controversy which has raged around this text, and then pass on.
   Some have said, "Then a true saint may be cast away, lose the Spirit of
   God, and perish." The argument being that there is no need for a man to
   pray for that which God is sure to give, or pray against an evil which
   God will never inflict.

   The answer is briefly this--I should not dare to pray, "Cast me not
   away from Your Presence. And take not Your Holy Spirit from me," if I
   had not the promise that He will not cast me away from His Presence,
   nor take His Holy Spirit from me. Instead of it not being right to pray
   for what God will give, I venture to say it is not right to pray for
   what God will not give. The promise is not a reason for not praying,
   but the very best reason in all the world for praying. Because I
   earnestly believe that no real child of God will ever be cast away from
   God's Presence, therefore I pray that I may not be.

   And because I am well persuaded that from no really regenerated soul
   will God ever utterly take His Spirit, therefore, for that reason above
   all others do I pray that He may never take His Spirit from me. I say,
   again, it is absurd to argue that a thing which God promises to give is
   not to be asked for, for has He not Himself said, "I will yet for this
   be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them"? The fact
   that the continuance of the Holy Spirit is the subject of an inspired
   prayer rather strengthens, than weakens the certainty of the promised
   blessing.

   Moreover, be it remembered, that God may partially take away His
   Presence and His Spirit, and yet, after all, never remove His
   everlasting and eternal love from that person. For He may only withdraw
   for a season, for wise reasons, to return again afterwards with
   fullness of Grace. Against this partial desertion we are, however,
   allowed and encouraged to pray. Once again, remember that when a man
   has sinned, as David did, and is bowed down as David was, he cannot
   always pray in language which would be precisely suitable for a
   well-assured saint.

   He has doubts as to whether he is saved, and therefore he does well to
   pray on the lowest ground as though he were not surely a saint, but
   might prove an apostate after all. It is most natural for a backslider
   to use expressions implying the very worst, expressions rather of fear
   than confidence, rather of distress than repose. David cries like Jonah
   out of the belly of Hell, "Cast me not away from Your Presence."

   The lower down we get, the better. I frequently find that I cannot pray
   as a minister. I find that I cannot sometimes pray as an assured
   Christian, but I bless God I can pray as a sinner. I begin again with,
   "God be merciful to me, a sinner," and by degrees rise up again to
   faith, and onward to assurance. When assurance is gone, and faith is
   weak, it is a great comfort that we may pray a sinner's prayer--the
   words of which may be inaccurate as to our actual condition, but
   correctly describe our doubts and fears, and supposed condition.

   II. But now I shall pass on to take these words and use them as THE
   VOICE OF AN ANXIOUS CHURCH. The true Church of God may well pray, "Cast
   me not away from Your Presence. And take not Your Holy Spirit from me."
   Brethren, I shall speak pointedly to this Church, over which the Holy
   Spirit has made me an overseer. Let us, my dear Brethren, remember that
   there have been Churches of old which God has cast away from His
   Presence.

   Where are the Churches of Asia that were once like golden candlesticks?
   Where are Sardis, Thyatira and Laodicea? Can you find so much as a
   relic of them? Are not their places empty, void and waste? Look at the
   Church of Rome, once a martyr Church, valiant for the Truth of God, and
   strong in the Lord--now the very personification of Antichrist, and
   utterly gone aside to the worship of images and all manner of
   idolatries--an apostate and defiled thing, and no more a Church of
   Christ at all.

   Now, what has happened to other Churches may happen to this Church and
   we ought to be very earnestly on our guard lest so it should be. In
   your own time you yourselves have seen Churches flourishing,
   multiplying, walking in peace

   and love. But for some reason not known to us but perceived by the
   Watcher who jealously surveys the Churches of God, a root of bitterness
   has sprung up, divisions have devoured them, heresy has poisoned them,
   and the place that once gloried in them scarcely knows them now.

   Existing they may be, but little more--dwindling in numbers, barren of
   Divine Grace--they are rather an encumbrance than power for good.
   Remember, then, Beloved, that the power of any Church for good depends
   on the Presence of God, and that sin in the Church may grieve the Lord
   so that He may no more frequent her courts, or go forth with her
   armies. It is a dire calamity for a Church when the Lord refuses any
   longer to bless her work, or reveal Himself in her ordinances.

   Then is she driven of the wind here and there like a boat derelict and
   castaway. The Lord may, because of sin, take away His Holy Spirit from
   a Church. The spirit of love may depart, the spirit of prayer may
   cease, the spirit of zeal and earnestness may be removed, and the
   Spirit which converts the souls of men may display His power elsewhere,
   but not in the once-favored congregation. Let me impress upon you that
   all this may readily happen if we grieve the Holy Spirit as some
   Churches have done.

   My Beloved, let me refresh your memories with the recollection that the
   great power of the Church does not lie in the power of her
   organizations. You may have good schemes for work wisely arranged and
   managed, but they will be a failure without the Divine energy. Too
   often excellent methods are rigidly adhered to, and confidently relied
   upon, and yet, without the Holy Spirit they are sheer folly.

   We are told that in unhappy Paris, when first the mails were stopped,
   the drivers of the mail carts took their seats upon their boxes and sat
   there, though no horses were forthcoming. Red tape commands as much
   reverence as the magic cord of the Brahmins. Formal routine satisfies
   many. Preachers, deacons, and teachers sit on the boxes of their mail
   coaches for the appointed time, but the power which moves the whole is
   too much forgotten, and in some cases ignored.

   Souls are not saved by systems, but by the Spirit. Organizations
   without the Holy Spirit are windmills without wind. Methods and
   arrangements without Divine Grace are pipes from a dry conduit, lamps
   without oil. Even the most Scriptural forms of Church government and
   effort are null and void without the "power from on High."

   Remember, too, that the power of the Church does not lie in her gifts.
   You might, every one of you, have all wisdom and be able to understand
   all mysteries. We might all speak with tongues and be numbered among
   the eloquent of the earth--but our Church might not flourish for all
   this. Gifts glitter, but are not always gold. Gifts may puff up, but
   they cannot build up if the Holy Spirit is not there.

   Strife and divisions, emulations and jealousies are, through the evil
   of our nature, the very frequent consequences of the possession of
   great talents by a Church--and these things are unmingled evils. Nor
   does the power of the Church consist in her wealth. When the Spirit is
   with her, sufficient treasure is laid at her feet, and the "daughter of
   Tyre is there with a gift." But if the Spirit of God is gone, we might
   say of all the money that was ever poured into ecclesiastical coffers
   by those who sought to strengthen her, "Your money perish with you!"

   Gold avails nothing to a Church devoid of Divine Grace, it does but
   increase the evil which is corrupting within. O you vainglorious
   Churches--you may gild your domes, you may make your pillars of
   alabaster, and cover your altars with precious stones--you may clothe
   your priests in scarlet and in fair white linen, you may make your
   ceremonies imposing, your processions gorgeous, and your music
   enchanting--but all this avails nothing if the Spirit of God is gone!
   All that remains for you is as sounding brass, and a tinkling cymbal.

   Nor, and here let me press this upon you, does the strength of a Church
   lie merely in her doctrines. I know not that Laodicea held false
   doctrines, yet was she nauseous to the Lord. Orthodox Churches may
   become lifeless corpses. Truth may be held in unrighteousness. Creeds
   most accurate may be but the cerements in which a dead Church is
   wrapped to be carried to her burial. Men have had sound views of the
   Truth of God, and yet have been unsound in life, and sound in nothing
   else but in the sleep of carelessness.

   Nor does the strength of a Church lie in her numbers. Congratulate
   yourselves that your membership is counted by thousands, but if you
   become a mob and not an army, or an army without a Divine Leader, and
   without the enthusiasm which only the present Spirit of God can
   give--what are your numbers but the source of difficulty, corruption,
   and failure? You are like so many grains of sand that cannot unite. You
   are altogether broken, and poured out like water if the Spirit is gone.

   What availed the number of the Scribes and priests of old when God had
   left them to their own blindness? What can the largest flock of sheep
   do without a shepherd? What is a large Church without the Lord's
   Presence but a mass of chaff to be scattered with a whirlwind, or to
   rot on the threshing floor? So, too, is it with the past history and
   the prestige of a Church. It is vain to depend on these. There is far
   too great an attitude among us to fall back on what our fathers did, or
   what we ourselves achieved ten or twenty years ago. My word to you, my
   dearly Beloved Church, is, "Hold fast that which you have, that no man
   take your crown."

   Our crown as a Church has been this--we have been a soul-winning
   Church. We have had nothing else whereof to boast, but this is our
   claim--we have sought the souls of men, and God has given them to us.
   To Him be all the glory. Shall we lose that crown through slackness and
   lukewarmness? It must be so unless we cry again and again, "Take not
   Your Holy Spirit from us." The Holy Spirit we want to abide with us in
   all the excellency of His glorious power. And if we have Him not, woe
   is the day. Our Shiloh shall become a desolation, and this beautiful
   house of our assembling shall become a hissing and a reproach.

   Brethren, I will use an image which will come home to your minds at
   once. Any Church of God from which the Spirit has departed becomes very
   much like that great empire with whose military glory the world was
   dazzled, and whose strength made the nations tremble. France, mistress
   of arms, queen of beauty, arbiter of politics--how soon has she fallen!
   I have heard many reasons given for her sudden overthrow, but I
   scarcely believe any of them to be sufficient to account for such a
   fall.

   In an hour, like a lily broken at the stalk, she has withered. On a
   sudden, as though the hand of God had gone out against her, her glory
   has departed. Why was it? I do not believe that it was any lack of
   courage in her soldiery, nor do I even think that there was more than
   usual deficiency of skill in her commanders. Her hour had come, she was
   weighed in the balances and found wanting, and her prowess failed her
   as in a moment. The nation once so great now lies bleeding at her
   victor's feet, pitied of us all, none the less, because her folly
   continues the useless fight.

   Just so have we seen it in Churches. May we never so see it here.
   Everybody may be saying, "How wondrously that Church flourishes! What
   power! What influence! What numbers!" And on a sudden some radical evil
   which had been eating out the very soul of the Church may come to its
   issue--and then, as in a moment, all the apparent prosperity will
   subside--and the Philistines will rejoice. May it not be so! May our
   prayer be, "Take not Your Holy Spirit from us."

   Travelers in Egypt point to spots where once grew luxurious vegetation
   when the soil was constantly irrigated by the rich stream of the Nile.
   But now the irrigation, having ceased, the sand of the Libyan desert
   has conquered the fertile ground and annexed it to the wilderness.
   After this sort, Churches irrigated by the Spirit once produced rich
   harvests of souls--left of the Spirit the sand of the world has covered
   them--and where once all was green and beautiful there is nothing but
   the former howling wilderness.

   It awakens melancholy reflections when we hear of the bodies of old
   Egyptian kings, proud lords of millions of men, dragged by our
   discoverers out of their secret chambers in the pyramids and exposed to
   every vulgar eye. The great sarcophagus has had its lid uplifted, and
   the monarch who once ruled the world has been taken out and his corpse
   unrolled for the sake of a little old linen, and an ounce or two of the
   embalming gum. Poor mummy! Once a Pharaoh whose voice could shake a
   nation and devastate continents--now used to heat an Arab's kettle or
   to furnish an object for a museum.

   So with a Church--alive by the Divine indwelling--God gives it royalty
   and makes it a king and priest unto Himself among the sons of men. Its
   influence is felt further than it dreams. The world trembles at it, for
   it is fair as the sun, clear as the moon, and terrible as an army with
   banners. But when the Spirit of God is departed, all that remains is
   its old records, ancient creeds, title-deeds, traditions, histories and
   memories!

   It is in fact a mummy of a Church rather than a Church of God, and it
   is better fitted to be looked at by antiquarians than to be treated as
   an existent agency. May we never come to this! May the Tabernacle abide
   in prosperity till the Temple of God shall be among men. Let our whole
   Church lift up the prayer, "Cast me not away from Your Presence. And
   take not Your Holy Spirit from me."

   III. But time outruns me, and therefore I must close by regarding this
   as THE CRY OF AN AWAKENED SINNER. Not properly, nor accurately, but
   still instructively I may use it. O unconverted Man, if you are,
   indeed, anxious about your soul, pray this prayer, "Cast me not away
   from Your Presence. And take not Your Holy Spirit from me." Say you

   thus to the Lord, "O You most merciful God, pronounce not yet that
   word, 'Depart, you cursed.' My God, cast me not away as reprobate.

   "Let Your longsuffering spare me a little longer, till Your Grace has
   saved me. Let me still stand on praying ground and pleading terms with
   You! 'Take not Your Holy Spirit from me.' It is true I have not Your
   Spirit as I gladly would have it, but still I hear Your Word. O let me
   not be denied the hearing of Your Gospel which by Your Grace may bless
   my soul. Still have I Your Holy Book, and Your Spirit's voice is heard
   there--may it lead me to Jesus. O take not away Your Book from me! Shut
   me not up in Hell, where I shall feel the threats, but never know the
   promises of Your Word.

   "Sometimes Your Spirit touches my conscience--hard as my heart is--it
   sometimes trembles. Sometimes I feel myself inclined to love You if I
   could. I feel some sighing and yearning after You. Take not these
   beginnings of Grace from me. O God, I wait upon You in the hearing of
   Your Word, and sometimes I hope Your power, Your life, will come to me,
   and I, even I, the chief of sinners, shall yet be saved. O take not
   away that hope utterly and forever. Swear not in Your anger that I
   shall never enter into Your rest, but rather turn Your pitying eyes on
   me and break my heart this day, and bind it up with the dear Savior's
   love. Save me, O save me, with Your great salvation, for the sake of
   Jesus, Your Son."

   Have you prayed that prayer, dear Hearer? It shall be heard. But hear
   what God speaks to you--it is this--"Believe you now this day, and
   trust in Jesus and you shall be saved." Come now and put yourself
   before the Cross. Trust yourself for time and for eternity in His dear
   hands, who there poured out His soul unto death for sinners. Then shall
   you know without a doubt that He will never cast you away from His
   Presence!

   "Him that comes to Me," says Jesus, "I will in no wise cast out." Then
   shall you know that the Spirit shall not be taken from you, for He is
   with them that believe, and He shall abide in them forever. God bless
   you, every one of you, for Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Singular But Needful Question

   (No. 955)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 16, 1870,

   BY C H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Will you be made whole?" John 5:6.

   JESUS spoke to the impotent man who had been afflicted for thirty-eight
   years, and enquired of him, "Will you be made whole?" It seems a very
   strange question to ask. Who would not be made whole? Would the poor
   man have been lying at the pool if he had not been anxious for healing?
   Must there not have been in the very look of his face, as he gazed upon
   the Savior, an answer to that question, superseding all necessity of
   saying it? Yet as our Lord spoke no superfluous words, it may be that
   He perceived that the paralysis of the man's body had, to a very
   painful degree, benumbed his mind and brought on a paralysis of his
   will.

   He had hoped till his heart was sick. He had waited till despondency
   had dried up his spirits. And now it had almost come to this, that he
   scarcely cared whether he was made whole or not. The bow had been bent
   so long that all its elasticity was destroyed. He had hungered till
   appetite, itself, was gone. He was now listless, with an indifference
   made up of sullen repining at his disappointments and blank
   hopelessness for the future. The Savior touched a chord which needed to
   vibrate when He enquired as to his will. He aroused, by that question,
   a dormant faculty whose vigorous exercise, it may be, was one of the
   first essentials to a cure. "Will you be made whole?" was the enquiry
   of a profound investigation, the scientific probe of a great Physician,
   the resurrection from the grave of a great master power of manhood.

   Now, in the matter of preaching the Gospel today, it may seem almost an
   impertinent question for me to put to each one of you gathered here who
   as yet are not saved, "Will you be made whole?" "Surely," you will
   reply, "everyone desires salvation." Believe me, I am not quite so
   certain as you are of the truth of that statement. "But our being
   here," says one, "our having been here so long, and our attentive
   listening to the Gospel go to prove that we are willing enough to be
   made whole if we could but discover where health is to be found, and
   what is that balm of Gilead of which so much is

   said."

   And yet I should not wonder if there are many here who through having
   waited so long are beginning to be paralyzed in their once earnest
   desires. And others, who having been here so long and never having been
   very anxious, at last have come to occupy these pews as a mere matter
   of custom--they have no hearty will towards the wholeness of soul which
   the Good Physician is always prepared to give to those who seek His
   help. I am persuaded that instead of the question being an unnecessary
   one, it is in every congregation one of the first to be pressed upon
   the hearer's attention.

   To get a truthful answer to this enquiry from the inmost soul of every
   hearer is my object now, believing that it will be a very healthful
   thing to you--even if you are honestly compelled to give a negative
   answer. It will at least expose the condition of the heart to itself,
   and that may be helpful towards something better. As God may help me, I
   shall labor to press upon you very earnestly this question this
   morning, O unsaved Man or Woman, "Will you be made whole?"

   I. This question is necessary to be put, in the first place, because IT
   IS A QUESTION NOT ALWAYS UNDERSTOOD. It is not the same as this
   question, "Will you be saved from going to Hell?" Everyone answers,
   "Yes," to that. "Will you be saved so as to go to Heaven?" At once,
   without deliberation, everyone says, "Yes." For the harps of gold, for
   the songs of blessedness, for the eternity of immortality--we have all
   a heart and a strong desire--but that, you see, is not the question.

   Heaven and its joys come out of what is proposed in our question, as a
   result, as a consequence--but that is not the matter in hand just now.
   We are not now saying to the thief, "Will you have your imprisonment
   remitted?" We are putting it to him in another shape--"Are you willing
   to be made an honest man?" We are not now saying to the murderer, "Are
   you anxious to escape the gallows?" We know his reply. The question we
   are putting to him is, "Will you be made righteous, upright, kind,
   forgiving, so as to give up all this evil of yours?"

   It is not, "Are you willing to sit at the festival of mercy, and eat
   and drink as those do who are in health?" But, "Are you, yourself,
   willing to be made spiritually healthful, to pass through those Divine
   processes by which the foul disease of sin may be cast out, and the
   healthiness of sanctified manhood may be restored to you?"

   To help you to know what that question means, let me remind you that
   there never were but two men who were whole, perfectly whole. And those
   may be called the two Adams--the first and the Second Adam. These both
   showed us in their own persons what a man would be if he were whole.
   The first Adam in the garden--we should all be willing to be in
   Paradise with him! We should all be delighted to walk beneath those
   never-withering boughs, and gather ever-luscious fruits, without toil,
   without suffering, without disease, without death.

   We all should be glad enough to welcome the return of the primeval
   gladness of Eden, but that is not the question. It is, should we be
   willing to be made mentally and morally what Adam was before his sin
   brought disease into manhood? And what was Adam? Why, he was a man who
   knew his God, knew many things beside, but mainly and chiefly knew his
   God. His delight was to walk with God, to commune with Him, to speak
   with Him as a man speaks with his friend-- until he fell he was one
   whose will was submitted to the will of his Creator, anxious and
   desirous not to violate that will, but in all things to do what his
   Lord should bid him.

   He was placed in the garden to till the ground, to keep and dress the
   garden, and he did all that with joy. He was a whole, a sound man. His
   whole enjoyment consisted in his God. It was his one object as a living
   creature to do the will of Him that made him. He knew nothing of
   rioting and drunkenness. For him there were no lascivious songs or
   wanton deeds. The flash of debauchery and the glitter of profligacy
   were far from him. He was pure, upright, chaste, obedient. How would
   you like to be made like he, Sinner--you who are doing your own
   will--you who have sought out many inventions? You who find happiness
   in this sin and the other filthiness, would you be willing to come back
   and find your happiness in your God, and from now on serve Him, and
   none beside?

   Ah, perhaps you say, blindly, "Yes," and it is possible you know not
   what you say. If the truth were more clearly before you, you would
   obstinately refuse to be made whole. Life would, under such an aspect,
   seem to you tame, joyless, slavish. Without the fire of lust, the
   excitement of drink, the laughter of folly, and the pomp of pride, what
   would existence be to many? To them our ideal of sound manhood is but
   another name for bondage and misery.

   Take the other instance of a Man who was whole. It was Jesus, the
   Second Adam. Dwelling here among the sons of men, not in a Paradise,
   but in the midst of obloquy, temptation, and suffering, yet was He a
   whole, sound Man. Sicknesses He took upon Himself, as to His body--and
   our sins were reckoned to Him as our Substitute. But in Him was no sin.
   The prince of this world searched Him through and through, but could
   find no unsoundness in Him. The perfection of our Savior's manhood
   consisted in this--that He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate
   from sinners."

   He was holy, that is, in its root, the same thing as "whole." He was a
   complete, perfect, uninjured, untainted Man. He was whole towards His
   God. It was His meat and drink to do the will of God that sent Him.
   Jesus as Man was man as God would have man--perfectly conformed to His
   right position. He was as He came from the Maker's hand, without blot,
   without loss, without excrescence of evil, and without the absence of
   any good thing. He was whole and holy. Therefore he was harmless, never
   inflicting ill on others in word or deed.

   He was undefiled, never affected by the influences that surrounded Him
   so as to become false to His God or unkind to man. He was undefiled,
   though blasphemy passed through or by His ear, yet it never polluted
   His heart. Though He saw the lust and wickedness of man carried to its
   climax, yet He Himself shook off the viper into the fire and remained
   without spot, and blameless. He was also separate from sinners, not
   drawing around Him a Pharisaic cordon, and saying, "Stand by, for I am
   holier than you," but eating with them and yet separate from them.

   And never more separate than when His benignant hand touched them, and
   when He entered most deeply into sympathy with them in their sorrows.
   He was separate by His own mental elevation, moral superiority, and
   spiritual grandeur. Now, would you wish to be like Jesus?

   There is a question. Probably if you were, it would involve in you much
   of His experience. You would be laughed at, you would be scoffed. You,
   too, would be persecuted, and unless Providence restrained your foe,
   you also might be brought to death. But taking Christ for All and
   All--would you be willing to be made like He--to have torn away from
   yourself much real evil which you now admire, and to have implanted in
   you much real good, which perhaps at this moment you do not appreciate?
   Would you be willing now to be made whole?

   I can imagine that you say, "I want to be like Jesus, I anxiously
   desire it," and yet permit me gently and affectionately to whisper in
   your ear that if you knew what I meant, if you knew what Jesus was, I
   am not so sure that your will would very vehemently incline that way. I
   am afraid that many a struggle, and many a rebellion would arise in
   your heart if the process were being carried on towards making you
   whole as Jesus Christ was whole.

   Still further, to illustrate the meaning of the question, "Will you be
   made whole?" let me remind you that when a man is whole, complete, and
   what a man should be, there are certain evil propensities which are
   expelled, and certain moral qualities which he is sure to possess. For
   instance, if a man is made whole before God he is made honest before
   men. No man can be said to be whole while he is still guilty of
   injustice in his trading, in his thinking, in his conversation, or in
   his actions towards his neighbors.

   Sinner, you have been in the habit of perpetrating in your business
   much that would not stand the tests of God's all-searching eye. You
   often say in your trading things that are not true. You excuse them by
   the assertion that others do the same. I am not here to listen to your
   excuse, but I am about to ask you earnestly, "Will you be made whole?"
   Are you desirous to be made from this time a thoroughly, strictly,
   punctiliously honest man? No more lying puffs! No more exaggerations!
   No more overreaching, and taking of advantage! Come now, what do you
   think of this state of things?

   Why, there are some who could not carry on their business at this
   rate--"the trade is rotten, and if you do not fall into its practices
   you cannot make a living! The district is low and beggarly, and none
   can thrive in it but cheats. We should have to shut up the shop if we
   were perfectly honest." "Why," cries one, "I should be eaten up alive
   in this age of competition. I cannot believe that we are to be so
   excessively conscientious." I see how it is, you do not want to be made
   whole.

   He who is quite whole becomes in all respects a sober man. "Not that
   which goes into the mouth defiles a man. But that which comes out of
   the mouth, this defiles a man." And, "the kingdom of God stands not in
   meats or drinks," yet still both in meat and drink men do frequently
   sin, and especially in the sin of drunkenness. Now I suppose there is
   no drunkard but what at least, when he is sober, anxiously desires to
   be saved. But Drunkard, understand the question, it is not this--would
   you go to Heaven? But this--would you give up your drunkenness, and no
   longer delight yourself in those cups of excess? Now what do you say?

   Would you, from this moment, have done with all this rioting and
   wantonness, and cast them all away? Perhaps in the morning some would
   say, "Yes," when the eyes are red, and the woe of excess is on them.
   But how about the eventide when the merry company surrounds the man,
   and the wine sparkles in the cup? Would he, then, be made whole, and
   renounce that which ruins his body and his soul? Ah, no. Many say,
   "Yes, I would be made whole," but they do not mean it. They are like
   the dog that returns to its vomit, and the sow that was washed, to her
   wallowing in the mire.

   To be made whole involves in a man the production of universal
   truthfulness. Now, there are persons who cannot stand to speak the
   truth. To them two must always be twenty. To their eyesight the faults
   of any neighbor are crimes, and the virtues of any, except their
   special favorites, are always tinged with vice. Naturally they have a
   malicious judgment towards others. They are envious of anything that is
   honorable in their fellow man. Now, what do you say, Sir? Are you
   willing to be made whole and from this hour to speak nothing but the
   truth towards God and towards man? I am afraid many a tongue that is
   glib now would have little to say if it said nothing but truth. And
   many a man might, and would, if he were honest enough to say it, refuse
   the benediction of being made perfectly truthful.

   So in the matter of forgiveness. A man who is made whole can forgive
   even to seventy times seven. When you cannot forgive an injury, it is
   because your soul is sick. When a wrong is resented strongly, you are
   ill for the moment. When it is resisted constantly, you have a chronic
   disease upon you. Some persons are so far from wishing to know how to
   forgive that they would almost pray that they might live and die to
   gratify the passion of revenge. They would follow the man who has done
   them an injury through this world and the other, too, and be damned
   with him if they might have the satisfaction of seeing him amidst the
   flames.

   Sweet is revenge to many men, and it is useless for a man to say, "I
   would be made whole," while he still cultivates malice, and bears
   ill-will towards his fellow man. I might thus pass over one after
   another of the virtues and the vices, and show that my text is not
   quite such a simple question, after all, as some people think. There
   are some men who are afflicted with a miserly, grasping disposition. If
   they were whole they would be generous, they would be kind to the poor,
   they would be ready to give of their substance to the Lord's work.

   But would they be made whole if it were left to their choice this
   morning? Ah, no. They think generosity to be weakness and charity sheer
   folly. "What is the good of having money and giving it away?" they say.
   "What can be the good of getting it but to hold it?" And, "He is the
   wise man who can hold it fastest and part with as little of it as may
   be." The man does not want to be made whole, Sir. He counts his
   paralyzed hand and ossified heart to be the marks of health. He reckons
   himself to be the only mentally healthy man about, though his
   narrow-mindedness and soul-starvation are visible

   to all.

   He is a very skeleton and an anatomy of sickness. And yet he believes
   himself to be the paragon of health. Those who admire their failings
   have evidently no wish to be free from them. "What a beautiful cataract
   I have in my eye," says one. "What a precious carbuncle decorates my
   limb," says another. "What a delightful bend this is in my leg," says a
   third. "What a comely hump adorns my back," says another. Men do not
   speak thus concerning their bodily diseases, or we should think them
   mad. But they often glory in their shame, and rejoice in their
   iniquities. Whenever you meet with a man who has a fault which he
   mentally elevates into a virtue, you have a man who would not wish to
   be made whole, and who would scorn the physician's visit if he waited
   at his door. And such persons are common in every street.

   Let me also remark, if a man is made whole there are not only moral
   virtues which will abound in him, but spiritual Graces. For a man who
   is whole is sound in spirit as well as in outward character. What then,
   would happen to a man if he were made whole in his spirit? I reply,
   first, You see that Pharisee there, he is thanking God that he is quite
   as good as he should be, and a great deal better than most people. Now,
   if that man is ever made whole, he will say, "God be merciful to me a
   sinner."

   But if I were to ask him whether he would like to change places with
   the publican, he would reply, "Why should I? He is a degraded and
   debased wretch. The language which he uses is very appropriate for him,
   I am glad he uses it. It would be very degrading to me to make the same
   confession as he does, and I do not intend doing it." The man does not
   want to be made whole--he thinks he is whole already. He that is made
   whole becomes a self-renouncing man. Paul was whole when he said, "Not
   having my own righteousness, which is of the Law, but that which is
   through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by
   faith."

   When he counted his own righteousness to be but dung, that he might win
   Christ and be found in Him, he was a whole man. Sickly men think their
   own righteousness good enough, and wrap themselves in it, and stick a
   little sham jewelry of ceremony and outward form on it, and then
   conclude that they are right enough for Heaven. They are in such a
   fever of pride that they rave about their fancied goodness, while real
   goodness they call cant and hypocrisy.

   He that is whole spiritually is a man of habitual prayer. He is
   accustomed to feel constant gratitude, and so to exhibit continual
   praise. He is a man of abiding consecration--whatever he does he does
   it unto God, seeking God's glory in it. His mind is fixed upon things
   unseen and eternal. His heart is not enslaved by the things that are
   seen, for he knows that they are vanity.

   Now, if we were to appeal to many, and they fully knew what we meant by
   it, and say, "Would you be made whole? Would you from this hour become
   a prayerful man, a praiseful man, a holy man, a God-serving man?" I
   believe that the majority, even of our congregations, if they spoke
   honestly, would say, "No. We do not want to be made whole. We would
   like to go to Heaven, but we do not want this. We desire to escape from
   Hell, but we do not wish to practice all this Puritan precision which
   you call holiness.

   "No. We would enjoy ourselves with sinners first, and go to Heaven with
   the saints last. The poison is too sweet to give up, but we, too, will
   have the antidote by-and-by. We would gladly breakfast with the devil,
   and sup with Christ. We are in no hurry to be made pure, our tastes for
   the present lead us in another direction."

   II. So, having explained the question, I shall, as strength holds out,
   go on to notice in the second place, that THIS

   QUESTION IS CAPABLE OF A GREAT MANY REPLIES, and therefore it is the
   more necessary that it should be

   asked and answered.

   1. First, there are some here whose only reply to this question may be
   called no answer at all, that is to say, they do not want to hear or
   consider anything of the sort. "Will you be made whole?" "Well, yes,
   no--we do not quite know what to say. We do not want to be bothered
   about it. We are young people. There is plenty of time for us to think
   of these things. We are business people, we have something else to do
   besides worrying our minds with religion. We are

   wealthy persons, we really must not be expected to look at these
   things, as poor and coarse-minded persons are required

   to do."

   Or, "We are sickly, and really, our attendance to our health takes up
   too much time to allow us to be troubled with theological
   difficulties." Anything, I see, to put away the one thing necessary
   from your thoughts. The poor soul is most precious, and yet least
   esteemed. Oh, how some of you trifle with your souls! How you play with
   your immortal interests! I did so once myself. If tears of blood could
   express my regret for having so done, I would gladly weep them. For the
   loss of time which comes through a long carelessness with regard to our
   soul's interests is something very solemn--a loss of time which even
   mercy cannot restore to us--which even the Grace of God cannot give
   back.

   I would, young people, that these things were on your minds. Oh, how
   earnestly I would that these questions were seen by you to be
   important! Yes, pressingly important--overwhelmingly important to
   you--so that you could not shake off religious enquiry, nor keep away
   from your spirit the loving pressure of the Holy Spirit who would
   arouse you. Would to God that you were made wise enough to desire the
   noble development of spiritual life, and the destruction of everything
   detrimental to your best welfare.

   Be considerate, I pray you, concerning the first and chief question. Do
   not give it the go around. Your dying hour may be much nearer than you
   think. The tomorrow in which you hope to consider these things may
   never arrive. I would put it to you again--if anything is deferred let
   it be something that may safely wait. If anything is postponed let it
   not be an eternal thing, a spiritual thing, but, "seek you first the
   kingdom of God and His righteousness."

   Now, there are some persons who have had a great deal of religious
   concern and have not shaken it off, and yet their answer to this
   question, "Will you be made whole?" is not a very earnest one. Years
   ago they were aroused. When they heard a sermon they used to treasure
   up every word. Their prayers were importunate, and their desires were
   eager, but they have not obeyed the command which says, "Believe in
   Christ and live."

   They have become habituated to unbelieving misery, to a continuance
   beneath the burden of sin which they will persist in carrying while
   there is a dear Savior waiting to relieve them of the burden. And now
   at this time their answer to the question is neither one thing nor the
   other. They groan out feebly, "I wish I did wish. I would that I did
   will. But oh I my heart is hard --

   'If anything is felt it is only pain To find I cannot feel.' I will to
   will, but scarcely dare say I will."

   See to what a state you have brought yourself, and may God help you now
   to make a desperate effort with that will of yours--may His quickening
   Spirit bless this affectionate word to your heart, and may you say,
   "Ah, yes, out of my deep despair, out of the pit wherein there is no
   water, I do yet cry to You, my God! Out of the belly of Hell do I
   desire deliverance. I will, I will, I would be saved! O give me Grace
   that I may be made whole." May none of you continue to be numbered with
   those who virtually give no answer to the question.

   2. And, secondly, there are too many who give very evasive replies to
   the question. To them I must speak. Will you be made whole? My dear
   Hearers, I am anxious to put this question to every unconverted one,
   but I anticipate that from several I shall get no distinct reply. I
   shall hear one say, "How am I to know whether I am God's elect or not?"
   Beloved, that is not the question. That question cannot be answered at
   this stage of the proceedings--it shall be answered by-and-

   by.

   Meanwhile, why do you need to bring up that subject, except to blind
   your eyes to the solemn enquiry which the text would raise? Will you,
   or will you not, be made whole? Come, Man, do not shirk the question!
   Come to it, and face it like a man! Are you willing to be reconciled to
   God, and to be obedient to Him, or not? Say yes or no, and speak out.
   If you wish to be God's foe, and to love sin and unrighteousness, say
   so! Be honest with yourself, and see yourself in the true light? But
   if, indeed, you would be purified from sin and be made holy, say so--it
   will be no great thing, after all, to say nothing, at any rate, to
   boast of. It is but a will, and that is nothing in which to glory.

   "Well," says another, "I have not the power to cease from sin." Again I
   say that is not the question. There must evermore be drawn a
   distinction between the will and the power. God will give the power,
   rest assured, in proportion as He gives the will. It is because our
   will is not there that the power is not there. When a feeble will
   comes, a feeble power comes. But when the will becomes intense then the
   power becomes intense, too. They rise and fall together. But that is

   not the query. I do not say, "What can you do?" but "What would you
   be?" Would you be holy? Are you earnestly, honestly anxious to be, this
   day, set free from the power of sin? There is the question, and I do
   pray you, for your soul's sake, look into your heart and answer this
   enquiry as in the sight of God.

   "But I have been so guilty in the past," says one, "my former sins
   alarm me." Again, though I am glad you have a sense of your sin, I
   would remind you that this is not the question. It is not how sick you
   are, but are you willing to be made whole? I know you are a sinner, and
   a much worse one than you think yourself to be. However black your sin
   is to your own eyes, it is ten times more black to God's eyes, and you
   are an utterly condemned and lost sinner by nature.

   But the question, now, is, "Will you be made whole?" It is not, "Will
   you have the past forgiven, and be delivered from the penalty of it?"
   Of course you would! But would you be set free from the lusts that have
   been your delight, from the sins that have been your darlings? Would
   you be delivered from the desires of your flesh and of your mind, the
   things that your heart hungers after? Would you be made as the saints
   are, as God is--holy, set free from sin? Is that the yearning of your
   spirit, or is it not?

   3. Now, I shall pass on to observe that there are a great many persons
   who practically say, "No," to this. They do not evade it, but they
   honestly say, "No." No, I must retract that word. I question whether
   they honestly say, "No," they virtually say, "No," by their actions. "I
   would be made whole," says one, and yet when Divine service is over he
   goes back to his sin. A man says he would be cured of his disease, and
   yet he indulges again in that which gave the disease--is he untruthful
   or insane?

   The eating of a certain meat may be the cause of disease--the doctor
   tells the patient so. He says he desires to be healed, and yet he falls
   back, at once, upon the very dish that caused his sickness. He is a
   liar, is he not? And he that says he would be made whole, and yet
   dallies with his old sin--does he not lie to himself, and his God? When
   a man would be made whole he frequents the places where healing is
   given. Yet there are some who very seldom go up to the House of God.
   They go, perhaps, but once on the Sunday.

   They now and then hear the Gospel, or attend places because they are
   called places of worship--but the Gospel is not preached, the
   conscience is never harrowed, the demands of God's Law and the promises
   of God's Gospel are never fully insisted on. Yet are they quite content
   with having gone there, and think they have done well. They are like a
   man who, being sick, does not go to the physician who understands the
   case, but calls in at any quack's shop where there is a profession made
   of curing, though never one was cured. Such a person does not desire to
   be made whole. He would not act so if he did.

   How many, again, hear the Gospel but do not hear it attentively! A
   telegram on the Exchange--they read it with both their eyes--will there
   be a rise or fall of stocks? An article from which they may judge of
   the general current of trade--how they devour it with their minds, they
   suck in the meaning, and then go and practice what they have gathered
   from it.

   A sermon heard, and lo, the minister is judged as to how he preached
   it--as if a man reading a telegram should say the capital letter was
   not well inked on the press, or the dot on the "I" had dropped off the
   letter. Or as if a man reading an article of business should simply
   criticize the style of the article, instead of seeking to get at its
   meaning, and act upon its advice. Oh, how men will hear and think it to
   be the height of perfection to say they liked or disapproved of the
   sermon! As if the God-sent preacher cared one whit whether you did or
   did not like his sermon--his business being not to please your
   tastes--but to save your souls! Not to win your approbation, but to win
   your hearts for Jesus, and bring you to be reconciled to God.

   Liking is hardly to be thought of in the question--seldom enough is a
   patient enamored of a surgeon's scalpel. The surgeon who
   conscientiously removes the proud flesh, or prevents a wound from
   healing too rapidly, cannot expect admiration for his use of the knife
   while the sufferer yet feels it. Nor does the preacher, when faithfully
   declaring the Truth of God, expect men to commend him with their
   tastes. If their consciences commend him it is enough.

   Ah, my Hearers, you give us listless hearing, critical hearing,
   anything but practical hearing, and all this goes to prove that, after
   all, though you crowd our houses of prayer, you do not want to be made
   whole! Too many take up the Gospel as a man of reading may take up a
   surgery book to amuse himself with a smattering of the art, but not to
   find out what will touch his own case, or remove his own sickness.

   So you do with this Bible--you read it as a sacred volume, but not as
   bearing upon your own best interests. How little you know of deep,
   earnest, heart-longing to find Jesus! To be reconciled to God, and to
   be delivered from the wrath to come! There are men who both by their
   non-hearing and their hearing, say, "We do not want to be made whole."

   Many there are, again, who do not desire to be made whole because being
   made whole would involve their losing their present position in
   society. They do not want to part with their ungodly gains or wicked
   companions. Religion would involve them in some degree of persecution.
   They would not like to be sneered at as a Methodist or Presbyterian.
   They could not afford to go to Heaven if the road were a little rough.
   They would prefer to go to Hell so long as the road which leads there
   is smooth and pleasant.

   They count it better to be lost with the approbation of fools than to
   be saved with the derision of the wicked. They think it inconvenient to
   be gracious, irksome to be pious, disreputable to be devout, foolish to
   be too exact. They would gladly have the crown without the fight, the
   reward without the service. They would enjoy the sweets of soul health,
   but not lose the advantages of associating with the leprous and
   defiled. Alas, poor fools!

   4. Thank God, there are some who can say, "Yes, yes, I would be made
   whole." And of their case I am going to speak now.

   III. WHEREVER AN HONEST, AFFIRMATIVE ANSWER IS GIVEN TO THIS QUESTION,
   WE MAY CONCLUDE THAT THERE IS A WORK OF GRACE COMMENCED IN THE SOUL. If
   any one of my hearers can earnestly say, "Yes, my great longing is to
   be set free from sin," my dear Friend, I am thrice happy to be
   privileged to speak to you this morning!

   If you say, "It is not fear of punishment, sin is punishment enough for
   me. If I could be in Heaven and yet be a sinner such as I am, it would
   be no Heaven to me. I want to be clear from every fault both of
   thought, and word, and deed, and if I could be perfect I should be
   perfectly happy, even if I were sick and poor." Well, if the Lord has
   made you long after holiness, there is in your heart already the embryo
   of Divine Grace, the seed of everlasting life. Before long you shall
   rejoice that you are born again, and are passed from death unto life.

   "Oh," you say, "I wish I could see that, I wish I could feel it!" I do
   not believe that any utterly graceless person ever could have hearty,
   earnest, intense longings after holiness for its own sake. Now if you
   would get the joy and peace that is to come out of this fact, I have to
   say to you very much what Jesus said to the poor man at Bethesda--he
   said, "Take up your bed, and walk." So now, this morning, hear the
   Words of the Lord--trust right now, at once, in the finished work of
   Jesus Christ, who as a Substitute was punished for your guilt.

   Rely on Him, and you shall be a joyous as well as a saved soul. "Have I
   the power to believe in Christ?" says one. I answer, "Yes, you have the
   power. I would not say to every man, 'You have the power to exercise
   faith,' for the lack of will is the death of moral power. But if you
   are willing you have the right, you have the privilege, you have the
   power, to believe that Jesus died for you--that God, who has made you
   to long after holiness--has prepared holiness for you-- and the
   instrument by which He will work it in you now is your faith.

   The same Spirit who in you works to will, is in you working to do of
   His own good pleasure. "Look, then, to Christ and be saved." I pray
   that some of you may come to perfect peace this morning, by looking to
   Christ. "I want holiness," you say. Yes, and it may seem a strange
   thing, but true is it, that while you look after holiness in yourself
   you will never have it, but if you look away from yourself to Christ,
   then holiness will come unto you. Even now, that very desire of yours
   has come to you from Him. It is the beginning of the new birth in your
   soul. Look, I pray you, away, right away, even from your best
   desires--to Christ on the Cross--and this day shall be the day of your
   salvation.

   It may seem a very little thing to have a desire, but yet such a desire
   as I have described is no little thing. It is more than human nature
   ever produced of itself, and only God the Eternal Spirit can implant
   it. I am persuaded that a living, saving faith always goes with it, and
   sooner or later comes to the surface, and brings joy and peace!

   IV. But now, lastly, WHERE THIS QUESTION IS ANSWERED IN THE NEGATIVE, I
   must remind you, IT INVOLVES MOST FEARFUL SIN. I could wish I had not
   to preach on this last point, but I must, painful as it is. There are
   some here, there are many elsewhere, who are not willing to be made
   whole. You, my unconverted Brethren, are thus unwilling. Face that,
   now, I pray you, as you will have to face it soon.

   It is just this. You prefer yourself to God. You prefer to please
   yourself before pleasing Him. You prefer sin to holiness. Look at it
   closely and fairly. Sin is your own choice, your own present deliberate
   choice. You are now making it,

   and have often made it, and will, I fear, continue to make it, if God's
   Grace does not prevent it. Look it in the face, for soon, on a dying
   bed, you will see the whole matter in the light of eternity. You will
   then discover that you preferred the pleasures of this life to Heaven.

   You preferred the gaieties and amusements, and self-righteousnesses,
   and prides, and self-wills of a few fleeting years to the Glory and the
   bliss of perfectly obeying Christ, and being in His Presence forever.
   Oh, when you come to die, and certainly when you live in another state,
   you will curse yourself for having made such a choice as this! When you
   lie dying unsaved, it will come to you thus, "I am not here an unsaved
   man unwillingly--I would not be made whole--I willed not to be a
   Believer, I willed to be impenitent. I heard the Gospel, I had it put
   before me, but I deliberately willed to put it behind me and to remain
   what I am. I find now I am dying unforgiven and unholy, and that of
   choice."

   Remember, no spiritually unsound man can enter Heaven. He must be made
   whole, or be shut out of Glory. We cannot stand in the most holy place
   until we are made perfect. Then you, O unhealed soul, remaining as you
   are, will never stand in God's Presence--and you choose, you
   deliberately choose never to be admitted to the courts of Paradise!
   Furthermore, and oh, how this will strike you in a short time (how
   short I know not, nor do you)--there being no entrance into Heaven for
   you, you having elected not to enter Heaven--there will remain but one
   other thing, namely, for you to be driven from His Presence into the
   eternal burnings of His wrath!

   This will surely be one of the stings of Hell, that you perish of your
   own accord. How will you cry, "I chose this, I chose this! Fool that I
   was, I willed this!" For what is Hell? It is sin full-blown. Sin is
   evil in the conception, Hell is sin in its development. What thoughts
   will be yours in Hell? "I chose that which has involved me in a misery
   from which there never can be any escape. In a death out of which there
   can be no deliverance. I must die to God, to holiness, to happiness,
   and exist forever in that everlasting death, that eternal punishment,
   and all because I would have it so, and as the result of my own free
   will."

   Do look that in the face, I pray you. It seems to me to be the most
   dreadful element about the whole of the lost sinner's case. If I could,
   when cast into Hell, say, "I am here because of God's decree, and for
   no other reason," I could find something with which to harden my spirit
   to endure the misery of my lost condition. But if I shall be compelled
   in Hell to feel that my ruin is of myself altogether and only, and that
   I perish for my own sin--my personal rejection of Christ-- then is
   Hell, Hell indeed. These flames, are they of my own kindling? This
   prison house, is it my own building? That door so fast as never to
   open, is it my own barring? Then the last relic of consolation is taken
   away from my soul forever.

   But, my dear Hearer, I hope you say, "I do desire to be made whole."
   Then let me again remind you that the place to find the fulfillment of
   that desire is at the foot of the Cross. Stand there and hope in the
   great Redeemer for there is some life in you already, the dying Savior
   will increase it! Stand at the foot of the Cross where falls the
   precious drops of blood--view the flowing of His soul-redeeming blood,
   and hope, no, BELIEVE that He shed that blood for you, and you are
   saved! Go your way, you who would be made whole, for Jesus says, "I
   will, be you clean."
     __________________________________________________________________

Think Well And Do Well

   (No. 956)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 23, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For Your loving kindness is before my eyes: and I have walked in Your
   Truth." Psalm 26:3.

   THROUGHOUT this Psalm David is laboring under the fear that he should
   be judged and condemned with the ungodly world. He feels in his own
   heart that he is not one with the enemies of God, and he shudders lest
   having hated their society on earth he should be shut up in their
   company forever. His agonizing prayer is, "Gather not my soul with
   sinners, nor my life with bloody men." In urging reasons before the
   Throne of Grace why he should not be reckoned in the same condemnation
   as the ungodly, he urges not self-righteously, but truthfully and
   confidently that there was a difference made by Grace between himself
   and them.

   "I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with
   dissemblers. I have hated the congregation of evildoers.

   And will not sit with the wicked.....Lord, I have loved the habitation
   of Your house, and the place where Your honor

   dwells." There was a difference, he declares, between himself and the
   wicked, even in the current of his thoughts. While their thoughts ran
   upon the world, vanity, sin, rebellion, hypocrisy, and violence, his
   meditations were upon all the marvelous works of God, and especially
   upon His loving kindness--"Your loving kindness is before my eyes." it
   is an encouraging fact when we can honestly feel as before God that our
   thoughts are habitually exercised upon Himself and upon Divine Truth.
   "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he."

   We may form a better judgment of ourselves probably from the tenor of
   our thoughts than from any other evidence. If our thoughts all go
   downward, downward we ourselves are going. But if there are some
   breathings towards the heavenly, some aspirations of our spirit towards
   the pure and perfect Father of Lights, then may we have hope that we,
   also, are ascending towards the heavenly places, and shall dwell in
   them hereafter. David could urge, besides the secret evidence of his
   devout thoughts, the public proof of his holy acts--"I have walked in
   Your Truth." It would be vanity for a man to find evidence of a renewed
   heart in his private meditations if those thoughts were not
   sufficiently deep to lead him to practical godliness.

   The thoughts become a valuable evidence because of their influence upon
   the life, but if they were so powerlessly superficial that our daily
   life was in no degree affected by them, they would be as salt that has
   lost its savor. If our actions are evil, it is vain to take comfort
   from our thoughts. If actions speak louder than words, they may well
   speak louder than thoughts. We must display outward holiness, or else
   our inward experience of Grace exists only in pretense. You may think
   of what you will, but if your whole conversation is according to the
   will of the flesh and not after the will of God your thoughts are
   nothing--you have deceived yourself as to their tenor--they cannot be
   as you say they are, thoughts truthful, holy, devout and Divine.

   Put the two together, holy thoughts and holy living, and you have two
   sure evidences of a renewed nature. And if God has given you both of
   these, though you will probably confess that you have them not in the
   measure in which you would desire to have them, yet bless the Grace
   that has so worked upon you, and rejoice this morning, and go on in
   holy confidence to ask for a greater measure of the same Divine
   working. Would to God our thoughts may become uniformly gracious, and
   our lives perfectly consistent with our thoughts--and with the Divine
   Word.

   I mean, this morning, to take the two parts of the text separately, and
   then to consider the link which unites them. First, then, we shall have
   to consider the mind occupied with a fruitful subject. Secondly, the
   life ordered by a right rule. And thirdly, the link which connects the
   two.

   I. First then, may every Christian experimentally know to a fuller
   degree what it is to have A MIND OCCUPIED WITH A FRUITFUL SUBJECT.
   "Your loving kindness is before my eyes." It is exceedingly profitable
   to the Christian to have always some subject of thought upon his mind.
   The mind that is vacant, frivolous, unoccupied, will be sure to

   issue in a barren and unprofitable life. I fear, to a very large
   extent, in this age the minds, even of good people, are empty, and
   void, and a waste.

   Years ago, when the influence of the Puritan age yet lingered among us,
   the female members of Christian Churches were generally women of very
   considerable education. Their range of reading was very different from
   that of their sisters in these days, and their theological knowledge
   was profound. While the men who were members of our Nonconformist
   Churches, were, as a rule, persons of very clear doctrinal
   knowledge--perhaps rather too much given to controversy, and to pushing
   their own views without sufficient tolerance for the views of others.

   On the whole, Nonconformist Christianity was highly intelligent,
   thoughtful, and meditative. Men and women then, when they joined the
   Church, knew what they believed, and believed what they knew. They were
   prepared to be counted singular for their belief, but were equally
   prepared to justify themselves for talking up so separated a position.
   They were students of the Word of God and of such books as opened up to
   them the Word of God--so that our armies of Believers, if they were
   fewer than now, were nevertheless very strong, because the warriors
   handled their weapons well, were well drilled, and at home in the holy
   war.

   I fear a great many Christian people do not think much about their
   religion. They give their guinea subscription, they occupy their seat
   at the meeting house, they attend the Prayer Meetings, but they are
   little given to thinking out a system of doctrine, or to ransacking the
   weaning of Scripture. Contemplative pursuits are not so general among
   Christian professors as I could wish. Not that I desire to see an
   increase of a certain amateur class of people who are always expounding
   prophecy, or spelling out types, and leaving ragged people to perish in
   ignorance, and the masses of our city to remain not evangelized.

   The sooner we bury the last of our Prophetic pretenders the better.
   They expose the Truth of God to ridicule and rather hinder, than
   promote, the cause of religion. Louis Napoleon was to be the
   Antichrist, and to conquer all Europe--I wonder how they will play
   their cards now! Of late they have grown so impudent as to foretell the
   future with all the brass of a Sidrophel, a Lilly, or a Dr. Dec. I hope
   their failures will open the eyes of the public to their folly.

   I so reverence the inspired prophecies that I wish a race of students
   would succeed these charlatans. We need devoutly meditative people who
   will think about the precious things of God in a practical, gracious
   way, such as the Holy Spirit inspires. We need men who are not forever
   occupying themselves with theories and speculations, but with the
   solidities and with the practical parts of theology. A band of such
   men, strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, would have a
   great influence for good. And if all professors were such, the Church
   would be rich, indeed.

   Observe, that when the mind does not receive holy matters to feed upon,
   as a rule it preys upon itself. Like certain of our bodily organs
   which, if not supplied with nutritive matter, will soon begin to devour
   their own tissues, and then all sorts of aches, pains, and ultimately
   diseases will set in. The mind, when it eats into itself, forms doubts,
   fears, suspicions, complaints, and nine out of ten of the doubts and
   fears of God's people come from two things--walking at a distance from
   God, and want of spiritual nutriment for the soul.

   If you, Believer, do not meditate upon some Scriptural subject, your
   minds will probably turn to vanity or to some evil within yourselves,
   and you will not long think of the corruption within without becoming
   the subjects of a despondency which will turn you into Mistress
   Dispondencies or Mr. Feebleminds, whereas by musing on the promises of
   the Holy Spirit you would grow into good soldiers and happy pilgrims.
   Of some who do not feed their souls constantly with spiritual
   nourishment Satan takes an advantage and fills them with unholy
   thoughts.

   It is a very frequent complaint with persons who desire to be in the
   fear of God all day long, that they are molested with horrible
   insinuations, dreadful suggestions, and revolting ideas. And they fly
   to the pastor sometimes to know whether they can be the children of God
   at all, or if the children of God, what remedy they can use by which
   they shall be able to escape from this horrible torment.

   I suggested yesterday to a friend laboring under this serious
   complaint, that he should take care never to go out in the morning
   without placing under his tongue a text of Scripture like a wafer made
   with honey. And I exhorted him at all times to occupy his mind with
   heavenly subjects, so that there should be the less likelihood of the
   thoughts running after that which is evil. The best way to prevent a
   bushel measure from being filled with chaff is to fill it first with
   wheat. If the channel of the soul is filled with a strong stream of
   devout thought, there cannot be much mud and filth lying in the bottom.

   A powerful stream of holy contemplation will scour the thoughts and
   bear away the foul deposits of unholy thought. There is nothing like
   keeping the mind occupied, for Satan finds some evil still for idle
   brains to think upon. It is true that weeds and nettles choke the good
   seed, but it is equally true that when the good seed gets strong above
   ground it will choke the weeds. Where Jesus is, the buyers and sellers
   are driven out of the temple. Dagon falls where the ark comes.

   When Israel comes in the Canaanite must go out. Fill the cage of your
   heart with the birds of Paradise, and the foul birds will not have it
   all to themselves. If our soul shall become so full of thoughts of God
   and things Divine, that vain thoughts shall be banished, it will be a
   fine growing time for the plants of the Lord's right hand planting.
   Learn from the text the usefulness of having some sacred topic before
   the mind's eye.

   David, in selecting the topic of Divine loving kindness did well, for
   let us remark upon that subject, that it is, first of all, a rightful
   subject of meditation. I mean, it is our bounden duty to think much
   upon it. Some things we may not think of, certain other topics we are
   barely allowed to think of, but other themes we must think of. Now the
   loving kindness of God is one of the things which is not left to our
   choice. We are bound to meditate much upon that. As Dr. Watts says--

   "Oh, bless the Lord, my Soul, Nor let His mercies lie Forgotten in
   unthankfulness, And without praises die."

   Shall God, day after day, send such stores of mercy to such unworthy
   ones as we are, and shall we treat His continuous generosity as a
   matter of course, and not even think of it? Base ingratitude! Let us
   scorn such meanness. If we ought to think of our duty to God, and of
   our violation of that duty, yet much more of the loving kindness which
   makes our duty pleasure, and which covers over with a mantle of love
   the transgressions of our lives. Infinite goodness is a rightful
   subject of meditation, and it deserves a large share of our thoughts.

   It is, besides, a good subject. It is good in itself, and it will do us
   good. The loving kindness of God--it is not possible any harm can come
   to us from retaining that subject too long in our minds. A man who has
   but one idea will sometimes become an unbalanced, inharmonious
   man--oftentimes he will fall into obstinacy, bigotry, or rashness
   through the excessive indulgence of that one thought--just as one
   feature exaggerated out of proportion with the rest will make an ugly
   countenance.

   But you cannot think too much upon Divine loving kindness. You may make
   this, if you will, the one sole topic of your thought and yet escape
   narrow-mindedness or one-sidedness. It has so many links of union with
   all other subjects, that when you consider this it will bring up, as it
   were, compendiously a whole circle of profitable meditation. Think of
   the Divine loving kindness, and it shall be good, only good, and that
   continually. As you muse upon it your thoughts will humble you. "Why
   such goodness to me, to me who is less than the least of all Your
   mercies?"

   The same theme will be equally sure to comfort you. "Is the Lord so
   good to me? Then amid every adversity my spirit shall rejoice in the
   Lord, and glory in the God of my salvation." To think of this will
   stimulate you to be full of loving kindness to others who may have
   acted unjustly or ungenerously towards you. As God has loved you so
   bounteously you will be bound to pity and assist the poor and needy.

   This subject will benefit you in all respects, and harm you in none.
   Ring this silver bell again and again, it is good for the hearing.
   Moreover, dear Brethren, it is a wide subject. To set His loving
   kindness before our eyes is not to select a narrow theme which we can
   soon exhaust. It is a boundless topic. The loving kindness of the Lord
   has no beginning. You may fly backward to the ages past in meditation
   deep and long--Divine loving kindness shall have no end.

   You may look into the ages yet to come with joyful musings. Loving
   kindness is high as Heaven, to which it shall lift you. It is deep as
   Hell, from which it has redeemed you. It is wide as the east is from
   the west, for so far has He removed all your transgressions from you.
   Here is a subject in which you may expatiate without limit or fear of
   repetition. If up to now you have bathed in this stream up to the
   ankles, proceed in meditation deeper still, for you shall find it a
   river to swim in--a very broad river that cannot be passed over. The
   width of the subject is one thing which leads me to commend it to you
   as a theme for the most expanded intellect in time and in eternity.

   And it is a pleasing subject. "Your loving kindness is before my eyes."
   Nobody need grow weary of this. It is like traversing a country in
   which every single inch of the road opens up a new prospect. Here you
   see the loving kindness of God in the land in which you were born, in
   the times in which your life is cast, in the mercies with which your
   life is sur-

   rounded. You may see the loving kindness of God in your temporal
   mercies. You cannot go to your house or bedchamber without seeing it
   there. You see that loving kindness even more clearly in spirituals.

   What a blessing to be interested in the Covenant of Grace! How many a
   holy hymn awakens memories of the tender mercies past! How this very
   House, and the seat you sit on, refreshes your recollections as to what
   God has done for you in days gone by! "The loving kindness of the
   Lord." I never knew a man grow heavy in spirit from meditating upon
   this! I never knew a man become weary of the cares and burdens of life
   through thinking of God's loving kindness! No, but he has grown
   stronger to bear his burden, or to fight his way through time's
   conflict, when the loving kindness of the great Preserver of men has
   come visibly before his mind.

   And you may add, it is a very plain and simple subject, and one that is
   suitable to us all. The loving kindness of the Lord is a topic that can
   be reached by the babe in Grace, and yet will not be superfluous to the
   most advanced. There are topics in Scripture so profound and surrounded
   with such metaphysical difficulties, and rendered so much more
   perplexing by the wisdom, or the unwisdom, of divines, that one might
   almost say to the Christian thinker, "You may pass those by, for you
   will never get much out of them. The quartz is too hard. There is too
   little gold to pay for breaking up."

   But when you come to this subject the unskilled convert may sit down
   and meditate on the loving kindness of God and be edified. While at the
   same time the most proficient scholar in the school of Christ shall
   find something fresh and new every time he meditates thereon. You are
   little read, you say. You have little access to the thoughts of great
   men. Your Bible is your only book. Ah, well, but the Providence of God
   will make you a second, and the experience of your heart, touching
   Christ and things Divine, will make you a third volume!

   And put the three together, the book of Revelation, the book of
   Providence, the book of your inward experience, and with these three
   you have a wondrous library! And in them all you may read the loving
   kindness of the Lord towards your soul. I will finish this part of my
   subject by saying that this is always a suitable and a seasonable
   topic. The young Christian, in the early flush of his joy, may think on
   the loving kindness of God. It will help to keep him joyful and yet to
   make him sober.

   The venerable Christian matron may, before she departs, dwell still
   upon this topic, and tell her children and her children's children of
   what God has done for her. In your health or in your sickness, in your
   wealth or in your poverty, in your joy or in your sorrow--still, this
   theme of the loving kindness of God will be congenial and healthful.
   This you may study on the top of Amana when you have passed by the
   leopards' dens. This you may rehearse in the Valley of Humiliation when
   you lie down with the shepherd boy among the flocks and sing--

   "He that is down need fear no fall, He that is low, no pride."

   This you may think of when you are fighting with Apollyon, and the
   darts fly thick as hail, yes, fiery darts that burn as well as wound.
   And this you may think of in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, when
   heart and flesh fail you. This may be your last song, and as you enter
   into Glory it may be your first--

   "Soon shall I pass the gloomy vale,

   Soon all my mortal powers must fail.

   O may my last expiring breath

   His loving kindness sing in death!

   Then let me mount and soar a way

   To the bright world of endless day,

   And sing with rapture and surprise,

   His loving kindness in the skies." I have thus introduced to you the
   topic for mental contemplation. We will at once proceed to the second
   part of our subject.

   II. The Psalmist sets before US A LIFE ORDERED BY A RIGHT RULE. "I have
   walked in Your Truth." I wish we could say this as positively as he
   does, each of us. I am afraid we should have to alter it, and say, "I
   desire to have Your loving kindness before my eyes, and to walk in Your
   Truth." I shall invite each of you to look over your diaries to see how
   you could make such a statement, and the following remarks I offer as
   reflections to help you.

   He means, first, by the words, "Your Truth," "I have tried to order my
   religion according to the Truth concerning God and the way in which He
   would be worshipped. I have worshipped the true God in the true way. I
   have searched to

   see what and who God is, how He would be served, and in what way. And
   according to what I have learned from Himself I have walked in His
   Truth." Can you all say that?

   Why, even all Christians cannot say as much! They worship God--yes, but
   how? As their fathers did or their grandmothers? Why have they
   worshipped God as they now do? Because the Word of God so teaches? No.
   But because their family has been so brought up. They never took the
   trouble to see whether it was right, and would not like to take the
   trouble now. Their family always did it, therefore they will always do
   it. Such people can say, "I have walked according to my ancestors." But
   they cannot say, "I have walked in Your Truth."

   If their fathers had worshipped the devil, they would have done the
   same. If their family had worshipped Juggernaut, they would have
   worshipped him, too. It makes no consequence to some people what it is,
   they go in for, "follow my leader." They are of one mind with the old
   Saxon king, who, when he was about to be baptized, stood with one leg
   in the water, and enquired of the bishop, "Where do you say my
   ancestors are gone? They knew nothing about your Christianity."

   "All cast into Hell," said the bishop. "Well, then," said this fine old
   conservative, "I will go with them. I should not like to be parted from
   my kith and kin." Very much of this principle rules our country still.
   The majority of men do not walk in God's Truth, nor care to know what
   God's Truth is. I know they will say there are so many sects, and so
   on, as if there, after all, was such a difficulty about the Word of God
   that a simple-minded man could not find out what the Truth is. The
   Bible is a plain enough book, and if a man wishes to understand it he
   can.

   Dear Brethren, if you are Christians, do be able to say, "I have
   desired to know the Truth about Yourself, O my God, and how You would
   be worshipped, and so far as I have learned I have walked in Your
   Truth." He means next that he had walked according to God's Law. He
   believed God's Law to be the essential right, the just rule of action,
   and he had tried to do right in all respects. There is a line of Truth
   which you can clearly see, which needs not be laid down in words.

   And it is a glorious thing when a man can say, "I may not have been
   always prosperous in business, I may not have succeeded as some have
   done, but what does that matter? I have kept a conscience void of
   offense. As a Christian man I have done the right and left the
   consequences with God." This is true evidence of Grace reigning in the
   heart, when we can confidently say before God that, notwithstanding all
   our sins, transgressions, and infirmities, yet towards men we have
   walked in the Truth as God would have us walk. This is to have the
   outward life ordered in Truth.

   And did not he mean this, also, that as God had been truthful to him,
   so he had been enabled by Grace to be truthful to God? "I have walked
   in Your Truth." My God, You have never lied to me. I have also strived
   to be true to You. I have found Your promise to be always certain. I
   have labored to make my vows, which I have presented to You, as certain
   as the fulfillment of Your promises. Have you all done this? Years ago
   some of you put on Christ, and avowed yourselves His followers.

   By your Baptism you made a declaration of death to the world, and of
   life in Christ--has it been so? Have you walked in God's Truth? He has
   never failed in anything towards us. Alas, what is there in which we
   have not failed towards Him? He has been true to us in the Covenant of
   His Grace--have we kept the pledge and bonds which bind us to His
   Church and to His cause? Can we say, "As You have walked in Your Truth
   to me so have I walked in Truth to You"?

   If we have failed here I should not wonder it is because we have failed
   in the first part of the text. Our thoughts have not been enough with
   God and therefore our lives have not been true to Him. May we be helped
   in both parts of the text, so that while our hearts feed upon His Truth
   our feet may walk in His Truth, and we may be faithful Christians
   before the Lord our God.

   III. But time flies, and I need space for the third head, which is, THE
   LINK WHICH BINDS THE TWO PARTS OF THE TEXT TOGETHER. "Your loving
   kindness is before my eyes. I have walked in Your Truth." The one has
   been the consequence of the other. Because I thought much of Your love,
   therefore have I walked in Your Truth. Our thoughts very greatly
   influence our actions. It is questionable whether a man could long
   think on any subject without the course of his life being colored by
   it. Like certain silkworms which yield silk colored according to the
   food they have fed on, so our life gradually takes the tinge and hue of
   the thoughts to which we most accustom ourselves.

   We have had in our police courts of late frequent instances of this.
   Boys have been studying literature of the Jack Sheppard and Dick Turpin
   order--and they have become thieves of necessity. Men who have been
   deeply read in French

   novels, Byronic poetry, and German metaphysics have become dissolute
   and skeptical, and none could wonder. You cannot send the mind up the
   chimney and expect it to come down white. Whatever read, the thoughts
   traverse--all the faculties of manhood will go after them. So you see,
   Brethren, David had thought upon God's loving kindness, and very soon
   his whole spirit went after big thoughts, and he walked in God's Truth.

   Let me show you a little of this. I will suppose, this morning, that
   you and I are meditating upon the subject suggested. Let us set God's
   loving kindness before our eyes, and one of its most striking points is
   its eternity. It is certain that God loved those whom He now loves
   before time began. Those who are the favored sons of God have not
   lately come into the possession of His love--they were loved of Him
   before the foundation stone of creation was laid. It is a glorious
   doctrine! There is room for the soul to revel and riot with holy
   delight in it.

   Everlasting love, love without beginning towards unworthy worms! Well,
   now, what comes of it? Why, naturally, the moment the heart gets into
   the enjoyment of it, it cries, "I will walk in God's Truth. This great
   doctrine leads me to receive other great doctrines. I am not afraid,
   now, of doctrinal knowledge. If it is so that God has loved me before
   the world began, and has blessed me with all spiritual blessings
   accordingly as He chose me in Christ Jesus, then I am not afraid to
   consider the doctrine of the Covenant of Grace, the doctrine of His
   foreknowledge and of His predestination, and all the other doctrines
   that spring therefrom. The brightness of this one gem has attracted me
   to enter into the mines of Divine thought, and I will seek from now on
   to be conversant with the deep things of God."

   Many would be much more sound in doctrine if they meditated more upon
   the eternity of Divine loving kindness. Now turn that loving kindness
   round again, get another view of it. Let another ray of light flash
   from this diamond. Think of the freeness of it! God's loving kindness
   to us was utterly undeserved. He loved us, not because there was
   anything lovable about us, but because He chose to do so. He is an
   absolute Sovereign, and He does as He wills with His own. It is because
   He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, that He has had mercy
   upon us.

   Unworthy, did I say? More unworthy was I than any, least likely, as it
   seemed, of any of the sons of men to be a partaker of Divine love. If
   He so freely loved me, what shall I say? I must freely love Him in
   return. I cannot but reciprocate this love. If I cannot love Him as He
   loves me in degree, yet will I at any rate love Him as freely and
   willingly. Has He chosen me? I choose Him. Has He ordained me that I
   should be saved? My heart ordains that He shall be glorious. And if
   there is anything that I can do to serve Him, let me know what it is,
   for it must be, it shall be done.

   Turn that loving kindness round again, look at another side of it,
   namely, its certainty. It is no fiction that God loves His people. If
   you are Believers in Christ Jesus, trusting alone to His merits, God as
   surely loves you as He is God. There is no question about the matter.
   His Divine love is as certainly yours as His power is displayed in
   creation. Well, then, let your obedience be real in return.

   If He really loves me, then will I really love Him, and truly serve
   Him. It shall not be talk, and resolution, and pretense. There shall be
   that gift given, even if I deny myself to give it. There shall be that
   deed done, whatever self-denial it may cost me. The Cross I will take
   up--the singularity of being a Christian I will dare to encounter. The
   persecution it will bring I will rejoice in--the love of God to me
   shall produce obedience in my heart in return.

   Then, again, another view of it. Set the loving kindness of God before
   your eyes, and think of the faithfulness of it. God's loving kindness
   never pauses a minute. It has been as constant as the flight of
   time--never a moment but there has been love for that moment. Never an
   hour, but there has been the hour's portion of loving kindness. You
   have often forgotten the Lord, but He has never forgotten you. You have
   turned aside from your fidelity ten thousand times, but He never once.
   If He had dealt with you justly, and not graciously, He had long ago
   divorced you from His heart.

   But you are as dear to Him now as ever, and you shall be dear to Him
   when Heaven and earth shall pass away. Well, what then? Why, then, as
   constantly seek to serve Him. Let every day have its duty, and let each
   day's duty be your pleasure and privilege. Do not be receiving without
   also giving out. As the sovereign goodness of God comes to you without
   a pause, and there are no miscarriages in Divine Grace, so let there
   never be any forgetfulness, negligence, or delay in your gratitude, and
   the obedience which spring's of it.

   I would like you to think of the exactness of God's loving kindness,
   and how it goes into detail with us in little things. Much of our
   life's happiness depends upon little things happening rightly. If God
   ordained only the great events, and left the little things to chance,
   we should be very unhappy. But the loving kindness of God, while it
   gilds the whole landscape with sunlight, also has a beam for the
   tiniest insect and a ray for the eye of the smallest bird. Let our love
   to

   God also go into the minutest details--let us be earnest to be right in
   matters essential. But let us not be indifferent to things
   nonessential, as men call them.

   God's loving kindness goes into detail, so let my obedience. Let
   gratitude to God permeate my entire life. Let it flood the whole of my
   faculties. Let it saturate my manhood through and through. Great God,
   Your love surrounds me, I breathe it, I live upon it, I shall die in
   it, I shall live forever in it, it shall make my eternal bliss! So
   would my soul in obedience give up herself, her thoughts, her works,
   her desires, her judgment, her tastes, her everything to Your sweet
   love which has so wondrously embraced and encompassed me!

   You see, there is a logical consistency between thinking of the love of
   God, getting to see its details and attributes, and the ordering of our
   life in the way of Truth. The one is the natural cause from which the
   other is sure to spring. Once more, let me say, when we are thinking
   upon God's loving kindness, we must not forget what it is preparing for
   us. Within a short time you and I shall have faced the last article of
   death, or Christ Himself shall have come, and we shall be forever with
   the Lord. We have been washed in the blood of Jesus, our souls have
   been renewed by the Holy Spirit, and for us there is prepared and
   reserved a crown of life that fades not away.

   Anticipate the triumphant hour when this head which often aches with
   weariness shall be encircled with the crown of Glory! Think of the time
   when the hands that are worn with toil shall grasp the palm branch! And
   the feet that are weary with this pilgrimage shall stand upon the sea
   of glass--when our constant occupation shall be to glorify Him who has
   uplifted us from the miry clay, set our feet upon a rock, and
   established our goings forever! All this loving kindness is prepared
   for us, entailed upon us, ordained for us, and we are ordained to it by
   a decree which neither death nor Hell can change.

   What then? Why then the trials of this life shall be treated as "light
   afflictions which are but for a moment." And if duty at anytime
   involves these trials, we will not take them into consideration--but
   for the joy that is set before us will endure the Cross, despising the
   shame. Men and women of God, God's loving kindness has prepared for you
   this heritage inconceivable, which heart cannot imagine, and,
   therefore, tongue cannot express. Will you not, for the sake of this,
   be willing to be despised, and be ready, if need be, to be spit upon
   and rejected from the society of men? Why, this, me-thinks, it was that
   glistened in the martyrs' eyes.

   There they stood at the stake, all calm and confident, though every
   bone was soon to be burned to cinder, and the whole frame of their
   bodies to become a mass of agony. The light that shone in the martyrs'
   eyes was not the flame of the torch which kindled the firewood, but the
   light of everlasting Glory! The joy that made their hearts glad was not
   that of obstinacy which holds fast to its own way, but it was the
   firmness of a soul that is one with the immortal Christ, and
   anticipates being with God forever and forever!

   The loving kindness of God before our eyes is that which can make us
   walk in God's Truth though it be to prison and to death. God grant us
   more of the holy contemplation, and we shall be quite certain to have
   more of holy, consistent walking in the Truth.

   I have done when I have made two or three more remarks. I have set
   these things before you as they ought to be, but things are not in this
   world as they should be. There are some men who have the first part of
   the text, at least they say they have, but they despise the second.
   They have set God's loving kindness before their eyes, but do not walk
   in God's Truth. They talk about being God's elect, God's Beloved, God's
   dear people. Alas, some of them are dear at any price, their lives
   being, in many cases, utterly inconsistent with their profession.

   What do we say of men who make the Doctrines of Grace an excuse for
   licentiousness? They have the Doctrine of Grace, but not the Grace of
   doctrine. What say we of them? Why, what Paul said--"Their damnation is
   just." All their pretences to soundness, all their talk about orthodoxy
   is so much wind, nothing more. "Without holiness no man shall see the
   Lord." The man who can cheat in business. The man who can lie. The man
   who is an unkind husband, a bad father, an unholy man--he may believe
   what he likes, or disbelieve what he likes--but he will be swept away
   from the Presence of God and the glory of His power when He whose fan
   is in His hand shall purge His floor and gather the wheat into His
   garner--and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

   There are also men who say, "I have walked in God's Truth," but God's
   loving kindness is never before their eyes. They boast about their
   admirable character, but they never think upon the Grace of God. They
   indulge the Pharisaic

   spirit. Permit us to say to such that they know not what spirit they
   are of. That life of theirs which they think to be so blameless seems
   to be correct because they are blind.

   If the light shone in upon their actions they would discover their
   imperfections. Then would they find that they needed a Savior, and
   finding that they needed a Savior they might then be led to apply for
   one, and find one. But as long as they wrap themselves up in the notion
   that they are good, and that they keep the Law and have done so from
   their youth up--we must remind them with all earnestness that they are
   shutting themselves out of Heaven. They are denying themselves all
   prospect of everlasting life, for, "by the works of the Law there shall
   no flesh be justified." We must be saved by Grace and by Grace alone.

   My last word is this. Brethren, depend upon it that you shall find,
   each of you when you get dull and flagging in the practical part of
   your religion, that the proper way to revive it is to think more than
   you have done upon the loving kindness of God. I do not know whether
   you ever feel stupid. I do, dreadfully. When one gets a bad cold the
   mind feels terribly dead and dull. Some people are dull enough even
   when they are well, but what they are when illness is added it were
   hard to say.

   Well, then, one says, "How can I consider myself to be a child of God?
   Why, I cannot pray. I kneel down and pour out what ought to be my
   desires, but I am afraid I do not desire them. I read the Bible, but it
   does not glow and glisten before my eyes as it once did. I try to love
   God, but do not seem to have any emotion left. I am like a dead log or
   stone." What is the best way to quicken one's self when you have got to
   be just a mere inanimate mass, and cannot awaken yourself into life? Of
   course--the Holy Spirit is the Quickener--but what means shall we use?

   "Why," says one, "turn over your sins and begin to think of them."
   Well, I have known some become more dead than they were before through
   that, and the little life they had seemed to go out of them as they saw
   their transgressions. I believe there is no reflection that has so
   much, under God the Holy Spirit, of quickening power in it as a
   remembrance of the loving kindness of the Lord! I have said unto my
   soul, "You are dull and heavy today, my Soul, but Jesus did not love
   you because of your brightness and liveliness. You have, at any rate, a
   desire not to be so dull.

   "Who gave you that? Was not it His own Grace that made you hate
   yourself for being so dull and stupid? And He loves you just the same."
   Why, then, I am aware my soul makes me like the chariots of
   Amminadab--before I have hardly got through a little meditation upon my
   Lord's love, my love is kindled. Dr. Watts hit the mark when he said --

   "Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove, With all Your quickening powers,
   Come, shed abroad a Savior's love, And that shall kindle ours."

   If you doubt Christ's love to you, you will not love Him. But remember
   that He still loves you, believe it, hold on to it, and your love will
   revive--

   "And when your eye of faith is dim,

   Still hold on Jesus, sink or swim,

   Still at His footstool bow the knee,

   And Israel's God your help shall be." If I am a dead soul and a lost
   soul and have not a grain of Grace, and have everything that is bad
   about me, still I will cling to the Cross, and say, "I will never
   depart from this place: if I perish, I will perish here." Light will
   come unto you again, and the joy of the Lord will return, and your
   heart will wonder to find its own hardness depart, and your dumb tongue
   shall sing, and you, though once so lame, shall leap as a hart! God the
   Holy Spirit cause these meditations to be the means of quickening our
   spirits, for Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Jesus No Phantom

   (No. 957)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 2, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled,
   saying, It is a ghost. And they cried out for fear." Matthew 14:26.

   SOME of the richest comforts are lost to us for want of clear
   perception. What consolation could be greater to the tempest-tossed
   disciples than to know their Master was present, and to see Him
   manifestly revealed as Lord of sea as well as land? Yet because they
   did not discern Him clearly, they missed the incomparable consolation.
   What is worse, at times the dimness of our perception will even turn
   the rarest consolation into the source of fear. Jesus is come, and in
   His coming the Sun of their joy has risen, but they do not perceive it
   to be Jesus. And thinking it to be a phantom, they are filled with
   alarm and cry out in dread.

   He who was their best Friend, they were as much afraid of as though He
   had been the arch enemy. Christ walking on the waves should have put
   all fear to rest, but instead they mistake Him for a ghost appearing
   amidst the storm, foreboding darker ill. They were filled with dismay
   by that which ought to have lifted them up with exultation. Oh, the
   benefit of the heavenly eye salve by which the eyes are cleared! May
   the Holy Spirit anoint our eyes therewith. Oh, the excellence of faith
   which, like the telescope, brings Christ near to us, and lets us see
   Him as He is! Oh, the sweetness of walking near to Christ, and knowing
   Him with an assured, confident, clear knowledge--for this would give us
   comforts which now we miss--and at once remove from us distresses which
   today unnecessarily afflict us.

   The subject upon which I wish to speak will be indicated to you if I,
   first of all, supply you with the outline of it. The first head will be
   this--it is too common an error to make a phantom of Christ. And,
   secondly, we are most apt to do this when Jesus is most evidently
   revealed. And therefore, thirdly, from this come our greatest sorrows.
   And, fourthly, if we could be cured of this evil, Jesus would rise very
   much in our esteem and many other blessed results would be sure to
   follow.

   I. IT IS TOO COMMON AN ERROR TO MAKE A PHANTOM OF CHRIST. There are
   some who make a Christ of a phantom. I mean they take that to be their
   Savior which is but a delusion. They have dreamed so. They have excited
   themselves up to a high pitch of presumptuous credulity. They have
   persuaded themselves into delusive comfort, and they make their excited
   feeling or fancy their Christ. They are not saved, but they think they
   are. Jesus is not known to them. They are unspiritual. They are not His
   sheep. They are not His disciples, yet they have put something up
   before their mind's eye which they think to be Christ, and their ideal
   of Christ, which is but a phantom, is Christ to them.

   A terrible error! May God save us from it and bring us to know the Lord
   in deed and in Truth by the teaching of His Holy Spirit. For to know
   Him is life eternal. But an equally and probably a more common error is
   to make a phantom of Christ. More or less we have all erred in this
   direction. Let me show you this for reproof and direction. First, how
   often we have done this in the matter of sin and like cleansing of it!
   Our sin seems to us, when we are convinced of it, very real. Real,
   indeed, it is--our offenses against God are no imaginary ones--we have
   really provoked Him to wrath, and He is angry with us every day.

   The stain of sin is not on the surface, merely, the leprosy lies deep
   within. Sin is a horrible evil, and when our spirits have been able to
   see the reality and the heinousness of it, they sink within us. But oh,
   what a glorious thing it is when we can, with equal vividness, see the
   actual cleansing from sin which Christ confers on all Believers by His
   precious blood! To see the scarlet and to weep over it is well, but to
   see that same scarlet vanish in the pure white of the atoning
   Sacri-fice--this is better.

   Did you ever get as clear a perception of the second as you have done
   of the first? It is a great blessing when God makes sin to be
   experimentally heavy to you so that you feel it. But it is a greater
   blessing, still, when the atoning blood

   is quite as vividly realized, and you see the bloody sweat of
   Gethsemane, and the pouring out of the life of the Redeemer upon
   Calvary, and the agonies unknown by which guilt was fully expiated
   before the Eternal Throne. My Brethren, when we are under concern of
   soul, or even after our first conviction--when sin returns heavily upon
   our spirits--our fears, and terrors, and alarms, are real enough.

   No one dares to say to us, then, that we are in a state of nervous
   excitement about a fiction. Our danger, then, is right before us, as
   clearly as the flames are before some poor person immured in a burning
   house--we are sure of the danger, we see it, we perceive it, we feel it
   in the very core of our nature. But there is salvation provided by the
   Redeemer! He took our sin upon Himself. He suffered the punishment of
   it. He has put the sin away. Believing in Him our sin has gone! We have
   a right to peace, we are fully warranted in standing before God and may
   ask, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?"

   What we want is not to think of this as a dreamy thing, which may or
   may not be, but to realize it as a fact quite as sure, quite as certain
   as our distress and the sin which caused it. We are not to look through
   the storm upon the Savior and view Him as though He were a
   will-o'-the-wisp, a ghostly thing--while the storm that surrounds us is
   real--but to see a real Savior for real sin, and to rejoice in real
   pardon, a pardon which has buried all our sins. A real salvation, a
   salvation which has set our feet upon a rock beyond the reach of harm.

   Brethren, if we came to this point about sin we should have less of the
   groaning, or if as much of the groaning, we should still have more of
   the rejoicing. We lament for sin, and we do well. I hope we shall till
   we reach the gates of Heaven. Sin can never be too much lamented or
   repented of. But at the same time we are not to so mourn over sin as to
   forget that Jesus died, and thereby cancelled all our guilt. No, with
   every note of lamentation lift up the joyful strain of triumph, for
   iniquity is gone, Christ has finished transgression, made an end of
   sin, and he that believes in Him is not condemned, neither can he be,
   world without end.

   The same remarks apply to the matter of our acceptance with God after
   our pardon. Dear Brothers and Sisters, if I may speak for the rest of
   you, our shortcomings in Christian duty are often very painfully real
   to our souls. We cannot preach a sermon, or offer prayer, or give alms,
   or do any service for our Lord but what we feel, when all is done, that
   we are unprofitable servants. The faults and imperfections of our
   service stare us in the face and there is not a day we live but what we
   are compelled to say that we come very far short of what Christians
   should be. In fact, we are led sometimes to question whether we can be
   Christians at all, and very rightly are we anxious as to the
   truthfulness of our professions.

   When we come to the Lord's Table and examine ourselves, we find many
   causes of disquietude, and much reason for trembling of spirit. Looking
   through the whole course of our Christian career, shame must cover our
   faces. We have good need to say, "Not unto us, not unto us be glory."
   We cannot suppose ourselves able to take any glory, our life has been
   so inglorious, so undeserving, so Hell-deserving. And there are some
   Christians to whom this state of things is very, very, very, very
   painfully conspicuous. They are of a desponding turn of mind, much
   given to looking within, and their inward corruptions and the outward
   displays thereof cause them continued disquietude and alarm.

   My Brethren, there is so much that is good about all this, that who
   shall condemn it? But at the same time the sacred balance of the soul
   must be maintained. Are my shortcomings real? Equally real is the
   perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ in which all Believers always
   stand! Are my prayers imperfect? Yes. But equally perfect and prevalent
   are the prayers and intercessions of my great Advocate before the
   Throne! Am I defiled with sin, and therefore worthy to be rejected? Is
   that true? Equally true is it that in Him is no sin! And His eternal
   merits have weight with the ever-blessed Father and stand me in as good
   a place as He, my Representative and Surety, standing before the
   Throne.

   Yes. I am in myself unworthy, but I am accepted in the Beloved. "I am
   black with sin." "Yes," says the Believer, "it is so." Add, however,
   the next clause, "but comely." Equally sure it is that we are comely,
   yes, in God's sight, we are "without spot or wrinkle, or any such
   thing." As Jehovah sees us in Christ Jesus, He beholds no iniquity in
   us. Christ has put our blemishes away, and made us comely in His
   comeliness. He sees everything that is lovely in us. Christ has
   bestowed His own beauty upon us, for He is made this day of God unto us
   wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

   All we want is in Christ. Our standing is safe in Him, and the love of
   the Father towards us comes to us without diminution at any time
   despite our flaws and failures, through the perfection of the Beloved
   One's acceptance. Now do not cloud this fact. Do not look at the Lord,
   your righteousness, as a phantom. Do not cry out as if you thought His

   work to be an impalpable something that comforts others, but cannot
   comfort you. The work of Jesus is the grandest of all facts. O for
   faith to grasp it, and rely upon it as such!

   The principle applies next in the matter of sanctification. Very real
   and close to our souls, my Brethren, is the flesh. It makes us groan
   daily, being burdened. Very close to home are our corruptions--these
   foes of our own household worry us too much to allow us to forget them.
   Very plain to us also are our temptations--they await us on all sides.
   And the inward conflict which comes of our fallen nature, and the
   temptations of Satan and the world--this, too, is very clear. We can no
   more doubt our conflicts than the wounded soldier doubts the bloodiness
   of the battle. All these things are evermore before our eyes to our
   grief.

   But I am afraid that here, too, Christ Jesus is often to us as merely
   an apparition and not as a real Sharer in our spiritual conflicts. Know
   you not, Beloved, that Jesus Christ is touched with tender sympathy for
   you in all your temptations? Understand you not that He has prepared
   provision for you in all your conflicts that you may surely win the
   day? Expect you not even yet to say, "I have overcome through the blood
   of the Lamb"? Will you not at this hour shout the anticipatory note of
   triumph, "Thanks be to God, which gives us the victory though our Lord
   Jesus Christ"? You have corruptions within--this is a fact. But Christ
   is formed in you the hope of Glory--this is an equal fact.

   There is that in you which would destroy you, but there is also that
   implanted in you which cannot be destroyed-- this is equally true. You
   are, in the first Adam, made in the image of the earthy--over this you
   lament. But in the Second Adam you already begin to bear the image of
   the heavenly, and you shall perfectly bear it before long. Can you not
   grasp this? Alas, we do not lay hold of these things, do not get to
   say, as the Apostle John did, "which we have seen, with our eyes, which
   we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life."

   Too much is this with us a doctrine to be accepted because we are
   taught it, a matter to be received because some other persons have
   experienced it, but too little is it a subject of inward living
   experience. For you and me to know by blessed realization that it is
   so, that the Holy Spirit sent forth from the Father is IN US and WITH
   US, and that Christ will overcome our sin within us by the power of the
   cleansing water which flowed with the blood from His side, and will as
   much deliver us from the power of sin, as He has already saved us from
   the guilt of sin--this is heavenly experience, indeed.

   We must not forget to illustrate this state of mind, also, by the
   condition of many saints when under trial. How often when the storms
   are out, and our poor boat is filling, do we realize everything but
   what we should! We are like the disciples on the Galilean lake. The
   ship is real--ah, how the timbers creak! The sea is real--how the
   hungry waves leap up to destroy them! The winds are real--see how the
   canvas is rent to ribbons, how the mast bends like a bow! Their own
   discomforts are real--wet to the skin with the spray--and drenched and
   cold are they all! Their dangers are real--the ship must certainly go
   down with all on board!

   Everything is real but the Master walking on the waves. And yet,
   Beloved, there was nothing so real in all that storm as the Master. All
   else might be a matter of deception to them, but He was real and true.
   All else did change, and pass away, and subside into calm--but He
   remained the same. Now observe how often we are in a similar condition.
   Our wretched circumstances--the bare cupboard, our bodily weakness, the
   loss of that dear child or parent. All the distresses that await us,
   the dread of bankruptcy, or poverty--all these seem real. But that
   word, "I am with you," appears often in such circumstances to be a
   matter of belief, certainly, but not a matter of realization.

   And that promise, "All things work together for good to them that love
   God, to them who are the called according to His purpose"--we dare not
   deny it, but we are not comforted by it to the degree we should be,
   because we do not grip it, grasp it, know it. The holy children in the
   fire knew they were in the fire, but they were safe because they knew
   to an equal certainty that the Son of Man was there with them. And so
   in the furnace you know that, "no trial for the present seems to be
   joyous, but grievous." But know equally well that where Jesus is the
   trial is blessed, and the affliction has a sweetness in it unknown to
   anything beside.

   I shall only illustrate this in two other points. My dear Brethren, in
   the matter of death--I do not know whether you can all think of death
   without a shudder. I am afraid there are not many of us who can. It is
   very easy to sing, when we are here on Sundays rejoicing with all our
   Brethren--

   "On Jordan's stormy banks I stand, And cast a wishful eye."

   I am afraid, I am afraid, I am afraid we would rather live than die,
   after all. A missionary told me the story of an old Negro woman in
   Jamaica who used to be continually singing, "Angel Gabriel, come and
   take Aunty Betsy home to Glory." But when some wicked wag knocked at
   the door in the dead of night, and told her the angel Gabriel was come
   for Aunty Betsy, she said, "She lives next door."

   I am afraid it may possibly be so with us--that though we think we wish
   the waves of Jordan to divide that we may be landed on the other
   shore--we linger on the bank shivering. It is so. We dread to leave the
   warm precincts of this house of clay. We cast many "a longing,
   lingering look behind." But why is it? It is all because we realize the
   dying bed, the death sweat, the pangs, the glazing eye--we often
   realize what never turns out to be reality--but do not realize what are
   sure to be realities, namely, the angelic watchers at the bedside
   waiting to act as a convoy to bear our spirits up through tracts
   unknown of purest ether.

   We do not realize the presence of the Savior receiving saints into His
   bosom that they may rest there until the trumpet of the archangel
   sounds. We do not really grasp the rising again--

   "From beds of dust and silent clay, To realms of everlasting day."

   If we did, then our songs about dying would be more true and our
   readiness to depart more abiding. For what is death? It is a pin's
   prick at the worst, often scarcely that--the shutting of our eyes on
   earth and the opening of them in Heaven! So rapid is the departure of
   the Believer's soul from the body here to the Presence of the Lord
   yonder, that death is scarcely anything--it is swallowed up in victory.

   O for the realization, then, of Jesus, and death would lose all its
   sting. And once again, and this is the last illustration I will give on
   this point--I am afraid that in Christian work we very often fall into
   the same style of doubt. Here is an enterprise, and straightway if we
   are wise we realize the difficulties. If we are something more than
   wise we exaggerate these difficulties and conclude that with our
   slender means we shall never be able to grapple with them. But ah, why
   is it that we so seldom think of the living present Savior, who is the
   Church's Head? Calculate the forces of the Church if you will, but do
   not forget the most important item of all--the Omnipotence of the Lord
   her King.

   Reckon up, if you will, all the weakness of her pastors, and teachers,
   and Evangelists and members. But when you have done that, don't think
   you have calculated all her resources--you have only considered the
   very fringe of them! The main body and the strength of the Church lies
   in the fullness of the Godhead bodily which dwells in the Person of
   Jesus Christ. Shall heathendom be real? Shall priest-craft be real?
   Shall Romanism be real? Shall the corruption of the human heart and the
   alienation of the human will be real? And shall I not equally realize
   the Omnipotence of Christ, in the realm of spirit, and the irresistible
   power of the Holy Spirit, who can turn men from darkness into light,
   and from the power of Satan unto God?

   Let not Christ be a phantom to His Church. In her worst hours, though
   tossed like a ship in the storm, let her Lord, as He walks the waves,
   be real to her and she will do and dare right valiantly. And the
   results will be glorious. Thus much on the first point.

   II. Secondly, the worst of it is that WE MAKE CHRIST A PHANTOM MOST
   WHEN HE IS MOST REALLY CHRIST, most really revealed as the Son of the
   Highest. Observe, my dear Brethren, when our Lord Jesus Christ walked
   on the land by the seashore, none of His disciples ever said, "It is a
   ghost." None of them said, "It is an apparition." Yet they did not see
   Christ when He walked on the shore, on terra firma. They saw His
   Manhood, that was all. There was no more to be seen of Christ as He
   walked there than there is to be seen of any other--simply a Man, no
   Godhead is there revealed.

   But when Christ walked on the waves, there was more of Christ visible
   than there was on the land. Then they saw His Manhood, but they also
   saw His Godhead, who could make the liquid waves hold Him up. There was
   most of Christ to be seen, and yet then they saw the least. Is it not
   strange where He uncovers most, we see least? Where He reveals Himself
   most clearly, our unbelieving eye is least able to see? Yet, mark you,
   Christ is never so truly Christ anywhere as when He works beyond the
   ordinary course of Nature. He is Christ if He takes a little child upon
   His knee and blesses it, but more of the Christ is seen when He puts
   His hand upon the damsel, and raises her from the dead, or calls
   Lazarus out of the tomb.

   He is the Christ when He speaks a gentle word to a sorrowing heart, but
   oh, what a Christ He is when He says, "Winds be hushed, and waves be
   still"! Then is His Glory laid open to faith's strengthened eye. Truly
   He is most Himself when He is most above all others--when, as high as
   the heavens are above the earth, so high are His thoughts above our
   thoughts--and His ways above our ways. And, Brethren, we have never
   seen Christ unless we have seen Him far above all others, and acting
   beyond the bounds of expectation and reasoning. The Christ is half
   hidden when He acts as another man.

   The whole Christ does not appear in the ordinary run of our affairs. It
   is in the extraordinary, the unusual, the unexpected, that we view the
   Glory of Christ, and see Him fully. So it is that we refuse most to
   discern and glorify Him when He is most openly displayed. Let me show
   you what I mean. Christ, I say, walking on the sea, is most of all
   Christ there-- and yet His disciples do not perceive Him. So in the
   pardon of very great sin you see the most of Christ. Yet whenever a man
   has fallen into a great sin, that is, a vile sin in the esteem of
   others, then he says, "Ah, now I cannot be forgiven this." Why, Man,
   Jesus is most truly Jesus when He pardons grievous iniquity!

   The putting away of your little transgressions, as you have thought
   them to be--do you think this is all He came for--to redeem such as
   have a little fallen and a little transgressed? Is He a little Savior
   for little sinners to be little worshipped? Oh, but here He comes to be
   Christ in deed and in Truth, when bloody murders, black adulteries,
   scarlet blasphemies, and crimson filthinesses are all washed away by
   His blood. Then we see Him as "a Savior and a great one," as One who is
   "mighty to save."

   Why is it that we will not discern Him when He abundantly pardons? Why,
   my Brethren, do we honor Him as He should be honored, if we only think
   that the sentimentalism of sin is put away by Him? If we own that the
   reality, the filthiness, the damnableness of sin is put away by Jesus,
   and trust Him when our sins seem blackest, foulest, most abhorrent,
   then we do Him honor and see Him to be the Christ He is.

   So again in great distresses of the soul. It pleases God often after
   conversion to allow the fountains of the great deeps of our corruption
   to be broken up, and we never felt before as we do then. We had not
   expected this, and are overwhelmed with surprise to find ourselves such
   corrupt, such deceitful, such foul things. Then at the same time Satan
   will invade the heart with fierce temptations and diabolical
   insinuations, and, alas, our suspicious spirits will imagine that Jesus
   Himself cannot help us in such a condition!

   Oh, but Man, now is the time for the Divine manifestation! Now shall
   you see the Christ! Do you suppose that the Lord Jesus comes only to
   speak peace to those who have peace already? Or to give peace to those
   enduring a trifling disturbance of mind? Man, do you think Jesus a
   superfluity? Or do you imagine that He is only suited for little
   occasions? Be ashamed of such insinuations! For He reigns on high above
   tremendous storms. He rules the largest waves and the most roaring
   floods--when all our nature is vexed, when our hopes are gone, and our
   despair is uppermost--it is amid the tumult of such a tempest that He
   says, "Peace, be still," and creates a calm.

   Believe in the Christ who can save you when your temptations most
   threaten to swallow you up. Do not think Him to be only able to save
   when you are not in extremities, but believe Him to be best seen when
   your uttermost calamities are near.

   I might select many other cases as illustrating this, but I will run
   over one or two in rapid review. We are, perhaps, enduring an unusually
   severe trial and need more than usual support. But we fearfully say, "I
   cannot expect to be supported under this affliction." Ah, your Christ
   is a phantom, then. If you saw Him, you would know that there is
   nothing too hard for Him--that the sustenance of a soul, when it is at
   its lowest famine point--is easy enough work for the Divine Consoler.
   And you would cast yourself on Him believingly and not act towards Him
   as you now do. Yes, but you need great supplies for the present time of
   distress. Your circumstances are trying to the last degree.

   Do not, now that you need great supplies, make Christ to be poor and
   stinting in your esteem. But rather, like Abraham, say, "The Lord will
   provide." Abraham, in extremity, when about to slay his son by God's
   command, finds that God interposes and the ram is found for a
   burnt-offering. In your worst poverty Christ will interpose. Jesus will
   prove Himself to be the Lord of Heaven and earth. You shall see that in
   Him all fullness dwells. Can you only rely upon Jesus in little and
   ordinary troubles? I know it is sweet to run to Him in such times, but
   is He to be only an ordinary, fair-weather Friend to cover you from
   little showers, and walk with you when a little gale is blowing?

   Will He refuse to be with you in stormy weather, or to traverse with
   you the boisterous sea? O do not so miserably spirit away the Savior!
   Do not pantomime the Redeemer when you want Him in very deed. You have
   real poverty, and a real cross, and real difficulties. Now in the mount
   of the Lord shall it be seen that He is true to His Word, and His name,
   Jehovah-Jireh, across the darkness of your want shall be written as
   with letters of fire.

   In times of great danger, again, we sometimes gloomily mutter, "Now we
   shall not be preserved. Christ has kept us up till now, and we quite
   believe that He would do so if the circumstances of today were no worse
   than those of times gone by. But now we are extremely tempted, now we
   are violently assailed, now our sorrows multiply--will He help us now?"
   Dare you say, "Will He?" when you know that He cannot change? Dare you
   say, "Can He?" Is anything too hard for the Lord? Are you going to make
   your Savior into a mere appearance? He is a real Savior--lean on Him.
   He will bring you safely through--cover yourself with His shield--and
   keep off the fiery darts from you.

   He will not leave you or forsake you. Great deliverances! Ah, we fancy
   that these will never occur--Jesus will not work these as before, so we
   wickedly imagine. And if they are worked, we are like Peter, who could
   not realize his escape from prison. He knew the saints had prayed for
   him, but when he was delivered from the prison and found himself in the
   street of the city, he could not think it was a fact! He "knew not that
   it was true which was done by the angel, but thought he saw a vision."

   Often before God has delivered us, we have said, "it cannot be"--our
   Christ was only a ghost. And when He has delivered us we have said, "I
   do not understand it, I am overwhelmed with amazement." The fact being
   that we do not get such a grip of Christ as to be assured that He is
   real, present, mighty, gracious. Or if we did, we should receive even
   His greatest deliverances as natural proofs of His goodness and
   greatness--such as faith is warranted to expect. "Is it not
   surprising," said one, "that God should have heard my prayers, and have
   been so gracious to me in Providence?" "No," said an old saint, whose
   long experience had taught her more of the Lord, "it does not surprise
   me, it is just like He--it is His way with His people."

   Oh, to feel that great mercy is like He! That it is what we should
   expect of God--that He should give great deliverances--should walk the
   waters of our griefs and bid them cease their raging! It is a blessed
   faith which enables us to recognize Jesus on the waters, and to say, "I
   know it is Jesus. Nobody but Jesus could act so wondrously. I might not
   have known Him if I had seen Him working in an ordinary way, or
   traveling like a common wayfarer. But here amidst extraordinary seasons
   I expected His help. If I never had seen Him before, I expected to see
   Him now. And now I do see Him, and I am not amazed, though I am
   delighted. I looked for Him, and knew that when my need of Him was
   greatest, His coming would be sure." When faith brightens the eye of
   hope with the flash of expectation, joy is not far away.

   I will only add that if we will but realize Christ, our great successes
   which will be sure to come over spiritual foes within, and over
   difficulties without, will again infallibly prove to us His reality.
   But the probabilities are that we shall think Him not capable of giving
   us such great successes. And we shall toil on despondingly where we
   ought to have rejoiced in the Lord. As to our ultimate future we have
   too often thought it will be hard to die. We have trembled at standing
   before the Judgment Seat. We have read of the Day of Judgment, and
   thought, "How shall I bear it?" forgetting that we shall know our
   Redeemer better in death than before! And in the Resurrection and in
   the Glory that shall follow we shall see Him more clearly revealed than
   now. And therefore we ought to think more of Him and lean upon Him in
   all the great concerns of eternity with a great, a confident, and
   childlike faith.

   III. But I must pass on to the third head. OUR GREATEST SORROWS ARISE
   FROM OUR TREATING OUR

   LORD AS UNREAL. It is because of our weakening, vaporizing, and
   spiriting our Lord away, and making Him into a myth so often--instead
   of gripping Him with a commonsense, practical, firm, realizing
   faith--that we suffer so much from our troubles. For, Brothers and
   Sisters, it is a sad cause of trouble to have a phantom Redeemer, a
   Savior who cannot actually pardon sin when it comes to be great sin. A
   Savior who gives us only a little indefinite hope about our guilt, but
   does not literally put it away. This is the seedbed of all manner of
   evil weeds. I do not wonder if you are vexed with doubts and fears if
   you have not realized Christ. O that you would all learn to sing with
   Hart these precious lines--

   "A Man there is, a real Man,

   With wounds still gaping wide,

   From which rich streams of blood once ran,

   In hands, and feet, and side.

   (It is no wild fancy of our brains,

   No metaphor we speak.

   The same dear Man in Heaven now reigns,

   That suffered for our sake).

   This wondrous Mian, of whom we tell,

   Is true Almighty God!

   He bought our souls from death and Hell,

   The price, His own heart's blood." Beware, my Brethren, of resting
   content with anything short of faith in an actual, literal, living
   Mediator--for nothing but reality will be of any use to you in the
   matter. Of course, with a phantom Savior for real sins, an apparition
   of a Redeemer for real bondage--you cannot find comfort. Of what use is
   the appearance of bread and the resemblance of water to famishing
   pilgrims in the desert? If you have a phantom helper for real woes you
   are the worse for such help. If your Savior does not actually and
   practically support you in times of need, and supply your wants and
   console you under depression, then in what respects are you better off
   than those who have no helper at all?

   Jesus is a Friend, indeed. His Grace, love, and Presence, are no
   fictions--of all facts they are most sure. If I have to carry a real
   load, and then have a ghost to assist me, I am in reality unassisted.
   We want true power, force, and energy, in our Helper, and all that,
   Faith sees in Jesus, her Lord. But you will readily see how sorrows
   multiply where Jesus is lightly esteemed.

   Besides, to some Christ is not only, as it were, an impalpable spirit,
   but He is really an indifferent, unfeeling spirit. Jesus to His
   disciples on the sea seemed as though He would have gone by them and
   left them to their fate! And we often dream that our gracious Lord is
   unmindful of us--at any rate, we forget that he is tenderly mindful of
   our case. It did not strike you when you were so poor last week that
   Jesus knew it, and was grieved for your affliction? You forgot, dear
   Brother, when you were trembling as you went into the pulpit, that
   Jesus knew you trembled, and would uphold you while hearing your
   testimony. Too seldom do we remember that--

   "In every pang that rends the heart The Man of Sorrows bears a part."

   Ah, good Husband, you knew your wife pitied you. You noted well the
   teardrop when she saw your grief. Ah, dear Child, you knew your mother
   sorrowed for you. Ah, but if you did but know Christ, you would know
   this, too--that He never puts you to an unnecessary pain, nor ever
   tries you with an unneeded trial. There is a needs be for all, and He
   has sympathy for you in all.

   Many a poor sinner even imagines Jesus to be an angry spirit, and he
   cries out for fear. He imagines that Jesus is wrathful and will reject
   him with indignation. Ah, you do not truly realize my Savior if you
   think He would ever reject anyone who came to Him. When on earth, what
   a real Physician of souls He was! He mingled with publicans and
   sinners. He did not talk about them as people who ought to be looked
   after, but He actually went after them Himself and suffered one of them
   to wash His feet with her tears, and wipe them with the hairs of her
   head. He was likely to touch diseased sinners with His fingers as He
   healed them.

   He was not an amateur Savior. He did not come into this world to save
   us from suppositions sin and imaginary trouble. There is nothing which
   is more overlooked, but which ought to be better remarked about our
   Lord, than His com-monsense practicalness. He is utterly devoid of sham
   and pretense. He is always in the Gospel history as real as the scenes
   of life around Him. He never strikes you as theatrical and pretentious.
   May we all feel that He is really a loving Savior, a tender Savior, and
   a practical Savior to us. May you know Him. May you realize Him--and
   then your sorrows will either come to an end or be accepted with
   thanksgiving.

   IV. Lastly, IF WE COULD BUT BE CURED OF THIS DESPERATE MISCHIEF, OUR
   LORD JESUS CHRIST WOULD HAVE A HIGHER PLACE IN OUR ESTEEM. AND MANY
   BENEFICIAL RESULTS WOULD FOLLOW.

   For, first, did you notice that after the disciples knew it to be
   Christ, and He came into the ship with them, they said, "Of a Truth you
   are the Son of God"? If you once realize Christ, you will know Him in
   His Person as you never will know Him by all I can tell you, or you can
   read about Him.

   You once read about a man. You saw his likeness in the "Illustrated
   News," you heard people talk about him. At last you were in his
   company, and sat down with him. and then you said, "Now I know the man.
   I did not before." Oh, if you

   can realize Christ so as to draw near to Him by faith, you will feel
   that you now begin to know Him in Truth, and, what is best, you will
   know Him then with assurance.

   They said, "Of a Truth you are the Son of God." You were persuaded that
   He is God by what you found in Scripture. But when you came to see Him.
   When He became real to you, the doctrine of His Deity needed no
   arguments to support it. The Truth that Jesus Christ is Lord is then
   woven into your very being. He is the Son of God to you, if to no one
   else. What did those mariner disciples do when they saw that it was,
   indeed, Jesus who trod the wave? It is added, "They worshipped Him."

   You will never worship a phantom, an image, an apparition. Know Jesus
   to be real, and straightway you prostrate yourself before Him. Blessed
   God, blessed Son of Man, coming from Heaven for me! Bleeding for me,
   standing in Glory, pleading for me! I had thought of You and heard of
   You, but now I see You! What can I do but worship You? It is the
   grasping of Christ that produces devotion. It is the mistiness of our
   thoughts about Him that is the root of our undevout frames of mind. God
   give us a firm hold of Christ, and we shall instinctively adore Him.

   They not only worshipped Christ, but they served Him. Their worship was
   such that whatever He bade them do they did it. And the vessel was
   steered where He would until it brought Him to the other side where He
   wished to go. They who realize Christ are sure to obey Him. I cannot
   obey that which floats before me like a cloud. But when I see the Man,
   the God, and know Him to be as real a Person as myself--as much a
   matter-of-fact existence as my brother--then what He bids me do I do.

   My obedience becomes real just in proportion as the Master who commands
   it becomes real to my soul. Then it is, dear Friends, that we become
   humbled in spirit. No man realizes Christ without also realizing
   himself, and being bowed down in self-humiliation. "I have heard of You
   by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you: why I abhor myself,
   and repent in dust and ashes."

   But with the humility comes a deep and profound joy and peace. With
   Christ in the vessel, known to be there, we smile at the storm. Whether
   it continues or subsides, we are equally peaceful now that we have
   realized that Christ is with us. I do believe that the actualizing of
   their Lord is the main thing that Christians want. They require, first
   and foremost, a real Leader. They want to grasp His reality and feel
   His actual power. And is it necessary for this that He should come here
   in Person? I trust not. If He were to appear this morning on this
   platform, and His servant should hide his head, you would say, "Behold
   the glorious sight, yonder is our Lord."

   I know your heads would bow to worship, and then you would open your
   eyes and gaze on Him, and feast your souls with the sight, and then
   each one would say, "What can I do for Him?" And if the condescending
   Master gave you each leave to come and spread offerings at the feet of
   the Crucified, oh, what heaps of treasure would be brought! Each one
   would feel, "I have not with me what I wish," but you would say, "Take
   all I have, my blessed Lord, for You have redeemed me with Your blood."

   Is not He just as dear to you now, though unseen? Is not faith as
   mighty a faculty as sight? Is it not "the evidence of things not seen"?
   Is not Wesley's verse true? --

   "The things unknown to feeble sense,

   Unseen by reason's glimmering ray;

   With strong commanding evidence,

   Their heavenly origin display.

   Faith lends its realizing light,

   The clouds disperse, the shadows fly;

   The invisible appears in sight,

   And God is seen by mortal eye." Does not faith make Jesus as real to us
   as our sight would do? It should do so. I pray it may. And then see how
   true will be your consecration, how abundant will be your service, how
   ready your thanksgiving, how abounding your offerings!

   May God grant you Grace to get into this true position, both you who
   are saints and you who still are sinners--for in having a real Christ
   you will have the reality of every good. God give it to you for Jesus'
   sake. Amen and Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Dei Gratia

   (No. 958)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 30, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "To the praise of the glory of His Grace." Ephesians 1:6.

   NO Truth of God is more plainly taught in God's Word than this, that
   the salvation of sinners is entirely owing to the Grace of God. If
   there is anything clear at all in Scripture, it is plainly there
   declared that men are lost by their own works but saved through the
   free favor of God. Their ruin is justly merited, but their salvation is
   always the result of the unmerited mercy of God. In varied forms of
   expression, but with constant clearness and positiveness, this Truth is
   over and over again declared. Yet, plain as this Truth is, and
   influencing as it should be in every part of our doctrinal belief, it
   is frequently forgotten.

   Many of the heresies which divide the Christian Church, spring from a
   confusion upon this point. Were that word "Grace" but fully read,
   marked, and learned, the great evangelical system would be far more
   firmly held, and plainly preached. But forgetfulness that "by Grace you
   are saved," is a common fault among all conditions of men. Sinners
   forget it, and they seek salvation by the works of the Law. They refuse
   to surrender to the Sovereign Grace of God, and entrench themselves
   behind the tottering fence of their own righteousness.

   And saints forget this, too, and therefore their minds become dark,
   their spirits fall into legal bondage, and where they ought to rejoice
   in the Lord unceasingly, they become despondent and full of unbelieving
   dread. Brethren, I am incessantly preaching here the Doctrines of
   Grace, they are growingly dear to me--and as often as I preach them, I
   trust they are not wearisome to you. And if they should be, that sad
   fact would not induce me to be silent upon them, but rather urge me to
   proclaim them more frequently and fervently! Your weariness of them
   would be a clear proof that you required to hear them yet again, and
   again, and again, until your souls were brought to delight in them.

   There is no music out of Heaven equal to the sound of that word
   "Grace," save only the celestial melody of the name of Jesus. One of
   the early fathers was called the angelic doctor--surely he is most
   angelic who preaches most of Grace. Grace among the attributes is the
   Chrysostom, it has a golden mouth. It is the Barnabas, for it is full
   of consolation. It is the Boanerges, for it thunders against
   self-righteousness. It is man's star of hope, the wellspring of his
   eternal life, the seed of his future bliss.

   I. We shall draw from the text our first observation--IN SALVATION AS A
   WHOLE WE SEE THE GLORY OF GOD'S GRACE. So the Apostle tells us, "To the
   praise of the glory of His Grace." Every attribute of God has its own
   appropriate opportunity for displaying itself. To each quality of the
   Divine Nature there is a glory, and the Lord takes care that there
   shall be a time when this glory shall be so seen as to become the
   subject of praise to intelligent creatures.

   There is great glory in His power, and long ago He who speaks and it is
   done, who commands and it stands fast, made the heavens and the earth.
   It was a great triumph of power, and other grand attributes combined to
   make the display still more glorious. Wisdom was there to balance the
   clouds. Prudence set a compass upon the face of the deep. Truth
   appointed the times and the seasons, and Goodness arranged the
   habitable parts of the earth for the living creatures and for the sons
   of men.

   All the attributes of God were exercised, but power was greatly
   magnified, the power which by a word created, and by its mere will made
   all things to stand forth. On that occasion, when the glory of God's
   power was revealed, "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons
   of God shouted for joy." They saw the glory of the Divine power, and
   rendered their joyful homage. On that august occasion many of God's
   attributes were extolled, but there was no room for "the praise of the
   glory of His Grace."

   Grace found no objects in a pure creation upon which to display its
   full glory. There was room for kindness, benevolence, favor, goodness,
   and love--but Divine Grace in its true and deepest meaning needs
   undeserving creatures to oper-

   ate upon, sinful creatures that may be pardoned, fallen creatures that
   may be restored, justified--and there were none such condemned
   creatures that may be in the creation as it came from the Divine hand.

   Further on, the Lord took occasion to give a display of the glory of
   His Justice. We know not precisely when or how, for the record is not
   full and clear. But we have the outlines--there was once a great
   rebellion in Heaven. Certain of those bright intelligences known to us
   as angels, for some reason or other, revolted from the Divine
   government under the leadership of that bright son of the morning, who
   is now forever called the Prince of Darkness.

   There was war in Heaven against the rule of the Eternal. Then flew
   forth the thunderbolts of Jehovah's strength, and the rebels were
   subdued at once by His irresistible might. Then His Justice flamed
   forth in splendor, for we read of the pit that was dug for the wicked,
   and of everlasting fire in Hell prepared for the devil and his angels.
   Hurled from the battlements of Heaven, they fell into the deeps of
   perdition. Driven from the throne of their glory, they became hopeless
   wanderers throughout the realms of misery.

   The praise of the glory of Divine Justice may be read in these terrible
   lines, "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left
   their own habitation, He has reserved in everlasting chains under
   darkness unto the judgment of the Great Day." Divine Justice shall yet
   further be displayed in that tremendous day when the Great White Throne
   shall be set, and all nations shall be gathered before it, and the
   unjust shall receive the vengeance due for their rebellion against the
   majesty of God.

   Glorious shall be the attribute of Justice, "when the Lord Jesus shall
   be revealed from Heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking
   vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of
   our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting
   destruction from the Presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His
   power."

   In all this we see no revelation of "the glory of His Grace." To fallen
   angels He dealt out Justice. Upon them Holiness shot forth her
   consuming fire, but no word of Mercy was heard, no hope of restoration
   was given. The Mediator took not up the angels, but He took up the seed
   of Abraham. So, too, in the last dread assize, Justice, not Mercy,
   shall rule the hour. He shall render unto every man according to his
   works. Still, there must be an opportunity to glorify the attribute of
   Grace. Whenever we can clearly perceive that an attribute exists in
   God, we may fairly infer that there will be something for that
   attribute to exercise itself upon.

   It is always a hopeful circumstance that there is mercy in God, and
   that this mercy endures forever. For it seems to be inevitable that
   mercy should be exercised, and therefore when we see sin in the world
   we expect to see mercy displaying its power. Yonder I see in the
   surgeon's dispensary a potent remedy, and it suggests to me that a
   certain disease falls under his eyes, and when it is raging I naturally
   look to see the remedy much in use. When you read of Grace in the heart
   of God, of pity, of free favor, of Sovereign Mercy, it is clearly
   implied that there would be guilty ones upon whom that free favor would
   in due time be bestowed.

   Accordingly, we find that God has selected the salvation of the sons of
   men as the platform for the exhibition of His Grace--that in His elect
   His Grace may show forth its glory, just as in other events the glory
   of His power or of His Justice has been shown. I want you to note that
   a display of the glory of any attribute is not a more proof that such
   an attribute exists--but an unusual revealing and magnifying of that
   attribute--so that it excites the attention and wonder of all
   beholders.

   Let me go back again to a display of power and remind you of a
   memorable event in the history of this world during our own historical
   period. We read of Pharaoh, "For this purpose have I raised you up,
   that I might show forth My power in you." Pharaoh, a man of a
   peculiarly determined disposition, of a high and haughty
   spirit--resolved to resist the commands of Jehovah and to hold Israel
   in bondage. Jehovah ordained to reveal in him what His power could do.
   After first having warned him by his servants, Moses and Aaron, who
   worked great wonders in his presence, the Lord began to deal with the
   haughty king.

   He turned the waters of Egypt into blood, and slew their fish. The land
   brought forth frogs in abundance in the chambers of their kings. "He
   spoke, and there came many sorts of flies, and lice in all their
   borders. He gave them hail for rain, and flaming fire in their land. He
   smote their vines also, and their fig trees. And broke the trees of
   their coasts. He spoke, and the locusts came, and caterpillars, and
   that without number, and did eat up all the herbs in their land, and
   devoured the fruit of their ground."

   He sent a thick darkness over all the land, even darkness that might be
   felt. The king's heart was cowed for awhile, but in desperate obstinacy
   he hardened his heart yet more, put on a brazen forehead and again
   said, "Who is Jehovah that I should obey His voice? I will not let His
   people go." Volley after volley the artillery of Heaven was discharged
   upon him. The Lord mighty in battle gave His enemy no respite. One by
   one He brought up His reserves, and fitted fresh arrows upon His bow.
   The lordly monarch found himself stunned with the repeated blows, and
   bewildered by the terrors of his Omnipotent Adversary.

   At last the masterstroke was given which brought the tyrant to his
   knees. The angel of destruction was sent to smite all the first-born of
   Egypt. And an exceeding great and bitter cry went up from every
   household in that dread night--for all the first-born were slain, from
   the first-born of Pharaoh that sat upon the throne, to the first-born
   of the woman servant behind the mill. Then it was that the astonished
   monarch rose up in the night and said to Moses and Aaron, "Rise up, and
   get you forth from my people, and go serve the Lord as you have said."

   Yet, before long, Pharaoh hardened his heart again, and pursued after
   the Israelites with horses and with chariots. You know the story, but
   we will rehearse it yet again, for great is the Lord and greatly to be
   praised, and His mighty acts which were of old are to be had in
   perpetual remembrance. Even in Heaven they shall sing the song of
   Moses, the servant of God, and of the Lamb. Let us, then, rehearse it
   here below.

   You remember how Pharaoh in his pride pursued the children of Israel,
   saving, "I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil. My
   lust shall be satisfied upon them. I will draw my sword, my hand shall
   destroy them." In his high presumption he dared to follow the chosen of
   the Lord into the heart of the sea. Then "the Lord looked unto the host
   of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and
   troubled the host of the Egyptians, and took off their chariot wheels,
   that they drove them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee
   from the face of Israel; for the Lord fights for them against the
   Egyptians."

   But in vain they turned themselves to flee, for in a moment when Moses
   stretched forth his rod, the waters, at the command of God, returned
   and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the hosts of Pharaoh.
   They sank like lead in the mighty waters, the depths covered them,
   there was not one of them left. Then was seen the glory of Jehovah's
   power, and then was heard the praise of that glory, for Miriam took her
   timbrel, and went forth in the dance, while the daughters of Israel
   followed her. And all the hosts of Israel took up the refrain of her
   song, "Sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse
   and the rider has He thrown into the sea." Then was made known the
   praise of the glory of Jehovah's power.

   Now, Brethren, in the work of the salvation of man you have a parallel
   case, for one attribute is not more glorious than another. "The praise
   of the glory of His Grace" in rescuing man from the deep ruin into
   which he had fallen, in giving the Well-Beloved to bleed and die, in
   routing sin, death, and Hell--in leading our captivity captive, in
   uplifting us into Heaven, and giving us to be partakers of His glory
   through the merit of Jesus Christ our Lord--in all this, I say, Grace
   is as glorious as was power at the Red Sea. No stinted thing, then. No
   small matter, no subject to be whispered of, or described with bated
   breath--but something great and grand and glorious will that work of
   salvation be--which is to the praise of the glory of so great and
   favorite an attribute as the Grace of God!

   I have tried, if I could, to think of what Grace at its utmost must be.
   But who by searching can find out God? It is not possible for the human
   mind to conceive of power at its utmost. Pharaoh's overthrow gives you
   but a guess at what the Omnipotence of the Lord can accomplish. It can
   shake all worlds to dust, dissolve the universe, and annihilate
   creation. Power at its utmost, who shall compass it? And Grace, my
   Brethren, Grace at its utmost! I was about to say you see it in the
   Lord Jesus. And shall I err if I so speak? For in Him dwells all the
   fullness of the Godhead bodily. He is the only begotten of the Father,
   full of Grace and Truth.

   But, my Brethren, our minds cannot see the utmost power of Grace--human
   intellect is not gigantic enough to grasp it all--but believe me, if
   anywhere the full praise of the glory of God's Grace is seen, it is
   beheld in the salvation of the chosen sons of men. When all the chosen
   ones shall be gathered together, and the Church of God in Heaven shall
   be perfect, not one living stone lacking of the entire fabric--then
   across that edifice shall this inscription be written in letters of
   light, "To the praise of the glory of His Grace."

   The work of salvation from first to last, as a whole, was devised and
   carried out and shall be perfected to the praise of the glory of the
   Grace of God. Thus much upon the first head. Salvation is of the Lord,
   and in it Grace reigns without a rival!

   II. Secondly, THIS IS TRUE OF EACH DETAIL OF SALVATION. I gather that
   from the position of my text. The fifth verse speaks of predestination
   and adoption, and the sixth verse speaks of acceptance in the Beloved.
   The position of my text puts all three of these under the same
   mark--they are all "to the praise of the glory of His Grace." Brethren,
   the sea is salt as a whole, and every drop of it is salt in its
   degree--if the whole work of salvation is of Grace, every detail of
   that work is equally of Grace.

   The rays of the sun as a whole possess certain properties. Analyze one
   single sunbeam and you shall find all those properties there. I have
   just now said that the whole of salvation might be resembled to a great
   temple, and that across its front would be written, "To the praise of
   the glory of His Grace." Now some of the ancient Eastern buildings were
   erected by certain monarchs and were dedicated to them. Not only was
   the whole pile set up to their honor, but each separate brick was
   stamped with the royal cartouche or coat of arms. Not only the whole
   structure, but each separate brick bore the impress of the builder.

   So is it in the matter of salvation--the whole is of Grace, and each
   particular portion of it equally manifests in its measure the free
   favor of God. Let me begin at the beginning, and very briefly rehearse
   the different steps of the salvation of a sinner. There was, first of
   all, the election of men by God before all time. He it was who chose
   unto Himself a people to show forth His praise. That choice was not
   made in any degree on account of any debt due to man, on account of any
   merit that existed in men or was foreseen to exist. It was the result
   offree favor on God's part that any were chosen to become His sons and
   daughters.

   "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight," is the Savior's
   answer to the question why God has hidden these things from the wise
   and prudent, and revealed them unto babes. If any man is chosen, it is
   not because of a natural worthiness or claim to preference--or any
   essential excellence in him which demanded that God should make the
   choice. We were heirs of wrath even as others. No works were taken into
   account whatever. The Divine choice, according to Paul in the ninth of
   Romans was, "not of works, but of Him that calls." "It is not of him
   that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy."

   This is clearer still, perhaps, when we come to the next step, namely,
   that of redemption. Christ has redeemed His people from the curse of
   the Law, having been made a curse for them. Can any man see the Son of
   God expiring upon Calvary, bearing the sins of man, and say that those
   for whom He died were worthy that Christ should die for them? It is
   downright blasphemy to connect any idea of merit with a gift so vast
   and free as the gift of Jesus Christ to redeem us from our sins! Why,
   Sirs, had we, every one of us, been perfect, and had we kept God's Laws
   without omission, even as seraphs do in Heaven, we should still have
   only done what was our duty to have done.

   There could have been no merit about our service which could deserve
   that Christ should die for us. Should the Eternal God ever be thought
   to be such a debtor to His creatures that He must veil His splendor in
   human form and be despised and rejected and spit upon? Shall it be said
   that the Son of God owes to man that He should bleed and die for them?
   I shudder while I raise the question or suggest the thought! It must be
   pure, spontaneous, disinterested mercy that nailed the Savior to the
   tree. Nothing could have brought Him from the Throne of Glory to the
   Cross of woe but Grace, unalloyed, unbounded Grace.

   And when I turn onwards from redemption to the next step, namely, that
   of our effectual calling, it is the same. God is pleased to call many
   of us by the Word of the Gospel, and every Gospel call is a gracious
   thing, for we do not deserve to be called away from our sins. If we
   reject those calls, and resist them--and yet, after all, the effectual
   Grace of God comes in a more powerful way and makes the unwilling
   willing and corrects the obstinacy of our hearts--why, this must be
   Grace emphatically!

   The common call of the Gospel to every sinner to come to Christ, and to
   believe in Him and live--which call is given in the Gospel every
   day--is Grace. But to continue that call, and to make it effectual,
   even to those who have up to now resisted it, why, this is Grace upon
   Grace, super-abounding Grace! If you spread a table for the hungry,
   that is a favor to them. If you invite them to come, and invite again
   and again, it is great favor. But if you "compel them to come in," as
   the parable has it, and bid them sit there and lay yourself out until
   you have won their hearts and persuaded them to ac-

   cept your bounty--this is mercy upon mercy! Yet such is effectual
   calling. That ever the love of God should have constrained you and me
   to come and be saved when we so long stood out against it--oh, this is
   "to the praise of the glory of

   His Grace."

   My dear Brethren, take the next step from effectual calling to pardon
   and justification. I think it is not necessary that I should say that
   the pardon of sin must always be the effect of Grace. That statement is
   self-evident. It cannot be due to any man that he should have his sins
   pardoned, for sin that deserves a pardon is no sin. It cannot be due to
   any man that God should make him righteous, he being himself
   unrighteous. That must be a spontaneous action on God's part, flowing
   from His pure bounty and love. No man can claim forgiveness, it were
   sacrilege to suggest that he could.

   Pardon and justification, then, must be freely given us by God's Grace
   through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. Mark you well that the
   next series of steps which we call sanctification, or perseverance, or
   better still, gracious conservation--all of those must be of Grace,
   too. No man has any claim upon God to keep him from going into sin. I
   am bound to keep from sin--it is my duty--but for God to send me Grace
   by which I am enabled to keep from sin, is no right of mine.

   It must be His free love that does it. And if from day to day He is
   pleased to direct my waywardness and bring my wandering spirit back. If
   after a thousand slips He still restores my soul and establishes my
   goings, I dare not praise myself for it--I must gratefully put the
   crown of my perseverance in righteousness upon the head of that
   Infinite Grace which has worked all my works in me.

   Beloved, if you will, at your leisure, survey all the steps of the work
   of Grace, you will be persuaded that you could not say of one more than
   another, "This is of Divine Grace," but you would have to confess it
   equally of all. There is no point in the Christian's life where his own
   merit avails him, no period where his own strength comes to the rescue
   of Divine power. It must be Grace that makes the dead soul live--and it
   is equally Grace which keeps the living soul alive. It must be Grace
   that washes the sin-blackened soul and makes it white as snow. And it
   must be equally Grace which keeps that soul from going back to its
   former filthiness. From foundation to pinnacle the temple of our
   salvation is all of Grace.

   Certain skeptical philosophers have half conceded that there may have
   been an exhibition of Divine strength in the beginning, when the great
   orbs of Heaven were first caused to revolve. But then they affect to
   question whether any fresh power is put forth to preserve the stars in
   their courses. You and I know that no forces of the past will suffice
   for the present demand, and we believe that Divine power is always
   streaming forth to urge on the wheels of the universe.

   It is even so in the little world within us. It was Grace that set our
   hearts moving towards Christ and holiness. It is equally Grace that
   keeps us still following after the prize of our high calling in Christ
   Jesus. As the waters cover the channels of the sea, so does Grace cover
   all our salvation. In every jot and every tittle of our heavenly
   charter, Grace guided the pen. From first to last salvation is free.
   "For by Grace, are you saved through faith. And that not of yourselves:
   it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast."

   III. Now, Brethren, in the third place, having shown that salvation is
   of Grace as a whole and of Grace in all its details, I shall notice
   that THE PECULIAR GLORIES OF THIS GRACE OUGHT TO BE POINTED OUT, and to
   be

   considered by us.

   What are the peculiar glories of Divine Grace? This is not a
   fashionable doctrine, but we will speak it plainly and honestly. In the
   first place, it is a peculiar glory of Grace that it is Sovereign, that
   the favor of God is given to man according to the absolute will of the
   Almighty God, and for no reason known to us but the good pleasure of
   His will. When a man gives away anything in kindness to the poor, he
   likes to exercise his own sovereignty in the gift, but no man is so
   absolutely a possessor of the good things of this life as to have a
   right to the exercise of an altogether absolute sovereignty over his
   goods.

   There must be some limit to human rights. A man, even in his free
   gifts, ought not to give to some, and he ought in preference to give to
   others. But the great and gracious God has no limits to His absolute
   will. There are no rights remaining to fallen man before God, except
   the right to suffer the infliction of justice. Man has so forfeited all
   claims upon God that on the ground of right he can receive nothing but
   eternal wrath--nothing whatever. Nor does any claim or pretense of
   claim in any degree influence the determination of the Most High in the
   gift of His Grace. Over the heads of

   all men He speaks with thundering voice, "I will have mercy on whom I
   will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have
   compassion." Absolute Sovereignty is one of the glories of Divine
   Grace.

   Another glory of this Grace is its entire freeness. Man is not expected
   to do anything to earn or obtain the Grace of God. He would not if he
   were expected. He could not if he were required. He has so utterly
   departed from God that he has lost the favor of God--to lose it was in
   his power--to gain it again is not. Nor does God bestow His favor on
   any man because of anything He sees in the man. Neither his wealth, nor
   his fame, nor his position, nor his character. He looks down on man and
   passes by kings and princes to let his love settle on the poor.

   He looks on men, and often selects the grossest transgressor and the
   chief of sinners, that these should become eternal monuments of His
   power to save them. This He does, and continues still to do most
   freely, spontaneously, because so it seems good in His sight. Another
   glory of His Grace is its fullness. Where God bestows His Grace, it is
   no little Grace. It is Grace to cover all the man's sins, whatever they
   may be. Though they may be so multiplied that he cannot count them, and
   so gross that he cannot estimate them, yet the Grace of God makes a
   clean sweep of them all.

   "I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions for My own sake,
   and will not remember your sins." "I have blotted out, as a thick
   cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins." "All manner of
   sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." Blasphemy is expressly
   mentioned as a violent form of evil and direct attack upon God. The
   most heinous forms of human iniquity the Grace of God blots out of the
   Book of Remembrance, and He takes those who committed those heinous
   sins, changes their nature, makes them His children, and receives them,
   at last, into His Glory-- and all because of the free favor which is in
   His heart towards them.

   Another glory of this Grace is its unfailing continuance. Where once
   the Grace of God has fallen, it is never taken away. If God, in His
   mercy, visits a man with Grace, He never afterwards revokes the pardon
   He gives, or recalls the favor He has bestowed. "The gifts and calling
   of God are without repentance." Grace is no intermittent brook flowing
   today and dried up tomorrow, no fleeting meteor dazzling all beholders
   and then vanishing in thick darkness--

   "Whom once He loves he ne ver leaves, But loves them to the end." His
   Grace is unchanging, His mercy endures forever.

   Another glory of it is that it is unalloyed and unmingled. God's Grace
   in saving souls rules alone. Human merit does not intrude here and
   there to make a patchwork of the whole. Grace triumphant can say, "I
   have trod the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with
   Me." Grace is Alpha. Grace is Omega. It is Grace's glory that no mortal
   finger touches her work, and no human hammer is lifted up thereon. This
   is what men cannot bear. They will have it that man must have some
   merit, must do some little. But it must not be. The Grace of God
   demands a clear stage. It saves and it, alone, from first to last.

   Need I add that it is one glory of this Grace that while it thus
   reveals itself so fully, it never interferes with any other attribute
   of God? Interfere, did I say? It only tends to illustrate all the other
   glories of the Divine Character. God is absolute in His favor, but He
   is never unjust. He gives justice to all. He allots to each one his
   portion due. "What?" You say, "is He just to those whom He favors? Does
   He not pass by their sins?" I answer, "Yes," but I also say, "No." He
   does pass by their sins so far as they are concerned, but He does so
   justly. For He first laid their sins upon their Surety, and exacted
   from Christ the vengeance due for their transgressions.

   He is as just towards His saints as if He had no mercy upon them, for
   in their Substitute His Justice has received the full payment of His
   demands. There is no attribute of God that Grace ever slights. It is on
   the best terms with God's Truth, though Truth said, "I will by no means
   spare the guilty." God has not spared the guilty, for He laid the guilt
   on Christ and did not spare Him. And now His people are not
   guilty--they are absolved, there is no condemnation to them, their
   transgression is forgiven--their sin is covered.

   I say, again, this is the glory of Grace--one of its special crowns and
   adornments--that though it has its way and works as freely as if
   Justice were dead, and holiness were withered, yet it never does invade
   the realm of any one of those bright attributes. God is as just, and as
   holy as if He were not gracious, and yet His Infinite Sovereignty sways
   its undisputed scepter in the realm of salvation.

   IV. I have brought you thus far, into the very heart of the text, and
   now, in the fourth place, THIS GRACE OUGHT TO BE THE SUBJECT OF PRAISE.
   It is "to the praise of the glory of His Grace." Here needs a tongue
   far more fluent than mine. Or rather, here is wanted no tongue but a
   warm heart and grateful thought to sit down and contemplate.

   As many of you as have been bought with blood and washed in it. As many
   of you as have been taken from among men and made to be the Lord's own
   peculiar people, I ask you now, in silence, to praise God while your
   mind surveys the whole plan of your salvation. Chosen before the earth
   was--Grace, free Grace! Given into the hands of Christ to be His
   treasure--all of Grace! Redeemed with the heart's blood of Immanuel,
   all out of His free favor to you!

   Preserved when you were running into sin, slaves of Satan, mad on your
   idols--preserved in Christ Jesus by long-suffering Grace! Called with
   that voice which wakes the dead, and endowed with spiritual
   life--altogether of Grace! Adopted into the Divine family, made
   partakers of the Divine Nature because Grace so willed it--what wonders
   are here! Brothers and Sisters, in your case it was Grace of the most
   eminent degree. If you do not say so of your case, I must say so of
   mine.

   Above all the sons of men I humbly claim to be most indebted to the
   Grace of God. But I doubt not, my Brothers and Sisters, you also claim
   the same. There were specialties about our character, there were
   peculiarities about our sin, there were difficulties about our
   constitution which all tended to make it very remarkable that we should
   be the subjects of the Divine Love. Each one of us can say, "What was
   there in me that could merit esteem, or give the Creator delight?" Now,
   you will glorify God if you let your soul in silence muse at the foot
   of the Throne of Grace, and worship Him of whose mercy you have so
   largely been made a recipient.

   When you have done this, may I ask you, in the next place, to let all
   men see the result of Grace in you! It has been a common slander
   against the Doctrine of Grace that it makes light of good works, and
   leads men to licentiousness--a slander which the lives of the people of
   God have amply answered in the past. Now you to whom this mercy has
   been shown--by your watchfulness, your hatred of the very appearance of
   evil, your careful walking, your close fellowship with Christ--prove to
   those who ridicule us, by your lives, that Grace is a holy thing
   wherever bestowed, for it renews the heart and sanctifies the life.

   You are degrading the Grace of God when you are not walking as becomes
   the household of faith. You are honoring God better by holiness than by
   writing the sweetest poetry, or by uttering the most seraphic sentences
   upon it. Holy living is "to the praise of the glory of His Grace." Add
   to your holy living your own personal testimony. I do not care to hear
   people who are converted talking much about what they were before
   conversion. I am not sure that the records of horrid lives of base men
   are ever profitable if they are written. Perhaps the best thing to say
   is, "Of which things we are now ashamed."

   But at the same time tell it to others that the Grace of God has saved
   you. If you were, before conversion, given to great sins, be ashamed of
   them, but do tell that Grace has saved such as you are. Be bold to
   testify in all companies that the Grace of God is equal to all
   emergencies and can save the lost from going quite down into the jaws
   of perdition. Publish it everywhere that the mercy of God can blot out
   the grossest and vilest sins--that no man need despair--that the great
   heart of God is large enough to receive the most devilish of sinners.
   Proclaim that he passes by transgression, iniquity, and sin for Jesus
   Christ's sake. Let the angels know it! When you are introduced to
   Heaven, publish there what God's Grace has done--and till you get there
   let men know it here below--to the praise of the glory of His Grace."

   V. And now, lastly, let me say that the doctrine which we have taught
   this morning, THE TRUTH WHICH WE

   HAVE TRIED FULLY TO PREACH, IS THE GREAT GROUND OF HOPE FOR SINNERS.
   For, in the first place, if

   it is so that salvation is all of the free favor of God, then here is
   hope for every man!

   You will enquire "How?" I will reply thus. Suppose there is here a man
   who has been guilty of some gross crime, yet others who have been
   guilty of the like crime have been pardoned, and have been the subjects
   of Divine Grace--why should he not be? If salvation were by merit, such
   a man clearly would be shut out of hope, and rightly considered, every
   man would be. We have, none of us, a half-a-grain of merit if we were
   ransacked through and through. But if it is of Grace, why should not
   the Grace of God stick on me as well as on any other man?

   And if it is proved that the Grace of God is so Sovereign that it has
   often fallen on the very worst of men, why not on me, if I am the very
   worst of men? And if I find it written that him that comes to Christ He
   will in nowise cast out, then I,

   even if I am the worst of men, am encouraged to come to Christ. He has
   saved others--the worst of men. He tells me if I come, if anyone comes,
   He will not cast him out. Then why should not I go? Why not, indeed?

   If there were anything like preparation, or readiness, or merit, or
   adaptation, then there would be no hope for me. But if it is a matter
   altogether of a pure, gratuitous gift--then why should it not be given
   to me as well as to another? It holds out a bright encouragement to
   every sinner, and it holds out hope even to the exceedingly gross
   transgressor because Grace is evidently magnified in changing the
   nature of great sinners. If I am a great transgressor and have
   desperately sinned, what room there will be for Grace to glorify itself
   in me! Here is hope for me. Why should I not go to God in prayer and
   ask to be made a trophy of His Grace?

   And if any should say, "But if we are not the grossest of sinners, then
   we seem to be shut out!" I answer, No, but rather to be included,
   because if any will say, "God saves the greatest of sinners, because
   they glorify His Grace most," I should reply, God is not actuated by
   any selfish motive. He does not save men that He may get anything by
   it, and you from whom He can derive nothing are the very people He is
   likely to save, to prove the utter freeness and disinterestedness of
   His love.

   Do not, for a moment, imagine we are going to put sin in the place of
   merit, and make it appear that the greatness of their sin is the reason
   why the Lord will save men! If there is no reason for Grace in human
   merit, much less is there in the degree of demerit. If you have never
   gone into gross sin, thank God for it, but for all that, you are sinner
   enough. If you see yourself as you are, you are filthy enough in all
   conscience--you need not be any viler. And because your case does not,
   to you, appear as though you could glorify God, it is not, therefore,
   to be argued that it appears so to Him who sees not as man sees.

   When a surgeon meets with a case which apparently will bring no credit
   to him in vulgar eyes if he cures it, it is the highest honor to him
   that he was not deterred by the fear that it would bring him no honor.
   It is highly glorious to God that He is not affected by the praise of
   men. There is hope, then, for you who cannot be numbered with the
   grossest of transgressors. If all is of Grace then it neither shuts out
   big nor little. And while the gracious promises ring like a peal of
   silver bells, "Come unto Me all you that labor," and that with a
   general and universal note to every sinner under Heaven, "Whosoever
   believes in Him is not condemned," "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
   and you shall be saved," "He that believes and is baptized, shall be
   saved," and such like passages, why, we are greatly encouraged to come
   to Jesus!

   This doctrine that salvation is all of Grace, and not of us at all, is
   one of the very best reasons why I, though I do not feel right, nor act
   right, nor am right, but am just a lump of sin, a mass of filthiness,
   and nothing else--should come as I am, even now, and put my trust in
   the blood and righteousness of Christ! And I, even I, can trust that I
   shall find acceptance in the Beloved. O that some hearts, today, may,
   by the Holy Spirit, be encouraged to come to Christ!

   If you have any goodness, this sermon is a death knell for you. If you
   have any merits, away with you, away with you! Christ came not to call
   the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. If you are not sick, what
   are you doing here? The physician is come to heal the sick, not those
   who are in health. But if you have nothing that could deserve anything
   of God, then to you is the word of this salvation sent, "To the praise
   of the glory of His Grace."

   My last word shall briefly indicate what is the privilege of each
   sinner who would rejoice in the Sovereign Grace of God. Often as we
   explain faith, we still need to explain it again. I met with an
   illustration taken from the American war. One had been trying to
   instruct a dying officer in what faith was. At last he caught the idea,
   and he said, "I could not understand it before, but I see it now. It is
   just this--I surrender, I surrender to Jesus."

   That is it! You have been fighting against God, standing out against
   Him, trying to make terms more or less favorable to yourself. Now here
   you stand in the Presence of God, and you drop the sword of your
   rebellion and say, "Lord, I surrender, I am Your prisoner. I trust to
   Your mercy to save me. I have done with self, I fall into Your arms."--

   "A guilty, weak, and helpless worm, On Christ's kind arms I fall Be You
   my strength and righteousness, My Jesus and my all.'"

   May God bless you. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Right Replies To Right Requests

   (No. 959)

   DELIVERED ON LORDS-DAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 6, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "If a son shall ask for bread of any of you that is a father, will he
   give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he for a fish give him
   a serpent? Or if he shall ask for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
   If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your
   children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit
   to them that ask Him?" Luke 11:11-13.

   IN this chapter there is an evident progress. It opens by the disciples
   asking the Lord to teach them to pray. To that He gave a full and
   sufficient reply. He prepared them an outline of what complete prayer
   should be. Brethren, we have need, some of us, to begin with asking to
   be taught to pray. It will be a blessed sign when it can be said of us,
   "Behold, he prays." And just in proportion as we are instructed how to
   pray shall we give evidence of a more advanced Christian life. He has
   most grown in Grace who prays best. Depend upon it, the most acceptable
   prayer with God is the evidence of a most accepted state of heart
   within.

   Our growth in prayer may be to us the test of our growth in all other
   respects. "Lord, teach us to pray," is a prayer for the young beginner
   and for the more advanced disciple. It is a suitable petition for as
   all, for we have none of us yet learned to the full the sacred art of
   supplication. Then the chapter proceeds a little further to answer a
   question--we are shown how to pray, but will God really answer us? Is
   prayer only meant to do good to the suppliant? Does it end with the
   benefit which it works in us, or does it really affect the heart of
   God? Do replies actually come from Heaven in answer to the entreaties
   of God's children?

   The answer is given by our Lord with great clearness. We have a parable
   to show that as importunity does evidently affect men, so importunity
   will also gain an answer from God--that He will be pleased to give us
   what we need if we do but know how, with incessant earnestness, to come
   again and again to Him in prayer. We are assured that asking is
   attended with receiving, that seeking is attended with finding, that
   knocking will lead to opening. That it is not a vain thing to pray,
   that our prayers are not lost on the wind, or expended merely on
   ourselves--but that there is a connection established by Divine decree
   between the prayer that is raised on earth and the mercy that is given
   forth from Heaven.

   But since we are such sinful creatures, the chapter proceeds to deal
   with a grave doubt which may arise in the troubled mind. "It may be God
   will hear, and as a general rule will make replies in mercy. But I am
   an undeserving one. If the Lord should be incensed at my prayers and
   answer me in wrath instead of love, I should deserve it. If after
   having made my confession, He should deal with me, judging me out of my
   own mouth, and then and there condemn me, what should I

   say?"

   The Savior very explicitly answers the question as to whether God will
   give answers of peace, and will always grant us good things. And He
   puts it thus to us--when your children ask for good things you grant
   their requests. You do not mock them by giving them something that may
   look like what they asked for, but is only a deception. You never play
   upon their ignorance and mock their childish confidence by giving them
   the injurious semblance of what would have been a useful reality. When
   their prayers are right, you answer them.

   If you, then, being evil, fallen creatures, yet answer your children's
   right and proper prayers, how much more will your heavenly Father
   answer your fitting prayers, and give to you good things? He will not
   put you off with evil things when you ask for good, but He will grant
   you in Truth the good gifts which you are seeking after.

   You will observe that the fear, lest God should give us something evil
   when we are seeking something good, is very naturally raised in the
   heart by a sense of sinfulness. And is increased by the conviction that
   we should not always be able to judge whether the thing received is
   good or not good. We tremble lest we should receive from the Divine
   hands what appears to be gracious, and yet may be sent in judgment. But
   he says, "No, your children trust in their father, and their

   father never deceives them--you may safely trust your heavenly Father
   that when you ask a good thing from Him, He will most assuredly give
   you a good thing, and not an evil thing in lieu of it."

   You are true and kind to your children--much more shall God be good
   towards you. In saying, "How much more?" we ask an unanswerable
   question. As high as God is above us, so high is the certainty that He
   will give us good above the certainty that we will give good things to
   our children. Yet since we feel in our hearts quite certain that we
   could not mock our children, let us be quite convinced that it is still
   further beyond all question that God will ever mock us and give to us
   an evil thing when we are seeking a good thing at His hands.

   By the way, it has been remarked that the expression of our Savior here
   is, "you being evil." That expression evidently teaching the doctrine
   of our fallen condition, the doctrine of human depravity. You, My
   disciples, you are evil. You who have children, whether you are upright
   or otherwise in others' estimation, you are all evil, and yet, being
   evil, you still have such affection and judgment that you give your
   children good gifts. Much more shall He who is infinitely good give
   good things to you when you seek them.

   I have met with many expositions of this passage in which there is an
   attempt made to show that the child asked a wrong thing, and wished for
   a stone which appeared to be bread. Nothing of the kind is here. The
   child is not represented as asking for a stone, but as seeking, as he
   should, a most proper gift, namely, bread. No mistake was made at all
   by the child--his prayer was what it should be. The point of the
   parable touches the father's answer. The Truth here taught is not that
   God will refuse us evil things if in our mistake we ask for them. That
   is a Truth, but it is not alluded to here. The one statement of this
   verse is that prayers for good things will be answered--and that they
   will not be answered with gifts wearing the mere appearance of
   good--but with the actual good things desired. That simple thought I
   shall endeavor to enlarge upon in this morning's discourse.

   Our first head will be--right prayers, right answers. The second point
   will be the best prayer, the surest answer. And the last head will be
   this--the prayer of the text is the best, for it contains all blessings
   in it.

   1. First, then, RIGHT PRAYERS, RIGHT ANSWERS. The child asks for bread,
   his father does not give him a stone. He asks for a fish--there are
   certain kinds of fish that are very like snakes--but the father does
   not give him a serpent. The child asks for an egg--we are told by some
   that certain scorpions, when they fold themselves up, look like
   eggs--the father never makes a fool of the child, or injures him by
   giving him a scorpion for an egg.

   If we may be allowed to put some interpretation upon this, I should say
   if we begin our prayers by asking God for necessities, that is bread,
   bread temporal, or the Bread of Life, He will not give us useless,
   tooth-breaking, unsatisfying stones. We shall have, when we pray for
   necessary things, the really necessary things themselves, not the
   imitation of them, but the actual blessings. And if our faith grows a
   little stronger, and having obtained bread, we may ask for fish-- not
   absolutely a necessity--but a comfort and a relish. If we make bold to
   ask for spiritual comforts, consoling gifts and ennobling Graces,
   something over and above what is absolutely necessary to save us, our
   heavenly Father will not mock us by giving us superficial comforts
   which might be injurious as a serpent.

   He will give us so much of comfort as we can bear. And it shall be
   pure, holy, healthy comfort. And if, gathering more confidence still,
   we ask for an egg, which I take it was in Christ's day a rarer luxury,
   we shall not be deluded by its counterfeit. Only once, except in this
   place, and that in the book of Job, and Job was a rich man, do we ever
   read of eating eggs at all in Scripture. And all through the Bible we
   find not even the mention of poultry till our Savior's day. And then
   chickens were so valuable that eggs were considered a high luxury, for
   which a child, at least, might not be expected to make a request.

   But if the child is bold enough at last to ask for this larger favor,
   his father will not punish his impertinence by putting into his hand a
   deadly scorpion. Even thus, if I can summon faith enough to ask for the
   highest enjoyments and enrichments of Divine Grace, the highest
   blessings of Christian manhood, the most rapt and intense fellowship
   with Christ, I shall not receive, instead of that an intoxicating
   excitement, a delirious fanaticism, or some other deadly or injurious
   thing.

   Now, this at first sight may not seem to be a very useful Truth of God,
   but I think I can show you that it is. To begin with, the common
   blessings of Providence. You have been laying your case before the
   Throne with much earnestness of late, and you have prayed God to guide
   and lead you in all the steps of life. At this moment you are
   overwhelmed with trouble--distress has followed distress. Now, do not
   judge God harshly, above all do not judge Him so harshly as to

   think Him less kind and tender than you would be yourself. Your child
   asking for bread receives bread. You have asked guidance and shall have
   it. You have asked Providential care and you have obtained it. These
   present circumstances, which God has appointed for you are what you
   have asked for.

   Your present lot is from the Lord. He has not given you a stone. It
   seems hard, perhaps. May it not be the crust of true bread for all
   that? Believe it to be so, but never suspect that you are treated
   ungenerously by your Lord. Were you as able to judge as He is, you
   would perceive that He has given you that which is for your lasting
   good, and has appointed the best thing possible for you. Do not look
   upon your present distress as a stone, a serpent, or a scorpion. If so
   you will be afraid of your mercies and tremble at your consolations.
   Providential love you have sought, and Providential love is yours
   beyond all question, even though trials surround you.

   For by all these things men live, and in all these is the life of our
   spirit. God will bring good out of the apparent evil. Indeed, if Faith
   will but open her eyes, it is not apparent evil, but it is even now
   evidently good. Blind Unbelief misrepresents the work of God. Faith's
   clearer eye discerns the Truth. Do not suspect your God of giving you
   the scorpion instead of the egg. You have asked that here on earth
   Providence may deal wisely with you, and that God may be glorified by
   you. Infinite Wisdom is even now fulfilling your hallowed wish. Amid
   fiery trials your faith is honoring God, and every circumstance of your
   affliction is made subservient to your soul's perfection.

   In spiritual matters how often in our earnest anxiety to be right have
   we questioned whether the spiritual gifts which we have received are
   what we hope they are, or whether after having sought of God Divine
   Grace, we may not, after all have missed it. For instance, many of us,
   I hope most of us, are possessors this day of faith in the Lord Jesus
   Christ. We look to His Cross and we are lightened. We see Him as our
   suffering Substitute, and our soul feels joy and peace as the result of
   faith. Our faith does lay her hand upon His head as the scapegoat, and
   we see sin carried away by Him into the wilderness of forgetfulness.

   But the question will come and sometimes very bitterly, "Is this true
   faith? Is this the faith of God's elect? Is it not, after all,
   presumption for me to say and believe that in Jesus Christ I am
   pardoned and saved? There is, evidently, a notional faith, may not mine
   be that? There is, it seems, a faith of devils, for they 'believe and
   tremble.' May not mine be of that sort? Is this which I have sought of
   God in prayer, and which I accepted as my answer, the real Grace of
   faith, or am I, after all, deluding myself?" Look, my Brother, where
   did you seek this faith? Did you not ask your heavenly Father to give
   it to you? Have you not devoutly sought, and do you not still seek
   today, even with tears, that He would work in you the faith which is of
   His own Spirit's creation?

   Now do you think that He would have given you a stone instead of bread,
   that He would have put into your heart a carnal presumption, or have
   suffered it to come there while you were waiting for the humble, simple
   faith of God's own people? My Lord, I sought it at Your feet, and there
   I found it! And it cannot be otherwise than a good and real faith which
   I found when I looked up to You. Be assured, O anxious Heart, that in
   the vital matter of faith true seekers shall not be put off with false
   faith. The same question may arise as to every spiritual Grace. We will
   take repentance. I am not for a moment about to depreciate the value of
   a discriminating theology, which clearly shows the difference between
   legal bondage, and the evangelical repentance of a child of God.

   But I suppose few of us can sit under sermons of that order, especially
   if the preachers make a great many nice distinctions, without feeling,
   "I am afraid I come short on several points. I fear that my repentance
   does not come up to the mark, and I hardly know whether I can quite say
   that I have so renounced sin, so abhorred it, so detested it, so
   loathed it from the very bottom of my soul, as this good man
   describes." Well, then, it will be a sweet thing to fall back upon
   this--I seek repentance of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ. I come
   to my Father and I say, "Create in me a new heart, O God. If my heart
   is not broken and contrite, break it. And heal it if it is."

   I earnestly desire that the Lord would give me a tender spirit. My
   longing is towards the repentance which is of His own working. I lay
   myself down like a field, and ask Him to plow me. I put myself before
   Him as the patient places his limb under the surgeon's knife--and I
   beseech Him to deal with me in the most cutting and severe manner, so
   that He may but rid me of the disease of sin. Now, if you sincerely act
   thus, I am sure you will not be deceived in your repentance. You shall
   receive the repentance that needs not to be repented of. You would not
   give your child the serpent instead of the fish--neither will God
   suffer you to be deluded with a suppositious repentance instead of the
   Gospel repentance which is the peculiar watermark of His own chosen.

   Now, as I have said, all our Divine Graces may be subjected to the same
   questioning, and our confidence in them may be reestablished by the
   same method. If you have sought them of the Lord, and have waited upon
   Him in prayer anxiously desiring to have such as He gives--and only
   such as He gives--you shall not be deceived or disappointed. He of whom
   you seek these gifts is Truth itself and gives no mockeries to His
   sons. If you went to pretended mediators and priests, you would be
   deceived, but never by the one Mediator, Jesus Christ.

   If you dream that the spiritual benefit is to pass through mortal
   hands--there are priests nowadays, like the priests of Egypt, Jannes
   and Jambres--who during the passage of the fish through their hands
   would have transformed it into a serpent, and craftily exchanged the
   egg for a scorpion by a little manipulation. If, then, I have got my
   religion at second hand I may have been deceived. But if I have gone to
   God Himself, my Father, in earnest and importunate prayer, and have
   desired to receive these blessings direct from His Son and His Spirit,
   no mistake can have occurred. I must have received the good thing which
   I sought.

   We will take one more instance, and that shall comprehend the whole. My
   dear Brothers and Sisters, in looking back upon all our experience, the
   doubt will occur to us whether, after all, it may not have been a
   fallacy and a delusion. I thought that I was brought out of darkness
   into God's marvelous light. I thought that I rejoiced in the Lord. I
   have thought that my prayers have been answered. I have believed that I
   have been led from Grace to Grace by His Spirit. I have thought, and if
   not awfully deceived it is true, that I have had fellowship with the
   Father and with His Son. I have had but few ecstasies, but I have had
   much peace. I have had both the mournful and the cheerful experiences
   of God's people--I think I have.

   But in dark times we say, "Is it so? Am I, after all, a true child of
   God? May I not, after all, have persuaded myself that I was converted
   during a revival or under a certain earnest minister? May I not, since
   then, have propped up that deceptive supposition by the respect and
   esteem of Christian people, and may I not, up till now, have been a
   deceiver, or self-deceived? May not the whole thing turn out to be one
   awful sham?" In such a case we come back to this--where did I seek
   this, and what did I seek? Did I go to God and desire to be a mere
   professor? Was it my wish to gain a worldly position, or to win the
   respect of my friends by professing to be a Christian?

   Or did I go sincerely to the Lord, and for love of salvation desire to
   be converted? Did I desire the Savior that I might be reconciled to
   God, that I might be made holy? And since then have I still desired
   truly and earnestly to possess the Grace which God gives, and not the
   mere imitations of man? Do I pant to have God's own Spirit in my soul,
   and is that my sincere and earnest prayer now?

   Well, then, I have no right to suspect that I am deceived. Like a
   child, I believe that my heavenly Father has given me what I asked for.
   I have done right in so believing. My child would do me a gross
   injustice if he suspected that the fish I gave him was not a fish, but
   a serpent. And I do my God a great injustice if, sincerely knowing that
   I have sought the one thing necessary at His hands through Jesus
   Christ, I suspected that He has permitted me to be deluded with
   something else. No, if I sought it from Him, and sought it sincerely, I
   have now the good thing which I longed for.

   Now, this simple Truth may yet be very, very helpful to you--for
   nowadays men assail our faith. Some of us have waited upon the Lord for
   teaching, and we have been established in the old faith which men now
   sneer and rail at as a worn-out creed. We have been taught as we
   believe, by the Spirit of God, and by God's Word. And now, because this
   advanced age and this enlightened century have discovered that these
   old-fashioned truths are not philosophical, are we to believe that when
   we went to God for teaching we did not receive bread, but a stone?

   I do not believe it, nor will I give up the bread I have long lived on
   because these men choose to call it a stone. I will hold it still, it
   is my food, and on it I shall live forever. If a man has sought of God
   to be filled with zeal till he becomes like a burning seraph, some will
   tell him this is all wildfire--the man is excited beyond bounds--he
   ought to be more reserved. My dear Brother, if you have sought from God
   the zeal of His House that eats you up, do not believe that the spirit
   that God has given you is wildfire. Do not believe that your ardor for
   the conversion of sinners is fanaticism. Hold on to it and get more of
   it, and do not let the devil delude you out of the treasure you have
   gained.

   The fish is a fish, not a serpent, and the egg is an egg, and not a
   scorpion. And so, too, when the Believer has stood fast in the faith
   and would not leave it, then he has been told, "It is only your natural
   obstinacy. You are pig-headed. You have got hold of a thing and there
   is no making you give it up." Many a man of God has been ridiculed for
   his de-termination--"it is not that be has any real martyr's spirit in
   him, it is only his animal obstinacy." Ah, my Friend, but

   you know where you got this firmness! And if you wait upon the Lord,
   and say, "Establish me in Your fear, my God. Help me to bear
   contradiction of sinners against myself, as my Redeemer did," then God
   will not give you any evil thing. Having done all, still stand, endure
   to the end, and you shall gain the Crown of Life that fades not away.
   That is our first point--prayer for good things meets a good answer.

   II. Then, dear Friends, the question will arise in every heart--"It
   seems, then, that I have only to ascertain that my prayer is for a
   really good thing, and I shall have it." Just so, and therefore,
   secondly, THE PRAYER FOR THE BEST

   THING IS SUREST OF AN ANSWER, for, says the text, "How much more shall
   your heavenly Father give the Holy

   Spirit to them that ask Him?" There is no doubt about the Holy Spirit
   being a good thing. When we, therefore, ask for Him, for His Divine
   Presence and influence, we may rest assured that God will give it. Make
   that our first point under this head--God will give the Holy Spirit to
   them that ask for Him.

   Beloved, the Holy Spirit sometimes is represented as the wind, the
   life-giving breath. He blows upon the valleys thickly strewn with
   slain, and they are quickened to life. You and I, though we are made to
   live, often feel that life to be flagging, and almost dying. The Spirit
   of God can quicken us, revive in us the spark of Divine life, and
   strengthen in our hearts the life of God. Pray for this quickening
   breath, and, my Brothers and Sisters, God will give it to you. As
   surely as you sincerely pray, you shall have and feel the revival of
   the life within.

   The Spirit of God is sometimes compared to water. It is He who applies
   the blood of Jesus and sanctifies us. He cleanses us, fertilizes us.
   Well, He will come to us in that capacity. Do we feel that our sin has
   much power over us? O Spirit of God, destroy sin within us and work in
   us purity! You have already given us the new birth by water and the
   Spirit, go on and complete Your work till our whole nature shall be
   fashioned in the image of the Great First-born. You shall have it if
   you seek it--God will give you this Spirit if this you seek for.

   The Holy Spirit is revealed to us under the image of light. He
   illuminates the mind, He makes our natural darkness flee. Wait upon
   Him, O child of God, that you may be led into all Truth. He can make
   that which now perplexes you to become plain. He can uplift you into
   Truths of God which are now too high for your attainment. Wait upon
   Him! As a child of God, long to be taught of God. I do not know how to
   express to you the sense I feel just now of the deep condescension of
   God in promising to give us the Holy Spirit. He has given us His Son,
   and now He promises his Spirit!

   Here are two gifts, unspeakable in preciousness! Will God, in very deed
   dwell with man upon the earth? Will God dwell in man? Can it be that
   the infinite Spirit, God over all, blessed forever, will dwell in my
   poor heart, and make my body to be His temple? It is certainly so. For
   as sure as it is that God will give good things to those that ask for
   good things, He will surest of all give the Holy Spirit to them that
   ask for the Holy Spirit. Sit not in the dark, then, when the light of
   God will break upon you if you seek it!

   The Holy Spirit is set forth to us under the emblem of fire, and in
   this capacity He kindles enthusiasm of spirit, and burning zeal in the
   hearts of God's people. The tongue of fire speaks with a matchless
   might. The heart of flame conquers the sons of men. O that we had this
   fire! It is to be had. The Spirit of God will come in answer to our
   cries. He will come and fire the Church, and each individual member of
   it. Oftentimes the Spirit of God is set forth as oil. By Him we have
   the Divine anointing. The prayer that the pastor may be anointed with
   fresh oil is a very welcome one, but it is equally needed that you,
   yourselves, have your lamps supplied that your light may not go out.
   This desire will be fulfilled. He will give the Holy Spirit in this way
   to them that ask Him for it.

   And so, too, as the gentle dropping dew that cheers and refreshes the
   grass, so will the Spirit come to console our spirits, care-worn, tried
   with the heat of this world's busy day. The Holy Spirit will come and
   bedew us if we seek Him. As the blessed Dove, bearing peace upon His
   wings, He will come to us. In fact, there is no operation of the Spirit
   which will not be brought in us if we seek it. There is no attribute of
   the Spirit of God which shall not be put forth for us if we ask it. He
   will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.

   From the connection in which the text stands, I gather the following
   remark, namely, that it will truly be the Holy Spirit. Go back again to
   that first thought. The child asks for bread, and does not get a stone.
   You ask for the Holy Spirit, and you shall receive the Holy Spirit.
   Some persons have been misled by an evil spirit. I believe that very
   much of the rant that came out years ago about the date of the second
   coming of Christ, the unknown tongues, and I do not know what beside of
   blatant nonsense, was of an evil spirit. And I query whether there was
   a humble laying down of minds be-

   fore God's Throne to seek the Holy Spirit. Whether there was not much
   self-sufficiency, and much desire for something that would make
   important its possessor which led certain eminent preachers into vain
   imaginings and fanatical rant.

   You shall not receive an evil spirit instead of the good Spirit, if you
   humbly and patiently wait upon the Most High. Neither shall you be
   misled by fancy. Men will tell you that you are deluded when you
   experience high joys and deep experiences. But if you have sought the
   Spirit sincerely and intensely, it shall be the Spirit that God will
   give you. You need not be afraid when you bow before Jehovah's Throne
   in Jesus' name and ask for the Holy Spirit, that you will be sent away
   with anything short of that Holy Spirit that proceeds from the Father
   and the Son.

   But it appears plainly enough from the text that this Holy Spirit is to
   be given in answer to prayer. Did not we hear some time ago from
   certain wise Brethren that we were never to pray for the Spirit? I
   think I heard it said often, "We have the Holy Spirit, and therefore we
   are not to pray for Him." Like that other certain declaration of the
   same brotherhood, that we have pardon of sin, and are not to pray for
   it, just as if we were never to pray for what we have! If we have life
   we are to pray that we have it more abundantly. If we have pardon in
   one respect we are to ask for a fuller sense of it. And if we have the
   Holy Spirit so that we are quickened, and saved, we do not ask for Him
   in that capacity, but we ask for His power in other directions, and for
   His Grace in other forms.

   I do not go before God now and say, "Lord, I am a dead sinner, quicken
   me by Your Spirit," for I trust I am quickened of His Spirit. But being
   quickened, I now cry, "Lord, let not the life You have given me ebb
   down till it becomes very feeble, but give me of Your Spirit that the
   life within me may become strong and mighty, and may subdue all the
   power of death within my members, that I may put forth the vigor and
   energy which come from Yourself through the

   Spirit."

   you that have the Spirit, you are the very men and women to pray that
   you may experience more of His matchless operations and gracious
   influences. And in all the benign sanctity of His indwelling may you
   seek that yet more and more you may know Him. You have this as your
   encouragement--that God will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.
   Ever since certain Brethren gave up asking for the Holy Spirit they
   have not had it, and they have gone aside into many inventions. If they
   will not ask, they shall not have, but be it yours and mine to wait
   humbly and patiently upon the Lord that He may daily give us of His
   Spirit.

   1 desire earnestly to call your attention to one thing which our Savior
   says--"If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your
   children," how ought it to run to make it parallel?--"How much more
   shall your heavenly Father know how to give the Holy Spirit to them
   that ask Him?" Would not that be the parallel? Of course it would, but
   He does not say so. He very kindly puts it, in the first place, that
   we, "know how to give good gifts," for sometimes we know how to give
   them, but we cannot do it. It is a bitter thing, and yet it has
   sometimes happened that the child has said, "Father, give me bread,"
   and with a breaking heart the father has had to reply, "My child, there
   is none."

   It must be one of the hardest trials of human life, and yet it is the
   trial of tens of thousands in this city at this time, to have to say,
   "No, there is not even a crust of bread for my child." You see the
   father knows how, but he cannot do it. But the text does not say that
   God knows how to give the Holy Spirit, it says a great deal more than
   that. It declares that He does give, because with Him to know how is
   the same thing as to do it. He gives the Holy Spirit to them that ask
   Him. He does not only know how, but He does it. Never does He have to
   say to His child, "My child, I cannot." The poor sinner says, "Lord,
   help me to repent," and the Lord never says, "I have not enough of the
   Holy Spirit to make you repent."

   When one of His children cries, "Lord, give me the anointing of the
   Holy One that I may understand Your Gospel more fully," the heavenly
   Father never answers, "I cannot give you so much of the Holy Spirit as
   that." Boundlessly will He give if Faith dares but open her mouth wide.
   You are not straitened in Him. You are straitened in yourselves.
   Brothers and Sisters, I am telling you nothing new, but a very simple
   Truth. And yet, for all that, a Truth which we do not put in practice.
   We may have the Spirit of God resting upon us. As Stephen was a man
   filled with the Holy Spirit, even so may we. No miracles do we seek,
   but all the spiritual uplifting which the Holy Spirit gave to men of
   old we need, and He can give it to us still.

   Though He will not reveal new Truths--we do not want Him to, for we
   have already the complete Gospel re-vealed--He will bring home the old
   Truths to our souls and make them potent upon our consciences--and upon
   our lives--this is what we want! Oh, if any of you are but just
   Christians, and are not glorifying God, nor living near Him,

   nor mighty in prayer, nor well taught in Scripture, nor useful in your
   lives--I beseech you remember--if you have not the Spirit it is because
   you do not seek Him importunately!

   You do not seek Him with a deep sense of your need of Him. If you,
   being evil, give your children bread, how much more will God give you
   the Spirit? And as you, being evil, do not mock your child by putting
   him off without the bread, and giving him something else, neither will
   your heavenly Father. He will give you the real Spirit--not enthusiasm
   that might mislead you! Not fanaticism that might injure you! Not
   self-conceit that might become like a deadly scorpion to you--but He
   promises to give His own gentle, truthful, infallible Holy Spirit to
   them that ask Him.

   III. Now for our last point. THE BEST OF PRAYERS, WHICH IS SURE TO BE
   HEARD, IS ALSO A MOST

   COMPREHENSIVE ONE. Turn to the parallel passage in the Gospel of
   Matthew (7:11). Note that Matthew says nothing about the egg. And then
   read the eleventh verse, "If you being evil know how to give good gifts
   unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven
   give good things to them that ask Him?"

   Now what does our text say, "How much more shall your heavenly Father
   give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?" Is it not clear then that
   the Holy Spirit is the equivalent for "good things," and that, in fact,
   when the Lord gives us the Holy Spirit He gives us all "good things"?
   What a comprehensive prayer, then, is the prayer for the Spirit of God!

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, sit down with pencil in hand and a sheet of
   blank paper before you, and write down all your spiritual wants. I will
   judge of your wisdom by the length of the list--for if you know
   yourself you will find you have not done yet--you are a great mass of
   wants. To pray for all these things separately might seem a very long
   exercise. My dear Brethren, just take the pencil, and do as the school
   boys do when they add up the total of their sums. You will find it all
   adds to this--the Holy Spirit.

   "My God, give me Your Holy Spirit, and I have all." "But do we not need
   the Savior?" says one. Truly, but the Holy Spirit, when He comes,
   "takes of the things of Christ, and shows them unto us." That is the
   great value of the Holy Spirit. "He shall glorify Me." Wherever the
   Spirit of God comes there comes the blood of the Atonement, we are
   brought near by it, and every spiritual blessing bought with blood is
   brought by the Holy Spirit home to the soul. If you have the Spirit He
   does not come empty-handed. He comes loaded with all the treasures of
   the Everlasting Covenant--the blessings ordained for you from before
   the foundation of the world. And He brings the blessings secured to you
   in the Covenant of Grace, and the blessings bought for you by Jesus'
   precious blood. Do, then, let this be your prayer; "Give me, O God,
   Your Holy Spirit."

   Then, my dear Friends, your prayer is intercessory as well as for
   yourselves. You pray for your children, for your wife, for your
   neighbors, for your friends. I hope your intercessory roll is a long
   one. If God gives you power to bless men by your prayers, do not stay
   the blessing. What is it that you want for others? In one word, it is
   the Holy Spirit! Let the Holy Spirit be given to that dear boy of
   yours, and he will have a tender conscience--you have often wished he
   had. He will have a desire after Christ, and he will find Christ. He
   will be a Christian. Let the Holy Spirit be given to that girl of
   yours. She will have a desire for the Word of God, a love for the means
   of Grace. She will find the Savior, she will become a useful Christian
   woman.

   Your neighbors, you prayed that they might go with you to hear the
   Gospel, and a very excellent prayer it was. Still it would be a fuller
   prayer, still, that the Spirit would visit them. Some have been visited
   by the Holy Spirit who have not been in the House of God. Even at their
   work, Divine impulses they could not account for, have followed them.
   The fact is, the hearing of the Word is but the vehicle, the power lies
   in the Spirit of God. I put it to you, therefore, whether it is not a
   most fitting prayer for you to offer for your neighbors and kinsfolk.

   And, now, the last point is one I wish to impress upon your hearts, my
   dear Friends. Tomorrow is the Day of Prayer. As I have said, I hope you
   may be all, with one accord, in one place in prayer. But I humbly
   suggest to you that we should all pray throughout that day and onward,
   that God will give to His Churches more and more of the Holy Spirit.
   Just now, I do not know how you feel, but I am ill at ease. The Church
   of England is eaten through and through with Sacra-mentarianism, but
   Nonconformity appears to me to be almost as badly riddled with
   philosophical infidelity. Those of whom we thought better things are
   turning aside one by one from the fundamentals of the faith.

   At first they gave up the doctrine of the eternity of future
   punishment, now it must be the doctrine of the Fall--first one thing
   then another. If some men have their way all the doctrines of the Word
   must go. They treat the doctrines of Scripture as though they were all
   disproved, and only held by a few ignorant bigots. Through and through,
   I believe, the

   heart of England is honeycombed with a detestable infidelity which
   dares, still, to go into the pulpit, and call itself Christian. I pray
   that God may preserve our denomination from it.

   But my prayer shall go up that He will give us the Holy Spirit--for men
   never go wrong with the Holy Spirit--He will keep them right, and lead
   them into all Truth. Soundness of doctrine is only worth having when it
   is the result of the living indwelling of God in the Church. And
   because too much of the Holy Spirit has departed, we see the signs that
   the orthodox faith is given up, and the inventions of man preached
   instead.

   Sometimes I breathe, as I walk along, this prayer, that God would raise
   up more ministers to preach the Gospel with power. There is so much
   feeble preaching, mere twaddling, and so little declaration of the
   Gospel with power. But I do not know that I will pray that prayer
   again. I will put up this, "Lord, send Your Spirit upon the Churches!"
   Then will come the ministers! Then will come the earnest workers. The
   Spirit of God will touch their tongues with fire, and they will say,
   "Here am I, send me." And once again we shall have back the Puritan age
   of preaching and ministries like those of Whitfield, Edwards, and
   McCheyne.

   The Spirit of God is the power of the Church and speaks with might in
   her. My longing is that the Churches may be more holy. I grieve to see
   so much of worldly conformity! How often wealth leads men astray. How
   many Christians follow the fashions of this wicked world? But shall I
   pray that the Churches may be holy? I will, but I will put my prayer in
   this form--I will ask that God will give the Holy Spirit. He is the
   Spirit of holiness. He leads to obedience, purges from sin and creates
   the image of God in His people.

   I desire to see, and I think you all do, more unity among the Churches.
   It is a pity when Churches fall out, and chide, and fight.
   Ecclesiastical quarrels are generally more bitter than any other. Do
   not so much pray for unity as put it all into this, "Lord, give the
   Holy Spirit. For if the Holy Spirit is in us and abounds, we shall not
   be divided--the Church of God will feel the unity of life." Life it is
   that creates true unity among the people of God. If there is anything
   else that we long to see in the Churches, and I confess there are a
   thousand things--for I would desire to see them increased with men as
   with a flock--I would desire to see them built up in an intelligent
   understanding of the Doctrines of Grace.

   I desire to see them looking for the coming of Christ and ready for His
   advent. If we desire all these, let us ask that the Holy Spirit may be
   more plenteously given--and when this prayer is answered, as answered
   it must be--then shall we see all that our soul desires. I do,
   therefore, very earnestly, over and over again, ask you to make
   tomorrow a day of real prayer. And if you cannot be here in body, yet
   all day long cry mightily unto the God of Sabaoth, our Father, who has
   spared not His own Son, but freely delivered Him up for us all--who
   will also with Him freely give us all things, if we know how to ask
   aright.
     __________________________________________________________________

Iconoclast

   (No. 960)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 13, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He removed the high places, and broke the images, and cut down the
   groves, and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made; for
   until those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it. And he
   called it Nehushtan. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that
   after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that
   were before him." 2 Kings 18:4,5.

   THE First Commandment instructs us that there is but one God, who alone
   is to be worshipped. And the Second Commandment teaches that no attempt
   is to be made to represent the Lord, neither are we to bow down before
   any form of sacred similitude. "You shall not make unto you any graven
   image, or any likeness of any thing that is in Heaven above, or that is
   in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you
   shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them." The two
   commandments thus make a full sweep of idolatry. We are not to worship
   any other god. We are not to worship the true God by the use of
   representative symbols. He is a Spirit and is to be worshipped in
   spirit and in truth, and not by the use of visible imagery.

   It seems clear that the human mind, since the Fall, finds it hard to
   keep to this. All over the world men set up images and idols--not at
   first with the view of worshipping the wood or stone--but with the
   intention of being helped to worship the Deity by having some outward
   symbol of his presence. After awhile the evil heart falls into
   something even more debasing, and the image itself is adored. Even the
   people of God, the children of Israel, who so peculiarly enjoyed the
   Lord's Presence in their midst, and who were taught to worship Him by
   Lawgivers and Prophets inspired of the Most High could not keep to pure
   and spiritual worship.

   Though their weakness was somewhat helped to the understanding of the
   Truth of God by a system of types, they were not content with these
   because they contained no similitude of God. The religion of pious Jews
   was mainly spiritual, for only at the one appointed spot at Jerusalem
   was sacrifice allowed, and there the sacred vessels of ceremonial
   worship were in secret places and seldom, if ever, seen by the people.
   A worship so little outward was too spiritual for unregener-ate Israel.
   The people wanted an outward ritual for other places beside Jerusalem.
   And wherever there was a rock or lofty hill, there they put up an altar
   to God, and it was called one of the "high places" of the land.

   Wherever a grove of ancient trees could be discovered, they set that
   apart, also. To the true God, mark you--but still without Divine
   sanction, and contrary to His Law, seeing that He had not appointed
   that there should be any groves or places sacred to Himself except the
   one chosen spot at Mount Zion. Then they came to the use of teraphim,
   symbolical forms, statues, "images," as our English translation puts
   it. Not that they actually worshipped these as God, but used them, as
   they said, to help them to worship God.

   This was all contrary to the Divine Law, and led to a forgetfulness of
   God Himself, robbing Him of His worship and giving it to dumb idols. As
   soon as good Hezekiah had come to the throne and taken possession of
   its power, he set to work to cut down all the groves, to break the
   images, and as far as he could, as governor of the land, to bring back
   Israel to her allegiance to the great invisible Jehovah--and to the
   spiritual worship in which He delights--restraining the outward worship
   with sacrifice and offering to the one temple at Jerusalem.

   Among the various objects of Israel's degenerate worship was one which
   it would have seemed natural even for a reformer to spare. It was the
   famous serpent of brass which had been made by Moses in the wilderness,
   and had been lifted up upon a pole. By looking to it thousands had been
   cured of the poisonous bites of fiery serpents. This had been carefully
   preserved, but seeing that it had become an object of superstitious
   reverence, Hezekiah destroyed it. According to

   some, he ground it to powder, and he called it by an opprobrious
   epithet, Nehushtan. The margin has the translation, "a piece of brass."

   It might be read, "filth," or "verdigris," or "a piece of copper." The
   king gave it a name which would show that he protested against the
   idolatrous reverence shown to it. Although it was an interesting
   memorial, it must be utterly destroyed because it presented a
   temptation to idolatry. Here, if ever in this world was a relic of high
   antiquity, of undoubted authenticity--a relic which had seen its
   hundreds of years about which there was no question as to its being
   indisputably the very serpent which Moses made. And it was moreover a
   relic which had formerly possessed miraculous power--for in the
   wilderness the looking at it had saved the dying.

   Yet it must be broken in pieces, because Israel burned incense to it.
   Away with it, it is a defiled thing! Call it by an ill name! Dash it to
   atoms--make Israel to despise it and to forget it. If the bronze
   serpent is put to a wrong use and made into an idol, it must not be
   spared. Put the piece of verdigris away. Let the coppery reptile be
   ground to powder if it is once set up as a rival to Jehovah, or as a
   sharer in the veneration which is due to Him only.

   This leads me to the following remark. After all, our reformers acted
   well, and after a Scriptural model when they poured contempt upon the
   idols of Rome, and made a mockery of her saints, relics, images,
   masses, and priests. They were more than justified in exposing the
   idolatries of Popery and subjecting the objects formerly reverenced to
   the utmost contempt. There was a deep meaning in their breaking of
   crosses, and the burning of holy crucifixes. The white linen of
   priestly vestments served well for undergarments for the poor, and
   altar stones made admirable backs for stoves. But this meant more than
   utility--it was a protest against superstition.

   Holy water vats were in those practical times frequently given to the
   country people to be turned into troughs for swine. The little altar
   bells which had formerly been rung at the elevation of the host were
   hung around horses' necks, and the box which contained the detestable
   mockery of our incarnate God, which the Papists most adored, was broken
   in pieces. No contempt could be greater than these idols deserved! The
   iconoclasts of that age did not go one bit too far. I could wish they
   had been even less lenient than they were, and that not a single thing
   ever worshipped by man had been spared for a moment.

   Call it God? Then break it up, though art itself perish with it! Adore
   it as a holy thing? Then away with it, though it is made of gold and
   inlaid with gems! What God abhors, what His anger smokes against--is
   not for us to spare from motives of tenderness to other people's
   feelings, or because the canons of taste would say, "Let the idol be
   preserved."

   Our sires, the Nonconformists, when they left the State-created
   religion to maintain a spiritual worship and gathered themselves
   together as the servants of God, did well in bearing their protest
   against the less glaring idolatries of their age. In their day, as now,
   there existed the very common idolatry of superstitious reverence of
   buildings. Certain piles of stone, brick, and timber are regarded as
   holy places. It is thought that inside certain walls God is more
   peculiarly present than outside, where the trees are growing and the
   birds singing.

   Our forefathers protested against this by never calling their buildings
   Churches. They knew they could not be. They knew that Churches mean
   companies of faithful men and women. They called the places of their
   usual worship "meeting houses." That is what they were, and nothing
   more. The veneration of building materials, pulpits, altars, pews,
   cushions, tables, candlesticks, organs, cups, plates, etc., is sheer,
   clear idolatry.

   "Worship God" is a command which needs to be spoken in these days in
   tones of thunder. There is none holy save the Lord. "God that made the
   world and all things there, seeing that He is Lord of Heaven and earth,
   dwells not in temples made with hands. Neither is He worshipped with
   men's hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He gives to all life,
   and breath, and all things." Hear the Lord's own words--"Heaven is My
   Throne, and earth is My footstool: what house will you build Me? says
   the Lord: or what is the place of My rest? Has not My hand made all
   these things?"

   Our sires also stood out against another idolatry which still survives
   in England--namely, the observing of days and months. Certain days are
   set apart as holy and observed with great reverence by those calling
   themselves Christians. Not content with the Sunday as the day appointed
   of God for His worship, they have, like Israel of old when under legal
   bondage, new moons, and appointed feasts for which they claim great
   respect, but to which none whatever is due. Our sires said, "This is
   not of Scripture, therefore it is of man, therefore it is will-worship,
   and idolatrous."

   And they showed their contempt of the commandments of men by an open
   disregard of holy days. And we shall do well in this respect and in all
   others to maintain their pure testimony. Whenever we see superstition
   in any shape, we

   must not flatter the folly, but according to our ability act the
   iconoclast's part and denounce it. In this matter too many do the work
   of the Lord deceitfully, and bow in the house of Rimmon, instead of
   maintaining inviolate the spiritual worship of the great I AM.

   But let this suffice on such themes, we have other thoughts in our
   minds. I intend, this morning, first to apportion a share of
   image-breaking work to Believers. And, secondly, we shall prescribe
   another form of this same work for seeking souls.

   I. We have much IDOL-BREAKING FOR CHRISTIANS TO DO. There is much to be
   done in the Church of God. But there is much more to be done in our own
   hearts. First of all, there is much idol-breaking to be done in the
   Church of God. Let me mention some of the things against which you and
   I must always bear our personal and earnest protest. We are all too apt
   as Christians to place some degree of reliance upon men whom God in His
   infinite mercy raises up to be leaders in the Christian Church.

   1. We ought to be thankful for the Paul who plants so well, and the
   Apollos who waters so ably. We are never to look with contempt or with
   slighting upon those precious gifts which Christ received when He
   ascended up on high, and which He continues to give to His Church,
   namely, Apostles, teachers, preachers, Evangelists, and the like. A man
   is more precious than a wedge of the gold of Ophir. When God gives a
   man to the Church fitted for her enlargement, for her establishment,
   and her confirmation, He gives to her one of the richest blessings of
   the Covenant of Grace.

   But the danger is lest we place the man in the wrong position, and look
   to him not only with the respect which is due to him as God's
   ambassador, but with some degree of--I must call it so--superstitious
   reliance upon his authority and ability. Brethren, we have discarded
   saints--we abhor the idea of worshipping them, and yet by slow degrees
   we may gradually fall into canonization, and virtually set up among
   ourselves another set of saints. Is it not true that some almost
   worship St. Calvin, and St. Luther? Beyond their teachings they cannot
   go.

   Over others St. John Wesley, or St. Charles Simeon sway an
   awe-commanding scepter. And to far more, the minister under whom they
   sit, and whose teachings they constantly receive, is the reason and
   basis of their faith. I am afraid that some of the conversions worked
   in the Christian Church are rather the work of the preacher than of the
   Spirit of God. And therefore when the minister who was the instrument
   of them happens to be removed, the faith which was built upon the
   wisdom or the earnestness of man is removed, too.

   The point I want to bring you to is this--receive the Truth of God from
   us if we give it to you purely, and are truly God's mouth to you--but
   accept it not because we say it is so. Go to the fountainhead of
   Truth--search the Scriptures for yourselves--and see whether these
   things are so. Let nothing be to you a spiritual Truth of God unless it
   is taught of the Spirit of God in the Scriptures. Do not be content to
   hear with the outer ear and say, "That is true, for such-and-such a man
   of God has said it." Ask to hear with the heart so as to feel, "That is
   true, for God has said it in His Word, and His Holy Spirit has also
   written it over again in my consciousness and experience."

   We must get beyond men, or else we shall be very babes in Divine Grace.
   If we overvalue the blessings which God gives us in our teachers and
   preachers, He may remove them from us. We are to exalt not the pipes
   but the fountainhead. Not the windows but the sun must we thank for
   light. Not the basket which holds the food or the lad who brings the
   loaves and fishes must we reverence, but the Divine Master who blesses
   and multiplies the bread and feeds the multitude. To Jesus must all
   adoring eyes be turned, and to the Holy Spirit, the Revealer of the
   Truth, and to our Father who is in Heaven. And we must receive the
   Gospel not as the word of man, but as it is in Truth, the Word of God.
   Love the ministers of Christ, but fall not into that form of bronze
   serpent worship which will degrade you into the servants of men.

   In the Christian Church there is, I am afraid, at this moment, too much
   exaltation of talent and dependence upon education. I mean especially
   in reference to ministers. I do not believe that a man of God who is
   called constantly to preach to the same people can be too thoroughly
   educated. Neither do I believe that the highest degree of mental
   culture should be any injury to the Christian minister, but rather
   should be very helpful to him. By all means let the religious teacher
   intermeddle with all knowledge, let him give himself unto reading and
   be able mentally as well as spiritually to take the lead.

   But, O Church of God, never set up human learning in the place of the
   Eternal Spirit, for "it is not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,
   says the Lord." The great wonders of Apostolic times were mainly worked
   by men who were illiterate in the world's judgment. They had been
   taught of Christ and so had received a noble education. But in
   classical

   studies and in philosophical speculations they were but little versed,
   with the exception of the Apostle Paul, and he came not with excellency
   of speech or of wisdom. Yet the Apostles and their followers preached
   with such power that the world soon felt their presence.

   On the slabs of stone which mark the burial places of the early
   Christians in the catacombs of Rome, the inscriptions are nearly all
   ill spelt, many of them have here a letter in Greek and there a letter
   in Latin. Grammar is forgotten, and orthography is violated--a proof
   that the early Christians who thus commemorated the martyred dead were
   many of them uneducated persons--but for all that they crushed the
   wisdom of the sages and smote the gods of classic lands. They smote
   Jupiter and Saturn until they were broken in pieces, and Venus and
   Diana fell from their seats of power.

   Their conquests were not by the learning of the schools. That hindered
   them--the Gnostic heresy, the heresy of pretended knowledge hindered,
   but never helped the Church of God. Even thus at this hour the culture
   so much vaunted in certain places is opposed to the simplicity of the
   Gospel. Therefore I say we do not despise true learning, but we dare
   not depend upon it. We believe that God can bless and does bless
   thousands by very simple and humble testimonies. We are none of us to
   hold our tongues for Christ, because we cannot speak as the learned.

   We are none of us to refuse the Lord's message to ourselves because it
   is spoken by an unlettered messenger. We are not to select our pastors
   simply because of their talents and acquirements. We must regard their
   unction. We must look at their call, and see whether the Spirit of God
   is with them. If not, we shall make learning to be our bronze serpent,
   and it will need to be broken in pieces. Just the same also may be said
   of human eloquence. It is a good thing when a man can speak well, and
   His Words flow from his soul like a torrent, sweeping everything before
   them. It is good when his heart burns and flashes with a Divine
   enthusiasm when he speaks what he believes and feels to be of the
   weightiest importance.

   But after all, conversions worked by carnal rhetoric, what are they?
   Conversions worked by human logic, what are they? "That which is born
   of the flesh is flesh." Let the men speak well--the Truth of God ought
   to be delivered in the best of sentences. But the most noble language
   ever uttered by man never convinced a soul of sin, or bound up a
   wounded conscience, or raised a sinner from his death in sin. We must
   in prayer cry for the Spirit of God, and all our confidence must be
   placed in Him. For oratory is but a sounding brass and a tinkling
   cymbal if the Holy Spirit is not there.

   Continuing our remarks with regard to the Christian Church, I will
   further remark that much superstition may require to be broken down
   among us in reference to a rigid adhesion to certain modes of Christian
   service. We have tried to propagate the Truth of God in a certain way,
   and the Lord has blessed us in it--and therefore we venerate the mode
   and the plan, and forget that the Holy Spirit is a free Spirit. There
   are persons in our Churches who object very seriously to any attempt to
   do good in a way which they have not seen tried before. For them custom
   has all the force of authority-- the traditions of the fathers are
   their Law.

   Bold measures of evangelization shock them as innovations, as if
   anything could be an innovation where all is free! I know Dissenting
   congregations which are as conservative of their do-nothing plans as if
   they had received them directly from Heaven. Their life is fossilized!
   Their order is funereal. Their orthodoxy is sepulchral. "As it was in
   the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen,"
   seems to be the chant of many good, but mistaken Christians among us
   who cannot think a thing ought to be done if it never has been done.

   If there is anything clear in the teaching of our Lord and His
   Apostles, it is this--that we are not under Law, rubric, and
   tradition--but are brought into the liberty of the children of God, so
   that we are led by the Spirit, and in the service of God are not to
   hunt for precedents or wait for regulations, but follow the great
   principles of the Word, and the guidance of the Spirit, and "by any
   means save some."

   I have known Brethren frightened at open-air preaching, and yet what
   sort of preaching was there in Christ's days but open-air preaching? I
   have known others quite alarmed at the idea of Christ's name being
   mentioned in a place that had been put to commoner uses, as if in the
   olden times Christ could have been preached anywhere if it had been
   necessary to have a place consecrated to Christian worship! There is a
   class of persons who object to every holy project for evangelization,
   however right and judicious, if it happens to be novel--and they will
   continue to object till the work has been long in action--and has
   placed itself beyond fear of their opposition or need of their
   assistance.

   We shall degenerate into a race of Scribes and Pharisees if we give way
   to this spirit. We shall again be slaves to traditions, legends, and
   old wives' fables, as bad as those which polluted Judaism. In the name
   of everything that is Christlike, away with all that checks the vital
   action of the body of Christ! Fetters are none the less burdensome for
   being an-

   tique. Let the bronze serpent be broken if it becomes a barrier to the
   onward progress of the Cross. If any endeavor to force upon us the yoke
   of habit, let us resist them in the spirit of Paul, who, speaking of
   those who came in privately to spy out his liberty in Christ Jesus that
   they might bring him into bondage, declares "to whom we gave place by
   subjection, no, not for an hour."

   So it is with the forms of Divine worship. I have frequently,
   especially in our country Churches, met with the most determined
   protests against the most trivial alteration of the routine of their
   worship. You must sing at such a time, for they always have sung at
   such a point in the service. You must pray at such a moment--they
   always have prayed at that part of the worship. And if you can keep to
   the same quantity of minutes usually occupied, so much the better. The
   whole service, though not in a book--for our sturdy Brethren would rise
   in revolt against the use of a book--yet is quite as stereotyped as if
   it were taken from the Common Prayer.

   Now I believe that in public worship we should do well to be bound by
   no human rules, and constrained by no stereotyped order. I like, and we
   have often done it, to have an interval of silence sometimes. Why not?
   Why should it be all vocal worship? And why not begin with the sermon
   occasionally? You who come in late would probably mend your manners in
   such a case. And then why should we not sing when we have been
   accustomed to pray, and pray when we have been accustomed to sing?

   We are under the dispensation of the Spirit, and as far as I know, the
   Spirit of God has not inspired those cards which I see sometimes nailed
   up in pulpits--"begin with short prayer, sing, read, pray, preach," and
   so on. A legality of form is growing up among us, and I enter my
   heart's protest against it. Not that you and I may have been affected
   by this dissenting ritualism, but practices good in themselves are to
   be protested against if they gender to bondage, for the Spirit of God
   goes where He wishes, and if we worship God according to His guidance,
   the worship cannot invariably take the same form.

   2. Thus we have done a little image-breaking in the Church. Now let us
   turn to the temple of our own hearts, and we shall find much work to be
   done there, too. Beloved Brothers and Sisters, exercise
   self-examination now for the next five minutes or so. How about your
   present position as a Christian? You feel, probably, after ten, twelve,
   twenty, or thirty years of profession, very considerably in advance of
   what you were when you first came to Christ. Do you feel that you are?
   You can now see the imprudence of your early zeal, and you can look
   down with unmeasured pity upon those young people who know so little
   about the road to Heaven--of which you know so much. And who have so
   little strength, of which you now have a very considerable share. Who
   are so little aware of the devices of Satan, against which you guard
   yourself so ably.

   Dear brother, are you thus really congratulating yourself upon your
   advanced position? Are you? Then permit a little image-breaking
   there--for rest assured if we, any of us, come to put much value upon
   our attainments we shall be very near to sliding into self-confidence,
   carnal security, and I know not what of mischievous pride. Beloved, are
   you stronger than you were? But does your strength lie anywhere else
   than where it used to lie--in Christ? Are you wiser than you were? But
   have you any wisdom except that Christ is made unto you wisdom? Do you
   really think that twenty years' experience has changed your
   corruptions? That your passions have become extinct, that your
   tendencies to sin are not so strong as they were? That, in fact, you
   have less need to watch, less need to depend simply upon the merit of
   Christ and the work of His Spirit? Do you think so? Do You think so?

   "Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." I have heard
   that more horses fall at the bottom of a hill than almost anywhere
   else, and I know that more professors make shipwreck towards the close
   of life than at any other time. As I have often told you, the falls
   recorded in the Old and New Testament are the falls, not of young men
   in the heat of passion, but of old or middle-aged men. Lot was no boy
   when he disgraced himself. David was no young man when he transgressed
   with Bathsheba. Peter was no child when he denied his Lord. These were
   men of experience and knowledge and attainments.

   Your attainments, my Brothers and Sisters? Oh, brave word for a poor
   thing! Your attainments? Your attainments, poor Sinner? Apart from what
   you have in Christ, how absurd the language! Better still to say,
   "Having nothing and yet possessing all things, God forbid that I should
   glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." Do I, then, despise
   Christian attainments? By no manner of means, only when they are
   idolized and hide the Savior--then I call them Ne-hushtan--and would
   gladly break them in pieces.

   Again, dear Brothers and Sisters, it may be that you are enjoying very
   near fellowship with Christ. How delightful it is when you know by
   assurance that you are the Beloved's and that the Beloved is yours.
   When all doubts and fears have fled away and you are walking in the
   light of His countenance! When we are in such a condition we are like
   Peter, and would gladly build three tabernacles, for we say, "Master,
   it is good to be here." But we must mind lest we elevate our enjoyments
   into the place of our Master. We may even make our communion with
   Christ an idol, by putting it before Christ Himself.

   I am not saved and safe because I am greatly rejoicing. Not my
   enjoyment, but Jesus saves me! He alone saves me. If my communion were
   interrupted, I should still be secure in Him, and because now I enjoy
   it sweetly, it does not add to my actual security or acceptance before
   God. An old Puritan quaintly says, "suppose a loving husband were to
   give to his wife many rings and jewels out of love to her, and she
   should come to think so highly of the love-tokens that she sat and
   looked at them, and admired them, and forgot her husband?" Would He not
   be rather inclined to take these things away to turn her love once
   again to himself? So with our Graces and our enjoyments. If we think
   too much of them the iconoclastic hammer will come in, and these things
   will vanish because they have provoked the Lord to jealousy.

   Further, we have a little more work to do. You have, and you thank God
   for it, some good friends in this world, dear Friends, Christian
   friends, reliable friends. Hold them fast. But it is not always easy to
   keep these friends where they should be. There is a text that might
   save us a thousand sorrows if we thought more of it--"Cursed is the man
   that trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm. But blessed is the man
   that trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is." And there is
   another text of the same tone--"Cease you from man whose breath is in
   his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted

   of?"

   Friendship, by all means, and confidence in those who deserve it, by
   all means--but pass not the bound which God has set--think not that to
   be immutable which is but clay. And fancy not that to be faithful which
   is but flesh. Changing circumstances have changed many hearts, and
   altered positions and conditions have made sad havoc among friendships
   which seemed to be eternal. Lean on your friends, but not with all your
   weight. Trust and be confident as you may, but let your inmost
   reliance, your deepest faith lean on that arm which you cannot see, but
   which arm, nevertheless, upholds the universe!

   Now a word that may cut more keenly still, and it concerns our dear
   relationships in the family circle. The last thing I should do is to
   speak against the love that is due to husband, and wife, and child, and
   Brethren. Christianity fosters all the domestic loves. We love none the
   less our dear ones below because our heart still loves our Savior above
   all. But, Beloved, there is such a thing as putting child or wife or
   husband into Jesus' place. The beloved one was meant to be loved, but
   not to be worshipped. That little gem was given to be prized, but not
   to be valued beyond the Pearl of Great Price.

   Beware of desecrating your earthly love into idolatry--rather
   consecrate it by seeking God's glory in it, and it shall be well with
   you. If you are a child of God, whatever idol you worship, God's great
   hammer will be lifted up against it. You will lose the child, or it may
   live to prove your curse. You will lose the love you think so precious,
   or you may have it, but it will lead you astray. Beloved, I know there
   is work to be done in many of our hearts in this respect.

   And so there is yet further to do in the pursuits of our minds. I do
   not see why a Christian man should not have for a pursuit the
   attainment of eminence in learning, proficiency in science, or success
   in business. If he does not do so he is not likely to distinguish
   himself, and there can be no reason why a Christian should be always in
   the rear. But these lawful worldly aims must be kept in their place and
   be subservient to higher ends, or else what is right in itself will get
   to be wrong through being put in the wrong place.

   You may pursue that branch of knowledge, young man, but seek first the
   kingdom of God. Do you desire to be an artist and rank with Landseer
   and Millais? I would not discourage you for a moment. In the skillful
   use of that pencil may you rise to the highest position in your art.
   But for all that, do not worship the palette--do not bow down before
   the outspread canvas--there is something better to live for than to
   paint. Student, I do not wonder at your desire to excel. Why should not
   Christian men be first in all departments of learning?

   But after all, there are higher objects than zoology, geology,
   mechanics, or astronomy. Do then, I pray you, guard against putting
   anything where Christ should be. Seek first the kingdom of God and His
   righteousness. Ever God first, and then the rest that you may glorify
   God by what ability or influence you have obtained by His Grace. I
   charge you

   look to this on pain of seeing idols broken, and aspirations destroyed.
   Thus have we gone into the temple of your hearts, and used the hammer a
   little there.

   II. Now I desire for awhile to speak with those who ARE SEEKERS OF
   JESUS. There is some idol-breaking to be done for them. I pray God the
   Holy Spirit to do it. The way of salvation lies in coming to Christ, in
   trusting in Jesus Christ alone. Why is it that so many refuse to do
   this and remain in the border land of desire unsaved? Many think that
   they ought to be much better than they are--they have faults to be
   corrected, their minds are in a wrong condition, they must be put
   right--they are trying to do this with the intention when they feel
   better to put their trust in Jesus.

   O that my hammer might smash all that to pieces! My Friend, you ought
   to be better, your mind ought to be in a better state. I grant all
   that. But if you put this improvement of yours in the place of the work
   of Christ, you are going the sure way to destruction. Your
   righteousness is not what is needed, but Christ's righteousness. And if
   you conceive that you must fit yourself for Him, you know not the
   Gospel. Come to Jesus as you are.

   Your conscious sinfulness and imperfections will but enable you to
   prize His perfection and His power to save. Do not look to yourself for
   a part of your salvation. If you do, I must call your goodness,
   "Nehushtan," and compare it to dross and dung! Look to Jesus, and Jesus
   only--all else will deceive you. See how He carried sin, and was
   punished for it, and how His righteousness avails with the Father, and
   look not to any preparations or fitness which you may conceive to be in
   yourself.

   With some the Nehushtan which they set up is their sense of sin. Either
   they do not feel their need of Christ as they ought, or else they do
   feel their need, and therefore think they are in a fair condition. Now,
   believe me, you often misunderstand the promises of Christ. That
   matchless promise, "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy
   laden," is thought to be a promise made to those who labor and are
   heavy laden. My Brethren, the promise is not made to laboring nor to
   being heavy laden. "What is it made to?" you ask. The promise is made
   to coming to Christ.

   "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest." You may be weary and heavy
   laden as long as you will, but you will not get rest by laboring. It is
   coming to Christ that gives rest. Do not think that feeling your need
   of Christ is salvation. It is coming to Christ, depending, relying upon
   Him alone, that brings you to the blessing. Do not delay, then. The
   most proper sense of sin, though it may be commendable as the bronze
   serpent--if you rest in it--it must be broken in pieces, for it is an
   antichrist.

   Many persons are resting in their fear of self-deception. "I would
   gladly trust in Christ," says one, "but I am so afraid of being
   self-deceived." And do you think that your being afraid of presumption
   is a better thing than believing God's testimony concerning His Son?
   You must think so, or else you would not keep it in preference to
   believing. To believe in Jesus Christ--that is, to rest upon God's own
   Son who was put to death because our sin was laid upon Him-- to believe
   in Him simply with a childish confidence is the way of salvation. But
   you prefer not to do it on the ground that you are afraid of being
   self-deceived! You prefer tarrying in a state of caution to advancing
   to faith. Away with your idolized bronze serpent--away with it! Give up
   the fear or keep it, which you will, but come to Jesus!

   Many of you, I am afraid, are resting in sermon hearing. "I shall get
   good one of these days," says one, "I am always at the Tabernacle, or
   always at my Church," or, "I go to hear a good Gospel preacher, and I
   shall get a blessing." What? Do you think salvation comes through
   merely hearing sermons? Ah, Sirs, responsibility comes when the Gospel
   is honestly preached, but nothing more, unless you believe the message
   which you hear. Faith is the vital point, the coming to Jesus. I pour
   ridicule on sermon hearing, and sermon preaching, too, if you look to
   this as the groundwork of salvation. It is not the poor trumpet that
   makes the jubilee--it does but proclaim it. O that you would obtain the
   liberty which the trumpet proclaims!

   But some of you may say, "I not only hear sermons, but I read the Bible
   regularly!" Yes, and I commend you for it, but if you imagine you are
   in a good and proper state because you are a Bible reader, I must tell
   you that as an unbeliever you are condemned already, and, while reading
   the Bible, that very Bible itself condemns you! Go on with the reading
   of it--I am in hopes that you may get beyond that, to be a believer in
   Jesus. But as long as you are not a believer in Jesus, you may read
   your Bible as much as ever you will--it will not--cannot save you.

   What does our Savior say? He says (so I read the original), "You search
   the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and they
   are they that testify of Me. But you will not come unto Me that you may
   have life." A great

   many in His days studied the Scriptures, but would not believe in Him.
   You may be lost with a knowledge of Scripture as well as without it, if
   you tarry in the letter and go not to the Spirit of the Word.

   There are others who are making an idol of brass out of their prayers.
   "I am not saved," says one, "I have not trusted Christ, but I do pray."
   Neither do I find fault with your prayers any more than I have a right
   to find fault with the bronze serpent in its place. but if you suppose
   you will be saved by praying, you are greatly mistaken. He that will
   not be saved by the Cross shall never be saved by his closet. He that
   will not be saved by Christ's wounds, shall not find salvation by his
   own groans and tears. There on the Cross is all your hope, Sinner, and
   if you will not have it, there is no other. No, though you hardened
   your knees with kneeling and blinded your eyes with weeping, you would
   find no gate of Heaven and no hope of mercy but in the crucified
   Savior. Fly to Jesus and you are saved! Keep from Jesus and your
   prayers do but insult the Savior, for you place them in His place. I
   must break up these things--they are idols if they hide the Cross of
   Jesus.

   And so, to close, it is with all the unbelieving reasoning and
   rebellious considering which some people so abound with, seekers of
   Christ will, some of them, continually start new difficulties. If you
   solve one doubt they get another. If you solve that, they invent a
   third. Their doubts, and reasonings, and questions are like an endless
   chain--pull up one link and it brings up another. Their suspicions are
   like a chain of dredging buckets that come up all full of mire, and
   over they go and empty themselves but to come up full again.

   There is no comforting them! Their soul refuses to be comforted. If one
   tenth part of the ingenuity they use in rebelling against the command
   of God, which bids them believe, were used in simply investigating what
   they are told to believe, they would come to faith, and be saved from
   their doubts. Do you think you are wise in trying to discover reasons
   why you should be damned? I can hardly conceive of a man in the
   condemned cell--and that is where every unbeliever is--trying to find
   out reasons why he should not be pardoned. There lies the pardon before
   him, and he is perversely searching the whole treasury of logic to find
   out arguments against his pardon, and reasons for his execution.

   You fool! Will you perish through your reasonings? Sinner, let me say
   to you--let your artful doubts and reasonings be nailed to yonder tree
   where Jesus died. Crucify them. You suspect too much, you consider too
   much, you question too much. Here it is--receive it as a little child
   receives his father's word--"God was in Christ, reconciling the world
   unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." "The Son of Man
   is come to seek and to save that which was lost." "Whosoever believes
   in Him is not condemned."

   "He that has the Son of God has life." "Believe on the Lord Jesus
   Christ, and you shall be saved." For, "He that believes and is baptized
   shall be saved. But he that believes not shall be damned." Here is all
   simplicity! Do not mystify it. Here all is clear as noonday! Do not
   shut out the light. God grant you Grace to break up these idols of
   yours, and take your Savior now, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Saint One With His Savior

   (No. 961)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 20, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit." 1 Corinthians 6:17.

   THE connection of our text is very terrible. When we are reading the
   sixteenth verse one seems to remember Sodom, its infamy, and the fire
   and brimstone that came down from Heaven upon it. But here in our text
   we enter into Jerusalem, the holy city, whose streets are of purity so
   rich and rare as to be comparable to gold clear as transparent glass.
   And there we seem to behold the Great White Throne of the thrice Holy,
   surrounded by the white robed bands of the immaculate. In looking at
   the text I call to mind John Bunyan's description of the way through
   the Valley of the Shadow of Death. It was an "exceedingly narrow" path,
   not readily kept. On the right hand the dreadful gulf, and on the left
   the fearful quagmire.

   See in my text a road fit for angels, and for the angels' Master, and
   yet on either hand, in the sixteenth and eighteenth verses behold the
   fiends and devils howling for their prey! Happy is he who finds that
   path which the eagle's eye has not seen, that center of the King's
   highway of which it is written, "No lion shall be there, neither shall
   any ravenous beast go up thereon." How glorious is that "way of
   holiness"! Gaze on it--it is clear as the sapphire, bright as the
   brilliant crystal. Deep down in its depths your eyes may look, and in
   it there is nothing to obscure, it is as the holiness of God Himself, a
   purity so wonderful that conscious of our shortcomings we cry, "It is
   high, I cannot attain unto it."

   The exceeding elevation of the Believer in being joined unto the Lord
   appears all the more marvelous when it is set, as in the text, in
   contrast with the dreadful impurity into which we might have fallen,
   and against which we are still solemnly warned, as if to remind us that
   our indwelling corruption would drag us down if Divine Grace did not
   prevent it. Brethren, sin is never seen to be so truly horrible as when
   we behold it in the light of Christian privilege. It is a terrible
   thing for a creature to rebel against its Creator, but for the adopted
   son of God to be disobedient to his ever loving Father, this is worse
   by far.

   Sin is black if we see it in the dim twilight of spiritual conviction
   when our conscience is half awakened, but it grows blacker than Hell's
   murkiest midnight when we set it in contrast with the amazing
   brightness of the Divine favor which has shone upon us, His
   elect--redeemed, justified, and adopted people. That yonder professor
   should be so careless and so inconsistent is sad, but when I remind him
   that he is one of the redeemed I trust he will feel his lukewarmness to
   be monstrous. When man is chosen of God and washed in the Savior's
   blood, must it not seem to angels a prodigy of human depravity, a
   marvel of human corruption, that such a one should for a moment forget
   the way of holiness and desire the paths of iniquity?

   In ourselves how heinous is all transgression, seeing we have been the
   objects of such ceaseless, boundless, loving kindness! For us to follow
   afar off, to backslide, to grow indifferent is indescribable baseness,
   a violation of the sacred demands of gratitude. If the more frequent
   sins of Christians appear thus heinous in contrast with their great
   privileges, much more loathsome must be vices of the fouler kind, such
   as Paul here speaks of--sins not to be named among us, or even thought
   of without horror. God forbid that any of us who claim to be of the
   body of Christ should degrade ourselves by filthy lusts of the flesh.

   Casting a veil over the matter forbidden, not that we may forget it
   altogether, but may turn our eyes away from beholding vanity, we shall
   now endeavor to conduct you to the elevated platform of the text
   itself. I see in it, first, a mysterious deep which I cannot fathom.
   And, therefore, in the second place, we will sail across it while we
   speak of a manifest Grace which glistens on its surface.

   I. First, then, there is in the text A MYSTERIOUS DEEP. "He that is
   joined unto the Lord is one spirit." What does that joining to the Lord
   mean which is mentioned here? There is a joining to the Lord in
   election. We were chosen in

   Christ Jesus from before the foundation of the world, and by Sovereign
   Love we were predestinated to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ.
   There was a further joining to the Lord in Covenant, when Jesus became
   of old the Head of His Church. As Adam was the head of all that came of
   his loins, so is Christ the Head of a spiritual seed to whom the
   promise belongs by the Everlasting Covenant signed, sealed, and ordered
   in all things and sure.

   Further, Christ was joined to us when He took upon Himself our Nature.
   When He came into this world and was made a Man, then He was truly
   joined to us. He left His Father, and was joined unto His bride, and
   they two became one flesh. "For both He that sanctifies and they who
   are sanctified are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to
   call them Brethren." He was one with us in Nature, one in our
   sufferings, one in our life and death, one, too, in bearing our curse,
   taking upon Himself our sin. All this makes up a glorious joining unto
   the Lord--but it is not the doctrine taught here--for all that are
   joined to Christ in the Divine purpose are not yet made of one spirit
   with Him, for many of them are still living in their natural ignorance,
   little aware of the Grace ordained of old for them.

   They are yet to be brought out from the house of bondage. Their
   election is to be followed by their calling. The Lord Jesus who is
   God's Covenant is yet to be revealed to the eye of their faith, and a
   living union to Christ is yet to be created. This last work of Grace is
   not yet worked in the uncalled, and they are not in that sense joined
   to the Lord. A vital and spiritual union is meant in the text, a union
   which is matter of living experience, and is worked in us when we are
   born again, when we pass from darkness into Christ's marvelous
   Light--when we rise from the death of sin to find the Lord Jesus to be
   our life.

   From that moment we are "dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God."
   From the moment of our regeneration, we who were once the branches of
   the wild olive are grafted into the good olive. We who were cast out
   like withered branches to be burned, are grafted into the ever-living
   Vine, and become one with Jesus Christ our Lord. This is the union here
   spoken of, and he that is joined unto the Lord in that way by a work of
   the Holy Spirit radically and thoroughly changing him, and renewing
   him, and bringing him into oneness with Christ, is said to be the "one
   spirit."

   But what does that word, "one spirit" mean? Well, we must get at it by
   degrees. You may guess at its meaning from the fact that in other parts
   of Scripture the union between Christ and His people is described by
   that of a marriage union, and then it is said, "these two shall be one
   flesh." But to take off the carnal edge of the metaphor, lest we fall
   into any grossness of thought, we are told that we in union with our
   Lord are one spirit. The union is a spiritual one. It is a great
   mystery, says the Apostle, when he speaks concerning Christ and His
   Church.

   You get a glimmer, then, of what he means. There is a spiritual union,
   as real as when two are made one flesh. But it is not to be misread,
   and corruptly thought of as a carnal, material matter. It is a deep
   Truth of God belonging to the world of spirit. Try to get at it again.
   Remember that Christ and His people have one Spirit. The Holy Spirit
   who quickens us anointed Him. The Holy Spirit who illuminated us gave
   to Jesus Christ the unction with which He came to preach the
   reconciling Word to man. "The Spirit of the Lord," says He, "is upon
   Me, for He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted."

   The Holy Spirit on Christ is the same Holy Spirit as upon us. The oil
   which ran down Aaron's beard, and descended to the skirts of his
   garments, was the same holy anointing which was poured upon his
   reverend head. Yes, and glory be to God for the Truth--we have the same
   Spirit with the Lord Jesus Himself. The Apostle says, "There are
   diversities of operations, but it is the same God which works all in
   all." And again, "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body,
   whether we are Jews or Gentiles, whether we are bond or free. And have
   been all made to drink into one Spirit." But we need not stay there,
   for we may add--we all have the same Holy Spirit as Jesus had. The foot
   is baptized into the same Spirit as the head. The ear not only has the
   same Spirit as the hand, but has the same Spirit as the glorious
   crowned and adored Head of the Church.

   That is not all the meaning of the text, though it helps us to come
   near it. We have a greater mystery here. Some have read it, "we are of
   one spirit with Him," that is to say, we come to think and feel as
   Jesus does, have common motives, aims, emotions, and desires. This is
   most true, and is the practical meaning of the text, but a more
   spiritual sense is under it. Let us, however, turn this over a moment.
   We who are joined unto the Lord are of one spirit with Him--the one
   Holy Spirit has worked us unto the same thing.

   As Jesus is actuated by an intense desire for the glory of God, the
   Holy Spirit has worked us unto the same fervent longing. His meat and
   drink is also ours. Into His labors and His joys we enter. This meaning
   is high--O for Grace to

   reach it in our own characters! Yet the text says not that we are of
   one spirit, but we are one spirit. We not only have one spirit, and are
   of one spirit, but we are one spirit. Now, what shall I say of this? I
   shall say nothing but that this is a matter to be understood only by
   the spiritual mind, and not to be readily, if at all, expounded in
   human words. It is not a Truth for which we have adequate
   expressions--letters, syllables, words fail us.

   This much we can say though more is left unsaid--there is a union
   between Christ and His people most deep, most mysterious, most
   essential. If you would know it, ponder this sentence of our Lord's
   prayer, "I in them and You in Me, that they may be made perfect in
   one." Christ and His saints actually are one spirit. Ah, the depth!
   Your contemplation, if aided by the heavenly Interpreter, may assist
   you. As for me, I should but darken counsel by words without knowledge
   if I tried to open up what these words rather conceal than reveal.

   Yet an illustration or two. We have known on earth friends who have
   become one spirit--intimacy and mutual admiration have ripened
   friendship into unity till the one seemed to be the complement of the
   other--and the mention of one suggested the other. They pursued one
   object with equal footsteps. They never differed, but appeared to have
   one soul in two bodies. The death of one almost necessarily involved
   the death of the other--the two were inseparable companions. Damon and
   Pythias lived over again in them. Jonathan and David seemed risen from
   the dead. Feebly, and but feebly, this reflects the image of our text.

   So have we seen one spirit in another relationship, which is often used
   as the token of the union between Christ and His people, between the
   husband and the wife, of which we shall speak more particularly later,
   where there has been one love, one aim, one object. Like two stars, the
   wedded pair have shone with such blended rays as to have seemed more
   one than two. One name, one heart, one house, one interest, one
   love--they have also had one spirit. More fully, still, our text is
   illustrated by the branch and the stem. The branch in the vine is
   nothing if separated from the stem. Its sap is the very same sap that
   is in the stem--one life is in the stem and the branch--and they are
   both struggling for the same object, both seeking to produce and ripen
   the fruit.

   They have no different aim, or even existence. The stem does not hoard
   for itself, nor the branch blossom for itself. The branch and stem are
   one vine. They are nothing separated from each other, their life one
   and their design one. See here again, as in a glass darkly, an amazing
   spiritual Truth. Yet more fully is this gracious union between us and
   our Lord brought out in the metaphor of the union of the member with
   the body. In that case there is, indeed, one spirit, not only in a
   vital but in an intellectual sense. If there is life in this finger, it
   is identically the same life that is in the head. But one spirit
   quickens all the parts of the body, whether comely or uncomely, whether
   base or honorable.

   And so in the whole Church of God the life of Christ is the life of His
   people. The spirit of Christ is the spirit of His people. They are not
   two but one. The mystical union is so complete that even the marriage
   bond, of which we spoke just now, cannot fully come up to it--it is but
   an earthly symbol of a yet truer heavenly reality. We who are joined
   unto the Lord are one spirit. I say no more. What I have said may
   rather conduct you to the door than open it. But there is One whose
   work it is to be the Revealer of secrets, ask Him and He shall reveal
   even this unto you.

   II. May the Holy Spirit help us while considering the second head. On
   the very surface of the text, there is A MANIFEST GRACE. Our one spirit
   with Christ reveals itself practically in a manifest sympathy of spirit
   between us and our Lord, so that we, being one spirit, are seen to be
   actuated and impelled by the same influences. We are of one spirit with
   Jesus. That meaning I shall try and bring out. Union with Christ in
   these days, when religion wears her holiday garments, is a word with a
   pleasant sound, and because of its honorable esteem men would gladly
   possess it.

   But alas, they know not what it is! They hang a cross at their necks,
   or embroider it on their garments, or stamp it on their books--and
   fancy that this gives them some degree of unity to the Crucified. But,
   Brothers and Sisters, this matter lies quite out of their reach. To be
   one spirit with Christ, much more is needed than to bear the Christian
   name. You may call yourself a Christian, or a Brother, or a Sister, or
   one of the Society of Jesus, and in so doing you may have selected what
   you think to be the most orthodox of terms by which to designate
   yourself and the congregation to which you belong--but union to the
   Lord stands not in name only.

   There were those of old who called themselves Jews and were not--their
   taking the name did not give them the nature of Israelites. They that
   are joined unto the Lord may not always be known by the same name. They
   may be called Christians at Antioch and Jews at Philippi (Acts 16:20),
   but a right or a wrong name will not change the real character. Call a
   poppy a rose and you will not, thereby, give it perfume. Perhaps none
   in all the world are less joined to the Lord

   than some who adore the very name of Christian, and make an idol of the
   outward sign of the Cross. Neither is true union to Christ to be gained
   by mere outward profession. You may be baptized in water, but unless
   you are baptized into the Holy Spirit, you know not what union with
   Christ is. If in Baptism we are buried with Him, then it is well,
   indeed, but the sign in itself is nothing, for Simon Magus, though
   baptized, had no part nor lot in the matter.

   We may sit at the Lord's Table with His people, yes, in the company of
   Apostles, and yet be sons of perdition! He may eat and drink in our
   streets, and yet may never know us. To eat the visible bread is not to
   be one with His mystical body. Union with Christ lies deeper than name,
   lies deeper than outward signs and seals of Church fellowship--and it
   even lies deeper than the performance of some apparently good actions
   and the use of religious words in conversation. We may do many things
   in His name, yes, and great things, too, for in His name many cast out
   devils and did many wonderful works and so were partakers of the powers
   of the world to come. And yet they were rejected by Him at the last as
   unknown of Him.

   When judgment begins at the House of God small store will be set by
   mere visible union, for the branches in Christ after this fashion, not
   bearing fruit, will be cast forth, and withered, and burned in the
   fire. We must be rooted and built up in Him. He must be formed in us or
   it will little avail us to have been numbered with His disciples. The
   superficial, the nominal, and the outward will not suffice. He that is
   joined unto the Lord must be one spirit--deep down in the very vitals
   of our being must this union with Jesus Christ most eminently reside,
   and in our hearts and minds must His Truth be found.

   This is solemn teaching, and it ought, like the candle of the Lord, to
   search the secret parts of our nature. The carnal mind loves that which
   is outward, for it can readily comply with it, and that without Divine
   assistance. But the unregen-erate heart kicks against that which is
   purely spiritual, for it cannot understand it, and here it is compelled
   to feel its own powerlessness, except to counterfeit with base
   imitations. My Brethren, this is a discerning Word, dividing between
   the joints and marrow, and discovering the thoughts and intents of the
   heart. You who are quickened with the incorruptible Seed, and discern
   spiritual things, come to the search, and see well to it that you are
   joined unto the Lord. Not in the form of godliness only, but in the
   power of it, also.

   Let us give you, for your assistance, an illustration of what unity of
   spirit is as we see it among men, for here we may dimly see it as
   between the Lord and our souls. We will take a copy from that rare
   conjugal union which exists among those who realize the highest ideal
   of the married life. Sometimes we have seen a model marriage, founded
   in pure love and cemented in mutual esteem. There the husband acts as a
   tender head, and the wife, as a true spouse, realizes the model
   marriage relation, and sets forth what our oneness with the Lord ought
   to be. She delights in her husband, in his person, his character, his
   affection.

   To her he is not only the chief and foremost of mankind, but in her
   eyes he is all in all, her heart's love belongs to him and to him only.
   She finds sweetest content and solace in his company, his fellowship,
   his fondness. He is her little world, her Paradise, her choice
   treasure. To please him she would gladly lay aside her own pleasure to
   find it doubled in gratifying him. She is glad to sink her
   individuality in his. She seeks no name for herself. His honor is
   reflected upon her, and she rejoices in it. She would defend his name
   with her dying breath--safe enough is he where she can speak for him.
   The domestic circle is her kingdom, and that she may there create
   happiness and comfort is her lifework, and his smiling gratitude is all
   the reward she seeks.

   Even in her dress she thinks of him. Without constraint she consults
   his taste and thinks nothing beautiful which is obnoxious to his eye. A
   tear from his eye, because of any unkindness on her part, would
   grievously torment her. She asks not how her behavior may please a
   stranger, or how another's judgment may be satisfied with her behavior.
   Let her Beloved be content and she is glad. He has many objects in
   life, some of which she does not quite understand, but she believes in
   them all, and anything that she can do to promote them she delights to
   perform.

   He lavishes love on her and she on him. Their object in life is common.
   There are points where their affections so intimately unite that none
   could tell which is first and which is second. To see their children
   growing up in health and strength, to see them holding posts of
   usefulness and honor is their mutual concern. In this and other matters
   they are fully one. Their wishes blend, their hearts are indivisible.
   By degrees they come very much to think the same thoughts. Intimate
   association creates conformity.

   We have known this to become so complete that at the same moment the
   same utterance has leaped to both their lips. Happy woman and happy
   man! If Heaven is found on earth they have it! At last the two are so
   welded, so engrafted on one stem, that their old age presents a lovely
   attachment, a common sympathy by which its infirmities are greatly
   alleviated, and its burdens are transformed into fresh bonds of love.
   So happy a union of will, sentiment, thought, and heart exists between
   them that the two streams of their life have washed away the dividing
   bank and run on as one broad current of united existence till their
   common joy falls into the main ocean of felicity.

   Such a sight, it may be, is not commonly seen, but it is inexpressibly
   beautiful, and is a fair type of what the Christian ought to be in his
   oneness with his Lord. For the Believer there should be no attractive
   beauty but in Christ, nothing that can charm him, stir the deeps of his
   soul, or move his nobler passions, but the glorious person of Emmanuel,
   the chief among ten thousand. He loved us and gave Himself for us--we
   also must love Him and give Him our whole selves. For us the one object
   of life is to please our Lord. We should not dare to sin, not because
   we are slavishly afraid of punishment, but because we would not grieve
   the Bridegroom of our souls. We must labor for His cause, not because
   of legal demands, but because we know no higher happiness under Heaven
   than to make Him honored and to let Him see in us, and through us, of
   the travail of His soul.

   Our Lord has great ends and objects. We cannot understand them all, but
   to our utmost we desire to promote them by suffering or by service. Our
   prayer is, "Lord, show me what You would have me to do." We would be
   tenderly sensitive to His desire, not surrendered to it only, but
   delighting in whatever He wills. We reckon it our honor to be permitted
   to help Him, however humbly, to work out any of His designs. As to the
   children of His Grace, both His and ours, regenerated by His Spirit and
   converted by our ministries, they are doubly dear to us, and their
   perfection we seek with Him. Our constant enquiry is, can we do
   anything for them? Can we call home the backsliding? Can we comfort the
   desolate? Can we help the poor and needy? Can we be of any service to
   the lambs of His flock?--

   "There's not a Iamb in all His flock We would disdain to feed."

   We would do anything by which we might show our love to Him, for our
   union of heart, and our union of purpose, our union of thought with
   Him, are all deep and true. Such a Christian grows to think as Christ
   thinks till the teachings of Jesus are plain to him. He never tries to
   tone down the Gospel as certain philosophic minds are ever doing,
   because they are not in union with the great Teacher's heart. But he
   comes to see things from the Lord's point of view, and knows his
   Master's meaning as by a sacred instinct. Blessed consummation when our
   hearts at last are all wrapped up in Jesus, even as the bush at Horeb
   was all on fire with God.

   Just as Jesus has set all His love on them, so they come to set all
   their love on Him, and they can say with the Apostle, "For me to live
   is Christ," while the gain which they anticipate in death is the gain
   of being nearer to their Beloved, and forever beholding the glory of
   His face. I have given you an illustration, and have worked it out but
   poorly, but even had I worked it out to perfection, it must necessarily
   fall short of the incomparable "one spirit" which dwells in our
   glorious Head and all His members. Go on till you sing with quaint old
   Francis Quarles--

   "Even like two little bank-dividing brooks,

   That wash the pebbles with their wanton streams,

   And having ranged and searched a thousand nooks,

   Meet both at length in silver-breasted Thames,

   Where in a greater current they conjoin.

   So I my best Beloved's am; so He is mine.

   Even so we met. And after long pursuit,

   Even so we joined, we both became entire.

   No need for either to renew a suit,

   For I was flax, and He was flames of fire.

   Our firm united souls did more than twine,

   So I my best Beloved's am; so He is mine." Where such union as that
   exists, what does it produce? Its fruits are precious. They who are
   thus one spirit with Christ live for the same end. He lived for God's
   glory. "Know you not," said He in His youth, "that I must be about My
   Father's business?" In His riper years He said, "It is My meat and my
   drink to do the will of Him that sent Me." He that

   is joined to the Lord is one spirit in that respect. For him the great,
   one, only thing is to glorify God. In such a case the soul sees
   everything in this one light, and asks concerning all, how will it
   affect the kingdom of God? Even in reading the newspaper one says,
   "Great events are transpiring in politics, how will these work for the
   glory of God?" The engineer considers the effect the war may have on
   the world, the politician thinks of the balance of power, the reformer
   meditates on its results as to human progress, but the man who is
   joined unto the Lord prays only, "Father, glorify Your name."

   To him the profit of his business is only profit so far is it will
   enable him to help the Master's cause, and his honor is no honor unless
   he can raise out of it some matter for Jehovah's praise. The glory of
   God, the glory of God, the glory of God--this was the one target
   towards which our Lord went onward in His life. Like a shot that
   crashes through everything until it reaches its mark, so must our
   spirits find no target but the glory of God! And if we are one spirit
   with Christ, it will be so. God's glory, God's glory will be first,
   last, midst, everywhere, everything. All for God, and God in all, will
   be our motto, as "hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come," is our
   daily prayer.

   Further, if we are joined to Christ, so as to be one spirit, we shall
   seek the same end for the same reason. He desired the glory of God not
   for His own glory, but because He loved God. He was one with the
   Father. He loved the Father, therefore would He see the Father
   glorified. Brethren, it is easy to seek the glory of God with a view to
   your own glory. Did you ever find yourself doing so, desiring that the
   children in your class should be converted, that in the school it might
   be said what a successful teacher is so-and-so? Oh, how have I sought
   to wring that black drop out of my spirit, when the desire to bring
   souls to Christ has been backed with the desire that I might have a
   good standing as a successful minister!

   Into Christ's thoughts so base an element never entered--He sank
   Himself in God. He knew His Father would give Him the reward, and for
   the joy that was set before Him He endured the Cross, despising the
   shame--but Self-seeking never threw its alloy into the pure gold of His
   devotion to the Father. If we are one spirit with Christ, self will be
   swallowed up in God. Lord, do what You will with me, so long as You are
   glorified! If I can glorify You best in silence, then let me never
   speak again.

   If it is most for Your glory that I should die, though my life appears
   to be useful to Your Church, yet let me end my days. If it will glorify
   You that I should be unsuccessful, that I should be in the world's
   judgment a disappointed man, perhaps a fool without brain enough to
   succeed, Lord, let me be a fool, or an idiot for You! Only glorify
   Yourself in me, and that is enough. This is true oneness of spirit with
   Jesus. Self is nothing. God is to be All in All. Comfort, esteem, joy,
   and even life will be as the small dust of the balance to a man filled
   with Christ's spirit.

   Then we shall come, if we are one spirit with Christ, to aim at the
   glory of God by the same means. How did He aim at it? By the conversion
   of souls--not by being made a king, not by being called rabbi. He
   sought for the souls of little children, of peasant women, and of
   outcasts. If my mind is as Christ's mind, I shall seek God's glory by
   following after the waifs and strays of society--by bringing in
   backsliders, by seeking the lost sheep of the house of Israel--laboring
   by any means to save some.

   How, my Brethren, are you bending your souls towards the conversion of
   sinners? It is a great mark of oneness of spirit with Christ when we
   have a great tenderness towards lost souls. Do you ever think of lost
   souls? Do you ever bring yourselves to the painful consideration of
   this huge city, so much larger than Jerusalem in our Savior's day, and,
   I was about to say, equally wicked? Do you never pour out floods of
   tears for it because it knows not its day, and is neglectful of the
   invitations of Grace? If you are one spirit with Christ you will weep
   with Him. You will burn with an ardent passion to gather this city's
   children beneath the wings of mercy.

   You will pray for them, sigh for them, live for them, and persevere in
   labor for them. Your thought about a person will not merely be what
   trade you can do with him, or how much you may trust him in business,
   but, "How much good can I do him, and can I find an opportunity in any
   way of bringing him as a jewel to adorn my Savior's crown?" If our
   spirits were one with Christ's we should each one be missionaries of
   the Cross, bearing witness to His saving power.

   Beloved, with such a spirit we should be content to use the same modes
   as our Lord. Christ's modes of winning souls were very simple, and He
   always adhered to them--teaching, preaching, living, suffering, and
   dying were His whole art. Some nowadays seem tired of Christ's plans,
   and hunt up more rapid methods. I do not believe that Jesus ever
   strained after effect by animal excitement. He did not strive and cry,
   and become fanatical, and try to excite poor ignorant people,

   who know not what they do, to say what they do not understand. He went
   to work by instructing the ignorant, enlightening their consciences and
   understandings, and gradually leading them to Himself.

   When His spirit is ours we shall be better satisfied with that
   old-fashioned way of Gospel preaching which the critics nowadays are so
   fond of sneering at. We shall feel this is the best way--this hard,
   plodding way that does not usually produce a great mass of converts all
   at once--this is best, for Jesus thought so. We shall pine for large
   harvests, but go on sowing the same Seed, and preaching His Gospel and
   no new one of our own. What was wisdom to Him will be wisdom to us.

   Then shall we, if we are of one spirit with Jesus, go to work as He
   did, with the same emotions. If we had but six men thoroughly of one
   spirit with Jesus, London would soon be shaken from end to end. But
   where are they? God make all His servants such, and we shall hear a new
   sort of preaching to what is current at this hour. For when Jesus
   preached, it was tremendous preaching! True, it was pleasing,
   attractive, interesting, but was far more--it was full of deep
   heart-power, such as made men see His solemn earnestness--and such as
   overcame men's souls.

   His soul, as it were, leaped upon them in all the majesty of love's
   Omnipotence. O that we felt as He did the weight of souls, the guilt of
   sin, the terror of the wrath to come, and the tenderness of Divine
   mercy! If these great principles actuated and moved our spirit as they
   moved His, we should rise to a higher standard, and our age would know
   it.

   Let me add that if we are fully joined to our Lord, and of one spirit
   with Him, we shall have the same tastes as Jesus. What He loves will
   charm us, what He hates we shall loathe. We shall then come to have the
   same will with Him. As one said, "If God wills not as I will, yet at
   any rate we will be agreed, for I will will as He wills if He will but
   graciously enable me." If I cannot have things as I would like, I will
   like to have them as Jesus pleases. Oh, to have the two wills, the
   human and Divine perfectly coinciding--this is perfection! Brethren, if
   this unity between our spirit and Christ's spirit goes on we shall
   abide in Him, and He will abide in us.

   Oh, to be our Beloved's and to know that He is ours! I cannot resist
   quoting another two verses from old Quarles, they so depict my ideal--

   "Nor time, nor place, nor chance, nor death can bow My least desires
   unto the least remove; He's firmly mine by oath. I His by vow; He is
   mine by faith. And Iam His bylove; He's mine by water. Iam His by wine;
   Thus I my best Beloved's am; thus He is mine. He is my altar. I His
   holy place; Iam His guest. And He my living food; I'm His by penitence.
   He mine by Grace; I'm His by purchase. He is mine by blood He's my
   supporting wall. And I His vine-- Thus I my best Beloved's am; thus He
   is mine." I have many things to say, but time fails me, and therefore
   let me just pour out a few thoughts. There would be produced in you and
   in me, if we were joined unto the Lord, great oneness of aim in our
   service of God. We have a dozen aims now, but if we were of one spirit
   with Jesus we should have but one object in life. A man dies, and they
   say, "Ah, he died a martyr to his science." Another dies, and they say,
   "He killed himself with attention to his business." When will men be
   thus said to die for Christ?

   Men commonly say of their fellows, "He is a man of one idea, he lives
   for it. Wherever he is he must always ride his hobby." How I wish they
   would say the same of Christians! Wherever our Lord was, not
   imprudently, but with true wisdom, He was sure to pursue His life work.
   Where Jesus was there would the Gospel be heard or seen before long. If
   He sat to eat bread at a Pharisee's house nobody could suspect Him of
   being a Pharisee, or need to ask who He was. His speech before long
   betrayed Him, for the one object of His soul was uppermost. May it ever
   be so with us! May we be of one idea and that one idea to glorify God
   through the salvation of sinners by Jesus Christ!

   This would give us, beside unity of purpose, great force, great fervor.
   We should feel this in private. Our prayers, if we had the spirit of
   Christ would be very different from what they are. This would be
   visible in public, also. Our public service of God would never be so
   sluggish and sleepy as it now is. With what ardor did the Savior burn!
   Would God that

   same fire dropped into my soul, and utterly consumed me as a living
   sacrifice. This would produce in each of us an abiding pertinacity.
   Defeated in one place we should try in another. It would be with us a
   determination never to be overcome in doing good. Like Jesus who sought
   the souls of men, not in a languid search, but over hill and dale till
   He went down into death's cold shade and traversed the sepulcher that
   He might deliver them, so we also in honor and dishonor, in evil report
   and good report, in poverty and wealth, in life and death, should still
   be seeking the glory of God and the salvation of the sons of men.

   This same spirit would work in us a wonderful serenity of spirit. If
   our spirit were like Christ's spirit--altogether set on God's glory--we
   should not be disturbed and vexed so soon as we are with little, petty
   remarks of men, nor should we even be moved by great calamities. If any
   disaster happened to us we should only say, "How can I use this for
   God's glory?" If prosperity smiled on us, we should ask, "How can I
   make this glorify my Lord?" We should not be cast down by the one nor
   lifted up by the other. If men sneered at us we should say, "It is well
   that they think little of me, for now if God will bless my efforts they
   will think the more of God and know that the work was not done by my
   power."

   If, on the other hand, we find men thinking highly of us, we should
   say, "How can I use the influence I thus obtain to advance the great
   cause of my Lord and Master?" When self is dead our sorrows are sweet.
   When self-seeking is gone, then serene is the calm lake of the soul,
   unruffled by the storms of ambition which continually toss with
   blustering breath the minds which seek themselves. I am persuaded,
   Brethren, your highest state, your happiest condition--will be when you
   are so joined with the Lord as to be one spirit.

   Lastly, what does all this teach us by way of practical lesson? These
   three things--First, see here a rebuke for us. We have been joined to
   Christ, but have we been manifestly one spirit with Him? Angry--was
   that Christ's spirit? Worldly--was that Christ's spirit? Frivolous,
   verging upon impropriety--was that Christ's spirit? Proud, dictatorial,
   slothful, repining, or unbelieving--was that Christ's spirit? O
   Brothers and Sisters, if you can read that verse without a tear you are
   either better or worse men than I! You are worse perhaps, for you do
   not feel the penitence you should. Or you are better, and you have no
   need to confess the same faults which unhappily rise before my memory.
   The spirit of Jesus, we have a measure of it I trust, but does not our
   own spirit adulterate it dreadfully!

   The next practical word is one of hope. We want to have the same spirit
   as Christ. Well, Brethren, our hope is that we shall have it, for we
   are joined to the Lord, and he that is joined to the Lord is one
   spirit. Are you not joined to Jesus, my Brother, my Sister? I know what
   you say, "I sometimes fear I am not." Well, but what do you add to
   that? You add, "But I desire to be, and I do today renew my union with
   Him by another act of faith and confidence in Him. Dear Lord and
   Savior, You are my only Hope. I at this hour embrace Your Cross once
   more. I know You save sinners, I know that they who believe in You are
   saved, and therefore I am saved. Now, being persuaded of this, I love
   You. O that I could kiss Your feet where the nail prints are, and that
   my whole life could be a washing of those feet with my tears!"

   Since, then, you are joined to Christ, you are one spirit, and though
   it is not yet fully seen, it will be before long. There are better
   times coming, there are deeper degrees of Grace for you yet, only
   persevere.

   The last word will help you to persevere. Don't you see, my Brethren,
   the way to get more of the spirit of Christ? It is indicated in the
   text, it is by thinking more of your union with Him. To be nearer the
   Lord is the way to be more like He is. Do not let doubts and fears
   endanger your fellowship with Him. You may think, "I fear I have no
   right to say I am one with Christ." But that suspicion will not
   sanctify you. It will not help you to be holier to doubt your union to
   your Lord.

   Men never grow in Grace by departing from the Savior by unbelief. The
   more you need Christ the closer cling to Him. The less you are like He
   is the tighter hold Him. Your hope lies there. "If my spirit is not yet
   subdued to Your spirit, my Savior, yet I cannot let You go, for that
   were to drive the physician away because I am still sick. That were to
   renounce my friend because I have great need of him. No, but closer to
   You will I cling by Your Holy Spirit from this day forth, that being
   joined to You, I may be of one spirit."

   I feel I have feebly addressed you, but at the same time I know
   precious Truth has been set forth. May the Holy Spirit open it up to
   your hearts, and bless it to your souls, and He shall be magnified. But
   if you have no part nor lot in this matter, may that dreadful fact lead
   you at this hour to seek the Savior.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Personal Application

   (No. 962)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JANUARY 16, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But now once in the end of the world has He appeared to put away sin
   by the sacrifice of Himself." Hebrews 9:26.

   IN those good old times when preachers did not grow weary, though they
   discoursed for three hours at a stretch. And when congregations were
   not given to slumber, even under such long discourses, the preacher had
   ample time not only to dilate upon the doctrine of his text, but to
   speak, also, upon what was then called "the improvement of the
   subject," namely, the practical and experimental application of the
   Truths of God taught to the cases of his hearers. Nowadays when we are
   restricted to three-quarters of an hour--not altogether to our loss or
   yours--there are occasions on which we feel our course so wide, and our
   time so narrow, that having found a good sea to sail upon, and objects
   of surpassing interest to attract our attention in the morning, we
   venture to resume the current of thought and follow up with the
   application in the evening.

   Those of you who were present this morning, (See No. 911, "The Putting
   Away of Sin"), will not have forgotten the fullness of the text. It
   seemed as though every word were on fire, for we were warmed and
   comforted by each word as it broke on our ears and appealed to our
   hearts. I am sure that God the Holy Spirit spoke to some of us. If we
   never heard Him before, we certainly did then feel the power of His
   Presence in our souls. "Did not our hearts burn within us" while we
   meditated upon the precious Truth contained in this passage of Holy
   Scripture? We saw very clearly God's way of putting away sin. We knew
   that sin was the great obstacle which kept us from God, and we
   perceived how Jesus Christ, by making Himself a Sacrifice, had
   completely cast down and cleared off the separating wall, so that now
   we have access with boldness to this Grace wherein we stand, and
   rejoice in hope of the glory of God! By His offering of Himself upon
   the tree, He put away sin once and for all on the behalf of those who
   trust in Him.

   The application, then, which I proceed to take in hand is
   twofold--first, to some of you who are not converted, a few earnest,
   faithful, affectionate words. And, secondly, to you who have received
   Christ, and have also obtained power to become sons of God, a little
   tender counsel.

   I. First, A FEW WORDS TO THE UNCONVERTED. You perceive it is stated in
   the text that the Lord Jesus Christ appeared in human form, and put
   away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Now, it will strike your reason
   that God would not have come upon earth, would not have left the
   royalties of Heaven if there had been some other way of putting away
   sin. Surely the eternal Father would never have put His Only Begotten
   and Well-Beloved Son to such terrible pains and griefs if there had
   been any other door of salvation for the lost sons of men. When Jesus
   said, "If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me," you may depend
   upon it that it would have passed if it had been possible for us to be
   saved by any other method. But, inasmuch as Jesus Christ bowed His head
   to the stroke of His Father's sword, and poured out His soul unto death
   for us, we may rest assured that there is no other name given among men
   whereby we must be saved.

   Clearly then, my dear Hearers, it is your wisdom to give up every other
   confidence! What are you resting in at the present moment? Have you
   been saying in your soul, "I am the child of gracious parents. I have
   never gone into profanity or open sin. It must be all right with me"?
   Or, have you said in your heart, "I was christened in my infancy. I
   have been confirmed. I have paid due attention to the ceremonials of my
   Church, and therefore I am saved"? Or, have you said, "I have kept the
   Commandments from my youth up. I have neither wronged man nor
   blasphemed God"? I tell you solemnly that these grounds of confidence
   are utterly worthless!

   If you could have been saved by your Baptism, do you think Christ would
   have died? If your good works could have opened the gates of Heaven for
   you, do you think that the Christ of God Himself would have bled for
   sinners? If it had been possible for your godly ancestry to have lifted
   you to the skies, do you suppose that Jesus Christ would have been

   obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross? All other confidence
   which begins, proceeds, and ends with anything else save the Person and
   the work of Jesus will deceive you in the hour of death, and at the Day
   of Judgment. Therefore I say unto you--do not for a moment entertain
   it--away with it! Away with it, confide in it no longer!

   If I saw you trusting yourself upon a bridge which I knew would snap in
   the center when your weight came fairly upon it, I should not be
   unkind--I should but follow the instincts of humanity in warning you
   not to trust to it. And I do so warn you now that other refuge there is
   none, save in Jesus Christ. And if you seek another refuge you insult
   God, you do despite to Jesus Christ, you cast yourself into a tenfold
   jeopardy--for he that believes not in Jesus Christ must be lost. Though
   you may have a zeal towards God, and go about industriously to
   establish your own righteousness, yet you must be a castaway, because
   you have not submitted yourself to the righteousness which is of God by
   faith.

   I beseech you, then, dear Hearer, whoever you may be, whether you are a
   stranger among us or one who constantly frequents this assembly, shake
   off your false confidences, as Paul shook the viper from his hand into
   the fire, or else they will poison you. They will destroy you forever
   and forever! But come, O come, Sinners, as you are, to the Fountain
   filled with blood, and rest, all helpless as you are, rest on the
   Foundation which God has laid in Zion, a tried Stone, a precious
   Cornerstone, and he that builds upon it shall never be ashamed.

   That seems to flow naturally as an inference from the doctrine of the
   Atonement. But then, secondly--if Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in
   order to put away sin, must die a death so ignominious and painful,
   then depend upon it, sin is not so easy a thing to get rid of, nor is
   the penalty so easy to endure, as some would have us imagine. Sinner,
   when God laid our sins upon Christ, He did not spare Him. "He spared
   not His own Son." There was no point of the shame, the desertion, the
   darkness, the terror of dire foreboding, or the weight of full
   punishment for sin which was withheld from the sufferings of Christ.
   Rather it seems as if the Father, in vindication of unpitying Justice,
   heaped on our blessed Savior the full weight of all our transgressions,
   and exacted of Him the utmost chastisement and the uttermost
   retribution.

   Ponder this and consider the question, Did God smite His Son, and shall
   He spare you? Did the curse fall on Christ, though He was holy in His
   Nature, perfect in His Character, guileless in His Heart, and innocent
   in His Life--upon Him who had no sin but our sin upon Him? And shall
   God allow you, depraved, impenitent, willful, and graceless as you are,
   to go unpunished? God has shown His hatred of sin in the Cross of
   Jesus. Not Sodom on a blaze, nor the old world drowned with the flood,
   nor Pharaoh lost in the Red Sea, nor any one of the judgments of Heaven
   which appall us in their history, displays so much His horror against
   sin as the death of the Only Begotten.

   There you see how, though sin entrenched itself in the Blessed and
   Beloved Body of Jesus Christ, yet the sword of vengeance would find it
   out and smite it down. And shall your crimes evade notice or pass away
   like shadows that leave no trace behind? What? Can the avenging angel
   detect no spots on your hands, no blood on your skirts, no chain of
   evidence to convict you? Knowing, as you all do from observation, if
   not from experience, that the levity with which men defy the laws of
   Nature does not mitigate the pain that surely follows, that every vice
   reaps its own retribution, and that the end of a dissolute life is most
   commonly a desperate death, I marvel that any of you should despise
   your own mercies and court your own miseries!

   But if any sin could be lightly passed over, how should your sin
   escape, when you add to it this sin of sins, by way of
   aggravation--that you make God a liar by not believing on His Son? Ah,
   my Hearer, let no ill deceive you. God's Word is true--every
   transgression shall receive its just recompense of reward. He will by
   no means spare the guilty. Do not hope to die with the words upon your
   lips, "God is merciful." I know He is, but He is also just, and to
   those who reject His Son there is no mercy--

   "How they deserve the deepest Hell, That leave the joys abo ve! What
   claims of vengeance must they feel Who slight the bands of love!"

   You shall find it so. Either Christ must bear your sins for you, and
   you must see your sin punished in the wounds of Im-manuel, or you must
   feel them punished in yourself forever! O Soul, which shall it be? May
   God make the election for you, and may you be saved in Jesus Christ our
   Lord.

   I wish I could speak so as to get to your heart, but the Lord alone can
   do that. I can only reach the ears. Will you, however, please notice
   the particular object for which Christ appeared? Perhaps that may touch
   your conscience. It was to put away sin. Can you so think of this as to
   apprehend the breadth of purpose it involves? Is not such an
   undertaking

   beyond the grasp of your minds? But try to spell it out. Does it not
   occur to you that there must have been a gathering together of all
   kinds of sin, and a concentration of all the forces of sin at that
   tremendous crisis? I think you have only to look at the pictures as
   they are drawn by the four Evangelists to perceive the dark shadows of
   every species of human guilt.

   Were not the vices that defile the heart of man, and the atrocities
   that distract society--those vile prejudices and bad passions which
   issue in the foulest crimes--all represented in the conspiracy to
   crucify Jesus of Nazareth? Tell me, if pride and infamy, jealousy and
   covetousness, treason and treachery, ribald mockery, and brutal
   cruelty, with a legion of other wicked spirits, did not make common
   cause against the Lord's Anointed? The mask of religion was worn by
   some, and the guise of patriotism was assumed by others. To what intent
   was this? Why, it is told in one short sentence. When He came to put
   away sin, then sin was up in arms directly, and counsel and clamor from
   all grades of society made their voices heard, and their influence
   felt, to put Him away.

   Ah, you say, that only happened once. True, so far as the work of
   redemption is concerned. But how often is it repeated in the experience
   of men who reject the Savior? The like concurrence of all sorts and
   forms of sin is found in the case of every one of you who deliberately
   or wantonly hardens his heart against that great Sin-Bearer, that great
   Sin-Destroyer, our most glorious Christ! Every evil disposition you
   harbor, every evil habit you indulge, every wicked practice you follow,
   leads, no, irresistibly drives you on to this goal--"Away with Him,
   away with Him! Crucify Him, crucify Him"--is the cry to which your
   heart consents, to which your life gives sanction. I do but interpret
   the meaning of your unbelief. It must be so. For you are bent on
   upholding sin while Christ is bent on putting away sin--thus you set
   yourselves in opposition to Him.

   And it is so. For it is the ordinary testimony of every converted man.
   Those of us who have the best opportunity of judging can bear witness
   that in the repentance which accompanies faith, the sense of guilt is
   felt much as though all sins were rolled into one in the aggravated sin
   of unbelief. And it ought to be so--for our Lord Himself said, "When He
   (the Spirit of God) is come, He will reprove the world of sin, because
   they believe not on Me." Give heed, then, to this, my Hearer, whosoever
   you may be that now declines to yield to my Master. If ever you are
   born of the Spirit, you will plead guilty to this charge. Or if, God
   forbid, you die in your sins, the indictment framed against you, the
   verdict given, and the sentence passed will be according to this
   judgment. You will be condemned because you believed not on the Son of
   God. The reason why at this moment you love darkness rather than light
   is because your deeds are evil.

   Let me remind every unconverted person here of the responsibility which
   presses upon him with regard to the great fact that Christ is preached
   to him according to the manner in which he has been revealed to put
   away sin. That fact must affect you for woe, if not for weal. Whatever
   may be its relation to those Hottentots and barbarians who have never
   heard the Gospel, it must affect you, because you have heard it, and
   the rule is that the ministry of the Cross of Christ, when addressed to
   your understanding, must either prove a savor of life unto life or of
   death unto death.

   Make no mistake about this. You never pass under the heart-searching
   ordeal of listening to a Gospel sermon without some moral consequence.
   There is some result produced. You are either blessed by it, or
   hardened by it. Possibly you may think it is a most proper thing to
   come to a place of worship, and you feel relieved by having attended.
   Yes, but if your conscience were awake you would understand the words
   of the Apostle, "See that you refuse not Him that speaks." "Turn not
   away from Him that speaks from Heaven." "He that despised Moses' Law
   died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer
   punishment suppose you, shall he be thought worthy, who has trod under
   foot the Son of God?" "How shall we escape if we neglect so great
   salvation?"

   If I live and die knowing the Gospel, and yet rejecting it, what can I
   say at God's bar? What excuse can I make for myself? I cannot plead
   ignorance. I must confess willful hardness of heart, which went so far
   that I preferred to risk damnation rather than accept salvation on
   God's terms. I had rather perish as God's enemy, so my unbelief says,
   than I would submit myself and become God's friend. Oh, this is
   iniquity reaching to its highest altitude! I beseech you--ungodly Man,
   ungodly Woman--look such iniquity in the face, and think of its
   terrible issues!

   Our text tells us that Christ has appeared once to put away sin, but
   remember, He is to come a second time! Unconverted Man, Woman, have you
   thought of that? You would not look at Christ when He came the first
   time, despised and rejected of men, but you shall look at Him when at
   His second advent--

   "The Lord shall come! A dreadful form,

   With rainbow wreath, and robes of storm; On cherub wings, and wings of
   wind, Appointed Judge of all mankind."

   You said it was nothing to you the first time, and you passed by. But
   you will find it something to you the second time. When the trumpet
   sounds exceedingly loud and long. When the cerements of the grave are
   rent asunder. When the dead shall rise from land and sea. When the
   Great White Throne shall be set, and all nations shall be gathered
   before it, and the Shepherd-King shall divide them as a shepherd
   divides the sheep from the goats--you will find, then, that from that
   Throne you cannot escape! The Throne of Mercy you may despise--but the
   Throne of Judgment you will not be able to set at nothing!

   Suppose the destined hour should transpire now--and it is but a little
   while before it shall overtake this giddy, thoughtless world. Overleap
   that brief interval for a moment. Let your imaginations transport you
   to--

   "That tremendous day Whose coming none can tell,"

   although with silent, sure, and rapid steps it is approaching us now.
   Think that you are standing in the crowd, and the books are opened, and
   the eyes of fire have flashed upon you, and your life unveiled, with
   all your actions and their hidden springs, is being published to angels
   and to men--and your sentence is about to be pronounced.

   No escape is possible! The rocks cannot hide you! The mountains cannot
   cover you! The eyes of Him who once wept will flash with lightning, and
   the tongue that said, "Come unto Me, you weary," shall say, "Depart,
   you cursed," and the Face that was once so full of pity, shall suddenly
   be red with holy anger as He shall say, "I know you not! Depart from
   Me, you workers of iniquity!" And shall that be your portion?--

   "Prevent, prevent it by Your Grace; Be You, O God, my hiding place, In
   this the accepted hour!"

   My Hearer, shall this be your portion? Shall it be the portion of any
   man or woman now sitting in this House of Prayer? May God avert it by
   His eternal mercy! But I see not how it is to be avoided except you are
   led to fly to Christ. And the only opportunity you may ever have is
   this present opportunity, for, "Now is the accepted time, now is the
   day of salvation." May you be led by the Spirit at this moment to come
   to Jesus, and so shall you find eternal salvation in

   Him.

   II. Turning now to another part of the congregation, let me spend a
   little time in ADDRESSING MYSELF TO THE MANY OF YOU who have believed
   that Jesus is the Christ, to the saving of your souls. Beloved in the
   Lord, our sins are pardoned! We are accepted in the Beloved. We have
   passed from the realm of fear into the kingdom of safety. We are no
   longer in the wilderness. We are come to Canaan, to Mount Zion, to the
   general assembly and Church of the Firstborn. We hear no rumblings of
   Sinai's thunders, but the soft voice which speaks better things than
   the blood of Abel.

   What shall we say as we see evidently set before us this great and
   unspeakable sacrifice, by which our Lord Jesus Christ put away sin? I
   think our first exclamation should be, "Be gone, accursed Sin, that
   could have needed such a Sacrifice! That could have made it necessary
   for the Savior thus to suffer!" Repentance is always the companion of
   faith. They go hand in hand. Let no man speak evil of repentance. I
   have been grieved within my heart when I have heard some revivalists,
   by innuendo at least, speak against repentance.

   You will never enter Heaven without repentance. And if your faith does
   not lead you to hate sin, and do a great deal more than merely change
   your mind--as these modern fanatics say--you will find it is a faith
   which will never estrange you from the corruptions of the flesh, enamor
   you of the holiness of the Spirit, and conduct you to the Heaven of
   God's Presence. You must hate sin. You must perceive the evil of it.
   And you must turn from it and live, according to the instincts of the
   Divine Life communicated, as well as according to the ordinances of the
   Divine Rule made known unto you--or else you are no child of God.

   But where is true repentance to be had? It is never experienced by a
   man, except as he, by God's Grace, receives the cleansing, sanctifying
   power of the Savior's precious blood. To repent of sin because I know
   it has ruined me, or it will ruin me, is legal repentance, and needs to
   be repented of. But to be able to sing, as one of our hymn writers
   expresses it--

   "My sins, my sins, my Savior! Their guilt I never knew,

   Till with You in the desert, I near Your passion drew. I know they are
   forgiven, But still their pain to me, Is all the grief and anguish They
   laid, my Lord, on You."

   That is repentance. To hate sin because it caused the brow of Christ to
   be girt with the crown of thorns, and the face of Christ to be
   dishonored with the spittle, and the hands of Christ to be pierced with
   the nails--this is repentance--not because I am afraid of Hell! Not
   because sin brings pains and penalties with it, but because it made
   Jesus Christ to suffer for me such pangs unutterable.

   My Brothers and Sisters, standing here by faith at the foot of the
   Cross, do we not feel more than ever the evil of sin? If we do not, let
   this be our prayer, "Lord, help me this night as I come to Your table,
   to feel the bitterness of my sin, which was so bitter to You. Let me
   see its deadly character in Your death. Let me see its shame in Your
   shame. Let me perceive the nakedness which it brought upon me in Your
   nakedness. Let me discern the misery which it would have caused me
   forever in Your misery. And let me now declare revenge against my sin.
   And however dear any one sin may have been to me, let this be my solemn
   resolve, in the strength of the Holy Spirit--

   "Whatever that idol is,

   At once I'll tear it from its throne,

   And worship only You."

   Deep repentance will be a sweet help in coming to the Supper. The
   bitter herbs always made the Paschal lamb the sweeter, and the pensive
   sadness of repentance will give zest and stimulant to the faith with
   which we feed upon the crucified Redeemer.

   Still further, Beloved, what emotions of gratitude should this Truth of
   God inspire in your breasts! Ought it not to fill your entire life with
   the fragrant incense of praise? "Your testimonies," we might well say
   with the Psalmist, "have I taken as a heritage forever. For they are
   the rejoicing of my heart." O that the flame of gratitude might kindle
   and glow in all your musings! O that it might find constant expression
   in the deep humility and the sweet gentleness of all your works and
   ways! Say, "What homage can I offer You, my Lord, at this good hour?
   Little can I render unto You for all Your benefits, but much do I owe
   You for Your love that passes knowledge. Your Word shall be my lamp.
   Your Precepts shall be my choice. Your Statutes shall be my songs.

   "I will delight myself in Your Commandments. All who trespass against
   me, I will forgive for Your sake. Your saints I will love. Your lambs I
   will feed. I will bear the infirmities of the weak, and not please
   myself. I will pray without ceasing. I will give thanks for all things
   unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 'So will
   I'--did I say? Let me rather say, 'So would I.' Though the vows of God
   are upon me, I have not strength of myself to perform one vow. Yet You
   know, for You search all hearts, and this You know, for You know all
   things--I sincerely desire and earnestly covet the Spirit of holiness
   to consecrate myself unreservedly unto You."

   There is yet another point to which I wish to have your particular
   attention, O you that believe in Jesus! We are told in the text that
   once in the end of the world Christ appeared to put away sin. Now what
   is your conviction upon the subject? Did He put away sin or not? I
   anticipate the answer of every Believer here--"Of course He did! By His
   one offering He put away sin forever." Beloved, why is it that some of
   you tonight are troubled about your sin? Now look back during the past
   week. Has there not been a great deal in your life that you have to
   mourn over? Do you live a single day in which you went to your rest
   contented with the review of your character or your conduct? I must
   acknowledge I never spent such a day, and I am afraid I never shall
   till I get Home to Heaven.

   Sins and sorrows multiplied pollute the days to my shame and my horror.
   But when I come to look to Jesus Christ my Lord, and trust in Him,
   shall I feel dismayed on account of my sins? No! They are all forgiven!
   They are all forgiven! Yes, that particular sin--you know what it
   is--the one which has caused you so much trouble this week, is
   forgiven. There is no sin that you have fallen into, as a believer in
   Jesus, which can be laid to your charge. That bold speech of the
   Apostle makes a wide sweep--"Who shall lay anything to the charge of
   God's elect?" Observe, he does not say, "Any great things," but
   "anything"--any little things, anything, anything of any kind. Do you
   not know that though you have erred and strayed many times, and made
   yourself to be ashamed, yet still, when you come to the--

   "Fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel's veins," this Truth
   is sure--that "the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all
   sin"?

   Then every Believer here tonight is as clean in the sight of God as the
   snow which falls from Heaven. Come, then, let us shake off these fears.
   He who knows that his debt is paid would be foolish to be troubled
   about the debt. And he who knows his sins are forgiven, may have,
   should have, ought to have, peace with God through Jesus Christ his
   Lord! My dear Brethren, God will help me, I hope, to live more and more
   in the atmosphere of peace with God. I do believe the devil often
   worries us when there is no cause whatever for our being troubled. Sin
   is always to be hateful to us. We are always to loathe it. But when
   washed in the precious blood of Jesus we are to endeavor to realize
   that through His blood we are clean, and that, with His spotless
   vesture on, we are holy as the Holy One.

   Notwithstanding the depravity of our old Nature, and the workings of
   the flesh against which we strive, yet we are accepted in the Beloved.
   We are justified by faith which is in Christ Jesus. Come, then,
   children of God, take your harps down from the willows and tune them to
   a rapturous strain! Magnify the Lord your Righteousness. This is the
   name whereby He shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness--Jehovah
   Tsidkenu. His name shall be rapturous on our lips, and glorious in our
   ears from this time forth even forever and ever. He has appeared to put
   away sin, and it is put away! Let us, then, enjoy our rest.

   I want the further attention of every Believer here to another
   particular. Beloved, we read in this text that Jesus Christ, in order
   to put away sin, has made a sacrifice of Himself. When that word
   "sacrifice" is used with such grand significance in reference to
   Christ, it looks almost like a disparagement of its high import to
   apply it in any reference to ourselves. Yet we have the mind of the
   Spirit in the words of the Apostle Paul, who has said, "I beseech you,
   therefore, Brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your
   bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your
   reasonable service." Ought we not, if Christ has made a sacrifice of
   Himself for us, to make a sacrifice of ourselves

   for Him?

   He sacrificed Himself. I told you this morning that it was more than
   His wealth, more than His honor which He offered. It was HIMSELF. Every
   Christian should offer himself as sacrifice to Christ. They did so in
   the martyr age. They did so in the first young hour of the Church's
   enthusiasm when Apostolic zeal was fervent. But do we do so now? Talk
   of giving to the cause of God--why, very few of us give enough to
   sensibly impoverish ourselves by our giving. We are afraid of making a
   sacrifice of ourselves. In the service of God we generally take care
   not to injure ourselves by excessive exertions. Indeed, our friends are
   always very careful to warn us against any risk of this kind! Men in
   business may work as many hours as they like, and as hard as they will
   to get money, and very seldom does any sagacious, prudent mentor shake
   his head and tell the young merchant that he is laying out his strength
   too recklessly, and devoting his energies too vigorously in getting
   gain or acquiring a fortune.

   Oh, no! They would rather tell him to spread all his canvas and ply
   every sinew, especially when wind and tide are in his favor. But the
   minister of God--the servant of Christ--often has that judicious advice
   tendered to him, "Do yourself no harm. Be sure and not work too hard."
   "It was never intended," they say, "that anyone should risk his health,
   consume his spirits, or deny himself innocent recreation with an
   enthusiasm that far exceeds the line of duty," as if there were such a
   line, or it were possible to define it. Ah, well, if the love of his
   Master is in him, as a constraining power, then kindling with the noble
   passion and laboring with a fiery zeal, he will resent such
   expostulations as Christ did that of Peter, when, replying to his
   pitiful rebuke, "Pity yourself, Lord"--He said, "Get you behind Me,
   Satan! You are an offense unto Me: for you savor not the things that
   are of God, but those that are of men."

   We are bound to sacrifice ourselves, yielding up the members of our
   bodies as instruments of righteousness unto God, and devoting the
   faculties of our renewed minds that we may prove what is that good, and
   acceptable, and perfect will of God. O my Brothers and Sisters! I have
   already said that I scarcely like this word, "sacrifice," because it
   involves nothing more than a reasonable service. If we gave up all that
   we had and became beggars for Christ, it would display no such
   chivalrous spirit or magnanimous conduct after all! We should be
   gainers by the surrender.

   With Christ in our hearts, the Light of Life and the Hope of Glory, we
   should be rich to all the intents of bliss. We cannot stoop as He
   stooped. We cannot be poor with such poverty as He knew, neither can we
   renounce such riches as He once possessed. But, at any rate, let us not
   be stingy in our consecration. Let us yield ourselves wholly and
   heartily to

   Jesus Christ's work. Let us feel it to be our pleasure, our principle,
   our point of honor not to shrink from labor nor to shun sacrifice! Let
   us, rather, court labor and invite opportunities of suffering and
   occasions for the giving of ourselves and of our substance to His
   cause. He was sacrificed for us, let us be a living sacrifice unto Him.

   Did you notice that word "once"? The text says He once offered Himself
   a sacrifice--only ONCE--once and for all. Ah, well, Brethren, we may
   take that word and apply it to ourselves. We can only be sacrificed for
   Christ once. In this world, alone, shall we have the opportunity of
   washing the saints' feet, of feeding the poor, of looking after the
   helpless and the ignorant. There is one thing for which Heaven itself
   might envy the poor sons of earth--that there are works to be done here
   which "Perfect saints above, and holy angels cannot do."

   We might almost wish ourselves back from Heaven if we could go there
   with any of our life's work undone. No! No. We would not seek untimely
   rest, if there is another soul to win. If there is another dram of
   bitter shame for us to drink. If there is another part of the
   sufferings of Christ for us to fulfill, we would wait until it is all
   done, and we can say, "I have fought the good fight. I have finished my
   course. I have kept the faith." It is only once! It is only once! If
   you could only serve a friend once, you would like to do it well that
   time. You have only one life on earth, and oh, how short that may be!
   Waste not an hour! Spend none of its moments in wantonness or in
   selfishness, but let the whole of your strength, during the few years
   of your pilgrimage, be given up to your Lord. Once was He a
   Sacrifice--only once--but that once thoroughly. Let us imitate Him.

   This morning I also dwelt upon that word "appeared." Christ was not
   ashamed to appear as a Sacrifice for us in public, albeit deep dishonor
   was heaped upon His holy name. And, therefore, I say to Believers here,
   let them not be ashamed to be publicly made sacrifices for Christ,
   though some should wag their heads in rude contempt, and others shoot
   out the tongue with bitter jibes at them. Do I speak to any timid
   Believer here, any Nicodemus who has slunk away, and will not dare to
   come with an open profession to the Table of the Lord tonight? O my
   dear Friend, Christ did not treat you so badly, and at the last, you
   hope, He will own your name among His followers. Do you own His name
   now?

   "Oh," you say, "God's Church is so imperfect." And what are you? Are
   you better than they? Are you afraid that you would not live up to your
   profession. Don't you know there is One who says, "My strength is
   sufficient for you"? The path of duty is the path of safety. Be not
   ashamed to own your Lord, I pray you. Oh, it will come to pass one day
   that the highest honor will be given to that man who never blushed to
   stand at the pillory, side by side with Christ--when He, who was once
   crucified, shall be crowned with glory and honor--and they shall be
   crowned with Him who were willing to bear the shame with Him!

   "These are they," says He, "who were with Me in My humiliation in the
   midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Stand back, angels! Make
   way, seraphs! You have never been spit upon and scoffed at for Me as
   these have been. They shall be honored as princes of the Blood. They
   shall sit upon My Throne, even as I have overcome, and am sitting down
   upon My Father's Throne." O Knights of the Cross, let shame never
   trouble you! Or if the crimson blush should rise to your face, be
   ashamed that you are ashamed! Be jealous of yourselves that you are not
   more bold to confess your Master's name! Christ once appeared and put
   away sin by making a sacrifice of Himself--let us take care, then,
   constantly, to emulate the example of Him whom we cannot too worthily
   admire.

   I shall not detain you longer. I have said too little unless God has
   blessed it. I have said enough if He shall apply it. I beseech you,
   Brothers and Sisters, when you come to the Table, do not be satisfied
   with these outward signs. Think it nothing to eat the bread or to drink
   the wine. In fact, it is less than nothing and vanity, unless there is
   something more. The great thing is for that bread to help you to think
   of the broken Body of your Lord, and for that cup to show you the
   agonies of His soul when He was exceeding sorrowful even unto death.
   Come here with the subject of this morning's sermon fresh upon your
   hearts.

   Come with the thoughts which it suggests this evening burning for
   fuller expressions in your lives. And as you sit before the Lord in the
   fellowship of His people, let this be your desire, "Lord, as You have
   given Yourself for me, let me know experimentally all the blessings
   which Your blood has purchased. Bring me unto communion with Yourself.
   Permit me to put my fingers into the prints of the nails, and thrust my
   hand into Your side tonight. Give me the cleansing, the purification,
   the sanctification which Your blood can bestow, and help me from this
   day to be Yours, and Yours alone, till death shall take me to dwell
   with You where You are, and till Your second coming shall make me to be
   like You, when I shall see You as You are. May God bless these words to
   us for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Our King, Our Joy

   (No. 963)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 27, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Let the children of Zion bejoyful in their King." Psalm 149:2.

   THE book of Psalms ends in a sacred tumult of joyous praise. There is
   praise all through it, though sometimes it is but a still small voice.
   But when you reach the concluding Psalms you hear thunders of praise!
   There God is praised with the sound of the trumpet and upon the high
   sounding cymbals. All the force and the energy of sacred minstrelsy are
   laid under contribution that Jehovah may be extolled. Let the Book of
   Psalms stand as an image of the Christian's life. If we began with the
   blessing of the man who delights in the Law of the Lord. If we
   proceeded to obtain the blessing of the man whose transgression is
   forgiven, whose sin is covered. If our soul learned to pant for her God
   as the hart for the water brooks. And if we went onwards till we sang,
   "He crowns me with loving kindness and tender mercies," let us not
   pause now, but advance to the hallelujahs of the closing pages of our
   book of life!

   He who ends this life with praising God will begin the next life with
   the same delightful employment! As our latter days are nearer the land
   of Light, let them be fuller of song. Let us begin below the music
   which shall be prolonged through eternity. Like the birds, let us
   welcome the break of day, which faith in the close of life gladly
   perceives to be very near. I shall, this morning, call upon the
   veterans of Christ's army to be first in the fulfillment of the duties
   of praise. I shall pray that those who have tasted longest that God is
   gracious, may utter the loudest notes of thanksgiving, so that the
   younger pilgrims may learn from them, and be strengthened and comforted
   by their joyful example.

   At the same time I shall pray that all of us, whether we have been long
   in the Divine life or not, being citizens of the new Jerusalem, and
   subjects of the Prince Immanuel, may this day be joyful in our King.
   The time of the singing of birds is, I trust, come! Awake and sing, you
   who have dwelt in darkness.

   I. I shall invite you to consider our text, first, by the remark that
   the joy to which we are here exhorted is PECULIAR TO A CERTAIN PEOPLE.
   "Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King." No others can be
   joyful in Him, no others have any reason for being so. Those who are
   not the children of Zion have reason for dismay at the very thought of
   God's supremacy. "The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice," is a song
   for saints, but remember there is another side of it-- "the Lord reigns
   let the people tremble!" "He is angry with the wicked every day." The
   glory of the Son of God can be no comfort to those who are despisers of
   Him, for when He shall come, as come He will, it will be with no silver
   scepter in His hand for them--with no reward of Grace prepared for
   them--but He will come with a rod of iron to break them in pieces as
   potters' vessels.

   Those who are not the children of Zion cannot, therefore, rejoice in
   their King. He is no King to them in the sweet and gentle sense in
   which He is the Prince of Peace to us. His rule extends over them, but
   its greatest display will be one of justice, not of mercy. He will
   exhibit His power in executing the righteous sentence of God upon the
   vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. And, seeing they have rejected
   Him, He will be the object of their deepest dread. Children of Zion,
   you are the people who should be joyful in our King, and there are
   sacred principles within you which make it certain that you will be!

   The first is your loyalty. The children of Zion are loyal to their
   King. They delight to think that "the Lord reigns." They are glad that
   He has set His King upon the holy hill of Zion. Why, if it could be put
   to the vote among Believers today who should be the Head of the Church,
   there would be but One chosen. If we were asked who should rule over
   us, what other name should even be mentioned in our presence but the
   name of Jesus our Lord and King? We are so loyal to Him that I am
   persuaded, though we justly fear we should deny Him if left by His
   Grace, yet if supported by His Spirit the most bitter pangs of torture,
   and the most dreadful terrors of death could not separate us from His
   love.

   If we are His followers, come fair, come foul, come life, come
   death--none shall ever divide us from the love of God which is in
   Christ Jesus our Lord. Prove your loyalty this day--rejoice in His
   Sovereign will even though He may be exercising it in a manner against
   which the flesh rebels. We will receive evil from His hand as
   thankfully as good, for that which appears evil we are well assured is
   good if He ordains it!

   Loyal subjects do not only submit to those decrees of their Monarch
   which are pleasing in themselves, but they give in their unwavering
   adhesion to the entire administration of their King. His throne and
   dynasty to them are paramount, and in his actions they take delight. In
   the case of our great Lord and King the rule is absolute--what He
   commands we desire to do. What He wills we seek to will. We acquiesce
   in His determinations, and hope even to rejoice in the most painful of
   His Providences.

   Christian loyalty finds music in the name, and Heaven in the Person of
   King Jesus. None can extol Him too much. Our hearts are never surfeited
   with His glories, our ears never weary of hearing His praises. His rule
   is so good, so kind, so loving, that no other people ever had such a
   monarch! Every day we elect Him afresh in our heart's warmest love, and
   we sing again and again--

   "Crown Him, crown Him King of kings, and Lord of lords."

   Zion's citizens are something more than loyal to the Monarch, they are
   attached to His Person. Apart from the Throne and Crown of the Lord
   Jesus we feel a devout attachment to His very Person. As the Son of
   God, we worship Him and adore Him, and our heart reverently confides in
   Him.

   As bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, our Brother, our Redeemer
   who has purchased us with His own heart's blood, He is the Beloved of
   our souls. He has engrossed our warmest love, and none can rival Him.
   The savor of His name has oftentimes revived our fainting spirits, and
   a sense of His Presence has filled us with the new wine of holy
   exultation. He is in Himself All in All to us. His offices, His works,
   His honors--all these are as garments perfumed with myrrh and
   aloes--but He Himself is Fragrance itself!

   Nothing grieves us so much as when any speak slightly of Him. Nothing
   so excites our indignation as when men do despite to His Cross and
   Crown. Our greatest joy is to hear of saved souls in whom He is
   glorified, to see Him revealing His healing power among the sons of
   men, and the sons of men acknowledging that healing power by yielding
   themselves to His service. We show that we are attached to the Person
   of our King by the joy we feel when our minds consider Him. We are
   joyful in Him because our love finds her center of rest, and her circle
   of motion in Him and Him alone.

   When the children of Zion rejoice in their King, this indicates that
   they sink themselves in Him. What matters it to the true child of God
   what becomes of himself so long as his King is great and glorious, so
   long as the Lord Jesus rides forth prosperously in His chariot of
   salvation, and His name is hallowed and His kingdom comes? The citizen
   of Zion is content to be poor, to be unknown, or to be obscure if the
   Prince of the House of David is but glorified.

   In the olden times the children of Zion often courted death for their
   Lord's sake. They scorned to fly when the accusers sought them out.
   They came before the world's judgment seat and there confessed that if
   it were a crime to worship the Christ, they gloried in confessing that
   they worshipped Him--and if the price of faithfulness to Him were
   death-- they asked to die that they might show how truly they loved
   Him!

   Shall we, who owe as much to our Lord as they, be less willing to deny
   ourselves and to resist even unto blood, striving against sin? May the
   Spirit dwell in us so richly that for us to live may be Christ and not
   self at all! May we count all things but loss for Christ's sake! May we
   never pine at the hardness of our lot, or the extremity of our grief,
   if we are bearing hardness for Jesus' sake. But rather may we rejoice
   that we are counted worthy to take part in such a cause. Loyalty,
   attachment to His Person, and self-abnegation all make us joyful in our
   King, and there must be added to these an unbroken confidence in Him.

   If we suspect our King's fidelity, or His wisdom, or His power. If we
   begin to think that He has made mistakes in His government, or that He
   has omitted us in the administration of His liberality, we shall not be
   able to rejoice in Him. But if we feel that Heaven and earth may pass
   away, but never can His love be changed. That the ordinances of Heaven
   might be broken, but never could His purposes and decrees fall to the
   ground. If we can feel that all is well and all safe in His hand, that
   the government is upon His shoulders, and therefore never suffers
   damage. That He, with the key of the House of David opening so that no
   man shuts, and shutting so that no man opens, rules wisely and well in
   all matters--if we

   can feel this, we shall be devoutly joyful in our King! Put these
   various feelings towards our Lord Jesus together, and you have so many
   fountains of rejoicing in Him.

   If we add to all this an intense admiration for the great King in
   Jeshurun, we shall not fail to rejoice. The thought of His coming down
   from Heaven to suffer for our sins, the remembrance of His life of
   holiness, and His substitutionary death of sorrow--these, I say--have
   won our hearts to deepest admiration. Surely there was never such a one
   as He, no love could be compared with His for a moment. He is to us
   "the chief among ten thousand and the altogether lovely," to whom all
   the beauties of earth are ugliness, compared with whom the brightness
   of the morning is but darkness. If we do, indeed, so admire Him, that
   we see nothing else to admire except what first of all came from Him,
   then joining this with confidence, and attachment, and self-denial, and
   loyalty, we must, we shall be joyful in our King!

   I wish we had not only these Divine Graces, which like many rare spices
   well blended make up a holy anointing oil, but that they were so in us
   and did so abound that the savor of them filled all the chambers of the
   Church till all the household of faith were transported with delight in
   their King. In proportion as we become what we should be, as children
   of Zion, by the work of Grace within us--in that proportion we must
   inevitably and necessarily be a joyful people rejoicing in our King.

   An old Negro who had long known and loved his Master, and who with
   little knowledge yet had grown much in Grace, was noted for being
   always happy, and therefore someone asked him why it was he always
   rejoiced. He said, "Because I always rejoice in God." "Well," said one,
   "but suppose your master should beat you?" "If God suffers me to be
   beaten I will thank Him." "But suppose you have no food given you." "If
   I have meat I will thank Him, if I have no meat I will thank Him. If I
   live I will thank Him, if I die I will thank Him. But I will always
   thank Him, for He is always a good God and deserves to be thanked."

   May we get to just that state of heart, until the excellence of our
   King shall be our most prominent thought, and the joy of having such a
   King shall outweigh every other emotion! This will be sure evidence
   that we are of the chosen race. By this shall we discern our pedigree
   and citizenship. If we are joyful in our King we are the seed which the
   Lord has blessed.

   II. Secondly, THIS JOY HAS A MOST PROPER OBJECT. We are to be joyful in
   our King. And it is most fitting that we should be so. There is nothing
   unreasonable in the exhortation. There is no more legitimate subject
   for joy in the universe. First, it should be a subject of intense joy
   to us to be ruled by Him. His Law is perfect, His government is gentle,
   His yoke is easy, His burden is light. If we were ruled by another we
   might soon find cause for complaint. Yes, and it might reach such a
   point that it would be our highest duty to rebel, and cast off the
   tyrant.

   When we were in bondage to sin, we did well to shake off the yoke of
   the spiritual Pharaoh. Why should the freeborn seed of Israel be slaves
   to tyrant lusts? To serve Jesus is to be perfectly free. No command of
   Christ is an imposition upon our rights, or a curtailment of our joys.
   We are freest when we are most obedient to Him. Whatever Christ bids us
   to do is for our profit as well as for His glory. If we are Christians,
   indeed, we do not desire to escape our Lord's dominion, but we ask that
   He may more completely subject us to His delightful sway.

   We would have our judgment controlled by His teaching, our affections
   enamored of His Person, our will subservient, no, acquiescent to His
   desires, and our whole selves in every thought, and word, and deed,
   molded by His hands. We would be to Him what the wax is to the seal.
   When He overcomes our raging passions, and controls our emotions and
   thoughts, then are we joyful in our King. Not merely as a Savior but as
   a King we delight in Him. We rejoice in Him, also, not only as King
   over us, but as Lord of All. It is always a subject for congratulation
   to the true Believer that Christ's kingdom extends over all men, over
   all angels, over all devils--that it has pleased the Father to commit
   to Him all power in Heaven and in earth.

   We are joyful to think that not an angel bows in the courts of Heaven
   who would refuse to perform the will of Jesus our Lord, and not a devil
   howls and bites his iron bonds in the nethermost Hell who can
   effectually resist the purpose of the Crucified. No powers--physical,
   moral, or spiritual--predominate over Christ or are apart from His
   sway. We are joyful in our King because of His dominion, which has no
   end. He is the Almighty Savior, and we will bless and praise His name--

   "Blessing, honor, glory, might, Are the Conqueror's native right;

   Thrones and powers before Him fall;

   Lamb of God, and Lord of all!" We rejoice, too, in the power of our
   King and in the various displays of it. We are very weak and
   feeble--without Him we can do nothing. Sometimes we are much
   discouraged when the Gospel makes slow progress, but it is delightful
   to the last degree to fall back upon the thought that it might subdue
   the whole world tomorrow if Jesus willed it--for all power is in His
   hands. He can do great wonders yet, and that, too, when it seems as if
   the age of wonders were over. The Lord of Pentecost is mighty still to
   save. His arm is not shortened. Awake, O Lord, and let the arm of Your
   strength be made bare. Are You not the One who cut Rahab and wounded
   the dragon?

   The enemy knows the power of Jesus' name, and though Christ may put up
   His sword for awhile, it is ours with importunity to cry, "Gird Your
   sword upon Your thigh, O Most Mighty," for He is most mighty, still. If
   He should once take His bow of might and shoot forth the arrows of
   conviction among His foes, the battle would soon be turned, and the
   victory would be unto the banners of His Church. The time comes when we
   shall see far greater things than our eyes have yet beheld--the future
   is His with glory--

   "Kings shall fall down before Him,

   And gold and incense bring;

   All nations shall adore Him,

   His praise all people sing--

   For He shall ha ve dominion

   Over river, sea, and shore,

   Far as the eagle's pinion,

   Or dove's light wing can soar." We rejoice, then, in all the triumphs
   He has achieved, and all the power that He has in reserve for future
   conquests.

   And, Brethren, do we not, this day, delight in our King's present
   glory, and in the glory yet to be revealed? That He rules me is
   delightful! That He rules all worlds is also inspiriting. That He has
   power to execute His righteous will is also joyous. But oh, to think of
   His Glory! O you whose hearts have followed Him through the streets of
   Jerusalem in all His shame! O you who have stood with weeping eyes at
   Calvary's foot and seen Him there in death in all its bitter pangs, let
   your hearts be joyful this day when you remember that He has done with
   the Cross and the crown of thorns! Behold Him in His Father's courts!
   These dim, bleared eyes of yours cannot as yet steadily gaze upon Him
   face to face, but let your faith behold Him.

   Like the sun in the firmament His glory flames forth! Angels and
   principalities, and powers are lost in the blaze of His brightness.
   Hear their hymns! They are all for Him. Behold them as they bow. They
   bow before the Lamb once slain. Unto Him that lives and was dead, and
   is alive forevermore, the song of cherubim and seraphim ascends. And
   yonder white-robed ones, once like yourselves wrestling hard with
   temptation, now conquerors! What music have they but the music which
   they bring to Him? All harps praise and all hearts adore the King in
   the midst of Zion! Blessed be His name! O that I had permission to bow
   so near to Him as to kiss His feet!

   Would God I might but steal into the lowest seat among the general
   assembly and Church of the First-Born, and but for a moment gaze upon
   that God-like face which was stained with spittle for my sake! I would
   ask no higher joy than to look upon that Person once despised and
   rejected on my account, but now adored of angels and admired of all the
   saints! You, you suffering Saints, are in your shame, but think little
   of it, for He is in His glory. You are in your suffering, but what
   matters since He is in His triumph? Children of Zion, enter into this
   joy, and this day be joyful in your King!

   I might thus enlarge upon the Divine Object of our joy, but I will not,
   except to say well may we, who are the children of Zion, be joyful in
   our King, because of all that our King has done for us. Is it a fair
   city in which we dwell, in the Church of God? He built it! Every stone
   is His quarrying, the architecture of every pinnacle is His. Nor is
   there anything of good within her walls which does not bear His mark,
   for every good gift has come from His hand.

   Are we well clothed today? The robe of righteousness we wear was worked
   by Him. Every ornament of our sanctifi-cation is His royal gift. Are we
   satisfied at the Gospel feast? Then He Himself is our Bread. Out of the
   storehouses of our great Solomon come forth the fine flour and the fat
   things full of marrow which satisfy all those that wait at His Table.
   Have we a portion and a heritage? We have received it all from Him! Are
   we saved from the second death, are we delivered from the guilt of sin?
   It is all through Him!

   The old poem of one of our writers sings of the "Man of Ross," and
   declares that every institution of the town told of his liberality and
   benevolence--you asked, "Who built this fountain?" or, "Who founded
   yonder school?" The one answer was, "The Man of Ross." So surely if you
   ask us concerning our privileges, possessions, hopes, and enjoyments,
   we trace them all to Him who is the Alpha and Omega of our salvation.
   He elected, ordained, redeemed, called, established and built up His
   Church, and to Him, our Lord and King, be praise forever and ever! O
   children of Zion, be joyful in

   Him!

   III. Thus I have spoken of the persons who rejoice, and the King in
   whom they rejoice. We will now remind you,

   thirdly, that THIS JOY IS PERMANENT IN ITS SOURCE. One is very grateful
   to think that there is beneath the stars

   one joy which need never be suspended. Everything here below is
   uncertain. We build, as we fancy, for eternity, and find our fabric
   demolished in an hour. The brooks of earth are deceitful, but here is a
   river whose joyous floods no winter can freeze, no summer can dry up.
   Today our reasons for disquietude are many. You are lovers of the
   Gospel, and if so, I know that in this age you will see much to
   distress you. My heart is joyous in Christ, but it is very heavy in
   many respects, especially concerning the precious interests of the
   Truth of God and holiness.

   Look around us at this time at the numerous misuses of the doctrines of
   the Gospel among our ministers and leading men. First one and then
   another--those who seemed to be pillars are shaken like reeds in the
   storm. A pestilence has gone forth from which few of our Churches are
   free. Human intellect is adored as an idol, and in its pride it changes
   the teaching of the Word of God, and sets up new dogmas which the Word
   of God utterly rejects. If these things depress our spirits,
   nevertheless let us be of good courage. For if we cannot be joyful in
   our ministers, we will be joyful in our King!

   If the pulpit fails us, the Throne is ever filled by Him who is the
   Truth. And if we have to suspect the orthodoxy of one, and to know the
   heterodoxy of another--to see Judas here and Ahithophel
   there--nevertheless Judah still rules with God and is faithful with the
   saints. Our King abides, and His Truth endures to all generations. At
   times our heart is bowed down because of the backslidings revealed in
   the moral and spiritual characters of our Brethren. They did run well,
   what hindered them? They were foremost once, where are they now? They
   were burning with zeal--why are they now so lukewarm? Where has their
   ardor gone?

   We hoped that they would be our joy and crown, but they have gone out
   from us because they were not of us. Moreover, we mourn that those who
   are truly saints do not exhibit the spirit of Christ so manifestly as
   we would desire. We see among them too little earnestness, too little
   holy jealousy. Well, if we cannot be joyful in our fellow citizens we
   will be joyful in our King! When our heart is ready to break because we
   see so much of our labor lost, and so many tempted of Satan, turning
   aside, we will rejoice that the honor of our exalted King is still safe
   and His kingdom fails not!

   This is an age--I fear I must say it--of very general declension in
   spiritual things. Much profession of religion and little earnest
   contention for the faith. Much talk of charity but little zeal for the
   Truth. Much boast of high-toned piety but little vital godliness. Yet
   if the famine in the Church should grow worse and worse, till the
   faithful utterly fail, and rebuke and blasphemy abound, we must not
   cease to rejoice in the Lord!

   We, ourselves, have grave cause to complain of ourselves when we
   examine ourselves before the Lord. Never pray we a prayer but what we
   would wish to have it forgiven as well as answered. Our faith is
   frequently so weak that we scarcely know whether to call it faith or
   unbelief. As for ourselves, we are a mass of flaws and infirmities. O
   God, we might be very heavy if we thought only of our own personal
   barrenness, but we will be joyful in our King! We will sing again the
   royal song. There are no flaws in Him, no imperfections in our Beloved,
   no coldness, no turning aside in Him.

   Glory be to His name! My Brethren, you who are at work for the blessed
   Master, I know you do not always feel satisfied with your success. I
   am, myself, pining for greater harvests. I would I heard of more
   converts. I would be delighted to lose my eyes if I might but know that
   many found sight through Christ. I would welcome any affliction if I
   did but know that souls were being saved. But when we preach in vain
   and say, "Who has believed our report?" it is delightful to return unto
   our rest and feel, "Nevertheless, the pleasure of the Lord does prosper
   in His hands. He shall see of the travail of His soul." If I cannot be
   joyful in my converts I will be joyful in my King!

   Many of you, perhaps, are passing through deep waters in your temporal
   circumstances. If you cannot be joyful in your property, be joyful in
   your King! Perhaps your children are not turning out as you could wish.
   I am sorry you should have such perplexities with those who have been
   the subjects of so many prayers. But if you cannot be joyful in your
   children, be joyful in your King! It may be you, yourself, are much
   afflicted in body, and you are afraid the afflic-

   tion will grow more severe. Well, if your heart and flesh fail you, yet
   your King will not! The eternal springs are out of reach of change.

   How little does your joy depend upon the creature! Your bottle, like
   Hagar's, may be dry, but yonder is the well of water which never can
   fail you. There is always reason for being joyful in your King! And
   when you come to die, and the pulse grows faint and feeble, oh, then
   will be the time for you more than ever to be joyful in your King,
   whose Face you are soon to see in all its beauty! Whose praises are to
   be your eternal employ! Here, then, is a joy for all God's people, a
   joy that is founded in reason, grounded and bottomed in solid
   realities, seeing it is a joy in an immutable Christ.

   Our joy is no passing meteor, but a fixed star. When the wicked have
   spent their penny, our treasure will be undimin-ished. Jesus, our King,
   never changes, and never will lose His preciousness in our esteem. His
   name is always sweet, His fullness is always abounding, His love is
   always overflowing. We have always cause, even in our worst estate, to
   be joyful in our King. The saints shall sing aloud upon their beds.

   Let me thrust in one sentence here. I do not think it is so difficult
   to rejoice in our King in dark afflictions as it is to remember to
   rejoice in Him only in our sunniest days. Successful minister, are you
   rejoicing in your success? Hear Him say, "Nevertheless, rejoice not in
   this, but rather rejoice that your name is written in Heaven."
   Successful merchant, happy parent--are you rejoicing in these outward
   comforts? Hold them loosely, for they are slippery things. Set small
   store by them, for they will soon melt away. Do not, like the Russian
   queen, attempt to build a palace of ice. Its brilliance is too
   short-lived. Hold to the Well-Beloved when the way is smooth, even as
   you held to Him when the path was rough. As in your adversity you found
   all in Him, so in your prosperity see Him in it all.

   IV. I will add, in the fourth place, THAT THIS JOY OF OURS, THOUGH SO
   PERMANENT IN ITS SOURCE, HAS CERTAIN OCCASIONS FOR ITS MORE SPECIAL
   DISPLAY. Jordan was always full, but it overflowed at certain seasons
   of the year. Our lake of joy is full now, let me pull up the sluices
   for a minute, that the floods of bliss may leap forth. When does a
   nation rejoice in its king? Well, there are two or three seasons in
   which nations set apart holidays to celebrate royal events. The first
   is at the coronation. Then they hang out all the flags and streamers,
   and adorn the streets and houses. Then all the music sounds, and the
   bells ring merrily, and all the pomp of the country is displayed. So
   let us this day be joyful in our King, for He is crowned King in our
   souls.

   Look back to the time when first you crowned Him in your hearts--that
   happy day when first you saw Atonement through His blood, and looked to
   Him and were saved. That coronation day will never be forgotten by you.
   It is to you the day of days, even as the night in which the children
   of Israel came up out of Egypt. Keep the record of that coronation day
   in your hearts. "I was forgiven, I was accepted of Him." He stretched
   out His silver scepter and said, "I have pardoned your iniquity," and
   because of this I called Him "My Lord, my God, my King." My heart shall
   rejoice in Him whom again, today, she crowns King of my body, soul, and
   spirit.

   Another day of joy with nations is the day of the royal marriage. Did I
   not see you climb to the very chimney tops, crowd your windows, and
   line your streets when but the other day a prince brought home his
   spouse from afar? And should it not make our souls rejoice within us
   when we hear that Christ has married His Church to Himself, and taken
   us to be His spouse in bonds of love? Last Sunday morning's doctrine, I
   hope, has not gone from your souls--"He that is joined unto the Lord is
   one spirit," and if anything can make the bells ring in your heart it
   is to feel that you are one with Jesus--by vital, indissoluble
   union--one with Him.

   Keep up the recollection of your Immanuel's marriage in your souls, for
   it is your highest glory. Be faithful to your solemn marriage Covenant.
   Forget your kindred and your father's house--so shall the King greatly
   desire your beauty, for He is your Lord--and worship Him with joy this
   day. People rejoice in their king, too, when he makes peace. We had
   rejoicings for peace some years ago, and right glad we were to hear
   that the treaty of peace was signed. Jesus our King is our peace. Peace
   with an angry God. Peace for our torturing conscience. Christ has made
   and signed and brought peace in--yes, He Himself is our Peace.

   Then people rejoice in their king's victories. They hear that the royal
   arms have been victorious in battle. Then they make high holiday. In
   the olden times we read of the conduit of Cheapside running with wine
   instead of water on the event of some astounding victory of the English
   king over the French. O my Soul, when you remember Christ's victory
   over sin, death, and Hell, let your ordinary emotions which are but as
   water turn to generous wine of joy and thankfulness and consecration.
   All hail! Great Lord of Heaven and earth. Long live our King!

   Take your timbrel, Miriam, and join in the song, O Israel! For the
   right hand of the Lord has done wonderful things! This is known in all
   the earth. He has led captivity captive, and ascended up on high!
   Rejoice, you angels, sound all your music, you spirits, who triumph
   with Him. Crown Him! Crown Him King of kings, and Lord of lords!

   Sometimes I have heard, and you older men remember an instance right
   well, that a nation rejoices when a king keeps his jubilee. If he has
   been king for a long unbroken period, then will they rejoice in him.
   But our King keeps many a jubilee. He has the dew of His youth, and yet
   He is the Ancient of Days, whose goings forth were of old even from
   everlasting. He is the ancient King of Zion. Our great Melchisedek,
   without beginning of days and without end of years!

   Praise His name forever and ever! There is a rejoicing in the nation,
   too, when the king holds his receptions, when he has reception days,
   when he displays his majesty to his friends, and when he rides forth in
   splendor. I hope it is such a day as this with many of us at this time.
   May you sing this morning in your hearts--

   "The King Himself comes near,

   And feasts His saints today.

   Here we may sit and see Him here,

   And love, and praise, and pray.

   One day amidst the place

   Where my dear God has been,

   Is sweeter than ten thousand days

   Of pleasurable sin."

   This afternoon may the King show Himself to you through the lattices,
   revealing Himself to you in your meditations and private prayers. In
   your work for Him in the school may you see His glory. May He hold His
   reception today, and you be presented to Him in love as the attendants
   of His court, feeling yourselves to be accepted in the Beloved, and
   partakers of His joy. So you see, though our rejoicing in our King is
   one perpetual festival, yet we have our high days when the light of the
   sun is as the light of seven days.

   V. And now, to close. This being joyful in our King IS A JOY WHICH IS
   SURE TO HAVE PRACTICAL RESULTS. As time fails me, I will be but very
   brief on this point, and tell you an Eastern story. An Eastern merchant
   of great wealth employed a skillful workman in certain works of
   Oriental skill and elegance. His workman, by some means, had gradually
   sunk deeper and deeper in debt. Through extravagance, or loss, or many
   other causes, he had first fallen into a little debt, and then had
   borrowed, and loans and usurious interest had heaped up the amount till
   it was beyond hope that he should discharge it.

   The man grew daily more and more depressed, and as he sank in spirit be
   was smitten with sickness, and the skill he once showed in his master's
   service began to decline. Each product of his hand revealed less art
   and cunning. The hand of his art was paralyzed. Meanwhile his creditor
   became more exacting, and at last threatened to sell the poor man's
   children as slaves, according to the Law of the land, unless the debt
   was paid. This weighed more heavily upon the poor man's soul, and he
   worked less industriously and with decreasing skill.

   At last the merchant enquired of the steward of the workroom. "Ah,"
   said he, "was there ever a more cunning workman and he worked most
   dexterously. How is it that I see now no masterpieces come from him?
   His fabrics are few and in the market they are lightly esteemed. Our
   name suffers in the bazaar. Rival traders excel me in my works." "My
   lord," said the steward, "he is daily of a sorrowful countenance and
   forgets to eat bread. He keeps a long and bitter fast, for he is
   drowned in debt to a cruel creditor, and his soul pines like the heath
   of the desert. And therefore his hands are slow as that of an herdsman,
   and his eyes as dull as that of the owl in the sunlight. Beauty has
   forgotten him, and art has fled from him. He declines like one sick
   unto death."

   "Send for him, bring him here," said his lord. And he brought him to
   his chamber, "What ails you, Ali? What clouds your eyes, and chains
   your hands? You are not unto me as before. You were skillful as Bezalel
   who worked for Moses, but now you are no better than the baseborn son
   of an infidel mother. Is it that you are deep in debt? Behold your
   discharge, your debt is paid! What do you think? Will not your cunning
   return to your right hand?" That servant worked with a diligence never
   before seen! In the joy of his heart his mind became as nimble as the
   gazelle on the plain, and his work as precious as the pearls of the
   Indian gulf. The merchant found himself abundantly rewarded in his
   servant's skill and toil, for having thus set his heart at rest.

   Shall not it be thus with every ransomed soul to whom Jesus has brought
   the news of salvation? You cannot serve our King after the best sort
   with a downcast mind. You cannot give yourself entirely to His service
   unless you have the oil of joy to anoint your head! The wheels of the
   chariot are heavy till joy is harnessed to the car. The Lord Jesus has
   forgiven all your debt and given Himself to be your Joy forever, and
   should you not, from now on, be first in His service, manifesting an
   enthusiasm in His cause, a force, a power, an elasticity, an energy
   which otherwise you could never have felt? Joyous spirits, see to it
   that you keep your joy bright and clear, for you will honor your King
   the more.

   He wants not slaves to grace His Throne--rejoicing hearts are His
   delight. You who are sad, pray that the King will lift up the light of
   His countenance upon you, so that your drooping hands and feeble knees
   may be strengthened. Do not let us be sad, for the Bridegroom is with
   us! Let us not tremble for the ark of the Lord--Dagon will fall before
   it yet. Though the hosts of the Lord may appear to melt away and their
   numbers lessen, when they are few enough to be trusted with victory,
   the Lord will grant it. God will reserve unto Himself the handful of
   men that lap, and these shall go forth and cry, "The sword of the Lord
   and of Gideon," until the enemies of the Lord destroy one another.

   Let not the enemy laugh us to scorn because of our trembling. But let
   us charge home with renewed vigor, for Truth, for God, for Christ, for
   the Cross, for the everlasting decrees of a sovereign God, for the
   majesty of the Holy Spirit who will effect those decrees in the heart
   of men! Let us set up our banners anew and advance to the fight! Let us
   strengthen ourselves in God this day and go forth to the conflict,
   which if it is severe, will, nevertheless most certainly yield all the
   more glorious a victory to Him who is our King, and to us who loyally
   serve Him, even as we rejoice in Him this day!

   O that all were subjects of this King! Would God that those who are not
   reconciled to our Almighty Monarch would seek His face this morning! He
   will give them mercy through Jesus the Savior--may they seek it and
   find it. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Essence Of The Gospel

   (No. 964)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, DECEMBER 4, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He that believes on Him is not condemned. But he that believes not is
   condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only
   begotten Son of God." John 3:18.

   I MAY have preached from this text before. I may have done so several
   times. If I have not, I ought to have. It is the whole Bible in
   miniature. We may say of it so many words, so many volumes, for every
   single syllable here is charged to the full with meaning. We may read
   it, and re-read it, and continue still to read it day and night, yet
   ever find some fresh instruction in it. It is the essence of the
   Gospel. The good news in brief. When our Lord Jesus Christ shall come a
   second time, before Him shall be gathered all nations, and He shall
   separate them one from another, as the shepherd divides the sheep from
   the goats.

   That will not, however, be the first time in which the Presence of the
   Lord Jesus has acted as a separator. It is always so wherever He comes.
   Men are as one body in their fallen condition--all alike estranged from
   God until He appears. But His coming finds out the chosen and calls
   them apart, and on the other hand, the unbelievers are discovered. Two
   camps are formed out of the once-mingled multitude. Each goes to each,
   each one after its own kind finds its fellows, and between the two
   fellowships there is a deep gulf which divides them as clearly as light
   is distinct from the darkness, or death is divided from life.

   Other distinctions sink into insignificance in the Presence of
   Jesus--riches or wealth, learning or ignorance, power or weakness--are
   matters of too small account to divide mankind in the Presence of the
   great Discerner of spirits. Only these two characters--Believers and
   unbelievers--stand out in clear relief. As it is in our text, so is it
   as a matter of fact in the entire universe--the only two really vital
   distinctions for time and for eternity are just these--Believers and
   Unbelievers, receivers of Christ and rejecters of Him.

   Furthermore, as today the Presence of Christ divides the masses, and
   gathers men into assorted companies, so also does that Presence ensure
   a present judgment. It is written that He shall say to them on His
   right hand, "Come, you blessed," and to those on His left, "Depart, you
   cursed." And even so at this moment His Presence, with equal certainty,
   produces a judging. For here in the text we find Believers not
   condemned, or in other words, acquitted, and we find Unbelievers
   condemned already.

   The, "Come, you blessed," is anticipated in the non-condemnation, and
   the, "Depart, you cursed," is, as it were, already heard in the
   verdict, "Condemned already." I charge you, therefore, this morning,
   while the Word is preached in your hearing, to remember that a clear
   and all-important division will be worked while this sermon is being
   delivered. This day the Son of David holds His Throne, and in this
   house He sits in judgment. In the preaching of the Gospel at this
   moment His majestic voice divides the sinners from the saints, and if
   sensitive to His Presence, we shall either tremble or rejoice.

   God grant that while this division shall go on, as it must go on, for
   He will be this day a savor of death unto death or a life unto life to
   every one of our souls, we may all be found among Believers, and none
   of us shut out as condemned already by being Unbelievers.

   I. I shall ask you, this morning, first, to CONSIDER TO WHICH OF THE
   TWO CLASSES MENTIONED IN THE TEXT WE BELONG. "He that believes on Him
   is not condemned." Have we a share in that character? Let us see to it.
   What is meant by believing on Him, or rather in Him, for the word "eis"
   is rather in Him than on Him. If I mistake not, the word, "believes in
   Him," means a great deal more than most of us have seen in it.

   I think I see many shades of believing. There are some who believe
   concerning Christ, that is to say, they believe that He is the Messiah
   and is the Savior of men. Many accept this for a Truth of God because
   their fathers did so, and it is to

   them a matter of unquestioned tradition. They are born in what is
   commonly thought to be a Christian country, and therefore have they
   taken up with the Christian faith, and theoretically and notionally
   they believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the Redeemer of the
   world. They would not hesitate to stand up and say, "I believe in Jesus
   Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was begotten of the Holy Spirit,
   born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified,
   dead and buried," and so on.

   But remember, you may believe all that is orthodox concerning the Lord
   Jesus, and yet it will be no token that you are justified in Him. No
   one may dare to say that a belief in the Athanasian creed will ensure
   us of salvation. If you reject His Deity, if you deny His Atonement,
   such errors will be conclusive evidence that you are not a believer in
   Him, because you are not a believer of the Truth of God concerning Him.
   Therefore you must take your place among unbelievers, who are condemned
   already.

   But on the other hand, if you hold the Scriptural Truth, and believe
   accurately concerning the Lord Jesus, yet if you go no further, your
   mere faith about Him, or concerning Him, will not bring you salvation.
   To know Christ is of no avail, unless it can be said, "Flesh and blood
   has not revealed this unto you."

   It is a step further when we have come to believing Him. This is
   sometimes mentioned in Scripture--believing Him. "I know whom I have
   believed." Believing concerning Him that He is God's Christ, His
   Anointed, His Sent One, His Messiah, we therefore should, as a matter
   of course, accept whatever He says as being true. And if with our
   hearts we do this, I think we are saved. But we may think we do this
   and notionally may give our assent to His teaching, and yet,
   notwithstanding, we may not have attained unto His salvation. We may
   still be condemned Unbelievers, though we may think, and say, and
   profess that we believe Him.

   Frequently in Scripture there is another form of the believing which
   clusters about the Greek word, "epi," believing upon Him. Our
   translators seem to have placed the word "on" here as though it were in
   our text, but it is hardly so in the Greek. There is a difference
   between believing on Him and believing in Him. To believe on Jesus is,
   indeed, a saving faith, for He that believes on Him shall not be
   confounded. To believe on Him is, as it were, to lean upon Him, to
   receive Him as God has set Him forth, and, in consequence, to make Him
   the foundation of our hope.

   Believing concerning Him, and believing Him, we then come to repose
   upon Him, and to make Him our confidence. We believe that He can save
   us, we trust in Him to save us, and this is the essence of saving
   faith--to believe upon the appointed Redeemer. But in this particular
   case our text speaks of believing in Him, and this is something more
   than believing upon Him. Every man who really believes upon Christ will
   before long come to believe in Him. But there is a growth--believing in
   Him is more than believing upon Him.

   How is that? If I thoroughly believe in a man, what is the result of
   it? Is he an advocate, and am I immersed in law? Then I trust my case
   to him--I leave the affair in his hands without fear--for I believe in
   my advocate. Very good. So far that may be believing upon him. But now
   he gives me directions and rules of action. If I believe in him I shall
   certainly follow those rules to the letter, being fully convinced that
   they will lead me to a right issue. I commit the matter practically as
   well as theoretically to the man whom I have chosen to represent me,
   and I do so cheerfully, for I believe in him.

   I am like a man on board a vessel--I believe in him who is the captain.
   What then? If he bids me do this, or that, or the other, I may hear
   someone call his orders foolish, but I believe in him, and I do, at
   once, whatever he bids me. His bidding may appear absurd to one who has
   no faith in him, but to me it is wise and right. Suppose there should
   be raised up at this juncture for poor unhappy France, a man of high
   military genius, a man who shall be capable with such material as may
   come to hand to meet the terrible foe, and to disperse the cloud which
   now hangs over the capital city.

   If the people shall believe in the man, what then? Why they will
   surrender the direction of affairs to him. They will implicitly follow
   his lead. Does he command a sortie, does he bid the army advance? They
   believe in him, and the sortie is made, and the troops advance
   gallantly to the conflict. Should he counsel delay, and the avoidance
   of a great battle, those who believe in him will entrench themselves,
   or retire before the foe.

   If they are absolutely sure in their hearts that he is the man who
   guarantees victory, they will be certain to obey his orders. He will be
   their oracle, their dictator, and that most joyfully on their parts. So
   that to believe in our Lord means this--that I believe Him to be the
   Son of God, and believe all other Truths of God concerning Him. That I
   also believe whatever He says to be the Truth of God. In other words, I
   believe Him. Yet more than this, I cast my soul upon His atoning merits
   that He may save it, and so believe upon Him.

   And furthermore, having so done I give myself up entirely to the
   Savior's holy guidance. I believe Him to be infallible as the director
   of my spirit. I feel a union with Him. I come to be in Him--His cause
   is my cause, my cause His cause--I believe in Him. Now this is the Man
   of whom the text says, "He that believes in Him is not condemned," and
   the question I put this morning to myself and to you is, Have we
   believed in Jesus? Do we really take Him to be our All in All? Do we
   consent that He should guide and lead us till He brings us to eternal
   felicity?

   The connection of our text will help us to form a judgment as to
   whether we are, indeed, Believers in Jesus. Brothers and Sisters, have
   you realized, by a true exercise of faith, what is meant by the
   fourteenth and fifteenth verses of the present chapter? "As Moses
   lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
   lifted up: that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have
   eternal life." As the serpent-bitten Israelite looked to the bronze
   serpent when it was uplifted, have you, in the same way, looked to
   Jesus and found healing through looking to Him?

   By this you may judge yourselves. Have you been healed of the wounds of
   sin and quickened into a new and heavenly life? Have you in very deed
   made the crucified Savior your soul's resting place? In the verses
   which follow the text, you find such words as these, "He that does the
   truth comes to the light." Do you, my Brethren, as the result of having
   trusted in Christ come to the light? Is it your desire to know God's
   Truth, God's will, God's Law, God's Word? Are you seeking after the
   light, and are you desirous that the works worked in you should be seen
   to be the fruit of God's own Spirit? By this, also, can you judge
   yourself?

   It is vain to say, "I trust in Christ," if you have never looked to Him
   with that same childlike look with which the Israelite looked to the
   bronze serpent--and equally vain for you to profess to be a believer in
   Him, unless you desire the light. You may be in partial darkness still,
   as doubtless you are, but are you seeking more light, seeking God,
   seeking Truth, seeking right? By this shall you know whether the Father
   has begotten you unto a new birth, whether you are to a certainty a new
   man, no longer a light-shunner but a light-seeker. No longer, because
   your deeds are evil, seeking to conceal yourself from the convicting
   Word of God, but because your deeds are truthful, seeking to receive
   more light, that your works may be made manifest to your own conscience
   as being truly worked of God in your soul.

   The consideration which I proposed just now has to be taken up with
   regard to the second class. Are we Unbelievers? It is to be feared that
   there are some such here. If that is so, it may be of some service to
   them to know where they are, and what they are. "He that believes not
   is condemned already." Some of you here are very inconsistent, because
   though you believe not in Christ Jesus, that is to say, do not trust
   your souls with Him, nor give yourselves up obediently to serve Him,
   yet you believe concerning Him that He is the Christ of God.

   And if He were here today and spoke to you, you would believe His
   Words, though I cannot say you would so believe them as to act upon
   them. It is so very strange that you should believe Him to be the Son
   of God and yet should not trust Him! You believe what He speaks is
   true, and after He has warned you of the wrath to come you still sit
   down in stolid indifference and do not seek the salvation which He
   provides. Instead of looking to the bronze serpent, you act as the
   Israelites would have done had they sought out another remedy.

   You have not believed in Christ, but if you have any belief that you
   need a Savior, I suppose your own common reason makes you seek one. You
   are evidently, therefore, seeking another salvation than that which God
   provides. You are refusing what God has ordained, that you may find
   something of your own. There is but one Savior--that Savior this day
   you will not trust in--you are refusing Him to your own destruction.
   You are this day shutting your eyes to the one only Light, and though
   you have some desire towards light at times, yet you love darkness
   rather than light, and still continue as you were--dark, dark,
   dark--for you do not like to be reproved.

   You cannot bear that the Gospel should come too cuttingly home to touch
   you in your conscience and rebuke you for your sins. To this day you
   remain an Unbeliever and a lover of the darkness. Search, I pray you,
   and look! While this heart which now addresses you will pity you, I
   trust God's heart may pity you, too, and may you yet escape out of the
   condition of the Unbeliever, and yet be numbered with the Believers in
   Christ.

   Thus much on our first point, which I leave to your earnest
   self-examination, hoping that it may not be treated lightly.

   II. Now, secondly, and for a very short time, let us CONSIDER THE
   CONDITION OF THE BELIEVER. "He that

   believes on Him is not condemned." What a joyful sentence is this!
   Provided you have ascertained that you do believe in

   Jesus, turn this sweet word over and over in your souls, my Brethren.
   Is it not delightful to think that you have it from God's own mouth by
   inspiration, and to note that the inspiration is of a remarkable kind,
   for you have it not only by the Spirit of God, but you have from Jesus
   Christ Himself the sweet assurance that you are not condemned!

   What joy, what peace this Word should speak unto your soul! Let me show
   you for a minute how the Believer escapes condemnation. "He that
   believes on Him is not condemned." One reason is because he does not
   offer himself for judgment. He that believes in Christ does not present
   himself to be tried. He says, "No, my Lord, I have no argument with
   You, I plead guilty, I confess the condemnation. There is no need of
   trial. You are justified when You speak, and clear when You condemn."
   There sits the Judge, and the prisoner should stand opposite to him,
   for they are two parties. But behold, in this case the prisoner leaves
   the place, declines a trial, falls at the Judge's feet, acknowledges
   that the sentence, if carried out, would be just, and pleads guilty.

   Having done this the Believer sees that the sentence which he
   acknowledges and confesses to be right has been already laid upon his
   Surety--and in that Surety he believes. What does he believe about Him?
   Why, that God, that He might magnify His Justice and His Grace, was in
   Christ Jesus! And that the Son of God did hang upon the Cross, and
   bleed and die, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.
   The Believer confesses the justice of the sentence, and therefore is at
   one with God. He comes to the Light, and his deeds are reproved, and he
   accepts the reproof, and acknowledges it to be true.

   Then he looks to the Cross, and he says, "This very sentence to which I
   do subscribe with my own hands that it is just, has been laid upon my
   ever glorious and blessed Surety, the Only Begotten of the Father, and
   He has been punished instead of me. And I am therefore free, since
   Christ died as my ransom." This is the way in which the Believer comes
   not to be condemned--he accepts the condemnation, and then sees it laid
   upon his Surety! This brings him peace. The Justice of God would have
   disturbed his mind. He sees that Justice satisfied, and he declares in
   his own heart that if God is satisfied, he is satisfied.

   If God's Justice is honored, then conscience feels that all is well.
   And now what happens? Why this believer in Christ, not being condemned,
   seeks the light--from this day forward he desires more and more to walk
   in the light of knowledge, the light of the Divine Presence, the light
   of Divine holiness. O my Brethren, there was a time when our souls
   inclined after sin! But now, though we sin, we mourn over it, and
   because we mourn it we have evidence that "it is no longer I," as the
   Apostle says, "but sin that dwells in me."

   The very inmost I, the true, most real ego within my soul now desires
   holiness. If we could be as we would, we would be pure as God is pure.
   Our heart hungers and thirsts after righteousness. We come to the
   Light, and now, having believed, we are in such a condition that our
   deeds, though discovered, do not bring us shame and confusion. In that
   very Light our works are made manifest that they are worked in God--and
   we rejoice that God is working in us by His Spirit holy desires,
   emotions, and actions--which shall go on increasing until we shall be
   perfectly delivered from sin.

   This is the condition of the man who believes in Christ! It is a very
   happy condition, a very hopeful condition, a very heavenly
   condition--who would not desire to be in it? It all hinges upon the
   believing, for with the believing in Jesus there comes the new birth.
   With the new birth comes the desire after Light. With the desire after
   Light there arises a progress towards it--and a manifestation of the
   secret working of the Holy Spirit within the soul. Happy Believers,
   thrice happy in what you are as well as in what you shall be!

   III. And now, thirdly, and here comes our most solemn work--may God's
   Holy Spirit help us in it. CONSIDER THE CONDITION OF THE UNBELIEVER.
   "He that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed
   on the name of the only begotten Son of God." Observe the fact, itself,
   which is here stated! "He that believes not is condemned already." Let
   me enlarge upon this very solemn Truth of God.

   First, the Unbeliever offers himself for judgment. "He has not believed
   on the name"--what is the name? It is the Savior, Jesus. He who
   believes on Jesus, the Savior, confesses that he needs saving and
   declines to stand on the footing of Law. But he who refuses the Savior
   does in effect say, "I do not require a Savior, I am willing to stand
   my trial by the Law." I tell you, every soul that declines a Savior,
   does, in effect, ask to be judged by the Law. There stands the
   alternative--are you guilty--will you confess it? If so, accept the
   Savior.

   But if, on the other hand, you say, "I will not accept the Savior," in
   the bottom of your soul there lies the presumptuous conceit, "I can
   stand the judgment. I do not want pardon and Grace." Then, Sir, if you
   ask for judgment you shall

   have it! And behold the result of it--God declares you to be condemned
   already. You have not believed, you have asked for judgment, you shall
   have it, but it is your ruin.

   The Unbeliever, himself, gives personal evidence to his own
   condemnation. Do you enquire how he does this? The text points us to
   his not believing. Is yonder person a condemned or not condemned man?
   Ask him what he thinks of Christ. If he replies honestly, he says, "I
   do not accept God's testimony about Jesus Christ. I do not receive
   Jesus as my Savior." Either he claims that he does not need a Savior or
   else he does not feel that Jesus is the Savior he needs. He rejects the
   testimony of God concerning Christ--is not that enough to condemn a
   man? If a man, in the very presence of the judge, committed theft or
   murder, he would condemn himself. But is it not a still higher offense
   than this, in the very Presence of God to do despite to His Son by
   practically declaring His work and blood to have been unnecessary?

   Is it not the height of daring that a soul should stand in the Presence
   of the God of Mercy and hear Him say in His Word, "Behold the Lamb of
   God, which takes away the sin of the world," and that the soul should
   reply, "I have nothing to do with the Lamb of God"? What further
   witness do we want with regard to your enmity to God? He that will not
   believe in Christ would murder God if He could. His not believing in
   Christ is virtually to make God a liar.

   Still further, he that believes not in Christ gives evidence against
   himself, for he rejects "the name." Observe the text, "He has not
   believed on the name." As I had already hinted, that name is Jesus, the
   Savior. The man says, "I will not have the Savior." Many of you have
   not said so much in words, but you practically say it. For you do not
   believe in the Savior. You remain at this moment Saviorless--out of
   Christ--without hope, without pardon, without mercy. And you have
   continued to do so under the preaching of the Gospel now for many
   years.

   What more evidence do you want? If a man will reject God, even as a
   Savior, there must be a dreadful venom in his heart against God. If God
   appoints Christ to be King, and I reject Him, that rejection shows that
   I dislike God. But when He appoints Him to be a Savior, the errand
   being one entirely of mercy and goodness, if I reject Him I must in my
   soul have an amazing depth of enmity against God. By this clear proof I
   condemn myself!

   My Brothers and Sisters, if you look at the text again you will see
   that he who believes not, rejects a most exalted Person. For he has not
   believed on the name "of the only begotten Son of God." What a word is
   that, "On the Jesus, who is God's only begotten Son." I wish I had
   language suitable for the utterance of a thought which presses down my
   very spirit, as it did last Sunday evening. That God should send a
   Savior, and for a Savior the Only Begotten, the Lord of Heaven and
   earth, without whom was not anything made that is made, and that He
   should come with testimony of love, the love of God to sinners, and
   seal that testimony with His blood. And that men should refuse to
   believe in Him!

   It is the most monstrous iniquity that could be imagined! I cannot see
   that Satan, himself, with all his blasphemy, has ever gone this length.
   He was never placed where he could reject, as a Savior, the only
   begotten Son of God. When men rejected Moses they perished without
   mercy, for he was sent of God. But when a man despises the Only
   Begotten, in whom dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily, we may
   well say--"Call no witnesses against the man, rake up none of the
   details of his past life, this is quite evidence enough."

   If he has not believed on such a One as this, he is condemned already.
   There is no need of a trial. Unbelief itself is the vilest of all
   treasons--out of his own mouth the sinner is condemned. Do you not see,
   O Sinner, how the matter stands? The infinite Lord of Mercy, that you
   might not perish, has devised a wondrous way of salvation which has
   astonished cherubim and seraphim, and made Heaven ring with song, and
   this you utterly reject! The plan so stupendous in conception is
   briefly this--that the Creator should suffer that the created rebel
   might escape--that the Infinite should come into this world and be put
   to shame that the guilty might be clear! And all you are asked to do,
   all that is demanded of you is that you submit to be saved by this
   plan--that you do but trust in the Jesus who is Divine, who is also
   Man--do but trust Him to save you.!

   Will you not? Oh, will you not? Sirs, will you spurn almighty love? Can
   you turn away from boundless mercy? Then what shall I say of you, but
   just what the text says--you condemn yourselves, you are "condemned
   already"? You must be infinitely wicked! You must be enormously,
   monstrously, diabolically at enmity with God, or else, surely, a
   benefit so precious you would not slight! Surely a plan of mercy so
   adapted to your condition you could not have the impertinence to
   reject! "Condemned already because he has not believed on the name of
   the only begotten Son of God." Solemn words! Hear them and tremble!

   From the verses following the text we gather that you Unbelievers go on
   to give further evidence against yourselves, for every man who rejects
   Christ, the true Light, always goes on to reject other forms of the
   Light of God's Word, God's Spirit, and his conscience. He loves
   darkness rather than light, and comes not to the Light lest his deeds
   should be reproved. You quench the Spirit, I know you do, if you reject
   the Savior. You turn a deaf ear to your conscience, you do violence to
   your own judgment. The Truth of God you do not wish to learn. It is not
   possible that you can be a candid seeker after light if you refuse to
   receive Him who is Truth's central Sun.

   Your further rejection of Light is confirmatory evidence that you are
   condemned already though your not believing is, in itself, evidence
   enough. And now solemnly, and in the name of Him that lives, and was
   dead, and is alive forever-more, speaking for that Christ who, though
   once He was slain, now sits at the right hand of God, I ask those who
   are under this second character to listen to these simple but weighty
   words of admonition. Consider, I pray you, O Unbeliever, that the
   condemnation which is pronounced upon you already is no matter of form.
   Our judges sometimes read out sentences of death upon a certain order
   of criminals. And the sentence is recorded though it is never intended
   that the sentence shall be executed.

   But from God's bar there never proceeds a sentence that is meant
   needlessly to alarm. You are condemned already, and as surely as you
   live, and as surely as God lives, He will not let His Word remain a
   dead letter. That sentence shall be no idle threat! In your proper
   person you shall be made to know what the power of His wrath is. "Who
   knows the power of your anger?" says the Psalmist. They only know it
   who feel it, and you will feel it before long, for the sentence will
   assuredly be fulfilled.

   The Lord has power at this or any moment to fulfill His sentence. What
   power have you to resist it? Who is there that can help you to
   withstand Him? You are utterly in His hands, you cannot escape from His
   prison. If you climbed up to Heaven He is there. If you dove to Hell He
   is there. The whole universe is but one great prison for an enemy of
   God. You cannot escape Him--neither can you resist Him. If your bones
   were granite and your heart were steel, His fires would melt down your
   spirit. Against Him you can no more stand than the chaff against the
   fire or the dust against the whirlwind. O that you would feel this and
   desist from your insane rebellion!

   Remember, there is no promise given to you that He will not execute the
   sentence of His wrath this very day. You have no warrant either from
   His Word or from His angels to assure you that God has suspended the
   sentence even for the next hour. You are living by His forbearance,
   spared by the Divine Sovereignty. Some rave against Sovereignty, but in
   this case it is not Justice that spares you, it is the mere will of God
   that for awhile keeps you out of Hell. You tell me that nothing
   endangers your life at this moment--how do you know that?

   The arrows of death often fly imperceptibly. I have stood in
   congregations preaching on two occasions when the unseen darts of death
   struck one of my hearers, so that one died on each occasion while
   listening to the Word of the Gospel. God needs no miracle to put His
   sentence into execution at this moment. He need not disturb the natural
   order of affairs for you to die instantly. And if He so willed it, your
   soul's destruction would, without the slightest effort on His part,
   take place at this very moment, even where you are.

   Remember with deep concern that God is angry with you right now. This
   statement is no invention of mine--it is written by the pen of
   Inspiration that, "God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turns
   not He will whet His sword. He has bent His bow, and made it ready."
   God is more angry with some of you than He is with some in Hell. Are
   you startled by the assertion? "It shall be more tolerable for Sodom
   and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment than for you." The sins you have
   already committed are greater than those of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the
   anger is in proportion to the guilt.

   An angry God holds you over the gulf of Hell. Justice demands that you
   fall into it--and it is nothing but His merciful will that keeps you
   out of it. He has but to will it and you who are condemned already
   would be forever where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched,
   before next time the clock shall tick.

   Up to this time, let me remind you, you have done nothing to appease
   the Divine wrath. You have gone on sinning. Or if you tell me you have
   reformed, that you have thought of these things, that you have
   prayed--do you think that such things will remove the Divine wrath? The
   Lord has told you that the only way of salvation is to believe in
   Jesus, but you try to find another. Do you think that such conduct will
   please Him, that such a procedure will make Him less angry

   with you? You insult His Son when you suppose that you can save
   yourself by your tears and prayers--will this turn away the Lord's
   anger?

   When you imagine that your Church attendance and Chapel attendance will
   save you, you set a low estimate upon what Jesus did. You do despite to
   the Cross as long as you remain Unbelievers. You say, "We are doing
   what we can." You are doing nothing, I tell you, that can appease the
   anger of God! You are rather, by these very actions of yours, which you
   think to be good, setting up in opposition to Him an Antichrist upon
   which He will look with abhorrence. He says He will save by Christ, and
   no way else. And so long as you seek another way, you, as it were, spit
   into the very face of the Only Begotten by the insolence of your
   self-righteousness.

   Meanwhile, let me remind you that God's wrath, though it comes not on
   you yet, is like a stream that is dammed up. Every moment it gathers
   force--if it bursts not the dyke--yet every hour is swelling. Each day
   and each moment of each day in which you remain an Unbeliever, you are
   treasuring up wrath against the Day of Wrath when the measure of your
   iniquity is full. How earnestly would I persuade you to escape from
   condemnation! If you dream that to be condemned of God is a trifle,
   undeceive your souls, for those who have passed where the sentence is
   executed, could they come back to you, need not tell the tale of woe,
   the very sight of them would convince you that to be lost is an awful
   thing!

   On their heads must fall the wrath of God, who, by softening down the
   punishment, become the means of hardening sinners in their sins. It is
   not within the power of thought to conceive what God's wrath is. No
   language, even though it should make both ears tingle, can ever fully
   express it. I am not one of those who would so delude your poor souls,
   O Unbelievers, as to make you think it a light thing to fall into the
   hands of the living God.

   O turn, turn, turn! Why will you die? Why will you reject Him whom you
   have such reasons to receive? Concerning whom His very Person is the
   best argument for love? The Christ of God must be worthy of our hearts'
   affections--His very errand on earth, as it seems to me, would, if we
   were not mad, ensure our confidence. For He came to SAVE, to PARDON, to
   pass by the sin of the past! Oh, why do you stand out against Him, and
   in this way pull down upon your heads the wrath of an angry God?

   Let me point out to you the way to escape. The only way of escape for
   any man or woman here is to believe in Jesus Christ. "I am praying
   about it," says one. My text says nothing of the sort. "I will think of
   it." Think of it? You will think yourself into Hell before long!
   Immediate faith is what I, as God's ambassador, demand of you in the
   name of the Christ of God--immediate, instantaneous faith in Jesus!
   Behold the emblem of the Gospel minister and of his message! Moses
   lifted up the bronze serpent in the wilderness upon the great central
   standard in the very midst of the camp where men were dying all around
   him. They are bitten with the serpent, and what has Moses to declare to
   them as a remedy? He bids them look and live!

   Some of them will think of it, some of them will consider it, others of
   them will pray about it. But he has no commission to console any of
   these--his one command is an immediate look--he has no promise to those
   who will not look. Even thus is Jesus lifted up among you. There is
   life in a look, life now, life at this moment. I cannot guarantee you
   that the serpent's bite shall not be your eternal ruin if you linger
   for a single hour. The Prophet's one word is, "Look now." Today, God in
   mercy sends to everyone in this house this message--"The times of your
   ignorance God winked at," but now commands all men everywhere to
   repent. He sends His Gospel message, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
   and you shall be saved."

   That message I cannot be certain will ever come to you again. "Now is
   the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." Every moment you do
   not believe, you are sinning against God by that unbelief. I cannot,
   therefore, tolerate that you should wait a moment. Jesus is God! He
   became Man! He died! He lives and bids you trust Him--promising that
   you shall live. Trust Him now, then! He is worthy of your confidence.
   Sin not against Him. Sin not against your own souls by rejecting Him.
   Remember what it was which Moses lifted up--it was a serpent--the image
   of that same serpent which bit them.

   Were they healed by looking to that which poisoned them? Assuredly they
   were. What is that which has poisoned you, Sinner? It is the curse of
   sin. What is that which I hold up today in the Gospel? It is Christ
   made a curse for us! He takes upon Himself our sin! Though in Him was
   no sin, yet He was made sin for us--and if you trust Him to be the
   sin-offering for you, to suffer for you, to bleed for you--and so trust
   in Him as to take Him from now on as your standard,

   resolving to follow the uplifted Crucified One throughout life, even
   until He brings you to God Himself in Heaven, you are NOT condemned!

   But if Jesus is lifted up and you refuse to believe, on your heads is
   your guilt, I say, with trembling solemnity, on your own heads is your
   guilt! Those words of mine, O Unbelievers, will be swift witnesses
   against you at the Last Great Day. As truly as ever Christ came to
   Jerusalem, so truly does He come to you, this morning, in the preaching
   of the Word. I am a poor feeble man, but I speak to you as best I can.
   Nevertheless, if you refuse my word it is not me you reject, that were
   nothing--you reject the Gospel which I preach to you. In the name of
   Him that made Heaven and earth, that made you, and holds you in life,
   against whom you have sinned, these terms of mercy are presented to
   you--will you have them?

   This Grace is brought home to you, and I am bid to press it upon you,
   even as the Word says, to "compel them to come in." If you reject the
   only begotten Son of God there must still abide against you this solemn
   sentence, "He that believes not is condemned already, because he has
   not believed." Did I hear you say, "I hope I shall believe." Sir, I
   have nothing to do with that, and I have no hope for you. "I hope I
   shall repent one day." I despair of you while you talk so. It is TODAY
   that God separates this congregation into the two parts, the Believer
   and the Unbeliever.

   Today He blesses the Believer and testifies that he is not condemned!
   Today He curses the Unbeliever and tells him he is condemned already.
   My business is not with tomorrows, nor can I promise that the white
   flag of mercy will be hung out tomorrow. Today the Cross is the banner
   of Grace. Look to it and live! It is the ladder which reaches to
   Heaven. The crucified Savior is the gate of salvation. O that you would
   receive Him! May God grant you may, and He shall be glorified by you in
   this life and in the world to come. God bless you. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Purging Out the Leaven

   (No. 965)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, DECEMBER 11, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Know you not that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?Purge out,
   therefore, the old leaven, that you may be a newlump, as you are
   unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
   Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the
   leaven of malice and wickedness. But with the unleavened bread of
   sincerity and truth." 1 Corinthians 5:6-8.

   "WHAT God has joined together, let no man put asunder." Evermore in
   Scripture the Doctrines of Grace are married to the precepts of
   holiness. Where faith leads the way, the virtues follow in a goodly
   train. The roots of holiness and happiness are the same, and in some
   respects they are but two words for the same thing. There have been
   persons who have thought it impossible that holiness should come out of
   the preaching of salvation by faith. If you tell men that "there is
   life in a look at the Crucified One," will they not conclude that
   cleanness of life is unnecessary? If you preach salvation by Grace
   through faith, and not at all by the works of the Law, will they not
   draw the inference that they need not be obedient to Christ, but may
   live as they wish?

   To this the best answer is found in the godly, honest, and sober lives
   of the men who are most zealous for the Gospel of the Grace of God. On
   the other hand, there have been others of Antinomian spirit who have
   dared to say that because they are saved, and Christ has finished His
   work for them so that nothing is left undone by way of merit,
   therefore, from now on they may act as they please, seeing that they
   are not under Law, but under Grace. Our reply is that the faith which
   saves is not an unproductive faith, but is always a faith which
   produces good works and abounds in holiness.

   Salvation in sin is not possible, it always must be salvation from sin.
   As well speak of liberty while yet the irons are upon a man's wrists,
   or boast of healing while the disease waxes worse and worse, or glory
   in victory when the army is on the point of surrendering, as to dream
   of salvation in Christ while the Sinner continues to give full swing to
   his evil passions. Grace and holiness are as inseparable as light and
   heat in the sun. True faith in Jesus in every case leads to an
   abhorrence of every false way and to a perseverance in the paths of
   holiness even unto the end.

   The Apostle Paul, while he was showing the Corinthians how wrong they
   were to tolerate an incestuous person in their midst, compared the
   spirit of uncleanness to an evil leaven. Then the leaven suggested to
   him the Passover, and turning aside for a moment, he applied the type
   of the paschal feast so as to make his argument yet more convincing. He
   would urge purity upon them by every conceivable reason, and his keen
   eyes saw an argument in the celebration of the Passover.

   In using this type he furnishes me with another proof of the fact that
   hard by any Scripture where you find the safety of the Believer
   guaranteed, you are sure to see necessary holiness set side by side
   with it. Here you have at the Passover a favored people safe beneath
   the sprinkled blood, safe in that dire hour when the destroying angel's
   sword was unsheathed--but you find that people busily engaged in
   purging out the defiling leaven from their houses--they were not saved
   by purging out the leaven, but were preserved by the sprinkled blood.
   They were obedient to the Divine precept, and diligently put away the
   corrupt and forbidden thing. The purity of the house from leaven went
   side by side with its safety by the blood.

   We shall, this morning, first, consider the happy condition of
   Believers. Next, the holy duty commended to them, running side by side
   with their privilege. And thirdly, we shall show how their happiness
   and holiness, their holiness and happiness, act and re-act upon each
   other.

   I. We have set forth to us THE HAPPY CONDITION OF ALL TRUE BELIEVERS IN
   CHRIST. "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us
   keep the feast." The habitual normal state of a Christian is that of
   one keeping a

   feast in perfect security. We are to be, as a rule, like the Israelites
   who stood at the table of the Passover festival, with loins girt, and
   staves in their hands, expectant of a joyful deliverance. Observe how
   the Apostle puts it--take his words one by one--"Christ our Passover is
   sacrificed for us."

   "Our Passover," that by which God's wrath makes a transition, and
   passes over us who deserve its full vengeance. It passed upon the Lamb
   of God, and therefore it passes over us. Christ is sacrificed or slain,
   His life is taken, for He gave Himself for us. His life and blood, yes,
   His true Self, He yielded up for us. The word for "us" implies
   substitution. Christ is sacrificed for or instead of us. We should
   never think of saying that Paul was sacrificed for us, though it is
   true Paul did lay down his life for the Church of God to promote the
   interests of the faithful, and in a certain sense, since his exertions
   handed down the Gospel, he died even for us.

   But we use the term so generally and so correctly in the sense of
   substitution, that we should not think of applying it to any but our
   Lord, who alone, in the fullest sense was sacrificed for us. He is the
   Lamb of our Passover, sacrificed on our behalf, that we might not be
   sacrificed--roasted in the fire of suffering that we might go free. It
   is by the process of substitution that, according to abundant
   Scriptures, believing sinners are passed over in judgment and so escape
   eternal condemnation. "For Christ also has once suffered for sins, the
   Just for the unjust, that He might bring us 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."

   "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse
   for us: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree."
   "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the
   obedience of One shall many be made righteous." No one can doubt this
   doctrine who believes the Word of the Lord by the Prophet Isaiah in his
   fifty-third chapter, "But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was
   bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him.
   And with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray.
   We have turned every one to his own way. And the Lord has laid on Him
   the iniquity of us all." "He shall see of the travail of His soul, and
   shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify
   many. For He shall bear their iniquities." "He was numbered with the
   transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for
   the transgressors."

   Our great joy is that the Sacrifice through which we are passed over is
   already slain. No new victim is expected or required. The Sacrifice by
   which we are delivered is complete. Accursed be all those who say that
   there is offered to God continually a sacrifice in the "mass" by which
   the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is rendered complete. He has said, "It is
   finished," and they are liars before God who say otherwise. "This Man,
   after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the
   right hand of God."

   Do you think I am severe in my speech? I say no other than Paul said,
   "If any man preach any other Gospel, let him be accursed." All that was
   wanted to atone for our sin, all that was required to vindicate the Law
   of God is already offered. There is nothing left to be presented by
   so-called "priests" on earth or to be made up by the penances and
   payments of their dupes. Our Passover is sacrificed. Let others offer
   what they will, ours is the Lamb once slain, and there remains no more
   sacrifice for sin.

   This completeness of sacrifice, indeed, is the main part of the
   festival which the Christian should perpetually keep. If there were
   anything yet to be done--if the substitutionary sacrifice were
   imperfect, how could we celebrate the feast? Anxiety would destroy all
   enjoyment. "It is finished," is the joyous peal which rings us into the
   celestial banquet of present peace! The fact that we are complete in
   Him--perfect in Christ Jesus--is our soul's deepest delight.

   Our sacrifice is slain--"therefore," says the Apostle--and it is a
   natural inference from it--"let us keep the feast." By which I
   understand this--Jesus Christ, the Paschal Lamb, not only was offered
   as a sacrifice towards God, but He has become a festival towards
   ourselves. In Him we have communion with God, and joy and peace through
   believing. We are to keep the feast by feeding upon Christ. The paschal
   lamb was not slain to be looked at, to be laid by in store, or merely
   made the subject of conversation. But it was slain to be fed upon.

   So, Christian, it is your daily business to feed upon Christ Jesus,
   whose flesh is meat, indeed, and whose blood is drink, indeed. Jesus is
   the Food on which your faith must be nourished. And what rich
   nourishment He is! God over all, blessed forever, has redeemed us. The
   Word made flesh, who dwelt among us, has been sacrificed for us. My
   soul, what more could be required? What more can you desire, or can the
   Almighty One demand? A sacrifice Divine, a perfect Man in union with
   the eternal God, dies for you. What more is needed to make your faith
   firm and unmoved? Come and feed yourself on this Bread which came down
   from Heaven!

   The infinite love of the great Sacrifice, the amazing wisdom of it, the
   transcendent merit of it, the abounding fullness of the blessings which
   it secures--let your souls consider these things, and feed upon them
   till they are satisfied with favor and full of the goodness of the
   Lord. Here is a festival the viands of which never can be exhausted,
   and from which the guests need never depart. Remember that at the
   paschal supper the whole of the lamb was intended to be eaten. And even
   thus, O Believer, the whole of Christ you are to feed upon.

   No part of Christ is denied you, neither His humiliation nor His Glory,
   His kingship nor His priesthood, His Godhead nor His Manhood. All this
   has He given to you and for you, and you are now to nourish your soul
   by meditating upon Him. Forget not, moreover, that a feast is not only
   for nourishment--it is for something more--for joy, for exhilaration.
   Let us, in this sense also, keep a lifelong feast. The Christian is not
   only to take the doctrines which concern Christ to build up his soul
   with them as the body is built up with food, but he may draw from them
   the wine of joy and the new wine of delight. It is meet that we rejoice
   in Christ Jesus. He is the bliss of the saints. Is it not a joy
   unspeakable and full of glory, that my sin will never be laid to my
   charge if I am a Believer?

   My sin has been laid at Jesus' door, and He has put it all away so that
   if it is searched for it shall not be found! Is it not an intense
   delight to believe that Jesus has so effectually put away sin that no
   destroying angel can touch one of His saints? There being no
   condemnation, there can be no punishment for us either in this world or
   in that which is to come. We are as safe as Israel when the door was
   sprinkled with the blood. And more, being justified, we rise to a
   higher position--we are adopted into the family of God, and if
   children, then heirs. What a vista of Glory opens before our eyes at
   the mention of that word, heirs of God!

   All things are ours, because Christ our Passover has been slain for us.
   My Brethren, do not let your religion merely keep you calm and
   quiet--look for bursts of joy. "Praise Him upon the cymbals, praise Him
   upon the high-sounding cymbals." Surely there should be an excitement
   of delight created by Truths of God so grand, by blessings so
   inestimable as those of which we are partakers! Let us not treat our
   religion as merely an ordinary meal for our souls, but as a holy
   banquet of wine wherein our souls may be exceedingly glad!

   When the Jews came together at the Passover, we find that they were
   accustomed to sing. They did not close the paschal supper without
   chanting some portions of the great "Hallel," which consisted of those
   Psalms at the end of the Book, dedicated to the praise of God. Let us
   keep the feast in the same way, nourishing our souls with Christ's
   sacrifice, making our hearts glad by reflecting upon the blessing which
   this has brought us, and never forgetting to magnify Jehovah, the
   Father, the Giver of Christ, the Founder of the Covenant, our God in
   Christ Jesus. Let your praises never cease!

   You remember what I started with--that when the Apostle says, "let us
   keep the feast," having drawn that exhortation as an inference from the
   fact that the Passover is killed, he does not mean, "let us sometimes
   keep the feast," but let us always keep it. Our Passover is perpetual.
   It has no times and seasons, it is lifelong. Salute your God each
   morning with your hymn of praise, you redeemed ones! Let not the sun go
   down without another hymn of thanksgiving. Praise Him, praise Him,
   praise Him!

   Ceaseless as your mercies let His praises be! O for the life of Heaven
   on earth, to be always praising God! Our Sacrifice is slain, therefore
   let us keep this feast of daily adoration and hourly thankfulness to
   Him who passed us by in mercy when He might have smote us in wrath. At
   the Passover the devout Jew was accustomed to teach his family the
   meaning of the feast. The children said, "What do you mean by this
   ordinance?" And then the father explained to them how they came out of
   Egypt, saying, "With a high hand and an outstretched arm Jehovah
   brought us forth. And on the night when He smote the first-born of
   Egypt, He smote not us, for the lamb was slaughtered, and when the Lord
   saw the blood upon the door He passed over us."

   Let it be a part of our continual festival--and I do not know a more
   delightful duty--to tell others what our Redeeming Lord has done! Too
   many of you need to be stirred up to this pleasant duty. When you once
   break through those wicked, cowardly habits--for I cannot help thinking
   them so in many of you--which lock your months and prevent your living
   Jesus praise, you will find it sweet to tell to your children and
   kinfolk the story of the Atoning Sacrifice. While blessing them, you
   will obtain a double blessing in your own souls, and if it should
   please the Holy Spirit to bless your teaching to the salvation of your
   fellow men, you will be happy, indeed.

   Do not suppose that I am exhorting you to keep the feast when you come
   to the Lord's Supper. I do not refer to that emblematic feast at all. I
   refer to our daily lifelong fellowship with Jesus. "Christ our
   Sacrifice is slain for us, therefore let

   us keep the feast." The inference is of continuous force. When is Jesus
   slain? Is He not slain at this hour? Was not His sacrifice completed
   upon Calvary's bloody tree? Therefore let us keep the feast always, for
   the Lamb is always slain. Our keeping of the feast is not a matter for
   times and seasons--festivals and holidays--it is always our position. O
   you who go with your heads bowed down like bulrushes, and yet are the
   Lord's true people, I would gladly put my hand on your shoulders and
   say, "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep
   the feast."

   Why should we lie in the dungeon when liberty is ours? "Alas," says a
   downcast one, "I have so many corruptions." I know you have, my dear
   Brother. We will talk about that directly, but "Christ our Passover is
   sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast." "But I have so
   many troubles and I am so very poor." So were many of the Israelites,
   but when they had slain the Passover they kept the feast. So,
   notwithstanding all these things which make you sorrow, you must feast,
   for "our Passover is sacrificed."

   "All my cares," says one. What business has a Believer with cares? Is
   it not written, "Cast your burden upon the Lord, He will sustain you.
   He will never suffer the righteous to be moved"? You cannot keep a
   feast while care, like a shrew, hovers above the table. But let us,
   like Abram, drive away the birds of prey, and keep the feast. "Ah, but
   I am thinking about the past, my old sins still haunt me." What? After
   Christ your Passover is slain? Surely the past is blotted out and
   forgiven. "Still," says one, "my mind is heavy, my harp is on the
   willows." Will not a sight of Calvary relieve you? Jesus Christ was
   made a curse for you that you might not be regarded any longer as
   accursed. Will not this make you lift up the note of thanksgiving?
   Certainly it ought!

   It should be always feast time with God's servants, since Christ their
   Passover is slain. "But I have nothing to rejoice in," says one,
   "except my religion." What more do you want? What was there brought on
   the table at that paschal supper by way of good cheer, except the
   paschal lamb? I grant you there was something else upon the table, but
   what was it? Bitter herbs. Surely those were not an addition to the
   joy? It was not sharp sauce such as we ordinarily use, but bitter,
   pungent herbs. These did not please the palate, yet they kept the feast
   upon the lamb, which was all they needed.

   So you may bring the bitter herbs of your deep repentance that your sin
   made it necessary that the Lamb of God should die. But all the feast is
   in Him, and all the world can contribute nothing to that feast but
   bitter herbs. If you had all the world, and derived comfort from it for
   a time, in the end it would become bitter as wormwood. Bitter herbs all
   things beneath the sky must be--only Jesus is the true Feast. My Soul,
   rejoice in the Lord always, for you have always reason to triumph,
   since Jesus Christ is slain!

   II. Side by side with the picture of the lifelong feast, we find A HOLY
   DUTY COMMENDED to us. "Purge out, therefore, the old leaven." "Let us
   keep the feast. Not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and
   wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."
   Leaven is used in Scripture, we believe in every case--there is only
   one case in which the question could possibly be raised--as the emblem
   of sin. This arises partly from its sourness.

   We, being ourselves leavened with evil, find leaven somewhat palatable
   at the first, but God, who hates all evil, puts away the type in all
   its stages. Sin, which for awhile may seem pleasant, will soon be
   nauseous, even to the sinner. But the very least degree of sin is
   obnoxious to God. We cannot tell how much God hates sin. With the
   entire intensity of His Infinite Nature He loathes it. He cannot look
   upon iniquity--it is detestable to Him, the fire of His wrath will burn
   forever against it--because sin is infinitely loathsome to His pure and
   holy Nature.

   He calls it leaven, then, because of its sourness. Leaven is, moreover,
   the offspring of a sort of corruption and tends towards further
   corruption. Sin is a corruption--it dissolves the very fabric of
   society. It dissolves the constitution of man. Wherever it gets into
   our nature it puts it out of order, disjoints it, destroys its
   excellence, and poisons its purity.

   Leaven is also very spreading. No matter how great the measure of
   flour, the leaven will work its way. There is no saying, "To here shall
   you go, but no farther." A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Even
   thus it is with sin. When that leaven had place among angels, it
   brought a multitude of them down to Hell. One woman sinned, and the
   whole human race was leavened by her fault. One sin drops into the
   nature, and it becomes entirely depraved, corrupt through and through,
   by the leavening influence.

   Now, according to the Apostle, if the leaven of evil is permitted in a
   Church, it will work its way through the whole of it. In the Christian
   Church a little false doctrine is sure to pave the way for greater
   departures from Truths of God, so that no one can predict the end and
   result of the first false teaching. You cannot say, "I will be so far
   unorthodox." You might as well break the dykes of Holland, and bid the
   sea be moderate in its encroachments.

   The doctrines of the Gospel have such a close relation to one another
   that if you snap a link, you have broken the whole chain, and we may
   say of the system of Truth what is written concerning the Law, "He that
   offends in one point is guilty of all." The renunciation of one Truth
   almost necessarily leads to the giving up of another, and before a man
   is half aware of it himself, he has let go the Gospel. I greatly fear
   that the denial of the eternity of future punishment is but one wave of
   an incoming sea of infidelity. Deny the awful character of sin, and the
   substitutionary work of Christ will soon follow.

   Indeed we have living proofs of this at this day and we shall see many
   more before long. The new teaching eats as does a canker. It speaks
   fair, but in its heart there is a deadly enmity to the Gospel itself,
   and the sooner it is seen to be so the better for the Church of God.
   The leaven of evil living, too, is equally obnoxious in the Church.
   Tolerated in one, it will soon be excused in another--and a lower tone
   of thought with regard to sin will rule the Church. The toleration of
   sin in the Church soon leads to the excusing of it, and that to the
   free indulgence of it, and to the bringing in of other sins yet more
   foul.

   Sin is like the bale of goods which came from the east to this city in
   the olden time, which brought the pest in it. Probably it was but a
   small bale, but yet it contained in it the deaths of hundreds of the
   inhabitants of London. In those days one piece of rag carried the
   infection into a whole town. So, if you permit one sin or false
   doctrine in a Church knowingly and wittingly, none can tell the extent
   to which that evil may ultimately go. The Church, therefore, is to be
   purged of practical and doctrinal evil as diligently as possible. That
   sour and corrupting thing which God abhors must be purged out, and it
   is to be the business of the Christian minister, and of all his fellow
   helpers, to keep the Church free from it.

   We will, however, view the text as relating to ourselves, and let me
   remark that the Apostle had in his mind's eye the custom of the Jews at
   the Passover. In consequence of the command that they should purge out
   the leaven at the Passover, the head of the household among the Jews in
   the olden times, especially when they grew more strict in their ritual,
   would go through the whole of the house on a certain day to search for
   every particle of leavened bread. It was generally done in the evening
   with a candle, and the servants and others would accompany the good man
   of the house to search for every crumb.

   Clothes were shaken, cupboards were emptied, drawers were opened--and
   if a mouse ran across the room and might be supposed to carry a crumb
   of bread into its hole--they trembled lest a curse should rest on the
   home. So strict did they become that our Savior might have rebuked them
   as straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel. We, however, have no
   need to fear excessive strictness in getting rid of sin. With as
   scrupulous a care as the Israelite purged out the leaven from his house
   we are to purge out all sin from ourselves, our conduct, and our
   conversation. Here is a task set before you, then, my Brethren.

   Note well, we do not urge you to purge out sin in order that you may
   save yourselves, for Christ our Passover is slain, and our salvation is
   secured. But that being done, in order that we may keep the feast and
   unbrokenly possess the joy of salvation, we are to purge out the leaven
   of sin. We may suppose that the Jewish householder would very soon put
   away all the large loaves of leavened bread that remained in the
   house--just as you and I, when we were sorrowing for sin--gave up at
   once all those gross outward sins in which we indulged before.

   Some of these have never tempted us again. Drunkenness, profanity,
   uncleanness--I have known men give up these sins at once, in a moment,
   and they appear to be delivered from their power from now on and
   forever. Then perhaps there were some stray crusts which the children
   had left. These were put away, also. So there may be certain minor sins
   in the judgment of the world which the Christian man, when converted,
   may not put away the first week. But when they are seen, he says, "I
   must have done with these! Christ, my Passover, has been offered. I
   cannot do this wickedness. I am a child of God, more is expected of me
   than of others."

   But the most trouble would be caused by the little crumbs of leaven.
   These might be hidden away in the cupboard, and perhaps it was a long
   time after the search began before the householder found these out. But
   when he did, he said, "Put them away, they must not remain." And,
   Beloved, many a Christian man has not found out the sinfulness of some
   actions for years after his conversion. I am very conscious that
   certain matters which I thought very lightly of years ago would greatly
   trouble my conscience now. As I have obtained light upon certain sins,
   I have, through Grace, put them away. But I expect as long as I live to
   find something which, viewed in a brighter light, and from a higher
   standing, will

   be discovered to be sinful--and I desire Divine Grace to have done with
   it. We must not hesitate for a moment. We must not retain even a crumb
   of the evil leaven. We must earnestly desire to sweep it all out.

   The whole house was searched. I have seen a picture in which the
   servant is represented as cleansing the cooking vessels in the kitchen,
   the housewife is searching garments and cups in the dining room and the
   master and his sons are opening cupboards, and chests, and diligently
   investigating. A Christian man may feel that he has got rid of all the
   leaven from his shop, he is upright and honest himself, and his system
   of business is just. Yet it may be there is leaven in his private
   house, for the children are uncorrected, the Sunday is disregarded, or
   the servants' souls are neglected.

   Perhaps the home is right, and then there may be leaven in the
   bed-chamber. Your conversation with yourself and your God may be in a
   sad condition. Prayer may be restrained. Suppose you have purged out
   the leaven of hypocrisy and are sincere--are you also free from the
   leaven of anger? May you not still be slow to forgive? Are you clear of
   the leaven of pride, or of covetousness? Every part of our nature needs
   searching--the heart, the judgment, the mind--all must be cleansed.
   Purge out the old leaven wherever it has penetrated. It must come away
   or else, though we are safe beneath the blood, we shall not know and
   enjoy our safety.

   The feast cannot be kept while the old leaven is willfully left within
   us. I told you that the head of the household usually performed the
   search. Let your best powers of judgment be exercised upon yourself, my
   dear Brothers and Sisters. Too many exercise their understandings in
   criticizing others, but they do not judge themselves in the same way.
   Let your main and chief thought be, now that you are saved, to get rid
   of sin. Let the master powers of your soul be called into this purging
   work, and ask the Master himself to aid you. Does He not sit as a
   refiner to purify the sons of Levi? Search me, O God! Try me, and know
   my ways! Your eyes can see what mine cannot. May the great Purifier put
   forth from us every crumb of the old leaven of our natural corruption.

   I said that a candle was used to throw a light into every corner of the
   house that no leaven might escape notice. Take you the candle of God's
   Word, the candle of His Holy Spirit. Do you say, "There is nothing
   wrong in me if I judge myself by my fellow men"? My Brothers and
   Sisters, it is a small thing to be able to say no more than this! To be
   approved of men is but a poor standard for a Christian. Does your own
   heart reproach you? Does the Word of God reproach you? To be measuring
   myself by my fellow men, and saying, "Compared with them I am generous
   to the poor, and diligent in God's service"--this is to be proud
   because you are taller than pigmies or fairer than blackamoors.

   Compare yourself with Paul, with John, with Brainerd or Rutherford--and
   even that is ill advice--for what were the best disciples compared with
   their Master? There must be no lower standard for us than the
   perfection of Christ. No attainment must ever satisfy us until we are
   conformed to His image who is the First-Born among many Brethren. You
   will tell me I am holding up a high standard. I am. But then you have a
   great Helper, and I will show you in a moment how you may be of good
   cheer concerning this business.

   To purge out the old leaven many sweepings of the house will be wanted.
   One certainly will not suffice. You must search, and search, and search
   on, until you get to Heaven. The motto of your life must be, "Watch,
   watch, watch." For, mark you, you are sure to leave some leaven, and if
   you leave a little it will work and spread. Sin has evermore a swelling
   tendency, and until the Holy Spirit has cut up the last root of sin,
   evil will grow up again in the heart. At the scent of water it will bud
   and put forth once again its shoots. Here is work for all time, enough
   to keep us busy till we land in eternity.

   It is hinted in the text that there are forms of evil which we must
   peculiarly watch against, and one is malice. Is a Christian man likely
   to be malicious? I trust in the strong sense of that term, we have done
   with malice, but, alas! I have known Believers who have had a very keen
   sense of right, and they have been commendable, who have too much
   indulged the spirit deprecated here. That is to say, they have been
   very severe, censorious, and angry--angry with people for not being
   perfect. Though not perfect themselves, and though they know that if
   they are better than others, the Grace of God has made them so, yet
   they are bitter and harsh towards the imperfections of Christian
   people. They cherish feelings of prejudice, suspicion, and ill-will.
   They do not seek the improvement of the faulty, but their exposure and
   condemnation.

   They hunt down sincere but faulty people, and denounce them--but never
   by any chance offer an excuse for them. In some Believers there is too
   much of the leaven of unkind talking. They speak to one another about
   the faults of their Brethren, and, in the process of gossiping,
   characters are injured and reputations marred. Now harsh judgments and
   evil speakings are to be put away from us as sour leaven.

   If a man has injured me, I must forgive him. And if I find him to be
   faulty, I must love him till he gets better, and if I cannot make him
   better by ordinary love, I must love him more, even as Christ loved His
   Church and gave Himself for it, "that He might present it to Himself a
   glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing." He did
   not love her because she was without spot or wrinkle, but to get the
   spots and wrinkles out of her, He loved her into holiness.

   Take heed, also that every form of hypocrisy be purged out, for the
   Apostle tells us to eat the Passover with the unleavened bread of
   sincerity and truth. Do let us leave off talking beyond our experience.
   Let us never pray beyond what we mean. Ask God, my Brothers and
   Sisters, to clean us from all unreality, that nothing may be in us but
   true metal. There is a strong temptation among Christian ministers, and
   Christian men of all sorts, to seem to be a little more than they are.
   God save us from it. The slightest taint of hypocrisy should be
   abhorred by the Christian man. All ill-will and all mere seeming should
   be detestable to the Christian, for where these are there can be little
   or no communion with Jesus. The fellowship of Heaven is not enjoyed
   where the leaven of Hell is endured.

   III. Our last point shall be touched briefly. THE HAPPINESS OF THE
   BELIEVER ACTS UPON HIS HOLINESS, AND HIS HOLINESS UPON HIS HAPPINESS.
   First of all, the happiness acts upon the holiness. We have drawn a
   picture of the paschal feast. Set it before you again. If I know that I
   feed upon Christ day by day, who has been sacrificed for me, the
   happiness I feel leads me to say, "Yet it was dearly purchased, my sins
   slew my Savior, and therefore will I slay my sins."

   Every taste you get of redeeming love makes you feel that sin is a
   cruel and detestable thing, and therefore you will destroy it. Sitting,
   as you do, within the house, and knowing that you are all safe because
   the blood is on the lintel outside--what next? Why, you will say, "The
   first-born sons of Egypt are slain, and am I preserved? What then? Why
   I must be God's first-born, and must belong to Him!" "You are not your
   own, but you are bought with a price," is the voice of the angel as he
   passes by the house which he must not enter to destroy. Has Christ
   loved me and died for me? Then I am His, and if I am His I cannot live
   in sin! If I am redeemed, how can I continue a slave? If I belong to
   Jesus I cannot serve the devil, I must be rid of sin.

   Then, further, if I feel that all is safe, my mind is calm, and I am
   able to care about the state of my heart. The Israelite was safe within
   his house, he needed not to keep watch and ward outside--the sprinkled
   blood was his security--and therefore he had time and space to see to
   the interior of his abode. "Now," said the Believer, "I have nothing to
   do with saving myself, for my salvation is finished. Therefore I will
   see to my growth in Grace." He who has outdoor work done for him may
   well see to his indoor work, and earnestly turn his thoughts to the
   purging out of the old leaven.

   The freedom you have from fear through the blood of Jesus gives you the
   peace of mind necessary for a thorough search after your sins.
   Moreover, the Christian man is encouraged to put away his leaven of sin
   because he has the foresight of a profitable exchange. The Israelite
   gave up leavened bread, but he soon had angels' food in the place of
   it. So the Christian says, "I give up these sins. They were sweet to me
   once, but now they are sour, stinking, corrupt leaven. I shall receive
   nobler enjoyments--fellowship with Heaven shall be my portion. I may
   gladly part with leaven, for I am called to eat the bread of angels,
   no, the Bread of God!

   The Christian, too, who knows that his sin is forgiven, feels that the
   God who could put away his load of sin will surely help to conquer his
   corruptions. When I see Calvary I believe everything to be possible. If
   Jesus can blot out sin, His Spirit can subdue it. The holy peace
   created in the soul by feeding upon Christ nerves the spirit for
   conflict with inbred sin. We will overcome it! We will drive out the
   Canaanites which defile our souls! We will be pure! We will be
   per-fect--for greater is He that is with us than all they that are
   against us. So you see our happiness in many ways promotes our
   holiness.

   I am quite sure you will not need me to enlarge upon the fact that
   holiness produces happiness. How quiet does the soul become when the
   man feels, "I have done that which was right, I have given up that
   which was evil." I grant you that the deep peace of the Believer arises
   from the sprinkled blood, but it is enjoyed by purging out the leaven.
   You question yourself and say, "Can I believe in Christ if I am living
   in sin?" and you get back the comfortable sense that Jesus is yours
   when you can honestly feel that you have, by the Holy Spirit, renounced
   your old sins. Purging out the leaven clears your evidences, and so
   enables you to keep the feast.

   You were safe enough through the blood, but now you find happiness in a
   sense of security, a happiness which would have been taken from you had
   you fallen into sin. My Brethren, how can we expect to enjoy communion
   with Jesus Christ

   while we indulge in sin? I am sure you will find that at the bottom our
   want of fellowship with Christ arises from our want of careful walking
   before the Lord. I read, sometimes, holy Rutherford's letters, and say,
   "I wish I lived like this." Now, if I do not do so, it is either
   Christ's fault or mine. Can I say it is Christ's fault? I dare not! He
   is as willing to reveal Himself to me as to any other of His servants.
   It is my fault, then.

   My dear Brothers and Sisters, if you do not walk in the light as Christ
   is in the light, it is not because He is not willing that you should
   walk in His Light--it is because you keep at a distance from Him, and
   so walk in darkness. Do you believe that the sad faces among God's
   servants are caused by their poverty? Some of the very poorest of
   saints have been the most joyful. Do you think they are caused by their
   sicknesses? Why, we have known persons confined to the bed of sickness
   twenty years who have found a very Heaven below in their chamber of
   languishing! What is it that makes God's people look so sad? It is the
   old leaven.

   "Let us keep the feast," says the Apostle, but it is useless to hope to
   do so while we keep the leaven. Perhaps there is one thing which we
   know to be our duty, but we have not attended to it. That one neglect
   will break up our festival. "He that knows his master's will, and does
   it not shall be beaten with many stripes." Are these stripes to be
   given in the next world? I do not believe it, it is in this world that
   erring Believers will be beaten, and very often depression of spirit,
   losses and bereavements happen to a Christian because he has knowingly
   violated his conscience by neglecting a duty or permitting a sin.

   Jesus will not commune with neglecters of His will. Jesus will have no
   leaven where He is. If you tolerate that which is nauseous to Him,
   expect not a comfortable word from Him. If you walk contrary to Him He
   will walk contrary to you. Can two walk together unless they are
   agreed? I would with much affection press these considerations upon
   you, for I have pressed them upon my own heart. I fear we shall not
   enjoy the blessing we have had as a Church unless there is more
   jealousy for holiness among us. I am afraid some of us are barren of
   spiritual usefulness because we do not watch against sin.

   O keep your conscience tender! Beware of getting it seared. It is like
   the pond in the winter--a very thin scale of ice is formed at
   first--but afterwards the whole surface becomes hard enough to bear
   half a town. Beware of the thin scale over your conscience! Keep your
   heart tender before God, ready to be moved by the faintest breath of
   His Spirit. Ask to be like sensitive plants, that you may shrivel up at
   the touch of sin--and only open out in the Presence of your Lord and
   Master. God grant it to you. God grant it, for Jesus' sake!

   This last sentence, and I have done. There are some here who are not
   saved. Notice how salvation comes--not through purging out the leaven!
   No, that operation is to be seen to afterwards. Salvation comes because
   the Paschal Lamb is slain. The soul feeds on Jesus--His blood is
   sprinkled--and the soul is saved. Afterwards comes the purging out of
   sin. Dear Soul, if you would be saved, do not begin at the wrong end.
   Begin with the Savior's blood! Begin with Calvary's Cross! Go there as
   a poor sinner and look to Him! And then after that we will say, "Let us
   keep the feast," and we will diligently see to it, in His strength,
   that the leaven is put away. God bless you for Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Joseph's Bones

   (No. 966)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, DECEMBER 18, 1870,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the
   children of Israel. And gave commandment concerning his bones." Hebrews
   11:22.

   WE cannot readily tell which action in a gracious life God may set the
   most store by. The Holy Spirit in this chapter selects out of good
   men's lives the most brilliant instances of their faith. I should
   hardly have expected that He would have mentioned the dying scene of
   Joseph's life as the most illustrious proof of his faith in God. That
   eventful life, perhaps the most interesting in all sacred Scripture,
   with the exception of One, abounds with incidents of which the Holy
   Spirit might have said by His servant Paul, "By faith Joseph did this
   and that," but none is mentioned save the closing scene. The triumph
   especially of his chastity under well-known and exceedingly severe
   temptation, might have been very properly traced to the power of his
   faith, but it is passed over, and the fact that he gave commandment
   concerning his bones is singled out as being the most illustrious proof
   of his faith.

   Does not this tell us, dear Brothers and Sisters, that we are very poor
   judges of what God will most delight in? Very likely, when we least
   please ourselves, God is best pleased with us. That prayer over which
   we groaned, and thought it was not prayer, may have had more true
   supplication in it than another intercession of which we thought far
   more highly. That sermon which made us lament in the bitterness of our
   soul because we thought we had delivered it so feebly, may have been,
   in God's sight, more precious than many a fluent discourse concerning
   which we congratulated ourselves.

   That trial which we thought we passed through with so much impatience,
   may have been before God an exhibition of true patience as He looked
   deep down into our souls. The tests by which we try ourselves are very
   inaccurate. It may be when we read our own biographies in the light of
   eternity we shall be surprised to notice that God has highly commended
   what we wept over--while much that we gloried in will be cast away
   among the reprobate silver.

   The Lord sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance,
   but God looks at the heart, and His glance pierces to the core. The
   Lord weighs the spirits. He estimates not by color, form, and glitter,
   but by actual weight, and therefore when He weighed up the character of
   Joseph He gave the preponderance to an incident wherein faith is really
   present in much force, but not to the superficial observer.

   It may seem surprising that the charge of Joseph concerning his body
   should be mentioned as a notable act of faith, and not the similar
   charge delivered by Jacob. For did not Jacob also give commandment
   concerning his bones? "And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to
   be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is
   in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of
   Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham
   bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a
   burying place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife. There they
   buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife. And there I buried Leah."

   He bade them carry his body to that dear mausoleum of the family at
   Machpelah, where his fathers rested. Why was not that a case of faith
   in Jacob as much as in Joseph? We cannot always speak positively of
   these things, but we think that there is a very decided difference
   between the two. You will notice that Jacob's wish to lie in Machpelah
   was by himself described as resting mainly on the grounds of natural
   affection.

   He speaks about his relationship to Abraham, to Isaac, to Leah, and so
   on, and with that natural feeling which is exceedingly commendable, but
   which is not a work of Grace. He desires to be buried with his own kith
   and kin. When his soul should be gathered to his people he would have
   his body lie side by side with his own relatives. This wish was
   probably as much an outgoing of nature as an expression of Divine
   Grace. Of course, natural affection would have led Joseph to desire the
   same thing, but he does not put it on that score.

   Moreover, you notice that Jacob commands his sons to do with his bones
   what they could readily do--they were to take him to Machpelah and bury
   him at once. He knew his son Joseph to be in power in Egypt. And
   therefore anything that was wanted for his funeral would be
   provided--the Egyptian court, as it proved, were ready enough to give
   him the most sumptuous interment. They even spent forty days in
   mourning for him, denoting, thereby, that he was a person held in high
   honor. Jacob therefore commanded nothing to be done but what could be
   done. There was no very remarkable exhibition of faith in commanding an
   immediate funeral which the filial love of Joseph would readily secure.

   He takes immediate possession of his sepulcher in Canaan, and for very
   excellent reasons, does not ask to remain un-buried till Canaan is
   possessed by his descendants. Jacob seeks immediate sepulture, but
   Joseph postpones his interment till the Covenant promise is fulfilled.
   Joseph not only wished to be buried in Machpelah, which was natural,
   but he would not be buried there till the land was taken possession of,
   which was an exhibition of the Grace of faith. He wished his un-buried
   body to share with the people of God in their captivity and their
   return.

   He was so certain that they would come out of the captivity, that he
   postpones his burial till that glad event, and so makes what would have
   been but a natural wish, a means of expressing a holy and gracious
   confidence in the Divine promise. It was faith in Jacob, but it was
   remarkable faith in Joseph. And God who looks not simply at the act,
   but at the motive of the act, has been pleased not to put down Jacob as
   an instance of dying faith in this particular matter of His Holies, but
   to award praise to Joseph as exhibiting in death a memorable degree of
   confidence in the promise.

   Probably Jacob's dying faith, when exercised upon other matters,
   outshone his faith in connection with his burial, while in his favorite
   son that matter was his leading proof of faith. We shall now come to
   examine this incident with some little particularity, and we shall find
   in it valuable lessons. May the Holy Spirit write them on our hearts.

   I think I see, first, in this word of Joseph on his deathbed, the power
   of faith. I see, secondly, the workings of faith, the forms in which
   this precious Grace embodies itself. And, thirdly, I see an example for
   our faith when we come to die.

   I. I observe in the text an example OF THE POWER OF FAITH. The
   endurance of true faith under three remarkable modes of test. First,
   the power of faith over worldly prosperity. "Not many great men after
   the flesh, not many mighty are chosen"--true enough is that word. But
   it was never said, "Not any great men, not any mighty are chosen." God
   has selected a few in places of wealth, and power, and influence who
   have faith in their hearts, and that in an eminent degree.

   Our Lord told us that it was "easier for a camel to go through the eye
   of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven," but He
   added, "the things which are impossible with men are possible with
   God." Observe, then, the difficulty which surrounded Joseph's case. And
   then remark how great must have been the faith which triumphed over the
   difficulty! Joseph's position, after he had passed through his first
   trials in Egypt, was a very eminent one. He possessed unbounded riches.
   He was the viceroy of the entire country, and Pharaoh had said to him,
   "Only in the throne will I be greater than you."

   He was, in all respects, except in name, the absolute lord of that
   great nation. He could do just as he willed. He was surrounded by all
   the state of royalty. And when he rode in his chariot through the
   streets the heralds cried before him, "Bow the knee." Yet all this did
   not prevent Joseph's possessing faith in God, and a faith which
   persevered even to the end!

   My dear Brethren, the trials of faith are usually those of poverty, and
   right gloriously does faith behave herself when she trusts in the Lord,
   and does good, and is fed even in the land of famine. But it is
   possible the ordeal of prosperity is far more severe, and it is
   therefore a greater triumph of faith when the rich man sets not his
   heart upon uncertain riches, and does not suffer the thick clay of this
   world to encumber his pilgrimage to Heaven. It is hard to carry a full
   cup with a steady hand, some spilling will usually occur. But where
   Divine Grace makes rich men, and men in high position of power and
   authority to act becomingly and graciously, then Grace is greatly
   glorified.

   You who are rich should see your danger. But let the case of Joseph be
   your encouragement. God will help you, if you seek His merciful aid.
   There is no need that you should be worldly, there is no need that you
   should sink the Israelite in the Egyptian. God can keep you, even as He
   kept Job, so that you shall be perfect and upright, and yet be
   exceedingly great in possessions. Like Joseph you may be at once richer
   and better than your brethren. It will be very difficult, and you will
   need very, very much Divine Grace, but the Lord your God will help you,
   and you shall learn, like Paul, how to abound. And, like Joseph of
   Arimathea, you shall be both a rich man and a devout disciple.

   Be it remembered, too, that Joseph was not only tried by riches, but
   that the trial lasted throughout a long life, from almost his early
   days to the close of his career. I suppose that for sixty or seventy
   years, at least, he stood in the high position of lord-lieutenant of
   Egypt with all the wealth of that great people at his feet, and yet all
   that time he remained true in heart towards the God of his fathers. May
   God give you who are in elevated places the like fidelity. May you
   remain unshaken under the most protracted temptation.

   Remember, moreover, that the society into which Joseph was cast by his
   position in Egypt was of the very worst kind as to spiritual religion,
   for the Egyptians were, to a man, idolaters. They were worshippers of
   all kinds of living animals and creeping things. A satirist said of
   them, "Oh, happy people who grow their gods in their own gardens," for
   they even worshipped leeks and onions--they were a most idolatrous
   people. And though far ahead of their neighbors in civilization, they
   were very low in the scale of religion. We think we see in Joseph, here
   and there, traces that he was damaged by Egyptian habits and customs,
   but still not so much as one might have expected--and in no degree so
   much as to make us suspect his fidelity to the one God.

   There must have been a deep, sound, depth of holiness in the young man
   or he would never have been able to live at court, and at an idolatrous
   court, too, and yet preserve his integrity and his faith towards
   Jehovah, the God of Israel. Do not forget that during a very great part
   of that time Joseph had not one single person to associate with who was
   of his own faith. Think what a trial that must have been to him! I have
   known persons very warm-hearted in religion while living with zealous
   Christians, and very diligent while listening to a lively ministry,
   who, when removed from Christian society, or compelled to sit under a
   cold ministry, have made a spiritual failure.

   Alas, I mourn over some who, when transplanted into sterner soil, have
   declined so that it were hard to say whether they are trees of the
   Lord's right hand planting or not. Joseph was removed to a place where
   there was no prayer in the household, no friends, no godly teacher to
   speak a word with, no one who knew of Jehovah or of the Covenant made
   with Israel. He was all alone, alone, alone in the midst of an
   idolatrous people--with all the temptations of Egypt before him. He was
   possessed of its riches and its treasures, and tempted to live as the
   people lived in all manner of heathenism.

   And yet, for all that, he endured as seeing Him who is invisible, and
   at the last he died full of confident, joyous and godly belief in the
   God of his fathers. Ah, this is a great triumph of faith, and I would
   urge any of my dear Brethren here, who really love the Lord, to seek
   that the work of Grace in them may be so deep, so true, so thorough,
   that if God should make kings of them they would not grow proud of it.
   If God should send them right away from Christian associations they
   would not forget Him. And if they were exposed to all the temptations
   of the world at once they would resist them all. The power of Joseph's
   faith was, you see, abundantly evidenced in its triumph over his
   worldly circumstances.

   Secondly, you see here the power of his faith exhibited in its triumph
   over death. He says, if you turn to the last chapter of Genesis, "I
   die, and God will surely visit you." Or, as the text puts it, he "made
   mention concerning the departing of the children of Israel." Death is a
   great tester of a man's sincerity and a great shaker down of bowing
   walls and tottering fences. Men have thought that it was all well with
   them--but when the swellings of Jordan have been about them, they have
   found matters quite otherwise.

   Here we see Joseph so calm, so quiet, that he remembers the Covenant
   and falls back upon it, and rejoices in it. He speaks of dying as if it
   were only a part of living, and comparatively a small matter to him. He
   gives no evidence of trepidation whatever, no fear distracts him. He
   bears his last witness to his brothers, who gather about his bed,
   concerning the faithfulness of God and the Infallibility of His
   promise. Moreover, if I am to gather from the text that the Holy Spirit
   has singled out the brightest instance of faith in Joseph's whole life,
   it is beautiful to remark that the grand old man becomes most
   illustrious in his last hour.

   Death did not dim, but rather brightened, the gold in his character. On
   his deathbed, beyond all the rest of his life, his faith, like the
   setting sun, gilds all around with glory. Now that heart and flesh fail
   him, God becomes more than ever the strength of his life, as He was
   soon to be his Portion forever! Is it not a grand thing for a Christian
   to do his very best action last, being strongest in Divine power when
   his own weakness is supreme? We should desire to serve God in youth, in
   health, in strength, with all the might we have. But it may happen to
   us that, like Samson, our last act may be the greatest.

   Many a good man groans over his life, that having done all he can it is
   still unsatisfactory. But perhaps the Master may be intending to give
   him a crowning mercy, just at the last, and make the place of his
   departure to be the scene of his

   most glorious victory! Then, by God's Grace, he may enter into Heaven
   wearing the laurels of faith--there to cast them at the Savior's feet.
   Joseph, at any rate, is a noble instance of faith's conquest over
   death.

   Once more, here is a proof of the power of faith in laughing at
   improbabilities. If you will think of it, it seemed a very unlikely
   thing that the children of Israel should go up out of Egypt. Perhaps,
   at the time when Joseph died, there appeared to be no reason why they
   should do so. They were settled in Goshen, they had been favored with a
   part of the land. The wisdom of Joseph had selected the most fertile
   part of the Delta of the Nile as a pasture for their flocks. Why should
   they wish to go?

   They had all the comforts earth could yield them, why should they wish
   to leave Egypt for the soil of Canaan, where the Canaanites would
   dispute every inch of the ground? Canaan was where there were few, if
   any, advantages over Egypt, and many disadvantages! Suppose Joseph to
   have seen, by prophetic foresight, as perhaps he did, that another
   dynasty would succeed that of the Pharaoh who had honored him, and that
   Israel would be oppressed? He must have felt, if he weighed
   probabilities, that it was unlikely to the last degree that the
   children of Israel, when reduced to slavery, would ever have been able
   to cut their way out of Egypt, to reach the promised land.

   Any person qualified to judge, had he been asked as to the probable
   issue of a conflict between the twelve tribes and the armies of Egypt,
   would have replied, "Israel would be at once trod down like straw for
   the dunghill, and the people would remain in perpetual bondage." But
   Joseph's eye was fixed upon the mighty promise, "In the fourth
   generation, they shall come here again." He knew that when the four
   hundred years were passed, Abram's vision of the smoking furnace and
   the burning lamp would be fulfilled, and the Word would be
   established--"And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I
   judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance."

   Though as yet he could not know that Moses would say, "Thus says
   Jehovah, Let My people go," though he might not have foreseen the
   wonders at the Red Sea and how Pharaoh and his chariots would be
   swallowed up there, and, though he did not predict the wilderness and
   the fiery cloudy pillar, and the heavens dropping manna, yet his faith
   was firm that by some means the Covenant would be fulfilled.
   Improbabilities were nothing to him, nor impossibilities either. God
   has said it, and Joseph believes it.

   On his dying bed, when fancy fades and strong delusion relaxes its iron
   grip, the true, sure faith of the man of God rose to its highest
   altitude, and like the evening star, shed a sweet glory over the scene.
   May we, my Brethren, possess the faith which will triumph over all
   circumstances, over the pains of death, and over every improbability
   that may apparently be connected with the Word of God.

   II. Under our second head we are to endeavor to show YOU THE WORKINGS
   OF FAITH. In this case Joseph gives commandment concerning his bones.
   The first fruit of faith in Joseph was this--he would not be an
   Egyptian. He Had not been asked to be an Egyptian under the
   yoke--anybody might have refused that. He had not been asked to be an
   Egyptian of the middle class--that might have been desirable from a
   worldly point of view. But he had the opportunity of being an Egyptian
   of the highest grade. He was actually exalted to almost royal rank, and
   he might have become a naturalized Egyptian, and his family, also.

   In the Providence of God he was called upon to accept the honors and
   riches of a most dignified office, but still he would not be an
   Egyptian--even on the best of terms. His dying bed afforded him a
   turning point, an opportunity for testifying that he was an Israelite,
   and by no means an Egyptian. He did not hesitate, his choice had never
   wavered. No doubt he would have had a sumptuous tomb enough in Egypt.
   But no, he will not be buried there, for he is not an Egyptian. In
   Sakhara, hard by the great pyramid of Pharaoh Apophis, stands at this
   day the tomb of a prince, whose name and titles are in hieroglyphic
   writing.

   The name is "Eitsuph," and from among his many titles we choose
   two--"Director of the king's granaries," and the other, an Egyptian
   title, "Abrech." Now this last word is found in the Scriptures, and is
   that which is translated, "Bow the knee." (See a little book, "Stone
   Witnesses." Morgan & Chase). It is more than probable that this
   monument was prepared for Joseph, but he declined the honor. Though his
   resting-place would have been side by side with the pyramid of one of
   Mizraim's greatest monarchs, yet he would not accept the dignity, he
   would not be an Egyptian. This is one of the sure workings of faith in
   a man of wealth and rank. When God places him in circumstances where he
   might be a worldling of the first order, if his faith is genuine, he
   says, "No. I will not, even at this rate, be numbered with the world."

   He dreads above all things that he should be supposed to have his
   portion in this life. If you could put a Christian on the throne, the
   first fear he would have would be this--Am I to be put off with an
   earthly crown, and miss the heavenly diadem? Place him at court and his
   great question will be--How shall I show that I am not one of the
   citizens of this world? Surround him with broad acres, a noble mansion,
   and a large estate, yet he says, "I accept this thankfully from God,
   but oh, I would not have it if I had it on condition of being numbered
   with the followers of Mammon!

   "Now I have obtained wealth, my daily prayer to God shall be, Lord,
   help me so to use my station that I may not serve this evil world with
   it, but may be a father to Your poor Israel. If it comes to the choice
   between the reproach of Christ and the treasures of Egypt, I will take
   Christ's reproach, and renounce the treasure. I cannot be an Egyptian."
   O rich Men and Women, make this a main point of concern--prove that you
   are not worldlings! You have to frequent the exchange, to visit the
   bank, to handle large sums of money--but be not money-grubbers, rakers
   up of gold! Be not covetous or grasping. Prove that though in Egypt you
   are not Egyptians. May this be your prayer, "May God grant I may never
   so live as to be mistaken for a man of this world who has his portion
   in this life. My portion is above. Whatever I enjoy here, Heaven is my
   heritage."

   Notice, next, that his faith constrained him to have fellowship with
   the people of God. Not only does be refuse to be a worldling, but he
   avows himself an Israelite. You will tell me, perhaps, that he only had
   fellowship with them when he was dead. Yet think not too lightly of
   that. He gave up the funeral which Egypt would accord him that he might
   wait long years for his funeral to be celebrated by his own people. But
   I beg to remind you that it was not the first time that Joseph had
   shown fellowship with his Brethren. It was but the conclusion of a
   lifetime of communion with them. It is true he did not go down into
   their poverty, there was no need that he should, but he made them
   sharers of his wealth.

   God had so ordained in Providence that Joseph should be a man of
   wealth, and rank, and station, and he showed his fellowship with Israel
   by bringing his father and brothers down into Goshen, and providing for
   them there, and being always ready to urge their case, and to do his
   best to promote their interests. Now one mark of faith in the Christian
   man is this--if he is poor he takes his lot with the poor people of God
   cheerfully--but if he is rich, he counts that he is placed in a
   commanding position that he may the better help his Brethren, and he
   has fellowship with them by his constant kindness towards them.

   If it ever were necessary to prove his true fellowship that he should
   give up his position altogether, he would cheerfully do it that he
   might be numbered with the despised people of God. Joseph, it seems to
   me, never blushed to own his race, and never failed at all proper times
   to say to the Egyptians, "I am not one of you. There is my family down
   in Goshen." As he knew that afterwards his family would become despised
   and persecuted, he said to them, "Keep my bones, so that when they
   degrade you they may degrade me--I am going to stay with you in all
   your future sorrows, for I am one of you."

   True faith will make the child of God say, "I am one of God's people,
   my soul is joined to them in all conditions." Where they go, I will go.
   Where they lodge, I will lodge. Their people shall be my people, and
   their God my God. Where they die, will I die, and there will I be
   buried."

   In the case of Joseph his faith led to an open avowal of his confidence
   in God's promise. On his deathbed he said, "I die, but God will visit
   you and bring you up out of this land." He also said, "He will bring
   you to the land which He promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob."
   Faith cannot be dumb. I have known her tongue to be silent through
   diffidence, but at last it has been obliged to speak. And, my Brethren,
   why should not your faith speak, for her voice is sweet and her
   countenance is comely? No tongue is more sweet to Christ's ear, nor
   more potent over the hearts of men, than the tongue of true faith.

   If your faith is real, though you may, for awhile, hide your light
   under a bushel, you will not always be able to do so. Before long you
   will be compelled to say, "I believe the Gospel of Christ, I believe
   the promise of God. He will keep His Covenant, and I avow myself to be
   a Believer in His Truth." Joseph, having thus declared his faith,
   practically showed that he meant it, that it was not a matter of form,
   but a matter of heart. I do not know in what better way he could have
   shown his practical belief in the fact that God would bring the people
   out of Egypt, than by saying, "Keep my bones here, never bury them till
   you go yourselves to Canaan, having left Egypt forever, and taken
   possession of your Covenant country."

   He who believes in God will find practical ways of proving his faith.
   He will avow it by an open confession, but he will also manifest it by
   choosing some form of service in which his faith shall be put to the
   test. Or if affliction is allotted to him by God, he will take it
   cheerfully, expecting that God will give him strength equal to the
   emergency. And so his faith, by God's Grace, will triumph under the
   trial. That faith which never proves itself by works is a faith to be
   dreaded. If your faith never makes you speak up for your God or serve
   Him, it is a bastard faith, a base-born presumption which will ruin
   your soul. It never came from God and will not carry you to God. But
   Joseph is very practical, as practical as the circumstances permitted
   him to be.

   Moreover, notice, that having faith himself, he would encourage the
   faith of others. No man may be said to have real faith who is not
   concerned that faith may be found in the hearts of his fellow men. But,
   you say, "What did Joseph do to encourage the faith of others?" Why, he
   left his bones to be a standing sermon to the children of Israel. We
   read that they were embalmed and put into a coffin in Egypt, and thus
   they were ever in the keeping of the tribes. What did that say? Every
   time an Israelite thought of the bones of Joseph, he thought, "We are
   to go out of this country one day." Perhaps he was a man prospering in
   business, laying up store in Egypt.

   But he would say to himself, "I shall have to part with this, Joseph's
   bones are to be carried up. I am not to be here forever." And then
   while it acted as a warning, his body would serve also as an
   encouragement, for when the task-masters began to afflict the people,
   and their tale of bricks was increased, the despondent Israelite would
   say, "I shall never come up out of Egypt." Oh, but others would say,
   "Joseph believed we should--there are his bones still unburied. He has
   left us the assurance of his confidence that God would, in due time,
   bring up His people out of this house of bondage."

   It seems to me that Joseph had thought of this device as being the best
   thing on the whole he could do to keep the Israelites perpetually in
   remembrance that they were strangers and sojourners, and to encourage
   them in the belief that in due time they would be delivered from the
   house of bondage and settled in the land that flowed with milk and
   honey. True faith seeks to propagate herself in the hearts of others.
   She is earnest, eager, intense, if by any means she may scatter a
   handful of holy seed that may fall in good soil, and bring forth glory
   to God. It is a good proof of your own faith when you lay yourself out
   to promote the faith of others.

   Note, too, that Joseph's faith made him have an eye to the
   spiritualities of the Covenant, Joseph had nothing earthly to gain in
   having his bones buried in Canaan rather than in Egypt. That can make
   small difference to a dying man. Naturally we like to think of being
   buried with our kin, but then we would choose to be buried soon after
   death. None of us would voluntarily desire to have his bones kept for
   some hundreds of years out of the ground in order that they might
   ultimately come into the family sepulcher.

   I believe he had no eye to the mere secularities of the Covenant, but
   was looking to the spiritual blessings which are revealed in Jesus, the
   great Seed of Abraham. This made him say, "I am no Egyptian, I am one
   of the seed that the Lord has chosen. I look for the coming Messiah. I
   have a part and a lot among the chosen people of God. I will claim
   that, I will claim it not only for myself, but for my sons and for my
   household." He had in the Providence of God, without any fault of his
   own, been married to an Egyptian woman. Manasseh and Ephraim,
   therefore, were half of Egypt, and if the father had been buried in
   Egypt the sons might have clung to Egypt and separated from Israel.

   He seems to say, "No, my Children, you are not Egyptians. You are like
   your father, Israelites! Never bury my bones in Egypt. I charge you
   never bury them at all till you can lay them down in the ancient
   sepulcher of our race. Be Israelites to the backbone, through and
   through, for the best possession is not what I can bequeath you in
   Egypt, which will pass away, but the heritage to which I point you--the
   spiritual heritage which I would gladly you should have. My bones shall
   charge you, Manasseh and Ephraim, not to make yourselves Egyptians, not
   to be conformed to the world nor to seek your rest here. Let your
   father's bones tempt you towards Canaan--never rest till you feel you
   have an interest in the spiritual blessings of the Covenant.

   Once more, it seems to me that Joseph's faith in connection with his
   unburied bones showed itself in his willingness to wait God's time for
   the promised blessing. Says he, "I believe I shall be buried in
   Machpelah, and I believe that my people will come up out of Egypt. I
   believe, and I am willing to wait." Every man wants that when he dies
   he shall be decently buried soon. Who wants to have his bones hawked
   about? But this man will wait, wait for his funeral--wait on, however
   weary may be the time of Israel's captivity. It is a great thing to
   have waiting faith. "Stand still and see the salvation of God," is
   easier said than done.

   "He that believes shall not make haste." We are, for the most part, in
   a childish hurry. We would like to be in Heaven tomorrow. If we were
   wise, we should be glad to keep out till God lets us in. We would like
   to have the resurrection tomorrow, and many are pining because the
   coming of Christ is not by-and-by. Wait the Lord's appointment, O
   impatient Grumbler. Be quiet of spirit and calm of heart--the vision
   will not tarry. Be willing to wait. Be willing to let your bones sleep
   in the dust till the trump of the resurrection sound, and if you could
   have a choice about it, refer your choice back again to your Lord in
   Heaven, for He knows what is best and right for you.

   I like the idea of a man who could not wait in life, for he must die,
   but who proves the waitingness of his spirit by letting his bones wait
   till they could be deposited in Canaan. You will notice that Joseph had
   his wish, for when Israel went up out of Egypt you will find, in the
   fifteenth of Exodus, that Moses took care to carry with them the bones
   of Joseph. And, what is rather singular, those bones were not buried as
   soon as they came into Canaan. Nor were they buried during the long
   wars of Joshua with the various tribes.

   But in the last verses of the book of Joshua, when nearly all the land
   had been conquered, and the country had been divided to the different
   tribes, and they had taken possession, then we read that they buried
   the bones of Joseph in the field of Shechem, in the place which Abraham
   had bought for a sepulcher. As if Joseph's remains might not be buried
   till they had won the country, until it was settled, and the Covenant
   was fulfilled. Then he must be buried, but not till then. How blessed
   is waiting faith which can let God take His time, and wait, believe in
   Him, let Him wait as long as He wills.

   III. I must close with the third point. I think we have in our text,
   beloved Friends, AN EXAMPLE FOR OUR FAITH TO ACT UPON WHEN WE ALSO COME
   TO THE TIME OF DEATH. We will imagine it to be very near, and the
   conception will be literally true to some, and true to us all in a
   degree. What shall I derive any comfort from when I come to die?

   Come, let me prepare my last dying speech. Now think it over. First, I
   would imitate Joseph by deriving my comfort from the Covenant, for that
   he did. That commandment concerning his bones was only made because he
   believed God would keep His Covenant to His people and bring them up
   out of Egypt. May you and I be able to say with David, "Although my
   house is not so with God, yet He has made with me an Everlasting
   Covenant, ordered in all things, and sure." Ah, my Soul, this is not
   dying, but only passing from earth to Heaven. Jesus, who is Himself the
   Covenant, soothes most blessedly the dying beds of His saints.

   A Negro was asked when he had been sitting up to nurse his master one
   night, "How is your master!" Said he, "He is dying full of life." It is
   a grand thing when one has the Covenant to think on. You can then die
   full of life--you can pass away out of this lower life, being filled
   with the life eternal before the life temporal has quite gone out, so
   that you are never emptied out of life, but the life of Grace melts
   into the life of Glory, as the river into the ocean. Joseph may be an
   example to us, in that he drew his consolation from the future of his
   people. "God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land."

   Very often the dying thoughts of a Christian man are troubled about the
   condition of the Church of Christ. He fears that dark days are coming
   upon her. If a minister, he anxiously asks, "What will my people do,
   now that I can no longer lead and feed them? Will they not be like a
   flock without a shepherd?" But here will come in the consolation. There
   are better days for the Church of God. Though the fathers sleep--

   "All the promises do travail, With a glorious day of Grace."

   Though one after another we shall pass away, there are not dark days
   for our descendants, but days of brightness are on the way. "Let Your
   work appear unto Your servants, and Your glory unto their children."

   "He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet." The kings
   of the isles shall yet acknowledge Him, and the wanderers of the desert
   shall bow down before Him. Jesus, the Christ of God, must be King over
   all the earth, for God has sworn it, saying, "Surely all flesh shall
   see the salvation of God." The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and
   all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken
   it." With such thoughts as these upon our minds, we may well close our
   eyes in death with a song upon our lips!

   And then, my Brethren, we have another and brighter hope to die
   with--if die we must before it is fulfilled, and that is, Christ Jesus
   the Son of God will visit His people. Brethren, the glad hope of the
   second advent of our Lord Jesus Christ may light up the chamber of
   death with hope. As Joseph said, "God will visit you." The time comes
   when the Lord

   shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the trump of the archangel
   and the voice of God. Let our dying testimony be to the effect that
   surely He comes quickly and His reward is with Him. We have not to look
   forward as the Jew did. He expected the first advent, but we watch for
   the second coming. This shall cheer us even in our departure, for if we
   die before He comes we shall yet share in the splendor, for the dead in
   Christ shall rise.

   We may add to all this a hope concerning our bones. We may tell our
   weeping kindred, as they gather round our bed, to give our bones a
   decent sepulcher. They need not blazon our names, or write our fancied
   virtues on stone. But we will tell them that we shall rise again, and
   that we commit ourselves to the bosom of our Father and our God, with
   the full conviction that our dust shall yet be quickened anew--

   "My eyes shall see Him in that day,

   The God that died for me,

   And all my rising bones shall say,

   Lord, who is like to You?"

   I do not know when a witness to the resurrection sounds more sweetly
   than it does from the lips of a saint who is just about to quit this
   mortal body, to enter into the Presence of his God. It is well to say,
   as you take leave of these hands, and feet, and eyes, and all the
   members of this mortal frame, "Farewell, poor body, I shall return to
   you again. You shall be sown in weakness, but you shall rise in power!
   You have been the faithful friend and servant of my soul, but you shall
   be still more fit for my spirit when the trumpet shall sound and the
   dead shall be raised." May we take care that our last act shall be a
   triumph of faith, the crowning deed of our lives. God help us that it
   may be so!

   Beloved, there is one sad reflection, namely, that we cannot hope to
   die triumphantly unless we live obediently. We cannot expect to exhibit
   faith in dying moments if we have not faith now. God grant you faith, O
   Unbeliever. Seeker, rest not till you have it, and may the Spirit of
   God give you the faith of God's elect, that living you may serve God,
   and dying you may honor Him as Joseph did of old. The Lord bless you,
   dear Friends, for His sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Sages, The Star, and The Savior

   (No. 967)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, DECEMBER 25, 1870

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Where is He that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star
   in the East, and are come to worship Him." Matthew 2:2.

   THE Incarnation of the Son of God was one of the greatest events in the
   history of the universe. Its actual occurrence was not, however, known
   to all mankind, but was specially revealed to the shepherds of
   Bethlehem and to certain Wise Men of the East. To shepherds--the
   illiterate, men little versed in human learning--the angels in choral
   song made known the birth of the Savior, Christ the Lord. And they
   hastened to Bethlehem to see the great sight, while the Scribes, the
   writers of the Law and expounders of it, knew nothing concerning the
   long-promised birth of the Messiah. No angelic bands entered the
   assembly of the Sanhedrim and proclaimed that the Christ was born.

   And when the chief priests and Pharisees were met together, though they
   gathered around copies of the Law to consider where Christ should be
   born, yet it was not known to them that He was actually come, nor do
   they seem to have taken more than a passing interest in the matter,
   though they might have known that then was the time spoken of by the
   Prophets when the great Messiah should come. How mysterious are the
   dispensations of Divine Grace. The base things are chosen and the
   eminent are passed by! The advent of the Redeemer is revealed to the
   shepherds who kept their flocks of sheep by night, but not to the
   shepherds whose benighted sheep were left to stray. Admire, then, the
   Sovereignty of

   God.

   The glad tidings were made known also to Wise Men, magi, students of
   the stars and of old Prophetic books from the far-off East. It would
   not be possible to tell how far off their native country lay. It may
   have been so distant that the journey occupied nearly the whole of the
   two years of which they spoke concerning the appearance of the star.
   Traveling was slow in those days, surrounded with difficulties and many
   dangers. They may have come from Persia, or India, or Tartary, or even
   from the mysterious land of Sinim, now known to us as China. If so,
   strange and uncouth must have been the speech of those who worshipped
   around the young Child at Bethlehem, yet needed He no interpreter to
   understand and accept their adoration.

   Why was the birth of the King of the Jews made known to these
   foreigners, and not to those nearer home? Why did the Lord select those
   who were so many hundreds of miles away, while the children of the
   kingdom, in whose very midst the Savior was brought forth, were yet
   strangely ignorant of His Presence? See here again another instance of
   the Sovereignty of God. Both in shepherds and in Eastern magi gathering
   around the young Child, I see God dispensing His favors as He wills
   and, as I see it, I exclaim, "I thank You, O Father, Lord of Heaven and
   earth, because You have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and
   have revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father. For so it seemed good
   in Your sight."

   Herein we see again another instance of God's sovereign will--for as of
   old there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah the Prophet,
   but unto none of them was Elijah sent, save unto the woman of Sarepta.
   So many there were who were called wise men among the Jews, but unto
   none of them did the star appear. But it shone on Gentile eyes, and led
   a chosen company from the ends of the earth to bow at Emmanuel's feet.

   Sovereignty in these cases clothed itself in the robes of mercy. It was
   great mercy that regarded the low estate of the shepherds, and it was
   far-reaching mercy which gathered from lands which lay in darkness a
   company of men made wise unto salvation. Mercy wearing her resplendent
   jewels was present with Divine Sovereignty in the lowly abode of
   Bethlehem. Is it not a delightful thought, that around the cradle of
   the Savior, as well as around His Throne in the highest Heaven, these
   two attributes meet? He makes known Himself--and here is mercy. But it
   is to those whom He has cho-

   sen--and here He shows that He will have mercy on whom He will have
   mercy, and He will have compassion on whom He will have compassion.

   We will now endeavor to learn a practical lesson from the story of the
   Wise Men who came from the East to worship Christ. We may, if God the
   Holy Spirit shall teach us, gather such instruction as may lead us also
   to become worshippers of the Savior, and joyful believers in Him.
   Notice, first, their enquiry--may many of us become enquirers upon the
   same matter--"Where is He that is born King of the Jews?" Notice,
   secondly, their encouragement--"We have seen His star." Because they
   had seen His star they felt bold to ask, "Where is He?" And then,
   thirdly, their example--"We have come to worship Him."

   I. THEIR ENQUIRY--"Where is He?" Many things are evident in this
   question. It is clear that when the Wise Men thus enquired, there was
   in their minds awakened interest. The King of the Jews was born, but
   Herod did not ask, "Where is He?" until his jealousy was excited, and
   then he asked the question in a malicious spirit. Christ was born at
   Bethlehem, near Jerusalem. Yet throughout all the streets of the holy
   city there were no enquirers, "Where is He?" He was to be the Glory of
   Israel, and yet in Israel there were few, indeed, who, like these Wise
   Men, asked the question, "Where is He?"

   My dear Hearers, I will believe that there are some here this morning
   whom God intends to bless, and it will be a very hopeful sign that He
   intends to do so, if there is an interest awakened in your mind
   concerning the work and Person of the Incarnate God. Those who
   anxiously desire to know of Him are but a slender company. Alas, when
   we preach most earnestly of Him, and tell of His sorrows as the
   Atonement for human sin, we are compelled to lament most bitterly the
   carelessness of mankind, and enquire mournfully--

   "Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by; Is it nothing to you that
   Jesus should die?"

   He is despised and rejected of men. Men see in Him no beauty that they
   should desire Him. But there are a chosen number who enquire
   diligently, and who come to receive Him. To these He gives power to
   become the sons of God. A happy circumstance it is, therefore, when
   there is interest evinced. Interest is not always evinced in the things
   of Christ, even by our regular hearers. It gets to be a mere mechanical
   habit to attend public worship. You become accustomed to sit through
   such a part of the service, to stand and sing at such another time, and
   to listen to the preacher with an apparent attention during the
   discourse.

   But to be really interested, to long to know what it is all about--to
   know especially whether you have a part in it-- whether Jesus came from
   Heaven to save you. Whether for you He was born of the virgin--to make
   such personal enquiries with deep anxiety is far from being a general
   practice--would God that all who have ears to hear would hear in Truth.
   Wherever the Word is heard with solemn interest, it is a very
   encouraging sign. It was said of old, "They shall ask the way to Zion
   with their faces thitherward."

   When a man listens with deep attention to the Word of God, searches
   God's Book, and engages in thoughtful meditation with the view of
   understanding the Gospel, we have much hope of him! When he feels that
   there is something weighty and important, something worth the knowing
   in the Gospel of Jesus, then are we encouraged to hope good things of
   him.

   But in the case of the Wise Men we see not only interest evinced, but
   belief avowed. They said, "Where is He that is born King of the Jews?"
   They were, therefore, fully convinced that He was the King of the Jews,
   and had lately been born. As a preacher I feel it to be a great mercy
   that I have to deal generally with persons who have some degree of
   belief concerning the things of God. Would to God we had more missions
   to those who have no sort of faith and no knowledge of Christ. And may
   the day come when everywhere Jesus Christ shall be known. But here at
   home with the most of you we have something to begin with.

   You do believe somewhat concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was born King
   of the Jews. Set much store by that which you have already believed. I
   count it no small advantage to a young man to believe his Bible is
   true. There are some who have a hard fight to reach so far as that, for
   infidel training has warped their minds. It is not, of course, an
   advantage which will save you--for many go down to Hell believing the
   Scriptures to be true--and thus they accumulate guilt upon themselves
   from that very fact.

   But it is a fine vantage ground to occupy, to be assured that you have
   God's Word before you, and not to be troubled with questions about its
   Inspiration and authenticity. O that you may go from that point of
   faith to another, and become a hearty believer in Jesus! These Wise Men
   were so far advanced that they had some leverage for a further lift of
   faith, for they believed that Christ was born, and born a King. Many
   who are not saved, yet know that Jesus is the Son of God. We have not
   to argue with you this morning to bring you out of Socinianism--no, you
   believe Jesus to be the Divine Savior.

   Nor have we to reason against doubts and skepticisms concerning the
   Atonement, for these do not perplex you. This is a great mercy. You
   certainly stand in the position of highly favored persons. I only trust
   you may have Divine Grace given you to avail yourselves of the
   favorable position in which God has placed you. Value what you have
   already received. When a man's eyes have long been closed in darkness,
   if the oculist gives him but a little light he is very thankful for
   it--he is hopeful that the eye is not destroyed, that perhaps by
   another operation further scales may be removed-- and the full light
   may yet stream in upon the darkened eyeballs.

   So, dear Friend, be thankful for any light. O Soul, so soon to pass
   into another world, so sure to be lost except you have the Divine
   Light, so certain to be cast into the outer darkness, where there is
   weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth--be thankful for a spark of
   heavenly light! Prize it, treasure it, be anxious about it that it may
   come to something more, and who knows but yet the Lord will bless you
   with the fullness of His Truth?

   When the great bridge across the Niagara was made, the difficulty was
   to pass the first rope across the broad stream. I have read that it was
   accomplished by flying a kite, and allowing it to fall on the opposite
   bank. The kite carried across a piece of string, then to the string was
   tied a line, and to the line a rope, and to the rope a stronger rope,
   and by-and-by Niagara was spanned, and the bridge was finished.

   Even thus, by degrees, God works. It is a fair sight to see in human
   hearts a little interest concerning Divine things, a little desire
   after Christ, a feeble wish to know who He is and what He is, and
   whether He is available to the sinner's case. This hunger will lead to
   a craving after more, and that craving will be followed by another,
   till at last the soul shall find her Lord and be satisfied in Him. In
   the Wise Men's case, therefore, we have, as I trust we have in some
   here, interest evinced, and a measure of belief avowed.

   Furthermore, in the case of the Wise Men, we see ignorance admitted.
   Wise men are never above asking questions, because they are wise
   men--so the Magi asked, "Where is He?" Persons who have taken the name
   and degree of wise men, and are so esteemed, sometimes think it beneath
   them to confess any degree of ignorance, but the really wise think not
   so. They are too well instructed to be ignorant of their own ignorance.
   Many men might have been wise if they had but been aware that they were
   fools. The knowledge of our ignorance is the doorstep of the temple of
   knowledge.

   Some think they know, and therefore never know. Had they known that
   they were blind, they would soon have been made to see, but because
   they say, "We see," therefore their blindness remains upon them.
   Beloved Hearer, do you want to find a Savior? Would you gladly have all
   your sins blotted out? Would you be reconciled to God through Jesus
   Christ? Then blush not to enquire--admit that you do not know. How
   should you know if Heaven teach you not? How should any man attain the
   knowledge of Divine things, unless it be given him from Above?

   We must all be taught of the Spirit of God, or be fools forever. To
   know that we need to be taught of the Holy Spirit is one of the first
   lessons that the Holy Spirit Himself teaches us. Admit that you need a
   Guide, and diligently enquire for one. Cry to God to lead you, and He
   will be your Instructor. Be not high-minded and self-sufficient. Ask
   for heavenly light, and you shall receive it. Is it not better to ask
   God to teach you, than to trust to your own unaided reason? Bow, then,
   the knee--confess your aptness to err, and say, "What I know not, teach
   me."

   Notice, however, that the Wise Men were not content with admitting
   their ignorance, but in their case there was information entreated. I
   cannot tell where they began to ask. They thought it likeliest that
   Jesus would be known at the metropolitan city. Was He not the King of
   the Jews? Where would He be so certain to be known as at the Capital?
   They went, therefore, to Jerusalem. Perhaps they asked the guards at
   the gate, "Where is He that is born King of the Jews?" and the guards
   laughed them to scorn, and replied, "We know no king but Herod."

   Then they met a loiterer in the streets, and to him they said, "Where
   is He that is born King of the Jews?" and he answered, "What care I for
   such crazy questions? I am looking for a drinking companion." They
   asked a trader, but he sneered, and said, "Never mind kings, what will
   you buy, or what have you to sell?" "Where is He that is born King of

   the Jews?" said they to a Sadducee, and he replied, "Be not such fools
   as to talk in that fashion, or if you do, pray call on my religious
   friend the Pharisee."

   They passed a woman in the streets, and asked, "Where is He that is
   born King of the Jews?" but she said, "My child is sick at home, I have
   enough to do to think of my poor babe. I care not who is born, or who
   may die beside." When they went to the very highest quarters, they
   obtained but poor information, but they were not content till they had
   learned all that could be known. They did not know, at first, where the
   new-born King was, but they used every means to find Him and asked
   information on all hands.

   It is delightful to see the holy eagerness of a soul which God has
   quickened. It cries, "I must be saved. I know something of the way of
   salvation, I am grateful for that, but I do not know all I want to
   know, and I cannot rest satisfied till I do. If beneath the canopy of
   Heaven a Savior is to be found, I will have Him. If that Book can teach
   me how to be saved, I will turn its pages day and night. If any book
   within my reach may help me, I will spare no midnight oil if I may but
   in the reading find out Christ my Savior.

   "If there is one whose preaching has been blessed to the souls of
   others, I will hang on his lips, if perhaps the Lord may be blessed to
   me, for Christ I must have--it is not I may or I may not have Him, but
   I must have Him! My hunger is great for this Bread of Heaven, my thirst
   insatiable for this Water of Life. Tell me, Christians, tell me, wise
   men, tell me, good men, tell me any of you who can tell--where is He
   that is born King of the Jews?--for Christ I must have, and I long to
   have Him now."

   Notice further, that in reference to these Wise Men from the East,
   there was for their search after Christ a motive declared. "Where is
   He," said they, "that we may go and worship Him?" Ah, Soul, and if you
   would find Christ, let it be your motive that you may be saved by Him,
   and that from now on and forever you may live to His Glory. When it
   comes to this, that you do not hear the Gospel merely as a habit, but
   because you long to obtain its salvation, it will not be long before
   you will find Him. When a man can say, "I am going up to the House of
   God this morning, and O may God meet with me there," he will not long
   go there in vain.

   When a hearer can declare, "As soon as I take my seat in the
   congregation, my one thought is, 'Lord, bless my soul this day.' " He
   cannot for long be disappointed. Usually in going up to God's House we
   get what we go for. Some come because it is the custom, some to meet a
   friend, some scarcely know why. But when you know what you come for,
   the Lord who gave you the desire will gratify it. I was pleased with
   the word of a dear sister this morning when I came in at the back gate.
   She said to me, "My dear Sir, my soul is very hungry this morning. May
   the Lord give you bread for me."

   I believe that food convenient will be given. When a sinner is very
   hungry after Christ, Christ is very near to him. The worst of it is,
   many of you do not come to find Jesus. It is not He you are seeking. If
   you were seeking Him, He would soon appear to you. A young woman was
   asked during a revival, "How is it you have not found Christ?" "Sir,"
   she said, "I think it is because I have not sought Him." It is so.

   None shall be able to say at the last, "I sought Him, but I found Him
   not." In all cases at the last, if Jesus Christ is not found, it must
   be because He has not been devoutly, earnestly, importunately sought.
   For His promise is, "Seek, and you shall find." These Wise Men are to
   us a model in many things, and in this among the rest--that their
   motive was clear to themselves, and they avowed it to others. May all
   of us seek Jesus that we may worship Him! There was about the Wise Men
   an intense earnestness which we would delight to see in any who as yet
   have not believed in Jesus.

   They were evidently not triflers. They came a long way. They underwent
   many fatigues, they spoke about finding the new-born King in a
   practical, common-sense way. They were not put off with this rebuff or
   that. They desired to find Him, and find Him they would. It is most
   blessed to see the work of the Spirit in men's hearts impelling them to
   long for the Savior to be their Lord and King. And so to long for Him
   that they mean to have Him, and will leave no stone untamed, by the
   Holy Spirit's help, but what they will be able to say, "We have found
   Him, of whom Moses in the Law, and the Prophets did write, and He is
   become our salvation."

   Am I, at this moment, speaking to anybody in particular? I trust I am.
   Some years ago there was a young man, who, upon such a morning as
   this--cold, snowy, dark--entered a House of Prayer, as you have done
   today. I thought, as I came here, this morning, of that young man. I
   said to myself, "This morning is so very forbidding that I shall have a
   very small congregation, but perhaps among them there will be one like
   that young man."

   To be plain with you, it comforted me to think that the morning when
   God blessed my soul, the preacher had a very small congregation, and it
   was cold and bitter, and therefore I said to myself this morning, "Why
   should not I go up merrily to my task--and preach if there should only
   be a dozen there?" For Jesus may intend to reveal Himself to some one
   as He did to me! And that someone may be a soul-winner, and the means
   of the salvation of tens of thousands in years to come. I wonder if
   that will occur to that young man yonder, for I trust he has the
   enquiry of the Wise Men upon his

   lips?

   I trust he will not quench those desires which now burn within him, but
   rather may the spark be fanned to a flame, and may this day witness his
   decision for Jesus. Oh, has the Lord looked on that young woman, or on
   that dear child, or on yonder aged man? I know not who it may be, but I
   shall indeed bless God this morning if the cry may be heard from many a
   lip, "Sir, what must I do to be saved? Where is He that is born King of
   the Jews?"

   II. Having spoken of their enquiry, I shall now notice THEIR
   ENCOURAGEMENT. Something encouraged these Wise Men to seek Jesus. It
   was this, "We have seen His star." Now, the most of you seekers after
   Christ have a great encouragement in the fact that you have heard His
   Gospel. You live in a land where you have the Scriptures, where the
   ordinances of God's house are freely dispensed. These are, as it were,
   Jesus Christ's star. They are meant to lead you to Himself. Here,
   observe, that to see His star was a great favor. It was not given to
   all the dwellers in the East or West to see His star.

   These men, therefore, were highly privileged. It is not given to all
   mankind to hear the Gospel, Jesus is not preached, even, in all our
   streets. His Cross is not lifted high even in every place that is
   dedicated to His worship. You are highly favored, O my Friend, if you
   have seen the star, the Gospel, which points to Jesus! To see the star
   involved these Wise Men in great responsibility. For, suppose they had
   seen His star and had not set out to worship Him? They would have been
   far more guilty than others, who, not having received such an
   indication from Heaven, would not have been able to set it at nothing.
   Oh, think of the responsibility of some of you, who in your childhood
   heard of a Savior, for whom a mother has wept many tears--you know the
   Truth--in the theory of it at any rate. You have the responsibility of
   having seen His star.

   The Wise Men did not regard the favor of seeing the star as a matter to
   be rested in. They did not say, "We have seen His star, and that is
   enough." Many say, "Well, we attend a place of worship regularly, is
   not that enough?" There are those who say, "We were baptized, Baptism
   brought regeneration with it. We come to the sacrament, and do we not
   get Grace through it?" Poor Souls! The star which leads to Christ they
   mistake for Christ Himself, and worship the star instead of the Lord. O
   may none of you ever be so foolish as to rest in outward ordinances!
   God will say to you, if you depend upon sacraments or upon public
   worship, "Bring no more vain oblations, incense is an abomination unto
   Me. Who has required this at your hands, to tread My courts?"

   What cares God for outward forms and ceremonies? When I see men putting
   on white gowns, and scarves and bands, and singing their prayers, and
   bowing and scraping, I wonder what sort of god it is they worship!
   Surely he must have more affinity with the gods of the heathen than
   with the great Jehovah who has made the heavens and the earth! Mark you
   well the exceeding glory of Jehovah's works on sea and land! Behold the
   heavens and their countless hosts of stars! Listen to the howling of
   the winds and the rush of the hurricane--think of Him who makes the
   clouds His chariot, and rides on the wings of the wind--and then
   consider whether this Infinite God is like unto that being to whom it
   is a matter of grave consequence whether a cup of wine is lifted in
   worship as high as a man's hair or only as high as his nose!

   O foolish generation, to think that Jehovah is contained in your
   temples made with hands, and that He cares for your vestments, your
   processions, your postures, and your genuflections! You fight over your
   ritual--even to its jots and tittles do you consider it. Surely you
   know not the glorious Jehovah if you conceive that these things yield
   any pleasure to Him. No, Beloved, we desire to worship the Most High in
   all simplicity and earnestness of spirit, and never to stop in the
   outward form, lest we be foolish enough to think that to see the star
   is sufficient, and therefore fail to find the incarnate

   God.

   Note well, that these Wise Men did not find satisfaction in what they
   had themselves done to reach the Child. As we have observed, they may
   have come hundreds of miles, but they did not mention it. They did not
   sit down and say, "Well, we have journeyed across deserts, over hills,
   and across rivers, it is enough." No, they must find the new-born King,
   nothing else would satisfy them. Do not say, dear Hearer, "I have been
   praying now for months, I have been searching

   the Scriptures for weeks, to find the Savior." I am glad you have done
   so, but do not rest in it. You must get Christ, or else you will
   perish, after all your exertion and your trouble. Jesus you want,
   nothing more than Jesus, but nothing less than Jesus.

   Nor must you be satisfied with traveling in the way the star would lead
   you, you must reach HIM. Do not stop short of eternal life. Lay hold on
   it, not merely seek it and long for it, but lay hold on eternal life,
   and do not be content until it is an ascertained fact with you that
   Jesus Christ is yours. I should like you to notice how these Wise Men
   were not satisfied with merely getting to Jerusalem. They might have
   said, "Ah, now we are in the land where the Child is born, we will be
   thankful and sit down."

   No, but "Where is He?" He is born at Bethlehem. Well, they get to
   Bethlehem, but we do not find that when they reached that village they
   said, "This is a favored spot, we will sit down here." Not at all, they
   wanted to know where the house was. They reached the house, and the
   star got over it. It was a fair sight to see the cottage with the star
   above it, and to think that the new-born King was there--but that did
   not satisfy them. No, they went right into the house. They rested not
   till they saw the Child Himself, and had worshipped Him! I pray that
   you and I may always be so led by the Spirit of God that we may never
   put up with anything short of a real grasping of Christ, a believing
   sight of Christ as a Savior, as OUR Savior, as our Savior even now.

   If there is one danger above another that the young seeker should
   strive against, it is the danger of stopping short of a hearty faith in
   Jesus Christ. While your heart is tender like wax, take care that no
   seal but the seal of Christ is set on you. Now that you are uneasy and
   out of comfort, make this your vow, "I will not be comforted till Jesus
   comforts me." It would be better for you never to be awakened than to
   be lulled to sleep by Satan--for a sleep that follows upon a partial
   conviction is generally a deeper slumber than any other that falls upon
   the sons of men. My Soul, I charge you get to the blood of Christ, and
   be washed in it!

   Get to the life of Christ, and let that life be in you, that you are,
   indeed, God's child. Put not up with suppositions, be not satisfied
   with appearances and perhaps! Rest nowhere till you have said--God
   having given you the faith to say it--"He loved me and gave Himself for
   me, He is all my salvation and all my desire." See, then, how these
   Wise Men were not made by the sight of the star to keep away from
   Christ, but they were encouraged by it to come to Christ. And may you
   be encouraged, dear Seeker, this morning, to come to Jesus by the fact
   that you are blessed with the Gospel. You have an invitation given you
   to come to Jesus. You have the motions of God's Spirit upon your
   conscience, awakening you. O come, come and welcome! And let this
   strange winter's day be a day of brightness and of gladness to a many a
   seeking soul.

   I have turned my thoughts on this last head into verse, and I will
   repeat the lines--

   where is Christ my King? /languish for the sight,

   Gladly would I fall to worshipping, For He's my soul's delight.
   Himself, Himself alone,

   1 seek no less, no more,

   Or on His Cross, or on His Throne,

   I'd equally adore.

   The Sages saw His star,

   But rested not content,

   The way was rough, the distance far,

   Yet on that way they went.

   And now my thoughts discern

   The sign that Christ is near,

   With love unquenchable Iburn,

   To enjoy His company.

   No star nor heavenly sign

   My soul's desire can fill,

   For Him, my Lord, my King Divine,

   My soulis thirsting still.

   III. And now we shall conclude, by considering THE EXAMPLE of these
   Wise Men. They came to Jesus, and in so doing, they did three
   things--they saw, they worshipped, they gave. Those are three things
   which every Believer here may do this morning again, and which every
   Seeker should do for the first time.

   First, they saw the young Child. I do not think they merely said,
   "There He is," and so ended the matter, but they stood still and
   looked. Perhaps for some minutes they did not speak. About His very
   face I do not doubt there was a supernatural beauty. Whether there was
   a beauty to everyone's eye I know not, but to theirs there was
   assuredly a superhuman attraction. The Incarnate God! They gazed with
   all their eyes. They looked, and looked, and looked again. They glanced
   at His mother, but they fixed their eyes on Him.

   "They saw the young Child." So, too, this morning let us think of Jesus
   with fixed and continuous thought. He is God, He is Man, He is the
   Substitute for sinners. He is willing to receive all who trust Him. He
   will save, and save this morning, every one of us who will rely upon
   Him. Think of Him. If you are at home this afternoon, spend the time in
   thinking upon Him. Bring Him before your mind's eye, consider and
   admire Him. Is it not a wonder that God should enter into union with
   man and come to this world as an Infant? He who made Heaven and earth
   hangs on a woman's breast for us!

   For our redemption the Word was made flesh! This Truth will breed the
   brightest hope within your soul. If you follow that Babe's wondrous
   life till it ends at the Cross, I trust you may there be able to give
   such a look at Him that, like when Moses lifted up the serpent in the
   wilderness, and they that looked were healed, so you, looking, may be
   healed of all your spiritual diseases! Though it is many a year since I
   first looked to Him, I desire to look to Jesus again. The incarnate
   God! My eyes swim with tears to think that He who might have crushed me
   into Hell forever, becomes a young Child for my sake!

   See Him, all of you, and seeing, worship. What did the Wise Men do
   next? They worshipped Him. We cannot properly worship a Christ whom we
   do not know. "To the unknown God" is poor worship. But, oh, when you
   think of Jesus Christ, whose goings forth were of old from everlasting!
   The eternally-begotten Son of the Father! And then when you see Him
   coming here to be a Man of the substance of His mother, and know and
   understand why He came and what He did when He came--then you must fall
   down and worship Him--

   "Son of God, to You we bow, You are Lord, and only You. You the woman's
   promised Seed; You who did for sinners bleed."

   We worship Jesus! Our faith sees Him go from the manger to the Cross,
   and from the Cross right up to the Throne, and there where Jehovah
   dwells, amidst the insufferable Glory of the Divine Presence stands the
   Man, the very Man who slept at Bethlehem in the manger! There He reigns
   as Lord of lords. Our souls worship Him again. You are our Prophet,
   every word You say, Jesus, we believe and desire to follow--You are our
   Priest, Your sacrifice has made us clean--we are washed in Your blood.
   You are our King! Command, we will obey. Lead on, and we will follow.
   We worship You. We should spend much time in worshipping the Christ,
   and He should ever have the highest place in our reverence.

   After worshipping, the Wise Men presented their gifts. One broke open
   his casket of gold, and laid it at the feet of the new-born King.
   Another presented frankincense--one of the precious products of the
   country from which they came. And the other laid myrrh at the
   Redeemer's feet. All these they gave to prove the truth of their
   worship. They gave substantial offerings with no stingy hand.

   And now, after you have worshipped Christ in your soul, and seen Him
   with the eye of faith, it will not need that I should say to you, give
   Him yourself, give Him your heart, give Him your substance. Why, you
   will not be able to help doing it! He who really loves the Savior in
   his heart cannot help devoting to Him his life, his strength, his all.
   With some people, when they give Christ anything, or do anything for
   Him, it is dreadfully forced work.

   They say, "The love of Christ ought to constrain us." I do not know
   that there is any such text as that in the Bible, however. I do
   remember one text that runs thus--"The love of Christ constrains us."
   If it does not constrain us, it is because it is not in us. It is not
   merely a thing which ought to be, it must be. If any man loves Christ,
   he will very soon be finding out ways and means of proving his love by
   his sacrifices. Go home, Mary, and fetch the alabaster box, and pour
   the ointment on His head, and if any say, "Why this waste?" you will
   have a good reply, you have had much forgiven you, and therefore you
   love much.

   If you have gold, give it. If you have frankincense, give it. If you
   have myrrh, give it to Jesus. And if you have none of these things,
   give Him your love--all your love, and that will be gold and spices all
   in one! Give Him your tongue, speak of Him. Give Him your hands, work
   for Him. Give Him your whole self. I know you will, for He loved you,
   and gave Himself for you. The Lord bless you, and may this Christmas
   Lord's-Day morning be a very memorable day to many out of the crowd
   assembled here. I am surprised to see so vast a number present, and I
   can only hope the blessing will be in proportion, for Jesus' sake.
   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Indexes
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture Commentary

   Numbers

   [1]10:29

   Deuteronomy

   [2]8:3-6

   2 Samuel

   [3]14:14

   2 Kings

   [4]18:4-5

   Psalms

   [5]26:3   [6]51:11   [7]103:13-14   [8]116:12   [9]149:2

   Proverbs

   [10]5:22

   Song of Solomon

   [11]5:1

   Isaiah

   [12]12:1   [13]41:10   [14]43:4   [15]53:6

   Daniel

   [16]4:34-35

   Hosea

   [17]11:4   [18]14:4

   Amos

   [19]4:12

   Micah

   [20]7:1

   Zechariah

   [21]3:9-10

   Matthew

   [22]2:2   [23]3:16-17   [24]7:24-27   [25]8:10   [26]14:26   [27]17:8

   Mark

   [28]6:6

   Luke

   [29]10:38-42   [30]11:11-13

   John

   [31]1:45-51   [32]3:18   [33]5:6   [34]6:24   [35]7:46   [36]9:4
   [37]13:8   [38]14:6

   Acts

   [39]9:13-16   [40]10:36   [41]10:38

   Romans

   [42]8:3

   1 Corinthians

   [43]5:6-8   [44]6:17

   2 Corinthians

   [45]5:5

   Ephesians

   [46]1:6   [47]3:10

   Colossians

   [48]1:29   [49]3:17

   1 Timothy

   [50]4:8   [51]4:8-9

   2 Timothy

   [52]1:12   [53]2:2-3

   Hebrews

   [54]9:26   [55]9:26   [56]11:22   [57]12:14-15

   1 Peter

   [58]1:3-5   [59]2:7

   1 John

   [60]2:3-4
     __________________________________________________________________

            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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